The AV Videos: READ THE -OP- AND THREAD BEFORE POSTING!

[BerenTebogo]

The PLD's are opening each "zoom" sequence by starting with Invincible. It seems this is how things are started everytime. The last 3 "zoom" sequences, after AV uses the dust cloud maneuver, the PLD complies with Invincible. AV seems to follow up with his own 2-hour, then the PT promptly utilize each their own 2-hours.

I know nothing about fighting AV, but it seems worthwhile to offer my observations of the video in that every "zoom" sequence occurs right on par with the PLD's Invincible.

The "dust cloud maneuver" as you call it is AV using a 2hr. It's what any mob's 2hr animation is.

It doesnt take knowledge of AV to understand that, it's knowledge of NMs in general.

That's nice, but how does that contribute to AV discussion? Should it not strike us as unusal that every zoom sequence occurs on par with a PLD's Invincible? Does Invincible trigger AV's 2-hour?

I have been out of the game for 3 years and have just recently come back.
Level 70 RDM on Odin.

There's a voice literally screaming it's lungs out in my head going 'DONT DO IT, JUST LEAVE IT ALONE DONT FUCKING DO IT'

Halp.

[Donjarfi]

Sorry narse im just so confused by everything, checking into it i didn't think to check the game time without the fade this time, my fault /bow

[ETofFenrir]

another thought the pld maybe 2hrd when it changed day incase a ws or spell off wrong day got off and it would trigure a 2hr that might hurt kill someone so why not just absorb it with invincible

I'd go with 'Because Invincible doesn't absorb magic damage' for 500 alex.

And holy shit, what has this become, oh god...the horror.

oh there 4 2hrs that have to do with magical dmg and 5 that deal with physical dmg

id rather try to block the physical anyways cause if its magic either youll stop the 2hr before ti does much harm or your going to wipe

[Tygiuu]

Aishira, is there any possible way to "glue" the videos together in sequence with like.. fraps or something, so maybe we can get a better understanding over-all? I know you placed them in order, but sometimes watching them in order leads to better clues.

[Ashira]

Aishira, is there any possible way to "glue" the videos together in sequence with like.. fraps or something, so maybe we can get a better understanding over-all? I know you placed them in order, but sometimes watching them in order leads to better clues.

You're not the first to mention this. Maybe someone can, using my timeline.. I really can't, I don't have enough space on this temporary and very small HDD to have video editing software and edit videos, as they eat up space. :/

Any takers?

[Gerkin]

I'm just gonna throw this out there and see what you think..... continuing with this melee not weaponskilling AV. what if AV's 2hrs were somehow based around his tp gain rather over damage/hp spikes? would explain why the melee only went in at certain times rather than staying on AV the entire fight.

AV would get enough tp alone just from casting spells on him, thus maybe that is why you dont see weaponskills/melee'ing on him?

edit: and thus the comment by SE "you're not pacing yourselves correctly" w/e the saying was originally.

i dunno just a thought. flame me if you must

going to try to bring this out of the darkness for a second attempt to see if this is a viable idea. since it got lost on page 37. . .

Simple enough to be viable in my opinion. Worth a shot if it hasnt been tried. If at least to slow down 2 hours if not to stop them. Edit to add... at the end of the video, when he is Gekko'd he 2 hours like the same exact time right before he dies. Seems to do it unprovoked before that, unless the plds staves were landing attacks. And if that is the case, an end of the fight Gekko would probably be the most dangerous thing they coulda done cuz what if that last 2 hour was bene lol

[Tokitoki]

The PLD's are opening each "zoom" sequence by starting with Invincible. It seems this is how things are started everytime. The last 3 "zoom" sequences, after AV uses the dust cloud maneuver, the PLD complies with Invincible. AV seems to follow up with his own 2-hour, then the PT promptly utilize each their own 2-hours.

I know nothing about fighting AV, but it seems worthwhile to offer my observations of the video in that every "zoom" sequence occurs right on par with the PLD's Invincible.

The "dust cloud maneuver" as you call it is AV using a 2hr. It's what any mob's 2hr animation is.

It doesnt take knowledge of AV to understand that, it's knowledge of NMs in general.

That's nice, but how does that contribute to AV discussion? Should it not strike us as unusal that every zoom sequence occurs on par with a PLD's Invincible? Does Invincible trigger AV's 2-hour?

