Feb 2018 Ambuscade Vol 1

We noticed that the Dullahan seems to take more damage while the Charger is alive, so we just hold the Charger indefinitely with a PUP and DD the Dullahan first. Perhaps everyone is searching for a way to remove the -DT and can't find it because they kill the Charger ASAP?


So looking at the information that is new to me, looks like there are a couple things:
1) Standard ranged party with at least 1 RNG, Shadowbind @ Miasma to allow everyone to /heal through KO, otherwise normal?

2) RUN GEO COR BST + 2x DD. Lock it into Boiling with TPDK, 2x DD sit in Regain aura to get TP (don't feed TP to boss), use WS/BP/etc in combo with the extra damage he takes during Boiling to cheese the remainder of the fight.

Curious, just how little TP can a Monk feed? Could they feasibly continue attacking and feed little enough TP that TPDK could still keep it < 3000 TP and locked in?

Like I said before, any of the tanks can handle this Ambuscade just fine. That includes RUN (as well as PLD, which is arguably the worst choice between NIN RUN PUP PLD, but the one I've done 95% of my runs with and haven't had problems).

NIN is probably the best of the bunch for fastest clears, since your DDs don't need to bother holding back (or using /heal if that works) during boil over time. All you need is enough haste to keep Migawari up. Since NIN has no native MP pool, magic using subjobs are hampered a bit. Voke may not be the greatest hate tool, but it's something, and Double Attack helps a bit on generating some enmity through offense. Between that and NIN's native enmity spells/JAs, and any Decoy Shot you can get if you have any RNGs, NIN shouldn't really have any issue holding hate off a ranged group (and you will either want ranged or other NINs if you're ignoring Boil mechanics and relying on Migawari to survive Nether Castigation).

A couple updates to add myself.
1. We have kept charger alive in a few fights. It does not appear to effect the dullahan, but the dullahan does take more damage during charging mode. (not 100% confirmed but tested quite a bit)
(I still think there is a way to break his horn though!)

2. Miasma appears to only be breakable when attacking from behind it. So the tank can NOT break miasma (or if you pets are facing the frontal area instead of behind it).

Question: Has it been confirmed that /heal will allow you to avoid the insta KO move?

Does a SC need to follow the VS itself to bring down miasma?

August + Fatso hits ~2900TP in 30sec by themselves. I doubt that a MNK player will be able to come in low enough to safely auto-atk with the TPDK strat. :( Should have no problem getting away with: Turn > Regain to 1200TP > WS > repeat. Ranged jobs just get the even easier lazymode of "Hit WS macro every 10-11sec".

I've not been able to test this strat on N+ so far, so no guarantees yet how well it will work once Miasma / Death Spikes / Noahionto / etc come into play.

This isn't it. Had a non MEA corsair use last stand next to 2 other COR + RNG, ours did 18k~, his did 50k. all fired around the same time. There is no explanation besides a well-timed TP move perhaps significantly lowers his DT, and overall defense. My guess is, it's a split second maneuver. Maybe if people pay more attention to the timing of tp moves, we can report back

1. For whatever unknown reason, it almost always goes straight into Boiling mode for me w/in ~3sec of charging, so can't confirm/deny that ._.;; The only thing I can think of is that I'm using August while testing, so maybe it's JA thing? :/

2. So, pets CAN break it on their own? If it goes unbroken, is it a set duration before it goes boom?

Answer: That's what it says at https://www53.atwiki.jp/bartlett3/pages/318.html. No one wanted to let my leech leech N+ yet tho, so can't personally confirm.

So yeah um whatever the dmg cap is it's way higher than 3k lol. On VE my trusts and players with no dt got hit for 7818. Auto with 33 pet dt took 4641 (40.6% less dmg) and auto with 44 pet dt took 3817 (51.2% less dmg). Given stout servant is 9 and frame is 12.5 only getting 7 more than my gear shows something is super off here.

Edit: just tested via full gear dt and 1k needles and numbers came out as expected so idk man maybe it's breath and sharpshot has no bdt just pdt and mdt? Gotta go find the testing I suppose

That was in reference to:
"The cumulative damage impacted while accumulating, the power rises, damage is bounced up to about 3,000 for easy, and up to around 60000 for extreme."
Quite possible inline GTrans is off, so let's try to verify.
Full GTrans spits out the same as inline. :/ Maybe "bounced" means that those numbers are the approximate minimums?

