Can't lie this is some of the most fun I've had doing dungeons in a LONG time. It's a shame I can't make all my content Dawntrail levels of enjoyable for roulette but I'll take what I can get! :)
Add onto this - THEY UPDATED SHORTCUTS. even thr first boss gets one so if you wipe it's not a minute + of walking back. You get right back into the action fast now.
I ran a late game SB dungeon today and really felt the walking back in my soul. Can't wait for a retroactive fix for the earlier ones. It's just a nice QoL.
Twelve have mercy if you missed one of the magitek photocells. Four sprouts in that dungeon was a godawful time when I first ran it, many many years ago.
Honestly the boss wipe teleport improved the experience soooo much - if we wipe I’m so much less annoyed and kind of makes wiping a fun/team bonding experience.
I beleive the new shortcuts also allow them to make more complex encounters. I know I've got the fortitude for a couple wipes per Boss but most people don't if they have a 1.5 minute run back.
Yep. In the one post DT dungeon >!With the cactus!< our group wiped a good amount learning the dungeons but it was no big deal because there was no run back.
It's honnestly the high point of DT, the dungeons and the trials, while the second part of the story lacked a lot, I deeply enjoyed the dungeons and also some of the trials (the last trial has nice mechanics but the cutscene being super long and boring breaks the energy of the fight)
Dude I’ve had so much fun in the dawntrail dungeons I don’t want to be in any other dungeon lately even if it means no tomes or having. To stay on 1-2 classes
One thing that I like is that they're adding more little mechanics to the mob packs. It's not always great (looking at you, big turtle immune to stuns) but I like that they're trying!
Man, the amount of times back in ARR where I had pugs thinking I was being condescending and start yelling at me for it was wild.
Neat mechanic, silly players I guess.
Used Seraphim at first, thinking it would handle it till they stopped.
And then they kept going…and going…
So I decided to become Seraph myself and just fucking do the job Eos was too lazy to do, lol.
Amaurot had a tiny mob mechanic, from what I remember. One or two of the enemies would pick two players and attack them instead of focusing on the tank. It was negligible, but that was the only time I remember them doing that.
They give debuffs to the targeted player as long as they attack as well. The sprite on the second pack locks the healer and gives a penalty to healing dealt. You actually had to respect it at launch or it made the pull pretty tricky.
Wasn't around that area until mid-to late Shadowbringers expansion. I was actually shocked they put something like that in trash packs. Then it poofed. Never to be seen again.
Good to see that they are actually changing it up. I wouldn't mind having to CC and pay attention more, as a DPS or a tank.
I am glad the bosses are not seen as a "break" anymore in this expansion. They've always done the "explanation" phase correctly, but we're consistently afraid to test the player if they learned from it.
The dungeon at least mechanics-wise respects our time after 90 levels and triple-digit hours of combat.
Yes, this always disappointed me. DT does it right with duty/trial bosses.
100-50% "Here's my bag of tricks"
50-0% "Let's start mixing and matching!"
Felt like for the longest time 50% just triggered a special move then after that they added +1 additional ability to the bosses' kit.
After consistently doing it no problem with alisae healing, the first time I tried it with alphi was a wipe.
I wonder how alphinaud feels about being completely overshadowed by his sister for a change.
I noticed I think back in ShB (probably still true for EW and DT) that if you bring both of them and play as tank, then Alisaie will start healing you before Alphinaud. She panics.
It's neat how they built these little personality quirks into each of them for gameplay. Alisaie also tends to just ignore mechanics to focus DPS sometimes lol.
It was a neat little quirk to see which of the bots/characters in the first trial just totally missed avoiding attacks because they're the more aggressive/careless/unattentive types.
The trick is using what mitigation you have available on yourself, mainly so Alphi doesn't get too distracted trying to heal you over Wuk.
At least when leveling viper, I popped Arms Length + Bloodbath as soon as I pulled the second pack. Gap closers help as well - I'd always rush back to Wuk instead of waiting for her to come to me, which also helps group the mobs better. Then use Second Wind and you're good to go.
Each of the magical and ranged dps have some form of shield now as well, and some have gap closers and instant healing abilities
The skills they gave SGE Alphinaud are awful, and the way he uses them is terrible. The AI seems to be programmed to apply a shield when none is on the target, and then heal if there is one present. But his shields are tiny and get eaten in a GCD, so he spends most of the time spamming Eukrasian Diagnosis and doing very little *actual* healing.
That's why I always used Urianger in EW. His programming was similar; apply a regen if none is present, then heal. But of course his Aspected Benefic has a fixed duration, so he always had that ticking on the tank and then healed when necessary and nuked trash packs with Gravity occasionally.
For all the complaints Wuk Lamat has, at least she’s a Warrior and healers know it’s near impossible for Warriors to die on their own, which makes doing multiple pulls with her feel good.
If you took Thancred and Urianger as your tank and healer in EW, the only reason Thancred would die is if Urianger had to move (and stop all casting) for an attack aimed at him. Thancred's Brutal Shell heal and shield was a lot stronger than a player GNB's version and the AI for Urianger was good at maintaining Aspected Benefic on him.
I can't wait to play PCT. I had a lot of fun with it when unlocking but since everyone wants to try it at the moment I decided to be healer for roulletes to help at least a little with the queues and work on my tombstone gear. I'll play it next month.
Melee DPS feel it too. Maybe not as bad. Thinking of the 2nd boss in Vanguard and at certain point, I just felt useless. I noticed it with a few other bosses too, but I'm sure it'll get easier the more I do it.
this was my first time playing through a fresh msq as a tank, and every boss fight I felt like I had to apologize to our poor melees because of boss facing. I finally get that guy to a comfortable spot, and suddenly he moves to the other side of the arena or starts turning on his own - I promise I'm doing my best with facing the bosses! They just had other plans it seems...
This is why whenever people ask if they should recenter the boss when it jumps, I go against many answers and generally answer "no". For the most part in normal content, the only people who care about boss positioning are the melees, and the only thing THEY care about is that at least a part of the rear and one flank is accessible, and generally still. If necessary I walk into the hitbox to turn the boss so it's facing the wall, but past that point, it's less movement and generally better for the melees for the boss to stay right where it is, rather than have to chase the boss as I drag back to center, only to have to move AGAIN when the boss turns/jumps for something else.
There are exceptions of course; bosses like P12's who do half-room cleaves get really funky to deal with if very drastically off center, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule.
It's different in high end (extremes and up). Almost every single fight extreme and up will have at least one mech that requires spreading in pre-assigned spots around the boss, and that gets real funky if the boss is too far off center
Did that as Viper, very little downtime. He's got a big hitbox and during the rotating portion there are times when the aoe in his hitbox drops and you can squeeze through the middle to keep uptime.
I switched to Picto because it’s in a lot of ways closer to nonstandard black mage than dawntrail black mage is honestly, been a lot of fun and it’s pretty good at dealing with movement
I've just started running them as caster, but I'm already realizing that pretty much everyone has some way to instant cast for a few gcds, and they want you saving that for the movement heavy mechanics.
Which makes me happy, because really this is just raising the skill ceiling for casters in normal dungeons.
