General Dynamis Strategies and Party Setups

[Wizerd]

I'll start off by saying I'm not posting this to ask how to do anything. I'm more interested in how other linkshells do things, and how successful it is for them.

Recently, while reading forums, talking to people, and reading blogs/websites, I've found that a lot of other linkshells seem to portray Dynamis as being a lot harder than it really is. I understand that a lot of strategies are geared towards linkshells starting out, or posts in the Newbie Section geared towards newer linkshells/groups also, but by making something sound harder than it is, you're setting people up to do worse than they could, in my opinion.

What I'm interested in is how you set up your parties in a Dynamis run, what you clear, what you avoid, what you have problems with (everyone has something they have problems with), and perhaps most importantly, your single and hundred currency results in the end.

I'm not very interested in dreamlands, since we don't do them very often, the belts and capes for the most part suck, I haven't found enough +1 pieces to make it worth it, and they're shorter, without any increased drop rate from beastmen for AF. Almost no currency to boot.

--

I'll start off with my own linkshell, as an example and to compare. Currently our leader is on a semi-hiatus and has been for a while, so I've pretty much taken over the shell. He comes to some runs, but due to work, not very many. I make the parties, I pull, and I do the points, and I don't find it to be very much work.

We generally have attendance between 21 and 30, depending on whether it's Saturday or Tuesday, and whether we're doing outlands or not, and of course, just general things that come up where people can't come.


Parties
In a city or Beaucedine, typically we'll have 4 or 5 BLMs, and a RDM, BRD, or COR to refresh them. They will ally with the main tanking party, which consists of WHM, WHM, RDM, BRD, NIN, and another NIN or PLD. Our main tanking NIN, when he comes, has a Kikoku, and pretty top notch gear, so his damage output is very high (only myself on MNK/NIN and our Ridill WAR beat him, really; occasionally our main THF and/or our DRG beat him).

Those two parties form up with our main DD party. This party gets a reliable BRD and RDM, and includes our highest potential damage dealers. They're allied with the tank party so the WHMs can watch their HP and help cure if it's needed. Usually this party has our DRG, THF, Ridill WAR, and then our next best DD in it (often a MNK, DRK, or SAM).

The rest of the parties (1 or 2 of them) are made up of a healer (RDM or WHM), a buffer (we try to give them BRD or COR), and four DDs (including our SMN if they're there). If there's a second extra party here, they usually don't get a buffer. Two buffed parties kills plenty fast. They just get a healer. These two parties will ally up, or be solo if there's only 4 parties total. The DDs in these parties aren't bad, some even pretty good. They're pretty close to the top DDs, usually.

If we're doing a Xarcabard run, the BLMs like a COR for Magic Accuracy. A RDM will handle the third NM in each set, with Binds and Gravities, or a NIN will take it if we have a third tank at the run.

I always try to have at least 2 WHM, 2 RDM, 2 BRD, and 4-5 BLM at every run, regardless of the circumstances, as well as 2 solid damage dealing parties.


Strategies
For the 8-eye extension in Xarcabard, I'll shoot a bolt at one of the eyes as the 5 BLMs (always at least 5 for Xarca, usually exactly 5) start casting their -aga III. This allows them to pop in time for the claim patch to wear off, and they'll all cast on me anyway so they won't move out of range. Sometimes a BLM or two dies because they're left at low HP (which more BLMs wouldn't help, the 2 original ones seem to die every time; I don't get it). Melees and RDMs help finish them off.

At the last defense line of 6 eyes, someone pulls the bottom eye at the same time as someone sacs the top eye. This splits the pull evenly, 3 eyes + 6 demons each side. We sometimes have problems here, I think because of the PLDs' Resist Sleep.

The rest of Xarcabard's pulls come in stride, and of course the larger ones have a decent amount of death, but not too much to handle. Our record for Xarcabard in terms of killing stuff (not including time extensions) includes:

- The first 4 eyes before the RDM NM set that pop their mobs clockwise.
- The 3 eyes behind the RDM NM set.
- All 15 NMs
- The 6 eyes @ the last defense line.
- The 2 eyes east of the defense line, after we're done with it.
- The 3 eyes east of that.
- The eyes in the open area between the NM sets. We pull this the same way as the last defense line, works like a charm.
- The 2 sets of 2 eyes near the BLM NM set.
- The 4 eyes that pop a total of 4 RNG and 4 BLM.
- Each pull just east of the Animated Dagger, excluding of course the one north of the dagger and west of the 8-eye extension.
- A few pulls beyond that, near the.. Hammer I believe?
- The 3 eyes just outside said Hammer.
- One or two more eye pulls before running out of safe pulls, and moving on to do a fun try @ Animated Horn to see how it fights.
- An attempt at the pull before the Animated Great Axe, where everyone was tired and we wiped. Lulz ensued when I dragged the Great Axes around and survived.


