Farming Abyssea

By now most people must have heard about Fell Cleave burn parties. It was only a matter of time, really. Like Cyclone, Aeolian Edge, Earth Crusher and other AoE weaponskills, the damage or accuracy of Fell Cleave does not scale depending on the number of mobs affected. This is similar to how Astral Burns worked, because Astral Flow bloodpacts share this property. In fact, it seems like BLM AoE nukes are more of an exception than the rule. So, looking at how popular Astral Burns were before Abyssea came along and the similar underlying principles, it seems less surprising that such a method would arise after SE introduced the strongest physical AoE weaponskill yet.

It's not just Fell Cleave itself that makes Cleave Burning efficient. There's the surviving all the mobs hitting you as well as being able to kill them within a reasonable time. Retaliation makes it so that getting TP for more weaponskills is a non-issue. Restore boxes allow you to have Mighty Strikes up for many if not all of the pulls, making the time actually fighting the mobs very short. With 2hr up, a pair of good Atmas and a decent WS build 2.000 damage is quite achievable and would kill the majority of mobs in 3 weaponskills. The more mobs hitting the warrior, the quicker he'll get TP from retaliation procs. However, the more mobs the more defensive measures are needed.

For defense I've heard mention of Perfect Defense. I don't have any experience with the buff, so I can't say how effective it actually is. Apparently it gives a lot of breathing room, but there's still a small chance of not getting a restore chest and having to farm for one (or Revitalizer). Albeit a small chance with large enough pulls and only capped Amber and Azure lights, it's something to consider.

Cleave burning without a SMN
What are the alternatives for surviving the train? A "solution" that requires you to sacrifice some efficiency would be to do smaller pulls and cure-bomb the warrior. There is some room for the WAR to use some defensive gear while not requiring a larger number of WS to kill. However, with a smaller number of mobs per pull, you'll have slightly more down time per killed mob and less of a guarantee at restore chests. Without Mighty Strikes up the pull takes longer and that means a greater risk of failure.

Something I haven't seen mentioned before, but seems like a strong alternative: WAR/PLD using Sentinel. If three to four weaponskills is enough to kill the train of mobs and getting 100% TP almost instantly, the effect of Sentinel could be less than half-way over by the time all mobs are dead.

Accessioned Phalanx and Phalanx2, food and other buffs all help you along and there are a lot of options available. At this time I think the most minimalist way of doing a Cleave Burn without depending on restore boxes or meds is a duo of a WAR/PLD and a RDM/SCH.

Targets
The mob you're targeting obviously influences your efficiency. The ideal Cleave mob:

1. Aggros sound and/or links
   
2. Has weak or no TP abilities at all
3. Does not cast magic spells
4. Has low HP
5. Has weak normal attacks
6. Does not give ruby lights

Non-Cleave methods
BLM's have Stoneja and Waterja with the promise of stronger AoE spells come next update. Combine this with one whopper of a defensive ability in Mana Wall, BLM's can down large pulls as easily, though slightly slower than warriors. Mana Wall has an innate 50% PDT. When casting Stoneja the BLM's can be wearing Terra's Staff which boosts their damage while at the same time keeping them alive longer. A RDM puller can sleepga the train in between spells and it shouldn't take more than 6 unresisted nukes to down the train. With two BLM's that's 3 casts a piece. With Phalanx and Stoneskin BLM's can tank extremely well for the duration of Mana Wall and its MP pool. A big benefit of using BLM's is not risking Ruby lights.

With a fantastic selection of PDT gear as well an assortment of defensive spells, BLU can pull and kill its own train. They also have a good assortment of AoE spells like Body Slam, Tail Slap, Frypan and Whirl of Rage. They all cast quickly (1 second) and have a normal recast of approximately 30 seconds. There are some slower casting spells you can use to bridge the gap between these 4. With full TP and Atmas these all deal a good chunk of damage while 3 of them inflict Stun. As with Black magic, Blue magic doesn't risk ruby lights when this is undesirable. At this point my lack of personal experience makes this hearsay and theory. That means I can't give any specifics about subjob, gear choices and buffs needed for the BLU to survive without sleepga and still getting its spells off. Not without it being called into question, anyway.

If you're not necessarily looking to minimize the number of players needed to farm, the more people you have that are able to AoE while surviving the onslaught of angry mobs the more workable combinations you can make. Aeolian Edge by a THF that's using Perfect Dodge fullfills the basic requirements, but needs MANY repetitions to kill a train. Unless you have a way to feed the THF(s) for 10+ Weaponskills this isn't going to work. SAM can do 6 weaponskills in a row with 2hr, Meditate and Sekkanoki, but Sonic Thrust is directional and missing mobs is not really an option. Also, it's not as strong as Fell Cleave.

