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Welcome to Dimensional Death, a Final Fantasy XIV Free Company that is currently on Excalibur.

Our Free Company is based around the spirit of cooperation. If you are friendly, helpful, responsible, committed, and able to take a joke or two, you are quite welcomed to join us! We are still searching for raiders, as well as casual players and crafters. Part of the fun is getting better, improving your levels or equipment, and sometimes you need the extra help to do that. That is what Dimensional Death stands for. United, friendly, helpful.

If you are interested in joining us contact any of the officers in-game(Ayasu Lemieux, Celedh Knight, Haldis Omholt, Slvr Stryker, Taber Tia or Laude Valiquette). If you're interested in raiding with us, please use the Raiding Application link on the right side bar.

Even if you are not interested in raiding, we still like having friendly people, crafters for the housing, or just people to chat with during the slower moments.

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Titan Hard Mode - Strategy and Baiting

I decided to make this to help future groups to get a grasp on the fight. Youtube videos are not always clear on what's going on, and it's a very busy fight. Using voice to explain things is not as easy as having a visual on the other hand, yet nothing beats actual experience either. So here's the whole Titan Hard Mode fight, with some help of pictures to make it more clear.

Titan Hard Mode is set in 5 stages. The first few phases are pretty much like the story mode, but that one only had 3 phases. Hard Mode expands on the start, increases the amount of attacks, and makes the cycle more complex and deadly.

Most of the attacks can deal some 3000 damage to non-tanks, which is why most people set the bar to 'over 3000 HP' to attempt Titan. Its not impossible with less, but much tougher and you have less recovery chances if you miss a plume, and later tumults.

Speaking of, if anyone dies in this fight, the chances of them recovering are much lower. Even if they can evade most of the attacks, the Tumult might kill them, especially in the phase 5. Plus the window for Raises is very small throughout the fight. Usually after Tumults, if you don't get unlucky with a plume as you raise.

Positioning
One of the important parts of this fight is knowing where to stand. The tank obviously will be standing in front, but making Titan face toward the outside of the area. Titan has normal attacks that cleave, so it can hit several targets.

The others should be standing on the sides or behind (Melees), and ranged attackers should be standing just a few steps behind Titan, a little spread but not overly. You want the healers to be able to apply Medica/Succor on everyone, as Titan uses Stomps (Tumult) every few seconds. Also makes you closer to the melees if you get Gaoled.

Attacks
Titan has a series of 8 different attacks, not counting the normal attacks :

Tumult
The one called 'stomps', it will hit everyone, no exception. The number starts at 3, but gradually increases through the fight. Healers apply Medica. The amount of Tumults rise up to 8 stomps per cycle during Phase 5, so it becomes increasingly helpful if damage or strength reduction effects can be used : Virus, Sacred Soil, Rage of Halone, Rain of Death...

Landslide
A strong pushback move, it picks a random target that isn't the highest enmity. I don't want to say tank, because if someone pulled threat just before this attack, it might target the tank instead. Just be wary. If you get hit, if the damage doesn't kill you, the pushback might send you flying over the end of the platform. Don't count on the luck of staying on it.

Weight of the Land
Otherwise known as Plumes, circles will appear centered on 3 or 6 targets that are not the highest enmity. Its 3 plumes for most of the fight, 6 plumes starting on Phase 5. Normally it won't target the tank, unless there are less than 6 people left. This attack is dangerous for its high damage, and they tend to overlap if the targets were close to each other. Getting hit by 2 plumes is death for any class (save the tank maybe). So if you can't get out of every plume's circle, try so that you aren't in the overlap of two.

Gaol
Traps someone in a rock. Cannot attack or be damaged. The team should break their comrade loose everytime, but there is an exception or two depending on the phase. The Gaol also puts a tough Determination Down effects on the target, that needs to be Erased/Leeched immediately after or else it gimps the damage by alot.

