Sarameya tanking advice needed

[RKenshin]

Did 11 of these fights last night.

We went 2/11 on trigger, 2/11 oracle body, 0/11 on haidate, and got something stupid like 6-8 oracle caps and 4-6 aurum heads. All with TH4. Hide/meat/claw is 100% as usual.

Tanking wise we had two PLD/WARs and a NIN/DRK (me), it was easy as hell to tank but hard to hold hate on with the constant damage taken and how squishy it is. Our DDs are all pretty nuts, and popping out 1.5-2k+ WS every 30s or so was too much. We ended up having to have DDs hold back on WS use for most of the fight to keep things under control.

No one has really mentioned it but a skilled NIN/DRK works great as well. Shadows get dispelled really, really often but you still gain a good deal of benefit from them and even without them, you take very low amounts of damage. I never even had to use barfira gear, and got lazy using defense gear. His melee attacks only hit for 60-110 damage. Stun rarely lands with /DRK's magic skill, but the hate gain from spamming spells and avoiding more damage puts you a notch above PLD/WAR's hate in the fight.

Barfira gear isn't really needed, or at least not in extraneous amounts. With a good WHM's barfira + enhanced carol, the three of us were resisting all fire based spells/attacks down to 10-100 damage like 80-90% of the time. Add on maybe 50-90 more to that from gear and you'll probably resist like 95% of the time for 10-50 damage. In all of the 11 runs I recall getting hit for full damage on GoH just one time.

No real hate resets were noticed either, I'm sure that has more to do with this mob being so squishy and tanks constantly losing chunks of hate from taking damage.

All in all, I'd say that important things to note for this fight though are:

1. Tanks need to try to keep positioning at all times, so to keep the formation like:

Sarameya > Tanks >>> Mages

Ensuring that mages don't risk getting paralyzed/GoH'd/ga-d if they have to cure or buff you.

2. RNGs and any other distance DDs need to be careful with hate, pulling it at the wrong time can MPK quite a lot of people.

3. If you have a good number of decent DDs, you should be able to zerg off the last 10%, avoiding his chainspell of GoH.

While the -ga/GoH damage is really nothing on tanks, on the rest of the unbuffed people it hits hard enough to kill people very fast. So it's important to either keep them away from it, or keep them buffed up as well.

Next time we do this NM we're also going to shoot for TP burning it, Kirin/Hydra style. Tanks will be DDs, and all DDs will get at minimum Barfira/Carol with other buffs and DD songs. It has 50k HP and is squishier than most NMs, with weak offensive capabilities (as I said, with enough fire resistance almost all attacks do next to nothing, and his melee hits are rather weak as well).

It would be like doing a squishy salvage boss chariot with an alliance, with Sarameya having the same HP, but taking much more damage. So it would probably be 1-3m fights on average, which is easy enough to maintain no matter how sticky it gets.

I also feel rather confident my SAM could tank this much better than my NIN or any other of my jobs. I could hold hate a lot better with the combination of really high damage and +40 enmity provokes, take less damage from higher defense and seigan's invulnerability to getting cleared by anything Sara does, and contribute more to the fight with dealing heavy damage at the same time.

The number of swings he gets in between TP attack/spell spam is really low and just in short bursts of a fast few attacks, which is perfect for how third eye works. And with carol/barfira I'd resist spells just as much, and could also get an easy +50-90 fire while keeping most DD gear on. I would've tried it last night if not for the 500 zeni cost to get back. But I feel pretty confident it would do great.

Note that I'm not saying any SAM could do that though, so don't take what I'm saying for more than what it is... Just my personal opinion on what I think I could do for this fight on another job!

