Salvage: Zhayolm Remnants

[Sady]

Don't have any screenshots since I wasn't on this run, but one of my other LS' teams did zhayolm on saturday night and I just now found out they fought and killed Madame on 5th floor South. It popped in the same room Qiqirn Astrologer pops in from Arrapago. The info I have is somewhat lacking in detail since I don't think anyone on the run even realized what was happening since Muteki was following info from some JP forums he had and expected it to just be up and it was.

They aimed to spend the following time on each floor only to pop the 5th floor South Madame and kill the boss.

15>15>10>10>10>20>20mins

Muteki's english isn't the best but I think I am getting this correct. They would farm mobs on each floor up until the exact window was reached and warp up immediately so they didn't exceed the times listed above. Of course the side effect of those short times is they didnt kill any Frogs on 1st floor or 4th floor. They didn't kill any mamools on 1st floor but did kill some on later floor for HP/MP cells. Madame dropped nothing(big shock) and a chest with lots of meds.

Any more information you have reguarding this would be highly appreciated. Such as, was the 4th floor Madame up (they should have entered within the 40-45 min "window")? Was the 5th floor Madame just up, or did they do something to force the pop? I'm currently setting up a run to test a few theories regarding 4th and 5th floor NMs so any input would help me alot. Thanks!

[Lhexh]

Any more information you have reguarding this would be highly appreciated. Such as, was the 4th floor Madame up (they should have entered within the 40-45 min "window")? Was the 5th floor Madame just up, or did they do something to force the pop? I'm currently setting up a run to test a few theories regarding 4th and 5th floor NMs so any input would help me alot. Thanks!

The 5th Floor NM was just up when they zoned in, they didn't do anything to pop it. I have no idea if 4th floor was up or not, I don't think anyone even checked since they were aiming 5th floor specifically since the information he had said Marduk 35 Body dropped from it.

[docvicious]

lol we failed misserably last night on our boss run =/ spent way to much time trying to get gear and magic.

How much gear should an aegis pld have?

I guess the two major things he woul dneed are

Hauteclair/Aegis cell
and the Defending ring / ??? ring slots

but what do you guys usually have for your melee and mages?

[divisortheory]

How much equip you need doesn't depend on your job. Just get there as fast as you can. There's no way it should take more than 25 minutes on the first floor. Split into two groups, one for clearing the 4 inner rooms, and one for clearing 2 mobs from each wing of the outer rooms. Mamool should be ignored every time.

On the second floor kill everything but the mamool, then port. At this point your Aegis PLD should already have everything he needs, including rings (although TBH I'd give ring/earring to your mages, but whatever).

Third floor clear everything but the long rectangular room then port.

Fourth floor kill some Mamool if you still need more HP/MP, otherwise just port.

Skip the entire fifth floor by training.

[Stellar]

Ring to mages over a defending ring? .-.

[divisortheory]

Ring to mages over a defending ring? .-.

hardly anyone has a defending ring, and yet this boss is still a joke supposedly from all reports. Mages gain an enormous amount of MP and other stats from rings and earrings. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But that's just me.

[Sady]

The 5th Floor NM was just up when they zoned in, they didn't do anything to pop it. I have no idea if 4th floor was up or not, I don't think anyone even checked since they were aiming 5th floor specifically since the information he had said Marduk 35 Body dropped from it.

Thank you very much.

Then I suppose the pop window for the 5th floor Madame would be approximately 50-55 minutes elapsed (or of course the ever present randomness possibility). Which totally blows because that makes killing both 4th and 5th floor NMs extremely difficult given such a small window of opportunity (<15 mins at best).

EDIT: I missread you post...

[aurik]

My group uses mnk tanks, and I really like the mnks having rings/earrings for the boss. Accuracy and brutal = damage, damage = hate.

[Stellar]

Yeah, I don't personally have a defending ring, but the person before stated his aegis pld did.. We tank all of the bosses with me as nin and I almost always lot rings/earrings first for either dmg or enmity depending on the boss and situation.

[Almalexia]

Virga/Cumu go to any melee in range of Battleclad's Discoid, starting with MNKs, then PLD (if any) and so on.

I always split the alliance in two after the Draco Lizards-- one half goes SW and the other NW. Head and Leg slot = precious haste, and it never hurts to have the HP bonus/Counterstance bonus from Melee Gaiters.

[divisortheory]

Virga/Cumu go to any melee in range of Battleclad's Discoid, starting with MNKs, then PLD (if any) and so on.

I always split the alliance in two after the Draco Lizards-- one half goes SW and the other NW. Head and Leg slot = precious haste, and it never hurts to have the HP bonus/Counterstance bonus from Melee Gaiters.

You still have time for the boss with this? It must take you at least 15-20 minutes for the second floor if you're doing 3 rooms.

