Scouting the Ashu Talif

[Cream Soda]

I've been shouting for over a week now for a Star Sapphire (for my adder jamby), but have had no luck. I've died to the Ashu Talif #1 plenty of times in the pass and the time I did clear it, it was a near wipe. Having monk as my only lv 75 job, what jobs should I be trying to find and what kind of strat should I be using to be able to have a good chance at a successful run.

[Kiarax]

Get as many BLU's as possible. BLU (and to a lesser extent), BLM are amazing in this BC. If you're just going for the Star Sapphire you don't need to kill the NM Imp as the chest that loads the Sapphire will pop without killing him. Optimally get a couple of BLU's and RDM+BRD to refresh them and they should have no problems clearing everything out with aoe spam, melee DD's can pick off stragglers that are out of range or finish off any mobs that don't get 1 shot by the BLU's. Drop rate is terrible on the Star Sapphire so have fun finding people to spam it for you.

[Lyramion]

RDM with phalanx 2 can make such a difference in here. The Fomors will be barely able to touch your PT members. The danger comes from the Imps. Naturally stuff like Frypan is prue awesome here to interrupt their casting plus do nice AOE dmg.

[Amok]

Having BLU's and BLM's is easy-moding it imo. Doing it with just regular melee jobs works too but requires more coordination. You'll need a puller that can survive having several fomor on him and 2-3 ppl with aoe ws. Use the waves consisting of only a few crew membes to build TP. Puller pulls and everyone grab one of the melee crew that runs right after him. The RNG and RDM crew will stay behind a little so you can grab those second. The waves aren't as clean cut as you'd hope or as other ppl make it sound. Some of the waves have mobs that spawn a few seconds AFTER the group it belongs to is initially aggrod. You will notice this if you camp upstairs so that everyone is OFF the stairs out of aggro range (where the should be at all times) and still new melee mobs coming up. If you don't have aoe WS or a good one (I think spinning attack's radius is not that big) you can just one shot a crew with your ws then switch over to another. Having the puller get aggro hate instead of pulling with ranged makes things much easier for your healer. If you do use aoe ws then check who has tp before each wave and make a plan who will be doing their WS. When you aggro Imps they will start casting immediately and once you're way at the back of the upper deck you'll be outside casting range. So usually the'll come flying after the fomor are dead (in mixed waves and only if you're fast on the kill/aoe). If you do have BLU's and BLM's, ignore all of this and just keep them refreshed.

[Kaylia]

Easy trick is to hold the last fomor of a wave if you need time to rest.

[Cream Soda]

Alright guys thanks for the help. Will the blues know which AoE to use or is there a specific one i should tell them to use?

[Slott]

Easy trick is to hold the last fomor of a wave if you need time to rest.

or just stay up top the ship, where nothing aggros from the next wave til you pull it?

[Seditedi]

I did it a few times, we had like 2 RNG/NIN 3 BLM/WHM 1 BRD/WHM or something, really easy like that.
BRD had Storm Fife + use of revitalizers meant pretty much full MP all the time. I do recommend poison potions though. One time we got hit with a badly timed Sleepga II from the NM imp and the crew basically just picked us off 1by1 lol.

[Kiarax]

Alright guys thanks for the help. Will the blues know which AoE to use or is there a specific one i should tell them to use?

Body Slam and Frypan will usually 1 shot everything. Between recasts they can Grand Slam and drop around 50+% of their HP leaving them to be picked off with a couple of melees or another AoE. Tell them to try and get the Imps out of the way asap as they start casting AM's as soon as they pop and the Fomors that pop with them can easily drop your shadows at a bad time leaving you to hit by it.

[Cream Soda]

Thanks for teh advice guys I'll have to try to get a group soon.

[Kaylia]

Easy trick is to hold the last fomor of a wave if you need time to rest.

or just stay up top the ship, where nothing aggros from the next wave til you pull it?

Always work? I had them come to us for no apparent reason on top of the ship

[Kiarax]

Easy trick is to hold the last fomor of a wave if you need time to rest.

or just stay up top the ship, where nothing aggros from the next wave til you pull it?

