I noticed a lot of people ended up on this blog looking for Apademak and Pantokrator info (mostly Apademak) and I'm sure most of them were disappointed at the amount of actually useful advice. For this reason (but mostly because we recently did another pair of these) I'll go over the mobs once more and try to compress some of the info I've found more than just relaying what we did or didn't do.
Apademak
The first thing that comes up when you look for advice on this mob is stopping it from leveling up. Taking lightning damage causes it to level up and supposedly so does it killing someone. I used to think it casting any spell caused the level up, but on our second fight I stuck around more and saw several single target spells going off on the tanks that weren't followed by level-ups. So stunning self-targeted spells is what you want to do. Self targeted spells could be missed if you have certain filters on, so you should check that out beforehand. It's easiest to just Stun all its spells.
Does it build Stun resistance? According to several accounts it does. However, with two BLM's alternating stuns they continued to land long into the fight and the only resist I remember seeing (I wasn't looking at all of them, admittedly) was of a WHM/BLM casting. I'm estimating 20 Stuns in, the BLM's were still able to land it.
Unfortunately we ended up missing a stun and I can't vouch for it not using Fulmination until after it levels up at least once. From what I read, it is a very tame and simple mob before it levels up. Dedicated stunners being as important as they are, it's worth using some haste and fast-cast to reduce the Stun recast timer as much as possible. At maximum reduction you're still looking at a 22 seconds recast. This looks like it would be short enough in for most spells, but it's not a guarantee.
When it levels up it follows up with a TP ability. Usually Fulmination, but also Lithic breath. Lithic breath inflicts a weakness. A second tank should be standing out of breath cone to take hate off the weakened tank. I read something interesting on BG about avoiding the breath attack. Apparently, despite the ability being instant and unstunnable (on reaction), as long as you're strafing around the mob (moving sideways while locked on to the target) you'll avoid the breath attack. Credit to Arthars for figuring that out and posting it. Someone added that the same thing can be done with Tyrannic Tusk on Sobek, which afaik is also conal.
In my personal opinion, gearing for lightning resistance doesn't pay off. Tanks will take too much of a hit with regards to damage output that it'll make the fight noticeably longer. Also, with barspell and lightning resist atma, the tanks still took considerable damage. I can't be exactly sure if they were 1/2 resists or full damage. In any case, the magic accuracy of Fulmination seems rather high.
Its evasion and defense go up very noticeably as it levels up. So if you plan on doing this with a small group and without a brew, then stopping it from leveling up is not only important, it's THE most important aspect of the fight. Evasion tanking it works fine. Both NIN and DNC at the last fight were doing well holding it. Damaging it became the biggest challenge at that point and we ended up brewing it after we got Blue weakness on it. No dagger drop though.
Pantokrator
Pantokrator's 2hr's are the most annoying part about the mob. After learning that (much like the tiger NM in Uleg) the "chance" of it 2hr'ing is influenced by how much you heal it. While it TP's and casts. The 3 or 4 times it 2hr'd this last fight were all triggered by WS'ing during or otherwise doing a lot of damage while it's in "damage absorption" mode. It doesn't "prove" that that's how it worked, but it definitely seems consistent. If you fail to limit 2hr's, Fool's drink is fantastic for neutralizing Chainspell, and Fanatic's for Hundred Fists. If you have neither, throw in some stuns and don't try to kite it is all I can think of.
Towards the end Colossal Blow can make things rough if you currently only have one tank on it. It looks like its defense does go down as its HP goes down. I managed a 'normal' 2.5k Raging Rush on it when it was nearly dead, while early on I couldn't break 1k. DD's should limit their interaction with Panto to WS only. If you're using NIN tanks and its HP isn't below 25% then you have enough room for error to WS after a TP ability has gone off. As long as its magic casting timer isn't up. Tanks can take it down fast enough, so it's not an essential part of the strategy.
Of these two mobs, Panto is the easier one. It fits the pop-pattern of Caturae in Uleguerand (since there's no Caturae in that zone) and with Triturators different class compared to Smiter and Sunderer, you'd expect a much harder fight. However imho, Apademak takes the cake for most annoying mob in Heroes zones. Even Azdaja has become unimpressive since we tried and succeeded (after a shaky start) at tanking it from behind. I'm positive that making Apademak smooth is also a matter of getting the hang of it. The difference is that Apademak's leveling up and its increase in defense and strength are irreversible and so there's no forgiveness for mistakes.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Gearing Thief for Speed (Haste and Dual Wield)
Raider's Bonnet +2 versus Zelus Tiara
It's not always fair to make a straight comparisson like this without taking into account the context. In this case I'll try to consider the extreme situations. The haste difference is 2% between the two. The benefit of Zelus if you got the full benefit of that 2% at the highest possible Haste values (going from 78% to 80%) you'd see a benefit of 10% to your melee DoT. However, this situation is unrealistic because you have DW that will guarantee that you reach the delay reduction cap before 78% haste. If you assume 33% DW (I'll get back to that later) then you'd cap at 70% haste so we'd need to consider going from 68% to 70%.
