The Warrior's Path: Part 2

[Ophannus]

No wonder he was doing 3-4ks ws, because I was whiffing weapon skills left and right which were probably powering him up. One thing that's kind of annoying with him and AA GK are their high zanshin rates 60-75% and without an elegy or slow or hate pingpong, he will eat 2 shadows almost every attack round and 2 attack rounds followed by a WS is usually a clean hit and possibly one hit KO so scherzo is pretty necessary. I've seen 2 Nins and dnc setup work pretty well and had mambos. Was a 10min fight in VD but they told me they almost never had to recast shadows lol

[Fake]

Scherzo absolutely isn't necessary and it is easier/faster than GK. There is no reason why you wouldn't have elegy on it either since you sleep the 3 tarus while troub is still on, then immediately elegy tenzen after, slow/para aren't necessary.

2 MNK/NIN and THF/NIN kill substantially faster than 2 NIN + THF

[Toth]

Why /WHM for cor? Extra raises and heals?

[Byrthnoth]

I've done this fight with WAR/NIN, BST/NIN, SAM/NIN, MNK/NIN, etc. Durable DDs aren't really necessary if you have a good BRD and Scherzo.

I say for the COR to /WHM because (at least from what I have seen) COR damage is shit on VD fights because they can't /ra for TP very well due to having floored ranged hit rate. As such, it's better to have a third person with Cure getting 3 SV ballads. It also lets them put up Dia II/Light Shot x2 without coordination and keep up Stoneskin/Blink.

In addition to Elegying Tenzen (duh), you can also Pining Nocturne the tarus so that they don't even get one spell off after they wake.

[Fake]

I would say this is the best opportunity cor has had to melee in any of the hard mode battles introduced since november. The healing in this fight is extremely minimal compared to its closest comparison, AAGK.

Provided you have 3+ competent capped hate /nin melees by the time it uses riceball then scherzo really isn't needed even (obviously use it as a safety net if your melees aren't).

[Karizo]

I have a quick question regarding the bow, Hangaku-no-Yumi.

TP Bonus 1000, does this apply to melee WS for Samurais as well? That's a whole lot of damage... lol

EDIT: I remember the days when Hagun use to shine with TP Bonus 100

[Tachi]

The unamed 1hr animation where Tenzen is invincible (but still vulnerable to magic damage) is basically a super Meikyo Shisui, he does 10-15 WS without taking a break.

[EjinCaitsith]

I have a quick question regarding the bow, Hangaku-no-Yumi.

TP Bonus 1000, does this apply to melee WS for Samurais as well?

It's +100 using their old system and it only applies to ranged weapon skills.

[sahearniitth]

The unamed 1hr animation where Tenzen is invincible (but still vulnerable to magic damage) is basically a super Meikyo Shisui, he does 10-15 WS without taking a break.

This is basically PLD 1hr. I have stolen the effect off with Larceny

[Ophannus]

Noticed even in Difficult, relic birds with m.acc still have a hard time keeping the Taurus slept once troub wears off. After the first 6min of the fight or so, every horse lullaby resulted in 2-3 Taurus resisting, were basically awake most of the fight.

As an aside, this goes for shit in general when it comes to enfeebling,even with top tier enfeebling and magic accuracy skill gear, I'd say on difficult bc's my enfeebles get resisted about 60-70% of the time without geo buffs/debuffs. 518 enfeebling, +103ish m.acc 160ish mnd/int, eating crepes. Magic acc is still a problem on difficult/vd battles without geo

[Byrthnoth]

Warrior's Path, VD fight strategy that pretty much won't lose unless you suck:
Party - DD/NIN x3, BRD, COR, WHM
Suggestions -
* 5 songs are obviously better than 4. 3 songs means you sacrifice a Madrigal, which is going to hurt a lot.
* Use Sushi
* Dragoon is not a bad choice for pretty much any melee VD where you're going to be using resetting JAs. Between Angon and Spirit Surge Jump, it gives a massive DPS boost to the entire party. We killed 30% faster when we brought a Ryunohige DRG (Foldy), and everyone parsed about even.

Strategy -
- BRD: opens with SV/CC/N/T March, Mad x2, (Minuet 5), Scherzo and then immediately sleeps the Tarus. Elegy Tenzen, Ballad your WHM, and Nocturne the right-most taru (BLM) if you have time. Maintain your songs, but don't overwrite SV songs before you have to.
- COR maintains Hunter's/Chaos rolls and Dia II + Light Shot x2
- Melee engage Tenzen, fight, etc. Keep up shadows and try not to tard out too hard. Erase Slow and reapply Haste after his one slow WS if it lands. Don't WS Tenzen after he uses the SAM SP2 Yaeg...something.
- WHM keeps everyone alive.
- WHM, BRD, and COR: Keep Stoneskin/Blink up in case Tenzen decides to target them with his ranged attacks (are these conal or something?).
- COR: When melee have used their first round of JAs, the COR uses random deal (making sure to hit the bard). If the Bard doesn't get Troubadour back, have the melees use their SP abilities and then use Wild Card.
- BRD: When the tarus wake up, sleep them again with Troub.
- COR: After the BRD sleeps, use Random Deal on the BRD+melees again. If the BRD doesn't get Troub back . . . kill faster.

