Bahamut V.2

[Ryko]

Got a necromancer?

Did he die?

Red kryptonite incident, turned him into something other than a difference maker, it was awful.

[RKenshin]

/DRK does work, you don't need Stun as a /DRK to generate a lot of hate. Most people here that have seen RDM tanks realize that a bulk of the hate from a RDM tank can be created from just spamming spells like Sleep, Blind, Dispel, Bind, etc. Then the same people will argue a RDM geared correctly doing the above can generate hate faster/more stable than most other tanks. NIN/DRK functions in a similar way where even without Stun you can still generate large amounts of fast and stable hate with Bind, Sleep, Blind (ninjutsu), and Absorb spells, not to mention the JAs.

I just did NIN/DRK last week for 8 Ouryu runs actually, and aside from a few badly timed Horrid Roars me and the other tanks never lost hate to the BLMs, with every Ouryu kill being in the 15 to 22 minute range.

Personally I'm NIN/DRK right now for a set of 8 Bahamut V2 runs, and I feel confident that it'll do better than /WAR because of reasons mentioned above, and being able to Stun my own Firagas (freeing up a RDM/DRK). Not that /WAR can't work, because it definitely does... The set of five runs before this one I was /WAR and I never died, including a time where Vrtra + Bahamut + 6 BLMs were attacking me. Our fastest time was about 20m, and we never lost. And we've been doing this same strat with minor changes for over 50 of these kills now.

Just goes to show anything can work if you have the right gear, experience, and support. Which is really what matters most.

Aegis PLD is far from necessary as well. With the right gear you can get the damage taken with Flares down to just as low on NIN, and while you won't get hit as low as a Shield Block you don't get hit very hard or as often (<200s usually). Not trying to say that it's not a great asset to have because it definitely is, but it's far from necessary for fast/stable kills like some people here seem to claim.

I'm not just making that stuff up either of course. I posted this picture like three times now, but here's another lol.. From our last set of runs:
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2783/agear5rt.jpg

[Berdysh]

Cool, I'd be interested in your experiences as NIN/DRK in there and how you think it compares to NIN/WAR if you have time to post afterward.

[Lordwafik]

all in his LJ ;p he had one about nin/drk a while back.

[Berdysh]

I've read his LJ, didn't see anything on NIN/DRK against Bahamut specifically. I'll check over it again.

[Blackice]

There's nothing about NIN/DRK for Bahamut in his LJ because he's never done it before, tonight is his first try at it.

[Tajin]

that neptune staff looks purple

[aurik]

its blue dammit

[RKenshin]

As Ice said this is my first time /DRK for it, decided to try it out after much success with /DRK on Ouryu.

Cool, I'd be interested in your experiences as NIN/DRK in there and how you think it compares to NIN/WAR if you have time to post afterward.

Just did the first two run, it went fine. Surprisingly I ended up taking almost the same exact range of melee damage /DRK as I did /WAR, despite the absense of Defender... So one of my bigger concerns was dispelled.

The other big concern was the dispel spam messing with my MP pool on DRK, but that wasn't a problem at all. I almost always had enough MP to spam spells despite these two runs being hell for keeping buffs up. I spammed Bind+Sleep+ninjutsu spells whenever possible along with some absorbs when I could in between tanking, and half the time I forgot to use JAs when they were ready.

I could also Stun the Firagas pretty reliably in between the tanking/spamming, so that worked out good. I missed a few from bad timing while casting Ichi and stuff but it's reliable enough. I also ended up just using Stun for other spells/TP attacks, since the runs are going so fast it doesn't build up a resistance in time.

Hate was solid and it'll only get better as I get used to doing this /DRK. BLMs and healers never pulled hate in either of the runs, both were 25-30m kills. I think we can get sub 20 once we get going.

EDIT: 3rd run was awesome, it went perfect. Hate was completely solid the entire time, took almost no damage, 20m kill, and I got .5 parry! 265.5/269! lol I think we can get a 15m kill with less time spent on buffing at the start easily. I'm using Div's new parse version for the first time too, it's interesting to see what my Absorb/Parry/Evade %s are.

