Overview
Disclaimer before I begin...
Unlike my other recent SCH posts, I chose not to include this particular post within the "Scholar Guide" series because I realize that not every player uses a PC and/or chooses to use the unofficial Windower and its plugins. I do not make any attempt at a "morality" argument in this post, but simply state that Spellcast and Windower are beneficial to those who choose to use it. If you condemn the use of Windower and Spellcast, I respect your opinion and your right to voice said opinion.
In this post, I want to go over some tricks I developed over the course of my 3 months using the Spellcast Windower Plugin on Scholar. This is one of the most difficult to learn, yet most game-changing plugins in the Windower arsenal and if you agree with the use of 3rd party aids, I highly recommend any Scholar serious about playstyle to learn and use it. I'll begin this post by stating an opinion:
It is physically impossible for a human being to reach near maximum potential on Scholar without the aid of a plugin like Spellcast. The Scholar job involves 10+ useful, spammable job abilities that must be called upon quickly and in a myriad of situational cases. Even with extended macro books, there are not enough macro slots in FFXI to be called upon quickly enough to cover all situations. Spellcast allows you to deal with the vast majority of these situational cases on 1 macro palatte, and can drastically improve your play speed and timing.
Sample Code is in Purple Italics.
Enjoy!
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( Smart Standing Macro )
( Tabula Rasa Stratagem Spam )
( Addendum Based Spell Correction )
( Stratagem Based Gearing Options )
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________________________________________
Conclusion
More than any other job in FFXI, Scholar gains the most from using a plugin like Spellcast. The job simply has so many abilities, spells, and spell-ability combinations that it would be impossible to macro all this to maximum efficiency without a 3rd party aid. In the 3 months I had the pleasure of using this plugin on Scholar, I drastically changed both my playstyle and even inventory since I was now able to use situational gear I was unable to work in prior due to macro limitations.
I also want to use a small part of this post to give credit to Aikar, the creator of the Spellcast plugin, which he calls his "baby". The customization of the plugin itself gives any job incredible flexibilty and I would encourage anyone willing to use Windower plugins to pursue it on jobs outside of Scholar. For those new to programming, I suggest learning Spellcast using Aikar's BLM template - this was the template I built my Spellcast code around while learning it myself. For those truly interested in maxing out with Spellcast, I also encourage you to check out other aspects of it such as stacking Fast Cast gear in "Precast" mode. There are already many good sources and code for general functions like this so I won't talk about it here.
In this post, I chose to only go over specific examples of how to use Spellcast to improve various aspects of Scholar play as opposed to just posting my entire Spellcast code (which honestly is a complete mess and would make a programmer's eyes bleed). I feel that understanding each individual part of code is more important and ultimately more beneficial to anyone trying to learn Spellcast on Scholar.
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Life Outside Odin
Instead of the typical "Pic of the Day" and "Drama Thread of the Day", I want to spend this section talking about life outside Odin for me the past 2 months...
( Life Outside Odin )
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________________________________________
Disclaimer before I begin...
Unlike my other recent SCH posts, I chose not to include this particular post within the "Scholar Guide" series because I realize that not every player uses a PC and/or chooses to use the unofficial Windower and its plugins. I do not make any attempt at a "morality" argument in this post, but simply state that Spellcast and Windower are beneficial to those who choose to use it. If you condemn the use of Windower and Spellcast, I respect your opinion and your right to voice said opinion.
In this post, I want to go over some tricks I developed over the course of my 3 months using the Spellcast Windower Plugin on Scholar. This is one of the most difficult to learn, yet most game-changing plugins in the Windower arsenal and if you agree with the use of 3rd party aids, I highly recommend any Scholar serious about playstyle to learn and use it. I'll begin this post by stating an opinion:
It is physically impossible for a human being to reach near maximum potential on Scholar without the aid of a plugin like Spellcast. The Scholar job involves 10+ useful, spammable job abilities that must be called upon quickly and in a myriad of situational cases. Even with extended macro books, there are not enough macro slots in FFXI to be called upon quickly enough to cover all situations. Spellcast allows you to deal with the vast majority of these situational cases on 1 macro palatte, and can drastically improve your play speed and timing.
Sample Code is in Purple Italics.
Enjoy!
________________________________________
________________________________________
( Smart Standing Macro )
( Tabula Rasa Stratagem Spam )
( Addendum Based Spell Correction )
( Stratagem Based Gearing Options )
________________________________________
________________________________________
Conclusion
More than any other job in FFXI, Scholar gains the most from using a plugin like Spellcast. The job simply has so many abilities, spells, and spell-ability combinations that it would be impossible to macro all this to maximum efficiency without a 3rd party aid. In the 3 months I had the pleasure of using this plugin on Scholar, I drastically changed both my playstyle and even inventory since I was now able to use situational gear I was unable to work in prior due to macro limitations.
