Absolute Virtue Information (OP Updated)

[shepardG]

The "straight tank JoL" idea is completely devoid of any sensibility...

LOL, I hear ya brother, but so far as the commumity is concerned, this entire mob is devoid of sensibility. .. :/

[Taruking]

Even with AV's regen fully sealed, even with PUPs ADDing him to prevent idle-time regen, AV still gets enough passive regen to make every second that you don't have a full ally on him hurt.

Is it possible to seal AV regen completely? I don't recall seeing SE members throwing elemental nukes at AV when they tried to match AV's 2hr.

[Mojo]

I don't think so, although it can be reduced to the point where zombie tactics are feasible.

[Hogie]

I dont see why people keep saying fighting JoL at its pop site and AV at pop site is useless. It is the only thing that we have not tried that SE is clearly doing in their video. I for one am going to kick and scream next time we try AV to get us to try this. Its really not that hard to try, and quite honestly... if you cant kill JoL straight tanked and SE can.... we have bigger problems.

[Mojo]

Are you kidding me? Please explain to me why you think putting that 'theory,' if you will call it that, to the test is easy.

[willriker]

I don't think so, although it can be reduced to the point where zombie tactics are feasible.

yeah, but if your going to zombie... which has never been my favorite strat for anything... you need to have a method of piling on damage in one attack that will happen before you die. We know that melee damage and magic damage get hit with increasing -% down as AV's HP decreases. We still do not know if things like Spirits or ChiBlast get this -% penalty as AV is killed. This information is required before anyone can seriously expect 6-10 MNKs to zombie this thing down.

The main thing that prevented AV from being zombied, would be benediction. People would go through a, possibly, huge cost to their exp pool through this method. Then to only have it benediction all the HP back... Yeah that was the biggest hurdle.

Another thing that blocked Zombie tactics for AV would be its regen. Whats the point in having MNK's sacrifice thier EXP if AV will just regen 80% of it back before another MNK can Chi Blast again. But this issue seems to have been resolved. Well, at least it has been resolved to the point where we can get damage to stick to it long enough for progress to be made on a zombie type of strategy.

Now that it is known how to lock up Benediction and its regen, the biggest obsticale to killing AV is out of the way. The last obsticle is to find a form of damage that can take off a decent chunk of AV's HP per use. I am sure noone would want to be a MNK Zombie Chi Blasting AV for 300 damage per death. But Chi Blasting for 800-1500 is an entirely diferant story. We need to find out if Chi Blast can pump out enough damage at lower HP %'s to see if this tactic is even viable.

Honestly, noone has tried to Zombie AV down. Especialy not since we found how to lock AV's Benediction.

I know i am not saying anything new here. Its all common knowledge really. Most of us know that AV can be killed with enough poeple zombieing it. however the damage placed on AV per Zombie death... was unremarkable. I would even say it was prohibitive. What might be new is the knowledge that Chi Blast hits for full damage.

But does Chi Blast hit for full damage even as AV's HP is decreased? I dont think it is too far of a stretch to say that Chi blast damage will be reduced as AV's HP% decreases... just like everything else. If you guys are serious about that strat... well need to know how much damage we are looking at doing with chi blast at lower %'s of AV's HP. Then a realy strat can be developed or abondonded.

[Mojo]

I hope you realize there are solutions to all of the problems you listed that are already posted in this thread. Even if Chi Blast damage was lowered progressively, that function is not completely understood and does not necessarily prohibit anything. Also, if you were serious about it, you would bring more than 6 MNKs...

[Yinnyth]

Is it possible to seal AV regen completely? I don't recall seeing SE members throwing elemental nukes at AV when they tried to match AV's 2hr.

"Completely sealed" is just how I describe AV's regen after killing 10+ sets of JoL pets and hitting him with the magic number of elemental attacks. The times we fought AV, he had enough passive regen after we "locked" it that when he used benediction after us getting him below 90%, I believed his regen had completely returned. Going back over my videos, it just seems like the blms mostly stopped nuking after bene, and his passive regen was enough to keep him around 98-99%. In reality, "completely sealed" regen seems to be about 1% of his HP every minute or so.

