Ambuscade Volume 1 - December 2018

The smn I bring only has to do 3 mewings top. The rest of the time they can help do some damage or buff dd's.

If you are tanking on RUN try engaging the megaboss but have the adds lined up infront of you as to parry them but be out of range of the aoe's from mega. Make sure geo has a wilt on you either by entrust or indi. Doing this I never get killed.

I do want to second how nice bringing a pimp thf is. Perfect dodge for endeath part and then can steal it's PD.

Best strat is going to vary.

Quickest but highest risk: Pure kiting.

Quick and relatively safe: Mewling adds and zerg boss.

Slow and steady: Split adds no more than 2 per person and kill.

What works best depends what youve got. So far, I've seen 100% failure rate with kiting, on all difficulties. Also about an 80% failure rate on splitting adds on anything over easy. No shout i've joined has tried mews.

Absolute failure on any method with shouts this time. Even a 4 pup group couldn't *** pull it off. that should've been actually impossible to fail... and yet, they managed to do it.

Have to love asurans. it would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic.

I've actually had decent luck (for D) with pubs, but my friends and I get 2-3 pubs at most. The kite strat is just annoying as hell because I haven't found a decent kite path for them, there probably isn't one. If I get a rez while doing kiting strategy I haven't found it difficult to get aggro back at least. Just sick of that one *** astrologer that decides he wants to clip through the side of a pillar then 1 shot me.

Why?

Cheap beer, beautiful women?

Kill first set of adds, kite last set while your team rush's the final 30%.

This is the simplest way with the least number of moving parts. It's slightly longer then the "kite forever" part but the dangerous time is very short and even if someone dies the team can kill the MB before complete wipe turning it into a win.

@Schroe

I reccomend, as others have, that if you do decide to tank and mewing to have the healer and DD (and possibly silence role if the SMN doesn't have good gear) filled by RDM/NIN. You get the powerful slow 2 to combine with the elegy, and their pitiful attack will only really suffer in white damage, which while suboptimal will be good enough. It puts a fair amount of pressure on that RDM, but anyone who is used to playing red mage should be accustomed to that level of responsibility.

I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but it's hard to overstate the difference something like that makes, I've never seen a NIN get killed by the megaboss if it has Sab slow 2 and elegy on it, it seems almost impossible if the NIN has a pulse.

This strategy has nearly same level of risk as "kite forever" strategy for pt without good dps lol. The risk of wipe isnt just endeath, but mostly TR during kite because of lag or whatever.

Mew is the best overall strategy for vast majority of people.


Probably because Ruaus video uses kiting strategy so everyone follows. But that kiting path shown in the video doesn't seem TR proof without pos hack from my experience. I'm not sure if that's just pure luck in a pt with strong dps or pos hack was used at this point.

I'm well aware. The video is the only thing anyone will try to reproduce. Always annoying.

Kiting is too much work, just get defensive songs from the bard, stand in another corner while you get hit for 0 and the smn just mews.

RUN NIN NIN GEO BRD/SMN RDM/SMN is fairly safe at the expense of killspeed.


RUN casts foil when the adds spawns at 80% ish and pull them to a wall/pillar to position them in front and tank them. Ideally engage one that you can avoid swinging at and face the others. The nukes will still hurt but it seems to favor ice nukes mostly and they can be silenced. Barblizzard yourself if you don't have a WHM to cast it. (note I've seen them cast thunder too). Make sure you are far enough away that your actions don't pull hate on the Bigwig. Especially sub 30% where it seems to have a hate reset.

NINs on bigwig. Hide behind shadows to avoid death and dying sub 30%. Once it hits 30% try and time your WS right after the drain TP move, it seems to be a hate reset and if you don't get hate back fast the bigwig will go on a journey, potentially triple reversing someone. Sub 30% you won't be getting heals so the bigwig can't drain HP back from you. You'll end the fight with single digit HP.

GEO. Frailty on the Bigwig. Wilt on the adds. Can help silence stuff if the RDM/healer isn't able to. Can Entrust a spell (Defensive spell on RUN if needed or Fury on the Ninjas). Can help cure the RUN, Wake people if they get caught by sleep. Note that GEO can't have Cait Sith and Luopan out at the same time so they can't be your Mewing Lullaby. Be ready to kite if the RUN dies.