(1/0.3) / (1/0.32) = ~1.07
So roughly a 7% melee DoT increase. Now I don't know about you, but I'm not Dboxing my own mage and BRD nor do I have the support to get to that 70% haste. With only haste spell the 2% haste scales down to only 3% DoT increase. So from 10% in an unrealistic situation all the way down to 3% depending on my own personal common situation. That just goes to show how your playstyle and assumptions factor in to how good any one stat is.
AF3's 3% Triple Attack would almost immediately seem like the winner. To be sure, let's assume a very high multi-attack rate with 3% quad attack, 33% triple (traits, Apoc atma, triplus) and 15% double (VV, Brutal). Now adding 3% triple attack to a setup that has an average of 1.9 attacks per swing is
1.96/1.9 = 1.03
So 3% versus 3% in a situation that greatly reduces Triple Attack's value. Outside of Abyssea this would be less of a contest and AF3 seems like the better overall piece.
Nusku's Sash versus Twilight Belt
This question actually has a context for me. I'm namely comparing these two setups.
It's hard to see because Nusku's and Twilight have the same Icon, but the first setup is capped haste using Loki's and Twilight Belt, and the second setup is 23% haste using AF3+2 body With Nusku's Sash.
Now these setups boil down to a rather subtle difference of:
Dagger skill +5 and Dual Wield +5
vs.
DEX+1, Store TP +7, Haste +3, Dbl. Atk +2, Crit hit damage +5%
Time to make some assumptions. Let's scrap 1 DEX. Let's assume Haste spell only. Assuming the 25% haste cap and going from 23% to 26% in gear is a 5% increase in melee DoT. The small extra step need to truly cap haste which you wouldn't with just 25% in gear is explained in Kirschy's post on BG which I linked to in the right side of this Blog's layout. Double attack varies a lot, but I'd like to put it at 1.5% DoT increase to keep things simple.
Now Critical hit-rate will influence Loki's boost to your Crit damage. A critical hit's contribution to your melee damage is greatly influenced by how high your p-dif is. If you were low in atk/def ratio and p-dif was around 0.5 then a critical hit would be a whopping 300% boost to that hit's damage. Again, an assumption is needed. Let's stick to p-dif = 1 because this makes things easy and it's not that far removed from common situations. Given my SAM's p-dif on Abyssea mobs, I think it's fair to say THF's would be a tad lower around 1. With this assumption your boost to melee DoT (without damage boost) would be approximated with 1 + crit-rate * 1. Easy, yes? Add to this damage boost of RR and you're looking at crit-rate * 1.3 . Now the 5% is starting to look a bit "meh". Crit-rate parses around 65% for me usually, so that'd make my 5% damage boost stacked on top of 30% from RR and 5% from job trait (possibly 8%) contribute this much:
(1 + 0.65 * 1.40) / (1 + 0.65 * 1.35) = 1.017
So less than a 2% damage boost. Since they're all seperate and multiplicative, setup with Loki's would be a 1.05 * 1.015 * 1.017 = 1.08 boost to melee DoT. Store TP factors in to WS frequency, but this is dragging out enough already!
Now setup with AF3+2 body has 5 ATK (assuming the skill does nothing for Acc) which would do anywhere from 1.2% to 0.9% extra damage assuming my low ATK on THF.
The big thing is of course "Is Nusku's worth it?". Well, I'm currently at 33% DW before Nusku's from Suppa, Raider's Boomerang and /NIN traits at 90. This means Nusku's alone will boost my damage by 8%. The great thing about this is that the two setups turn out to be very close given my assumptions. When is one better than the other? Well the variables such as which atmas you're using (if any) and how much Haste you're getting from Samba and spells will influence things in too many ways for me to want to redo the calculations.
The Verdict
Go for the 23% haste + Nusku's setup when you're often solo or otherwise low on buffs. Why? Because if you're soloing the Subtle Blow and evasion matter. Not only that, but due to not having a lot of haste, your DoT is also higher with this setup. When you're highly buffed you'll most likley be delay reduction capped anyway while Crit dmg boost as well as Dbl. Atk. will keep their value. In a situation like this, you'll end up getting more out of the Loki's setup.
Awesome music tip #2
It's not always fair to make a straight comparisson like this without taking into account the context. In this case I'll try to consider the extreme situations. The haste difference is 2% between the two. The benefit of Zelus if you got the full benefit of that 2% at the highest possible Haste values (going from 78% to 80%) you'd see a benefit of 10% to your melee DoT. However, this situation is unrealistic because you have DW that will guarantee that you reach the delay reduction cap before 78% haste. If you assume 33% DW (I'll get back to that later) then you'd cap at 70% haste so we'd need to consider going from 68% to 70%.
(1/0.3) / (1/0.32) = ~1.07
So roughly a 7% melee DoT increase. Now I don't know about you, but I'm not Dboxing my own mage and BRD nor do I have the support to get to that 70% haste. With only haste spell the 2% haste scales down to only 3% DoT increase. So from 10% in an unrealistic situation all the way down to 3% depending on my own personal common situation. That just goes to show how your playstyle and assumptions factor in to how good any one stat is.