[Jeryhn]

that neptune staff looks purple

its blue dammit

Here we go.

[Doombard]

This has probably already been discussed before but how is the magic reduction from the full Amir set. Probably not worth it but whateva.

[Fusional]

This has probably already been discussed before but how is the magic reduction from the full Amir set. Probably not worth it but whateva.

^^^

i'd like to know whether to bother getting the set or to just stick with my current resist set. lord knows i hate me some assault.

anybody have any experience with it?

[Allundaria]

According to this thread, round page three, it's pretty sucktastic. Something around 5% at best, go go Merman gear.

[Doombard]

5%= what the hell was SE thinking... you can get more than that with just earrings. So pointless

[Grey Jorildyn]

late reply, but if you don't plan on using stun as nin/drk, then nin/rdm is a better alternative, providing dispel (comparable mp cost as stun), adds blind to the repertoire of hate spells, can still use bind, sleep, some cure IIs if you're feeling daring and a minor MDB trait for some added survival chance.

that is, if you wanna use ninjas at all. i personally prefer pld/nin over nin/rdm for it. might have something to do with my gear though. never leave home without resist either as ruke will tell you anyway (and did i just noticed).

[Kilik]

How about for melee burn setups. Are mages other than BRD for songs and RDM/DRK needed for it? Was thinking of doing:

meleex4
brd
whm

meleex4
brd
whm

rdm/drk x2
meleex3
brd

[Fusional]

According to this thread, round page three, it's pretty sucktastic. Something around 5% at best, go go Merman gear.

given SE's track record, sounds about right :/

[RKenshin]

Finished all 8 runs in about 4 hours, and in the end I actually found myself using stun pretty often. Not because it was necessary, but the runs were so short that even when spamming Stun rather often it never got to the point of it resisting.

Originally I saved it just for Firagas, but our runs were around 20m on average (fastest was 15m, new record for us!) so it seemed like holding back on stun was a waste. On the last few I just used it shortly after it was ready and still didn't see a single resist by the end. It came in handy though, I managed to stun quite a few annoying spells like Dispelga/Graviga/Silencga as well as the even more annoying Horrid Roar/Terrorga TP attacks.

I definitely prefer /DRK over /WAR for this BC now. MP isn't a problem and I still get hit for <200 damage, and hate is more solid. Nothing not to like about it, but it is a little more busy and requires more focus.

Div's new parser fields are awesome too; I really like being able to see my evade/parry/absorb percentages. :D At the end of the night my final numbers came out to 15% evade, 5% parry, and 76% absorb... So basically I would avoid all forms of taking melee damage around 96% of the time. Although, I was a little disappointed in seeing that with 265 Parry I only parried around 5% of the time. Pretty weak.

[Suiram]

I did a real (non-ballista) Amir test a few months ago, and it's the equivalent of a piece that reads "Magic Damage Taken -8%", not sure about the breath reduction. It's more than 5% but still nothing particularly spectacular.

I was wanting to ask, people seem to be implying off hand how /drk might not work as well on Ouryu because it can't be stunned, but isn't the hate generated from stun going to be the same whether or it is resisted?

[RKenshin]

I'm certain it's the same hate, because as a NIN/DRK nearly all of my spells (other than stun) are resisted constantly, but I still benefit from the massive hate they produce. I think I mentioned it in my first post in this thread, but I was a tank in most of the 8 Ouryu runs a week ago as a NIN/DRK... And had no problem generating just as much hate as always. So even when stun is resisted it's still a lot of hate.

Only real disadvantage is that you can't actually stun it, but hate wise it's still fine.

EDIT: Yeah, this was the quote from my first post.

I just did NIN/DRK last week for 8 Ouryu runs actually, and aside from a few badly timed Horrid Roars me and the other tanks never lost hate to the BLMs, with every Ouryu kill being in the 15 to 22 minute range.