A group of friends and I (including Andie) reached a milestone in our Final Fantasy XIV careers this evening: we defeated Turn 4 of the Second Coil of Bahamut, also known as “Turn 9” owing to it being the ninth in the series of thirteen high-level raid encounters that make up Final Fantasy XIV’s endgame.
FFXIV’s endgame raid is split into three main parts. The Binding Coil of Bahamut (which consists of Turns 1 to 5) is mostly — mostly — trivial in terms of difficulty these days owing to the fact that the average gear level of a level 50 character who plays a reasonable amount each week now exceeds the level these encounters were designed for by a considerable margin. As time has gone on, The Binding Coil of Bahamut has also been “nerfed” in terms of mechanics — i.e. made easier — and parties challenging it are now given a substantial buff to their HP, damage dealt and healing when they walk in, though those looking for a bit more of a challenge can optionally turn this buff off.
The Binding Coil of Bahamut reaches its conclusion with Turn 5, a notoriously difficult fight that sees a party of eight taking on Twintania, a very angry dragon. Turn 5 remains a challenge for many groups to this day not because Twintania is particularly difficult to kill in terms of her HP and damage — the aforementioned gear issue here makes the encounter much easier than it once was — but because everyone in the group needs to have a solid understanding of most of the fight’s mechanics in order to succeed. Again, the power creep has meant it’s easier to recover from critical errors, but if you don’t know how to deal with her notorious Divebomb attack, for example, you’re going to die and quite possibly take the rest of the group with you.
The Binding Coil of Bahamut is followed up by the Second Coil of Bahamut, which consists of Turns 6 to 9. These are significantly more challenging, even with the “Echo” buff to player HP, damage and healing. Mechanics are more unforgiving — though again, a number have been nerfed over time — and they’re still not exactly the sort of encounters you can pick up and expect to coast your way through without knowing anything about them. Groups need to work together and be able to communicate effectively in order to pass through these challenges, and it all comes to a head with Turn 9.
Turn 9 remains notorious as one of the hardest fights in the game, even with the Final Coil of Bahamut subsequently being added after it. It proves to be a considerable roadblock to many groups, and indeed our party has been working on beating it for many weeks now.
The reason why it’s such a challenge — even more so than Turn 5 — is because of its extreme complexity. In this one fight, which takes in the region of 10 minutes to complete, there are roughly as many mechanics as you’d see in at least four separate boss encounters earlier in the game. There is a lot to learn, and it feels like an insurmountable challenge the first time you jump in, but as our group have proven tonight, taking it a step at a time and practicing together whenever we get the opportunity allows you to eventually reach success.
And my God what a wonderful feeling it was as that HP bar dropped to 0% tonight. We’d had several close calls earlier in the evening — first a 9%, then a 10%, then a 6% — but there was no guarantee that we were going to beat it. But beat it we did, and many celebrations were had; now we have until June to make it through the Final Coil of Bahamut before the expansion pack Heavensward comes along and gives us an entire new raid set in Alexander to take on.
I’m looking forward to the challenge. The feeling of jubilation at finally defeating this notoriously difficult boss this evening is unlike pretty much anything I’ve ever experienced in any other game — and at least part of that comes from the game’s multiplayer element. It wasn’t just my victory, it was our victory. We worked together, we practiced, we communicated, and eventually we prevailed. And it felt great.
We poked our head into the first turn of Final Coil this evening, but didn’t get anywhere, as expected. That’s an adventure for another day! In the meantime, here’s our clear video:
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Wow! So much happening on screen at once. How can you see what you are doing? I worked out that your instructions were happening in the bottom left panel – were you typing in those commands and responses or clicking a button to each move-type? So confusing. And then I didn’t see when Twintania was defeated! And then I thought that he wasn’t as he seemed to carry someone away and drop them on the ground. I didn’t see your name on any figure, but I saw all the others. Plus it was on that ‘slide’ bar(?) lower centre. Is that the HP bar you were talking about? I was trying to find something that gave a percentage but couldn’t see that – not surprising considering the light show of the fight on screen. Anyway, congrats – I’ll re-read your blog then re-watch it and see if I fair better in my understanding.
I can imagine that’s a baffling spectacle if you aren’t already familiar with what’s going on — or with MMOs or RPGs in general. 🙂
The important thing is the big red bar in the lower-middle of the screen: that’s the boss’ health bar, and you’ll see that gradually deplete throughout the course of the fight and eventually empty as we win. For the most part, we’re fighting “Nael deus Darnus”, but there’s a short interlude early in the fight where we fight some big rocky golems called “Dalamud Spawn”.
The bottom-left panel is our chat window, so that’s where we can talk to one another. In the middle of a fight, there’s not much time to type, so most communication is either done via voice chat (which you can’t hear on the video) or via “macro” — buttons you can press to automatically “say” specific things. I don’t know how well you can see it, but my character bellowing instructions for “Fire in!” and “Fire out!” towards the end of the fight is an example of these being used; I didn’t type these by hand, I just pressed a button that I’d prepared beforehand. In a complicated fight like this, signals to the party — including those who aren’t able to be on voice chat — are essential to keep everyone coordinated.
You can’t see my character’s name (Amarysse Jerhynsson) on screen because the game logically assumes you know which character is yours, even when there’s all that chaos going on all around you, because it’s the one that’s always in the middle-ish of the screen. In complex fights like this, mind, you actually find yourself looking less at the light show and more at the buttons you press for your abilities (the four “plus”-shaped arrangements at the bottom of the screen, under the boss’ health bar), the boss’ health bar itself, and your own vital statistics (the three bars that say “HP”, “MP” and “TP” at the bottom of the screen; run out of HP and you’re knocked out, run out of MP and you can’t cast spells, run out of TP and you can’t use physical attacks beyond your most basic “hit them with no particular special properties” auto-attack). Except for when you’re dodging stuff, of course; a rule of thumb in this game is “don’t stand in anything that appears on the floor because it will probably hurt!”.
Hahahahahahahahaha Ta! That’s really helpful – I’ll have another look at it and see if I can pick you out. Trouble is I don’t know what you ook like coz I only saw you in wedding attire. 😀