Hardest HNMs?

[Francisco]

I was a wondering what everyone regarded as the most difficult fights in the game.

1: Absolute Virtue
2: Pandemonium Warden

That's a given. I've had this debate with a few people, and we've never really settled on anything aside from those top two.

I've suggested Vrtra, but have been rebuked with "Vrtra's easy".

I've killed every HNM in the game aside from DV Serket/KA/Guivre, Khimaria, AV and PW... my one DV HNM was Lambton Worm, and that was pretty easy.

I'd rank the Mamool Ja King and Medusa fairly high in terms of relative difficulty, perhaps higher than Vrtra, which I haven't dealt with in ages - and isn't that hard to begin with if you know what you're doing.

[The_OG_Nelta]

Don't think Vrtra has been beaten since the ninja fix, since she can't be kited.

I mean killed regularly, Zerg doesn't count.

[Francisco]

Don't think Vrtra has been beaten since the ninja fix, since she can't be kited.

I mean killed regularly, Zerg doesn't count.

When did this happen?

[Necronus]

Don't think Vrtra has been beaten since the ninja fix, since she can't be kited.

I mean killed regularly, Zerg doesn't count.

I'm pretty sure this is fixed at the same time Wyrm was fixed.

[Kroot]

AV

[Selim]

Don't think Vrtra has been beaten since the ninja fix, since she can't be kited.

I mean killed regularly, Zerg doesn't count.

We actually did kill her regularly sometime late last year after the patch. After trying to kite her for a couple of mins we gave up and just straight tanked her. Was somewhat painful compared to kiting, but it worked out after all.

[Aesctaa]

Ignoring AV and PW, it is definitely straight tanked vrtra with no relics and no add PT, considerably less difficult when you have gjallarhorn(s). Can be TP burned with a bit of luck, but that doesn't count.

Nothing else really comes close IMO, the gap between vrtra and other HNMs on difficulty when fought with a single alliance is pretty wide.

[Mytiwar]

Id like to see a group able to kill Vrtra straight tanked no relics (I don't think that even matters) and no add pt.

Srsly, something bad is bound to happen at some point.

[Tulun]

Isn't Vrtra likely to flail you straight tanking? how do you avoid it?

[Therin]

Vrta's not that hard, even with straight-tank, as long as you have a lot of support. Yes, it probably is harder than any other HNM in the game (excluding PW/AV), but even then it's not ridiculously difficult.

There's an insane amount of AoE because Vrtra and his summons wailing on you give him a ton of TP. As a PLD/NIN straight-tanking Vrtra, I felt like I spent probably 60% of the fight in my "oshit" macro, just because shadows go down so quickly. So, a lot of good support is needed. The only other thing that you need to do is move him around a bit every time he summons. Basically, when you see the summon animation, your tanks take a step or two back. So, when they spawn he'll immediately take a step forward rather than beginning to strike with his tail.

We only had about 22 people when we took him down, and the only relic was an Excalibur (which did help quite a bit). We did have an outside alliance, but only because the main alliance wasn't even nearly full. If I remember correctly it was something like:

PLD
PLD
WHM
WHM
RDM
BRD

SMN
SMN
BRD
RDM

The Excalibur PLD and the two SMNs were the only DDs on Vrtra, and we downed it in about 2 hours. Would be significantly faster with a few more SMNs - the key is to have at least 6 or 8 BLMs outside of your alliance taking down the summons. This is technically "an add party", but really you're hovering around the 18-22 mark in terms of how many people you bring, and keeping the BLMs out of alliance is just to avoid any unnecessary clutter and complexity.

[Aesctaa]

It is all about how challenging you make it, the 'hardest' fight I ever did was solo tanking Khim while dual boxing the only 2 stunners with 7 characters total there including my 3, and only 1 ES elegy, with 2 other LSs waiting in full force for a wipe. But that doesn't make Khim 'Harder' than Vrtra.

I have never actually seen anyone pull off a win in the exact conditions i stated, we beat it(as have countless other LSs) with 25ish ppl several times straight tanked with no relics, but if you cut the add PTs away from that it gets very tricky in short order. Gjallar/Aegis/Excal could all probably make it doable, but that breaks the challenge. I heard of a JP group that did it with 18 straight up but never saw any details.

I, along with our other PLDs always did vrtra SJ WAR, did watch a few other LSs attempt straight tanking with their PLDs SJ NIN but with so much AoE coming off adds that dont get slept in time, and wing, and other things, never tried it.

Of all our tries we got flailed on at least half because of some unavoidable glitching, even pulling it slowly around the room as it summons and being careful, it can go off when you least expect it. 2 or 3 of those flails we recovered from and went on to win, 1 of them was caused by someone deciding to kraken the last 10%, that one wiped us.

[Therin]

Yeah, I've done two 6-man Khimaira; one without a RDM and another without a BRD. Both were very difficult, but very fun.

[richardd]

i used to hate the guivre SW on nin/rdm since it took a while to build up hate and didnt offer as much spike as /drk, but i pulled it off anyway. What made him a pain is the hate reset when he ran away, so i had to get 30 sec of spamming and recasting since he likes to TA alot, and let the blm go nuts.

One HNM i think is a pain to solo tank is Ouryu the -old fashioned way-. I need to emphasize the -old fashioned- a little because killing him manaburned is about as challenging as killing lvl 75 bunnies with relic. Ive had to solo tank him like that a few times. I cant tell you the stress and headache i get doing that particular BC. That one HNM must have improved my tanking to a degree where its a piece of cake to predict other HNM's and their TP moves including AV where i solo tanked it for 10-15 min. Something the majority of Aegis's cant do.

But the killing wasn't too difficult. And there was always a backup tank in case i went down, but thats where i stepped it up and earned my rep. So after doing it a few times, it wasnt a big deal anymore.

I never found Khim to be difficult to solo tank. He hits like a bitch. He was a HNM i had a lot of fun with, kind of like Cerb. I would draw out katanas for SS's. I even have a few SS's of me sitting/tanking them lol.

Idk.. the new TOAU NM's sucked too... Medusa was god awful boring. It was like tanking a robber crab. The hundrefisting gulool was kind of interesting i guess... but not challenging at all.

is there any challenge to HNM's nowadays? <_> besides the obvious 2? lol

[vivix]

Rich touched me once. It was hot.

[Hex]

There's a LS on Odin that killed Vrtra with 18. JP LS and they had 1 horn and an Aegis. They used triple PLD/DRK tanks with Aerial Armor. They did this last summer sometime. Took them three tries to get it down but they did it.

[Zumi]

My LS use to kite Vrtra we beat him several times this way, but then we wanted to try and straight tank him just cause kiting is somewhat lame and its nice to try something new.

Didn't win the first attempt due to getting overwhelmed by adds. But the 2nd attempt was a lot better and we won, we had 23 people. This wasn't a meele burn either we had smns to damage him. Some blms for the summoned adds, and a meele party to clear the natural spawns in the room. This was almost a year ago too no atonement or anything to speed up damage from the plds. Vrtra might move a bit when he smns adds but its not enough to cause a flail or anything you just adjust to it when tanking him.

Vrtra is harder then Khirm for sure, doesn't even come close to being as hard as PW.