Absolute Virtue Information (OP Updated)

[Rhealana]

I think the point was it's more about coordination and planning versus "Lets throw stuff that will do a chunk of damage at it!"

As for lower-caliber DDs.. we only go in with 9, so we typically choose the most well-geared ones. The WARs typically parse pretty close with each other. Adding in the randomness of COR rolls, it can very well mean the difference of 1-2% total damage between all of them.

Hell, I'd be the lower-caliber DD, and thus I regulate myself to be an Angon bitch.

The zerg portion, if done right, and done efficiently, means AV only gets one set of 2hrs off at most. Lately we've got it down to the point where our second Perfect Defense set of SMNs end up Astral Flowing for no reason, as AV dies long before the first PD wears. So AV dies well under 90 seconds. 2 Amanos, that's it.

You guys are overthinking this trying to add complexity where it doesn't need to be.. focus on efficiency.

[Massimo]

All the retarded bullshit aside - a CFH won't really do shit unless you plan to kite it around in that mode until it depops. They can still take it when all of your people die, at the same % plus a few from the autoregen.

[Brutala]

Honestly, I think we're capping attack currently and he has a high -DT, or level correction which was determined to be applied after the cap, not before.

Note Gekko average and Kaiten average, since then Kaiten has consistently done better, which is where I draw my conclusion that we are attack capped and he has -DT or a bad level correction, I don't feel the attack boost on Gekko does much.

Based on that I'm trying to convince my LS to just throw MNKs at it without hundred fists now that we finally have 3 DNCs ready (keep one DRG and WAR of course). Specifically, I'm saying I would rather use 7 MNKs without their h2h merits than 7 /sam 2-handers with their weapon merits (assuming they're equally well geared and merited otherwise).

I see there's no 1-handers in the parse you posted other than the DNCs. Is there a reason for this? Do you think they would lack acc or wouldn't come as close to capping att or is it just a matter of what your members have best geared/merited? Do you think that in such a short fight having meditate and starting with sekkanoki (and meikyo in sam's case) overcomes any advantage a MNK might have?

[Massimo]

This is what makes it dumb, he will eventually regen his HP back, and there is no way in hell we'll be dumb enough to try and fight a bracelets mode Av that has over half his HP back.

Nobody's talking over half his HP. Assuming a wipe at <20%, people won't last more than a few minutes at best, unless they're really trying to drag it out, which was my point.

[FailureMidgard]

Based on that I'm trying to convince my LS to just throw MNKs at it without hundred fists now that we finally have 3 DNCs ready (keep one DRG and WAR of course). Specifically, I'm saying I would rather use 7 MNKs without their h2h merits than 7 /sam 2-handers with their weapon merits (assuming they're equally well geared and merited otherwise).

I see there's no 1-handers in the parse you posted other than the DNCs. Is there a reason for this? Do you think they would lack acc or wouldn't come as close to capping att or is it just a matter of what your members have best geared/merited? Do you think that in such a short fight having meditate and starting with sekkanoki (and meikyo in sam's case) overcomes any advantage a MNK might have?

Full post inc, but realize a mnk is lower on haste than a 2hander, has lower accuracy (from dex and no Hasso), and is missing a 2hr for free added damage. I do think a mnk may be able to compete, but I don't think it's ideal. I'm also not entirely sure if we cap attack or not. It depends on roll results perhaps.

[FailureMidgard]

Ok, trying to get this thread back on topic, here's -exactly- what we did, I'll add comments on what there is to improve potentially (if you have extra bodies). I'm going to assume that people generally know the information in the OP of this thread, though it isn't even all accurate. I'll briefly touch on stuff, even if it's mentioned there though.

Step 1. JoL, kill 1st half of AV's regen. Have to kill add pops until only Phuabo (sharks) pop. They always spawn Shark>Squid>Fish, and after you've killed each type 3 times, only sharks will pop, thus, you need to kill 9 add waves. If you want to be efficient about this, have melee just auto-swing and not WS, and you'll still have to have them stop before you finish (this is even without haste/bard songs/etc). Alternatively, it's a great place to skill-up (I capped polearm yay).

