BLM Apollyon NW Solo Win Video

[Inoiown]

Congratulations again to Kaeko and Inoiown, question Ino do you have gaiters or you did this without them?

Without them, although I do believe it will make things a lot faster/smoother (from my experience with w.legs on RDM).

[Fated]

Nice video, it was cool to see the whole thing in motion for a change, reading bits and pieces and seeing a screenshot here and there doesn't do as much justice as seeing the whole process. Granted you did get lucky with the portals, but it was still awesome watching everything unfold :D.

Btw. Kaeko, you seriously need to fire your camera man >_>.

[Kaeko]

Thanks for the comments so far.

Regarding the epenis comments, I mentioned the video was uncut and needs to be trimmed. I asked for advice on where and how to do so. The video on stage6 is the uncut version which my friend made without anything done on my part. It actually is meant to be educational once I blog it. I don't think I've made a single post there for over a year that just had epenis shots in it without at least a page worth of copyable/followable strategy. If I wanted to purely show off on this, I think I could have done a lot worse by intentionally holding extra mobs just to prove I could and things like that.

Everything I've ever claimed to have done I have written the corresponding strategy or logs for everyone else to see. There are people who just say "I can do XXX with XXX" then give you no hint on how it was done whatsoever (I swear someone does this every other good topic on BG, it's really annoying and doesn't help anyone) - I don't think I'm one of those people. I've shared just about everything, including things my LS originally did not want me to due to server competition (Tiamat mainly). This Solo NW topic is a pet project of mine which I've worked on sharing for almost a year now... some things are just extremely difficult to explain with anything other than video. A big part of learning is just watching others as well.

I think this helps with timing for anyone who wants an idea of how long certain things take. I'd gotten a lot of /tells and PMs asking about just how long things like ghosts take. It also shows intricate use of all 4 sleep spells in succession, how to handle adds timing, all the routes, and the KB fight. It does have epenis value associated with it, I'm not going to lie about it; however, I felt it would help answer questions I get about this zone. Some parts do need to be taken out due to common knowledge or repetitive nature; again, that's why I asked.

Regarding the gear comment. I first soloed this zone November '06, almost a year ago. I had gaiters; however, no Novio, Z Mitts+1, Morrigans, or most of my HQ gear. My merits then (and still) were subpar - 0 enfeebling (no patch added yet), 0 other category (still 0), 0 INT (still 0). My damage per spell was much lower than it was in that video back then. If you read anything on my blog it stresses strategy, not gear and you can see a number of them in the video from the KB nuke trick to blink castsing (though from 3rd person view). I'm pretty proud of the fact that I first did almost all the "impressive" BLM solos without the maxed gear, so I just have to stress this fact. I could easily regimp myself and do this zone in a black cloak, no novio, and igqira weskit if you wanted enough. Removing Gaiters is debatable though someone just did it, so it is possible (I don't know how I would fare since I haven't taken them off in about 2 years).

What am I trying to prove? Hmm I guess there wasn't much more to prove as far as this zone goes. Much of the 'wow' factor of doing this is gone simply because people already knew you could do this from my own blog. I just felt it would be fun and further enhance the information on the blog. The idea originally came from a friend who wanted to see me try this whole video thing. To be honest, videos also enhance the popularity of the blog ('eye candy' if you will); if I spend time writing it, I'd like to maximize hits right? Also, I think it's common sense that you have to prove you are 'worthy' first before you go around telling others how to do things like I do on said blog, so there is some degree of 'wow' factor intended just to hold attention. Posts regarding BLM were written in such a way that I attempt to showcase some semi-impressive feat first, then tell you how to do it; as opposed to say forcing a bunch of information with no proof that I have any idea what I'm talking about. If I wrote so much on BLM then it turned out I couldn't even say solo ODS, then the information is pretty much useless because I'd be talking out of my rear.

If you found it just a show off video, then I take those comments in stride with no malice or anything like that. If it looks like an epenis video, then it needs to be cut in a way that it does not come off that way; it's usually the critical remarks that help the most, so I thank you for your honesty (I know it went against the 'grain' from the other posts here, which is difficult).

EDITS: To answer some of the previous questions. This zone and Ix are possible w/o Tia shoes because others have done so. I'd imagine they do make things much easier though. I can do ENM brothers 100% of the time - but it's a gear thing more than a strategy thing since you basically have to kill one in 90 seconds.

[OctavoGilgamesh]

Not really to start a war here or anything, but I don't see what you're trying to prove?

That you can do this even with gear that most of the people who'll be watching your videos wont have? The principal is simple, sure the technique is impressive, but heck, I'd say this is more of an epeen video than anything educational/entertaining. It's sort of like you posted it here to get a pat on the back or something.

