Overview

I know quite a few people have wanted to post for some time now.  I posted a teaser pic of this maybe 5 or 6 months ago but never got around to making the formal post for various reasons - so I hope you guys enjoy and learn from this.  This fight actually took place in late August 2008.  While the content of this post is from the view of purposely attempting to 6-man a ZNM, by understanding the strategy behind how this works, a group can easily adapt this to groups of higher and even possibly lower numbers.  So while there is certainly a sense of 'showing off' in this post, I want to stress strategy, preparation, and the understanding and manipulation of game mechanics.

For those unfamiliar with the Zeni NM system, Sarameya is a "Tier 4" (or "Stage 4") Cerberus family ZNM.  It drops some extremely high-gil items including the typical Cerberus synth materials (the Hide at 100%), a near 1 million gil Katana, a 15+M pair of pants, and a potential Pandemonium Warden trigger which can sometimes be sold to Mythic Upgraders.  From a production standpoint, being able to low man this NM yield significant rewards (if you can stand taking that many ZNM pics).  Sarameya is generally considered the most difficult of the 3 Tier 4 ZNMs.  Sarameya has similar attacks to the actual Cerberus HNM, but there are some noticeable AI differences.  Most notably I should point out that it can both rage (1 hour timer) and has an awkward hate mechanic which I will discuss at length in this post.



This post comes with a couple disclaimers.  First of all, I have only ever fought this NM once, which was this 6 man win you are about to read.  I did a fair amount of research and planning for this 1 attempt, but keep in mind my experience with this NM is actually quite limited.  In addition, we did this fight prior to the implementation of the rage timer; however, since we were able to win in under an hour, I don't really feel it changes the outlook of the fight in any way.  Lastly, this attempt did involve the use of a Relic GKT, but not the game breaker relics (Aegis and Ghorn).  I'm positive you can 6-man this without relics.

For your viewing convinence, the important information is in red and the most vital information is in purple.

Enjoy!

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________


( Sarameya Basics )


( Our Setup )


( Sarameya Howling Sequence )


( General Thoughts )

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________


Conclusions

Overall, I feel like this low man fight is a great example of how to counter predictable mob behavioral AI with a strong understanding of game mechanics, in this case, enmity modeling and resistance sets.  Sarameya is capable of a large number of strong TP moves and spells, many of which can easily wipe a group (e.g. Chainspell Gates of Hades); yet, because it is predictable, you can amply prepare for and even completely nullify its strongest attacks.



Being able to low man this NM, as mentioned in the overview, can be extremely value in terms of the drops.  The legs drop alone still sells for over 15M on just any server.  At the very worst, you will get a Cerberus Hide for your trouble.  I should also point out that Sarameya is the hardest of the 3 Tier 4 ZNMs, meaning the other 2 are even easier to 6 man.  This means that you can idealy 6-man your way into a Pandemonium Warden / Mythic Weapons Quest set, which is pretty interesting.

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________


Pic of the Day

Back in January, I was trying to help one of my best friends Fatkat work on his Nyzul Isle Disc.  He was having trouble getting random help through shouts, especially on the non-boss floors.  In an effort to get people to join a 41-45 and 46-50 run, he tries to tell people "legs are free lot" in shout to see if he can trick anyone into joining (legs are 36-40).  Didn't work this time, so we ended up going with three (Fatkat, me, and another TK member Yuchi) and winning.

( 3 Man Nyzul )


Drama Thread of the Day

Two drama threads this time, both old school - one from FFXI, and one from WoW.  Both famously epic due to the sexual nature of the drama.  It was somewhat difficult to find these since a lot of the older BG posts no longer exist.

A Line Has Been Crossed

Representing Unicorn Server this time.  Free advice: don't ever send naked pictures of yourself over the internet unless you want the world to see them.  Don't worry there are no NSFW pics in the link - BG used to have a very famous 'censored' version from this but it's either gone or hidden.  Either way, I'm not looking for it.

"SKP" Stand For "Sex Kills Points"

I wouldn't normally post WoW related drama but this one is too good.  Unfortunately, the original forum it was posted on no longer has it, but basically a guild leader ran a bastardized version of the typical DKP system of loot distribution and called it SKP (you can guess why).

