Question on Bismarck Ex regarding one-shot chitin

[LineageRazor]

My five-member static recently started in on Bismarck Ex. We've read the guides and watched the videos, and learned that a good rule-of-thumb as to whether you'll be able to meet the Suna'wa DPS check is whether you can take down Bismarck's chitin in one go. Depending on the pick-up members we get, we are generally able to do so.

What we can't understand, though, is why WOULD you? If you burn all your cooldowns cracking the chitin, you have nothing left for the DPS check that's actually going to kill you if you fail it. Wouldn't it be better to take the chitin down to, say, 10%, dismount, and finish it on the next go, giving everyone's cooldowns a chance to recover so they can use them on the Suna'wa?

Or is the one-shot rule presuming that you take the chitin down in one go without using any cooldowns at all? If that's the case, I guess we have a long way to go.. What sort of ilvl should we aim for in order to put out that kind of damage?

[Alex_W]

I thought that the one shot of the Chitin was required to meet the enrage DPS check of the fight, not necessarily just for the Suna'wa. I know that when my group did Bismarck EX, we one shot chitin and we're fine on the Suna'wa. I definitely used cool downs on chitin, but I don't recall what my other static DPS did. Sasly, I have done BisEx in quite a while and may have forgottwn most of it. Hope this helps. :/

[Metalwrath]

If your party is having to blow all their cooldowns on the Chitin at start there is something very wrong.Either your dps are under performing or your not geared well enough for the fight.Eg people with i170 weapons and i200 armor.

[Jamillion]

Pretty sure Alex is right, also, when I cleared we popped all cds on the chitin and killed the snakes without issue. The real problem is killing the adds before they destroy the island though.

[Delta041]

I always assumed you 1-shot the Chitin to limit Bismark's damage on the island.

[Velox]

Eg people with i170 weapons and i200 armor.

Bismarck drops i175 weapons so it's tuned to be doable at i170. DPS were probably underperforming.

[Dante_V]

We beat this below 180, used all cooldowns on his back and had very little issue with the elementals. Sounds like the dps are underperforming. If anything the higher current ilvls would make not having cooldowns for the very beginning fb the elementals easier. But as far as the OP goes they will come off cooldown during the elemental phase for use so you shouldn't be without them the entire phase.

[Malevicton]

you don't necessarily need to one shot it, but realistically you should. With how the stacks work if you jump off the first time you'll have to skip the second one, meaning the island will take 3 charges instead of 1 (So "Wouldn't it be better to take the chitin down to, say, 10%, dismount, and finish it on the next go" doesn't really work out that way). That's still okay assuming the dps is good in the last phase; it doesn't guarantee a hard enrage, especially since the shield will mitigate some of the damage for phase 1.

The problem is if you have to do it that way, instead of choosing to, then it's probably because your dps is not solid, so the "assuming dps is good in the last phase" bit kinda falls apart.

[Lollie]

Could also be a timing issue. Assuming you know the Suna'wa need to die relatively close to each other how that mechanic actually works is.
You get 3 cycles on the buffs to kill them, or whenever the next cycle comes up if one of them is dead the enrage goes of. If you are killing one right before a rebuff and one is still alive, that is a problem.

[LineageRazor]

Well, DPS underperforming is definitely a problem at this point, largely because our DPS are spending a lot of time dead and our tank swapping is clumsy to boot. We're fresh to the content and still learning it, so it's not as though we've hit a wall or anything. We'll get it with due practice, I have no doubt.

What I wasn't certain of is why even practiced parties would use their cooldowns on the chitin when it seems much more logical to use them on the real threat. From the answers in this thread, it seems that these are the reasons:
- If you can one-shot the chitin with cooldowns, don't worry, you have enough DPS to take down the Suna'wa even without cooldowns.
- Mount stacks make two consecutive mountings awkward.
- Bismarck gets another hit on the island, or two if you skip the second mounting to avoid stacks.

Seems like a decent explanation, and that's what I wanted to learn. Thanks, all!