Echoes of Vana'diel FFXI Alliance Raid

[BigCheez]

Where is Ma'at? He was there for everyone to talk to. As of 2007 when I stopped playing 11, everyone needed to talk to Maat to level psst 50. He needs to make an appearance at least.

Final boss.

[CidHeiral]

San d'oria's theme is awful. That is all. Its a tool for torture, I'd say if you want to torture your enemy, blast SMile in one ear, while San d'oria blasts in the other ear.

Clearly the peasant ears of Humes are unfit to appreciate the class and sophistication of San d'Orian orchestration. /sipselvaantea

[SeriousPan]

Kirin feels undertuned. We barely finished his first "tutorial" phase before he was at 20% and the raid had like 4 people who had done it before. Overall pretty great, I really enjoyed it and the set pieces were amazing. I'm disappointed how blink and you'll miss it Ronfaure and Qufim were. Heck, it barely felt like Ronfaure to me with how it was set up with the verticality and cliffs.

[CidHeiral]

Having done the raid a few times now I'd say overall it's not as good as the first which was 10/10 but it's still a fun time. Spoiler free thoughts:

Fight 1: VERY undertuned. This guy is almost dead before he does much of anything and his mechanics are pretty boring overall. It feels like a fight from the Myths of the Realm series. The tank buster looks awesome though. Also the combination of boss and location seems kinda random. If they were going to slap any boss there they could have done something really wild like Pandamonium Warden.

Fight 2: Fast paced and a cool spectacle but most of the mechanics aren't that interesting. The refracting laser mechanic could have been cool but I've only seen it do the same pattern every time so there's nothing to solve. Jumping between ships is neat though. All that being said, this fight has laid waste to hordes of people in the groups I've been in so it's probably about right for the intended skill level.

Fight 3: Pretty fun and the voice actor sounds exactly like I always imagined this character to sound, so props to that guy. This boss also annihilates groups but that seems to mostly just be unfamiliarity with how the mechanics work. Usually he wipes everyone then the group comes back and clears it no problem.

Fight 4: The best of the lot IMO. I loved where the fight ends up and the nature of the mechanics in the second phase mixes things up enough with each wave to keep you on your toes.

Misc Notes:
- No San d'Oria theme????
- The Ronfaure area could have been a bit bigger to sell that it's Ronfaure. It would have been cool to see some new adventurer NPCs in the area too like they did with that NPC group just before Fafnir.
- The voice acting was excellent and there was so much of it!
- The gear being NPC outfits is fine but I really hope that in the next raid we get some of the badass player gear sets.

Predictions for the final raid:

- Lady Lilith/Lilith Ascendant
- Hades
- Promathia
- Something unexpected for the final battle.

[VictorSpoils]

Went in as AST for the lulz and powered through a 20-minute Kam'lanaut fight. Two LB3s and 4 Super Ethers later (LBs actually missed some people because of how big the arena is)

[Fawkes]

Gods? Altana and who?

I think they did this with a dude in the Endwalker Hildebrand quest too, where he comes to Thavnair from somewhere else but then he's praying to the sisters when he's in trouble.

[Enkidoh]

Gods? Altana and who?

Almost definetely Promathia.

Vana'diel's (or at least the Middle Lands, Vana'diel's equivelant of Eorzea; Aht Urghan had their own worship of Zarhak the two-headed snake god, and it's presumed the Japan-equivelant Eastern Empire had a similar faith to Shintoism, like Doma and Hingashi in FFXIV.) faith was almost entirelly based around the duotheism of Altana the Dawn Goddess and Promathia the Twilight God, although other minor gods did pop up from time to time, such as Ugglapieh, who seems to be Vana'diel's equivelant of Arachne, and then there's the Prime Avatars....

Unlike here in Hydaelyn though, Vana'diel's gods (or at least Altana and Promathia), were real and literal, but not entirelly exactly what the mortals of the world thought they were.

Prishe though was almost certainly referring to Altana and Promathia.

[Fawkes]

Prishe though was almost certainly referring to Altana and Promathia.

Prishe doesn't worship Promathia.

If you can find me an example of anyone in FFXI saying "Gods" in that way then I'll concede but until then I think it's a localization error.

[DynnDiablos]

Honestly, they make everything so flashy and chaotic now I don't know what is going on 99% of the time. I just play the role of pretty corpse and call it a day. And that airship fight about gave me a seizure.

[Andevom]

Clearly the peasant ears of Humes are unfit to appreciate the class and sophistication of San d'Orian orchestration. /sipselvaantea

I mean, have you heard the music that plays at Bastok? Unsophisticated percussion and not a single bagpipe.