Nyzul Isle Cerberus and his damned Stoneskin

[ChibiKawaiiMei]

How does your group handle this? This has been the third run in a row we get him, two on floor 100, and he just spams the hell out of that move. Between a SCH, BRD, WHM/SCH, and COR, none of us can land a dispel (the SCH tried popping light or dark weather on us, we all have the corresponding obi's, BRD was using Apollo's Staff but not the dispel +1 instrument)

Our current plan of action is to make the SCH come BLM and nuke the stoneskin off. Our normal setup varies, it looks something to the effect of BRD or COR, BLM or SCH, WHM, SAM, PLD/NIN, SAM or BLU. We have no trouble on anything else but this overgrown mutant puppy and his stoney skin.

[Alistaire]

How does your group handle this? This has been the third run in a row we get him, two on floor 100, and he just spams the hell out of that move. Between a SCH, BRD, WHM/SCH, and COR, none of us can land a dispel (the SCH tried popping light or dark weather on us, we all have the corresponding obi's, BRD was using Apollo's Staff but not the dispel +1 instrument)

Our current plan of action is to make the SCH come BLM and nuke the stoneskin off. Our normal setup varies, it looks something to the effect of BRD or COR, BLM or SCH, WHM, SAM, PLD/NIN, SAM or BLU. We have no trouble on anything else but this overgrown mutant puppy and his stoney skin.

If your melees currently have Fanatic's Drink in effect, have them stand on its tail. Not a sure-fire plan but it adds one more TP move that's not stoneskin.

[Foustian]

My group just beats through it. We've never really had a problem. Hydra is more of an annoyance for us if it decides to spam Pyric Bulwark. With a SAM, WAR, MNK, and COR, I can't remember ever losing to Cerberus except one time where we only had 2 minutes and the WAR and SAM were weakened until the 1 minute mark. Even then we got him to 12%, and if I had 2-houred (I'm the MNK), we would have won.

[mdkuser]

i think we did it with sam drk pup whm dualbox brd. Melees just fanatics+2h and pup nuke, was less than 2 minutes fight.

[Yugl]

Our current plan of action is to make the SCH come BLM and nuke the stoneskin off. Our normal setup varies, it looks something to the effect of BRD or COR, BLM or SCH, WHM, SAM, PLD/NIN, SAM or BLU.

Your group lacks DDs imo. BRD and SCH is a good combo for healing and the rest should be DDs (Change PLD so some DD). With what you've listed though I would suggest:

BRD, SCH (Really is more MP efficient than BLM), WHM, SAM, PLD, BLU

As I've said your current group lacks damage in general, which is probably why you aren't taking care of SS as fast as you should. Either make up for this by having BRD, SCH, BLU, DD 3x; or start picking up more items from the chest (Revitalizer + Dusty Wing is sick for SAM).

[Seraph]

How does your group handle this? This has been the third run in a row we get him, two on floor 100, and he just spams the hell out of that move. Between a SCH, BRD, WHM/SCH, and COR, none of us can land a dispel (the SCH tried popping light or dark weather on us, we all have the corresponding obi's, BRD was using Apollo's Staff but not the dispel +1 instrument)

Our current plan of action is to make the SCH come BLM and nuke the stoneskin off. Our normal setup varies, it looks something to the effect of BRD or COR, BLM or SCH, WHM, SAM, PLD/NIN, SAM or BLU. We have no trouble on anything else but this overgrown mutant puppy and his stoney skin.

If the PLD has Atonement, and is riding the hate line pretty high, a 100% WS can pretty much cut through a single Cerb Stoneskin. I usually open with a 300% Spirits Within on Cerb, but after that, I sit on my TP until he uses the Stoneskin move, and then I WS. Has only screwed me once when he reapplied it _right_ after I used my WS.

[Meian]

We have...

SCH (me), RDM, MNK, SAM, WAR, THF (or Blu). He gives us problems making timer run out with his Stoneskin spamming. We have 0 problems with everyone else.

[Foustian]

Your group lacks DDs imo. BRD and SCH is a good combo for healing and the rest should be DDs (Change PLD so some DD). With what you've listed though I would suggest:

BRD, SCH (Really is more MP efficient than BLM), WHM, SAM, PLD, BLU

As I've said your current group lacks damage in general, which is probably why you aren't taking care of SS as fast as you should. Either make up for this by having BRD, SCH, BLU, DD 3x; or start picking up more items from the chest (Revitalizer + Dusty Wing is sick for SAM).

