Holy Cow...

[Gafgarionn]

For some reason, this is the most random ENM ever. The first two times, I did it without a hitch. The third try, my party was only 5 people and we didn't have a RDM for gravity, so we got owned. That loss I can pretty much understand. The fourth try (which I just got through doing) was completely messed up. My party was PLD/WAR, DRK/THF, RDM/BLM, BRD/WHM, and BLM/WHM. At first we were all doing really well. The BLM only nuked when Apid wasn't immune to it, and the DRK did the same with his weapon skills. For some reason though, at around the 7th minute mark, I'm guessing, this happened (sorry for bad edit, MSPaint ftw):

http://img335.imageshack.us/img335/6007/apislog9sb.png

I realize Apis goes through different stages where he's sometimes immune to magical, sometimes immune to physical, sometimes hits harder, or a combination, but this was just ridiculous. The other three times I've done the ENM, he's never hit for this hard. Once I fell, the other 5 party members died in about 10 seconds, literally. Not only was he hitting for harder, but the RDM said his Gravity was sticking for less time as the ENM progressed. My original thought was that he's like an HNM, and will eventually reach a point where he goes into SSJ mode. But thinking about it, my first two wins we won in about ten minutes, and we were about seven minutes into it this last time when he started hitting for that hard. Another thing I noticed was this:

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/5...spenhit4ca.png

That happened right before he went into crazy mode, and it's more damage than the DRK is usually able to pull on him. I have two different ideas for what happened. The first one is that maybe he has a Berserk type mode where he hits for more damage, but obviously takes less. This accounts for why the DRK did more. Another thought is that it's kinda like a Spike Flail thing. If you take hate from behind the mob with a strong SA, maybe he goes into a hard hitting mode? I think the first one is much more likely, but maybe not.

Anyways, anybody else have this happen to them? Am I just getting unlucky, or is there something that can be done about it?

[Correction]

Was bind failing, too? No reason both gravity and bind should fail unless your RDM is weaksauce.

[Gafgarionn]

I"ll find out. Maybe just Elemental Seal + Bind and wait for him to switch modes again.

[Demitrius]

Having fought this sucker a few times with a WAR/NIN tank, I know a few things about the fight. In general, the harder you can hit him, the harder he can hit you. I would never do this fight with a PLD tank. I've done it with both WAR/NIN and NIN/WAR, and have had minimal problems. He switches to a new attack/defense level every time you see him do the 2-hour sandstorm-like effect. His highest defense had the DRK hitting him for 0-20, but he only hit the WAR (without much defense) for 75-100. At his lowest defense, the DRK was doing 200+ per regular hit, but our WAR took damage in the 500-900 range.

Long story short, it SUCKS to tank this guy without shadows. It's possible, but you need to get lucky. Godspeed.

[Rex]

You were probably just really lucky with the forms he chose the first few times you did it, he crit my ninja for just a little over 1k damage once, and killed another nin tank a different time with 2 non critical hits. Sometimes though you just luck out and he only gets to "medium" level as his hardest before you finish him off.

[Raineer]

Came 10% from soloing it until the bastard went magic-immune throughout my entire 2-hour.

Around the 8 minute mark bind and gravity start losing their effectiveness.

[Toadicus]

Those numbers are pretty low. He was hitting us in the 1000 range towards the end the one time I did it. PLD DRK MNK BLM BLM RDM.