Overview

- Show that Apollyon is farmable by a coordinated group of 6 members

- Farm all chips leading up to Apollyon with 6 or less members
- Beat Central Apollyon (Omega) with 6 members
- All runs should be beaten with relatively good time cushion (3-5 minutes)
- Should not involve the use of Aegis or Gjallarhorn Relic Weapons

Part I can be found here: http://kanican.livejournal.com/2946.html
Part II can be found here: http://kanican.livejournal.com/4431.html

At first, we really only intended to attempt the 6 man Limbus on the Temenos side; however, I guess it made sense to try Apollyon as well.  The same goals were applied - prove everything is winnable with good cushion by 6 members (using no relics).  Yesterday, we made our first attempt at Omega and were in for a pretty rude awakening.  Fortunately, the issues that Omega presented were not nearly as challenging as they were for Ultima, so we think next attempt will go much smoother.

I chose not to bother going over the 4 main zones since they are pretty easy with 6 or less and already well documented. 

Upon Wipe:  Omega HP 19%
Time Remaining:  12 minutes


Party Setups and Supplies

We went in with the following job set and spare supplies...

Overall, this setup provides a heavy HP boost, a very decent amount of physical damage reduction, and a lot of evasion when using Blinding Potions.  The -8% magic damage reduction was used to help take certain TP moves better.  In addition, he was able to hit 16% haste in this gear, which hits the 50% haste cap on spells when Haste spell and double Marches are used.  Although he had the stoneskin torque on at all times, he never used it until the CB portion of the fight - it was just kept on for simplicity's sake.

A second setup was used that was purely physical damage reduction: Terra's Staff, Arhat's Gi +1, Arhat's Jinpachi +1, and Jelly Ring.  This switch off gave a total of 40% physical damage reduction - the only thing that was missing was a Defending Ring, which isn't exactly a viable gear choice option for 99.9% of players.  This setup was quickly switched into during Petrification or Terror periods.

    


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Solo-Tanking Proto-Ultima

I can definately say that this mob can be solo tanked with relative safety; however, the tank has to not only had to worry about staying alive, but also maintaining a very high hate margin for the BLMs throughout the entire duration of the fight.  In a low-man fight such as this one, getting hit won't necessarily cripple you; however, the tanking has to be near perfect as there isn't much leeway in terms of healing and support.  Here are some keys to consider:

1)  All the major debuffs - Blind, Slow, Paralyze, and Elegy land easily.  
This automatically makes this fight possible to solo tank.  Even though Ultima hits like a truck, he attacks so slowly with all these debuffs on it is possible to just blink away all the attacks.  Elegy is probably the biggest one of these debuffs; when Elegy is not on, Ultima get become a bit troublesome to tank without getting hit.

2)  Ultima is blind as hell.
This guy will miss an awful lot, especially with Mambo and the 30+ evasion the NIN has during this fight.  While you cannot necessarily count on Ultima missing when you need him to, overall, this just makes the fight go by much more smoothly.  This is the main reason we bothered with Blinding Potions and Bat Earrings - because they have a profound effect on Ultima's already sub-par accuracy.

3)  Keep 2 shadows up at all times!
Again, this is the same concept that we apply towards solo tanking Tiamat.  Ultima can and will double attack - if you want to play this perfectly, you have to be prepared for it.  This means converting utsusemi with 2 shadows left always.  With it's low accuracy, this isn't as hard as it sounds.  In addition, Equalizer is blocked by 2 shadows - you want to block this at all costs as it is a partial hate reset.  Keeping up 2 shadows will prevent any Equalizer problems.

4)  Stun lasts forever on him.
I don't think I've ever seen an HNM that had such pitiful stun resistance.  Even Senrez's NIN/DRK stun was lasting over 3-4 seconds usually - that's not an exaggeration.  Knowing this, this setup provides constant stuns every 25 seconds from the tank as well as 2 backup stuns which can essentially stun lock Ultima for a good 5-6 seconds reliably.  This really helps prevent any minor mistakes from blossoming into crippling ones.

