Turn 8: How do you trigger the towers?

I want to share our experiences about tower triggering, which brought us the kill.

Wave 1: Dread (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 2: Mines (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 3: Dread (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 4: Mines (2) | Raid West (0)

Wave 5: Dread (3) | Mines (1) (this one ensures you skip the last ballistic missles)

Wave 6: Mines (0) | Raid West (3) | Raid South (1) (if you skip last missles, both raid towers will explode at the absolute same time as allagan field does)

Wave 7: Mines (2) | Dread (1) | Raid West (0) (Mines and Raid tower explode the same time as allagan field does)

Wave 8: Mines (2) | Raid South (1) | Raid West (0) (Boss should die during or before Mine spawn)

What we experienced: Towers of wave 1-5 last exactly 60 seconds and each stack deducts 15 seconds. Towers of wave 6-8 last exactly 80 seconds and each stack deducts 20 seconds. Allagan fields explode exactly all 40 seconds (cast, 30 seconds timer, little break, cast, ...).
If you skip missles (which would offset the timing by 5 seconds to your negative), all field explosions can be aligned with raid tower explosions, which makes last phase incredibly easy.

Turn 8 is really a time scheduled fight, once you've cleared it you will clear it always. It is like the old Turn 4 in our opinion.

Wave 1: AoE (1) / Dread (0)

Wave 2: Mines (2) / AoE (0)

Wave 3: AoE (0) / Dread (0)

Wave 4: Mines (2) / AoE (0)

Wave 5: AoE (3) / AoE (1) / Mines (0) *One of the AoE's is triggered early so it goes off while Allagan Field is down.

Wave 6: AoE (2) / Mines (1) / Dread (0)

Wave 7: AoE (2) / AoE (1) / Mines (0)

How do you manage to have 4 pushing the 5th and 6th sets, followed by 3 on the 7th and eighth? would this not require that every person in the party end up pushing a tower?

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Originally Posted by jumpypuppet

How do you manage to have 4 pushing the 5th and 6th sets, followed by 3 on the 7th and eighth? would this not require that every person in the party end up pushing a tower?

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On the 5th set, the dread tower is doublestacked by one person plus another singlestacked person. 2nd stack does about 4k dmg which can be survived. The raid south tower on the 6th wave is pushed by the tank, because he tanks to the south and 3 distinct ppl run to the raid west. Works out.

We haven't killed it yet, but this is what my group is doing:

2 Dread
2 Mines
2 Dread
2 Mines
Phase Push (1 Tank, badass SCH DPS)
3 West Defensive, (2 Immediately, 1 from Allagan Field target after debuff expires) Tank South Defensive
2 West Defensive, 1 Mines
3 West Defensive, (2 Immediately, 1 from Allagan Field target after debuff expires) Tank South Defensive

I might be incorrect on the last phase (honestly we haven't made it under 20% yet) in when the tank is going in as I don't honestly know what they're doing, but I know what the rest of the group is responsible for.

When you say "doublestacked by one" and "another singlestacked" you mean that two people with no stacks enter the tower, followed by one leaving and one staying behind to get another stack, correct?

yes, right

1st set: 2 Dread
2nd set: 2 Mines
3rd set: 2 Dread
4th set: 2 Mines
5th set: 2 Dread
6th set: 2 Mines + Tank push AoE behind him
7th set: 2 Mines + 1 AoE. Kill boss before Dread appears.

Party Formation: Tank, 5DPS, 2Heal [My Static group is PLD, DRG, DRG, MNK, BRD, BLM/SMN, SCH, WHM (one of the DRG is our OT for other turns)]
Party Positions: Party stay between the Landmines and Dreadnaught Bio-Towers. Tank will tank at a 45degree angle with his back directly facing a Defensive Tower, for us it's the defensive tower above the Landmine Tower. (Sry, I'm really bad with NSEW directions in this stupid map lol)

