Pro WoW player reacts to FFXIV EXTREME Rubicante raid boss 

I hope some of you will consider joining me on my adventure! Streaming daily on Twitch! www.twitch.tv/justruss VODs here: www.youtube.com/@justrussvods

If you get vulnerability from an ability it means you or someone else messed up. That is a rule in FFXIV. If an attack hits you and it does not apply vulnerability it usually means the damage was unavoidable.

Getting rezzed does a damage down. So you can recover, but you have to really focus and do your rotation well or risk enrage

having raided in this game for a few years it is *super* interesting how you pick apart a fight like this, considering what's left over from this game's original fight design of like "copy WoW but a little different" into what it is now. The only things you really didn't catch were that the 'bad pizza' is clocks (spreads) just baited on everyone, and the debuffs on some mechanics that were baiting things (like when they moved in after the arrows there was a debuff that gave someone a stack aoe). That and that the aoe after add phase is just damage, it's not anything crazy. About raid calling: someone mentioned it, but pugs rarely put together VC's for calls or anything, usually they just all read the mechanic themselves. In an EX, a static can absolutely call everything, but personal responsibility in mechanics is a big deal in ffxiv - especially in harder fights there just isn't a way to call even half of whats going on for any one player, so we call the general pattern ('dps check debuffs' or something like that) or a couple key details or just a reminder of what mechanic it is. It's also worth noting things like food buffs falling off or long term things across pulls used to be a thing in 2.x FF, which were changed. It used to be CD's didn't reset so you had to wait minutes after pulls for tank invulns. You do lose a *lot* of damage for dying, on top of your rotation being screwed and losing basically all buffs, you get a straight 25% damage debuff for 1:30. it stacks up to 50% if you die again before it wears off. Hope you enjoy doing the ultimates! My group got to around phase 3 of DSR before the next savage tier dropped and it was literally the best experience I've had over 3 years of fights, including a couple other light steps into ultimates. I think it's the best made fight in the whole game. It's big spoilers though so don't check it out until at least post heavensward.

That "stack" callout was said with some PTSD. xD

Sometimes playing an encounter in XIV feels like you're taking an IQ test. Or you just follow the designated player that's smarter than all the other 7 people.

the best part of the Rubicante fight is that they brought in the guy that did a joke shitpost version of the FF4 track to do an official version for the fight. the music is a literal fan made track.

It's a common element of trials and raids for the boss to have a sort of 'intermission' phase where you have to meet some condition. Regardless of if you succeed the boss will cast it's ultimate ability and do a lot of unavoidable damage, but if you fail the intermission it will wipe the group. For enemies that are taken from previous FF games, their big attack is usually a notable move they have in those older games. There are several examples in this fight alone, but for mechanics where you don't see a telegraph it's often a 'baited' attack. So you will notice the party has spread around the boss (our group calls them 'clock spots') so they can be sure that the attacks won't overlap. It's unavoidable but if you take more than one attack you will probably kill someone. So you bait them away from eachother.

It's actually a misconception that the "on-demand" rezzes in FFXIV are making things easier. First, when you rez, you have a weakness debuff that cannot be removed and if you die again with that debuff, it gets doubled, and you will be doing little to no damage. Many FFXIV fights at the savage and ultimate levels have enrage timers that are so tight that one weakness on a dps can cause you to fail the fight, so typically, rez'ing is more of a "let's keep going and see more of the fight" than "we can still clear" - it can happen, but its going to be hard. The exception ofc is healer LB3, which does not give weakness (though at one point in the game's past, it did!). Further, in savage and ultimate, we have many "body checks" where if one member is dead, the outgoing damage will wipe the group as it is intended for an 8-man soak. So yes, rez on demand is great - for learning - but it does not make FFXIV fights easier!

At 6:20 under the bosses health bar there is a yellow cast bar that shows what the boss is about to cast. The cleaves that hit each party are unavoidable, they’re aimed one at every single player so we spread so they don’t overlap. We call those proteans

High-level raid masters never cease to blow my mind with how good they are at picking apart and memorising mechanics. I can handle Hard, but anything Extreme past Stormblood breaks my brain.

