FFXIV – New To Me Dungeon Diary

In my latest FFXIV ventures, I’ve done a number of level 50 dungeons for the first time, which is something I really hate, especially so long after they’ve been out. I just hate being “the new guy” in a dungeon, especially in FFXIV because it actually announces it to everyone. (Fortunately there is a reward to the other players for running with a new person, so nobody is likely to kick you out.) Here is my brief diary of how they went. (Spoiler: They all went better than expected.)

The Wanderer’s Palace. As I recall the only troublesome part of this dungeon is the last boss, and our tank wanted us to burn him instead of dealing with the actual mechanics, so it was pretty easy. (I ran this a second time for a Zenith book and it was the same: Expect to do a “speed run” and basically ignore the mechanics.)

Pharos Sirius. I don’t remember anything about this run, except I’m pretty sure we bulled our way through most of the mechanics without much finesse. I think I died a few times during a trash encounter with Puddings that kept splitting.

Copperbell Mines (Hard). The tank seemed fairly new. The experienced person was very nice but for some reason felt compelled to explain how to do the “speed run” version of the dungeon, so we kept dying because the tank wasn’t used to it. In the first part we ran through and ignored the mobs and focused only on the Stone Walls. With the first boss we did some crazy strategy where we stacked right at the beginning and burned the boss while standing in all the AoEs. It seemed like a terrible idea to me, and I would have hated to be the healer, but it worked on the second try.

Lost City of Amdapor. I went through this with a new, tentative Warrior who was accompanied by an experienced Ninja, and an experienced healer. It went very smooth but kind of slow because this was the first tank I’ve seen in a very long time who didn’t run headlong into danger without any care for the consequences. At some point the healer got impatient and started running ahead to pull things. Normally that would start a fight but in this case I think the tank actually appreciated it. Anyway we had enough DPS that we didn’t have to worry about the doors on the last boss, which was nice because I didn’t really understand them from the video I watched.

Snowcloak. Main Scenario dungeon. Everyone was nice and the run went very smooth, despite nobody saying anything or explaining anything to me. I watched a guide though so I had some foreknowledge of the mechanics. Main Scenario dungeons tend to be easier than the others anyway, and there was very little to worry about except getting out of AoE effects. On the second boss, don’t attack the Spriggans or Snowballs, and on the third boss, run behind the last spike when the Big Bad Wolf does a Lunar Cry, and that was about it.

Keeper of the Lake. Main Scenario dungeon. My first time through this was a very quiet, businesslike run that went smoothly with hardly any complications. The only mechanics I worried about were moving out of AoEs. (Somebody else kicked those canisters around on the second first boss-I’m still not sure how to do that.) I don’t remember any of the trash or bosses being that difficult or complicated, and I’m a bit surprised this is one of the “Expert” roulette dungeons. I ended up with a Bogatyr Bard coat which I thought looked pretty cool so I might just glamour it up if I can get the rest of the set (and all the fiddly bits you need to do glamours).

Something I learned after Keeper of the Lake: I had been under the impression that I needed to unlock all of the “High-level Roulette” dungeons before I could unlock the “Expert Roulette.” But after doing Keeper of the Lake, I noticed that all you have to do is complete the last three dungeons to unlock it, even if you’ve not done any of the others.

P.S. I feel like they should sync down to 90 instead of 110 for some of the earlier 50 dungeons (and Labyrinth of the Ancients). At 110 people can just blitz through them and new people like me end up not knowing anything about the real mechanics. You see it all the time in Labyrinth: Nobody does the Bone Dragon right anymore but everyone is so overgeared that you still make it through somehow.