As they say, jealousy is the ultimate form of flattery.

[Darunia]

Awesome video but i must ask this cos its bugging me now, whats the orchestral music from the 1st half from?

[Kaeko]

Awesome video but i must ask this cos its bugging me now, whats the orchestral music from the 1st half from?

I need to ask him the musical score. I'll have it when I blog the final product hopefully. They are all game based songs I believe.

[Epical]

You already win because you used S6 instead of Youtube.

[Judai]

You definately don't need the gear he has to pull it off. My gear isn't bad or anything but I don't have the perks he has, morrigan's, novio, gaiters and I myself have gotten KB to 60% easily while the other BLM was weak.

If definately is educational, to me at least. Shows me exactly what other people do, where they stand, run, etc. I didn't see anything "epeen" in the ideo, lol. Just cut out the resting/buffing and like I said, maybe speed up the frames so it runs a bit quicker and it will be nice. No need to watch in real time to understand whats going on.

[toqabowl]

I guess i need the soundtrack to shadow of the colossus.

same here, after watching that vid it makes my wanna play that game again^^

[Kaeko]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm looking at making these changes so far...

- Edit out /heal times or fast forwarding through them
- Split into 3 sections (3 videos) - 1F to 4F, 5F NQ Behemoths, Kaiser
- Increase speed a bit on everything maybe
- Ask my galka for the musical score

I probably can't add notes directly in the videos since I have no experience video editing. I also have no clue what's going on with the red streak on the stage6 version but it's not on the one I have. I'll have to mess with it if it shows up on the final thing. One thing I am worried about is messing with the background music once I start cutting/fast forwarding etc. Anyone have any ideas for this?

On a completely unrelated topic -

I have 2 really old videos I got a couple years ago that I really love and want to blog, but it's made by 2 players from another server. I want to get permission before I do so, so does anyone know if HiddenPower (Remora) is still around? The 2 videos are by players named "Vecan" and "Awaken".

[sakurato]

who is this taru trying to show off to everyone?! next time go faster kae! lol it's toooo looooong!

[sakurato]

I'll post some more to make myself clearer: I'm not attempting to take the glory away from what you've done, but I feel if you really wanted to post an informative video you'd have just cut the chaff, as posted above. I'm pretty sure the concept of killing mobs with the aid of Sleep, Gravity and Bind is nothing new to most Black Mages who read BG (or even who play this game...). You could have annotated the parts which you felt were important, sped up the parts you didn't, perhaps some link backs to points in your blog. On it's own, the video is more spectacle than strategy.

maybe check out his blog first before saying anything if he really just wanted to do a bunch of epeen stuff it would be there already. he has never tried to do things just to wave his little asian E-dingding around

[Segomo]

For those still wondering about the music, the first half is tracks from the PS2 game Shadow of the Colossus, excluding the MGS stuff. Awesome game, awesome score.

And awesome video. /clap

[Tumibumi]

Thanks for your input about movement speed, from watching the video the main thing i took from it was how well you have learned the zone itself. The MGS moment with ! mark was a nice touch. The route taken to pop desired chests dancing around the various mobs is one of the more entertaining parts of the video.

A note, yes for editing purposes removing /heal time may be best, but as a total HMP nut it wasn't bothersome to get a feel for how long it takes to get back to full. I see many BLM gimp their resting set a lot in exp. Maybe it falls into a certain line of thought I guess, but trade offs that are made for inventory space at times do suprise me.

I do agree that in addition to showing how this can be done, you do have what many BLM players consider the best gear for many slots (novio, morrigan's robe, the gaiters etc) so in many ways just watching the video there are certain moments where a few e-peen shots occured.

Just as my opinion, if the topic was HAHA look at me do what you can't do, I'd be the first to say go fuck yourself, but I use this as an example of what can be made possible/easier with things like gaiters besides walking from Mog House to AH 12% faster, and looking cool in a nice "Town Gear Set" with a novio. Thanks for your interest in sharing informating.

[Kaeko]

I do agree that in addition to showing how this can be done, you do have what many BLM players consider the best gear for many slots (novio, morrigan's robe, the gaiters etc) so in many ways just watching the video there are certain moments where a few e-peen shots occured.

I guess it's a bit awkward to have "too much gear" be a point of contention, but I do see the argument. I get that same complaint often on my blog as well. I could go back and redo the entire thing in my old gear from a year ago when I first won the zone (which consists of pretty much standard NQ nuking gear mostly, no earring, but with gaiters) or even severely gimp it further just to show it doesn't matter as much as some think it does - but I think at that point it really would be just for kicks and truly just "showing off", which I don't see the point in doing (who intentially gimps themself just to prove a point?).