notable things that are very useful in savage/extreme fights Boss cast bar -> the name of the spell they cast is usually the indicator Party members and your own debuffs -> in many cases those are mechanics that happen on expiration or give you weakness to certain things that you should avoid doing, sometimes the timer is various on different party members (what is also worth observing) LB bar (upper left corner) ->it... varies. Some fights have some moments that fill your LB bar themselves to execute tank LB3 or dps one. Sometimes the very fight's mechanic is so heavy you would prefer tank LB3 instead of executing the mechanic because its so sensitive to error. LB being ready to use and usage itself is signalized by particular sounds. Floor is your friend, but certainly do not need your very close inspection: YES the floor often indicates the very boundaries of mechanics. In this particular tier is also very crucial. In the first fight the very boss donut overlaps the floor lines that indicates important mechanic (you overstep, you die, and sadly the boss' donut is just slightly bigger than the floor circle), but after few tries its really not a problem. Boss. ->The boss shining, gesticulating, even saying some particular lines IS ALSO an indicator. I dunno about this particular fight. Sadly I skipped it, but in previous you needed to watch if the boss raises their sword or not, if the eyes are crying or not, if their hand is up or not ETC. Overall FF14 fights are very methodical. There is always an equation prepared by the very devs to solve it, but also it can happen the very "Party finder killers" mechanics can be solved in far easier way than developers planned. BUT. (If you're still reading...) FF14 is a story driven game and even if previous fights can be replayed as if you are only barely equipped to undertake them, finding a group that is willing to struggle with a fight that they can literally bruteforce with not synchronised down levels can prove to be a challenge. All I am saying, enjoy the game at your own pace, endgame will always be there and ultimates will ALWAYS be ultimate (cannot by unsynced ;D)

Sight misconception on the mech at 15:42. The attack order isn't the number above the head (like the 1 in the magnifying glass), those are the markers assigned by the players before starting the fight to note which tank and healer is in which subgroup. The attack order is determined by the dots that appear above each player shortly before the mechanic starts, which are assigned randomly by the game. At 13:24, the marker the player has will normally go on tanks, but in the event a tank is dead when the markers go up, the game will assign them to the players with the next highest enmity/aggro, which usually is a one-hit kill on the DPS.

many of FFXIV has a debuff, this debuff actually tells you what to do The cape form, boss put all players with unavoidable raid + getaway (flare) or Stack marker, and then we have what we love to call it limit cut or the NUMBERS. this can be either really easy, easy, mild, hard, superhard, Stupidly hard, and then W*F is this number mean. this is already common as many of the savage also uses more complicated debuff usually its either colors,numbers, and even funnier the record debuff. also FFXIV extreme the relaxing phase is actually just a few second before next mechanic is just mechanic and then next mechanic and then repeat and then mechanic again then enrage

Hey Russ, Just a quick overview of ressing in fights for you, its probably one of the most different approaches to wow mechanics wise you're likely to see in the game. You can res any player at any time if they die during a fight. All resses have a 5 second cast time though, so you really need to pick your moment, especially if you're the healer and you have other duties to attend to. There are several ways you can insta-cast a res, each caster has a buff that allows the next spell to be insta cast on a 2 min CD, and Red Mages have Dualcast so they can ping out resses pretty quickly if they need too. Once you res you are invulnerable to damage as long as you take no ACTIONS (spells, abilities, consumables, etc, you can still move) for 5 seconds so getting ressed into a damage zone isn't instant death if you time it wrong. You can however still get knocked back if someone resses you into a knockback. Casting a res costs 2500 of your 10000 mana so whilst you can do a few before you tap out, you cannot just keep ressing people back to back endlessly without going OOM. Once ressed you have a 2min debuff that reduces your stats by 25%, meaning you do less dmg and are generally easier to kill if you mess up again. If you do die and get ressed before this debuff is gone, you'll recieve a 50% stat reduction debuff, which makes it even harder to stay up and contributing. There's a shared resource called the Limit Break bar you can use as a group as well. The tank one provides a considerable dmg reduction buff (80%, used in some fights to survive instakill mechanics), the DPS one does damage (single target or AoE based on the job that uses it) and the healer one full heals and resses everyone in the party. Your healer LB is very much the panic button of the group. If shit goes totally off the rails but at least one tank and healer survive, you can still bring your entire group back from the brink with some good timing. I think thats about it :) Good luck on your journey, Kind Reagrds, Isa

If a lot of people die you don't make the dps check because of the dunce cap debuff: 25% for 1 min and can stack twice for 50% damage reduction.

The intricate dances that extreme fights are are absolutely some of my favorite pieces of the endgame content, memorizing the tells and what mechanics will happen next. Challenging enough, but not too overwhelming for those looking to see what more punishing fights can be like. Also as an FF4 fan I adore the theme for Rubicante.

"you study everything before showing up to the raid or you're a god damn idiot" fun fact a lot of people consider learning the fights blind to be the best part.

The gimmick of this boss was the easy part. For some reason, half arena slice and 8 people spread was the most common wipe in pugs. Majority of players couldn't or refuse to use floor texture as their guide.

