Advice for keeping DPS up during phrase three of Seph Ex?

[Astrelle_hyperion]

I've been PLD MT for several clear attempts, closest 3 under 5%. I feel solid on phase 1 & 2, but phase three while I'm no longer messing up, I feel like I miss so much dps, especially if I get the orange debuff. Yes I can shield lob, but can I do something better? Same with most of the blue circles run around knock back time. Ditto after the mini-add phase -- there doesn't seem to be time to run back to the boss and than back to the wind to avoid the arm.

Obviously trying to make sure my DoTs are up before prolonged out of melee distance times, shield lob when TP allows. How else can I be more effective here?

[Syzygian]

Are you guys actively hitting enrage? If not, screw DPS. The amount of damage you did is useless unless you failed to push a phase or wiped to a DPS check/enrage.

That being said, as soon as the boss LB goes off, you can drop tank stance and DPS until immediately after the first Earthshakers where you need it back for Da'at+Tower. After this there's a bunch of mechanics and its not worth stance-dancing really. Basically the 1st half of each cycle in the final phase, up until the first TB, is totally safe to be out of tank stance (provided you keep aggro, of course).

After this, until you're farming at least, I recommend keeping tank stance on until the bitch-slap thing (where you get knocked up into the air or he swipes you off the edge). As soon as I hit the ground I drop Grit, BW, and start hammering away until after the first set of Earthshakers go off. You being a PLD of course, you could easily just hit Hallowed about 1 second before Da'at and still have it for the tower, and then stay in SwO until the 2nd Earthshakers. You don't *really* need it anywhere else, and it'd be better to prolong an existing swap to SwO rather than turn it off and then back on later (more GCDs lost).

Each cycle iirc is a little over 3 min long, so you get two uses of FoF per cycle. Make sure they line up with your highest possible uptime on the boss.

This is more than enough DPS to be bringing in that phase as an MT, I do this and my group is consistently 8% ahead of enrage while farming. If you're keeping a similar amount of uptime and stance-dancing and doing your best possible rotation and your group is still hitting enrage I don't believe you're the problem.

Another thing I suppose you as a PLD could do, is if you get the orange debuff, take advantage of the downtime to throw out some Stoneskins or Clemencies, and communicate with your healers so they can squeeze out some extra DPS of their own.

[mosaicex]

...., especially if I get the orange debuff. Yes I can shield lob, but can I do something better? Same with most of the blue circles run around knock back time...

For the orange debuff you need to communicate with your team so that the green debuff guys start taking the tether from the right side towards left side, while you stand in the middle wait for it, after that move to the right side to avoide Da'at damage.

For the blue puddles, there's not much you can do apart from getting 1-2 gcd in while you are being pushed around by Sephi.

Overall, Sephirot EX is really lenient with DPS check. Just make sure everyone do mehchanic correctly and you will most likely downed him before second swipe.

[Awful]

There's a lot of stance dancing in Seph EX basically when you start phase 3 I generally:

1) Drop tank stance start DPSing, wait for colors
2) if I get orange call out my tower. If I get blue then i'm up front and we grab tethers from right to left to give melee DPS their space.
3) after that it'll be earth shakers re-apply DoTs get ready for MT D'aat as it hits for a lot (I usually throw Grit + Dark mind up for that)
4) for uncolored towers Grit + Shadowskin, drop grit continue dpsing

Once that's over and you get into the fist phase I generally am out of tank stance again and we all stack in the blue circle, wait for the flash move etc. This boss is all about communication and knowing when you can safely hop out of tank stance to get some DPS in. There's generally a lot of downtime to DPS knowing when to pop in and out of stance is crucial. The only dicey part is the adds we usually have our bard LB3 a pair of the adds and the wind add and the boss at the same time then I help DPS the adds and DPS the boss. Then the cycle repeats.

As a Drk OT to throw in extra dmg/mitigation i'll pop dark dance on the first phase when dps and the healers+OT have to stack to get a reprisal in (when RNG favors me).

This is from a Drk perspective but hope it helps!

[Astrelle_hyperion]

Thanks for all the tips, I'll see how well I can apply them when I'm back in there today.

[Ashkendor]

Man, everyone already gave the advice I was going to give. :3

[Brian_]

I have really only min-maxed DPS as a WAR on Sephirot, but I have also cleared it multiple times on PLD.

