Best Strategies for Ifrit?

[Lemon8or]

Like people have said, having a PLD on stun duty and BLM/SMN for the AOE LB make the fight a lot easier. Though I've run dual warrior with my FC before but we have VOIP to coordinate who stuns. You can also use Provoke to practice tank switching for Coil.

[Anova]

Ifrit can be a daunting challenge, although it is admittedly the easiest of the primal fights. Some key points to be wary of is the dps check with the nail, aoe dodging, and tank interrupts.

Phase 1:
First and foremost, you will want to tank ifrit on the edge of a map so he faces away from the rest of the party. This will give your party the most room to maneuver any aoe he throws at them.
Ifrit will periodically throw out an aoe centered around him that knocks back. It doesn't do much damage but may interrupt casters who are too close. If you have them tanked to the side and have given your healers enough room, it shouldn't be a problem.
Ifrit will also use a breath attack. It does a lot of damage and you should dodge it if you can, but you could just meld fire resist materia on to your armor and take the hit. This choice mostly depends how comfortable you are shifting the boss around, how many melee dps are in your party, and your healer's mp/performance.
Ifrit will use a large aoe that will target your dps and healers. This skill, called 'eruption', will significantly hurt anyone it hits and often forces your party to move. You may use a stun skill (shield stun) to interrupt the skill however, and doing so is highly recommended. On easy mode, it's not a huge loss if you don't, but harder difficulties require it. Be aware that enemies will build up resistance if a status effect is used too many times, so be certain only one person is stunning and only doing it for eruption (which has a cast time you will see). Talk to your dps about who is doing it if you aren't.

End of Phase 1 (damage burst):
Ifrit will drop a nail and it is up to your team to kill it. The tank should keep ifrit facing away from the nail and stun its eruption attack so your dps can just focus on damage. Your dps should be able to bring it down by themselves, and leave it up to your dps' decision to use a Limit Break if time is running short. I think you have around 20-30 seconds after the nail drops to down it.
If the nail is still up, ifrit will use his ultimate and deal 9999 damage to the party. Everyone dies and you restart.
If the nail is not up, ifrit will still use his ultimate, but it only deals a lot of damage. If everyone is not at full hp, some people will die. So the healer should make sure everyone is topped off before this attack. Afterwards, if you have an lb saved up, the healer can consider using it or just spamming a lot of heals. Either way, the healer will have to output a lot of healing, prioritizing the tank who might be eating a lot of damage from ifrit immediately after.

Phase 2:
Ifrit will now continue in the same way as Phase 1 but now will also use a less powerful version of his ultimate. Tanks interrupt eruption as usual, but the party should be aware that there is a new attack that cannot be interrupted.
This new special attack will launch an aoe attack that targets the center of the arena and then the sides of the arena shortly after. Dps should stay along the edge of the map and then run in to the center after it erupts. Afterwards, the dps and healer alternate between inner and outer rings of the arena while avoiding eruptions (which someone would ideally be stunning).
The tank does something similar, but stays as close to the edge and pointing ifrit away from the party as much as possible when dodging the special attack.
Ifrit repeats this pattern for the rest of the fight, so it is just a matter of learning the attack pattern.

HM ifrit adds three other tricks, but the basics of dodging and predicting his moves is not different.

[O-Deka-K]

Congrats on beating Ifrit!

I skipped the start video and thought it would be in my diary in the inn room but i guess if you skip a video you dont get it to watch later. anyway thanks a lot.

No, you're supposed to be able to watch it. It's just bugged right now. No Duty cutscenes are working in the Inn (as of the latest patch, I believe). The rest of the cutscenes work fine. There are multiple bug reports already, like this one:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...es-in-Inn-room

[cuora]

I'm a Conjurer. My party beat Ifrit in one go. My suggestions, get a good healer! Whatever else you do is up to you, but I did notice the party split up, and yes you do have to dodge occasionally.

[Niwashi]

Tank doesn't have to kill the nail, the dps should be enough for it. If the tank moves to the nail(s) Ifrit will roast them and the rest of the party.

It depends on whether your DPS are melee or ranged. In order for the tank to join in the attack on the nail, Ifrit will end up facing the nail, which you don't want if your DPS need to be there to attack it. On the other hand, if your DPS are ranged, then you can move to the nail (bringing Ifrit with you) and the rest of the team can move around behind Ifrit and still attack the nail. When I did this, it was with an archer (me) and a thaumaturge as DPS, so we had enough maneuverability for the tank to be able to join in on the nail.

[Soukyuu]

It's still risky and unneeded unless your teammates are undergeared. Sure, you can't pick your teammates on the DF, but it could be an emergency solution.

[CrisGer]

Ah that explains why i could not find the duty videos in the Inn ..thanks for sharing that, i am glad to know the reason and I am sure they will fix it when they can. It is nice to have and i skipped the cut scenes as i was the Tank and wanted to be ready to go if everyone else was in a hurry. As it turned out one of the other party members watched them so it ended up fine for all. thanks again for all the great ideas and help.

[C-croft]

It depends on whether your DPS are melee or ranged. In order for the tank to join in the attack on the nail, Ifrit will end up facing the nail, which you don't want if your DPS need to be there to attack it. On the other hand, if your DPS are ranged, then you can move to the nail (bringing Ifrit with you) and the rest of the team can move around behind Ifrit and still attack the nail. When I did this, it was with an archer (me) and a thaumaturge as DPS, so we had enough maneuverability for the tank to be able to join in on the nail.

Normal mode: It isn't really needed for tank to kill nail. It also requires more work than it is worth to attack the nail.

Hard mode: Whenever Ifrit finishes his rush, move forward as though you were dodging the outer plumes. This will get you close enough to the nail to attack it without turning Ifrit. Really only needed if DPS are down or not enough dps.

[CrisGer]

OK great for when i do it on Hard. much appreciate all the generous help here, was very nice and making it thru that gave me courage to go on, now i am about to do the thousand Maws.