Ix'aern (Dark Knight)

[Obev]

Lowman. What's the smallest amount of people you need? How tough are the Qn'aerns to solo on Red or Black Mage? Is it doable without +Movement speed gear?

I know you're supposed to pull it to one of the square rooms to kite it around in a circle. What do you do with the Ghrahs that will inevitably aggro on the way there? I'm guessing zone them while another party member grabs hate on the Aern but not the Ghrahs. Is it possible to deaggro the Qn'aerns in the same way?

Tried searching, but apparently "Ix'aern" is a too-common word, and "Ix'drk" is too short. Apologies in advance if I've completely missed a topic providing the answers to my questions.

[Riios]

2 people can do easily: rdm,blm or blm,blm would be your best bet(sub nin). When you get message have the person who doesn't have hate drop and go sleep the grah and pot(if you wanna be super safe) on the way to kite room, when he/she gets back to the ??? room the person with hate should pop and get moving. Ix'aern will be claimed but the qns won't, so have the person who slept the other adds diaga/poisonga the qn's and head to palace zone while the kiter heads to the square room. The qn's will lose aggro upon zone. Be warned though, dickweeds can still pull the qn's (they'll be sitting by ??? until Ix dies + drops) to the teleporter by the square room and train you. The fight is easy after you get Ix by himself. If you stack dark skill you can get 100+ mp aspirs every time (on blm) easy, so you shouldn't really need to med, though if you have a ton of blms to bounce hate you can unload mp faster.

[deced]

Smallest amount of people is 1. Seperate from his helpers, kite in one of the square rooms and DoT him to death with the occassional nuke. RDM can do it, not sure if you could find a reasonable way to seperate the helpers on BLM.

Basically, when you pop it on RDM, Chainspell Gravity his two friends, book it to a square room, and DIE asap on the far side of the room (far side being the side furthest from where you popped him). If you do it right, and die fast enough, you can Reraise, put up a quick buff or two, cast on it, then kite while unweakened. Provided Gravity didn't get fluke resisted and you died fast enough, the Ix'Aern should be far enough away from the Qn'Aerns that you have it solo. From there, it's just a Bio-fest with the occasional Blizzard III if you can squeeze it off. As far as the ghrah in the way goes, he'll lose aggro once you die anyway if it wasn't in ball mode when you run by it.

The bad part? You, to my knowledge, cannot land Poison, Bind or Gravity on Ix'DRK, meaning it is ALL Bio damage + spare nukes to kill him. It takes something like 40-60 min per kill from secondhand knowledge, and if he decides to Reraise 20 times... you'll probably end up taking a sledge hammer to your PC before you kill it off for good. Have fun.

[drwaffles]

Can be solo'd, but duo is much easier and safer. For duo, disband your party and have one person Sleep all the mobs that could potentially aggro your puller en route to the kiting room then have the other person claim Ix'DRK followed by the Sleeper getting hate from the Qn'aerns with Diaga. The person kiting Ix'DRK heads to the kiting room and kites in a circle whilst the person sac'ing the adds runs a fair distance in the opposite direction and dies.

When killing the NM just ensure you time your nukes such that you're not going to get hate as it passes you (one-way ticket to pain), Aspir as often as possible and keep Stoneskin up at all times. It's pie with two BLMs, especially if they have Gaiters since they make it much easier to Aspir the NM as it chases you without eating a melee swing or two, plus outrunning it with +12% movement speed is a much simpler business all around. Can take a long time, though, depending on how many times it decides to Reraise.

Oh, one more thing, if you want to rest for MP whilst your partner kites the NM don't go afk waiting for your bar to refill as it has an irritating tendency to come after you if your partner doesn't have opportunity to accrue a lot of enmity. As for solo, you'd have to ask someone who's actually done it. I think the general concensus of opinion, however, is that it's not worth the time and effort when you could be done in under an hour or two duo.

[Duber]

On belkin's lj there are strategies for rdm/nin solo and duo sky and sea stuff, check it out, I think ix'drk is there too.

http://belkinator.livejournal.com/

[Kaeko]

Can solo on SCH/RDM too. Exactly like Deced said only instead of Chainspell Gravity, use Manifestation Gravity to separate. It's actually a very fast solo on SCH because Helix actually lands very well on it (use Alacrity to get it off while it is casting).