I think the whole 'gear' thing is a bit overblown though and it really highlights how misplaced the priorities are for a lot of BLMs. To me, the biggest keys to winning in time regarding gear were Enfeeble set, Standing defense set, Dark Magic, and HMP (things typically not associated with BLM epenis). Much if not all the nuking on the first 4 floors consisted of a nuking strategy revolving around the refresh box. In those cases, nuking gear only saves you a nuke, which is practically irrelevant time-wise when 2hr or box is there. Nuking strength is only really needed in 5F NQ behemoths, when you have a very limited amount of time and space to reach a kill. If anyone thinks the strength of a nuke is the biggest key to winning the Kaiser fight (which I pressume is the most unique part of the video), then they are very mistaken (dark magic is more important, and I'm using full elemental skill gear to nuke KB).

I'm not saying that nuking strength is not important, but it is overstressed in things like this. To me, it's the playstyle that led to the smoothness win, not the gear. In my opinion, if there was 1 thing I should get knocked on, it's the fact that I'm taru and had a ridiculous max MP pool, which helps tremendously on high HP mobs, long duration fights, and constant refresh boxes. Maximum damage dealt per max MP pool becomes more stressed rather than the usual damage/MP ratio in these situations - this leads to increased important on max MP rather than nuking strength for this zone in particular.

The parts I like the most in the video (the things I considered "epenis shots" when I first saw it) all revolved around routes and the little tricks I used - being able to correctly time sleeps on an add while simultaniously doing an NM, chain sleeps on the trains up the portal without stuttering, dodging KB while soloing the normal Behemoths, the KB nuke trick involving terrain abuse, cheesing extra spell casts on KB while still avoiding meteor with the blink trick, and just the fact that I almost never stood still for any period of time other than /heal. Those were the kinds of things I wanted to show mainly. I really hope that this doesn't eventually spiral into an endless debate about gear that most definitely did not drastically affect the outcome.

I am glad that most so far found it enjoyable or useful. I just find it really annoying sometimes when people assume this was won with mostly gear rather than game knowledge. I always try to do things in a repeatable/copyable fashion. Even on other topics like Limbus, I always made sure we did things w/o Relic access or KCs, which we certainly had access to if needed. I'm very wary of the fact that a strategy requiring perfect gear is useless to 99.9% of the players who read it and I don't think doing things using rare gear as a crutch is that impressive. I understanding how the gear argument comes up, and I'm just giving my take on it. There are other solos which are extremely gear oriented (ENM Brothers for example). In those situations, I definitely try to just flat out say nuking gear makes a huge difference.

EDIT: Grammar and spelling. Also, I sound a bit annoyed in the post, but I really am appreciative of all the comments, good or not so good. Leads to good discussion (especially the not so good ones) I think.

[ninjafox]

Good stuff Kaeko, keep up the good work.

[Xajii]

who is this taru trying to show off to everyone?! next time go faster kae! lol it's toooo looooong!

hi saku!

Kaeko I am mildly impressed you pulled off the amount of sleeps you did, especially since some of the enemies are resistant; can you post your enfeebling gear? Or just, what skill level are you at? I imagine you did get the enfeeb merits after it was offered, from your previous post it is a bit unclear

Other than that, what job is Naka on ? >.> I've been gone a little while but I can't even think of any job he uses with mp.. did he lvl BLU?

To anyone complaining about e-peen - this is not and has never been Kaeko's intention for anything, this guy probably has the best blm gear on Odin if not all servers and he's never bragged about it once, get off his ass and enjoy the video *_*

but yeah, cut out the healing scenes at least. Speeding up the video itself may make it harder for people who are intricately tryingt o learn from your strategy since it would be harder to read the chatbox

[Fated]

Galka looks like a PLD/WHM, at least that's what I'd assume based on the HP and MP values, either that or DRK/WHM.

And uh Kaeko said he still has 0/8 Enfeebling merits.

[Kaeko]

I was 3/8 enfeeble merits for this video. 0/8 on the other 6 wins. 277 enfeeble skill overall during the run - HQ igqira head/legs, torque, AF1+1 body. No earring or master caster bracers. I think even though the enfeeble skill could have been much higher, everything including binds land easily other than some poisons on KB. Nothing in the zone has particularly high resist to enfeebling other than the bosses on 1F, 3F, and 4F.

Naka is on WAR/WHM during the run.

[ninjafox]

some of the mobs in there are resistant to me on rdm, (then again its me) but mostly its just gravity.