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Overview

My first attempt at developing a kill strategy for AV (see here) received quite a bit of feedback, both in blog and on BG, with some good critique.  I think, however, that the ultimate conclusion regarding the original strategy I outlined on blog was that it looked good on paper, but was pretty much impossible to pull off by actual people.  Having thought about it a bit more, I've decided I'm ready to present a second attempt at a possible kill strategy - one that is noticeably simpler.

To briefly recap the goal of this AV strategy planning - I am not looking to decipher how SE intended AV to be locked or legitimately killed!  My goal is to completely bypass all these things since they have led many groups absolutely nowhere for the last 2 years.  Using really good planning with enough knowledge of the game, I believe it is possible to win against Absolute Virtue, albeit using rather unconventional methods.  To recap what is known about AV presently...

      -  Regen is lowered by nuking the element of the current day maybe about 20-30 times.
      -  Cannot Draw in unless you decide to use the "Wall Trick" from the north side of Al'Taieu.
      -  Runs really fast... same speed as Xzomit mobs in the zone.
      -  Presumably has some sort of Bracers Mode, but no LS has gotten to this point since last killed.

That's actually pretty much it... Everything else is speculation at best.  The key to this strategy is still similar to the previous - negate Regen using elemental magic, then using a certain holding technique, prevent AV from ever reaching its intended target.  The only thing that has changed from the previous strategy is the holding method. 

Please feel free to critique this idea or even try it if you have a LS capable and willing.  Unfortunately, TK is a bit too small to field a strategy like this, so I'm hoping to write a convincing post that will garner enough support so that another group would attempt it.


First Strategy

_________________________________________________________________________________________________











_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Conclusions

I think that this modified holding strategy shows real promise.  Unlike the last strategy on AV written on this blog, this strategy really only takes 1-3 people to employ and pretty much 0 coordination or timing - just the use of a simple observation concern hate resets.  This strategy should be easily performable in practice over long periods of time.

In addition, the damage dealing methods are very flexible when using this strategy because the holder does not have to be anywhere near AV to perform actions, nor does he have to even be in a party or alliance.  Similar to the previous strategy, I have suggested a sort of Shadowbind-Time-Nuke damage dealing method, which may be slower than more conventional methods, but possibly safer once AV reaches certain critical HP points.

Finally, I have given a possible solution (based on theory mainly at this point) as to how one could bypass Benediction during the fight.  The method of holding in this strategy, in conjuction with carefully executed Shadowbind Nuke damage should cause AV to get "stuck" trying to perform an action on a target it is unable to reach.  If this is true, AV will be essentially unable to perform any other action (including Benediction) until after the action it was first told to perform is completed.

Overall, I would be cautious to say that this strategy would work; however, I do feel that it has much more potential than the preivously written idea here - which was overly complex and really impossible to pull off.  Again, I welcome and appreciate any critique and hope that this may lead to an eventual (successful) attempt at AV in the near future.

Overview

In this post, I want to go over some thoughts about AV given the new videos that recently came out, and more importantly, to propose a plan for killing it.  Note I said kill it, not figure out how to "lock" it.  Unlike most players testing at this point, I actually believe AV is killable in its current state, but not by conventional means.  There were always 2 things that people wanted to lock - Regen and Specials.  The recent testing has found a clear way to remove the Regen, and I believe that this is enough to kill given some reasonable luck avoiding Benediction.  I believe this strategy circumvents the issues caused by Soul Voice, Meikyou Sushi, and even the dreaded Manafont Meteor.

Before anyone calls bullshit on me, I want to point out that in a non-timed event, if you can remove the Regen of the mob, you can always kill it if you can stay alive.  This is true for any mob, and AV as well.  If you can stay alive indefinitely, it is killable.  That being said, I will try my best to justify why I feel this works - not just on paper, but is relatively easy to produce in an actual game environment where mistakes happen.

This strategy is based on 3 key elements -

      -  Using a wide battlefield and terrain as the main defensive tool
      -  Exploitation of FFXI's hate system
      -  Exploiting Shadowbind, the only movement or action altering enfeeble that works on AV

Using these basic ideas, I believe you can fight, hold, and damage AV without AV ever retaliating due to its inability to seek out and reach its intended target (the guy at the top of the hate list).

For those shells currently testing things out for AV, I know most of you guys are trying to lock it, thinking it is impossible to kill without locking.  I encourage and plead with you to just read a bit about this strategy and maybe give the concept a try.  The idea of straight tanking and muitple Aegis PLDs has been done to death!  Seriously, if it could be done that way, someone would have at least made some type of progress on it by now considering how many have tried using this strategy.

