Salvage: Zhayolm Remnants

[divisortheory]

Is there some place people are getting armor cells on floors 3-5? Or are you just hitting a couple mobs in each room of floor 2 to get your tank fully-clothed? We barely make it to the boss with over 15 min and that's only hitting one room in floor 2 with 10-12 people.

It's not possible to hit armor cells on 3-5, and it's not possible to hit a few mobs in each room, since you MUST clear the first room to unlock the other 3 rooms.

For first floor, I think having 1 group of people farm only the 4 inner rooms, and the other gruop of people farming only the 4 outer rooms will speed things up even further than having 1 group to SW/NE and another going SE/NW, due to the way that you get one of everything from the 4 inner rooms. Also, having done a ton of arrapago gets you used to dealing with very little armor and HP. 5-6 HP cells for your melee only, and 5-6 MP cells for your mages is all you really need. After having done so much Arrapago, I would probably even bail out of the second floor before clearing the entire first room. Skip entire 4th and 5th floor, and make sure to SC/burst/carby pull on the gears. I think an optimally efficient boss run would get you through the floors like this:

1st floor: 20 min
2nd floor: 10 min
3rd floor: 20 min
4th floor: 1 min
5th floor: 4 min
6th floor: 20 min

Total: 75 minutes

[Sci]

I didn't time each floor, but we actually did clear the entire NE room on the 2nd floor, and a couple mobs in each of the other room. We went and got 2 hands that were pretty much not needed, but we gave those to the 1 BLM and the SAM/RNG. We got 6 legs&feet for the tank and melees, hard to give up haidates. Then just 2 head/neck, one for the tank, one for the DRK. The way I see it, spending a couple extra minutes earlier in the farming of cells is going to speed up the rest of the farming/clearing to the boss.

The last time we came to the zone trying to find the Poroggo Madame, we got to the 4th floor in under 30 minutes. So we decided to mess around and see how we could do against the boss, but with how much gear we were lacking, we ended up giving up on the 6th floor chariot. But this time with people decently equipped, most of the gears didn't live longer than 45 seconds, and the chariot took maybe 5 minutes to kill.

[Lindstrom]

4th floor: 1 min

Good luck with that.

[Suiram]

The main problem with the times listed above (other than the fact that 1 min is pretty inconceivable for 4th floor, I'd say 4min minimum) is that you can still get screwed on luck. We don't have any problems anymore with the floors that used to be difficult in terms of time, 1st and 6th, but the problem is in actually getting the cells we *need* let alone extra gear cells. Like our last run everything went pretty flawlessly as far as kill speed and organization, but like, we needed 2 ranged cells, and they didn't drop from any lizards, so we had to clear all the way through the mamool, meaning 2nd floor took 10 min instead of 2, 3rd floor we got more than enough HP, but needed 6 MPs, but only got 4-5 from all the mamools, so had to pop and kill the Madame, 4th floor it was the 3rd or 4th rampart that finally triggered the teleporter, etc.

Either way, we still made it to the boss with 15-20 min left, but my main question was how people make it to the boss with 15-20min left and a near-fully equipped tank.

[divisortheory]

4th floor: 1 min

Good luck with that.

Oops, I was thinking Arrapago where you just zone. 5 min is still reasonable though for 4F.

As for cells you need, the bard job is operational without an instrument. a ranged cell is pretty damn nice to have, but if it's gonna cost you 15 minutes in time, just figure out how to make do without it.

for HP/MP, the mamools on the 4th floor drop it too and I think the drop rate isn't that bad. Killing the madame is definitely wasting a ton of time.

And if worse comes to worse, just like with the ranged cells, make it work without. At least TRY without. So your BLM has to rest after every 2 nukes. Imagine you didn't kill the madame, and you got 0 ranged cells the entire run. So you get to the boss with a blm who can't nuke very much, and either 2 1-song bards, or a 1-song bard and a ranger who doesn't do anything but mitigate Discoid damage. On the other hand, you had 35 minutes instead of 20.

Would you have been able to squeeze out a win?