In Bastok, we clear everything when our core DDs are there. We time out with about 6-8 eyes left just outside mog if they're not there.

In San d'Oria, we clear everything before the boss, then kill boss for repops. We kill for another 30-40min or so before timing out.

In Windurst, we clear everything before the boss, then kill boss for repops. We kill for another 40-50min before we time out.

In Jeuno, same as San d'Oria and Windurst. We usually have 60-70 minutes to farm after the boss dies. Our record post-boss is all the safe pulls before getting to where the boss popped, to the right of AH when facing outwards, as well as the 3 statues in front of AH that roam back and forth, and 1 pull beyond that. I was able to walk into the palace without aggro. @10min remaining, a disgruntled member who had home pointed earlier due to dying while AFK came in and MPKed us.

In Beaucedine, we clear all Quadavs, all Orcs, all Goblins, and all Yagudos except for the boss stone. Add a couple eyes/fomor for a 15 min extension when we don't need the win. We come a little short on the quadavs if we have less than 24 and our core DDs aren't there.


Coin Results
Bastok yields 290-340, depending on whether we full clear or only come close.
San d'Oria yields 280-300, usually.
Windurst yields 250-280, usually.
Jeuno throws me off because of the three different currency types.

Beaucedine comes close to 200, perhaps just over.
Xarcabard is usually just over 100, closer to 130 maybe.

We usually get at least 1 100 currency every run, sometimes up to 4-5 if I'm making an extra effort to hit all the statues/eyes (last run, I did that, and we got 4 in San d'Oria and 4 in Bastok).


Obviously AF results vary.

--

So yeah, what does your LS do?

[Dioma]

Well my LS operates on 16-24 a run. Our strategies are a tad bit different, Xarcabard is especially tough with this many. I'll only list a few unique things we do:

Sandy: THF pulls as normal until the pulls at the Gate to East Ronfaure. Then I take over pulling PLD/RDM to account for the fact that it may link and if it does, there are too many mobs to handle (On our recent Sandys, I've been the only PLD and only 16 people per Sandy) thus, I kite them around in a circle with the more troublesome ones that stay behind and mess the kiting up killed first. There's not as much kiting room for the first gate pull so it sometimes get messy but it almost always buys enough time to prevent a wipe. We then continue on to North Sandy Zone > AH > Stables > West Ronfaure Gate where I do the same kiting technique as at the other gate but I have MUCH more room to do it, I utilize the stables and the same path as I used for the East Ron gate pull. Then we continue onward towards the NIN NM. Once we get to the BST pull, I pull again and we sleep only the Orcs while I kite all 6 hecteyes on the same path as the gate pulls(If it links, last time I managed to isolate one of the statues by running up and aggroing it.) Once the orcs are down, I just die to the hecteyes to depop them saving a bit of time. Next, depending on time, we'll continue towards the NIN NM until time is running low than have a THF sacrifice pull it by fleeing to the NM, hitting PD when they get there, RA the stat then run back towards the AH (Alli is camped @ West Ronfaure zone) Then we kill boss and farm.

Bastok: Nothing special, usually sac the DRK NM @ Zeruhn Mines or have someone kite that junk while we kill small portions.

Windurst: Sometimes need to sac Loo Hepe if time is running low, have the alli camp NE of AH and the THF runs towards MH. It's the same camp as the boss so it works out. Don't usually ever sac the BLM NM or MNK NM. Always sac'd the SMN NM except once when we fought it straight up and wiped with 22 with I believe 2 mobs remaining. Not too bad all things considered.

Jeuno: Nothing special, but farming after the win with lower numbers sucks. All there is to say about that.

Beaucedine: Gonna cover just attestation runs since that's what we've done lately. We have 2 BLMs + 1 THF go to the Nue eye in 2 death runs (First one using Hermes Quencher) It's very important the THF uses the Hermes at the beginning so they can activate Flee without having to stop. When we actually get to doing the NM, we just have someone kite the NM + Hydra and pick off the Hydra now after a few failed sac pulls where the hydra still shared hate to the NM and ended up wiping after the NM died. Figured it was best to just kill the hydra for more currency + drops. With lower numbers, probably need to keep tossing new people to kite the things around. Just make sure they don't kite the NM near the mob you are killing or it will turn and follow the NM causing problems.

Xarcabard: Every NM is sac pulled, it sucks. For the last 6 eyes wall after the NMs, we have a THF flee up aggroing all and 3 vokers voke an eye each and then repeat the process to finish off the eyes. If we want to farm the demons, we'll sac to seperate the mobs too. With lower numbers, even normal farming pulls need to be sac'd to seperate the mobs.

