First time in Salvage

[Argettio]

Right you guys have finally broken me.

I have never done salvage, but reading up here and seeing some of the people with the gear makes it seem more obtainable than before.

So me and a few friends are going to give it a try. We have all done a lot of assaults (captain), nyzul, dynamis and limbus. So we have a broad range of skills, but none have done more than 1-2 salvage runs in picks or just for lolz.

Currently I am planning a Bhaflau Remnants run, as I understand this is the easiest starter zone.

I am proposing something like:
-P1-
MNK x2
BRD
THF
WHM
RDM
------
-P2-
BLM

1 of our MNKs has his BB (he will be our tank), are THF is TH4 and rest are well geared (sans any salvage gear).

I have read the most of the stats posted on here and intend to follow this guide (credit goes to Neosutra for this).

We understand that it won't go 'well', but having never really done it, we have no idea about what to expect.

Time for the wall of questions:
*How far could the above group get?
*How long should we spend at each rampart?
*Do we seriously stand a chance against the boss on our first time (if we skip some of the ramparts to give us more time)?
*What would you change in the group?
*If we had more people, what jobs would you add to the list?
*Would you recommend trying the Socket NM (if so, what cell?)
*What how much HP does the gear on 3F have? Would ES Thunderga III take off 5%?

Thanks in advance

[Wolfknight]

*How far could the above group get?
*How long should we spend at each rampart?
*Do we seriously stand a chance against the boss on our first time (if we skip some of the ramparts to give us more time)?
*What would you change in the group?
*If we had more people, what jobs would you add to the list?
*Would you recommend trying the Socket NM (if so, what cell?)
*What how much HP does the gear on 3F have? Would ES Thunderga III take off 5%?

in order:
Pretty far, though I prefer other DD besides mnk for alot runs
10 minutes if no pop go to the next one, if you get pop[NM] stay with it decent chance to see more.
That's Heavily depended on three things your mnk's tanking ability, how good support is quick on cures/para/haste/etc and lastly/most important if thf can pull all 10 gears no link and you kill all of them, then should have good chance vs boss.
For this zone that set-up is fine though other zones different jobs do better
No, only really worth in ZR
Not much since gears resist lighting but ES Blizzaga III should take off 10% or so.

[Argettio]

Thanks for your help.

We have SAM, DRG, WAR etc as possible addins (I am picking people out of my dynamis shell, so I have plenty of options).

Thanks for the heads up on the gears, as that could have gone very wrong if it got resisted

I assume the RDM would sub WHM, would SCH be suitable? It would require an JA cell, but light arts would nice. Or would switching between light and dark arts be a nightmare?

BLM sub whm or rdm (I am thinking whm for back up cures etc and -na spells)? And the BLM main job is crowd control and stuns?

[Derian_Ifrit]

Thanks for your help.

We have SAM, DRG, WAR etc as possible addins (I am picking people out of my dynamis shell, so I have plenty of options).

Thanks for the heads up on the gears, as that could have gone very wrong if it got resisted

I assume the RDM would sub WHM, would SCH be suitable? It would require an JA cell, but light arts would nice. Or would switching between light and dark arts be a nightmare?

BLM sub whm or rdm (I am thinking whm for back up cures etc and -na spells)? And the BLM main job is crowd control and stuns?

Sam/war is excellent, good damage third eye tanking etc...

rdm/whm is the way to go although having a whm/??? for Arrapago is nice due to there being only 1 SJ (2 if steal works on 2nd floor) until 4th floor which ideally should go to your main dd(tank)

Sch is pretty useful in zones where sub job and ability cells are plentiful as it gains 99% of its usefulness via sub job through the use of AoE buffs. From reading various forums a lot of people prefer rdm/whm as their main healer. (Check out Kaeko's blog theres some stuff about sch/rdm in salvage on there)

Blm when I used to do Salvage was always the last to get SJ, normally just did /whm for extra na/curaga

[pchan]

Time for the wall of questions:
*How far could the above group get?
*How long should we spend at each rampart?
*Do we seriously stand a chance against the boss on our first time (if we skip some of the ramparts to give us more time)?
*What would you change in the group?
*If we had more people, what jobs would you add to the list?
*Would you recommend trying the Socket NM (if so, what cell?)
*What how much HP does the gear on 3F have? Would ES Thunderga III take off 5%?

Thanks in advance

This group can do anything. If you want to add people, add jobs that require minimal cells to be useful like BLM, PUP, BRD, COR etc.

