Braflox LongstopFollow

You shouldnt worry about it too much. The dungeon is pretty trivial in difficulty except for the final boss.

It's not so much a gear check for you, it's getting lucky on team members and jobs. This is a dungeon where everyone needs to focus and fight adds when they're told to fight them, and use crowd-control abilities whenever applicable.

Get a bad apple in the mix, (like our favorite poster a while back who i wont grace with a name reference who went from "This game is too easy" to "omg! brayflox is too hard omg! I cant get past it no matter what") and you basicly have no chance of ever completing it.

Get good members who are willing to live through a few bad pulls and deaths, and you'll be just fine.

The only breaking point for this dungeon is the dragon at the end. If your tank has a lot of latency, he wont be able to dodge any of the breath attacks. They're pretty darn fast to start with, but any delay in acting will get him caught in the crossfire. Damage is between 700 and 1100 damage easily. Just keep your emergency cures focused on that, and there wont be a problem really.

Just make sure that your tank knows how the boss works. Tank him in the narrow end and pull the boss around the room in a clockwise (or anti-clckwise) circle to keep him out of the poison pool. It would be helpful if people brought antidotes (it may be in your best interest to bring them and hand them out) to save you mana on Esuna casting. Take it slow, be methodical and pray your tank understands what is happening, from what I've heard you will need to manage your mana, but it's not impossible. If you're sensible and don't cast Cure when the tank is at 90% health you'll be fine. XD

Did I mention a good tank is important for this fight?

Here is the low down on the dungeon:

Start
Kill 1 group of adds
Talk to a goblin to get a key
Go back and kill 2nd group of adds
Boss 1 (pelican)
Gear check: None really, DD just need to kill adds, tank needs to dodge frontal ae, in a good group you can kill this with only 1 set of adds, average is 2-3. If your dps is taking longer than 3 sets of adds you will have issues with later bosses

Continue forward and 'rescue' the goblins as you go, there are 4-5 chests you can get by saving them from adds that spawn when you get close. Your tank should be grabing these and pulling them off goblins.

Continue on until boss 2:

Boss 2: gear check, none, kill the big boss till about 50%, then a smaller drake spawns and all tank/dd switch to smaller drake (you can actually sleep the big guy if its not doted/DD get off it, but not needed.

Continue to swamp:
Most hug the left wall to get the 2 chests, and continue hugging/pulling adds until boss 3

Boss 3:
Gear check: more of a DD check
This guy puts random people in bubbles and if you dont break them out it can be a lose, so dd need ot be quick enough to get others/healers out asap, but its not super strict. This guys real trick is he has a frontal ae the tank needs to dodge, but its super hard to see because the red target ring goes 'under' the water so you dont really see the red area all the time. If this boss is hard for the healer, its because the tank isn't dodgeing the frontal/ DD are in front.

Continue on:
Bunch of drakes/dragon trash, no real concern, even a mini boss courel guards the jewlery chest, but he isnt anything other than a regular monster

Final boss:
So this is the gear/dd check mob for several reason.
1) hes got a high dmg frontal ae (breath) that the main tank needs to dodge, if they dont be ready for a lot of spikes down to about 20% hp.
2) After about 75%, he starts tossing poison puddles, you need to get out of them and if the dragon is in one, be ready to move to heal the tank because he needs to move the dragon out of it.

The issue here is the puddles, with a DRG/MNK, the dragon has a 3/4 chance of tossing poison under neath itself, thus you will be moving a lot. This fight is a lot easier with a brd + blm, because then 3/4 people are always away and you only need to move if the tank gets puddled. Ive done it with every combo and they are all doable, but drg+mnk was the hardest so far because you have to move a lot, and if your dd is low (mnk isnt using any buttons, just auto attack) then you end up with a lot of puddles and if your tank hasnt been spacing the dragon well, you will have no area to move it to.

As a healer, as long as your weapon's up to date you're good to go since that's where the bulk majority of your healing power at that level will come from.

