The One To Be Feared: Against All Odds
"Why, isn't that Bahamut, ruler of the skys? Why is he about to Megaflare me?" Yeah, been one of those crazy weeks...but we will get to that eventually.
Anyway, lets get started. After the events of my last post, I was looking into getting a few new pieces of gear. The first was my new Dainslaif sword hunted down with the good old folks at TrueRune:
It's a kickass sword, and the HP drain is kinda cool. Mostly though, and I'll admit this freely, I just wanted it for looks. ¬_¬ I mean, I know I'm not getting a Joyuse anytime soon, so this would do as my pretty (and yet still functional) endgame sword. I like it lots, and thank everyone at TR for running into Quicksand Caves to help me get it with that amazing 1/1 drop luck. ^^
Not a single day later, I discover my sky LS is doing Optical Hat runs. Now, as most melees know, the Optical hat is an awesome piece of hear gear:
Well, as luck would have it someone in the LS was selling the needed pop item for 1.4M gil. Now, having only a little over 1M on me at the time, this was a problem. However, I was able to barter down the price of the item to 1M + my General's Shield that I no longer need for anything, ever. I felt this was a good deal, and later that night, nearly broke I went into the Den of Rancor and won the lot on the very first hat. We did 10 runs total, and the funny part was there were more mages and tanks than actual melee people that wanted the hat, and the melees all went last from bad lots. Quite weird indeed...
The following day I did Dynamis-Bastok, and won the lot for the Paladin AF2 Crown, but nothing dropped. I ran up to sky afterwards to try to get my Martial Hands Abj drop, but yet again nothing. Kirin was the third strike, being this is the fourth time he hasn't dropped the W. Legs Abj for me....and I'm starting to get a little bitter.
Anyway, after the gods run on Saturday TR decided it was time to try the three part Airship fight. Before we go further, I am going to lay out a few details. This mission allows six people into a three phase fight that has a forty-five time limit. You are allowed to rest inbetween fights, but this subtracts from your time. You get to fight five of the mammets from an earlier CoP mission (God I hated those things...they hit way too fast...), and after that Omega Weapon (God you have too much HP...), and after that Ultima Weapon (God you hit too damn hard...) To say the least, it's essentially the HARDEST six man BCNM mission in the entire game. The level cap is set to 60, which helps a little bit, but thats all you have working for you besides being able to use an item called a 'CCB pump' to slow down the Weapons' TP spam for a short time.
I have been reading online forumns for about a year now about this fight. People say this fight is extremely hard. People say this fight is even harder on the tank. People say the fight is near impossible with a Paladin tank. People say that if a Paladin tanks it, the Earth Staff must be used at all times to ensure the tank lives for any duration.
Apparently I don't care what _THEY_ say...
So, knowing this full well, TrueRune decided to boldly try a 'dry run' on the Airship with some items, reraise, and all 2-hours. The setup was to be PLD/WAR, NIN/WAR, SAM/THF, WHM/SMN, BLM/WHM, and BRD/WHM, which is a fairly weird setup. When was the last time you saw a Paladin and a Ninja fighting side by side? We went in a few times and experimented with the Mammets seeing which strat worked the best. Between splitting up the mammets, having me tank them all with Sword/Shield, and having me use my Terra's Staff to tank all of them, I decided that "Super Paladin" tanking with the Terra's Staff was the way to go. Let the flashbacks of CoP 2-5 begin...
Anyway, we had a REALLY good mammet run, so we decided to go for it. We wiped twice to Omega, and got Ultima down to 4% before we just had nothing left. Saoirse tried to throw a last second Freeze at it, but because of 'double weakness' and Ultima Weapons resistance to magic, the nuke hit for 0, and we were all out of time.
Now, I WAS excited to do so well on the airship fight, since seeing we got that close while not really prepared was a really good sign. However, I was guilt tripped into doing the run instead of spending quality time with the Ladyfriend. She was not happy, and looking back I do regret my choice. (You bastages in TR really owe me for that...)
Almost one week later, after farming up 6 more CCB pumps, and buying up all the medicines I could hold, we decided to give it another shot. All the gruesome details can be found here: http://tuufless.blogspot.com/2006/06/truerune-in-sea.html Everything went just as Tuuf describes. It was an almost flawless run except for the fated "Chummy Death" (he ALWAYS dies when we are doing stuff... XD ) but besides that the run went perfectly. The Mammets decided to behave for the melees and destroy (but not kill) me instead. Omega took damage fast, and wasn't too violent. Ultima was fierce on me, but left almost everyone alone, and was clogged up from FIVE CCB pumps thrown at him. When all was said and done:
...But wow, Holy Crap! We had almost 12 whole minutes to spare! Who says you can't do the fight with a Paladin tank? I have set up a little mini-guide at the end of the post, take a look if you think you might be a bad enough dude to tank the Airship Mission as a Paladin.
Afterwards, we did some of the usual cross country running that CoP entails, and were ready for the Tenzen battle. Tenzen is nasty in the same way the Snoll Czar was in that there is a 'hidden' time limit to the battle. If Tenzen can complete his level 4 skillchain, everyone (probably) dies and are ejected from the battle. This seems unfair, but remember that the battle is uncapped, which means that the DDs can really let lose with the damage.