AF3's 3% Triple Attack would almost immediately seem like the winner. To be sure, let's assume a very high multi-attack rate with 3% quad attack, 33% triple (traits, Apoc atma, triplus) and 15% double (VV, Brutal). Now adding 3% triple attack to a setup that has an average of 1.9 attacks per swing is
1.96/1.9 = 1.03
So 3% versus 3% in a situation that greatly reduces Triple Attack's value. Outside of Abyssea this would be less of a contest and AF3 seems like the better overall piece.
Nusku's Sash versus Twilight Belt
This question actually has a context for me. I'm namely comparing these two setups.
It's hard to see because Nusku's and Twilight have the same Icon, but the first setup is capped haste using Loki's and Twilight Belt, and the second setup is 23% haste using AF3+2 body With Nusku's Sash.
Now these setups boil down to a rather subtle difference of:
Dagger skill +5 and Dual Wield +5
vs.
DEX+1, Store TP +7, Haste +3, Dbl. Atk +2, Crit hit damage +5%
Time to make some assumptions. Let's scrap 1 DEX. Let's assume Haste spell only. Assuming the 25% haste cap and going from 23% to 26% in gear is a 5% increase in melee DoT. The small extra step need to truly cap haste which you wouldn't with just 25% in gear is explained in Kirschy's post on BG which I linked to in the right side of this Blog's layout. Double attack varies a lot, but I'd like to put it at 1.5% DoT increase to keep things simple.
Now Critical hit-rate will influence Loki's boost to your Crit damage. A critical hit's contribution to your melee damage is greatly influenced by how high your p-dif is. If you were low in atk/def ratio and p-dif was around 0.5 then a critical hit would be a whopping 300% boost to that hit's damage. Again, an assumption is needed. Let's stick to p-dif = 1 because this makes things easy and it's not that far removed from common situations. Given my SAM's p-dif on Abyssea mobs, I think it's fair to say THF's would be a tad lower around 1. With this assumption your boost to melee DoT (without damage boost) would be approximated with 1 + crit-rate * 1. Easy, yes? Add to this damage boost of RR and you're looking at crit-rate * 1.3 . Now the 5% is starting to look a bit "meh". Crit-rate parses around 65% for me usually, so that'd make my 5% damage boost stacked on top of 30% from RR and 5% from job trait (possibly 8%) contribute this much:
(1 + 0.65 * 1.40) / (1 + 0.65 * 1.35) = 1.017
So less than a 2% damage boost. Since they're all seperate and multiplicative, setup with Loki's would be a 1.05 * 1.015 * 1.017 = 1.08 boost to melee DoT. Store TP factors in to WS frequency, but this is dragging out enough already!
Now setup with AF3+2 body has 5 ATK (assuming the skill does nothing for Acc) which would do anywhere from 1.2% to 0.9% extra damage assuming my low ATK on THF.
The big thing is of course "Is Nusku's worth it?". Well, I'm currently at 33% DW before Nusku's from Suppa, Raider's Boomerang and /NIN traits at 90. This means Nusku's alone will boost my damage by 8%. The great thing about this is that the two setups turn out to be very close given my assumptions. When is one better than the other? Well the variables such as which atmas you're using (if any) and how much Haste you're getting from Samba and spells will influence things in too many ways for me to want to redo the calculations.
The Verdict
Go for the 23% haste + Nusku's setup when you're often solo or otherwise low on buffs. Why? Because if you're soloing the Subtle Blow and evasion matter. Not only that, but due to not having a lot of haste, your DoT is also higher with this setup. When you're highly buffed you'll most likley be delay reduction capped anyway while Crit dmg boost as well as Dbl. Atk. will keep their value. In a situation like this, you'll end up getting more out of the Loki's setup.
Awesome music tip #2
Monday, February 7, 2011
Weekend update 15
Still no pictures. Gotten into the bad habit of not taking screenshots again. I don't turn on Fraps until I need to take an attendance picture. I just hope this entry isn't too boring.
Samurai WS set
I recently got Heafoc Mitts and Unkai Sune-Ate +2 for a nice +6 STR to my WS equipment. I've held back on buying a Pyrosoul Ring, because I don't think (looking at my current funds) 1 STR should cost 800k compared ot the second best option (1.1M vs 300k Vulcan Rings). However, soon it may be the cheapest buyable upgrade, since prices will drop and I doubt I'll save up and buy a Hachiryu Haidate even if I am able to keep a 5-hit with Kikugosaku. Due to Twilight Mail being optimal in more situations than Byrnie +1 for Tachi: Fudo and always better for Gekko, I currently don't have any plans to buy one.
Recently we did a Sky run where I averaged over 1k for Gekko damage. The WS damage outside Abyssea is a lot more predictable since you're not overloaded with DA/TA which can pump out some pretty crazy WS numbers. This is what I've been aiming for and I'm only two items away:
Masamune progress
I've avoided mentioning Masamune on this blog and in genereal, because despite having worked on trials for a while I don't want to give it too much attention in case I give up on it. However, I'm now almost certain that I've gotten beyond that point. I didn't start any prep work on trophy stages so I started pretty much from scratch two/three weeks ago. I've averaged 5 Carabosse gems per weekend since we started, while sharing drops with two LS mates. I estimate I'll be done with La Theine in 7 weeks time.