This has probably been mentioned but tenebrae x3 pretty much makes Scintillating Lance do 0 dmg on VD (with Fade and/or scherzo), Also the crazy dmg spikes (from players) seem to be related to hitting it during a small window, when the Dullahan uses V. Rebuke.

I suppose if you simply did enough damage you do not need the SC. On the other hand, you'd want to SC as soon as you saw the miasma message if SC'ing.

Maybe it's the reversed order and the dmg it speaks of is the amount dealt to it? So like that's the amount it needs to take in order to cap it's castigation dmg? Guess I can suicide a few times to test lol. Actually nvm I know that's not true since I counted dmg another time and it was way higher. Maybe minimum needed to be dealt? But that seems super high for VD. idk think maybe they just might be wrong

I'm betting it's breath. Just based on the dmgs I've seen but also be too easy for a pld to survive it if it was just magic

It's hybrid dark/physical damage. Gains TP after using it. Suspect that it's also multi-hit since I've drained more than one TP value immediately after it's used as well, but have yet to make enough sense of it to say that it is for sure.

Just wanted to point some stuff out for melee strategy, since that is the most error prone. None of the Dullahan's moves can be done without tp, and the TP move "Charge Up" precedes the actual message dictating the mechanic, so it serves as a warning. As soon as you see the tp move in the log, turn and wait for the message (no need to run away).

If it says it is charging up, just resume dps as normal.

If it boils, just get the regain aura benefit while turned and let a mage spam stone 1 to trigger Nether, then unload SCs with all that tp after it's done.

If it's miasma, have everyone stay turned, and there should be a "primary" breaker person to WS miasma off. It won't do Eisenschneider (instant KO 30' range) without tp, so there is no time component here, just stay turned and don't give it tp. If primary person doesn't have tp, other DD should WS it. I don't know if it's direction based, but I've never been able to break it as tank on its face, and other DPS broke it 100% from behind, I think. No idea if that's how it works, but it worked for us.
After it's broken, it will go straight to boiling, so after you WS it off turn away immediately and then mage does stone 1 to force Nether for minimal damage, then resume DPS.

I know lots of people are blasting through this ambu with rng or smn or high end dps on D/VD, but a middling group with good mix of support and competent dps can at least put N on farm status as long as you execute the strategy properly and make good use of skillchains. Multisteps with hard SC closers work well, as both mobs take good SC damage.

Hope it helps this month for some people.

No ability done in between the 2, atramentous libations was used 7sec before the 20k ws.

@geigei: That log is filtered though so it's unusable as evidence. :/ Yes, there is something that causes occasional 4x damage received spikes. No, nothing in your screenshot helps explain why it happens.

Every time I've gotten the random damage spike it's been during an enmity switch.

Coincidental, but worth a note. If no one pulls hate from the tank it's never happened (for me).

Eiryl gimme some gil

I mean... you can buy it <.<;;

Nothing is free~

Mob never did a TP move or anything.

No filters either.

My GF Mysticat did that much dmg with her Aeonic GA.

Any thoughts or Explanations on how she 1 shot the mob?

Could be Divine Emblem effect on Flash with Amnesia or her Spikes..
Maybe the window of Amnesia triggers massive damage window.
Or MB "light" opens the window!
It would help if you mentioned which difficulty that was.

I could see the act of MBing being a possible cause, but Divine Emblem doesn't give Flash an amnesia effect.

I also had a light done before spike.

Anybody done a multiple NIN attempt bouncing hate yet? If enmity switch really has something to do with major damage spikes, 2-3 NINs keeping Migawari up and fighting it old school TP burn style with no "main tank" might be pretty great.

I would assume NIN x2-3 would be fine even if there isn't another beneficial gimmick in play.

Sigh .. I tried going through all the derailed crap filling up this thread but gave up in the end. Something about bringing a smn and a rng, or conduit smns, or corx3. Is that it? Pretty much? Or is it possible to get a good summarized post with most of the details from this thread? Maybe I missed it if there is one already.

Smn strat; take smns, win, no strat required.

Rng strat; take rangers, autora afk come back win.

melee strat; boss has 3 phases,
chargecharge > zerg,
chargeboil > feed low damage nukes till castegate,
miasma > 1 ws from the back > boils (see chargeboil)

Really? We could do a ranger strat, but don't we have to deal with all the messages and stuff? Or just kill Dullahan?