Please nerf Cuca Fera in Stone Vigil (Hard)

Stone Vigil (Hard) is required to be cleared in order to complete Zodiac Relics, as well as for a few other miscellaneous reasons (unlocking roulettes, completionism, some crafting materials that may not be in supply on MB, Blue Mage spells, etc).

Doing Cuca Fera solo (Undersized Party) is pointlessly time-consuming and tedious, and for a few of the lowest-dps jobs, isn't possible even at current iLevels, or relies on excessive luck with Crits/DH, excessive gear, or rotational precision.

The cannons in this encounter are also one of the most un-fun mechanics the SE developers have ever implemented in group content, but that's probably tangential to this topic.

There are several problems with this encounter when trying to clear solo (although most of them also apply to why this encounter is loathsome even in a matchmade DF party), and fixing any of them would be a huge improvement:

• The cannons cause pathetic damage for a solo player. It's higher DPS to just attack Cuca Fera directly, basically punishing the player for attempting to do the mechanics correctly.
• Cuca Fera's inherent damage reduction is obnoxious and overtuned, blunting even level 80 player damage to almost nothing.
• The above two points combine to make this encounter a time-wasting HP sponge that isn't challenging, just boring and tedious.
• On top of all that, if the 4 pathetic and poorly-scripted Ishgardian knight NPCs are all killed by incidental damage or add AOEs (that the knights obliviously stand in), the encounter automatically kills the player at the next Hard Stomp. This is excessively punishing to lower-dps jobs, because it means that even if the player could technically solo the encounter after enough time, the NPC's deaths force a hard Enrage timer... in a level 50 dungeon's mid-boss.
• And excepting even all that, the encounter is terribly-paced and very annoying. Every few seconds Cuca Fera either becomes Invincible, or performs a massive knockback on the player, or both. This seems designed to be frustrating, and little else.

Could you just add some sort of "Anti-Turtle Echo" or something if a player enters Stone Vigil (Hard) via Undersized Party, that removes Cuca Fera's damage reduction? Or super-powers the cannons? Or something, anything to make this less tedious?

The dungeon was not made for solo players in mind.

Be glad that they even let us go in unsync, they could have decided to not make that a option.

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Originally Posted by Brightshadow

The dungeon was not made for solo players in mind.

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No dungeon was made with solo players in mind, so that's an utterly pointless response.

It wouldn't hurt anyone at all whatesoever if the shield were modified to have a more exaggerated response to level disparity. Synced groups would get the original experience, while unsynced runs would get an experience more in line with every other level 50 dungeon. There's no downside at all for the player... unless you have a monopoly on Stone Vigil Lumber?

The only question is whether the devs want to devote time to rewriting and playtesting one 3-expansion old mechanic, then making sure the changes didn't cascade into any other possible shield mechanics that borrowed its code.

Try running Castrum Meridianum undersized solo. First phase of Livia is almost impossible to solo.

Blu can doom it or tail screw it. So Just get a friend Who has blu up. Also tell them to not proc it during the invuln secs the boss has they dont work during that

Sounds like you need a friend to help.

I feel like they could just tone down the damage reduction it has so it's only impractical to kill with brute force if you're doing the dungeon sync'd.

Even nerfing the damage reduction from 99% to 90% would make killing it conventionally a lot easier/quicker for people in SB/SHB gear.

Are we really asking a 2.x midboss to be nerfed in the year 2019 currently in 5.0?

It's the only dungeon that has that issue out of the entire Zeta weapon cycle, and I've finished two Zetas so far.

It's really not that bad, either just throw up a pf or just q into it and put something on in the background and relax.

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Originally Posted by Noitems

Are we really asking a 2.x midboss to be nerfed in the year 2019 currently in 5.0?

It's the only dungeon that has that issue out of the entire Zeta weapon cycle, and I've finished two Zetas so far.

It's really not that bad, either just throw up a pf or just q into it and put something on in the background and relax.

