Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail has just been released, bringing the start of a new narrative arc, increased level caps, and an accidental savage raid of one of the game’s easiest duties.
Er, yeah, so it turns out a bug has transformed Syrcus Tower—a level 50 raid with 24 players, meant to handle players with kiddie gloves—from a simple 15-minute bulldoze into a near-impossible feat that’s caused players to strategise unique bypasses to try and work it.
The issue pertains to the raid’s penultimate boss, Amon. He’s equipped with a move called Curtain Call which is an instant KO to anybody caught in its path. The only way to avoid it? By hiding behind three ice blocks which spawn over random players shortly before he casts his deathly spell.
Except right now, Amon isn’t actually spawning the ice blocks—players are still being frozen, but hiding behind them does squat—leaving all 24 players with no other option than to take the L and perish. As you might imagine, that’s a bit of an issue. With seemingly no way around an instant party-wide wipe, that makes getting past Amon to clear the rest of the raid a bit of a toughie.
Thankfully Final Fantasy 14 players aren’t quitters—hell, they’re used to clearing dungeons and raids in ways they shouldn’t be all the time. From doing duties without job stones to one content creator already completing Dawntrail’s first dungeon without a healer, it’s in our blood to go against the mold and play the game in ways that would make Yoshi-P wag his finger and shake his head in disappointment.
One strategy folks have taken to involves letting one healer die before Curtain Call happens, with the other healer shooting them a resurrection spell moments before the hammer drops. Rezzes have to be accepted in Final Fantasy 14, which means with the correct timing, the intentionally-deceased healer can accept the rez and be back up right as everyone else croaks, allowing them to either start firing off resurrections of their own or, if they’re lucky enough to have it, throw out a level 3 Limit Break to instantly revive the entire party.
According to a couple of players over on Reddit, the strategy is doable if not a little finicky. There’s also the matter of healer rezzes taking a hot sec to complete—Swiftcast helps, but its 60-second cooldown can only do so much when you’ve got 23 other people to try and bring back to life before Amon smacks you to death. One Redditor also claims that you can kill Amon before Curtain Call even happens, though you’ll need some food for the extra stats.
The alternative, of course, is to straight-up abandon the duty and the last 10 minutes of hard work. That said, there’s no guarantee that your next attempt at an Alliance Raid roulette won’t immediately throw you back into Syrcus Tower hell. I think for now I’ll be steering clear of the raids and diving deep into Dawntrail’s story. It’s safer here.