Wanderer's Palace (Hard) narrowly impossible in Command Mission as nonhealing job

As the title suggests, with the introduction of Wanderer's Palace (Hard) for command missions, I've been really struggling with the final boss as the AI almost never tops off heals when you've been afflicted with the Doom status. I've died countless times because of this and it has made the dungeon impossible to complete; my only option is to run this as a healer, but I primarily came to level up some of my jobs that are around 50 when I can't find a group in roulette.

The Squadron AI is really dumb and badly designed. I've died many times in other dungeons because the healer decides to heal only when im below 40%

I've tried it several times as a BLM. The first boss is pretty much impossible for me. The frequency at which the spears show up is so fast that I can't keep up. After I get him to about 90%, he starts throwing them down. By the time I kill the 3rd spear, hes tossing them down with no break every 6-7 seconds. I try killing them and sending my party after them, but they come so fast that I can only kill maybe 4 or 5 more before there's too many and the debuff winds up killing me. I can only get him to like 70% health.

This is definitely one of the more vexing command missions. If you don't bring the right classes and/or don't have their tactics raised high enough, the first boss can be a real problem. Because of the last boss and its doom mechanic, I won't even entertain the thought of going in here as anything other than a healer. It may be possible to complete it with certain off-class healing skills or mitigation, but if it is I don't have the patience to find out. If there is someone who has completed the Wanderer's HM command mission without being the healer, I'd love to hear from them and learn what method they used (to sate my curiosity if nothing else).

I just consider the level 50 hard modes one time challenges because they're a pain to run repeatedly (in the case of Wanderer's HM, a challenge for healers only). I focus on the other command missions for leveling and other misc needs. Sohm Al and The Vault actually offer positive GC seals if you turn in the drops you don't need, so you can use them to farm materials from seals while doing your squad stuff. If the job you want to level is too low for Sohm Al, I suggest picking one of the sub 50 missions for routine stuff or doing something else until it can be accessed.

I tried it as a WHM today. I spent an hour working on that first boss before I finally got him. I recorded a video of it. I wound up leaving and coming back since I was running out of time. This second time, I took him down the first try with very little issue. I noticed that this time, he didn't throw nearly as many spears as he did last time. It was fairly easy. The second boss was a cakewalk once I figured out that I just needed to absorb the damage up totems. The final boss was a pain due to the totems and the aoe cleave. The doom wasn't an issue since it was always cast on me and I could easily heal it. However, once I started ignoring all the mechanics, except doom, and let the boss stand in his totems, he was easy. I just kept medica 2 and renew on everyone and nuked occasionally.

hmm, I didn't have any particular problems when I ran it as WAR (beyond dying to trash 1 or 2 times because I pulled too much), the 2 DPS got the spears on first boss down quick enough by themselves. Didn't really pay attention though on last boss, to whether the healer properly topped me off, or if it was the self heals from inner beast & storms path

Had the same problem in Brayflox's Longstop with the last boss as a DPS. Tank doesn't move out of aoe's and even it you pull them out by command, the healer still let's everyone die, because he will not cleanse the bleed. Wiped many times before i gave up on it.

The tank/healer AI should get some adjustment for some specific bosses.

If you can't beat it , it means you have not set your AI properly for your healer or they are low on their stats, need to level them up a bit. I just dps if they are properly set it actually works better than having people who think they know the job.

Problem with this Command Mission:

Final boss always targets ME with Doom. I also have no time to dps because he does that super huge cone AoE, and soon after puts a flag thing down. Then I have to tell my team to disengage and pull him out of the aura, then continue dpsing. But if I have Doom, I can't disengage because then I won't get the Doom cleansed by the healer. Then there are times where he targets me for the rot gas/vorpal wheel when I'm not even top threat. It's too frustrating. I wiped about 8x before I gave up. First boss was a pain too (took 4 tries) because the AoE damage is a huge heal check and the other dps aren't helping with the sacred spears. I literally could only do 1 GCD on the boss before he threw another spear down. This is a terrible dungeon for command mission.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Problem with this Command Mission:

Final boss always targets ME with Doom. I also have no time to dps because he does that super huge cone AoE, and soon after puts a flag thing down. Then I have to tell my team to disengage and pull him out of the aura, then continue dpsing. But if I have Doom, I can't disengage because then I won't get the Doom cleansed by the healer. Then there are times where he targets me for the rot gas/vorpal wheel when I'm not even top threat. It's too frustrating. I wiped about 8x before I gave up. First boss was a pain too (took 4 tries) because the AoE damage is a huge heal check and the other dps aren't helping with the sacred spears. I literally could only do 1 GCD on the boss before he threw another spear down. This is a terrible dungeon for command mission.

