Why is it so hard to find people to clear Alexander Turn 4?

[Khalithar]

I don't know why everyone is saying this fight is a healer check. If people actually do the mechanics properly the only real annoying part is the perpetual laser.

Of course it's gonna be terrible for healers if people are being awful, just like nearly any other fight in existence.

It's because of all the unavoidable AoE in the fight, certainly there are ways to limit the amount of AoE by spreading out laser soakers, only one person soaking orbs, etc. But there is so much damage that has to be soaked and the additional damage from the debuff in P3 combined with the lasers and the orbs. I say it's a healer check for that reason, the healers have so many people taking damage that can't be avoided on top of the Perpetual Laser mechanic that they have to play really well to keep everyone up while DPS and tanks in that fight have it relatively easy.

Edit for more detail: Using myself as an OT for example. What do I do during that fight? Spend the first part soaking orbs, second part fighting adds every 15-20 seconds, and the rest just using cooldowns for perpetual and soaking damage when it's not my turn to eat Perpetual. What do dps have to do? Kill the boss, kill adds, stay spread out. Healers? Have to heal laser soakers, heal orb soakers, soak orbs, soak lasers, heal people getting damaged through adds, heal the tanks, heal people taking unavoidable aoe, heal through perpetual while keeping themselves up from the judgment debuff while keeping people alive through unavoidable aoe. You get the idea.

Alexander has certainly given me new appreciation for good healers and good dps and it's certainly not easy. I actually laugh pretty hard every time I see four dps with Hive weapons and almost full 180's failing at the dps checks!

[Zfz]

Most of the failures I see comes from tunnel vision.

The worst type is not realizing adds are up or the boss has changed its behavior or people have congregated or spread out, etc., focusing solely on the rotation and keeping watch on the hotbar only. They only realize they're dead after their key mashes don't start the GCD.


Then there's those who realizes the gimmicks are happening, but forgets everything else except the gimmick. "I must get to that orb!" And he walks directly through the healer. Then he shuffles back to the boss through the BLM, and goes stack with the MT and eats the 4 combo Perpetual Ray.

"What? Oh, shit. Dude I thought you were the monk."
"Even if I was the monk you shouldn't be standing right in front of the boss anyway."
"What? The boss has directions? His legs didn't..."

...that is, if he every makes it back to the boss because half of them will expect healers to heal them zero-time so they can just keep bumping into the next orb. Or they see the PLD charging through 3 orbs unharmed and think somehow this try will be different to the last try when the orb took away half his HP, and he merrily dashes through 2 orbs.


And then there's the breed of DPS who just loves, just loooooooves, to wander to the front of the boss and get cleaved (A2+A3) or eat the AoE attacks (A4). If I have to choose between cleaving the healer and cleaving a BRD or NIN, I will cleave DPS any day. Half of my A4N runs have a melee stack with me in phase 3. Or ranged who stay on the tank side of the boss refusing to move because they need to do that leet dps.


Today I ran A4N six times with our FC's 2 healers and when DPS are just derping around, they can't keep them all up and we wipe. But in one of the runs we had some top-calibre DPS and the SCH said, "it felt like all I did was Physick and it ended."

Most times it's a healer check in the DF, but that's because the DPS have already failed the teamwork check and take too much unnecessary damage. But such is the nature of random matches. And the content can become a healer check mostly likely because it was tuned loosely and healers came to save the day.

[Gallus]

I've only ran 2 times A4, and it has been with my static. First time, we cleared more or less with no problems, all stuff was pretty intuitive, damage was very high but healable. Second time, for some reason, people went to the fight overconfident, I believe the amount of damage taken was not normal, because there were times where I had to heal twice as much as I used to in T13 xD, we were about to wipe (half party dead), but the WHM saved the day with the LB3, and we killed it.

I don't even know what half of the fight is about lol, but there's something for sure from a healing perspective, if things aren't executed very well, the amount of damage is absolutely ridiculous, and this in a DF party with the average DF healers will 99% of the times result in a horrible wipe.

[Shiki_Lockhart]

I got my win in DF with 3 tries >_> I guess I got a good group. After I went to PF to join kill parties to learn more the mechanics and was fail (at least learned one or two things I wasn't aware so all good). Then I went to read some stuff to get more info about that and more, since I couldn't grasp much of mechanics while I was healing and just learning my side in those 30m of playtime, and put it to practice and could farm easily after.

To be honest the fight is not that hard, is just knowing what to do and move according to it.

[ValkyrieL]

Extremely easy/fastest to clear once u know mechanics . My static has hives weapons though.

[silentwindfr]

it mainly depend of the group, some will ask the dps to go take the ball, when you get a ball and at that time you get hit by the laser if it's not stun.... it's death! but well they was like.... dps must take ball!

in p2 often i see two add together even if we burn the add extremely fast, it's not easy to switch as melee between add or go near 2 add that was there a bit too long. the best i have seen it's decide which dps go where and pair them for each add, for the last add healer + offtank can generally begin to burn a bit of it before the dps come finish it.

in the last part the trouble is when you have a group with a lot of melee the laser that target one dps behind the boss and it become a trouble...

anyway, i think the damage is a bit too high for an Normal Mode. the difference between A3 and A4 is quite important. even with good player A4 is quite hard and unforgiving, and like other, i'm scared to see the savage version :x

[Yukiko]

Extremely easy/fastest to clear once u know mechanics . My static has hives weapons though.

which job setting you are using and whats the average ilvl?
Try to change there a bit and watch the outcome...

[NozomiKei]

These fights really weren't that hard as a dps... O_O' One-shotted it with Duty Finder pug groups on all floors but F2 (and that was something like a 5% wipe) in the early hours of the morning here in Alaska. Each time we had several totally new people who hadn't looked at any form of guide, same as myself, and got only a few tips about the major mechanics just before pulling.

My recommendation is to join a different FC and move to a better server.

[silentwindfr]

i just want to remember to some something, this is Alexander NM, not savage... i'm curious what do you see added for make it savage?

the damage is already extremely high as ninja:
- the ball it's between 5100-6000 damage per ball
- laser not stunned 6000+ damage
- the missile can often hit me for 7000+ damage
- the theter 4500+ per laser.

i only have 11500 hp.... indeed i can try to take food for reach 12k hp but it don't change that most of the mechanic can often two shot me... one more time it's the NM mode, not the savage! if you recquire to the player to be the best of the best for pass it, people will not be happy, for the best of the best, they will have the savage with better gear, weapon, additional bragging right reward. seriously... they need to tune done lightly the damage for make it less unforgiving!

ps: by the way, if it was asking a static for pass it.... why put it into DF?

[Felis]

Mistakes should be punishing yes, but at the same time one mistake shouldn't wipe your group. I am firmly against delicate mechanics, as in, do it perfectly or instant death.

Even CT have party wipe punishments if specific mechanics get ignored. Would you also say that CT is too hard for DF casuals? Should Alexander (normal) be easier than CT?