2482: Palace of the Dead: Solo Guide

Been soloing a bunch of Palace of the Dead in Final Fantasy XIV over the last few days, so I thought I’d assemble some tips for those who are looking to challenge it.

General tips

Take your time on the early floors. You want to equal or exceed the boss’ level when you reach it, so clear each floor thoroughly rather than rushing through. You can safely avoid enemies once you hit level 60.
Stay aware of your surroundings at all times. Most floors have patrolling monsters; keep an eye out for these and engage them in the corridors between rooms before pulling the monsters in the rooms themselves.
When fighting on the normal floors, DPS as hard as you can. Summoners, use Garuda-Egi. Tanks, use your DPS stance. The quicker things die, the easier a time you’ll have. In most cases you’ll probably want to concentrate on one enemy at a time — pull from a distance whenever possible.
When fighting bosses, the priority is on doing mechanics rather than DPSing as hard as possible. Summoners, get Titan-Egi to tank for you. Tanks, use your tank stance.
Drink potions whenever you can if you’re not at full health. The last thing you want is to die to a landmine or exploding chest.
Save Pomanders of Serenity for floors where Auto-Heal is disabled. Most of the other floor effects aren’t really anything to worry about, but Auto-Heal not working can really fuck you up.
Don’t use Pomanders of Safety and Pomanders of Sight on the same floor because they’re redundant. Safety removes all traps on the floor, and Sight allows you to see traps and thus avoid them. There’s no need to use both.
Pomanders of Alteration are a gamble best used before you hit 60. If they spawn Mandragora-type enemies on the next floor, that’s free EXP. If they spawn Mimics, however, you’re in for a miserable time.
When using one of the transformation Pomanders, remember that you’re not invincible. The Manticore may be able to kill everything in a single hit (assuming Knockback isn’t disabled by a floor effect) but its HP and defense are the same as yours in your regular form.
Transformations are immune to Toad traps, and Pacification/Silence doesn’t affect the transformation’s ability. Landmines are still very dangerous, however, particularly as you can’t drink a potion to heal yourself while transformed.
Save Pomanders of Resolution for the floor 100 boss. You’ll need all three during the fight.

Enemies to watch out for

Hornets, found in the 1-10 block, have Final Sting, which will do a shitload of damage if you let it go off. You can actually run away from it and avoid the damage if you get far enough away, but it’s best to try and kill the hornet before this happens.
Slimes, found in the 11-20 block, cast Rapture if you take too long killing them. This will almost certainly kill you, so kill them as quickly as you can.
Gaze attacks — marked by a very obvious glowing purple eye over the enemy model while they’re casting it — can be avoided completely by simply turning your back to the enemy. It’s particularly important to do this when dealing with Palace Cobras (petrification), Palace Deepeyes (powerful paralysis) and Palace Pots (Mysterious Light, which causes heavy damage and Blind).
Morbols will show up in the 11-20 block towards the end, complete with Bad Breath attack. Run towards them for the easiest path to avoid the large cone AoE.
Wraiths have a huge AoE attack that causes Terror. If you can stun it, do so. Otherwise, run for dear life as soon as you see the marker appear.
Palace Skatenes will cause Sleep on you shortly after they cast Chirp. This isn’t a huge issue, however, since you’ll wake up immediately upon taking a hit.

Boss tips

Floor 10: Palace Deathgaze

Pretty easy, and if you’ve fought basic Deathgaze-type enemies in the game you’ll know what to expect. It has a heavy attack called Whipcrack that will do a chunk of damage, so pop a potion after it does this. Stormwind (a large cone AoE) and Bombination (circular AoE) can both be avoided. Aerial Blast covers the whole arena and causes Windburn (damage over time for a few seconds). It will cycle through these abilities until one or the other of you are dead.

Floor 20: Spurge

The Easy Way: Level to 35 or 36, pop a Pomander of Strength and a Pomander of Lust and then just go ham on Spurge and you’ll probably kill it before it summons its first set of Hornets if your gear is up to snuff.

The Proper Way: There are two main phases to this fight, and they simply cycle around and around. In the first, Spurge will twat you for a chunk of damage with Bloody Caress, then fling two circle AoE attacks at you — one around itself and one aimed at you. During this time, keep your HP topped up and wail on Spurge as much as you can. The second phase starts when Spurge moves to the side of the arena. At this point, two Hornets will spawn, and Spurge will stay in place, occasionally shooting a large linear AoE attack called Rotten Stench. Avoid Rotten Stench while knocking the Hornets down as quickly as possible — otherwise they will use Final Sting on you — before returning to the punishment on Spurge.

Floor 30: Definitely-Not-Hydra

Pretty easy. When it hits you with Ball of Fire or Ball of Ice, immediately move to avoid the effect of the circular area the attack causes — damage over time for Ball of Fire and slowed movement for Ball of Ice. Keep hitting it while this is going on, and try not to bait any Balls of Fire or Ice into the very middle of the arena. When Definitely-Not-Hydra moves to the centre of the arena and starts casting Fear Itself, stand inside its hitbox to avoid the attack completely. Then repeat the process.

Floor 40: Ixtab

Ixtab will spew void crap over the ground every so often — move out of this to avoid damage. He will then summon two Bhoots which you should kill as quickly as possible to avoid being caught in their attacks. He also has an arena-wide attack that causes Terror, often causing you to stumble into the Bhoots’ area of effect if they’re still up. Aside from this, not a lot else to say.

Floor 50: Edda Blackbosom

Pay close attention to what Edda is doing. If she uses Cold Feet, turn away to avoid its Terror effect. If she uses In Health, you’ll either need to get well away from her or stand right on top of her — react quickly to the AoE marker, but you have plenty of time to get from one extreme to the other if the cast goes off. If you get hit by In Health, one of the letters on the floor will light up. The more of these lit up when she casts Black Honeymoon, the more damage you’ll take. Aside from this, she’s pretty straightforward. Watch out for In Sickness, which causes Disease and slowed movement; cleanse this off yourself if you can.

Floor 60: The Black Rider

A few things to watch out for here. Firstly, keep out of the large purple circles he drops on the ground at all cost — they cause Bleed, which deals heavy damage while you’re in them. Secondly, watch out for the aether sprites he summons around the outside of the arena and don’t get caught in their blasts, as these deal extreme damage. Their appearance will often coincide with his charge attack, a linear AoE marker that follows you around. While this is casting, make sure your back is to a “safe spot” away from the aether sprites to avoid being knocked into their blast radius.

Floor 70: Big Snake Thing

I can’t remember Big Snake Thing’s name, but it’s a big snake thing. The most important thing to do in this fight is move Big Snake Thing out of the watery patches it drops on the ground when it casts Douse. While it is in these areas, it gains Haste, which makes it nigh-impossible to avoid Electrogenesis when it casts. Aside from this, Big Snake Thing should cause you no real difficulty.

Floor 80: Definitely-Not-King-Behemoth

This is a daunting fight, but fairly straightforward if you know how to handle all the mechanics. Firstly, when DNKB casts Charybdis, move well away from the AoE marker because it will drop a tornado. Said tornadoes inflict a heavy damage over time debuff if you get sucked into one, and periodically they will suck in everything around them — there’ll be a very brief AoE marker to show the effective range of this when it happens, so to be safe don’t be anywhere near the tornadoes. Next, when DNKB walks away from you, follow him, because he’s about to use Trounce, a massive conal AoE attack that is much easier to avoid if you’re right next to him. Thirdly, at around 10% HP remaining, he will begin channelling Ecliptic Meteor, and unlike the other times in the game where this happens, there’s nothing to hide behind. Try and kill him before it hits, but don’t worry too much if it does — it hits for about 80% of your HP, so if you’re topped up before it happens, you’ll be safe and free to finish him off after the attack.

Floor 90: The Godmother

This is a bit like the final boss of Pharos Sirius (Hard). Attack The Godmother until a red bomb spawns, at which point you should stun its Blast ability if you can and kill it as quickly as possible while avoiding the AoE markers from the untargetable smaller bombs that spawn around it. When it’s down, return to wailing on The Godmother. When a blue-grey bomb spawns, hit it with an instant ability while facing The Godmother to knock it towards her. You want the blue-grey bomb’s Hydrothermal Combustion ability to hit The Godmother and interrupt her ultimate attack. From here, simply repeat these two processes until The Godmother is down.

Floor 100: Nybeth Obdilord

Try to make sure you have three Pomanders of Resolution by the time you reach floor 100 — block 91-100 seems to throw them at you, but save them up from earlier blocks to be safe if necessary. Nybeth himself isn’t too much of a threat if you take care to avoid his AoEs, particularly the large cone-shaped Doom attack. The important mechanic in this fight is the adds that he spawns at roughly 90%, 70% and 30% of his HP remaining. As soon as they appear, pop a Pomander of Resolution and use Kuribu’s attack to firstly kill the enemies, and then use the ability again on their corpses to remove them permanently from the fight. Click off the transformation before you turn your attention back to Nybeth. Repeat two more times and you’re home free.