[Liseth]

It gets old, real fast solo after killing it multiple times. It's better to bring a couple friends imo.

[Suiram]

I think the common belief (and if not common, at least it's my own belief) is that killing the Qn's substantially lowers the chance it will reraise each time it dies. I duoed this once a long while ago when it popped while we were getting buffer, and it reraised at least 7 times before finally dying for good. Although as people said it's fairly straightforward to duo or even solo, I wouldn't want to do it again without at least a plan to kill the Qn's while one person holds the Ix, or else with enough people that the kills go quickly enough that high reraise chance won't be so painful.

[Daiiawn]

Ive done it a few times (tho not sucessful as we always loose focus and die XD). Pretty much what people said, its a lot easier in duo as the person w/o hate can sleep any pottential aggro. I usually find as long as i dont take a wrong turning, i can zone the helpers while my duo partner gets them to the kiting room.

We do it /rdm and w/o +movement speed, one thing ill say, is its usefull if you are on vent with your partner, because kiting and typing doesnt work out well.

Probably going to get back on this once we have sch leveled, mainly because duoing it with sch should be a lot easier (one sch can keep sandstorm up on other for desert boots if desired).

If your bored ig and want to give it a go sometime give me a shout, if nothing else i could use the xp when getting the msg. Thats if you ever see me not in / not planning to do salvage

[Liseth]

With Qn's not killed I have seen it reraise anywhere between none (yes none) to 19 times. I notice that the low amount of reraises, usually two happen far less than it reraising multiple times when the Qn's are not killed. I'd like to say the times I've done it on LS time where we've killed the Qn's it reraised far less, but I think it's a common misconception that not killing the Qn's will absolutely mean it'll reraise 25 times.

[siknoz]

Pretty much all that needed to be said has been said, but just to add a little. We've trio'd it with 3 BLM's, and 2 BLM's + 1 RDM by simply having everyone click the ???, and when it pops the rdm (or blm) would drop and diaga(or poisonga) the qn's and run to the entrance of garden. While the other 2 would pull to the square room. Lead person would sleep/grav/aggro/whatever the ghrah on the way and run to the teleport to shake the aggro.

I would definitely suggest movement speed, though I've seen other ls's do it without.

And I've seen as few as 2 reraises and most was ~22 I think.

[Tajin]

You might want to drop, pop and diaga; instead of pop, drop, diaga.

[Lordwafik]

I do it a bit different but take a bit more people. I usually take people who can solo a Qn'Aern each. Usually I farm it with 4 people, BRD RDM BLM BLM , replace any amount of blm with any amount of RDM or SCH.

I only do this if it pops on the south side though, what I do is I go to the elevataor and enter, this makes ix'aern lose hate entirely on me,he walks back really slowly depending on where you took him he'll start pathing back, occasionally I have the bard tag it and bring it to somewhere I can see, so I can dispel it. Anyway, I'll kite laps around the elevator while the other two kill their Qns. Same thing , requires a tad more effort, offers absolutely no advantage over doing it in the square rooms, just an alternate area to fight.

[Daiiawn]

i assume you go rdm and leave the 2 blms to solo the QN's LW? How much harder (if at all) are they from the standard aerns?. Also how much time do you have between getting the message and having to pop it before you loose hate (assuminng a ??? move isnt iminent).

[lichtl]

15min from message till you must pop it.

[Liseth]

I was always under the assumption it was 10 minutes.

[Niki]

Its really easy to duo spawn it with a friend (Also somewhat nice exp) but after that i would get friends to help you with killing because watching it reraise 30+ times makes you go nuts when you duo (happened to us)

[Wizerd]

Easy enough to solo on RDM, 40-45min per reraise sounds about right. It's easy to toss a Refresh on yourself or a Blizzard III on him every time he tries to nuke you (not when he deos Poison or Bio, etc, though). No movement+ needed. Boring, much better as BLMx2 or RDM+BLM, about 18-20min per reraise or less if done right.

[fishstix]

Once you have the message, if the ??? was supposed to move right before getting the message, would it move soon?

[Suiram]

Once you have the message, if the ??? was supposed to move right before getting the message, would it move soon?

The ??? will still move at the regular interval, but you should have plenty of time to find it and pop at the new location before you lose the flag.