Cinder Drift Extreme

[Anya_Synia]

So me and a few members of the FC have been doing Extremes and feeling good about ourselves since we found Innocence and Titania easy. We heard that Cinder Drift was on a comparible level to Innocence, we all watched a video and jumped in.

We were not prepared for the jump in difficulty, all of us wiped in the second mechanic except for the two tanks that joined us. Not discouraged though we all tried again and kept wiping in the end we got only as far as half health in part 1 because not enough people were ever alive for stacks. Still we had fun doing it and plan to continue another day.

My question is is Cinder Drift really meant to be as easy as Innocence? I just want to know about people's opinion I am not complaining about the difficulty we just got caught off guard. Also is there anything else we can do now to improve? We have all watched details guides a few times, is it just a matter of just doing it over and over?

[RicaRuin]

Cinder Drift isn't that hard (and P2 even easier than P1). However, Ravensflight can be a little tricky to understand, so it most likely boils down to practice there.

[Vidu]

I would say that Cinder Drift is about as difficult as Innocene was when it was current content - I know from one of your previous posts that you only started doing Ex-primals just now, so its no surprise that you found Titania and Innonce much easier than they used to be right at release. While there hasnt been any direct nerfs, overgearing those fights makes a huge difference! My static recently went back to do some Titania farms and I was a little shocked to see how many mechanics can just be skipped and/or ignored - some of the more difficult stuff just doesnt happen anymore because people are so overgeared. Its been a while longer that I did any Innocence runs, but when I was farming for that dragon in... 5.1, maybe 5.2?, the fight was already way, way easier and we saw fewer mechanics than we did in 5.0.

But for someone who remembers how difficult Innocence was at 5.0 (which is to say that it already wasnt terribly difficult), I'd say Cinder Drift is comparable. One of the more tricky things in both fights is standing in the correct position for certain mechanics, getting out of charges (while paying attention to other stuff) and seperating the adds.

I dont want to be rude with this question, but in regards to improving: Have you just watched videos and are trying to emulate whats happening in those videos or do you feel you have a real understanding of whats happening in the fight? Could you explain why the people making those videos handle certain mechanics in the way they suggest? I'd say its not (only) a matter of practise and doing those things over and over, but a matter of understanding whats happening and why you deal with it in the way you do in the first place. My best advice would always to try and understand the fight, rather than just blindly following a guide! That way you'll be able to make adjustments that fit the needs of your group and its going to be easier to recover if someone dies, because you can think on your feet how to fix this.

[Anya_Synia]

I would say that Cinder Drift is about as difficult as Innocene was when it was current content - I know from one of your previous posts that you only started doing Ex-primals just now, so its no surprise that you found Titania and Innonce much easier than they used to be right at release. While there hasnt been any direct nerfs, overgearing those fights makes a huge difference! My static recently went back to do some Titania farms and I was a little shocked to see how many mechanics can just be skipped and/or ignored - some of the more difficult stuff just doesnt happen anymore because people are so overgeared. Its been a while longer that I did any Innocence runs, but when I was farming for that dragon in... 5.1, maybe 5.2?, the fight was already way, way easier and we saw fewer mechanics than we did in 5.0.

But for someone who remembers how difficult Innocence was at 5.0 (which is to say that it already wasnt terribly difficult), I'd say Cinder Drift is comparable. One of the more tricky things in both fights is standing in the correct position for certain mechanics, getting out of charges (while paying attention to other stuff) and seperating the adds.

I dont want to be rude with this question, but in regards to improving: Have you just watched videos and are trying to emulate whats happening in those videos or do you feel you have a real understanding of whats happening in the fight? Could you explain while the people making those videos handle certain mechanics in the way they suggest? I'd say its not (only) a matter of practise and doing those things over and over, but a matter of understanding whats happening and why you deal with it in the way you do in the first place. My best advice would always to try and understand the fight, rather than just blindly following a guide! That way you'll be able to make adjustments that fit the needs of your group and its going to be easier to recover if someone dies, because you can think on your feet how to fix this.

I take the point about being over geared, it's fair enough we would find Titania and Innocence easier then, I didn't consider that.

That's not rude it's a reasonable question. The guide is used to get an understanding of the fight, I can pinpoint why I died and try and adjust for next time, it's the same for my fc, we feel we are progressing. We use the guides to recognize the names of the attacks, if I die I take a moment to think 1. What did I do wrong? 2. What can I do better next time? And that's pretty easy to identify

[Kleeya]

Ravenflight isn't actually that difficult, when you get it right the other team members can not directly kill you with it. I find helicoclaw way more scary when half the team isn't doing the same strat as the other half.