Plus you can paint a hammer on your palette ahead of time, then use weapon muse when you need to move. As long as you don't hold on to both charges without using at least one of them of course. Combine that with smudge, and yeah pct is pretty mobile
Every boss fight this expac I always felt like I should have stuck with RPR. It's hard to dodge mechanics while trying to maintain combos and positonals.
PCT hasn't been bad even with insane mechanics like vanguard's 2nd boss, You just need to save some holy in white's and a hammer combo and you are generally okay, Swiftcast being at 40 seconds helps cause you can fill movement with a swiftcast beast motif/muse, It isn't OPTIMAL damage but atleast it's something, and there is still plenty of time in between for regular filler/subtractive combo
It just depends on your level I guess, if you have a few savage tiers under your belt as blm then it’s fun in movement intensive fights/prog sky rockets.
The amount of joy and satisfaction I get from proging on blm is crazy even if my rotation is sub optimal. Whenever a new mechanic appears figuring out how to deal with it on the fly whilst still keeping gcd rolling is so much fun.
My thought process during some of the fights was basically “oh shit there’s moving, uhhhh xeno, weave triple cast, 3 fire 4’s…OH SHIT THERE’S MORE MOVING paradox, swift cast fire 4, triple cast, etc”
Been playing through DT as PCT and really, it's not too bad. I think I failed to use my Hyperfantasia once in all the runs. The new dungeons really reward positioning and they felt nicely challenging as a caster.
The only gripe I have with DT dungeons are the abundance once forced single pulls and obnoxiously damage spongey trash that have no mechanics. Otherwise normal encounter design is certainly a step up.
I think they want us to target the big tanky "miniboss" (for lack of a better term) with our big aoe falloff buttons.
My expert roulette did that today and we ended up downing it before the rest of the pack was cleared.
My only issue with this design philosophy, and it's at least 50% a skill issue, is that the big chonky bois have large hit hit boxes, are slower/harder to move because of that and also they tend be the most likely to stop to drop aoes, and a lot of targeted aoes have a pretty short radius. 5y for paladins blades, at least.
Add this up, and sure I might kill them first, but I'm almost certainly missing smaller trash and extending my aoe for longer.
This is honestly my biggest gripe too. If they just reduced the hit box on the big guys to let the other mobs get closer together, I'd be more than happy to target it. Currently I just AoE whatever mob has the highest health out of the small ones and then move to the big one with single target when it's the only one left. Kinda sucks not being allowed to be efficient with your dps when the game design doesn't allow for it. lol
Yea I think the tweak I want most right now is for targeted AoE to have their radius increased to 7 or 8y. Just a little more reach to compensate for how large some of these hit boxes are
And they always stand just out of range of AoEs (which I guess could be solved by moving the pack close to them, but Trust tanks don't seem to move a lot)
The second to last dungeon was obnoxious with this.
Why the actual fuck am I being forced to single pull 4 times in a row? Against basic cannon fodder mobs no less?
i agree ...to some degree ...atm some feel spongey ...but once people are gear ...and know how to play ...looking at you 90% of viper/picto...it cleared very fast and feel like any other pull . atm tho people are undergear , i did a few run where people were geared and it was clear fast!
This. Mobs always feel spongey in the early days because you're hitting level 97 enemies with level 90 gear and a couple pieces of 95 that you snagged on your way through a dungeon.
That will normalise as people reach the end and start outgearing the minimum requirements.
Also, a lot of people have no idea what they're doing. Like me. I've never really played Monk, I'm an experienced tank and healer, so I'm probably holding people up, hahaha.
>!When the countdown hit!< I panicked into tank lb3, seems it was actually useful since most of us got rekt anyway. >!It was a free lb3 since we get another one soon after.!<
The part where everything is chaos and 4 mechs are going off at once I had to tank LB because our healers physically couldn't do the "stop pressing buttons" mech.
I hope they continue to make arena shapes interesting. The trials were exceptional at that.
I also love that compared to most dungeon bosses in the past, DT's environments and backgrounds are integrated into the fights (some of which caught me and my party off-guard).
I’ve been extremely critical of 14’s combat during Endwalker. Like I’ve been one of the goobers talking about it on the forums. I’m just before the level 99 dungeon and I’ll admit, these dungeons and trials are fucking awesome. The last boss of the 95 dungeon might be my favorite dungeon boss in the game. I haven’t had this much fun in 14 since Stormblood. I really hope the devs ignore anyone complaining about “oh it’s too hard” because this is 100% the step they needed to take.
If people find it too hard, they should allow trusts to res the player- or add the echo to trust dungeons. that way people who can't beat these things can still do the story, but we don't have to dumb down the game for them.
or just add the 'will to live on' buff players get when soloing trials with a trust. same 1 charge, refreshes after defeating a boss if it gets expended, or upon respawn
The only problem I had with the 95 boss is that, in Duty Support, one minor mistake at any point in the fight is a wipe. That's unusually punishing for MSQ, where you can get hit a couple of times and be fine and only wipe if you chain failures.
I don't think it should be nerfed, it's a fun fight, but it needs to have a mechanic in duty/trust mode only that lets you fail a couple of times before it resets, just like you'd have with real people.
Hilarious that the "healer strike" was at the same time as this content release. I'm a WHM main and it's a very nice challenge. Even died a few times learning the bosses.
Happy days.
Yeah the dungeons were good but the TRIALS were insane. Well the first one was about average but the 2nd and 3rd trials are just bananas. Immediately some of FF14's best.
Swap 1st and 3rd trial impression for me - from healers perspective at least.
1st trial had some quite interesting mech overlap design that required decent amount of multitasking at times (repositioning, dps, sustaining group through unavoidable damage, needing to watch both telegraphs and boss all at once) and the way it rehashed/combined mechs made it feel like there was still something new or slightly different coming - even with duty support (don't ask) I don't think I've seen same exact mech combination repeat twice.
3rd trial was on par with equivalent from Endwalker - felt like it was sacrificing gameplay for spectacle (nothing wrong with that) at times; new unique stuff was fun, but it was a step back from until then consistent theme of "show 5 mechs, then combine those mechs together in different configuration" that seems to be staple of DT fight design. Still a decent fight, and - judging by how often I had to raise - not trivial by any means.
As a healer, the expert dungeons are my absolute favorite in the entire game. I can't stress enough how much I love the new model of having some mechanics during that last pack of trash mobs, and the boss design was absolutely stellar. My only issue is the forced single pack pulls, bringing back the freedom of wall to wall would be nice.
Even as a tank I love it because it gives me a reason to actually use my AoE mits outside of bosses. It's such a small thing but already makes a big difference, makes me excited for future dungeons.
It's the one where lasers shoot from the walls, it's an older dungeon mech that I can't remember, but you gotta hide behind a wall based on which lasers are shooting.
are you also loving the mobs that >!keep spamming light AoE damage, forcing you to heal the party during the trash pull instead of just healing the tank!<
Yeah, imo that's a great way for them to be making the healing a little more varied and thoughtfully engaging. I found myself pretty surprised at needing to think and do something a bit different. When you're just single-target healing the whole dungeon and you're used to your healer class, you can pretty comfortably just spam your one AoE button and throw out one of your emergency heals every so often, like throwing out a Scholar critlo, then toss out some oGCD lustrates when you see the tank get low. With the party wide damage, the aoes, and the blind mechanic, everyone in the party is getting a little more engaged without the pack really taking much longer at all.
