Ashu Talif quests series

[Sechs]

Since they're now soloable, a few questions for people with more experience than I do

1) Scouting The Ashu Talif
Any suggested job to solo? I remember this to be the most difficult at level 75, it was annoying to kill the Imp and the last waves were tough. Can it still be dangerous these days on the last waves when you get aggro from several mobs, some of which will be spellcasting Imps?

2) Royal Painter Escort
How are you supposed to solo this without having the painter die? I can't imagine a way...

3) Targeting The Captain
Do spells like bio, stone etc work to get "sneak attacks" on the imps and on the captain? Or does it have to be a physical thing like blu physical spell, ranged attacks or JAs?

[Priran]

for 3, no, you actually have to hit the captain physically without alerting bubbles. iirc physical blue magic and ranged WS don't count either, but it's been a long time

[Sechs]

I think JAs (voke, Chi blast, etc) work too but they're ~18yalms range. Which is clearly the reason why spells (with a larger range) do not work, it would be too easy.

[dasva]

I thought the physical blue spells worked. But at the time the only one with a decent range was cannonball

[Kyte]

I haven't had any luck with getting a sneak attack with Glutinous Dart, but I'm only 90% certain that they were positioned correctly. I'll probably give chi blast a try later, but I'm also curious as to whether or not a true ranged blue magic spell would work, such as Feather Storm or Pinecone Bomb (provided of course that my previous failures weren't operator error).

[kenshyn]

I sure like to know the answer but maybe it's like must be surprise attack within 15 yalms or some such nonsense so if you try at max range it is a automatic fail....

[JSHidaka]

1 as blu... Aoe
2 not possible solo unless defending the npc helps you to success it.
3 I literally use sneak attack, engage, flee and hit, captain, kill monkey then captain...

[Vathris]

Since they're now soloable, a few questions for people with more experience than I do
2) Royal Painter Escort
How are you supposed to solo this without having the painter die? I can't imagine a way...

Had no problem at all on thf/dnc, waltzes if you need to cure the npc, i went in pretty much blind, hadnt read anything on it until i entered, but bully, ranged attacks and auto attacks did the trick for keeping mobs off the painter, and when the captain popped i rushed him and won. So really, some preparation, a good way to claim mobs and a way to heal the npc is all you need...

[Ath]

It's been a while since I did Scouting the Ashu Talif, but we had a BLU who did AoE blue magic and took them out with relative ease. However, now that there were updates to elemental magic (as well as magic damage+ stats on equipment), you could probably be /blm and be fine with AoE nukes.

I solo'ed both Royal Painter Escort and Targeting the Captain as RDM99/BLM49. Having cures available helps with keeping the NPC going, but if you stick to her and keep looking around, you'll see mobs materialize, become targetable, run towards her, draw their weapons, then start attacking, which gave time to easily drop them with a quick spell cast. The crew members are easier to kill than the Marines, and while I'm not sure if you have to kill Black Bartholomew to win, I made sure to pull him at some point so that I could get another chest to show up.

Targeting the Captain was easy too. Kill the Windjammer Imps with a few spells when they're facing away from you (ff wiki states that that keeps Bubbly from deviating off his back-and-forth walking), then get a hit on the captain to surprise him, kill Bubbly for an extra chest, then take out the captain. I made the mistake of casting on the captain, so I may not have gotten the chest to spawn for surprising him, so thanks to everyone who mentioned that it can't be a spell cast that does the initial damage on him.

[Sechs]

Had no problem at all on thf/dnc, waltzes if you need to cure the npc, i went in pretty much blind, hadnt read anything on it until i entered, but bully, ranged attacks and auto attacks did the trick for keeping mobs off the painter, and when the captain popped i rushed him and won. So really, some preparation, a good way to claim mobs and a way to heal the npc is all you need...

Really? Whoa... won't fomors destroy the NPC as you rush to the captain?

Unless you cupper there or somethin, I dunno

[Vathris]

Really? Whoa... won't fomors destroy the NPC as you rush to the captain?

Unless you cupper there or somethin, I dunno

Isnt it broken currently? And no, it was at 50-60% when i targeted it after i killed the captain, i mightve lost in 2-3 seconds i dont really know i did run past a ton of fomors, but didnt seem impossible at all, especially considering i had no strategy or preparation prior to the fight.

Edit: to be more clear, i wasnt using cupper at all