Looking for some turn 4 Coil advice

[Darwyn_Ulondarr]

I'm trying help out my new static coil group as we're struggling on turn 4. There's a metric ton of video guides on youtube, several written ones across the net, and I'm mostly wondering (aside from adapting based on group composition) if there's a de facto or highly recommended guide. I've watched several, but I've noticed a few of the much earlier video guides have information that seems to be out of date.

Here's our group (mid 80s for iLVL is our rough average):
BLM
Two BRD
MNK
SCH
WHM
PLD
WAR

Two issues we're having I think is our 'DPS approach' and our tank getting taken out by the dreadnought in phase 3 after being fed the spiders. Is there anything specifically our healers/tank could be doing to overcome this? Any advice is appreciated on these two points.

Also, any quick tips on song use through the phases? Is it recommended for the BRDs to 'multidot' the knights in phase 2? Should all DPS reserve all/most cooldowns for phase 3? Thanks again.

[NintenPyjak64]

Have your DPS save all cooldowns for Dreadnaughts, and if DPS is really slacking, make sure your OT is using Sword oath or Unchained and have all your DPS carry Mega Potions for your respective classes. And as for Multidotting, there's no reason not to do it. As for song use, At phase 4, 1 bard pops TP song and the other pops MP. My group considers this a "break" phase before Phase 5 so we don't go all out on the DPS. Again saving all cooldowns for Dreads. having the MP song also ensures I have enough MP to practically NEVER need to use Shroud to regen MP

Since the tank keeps dying, make sure they're rotating cooldowns and have the healers pre-curing (Cure 1/Aldoquim, then Cure 2/Physick for a heavy hit). It WILL lead to overcuring but PLEASE do not read the dread's animations for damage. the Roto-swipe animation is highly out of sync with actual damage. It's also good to know that when the dread hits about 15%, it's crit rate goes up.

[Seryl199]

For the fed dreadnought, healers need to aggressively heal the tank and keep them at around 80% or higher at all times. Your tank probably eats it when the dread auto attacks and cleaves very close together, which is a pretty hefty damage spike. Keeping the tank topped with aggressive use of adloquium is effective (sch). If the black mage has virus or eye for an eye, they can be rotated with the healers for extra mitigation. Our party uses mage's ballad on phase 4, which allows healers to regain mp after the dread and keep our paladins flashing through the aoe phase. Hope some of this helps!

[Darwyn_Ulondarr]

Thanks Ninten and Seryl. Thats exactly the kind of specific advice I was hoping for, and should help us out. Any other thoughts or recommendations are certainly welcome and appreciated, too.

[Maku]

Here's our group (mid 80s for iLVL is our rough average):
BLM
Two BRD
MNK
SCH
WHM
PLD
WAR

This is just what I do but it works. You only have one magic DPS so on w2 you want to have ALL your DPS kill the MT's Solder. The BLM then moves onto the ST Solder and the others go to the MT Knight and then the ST Knight. The ST's Solder and Knight should die about the same time doing it this way. This does two things. 1) It frees up your MT from having anything on him when the w3 Dred pops. AND it frees up your ST (I am assuming the WAR) almost immediately when w3 starts, if not at before w3 begins. This will allow the WAR to get up Storm's Path up right away on the Dred and help out with Damage. You want this dred dead before the next wave so DPS should use CDs here.

For w4 my groups have one tank take one Spinerack(sp). This makes it much easier to stun and avoid Pox. Have all DPS take out the WARs one first. The WAR will have hate on all the other bugs because of Overpower just being so much better at AoE Enmity than anything the PLD has. Then move onto the PLDs and then take out as many bugs as you can. Your teams iLVL is pretty average so I would suggest single targeting them down, simply to get as many dead as possible. If you AoE them down they might all still be around and have a chance at getting eatn and that would wipe you for sure. My group AoEs them but our DPS are higher around i88ish. Try both ways though and see if you can do the AoE method.

w5= MT takes dred. Again before you only have one magic DPS I would suggest focusing EVERYONE on the Solder breaking the SS and killing it fast. Then the Melee DPS kill the Knight while your BLM switches to the Dred.

