#me as BLM getting tank buster:

[sharama]

No.

[subetei-noykin]

Do ALL of the boss prompts.

I’m so sorry in advance. Credit to @clover-hawthorne​ for the inspiration for the majority of this.

What would the setting/arena look like?

The battlefield would initially start off in a closed-in building, tables and chairs scattered off to the sides against the walls to create a deliberately closed in arena. One large set of double doors the party enters from, behind Subetei the only doors to advance into the remainder of the building.

Four large columns support the room from inside, with small amenities. A fireplace, a thick fur carpet on the stone floor, no windows.

At the fight progresses, environmental damage from Subetei’s attacks would begin to open the arena up. Walls cave in, pillars collapse and fall over, chunks of the ceiling create hazards that must be dodged and piles of rubble form that cut off line of sight or escape routes, or must be used to dodge certain attacks.

When phase two begins, the entire room collapses onto both parties and creates a rubble-filled, open sky battlefield for the fight.

What would the music sound like?

Phase One Theme - Battlefield by (Megalobox OST)

Phase Two Theme - Power Worship (Extended) 

What would the mechanic(s) of the fight be?

Phase One (Pre-Trance)

Primary mechanics are initially simple, dealing with Subetei’s rotation of Overpower > Cyclone > Upheaval which are, in order, a cone AoE pull-in, a point blank area of effect knockback and his tank buster. Cyclone applies a ten second duration slow to any hit by it and colliding with terrain inflicts a short duration stun as well. Upheaval is simply a damaging tank buster.

As Subetei rotates through this pattern, the arena is collapsing around the party. Pillars fall in random patterns creating obstacles that must be destroyed before the next Cyclone phase or the entire party risks being thrown into terrain and being stunned, in addition to the ceiling raining down from above creating area of effect nukes that apply stacking vulnerabilities.

At 75% health Subetei binds the tank via Holmgang, creating a target able effect, and then begins charging Onslaught. If the Holmgang isn’t destroyed before Onslaught finished charging, Onslaught is a high-damage party wide damage that’s going to wipe the party. If Holmgang is brought down it’s a line AoE charge that sends Subetei across the room, but can be dodged well enough and knocks back anyone hit, with vulnerability stacks.

Once Onslaught is over, Subetei’s rotation changes. His Overpower now also pulls in chunks of debris as well as players and his cyclone also creates multiple line AoEs that players must avoid. Players hit by Cyclone will have difficulty from the slow, and those who are slammed into terrain and stunned are always put in the same path as the lines, causing double stacks of vulnerability and longer stuns.

Phase Shift

At roughly 50% health or a set duration of the fight Subetei rushes into the center of the arena and begins charging Stormbringer. A gauge representing Subetei’s focus appears, and the room begins to collapse in earnest. Patterned AoEs will begin to fall and any player hit will be encased in Rubble, requiring them to be broken free before they can participate further. Subetei does not directly attack during this phase, but the debris and Rubble make it difficult to stay still and do damage.

If Subetei’s focus is at 100 when Stormbringer finishes charging, the party wipes as Subetei unleashes a Limit Break style Decimate that craters the entire room and buries the party in rubble, ending the fight.

If Subetei’s focus is under 100 when Stormbringer finishes, the room still collapses but the party takes a scaling amount of damage depending on how high the gauge was when he completed Stormbringer.

Subetei is likewise buried under the rubble when the dust clears, revealing the new open air arena and the music changes as Subetei bursts his way out of the rubble.

Phase Two (Post-Trance)

In this Phase Subetei has a permanent gauge marked Trance, which starts at 100% and ticks down rapidly as he takes damage. His mechanics remain mostly the same, but gain additional effects. Overpower always pulls in debris now and also sends out multiple additional aftershocks in wave patterns around the room. Getting hit by these waves causes the slow debuff to apply. Cyclone remains the same, with the line AoE effect afterwards, but now sends up piles of target-able debris that function as the pillars from Phase 1, in random positions.