I have been out of the game for 3 years and have just recently come back.
Level 70 RDM on Odin.

Um... I was telling you that your comment really didn't help with the AV discussion. Every time it zooms in is in accordance with AV using a 2hr, and in response the people near AV use their 2hrs. Since the PLDs are tanking AV they use their 2hrs after he does.

Invincible isn't coming BEFORE the 2hrs, its coming AFTER the 2hrs. Don't make me break out the ingenious checklist.

[Radec]

Aishira, is there any possible way to "glue" the videos together in sequence with like.. fraps or something, so maybe we can get a better understanding over-all? I know you placed them in order, but sometimes watching them in order leads to better clues.

You're not the first to mention this. Maybe someone can, using my timeline.. I really can't, I don't have enough space on this temporary and very small HDD to have video editing software and edit videos, as they eat up space. :/

Any takers?

I'll chop em together when I get home unless someone gets to it in the next 2h or so. Would be nice if someone could repost links for the downloadable versions of the vids, I lost em in the spam.

[souleman]

After lots of pausing of the videos.
Party Setups:

Tank party:
Basu (WHM) + Ronana (RDM/NIN) + Ryl (PLD/NIN) +Arefelie (RDM/NIN) + Elmaulle (PLD/NIN) + Houjuhkye (BRD/WHM)

BLM party:
Roopelope (WHM) + Hupapa (BRD/WHM) + Rasopomosopo (SMN/WHM) + Chakiki (RDM) + Sibigobi (BLM) + Oruu (BLM)

other party:
Hini (BRD) + Dreamrainbow (SAM) + Yanono (DRK) + Mukopekko (???)
- balad Iws (BLM) + Astri (DRG) + Popumyonmapu (BLM)

Notice other party has to many people. Durring the first 2-hour, you see Hini casting a song that hits Dream, Yano, and Muko. This is also when Dream and Yano both 2hour. Durring another zoom in, you see Hini casting ballad and it hits Iws, Astri, and Popu. This is alwo when Astri uses Call Wyvern. (note that Astri was BLM durring JOL, so assuming job change). Mukopekko casts Regen and Haste, but only seen casting haste on himself. Guessing he is WHM. So either they are swapping people in on JOL, or one of those groups is being used on Wyverns/Aerns and the other is for JOL, and Hini just changes parties.

Other people. These people are not hit by party spells from anyone in the first 3 parties.
Fannie THF/WHM (guy that gets the Wyverns)
Florensz WHM
Ruriri WHM
Lalala casts Ballad and hits Akiki (WHM) and Olala (casts cure 3)
Eraphe - only seen casting cure 3

I am going to guess that Lalala is BRD with Akiki, Olala, Florensz, Ruriri, and Eraphe all in party for outside curing, with some just out of range. A couple of them may be in party with the people from Hini above, and were just out of range for the bard songs.

The intimidates that you see are all on Ronana. Guessing he was wearing some crimson gear.

[riddaraan]

Don't shoot me for asking, but as the OP has listed out the timing & cuts of the video in chronological order, has anyone taken the time to actually piece the video & clips together so that they can be watched in said order?

If so, then can the link be posted in the OP? Thanks!

[Brienna]

Having caught up on the last dozen pages, I can offer a few insights that may help. Granted I didn't tank AV for long and have a low post-count, but whatever... During the time I was tanking, no damage was done -- in fact I wasn't even engaged.

1) Only using nukes that correspond to the day. All, give some credit to the people positing that these nukes may not be for damage so much as the proposed "stun" effect. I noticed several times in the SE video where AV's attack speed slows down or stops altogether, which corresponds to the nuking. It may also be that nuking with the wrong element prevents the correct element from landing the stun effect. In our fight, AV never slowed down -- during the time I was tanking, no damage was done.

2) As soon as I was replaced with a PLD and they started doing melee damage, AV spammed Medusa Javelin. I was out of alliance at that point, but it was clear things were going downhill fast. Tanking with Earth/Terra staff? When shadows are down, this is a good idea... otherwise I'd recommend tanking with Ice/Aquilo's for the extra wind resist.

3) I can't be sure, but I think I lasted at least as long as the PLD. The ideas about bouncing hate around are good, but things happen fast and the change has to be INSTANT... This more than any other reason is why the SE video has mostly tanks surrounding AV so they can body-toss and cycle through them as fast as possible, hoping that the first guys shadows are ready before the last guy has to take a physical hit.