Always work? I had them come to us for no apparent reason on top of the ship

It's never worked 100% for me, sometimes they wont aggro some times they will. I know if you use a JA or so much as draw your weapon on one they seem to aggro however. Spells I'm not sure about.

[Kaylia]

Easy trick is to hold the last fomor of a wave if you need time to rest.

or just stay up top the ship, where nothing aggros from the next wave til you pull it?

Always work? I had them come to us for no apparent reason on top of the ship

It's never worked 100% for me, sometimes they wont aggro some times they will. I know if you use a JA or so much as draw your weapon on one they seem to aggro however. Spells I'm not sure about.

Or blood aggro. I've done it once that way and it failled horribly when everything went top to rape us. Holding the last one of a wave was a lot more reliable for me and really easy since you can kite it forever around the stair.

[Casey_]

soboro sam + blus = easy win, bring poison pots/be prepared for swiftwinged gekko, /nin and spread out is basically all you'd need.

[Slott]

It works, stay in back. Imps have a much larger aggro range than fomors. If you stay away from steps, nothing will aggro at all (stay towards the very back of the ship). Even the imp NM doesn't aggro and start moving when you do it this way, he just sits around in the middle until you get too close. I always used a pld to pull them all, and get beat on with phalanx up (barely takes any dmg) He'd just sight aggro an entire wave each time (and we never get aggro beforehand if you do this correctly)

[fndragon]

I've got to agree with the "Throw more BLU on that" strategy. BLU can set quite a few AoE spells for this fight. I prefer the Frypan->Bodyslam combo because Frypan also stuns them for the Bodyslam. Imps are high priority for head butts, since they love casting ancient magic and the regular crew members seem to be just great at stripping your shadows with attacks right before the Ancient Magic lands.

Disseverment and Frenetic Rip will both instantly destroy any imp or crew member, so use these to mop up.

As far as strategy goes, the group that I go with usually stays on the ground floor until the second NM appearance. (There are 4 waves of Fomor only, then the NM, then 3 imp waves, then the NM again). After that second appearance we high-tail it to the upper deck of the ship so we don't get swarmed. Then once the wave fully appears we pull it back using a ranged attack and our blue mages intercept the wave on the staircase (bunches the fomor up nicely). Any stragglers are quickly dispatched, and then we recover mp for the next wave.

If you don't have any Blue Mages, then tailor your strategy to what you do have. AoE weaponskills are very useful, as are any AoE effects from BLM's. Rangers are good for pulling waves to the top as well as opening a can of whoop-ass on Swiftwinged Gekko. (Slugshot -> Barrage -> EES, repeat with revitalizer as often as necessary).

[Lordender]

Pinecome bomb is another one of those good blu spells for this fight. It has good range, deals alot of dmg to imps, with a str set up i was able to 1shot the imps from far away using CA

[Naygor]

Level blm and manaburn it for an easy win.

[BRP]

My group's first run we did kind of terrible(well, maybe not "we"... more like that "guy"... but, nvm), but still got clear. Four dead with no RR and 30 seconds left and we open chest to get Star Sapphire, but before we can say anything, someone exits us(which I guess it doesn't really matter at that point unless we felt like HPing). We haven't seen one since.

[jfive]

Destroyed this BC with

RNG SAM/RNG RDM WHM BLM MNK.

2 ranged attacks could basically take out any fomor or imp basically.

You get I think 3 revitalizers throughout the whole 30 minutes. Having the ranger spamming EES on Swiftwinged Gekko everytime its up takes a huge chunk out of its HP. Sam/rng sidewinder did about 700-900 on the NM. RNG main Sidewinders and EES were doing 1500+ on the NM.

Our rdm would go down the stairs and aggro them, and the blm would target a single fomor and take out basically all the adds.

Easy win. MNK didnt do very much, but sure did save our mages a few times. I advise 2-3 RNGs RDM WHM BLM.