Floor lines and spin mechanic. Some patterns are pre-determined and some you have to recognize and adjust. There are 6 patterns and 4 of 6 are very easy to recognize early.

Hey man, just a heads up. I believe the common practice with FFXIV videos is to avoid putting boss names or pictures in titles/thumbnails, especially for later content. Usually people will use either the name of the trial/raid or use a shorthand. That way people can avoid being spoiled accidentally by yt recommendations. Not trying to call you out or anything, just letting you know. Keep up the good videos :)

A lot of savage and extreme fights require 8 people alive, because there is a lot of one raid group shot mechs if someone messes up, and having a 25% or 50% stat down for 2mins can really hurt damage on some fights with a quick enrage timer.

The "I'm kinda stumped here" at 3:10 is the story of my life playing this game on blind pulls... whole lot of "Haha whoops" when I die to a mechanic for the 10th time

As someone that doesn't raid and just dies normal content, it's fascinating hearing a raider's viewpoint.

*Mentor Crown *Necromancer title Completely misses 1st burst window Get this man a Legend weapon

I love the fact that the theme was remixed by a fan who did remixes years ago, and they brought him on for this song.

Pretty sure you probably know this already but I'll explain it anyways. Especially for the benefit of anyone who may be watching this video with little or no knowledge if xiv. There are essentially 4 types of raids in xiv all designed for different demographic of players. First type is extreme trials which are essentially story related boss fights with new mechanics added to make them more challenging. Extremes are designed to be easily cleared and are generally targetted as entry level raids. Normal and Savage raids are similar to extremes but with multiple fights with each fight becoming more difficult than the last. The first 2 fights of savage tiers are generally designed with similar difficulty to that of an extreme fight while the third fight is usually the gate for the high end raiders. As a wow raider you could say savage 3 and 4 is what's most comparable to mythic raids. The third type is the alliance raids for 24 people. 3 parties of 8. Each party has it's own loot and the raids are designed to be cleared by any player of any skill. They are more about the spectacle rather than. The challenge. The final one most people are familiar with are the ultimate which are designed to be beaten by dedicated players only and are kept relevant indefinitely.

Hey russ cant wait to see you play it!

Hey Russ this guy mechanics u saw other boss can use similar mechanics if you want to see a smart clever raid check either eden promise savage or eden refulgence savage they change the how the normal fight and add even new mechanics

Can someone explain the fireball stuff to me? I get the line stuff, but how do they know where to stand? It's really hard to see exactly how the attacks hit when the glyphs fire away. Is it something like a 60 degree cone?

I reccomend watching some of the lyric videos Hungry put out for raids, forged in crimson is rubicantes theme and the fan lyric video for it has some pretty solid savage clear footage.

The reason they ran in during all the purple is that three overlapping mechanics were being resolved and if they hadn't it would have caused death or a wipe. If you look closely, you'll see that they have debuffs suddenly attached to them, those debuffs do different things. One a spread, one a stack, one applies extreme vulnerability. If those debuffs overlap, you are guaranteed to kill both yourself and the person you overlapped with. So they have to spread for the vulnerability, then those without the puddle have to rush in for the shared marker. If those with the remaining debuff also rush in, they'll kill the entire stack group because a magic vuln will be applied on them. In addition, the set of 8 cleaves near the end hit the targets in a set order assigned by the number of dots you are assigned. Those in that order have to move into position according to their number, and those that have taken their cleave have to swap into the rear to grab the tether so it doesn't build enough stacks to initiate instant death on the person it is attached to.

Let me know if you'd like me to do more of these videos where I ttry to work out what's going on! Comment which boss (no spoiler bosses please :D)

It'd be neat to hear your take on an Ultimate (if a long video) since aside from Savage, that's the closest thing in FF analog perhaps. You got a lot of things right but there's also a lot of nuance you missed understandably so for some mechanics but still though, great to hear your thoughts on things! Just enjoy FF's story and while it might take some time, FF is very good at easing you into harder and harder things. By the time you're doing content like these trials you'll have an FC or friends in a static helping you along.

Try watching the video guide from MTQcaputre for this fight (Mount Ordeals EX) and things will make a lot more sense, it will also be interesting to see your realization to see what the actual mechanics do! :)

DSR/dragon song reprise is pretty good too. Also I recommend the footfalls trailer from endwalker.

