Time Taken: 43 Minutes
Members: 14 at Start, 18 at Finish
Time Taken: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
Members: 9 at Start, 13 at Finish
Previously Related Posts:
http://kanican.livejournal.com/2465.html
http://kanican.livejournal.com/3303.html
In this entry, I want to focus on 2 new issues that have come up in our Tiamat fights that are on opposite ends of the spectrum concerning size. In the first fight, we started with a very large group and even ended with a full alliance at kill, while in the second fight, we were rushed to claim and ended up killing Tiamat with our lowest end total yet. The time taken was practically doubled between these 2 fights.
I don't want to really go over anything that can be found already. In the previous 2 posts, I outlined the basic strategy behind tanking Tiamat using our style as well as how to use BLM as the main method of damage (and why). In this post, I will focus on some finer points that have just recently come to our attention. Overall, we've really gotten this strategy down to a science at this point - I think since beginning this strategy, we've killed 11 of the last 13 Tiamats, none of which with more than 18 members at the end - the longest fight being 128 minutes while the shortest being 43 minutes.
Pics will be from our 13 man fight - I wasn't there for the 43 minute one. I just jacked a drop shot from one of our other ones since the last update on Tiamat. Relic Horn for the 43 minute one, no Relic for the 13 man one.
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Time Spent in Air is Damage Based!
Long story short, if you manage to do 10,000HP of damage to a Wyrm while it is airborne, it will land automatically regardless of time spent in air. Now this may seem a bit ridiculous as 10,000HP in less than 2 minutes is pushing it; however, we've done this so many times now that we are 100% positive this is true. We saw this on 2 seperate mobs on multiple occassions.
During our Ouryu fights (http://kanican.livejournal.com/1929.html), I believe I posted something to the tune of it usually stayed in the air 2 minutes, but sometimes it would for much less. It turns out, looking back at some screenshots, that this always occurred on our first volley of nukes, landing at 74%. The significance of this is Ouryu has 40,000HP, making this number come to exactly 10,000HP. At times, we would force land Ouryu in 45 seconds.
On Tiamat, we also started to note how much % its HP would go down after each volley of nukes when it was airborne. Up until this past fight, we usually had it stay for the entire 2 minutes, doing roughly 4-7% each time. However, on the past run with a full alliance, the HP dropped much faster and our timing was ruined. Based on our rough estimates, Tiamat would force land every 8-9% HP. Tiamat is known to have about 120,000HP, making this come to about 10,000HP as well. Based on the fact that the same number is true for both Ouryu and Tiamat, I would assume the same would hold true for Jormungand; although, Jorm only stays in the air for about 45 seconds to begin with so it would be hard to verify this.
The significance of this is this essentially 'caps' the minimum amount of time required to kill Tiamat using our strategy - because we cannot touch it while it has its 2 minutes on the ground, about 3 minutes is required as a minimum each 8-9% HP. This ends up capping our Tiamat fights in the high 30s or low 40s in minutes. This also means that after a certain point, the fight cannot be sped up with more members. Once you have enough damage to consistantly force land Tiamat, adding more would not signficantly increase the kill rate as it still has to get its 2 minutes on the ground.
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Black Mage as a Adds Puller
It turns out BLM makes a pretty decent puller for Corse adds as well. All we do on these is aggro them then run back as fast as possible until it loses aggro and despawn. Because only 1 action is needed and Corses are casting mobs, it's extremely easy to outrun these. Using a BLM as the Corse pullers during nighttime allows them to DD in the daytime as well, which again, saves some slots. The primary Corse puller on our fights is almost always a Thief, however, for Treasure Hunter.
Typically, the best way to assign adds duty is to have 1 member focus on Bombs/Elementals and 2 members on Corses. Typically only 1 member will be needed on Corses but a backup is important to have just in case. If using a job that aggros with ranged attacks, make sure to watch for seperate aggro on /healing BLMs. Messing up Corse pulls, especially with low numbers, can be extremely dangerous.
Where do you Position Tiamat?
Just about every major LS on Odin will use the positioning that happens to be seen in the pics here; however, I have seen a ton of pics from other server fights that will fight in the middle usually. I'm not sure what advantages those particular positions give, but I do know that the one we tend to use is extremely advantageous because it puts Tiamat on a slope. Wyrm AoE is extremely wide and it's normally impossible to avoid it because it extends well beyond casting range; however, it is avoidable by a vertical height difference. The position shown in the pics I have will make sure only tanks and possibly a singing BRD or WHM to get hit.
