The Odyssey - || Strategy And Discussion ||

I'm sure everyone thinks I'm an ***, partially because it's actually true, but I think you missed the point.

If we can get a kill every week / every other week, then it's pretty tough to make the argument that these fights take months to clear, even if you're the bestest boys.

There are TONS of videos of every V25 boss if you need ideas to build your strategies off of. I did this for all of my strategies, then adjusted them based on the jobs myself and my friends play and are good at, which 1hrs we have, etc.

I have posted my strategies on here and videos of myself doing these fights as they were relevant. If you do a picosecond of research, I'm sure you can find all the videos you want of my fights if you're interested.

This is known as ad hominem. The argument of "if you disagree with me you must suck".

The last three all have high degree's of luck and the final one dumb trucks worth. The luck aspect is baked into the auras, specifically the aura during the 2nd phase when the ridiculous regen kicks in. That regen puts up a huge DPS check, which if combined with a massive DPS penalty is usually a death sentence if you can't finish it before burst DPS SP's wear off.


As for MT, his credibility is less then nothing. The only way to get on the black list is consistent emotionally fueled personal attacks over a period of time (anyone can have a bad day). When a person demonstrates they aren't capable of holding intelligent rational conversations, it's two clicks and they cease to matter.

So yes I believe MT wouldn't hesitate a second to lie if it supported his statements.

Here you go, link for the lazy. Please explain how we got INSANELY LUCKY with macc -> physical attack auras and 3 WC. Mboze used 0 TP moves, did we get lucky with his TP moves? We were constantly being paralyzed/blinded by the snapweeds, was that part of the insane luck that allowed us to win with minutes to spare?

Please explain how we overcame this ridiculous regen and managed to barely squeak out a win with only 1/6 of the time left on the clock.

JFC people.

I think for Mboze we went from "we've never attempted this boss before" to this win in fewer than 10 attempts. It is not some impossible to overcome RNG fest.

If we're being fully honest, Mboze is one of the easiest mobs. (not the easiest, i don't think ive ever seen even a single complaint about the bztavian) Luck plays (absolutely zero?) role in mboze.

It just happens to take slash damage, the best damage. And leech drainkiss works. BST gets to mvp that ***.

It's not the optimal "see no luck" example. Possibly, the worst example.

...OK, which one is the ridiculous luck boss where you can't possibly win without a free 6 WC and 2 good auras then?

Do I need to literally film a video of me beating every boss under the worst possible conditions before these imbeciles will believe that it's not RNG-based?

How many times do we have to go through this "you can't possibly do it" -> I show a video of it exercises before people start just...believing that things are possible without being so obstinate?

The fights are all winnable with basically any luck imaginable, you just need to play better to overcome bad luck and don't need to play as well to win if you get good luck.

I'm relatively sure all 6 t3 are beatable even with the worst auras.

Maybe not ongo with double macc/mab down, I'm not super sure. But some are definitely more annoying than others.

Here's Kalunga with attack aura from 40% -> 0 and a 3 WC, we won with 3:30 left on the clock.



I haven't been recording our attempts for all that long (used to be a different member) and we've typically moved on after clearing a boss so I don't have a video of every permutation of every aura and every WC result, sorry...but it's absolutely absurd to suggest that most of the T3 bosses require luck to win.

None of them are impossible to win with meta strats with any aura or WC result, no matter how poor. Even IF you lose because of the worst possible luck, you have an extremely high chance of winning and it's only a matter of (a very small amount of) time. You can absolutely beat Arebati with physical attack as the second aura. You can absolutely beat Ongo with matk or macc second aura (in 3 KI). If you're doing single KI Ongo then...IDK what to tell you, you're taking on a large risk so that you can save segments or time. Do 2 KI or 3 KI and it will be much easier and you'll get your win, regardless of aura or WC. It will not take very long.