It's such a meme lately but I got a chuckle that the first thing you noticed is that THeRe aRe LiNeS oN THe FLooR

Once you get to savage you'll learn a damage down is worse than a vulnerability stack. That tiny little mark is a clear killer

Running ultimate is a wipe when someone dies, even some savage it's like that due to dps checks on current release without echo buff. Speaking of dps checks even extreme has boss enrage if not met

Few important details about Vulnerability, Weakness and Limit Breaks - In most content, Vulnerability stacks are 'earned' when you mess up a mechanic and take damage from something you could have avoided. This makes it so that for about 2 minutes, you take increased damage from all sources. - In rare instances, this can also happen if a group mechanic is messed up which leads to everyone in the party to get 1 Vulnerability stack (good example is a mechanic where multiple spots requires at least one person to stand in; for every spot that is empty, they'd usually explode, deal damage and give everyone 1 Vulnerability per missing spot - Taking another Vulnerability stack resets the timer on your existing stacks which means messing up multiple mechanics in a row makes you easier and easier to get downed. - The maximum number of Vulnerability stacks is 16... but if you somehow manage to get to that many stacks, you're either a tank with your invulnerability up or the bane of your healers' existence XD At that point, it is almost better to get KO'ed then raised to clear them out. - Weakness is a debuff you get from getting raised after being KO'ed; it cuts most of your main attributes by 25%, making your damage output take a nose dive. - Dying again while under Weakness then getting raised will get you the "Brink of Death" debuff that is further decreasing your stats by another 25% (for a total of 50%). - Both Weakness and Brink of Death clears after a short while of not getting KO'ed. If you get KO'ed while under Brink of Death, it'll just reset its timer when you get raised again. - Limit Break is a team-shared resource that translates to either a very high damage reduction effect for a short time, a group healing effect or a massive single target / line / AoE damage attack - Limit Breaks come in 3 levels with the first two being the same for every job of the same role (all melee DPS will have the same LB1 and LB2 for example) while the 3rd is visually unique to the job while mechanically the same for the role (ex : a MNK or DRG LB3 will look different but in term of damage and targets, they both will be a single target massive damage attack as they are both melee DPS) - Limit Breaks aren't affected by buffs and debuffs but only by the stats of the party members, not just the initiator. The damage output of the LB will be the same regardless of if the melee DPS with the worst gear launches it instead of the melee DPS with the best gear - Tank LBs are full party damage mitigation for about 5-10 seconds, depending on the level of the LB used. They're very situational and usually only used on specific mechanics that requires them. - Healer LBs are full party heals but given how healer kits at high level can somewhat just spend 5-10 seconds to group heal a party to full, LB1 and LB2 are never used. LB3 on the other hand is a FULL PARTY RAISE and heal that will bring EVERYONE back on their feet with full HP and MP WITHOUT them getting Weakness or Brink of Death (it won't remove it if they already have it however). Some fights can be saved by a timely LB3 when things get dire though that usually isn't the case in Savage / Ultimate content (at which point most people just reset) - Melee DPS LBs are a single-target burst damage attack; it is likely the most common you'll see as they're usually reserved for bosses or DPS checks that requires them. - Ranged DPS LBs are a line AoE that deals damage to all enemies in it; they're not as common though you might see one fire off if melee DPS forget to use it. They are sometimes used in dungeons to heavily damage mob pulls between bosses. - Magic DPS LBs are a circular AoE that deals damage to all enemies in it; like the ranged DPS LB, sometimes used on mob pulls.

Ah! Hope you have fun! Also, always keep in mind, there is nothing wrong with taking a break for a while. You won't miss out if you need to chill for a bit!

Rubicante is one of the two bosses this expansion idk at all I gotta learn it for mount farming

show this man some ultimates, tea is just an absolute blast to watch and play

You should do one of these for Sigmascape 4.0 (Kefka). Its older content but its signature mechanic is... interesting

This video is good because the party that clears contains a monk.

Hmm still need this lynx maybe i do it again tonight 😅

I wouldn't say watching fight videos to be just a WoW player thing. There are definitely hard core raiders in FF too, where people will expect you to have done your homework. But there are also more casual learning groups too. It's just important to find people who match the energy level you want to play at. If you go hard and everyone else slacks, you'll resent them, and vice versa.

"It's very much a WoW player thing where it's like, you study everything before you turn up to the raid, or you're a goddamn idiot." I've been playing FFXIV on and off for a few years now and my friend still gets mad at me for this. Every single dungeon, every single raid, I'm looking up a guide because of how often I got yelled at in WoW for trying to do that kind of stuff blind solely for story purposes/quests. I don't care if it's an easy story dungeon, I'm looking it up out of habit and out of insecurity, even though I know I will rarely ever get yelled at by the FFXIV community for getting a bit lost. If I go in blind I get hella anxiety and freak out, lmao

wait till he sees DRS and the armor you get from there

I only did normal rubicante for story 😮 in normal there is only 1 spinning circle.

