I've been meaning to make something like this for years, and I think now that we have new forums and the battle has become sort of relevant again with the updated royal army raids, it's a good time to go through with it. I'm more of a fan of figuring things out on my own , but some people just don't learn well that way and don't have much fun getting slapped around without understanding why. This guide is mostly being made to help people out with the royal army (16 man) version, but almost all of the things I will be going over will be transferrable to the Heide and Ein Lacher versions of Siglint, and some of it to the other dragon battles.
Why does this battle need a guide?
I wouldn't say it needs a guide, but there's a lot of misinformation out there surrounding Siglint that are just a big headache for people who know what they're doing. I've seen lots of parties just give up over the years because of very silly things, and even today I still see players saying/doing things just really irk me as a veteran player who's really come to enjoy this battle since learning it through 100%.
Getting a group together (Royal Army only)
It's as simple as going to the main battle board in Colhen or Rocheste, clicking on Unknown Area and hitting the "Join" button! Or so we'd hope. The royal army raids use a queue system to gather a group of 16 players of varying levels. Before the Ein Lacher/Royal Raid Lakoria upate, the 24-man dragon battles limited the number of level 59 and under players to 8, leaving 16 spaces for players from level 60+, and it was like this even after the level cap was lifted from 70 to 80, then to 85, and eventually to 90.
The current version of the raids seems to allow for up to 8 level 30-89 players, who will provide any level 90 players in the remaining slots with the veteran buff.
The important thing to know is that you can load into the instance at any time after hitting join, and a barrier inside will prevent you from starting the battle until 10 players have loaded in. It is recommended to wait for 14-16 people, as the royal army raids now have an immense health pool that currently takes most groups between 20 and 40 minutes to deplete depending on gear, player skill, and ap usage. If someone asks to wait for more people before starting, it's best to do so. As I've seen time and again since the update, people will leave if someone starts it with the minimum amount of required players and this leads to more players losing heart and leaving themselves.
Notable Raid Mechanics
This is the good stuff, nothing too in depth but easily the most important part of the guide, and the main reason I'm making it. The battle with Siglint has some gimmicks, but they can be fun and make the fight pretty exciting, keeping you on your toes when you're always aware of them.
A map of the area:
FlightSiglint has 3 different flight patterns, and cannot be attacked during the first two.
The first one has him flying very high above the arena, back and forth while spitting multiple homing lightning projectiles. Each one will target one player, and cannot hit anyone else. Being hit with this attack however, will chain the lightning damage to other players and cost them some health. Siglint will always do 2-3 rounds of these attacks. If he flies behind the starting area after the second set of bolts, he will do a third.
In the second pattern, Siglint flies back and forth across the width of the area while swooping down to grab people. It's a good idea to stand at the ends of the field where he won't target you, but beware if there is no one standing in the middle, as he will instead fire many of the homing lightning shots like in the first pattern, but much faster.
The third flight pattern is just a little hop across the field. Nothing too scary, even if he lands on you it's a negligible amount of damage.
Small Bombs and HemdrillsYou'll notice in the 4 corners of the battleground there are boxes that dispense small bombs in sets of 3 when you approach them. These are meant to be used on the piles of rock on the stone path in the middle. Detonating a small bomb in range of them will cause a giant Hemdrill to pop out and attack upwards before retreating back into the ground, taking a moment before regnerating and becoming useasble again. This has no effect in the battle until Siglint does one of his flight patterns where he swoops down to grab people. You want to lure out the Hemdrills as Siglint hovers over their burrows so that they can pull him out of the sky, stopping Siglint from killing party members and wasting time with his grab pattern.
I would not recommend throwing the bombs from the sidelines while people are standing in the middle unless they are clearly not trying to bomb the hemdrills themselves. Oftentimes that results in wasting the hemdrill uses when someone who can more clearly see Siglint's pathing could have used it to knock him down, and it's a waste of everyone's time.
Stone/HealingThis is the big one. Once Siglint has lost 25-30% of his health (the raid will lock out any incoming players at this point), he will occasionally turn into stone after doing the third flight pattern. While he is in this state, he will take 1 damage per hit from players, and will heal himself after a brief period. The heal is equal to 10% of his total health in the 8 man version, but in the updated royal army version it is not scaled, instead healing him for 300,000 - the value he was healed by in the 24 man version. That is a lot, but not in comparison to his total health, and a small group of endgame players can easily deal that much damage back to him in less than a minute, so please don't ditch the party if it happens. In order to stop him from healing, he must be attacked with the catapults placed around the arena until he falls down, and the timing is strict for the amount of catapult hits it takes to knock him down. You can also completely bypass the statue phase by flinching him while the screen blurs before he turns to stone! This can be done by hitting him with guaranteed flinch skills or by flinching/destroying one of his breakoff parts.
And just to be sure, let's make it clear for everyone:
Attacking Siglint while he is a statue will NOT make him heal faster. Attacking Siglint with the catapults does 100x as much damage as attacking him would. The only reason to be attacking him while he is in statue form is to gain sp or maintain buffs, which should be secondary to stopping the healing, so don't do it unless the nearby catapults are taken or you know you can't get to one in time.
The rest of this guide is more detailed technique for dealing with his patterns, which a lot of people prefer to figure out themselves, so I'll leave it in a separate post. Have fun!