In which we faces the toughest enemy of all: DirectX11.
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0:00 – Introduction
0:25 – QUEST: “Where Shadows Reign”
13:43 – RAID: Dun Scaith
47:20 – QUEST: “Where Shadows Reign” (continued)
53:44 – QUEST: “A Redbill Farewell”
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Edited by Daniel Floyd
♫ “Pray Return” by Chris Logsdon
https://lnkfi.re/pray-return
#PlayFrame #FFXIV #FinalFantasyXIV #Heavensward
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A few days ago, I ended up going into Dun Scaith with a few friends to get another friend through the story. At least half of the alliances ended up being composed of total newcomers. Alliance C I think was 100% new too.
The run didn't go very well.
Time for more Pirates… NO, not Pittsburgh Pirates!
Tbh once Deathgaze is down, I never have any issues with the rest of the raid. Yes, even the last boss.
Much as I would also love a Kingdom Hearts alliance raid series, I can’t really see that happening bc of the copyright issues ft Disney’s nonsense. Like, there’s a reason Sora’s addition to Smash was something of a miracle (even if, yes, Nomura complicated it more, lol). I feel like someone’s asked about even just a crossover event, and Yoshi P had a very tired look on his face, the poor man lmao.
That’s the smoothest Deathgaze battle I’ve seen, like, ever. That fight wrecks Duty Finder even now. Props to Falka’s callouts and the other 22 DTC members in this raid.
I still remember my first time running this. The first boss was ROUGH. Every party wiped at least once and after several rezes, we all wiped and had to start over. Even though the second attempt didn't go too much better, we actually managed to pull out the win and somebody immediately wrote "Surely it doesn't get any harder?". It was met with laughter.
Wasn't that bad for the rest of the run, though. I had a blast. There is something about struggle-bussing with a bunch of people that I find incredibly entertaining. Especially when I'm new to a fight.
I was wondering how you'd handle the crash – nicely done with the second run.
I was in this one (Nara'a, the red-clad white-haired miqo'te summoner in Alliance C)! This was a lot of fun – the mods (especially Eos) did a great job in putting stuff together. The raid went really smoothly (aside from the crash), and those jump cuts you see there are people in voice chat going over mechanics so everyone knows what they're doing.
Overall I had a great time, and I'll definitely try to sign up for the next batch of side content that gets done (as I'm not on Coeurl or on the Crystal data center at all so I'm unlikely to show up in a dungeon or 8-person raid) and I look forward to working more with the DTC in the future!
I have to say, that this was definitely a satisfying little story; some may call this sky pirate adventure filler, but I enjoyed it.
That and all the references to Celtic lore tickled the Fate fan in me: any Lancer bros out there?
An interesting thing to note about those giant ball AOEs is with the launch of 6.2 they have been updated with a fancy new marker to indicate you need to keep running away. I really love the team has taken to adding new markers to old content when there is a lack of clarity given by the original.
Another fun thing here is Proto Ultima, who was initially released as a trial for players to battle in person at Fanfest (a convention run by Square that announces expansions, fun events). These fights are typically added into the game in some form after Fanfest and Proto Ultima here is apparently very toned down as it was adapted from an 8 man to a 24 man. But it was not always there and in fact is a replacement for an original succubus encounter, that you will never see. See the spawn condition for Proto Ultima is that any one person in the alliance has a repeatable side quest active, commonly referred to as the UFO quest. And most people have it active. I personally have only ever encountered Proto Ultima in the slot but I have heard groups can struggle when the Succubus enemy is present as it is a rare instance of lost player knowledge in the game.
Ok, looking at the comments section it seem I am not the only one that hates Deathgaze. It is good to feel understood 🙂
Also, Dan, you want FFIX references but Durmin is not enough of a gentleman to get the best one I have seen. And I am talking about the Heavensward leg of the Hildibrand quest line.
I do appreciate that you went back for the phase transition, I know that was probably an unexpected pain in the ass. But the phase transitions are such spectacles, I was almost sad to not see it. I'm glad I still got that little experience.
Fun fact about the Proto Ultima Weapon midboss: It's technically an optional fight that you are not supposed to find there all the time. The original midboss is a succubus that, IMO, have more interesting mechanics than Ultima. However, there is an optional, repeatable quest in Idyllshire where some goblins are asking for a Proto Ultima Heat Shielding in exchange for some cosmetics stuff. If anyone in the entire alliance have this quest active, the succubus is swapped for Proto Ultima.
Since this specific quest is blue, almost everyone pick it up after unlocking the raid, and many people simply never deliver it, making it "perma-active". I do not remember the last time I fought that succubus, but she is still there.
I kinda wish Dan had picked a random day to say "See you again ____day", just to confuse people if he had gotten it wrong.
But then, I am a chaos gremlin >:3c
I don't know if it came up earlier, but Diabolos being loose was entirely the fault of the Warrior of Light- he had been imprisoned in the lost city of Amdapor, and we kinda accidentally let him out. And beat him in a fight, but as you might notice he's fairly good at escaping a losing battle.
