Attacks that end up in FFXIV reward players with some of the best gear they can get their hands on, as well as some cosmetics or other collectibles. However, once these barbaric attacks are no longer current content, finding a lot of people to run the content and learn the necessary mechanics becomes an obstacle.
Contents
Why A4S Farm?
Personally, I find that Alexander’s raiding gear has some of the coolest designs for my favorite work, and the battle drops Gordian armor and weapons that can be dyed. I knew I wanted to get the most out of these versions so I could add color flexibility to them.
It is also the origin of the Gobwalker mount, a wonderful little tank that looks a bit ridiculous when piloted by Hrothgar.
Finally, the A4S will drop crafting materials. You can use the Gobwalker shield to craft followers. Plus, you’ll likely get large, quick, and dirty rigs for crafting furniture, specifically tables and chairs (more like benches, actually) that come to life as you interact with them.
How many players do you need?
I planted the A4S with 2 other friends and we ran for about 5 minutes each. We wiped a few times while figuring out what mechanisms we had to pay attention to and how we wanted to address them.
We easily did it enough times to get 8 tokens (and some extra random chest armor drop). Our combo is Tank (WAR), Healer (WHM) and DPS (SMN), all at level 80. Only two players possible. If I try, I’ll probably go with the tank and healer.
What mechanism should I know?
At first it seemed that it didn’t matter which pins were attacked in what order. The mechanics play out in the same order each time, based on how many pins you kill, not what specific pins they are. Just make sure everyone attacks the same leg, as any damage to the other pins will heal once one is killed.
Two easy top legs. You can skip Plate spherical and massacre Lanyards as they are not too dangerous for level 80, especially tanks. The healer may just want to get the player on the pitch later.
when you receive Isolation The first two legs, just kill more Panzer Dolls. It should only require a few GCD’s.
Occasionally a leg evaporates. Legs can be stunned by tanks or melee to prevent it from draining the player’s MP, but we didn’t do that so I guess it’s not really necessary.
For the hind legs, there are new additions. Three Jagd characters will appear at the edges of the arena and a Straf character will appear in the middle. This mechanic will eventually wipe out my team before we can decide what to do with it.
Jagd dolls deal damage in an area proportional to their health when sacrificed. If you kill Jagd characters without sacrificing them to Straf characters, they will respawn after about 10 seconds. If a player absorbs Jagd Doll’s aoe debuff too many (4) times, that team will be disqualified.
We let the Healer and DPS completely ignore all the extras, while I grabbed the Jagd Doll with the Tomahawk and managed to kill the Straf Doll concentrated away from my party members to avoid splitting. .
When I kill the Straf Doll, the Jagd Doll is sacrificed, and the healers and DPS just continue to damage the next leg (also healing from the exploding Jagd Doll).
We did the same with the mobs that appeared on turn 4, we just did nice try Stacks mark and decrease from the player who receives them.
When you’re done with your legs, burn the boss while lightening and healing royal pentagram.
Can you solo A4S?
Unfortunately, you can’t go it alone in brutal mode. I tried to do this on my level 80 boxer, but when you get to your 4th turn, the boss will apply the Nisi A decree and B buff to you at the same time, this is an automatic delete.
I guess you have to deal enough damage to kill the leg really fast to skip using the debuff. This may not be possible at level 80, but it is possible that later on in this expansion pack the DPS job could stand a chance, if they can make it to level 4 on their own.
Which Gordian breast patch do you prefer? Would you be happy to try this asynchronous war? Let me know in the comments section.