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I think the first boss is bugged somehow. The frequency of the spears isn't the same each time I fought him. The video I linked above shows that at 50%, he throws two spears in a row then start doing a fire angon, fire angon, charge, spear over and over again until he's dead. He throws a spear every 6-7 seconds. I left and then came back. The next time when he hit 50%, he threw two spears then did a fire angon, fire angon, charge, spear and then stopped. He didn't throw anymore spears after that. That fight, he threw a total of 5 spears while the video in my post above he threw something like 21 or 22.

Edit: Here's a video of a bard doing it. https://youtu.be/ODG-hVJpAfk?t=5m54s
Here you can see that after 50%, he throws two spears in a row then does fire angon, fire angon, charge spear and then stops. He throws another spear later, but there's a break. A total of 6 spears was thrown here. My second run was like this but I think I killed him faster so he didn't get that second spear off. Completely different pace than the video I posted above.

I played this as a BRD, with a mostly tactics capped party (since I use this for levelling DPS, on a character I'm aiming for the Goddess of War achievement on).

The first boss was a bit harder than a standard PUG, but nothing unique.

Rather than trying to pull trash out of the flags, I just have the party focus those flags first.

The big problem is the final boss: the tank will sometimes try to re-establish aggro on the flags, and pull the boss back in... I suppose this has the advantage that it makes the boss' Doom attack much heavier hitting, and the healer more likely to respond. I haven't had the issue of the Doom not being removed by the healer, unless they got stunned by his room-wide cleave.

I find this dungeon not too bad as tank only because Wanderer's Palace (Hard) like the back of my hand.

Let's do some specifics.

Squadron can sometimes be stubborn and attack the Silverscale Standards during the regular trash mob sections.

Boss 1:

Engage spam works on the spears. Getting rid of them early enough to avoid the aoe-wide debuff is not really possible considering the squadron dps rotations (the squadron commands of Balanced or Offensive can alleviate this).

Boss 2:

Totem effect differ from run to run, so you must experiment which ones have the "Damage Up" buff and the one that reverses the "Frog" debuff. The totem color that DOES NOT appear in the FIRST section of totems is the one that cleanses the debuff.

Keep in mind that the "Frog" debuff that normally doesn't target tanks in multiplayer runs, will now target the player as tank in Squadron runs.

Boss 3:

Be sure to keep boss out of red aoes from the Standards (use disengage and run away from standard if you are a non-tank until you reposition to a safe spot). Destroy the "Sacred Idol" ASAP because it will buff the boss's power and defense regardless of distance or location.

If you have the "rotting lungs" debuff, you'll have to get even farther from the red aoe puddles to avoid any extra sneaky aoes targeting you during the debuff. The disease debuff will making cleansing doom off you harder.

Distance awareness and destroying the Sacred Idols are the main keys to beating the last boss.

During the Command Missions, you are almost always the target for mechanics.

it is especially detrimental for Brayflox last boss' poison puddle and Wanderer's Palace last boss' Doom debuff, but it is nice to see Charibert casting his Holy Chain and watch the spell fizzle ^^

I say almost because I am pretty sure that Grinnaux's Hyperdimensional Slash and Dimensional Rift do not always target you.

It may be job-dependent, I have not (yet) tested tanking these dungeons.

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Originally Posted by ArumatKelewae

During the Command Missions, you are almost always the target for mechanics.

it is especially detrimental for Brayflox last boss' poison puddle and Wanderer's Palace last boss' Doom debuff, but it is nice to see Charibert casting his Holy Chain and watch the spell fizzle ^^

I say almost because I am pretty sure that Grinnaux's Hyperdimensional Slash and Dimensional Rift do not always target you.

It may be job-dependent, I have not (yet) tested tanking these dungeons.

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Grinnaux's Hyperdimensional Slash and Dimensional Rift will always target you in Squadron Command missions, regardless of role. He can target you with either move even when you're a tank in a multiplayer light party as well.

