Pharos Sirius Command Mission

Is this possible to do as a DPS? Because I've been grinding away at Zu for about half an hour now with no sign of improvement. The cockerels only ever target the player, and eventually you hit a wave with two of them. The healer can't keep the heals up, and half the time everyone else seems to want to start smashing eggs, and it's a right pain to juggle disengaging the squad, trying to stay alive, and getting the squad back on target with Zu. Can't stun anything to control damage.

Requesting either a nerf to the fight, a buff to squads, or a damned improvement on healers to actually keep the player alive.

Oh, oh, I forgot the best part. Disengaging to prevent squad from attacking the wrong targets, prevents the healer from actually healing anything. C'mon, devs. Number 1 priority for healers should be "If part member is below 90% HP, cast healing spell."

So I just tried.

I have never tried to do any of the (Hard) command missions before because I don't see the point in them. (Hard) dungeons were never meant to give good experience, and because of that the base experience the mobs give is SO bad that even with the hidden 60% added (for being a command mission), it's still less than doing the highest non-(Hard) command missions. So if I were leveling around that level range, Aurum Vale (which is very easy as a command mission) would be my choice until Sohm Al.

The next reason to do (Hard) dungeons would be for loot, but in that case I'd just unsync and go as one of my 70's. Hence why I see almost no point in doing these (Hard) command missions apart from fun and having that completion check mark.

Just telling you that because I really don't understand why you were doing it in the first place. That being said, I did try it and I am uploading a video on youtube with it.

Pharos Sirius
Link to video: https://youtu.be/phxiLFC3utw

I chose machinist because even though the exp is crap, it's still exp and it's not 70. I'm not good at it yet, so please don't judge how suckily I played it on that video as it's not a job I main. I do have good level 50 gear on my machinist, and you should have good gear on your DPS.

For Zu, I focused on the boss. The squadrons have lots of attack power, so trying to kill the eggs before they spawn is pointless. I wait for them to spawn and I use engage on the Cockerel since that's the one that will target me. When there were 2 of them, I popped a pot for the first one and second wind for the second one. I don't care if it leads to a dps loss on my part - that's what the squadron members are for. I only used disengage to stop them from attacking eggs while the Zu was untargetable.

That being said if you're still dying to Zu, when the eggs glow purple, destroy it if it was a spotted egg and the Cockerel won't spawn. No spawn = no killing you.

For Siren, I only used disengage to get them out of the way while she was up in the air. I also missed every opportunity I had to stop her song, like a nub, so this could have gone even smoother if I had done that correctly.

At the end of the video I show my gear and my squadron's AI. I like that AI set up, it usually leads me to victory as a dps (at least when I don't do stupid things like forget to tell them to engage an enemy I have aggro on like I did on the regular mobs that killed me in the video lol)

Sohm Al
IF you get to Sohm Al, here's a video of that too:
https://youtu.be/0NsC5gKHrcE

You will definitely want to use Engage to control your squadron on Myath's slimes. For Myath, one of the slimes you're supposed to kill always (green), one you're supposed to spread (blue), one you're supposed to stack (red).

Prioritize them to kill Green (Chyme)->Red (Blood)->Blue (Rheum). Green doesn't show up on the first slime summon, but it does show up on the second one. If they don't kill the green it's a wipe because it will 1-shot you. If they don't kill all the other ones, it's ok. Just STACK regardless of what you're "supposed" to do.

If it's the blue one, great, you're doing the intended mechanic and so the damage will be reduced. If it's the red one, you're totally spreading the damage,which would be a no-no with real players, but your squadrons have enough HP that it won't matter if they get hit (and they won't complain) so it's a much easier strat to remember for the command mission version, plus not spreading for red means you don't have to worry about moving out of range of the healer - which as you've noticed isn't super bright as it is so you don't want to make it even harder on yourself by moving too far. Let them get hit and stay in range.

For Tioman, use Engage during wings and just focus on dodging and staying alive no matter how badly it hurts your own personal DPS. Let the squadrons do all the work during that part and just boss them around.

I didn't write up a squadron-version of AV guide because it's not too different from doing it normally other than you're the ONLY one that has to do poison fruits and it's super easy.

Best of luck!

PS: If you're still having trouble, bring an arcanist as the co-dps with Independent AI. Then the Arcanist will help the healer with Physick when the healer's AI decides to suck!

Funny enough, I finally got it shortly after venting here. Siren is cake. Especially fun how squad tries to target her as she divebombs, so you can tell what direction she's going to come from.

But, a point or two on Zu. Killing eggs before they spawn (as far as I could tell) was an incredibly bad idea. Enrages boss, boss targets me, leads to death. Didn't know I could distinguish between the eggs; if cockerel eggs didn't trigger the enrage, might be a strategy. But the fact that you needed a potion and Second Wind both should be an indication that healer AI still needs improving.

Come to think of it, maybe the first time I cleared it, I did have an Arcanist. Really should've remembered that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Funny enough, I finally got it shortly after venting here. Siren is cake. Especially fun how squad tries to target her as she divebombs, so you can tell what direction she's going to come from.

But, a point or two on Zu. Killing eggs before they spawn (as far as I could tell) was an incredibly bad idea. Enrages boss, boss targets me, leads to death. Didn't know I could distinguish between the eggs; if cockerel eggs didn't trigger the enrage, might be a strategy. But the fact that you needed a potion and Second Wind both should be an indication that healer AI still needs improving.

Come to think of it, maybe the first time I cleared it, I did have an Arcanist. Really should've remembered that.

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If you kill egg before spawn, you can only kill 1 egg. Killing more than 1 will lead to a big attack.
Hence why you should pick a spotted one.

Though honestly it might just be easier not to kill any eggs, just like I didn't bother killing any (if any were killed, it as an accident). Like I said above, the squadrons are beefy enough that you can just spam engage on the cockerel once it spawns to tell them to kill it asap.

And I don't know if I'd say I -needed- potion and Second wind. I just did it because Second Wind doesn't cost me anything and I get pots from POTD that I don't use anyway so it's like "well, I have them, why not use them". So I often use mine on command missions just to be extra safe. I won't deny that the healer AI waits a little long, though not as long as it used to prior to a patch a few months ago, so I'm also in the habit of not relying on it too much. It would be nice to have a 4th "heal me" button.