If you die during Alexandrite Map, you lose your chance at Alexandrite for the day.

[KisaiTenshi]

The cockatrices you have to kill in a certain order or else you'll be stoned. Black, Yellow...then the other one, I think it goes.

I mean I can imagine having trouble being a healer or something, but you don't need to be the relic job to do them and...yeah.

The Cockatrice one I actually lucked out earlier on because like the screenshot above I had less than 5 seconds remaining, and they didn't kill my chocobo.

But today I got the Cyclops and wiped due to the adds canceling the skills, then I got the Golem which I would have been fine on, until the adds all blew up at once that I wasn't expecting, and then I got the Morlboro after that one and was like ... Curse you RNGesus.

[tjw]

Also, how on earth does the Bombast one work? I really don't understand it. Never died, but I feel like I am missing a mechanic that explains why it's just so damn easy.

When it gets big, don't attack it at all. It'll shrink down and then you can spank it out. What the bomb is meant to do is punish those who just go full DPS and don't care about the damage they take. But yes, the bomb is one of the easiest. Smack it when it's small, sheathe weapon when it gets large, repeat.

[Darius-Stormcrow]

Every time I scroll past this topic my brain autocompletes the title to "If you die during Alexandrite Map, you die for real!"

It's been driving me nuts.

That said, I'll be careful to prepare myself whenever I get around to doing my maps.

[Chihaya]

There's two problems with the Mysterious chests:
- You can inadvertedly pull the boss out of range, which resets it, but not the adds. (Any, but particularly affects the ones with adds)
- You die because you don't expect the adds (Cyclops and Golem)

The multi-spawn (4 Gargoyles, 3 Cocatrice, and 4 drakes) can not be killed one at a time. The only two that are easily soloable are the single Gelid Eye and the single Bomb. The rest, you're more likely to run out of time if you try to solo them due to the above. I blew two maps today due to getting spawns I hadn't seen before, for a total of 4 fails and 9 successes, solo.

All Alex maps are fairly easy to solo if you know what to do. people usually wipe because they are not familiar with the mechanics.
And no, the multiple spawns one, you can kill them 1 at a time.
For adds, there is absolutely not much reason to be pulling them far, for the cyclops - you can wait for them to come to you. For the golem, I have yet seen the bombs spawn at a place where the main boss will reset, it has always been in range for me.

I have solo'd all maps on PLD/SCH/BLM with no problem, used sch most of the time when it first came out, and then later on build lights for PLD and BLM.

EDIT: I see you also mentioned the Malboro - that one you can remove the bind on yourself as a healer. The bad breath itself can be stunned/silenced/slept to avoid it.
I looked up your WHM at the moment, it is more geared than my SCH (VIT spec) when I took this video for the cyclops fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD1A4EAuiu8

[Sove92]

When it gets big, don't attack it at all. It'll shrink down and then you can spank it out. What the bomb is meant to do is punish those who just go full DPS and don't care about the damage they take. But yes, the bomb is one of the easiest. Smack it when it's small, sheathe weapon when it gets large, repeat.

If you are a tank with i90+, you can just ignore this mechanic and keep spanking it. >_>

[BreathlessTao]

While I just shrugged it off whenever I died (materia reqs still drive me nuts much much more than alexs)... I do agree that the difficulty levels of the alex maps are a bit inconsistent. I remember some felt more like a lv45 map, while with some others I was like "ok how the hell is this supposed to be solo'd??"... It's strange, and it can clearly confuse people.

[Ilenya]

If you are a tank with i90+, you can just ignore this mechanic and keep spanking it. >_>

I've ignored the mechanic since I had no idea what it was. It only did at most 2k damage to my 5k hp, and with Eos out I never even had to heal myself.

I *might* be more geared that the maps were originally intended for, being an i120 SCH.

[AsahinaMyLove]

so much work for a small part of a small upgrade item...

[Gramul]

so much work for a small part of a small upgrade item...

Just chalk it up to being another time sink.

[dayspring83]

Mine could have been solo'd, I just got blindsided. I was fighting a boss-type then 4 bombs spawned a short distance away, I was setting up to Bane dots, but they never came closer to attack me at all, then after about 15 seconds, they all charged at me at once and Self-Destructed, I went from 100% to 0 in an instant

Edit: Just watched a BLM w/ animus get wrecked in the same spot, different mobs in the fight

LOL, spot on to what happened to me the other day when I did this map. I had just started to think "this boss is going down real slow, maybe I should work on ad- INSTADEATH"

This is also how I learned that if you die during map quest, you lose everything. Duly noted.