With those being said, you can bait both of Grinnaux's moves accordingly to create safe spots for yourself during Command Missions. The black holes in the walls have no effect on the AI squadron members.

I also have trouble, i cannot get past first boss.
Ive tried as ninja and a Redmage.... i reduce my enmity which does nothing i am always the target of the dmg and the spears come at an alarming rate.

The healer refuses to heal me until i am nearly dead. Since i am the target of all the Single target dmg i end up dieng to the spears because he hits me with single target then the spear hits. I thought id try as a redmage and basically recast over and over the dmg spell that heals me as i dmg and that didnt work either.

I do attack spears as soon as they drop but they come out at a faster rate than hard mode with normal players.

It sounds like a lot of other people are having similar issues.... Is this being looked at?

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Originally Posted by foths

I also have trouble, i cannot get past first boss.
Ive tried as ninja and a Redmage.... i reduce my enmity which does nothing i am always the target of the dmg and the spears come at an alarming rate.

The healer refuses to heal me until i am nearly dead. Since i am the target of all the Single target dmg i end up dieng to the spears because he hits me with single target then the spear hits. I thought id try as a redmage and basically recast over and over the dmg spell that heals me as i dmg and that didnt work either.

I do attack spears as soon as they drop but they come out at a faster rate than hard mode with normal players.

It sounds like a lot of other people are having similar issues.... Is this being looked at?

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You have to keep on pressing the "Engage" button from the Command Mission hotbar on the spear targets to have your Squadron members attack them ASAP.

Also, what type of traits do your squadron members have and how high are they? (Example: Independent 3, Offensive 2, Defensive 4, etc.)

Is there a trick for the second boss beyond "randomly hop into a puddle and hope you get it right", because I kept hopping into the debuff puddle and getting blown up by his Tankbusters immediately after.

I'm gonna try to roll as Healer instead.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

Is there a trick for the second boss beyond "randomly hop into a puddle and hope you get it right", because I kept hopping into the debuff puddle and getting blown up by his Tankbusters immediately after.

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The mechanics will still be there if you play healer. Specifically, the primary mechanic is "If the Damage Up totems are still on the field when the boss uses Standard Retrieval, the boss gets the Damage Up stacks from those totems."

Detailed mechanics spoilers:

The colors assignments are randomly determined at the start of the fight. The first set of totems will be three of the four colors. Remember which color is missing. That's the Toad totem. Pick up the other totems one at a time until you find the Damage Up totem. Once you know which one is Damage Up, ignore the others. The colors will remain fixed for the rest of the fight, so if cyan is the Damage Up totem the first round, cyan will always be the Damage Up totem.

If your DPS is "too high" you'll skip the 3/4 set and go straight to a 4/4 set. In this case, you'll have to figure out which color is the Toad totem the old fashioned way.

When he turns you into a Toad, grab a Toad totem to return to normal. Grab all the Damage Up totems each round. Ignore the other two colors.

Not to brag but ive beaten this in Realm reborn with 4 Warriors.You just need to time cd useage etc for when doom hits if you are not tanking.

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

Not to brag but ive beaten this in Realm reborn with 4 Warriors...

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Here we are talking of the squadron. You can go there only with standard full party. You and 3 npc.

didn't have much problems with the dungeon longer than usual but no problems but that last boss though the tank npc constantly wanting hate on totems(forcing spam disengage and re engage) the other dps taking healing priority when i need it and the hlr npc there is not good at all (got it balanced 4 and defensive 4 both bad) just need to be hit hard enough so hlr targets you but not too hard so hlr does top you off in 1 heal for doom else you are wanting bloodbath and second wind to have shorter cds.
i think overall all the ai needs some tweeks but the healer is currently the worse if se plan to release more dungeons that have these healer mechanics they need to improve it.
oh i ran nin 1st time blm 2nd i loved me that drain spell XD nin was easier for 1st 2 bosses last boss blm was easier

I'm trying to level my tank so I tried this and I tried that technique listed on page two for the 2nd boss with the totems but no, it's impossible sorry. The NPC healers are just too much shit to handle it.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

I'm trying to level my tank

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If your scope is leveling tank, you'd better use DF for all daily roulette and, if you have more time, just spam the highest duty available.
I found leveling a tank with squadron a bit difficult. Wanderer's Palace last boss is a spamming of engage/disengage so much that I found myself doing almost only that, instead of doing my role.

