SMN and Coil

SMN has been my main job since the beginning. Although I've leveled most of the other jobs to 50, SMN seems to be a closer fit for me than anything else. Furthermore, it's the only job I have that I'm accumulating gear for (currently ilvl 93 at the moment).

SO, my friend and some of his friends introduced me to Coil just before 2.4, and I still felt like I was going in premature. I understand though that Turns 1-4 are now trivial, with Turn 5 being a major gate in the progression of this raid.

A few weeks ago I was brought into my friend's static (or at least some people my friend knew that cleared it) for Turn 5. I know that I don't multitask real well. SMN sometimes is a handful for me at times even in other instanced content. Within 2-3 wipes the furthest our group made was to the twister phase. I was brought in for another set of attempts just a few days ago and my lifeless body got to view the egg-hatching phase before the two tanks bit it.

After these attempts I'm feeling a little more confident about clearing it, but for my own improvement, I have some questions:

1. I know what the divebomb phase looks like and plays out when handled correctly, but what I'm wondering is how to best recover when one divebomb knocks me out toward the center ("recover" not just referring to myself, but also to make sure I don't kill the party as well).

2. Going from... Twin's super explosion to twisters confuses me. I'm not to go behind anyone, and everyone's supposed to spread out. I'm terrible at reading minds, so is there a positioning that's supposed to be agreed on beforehand? If not, as SMN, where am I best supposed to position myself? The first time I made it I was blown away as soon as it started, whether it was from me or someone else I don't know. The second time I found myself too far from Twin to attack, but going closer would either put me at worse risk when the dreadknight spawns or being close to another member.

3. Unrelated to T5 but more about Coil in general. I'm new, if you couldn't tell. So what should I know regarding DPS parsing and optimization? None of the other members said anything to me regarding how I was doing, so is this an issue in Turn 5 or is it more important in the later turns? To what extent do I need to optimize (that is, to what extent is "perfection" required)? Again, because multitasking isn't my strong suit, I felt sometimes like I was focusing more dealing with T5's mechanics than actually dealing damage.

Gear-wise: At the moment I've started on my first book towards my animus relic, and I have essentially the entire myth set for casting from 2.3, and I'm gradually replacing pieces with the soldiery set as I can afford.

1. There is another pit or crevice on the ground that you can run to, instead of attempting to run away or back to the group.

2. It really depends on where everyone else is going (you'll notice some people have a preference in which direction they're going to take off). Personally, I hug the wall and at extreme range where:

a. You're at a distance from Dreads (and BANE them, or at minimum Miasma for teh slowz)
b. You have a bigger view of where everybody generally is.

Generally, you want to have enough room to run LEFT or RIGHT (all you need to do is strafe..) 1/3 or 1/2 way Twister cast (Don't forget to focus target!!!)

3. Don't worry too much about "perfection"

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/ It's an extremely useful web tool for figuring out your builds and also helps you quickly build gear sets without all the silly theory crafting (<3)

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Originally Posted by RoamerJack

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/ It's an extremely useful web tool for figuring out your builds and also helps you quickly build gear sets without all the silly theory crafting (<3)

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Best rule of thumb I can give to people that don't want to deal with all the theorycrafting is: Avoid Spell Speed as much as possible.

Always keep your DOTs up on and refresh them on the main target e.g twin, little things like having to cast DOTs more than necessary will affect your dps.

But tbh the more you play SMN the more certain things will fall into place, like making sure all DOTS are up for contagion incl miasma 2 + poison

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ninster

2. Going from... Twin's super explosion to twisters confuses me. I'm not to go behind anyone, and everyone's supposed to spread out. I'm terrible at reading minds, so is there a positioning that's supposed to be agreed on beforehand? If not, as SMN, where am I best supposed to position myself? The first time I made it I was blown away as soon as it started, whether it was from me or someone else I don't know. The second time I found myself too far from Twin to attack, but going closer would either put me at worse risk when the dreadknight spawns or being close to another member.

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As a mage class you want to make good use of Sprint since you are not bound by TP limitations. Because of this you can get clear to the other side of the arena and in place for Twisters safely away from other players. Ideally Twin is being tanked where the Dread Knight will spawn so you can just Bane your DOT's over when it spawns. (Miasma will not apply the Heavy Effect when used with Bane, but you shouldn't really need it) Make sure you Heel your Pet over to you though because it will stay where it is attacking Twin and you wont be able to command/buff it.

Make sure you have Twin focus targeted as well so you can keep track of Twisters even if you are attacking the Dread Knight.

1 - If you're knocked out of the pit, don't come running back to the pit the group is in. Go to another pit. Twintania snapshots your position when she does dive-bombs and if you're at a spot where the group is running to (top of the pit) that could mean a wipe.

2 - There are no hard positional requirements for that segment. Just as you said, spread out. As soon Aetheric Profusion goes off, sprint somewhere (anywhere) else away from everyone, while keeping an eye on your focus bar for twister. Or just run to firewall (back)(most people seem to run left). After the first twister, you're given some time to find an empty spot for your circle-avoiding-twister move. You have 13 minutes from the start of the battle before Twintania enrages, so taking 5/10 seconds to find a spot should not hurt your group. Also, use bio/ruin 2 to determine the max distance you can be. Don't worry about the Dreadknight's distance. Stay as far away as you can from Twintania. With the Dreadknight, I suggest hard casting Miasma as soon as possible on him. Theres some delay before he start walking, and slowing his gait down will always be a help.

3 - Focus on the mechanics first, dps second. Dps will improve on its own as you become more familiar with the fight. If dots wear off for whatever reason, so what. You'll recast them, right? Or if your bio 2 is about to expire on Twintania , and a Dreadknight has just hit the floor and Twintania's twister cast bar is filling - you do know what's your priorities are, right?

Gearwise, you're doing much better than the people that had to down this using i70 dark light gear pre T5 nerf.

I found it helped to clear UI clutter off the screen as much as possible. I turned off everyone's names and HP bars. It makes it easier to see if you're packed tightly enough in the dip for divebombs, especially. On Twisters, you don't have to keep moving once they touch down. They leave like a little green cloud puff once they've been cast and are easy to avoid at that point. You have a little bit of time between twisters and dreadknights to move into a better position. After the dreadknight phase the bulk of mechanics are on the tanks, so if you can get past dreadknights, you should be fine after that.