Farming pops solo has turned out to be very simple. I didn't do much research on Baba Yaga or La Theine Lieje, but both pose no threat to THF/DNC. With TH the trigger items drop consistently and so it's just a matter of spamming them until you get the drop. I've done it as THF/NIN a few times after we did a few Cara, and even then it's easy to stop Lieje's spell by WS'ign through it. It may even be more consistent than Violent Flourish. I hope that getting a few pops solo during the week will speed it up a bit and maybe cut it down 5 or 6 Saturdays of farming.
Miscellaneous
We recently got loads of Bullwhip Belts. We may be done with those for a while. It seems like there's little reason to go back to La Theine as a Linkshell now. Perhaps some Timarli Dastanas and Nusku's Sashes would interest people.
Got Ground Strike and Spiral Hell recently. Still quite a few weapons to go on WAR. In the process I learned Herculean Slash. Damage is constant with TP so it's easy to do some mod testing on it, and yet I didn't work it out precisely. Turns out it has a very strong VIT mod (not posted on Wiki). With Beyond+Ultimate+Mounted Champion and no other VIT from gear or MAB it did 1553 damage. When I swapped out MC for Griffon's Claw it only beat it by about 20 points of damage. So if GC is indeed 20% damage then the VIT mod is considerable. It doesn't have a STR mod at all. I didn't test INT or MND though. Since it's much more consistent than Jinpu it looks like an ideal Amber lights WS. I'm sure that with Ascetic's and proper gear 2k should be easily obtainable.
Awesome music tip #1
Samurai WS set
I recently got Heafoc Mitts and Unkai Sune-Ate +2 for a nice +6 STR to my WS equipment. I've held back on buying a Pyrosoul Ring, because I don't think (looking at my current funds) 1 STR should cost 800k compared ot the second best option (1.1M vs 300k Vulcan Rings). However, soon it may be the cheapest buyable upgrade, since prices will drop and I doubt I'll save up and buy a Hachiryu Haidate even if I am able to keep a 5-hit with Kikugosaku. Due to Twilight Mail being optimal in more situations than Byrnie +1 for Tachi: Fudo and always better for Gekko, I currently don't have any plans to buy one.
Recently we did a Sky run where I averaged over 1k for Gekko damage. The WS damage outside Abyssea is a lot more predictable since you're not overloaded with DA/TA which can pump out some pretty crazy WS numbers. This is what I've been aiming for and I'm only two items away:
Masamune progress
I've avoided mentioning Masamune on this blog and in genereal, because despite having worked on trials for a while I don't want to give it too much attention in case I give up on it. However, I'm now almost certain that I've gotten beyond that point. I didn't start any prep work on trophy stages so I started pretty much from scratch two/three weeks ago. I've averaged 5 Carabosse gems per weekend since we started, while sharing drops with two LS mates. I estimate I'll be done with La Theine in 7 weeks time.
Farming pops solo has turned out to be very simple. I didn't do much research on Baba Yaga or La Theine Lieje, but both pose no threat to THF/DNC. With TH the trigger items drop consistently and so it's just a matter of spamming them until you get the drop. I've done it as THF/NIN a few times after we did a few Cara, and even then it's easy to stop Lieje's spell by WS'ign through it. It may even be more consistent than Violent Flourish. I hope that getting a few pops solo during the week will speed it up a bit and maybe cut it down 5 or 6 Saturdays of farming.
Miscellaneous
We recently got loads of Bullwhip Belts. We may be done with those for a while. It seems like there's little reason to go back to La Theine as a Linkshell now. Perhaps some Timarli Dastanas and Nusku's Sashes would interest people.
Got Ground Strike and Spiral Hell recently. Still quite a few weapons to go on WAR. In the process I learned Herculean Slash. Damage is constant with TP so it's easy to do some mod testing on it, and yet I didn't work it out precisely. Turns out it has a very strong VIT mod (not posted on Wiki). With Beyond+Ultimate+Mounted Champion and no other VIT from gear or MAB it did 1553 damage. When I swapped out MC for Griffon's Claw it only beat it by about 20 points of damage. So if GC is indeed 20% damage then the VIT mod is considerable. It doesn't have a STR mod at all. I didn't test INT or MND though. Since it's much more consistent than Jinpu it looks like an ideal Amber lights WS. I'm sure that with Ascetic's and proper gear 2k should be easily obtainable.
Awesome music tip #1
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Indrik and Empousa
I had the pleasure of fighting these two NM's twice each yesterday. We started off trying to multitask and kill Ironclad Triturator while part of the group built lights and did Indrik. That didn't end well.
The big hubbub around Triturator seemed very disproportionate the first time we fought it as we took it out easily. However, the first time we had two WHM's in the tank party and overall more people at the fight. Did some holding of the mob, but it powers up (supposedly after each 2hr). We let it regen to 100%, but it didn't seem to get noticeably weaker. The keys to this fight seem to be more healing power, tanks with a lot of HP, reliable stun for after draw-ins and enough DD to make it a short fight.
Indrik
Another fight that you want to end as soon as possiple is the one against Indrik. That white unicorn will power up much like Ironclad Triturator. Unfortunately I wasn't paying enough attention to notice exactly what triggers it to be healed by melee, but it has a mode where that happens. It's not a huge issue because it doesn't happen often nor does it last very long. The only issue is Scintillant Lance. It starts doing more and more damage as the fight drags out. I opted for the very indelicate approach of throwing bodies at it. Even double weakened my Gekkos were doing a decent chunk of damage so it "worked" in a certain sense. Atma of Apocalypse kind of changes the ballgame.