Step 2. Kill the 2nd half of AV's regen. This is done by nuking element of the day. We have 2 rdms CS-nuke, then nuke a bit longer after. As Kaeko/VS said, AV is getting back like 60hp/sec (or per tick, I forgot) even with fully locked regen. This puts his expected HP closer to 71k than 66k (~3600/min, most our parses are 70-72k damage done). We have our JoL tanks as pld/nin, just so they can claim and hold AV as soon as he pops. Rotating Sentinel/Fealty is generally enough to ensure we get enough nukes off to lock regen. If we have extra DDs around and the plds don't have to switch to DD, they may as well invincible to be sure.

Step 3. If Wynavs pop, they -need- to die. Just like Dyna statues, if you 1 shot them, AV and other Wynavs will not link. Just to be clean and not have random people die again and wait for weakness, we generally have a BLM mule ES -aga3 them, then melee WS to finish them off (at 10-20% hp). If you do fail and link AV, it'll have ally hate, so ya. They can pop while holding, or while saccing. The reason for this is Wynavs dispel, and if they hit your SVed Victory March, life just sucks (really, all your buffs are important).

Step 4. Saccing. Normal shit, I believe it's 3 minutes from passive to depop, we claim at ~1-1.5 minutes just to be safe (don't be stingy with xp, then have your sac person DC 15 sec before depop as he was claiming!). Note also he can manafont>meteor during sac. Meteor is a 30 range aoe AROUND HIS TARGET. As such, nobody has any reason to fuck up to this, put your saccer out of range behind AV and nobody should be within 30 of him. During this time, I'd strongly suggest putting up prot/shell for the hell of it. I'm not sure how much Prot helps, but it's dispel protection at the very least, and may save a DDs life past that. The zerg is NOT PD>win.

Step 5. DD optimization. A lot of this -should- be gathered from various posts by myself, Thorny, or other people that actually know WTF they are talking about. This section will be a bit longer.
A. Haste cap. This is 80%. You should have 43.x% magic due to SVed songs + haste (obvious). 10% Hasso, 10% Haste Samba. This puts you at ~63%, meaning you need another 17% on gear to cap (I'd go with 18 to be safe). This should not be the least bit hard to hit. Also, before someone brings it up, yes, top tier DD are sitting over this already. Feel free to swap gear out for other stats. I would strongly suggest DA/STR/StoreTP(if it drops you a hit, or gets you within taking 1 hit of dropping a hit) as the best stats you can add, followed by attack (jury still out on if you're capping attack or not). As a side note, it's worth mentioning these good DD's could also do with a dnc without capped Haste Samba merits, but eh, a lot of our DDs at least aren't at 20%+ haste, though I personally am.
B. Songs/Rolls. Should obviously have 6 SVed songs, and 2 rolls in every party. Corsairs are shitty DDs (sorry, no offense to all you corsairs out there) and should not get a spot in the actual zerg any more than bards should. Rolls we've been using are fighter's/chaos. I'm not entirely sure if fighter's or samurai's is better, but a lot of people fail to WS right at 100 and get an extra swing in with 80% haste anyway, so we opted to go with fighters. NOTE: If you have extra people, I would strongly suggest adding 3 more corsairs and doing 3 rolls per party, will go over exact timing later on.
C. Debuffs. Angon, Dia3 (at least 3 merits in it, we have a 5/5 rdm, nice for PW also), Tomahawk (haven't proven it works, don't feel like risking a kill, but this may be why we don't see the -DT that was claimed in the past, it's up pretty much full time, we have a warrior with 5/5), TH (tag from range, don't want the thf dying before TH goes up due to impact streams or meteor or anything, also don't want to make a party leader have to fumble around to kick him mid-zerg), Boxstep. Do NOT bother with feint unless you are using level 75 DD or DDs without capped skill.
D. Parry. AV's parry rate is fucking retarded. Sams don't bother with Overwhelm. Everyone as you're engaging spread the fuck around it. Our first attempt (27% wipe), we were all in front, and there were literally ~100 parries by AV, it's ridiculous. We don't micromanage this to the point we assign directions, but eyeball it and spread around him.
E. WSes. Really depends on your buffs. If you get a really good chaos roll, warriors can definitely get away with KJ. Everyone is ideally starting with ~300ish TP and Sekkanoki, keep in mind how Sekka works. The idea that you have to use a single hit attack bonus WS is wrong, though they are more consistent.
F. Timing. WS>WS>Meditate>Spam more WSes, about the time meditate finishes ticking, he should be between 55-65% (~20-25 seconds into fight). Use 2hrs then (~60% ish). Corsairs should be reinvited around 45-50% to run in, Wild Card, then drop again. Even if it doesn't reset 2hr, resetting meditate, giving free TP, etc never hurts.
G. Food. Red Curry Bun. Don't be a cheapass, don't use accuracy food (Ok, dncs -may- need pizza, the 2h DDs most definitely do not).