Bombs
For lack of the 'official' name here, bombs will appear as rocks that drop down in a pattern. There will be a whole section dedicated to bomb avoiding, as in Phase 5 bombs are combined with Landslide for maximum pain. There are 2 patterns that appear in Phase 3, and 3 patterns in Phase 5. On 2 out of 3 patterns you need to stand on top of the 'last bomb' that falls, and run toward the first bomb that exploded to avoid all damage from them. The last pattern is more easy as it has 'pockets' where you need to stand.

Mountain Buster
This move can do upward of 4000-5000 damage to a non-tank, and not that much lower to tanks (damage mitigation does help). Its only used in Phase 5, but this move makes it imperative to get the tank full just before it happens. Tank should use Cooldowns to mitigate damage, but can also improve their dodge rate by using Flash just before it.

Geocrush
Georcrush happens at at the end of phases 1, 2 and 3. It signals the phase change. Titan jumps up and lands down in a crash in the center. The furthest away you are from the center, the better. It's possible to die in one hit, but watch out as the outside of the ring has a red area too. If you're in it, you'll fall down because of the platform size reduction. Usually the team groups up on the tank to use Sacred Soil from a Scholar, or at least in range of healer's AOE cures after it. You can 'precast' it, as your cure won't finish before Titan lands.

Earthen Fury
Instead of Geocrush, at the end of Phase 4 (heart phase), he uses this attack to signal the start of Phase 5. It's the same as in the story mode, just high damage, you don't need to move away for this, it hits the same damage no matter where you stand. Just group together for Sacred Soil and AOE cures after it hits.


Cheat Sheet by holdctrl

The Phases

Phase 1
The first part is simple. Rotation of landslides and stomps. First turn you can't even be knocked off the ledge. Doesn't mean you shouldn't dodge.

Phase 2
The order changes, and he adds Plumes to the mix.

Phase 3
The order changes again, and he adds Bombs and Gaol to the rotation. Normally, if your DPS is good enough, he will Geocrush right after the second set of Bombs. In this phase, if someone is still trapped in Gaol when its time for Geocrush, the stone prison will break on its own, but you still get determination down.

Phase 4 (Heart phase)
Like in Story Mode, you have roughly one minute to break the heart otherwise its game over, as it will deal more damage than you can soak. Break out the first Gaol, but ignore the second. In the best case scenario, it's a healer that will be trapped. Focus the damage on this phase, use Limit Break if you need to, and free up the second Gaoled as soon as its broken. If someone is still trapped, its instant death for them.

Phase 5
So your party has enough DPS and dodging power to get to this phase? Good, you have a team that CAN win this, but you're not done yet. Titan is at 50% and meaner than before, his rotation gets wicked, his stomps increase, landslide happens at the same time as bombs, and he adds one more bomb formation to boot.

Remember that Titan is all about staying alive before dealing more damage. Someone dead offers no DPS at all, and Titan is about dealing constant damage before you get overwhelmed.

The cheat sheet shows the basic rotation, but it's hard to remember it by heart. Instead, remember a few key combinations :

Bombs/Gaol -> Landslide
Landslide always happens during these two. The whole Bombs/Landslide is explained in more details later.

Landslide -> Mountain Buster
When you see Landslide, the tank should be filled up. The tank should wait for 1-2 punches and then use Flash.

Mountain Buster -> Plumes
Plumes are always following a Mountain Buster, but one out or two times there will be Stomps between the two. It's easy to predict which one, Stomps are always after someone was Gaoled.

The Bombs, Landslides and Baiting
Plumes are often what kills party members, but that'll be mostly lag or poor positioning in the middle of several circles. Yet, what can kill a good run even faster is a poorly positioned Landslide during bombs in Phase 5. This is what I'm trying to explain in pictures here.

Clock
In this pattern, the bombs will fall as you see below, but it might be a different position that gets the first bomb. But its always the outside ring first, and the middle one bomb last. Titan will be standing on #7 usually.



