Silver Sea Remnants Boss: Reassurance

[Kohan]

From the kindly folks here at BG, I request criticism. My small group of six/seven, who regularly farm Salvage areas, are about to attempt the SSR boss. I'm their leader. Our makeup is not perfectly ideal (namely, we usually don't have a RDM), but we've made things work many times before.

Prior to making this thread, I surfed around a bit on BG, and found this to be the most useful post:

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/showt...+armed+chariot

In researching that and chariots and general, I have come up with a strategy for our group. Please tell me if there is anything horribly flawed about it.

EDIT: Here is the new strategy, which is a direct result of all the feedback from within this thread. Thank you!

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Tentative Silver Sea Remnants BOSS Strategy

PT Makeup:
BRD/WHM
RDM/WHM
BLM/WHM
WHM/BLM
DRG/SAM
MNK/NIN
THF/NIN

Basic Strategy:

Before running in, the BRD will sing double March on the melee. The MNK/NIN will consume sushi and tank, while the DRG/SAM will provide add'l damage (at the unfortunate cost of feeding the boss more TP). BLM will nuke from afar. THF will use Collaborator on mages whenever necessary, and ideally will kite the chariot when/if melee are charmed. WHM will keep tank and others alive (and will also use Erase whenever applicable) while RDM supports both BRD and WHM.

Specific Strategies For...

Path to Boss: On 1F, the west path will be taken. All fomor within it will be killed, along with the NM. If cell needs aren't satisfied, the southwest path on 2F will be taken (no NMs there and door to teleporter is always open). Once everyone has desired amount of cells and/or 35 min. mark is reached, party will skip ahead to the boss on 5F.

Melee: Fighters will run in (MNK tank first), gain aggro, and pull the chariot back to the teleporter room (fighting on the stairs). Each will stand on one side and keep in mind that if it turns toward them, it is to use Brainjack. They will want to feed as little TP to chariot as possible. Accuracy is nonetheless important to whittle away at the boss's HP.

When Brainjack is going to be used, melee will attempt to escape its range and macro swap into a relatively useless weapon (e.g., a festival item). If possible, THF will gain hate (though NOT through having used Collaborator on melee) and kite the chariot until Brainjack wears. A figure eight path through the rooms for any kiter is the best option.

Mages: On their way to the boss, mages (WHM at least) will try to get Gnostic's Drinks. BRD will be responsible for keeping double March on the melee, and Ballad on the mages (per usual). They will also sing Elegy on the chariot. RDM will cast Slow II on the boss, Phalanx II on the MNK, and provide the usual support. WHM will Erase melee whenever possible, and be primarily responsible for keeping the tank alive, keeping Regen III on them to help w/possible Brainjack DOT.

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And that ends the notes I've written so far.

Any advice? Thanks in advance.

[Amele]

if either of your melee has +movement; it will probably go smoother if they are erased and can attempt to kite.

a quick melee can get out of range in response to a turn at them; a slightly less quick melee can get out of range in response to a turn at someone else.

we used to just accept jack but now that we actively avoid it, the fights go much smoother.

[Kohan]

if either of your melee has +movement; it will probably go smoother if they are erased and can attempt to kite.

Our THF has Trotters.

a quick melee can get out of range in response to a turn at them; a slightly less quick melee can get out of range in response to a turn at someone else.

we used to just accept jack but now that we actively avoid it, the fights go much smoother.

We'll try our best to do that, for sure.

[rithridan]

If possible have the WHM sub SCH, I'm not entirely sure but I think a WHM/SCH with a decent enfeebling set should be able to land Slow reliably which helps out a shit load for those tanks of yours. Not having SlowII might hurt since I see you are using an utsu tank and a seigan tank, Ideally you would get that PUP of yours to level RDM or SCH >_>

[Kohan]

If possible have the WHM sub SCH, I'm not entirely sure but I think a WHM/SCH with a decent enfeebling set should be able to land Slow reliably which helps out a shit load for those tanks of yours. Not having SlowII might hurt since I see you are using an utsu tank and a seigan tank, Ideally you would get that PUP of yours to level RDM or SCH >_>

Asking the PUP to level RDM or SCH for our battle might be a bit much! :D

Unfortunately, our WHM does not have SCH leveled yet. She will eventually (and it'll be easier now, thanks to the wonders of Level Sync), but she's an "old school" WHM who has every sub except that one. In fact, she only took WHM out of the closet for Salvage; before we started doing it regularly, she was a full time BLM.

