Inspired by the Solo Only challenge pioneered by RathGames. (he's also the reason I started playing FFXIV in the first place) I wanted to do something like his challenge, but outside the scope of it- after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but running ahead and making a guide on mainline content he's planning to do, but is yet to reach for his own challenge felt... rude.
As far as I am aware, as of time of writing, I am the first person to successfully solo clear all 12 pandaemonium raids, as having discussed with others in the soloing community, raids 10 and 12 were previously believed to be impossible- others have been done, but I believe I am the first to clear either 10 or 12 alone.
Unfortunately, my PC has neither the storage space nor the capabilities to record while playing FFXIV, and as such there will be no videos to confirm my clears as genuine. As such, to prove my authenticity, I have compiled text guides to each raid in this post- such that any who has both Warrior and Dark Knight at level cap with up-to-date gear can follow these guides to completion for each raid. Notable mechanics, things to look out for, and my general thoughts on the fights are included, as this was my first, blind run through Pandaemonium, having never seen any of the fights until my first time entering the instance. All instances were cleared Unsynced, and normal raids do not benefit from The Echo. Job, I-level of gear used, and any important deviations from 'optimal' rotation will be noted.
These won't be particularly in-depth guides for the easier raids, but I'll go into more detail on where I had significant difficulty.
Notable for all raids:
As you might expect for soloing, party stacks are much worse, spreads and other mechanics that hit X number of players are much easier or entirely ignorable. Damage is generally low enough to be unconcerning outside of telegraphed mechanics. Being hit by any instakill or arena death wall resets the fight, and soloing these raids is LONG. Expect to be in combat for upwards of 20 minutes.
Raid 1: Mr 'I hate the colorblind'
Job: Warrior, level 100.
Equipment: i-level 660 (Wrathgrinder & Augmented Credendum armor / accessories)
Attempts to clear: 2. (I got lazy and let a party stack hit me w/o mitigation, expecting to survive it. Don't do that.)
Easy, breezy, sight-readable. Probably doable level synced.
Notable Mechanics: Don't stand in the bad, party stack requires Damnation to survive. If doing this with dawntrail gear, pathetically easy. Color swaps are simple, ice/fire are simple. If you're paying attention, this boss should not be hard. The cross between ice/fire will kill you outright if you're standing in it when a damage burst happens.
Raid 2: That damn fishhorse
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 660, as per raid 1
Attempts to clear: 1
Gets a bit trickier than the first raid, especially once it starts combining mechanics and the head separates out. As long as you aren't caught in more than one mechanic at a time (such as when the head and body are both facing the same direction and their AOEs overlap) you should be more than fine. The most difficult part of this fight (when a half-arena cleave coincides with spreads) is basically ignorable solo as you won't have to concern yourself with the placement of other party members.
Raid 3: Orange is the new Orange
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 6
Whatever designer decided this raid should be orange aoe markers on an orange platform with an orange skybox is a cruel, cruel person.
Phoinix's first phase is a total non-issue. Big center aoe, rotating circles, a spread- nothing that should trouble someone who's gotten this far. The issue lies entirely in its ad phase and second phase.
Ad Phase: four firebirds, two at a time. Unlike most multi-enemy ad phases, you have to kill these one at a time, and move them away from the corpses as you do. With 770 gear and Inner Release, you should kill the last bird with ~20% left on the enrage bar. I sure hope you paid attention to that 'move them away from the corpses' bit, because each one close enough to another that it tethers gives the phoinix a permanent, stacking damage buff, even 2 of which makes the 2nd phase MUCH more dangerous.
Phase 2 continues the trend of phase 1, but the other major notable mechanic is Darkened Flames. Due to the fact that only one spread will be made by Phoinix, you cannot douse all 4 flames- a maximum of 2 can be destroyed before they detonate, meaning you will spend a significant portion of phase 2 with 2 Vuln Ups- if phoinix has its damage buffs, this will quickly spiral and kill your run.
Interesting note: Dead Rebirth isn't the standard 999999 instakill if you fail to kill all 4 firebirds in time- any that survived join the phoinix as a damage up, as if they'd tethered, but Dead Rebirth doesn't actually deal lethal damage- though it does quite a lot.