Dun Scaith has what are easily two of the worst, maybe worst *designed*, bosses in the game- Deathgaze and Scathach herself. Deathgaze is significantly worse than the Queen is, but this is one of the few instances I dread when I drop in on Duty Finder. Even now, it's not uncommon to have a wipe or two in here because the typical "mechanics are for cars" attitude you run across in casual content pointedly Does Not Apply in Dun Scaith.
Ferdiad Hollow, Proto Ultima, and Diabolos all telegraph relevant mechanics decently enough if you know what to look for. Scathach is more of a pattern memorization dance, and Deathgaze tends to just punt you off the platform at the slightest provocation. It's better now that if you fall off, your body ends up somewhere rez-able, but once upon a time, you were just out of the fight.
I’m glad you were able to get your footage, Dan. We had discussed resetting and redoing the whole raid to help him get his footage, but Dan assured us he would be able to get the footage later.
Also, shout out to B’s BLU. My cohealer and I had a lot of fun enabling their Final Sting addiction xD
Deathgaze always kills SO many roulette folks
Let me start by warning you that I'm not an Irish Gaelic speaker, so apologies for any mistakes I've made below.
'Scathach' in my approximations would sound something like this:
skahuch
The 'ch' the same way you pronounce it in the Scottish word 'loch'
I've also transliterated it (roughly) into the International Phonetics Alphabet, otherwise known as the IPA.
The IPA is a database of sounds commonly used in human speech, it covers most but not all languages. It's a great place to familiarise yourself with sounds you don't typically come across in your own language or accent.
Anyway, 'Scathach' would roughly sound like this in the IPA
[skahəx]
You can find the full chart of IPA sounds here:
https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/
A decent guide to Irish Gaelic and the one I used to work out the transliterations can be found here:
https://www3.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/donncha/focal/features/irishsp.html
I hope all that proves interesting, love the video and well done to everyone who joined you for the raid stories!
I had fun kettling a bunch of stuff to death here. Looking forward to doing it again. Think I got off 2 Limit Breaks.
Ya, we noticed that Dan was gone a couple seconds before the phase change, and decided to wipe the boss then and there. Still love the beam struggle every time that I run Dun Scaith.
Is it just me, or do loads of FFXIV quests follow the format: [acquire extremely powerful McGuffin to defeat enemy] > [McGuffin is stolen, usually by enemy] > [find alternative means of defeating enemy, rendering McGuffin pointless]? Don't get me wrong, still love this, but do they stop reusing this in later expansions?
It's time to cap off the Shadow of Mhach, and your spoiler free lore comment is on hand! If you're a Mhachi sorcerer, your enemy in war, your capital, and your evacuation ship all have fallen under control of the voidsent you summoned. Of course your emergency hideaway city is now their playground. It's almost like summoning voidsent is a bad idea!
Honestly, Dun Scaith is the Alliance Raid that I personally have the hardest time with. Like the Weeping City of Mhach, instant death mechanics are plenty here, as well as just high damage attacks.
As Dan notes, Deathgaze Hollow is a call back to the FF6 boss, Deathgaze. This fight can claim a lot of players, between the push & pull mechanics, doom status effects, and the instant kill tiles. The fact that it's the first boss doesn't help, since some players may still be warming up on the Raid Roulette duty.
Ferdiad Hollow tends to claim fewer players than Deathgaze, and it's particularly helpful if your group has someone who knows the atomos mechanics well. With the DTC calling shots, this jester is a cake walk. Fun trivia: Atomos voidsent are basically organic gateways, which is how the wormhole mechanic works, and why Atomos show up spawning voidsent in other duties.
Since the rework of the Ultima Weapon fight, Proto-Ultima doesn't really present many mechanics that players haven't seen or dealt with. The name is much scarier than any of its mechanics.
And now Durmin & the DTC faces the queen, Scathach! Scathach is named after the mentor of Cuchulainn and Ferdiad, a warrior woman who resided in the castle Dun Scaith. The queen brings a lot of difficult AOE attacks. The dropping sphere is particularly bad, as it chases a player, and should the player not coordinate with the raid, they can easily accidentally drag it to hit multiple others.
Personally, I love that Scathach's motif has hearts, and Dun Scaith is festooned with hearts on the columns and arches. It's a real juxtaposition with the "grrr argh, scary voidsent" feel.
I love how ridiculously huge the moon is in the Diabolos fight. The Lifegate & Deathgate phase is a basic DPS check, and since there's basically no mechanics to avoid, everyone can just focus on pushing exactly what buttons are needed for major damage. Black Mages & Samurai will no doubt rejoice!
Turns out, voidsent consuming and combining with other voidsent is a normal thing for them? Welp, on to Phase 3! The "stack with eye" marker honestly gets lots of people, it's not that common of a mechanic to have the eye marker on a player.
Leofard showing up like Han Solo is just my kind of cliché. I do like that Cait Sith is the one to deal the final blow. One problem with how FFXIV tells its stories is that the Warrior of Light is such a powerhouse that they displace the abilities of other NPCs, which can make it look like Durmin is the only one who can do anything. I like it when other characters get to show off their competence.
