Sephirot EX Discussion

[Yugl]

I only skimmed Yugl's post so I didn't see if he addressed it, but after looking through ACT we figured out that Ba'at is threat-related. Whoever is at the top of the hate list takes the biggest damage (20k+ unmitigated) and then it quickly scales down from there. If the MT dies, gets rezzed, and then forgets to provoke (which can happen since he doesn't auto-attack), then whichever DPS is at the top of the hate list is going to get splatted if they get picked.

News to me; will add.

[Alisha]

on a side note i'm doing some beastly overheal on the first few phases of this fight with ast/whm till we get the hang of the fight and my mp never suffers as long as I use luminifurous on cooldown and i'm nowhere near the top of the agro list. i'm curious if diurnal ast + whm might be possible since we have a paladin. thoughts? i'm still in that holy crap that's a lot of raid dmg heal heal heal heal phase!

[Yugl]

Any healing combo will suffice in there. Paladin is amazing for mitigating damage in the first phase. As for the healing throughput, it would be easier to see a video of your group's play since any 'general' advice can miss the mark. I could question your tank's mitigation only to find that your WHM is not keeping up regen. I could question your WHM's AoE choices only to find that people take unnecessary damage. It's all a guessing game until you show what is happening in your raid.

[Dammerung]

Healing easily sustained by WHM/SCH and AST/SCH. WHM will need to watch threat and communicate with tanks.

Kill order on adds is important for not getting overwhelmed. Small/Big/Small/Small/Big/Small.

[Kipling]

on a side note i'm doing some beastly overheal on the first few phases of this fight with ast/whm till we get the hang of the fight and my mp never suffers as long as I use luminifurous on cooldown and i'm nowhere near the top of the agro list. i'm curious if diurnal ast + whm might be possible since we have a paladin. thoughts? i'm still in that holy crap that's a lot of raid dmg heal heal heal heal phase!

I only really succor between aoes in the first phase. Medica 2 is normally enough to handle all of it, I end the first phase at around 700-740 DPS because of how much DPS uptime there is once you get used to the healing pattern.

Add phase I don't dps at all, and in the final phase my DPS goes down significantly (end fight at around 380~), but there are still a lot of windows to dot.

[AlastorTGN]

Any healing combo will suffice in there. Paladin is amazing for mitigating damage in the first phase. As for the healing throughput, it would be easier to see a video of your group's play since any 'general' advice can miss the mark. I could question your tank's mitigation only to find that your WHM is not keeping up regen. I could question your WHM's AoE choices only to find that people take unnecessary damage. It's all a guessing game until you show what is happening in your raid.

So two Primals in a row that are PLD friendly, quite happy about this. Between Seph/Thord and the new Meta in general for Tanks it seems like the playing field is somewhat balancing out? I mean, if we've got people saying the class is 'fantastic' for a certain phase (also a few kill vids actually using WAR/PLD now) it sure seems like it.

[Silenka]

It's only balancing out because they're making content specifically geared towards making certain jobs feel wanted. Don't confuse that for actual balance.

[AlastorTGN]

Are you not splitting hairs a little? I get what you mean, Thordan didn't make PLD have a not clunky stance dance, or useful healing spell but it didn't shit on the class like AS4 was supposed to have done.

If Thordan and Sephirot play to a PLD's strengths but don't shit on any other class, then isn't that just more inclusive raid design? PLD still has some ground to cover but this is a good start.

[Kaisha]

Add phase I don't dps at all, and in the final phase my DPS goes down significantly (end fight at around 380~), but there are still a lot of windows to dot.

How have you been handling add phase heals?

I've been focusing the tank as SCH with the big add, pre-succor when big one nearly dead, Virus+Indom for its explosion, and Covenant+Indom for the second big add. Shit's always a little scary when it blows up especially if DPS are hungry and kill a small one immediately after. Sometimes I've thrown in a Soil as well to dampen the incoming damage a little. Feels the same regardless of my co-healer being an AST or WHM.

Fight makes me feel gimp using Eos and the odd Soil to start with, but the DPS checks are mild so I'll go for stability.

[AlastorTGN]

People keep panicking with the post Jump aoes in P1 for me.

[Kipling]

How have you been handling add phase heals?

I've been focusing the tank as SCH with the big add, pre-succor when big one nearly dead, Virus+Indom for its explosion, and Covenant+Indom for the second big add. Shit's always a little scary when it blows up especially if DPS are hungry and kill a small one immediately after. Sometimes I've thrown in a Soil as well to dampen the incoming damage a little. Feels the same regardless of my co-healer being an AST or WHM.

Fight makes me feel gimp using Eos and the odd Soil to start with, but the DPS checks are mild so I'll go for stability.

From what I have seen, virus and soil do nothing for the explosions. They are always a static 2k for babies and 10k for the big guys. I succor before each one, adlo the tank holding the big guy (sometimes there is a nasty huge hit right before at the same time the big one explodes), and for big explosions I time an emergency tactics succor + indom or just tactics succor + normal succor if its the babies.

I also use Eos so I have whispering running at various points, usually the smaller babies exploding in groups.

