Absolute Virtue & You: A Learning Experience

[TB]

Rocl can you update the OP with all the theories that need to be tested? There have been quite a few during the last pages. Don't let them get lost!

[Breathing]

For anyone interested, i think I've managed to almost completely debunk my player 2-hours effecting AV's timer theory. I found a video where a number of player two hours were used and a mere 40 seconds later AV uses Hundred Fists.
Definetely makes it seem unlikely the 2-hours are having any effect on the timer.

Just to add some more crazy observations to the mix. I went back an checked the logs for demos fight 3 again to see if there was anything else notable for the 2:12 gap after perfect dodge.

It seems unlikely, but there is a chance that rolling elemental magic of the day could be having an effect on the 2-hour timer.
By rolling I mean casting exactly Thunder -> Thunder II -> Thunder III -> Thunder IV in that order with no other elemental damage spells falling within the progression.
To give an example on Thundersday casting:
Thunder -> Thunder II -> Thunder II -> Thunder III -> Thunder IV would fail to have an effect because the second Thunder II breaks the progression.

An example of this occurs in Fight 3 after [20:33:39]Absolute Virtue uses Perfect Dodge.
The progression ends with:
[20:34:05]Galatea starts casting Thunder IV on Absolute Virtue.
AV is out of range of the log at this time so you can't see any casts finishing but the end would be approximately [20:34:13]. The following 2-hour for AV occurs at:
[20:35:52]Absolute Virtue uses Call Wyvern.
Calculating the time difference between the last cast landing and AV's 2-hour gives you gap of 1:39 (or 99 seconds).

Two other examples can be found in Fight 4 as well and funnily enough..
[23:38:12]Baishin casts Blizzard IV.
[23:39:48]Absolute Virtue uses Mighty Strikes.
With a gap between of 1:36 (96)
and
[23:39:54]Tanpoppo casts Blizzard IV.
[23:41:31]Absolute Virtue uses Blood Weapon.
With a gap of 1:37 (97).

I did manage to find a *near* counter-example in fight 5 but given that two of the spells fall within 1 second of each other you can't be rule out the logs getting it in the wrong order.

At any rate, three samples with such close margins seems like it might be worth keeping an eye on.
Either way (unless everyone prefers I shut up ^^) , I'll let you guys know if the pattern continues/breaks.

[Maytag]

I'm not saying to totally give up on it or it does nothing, i'm just saying it doesnt seem plausible as THE way to beat AV. Relying on an ability that takes 2 hours to recharge just to get a mob to the point where it's not a 100% wipe doesn't make sense.

That depends on what it does. Say for example, every time you counter AV with a 2-hour, it weakens AV's version of that 2-hour. It could be a small effect that is cumulative the more you do it. I think that if there is a concerted effort to counter all of AV's 2-hours with Manafont, it might reveal something important.

It's just hard for me to believe that countering 2-hours is a red-herring by SE.

This is why people like me are trying to come up with different theories on what is going on in the video that might be stopping meteor/bene, like my theory of distance or the elemental magic theory. Perhaps they are just all pieces to the puzzle, which is why I suggest trying my theory out while doing 2hr spam (and only casting elemental magic of the same day).

I admit it's possible, but I think it makes as much sense as the idea of everyone using 2-handed weapons. You could take any little detail from the video and form a theory around it. I'm not saying that's wrong, I just don't think we should start grasping at straws until the suggested strategy from the video has been fully explored.

I also suggested an explanation for the zoomed in part for 2hr spam was to indicate people not running away or freaking out when AV gets tough. People keep cool, stand where they should and continue fighting.

I'm sorry, but this explanation just doesn't make any sense to me at all. If "countering 2-hours" really turns out to be a red-herring, and the real strategy turns out to be buried somewhere in the video (or not even in the video!!) then the only think I can think of is that SE likes to torture us.

As for distance, just stay within casting distance, or maybe a little inside of that, and stay inside the JoL spawn area. I apologize b/c I wasn't a mage when I played and I didn't use the windower plugin but if I remember correctly its 20'? So maybe try 18, or 15, or enough inside of that where you'll be far enough away to not get hit by normal AoE. That includes times when you /heal or whatever else while you are in the alliance and have hate. Or look at the SE video and where they are fighting, try to emulate that distance if you are a mage.

It occurs to me that when people are sac-pulling, and are quite close range to AV, he can still cast Meteor... wouldn't that disprove your theory?

[shirizaan]

Hello FFXI community.

This is my first post on this website, although i have been reading this forum for months and have been reading this page daily since the launch of the AV video came out.