I've personally tested using RDM/BLM solo and using Fanatic's Drink + Ascetic's Tonic + Chainspell + Stonega2 to down a train of 9 Chigoes with success. With some Bastion Credits in reserve and a Scars' zone you can repeat this as many times as your credits and restore boxes allow. During the three repetitions I did I got a restore everytime and left with more time than when I started even though there's a short walk between confluxes and the Chigoe camp. Physical Shield lasts about as long as Chainspell and I had 5 to 7 seconds left on both after the train died. With Waterga2 incoming after next level raise, many possible imporvements to my nuking setup and better nuking Atmas there's always room for improvement.

Weekend update 11

Duelist's Chapeau +1 in the making. I hope I remember to trade the items and coins in on Sunday before JP midnight. Got Valkurm Dynamis win for some folks and fairly decent number of AF drops. It's almost like Treasure Hunter has a level correction! I'm kidding, of course. So that was a good Sunday after a GREAT Saturday. Why great?

First of all, after getting 10 merits in an AF3 farming alliance (that ended in 2 pieces only) I decided to get some people from LS to farm gold boxes in Konschat Highlands. We started out with 4 and a got a fifth for about an hour before he had to leave. Kingcem and I on DD's made short work of bugards. Jinpu is a piece of crap, but it still didn't take too long to cap amber lamps. At one point I managed a 800+ Jinpu, but this was obviously an outlier. The only negative of that farming session was that I wasted 44k EXP from being capped after getting another 10 merits. Aside from that, it was all win. We managed 4/5 on an Eve pop and 3/3 on Kukulkan, which is the only other key item I need for the full Eve set. It's a shame we only managed to get 4 people out there. We could have gotten a lot more pops with two or three more parties. I think people have more confidence in our ability to get things done as a group now that we've merged with another shell. After finally popping a zone boss last week, finishing a pop set for the Attohwa and now this I'm pretty confident myself.

On the last mega gold pyxis Kingcem won the /random for a 5% PDT Dark Ring that obviously should have been mine! After the farming I begged the guys to go check if Khalamari was up and help me kill it if it was. I still needed the helm. Unfortunately it was claimed and nearly dead. I asked if the people killing it if they needed the helm or were going for the necklace (they were 2 DNC's). I didn't get an answer right away, but then this happened:


Now my WS set is a little more awesome. The helm is not hard to get, so it's not an "OMG DROP" item, but I didn't get Abyssea add-ons until Scars came out. There's quite a few more items/mobs I need to "catch up" with.

Weekend update 10

I was home sick the last two days, which made it a particularly long weekend. I thought I'd use my time to do all kinds of things on FFXI, but I ended up watching movies while chocobo digging and doing the regular LS events. It was relaxing.

I made it a point to finally put together a magic defense set. I had several pieces already, but not an actual macro. I sacrificed my Cure3 macro for it, which is no big deal since I use Cure4 almost exclusively nowadays anyway. It's still unfinished but it's already enough to survive Citadel Buster, which I found out during last night's Ultima. I died anyway, because after the second one I got hit with a Holy2. I was riding out the hate assuming a PLD would pull it off me. They did, but only a fraction of a second too late. Below is what the set looks like now. It carries over my PDT pieces in slots where I haven't got any magic defense pieces yet.



I know Limbus mobs are now DC with the level 85 cap and that any damage on them isn't going to 'wow' or impress most people. However, it was still a shock to me to break 4000 on a Weaponskill. The blobs in SE Appolyon are weak to piercing and so Penta Thrust was always going to do well [Correction: They're not weak to piercing. The crabs are though]. Be that as it may, it was the highest damage I've ever done in a single action on any mob on any job ever. Also, I beat Kingcem's MNK! Hahahaha, I know you're reading this! Woo!


The Gekko damage was also quite pleasing. I sacrificed 2 haste and tp'd in Perle hands and feet. I believe these are pretty reasonable trade-offs with only Haste spell backing you up, but I could be wrong.

On that topic, I recently thought of how Haste often doesn't produce ANY extra benefit. Take the 2% Haste trade-off I was talking about. Let's say in pushed me from 35% down to 33% Haste, which is about a 3% DoT increase. That means that in 97% of fights I will NOT see an extra attack. If you have a single long fight, the 3% means that I'll get an extra swing every 33 hits which is guaranteed. In contrast, the STR and Attack that I gain from wearing Perle hands and feet affect my damage on EVERY melee hit. It's guaranteed benefit versus benefit in the long run. When I look at it that way I'm more willing to sacrifice small amounts of haste when we're not swimming in it. Some would call such a situation suboptimal and that it shouldn't be considered anyway. I think it's me being realistic. Yes, that does mean that Ace's helm does not universally suck.

