Absolute Virtue Theory

[Sagacious Sundi]

what element is "call wyvern" listed as? seems like the torque one should be the easiest in the list to debunk by putting that torque element on him and seeing if he stops summoning wynavs. i don't buy it though, b/c if that were the case, you'd keep popping unbeatable AV's until love finally put out a torque. either way, once you pop him, elipse, should be an easy one to put to bed.

Light. For the sake of me being bored, I will list all 2HR elements; I might be wrong on some:
Mighty Strikes: Fire
Hundred Fists: ? Lightning? Wind?
Benediction: Light? Water?
Manafont: Ice (it's blue, so it could water)
Chainspell: Lightning?
Perfect Dodge: Wind
Invincible: Earth?
Blood Weapon: Dark
Familiar/Charm: Light
Soul Voice: Light
Eagle Eye Shot: Lightning? Wind?
Meikyo whatever: Light?
Mijin Gakure: Fire
Call Wyvern/Spirit Surge: Light
Astral Flow: Light
Azure Lore: Light
Wild Card: Light
Overdrive: Light

[Lhexh]

Perhaps I don't have enough experience with this but this suggests that its closer to citadel buster in damage and would indeed be manageable. That would put this in the relm of survivability for any pld tank, unless there is something I'm missing?

It can't be compared to Citadel Buster because of the nature of how the two attacks differ. CB occurs in a controlled state with a countdown timer allowing everyone but the tank to avoid its damage. Meteor doesn't give you that luxury as AV can use it in very short intervals and while the tanks were able to survive it with -damage setups the support and damage dealers could not.

We had the pleasure of fighting AV once when he locked into magic spells only without 2 hours and slowly beat it down to 80% while it was spamming aero spells, when it hit 79% it locked into meteor mode and just ran a cycle of AeroV -> AerogaIV -> Comet -> Meteor over and over and there was no way even the tanks with -50% magic damage in gear could sustain it because support would drop left and right when they moved into casting range to cure the tanks.

[Rocl]

what element is "call wyvern" listed as? seems like the torque one should be the easiest in the list to debunk by putting that torque element on him and seeing if he stops summoning wynavs. i don't buy it though, b/c if that were the case, you'd keep popping unbeatable AV's until love finally put out a torque. either way, once you pop him, elipse, should be an easy one to put to bed.

Light. For the sake of me being bored, I will list all 2HR elements; I might be wrong on some:
Mighty Strikes: Fire
Hundred Fists: Lightning
Benediction: Light
Manafont: water
Chainspell: Lightning
Perfect Dodge: Wind
Invincible: Earth
Blood Weapon: Dark
Familiar/Charm: Light
Soul Voice: Light
Eagle Eye Shot: Lightning
Meikyo whatever: Water
Mijin Gakure: Fire
Call Wyvern/Spirit Surge: Light
Astral Flow: Light
Azure Lore: Light
Wild Card: Light
Overdrive: Light

There I went through and fixed it

[Izzy]

We have 3 JoL planned this week and we plan to test out basically everything listed in this thread. I hope ONE of them works.

[Euphoria]

welp, might as well add this in since people are actually doing something productive with this thread lol

Usually AV pops its wynavs pretty much right when it spawns right? well i can remember this one time where AV didnt pop its wynavs for a good 30 mins until we decided to actually try and fight it. Once it popped the wynavs it went back to its usual routine. Just a fun thing to add haha. GL on crackin the code!!

[Seedz]

Izzy, you might want to talk to Feather LS (for real). They took AV down to 19% two months ago. It took them a good 8 hours to do so. They tested absurd theories, and they indeed swear by the Torques/Weapons. IIRC, they claimed they had seen some 2hours locked whilst having certain combinations of Torques AND Weapons in the alliance. If my memory serves me right, they said that Justice (or Fortitude, really don't remember, since this information was given to me by someone who talked to them and I quite honestly don't remember) and would cancel out Mighty Strikes and (Meyko Shisui?). I dunno, but they really swear by combining weapons/torques, not just using Weapons to perform WSs and stuff. Also, they mentioned that Spirit Link hurts AV a lot. By this they mean to hold the Wynavs whilst damaging them, in order to force AV to use Spirit Link, was a good and reliable damage source.