Oh, and coin results. Without 100s, Cities are normally around 200, Beaucedine it's around 120-130, Xarcabard... Uh... Hm.... Not many?

[Wizerd]

On the subject of San d'Oria's gates, I finally figured out how to pull them without linking, foolproof. Only took me nearly 3 years. <_< (Don't do San d'Oria all that often, and every time we do, I forget what went wrong last time.)

In case anyone hasn't figured it out..

Pull 1: Simply when the inside first statue is starting to move back, pull the outside one. (Radar required, I'd say)
Pull 2: The inside first statue, when it's closest to you - pops no mobs.
Pull 3: The inside second statue, when it's away from the NM and not in link range of its outside counterpart - pops no mobs.
Pull 4: The outside second statue, anytime.
Pull 5: Either of the third statues, as long as the inside one is close to the outside if it links.

I found I couldn't separate second gate quite as easily. The first ones same as Pull 1/2/3. The next pull would be the third inside statue, when it's closest to outside. It'll probably link with the two remaining outside ones and the one across from the gate, but this is far better than linking the entire gate.


I dunno why, but I've been liking Dynamis a lot more recently.

[Darkmoon]

Strategies
For the 8-eye extension in Xarcabard, I'll shoot a bolt at one of the eyes as the 5 BLMs (always at least 5 for Xarca, usually exactly 5) start casting their -aga III. This allows them to pop in time for the claim patch to wear off, and they'll all cast on me anyway so they won't move out of range. Sometimes a BLM or two dies because they're left at low HP (which more BLMs wouldn't help, the 2 original ones seem to die every time; I don't get it). Melees and RDMs help finish them off.

Just saw this part, Ill come back later and post more about what my shell does in general, but for this ext #2, you can actually do it easily with 0 aggro 0 death.

take blms behind the Wall, and have them target the Right Eye, do a times AMII or Tier4 nuke with 5-6 BLMs, and it will die with no aggro on anyone. Repeat it for the next eye left (original left, make sure ppl know just to do the next eye to the left, as a new eye has poped to the far left.) Again when this dies there will be no aggro, and the Extension stone pops, then just have the blms Timed nuke it, and then move on your marry way off to the next ext, behind the first NM wall.

We actually do this for all the NMs, and the "Last Line" Eyes, we have a BLM squad that just goes on thier own way and kills all the Eyes, while melee is working on the NM sets. That way when we are done killing the last eye on the "Last Line" we tend to rejoin the melee as they get to the SMN/PLD/THF NM set, and assist from there on.

The convention we use is BLMs nuke Left to right, I call a time and nuke, also we alternte spells so that we dont have to wait on timer for next eye. So usualy its Thunder4 on right, about 20 game mins later Bliz 4 on middle, then 20 later Thunder 4 on left. Then move to next NM wall, and repeat.

Last line is a littel tricker as everyone needs to move into max casting range in a pile, if ppl arent carful they will aggro the mobs and kill all the blms. make sure your blms dont walk sideways to next eye, as they need to pull back, and then repostion again to not aggro as some of the eyes stager out a little near the bottom of the hill. Once you have this all prepoped, its pretty easy to do 1 Sac on the Mobs Sleeping near half the wall and grinding it out.

We run with about 18-30 depending on day, etc.


I'll come bacak and post more after out of my meeting, stupid work being work >_<.

[Zosi]

This is gonna be pretty long, but I'm guessing most of the posts in this thread will be.

Parties:
Main alliance consists of tank party (the three main callers, WHM RDM BRD), BLM party (5 BLMs + BRD) and a party with our main pullers, any extra BLMs that show up, and a few random people.

Extra alliance(s) are balanced DD parties, optimally a healer plus refresher and 4 DDs, more frequently a RDM or WHM and 5 DDs.

Strategies:
For cities, we do every pull that's reasonably possible before the MB, and clean up post-MB pulls as best we can, which tends to be harder because it's usually getting late and people are leaving. We've full cleared Bastok, and came within half a mob (timed out at 50%) of full clearing Jeuno and Sandy. Sandy goes east to west, repop west, kill MB, kill repops. In Jeuno, we kill the MB at the zone to Upper Jeuno and pull normally after the kill. For Windy, we do the normal MH/AH pulls, then go around counterclockwise, pulling everything until the "Death House". Depending on time, we'll either pull that or go for the MB kill, and then pull the post-MB repops until we time out.