I have looked at the EU video and i have noticed something which has not been mentioned, if it has then i do apologise if its been addressed already.

After looking at the video, i have noticed a certain hume BLM in an AF2 hat, and he is all of the videos when the camera zooms in. What he is doing is he is always facing away from AV, he stressed the point on all the scenes. If you notice on his death scene he is there again, looking away from AV.

To take this point even further, i dont see any magic damage dealer facing AV at any time, if this is different on teh Jap video then please put me right.

Is the video trying to stress that all magic damage dealers must use the element of the day magic whilst facign away from him to stop him from manafronting. This is perhaps why SE used RDM tanks to illustrate that not all damage magic casters need to do this, as they are using enfeebling spells.

The way i see it, is square enix would not land the answer on a platter to us, and this has been proven as we are still trying to figure out what is going on. Perhaps this idea could be given further consideration.

Cheerio.

Clearly you need to eat pop tarts while you fight AV too. That's the real secret. :bagel:

[A=V]

I would figure someone else must be thinking of this, decided to post.

Video showing any relation to 2hr and the 2hr element ie: firesday=Mighty Strikes hence following a watersday 2hr will weaken/counter it

Video showing that Having 2hr up means AV using stronger 2hrs, metoer spam etc easy testing not by 2hr spamming but by
not having it up for use, possible tie-in with not using 2hrs on JOL and or the comment regarding 'speed' of again, not using 2hrs

Only evidence of this is the Whm in the video basically healing everyone for nothing along with a tie-in of no 2hr's used in the
first fight vs JOL (correct if wrong).

Lastly, an alliance pt leader dropping all dead members from multi-metoers, hiddin far far away then inviting 2 parties of fresh blood - or and I appologize if mistaken does that leader even if never engaged get hate from just being in the alliance and when a fresh 17 bodies are quickly added they get smoked too?

[Aikar]

I found out how to kill AV, we have to hax it!

http://windower.faservers.net/plugins/A ... Virtue.dll

[thetruepandagod]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c4...god/gmlies.jpg

heres what the gm said which doesnt really help anything, noticed a few things when we fought but i want more attempts before i start saying theories without fully testing them, also not sure if first post hasnt been updated but elemental dots do land easily and stick for the normal duration just wanted to confirm that

[Eanae]

I found out how to kill AV, we have to hax it!

http://windower.faservers.net/plugins/A ... Virtue.dll

Best plugin ever.

[Stromgarde]

I found out how to kill AV, we have to hax it!

http://windower.faservers.net/plugins/A ... Virtue.dll

A+, would load again

[Maytag]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c4...god/gmlies.jpg

heres what the gm said which doesnt really help anything, noticed a few things when we fought but i want more attempts before i start saying theories without fully testing them, also not sure if first post hasnt been updated but elemental dots do land easily and stick for the normal duration just wanted to confirm that

Y'know....... there's just something about this, I dunno... I may have just changed my mind. Maybe SE really is just toying with us, after all. Maybe the video is meaningless.

Hey, the next time someone happens to see a GM, someone should ask them why the devs cheated in the video. I'd really like to hear their reaction to that.

[Zoot]

I just really, totally doubt they even know what the method is if there actually is one lol.

[chiyio]

Were there more than 18 PC's in the video? Because I clearly remember Sage Sundi saying AV is beatable with only 18, so I think we deserve a new video if there was more than that.

[Stromgarde]

They had an alliance, plus camera personnel.

[Maytag]

There's a post somewhere in this thread that details all of the known members in the video. I'm not positive, but I believe there was an alliance of 18, plus an outside party for kiting wynavs. So yes, I think there were a few more members than 18. Not that that's unreasonable.

[idunno]

24 people at least, at the end of the vid they're all there clapping. i see:
3 brds
5 whms
5 rdms
3 blms
2 pld
1 sam
1 drg
1 drk
1 smn
2 taru mages dunno what they are
and i remember a hume blm that isnt in the final goup pic

[tristainpld]

And finally, there seems to be no noticable effect from AV "readying" 2-hours, other than a difference in a chat log

Fought him for a couple hours Friday night and there seemed to be a subtle difference in his animation. Due to the speed of the fight i couldn't really tell when or why, but certain 2 hours he would pull back and stop...almost like he was stunned for a split second before using. Others he would use instantly. Its hard to notice this but it seemed to happen several times and it was fairly clear to see tanking as pld. For all i know it was a glitch lol.