Raid 4: Alucard From Wish
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 2
This raid has a kill wall, as I found out to my detriment when I failed to sight-read a knockback mechanic and went flying to my death. Cool design, and his theme is a significant improvement over the previous 3 raids musically- I actually stopped my playlist and switched to listening to the raid themes from here on out.
Notable Mechanics: when his cape glows and points at a cardinal edge of the arena, he teleports to it and does a large knockback- you can immune this with either Arm's Length or Inner Release, but you can also use your gapcloser to dash back to him and interrupt the knockback.
Depending on which element his cloak unveils on the floor, he can use a Party Stack, a Spread, a Knockback, or a raidwide that does more damage the closer you are to the center of the arena. Be near the center for the knockback or you're eating a spike wall instakill.
Due to the fact that you're playing solo, both of his role-based mechanics can be entirely ignored. The tower is a no-tank tower, so it actually hits you *harder* if you stand in it, and the orb is a no-tank orb- both hit you very hard, but not enough to kill you, and there's only one orb, so it can't stack up to doom. Easy clear.
Raid 5: Average-sized pitbull
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Proto-Carbuncle really doesn't bring much to the table other than really flashy mechanics and baiting you into doing something stupid with those really flashy mechanics. Nothing of value to talk about here other than don't get hit by predation- I didn't get hit by it, but my viewing of the fight after I cleared tells me it just kills you, and that's a great way to immediately reset a 20 minute fight. Ruby walls reflect stuff back around the area they're in, which I repeatedly got hit by because I am apparently blind.
Raid 6: I can fix her (normal)
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Very few mechanics to talk about here, other than the moving aoes and parasite.
Moving AOEs are trouble, but don't do lethal damage on their own. However, they come more often than 60 seconds, so if you're really bad at dodging these, vuln stacks will stack up- you need to be consistently dodging at least every 2nd set or you will eventually stack up too many vulns to survive.
Parasite does absolutely nothing here other than be a short stun, since there are no other players to inconvenience with its cone. Gets iffy if you're like me and are VERY bad at determining where the safe spots for her tile AOEs are and spend half the damn fight with 3+ vuln stacks, but doable. Don't stand in the world's most obvious cones when she lifts her hands to channel the big red/black orbs, and you'll be fine. Her spin cycle only hit me once and the dance you do while you're parasited by it is very funny.
Raid 7: Wispy Woods
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Nothing hits hard enough to one-shot, but falling off the arena is a real threat here. Luckily, the knockback is rare enough that you'll always have Arm's Length or Inner Release off cooldown for it, if you want to be absolutely safe.
Notable Mechanic: This fight is the first in Pandaemonium to have towers that have actual consequences for failing to stand in them. Sorry Hesperos. Due to this, you will be spending a significant part of the fight with 3 vuln ups even with perfect play. Even so, Warrior's healing output more than keeps you alive. Just don't stand in the wind aoes or get knocked off, and you'll be fine. When it does the closer of the two giant circle aoes, one of its hands will point arrows forwards- this will absolutely kill you outright if it pushes you off the platform, so pop sprint and get running.
Raid 8: I think I miss my wife, Eric
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Very cool design, very cool arena. Blends the normal pandaemonium chains and spires with weirdly... industrial? pipe-like structures around the arena edge.
Notable Mechanics: Sunforge is hot wing / hot tail, easy dodge. Serpent is tail, Phoenix is wing. When he transforms into the... lion... centaur... tree... thing? His knockback is not resistable, so you have to actually position yourself properly- I didn't ever get hit into the spikes, but after Raid 4's spikes were instakills, I'm assuming this one is a death wall too.
When he transforms his arm into a serpent, he spawns two ads which rapidly burrow around the arena and pop up with a petrifying gaze- just turn away as they reach their destination, and you're fine- or even get petrified by it, it doesn't actually have that bad of consequences, since it's a short duration. Both ads start channeling something- I never found out what it does, honestly, I just saw it happening and popped Inner Release to tunnel them down every time they spawned. From the 2nd loop on, mechanics start overlapping, but if you sightread them before, it shouldn't be hard to adjust.
Raid 9: hey look you shapeshifted into a- oh that's ecliptic meteor.
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Three shifting forms that it rotates through throughout the fight. Notable in that mechanics don't get harder in later rotations, it's just the same rotation until the fight ends.