Weekend update 9

Homam Gambieras: ○
No screenshot with me, but there's no need, is there? Did Omega with 9 people. New toys like Saboteur and level 85 make it even easier than it was before. I'm confident we can take it out with 6, but I guess there's no harm in being cautious. My magic accuracy while Chainspell nuking the last phase was pretty good. I think once my elemental skill is capped I should be able to out-damage the BLM's in the final stretch. I'm not sure that I don't already, because I didn't parse.

Last saturday it was my intention to farm mega Gold Pyxis for key items in Abyssea Konschat highlands. However, there were two groups at bugards and I didn't know any other mobs that dropped all lights that we could exp on. Since I was kind of stressing with building the alliance in the first place, I had no energy left to look for an alternative and we just defaulted to Shadow Lizards. To my surprise we got a single mega Gold Pyxis despite never having had more than 6 Amber lights built up. It contained the Fistule key item which I suppose we accomplished PART of what we set out to do. In the end it was just a simple EXP party, which isn't a bad thing. I got my DRK to 85. Still have scythe and magic skills to cap and merits to sort out, but I'm getting there. Monday I got this in a Misareaux Colibri EXP group:


Didn't know Dark Magic skill was a possible augment on these. During the rest of the session we got and acc+8 version, but no other ones with dark magic on them. So it's probably rare. The DPS on the scythe isn't horrible. It's higher than Perdu Sickle with latent effect triggered 11.25 vs 11.14. The base damage is low, but so is the delay. While I lack any better scythe options I'm going to be using this. The accuracy is nice until I cap and get merits and the dark skill is a cute little boost. I really want something I can tank with that will enhance the effectiveness of Absorbs, Drains and Aspirs without having to swap out for Pluto's Staff. Until I've figured out what I want, I'm going to use this. It's probably going to end up being one of the elemental Magian scythe paths. The nice thing about the 480 delay on the Zaghnal is that a 6-hit without SAM sub is so far out of reach that I don't have to worry about it and a 7-hit comes rather easily.

The session where I got that scythe also netted me some nice EXP on my THF that jumped from halfway into 75 to 80. I learned Aeolian Edge at 290 dagger skill. No use in trying it out on Colibri, but this morning I did this on Red mage:



That 800 damage was done at 300 TP and at 104 TP I managed 570 damage. Around 100 TP it's much stronger than Cyclone which did 249 with the same gear. Around 200 TP Aeolian did 705 damage which isn't much less than at the full 300. It's better than Cyclone all around, but it gets less of a boost from extra TP than Cyclone does. Martial Knife would be a good option if you were trying to max Aeolian on a regular basis. While NOWHERE near the damage Fell Cleave is able to do, it's still unscaled AOE damage that you can use to mow down large groups of mobs. If you recall my PDT tanking test on mandies in Boyahda Tree, this could even be done solo without support if you find a target worth farming in large enough numbers. Ok fine, I'll admit I can't think of a good application yet, but it's not a worthless WS for RDM's. For a THF... it's pretty crappy.

Achievement Unlocked

One of the things on my "long-term unlikely but hope to get items list" was RDM relic headgear: Duelist's Chapeau. I can now scrap that item off the list because as of last night I'm the owner of my very own "Relic Pimp Hat". As if that weren't enough, I get me pair of these:



That's two highly sought-after Dynamis drops in one run. Needless to say I was and AM very happy. In both cases I was mentally preparing myself to NOT get the item. I'm usually not at the very top of the attendance list, especially not lately with Abyssea runs which I don't attend. I was taken aback by all the congratulations I received from fellow LS members. I feel like many people were genuinely happy for me for getting the drop(s) which was very touching. It's going to sound corny and/or cheesy, but that was probably more meaningful than the item itself.

As for practicality, up until now I've been using Nashira Turban for my enfeebles. It has the same amount of magic accuracy as the RDM JSE Wise Cap, but with the added benefit of -5 Enmity, 2% haste. I suppose the -10% Spell Interruption does account for something as well. Compared to Nashira, Chapeau has +10% accuracy rate on almost anything (where your base accuracy is above 50%). Read this for a better and more complete description of how magic accuracy works.