2270: HunieCam Studio: A Few Tips

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Have you been playing HunieCam Studio? If not, you should; it’s great.

If you have, you’ve probably discovered that it’s quite challenging, at least for your first few playthroughs. Here, then, are a few tips that I’ve figured out in my first three playthroughs, the last of which resulted in a lovely gold dick trophy.

The first few days on the job

While your overall goal in HunieCam Studio is to have as many fans as possible by the end of the 21st day, don’t sweat fans at all to begin with, since you only have one girl and you need money.

It doesn’t really matter which of the three starter girls you pick, since they all have identical stats and none of them are addicted to drink or cigarettes. Choose whoever you like the most, though take note of the fetishes they cater to, as these will be more important later in the game.

Immediately send your starter girl to do a few cam shows one after the other. This will give you enough money to spend on a few upgrades. You’ll want to prioritise both the staffing upgrade that increases the number of girls you can hire, and the inventory upgrade that allows girls to carry accessories.

Once you’ve upgraded your staffing, send your girl to the model agency to find some hot new talent. Pick someone who won’t break the bank with her hourly rate, because you don’t have a lot of income yet. Once you’ve got your second girl up and running, you can start branching out a bit.

Getting into the rhythm

Now you can start building your fanbase a bit. Remember that when a girl does a photoshoot, she gains fans of some or all of the fetishes she caters to, so it’s actually quite helpful to hire girls with overlapping fetishes. You can force overlaps with the accessories that unlock new fetishes, too; if every girl has a butt plug, for example, they’ll all earn fans of Anal when they do a photoshoot, which will give you a fanbase that will apply to all of them when they do a cam show — which means more money.

Consider upgrading one of your girls’ abilities with the strip club and the shopping mall, but keep a steady flow of income coming in; remember that you have to pay your girls by midnight every day, and if you get into debt and don’t get back out again by midnight of the next day, the game is over! Don’t over-upgrade, either, since your money will still be fairly limited until you have more girls with better skills.

Thrusting forwards

From your third girl onwards, don’t be afraid to hire a drinker or a smoker, though perhaps steer clear of those who are heavily addicted. Drinkers and/or smokers build up stress more slowly so long as they have a supply of their particular vice(s), so they can perform more actions before you need to send them to the Day Spa to recover.

Once you do hire a drinker and/or a smoker, be sure to either use one of your unupgraded starter girls — or, if you’ve upgraded them both, a new hire with skills at the base level to save costs — to become your errand girl, doing nothing but running to the shops to get drink and cigarettes. You can make her considerably more efficient by acquiring a Shopping Basket from the Adult Shop, which doubles the yield of both shops, and you can make her even more efficient by dosing her up with coke each day, which makes her complete her activities at double speed. If you find yourself with a considerable surplus of drink and cigarettes, use the opportunity to send her to the Adult Shop whenever you can, as accessories are always useful. Grab condoms and antibiotics when you see them, as these are handy during financial emergencies.

Oh, God, yes

One of the most useful accessories is the Subscribe pillow. This allows a girl to earn fans when she does a cam show — it’s not quite as quick as when she does a photoshoot, but it gives you a trickle of fan income, which will gradually increase your financial income and final score, too. Equip all your main camgirls with the best skills with one as soon as possible, and fill their remaining inventory slots with fetish accessories, as these increase the amount of fans they earn as well as allow them to cater to specific fetishes.

As you progress, don’t forget about upgrades, particularly those that allow you to collect more money and fans with each click on the cam and photo studios. Time you’re spending collecting resources is time you’re not spending micromanaging your army of sex workers, so being able to collect it more efficiently is a godsend. Also be sure to invest in at least a couple of levels of the Automation upgrade, since this allows you to passively collect resources even when you’re doing other things.

Uhhhhuhhhhggghhhhnnnngh

Money troubles? No worries. Whore out your girls at the Sleazy Motel and you’ll earn all the money they’d earn from a camshow in a fraction of the time. There is, however, the risk of them catching an STD from this, and STDs range from mildly inconvenient and curable to completely incapacitating and incurable. If a girl gets AIDS, immediately hire another one to take her place, since AIDS victims are unable to do anything.

To prevent STDs, give the girl you’re sending to the Motel — your highest earner, obviously — a condom, and you won’t have to worry. If the worst does happen, however, dose her up with antibiotics and she’ll be better in three days. Alternatively, you can give her a shot of steroids to negate the effects of the STD temporarily, though this is not an ideal solution.

Aaaaaahhh

Once you’ve got a good lineup of well-skilled girls and you’re making good money, make sure you start investing in advertising, since this simply allows you to exchange money for fans. If your cashflow is a little limited, prioritise the ads that cater to fetishes you have on staff, since this will make those girls more profitable. If money is no object, buy all the ads you can, and upgrade your advertising to be able to purchase more — and better — ads each day. Note that this upgrade isn’t retroactive, though; it takes effect from the following day, so it’s useless if you forget about it until day 21.

Also, it is very much worth your while to upgrade your web hosting and photo equipment, as these significantly increase the cash you get from camshows and the fans you get from photoshoots respectively. They’re expensive upgrades, but they pay for themselves before long.

Finishing off

In your last few days, ditch any “useful” accessories you’ve been using such as the Piggy Bank, Nicotine Patch or Wine Box, and make sure each girl has three fetish-catering items, increasing her fan yield. Rotate your girls between camming and photoshooting to keep both money and fans coming in, and be sure to buy ads each day. Keep your errand girl active, too; if you don’t need drink and cigarettes, keep her shopping at the Adult Shop for condoms and antibiotics.

Most importantly for the whole game, make sure no girl is wasting time: everyone should always be doing something, even if that something is just resting at the Day Spa. If a girl finishes an activity and you’re in the middle of collecting a resource, stop and assign her to something new before you resume collection, otherwise she’s dead weight for those few moments, and if you want a huge fan count and that big, spunking platinum dick trophy, every second counts.

2229: The Fist of the Son and The Cuff of the Son

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Been taking my time getting through the new Alexander raid (just the normal version) in Final Fantasy XIV over the last couple of evenings, and thought I’d write down a walkthrough for the first two floors, largely to refresh my own memory and perhaps to provide a convenient service to anyone passing by who wants to know such things.

As with Alexander: Gordias, Alexander: Midas is split into four areas, each of which allows you to get one piece of loot per week. These pieces of loot are tokens that can be exchanged for gear in Idyllshire in the same place you turn in Allagan Tomestones of Esoterics and Lore; like the gear from Gordias, you need varying numbers of tokens for different pieces of gear. Accessories require one bolt, so are the easiest to get, but are also often the smallest upgrade.

The Fist of the Son

Available loot: Bolt (1 needed for accessory), chain (1 needed for belt), pedal (2 needed for boots)

Run through the first area, and use the steam vents to jump up to the top of the room. Pass through the doorway and you’ll be confronted with not one but two Fausts. They’re much easier to handle than the one in The Fist of the Father, though; one tank take each, keep them together, focus down one at a time.

It’s not over, though! After the second Faust drops, a pulsing AoE marker will appear on the floor. Get away from it, as Hummelfaust is going to drop down, dealing more damage the closer you are to its drop spot.

One tank should take Hummelfaust, the other should switch to DPSing and simply batter him down as quickly as possible. Much like OG Faust, this is designed as a DPS check to ensure that your group is going to be up to the job of toppling the subsequent bosses.

Once Hummelfaust is down, hop onto the conveyor belt to reach the boss room.

BOSS: Ratfinx Twinkledinks

This fight initially seems utterly bewildering, but it’s actually fairly straightforward. You need to pay close attention to what is happening at all times, though; you might find it helpful to Focus Target Ratfinx to help keep an eye on what he’s up to in case you need to target something else.

Before you start, mark the back-left corner of the room as A and the front-right corner as B. You’ll be tanking Ratfinx at A, while B is set aside as a no-go area for a later mechanic.

Start the fight. Ratfinx will be reluctant to move as the battle begins, so take the opportunity to establish solid aggro if you’re a tank. Once he transforms into his giant form, then you can move him over to A.

Ratfinx will proceed to pummel the main tank about the head, inflicting stacks of Headache, which increases damage taken. When Headache reaches 4 stacks, it becomes Concussion, which stuns you completely. When this happens, you’ll see Ratfinx wind up for a big punch much like the one Sephirot does; at this point, the off-tank should immediately use Provoke and hit Ratfinx to take aggro from the original tank, and take the imminent big hit, which is slightly less big if you don’t have Headache or Concussion.

Throughout the fight, Ratfinx will cast Bomb’s Away, which brings one or more large bombs into the arena. When this happens, someone near the centre of the room should stand in the purple circle to activate the machinery, then at least one person should run to the red pool that forms to the side of the arena. Stepping in this turns you into a gorilla with just two abilities, the first of which allows you to punch bombs away with ease, and the second of which allows you to transform back into your normal form. Punch the bombs to B to keep them safely away from everyone, then change back and return to your normal role.