RDM keeps slow2 on Bigwig (prevents animating wail). If you don't bring a RDM your Bard will need to spam Finale to remove the haste. Haste2/Refresh2 or 3 on whoever wants it. Casts Silence on the Astrologers. Need to watch for Sleepga2. Use mewing Lullaby in rotation with the Bard. Cure the RUN as needed. Don't cure the NINs once it hits 30%. This slot is fairly interchangeable with WHM, SCH, SMN, RDM. If the RUN dies you can kite the adds. BG wiki says the bigwig can cast utsusemi: san sub 30% so probably have to silence it too.


Bard. I was casting Honor March/Blade Madrigal/MinuetV/MinuetIV when we had a RDM. Honor March/Victory March/Blade Madrigal/MinuetV if we didn't for the Ninjas. A second madrigal may be needed depending on how much acc your ninjas have. I also cast defensive buffs on the RUN. Usually MinneV/MinneIV/Scherzo/Ice Carol. This might not be necessary depending on if your RUN is having trouble or not or whether you have GEO. I would recommend some combination of defensive songs though. You can throw Soul Voices at it to speed it up but shouldn't be needed. Make sure to Elegy the Bigwig, and Finale it after animating wail if you don't have Slow2. You can also Elegy the adds. This is more to slow their TP feed down than because the RUN needs it. Mewing lullaby in rotation with the other /SMN. 2 mews seems safer than 1 unless you bring a main SMN.

Massive priority on mewing lullaby. The largest danger is the adds getting TP and using triple reversal and killing the RUN. If you pay attention this should never happen though. The other danger is simultaneous Nukes on the RUN. This is less of a danger but keeping the Astrologers silenced negates it. Everyone except the Ninjas can stay out of range of the drain move at < 30% so they don't heal the boss.

So it's not the fastest set up. Should still clear on VD in under 10mins. Obviously dropping the COR hurts but the danger in the fight is the RUN dying and GEO can help with that. You could potentially change GEO to COR with SV Minnes on the RUN but the RUN living is the key point of the fight.

There's a lot of leeway to change jobs. The 2nd NIN can probably be a DD, although 2 NIN allows for one to make a mistake. And you can mijin weakness off.

The RDM can be another mage but slow2 is nice for preventing Animating Wail.

I think the boss can be stunned so Shock Squall or Sudden Lunge are potentially good options too, but I could be mistaken. BG wiki says it can't be stunned on VD but I didn't try.

The setup is fairly forgiving. Most of the pressure is on the RUN to survive and the rest don't need to be perfectly geared. I'd imagine PLD would work too but you need to be careful, the nukes hit hard especially if you can't change out of Ochain.

This is correct. We had smn spam shock squall and I saw the NM stunned msg in chat log.

I think stun does help because majority of death during endeath stage happens after Gen'ei Ryodan. This move removed all the shadows and stuns DD. If other DD didn't provoke nor do enough dmg to get hate back immediately the stunned DD will die.

If NM is stunned or super slowed, then it will buy time to recast shadows after stuns.



Agree with this. I've used dnc+war as DD and avg about 6-7 min VD wins, also seen Sam+war and avg about 7 min too. All DD job works and it doesn't have to be "nin only". Just bring whatever that makes your friend or lsmate happy.

Like wise also used rdm, whm, geo as silencer or tank healer. All these "we only use nin" "need rdm" needs to stop lol.

These PUG kiters are gahbij

I wouldn't say so....I feel it's Lamia ambu all over again.

"These PUG tanks are garbage!!!"

"Our tank have no problem tanking it!!! If you can't you must suck!!!"

/Uses react.

That's why nobody wants to play tank anymore. More work than every other job, got called garbage more often. I wasn't surprised when people said tanks are harder to find in PUG than whm.

I'm glad I've only had to kite with friends at the moment who don't really give a ***if I get floored and we wipe as a result. What I've experienced kiting is that the mobs will regularly break off and go the opposite direction, or the spellcasters will recover from silence, cast and stagger their pathing and also go the opposite way thus cutting me off in my kiting path, this can sometimes end up with a Triple Reversal.

If it wasn't for that then there's no other issues, hate isn't a problem at all so really, if you kill quicker then you're less at risk of this dodgy pathing killing your tank.

This is like Lamia month.

The only people who could tank that ***100% w/o a mistake were cheesing with React.

Just like you aren't going to be able to kite this one w/ 100% reliability w/o Clipper.

If your friends or PUG kiters die, it doesn't mean they suck. It means just the opposite actually. They're awesome for not being cheaters.

