FFXIV Beastmaster Master Board 2 3rd Degree Clear

Big text dump ahead. Mostly happy with this run. I think I actually played pretty poorly until Lauda and even then, there's small optimizations like uptime I can make. This took many attempts, but I developed a specific plan to finally get this clear. I was looking for 2 specific items out of shops: Potion of Breathtaking Swiftness and the Beast Potion Kit. Beast Potion Kit feels nearly mandatory to me on this board in order to survive the damage intake on the final fight. Beast Potion Kit normally has a 50% chance of refreshing itself, but combined with Breathtaking, this chance goes up to 90%. You may still get rng'd out of your heals early, but this is very favorable odds compared to most RNG procs in Crucible. I ended up skipping a piece of Beast Gear in shop #1 just in order to get Breathtaking for Lauda. I also had to change routes because none of my shops had a Beast Potion Kit. I finally found one in an event shop. For other items, stacking toward one damage direction is ideal. For me, the easiest direction is crit. There are many items that work with crit, so stacking crit can snowball your damage output. For the actual run, I treat the Flauros fight purely as a sac fight for 3 fodder pets. I just use Earth Damage based pets for it. I begin to ignore add around ~50%. For Drake Piece, if you damage the Morphos, the froggy won't actually get its regen buff. On higher degrees, it might be a bit easier to weaken the Morphos without actually killing them, but since I don't have plans for the pets that I use on this fight, I just do it the lazy way and afk with the frog for 40 seconds. Unlike me, you should atleast bind your pet commands so that you can more easily move them around. You can also ping pong aggro with the frog doing this. Durga is the 2nd hardest fight in this board. Don't be afraid to commit items here, but if you have a beast auto potion, you MUST hold onto it for dear life. You can nearly use anything else here. Your odds of seeing Lauda skyrocket if you win this fight. Just build gauge and sacrifice a pet to the Durga's big gauge attack. I'm fairly certain the hp you get revived with is based on the pet that dies, so stick with a healthy pet. I misplay on Durga, as I queue the Crab's Hundred Fists from a distance, THEN queue my pet instinctive skill. This causes crab to delay its instinctive skill, and I lose out on an infinite combo as a result. Do be careful when queueing pet skills. Again though, you do not have to greed your starting potion here. In the following shop, I mainly just continue planning the feeds for the 3 pets I intend to use on Lauda. If you are using pets that can use many feeds, you will want to plan far ahead for Lauda. Sphinx is extremely straightforward. There is not much to say here. Banish does have 4 different reads, so do keep that in mind. On Cyclops, you will want to Borrow a Soulkin for an interrupt. It's a bit difficult to burst down adds on Degree 3 in time without committing items. Just be aware the the boss gains added effects to his swings depending on which slime you aim him at. Always aim him at opposite slimes to his current mace color. If you have gear that gives bonuses when you take damage/evade, then you can leave the tiny slimes alive a little bit extra. Do be aware that these adds will eventually explode and put a DD on you, so they have to die eventually. Don't greed this in my opinion. On this run, I would normally take the easiest center path of just resting. I'm not fully confident on right side, and left side is high variance. The moogle fight seems incredibly common, and the behemoth fight seems rare. At this point though, I still have zero beast auto potions so I MUST go left side. If I hit behemoth the run is probably dead either way with no potion, so it does not change my "win" condition. I make a small mathing mistake on this shop. Always consult a calculator and plan ahead :). I find out that potions don't stack immediately on Lauda. I have a pretty high damage set up, so I actually get through the fight somewhat fast. I just send both Celestial Sands asap. If you have beast gear that sometimes refunds TP, you can chain many skills and snowball your damage early. Anti paralysis potion is extremely good here. When using larger pets, do be careful not to get them cleaved. I've had instances where I've summoned a Behemoth into a her hitbox, and he eats a Thunderbolt tankbuster from a weird positioning purely due to his hitbox. I lose some uptime here afterwards. During add phase, check either Lauda's buff, or what kind of damage you are taking. Magical Damage buff = mechanic ends on proximity. Physical Damage buff = ends on knockback. She loses buffs as the swords die, so keep that in mind. Lastly, Lauda's Thunderbolt is effectively a soft enrage, as each cast gives her a stack of High Wire. Gear up for damage in order to just win asap.