   

____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________























____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Conclusions

There are a lot of details to hash out on this strategy.  I sort of only laid the groundwork and general ideas on how this would work.  I have no proof that this would work in practice, but it does seem to work pretty well on paper in my opinion.  I hope that some group will try this out or at least give some of the ideas here like the wall abuse some thought.

To recap the general prinicple of this strategy, the idea is to keep the person at the top of the hate list constantly out of AV's reach, switching the target just before he reaches the one he previously wanted.  There are a lot of ideas bouncing around BG right now involving just throwing more tanks at AV in an effort to survive, but I will point out 2 major flaws in this...

      -  AV attacks so fast that it is pretty much humanly impossible to keep up without slowing it down
      -  Most wipe moves are AoE - meaning they only require the initial target to wipe EVERYONE.

What happens when AV reaches Bracers Mode at 59%, or even what it will do at 79% now with the repeated patches is really anyone's guess.  We have no idea just how impossible he will become, how often he spams new AoE wipe moves, etc.  That is the beauty of this strategy in my opinion - the fact that AV can never get close to the target so it does not matter what it can use.  It's like it arms itself with deadlier and deadlier weapons, but it can't ever find who it wants to kill.

A recap on the game mechanics and general game principles that I'm saying can be abused here...

      -  Taking advantage of the fact that mobs normally only go after #1 on the hate list and avoid all others
      -  The ability to cast over a wall, but the inability to walk through it
      -  Taking advantage of knowing which moves provide what kind of enmity to manipulate a mob
      -  The fact that Shadowbind actually works on AV and lands for a full duration

Of course as always, feel free to nitpick, add onto, or counter anything you don't think works here.

I'll leave with the wise words of a friend and LimitBreak member on his thoughts about AV...



____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pics of the Day

In the spirit of talking about AV, I'm going to just post some pics I took from the original LimitBreak vs. AV fight that spanned 3 days, took 30-31 hours, and led to the "Wall of Justice", which was the original strategy used to produce the first 4-5 AV kills (the first of which occurred just days after this on Remora by Apathy).  For those that are not familiar with this wall strategy, you can no longer use it since SE ninja-patched it by giving AV draw in if you attempt to touch it from the Limbus Side of Al'Taieu.

I'd post pics of our own attempts but the memories suck too much - our first real AV attempt happened the day after SE ninja-patched the Wynav kill lock strategy (no one has even gotten AV past 79% since this).  Of course, we didn't know it was broken at the time and must have spent about 5 hours killing Wynavs non-stop in the most pointless fight ever.




Other interesting facts about this fight... 

One of my best friends in game, Fatkat, was one of the sac players that stayed up overnight to hold AV - I think he was one of the only members that was awake the entire 30 hour stint.  

The actual person who first thought of the "Wall of Justice" was an EU player in LB named Orfeo.

Some asshole who will remain nameless GM'd LB fo using the Wall of Justice.

The "Wall of Justice" strategy STILL WORKS on everything except AV.  You can 4-6 man any Tier II Sea Jailer using this still since they don't have Draw In.


           ________________________________________________________________________________


Drama Thread of the Day

The first AV kill on any server

Why is this a drama thread?

Because in SE's brilliance, IT DROPPED NOTHING.

I have a strong feeling that SE forgot to add the drops on this and just never bothered to fix it because they thought it was unkillable.  They probably ninja patched it after.


____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Overview

Much like Cerberus, when it intially came out, Khimaira was very heavily camped by the larger LSs; however, after the initial rush wore, the mob is now free for a good 30-60 minutes after pop.  Because of this, we finally got our shot a couple weeks ago.  Unfortunately, the only good drop off Khimaira is very rare - I think there is still only 1 on Odin Server after 10+ kills.  It's still a very fun fight nonetheless.  



Time Taken - 1 hour 12 minutes
Members - 11 from 100% to 10%, 12 at end (THF)

Overall the fight looked very similar to Cerberus. This is a basic overview of our second kill a few nights ago.  I'll try to go into some of the planning and strategy we used.


