The Hills are Alive. KS99.

[S N K]

I've been doing a small bit of research into this ks99 and I only remember one friend I spoke to about it a long time ago in terms of a strat to win it.

I'm curious if anyone here has posted any ways to win this 30 minute fight or can offer any insight on how to do it right?

[Lordwafik]

When I was still running the dynamis LS "Manaburn", occasionally after dyna if people wanted, we'd go do a KS99.

For this, what we did :

PT1 :
BLMx 5
Refresher

PT2 :
BLMx4
Refresher x2

PT3 :
Melee1
Melee2
Healer
Bard
BLM x 2



Basically melees SC, blms MB.

He has high regen when he enters his shell, but nothing nuking can't fix once he's out. It's been a very long time since I did it, I forgot if he has MDB once he's in a shell.

[SamanosukeShiva]

Out of Shell:
Tank hold (Kite/Stand w/e ur preferance as long it's away from BLMs)
Melee damage
BLMs rest

In Shell:
SC + AM2 or TierIV MB + continued with brutal nuking until it's out of the shell.

rinse and repeat

[Anakron]

Is there a known amount of HP damage that would cause it to go in or out of its shell?

The last time our LS did it, we had a few tries where we think it went out and right back into its shell. Or it could have been that it never went out, but we dumped quite a good amount of MP on it, so I'm not sure how likely that is.

[Zilong]

You can pretty much ES+Silence the turtle to shut him down with your BLM army (which you should have for this battle if you want to finish in any reasonable amount of time)

[Almalexia]

The last time our LS did it, we had a few tries where we think it went out and right back into its shell. Or it could have been that it never went out, but we dumped quite a good amount of MP on it, so I'm not sure how likely that is.

Someone nuked too late. It's important for every BLM to land the MB and interrupt any late casting or there is a risk of damage carrying over to the out-of-shell phase, forcing him back into his shell instantly.

[Callisto]

Out of curiosity, anyone know if this is something that could be SE/BW zerged? We don't have anywhere near the amount of BLMs for this, but may be looking to do one for BB items soon.

[Mojo]

6 skilled BLMS is the minimum I'd say you need. I can't recall if SE works while it's in the shell.

[Berdysh]

SE did not work when our DRK was messing around on it. You can win this fight with 6 strong BLMs, but everything needs to go perfect with your timed nukes, SCs, MBs and not knocking it in or out of its shell when you're not wanting to. It's all about keeping it controlled, and more BLMs give you more room for error.

[fndragon]

The "trick" to this fight is keeping the turtle under control. I did quite a few runs of this a few months back, here's what we did:

Tank is PLD/WAR, kites the turtle while it's out of its shell. Just run around the outer edge of the circle, no +movement speed necessary.

Two DD's who would perform a Darkness or Distortion skillchain. They can and should gain TP while the monster is out of its shell, and perform the skillchain as soon as the turtle enters its shell.

As many BLM's as possible: Only nuking with Blizzard IV, Blizzaga 3, or Freeze II. If they see the turtle is out of its shell they must CANCEL their casting asap. You should be able to get by with 4 BLM's at a minimum, honestly. The fight goes faster the more BLM's you throw at it.

BLM's should have an elemental seal + silence order.

The flow of the fight goes like this:
Paladin kites turtle around, melee build TP, blm's in the center of the arena.
Once the melee have TP, they *should* back off and stop damaging and wait for the BLM's to be ready. In reality, though, it takes longer to build TP than it does for the BLM's to get ready, usually. The reason they should back off is that the turtle goes into its shell in response to being damaged.
So at this point the melee have TP and the BLM's are full of MP. The next person in the Elemental Seal order will pop ES, and silence the turtle. (The turtle will *only* cast while in the shell, never while running around). Once the turtle is silenced, one or two BLM's will Blizzard IV the turtle so he goes into his shell while silence is on.
As *soon* as the turtle goes into his shell (melee can watch for the turtle's back legs to do a stutter-step kind of motion), the melee will start their skillchain and the blm's will time their spell (aga3, freeze2) to land on the skillchain.
Once the skillchain is finished and the magic burst has landed, the turtle will come out of its shell. Any BLM's who are still casting at this point should /heal and stop their casting immediately.
Once the turtle is out of its shell, the paladin resumes the kiting.

If, by some error or overnuking/undernuking, the turtle is still in its shell after the magic burst the BLM's must continue nuking as hard as possible (ice only) until he's out of his shell.

Once the turtle is being kited, the BLM's rest up in the center until the melee are ready to skillchain again.

[Paegan]

The above post pretty much sums it up.

The turtle is only a danger when it's in it's shell. When it's out it moves at Genbu speed and doesn't cast.

We did a timed Blizzard IV nuke from -all- the BLMs to make it go in, then MB'ed Freeze II. If it doesn't come out after the MB just keep nuking with Ice spells until it does. The most important thing, as others have said, is that your BLMs must be alert and ready to /heal and stop their casting when it comes out. The only real danger in this fight is it going back into it's shell when you're low on MP and then regening to full because you don't have the damage to get it back out.

We didn't use a ES+Silence rotation, but that sounds like a good idea. We had 3 RDMs there and just had them all cast Silence with the timed Blizzard IV nuke, one of them will land it most of the time. One Waterga IV going off isn't a big deal anyway as long as it hits everyone. Silencega is more of a pain (remember to bring echo drops), then your BLMs miss hitting the SC and have to nuke it back out without the extra MB damage, but it's still nothing major.

We did just fine with 5 BLMs btw (admittedly, 5 well equipped and merited Novio BLMs).

As long as you follow that strategy then this is the easiest KS99 imo. Which is probably why the drops suck (at least they mostly did for us, but we did gain two BB mnks so all's good).