At various points throughout the battle, Ratfinx will mark a player and cast Glubgloop (or something similar). The marked player should get well out of the way of A, B and where the pools form under the syringes; after the AoE marker appears, a persistent puddle of goop will drop on the floor and stick around for a little while, so keep it out of the way, probably in one of the unmarked corners.

From his second giant transformation onwards, Ratfinx will start casting Boost. When he does this, a player needs to activate the machine in the middle and all players (including the tank) need to rush to the purple puddle to turn into a bird. By flying, you avoid his devastating ground-pound attack; once he’s finished doing this, you can use Apothecary to change back into your normal form once again.

Repeat the process, with tanks keeping a careful eye out for Concussion and everyone else watching for Bomb’s Away and Boost, and it won’t be long before he’s down. There are a few additional beasties that show up throughout the fight, but the off-tank can pick these up easily and they don’t present much of a threat.

The Cuff of the Son

Available loot: Bolt (1 needed for accessory), pedal (2 needed for boots), lens (2 needed for headpiece)

Run forwards and engage the initial group of enemies. To take a bit of pressure off the main tank, the off-tank may want to take one of the two Gobwalkers. Burn down the enemies as quickly as possible and proceed down the corridor, where you’ll be accosted by a number of Goblin Gliders. Tank and spank these, then jump down the passageway on the right of the corridor to be flung into the boss room, where you’ll fight four bosses in succession. Don’t worry; if you take one down, it stays down.

BOSS: Blaster

Blaster has two main attacks. The first is to drop mines in the arena. These will show AoE markers where they drop, and will continue to pulse afterwards. Do not stand on them, as they deal heavy damage and inflict various status effects in an area.

Blaster’s second attack is to mark players; after a moment, he’ll drop a Mirage version of himself on them, and after another moment or so, these will charge across the arena in the direction they’re facing. Don’t be in their way.

DPS down Blaster while avoiding these two mechanics and he’ll fall easily.

BOSS: Brawler

Brawler has three attacks that don’t have cast bars: you have to rely entirely on visual cues. These cues are related to the fists he holds up when he charges himself with energy; after the blue flash of light around both hands you’ll see him have either a red fist, a blue fist or both fists, and you’ll have a couple of seconds to handle the mechanic appropriately.

If he raises the red fist, a random player is going to get targeted and damaged. Everyone move away from the boss to minimise this damage; it declines with distance.

If he raises the blue fist, the off-tank should use Provoke to take aggro from the main tank, while the main tank gets behind the boss. Shortly after, the new main tank will take a big hit, but not as massive as the one the original tank would have taken with the Vulnerability debuff Brawler applies!

If he raises both fists, the current tank should turn Brawler around to face the rest of the party; he’ll fire a massive dual laser whose damage is split between everyone it hits.

Best way to handle this is to have everyone stacked or lined up directly behind Brawler as the main tank tanks him, then move according to the mechanics. After a mechanic is finished, get back into position and continue.

BOSS: Swindler

This is a weird one that requires you to be observant, but it’s not that complicated.

The main mechanic here is Swindlers High and Low Mathematicks debuffs that he applies to various players. High Mathematicks is a purple-coloured debuff icon, while Low Mathematicks is a red-coloured debuff icon. When you receive one of these, stand on a floor tile according to your debuff: if you have Low Mathematicks (red), stand on a red, elevated tile; if you have High Mathematicks, stand on a grey, normal tile. Note that the arrangement of the tiles will shift several times during the battle.

The only other mechanic for this fight sees a player marked with a circle around themselves and a number of orbs above their head. A number of people matching the number of orbs need to be in the circle to prevent horrible messy death.

Dance around according to the debuffs and you’ll be good for the final battle.

BOSS: Vortexer

Vortexer will inflict a stacking Vulnerability debuff on whoever is tanking it; the off-tank should use Provoke and take aggro when this reaches two stacks.

Circle AoEs indicate that pools of fiery sludge (similar to Bahamut’s attack in Turn 13) will be dropping in these places. Stay out of them, and don’t run through them, as they debuff you while you’re in them. Also make sure you don’t have your back to one.

Super Cyclone is a massive knockback on everyone, centred on the boss. Position yourself so you won’t get knocked back into a pool of sludge.

When a player gets marked, they’ll drop a waterspout after a few moments. Position this somewhere near-ish and behind the boss.

Several players will get Shiva-style blizzard markers on and around them. At least one person needs to drop this with its circle over the waterspout to freeze it into a block of ice. These will leave a patch of Frostbite-inflicting ice on the ground for a short period, but these will dissipate after a few moments.

When Vortexer starts casting Ultra Flash, everyone (including the tank) needs to hide behind the frozen waterspout and break line-of-sight with Vortexer to avoid being instakilled. After this, the ice block will shatter and the process repeats. Once Vortexer is down, you’re done!

2226: Sephirot, The Fiend

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Final Fantasy XIV’s new patch came out today, bringing with it some new dungeons and a spectacular new boss fight against Sephirot, The Fiend, one of the Warring Triad previously seen in Final Fantasy VI.

Unlike most of the other Trials that have been in the game so far, the Sephirot battle is separate from the main questline, and having a pop at it earlier revealed why: it’s surprisingly tough! Once you know what you’re doing, though, it’s pretty straightforward. As such, I thought I’d share my observations from a couple of goes today in the hope of helping out anyone struggling with it.

Note that this isn’t intended to be a particularly comprehensive guide and I can’t remember the exact names of many abilities, but given that the Sephirot fight is largely dependent on observing animations and visual cues rather than cast bars, ability names aren’t actually terribly helpful here.

So then. Here’s how it works. I think.

Phase 1: That’s Not Sephiroth

First phase is pretty straightforward. Main tank should pull Sephirot and turn him away from the rest of the group as normal and proceed to wail on him. Apply DoTs and AoE DoTs as appropriate.

Sephirot has a few different attacks in this phase. He has a conal AoE in front of him called Triple Trial, so this is the main reason the tank faces him away from the group. It doesn’t do a lot of damage, but you’ll want to keep the MT’s HP as high as possible. MT should save cooldowns for the moment though.

Next is a jumping attack away from the MT onto a random player, after which he returns to the MT. Again, the damage isn’t horrific, but keep on top of things. Priority after the jump should be topping off and shielding the MT for what comes next.

Sephirot will pull his left arm back ready to deliver a powerful punch. (Note that if you are tanking him, his left arm will be on the right of your screen, as you’re facing him.) When this happens, MT should blow a suitable defensive cooldown (Shadow Skin or Rampart is enough) and Convalescence if you want to help out your healers a bit. When the animation completes, the big punch Sephirot was winding up for will deliver a powerful tankbuster in the region of 16-17k or so, though this can be reduced with cooldowns and shields.

Other than this, Sephirot has a large AoE that he blasts out towards a non-tank member of the group, which should be healed through.

At around 60%, Sephirot will become untargetable and spawn a bunch of adds. Both tanks should pick them up and pull them all together for DPS to AoE them. Prioritise the larger adds first, as they hit a bit harder and have more HP. As one set gets close to being killed a second set will spawn, so be ready to pick them up and bring them to the group.

When the adds are down, Sephirot will do his ultimate. You have quite a long time to prepare for this, so make the best use of the time. Sephirot will fall backwards off the platform and nothing will happen for a few seconds. Use the time to heal everyone up, then when you see Sephirot’s newly giant hand grab the platform to pull himself up, drop Sacred Soil or other suitable defences ready for the incoming damage.

Phase 2: He Got Big

Tanking Sephirot is less important here, since he stays in one place and fires out mechanics at random players rather than whoever has aggro. Tanks should feel free to switch to DPS stance and wail on him as much as possible.

Note that Sephirot’s hitbox is huge and you don’t need to be standing anywhere near his model to actually hit him. Target him and stand on the edge of the circle on the ground and you’ll hit him no problem; this is important for one of his main abilities in the phase.

At intervals throughout Phase 2, Sephirot will drop blue puddles on the ground. After these have sat there for a moment, he’ll slam his fist down on the puddle, knocking everyone backwards. To counter this, stand near (not in) the puddle with your back to the side of the arena furthest away from you — think the final boss of Neverreap. He’ll do this three times, so run back into position after being knocked back: first one is always directly in front of himself, then on the left, then on the right.

For Sephirot’s other attacks, you once again need to watch his animations rather than cast bars. When he lowers himself down so his head is level with the platform, he’s preparing to do a huge raid-wide knockback, so stand in front of him with plenty of space behind you to avoid falling off.

Immediately after the knockback, three adds will spawn: two that you’ve seen before and one tornadoey whirlwind thing. DPS down the tornadoey whirlwind thing as quickly as possible and it will drop a (harmless) tornado marker on the ground: this will be important in a moment. Then kill the other two adds. Shortly after you’ve done this, a big flashing arrow marker will appear over the tornado marker, so get in it. Sephirot will probably do a small knockback on you while you’re getting into position, so make sure you immediately move back into the tornado: the reason you do this is so that the tornado blows you up in the air to avoid Sephirot’s devastating arm-sweep attack, which is an instant KO if you get hit by it.

When Sephirot seems to charge energy into his chest, everyone should spread out because people are about to get hit by energy blasts with splash damage. Simple enough to avoid.