For BCD, we do a pretty logical progression. We kill northeast up to Goblins, kill them, but generally skip Hydra unless we need attests. We then go back down and finish Yagudos, then Quadavs. We snipe the south orc lake's time extension from the cliffs above while the melees run there, then clear that area and the Orcs at the lake side. Depending on turnout, we clear anywhere from most to all of the non-Hydra mobs in the zone, usually skipping the Yagudo statue if we're low on time or people.

For Xarc, we kill the first time extension much like you describe, however, we have our THF run in to pop the extra eyes so that any casts started before the nukes go off are on him rather than the BLMs. We pull the eyes to the NE of the first NM platform, then do the NMs in order from E to W. Unless we have a huge turnout, we usually do a single sac pull on the line of eyes to pull the eyes and the BLMs, which we kill, then pull and kill the remaining demons. Nothing really special about how we kill DL, although we pull Y/Y and DL to the bottom of the cliff nearby rather than the top, which I've heard of some LSs doing. We usually have two KC DRKs and your general assortment of melee DDs, and we rarely have trouble with DL unless something like 4x clone -> Oblivion Smash gets through stuns. For post-DL farming, we usually do the mobs to the east of the line, then the pulls near Animated Shield to the south, then pulls near the RDM/BRD/WAR platform, then pulls towards the Animated Horn, then we work our way south towards the Animated Dagger and pull mobs there, then east and pull near the Animated Hammer.

In terms of play strategies, we have our PLDs main call, and ask non-calling PLDs, WARs and NINs to voke and kite statues on big kills. I've been in LSs that use WAR or NIN main callers, and they all work sufficiently, so it's really personal preference and who the active tanks are in your LS. We only have one caller at any given time, we don't split up like some bigger LSs and dual call. We manaburn Orc NMs, never melee unless it's impractical to manaburn due to time or lack of living BLMs. Our main puller is a THF, as are our backup pullers, but occasionally others (including myself on a few occasions) will pull if circumstances require it.

Comments: We aren't a small LS, so most of our strategies are pretty textbook. We usually have between 30 and 40 members at the start of runs, and end most runs with 20-30 due to people going to bed or DCing. We don't do split runs except for Tav, and our Tav runs are usuallly two Tavs sequentially on the same night, so as many people as possible get to go.

We don't keep records of single currencies (we let them autodistro), but we've had a few runs, both city and Northlands, where we've gotten 5-6 100s. These runs are greatly rejoiced, because we sell 100s to pay for hourglasses, so a night like that means guaranteed free runs for nearly the next two weeks.

[jibini]

On the subject of San d'Oria's gates, I finally figured out how to pull them without linking, foolproof. Only took me nearly 3 years. <_< (Don't do San d'Oria all that often, and every time we do, I forget what went wrong last time.)

In case anyone hasn't figured it out..

Pull 1: Simply when the inside first statue is starting to move back, pull the outside one. (Radar required, I'd say)
Pull 2: The inside first statue, when it's closest to you - pops no mobs.
Pull 3: The inside second statue, when it's away from the NM and not in link range of its outside counterpart - pops no mobs.
Pull 4: The outside second statue, anytime.
Pull 5: Either of the third statues, as long as the inside one is close to the outside if it links.

I found I couldn't separate second gate quite as easily. The first ones same as Pull 1/2/3. The next pull would be the third inside statue, when it's closest to outside. It'll probably link with the two remaining outside ones and the one across from the gate, but this is far better than linking the entire gate.

I actually managed to pull the second gate without a link my very first Dynamis as a puller... surprised the hell out of everyone.

You can get the second outside statue on that gate without linking the one between the stalls, but you have to pull it when it's right on the inside of the gate, and hope the popped mobs don't take some funny pathing.

[siknoz]

I think our LS pretty much does the same as what has been posted already, with maybe an exception to Xarcabard concerning the wall pull. For that we usually kills the eys one by one manaburn style, then have a thf or someone with flee boots sac the line and pull the middle 4 mobs with any extra voker you have. Important part is to make sure that they do not voke the mobs until after ALL the mobs have moved, or else the entire wall will come back for them.

After that you pull the wall in sets of 4 mobs, makes it alot more manageable.

although we pull Y/Y and DL to the bottom of the cliff nearby rather than the top, which I've heard of some LSs doing.

Our ls does this too and it works fine. Tricky part is making sure they are not close enough to do 2x body slam and wipe everyone there >;\

[Darkmoon]

Ok work done, now to Post!

HcLegacy is the Dynamis shell I run, we have been running for going on 3 year+ I guess. We use to run with about 45 members, but due to most ppl having all the AF they ever coudl want/use we tend to just run with about 18-30 now depending on the day, 95% of our members are out of our endgame shell so it changes based on if some people are bored or at work etc.

General Setup:
We typically like to have 2 WHMs, 1 BRD, 6+ BLMs, 2 PLDs, 2 RDMs, and rest DD and assorted jobs.

