VW Bismarck Strat

I just got my Tier II Hyacinth Abyssite, and I'm going to start shouting for Bismarck kills.

I have lots of experience killing enemies like Uptala, Ig-Alima, and Morta, but wanted to find out about one of Bismarck's mechanics before I started leading groups into battle against him.

Both ffxi wiki and BGwiki say that he initially spawns with 5 pugils and then 5 more can potentially spawn during the fight, up to 10 total, if they're held. From the youtube videos I've watched it looks like you have a pld pop, and then once the first 5 are on him, someone vokes bismarck off similar to a Morta fight. However all of Morta's adds spawn initially, there are no additional spawns later.

My question is, what is the preferred way of dealing with additional adds when/if they spawn? Just have a DD act as a secondary tank, and whoever has hate on them takes them to the side? Do they not spawn until a set time later in the fight, at which Bismarck should be dead already?

I appreciate any information that could be provided.

They will spawn for sure, PLD needs to pop Bismarck (or grab hate immediately from person popping) and hold until the fishes spawn. It is very important that no one else do anything on Bismarck until fishes have spawned and PLD has hate. At this point someone else voke Bismarck away and PLD holds the fishes for the rest of the fight.
Hope that helps you a bit, that's the only way I know but I'm curious to see if anyone else have more info on this, I've done the fight a lot of times and never used another strategy.

if he pops more adds you're taking too long. the key to bismark is damage. pld pops and supertanks adds, sch supports him and handles 2-4 and helix, 2 blm, nin and blu in the pld party. 2nd party is whm cor rng medium dd's (drg, mnk, etc). 3rd party is whm brd heavy dd's. mages use gnostics and focus on staggers, ng/cor/nin/blu keep steady low emnity damage, dd's just keep the heat on.

as long as you don't invite total gimps and boot people who talk endlessly about how drunk they are while taking the boat, you'll do fine. I've killed bis x6 with mostly randoms in less than an hour plenty of times.

Thanks, this was the question I was trying to figure out. I can normally build good enough groups that we can kill a morta or Ig-Alima quick enough. I just wanted to make sure that, like 30 seconds after we pull it off the pld that it won't pop 5 more pugils...

I won't say I'm an expert, but the only time I have seen it pop more adds was well after we got the 15 minute warning while is was ripping through the mages a 2nd time.

In my experience, PLD claims Bismarck immediately after pop while everyone else pops fans, and then everyone stands there. Adds pop, PLD runs to the rocks with the adds while a DD vokes Bismarck. Unfortunately, also in my experience, if the fight lasts much longer than 10 minutes the assembled PUG is missing quality BLM or DDs (or both). I don't usually suggest being super strict in your actual pick-up shout, but the few times I've done it all my success has come recruiting *only* Magian Trial Stave BLM and DD/support staff who are 3x 15/15 atmacites in my shout.

Also, I hate to say it, but the absolute best strat for Bis is to find people willing to chip in for phase displacers and then assemble a standard 16/18 VW party with extra DD as PLD and extra mage as WHM. Kill speed is a big deal for me, and certain PUG without PD is almost assuredly a grind with a chance of getting screwed and failing between 40-10%.

Thanks everyone for the input. I myself wanted a decent strategy since nobody shouts for VW anymore due to new content. I think with the new gear this will be easier to kill.

a 700 damage weapon doesn't make people pay attention or use temps correctly. if anything i think Bismark just got harder due to all the inexperienced dd's getting ahold of delve weapons.