Or maybe we just didn't kill enough pets and his passive regen is actually weaker than that. My LS pretty much assumes AV is locked when JoL summons his 10th set.

[Aquilo86]

if you cant kill JoL straight tanked and SE can.... we have bigger problems.

SE also killed AV straight tanked

[Thorny]

"Completely sealed" is just how I describe AV's regen after killing 10+ sets of JoL pets and hitting him with the magic number of elemental attacks. The times we fought AV, he had enough passive regen after we "locked" it that when he used benediction after us getting him below 90%, I believed his regen had completely returned. Going back over my videos, it just seems like the blms mostly stopped nuking after bene, and his passive regen was enough to keep him around 98-99%. In reality, "completely sealed" regen seems to be about 1% of his HP every minute or so.

Or maybe we just didn't kill enough pets and his passive regen is actually weaker than that. My LS pretty much assumes AV is locked when JoL summons his 10th set.

If passive regen is going to be 1% per minute, then you would need to deal ~2.7% or 1,890 damage per minute to kill it in an hour. It's not particularly hard to pop it and lock bene/regen within the first hour, and 3 chi's/minute with minimal chi gear(devotees mitts, kirins pole, and sapphire rings puts any race over 80 mnd) will get you 2400 damage. Given that you need to keep this rotation up, 12 monks with a ~4man support team for holding(monks claim every 20 seconds, means you'll need 3 claims per minute from support team minimum) and an additional 3 man or so raise group would be able to zombie it down. This is still assuming there is no drastic damage taken-% applied to chi, 20 seconds between blasts will handle the general nerf to physical damage and total damage potential is much higher than it needs to be.. a good monk can get >150 mnd for 1500 chi blasts.

Kirin's pole/raptor strap- 12
jasper tathlum - 13
af+1 crown - 21
promise badge/faith tork/morganas - 26
mamool ja/communion - 31
osode - 41
aqua rings - 51
melee cape - 56
moon sash - 59
af+1 legs - 64
sune-ate - 79
goblin mushpot - 89

IIRC, you can swap af gloves for devotees+1 on actual chi as long as you boost in af, meaning you can get +95 mnd with a perfect setup before songs. If you NQ everything, you're still looking at about +70. I suppose a better low end estimate in a serious AV attempt would be about 1200 per chi blast.

[Mojo]

Is Chi Blast affected by weakness?

[Thorny]

Is Chi Blast affected by weakness?

I was under the impression it was, all my numbers assume that you do your first chi unweak, reraise and boost -> next chi(3min and 10s from reraise), then reraise and wait 2:20 to start boosting so you're unweak before the next then repeat cycle. If it is not, it's even easier, though the real concern is a universal damage reduction applying to chi blast, as I was under the impression AV had one.

[Mojo]

Well, there are two damage reduction concerns. The first is when too many Chi Blasts go off at the same time, they will get reduced in the same way a that volley of timed Thundaga III spells would be. The other is what you're bringing up, that there may be some sort of universal damage reduction as Absolute Virtue's HP is lowered. Given what VS has reported on the matter, there it's a likely case. However, it still could be possible, given all of that.

As far as weakness goes, I'm sure someone with 75 MNK wouldn't mind trying it out. Double weakness Chi Blast, etc.

[Thorny]

Well, there are two damage reduction concerns. The first is when too many Chi Blasts go off at the same time, they will get reduced in the same way a that volley of timed Thundaga III spells would be. The other is what you're bringing up, that there may be some sort of universal damage reduction as Absolute Virtue's HP is lowered. Given what VS has reported on the matter, there it's a likely case. However, it still could be possible, given all of that.

As far as weakness goes, I'm sure someone with 75 MNK wouldn't mind trying it out. Double weakness Chi Blast, etc.

As I mentioned earlier, chi blasts should be seperated by about 20 seconds, pretty sure the universal damage reduction only lasts 15. I'm not 100% positive on it though, as I haven't seen any testing.. my major concern is that the universal damage reduction is going to hurt chi blast enough that the damage no longer becomes feasible in time frame.

[Taruking]

"Completely sealed" is just how I describe AV's regen after killing 10+ sets of JoL pets and hitting him with the magic number of elemental attacks. The times we fought AV, he had enough passive regen after we "locked" it that when he used benediction after us getting him below 90%, I believed his regen had completely returned.

