ACP 11

Just a topic wondering if anyone else is having nearly as hard of a time as I am. Just finished up my 15th run, and surprisingly enough, it was another wipe.

To everyone who has won this battle, and have done it time and time again, what are your winning strats and party set ups?

To everyone who is still struggling with this battle, or who would like to help a guy out, would you be interested in getting a run together?

Setup I had on my winning run was PLD/WAR, WHM/BLM, RDM/WHM, BLM/RDM (me), SAM/RNG, SMN/WHM.

PLD obviously did their thing holding hate and running away from the crystal. SMN used Predator Claws then waited on BP timers. I was only there to Stun and worry about nothing else. SAM used Ranged attacks and Sidewinder on crystal. RDM took care of clones and WHM did their thing healing PLD.

Just posting quick and dirty here given that the WiFi CNX I have access to isn't what I'd call stable...

You can either TP burn this boss with x4 DD, WHM or RDM and BRD. Store TP at start, use sleep pots, sing your songs try to burn it down. SAM's are great for this. DD's should bring a wing as a failsafe, you may not need it but if the difference between W/ L = 1 last SC THEN that wing will save your ***.

Please understand that IF anyone gets charmed early you lose. Multi-hit weps that feed TP are not a good idea, see previous sentence. In a zerg kill method the seed crystal will attempt to charm first before using the other TP moves at its disposal.

A fast kill using WS dmg and SC within 45 seconds - 1 minute of actually engaging the seed crystal is your window.

OR

Use a more conventional setup with PLD, x2 RDM, (RNG or x2 SMN), DD/war
This method is more flexible and will take (depending on skill, gears, and luck) near the full time alloted.

It's important that whatever way you construct the pt you have a good tank, someone responsible for curing the tank only, a dedicated stunner, a dedicated puller, and DD's that can DPS at range.

When you enter the fight... pop all 2hrs... the Seed uses Seed of Nihility early on and will reset all timers so anything unused will be wasted. Tank runs in and all they do is keep hate with flash, and cures. Ideally they can /drk and be your stunner. If not /rdm is best. Tank casts when they can and continuously runs to the wall.

For the purpose of illustration. Ignore what the actual compass reads when you enter. Assume in front is north, and left = west, and right = east. Tank picks a side and lines themself up so the Seed Crystal is at their back and they're facing a wall. As soon as the Seed Crystal Draws in, they run to the wall. They must continue to do so for the duration of the fights else they risk being charmed. If the tank is charmed other members of the party will start to be drawn in. AVOID this at all costs!

Watch the combat log. The Seed Crystal will always-always-always cast a ga spell after using a TP move. Don't bother with trying to stun the TP move unless you have two stunners and can spare the MP. Remember it's TP move, resolution of dmg or status effects following use of said move THEN "Seed Crystal is casting Waterga III." Back to Back ga moves = game over.

The Tank method is a fight of endurance, so conserving MP is must. Yet despite your best efforts you will run low towards the last 15% and things will get dicey. Mages should have RR items and SHOULD have drinks and MP restore items with them. Don't expect to skate by. If you're serious about winning treat this like (pre-nerf) CoP 6-4, be over-prepared and sell off what you didn't use.

In case anyone was curious, I believe the arrangement on my run was PLD/DRK, COR/RNG, SAM/RNG, RNG/NIN, WHM/SCH, and RDM/WHM.

Other thoughts...

1) Dia does stick and will help your DD's do the utmost dmg. RDM was also a dia puller on seed clones which our Sam promptly killed. Teamwork and efficiency in this regard is a huge help. Work out who's responsible for getting any spawned clones off the tank.

2) DD's must watch their DPS and avoid pulling hate. Let the PLD build up their CE before unleashing hell with Sidewinder and Barrage or doing Blood pacts if using SMN. Really the tank is going to have their hands full running around and their ability to hold onto/ yank hate back is going to be limited.