I would not recommend you to try this boss for a first try as if you don't manage to weaken it, it's very hard (double attack fr 500+ often etc). For 3F, you can just ES blizzaga or if no blm kill one gear while saving TPs and then unload on the second.

[Darkhelmet]

I'd recommend a SAM for your second DD as opposed to another MNK. Skillchains are very effective in Salvage, and it's always nice to have a provoke somewhere. More often than not, light and darkness will go unresisted, and it will occasionally do 200%+ on some mobs... Qutrubs and Wamouracampa come to mind.

MNK and MNK work fine though.. I used to run that way when I first started out and we were able to defeat all of the bosses with that, but having a SAM as a second DD should speed things up a little bit assuming there is no gear disparity.

[Argettio]

Good to know I am on the right track.

Thanks for the advice, I will post back to let you know how it goes (if any one cares)

Cheer

[Zeb]

Less is more. Do not have a static group of more than 8 people. Hell, 8 is too many sometimes. Make sure everyone in your static has read up on the runs before they go through the zone; so they know what cells drop on what floors, what the conditions are to pop each NM, and what each boss does for a special move. For BR ramparts, most people kill the rampart if it hasn't popped a NM by the time it gets 50%. That leaves plenty of time to do 2 ramparts down to 50% and the boss. It's very nice to have a job there that can whip out a polearm and go to town on the gears. If you try for the boss and screw up the gears on the 4th floor, still try the boss; it's not impossible, just a bitch if he does homing missile. Until you're group is comfortable with each run, practice your ABCs: Always be communicating. Read the strategies people have written out and just practice, practice, practice. And have fun



Oh, and don't let your group get complacent with the level 15 drops from SS and not lot them from BR or AR because they are easy drops, and drop all the time... When you need them, they're nowhere to be found.

/Have been trying to get the Njord's trousers from BR for a month now, for one of my group's members.

[Argettio]

Oh, and don't let your group get complacent with the level 15 drops from SS and not lot them from BR or AR because they are easy drops, and drop all the time... When you need them, they're nowhere to be found.

Don't worry, nothing will hit the floor.

We will be beside our selves with excitement if ANYTHING drops, and be pleased if we can pop the ramparts.

[mdkuser]

I'd suggest not doing bhaflau , but silversea as first. Bhaflau is really boring, cells drop a lot ( too many) and there is nothing challenging anywhere, you just wait for a NM to pop, its all about luck, and can discourage your group.

siversea is very well structured. A lot of cells drop. There is one objective per floor: pop and kill a NM. the NMs are 100% popable, there are many working strategies for each of them. So you could start doing a first run with objective to kill first floor NM, and 2Nd floor if time. 2nd run would be the same but try to get better timing. Then add 2nd floor NM and try to do 3rd. etc.

Arrap or zhay arent very good for starter lol, cause one screw up and the run is over, almost.

MNK SAM THF is my favorite front line, due to the three jobs being able to sc constantly with each other. The THF has to be a DD thf, don't forget lol, not TH guy. its important. They can do a decent amount of damage, even if they get gear after the first two melee.

[Uzor]

I agree. While Bhaflau is a very easy zone, it is generally extremely boring and not a very good learning zone. Silver Sea is a good zone to start with (it is actually the first boss my group killed). It drops plenty of cells, but still isn't the easiest zone to do. imo it is also a much more fun zone to do then Bhaflau, even though the drop rate sucks in it.

As for your questions, your group could do all zones with ease. Unless a NM pops before 50%, it is generally better to move to the next rampart after half of it. Never use Thundaga on gears as they resist it, but Blizzaga III could easily take out 5% of 2 gears HP. And the only cell you should dupe in Bhaf is, imo, STR, as that seem to be the stat that drops the least, at least for us.

[Argettio]

That's like saying City Dynamis is boring.

It is once you have done it a few times. But the first time do it, you shit bricks and time flies by.

I understand where you are coming from, but 'so easy it is boring' is exactly the type of zone I want for our very first run.

I can easily arrange an SSR run for next time.

People are keen despite me down playing our chances of doing anything meaningful. I am sure peoples 'This is a new and interesting event' mindset will get us through the first few runs. After that, it become sink or swim for the group.