Basic Job Setup

NIN/DRK	Senrez	BLM/RDM	Kaeko	THF/WHM	Hattunn
NIN/DRK	Dio	BLM/RDM	Aruberu
RDM/BLM	Yamainu	BLM/WHM	Sakurato
BRD/WHM	Yuchi	BLM/WHM	Tabite
BRD/WHM	Payu	RDM/DRK	Fry
WHM/SMN	Pokorny

This setup really involves no THF; it was basically only for Treasure Hunter - he got 1-2 hits in then just stayed back for the 5 minutes he was there.  The job setup is actually the exact same thing we would use against Cerberus.  We did have access to Relic Horn for this but honestly there was very little need for it - the main group never came close to needing MP and normal ballad was given to the BLM party.


____________________________________________________________________________________________________

NIN/DRK Tanking Without Stun

Khimaira builds resistance to stun over time, so stun cannot be use repeatedly by the NIN/DRKs - or by the time Khimaira gains access to Fulmination, all stuns will resist.  This means the hate generation by NIN/DRK has to rely on other spells and abilities, which is generally considered not very ideal.  

So how good is NIN/DRK hate without using stun?

Turns out it's still extremely strong!  We played this fight exaclty like we would anything else with NIN/DRKs - spammed whatever we wanted and never worried about hate.  We did have a couple draw ins by BLMs after using Manafont but overall it's still more than enough hate to make things safe.  In a lot of fights using other tanking setups, the BRDs usually end up taking hate due to constant song spam - in this fight, we had 2 BRDs spamming Elegies nonstop and neither ever took hate.  

   

Bind  >>  Sleep  >>  Kurayami: Ni  >>  Hojo: Ni

This is the main order used to compensate for stun.  In addition, other good spells to use for hate are Absorb-XXX and Poison.  One good thing to note is that the only magic involved is now Bind and Sleep, which is only 28MP every 30ish seconds - whereas it is 53MP every 30 seconds in the normal order with stun.  Because refresh can now be covered without ballad (refresh and sanction are now enough), that frees up an additional song.

We ended up using something like March, March, Mambo, Carol - the evasion rate was pretty decent.  I don't know how helpful a second Mambo would have been.  Khimaira's attack pattern is very difficult to determine.  Generally, though, it attacks very quickly and can double attack as well.  Slow and Elegy are landable but pretty hard (think Cerberus) - that's why the BRDs were constantly trying to spam Elegy, which luckily can be relayered without wearing.  When Elegy and Slow II are both on, it can probably be solo tanked by a NIN pretty easily.


Khimaira Special Attacks

Dreadstorm - 500-600 10' AoE Thunder Damage; wipes shadows
Thunderstrike - 500-600 10' AoE Thunder Damage and Stun status; ignores shadows but does not wipe
Tenebrous Mist - 10' AoE resets all TP to 0
Fossilizing Breath - Conal attack with Petrify status; no damage
Tourbillion - 800-1000 15' AoE Physical Damage and Knockback; blockable by 2 shadows
Fulmination - 800-1200 30' AoE Thunder Damage and Stun + Paralyze; usable after 50%, common after 25%

In general, Khimaira's TP moves are much stronger.  Dreadstorm and Thunderstrike will both do a good 40-50% of a tank's HP - Dreadstorm being much worse since it will wipe shadows.  Probably 80%+ of the healing during the fight were just due to these 2 moves.  Tenebrous Mist and Fossilizing Breath are both pretty useless, although breath forces the use of at least 1 WHM for stona.  It's probably helpful to have 1 anyway for Cure V.  The first 4 TP moves are really the ones it uses the vast majority of the time.

   

Tourbillion poses a very large problem as it can potentially 1 shot a BRD.  At this point, I have no clue how this is triggered, but I can say that it rarely uses this.  During the fight outlined here, it never attempted to use this move once and I've only seen it used 1 time ever (on our fights or others' fights).  Could this be the "Spike Flail" for Khimaira?

Fulmination is Khimaira's wipe move - and it's very strong.  Not only is the range on this move greater than Gates of Hades, but it will inflict both a long duration stun, and a stupidly strong paralyze on everyone.  It also does a lot more damage than Gates.  The range on this move is 30', the same as Wyrm Wing/Blast attacks - since the casting range is around 20' to 25', that makes this move unavoidable by distance.