The most important thing is to make sure your DPS understand the concept of "Don't pop all the babies at the same time".

[Kaisha]

I pop adlos on the tank holding big as well. It seems to just be a simple rotation of 3 melee attacks, then the harder hitting attack which gives the +1 stack debuff, which sometimes gets queue'd from the third melee. But yeah, if it's just Succor that helps that gives me more room to just time a second one with ET.

[Yugl]

All Genesis damage is darkness, so mitigation does not work. Shields do work. In my opinion, the add order I liked the most is:

Small/Big/Small/Small/Small/Big or Big/Small/Small/Small/Small/Big

With that order, your most tense moment is the first big add. Even if the second big add KOs your MT, you have time to raise and heal him or her.

Tank should use CDs when the big one is nearly down so he mitigates the cleave if it happens to occur there. For the duration of the orange/turquoise buff, damage is minimal since these buffs give you enhanced resistance to the mechanics. That is why you can put normal players, in place of tanks, into the towers. Since the buff is around 30s, there is zero chance of needing tank cooldowns there. In fact, it is only when the first Da'at goes out that something may be needed (I think it's possible to just use tank stance to soak that damage depending on your gear). In other words, you can afford to burn a cooldown for the first big add.

As for healing, I prefer to have SCH handle AoE damage and WHM/AST + Pixie focus the tanks. For the raid, it is only 6k simultaneous damage at most. With succor, it is around 800 damage. With whispering dawn, regen, pixie, and heals from the WHM/AST, it is very easy to heal the main tank.

[Alisha]

for ast/whm combo I recast aspected everytime we get hit. shield both tanks as well as the whm in case they get pot shotted. I handle most of the aoe healing during add phase to give the whm a break on agro. and I have better mp regen than him now. i'm curious though are whm's using cure 3 in this fight? my whm seems hesitant to use it. so i'm shouldering a lot of the healing burden.

[Kipling]

Medica 2 does most of the healing in this fight.

[Alisha]

I don't trust medica 2 on the parts with those back to back aoes.

[Alisha]

Any healing combo will suffice in there. Paladin is amazing for mitigating damage in the first phase. As for the healing throughput, it would be easier to see a video of your group's play since any 'general' advice can miss the mark. I could question your tank's mitigation only to find that your WHM is not keeping up regen. I could question your WHM's AoE choices only to find that people take unnecessary damage. It's all a guessing game until you show what is happening in your raid.

i'm not particularly proud of this run but it the one when we got the farthest. I think we will get it down next week. we only had about 6 hours in there this week because we got everyones alex drops on Monday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFIZD2rNoPM

[AlastorTGN]

People keep panicking with the post Jump aoes in P1 for me.

Okay, this is still hands down the biggest issue for me right now, what is the best way to spread here or IS there no retard proof method? I know what what to do but people can't seem to make use of half the arean to spread apparently.

Feel like this fight is nigh on un-PUGable, at least for Phoenix, might have to start Teamspeak Required parties. :/

[Taint]

Okay, this is still hands down the biggest issue for me right now, what is the best way to spread here or IS there no retard proof method? I know what what to do but people can't seem to make use of half the arean to spread apparently.

Feel like this fight is nigh on un-PUGable, at least for Phoenix, might have to start Teamspeak Required parties. :/

Few tips that cleaned it up for my group. Right after the 2nd jump have the tank move the boss back to the exact middle. There is plenty of time to do this correctly.

Green AoE comes out, stand on the bosses hit box next to the orb.



For the spread we do purple goes straight back. Bosses 6. Melee Behind. Tanks on flanks. Healers and ranged to the outside edges. Slight adjustments are needed but its simple.

[jibini]

Phase Three

• Yesod
• Force Field
• Gevurah Chesed/Chesed Gevurah
• Fiendish Wail
• Da'at + Ein Sof
• Fiendish Wail
• Gevurah Chesed/Chesed Gevurah
• Earth Shaker + Yesod
• Da'at
• Fiendish Wail
• Gevurah Chesed/Chesed Gevurah
• Pillar of Mercy + Yesod + Ein Sof
• Pillar of Mercy 2x + Ein Sof
• Earth Shaker
• Da'at + Yesod
• Fiendish Wail
• Gevurah Chesed/Chesed Gevurah
• Malkuth (Knockback from the North side of the map)
• Adds (Storm of Words + Binah 4x)
• Gevurah Chesed/Chesed Gevurah
• Fiendish Wail + Yasod
• Gevurah Chesed/Chesed Gevurah
• Yasod
• Impact of Hod
• Ascension + Pillar of Severity

Excessively detailed stuff:

1. The AoE that splits the arena with the orange/green orbs is sometimes listed in the chatlog as Gevurah Chesed and sometimes as Chesed Gevurah. Might be to do with which side is green and which side is orange, though I don't think it has any practical application to know which one it's using.

2. When Sephirot first brings his arm down onto the side of the arena, prior to sweeping it across during Ascension/Pillar of Severity, there's a smaller knockback and damage, which shows up in the chat log/pop-up damage text as Impact of Hod.