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Chapter LXII: Lord of Crags
Let's not even waste any time. Aggro is here to murder the god of the Kobolds and that's what we're going to do. Time to enter The Navel.
She has defiled Titan's sacred sanctuary—trespassed, violated, defiled!
Overdwellers must leave! Overdwellers must fly!
Hear me, overdweller! You and your treachers brethren must be held to account for the breaking of the covenant! You shall be first to face judgement! Then Limsa Lominsa and her oathbreakers—liars, betrayers, oathbreakers!
Bow down, overdweller!
New Music: Weight of a Whisper
The Kobolds start casting a spell, beginning the summoning ritual for Titan. To think we'd be the trigger for it.
Rocks and boulders start to gather together around the light floating in the middle of The Navel.
Something's going on inside the big rock pileup.
The summoning is a success, and this Titan seems to lack a neck. There'll be no nape to slice open this time.
Boy, does he look pissed.
The Kobolds begin dancing out of sheer delight for the ritual's success.
Thy vile kind coveteth ever the blessing of the land and murdereth my children by the score—all in service to greed. Such sins are beyond pardon.
The time for talking is over, and Titan prepares to fight. This one is going to be a doozy.
Music: Weight of a Whisper
Here we go! All that time waiting will finally pay off. It's time to fight Titan. If you're not able to listen to the soundtrack for whatever reason, I recommend you wait to read this update until you're able to. Going forward, every Primal will have their own theme, and I'd argue that it's a fairly large portion of what also makes them all very good fights. Quite often, the soundtrack provides a bit more backstory or character to the Primal we're facing, and this isn't very different. Sadly, Ifrit was the only one to get the short end of the stick with his generic Primal theme.
Let's get this show on the road! Titan has 26, 070 HP, so he's quite the tank himself. Still, if the four of us work together well enough, he should go down in no time.
Woah, what? What just happened?!
Let's try this again.
That looks ominous.
Oh shit!
Okay, so, Titan introduces a new gimmick to boss battles, but we'll need to dwindle down his HP a little first. New players are going to quickly learn that Titan doesn't fuck around.
The first thing to look out for is Rock Buster, which is Titan's tank buster. It's a frontal cone AoE that deals roughly triple the damage of his auto-attack, so Aggro needs to keep the giant boulder god looking away from the rest of her party. Taking him to the edge is the ideal spot. You can't fall off during this phase, so you don't need to be too careful.
He'll also frequently use Tumult, which has him stomp on the ground for raid-wide AoE damage that hits everyone with damage equal to his auto-attack. Healers should be prepared to cast AoE heals, but it's pretty ineffectual right now.
From 80%, we see Titan leap away. An AoE will then surround the outer ring of the arena. This time isn't actually very dangerous, but don't make a habit of standing in it. At the same time, you need to be as close to the edge as you can safely stand.
Titan will return to the fight by crashing into the middle, causing Geocrush. The closer you are, the more damage Geocrush will inflict. At the same time, we lose the rocks that protected us from falling off. From here on, Aggro and her party will fall to their death if they stand in the AoE ring or walk over the edge.
New Music: Weight of His Will
From here, we reach phase 2. The music actually transitions into a new track, and this is something else we'll see in Primal fights from now on. Each Primal usually has at least two tracks that section each phase off. Titan has a couple more than that, though people usually only remember the first and final phase tracks. You'll see hear why in a little bit.
The fight continues the same as before. Aggro must tank Titan close to the edge to keep his Rock Buster pointed away.
This time, Titan will throw a new move into his set. Landslide is incredibly dangerous, regardless of how much HP you have or what your level is. It's an instant kill aimed towards a random player in the party, knocking them off the arena. Cancel spells, drop your positional bonuses, do whatever it takes to avoid this. He's immune to stun, so don't rely on that either. Similarly, Knockback-negating effects will not work on Landslide, but the time is short so you'll need to be ready to cast the ability in advance. Aggro unfortunately doesn't have anything that negates knockback. Furthermore! Players that have fallen will leave their corpses below, meaning there's no body to cast Raise on. Essentially, if you die by falling then you're out of the battle until the entire fight resets on a wipe. It's a real killer for unprepared parties.
Like before, Titan will leap away to signify the phase's end. This one happens at 50% HP.
It's another Geocrush, so keep to the edge without standing in the AoE as before.
New Music: Heartless
This phase is a little bit different than the last time. Rather than attacking Titan, we now have to focus on Titan's Heart (5, 332 HP). It has its own enmity table, so tanks should be careful of that.
