Ambusher Antilion for BST.

[Iono]

Sarizaddi :
After weeks of nailing down this exact pop circumstances, I believe I have the most positive understanding of this NM.

http://www.nephilim-x.com/maps/path/alastorspawn.jpg

Black indiates actual walls, Blue and Yellow as described below.

Alastor Antlion is a 2 hour plus lottery NM. In the above map, excused the slight inconsistency. The yellow dot depicts the spawn location of a Trench Antlion. Most noticable details about this room is that it is a small alcove with a Trench Antlion spawn, and the rear of the room is cut off by a black geyser making this room a dead end. This Trench Antlion and this Trench Antlion alone is the only Trench Antlion I have ever gotten to spawn him, so I sincerely believe he is the single only placeholder. I have farmed the entire area and am aware of all 5 Trench Antlion spawns, and I have camped them religiously, some days concentrating on one single spawn, sometimes the entire area of spawns. All seven positive pops came when the Yellow Dot Trench Antlion did not repop as expected.

As a method to hunt, it is extremely simple. Camp the yellow dot Trench Antlion exclusively and religiously. The repop time is approximately five minutes. The Trench antlion is DC to level 75, and easily soloable by one or two people. You continue popping and killing the yellow dot Antlion until one time he doesn't respawn as scheduled. Sure, wait an extra five minutes or whatever makes you comfortable saying that the Trench Antlion did not repop. Even after waiting two hours after a spawn (or depop) the Alastor spawn is still lottery, meaning it might be five minutes or it might be 8 hours. Take note, though, Alastor is not a 21-24 hour NM.

Once the Trench Antlion does not repop, that is your que that Alastor has spawned. The areas marked in Blue on the map are cracks. Alastor can be in any crack in this area, though he is somewhat local to particular cracks. To spawn Alastor, simply rest at any of five major crack points without sneak on, or as it suits you rest and move around cracks until you find him. One crack is across the geyser wall, but basically Alastor is confined to what I call "the big room".

Alastor is not soloable, I don't care what braggart ninjas and red mages say. He hits for an average of 150 to 250 damage per hit, double attacks frequently, uses a poison spray that goes through blinks, and has a TP attack that can do upwards of 1600 damage going through blink. His life is as above, probably about 3000-4000 HP, which isn't much, but the odds of a solo person doing that damage before Alastor gets his TP move off to one shot you are slim.

I would safely say a minimum would be three people, an easy kill with a well-balanced group, and major total overkill beyond that. Being that you do not have to travel around to pop the placeholder, this hunt can be done at any time, day or night, and weather, season, moon, element, and day of the week are all inconsequential. The Jupon is in fact a 100% drop.

Several people say BST can solo this guy. Have any of you done it? Does this info seem correct? Any info you can add? Any tips on solo'ing? Thanks for your help in advance ^^)/


Question 1: They say the NM is equal to a DC pet at 75. So does this mean I probably don't have to pet swap?

[Millael]

I don't think that guy has any clue what NM he's talking about, unless he thinks the Rostrum Pumps NM pops by where ambusher does.

[Shadida]

I don't know much about BST, but I will say that Pit Ambush hurts a lot when Ambusher uses it. Still not quite as bad as Nightmare Antlion's nearly-guaranteed-to-one-hit-you-so-sucks-to-be-you-puller Pit Ambush. Mandibular Bite is pretty bad also, like it says in your quote there.

[Seankp]

Just replace Alastor with Ambusher, he mixed them up when posting this.

As far as soloing this as a BST, you should be able to. The only problem is the WS by Ambusher are very strong, and do upwards of 1-1.5k dmg easily. You might have to do quite a few pet swaps on this guy to solo it.

As far as the moves going through Blink/Utsu, that's incorrect. I'm the one who tanked it for Sarizaddi.

The first time I fought this NM, it was on accident. When we were gathering, I /heal and accidentally popped it. I was doing fine, but it attacks fairly quick and I was caught off guard and a little unprepared to fight it so soon, as we were still gathering. I'm a 75THF and had a decent evasion build on at the time. It always seemed to know when to do a Mandibular Bite when shadows were down. That's how I ended up dying, it one shotted me at full HP (1400ish HP since I'm a Galka) and did around 1700 dmg to me.

It's really not a hard NM aside from the massive damaging bites he does.

[pogle]

Doable as BST. Stoneskin + earth staff + jelly ring can let you live thru the initial attack, just have a strong pet already charmed (preferably a 2hr-ed Cave Antlion) to get hate off you post-haste.

I had a really easy time as RDM/BST at 70, with a crappy charmrate on antlions. I was forced to use scorps and lizards, which was counterbalanced by my enfeebles. I have friends who have done it with SMN/WHM and BST/WHM just as easily. Surviving the initial hit is about the hardest part of it all; as a BST you should be well acquainted with pet swaps on hard mobs, timed to avoid TP moves and the like.

Edit: Also, the numerous times I've helped pop him, or popped him solo, I've never, ever had to rest on a crack. I just had to run across it without sneak. He can be a little odd in popping sometimes (ie, he wouldnt attack me for a while after he should have, according to lack of PH repops), but resting was never once required. Take it as you will, as some people insist its necessary.

[Iono]

Oh, So if I pop him w/o an earth staff or jelly ring I'm likely to become a taru pancake?


I don't really know how to pop him, so I don't know if I can manage to two-hour a cave anti-lion I tried one time so far, wasn't even able to spawn him

But yea, even the NQ ones go through stoneskin and take off a chunk of HP with that ambush move.

