Absolute Virtue & You: A Learning Experience

[Genosync]

Edit: Sorry the mood slime got me, but really... Just because something is your pet theory doesn't make it any less ridiculous than anyone else's theory. Not only that, but for someone who went on at length about hypotheses with verifiable conclusions, what you've essentially proposed is "First we use our 2Hs, then we see what happens" which correct me if I'm wrong not only has no verifiable conclusion, but has already been tried on multiple attempts since the release of the video.

You're wrong on several points.

1. This is not my pet theory. Or rather, maybe I should put it another way... if this is anyone's "pet theory," it's SE's. Square Enix. Maybe you've heard of them? They programmed the monster Absolute Virtue. They released a video saying "hey... why don't you try this?" So you see, it's not my "pet theory," it's common sense. If what was suggested by the creators of AV in the first place doesn't work, then they really are screwing with us... and this is all pointless! Therefore, it's the ONLY thing worth testing.

2. I believe I've already made a hypothesis with verifiable conclusions, and you shouldn't need me to come up with them, but if you insist I will repeat myself.

Fact: SE's video suggests we should counter his 2-hours with our own.
Fact: If the dev party was really using ONLY unlimited 2-hours and no other methods of cheating, then they had to have some extraordinary method of dealing with Meteor, at the least.

Deduction: They have an extraordinary method of dealing with Meteor, and they suggested that we counter AV's 2-hours with our own. Therefore... the reasonable conclusion is that countering AV's 2-hours is likely to be that method.

Hypothesis:

1. Try countering one of AV's 2-hours with 12-13 of our own, all different jobs.

Expected result: AV will use one of the 2-hours not used by the alliance. (There was a report by a linkshell who tried this, and apparently this is EXACTLY what happened! The next step is repeating that test in order to verify it.)

2. Try countering as many of AV's 2-hours as possible with one specific 2-hour, suggested to be Manafont.

Expected result: AV does not use Manafont. (There was a similar report from an alliance which had tried this, and apparently AV didn't use Manafont! They eventually died to the Wynavs, Manafont was not used. The next step is repeating this test, to see if the results are the same.)

Now, I'm very sorry if my post gives you "mood slime." I just don't want alliances wasting exp testing obviously bogus theories.

This post needs to be pointed out.

After reading what's in this thread, and watching the video... and after getting angry that some kid with barely any post is trying to get up in our forum and put people in their place when it's not his job... and after reading his post, and realizing that, wow, he really does have some sense of what he's talking about... these two hypothesises are what you want to test, along with the conditions of stopping the regen first (as stated previously in a few interviews, even if it's LOLSUNDI, that's not something that would be joked about).

Stop the regen. Be 10000000% sure that it's stopped. Then test these two theories, and hope to God that you don't get fucking owned by Manafont before you can stop it.

Sorry Sui--you're jumping to conclusions too fast without 100% complete data on the situation.

[Maytag]

I'm not gonna go into this as I am not a tester, but I am gonna ween this one out right now. SE themselves didn't even do this, so it is in fact nothing to do with "Matching" our 2HRs.(French Video, AV uses 100fister, no counter)

Hmmm. It seems you have misunderstood me, sorry that's my fault. I guess it pays to be more careful with word choice. "Matching" is probably a bad choice of words, I didn't mean that we should counter AV with the same 2-hours he's using, I simply meant we should counter with 2-hours in general, like they show in the video. Perhaps in the future I will stick to the terminology "countering his 2-hours."

Actually, specifically I think the key might be countering him with the dangerous 2-hours, that is Manafont, Chain Spell, Soul Voice, and Meikyo Shisui. It seems like doing this might limit his use of those 2-hours in some way.

How does it not make sense? They tell us several times that killing the regen is vital in defeating AV.

No, your reasoning is flawed. The quote you are basing it on is this: "Sundi: You have to wait till the Regen is completely stopped. Regen of the HP has completely stopped." Unfortunetly, what follows that quote is this: "Bercus: Then you can stop the other abilities? Sundi: No. Only the speed of the Regen. At this time, by doing certain action during the fight."

When asked if regen has anything to do with stopping AV's other abilities, Sundi says "No. Only the speed of the regen." If your theory were correct, he would definetly not have said this. Besides that, the other problem is that it's a convoluted theory. It's already complicated enough that we should have to do some specific things to counter his regen, and some even more specific things to counter his 2-hours. Why would they program it so that you have to do all those tricks in a specific order? From the programmer's perspective, it's overkill.

Although, on the other hand, it seems easy enough to test. So although I highly doubt it matters, there's no real reason not to eliminate the regen first. (Seems to happen relatively fast, too.)

