Turn 5 Conflagration Mechanics

I'm posting to confirm some mechanics from turn 5, specifically regarding conflagration (3 part post due to character restriction)

I understand:

1. Conflagration has a set timer.
2. This timer is reduced based on the number of waxing flesh stacks the boss has when conflagration is cast.
3. The boss gains waxing flesh stacks based on the number of targets hit by fireball.
3. The conflag timer is greatly increased if a party member targeted by fireball enters the conflagration.

We have tried two methods.

1. Have two groups of 4 members (one group is 3 + pet) to soak the fireballs.
This method has failed due to the fact that in some cases we do not have the burst DPS to burn the conflag before it explodes.

2. Have 1 pet and 1 member stand between the groups. Have whoever is targeted by fireball run to those two (so it is split between 3 targets).
This is sort of working, but if RNG works against us (our squishiest player gets hit and some other things aren't perfect), the squishy player dies to fireball.

My questions:

1. I know that pets DO soak a portion of the damage from fireballs. I was recently told that they DO NOT add a stack of waxing flesh. Therefore, you could soak a fireball with two pets and two human players, and actually have more time to down conflagration than if you'd soaked it by three human players. I'd like to confirm or deny this mechanic.


2. I was told that the total damage split between the fireball targets is constant. That is, if fireball is going to hit three targets, (A,B and C), damage mitigating cooldowns (such as mana ward), used by target A, will cause the damage to be increased on target B and C. Confirm / Deny?


3. Is our dps is not up to par if we can't down conflagration after a four stack of waxing flesh? Even with multiple lucky procs (I play BLM), we still sometimes don't have the burst for it. Are we undergeared / bad? or is this common that it's VERY difficult to burst down a 4 stack conflag if a key dps is the target of it.

I very much appreciate any feedback.
Thank you.

Which conflag are you dying too? The one that you dont get a fireball in or the one that have a fire ball to?

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

Which conflag are you dying too? The one that you dont get a fireball in or the one that have a fire ball to?

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Please see my three specific questions above.
We certainly have no problem with those conflags that we can bring the fireball to, since the time is greatly extended.

We are dying due to:
a) we three stack fireball, and a member dies due to the dmg being too high
b) we four stack fireball, and we dont have the burst dps to down conflag.

1. Pets soak damage, but they DO add a stack of Waxen Flesh.

2. False.

3. If you don't have enough DPS to down a four-stack conflag, you probably don't have enough to finish the fight, though it's possible that not all of your DPS players know how to burst properly. I'd also recommend having your OT in DPS gear for this fight if you aren't doing this already. Paladin and Warrior can both contribute huge amounts of burst damage.

If you stack 4 people DPS should save their cooldowns for when the conflag without fireball pop you have the burst dmg to kill it.

If you stack 3 people(i dont do this metod) all i can say is stoneskin adloquien and bubble can help with damage mitigation.

Pets share damage like a player and i dont belive if you do dmg reduction cooldown make other people take more damage i never heard something like that.

If you 3 stack fireballs whoever is targeted NEEDS stoneskin and adloqium unless they're 4.5k HP+. What I'd suggest is having your offtank+SCH Pet+ whoever is targeted tank the fireball. That way, you don't need to worry about applying stoneskin + adlo on your offtank and only on the targeted person. The 5 second cast time on fireball should give your WHM and SCH enough time to preshield the fireball'd person. My group has our Warrior OT and SCH pet off to the side and even when the Warrior eats the fireball by himself he takes at most 3k damage (out of 8k HP pool)

Our strategy:

3man soak fireball.
Virus.
Easy.
You also want to make sure that everyone in your group has >3.9k hp after food buffs. That is the bare minimum for a 3 man soak.

TBH any form of damage reduction will do. Virus/Sacred Soil/Rain of Death (not advisable due to stupidly high TP cost).

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Originally Posted by Schtick

My questions:

1. I know that pets DO soak a portion of the damage from fireballs. I was recently told that they DO NOT add a stack of waxing flesh. Therefore, you could soak a fireball with two pets and two human players, and actually have more time to down conflagration than if you'd soaked it by three human players. I'd like to confirm or deny this mechanic.


2. I was told that the total damage split between the fireball targets is constant. That is, if fireball is going to hit three targets, (A,B and C), damage mitigating cooldowns (such as mana ward), used by target A, will cause the damage to be increased on target B and C. Confirm / Deny?