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The dungeon is really annoying, if you try to do your relics. And of course you can queue there normally, but the dungeon itself isn´t fun either.
And if you do relic, you cant just go in as blue - you have to be the specific job. It wouldn´t hurt anyone, if that second boss was nerfed to make unsync even possible.

Can't you just.... do it normally? It's only one run, isn't it? Just queue for it. Set up a PF. In the time you spent asking for a nerf you could've just done it already.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

• And excepting even all that, the encounter is terribly-paced and very annoying. Every few seconds Cuca Fera either becomes Invincible, or performs a massive knockback on the player, or both. This seems designed to be frustrating, and little else.

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You can stun Diamondback using the cannon before it's done casting, although the timing to do so is very tight. The stun from the cannon is one of the few stuns that do not have diminishing returns.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

Doing Cuca Fera solo (Undersized Party) is pointlessly time-consuming and tedious, and for a few of the lowest-dps jobs, isn't possible even at current iLevels, or relies on excessive luck with Crits/DH, excessive gear, or rotational precision.

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It was soloable at 60 with Shire gear on high-DPS jobs. No job should have difficulty with it at 80.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

It was soloable at 60 with Shire gear on high-DPS jobs. No job should have difficulty with it at 80.

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You must be confusing Stone Vigil Hard with some other dungeon. It was not soloable to at level 60 with Shire gear, or if it was, it would and still does take longer than running it synced with a party of 4. Boss has a buff which reduces damage it receives by 90% or more. Even at 80 on a DPS job, DPS deals very little damage to it directly. You need to use cannons to kill the turtle boss which if doing it solo, takes more than 20 minutes to kill if you can do it because you still have to worry about NPC health, at least 1 NPC needs to live so you gotta cannon the adds or heal the NPC along with damaging the boss.

Yeah it's an annoying dungeon but its the only thing that requires a party to do for the relic so just use duty finder for it, even if you end up having to wait 30 minutes for Duty Finder, it will pop in probably less time. Having to do one dungeon synced for relic won't kill you.

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Originally Posted by Thamorian

You must be confusing Stone Vigil Hard with some other dungeon.
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if doing it solo,... you still have to worry about NPC health, at least 1 NPC needs to live so you gotta cannon the adds or heal the NPC along with damaging the boss.

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You might be right; I distinctly remember soloing the diresaur bosses at 60 but I must have been running this dungeon as a healer or a RDM, because if all the NPCs die, Cuca Fera's next Hard Stomp does 80k damage.

I've never really been of the opinion that old content should be updated just to make it easier to solo in future expansions. Especially in ffxiv where roulettes make it easy to get into duties that people rarely directly queue for anymore.

The only problem with this fight is the second add phase where a loose aevis guns after you and if you're not fast enough with aiming, it will be out of cannon range and you gotta fight it.

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

The only problem with this fight is the second add phase where a loose aevis guns after you and if you're not fast enough with aiming, it will be out of cannon range and you gotta fight it.

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I think the problem is that there isn't enough dps with a single player to kill the boss before the soldiers die. If you can heal, then its perfectly soloable, but if you can't you are SOL.

That said you can just queue to run it normally, I agree that it doesnxt need to be nerfed for solo play

use duty finder, this is not a singler player game.

Farming the lumber for CRP crafts is the main reason why this boss is annoying because if you queue up with randoms you're obviously going to have no guarantees you'll actually get the stuff.

I've decided to wait until BLU can just solo the entire instance to do that because their instakills do work on the boss.

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

I think the problem is that there isn't enough dps with a single player to kill the boss before the soldiers die. If you can heal, then its perfectly soloable, but if you can't you are SOL.

That said you can just queue to run it normally, I agree that it doesnxt need to be nerfed for solo play

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Doable but tedious. The fight is really slow since the boss takes next to no damage from your own attacks and cannons only deal 2k damage per a shot. This boss by itself takes more than 20 minutes and you can do the whole dungeon faster by just queuing up into DF.

