This evening it was my great pleasure to be a part of the inaugural Giant Bomb/Loose Cannons (aka GBomb/LoCo) raid party in Final Fantasy XIV — what I hope will be the first of many joint adventures that take place on a UK timezone-friendly schedule.
Since a couple of members of LoCo hadn't yet cleared The Binding Coil of Bahamut, Turn 5 — something of a "benchmark" for how well groups work together — we had decided that, come hell or high water, we were going to get a group of some description together and attempt it.
We'd tried this once before, filling out the extra spots in the party using Final Fantasy XIV's matchmaking Duty Finder system, but the downside of this is that you never know who you're going to get — even in challenging content like Turn 5, there's always a possibility you'll get someone who is just looking for a quick and easy clear with no fuss, and who might not have patience to deal with people who are hoping to learn the fight and practice it. Indeed, this happened to us; the first time we got to
[Editor's note: At this point, Pete was called away for another hasty attempt at Turn 5, this time with Andie in tow. It was a successful attempt, as was, I'm sure you've already guessed, the one about to be discussed.]
Ahem. Sorry. Anyway. As I was saying, the first time we got to try it together, we were lumbered with one of these people, who got all huffy when someone got hit by Twintania's notorious "divebomb" mechanic — one of the more difficult attacks in the game to dodge and otherwise deal with. Eventually, when Huffy McHuffypants left in a huff, we had to abandon our attempt as, since Turn 5 is fairly old content now, it can sometimes be difficult to get people in there unless you pre-form a group before you start.
But anyway. Tonight we assembled a crack team of GBomb and LoCo types, including a couple who had never cleared it before and a few — including me — who had. Then we jumped in.
Our first attempt went reasonably well. Twintania's companions, the three Scourges of Meracydia, all fell to our onslaught pretty quickly, and we handled Twintania's barrage of fireballs and conflagrations without breaking a sweat, since we were all, by now, pretty familiar with how this part of the fight worked. When Twintania swept off into the inky blackness high above the right hand of Bahamut, we dove into the nearby ditch between the fallen god's fingertips and waited for the angry dragon to show her face again.
Dive, and dodge; dive, and dodge; dive, and dodge; the first set of Divebombs passed without incident, and Twintania's snake-like guardians Hygieia and Asclepius showed up. We dealt some damage to the two Hygieia and then focused our attention on Asclepius again; then it was time for another set of Divebombs.
Dive, and dodge; dive, and dodge; dive, and dodge; the second set passed without worry, and one of our two paladins dragged the annoyed Asclepius and Hygieia across the right hand of Bahamut to join their two companions that had just showed up.
I used the party's collected energy to unleash my Limit Break, calling down a shower of meteors onto the heads of the snakes, killing two of them outright and seriously wounding the rest of them. As the Hygieia died, they increased Asclepius' vulnerability bit by bit, until we were all eventually dealing about twice the normal damage we usually did. It wasn't long before Asclepius fell to that onslaught, at which point we dove into one of Twintania's dropped Neurolinks, the collars that the ancient Allagans had used to control her, and which had gradually been falling from her neck one by one as the fight progressed.
At this point, things fell apart somewhat. Twintania summoned her deadly Dreadknights, and it wasn't long before they ripped through several of our number; the rest fell to her powerful Twisters attack. But not to be deterred, we picked ourselves up and tried again.
Once again, the Scourges fell, and we set to work on Twintania. The fireballs and conflagrations proved little challenge for us, and we deftly avoided the first set of Divebombs. We got a little too enthusiastic on the Hygieia this time around, however; one died before we got out of the ditch and the other was nearly shuffling off the mortal coil as we pulled them together for another Starstorm summoned by my command over black magic.
This time, the furious Twintania didn't faze us. While our lead paladin kept the attention of the giant dragon, the other made sure the Dreadknights didn't reach their destination, battering them repeatedly with their shield while I pelted them with freezing ice, which slowed their movements when they weren't stunned. A Dreadknight would fall, then we would move as one to sidestep Twintania's next Twisters; then another Dreadknight would fall, and we'd once again hop neatly out of the way of Twisters.
Finally, the weakening Twintania resorted to the same attacks her Scourges had used on us at the start of the fight; spitting huge gobs of flaming matter all over the battlefield, creating a Liquid Hell. We'd run to avoid these, but by this point our victory was all but assured; sure enough, not long after that, the beast fell to our relentless assault, and we were triumphant.
I love this fight. It's no longer the most difficult thing in the game, but it's a demanding battle that ensures everyone involved is on their toes and sets expectations appropriately high for the Second Coil of Bahamut (and the Third Coil of Bahamut, which is coming soon). It also bodes well for the group of us who are planning to tackle some of this content on a regular basis; clearing Turn 5 on a second attempt is good going by anyone's standards, and we repeated the situation almost exactly when a few hours later Andie wanted to give it a go with us, too. We seemingly work well as a team — even without using voice chat to coordinate what we were doing — and our own individual skill levels were apparently well up to the challenge Twintania offered.
So what's next? That remains to be seen; all being well, we'll be giving the first Turn of Second Coil a go this week. I've tried this battle once before and it appears to be somewhat demanding in the same way as Turn 5 is; you need to pay close attention to what is going on, and react quickly and calmly to the things that are happening around you. One mistake can leave you lying dead on the floor at a moment's notice — and potentially kill off the entire party. I have faith that we can rise to this challenge, though, and I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.
I have an uncanny sense of direction. I'm quite pleased that I've developed this over the years, because it's an incredibly useful thing to have. It gives me confidence when going to a new place because I know that I can 1) generally find my way around pretty quickly and 2) won't panic if I do happen to get lost. In fact, when visiting a new place, I tend to find getting lost is actually a good thing because it forces you to find your way around, spot landmarks and, occasionally, yell at your navigator. (I've never yelled at my navigator. Largely because my navigator is usually Google Maps, which doesn't respond well — or indeed at all — to constructive criticism)
There's a lot to be said for interactivity (or at least the illusion of interactivity) in storytelling. It allows things to be done that are simply impossible with non-interactive media such as books, TV and film.
Hello everyone! Apologies for the late hour. It's been a genuinely busy day today, despite it being a Bank Holiday (or Memorial Day if you want to be all American about it).