Light vs Sandmonster

Overview

Sandmonster is one of the most technical fights in the game and there's a lot of things that could go wrong but you can cash in on some nice damage if you pull it off while helping whittle down the bottleneck of this raid tier.

A Quick Primer



Leading with MK 99

Since Gabriel will give you a 25% Atk buff if you have the lowest health, you'll want to take damage to help your numbers. In addition, if you're too close to the sides while Sandy is using her Sandstorm ability, your Special may hit the wall instead of your target.

Boss Abilities

Sand Needles

Small cast



A dust cloud will form under a players feet and 2 seconds later small needles will shoot out in all direction. Does high damage but interrupts casts. You'll want to get hit by these.

Tail

no castbar



The tail randomly appears as a small dust cloud under the player (not unlike Sand Needles). The tail's main affect on your battle is that your special may accidentally target the tail instead of the boss losing stun percentage. Always keep moving. If there's no castbar and you see a small cloud on you, it's the tail.

Sand Tomb

Follows Player



This ability will appear as 7 small whirlwinds around the player and after 2 seconds you will need to run out of the whirlwind before it traps you for heavy damage and interrupts. Just follow the "never be close to the walls" rule and you should be fine.

Sand Storm

Long Cast in corner of arena.



Much like other boss abilities, you're going to want to long cast your chains to avoid the ability for the Sandmonster to use this attack for any duration of time. Your first special -should- stop this attack from happening directly after it's been started. The best way to combat this is when you know the Sand Storm is about to be cast, orient your player to the middle of the arena to easily see which corner the Sandmonster will start the ability from.


Group Composition

The "ideal" group composition will be Garam, Gabriel, Eleanor and Nari (w/ Light basket).


Positioning

The fight's positioning is dictated by the Sandmonster's burrowing patterns but the real rules of thumb are: 1) Never be close to the sides 2) Be in the middle of the arena right before the first Sand Storm is cast (roughly 17s in).

Chain Order

2 chains of 4 characters, optimally 41s and 15s left.
  1. MK 99
  2. Gabriel
  3. --MK Special--
  4. Eleanor
  5. Nari
  6. --MK Special--

Since we're trying to elongate the chain as much as possible, if we start with Nari, the later chains wouldn't get a benefit so we just start with MK and go from there.

Things that could go wrong

  • Tail could spawn closer to you than the boss and you lose your special to it
  • You could be too close to a wall and lose your special to it
  • Randomization of boss casts could cause you to miss a special during a burrow
  • You could be too far away from the Sand Storm and you could lose the ability to cancel it

Play-by-Play

If you want to just easy-play this boss with higher damage (though not optimal), you can use the following chain of events to get used to the fight. Once you feel comfortable with it start to increase your range (thus increasing MK's damage) and work that into your strategy.

Fight Starts
-------------
Sandy lil dot
-you move-
Sandy lil dot
-you move on top of sandy-
-special (stun at 28%)-
Sandy Moves
Sandy casts sand tome
-you run (while NOT attacking) on top of sandy-
-special ASAP (stun at 66-75%)-
Sandy Moves
Sandy lil Dot
Sandy Moves to Corner while you follow
Sandy arrives at corner
-special-
-move on top of sandy to avoid knockback-
Long chain - MK, Gab, SPECIAL, Eleanor, Nari, SPECIAL
Sandy Moves
Sandy Aoe
Sandy Moves
-special-
Sandy lil Dot
Sandy Moves
Sandy casts sand tome
-special during sand tome-
Long chain - MK, Gab, SPECIAL, Eleanor, Nari, SPECIAL