Upheaval gains the biggest change, requiring both tank and off-tank to stack as it applies an Akh Morn-style repeating effect that lowers in damage as hits are delivered. He almost immediately follows this up by charging Uproar, which will knock up anyone hit by it. If the off-tank isn’t fast enough in getting out of range they will be hit too.

At 35% health the Onslaught phase repeats, except that Subetei also throws out Tomahawk, several line AoEs radiating out from him, that repeat in the opposite direction, usually aimed to hit around the tank. If the tank is not broken free in time the party wipes, as before. If the tank is successfully freed Subetei performs a similar line charge to before, with the added effect of knocking up and stunning anyone in the path instead of slowing them.

Any time Subetei’s trance gauge drops to 0 during this stage he stops attacking, dropping to one knee. He is especially vulnerable during this state, but damage must be dealt quickly as when he recovers Subetei will use Thrill of Battle, regaining a percentage of his HP and gaining a full Trance gauge once more.

At 10% health Subetei uses an immediate Cyclone that affects the entire party, knocking them back to the edges of the arena as he begins charging Stormbringer again, except without a Focus bar this time. It is a DPS race to finish him off before he completes the charge, else the party will wipe from the damage.

What would their Ultimate/Enrage attack be?

While Stormbringer is Subetei’s ultimate during multiple phases of the fight, including the end, his enrage timer would be marked by him gaining the Berserk status and executing Fell Cleave, a room-wide attack that visibly shatters the floor in multiple directions. The party dies.

What would the theme of their weapon drops be?

Honestly much like Subetei himself I like the idea of the weapons being very mixed in theme. Crude and hand-made with tribal or nautical elements. Prefix would be Scarred.

PLD: Scarred Cutlass + Scarred Mantlet (BIG SHIELD)

WAR: Scarred Ship Cleaver

DRK: Scarred Saber

WHM: Scarred Branch

SCH: Scarred Quarto

AST: Scarred Sextant

MNK: Scarred Punching Daggers

LNC: Scarred Trident

ROG: Scarred Dirks

SAM: Scarred Gunto

ARC: Scarred Longbow

MCH: Scarred Bombard

BLM: Scarred Cane

SMN: Scarred Octavo

RDM: Scarred Spardoon

Bonus: Voice Lines

Intro: “Well ah be out o’ m’ depth…But ah job be ah job, aye?”

“C’mon t’en, ‘ero. Let’s see where ye stand.”

Phase One Lines: “Harr! Ye sweatin’ yet?”

“Yer guard be down, salt!”

“Ah’d duck!”

“T’at look like ih ‘urt…”

Onslaught: “Yer lookin’ tired…”

“Sit ah spell, ah’ll ‘andle ter rest!”

Stormbringer: “Gettin’ cramped ihn ‘ere…”

“Time ter bring ihn ah little air!”

Phase Two Lines, pre combat: “Ah’m startin’ ter t’in…Ter job nah be worth ter coin…”

“Ah’ve got ter…make ih back…”

(Voice lines are replaced by grunting and growling sounds)

Onslaught, Phase Two: “Yer ah worthy fight…But ah canna die ‘ere!”

“Ah’ll rend ter lot o’ ye!”

Trance reaches zero: “Wha’? Ah shite…Ah can’t…”

Trance returns to full: “Ah’m nah done yet…!”

Stormbringer Phase 2: “No…Ah won’t stop till ah’m…!”

“Yer goin’ ter ‘ave ter pry m’ life from m’ ‘ands, hero!”

Upon Defeat: “…’yuki…Ah’m so…sorry…”

Focus 100 Stormbringer/Final Stormbringer/Fell Cleave Enrage: “Dodge t’is ye whelp!”

@whitemxge and @shard-kilamarii who also sent in asks on this!

Thanks for the ask! - OC As a Trial Asks

Holy crap this is so self-indulgent but I can’t not love this idea in my head.

Since I answered all the asks I’d received on this subject in one fell swoop, I’ma make a sort of reward for the folks who want to send in more asks on it; All asks I get from this meme from this point forward will be for one of Subetei’s AUs.

