Voidwatch Discussion

[Taint]

What triggers Bismarck's outrageous PDT? We were going well, spamming HQ staggers back to back for like 8-10 minutes and zerging with empyreans and relics and he was at like 60% then suddenly people started doing double digit Victory Smites(saw a 0 VS too) and craptacular WS as well as all melees hitting for 0 and we expended so many staggers that eventually we got hung up on ones we didnt have until we ran out(Rabbit Special Abilities/Stormwaker weapon skills) and then we wiped. We made sure he wasn't in the water. Is there a TP move he does where afterward he gains massive DT like Raksha Stance?

I've only killed him a few times but he is very high lvl with massive Def and gains some sort of -DT that seems to get stronger as the fight wears on. The best method I've seen him killed is with mages and WF CORs and just nuke him down like most Rex alliances do.

[Ophannus]

So annoying because even with his def at the first half of the fight it took us like 10min of pure zerging and getting like 10-12 Red Procs and like 8-10 yellow procs and spamming shit on him(had like 2 apoc drks and 2 Ukko wars and a vere/thaumus coat mnk) to get him to 60%. I can't imagine him being beatable if the second half of the fight he gains even more -DT. Damage would slow to a crawl as you lose proc slots to like PUP/BST triggers. I wonder if there's a way to weaken his -DT, seems kinda unrealistic that SE would make an NM that requires like wildfire cors and blms and shit since VW was meant to have a balanced setup. Perhaps skillchaining/MBing or nuking the corresponding element of the day lowers his -DT similar to how nuking lowers AV's regen. Since SE tests shit using NQ equipment I doubt they had a setup with tons of WF cors and BLMs or even ochain PLD to hold the adds using the super tank method without pets out(exploit).
'

[Churchill]

Our kills are around 12m, your people with Apoc/Ukon are probably just not that good if it takes 10m to get it to 60% before PDT shows up. Should be maintaining DiaIII, Ageha, and Tomahawk on the mob as well.

Also requires good BLM's (in my opinion) to nuke his gradual PDT off.

[Ophannus]

Tomahawk works on things other than skeletons/slimes/ghosts?

[Neisan]

Elementals. Anything with abnormal damage resistance gets reduced by Tomahawk, JoT, etc., Idk about Bismarck personally since I've only fought it on Blu, and finished in one run.

[pooter01]

I know this is a bit of a longshot, but has anybody tried Tomahawk on Watcher? if it reduces his -dmg even by a bit could certainly help.

and I assume the groups that are downing him fast aren't really worrying about procs, aside from easy 3/5's, just basicly 8-10 DD, 2-3 brd+cor, sch, 2blm, and 2-3 healers?

[Churchill]

I don't think it's really smart to let him live very long. As soon as you have fana down in 4 wings mode you will wipe. He has a lot of HP, is very dangerous, alliance hate, regens, and recovery is not feasible.

[pooter01]

I absolutely agree church, Last two attempts with 1/2 static 1/2 pickup took us 15~ mins to eventually wipe at 30%. both attempts we zombied and got back up for a second zerg, first timed out at 1%, second regened 20% before engaging and didn't make it far.

one thing my group is afraid of is they feel they lack the ideal jobs with emp/relics. Almost every melee has atleast one empy/relic on a job, we just don't have the empy brds for 3x songs. I feel they can do it, but they seemed sceptical.

One final question, bgwiki mentions fetters can't pop till <50%, is this true then? I always assumed it was the whole fight.

[Churchill]

I don't think I've seen them until under 50%, ever.

Doesn't matter who you take as long as they deal damage. An Ukon WAR doing 5% on the parse is a wasted slot if an OAT DRG is doing 15% and you didn't take them. I try to set it up MNK WAR DRK and SAM WAR DRK though.

Our party setup is:
WAR DRK MNK COR BRD WHM
WAR/DRG DRK SAM COR BRD WHM
BLM BLM SCH THF BLU PLD

Edit: no 2h's outside embrava

[Taint]

WAR 2hr wrecks watcher the more WARs you get the better.

I haven't done him on DRK but based on the parses Soul Eater gets resisted or he builds immunity very fast.

[fantasticdan]

I don't think I've seen them until under 50%, ever.

Doesn't matter who you take as long as they deal damage. An Ukon WAR doing 5% on the parse is a wasted slot if an OAT DRG is doing 15% and you didn't take them. I try to set it up MNK WAR DRK and SAM WAR DRK though.

