Baldesion Arsenal Primer

For best results, a 1 tank, 2 heal, 5 dps comp is ideal. All of the fights can be solo healed but it is much more safe to bring a second healer. Also it will be a much smoother run if you have one shield healer and one hot healer in each team. You don’t necessarily need 5 dps either, but more damage means shorter encounters and more room for error.

Logos Actions play an enormous role inside BA.
For all your logos crafting needs and recipe lists head to https://ffxiv-eureka.com/logograms.
There are some actions you will need in each team, and others that simply add dps.
Here is a breakdown for the whole raid in terms of what the needed actions are, and then which are the ideal choices for each role.

A few notes:
You need to be super careful when using Double Edge and Eagle Eye Shot. They have a decent likelihood of pulling off the tanks. Only people who are confident in their threat management should consider using these. Double Edge is also a great way to murder yourself from the damage you do to yourself syncing up with an AoE. Actions like Refresh do slightly speed the run up, but are useless on the bosses themselves so I don’t feel they add much value.

Everyone should be making a single Remembered and popping it before they put on any other logos actions. If you have the extra slots, make a backup Remembered too that you should use if you die in a fight. Also consider bringing an extra main loadout in case you die.

You cannot raise inside BA through traditional means. There are only three methods to revive inside BA. The first is the classic Healer LB3, but the other two are tied to logos actions:

There are a number of things that can be done outside of BA to increase your chances at success. To be clear, nothing on this list is mandatory by any means, but you should be doing some of these things to maximize your chances at success.

Aethertight Flasks are a way to expand your Logos Actions slots from 3 up to 6. These flasks have a chance to drop from Silver Bunny chests. Turn the flasks in to the Expedition Alchemist in Central Point. Note that once you have upgraded to 6 slots, future flasks are useless. Having a few extra Logos Action loadouts is extremely helpful for BA. It gives you the ability to bring extra Remembereds and Sacrifices that will take the edge off the resurrection restrictions inside the dungeon.

Elemental bonus is a new stat that was added with Hydatos. It affects the power of each element on your Magia Wheel. While more testing is required to determine exactly how much it increases your damage output, we can safely say that it is significant and you should get your hands on as much Elemental Bonus as possible. There are three types of gear that have Elemental Bonus on them. The first is a fully upgraded relic, the second is +2 Hydatos armor, and the last is the special chests purchased with Damascene Cloth and Cryptic seals that drop within BA. BiS for any job will contain the relic, the special chest, and +2 pieces in the remaining slots. Remember that if you plan on getting the special chest there is no need to purchase the normal +2 chest as well as the normal +2 helm for casters and healers only, or really any of that previous steps for that slot either.

These are special items that are all optional.

Optical Hat

To get this item you need to collect each of the 5 Hakutaku Eyes in Pagos and craft them into Hakutaku Eye Cluster. WIth the crafted item in your bags, kill the Hakutaku NM in Pagos and you will get gold this time instead of silver, rewarding you with the Optical Hat. The Optical Hat is the least useful of these items because you will want to be using a +2 helm or the Vermillion Cloaks for the elemental bonus stat they have on them.

Speed Belt

The Speed Belt is a rare drop from the King Arthro NM in Pagos. Some people have silly theories like “you have to kill the adds first!” Those are wrong. It’s just a very rare drop from the NM.

Cassie Earring

Cassie Earrings drop from the Cassie NM in Pagos. Cassie never used to spawn. In all 15 relics I only saw her once. Since they have nerfed the content, I’ve fought her 7 times. She is very spawnable. The drop rate is still abysmal though.

These appear to be independent, meaning it doesn’t matter in which order you upgrade them. In Pyros and Hydatos there is an NPC called the Expedition Engineer. If you tell him you want to upgrade your magia board he will give you a 6th and 7th slot. These are extremely useful for BA as well as any players that wish to solo. I should also say that on most servers this will be very expensive and is not for the faint of heart. All of the items required can be purchased on the MB.

6th Magicite: You will need 3 very rare drops from Pyros NMs.

1.  Lamebrix’s Dice – Drops from Lamebrix Strickbocks the lvl 45 NM.
2.  Ying-Yang’s Tissue – Drops from Ying-Yang the 49 NM.
3.  Skoll’s Claw – Drops from Skoll the 50 NM.

7th Magicite: You will need 3 very rare drops from Hydatos NMs.

1.  Molech’s Horn – Drops from Molech the lvl 52 NM.
2.  Goldemar’s Horn – Drops from King Goldemar the 56 NM.
3.  Ceto’s Claw – Drops from Ceto the 59 NM.