You can specify, or leave it up to me. Applicable AUs are; Magitek!Subetei, WoL!Subetei and ???!Subetei.

[angry-healers]

Hey I'm trying to improve my AST skill so I'm trying to understand the card usages more. I know when to use balance and bole, but I'm confused on when spear and arrow are good to use

It took me an eon to reply to this and I wholeheartedly apologize as it got lost in the inbox.

Since cards have been updated essentially, I’ll give you the updated version.

Balance: Anytime, anywhere, make’em beg for it.

Arrow: Give it to the NIN to piss off your BLMs. Trust me. Great for all casters except for RDM. Enhanced Arrow will be a bane for melee classes because it makes them fuck their TP harder than a PWP fanfic. Overall, it’s a generally good card for everyone but prioritize those ranged attackers.

Spear: It does the Crit thing now so again, another generally great card for anyone and everyone. Even your co-healer.

Bole: Defense. Party busters, tank busters, door-to-door pulls. Can’t go wrong. Otherwise, road it.

Spire: If you pull it and someone’s TP is low let them have it. If not, road it.

Ewer: Use it on yourself or your co-healer as needed. Watch your Summoners, Bards and Red Mages as well. Do not give Ewer to BLMs or DRKs. BLM’s Astral Fire prevents MP regeneration and they can get MP back extremely easily by going into Umbral Ice. DRK’s DPS stance prevents all outside MP regeneration  and they will be flipping it on and off so there’s no point. If no one needs MP, Road it.

When you don’t need a certain card, Royal Road it or use Minor Arcana. If you’re holding a RR/MA, use Undraw to reset the CD. Essentially, you don’t want to RR/MA Balance/Arrow/Spear. Unless you REEEEALLY need something to be extended then I suggest having an RR priority of Arrow over Spear.

EDIT: God I forgot to talk about the Royal Road stuff in general. In 4-man content, single targetting your cards is great and a lot easier because you only have two DPS and a tank to coddle. It gets more annoying in 8-mans and in those situations I actively fish for Expanded pulls (from RRing Ewer or Spire) to make my life easier and give everyone a thing. Extended royal road (RRing Spear or Arrow) is great for people who need TP/MP so you can make the effect last longer. Enhanced RR (RRing Balance or Bole) is my favorite in 4-mans to make one of the DPS feel special or combine it with Bole to make the tank feel extra beefy with a side of fries. Enhanced brings the best out of any single card.

– Mod Mhi

[thessalian]

Thess vs Stormblood

Finally - FINALLY - got into Stormblood content. Am waiting for @true0neutral to start the story questing because ... I R HEALBABE. I R squishy. I would prefer run through zones, and through missions that aren’t solo duty, with someone who can take some significant damage. Also it’s a lot more fun to have someone to talk to when doing the story missions.

Dragonsong War patch was interesting. Nero is a jackass. I’M JUST SAYING.

Of course, meantime I was leveling Other Stuff. Because Other Stuff rocks. Seriously, sometimes you just want to set everything on fire. Hence Black Mage. I actually have a list of how I want to level my DPS classes, partly to let me and @true0neutral have equal turns at the various roulette bonuses. Currently, he’s running DRG in Leveling Roulette, while I run BLM in 50/60 Dungeon Roulette. Once I’ve hit BLM 60 (two and a half levels to go, or thereabouts), we swap off. He levels one of his level 50s to 60, and I level one of my low-levels to 50. I was thinking DRG myself, but ... I really should unlock MCH. I like me my ranged DPS, and there are so many guns sitting around in the retainer inventory I have for such things. So ... here’s what I’m looking at:

BLM to 60

MCH to 50

RDM to 60

LNC/DRG to 50

BRD to 60

And so on, not counting any attempts to push to level 70 on various characters. That’ll happen automatically through story quest on WHM, and through leveling with @true0neutral while he grinds his own DPS classes. I honestly love that we can each level a DPS and have a healer or tank in the group at the same time. It cuts down on queue times so much.