I also want to use a small part of this post to give credit to Aikar, the creator of the Spellcast plugin, which he calls his "baby". The customization of the plugin itself gives any job incredible flexibilty and I would encourage anyone willing to use Windower plugins to pursue it on jobs outside of Scholar. For those new to programming, I suggest learning Spellcast using Aikar's BLM template - this was the template I built my Spellcast code around while learning it myself. For those truly interested in maxing out with Spellcast, I also encourage you to check out other aspects of it such as stacking Fast Cast gear in "Precast" mode. There are already many good sources and code for general functions like this so I won't talk about it here.
In this post, I chose to only go over specific examples of how to use Spellcast to improve various aspects of Scholar play as opposed to just posting my entire Spellcast code (which honestly is a complete mess and would make a programmer's eyes bleed). I feel that understanding each individual part of code is more important and ultimately more beneficial to anyone trying to learn Spellcast on Scholar.
________________________________________
________________________________________
Life Outside Odin
Instead of the typical "Pic of the Day" and "Drama Thread of the Day", I want to spend this section talking about life outside Odin for me the past 2 months...
( Life Outside Odin )
________________________________________
________________________________________
EDIT: In this post, I talk about the idea that 1 Elemental Skill possibly equals either 1 MACC at all skill levels, or 0.9 MACC above 200 skill (similar to melee skills). At the time of this post, there was no conclusive evidence to reject either, hence my post mentions either could be true. In a post by Robonsto, weeks after this post was originally opened, he was able to show with reasonable statistical significance that 1 Elemental Skill DOES equal 1 MACC at all levels, UNLIKE melee skills. I repeat, unlike melee skills, 1 Elemental Skill equals 1 MACC at all skill levels.
Overview
In the previous sections, I've gone over some basic macroing strategies, an introduction into SCH solo in Dark Arts, and a look at SCH in Light Arts focusing on the -50 enmity set. In this post, I hope to go over specifically how Scholar fairs relative to BLM concerning magical resistance rates in elemental magic. As you should know by now, Scholar is given strong, but not ideal skill ratings of B+ in essentially all categories of magic. This post will tell you how to maximize your magical accuracy specifically for elemental magic in addition to how the lower base skill of SCH compares to the "ideal" elemental magic DD, BLM.
Before beginning, I feel like any job that relies on magic should read this post as it takes a look at properly maximizing your magical accuracy using new data which is not anecdotal, but statistically based. Some of the concepts here were quite new to me as of a month ago, and I suspect a good portion of the community has not caught on to these new set of tests. Special thanks to both the person originally conducting the test, who I will refer to as Lodeguy in this post, and the translator, Robonosto. Much of this data collection and analysis is still ongoing, so please keep this in mind when reading.
Finally, near the end of this post, I will be discussing the state of Scholar in terms of balance relative to the Black Mage job. By the end of this analysis on resistance rates, it should become clear that a Dark Arts SCH is not only more MP efficient, self-reliant, and versatile than BLM, but also nearly equal in terms of resistance rates on most resistant type mobs. As a player that basically specializes in both these jobs, I will try to make my case as to why and how much SCH is imbalanced relative to BLM.
I know many of you have been looking forward to another SCH post, so I hope this doesn't disappoint.
Scholar Guide (Part I)
Scholar Guide (Part II)
Scholar Guilde (Part III)
Scholar Guide (Part V)
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________________________________________
( Magical Resistance Testing )
( The '320/120' Build )
( The 'Super INT' Build )
( My Elemental Resist Set )
( Cheap Elemental Resist Set )
( Black Mage VS Scholar )
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________________________________________
Conclusions
This post contains links and summaries of some amazingly well conducted magic accuracy tests. I highly suggest that anyone interested in maxing out their mage jobs to read at least the summaries and to build their magic sets around it. While the focus of this post is elemental magic, you can easily apply the information to other sets such as Enfeebling and Dark Magic.
In this post, I made the case that Scholar is the ideal magical DD in FFXI endgame given ideal gear for both Black Mage and Scholar jobs due to a much higher inherent MP efficiency. The only thing that can potentially hold Scholar back is the elemental magic resistance rate - an issue which is becoming increasingly less noticeable as equipment and job updates increase. Given this, a Scholar with the proper resistance and nuking sets truly is the strongest magical DD in the game - a situation which should be alarming in terms of game balance considering it's a hybrid job, but very cool if you are a Scholar.
