Qutrub Ambuscade V1

Yeah the power creep is real. Just went in solo BLU and landed half a dozen stuns that lasted ~10s or more.

That is plenty of time to execute something like this.

Specifically, I landed 15s, 19s, 6s, 10s, 10s, 7s, 5s, then I warped out.

Gear is full malignance and JSE neck +2, rest is max magic acc because I was already at 1440 physical acc. pemphredo, dignitary's, crepuscular, stikini +1, metamorph +1, aurist's +1, eschan stone.

Aside from UNM/Shinryu items I'm pretty sure that other gear was already available during the previous Qutrub ambu. Maybe nobody even bothered to try Sudden Lunge back then because the wiki discouraged it?

Like the best gear you could get in 12/20 was Ayanmo or Jhakri

+30-40 Blue Skill +30-40 more acc and 30-40 more int(?) and +30-40 dex

I don't think I could land sudden lunges on the adds half the time last time

(they could always also ninja the meva)

I def tried Sudden Lunge last time this Ambu was around.

I just recall it lasting shorter, and sometimes resisting the stun entirely.

I don't have a side-by-side comparison of what I had vs. what I have now, but it's mostly just ML and the crepuscular earring.

Malignance has been in the game since September 2019 and Dynamis necks since July 2018.

MLs are obviously another matter, but Karizo didn't mention having ML30-40.

They did 3 SL in video, one was resisted too. So it's on the edge of effectiveness. If it's lets say around 80% now, it was probably around 50% last time and people could still think it was not reliable.

I used BLU last time this ambuscade was around and sudden lunge was extremely effective then as well. Got resists around 20% of the time back then, so most runs the boss only used 1 or 2 TP moves total. R15 Tizona has 30 acc/macc augment, and yes it had already been around quite a while during the last ambuscade. Malignance gear was also around last ambuscade too.

My set now has Aurist Cape +1 and the Crepescular Earring - but not much has changed other than master levels - which is another 60+ macc/acc at least.

Some additional comments, even last time around, the intial sudden lunge lasted a very long time, and each one after that was shorter. Notice in their video they wait until it is at 50% to start using sudden lundge - and they also completely bypass the perfect dodge because it is stun locked the whole phase. Last this this ambuscade was around, bypassing the PD phase was rare.

It's definitely much easier to land stun, not to mention long duration stun this time around.

My small sample size of 7 SLs in a row all landed, with the duration varying in my previous post.

In conclusion, it's very nice =D

Went a bit unconventional for this one after a lot of headache akin to what Shozo experienced. Was able to duo VD, each of us three-boxing.

We opted for PLD/PLD/NIN/MNK/BRD/RDM

Each PLD holds two adds, being extra careful to only tag and tend to them without using job abilities or cure. This reduces the chance of the Bigwig becoming interested in the PLDs and ruining everything. This is all the PLD's do. They can provide Holy Circle and Sepulcher.

NIN and MNK/NIN kill Bigwig. MNK with Counterstance and Perfect Counter to maintain 80% counter rate to lower the chances of an endeath getting through when shadows drop. Empyreans preferred, obviously, but NIN was using Heishi. Seems like any empyrean DD would be just fine here.

RDM/BLM takes the final add, preferably a Tormentor mob. By the time he pops, Bigwig should be fully debuffed and RDM isn't doing much of anything at that point. I would fight the Tormentor to about 60% HP using Maxentius & Black Halo. This solidifies hate on the RDM. By the time you are done with that, Bigwig is probably doing his Perfect Dodge. Perfect time for you to start applying your first silence. Wait for immunobreak and then ES the next silence. It's not important that it lands until around 35% HP, so you can hold off for about a minute after PD wears. After the Turn the Tables spam starts, I began to just tuck the RDM in with the MNK and NIN. The Bigwig WILL do the thing where he wanders off, but he only ever wandered to the RDM with this setup. There is no harm in the RDM being tucked with the NIN and MNK. With Phalanx and DT set, the Tormentor will hit you for endless 0's and is a non-threat.

The last important function of RDM/BLM is you can spam Stun off cooldown and it breaks up the Turn the Table back to back to back to back spam that can sometimes occur. The only thing that varies is the duration of the stun, but it will indeed always land. You can also try to time it up to stun him when MNK or NIN shadows go down earlier in the fight. The timer on stun is real low, so you can use it as a response to every Turn the Table to give your BRD a chance to get everybody back to over 10% HP.

