Absolute Virtue & You: A Learning Experience

[Massimo]

LoL that cor/pup thing is pretty good, have to try that out.

If you want to do this, anything /PUP (or PUP/) works. Equipping a Flashbulb, and using a Light Maneuver right before you Deploy it, will be much more consistant than having it use Dia.

Basically make the macro looking:

/pet "Light Maneuver"
/wait 1
/pet "Deploy"
/wait 1
/pet "Deactivate"

It'll make it Flash it, then deactivate in a second, leaving AV with no chance to even respond to it, and the depop timer resets (He won't have hate on you).

You can Deactivate every minute, so one /PUP/ could keep it up easilly. (Activate gets reset, when your Automaton is deactivated with 100% HP)

[mackerel]

It has been established that nuking with the element of the current day deactivates [some portion of] AV's regen. In the LB/BBQ attempt on Odin, AV remained at 97% for a long time (some minutes, at least) after ice nukes on iceday. After a wipe they tried again, with thunder nukes on iceday, and AV returned to 100% in seconds.

For these experiments, the days, spells, and numbers are imaginary but the concepts are important:

Nuke AV to 95% with ice spells on iceday. Then without letting AV regen, nuke it to 90% with thunder spells on iceday. Allow AV to regen. If regen stops at 95%, the ice damage is "permanent" and AV should only ever be nuked with the day's element. If it stops at 100%, the thunder damage reactivated regen and the next test needs to be tried. If it doesn't stop at 100%, call a GM and run away.

Nuke AV to 95% with thunder spells on iceday, then hit it with one round of Blizzard IV. Allow time for regen. If AV remains at 95%, we can use our strongest spells on any day as long as we finish a damage burst with the proper element.

Then we need to know how much of the element it takes to stop regen. It could be a certain amount of damage, a number of nukes, or a pattern of T1-T4. It could just be based on the last spell to hit AV. We know from LB/BBQ's attempt that doing 5% of AV's health in a T1-T2-T3-T4 pattern by each blm stops regen. Drop AV to 95% with off-day spells, melee, anything, then stop damage and hit it with 6 Blizzard IV on iceday. If that breaks regen, try again but close with 3 Blizzard IV. If not, try 12. If Blizzard IV alone isn't enough, try the T1-T4 pattern with 1-6 BLMs. We "know how" to stop regen already, knowing the exact condition will help more.

I apologize for the lack of loony meteor prevention theories in this post. I have nothing more insightful to recommend regarding that than Shadowbind and run when you see chainspell, manafont, or soul voice. It may not save you but it'll give time for your backup alliance to buff. You do have a backup alliance, right?

Quoting myself from page 29 because the groups struggling with 40 damage Stone IVs and Water IVs should be interested in this test.

[psnsonixx]

It's like I thought. It seems like nothing "provokes" Manafont, it is simply a random 1/15 chance of him using it and nothing more. Based on this, I'd say that no one should ever hold back on JA's or WS's, and even using spells of the wrong day ought to be fine.

It's probably not due to the Aern's popping either, and I would guess that it was a coincidence when this has happened. It's already been established that he will use Manafont even if all the nearby Aern's are up, and pulled far away.

Nice info on the COR/PUP thing, it's worth a try and certainly COR's are good to have around, if only just for added testing opportunities!

Disagreed.. I feel the aerns play a huge part.. might not be there popping that causes it, but allows it.. has anyone got a manafont while all 3 aerns were dead? kited away im pretty sure doesnt do POOP. but can't verify.

[Invictusx]

It seems like everyone wants to take this down, and the teamwork thing, even through a language barrier, sounded nice

Why can't another ls come to help take care of things like aerns or something, work it out just to see if something can be done for now...Maybe that can't happen, but I think it would be worth a shot

[Maytag]

Disagreed.. I feel the aerns play a huge part.. might not be there popping that causes it, but allows it.. has anyone got a manafont while all 3 aerns were dead? kited away im pretty sure doesnt do POOP. but can't verify.

I'm fairly sure that an alliance has claimed in this very thread that they tried kiting all the Aerns away, (Aerns, not Wynavs) and he still used Manafont. I'm not sure about AV using Manafont when they're dead... though this doesn't really matter, since it's impossible to keep them from re-popping.

[psnsonixx]

it is, but that doesn't mean it doesnt have something to do w/ it.. ours manafont'd alot more once we stopped doing it.. that means more then the one in an hour.

[pchan]

the way they held av was GENIUS!!!!!!!!!! cor1/pup1 (yes lvl1 cor) would have an automaton.. he would assault his pet on av, which would dia it, and he would immediatley deactivate.. sorry, im not a pup.. i dont know the lingo.. but it would agro av, but never claim it.. when deactivate, av would stop and go back.. but the lvl 1 NEVER died.. it kept him up just fine.... he was cor1/pup1 instead of pup1/whatever because he would try to give us 2 hours back when his was up .. GENIUS man..