w6= MT takes second dred. MNK LBs the Spinerack and the ST takes everything else away from the MT. Your SCH should be ready to Lustrate the hell outa the MT here. The MT also must try their best to have some form of Defensive Ability active at all times while having both dreds on him. OK, the kill order for w6 the way my teams do it: Spinerack, w5 dred, Solder (everyone cause of only having one magic DPS), Melee kill the Knight and BLM starts on the bugs, after Knight is down kill what bugs you have left. My team feeds the final bug to the dred at this point. You want to avoid feeding anything to the dreds while both are up and kicking or they will kick your PLDs butt hard. Bash the hell outa the final Dred and have your WHM get Medica2 up right away when the rage timer kicks in and have them use their Divine Seal. Once the Divine Seal is down have the SCH use Fey Illumination, Rouse and Whispering dawn. This should be enough healing to finish off the fight.

For your BRDs: w1 have one of them sing Army's Peon and one Foe's Requiem. w2 sing nothing and get your MP back. w3 the Army Peon BRD from w1 should sing Foe's. w4 depends on how you do it but I would think with your party I would have the w1 FR BRD sing a Ballad cause your healers will probably need the MP. w5= sing nothing recover MP. w6= depending on how much time you have till the engrage, you will want one doing Foe's and one doing Ballad cause the healers will need that MP for the enrage.

[Remn]

for P3, right after Dreadnaughts eat spider. almost ALWAYs , he will do his ability swipe(w/e it call lol) and another atk or skill at the same time. Therefore Tank will take around 3.5-5K right off the bat. I usually pop some CD as soon as he eat spider. ( i pop rampart, convo, foresight, anything that has 120 sec or less) after that the damage become much more managable.

[Remn]

do you guy able to kill all 4 add b4 Dreadnaughts pop?

[Darwyn_Ulondarr]

Thanks all for the excellent advice. This is a great community.

Remn, we usually had 1 clockwork soldier alive (nearly dead if memory serves on our later attempts) as phase/wave 3 starts, but I think Maku's suggestions should give us a new approach to play with. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated as well.

[valho]

Your Bards should always multi dot, use TP songs for AOE phases, meaning phase 1 and 4. As for MP songs, check with your raid if they need it, mine doesn't so I change to using Foe instead and now I switch to Monk instead of going as Bard, so we only run with 1 Bard now.

For Bard and Monk they can use Internal Release and Blood for blood during 1st phase, it will be ready for use again during 3rd phase Dreadnaught, make sure your DPS are burning all CD for this phase. One of your Bard should put on Foe as well to burn the Dreadnaught faster.

If your MT have problem dealing with 1 dreadnaught he is going to have problem dealing with 2 in later phase, so make sure he is rotating his cd properly and also the healers are focus on healing the tank, the raid barely take much damage during phase 3.

Lastly, Turn 4 is when you need to start using food as it is a quite a DPS check especially if you just started on it.

[Estellios]

Our Physical DPS go MT Soldier > MT Knight > OT Soldier > OT Knight. By having everyone dogpile the Soliders, their stoneskin drops fairly quickly and they get stunned from it, significantly reducing the damage the tanks are taking. What might be happening is your healers are trying to split their attention which leads to the first tank getting overwhelmed.

Turn 4 seems to be mostly about figuring out a strategy that works best for your group and practicing it. Ours is a bit different from all the ones that I have seen people do but it works out just fine. We are consistently beating the final dreadnought before the enrage even starts. My friend made a video for it if you want to take a look: http://youtu.be/GACCew6j2e4

I've seen some strategies too where people would kill the final dreadnought before the final Knight and Soldier so it really is open-ended.

I typically play BRD in Turn 4 and my song order is:

P1: Requiem, disable it when we are down to 2-3 enemies. I used to do Paeon at this point but YMMV.
P3: Reqiuem, switch to Ballad when the dreadnought is near death
P4: Ballad until the rooks are dead, not always necessary.
P5: Reqieum, disable when Dreadnought is almost dead
P6: Ballad after rook is dead and leave it on until MP runs out. Ballad if needed for the final Dreadnought if MP allows.