Aside from making my Idle set look less bright (I shall miss you, V.Cloak), D.Chap increases my enfeebling magic accuracy by 10% on a very large number of NM's... until capped. So right now I don't know how far from capped accuracy I would be on a random NM like Faust. I have a very decent set for enfeebling magic already as well as capped enfeebling merits and 4 Ice Accuracy. In theory, when casting Bind on Faust while soloing (a solo I have never done) the 2% Haste on Nashira would outperform D.Chapeau if my accuracy was capped. Does that mean I'll keep using Nashira for Bind on NM's? The answer is "No". Bind is a pretty essential spell when solo'ing. If having it resisted is not an option, then assuming you're at capped accuracy is too big of a risk in my personal opinion. Nashira still has a place in Dark magic macro's and as such won't be put into storage. My Vermillion Cloak however, porbably won't see any action unless I decide to level BLM or SMN any further. It's time I reworked my macros.

Windower advantages

Avesta solo'd Byakko recently. There's a link to the video in that thread. What you'll also find in that thread is a heated argument (if you can call it that) about whether or not using Windower gives you an advantage and if it's an unfair advantage as well as whether or not Avesta's solos take more skill than if he used Windower and Spellcast.

Well, first off I can tell you that I have no personal experience with Spellcast. I've seen snippets of scripts that give me a broad idea of what it's capable of. I've used Windower a long time ago. At the time it was so I could dualbox and see my EXP/hr in parties. I haven't used it since SE made their own windowed mode. I don't use it, because

1. I'm paranoid about being banned for it, despite all the evidence that it won't happen.
2. I believe, in the majority of cases, the game should be played with the means the developers provided and nothing else.
   

Given the Byakko solo as well as similar fights I can think of the following things third party tools could have done to make it easier:

• More efficient gear swaps
• Distance plugin
• On-screen recasts
• More distance gained from JA0Wait (not windower related, but still 3rd party)
  

Avesta did not seem to use multi-layered macros that span multiple sets. I personally do this because I don't want to limit the number of slots I swap out. This introduces new problems though. First of all, to be efficient you have to start on the same set everytime. I use a macro to send me back to the first set in every spot that I don't use. As long as you control your button presses and you don't panic, you can do the same things with regular macros as you can with Windower macros. If, for example, I have my Bind macros across two sets, then I can use Fastcast in one and swap back the magic accuracy/skill gear after the magic cast line in the second. The benefit is mostly in being able to put more precisely timed pauses as well as eliminating the chance that you start your macro on the wrong set.

A secondary benefit is the small time gained by only having to press a button once. Some people make this point laughable by claiming that pressing a button 3 times doesn't take more skill than pressing it once. The point is that it takes more time and, as mentioned before, is more prone to error. You can not spam the macro presses. From someone who has always relied on intricate in-game macros, I can tell you that pressing the macro buttons too fast in sequence can cause some equipment swap lines to be ignored/skipped. Recently my idle-set macros have gone from two sets to three. I now have to press ctrl+1 three times to go back to my neutral gear after taking an action. I admit that I get sloppy when doing this and often don't go back to my idle set between actions because I want to be able to do things in quick sequence. This is a non-issue when using spellcast gearswaps, which are more powerful than Windower macros.

Against any mob whose magic or abilities can be avoided by standing at the correct range, the distance plug-in allows you to do this with a lot more precision. Sometimes there is a small band you can stand in where you're both safe from an attack and able to cast on the mob and/or tanks. I personally find this simple to figure out when fighting something in a group. I just take a few seconds to find the maximum casting range and I try to stay there. In certain solo's however, exact positioning can be a big benefit. Seconds are lost when you try to cast a spell on a bound or otherwise immobile mob, only to find out you need to take a few steps back to reach. Will this be the determining factor in the solo? Unlikely, but as I learned from my attempts at the Requiem of Sin battle, it does certainly matter.

Knowing whether or not a spell or ability is up, or knowing how much time is left on a buff before it wears off makes any battle more efficient. Since SE added the recast command I try to use it as much as I can. However, I often end up removing it simply because it takes up macro line space I'd rather use for something else. More ofte it's because I find it impractical to put a recast line in a macro of the spell I'm trying to cast (barring Refresh and Haste). In practice I would try to cast something, find out I can't yet, then go back to my idle set before I try again, find out I'm 1 second too early and I cycle through the macros sets again until the spell comes out. Blinking aside, it also introduces wasted keypresses which could have been used for something else. Why not use a specialized recast macro? Valid question. My answer to this is that the macro I would make would have at least 3 recasts in it. Visually parsing this moving list of numbers takes time. Also, the chat log updates slowly. By the time I've figured out what the actual recast is I may have pressed the macro three times due to chat-log spam from other things going on. In the end I find it not to be worth the precious macro real-estate and live/deal with sometimes pressing a macro too early. It's not as big a problem for my personal style of play. In cases where it could be, I use the recast macro command.

