Manaburn Dync Xarc

[tymora]

I am considering the feasibility for a manaburn in Xarc. I know that demons are resistant to magic attacks but even with 50% off I think BLMs can still do considerable damage.

Anyone tried this before? If so, any insights?

So far manaburning the other zones (non-CoP) with 18 have been encouraging.

As for why manaburn...career BLM here Just for the challenge and heck of it.

[Kurt Cobain]

LW used to do this and it worked pretty well from what I recall, you could go way back in his LJ archives and look for yourself, I'm sure he'll offer more info when he reads this

[Vigilia]

Well, Xarcabard has been manaburned countless times before, before and after the BLM "nerf". We did weekly Dynamis with a LS called Manaburn for over 2 years, sucks the old forums are dead or I'd link you there to read. The oldest forum still exists here but it's all locked up and not much left there. http://manaburn.adsoft.org/ Wafik's LJ may have some bits left like Kurt above mentioned.

Anyway, more recently I've been farming Dynamis with a small LS manaburn group. If you're going there with a one-alliance manaburn, you're safe and have room for mistakes if you have at least 10-12 BLMs in your group, first time we tried Xarca we had 7 or 8 BLMs and that's too few. You need ten or more to make sure one round of tier IV nukes drops each demon. And that's enough firepower to deal with the usual farming pulls. Just make doubly sure that nobody skimps on their Sleepga 2 build either, not only are Kindred more resistant to nukes but they're also more resistant to debuffs. RDMs and BRDs have no problems sleeping them but gimpass BLMs get resisted and end up dead as a result. Other than that, if you're used to cities you should have no problems whatsoever.

[fishstix]

They even manaburned DL and Diabolos

[Lordwafik]

Basically what vigs said, you can read oldddddddddddd archives , back when I was young and dumb!

I've moved my LJ into my blog, and in this post here http://wafiks.com/blog/2005/11/manab...upid-dragoons/ - (lol at the title) It shows my first run going in blind basically, and still managing to kill all the NMs. As I say in there, 13 BLM and about the same amount of support (RDM / BRD ) although now a day you could probably do it with much less, and with more people focused.

Pulling isn't hard at all to a horde of BLM, you can even set someone up to be an "Announcer" - make sure everyone uses sleepga1 to sleepga your train, and then the announcer will say after X amount of seconds, in /p when to sleepga2(pref 5sec or so before they all wake).

That being said, after Manaburn was over, I found much more efficiency in killspeed and everything with half the amount of people I took in Manaburn, but as a mixed party setup. PLD to hold things, BLM to sleep/nuke things, and melee merit parties to do their own things.

However, Leading Manaburn is still fun and one of the best things I've ever done in this game. Dynamis Lord is still killable but you're looking at bringing 40 or so people, closer to the 30 mark of them being BLM. Shit sucks when you can do DL with 18 if you have 3 multihit DRKs.
If you're not going for DL however - every pull in the zone is a joke when you have a horde of people looking to sleepga anything you pull, including "Difficult" pulls like eyes. This includes Animated Weapons, which we killed many of.

PS : Manaburning CoP zones worked fine too, including obstacles like magic resistant golem in Dyna Qufim, we just brought 1 balanced party of melee to kill it. Our LS completed Dynamis - Tavnazia and we saw the hippy cutscene at the end.

[tymora]

Interesting. In my runs so far, I used ga3 as a focus. We ga3 practically everything when we have 12 BLMs, including SMNs (Astral flow is useless if summons are dead.)

Did anyone ever test or notice how many BLMs are needed to one-shot a group of demons with 1 volley of ga3 now?

For regular Dynamis mobs, 6 ga3 can finish off 3 and 12 ga3 can finish off 8+ in one shot safely, barring WHM mobs (chance of Benediction going off if someone is off).

----------------
There is also an added advantage to BLM pulls that I found. A BLM puller can pull and sleep mobs before BST and SMN can summon help. Yes, this means no pesky Hecteyes, slimes etc etc.