BRD subbed WHM for the sole purpose of keeping HP up. With the amount of songs that need re-done, it felt pretty bad having them melee anyway.

We got'er down to sub 10 minutes. It's no "4 Ukonvasara" strategy, but we ended up with 4 VD wins in a row. We found it safer than SMN because there is zero chance of Triple Reversal since they don't even have access to it unless there are three mobs on the same person.

Good luck out there!

if you are brd/nin for this month you can main hand carn and sub gleti's. Still capped damage mordant's with am3 and now accuracy issues. Pretty much the only time I've used Carn for anything dd wise >.>

I dual boxed brd and pld for this months ambu. Pld you can pretty much afk once you pull the adds to the corner and block with Ochain

What difficulty?

Tried a variation of Belkin's strat, and substituted the PLDs for PUPs on difficult to see if it was possible:

PUP/NIN, PUP/NIN, MNK/NIN (Spharai/capped counter build w/o counter stance incase shadows went down and I needed to counter), RDM/BLM, NIN/WAR & BRD/WHM.

Songs: Mambox2, Minuet, HM
Debuffs: Elegy, Slow II, Para II etc.

PUP #1 tanked both Astrologers in a corner
PUP #2 tanked both of the Tormentors in another corner

Both PUPs used enmity set.

NIN & I bounced hate, Shun & Victory Smite for constant light SC's helps burn it down quicker.

RDM used stun as needed/recast (have had RDM's that spammed it, some others that timed it when they thought it would be best ot use). I've had some melee, and some just focus on stun. Won with both method.

BRD healed after the the TP move that brings your HP to 10% (Tables Turn)

Fight time was 5-6 minutes, went much faster when I changed into R15 Godhands with a hybrid set but sample size was 1 fight.

8/8 with this strat with no wipes. I am going to try to do this on VD with some minor adjustments once I can get six people I know on to try some out some ideas.

Good luck!

- Kinzu Bahamut

I did a random run yesterday with a PUG using a similar strat to the one posted earlier

1x PLD
1x RDM/WHM
1x SMN
2x NIN
1x BRD

It was basically like the old strat we used last time this ambu was around, difference was using a SMN main (like Eiryl said) and that the RDM was healing the DDs on the boss with cure1 and curaga1 to keep them at low hp but above ~10%.

Our kill time was a bit more than 11min and I feel it can be improved tons.
Like the SMN didn't use any buff (Crystal Blessing, Ifrit Warcry) and the BRD used Honor March, Minuet5 and 2x Mambo.
Why 2x Mambo I wonder, to make so Shadows last longer?
Is it really that reliable in the end? Wouldn't going for 2x Minuets be better for faster kill speed?
I wonder that myself. WS damage is 99k (or close to that) regardless of Minuets, but white damage could've benefitted from more minuets.

One thing that could have been improved for sure is the WS used.
I was the "main" NIN using Kannagi and spamming Blade: Hi. The other NIN was using Shun and the BRD was using Mordant Rime.
If they used Blade: Hi and Rudra's Storm instead, we would've seen a constant stream of 99k Darkness SC, that would've probably made the fight much faster.

I mean, it's not that crazy to try to swap out Minuets when you're already capping WS damage... which may imply that you're also capped attack for TP phase. Perhaps that is not the case and Minuets would increase white damage a bit, but Mambos to make a NIN or /NIN shadows last longer certainly isn't an unreasonable choice when it's very important to keep those shadows up.

Now, when going with a COR... I am loving swapping out Chaos Roll for Rogue's Roll. Even if you're capped attack, the crits will pump up your white damage a lot for an Empy DD.

My WSD was capped or close to capped even without those 2 minuets and even when using a shitty single hit WS like Blade: Hi.

Those Mordant Rimes and Blade: Shun from the other 2 DDs were often uncapped though.

Then again I'm the first to say I don't see 2 additional minuets making a huge difference in a fight like this.
I could say that for the lack of constant stream of 99k Darkness SCs though, which didn't happen because of the bad choice of WSs used by the other two.

VD

Made some modifications to our strat from my original post.

Switched our BRD from /WHM to /NIN and relied on the RDM to heal after tables turn. Our BRD was spamming Rudra's.

I played job roulette on my DNC (Tauret/Evis Spam), COR (SB), MNK (VS) etc. average total fight time was 4 mins.

In short,

PUPx2, BRD/NIN, RDM/BLM, NIN/WAR & any DD/NIN job can clear difficult in 4-6 mins depending on gear, etc. You could also fill the DD/NIN slot with any job and still clear in a reasonable amount of time on difficult as long as your BRD/NIN has a DD set.

