Alpha Omega

No, it won't. The death wall activates after five seconds, and isn't based on player activity.

Which tank should LB3 is determined by who loses the least from doing so.

Because a WAR's and a DRK's burst is based on stacks with a very lenient timer (Inner Release and Delirium), it is very flexible.

WAR and DRK get to use their 1m cooldowns on time with the rest of the party and still get the full benefit of their cooldowns, losing only a couple of filler GCDs.

In contrast, PLD and GNB have their bursts on a timer (Fight or Flight and No Mercy), and their rotation revolves around getting as many attacks in that buff window as they can.

As a result, a PLD or GNB either has to desynchronise with the party raid buffs, or give up GCDs in their own window, neither of which are attractive choices.

No, the player in front does not take extra damage compared to the second player.

(Of course, if a PLD is using Passage of Arms, they should be in front.)

This is to accommodate for PLD + GNB tank compositions.

If you happen to have a GNB (MT) + PLD (ST) for tanks, PLD must Hallowed Ground the first Solar Ray (before Delta) for them to get a Hallowed Ground use in P6.

This then means the GNB would have to Superbolide the second Solar Ray (before Sigma), and if so, Superbolide won't be up in time for Wave Cannon #1.

Note that this will break if you have a PLD MT and a GNB ST.

The invulns in P5 are fixed to the jobs because PLD must Hallowed Ground the first Solar Ray to even have a use in P6.

However, the problem with fixing the invulns to jobs is when the standard MT/ST priority is not followed, for example, a PLD MT and WAR ST.

In that scenario, if you fix the invulns to the jobs, but the mitigations to the roles, you open yourself to a wipe where the WAR has to Vengeance and Bloodwhetting, but also Shake It Off, which will dispel the WAR's buffs if used in the wrong order.

You can get around this by then pinning the party mitigation to the jobs instead of the roles as well, but that becomes more trouble than it's worth.

Given that it would be more common to have a WAR in the party (and thus a WAR ST) compared to specifically PLD MT + GNB ST, this is an acceptable tradeoff, with just a note to callout PLD MT + GNB ST as an exception.

Some WARs will Shake It Off immediately after Wave Cannon #1's stack, which lasts long enough to mitigate Wave Cannon #2's spread. This lets them get an additional use of Shake It Off at Cosmo Meteor's Flares.

In a similar vein, some SCHs prefer to use Expedient like H1's 120s, mitigating Cosmo Dive #1 and Cosmo Meteor. Instead of Expedient, SCHs will use Fey Illumination to mitigate Wave Cannon #2's stack.

Strictly speaking, there's nothing wrong with any of this provided the party survives Wave Cannon #2's stack.

However, problems may arise when:

• The WAR uses Shake It Off to mitigate the spread damage, but lacks the contextual understanding that it's a SCH's Fey Illumination that makes up for it and does so in a party with a SGE H2.
• Both the WAR and the SCH independently move their assigned mitigations off Wave Cannon #2's stack.

Unfortunately, WAR is very popular in TOP because of how Holmgang simplifies the Solar Ray tankbusters in P5, and SCH is very strong at mitigating P6, so this particular combination (and thus scenario) is not uncommon.

This is the reason why a Feint has been added to Wave Cannon #2's mitigation as insurance against this happening. The SCH may also need to add Dissipation to the mix to ensure the party survives a high-roll.

On the plus side, the WAR using Shake It Off at Cosmo Meteor's Flares mean that Feint will not be needed there.

At the end of the day, we want the party to be topped up between waves of Meteors, with shields. Note that H1 is also using their 120s mitigation there (Temperance/Neutral Sect).

An AST with Neutral Sect not only has the strongest healing, but also the strongest shields. Putting the AST in the center assures all party members can get Macrocosmos, which is a great way to top up the party after Cosmo Meteor.

Both SGE and SCH are largely interchangeable since they both can apply shields. That being said, SGE would have the better pure-healing ability because of Pneuma.

WHM is last because they cannot apply shields. Furthermore, Temperance covers the entire arena, and WHM can place and trigger Liturgy of the Bell in the center to top up and mitigate damage for the party without needing to be in the center themselves.