Wave 1: Dread (2) [Both Healer]
Wave 2: Landmines (2) [DPS1 & DPS2]
Wave 3: Dread (2) [Both Healer]
Wave 4: Landmines (2) [DPS1 & DPS2]
Wave 5: Landmines (2) [Both Healer] -- When dread pop, we wait to see whether there's Ballistic Missiles. If Boss casting Allagan Field instead, Caster will use LB2/LB3 on both Dread and Boss. If Missiles came, caster will wait for it then go out the circle to LB2/LB3 or stay and LB2/LB3 if binded.
Wave 6: Landmines (2) [DPS3 & Caster] | Defensive AoE (1) [Tank] <-The one behind Tank.
Wave 7: Dread (2) [DPS3 & Caster] | Landmines (1) [Healer-preferrably SCH] -- Will melee LB1 the Dread.
Wave 8: Landmines (2) [DPS3 & Caster] | Defensive AoE (1) [Tank] <-The one behind Tank.

We do try to keep the boss above 45% HP before wave 5 tower comes up. After w5 towers are up, we go crazy using CDs, potions to bring the boss HP low, since it might help us on skipping the Ballistic missiles after Dread pop which will make things a LOT more smoother. When dread pop, boss HP at 34%, Ballistic missiles still come :(, don't really know how low it should be.. 32%?

We assign DPS1 as the backup for wave 6 onwards. If one of the assigned members got Allagan field, DPS1 will take over the job either going to towers, or taking landmine. DPS2 will be backup for homing missiles if kiter get AF instead. (However, if DPS was not controlled and wave 5 is skipped, one of the healer, preferably the SCH will be the backup instead only for wave 6, since DPS1 and DPS2 would still have the languish debuff)

We don't go proc the tower with a 3rd member. We have tried alot of methods, and found this one to be the smoothest, most straight-forward and worry free strategy. We did worry about getting hit by defensive AoE while people having AF, but actually it turns out to be not a problem at all if the guy had stoneskin and adlo. The WHM and SCH need to be very fast to act since there will be 2 consecutive AoE explosion from towers with this method but this is doable with practice.

A piece of advice would be, the RNG that will always make a party wipe will be the landmines placement. If the 3 landmines are always spread out, you're 3/4 way to winning the fight already. If they are near the group, must have people taking them one by one just to be safe, and not both runner taking them at the same time risking ping-ponging and die

I have a question about the T8 and the towers to which I hope someone would know the answer to. My group is currently working on the last phase of the fight and while we don't have issues with any other mechanics and feel like our tower rotation is working for us, there's one thing that occasionally wipes us and we don't understand how it works.

Sometimes when Allagan Field and Defense Reaction are supposed to explode at the same time, DR goes off a couple of seconds faster increasing AF damage significantly and basically one-shotting almost everyone in the group. The thing is, sometimes they blow up the exact same time and everything goes perfectly, then sometimes there's a difference of a couple of seconds and we wipe. I'd like to understand why this happens. I suspect it has something to do with either when we move to phase or when people activate their towers.

Our tower order is following:
1st set: Mines (2), DR2 (1), DR1 (0)
2nd set: DN (2), Mines (1), DR1 (0)

The random AF+DR happen during the first defense explosion in first set and the only defense explosion in 2nd set.

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Originally Posted by Grotesque

2nd stack does about 4k dmg which can be survived.

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Just going to correct you to slightly. The stacks are both % based (its called Languish? I think). Its difficult to notice it for the 1st stack since its a low damage amount, around 15%, but the 2nd one is really easy to tell that its percentage based, as a OT WAR with defiance up will take 7000+ from it, and only take 5000ish without defiance on. So its somewhere around 85%, but basically if you are topped up you won't die.

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Originally Posted by Taika

snip.

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I found this also last night, some round we got DR exploded at 1 sec AF, it simply killed us coz healers can't top up raid in time...

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Originally Posted by Taika

stuff.

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Sounds like when you guys phase out of first phase. Best to do 5th wave like OP has until you have enough DPs to push to 35% early.

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Originally Posted by Airikay

Sounds like when you guys phase out of first phase. Best to do 5th wave like OP has until you have enough DPs to push to 35% early.