Just have a stun rotation for this like you would Cerberus.  It is faster than Gates of Hades, but still stunnable with a reasonable connection speed.  We had 2 members, Sakurato and Aruberu, be on stun look-out for this and that was plenty.  Also note that it can use this between 25-50%, but rarely.  Because there is still a chance, keep someone watching for this at all times after 50%.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Vertical Height - Avoiding Fulmination Wipe

While the range on Fulmination is too great to avoid using distance (as it extends well beyond the casting range), it can be avoided by vertical height.  Even though no Fulminations got off on this fight, if 1 were to, the entire backline would still be safe, preventing a full blown wipe.  Typically it will be the Stun + Paralyze that actually kill you and not the damage, so if the backline can recover quickly enough, the tanks probably wouldn't die.

The positioning for this is pretty specific.  The battlefield is clearly ruggid and grants considerable height differences in certain places.  The place we used (which is shown) is probably the largest height distance achievable before draw-ins occur.

   

Only Fulmination really requires the vertical height to block; however, because it is the wipe move, I would still recommend using it.  It's always good to have a safety net in case of a screw up.  


Damage Dealing - BLMs Again

Well I guess this isn't a big surprise - we used 4 BLMs as the only damage source.  Damage and resist rates were actually pretty high - nothing like Cerberus but probably worse than the Wyrms.  Lower damages may actually be an advantage in this case because the hate margin of a NIN/DRK unable to use Stun will be lower and may not account for enough hate to hold off anything higher.  Khimaira has roughly 90,000HP - the damage is not fast by any means, but is very consistant.

 (Elemental Skill Gear)
 (Elemental Skill Gear)
 (Magic Attack Gear + Elemental Seal)

1)  BLMs double for both Damage and Stun in the Fulmination phase
2)  Provides the highest damage per TP ratio, even with massive resists
3)  Cure support if needed in a pinch
4)  Damage is delt from a range, keeping DDs out of AoE range
5)  Elemental Seal + Bind works barring some disaster or wipe

In a previous fight, we tried to use BLU/THF (Sneak Attack Cannonball).  The damage is really incredible but unfortunately BLU lacks a lot of the advantages that BLM grants.  BLU damage is very high and spikes and more easily takes hate, which causes control and positioning problems.  Also, BLU healing spells can't even target alliance members, only party members, so they can't even heal tanks if needed.  Lack of stun also means additional members are needed just to handle stuns.  Overall, I think just going strictly BLM is the safest and simpliest way to damage Khimaira.


____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Possible Future Testing

The biggest difficulty with this fight has to be the TP moves.  Khimaira itself is pretty reasonable to tank as far as normal attacks go.  The hate issues are also still non-existant with NIN/DRK, even without the use of Stun.  In future fights, we may try to go with a full-time thunder resist setup.  Thunder resist is pretty easy to stack without gimping haste and normal equipment - Terra's Staff and Byakko's Haiddate is 70 on it's own and is pretty much used at all times anyway.  

This idea would be pretty similar to what we tested on Cerberus.  Gates of Hades could definately be resisted greatly with the use of a Fire resist set - it makes sense that the same could be done with Khimaira and Thunder Resist.  Not only would this account for Fulmination (with the addition of the vertical height strategy), but this would also severely reduce damage from Thunderstrike and Dreadstorm, which really accounted for the vast majortiy of cures during this fight.

The drops were pretty lame (everything but the sword really...).  Even with the Sword, it's pretty much a play-toy for now since TK still rarely uses PLD on anything.  The synth materials really don't have that much use since the BST set isn't all that great (I think?).  It's probably best just to keep the synth items on a mule for now and hope for future recipes to be added.



Oops!  (Sakurato's fault!)



Pic of the Day 



Saku made me post this...  No BRD songs; no Mandau (Blau Dolch I think?).


Drama Thread of the Day 

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15170

Player Drama - Cross servers, same player. 



____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
    

Overview

Bahamut Version 2 ("The Wyrmking Descends") is generally considered the most difficult BCNM currently in the game.  Even with this, a lot of groups are still able to make quick work and farm this BC.  TK did this BC a long long time ago kind of just to say we did it, but really never went back to farm.  That being said, we finally went back a few days ago to farm 3 runs.





The time required to win was a bit disappointing for me personally, although since many had never won before, I don't think most minded.  Currently, I don't see a very big risk of losing under our current strategy and experience; however, the timing and efficiency can definately be vastly improved.  When farming, time is definately an issue.  

Before I go any further, if you're looking for good information on improving times, this probably isn't the best place to look.  I'll try to post some good links at the end if you're looking for the best information.  41 minutes is pretty below average for some groups - The best I've seen have hit around 20 minutes consistantly.  There are a lot of issues to consider throughout the whole fight which I'll try to get into.