Pull stone > Sleepga center on stone immediately after pull > Call in the BLM bombers for a magic raid to one shot the BST and SMN after killing stone.

A relatively small group of 6 BLMs can accomplish this pretty well but this would depend on how many mobs are popped.

[Lordwafik]

Ah we didn't find it too efficient to -ga3 so we never tested it on anything but the eyes in Xarca. It took about 10 or so -ga if I remember right.

Reminds me of a story though. Once, I decided to scare our BLMs and have them -ga3 the demons too, so I diaga'd the eyes just before their nuke landed and they funnily enough -ga3'd all the eyes and claim delay made it so none of the demons got nuked at all, the pull was hateless, it was funny.

[tymora]

As long as people don't wait too long to start ga3, it's pretty good on MP.

2 mobs break even, 3+ = economical. Best run so far is Sandy - 100% clear including re-pops with 1 alliance.

[Vigilia]

Only problem with -ga3 spam is that your THF will find it much harder if not impossible to stick TH4 on everything before it dies. Or he/she has to go around waking the mobs up one at a time and you need to resleep before the -ga and that wastes time. We tried -ga'ing with our mini group over the last few weeks without paying much heed to the THF (he'd just shoot bolts/mug/steal as fast as he could on the sleeping mobs) and the difference in drops was massive so went back to single target kills where THF has time to put in a melee hit just as the nukes land. You can -ga shit easy enough in Xarcabard but it's not always in your best interest to do so.

[Amok]

I was under the impression that going thf/brd or thf/blm was normal nowadays.

[Kurt Cobain]

or just collaborate a BLM after a ga3 goes off

[Vigilia]

I was under the impression that going thf/brd or thf/blm was normal nowadays.

Or that if your THF has those subs available.

[tymora]

Yup, manaburn needs a THF/BLM or THF/BRD to be effective. I personally prefer a /BLM. We had 3 AF2 drop from 5 mobs in a ga3 before in Sandy. On the other extreme, we also had only 3 currency drop from 5 mobs.

[Wizerd]

I was under the impression that going thf/brd or thf/blm was normal nowadays.

THF/BRD or THF/BLM is ridiculous unless you're manaburning. It cuts down their survivability if they're doing any noteworthy damage, or inhibits their ability to even do noteworthy damage otherwise. THF is a DD, even with Ass hands and TK offhand.

[Teorem]

It's not at all ridiculous in non-manaburn situations if you have a very limited number of THFs with maximum Treasure Hunter, or you have enough people in the zone that losing the damage from one THF isn't an issue.

It's a lot more efficient in these situations to get on the hate lists of many things at once rather than target one thing at a time, and survivability isn't an issue if you know how to run away and your support knows how to keep everything else asleep.

[tymora]

Just don't make them pull.

[Wizerd]

Well ok, it's ridiculous if you have 2+ THFs. One for meleeing and one for pulling/statue plucking. I agree it's a good idea if you have just 1 THF for the run that needs to hit all the mobs and all the statues. But no matter how fast you kill, a good THF/NIN paying attention can get a melee round off on every mob in the zone.

[tymora]

Just 1 is enough. I BLM pull lol...

[Izzy]

Well ok, it's ridiculous if you have 2+ THFs. One for meleeing and one for pulling/statue plucking. I agree it's a good idea if you have just 1 THF for the run that needs to hit all the mobs and all the statues. But no matter how fast you kill, a good THF/NIN paying attention can get a melee round off on every mob in the zone.

Lots of LS double target. It's incredibly hard for one THF to hit every single mob if you have 2 targeters. Plus, if you're suggesting that a THF should run around and wake every slept mob with a melee round.....Q_Q

[Lordwafik]

Just 1 is enough. I BLM pull lol...

I used to pull BLM with rune arrow + rune bow before the Chakrams came out, just for fun :D