Appreciation Topic: Pharos Sirius

Forums bring with it debates and passion, some may confuse with blind hatred. As such Ive taken the time to talk about the things in the game that make me happy.

Question: Does anyone run dungeons not for loot or glam, but just for fun?

I do, a few early level dungeons for reasons Ill get into later and my best boi Pharos! Honorable mention to Aurum but doesnt pack the punch it used to thanks to Mog tomes and the coincounter nerf, and not being a 50 dungeon.

I Love Pharos Sirius, for simple reasons. It treats all roles with respect. Outside the minilv run, even the normie roultte version has some spook with a very noticeably decrease in potency.

Healers: Place has quite a few esunables; Poison, vuln, Blood, magic vuln, somtimes a mix of poison and vuln. Healers are always on their toes, more so than usual. This is also assuming everyone knows what their doing, if they arent then the fun really begins trying to battle ur fleeding MP and your half dead teamates. Healing here is ruthless on minilv which is the intended experience

Tanks: most minilv you have to unlearn the w2w singularity that plagues the current dungeon formula as the mobs not only do alot of damage but can freak your healer out and once their out of resources your as good as dead, which is a rare thing. Besides some proper navigationing in the boss fights and tethers, Sadly PS has no Aurum vale/Longstep navigation and is more traditionally a hallway so tanks are the lesser here. If PS had something along those lines it would be the perfect dungeon

DPS: For once DPS matter..alot. Banish III are lurking that need to be stuned or interrupted otherwise heavy Raid wide. Boss 1 and 2 are DPS reliant with the mobs. Youll get overwhelmed if in Boss A you dont clear the mobs, and in Boss B if you go with the instinct of killing everything your tank will die in a matter of seconds, Boss 3 also is Mob heavy which can result in a wipe if your tank is at his limit that is to say, your healer is at its limit.


Thank christ Pharos is optional, if it were MSQ required theyd nerf it into oblivion and replace all of these well thought out mechs with stack markers. Everyone thinks Aurum Vale is harder never ran this on minilv, but i digress just wanted it to be well known. I want more dungeons like this as comparing it to the last...20 maybe 30 dungeons is frankly embarassing

I always love when debuffs or stat ailments are actively used in fights or trash. Pharos is one of my favorite examples of optional dungeon difficulty. Not only because of the individual fights, but hazards that players need to be wary of. It justifies itself as its own dungeon, rather than just a series of useless hallways connecting boss arenas.
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I like Enusables as punishment more so than the boring Vulnerability stacks. It's something that you can decide if you cleanse, and when to do it, based on your priorities. If it's just 1 bad status sure that's just a second of button press, but when you have 2 or 3 allies afflicted with 2 or more there is more weight to it.

The fact Pharos has a linear layout isn't a problem. What made ARR optional dungeons distinct was that even being linear they had some kind of gimmick or flair you had to avoid or interact with while progressing. The hallways were part of the challenge, even if minimal. Be that aurum vale's biles which you should avoid in combat, or Wanderer's Palace HM totems you're supposed to pull enemies away from (and prepares you for the totem mechanic from bosses).