Arrapago Remnants Strategy Questions

[Yutuyu]

My group recently beat Bhaflau's boss and we're turning our attention to arrapago now, I have a few questions about it.

1) Due to mortal revolution, would a NIN outtank a SAM/WAR on the boss? What about SAM/NIN? Out of those 3 options which is the best to go with considering the SAM is fully merited and geared out and the NIN would be nicely geared but without any NIN-specific or Katana merits.

2) What floors is farming for cells done on primarily? In my previous experience I noticed that it's probably a good idea to get a lot of farming done on the first floor for unlocking.

3) What NMs should we skip on the way up to allow time for the boss?

[Zhais]

My group recently beat Bhaflau's boss and we're turning our attention to arrapago now, I have a few questions about it.

1) Due to mortal revolution, would a NIN outtank a SAM/WAR on the boss? What about SAM/NIN? Out of those 3 options which is the best to go with considering the SAM is fully merited and geared out and the NIN would be nicely geared but without any NIN-specific or Katana merits.

2) What floors is farming for cells done on primarily? In my previous experience I noticed that it's probably a good idea to get a lot of farming done on the first floor for unlocking.

3) What NMs should we skip on the way up to allow time for the boss?

The only time I've beaten AC so far we had a mnk solo tank the boss. He's pretty easy, just need to make sure you have time for him as he takes a little longer than the rest.

[Judai]

1. Definately should use NIN or /NIN(personally not a fan of SAM/NIN) unless you have some insane ruke dmg reduction set for your SAM/WAR.

2. Farm 1st Floor until you have all the Weapons, Job Abiliies, HP and Magic you need. After that you will eventuall get enough subs off the gears later on.

3. No reason to skip NMs unless your group is slow, though you are prolly inexperienced in Arra it sounds like. We can easily kill every NM and Boss, I doubt you will pop 6th Floor QQs unless you have some good experience there. All the NMs are already up basically (after you open doors), they are all easy to kill and after first floor you aren't really killing anything other then the NMs.

[Scorp]

The main "time savers" are skipping 3rd floor QQ and bhoot/flayer. Everything else is just there in front of you. The main "farming" is done on the top floor where you have to kill everything anyway. This zone really comes down to you get what you are given and deal with it.

We use 2 mnk/nin for the boss rotating penance so you get 2mins out of 3 with lowered tp gain and subtle blow. You can generally keep up 2 shadows for mortal rev, and if you don't it isn't a drama.

Depending on how big of a priority the boss drops are I would go for a full clear attempt each run. You probably won't get it until you get used to the pulls/where to run but you'll get most of the main 35 nm's if not all. Eventually you'll be good at the zone and clear it all, which seems kind of pointless when you don't need boss drops.

We can easily do all QQ, bhoot/flayer and chariot regardless of how bad drops on the first floor are. Sometimes you'll need to sacrifice something to hit the boss. (i.e. if you don't get a ja drop across a whole wing).

[cdgreg]

couple quick tips since I'm not sure if this is your first time in arrapago or your first time going after the boss:

!!!. Bring a thief, if you think cell drops suck with a thf, dont even bother trying without.

1. have members bring oils and powders, if you need to run around killing lamias for another magic or abilities you don't want members agroing all the mobs or waiting for your 1 person with magic to sneak/invis 5 people.

2. bring some antidotes, the blm lamia after the first room is annoying as hell if it opens with poisonga II, also its not uncommon for your puller to get hit with poison spells. It just saves mps and time.

3. Someone else said it above, you'll do magic, abilities, HP, and a bit of weapon farming on floor 1. Don't worry too much about weapons here since QQTH's tend to drop an incus cell. Most of your SJs/gear will come from the archaic chariot floor, and the floor you need to clear to go upto the boss.

4. For the boss itself he's not hard at all IF YOU HAVE TIME. We 5 manned him quite often (5+TH mule) mostly with something along the lines of mnk, generic melee, rdm, blm, brd, thf (mule just for TH). We tried all kinds of crazy positioning to cancel out MR with no real luck. We end up just fighting in the middle of the room and repositioning as needed, MR is actually what we hoped for after awhile when it came to TP moves lol.

Lastly, if its mainly the boss you're hunting for the first run I'd say try for both QQTHs, the 2nd floor QQAA (you will probably try to steal anyways), and maybe skip the archaic chariot and that floors QQAA. Depending on time remaining after you can consider adding things in. Obviously if you don't really have much of a Macha's coat line you can remove the 3rd floor once since he can eat a bit of time running away and coming back, but lets be honest, I'm sure the line for machas is ridiculous lol.

[Yutuyu]

Have some minor experience with Arrapago. Done it 3 times or so, but never really did that great. Killed slot NM, QQTHx2 QQA, and Bhoot. But we never were really sure what to do on the first floor and didn't bring a THF for cell drops.

I appreciate the advice though, should be greatly helpful.