Mage: Complete non-issue. Fire is a spread and as such is ignorable, Ice is easy to dodge as it just requires you move towards it. Rotation includes two fire and two ice orbs that spawn circle aoes, one of the two will get bigger. Just don't stand in the bad.
Martial: Initiates with a center slam, then fires move out from point of impact to the end of cracks and explode. Easily avoided by staying near the arena's damage wall. Tank buster hits hard but easily survived. Combination is an out->frontal half arena if it's front, and an in-back half arena if it's rear.
Beast: Honestly when I saw 'Charybdis' I expected this to be WAY worse. Charybdis itself is a spread that locks you out of a small area of the arena, comet just move to the spot where one isn't falling, and then stand behind the comet for Ecliptic. Shake it off for the buster, Damnation for the party stack.
Notable: Normally, his tank buster while a beast hits both tanks as he jumps between them, but since you're alone, it only hits once before he jumps back to center. Complete non-issue of a fight.
Raid 10: I have a question. For God. WHY!?
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Consumables: Clam Cake (Dawntrial Level 100 CUL master recipe. Primary stat: Tenacity), Ultra-Potion (Dawntrial ALCH recipe, or Pilgrim's Traverse.)
Attempts to clear: 8
This is the point where, up until 7.4, Pandaemonium soundly told you the fun stops here. Seemingly impossible from the word go, Pandaemonium initiates the fight with a mechanics showcase, during which he plants two sets of six towers. Each tower you don't stand in (so, 5 per set) inflicts a vuln up to the cap of 8, meaning that you're sitting at a nice, toasty, 8 vuln ups when it initiates its Line Stack into Double Buster.
If you ever get bound to one of the pillars by silktrap, you die, so stay away from the little pillars unless Touchdown is forcing you to cross the web bridge.
I will not sugarcoat this, the opening here is entirely luck-based. Use Bloodwhetting on cooldown to keep your hp high, and you have to dodge at least one of his autos between the second set of towers and the line stack, or you die, no questions asked. The second set of towers will leave you low enough that his autos will kill you if you don't.
Use Holmgang to survive the line stack, then use your abilties in the following order.
Shake it Off -> Thrill of Battle -> Equilibrium -> Rampart -> Damnation -> Reprisal -> Bloodwhetting -> Ultra-Potion
Shake it off at the wrong time (ie if it purges Damnation or Thrill of Battle) will result in your death, guaranteed.
Each hit of the double buster, of which there are four, will deal over 100k damage due to your 8 vuln ups. It does more damage than you have maximum health, so you need to continually heal as it damages you. Both Rampart and Damnation need to be active before the first hit of the buster.
Luckily, from here, the fight gets much easier. He has a simple rotation, and the double buster is placed in his rotation such that you will not have vuln stacks from the towers when they fire, making it easily survivable with just Bloodwhetting. One set of towers are used 40 seconds before the line stack in his post-opener rotation, and his rotation is long enough that both Damnation and Thrill of Battle will be available each time, putting you well over the necessary HP to survive as long as you're good about keeping your health topped up, even through the 5 vuln stacks.
The one time this is twisted on its head is when he uses a pair of Tank towers as he steps on the platform- this leaves you with 6 Vuln stacks instead of 5 for the line... Luckily, this is exactly when Holmgang comes back off cooldown. Thanks, 240 sec cd invuln. He returns to normal rotation after this, so the fight becomes routine and scripted, with the only risk being standing in the AOEs his towers create, which inflicts Doom- and since you're alone, you have no one to cleanse it from you.
Each rotation I did roughly 10% of his HP bar, meaning you'll need to survive his rotation at least 9-10 times to win, and a single mistake with the line buster will kill you outright. Keep calm, don't panic.
Once Pandaemonium falls, congratulations- that was the hardest raid in the series to solo, bar none. Athena ain't got nothing on him... mostly.
Alternative Option: If you're the kind of lunatic with money and resources to burn, try crafting a set of Courtly Lovers and penta-melding it to max Tenacity- you can get to a total of -17% damage taken, effectively giving this boss a permanent reprisal debuff that stacks with your actual reprisal. The fight will take a bit longer, but it will be MUCH safer.