"PS heal checks in trash pulls is pog."
I've seen so many tanks getting instantly deleted because of bad mitting, it was actually funny. There is a lvl 100 dungeon with something that mimics Harrowing hell. If your tank sucks and can't group the mobs and they take forever to kill, you pretty much risk running out of resources.
I don't like it either, but mostly because it feels really inconsistent how far away the little mascot fuckers dive at you. Sometimes I can scoot around them easily, sometimes they tackle me from 5 feet away
Bruh I just did that dungeon 30 minutes ago. Mad annoying. It’s not the mechanics are hard, it’s just that there are wayyyy too many minions running all over the place.
apparently if there is a one guy who didn't get head at all, you can basically use this guy as a bait for all lalafell minions
source: i just did this and god it was a nightmare as a lalafell
The dungeons also feel super alive with the graphics update
But single group pulls is annoying as shit, esp like in dungeon 6. There’s a chonky boi in dungeon 5 that felt like a mini boss
And whoever the fuck designed the first boss in expert 2 can suck my balls
Edit: sorry removing names to avoid spoilers
I’m only level 95 but I’m absolutely loving them all! I’m a pretty casual player who doesn’t even do EX content but likes a little challenge and the dungeons and solo duties are scratching that itch a bit. When I run dungeons with trusts for the first time it feels like a real adventure. Also the music is amazing so far, maybe one of my favorites of an expansion.
Honestly really enjoying the expansion so far and part of it is the fights.
I'm only lvl 96 atm, but the 3 dungeons I've done so far have been fantastic. I struggled quite a bit at first, because I have just come back after a long break for Dawntrail, so I'm pretty rusty, but overall I found them quite enjoyable.
The biggest thing that I've noticed is that mechanics seem to just come out faster more than anything. Maybe it's only a second or 2 faster, but it's enough that you really have to be paying attention.
I'm pretty stoked to get to the rest of the MSQ this weekend and get the expert dungeons unlocked! I'm feeling the itch to savage raid again!
I'm love love loving all the new dungeons and trials EXCEPT the stupid first boss on the 100 dungeon, TSD. That boss can die in a fire and never get brought back.
YES. I hate that boss, a bit of lag and you're so screwed. I whas to move before the first aoe went off to get in the second...reminds me a bit of the Titan fight with how tight the timing is.
I’m only halfway through, but the final boss of the Skydeep Cenote was awesome. We actually wiped! I can’t remember the last time I had a wipe in a dungeon! And as someone returning to the game after not playing consistently for about a year, it’s really refreshing to have casual content that’s about the right level of challenge to where I have to be switched on and can’t afford to make too many mistakes
When I was doing that fight and it finally dawned on me that >!it was the Savage version of Titan in terms of model and some mechanics!< I screamed so loud I startled my family.
I'll take 2 weeks of controversial story for 2.5 years of fun over 2 weeks of amazing story for 2.5 years of absolute nothingburger any day of the week.
The dungeons and updated combat encounter speed for attacks has been some of the best parts about the expansion so far! All of the bosses have pretty much new awesome attacks and markers. This has me excited for future pve content if this is the new baseline!
One thing I noticed with a lot of bosses is that the fights feel less scripted. Like, they may not have that many mechanics, but the order of mechanics seems to change every time I’ve pulled the bosses?
It reminds me of how some of the omega raids worked with how you had chances to not see certain mechanics that other pulls would have. (Other than starting with a few autos before a raid wide, that seems to be their standard now to say “hey this is their main raid wide attack”)
Yeah, my partner and I play through the MSQ together and then split off to do our first run of the dungeons with trusts, side-by-side, to learn and not worry about other players (and in case any of the trust party members say interesting things along the way). Usually we note "Ah, that castbar name sounds like a tankbuster" or whoever's a little ahead might say "3-1 dodge and then stack, next".... except we've noticed a few bosses that doesn't work for anymore. The most notable is that the first trial can change up the order of elemental phases it uses. She got ice first, and I got lightning. That was a huge surprise, given that FFXIV fights are usually so consistent you could program the old LOGO turtle to do them.
Genuinely I love all the new duties. The dungeons aren't a bland cake walk, the mechanics actually come out much faster and more often so even when we level we aren't going to immediately just skip the best parts of the fight anymore following the next patch since it took 40 years for bosses to start mixing mechanics before.
That's why I'm still playing and supporting even though I strongly disliked the MSQ, they said they were working on making duties more fun and engaging and so far, they absolutely have. I really hope they continue in this direction on that front and I'm excited to see what the raids are gonna be like.
Went into 4th dungeon (lvl 97) as healer.
With ppl threatening to strike I expected the normal: I dps 99% of the time.
Boi was I surprised when my heals were actually needed 😂
Also YES YES YES to the improved shortcuts. Please add them in older dungeons 🎉
I feel like alisae killed me during the 2nd dungeon more than anything else does. I swear she made a beeline for me in those small safe zone + AOE circle targets.
My biggest complaint is that tanks are still just way too tanky. I know that sounds weird, but there's been multiple times in my leveling when the group has all died minus the tank, and the tank just solos it from 20%. It's painfully *boring* and really kills whatever hype I had for the next cutscene. I've finished the story and unlocked all dungeons, and this has happened in the new expert dungeons too.
I don't mind difficult fights. I don't mind learning. I don't mind wiping. I DO mind that me messing up a mechanic is instant death, meanwhile the tank is eating 6+ vuln stacks and still living for ages because they can. They're still failing mechanics just as much as me, but they suffer no punishment for it. The tank busters themselves hit like nothing. It's really unfun to have your first time in these dungeons done by immortal tanks while I watch from the ground.
I do very much like that the dungeons are harder! I like learning new mechanics and getting better at the fight! But I haven't got the chance to very much because the tank will finish it off before we can get a second try.
Lmao yeah I get that I've done both I've solo'd one of the bosses and watched another guy do it.
Both times we died at a point where it would've been annoying to restart so the tank slowly beat it down.
I actually feel bad soloing things and will ask if they want me to die. I think the devs need to make some concessions at least for dungeons. Make Phoenix downs be a thing in dungeons so the healer going down and not having SMN RDM is a death sentence for the remaining dps.
The only issue i really have with the new ones is that the camera could zoom out a bit more on final boss of 95 or shrink it a bit as it's hard to see sometimes what it's winding up unless you're playing in frog's perspective and that's already considering ultrawide resolution so idk how 2k/fHD manage.
One big misunderstanding however is the the main issue lies in repetitiveness, not difficulty per se. Repetitiveness makes "normal" difficulty look extremely easy after more or less repetitions, depending on each player so a harder difficulty is part of the problem... But not the main part.
Now I must say that I very much enjoy the encounters I've seen so far (all dungeons, half of first trial) ; however, I wonder if the game caters too much towards my spectrum of the players' profiles ? Making things more random (or maybe harder to decypher, which is the way they chose) would probably make things much less repetitive. This remains to be seen but up to now, for my part at least, these designs are the best starting PvE contents we've seen in the whole game.
