Absolute Virtue Information (OP Updated)

[Virtuous Saint]

^ If they wanted to give it away it would have been a VERY simple statement in text, instead of a lot of wasted time making that video.

[Guitarman]

i'm still of a mind the jobs around av in the video were important. one of the blm was inside AV she was so close, that's not a cameraman. There were no shots of what the inside of AV's model looks like. and why the red mage up front tanking when it's the dev team; they could create an aegis/excal pld army if they wanted. I'm not saying that's the secret, it just strikes me as odd, that's all.

[pchan]

why the red mage up front tanking when it's the dev team; they could create an aegis/excal pld army if they wanted..

Why ? Because RDM tank it fine obviously. Also terra staff pld tanks it fine ...lol.

[darkren]

Did anyone ever cover the fact that in the video, they have 2 whm in melee range of AV at all times, and during bracelet mode a blm is underneath him? Seemed odd. Could be why rdm are meleeing him as well.

Odd the most damaging/annoying 2hr at AV's fingertips has someone of the same job under/in melee range at all times. why put your whm at that risk of aoe death unless it meant something?

did anyone test if the meteor aoe is like 1000 needles? ie when more people in range the damage is less. by that i mean do you have actual numbers to show.

[Kaylia]

did anyone test if the meteor aoe is like 1000 needles? ie when more people in range the damage is less

It's like any other spell in game. 1 player = 100% of the damage, 10 players = 40% of the dmg (or something close...i always forget the number), cap above that.

[Taruking]

How do people not understand the incredibly ridiculously simple notion that they were told to merely 2hr no matter what 2hr it was when they saw a dust cloud, so as to hint at what to do without giving the exact answer, thus the player base would still have to figure it out which took around a year I think. You see, they were all told to 2hr instantly no matter what 2hr, it is so simple to understand, so so so simple.

Even though personally I do agree this is the most likely explanation but there is still a small part of it that doesn't quite make sense. Assuming SE made the video legitimately, there is a 2hr wait for all members of the Dev team to mass match every single AV 2hr recorded on the video. If you count the total number of different 2hr shown on the video the fight could have simply lasted 10hrs+ not including the time spent to block Manafont and Benediction (not shown on any of the 4 video clips). They could have simply setup a "2hr rotation" and get their players to take turn to use 2hr and still deliver the message without dragging the fight too long. Of course this is only true if they didn't use any cheat.

Why ? Because RDM tank it fine obviously. Also terra staff pld tanks it fine ...lol.

At this point it's impossible to draw any valid conclusion from SE video without testing the theory in actual fights. One can argue that the reason why PLD tanked with terra staff is because AV uses a 2h weapon. As dumb as it sounds the fact is none of the members of AV team equiped 1h weapons and there is no way we can debunk it unless ppl actually go all the way out to test it.

[Mojo]

Thread should be locked. VS was nice enough to give the community some information about two hour locking and there was some useful discussions about zerging, but beyond that there will never be any good to come from this thread. Previous few posts being prime examples of why we can't have nice things.

[Taruking]

Thread should be locked. VS was nice enough to give the community some information about two hour locking and there was some useful discussions about zerging, but beyond that there will never be any good to come from this thread. Previous few posts being prime examples of why we can't have nice things.

I don't know how you can classify discussion about zerging being "useful". SE obviously want players to figure out the final gimmick themselves. If zerging is the answer to defeating AV SE would not have nerfed Bloodweapon or adjusted Modus Veritas.

The biggest challenge now is to find enough ppl who are willing to farm JoL pop items and make effort to test various AV theories. SE is aware of this and that's why they adjusted AV spawn rate and lower its HP, obviously still not good enough to encourage endgame LS to attempt AV fight on regular basis. Perhaps SE should introduce an ENM version of AV with shorter time limit, less impressive treasure pool and players defeated during the fight suffer no exp loss. It should help certain LS to figure out ways to defeat AV.

[Bartlett]

Please don't take away the place to report from me. lol
We had a test again last night with 12 people.
Another sea LS offered us the AV to test, which they usually dump.

AV's aggroing is still incomprehensible.
On popping, sometime he didn't stop untill wipe,
but the other time he killed only a few people then deaggroed.
I think he puts people randomly on the hate list on popping.
Last night, we let 4 guys leave from the main alliance on JoL death to make a new alliance.
AV popped with his yellow name and never attacked anyone.
Maybe he had put the exact 4 guys on the hate list and lost them.

Anyway, the test had no notable outcome.
We tried like making him face to the direction which corresponds to the current Vana'diel day (like north on Darkday),
meleeing by all the 12 people, curing AV, and do emotes A to Z. lol
After all, only we got was one CW "readies". I doubt our attempt created it.

During zombing AV, an Om'aern linked once. So one of us claimed the link created "readies".
I also doubt this and know some people already did something to Om'aern before,
but we are going to rush into the Om'aern stuff ourselves.

