Feb 2018 Ambuscade Vol 1

I already commented on yt, but will also add it here, that stunning is indeed the superior method and very good idea. Not only you avoid it's tp moves, but also prevent ot from shield blocking. You can use various jobs to Leg Sweep duty though :) or like you suggested you can use BLU with Sudden Lunge.

Not here. There.

*Smackswithnewspaper*

we did the monk strat not so bad

Monk strat so OP you can carry 3

I will attempt Monk strat shortly but if memory serves SB set TP on horse and SC the main boss.

There's flexibility for a LOT of jobs this month, if anyone cares to include them. Subtle Blow is desirable, but as mentioned, BLU with Sudden Lunge/Feather Tickle/Reaving Wind, and SMN with Mewing Lullaby, BST with TP Drainkiss all can fill a vital role in a low-TP feed scenario. I also proposed the "3 Ninjas" method a while ago, where you just disregard a tank and have 3 NINs using Migawari take care of the dullahan. Never got to try it, but it sounds fun.

Reading some of this... there's no diminishing returns from constant stunning?

So a setup like.. BRD/WHM COR Tank DD DD DD should be fine? I'm thinking, march march minuet, ATT/STP rolls, sword tank and another DD rotate stun locking while the other two DD lay down the damage.

Fastest Pick Up Group Clear
Less than 5 minutes
BLU/BRD/COR/MNK/PLD/RDM

There is, from Leg Sweep.
You can get 3-4 of them with full duration, then it starts to drop.
I assume all other forms of stun, like Sudden Lunge, probably follow a similar pattern, altough I don't think any other stun lasts as long as Leg Sweep.

I think you don't need it for the Dullahan itself, but at least for the Horse you're gonna need at least a Madrigal. He's pretty evasive, Distract is not reliable because he constantly removes debuffs and he flashes everyone around to furtherly reduce acc.
For this strat itself, which should be pretty fast given you're limited by the stun diminishing returns, you don't really "need" a tank. As long as people use DT set and there's a decent healer.
Also keep in mind to make people circle around the Dullahan because people attacking/WSing from the front will do much less damage because of shieldblocks.


If you find out you can't kill in time before Stun gets resisted, another strategy you could try out is the "TP on Horse, WS on Dullahan".
For this you need a tank who's gonna hold them both, ideally a PLD.
Melee TP on Horse and ws with <stnpc> instead of <t>, picking Dullahan as a target.
Avoid debuffing the Dullahan because most debuffs proc an Absorb-TP from him, you don't want that.
Once the Dullahan is dead the Horse powers up but it's pretty easy to kill anyway (watch out to avoid WSing for a few seconds after he charges up TP moves, because that will heal him)
I find this approach quite safe for people who can't zerg using the first one.
In this approach the tank might die because of horse TP moves but it's generally not the end. Have the healer raise the tank and blah blah, can keep going.
Occasionally the Dullahan will still receive enough TP from WSs to use a bad TP move and kill everyone but as long as NOBODY TPs on it and just WSs on it, it's a pretty rare occurrence in my experience.

110% Clear Rate / TP Denial

BLU > Feather Tickle + Reaving Wind
MNK > Shijin Spiral / Chi Blast
PLD > Sepulcher + Holy Circle

This works well.
In addition of (but probably not in place of) the BLU's work, keep in mind there's also BST with Fatso Fargann and SMN with Cait Sith.

I dont' think BST alone or SMN alone are enough to take the BLU's place, but both of them probably can (or 2x BST or 2x SMN).
One of them can also work as a backup to help the BLU if he's having issues with recasts.

In that case I wouldn't let them TP though, with the TP denial just leave the MNK wearing full 75% Subtle Blow 1+2 on the dullahan and nothing else.

This is what we were trying to do alot last night, but I was the damage dealer on DRG. I'm not if maybe it was angled weirdly or if i'm just not strong enough, but I wasn't able to kill it very fast at all. Does MNK do extra damage to it? We were on v1 Normal too.

As a side note I should probably mention our group wasn't all godtier geared

This was my gear on DRG X_X.

TP:
ItemSet 397103
WS:
ItemSet 397105

How geared was the mnk ;o

No.
MNK makes sense only in approaches where you're trying to minimize TP feed.
Such an approach requires some of the stuff mentioned (BLU for Reaving Wind/Feather Tickle and/or BST for Fatso Fargann's TP drainkiss, and/or SMN for Caith Sith's Mewing Lullaby).
At that point you want a single DD on the Dullahan, and that DD has to be MNK because it can easily reach the 75% Subtle Blow Cap (feeding 75% less TP) and it can be paired with occasional Shijin Spiral for Plague (a debuff that slowly reduces TP on the target) and Chi Blast with 5/5 Penance (for 1,5 mins of TP gain reduction on the target hit by it).

With such a strategy the Dullahan shouldn't use any TP move at all, but that's the reason why you with MNK, not because it does super duper damage on the Dullahan.

It does a ton of damage on the Dullahan, actually. If the Bozzetto Dullahan has the exact same native traits as other Dullahans, then it takes full damage from H2h, whereas Slashing/Piercing there is a -12.5% penalty. So technically, MNK does deal extra damage to it. Dullahans also take +30% light damage. Now the slashing penalty alone doesn't seem to matter much on it's own, though, since I have seen 60k+ Savage Blades popping off from COR and BRDs. MNK can gain TP fast enough to 2-step light with Smite > Smite (before another WS goes off in-between) and then cap damage for 99k light, so they've essentially added a 3rd ws to the damage mix. I've done this a number of times this month, so much that I have pulled hate within 45 seconds of engaging. I even watched a Godhands MNK pop off some pretty absurd Howling Fists. But I think most DD can put out super high numbers; that's not unique to MNK (but just pointing out that MNK does deal a lot of damage to ambu this month).

