Place your bets: Will The Dusk Vigil have duty support?

[Fyrebrand]

it kind of is mandatory for a scholar job quest(you need to fly for it)

If that's the case they definitely need to address this. Can't exactly tell players "You can play FFXIV solo if you want," then cut them off from progressing job quests.

Healers are optional.

/s

Oof! I felt that. Not gonna lie, there have been a couple times where I died stupidly while a boss was at half health and the tank basically beat it solo. Kinda felt like "Well why am I even here, then!?"

they could re-adjust the Aether Currents

Honestly, that's probably the best and the simplest solution to all of this. I guess ideally I'd like people to just suck it up and play a darn dungeon with other humans for once in their lives, but this would easily let FFXIV maintain the smooth "play solo through MSQ" experience.

A bit off topic but, the bigger issue facing the "planned solo journey through the MSQ" is the Crystal Tower Raids, there's no chance SE have the time or ability to make an Alliance Raid possible with 23 NPC's. So I think Dusk Vigil is the least of their concerns post ARR.

Oh yeah, that's a great point actually. I wonder if they have any plans for that? I agree, I don't see them remaking those three raids for a solo playthrough. Maybe they'll let players skip it by going through some sort of plot synopsis sequence? I dunno.

Didn't they update the Dusk Vigil recently to remove some of the mechanics. That seems to have been done with the duty support in mind, same as the Hraesvelgr update.

Not sure, that's news to me. You're not thinking of Stone Vigil from ARR, by chance? That one absolutely had a boss fight that was completely gutted.

[Iscah]

Not sure, that's news to me. You're not thinking of Stone Vigil from ARR, by chance? That one absolutely had a boss fight that was completely gutted.

The new fight isn't terrible. Other than losing the cannons, it has replaced an unintuitive mechanism (positioning the dragon and yourselves so the tornadoes don't end up blocking the cannons) with a clearer wall of approaching tornadoes you need to dodge.

Poor tank positioning in the old fight could also lead to the tank inadvertently getting the cannon operator killed by having the dragon – and thus its fire breath attack – close to and facing the cannons.

[Fyrebrand]

The new fight isn't terrible.

No, certainly not. I actually like that instead of simply deleting the cannons they blew apart the whole wall and gave us a nicer view of the outdoors.

positioning the dragon and yourselves so the tornadoes don't end up blocking the cannons

OMG, I'm gonna embarrass myself now... I never even realized we had influence over where the tornadoes went. I thought they just randomly wandered around the room! The only time I ever saw one plant itself on a cannon and just stay there was when I went in with a Squadron party. I assumed it was a bug and the encounter somehow didn't play nice with Squadrons. Well, derp. I was today years old when I found out I was so bad at this game that I needed Stone Vigil dumbed down for me.

Poor tank positioning in the old fight could also lead to the tank inadvertently getting the cannon operator killed by having the dragon – and thus its fire breath attack – close to and facing the cannons.

Okay, well that one I don't actually think is a flaw -- it's a lesson to learn about situational awareness and tank positioning. There are plenty of fights where you don't want your party up in the boss's face due to cleaves and such. If the tank accidentally gets fire breathed on the party and someone dies or there is a party wipe, that's not an issue with the encounter, or even necessarily a "bad" thing. You just pick yourselves up and try again, with the knowledge you gained.