Though the distance gained from blink casting is not extreme, there are some clear examples of where this small difference is essential. One of them is Kaeko's impressive Bhaflau Remnants Solo where a single hit form Long-bowed Chariot could have ended the attempt. It also made his Kaizer Behemoth solo go notably faster. The argument that this can be done manually is somewhat invalidated by the fact that lag and response time as well as computer speed make this hard to do reliably. Windower macros can be helpful here too due to its more precise delay mechanism. I came up with a way to blink out Blizzard3 about 75% of the time using a sequence of 3 different /wait commands which made it so I could delay for a fraction longer than the sum of all the waits. Once I started doing this soloing Iriz Ima went much faster. It didn't make me take less damage, since, even with the spell-completion freeze, it's too slow to catch up as long as I start moving right before the spell completes. What it DID do was allow me to spam spells much more frequently as I could widen the gap between me and the NM much more quickly.

For all the benefits of these 3rd party tools, each can be argued to be only a marginal improvement. I believe that with proper planning, preparations, strategy and player skill, the difference these tools make is LESS essential to success than the race of the character. Galka vs Taru MP pool for example. However, be they marginal or essential (in certain specific situations) they add up and improve efficiency and as a consequence, the overall chance of success. I can't think of a solo right now that REQUIRES these tools to achieve. So, as far as I know, right now any solo done with them can be done without them. However, to me, claiming that these do not improve the odds of success sounds like a defensive reaction from people that do use them, rather than a balanced well evaluated opinion.

Soloing Up in Arms

One of the things I've always wanted to try before I quit this game is to solo this BCNM. I hadn't considered doing this before because I don't enjoy the travel time and preparation time it takes just for a single attempt. I just love to procrastinate. Not only that, but in order to practice so I don't throw away any Beastmen Seals I wanted to do a few runs with assistance. Due to me feeling increasingly bored by FFXI and my refusal to purchase the Abyssea add-on I was looking for something to keep me active and interested.

Thankfully I succeeded on my first attempt, but only just. I cut it close, REALLY close.

I pop the chest and get the message that time has run out. Also, I get teleported to the Waughroon Shrine entrance, which is what happens when you fail a BCNM. So technically I did fail the run but I ended up with the rewards anyway. A total of 50k in NPC'able stuffs and an Altepa Ring and Black Pearl which I'll toss on auction. Now for the meat of this blog entry.

I went RDM/SCH into this 60 cap BCNM. The increased MP efficiency made this solo a success. Every little bit helped, considering the 15 minute time limit. I went in, popped Light Arts and buffed, ate food and reste 2 tics. After this preparation the opening sequence was

1. Chainspell
2. Gravity and run towards entrance
   
3. Thunder II several times
4. Bind
5. Convert
6. Drain several times
7. Bind at entrance and run around it
8. Drain one more time before Chainspell ran out

Soon after this I had to reapply Gravity. I nuked a few more times before I ran out of MP and then used Sleep2. I was able to rest to over 200 MP before it woke up. Looking back I could have just re-slept and rested some more. Instead I used Gravity again and didn't manage much damage before I had to rest again. After the second rest I had only a little time left before convert so I nuked twice, drained and slept it again so I could ride out the 10 seconds to convert. I used Alacrity randomly to lower recasts, but I should have limited it to Drain usage since it was very effective and efficient. Not that my nukes were doing badly. They were doing quite well actually.

I didn't have a macro for light arts and Cure with Light Staff so I had to do it manually. That cost some unnecessary time. I had brought a Vile Elixir +1 jsut in case, but didn't see the urgency of using it even though I was somewhat aware of how much, or how LITTLE time I had left. In the end I had to resort to Bio2 for the last bit of damage. I was unsure whether opening with Bio2 would be smart. I was afraid I'd mess up and try to sleep it while forgetting that it was still on.

There are several obvious improvements like more macros, including Cure and Dispel (for Regeneration). Also, there was a sequence of 3 spell interruptions due to not waiting enough after moving. So, that's something to watch out for too. Save Alacrity for Drain.

For anyone else wanting to try this I can't give you any special or new advice as I'm not sure what the minimum requirements are to do this successfully. All I can say is what I personally used. I had a Glamor Jupon, mostly HQ staves (except wind and light) 8 enfeebling skill upgrades and 6 in elemental skill. Hands and feet slots were level synched Yigit pieces. Also, I ate a Cream Puff and have a Moldavite Earring.