It seems to Triple Attack a lot, but it doesn't have super accuracy, so it can be evasion tanked. Seigan tanking worked alright, but you still need a lot of cures if you can't evade its attacks or have someone to bounce it off of. Rotating tanks seems to make the most sense, but they should last at least a minute unless you want to bring out a whole army or zombie it like we did on our last attempt. If the goal is to survive Scintillant lance, I'd use a MNK tank with Indrik's own atma. MNK's have a decent selection of MDT/MDB gear (moreso than NIN). Either that or pick a NIN anyway and have him tank backwards with nukes. Limiting TP usage would make it more low-mannable. I don't know if Absorb-TP lands on it. Since it's a light-based mob, I would think so. Big damage nukes and removing TP whenever possible should limit its lance usage to about 4 or 5 per fight and you could kill it before it starts breaking 3k.
If there's a way to predict/stun/avoid Scintillant Lance, I haven't noticed it. Someone suggested strafing. I tried it, but with all the other melee on it, I kept running into people. I want to give it a go with a more defensive strategy. Indrik's lance damage does seem to reset after it goes idle/regens.
Empousa
The flying mode is this NM's only catch. It actually doesn't do any normal attacks in the air and just spams TP ablilty x3 followed by a spell and repeats. Someone said a certain amount of damage done to it while flying will make it drop down, but I think there's something more going on there. Since the damage from melee alone seemed to take much longer to bring it back to earth. Either way, WS and melee during the 3 abilities and turn around for the spell. If it's Dread Spikes have it dispelled/finale'd asap and then turn and hit it some more. Landing a spell on it while it's casting a spell of its own may be a bit tricky unless limit your tries to Apocalypse Atma procs (and interrupting the spell if it's not an instant cast). Doing it the normal way it may take a few tries to get the hang of it, but I'm sure once you do it becomes rather easy and it'll go back to its grounded mode quickly.
Defensively there's not much you need to worry about. Just don't have too many people in range when it starts flying. The AoE abilities don't hurt individually but it adds up fast as he spams them. Dark resist atmas is another route to go, but switching atmas takes time you may not want to spend, unless of course Empousa is the only thing you're doing. It's a quick respawn and requires no pop farming. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for stones and cards of Ardor. It's way easier than Indrik.
The big hubbub around Triturator seemed very disproportionate the first time we fought it as we took it out easily. However, the first time we had two WHM's in the tank party and overall more people at the fight. Did some holding of the mob, but it powers up (supposedly after each 2hr). We let it regen to 100%, but it didn't seem to get noticeably weaker. The keys to this fight seem to be more healing power, tanks with a lot of HP, reliable stun for after draw-ins and enough DD to make it a short fight.
Indrik
Another fight that you want to end as soon as possiple is the one against Indrik. That white unicorn will power up much like Ironclad Triturator. Unfortunately I wasn't paying enough attention to notice exactly what triggers it to be healed by melee, but it has a mode where that happens. It's not a huge issue because it doesn't happen often nor does it last very long. The only issue is Scintillant Lance. It starts doing more and more damage as the fight drags out. I opted for the very indelicate approach of throwing bodies at it. Even double weakened my Gekkos were doing a decent chunk of damage so it "worked" in a certain sense. Atma of Apocalypse kind of changes the ballgame.
It seems to Triple Attack a lot, but it doesn't have super accuracy, so it can be evasion tanked. Seigan tanking worked alright, but you still need a lot of cures if you can't evade its attacks or have someone to bounce it off of. Rotating tanks seems to make the most sense, but they should last at least a minute unless you want to bring out a whole army or zombie it like we did on our last attempt. If the goal is to survive Scintillant lance, I'd use a MNK tank with Indrik's own atma. MNK's have a decent selection of MDT/MDB gear (moreso than NIN). Either that or pick a NIN anyway and have him tank backwards with nukes. Limiting TP usage would make it more low-mannable. I don't know if Absorb-TP lands on it. Since it's a light-based mob, I would think so. Big damage nukes and removing TP whenever possible should limit its lance usage to about 4 or 5 per fight and you could kill it before it starts breaking 3k.
If there's a way to predict/stun/avoid Scintillant Lance, I haven't noticed it. Someone suggested strafing. I tried it, but with all the other melee on it, I kept running into people. I want to give it a go with a more defensive strategy. Indrik's lance damage does seem to reset after it goes idle/regens.
Empousa
The flying mode is this NM's only catch. It actually doesn't do any normal attacks in the air and just spams TP ablilty x3 followed by a spell and repeats. Someone said a certain amount of damage done to it while flying will make it drop down, but I think there's something more going on there. Since the damage from melee alone seemed to take much longer to bring it back to earth. Either way, WS and melee during the 3 abilities and turn around for the spell. If it's Dread Spikes have it dispelled/finale'd asap and then turn and hit it some more. Landing a spell on it while it's casting a spell of its own may be a bit tricky unless limit your tries to Apocalypse Atma procs (and interrupting the spell if it's not an instant cast). Doing it the normal way it may take a few tries to get the hang of it, but I'm sure once you do it becomes rather easy and it'll go back to its grounded mode quickly.
