FFXIV: Steps of Faith Trial Guide

Yesterday saw the launch of FFXIV’s A Realm Reborn story line, and with it came the Steps of Faith trial. In this guide, I’ll cover the easiest way to clear this trial. This is a fairly unforgiving, so be sure everyone knows their roles before you start.

Roles

Here I’ll describe each role and how they fit into the big picture.

For refence, this is what the snare pillar that I mention below looks like.

• Tanks: Tanks will split the adds one picking up left side, the other gets right side. One of the tanks will also need to pick up the large add. Once the adds are picked up, drag them in front of the large dragon so the canons can hit them. The main dragon can’t be tanked.
• Healers: Healers should run in front of the main dragon so that adds run straight to that point. This is just to make the adds get in range of the canons faster, the tanks should still be picking them up as they are able to. Healers should only really focus on keeping the tanks alive during this, as everyone else can just revive at start and take the shortcut back.
• Canons: There are two ways to do the canons: the first is just put your two lowest geared DPS on them, the other is a single healer burn strat that puts a healer in the place of one of the DPS. Canons have 3 ammo types: Pitch Bomb, Spindly Fingers, and Iron Kiss. Iron Kiss is the primary damage ammo, Pitch Bomb is a ground AoE slow with a 2-3 shot limit per canon, Spindly Fingers I can only assume is an interrupt (I never got a chance to use it.) The job here is to drop a Pitch Bomb to slow progression and then unload Iron Kiss on the adds and the main dragon at the same time.
• Snares: This mechanic is also done by the canon team. When Vishap uses Landwaster, a bridge-wide frontal attack, the canon team activates the orange pillars next to their canon. This interrupts Vishap and snares him for the dragonkiller.
• Dragonkiller: Depending on who is on canons this will either be a healer or a DPS. If you run the 1 healer 1 DPS option on canons, one of the DPS not on canons will do this., otherwise it’s one of the healers. On one side of the bridge there is a tower, when a red circle appears, not to be confused with the AoE attack markers, the tower person will head to the tower and wait for Snares to activate. The very first tower will not have snares, so keep that in mind. For the first tower, just fire the device when Vishap reaches the red circle. For the other two, once Vishap is snared, fire the device.
• DPS: The DPS not on canons are on AoE spam. All AoE should be targeted at Vishap so that you can easily swap into your rotation between add spawns. Canon DPS can help during ward breaks after the second set of canons in each section goes down. Vishap will use Body Slam on the barrier four times, use this time to help damage it.

Here is what the towers look like on the minimap.

There isn’t a whole lot to worry about in this fight the only attack that isn’t simply just walked out of or handled by the above roles is Hard Stomp by the turtle looking add. Whichever tank is holding this add needs to stun this move. No other stuns should ever be used on it, because it builds resistance very quickly. 

One final note about this fight, be sure not to stand under Vishap’s feet while it’s walking. Underfoot deals a lot of damage and knocks you back if hit. Don’t go for flanking bonuses unless Vishap has stopped walking.

Here’s my first clear for vidual reference.

That wraps up this guide on Steps of Faith, as well as FFXIV guide coverage until Heavensward launches. If you’re looking for older content guides check out my FFXIV guide directory. I hope you enjoyed the journey and the ending of A Realm Reborn. Also please join me in June to start a new journey in Heavensward. Leave comments questions and concerns below, but please no spoilers on the ending for those who haven’t completed the story.