[cdgreg]

Don't lynch me for this guys, but I think the otherwiki's 1st floor map is more helpful since it has the merrows drops right on the map itself.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Image ... Floor1.png

makes it a lot easier to know what to target and what to skip.

also the most recent marked .dat map update also has this map in it, if any of your ls members use the marked maps. If you think about it and do it a few times it makes sense what each merrow drops, but until then this map really helps

[Kaelis]

Don't lynch me for this guys, but I think the otherwiki's 1st floor map is more helpful since it has the merrows drops right on the map itself.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Image ... Floor1.png

makes it a lot easier to know what to target and what to skip.

also the most recent marked .dat map update also has this map in it, if any of your ls members use the marked maps. If you think about it and do it a few times it makes sense what each merrow drops, but until then this map really helps

Of course, the one on the BG Wiki actually has which Lamias are where in the Arrapago map. So it's a matter really of whether you want to look up drops, or look up what you're needing to target to get drops. With the otherwiki map, you're like, "All Right! Lamia Dartist drops the ability cell I need, and it's in the NW wing... now which of these dots is actually a Dartist?"

[SamanosukeShiva]

SAM/NIN tanks doesnt need dmg reduction gear, just melee in w/e TP gear, and do as much dmg as possible, dont use seigan, utsu tank only, unless both utsu timer down (which is very unlikely if the chariot is properly debuffed aka slow2+elegy)

i usually do arra with MNK SAM/NIN THF WHM RDM BRD, with this set up you can full clear arra with 10 min extra after killing boss

[pchan]

The main "time savers" are skipping 3rd floor QQ and bhoot/flayer.

The 3rd floor qiqrn is only a few minutes if you use the "hide in the right corner" method in the tele room, and the soulflayer dies fast also, the bhoot is annoying because of perdition meaning someone has to sub drk and one mnk sitting on tps to stun blizzaga.

[Jem]

My group recently beat Bhaflau's boss and we're turning our attention to arrapago now, I have a few questions about it.

1) Due to mortal revolution, would a NIN outtank a SAM/WAR on the boss? What about SAM/NIN? Out of those 3 options which is the best to go with considering the SAM is fully merited and geared out and the NIN would be nicely geared but without any NIN-specific or Katana merits.

I would personally say make sure your tanks have some form of shadows to hide behind so either SAM/NIN or NIN. Mortal Revolution can hurt without shadows but the other thing is the knockback on it. If your tank doesn't have shadows it's going to be knocking him/her back plus stunning them every time it uses it. It's never fun having a Chariot move around all the time as it means the mages may have to move and also mean you'll have to keep on top of erase more so than if they had shadows.

At least I don't think tanks suffer knockback when shadows are up. I really should know considering we did Armored Chariot only last night >_>

2) What floors is farming for cells done on primarily? In my previous experience I noticed that it's probably a good idea to get a lot of farming done on the first floor for unlocking.

Typically when I organise runs I do the majority of the farming for the main cells (Op, Prae, MP, HP and to an extent Incus) on the first floor. After a few runs you'll know exactly what you need to kill. We normally enter with MNK, MNK, THF, BRD, COR, RDM, WHM, BLM although the BLM has got SCH to a useable level recently so we'll be using that from now on.

Generally speaking we kill the 4 Lamia's on the NW wing (First 2 are Prae + Spiss drops, second 2 Op + Und drops) plus all the Qutrubs except those in the last room. After that we do the 4 Qutrubs in the first room on the SW wing plus the 2 Lamia's (First is Prae + Spiss, Second Op + Und). That's 13 Qutrubs and that seems to increase the drop rates on the Skeles on the two East wings. It's always been a very noticeable increases in drop rates when we've done it but I don't know if the theory of 13 Qutrubs = increased drop rates on skeles is concrete or not.

Finally we'll clear the first room in the SE wing (Merrow is Prae + Spiss) and then take the Merrow to the west of that room (Op + Spiss) and the 2 Merrows to the North as needed (Prae + Und). Port either SE (Chance for double spiss) or NE (Chance for double prae) pending on what you still need.

We normally farm cells on the 1F rather than the 2nd and 3rd floors for two reasons. Mobs are easier to kill and drop rates seem to be more favourable but the second point is only eyeballing and could be quite far from the mark.

On the other floors we just kill what is needed to progress i.e. NM's plus any mobs that may be blocking our way. We sneak/invis our way to 3F QQTH though.

3) What NMs should we skip on the way up to allow time for the boss?

It depends on your group. It's entirely possible to kill every NM in the zone (Obviously picking between Bhoot or Flayer) plus the boss. That should be what you're working towards. Like others said, the two NM's that seem to take the longest are 3F QQTH and Bhoot (Flayer seems to be quicker) so they're probably what you should skip to start with. I'd probably suggest trying maybe 4F QQTH + 5F QQA + 5F Chariot + Armored Chariot and seeing how much time you have left afterwards whilst you get your strategy nailed down.

[ringthree]

Don't lynch me for this guys, but I think the otherwiki's 1st floor map is more helpful since it has the merrows drops right on the map itself.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Image ... Floor1.png

makes it a lot easier to know what to target and what to skip.

also the most recent marked .dat map update also has this map in it, if any of your ls members use the marked maps. If you think about it and do it a few times it makes sense what each merrow drops, but until then this map really helps

I can get Omoi to add in the drops somewhere on the map. We tried it originally but it got really messy really quickly. I tried to make the drop chart on the BGWiki like a key to the map, but I can understand having a problem with them if you haven't done it before and don't know what drops and where.