Random Question Thread VIII: Wait, There's a Sticky?

[ZhiGaruda]

taru
DONT USE WS or ABILITY ON IT, ie voke, steal, jump. berserk, SA, and such is ok.
as long as you keep its level low, its not that bad.
mnkx2 thf whm rdm brd is ideal. have mages /nin. add in another DD and more healers to be safe.
good idea to have melees use 2hr in the beginning to rip its SS off.
uses stonega so mages need to be careful.
can be done with 1pt. 8~10 to be safe.

edit: all five of the fomors have really low enmity ceilings.
also, taru has stoneskin in the beginning so mages need to be super careful in the beginning.
and iirc, casting magic on taru raises its level as well, so no debuffs.

Couple things here. How is MNK ideal? RNG can deal damage very effectively and never need to be cured as they are outside AoE range.

As far as I could discern from the fights we did, it doesn't have "stoneskin" in the beginning. There is a period of time when a melee first does damage that everything hits for 0, and after a minute or so, begins hitting for normal damage. However, stop for 2 minutes or so, and it goes back to 0 until you've hit it a few times. It's almost like, until you've got enough volatile enmity, you can't do damage to it.

I don't think they have a low enmity ceiling, either. We had no problem with the RDM/NIN tank keeping hate off all DD's going all out (occasional sidewinder/barrage, etc)

[Byphareast]

I dont think magic levels up taru but it does heal it if you cast damaging magic on it during a spellcast. The same is true for physical attacks on galka during a spellcast.

Hey Spart <3
You're right, magic was mithra's trigger.

For future reference for everyone else, here is the lvl up trigger for each NM
elvaan: PC casts buffs, including semi
taru: WS or Ability used on taru
mithra: magic casted on mithra
galka: i forget (anyone know?)
hume: when NM finishes casting blu spell

Couple things here. How is MNK ideal? RNG can deal damage very effectively and never need to be cured as they are outside AoE range.

As far as I could discern from the fights we did, it doesn't have "stoneskin" in the beginning. There is a period of time when a melee first does damage that everything hits for 0, and after a minute or so, begins hitting for normal damage. However, stop for 2 minutes or so, and it goes back to 0 until you've hit it a few times. It's almost like, until you've got enough volatile enmity, you can't do damage to it.

I don't think they have a low enmity ceiling, either. We had no problem with the RDM/NIN tank keeping hate off all DD's going all out (occasional sidewinder/barrage, etc)

do you think lakshmi + garuda should be called garushmi or lakruda?
i like garushmi. ZhiGarushmi? ZhiLakruda?

i find mnk ideal because of their high HP, high dmg output, counter, and abundance of abilities that doesnt trigger NMs lvl up. HF is extremely useful, especially when you're 6-manning it.

if you have a fairly large party then rng works fine too. have two rdm/nins stand apart from each other so taru NM will spend its time running back and forth, increasing the tank's survivability. rngs shoot it from the side. its a great and safe tactic.

im not going to argue on the SS part as both of us dont have concrete proof, but im inclined to think that maybe you missed it casting stoneskin.

rdm/nin's ability to easily keep hate off melees is because fomor NMs have low ceilings (or perhaps a super frequent hate clearance). have the rdm/nin cast ONLY dia and have your rngs go crazy and you'll see what i mean.

edit: actually, i think its that any type of magic has a higher enmity value than usual.

[ZhiGaruda]

do you think lakshmi + garuda should be called garushmi or lakruda?
i like garushmi. ZhiGarushmi? ZhiLakruda?

Not gonna lie, this had me laughing a LOT harder at work than I should have. Bravo, rofl. For the record, I think it should be Garushmi as well. Lakruda sounds African :O

i find mnk ideal because of their high HP, high dmg output, counter, and abundance of abilities that doesnt trigger NMs lvl up. HF is extremely useful, especially when you're 6-manning it.

if you have a fairly large party then rng works fine too. have two rdm/nins stand apart from each other so taru NM will spend its time running back and forth, increasing the tank's survivability. rngs shoot it from the side. its a great and safe tactic.

im not going to argue on the SS part as both of us dont have concrete proof, but im inclined to think that maybe you missed it casting stoneskin.