If you're losing the fight dozens of times, it's because of mistakes you're making or problems with your execution. I'm sorry if that upsets you. You should record your attempts and review the footage for opportunities to adjust. You should re-consider decisions you made about the strategy or the weapons/positioning you chose. You should not blame the aura, WC, or the difficulty of the content.

I'm not bragging or anything, but I'm almost certain we cleared Mboze V25 in under 5 attempts. He may have gotten off 1 or 0 tp moves the entire fight. There was even room for me to melee/WS as BST with Calamity or Mistral Axe, but the group was too afraid of me setting a move off and told me to back off under 25%. Of course we had an elite WAR and DRK for the fight, but we didn't get super lucky with WC reset either from what I recall. I really don't remember that being particularly a "luck-based" fight at all, seemed miles easier than Arebati for sure.

What's the luck you need exactly in Mboze? If you ever feel TP move might go off, you can tell DPS to hold their WS until BST catches up. What am I missing?

edit: I forgot to mention the push under 25% ended up being the fastest part of the fight for us. DRK popped Soul Enslavement and went back to Mboze to Melee/WS and was able to straight demolish it. BST was able to WS a couple of times and save Drainkiss during this time since it wouldn't have helped, saving charges for after SE wore. With MS and Warcry in the rotation, it was very fast under 25% (which is where we opted to use our SPs, and not under 40%)

Don't forget: Saevel was the main person in this thread talking about how "impossible" and "unwinnable" these fights were when V20 dropped. The moment Mischief's group and others started rattling off wins, it turned into "We all know what the stategy is, these fights aren't hard, they are just based on luck". He's about to do another 180 soon and say something like "Well, SE didn't use the "I WIN" button on your clear, that's why you won"

It's not ad hominem, it's an oversimplification of an argument. Let's break it down, step by step:

Define term Y as chance of a luck based loss that cannot be compensated for by any degree of preparation or skill.

-A group that has practiced the fights extensively and has the correct gear and knowledge can get a win rate of 100-Y.
-Thus, 'bad luck' cannot force a loss at a rate greater than Y%.
-If groups exist that can consistantly produce a 75%+ winrate on T3 V25 NMs, then Y cannot be greater than 25 on those NMs.
-If Y is not greater than 25, then any group capable of executing the strategy flawlessly will have a 75% or greater chance of winning.
-Thus, the probability of a group winning within 4 tries, if they are not making mistakes, is 1-(0.25^4) = 99.61%.

Now, you could make a seperate argument, that for a group of a given skill level Y could be much higher. Some groups may have a 10% chance of luck lining up such that their skill level allows them to produce a win. But, as long as groups exist that can demonstrate the ability to consistantly win, it is disingenuous to claim that the fights are 'luck-based'. If the group trying were as skillful as the groups that can consistantly win, luck would be almost entirely irrelevant to them.

Your only other argument seems to be that an attack down aura in the high-regen phase prevents a win on Mboze/Arebati and M.ATK down aura prevents a win on Ongo. But, MT has just shown a video of a Mboze clear where the aura was present without even hitting wild card. Videos exist of Ongo being cleared with the incorrect aura using multiple KI strategy. I do not know if Arebati has been cleared with attack down as second aura and no wild card, but even if not, what are the chances of that? Even if the auras are not evenly distributed, I do not believe it loads more than 25% of the time. If you have a 25% chance of a disqualifying aura on Arebati, and a 44% chance of redeeming it with wild card, that is still a 86% chance of getting a winnable fight.

Again, the chance of a luck-based loss is immensely higher on Bumba. I am not denying that. But, these arguments always seem to be extended to all of the fights, when that is not reflective of the actual situation. Even claiming Arebati is luck-based is a stretch, and claiming any of the rest are is pure nonsense.

Second block from my post.


I can call out people's BS cause they say stuff like "it took us all these tries to win, so it can't possibly be luck". Like dude, if it wasn't luck then you would of won after one or two attempts then consistently won every time after that. It's either A) people are slow learners and borderline terrible players, or B) people quickly mastered the strategy and kept trying until they didn't get screwed. It end to assume most people here are good players making B the most likely scenario.