On our first run, there was some DD confusion and the mages were hit by some AoEs killing them a little early. I realized I needed to take Tenzen to the FAR side of the airship, out of the way of his little helpers (whom you can do nothing to stop...). Second time was the charm, and despite me not having my 2 hour, I was still able to keep solid hate, and we won. The DDs went so hardcore that I still had TP to use and the SAMs 2hours still wern't up when Tenzen gave up at 10% health.
After a few awesome CSs which explain a great deal of the plot that makes no sense until this point, I was rewarded with Sea access! I haven't checked out the place much, but it looks really cool and I'm told some awesome rewards like AF+1 can be obtained there. Congrations to everyone who got Sea access, and let's hope we can finish off CoP in the near future!
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A few tanking pointers on the airship fight as a Paladin:
GENERAL TIPS:
- Have everyone zone into Sealion's Den, view the initial BCNM cutscene, and leave the battle. This saves you about three minutes since the second time entering the battlefield without zoning will allow you to skip the CS.
- Everyone needs a CCB polymer pump. I don't care if you are broke, get one anyway. The same thing goes for other medicines. Get Yag drinks for people with MP, potions for everyone, I. Wings for melees, Vile Elixer NQ and HQs for everyone. Money isn't an option, because one person getting cheap can mean the difference betwen a win and a loss.
- Try to finish a section with everyone alive. You get full healed inbetween sections, but the dead stay dead, and the weakened stay weakened. This can be a huge time savor if done correctly.
- Bring a Whitemage. Seriously, the tank getting petrified is very bad, and Stona is the only cure, and only available to a whitemage at this level. Not to mention that Erase is awesome too, for all those Weapon status effects that get planted on the tank and DDs.
- As the tank, try to keep solid hate, but save some moves for the Weapons in the event that a hate reset move is used. Nothing sucks more than using Invincible only to have the mob turn and one-shot a mage.
- Have someone keep track of the time, so you know how much time remains in the fights.
- Stay calm. Remember, you don't have shadows, but you have cures, and more hate potential than a Ninja does. Medicines are your friend, and try to keep a Yag drink on you at all times assuming you don't have a Red Mage in the party.
- Defender up at all times. You need to worry about staying alive and keeping hate off the DDs, not doing damage yourself.
- Turn on some chat filters. Everyone is different, but I felt having less party clutter made my job easier and made the lag alot better.
- Being some Luck. If the Weapons really want to, they can destroy even the best tank in a second. Do your best, and don't get too upset if you don't win. You can always try again.
PALADIN TANK MAMMET TIPS:
- "Super Paladin" tanking 4/5 of the mammets in a corner opposite of the melees is the way to go. This reduces the ammount of colaterial damage caused from and magic AoE moves.
-Do NOT engage any of the mammets until the last one is left standing. This prevents agro from going to another party member while healing you. As long as you agro the mammets, and their name stays yellow, they will stick on you until someone vokes them off, or you die.
- I found the Earth Staff and full Paladin AF to be most effective in reducing mammet damage, and my shield and parry skills are both capped at this level too. However, I went Gluttony Sword with a Shield for the Weapons. I liked the additional damage they allowed, and honestly with capped shield it wasn't so bad.
- Make sure you don't die, and try to only use Yag Drinks, Sentinel, Cure, and Defender for this first stage. Remember, if you live through this stage you get a full cure after the cutscene.
PALADIN TANKING OMEGA TIPS:
- As the tank voke him and run him into the corner. Many of the Weapons moves are directional, and having you in the corner prevents others from getting hit.
- Have the DDs stay away from you, have them stay behind the Weapons.........behind.
- You have Cover, use it.
- Omega has alot of HP, but so do you. If you and your healer(s) are on the ball, you should be fine. He doesn't hit any harder than most EXP mobs, but his HP is just usually too much to allow him to go down in one round.
- Omega does have hate reset moves, so try to watch for them and compensate accordingly.
- If you get a status aliment on you, imform the mage(s) immediately. They might have missed the text, and no pride is lost for making sure everything goes smoothly in a fight like this.
- I suggest using a CCB pump at around 40%, and again at around 20%. Use your judgement, and set an order ahead of time. IF Omega is not hurting your tank much, save the pumps for Ultima.
- If (when) you wipe, make sure everyone wipes at the end of the ship you start on. Wait for Omega to walk back to his starting position, and reraise up, and rest. He doesn't regain HP, so you dont have to engage him again right away.
- Try to kill Omega with everyone alive and unweakened. This insures that everyone gets a full cure after the cutscene and you can start on Ultima immediately.
PALADIN TANKING ULTIMA TIPS:
- See all tips above about Omega.
- Ultima is the last part of this fight. Once he is almost dead, throw everything you have on him. Now would be an acceptable time for 2 hours, since there is nothing left to save them for.
- Ultima hits HARD, and OFTEN. Use meds as needed, cure whenever you can, and try to keep hate in the corner.
- Ultima has less HP than Omega does, so remember that this fight won't be as long as Omega's was, but by now time is probably running out.
- At about 50% health, Ultima will suddenly decide you need to die. Use CCBs according to his actions and watch for Pitch Pile, as it will take you to about 100 HP, and resets hate.
- Get DoT's on Ultima for the whole battle. This adds to the damage you do and might even make it easier for the melees (Dia2 anyone?).
- Remember to stay calm, use your items, use your job abilities, cast spells, and most importantly DON'T PANIC! You can win this, it's not impossible by any means.
posted by SeraphPDH at 6:50 PM
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