The reason I say this is that it's not just all melee's hitting for 0. If one melee is engaged and doing full damage, and then another one shows up, they will start out hitting for 0's, while the other is hitting for full damage. Try it out next time you go, have one melee begin, HF even if you want to speed it up, then have the other melee go in and start. They will most likely hit for 0 to start.

rdm/nin's ability to easily keep hate off melees is because fomor NMs have low ceilings (or perhaps a super frequent hate clearance). have the rdm/nin cast ONLY dia and have your rngs go crazy and you'll see what i mean.

Hm, I'd have to test more into that. I seem to remember pulling hate on RNG and tanking it until I took some noticeable amount of damage before losing hate.

edit: actually, i think its that any type of magic has a higher enmity value than usual.

Responses in bold, too lazy to multi-quote


Edit: Also, it is possible to WS/JA on the Taru without leveling it up.

[Byrthnoth]

when I duoed him for gil he never went over a handful. Usually 1-3 kills was all it took. Its just luck.

Wow, I must be reaaaally unlucky then. My first 8 kills were over 13 reraises, with one being 34. At the end of the 34 one, I had an alliance of BLM/NINs chain-4ing him. Then I helped someone kill it for themselves and obviously it didn't reraise at all and dropped cape. Last night I was basically just setting up for the next day and I killed a few Aerns to test out my new RDM gear, got animosity at midnight and popped/pulled him. Was killing him for 2 hours (15-16 reraises) with a bunch of friends.

I know it's not, but I swear what Zhi says is true. Ix'Aerns seem somehow programmed to pop at the least convenient times.

How many times did you kill him, Cooleko?

[Nemesio]

Assuming best evasion gear possible. Is it plausible to trio Byakko with NIN, RDM and BRD? LS mate says no, I say yes. Would love some evidence, perhaps a video or something along those lines.

[Nicholette]

Considered a rune chopper for Gaxe on war? In a zerg you can just use a yagudo drink if the mages are lazy so that removes the one thing that stops me always using it in longer events.

So would RC outperform Perdue during a war zerg? like is there actual number data that could give me and idea?

[Thorny]

Assuming best evasion gear possible. Is it plausible to trio Byakko with NIN, RDM and BRD? LS mate says no, I say yes. Would love some evidence, perhaps a video or something along those lines.

rdm x3, save yourself the effort

i'm sure it's possible though, i straight tanked seiryu's hundred fists in 2005 with eva gear and mambo.. byakko can't have that much more acc

[Nemesio]

I made a new char after about a 3 year break, but if I remember from parses I had him down to about 40-60% acc without mambo...

[Byrthnoth]

I'm not sure it matters if he's at 20% accuracy or not. Is your plan just to let the RDM DoT him to death? Because if that's your plan, it's going to be a long fight and the odds Byakko drawing the "I win" card dramatically go up. In a long enough fight, triple attack where all hits connect + Claw Cyclone could happen even with 20% hit rate. Diaga 3, Banishga 3, etc can remove your shadows.

If I was doing it with that group, I'd go NIN/RDM, RDM/NIN, BRD/WHM. NIN tanks in full evasion gear with capped recast timers, RDM DoTs, nukes, Haste/Refreshes, stays out of AoE range, and keeps shadows up. Bard does bardly things and keeps Mambo on the NIN with a variable second song, and he's responsible for Paralyna.

You'd be looking at a painfully long fight (multiple hours). Thorny's way (3x RDM/NIN) would be much faster.

[Nemesio]

Basically your idea of NIN/DRK, RDM/NIN and BRD/WHM was my exact idea. I feel it could be done, but like you said it would be very very long. Sadly I do not have 3 RDM/NIN's at my disposal, so this is my best bet.

[Khajit]

So would RC outperform Perdue during a war zerg? like is there actual number data that could give me and idea?

Rune chopper is already stronger than perdu when you have the latent on so i dont see how making taking the variable that enables rune chopper to be better and increasing it(haste) could make it do worse. If rune chopper is stronger at lower levels of haste(no Sv march from a brd to cap haste) and the more haste you have the better it gets then i see no real reason why taking that advantage further should hurt a chopper.
It was calculated previously on a what's better thread that vs colibri with 2x marches, chaos roll, haste samba10% and hasso assumed
that even a bravura cant beat out rune chopper until you own dusk+1 gloves and a speed belt for war. That's how powerful a weapon it is. you might not have haste samba in your zerg but if the BRD is using SV for victory march(sv on both marches exceeds the haste cap and makes the second song worthless if done properly) it should cover the "missing" haste.
That's the logic i have concerning that at least.