That doesn't mean to say that I'm disregarding your recommendations, however. If we have trouble, I'll level with her so we can get her SCH to 37, and then she can sub it next time we go for the boss.

Thanks for the feedback so far, it's very appreciated!

[Aragon of Odin]

I run a pretty new salvage group as well and haven't really encountered problems with this boss. We do use a RDM tho and Slow2 with Elegy is a thing of beauty and have the added Paralyze 2 from RDM makes this so much better.

With being limited to really only having a WHM as a major healer I don't think you'd want to feed it too much TP, I know of strats utilizing SMN so when it's in Brain Jack mode as long as the SMN's summon has hate the monk and chariot will attack the summon. I know the summon won't live long enough but at least it gives the mages a little time to get out of the way and once the summon dies the THF can accomplice the SMN and kite them both around for a little while so the SMN can re-summon an avatar.

I don't really see PUP being that useful in salvage, altho I don't know any 75 PUP's but what exactly can it bring to the table or do they not have any other jobs that they could bring?

One thing that can really hurt is not being able to keep the MNK handled when he's charmed. If he doesn't switch to a Staff the he can really damage your group if he gets close to anyone, also have to try and put regen 3 on him before he gets charmed as this charm has a nasty DoT that comes with it.

Hope this helps somewhat.

[Vigilia]

I'd say erase the bound melees fast too, otherwise you end up with both getting charmed or worse, the one that's charmed first kills the other. Charm resets all hate so if both your main DDs get their hate reset it'll be the mages or weaker melees kiting. I definitely agree with that the THF should save collaborate for mages. Also, fight it at the bottom of stairs and kite around the two little rooms for more space to maneuver. If you kite in the little rooms with the raised platforms, the boss needs to run around them to keep up with you so it's easier to keep distance and do a figure 8 loop. If you try and kite it around the pillars in the main boss room it will shortcut through the middle and catch you up.

Have every melee make a macro that equips some "useless" weapon like a wooden katana or warp cudgel if they don't have club skilled up or anything really. Other than that, best thing you could do is get your static members to level a variety of useful jobs.

[Shuemue]

iirc, you can just remove your weapon completely like this;

/equip main ""

Of course that's worthless for people with h2h skill, but for others it's better than even a low level weapon.

[Drex]

Hey koko!

I dunno if your pld has w legs, but if so, we found that having a pld/war to kite it for us during brainjack made it so much easier when we were first getting used to LAC. It's worth considering. Fealty also makes you immune to brainjack for its duration, which was nice to have - usefulness depends on how low your timer is. After brainjack mode is over, pld can hold it still for the melee to start building hate back up, instead of having it run around whacking all your mages with your melee chasing ineffectively behind it trying to build some hate. Once melee have some hate, you can either just have the PLD back off, or collaborate him, and he can go back to being a pseudo-whm until next brainjack phase.

Also, only 2 melee, and 1 should probably not be the thf unless you love tp spam.

The biggest problem we had starting out with LAC (and salvage bosses in general) is we took it *too* carefully and dragged the fight on. We would have melee turn around when we got aoed twice in a row and had brainjack issues. I've found that keeping damage on LAC at all times is pretty important, or you'll just steadily fall further and further towards a wipe. Paralyna tanks fast is really important.

Don't sweat seigan+te tanking, I've been doin' it a while on sam and even when I forget my damage- gear it's still not that bad.

[Vigilia]

I was going to suggest that too about PLD kiting but considering that he mentions specifically that only THF has +movement speed % gear, it's kind of assumed that the player who's the DRG/PLD/SMN doesn't have W.legs or he/she would be using them on DRG for kiting phases also.