[Judai]

I have done this ZNM around 10 times myself.
I can say that Pld/nin is worthless on this, Pld/war is by far the best way to go.
Our tank party is like this Pld/war,Pld/war,Brd/whm,Whm/blm,Whm/blm,Rdm/blm.
This is by far best set up we've used, reason being is this Cerb has set moves.
Howl> Ululation > Firaga > Magma Hoplon >Howl above 25%
Under 25% replace Firaga with GoH
Now between Howls it cannot be Stunned, and after second Howl it HATE resets!
a Pld/rdm or pld/nin cannot recover hate quick enough to keep mob in one spot.
Also knowing this lets your rangers and blm's go nuts between howls.
As far as set-up, I play Galka pld. I don't have a fire resist set or MDB set. What i do is stack shield skill and HP and let my whm's handle the cures.
Defender makes a big difference, and why wouldn't it? If your pld/war fighting any HL mob and not using Defender then gtfo! Let the DD take care of the DD!
Pop a Taco, keep Defender up at all times. Cure4 for hate, Flash and provoke after second Howl and this is cake!

Uh... No.

I didn't notice any Hate Reset and PLD/RDM is 10x better hate then /WAR, obviously you don't know shit about that though. The reason YOU lost hate after every Howl sequence is due to no Fire Kit and getting owned in the face by Firaga3/GoH during it.

Don't post retarded shit.

[Mojo]

2. RNGs and any other distance DDs need to be careful with hate, pulling it at the wrong time can MPK quite a lot of people.

For this reason I wouldn't recommend bringing RNG at all unless they had relic gun. Even a walmart RNG is going to pull hate easily on this cause it's so squishy, and it only takes doing that once to make it not worth it.

[RKenshin]

Eh, it has ups and downs. People just need to have a brain.

RNG damaged worked great for us, there were a few times where it hate control was a problem on our first few runs but you learn from the mistakes. After RNGs were much more careful about hate, and it went fine.

Plus, having a group of heavy DDs that don't need paralyna (which seems to happen like 1-3 times a minute) and don't get hit by just about every single AoE attack works great. It takes a rather heavy burden off of curing.

So, either way really. Melee DDs and ranged DDs both have advantages and disadvantages. One way you're eating much more damage/debuffs but you're prepared for it, and the other way you're eating much less... But when it does happen, you're often not prepared for it. In the end, works out about even!

Regardless, next time we'll probably be all-out TP burning it anyway.

[Tan]

This is mainly related to Ruke's comment about having a SAM/WAR tank. Would a SAM/DNC be more practical? Potentially could para themselves and added curing spam on local DD's would provide solid hate when they aren't SCing or something. In particular what about multiple /DNC or something along those lines? I know it might seem a little out there but having some DD's go /DNC so they can handle their paras might make things a little easier on the mages atleast. But then again I haven't done this fight so what do you guys think?

[RKenshin]

Possibly, I have no experience at all with SAM/DNC so it's difficult for me to say.

I'd say that if it's a very well-equipped SAM with good gear/skill, and good with seigan tanking, they probably could do it effectively.

I would just be weary about trying it with a SAM or any DD/tank that doesn't have experience with tanking tough stuff. I talked in the last post like SAM/WAR could probably do it with little trouble, but keep in mind I'm talking about my own SAM. There is a huge gap in how effective it can work for your a normal/lazy SAM vs a veteran or more experienced SAM. Not to sound arrogant at all or anything about it but yeah, just don't want to set the wrong impression on how easy or difficult it may be.

That said, SAM/DNC would likely be more of a sub-tank and somewhat self-sustainable DD than a main tank for this fight, I think. Hate control would still be too sporadic based off of just damage output.

[Tan]

Oh I completely understand what you are saying that not every SAM could pull it off. I've got Third Eye merits along w/ parry and evasion and nearly capped parrying skill so was interested in how effective something like that might be especially with 1-2 SAMs doing the tanking. Its an interesting thought though and I guess I'll have to do one fight for good measures on PLD to see if I can't bust out SAM on the next one.

[Raizins]

For this reason I wouldn't recommend bringing RNG at all unless they had relic gun. Even a walmart RNG is going to pull hate easily on this cause it's so squishy, and it only takes doing that once to make it not worth it.