...One day, I may even try tanking. One day. Probably on the day that @true0neutral decides to level SCH. I don’t know what kind of tank I’d be if I went tank, but godsdamnit, I want to give my friend the kind of tank I’ve had in him since we started playing this bloody game.

Also, @angry-healers level bullshit on a few separate occasions while working through leveling and Dragonsong War. Baelsar’s Wall, for instance. Holy fuck, our BRD. Look, I get there’s this ‘gotta go fast’ feeling, but Peloton strikes me as particularly useless when you’re maybe ten feet from a zone line. It’s even more useless when you’re stuck on that back-forth elevator deal and you’re not. Actually. Fucking. MOVING. Compound that with the fact that he steadfastly refused to move out of AoE stupid. He died twice, going from full health to zero so fast I didn’t even see it happen, being focused on keeping the tank alive through various tank-busters. Which prompted the back-forth, “What hit him?” “Everything.”

Don’t even get me started on the tank we had for a Stone Vigil run. Now, I know that when you have a BLM in the party, most people desperately want to take advantage of the AoE potential to do a speed run, but ... this was ridiculous. It wouldn’t have been such an issue if the tank wasn’t undergeared and inexperience, or had paid the remotest bit of attention to the fact that the BLM had never been in that dungeon before. It wouldn’t even have been as much of an issue if the tank had actually dragged Koshchei far enough towards the door in that second fight, so as to not oblige me to drop Eos in the middle of the room and run through the wind to get to the cannons. But as it was, this undergeared tank with little experience of his job class just charged in, grabbing two or three packs at a time and obliging me to heal through it, never even checking to see if healer (me) still had line of sight. He nearly died at least twice because he left LoS to pull a new pack. I had to scramble to maintain enough MP to keep his ass off the flagstones.

I know people think that ‘healers have it easy’, somehow. Particularly anyone playing SCH, because “they have a fairy doing all the work!” Erm ... NO. That is not how Scholar fucking works. Eos and Selene are adjuncts to your own healing, not the other way around. I think a lot of people have their view of healers ruined by the lazy gobshites who seem to think that hitting AoE HoT once or twice and then ignoring everyone in favour of doing as much damage as possible. Sure, people stay alive, mostly, but there are a lot of issues that method of healing doesn’t take into account. Tank-busters, for example. Roomwide AoE. If you’ve got things that will unavoidably deal massive damage, you can’t get away with letting people’s health fall too far. You just can’t.

That said, I’ve been getting a lot of comms on BLM lately. This because I tend to pay attention when the “One or more players are new to this dungeon” message comes up and I ask @true0neutral to pause before bosses so I can give a quick precis of what people need to look out for in the fight. Every time I do that, I get all the comms. I’ve been considering getting my mentor crown, but I’m hesitant to do that before I get a role to 70 and complete the story quest. Not sure why. I mean, even if I’m new to a dungeon, I usually have a guide up on my other screen. Then again, as Baelsar’s Wall showed me, sometimes these are not overly accurate. Like, the one I read for that one kind of ignored the adds on the first boss. That was not fun for me to discover.

[sharama]

Reading through a few people's posts that show up on my page

And

Am I like, the only one who likes the new mechanics and difficulty of new dungeons and bosses? 😭😭😭

Like I know I'm going to have a hard time on BLM with them, but I like the fact that I have to pay attention to what's going on instead of face rolling and eating AOEs (that I know won't get me killed). I like the fact that tank busters HURT even with cooldowns being used and everything hits hard. So now I have to rotate cooldowns on bosses or I die, instead of just >bloodwhetting< tank busters and fucking around the rest of the time with out my cooldowns because things don't hit as hard 🤷‍♀️ this could be due to ilvl being low till new tomes gear is got. But I'm enjoying this.

I like the fact that adds have came back as a mechanic in a few bosses. Like, yes! Give me the tank something to do! Instead of >face boss away from party and hold still as much as possible while dodging aoes<

[thessalian]

Thess vs Bad Company

In a bid to add a bit of variety to my gaming life, I decided to at least try to go back to Overwatch. Okay, fine, there’s a certain level of prepping for the upcoming changes in D.Va and Mercy on my mind there, but still, I have this game, and not enough time to spend with friends. And I needed something after a dungeon of complete stupid in FFXIV.