While some of the equipment needed to compete with the Black Mage job on resistant NMs is currently hard to obtain - ranging from difficult (e.g. Argute's Belt) to essentially impossible (e.g. Aureole), remember that any equipment update can only benefit Scholar and not Black Mage since it is already capped in terms of resistances. I encourage any Scholar serious about the job to take a careful look at the best options for elemental resistance sets and strive to attain them. A Scholar's lack of equipment would be the only thing holding it back from being the strongest magical DD. While resistance gear is much easier to attain for BLM, given ideal gear, a SCH is better. At this point, Scholar is truly a compete job as it has received its AF2, AF1+1, and both Merit categories. While obviously meant to be a sort of hybrid job, to me it is clearly no longer the case when given ideal gear and builds.
While I have been extremely hard on the current state of the Black Mage job, I will point out that I do still use Black Mage over Scholar for most mid-level to difficult soloing - this post only really shows that it is inferior to Scholar in group play and HNMs. Why? The issue deals with "fatigue" and the Scholar charge recast - an important limitation that prevents the job from being completely outright broken.
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( My Top 10 )
Drama Thread of the Day
Really? Seriously?
________________________________________
________________________________________
Overview
In the previous sections, I've gone over some basic macroing strategies, an introduction into SCH solo in Dark Arts, and a look at SCH in Light Arts focusing on the -50 enmity set. In this post, I hope to go over specifically how Scholar fairs relative to BLM concerning magical resistance rates in elemental magic. As you should know by now, Scholar is given strong, but not ideal skill ratings of B+ in essentially all categories of magic. This post will tell you how to maximize your magical accuracy specifically for elemental magic in addition to how the lower base skill of SCH compares to the "ideal" elemental magic DD, BLM.
Before beginning, I feel like any job that relies on magic should read this post as it takes a look at properly maximizing your magical accuracy using new data which is not anecdotal, but statistically based. Some of the concepts here were quite new to me as of a month ago, and I suspect a good portion of the community has not caught on to these new set of tests. Special thanks to both the person originally conducting the test, who I will refer to as Lodeguy in this post, and the translator, Robonosto. Much of this data collection and analysis is still ongoing, so please keep this in mind when reading.
Finally, near the end of this post, I will be discussing the state of Scholar in terms of balance relative to the Black Mage job. By the end of this analysis on resistance rates, it should become clear that a Dark Arts SCH is not only more MP efficient, self-reliant, and versatile than BLM, but also nearly equal in terms of resistance rates on most resistant type mobs. As a player that basically specializes in both these jobs, I will try to make my case as to why and how much SCH is imbalanced relative to BLM.
I know many of you have been looking forward to another SCH post, so I hope this doesn't disappoint.
Scholar Guide (Part I)
Scholar Guide (Part II)
Scholar Guilde (Part III)
Scholar Guide (Part V)
________________________________________
________________________________________
( Magical Resistance Testing )
( The '320/120' Build )
( The 'Super INT' Build )
( My Elemental Resist Set )
( Cheap Elemental Resist Set )
( Black Mage VS Scholar )
________________________________________
________________________________________
Conclusions
This post contains links and summaries of some amazingly well conducted magic accuracy tests. I highly suggest that anyone interested in maxing out their mage jobs to read at least the summaries and to build their magic sets around it. While the focus of this post is elemental magic, you can easily apply the information to other sets such as Enfeebling and Dark Magic.
In this post, I made the case that Scholar is the ideal magical DD in FFXI endgame given ideal gear for both Black Mage and Scholar jobs due to a much higher inherent MP efficiency. The only thing that can potentially hold Scholar back is the elemental magic resistance rate - an issue which is becoming increasingly less noticeable as equipment and job updates increase. Given this, a Scholar with the proper resistance and nuking sets truly is the strongest magical DD in the game - a situation which should be alarming in terms of game balance considering it's a hybrid job, but very cool if you are a Scholar.
While some of the equipment needed to compete with the Black Mage job on resistant NMs is currently hard to obtain - ranging from difficult (e.g. Argute's Belt) to essentially impossible (e.g. Aureole), remember that any equipment update can only benefit Scholar and not Black Mage since it is already capped in terms of resistances. I encourage any Scholar serious about the job to take a careful look at the best options for elemental resistance sets and strive to attain them. A Scholar's lack of equipment would be the only thing holding it back from being the strongest magical DD. While resistance gear is much easier to attain for BLM, given ideal gear, a SCH is better. At this point, Scholar is truly a compete job as it has received its AF2, AF1+1, and both Merit categories. While obviously meant to be a sort of hybrid job, to me it is clearly no longer the case when given ideal gear and builds.
While I have been extremely hard on the current state of the Black Mage job, I will point out that I do still use Black Mage over Scholar for most mid-level to difficult soloing - this post only really shows that it is inferior to Scholar in group play and HNMs. Why? The issue deals with "fatigue" and the Scholar charge recast - an important limitation that prevents the job from being completely outright broken.