Defensively there's not much you need to worry about. Just don't have too many people in range when it starts flying. The AoE abilities don't hurt individually but it adds up fast as he spams them. Dark resist atmas is another route to go, but switching atmas takes time you may not want to spend, unless of course Empousa is the only thing you're doing. It's a quick respawn and requires no pop farming. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for stones and cards of Ardor. It's way easier than Indrik.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Leveling Warrior
This job has been getting a lot of love in the last year. It's always been one of strongest melee DD jobs in the game and I'm sure in many situations the strongest one. However, since Abyssea introduced the need for versatility in weapon choices to proc weaknesses and popularity of AoE farming, it's gotten some extra attention. These make it more useful than simply "a job to kill things with". I started leveling it mainly for those two reasons.
I leeched my way from 45 to 70, after which I tried closing the skill gap with a Great Axe on my DRK, which was already at 90. I got it up to the mid 190's from ~160 before breaking down and deciding to level the rest while exp'ing. To my great relief at ~190 skill, the use of decent acc gear, Razed Ruin + Cloak and Dagger + Horned Beast, Sushi and Stalwarts spam compensated for all my Accuracy issues. I wasn't capped at the start but I gradually got to that point, slowly outgrowing the need for Stalwart's and Food (I'm a cheap bastard). In the lower 80's I had jumped to 270 Great Axe skill.
Skilling Up
I joined Enigmas and Cyrille for some skillups on WAR when I got the idea of trying to do it solo with a defensive build and regen atmas. After one attempt I was hooked. When I found them the first time the Orapodiums they were EP-T to me. In 22 PDT from gear and Mounted Champion + Stronghold + Impenetrable I was able to hold two Orapodiums for an extended perdiod of time. The beauty of this is that I was getting more than double the attacks from retaliation as I was getting from regular swings. To be clear, you CAN get skillups from a retaliation attack. On a good Retaliation streak I could self-sc. Since the vast majority of attacks were landing for between 20 and 30 damage, you could hold many more mobs if you had a capped Phalanx on you. Enough that you could start as low as ~70 skill. I say this because to my great surprise I was getting a decent amount of skillups on g.sword at around that level with only 2 mobs on me.
Using this method (sans Phalanx) with DNC sub I could hold 3 mobs indefinitely. A few trips to Misareaux coast leveled my Staff up to 290 (Cataclysm) my g.axe to 300 (Fell Cleave) and finished my WS points for Steel Cyclone, King's Justice and Retribution. During this process my parrying went from ~217 to 230. I'll be going back again for skilling and WS points on Sword, Club, Polearm and Great Sword. For Axe and Scythe I only need the WS points, though I'll probably still do them this way.
Fell Cleave
Last saturday was my first chance to use Fell Cleave on a train of mobs. First we had to build Amber lamps. Fortunately with Cataclysm and the right combination of Atmas I could snipe the last 10-15% of Thalassonins, doing 900-1300 damage. After that we started with a small train. Using Voracious Violet + Razed Ruin + Griffon's Claw, my 2hr'd cleaves hit for mostly 3000-4000 damage, occasionally one-shotting a bat. I was very surprised at this, since my WS set wasn't that good and I was using a Perdu Voulge. They were respawning Easy Prey which made for less exp but easier cleaving. I started using Blood Rage as I leveled into it. Using every damage-increasing buff in the book except Berserk. Though I'm sure I could have gotten away with it. I learned several things through the process:
Some mobs (possibly due to certain terrain) have a tendency to get on top of you, making them hard to retaliate but easier to hit with AoE. However, you'll get the "unable to see" message when they're on top you. You'll have to back out of the group before being able to WS. If given a choice I'd stick to small ground-based mob types, because my personal experience is that flying mobs bunch up on top of you more often. If you have two WAR's then that's less of an issue. I saw a group Cataclysm'ing raptors in Misareaux and noticed they used the tunnel to funnel the mobs into a narrow space, putting them all on top of eachother but still in front of the WAR. This is the ideal situation if you can manage it.
Without a restore chest I cycled through, revatilizer, fanatic's drink and powder in order to bridge the gap. It never happened that I didn't have any one of these 4 at my disposal for a pull.
In my first post on AoE farming I mentioned PLD sub, but I'm gonna have to almost fully dismiss it in favor of SAM sub now. The simple fact is that two Cleaves with Mighty Strikes up is upwards of 6k damage (and that's with my sub-optimal gear). That's more than enough to kill most regular mobs. There's no need for the whole ordeal to last for more than 10 seconds after the first cleave, and that's being generous. I've read in many places how Retaliation is almost instant TP, which would put SAM and PLD sub in roughly the same league, however this isn't as great as it sounds. Like I said before, unless you use narrow terrain mobs will move around and end up on top of you, making retaliation usless until you can get out of there. I may change my mind again once I get more experience.