Raid 11: Oh No, He's Hot
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 2
Notable Mechanics: I interpreted his Light and Darkness mechanic wrong, assuming it was like Tsukuyomi's light/dark moon, and died for it. Honestly, this is a very simple fight solo, as most of the mechanics are centered around either running towards or getting away from the tank depending on whether he's shining with light or darkness... and well, you're the tank. Provided you resolve Light/Dark accord correctly, you should have 0 issues with this raid if you've gotten this far. Warrior's healing outpaces his damage, just don't let too many vulns stack up.
For Light/dark, simply stand in whichever pool you aren't aligned with. If you're light, go dark. If you're dark, go light. He seems to pick one when the raid begins and stick with it for the rest of that raid- I was Light-aligned every time he did this mechanic.
When he does his hot tail line, if it shines with Light, it expands into a wider line. if it shines with Dark, it becomes a hot wing line pair after. His tankbuster cleave is followed up by an in, his party stack is followed by an out- very interesting way to force the entire party to keep moving. You being alone, just damnation for the stack and mitigate for the buster.
Raid 12: She Can Make Me Worse (Ultimate)
Job: Dark Knight, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Consumables: Caramel Popcorn (DT Master Recipe Det/Crit food), Grade 4 Gemdraught of Strength, Ultra-Potions (both DT 100 Alch, though the Gemdraughts are master recipes)
Attempts to clear: 9 (Warrior) 1 (Dark Knight)
Athena has a very simple rotation of mechanics, and an absolutely killer design. All of the stress in soloing this fight comes from one simple problem: The Ad Phase.
Even on my best attempts with warrior, perfectly timing a pre-ad phase inner release so that I could use Primal Rend / Ruination twice during the 50-second ad phase instead of once, I was still falling short of the damage necessary- one ad would die, but the other three would remain at ~15% health each.
Switching to my only other levelled tank, Dark Knight, I hoped my relative lack of healing would be covered for by the significantly better DPS. This sacrifices comfort for the entire rest of the fight, as you have FAR less healing on dark knight, but makes the Ad phase comparitively free- so long as you don't get shredded by the ads aoes along with Athena's persistent aggression. (Very rude of her to continue attacking us while charging ultima AND summoning ads. Pick a lane, lady.)
Ad phase rotation
Athena's ad phase begins with 4 enemies, so your priority should be AOE. Luckily, if there's one thing in the world a max level DRK is extremely good at compared to Warrior, it's damage. Based on my calculations, while Warrior's total potency over the check's window is ~5000 in the check window- however, only ~4000 of that affects secondary targets.
Dark Knight, comparitively, can output just north of 9.5k potency in the same time frame- Esteem alone does 2450, much of which is AOE. DRK's total potency to secondary targets is over 6k.
In short, use a Gemdraught, gather the four ads into a small area, and hit every aoe button you have, starting with Flood of Shadow. (and don't forget to use Flood again every time your MP rises above 3k) Don't stop until either you or the ads die, though wait to hit Abyssal Drain until your health drops to about half, as these ads (and Athena herself) HURT, so the healing will be very needed; Living Shadow is a critical part of this rotation, and so you may want to sacrifice health by standing relatively still to keep all 4 enemies in Living Shadow's AOEs, to ensure damage properly cleaves to all four. Once two are left, switch to your single-target combo.
While Athena's damage is relentless, and after her ad phase she does all of her mechanics faster and they begin to overlap, even DRK has enough healing to stay mostly healthy. Her party stack and tank buster come more often than Shadowed Vigil will be off cooldown, but you still have Rampart, Oblation, Blackest Knight, and in an emergency, Living Dead, to fall back on. Keep calm, and focus on staying alive- you've got 90 minutes, the damage will come.
Be very careful when she tethers to specific tiles, as they will flip and fall into the abyss, killing you immediately if you're standing on them. Parthenos is also a significant knockback, and can drop you off the side if you're too near the edge. Chain Theory is a simple mechanic to resolve, if there's a donut stand in it, if there isn't, just avoid the spheres.
Other than that, the only thing you have to worry about is mitigating when she lines up a stack, because she always does a buster right after- don't overmitigate to the stack or you'll leave yourself vulnerable to the follow-up.
https://preview.redd.it/kywdwaqx48h...bp&s=6d78878fbdd992988f10d756e4dab585e260490c
With that, you're at the end. She has nothing left to scare you with once you have her general rotation down. Strike down the would-be god, and claim your rewards (including a guaranteed minion drop from 4, 8, and 12, since you're the only one in the party!)