Our party setup is:
WAR DRK MNK COR BRD WHM
WAR/DRG DRK SAM COR BRD WHM
BLM BLM SCH THF BLU PLD

Edit: no 2h's outside embrava

If you're zerging the dragon, why bring a pld? Just so you don't have to switch jobs after the cactuses? And why no nin? Ninjutsu procs are pretty common normally.

Was going to try this tonight, setup something like:

war drk sam mnk whm cor
war nin rng whm cor brd (emp, rotated)
blm blm sch blu cor thf (this guy would be pld for the caturae)

Also, do you lose KIs on a fail? If you don't, I guess that would lessen the need to bring jobs like rng over say another drk to cover procs.

EDIT: Does dragon breaker work?

[Taim Meich]

I don't think I've seen them until under 50%, ever.

Very interesting. We could have saved some concentration and definitely some accumulated enmity on the stunners if we had waited until &0% or so to start stunning. On the other hand, after the single experience I had, it seems that killspeed is probably the most important factor in the fight. The faster it dies, the less stuns that can miss.

I'm also interested in the hit rate issues Byrth commented earlier. What's the experience of others? I'm sure I'll always enter as a mage, but it'd be nice to advice the DDs who are willing to hear.

[Radec]

Also, do you lose KIs on a fail? If you don't, I guess that would lessen the need to bring jobs like rng over say another drk to cover procs.

Soon as you enter the BC, you lose all the KI needed (3x Petrifacts for Dragon, Corundum for Caturae)

[Darkmagi]

I think it's more like Kala where you need to balance physical damage with magic damage.

That fight was from about 80% Yugl. The BLM did do a good job on stuns, but we've had slower kills with more fetters (not stunning any, really) where all it takes is just killing them quickly.

Balance physical and magical damage on kala? stun raksha stance and you can melee it down in 2mins every time.

[Churchill]

If you're zerging the dragon, why bring a pld? Just so you don't have to switch jobs after the cactuses? And why no nin? Ninjutsu procs are pretty common normally.

Was going to try this tonight, setup something like:

war drk sam mnk whm cor
war nin rng whm cor brd (emp, rotated)
blm blm sch blu cor thf (this guy would be pld for the caturae)

Also, do you lose KIs on a fail? If you don't, I guess that would lessen the need to bring jobs like rng over say another drk to cover procs.

EDIT: Does dragon breaker work?

Too lazy to change jobs, THF/NIN, BLU/DNC_DRG etc, depending. We could make the PLD change, use an outside SCH, bring 2 more relevant jobs and kill it in 2m but if it's dying then it's just faster to use what is already there.

Very interesting. We could have saved some concentration and definitely some accumulated enmity on the stunners if we had waited until &0% or so to start stunning. On the other hand, after the single experience I had, it seems that killspeed is probably the most important factor in the fight. The faster it dies, the less stuns that can miss.

I'm also interested in the hit rate issues Byrth commented earlier. What's the experience of others? I'm sure I'll always enter as a mage, but it'd be nice to advice the DDs who are willing to hear.

Was me, but we're using Minx3 Madx2, I did happen to parse 95% accuracy on the last fight. That was with Pizza+1, cycled MNK JA's, and SV'd Mads. On WAR it wasn't as big of an issue.

Balance physical and magical damage on kala? stun raksha stance and you can melee it down in 2mins every time.

Good to know, now for the likely possibility that you don't stun it, then you need to nuke it. It doesn't help people to say just stun Raksha stance. If that's all you have, then stop Nynja'ing.

[ikariiiii]

its very possible to recover from a wipe on provenance watcher, the battlefield is large enough to support zombie holding without concerns for other aggro.

[Helel]

Bismarck doesn't seem to build resistance to ranged damage. Last stand was doing 3k+ with full buffs, but I ended up switching to /rdm and using wildfire since the damage was more consistent once procs ran out. We only had one cor with WF and me at first so the damage slowed down considerably. Still, it's very easy to win as long as you have at least 2-3 rng or cor with access to WF. WF damage was anywhere from 1800-3000 depending on fire shots/buffs.

Think we had 3 BLMs and your typical VW setup.

[fantasticdan]

So does the watcher actually count as a dragon for the purposes of ancient circle/dragon breaker?

[ronin sparthos]

Have any hat abjurations been found yet? or is that the territory of Legion drops?

[jimbobsonofgod]

Going to assume if we haven't seen a confirmation screen of it in a pool ,its probably legion by now. And we stopped using a pld in prov , using sam to hold add in other chambers.