When two players are marked with shining silver markers — the same as in Turn 13 if you’ve done that — these two players should move to the sides of the arena to bait Sephirot’s Earthshaker line AoE move away from the rest of the group. (Yes, this is indeed the exact same Earthshaker that Bahamut Prime does.)

When Sephirot holds two orbs out in front of him… I must confess I’m not entirely 100% on what this mechanic does, but it appears to be something similar to the Angra Mainyu fight in World of Darkness in that the arena is split into two different coloured sections, and you need to stand in the correct one. Perhaps someone can clarify in the comments if you have a better idea.

Shortly before or after the two orbs, Sephirot will summon two towers similar to those seen in later stages of Turn 13. Like those towers, you need to stand in them to minimise raid-wide Bad Stuff happening. Only one person needs to stand in each tower.

After that, these mechanics just repeat, though Sephirot will be flinging small circle AoEs around the place while all this is going on too, but these are easy enough to dodge.

Congratulations, you’ve toppled The Fiend!

2179: Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game Blind Tutorial Playthrough

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Longtime readers will know that I’m a fan of Games Workshop’s wonderful but out-of-print dungeon crawler games, including Hero Quest, Advanced Heroquest and Warhammer Quest. Unfortunately, these don’t hit the table nearly as often as I’d like, since they’re quite time-consuming to play and fiddly to set up due to their sheer number of components and pen-and-paper RPG-style necessity to prepare adventures beforehand.

I was, as you might expect, quite excited to hear that Fantasy Flight Games, who have been leveraging a whole bunch of Games Workshop properties recently, had released an official card game adaptation of Warhammer Quest which promised to play in 30-60 minutes, and which many claimed offered a fun dungeon-crawling experience without the need for festooning your table in thousands of miniatures and cardboard tiles.

The game is extremely well-regarded on legendary boardgaming community site Boardgamegeek, so I was keen to give it a go. One of the most common complaints, however, was that neither the Learn to Play manual nor the Rules Reference guide were particularly well laid out, meaning it took a little while to get your head around how to actually play. This is nothing unusual for Fantasy Flight Games, however, who, although they produce absolutely beautiful components and cards, aren’t particularly well-regarded when it comes to writing instruction manuals. (Hey. If anyone from FFG is reading, I am very much available for freelance manual and tutorial writing. Please get in touch.)

With that in mind, I decided to try the game’s tutorial scenario and record my experiences for the benefit of anyone else considering this game. So let’s jump right in.

This is all the stuff you get in the box. Two rulebooks — a “learn to play” guide and a reference manual — plus a selection of quest sheets, a deck of large cards, a deck of small cards, six dice and a selection of tokens. Numbered tokens are double-sided so can be used to denote a value of either 1 or 3.

Let’s get set up! I’ll be trying out the Tutorial solo. The Tutorial isn’t a full quest, rather just an opportunity to try out all the main mechanics before jumping in to a full session. I’m going into this pretty much blind, so I may get things wrong along the way. As such, do not take this post as a definitive How to Play guide for now!

First thing to do is pick two heroes to play. There must be at least two heroes in the party, even if you’re playing solo. There are variations on each hero card according to how many party members you have. Generally speaking, the fewer party members you have, the more life each individual character has. If playing with two heroes, each hero gets two turns. If playing with three heroes, one hero per round gets an extra turn.

I’m going to go with the Ironbreaker dwarf and the Bright Wizard for this playthrough, because a tank/wizard combo sounds sensible, and also they’re the two characters I’ve played most in Warhammer End Times: Vermintide on PC.

Each hero starts with four basic action cards that allow them to Attack, Aid, Explore or Rest. During a Campaign or Delve quest, these can be upgraded to Advanced versions later. Here are the Bright Wizard’s basic actions:

And here are the Ironbreaker’s:

The Bright Wizard begins the Tutorial engaged in combat with a Night Goblin Archer, while the Ironbreaker has been set upon by a Rat Swarm. There are also two face-down enemies in the middle of the table, considered to be “in the shadows” for now.

The Tutorial also specifies that we’ll be exploring the Throng of Webs location for now, so this card goes in the middle of the table along with the shuffled Dungeon deck.

We’re now ready to start. We begin with the Hero Activation phase, during which each hero activates in turn, beginning with the current Party Leader, and performs an action. The relevant card is exhausted once it is used, unless it has a Prepare symbol in the corner, in which case all action cards can be readied for the next round.

The Bright Wizard is first to play. Let’s play her in an appropriately hot-tempered manner by immediately flinging a fireball at that pesky Night Goblin Archer in front of her.

Fireball is the Bright Wizard’s Attack action, and it allows her two white dice with which to attempt to deal damage. It’s also a ranged attack, so she can fling fireballs at enemies in the shadows or engaged with other heroes and even target more than one enemy in exchange for taking a point of damage, but for now let’s concentrate on the immediate threat.

The Bright Wizard gets two white dice for her attack, and rolls against one black die because she’s engaged with one enemy. She rolls two success symbols (the crossed axes) plus a defence shield, while the goblin rolls an attack for one point of damage. Since the Bright Wizard rolled a shield, she successfully defends against this damage, and since the goblin only has two hit points in the first place, she defeats it with an appropriately explosive flourish.

Now it’s the Ironbreaker’s turn. He, too, is going to attack. His attack allows him to engage up to two enemies. He’s already engaged with one, but he’s feeling cocky, so he also chooses to engage one of the enemies in the shadows. This flips the card face-up and places it in his engagement area in front of him.

It’s a second Rat Swarm. They don’t do much damage, but they do have 3HP each so it’s unlikely either of them are going down this turn. Regardless, the intrepid Ironbreaker pushes on, rolling two white dice against two black dice.

He rolls one point of damage, which he applies to the enemy of his choice, and successfully defends against one incoming point of damage thanks to the two shields he rolled.

Now it’s the Bright Wizard’s turn again. Since her Fireball is exhausted, she can’t use it again against the enemies engaged with the Ironbreaker or the one remaining in the shadows. She instead takes the opportunity to explore the location by rolling one white die against no black dice, since there are no enemies engaged with her right now.

She rolls a success, which puts the party 1/7 of the way to completing this location. She finds some Cool Waters, which allows her to recover 2HP or ready an action, but since she has taken no damage and her Explore action allows her to ready all her actions anyway, it’s not much use right now. Since she’s flush with life right now, she then chooses to take two points of damage to claim two success tokens and put them in her play area. These can be used next turn for two automatic successes on the Explore action if she uses it.

That’s the end of the Bright Wizard’s actions this round.

The Ironbreaker, meanwhile, is still engaged with the two Rat Swarms. He chooses to use his Stubborn Resolve ability to exhaust one enemy in front of him and automatically defend against up to two points of damage. He then gets to rest, which allows him to recover HP by rolling white dice against black dice, but since he hasn’t taken any damage and there’s no way for the single remaining readied Rat Swarm to do enough damage to get through that monstrous 2 defence, there’s no need to roll any dice.

That’s the end of all the Hero turns this round, which brings us to the enemies.

The Bright Wizard is first to activate an enemy. Since she is not engaged with any enemies right now, she must activate one of the enemies in the shadows, and since there is only one face-down enemy left in the shadows, she flips it face-up to reveal a Giant Wolf.

The Giant Wolf then resolves its three actions in turn. First is Lacerate, which causes whoever it is engaged with to be afflicted with the Bleeding status. Since it is not yet engaged with anyone, however, it does nothing.

Next, its Prey ability causes it to engage the Hero with the most HP, which is the Ironbreaker. It moves into his engagement area. Since the Ironbreaker is now engaged with the maximum three enemies, any additional engagements will simply cause him to take automatic damage, but since there are no other enemies on the table right now, that probably won’t be an issue.

Finally, the Giant Wolf’s Inflict ability deals two damage to the Ironbreaker. This can’t be defended against. The Giant Wolf is then exhausted.

That leaves just the injured Rat Swarm for the Ironbreaker to activate. First it would Advance to engage the Hero activating it if it was in the shadows, but since it’s already engaged with the Ironbreaker, nothing happens. It then deals another point of damage to the Ironbreaker.

At the end of the enemy phase, the Bright Wizard is on 20/22HP, while the Ironbreaker is on 23/26HP. Of the enemies, one of the Rat Swarms and the Giant Wolf are on 3/3HP, while the other Rat Swarm is on 2/3HP. All the enemies are now re-readied for the next round.

Before the round ends, the location’s effects are resolved. In this case, the party leader (currently the Bright Wizard) must exhaust one of her four actions, though it can’t be her Explore action, which has the Prepare icon on it — if this was exhausted, she would eventually be completely unable to act! She instead chooses to exhaust her Rest action Smouldering Wrath, since she’s fairly hale and hearty right now.

Now the round ends, and the party leader token passes to the Ironbreaker.

The Ironbreaker is in a slightly sticky situation, since he’s engaged with three enemies and two of his actions are exhausted. He chooses to offer his Aid to the Bright Wizard, since he has the HP to spare right now. He throws up a Shield Wall, rolling one white die against three black dice.