Look, I’ve been leveling Archer lately - have now unlocked Bard, in fact. And @true0neutral has been leveling Lancer with a view to Dragoon. This has meant us alternating the Duty Roulette XP bonus - see, to maximise our chances of getting into a dungeon in a timely fashion, some days I’ll go in as heals and let him play Lancer, and the next days I’ll go in as Archer with him as tank. After that, we swap over and do the level-appropriate dungeon for the character who didn’t get the XP bonus. It works well - most we’ve had to wait is five minutes, and that’s rare.

Anyway, after Lancer Roulette for @true0neutral yesterday, we hit Haukke Manor to nudge my Archer up so I’d be nicely leveled and maybe have shinier gear when I faced the level 30 Archer quest and the quest to unlock Bard. That ... was a mistake. Look, we had this WHM / BLM team that just ... I am not entirely convinced that they weren’t some kind of really sophisticated bot team. They spent a lot of time just staring at people while fighting was going on. They ran around in circles for no reason. The BLM blew limit break on trash mobs, and we still got killed because the healer wasn’t healing. Sometimes the healer would start healing after a fight and not stop for awhile despite target being at full health already. And they completely ignored the void lamps in the final boss. In the end, I broke out the limit break in the final boss because the BLM was running around in circles again and for some reason refusing to use anything but Blizzard. Just Blizzard 1. Not Fire 1, ever, despite the whole Astral Fire Gives You POWAH thing. It was awful. Simply awful. We ran what turned out to be Amdapor Keep for a 50/60 roulette after that and that was better, at least. We had a Bard who didn’t spam Peloton, anyway, and no one died to that fucking wall, thus no one obliged me to solo the last fifth of that fucking wall’s health. Again.

Anyway, after all that, I needed something. And given the fact that my last experience with loot boxes gave me the two skins I desperately wanted (Winged Victory Mercy and Widowmaker’s Huntress skin), it felt a little like Overwatch was welcoming me back with open arms. So I thought, “I may be rusty, but it won’t be that bad, right? Just like riding a bicycle?”

It wasn’t. You tend to wobble a lot more when riding a bicycle than I did getting back into my favourite winged Healbabe. It helped that, despite a lack of ‘real’ air support on Oasis that first match, I had a Zarya willing to protect me (bubbled me during a Reaper ult and everything) and a Junkrat (waves at @true0neutral) who was willing to bounce-launch himself up high so I could get an above-ground-vantage point on the field during my approach. Second match wasn’t quite as great, but Luna really requires something a little more bunker-buster-ish than we had. I did manage a three-man clutch rez, but we still couldn’t break through. I don’t think having the world’s squishiest Genji and an attack Torb helped much.

Then I tried Orisa. I wasn’t bad, for a first go. It helped that it was Dorado, a map I’m fairly familiar with. In the end, we managed a seat-of-the-pants win, though we - or at least I - was constantly scuppered by the Sombra ults. SO MANY SOMBRA ULTS.

Anyway, last match was D.Va. Looking forward to the changes in her but I managed pretty well. My Top Five highlight for her was a Shutdown; we were heading up the final stretch in Hollywood and I heard a voice I am so very familiar with now - Mercer. Didn’t even register the tag line; just, “Mercer, oh shit”. Turned left, and there’s a McCree, all glowy. So I hit defense matrix, ate his Hiiiiiiiigh Nooooon ... gave him just enough time to stand there going, “...oh shit a cowboy regrets his life a cowboy regrets his choices...” before I rammed him into a corner, bounced him off a wall and shot him to death. Ended that round out of mech, still assisting with clearing the last of the defending team off the point as the limo cruised home.

So ... yeah, I can probably manage a few rounds now and then. We were fairly short on stupid, at least. And sometimes I want fun-with-friends that doesn’t involve FFXIV. RP’s nice, but... y’know.

