Solo Duty: A Father First

[LuSnow]

Hello All

I just got rid of this solo duty. Once more a nightmare to me. I did badly struggle even in very easy mode (solar bahamut wasn't available what made it even harder).

As a summoner, that our casts are interrupted as soon as we move and that we have no valuable self-heal/protection are really 2 aggravation factors.

My question: Solo duties will certainly become harder from here. How can I ease it a bit as a summoner? Are there any tricks?

[Jeeqbit]

Phoenix is the one that unlocks a regen you can apply to yourself.

As we've discussed before, Summoner has casts but a lot of them are instant, so if you are doing a cast at that moment then it's just an unfortunate timing. Most likely if you were doing the duty a lot you'd rearrange the summons but with a solo duty, it's unlikely you'll do them again afterwards.

First, the dots indicate the order it will strike in. So 1 dot on the left means it will strike the left side first, for example.

The lines on the ground will be followed up by giant rectangle attacks, so your goal is to find the biggest gap between all the lines that you can.

The yellow blades on the floor that stick out from the right and left of the boss will have a faint orange effect near them, indicating the direction they will rotate in. Stand on the side that doesn't have this orange effect, and you will be safe.

The blue blades on the floor that stick out from the right and left of the boss will have a faint blue effect near them, indicating the direction they will rotate in. Stand on the side that doesn't have this orange effect, and you will be safe.

After that, you've got to avoid the orange circles. Is pretty much just running around.

Next, it telegraphs 3 sets of red circles. These are foreshadowing attacks that will happen in the future. Watch where the first set will hit, wait for it to hit, then move into where it hit (unless you notice it gets hit in the next 2 sets as well).

You get an arrow telegraph on you like >>>>>>> which means it will knock you in that direction, so try to aim yourself at a wall that isn't covered in fire.

After that, you will see 3 fire clones of the boss. Move (sidestep) to the side of the arena that doesn't have one.

This is immediately followed up by the dot cleaves I described earlier. The side with 1 dot will be cleaved first, so watch out for it.

After this, a "tower" appears. Most likely you've run into these multiple times, but they are a circle with a stick in the middle and you are meant to stand in it or it hurts a lot. You stand in them in order that they spawned.

If you think you will be too slow, you can make use of the general action called Sprint.

After that, it repeats a lot of these mechanics, but starts to combine a lot of them, requiring you to be super observant about which order they were telegraphed in, because it will only leave small safe spots. For example it will cleave 3 sections of the arena from one side, 1 section of the arena from the other side, do the blue spinning blade attack, then follow with towers and you have to have been watching the order the towers spawned in.

At the end, you will have to spam any button. An easy way to do this is to spam any keyboard button while also clicking repeatedly with the mouse. These separately contribute to it and make it a lot easier and less pressure (I don't know if them contributing separately is a bug but it really trivializes this).

[LuSnow]

Thanks for your answer.

Regarding the duty itself, what you describe is more or less what I did, allowing me to manage it. However maintaining my health has really been a big problem. In addition, due to all the moving required, I couldn't cast much and it took ages to damage the guy. I fear the next solo duty.

I have a new healing skill: Lux Solaris, but it is available only while solar bahamut is summoned, and for that solo duty, the skill was disabled. Maybe I will have it available at next duty. I expect it could help a lot. Potions also help for healing, but they have a long reload time.

All in all, at least for me, solo duties done with my bard (alt) are way easier than done with my summoner (main).

[Frizze]

So im not a summoner expert. I may have leveled it to 100, but i did so in the least serious way possible and never used it for any solo duties outside of class quests. If anyone wants to offer any proper class advice listen to them over me.

With that out of the way, im curious about your rotation. My understanding is that only a few of your spells should actually have cast times. As you cycle through the summons your Gem Shine and Precious Brilliance casts take on the properties of the summon currently in effect. For Garuda and Titan this means all instant casts, with only Ifrit having cast times. Astral Flow is the same, with only one summon having a cast time(Garuda this time). Bahamut and Pheonix should be instants only. Anything on Aetherflow is instant. And when you have charges for Ruin 4 thats instant too. Ruin 3 spam will have cast times, as will tri-disaster spam. My understanding is that these periods of ruin/disaster spam should be small, though this is where my lack of expertise shows. Something to think about tho?

[LuSnow]

Will certainly study what you tell me.

I tend to use only Garuda and Titan.
- For Titan, I chain/repeat Ruin III - Gem Shine (or Precious Brillance) non stop as long as I have them.
- For Garuda, I spam Gem Shine (or Precious Brillance) and only later Ruin III that has a casting time.

I don't use Ifrit due to its long casting time for Gem Shine and it's short range for Ruin III.
I got Bahamut only since yesterday and it was disabled for the duty so I still need to discover it properly.

Of course, aside of them, I also use Energie Siphon, in combo with Necrotize and Ruin IV.

Keeping my health is really my biggest problem, but that's because I'm slow at moving so I dodge yes, but soon or later I always get caught by something. Aegis isn't sufficient and Physick is a joke. Potions help a lot better.

[Frizze]

In general you want to include Ifrit in your summoning series, as the Ifrit spells tend to do more damage then their Garuda or Titan equivalents. Them having a casting time is balanced by them hitting harder. Obviously, adjusting what you do to fit the tempo of a solo fight is up to you. The only other thing you say that causes me to pause is about Bahamut. You say you only got it yesterday. I assume you mean the Solar version for being level 100. You should have had Dreadwyrm Trance(sort of bahamut) since level 58, and a summonable bahamut since level 70(which at 80 got upgraded to include pheonix). If youre only just getting bahamut for the first time at level 100 it means you missed some job quests. If so, go back and find them. The extra power from these summons might help end some fights before healing becomes an issue.

And yeah, just delete physick from your bar. It is never worth using after like level 30.

[Moomba33]

I agree with Frizze that you should make sure you are caught up on job quests and have all your summoner skills, and to try to use Ifrit in your rotation. You can use the skill Swiftcast to instantly cast one of the longer spells in your rotation (Ifrit's gemshines, Garuda's Slipstream). And even if you aren't able to use all of Ifrit's skills, just summoning him is instant and will do a lot of damage to the enemy compared to weaker skills like ruin 3.

Edit: In addition to not mentioning having (non solar) bahamut and phoenix, you also don't mention using Astral Flow. This is a skill that turns into a different attack for each summon (Deathflare for Bahamut, Slipstream for Garuda, ect). It is learned from job quests, so make sure you are caught up on those and have it set on your hot bar.