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Thanks for the suggestion! We ran this tonight and decided to try not skipping the 5th wave (we used to use LB2 before that) and dealt with it like the OP's group. However, we still got the AF and DF exploding a couple of seconds apart. Then on some runs we skipped the 5th wave (without LB), and sometimes AF+DR exploded at the same time, sometimes they didn't. In the end we just decided to have us healers save swiftcast to heal right after DR hits and managed to survive them. We also beat the turn for the first time!

I'm still not sure what causes DR and AF sync, so if someone could explain how it works that would be nice. :)

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Originally Posted by Taika

I'm still not sure what causes DR and AF sync, so if someone could explain how it works that would be nice. :)

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They sync if The Avatar doesn't get to do the final Ballistic Missile.
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...egy_in_images/
Even if The Avatar gets to do it, the only dangerous Allagan Fields are actually the 2nd and the 5th one exactly 2 minutes apart as there will be 1 DR blow up at 5 seconds left on Allagan Field's clock. How my group handle those 2 are to pop Mantra + Fey Illumination, proceed to try and crit Adlo since you have 25 seconds till DR explodes (should be a 3.4-3.6k HP shield + Stoneskin 18% HP), Fey Covenant and Sacred Soil when Allagan Field has 10 seconds left (5 seconds till DR explodes) and take no damage from them. All the CDs are exactly 2 minutes so if you pop it at the right time the first time, use it as soon as you can the second time and you won't miss it.
I also recommend to switch people on Mines tower in 1st set of phase 3 to DR tower and force pop it after the first AF goes off.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

They sync if The Avatar doesn't get to do the final Ballistic Missile.

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Thank you! Does this only apply if you do 5th tower set but skip the last Ballistic though?

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Originally Posted by Taika

Thank you! Does this only apply if you do 5th tower set but skip the last Ballistic though?

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Yes, do the 5th set but skip the missle and all timing will be smooth afterwards. One last thing which maybe important. Apply the 3rd stack of the first raid damage tower in the last phase in the moment AF went off, otherwise it could be the case, that the tower fires a few seconds too early which will be most likely a wipe. All other towers and fields are aligned properly after that.

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Originally Posted by Grotesque

Yes, do the 5th set but skip the missle and all timing will be smooth afterwards. One last thing which maybe important. Apply the 3rd stack of the first raid damage tower in the last phase in the moment AF went off, otherwise it could be the case, that the tower fires a few seconds too early which will be most likely a wipe. All other towers and fields are aligned properly after that.

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Thank you! We do a different tower order in 3rd phase (1st set 2xmines, 1xdef; 2nd set 2xdef, 1xmines) but might try the one you posted in the OP.

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Originally Posted by Taika

Thank you! We do a different tower order in 3rd phase (1st set 2xmines, 1xdef; 2nd set 2xdef, 1xmines) but might try the one you posted in the OP.

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I came to the same conclusion as the OP for wave 6 and 7 even for the case where they're not aligned. The timing just works out better for us that way. Here's the timing info I worked out in case they're not aligned:
· 00:00 Wave 5 or 7 Towers drop.
· 00:05 Ballistic Missile if first set of tower. Allagan explodes if third set of tower.
· 00:15 Allagan Field applied.
· 00:20 Wave 6 or 8 Towers spawn, 3 players hit towers to set timers (DR#1 - 40s, DR#2 - 60s, Mines - 80s, Allagan – 25s)
· 00:45 Allagan Field explodes. (DR#1 – 15s (force pop here), DR#2 - 35s, Mines - 55s)
· 00:55 Allagan Field applied to a new target. (DR#2 - 25s, Mines - 45s, Allagan - 30s)
· 01:20 DR#2 explodes. (Mines - 20s, Allagan - 5s)
· 01:25 Allagan Field explodes (Mines – 15s)
· 01:35 Allagan applied to a new target. (Mines – 5s, Allagan - 30s)
· 01:40 Mines go out (Allagan - 25s)
· 02:00 Wave 7 towers spawn. 3 players tap new towers to set state. (DR#1 - 80s, Dread: 60s, Mines: 40s, Allagan – 5s)
· 02:05 Allagan Field explodes. (DR#1 -75s, Dread: 55s, Mines 35s)
· 02:15 New Allagan Field applied. (DR#1 - 65s, Dread: 45s, Mines: 25s, Allagan: 30s)
· 02:40 Mines spawn (DR#1 - 60s, Dread 40s, Allagan 25s)
· 02:45 Allagan Field explodes (DR#1 - 35s, Dread: 15s)
· 02:55 New Allagan Field applied. (DR#1: 25s, Dread: 5s,, Allagan Field: 30s)
· 03:00 Dread spawns. (DR#1: 20s, Allagan: 25s)
· 03:20 DR#1 explodes. Repeat from 0:00
The bolded ones are the 2nd and 5th Field I mentioned above.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Even if The Avatar gets to do it, the only dangerous Allagan Fields are actually the 2nd and the 5th one exactly 2 minutes apart as there will be 1 DR blow up at 5 seconds left on Allagan Field's clock. How my group handle those 2 are to pop Mantra + Fey Illumination, proceed to try and crit Adlo since you have 25 seconds till DR explodes (should be a 3.4-3.6k HP shield + Stoneskin 18% HP), Fey Covenant and Sacred Soil when Allagan Field has 10 seconds left (5 seconds till DR explodes)