We dont run our shell like a lot of others that I hear, as we dont have a Caller with eveyone assisting on it. We have one Blm allaince, and one DD allaince. The Leads of each allaince know thier jobs and /l is reserved for Pulling info, or Leader chat.

BLM Allaince
BLM allaince has the THF puller in it, 1 BRD and all the BLMs. If we have an extra RDM or BRD we stick them in the second BLM party. This allaince is setup to take care of all stones, all Pets (Avatars, Slimes, Birds, Hecteyes, Scorps, Eyes, Hounds, Xarc BST Wyverns). This allaince also can/does pull of Mobs from large pulls to burn down, typically in a large pull with PLDs, THFs, or MNK mobs, it speeds things up to burn the THFs, PLDs or a MNK if there are multiple mnks. Each BLM in the BLM allaince is required to know how to hold a pet/avatar solo. They are the stunner for that mob when it wakes to prevent Silencega, or Astral Flow. Some people find this scary, but we havent had an Astral Flow go off in 2+ years. When a BST mob is killed, then the BLMs burn the pet, while the person that was holding it with sleep, remaind not nuking to stun it when it starts casting its AoE. On Heceyes in Sandy we use a BRD for sleeping, and a blm stays with them for Stunning when they wake. Just recently tho, we have started to have WHMs layer Repose over it, cuz Repose owns.....

Melee Allaince
This allaince has the Tank PT, then 2 DD Parties. The RDMs and everyone else are in this group. The Lead Tank calls to the party which mobs to kill in what order. Basic stuff here, we love having extra brds here, but since we low man dynamis a lot we usualy dont have an extra. This allaince is 100% self sufficent.

Cities
Basic City strats are the same, BLM allaince up front, puller(me), then Melee allaince behind, RDMs are main sleepers, and we dont pull massive trains unless there is a decent kite area. BLM leader can call mobs out in /l so the blms know which to nuke if we take adds, and BLMs have the right to sleep/assist holding if we have a lot of mobs. BLMs always take care of stones/pets.

Spicific City Notes
Bastok:
-recently I like to clear front of AH, then back of AH, so that I can use that to kite around and just make larger pulls.
Sandy:
if low on BLMs/members we split the SMN pulls into 2 a pull. This can be done easily if the puller walks near the Sandy north zone, and waits till 2 Stones are walking south, and one is north, pull and stand at the NE wall let them summon and come NE to you, then after they are there, move back to allaince and you wont link.
All NMs are killed by BLMs, this makes sure they dont Charmga, they go down fast/easy to blms.
Again Starting to use an Extra WHM in blm allaince for Repose (love this spell) And nice to have since Sandy Nuking NMs leads to a dead BLM once in a while.
Windy:
We use to sac the RDM pull before Megaboss due to the number of mobs, now after the AH, we clear up the East side, and then make 1 more pull after the MNK nm pull, to make sure all aggro around the main loop is clean. Next we backtrack and go West, clearing past the Tower ramp, and up to the house of heros. For the SMN pull, we assign 7 blms to be on Avatar duty, we spread them out in pairs of 2, each takes one avatar off the Hero SMN pull, and holds it while melee kill all the SMNs. Doing this, Astral flow just never happens, if a avatar wakes, they are stunned > Slept. After this we clear to extension, and then clear the 4 stones + 4 mobs on north bridge, then I just kite the RDM NM pull around the outer Windy Circle. Melee allaince pulls some off and hold/kills, blms kill some, and it goes down easy, with no sacing.
After that we pull the Mega to the tunnel back near mog house while I kinda sac to the north (i drop glass, and get a new one from mule and am usualy back in as mega dies) then we start farmign from MH side, then towards the AH etc.
Jeuno:
-Nothing special here its jeuno. We try to bring 2 BLUs here, it makes Goblin bomb/frypan a lot easier to control, and therfore ups your speed a lot, lot less curing/stun.
I know one trick that we learned repoping the foutain. The 3 stones that are on the MH steps that you clear to repop the foutain, if you do a times Thunderga3 nuke on the far left one, they will all 3 die, and nothign will link aggro. I remember when i wasnt running the shell, the old leader had us nuke the middle one, this led to one of the repops getting hit, and aggro > Dead BLMs. If you center the far left with the -ga it kills all 3 np.

Glaicer
Again nothign to special, this is the zone where we actually feel the least ammount of BLMs are needed, and we also find it the easiest zone to do in general. We typicaly farm most the normal mobs between the TEs and then hit the mobs around the Quad Icon, and the Yag Icon. we use to do hydras, but find that we can kill more of the mobs around the Icons for more chances at drops. For fun sometimes after clearing an Icons adds, we then pull it and kill the 4 NMs that pop form it. This is actually pretty easy/fun.