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十大ニュース
Instead of a typical set of pics, I decided to post my own personal 十大ニュース, which basically an activity started by ElmerThePointy where you list out the top 10 things or events for you in the past calender year in FFXI.( My Top 10 )
Drama Thread of the Day
Really? Seriously?
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Overview
In the previous post on this solo, I went over more of the idea and and general preparation of this solo. In this post, I hope to basically document exactly what happened once inside Salvage, focusing on the final run that resulted in the win. I write this post with the assumption that you already know the general idea about kiting LBC and the deaggro process.
The first part of the post will briefly go over scaling the first 4 floors of Bhaflau Remnants and getting the necessary cells. This part requires a certain degree of luck as well as trade-offs when it comes to which cells are worth spending more time before engaging the boss. I will point out that I was fairly lucky on the run I actually won on.
In the second part of the post, I'll go over the finer details on establishing a strong gear set for nuking LBC. I actually use a slight mixture between my normal nuking set and my elemental skill set. In addition, I'll go over the gear and inventory based preparations for this run, which involved a large number of medicines. Finally in this section, I'll highlight what I felt was the final key to winning this zone, which essentially involves fully blink casting.
Lastly, I want to just sort of compare the differences between the 2 jobs I considered for this solo - BLM/SCH and SCH/RDM. You can tell from the screenshots that I attempted this solo with both, but completed it on BLM/SCH. I personally wanted to really complete this solo using SCH/RDM, but it proved to be infeasible at the time. I'll go over why, but I don't intend to get into a fully blown discussion between the BLM and SCH jobs in a more general sense - just for this particular solo.
Bhaflau Remnants Won Solo (Part I)
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________________________________________
( First Floors )
( LBC Nuking Setup )
( Inventory and Medicines )
( Blink Casting on DoTs )
( Scholar Versus Black Mage )
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________________________________________
Conclusions
Unfortunately, due to my lack of posting, I have really too many topics to finish to go into more depth on this solo. If anyone has any particular questions on the solo that I failed to cover or explain well enough, I'll gladly answer them. Still, I think these 2 posts give a relatively good picture of what it's all about.
Overall, if I had to summarize the biggest keys to going about this solo, it comes down to 3 things:
1) Managing MP with Parsimony, Strong Gear Refresh, Sublimation, and Medicines
2) Strong Kiting Skills
3) Blink Casting on Poison and Bio II
The first of these 3 is really about preparation of inventory and gear setups. The other 2 really come down to experience and practice. One of the biggest benefits for me personally doing this solo was just how much better a soloer i've become since. My only real regret was not being able to do this on SCH, though I'm sure I will eventually find a SCH unique solo.
Happy holidays to everyone reading and I promise a couple more posts before my break ends. So check back for more updates in the next 1-2 weeks.
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Pic of the Day
( Pics of the Day )
Drama Thread of the Day
The "Should Tanks Blink" Thread
For some reason, when you bring up this topic anywhere, a virtual fist-fight starts.
Dark Ixion Drama
I recommend this one if you have a lot of free time. Involves BlueGartr as well.
Mythic Weapons
Reaction to finding out the " / " on the Mythic Weapon Aftermath description is really an "or" not an "and".
Salvage Dupes
If you don't know about this already you're living under the FFXI rock.
________________________________________
In the previous post on this solo, I went over more of the idea and and general preparation of this solo. In this post, I hope to basically document exactly what happened once inside Salvage, focusing on the final run that resulted in the win. I write this post with the assumption that you already know the general idea about kiting LBC and the deaggro process.
The first part of the post will briefly go over scaling the first 4 floors of Bhaflau Remnants and getting the necessary cells. This part requires a certain degree of luck as well as trade-offs when it comes to which cells are worth spending more time before engaging the boss. I will point out that I was fairly lucky on the run I actually won on.
In the second part of the post, I'll go over the finer details on establishing a strong gear set for nuking LBC. I actually use a slight mixture between my normal nuking set and my elemental skill set. In addition, I'll go over the gear and inventory based preparations for this run, which involved a large number of medicines. Finally in this section, I'll highlight what I felt was the final key to winning this zone, which essentially involves fully blink casting.
Lastly, I want to just sort of compare the differences between the 2 jobs I considered for this solo - BLM/SCH and SCH/RDM. You can tell from the screenshots that I attempted this solo with both, but completed it on BLM/SCH. I personally wanted to really complete this solo using SCH/RDM, but it proved to be infeasible at the time. I'll go over why, but I don't intend to get into a fully blown discussion between the BLM and SCH jobs in a more general sense - just for this particular solo.
