Delve

[Slycer]

Correct me if I am wrong but don't we have to kill 5 if these in a row before even attempting the boss? Even if you call 3 of them out, you have to kill 2 more inside and then the MB all within 45 minutes. I think people are overreacting when they are saying these new weapons are breaking the game. It stands to say that people will not even be sniffing the mega bosses for a long time...let alone kill them.

Yeah, pretty much this. If the regular NMs are any indication of the event difficulty, I shudder to think what the bosses will be like (but I'm also excited to find out). I really do kind of understand what Matsui was talking about here with gear progression. There definitely is a baseline for the kind of players/equipment you need to take these down in the first place. Then, as you get more and more equipment from this event (which is leaps and bounds over old stuff), you'll be able to take on more NMs inside the fracture rather than outside, which will increase your drop rates and plasm accumulation, so you get stuff faster and faster. Still, it's difficult to comprehend being able to beat all five NMs and the boss in one 45 minute run considering how these NMs can easily eat up 15-20 minutes a piece in a full alliance, but it doesn't seem totally unreasonable as strategies are developed and this new gear is acquired.

Honestly, I see very little wrong with the event. The level of challenge is super high but not ridiculously so (a la VW without temps), the restriction to entry is super easy to qualify for, the reward system is easily the best reward system in the game, and the event is designed for repeatability (RP system with stepwise and diversified enhancements on the augmentable gear, which in itself is one of the better ideas they've had in a while), and expansion down the road as more Naakuals and zones are added.

[Slycer]

Guys, this conversation is going on in two different places and the other one has more information right now. I can mod move posts, but please use the thread linked below for post-update Delve discussion:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/115865-Delve

This thread here was really just for discussion of the announcement and notes.

[Fake]

The greatest boon to this new event is that provided you can kill an NM once you can continue the upgrade process in 2 different ways. Large alliance scale farming of NMs or low man slaughter of fracture fodder.

SE is catering to everyone whilst providing a real incentive to team up with others to increase your yield.

[Slycer]

The greatest boon to this new event is that provided you can kill an NM once you can continue the upgrade process in 2 different ways. Large alliance scale farming of NMs or low man slaughter of fracture fodder.

SE is catering to everyone whilst providing a real incentive to team up with others to increase your yield.

Don't forget the third way. You can also even SOLO farm for plasm if you'd like to get the various equipment pieces and airlixirs, from normal monsters outside that drop shards (which can be used to instantly give plasm). The rate isn't extremely high, but it's actually fairly reasonable. With TH, you can probably get 10 or more shards per hour, which translates to 1500 plasm for IV/V (not to mention you're also indirectly farming Skirmish pops at the same time). Shards can be used right there in the field so you don't even have to return to town and trade or anything. Can buy gear and airlixirs both with plasm as long as you've beaten a NM in the area that drops the gear (presumably beating the boss for an area will unlock even more).

[Jem]

Don't forget the third way. You can also even SOLO farm for plasm if you'd like to get the various equipment pieces and airlixirs, from normal monsters outside that drop shards (which can be used to instantly give plasm). Can buy gear and airlixirs both with plasm as long as you've beaten a NM in the area that drops the gear (presumably beating the boss for an area will unlock even more).

Oh wow, did not know that. Incoming PLD's cleaving all the mobs for pop items to trade in for points.

Or I guess you can just buy your way through it since they're AH'able.

[Slycer]

Oh wow, did not know that. Incoming PLD's cleaving all the mobs for pop items to trade in for points.

Meh, doubtful. It's almost definitely way more efficient to get a small group going and just kill trash mobs for guaranteed 50 plasm per kill in the fracture (extremely easy to get fracture access, just need to get a "rock" for someone with that zone's naakual KI, then go trade to the NPC in Eastern for the entry KI). Heck, get an alliance going and just kill trash mobs and you'll be pounding out the plasm pretty quickly (trash mobs repop within the fracture on what looked like a normal 5 minute timer). We had an alliance going into a fracture and we got about 1,000 plasm from it killing trash mobs while derping around and kiting NMs for 20 minutes.

But yeah, for those who prefer solo or are playing at some off-time and can't form a group, the option is there and it isn't a terrible one.

[Arthars]

yep the idea of killing field NM once and you can farm solo through all pieces the NM can offer is great imo

[Jem]

Oh yeah it's definitely more efficient to farm as a group but it's not a bad solo option. I mean just from killing aggro whilst fighting the raptor last night we got 3 PI's.