3) Be patient, take it slow and don't rush. There is a large amount of luck with this fight. If the game decides it's not letting you win and decides to kick your *** early with TP spam, it's going to happen. Don't get discouraged. Try again and just try to take note of what went wrong....

I hope this helps... cheers!

Pretty much pet burned it
3 SMN, PUP, RDM/DRK for stun and Brd for Ballad.
Cycled Garudas which tanked/Claw'd it, I helped heal and my BLM Automaton Nuked the clones, Deactivate/Activate for MP.
RDM stunned -Aga spells, Healed, refresh, RDM stuff.
Bard Ballad and helped heal.
Pretty smooth until near the end when it used Seed of Judgement and started Drawing in Party members.
Still won 1/9, I will never do this fight again. D:

Setup I had the win with was:
pld/rdm w/ MDB gear
rdm/drk
smn/whm for garuda predator claw spam
whm/sch kept pld alive & reposed if pt member was charmed
sam/war to kill clones
rng/sam for ranged DD & sidewinder spam

i was rdm so i refrshed pld & smn, phalanx2 pld & stunned -ga spells
pld spammed bio,poison,flash & all hate grabber ja's
the rest did wut is stated above
just be patient w/ the fight & when boss is @50% hp make sure pld is @100% hp
stuns are important. 1 missed stun can cost u the fight and precious mp trying to recover.
gluck hope u get the win soon!

PLD/RDM, SCH or WHM, NIN/WAR, RDM/DRK, RNGx2 or SAM/RNG

4/4 with this setup.

Takes a bit longer with this setup usually 20min~ but never lost with it.
RNG need to watch their hate a bit try not to WS too much etc.

4x SAM, RDM/DRK(CS Stun right at start), BRD(2x Atk Song w/ 2HR). All SAM's blow 2HR as soon as they run in. Neve lost like this, even with gimp SAMs. Takes like 1min max to die.

Every time I've won our setup was MNK/WAR, WHM/SCH, RDM/DRK, RDM/DRK, NIN/WAR, SAM/RNG (The NIN and SAM can be replaced by whatever, but at least one of the party members was dealing ranged damage).

I tanked on MNK, One RDM was dedicated to stunning -ga spells, the other would cure/DoT/stun as necessary. One DD would focus on clones, while the other would use ranged attacks on the crystal and pull clones as necessary. You won't break any records this way, but it's easy and safe if everyone knows what they're doing.

This fight is close to impossible with pick up groups and job setups that aren't good for this situation.

You need:

1 PLD with good magic defense gear, maybe pld/blu, pld/rdm, pld/nin
3 DD with ranged attack (can be sam/rng, cor, rng, smn, blm, pup with mage pet)
2 Healers (rdm/whm for main and a rdm/drk for stuns)

Everyone stays at door 1 or 2 DDs are responsible for killing the players copies, rdm/drk has stun duty main but should help cure in emergencies.

Pld always run back to stairs to be healed whenever gets draw-in. DDs watch their hate, if any starts getting drw-in too much its time to stop and focus on killing copies and let Pld get hate back.

Rdm have always dot on it (Dia, Poison2, etc).

We broke the record but dont rush he fight. If you play safe the amount of dmg taken is extremely easy to a rdm to cover.

You don't "need" any particular job over another for this. I just proved that by using a MNK tank over a PLD.

You proved you need people who knows what they doing for this. In his situation pick up groups never know. I gave him advice for his situation, if he had a group of friends for this he wouldnt be trying 15 times. Learn to read.

I did read it. All I said was you don't need a PLD. You're already limiting yourself to a certain setup by doing that. I'm not doubting PLD is great for the fight, but if you've got a MNK friend and no PLD friends, I'd take the MNK and have him tank over potentially getting a shitty pickup PLD.

Then again we talking about his situation, not if Mnk or Drk or any other job can tank this. It depends on a player with good knowledge of his job and tanking. He has a better chance to find and succeed with a random pld tanking than a random mnk.