Xarc
-As i posted above we do a lot of BLMs timed nukes in Xarc. We try to have 6-8 BLMs for Xarc also.
the first set of mobs right outside the start area, we have blms sneak to right side, timed nuke each Eye, then same on left side. Then pull while BLMS sleep/hold NINs and Avatars.
-After this while melee finish the Mobs form that pop, BLMs move to the bottom of the bone ridge on the right, and 1 THF pulls the TE#1, 2 blms move out nuke it as the THF sacks towards the next area,TE dies, blms move back, THF dies, and then mobs move back.
-BLMs move behind 8eye wall, and do Timed nuke on Right eye, then Left(original left) eye, then on TE. At this time the Melee allaince is moving to behind the First NM wall waiting for BLMs/resting MP.
-BLMs timed nuke the eye on the top of the hill just north of the TE#2 to prepop its mobs.
-BLMs move to behind the First NM wall.
-THF pulled the close eye off TE#3 triplet, and blms kill that eye, while melee kill mobs, while they are killing mobs BLMs take care of the 3 Eyes on the 1st NM wall, 1 at a time, Right to left. Dont ga these, if one person is off/slow, then you have hate on NMs, and you have dead ppl, its so easy to just nuke them 1 at a time.
-We pull the last 2 eyes at the TE 1 at a time, then kill TE #3.
-If farming, we then kill most all the eyes/mobs to the South around the first NM wall.
NMs
-If we have large numbers, we have 1 Tank hold one NM, 1 Tank+Melee allaince kill one NM, 1THF kite or sac other depending on NM set.
-If we have low numbers we just sac first, then kite/sac second one after 1st is dead.
-While the Melee are takign care of NMs, BLMS make thier way behind NM Wall #2, then #3 , #4, #5 killing the Eyes along the way. After this the BLMs go to the Eye Wall "Last Line" and timeds nuke the 6 eyes there down, then come back to rejoin melee.
-Melee keep workign each NM set down.
-We typicaly just sac the Eye Wall once, and have enough ppl to Sleep/hold mobs while the rest comes back, but i like the ide of sacking and pulling the middle 4 out, seems more efficent, so we will try that next run.
-As for DL, we honeslty dont attempt him atm, we are there for AF mostly, so after Eye wall + TE, we double back to the north, and kill the mobs there, and procede East kill the next set of 3eyes/6 mobs, and then either clear out the East mobs , and/or head to near Animated Shield area and clear those 2 tunnels. We have good luck in that spot, even getting BLM BLM RDM in the span of 15 mins once in Animated Shield ally.

General Run Stats:
Coins:
Cities, we get about 180-250 singles, then 0-4 100s, until recently we had had a low time on 100s, now it seems we get 1-2 every run, and a few 3-4 run ones.
Glaicer, typicaly 150 mixed coins, and 0-2 100s
Xarc, typicaly 80-100 coins, rare 100. (best 100s luck was on dragon sadly enough)

AF:
Cities, huge varation, usualy city is 5-10, have had 20+, and have had 2-3.
Glaicer, typical is 2-3, have seen 9~, and have seen 0 once.
Xarc, typical is 2-3, have seen 7 or 8(forget), and have seen 0 once.

As for Drops, MNK Seems to be the most common by 100 fold, and SMN & RNG least common.

THF drops like candy for us in Xarc, which is a curse in its self, cuz seems 1-2 weeks after a THF gets Hands, they get a job, or school, or girl friend or some lame shit that just means they dont want to do dynamis any more .

Think thats about it, I know there are more "trick" pulls that you get over years of doing it, knowing how to link/not link etc, but ive done it so many times, i dont really think about it unless im in the zone, so if i think of more ill come edit this.

Its nice to read what others do so you can also tweak things you dont think about, or havent tried yet!

[Wizerd]

I'm quite intruiged about BLMs nuking eyes with Tier IV nukes to wipe them out from the NM sets. I thought once you nuked down one of them, if you were to touch the eye next to it then the NM that you just popped would aggro you. As it seems, that's not the case.

Just finished a Xarcabard run today, yielding only THF and DRK Relic Armors, but with an exceptional single coins result of 216. That's our highest in Xarcabard yet, and also coincides with it being our most-mobs-farmed run.

After our normal pulls, we went looking for some more.

We ended up choosing the 6 eyes you see on your right when passing the crags to get to the 8-eye extension area. They all wander back and forth parallel to each other but on opposite rotations:

O.....
.....O
O..... BLM
.....O WHM
O..... MNK
.....O WAR

Then imagine them going back and forth on that path. I don't exactly remember the first two pulls, but I made a note of the jobs on the last 4, above. (this assumes you're coming from the top, which would be closer to the RDM BRD WAR NM set) I seem to remember THF and RDM also being part of these pulls, so I think it was just the basic six jobs in the game.