[Seeko]

I've done SSR boss a number of times with the 2 groups I run with. 1 group is the "ideal" Salvage setup (MNK, MNK, THF, RDM, BRD, WHM), and the other is more of a hodge-podge of what we can gather that day (core if it is MNK, WAR, THF, RDM, WHM, COR, +BLM and/or another MNK, and occasionally we can find a BRD).


Both of these groups has been able to defeat this boss, though the biggest risk I've found is timing out because of unlucky Brainjack streaks, and just plain bad luck/overcautiousness. With this in mind, for your first attempt on the boss, I would highly recommend giving yourself as much time as possible. I would say go 1F West, farm what you need for cells, take a shot at Hammerblow, and move up. If you still need more cells, 2F SW is probably your best option for farming. Make sure you know the unique linking rules for that floor (imps like to fomor by truesight, fomors link to imps by sound, neither fomors nor imps link to their own kind). Then skip 3F (West) and 4F. I recommend FOR A FIRST ATTEMPT to give yourself at least 40 minutes. It's notuncommon to be able to arrive with 60 minutes remaining, either, and that is better. Yes, it may feel like a "wasted" run due to only attempting 1 35 NM, but trust me, it's better to have a great run and finish with 20minutes left over than to time out at 2% (or worse yet, kill, see your drops, THEN time out)


As far as the fight itself: I'll echo what has been said: Don't fight it in the main room. pull the chariot back down to the room your port up from, and fight there. Have your Melees attack from the sides and watch for it to turn preparatory to using Brainjack. If anyone in your group has +move speed gear (particularly your healers) it makes it easier. The boss is very easy to kite around the 2 side porter rooms using the figure-8 pattern someone else mentioned. Even without +move speed, you can do a reasonable job of kiting it due to its horrible pathing logic. Just be aware that every so often it will get within range to do an AoE tp move, and you can put distance between you when it stops for that.

If at all possible (IF you're having troubles keeping people healed), try to have someone continue kiting even after brainjack wears for your mages to cure everyone and rest up a little mp. You said your thief has trotters. They can do this if they're able to get hate off the healers, and/or the healers get jacked, too.

As far as the erasing bind part. I think that we've always just left it on, like you mentioned. Though it doesn't really seem to make that much difference in the long run. Really, the main thing is to just keep plugging along at it. If you have any deaths, rotate your DD's out to rest while still fighting as much as you can.

Regarding my time comments, as I said, I strongly recommend that for your first couple of attempts, you give yourself about 2x as much time as you think you'll need. Once you kill LAC a few times and get the feel for the flow of the fight, modify your run to include more NM's. I know that I've personally been able to do Hammerblow, Powderkeg, G Gears (E), and boss, as well as Hammerblow, Dekka, G Gear (N), and boss. And I've read testimonies of other groups getting even more done, throwing in CC as well.


One last PS: regarding having a PUP in Salvage. I've had a PUP in my group from time to time, and while I would not say that it's an ideal job to take, on a run where you get a lot of cells (Zhayolm, for example), it can be very effective. It is very high maintenance to get the most out of it, though.

[SamanosukeShiva]

this is where events weapon like shinai really shines! i switch to shinai on my mnk during brain jack, cant even land a hit. ;D

[Toth]

The ideal role for PUP to play on bosses is for them to have their automaton use the ADD trick to get off 3-4 nukes (initial nuke, plus the 2-3 during deactivate cooldown) per minute, deactivate to clear hate and recover MP, and then start again. My Serenade's nukes were over 400 without merits and the af2 boots. Magic accuracy should not be an issue with merits. It really adds up nicely over the course of the battle and is, of course, hate free and free from AOE range.

edit: for this to be most useful, the pup needs the following cells:

ability
magic
INT
hands
feet (if they have af2 feet)
legs (af2 for extra magic accuracy)

[Cream Soda]

Depending on your mnk's gear you, you may want to go march/march/minuet/madrigal and use meat instead of sushi for best results.