[Byrthnoth]

I'd consider having the NIN sub RDM instead of DRK. You trade Stun for Fast Cast to help cap recast timers without Marches and MDB. Stun is marginally useful on Byakko, in that you won't be stunning Diaga 3 and Banishga 3 (the one thing to stun) isn't really that damaging. If your RDM and BRD can keep a good Slow/Blind + Elegy on it at all times, you can probably bore him to death.

Edit: Also, in reference to the above post, if you're worried about not getting a Refresh during the zergs (I know we certainly don't rotate RDMs) you can wear Walahra Turban (30 MP) + Yagudo Drink (2MP/tick) and you should be good for ~90 seconds of Rune Chopper activation. It's a strong option for zergs unless you're already near the equipment Haste cap.

[ZhiGaruda]

I'd consider having the NIN sub RDM instead of DRK. You trade Stun for Fast Cast to help cap recast timers without Marches and MDB. Stun is marginally useful on Byakko, in that you won't be stunning Diaga 3 and Banishga 3 (the one thing to stun) isn't really that damaging. If your RDM and BRD can keep a good Slow/Blind + Elegy on it at all times, you can probably bore him to death.

So far as I could tell, the only way to reliably land Elegy on Byakko was with /BLM. /WHM could do it..just not enough to rely on for low man.

[Thorny]

I would use /drk. I consider stun an additional source of slow on Byakko, it averages around 2 seconds(haven't gotten into decimal places but was playing with it a while ago) on nin/drk. With a cast every 30 seconds, you're removing 1/15 of it's melee. Personally, I feel this beats /rdm's recast reduction.. though it's a matter of opinion and hard to say one is conclusively better.

[Vyrha]

Taking the advice of "lol level something useful you stupid melee" I've been doing blm solo camps following the guide on the wiki. It's been fun so far, but now I'm 40 and hate every single camp suggested. The Temple camp sucks because even without the cat in the way the pulls are extremely slow. The Castle Zvahl Baileys camp is horrid because it's all the way up near the keep zone. What are my alternatives here?

Yeah, 40~ camps suck.. Only advice I can give is find a level sync til East Ronfaure [S] or w/e.

[Byphareast]

Responses in bold, too lazy to multi-quote

Edit: Also, it is possible to WS/JA on the Taru without leveling it up.

Garushmi it is then!


Regarding the 0's, i've personally never noticed it, but since your claim is concrete, i agree with you in that there may be a certain condition for him to take 0 dmg. i say i personally never noticed because when a tank goes down i would run in to co-tank on THF and i never noticed myself hitting for 0s.

but then again, i havent done fomors in a while so my memory might have failed. ill try to do a fomor run over the weekend.


anyway though, you seem like a pretty reasonable guy. i guess the merger isn't all that bad after all. see you on Lakruda!

[Cream Soda]

Was going to solo another Wulugaru for my next Nuhn, but my friend expressed interest in Verdevlet's drops. I told her if it could be duo'd by mnk and rdm, then I'd be fine for it.

Should it be like a reg imp? Easy/hard? ect. What should I look out for?

[Yugl]

Was going to solo another Wulugaru for my next Nuhn, but my friend expressed interest in Verdevlet's drops. I told her if it could be duo'd by mnk and rdm, then I'd be fine for it.

Should it be like a reg imp? Easy/hard? ect. What should I look out for?

Bring to the lake near Nashmau and kite in a circle with Bio II + occasional nukes. He spams spells (Sometimes Agas), so be sure to note that. If you want to shave time, you could try HFing him when you reach the lake until your MNK dies then just RDM/NIN solo it (Or MNK with RR can raise up and Chi Blast + Kite).

[Cream Soda]

Would it be better for me to go pup? Or would it get hit w/ an aga before i could nuke and deactivate?

[Xera]

Should it be like a reg imp? Easy/hard? ect. What should I look out for?

It stops to cast even if the target is out of range making it stupid easy to kite and nuke on. Only thing you'd have to watch there to avoid would be accidentally running into an -aga that you didn't see casting due to distance. And even then I'm fairly sure Shell IV alone would be enough to survive the -agas.

I'm not well versed on endgame PUP but I'd think you'd be able to ADD to make extremely short work of the imp. It's a fairly simple ZNM, about on Par with Marid difficulty to solo.