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As far as I am aware, as of time of writing, I am the first person to successfully solo clear all 12 pandaemonium raids, as having discussed with others in the soloing community, raids 10 and 12 were previously believed to be impossible- others have been done, but I believe I am the first to clear either 10 or 12 alone.
Unfortunately, my PC has neither the storage space nor the capabilities to record while playing FFXIV, and as such there will be no videos to confirm my clears as genuine. As such, to prove my authenticity, I have compiled text guides to each raid in this post- such that any who has both Warrior and Dark Knight at level cap with up-to-date gear can follow these guides to completion for each raid. Notable mechanics, things to look out for, and my general thoughts on the fights are included, as this was my first, blind run through Pandaemonium, having never seen any of the fights until my first time entering the instance. All instances were cleared Unsynced, and normal raids do not benefit from The Echo. Job, I-level of gear used, and any important deviations from 'optimal' rotation will be noted.
These won't be particularly in-depth guides for the easier raids, but I'll go into more detail on where I had significant difficulty.
Notable for all raids:
As you might expect for soloing, party stacks are much worse, spreads and other mechanics that hit X number of players are much easier or entirely ignorable. Damage is generally low enough to be unconcerning outside of telegraphed mechanics. Being hit by any instakill or arena death wall resets the fight, and soloing these raids is LONG. Expect to be in combat for upwards of 20 minutes.
Raid 1: Mr 'I hate the colorblind'
Job: Warrior, level 100.
Equipment: i-level 660 (Wrathgrinder & Augmented Credendum armor / accessories)
Attempts to clear: 2. (I got lazy and let a party stack hit me w/o mitigation, expecting to survive it. Don't do that.)
Easy, breezy, sight-readable. Probably doable level synced.
Notable Mechanics: Don't stand in the bad, party stack requires Damnation to survive. If doing this with dawntrail gear, pathetically easy. Color swaps are simple, ice/fire are simple. If you're paying attention, this boss should not be hard. The cross between ice/fire will kill you outright if you're standing in it when a damage burst happens.
Raid 2: That damn fishhorse
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 660, as per raid 1
Attempts to clear: 1
Gets a bit trickier than the first raid, especially once it starts combining mechanics and the head separates out. As long as you aren't caught in more than one mechanic at a time (such as when the head and body are both facing the same direction and their AOEs overlap) you should be more than fine. The most difficult part of this fight (when a half-arena cleave coincides with spreads) is basically ignorable solo as you won't have to concern yourself with the placement of other party members.
Raid 3: Orange is the new Orange
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 6
Whatever designer decided this raid should be orange aoe markers on an orange platform with an orange skybox is a cruel, cruel person.
Phoinix's first phase is a total non-issue. Big center aoe, rotating circles, a spread- nothing that should trouble someone who's gotten this far. The issue lies entirely in its ad phase and second phase.
Ad Phase: four firebirds, two at a time. Unlike most multi-enemy ad phases, you have to kill these one at a time, and move them away from the corpses as you do. With 770 gear and Inner Release, you should kill the last bird with ~20% left on the enrage bar. I sure hope you paid attention to that 'move them away from the corpses' bit, because each one close enough to another that it tethers gives the phoinix a permanent, stacking damage buff, even 2 of which makes the 2nd phase MUCH more dangerous.
Phase 2 continues the trend of phase 1, but the other major notable mechanic is Darkened Flames. Due to the fact that only one spread will be made by Phoinix, you cannot douse all 4 flames- a maximum of 2 can be destroyed before they detonate, meaning you will spend a significant portion of phase 2 with 2 Vuln Ups- if phoinix has its damage buffs, this will quickly spiral and kill your run.
Interesting note: Dead Rebirth isn't the standard 999999 instakill if you fail to kill all 4 firebirds in time- any that survived join the phoinix as a damage up, as if they'd tethered, but Dead Rebirth doesn't actually deal lethal damage- though it does quite a lot.
Raid 4: Alucard From Wish
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 2
This raid has a kill wall, as I found out to my detriment when I failed to sight-read a knockback mechanic and went flying to my death. Cool design, and his theme is a significant improvement over the previous 3 raids musically- I actually stopped my playlist and switched to listening to the raid themes from here on out.