He rolls two successes, which the Bright Wizard chooses to “bank” on her Fireball action. He also rolls two attacks, causing him to take three points of damage — two from the Giant Wolf and one from one of the Rat Swarms, since higher attack value enemies are always prioritised in situations where not all enemies are attacking. He’s now down to 20/26HP, but those two banked successes for the Bright Wizard will be useful.

Shield Wall also allows the Ironbreaker to re-ready all his actions, so he does so.

The Bright Wizard is up. She chooses to cast Fireball and engage the uninjured Rat Swarm, pulling it off the Ironbreaker. She then voluntarily takes a point of damage to target a second enemy. She then rolls two white dice against one black die.

She rolls one success and two defence, the latter of which allows her to shrug off the Rat Swarm’s counterattack of a single point of damage. With the two banked successes from the Ironbreaker’s Aid action, she has a total of three successes to assign between up to two enemies as she pleases, and since her Fireball is ranged she doesn’t even have to attack the enemy she’s engaged with. She chooses to assign all three points of damage to the Giant Wolf in front of the Ironbreaker, killing it instantly and levelling the playing field somewhat.

Next it’s the Ironbreaker’s turn again. Since he readied all his actions last turn, he is free to use his Attack skill Inexorable Advance. Since this allows him to engage two enemies, he pulls the Rat Swarm back off the Bright Wizard with a mind to cleaving both remaining enemies with a lucky roll. He rolls two white dice against two black dice.

He rolls a normal success, a critical success and an attack. The critical success counts as a normal success but also allows an additional roll of that white die.

Impressively, he rolls another critical success, which means another reroll. That’s a total of three successes so far.

His final roll is a shield, allowing him to shrug off the single point of incoming damage. He assigns two of the successes to the injured Rat Swarm, killing it, while the remainder goes on the last enemy. This round is now over for the Ironbreaker.

That leaves one action for the Bright Wizard. She chooses to use her Burning Sight ability to explore, using her two banked success tokens from the previous turn — these must be declared and used before rolling dice — and rolling a critical success.

She then rolls another two successes, bringing her to a total of five, including the banked tokens she used. This brings the overall progress on the location to 6/7. She then draws a Dungeon card.

The Shrine she discovers gives her the option of exhausting an action to recover 1HP and claim a success token. Since the Explore action allows her to re-ready all her actions anyway, there’s no reason for her not to do this. She heals 1HP, exhausts her Aid ability Fan the Flames and banks a success token on it.

The Bright Wizard cannot finish the exploration this turn by burning HP, but she can bank one token for next turn. She takes the 1HP damage she just healed and claims a success token. She then re-readies all her actions, and that’s the end of the Hero phase.

The only remaining enemy on the table is engaged with the Ironbreaker, who takes one point of damage.

The location effect then causes the party leader (currently the Ironbreaker) to exhaust one action dealing with sticky webbing. He chooses to exhaust his Explore action. Leadership of the party then passes to the Bright Wizard for what will probably be the final round.

To clear the Tutorial, the party must fully explore the Throng of Webs location (which requires just one more Explore success to do so) and defeat all the enemies. With that in mind, the Bright Wizard uses her first action to Aid the Ironbreaker for two dice plus the success token she banked earlier.

She rolls a success and a critical success…

…followed by a defence, which isn’t much good right now, but three success tokens is still plenty. In fact, you can only bank up to two success tokens per card, so the Ironbreaker banks two on his Inexorable Advance card and a third on his Shield Wall card. He also readies his Into the Dark action to explore if necessary, since the Bright Wizard’s Aid action allows him to ready one action.

The Ironbreaker uses Inexorable Advance and rolls two defence, which is more than enough to shrug off the incoming damage from the Rat Swarm. He uses his two banked success tokens from the Bright Wizard’s Aid to defeat the Rat Swarm without the need for rolling further successes. Now the area is clear of enemies, which just leaves the exploration.

The Bright Wizard has a banked success token, so rolling the die is just a formality at this point, but she rolls a critical success anyway. That brings the location to 7/7 progress, completing it and clearing the Tutorial. Full quests would require the exploration of other locations and perhaps the completion of other objectives, but for now… victory!

2108: Heavensward Dungeon Boss Guides (For My Own Reference)

I ran The Aery for the first time in months earlier tonight, and I realised that, having not run it for months owing to being at the level cap, I had forgotten almost everything about it. So in an attempt to brush up on my Heavensward dungeons as I continue to level Dark Knight — and also to provide an excuse to write a guide, which is something I enjoy doing — I present to you some information on how to beat the dungeon bosses in Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward. Largely for my own reference.

The Dusk Vigil

Level: 51-52

Boss 1: Towering Oliphaunt

Towering Oliphaunt has a few abilities to watch out for. Firstly, there’s Rear, which is an easily dodged area-effect attack around himself, and Prehistoric Trumpet, which hits the whole room.

You should also be aware of his other abilities: Rock of Ages will stun a non-tank player, Wooly Inspiration is a conal pull attack, and Rout is a charge attack. Similar to Wild Charge in The Final Coil of Bahamut, Turn 1, Rout’s damage can be split between a party member and the targeted player. It’s a good idea for the tank to get in between Oliphaunt and the targeted player when this happens.

Tank tank, healer heal, DPS DPS and this shouldn’t present too much difficulty.

Boss 2: Ser Yuhelmeric

Tons of adds appear in this fight. There are two main types: melee adds have a few area-effect attacks, while caster adds have the ability to buff everyone around themselves, including the boss. The tank should try to keep the boss away from the adds.

The only real ability Yuhelmeric has that you need to be aware of is Death Spiral, an attack somewhat similar to Nael’s Lunar Dynamo in The Second Coil of Bahamut, Turn 4. In other words, it’s a doughnut-shaped attack that you can avoid completely by ensuring you’re in melee range when it goes off.

Boss 3: Opinicus

This is the most complex fight in Dusk Vigil. Opinicus has several different abilities, some of which are easier to deal with than others.

Alpine Draft is a simple line attack that can be avoided without too much difficulty.

Freefall is an attack where Opinicus jumps at a player, destroying any piles of rubble they’re standing near. These piles of rubble are important, so try and stay clear of them when you don’t need them.

Whirling Gaol is a room-wide ability that causes you to be repeatedly “pushed” towards the middle. If you reach the middle, you’ll be stunned and hit. To prevent being dragged in, hide behind one of the piles of rubble.

Winds of Winter is an ability that covers a reasonable area and stacks Wind Vulnerability Up on anyone hit, making Opinicus’ other abilities more dangerous. This attack also destroys all current piles of rubble and causes new ones to drop from the ceiling.

Sohm Al

Level: 53-54

Boss 1: Raskovnik

This is a considerably more forgiving version of the Rafflesia fight from The Second Coil of Bahamut, Turn 1. If you’ve completed that, you’ll know what to do here.

Acid Rain is a circular area-effect ability that takes aim for all players.

Sweet Scent causes Dravanian Hornets to spawn and slowly move towards the boss. These deal no damage, but should be killed if your party has low DPS, since they buff the boss if they’re in range of Devour.

Devour is an ability that goes off after a player is marked and stunned for two seconds. It’s a circular AoE attack, and any hornets in range will give Raskovnik a stacking damage increase.

Finally, Spit is a room-wide attack to simply be healed through.

Boss 2: Myath

Myath will periodically spawn jelly adds around the room, and use attacks based on which ones he consumes. When he consumes a blue add, move away from the party member with a blue marker. When he consumes a red add, stack up on the party member with the red arrow. Remember, blue is poo, red gives head. Or something.

The only other thing to be aware of here is the big green snot add. Kill this as a priority when it appears.

Boss 3: Tioman

Sohm Al’s final boss has a number of different mechanics.

To minimise damage from the frontal cone attack Abyssic Buster, tanks should ensure that Tioman is facing away from the party.

Chaos Blast places AoE markers on each player, so avoid these.

Comet is the main ability to be aware of here. Two players will be marked and AoE circles will appear on the ground. When the marks fade, comets will fall where the players were standing, dealing room-wide damage to everyone based on how close they were to where the comets fall. To minimise damage from this, marked players should move away from the party — ideally to an edge — while the rest of the party keeps their distance too.

At around 45%, Tioman will become invincible and you must destroy her wings to continue damaging her. During this time, she will use Heavensfall, which marks a player and then spawns a cluster of circular AoEs on top of them. The marked player should move away from the rest of the party to minimise damage.

Finally, Dark Star is a room-wide AoE that you need to heal through.

After the wings are destroyed, the fight continues as before.

The Aery

Level: 55-56

Boss 1: Rangda

Rangda only has two main abilities to concern yourself with. To avoid being hit with Electric Cachexis, move into melee range with Rangda, similar to avoiding Nael’s Lunar Dynamo or Chimera’s The Dragon’s Voice.

If you get marked with Prey, move to one of the tall pillars at the outside of the room to transfer it and stay safe.

You should also kill adds as they spawn; none of them are particularly tough. Rangda also has a few other AoE attacks, but none of them hit particularly hard, so just heal through them.