Bhaflau Remnants Won Solo (Part I)
________________________________________
________________________________________
( First Floors )
( LBC Nuking Setup )
( Inventory and Medicines )
( Blink Casting on DoTs )
( Scholar Versus Black Mage )
________________________________________
________________________________________
Conclusions
Unfortunately, due to my lack of posting, I have really too many topics to finish to go into more depth on this solo. If anyone has any particular questions on the solo that I failed to cover or explain well enough, I'll gladly answer them. Still, I think these 2 posts give a relatively good picture of what it's all about.
Overall, if I had to summarize the biggest keys to going about this solo, it comes down to 3 things:
1) Managing MP with Parsimony, Strong Gear Refresh, Sublimation, and Medicines
2) Strong Kiting Skills
3) Blink Casting on Poison and Bio II
The first of these 3 is really about preparation of inventory and gear setups. The other 2 really come down to experience and practice. One of the biggest benefits for me personally doing this solo was just how much better a soloer i've become since. My only real regret was not being able to do this on SCH, though I'm sure I will eventually find a SCH unique solo.
Happy holidays to everyone reading and I promise a couple more posts before my break ends. So check back for more updates in the next 1-2 weeks.
________________________________________
________________________________________
Pic of the Day
( Pics of the Day )
Drama Thread of the Day
The "Should Tanks Blink" Thread
For some reason, when you bring up this topic anywhere, a virtual fist-fight starts.
Dark Ixion Drama
I recommend this one if you have a lot of free time. Involves BlueGartr as well.
Mythic Weapons
Reaction to finding out the " / " on the Mythic Weapon Aftermath description is really an "or" not an "and".
Salvage Dupes
If you don't know about this already you're living under the FFXI rock.
________________________________________
________________________________________
( Lack of New Updates? )
Overview
Ever since completing a successful solo of Apollyon NE on BLM/RDM around November of 2007, I've been constantly searching for an even more difficult, unique solo to challenge myself with. I think this obsession with unique, "first to accomplish" solos started back 2 years ago with Apollyon NW, and it's really given me another fun thing to focus on in game as well as greatly improved my ability to solo. The only problem is you run out of things to solo that are actually possible...
Around April of 2008, I perhaps accidentally stumbled across this next challenge while doing a low man Arrapago Remnants run with 3 people. After a terrible run of cell (non)drops, we reached the 5F Archaic Chariot with basically not enough cells and time to kill it in conventional fashion. After some really badly timed deaths, I found myself holding the Archaic Chariot, and eventually killing it alone while the others in the party were dead without Reraise.
5 months later, after a great deal of planning, and 6 actual attempts, I was finally able to complete a success solo of Bhaflau Remnants - this means killing Long-Bowed Chariot (the title-giver) and exiting through the portal. For those familiar with Salvage, I think the difficulty of this is pretty apparent (it definitely was to me when I thought of the idea) as I didn't even know how to survive 2 minutes solo against Long-Bowed Chariot when this started.
This is easily the most difficult thing I've ever done solo. It took literally 4-5 months of planning, numerous attempts, a ton of medicines, and requires essentially 'perfect' play for at least an hour (you'll see later why). My hope is to just chronicle where this idea came from, the large amount of planning involved before ever making a single attempt, and of course, the specifics of the solo itself. More so than any other topic, I hope to write this as a series of events, revelations, and bright ideas which turned an "impossible" solo into something feasible, and eventually a reality. It will be split into parts as there is really no way I can write it all in 1 post without LJ capping the size.
This post will focus on the idea of the solo and all the planning involved prior to the first attempt.
Enjoy!
Bhaflau Remnants Won Solo (Part II)
________________________________________
________________________________________
( Where this Idea Came From )
( Long-Bowed Chariot Basics )
( Kiting Long-Bowed Chariot )
( Deaggro and Response to Deaggro )
( Damage and MP Analysis )
( Layering of DoTs )
( Deaggro Frequency and Number of Casts )
( Damage Requirements )
( Spell Cycles and MP Management )
________________________________________
________________________________________
Conclusions
As mentioned earlier, I had to break these into parts due to length issues. In this first part, I just wanted to introduce the concept of this solo as well as my thought process and analysis before ever even physically attempting the solo. The amount of planning that went into this solo was pretty immense compared to some of the other uniques I had dome previously like the Apollyon North solos.
When I first came up with this idea, it was more like a passing thing that I deemed frankly impossible. Even after figuring out a way to survive kiting Long-Bowed Chariot, the massive 50,000 HP coupled with Salvage Pathos and a time limit just made killing the boss in time seem impossible. It was only after seeing how often I could actually deaggro LBC that I began to realize the feasibility of the solo. However, as I hope to go over in the next part, all the math and hypothetical analysis really wasn't nearly enough to get by. It took a huge strategic change to eventually get me over the hump.