They had six or seven Kraken DRKs, two paladins tanking (Seeker and Elweed I think it was) and an army of BLMs. Total of people was around 70~80. Wiped upon a bad placed AoE magic which caught all the BLMs.

Good luck trying this out.

[BRP]

in correlation with the Virtues that drop along that would make this order:
CHR (1. virtue)
VIT (2. virtue)
MND (3. virtue)
STR (4. virtue)
AGI (5. virtue)
INT (6. virtue)
DEX (with no virtue drop from love)

Fun fact: I think that's also the order of Elemental Days, but only if you take STR and place between CHR and VIT.

And I repeat: One of many unnumbered rules of BG forums:

POIDH.

[Elipse]

Perhaps I don't have enough experience with this but this suggests that its closer to citadel buster in damage and would indeed be manageable. That would put this in the relm of survivability for any pld tank, unless there is something I'm missing?

It can't be compared to Citadel Buster because of the nature of how the two attacks differ. CB occurs in a controlled state with a countdown timer allowing everyone but the tank to avoid its damage. Meteor doesn't give you that luxury as AV can use it in very short intervals and while the tanks were able to survive it with -damage setups the support and damage dealers could not.

We had the pleasure of fighting AV once when he locked into magic spells only without 2 hours and slowly beat it down to 80% while it was spamming aero spells, when it hit 79% it locked into meteor mode and just ran a cycle of AeroV -> AerogaIV -> Comet -> Meteor over and over and there was no way even the tanks with -50% magic damage in gear could sustain it because support would drop left and right when they moved into casting range to cure the tanks.

Please keep in mind what I said. I want to keep AV in a holding state to give us time to test different ideas and theories. I'm not looking to take him to 79% and see him get into spam magic mode unless we figure something out about how to enfeeble/stop/kill him with the testing.

That said from watching videos patterns have emerged that let me think there is a possibilty that his meteor casts before he hits 79% are not completely random. Perfect dodge > Manafont > Comet > Meteor is one of the patterns. So it is quite possible to have mages move out of range as soon as the PD > MF > Comet > Meteor pattern starts and have them avoid getting hit with it. Sure the patterns might not be 100% and we can't always predict and we will wipe. The idea here is to minimize as many of those wipes as possible to buy us time. On that note, is it not possible to have mages stand at max casting range and avoid meteor? Or is the AOE so far that even max casting range won't help. The only issues I can see are the Cor or Brd getting slammed when they happen to be in range and it goes off.

Again, its not to say that perfection could be had in terms of holding for the kill, which at this point looks impossible until we can get more info... the purpose is to get him held long enough for us to determine if there is something that will stop him. Remember the interview talks about killing monsters around him. So I'm looking to get a holding team that can keep AV held long enough for us to go on a rampage killing mobs around him to see if it has any effect. I'm not just looking to throw 10 melee in AOE range in a poorly thought out zerg rush. I don't run a linkshell with 50+ members to every event that can sit around throwing bodies at it. This has to be well planned and executed in order to make it work.

[Slott]

well generally speaking, av isn't naturally an aggro mob, you can stand aroud him and kiss his ass for all he cares. Theoretically speaking you could have a few lvl 1s sac him repeatedly while your ally mass kills mobs near him

That is unless you think he has to be held while killing shit by him :]

[Elipse]

well generally speaking, av isn't naturally an aggro mob, you can stand aroud him and kiss his ass for all he cares. Theoretically speaking you could have a few lvl 1s sac him repeatedly while your ally mass kills mobs near him

That is unless you think he has to be held while killing shit by him :]