Each of those fights has a series of gates that need to be passed within a sub 15 min timer. Some gates are luck, others are skill, each failure eats up time. Aura choices and RD / SP resets are luck based, raw DPS, positioning, strategy and keeping cool heads is skill based. Going through a fight with no bad aura's is very different then going through one with double attack down auras (mag acc for Ongo). The difference is hilarious.

You also realize that you got lucky on Mboze, all it takes is one bad TP move during the 2nd KI and you lose. Firefly Fandango is a nothing burger as long as the BST's pet doesn't die. Uproot, Canopierce or Root of the Problem have the potential to end the fight.

That can't be called anything other then luck based.

V25 fights not V20. And many of V25 were unwinnable as confirmed by that group. Then SE removed the 10s WS wall and unwinnable become winnable (Ongo was always winnable).

No it's ad hominem.


"You don't agree with me, ergo you suck".

I'm essentially immune to group peer pressure and mental gymnastics people do to justify seeking validation.

What is going on is that the people who fought hard and long to clear these fights want to be validated that they are good players. Saying the fights have high degree's of luck barriers is perceived as reducing the accomplishments of those players. Those players then feel the need to defend those accomplishments that luck had nothing to do with their victories.

The thing is, both conditions can be true. Players put tons of hard work into mastering the strategy, then had the patience and perseverance to keep at it until SE stopped trolling them.

I did not say they suck, I said they cannot consistantly execute the strategy. Are you denying that groups exist which can consistantly execute the strategy and produce high winrates? The two things cannot simultaneously be true. If a group can get a high winrate, then luck cannot account for more than the remainder of 100 minus that winrate. Thus, the influence of luck is limited.

If a good group can win 75% of the time, then luck cannot be 'causing' a loss more than 25% of the time. If a trash group can win 8% of the time, that does not mean luck caused their losses, it means they chose not to improve and just hammered the fight out until luck handed them a win they didn't really earn.

Now, this is textbook ad hominem. You are completely ignoring a logical argument to insert perceived bias based on your own assumptions about someone else's character.

What was your setup? drk war bst x x x? one or two phones?

Is saying "the only people who struggle to lift 50 pounds are people who haven't been working out" an ad hominem attack now? TIL.


Nope, sometimes you just make mistakes. Everyone's human and we can ROUTINELY point out mistakes that someone made during the fight which caused us to lose. These fights involve a lot of difficult execution and decision-making and demand very high levels of performance. It's easy for someone to make a bad call, miss something, or make a mistake and cause a wipe. It's called difficulty.


The strategy in second KI is don't let him use any TP moves by using TP denial. If you died to Canopierce it's because you *** up your strategy, bud.

To quote a group member of course


The answer is no, there is no group that can consistently (100%) clear the final four (Arribati, Ongo, Mboze, Bumba). Yes 100% because once you master the strategy there is zero reason to lose if luck isn't a factor.

Yes, I do think the majority of players that have reached R25 on their Ody gear should be able to clear V25 and get R30 on that same gear.

The only reason people don't want the majority to be able to clear V25 is so they can lord over them with their R30 gear and demonstrate just how much better they are to be able to clear it. You know this is true and it happens with every single content that is, initially, hard to clear.

Have said it before, there are just not enough highly skilled enough and well geared enough and with enough job flexibility players, outside the big servers, to do these fights with. Everyone wants to, very few are able to.

It is the perennial problem of "I want to do X content" while having neither the skill, gear nor ability to do said content.

Not that I don't believe the people here that can clear them consistently without luck being a factor, I do. But you need to realise the people here commenting saying they can clear them consistently are very very very far from being in the majority of players.