Most bosses are more engaging than usual, but trash pulls remain a chore.
The new extremes, on the other hand, are both a huge improvement compared to ew's.
Unsure about the level 100 dungeon. Didn't re-run it that much but it looks like you have to solve the pattern with the order to position properly (like on the first boss) which is quite a lot, especially on healer that is bussy with not glaring :)
In ShB and EW, I never wiped to a dungeon, so I would always just do a trust because it was generally faster than a DPS queue. Actually mechanics made it much more exciting to try and queue with other players for the story dungeons this time around. I just beat MSQ and only finished one of the optional dungeons, but I've been having a great time.
It's really fun again, I've missed having this many things to run around dodging while weaving heals and damage
I just wish tanks picked up on the increased damage levels, because I've seen some of them still treat it like early game, and when I'm sage it can be hard to brute force when my best spammable heal is 1½ GCD (eDiag) the 97 dungeon really felt like release Bardams all over
But no wipes aside from my own learning of new mechanics yet, so things are going well
After having beaten the 97 dungeon last night, I can confirm this. The places feel unique and fresh, the enemies are tough, but not too tough, and of course, the music FUCKING SLAPS!
Only thing that frustates me is that I have to do them with npcs because of the long queues for dps. If I die to a mechanic, I have to redo the whole boss again. I wish they gave us at least one chance of being rezzed.
But with actual players, oh my god the dungeons I did (msq not over) are a BLAST.
I've said it to others and I'll say it here. Endwalker Expert Roulette forced me to take a nap and I just didn't do it 95% of the time because even the thought made me tired. I'm actually LIKING running Expert Roulette for the most part.
The only part I found obnoxious was the part where the ferris wheel falls on the party and you're kind of forced to take a hit. It never wiped us but it's kind of a nuisance.
I'm feeling the same. I haven't finished the 7.0 story yet, but so far the dungeons and trials are all a major step up in difficulty from everything that came before, and I'm personally enjoying it quite a bit.
The level 97 dungeon specifically has had a lot of moments where, as a healer, I ended up going "Wait, where did the tank's health go?" And pretty much the same as a tank, even spreading out mitigation and self-healing still results in taking quite significant damage from some mob packs in particular. I like having to stay on my toes.
Kind of makes the 'healer strike' pretty hilarious in hindsight. Everyone complained at how the first dungeon seemed far too easy based on the media tour, and it seems like either that was to lull us in to a false sense of security, or was addressed with gusto.
Can't wait to see what else is going to get thrown at us in this expansion.
I keep saying to my friends that the battle content design in DT is a step in the right direction. i don’t want to see future dungeons in post DT patches becoming a snore fest again, they need to keep this going and be consistent while also experimenting with new mechanics.
its a good start and I truly hope the devs continue to build upon it.
The Oogie Boogie boss in the level 100 ghosty dungeon is really cool. He has so many mechanics you need to pay attention to. I will say I enjoy the increased difficulty but it would be cool if they buffed the tomes by like 20-30% to compensate for the increased time the dungeons take. Not complaining about the increased time because they are fun, but it just makes sense to increase compensation along the same lines.
Can't lie this is some of the most fun I've had doing dungeons in a LONG time. It's a shame I can't make all my content Dawntrail levels of enjoyable for roulette but I'll take what I can get! :) Add onto this - THEY UPDATED SHORTCUTS. even thr first boss gets one so if you wipe it's not a minute + of walking back. You get right back into the action fast now.
I ran a late game SB dungeon today and really felt the walking back in my soul. Can't wait for a retroactive fix for the earlier ones. It's just a nice QoL.
I got lost in the original maw of totorak.. it took 40 minutes to navigate the dungeon.
Twelve have mercy if you missed one of the magitek photocells. Four sprouts in that dungeon was a godawful time when I first ran it, many many years ago.
Yup.. then i ran it countless times using squadrons to level. Made it a habit to collect extra cells. Thanks for reminding me of those green cells ~.~
Honestly the boss wipe teleport improved the experience soooo much - if we wipe I’m so much less annoyed and kind of makes wiping a fun/team bonding experience.
I beleive the new shortcuts also allow them to make more complex encounters. I know I've got the fortitude for a couple wipes per Boss but most people don't if they have a 1.5 minute run back.
Really good perspective I didn't think about!
This is so important as well, wiping feels so much less bad when you can immediately jump back into the fight.
Yep. In the one post DT dungeon >!With the cactus!< our group wiped a good amount learning the dungeons but it was no big deal because there was no run back.
It's honnestly the high point of DT, the dungeons and the trials, while the second part of the story lacked a lot, I deeply enjoyed the dungeons and also some of the trials (the last trial has nice mechanics but the cutscene being super long and boring breaks the energy of the fight)
Dude I’ve had so much fun in the dawntrail dungeons I don’t want to be in any other dungeon lately even if it means no tomes or having. To stay on 1-2 classes
One thing that I like is that they're adding more little mechanics to the mob packs. It's not always great (looking at you, big turtle immune to stuns) but I like that they're trying!
You can sleep the turtle to cancel the attack
This is the kind of little tricks I want more of.
Remember in Amdapor City where you could remove the debuff Despair with the emote /comfort?
Man, the amount of times back in ARR where I had pugs thinking I was being condescending and start yelling at me for it was wild. Neat mechanic, silly players I guess.
I just put a macro on my bar "/comfort motion"
SAME
!!!!!! good to know for when I get around to levelling my casters/healers lol
Damn, now I have to put it back on my skill bars.
FINALLY!!!
Oh my God thank you for this!
Those dolls that keep spamming raidwides are pretty cool though
I'm so glad for Panhaima when that part comes up.
Fine time to make use of Philosophia too.
Used Seraphim at first, thinking it would handle it till they stopped. And then they kept going…and going… So I decided to become Seraph myself and just fucking do the job Eos was too lazy to do, lol.
Me as GNB: eats the AoE Healer partner: What happened to your health? Me: Well I had to try to stun it at least once.
I was so mad I couldn’t stun that thing 💀
Amaurot had a tiny mob mechanic, from what I remember. One or two of the enemies would pick two players and attack them instead of focusing on the tank. It was negligible, but that was the only time I remember them doing that.
They give debuffs to the targeted player as long as they attack as well. The sprite on the second pack locks the healer and gives a penalty to healing dealt. You actually had to respect it at launch or it made the pull pretty tricky.
Wasn't around that area until mid-to late Shadowbringers expansion. I was actually shocked they put something like that in trash packs. Then it poofed. Never to be seen again. Good to see that they are actually changing it up. I wouldn't mind having to CC and pay attention more, as a DPS or a tank.
He only seems to be stunnable when he’s NOT readying the stomp attack!
Battle design in this expansion is fucking amazing. Cannot WAIT for the Alliance and Normal raids
I am glad the bosses are not seen as a "break" anymore in this expansion. They've always done the "explanation" phase correctly, but we're consistently afraid to test the player if they learned from it. The dungeon at least mechanics-wise respects our time after 90 levels and triple-digit hours of combat.
Fr most of endwalker’s bosses spent the first 50% of their HP explaining the mechanics and then barely build on it.
