Absolute Virtue & You: A Learning Experience

[Stromgarde]

No speculation here, but to those who have fielded it, how much wind resistance gear do you need to be effective against the AG4's? Is Carol needed as well?

[drizztwest]

Absolute Virtue will activate a 2 hour ability 55-65 seconds after the previously activated 2 hour effect wears off.

This is by far an excellent observation and technically can allow people to more easily hit the 79% mark and deal with Manafont. The trick is, you know WHEN a two-hour will go off. You may not know which one, but you know it will happen. So the response is simple.

Sacrifice someone.
Every time Absolute Virtue two-hours, leave a tank or two and everyone else run out of Meteor range.
Is it a show-stopper two-hour?
Yes - Let the people you left hold out as long as they can and send in another sacrifice. Limit the deaths to a minimum number so your main fighting force can continue.
No - Everyone go back in and continue fighting.

This doesn't address Benediction and would be really rough, as you'd need enough tanks to potentially sacrifice 1-2 a minute. That means, with 7 minutes to unweak get to full and start getting hate, if 2 die a minute, you'd need 16 tanks. If you take into consideration the fact that not all two-hours are instant (which gave us the 1 a minute), and instead take the average length of a two-hour, you have roughly 28 seconds per two-hour. Add in the minimum wait of 55 seconds, that gives us 2 tanks dying every 83 seconds. This now puts the number of needed tanks at 10. But considering not all two-hours are going to wipe the tanks, you can eliminate some two-hours. If we call Hundred Fists, Manafont, Chainspell, Astral Flow and Mijin Gakure tank killers, that's 5/15, or 1/3 chance of killing off the tanks. That gives us a 66% survivability rate. This will drop the number of needed tanks from 10 to 6-7, a much more reasonable number.

At the absolute minimum, based on these assumptions, you can keep Absolute Virtue held for testing and doing damage endlessly so long as you can survive during the non-two-hour time periods.

being a ranger main job...ll add in that if you know it's a set time u can have 2-3 rangers in main( or rotate then in one at a time) and Shadowbind him for 45 sec with AF gloves. That would let everyone leave and not worry about sac'ing any tank.

[Soraan]

Baraera and wind kit makes chainspell a joke.

I went to OtherWiki, and added up all the gear PLD can use and the total came to about 130 (not counting Assault Breastplate). Is 130 rly enough to warrant wearing it? Tiamat requires like 20-30 more resist to be useful from my experience (I usually sit at around 160 fire resist in gear when I do Tiamat). And I would imagine AV would be harder to resist than Tiamat, maybe not though. I was thinking about just buying a lot of -magic% dmg gear to cap out at the 25%. If someone wants to try a wind resist setup build for AV during chainspell, that would be cool. I'd like to know how well it works out overall.

[Sifer]

Baraera and wind kit makes chainspell a joke.

I went to OtherWiki, and added up all the gear PLD can use and the total came to about 130 (not counting Assault Breastplate). Is 130 rly enough to warrant wearing it? Tiamat requires like 20-30 more resist to be useful from my experience (I usually sit at around 160 fire resist in gear when I do Tiamat). And I would imagine AV would be harder to resist than Tiamat, maybe not though. I was thinking about just buying a lot of -magic% dmg gear to cap out at the 25%. If someone wants to try a wind resist setup build for AV during chainspell, that would be cool. I'd like to know how well it works out overall.

Yeah, never tried it personally mainly cos, w/e little wind resistance NIN can get, it doesnt seem to be enough.

EDIT: also the fact that I dont think carol is the best song to have on AV, only during chainspell will it be any good at all.

[AsuraSoup]

if the brd comes in to toss carol on the tanks, after chainspell has gone off will prob result in a dead brd and no carol.

It's prob safe to say you won't have it

Edit: Thinking more about it. Now that we know the time on 2h's, the brd could safly come in shortly before the 2h mark and put it up on the tanks.

[Sifer]

if the brd comes in to toss carol on the tanks, after chainspell has gone off will prob result in a dead brd and no carol.

It's prob safe to say you won't have it

Edit: Thinking more about it. Now that we know the time on 2h's, the brd could safly come in shortly before the 2h mark and put it up on the tanks.

then it uses meiku shisui instead

[Nagamaki]

I haven't seen anyone post about a successful resist rate against AV's Chainspell. Based on his listed level he should be at least as hard to resist as CoP wyrms, I would guess probably harder. It might be possible still, just pointing out that if anyone has reported a successful resist rate build against him (not MDD/MDT-, wind resist), I haven't seen it.

However, a full MDT- setup has been proven to work (the first Demo video), and that didn't even include any MDB, which could reduce the damage further. Of course its still a lot of damage so you need cure spam like there's no tomorrow, but Aeroga IV radius isn't that big, healers can cure tanks without being in range.