You don't need shield oath for tank towers or da'at. You just need CDs. In the worst case scenario you might need to clemency / stoneskin yourself. You can also drop Shield Oath during phase 1 and phase 2 depending on the general raid situation.

For p1, you can drop shield oath because there is actually a lot of damage-lulls when the boss is doing his own thing -- charging up his cleave during green / purple, diving from side to side for his stack mechanic, etc. You can easily milk SwO uptime from after the first TB until before the third TB -- maybe even more. I use rampart + sheltron to mitigate the first TB + cleave, sentinel + sheltron for the second, throw everything I have left at the third, and even our PuGs usually skip the fourth. If you don't, you'll have Rampart back up for it. Sentinel + sheltron is such strong mitigation that even in SwO, with proper healing, you will be fine.

For the add phase, if you are using the SBSSBS kill order you are not at risk of losing aggro even in SwO because they should never be focus DPSing your add first. And, if you skipped the 4th cleave, you will have Rampart and other CDs up to mitigate the damage from the big add. If you didn't, I would just stick to ShO for a while.

In p3, you can swap to SwO after the LB. You can mitigate the first da'at + tower hit with a single duration of rampart + something else. You can mitigate the second da'at + tower hit with a single duration of sentinel if you time it correctly. Note that the timing on sentinel here is very tight. For wind-add phase, if you are not comfortable with SwO snap aggro then swap to ShO when you are getting blown back. If you are comfortable then you can stay in SwO. Use HG here to mitigate the add damage + the tower hit + any yesod screw-ups.

After that, the fight just repeats. The only thing to take note of is that you won't have HG for the second wind-add phase. So, I would advise ShO + whatever you have left (which won't be much).

[JackFross]

The most important thing to note re: stance-dancing in phase 3 is that your aggro still matters. If you have a DPS in your party that will take hate if you get fancy with stances, don't get fancy. Odds are high that that DPS alone can carry the group to a kill far ahead of enrage, anyway. I know my DRK stays in grit most of the phase, because I'm right on his tail until I use Elusive Jump (which I save for Earthshakers or, at the latest, returning to the boss after the popup). PLD generates more enmity than DRK while doing optimal dps rotations in and out of tank stance at the moment, so it should be less of a problem for you, but still something important to think about and watch.

DRG can easily correct. MNK not so much. If you have a NIN, ask them to throw Shadewalker on you on cooldown in the last phase, too! Every little bit helps. Can even Smoke Bomb (or w/e it's called) said problematic DPS at the start of the phase just before the burst goes out.


And, my melee tip for the yellow and dodging circles when your group doesn't do the Melee's Best Friend strategy - watch the circles. There's only 3 patterns that I've seen (in terms of which direction is the safest spot) - just adjust yourself (run through the hitbox to keep dps up while moving) to be in the right spot so the two circles farthest apart are nearest you (if they're at the back, stay mid and cry) and then just... be sure to move back at the right time. If you practice it, you'll get the timing down so well that you'll likely be able to adjust your rotation to always be on a Goring Blade just when you have to move. It's approximately 15 gcds into the phase that you *absolutely* must move, so if you do GB>RA>RA>GB>RA you'll (ideally) dodge after RA and (hopefully) come back to a GB combo and (potentially) have ~0 downtime on the dot!

[Edewen]

Best thing I can recommend is sword oath for the time prior to tank daats. It hits the MT like a truck so shield oath is helpful.

May be worth looking into warrior taunting at start of p3 and both being in dps stance, their extra health would be helpful to stay alive and be in dps stance. This is ONLY if they don't need to go into defiance for daat/tower to live.

Another thing to consider is that your dps isn't the only thing you can help.

Not being in the dpsers way when a daat is coming at you can help raid dps.
Precasting clemency for daat. healers have to heal you less, more cooldowns get saved for adds, healers get more dps time.

As a paladin you still don't have the highest dps, the key is to remember the immeasurable raid dps increase you can bring by using the tools available to you.

[mosaicex]

...May be worth looking into warrior taunting at start of p3 and both being in dps stance, their extra health would be helpful to stay alive and be in dps stance. This is ONLY if they don't need to go into defiance for daat/tower to live....

Shouldn't PLD and WAR have same amount of HP? You said WAR isn't in Defiance. And if you said use Thrill of Battle, then what's the difference from PLD using Rampart?