[KSDI]

When it comes to deciding whether to bring other mnk as second dd or bringing a sam or whatever, it really is going to depend on what your group has available to it, once you get used to salvage, you'd be surprised the odd and goofy job combinations that are still able to take down any salvage boss. I'll say this though, when you are thinking of bringing dd's make sure they really know the job and they're not just some band-wagon sam that got the job to 75 last week. They need to know how to survive on the job, the majority of sam's out there only know how to pull out ws's at bird camp and a good amount of them are even shitty at that. And the reality of it is on the climb up any competent dd will do fine, most pulls are done meripo style anyways, the only time it makes a difference for me is for boss, if the person can share hate with me on mnk so that either of us can take hate if one gets in trouble you'll be fine, if not you might run into problems, mage might take hate by cure bombing, or that dd might get killed because boss decided to triple attack with crits.

Also, a tip I wish someone had stressed to me when I was starting salvage, you will live and die by the clock in salvage. whoever is leading a zone should have a timeline of how long they want to be on each thing and which time you want to port to the next floor by. When you first start you may not hit all your targets, if you're doing bhaflau you have to decide how long to stay on this or that rampart before moving on. Keep to your time table. As your group starts getting used to the zones you'll start getting much more done within the time frames you set for yourself till all of a sudden you realize you can complete all your objextives in a zone and didn't feel like you were pressed for time in any way.

Oh and yea, you might hear some people here say shit like "If you don't clear the entire zone + boss with 20 minutes left you should just uninstall and gtfo" or some derivative of that type of thought, don't listen to them, they like to exaggerate to make themselves feel bigger in the pants. Don't expect your group to be rocking the shit out of zones when you first start, some of the people here have been doing salvage daily for years now and think saying stuff like that makes them sound cool.

[Korremar]

In my opinion, Bhaflau is a nice zone to start on, because it's extremely forgiving. Killing the gears that weaken the boss in time is a pain on occasion, depending on your setup, but to be quite honest they're completely unnecessary if your tanks know how to handle the boss. We've killed him without him getting off a single Homing Missile. You just have to move to his sides immediately whenever he turns towards someone.

Technically I'm lying, he did get one HM off, but that was on only the BLM, when he pulled hate about halfway through the fight.

Also, though admittedly a bit cell-dependent, a SAM/NIN can tank anything as well as a MNK can in Salvage, in our experience. We've killed LBC with 2x SAM/NIN, since our MNKs were out that night. SAM and MNK can Gekko > Asuran, or the other way around, for a pretty hefty Darkness too. On lower floors we usually have our SAMs use Soboro to be able to open for the MNKs whenever they get TP.

As far as how many people to take in, some others have commented on not taking more then 8 in at any given time. IMO, that is also entirely dependent on who you have in your group, what jobs they're on, and how they work together. We normally enter zones with more then most people would; if people understand that they may not get many cells, and are still willing to go, there's not that much of a reason NOT to. An extra body can always be useful, whether it be to grab a link off of a bad pull, or for an extra cure or -na or something like that. It'd still be ridiculous to take 15 or something, of course, but with 11 we've farmed 1+2 rampart to ~30%, killed 7/10 gears+chariot, and the boss, with about 20 minutes to spare, and we'd only been running for about a month at that point.

[Uzor]

Bhaflau is the exception of all exceptions. You could probably bring 15 without any problems at all. In Arrapago and Zhayolm, bringing more people is generally not a good idea. As long as you bring under 8 people it shouldn't be a problem, but any more then that and it'll slow you down. You're better of recruiting 2 more and doing dual zones in that case.

[Zubuis]

I personally just prefer a

MNK + MNK + DD + BRD + RDM + WHM
THF + (optional BLM)

where the DD consists of usually a WAR or a SAM/war

I just find having 3 real DD speeds stuff up alot. I say WAR or SAM/war because having the ability to voke stuff off the puller really is nice.

Having 2 strong MNK with capped penance makes the bosses chumps.

The BLM really isnt necessary but in pretty much all the zones getting another Magic isnt that big of a deal and the extra sleepga, nuking, stunning helps out a bunch imo.

[Thorny]

Get ventrilo and use it for cells. It helps a TON when you're new~

[Ehran]

I have never done salvage, but reading up here and seeing some of the people with the gear makes it seem more obtainable than before.

The zones are more farmable, than before but that doesn't make the gear that much more attainable. Hopefully your group has some understanding of the Salvage drop rates and have some realistic expectations about what it will take to complete different pieces of gear.

As long as you don't get discouraged easily, and you enjoy the company of the people you're going with, it can be a lot of fun.

[Furionstormrage]

Looking at your setup, put the THF in the lone PT and the BLM in the main PT, for Refresh.

[Fridell]

Whoever will lead the team, make him do much research to pass to members, and allow him to be an asshole, it's good to be for salvage.