You can't get a Revitalizer from the beginning chest. If you could, Nyzul would be a lot easier.

[amentis]

My group was Mnk/nin, Thf/nin, Nin/war, Sam/thf, Whm/blm, Brd/whm.

Never, ever had a problem with stoneskin, just gotta power through it.

[Niki]

If your melees currently have Fanatic's Drink in effect, have them stand on its tail. Not a sure-fire plan but it adds one more TP move that's not stoneskin.

Wut? Instead of doing Lava Spit and Sulfurous Breath it does Scorching Lash. You dont add 1 TP move, you lose one and increace the chance that it use Stoneskin.

[Alistaire]

Wut? Instead of doing Lava Spit and Sulfurous Breath it does Scorching Lash. You dont add 1 TP move, you lose one and increace the chance that it use Stoneskin.

Never really considered that, but the times we did that it seemed to stoneskin less. Maybe a higher chance of using that 1 TP move when it's applicable? idk

[Drex]

Low on damage, and make sure your melee aren't being princesses and waiting for stoneskin to go down so they can see big WS numbers. I get melee like that in pick-up 100s, and it wastes a lot of time - holding TP when hoplon goes up until we melee it down, shit sucks.

[ChibiKawaiiMei]

You know whats creepy? Our PLD rocks on dmg, getting close to the two SAMs if he really goes all out with drinks/HQ food. Our weakness is truly the times we need to take the BLU because our one SAM pulls the short straw at work. We tried haivng me on my WAR instead of WHM, and it ended horribly..

Edit: Speeeeling.

[hagun]

Have melee save TP wings for breaking stoneskin. Make TP wing use order for stoneskin.

[Shassira]

You don't need 4 DDs to do Nyzul, and you don't need BLMs either. We do Nyzul with 5 people:

Mnk/nin, Thf/nin, Blu/nin, Brd/whm, Rdm/whm

We never have trouble with any boss, except our Hydras tend to drag long a bit. I don't think we have timed out in months. The trick is easy: Suplement whatever you are lacking on with the initial chest.

If you are running out of time, even with 5+ minute fights on boss, then consider a way to improve on the previous floors because that is possibly a problem. Ofcourse, there's randomness involved but you can minimize the effect of it by following a method for each type of floor.
I've heard of many people having trouble with lamps, where we usualy take these floors as the fast (yet boring) floors, so if these are bringing you problems, consider them.

Normaly, with very few exceptions, we have extra time to do one or two floors more past the boss, no matter the floor. A few times we are forced to use 2hours to not run out of time.

Our usual item expense for a boss is: Cleric's drink (for everyone, these are mighty useful both on bosses and through the climb), Fanatic's, Spy's. After that, our MNK likes to take a body boost for the 100F fight and the blu takes a Dusty Ether.
We just hit our way through Stoneskin. BLU should be able to remove most of it with Dissverment + Frenetic Rip... just don't be afraid of looking at 0 dmg spells

And as a final note... for the love of all FFXI gods, don't do Nyzul bosses without a thf x.x;

[hagun]

And your SAM fail. Sorry.

[malak]

How do you have trouble with cerb's stoneskin with four melee, lol. We use three, one of them being THF, and have never had a problem. No drinks except maybe Fanatics. Hydra however.. when it nonstop spams physical shield, is just stupid.

[Dimmauk]

Could the SCH help by Nuking through Stoneskin?

[Firedemon]

We tend to go balls out on the NMs. Our set is WAR, THF, RDM, WHM, DRK, DRK. Body Boost, Fanatic's Drink, and Icuras Wing for myself and the other DRK, and our WAR likes to get Soldier's drink.

We'll go in with TP already, totally buff up and WS, pop wings and WS again. Leaving Souleater up fulltime with fanatic's is great, the only thing the mages are curing is self-inflicted damage. Doing this we have Cerb dead in under a minute give or take.

[Yugl]

You can't get a Revitalizer from the beginning chest. If you could, Nyzul would be a lot easier.

Bleh you're right. I never tried to since we never need it, but I got it from the blue chest so I assumed it was available.