Character

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(Macros and PoVs are at the end)

One major source of difficulty in P3S is Firestorms of Asphodelos. The phase as a whole isn't particularly tricky, but the phase has a lot of little details that are often left out in macros which lead to wipes.

1. No logical spread positions for Experimental Ashplume.
2. No room for error for Storms of Asphodelos.

Here’s what my static has been doing that has been working very well for us:


There are a few main points I would like to highlight:

1. Basic party formation- healers with melee, tanks with ranged
2. Dodging 3-to-1, and have predetermined spread positions relative to the first AoE.
3. Tank invuln Storms of Asphodelos

1. Basic party formation- healers with melee, tanks with ranged

One very common cause of wipes is when the party has to spread for Experimental Ashplumes (the small black orbs). Not only do many macros not assign spread positions, they maintain the "melee north, ranged south" groups to match the Experimental Gloryplume earlier in the fight. This was done to allow for full melee uptime while dodging Experimental Gloryplume north, but leads to issues with Experimental Ashplume because there is no logical spread position.

We resolve this by simply swapping tanks and healers to reach the following basic party formation.



- Healers + Melee: North
- Tanks + Ranged: South

Each group maintains their formation- facing the boss, MT/D1 is “front and left”, ST/D2 is “front and right”. H1/D3 is “back and left”, while H2/D4 is “back and right”. This reasoning applies to both potential Experimental Ashplume spreads in this phase.

2. Spread relative to the first "pizza slices"

The next issue comes with where to spread for the first Experimental Ashplume in the phase.

We choose to spread relative to the first "pizza slices" that appear.

One slice will always appear within the north half, and the other opposite in the south. These first slices will be the final stack/spread positions for Experimental Ashplume. This guarantees players have a 3-to-1 dodge available to get into position (which I highly recommend), gives the largest margin for error, and results in less overall movement for the party.

- Healers + melee: Stack/spread on the 1st pizza slice in the north half.
- Tanks + ranged: Stack/spread on the 1st pizza slice in the south half.

After dodging the pizza AoEs, we either stack on where the first pizza slice was, or spread relative to that slice.



Note that the north/south party split was only to assign these first two pizza slices to the two groups to stack/spread at- once assigned, there is no issue with crossing over to the other half to dodge the pizza slices if it gives you a 3-to-1 dodge.

One common issue I see in party finder is that players often try to spread relative to true north and south instead of the first slice. By doing so, the healers and ranged DPS may be forced to choose between one of two awkward options (consider H2 or D4's movement in the above example).

By spreading relative to true north/south, players may have to either do a safe 3-to-1 dodge but run a long distance, or do a more dangerous 3-to-2 or a 2-to-1 dodge to be close to their supposed spread position. As the pizza AoEs resolve faster than many players realise, they inevitably get hit and subsequently die to the spread/stack damage. This then leads to the next issue to address.

3. Tank invulns for Storms of Asphodelos

The next issue we address is Storms of Asphodelos, which is where the tethers appear with six cone AoEs, three from the boss, and one from each of the three tornados.

Storms of Asphodelos isn’t particularly difficult, however, it has eight points of responsibility (two tethers, six cones). Thus, all eight players need to be alive to resolve the mechanic cleanly, or things begin to snowball as a missing person will result in the death of another person in the best-case scenario, or a full party wipe in the worst.

Tank invulns get around this by allowing the tanks to take on multiple mechanics. By giving the two tanks the tethers and two of the boss AoEs, not only do we free up a lot of space on the arena, but we now have the ability to resolve Storms of Asphodelos cleanly with just six people instead of eight. This is incredibly valuable in light of accidents that may occur with the earlier spread mechanic.

We take advantage of the party’s base formation to reach this layout, with minimal movement to all party members.



You effectively have two spare members that can fill in should anyone be incapacitated. In the event D3, D4, or H2 are down, H1 and/or D2 can take their position and the party can still resolve the mechanic cleanly.

In addition, there is margin for both D1 and D2 to get both rear and flank positionals, as long as they stay roughly 45 degrees from the boss.

A note on the “Elmo” strat:
While it is possible to push this idea further and have two tanks effectively take all mechanics except for one cone AoE from the boss, doing so places strict positional requirements on the party, essentially swapping one strict requirement (needing all eight players alive), with another (precise positioning). The strategy proposed here strikes a balance between both extremes and has a lot of room for error.

4. Dark Twister and Experimental Ashplume:

Finally, we reach the last part of the whole phase. This is another common place where parties wipe without predetermined spread positions.

We keep the same healer + melee, tanks + ranged groups from earlier. This, again leads to a natural spread formation to help reduce the risk of players overlapping one another.

We choose to start baiting the four sets of AoEs starting directly in front of the dark twister, and go clockwise. The only decision left to make is which group gets knocked back to the left, and which group gets knocked to the right.

We chose to keep the healers on the “near” side to mirror the Lightwaves in Hydaelyn EX, which leads to the following spread formation:



Treating the black tornado as north:
- Healers + Melee: knock back to the south-west tornado
- Tanks + Ranged: knock back to the south-east tornado

Thanks for reading, and may all your Ashplumes be stacks!

Macros:
1. Intercardinal Darkened Fire, Mr. Happy's Fountain of Fire

2. Firestorms of Asphodelos


PoVs:
MT: https://youtu.be/ETQ-lHv57n0
H2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1259336673?t=00h08m50s
D2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1259437942
D3: https://youtu.be/SWUQb3V0YaY