4) Spells. Instacast? No, but it's still ultra-super-fast-cast. Tornado II took under 2 seconds for it to cast. I was praying for my timers at that point... Something to note here is that the tank party's BRD should probably sing march before ballad. Easy to recover MP, hard to recover timing. As for the strength of the magic (Tornado II in this case), it did just under 1300 dmg. I had Shell IV, Stoneskin, Phalanx II, Baraero, and Wind Carol on, along with MDB+15 in gear (totaling over 200 wind resist). Maybe I just got unlucky in that he knew my shadows were down and I'd have to eat the spell. What I did not have: magic damage taken -% gear -- even 5% would have saved me. Shadow Ring, if i had one, would probably help, but it would have been far more useful while tanking JoL.

5) Two-hour abilities.... not much I can say here, we had people AFK in alliance who didn't pop theirs so we can't say anything definitive. Sorry, I know the two-hour thing is all people are concerned about right now. Surviving up to that point appears to be a distant second.

All I have to say is... "Good Luck."

[Massimo]

Don't shoot me for asking, but as the OP has listed out the timing & cuts of the video in chronological order, has anyone taken the time to actually piece the video & clips together so that they can be watched in said order?

If so, then can the link be posted in the OP? Thanks!

Wow.. really?

Look like .. 2 posts up?

[Donjarfi]

Aishira, is there any possible way to "glue" the videos together in sequence with like.. fraps or something, so maybe we can get a better understanding over-all? I know you placed them in order, but sometimes watching them in order leads to better clues.

You're not the first to mention this. Maybe someone can, using my timeline.. I really can't, I don't have enough space on this temporary and very small HDD to have video editing software and edit videos, as they eat up space. :/

Any takers?

I'll chop em together when I get home unless someone gets to it in the next 2h or so. Would be nice if someone could repost links for the downloadable versions of the vids, I lost em in the spam.

Don't shoot me for asking, but as the OP has listed out the timing & cuts of the video in chronological order, has anyone taken the time to actually piece the video & clips together so that they can be watched in said order?

If so, then can the link be posted in the OP? Thanks!

fucking 2 posts above you asking.

[Atreides]

ill just repost the timeline I made like... 30 pages ago, which of course was overlooked due to DOMARU EARTH STAFF SIDE SATA spam:

1. Iceday 12:10, Call Wyvern (from English video, part 3)
player 2hrs used: blm, pld, smn, drg (call wyvern), rdm, brd, blm

2. Iceday 14:42, Soul Voice (from Japanese VIdeo, part 1 and German Video, part 2)
player 2hrs used: blm, smn, blm, drg, brd, brd, sam, whm, blm, drk, blm, rdm

3. Iceday 16:14, 100 Fists (from French video, part 2)
player 2hrs used: blm, brd, blm, brd, smn, rdm

4. Iceday 16:55, Meikyo Shisui (from Japanese Video, part 2 and German VIdeo, Part 3)
player 2hrs used: blm, brd, blm, sam, drg, brd, smn, rdm, drk, brd

5. Lightningsday 5:07 Chainspell (from English Video, part 2 and French video, part 3)
player 2hrs used: blm, brd, rdm, brd

6. Lightningsday 6:50 Soul Voice (from English Video part 1)
player 2hrs used: pld, blm, whm, blm, sam, drg, whm, smn, blm, blm, brd, drk, rdm, brd, brd

7. Lightningsday 8:55 Astral Flow (from French Video, part 1 and German Video, part 1)
player 2hrs used: blm, blm, blm, brd, rdm, brd, blm, drg, smn, whm, rdm, drk

8. Lightningsday 13:55 Astral Flow (from Japanese Video, part 3)
player 2hrs used: pld, blm, smn, brd, drg, blm, blm, pld, blm, rdm, brd, rdm

[BerenTebogo]

Having caught up on the last dozen pages, I can offer a few insights that may help. Granted I didn't tank AV for long and have a low post-count, but whatever... During the time I was tanking, no damage was done -- in fact I wasn't even engaged.