Kingdom Hearts fashion? But Dan, they got rid of belts in Endwalker :v :v :v
Okay, when Cait Sith got blasted, I was sure Heavensward was about to kill another amazing character. But ya! Kitty made it and got to be awesome! Damn this was a fun raid series to watch!
I typically pronounce Dun Scaith as "*violent sobbing*". I….really dislike this raid. I don't think it's poorly designed. It's just very easy to go very poorly very quickly. I am not happy when I get this in Alliance Raid Roulette. I don't quite remember my first run of this, but I probably died a LOT to the first boss. And I continue to do so. I've seen people quit on the first boss before. It's just…rough. I also tend to dread the Scathach fight. She just….can wipe the entire raid so easily.
I enjoyed my time with the Redbills that, to this day, I still glamour the Redbill scarf even if it can't be seen.
Okay, careful instructions on Gaelic. Look closely at the word. Think HARD about what sounds those letters make. Forget those completely. The pronunciation is completely different.
Had a lot of fun fighting alongside Dan and everyone, it's always a blast doing anything with DTC.
FC member wanted to do the quest that requires these to be done from the endgame, and the que was taking a long time. So, we said, "lets do it" 3 of us online, set up the party finder, made an unsynced run at it. Wiped on death gaze. 2 DPS and a tank, and none of them a bard. Second try we saved burst and treated the DOOM as a DPS check, and passed. So 3 person unsynced is possible, and actually quite hilarious and fun.
She… named the ship after herself… now I want it shot down…
Major props to DTC for running it again for footage! I'm guessing by the lack of a full group that that run wasn't synced.
Those roses might be the creepiest thing in the entire dungeon. Every time they give me the shivers.
Before there was Proto Ultima in that spot, there was "Shadowcourt Handmaiden". A succubus boss that could drop the blood sword (now in the gold saucer) for glam. A pretty basic trash boss got upgraded to a more interesting trash boss with a quest to defeat it weekly.
Your response to the computer error message box on your screen when the game crashed was so measured! I would have been screaming, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" at the top of my lungs and filled with rage. There might have even been a keyboard thrown…
Lmao who let in the blue mage?!
after you mention of the "Wiping City of Mhach" i was fully expecting you to mention the nickname for this raid: Fun Scaith
I really want the Redbill anime, dang
A fun bit of trivia that didn't get mentioned. Both Diabolos and Ferdiad are dungeon bosses in earlier dungeons. That's why they both comment on the fact that they recognize you in their fights.
Diabolos is in the Lost City of Amdapor, which is a city-state that Mhach warred against. Ferdiad is from the hard mode of Amdapor Keep. During the War of the Magi between Amdapor and Mhach, Diabolos was summoned to attack Amdapor. Mhach used black magic, whereas Amdapor used white magic. Amdapor sealed many voidsent including Diabolos. Ferdiad was a servant of Diabolos and was summoned after you clear Amdapor Keep normal mode in the ARR game. You defeat Ferdiad in Amdapor Keep (Hard), but he survives and it isn't until Dun Scaith were you finally defeat them both. While Diabolos is destroyed with the Nullstone, Ferdiad is still alive, as voidsent who are killed after being summoned are just banished back to the Void, not destroyed utterly.
7:50 drop adam's apple a bit and close larynx a bit. source… singing hardcore punk, don't use anything that numb your throat, use a low voice and push from the depht of your lungs ask carrie to up the volume you wont get mucht at first
Oh my god, my game crashed in the exact same spot.
As someone who plays a decent amount of Machinist. There's no shame in feeling like you're not hitting your optimal output. I still fumble my abilities constantly!
I nominate Durmin to be the next Sky Pirate Roberts!
Holy crap, a Mhachi being inspired by Alexandria makes SO MUCH SENSE TO ME. The Lost City of Amdapor has always reminded me Burmecia, who was at war with Alexandria!
Regarding putting on a voice for characters like Diablos, if you want to get that deep and gravely affect, part of the trick is to try and open your throat wide, keeping your breathing slow and speaking on the exhale. Practicing making a "rumble" noise in your chest can help you get the hang of it.
Or put another way, it's a little like timing in animation, you can slow it down to give it a greater sense of "weight".
Dun Scaith gave me a lot of Alice in Wonderland vibes for some reason, specifically the horror video game ones.
It was very cool looking!
Who wants Dan to do one or two side-episodes on the Amdapor dungeon series now? Because they both tie into the backstory for this with Diabolos and Feridad and the other side of the War of the Magi and they also play into another fan-favorite side story (which would also require doing Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard) to get the start of).
IX and KH aesthetics?? Hell yes please!
DTC looked like such champs helping you re-record that last bit! Was the second round entered unsynced so you can power through even with the disappearance of 1/3 of people?
Also, is anyone getting some rivals to lovers vibes from Leofard and Radlia?
Never forget: The word Banshee seems to originate from the Gaelic "Baensidhe". Same pronunciation.