Salvage: Silver Sea Remnants

[Muze]

The problem with avatar tanking is the perpetuation cost. If you want to wear gear that decreases the cost, you sacrifice gear that increases avatar attack or accuracy, which makes hate easier to pull. You also have to mind Bloodpact MP costs. On top of choosing between this, you'd need several sources of Refresh just to reduce the perpetuation to a bearable amount, and Astral Flow only works for 3 and a half minutes.

In a short fight like Fenrir Prime, avatar tanking works, but I'm pretty sure these are meant to be long endurance fights, where this sort of tanking won't work unless you have access to well over 18 people with jobs that utilize pets.

A SMN with only weapon, body, hands, feet, and rings unlocked can reach -8 perpetuation (without relying on AF2 situational -perp). This brings perpetuation down to 4 MP/tick, which with a RDM, BRD, COR and Sanction Refresh, brings you up to 4 MP/tick back at minimum, 8 MP/tick back on a lucky roll. If the SMNs melee, they can even use Spirit Taker! If they melee using Claustrum, they'll get another 8 MP/tick refresh on top of that!

... ok, forget the last couple sentences.

Now, with 4-8 MP/tick back while avatars are out, a SMN will regain 164 MP every 1-2 minutes.

Alternatively, you could all use Fenrir and get 7-11 MP/tick back, and regain 109 MP every 30-50 seconds, in plenty of time for the next BP.

Or, in the middle ground is Diabolos... get 4-8 MP/tick back, and regain 109 MP every 40-80 seconds.

Or... go naked except for hands, body, feet+ring or weapon and use Carbuncle, spamming Meteorite and Healing Ruby II, while gaining 8-12 MP/tick.

Either way, if you rush straight to the boss as soon as you unlock weapon, body, hands, feet, rings, JA, magic, and max MP for each SMN, JA for each COR, and magic for each RDM and BRD, you could have the entire rest of the time to wear the boss down. I'd say bring 9 SMNs, 3 COR, 3 BRD, 3 RDM if I didn't already have enough experience in Silver Seas to know we'll never see that much magic.

And you plan to kill mobs with these 18 people that none of them have any decent h2h?

[Keyln]

In theory, it would be possible for an avatar tank to work with only 3 Summoners, Bard, Corsair, and Red Mage, but it would take major coordination.

With a naked Summoner, avatars go for 13 MP/tick. Bard can knock off 3 MP with Ballad and II, Red Mage with Refresh knocks off another 3, and Corsair can knock off 2 - 5 MP, depending on roll, making for a total of 8 MP/tick off, which adds up to 5 MP/tick.

Now, add in Auto-Refresh, which marks it down to 4 MP/tick, and if Summoners can have their weapons unlocked, that'll knock it down to 2 MP/tick.

Good job in covering perpetuation. What about Bloodpact costs? Level 70 physical Bloodpacts are 164 MP each, and you still have that 2mp/tick draining away MP.

Also, Sanction Refresh works in Salvage.

True, I did forget about Sanction. I also had the SMNs above have the NQ Water Staff too. Now, if all three SMNs had Refresh Sanction plus HQ Water Staff, then Leviathan would be free. Also, if the Corsair gets a X or a XI, then Leviathans would be free too.

If Perpetuation cost can be controlled, which is the key, then the BP costs can be easier controlled. This is where staggering the Leviathans comes into play as it will allow at least one SMN in the group to get back MP (at 40-something MP per tick plus whatever refresh), then BP costs are nothing. Part of what will make this strategy work is that if one Summoner is allowed to regain MP, then the cycle can be continued indefinately, as long as hate doesn't go screwy.

The best way to handle this is to stagger the Leviathan summons so that they all aren't summoned at once. This will allow Summoners some recovery time if one of the Leviathan are defeated, and to get MP back so that they all don't run out of MP at once. This is also provided that Leviathan can stand against the boss longer than 30 seconds. It might be helpful to use Spring Water so that Leviathan can last longer, but then that would put the Summoner in danger.

1st problem. Staggering the summoned avatars means there's less sources of hate LAC will focused on, and with summoners summoning avatars and issuing Assault and Bloodpact commands, the summoners will generate hate. Since the summoners will be generating hate, the Bard, Red Mage and Corsair refreshing them will be generating hate as well (especially the Corsair, their rolls seem to generate quite a bit of hate).

If refreshers die, summoners run out of MP, you wipe.

The idea here is that there is at least two avatars beating on LBC while one is getting MP back and then sending his avatar over for one of the summoners to rest. With two avatars, one will be taking the hits while the other will be building hate so when the first one dies, the second can take over. And the third one can summon Leviathan, and build up hate while the second tanks and the first summoner gets MP. I'll admit that it's a careful balancing act between knowing when to hit the Bloodpact, knowing when to let go and rest, and knowing when to summon and attack. It is possible, as I've done this in Sea with other summoners, but it is a rather advanced tactic, and one that takes communication and skill.

