Lower Number's Proto-Ultima

[Ashky]

Don't hang me if this has already been covered, but I searched and found really nothing on this topic other than low man Omega runs.



My LS tried a 12 man Ultima yesterday. We have cleared Omega 2 times with around these same numbers and while the Omega isn't easy, when he went nuts around 20%, we were able to zerg him down for the win both times we tried.



Ultima on the other hand was a different story... 12 people:

Party 1
NIN/WAR
NIN/WAR
WHM/BLM
SMN/WHM
RDM/DRK
SAM/THF


Party 2
BLM/WHM
BLM/WHM
BLM/WHM
BLM/WHM
BRD/WHM
WHM/BLM


Our strat was very good for 80%... We had absolutely no trouble with Ultima until he hit 20%. I was one of the 2 tanks and I regretted not eating sushi he was so easy to co-tank with the other NIN. We slow killed it, with BLM low tier spell dotting it all the way down to make certain not to pull hate off the NIN's. When he got to 20%, we just seemed to lose control.



My question is, what do people do in order to get this thing killed once it hits less than 20%? Citidel Buster was handled pretty well and people ran out of range of it so that wasn't really what wiped us. What do people suggest we do with only 4 BLM's? Should we have everyone rest up @ 21% and prepare for an super zerg while the RDM chainspells Stun?


One thing to note though is that we found a way to cancel Citidel Buster completely. The SMN took hate with Diabolos on one them and dismissed him under at under 5 in the countdown and it stopped it completely.



Any tips would be appreciated on what we could do to effectively kill him once he "goes nuts" under 20%. Can NIN/DRK hold enough hate off the BLM's to make the difference under 20%?


Edit: After zombie tactics, we wiped at 4%...

[Osede]

you can stun the cidatel buster, when it count down till between 1-2 sec.

and the ultima has few kind of ws that reseting hate, which also include the cidatel buster.

[Ashky]

You *CAN* stun it? Are you sure? Everything I read said it was unstunnable. I may have been reading old information...

[ClassicRed]

Can NIN/DRK hold enough hate off the BLM's to make the difference under 20%?

Yes. In theory. :3 He does have hate reset spells but...


We've done Ultima with 14 ~ PLD/NIN + NIN/DRK tanks -

PLD/NIN
NIN/DRK
WHM/BLM
RDM/WHM
SMN/WHM
BRD/WHM

BLU/NIN
SAM/THF

SMN/WHM
SMN/WHM
BLM/RDM
WHM/BLM
BRD/WHM
RDM/WHM

SMN is hateless DMG :3 so with low numbers if its an option I realy recommend it. CB -can- be devistating but as you stated you handled it well. The SAM and BLU just wanted to have fun so we didnt deny them entry the BLU did well with Head Butts and etc.. SAM I -think- helped plant hate >.> I was one of the SMNs ;3 paid more attention to what I was doing mostly...


** Yes, he can be stunned. Q('.'Q) We were floored the first time we did it on accident.

[Izzy]

Generally, if you stun Citadel Buster, it will redo it after it is not stunned anymore. Much like Bahamut and flares.

[Ashky]

Does it start from under 5 again or from 30 again?

[ClassicRed]

30

[Ashky]

So when is the exact moment to stun? Under 2? Should 2-3 people stun to make sure it lands? Or is it unresisted?

[ClassicRed]

1? This is the only ss I have of it ~

As you can see he doesnt immediately start up again but he will sooner than the % interval..

http://www.melodiesofdeath.com/classicred/cbstun.jpg

[Medivac]

why would you risk ultima on low numbers, did you have a limbus static of some sort?

[Ferien]

So when is the exact moment to stun? Under 2? Should 2-3 people stun to make sure it lands? Or is it unresisted?

Have both a BLM and a melee stun it, in case it has one of the shields up.

[ClassicRed]

Ours is ls only and its not mandatory to go so if we have 12 or more and they wanna go and try it :3 we get on optimal jobs and go for it ~

Q('.'Q) Point of this game is to have fun, no? Whats more fun than low number by the seat of ur pants fights?

[maddadon]

My LS recently did this—and the primary source of info we had came from:

http://kanican.livejournal.com/

I don’t know about stunning CB—we didn’t even try. The overall strat from Kanican is to really just take advantage of how CB works. W/ that said-however- our run didn’t go well after 20%, but it was easy enough to ghank it at that point and pull out the win.