1) Only using nukes that correspond to the day. All, give some credit to the people positing that these nukes may not be for damage so much as the proposed "stun" effect. I noticed several times in the SE video where AV's attack speed slows down or stops altogether, which corresponds to the nuking. It may also be that nuking with the wrong element prevents the correct element from landing the stun effect. In our fight, AV never slowed down -- during the time I was tanking, no damage was done.

2) As soon as I was replaced with a PLD and they started doing melee damage, AV spammed Medusa Javelin. I was out of alliance at that point, but it was clear things were going downhill fast. Tanking with Earth/Terra staff? When shadows are down, this is a good idea... otherwise I'd recommend tanking with Ice/Aquilo's for the extra wind resist.

3) I can't be sure, but I think I lasted at least as long as the PLD. The ideas about bouncing hate around are good, but things happen fast and the change has to be INSTANT... This more than any other reason is why the SE video has mostly tanks surrounding AV so they can body-toss and cycle through them as fast as possible, hoping that the first guys shadows are ready before the last guy has to take a physical hit.

4) Spells. Instacast? No, but it's still ultra-super-fast-cast. Tornado II took under 2 seconds for it to cast. I was praying for my timers at that point... Something to note here is that the tank party's BRD should probably sing march before ballad. Easy to recover MP, hard to recover timing. As for the strength of the magic (Tornado II in this case), it did just under 1300 dmg. I had Shell IV, Stoneskin, Phalanx II, Baraero, and Wind Carol on, along with MDB+15 in gear (totaling over 200 wind resist). Maybe I just got unlucky in that he knew my shadows were down and I'd have to eat the spell. What I did not have: magic damage taken -% gear -- even 5% would have saved me. Shadow Ring, if i had one, would probably help, but it would have been far more useful while tanking JoL.

5) Two-hour abilities.... not much I can say here, we had people AFK in alliance who didn't pop theirs so we can't say anything definitive. Sorry, I know the two-hour thing is all people are concerned about right now. Surviving up to that point appears to be a distant second.

All I have to say is... "Good Luck."

The ONE, ONEEEEEEE, combined theory I believe holds some validity is a combo of -

Withholding JA from AV, universally, no provoke, no shield bash, nothing, don't WS, don't keep idiots who can't follow instructions in your alliance.

Slow tier cycle nuking as the /ONLY/ damage, I think a run where it was solely damaged by this to below 80% would yield massive insight, if leaders can keep control of their members and not have BLMs going "Oh but I wanted a SS shot..." or melee " Well I was bored"

No room for really fucking around, it looks like 1 event straying from the required procedure gets you, for lack of a better word, flailed.


If somebody can take a video of their LS accomplishing this, and I say video because I for one, do not have enough faith in the majority of players to follow instructions when it comes to sitting back and taking things slowly, I believe some progress may be able to be made.

If not, then SE needs to ninja it in.

[ronin sparthos]

Narse, I'd like to say thanks for pointing out that when AV Hundred Fisted and your Drks 2hred, he dropped out of HF mode.

That is incredibly fucking awesome info to work with.


Judging from that, and the other info so far.

Kill Ru'Phuabo's, break JoL Regen.
Nuke AV with the element of the Day, kill the rest of AV's regen
Keep the Aern's around him down
Melee/Nuke, don't WS
When AV 2hrs, fire off the 2hrs that are the worst to deal with, Mana, Bene, Chain, Mijin
???
Profit!

Also: regarding an idea lost in the depths of the thread.

A Saint would readily sacrifice that which is most important to them, in order to help others.
Makes sense then that giving up your 2hr to prevent AV's 2hrs killing everyone, would enable you to gain the title Virtuous Saint.

I think this is the most concise idea to try out next, i think when SE was mentioning 'the killspeed is wrong' that they were talking about the usual 'run and gun' tactics that work with most HNMs.

The 2hours do not lockout permanently but perhaps firing off the 2hours causes them to be put lower on the priority list of AVs 2hours to use? Pop Manafont/Bene/SV etc and AV puts it below whatever 2hours havent been already used for the duration of the actual 2hr? Sounds kinda.... masochistic.

[ByeByeTasai]

In regards to the whole retaliation theory, I can honestly see how SE could have been hinting toward that. Putting the hints and video together they might have been suggesting to wait until AV 2hrs to bust all of your 2hrs and go all out on him, all though it did not show them actually using the 2hrs beneficially. Maybe if you can zerg him to a certain % in like a 2 minute period of time in between his 2hrs you can force him into that Bracelet mode, hopefully in which case he can not use Benediction or Manafont.