Okay, and if luck is causing 25% of losses, then 75% of groups will win the first time they execute the strategy correctly, 93.75% will win within 2 correct attempts, 98.4375% will win within 3 correct attempts, and 99.6% will win within 4. Sure, that's technically some amount of luck, but if an item had a 75% droprate and you didn't get it first kill would you give up and go cry about it?

I don't see that as some ridiculous luck check. The groups sitting there crying that they haven't won after a dozen tries aren't getting unlucky, they are executing the strategy wrong. This is not an attack on those groups, it is a logical conclusion drawn from the available data. Can you explain a mechanism by which luck would cause numerous consecutive losses for a group that is not making execution errors?

No where in any of those statements did I directly or indirectly denigrate any player. If anything I praised players as skilled.



Oh look goal posts have been moved.

Gonna go back to what you quoted at the top of the page:

Again, statistically, if you are losing more than 2 or 3 times in a row it is almost certain that luck is not the primary reason you are losing. I haven't moved any goalposts. I never once claimed that you can achieve a 100% win rate on the final 4, I claimed that crying about luck is nonproductive and groups that are not making errors do not need excessive attempts to secure their wins.

Just throwing this out there, but there is a luck element to that too. Sometimes the two snapweed adds will tp in unison. They have some pretty potent abilities themselves. While they aren't a danger to the main group, it's possible for them to kill off the leech if they go off together with an aoe, and mboze's normal attacks are also AoE. There is a non zero chance for the beastmaster to send their pet in to tp drain and have it die before they even have a chance to heal it. I've seen it happen already. That is a luck element, even if the odds are low. And if that happens it's possible for mboze to get a tp move off, which can end the run.

That said, Mboze is a very straightforward fight, and the odds of said scenario happening are very low. The group still needs to be capable of handling the fight, but if they are it should actually be one of the easier clears.

That is text book ad hominem. What followed was fine, but the core statement is a gross personal judgement.

Let me reword that. "Groups that have high failure rates are unlikely to be failing purely due to bad luck."

That is a true statement, bad luck can only really screw you over 25~50% of the time. This is why most groups win within 2~5 runs of nailing the strategy. Of course you can't really chose which 25~50%, as such you can get 3~4 runs in a row of Ongo doing Magic Acc down under 40%, or Arribati getting attack down aura under 40%.

There should never, ever, be a fight where a group perfectly executes a strategy and they still lose because SE says "no".

My strategy doesn't have a leech, so I can't speak to that but umm...you can turn around and stop WSing when the leech dies, then re-summon it. You have a COR which means there's near-0% chance that the BST doesn't have Call Beast or Bestial Loyalty.

You'd need the Leech to die and also Mboze happened to get TP right after it died, before you could re-summon it. And that still assumes that you also got all that AoE happening at once without being able to react.

If this happened regularly, you could add more pet DT into your sets (not sure if this is a meleeing BST or just a TP drain BST). If it's only TP draining, I'd be very surprised if the leech would be routinely dying with 87% DT. You can also Heel him and run away while not draining, if his HP is a problem. Could have the leech on the opposite side of the boss, further away from conal autos and some AOE.

IDK, no experience with the BST strat but I'm not entirely sure what this looks like but also, more importantly, about this point and others: are people really going to sit here and tell me with a straight face that every one of their 20 losses in a row to the same boss were all because of these freak luck occurrences? Time to start taking some accountability boys.


Ummm..case and point. This man thinks that 6 people all played perfectly. Are you guys androids or something? How are you going to sit here and claim that you executed absolutely every WS, spell, ability, skillchain, etc. all perfectly for 15 minutes straight, all 6 of you?

This attitude of "we did everything right and the luck screwed us" is exactly the lack of self-reflection I'm talking about.

I've never done a single V25 fight flawlessly, I'll be the first to admit it. Neither has anyone else in the groups I've been in (sorry guys). In addition to that, it doesn't even have to be an execution issue. Maybe you need to swap from Moonlight Ring to Shadow Ring. Maybe you need to swap a Minuet IV for a Minne V. Maybe you should put on different entrust bubbles. Even if you were perfect players who executed your plan TO A T, it's still possible you'd lose because you made a bad plan.