Future Testing? - Use of Corsair
At this point, we've pretty much gotten these fights down - the 2 sample fights shown above show how flexible using this method can be as far as safety, low numbers, and speed. Currently, the only idea I have for making things even easier is to add a Corsair. COR Warlock's Roll would speed up the damage dealing due to signficantly reduced resist rates. Other things like Ninja Roll and Earth Shot Slow II may also help. I am not sure if adding another support player is worth a slot at this time though.
Short entry this time!
Sorry the Tiamat pics look so redundant.
Pic of the Day
Really really great fanart drawing of SMN. This was drawn back in early 2004... Very early into the game.
Drawn by "Iroo" and submitted to the VN Fanart archive.
http://ffvault.ign.com/screenshots/?ss=2
Drama Thread of the Day
http://killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=pos
A 2 year old thread about an MPK Nidhogg on Leviathan Server. Has some good JP racism thrown in there for good measure (this is like 2005 stuff).
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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/viewtop
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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Time taken: 1 Hour 26 Minutes
Members: 10 at Start, 12 for 85%, Finish with 14
Recently, we've changed strategies for Tiamat from the typical SMN burn style to a straight BLM manaburn. Using a strategy extremely similar to how we did our recent Ouryu fights, we have been able to substantially cut down the numbers needed to not just kill Tiamat, but to do so in a timely manner. The ability to claim, hold, and kill Tiamat with lower numbers can drastically increase the number of Tiamat kills. I think if forced to, this strategy can kill Tiamat in about 2 hours with 9-10 members the entire time.
Tanking Strategy Basics
The first key to getting this idea to work is the ability to use NIN/DRK to its maximum potential. Similar to how it was done in our Ouryu fights, when given the proper support, the hate margin given by NIN/DRK is so high, it is impossible to take hate without purposely using mazurka on BRD. Because the basics of how TK does NIN/DRK tanking is already written, I'm not going to repeat it. A quick overview of how we do it can be found in a previous post (http://kanican.livejournal.com/1929.html). For Tiamat fights, we opted for 2 tanks instead of 1 to give more cushion for error. The tanking party setup looked like this:
NIN/DRK
NIN/DRK
BRD
BRD
RDM
WHM
Bards were using March, March, Ballad 2, and Mambo songs, switching Mambo for Carol when Tiamat goes to the air. With Carol and Barfire, both tanks had over 340 fire resists, making any air, magic, or TP damage almost negligable. Elegy and Slow II are both really easy to land, making Tiamat's attack speed very easy to deal with. It is not uncommon to go entire fights without getting hit on the ground. One of the BRDs does have a Gjallarhorn - this definatley helps, however, it really helps the DD side of the fight much more than the tanking side. There is very little healing done in general which lowers the need for WHM MP regen.
To get an idea on just how strong the hate given by the tanks are: 4 BLMs accounted for all 120,000 Damage the entire fight (assuming DoT only counters regen). This means an average of 30,000 damage delt each BLM in about 90 minutes. No logoffs or zones occurred, and still there was not a single case of losing hate. At the 9% mark, all BLMs manafonted and straight nuked threw and killed Tiamat in the 2 minute span in the air. This is about 12,000 damage, or 3,000 damage each, in the span of 2 minutes - still no hate drawn.
Manaburn Style Strategy
The second party contained the damage jobs for the fight as well as the Firaga 3 stunner.
RDM/DRK
BLM
BLM
BLM
BLM
The RDM only stunned Firaga 3 when it was cast on the ground. All the spells cast by Tiamat while in the air were just let go because shadow wiping is not an issue and the damage is so small when using a Fire resist setup. A BRD from the tank PT would rotate every so often to give double ballads. This is where the Relic Horn really helps - while it isn't required, it speeds up the pace of the fight considerably. While on the ground, the BLMs generally rested. When Tiamat flew, the BLMs just nuked non-stop until all MP was used up - ridiculously simple strategy. In addition to damage, the BLMs were also responsible for holding elementals if weather occurred.
The third party contained just a single NIN/WAR. He was responsible for taking any mobs that may aggro, namely Corses at night. Instead of killing Corses, he simply provokes and runs, kiting it. Eventually, the Corse loses hate on the NIN and despawns - in an area further away from the fight. He then simply repeats this process when another Corse gets too close. He was pretty bored the entire fight... I think he only pulled like 3 Corses.
