FFXIV Trials: The Navel

Well, owing to the fact that I'm nearing Titan on my alternate character. I figured I should get around to doing this one. He's big, he's bad... he'd probably be Maud's best friend. Titan, Lord of Crags!

The Kobolds finally get around to summoning their primal and Titan is probably the second hardest of the original primal trilogy.

The battle itself takes place on a platform in an underground cavern, filled to the brim with earth crystals and Kobolds cheering on their lord.

Titan himself is no pushover. His myriad of attacks aren't just damaging, some come with knockback and this is a problem. The arena has no walls. This means you can(and will) get knocked off if you aren't paying attention to his AOE attacks. He has his basic punches and swipes. He also is able to do a raidwide groundpound that deals damage to everyone in the group so healers need to be careful for this. He can also use an attack called Landslide, marked by cracks in the earth in a straight line. If this hits you, you will likely go off the edge. Deal enough damage and he'll hop in the air and slam down, taking a chunk out of the outer edge of the arena. If you're in the red portion, the ground will go out from underneath you and you'll die... and can't be rezzed. IF you're under Titan, you'll die but you can be rezzed. In Hard Mode, this is where he starts pulling a couple new maneuvers out.

First is a group of circular AOEs with the attack name Weight of the Earth. They deal damage and you'll take multiple hits if you're in overlapping circles. He can also freeze 2 players and summon a Granite Gaol around them. In EX mode they will kill you after a given time so you need to break the players out of them. After 2 more jumps(or 1 for EX), Titan's heart will be revealed. From here to the next phase it's a dps race. You need to break the heart or his ultimate attack will wipe the raid. He won't pull anything new here but any person permadowned(until wipe) will count as a loss of dps. Pull through and he enters his last phase. In Hard Mode, he will start summoning bomb boulders. Get away from their blast radius and you'll be safe. However you still need to watch for landslides.

Now let's talk about a few of the differences in EX mode for Titan. One thing to note is his jump slams take out huge chunks of the arena, leaving you with very little wiggle room and as the phases continue, he starts doing multiple landslides at once. Phases 2 and 3 actually have him splitting them 3 ways and the last phase has him doing a 5-way split.. He actually has a set rotation that repeats... a devastating one. The first difference you'll notice is after the Granites appear, they start casting Granite Sepulchre. IF this goes off, the person trapped inside them gets downed. One other thing to contend with is right after Titan pulls out the Gaols he will start another raidwide aoe that has massive knockback, signaled by him lifting a leg sumo style. You have to gather right underneath his crotch(can't make this up) to avoid being knocked off. He then pulls out a landslide, trying to trip up the ones going for the other trapped person. The people getting gaoled should split. one going to the southwest portion of the arena and one going to under Titan's crotch. Get to the next phase and his heart appears. Once again break it and you go to the last phase. However it won't be as easy with everything he throws at you. If you go in unsynced and take out his heart when he's in the middle of a move, he'll do an unexpected landslide that most people can't get out of.

As he enters his last phase, not only does he start hurling more bombs and landslides at you, he also summons Granite Gaolers. They are Titan-egis that leave behind a pool of molten earth when they die. Luckily they don't respawn and the pools vanish after awhile. The bombs will appear in numerous formations but you need to keep a careful eye on where they spawn, lest ye get blown up. Stay strong, be determined... and you will win.

Lastly it's time for us to discuss the boss theme... or themes. Titan has 5 themes to his name, one for each phase. The first one is Weight of a Whisper, a small, simple little rhythm to kick the fight off. Weight of his Will kicks it up a bit with Weight of the World bringing it in even further. Then the metal gets replaced by Heartless for the fourth phase. It's kinda fitting but... I never can put my finger on why. Then when the last phase kicks in... all hell breaks loose as Under the Weight begins playing. This is the first boss fight theme in the game to have actual lyrics to it and it's kinda hard to hear sometimes with how fast they blast em out. But it's sung from Titan's point of view and painting the civilized races of Eorzea(Overdwellers) as the bad ones... kinda true considering they were the ones who broke a peace treaty. It certainly gets you pumped up to face this boss and it's all the more satisfying when you bring him down.

Now regarding my FFXIV crossover... First chapter's done and pre-read thanks to Mr Zerochill! I'm working on the second chapter but I'm having slight difficulties. I already figured out who would be the second one to meet the protagonist(referred to at this point only as boss by his employees) but the troubling bit is how they would react. If you're willing to give a hand on helping me figure this out please send me a PM.

I'll see you all again for the Howling Eye later!