RNG does really well on this. I've been both SAM and RNG and while SAM can unload a bunch of damage (as said earlier, it's very squishy and WSs from your DD will take a nice % of its HP) but it also takes a ton of damage. Factor in constant Paralyna, cures, erase (Gates), RNG is just a better option, unless you have a ton of healing available (most likely outside of an alliance). Our melee DD don't even stay in during CS, since they're just being MP sponges.

RNGs can deal constant damage through entire fight. Yes they will pull hate but you can work around that, depending on your ranger's playstyle. Some things could be:

-subbing NIN instead of WAR: you can take hate and blink some of the physical attacks
-toss out warcry completely: doesn't seem like its a good tradeoff from emnity gained, especially standing next to other rangers and a bard
-skip barrage: ok this may be considered crazy, but you don't always have to go with WS -> Barrage -> WS. Your ls should know that you can deal damage and pull hate, you don't need to do it everytime. Could also just use it only if you whif a slugwinder (all rngs do)
-use Arching Arrow or Heavy Shot
-position yourself at a closer distance before you WS, when you know you'll pull hate. do so at an angle or spot where you don't draw Saramerya closer to mages, but perhaps along a line where its easy to reposition

[zagex]

I'm almost definite it'll hate reset, but I'm unsure of the circumstances. One fight, right as I, on rdm, and the other Rdm dispelled spikes, it ran up and hit me, hit the other rdm, then hit a blm. Not sure what he was doing, but there is absolutely no way he could have pulled hate from our Sam who was tanking with a Pld/War. I can't believe it was coincidental that both Rdms pulled hate off the Pld and Sam with a dispel at the same time.

[anathema]

I'm almost definite it'll hate reset, but I'm unsure of the circumstances. One fight, right as I, on rdm, and the other Rdm dispelled spikes, it ran up and hit me, hit the other rdm, then hit a blm. Not sure what he was doing, but there is absolutely no way he could have pulled hate from our Sam who was tanking with a Pld/War. I can't believe it was coincidental that both Rdms pulled hate off the Pld and Sam with a dispel at the same time.

that's an effect of everyone being close to capped hate and the constant enmity loss from the speedy attacks and firagas. that is not hate reset.

it looks like wonky hate because your tanks and melees are constantly taking damage while you're in the backline just building cumulative hate. after awhile, your tanks will get hit below your cumulative level, so the mob goes after you. it'll hit you once or twice and move on to someone else usually... if it was hate reset, you would be dead.

[eva00r]

I'm almost definite it'll hate reset, but I'm unsure of the circumstances. One fight, right as I, on rdm, and the other Rdm dispelled spikes, it ran up and hit me, hit the other rdm, then hit a blm. Not sure what he was doing, but there is absolutely no way he could have pulled hate from our Sam who was tanking with a Pld/War. I can't believe it was coincidental that both Rdms pulled hate off the Pld and Sam with a dispel at the same time.

CEs were capped. It's not a hate reset. More information -> kanican.livejournal.com

[Kaeko]

I know there's other threads for Tier IV ZNM, but I want to bump this thread with more info since it's got the best info for this NM on BG.

We were able to win this with 6 tonight. None of us had ever seen this NM prior so it was sort of a test run.

PLD/DRK
SAM/WAR
RDM/WHM
BRD/WHM
WHM/BLM
SCH/RDM

It has 50,000 HP and is somewhat squishy. Our only source of damage the entire fight was a relic SAM. Was about a 60 minute fight, so quite long. Couple of little notes...

- Regen is really annoying. You need to dispel spam asap when you see Hoplon or Blazed Spikes. Especially annoying when CS goes off and it spams spikes. It really is about 1% a tick so you can stall for awhile, especially low manning with limited DD. Dispel can resist randomly, even with a 340+ enfeeble RDM, so we had RDM, BRD, and SCH all spam dispel. Regen wasn't really handled that well for us and drew the fight out a ton.

- We had our PLD/DRK stand around in a mix of normal gear + fire resist. He had 106 fire resist standing around and that was enough to resist most things near completely. He would switch into a better fire resist set when a warning was given, like Roar animation or CS. Hate was very good with PLD/DRK in this. SAM could steal hate easily still, but not during skins. Carol + Ballad was given.

