SCH/RDM vs Golden-Tongued Culberry

[Marcicus]

I think Kaeko made a post about this but I couldn't find it.

I'm assuming a SCH would solo the same way as a RDM except it'd be a bit faster due to helix.
I'm pretty sure there's a tonberry that spawns around the kiting path and aggroes/links with the NM. How would I deal with that? Helix it as well and kite it? Also how well does Gravity land with the double ice weather almost always present?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Its been a long, long time since I've fought that NM, but I vaguely remember it being immune to Gravity and Bind.. Definitely not positive though.

[Tricen]

It casts often enough, but death goes through shadows etc. It may be gravable but no point in it since you can outrun it np.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Scratch that, just had a friend confirm that its susceptible to Gravity and Bind.

[evilpaul]

Desert Boots ftw. (Or for us poor people.)

[Elswood]

The NM curing itself is the biggest roadblock in the fight, as the link is fairly weak (DC~ tonberry I think) and can be killed / kited with ease. Gravity shouldn't be needed unless the add gets annoying, or you just need time to rebuild mp.

[Jedimasta]

The one add in the room is really easy to kill. I think it was maybe EP-DC when I farmed it for logs.

[Eldelphia]

You can easily bind it, and seems fairly susceptible to grav. Desert boots might be nice + alacrity for quick nukes occasionally? Done this a lot on BLM with 2-3 of us. Add repops every 15 or so I think. Will take forever and = more death if you're unlucky on the stairs.

[Callisto]

The NM curing itself is the biggest roadblock in the fight, as the link is fairly weak (DC~ tonberry I think) and can be killed / kited with ease. Gravity shouldn't be needed unless the add gets annoying, or you just need time to rebuild mp.

That's the big issue, you will most likely want to bring a partner just so you aren't there all day for 1 pop. It gets spammy with Cure IV at times and can undo a lot of progress in a really short amount of time, and without being able to shift hate during casting you can't really do anything to stop it.

[DIABEETUS]

How would you get any casts off reliably though? As soon as you get into casting range to apply any DoT, you're pretty much risking it up to chance whether or not he casts Death/Sleepga on you, at which point you're dead. The casting time on Death and Sleepga is way too fast to outrun. You can only live so long on lucky breaks where he casts long ass spells giving you time to DoT and run out of range. Is there a trick to casting on him?

[Callisto]

With movement speed you can outrun death assuming you aren't right on top of him, especially if you cast your spells right after he casts his, you can gain some ground before he attempts to cast another spell.

[Omniyoji]

How would you get any casts off reliably though? As soon as you get into casting range to apply any DoT, you're pretty much risking it up to chance whether or not he casts Death/Sleepga on you, at which point you're dead. The casting time on Death and Sleepga is way too fast to outrun. You can only live so long on lucky breaks where he casts long ass spells giving you time to DoT and run out of range. Is there a trick to casting on him?

The trick to it is casting your spells at the four corners. You'll be able to start casing before he can position himself to cast. You'll only be casting DoTs so it'll be fast. The most important advice I can give you is to go to the bathroom before you solo this dude on SMN or BLM (takes very long). RDM is faster. I'd assume SCH would be fast as well? I got him down to 80% before I had to go >_>;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

If you can get a partner to help out, it'll cut down your time and help you out when pooping it. For solo you might want to pop it with a poison pot (for sleepga II) or SS (sleepga + nuke). If he opens with Death... well then... lol

Goodluck~

EDIT*

Oh I forgot, remember reraise... incase of an emergency.

[Lordwafik]

How would you get any casts off reliably though? As soon as you get into casting range to apply any DoT, you're pretty much risking it up to chance whether or not he casts Death/Sleepga on you, at which point you're dead. The casting time on Death and Sleepga is way too fast to outrun. You can only live so long on lucky breaks where he casts long ass spells giving you time to DoT and run out of range. Is there a trick to casting on him?

wat

Death isn't fast with casting time, especially if you just ran into casting range, you should have time to outrun.

[Eldelphia]

With SCH and sublimation, sleepga is less of a risk. Death is still an issue on pull and at certain positions on the circuit. Without movement speed you can still get caught if you don't use screen space well or get caught on corners.

Opening with death is a bitch though. Two of us almost loss this fight when we were stupid/unlucky and we headed back to spawn point. We got up and every time we re dotted he'd go straight for Death, we did it but you have to be careful on casting distance.

Grav gives you thinking time. SCH would prolly have an easier time on this than most jobs because they can hit their JAs. I might try once mine is done.

[stinkypoo]

I find the corners are the worst place to stop in, especially if you're new at this. I prefer using the long stretches at the top and bottom, especially the bottom one because the top one can give you the annoying "unable to see" when he's not quite up the stairs yet. Every time you make him fail a cast, he will stop for a few seconds before he tries to cast again. Run out to make him fail, run back in, cast your spell, run back out, should be fine even if it's Death, unless your spell takes too long. My sch is level 1 though, so I have no idea how long helixes take to cast, but I can easily fit in Aspir by doing that. As others have said, with the fast-cast thingamaboober I would imagine it's not too hard ;/

I didn't know this was soloable though? I thought the constant curing would be too much for either a RDM or a BLM to overcome, unless he runs out of MP. I forget if running super far ahead of him (while you're letting refresh or sublimation fill your mp back up) will prevent him from stopping and casting Cure IV...I don't think it does, but if so then I guess it might be doable that way.

