3 Good Articles from JP Button

[Malacite]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

O.o well, I've never really zerged Promathia and it's still my favorite boss fight in the game. Seriously best arena EVER ^^


My big problem with Alex is his absurd spamming of "Gospel of the Lost" for 1k HP. GTFO with that nonsense. Other than that I did like the fight. @.@ Divine Judgment is also my favorite Astral Flow thus far (since they nerfed Giga Flare by making it elemental when in every single FF game it's been a non-elemental attack that you can't defend against. What's the point in being the King of Dragons if you can't lord it over everyone beneath you )

[Ziero]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

All CoP fights had the same basic trick, throw an item at the boss and you weaken the boss. Otherwise they're all nothing more then endurance fights or zergs. Though some of them had their strategies, most of them weren't all that different when push came to shove.

The final ACP fight, to me, isn't hard. It's annoying. You either take a group of ranged attackers and huddle into the doorway or you go in and zerg the crap out of it. There's really no other way around it. Especially if you're a melee, the only thing you can do is kill it before it kills you, and burn every JA you have right off the bat.

Though it is fun getting to beat up mirror images of yourself and teammates. Even if it does get a bit unnerving to watch everyone stop attacking the crystal and focus on your clone...even if you're the one who's supposed to be killing them.

[Taskmage]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

The trick as it were to Alex was positioning. If you have the pld directly in front of him at max range, the melee to either side of him, the main healer at max range from each in a triangle and your additional support or ranged damage in the wings, everyone is safe from area attacks on anyone else and survival becomes much simpler.

Beyond that there's a specific format where everyone knows what they're supposed to do and has the freedom to do it. This as opposed to Promathia where at any point in the fight some section of the party is useless due to silence, amnesia, and physical/magical immunity. People just "screw it, zerg" that fight now too. Alex being a long fight with a lot of hp just assures you can't do that. Every job has to be pulling its weight and playing their A game for longer than the 90 seconds their 2 hours are in effect.

Not to mention the music is epic and Alex's lines are awesome. Absolutely my favorite fight in the game.

[Malacite]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

I hate endurance fights like Alex. The first part of that fight is great, where there's a trick to it (how you dmg the BLU) but then the 2nd half is just a brutal test of endurance and that's just no fun.

I loved the CoP fights so much because they all had some kind of "trick" or specific pattern to exploit. It falls closer in line with traditional RPG bosses and I'm sure SE can come up with more.

As far as abusing Souleater goes, keep in mind when you sub DRK it still takes off 10% of your HP but only deals 5% in damage so it's nowhere near as effective. The only solution I can think of that wouldn't piss off everyone is nerfing Souleater for multi-hit weapons in general (though not double attack or Liberator or that'd just be stupid)

Truthfully I don't mind them doing the Souleater resistance thing to some bosses, I just hope it's not a frequent thing mainly because it sucks for the regular DRKs out there who want to chip in but get screwed just because a few others have a K Club.

[Darkhound]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

Well, I personally think that this "mini addon" was even smaller than some updates.
IF SE keeps on with this trend , I singal huge problems and alot of unhappy people!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

Nerf K Club for DRK then you pass the issue to a job like RNG, which could also abuse the hell out of it for certain fights.

I do think SE needs to look more to the fights they designed for CoP and near the end of ToA as a reference for future fights. The ACP Qu'Bia fight was also pretty solid, reminiscent of the CoP Mine Shaft fight in some respects, which is why I really enjoyed it. There was no big catch-all solution since you couldn't reliably keep the mobs slept, plus that gob could just drop in and SA anyone it pleased at random. Not a threat if you're /NIN or have SS to cover you, but he had other nasty tricks, too.

Endurance fights like the Airship Battle and Alexander are more or what I'm hoping for in final Battles, though, tiered fights are always awesome in RPGs. Stuff like Apoc Nigh, Bahamut v1 and so on should have been at that level. Never really understood how the Zilart princes are such a pain by themselves but together they're both complete wimps.

[Taskmage]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

kclub is the worst offender, but I'm told other multi-hitters like Ridill and b.zaghnal work almost as well. It's a multidimensional problem.

[Aksannyi]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

Then people can just /DRK and use it, with a dedicated mage. Problem not solved.

---------- Post added at 01:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:23 AM ----------

Besides, there are other zerg weapons besides K Club. Ridill and MKris are acceptable and good weapons for zerg.

[Malacite]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

I think Souleater resistance is going to be a fixture of any NM or boss mob introduced after the AV zergings.

See, I hate this. Wouldn't it be much simpler to simply remove DRK from the list of jobs that can use K Club? Yea they'd have to change the text and all but I mean if it bothers SE this much, kill the weapon(s) that abuses it rather than the mechanic itself.

[Taskmage]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

According to the wiki, Seed of Judgment is effectively unstunnable. You can stun it, but it uses it again right when stun wears. Stun is mainly for the -ga3s. So long as the tank stays out of range of Seed of Deference, the only things you have to deal with >50% are Seed of Nihility and Seed of Deception. Nihility is np and the clones can be taken out by a tier 4 from a blm, sch or pup or from a winder by a rng. If you're using ranged attackers you can avoid Judgment by hugging the door.

But Meikyo Shisui, Hundred Fists, Mighty Strikes et al backed up by Chainspell stunning is faster, easier and more reliable than any strategy you come up with knowing the above information.

I think Souleater resistance is going to be a fixture of any NM or boss mob introduced after the AV zergings.

[Malacite]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

The funny thing is, the Seed Crystal builds resistance to Souleater freakishly fast, so no K Club zerging it.

If you could just stun Seed of Judgment then OK, but I favor the Zerg strat. SMN burn is also apparently a favored plan of attack.

[Taskmage]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

I subbed blu and just spammed battle dance and grand slam. The last few got some pretty nasty hits in but mostly it was just watching turnips fall over.

---------- Post added at 11:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 PM ----------

I'll give the last fight credit for favoring jobs that normally get the short end of the stick. Getting my group to let me tank as rdm/drk was gratifying. It's a bit of a shame that most people seem to just say screw it and go for the two minute TP burn approach. It's a bit of a shame again that they're able to do so. You can blame the players for depriving themselves of what is arguably a more enjoyable experience that way, but ultimately the behavior of the players at large is predictiable: take the easiest path to the greatest reward. Imo it's the job of the developers to lead the players to better gameplay with that knowledge of their behavior.

Nashmeira's Plea, in contrast, was brilliantly designed. The first part of the fight requires than you bring a solid tank and strong damage sources in at least two flavors (melee/ranged/magic), along with whatever support you require. If you don't have that then you can't even progress to the meat of the fight, for which you've been tricked into using a balanced party of jobs that aren't used to working together anymore. They set up the fight specifically to preclude the bullshit zerging strategies that we naturally gravitate to.

[DakAttack]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

OT: Passage wasn't that great.

[Aksannyi]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

I did that on WHM with Banishga and Banishga II. Was fun!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: 3 Good Articles from JP Button

Mandy fight actually was really annoying to me, I tried it first on RNG and died because they got off a few lucky TP moves together and I couldn't proc bloody bolts on them because their HP was so low. Came back COR and wiping them with Circle Blade wasn't easy either because the joytoy would kill them in one round, probably should have gone with dagger, but I still won that one.

I like the last fight mostly just because it RNG epeen time.