And my comment has lots of jobs and sub jobs (for pld) suggestions, can it be done in any other way? of course. Can he try each one of those possible setups after 15 defeats? I wouldn't.

First you get this win, then you get practice at it and make a video in youtube like nateypoo did hehe (good pup btw)

You're still missing the point of what I said. I'm not saying MNK is better than PLD. I'm saying if you know a good MNK, and your pickup PLDs suck, bring your MNK friend and try it out.

All I'm trying to prove is that you don't necessarily ~need~ a certain job over another. Now let's stop the HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE argument before this turns into a flame war.

just zerg with 4 sam,mnk,war 1 brd 1 rdm/drk = sooooooooooo easy

I guess I should also add in the past strats I've used.

Zerg.
Zerged. Everyone 2hr'd. I was the BRD. Put up Trob., Night., Soul Voice'd double Minuet. We all died rather quickly.

SMN Burn.
Self explanatory. I've actually done this twice. One time, we had the Crystal down to 1%, everyone but myself was dead. Predator Claws was in mid-charge and I died.

"Slowly but Surely."
PLD/WAR or /RDM basically kept, or tried to keep hate. Never engaged it. Had a RNG and myself as SMN slowly chip away at it's HP. This was the other instance where we had gotten it down to 1% before we wiped.

Best set up I had as far as performance and smoothness goes was: PLD/RDM, RDM/WHM to heal, RDM/DRK on Stun duty and back up healing, RNG/NIN, COR/NIN, SMN/WHM. RNG, COR, and the SMN were the DDs. This was one of the smoothest runs I've had.

The run I had today was PLD/WAR, RDM/WHM, COR/RNG x2, SMN/WHM, and BLM/WHM. Rather smooth run in the beginning. The other COR and I had Chaos Roll, Evoker's Roll, Healer's Roll, and Dancer's Roll up and took turns using Slug Shot and Detonator. Only thing that screwed us over was the lack of Stuns from the RDM and BLM. After our PLD had died, I kept getting drawn in. Eventually, it picked us off one by one.

Hope this helps some. Thanks so far for the input.

Having a main stunner (RDM/DRK) and a backup (RDM/DRK or BLM) helps a ton, making sure they only stun -ga spells. Was your BLM in charge of stuns and adds? If so, maybe try having an extra DD in charge of adds. I went on a failing run before where the BLM was in charge of adds, but was in mid-cast when he needed to stun. Kinda screwed us over.

Other than that stuff, it looks like your groups are fine. Just try mixing it up a bit with the jobs, maybe.

Edit: Zerg strategies seem to fail because a RDM/DRK uses chainspell stun, which causes the crystal to resist it VERY quickly. Zergs either work or don't with this fight, at least in my experience.

My zerg failed this fight because it got Seed of Judgment off despite us having a RDM/DRK. I checked my logs and the RDM/DRK didn't get resisted and he was stunning fine. It was just bad luck I guess.

I've done this fight twice and I'm 1/2. The first time we did a zerg and it failed. After a long time of humming and hawing (and not getting in because "Drg isn't a real DD") I replied to a shout and filled the role of clone killer.

We had:

Pld. I forgot the sub, but I'm pretty sure she was /war for voke and defender. She got hate ran and got drawn in, repeat.

Rng \ Both of the rangers did the same thing, shoot the big crystal. 2-hr'd
Rng / close to the end for a extra boost.

Rdm \ I'm pretty sure these were the jobs. They kept everyone healed as well
Sch / as dia pulled an add for me to kill if I was occupied with another one

Drg/nin - Me. I killed clones and stayed mostly out of aoe range. My role could be replaced by anything, as long as it can kill quickly and pull from a distance. I don't know if /nin helped much but better safe than sorry I suppose.

Total time was 21 mins and change, but there were no deaths and no danger.

I was 1/16, another friend 1/27, i really think luck play a big factor. Finally won with a pld/rdm with relic shiled,smn,whm, rdm/drk rng and i think sam.

