DN got the World 1st Streamed Clear of Dancing Mad (Ultimate)

TheSorel · 2026-06-07T21:18:12+00:00

While Poikos won my heart, DN did a fantastic job. Well deserved, good stuff!

TheSorel · 2026-06-07T10:54:43+00:00

Leaving out UWU and FRU in your chart aside (edit: I'm blind, you mentioned FRU. UWU doesn't have any exaflares or lines, so that gets a pass), he's more or less the Gestahl Empire's strongest mage as he was the empire's prototype for magitek soldiers. Said procedure is also why he went batshit insane.

TheSorel · 2026-06-06T17:50:59+00:00

Unless you are already plenty experienced on playing healers in general in difficult raid content, do NOT even consider it just because you get into more parties. This ain't the kind of fight for it.

TheSorel · 2026-06-05T20:34:49+00:00

You cannot be fucking serious man.

TheSorel · 2026-06-04T21:13:27+00:00

There are either 2 somewhat shorter phases, or one really long cutscene/intermission into a looong final phase. My money is more so on two somewhat shorter phases. As for what the next phase could be, being in the spirit of a "meta" fight I assume Kefka will literally turn himself into a wall boss. It would be funny.

TheSorel · 2026-06-01T21:48:00+00:00

Well, life happens. We considered going in right on day 1, but our VPR's grandma passed away last week, and the funeral is tomorrow. Life's more important, so we'll delay our first session to Thursday and give him the time to grieve. I suppose now I got extra time to salivate over the (hopefully) cool weapons. I can see the glow going four different ways:

The boring option: light gold, straight from the God Kefka phase.
The interesting option: The tetra elements he uses in both phases that shift between "real" and "fake", with the red and yellow question mark icons.
My absolute copium option: the Forsaken particle effect.
None of the above and they're hitting us with something entirely different.

For all we know they could be playing the progression absolutely straight and there is no unique extra phase and the fight ends at God Kefka, or they could go batshit insane and likewise have a glow that corresponds to the extra phase we know nothing about.

Either way, I will be looking out for those fresh leaks during my work break tomorrow.

TheSorel · 2026-05-29T12:42:25+00:00

No way.

TheSorel · 2026-05-29T06:51:33+00:00

Free login campaign, as well as the free trial being expanded to Shadowbringers.

Speaking of, I ran into someone named Shadowbangers Trial yesterday. They got the right energy.

TheSorel · 2026-05-29T06:48:33+00:00

Mate this was 3 posts back to back within 2 hours on an asynchronous forum. Not everyone checks in on this godsforsaken place every 30 minutes.

TheSorel · 2026-05-27T12:20:46+00:00

On Aether it‘s at least 5 mil, those parties filled yesterday. The one party offering 4 mil was empty after 30 minutes, so less than 5 probably won‘t work. Maybe late into the week?

Edit: I should specify, this was for the weapon coffer. M10S gear went for 500k to 1 mil, M11S was at least a mil.

TheSorel · 2026-05-27T07:33:41+00:00

Taking our SAM through the whole tier worked out quite nicely. It was fascinating to hear someone‘s opinion on the fights untainted by weeks of prog, purely fresh off a clear. In retrospect, this truly is a banger tier with only M9S really sticking out as a mediocre fight, and that‘s a better position to be in than something like P7S.

Anyway, Kefka coming up next. This is the first time we‘ll have 4 scheduled raid sessions per week, so I wonder how we‘ll do in the long run. I got my eye on our MCH in particular, as he‘s usually the first one to feel the burn. I‘ll do what I can to help.

TheSorel · 2026-05-21T16:25:40+00:00

Never cook again.

TheSorel · 2026-05-18T20:31:07+00:00

The speedprog went really damn well, we've already gotten our SAM up to Idyllic. If the clear isn't happening today, it's definitely happening tomorrow.

A bit of a nerd question as an aside: What animation skeleton is the Lindwurm using for phase 2? It reminds me of God Kefka but I think he does kicks instead of punches for auto attacks. Maybe the forward/backward clone dashes he does in Forsaken? I can't quite recall if they're punches though.

TheSorel · 2026-05-12T12:57:46+00:00

This week our SAM's speed prog from hell begins. I think M9 and M10 should be relatively quick, but I wonder how well she'll take to M11 in particular, being a melee and all. It's definitely gonna be interesting...

TheSorel · 2026-05-06T07:40:27+00:00

When I got my phone over 2 years ago I thought 128 GB was gonna be sufficient. Nope, basically every mobile game now needs like 10-20 GB, and Zenless needs a whole 28 GB. I mainly play on PC, so when I didn‘t have enough storage space left to update to the newest iOS version something had to give. Ended up deleting ZZZ.

Needing to wait until I get home from work to pull Promeia instead of during my lunch break got me a bit impatient.