[Kaylia]

Even though personally I do agree this is the most likely explanation but there is still a small part of it that doesn't quite make sense. Assuming SE made the video legitimately, there is a 2hr wait for all members of the Dev team to mass match every single AV 2hr recorded on the video. If you count the total number of different 2hr shown on the video the fight could have simply lasted 10hrs+ not including the time spent to block Manafont and Benediction (not shown on any of the 4 video clips). They could have simply setup a "2hr rotation" and get their players to take turn to use 2hr and still deliver the message without dragging the fight too long. Of course this is only true if they didn't use any cheat.

Have you considered they might take a 1h30 break every 30minutes. Considering the amount of work in each update, I would be inclined to think that they arent working a lot.

[Furionstormrage]

Long time lurker of this thread, don't kill me for finally posting something.

Speaking for those in my LS that have talked about AV, (And quite a few of us follow this thread) we'd love to test any theories like killing JOL with straight tanks, killing Aerns near AV, killing Love at his pop point, anything to try to help.

Our problem is that we just don't have enough members to have this kind of JOL fight and then move straight into an AV testing attempt. We don't have backup tanks waiting around, or an army of random mages and melee to rotate around trying to lock 2 hours while another group kills Aerns, etc.
(And I'm not about to recruit people just to test random stuff that may or not be the least bit relevant)

Are we the only LS in this position, or do other LS' have the same desire but not the numbers to give it consistent solid attempts?

[pchan]

Anyway, the test had no notable outcome.
We tried like making him face to the direction which corresponds to the current Vana'diel day (like north on Darkday),
meleeing by all the 12 people, curing AV, and do emotes A to Z. lol
After all, only we got was one CW "readies". I doubt our attempt created it.

When you test like this, do you fight it the normal way ? as in, spam spells of the current day, 2H locking attempts or do you just test the thing you wanted ?

[Bartlett]

When you test like this, do you fight it the normal way ? as in, spam spells of the current day, 2H locking attempts or do you just test the thing you wanted ?

We locked only 3 2hrs, CW, CS and Manafont during the test.
We also want to lock SV and Meikyo but we don't use bots.
So we abandon these two.
Blue colored CS and white colored Manafont are easy to lock, you know.
I think those 5 2hrs are the biggest bothers for fight and test.

[Hogie]

Long time lurker of this thread, don't kill me for finally posting something.

Speaking for those in my LS that have talked about AV, (And quite a few of us follow this thread) we'd love to test any theories like killing JOL with straight tanks, killing Aerns near AV, killing Love at his pop point, anything to try to help.

Our problem is that we just don't have enough members to have this kind of JOL fight and then move straight into an AV testing attempt. We don't have backup tanks waiting around, or an army of random mages and melee to rotate around trying to lock 2 hours while another group kills Aerns, etc.
(And I'm not about to recruit people just to test random stuff that may or not be the least bit relevant)

Are we the only LS in this position, or do other LS' have the same desire but not the numbers to give it consistent solid attempts?

This is still something i really want to test. There are very few, if any reported cases of people killing JoL at pop location, straight tanked, and attempted AV at pop location. This is the only major change i can see from the SE video that we are not doing.

[Dramafinderftw]

Paradox is attempting this tomorrow on fenrir, they plan to zerg below 40%

[Mojo]

Stream it live! Or let me.

[BerenTebogo]

Can pretty much tell you how that's going to end (hint: we won't have to worry about the zerg part)

[Mojo]

Yeah...

[thetruepandagod]

Hoping for livestream hilarity.

[Yinnyth]

AV's aggroing is still incomprehensible.
On popping, sometime he didn't stop untill wipe,
but the other time he killed only a few people then deaggroed.
I think he puts people randomly on the hate list on popping.
Last night, we let 4 guys leave from the main alliance on JoL death to make a new alliance.
AV popped with his yellow name and never attacked anyone.
Maybe he had put the exact 4 guys on the hate list and lost them.

AV, and for that matter, all aerns have some strange party hate behavior. I don't fully understand it myself yet, but upon killing of their initial target, they seem to do a quick check to see if there are any party members nearby. If there are no other party members within their detection range, they simply deaggro.

AV, the 3 ix'aerns, and any aern that uses RR appears to briefly check the immediate area upon spawning/RRing for one specific person, and aggros that person if they're within range. Who gets flagged for the initial aggro is beyond my understanding as well at this point.

When my LS does JoL and doesn't have enough people to deal with AV, I usually bring my WHM mule along as /PUP with a valoredge that has strobe and flashbulb equipped. As soon as JoL dies, I kick someone from party, add my mule in, have her light or fire manuever, and deploy /wait 1 deactivate on AV the second he spawns which TECHNICALLY deaggros him, but some weird bug in his AI makes it so he continues swinging against his target until he finishes his monologue (usually about 3-4 hits I think). If his target dies before he finishes his monologue (after the pup deaggro trick), he'll full deaggro at that point instead of looking for a new party member.

One time after JoL, I accidentally kicked the person who AV popped with hate on. AV killed that person, then full deaggro'd because he didn't have any party members to hunt down. I would imagine if that person had run far enough away from JoL at the time of death, AV would have just popped with no hate at all.

If you're looking for an extra 3 minutes to organize yourselves after JoL, I would imagine you could get the same effect by simply finishing off JoL with ranged or pet damage and having everyone scatter to 20'+ before AV pops.