Megaflare Dives...

I'm guessing this is the right forum for Coil stuff?

Anyway, I'm raid leader for my static, currently working on T13 Phase 3. Splash damage from Megaflare after the Divebombs is proving rather annoying. I've tried laying out a guideline similar to these ( http://i.imgur.com/0RURg8K.png ) in which everyone has a loosely designated spot relative to where the dives are occurring but it's not proving consistent. Our divebombs have certainly improved over time with us getting through to the first set of adds unscathed often, though we've only got to the 2nd wave once with everyone alive. So not too consistent. When people do die to unnecessary damage they insist they're following the positions we laid out but then say someone else was near them who shouldn't have been, but then that person says they were in the right place and...[headache].

Are there any other tips people have, or clearer ways of articulating this? I feel like I'm repeating myself over but the unnecessary splash damage keeps on coming and killing people. I suppose latency doesn't help, with peoples positions on your screen almost never quite being where they actually are while moving. I don't know, maybe it's just a case of throwing ourselves at it over and over some more, but it feels like one of those brick wall points. It's frustrating because we can handle the adds with ease when everyone's alive, and we all know exactly what to do for the 2nd wave, and we barely ever get hit by the Divebombs themselves, but it's constantly that friggin' Megaflare damage. Always 2 splash damage guys clipping each other, if not one of the marked stackers getting clipped on the way to the stack point.

Uhh...our group has dps go left, and healers/tanks go right, at least in theory. I usually just go wherever people aren't and jump up and down so no one runs to me. Just have to tell people to pay more attention and be more organized with where they stand, and that's all there is to it.

From the sounds of it, it feels like people are unprepared for it. Does everyone have focus target on bahamut? Another thing that can help is preemptively knowing when divebomb is gonna happen. The first one is obvious, the second one will happen shortly after the sin does evil eye. The last one is pretty obvious for us because we all have focus target on bahamut and we use the storm as a mark. Like when the storm dies, divebomb will happen shortly.


Here's another thing that can help, tanks will never get targeted by that aoe splash dmg (NOT the huge aoe circle) so what we do is we have the healers run with the tanks, allowing the dps to spread nicely.

Another tip is calling out where storm is coming. Bahamut is 12, have people talk if it's the cross formation or off cardinals. If he's off Cardinal is the storm coming at 4? 11? 2 or 7?

My last piece of advice is run away from the divebombs first then adjust accordingly. Like run away from the danger then spread out second. The megaflare happens once the divebomb finishes.

A small tip: by the time Bahamut's dive mark disappears, the targets/damage has already been determined, so as people are spreading out a couple of people can actually run into Bahamut's dive path and not get hit; it's literally just animations at that point. Other than that, your members need to be self-aware of their positions and those around them. If someone is being sandwiched between two other people, one of those two should give the middle player more room.

Our group don't really need to look at any pattern, just split in groups of 4:
1 tank/1 healer 2 dps go left, same setup goes right side.

1. Find Bahamut position, if you are part of group that is going left, pan your camera directly west(east for group going right) of bahamut not map location so bahamut is your North reference. and start moving on green mark.
2. If twintania is not in in your front view as you go east/west....use Rear view camera to see if directly behind you, if not than your location is safe and keep adjust position so you are not stack with another dps/healer (tank is safe to stack)
If twintania is in front/behind make adjust to avoid the dive, you should still have few secs to spread out once twintania dives.

I think the key is to minimize camera movement and just move directly east/west of bahamut (avoiding bahamut dive) and use rear view to see if twin is behind, this gives plenty of time to spread out/see where everyone is heading for the incoming megaflare/splash dmg.

You should always have 1 heal 1 tank 2 dps in both groups. You also want to place the tanks to the middle, casters to the edges and non-casters wherever in-between them. Why do it like this? With the tanks in the middle, it's easier to adjust for Twintania, since you don't have to worry about overlapping missiles since tanks don't get hit by them. The casters can sprint so they can take the furthest distance from stack point. Some groups place one guy to the same spot as where the tank is to allow for a bit more of moving space, although it causes some dmg to the tanks.

Tbh it's mostly what everyone else has been saying; know what is happening and when it's happening. Red? Scout. Green? Go. Twin in front/behind? Adjust. No non-tanks hugging you? Good.

That's the same chart my group was looking at while practice but in the end we never use it. We just make it simple, split the group in half so 4 players would go each side, each side would have 2 dps 1 healer and 1 tank, we just pre-determined who going left and who going right.

Most death during practice happens because they are not sure where twintania is coming from or see it too late, so most of us will go to 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock depending if we are going left or right, half way there, turn to find twintania and make adjustment. When making adjustment we make sure we are not near each other, it's not necessary to always to stay at the edge after dodging the dive, can always move in a bit so that there are more space for megaflare.

If I saw someone going same direction as me when I am adjusting my position then I just called out like "BLM, stay there I will move". Just be smart about it, if someone is nearby then just move a bit. It's also one of the reason we don't set fix position like the chart, one person will always blame the other if get hit even though both of them could have just adjust their position. In the end dodging the megaflare after the dive it's all about adapting and making quick adjustment, if your position is 1 o'clock and someone is near you, just move and don't wait for the other to move, if using TS then just communicate.

You can assign rough positions but at the end of the day, raid awareness plays a big part. I do remind my team to stay still for the splash damage though, especially for the last dive when the pain is still up, people start moving (either to dps the pain or to the neurolink) forgetting that the splash damage is quite delayed and people would end up nuking each other

Thanks for the responses. I suppose ultimately it is just awareness. I watch videos where it's clear they don't have any kind of plan on how each member spreads out, but it somehow works out. I think it was morale forcing me to post this, as it's one of those points where it starts feeling like a brick wall, but just gotta hang in there and keep practising. That said, the fact that neither tank is selected for splash damage is VERY useful to know, and should help give us more space during and after the dives - so we'll be sure to use that to our advantage tonight, see if I can reignite some enthusiasm :P

Is your group getting consistent practice seeing divebombs?

More or less, I'd be lying if I said there were a lot of P1 and 2 mistakes, but we get to P3 relatively often. Again, the dives themselves are fine, just the splash damage / spacing that was being annoying. That said, after tonight's raid it went a lot smoother. We even saw our first Akh Morn, even though there was death and the Pain was still up :P I think just a couple more nights and it should be solid, that tip based on the tanks saw a big improvement in avoiding unnecessary damage.

Death is fine during dive, as long as they do not have weakness during teraflare. For the final Pain, our tank drag it into the neurolink and the dps will dps outside the neurolink until teraflare at 5s cast before we move in, it will die as teraflare hits. As long as it dies before or as Bahamut appear it will be fine. Once you can keep seeing Akh Morn, you are pretty close to clearing, divebomb phase is the only phase that too longer time to practice for my group, last phase was pretty easy.