Odog and I went in as both RDM/NIN to see what all we could. Well, technically, 1 RDM/NIN and 1 RDM/nothing because we only got one SJ from the chest . We got 0 equipment from the chest besides the 2 weapons (meaning no dalmy, no af2 hat, no wlegs, etc). No good status cells (lolCHR). No MP cells. Two abilities. Only 1 magic, BUT two HP which in the end saved us anyways. So we buffed up and pimped put our RDM DDing styles killing a Lamia with joyeuse only and thankfully, we got a magic cell, so we just left the floor right away. Well, Odog died on getting the first portal open (NOOB! ), so we waited 5 mins for weakness to wear before tryin the 2nd floor QQA. Spent about 15 mins on this floor total + 5 mins for weakness to wear.
We didn't really know much about how to solo/duo it outside of what we read in this thread, so it started off fine. DoTed it, ran to another wing, waited for casting, then ran to other wing, and repeat. About 70% HP, he started acting kinda weird. He ran up further than usual and started casting an -aga 3 spell, so Odog ran kinda far back, then the QQA ran back to the portal and stayed there for a min. We tried to get him to come off, but he warped. We are pretty sure the QQAs are VERY distanced sensitive. If you get too close to them (< 8 ), they move back a little, if you get too far away, they lose interest and wanna warp, too. We are pretty sure we can do it next time if nothing goes wrong. Spent about 10 minutes tryin this one.
3rd Floor QQTH. Mad easy. Easiest NM in the zone imo. We did the usual bio/poison 2, wait for them to wear, reapply. Nuked at the end. No drop. I think we killed in about 15 mins or so.
4th Floor QQTH. We could have handled this one a little better and easier, and probably killed faster. We tried to just kite him around nuking when we could, and I ended up dying eventually, then the QQTH finally deaggroed us, so we went back to the DoTing until they wore and reapplying, then hiding. Killed, and ofcuz no drop >.>. Spent about 20 mins on this one, I think.
5th Floor QQA. Honestly, I didn't think we could do it. It would be pretty hard to kill that gear in the hallway and take too much time, so we went around it (after Odog popped the QQA), and buffed up. Then proceeded to do our best on the QQA. This one is very, VERY strange. We learned a lot on this one. Basically, the entire room is your kite path, and if he leaves the room too far down the hallway, you're fucked. He seems to cast mostly DoTs on you (weakening your already weak stoneskin with -30MND and no gear >.>) and tier 4s which can be blinked np. -aga 3s would have been a big issue if we hadn't gotten any HP cells, but we ate -aga 3s np, too. You basically just run to all 4 corners and he'll chase you a little, stop to cast, then you run some more. If he starts heading toward the door, it's best to run up a little close to him (like 8'), then run back and usually he'll start running back after you again. It's very VERY picky on distance, and being as the room isn't very big to begin with, it can be tricky.
We did learn something interesting that I don't think anyone else mentioned or noticed, but... These mobs can run outta MP. At about 25-30%, he completely stopped casting and just ran around getting close to us, but not exactly hitting us. So I'm almost 100% sure he ran outta mp by this point after casting tons of tier 4s on us and other DoTs. At this point, it was a near 100% victory because you wont die, and if you know how to control his movements, you pretty much got him down. We were almost outta time (less than 3 mins) when he was about 10%, so I chucked out a full dmg nuke and brought him down to 2-3%, then Odog finished him off. No drop, but we got a TON of cells. I haven't see anyone much talk about this floor's QQA and how to do it, so I dunno, you might think it's interesting. The only problem I can think of is if you don't get an HP cell, you might die (especially if taru) because it's near impossible to run outta range of the -aga 3 spells (which he will usually cast from the middle). With stoneskin and phalanx, Firaga3 hit me for about 491dmg, and my max HP (before HP cell) was 510. So if I had a DoT spell on me (usually did), I would have died anyways. I was thinking if no HP cells and no time to farm one from skeles, could maybe eat some HP food, but not sure how effective that would be as most HP food is % based.