As the Nin/Drk tank I didn’t die save for NinjaSuicideBomber at the end. I highly recommend nin/drk tank for this. The hate control was simply the best example of what nin/drk can do-that I personally have been a part of.

[Dammerung]

My first Ultima I did with my Limbus LS, we had like 11 or 12 people Was a little shaky but I'll put that to people not having a lot of experience, still pulled off a win. Having a tank that doesn't die to Citadel Buster is key... I don't know if ninja can pull that off. PLDs with a rampart rotation kept us alive last night on another one.

You might want to add another damage source other than BLM or magic shield will screw you over since surviving through multiple Citadel Buster can be difficult. 1 SAM 1 SMN kinda works if you can survive CB spam. Should have everyone rest up at 21-25% to get ready.

[Ashky]

Not everyone has the luxury of 18 people with Sea access. I know it's sad, but that's the way our LS is. We have 18 people with Sea access but getting all 18 on at the same time almost never happens.


Same goes for our KS99 runs. We tried Wyrm and Aspid KS99's (Wyrm to ~45% and Aspid almost untouched) and every strategy you see involving these is "bring more BLMs." We're a very melee heavy shell so the absolute BEST we could do on BLM's is about 7.


I found some more info concerning this and the rest at ~21% and just
nuke-the-shit" outta him method sounds the best so far.

[Osede]

You *CAN* stun it? Are you sure? Everything I read said it was unstunnable. I may have been reading old information...

yea. we have been manage to stun it for total 3-4 times in 4 ultima fight. But the timing is abit hard to get, cast the stun between the count down 2 to 1. But it is better everyone run away, and only left the person who got targetted, and one stunner(if the one targetted cannot cast stun).

But if got mana screen on.... just run the hell away is better XD

[Kaylia]

Someone posted a 7men strats in the "limbus" sticky in event board. Nin/drk, 4blm/rdm, whm and rdm/drk I think. Had a stun rotation to lock it permantly or almost.

[Kaeko]

Someone posted a 7men strats in the "limbus" sticky in event board. Nin/drk, 4blm/rdm, whm and rdm/drk I think. Had a stun rotation to lock it permantly or almost.

Pretty sure this is referring to our group that did it (referenced above as well with the link). The setup was NIN/DRK, 4 BLM (2 /RDM 2 /WHM), RDM/DRK, and a BRD/WHM. If you don't go in on Earthsday, you can stun nearly stun lock it with this setup since 6 of the 7 players have stun. Even a NIN/DRK's stun lands for a good 2 seconds outside of Earthsday.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/4431.html (loss at 2% with 6 members - NIN/DRK BRDx2 RDM/WHM BLMx2)
http://kanican.livejournal.com/8445.html (win with 7 members - NIN/DRK BRD RDM/DRK BLMx4)

I'd just like to point out that if you want to use only BLM damage, you are setting yourself up for either a loss, or a really close wipe involving sacs about 25% of the time. If it decides to Mana Screen, not only do your nukes do nothing (no gank damage), your stuns are resisted as well, and you're pretty much screwed because you've only prepared for a magic damage oriented gank.

Unless you're extremely confident, I wouldn't go with anything less than 9-10. The last 20% is just too hard to predict because of the randomness of shield usage. Try to add at least a couple melee damage types in there to diversify your DD as well. It is solo-tankable, but I would probably bring a second tank (at least one of them RDM or PLD) just to be safe. It sucks to lose something that took a couple weeks to get, so I'd try to zerg this if you can.

I know first-hand how some groups want to be able to do things with lower numbers out of necessity, but this is one of those cases I'd just suck it up and ask some friends to help you out. My group has done 7 Ultimas now, but had lost 3 of them early on due to my continual attempts to push to lower member limit on this fight. Had I just been willing to give in and invite merely 1-2 friends (which we do now), I think we could have easily won 6 of them. I think the information we were able to discover in those attempts were enlightening and have helped others strategize for their own attempts, but as far as the actual strategy posted involving heavy BLM damage only - Don't Use it - you will set yourself up for a massive disappointment if it Manascreens at the wrong time. Use heavy magic damage first 80%, go mixed attack of magic and heavy melee gank damage last 20%.

Best of luck.

EDIT: NIN/WAR is a very bad idea in your setup in the initial post. Your "bread-and-butter" choices are RDM/NIN, NIN/DRK, PLD/NIN. Which is the best is debatable and varies depending on tank skill, DD setup, and job availabilty.