For the groups that do this BCNM on a more consistant basis, any tips would be appreciated, too!


____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Basic Setup and Planning

NIN/WAR	COR/NIN	BRD/WHM
BRD/NIN	RDM/DRK	RDM/DRK
RDM/NIN	BLM/WHM	BLM/WHM
SMN/WHM	BLM/WHM	BLM/WHM
WHM/NIN	BLM/WHM	BLM/WHM
WHM/NIN	THF/DRK	BLM/RDM

The damage setup is almost exactly what you would expect in any typical Bahamut Version 2 setup - heavy on BLMs with a THF/DRK to stun and provide Treasure Hunter.  We threw in a COR to test out how effective Warlock's roll would be on resist rates.  The main thing that differs between setups is usually the tanking party - this can vary greatly depending on style and preference.  For these 3 fights, we opted for NIN/WAR (Demetrius).  I'll get more into the tanking setup later.

As far as medicines were considered, we brought the typical Reraise Hairpins and Poison Potions (for Vrtra).  Other than that, nothing special like ethers or hi pots.  I think we came a bit overprepared as far as Meds were concerned as we really didn't need those potion pots in my opinion.

Prior to entering, we had to get a couple members access by doing Bahamut Version 1, which turned out to be extremely beneficial as far as experience is concerned.  Because Bahamut himself changes very little between the 2 fights, it gave everyone a good oppurtunity to get a feel for the fight to come.  There were really a lot of unknowns for us to start so doing this fight before-hand really helped.


Tanking Setup - NIN/WAR Solo Tanking

The first thing to consider is do you want to use 1 or 2 tanks during the fight?  We opted to use 1 mainly because Bahamut tends to spam massive AoEs non-stop and going with 1 would reduce the cures required significantly.  As far as the choice of types of tanks, it was between NIN/WAR, PLD/NIN, and RDM/NIN.  In the end, we opted for NIN/WAR just because we generally tank everything under the sun with NIN and everyone is just more used to it.  In addition, we also had a RDM/NIN as a backup tank in case of a death. 

   

Positioning is the #1 most important part of this entire fight.  I cannot stress this enough for anyone who has never done this BCNM - it is absolutely critical.  Bahamut's AoEs all have massive range and are incredibly crippling...

Horrible Roar - Removes 4 Buffs on everyone in range (20') of the initial target
Trample - 400-500 physical damage AoE and Bind Status with range (20'); blockable by 2 Utsusemi Shadows
Absolute Terror - Range (20') AoE from itself that terrorizes all targets in range; blockable by 2-3 Utsusemi Shadows
Sweeping Flail - 300-500 physical damage AoE (20') and Knockback; blockable with 3 Utsusemi Shadows
Tempest Wing - 180 Conal AoE 200-300 magic damage that ignores shadows but does not wipe them
Impulse - 180 Conal AoE 400-500 magic damage and Break status; ignores shadows but does not wipe them
Prodigious Strike - Bahamut version Spike Flail; Blockable by 2 Shadows single target Physical
Touchdown - 300-400 physical damage; ignores shadows but does not wipe them

The positioning had to be such that the WHMs were in range to cure but out of range of the AoEs.  I have to admit, Windower is invaluable for this...  We are still looking for easier methods to block these AoEs (using Terrain abuse etc.).  Horrible Roar, in particular, is just extremely annoying, especially when it hits people other than the tanks (reraise...).  Recasting buffs is also a huge MP sink.  

Bahamut definately has some type of TP regen as you can hold it and it will still TP quite often.  Even with it's nasty TP moves, when positioned correctly, it's not that big of a deal as none of them can wipe you win 1 shot.  With 2 WHMs constantly looking, it's pretty safe.  For Horrible Roar, we used a SMN for Eclipitc Growl - it turns out Roar will dispel those useless stat debuffs first so Growl in essence, protects against Roar.  It was a slight issue for the SMN and BRD; however, because they had to get in close to grant buffs - even 5-6 seconds in range can be deadly.

In addition, Bahamut has a large variety of spells at it's disposal...