[TrogdorOfKujata]

The reason I didn't bring up that quote from sundi is several people said sundi was a little out of it for that interview. He was basically mumuring "Regen" over and over. And Sundi was even asked after that part if there was a way to handle his 2HR's and they were quoted as saying "There are still some secrets". SE has stated and emphasized that the regen is key, so I figure, hell it wouldn't hurt to try to make sure his regen isn't completly dead before trying the 2HR usage.
Now that I have reread you post, I can see where I got confused, my bad.
It shouldn't be to difficult to test this theory though as it does have merit. Killing the regen might send AV into the mode where he can be countered. This hasn't been fully tested yet, so I see no reason this might just not be the key.
Even in all of the SE videos they have an order. Regen from JoL, Regen from nukes, THEN the 2HR mystery. If this gets tested, and is proved false, then the videos are complete crap or there is a huge hole we need to fill, which will basically leave everyone back at square 1.

[Genosync]

Actually, specifically I think the key might be countering him with the dangerous 2-hours, that is Manafont, Chain Spell, Soul Voice, and Meikyo Shisui. It seems like doing this might limit his use of those 2-hours in some way.

I can't look out for you all the time dude, you forgot about Benediction. Dangerous for morale. And yeah, that actually is kinda important.

[Zoot]

I noticed in attempt number two the tank party died to chainspell, from consecutive Aeroga IV damage. On our last attempt, we had 7 tanks in the tank party (we didn't expect to kill it, only hold it long enough to see if we could find anything out). Our tanks have full MDB, magic damage taken sets as well as barspell but I'm not sure if they were getting carol, anyways.

In the past we rarely ever resisted Aeroga IV, but as I can see from this video your two tanks are taking about 430-500 damage from it while your support takes 600-700. We experienced the same thing, and found that chainspell is easily survivable with four or five tanks clustering together away from the rest of the alliance, much like the SE video, where they can take 400-500 damage each, recieving songs from the farthest radius as you would do in Bahamut (non melee burn or whatever lol), and recover easily with curaga spam.

Ah, might also mention, having him face one direction seemed to work well with Meikyo and Chainspell as well.

One last thing to add. That chalis dude is one tough guy, and poor noneko seemed to get the sort end of the stick when it came to TP moves, but it seems like they had to focus alot on Utsu so I didn't notice alot of flash spam. Hate went everywhere about halfway through most of the fights, and that was entirely not his fault. This is another reason why four-five tanks is optimal, imo.

[Maytag]

I can't look out for you all the time dude, you forgot about Benediction. Dangerous for morale. And yeah, that actually is kinda important.

Thanks, and thanks for what you said in the post above.

You're right, I specifically left out Benediction. Up till now, the main obstacle against killing AV has simply been survival... very few alliances can survive more than 15 minutes, and those few that got him as low as 79% were crushed by the "79% Meteor Wall."

So I figure, it's best to keep our goals simple and move in small steps. Step 1, simply increase our survival rate so that alliances actually have a real chance to get him down to 79%. Step 2, see if the "79% Meteor Wall" is still in place, even after using the dev's 2-hour strategy from the video. Step 3, revise our strategies from simply surviving to killing.

It's been noted that AV rarely uses Benediction. But also, the lower his health% is, the more important it gets to block Benediction. So since his health% is always 80% or greater against us, (usually 95% or greater) Benediction has not been very important to block... yet.

If the 2-hour strategy works the way I think it works, hopefully that'll change. But let's verify that first. (It doesn't hurt for any WHM's in the alliance to counter with Benediction for good measure, though.)

[Seyrr]

Fact: SE's video suggests we should counter his 2-hours with our own.
Fact: If the dev party was really using ONLY unlimited 2-hours and no other methods of cheating, then they had to have some extraordinary method of dealing with Meteor, at the least.

Deduction: They have an extraordinary method of dealing with Meteor, and they suggested that we counter AV's 2-hours with our own. Therefore... the reasonable conclusion is that countering AV's 2-hours is likely to be that method.

Hypothesis:

1. Try countering one of AV's 2-hours with 12-13 of our own, all different jobs.

Expected result: AV will use one of the 2-hours not used by the alliance. (There was a report by a linkshell who tried this, and apparently this is EXACTLY what happened! The next step is repeating that test in order to verify it.)

2. Try countering as many of AV's 2-hours as possible with one specific 2-hour, suggested to be Manafont.

Expected result: AV does not use Manafont. (There was a similar report from an alliance which had tried this, and apparently AV didn't use Manafont! They eventually died to the Wynavs, Manafont was not used. The next step is repeating this test, to see if the results are the same.)

This post needs to be pointed out.