For this to work, it would require:

1) At least 3 Summoners.
A) Need Magic and Job Abilities at the very least.
B) Weapons would be very helpful.
C) Armor is a bonus.
D) Having MP unlock is a double bonus.
2) Bard
A) Need Magic of course for Ballad and II.
B) Ranged unlock a bonus.
3) Red Mage or Corsair or Both
A) Preferrably both. The more MP refresh, the better.
B) Obviously needs Magic and/or Job Ability unlocked.

One thing to keep in mind that this is in Theory. This is also assuming that the LBC doesn't have some sort of dangerous AoE and that Leviathan can last longer than 30 seconds against the LBC.

Which brings us to problem 2. None of the above jobs have the H2H skill necessary to kill mobs at the beginning of Salvage, meaning none of the above is unlocked. So you bring additional people to kill mobs so this core team gets cells to unlock stuff... but are they gonna sit at LAC and do nothing or contribute? If they contribute, there's a strong chance that they'll get charmed and murderously charge the summoners eliminating this strat.

I don't see it as unreasonable for one party to help with the climbing to the boss while the other helps clear the boss. After all, isn't being a good player knowing when to step in and help and knowing when to step back and let the other party members work? Again, it's all about playing smart, which is what this strategy is about.

Problem 3. Avatar DoT for a mob that reportedly has approximately 50k HP (assuming it has a similar HP total to the other bosses)? Even if you could hold hate with avatars who have about 1400 HP max, you would need a ton more than 3 summoners given the amount of time available in Salvage.

Let's assume that each Spinning Dive does 700 points of damage, and with a Spinning Dive happening every 30 seconds, it would take about 30 minutes. to kill the boss. (1400x 30 = 52000), so, depending on how fast and effecient the party is, it might be possible. Again, this is all theory, as I really don't know how well it could work in practicallity.

Nice theorycrafting, but, well, it's just that. This method is neither practical nor realistic.

I would disagree with practical, as I've shown that it is possible to do that if we're dealing with smart players. This can be especially true if you have 6 Summoners, 2 Bards, 2 Red Mages, and 2 Corsairs, along with a melee party to help with the climb.

However, it would require 10 Magic unlocks, 8 JA unlocks, and 6 Weapon unlocks with 6 or 8 MP Max unlocks. It might be possible to do something like this in Blhafau Zone, but I have doubts about anywhere else.

Now, realistic, that's another story. I don't think there's a group of 12 or 18 people who'd be willing to try something as crazy as this. And it would require crazy luck on the cell drops.

[Muze]

well first, why you post a stradegy for Bha in Silver Sea Thread?

2nd even if this is for Bhal LBC I have a high doubt with this stradegy because You can't really control Avatar's position to the mob when LBC turn, which would result you with homing missles, which then result you in hatelost on most of the avatars.

[Sady]

Long Bowed Chariot = stay the fuck out of the line of fire nub! It's a completely different strat.

What about lolBST? Do they have natural h2h??? CC tanks ftw ahaha... PuP actually has potential for this if the puppet can actually hold hate over their gimp dps.

Wait! I can see it now... An epic batle with crabs and little tiny robots slowly pecking at a giant evil robotic chariot. The flight of the valkyries is playing in the background as Garuda readies Predator Claws over and over again! With monks throwing fireballs, and colorful mages casting magic, and... ummm... Ninjas!!! Fuck yeah! NINJAS!!!

[aurik]

Morrigan slops now being reported from Powderkeg on floor 2 on Airforce's site http://f31.aaa.livedoor.jp/~airforce/sal_item_area.html

[divisortheory]

Does anyone have a good screenshot of Long-Armed Chariot that can easily be cropped to exclude any players? Trying to write the wiki entry for him and a picture would be nice.

[aurik]

http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/8009/lacuq4.png
Best I got.

[divisortheory]

Yea I saw that one earlier in the thread. next time you go, see if you can get a closer one of him. Will probably be a while before I get to Silver Sea boss with my shell.

[Wulfgang]

Silver Sea is my favorite salvage area, a lot of fun and the NMs make sense unlike poor luck with Mad Bomber. Some things from our run tonight, setup was MNK MNK WAR THF NIN BLU RDM WHM BLM:

1) People had been saying later mobs had a higher incidence of magic drops. We took the east path on first floor, after clearing about 5 fomors with no magic / ja / sj cells we decided to skip the wings starting at I-8 and J-8 and move to the room @ I-10. Big mistake, the fomors in I-10 are much more difficult hitting for about 120 a hit on my WAR unbuffed / geared. We wiped and wasted a lot of time. We backtracked and hit the wings to get two magic cells off the easier fomors. Patience is a virtue here.