Yes, it would, and Dark Missionary or Heart of Light would mitigate both Meteor waves.

However, one problem with Cosmo Meteor is that it comes up a bit under 30 seconds after Cosmo Dive, so depending on when the H2 used Sacred Soil/Kerachole, the H2 30s mitigation may not be available to catch the first wave of four Meteor hits- this is where the ST 90s mitigations come in to make up for this first wave of Meteors while the H2 30s come back off cooldown, even if it's just a shield from Divine Veil or Shake It Off.

The DRK suicide strat involves the DRK cancelling the Tank LB3s at Magic Number.

This results in the DRK dying, but quickly getting revived by the follow-up Healer LB3, with full MP, resulting in a slight DPS gain, assuming the DRK was able to empty out their MP bar before.

The DRK can do this for both Magic Numbers (and generate enough Blood for Living Shadow in time for the last 2-minute window).

Note that in order for this to work, the DRK must LB3 first, as dying will remove the Brilliant Dynamis buff that refills the LB gauge.

You can use a macro to help instead of manually cancelling the Tank LB:

/merror off
/statusoff "Dark Force"
/statusoff "Gunmetal Soul"
/statusoff "Land Waker"
/statusoff "Last Bastion"

Check how many debuffs (Addle, Dismantle, Feint, Reprisal) were applied to the boss while the party is spread out for the first part of Wave Cannon.

There should not be any debuffs on the boss while the party is spread out, or just one debuff at most.

The reason behind this is due to how LB is generated.- LB is generated whenever someone survives damage that is equal to or greater than their current HP due to mitigation or shields.

However, there is some fine print- the order of operations are:

1. Apply debuffs to reduce outgoing damage (Addle, Dismantle, Feint, Reprisal)
2. Generate LB if damage is equal to or greater than current HP
3. Apply mitigations to reduce incoming damage (Aquaveil, Kerachole, Sacred Soil, Third Eye, etc.)
4. Absorb damage from shields (Divine Veil, Shade Shift, Succor, etc.)

The problem is that if enough debuffs are on the boss at Step 1, the damage at Step 2 is no longer lethal, and thus, LB is not generated.

In Wave Cannon's case, the base damage of the initial beams (83k-93k for melee, 77k-86k for casters) is lethal, but not by much compared to the party's max HP (77k for melee, 68k for casters), and is thus particularly susceptible to being overmitigated this way.

A single Reprisal takes this down to 74.7k vs. 69.3k damage, which already borders on not being lethal. Adding a Dismantle on top of that lowers the damage down to 67.2k vs. 62.3k, well within a player's max HP. This is no longer lethal damage, and no LB is generated as a result.

Take note:

• This specifically affects boss debuffs (Addle, Dismantle, Feint, Reprisal) because they are applied at Step 1, before LB is generated.
• Other "extra mitigations" like Passage of Arms, Magick Barrier, Collective Unconsciousness, etc. do not affect LB generation, because they are applied at Step 3 instead.
• Similarly, boosting shields (Catalyze, Neutral Sect, Zoe) also do not affect LB generation, because they are applied at Step 4.

The first telegraph appears near the end of the cast, when the cast bar reaches the "nn" at the end of "Unlimited Wave Cannon".

If you don't see a telegraph, rotate your camera until you see one, and pay attention to the empty spot adjacent.

Then, one of two things may happen:

• If no telegraph appears at the empty spot, then you are looking at the starting point.
• Otherwise, if a telegraph appears, then you are looking downstream of the Exaflare sequence, and the starting point is the other end of the Exaflare telegraphs.

Alternatively, you can wait to after the boss's second auto-attack to briefly go out towards the edge of the arena to get better view of the whole arena before joining the party in the middle.

The H2 120s mitigations have a range of 30 yalms- if Cosmo Arrow is the "out-first" pattern, the other side of the arena (H1 and D1) will be out of range of H2's mitigations.

However, since the boss's targeting circle is 24 yalms in diameter, if H2 uses their 120s mitigations when the party dodges in (putting everyone inside the targeting circle), H2's mitigations will catch everybody.

This is also 14 seconds before the Wave Cannon stack resolves, so both H2 30s and H2 120s can be used here.