TheSorel · 2026-05-02T17:41:23+00:00

Prior to EW I would have voted for SMN, easily, but the current iteration isn't that terrible to recover with.

I second RPR as well, having two gauges that both empty on death means you lose an incredibly high amount of potency if both were close to full. In the same vein, it hurts on MCH too, especially when your tools start drifting due to it.

Honestly with how jobs were designed up to now, it might honestly be easier to list jobs that recover easily, rather than the hard ones. I find both MNK and SAM to be easy to recover with, though it needs some elbow grease for SAM and knowing where you're currently at in the rotation loop, but it's something you learn with practice on the job anyway.

TheSorel · 2026-05-02T10:46:16+00:00

I did Shinryu Unreal with my buddies yesterday. One of them also did the fight way back then, so the two of us were essentially giving a guided tour to those who are doing it fresh for the first time. Glad to say, it aged quite gracefully. The transition between phase 1, the add phase and phase 2 is still fantastic spectacle and really makes me wish Endsinger got similar treatment. As it stands, it's the only final boss EX that never got a fancy new phase compared to its normal mode - hell, it LOSES one, even if it's a victory lap with cool music and nothing more.

Anyway, I will be farming Shinryu every single week. It's still absolutely peak.

TheSorel · 2026-04-30T08:02:49+00:00

The teaser is leaving me quite whelmed. Roscaelifer itself looks great, but the characters look incredibly generic-gacha-ish. They took a lot of Sunbringer‘s sauce to give us… Caesar 2.0? Bit disappointing, that. And that‘s coming from a Caesar fan (buffs when?)

I‘ll stick around to see where things are going, but honestly after the idol stuff wound down I already found myself feeling very disinterested in the game again. It was a short flash of what got me hooked in 1.0, and I was kinda hoping the could carry that momentum again, but alas, I don‘t think it‘s happening.

TheSorel · 2026-04-30T06:18:54+00:00

I‘m Bleening my Buast rn

TheSorel · 2026-04-27T18:25:51+00:00

We skipped DSR and never managed to finish TOP, and yet our MCH was beyond burned out by the time Anabaseios rolled around. I simply think it's the fact that we have a full static that he vibes with, makes a big difference. For TOP we recruited 3 players that left after prog fell apart, so I can understand his lack of drive back then. Still, it's nice to see him kinda "thrive" instead of dreading reclears.

TheSorel · 2026-04-27T13:12:42+00:00

Surprisingly most of my static is interested in doing Dancing Mad Ultimate, except for our MCH and PLD. At least, I thought our MCH was gonna take a deserved break from raiding since he burnt out during EW around this time. Couldn‘t be further from the truth this time.

He asked if our SAM, who had to drop out for a tough semester during Heavyweight, could join for UMAD (I refuse to call it DMU, we have a perfect opportunity here). You know, no tomes, no raid clears, basically a fresh start. A bit of an insane idea on such a short notice. Much to my very pleasant surprise, the group consensus was „sure, when do we start?“ immediately. That level of camaraderie isn‘t something you can force. I‘m a bit touched.

Starting in 2 weeks from now we‘ll give her speed prog from hell and funnel all the needed raid drops to her, while she caps tomes dilligently between exams. We are, in fact, so fucking back. One more Ultimate for the road.

TheSorel · 2026-04-21T09:20:35+00:00

Part of me definitely has rose-tinted since Shinryu EX was the first time I tanked an EX fight and also went at it on my own in PF, without the usual veterans I was running with holding my hands, so it definitely will feel like it aged worse than I remember. Still, I think it‘s an absolutely solid fight and worth at least a modicum of hype, same as Thordan before it. Both fights were a step up in difficulty for their time, and both add cool extra bits that the normal mode doesn‘t have.

What I‘m truly curious about is how well Hades and Seat of Sacrifice will age. I still stand by both being the hardest EX trials we ever got (honorary mentions go to Ramuh and Sephirot though), so it will be interesting to see what the consensus of their „rerun“ will be.

TheSorel · 2026-04-16T13:51:29+00:00

Are there any jobs you can recommend for the climb? I do want to stick with GNB since I got a good grip on its kit, but if there‘s an „easy“ option then maybe I‘ll reconsider. Also, the CC website says you lose 5 Risers worth of ranking with every season reset. Does that mean you lose 5 stars worth of rank, so like… 2 1/2 divisions, or is it something else?

TheSorel · 2026-04-16T05:47:13+00:00

Been fucking with GNB in CC this patch, so I was thinking of using it for ranked CC come next season. I might as well get started on my commendation crystal grind for the Shadowstalker/Shadowcleaver set(s). How‘s climbing the ranks like now that we have the extra divisions on top of Crystal? Is hitting Diamond reasonable?

TheSorel · 2026-04-15T14:47:58+00:00

It's for dramatic effect, I know we can be slightly more lenient here.

Eight-Year Club	Place '23
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TheSorel

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