Good luck! I will post again when I try some alternate VD strats.

- Kinzu Bahamut

Found that if you just run to 10 yalms under 30%, the death move will be interrupted, we found this out and have not subbed ninja since.

How does that account for Endeath?

It doesn't.

Shadows aren't because of Genkubacon. No idea how they arent getting endeathed.

Just run from genku, but daggermode endeath is the only reason I use nin.

It does not have access to en-death sub 30%. It has access to the Genku (1 shadow, big damage) and Spin the Tables (doesn't take shadows, insta-cast TP move, unable to move or stun for it).

Perhaps he means you run from Genku, but that doesn't negate the fact you need utsusemi for 80% till 30%.

Definitely have stuck with this style construct as when I'm doing Ambu, there's almost always at least 1 or 2 pickups and this method really boils down to 3 or 4 people doing unique things, and the rest doing "typical" things for their job.

In terms of speeding it up like you see possible, I'd say that mostly boils down to the DDs you use and their weapon choices. I would also say that the Mambos are likely overkill, in particular if you have multiple DDs sharing the hate, which allows more time to get shadows back up as it turns to another pt member. Balanced Hate seems to be the biggest asset when using a strat like this to increase speed, because then your "heavy" DD isn't wasting more time casting shadows than needed.

Tables move seems to have something to do with adds facing the boss. Had multiple Easy runs of holding adds away and burning the boss down and only when I stepped past them to diaga shadows off the boss, which turned them to face him, did one of them shove a 33k TP move up my butt, followed immediately by the boss repeating the move on our DPS.

Also tracks with the boss only doing the out-of-range'able move when the adds are dead.


Endeath is definitely when he has the sword. Weak observation that the sword can be broken multiple times and something gives it back to him but don't quote me on it. Maybe it is just the two times quoted in the OP and only the second sword has en-death. This is just to say it's not strictly the percent but whether his second sword broke yet or not, I've seen it as late as 20% on VE solos.


It's not even 10', somewhat less and you can get away with walky-backpedal if you were still locked by accident, just stay at max melee range to be safer.

Done this successfully a bunch of times on VD with a relatively safe setup. It won't be the fastest in the world, but there's very little risk of wiping.

PLD, PLD, BRD/NIN, RDM/WHM, NIN/WAR, other DD/NIN.

PLDs each hold 2 adds in the corners, as others have said once you get them on you, you can basically AFK as they will do 0 damage.

RDM silences the BLM adds, keeps everyone hasted, and heals the DDs (mostly curaga 1 during the final 30%).

BRD sets up songs and then DDs for the rest of the fight. As others have said, we found using Mambos was safer and DPS is not a problem, so we opt for HMarch, MinV, 2 Mambos. YMMV.

NIN will grab one of the adds when they first pop and also at 30% when the second set pops. All the DD will burn this down, then get back on the boss.

Side note: we actually found that sub-30% leaving only the NIN on the boss was fastest, since the extra drain from TP spam and having 2 more targets to drain was making it slower, plus the lack of SC damage (or having to wait to WS if you want to SC). Again, depending what jobs/weapons you have it may be faster to leave the other DD in, but experiment with this.

We were not getting anywhere close to a 4 minute clear, and I have no idea how people are getting from 60-30% HP without being hit once to do this without utsusemi, but if you can pull that off, more power to you. Maybe SAM or /SAM with third eye can handle it? We prefer to just play it safe, we've done MNK/NIN, BLU/NIN, and a second NIN for that last spot it's all good.

How do you all deal with the non Ninjas getting their buffs removed from 60 to 30% from Genai Ryodan? This move takes off 5 shadows on Nin main and a /nin it removes shadows and 3-4 other buffs at time? I assume try to not pull hate if you’re a /nin during that phase?

Just rebuff them

Yeah, we had the BRD re-apply songs (most commonly dispelled). As the NIN, I did try to maintain hate while he was using the dispel move so that I could get hit by as many of those as possible, but sometimes the others will get hit by them. Once you're all at capped hate it's possible for the NIN to tank the hit because there's a lot of ready time, so if the others turn and you keep hitting, it should turn to you pretty quickly.

It's not strictly necessary, but can help with clear times I'm sure.

You can also just stun Ryodan. You can stun Unblest Jambiya too. They've got pretty long wind-up times.

Nix this, they definitely use it when their target is facing away, which I was also doing in that observation, and the boss has the same behavior instead of some chained move or something.