[Suiram]

We had enough time to win actually, we just fucked up on the boss itself (MNKs died and then we were trying funky positioning for Discoid with the RDMs who had got excess HP cells and it didn't quite work and PLD died etc.) But having more armor cells would obviously make it easier, and based on experience with the other zones I always feel like we're doing something wrong, which was my original motivation for the question.

We were I think PLD RDMx2 WHMx2 RNGx2 MNKx2 BLM, so the 2 ranged cells were something of an imperative, because RNGs couldn't be discoid-only or we definitely wouldn't have had enough time, especially on floor 6.

The Mamools on the 4th floor I considered at the time, but a quick check of this thread and the wiki I couldn't find any information on their drops, and I even posted here after asking if anyone happened to know but no response lol

I definitely think the exact same group with the exact same jobs could win, because like I said we just fucked up on the boss itself, and as I described above I think we probably took the maximum amount of time it would ever take aiming for the same number of cells. Although, assuming the same people show up tomorrow we'll probably change jobs a bit like one less ranger in place of another tank or a BRD. I was just hoping there was something I was overlooking that could get us all that AND some more armor, instead of 25 DEX and INT cells.

[Slott]

If you're having trouble with time, try using the strat on the wiki (and i love whoever added that) we used it and get to boss with 25 mins left even with fuck ups.

Most important thing is decide whos getting what cells even before we get there (have a list ready and someone ready to call it)

We usually get to gear up at least 4 melee fully, with 2 partially geared, most with full hp and the right stats, mages (blms whms and pld) typically have mp cell (mages maybe naked for gear sometimes tho)

If you have extra people on the run that wont get magic etc, just have em be your portal bitch or chariot bitch.

For example, we do 12 magic (clear all ziz + frog) get 10 weapons (dont clear frog, and however many ja and sj we can.

First weap for us goes to pld in our puk pt (which goes to raptor next)
2nd goes to thf (me) in ziz > bugards - divy up your magic smartly and sj - whos gonna tank most in each area? (we do whm magic first to our ziz set, then to whm in our puk pt, then magic to thf (me) since i end up tanking a shitload w/ mandau etc etc)

Be sure to port up within 25-30 mins of zone in...

Then we port up to north east room, clear it fully together, then split up and do north and south west.

Can typically get all our melee geared up 6 or so)

port up after about 15-20 mins (make sure you have at least 50 mins left)

On floor 3 send someone to portal right away, clear the first 2 rooms of mamools, on 3rd one, pull the mamools and dont kill pets - just sleep em, when all 4 mamools are dead, just port up.

4th floor leave someone at portal, everyone else clears ramparts asap (our last 2 times we had to clear all 4 to get the right one)

5th floor just send 2 ppl to train - not difficult

6th floor, everyone goes south, send your nekkid ungeared person to punch the chariot - they dont have to train it anywhere

Then pull gears (you really dont need carbuncle pulls, range pull works just fine...

7th left you should have at least 20 mins left...

Make sure people bring rr shit and hi pots, saves tons of time getting up the floors. With 6 melee 3 blm we have plenty of dps to get this done right - skip the mamools on floor 1 and only kill what you need, skip glove mobs, etc etc.

i mean yeah its common info - we used to have a shitload of problems with this zone because we geared too many people up - the less, the better...

As for boss, we typically just keep 3-4 melee in range (one our pld/nin) then usually a bakup tank, war or nin, and me (thf) make sure you have shell and some hp gear on (i eat carbonara for it, <3 carbonara) lets us SC for the blms, and I keep hate on the pld w/ trick attack.

We typically go with the following pts when we zone in:
Pld, war, mnk, whm, rdm
thf pup(ormonk) nin, whm, brd
blm blm blm rdm

This lets you have at least one spot in each pt to swap the bard and rdm around if needed (we typically do on chariot and boss)

As for discoid dmg? Should be fine with just 3 melee in, 6 melee is way too mana draining imo.


once again, thanks to the wiki strat person (i remember we were one of the first to do zhayolm constantly but got stuck on the chariot floor, we also ended up clearing both ramparts + chariot + all gears once, and timed out with like 10 sec left, til someone told us ramparts dont need to die -,-

[Almalexia]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g6...s/img_0113.jpg

Beat Battleclad in 9 minutes/12 people today, even though I was totally wrong about Discoid damage with 4 people in range. I think it was Monk's Roll that ultimately saved us, since BC didn't go nuts with TP attacks even during Hundred Fists.