I didn't get the new expansion, i learned to keep my $10. Pain in the *** for a piece of gear that's most likey only used for 1 job.

We usually go/win with

PLD - spends 99% of the fight running from draw in, stopping to flash and cure
RNG - stands at max range out of aoe and only steps in to ws
RNG - ^
NIN - tanks the babies/helps the rng kill them
RDM/DRK - focus stun -gas but also haste/refresh
SCH/RDM - cuts out on a lot of the damage to the PLD, and anything the RNGs get nailed with when they WS

No zerging required, safe, easy fight

My group set up was this:

PLD-doing the running from draw in/flash/cure/provoke

RNG-ranged
SAM/RNG-ranged

DRG/WHM-helped on babies and curing
MNK-Tanked babies

WHM/SCH-Healing obviously

Mine was similar to this. Worked well.

I zerged it twice for 2 wins when I went:
sam/warx4 rdm/drk brd/whm
sam's meditate to 300% then wait for the meditate timer to reset so you have it ready.
brd starts w/ sould voice atk and double atk
sam's hasso/berserk/cycle warcry if u want.. should only need 2 since it last 40sec's
sam's run in weaponskilling use that job ability to get x2 ws's
rdm/drk 2hour, dia3 after sam connects w/ first hit then start chainspell stunning.
brd/whm is main healer.
*make sure everyone eats some food*

Did this twice. Basically the only thing that can go wrong here is if the pld gets charmed (pld did get charmed the second figh but still won easily)

PLD/RDM - Use IR gear for Mdef. Runs to the edge of the circle between the stairs and the closest pillar on either side.
RDM/DRK - Mainly for stuns. Refresh and haste tank, refresh mages.
WHM/SCH - Main Curing the PLD. Be very carefull not to take hate. With IR gear and /rdm fo tank this shouldnt be any problem.
(SMN/WHM) - Focus on Garuda Clawing the seed. Astral Flow at 10% if necesary. I will advice at least one smn for this setup. Because of the pet-hate bonus.
(RNG/NIN) - /nin does help actually allthough i have heard ppl refusing this. It doesn help on one of the moves, but can help get WS's off safely without taking dmg. If you go with rng, have them swear before entering to controll their hate output. if they get hot headed and start taking hate, the whm might get hate because of curing and if whm dies your most likely dead. If rng dies early you will most likely run out of time.
DD/WAR - I used MNK/WAR. Provoke, Chiblast the adds. (you can spot if it is about to clone a player by checking for circles around a player moving up and down (scans you).

Almost forgot the most important thing for any setup involving ranged.
Have everyone except tank stay on the top of the stairs. dont move one step down at all. crowd together at the door. If pld doing his job, mages wont have any trouble with distance. If you start getting AOE your doing it wrong, and you will wipe shortly unless you pull it together.

This is also similar to what we used, but we used a blu/nin instead of the ninja. It also gave us a secondary backup healer for the rest of the party.

As was stated in a previous post, use 2-hrs right away. Let the Paladin be the first to enter, gain hate, use his hate abilities, and let him hold hate for about 30 sec - 1 min. Then let the Rangers engage. Rangers, don't go all out early on, just slowly build up TP, move in within a distance of 15 to WS and move back out beyond 20. Save Barrage until after your Paladin gets his second set of hate abilities cast, then you can start to pick it up a little. The key is just make sure the Paladin maintains hate. Slow and steady works better than going all out. We beat the battle in about 20 min this way. Let the Blu/Nin just worry about the clones.

who stunned? >.<

2/2 on it was pld smn cor rdm sam forget 6th 2nd run was amnk instead a sam since the mnk was who needed it. pld said basicly put on auto run so runs away everytime drawed in. 6th might ben a whm or a rng forget which.

A paladin with enough magic damage reduction and magic defense bonus gear makes this fight a joke.

If you invite a paladin and he's not wearing the above mentioned gear, you'll have a much harder time.

Obviously, stunning is for casuals.