Ironically, the best way to deal with Cuca Fera is to bring a Blue Mage to cast Missile on it until it's down to 1% and then murder it with cannons.

think the whole dungeon only take like 15min and turtle boss only take 4min even if you suck with stun diamond shield with normal lol.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

Ironically, the best way to deal with Cuca Fera is to bring a Blue Mage to cast Missile on it until it's down to 1% and then murder it with cannons.

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Thank you, best advice ever. I was trying to learn Diamond Back, me and a friend of mind could not for the life of us beat it before the soldiers die.

Alternatively use screw tail, you should have enough time to get it once

OMG yes, it's so dumb that you can go through curb stomping the rest of the dungeon but you fail on this boss because of the toiler paper NPCs. I remember unsyncing this when the first set of blessed tools came out and trying to solo it for the lumber. Even then I could curb stomp the rest of the dungeon and didn't take damage from his attacks. Just the stupid NPCs on that fight that ruined it all. If they could buff those up when you're unsync, then I think that's all it would need. I'm okay if the fight takes a while. Just frustrating to lose for something out of your direct control.

If you go as a healer (for the relic), then just heal the canons and NPCs while you spam the canon button (DoT's couldn't hurt either). If you're not a healer, but can bring someone with you, just have them heal and take care of adds while you focus down the boss using a canon. The instance was definitely not intended for solo play, but once I found out that you just need to heal the people there, I was finally able to clear it.

Didn't expect this thread to come back, but hey it's a reflection on myself.

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Originally Posted by Noitems

Are we really asking a 2.x midboss to be nerfed in the year 2019 currently in 5.0?

It's the only dungeon that has that issue out of the entire Zeta weapon cycle, and I've finished two Zetas so far.

It's really not that bad, either just throw up a pf or just q into it and put something on in the background and relax.

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Still hold true that this dungeon really isn't that bad, I've already completed 4 zetas and that boss itself can be handled completely fine now that our level cap is at level 80 and the il standard has risen (Did it on both a NIN at 469 and a BRD at 455). Even then healing the npcs and killing the mobs asap are a fine option if you're not at 70. Use the cannons in downtime as well and you can kill him though it will take longer the the other unsynced runs but doable solo. Otherwise just go on pf, q in, and just chill, hell this boss is even easier for BLU now since the 5.1 spells got added in. Even if you just want to rush leveling to 60 and get DB later on it's all good since BLUs can make mincemeat of any dungeon they can get into.

MCH can kill this boss without healing because it has actions that ignore damage reduction, but I think other heal-deprived dps can't do enough damage before it kills the npcs.

When all npcs die, the room-wide aoe becomes a room-wide 100% max hp insta-kill unless stunned.
There is an easy way to fix this boss for unsynced, and it has already been done before in many trials. Remove the insta-death mechanic.

The trick is to kill the loose aevis that comes after the party members.. but you gotta hope they kill the one coming after you as well because your cannon wont reach the one coming towards you.

I've done Castrum Meridianum solo. Livia's 1st phase took forever and you need to get lucky not to get interrupted while shooting with that machine thingy

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Originally Posted by Noitems

Are we really asking a 2.x midboss to be nerfed in the year 2019 currently in 5.0?

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2023 here, and i'm asking for it too.

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Originally Posted by Noitems

It's the only dungeon that has that issue out of the entire Zeta weapon cycle, and I've finished two Zetas so far.

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BLU has to do it too, and it's REALLY annoying.

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Originally Posted by Noitems

It's really not that bad,

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yes. yes it is. it's annoying more than hard. actually, its really just annoying, not hard at all.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Can't you just.... do it normally? It's only one run, isn't it? Just queue for it. Set up a PF. In the time you spent asking for a nerf you could've just done it already.

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it took me nearly an hour to do it, and THEN i came here to see if there was a better answer. i solo'd it and i'm annoyed because of the needless mechanics this has as a solo BLU.

explain that.

If youre a solo BLU, just use Missile/Tail Screw and the fight is a literal joke. It doesnt have immunity to either attack.

Its a pretty easy boss fight for me even if I am with people that don't know what they are doing I can do most of it alone but I find everything easy so i am not a ref I guess