Just wanted to point out that the hypothesis doesn't square with SE's video. Let's take a look at the highlights as posted at the start of this thread:

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

Of those eight samples, over half of them are 2-hours used by players in repsonse to AV's previous 2-hour.

At the moment, I would be willing to believe that SE's fight did include more 2-hours that they elected not to show us. I did want to bring up this discrepancy, though. Also, if Maytag's theory is correct, there's one question that seems to follow immediately: what would happen if the players responded to an AV 2-hour by using all 15 of the possible 2-hours? My initial response is that it would make it so that AV would have no usable 2-hour, but I don't know if things are that simple.

[Demosthenes11]

That's already been tried and he still 2houred. That is an interesting post though, it's just a shame to know if those were the only 2hours used or if there are any in the cuts between.
There HAS to be something we are missing here with the 2hours, this is driving me crazy

[Rautha]

http://lighthouse.moofah.com/temp/video/attempt-4.avi

am I blind or something or does AV NOT "use" (not even mentioning "readies"...) meikyo shisui @3min 45 but just use his WSs. I see the animation but nothing in the chat window o_O (call wyvern and 100 fists is in chatlog).
as well as blood weapon. nothing in chat log but i see animation + your comments @2min30

an extra for zven using mijin gakure. that's the spirit! 8)

[Kuuhalee]

http://lighthouse.moofah.com/temp/video/attempt-4.avi

am I blind or something or does AV NOT "use" (not even mentioning "readies"...) meikyo shisui @3min 45 but just use his WSs. I see the animation but nothing in the chat window o_O (call wyvern and 100 fists is in chatlog).
as well as blood weapon. nothing in chat log but i see animation + your comments @2min30

an extra for zven using mijin gakure. that's the spirit! 8)

Yeah, I had a problem where sometimes it would not show anything in the chat log when Absolute Virtue used a two-hour. No idea why as all chat filters were off. This is why I included Ventrilo voice chat in the video, as typically two-hours were said across the channel along with other relevant information.

[dbdesigns]

Has anyone 110% stopped the regen? Like damaging and holding for 15 minutes to be sure it doesnt regen? If so I'd like to see some proof of that o.o I still think AV's 'power' is directly linked to its regen =o. So many claims of people debunking so-and-so but yet so little proof.

[Ferien]

Has anyone 110% stopped the regen? Like damaging and holding for 15 minutes to be sure it doesnt regen? If so I'd like to see some proof of that o.o I still think AV's 'power' is directly linked to its regen =o. So many claims of people debunking so-and-so but yet so little proof.

Page 27, LB and BBQ on Odin did.

[Maytag]

Just wanted to point out that the hypothesis doesn't square with SE's video. Let's take a look at the highlights as posted at the start of this thread:

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

Of those eight samples, over half of them are 2-hours used by players in repsonse to AV's previous 2-hour.

At the moment, I would be willing to believe that SE's fight did include more 2-hours that they elected not to show us. I did want to bring up this discrepancy, though. Also, if Maytag's theory is correct, there's one question that seems to follow immediately: what would happen if the players responded to an AV 2-hour by using all 15 of the possible 2-hours? My initial response is that it would make it so that AV would have no usable 2-hour, but I don't know if things are that simple.

Well, you make a good point. My initial reaction was that there are likely to be 2-hours in-between what they show us, when you consider that AV's 2-hours tend to be about 1 minute apart. Most of these have a 2 minute gap.

Still, if you extrapolate that they were using this theory the entire time (and indeed if it were a method to control AV's 2-hours, naturally they would) then it's odd that he was allowed to use Chainspell / Soul Voice / Meikyo Shisui at all... it's possible that the bards and red mages and samurais didn't always 2-hour, but why would they stop if they had unlimited 2-hours?

Another thing that bothers me is that a SMN counters in almost every case, and yet the last two are Astral Flow. I had hoped that after AV is countered 4-5 times by a 2-hour, this would lead to a reduction of that 2-hour that lasted the whole fight. But this doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, I'd still like to see what happens when an alliance counters each of his two-hours with Manafont, at the least. I'd like to see if AV still uses Manafont. If so, that would pretty much kill my theory.

[Zoot]

Not that it matters too much but just to point this out, in the last LB video Soul Voice is countered with Manafont and a few other two hours, and AV's next two hour is Manafont. However, there seemed to be a really big delay between when AV used Soul Voice and most of the player two hour responses.

[Mojo]

I'm extremely tired but I would like to get this posted before I head to bed, please bear with me.

After carefully analyzing the videos of the latest LB/BBQ attempts, the following appears to be true.