Rema nin x2 (Pull to starting corner),

geo (indi wilt stay with pld, Geo frail on boss, silence blm and cure pld),

brd/whm (march x2, Mad x2, stays with nins),

smn (stay with pld, spam mew and cure pld),

ochain pld (pull adds top right corner).

super easy, 9min everytime. success with 9+ Pugs.

easiest VD method imo

If you ain't cheatin' why you still playin'. Atma of the BlueCrab go.

No, but for real though, it's not even that. Crimson legs are more than sufficient. Most of the kites are just straight failing to retain enmity. Or failing to maintain silence(not kites fault) I keep seeing people go "just take one action then run them in the circle". No. They just don't listen. it's nothing like lamae. There is nothing in the game that uses kiting, just out of practice and have nothing to try it with.

The last time kiting was an active strat was 10/2016 (first frog) and before that....? Um... I couldn't even tell you lol.

People just CANNOT follow simple istructions. Guess what, moogle ambuscade is coming up. Dullahan is coming up. Remember how fun those were? Simple *** fights... hundreds of idiots that can't follow directions.

We're talking about NPC pathing though, not enmity generation. If your tank is doing one action and expecting to hold hate for the duration of the fight then yes, they are an idiot and I don't think anyone is refuting that.

Losing enmity on one or two adds will not cause wipe. It happened in a few runs and DD just let the tank know in chat and tank would grab them. Wipe didn't happen.

And yeah, we are talking about if 100% fail proof kiting path even exist or not. I think a strategy that will only be successful in 4-6 min runs, which seems to only doable with empyrean DD or mnk shouldn't be standard strategy nor a way to judge tank player "skill."

Last page Byrne mentioned casting Distract III on boss, but I just wanted to note that even with an R14 augmented Murgleis and nearly BiS MACC gear I wasn't able to land it on the boss even with multiple castings. Ice Threnody from a BRD didn't help, either. Granted, I was eating Sublime Sushi instead of MACC food as I was meleeing, but I don't think it would help much unless you're eating Marine Stewpot (which is risky unless you've got gil to burn).

Also, a very reliable and safe strategy for lowman groups with mostly mules that works for D and doesn't require using speedhacks is the following: PUPx2 COR SMN PLD and any mage capable of Silence. PLD tanks adds in corners with SMN mewing while dual PUP engage matons on boss in the center, as pets are immune to the Qutrub's Endeath, unlike Wrathare's.

Maton setup is Beast/Companion's; VE head/SS body; Wind/2x Fire; dual Inhibitors but no Speedloaders (skillchains always cap dmg and Speedloaders just slow them down) and just let the matons continuously 3-step skillchain on boss. At around 50%, the boss will PD, after which you can switch to Light/Thunder/Fire and use OD to zerg down the remainder of the boss's HP. The 3m20s duration of OD is enough to take out about 50% of the boss on D with 10-15s of duration to spare. A PUP/RDM should also Diaga to wipe Utsusemi: San shadows.

It may be kinda slow compared to using real DD setups, but it's pretty safe and easy as you don't need to worry about Triple Reversal, shadows, endeath, dispels or the like. And OD is pretty easy to reset with Wild Card as even a 5 will work.

Asuran pups can't do 2000 dps they'll time out.

Well, if you have a decent PUP you only need one more for the strat above, rather than the 4 total you tried with previously.

RUN seems to /pld for quick JA grabbing hate when they pop.

I've been subbing BLU. Grab all the adds as they pop Reprisal > sentinal > geist wall > rampart > jettatura > geist wall > fealty then kite and I won't lose unless I die. Only had one run where I didn't die while kiting though.

Has anyone, a single person won more than once with random *** luck without using speedhax to kite. without mewing.

I've won multiple times in a row with a non-hacking kiter, he died, my GEO took over kiting and we won. This happened 2-3x in a row one night. The original night I won 5x I'm not sure if the kiter was cheating or not, he was a pug and new to the server.

While kiting, I've found myself very likely to die even if the second round silence is immediate, but it's easy enough to get enmity back. Going to try the mewing strategy with some friends.

Just take 2 kites forehead. one for the blm(s) and one for the darks. (I meant for this to be a joke, but when I think about it, that might be the actual idiotproof strat... put literally anything on astrologer kite, pld/run(no aoe enmity! you'll *** up the astrologer kite) kite 2 darks, 2dd + cor/brd healer)

It should seriously be impossible to lose this way on E-D