I do not see how that is an attack on anyone. Obviously, I agree with your rephrasal:
"Groups that have high failure rates are unlikely to be failing purely due to bad luck."

But, what factors are there besides preparation and execution? If a group has a high failure rate, it seems reasonable to conclude that they cannot execute the strategy. That is a current state, perhaps with more practice they would be able to execute the strategy. I feel like you're nitpicking to an extreme here just to try to justify your argument in some way or another.

Fortunately, it seems we both agree that luck is not be the primary reason groups are losing T3s. I don't necessarily agree that it shouldn't exist, because the very fact variance is built in means that groups will have an alternate path to winning (keep trying until they get 'good' tp moves and auras). This makes it possible for dedicated groups with less coordination to eventually win.

The alternative you seem to be suggesting is not simply removing the variance, but also reducing the difficulty. If you were to remove the variance without altering the end difficulty, that means setting the fixed difficulty roughly equivalent to the middle outcome rather than the bottom outcome. This may hard block some of those groups from ever winning.

There have always been fights with luck elements. Groups have wiped due to unfortunate timing or sequence of spell and TP use all the way back to lv75 era. I do not think this is untrue to the game's history or design, nor do I even consider it undesirable. You are welcome to disagree.

However, I'd also keep in mind that when looking at Bumba, we have not necessarily located the intended strategy, so perhaps the luck factor is only present due to an unwillingness in the playerbase to try anything different from what's already been proven to be possible. For example, we know that DT only builds when high damage is dealt in fetter mode. If you could coordinate to a high enough degree to reduce damage and focus on proccing, it is feasible a sustained combat strategy could be formed that does not rely on this degree of luck.

Controlling his TP isn't that hard, the issue is the same as the the other final fights, ridiculous sub 40% regen combined with DPS reduction aura. I've eaked out a win in that situation before but only cause I got a second MS to finish burning with. Mboze specifically is annoying because like most boss's he can TP at 1K under 25% HP so if you burn too hard you might end up feeding too much TP and he blows everyone up.

Given that the "intended" strategy for Aminon was literally handed to us and was immediately discarded as "Lol wut? No.", I am going to go on a limb here and say whatever it is, it's going to be a lot worse to pull off than the current method.

Because the use of the word only. The final T3's are "luck based" for everyone. Skilled groups just only lose to bad luck while unskilled groups lose to both bad luck and bad skill.

Losing purely to bad luck sucks and creates a feeling of frustration that makes you not want to do the content again. This is demonstrated by the sheer number of players who are "I got the win, screw this content".

Absolutely, without a doubt. But, let's say it were developed and allowed for, say, a 70% win rate when executed perfectly. There are definitely groups that will see it as preferable to the current 10% gamble, as well as groups who will do it just for the fun of having cleared the fight 'the hard way' rather than 'the luck way'.

Justifying the attitude and allowing every group to convince themselves and their friends that the fights are only won and lost based on luck spreads that attitude to folks who have never even tried the fights.

The truth is something like:
-Ngai, Xevioso, and Kalunga may be lost due solely to bad luck 10% or less of the time if a perfectly prepared and coordinated group does them.
-Mboze, Ongo, and Arebati may be lost due solely to bad luck 25% or less of the time if a perfectly prepared and coordinated group does them.
-Bumba may be lost due solely to bad luck 90% or less of the time if a perfectly prepared and coordinated group does them.

The way most XIAH posts talk about it reads more like:
-You have to do all T3s 20 times until the stars align and you get every luck roll at once to barely scratch out a win, and if you make the slightest mistake you'll ruin it and have to do it 20 more times.

I do not really see it as an issue of how you define 'luck-based', but an issue of the perceived scope and community attitude toward the luck element. The latter attitude causes people who have never even tried the fights to write them off as luck-based nonsense and give up before they even start.