1746: Tomestones of Poetics

Andie and I have had more of a chance to delve into Final Fantasy XIV’s latest patch Dreams of Ice today, and I’ve now had the chance to jump in to most of the new pieces of playable content, with the exception of the Final Coil of Bahamut (which is still a way off yet) and the Extreme difficulty version of the fight against iconic Final Fantasy character — or the Final Fantasy XIV incarnation of her, anyway — Shiva.

The first couple of days after a patch drops are an exciting, enjoyable time to be playing, because most people who are online at the same time as you are in a similar situation to you — they’re learning new fights without any foreknowledge of what is to come, and with the fact that guides for these new fights tend not to crop up until a week or two after the actual patch drops, you have little option but to either try and figure things out for yourself or trust the word of the people you’re playing with. It’s a lot of fun, puts everyone on a much more level playing field than later in a patch’s lifecycle, and leads to a certain degree of camaraderie as everyone comes together to work out the best ways to take things on.

After two days, we have a few bits and pieces figured out.

We know that the first boss in Sastasha (Hard) has a very powerful attack that hits anyone except the tank, and this can be stunned — though like most enemies in Final Fantasy XIV, it builds up a gradual resistance to Stun if you keep doing it over and over. Instead, it’s important that the healers ensure no-one is afflicted with the “Slime” status effect when this attack comes, as although the attack is powerful, it will never kill you outright; the damage over time from Slime, however, may well finish you off after one of these almost-deadly blows.

We know that the second boss in Sastasha (Hard) is sometimes bugged, but that you can proceed through the fight even if it seems to have frozen up by stopping your attack for a moment.

We have no idea how the final boss in Sastasha (Hard) works, but it seems that killing all the Kraken’s arms prevents it from summoning deadly waterspouts, while keeping out of reach of its tentacles allows you to pelt its head with impunity.

The Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard) likewise has three interesting bosses. The first is a multi-part boss who seems to go down quickly if you kill his parts in a certain order, ending with the head. He has a habit of summoning nasty quicksand traps for you to be dragged under.

The second Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard) boss features regular DPS checks, any time it starts casting 100,000 Needles (which actually only does 25,000 damage, disappointingly, but this is still enough to kill even the most well-geared tank). Throughout the fight, he has friends pop up, some of which are simple cannon fodder, one of which is aggro-locked to a random player — often the healer from the look of things — and another of which covers the main boss, protecting it from damage.

The third Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard) boss is relatively simple mechanics-wise, but enjoyable to play. Essentially you’re playing Waves mode from Geometry Wars 2, avoiding occasional sweeping waves of mummies that run across the battlefield, cursing you if they touch you, while simultaneously trying to batter the boss down to size. Later in the fight, you also have to contend with a line-of-sight attack which also inflicts the curse status on you — get four stacks of this and you temporarily turn into a mummy, running diagonally across the field and potentially afflicting your allies with the curse in the process if they don’t get out of the way.

Snowcloak, meanwhile, is unusual in that it’s actually part of the main story for once — most of the other level 50 dungeons have been unlocked through sidequests. Snowcloak is a part of the main narrative, however, but it still works in much the same way, and again has three interesting bosses to power through, as well as some enjoyable “enemy gauntlets” to fight through.

The first fight in Snowcloak is relatively easy. Like the final boss of Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard), you’re trying to avoid getting four stacks of a debuff on you — though in this case, it freezes you for a few seconds rather than turning you into a mummy.

The second fight in Snowcloak is becoming known as “Yeti Billiards” because it involves freezing Spriggan adds in the boss’ area-effect attack, then hitting the snowballs this creates back into the boss. Freeze the same snowball more than once and it will grow in size, causing it to deal considerably more damage when it hits the boss.

The third fight in Snowcloak is actually pretty straightforward. You simply have to avoid icicles falling on your head, then spot the two that are going to shoot across the battlefield, injuring anyone in their path, then hide behind the third one before the boss does his group-wide Lunar Cry move, which freezes anyone it has line-of-sight with. There’s a lot of moving around, and it’s a lot of fun — if a little easy once you know what you’re doing.

All this isn’t even getting onto the utterly ridiculous but hugely enjoyable fight against Final Fantasy VI characters Ultros and Typhon, or the conflict against Shiva. There’s been a lot to discover over the last few days, and people are still learning. It’s a fun time to be playing; over time it will settle down into more of a “routine” like in previous patches, but for now, it’s one of those times that, for the most part, tends to show the community at its best, most cooperative and most helpful towards one another.