Boss 2: Gyascutus

Gyascutus will gain a damage-up buff for every cloud of poison it farts out around the room. To get rid of these, use the Mustard Gas bombs that spawn occasionally to eat one or two of the clouds, then kill them. If the bombs eat four clouds, they will self-destruct, deal damage to the whole room and poison everyone four times. Don’t do this.

Boss 3: Nidhogg

Nidhogg’s go-to attack is The Crimson Price, which shits out fiery orbs at you. These burn for a few seconds, then blast a line AoE. If Nidhogg faces you and you’re not the tank, he’s going to cast one of these at you. Step aside to avoid damage.

The Sable Price is Nidhogg’s jailing ability. One player will get trapped, and the remaining party members must destroy it before Sable Weave casts, otherwise the trapped player will die.

At about 30% HP, Nidhogg will retreat to prepare his ultimate attack. During this time, you must defeat all the adds and ensure that Estinien remains standing. Tanks should grab the adds as quickly as possible, and healers should divide their attention between the party and Estinien to ensure he stays healthy. When the final add falls, Estinien will put up a shield, which you should dive inside to protect yourself from Nidhogg’s ultimate.

After this, the earlier mechanics simply repeat.

The Vault

Level: 57-58

Boss 1: Ser Adelphel Brightblade

The first phase of this fight is a simple tank-and-spank — kill Adelphel’s companions first, then knock him down. He’ll change form and the fight proper will begin.

When Adelphel casts Holy Shield Bash, he’ll jump to a player, stun and hit them. Paladins can Cover this.

Holiest of Holy deals damage to the whole room. Heal through this.

Finally, Adelphel will occasionally charge around the room and leave big explodey balls behind. Do not be near his balls when they explode, otherwise you’ll be very sorry indeed. (Huehuehue.)

Boss 2: Ser Grinnaux the Bull

Like Adelphel, Grinnaux has a trash phase first. Batter him down to start the fight proper.

Most of this fight is about dodging the various ground AoEs that Grinnaux applies around the room, but there are a couple of specific abilities to watch out for.

Hyperdimensional Slash lays a red AoE in front of Grinnaux in the direction of a random player. When this goes off, anyone in the way will take damage, and an Aetherial Tear will appear where the attack hits the wall. These Tears will tether to anyone near them and damage them, so ideally bait them all to the same part of the room.

After two Hyperdimension Slash attacks, Grinnaux will cast Faith Unmoving, which will knock everyone directly backwards when it finishes casting. Make sure your back is to part of the wall that is free from Aetherial Tears to stay safe.

Boss 3: Ser Charibert

Filthy rats! Charibert has a bunch of nasty abilities that you need to watch out for. It’s a good idea to tank him near the entrance to his arena rather than in the middle.

Altar Pyre is a simple room-wide damage attack. Heal through it.

Holy Chain tethers two players together — run apart to break it, otherwise you’ll both take damage.

Heavensflame causes flame rings to appear on the ground. Avoid them.

Charibert’s most annoying ability is to summon a row of knights, who will march across the arena and Slow anyone they trample over. Each row will always have a gap in it, so position yourself so they’ll pass you by safely or run through the gap to avoid this.

At about 50% HP, Charibert will disappear, then reappear with a bunch of Holy Flames around the room. Kill as many of these as possible, because Charibert’s next attack deals more damage the more Holy Flames are left. You can leave one or two Flames up and still be safe when this happens.

After this attack, the cycle repeats, though both Heavensflame and Charibert’s knight-summoning become more dangerous: Heavensflame has two sets of flame rings, and two rows of knights appear instead of one.

The Great Gubal Library

Level: 59-60

Boss 1: Demon Tome

This is very similar to Demon Wall in Amdapor Keep, albeit without the time limit. Instead, there are some new abilities to watch out for, including an instant-kill.

The first thing to do is avoid Demon Tome’s line AoEs, since these apply a Slow effect. The lines will come down the middle of the room first, then the sides. Position yourself ahead of time to avoid these.

Dark Blizzard III is a circle AoE that targets a random player during the line attacks. Avoid this.

Disclosure is Demon Tome’s instakill ability. When it starts to glow, run around the side until you’re behind Demon Tome to stay safe. If you’re in front of Demon Tome when Disclosure finishes casting, you’ll die.

Finally, Words of Winter is a ground freeze attack that causes you to slide while it is in effect. Plan your moves carefully, particularly when Disclosure is casting, and only move when necessary.

Boss 2: Byblos

When Byblos runs to the centre of the room, two books will spawn, with the ability to cast Death Ray at you, a line AoE that, despite the name, doesn’t do all that much damage.

When they die, orbs will tether to players. Tethered players need to position themselves so the orb hits Byblos to break his invulnerability period.

In subsequent phases, Byblos will spawn clouds of fumes. Party members should take it in turns to disperse these by running through them, since this causes damage. It’s important to manage them, though, as they can interfere with the orbs.

When Byblos isn’t invincible, he’ll perform Gale Cut on the tank. When this is being cast, the tank should run through Byblos or to the side to avoid it. He also has a Tail Swipe attack on anyone behind him.

Finally, Head Down is a charge attack similar to the one seen in Amdapor Keep (Hard). The targeted player should ensure the line AoE doesn’t intersect with any other players to minimise damage. The easiest way to deal with this is simply to run straight at Byblos.

Boss 3: The Everliving Bibliotaph

Three times during the fight, The Everliving Bibliotaph will use Void Summon as a supernatural “Help Wanted” advertisement. In order to prevent his questionable hiring practices, you need to stand on the glowing platforms on the ground. The number of players who need to stand on a platform is indicated by how many lights are lit up on the platform in question. Multiple platforms will highlight at once, so be ready to spread out.

If you get targeted by Bibliotaph, run away from the party to bait the AoE he’s preparing for you. Everyone should keep away from this, as it pulses several times, applying damage and Vulnerability Up in the process.

At around 55% HP, Bibliotaph will cast some combination of Deep Darkness and Magic Burst. Deep Darkness covers the outside of the arena and causes a Heavy debuff for about 30 seconds. Magic Burst, meanwhile, deals damage and knockback. Neither are pleasant.

If you’re new to Final Fantasy XIV and want some more help, I wrote a bunch of guides during my time at USgamer; some of this information is a little out of date now, but the basic boss strategies and suchlike are still valid.

Dungeon guides
Level 50 dungeon guides (up to The Lost City of Amdapor)
Trial guides (up to Leviathan Hard)
Labyrinth of the Ancients guide

1935: Brave Frontier: Pete’s Completely Unofficial and Possibly Inaccurate FAQ

I like writing guides, as I’ve discussed before, so instead of making some “hilarious” walkthrough of my tedious daily routine as I’ve done in the past, I thought I’d write something actually useful to someone: a guide on what I’ve learned about the game Brave Frontier, which I’ve talked a little about recently, and which isn’t entirely forthcoming with all the information you might need to get the most out of it during play. Without further ado, then.

What is this game?

Brave Frontier is a free-to-play mobile RPG from Alim and Gumi. It’s available for both iOS and Android devices. There’s a linear story to follow, but it’s mostly a game about collecting and upgrading “units” — various heroic characters and monsters whom you can recruit into your team, level up and evolve into more advanced forms of themselves.

Do I have to pay to play?

Brave Frontier has an energy system that depletes as you take your party on quests, with later quests or those with larger, more significant rewards costing more energy to take on. If you have insufficient remaining energy to take on a quest, you can either use a “gem” to restore it completely to its maximum level, or wait for it to regenerate at the rate of roughly one point per three minutes. As you level up, you’ll gradually gain more maximum energy; one point every few levels, and a more significant jump every five levels.

Gems are also used for “rare summons” — immediately acquiring units of higher rarity levels — and restoring the separate, much shorter energy bar for the player-vs-player Arena mode.

Depending on how casually you play, you’ll probably find there is no need to pay for gems — especially in the early levels, when you level up quite quickly and your energy bar is fully restored on each level-up.

How do I get gems?

You can pay for them, but you also get one free every so often; specifically, for completing an entire area in the main story campaign, sometimes as a daily login bonus reward if you play for several days in succession, sometimes as a “Brave Points” bonus for earning points by completing daily objectives.

How do I get units?

There are three ways of acquiring new units:

1) Receiving them as a drop from a quest. With the exception of daily and special event dungeons, these are usually very low rarity units.

2) Acquiring them through “Honor Points”. You receive honor points when you borrow another player’s character to fill the sixth slot in your party, with 5 points awarded if they’re a stranger and 10 points if they’re on your friends list. You’ll also receive honor points when other people borrow your character to use in their party in the same way. 100 honor points equates to one “free” summon, but again, these tend to be quite low rarity for the most part. It’s usually best to save up your honor points until there’s a special promotion on promising specific units you wouldn’t normally be able to get through these means; the game will make you aware of this when it’s available.

3) Acquiring them using gems. 5 gems equates to one “rare” summon, which will net you a unit of three-star (“Rare”) or higher rarity. These units will probably form the backbone of your party, but note their “cost” value; when building your party, the total cost of all the units you use cannot exceed your current cost cap. Cost cap increases with your player level alongside your maximum energy.

