Well I'm mostly glad to announce that SE has given me an entire humble pie and shoved it down my throat.
Why am I glad?
Unlike a good portion of the population, I still believe SE will develop solid content for this MMO well into FFXIV's existence. I felt like if ASA fell short of expectations, it would just be another feather in the cap of the naysayers and FFXI Doomsday Prophets.
Yes, the vast majority of this mini-expansion pissed me off. The final BC sucks to beat. (If you're a BLM, you're fucked. Sorry, go level another job.) We made a slight change to the strat we used.
For starters, distance.
Yes you can stand at max cast range and avoid AoE stuff. This was a primary issue in our previous 4 attempts. Esuna, on paper, looks like a good idea, but it's not. Mages at max casting range at all times.
Secondly, timing.
Start with her rages. From what I can gather, each Shantotto has 3 rage "charges". The use of one significantly boosts her defense and causes the other one to come assist her. These "charges" are used every 25% and last what appears to be a minute each.
Technically, you could zerg her down before she ever uses all 3, but the problem is that most people aren't capable of doing that. Some also believe that if you knock Shantotto down past her next "rage" %, she ends up losing her "charge". This is not the case. She will use all 3 at some point if she lives long enough to use them.
You can have all melee back off except the one with hate and let the mages concentrate on keeping them alive during the rage while another person is dedicated to trying to pull the other Shantotto off (which you can do after the rage period is done).
We inadvertently did this. Prior to Domina Shantotto's first rage, I ended up building up a ton of hate. When she raged, the plan was for Jess to DRK Zerg her down. Jess did zerg, but hate was stuck with me and Super Jump got paralyzed. After a short bit, I ended up dying because the mages were concentrating on Jess (per my instructions, Jess' high HP = damage).
At 50%, each Shantotto gets access to a special weapon skill that dumps a few enfeebles on you. Domina Shantotto gets Salvation Scythe and Belle Shantotto gets Divine Malison.
Other timing issues were the use of Angon and Benedictions. I was using Angon to actually pull hate off Gaw's RNG in a couple of the attempts and I was using it at the start of the first two attempts basically attempting to allow us to knock off as much of her HP as possible before she hit 50%. It's better to dump Angon on when she rages to help keep damage constant (if you're going in with a DRG that is).
Thirdly, subjobs.
Melees sub NIN. No ifs, ands or buts. This alone allowed for our healing battery to keep up with the cures.
/BLM, /RDM, or /SCH is fine for mages.
Lect subbing BLM was a test.
Lastly, Meds.
Come prepared. Project Shantottofication is not meant for fucking around. Get Remedies. Get Antidotes. Get Echo Drops. Get an Icarus Wing. Bring a couple fast use Reraise items. Also bring a vile elixir or two for recovering from the wipe.
So ok, start to finish, here's what happened in our fight:
Setup:
Gawayne (Excalibur PLD/NIN)
Lectrikelion (RDM/BLM - testing ES Dispel during rage for defense boost)
Cealy (WHM/SCH)
Kaylea (WHM/BLM)
Jess (DRK/NIN)
Qtipus (Gungnir DRG/NIN)
Upon entry, we buffed. Gawayne ran in to aggro both Shantottos while Lect pulled Domina Shantotto to the door. Our positioning was this:
Door|-D.Shantotto-Melees-----------------Mages--------Gaw fucking around.
Gawayne was actually busy soloing B.Shantotto while Jess and I were tearing down D.Shantotto. Our game plan was for Jess to Zerg at 50% to help push her down during her second rage. Didn't go quite according to plan as I ended up dying right as she used her 2nd rage. Jess got his zerg done and my death actually ended up helping us gain control over the fight as the mages really could focus solely on Jess.
After the third rage, I had it set up so that I RR'd as Gaw got B.Shantotto's hate back and one of the WHM's Benedictioned. Jess ended up going down as D.Shantotto was 1-2% and we managed to finish her off and start taking down B.Shantotto.
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: While I'm unsure if this is 100% fact, we do know for certain that when we attempted to kill B.Shantotto first, she started spamming Meteor.
B.Shantotto is definitely squishier than her counterpart. Same rage rules applied. After 50%, she started spamming -ga I spells (which somehow did more damage than her -ga III spells). We knew we still had a wipe in us and plenty of time to recover, so we weren't too worried about potentially being taken down.