K I'm bored with "Step X". Timing:
Ally forms up as:
DD-DD-DD-Dnc-Cor-Whm
DD-DD-DD-Dnc-Cor-Whm
DD-DD-DD-Dnc-Cor-Whm
Whms put up prot/shell, note their DDs/Dncs so they know who to haste, then drop party, bards replace them. Call a time for bard songs, I give quite a bit of warning so everyone can plan ahead. Last sac occurs ~10-15 seconds before bard rotation begins. Corsair rolls begin 15 ingame minutes before bard rotation begins. Ideally, all your bards are /rdm with latent sets so you have all songs troubed, just incase. This will only help if shit goes wrong and AV gets off a PD or CS>SV>Virelai or a smn DCs and 1 party wipes. Whms haste their party while songs are going off. I mentioned earlier if I had extra people, I feel extra CORs would do the most good. The cors generally finish before the bards with the timing I outlined, and there is definitely time to invite 1 cor to a party to do a single roll then drop, it definitely ups that party's damage output.
After songs are up, bards and cors both drop, invite whm + smn to party. Again, AV is not PD>win, if he gets off a HF+BW in bracelet mode, he's doing ~200dmg/hit WITH PD up. Healing does not matter on the easy fights where shit doesn't go wrong, but it most definitely does when shit hits the fan.
Time is called for PD (only a few ingame minutes from current), people spread around AV to avoid parry. Engage time is 4 ingame minutes after PD time, so if you call :21 for PD, :25 is engage. It's still better to sync this so everyone is ready. Obviously berserk/Sekka before engaging. Make sure your whms start in range of PD, then back up a few steps after PD goes off. This is critical if the zerg ends up slow...you don't want the whms dying to a meteor, and after PD is off, you want them out of range to cure people if an impact stream or explosive impulse gets off.
Zerg starts, smns drops, invite "misc" people. TH4 (from range), Angon (if no DRG in zerg ally), and Dia3. After they apply their debuff, they wait 1-2 sec to not have claim, then drop. DDs 2hr at ~65-60%, invite corsairs to wild card at ~50-55%, they run in and wild card as soon as they are invited. If you have spare people that have rng, feel free to invite them after cors drop to like WS>EES then drop again, make sure they aren't in party at a bad time (we've never done this, but due to the previous conversation, I'm adding where I would add more people if we had them, this is up to 6 additional people we could use to help success rate, 3 cors and 3 rngs). I'm stressing that you want added damage -after- bracelets go up. You really want AV to use a single 2hr before bracelets go up, then never use a 2hr in bracelets mode (again, he melees for 200 through PD, HF+BW is a bitch and heals him quite a bit, MS hurts, etc). PD lasts 90 seconds, near the end, invite 2nd smns, it takes exactly 9 seconds for PD to go up from starting alexander cast, so start casting Alexander at ~7-8 seconds remaining on PD. This isn't necessary if shit went correctly, but you definitely want 6 smns, just incase shit goes poorly. Most our kills don't use the 2nd smns 2hrs, but a couple have. Do not rely on a cor 2hr for this, it's just dumb...
It doesn't hurt to have someone outside ally kill Wynavs (no idea why, Diaga seems to not be doing shit), but we haven't done that yet either. I stress killing the initial ones because you're just losing buffs for no reason really, if he summons Wynavs midfight, it's nice though because it locks his 2hr for a while.
The key to an easy, smooth fight is the same "lock" that was observed on KC zergs - if you damage him fast enough, he gets confused and changes modes a lot and doesn't really do much to you, furthermore, if he does a single 2hr before 60%, you can generally kill him before he ever does a bracelets 2hr combination. Initial damage is not too relevant except for the fact that he will 2hr somewhat soon, and you want to push him into bracelets mode asap after he does 2hr (we don't specifically try for this, but it happens on most our kills).
Ideally, you want dncs to be party inviters, but I'd take a melee you trust over a dnc that isn't confident. The only real reason is if CS>SV>Virelai's go off, a dnc can still do needed invites, whereas a charmed DD cannot.