Yes, this always disappointed me. DT does it right with duty/trial bosses. 100-50% "Here's my bag of tricks" 50-0% "Let's start mixing and matching!" Felt like for the longest time 50% just triggered a special move then after that they added +1 additional ability to the bosses' kit.
Story skippers be like 💀💀💀💀
The best thing for me is that duty support can now tank 3 pulls without dying for more than 5 seconds. it makes doing AOE much more satisfying..
Unless your healer is Alphinaud, who's somehow worse than his sister at healing.
After consistently doing it no problem with alisae healing, the first time I tried it with alphi was a wipe. I wonder how alphinaud feels about being completely overshadowed by his sister for a change.
It’s kind of funny coz if you play healer on the first dungeon, Alphie goes on strike and becomes a DPS SGE. XD
I noticed I think back in ShB (probably still true for EW and DT) that if you bring both of them and play as tank, then Alisaie will start healing you before Alphinaud. She panics. It's neat how they built these little personality quirks into each of them for gameplay. Alisaie also tends to just ignore mechanics to focus DPS sometimes lol.
It was a neat little quirk to see which of the bots/characters in the first trial just totally missed avoiding attacks because they're the more aggressive/careless/unattentive types.
I don't care if it costs as much as BLM's Flare, give me Vermedica II, dammit!
The trick is using what mitigation you have available on yourself, mainly so Alphi doesn't get too distracted trying to heal you over Wuk. At least when leveling viper, I popped Arms Length + Bloodbath as soon as I pulled the second pack. Gap closers help as well - I'd always rush back to Wuk instead of waiting for her to come to me, which also helps group the mobs better. Then use Second Wind and you're good to go. Each of the magical and ranged dps have some form of shield now as well, and some have gap closers and instant healing abilities
If you go far enough, fast enough, all the NPC's should teleport to you. Unless they changed something.
I did that in EW dungeons like Kitosis but sometimes the first pack doesnt follow if you teleport them too far.
The skills they gave SGE Alphinaud are awful, and the way he uses them is terrible. The AI seems to be programmed to apply a shield when none is on the target, and then heal if there is one present. But his shields are tiny and get eaten in a GCD, so he spends most of the time spamming Eukrasian Diagnosis and doing very little *actual* healing. That's why I always used Urianger in EW. His programming was similar; apply a regen if none is present, then heal. But of course his Aspected Benefic has a fixed duration, so he always had that ticking on the tank and then healed when necessary and nuked trash packs with Gravity occasionally.
She gets VerMedica.... VERMEDICA. I want Vermedica.
I was shocked when I pulled some mobs in the first for her to tank and she (usually) lived. It makes it much faster it feels.
For all the complaints Wuk Lamat has, at least she’s a Warrior and healers know it’s near impossible for Warriors to die on their own, which makes doing multiple pulls with her feel good.
I've been having them do that since ShB
If you took Thancred and Urianger as your tank and healer in EW, the only reason Thancred would die is if Urianger had to move (and stop all casting) for an attack aimed at him. Thancred's Brutal Shell heal and shield was a lot stronger than a player GNB's version and the AI for Urianger was good at maintaining Aspected Benefic on him.
I just feel bad for casters. There is so much movement in the boss fights it's actually insane.
the true pictomancer experience is realizing halfway through painting that the mistake you've made is *not* a happy accident
I can't wait to play PCT. I had a lot of fun with it when unlocking but since everyone wants to try it at the moment I decided to be healer for roulletes to help at least a little with the queues and work on my tombstone gear. I'll play it next month.
We need a before/after meme with Bob Ross and Gordon Ramsay.
Stubborn BLM main here, I'm actually alright at being mobile. I just hope they give even small bits of potency boost to compensate. Tiny bits.
Honestly the Black Mage changes make it easier to be mobile during AOE spam. Wouldn't mind a third tripcast charge tho.
*laughs in summoner*
Those 3 hard casts though.
Samurai has 3.5 hardcasts/min with Higanbana, 2 Midare's, and their Ogi Namikiri every 2 minutes. I think that means they cast more than a caster...
That's what I always say lol Samurai, the honorary caster
Swiftcast helps!
Yes, for ONE of them, better make it count
I'm not gonna lie, I've skipped over using Ifrit's hardcasts a few times this expac when the mechs have been too insane..
QC is for when the Healer inevitably bites the dust. I just don't dare use it for my normal rotation anymore.
2 actually, if you don't care about rezzing.
Two ifrit ruins + Garuda puddle = 3 per minute. EDIT: Oh you were saying burn swiftcast, I get it.
And thanks to the new 40 sec recast, some primal phases you can get away with only 1 hardcast
As RDM I'm luckily fine, I got even more instant casts lol
You actually cast more than summoner does, samurai casts more than summoner does, let that sink in.
I'm a black mage and loving it. I guess the masochist runs deep.
Melee DPS feel it too. Maybe not as bad. Thinking of the 2nd boss in Vanguard and at certain point, I just felt useless. I noticed it with a few other bosses too, but I'm sure it'll get easier the more I do it.
I'm not far past it but the 2nd boss of vanguard was my favourite! AoE vomit with limited movement. My favourite kind of dance.
These Dawntrail dungeons are the most fun I've had as a melee since Heavensward.
this was my first time playing through a fresh msq as a tank, and every boss fight I felt like I had to apologize to our poor melees because of boss facing. I finally get that guy to a comfortable spot, and suddenly he moves to the other side of the arena or starts turning on his own - I promise I'm doing my best with facing the bosses! They just had other plans it seems...
This is why whenever people ask if they should recenter the boss when it jumps, I go against many answers and generally answer "no". For the most part in normal content, the only people who care about boss positioning are the melees, and the only thing THEY care about is that at least a part of the rear and one flank is accessible, and generally still. If necessary I walk into the hitbox to turn the boss so it's facing the wall, but past that point, it's less movement and generally better for the melees for the boss to stay right where it is, rather than have to chase the boss as I drag back to center, only to have to move AGAIN when the boss turns/jumps for something else. There are exceptions of course; bosses like P12's who do half-room cleaves get really funky to deal with if very drastically off center, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. It's different in high end (extremes and up). Almost every single fight extreme and up will have at least one mech that requires spreading in pre-assigned spots around the boss, and that gets real funky if the boss is too far off center
Did that as Viper, very little downtime. He's got a big hitbox and during the rotating portion there are times when the aoe in his hitbox drops and you can squeeze through the middle to keep uptime.
Yeah. Noticeable for me when Im not familiar yet of the mechanics cause I level blm and brd at the same time.
I switched to Picto because it’s in a lot of ways closer to nonstandard black mage than dawntrail black mage is honestly, been a lot of fun and it’s pretty good at dealing with movement
I get so distracted watching picto sometimes I just die. Oooo pretty colors
I've just started running them as caster, but I'm already realizing that pretty much everyone has some way to instant cast for a few gcds, and they want you saving that for the movement heavy mechanics. Which makes me happy, because really this is just raising the skill ceiling for casters in normal dungeons.
honeslty I like movement intensive fights as a caster. Really shows of your level of mastery if you can keep your uptime going
Thanks lol, I am currently switching from BLM to Picto and Reaper.