How do I make units better?

There are three things you need to do to improve a unit: level it up, level up its Brave Burst, and evolve it.

Levelling it up requires you to “fuse” it with other units. Each unit fused to the base unit gives you a particular amount of experience based on what it is, with slightly more experience being given if its elemental type matches that of the base unit. More valuable, rarer units are worth more experience. The most experience can be acquired from units that drop in the “Metal Parade” dungeon in the Vortex Gate; keys to unlock this are issued in the Administration Office in Imperial Capital Randall every weekday except Wednesday, so be sure to go and pick them up as often as possible. Note that when you unlock it, the Metal Parade only stays open for an hour, so only unlock it when you have enough energy to make the most of it!

Levelling up a unit’s Brave Burst — its unique special move — relies a little more on randomness than standard levelling. A unit has ten levels of Brave Burst, with some more powerful and rarer units able to acquire a Super and Ultimate Brave Burst after this. To level up a Brave Burst, perform fusion, and look for material units that say “BB UP?” or “BB UP!” on them. “BB UP?” units give a small chance of levelling up the base unit’s Brave Burst when fused, while “BB UP!” units will guarantee an increase in Brave Burst. Generally speaking, units that are appropriate to use for levelling up a Brave Burst can be identified by the type of Brave Burst they use. Healer units require other healers to level up their Brave Burst, for example, while attacking units require other units with offensive Brave Bursts.

Evolving a unit is the process you perform when a unit reaches its level cap. The level cap is determined by the number of stars the unit has, or its rarity. Three-star units have a level cap of 40, for example, while five-star units can be levelled to 80. Note that there’s a “Zel” (currency) cost every time you perform fusion, and this gets more expensive the higher level a unit is. There’s also a Zel fee to pay at evolution time.

To evolve a unit, you must collect the required additional units. These are usually found in the Tuesday daily dungeons in the Vortex Gate. For lower-rarity units, you’ll need Nymphs; as you progress through the tiers, you’ll need Spirits, Idols, Totems, Pots and Mecha Gods. Initially you won’t know exactly what evolution materials are required for a unit, but once you’ve encountered or acquired the units in question once, they’ll be revealed for your reference. Refer to the Brave Frontier Wiki to find the specific units you need if you get stuck.

Keep an eye out for special units such as Frogs — these provide significant, one-off bonuses when fused without requiring a level-up. Some increase attack power, some defense, some recovery power, some HP. Some even open up a second slot for equipping Spheres.

How should I build my party?

It depends how much effort you want to put in. I use a single standard setup for everything I do; it has a mix of different elemental types, a healer unit, a unit who can boost the acquisition of Brave Burst crystals during battle and a unit that can boost attack power. This is good for most situations.

The main quest is split into dungeons that tend to be centred around a single elemental type, so if you want to optimise your party you may wish to build a full party of each elemental type, then choose the appropriate complementary element to the enemies you’re facing. Remember, elemental weaknesses are a one-way circle for the most part: fire beats earth beats lightning beats water beats fire (and so on). Dark and light have a reciprocal relationship, meanwhile; they both beat each other.

Special events and daily dungeons are often more challenging than the main quest, so you’ll want to bring along your best units for these. For the Metal Parade, you’ll want to bring units that hit a lot of times, since the most damage you can do to a Metal unit with a single hit is 1 point.

Pay attention to the unit you choose as Leader, too. Not only do you get the benefit of their Leader skill, which is usually a passive buff of some description, this will also be the unit you loan to other players. In other words, you want your Leader unit to be as attractive as possible (stats-wise or, if you’re feeling shallow, the prettiest girl) to encourage people to use it and provide you with Honor Points.

Note that different instances of the same unit can have different “types”, so be sure to pick one that you’ll find the most effective. “Lord” type units are balanced. “Anima” type units gain more HP than usual when levelling up. “Breaker” type units gain more attack power than usual. “Guardian” type units gain more defense power than usual. “Oracle” type units gain more recovery power than usual.

How do I fight?

Fighting is a simple case of tapping the unit’s status bar to cause it to attack; there’s no need to wait for one unit to finish its turn before triggering another one, either. In fact, if more than one unit hits something at the same time, a “Spark” is triggered, increasing the amount of damage by a significant amount.

After all your units have taken a turn, you’ll receive Brave Crystals (BC) and Heart Crystals (HC). The former are randomly distributed throughout your party and increase their Brave Burst gauge. The latter are likewise randomly distributed and restore hit points. After this is done, the enemy gets a turn. Note than many enemies — particularly bosses — have more than one action per turn, some of which can hit your whole party at once.

You can use items to turn the tide of battle; remember to acquire these from the Town before you leave, and use them before triggering any attacks, since you can only use them at the start of your turn.

Use Brave Bursts wisely. Although you get a bonus to the amount of BC and HC dropped if you “overkill” an enemy, there’s little sense in unloading everyone’s BB on a single fairy. If you can dispatch a group with normal attacks, do so and save your BB for larger groups or bosses. Also make sure you familiarise yourself with your units’ Brave Bursts before you get into battle; not all of them are offensive in nature!

How do I level up quickly?

Remember you level up separately from your units. Benefits of levelling yourself up include a higher energy cap, a higher “cost” cap (allowing you to include more, rarer units in your party) and a full restoration of your energy bar and arena orbs.

You get experience for every “Quest” you complete, whether it’s in the main quest or the Vortex Gate. Vortex Gate quests are usually worth more experience than you’d usually get for that amount of energy spent in the main quest, but they’re often tougher — and you get nothing if your party is defeated before you beat the boss.

The fastest way to gain experience is with the weekly Karma dungeon on Mondays. Not only does this drop absolutely tons of Karma, a currency used for upgrading the Town and unlocking more effective equipment and consumable items, but also provides a significant amount of player experience. There are three “levels” of this dungeon; start at the bottom and work your way up. You will require some seriously powerful units to be able to defeat the boss at the end of the level 3 dungeon, so don’t jump in there unless you’re absolutely prepared.

How do I get more money?

Two ways. Firstly, there’s a weekly dungeon at the weekend that drops a lot of Zel. Secondly, every Wednesday you can pick up a Jewel Key from the administration office in Imperial Capital Randall. This can be used to unlock the Jewel Parade, which works in the same way as the Metal Parade: it stays open for an hour, after which you’ll need another key to get back in, so only open it up when you have the energy to use.

Jewel Parade drops Jewel-type units, which are completely useless for anything other than selling, so take full advantage of this. Acquire as many as you can before the Parade closes, then sell them off for vast profit.

How do I win in the Arena?

You don’t have direct control of your units in the Arena, so all you can do is make sure you send your best possible units for the job: it’s a good idea to have a healer unit of some description, as this can turn the tide of a battle in your favour. It’s also a very good idea to take units with powerful Brave Bursts that can attack the entire enemy party at once, and any units that can provide buffs or increases to BC drop rates are useful, too; generally speaking, whoever gets to Brave Burst first will usually be the victor so if you can push yourself into a position where that’s more likely to be you, you’ll be golden.

What do I do in the Town?

Three things: acquire raw materials, upgrade the town’s facilities, and buy/craft things. The Synthesis shop sells consumable items such as health potions and temporary buffs; remember to “equip” these to your hotbar before entering a difficult quest, as they will make a huge difference. The Sphere shop, meanwhile, allows you to create equippable items that either add special effects to your attacks or increase stats and resistances. Don’t neglect these; they can make an otherwise seemingly weak character into a valuable member of your party.

Should I play this game? It sounds stupid.

It is kind of stupid and ultimately fairly pointless — but if you’re someone who enjoys collecting things, making them fight other things and making on-screen numbers gradually get bigger over time, you’ll probably have at least a bit of fun with it. It has some lovely art and great music, too.

Can I add you as a friend?

Sure. Type in my ID — the easy-to-remember 9630492642 — and we’ll both get happy nice things to share.

Where can I find out more?

The Brave Frontier Wiki is a terrifyingly comprehensive resource of information for this game.

1559: Life Walkthrough: How to Defeat the Big Breakfast

You’ll probably encounter the Big Breakfast on a weekend, particularly if you finish a Friday low on HP, MP or Sanity. If you want to guarantee an encounter with one, do one of two things: either ensure the fridge-freezer is stocked with Bacon, Eggs, Sausage, Hash Browns or Waffles and that you have at least one Beans in the cupboard; or alternatively, ensure that the fridge-freezer and cupboard have a complete lack of the aforementioned, in which case you’ll fight a Big Breakfast in the wild rather than at home. The latter case is slightly advantageous in that you have a little longer to shake off the Sleepy status effect before the confrontation begins, but the former gives you the Home Turf boost.

There are a number of ways to defeat the Big Breakfast, but following this strategy is one of the most effective and efficient. Prepare for battle!

As the battle begins use the SAUCE — either brown or ketchup according to the preference you set during character creation — on Big Breakfast. Using the wrong sauce will provide you with smaller benefits.