We don't lock any 2hrs, I believe it's killable even if he does a PD, Invincible, or Benediction as his first solo 2hr (assuming 2nd smn line gets their Alex off successfully, we haven't had this happen at all, he <3 his wynavs!), or if he does a PD>Manafont combo at low HP. The only instant loss is Invincible>Bene at low HP. If you truly wanted to up your chances, learn the fight the legit way, lock Invincible, Bene, PD, and SV. Every other 2hr is pretty tame comparatively, but realize it can take a very long time to lock all those. Also, realize that if you want to ensure you lock those, you basically need to lock close to all 15, but if you do something like lock 10, then give up and Bene is still unlocked, you have greatly increased the chances that he will bene vs you...

Sorry if I forgot something, I don't mind answering questions. I still feel Odin will not help the fight, it's adding damage at a bad time and if you really need said dmg, I don't think you're going to squeeze out the damage need to kill it anyway. If you don't need it, well, as I said, it's adding unnecessary risk in pushing him into bracelets before he 2hrs. It's definitely still killable this way (with Odin), and will definitely die faster if you pull it off, but my point is it will lower success rate - so up to you if success rate or speed of zerg is more important.

[Brutala]

Full post inc, but realize a mnk is lower on haste than a 2hander, has lower accuracy (from dex and no Hasso), and is missing a 2hr for free added damage. I do think a mnk may be able to compete, but I don't think it's ideal. I'm also not entirely sure if we cap attack or not. It depends on roll results perhaps.

It's 78.3 VS 80. I know that at 75% you swing 4x as fast as without any haste and at 80% 5x as fast which is a huge jump, but hasn't Thorny shown the maths for a gimp destroyers mnk at 78% beating a SE apoc drk at 80% given capped acc/att in a zerg, simply due to low delay, DAs, kicks and extra benefit of fstr from having more hits? I'll dig it up in a sec.

Obviously, I'm going with the assumption a MNK can actually cap acc/att here. I guess I'll try to get them to let just me come on MNK and parse it this sunday.

[Scrooge]

but 5% more haste (20% haste on my sam, 25% on mnk, hasso is 10%)

Haste caps. Monk hits 78.51%, so it's approx. 1.5% difference.

[EDIT: Forgot haste samba wasn't exactly 10.]

[FailureMidgard]

It's 78.3 VS 80. I know that at 75% you swing 4x as fast as without any haste and at 80% 5x as fast which is a huge jump, but hasn't Thorny shown the maths for a gimp destroyers mnk at 78% beating a SE apoc drk at 80% given capped acc/att in a zerg, simply due to low delay, DAs, kicks and extra benefit of fstr from having more hits? I'll dig it up in a sec.

Obviously, I'm going with the assumption a MNK can actually cap acc/att here. I guess I'll try to get them to let just me come on MNK and parse it this sunday.

Well, to be fair, an Apoc DRK is one of the weaker DDs. SE helps, but realize Cata is giving absolutely no benefit whatsoever since every DD is capped haste. We don't have a Bravura warrior, but MS is really nice, and Sam seems to do better than DRK too. Both of which have a good DD rate too.

I definitely think a mnk can keep up, but I don't think they are going to be flat out better than warrior/sam on AV.

[fredjanx]

How many bullwhip belts have your shells gotten off of AV?

Spoiler: show

seriously...both of you, STFU.

[Khajit]

Thanks for the info. i'd figured most of the stuff out from observation but the Av parry rate is something i wasn't expecting. Shall i assume the sams without amano were using polearm?