I've not had any issues with the Wanderer's Palace (Hard) Squadron runs.

1st boss is just Engage spam to get the DPS to help nuke down the spears (Probably the only dangerous boss here, because the healer fails so hard at healing you and you're the only one targetted by the bosses fireball spam when a spear is active)

2nd boss you just pick up the damage buff totems and later the frog debuff totems. Ignore the rest like the plague (They don't do anything if you leave them anyway and getting the debuff one HURTS)

3rd boss, position yourself so his massive cleave (Which he'll only ever direct at you) won't hit the rest of your party. As a tank, you can do proper tactics and kite the boss and just Engage onto the Sacred Idols (The low health ones that will affect the boss even if he's not in its area). Otherwise, you can just leave the boss standing still and your NPC Tank won't care about his buffed damage, while your NPC healer continues to heal for a metric butt load with each heal, usually getting rid of Doom with a single cast (Provided you're positioned well so bosses cleaves aren't tossing out a bunch of debuffs across everyone forcing NPC healer to stand around using Esuna while everyone is at 10% life like a numpty)

Honestly, my main issue with the Squadron for this particular dungeon, is that their scaling is pretty mediocre here, so instead of being kind of IMBA damage output (As was the case in previous content and also in later content such as Sohm Al) they're pretty mediocre, so it takes a while to actually get through. Like, usually a 30 minute run for me.

Oh, that and I really wish they'd buff the Tank's brain when it comes to getting aggro on an entire pack of enemies. Though, this is less instance specific and more a Squadron issue. Given the wonky AI, where the tank will upon being told to Engage, will use an AoE upon getting into range of the initial target and then never again unless you've been taken down to like 20% life by another enemy. Meanwhile, upon you attacking a target without Engaging first, the tank will do the same thing, but on a DIFFERENT target to the one you attacked. Generally meaning that in order to try and have the tank get aggro of a typical 3 mob pack, you have to Engage on one, then figure out how the pack will start to move towards them and Engage on whichever one will be at the rear to make them AoE all 3 mobs...

Healer NPC can be a little bit questionable, especially if you're running as a Tank due to them trying to DPS so much, or favouring Esuna over healing (Which is super annoying on various encounters where for example, Poison gets tossed out all over the place... I.e. Wanderer's Palace (Hard) the bit before the 3rd boss with the Slimes that stack up Poison on like every attack)

That said, a majority of Healer NPC issues could be solved if they had the Regen skill. That with their ridiculous healing power would do wonders for keeping you alive despite their focus on DPS/Esuna.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

I'm trying to level my tank so I tried this and I tried that technique listed on page two for the 2nd boss with the totems but no, it's impossible sorry. The NPC healers are just too much shit to handle it.

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I'd avoid Wanderer's Palace for tank leveling, the exp from lv50 dungeons tends to be quite poor. Stone Vigil is almost the same exp-wise.

If you prefer squadrons to avoid pugs, I'd aim on reaching 53 via other means, then you can easily spam Sohm Ahl until 60.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

I'm trying to level my tank so I tried this and I tried that technique listed on page two for the 2nd boss with the totems but no, it's impossible sorry. The NPC healers are just too much shit to handle it.

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Whose technique are you referring to from the second page? I believe mine is one of them.

That being said, Kalise gave a more concise, but accurate explanation of the second boss.

For squadrons, if you're gonna use Wanderer's Palace (Hard) for something, you can use it to get 100 Poetic tomes and level up your other squadron members.

But if you're going to level up your own character, I would advise against it. The other explained the alternative options already. I'll also add in Aurum Vale, until you can reach Sohm Al and The Vault.

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Originally Posted by cynical_baby

Had the same problem in Brayflox's Longstop with the last boss as a DPS. Tank doesn't move out of aoe's and even it you pull them out by command, the healer still let's everyone die, because he will not cleanse the bleed. Wiped many times before i gave up on it.

The tank/healer AI should get some adjustment for some specific bosses.