3. Is our dps is not up to par if we can't down conflagration after a four stack of waxing flesh? Even with multiple lucky procs (I play BLM), we still sometimes don't have the burst for it. Are we undergeared / bad? or is this common that it's VERY difficult to burst down a 4 stack conflag if a key dps is the target of it.

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1. False. They do add a stack of Waxen Flesh. (Pets have ~90% (?) damage reduction on AOE, so they get hit for peanuts.)
2. False.
3. Your DPS is not up to par. (Usual reason: Inefficient use of CDs. Solution: Learn to manage CDs.)

The whole fight is a DPS check.
A good milestone to see if you are on par is to only have 4 conflagrations before dive-bomb.
If you have five conflagrations, chances are you will all die to enrage before you get to 5%.

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Originally Posted by Calib0s

3. If you don't have enough DPS to down a four-stack conflag, you probably don't have enough to finish the fight

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Originally Posted by AmandaHuggenkiss

The whole fight is a DPS check.
A good milestone to see if you are on par is to only have 4 conflagrations before dive-bomb.
If you have five conflagrations, chances are you will all die to enrage before you get to 5%.

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↑Putting the cart before the horse.

It is imperative to get through phase 2 and get practice at the later phases. Don't just bang your head on phase 2 trying to 4-stack because you're worried about losing to enrage...While you're 3-stacking and working on phases 3 and 4, your DPS will get better regardless. I would think that this should be incredibly obvious.

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Originally Posted by Cryvil

↑Putting the cart before the horse.

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If you read his actual post, that is a direct response to his specific question.

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Originally Posted by Schtick

3. Is our dps is not up to par if we can't down conflagration after a four stack of waxing flesh?

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This is all very helpful info.
We did 3 stacking attempts without losing anyone to fireball tonight, so seems to be working for now 'till we learn the rest.

Thank you for your replies.

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Originally Posted by AmandaHuggenkiss

If you have five conflagrations, chances are you will all die to enrage before you get to 5%.

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Sort of. Your dmg should be killing it right after the 5th conflag. We hold damage on Twin and force a 5th to make sure 1) we don't get the 5th one as phase changes, and 2) make sure we have LB3 to kill all snake adds.

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Originally Posted by Schtick

Please see my three specific questions above.
We certainly have no problem with those conflags that we can bring the fireball to, since the time is greatly extended.

We are dying due to:
a) we three stack fireball, and a member dies due to the dmg being too high
b) we four stack fireball, and we dont have the burst dps to down conflag.

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a.) get that member to respec with some vit to increase hp or meld some jewelry with vit materia, or do 4 stacks,
b.) there will always be one instance that you don't get a fireball to extend conflag, it's almost always the even number conflags, save your cooldowns for these.

Ah, I wanted to create exactly the same thread for some time now. We are doing the same strategy with 3 people and we all have 4.5k or more hp (crafted rings and stuff), but the problem is that sometimes fireball will dmg person for ~4k (in group of 3), which is intended and sometimes for ~6k (again, in group of 3), which is insta-kill. Is it that we are very-very unlucky or there is something we are doing wrong?

P.S. All of our static members have 80% or more ilvl 90 gear and we still (rarely) fail to kill 3 stacks conflags (not telling you about 4 stack conflags). How are you doing it?

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Originally Posted by Vantol

P.S. All of our static members have 80% or more ilvl 90 gear and we still (rarely) fail to kill 3 stacks conflags (not telling you about 4 stack conflags). How are you doing it?

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Just by preparing to pour out as much DPS as possible on the 2nd and 4th conflags. You know going into the phase that conflags 1, 3, and 5 will include a fireball, so you don't have to worry about maximizing DPS on those. I watch people attempting Twin on streams or what not occasionally, and I notice DPS using their CD's basically when they come off cool down with absolutely no regards as to win it would be optimal to use them, and then the very same people complain when they fail to kill conflag 2/4. Also, the standard rotation for some classes may or may not actually be the best rotation to use on the short conflags. It's all about putting out as much potency as possible in about 12-13 seconds (accounting for lag or possibly bad play/timing by being on GCD as soon as conflag pops). Also the timing of CD's matters - for instance, after the first conflag goes out, you know a fireball is coming. That fireball gets run into the conflag - now you also know that immediately following the next fireball is the DPS conflag (this holds true for both conflags 2 and 4). So if you use 2 separate groups for fireball soaking, then the instant you see that fireball, the group that isn't targeted can all pop Blood for Blood immediately. The group that IS targeted can pop another CD immediately, and then immediately pop Blood for Blood. This ensures that Blood for Blood will be up for conflag number 4 (the only thing to watch for is you know that immediately following conflag 2 and 4, a fireball goes out - you'll need to click Blood for Blood off depending on your speed killing the conflag). Longer cool downs (bards for instance), can be split.