In phase 3, you stand on #9, and run toward #1 as soon as it explodes. Tanks should have enough space to stand between two bombs by inching toward the edge. If you're unsure, tanks should not take too much damage from a single bomb, make sure you don't get hit by two.

In Phase 5, it's a little bit different. Let's say that the first bomb is #1 again, for simplicity. Landslide will happen before any bomb will explode. In fact, as soon as Titan rams his fist down, the first bomb explodes. So if you went with the same strategy as turn 3, you'd get this :



Landslide is the wide green bar. While it looks like you could stand on each side of landslide near #9, in reality there's not enough space to do so if landslide is perfectly lined up. If it's a little to either side, maybe.

So what you want to do is bait. Like the animation here :



If the bombs drop in the same order again, you start on #5. Landslide will cover the green bar, but the bomb won't explode before landslide would push you off. So as soon as you know Landslide is going toward #5, you can move to #9, and immediately toward #1 as you'd usually do.

Of course, you need to adapt depending on what bomb drops first. But the basic is to bait it toward one of the bombs that explodes middle/last, and then move toward the one that explodes first by going through the center.

For the tank, in theory it's possible to avoid the damage by being on the very very edge between two bombs. But I think that's something you might not want to chance.

Pockets
We nickname it pockets as you have large areas to stand into between the row of bombs. It's the easiest one overall.

In Phase 3, it's as simple as standing there.



In Phase 5, similar to Clock, if you stand in the safe area, you will get a Landslide that covers most of the safe space you have, forcing you to get bombed instead.



What you want to do is stand on top of one of the bombs to bait Landslide away. For example here, you stand on the X at the bottom, baiting Landslide (green line) and you simply move out of the way of it, into the safe pockets. Landslide will end up going over most of the bombs instead.



Lines
This formation only appears on Phase 5. In fact, in Phase 5 it will appear every 2 rotation. It will be Lines -> Clock -> Lines -> Pockets -> Lines.

The basic here is that 3 lines will drop down. The center line always appears 1, but 2 and 3 can appear on either side. Non-withstanding Landslide, the basic is to stand on the row that drops last (#3) and move toward the center (#1) when they explode. For example, if you're standing on the X, this would be the 'normal' way to avoid the bombs :



That's in theory. In practice, Landslide happens everytime, and can (and often will because it's Titan) be placed where you can't evade it without being pushed into the center that will explode immediately after. It's literally from the frying pan into the fire here.

Also, in practice again, the actual orientation of the lines can change. Like how the Clock pattern bombs don't always drop in the same order, the lines might be left-to-right, back-to-forth, or even diagonal, a few examples :



For tanking, since you don't have to worry about Landslide too much, you usually will eat a bomb (Var 1 and 2 don't give you much choice). If it's the first picture (normal), you can move to the side #3 and then back to center. Titan will just rotate a little bit to follow you, but won't move too much.

If you don't bait landslide, these are potential bad situations that you will see, which give no dodging space (you're standing on the X every time) :



These are the two examples that kills lots of people most of the time. You can't move out of the way of landslide otherwise you run into the center line that will explode. Its one or the other.

The method to bait here is again to stand on where it's the least obvious, or rather most dangerous. The logic is that if you can move out of the way of Landslide, you will be out of the way of bombs explosion too.

So you want to stand on the CENTER line until Landslide appears. Like these examples of how you need to bait :



Alternate ones if you get stuck somewhere


These are only examples of course. Its only to illustrate that if you stand on the 'safe' spot, you are likely to cut your only escape route, but also most of your team, quite possibly.

General Healing Tip
Not much left to go, but healers need to remember that they need to prioritize the tank just before Mountain Buster. The others won't get hit by anything. It's a tough reflex to beat as a healer, you want to toss a cure on who needs it immediately, but Mountain Buster is instant-lose if it kills the tank. The rest of the party can wait just a bit more.

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