As of my last post, TheSecretSociety successfully downed Raja on our second attempt, leaving us with just Rani to defeat in order to gain access to the Shinryu fight.
Following our previous attempt, we made quite a few changes in our approach. On our initial attempt, we had two White Mages for healing and tanks comprising of two Ninja and one Monk. As far as DD went, we had four Black Mages, a Beast Master and a Summoner.
The fight went from bad to worse. The AoE damage wrecked havoc on our tanks, and with only two main healers, members started dropping as MP began to get tight.
An interesting point to note is that Raja was surprisingly easy to kite. It runs below normal speed, and as it casts *ga spells, you easily have time to run to a distance where it will be unable to hit. To put this into some kind of perspective, I kited Raja on WHM for a good 6-8minutes until members of the alliance became unweakened.
Despite our efforts however, we didn't manage to get the kill on our first attempt. Damage was too low for the amount of healing that had to be done.
Instead of giving it another try straight away; we left it for the following week to give us time to gear up a bit more. We managed to M AF3+1 head and trouser pieces for three of our White Mages, and Paladin AF3+2 for one of our main tanks. On top of that, most of the Linkshell members managed to acquire several Abyssites of Merit to help with MP/HP bonus!
Our setup was as follows;
- WHM x 4
- PLD x 2
- BLU x 2
- BLM x 1
- SMN x 1
Our Paladins tanked Raja straight up, we had four White Mages to try keep everyone alive, and the BLU's and SMN kept constant damage throughout the fight.
With our Paladins pretty well geared, and more White Mages to make MP go further, the tanking/healing side of things went well. Damage was fairly constant, and inevitably several members died at one point or another due to the large radius of the AoE spells.
Paladin's stood opposite one another, with Raja in between. White Mages were positioned such that one stood behind each Paladin, and the remaining two stood perpendicular to Raja - all at the max distance whilst still been able to cast cure/paralyna/silena/viruna.
The BLUs stood at max casting range, behind a tank - and didn't stay in to melee. The SMN would run in periodically and perform Blood Pacts, and unsummoning the avatar afterwards. Our Black Mage was nuking sparsely as not to pull hate, and had the job of raising those who'd fallen.
MP held for the most part, the Paladins did an excellent job in tanking, and after 30-40minutes, we had successfully killed him. Without a brew.
Our next step as a Linkshell is to kill Rani.
On a side note, my Corsair has received a lot of gear upgrades recently. I'm currently landing 408 Quick Draw with Red Mage sub and lucky 5 on wizard's roll. I have 2 pieces to complete my Quick Draw set, 3 if you count a gun;
Mirke_Wardecors [MAB+7 and QD Recast -5 Augments]
Desultor_Tassets [MAB+4 and probably Movement Speed +8 Augments]
Both pieces above are obtained from ACP and ASA respectivly, and should be obtainable with my friends help :)
As for my gun, I'm still after Bedlam +2. I should be able to go through the VNM fights shortly, and then I have to start grinding Walk of Echoes for the right coins.
I gave the VNMs a shot, but unfortunately I didn't manage to pop the one I was after. That said, I did successfully solo Capricornus with the pinning fence at West Ronfaure [S]. I went /NIN for shadows, Wizard's and Dancer's roll for MAB and regen. The fights took around 40mins... Each QuickDraw hitting for 208.
Now, with a LOT better gear, and some more merits, I can reduce that time greatly, and I look forward to more soloing on my Corsair! :D