Each eye pops 2 monsters, and can be pulled without linking if you pull just as the next eye is turning around. It worked for us, and near the end I figured they just didn't link, so I tried pulling while the next eye was in the middle, and they linked. We timed out with 2 mobs left from this pull, so we never got to look for anything more.


A few more Xarcabard notes:

- There are 4 wandering eyes that each pop a few mobs, northwest of the MNK WHM BST NM set. We clear this one out by doing what we call a split pull: One person goes to the southwest of the mobs, and one goes to the northeast. At a given game time, each player does an action on the eye roaming near them. It'll split the pull in half if done right. It's exceptionally better if the person who is sacraficing themselves can sleep something before they die, or 2 things for that matter. They can reraise and bring them back to the group for an even easier final pull once the first pull is dead.

- In Xarcabard, I try to get our tanks to kill DRGs last on any larger pulls. The wyvern isn't weak, and is just an extra thing that needs to be killed/slept. Why bother letting it out before it needs to be?

- Near the animated dagger, the pull is 4 eyes, 4 BLMs, and 4 RNGs. Anyone who's pulled this knows how easy this entire pull is to kite, but it may see daunting to some linkshells if they've never pulled it before. A very nice farm pull with very weak mobs.

- When doubling back east (through the northeast route at the bottom of the hill) after killing the defense line, there's 2 eyes that pop 3 mobs each. Beyond that, on the other side of this area, there are 3 eyes with 2 mobs each. The eyes are close enough together to -aga III the middle one and kill them without aggroing the 6 mobs, which pop past the eye.


This thread has already helped me out a lot in Xarcabard, I think. I'll be trying some of these things out next run, and hopefully they work out nicely and save some exp/time. I'd love to be able to farm 200 singles consistently from Xarcabard. Even moreso if we can each 250. With these strategies and the fact that we do what we do with 24-28, I'm interested in what I could do with ~50 people in the zone whilst splitting up. There aren't that many pulls in the zone, I'm thinking it'd be possible to clear out the demons. Unfortunately, I don't have 25 more people at my disposal, hah.

[Darkmoon]

I'm quite intruiged about BLMs nuking eyes with Tier IV nukes to wipe them out from the NM sets. I thought once you nuked down one of them, if you were to touch the eye next to it then the NM that you just popped would aggro you. As it seems, that's not the case.

As long as there is no Aggro, then they wont link, but if you accidently dont kill the eye, aggro, wipe blms. If you get back up and try to take the next eye out in the set, they will all link on you even if it dies instantly. So basically if it dies in the 1 second window before anythign can link to it (including the NM) then your safe, if it links once, then those links are set with the rest the eyes/NMs in that group till everything is dead.

In some early runs before ppl were well geared, and before everyone paid attention, we had some badly timed nukes, and some resists cause issues on this part. But now its very easy/quick. The only down side is unless your THF is really freaking good on knowing exaclty when to time his /ra, you wont have TH on the Eye, and it lowers your 100 drop rate for those eyes. I've considered having one of the blms come /THF to add some form of TH, just never done it yet.

[Arkanna]

My Dynamis LS started out with mostly textbook strats, but morphed them over time and now we do some things differently than most shells.

First off, I'll start by saying that we take a lot of people on our runs, because we allow sponsors to pay the price of the hourglass in exchange for all currency dropped on the run. Generally, more people = more currency, obviously, so it works out relatively well. Also, we do very, very few Sac pulls.

Parties: First alliance is always our pullers and black mages. The alliance looks like this usually: Party 1 (PLD, PLD, PLD, PLD, RDM, WHM), Party 2 (BLM, BLM, BLM, BLM, BRD, THF), Party 3 (Remaining BLM's + other DD's, BRD, THF). We use PLD's as the main pullers. They also kite statues/eyes as needed. The THF's are in place to tag every statue possible with something, in order to place TH on said statues. Believe me, it works. Second alliance contains the caller party, which is usually NIN, NIN, NIN, BRD, RDM, WHM or similar. Every other party is as close to a balanced DD party as possible, DD, DD, DD, DD, RDM or BRD, WHM.

By zone:

San d'Oria: Start at MH, clear both paths to first trigger, pull first trigger and all mobs with it, clear AH square, pull second trigger and all mobs with it, continue toward mansion, pulling the "death garden" on the way, kill NIN NM and all mobs at the mansion. Work our way back, clearing the "death garden" the second time (NIN NM repops a lot of it). Reclear what we can of AH ledge and the AH square, pull/kite Mega Boss while we kill his BRD NM buddies, kill MB. Clear stables area, continue back to MH, pulling everything. I can't remember the last time we didn't full-clear Sandy. Usually results in 2-4 Montionts.