2) Bring a ton of Echo drops for the Imp NMs. Deadpan Devilet is not that hard at all, but a good amount of HP. Dekka attacks too fast for a NIN to keep shadows up but still isn't hard. We loaded the MNKs and NIN up with Phalanx II and Diamondhide, at 60% both MNKs triggered Hundred Fists and Counterstance and just blood tanked it fairly easily.

3) The room with Dekka and Deadpan has 4 coffers. Use them as they had some nice items, loaded our MNKs with Gnostic Drinks to minimze hate and our NIN with the crit+ drink, lots of potions too.


We ran out of time on the third floor due to the wipe and wasted Hi-Pots, but otherwise a good run. My questions are concerning a run targeted at LAC:

A) What path is best for LAC run? You obviously dont want to go NW on the 2nd floor b/c there are no fomors to get more cells, also the Imps eat time. East on first floor then NE on second? Where after that?

B) Can you get screwed in cell drops so that LAC isn't feasible even when taking the right route? We got like 3 JA and 2 SJ the entire time.

[safer]

just did silverseas first time with my group... setup was mnk nin nin whm pld blm blm whm

we had another mnk supposed to come with us.. but he was afk for a while.. and like 1 min after i entered the salvage, he sends me a message saying he's back ><

anyways.. we didnt get very far.. we took the west path and pulled the first mob without issues.. but here is the weird thing:

it dropped magic chr chr... i , being whm, lotted the magic, and passed on the other stuff.... when the treasure pool was cleared.. both chr cells dropped to people, but there was no message saying where the magic cell went.. i had 54/60 inventory at the time and no one, including me, received any sort of message saying "You do not meet the requirements to obtain this item" or anything like that...

anyways.. we're like fk it and keep goin.. but we get a series of bad luck on the next pull, link + mnk gets rr dispelled.. he dies.... and it basically goes downhill from there

anyways my questions are.. has anyone experienced lost cells before? this same thing happened in a previous bhaflau run as well with a magic cell...

second question is, can the 4 fomors in the rooms be pulled seperately? or do they sight link or something... idk how we pulled 2.. maybe hp agro? not sure...

[Khamsin]

Does anyone have a good screenshot of Long-Armed Chariot that can easily be cropped to exclude any players? Trying to write the wiki entry for him and a picture would be nice.

Could look at it in a model viewer.

[Wulfgang]

Another question I had that came up in Arrapago, Paralyze effect + Cell usage, can you lose it?

[aurik]

yes

[Stellar]

We attempted to clear yesterday and had problems with both insufficient cells and time. We took NW to deadpan, which is looking to be a mistake, but we only had 12 people, so I was hoping to save time on that floor and get cells elsewhere. It seems the majority of time was wasted on the next floor with 8 gears and Devilet. The gears, or at least the majority of them, have to be cleared to fight Devilet, because of his flee hax.. Then he has quite a bit of HP and drops 6 cells, so it's really a waste of time. Unfortunately killing him is necessary to open the portal to advance any further. I completely skipped the 4th floor and we got to the boss with 15 minutes remaining as Nin, Blm, Blm, Rdm, Whm, Brd, Mnk, Mnk, Rng, Rng, Rng, Rng. 3/4 Rangers did not have abilities and only 1 had magic. I had them come Rng/nin which also appeared to be a mistake with the lack of magic cells available on the route we took. We kinda semi-zerged the boss to 61% before running out of time and people..

On the third floor, where the NW area contains Devilet, what is in the southern region? I'm thinking we could possibly save time and spend more time on the previous floor farming those fomors instead of Deadpan.

[divisortheory]

According to the Wiki, you can camp the center room on Floor 1 and gather all the Fomor then use a Ga III and wipe the whole crew, and then they'll just respawn and you can do it again. Wouldn't this be the best way to farm cells?

[Stellar]

I actually just read that earlier today, that they follow and don't attack with sneak and invisible up. I know 1 -ga 3 won't completely kill them but 2 would, so with 2 blm's it does seem like it would be a good idea.

[divisortheory]

How were magic cell drops? Did you have 2 by the time you got to that room?

[Millael]

One of the fomor in Hammerblow's room generally (always, for me) drops 3 magic cells, so you should have enough for a healer and 2 BLMs.

[aurik]

Imps and Fomor link to each other, btw. Found that out that hard way, wiping hardcore in Powderkeg's room when 1 imp brought 3 fomor with it.

We got toally fucked on magic cells as well: none of the 16 initial fomors dropped one, we got 3 in Hammerblow's room, then didn't see another until the 95 minute mark.

[Stellar]

We have gone east every attempt so far and I believe we got 3 magic cells on our most recent attempt before the center room. Might have been a bit of luck.. Then one of the weak fomors in the center room dropped a magic cell as well.