Or maybe we just didn't kill enough pets and his passive regen is actually weaker than that. My LS pretty much assumes AV is locked when JoL summons his 10th set.

I am not too keen on zombie strategy either but if your LS can get AV's regen locked completely using pet jobs to slowly chip away AV's HP may be a safer option, at least on paper. Basically SMN and BST sub BLM, set homepoint in Tav safehold, use TP move/Bloodpact then warp out before pets are killed. It's probably the strategy which is least likely to cost exp if you can find enough players to petburn AV.

Actually I only asked the question because I was trying to work out if locking AV's regen completely has any additional effect on AV itself. When I went back to watch the video clips something not quite making sense has come to my attention. The first part of AV fight showed BLM throwing elemental nukes corresponding to current day, when they tried to match AV's 2hr BLMs have basically stopped nuking, considering they just used manafont it will make sense to squeeze in a few free nukes before it wears off. Perhaps once AV's regen is locked casting any elemental nuke on AV gives it access to Meteor?

[Mojo]

My friend reported back that he was able to break 1200 damage on Chi Blast, so it doesn't have any other resistances other than the ones discussed. If Chi Blast is unaffected by Weakness, then 4 minutes per fully charged Chi Blast is a conservative estimate as well. That would cap around 5 damage per second per Monk. Assuming that broken Regen is about 10 HP/second (this is within 10% of 1% total HP every minute), 12 MNKs would equate to about 50 HP/second damage. That equates to a 22 minute fight, although damage resistance is obviously going to affect that. You're going to spend about 30 minutes fighting JoL (pet killing etc.) and probably 30 minutes locking Benediction and breaking Regen. That's about 40 minutes of spare time, leaves a lot of room for error. It could be close, but certainly is possible (imagine how much easier it gets with more MNKs too.)

[willriker]

I hope you realize there are solutions to all of the problems you listed that are already posted in this thread. Even if Chi Blast damage was lowered progressively, that function is not completely understood and does not necessarily prohibit anything. Also, if you were serious about it, you would bring more than 6 MNKs...

sorry if i wasnt clearer. i meant to point out that nearly all of the things that held back a zombie strategy from working has been dealt with in this thread. If i didnt do that, effectively, oops.

The only thing left is to figure an efficient method of putting damage on AV. I am liking Chi Blast because it bypasses some issues that most damage dealers have. This and it can be a large chunk of damage per blast. not only that but the jobs are easier to find, so is the gear to make it happen. Not only that but it is numbers work with a decent chunk of time for some messups.

On the down side, those MNKs are going to need some support. just having 4 WHMs isnt enough to toss R3's around. to raise people roughtly every 20-30 seconds. Not only that but it might be a good idea to have a party whos sole purpose is to buff the MNK's. This way they get a bit more damage in to compensate for the damage reduction involved.

Another thing to think about would be that there will be a point where haing more MNKs would not do anything for you. If you have to wait 15-20 seconds between chi blasts, with a 4 minute timer, then 16 MNK's are used. Anymore and they run the risk of nerfing each others chi blasts damage due to the mana burn nerf. I think that 12 MNK's would be best. It gives you more leeway, allowing the manaburn nerf to wear off. But this manaburn mechanic limits how many MNK's you can use without them hurting each others damage.

That being said there is a maximum amount of damage you can pump out per second with this. So no, it does not necisarily get easier with more MNK's. there is such a thing as too many MNK's for this.

[NynJa]

50 bucks says SE nerfs Chi Blast much like MV was nerfed due to these talks, any takers?

[DrRuler]

50 bucks says SE nerfs Chi Blast much like MV was nerfed due to these talks, any takers?

Trust me no monk would care for more than 3 seconds, however it would show that SE's only interest in this game anymore is to have a mob that is wholly unbeatable through "legitimate" methods.

[Furionstormrage]

Are you kidding me? Please explain to me why you think putting that 'theory,' if you will call it that, to the test is easy.

Easy or not, it makes at least as much sense as everything else people have tried, and it WAS done in SEs video, god knows what's relevant and what's completely pointless in that video. (Until it's tested)