My brilliant scheme was to bring a COR this time around, running Monk's and Magus'. Monk's to control TP and Magus' to mitigate damage from the basic chariot attacks beyond Shellra V. For Discharge/Inertia stream, damage barely broke 200 with XI Magus and single merit Shellra V. Discoid, however, was a different beast altogether.

Our setup had 3 melees (MNK, MNK, THF) in one party, with 3 support (BRD, COR, WHM). This party would have the benefit of Magus' and Shellra V. The other party had a single melee (NIN) and additional mages, including another WHM with Shellra V. I had calculated assuming XI Magus', which we did get from the beginning, the 3 melees in the first party would take about 684 damage. The lone NIN would take around 800, having only Shell. What happened was 800-860 damage to all melees in range. I'm certain I have my magic damage math right... the only explanation I can think of is Magus' Roll (MDB in general?) does not affect Discoid.

Furthermore, after eating a delicious critical followed by Discoid and hanging on 30 HP, I popped my Fanatic's Drink. Even though Fanatic's grants immunity to every basic chariot TP attack, you will still take damage from Discoid.

The best way to mitigate Discoid, to my knowledge, is additional targets, damage resistance (Stoneskin, Phalanx) and magic damage -%. One day I would like to try the melee party with a BLU; BLU will spam Diamondhide and enhance Magus' Roll for basic TP attacks.

Oh, and Mijin Gakure hurts.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g6...ots/ZilMij.jpg

[Lindstrom]

Hey, remember that time I said it was a breath attack and not magic needles? Still interested in trying light resistance (osode and carol really) and see if it helps, but first my group has to bother with this thing.

Grats on winning, good to know this thing is a puss, will be nice to see some of the Battleclad collection get upgraded in the near future.

[Shadida]

I'm going to lose my mind if nobody figures out these Poroggo NMs soon. Any of the Aircommand lurkers seen any developments lately or did they give up too?

[divisortheory]

Hey, remember that time I said it was a breath attack and not magic needles? Still interested in trying light resistance (osode and carol really) and see if it helps, but first my group has to bother with this thing.

Grats on winning, good to know this thing is a puss, will be nice to see some of the Battleclad collection get upgraded in the near future.

Remember that time I proved it wasn't a breath attack? It's obviously neither.

[Lindstrom]

I remember the part where you disagreed with me based on a few claims where people of actually fought it. The one group that has pictures of them killing it and speaks the same language as me says that Magic Defense Bonus, Magus's Roll, Magic Shield, and Shell all did nothing to help against it. Obviously isn't 4400 needles or some other retarded random number because otherwise it wouldn't be changing damage all the time, especially when only 1 person eats it. It can only be either physical, magical, or breath, since those are the only 3 kinds of damage in the game, and guess which 2 of those 3 are rather clearly not it?

[divisortheory]

I remember the part where you disagreed with me based on a few claims where people of actually fought it. The one group that has pictures of them killing it and speaks the same language as me says that Magic Defense Bonus, Magus's Roll, Magic Shield, and Shell all did nothing to help against it. Obviously isn't 4400 needles or some other retarded random number because otherwise it wouldn't be changing damage all the time, especially when only 1 person eats it. It can only be either physical, magical, or breath, since those are the only 3 kinds of damage in the game, and guess which 2 of those 3 are rather clearly not it?

Shell doesn't work against breath, but does work against Discoid. Therefore it isn't breath. QED

Fanatic's Drink works against magic damage, but doesn't work against Discoid. Therefore it isnt' magic damage. QED

Shell doesn't work against physical, but does work against Discoid. Therefore it isn't physical damage. QED

[Lindstrom]

I remember the part where you disagreed with me based on a few claims where people of actually fought it. The one group that has pictures of them killing it and speaks the same language as me says that Magic Defense Bonus, Magus's Roll, Magic Shield, and Shell all did nothing to help against it. Obviously isn't 4400 needles or some other retarded random number because otherwise it wouldn't be changing damage all the time, especially when only 1 person eats it. It can only be either physical, magical, or breath, since those are the only 3 kinds of damage in the game, and guess which 2 of those 3 are rather clearly not it?