For Bards: conflag 2, immediately prep (meaning the instant you see the fireball which signals that conflag is next) Blood for Blood and Internal Release. If a healer is targeted with conflag, no worries, that one should die no problem (if your other DPS are performing as well as you are) with just those 2 cool downs up (make sure you're weaving silence/repelling shot into your rotation on every DPS conflag). If a DPS is targeted, you may need to go ahead and pop barrage on this conflag (it won't be up for 4) Then for conflag number 4, immediately pop Raging Strikes and Internal Release (again, based on the fireball that leads into the next conflag), be ready to pop Blood for Blood (sometimes it'll be up in time, sometimes it might come within a second or two of conflag) - if another DPS is targeted, add in Barrage and you're good to go. If you're still cutting it close on conflags, you can also prep Foe to be up for conflags 2 and 4 based on your group comp.

Another trick for Dragoons... I've seen a stream or two of a dragoon on the fight and notice that for conflag they would just spam their full thrust combo. That's really not that good for short burst. What I found worked best from personal experience is a neat little rotation that puts out some pretty sick damage quickly:

Make sure Heavy Thrust is refreshed before the conflag goes out. I like to slide to the rear of the conflag the second it's about to come out (we use the middle of Twin for our placement, so standing behind Twin with the conflag in the middle of her hitbox gives you the rear positional) and then I do the following rotation with Blood for Blood and Internal Release popped: Impulse Drive -> Kick -> Disembowel -> Power Surge -> Impulse Drive -> Life Surge -> Disembowel -> Jump -> Mercy Stroke (should be available if the other DPS are doing their jobs optimally). If the conflag isn't dying at the end of that rotation, then there's some slack that needs to be made up somewhere.

*** Quick note - when we first started doing Twin, I would do the same rotation, but instead of the 2nd set of ID and Dis, I would instead go with the FT combo (still including the buffed jump and crit FT). That would technically put out a little more potency, but I was running into the issue where I wouldn't get to the FT because the conflag would die too early, so I swapped to the crit Dis with a surged Jump. So you can experiment with either rotation to see what works best with your current setup.***

I can't reiterate enough that people need to have their CD's planned out for conflags 2 and 4 and POPPED BEFORE the conflag becomes active (using the fireball as the trigger as that is the perfect timer for them becoming available again for conflag 4).

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Originally Posted by Vantol

P.S. All of our static members have 80% or more ilvl 90 gear and we still (rarely) fail to kill 3 stacks conflags (not telling you about 4 stack conflags). How are you doing it?

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I've read somewhere conflags have ~9k hp or so. I can't speak for the other classes but it's possible for me as a SMN to put out about 4k damage in a 10 second window on them, give or take depending on crits. If everyone pulls their weight it's really not an issue. With enough dps you actually want to hold back some on the first and third conflags to make sure you don't bring them down before the fireball goes off.

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Originally Posted by Vantol

Ah, I wanted to create exactly the same thread for some time now. We are doing the same strategy with 3 people and we all have 4.5k or more hp (crafted rings and stuff), but the problem is that sometimes fireball will dmg person for ~4k (in group of 3), which is intended and sometimes for ~6k (again, in group of 3), which is insta-kill. Is it that we are very-very unlucky or there is something we are doing wrong?
You always need some form of damage reduction on fireballs if you're doing the 3 stack strategy. (Virus/Sacred Soil/Rain of Death) 6k damage fireballs mean that the fireball damage was unmitigated = basically someone screwed up.

P.S. All of our static members have 80% or more ilvl 90 gear and we still (rarely) fail to kill 3 stacks conflags (not telling you about 4 stack conflags). How are you doing it?
Save CDs for 2nd/4th conflags.

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My advice in bold.

The way we do Conflag on Turn 5 - is by having Eos sit on the tail of twin, have the Off tank sit on Eos as well. Whoever gets the fireball (when conflag is not down) - can run to Eos/Offtank. They need at least Stoneskin / succor for them to live if their HP is not above 4k. Off tank can usually if PLD can cast Stoneskin on PT members. When offtank goes in WHM can cover with stoneskin. SCH just has to be ready with succor. Sch bubble/soil helps reduce dmg as well.

Offtank can usually survive with fireball alone with eos, if he pops cooldowns