Single Salvage Runs without TH

[Byrd]

Obviously, you don't (in general) do Salvage without TH, but we've had a few tiimes when we've had a run scheduled and neither of our TH4s is available. When we've had someone who needs a 100% drop, we go for that, but otherwise we're having issues getting enough cells to do what we want to do.

Any suggestions on which runs are best to do without TH? We did Arrapago once without TH, and learned our lesson the hard way. Still not sure what we were thinking -- when you get zero cell drops from multiple QQTH's, you're doing something wrong. I'm thinking LBC would be doable, maybe LAC? Any chance in Zhayolm?

[Shassira]

Bhaflau and Silver Sea would be your prefered zones if you must go with no THF. I hate not having one, but i guess sometimes shit happens and you need to do it anyway. Both Bhaf and SS have enough cells to toss around, not to mention a lot of fixed cells from mobs, so TH isn't much of a factor cell wise. You *could* get screwed in some random drops like stats, some gear pieces or maybe even ranged, but this should be rare even without TH.

As for Zhayolm, if you must go without a THF, /thf might work good enough for you. We've done a couple times this zone with /thf due to the lack of a thf, and it worked decently well. Some drops were uncommon, but always had enough to pop 5F. Do notice though, we even had a run where we had to dupe body cells.

Arrapago is annoying without a thf, but maybe /thf might work a little bit here. I have never tried, as you'd have to give first SJ to that person, which sounds like a total waste.

[Ambir]

If you're happy to do a boss run, Zhayolm and SilverSeas have enough guaranteed drops to get you equipped. If you're only taking 6 people, you'd be very unlucky to get screwed in Bhaflau too.

Not taking a THF is a bigger risk in Arrapago, and for some reason every time we don't take a THF to a Zhayolm NM run, the ring/ranged drops screw us, while if we do take a THF, we get plenty.

I'd always take a THF though, unless absolutely necessary. We've had very good runs with only a THF and one other mellee, and NM drop rates are so bad that any TH has to be a good thing.

[Leeto]

I can see it working in bhaf, -maybe- silver seas but everybody would have to be on point on the first floor before multiple magic cells. I would never do arrapago without a thief, ever, and probably zhayolm too

[Wolfknight]

SSR, and BR can be done w/o thf farm or boss, but for ZR you'll want a /thf probably and AR /thf doesn't work need a thf there if u ask me.

[tymora]

/THF can help in Zhayolm. Not sure about Arra though.

[Suiram]

Bhaflau and Silv you shouldn't have cell issues at all, bhaflau it might lower drops from bombs/trolls but the base drop rate for those seems good enough anyway to where it should rarely cause problems, plus those cells you can usually attempt to get at later points anyway. Silv cell drops are either fixed drops or a fixed # of random cells, so the only thing you'd really be missing are alexandrite (lol) and 35 drops (meaning you get shitty drop rate instead of shitty drop rate +.04 or whatever the bonus is from TH ).

Zhayolm you run a greater risk of not getting ranged/rings, and subsequently being unable to do 5F pop, but if you're on top of things you should still be able to pull off a 6F pop doing 2F > Jakko > 3S > 4S if you don't get them, it depends on what your main motivation for doing Zhay is in the first place.

Arrapago I used to say I'd never go without a THF period, but it might be doable with the 13(14?) Qutrub trick. You'd get 2 weapons from the chest plus maybe another unless you're particularly unlucky, and then once you cleared enough qutrub you should be fine on HP and waist. Worst case you don't get any weapons, it'd be interesting to test if it works both ways, i.e. if clearing a wing of bones increases the remaining Qutrub drop rates. The main problem would be finishing magic, JA, SJs before bhoot/flayer and chariot, so you'd want to probably farm the bhoots/flayers on 3F to try to finish magic/JA before even porting up, and just pray that you get 2-3 SJs from the 6 gears on 4F. Even if you don't, you should hopefully get enough on 5F for chariot. This is mostly speculation, I've done the other 3 zones without a THF before but never Arra, aside from a last-minute 4-man pudding run to finish someone's usu body. I imagine due to the extra magic/JA farming you wouldn't have time to do all 35s and boss, but you should be able to hit the 2F~5F 35s and possibly the 6F QQTHs.

Either way, not having a THF in salvage is just a bad idea longterm, but like you said you are just looking for ideas for when your THF doesn't show up, and I think any of them could probably be manageable.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the biggest issue with not having a THF in Silv is pulling the 4F ramparts to pop turtle, if like us your standard strategy involves THF flee + PD sac. Someone with a hermes and a fanatics can pull this off though, so just make sure they get one from an earlier floor chest if one loads, or else spend some time on 4F respawning chests to get one if you have enough time left in the zone.

[Valyana]

Forgot to mention, the biggest issue with not having a THF in Silv is pulling the 4F ramparts to pop turtle, if like us your standard strategy involves THF flee + PD sac. Someone with a hermes and a fanatics can pull this off though

Our main THF always has a pair of Powder Boots, even when he's on RDM or COR, and often ends up training on those jobs too.