Next up, grab the BUTTER and apply it to the TOAST using the KNIFE. Don’t attack the TOAST yet, though; we’ll come back to that later.

Equip the KNIFE and FORK and attack the TOMATO. This is the weakest part of the breakfast, but also has the potential to do the biggest damage to your Sanity. Try and defeat it in two attacks at most.

Follow up by attacking the MUSHROOM. This is likewise weak, and its status effects can be mitigated if you applied the SAUCE correctly.

Once the TOMATO and MUSHROOM are down, you’ll need to begin attacking the SAUSAGES, but don’t jump straight in to pure attacking. Instead, use STAB on a SAUSAGE and then attack the EGG with it — you’ll be pleased that you did. After you’ve done this on both EGGS, you can commence normal attacks. Each attack will drain your MP significantly so don’t be afraid to take a turn or two to rest if you need to.

Follow up the assault on the SAUSAGES by attacking the EGGS. Weakening them with the SAUSAGES beforehand will make this part of the battle much easier.

Attack the BACON once the EGGS have been defeated. The bacon should quickly fall to a concerted assault, but keep a close eye on your MP. You should find that your HP is steadily increasing as you defeat each opponent.

Following the BACON it might be tempting to go for the next target in the list — the HASH BROWNS — but pass them by for the movement in favour of an attack on the BEANS. Characters with low agility will need to take a few turns to defeat these, but they’re nothing too much to worry about.

After the BEANS have been defeated, you’ll notice that they’ve left a pool of BEAN JUICE behind. This cannot be defeated with normal weapons, so instead you must use the STAB move on a HASH BROWN to attach it to either your KNIFE or FORK — preferably FORK, since using the KNIFE carries a risk of damaging your own HP — and only then attack the BEAN JUICE.

If the HASH BROWN attached to your weapon breaks, use STAB again on one of its remaining companions. Repeat the process until the BEAN JUICE has been defeated. If you fail to defeat it before the HASH BROWNS have been defeated, however, don’t worry, you still have a final weapon up your sleeve.

Unequip the KNIFE and FORK and pick up the TOAST. Equip it in either hand, then attack any remaining BEAN JUICE. If none is left, simply open your Item menu and USE the TOAST like any other item. If you find your MP are too low to be able to use the TOAST, rest for a turn or two until they restore. To restore them more quickly, either use the COFFEE or get up from the table and visit the TOILET. Note that if you pick the latter option you will need to be partied up with at least one other player, otherwise upon your return you will find that Big Breakfast has been taken away, and you will not receive full XP value since parts of it were left undefeated.

Once Big Breakfast has been defeated, sit back and enjoy the cutscene, then save your game. The true weekend begins here.

1094: Today: The Walkthrough

January 16

This is quite an easy day to get through — all you have to do is make sure you get all the tasks done by the end of the day and you’re good to go. As always, save your game as the day begins in case you make a mistake, and use any free time you have to go secret-hunting. See the SECRETS section for more details.

Morning

You have three main objectives in the morning: wake up, have breakfast and complete your work. All can be easily achieved quite quickly if you focus on the task at hand and save item-hunting for later.

You’ll start the day with “tired” status, which makes it more difficult than usual to wake up. After the cutscene where Andie leaves for work, repeatedly tap the Triangle button to force yourself out of bed. Don’t worry if you fail, though — it’s actually pretty challenging to succeed in this. You can try again, but you’ll take a hit to your HP each time you do so, so you might find it easier to just fall asleep again and wake up once the “tired” status has evaporated — there’s no real benefit to the early start beyond having more time available.

Once you’re up, walk to the bathroom and press X to start the morning routine. Skip the animation if you want — you’ve probably seen it plenty of times by now. Once you re-emerge, walk to the kitchen and press X in front of the bread bin to examine it. Pick up the BREAD and make sure you examine it in your inventory rather than just eating it — it’s mouldy, so use it on the bin unless you want to find yourself with a rather inconvenient toilet-focused status effect lasting the rest of the day.

Pick up the BREADSTICK instead, then open the fridge and pick up the EGGS. Open the drawer next to the fridge and take the SMALL PAN. Use the pan on the cooker, then use the cooker again to turn it on. You can stand and wait — there’s some amusing comments if you keep examining it — but it’s a better use of your time to walk over to the other side of the room and use the coffee machine. Pick a CAPSULE according to how much EP you have — if you’ve been following this walkthrough exactly so far, a green one will probably suffice. Use the capsule on the machine, then open the cupboard across the room from the machine to take a CUP. Use the cup on the machine, then use the machine. Voila! One coffee. Drink it immediately — coffee provides a nice boost to EP, but isn’t nearly as effective if you allow it to cool.

By now the pan should be starting to boil, so use the eggs on the pan, then use your phone in your inventory to automatically set the timer. You have four minutes in which to wander around the house and its environs before the eggs are ready. A good use of your time is to empty the bin — walk up to the bin and use it to take the BINBAG out, then use the bag to pick it up. You won’t be able to open your menu or access your inventory while carrying the bag, though you can put it down if you need to.

Open the front door while carrying the bag, run down the stairs and out of the front door. Use the binbag on the green bin, NOT the blue one, then run back into the building, up the stairs and back into your flat. You should be back just in time for the timer to expire and your eggs to be ready — use the cooker to automatically take them out and prepare them; use the breadstick on the resulting plate to finish preparing your meal; use the finished meal to trigger a cutscene.

When you regain control, you’ll be in the study in front of the computer. Three battles will ensue as you attempt to get your work done, but you can pause to regain lost HP/EP between each one.

Battle 1: Blitz (HP 50,000)

This is an easy one. Kick off with a Comparison, follow it up with Context, Quip and finally Verdict.

Battle 2: Cross (HP 60,000)

This one’s a little tougher. Kick off with a Comparison again, but use your phone in the second round for additional damage. Follow with Praise, Quip, Question and finally Verdict.

Battle 3: Snapper (HP 70,000)

Despite the higher HP, this is the easiest one of all. Quip, Question and Verdict is all you need to do here.

Afternoon

The main objective in the afternoon is to pick up the missing package, but it’ll help you out to pick up some supplies at the same time. Fortunately, we can do both things in one expedition.

Pick up the CARD from the desk in the study. Then go to the living room and open the drawer to pick up the DRIVING LICENSE. It’s very important you get both of these items!

Pick up your COAT and equip it — it’ll be on the back of the chair as usual. Pick up your SHOES and equip them — they’ll be in the hallway. Then open the front door and use your keys on it to lock it. You don’t have to do this — burglaries are triggered by random chance, so you won’t always suffer one if you don’t lock the door — but it’s best to be safe.

Run down the stairs and out of the building’s front door. There’s no need to use your keys on the building’s main door — this one doesn’t affect the odds of burglary.

Now we have a fair old trek ahead of us. You can trigger a time challenge now if you want to — the rewards are pretty worthwhile, so we might as well do so. Run around the back of the building to the car park and look behind your car — you should see the icon there. Use it to start the clock.

Head out of the car park and on to the main road. Keep an eye out for cars and cross if it looks clear, but remember they don’t stop for you! If you’re worried about safety, you can use the crossing, but you’ll find attaining the best rank on the time challenge difficult if you do so.

Follow the road west for quite some time. When you come to some more traffic lights, turn right and start heading north-west. You’ll see there’s a shop here, but we’re not going to use that just yet — priorities!

Continue north-west up the road, and cross the road when you come to McDonald’s — it’s not a true crossing, but the small island in the middle of the road means you can keep safe if the traffic gets heavy. Continue north-west on this side of the road, taking care to avoid the hoodie-wearing enemies. They won’t bother you if you don’t bump into them, so keep a wide berth as much as possible.

Don’t worry about finding the post office — you’ll get a cutscene when you reach it. When you regain control at the counter, use the card then use your driving license to identify yourself. Pick up the package but don’t open it yet.

If you were quick enough, an S-rank on the time challenge should be yours. Enjoy the reward in the gallery.

Now retrace your steps south-east back to the shop we saw earlier. Purchase some BREAD and some items of your choice to restore the HP and EP you’ve used up today. Then continue back east to return home. Run into the building, up the stairs and use your keys on your door to enter. Use any of the food items you bought in the kitchen if you need to.

Open the package when you’re ready to trigger a cutscene. Oh my!

Evening

There’s not much you need to do in the evening, so spend some time restoring your HP by playing with the rats in the living room. When Andie returns, you’ll get a cutscene; after it finishes, talk to her again, then go to the kitchen, pick up the JUICE, open the fridge, pick up the WATER and use them both on a GLASS from the cupboard. Pick up the resultant DRINK and take it to Andie for a reward.

When you’re ready to start the final events of the day, go to the study and use the computer. A battle will ensue as usual.

Battle: Inspiration (HP 109,400)

Whew, these battles are starting to get pretty tough now, huh? Charge up a bit by using Focus three times, then Ponder. This should give you the Inspired buff, which is when you should trigger your Tortured Metaphor ability. While this is active, simply repeatedly attack Inspiration and it’ll all be over before you know it.