Quick question for Bionic Bug.

[Celebrindor]

so its confirmed- no way to get to this ENM solo, even though it is possible to solo? lovely :D

[TacoTaru]

BLM solo would rely on luck I think - he isn't guaranteed to counter stance at all is he?

If he didn't you'd be pretty screwed - he builds sleep/grav resistance relatively fast..

No, counterstance is not guaranteed. In fact the last 2 months we haven't see him counterstance at all. On Brd in full debuff gear I can only land sleep about 50% of the time. The few times our Rdm threw it out it's been resisted, but this way fairly far into the fight. My guess is Blm would require the perfect day of Counterstance off the first spell to hit him and then just go balls to the wall from there.

[shukuffxi]

I duo this every week as RDM + BLM/RDM (I'm the RDM). I've seen 2 or 3 solo videos, all pre-Gravity nerf, so I think it would be a tough, although not impossible solo for a BLM. Here's what information I can give, incoming walls of text :/

Bind will -NOT- always work. No idea if it has some weird resistance to it, or not. Using AF Body/AF2 hat/HQ Staff/Enfeebling Torque/Altruistic Cape/Nashira Seraweels/Nashira Gages, and 6 Enfeebling Skill merits, and my Bind is... Erratic at best. I've tried replacing the M.Acc slots with INT, eating INT food, mixing up pieces. Sometimes Bind sticks every time. Others, i'll get 5+ resists. Really would love to figure out what effect's this resistance, i've noted day every time we go in. Not moonphase, but I do not think that would affect it.

Gravity resistance builds up, but not overly fast. Gravity duration varies (i've had it wear 5 seconds after initial cast, or had it stay on a very long time) and resist rate is not a big issue. Mostly I can stick it 10+ times before I notice it wearing off quickly, rarely had a resist, but we're almost always done before it goes beyond 10 Gravity casts, if even that many.

He does have a huge amount of HP. Generally I nuke about 1 1/2 - 2 MP pools worth of Blizzard IIIs on it, and my BLM partner goes through between 3-4 MP pools worth of nukes (Not the most pimp BLM ever, but not weak either), depending on various things (Day/Weather, if it uses Bionic Boost or not, etc)

Sleep resist builds up as well. We generally sleep it twice per run, occasionally 3 times, (usually at one end of the BC, while my partner runs to the opposite end to rest [it's a very large path] while I continue to Gravity/Bind/Blizzard III it). Our first attempt ever was a loss, where we slept it like 10+ times, and it became very resistant. Last time we only slept it twice, so near the end I threw out a sleep after every of my partners nukes, and never got a resist.

At low HP, it has a really high form of TP Regain. At low HP, even if it just used a TP move recently, if I walk anywhere near, it'll spam TP moves, which if you're not in defensive gear, can do 60-70% of a Taru BLMs HP in casting gear. As RDM in defensive gear, the TP moves never proved much of an issue (Terra/Ethereal/Cheviot/Jelly Ring [since it's damage is not magic based]), the few times they got off, they rarely even broke my SS. Several TP moves will remove your Blink entirely though.

I can see a BLM/RDM still being able to solo this (aside from actually getting to the BC >_>), but will probably need a really good nuking set and enfeebling set. Ideally first nuke free > Gravity > nuke your MP pool dry > Sleep II > rinse and repeat, trying to Bind it as possible, saving ES for emergency sleeps, and using Wizard Cookies/best hMP gear, or perhaps some meds. If you get to the point where Gravity and Sleep start resisting, it would be difficult to win.

I've seen RDM solo vids (http://youtube.com/watch?v=HzCTOn2nb3s) before Gravity nerf, where it was easier to just Poison II/Bio II and you were constantly safe because Gravity wouldn't build resistance. I still think it might be possible for a RDM/NIN to win this solo, but it'd cut it very close to the time limit. With meds, maybe much easier. After our first attempt at this BC long ago, I went RDM/NIN, just for the safety, and with Slow II on, I could stand still and manage to Utsusemi the better part of his physical attacks easily, just standing there, so we didn't have to use extra Sleeps.

The hardest part of this BC is convincing your LS mates to do it as well to get Cloud Evokers >_> For some reason people see it as a huge pain to get to, but it's actually fairly easy, and can be faster than getting to the ENM BC in Uleguerand Range or Attohwa Chasm. I really like this BC overall, it's not hard at all in duo, i'd like to attempt a solo, but too short on gil atm :/

[Arkanos]

My friend and I duo this RDM/BLM(me) and BLM/RDM every week as well; we just did it in 7 minutes with a 16 COR leeching EXP and his Wild Card. Our normal clear time is around 12 min. My BLM friend does about 4% with Tier IVs, I do about 2% with Tier IIIs.

I've seen a few people above talk about Counterstance or Bionic Boost; for us, we've noticed that it's always Mighty Strikes that triggers a damage bonus, and mighty strikes reliably goes off at 75%(~110% damage), 50%(~125% damage) and 25%(~200% damage). A BLM solo strat will probably need to make use of these time periods to output damage quickly.

I actually think post grav-nerf, a BLM will have an easier time with an attempted solo than RDM, simply because the key is to defeat him before resistances has a chance to build, and BLM is far more adept at pushing out a lot of damage in a minimum amount of time than RDM is. An extremely good hMP set and yag drinks might be a necessity though, to recover as much MP as possible in between sleeps.

Probably a reasonable tactic would be to grav/bind/nuke to just over 75% (A taru starting first nuke with full MP gear should be able to do this fairly easily), sleep2, rest, reapply a fresh grav, bind/nuke with bonus damage to just over 50%, sleep, rest, fresh grav, bind/nuke with bonus damage to just over 25%, rest a tad more (Sleep'd probably start getting half resists at this stage) then fresh grav again + nuke + manafont during the 200% damage phase.