Patch 2.1 has gone live in A Realm Reborn and so far, I like what I see. A lot of the new content has enemies with neat battle animations and most of the fights are tuned quite well in both difficulty and enjoyment. One of the most enjoyable parts is The Labyrinth of the Ancients which is the first part of Crystal Towers. The run has, and will continue to have as it's updated, a ton of refrences to older Final Fantasy games, especially FFIII, which was the original origin of the tower.

Crystal Towers is the new raid in FFXIV and it's a 24-man (6 tanks, 6 healers, 12 DPS) that can be used in the duty finder function which pairs you up with players randomly from all servers as long as you meet the pre-requisites. It's a sweet feature for those that don't want to be a part of a guild or don't have time to devote to one. Right now, CT only have one raid which consist of 4 bosses and a bunch of mechanical fights prior to them. For those that want to see what they're getting into first, you can see all sorts of gameplay footage below, courtesy of yours truly.

Click the jump below for all the boss battles:

Boss #1 - Bone Dragon

Skeletons must be sperated before killed, other wise they will attempt to run towards the boss and explode. that's why the platforms are set-up as a star, so that different tanks can take a different lane.

Atomos

The mechanic of this fight is you must step on the switches, which removes another group's Atomos' invulnerability, so that other party can kill theres. If you don't do your duty, you'll prolong another parties' ability to end their fight, risking a wipe and lots of yelling. You need a minimum of four on the switch.

Boss #2 - Thanatos

Pots give different parties in the raid a buff that allows them to damage thanatos. Those with the buff must attack the main boss and those without must attack adds. Healers can heal the pots to keep them alive as adds will attempt to destroy them allowing Thanatos to freely win the battle.

Allagan Bomb

Additional bombs that reach the center main bomb explode, doing AoE damage to the whole raid. The damage increases as the fight progresses meaning you want adds dead.

Boss #3 - King Behemoth

The Behemoth's arena has a constant stream of electric damage which cannot be avoided. There are 4 pillars in different corners. Once they turn red, you must interact with them to avoid massive burst AoE damage.

Comets will drop on random players. Be sure to position them in a safe location so that the raid can stand behind them (line of sight) and avoid being killed by Meteor which does 9999 damage. Meteor is cast when Behemoth yells "Garrahgahgsahgh" or something... you can't miss it.

Boss #4 - Acheron

Kill claws. Dodge attacks. Step on buttons. Win. Be sure to assign entire parties for each of the three buttons to reduce confusion.