- SAM/WAR was the only DD, but took use of a physical damage down set as well as a full fire resist set and just switched as necessary. Worked extremely well - used Sushi food. Carol + March was given. I actually think if your SAM has extremely good fire resist, maybe just forgo the Carol and use 2 attack based songs. You can definitely resist reasonably well under 300 resist.

- A good deal of healing was still needed. Our backline was very heavy in healing and we still had to watch our MP totals. No Ghorn on this. SCH Stoneskinga helps the MP management tremendously. We also used capped RDM Phalanx II.

*********

- There is indeed some type of awkward hate mechanic on this mob, so the person who mentioned it earlier was not completely bullshitting everyone else. It is not a full hate reset though.

From what I can tell, after it completes it's second roar (after magma hoplon is used), all players are removed from the hate list - however, CE/VE is NOT reset. It's the equivalent of zoning out then back in when you don't have hate. Your CE and VE are still retained, but the mob won't look to attack you unless you perform a hate based action on it first.

This is why some people see a perceived hate reset, while others do not. If your tanks quickly perform an action after that second roar, you will not notice. People often notice it; however, because you are trying to dispel the Regen after roar. So basically, all you need to do to for this is have your tanks or whoever you want hate on to perform some action immediately after it roars again. There is no 'hate reset' (meaning CE/VE reset). You're just removed from the hate list until you do something again, but all your #s are still there.

***************

Overall, not a bad fight. We went in knowing nothing firsthand and won on essentially a test run. Setup could have been much better for a cleaner fight, but we had to guess a bit to see what would work, having never seen it before.

Having seen this NM now, I actually agree completely with Ruk about SAM tanking. I think in hindsight, we would have done a faster, cleaner low man attempt had we used 2 SAMs instead of SAM+PLD. Doubling the DD adds speed, and seigan tanking is so strong on this. It doesn't hit hard, and SAMs all have access to fire resist gear and physical damage gear. The only worry is if you go an extended period of time doing no damage (skin), but you always have voke on SAM/WAR.

[Lordwafik]

Nice post Kaeko, can't wait to start using cerb hides as toilet paper.

[Diomer]

Did this tonight with 10, the regen is quite annoying and I went in PLD/NIN thinking it didn't attack *that* fast. I'd definately say PLD/NIN is far from useless on it but it takes a bit to get used to his attack speed and general pattern of attacks. Once you do, you can prevent a good deal of damage and even moreso if your tanking partner knows what he's doing. That being said, I'll probably try /rdm next time. The howl is a little bit annoying /nin but a well coordinated group will have no problem with it once they're aware of it and the tank realizes when he has to flash to keep it in position. Fire resist isn't really necessary even with a smaller group (I'm an Aegis PLD anyway but the other tank wasn't.) The other PLD and I rotated ramparts every howl (One of us had it up most of the time since there's a good amount of time between howls.) to minimalize the GoH damage. The only thing really to be concerned with is post howl hate problems causing Sara to move. As long as people are aware of it and your tanks make sure to get an appropriately timed spell/ability to keep it in place, the fight is pretty easy. Only other thing to add is the stun resist seemed to occur after ~10-15 Stuns, didn't try after that since it died before using another GoH.

[Tomiko]

Awesome post, very nice info on the Roar hate list thing.

[Zilong]

Did some tanking on SAM/WAR tonight...noticed a few peculiar items.

1. He doesn't melee at all during CS, so berserking during CS shouldn't be an issue, though I'm not 100% sure if sulfurous breath damage is defense based, I know that it's physical since I parried it (parry sprite on screen, evaded on log), but the time I decided to berserk doesnt seem to give much damage increase (though I took down zerk on reflex due to my HP dropping badly, turns out it was just a bad resist on Flare II)

2. You almost never use a TP set, since you are switching between Fire/WS/Defense 90% of the time. I was considering using a rice setup due to this, but I'm not sure if the extra defense would be close to or equivalent to -20% damage from my damage set.