My only recommendation is that if you run these bosses, don't fully judge these fights unless it's current content. We are so over geared right now that these fights are extremely forgiving and this particular boss even more so (ex 4 makes this fight look like baby mode).

Watching SUCCESSFUL attempts like this is really nothing like going into the fights blind and trying to learn them. Hope you try some blind EX trials when you get to that point in the game! IDEALLY with a group of other people who are going in blind and won't just hint the strategies to you by showing you where to dodge, etc. etc.

I can do most fights in this game but idk rubicante ex is something my brain cant compute. The spinning discs 😂

WOW, Not at all a Toxic game.

I actually skipped out on this fight. But the fight before this was awesome (Barbariccia). The current extreme (Golbez) is also great. Since its post 6.0, it's not really all that spoilery either.

i love this fight!!

i would be saying "omg spoilers" but lets be fair to get here you'll be, if you no life the story, 3 months(?) so by the time you get here you would of forgot 70%+ of what you saw

For an aside, as a reaper main this man's rotation makes me sad.

I SUMMON THEE!

"Man wow has too many bosses with 1 shot mechanics" Meanwhile FF14 existing with NOTHING but 1 shot mechanics while having to decipher which of the 55 colors you're getting barraged by is the "safe color to stand in"

You should try to make sense of one of the ultimates 😄

If you want some fun videos to watch that are very informative with tips for playing the roles in ff14 are the joe cat crap guides to final fantasy

Every Extreme fight is near equivalent to the previous savage tiers, however there are some standout fights that are at current or equal to the tier they came out during. So in essence difficulty wise it goes ARR Normal Mode > hard Mode > Extreme/ Regular coils > savage coils (stand out as an inbetween what the community would call savage and what is considered ultimate difficulty for level 50). The Fight Standardization happen in Hevensward: Story Trial > Extreme > Story Raid > Savage Raid > Ultimate

Hey Russ. I really really can’t stress enough that watching these endgame fights is really dangerous and misleading. Especially certain ones you’re tiptoeing around with this one for the MSQ. If you’re really insistent on examining certain mechanics for “science” do what Preach did and check out some of the older ultimates like TEA or UCOB as they are not directly tied to MSQ. I’m trying not to be one of us FFXIV fans trying to have you play a certain way. But knowing what I know and seeing some of the other comments, you’re indeed playing with fire with spoilers if you want to enjoy and experience the story. Some boss fights will not get out of your head, and for good reason. Highly recommend doing the story first before engaging in content like this.

Many would recommend not going too far into the future and looking up boss fights as some of them are quite the pinnacle of the story. Just tread carefully.

"Seemed like actually a fairly simple boss" he says without making a note of when most people died or trying to figure out why, or the overhead numbers mechanic, or that they got rooted every time the floor started to spin. I'd imagine it looked simple because they executed it rather well. It was not tankbusters btw, only the reaper died to an unfortunate one of those as the tank that was supposed to take that was already dead. I may just have a thing against the whole "oh this is simple" mentality before getting a clear oneself tho, as I came from wow as well and that mentality was the source of a lot of rage and pointless arguing that ultimately made me despise the community.

"so this is an extreme... so this like... medium difficulty?" ... wat.

FYI, if you are wondering why some people seem fussy about you looking at boss fights in advance, the FF14 viewership has some emotional vampire viewers among the crowd. They are the friend that has you watch the dog episode of Futurama with no warning because they want to see you experience it. You are making them nervous that you might spoil the story for yourself and deny them a meal lol.

"Fairly simple boss" If you looked at a guide for this fight, you'd be shocked by how many mechanics you missed.

I only got to extremes to go in endwalker they are not that easy ;-;

the thing with watching a extreme being new is that you cant really read half of the fight on a pov. I think you could go better with a "guide" vid explaining all the thing that happen, not your fault but you missed half of the mechanics happened when others mechanics were taking place

Who advised him to watch Rubicante? Rubicante Ex is the most boring ex in EW and close to boredom elite in the whole game. You guys shouldve showed him Barbariccia, Endsinger or Golbez when it comes to EW ex.

algorithmic comment

Honestly, I’d say this was probably the worst extreme of the expansion so fa

Man how do people play with those loud ass sound effects, thats so awful

Dance Dance Boys problem with every MMO these days.

Bro is mid at wow not a pro XD

there is zero point in watching these fights.. , they only spoil and misslead

stop looking at endgame fights, till you are there.., it only spoils & is misleading

Easily my least favorite extreme in terms of gameplay, good lord its bad. Everything else is banger, music, themeing, ect.