Which very well may be the case. Might have to be killed by members in your alliance. Also, killing the mobs around might not fully lock him up the way he was glitching before. All it might do is give a reduction or slow effect for all we know. I mean maybe he casts much much less while Phaubos are being killed around him, or perhaps he 2hr's much less frequently, who knows. Without holding him we'll be back to the situation of "I hit him with a jailer weapon and it did nothing so it doesn't work" type testing. Which is weak testing on the best of days. I just can't see how you can do good proper testing by just sacing him with level 1's

I understand the difficulty of it all and expect to see wipe after wipe trying things out. Thats why I keep talking about time. Perhaps we can buy another minute by resisting a meteor, then getting destroyed by something else later. Thats another minute that could give us time we need to see what we can find out.

[Starr]

Izzy, you might want to talk to Feather LS (for real). They took AV down to 19% two months ago.

POIDH

[cdgreg]

So I'm looking to get a holding team that can keep AV held long enough for us to go on a rampage killing mobs around him to see if it has any effect. I'm not just looking to throw 10 melee in AOE range in a poorly thought out zerg rush. I don't run a linkshell with 50+ members to every event that can sit around throwing bodies at it. This has to be well planned and executed in order to make it work.

Elipse, with our jols we simply keep killing jols smns until it locks regen, am I remembering incorrectly or does it take approximately 30 mins each time to get sharks only? where I'm going with this is it may not just be a rampage on the mobs around him, it may literally take 30 mins (or a different amount of time) of killing mobs around him including his wynav's to see any major effect. I'm looking forward to seeing the list youre making and ready to start checking them off, however i hope this doesnt mean I have to go out and get an earth obi

[Khelek]

Izzy, you might want to talk to Feather LS (for real). They took AV down to 19% two months ago.

POIDH

They had six or seven Kraken DRKs, two paladins tanking (Seeker and Elweed I think it was) and an army of BLMs. Total of people was around 70~80.

You know... Call me crazy, but I don't doubt that's doable. Definitely not the way it was intended to be handled (I hope...), but I don't see how it'd be impossible if they got lucky with bene and meteor/aeroga

[Izzy]

Are you sure Feather did that? It woulda been much more widespread had it actually happened. You can't just get 80 people in Al'Taieu and down AV to 19% and not have anyone notice besides heresay. Feather has been known to lie about strategies too. We used to do Fafnir with them when we both got bored and they'd come up with some pretty weird ass stories about killing stuff. Gonna have to go with the POIDH here Q_Q.

[Changz]

That's not the first time I've read about AV using Spirit Surge, but the first time I've heard of it being used in an AV strategy. Sounds interesting, I'm going to play with that idea a little.

[Lhexh]

Please keep in mind what I said. I want to keep AV in a holding state to give us time to test different ideas and theories. I'm not looking to take him to 79% and see him get into spam magic mode unless we figure something out about how to enfeeble/stop/kill him with the testing.

That said from watching videos patterns have emerged that let me think there is a possibilty that his meteor casts before he hits 79% are not completely random. Perfect dodge > Manafont > Comet > Meteor is one of the patterns. So it is quite possible to have mages move out of range as soon as the PD > MF > Comet > Meteor pattern starts and have them avoid getting hit with it. Sure the patterns might not be 100% and we can't always predict and we will wipe. The idea here is to minimize as many of those wipes as possible to buy us time. On that note, is it not possible to have mages stand at max casting range and avoid meteor? Or is the AOE so far that even max casting range won't help. The only issues I can see are the Cor or Brd getting slammed when they happen to be in range and it goes off.

Again, its not to say that perfection could be had in terms of holding for the kill, which at this point looks impossible until we can get more info... the purpose is to get him held long enough for us to determine if there is something that will stop him. Remember the interview talks about killing monsters around him. So I'm looking to get a holding team that can keep AV held long enough for us to go on a rampage killing mobs around him to see if it has any effect. I'm not just looking to throw 10 melee in AOE range in a poorly thought out zerg rush. I don't run a linkshell with 50+ members to every event that can sit around throwing bodies at it. This has to be well planned and executed in order to make it work.

