FFXIV: Sastasha (Hard) Dungeon Guide

With patch 2.4 players get to experience the very first dungeon in an entirely new way. Sastasha (Hard) completes the hard mode remake of the first three dungeons, as previous patches had Copperbell (Hard) and Tam-Tara (Hard). As an added bonus, there are references to both Pirates of the Caribbean AND Clash of Titans.

Karlabos:

This is essentially an easy fight for everyone except the healer.

• Impale: A single target attack that deals moderate damage. It randomly targets characters, though it primarily uses impale on the tank. You can see in the video very early it turns around and Impales the Dragoon without me ever losing aggro.
• Slime: randomly targets up to 3 characters at one time. Slime roots players it hits. Unsure if this root is removable.
• Tail Screw: This attack randomly targets a player and hits them with a tornado attack. Tail Screw will always drop a player to 1hp, it’s up to the Healer to keep Regen up on everyone and to heal the hit player immediately. Tail Screw is stunnable; however, if your tank is the only stun you’ll only be able to stun the very first Tail Screw. Every subsequent Tail Screw follows Prey, which stuns the tank.
• Prey: Tethers the tank to the boss and adds a countdown debuff. At the end of the countdown the tank is stunned. I’ve yet to discover a way to prevent this stun.

Captain Madison:

This fight has similar mechanics to the Cactaur fight in Qarn (Hard) with interruptible abilities based on damage output. There are two primary mechanics to this fight, adds and interrupts.

Adds:

There are four add types: 

• Captain’s Guard: A slightly tanky add that uses Circle of Scorn.
• Captain’s Boy: Nothing really noteworthy on this add other than a straight line AoE attack.
• Captains Leech: A spellcaster that spams Water.
• Captain’s Slave: These use Death Throes. Death Throes causes the Slave to latch on to their target rooting them into place until the Slave is killed.

Attacks:

• Hornswaggle: A frontal attack that deals moderate damage.
• In the Line of Fire: Captain Madison locks onto a random player and fires his gun at them. Each successful hit gives him a damage buff. This is the skill that needs to be interrupted by dealing enough damage to the boss. Even after interrupting this attack, the boss will retarget and start over a few more times.
• Walk the Plank: A frontal cleave that knocks back and stuns players hit.

Kraken:

If you pay attention to the Kraken’s attack names, some reference the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. For the Clash of Titans reference, watch the final boss cutscene. Not much of the Hullbreaker version of this boss carries over to this version. Just the basic actions of the Arms and Tentacles are the same.

Attacks:

• Seawater Cannon: A ranged attack performed by the Tentacles.
• Wallop: Basic attack of the Arms.
• Ink Blot: A ground targeted circle AoE that blinds anyone that’s hit with it.
• Fetters: The Tentacles throw the afflicted player back in front of the Kraken’s head.
• Ink Jet: a very wide frontal AoE that blinds anyone that’s hit.
• At World’s End: I’ve only seen this cast once, and it led to a wipe. From what I can tell it’s only cast if you ignore the Arms for too long.
• Stranger Tides: This isn’t an actual attack; Kraken is just retracting its arms.

 If you follow these tips, you’ll be able to clear Sastasha (Hard) with no trouble. For more guides, please check out my FFXIV content directory. If you have any comments questions or concerns please leave them below.