Good info.

By the same token, you can apply DoT to sleeping targets without waking them so long as there is no initial damage for the spell. I do this often with ACN's Bane.

Although, it's a good idea to let your tank know if you plan on DoTing the slept mobs, as they will need to mitigate the hate that you'll be building. Otherwise you'll have some mobs making a bee line for you when sleep wears.

Edited, Oct 23rd 2013 3:57pm by Pickins

Gobbie boom overboom! Present for kindly uplander!

Best part of the whole dungeon.

As good as BL is, Sunken Temple is where you really start to podrace. The final boss in ST is probably the hardest of any dungeon in game currently because it demands attention from the entire group. There's no hard gear check. Just execution.

Antidotes do not work on Aiatar's poison. It's a bit cheaper manawise to heal the damage from one stack of poison than to remove it with Esuna, so I recommend only removing the poison from people with multiple stacks.

You're not alone in this....well, sort of. Back in my XI days, as a RDM during the beetle-mania 40s, I would get twitchy anytime the Rhino Guard sound played and I hadn't hit Dispel within....oh, half a second? Made it especially interesting whenever the party had a SAM in it, because that sound seemed awfully similar to a GKT strike to me. I must have looked like I was having a seizure. :)

Yeah, that first boss alone screws so many groups. Between dooms, the bees, the aoe, and the fact that the safe panel sometimes randomly changes, I've seen many a group crumble like a house of cards.

Thankfully once you get past the first boss you're past the worst of the BS. The second boss is easier, as long as you accept the fact that you can't stop dodging aoe until he punts someone. The final boss is also a lot easier than the first boss, but only if you have the execution down. The first boss sucks because of adds and the doom mechanic. The third boss sucks because not everyone can disco dance and few people put 2 and 2 together when it comes to the adds and the panels.

Qarn really is quite glorious. I wish it were mandatory for story progression. You'd see so many more skilled people at end game. Once you go through Qarn, you're pretty much ready for hard mode primals.

The more I read, the more I realise I REALLY lucked out on Qarn. Think I cleared twice out of 4 or 5 attempts on DRG (only combat class past that level atm). First time, first boss took a LOT of tries, but got there. The rest of the dungeon seemed a relief after that! Had downed Titan, so 2nd boss was fairly simple. Even final boss, while very movement-intensive, felt easier. Still, had a great time (in this and Cutter's Cry). Kinda makes me sad about the 50 dungeons now - I was a little late to the party, so it is all speedruns now - no sense of challenge about it.

And back on topic - first clear of Brayflox was with about 40 seconds to go :). Given we started on the dragon with about 45 minutes left on the clock, we were suitably stoked!

Agreed 100%. Did it last night for the first time with a party of FC members and it was a blast. Enemies seem to hit pretty hard which makes things exciting... I don't think you can coast through this like some of the early dungeons, you need to be on your game. The dungeon itself is very open (my preference) and pretty, and there's a lot of loot to be had if you're quick. It was also a chance to fight some mobs I hadn't really had a chance to battle yet. The final battle is crazy... I was the tank, and it definitely puts a lot of pressure on you to do well.

Tips?
1) Watch the pugils roaming around in the last open water area as they like to come and aggro you while you're in battle.
2) Communication during the final battle is key. My party told me what to do on the final boss, and even while trying to follow those instructions things can still get hectic in a hurry. We had a LOT of poison pools all over the place so it can be difficult for your tank to find an open spot... if you find an open area, let the tank know!
3) The dragon's frontal attack is the thing you really need to look out for, and it comes out pretty quick. I had the most success running towards (and eventually through) the mob to get away from the AOE as opposed to dodging to the side.

I did this over the weekend. I was the tank and understand direction, maybe that helped? We died on the first boss 1 time. died individually randomly, and died on the last boss twice. Won on the third.

I did the same. I still say the Battlemage Hat, Feet, and Legs are a myth