[Step of Faith] Alternate Strategy

[Yggberry]

Ah sounds like my kind of strat lol, stacked vit healer would make this sooo easy.
Also yea in this game a lot of mobs have a set aggro range that will cause them to reset and go back to their initial positin if they r too far from u or if they r too far from their patrol area ( only a few special mobs do this)
Good to know, but try and post a vid as it seems pretty long im description.

No, your healer should not stack VIT. You need MND to keep pulling and to heal. Leave the tanking for the 2 tanks that is with you.

[Yggberry]

maybe it's me getting old, but I find this 10 times more difficult to explain in a Pug then the default way

I don't think the default way is easier to explain either. It is much easier to tell the 2 tanks and healer to stay at the entrance instead of all the pull mobs to the front of the dragon and stun routine.

[Yggberry]

So... you don't kill the adds and instead wait for them to disappear when the barrier goes down?

I have tried the Healer Agro before with me as MT, the other tank and other healer at cannons and snare and the DPS on boss. One DPS goes up to Dragonslayer when the time comes.

But in your version, we don't take the adds down? I can see that this way the DPS are safe from any AOEs but in my experience, the three Uniques (Marracco, Turtle and no-agro-table-thingy) is actually WHY people die so much. Therefore, I would either let them under the cannons' range as much as possible or try to get the DPS to kill it fast.

I can see how your way would work. But the pulling healer needs to be good or there's going to be a lot of dying for him.

Both 3 uniques are way out of range to even hit the DPS. Remember, the 2 tanks and 1 healer are at the entrance/beginning of the trial.

They are a LONG way away from everyone else. They shouldn't be following the rest of the party. Thus the DPS will not get hurt at all. Heck they couldn't even get hate or lose 1 hp. If they are, then they are using AOE or Party buff which they shouldn't.

Also, healer doesn't need to be "excellent" for this strategy. Any healer can do it. It is as simple as heal 2 tanks and him or herself. That is all.

[Zaft]

I don't think the default way is easier to explain either. It is much easier to tell the 2 tanks and healer to stay at the entrance instead of all the pull mobs to the front of the dragon and stun routine.

The default is really quite easy to explain. I even have a macro for it. It looks like this:
(start of macro)
READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE STEPS BEFORE
Don't stand under his feet. He will step on you. Don't stand in AOE.
TANKS: Most geared tank pick up adds (spawn by both feet and tail). Other tank on cannon.
DPS: Focus the dragon, NOT the adds. Least geared DPS on cannon. Second least has tower duty.
HEALS: Heal.
CANNONS: Shoot beneath the dragon to hit both adds and dragon. On tower 3 or later, activate snares (orange spikes) near cannons as soon as it lets you.
TOWER: Fire when the ORANGE CIRCLE is beneath the dragon's chest. On tower 3 or later, wait for snares first.
(end of macro)

I mean, that's it. Hit the boss, fire cannons, activate snares, fire dragon killer. I'd say 1 heal 1 tank on cannons would be better, but if it's a PUG, I don't want to risk it.

[pushin_tin]

I can confirm that this strat works 100%. I explained this to a DF group upon entering, set roles, and we one shot it with time to spare. Got 7 commends too ^_^.

[Frost_Trunks]

Somebody needs to video this. For cereal.

[Frost_Trunks]

Also, how does one of the cannon team members make it all the way up the tower in time? I would have one of the 3 DPS attacking the dragon go and man the dragon slayer after the first set of canons go down. That way you don't have to do the "activate > sprint > activate". Each cannon person can do his/her own snare. Maybe I am wrong, but the one time I had to run up the tower it seemed like a long ass climb. Just a suggestion. It seems plausible. If it works, it will be the new standard IMO.

Also, how does the healer/tank grab aggro from the big mobs, I thought they didn't have an aggro table?