On the topic of making him run out of mp though...my very first small man attempt on this was a trio (this was in like, early 2006), where we did pretty bad, taking a good 90 minutes to kill and dying a whole bunch before taking him down. The interesting thing is that around the 3% mark he completely stopped casting. We thought "hey he ran out of mp!" and proceeded to finish him by meleeing and casting Stone 1's. Earlier this year I was bored and had an extra knife, so I tried to solo him by forcing him to run out of MP by constantly eating his nukes as RDM/NIN. I figured if it took us 90 or 120 minutes or w/e to make him run out when we were trying to avoid his spells, then by eating as many as possible it shouldn't take too long right? THREE AND A HALF HOURS of constantly eating all single target and nearly all -ga nukes later, he still hadn't stopped casting. I was about to give up when something weird happened....he tried to cast Blizz IV on me, I outran it, ran in to reclaim him (he was unclaimed cause I had just killed an add) and lo and behold, he wasn't casting anymore. I was able to take my sweet time, skilling up sword and medding in front of him (I have pics of this at home). The thing is that Blizzard IV casting attempt (which I'm 100% sure I outran, didn't lose shadow or take damage or anything) means he still had mp...so I guess he really can't run out of mp, just occasionally glitches out, possibly when going unclaimed/claimed? I've heard of a few other people saying he stopped casting on them too, but the details were sketchy and I think they just assumed he ran out. I know Gration definitely runs out of mp fairly quickly (and gains some back if he deaggros and regens 10-20% >_>), but based on that 3.5 hour ordeal, maybe they gave Golden Tongued some kind of refresh since he's a "true" mage?

Some other fun facts:

- if hate shifts during his casting, this will interrupt him 100% of the time. Can be used to great effect when you get the hang of it: my partner and I bring him to the bottom, then while I have hate, he lands a Blizz IV while GC is casting. This interrupts him, he turns to my partner, who kinda gets ready to run (in case of death) but stays close enough to not bring him out of range of my nuking. Meanwhile I'm casting a tier IV of my own, and it lands after he starts casting on my friend. This interrupts him, he turns to me, rinse repeat. Can take away big chunks of his HP this way, but eventually you're limited by MP. Also, all it take is one resisted nuke (or hate not shifting for whatever reason) and his spell will go off, which can lead to bad things

- This one I'm more sketchy on because my partner discovered it and he's the one who really makes use of it, but I think if you bind him (need ES or a good enfeebling set) and make him fail a cast, he won't attempt to cast again (or will only attempt once or something) unless someone is < 20.0 from him. Since the max casting distance for players is 20.x, this means you can stand there and aspir/ele dot/cast 1 tier IV before he becomes unbound and starts casting on you again. I've seen him do this many times while I'm medding and done it myself a few times, but again I'm not too clear on the details.

- from my limited experience with HQ knives, it seems like popping it it with an HQ knife will change his AI and make him more "aggressive" or something. I know it sounds like Alla/old wives' tale bullshit, but my friend and I both agreed he seems to pause a lot less between casts when popped with an HQ knife.

Opening with death is a bitch though. Two of us almost loss this fight when we were stupid/unlucky and we headed back to spawn point. We got up and every time we re dotted he'd go straight for Death, we did it but you have to be careful on casting distance.

An easy way to overcome this is to have 1 person trade the knife (or claim with something weak if you wiped), then the other person waits for him to start casting on the popper, and they cast stun. This makes hate shift and interrupts him; works like a charm everytime. On my solo attempt I actually botted a friend just for this (then logged her out), so it wasn't 100% solo >.>

So yeah...anyone have any experiences/details with him running out of MP? :<

[Stiker]

Gravity definitely can stick. I remember kiting this guy on my PLD way before I ever got any movement speed gear and it wasn't hard at all. If you manage to get any form of movement speed, plus gravity him, it's a joke to kite around.

Since you are going solo and don't have to worry about going back in range to get hate back (which is what usually the only thing that will ever kill me on this mob), once you get into a good rhythm of where to stop and cast your spells, you should be good to go.

[Callisto]

I forget if running super far ahead of him (while you're letting refresh or sublimation fill your mp back up) will prevent him from stopping and casting Cure IV...I don't think it does, but if so then I guess it might be doable that way.

Nope, it definitely doesn't, and he really does get spammy with the shit at lower health in my experiences. Although I guess if you're a bit of a masochist, getting it down to lower health and then letting it cast Cure IV a bunch is one way to make it run out of MP.

[Eldelphia]

An easy way to overcome this is to have 1 person trade the knife (or claim with something weak if you wiped), then the other person waits for him to start casting on the popper, and they cast stun. This makes hate shift and interrupts him; works like a charm everytime. On my solo attempt I actually botted a friend just for this (then logged her out), so it wasn't 100% solo >.>

So yeah...anyone have any experiences/details with him running out of MP? :<

Oh yeah, I know that. When you first pop him, someone else does something to claim him to interrupt his cast on you. Just we had a problem with only one person being up at one time and having to claim it to stop despawn. We did it but the reclaimer ate death at least twice. A friend came out to help and we finished it. Was very messy and we've since done much better.