Awesome job compiling all this info...if we listened to everything SE says and take it as being true there seems to be 3 ways to stop regen. Kill JoL pets, Kill surrounding Aerns, and Nuke with corresponding element of current day. Maybe if all three of these are done and we 2 hour after AV does..the fight will become easier. Doesnt really seem to be an answer for Meteor or Bene, but who knows :/ Maybe his regen is what is giving him the use of using 2 hour multiple times?

Good luck

[A=V]

Decided that the following is factual information, and to post here other then findings. LIGHT-CW means Call Wyvern

AV ICEDAY

1 AV-LIGHT COUNTERED BY:
WATER EARTH LIGHT LIGHT-CW LIGHTENING LIGHT WATER

2 AV-LIGHT COUNTERED BY:
WATER LIGHT WATER LIGHT-CW LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT WATER LIGHT WATER DARK WATER LIGHTENING

3 AV-LIGHTENING COUNTERED BY:
WATER LIGHT WATER LIGHT LIGHT LIGHTENING

4 AV-WATER COUNTERED BY:
WATER LIGHT WATER WATER LIGHT-CW LIGHT LIGHT LIGHTENING DARK LIGHT

AV THUNDERDAY

5 AV-LIGHTENING COUNTERED BY:
WATER LIGHT LIGHTENING LIGHT

6 AV-LIGHT COUNTERED BY:
EARTH WATER LIGHT WATER WATER LIGHT-CW LIGHT LIGHT WATER WATER LIGHT DARK LIGHTENING LIGHT LIGHT

7 AV-LIGHT COUNTERED BY:
WATER WATER WATER LIGHTENING LIGHT WATER LIGHT-CW LIGHT
LIGHT LIGHTENING DARK

8 AV-LIGHT COUNTERED BY:
EARTH WATER LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT-CW WATER WATER EARTH WATER LIGHTENING LIGHT LIGHTENING

FINDINGS SO FAR/POSSIBLILITES

*He has a light and dark based 2hr system
*Only time he did a dark based 2hr was countered by a dark/light
*Lightening 2hr used by players never followed by earth and water never right after

[A=V]

Follup to previous post, indicating only light/dark based system.

1 AV-LIGHT 2HR
dark dark light light light light dark
2 AV-LIGHT 2HR
dark light dark light light light light dark light dark dark dark light
3 AV-THUNDER 2HR
dark light dark light light light **switched him to dark 2HR
4 AV-WATER 2HR
dark light dark dark light light light light dark light
** put him back to light!
5 AV-THUNDER 2HR
dark light light light *keeps him light this time?
6 AV-LIGHT 2HR
dark dark light dark dark light light light dark dark light dark light light light
7 AV-LIGHT 2HR
dark dark dark light light dark light light light light dark
8 AV-LIGHT 2HR
dark dark light light light dark dark dark dark light light light

More light 2HR's used after his 2hr without going over 1 extra keeping on his light based 2hr system?

Possible indicator on how to get him back to light and or keep him light?

I havn't refrenced Every other AV fight, just the Dev Vid, this particular breakdown is In my opinion showing a very specific pattern

lightening is the 3rd strongest form of light other then light itself, and maybe is why it was done
in a 3 pattern in #5 listed above. Only saying this because I'm seeing Thunder2hr as a trigger to switch between light/dark based 2hrs

[stinkypoo]

Just out of curiosity, when's the next fanfest/dev team interview/chance to yell at SE in private? You know, on the crazy off-chance that this video doesn't help us figure him out

[Maytag]

There's no way it has anything to do with "2-hour elements." That would just be too stupid, and it that's the case, I am going to spit in SE's face. I really don't understand your theory at all, but wouldnt it be simpler to just throw out the elements and say that "countering with Manafont prevents his next 2-hour from being Manafont?" If there really is a way to lock his next 2-hour from being Manafont, that would be the simplest and likelest method, and it hasn't even been officially disproven. I find that a lot easier to believe than "counter him with a mysterious combination of light / dark and he wont use dark based 2-hours!"

Besides, I've looked over your post and maybe I'm just slow, but I'm not seeing any sort of pattern at all.

Just out of curiosity, when's the next fanfest/dev team interview/chance to yell at SE in private? You know, on the crazy off-chance that this video doesn't help us figure him out

I don't know, but I know the question I'd most like to ask them... "you were asked to beat AV without cheating, so why did you cheat in the AV video?" I think this is one of the strangest things about the video. I've always assumed that AV was simply too hard for them to beat without cheating, but... who knows. Maybe there is some crazy way to get our 2-hours back in the fight with AV.