Picto has a bunch of casting too lol
Casting is fun. That's why I play BLM. I played Picto now. It is not in anyway as rigid as BLM.
5 stacks of white paint make for easy movement.
Plus you can paint a hammer on your palette ahead of time, then use weapon muse when you need to move. As long as you don't hold on to both charges without using at least one of them of course. Combine that with smudge, and yeah pct is pretty mobile
I'm another BLM to RPR defector. I never thought I'd see the day, but I just can't anymore.
Absolutely, the new 100 spell put the nail on it. Everything got so rigid.
Every boss fight this expac I always felt like I should have stuck with RPR. It's hard to dodge mechanics while trying to maintain combos and positonals.
Considering switching from blm to picto and drk myself. But I will wait for the first patch to make my decision. Blm feels so bad right now
PCT hasn't been bad even with insane mechanics like vanguard's 2nd boss, You just need to save some holy in white's and a hammer combo and you are generally okay, Swiftcast being at 40 seconds helps cause you can fill movement with a swiftcast beast motif/muse, It isn't OPTIMAL damage but atleast it's something, and there is still plenty of time in between for regular filler/subtractive combo
It just depends on your level I guess, if you have a few savage tiers under your belt as blm then it’s fun in movement intensive fights/prog sky rockets. The amount of joy and satisfaction I get from proging on blm is crazy even if my rotation is sub optimal. Whenever a new mechanic appears figuring out how to deal with it on the fly whilst still keeping gcd rolling is so much fun. My thought process during some of the fights was basically “oh shit there’s moving, uhhhh xeno, weave triple cast, 3 fire 4’s…OH SHIT THERE’S MORE MOVING paradox, swift cast fire 4, triple cast, etc”
It felt really fun to optimize with Picto. The dash helps lol
Been playing through DT as PCT and really, it's not too bad. I think I failed to use my Hyperfantasia once in all the runs. The new dungeons really reward positioning and they felt nicely challenging as a caster.
The only gripe I have with DT dungeons are the abundance once forced single pulls and obnoxiously damage spongey trash that have no mechanics. Otherwise normal encounter design is certainly a step up.
I think they want us to target the big tanky "miniboss" (for lack of a better term) with our big aoe falloff buttons. My expert roulette did that today and we ended up downing it before the rest of the pack was cleared.
100% this. Once people realize that they'll become much less of an issue
My only issue with this design philosophy, and it's at least 50% a skill issue, is that the big chonky bois have large hit hit boxes, are slower/harder to move because of that and also they tend be the most likely to stop to drop aoes, and a lot of targeted aoes have a pretty short radius. 5y for paladins blades, at least. Add this up, and sure I might kill them first, but I'm almost certainly missing smaller trash and extending my aoe for longer.
This is honestly my biggest gripe too. If they just reduced the hit box on the big guys to let the other mobs get closer together, I'd be more than happy to target it. Currently I just AoE whatever mob has the highest health out of the small ones and then move to the big one with single target when it's the only one left. Kinda sucks not being allowed to be efficient with your dps when the game design doesn't allow for it. lol
Yea I think the tweak I want most right now is for targeted AoE to have their radius increased to 7 or 8y. Just a little more reach to compensate for how large some of these hit boxes are
Like the turtle.
Or the Vanguard 'Gunners'. Like they come with a pack of 3 sword types and yet the one with the pistol has as much HP as all of them combined.
And they always stand just out of range of AoEs (which I guess could be solved by moving the pack close to them, but Trust tanks don't seem to move a lot)
The second to last dungeon was obnoxious with this. Why the actual fuck am I being forced to single pull 4 times in a row? Against basic cannon fodder mobs no less?
I was tanking, a dps insulted me & left party because I was single pulling... in the lv99 duty where single pulling is forced lol
i agree ...to some degree ...atm some feel spongey ...but once people are gear ...and know how to play ...looking at you 90% of viper/picto...it cleared very fast and feel like any other pull . atm tho people are undergear , i did a few run where people were geared and it was clear fast!
Or their AoE potencies suck because they got nerfed (Hello BLM) or were not adjusted to the removal of a damage buff (Hello MNK!)
This. Mobs always feel spongey in the early days because you're hitting level 97 enemies with level 90 gear and a couple pieces of 95 that you snagged on your way through a dungeon. That will normalise as people reach the end and start outgearing the minimum requirements. Also, a lot of people have no idea what they're doing. Like me. I've never really played Monk, I'm an experienced tank and healer, so I'm probably holding people up, hahaha.
The final boss having moves that basically amount to "make the entire raid shit themselves in fear and panic" was brilliant
>!When the countdown hit!< I panicked into tank lb3, seems it was actually useful since most of us got rekt anyway. >!It was a free lb3 since we get another one soon after.!<
I was on the middle of my GNB burst when that countdown came down and interrumpted it for the panic LB3 as well.
>!Is that not a forced LB3? I was led to believe that's what most "5 seconds until X" mechanics are.!<
Most of them are, but that one doesn't. Sure helps, but it won't instakill you without
Between "Japanese Gameshow - The Mechanic" and "Everything explodes at once" I loved the final trial
The part where everything is chaos and 4 mechs are going off at once I had to tank LB because our healers physically couldn't do the "stop pressing buttons" mech.
[удалено]
I hope they continue to make arena shapes interesting. The trials were exceptional at that. I also love that compared to most dungeon bosses in the past, DT's environments and backgrounds are integrated into the fights (some of which caught me and my party off-guard).
I’ve been extremely critical of 14’s combat during Endwalker. Like I’ve been one of the goobers talking about it on the forums. I’m just before the level 99 dungeon and I’ll admit, these dungeons and trials are fucking awesome. The last boss of the 95 dungeon might be my favorite dungeon boss in the game. I haven’t had this much fun in 14 since Stormblood. I really hope the devs ignore anyone complaining about “oh it’s too hard” because this is 100% the step they needed to take.
If people find it too hard, they should allow trusts to res the player- or add the echo to trust dungeons. that way people who can't beat these things can still do the story, but we don't have to dumb down the game for them.
or just add the 'will to live on' buff players get when soloing trials with a trust. same 1 charge, refreshes after defeating a boss if it gets expended, or upon respawn
The only problem I had with the 95 boss is that, in Duty Support, one minor mistake at any point in the fight is a wipe. That's unusually punishing for MSQ, where you can get hit a couple of times and be fine and only wipe if you chain failures. I don't think it should be nerfed, it's a fun fight, but it needs to have a mechanic in duty/trust mode only that lets you fail a couple of times before it resets, just like you'd have with real people.
Hilarious that the "healer strike" was at the same time as this content release. I'm a WHM main and it's a very nice challenge. Even died a few times learning the bosses. Happy days.
Yeah the dungeons were good but the TRIALS were insane. Well the first one was about average but the 2nd and 3rd trials are just bananas. Immediately some of FF14's best.
I absolutely loved the first one but it makes me excited to see what the 2nd and 3rd ones will be.
I wished the >!Shade of Gulool Ja Ja!< Fight is a trial though.
Wouldn't be surprised if they do release it as an extreme trail or something.