Bastok: Bastok's too easy to explain really. Just pull everything, including all NM's. The only thing we might do differently in Bastok than other shells is, we send a trio of BLM's toward the Alchemy guild when pulling the SMN NM, to sleep the avatars down there, away from everyone. Not sure why we do it, we just do. Once the MB is popped, we start it off with a Seal/Sleepga II from a BLM (sleeps the Effigy Shields), nuke the MB down, then call/kill his NM buddies (be careful, the one with the Great Axe is a NIN). We full-clear this one easily, also.

Windurst: Start off by pulling our way to the AH. Clear AH area, as well as the small area to the southeast of the AH. Move into the circle, heading counterclockwise. Pull up to and past the MNK NM, then pull the MNK NM himself, saving him for last while killing the rest. Continue counterclockwise, clearing the way to the SMN NM at House of the Hero (also pull/clear the path under the bridge). Pull SMN NM and all his SMN friends, careful use of Sleepga's save a lot of trouble here. Continue counterclockwise to BLM NM, pull it, kill it and all its friends. Continue counterclockwise to "Death House", pull all of it. Manaburn the 6 statues on the bridge to Heaven's Tower, from below. Move into Heaven's Tower and go around the full circle, killing the RDM NM and everything near it. Continue on to the AH area. Last time we did this, we did a first: we opened with a timed nuke on the MB, letting our PLD's and RDM's control the resulting crowd. It was ugly, but we killed it all without wiping and without a sac pull. Once the MB is down, reclear to the MH area, then repeat the path counterclockwise around the tower. Last Windy run was the first one where we full-cleared, and I expect that we'll be doing this more frequently from here on.

Jeuno: Start at MH steps. Clear the statues in the pass to the left, move up the steps. Go clockwise around the square, clearing all. Stop at AH, clear all of that. Position alliances away from the AH stairs, pull and kill the repop statue, then reclear the AH. Move to palace entrance, pull from square below, clear square. Clear inside of palace, to Maat's area. Kill trigger NM. Reclear out to palace entrance, camp at AH. Sac pull the MB (one of the few we do anymore), kill it at AH. Once it's dead, kill the first bunch of repops with timed -ga III's. Clear toward the square, clear square again. Continue toward the MH, clearing all that. We don't frequently do Jeuno anymore, but last time we did it, all that was left was the pack of mobs that spawn with the MB.

Beaucedine: Follow the normal path, clearing everything possible. We make a few pulls from the Hydra area too, while we're up there. We kill all the fake MB's usually, though if we're after the flag, we leave the Quadav one and its spawns alone. If we're going for the flag, we farm up until there's 25-30 minutes left, then do the usual kite-the-dragons-to-a-zone method, kill Angra, and drop hourglasses. Otherwise, we just farm everything possible. Last BCD, we cleared everything but the Hydras and Angra.

Xarcabard: Open with pulling the first Eyes and dummy statues in the area, including the Quadav statue to the far left. Continue to first timer; have a PLD or NIN voke one of the Eyes right as the BLM's start a timed -ga III. This usually results in most of the Eyes dying, though some are usually left. They die fast though. Kill timer, move down the hill to the right, kill second timer. Clear the areas before the first NM set. Timed seal/-ga III the NM Eyes; call and kill the NM's one at a time based on job while holding the remaining ones with a pair of PLD's. In between each NM set, we do set farming pulls til Seal is cooled down. Once all the NM's are dead, we kill the 2-Eye pull near the Eye Wall, then the Eye Wall itself. We use the method where someone aggro's the topmost and bottommost Eyes together, splitting the pull in half. Then we move on to the dragons, killing all of them to maximize chances at a 100-piece. Then Y&Y, standard strat ... same with DL. We don't lose to him often, but once in a blue moon, something disasterous slips through the stuns. We just make sure not to nuke with Thunder-based magic, and he usually doesn't resist any of the stuns. After he's dead, we usually farm up to and clear the Uleguarand Range zone (the first pull on the ramp is ugly). We then move back down a ramp further to the east (the top pull is a timed -ga III on 4 Eyes). With any time remaining, we finish up by pulling from the area near the start.

Current records: 825 currencies from Beaucedine Glacier, 23 AF2's from Bastok.
Other notables: January's Xarc runs were legendary for us; one of them marked our first 64-man, capped-out run. Also got 4 Valor bodies in a period of two weeks, which is exactly the amount we'd gotten in the previous 2 YEARS. Had some other real nice drops also, but that was the highlight!