Absolute Virtue will activate a 2 hour ability 55-65 seconds after the previously activated 2 hour effect wears off.
Absolute Virtue's Mighty Strikes lasts 45 seconds(assumed.)
Absolute Virtue's Hundred Fists lasts 45 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Benediction effect lasts 0 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Manafont effect lasts 60 seconds(assumed.)
Absolute Virtue's Chainspell effect lasts 60 seconds(assumed.)
Absolute Virtue's Invincible effect lasts 30 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Blood Weapon effect lasts 30 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Familiar effect lasts 0 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Soul Voice effect lasts 90 seconds(as opposed to the 180 that is experienced by players.)
Absolute Virtue's Eagle Eye Shot effect lasts 0 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Meikyo Shisui effect lasts 30 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Mijin Gakure effect lasts 0 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Call Wyvern effect lasts 0 seconds.
Absolute Virtue's Astral Flow effect lasts 0 seconds.

I feel as if I wasted a lot of effort typing that up as the only difference in normal duration is Soul Voice, but there it is. Either way, the 2 hour effect timer + 55-65 seconds pans out to be 100% true in all player cases I've observed so far. The timer will stop if you wipe and it loses aggro, and will continue when it is reaggred. PLEASE SCRUTINIZE THIS.

If you apply it to the SE video time line, you get the following.

1. Iceday        12:10     -    -     -  Call Wyvern    BLM BRD     DRG PLD     SMN RDM
2. Iceday        14:42   380   60   320  Soul Voice     BLM BRD DRK DRG     SAM SMN RDM WHM
3. Iceday        16:14   230  150    80  Hundred Fists  BLM BRD                 SMN RDM
4. Iceday        16:55   102  105     3  Meikyo Shisui  BLM BRD DRK DRG     SAM SMN RDM
5. Lightningsday  5:07  1830   90  1740  Chainspell     BLM BRD                     RDM
6. Lightningsday  6:50   258  120   138  Soul Voice     BLM BRD DRK DRG PLD SAM SMN RDM WHM
7. Lightningsday  8:55   313  150   163  Astral Flow    BLM BRD DRK DRG         SMN RDM WHM
8. Lightningsday 13:55   750   60   690  Astral Flow    BLM BRD     DRG PLD     SMN RDM

The first two columns represent the day of the week and time of the day when AV activated the 2 hour ability. The next three columns represent(in listed order) the time(in seconds) it took between the last 2 hour shown in the video clips, the estimated time it should have taken for AV to use another 2 hour since the previous 2 hour shown in the video clip, and the difference in estimated time and the time between the previous and current video clip. In the only case where it appears you can be certain that the 2 hours in the video clips shown were one after another(3 > 4), there actual time taken fits perfectly. There are large gaps between the other sets of clips, but the total time taken is in the ballpark for all of them. The other columns are the 2 hour ability activated by AV and the two hour abilities activated by players.



I still have no idea exactly how using a 2 hour after AV 2 hours ties in to all of this.

[IncredibleGulk]

is there any other type of monster that reacts to 2hr usage?

[Titanss]

is there any other type of monster that reacts to 2hr usage?

Matt

[Maytag]

Hmmm. Well then we know that countering AV's 2-hours with a specific 2-hour like Manafont doesn't prevent him from using Manafont next.

It also doesn't appear like countering with multiple Manafonts will lower the chance of Manafont being used overall. If that were the case, then they've done a poor job of showing it with their video. So logically, they must have been trying to show something different.

So countering AV's 2-hours doesn't seem to give us any control over them... well, the only other possibility that I can think of is that it weakens them. That is to say, maybe the more of AV's 2-hours that you counter with Manafont, the weaker AV's Manafont could become. We may not have noticed this yet, because in order for there to be a pronounced effect, you'd have to counter with Manafont many times. It would explain why they seem to spam the dangerous 2-hours. But still, there are certain 2-hours where reduction doesn't make any sense, like Benediction.

In light of this, I'd still like to see what happens when AV is countered by Manafont many times. Just to completely rule this aspect of the theory out.

[IncredibleGulk]

I'd still like to see what happens when

you could go out and test this rather than taking the time to pick apart everyone else's posts, who are doing the same as you

[Velocy]

Hmmm. Well then we know that countering AV's 2-hours with a specific 2-hour like Manafont doesn't prevent him from using Manafont next.

Where you take this information from?
Mojos list shows the timeline in the video, but as this video not one piece, but only small scenes you cannot know if there were any 2HRs in between! (where SE fucked up the 2HRing or smth like that lol) There are sometimes good gaps in between. Between 4th and 5th in Mojos list it's almost 30 minutes. AV could easily have 2HRed 5 times in between.