[TB]

Baraera and wind kit makes chainspell a joke.

Do you have some screenshots to prove that? I still have some trouble believing that it's possible to resist AV spells with a Baraera setup...

[Seditedi]

250 wind resist shouldn't be too hard to hit.
I doubt you'd see more than 60% resist rate at 250 though.

[Therin]

AV is technically lower level than Tiamat, so it would be reasonable that it requires less resistance to resist him.

[Seditedi]

What level is it exactly?
I've seen 84 on the OtherWiki and like 95 on BGWiki >_>
If it is in fact only level 84 it should be fairly easy to resist.

----------------
Now playing: Opeth - Serenity Painted Death
via FoxyTunes

[Francisco II]

I think AV is something like level 85ish actually... didn't he only give like 40-50 experience to a full alliance?

If we call Hundred Fists, Manafont, Chainspell, Astral Flow and Mijin Gakure tank killers, that's 5/15, or 1/3 chance of killing off the tanks.

Hundred Fists can be dealt with through Shadowbind, and if that fails, Sentinel.

Chainspell is probably a lot less painful with fully merited Barspells, Shell V, Cleric's Pantaloons and a good wind resist set. I'd like to see some solid numbers though.

Astral Flow only affects Wynavs.

Mijin Gakure, I'm a little uncertain of. Does AV himself actually use Mijin Gakure, or just his Wynavs? It doesn't seem to be a very huge threat from what I've read.

Mighty Strikes, Blood Weapon and Eagle Eye Shot can be blink tanked. Invincible and Perfect Dodge are annoyances at best. Call Wyvern is something that can be dealt with, and I don't think anyone cares about Familiar.

That leaves Benediction, Meikyo Suishi, Manafont and (to a lesser extent) Soul Voice as being the truly bad 2HRs. Meikyo Suishi and Manafont - being the two "wipe" two hours.

I wonder what effect countering a manageable two hour (besides Invincible or Perfect Dodge) with a fuckton of SAMs making a fuckton of skillchains with Meikyo Suishi and a fuckton of BLMs making a fuckton of magic bursts with Manafont would have...

[Lhexh]

Last year before we killed it twice with the wynav glitch lock we tried using full +wind setups with Baraero+Carol and saw pretty craptastic results. We saw so few resists, the tanks just scrapped it and used strictly -magic/MDB gear every time after which does work decently well.

[Tricen]

Wynav glitch?

[Breathing]

[Seditedi]

Wynav glitch?

Kill the wynavs repeatedly and AV would eventually seize using 2 hours and/or only use melee attacks.
It was the only way people have killed AV other than using the wall trick.

----------------
Now playing: Soilwork - The Chainheart Machine

[Kuuhalee]

Chainspell is probably a lot less painful with fully merited Barspells, Shell V, Cleric's Pantaloons and a good wind resist set. I'd like to see some solid numbers though.

For the LB/BBQ attempts we were using full Bar (+125), Wind Carol (+50-ish?) and full Shell V. The results can be seen on the several videos that I posted earlier in this thread. The spells that Absolute Virtue casts still hurt quite a bit, but there is a little damage taken off because of the protective buffs.

[Linktri]

I'm going to get hideously fucking flamed for this but it's just a thought.

What if the 2hrs elements that are spammed during AV's 2hrs lower its stats or invisibly raise the stats of the alliance?

For instance, Manafont is a water based 2hr. Perhaps by using it, you affect AVs ability to inflict damage with magic.

[Neosutra]

Stuff.

Good info Breathing, do you have a log of what 2 hours AV used -before- those 2 players possibly reset his 2 hour timer back to 0 (if it really is on a ~1.15 sec recast).

Determining if the 2 hour alterted the next 2 hour to be used, in addition to resetting his 2 hour timer back to 0 would be super.

If that is true, he could have a set order of 2 hours to be used, wether due to player actions or just programming, and using the correct player 2 hour just resets this order and either randomly picks another 2 hour or forces another into the que.

Good find.

[Velocy]

That's one of the best observations I've seen.

My first thought when I read your post:

Does a 2HR counter not lock any 2HR, but extend the time until AV 2HRs again?

I am not sure but:

[20:27:40]Absolute Virtue uses Invincible. - 1:18
[20:28:58]Absolute Virtue uses Chainspell. - 2:03

Wasn't the PLD frapsing this Video use Invicible exactly here? Or was it the 2nd Invincible?

I just remember... "Your fight speed is wrong"


Ninja Edit: nvm

Ok, I just checked the SE Video logs again:

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

12:10 - 14:42 = 6,08 Earth Minutes. 7 2HRs used.

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

14:42 - 16:15 = 3,68 earth minutes

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

This is where theory fails first time...