There are 3 major advantages to this method of DD over the normal SMN DD strategy -
1) Damage dealers now all have Stun and Sleep in case of emergency or extra adds.
2) Damage dealers only have to be awake half the fight... they just rest on the ground. Very simplistic.
3) Damage is only delt when Tiamat is in the air, preventing Tiamat from gaining TP on the ground.
The 3rd advantage is pretty subtle. We found out recently that we would go entire Tiamat and Ouryu fights without ever seeing either use a TP move on the ground... They would always only occur while in the air. We think that Touchdown, while not requiring TP to use, resets a Wyrm's TP. This means that if we don't touch Tiamat on the ground and the tanks don't get hit, Tiamat cannot use TP on the ground! This means no badly timed Tebbid Wings to wipe shadows, and more importantly, no Horrid Roar to reset tank hate! This also means that Tiamat and other Wyrms don't get any harder when they entire TP spam mode at low HP.
The biggest key to increasing the speed of kills using this strategy is almost strictly gear-related. When spamming nukes, generally, the higher Elemental Skill you have, the more damage output you're going to be doing each 2 minute interval. I was personally nuking with about 335 Skill and maybe getting resists 50% of the time. I may try to get it higher next time and see how it affects resists.
Second Related Post: http://kanican.livejournal.com/3303.html
Pic of the Day
Drama Thread of the Day
http://qcdn.org/showthread.php?t=36797
Goodbye post by the maker of the infamous BOT, "Fast Fingers".
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The resistance build only works if you are able to break certain "tiers" of resistance. For example, there is NO DIFFERENCE between having -100 fire resistance and +100 fire resistance on Tiamat - you won't resist anything in either case. From past experience, you can "guess" the amount of resistance you need by following...
Spell Damage - 200-250 Resist - includes GA3 spells, spikes damage, ancient magic, status spells, etc.
WS Damage - 250-300+ Resist - includes Wyrm air attacks, TP moves
Having a resistance setup can drastically change the difficulty of a fight. Below are some examples.
(Ouryu fight using 304 Earth Resistance)
(Bahamut version 2 fight using 340 Fire Resistance)
(Cerberus using 331 Fire Resistance)
Note that high resistance not only lowers damage signficantly, but it also helps resist any additional status effects on the WS or directly from a spell (Ouryu Breakga, Gates of Hades Burn, Tiamat Tebbid Wing Viruna, etc.).
Just as important as the resistance equipment used on the tank, the equipment used by the WHM and BRD are also vital to reaching the required "tier" of resistance. For BRD, all Carol spells start at +40 resistance. This can be raised to +50 resistance with either...
| Gjallarhorn | ギャッラルホルン | +10 |
| Crumhorn +1 | クラムホルン+1 | +10 |
Note that you can get the Crumhorn +2 as well; both give +10 resistance to carol.
For WHM, increasing resistance is slightly more complicated. There are 3 ways for a WHM to increase the resistance of their Bar-spell - increasing enhancing skill, investing in merit points, and using AF2 WHM legs.
| Cleric's Pantaloons | クレリクパンタロン | +20 |
| Barspell Merits x5 | 属性耐性魔法効果メリポ | +10 |
| + Enhancing Skill | + 強化魔法スキル | +0 to 8 |
For future reference, below are the resistance setups that maximize the resist for a particular element. The equipment sets are not the actual max resistance possible, but the max using reasonably priced equipment and EX items that aren't a total pain to get (for instance, Sand Gloves are not on here... If you've ever tried to get those you'd understand). A ' ** ' indicates the piece is RARE/EX. The equip setups are currently NINJA ONLY. I'll keep updating elements when I get the time. Provided in English and Japanese.