Typically we first get the seven groups in individual discord channels with appropriate comps. When a group is ready (all in Kugane and on proper jobs) we have them send one person up to the leader channel to queue in together. It has taken us up to an hour to successfully all get into the same instance. We countdown 3, 2, 1, queue on voice and try to enter at the same time. The best case scenario is we force a new instance open and all get in. This rarely happens. Usually you will be split up and have to zone in and out many times before you are 7/7. To check who else is in your instance type /sea once inside. You’ll want to sort by time elapsed to see how recently other people have joined the instance. If others have joined in the last minute or two your instance should be joinable. Then check if your instance has space for the rest of the raid. If not, zone out and keep trying. You are looking for an instance that is both joinable and has enough space for you. If another BA premade is attempting the same thing, you’ll need to wait for their instance to either fill up or become locked. It’s a bitch. There’s really not much more you can do but be patient and tell your people to not go afk and miss queues.

Ovni is the level 60 NM that spawns the nodes to enter BA. A few quick notes on Ovni. Ovni does not behave like other NMs. You do not need to kill anything to spawn him. In a fresh instance, Ovni will spawn exactly 20 minutes in, as long as elemental level 60 players are present. Bunnies will spawn exactly 10 minutes into a fresh instance if you are unsure about being in a fresh or just recycled instance. You need to bring at least one person with Dispel L if you want to kill him. When Ovni casts Fluorescence he gives himself a stacking dmg buff. Dispel it. If he gets the raid AoE off with one stack it will probably kill a good amount of people. Some groups are very worried about their portals being taken and therefore run from Ovni once he starts to get low.  I would recommend against this. Ovni will occasionally pick someone on his threat list to cast a ground AoE on. If he picks someone halfway across the map he will book it to them and very likely leash. The truth is you have 5 minutes to get to your portals and if someone is dead set on sniping you they are going to if you are in front of it or not. Everyone going into BA needs to get Gold on Ovni or else they will miss the buff that allows portal access.

When Ovni dies he will give level 60s a buff that will allow access to the node portals (you need to be level 60 BEFORE you kill him; if the exp from this NM pushes you to 60, it does not count). There are two phases to the nodes. Nodes will begin as Blue/Unstable. To enter BA through a blue node you need an Aetheric Stabilizer. These are a bitch to get, and you do NOT need to get them. The mats for one stabilizer is an Aetherially Conductive Plate (drop from gold and silver bunny chests), Hydatos Clusters, (rare drop from any NM) and Sharlayan Aether Oil (from moist boxes which drop from mutated/adapted mobs.) You can also buy Stabilizers for 500 Anemos, Pagos, and Pyros Crystals. For those of us without stabilizers (aka all of us), we wait five minutes for the Blue Nodes to turn into Red/Stable Nodes. Anyone with the Ovni buff can enter a Red Node.

We use the map above to assign nodes. The labels are based on the discord channels we use to organize teams. Each team will have an East/West designation which will tell which of the Twins (first boss) they fight. Each team will also have an element tied to it. This designates the tank of each element for trash and elemental rooms. We typically assign the portal numbers by going down each group’s discord list from top down. (In game party list doesn’t work for this.) Lastly, once you get to Ozma, both group 1s will be together at A, both group 2s together at B, and both group 3s together at C.

We call the 7th team that zones in the Support team. This team will not take any of the first wave of 48 portals. Basically, the support team helps to kill Ovni and then gets to just hang out inside Hydatos for the next 30-40 minutes. I like to spawn NMs, but most people would rather chill and do bunnies. Really anything is ok as long as you don’t afk out of the instance. People on the support team should pick up Feint L and Dispel L along with Wisdom of the Breathtaker which increases mount speed. In the pre-Absolute Virtue part of the dungeon the inside team will spawn an NM called Tristitia that upon death will make Absolute Virtue defeatable.

This NM is spawned on the inside when you place one person in each of the portals on the Astral Tier. Like Ovni, you only have 15 minutes to kill this NM. It will start off with two waves of silly adds. Kill them. Tristitia herself has a few abilities that are worth noting.

1. Tornado – This is a Dynamo mechanic. You’ll want to dodge on the inside.
2. Aerora – This is a Chariot mechanic. Dodge outside.
3. Swiftcast – This will make the 2nd cast he does instant. For example if Tristitia uses Aerora first the Tornado that is coming after will be instant so you will need to get in right away. Tristia will always alternate between the Dynamo and the Chariot so move appropriately.
4. Shock Strikes – A buff Tristitia casts on itself that causes damage to those that attack it. Needs to be Dispel L’d immediately.
5. Mighty Strikes – A buff Tristitia casts on itself that causes all of it’s abilities to crit. Needs to be Dispel L’d immediately or it will wipe the instance.
6. Meteor – Raid wide damage that usually comes out right after a Mighty Strikes cast. Note that this is not proximity based, but simply a raid wipe AoE.

While the initial 48 portals are 100% predictable, the 8 support portals can actually spawn in any arrangement of the original 48 spots. This makes it a bit tricky to zone in without fear of being portal sniped. If you look at the map you will see that there is a higher concentration of portals in the south center. We employ rough assignments to each corner of the map for four of the dps, and tell the tanks/heals to go for the south central portals. There is only so much you can do to guarantee 8/8 of your support team actually get to their portals. Wisdom of the Breathtaker is helpful here.

Credit for this primer goes to EM’s Mal Reynolds on Gilgamesh.