(Near miss on 3rd attempt... timed out at 1% HP...)
The true difficulty of this solo really dawned on me once I actually started attempting. The number of tiny errors you're allowed to make, even in the more difficult solos, is still pretty forgiving, especially with downtime, Stoneskin, and even Utsusemi if using Ninja as a main or sub. For this, because you're constantly moving, you're not afforded any chances to recover yourself or give defensive buffs. Couple this with the fact that LBC can and probably will one shot a mage with no buffs just makes it very difficult. Actually in my winning attempt, I only make 2 mistakes, meaning LBC only got 2 melee attacks on me, over the course of about 65 minutes - both resulted in death.
In the next part I'll jump away from the hypothetical analysis and start going over attempts.
Lastly, I just want to thank all those people who've helped me constantly get in Salvage (6 man requirement sucks...). So thanks to Ashira, Payu, Tabite, Myshella, Wyred, Cyphun, Kotraz, Emmaliz, Espera, Yuchi, Aable, Fatkat, Dmons, and the others that offered to help. I also want to thank Spekkio, who helped me a lot in throwing ideas out on doing this solo for the last two months.
Bhaflau Remnants Won Solo (Part II)
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Pic of the Day
Just a small teaser for a future post this time...
( Pic of the Day )
Drama Thread of the Day
This is a semi-old one that pretty funny for me. Back when the whole Enmity Testing business started and got popular around November 2007, it was posted in quite a few places like BG (where I still post the newest and most relevant testing before formally posting it on this blog). One of these was Allakhazam...
Enmity Testing thread turns into a massive derail
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________________________________________
Overview
Ever since completing a successful solo of Apollyon NE on BLM/RDM around November of 2007, I've been constantly searching for an even more difficult, unique solo to challenge myself with. I think this obsession with unique, "first to accomplish" solos started back 2 years ago with Apollyon NW, and it's really given me another fun thing to focus on in game as well as greatly improved my ability to solo. The only problem is you run out of things to solo that are actually possible...
Around April of 2008, I perhaps accidentally stumbled across this next challenge while doing a low man Arrapago Remnants run with 3 people. After a terrible run of cell (non)drops, we reached the 5F Archaic Chariot with basically not enough cells and time to kill it in conventional fashion. After some really badly timed deaths, I found myself holding the Archaic Chariot, and eventually killing it alone while the others in the party were dead without Reraise.
5 months later, after a great deal of planning, and 6 actual attempts, I was finally able to complete a success solo of Bhaflau Remnants - this means killing Long-Bowed Chariot (the title-giver) and exiting through the portal. For those familiar with Salvage, I think the difficulty of this is pretty apparent (it definitely was to me when I thought of the idea) as I didn't even know how to survive 2 minutes solo against Long-Bowed Chariot when this started.
This is easily the most difficult thing I've ever done solo. It took literally 4-5 months of planning, numerous attempts, a ton of medicines, and requires essentially 'perfect' play for at least an hour (you'll see later why). My hope is to just chronicle where this idea came from, the large amount of planning involved before ever making a single attempt, and of course, the specifics of the solo itself. More so than any other topic, I hope to write this as a series of events, revelations, and bright ideas which turned an "impossible" solo into something feasible, and eventually a reality. It will be split into parts as there is really no way I can write it all in 1 post without LJ capping the size.
This post will focus on the idea of the solo and all the planning involved prior to the first attempt.
Enjoy!
Bhaflau Remnants Won Solo (Part II)
________________________________________
________________________________________
( Where this Idea Came From )
( Long-Bowed Chariot Basics )
( Kiting Long-Bowed Chariot )
( Deaggro and Response to Deaggro )
( Damage and MP Analysis )
( Layering of DoTs )
( Deaggro Frequency and Number of Casts )
( Damage Requirements )
( Spell Cycles and MP Management )
________________________________________
________________________________________
Conclusions
As mentioned earlier, I had to break these into parts due to length issues. In this first part, I just wanted to introduce the concept of this solo as well as my thought process and analysis before ever even physically attempting the solo. The amount of planning that went into this solo was pretty immense compared to some of the other uniques I had dome previously like the Apollyon North solos.
When I first came up with this idea, it was more like a passing thing that I deemed frankly impossible. Even after figuring out a way to survive kiting Long-Bowed Chariot, the massive 50,000 HP coupled with Salvage Pathos and a time limit just made killing the boss in time seem impossible. It was only after seeing how often I could actually deaggro LBC that I began to realize the feasibility of the solo. However, as I hope to go over in the next part, all the math and hypothetical analysis really wasn't nearly enough to get by. It took a huge strategic change to eventually get me over the hump.