While i did learn first the one where you stand on the spiral to bait the lasers here, and then move to the safe spot, there is apparently another one where you stand directly on the safe spot, and move to the center when all begin to explode. The problem being that people doing the second one makes the safe spot not safe anymore for those doing the first strat, because their lasers will be baited here.

In my last training despite telling many times that we were doing the first one, some people were keeping doing the second, and half the team were dead/getting nasty debuffs right at the beginning. It was such a mess that we did disband without even getting to the second part of the fight XD

[ItMe]

My question is is Cinder Drift really meant to be as easy as Innocence?

Hahahah no.
Now we can clear Innocence EX with a solo healer.
The iLVL requirements alone makes you much more Oops Proof in Innocence. And if things are going belly up it's much easier to chain revive through that fight

[Anya_Synia]

Ravenflight isn't actually that difficult, when you get it right the other team members can not directly kill you with it. I find helicoclaw way more scary when half the team isn't doing the same strat as the other half.

While i did learn first the one where you stand on the spiral to bait the lasers here, and then move to the safe spot, there is apparently another one where you stand directly on the safe spot, and move to the center when all begin to explode. The problem being that people doing the second one makes the safe spot not safe anymore for those doing the first strat, because their lasers will be baited here.

In my last training despite telling many times that we were doing the first one, some people were keeping doing the second, and half the team were dead/getting nasty debuffs right at the beginning. It was such a mess that we did disband without even getting to the second part of the fight XD

Oh! That might be why then I think we were all doing different strats!

[Stepjam]

I'd say Ruby weapon is harder than Innocence, but Innocence is one of the easier EXs in the game.
Extreme is kind of a hurdle for newer players. You just gotta keep at it, and once you start being able to clear EXs when they are current, future EX fights shouldn't be too daunting.

Probably the biggest piece of advice I have is know your class. Have your class's rotation down to muscle memory. It's much harder to handle mechanics if you are also focusing on your basic rotation. After that, make sure not to tunnel vision. Uptime is important, but being alive is more important, being dead is the biggest dps loss. So make sure that handling mechanics is your biggest priority.

[Rilifane]

I'd say Ruby is a tiny step up from Innocence but mostly because you have a decent number of mechanics where it's quite easy to blow each other up. I stopped counting how many times the melee camp blew up because someone either baited the bombs poorly or someone stepped in one.

For Raven's Flight second charge sequence you always run diagonally through the middle antiparallel to the 2nd charge. So if he charges from north to south to west to east, you will stand north-east because that will dodge the first two charges and then run to south-west to dodge the last charge.
If he charges from south to north to west to east, you stand south-west and run north-east.
He cannot have the wing covering the same side he will charge to; if his wing covers the west side, he cannot charge to west because that wouldn't leave a safe spot and bosses are nice enough to give us a chance. So the "look for the diagional arrows" always works to figure out the right direction; run antiparallel and you're safe. You don't have to look at the whole charge pattern and his wing is only of interest to discern which you start on.

But all in all raiding will become easier because right now you're still at a point where you will get countless sort of new mechanics thrown at you. I was in the same spot as you are now last tier when I started raiding mid-tier. Having only ever done MSQ dungeons and trials I wasn't familiar with any typical raid boss mechanics. I've seen things like stack markers of course but nothing "exotic".
While others said "Oh it's just like that one omega boss. Okay I got it" I was completely confused. But even now, being only in my 2nd tier, I can already recognize some mechanics and play them right from without having to really practice them because I've already seen them.
E7s False Moonlight felt almost 1:1 like E3s Roiling Pulse with platform split. Addphase donut/ point-black is 1:1 Ruby chariot/ dynamo.
Things like everyone placing something on clock positions seems like a staple for many raidbosses (Hades, E2s, Ruby). Same with "double mechanics" hitting the same spot twice or doing one thing and immediately the opposite after (Innocence bowtie, Hades pizza/ nails, E2s Cycles, E3s currents, E8s mirrors etc).

I think your approach is a really good one. You start with easier trials you can out-gear, you will already see some mechanics that you will be able to recognize from then on, you get a feeling for general movement and how raid boss mechanics work while you work your way up.
Definitely much better than my "Never done this before but...uh...okay, I'll give it a try" when someone from my FC suddenly asked me to hop into savage with their static after I did the normal raids only once for the story. I got bombarded with things I had never seen before and I had a hard time keeping up with all the "It's easy, it's just like this mechanic from this raidboss last addon you've never even heard of before" people.

[Anya_Synia]

Thank you to everyone's advice and help, we cleared it last night, the satisfaction of clearing that was immense. It's amazing how high end content can bring people together, we are definitely going to do more, then hopefully move on to trying savage.