You can do that with the mages frames and the ranger frame. For some reason when aggroing a mob with the pupet's rng or magic, the mob doesn't appear claimed, and (consequently ?) when you deactivate, it doesn't have aggro on you. However if you are too far from the mob, the puppet will naturally melee, which will put the mob in red and put the master on the hate list. You need to be rather close for it to work. I used to nuke the archaic mirrors with 0 link this way

[Cairthenn]

How to kill AV:

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/4...rettoavtx4.png


Also, this is clearly exactly what SE designed PUP for.

[Breathing]

I noticed Nagamki mentioned using a WHM to help in mitigating spell damage

Does anyone else think BLU could possibly be useful in a similar role?

They can get a strong natural survivability against magic with
Saline Coat - 50 or 40 mdb (depending where you read) decaying to 10 over 60 seconds and
Amplification - 10 mdb (and 10 mab) and
Access to magic defense bonus trait through spells (10mdb)

If you could somehow fit the BLU in the tank party you could also possibly make use of
Diffusion -> Saline Coat. Could be useful to combat Manafont/Chainspell.... if you can to get it off in time...
Magus Roll Job Bonus - Can't find any numbers on the bonus but if it scales similar to Chaos Roll it should be around 20 mdb as an average
Healing Breeze - Cheap health recovery

There are probably a lot better options for tank parties though so I'm probably going to be shot down

[Suiram]

Saline Coat is 50 MDB at the start, although it is a burden to keep up the whole time. But you're spot on with saline coat + magus roll for meteor, I tanked a couple AV attempts last time it popped for us a few months ago, and (non-diffused) saline coat with magus roll took relatively modest damage from the first meteors in each of the Manafonts that ended both attempts (the 2nd meteors in each were for considerably more since they were hitting only the 2-4 surviving people).

[Seditedi]

+50 MDB is pretty worthwhile, what's the cast time on Saline Coat btw?

----------------
Now playing: In Flames - Acoustic Medley

[Suiram]

I was going to say 3 seconds, but I double-checked BG-wiki page just to be sure and that's what it says too so I'm gonna go with that lol

It does decay over time, though. I only tested values at the start and the end, but assuming it's linear it'd only be +30 after 30 seconds (when recast would be back up with capped haste).

[Ashtray]

+50 MDB is pretty worthwhile, what's the cast time on Saline Coat btw?

The casting time itself is 3sec, but in order to apply it to party members you need Diffusion which is a 20min merit JA

[Seditedi]

Yea I was just asking if it'd be possible to have enough time to get it up for Chainspell and/or Manafont before you start eating spells. 3 seconds doesn't seem too bad of a cast time as long as you're closely paying attention.

----------------
Now playing: Track 13

[Breathing]

Saline Coat is 50 MDB at the start, although it is a burden to keep up the whole time. But you're spot on with saline coat + magus roll for meteor, I tanked a couple AV attempts last time it popped for us a few months ago, and (non-diffused) saline coat with magus roll took relatively modest damage from the first meteors in each of the Manafonts that ended both attempts (the 2nd meteors in each were for considerably more since they were hitting only the 2-4 surviving people).

Were you tanking it as a BLU or you just noticed a BLU survived? I'm just asking because I thought of BLU tanking as a possibility but I didn't really want to start striking matches just as I've gotten here.

The casting time itself is 3sec, but in order to apply it to party members you need Diffusion which is a 20min merit JA

I think you can get it down to 15 min with more merits... but still it's a *long* wait.

Yea I was just asking if it'd be possible to have enough time to get it up for Chainspell and/or Manafont before you start eating spells. 3 seconds doesn't seem too bad of a cast time as long as you're closely paying attention.

I didn't think it ws too bad, I was being cautious because I heard people mentioning he sometimes uses Meteor as his first spell which might be hard to beat.

[Rocl]

Yea I was just asking if it'd be possible to have enough time to get it up for Chainspell and/or Manafont before you start eating spells. 3 seconds doesn't seem too bad of a cast time as long as you're closely paying attention.

----------------
Now playing: Track 13

Nobody gives a shit what music you're listening to. Please stop it. It's worse than signing your name.

-Rocl

[Therin]

Yea I was just asking if it'd be possible to have enough time to get it up for Chainspell and/or Manafont before you start eating spells. 3 seconds doesn't seem too bad of a cast time as long as you're closely paying attention.

----------------
Now playing: Track 13

Nobody gives a shit what music you're listening to. Please stop it. It's worse than signing your name.

-Rocl

It really bugs me when it gets quoted, too.

[Seditedi]

Wow sorry didn't even realize that lol..
Installed an add-on in Firefox that controls Winamp through the browser and it automatically added a signature in there, turned off now

[Cairthenn]

Yea I was just asking if it'd be possible to have enough time to get it up for Chainspell and/or Manafont before you start eating spells. 3 seconds doesn't seem too bad of a cast time as long as you're closely paying attention.

----------------
Now playing: Track 13

Nobody gives a shit what music you're listening to. Please stop it. It's worse than signing your name.

-Rocl

It really bugs me when it gets quoted, too.

Is it possible that Track 13 is still playing?!

[Suiram]

Were you tanking it as a BLU or you just noticed a BLU survived? I'm just asking because I thought of BLU tanking as a possibility but I didn't really want to start striking matches just as I've gotten here.

My LS lets me tank stuff from time to time. We were PLD PLD BLU.