(Near miss on 3rd attempt... timed out at 1% HP...)
The true difficulty of this solo really dawned on me once I actually started attempting. The number of tiny errors you're allowed to make, even in the more difficult solos, is still pretty forgiving, especially with downtime, Stoneskin, and even Utsusemi if using Ninja as a main or sub. For this, because you're constantly moving, you're not afforded any chances to recover yourself or give defensive buffs. Couple this with the fact that LBC can and probably will one shot a mage with no buffs just makes it very difficult. Actually in my winning attempt, I only make 2 mistakes, meaning LBC only got 2 melee attacks on me, over the course of about 65 minutes - both resulted in death.
In the next part I'll jump away from the hypothetical analysis and start going over attempts.
Lastly, I just want to thank all those people who've helped me constantly get in Salvage (6 man requirement sucks...). So thanks to Ashira, Payu, Tabite, Myshella, Wyred, Cyphun, Kotraz, Emmaliz, Espera, Yuchi, Aable, Fatkat, Dmons, and the others that offered to help. I also want to thank Spekkio, who helped me a lot in throwing ideas out on doing this solo for the last two months.
Bhaflau Remnants Won Solo (Part II)
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Pic of the Day
Just a small teaser for a future post this time...
( Pic of the Day )
Drama Thread of the Day
This is a semi-old one that pretty funny for me. Back when the whole Enmity Testing business started and got popular around November 2007, it was posted in quite a few places like BG (where I still post the newest and most relevant testing before formally posting it on this blog). One of these was Allakhazam...
Enmity Testing thread turns into a massive derail
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Overview
The versatility of Scholar as a mage is rather unique in that it can step in as both heavy backline DD as well as a very good healer. That being said, I feel that the best way to be complete in this guide is to focus on 1 thing at a time. In this post, I hope to focus more on the solo aspects of Scholar rather than its backline healing capabilities or team play aspects.
Unlike the first part of the guide, which focused on heavy macro management, this post will go into more hypothetical comparisons and benefits of Scholar in solo situations. I will be going over strong and weak points of a Scholar in solo situations, comparing it to Black Mage and Red Mage, the 2 jobs it most resembles when using Dark Arts. In addition, I will go over 3 reasonably difficult endgame solos which Scholar performs well in to showcase the advantages talked about.
1) An Ul'Yovra in Al'Taieu
2) ENM Uncapped "Bionic Bug" - Bugboy
3) KSNM30 Uncapped "Contaminated Colosseum" - Evil Oscar
None of these solos are unique to Scholar as other jobs have soloed them as well. They are what I would personally consider medium level difficultly solos. Still being a newer job, I felt that these were good tests for the solo ability of Scholar. No job specific merits were out during the time of these solos. The key focuses in these solos will pertain to...
- Extensive look at the Stratagem choice and management in each solo
- Maximizing the use of Tabula Rasa for attacking situations
- MP management and fight duration management
- General Scholar solo ability and unique tricks
- How the general strategy differs from other jobs in the same solo
Before getting into things, I just want to stress again that solo is only 1 of many aspects of Scholar, which is an incredibly versatile job, certainly compared to Black Mage (the other job I would consider myself well-versed in). This post is also completely from a soloist's perspective. Play would vary on a lot of these strategies when in team play; however, I feel that showing a Scholar's versatility in NM solo play is a good way to introduce the job since NM soloing is generally regarded as one of the most difficult things to do in FFXI.
Warning: Long Post!
Scholar Guide (Part I)
Scholar Guilde (Part III)
Scholar Guide (Part IV)
Scholar Guide (Part V)
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( Scholar Solo in EXP )
( Red Mage and Black Mage Solo Strategies )
( Scholar Solo Tools Overview )
( Tabula Rasa Macros )
( Tabula Rasa Stratagem Timing )
( Aquarius Killed in 60 Seconds )
( Ul'Yovra Overview )
( Scholar vs. Ul'Yovra )
( Bionic Bug Overview )
( Scholar vs. Bugboy )
( Contaminated Colosseum Overview )
( Scholar vs. Evil Oscar )
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Conclusions
In this post, I tried to introduce Scholar in actual play by outlining how it fairs in some (what I consider) medium to higher level difficulty solos. Summarizing what I specifically tried to show...
- Scholar has incredible damage to MP efficiency on both normal nukes and Helices
- Scholar MP efficiency coupled with Sublimation gives it an extremely high max damage possible in 1 sitting
- Tabula Rasa is capable of producing 6 very fast, potent Tier IV nukes in a 1 minute span (gank tool)
I also tried to compare how Scholar potentially fits in with other mage soloers, particularly Black Mage and Red Mage. In this comparison, I tried to show that (not surprisingly), the play-style and utility of Scholar fits in as a Red Mage - Black Mage hybrid - stronger damage and damage per MP ratio than a RDM, but stronger MP efficiency, casting speed, and refresh than a Black Mage.
