First let me say that I don't consider this to be some grand achievement. It's odd I feel the need to post such a disclaimer/defense before even starting the contents of this post. It's likely been around forever, but to me it feels like recently there's been an increase in the arrogance and belittling of other people's achievements in FFXI. I dare anyone to go into any sizeable linkshell with an average age of 18 or lower and saying something along the lines of "I'm having problems with X mob" and I wager there will be at least one response along the lines of "That NM is easy!".
So yes, Urd.
I failed the first time and beat it the second. I got help for the rest of the kills so there was no need to go back and fight it solo anymore. Two things that tell me a third try would be much easier. Number one, although I had high evasion rate in the fight, I now have better evasion gear and capped skill. In case I wasn't capped, I would be now. Secondly, I didn't realise until after I beat it that Dancer sub-job at 45 has access to Violent Flourish (stun). Although the accuracy of the stun doesn't seem all that high, it would have certainly helped with what I think is the second most annoying part of the solo: Stoneskin.
I'd rather Urd cure itself for more HP than what SS absorbs, because I can't get TP while hitting for 0. I was using Soboro and Urd's magic spell timer would very often be up a second or two after I broke Stoneskin and it would reapply it and in the meantime I'd have done less than 200 damage to it and worse of all, get no TP to cure myself with. The first time I fought it I WS'd whenever I coudl spare the TP, but the second time around I saved it to WS right after Stoneskin finished casting, this way I'd break it immediately and the next few attack rounds would get me that TP back. Needless to say, the speed difference between the first and second attempts was huge.
Trance was not an issue. Somehow Zephyr arrow only hit me twice during both fights. It seems like an inaccurate attack. When you see trance and start running you can easily outrun Cyclonic Turmoil. once the second TP attack (Lethe Arrow) in the series is canceled because of you being out of range you can stop running, wait for it to recover from the shock and outrun the final, and only really annoying ability: Cyclonic Turmoil. It can use it outside of trance, but there's a lot of abilities to choose from so it's not used very often. Turmoil is a full dispell and losing a fresh Seigan can be annoying. Sambas aren't a bare essential in the fight, so that's not as bad. Seigan and Third Eye, however, are very necessary. Without them you'd be hard-pressed to keep up with the damage taken. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I was not at capped evasion. I clearly remember having a few close calls before the end of the fight due to successive hits when Seigan got dispelled.
You can predict Trance, but it's clear as day once you know what the animation looks like. The point where Trance becomes the #1 most annoying thing about this fight is at low HP. You shouldn't have problems overcoming Urd's Cures and Stoneskin even with measly Soboro hits. However, at low HP it can use Trance an unlimited number of times. This was the reason I lost my first attempt. I saw it use trance a second and third time at low HP, but didn't perceive it as a threat when I went for the kill. After I blew my TP trying to self-SC and swapping to Radenotachi for the kill, I took a decent chunk of damage and had to run away from Trance. I'm not sure if Turmoil connected, but I didn't have the TP to cure myself.
On the second attempt I got it to low HP much faster due to WS'ing through Stoneskin. Since I got impatient the first time I waited longer and slowly took down the HP to around 5%-10%. It starts spamming cures pretty frequently now and here also I could have used Violent Flourish had I known about it. Once I reached that low HP I waited for it to use Trance. Assuming it was on some timer I chose to kill it quickly after outrunning Cyclonic Tumroil. I believe I also go lucky with it choosing to use several long casting spells, but I don't think that was required as long as you blow through asap after the first Trance at low HP. How low? I think anything under 10% is doable.
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