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source:http://ku-so.hatenadiary.jp/entry/2014/04/22/100044

Wave 1: AoE1 (1) / Dread (0)

Wave 2: Mines (2) / AoE1 (0)

Wave 3: Dread (2) / AoE1 (0)

Wave 4: Mines (2) / AoE1 (0)

Wave 5: Mines (1) / Dread (2)

Wave 6: Mines (0) / AoE1 (3) / AoE2 (MT)

Wave 7: Mines (1) / Dread (0) / AoE1 (2)

Wave 8: Mines (0) / AoE1 (0) / AoE2 (MT)

the usual setup of my group is MT/BLM(DPS1)/SMN(DPS2)/DRG(DPS3)/MNK(DPS4)/BRD/SCH/WHM,so i made a pre-fight macro like this:
/p W1:WEST→[WHM]
/p W2:EAST←[DPS①,SCH]
/p W3:NORTH↓[DPS②,WHM]
/p W4:EAST←[DPS①,SCH]
/p W5:NORTH↓[DPS③④]+EAST←[WHM]
/p W6:WEST→[DPS①②,SCH]+SOUTH↑[MT]
/p W7:WEST→[DPS③④]+EAST←[WHM]
/p W8:SOUTH↑[MT]

from my own experience,the binding circles in w5 will be skipped regardless of ur dps due to that +1 tower getting triggered.After w6 begins if u trigger the west aoe tower asap,all AFs' explosions will line up with those from both aoe towers.In this case,Bard also serves as a great backup for towers in w6 or w7.

the catch being that in w5,most likely LB needed to be used on the dread to kill it before landmines,and about 2s right after the landmines spawn,MT will get brainjacked,so better to adjust positioning and landmine duties accordingly.

its also fairly easy to make in-fight macros with the given timeline,as the first one covering w1-w4,second ones covering either w5-w8 or w6-w8 if your dps is good enough.

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Originally Posted by Hoshijiro

the catch being that in w5,most likely LB needed to be used on the dread to kill it before landmines,and about 2s right after the landmines spawn

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Thats why you trigger the mine tower 2s before brainjack is off, not immediately.

A question to the crowd:

Before patch we were able to push hard enough, thus neither the 5th tower nor the ballistic missle comes and we go straight to allagan field after 4th raid dmg explosion, which gives the same smooth timing as stated in the OP. Now, with the same DPS we skip the 5th towers but ballistics missle come before going into allagan field, which offsets the timing of field and towers by 5 seconds, which is a little pain in the ass. Our group DPS is in the range 2000-2050.
However, we overcome this by doing a little DPS stop at 46%, waiting for the 5th towers to plop and doing the strategy as mentioned in the OP to move straight into allagan field after 5th towers without ballistic in between, which was not the nicest but nevertheless working approach.
Anyone else has experienced something like this in T8 currently?