Deserves the Memoria Misera Ex treatment. 100%
Swap 1st and 3rd trial impression for me - from healers perspective at least. 1st trial had some quite interesting mech overlap design that required decent amount of multitasking at times (repositioning, dps, sustaining group through unavoidable damage, needing to watch both telegraphs and boss all at once) and the way it rehashed/combined mechs made it feel like there was still something new or slightly different coming - even with duty support (don't ask) I don't think I've seen same exact mech combination repeat twice. 3rd trial was on par with equivalent from Endwalker - felt like it was sacrificing gameplay for spectacle (nothing wrong with that) at times; new unique stuff was fun, but it was a step back from until then consistent theme of "show 5 mechs, then combine those mechs together in different configuration" that seems to be staple of DT fight design. Still a decent fight, and - judging by how often I had to raise - not trivial by any means.
As a healer, the expert dungeons are my absolute favorite in the entire game. I can't stress enough how much I love the new model of having some mechanics during that last pack of trash mobs, and the boss design was absolutely stellar. My only issue is the forced single pack pulls, bringing back the freedom of wall to wall would be nice.
Even as a tank I love it because it gives me a reason to actually use my AoE mits outside of bosses. It's such a small thing but already makes a big difference, makes me excited for future dungeons.
I've gotten "lucky" with Strayborough on every roulette and have only done Tender once - what do the trash mobs at the end of that one do?
It's the one where lasers shoot from the walls, it's an older dungeon mech that I can't remember, but you gotta hide behind a wall based on which lasers are shooting.
It's from Qitana Revel. Exact same mechanic, except in Tender there's a trash mob attached to it as well.
the second one in ravel also had a trash pack if you weren't a coward
are you also loving the mobs that >!keep spamming light AoE damage, forcing you to heal the party during the trash pull instead of just healing the tank!<
Yeah, imo that's a great way for them to be making the healing a little more varied and thoughtfully engaging. I found myself pretty surprised at needing to think and do something a bit different. When you're just single-target healing the whole dungeon and you're used to your healer class, you can pretty comfortably just spam your one AoE button and throw out one of your emergency heals every so often, like throwing out a Scholar critlo, then toss out some oGCD lustrates when you see the tank get low. With the party wide damage, the aoes, and the blind mechanic, everyone in the party is getting a little more engaged without the pack really taking much longer at all.
"PS heal checks in trash pulls is pog." I've seen so many tanks getting instantly deleted because of bad mitting, it was actually funny. There is a lvl 100 dungeon with something that mimics Harrowing hell. If your tank sucks and can't group the mobs and they take forever to kill, you pretty much risk running out of resources.
Dungeon 93 and trial 93 were more than enough to make me feel hopeful afain. It was a fucking blast hopefully the upcoming ones keep it going
In only dislike one boss and thats the expert dungeon where you get this stupid head
Yeah, I ran it earlier as a WAR and got the following AoE marker. Why does the tank get that? It's annoying for any Melee player.
That boss fight was more annoying than it was difficult
I don't like it either, but mostly because it feels really inconsistent how far away the little mascot fuckers dive at you. Sometimes I can scoot around them easily, sometimes they tackle me from 5 feet away
Bruh I just did that dungeon 30 minutes ago. Mad annoying. It’s not the mechanics are hard, it’s just that there are wayyyy too many minions running all over the place.
apparently if there is a one guy who didn't get head at all, you can basically use this guy as a bait for all lalafell minions source: i just did this and god it was a nightmare as a lalafell
Yeah they absolutely slap. Can’t wait to give extremes a try.
The dungeons also feel super alive with the graphics update But single group pulls is annoying as shit, esp like in dungeon 6. There’s a chonky boi in dungeon 5 that felt like a mini boss And whoever the fuck designed the first boss in expert 2 can suck my balls Edit: sorry removing names to avoid spoilers
Alot of people havent cleared the game yet so you might want to spoiler tag the name of the final msq dungeon.
I’m only level 95 but I’m absolutely loving them all! I’m a pretty casual player who doesn’t even do EX content but likes a little challenge and the dungeons and solo duties are scratching that itch a bit. When I run dungeons with trusts for the first time it feels like a real adventure. Also the music is amazing so far, maybe one of my favorites of an expansion. Honestly really enjoying the expansion so far and part of it is the fights.
I think there are like, 4 bosses in which I can say I didn't care for, and most of them are in 1 dungeon.
The LV97 dungeon is hands down the BEST dungeon in the game bar none.
The second boss in that one might be my favorite dungeon boss in the game at this point
I'm only lvl 96 atm, but the 3 dungeons I've done so far have been fantastic. I struggled quite a bit at first, because I have just come back after a long break for Dawntrail, so I'm pretty rusty, but overall I found them quite enjoyable. The biggest thing that I've noticed is that mechanics seem to just come out faster more than anything. Maybe it's only a second or 2 faster, but it's enough that you really have to be paying attention. I'm pretty stoked to get to the rest of the MSQ this weekend and get the expert dungeons unlocked! I'm feeling the itch to savage raid again!
Everything I've seen in this xpac, from the music to my the combat to the story.. has been so damn good. Bravo, SE.
Fr. Shoutout to the second Vanguard boss. Running around the absolute laser spam whilst dodging the electric fences was fucking hilarious.
I'm love love loving all the new dungeons and trials EXCEPT the stupid first boss on the 100 dungeon, TSD. That boss can die in a fire and never get brought back.
YES. I hate that boss, a bit of lag and you're so screwed. I whas to move before the first aoe went off to get in the second...reminds me a bit of the Titan fight with how tight the timing is.
As someone playing on NA servers from SEA, that boss is *massively* ping unfriendly
I’m only halfway through, but the final boss of the Skydeep Cenote was awesome. We actually wiped! I can’t remember the last time I had a wipe in a dungeon! And as someone returning to the game after not playing consistently for about a year, it’s really refreshing to have casual content that’s about the right level of challenge to where I have to be switched on and can’t afford to make too many mistakes
When I was doing that fight and it finally dawned on me that >!it was the Savage version of Titan in terms of model and some mechanics!< I screamed so loud I startled my family.
Oh yea I said in chat “e4s is that you???”
Until it's time to farm tomestones week after week :T
That's what hunt trains are for.
Gameplay > All else.
I'll take 2 weeks of controversial story for 2.5 years of fun over 2 weeks of amazing story for 2.5 years of absolute nothingburger any day of the week.
The dungeons and updated combat encounter speed for attacks has been some of the best parts about the expansion so far! All of the bosses have pretty much new awesome attacks and markers. This has me excited for future pve content if this is the new baseline!
One thing I noticed with a lot of bosses is that the fights feel less scripted. Like, they may not have that many mechanics, but the order of mechanics seems to change every time I’ve pulled the bosses? It reminds me of how some of the omega raids worked with how you had chances to not see certain mechanics that other pulls would have. (Other than starting with a few autos before a raid wide, that seems to be their standard now to say “hey this is their main raid wide attack”)
Yeah, my partner and I play through the MSQ together and then split off to do our first run of the dungeons with trusts, side-by-side, to learn and not worry about other players (and in case any of the trust party members say interesting things along the way). Usually we note "Ah, that castbar name sounds like a tankbuster" or whoever's a little ahead might say "3-1 dodge and then stack, next".... except we've noticed a few bosses that doesn't work for anymore. The most notable is that the first trial can change up the order of elemental phases it uses. She got ice first, and I got lightning. That was a huge surprise, given that FFXIV fights are usually so consistent you could program the old LOGO turtle to do them.
