O' Ye of little Faith (The Steps of Faith Discussion and Answer board)
So much like the rest of Eorzea, I've been running around trying to get through the new trial. While it's not "impossible," it certainly has been designed where you won't be able to just Duty Finder it in order to complete it. So I have 3 main things I want to try and mull over in the brains of my peers to see what their thoughts are on the matter.
1) Theory: Why is this so hard? Not only is there no precedent for this kind of required story trial/dungeon where all members of the group need to be fully educated and experienced in order for the group to succeed. Therefore most normal players who don't seek out guides or strategies before attempting are doomed to fail repetitively. But isn't this what the developers actually intend to do and want? When there's struggle in the game, it promotes people to work together and play through it, logging in more hours in order to progress themselves or help others. If I'm correct (I'm not sure if I am), this is the last major content patch before the expansion meaning that this and the remaining content are supposed to last players until mid June. Since this game is heavily story based, one can assume that you cannot progress to said expansion until after the pre-requisite story has been completed. So if players spend the next two weeks just simply getting the trials and the story done, then the patch will feel more wholesome for more players. Keep in mind that despite the new trial, there's nothing to stop you from doing Expert Roulette, Coil, or the Crystal Tower, meaning that it's ok to let a week or two go by without completing the new trial and finishing the story until the expansion because there's nothing stopping you from completing your dailies or continuing to enhance your gear.
2) Community: If anything this trial requires community more than anything else in order to complete smoothly. It's something that's been lacking in most online games lately, and it's jarring for anyone not used to it. I suggest that if you don't have a Free Company then get one, and if you're partial to your Free Company but they aren't active enough to do it, then you need to Party Finder for it. Using the Duty Finder may eventually be possible for this trial, but until then you need to stick with the Party Finder and Free Company groups. In addition, make sure everyone is AT LEAST ilevel 110, the actual duty finder allows for ilevel 90 players, but it's not difficult to have an ilevel 110, and it will allow more room for error. Make sure your group at least looks up the strategy for the fight. If anyone is going into the fight blind it will spell a guaranteed wipe for the party.
3) Strategy (This is just from my own limited experience):
Tanking: One major misconception that I've been hearing all day is that the adds need to be tanked ahead of the boss. The problem with this is that the boss' hit box is strictly in the belly area between the legs, and any cannon shots aimed ahead of his claws are sure to miss him. By tanking them at his belly though, this opens up a whole new problem with the fact that most dps and heals like to get trampled by the boss. Don't worry about facing, since as long as you dodge the aoes you shouldn't need to be healed too often, and any positional dps should be the big hitters who are solely going for the boss. Since there's two tanks, one tank should be the one making sure they all stay in the center while the other picks up any stragglers and focuses on the 2 main "moving" enemies. It's imperative that the smaller enemies be killed by the cannons before you reach one of the towers since it frees up the additional tank to man the dragon slayer. Even if you don't, the additional tank should STILL go up and do the Dragonslayer, dragging whatever enemies he has with him. Since there's no cast time on the Dragonslayer, there's no fear of being interrupted. While the first Dragonslayer strike can be executed unaided, you will need the help of the Snares during the 2nd and 3rd Dragonslayer opportunity. During the final quarter of the bridge there will be a bunch of barrels, this can potentially do a large chunk to the boss as long as tanks pick up the adds that are heading for the barrels and keep them away from them. Once the boss walks into the barrels, they will explode and deal anything within the radius of them tremendous damage, so make sure you're not included in that range.
DPS: The most imperative thing the dps can do is figure out which two dps man the cannons and which two beast down the boss. Dragoons, Monks, Ninjas, and Black Mages are perfect to beast down the boss while Bards & Scholars are much better suited for the cannons. This is assuming of course that these players have relatively the same ilevel and skill with that class. The two cannon dps will also be using the Snares, so it's important that you know when and where you need to snare. No Dps should be main targeting the adds, but instead the cannons should be focused on the adds with the boss as the second target. It's also important to only slow the drake adds that charge forward to either the barrels or the cannons as slow doesn't actually affect the boss and instead makes it very hard to keep the adds in place. Cannons also have to stun the Turtle once he tries to do the large aoe. After you've fired the 3rd and final Dragonslayer, you need to completely switch all the way onto the boss and burn him with LB3 and pop everything you can to try and take him out. Even if everything goes perfectly the fight is extremely tight, and if you slack on dps or miss a dragonslayer missile then it could easily ruin the attempt. Above all else it's important that you don't get hit, especially by the dragon's feet since it does roughly 3k damage and takes the attention of the healers away from the tanks.
Healers: I haven't personally tried this Trial on a healer, but from what I can gather the biggest problem that arises is that people are constantly finding themselves out of your range. If everyone is clear on where they need to go, then hopefully you find yourselves on the left or right side of the dragon. Each of you should keep your focus on your respective tanks and only heal dps if they are within range and the tank isn't struggling. For this reason it's important that the healers and tanks are marked for this reason so that you both know where your tank is to follow them and so that dps knows where the heals are. The off-tank's healer should NOT follow him up the tower unless he's trailing an uncanny amount of enemies.
There are three major flaws I've already noticed with my strategy and I invite you to help brainstorm to try and fix them.
A) The Horde Shield Dragon likes to veer off in order to execute a Swinge. This can do a moderate amount of damage to the whole party, but more importantly takes him off the stack on the boss and excludes him from damage, meaning that he constantly becomes a further annoyance.
B) The Horde Armored Dragon is extremely slow and constantly likes to make himself invulnerable to initiate very short range aoes with long cast times. This makes him somewhat difficult to keep under the belly of the dragon.
C) The Horde Transcendent seems to lack an aggro table, similar to Stone Vigil HM where he's originally found from. This means that he will not stand still for the cannons and will indiscriminately attack with avoidable unprojected aoe attacks. As long as all other major Horde dragons have been slain you can ignore him, but he becomes a serious problem if players do not recognize what he does.
You may benefit from variants of this strategy if your group is suitably geared since if one tank can handle all of the adds, then the other tank can man a cannon, allowing for the extra heals to do the Dragonslayer missiles and free up pure dps to go Beast on the boss.