I've also no longer seen that ballistic missile get skipped if you push in four sets of towers, but we haven't really changed our tactics around it.

You need to apply the same concept for skipping Ballistic Missiles that you have with the 5th Tower Set to the 4th Tower Set, aka ending the set earlier by ensuring every tower gets triggered at least once. Skipping ballistic missiles is dependent on when exactly you push to 45% and also whether you end the tower phase early.

Using the OP's tower triggers, if you push to 45% during the lull between the end of the 4th Tower set and start of the 5th Tower set, you skip 5th Tower set and Allagan Field comes out with the timing that makes your 6th Tower Set triggers work out for your group. If you push to 45% during the 4th Tower Set, you'll get a Ballistic Missile and throw off the timing of Allagan Field. If you change your triggers to Wave 4: Mines (2) | Raid West (1), Ballistic Missile gets skipped when you push to 45% during that set. The way some groups handle the final 3 tower phases makes Allagan Field timing completely moot.

Thank you for the explanation, that makes it clear and sounds reasonable. We will try that in the next ID.

However, if you don't skip 5th towers, you can use this time to push Avatar much further, thus at the end you don't see the 8th towers at all, which is also nice, so you have only tower 6 and 7 with enough dps.

T1: Dread (2)
T2: Mines (2)
T3: Dread (2)
T4: Mines (2) (hold at 45%+ for T5 to start)
T5: Dread (2), Mine (1) (LB dread to have it clear for mines. tank will have brainjack during mines)
T6: West (3), South (1), Mines (0) (West and South explode with AF, no reactive dmg)
T7: West (2), Dread(1), Mines (0) (West explodes with AF)
T8: West (3), South (1), Mines (0) (ignore mines)

This puts mines exploding during transitions, South and West towers explode only when AF is down (being cast), so there is never any reactive damage.
With solotank, the tank can help with mines for all but tower5, where he'll have brainjack. Avoid Diffusion Ray when running to the tank side to pick up mines. If you're quick, this isn't a problem.

The necessary healing for the fight is far less when you desync mines with towers, and sync up towers with Allagan field. This gives healers some extra time, so I like to have them push towers as much as possible to give dps more uptime on the boss.

We only get 6 tower sets. We don't hold. We just push straight through. DPS may be a bit too high for the turn.

T1: Dread (2)
T2: Mines (2)
T3: Dread (2)
T4: Mines (2)
T5: West (0), South (1), Mines (2)
T6: West (1), Dread(0), Mines (2)

By the end, the mines pop right as The Avatar dies, so we don't bother with popping the landmines, just finish it off. It's normally at 1-2% at that point when the mines appear on the screen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Taika

I have a question about the T8 and the towers to which I hope someone would know the answer to. My group is currently working on the last phase of the fight and while we don't have issues with any other mechanics and feel like our tower rotation is working for us, there's one thing that occasionally wipes us and we don't understand how it works.

Sometimes when Allagan Field and Defense Reaction are supposed to explode at the same time, DR goes off a couple of seconds faster increasing AF damage significantly and basically one-shotting almost everyone in the group. The thing is, sometimes they blow up the exact same time and everything goes perfectly, then sometimes there's a difference of a couple of seconds and we wipe. I'd like to understand why this happens. I suspect it has something to do with either when we move to phase or when people activate their towers.

Our tower order is following:
1st set: Mines (2), DR2 (1), DR1 (0)
2nd set: DN (2), Mines (1), DR1 (0)

The random AF+DR happen during the first defense explosion in first set and the only defense explosion in 2nd set.

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With the tower assignment that you posted:

For set6, you will have DR1 going off when the 3rd AF is at ~20 seconds. This is ok (it is how my group does it), and you just need to make sure that the AF target has stoneskin and Aldo. Alternately, you can try a different tower assignment that avoids this problem (such as the one posted by the OP).

For set7, DR1 should go off right after AF5 and before AF6 is cast (it is also how my group does it). Once we had it go off early, and we were scratching our heads like you. However, upon inspection of the combat log, we discovered that one of our mine sweepers got knocked into the AoE tower by accident, thus setting it off. Maybe the same thing happened for your guys?