[Amele]

If possible have the WHM sub SCH, I'm not entirely sure but I think a WHM/SCH with a decent enfeebling set should be able to land Slow reliably which helps out a shit load for those tanks of yours. Not having SlowII might hurt since I see you are using an utsu tank and a seigan tank, Ideally you would get that PUP of yours to level RDM or SCH >_>

with a good enfeebling set you can land it even without /sch (which may save you the trouble of farming a subjob for the whitemage) that said, if your whm *has* /sch 37 there is precious little reason to sub anything else (whm/blm for sleepga is about it.) because /sch gives you such a huge boost to efficiency, mp recovery and (non-cure) spell potency.

[Hanyoko]

Something to toss in here. Gnostic's drinks are great for the mages to use after the 3rd BrainJack; That or let yourself get jacked to clear hate. This is mostly for the case where your melee keep getting jacked every phase. I swear that drink eats away at your hate during the duration as well as putting a massive -enmity effect on.

[jfive]

I also use Shinai for my joke weapon... sometimes i equip my hermes sandals just to run and wiff at the others tho.

[Thorny]

With this in mind, for your first attempt on the boss, I would highly recommend giving yourself as much time as possible. I would say go 1F West, farm what you need for cells, take a shot at Hammerblow, and move up. If you still need more cells, 2F SW is probably your best option for farming. Make sure you know the unique linking rules for that floor (imps like to fomor by truesight, fomors link to imps by sound, neither fomors nor imps link to their own kind). Then skip 3F (West) and 4F. I recommend FOR A FIRST ATTEMPT to give yourself at least 40 minutes. It's notuncommon to be able to arrive with 60 minutes remaining, either, and that is better. Yes, it may feel like a "wasted" run due to only attempting 1 35 NM, but trust me, it's better to have a great run and finish with 20minutes left over than to time out at 2% (or worse yet, kill, see your drops, THEN time out)

QFT, this is doable with DD/NIN DD/NIN BRD RDM.. so I wouldn't worry too much about having a less than optimal setup. You may want to have the PUP go on a mage job, or at the very least something that won't need to melee the chariot to be effective though.. feeding TP is always bad.
Edit: same goes for the THF, or let them whore collaborator. I can almost guarantee a wipe if you have 4 people meleeing it with no RDM or previous experience on the mob.

[Kohan]

This thread has really exploded, but I'm grateful for it. Also, hi there, Drex! Let's see, hm, can I thank people properly for everything within one post? :D

PUP Discussion: The Puppetmaster strat certainly is valuable--I note that due to its being unexpected, but welcome--as our PUP is knowledgeable about their job, but not Salvage. Everything else (particularly the mentioning of possible PLD strategies) is also excellent. The PUP can attend as BLM, but I will discuss with them the aforementioned mage trickery too.

MNK Discussion: Also, Cream, I am the MNK in the group (you may know me from other forums under the alias RazMasters), and my gear consists of:

Weapon: Destroyers
Head: Walahra Turban
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Ear1: Brutal Earring
Ear2: Diabolos's Earring
Body: Shura Togi
Hands: Ochiudo's Kote
Ring1: Ulthalham's Ring
Ring2: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Brown Belt
Legs: Melee Hose
Feet: Dune Boots

I also always carry my AF with me (for Focus, Dodge, and Chakra, all of which have macro swaps), have O-Hat, Life Belt and Tabin Boots +1 for WS, and additionally, I have a near full set of Melee relic (I don't have the crown). Shura Haidate and Fuma Sune-Ate are other options, and H2H is fully merited. The aforementioned pieces of equipment are on me at all times. Normally, I don't have a problem with accuracy, eat meat, and I'm very used to tanking too.

General Commentary: We will be running this Saturday, and to note, I also very much appreciate the suggestions about farming path. Also, we might be doing a BRD and RDM run (rather than BRD BRD) after all!

I am going to edit the first post with some changes in a short while, and I hope this entire thread is useful to anyone else in the future who's going to low-man SSR's boss.

Thanks again, everyone!

[Cream Soda]

Was able to parse 91% acc on my last chariot with madrigal/minuet and this gear
http://i35.tinypic.com/2re2v4m.jpg (Swap Rajas for ToAU though)
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e6...ladOffense.jpg

Looking at your gear, I would probably eat sushi on a boss and do the double minuet, but even with that set up, I'd give meat a try once you can get a pair of kitty pants.