So maybe it works like this(just thrown together, not meant to be taken exactly)

Retaliation 2hrs:
EES, MS, Manafont, Astral Flow, Benediction

Standard 2hrs:
Chainspell, Invincible, Perfect Dodge, Soul Voice, Call Wyvern, + Bracelet 2hrs

Bracelet/standard 2hrs:
Familiar, Hundred Fists, Blood Weapon, Mighty Strikes

Wyverns: Mijin Gakure

[Zoot]

This is a rather silly speculation but it's a question to the people in Demo-

After using your two hour, did you still mash your two hour macro as you saw the dust cloud? Even if it seemed your timer was not up.

[Ashira]

I'll chop em together when I get home unless someone gets to it in the next 2h or so. Would be nice if someone could repost links for the downloadable versions of the vids, I lost em in the spam.

http://hezzel.net/AV_EN.wmv

http://hezzel.net/AV_FR.wmv

http://hezzel.net/AV_DE.wmv

the JP I didn't see a downloadable link from:

http://www.playonline.com/ff11/download ... /AV_JP.asx

but there is only *one* unique JP clip. Oddly, none of the German clips are unique; all are repeated in one of the other videos.

EDIT: Separating points in this post.

[ismarc]

We chalked it up to AV having different behavior during Hundred Fists than other mobs, and left it at that. However, I now believe it do be different after testing AV yesterday some. The big thing I noticed was that during both Hundred Fists and Mighty Strikes, AV ONLY USED MELEE ATTACKS UNTIL THE ABILITY WORE OFF, followed immediately by a TP move, like most mobs generally will do.

We're down to getting actual real ideas again, so rather than hold back and try to avoid the "your post count is really low" comments, I'll post here what I posted in my LSs forum.

I think the biggest reason we're having trouble "figuring out" Absolute Virtue is that, unlike other HNMs, it appears to react to players actions. Thinking on this, and watching and re-watching the videos, I think we've completely missed the point of the two-hours used after Absolute Virtue uses one. Within the English video, Absolute Virtue uses Soul Voice, a lot of two hours go off, Absolute Virtue uses Maiden's Virelai. This shows clearly that the two-hour did not get "removed" from Absolute Virtue. However, what the video does show is that during every single two-hour Absolute Virtue uses, player actions shortly afterwards (we're talking short timeframe because of scene changes) did not impact the actions that Absolute Virtue was taking. However, the time frame it occurs in does not indicate whether the duration of the two-hour was reduced or not. I haven't had time to go through the Demo video frame by frame yet, but by just watching it through a few times, it looks like it can't be confirmed or disproved from the video.

Something that I think may be worth investigating, and it looks to be heading that way, is to explore Absolute Virtue's "reactions". I highly doubt we will see "Action x causes AV to do y", but instead see "Action type x can cause AV to do action type y".
Example:
Paladin is taking lots of damage and uses Invincible.
AV's logic checks and the result is "I can't do melee damage anymore, what are appropriate actions?"
----> Cast more spells
----> Manafont
----> Chainspell
----> Soul Voice
----> Mijin Gakure - But Wynavs aren't out, don't wanna do that
----> Astral Flow - But Wynavs aren't out, don't wanna do that
Result -> Paladin is already low HPs, I'll Chainspell and finish him off
Absolute Virtue uses Chainspell.
-----------------------------------------
Now, if this is the case, we can easily develop the pattern that AV is likely to use, avoid those actions or time them appropriately and TRY to avoid certain actions.

This theory being correct is necessary for my interpretation of the video to be accurate. In the video, players using two-hours has seemingly no effect on Absolute Virtue. If Absolute Virtue is reactionary in nature, then what this is actually pointing out is that in the moments following using a two-hour that has a duration (because others are not shown), Absolute Virtue will not react to the actions performed. This means that, based on above listed experiences, you have no greater than 15 seconds after Absolute Virtue uses a "buff" style two-hour. During this time period, it's like absolute freedom. Zerg the thing for those few seconds, then go back to calmly touching it just a little bit. Used to our advantage, we could isolate the type of actions likely to cause less threatening two-hours, such as summon wyvern, perfect dodge, invincible, etc.

Tail end edit: Man a lot of similar stuff was brought up while I was typing this all up.