I assume it will be an effective gil making exercise too since some people will just buy shards to get their items. With items being like 8000-20000 ish, I'm sure people will happily drop 50k per shard putting those items in the 3-8m range. Possibly even more.

[Arthars]

doing peiste atm it isnt half bad

granted acc is nearly floored but his def is so weak 1 hit does like 400-800 damage and WS did 2-5k

sj thf for all DDs and SATA with 1 hit WS seem to work wonders for him. catas is way more consistent than resolution, but diabloic eye + souleater can make up for the acc loss on ragnarok

[Byrthnoth]

Just as a friendly tip, you aren't required to melee the NM you're fighting. You can just pull random crap in the zone (like lizards) over to the NM and fight them while WSing the NM. If you're relying on the first-hit Acc bonus anyway, this will probably let you land more WSs (between SA/TA).

[Jem]

Annoying obstacles like Steam Spouts and the such are actually really good for that purpose if there's one nearby. Suggested it to our RNG's last night after a mob raged and got stupid evasion

[Stan64]

Please explain the abbreviation SATA.

[Rocl]

Please explain the abbreviation SATA.

idk if you're being cute or not but it's Sneak Attack Trick Attack

How many people did you bring Jem btw? I'm wondering if 8 was too few, which I expect I guess, but it's heartening to hear that you can kill w/ relatively low numbers.

[Shadida]

Please explain the abbreviation SATA.

Wow, that makes me feel so old.

Question: do you have to have the Naakual KI to pop NMs or participate in Delve? Or is it only necessary before you can use the NPC and/or get a Planchette?

In other words, if someone else has a Planchette and you don't have KI can you still enter the battlefield?

[SubzeroDiabolos]

Stan64 you just hurt all of my feels.

[Jem]

For the raptor we had 15 including mules but that was completely overkill / unnecessary set-up. Like we had 3 PLD's whereas you only needed 1.

You could probably get away with PLD WHM BRD COR 3-4 DD. We had the advantage of our DD's being relic RNGs so hate was not an issue, not sure how much that played into it though.

I'd just make sure that if you were low-manning it that you took along DD's capable of hurting it post rage as a just in case. GEO's are probably pretty handy for these for evasion down if you could cram that into a lowman set-up.

[Rocl]

Question: do you have to have the Naakual KI to pop NMs or participate in Delve? Or is it only necessary before you can use the NPC and/or get a Planchette?

In other words, if someone else has a Planchette and you don't have KI can you still enter the battlefield?

Yes, I was the only one of our eight people who had the ability to buy a Planchette and everyone zoned into the Delve. Naakual KI only determines whether or not you start the Delve it looks like.

For the raptor we had 15 including mules but that was completely overkill / unnecessary set-up. Like we had 3 PLD's whereas you only needed 1.

You could probably get away with PLD WHM BRD COR 3-4 DD. We had the advantage of our DD's being relic RNGs so hate was not an issue, not sure how much that played into it though.

I'd just make sure that if you were low-manning it that you took along DD's capable of hurting it post rage as a just in case. GEO's are probably pretty handy for these for evasion down if you could cram that into a lowman set-up.

Bleh, maybe our DDs were just awful then. We definitely had hate problems later on, so I can see how a relic RNG would be beneficial.

[Byrthnoth]

Do we know what zone Aphotic Kukri comes from yet?

[Slycer]

Hey now, this just in from JP wiki:

Defeating NMs II and IV from Morimar opened access to the following weapons for 30,000 plasm corpuscles each. Not sure what opened what. Maybe IV/V open weapons? IV/V shards are worth more plasm when you use them straight up.

Halachuinik Sword
Kiji
Surefire Arquebus
Bloodbath Axe
Soothsayer Staff

It's pretty clear that there's a tier of weapons in there higher than these which will be from the bosses. They also match up with the styling of Naakual weapons, which makes it even more obvious.

Edit: They could also buy Honed Tathlum for 10k and Refraction Cape for 10k in addition to all the other Morimar armor for 8k-20k.

[Jem]

Posted in the RQT but it looks to me like it's a case of

Lower DMG RA/EX Weapons = Buyable with points / drop from lower tier Delve NMs
Craftable Weapons = Mats come from Delve Naakual NM
Upgraded Naakual Weapons = Drop from Delve Naakual NM

Would make sense since the weapon types that have an Naakual weapon have no craftable version. From a progression standpoint it would be in line with what SE said too. Beat the lower tier NMs to get new weapons and armor then use that equipment to beat the Delve Naakual