[Sady]

On the subject of farming the second floor:
Which of the four rooms, in your opinion, is the best to farm assuming you only have time for one?

Obviously this depends on your alliance setup but I'd have to lean towards NE (ranged, ring/earring, body) especially if you have one or more BRDs. But as stated previously, head and legs are core haste pieces which is key for a MNK/NIN DD-tank (or any blink tank and/or DD for that matter).

Tough call, but do you think with proper coordination and a bit of luck you could hit at least a some of all four rooms in less than 15 mins too fully equip your MNKs?

[Slott]

Virga/Cumu go to any melee in range of Battleclad's Discoid, starting with MNKs, then PLD (if any) and so on.

I always split the alliance in two after the Draco Lizards-- one half goes SW and the other NW. Head and Leg slot = precious haste, and it never hurts to have the HP bonus/Counterstance bonus from Melee Gaiters.

You still have time for the boss with this? It must take you at least 15-20 minutes for the second floor if you're doing 3 rooms.

our group does, we spend 25 first floor, 20 second floor, 5-8 mins 3rd floor (clearing 12 mamools is quick, just keep pets slept)

4th floor takes like 3 mins, 5th nothing really...6th takes 15-20 usually, leaves 20-25 mins for boss typically

usually have 4 -6 melee fully geared except for gloves and shit ;o

[Suiram]

Here's what I've noticed. In the NE room, there are 3 or 4 lizards which are guaranteed 2 back/waist cells. Then depending on TH and luck the same lizard can also drop 2 rings/earrings and/or 2 ranged and/or 1 body(?). The other rooms seem to be the same but with the 2 guaranteed drops being the head or legs/feet or hands depending on what room, with TH and luck just affecting body drop. So if you just wanted to fully gear 2 people above all else without wasting much time, you should be able to clear NE room, then pull the 2-3 mobs from the other rooms that are right by the door, one of which will drop those 2 cells, then move on to the next room. If you split up that will only take like 2-5 minutes depending on if you get lucky and have the first one be the dropper or the last, or if you link and have to kill them all.

[Sady]

Ah yes, I totally forgot about waist/back which is super clutch for MNKs.

[Suiram]

Well my main point was that it seems that every room only has 3-4 mobs that are guaranteed to drop something, and that those mobs sometimes will drop additional cells depending on luck or TH, but the other ones won't drop anything regardless of luck/TH. So fully gearing 1 or 2 tanks actually wouldn't take very much longer than it would already take to just clear one of the 4 rooms, just 1-3 mobs in each of the additional rooms.

[Sady]

No, I understand what you were getting at. In a perfect world you could employ some widescan/dat mod tricks to avoid pulling the dud mobs (similarly to those on the first floor). In practice I'm just not sure if there's enough time to physically run to and from each room (especially if you have a very strick time frame like say 15 minutes) although spliting into smaller groups would help aleviate this a bit.

[aurik]

From experience fighting other bosses, you should be able to kill it in ~15 min with just 2 well-geared damage-tanks, excess gear on mages, and then mp/magic/ability cells. Mage gear doesn't make a huge difference: at best give excess weapons to the rdm and bard for debuff accuracy.

After a few more Arrapago farming runs, Zhayolm will probably be our next target.

In the WS list, which mobs drop cells?
- on floor1, #s 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14 ?
- on floor2, #s ???

I'd like to start bringing a ranger to our salvage group--useful on bosses, light on cells required (we often have spare undulatus), and shadowbind. Using him to choose proper targets to save ~10 minutes here would be really nice.

[divisortheory]

From experience fighting other bosses, you should be able to kill it in ~15 min with just 2 well-geared damage-tanks, excess gear on mages, and then mp/magic/ability cells. Mage gear doesn't make a huge difference: at best give excess weapons to the rdm and bard for debuff accuracy.

After a few more Arrapago farming runs, Zhayolm will probably be our next target.

In the WS list, which mobs drop cells?
- on floor1, #s 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14 ?
- on floor2, #s ???

I'd like to start bringing a ranger to our salvage group--useful on bosses, light on cells required (we often have spare undulatus), and shadowbind. Using him to choose proper targets to save ~10 minutes here would be really nice.

on floor1, you're right. 4k+1 and 4k+2 drop cells.
on floor2, it hasn't been determined.

The widescan method is fine as long as your ranger is extremely careful. The position in the list changes each time you pull one, unless you start from the end.

The danger with bringing a RNG to Zhayolm is that there have been times where even 1 ranged cell is hard to come by, and your BRD definitely needs the first one.

[aurik]

Well a smart ranger would learn to target [1,2],1,[3,4],3,[5.6],5,[7,8],7. And we don't even have to give him a ranged cell, he could target by engaging, and the bard /assists and pulls with a song.