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
IMO the best way to do Raja or even Rani is SMN burn. I /shout in Jeuno for Raja clear and luckily I got a couple of ppl with SMN, with one tank on NM at a time and everyone else DD with SMN it worked pretty well. I believe Rani works too.
ReplyDeleteASA pants with movement speed+8 isn't worth it IMO, since you can get 12 with other gears, and one of them is just AH item. But if you don't want to spend money on it I guess it's good...I suppose *_*
For ASA pants, MAB+4 is pretty much a must. For the second augment, if not movement speed, then I guess either MAcc+ or Phantom Roll Delay -5.
ReplyDeleteI don't really see the Phantom Roll delay effecting me that much, but the MAcc might help (if only slightly) with QD and Wildfire?
I do Phantom roll delay- and MAB for augment, (I copied this from another COR XD)but I have phantom roll recast merit to further lower the recast time of rolls. (5/5 QD recast merit is must have, rest is if you prefer PR recast or QD acc, I like PR recast more :) )
ReplyDeleteBack in old lv 75 pink bird merit pt days when I still did roll rotation, having lower Phantom roll recast means I can put my DD roll back up, also if I bust/fold I can get DD roll back up to entire pt. WS dmg with or without DD roll is about 300 dmg difference, so I believe phantom roll recast - will have more dmg output than macc on pants or QD acc merit for myself and entire pt, also can get buffs back up faster when bust/fold. Also I was more of a pt/support COR than solo COR, so I like PR recast more.
Now in abyssea QD dmg increased a lot and quite a good portion of dmg output, and roll rotation is rarely needed, so I guess QD acc or macc is more useful than PR recast now especially if you rely on QD dmg to solo/lowman stuff very often. But abyssea may over soon, and there is a good chance that SE is going to release higher MAB pants at 99, but I don't think they're going to release PR recast-10 pants. So I still keep PR recast augment on ASA pants because I don't think it's going to be replaced.
I rarely use ASA pants besides PR macro and brewing/nuking nowadays anyways. I mostly QD in AF3+2 pants for set bouns QD dmgx3 and STP+8, since 4 MAB doesn't really make a huge difference for QD dmg I'd rather to have 8 STP and some chance for set bouns. I also Wildfire in AF3+2 pants not just because 8 AGI is very high, but I also need that STP on the pants to get enough TP return after WS. I only use MAB+4 on pants when I brew or doing other elemental WS since AGI is capped at 999 with brew and you get TP very fast.
I guess if you rely on QD dmg and solo/lowman stuff a lot macc augment is a good choice, but I never feel like I really need that small amount of macc with other high macc gears like AF3 feet, HQ staff and AGI 5/5 merit. Also I tend to focus on all aspect of this job, not just one aspect, so I'd rather lower my buff recast time for the benefit of entire pt. But that's just me, rest is up to your play style and what you do with the job XD Having freedom to decide how to gear this job depending on your play style is why I like this job to begin with, unlike other DD jobs where optimal gear set are all fixed and ppl barked at you if you don't gear right. XD