On BRD, I can Horde Lullaby II the two non-BLMs even on VD a few times before they build resistance, and the BLM Taru isn't that big of a deal really because his AI sucks. Half the time he casts tier 4 nukes or stupid status spells on me and his spells are always going to be impotent or caught by Scherzo. With Scherzo, BRD is a fine supertank for him.

[finalwolf]

- WHM, BRD, and COR: Keep Stoneskin/Blink up in case Tenzen decides to target them with his ranged attacks (are these conal or something?).

definitely single target Range Attacks. Tenzen just randomly picks a character, that is not in melee distance, to hit with range attacks.

[Foldypaws]

* Dragoon is not a bad choice for pretty much any melee VD where you're going to be using resetting JAs. Between Angon and Spirit Surge Jump, it gives a massive DPS boost to the entire party. We killed 30% faster when we brought a Ryunohige DRG (Foldy), and everyone parsed about even.

Yay, DRG being good for something!

[Ophannus]

BRD was only able to sleep Tarus with Troub up so initial sleep landed, reslept with another Troub due to Random Deal, then a third with a Wild Card(no 2hr reset though). Seemed like could only sleep with Troub on, is it even possible to sleep them without Troub? She said she was having extreme difficulty sleeping more than 1 without it.

Also Meikyo pretty much always kills me or a MNK even with PDT. Enpi takes 2 shadows, I start to cast Ichi during animation, Jinpu takes 2 shadows, then he swings 2x from Zanshin, does that 4 hit blade:shun looking one that takes all your shadows, got off a Gekko which silenced me and while using an echo, mage trying to cure, got off the last one that also does universal enlightenment that finishes me off, DPS drops when I or a MNK dies and then slowed damage results in a longer fight and running out of troubadour which results in us eating meteors and firajas which wipe shadows opening us for 2.4k Gekkos :/

[Ophannus]

BRD was only able to sleep Tarus with Troub up so initial sleep landed, reslept with another Troub due to Random Deal, then a third with a Wild Card(no 2hr reset though). Seemed like could only sleep with Troub on, is it even possible to sleep them without Troub? She said she was having extreme difficulty sleeping more than 1 without it.

Also Meikyo pretty much always kills me or a MNK even with PDT. Enpi takes 2 shadows, I start to cast Ichi during animation, Jinpu takes 2 shadows, then he swings 2x from Zanshin, does that 4 hit blade:shun looking one that takes all your shadows, got off a Gekko which silenced me and while using an echo, mage trying to cure, got off the last one that also does universal enlightenment that finishes me off, DPS drops when I or a MNK dies and then slowed damage results in no troubadour which results in us eating meteors and firajas :/

DMG output seemed on schedule, Fly High was an extra 5 or 6 WS in 30 seconds followed by Spirit Surge which capped my Attack Speed resulting in a lot of extra WS. I tried to erase his TP with High Jump(removes TP proportionate to 2x the damage dealt by HJ) but I guess Meikyo Shusui's property on mobs is different from players in that it just scripts them to WS X-Times in a row rather than lower TP cost). I think another thing that may have hurt us slightly is the fact that BRD was 3 song instead of 4 so we only had 1x March for the first 5 min of the fight so we weren't at capped haste which means also slower Utsu recasts and loss of DPS. Wiped at around 24% just due to 1 MNK getting unlucky during Meikyo and getting owned during Utsu recast, slowed damage resulted in tarus not being able to be reslept>Firaja wiped shadows, 2nd MNK died(I had super jumped to avoid Firaja) and with 2 dead DDs and a Super Jump'd DRG, WHM was next to die and then down hill from there. Never getting Ginsen

[Foldypaws]

Meikyo Shusui's property on mobs is different from players in that it just scripts them to WS X-Times in a row rather than lower TP cost

SE has explicitly said that it is just an AI change, which is why THF can't steal it with Larceny (SP2).

[Ophannus]

His is stronger than an average MS too, it's like 4 or 5 WS if I recall and 3 of them are 2-4 hit weaponskills which makes keeping shadows up a chore.

[Fwahm]

My groups are always at capped enmity for everyone every time he uses Meikyo, so he never WSs the same person twice in a row.

[dasva]

:

His is stronger than an average MS too, it's like 4 or 5 WS if I recall and 3 of them are 2-4 hit weaponskills which makes keeping shadows up a chore.

Maybe he augmented his relic boots

[Ophannus]

Can Tenzen drop multiple Ginsens/accessories like how AA Hume can drop 2 Bloodrain Straps?