5)  Use the Hate Rotation I outlined previously!
The first 4 keys all pertain to just staying alive, but remember the tank also needs to be able to hold off 2 BLMs spamming spells nonstop for the duration of the fight.  At maxed 50% Haste and 5 MP/tick refresh, the setup allows for a maximized hate spell rotation of Stun, Blind, Sleep, and Kurayami:Ni.  BLMs can essentially spam at will when this is done correctly.  Help on Hate Rotation can be found in http://kanican.livejournal.com/1929.html (Ouryu fight basics).

My final advice for anyone trying to repeat this is keep good communication between all members and their tank.  If Senrez ever runs low on shadows to the point where he knows he can't keep 2 up, he just simply asks for a stun.  Solo tanking this without any Stun support is incredibly difficult and would require some good luck - ask for stuns even if there is a chance of a mess up occurring.

   


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Damage Dealing Using Black Mage and Mob TP Control

The damage dealing choice was easy to select - BLM is the clear winner for this (big surprise).  There are plenty of reasons for this but here is an overview of the reasoning behind it.

1)  Black Mage has the highest damage delt per TP given ratio by far - it's safe DD.
2)  Black Mage damage dealing jobs can support with cures, -na spells, and most importantly, Stun.
3)  Damage is based on MP, not TP, hence damage can be coordinated to be delt in spurts.
4)  Spells are cast at range.  There are much fewer safety issues to consider since AoEs will not hit them.

Melee just are not viable with this type of tanking setup because Ultima's TP moves are just insanely strong.  Luckily, Ultima does not have any sort of TP regen.  So if there is a bad string of TP moves, the BLM can simply stop casting temporarily and TP moves will cease.  The plus side to this is you can do damage quickly when things are going well and slow down when things get shaky.  I think the fact that this works so well (and on so many different things) really shows how unbalanced endgame damage dealing jobs are between mage and melee.  The mob TP system in the game is broken - and that is the only reason this works.

Ultima has pretty decent resists rates - I would say it's extremely similar if not exactly the same as Tiamat or the other 3 Wyrms.  So there is 50% magic damage reduction and it's best to nuke in full Elemental Skill gear for best results.  Most of our nukes hovered around the 400-450 range (IV spell) but resist rates were pretty low because of the full Elemental Skill gear.  I would place Proto-Ultima's HP at around 45,000 - 50,000 HP based on the fact that a good IV nuke would take off 1% usually but not always.  This turns out to be something like 23,000 damage delt per BLM over the span of 60 minutes, or roughly 400 damage per minute to barely win.

Well that was what is required to win barely, but the damage per minute is really much higher due to the high hate margin the NIN/DRK is able to provide along with maxed ballad and refresh support for both BLMs.  We really tried to rush through the first 80% of the fight as quickly as possible to give us as much room for error on the CB phase as possible.  Again, I cannot stress enough that the pace and speed of the fight is directly related to how good the NIN/DRK is and how smoothly the fight is going in general.

In addition to damage delt by the 2 Black Mages, all DoTs land easily on him - Poison II, Bio II, and 3 elemental debuffs.  We kept all 5 of these on at all times, which comes out to something absurd like 30HP/tick or 600 HP/minute.  We believe Ultima has no natural HP regen so all these damage isn't countering regen, but is lowering HP.  In 60 minutes, this would do something like 36,000 damage, so DoTs play a significant roll in the fight.

   


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TP Moves and Special Abilities to Watch For

Anyone who's done a Proto-Ultima fight knows how insane some of the TP moves are.  Using this setup, we were able to limit them for the most part so they were managable; however, special precautions still needed to be made for a couple of them.  Here are the ones we watched for particularly.  They appear at different frequencies and HP ranges - for more information about which are used when, try looking at the FFXI Wiki for Temenos.

Dissapation - AoE Full Dispel all Buffs except Food + Terrorize
This one isn't quite as bad as it looks, although this is especially annoying for BRDs since they get hit sometimes and have to rebuff songs.  RDM has to rebuff haste, refresh, protect, and shell after every one of these.  Then there is the terrorize effect.  Typically we'll just have the BLMs stun in succession and the terror will wear after Senrez only ate 1-2 hits (in physical damage reduction gear).  This move sounds horrible, but it's not when you're prepared.