[FailureMidgard]

Thanks for the info. i'd figured most of the stuff out from observation but the Av parry rate is something i wasn't expecting. Shall i assume the sams without amano were using polearm?

Nope. I'm sure a polearm sam is not capping accuracy with the buffs we're using. I'm not sure it's worth it. Most our kills have been Amano+Amano+Futsuno as the 3 sams, but we have used another sam a time or 2 (I think OAT).

As for the two-faced thing Fail, I explained that in the other thread this shit went on. You have members openly saying good luck on AV on BG and then in game, they're talking shit about it. This is really just the tip of the iceberg of it though, but only Bech and I would be privy to the further displays.

Again, I'm not gonna police people, what they say is -not- me being 2 faced. As Neo said, people wanted to CFH your first kill and he told them not to, that doesn't make HM 2-faced, it means people have differing opinions. I'm not gonna claim all of Resonance likes HM, they don't, but I have not once gone back on my word, and I have most definitely gone out of my way to be civil and avoid conflict.

[isladar]

Oh man, I haven't banned people in an AV thread in forever!

[Salmijr]

Spoiler: show

Shut

Spoiler: show

the

Spoiler: show

fuck

Spoiler: show

up.

This applies to the last 3 pages. /sigh

[Rhealana]

To add on to Fail's post.. yes, 1-2 mistakes even with a comprehensive step-by-step guide will cost you the win.

I was dualboxing the BRD sac'r and one of the party leaders. Originally I shot for 30 seconds before depop before pulling, and poof.. lo and behold my sac'r POL instance crashed as I hit Elegy macro. Now I play it safe and don't try to be party leader PLUS sac'r, and I sac every 1m30s, just to be safe.

We've had another party leader accidentally invite the wrong SMN, and PD didn't go off for them.. wiping them early in the fight. With only two parties active, we still managed to get AV down to <20%, but with bracelets up, the fight slowed to the point where AV was able to Benediction, basically saying "Fuck off."

We've had one bard during bard rotation not get a party invite even though the party leader kept spamming invites. I think there's a bug in FFXI related to this, if you invite TOO fast, it never shows up for the bard, and then you have to wait for a timeout before you can do it again. I typically delay 1-2 seconds before sending the /pcmd add, just to be safe. Songs started wearing as we tried to figure out wtf was going on, and that ended up being our original loss. (Plus me accidentally eating YCB instead of RCB. Yay 2x fuckups for the lolDRG.)

We've had AV Meteor the SPLIT SECOND between PDs, just as the first PDs wore and the 2nd PDs were almost done casting. Insta-wipe.

So the point is, adding Odin, or any other 'pre zerg' activities, adds complexity and introduces another layer to be able to fuck things up. We're officially 17-4 on AV, and 3 of the losses were from mistakes made by us, not by AV actually winning by hitting his magical "I Win" button. With PD, you're already mitigating much of his instant wins down to Benediction at low %s.. and even if he puts up Dodge/Invinc, a second round of Perfect Defense should be more than enough time to finish him.

We're right around (Fail can correct me if I'm wrong) 70-80 seconds for the full zerg from first attack to AV drops, where 2nd line SMNs prep Astral Flow but don't even get to start casting Alexander.

[darkepyon]

PHOENIX IS MAYAD

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Loved this one! I missed not only the big fights, but the crazy stuff surrounding them. Sucks I can't be out there beating up this freak with you guys. But alas, them's the breaks.

[Kaishen]

G. Food. Red Curry Bun. Don't be a cheapass, don't use accuracy food (Ok, dncs -may- need pizza, the 2h DDs most definitely do not).

I used pizza the first 4-5 AVs we did. I switched to red curry to try to beat Salmi, and still maintained capped acc. No pizza necessary for DNC!

[Eugene]

In the video of the attempt posted i saw wynavs fly across the screen, are they being kited or was that just some weird hate?

[Salmijr]

Like mentioned about, someone pulls them away, since they can dispel your 2hr'd songs, etc.

Bracelet mode wynavs is fun. He pops like 9 of them.

[Eugene]

Thanks for the quick replies