[Suiram]

We don't do the "flee and pull all the gears on port up" strat, but rather the one where everyone goes to the corner north of the middle room, THF flees around the big room, PDs in the corner while four people (5 if killing chariot) pulls ramparts off the train back to the teleport room. In that case it's not the hermes (temp item, AH item, or powder boots) that's important, but rather the 30 seconds of invulnerability. But as I said, getting someone a fanatics will take care of that, or use another strat, the main reason I mentioned it was so that if they use the same strat as us they'll remember that they'll have to adjust plans without a THF (which I once forgot until it was too late on a run with no THF lol).

[Amele]

the only zone I wouldn't want to do at all without TH is arrapago.

bhaflau and SSR you shouldn't need to modify your strat at all honestly - maybe take a little longer farming but the same routes all work. (I have had cases in both where you can get a little shorted on str or vit or int etc.)

zhayolm you can do it but don't plan on making floor 5 pop condition (if you get shorted on rings *and* ranged you're basically fucked you can still salvage floor 6 nm by doing a south route on 4F and 5F to get an extra nm. (or doing whichever of 1F/slot/3FS you usually skip normally).

[Ehran]

We did Arrapago once without TH, and learned our lesson the hard way. Still not sure what we were thinking -- when you get zero cell drops from multiple QQTH's, you're doing something wrong.

You're focusing on all the wrong details...

[Bakthi]

Arrapago is annoying without a thf, but maybe /thf might work a little bit here. I have never tried, as you'd have to give first SJ to that person, which sounds like a total waste.

This does work okay; I've done it a few times. Yeah, having to give the first SJ to your /THF person sucks, but even TH1 is notably better than TH0 (I've done this zone with TH0 twice due to accidents...eeargh). We always had a WHM when doing this, however.

SSR should definitely be fine with /THF, though I've never done it. I have done Zhayolm about half a dozen times with a /THF, and that was fine (our main goal was the boss anyway). No problem getting enough HP, MP, and ranged/rings. I'm sure an LBC run should be fine with a /THF.

[Ferien]

Any boss-only run (except Arrapago) should be fine to do without TH. Zhayolm the only things you might miss is Ranged/Rings/Body, which while annoying won't make or break the run. SSR and Bhaflau will only hurt if you're unlucky about which cells drop. Arrapago though...will never, ever, ever, ever, ever do without a THF. We spent 45 minutes on the 1st floor last run and still ended up with the minimum for magic/abilities and no STR, and that was with TH3. Hate that shit.

The only NM run I would bother with sans THF is Bhaflau, because the NMs, once they decide to show up, seem to have a pretty high drop rate. The rest are so low that I'm starting to regret doing them with only TH3.

[Ayn]

I'm our team's sole THF, but also the only person who can go on MNK with chariot tanking experience at times.

Every now and then I'll tell myself "Hey, we can do this zone without a THF, we'll be fine."

And we end up missing something retarded (like rings or whatever in Zhayolm) or taking forever to get HP cells (Zhayolm)

Never again.

That said yeah, Bhaflau's probably the only zone I'd trust without treasure hunter. Though honestly getting some of those cells earlier just makes shit a lot less frustrating later on.

[Kaylia]

Arrapago and Zhayolm can sucks without thief, but I would never skip a run because of the lack of thief. In the last 15 runs, all our drop came from mobs we killed without thief ironically (we went ~5times without one). Usukane body, skadi feet, 2 usu feet and 1 skadi head (all from the same rampart)...


It's possible that horrible drop rate in arrapago will prevent you from killing the mega (3 magics after clearing the whole floor, no subjob on 5th,6th), but even without thief, it won't happen often, and it shouldnt really matter in the end.

In zhayolm, you can minimize the impact of the "no earrings" run by killing 1st floor madame and skipping 5th one. Hitting mega and 1 lv35 frogs isnt too bad.

[edit]
Nothing amazing, but we went to Zhayolm Remnant with 5 today. We got jewed really bad on cells (no earring, 3 body pieces, 3hp cell) but still managed to hit 4th floor Porrogo Madame for Usukane feet and killed mega. It's the first time we kill this mega with less than 6, and I'm surprised how easy it was considering we had horrible cells

[Lordwafik]

I'm our team's sole THF, but also the only person who can go on MNK with chariot tanking experience at times.

Every now and then I'll tell myself "Hey, we can do this zone without a THF, we'll be fine."

And we end up missing something retarded (like rings or whatever in Zhayolm) or taking forever to get HP cells (Zhayolm)

Never again.

That said yeah, Bhaflau's probably the only zone I'd trust without treasure hunter. Though honestly getting some of those cells earlier just makes shit a lot less frustrating later on.

SSR's not bad either, every mob is garunteed 3 cells, TH only makes a 4th one chance pop, which I'm sure happens without.

[Ayn]

SSR's not bad either, every mob is garunteed 3 cells, TH only makes a 4th one chance pop, which I'm sure happens without

Good point. Since we're still farming kabutos until the end of time though, it's best for me to go THF anyway to handle the Fomor room.