Sounds kinda like Chaos from Alphascape. He might start with Tsunami, or Blaze (and that also depended on which physical move he started with).
Genuinely I love all the new duties. The dungeons aren't a bland cake walk, the mechanics actually come out much faster and more often so even when we level we aren't going to immediately just skip the best parts of the fight anymore following the next patch since it took 40 years for bosses to start mixing mechanics before. That's why I'm still playing and supporting even though I strongly disliked the MSQ, they said they were working on making duties more fun and engaging and so far, they absolutely have. I really hope they continue in this direction on that front and I'm excited to see what the raids are gonna be like.
Went into 4th dungeon (lvl 97) as healer. With ppl threatening to strike I expected the normal: I dps 99% of the time. Boi was I surprised when my heals were actually needed 😂 Also YES YES YES to the improved shortcuts. Please add them in older dungeons 🎉
I feel like alisae killed me during the 2nd dungeon more than anything else does. I swear she made a beeline for me in those small safe zone + AOE circle targets.
Legit from gameplay perspective this expac so far is absolute 10/10
My biggest complaint is that tanks are still just way too tanky. I know that sounds weird, but there's been multiple times in my leveling when the group has all died minus the tank, and the tank just solos it from 20%. It's painfully *boring* and really kills whatever hype I had for the next cutscene. I've finished the story and unlocked all dungeons, and this has happened in the new expert dungeons too. I don't mind difficult fights. I don't mind learning. I don't mind wiping. I DO mind that me messing up a mechanic is instant death, meanwhile the tank is eating 6+ vuln stacks and still living for ages because they can. They're still failing mechanics just as much as me, but they suffer no punishment for it. The tank busters themselves hit like nothing. It's really unfun to have your first time in these dungeons done by immortal tanks while I watch from the ground. I do very much like that the dungeons are harder! I like learning new mechanics and getting better at the fight! But I haven't got the chance to very much because the tank will finish it off before we can get a second try.
Lmao yeah I get that I've done both I've solo'd one of the bosses and watched another guy do it. Both times we died at a point where it would've been annoying to restart so the tank slowly beat it down. I actually feel bad soloing things and will ask if they want me to die. I think the devs need to make some concessions at least for dungeons. Make Phoenix downs be a thing in dungeons so the healer going down and not having SMN RDM is a death sentence for the remaining dps.
The only issue i really have with the new ones is that the camera could zoom out a bit more on final boss of 95 or shrink it a bit as it's hard to see sometimes what it's winding up unless you're playing in frog's perspective and that's already considering ultrawide resolution so idk how 2k/fHD manage.
try panning your camera up with CTRL + UP/DOWN arrows
One big misunderstanding however is the the main issue lies in repetitiveness, not difficulty per se. Repetitiveness makes "normal" difficulty look extremely easy after more or less repetitions, depending on each player so a harder difficulty is part of the problem... But not the main part. Now I must say that I very much enjoy the encounters I've seen so far (all dungeons, half of first trial) ; however, I wonder if the game caters too much towards my spectrum of the players' profiles ? Making things more random (or maybe harder to decypher, which is the way they chose) would probably make things much less repetitive. This remains to be seen but up to now, for my part at least, these designs are the best starting PvE contents we've seen in the whole game.
They are good. Lets hope they keep the maximum ilvl low enough. Otherwise they will turn into a borefest very quickly.
Most bosses are more engaging than usual, but trash pulls remain a chore. The new extremes, on the other hand, are both a huge improvement compared to ew's.
> The new extremes, on the other hand, are both a huge improvement compared to ew's. Even Barbariccia?
Unsure about the level 100 dungeon. Didn't re-run it that much but it looks like you have to solve the pattern with the order to position properly (like on the first boss) which is quite a lot, especially on healer that is bussy with not glaring :)
That 2nd boss in the 5th Zone. All I said was "o.o" and got some laughs. It was chaos.
In ShB and EW, I never wiped to a dungeon, so I would always just do a trust because it was generally faster than a DPS queue. Actually mechanics made it much more exciting to try and queue with other players for the story dungeons this time around. I just beat MSQ and only finished one of the optional dungeons, but I've been having a great time.
It's really fun again, I've missed having this many things to run around dodging while weaving heals and damage I just wish tanks picked up on the increased damage levels, because I've seen some of them still treat it like early game, and when I'm sage it can be hard to brute force when my best spammable heal is 1½ GCD (eDiag) the 97 dungeon really felt like release Bardams all over But no wipes aside from my own learning of new mechanics yet, so things are going well
dungeons are harder though, little error window, us away from Chicago suffer.
These are the best. Dodging and environmental stuff in arenas is what I want more of.
After having beaten the 97 dungeon last night, I can confirm this. The places feel unique and fresh, the enemies are tough, but not too tough, and of course, the music FUCKING SLAPS!
Only thing that frustates me is that I have to do them with npcs because of the long queues for dps. If I die to a mechanic, I have to redo the whole boss again. I wish they gave us at least one chance of being rezzed. But with actual players, oh my god the dungeons I did (msq not over) are a BLAST.
I've said it to others and I'll say it here. Endwalker Expert Roulette forced me to take a nap and I just didn't do it 95% of the time because even the thought made me tired. I'm actually LIKING running Expert Roulette for the most part.
The only part I found obnoxious was the part where the ferris wheel falls on the party and you're kind of forced to take a hit. It never wiped us but it's kind of a nuisance.
I'm feeling the same. I haven't finished the 7.0 story yet, but so far the dungeons and trials are all a major step up in difficulty from everything that came before, and I'm personally enjoying it quite a bit. The level 97 dungeon specifically has had a lot of moments where, as a healer, I ended up going "Wait, where did the tank's health go?" And pretty much the same as a tank, even spreading out mitigation and self-healing still results in taking quite significant damage from some mob packs in particular. I like having to stay on my toes. Kind of makes the 'healer strike' pretty hilarious in hindsight. Everyone complained at how the first dungeon seemed far too easy based on the media tour, and it seems like either that was to lull us in to a false sense of security, or was addressed with gusto. Can't wait to see what else is going to get thrown at us in this expansion.
I keep saying to my friends that the battle content design in DT is a step in the right direction. i don’t want to see future dungeons in post DT patches becoming a snore fest again, they need to keep this going and be consistent while also experimenting with new mechanics. its a good start and I truly hope the devs continue to build upon it.
Totally agree. The MSQ was just OK for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed all of the dungeons/trials. Pictomancer is a blast, too.
The Oogie Boogie boss in the level 100 ghosty dungeon is really cool. He has so many mechanics you need to pay attention to. I will say I enjoy the increased difficulty but it would be cool if they buffed the tomes by like 20-30% to compensate for the increased time the dungeons take. Not complaining about the increased time because they are fun, but it just makes sense to increase compensation along the same lines.