I'll finish this post on 1 last note. Scholar does indeed play like a hybrid between mages - it does not have the best damage (BLM) or the best MP conservation (RDM); however, just because it does not do either the best, does not mean it is not as potent as either. The collective strengths of Scholar, combined with its versatility, can make it stronger than either job in any number of situations.
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Pic of the Day
Just a couple of pics this time...
( Pics of the Day )
Drama Thread of the Day
Drama Thread Split from a Drama Thread
So many arguments going on at once...
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The versatility of Scholar as a mage is rather unique in that it can step in as both heavy backline DD as well as a very good healer. That being said, I feel that the best way to be complete in this guide is to focus on 1 thing at a time. In this post, I hope to focus more on the solo aspects of Scholar rather than its backline healing capabilities or team play aspects.
Unlike the first part of the guide, which focused on heavy macro management, this post will go into more hypothetical comparisons and benefits of Scholar in solo situations. I will be going over strong and weak points of a Scholar in solo situations, comparing it to Black Mage and Red Mage, the 2 jobs it most resembles when using Dark Arts. In addition, I will go over 3 reasonably difficult endgame solos which Scholar performs well in to showcase the advantages talked about.
1) An Ul'Yovra in Al'Taieu
2) ENM Uncapped "Bionic Bug" - Bugboy
3) KSNM30 Uncapped "Contaminated Colosseum" - Evil Oscar
None of these solos are unique to Scholar as other jobs have soloed them as well. They are what I would personally consider medium level difficultly solos. Still being a newer job, I felt that these were good tests for the solo ability of Scholar. No job specific merits were out during the time of these solos. The key focuses in these solos will pertain to...
- Extensive look at the Stratagem choice and management in each solo
- Maximizing the use of Tabula Rasa for attacking situations
- MP management and fight duration management
- General Scholar solo ability and unique tricks
- How the general strategy differs from other jobs in the same solo
Before getting into things, I just want to stress again that solo is only 1 of many aspects of Scholar, which is an incredibly versatile job, certainly compared to Black Mage (the other job I would consider myself well-versed in). This post is also completely from a soloist's perspective. Play would vary on a lot of these strategies when in team play; however, I feel that showing a Scholar's versatility in NM solo play is a good way to introduce the job since NM soloing is generally regarded as one of the most difficult things to do in FFXI.
Warning: Long Post!
Scholar Guide (Part I)
Scholar Guilde (Part III)
Scholar Guide (Part IV)
Scholar Guide (Part V)
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________________________________________
( Scholar Solo in EXP )
( Red Mage and Black Mage Solo Strategies )
( Scholar Solo Tools Overview )
( Tabula Rasa Macros )
( Tabula Rasa Stratagem Timing )
( Aquarius Killed in 60 Seconds )
( Ul'Yovra Overview )
( Scholar vs. Ul'Yovra )
( Bionic Bug Overview )
( Scholar vs. Bugboy )
( Contaminated Colosseum Overview )
( Scholar vs. Evil Oscar )
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________________________________________
Conclusions
In this post, I tried to introduce Scholar in actual play by outlining how it fairs in some (what I consider) medium to higher level difficulty solos. Summarizing what I specifically tried to show...
- Scholar has incredible damage to MP efficiency on both normal nukes and Helices
- Scholar MP efficiency coupled with Sublimation gives it an extremely high max damage possible in 1 sitting
- Tabula Rasa is capable of producing 6 very fast, potent Tier IV nukes in a 1 minute span (gank tool)
I also tried to compare how Scholar potentially fits in with other mage soloers, particularly Black Mage and Red Mage. In this comparison, I tried to show that (not surprisingly), the play-style and utility of Scholar fits in as a Red Mage - Black Mage hybrid - stronger damage and damage per MP ratio than a RDM, but stronger MP efficiency, casting speed, and refresh than a Black Mage.
I'll finish this post on 1 last note. Scholar does indeed play like a hybrid between mages - it does not have the best damage (BLM) or the best MP conservation (RDM); however, just because it does not do either the best, does not mean it is not as potent as either. The collective strengths of Scholar, combined with its versatility, can make it stronger than either job in any number of situations.
________________________________________
________________________________________
Pic of the Day
Just a couple of pics this time...
( Pics of the Day )
Drama Thread of the Day
Drama Thread Split from a Drama Thread
So many arguments going on at once...
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chasethestars
chasethestars