During this phase, he'll once again randomly target party members. This time, he'll inflict Fetters, which stuns the target. The AoE has a new marker, and also has a ticking sound effect. Once time is up, the target will be placed in a Granite Gaol (592 HP) and will stay there with Fetters until someone else breaks them free.
Be incredibly careful with the timing for when you crack your party from their gaol egg. He didn't do it this time, but it's possible for Titan to target a player next to the gaoled party member with a Landside, which puts the gaoled person in range. Breaking them free before the Landslide finishes its animation will usually knock them off.
Killing the heart leads to one final transition. Titan will leap into the middle again, but this time without casting Geocrush.
New Music: Under the Weight
This changes everything. While not all Primals will have a vocal track, it usually drops as the fight transitions into the last phase. Shit is going down.
Titan will cast his ultimate attack, Earthen Fury. So long as the Heart was destroyed successfully and the party has been topped up by the healer, this shouldn't kill or cause a wipe. It will if the Heart lived, though.
Titan has thrown everything at us, but we still stand. He hasn't given up the fight yet though.
All of his previous attacks return. Rock Buster, Tumult (now a double-hit attack), Landslide, and the Granite Gaols. The only attacks we won't see are Earthen Fury, which he now no longer has the mana for, and Geocrush. The arena has gotten small, but we don't need to worry about it reducing further.
That being said, the smaller arena makes Titan's final new attack a bit of a doozy for the unprepared party. Weight of the Land drops beneath two random party members and it hits hard. Players will need to be spread out to avoid them. It's also possible to stack together and bait it into a specific spot, but this won't be necessary until the higher difficulty variations of the fight. Those exist.
Beyond those attacks, all that remains is defeating the Primal.
That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be easy though.
I was starting to think we were going to wipe. Our Bard decided that they'll be the one to use the Limit Break instead of the Dragoon, which was pretty risky. The LB wasn't enough to slay Titan, and the Bard died during the animation. Ranged LBs, whether physical or magical, are AoEs so they do less than melee ones.
Phew. We did it. Titan is dead. We'll find out the aftermath of our battle next time. Take care!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WR1-pds8qM
One of the best things about FFXIV is its music, and a lot of credit for the sheer versatility of the primal soundtrack goes towards Masayoshi Soken. He's also a pretty interesting guy, and fun to watch in videos from Fan Fests and such. I'll probably end up sharing that at some point. Today, though, I've got a video more relevant to the update at hand. Soken put together a band to perform Primal music from the game, and this is their take on Under the Weight. Interestingly, the vocalist is Christopher Koji Fox, who I mentioned last time was one of the localisers for the game.
The Only Cutscene
It's a shame I couldn't capture the footage of an older version of the fight. Falling off would leave you down in the pit below, but the camera wouldn't reset to the arena. This meant you couldn't see anything that happened, but also meant I'd have been able to take a better "YOU DIED" screen.
From the lore book, his origin myth:
In the beginning, the world was a place of relentless hostility. Cold. hard. Unforgiving. The Great Father Titan gazed upon this inhospitable land, and saw that it was in need of custodians. Thus did he mold the ground beneath him, breathing life into soil and clay, and crafted the race of kobolds. But the newborn creatures were not resilient like the rock or the stone, and they could not dwell alongside the savage beasts that stalked the surface.
Seeing his children's frailty, the Lord of Crags sent magma to flow through the holy mount of O'Ghomoro, the molten rivers leaving behind rich veins of ore. Thence did he teach the kobolds the ways of mining and the secrets of smelting, and newly girt with armor and weapons of metal, the beastmen did force the beasts to flee. Greatly satisfied by the success of his guardians, Titan returned to his bed in the mountain's crater. Ere he sank beneath the boiling crust, he left the kobolds with a promise; when his children needed him most, the smoky breath of O'Ghomoro would herald his return.
Wrought from the rock that stands upon old
With heart of black and a stare that's cold
Cold are the hands that grasp at your soul
'Fore the graves are dug and the death knells toll
Tempered in the flows of the mountain's core
Where the rage runs red twixt shore and shore
Shorn from the world 'neath the blazing sun
Bound to the dark, for the light I shun
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (in hell I wait)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Succumb to the hate that corrupts your fate
Into the dark of an endless night
Where the pulse of the land offers no respite
In spite of the blood that was spilled before
You whet your blades, you thirst for more
Now kneel overdweller, your lord commands
There's no salvation for the sons of man
The skies will tremble and the earth will quake
From the crumbling walls no one escapes
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (in hell I wait)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
Bow down overdweller (under the weight)
I'll drag you right down to the seventh gate