Before we knew it however, she was already down to 25%. Why wipe when you're that close right? We kept beating and wailing away on her.
I went down.
Gawayne went down.
Cealy went down.
Lect went down.
Fuck Bella Shantotto is whipping our asses good.
Just Jess and Kay standing with B.Shantotto at 5% or less. Jess had ~550HP. One -ga later, he had less than 100HP. Kay was out of MP and no 2 hour.
Jess uses Souleater.
Jess readies Guillotine.
Jess uses Guillotine.
Shantotto takes 987 points of damage.
Jess defeats Shantotto.
~BAM
Not exactly as planned, but a win is a win. Obviously that doesn't happen if Jess doesn't have TP and remember, we did still have time to wipe and recover. Still though, that was clutch and completely unexpected, which added to the overall rush of actually beating this thing for the first time.
A Shantotto Ascension - Ending
There are a few spoilers here, so skip this section if you don't want them.
The ACP and MKE endings left something to be desired. A short conversation followed up with a "Thank you, you saved the world/mog house! Kupo~!". I was expecting something on par with this.
Damn SE pulled out all the stops. Those of you up to this point might have noticed the humongous Shantottos in the trailer that have yet to make an appearance in this mini-expansion thusfar.
Domina Shantotto's curse has spread anyway despite her defeat. This curse has turned the protocrystals into giant, Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man-sized Shantottos. Their effects on Vanadiel is turning it's entire population into Shantotto clones.
We failed?
Not so fast. This whole time we've been thinking Shantotto herself was split into two when in fact, the actual Shantotto's spell that went awry was some sort of inter-dimensional traveling spell that transplanted our Shantotto with another dimension's Shantotto. That other dimension's Shantotto was split in the process while our Shantotto remained in one piece.
Confused yet?
Yeah well our Shantotto shows back up as the curse is spreading and, before explaining anything, proceeds to start working her magic to undo it.
We're treated to movies of gigantic Shantotto's duking it out. An entire assortment of wrestling maneuvers are pulled off. The airplane. A drop kick. A head lock. Even a Dragon Ball Z-esque charge up and final punch.
This part alone made the $10 worth it. The entire ending eats up about 15-20 minutes (I fkn missed House fighting the last BC and watching this ending). Hopefully you can stand the rhyming tarus that long.
My final thoughts are that since Shantotto is the legend she is in the FFXI universe, the more I think about it, the more I'm glad SE decided to make a battle with her as difficult as they did. While I feel kind of sorry for the BLM-only crowd out there, this BC is flexible in the types of combinations you can take in. Plus, it only seems logical (in a completely illogical sequence of events) that the game's most powerful BLM would have a built in resistance to...BLMs. It would seem though that SMN Parties are the best way to go with this BC.
Did I come away feeling satisfied? Yes, I did. I absolutely hated the trip to get to that point though. Best thing I can compare it to is:
This expansion is like driving behind a dump truck full of shit on the highway for 30 miles at 10mph only for it to take an exit and have you get stuck behind a truck full of naked {insert your gender preference/fantasy people here} doing the speed limit for 10 miles.
Gear Selection
I ended up choosing the Blitzer Poleyn piece with Haste+3 and Double Attack+2 on them with some reservations. Doing this essentially made this piece somewhat DRG only. WAR or SAM wouldn't use these pants most likely in place of Byakko's Haidate. A DRK would probably opt for Homam pants over this combination due to the additional Accuracy bonus and extra MP. Since I'm leveling DRK, I have this stuff to think about now.
The crew that defeated two Shantottos with Aldo rightfully hiding his face in shame due to his lack of contribution.
Just as a heads up to anyone else thinking of asking me to do this BC again.
No.
You'll understand once you win. :)
Kayleactrikelion. Poor Kay.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, the fight was worth the loses before it. It really is an epic battle and the team work required really brings a sense of conradery with it.
I hope FFXI isn't the last time we see Shantotto in the Final Fantasy megaverse. She is a very interesting character in a world where not many stand out.
She is already the only FFXI character ever to have a voice over :p (even if it's in another game e.g. Dissidia)
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