Equalizer - 800+ Damage Conal + Partial Hate Reset
This one presents a bit of a problem as a partial hate reset would cause the BLMs to take hate immediately and possibly take a death, slowing down progress considerably.  Luckily, as mentioned previously, you can counter this with 2 shadows so as long as the NIN keeps 2 up at all times, this one isn't all that bad.

Antimatter - 1000-1500 Damage Single Target Light Attack
The damage on this move goes right though blinks but does not wipe them.  This move is really the reason Senrez is using Merman's Rings at all times - the damage range on this move is so large because of the constant weather effects.  This move by itself isn't too bad as it is survivable with large HP, but if Ultima follows this quickly with other moves like its Holy II, there could be an issue and possible tank death (wipe).  Stun after this move is a good idea to prevent something like Antimatter > Double Attack > Holy II, which would instantly kill the tank.

Smoke Discharger - 600 Damage Conal + Petrification
This move is only bad because our setup lacks a WHM for stona.  Essentially switch into full Physical Damage reduction gear and stun after this one gets off.  That's about the best you can really do using this setup.  The move doesn't wipe shadows so it has some decent leeway with it.

Holy II - 600-800 Damage Light Magic
This one is dangerous for 2 reasons - 1) he can cast this randomly throughout the fight and it automatically wipes a shadow and 2) it will use this once after every TP attack after 60% HP on a random target in range - typically the tank again or a BRD.  The BRDs need decent HP and stoneskin to be ready for this one.  It gets really dangerous after a strong TP move such has Antimatter > Holy II.

   


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Preparing for Citadel Buster

The first task we had to complete was the make sure Senrez could actually survive a full unresisted Citadel Buster.  We chose to use a Full HP max and Magic damage reduced setup as opposed to a light resist setup for better consistancy.  The following gear was switched to when the Citadel Buster counter began using a Windower Macro.

Overview

Time Taken: 1 Hour 12 Minutes
Members: 9 at Start, 14 from 70% to Finish



Previously Related Entry: http://kanican.livejournal.com/2465.html

Since the recent change in strategy to our Wyrm fights, we have been able to pull 5 Tiamats in a row.  This is pretty incredible considering prior to this change, we had a total of 7 Tiamat kills in 2 years.  TK really has not grown over this period or recently, in fact, we've actually lost a couple key members - the switch to a better holding and low-man kill strategy has shown noticable effect on our ability to make a kill effort in a wider range of time frames.

Instead of focusing on the overall strategy as the previous entry did, this one will focus primary on the tanking style we use for this.  I will outline this based on a Tiamat fight we did recently that involved only 1 NIN/DRK tank solo tanking Tiamat from start to finish (without dying).

Why NIN/DRK?

A big mistake regarding tanking styles such as PLD/NIN and NIN/DRK (as well as other less used setups) is that many LSs who have the ability to use both do not realize each has strengths and weaknesses - the same style does not work perfectly in every situation or every HNM.  However, in the case of Tiamat using this method of DD, NIN/DRK easily becomes the strongest candidate for tanking for the following reasons

1)  Tiamat stays in the air for 2 minutes (very long time), allowing the tank(s) to focus purely on spamming hate
2)  On the ground, Tiamat attacks very slowly with Elegy and Slow II (both easy to land with decent equip)
3)  Under this DD method, TP abilities are non-existant when on ground, eliminating possible surprises
4)  Tiamat is stunnable - add the fact the DD are BLMs means a ton of back up stuns in case of errors
5)  Tiamat is also reasonably blind - with Mambo, quite a attacks are dodged on a NIN tank

The key is that Tiamat hits very hard, but there are many ways to easily avoid taking hits.  This factor makes a NIN tanking style advantageous to a PLD/NIN style as it adds in evasion and additional shadows.  The fact that no or little damage is taken also eliminates the use of Cure 4, one of the biggest hate moves for PLD.