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After wiping a couple times the first time when doing this as dps, I figured out the trick. The dragon should always target you for the aoe. Leave your tank in one spot, let the npcs just sit still and focus on the fight, and every time the dragon turns towards you, run away. You should be able to get fa enough away to drop the puddle out of his hit box. If you make a mistake and a puddle is within range, you should be able to still get him down. Just leave the tank and healer in the same spots. As soon as you disengage to try and move them, the healer forgets to keep the tank up.

Yeah the tanks don't move, you have to disengage which would make them all follow you. Awkward but doable.

But all their dps is so good if you go to brayflox as a melee they don't need your dps to beat that. Just hang back and move out of puddles.

Also on a good note: I did Pharos HM the other day with them and it was an absolute joke. Good choice of dungeon for them to handle well.

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Originally Posted by ResiakTtam

After wiping a couple times the first time when doing this as dps, I figured out the trick. The dragon should always target you for the aoe. Leave your tank in one spot, let the npcs just sit still and focus on the fight, and every time the dragon turns towards you, run away. You should be able to get fa enough away to drop the puddle out of his hit box. If you make a mistake and a puddle is within range, you should be able to still get him down. Just leave the tank and healer in the same spots. As soon as you disengage to try and move them, the healer forgets to keep the tank up.

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With Squadron, it actually doesn't matter if the boss stands in the puddle or not, it does not get the regen buff.

The only reason to move with that is if you're melee and need to stand near the boss to deal damage so it helps to not be stood in a puddle of goop all the time.

It's one of the many mechanics the Squadron system just bypasses. Though, it can be annoying being the target of every "Randomly targeted" effect because THEY bypass the mechanic, but you don't xD

I would love to have XII type gambits for squadrons. Make their default setup to be what squadron does now so players who don't want to touch them get what they get now, but let people tweak their squadron behaviour as much as they want (within the system)

The entire Wanderer's palace hm is one big finger from the SE team as far as Im concerned when it comes to squadron mode. The squadron commands are complete junk compared to doing mini raids in any other MMO with ncp companions....add in the random nature of some of the mechanics and that the AI ALWAYS targets the player and ONLY the players guarantees you will give one shot with those random mechanics.

First boss can be a breeze if your lucky, or not if he decides to drop 5 spears within 5 seconds....second boss transformed me into a frog more times then I can count before even dropping the debuff zones.....3 boss drops so many buff zones that the entire area was covered with them and the bad squadron commands doesn't help. Haven't had problem with any squad duty before this despite what I consider junk squadron commands....on this one I run out of time twice. Add in the teleport doesn't put you remotely close to the boss on death forcing you run half the time you have just to get to the boss despite the "teleport".

I am not understanding why people are having a hard time with this dungeon with a squadron while playing a non-healer.

I did this run as a BLM in non-augmented Ironworks gear. My squad consisted of MRD (4 Offensive), CNJ (5 offensive), ROG (3 Offensive). Took 30 minutes for me. The final boss is what seemed to have taken the longest to due to me not bothering to move the squad. I just had them keep attacking the boss while I Fire II spam the banners (and the boss was in range of Fire II)... since they spawned in one spot. Other than that, the run was pretty smooth.

What made this smooth was the following:
1. Single pack pulls only, Squads can't AOE correctly
2. Having a guide open while running this dungeon.
3. Offensive tactics for all squads. Tactics don't influence NPC behavior, it just adjust stats. Offensive is the best tactic out of all of them. At Rank 5, it gives +60% to all damage with no downsides and it is up all of the time. Most of the time in the dungeon, I just had the squad engaged and I just sat back and did nothing. Offensive tactic is just that good.
4. Probably the most important part: I am doing all mechanics and I better pay attention or we wipe. No one else to point the finger at if I fail.

It was tough, I had 20 min remaining. New WAR changes help heal me in the clutch.

I was struggling aswell! After few attempts I managed and filmed it for those who want visual addition :) [Done as DPS!]

Video of endboss <3

• First of all the Rot, try to scatter it by disenganging and enganging to move the boss around even when you are not a tank.
• Second thing which really gets people is the Doomed. The boss will use Soul Douse before this and often a Tryanic attack that semi stuns people follows. Make sure you are NOT near the healer as they can't undo the doom if they are hit.
• Third prioritize the doom and healer above all. If you can't move the rot safely without risking the healer you shouldn't (as is seen later in the video)