I leeched my way from 45 to 70, after which I tried closing the skill gap with a Great Axe on my DRK, which was already at 90. I got it up to the mid 190's from ~160 before breaking down and deciding to level the rest while exp'ing. To my great relief at ~190 skill, the use of decent acc gear, Razed Ruin + Cloak and Dagger + Horned Beast, Sushi and Stalwarts spam compensated for all my Accuracy issues. I wasn't capped at the start but I gradually got to that point, slowly outgrowing the need for Stalwart's and Food (I'm a cheap bastard). In the lower 80's I had jumped to 270 Great Axe skill.
Skilling Up
I joined Enigmas and Cyrille for some skillups on WAR when I got the idea of trying to do it solo with a defensive build and regen atmas. After one attempt I was hooked. When I found them the first time the Orapodiums they were EP-T to me. In 22 PDT from gear and Mounted Champion + Stronghold + Impenetrable I was able to hold two Orapodiums for an extended perdiod of time. The beauty of this is that I was getting more than double the attacks from retaliation as I was getting from regular swings. To be clear, you CAN get skillups from a retaliation attack. On a good Retaliation streak I could self-sc. Since the vast majority of attacks were landing for between 20 and 30 damage, you could hold many more mobs if you had a capped Phalanx on you. Enough that you could start as low as ~70 skill. I say this because to my great surprise I was getting a decent amount of skillups on g.sword at around that level with only 2 mobs on me.
Using this method (sans Phalanx) with DNC sub I could hold 3 mobs indefinitely. A few trips to Misareaux coast leveled my Staff up to 290 (Cataclysm) my g.axe to 300 (Fell Cleave) and finished my WS points for Steel Cyclone, King's Justice and Retribution. During this process my parrying went from ~217 to 230. I'll be going back again for skilling and WS points on Sword, Club, Polearm and Great Sword. For Axe and Scythe I only need the WS points, though I'll probably still do them this way.
Fell Cleave
Last saturday was my first chance to use Fell Cleave on a train of mobs. First we had to build Amber lamps. Fortunately with Cataclysm and the right combination of Atmas I could snipe the last 10-15% of Thalassonins, doing 900-1300 damage. After that we started with a small train. Using Voracious Violet + Razed Ruin + Griffon's Claw, my 2hr'd cleaves hit for mostly 3000-4000 damage, occasionally one-shotting a bat. I was very surprised at this, since my WS set wasn't that good and I was using a Perdu Voulge. They were respawning Easy Prey which made for less exp but easier cleaving. I started using Blood Rage as I leveled into it. Using every damage-increasing buff in the book except Berserk. Though I'm sure I could have gotten away with it. I learned several things through the process:
- Two WAR's are better than one, but certainly not needed.
- Fell Cleave's AoE is centered around the target.
- The range of Fell Cleave at 100 TP (first WS when using Sekkanoki) is deceptively small.
- Wait for the mobs to 'settle' around the puller and pick a mob that's somewhere in the center before engaging.
- Mobs that are on top/inside of you can't be seen, ws'd or retaliated.
- Getting out of the clusterf'ck is easiest by unlocking your current target and holding back (first person view) and spamming your WS macro.
- PLD sub is not needed and probably works against you.
- Pulling using evasion works better than defense/PDT due to how easy it is to cap evasion rate on regular mobs.
Some mobs (possibly due to certain terrain) have a tendency to get on top of you, making them hard to retaliate but easier to hit with AoE. However, you'll get the "unable to see" message when they're on top you. You'll have to back out of the group before being able to WS. If given a choice I'd stick to small ground-based mob types, because my personal experience is that flying mobs bunch up on top of you more often. If you have two WAR's then that's less of an issue. I saw a group Cataclysm'ing raptors in Misareaux and noticed they used the tunnel to funnel the mobs into a narrow space, putting them all on top of eachother but still in front of the WAR. This is the ideal situation if you can manage it.
Without a restore chest I cycled through, revatilizer, fanatic's drink and powder in order to bridge the gap. It never happened that I didn't have any one of these 4 at my disposal for a pull.
In my first post on AoE farming I mentioned PLD sub, but I'm gonna have to almost fully dismiss it in favor of SAM sub now. The simple fact is that two Cleaves with Mighty Strikes up is upwards of 6k damage (and that's with my sub-optimal gear). That's more than enough to kill most regular mobs. There's no need for the whole ordeal to last for more than 10 seconds after the first cleave, and that's being generous. I've read in many places how Retaliation is almost instant TP, which would put SAM and PLD sub in roughly the same league, however this isn't as great as it sounds. Like I said before, unless you use narrow terrain mobs will move around and end up on top of you, making retaliation usless until you can get out of there. I may change my mind again once I get more experience.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Weekend Update 14
The Facepalm linkshell has been on a good run recently, getting a lot of upgrade items for people. Most of which are going freelot due to a recent DKP change that caused most people to reach 0 points halfway through the month, to the dismay of some. Three Bennu and three Orthrus on our last trip to Altepa meant a bunch of nice Atheling mantles and two Kikugosaku great katanas. Special thanks to Rayearl and Yohko, who both outlotted me but then voluntarily passed for me, because they know how much I heart my SAM.
