Turn 8: How do you trigger the towers?

I want to share our experiences about tower triggering, which brought us the kill.

Wave 1: Dread (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 2: Mines (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 3: Dread (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 4: Mines (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 5: Dread (3) | Mines (1) (this one ensures you skip the last ballistic missles)

Wave 6: Mines (0) | Raid West (3) | Raid South (1) (if you skip last missles, both raid towers will explode at the absolute same time as allagan field does)

Wave 7: Mines (2) | Dread (1) | Raid West (0) (Mines and Raid tower explode the same time as allagan field does)

Wave 8: Mines (2) | Raid South (1) | Raid West (0) (Boss should die during or before Mine spawn)

What we experienced: Towers of wave 1-5 last exactly 60 seconds and each stack deducts 15 seconds. Towers of wave 6-8 last exactly 80 seconds and each stack deducts 20 seconds. Allagan fields explode exactly all 40 seconds (cast, 30 seconds timer, little break, cast, ...).
If you skip missles (which would offset the timing by 5 seconds to your negative), all field explosions can be aligned with raid tower explosions, which makes last phase incredibly easy.

Turn 8 is really a time scheduled fight, once you've cleared it you will clear it always. It is like the old Turn 4 in our opinion.

Wave 1: AoE (1) / Dread (0)

Wave 2: Mines (2) / AoE (0)

Wave 3: AoE (0) / Dread (0)

Wave 4: Mines (2) / AoE (0)

Wave 5: AoE (3) / AoE (1) / Mines (0) *One of the AoE's is triggered early so it goes off while Allagan Field is down.

Wave 6: AoE (2) / Mines (1) / Dread (0)

Wave 7: AoE (2) / AoE (1) / Mines (0)

How do you manage to have 4 pushing the 5th and 6th sets, followed by 3 on the 7th and eighth? would this not require that every person in the party end up pushing a tower?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jumpypuppet

How do you manage to have 4 pushing the 5th and 6th sets, followed by 3 on the 7th and eighth? would this not require that every person in the party end up pushing a tower?

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On the 5th set, the dread tower is doublestacked by one person plus another singlestacked person. 2nd stack does about 4k dmg which can be survived. The raid south tower on the 6th wave is pushed by the tank, because he tanks to the south and 3 distinct ppl run to the raid west. Works out.

We haven't killed it yet, but this is what my group is doing:

2 Dread
2 Mines
2 Dread
2 Mines
Phase Push (1 Tank, badass SCH DPS)
3 West Defensive, (2 Immediately, 1 from Allagan Field target after debuff expires) Tank South Defensive
2 West Defensive, 1 Mines
3 West Defensive, (2 Immediately, 1 from Allagan Field target after debuff expires) Tank South Defensive

I might be incorrect on the last phase (honestly we haven't made it under 20% yet) in when the tank is going in as I don't honestly know what they're doing, but I know what the rest of the group is responsible for.

When you say "doublestacked by one" and "another singlestacked" you mean that two people with no stacks enter the tower, followed by one leaving and one staying behind to get another stack, correct?

yes, right

1st set: 2 Dread
2nd set: 2 Mines
3rd set: 2 Dread
4th set: 2 Mines
5th set: 2 Dread
6th set: 2 Mines + Tank push AoE behind him
7th set: 2 Mines + 1 AoE. Kill boss before Dread appears.

Party Formation: Tank, 5DPS, 2Heal [My Static group is PLD, DRG, DRG, MNK, BRD, BLM/SMN, SCH, WHM (one of the DRG is our OT for other turns)]
Party Positions: Party stay between the Landmines and Dreadnaught Bio-Towers. Tank will tank at a 45degree angle with his back directly facing a Defensive Tower, for us it's the defensive tower above the Landmine Tower. (Sry, I'm really bad with NSEW directions in this stupid map lol)

Wave 1: Dread (2) [Both Healer]
Wave 2: Landmines (2) [DPS1 & DPS2]
Wave 3: Dread (2) [Both Healer]
Wave 4: Landmines (2) [DPS1 & DPS2]
Wave 5: Landmines (2) [Both Healer] -- When dread pop, we wait to see whether there's Ballistic Missiles. If Boss casting Allagan Field instead, Caster will use LB2/LB3 on both Dread and Boss. If Missiles came, caster will wait for it then go out the circle to LB2/LB3 or stay and LB2/LB3 if binded.
Wave 6: Landmines (2) [DPS3 & Caster] | Defensive AoE (1) [Tank] <-The one behind Tank.
Wave 7: Dread (2) [DPS3 & Caster] | Landmines (1) [Healer-preferrably SCH] -- Will melee LB1 the Dread.
Wave 8: Landmines (2) [DPS3 & Caster] | Defensive AoE (1) [Tank] <-The one behind Tank.

We do try to keep the boss above 45% HP before wave 5 tower comes up. After w5 towers are up, we go crazy using CDs, potions to bring the boss HP low, since it might help us on skipping the Ballistic missiles after Dread pop which will make things a LOT more smoother. When dread pop, boss HP at 34%, Ballistic missiles still come :(, don't really know how low it should be.. 32%?

We assign DPS1 as the backup for wave 6 onwards. If one of the assigned members got Allagan field, DPS1 will take over the job either going to towers, or taking landmine. DPS2 will be backup for homing missiles if kiter get AF instead. (However, if DPS was not controlled and wave 5 is skipped, one of the healer, preferably the SCH will be the backup instead only for wave 6, since DPS1 and DPS2 would still have the languish debuff)

We don't go proc the tower with a 3rd member. We have tried alot of methods, and found this one to be the smoothest, most straight-forward and worry free strategy. We did worry about getting hit by defensive AoE while people having AF, but actually it turns out to be not a problem at all if the guy had stoneskin and adlo. The WHM and SCH need to be very fast to act since there will be 2 consecutive AoE explosion from towers with this method but this is doable with practice.

A piece of advice would be, the RNG that will always make a party wipe will be the landmines placement. If the 3 landmines are always spread out, you're 3/4 way to winning the fight already. If they are near the group, must have people taking them one by one just to be safe, and not both runner taking them at the same time risking ping-ponging and die

I have a question about the T8 and the towers to which I hope someone would know the answer to. My group is currently working on the last phase of the fight and while we don't have issues with any other mechanics and feel like our tower rotation is working for us, there's one thing that occasionally wipes us and we don't understand how it works.

Sometimes when Allagan Field and Defense Reaction are supposed to explode at the same time, DR goes off a couple of seconds faster increasing AF damage significantly and basically one-shotting almost everyone in the group. The thing is, sometimes they blow up the exact same time and everything goes perfectly, then sometimes there's a difference of a couple of seconds and we wipe. I'd like to understand why this happens. I suspect it has something to do with either when we move to phase or when people activate their towers.

Our tower order is following:
1st set: Mines (2), DR2 (1), DR1 (0)
2nd set: DN (2), Mines (1), DR1 (0)

The random AF+DR happen during the first defense explosion in first set and the only defense explosion in 2nd set.