Notable Mechanics: when his cape glows and points at a cardinal edge of the arena, he teleports to it and does a large knockback- you can immune this with either Arm's Length or Inner Release, but you can also use your gapcloser to dash back to him and interrupt the knockback.
Depending on which element his cloak unveils on the floor, he can use a Party Stack, a Spread, a Knockback, or a raidwide that does more damage the closer you are to the center of the arena. Be near the center for the knockback or you're eating a spike wall instakill.
Due to the fact that you're playing solo, both of his role-based mechanics can be entirely ignored. The tower is a no-tank tower, so it actually hits you *harder* if you stand in it, and the orb is a no-tank orb- both hit you very hard, but not enough to kill you, and there's only one orb, so it can't stack up to doom. Easy clear.
Raid 5: Average-sized pitbull
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Proto-Carbuncle really doesn't bring much to the table other than really flashy mechanics and baiting you into doing something stupid with those really flashy mechanics. Nothing of value to talk about here other than don't get hit by predation- I didn't get hit by it, but my viewing of the fight after I cleared tells me it just kills you, and that's a great way to immediately reset a 20 minute fight. Ruby walls reflect stuff back around the area they're in, which I repeatedly got hit by because I am apparently blind.
Raid 6: I can fix her (normal)
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Very few mechanics to talk about here, other than the moving aoes and parasite.
Moving AOEs are trouble, but don't do lethal damage on their own. However, they come more often than 60 seconds, so if you're really bad at dodging these, vuln stacks will stack up- you need to be consistently dodging at least every 2nd set or you will eventually stack up too many vulns to survive.
Parasite does absolutely nothing here other than be a short stun, since there are no other players to inconvenience with its cone. Gets iffy if you're like me and are VERY bad at determining where the safe spots for her tile AOEs are and spend half the damn fight with 3+ vuln stacks, but doable. Don't stand in the world's most obvious cones when she lifts her hands to channel the big red/black orbs, and you'll be fine. Her spin cycle only hit me once and the dance you do while you're parasited by it is very funny.
Raid 7: Wispy Woods
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Nothing hits hard enough to one-shot, but falling off the arena is a real threat here. Luckily, the knockback is rare enough that you'll always have Arm's Length or Inner Release off cooldown for it, if you want to be absolutely safe.
Notable Mechanic: This fight is the first in Pandaemonium to have towers that have actual consequences for failing to stand in them. Sorry Hesperos. Due to this, you will be spending a significant part of the fight with 3 vuln ups even with perfect play. Even so, Warrior's healing output more than keeps you alive. Just don't stand in the wind aoes or get knocked off, and you'll be fine. When it does the closer of the two giant circle aoes, one of its hands will point arrows forwards- this will absolutely kill you outright if it pushes you off the platform, so pop sprint and get running.
Raid 8: I think I miss my wife, Eric
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Very cool design, very cool arena. Blends the normal pandaemonium chains and spires with weirdly... industrial? pipe-like structures around the arena edge.
Notable Mechanics: Sunforge is hot wing / hot tail, easy dodge. Serpent is tail, Phoenix is wing. When he transforms into the... lion... centaur... tree... thing? His knockback is not resistable, so you have to actually position yourself properly- I didn't ever get hit into the spikes, but after Raid 4's spikes were instakills, I'm assuming this one is a death wall too.
When he transforms his arm into a serpent, he spawns two ads which rapidly burrow around the arena and pop up with a petrifying gaze- just turn away as they reach their destination, and you're fine- or even get petrified by it, it doesn't actually have that bad of consequences, since it's a short duration. Both ads start channeling something- I never found out what it does, honestly, I just saw it happening and popped Inner Release to tunnel them down every time they spawned. From the 2nd loop on, mechanics start overlapping, but if you sightread them before, it shouldn't be hard to adjust.
Raid 9: hey look you shapeshifted into a- oh that's ecliptic meteor.
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 1
Three shifting forms that it rotates through throughout the fight. Notable in that mechanics don't get harder in later rotations, it's just the same rotation until the fight ends.
Mage: Complete non-issue. Fire is a spread and as such is ignorable, Ice is easy to dodge as it just requires you move towards it. Rotation includes two fire and two ice orbs that spawn circle aoes, one of the two will get bigger. Just don't stand in the bad.