Shell doesn't work against breath. Therefore it isn't breath. QED

What part of Shell not working against Discoid are you missing? I really can't expect someone to go ahead and cancel their shell in a middle of a fight to prove me wrong, but here's the deal: If Shell works, Magic Shield sure as shit works. Other factors like what element is might be and the day of the week and maybe even some damage reduction (I have no idea what people are wearing except Almalexia wearing Pahluwan and the NIN next to them in an Osode) are probably what's the difference between the 600ish and 800ish Discoids.

[divisortheory]

What part of Shell not working against Discoid are you missing?

The part where it actually does work. Have you even fought this boss before?

[Lindstrom]

Ok, misread the part where he said Fanatic's Drink and not Fool's, though nonetheless I'm still skeptical, and even still I don't think it's gonna matter since this thing is still a puss.

Edit: Have you?

[divisortheory]

Ok, misread the part where he said Fanatic's Drink and not Fool's, though nonetheless I'm still skeptical, and even still I don't think it's gonna matter since this thing is still a puss.

Edit: Have you?

Yes, here was my report from a previous page:

Once it hit 2 people for 1145 and a third person for 1146.
The next time it hit 4 people for exactly 859 each.

However, someone posted on a previous page that a JP group reported it to be 4,400 Needles. All of us had Shell IV on, which would bring 4,400 down to exactly 3,436.

[Suiram]

Back on the subject of the Madames, there's something I've been meaning to bring up. I reported a long while back now that the rampart that opened the portal on the 4th floor seemed to be the one that took 0 magic damage, because at the time it appeared to be true, but since then there have been a couple runs where I'm pretty sure the portal didn't activate until a different rampart had died.

Assuming this is the case, that I was wrong about the magic-resistant rampart being the key to the portal, there must be something special about that rampart or those four ramparts which would likely be the key to something else, you don't think?. My group doesn't really spend much time going for the Zhayolm 35s, at least not yet, but something worth checking for groups who do would be if the other other ramparts take a penalty (perhaps not 100%) from other damage types, or a bonus from magic or other damage types. Perhaps they have to be killed in a certain way, or in a certain order (thinking south path here), or maybe you need to let that one summon a reinforcement or something else along those lines.

Also, last few runs (south path) it was the Third Rampart, but I can't recall if it always is or if it's random.

[divisortheory]

I'm still not discounting the possibility that that the Lv. 35 drops are 5-10% drops from the exact same Madames that drop the Lv. 15s, and that 5th and 6th floor Madames are DAT file only.

While it seems unlikely from the perspective of "what the fuck is all that other crap in the DAT files", we can't forget that there's QQTHs in the Arrapago DAT files that are thought to not exist, as well as the fact that every single other Salvage zone is organized in such a way that if you're killing the NMs that drop Lv. 35 gear, you've necessarily killed 1 or more enemies that drop Lv. 15 gear. The only exception here is Arrapago, but even then that isn't really an exception, since you pretty much need to kill at least 1 or more Archaic Gear in the zone before you can kill the Chariot.

It would answer a lot of questions as well. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the 3rd floor frog has been killed less than 10 times across all servers, because it's fucking annoying and nobody is really focusing on the ZR > SS > BR route anyway. And I know the 4th floor frog has been killed less than 10 times.

I still think the easiest way to get more info about Zhayolm NMs is to have someone race to the top floor and clear everything on the floor. It's "almost cleared" all the time, but nobody ever clears it all the way, because as soon as the boss door opens, people just warp to the boss.

[Suiram]

I think it's far more likely that all eight of the Madames as well as the the QQTHs at the top of Arrapago are poppable by as-yet-unknown conditions, than that they are both instances of inexplicable redundancies in the files.

As for the "you need to kill 15s to get 35s" theory, that sounds to me more like the frustration over not being able to figure it out talking, and not really a viable explanation. Not faulting you or anything cause I'd be frustrated too if we'd spent more than a couple runs in Zhayolm trying Madames.