There is a fairly sizeable difference between seeing what AV does on a video and actually playing with it. I think we have probably spent among the most time of any LS actually playing with AV, at least among the top 3, during all our attempts to lock it and with both of our kills. We never used level 1 characters to hold AV, always had a real tank party trying to hold it while we experimented or had RNG/THF kiting it away while we regrouped to try again after a wipe. I would suggest we have a lot of experience with trying to hold AV as a result and honestly Meteor is not your only concern.

Meteors range is greater than mages casting range so they will die if they are in casting range on your tanks. He also doesn't use 2 hours in any real pattern, only Call Wyvern falls into a semi-pattern where he uses it the most with his wynavs dead but I have seen it used with 1, 2, 3, 4 other 2 hours in between ( with wynavs dead in all cases ) and have seen other 2 hours go back to back around call wyvern ( ie. 100 Fists -> Call Wyvern -> 100 Fists ). He doesn't follow a set pattern where if you see PD then you know which 2 hour is coming next.

Additionally, Meteor isnt the only 2 hour that will wipe you. Hundred Fists can be Shadowbound or Invincible used but otherwise will rip through tanks quite quickly. Meikyo Shisui can wipe a tank party just as fast with 3 straight Explosive Impulse, as well as Chainspell followed by a series of AerogaIVs.

[Hanyoko]

Personally i've always speculated that it has something to do with WS. Reason being SE explicitly mentioned 'elemental attacks relating to current day' and used fire on firesday as an example.

With Sea a quest was added that can reward the player with an obi that improves..... magic damage when matching day with element.

The gorgets from this quest forced us as players to look at what elements our WS have attributed to them.


Heck for all we know doing 'invalid' elemental damage makes AV go ballistic.

Side note observation: all the jailer items have +7 modifers to most of their item drops. AV has +8

[Fryte]

Oh, how part of me can't wait to hear SE finally come out and say jailer weapons are the way to kill AV.

On a side note, I personally would like to see some jailer weapons skillchaining to Liquefaction to Fusion to Light with magic bursts of Fire on Firesday. Who knows...maybe lvl1 skillchains lock 4 2 hours, lvl2 4 more, and lvl3 skillchains 4 more, and any elemental attack that isn't corresponding to the day pisses him off. (No flash for you, PLD, unless its lightsday, lol)

As for level1's holding it, this always gets me. Usually when this happens, the lvl1 runs up, dies, AV runs back to his spawn and sits there, until the lvl1 can repeat it all over. Who knows if anything you did in the last hour locked him because he just reset...

I'm interested in knowing about the LS that got it to 79%, what kind of tanks did you use? nin/drk with wind resist?

[Demosthenes11]

Izzy, you might want to talk to Feather LS (for real). They took AV down to 19% two months ago.

POIDH

They had six or seven Kraken DRKs, two paladins tanking (Seeker and Elweed I think it was) and an army of BLMs. Total of people was around 70~80.

You know... Call me crazy, but I don't doubt that's doable. Definitely not the way it was intended to be handled (I hope...), but I don't see how it'd be impossible if they got lucky with bene and meteor/aeroga

there is no getting lucky. He either uses magic, or he doesn't. He either uses manafont-->meteor, or he doesn't. There is no way in hell they could survive to 19% with it spamming either of them, and there is no way in hell they would have died at 19% if he wasn't using them. Unless someone provides any pics or some sort of proof, it's complete bullshit. With the best tanks on Bismarck (a few of which have previously beaten AV) along with a full army of blm and 2-3 kraken drks, we managed to bring it only down to 75ish%, because at that point there is no way a paladin can keep up enough hate to not lose it to whms spamming them because of meteor. There is no getting AV down under 70% without magic locked

[BRP]

there is no getting lucky. He either uses magic, or he doesn't.

Wouldn't it be considered lucky if he doesn't? Kind of contradicting yourself I think.