Martial: Initiates with a center slam, then fires move out from point of impact to the end of cracks and explode. Easily avoided by staying near the arena's damage wall. Tank buster hits hard but easily survived. Combination is an out->frontal half arena if it's front, and an in-back half arena if it's rear.
Beast: Honestly when I saw 'Charybdis' I expected this to be WAY worse. Charybdis itself is a spread that locks you out of a small area of the arena, comet just move to the spot where one isn't falling, and then stand behind the comet for Ecliptic. Shake it off for the buster, Damnation for the party stack.
Notable: Normally, his tank buster while a beast hits both tanks as he jumps between them, but since you're alone, it only hits once before he jumps back to center. Complete non-issue of a fight.
Raid 10: I have a question. For God. WHY!?
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Consumables: Clam Cake (Dawntrial Level 100 CUL master recipe. Primary stat: Tenacity), Ultra-Potion (Dawntrial ALCH recipe, or Pilgrim's Traverse.)
Attempts to clear: 8
This is the point where, up until 7.4, Pandaemonium soundly told you the fun stops here. Seemingly impossible from the word go, Pandaemonium initiates the fight with a mechanics showcase, during which he plants two sets of six towers. Each tower you don't stand in (so, 5 per set) inflicts a vuln up to the cap of 8, meaning that you're sitting at a nice, toasty, 8 vuln ups when it initiates its Line Stack into Double Buster.
If you ever get bound to one of the pillars by silktrap, you die, so stay away from the little pillars unless Touchdown is forcing you to cross the web bridge.
I will not sugarcoat this, the opening here is entirely luck-based. Use Bloodwhetting on cooldown to keep your hp high, and you have to dodge at least one of his autos between the second set of towers and the line stack, or you die, no questions asked. The second set of towers will leave you low enough that his autos will kill you if you don't.
Use Holmgang to survive the line stack, then use your abilties in the following order.
Shake it Off -> Thrill of Battle -> Equilibrium -> Rampart -> Damnation -> Reprisal -> Bloodwhetting -> Ultra-Potion
Shake it off at the wrong time (ie if it purges Damnation or Thrill of Battle) will result in your death, guaranteed.
Each hit of the double buster, of which there are four, will deal over 100k damage due to your 8 vuln ups. It does more damage than you have maximum health, so you need to continually heal as it damages you. Both Rampart and Damnation need to be active before the first hit of the buster.
Luckily, from here, the fight gets much easier. He has a simple rotation, and the double buster is placed in his rotation such that you will not have vuln stacks from the towers when they fire, making it easily survivable with just Bloodwhetting. One set of towers are used 40 seconds before the line stack in his post-opener rotation, and his rotation is long enough that both Damnation and Thrill of Battle will be available each time, putting you well over the necessary HP to survive as long as you're good about keeping your health topped up, even through the 5 vuln stacks.
The one time this is twisted on its head is when he uses a pair of Tank towers as he steps on the platform- this leaves you with 6 Vuln stacks instead of 5 for the line... Luckily, this is exactly when Holmgang comes back off cooldown. Thanks, 240 sec cd invuln. He returns to normal rotation after this, so the fight becomes routine and scripted, with the only risk being standing in the AOEs his towers create, which inflicts Doom- and since you're alone, you have no one to cleanse it from you.
Each rotation I did roughly 10% of his HP bar, meaning you'll need to survive his rotation at least 9-10 times to win, and a single mistake with the line buster will kill you outright. Keep calm, don't panic.
Once Pandaemonium falls, congratulations- that was the hardest raid in the series to solo, bar none. Athena ain't got nothing on him... mostly.
Alternative Option: If you're the kind of lunatic with money and resources to burn, try crafting a set of Courtly Lovers and penta-melding it to max Tenacity- you can get to a total of -17% damage taken, effectively giving this boss a permanent reprisal debuff that stacks with your actual reprisal. The fight will take a bit longer, but it will be MUCH safer.
Raid 11: Oh No, He's Hot
Job: Warrior, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Attempts to clear: 2
Notable Mechanics: I interpreted his Light and Darkness mechanic wrong, assuming it was like Tsukuyomi's light/dark moon, and died for it. Honestly, this is a very simple fight solo, as most of the mechanics are centered around either running towards or getting away from the tank depending on whether he's shining with light or darkness... and well, you're the tank. Provided you resolve Light/Dark accord correctly, you should have 0 issues with this raid if you've gotten this far. Warrior's healing outpaces his damage, just don't let too many vulns stack up.