With that in mind, gear/act accordingly if you're planning to tank it with double SAM.

Also, double SAM is one hell of an MP syphon at times, our WHM were having issues with MP near the end of the fight just because TE occassionally fail or eaten by para (totally avoidable, but I get lagged at times) and completely wiped by sulfurous breath and we'd end up taking more damage than we'd like to. We had 2 SAM, COR, BRD, RDM, WHM tank party and the WHM almost always run out of MP, though if we were to change the COR with SCH, we could probably achieve the stability needed to indefinitely hold Sarameya. I guess I'll try that for the next set of runs. Was really nice with double SAM though, we didn't have much hate issue, and the damage from SAM is really high even when we're using tacos mostly, but I suppose the COR's buff has a lot to do with that

[Kaeko]

I think hate balance is pretty important for this. Like others have said, it tends to attack really fast at times in spurts, so if you can have the SAM maybe walk the hate line with a very strong tank (PLD/RDM or PLD/DRK), you can maybe have the SAM voke and eat some shots with Seigan every so often.

I found the biggest MP sponge on this was actually the 30damage/tick poison added effect. This is really annoying, especially with blood tanking. Also, I think if you use fire resist sets, the fight is actually easier the last 25%. It tended to spam a lot more magic and harmless TP moves (all fire based, even GoH) and didn't attack nearly as often.

I feel this NM can definitely be ganked with the right support. I'd actually be interested to see what would happen if you like got it to hit chainspell at 89%, then hit 69% (next CS) before the first wore (very likely in a gank). If it has to finish off the first CS before using the next, this would be total cake to TP burn.

[Faxanadu]

Finally Did this last week, I went pld/rdm, the other tank was a pld/sam. Was really messy the last 20% or so. Fire resist set would make this fight alot eaiser.

I can 100% confirm Kaeko's theroy on the "mini" hate reset. Hate was solid on tanks other then after the Roar segments.

Personally i wouldn't bother with blink or stonskin as pld/rdm. I used it periodically while the other tank hate had but it gets eaten up so fast that its not worth the casting time. Just spam sleep, dispell, blind, bind (think JoL) while keeping barfire and phalanx up. He attacks really fast, I recomend using your shield skill macro in between Chainspell sequences. Reprisal = <3

I used Templers Mace as opposed to Beaver Tail +1. Highly recomend it, there is always some1 that needs 450+ hps cured, lol.

Thanks for all the helpful input guys.

[Zilong]

I think hate balance is pretty important for this. Like others have said, it tends to attack really fast at times in spurts, so if you can have the SAM maybe walk the hate line with a very strong tank (PLD/RDM or PLD/DRK), you can maybe have the SAM voke and eat some shots with Seigan every so often.

I found the biggest MP sponge on this was actually the 30damage/tick poison added effect. This is really annoying, especially with blood tanking. Also, I think if you use fire resist sets, the fight is actually easier the last 25%. It tended to spam a lot more magic and harmless TP moves (all fire based, even GoH) and didn't attack nearly as often.

I feel this NM can definitely be ganked with the right support. I'd actually be interested to see what would happen if you like got it to hit chainspell at 89%, then hit 69% (next CS) before the first wore (very likely in a gank). If it has to finish off the first CS before using the next, this would be total cake to TP burn.

Well, you can arrange a partial gank once it goes into howling mode, that's what we did to take care of the final chainspell anyway. Hold at 10% ish, wait for howl, then just rush him down after the GoH is fired.

I'm guessing with prepared melee and right support, you can just whittle him down a bit until he does his first howl, then just move in (before or after ululation, depending how much you trust your mages) while he cast firaga III > hoplon > final howl. I suppose the whole ordeal would take like 30-60 seconds, more than enough time to blast him to hell and back.

We didn't come in with a zerg plan/setup in mind, so we didn't really use that method for anything but taking out the last 10% without dealing with CS, but it's worth a shot.

As for poison, nothing 4 stacks of antidote on each tank wouldn't cover XD