Phalanx - Not that big of a deal but usually needs to be dispelled to get to shell V
Protect V - See Phalanx
Shell V - MUST Dispel to do respectable damage
Cure V - Cures about 3% of it's HP, or 600 HPish
Fire V - About 700-900 damage single target
Flare II - About 800-1100 damage single target
Firaga IV - the only thing you should be stunning every time
Silencga - Bring Echo Drops; wipes shadows
Graviga - Not a big deal unless it hits BRD
Dispelga - Not a big deal considering Horrible Roar

Shell V is the most annoying.  It's just incredibly strong and has to be dispelled to do any sort of reasonable damage.  Even worse, Bahamut has a very high resist rate and you may have to spam dispel at times (especially with how often he uses).  Other than that, Firaga IV is the only thing to worry about.  Use the THF/DRK to stun this.  Bahamut will resist stun 100% if you use it too many times.  So you must save your stuns only for this move or you may run out.  


____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bahamut Flares and Magic Damage Reduced

For this, Demetrius went with a setup mimicking Rukenshin's setup.  There is a ton of information on this already so I'll just provide links for the tanking setup part of this.  The bigger key here is to make sure no one draws hate during flare.  If Bahamut turns at the mages and uses Gigaflare, you will wipe.  This actually managed to happen on all 3 fights we did somehow...  It's not all that bad if the tanking setup remains solid; however.  There is usually plenty of time to recover and the BLMs don't play that large of a support roll as far as tanking is concerned.

This brings up another very large issue in this fight, which is hate.  In most fights, drawing hate is annoying but not all that big of a deal; however, in this fight, 1 small turn can cause a full wipe.  This makes mistakes much more costly.  Considering NIN/WAR does not provide the hate margin as other types can, this can be a pretty big problem as the fight goes on.

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15467
http://www.killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=141828
 
Generally, whatever tank is used, if the damage can be taken down to around 800-1000 on Gigaflare, you're ok.  Teraflare shouldn't even get off so it's not really essential to prepare for.


Bahamut Summons

Basically we chose not to even bring a tank for these summons.  All we did was nuke, kite, stun until death and pretty much did every summon flawlessly.  Elemental Seal Gravity lands on everything but Jormungand so that helps a lot as well.  Using stuns liberally in addition to kiting, most dragons died in 30 seconds without hurting anyone.



For Vrtra, we originally planned to use Chainspell Stun, but it turns out it's really not needed.  In the third fight, we never used any 2hrs for anything and it was still very smooth.  As long as Gravity is on Vrtra and all BLM just go all out, it should still die very quickly.  There really is no reason to bring a tank if the BLMs are well-versed in kiting.


____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Results, Thoughts, and Improvements

I think that the fights were pretty good considering a lot of members had never done it before, and it had been a long time since the ones that did had done it.  I think the biggest reason for my concern is that we had Gjallarhorn on this fight and honestly don't think we would have won all three without it.  Wins are wins but there are still a lot of things to improve.  There are a couple key points I would like to change or scout out before the next set of runs.

  

Tanking Styles - I would probably opt to try out PLD/NIN or RDM/NIN next time.  RDM would be nice for cheesy dispels (which are good for hate as well as dispel).  It is also very stout as far as magic defense.  Hate margin was a slight issue on all 3 fights as eventually, someone got hate (usually a RDM spamming dispel first).  A higher hate margin is the key to doing things faster for us currently.  Solo tanking was a good thing for us though.

Damage Setup - BLM is definately the way to go for damage; I don't think many are going to argue with that.  However, the resist rates can be pretty bad.  The COR did help for Warlock's Roll and is worth using.  In future it may be advantageous to use 2 CORs (1 for each party).

Getting Close to Bahamut - Some members such as SMN and BRD have to actually get within the 20' range of Bahamut and sometimes get pounded.  The tank PT BRD has /NIN subbed which helped tremendously, however, the SMN was definately a MP sink.  I do not know how Ecliptic Growl alone is enough to justify a position in the tanking setup.  For these runs, that was the only job that made sense for that member, so there wasn't a lot of flexibily regarding that position.

Terrain Abuse? - The positioning was very difficult to maintain throughout the entire fight.  If possible, I think it would be best to use some type of terrain block to make things easier if there is one availible.  At this time I don't know of one though.


Any advice would be appreciated, especially from those groups that have done those 20 minute fights!


____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pic of the Day



Right after the first win (very close call...).  Cali's quick with math!  (Just Teasing!)


Drama Thread of the Day

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14739

Read it!




____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________