Now going to look at my groceries, debate how best to do my lovely lamb roast, and consider whether I want to go back to Andromeda (did I mention how much I hate the fact that that map starts scrolled out as far as humanly possible so all the quest markers blend into this Venn diagram of horror and death? Why can’t it start middle-ground-ish?) or try something new. I have plenty of games I haven’t even touched yet, that I might be better at now that I’ve had a bit more practice with other modes of gaming.

...Still not touching Beyond Good and Evil, mind. As much as I’ve heard good things, mandatory vehicle sections can eat my ass.

[angry-healers]

Baelsar's nightmare

So I queue up with my boyfriend for expert roulette. He only has a MNK at 60 and I go on my BLM to try and get a little light going for my anima weapon. (I know dungeons aren't the best way to earn light but I work a full time job and farming is hard so I'm taking what I can get when I get it).

So we get Baelsar's wall. No big deal. People complain it takes longer to run but I honestly think it's more fun than Sohm Al hard so I'm good. No one has a bonus, everyone's been here before, so we're good to go.

From the start the tank does a big pull, and the healer just stands there. He makes no effort to heal at all he just stands by the tank doing nothing until the tank dies. Then he raises the tank, but at this point both of us DPS have died, he's dying, and the tank dies again immediately. No one says anything, I say to my boyfriend maybe the healer didn't like big pulls, I don't even blame him right now. The tank seems to get it too, and pulls one group at a time, slow and steady.

But even pulling it slow and steady, that tank sits at around 20% HP at any given time. A few times I even throw some panicked physicks on him a few times because the healer is just...not trying? I'm not even sure. He's barely keeping the tank alive at all. Meaning...he's definitely not keeping the DPS up. Both of us bite the dust in the first boss, because you can only take so many missiles to the face with no heals. The tank also dies and then the healer right after. We wipe on this boss twice.

Next round of adds, things are still really hairy. I die once, my boyfriend dies once, the tank is still hovering around 20% but for the most part we make it to the second boss.

...where we proceed to wipe twice. Now I should mention, no one is really taking excessive amounts of damage, not beyond normal anyway. Everyone is following mechs, moving out of all avoidable AOEs, burning adds, there's just no heals going out. This healer is decked out in 230/260 gear, not the best for this dungeon but passable for sure. The tank is pulling small and slow since the first wipe. But for some reason, this healer is barely healing.

Finally, after 45 minutes in the dungeon, we make it to the last boss. The tank pulls, gets hit hard by the tank buster, receives no heal from it. The boss moves to do his room AOE, everyone moves to avoid it except the healer. The healer eats the AOE and dies. He didn't even attempt to move, he just took it. So we wipe.

Now I'm at the end of my patience. I can't tell if this healer is just bad or trolling, but I'm starting to strongly suspect the later. I ask if they learned to heal from a rock (not a nice move of me I fully admit, but I am tired, frustrated, and have been in this dungeon for almost an hour now). They point out that I'm a mentor and I should be nicer but here's the thing.

This healer had 4 classes at lvl 60. PLD, SCH, BLM, and WHM. They also have a lvl 54 AST. They are clearly familiar with healing, familiar with the game in general. I have no problem being patient and polite with people, but at this point this healer has worn me way down past that, and if I wasn't sure they were a troll before, their next remark "This is only my SECOND time! I didn't know I was supposed to move!" is kind of making me sure they are. Even if you're unfamiliar with a dungeon, everyone knows what an AOE is.

We wiped 2 more times on the last boss before he was vote dismissed. I know it's not polite or appropriate to vote dismiss someone purely for being bad, but it's also not fair to expect us all to have to quit the dungeon because one person isn't pulling their weight. Especially because we've been in here for an hour already.

The healer is gone, and I drop so I can switch and queue in progress and finish it on my healer, light for my weapon be damned. A ninja comes in to replace my DPS spot. He's actually 100% new but has absolutely no problem with the mechs and we clear the boss quick and easy. 8 wipes and an hour later, we are finally done.