The two farming runs we did in Visions zones allowed some people to level their subs while we got us some NM triggers. I had leveled WAR to 84 and skilled up staff (Cataclysm) and G.axe (Fell Cleave) for AoE farming (among other things). It took a bit of getting used to but on the Tahrongi run I got the hang of it as well as dinging 90. I think I may do a post on the topic of leveling WAR.
In addition to cleaving loads of bats (upwards of 1500 mobs), we did Iratham twice. One body dropped and I won the freelot food fight. I hope people didn't rage too hard at it going to my relatively gimpy WAR. Until I get Ravager's +1 this is nice for capping haste.
Wings of the Goddess
We finally got around to finishing the WotG missions. It took all of an afternoon and early evening to get through the spitewarden fight, the fetch quest and the final battle. The last fight was epic and tougher than I expected, but it was worth it.
There are only a few WS where I would consider not wearing this piece and that's not just because I lack better options! Maybe a little.
The fight against Lillith's second form tested us to our limits. So much so that we wiped with it DoT'ed and at 2% ticking down to 1%. My reraise attempt was ill-timed and inside aggro range. Thinking we had lost when DoT's wore off, Chaess bravely reraised and high-tailed it out of the center area. With RR1 and Taru HP anything would have killed him and yet... he managed to summon a jug who then took out Lillith in one attack.
We had considered using two BST's instead of a melee tank. Considering how much MP I spent on cures I think that may have been a better option. The AoE Death she can use missed Kingcem because we were running around trying to avoid those summoned contraptions. So we lucked out there, but there's just a lot of damage to recover from with the measly MP pool I had. Abyssea really spoils you. I used a Vile Elixir+1 and Chainspell nuked after the MNK went down. Again, had I had more MP I could have finished it right there with another nuke. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to cast Bio and Poison.
Looking back it was a fun story. The ending is a bit... well... I won't spoil it. All I'll say is that I went from hating the main characters (Sandy missions made me hate the little Griffons) to really wanting to see the conclusion. Perhaps not the most satisfying ending, but how can it ever be? Don't click the below image if you don't want to see snapshots of the mission finale.
The two farming runs we did in Visions zones allowed some people to level their subs while we got us some NM triggers. I had leveled WAR to 84 and skilled up staff (Cataclysm) and G.axe (Fell Cleave) for AoE farming (among other things). It took a bit of getting used to but on the Tahrongi run I got the hang of it as well as dinging 90. I think I may do a post on the topic of leveling WAR.
In addition to cleaving loads of bats (upwards of 1500 mobs), we did Iratham twice. One body dropped and I won the freelot food fight. I hope people didn't rage too hard at it going to my relatively gimpy WAR. Until I get Ravager's +1 this is nice for capping haste.
Wings of the Goddess
We finally got around to finishing the WotG missions. It took all of an afternoon and early evening to get through the spitewarden fight, the fetch quest and the final battle. The last fight was epic and tougher than I expected, but it was worth it.
There are only a few WS where I would consider not wearing this piece and that's not just because I lack better options! Maybe a little.
The fight against Lillith's second form tested us to our limits. So much so that we wiped with it DoT'ed and at 2% ticking down to 1%. My reraise attempt was ill-timed and inside aggro range. Thinking we had lost when DoT's wore off, Chaess bravely reraised and high-tailed it out of the center area. With RR1 and Taru HP anything would have killed him and yet... he managed to summon a jug who then took out Lillith in one attack.
We had considered using two BST's instead of a melee tank. Considering how much MP I spent on cures I think that may have been a better option. The AoE Death she can use missed Kingcem because we were running around trying to avoid those summoned contraptions. So we lucked out there, but there's just a lot of damage to recover from with the measly MP pool I had. Abyssea really spoils you. I used a Vile Elixir+1 and Chainspell nuked after the MNK went down. Again, had I had more MP I could have finished it right there with another nuke. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to cast Bio and Poison.
Looking back it was a fun story. The ending is a bit... well... I won't spoil it. All I'll say is that I went from hating the main characters (Sandy missions made me hate the little Griffons) to really wanting to see the conclusion. Perhaps not the most satisfying ending, but how can it ever be? Don't click the below image if you don't want to see snapshots of the mission finale.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Tavnazia win
Another milestone in my FFXI career! I say that non-ironically, cus it IS like a job at times. I wish I had better screenshots, but I wasn't at the actual fight. Many of us weren't. Of the 15 people in attendance last Sunday, only 5 had the pleasure of facing off against Diabolos Spade.
After a decent haul of AF and Hydra junk we went back down to the Umbral Diabolos gauntlet. The first attempt (two weeks prior) we aggro'd 3, I believe. We killed one but AoE destroyed us pretty fast as we were clustered together. Everyone did a good job of crossing this time, aggroing only 1. Magnumm was on SMN to Perfect Defense the melee party, but after 5 people got across one of the Umbrals decided to come very close to the entrance of the tunnel and chill. With an obstructed view of the rest of the tunnel there was no way of making a calculated decision and timing a run. I decided they'd have to do it without PD. Three melees, a BRD and a WHM ended up winning in what seemed a pretty bumpy fight from their HP bars, which is all I had to go by. Two of the three DD bit the dust, but I got the "too far to gain experience" message only 10 or so seconds after I saw them KO. Total fight time is probably under a minute. I wish I could relate more interesting observations, but this is all I have!
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