Stone Vigil (Hard) is required to be cleared in order to complete Zodiac Relics, as well as for a few other miscellaneous reasons (unlocking roulettes, completionism, some crafting materials that may not be in supply on MB, Blue Mage spells, etc).
Doing Cuca Fera solo (Undersized Party) is pointlessly time-consuming and tedious, and for a few of the lowest-dps jobs, isn't possible even at current iLevels, or relies on excessive luck with Crits/DH, excessive gear, or rotational precision.
The cannons in this encounter are also one of the most un-fun mechanics the SE developers have ever implemented in group content, but that's probably tangential to this topic.
There are several problems with this encounter when trying to clear solo (although most of them also apply to why this encounter is loathsome even in a matchmade DF party), and fixing any of them would be a huge improvement:
Could you just add some sort of "Anti-Turtle Echo" or something if a player enters Stone Vigil (Hard) via Undersized Party, that removes Cuca Fera's damage reduction? Or super-powers the cannons? Or something, anything to make this less tedious?
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Doing Cuca Fera solo (Undersized Party) is pointlessly time-consuming and tedious, and for a few of the lowest-dps jobs, isn't possible even at current iLevels, or relies on excessive luck with Crits/DH, excessive gear, or rotational precision.
The cannons in this encounter are also one of the most un-fun mechanics the SE developers have ever implemented in group content, but that's probably tangential to this topic.
There are several problems with this encounter when trying to clear solo (although most of them also apply to why this encounter is loathsome even in a matchmade DF party), and fixing any of them would be a huge improvement:
- The cannons cause pathetic damage for a solo player. It's higher DPS to just attack Cuca Fera directly, basically punishing the player for attempting to do the mechanics correctly.
- Cuca Fera's inherent damage reduction is obnoxious and overtuned, blunting even level 80 player damage to almost nothing.
- The above two points combine to make this encounter a time-wasting HP sponge that isn't challenging, just boring and tedious.
- On top of all that, if the 4 pathetic and poorly-scripted Ishgardian knight NPCs are all killed by incidental damage or add AOEs (that the knights obliviously stand in), the encounter automatically kills the player at the next Hard Stomp. This is excessively punishing to lower-dps jobs, because it means that even if the player could technically solo the encounter after enough time, the NPC's deaths force a hard Enrage timer... in a level 50 dungeon's mid-boss.
- And excepting even all that, the encounter is terribly-paced and very annoying. Every few seconds Cuca Fera either becomes Invincible, or performs a massive knockback on the player, or both. This seems designed to be frustrating, and little else.
Could you just add some sort of "Anti-Turtle Echo" or something if a player enters Stone Vigil (Hard) via Undersized Party, that removes Cuca Fera's damage reduction? Or super-powers the cannons? Or something, anything to make this less tedious?
Continue reading...