[Yggberry]

The default is really quite easy to explain. I even have a macro for it. It looks like this:
(start of macro)
READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE STEPS BEFORE
Don't stand under his feet. He will step on you. Don't stand in AOE.
TANKS: Most geared tank pick up adds (spawn by both feet and tail). Other tank on cannon.
DPS: Focus the dragon, NOT the adds. Least geared DPS on cannon. Second least has tower duty.
HEALS: Heal.
CANNONS: Shoot beneath the dragon to hit both adds and dragon. On tower 3 or later, activate snares (orange spikes) near cannons as soon as it lets you.
TOWER: Fire when the ORANGE CIRCLE is beneath the dragon's chest. On tower 3 or later, wait for snares first.
(end of macro)

I mean, that's it. Hit the boss, fire cannons, activate snares, fire dragon killer. I'd say 1 heal 1 tank on cannons would be better, but if it's a PUG, I don't want to risk it.

While your explanation is brief and simple, it doesn't address the "What if" in the trial. And the "What if" is one of the problem that people faces and fail the trial. For example, what if turtle elite does large AoE right before snare, does the snare person go back to the cannon and stun it or wait it out? What if the pulling tank dies? Then does that wipe the entire DPS group and lower the dps done to the boss?

My strategy's goal is to take the "What if" out of the picture. Having 2 tank and a healer work on the adds, it makes it safe for the rest of the group to bring down the dragon. After doing so many Step of Faith, even after posting this, I am now convinced that if this strategy is followed correctly, then there would be 0 chance of failing Step of Faith no matter what type of equipment the player has.

[Yggberry]

Also, how does one of the cannon team members make it all the way up the tower in time? I would have one of the 3 DPS attacking the dragon go and man the dragon slayer after the first set of canons go down. That way you don't have to do the "activate > sprint > activate". Each cannon person can do his/her own snare. Maybe I am wrong, but the one time I had to run up the tower it seemed like a long ass climb. Just a suggestion. It seems plausible. If it works, it will be the new standard IMO.

Also, how does the healer/tank grab aggro from the big mobs, I thought they didn't have an aggro table?

Actually, I want to rephrase this. 1 person is enough to work on the cannon and the snares. The other person on the cannon team is basically just there to trigger the dragon killer (harpoon). I suggest that person to be the DPS. Because if their DPS is good, then I recommend them to forget about the cannon and just DPS the boss and do the dragon killer harpoon when the time comes.

Most of the time on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th wall. I have the cannon DPS run up the tower and wait there to activate the dragon killer beforehand. Once he/she is done, then they can come back down and dps the boss.

Meanwhile, I main the cannon since I'm a healer and cannon damage is better than my personal dps. 2000 per shot is better than my 800 Stone II. Of course the snare is easy to do, just activate > sprint > activate, there is plenty of time to do it.

As for the 3 elite mobs, they do switch target, however, it is not a problem. You have 2 tanks to take care of it so there shouldn't be any headache. Furthermore, by the time the group is at the 2nd wall, they are really far away from the entrance. The elite mobs travel very slowly and it takes them awhile to turn around. Furthermore, along the way, there are many NPCs on the bridge. They actually serve as a buffer that will take hate away from these large mobs. Considering none of the DPS fighting the boss has any hate on the adds, all the adds can be easily avoided. And of course, after each wall, these adds de-spawn and disappear. This actually give the kite team about 10-30 second down time until the next set of mob comes.

[Nutz]

This sounds like a very good strategy, I'm not sure how some others aren't getting it. Having completed this trial on cannons, regular DPS, DPS/ harpoon, and tank this all sounds good. The last time I completed it (the normal way) we actually intentionally used the WHM to pull to the tank since mobs tend to flock toward the primary healer immediately anyway (except the Biasts that can mostly be ignored as you said). I'd considered something like this but never got around to working it out/ wasn't sure it would really work. I can confirm that the larger adds definitely will stray as far as the beginning of the trial if they have a reason to, so it only makes sense that you could hold them there completely out of the way. I was also a bit stunned to see that the regular adds do indeed despawn if left alone long enough (apparently when the next wall breaks).

I'd think the only wild card would be the last large add (forget his name, but final boss for SV HM) who doesn't seem to have any sort of enmity table and spawns near the end. Had him take out a cannon once because he was just so dead set on attacking that person for no particular reason.