orogenesis

Since we're so close to beating Titan, I tried to organize a mid-week raid. Everyone said they could make it except for Silver, who we figured would be the limiting factor. Dude is always busy. He lives in Seattle, which is a pretty hard-hit area, but he studies from home (engineering) and also works from home. He's usually the one who cuts off our weekly raid sessions because he has to go write a paper or something. (But I'm often grateful. After four hours of raiding, I'm tired, but I'm not going to be the spoilsport who says "Let's call it here.")

So instead, we arranged an Easter raid. We're back to our usual routine, namely, Silver showing up to raid an hour late. (He apparently woke up in time, then fell back asleep.) While we waited, HGR entertained us by watching and narrating youtube videos such as "Top Three Tanking Misconceptions." numbers left to play FF7R. newbie did squats IRL because he doesn't have FF7R.

Once Silver arrived and we got started, it took us a while to get into the swing of things. We did 90 minutes of attempts before we managed a decent-ish run: we reached the middle of phase 3 before disintegrating completely with Titan at 14%. That's not close close, but close enough to see the end on the horizon. Close enough to get people fired up.

Some time later, Kan said: "A moment. Got to turn the music up."

numbers nodded sagely. "The higher the music, the more damage you do. I understand."

Over the next hour, we crept closer (we hit an 8% enrage, and then a 3% enrage with everyone dead but Dante), and then:

WE DID IT

RIP TITAN

THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KINGS

Our winning run was super clean. The only death was numbers, who around a minute into the fight accidentally stood in front of Titan's car while it was revving up. ("Fuck cars forever," numbers said.) I got a 10% parse, which is a new personal record for a savage clear. newbie, my ranged partner in crime, got a 37% parse.

[CWLS1]<meisnewbie> GREEN PARSE

[CWLS1]<meisnewbie> GREEN PARSE!!!

Kan, who must have been blaring his music, got literally 100%. That's partly skill (nothing but respect for this boy's skill), but he's also wildly overgeared. Most of us deliberately nerfed our equipment to stay true to the spirit of a first clear, but Kan was rocking 500 gear from the next tier of savage fights.

Anyway, fun times! I think Titan is my favorite boss so far. (Side note: It took me until last Wednesday to realize that "orogenesis" comes from "orogeny." I'm so dumb.) Our plan for next week is to take it easy and clear out some Shadowbringers primals, and then the week after we'll jump back into current content (tm) with the first fight of Eden's Verse Savage.

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Appendix A: On the subject of Kan's DPS

(11:47:40 AM) numbers: lmao i'm looking at dps numbers for e4s

(11:47:51 AM) numbers: gunbreaker maximum: 8636

(11:47:56 AM) numbers: kan was regularly pushing 10k

(11:48:06 AM) numbers: ~ilvl~

(11:48:07 AM) Dante: item levels, son

(11:48:08 AM) HGR: well he's getting buffs...but yeah

(11:48:30 AM) Dante: its ok it makes up for the fact i'm doing almost 0 dps

(11:48:54 AM) numbers: you were a median paladin!!

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Appendix B: On the subject of HGR's gear

LOL I discovered you can hit "update" on fflogs to see a character's current gear/appearance, so I did it on HGR's character, thinking I might draw some fanart of him. But it turned out he was leveling his dancer before he logged off, so he's wearing such hot gear as "Velveteen Sarouel" (ilvl 25) and "Brand-new Ring" (ilvl 30).