[pogle]

You can likely survive without jelly ring, but earth staff really makes a huge difference, and should be something BST has around for these kind of NMs anyways. I've had him hit me for 600+ damage after stoneskin with an earth staff equipped, as RDM, and its likely you dont have enough MND gear to get capped stoneskin on BST as I did with RDM. You could survive that without an earth staff, but if your pet didnt take hate right away you'd likely be antlion chow; not to mention its safer to limit damage in whatever way possible to conserve mp and take fewer chances.

He's not a hard NM overall, the only danger are the initial pit ambush (ignores all forms of shadows, btw), and his TP moves, which can one-shot you sometimes (1k+ damage). The abundance of pets in the area makes it a really easy marathon fight, just avoid fighting at night for your first try.

I'd advise spending a while running around the chasm in that region to learn the location of the miasma (some of which disappear at times, and reappear at the worst possible time). Also learn the pops for all variety of antlions (trenches are easy kills and decent pets, and cave ants are good for 2hring for an easy Citipati fight). Knowing the area is essential to consistently popping Ambusher, and to killing him safely without running into another burrowed antlion or such. My general pattern is corse killing at night for iolites/citipati, and running around killing trench antlions during the day for jaws and scarlet stones. Ambusher is almost always up when I head out there, and when its not it appears before too long. I don't bother fighting it unless I know someone needing the jupon.

[Jaffar]

If you were reading that strategy on KI, I posted on page 2 about soloing it on bst.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...img_0003-1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...img_0004-1.png

Was /nin, guady & 2x rune axes, only got hit the initial ambush. He did chew through a few pets, but plenty of mobs around to throw at him & shadows buy you plenty of time between swaps.

EDIT: didn't even think to equip jelly & terra, but would've helped for sure, though as you can see by my ending hp, it wasn't that much of an issue with the regen from guady.

[ReddwarfX]

Ambusher Antlion can infact be soloed by a 75BST, subjob best suited would be /WHM or /RDM. blink, stoneskin, and some cures are always nice.

as for the placeholder, he is correct, i myself am at least 5/5 on this bugger, and every single time, its been 1, and 1 only PH to make it spawn. however. it has always poped shortly after the PH did not. never had to wait more than 3-5 mins (took this long to find Ambusher). and everytime i've spawned this NM, /healing on the cracks was necesary.

[Starr]

It always seemed to know when to do a Mandibular Bite when shadows were down.

Fact, I hate this bitch.

[Allundaria]

One of the BSTs in my social LS soloed it pretty much the exact way that Jaffar noted: /NIN with Gaudy Harness + Rune Axe action. After the initial chomp with dmg reduction gear on, utsusemi shadows and the wicked strong 10hp/tick regen won him the rest of the fight.

[solsovly]

One of the BSTs in my social LS soloed it pretty much the exact way that Jaffar noted: /NIN with Gaudy Harness + Rune Axe action. After the initial chomp with dmg reduction gear on, utsusemi shadows and the wicked strong 10hp/tick regen won him the rest of the fight.

Technically 10hp/every other tick. Since you don't get hp back when you have 0 MP to drain. But still key for BST/NIN marathoning without meds.

[Epincus]

Killed him regularly on my BST for awhile while hunting corses (Thank god I'm never ever doing that again, brought out the worst in me), vendored the Jupon for moneys when no one I knew wanted it (took a few runs for that to happen).

Ambusher antlion used to not pop by /heal, he used to be sound aggro, SE ninja-changed him after a patch. Before patch, he fought like a cave antlion, e.g. hardly overwhelming.

After the patch took me forever to figure him out, there are three spawns on the north end of the rocks/geysers (take the far northwest exit from citipati's spawn, and you'll reach all three before you get out to the opening on the outside)

His pit ambush HURTS. I've never seen him hit for over 1000 but he's easily clocked me for 600-800 through stoneskin. His melee attacks are nasty, as is his mandibular bite. That being said, if you can beat Citipati without any trouble, you have no business losing to this NM if you're adequately prepared (read: not resting in his spawn with half your HP). Pet swaps are pretty easy on him and if you're kiting him properly, he should never be able to hit you with a mandibular bite.

Oh, and keep it under your control. If you have outside help, don't use them unless they're ready. I tried that once and almost got a bunch of people killed because they went aggro-happy (not their fault) and it mandibed people for a ton of damage every couple seconds.

[Ravenlokk]

I havent solo'd this- but i did Duo it with a bst friend when we were bored and killin stuff in the chasm. Duo it was a joke lol, but was being pretty careless and managed to make quite the train. . .

Tip: Wait till right after night to pop it. . . You REALLY dont wanna get ambushed + hp aggrod wwwwwwwwwwww.

[Vertabreaker]

Couple things that havn't been mentioned yet.

1.) Bring antidotes or go /whm. His poison is wicked(if you get hit with it)

2.) The time for PHs is in Fact 5min.(I used to hit barrage after every PH death so i could time it)

3.) He only pops from 2 possible areas/cracks(I noticed someone said 3, but I've never seen him pop outside of the 2 that I've got him to pop from in 14 times of camping him).

4.) If he's been killed before you get there, he will take no longer then 3 hours to "repop" (Longest I've gone there was 3 hours going back to back jupons a couple times)

I've helped about 14 of my buddys get this for their RNGs. The fight is super easy and I think a 75BST could solo it no problem, especially if you get him to pop near the big miasma...there's more mobs to charm there then near the other pop location.