Fundemental Difference in Blink Tanking

The tanking party was extremely similar to how we usually do this except the second NIN slot was just another BLM, so basically he receieved the same support he normally would with 2 tanks except he's alone this time.  We did have 1 near death due to some issues handling adds, but other than that, he was rarely hit.  From this point on I may refer to our NIN/DRK this fight by name (Senrez) just so there's no confusion.

   

The first keys to success when solo tanking is to realize TIamat can and will double attack.  Most NIN tanks will tend to change from Ichi <> Ni or vice versa with 1 shadow remaining.  While this is a very good idea for most things, but it does not account for the possibility of Tiamat using a double attack (both landing) during the conversion from Ni to Ichi.  In order to cover for this, the tank must convert Utsusemi with 2 shadows up at all times, preventing the possiblity of double attack interrupting cast.

This is more difficult than it sounds, especially when you're solo tanking.  By requiring that you keep 2 shadows at all times, you basically waste 2 extra shadows from the typical style.  In order to combat this and keep up, the mob needs to either miss a lot, attack slowly, or both.  Using stun to help keep up with this is also key.  Throughout the fight, Senrez would ask for stuns anytime he knew there was even a chance he would not keep up, knowing we had plenty at our disposal.  

Securing Hate

Stun >> Bind >> Sleep I >> Kurayami: Ni

Those 4 spells over and over and over again.  

Stun is great but it doesn't make a NIN/DRK tank work.  The key difference in a NIN/DRK compared to something like a PLD/NIN is that it never stops spamming something.  While Kurayami: Ni may not be the greatest hate tool, it is just as important to use to maximize hate.  Instead of focusing on the amount of hate of certain actions, you should focus on the quantity of actions per unit time.  This is the real reason the BLMs are able to do upwards of 40,000-50,000 damage in a fight without logging off and never take hate.

   

Difficulty and Practice

While I am not a NIN and have never actually done this before, I can imagine this being reasonably difficult to play perfectly compared to other things in this game.  Spamming spells non-stop while still adjusting and counting shadows can be difficult.

Overall, I think this idea of solo tanking a high-end HNM like Tiamat is probably not a good idea unless you're trying to prove a point.  It's a tremendous amount of pressure placed on 1 person and in conjuntion with a BLM DD spam strategy, he not only has to stay alive, but maintain extremely high levels of hate with no tanking partner.  It definately can be done with an experienced tank, however, as shown here.

A rival LS member recently called this strategy of BLM DD in conjuction with NIN/DRK tanking "RMTing it up" and a "No Skill" strategy while watching the fight (along with seemingly a sea of players from his LS).  While I'm sure his purpose was to heckle us during the fight and not really to debate game mechanics, he still couldn't be further from the truth in my opinion.  The 2 major differences between this and the typical RMT BLM spam are that...

1)  The tank is maintaining hate throughout - the BLMs are nuking knowing they are safe
2)  The BLMs are nuking at certain controlled periods during the fight to control the TP gain of the HNM

There are a lot of subtle things within this idea that are key to making it work.  I would consider the general difficulty in pulling this off to be pretty high due to the immense amount of pressure placed on the tank as well the amount of coordination involved with all facets of support and DD.  The plain and simple fact is that BLMs are the ideal DD for the vast majority of mobs in this game due to high damage per TP gain (even on a resist) and the ability to do damage in spurts (allows control of mob TP).  Until the mob TP portion of the game is fixed, this will never change.

I do not wish to start drama on this site (that is what Ashira's awesome blog is for!) as it doesn't accomplish any goals regarding strategy and progress in knowledge of how the game works.  However, I would ask that the person making these comments (and his LS) actually try to reproduce the ideas that TK uses before bad-mouthing them.  If I recall correctly, this LS hasn't even killed Tiamat before using any method?  I think he would realize the difficulty and subtlies of our methods and appreciate the amount of planning and teamwork it requires, even if he used double the numbers we use.



Pic of the Day



This one actually happened at our 5th Tiamat fight very recently...  Some reasonably good drama (B-) involving crowding and a whole lot of trash talk.  This GM is actually Japanese but is bilingual I think.

Drama Thread of the Day
http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14264

I'm posting this one while it's still fresh.  I don't know if it'll go anywhere but it has potential haha





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