The difference is MNK is paired with the exact things you mentioned in high Subtle Blow (across all gear sets with zero changes) + Penance, and then the 2-step light I mentioned above. So it's not necessarily that MNK is better in terms of damage, its super duper easier in terms of what you get collectively.

People have said it before, but DPS is so not really a high check in FFXI anymore. At some point, one job deals 95k ws and the other deals 85k, but that small difference in weaponskill damage hardly ever makes the difference. It's almost always the added utility and job benefits that makes one job preferably in a party slot than another.

Your gear looks fine for V1 Normal. it seems more like you need to address your strategy more than your dps.

May I ask how were you dealing damage. TP on Horse and WS on Dullahan? How were you doing this? Were you disengaging > engaging the dullahan > ws > switch targets, or using a simpler method like <lastst> in your macro? I ask because when I explained the strat of horse tp/dullahan ws to someone, they had no idea how to ws the dullahan while being engaged on the horse properly. They kept switching targets and messing up in an inefficient way until I was able to help them change how they were handling it.

Also, keep in mind Dullahans have access to Infernal Bulwark, which will always overwrite your Angon -% defense, which is another reason why MNK is beneficial because it can shell crusher at start and then apply penance, and the dullahan is less likely to use tp moves and overwrite that debuff.

FYI, you can subtarget on WS by going through the menu. Weaponskills/<your weaponskill> then it gives you a subtarget to select.

You engage the unicorn and go to menu to WS and subtarget select on the dullahan for the WS. After WS you are still meleeing on the unicorn. Repeat.

Yes, it takes an extra 3 menu clicks. Or change all your macros..

I'm aware you can do that through the menu, but fwiw, you won't be able to benefit from gear swaps if you are a vanilla/equipsets user. I had this problem for years as a vanilla user (going through menu just activates the ability, not swaps gear). The method I suggested works for anyone. An alternative to <lastst> would be using the <st> instead of <t>, but you're already changing a macro here, so what's the difference? Also, as <st>, you have to physically target the dullahan and confirm your choice every single time, which slows down your dps. <lastst> fires your macro the exact same way as <t>, it just goes to your Last Target (of a ja or ws).

Also, you aren't changing "all your macros", just your WS one. Or you can do what I did and just make a copy of your primary WS, in my case it was Victory Smite. I added <lastst> instead of <t> (again, I play MNK on equipsets and not gearswap). Boom. Done. You're only really popping JAs first and then spamming WS for the entirety of the fight, so there isn't any maintenance on your macros at all. One macro change once is still faster than 3 clicks every ws. The only thing to consider is after the dullahan dies, your <lastst> macro won't work on the horse (because the game sees the dullahan as your Last target) unless you first use a ja on the horse. Then it will work just fine. In this case, I just go back to my normal Smite macro.

More than one if you're single DD and doing SCs rather than spamming one WS but yes, won't work for vanilla.

Yeah if you're doing multistep, you will need to change <t> to <lastst> in all your ws macros (so 2 or 3), but as I said, you can just make copies and put it on another line specifically for this month. That goes back to why I answered Sechs that MNK was so much easy-mode. You can honestly just use Smite on repeat and get nonstop light damage, in which case you only change one macro and you are done.

I've played on equipsets for most of my FFXI time, so I don't ever assume someone is using gearswap, so I almost never make suggestions that are gs-only features. It's like when people say " fyi you can ws without being engaged" but forget that you have to have a gs loaded for it to work. Not nitpicking here, just giving my perspective

Initially we were doing "TP horse WS Dulla", i was using <stnpc> then <lastst> for the rest of the WSs, using Stardiver>Sonic>Stardiver to make darkness.

Darkness on Dullahan??

A key element to skillchaining is making sure you are creating a SC that exploits the enemy's weakness. Otherwise, if you're making a SC with an element that the mob resists, it will deal low damage, making the point of doing multi-step SC worthless.

Dullahans natively have a resistance to both Ice and Darkness damage (They take 30% ice, and 15% darkness, because they are darkness aligned). Your skillchain is Distortion > Darkness. Most of the SC damage is totally erased because of these resistances. Also, with Shining One, your primary WS Impulse Drive will be your hardest hitting WS, but the SC you're making doesn't use it; you're probably better off just spamming Impulse Drive for better dps than the SC above you're making, since it also uses Sonic Thrust which is incredibly weak.

A better SC would be something like: Impulse Drive > Camlann's Torment (Frag) > Drakesbane (Light). Or you could make double Light I think with Camlann's > Drakesbane > Camlann's. Dullahans take 70% of wind damage, but 130% of light damage, so you get more dps by doing Light SC vs Darkness.

Tornado Kick For The Win
Seen around 75~99K WS Damage

Crap I didn't know X_X... that.. probably explains alot. I was told that even with Shining one, that Stardiver would be the stronger WS for alot of things : /

Did you not intuit that undead mobs resist darkness. really.

Well I thought that SCs reduce resistances : o, since I was still doing a good amount of darkness DMG.. atleast I thought.

Skillchains with multiple elements will pick the element the mob is least resistant to, so darkness probably picked water/stone as its element.

Still undeads tend to resist anything darkness aligned(dark/water/ice/stone), while taking max/increased dmg from light aligned(light/fire/wind/thunder) elements, usually light/fire among those

To my knowledge sc dont reduce resistances, could be wrong