For Light/dark, simply stand in whichever pool you aren't aligned with. If you're light, go dark. If you're dark, go light. He seems to pick one when the raid begins and stick with it for the rest of that raid- I was Light-aligned every time he did this mechanic.
When he does his hot tail line, if it shines with Light, it expands into a wider line. if it shines with Dark, it becomes a hot wing line pair after. His tankbuster cleave is followed up by an in, his party stack is followed by an out- very interesting way to force the entire party to keep moving. You being alone, just damnation for the stack and mitigate for the buster.
Raid 12: She Can Make Me Worse (Ultimate)
Job: Dark Knight, level 100
Equipment: i-level 770 (Courtly Lover's Attire + battleaxe)
Consumables: Caramel Popcorn (DT Master Recipe Det/Crit food), Grade 4 Gemdraught of Strength, Ultra-Potions (both DT 100 Alch, though the Gemdraughts are master recipes)
Attempts to clear: 9 (Warrior) 1 (Dark Knight)
Athena has a very simple rotation of mechanics, and an absolutely killer design. All of the stress in soloing this fight comes from one simple problem: The Ad Phase.
Even on my best attempts with warrior, perfectly timing a pre-ad phase inner release so that I could use Primal Rend / Ruination twice during the 50-second ad phase instead of once, I was still falling short of the damage necessary- one ad would die, but the other three would remain at ~15% health each.
Switching to my only other levelled tank, Dark Knight, I hoped my relative lack of healing would be covered for by the significantly better DPS. This sacrifices comfort for the entire rest of the fight, as you have FAR less healing on dark knight, but makes the Ad phase comparitively free- so long as you don't get shredded by the ads aoes along with Athena's persistent aggression. (Very rude of her to continue attacking us while charging ultima AND summoning ads. Pick a lane, lady.)
Ad phase rotation
Athena's ad phase begins with 4 enemies, so your priority should be AOE. Luckily, if there's one thing in the world a max level DRK is extremely good at compared to Warrior, it's damage. Based on my calculations, while Warrior's total potency over the check's window is ~5000 in the check window- however, only ~4000 of that affects secondary targets.
Dark Knight, comparitively, can output just north of 9.5k potency in the same time frame- Esteem alone does 2450, much of which is AOE. DRK's total potency to secondary targets is over 6k.
In short, use a Gemdraught, gather the four ads into a small area, and hit every aoe button you have, starting with Flood of Shadow. (and don't forget to use Flood again every time your MP rises above 3k) Don't stop until either you or the ads die, though wait to hit Abyssal Drain until your health drops to about half, as these ads (and Athena herself) HURT, so the healing will be very needed; Living Shadow is a critical part of this rotation, and so you may want to sacrifice health by standing relatively still to keep all 4 enemies in Living Shadow's AOEs, to ensure damage properly cleaves to all four. Once two are left, switch to your single-target combo.
While Athena's damage is relentless, and after her ad phase she does all of her mechanics faster and they begin to overlap, even DRK has enough healing to stay mostly healthy. Her party stack and tank buster come more often than Shadowed Vigil will be off cooldown, but you still have Rampart, Oblation, Blackest Knight, and in an emergency, Living Dead, to fall back on. Keep calm, and focus on staying alive- you've got 90 minutes, the damage will come.
Be very careful when she tethers to specific tiles, as they will flip and fall into the abyss, killing you immediately if you're standing on them. Parthenos is also a significant knockback, and can drop you off the side if you're too near the edge. Chain Theory is a simple mechanic to resolve, if there's a donut stand in it, if there isn't, just avoid the spheres.
Other than that, the only thing you have to worry about is mitigating when she lines up a stack, because she always does a buster right after- don't overmitigate to the stack or you'll leave yourself vulnerable to the follow-up.
https://preview.redd.it/kywdwaqx48h...bp&s=6d78878fbdd992988f10d756e4dab585e260490c
With that, you're at the end. She has nothing left to scare you with once you have her general rotation down. Strike down the would-be god, and claim your rewards (including a guaranteed minion drop from 4, 8, and 12, since you're the only one in the party!)
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