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Fire Resistance Setup 耐火装甲
- Tiamat
- KS99 Wyrm
- Bahamut BCNM (Wyrmking Descends)
- Cerberus
| Main | Neptune's Staff | ネプチュンスタッフ | 20 |
| Sub | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Range | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Head | Black Ribbon | ブラックリボン | 12 |
| Body | Legionarre's Harness | 共和軍団兵制式帯鎧 | 5 |
| Hands | Hanzo Tekko | 半蔵の手甲 | 6 |
| Legs | Dino Trousers | ディノトラウザ | 4 |
| Feet | ** Suzaku Sund-ate | ** 朱雀脛当 | 50 |
| Waist | ** Water Belt | ** ウォーターベルト | 20 |
| Neck | Buburimu Gorget | ブブリンゴルゲット | 10 |
| Back | Cerberus Mantle | ケルベロスマント | 10 |
| Ear1 | Triumph Earring | 凱旋のピアス | 11 |
| Ear2 | Triumph Earring | 凱旋のピアス | 11 |
| Ring1 | Malflame Ring | 怨炎の指輪 | 10 |
| Ring2 | Ruby Ring | ルビーリング | 9 |
| Food | N/A | N/A | --- |
| TOTAL | 合計 | 178 |
Ice Resistance Setup 耐氷装甲
- Jormungand
| Main | Vulcan's Staff | バルカンスタッフ | 20 |
| Sub | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Range | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Head | Black Ribbon | ブラックリボン | 12 |
| Body | Tundra Jerkin | ツンドラジャーキン | 7 |
| Hands | Hailstorm Tekko +1 | 氷雨手甲改 | 12 |
| Legs | Feral Trousers | フェラルトラウザ | 6 |
| Feet | Feral Ledesens | フェラルレデルセン | 4 |
| Waist | ** Fire Belt | ** ファイアベルト | 20 |
| Neck | Jeweled Collar | ジュエルドカラー | 10 |
| Back | Aurora Mantle +1 | オーロラマント+1 | 8 |
| Ear1 | Triumph Earring | 凱旋のピアス | 11 |
| Ear2 | Triumph Earring | 凱旋のピアス | 11 |
| Ring1 | Malfrost Ring | 怨氷の指輪 | 10 |
| Ring2 | Diamond Ring | ダイアリング | 9 |
| Food | N/A | N/A | --- |
| TOTAL | 合計 | 140 |
Wind Resistance Setup 耐風装甲
- Absolute Virtue
| Main | Aquilo's Staff | アクィロスタッフ | 20 |
| Sub | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Range | Ungar Boomerang | ウングルブーメラン | 8 |
| Head | Black Ribbon | ブラックリボン | 12 |
| Body | Tundra Jerkin | ツンドラジャーキン | 7 |
| Hands | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Legs | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Feet | Legonarre's Leggings | 共和軍団兵制式足鎧 | 3 |
| Waist | ** Ice Belt | ** アイスベルト | 20 |
| Neck | Jeweled Collar | ジュエルドカラー | 10 |
| Back | Aurora Mantle +1 | オーロラマント+1 | 8 |
| Ear1 | Emerald Earring | エメラルドピアス | 10 |
| Ear2 | Emerald Earring | エメラルドピアス | 10 |
| Ring1 | Malgust Ring | 怨風の指輪 | 10 |
| Ring2 | Emerald Ring | エメラルドリング | 9 |
| Food | Snowy Rolenberry | 新雪のロランベリー | 10 |
| TOTAL | 合計 | 137 |
Earth Resistance Setup 耐土装甲
- Ouryu BCNM (Ouryu Cometh)
- Kirin
| Main | Auster's Staff | アウスタースタッフ | 20 |
| Sub | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Range | N/A | N/A | --- |
| Head | Black Ribbon | ブラックリボン | 12 |
| Body | Beak Jerkin +1 | ビークジャーキン+1 | 7 |
| Hands | Beak Gloves +1 | ビークグローブ+1 | 4 |
| Legs | Beak Trousers +1 | ビークトラウザ+1 | 7 |
| Feet | Mercenary Kyahan | 傭兵の脚絆 | 6 |
| Waist | ** Wind Belt | ** ウィンドベルト | 20 |
| Neck | Clay Amulet | クレイアミュレット | 11 |
| Back | Beak Mantle +1 | ビークマント+1 | 7 |
| Ear1 | Emerald Earring | エメラルドピアス | 10 |
| Ear2 | Emerald Earring | エメラルドピアス | 10 |
| Ring1 | Maldust Ring | 怨土の指輪 | 10 |
| Ring2 | Topaz Ring | トパーズリング | 9 |
| Food | Steamed Catfish | ナマズのグレープ蒸 | 10 |
| TOTAL | 合計 | 143 |
It may take me awhile to get all sets up for just NIN. I don't really intend on posting ones for PLD or other tanking jobs. It's a bit time consuming to get the Japanese names in there as well. I'll do the ones I feel are most likely to be used first though.
Pic of the Day
Random DRG passing by during one of our Tiamat fights. He sees us using NIN/DRK and makes this comment...
Drama Thread of the Day
http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtop
BG Drama (Bahamut Server)
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