Plan for tonight's mission ~possible spoilers!~

[Zerila]

Ok, I've been thinking about the trouble we've been having with this last ToAU fight, and I've come up with a plan. It goes like this:

We gear up, run in to the battlefield, and buff up like normal.
Once ready, we attack Raubahn. The first time we knock him down, we break out the rope and tie him up, and we wrap several rolls of duct tape over his mouth. That way, when he re-raises he won't be able to do anything. 

With Raubahn out of the way, we'll send in a couple of people to keep the Iron Colossus occupied, while someone heals. I'll Sneak/Invis myself and two other people, and we'll run around planting the high-grade explosives all over the Colossus's body. By the time we get done with that, the two fighting should have knocked the required 50% off of the Colossus, and then he'll turn into Alexander. At that point, we get clear and blow the explosives, which should knock Alexander down to 0% health.

Hey, SE cheats all the time in these fights! Why can't we? 

Honestly, I think Ariamo and I just need to continuously spam cures on the tank to keep them alive, and go from there. The only real issue is that we keep running out of time, though he seemed to spam a lot of cures on that last fight... This is a tricky fight, but I know we can do it!

[Ariamo]

We do okay until Alexander does the whole ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ junk Divine Judgment.  Since it always seems to kill Nerces( : / ) In one shot, which is cheating.  At least I think it's one hit.  Not sure how much it hits as PLD.  There isn't much gear to deal with -% damage taken also.  Earth staff and Jelly ring can only do so much.

[Zerila]

Yeah, Nerces had a good idea of just taking the wipe at the first one and regrouping to try again. When Nerces is down, we're a lot busier healing the others. I think, if the Divine Judgement results in death, we should just unload all we can into Alexander, take the wipe (making sure to die out of range), heal up and try again.

Now, if we can avoid any deaths from that Blue Mage, that will really help with the time restraint... he killed Nerces at the last moment on his 2nd form last time, the cheap bugger ><
Also, maybe we should save TP either until the end or to stun that healing move. That thing messed us up so bad on the last run 

I was thinking of joining the melee (extra stun WS can't hurt) but I dunno... if I die in the wrong spot, there goes Tractor. It might not be a good idea.

Anyway, I'm planning on getting on as soon as I get home and have eaten, and I'll stay on until we either beat this guy or it's too late to continue (I don't want to start any runs later than 11:15 or so, CST... I fall asleep at work if I stay up too late ). Not that it's going to matter... we're going to beat this tonight! 

I just hope everyone can make it tonight. Enna, if you read this, what kind of damage did you do with Hundred Fists? It might be worthwhile to have a couple Monks unload that towards the end of the fight

[Ennaor]

I don't remember... I feel like I wasn't doing much damage.  I got Formless Strikes now though, which means when I use that my punches wont count as physical damage.. so that might be help make things faster for us fighting the BLU when you guys want magic only.  Hmm, also Tableandchairs said that Howling Fist is a lot stronger now than Asuran Fist.... or something like that... I don't remember exact convo... maybe I should try that instead WS because with Asuran Fist I was getting like 200ish hits   I hope we can win tonight !

[Nerces]

Eyes on Me is just plan hax once he uses Azure Lore. However, it can be blinked as Aerial Armor sucked up a few the last few runs. That could be one way of mitigating damage form that move. Although the last form hits hard and fast, so a NIN tank needs to have shadows up constantly. It makes me regret not having PLD/NIN as an option.

Divine Judgement only one-shots me because he tends to do like Radiant Sacrament and then Divine Judgement right after. I can survive the move normally at 100% hp, but he tends to precede it just enough damage where Divine Judgement can one-shot me. However, I did notice that it is possible to have Divine Judgement only hit the tank if positioning is good.

I really do think that strategic wiping on our first attempt (well, it seemed strategic in hindsight) is what got us the win. Everyone dying at the same time seems to limit our down time to 5-6min rather than 5 min for me then 5 min for next DD then another 5 min for WHM, etc.

[Ariamo]

I can only do Aerial Armor so much so it's hard to time it right for that Eyes on Me.   I'll try to get it as soon as I see him using Azure Lore though.  I think that when we had Ryu tank that BLU guy, Eyes on me went through shadows.  Oh right, how much was that other WS he was using hit you by the way? 

Also, I still would like to know if he comes after us after he reraises, even if we're out of range.  I'm guessing it's like an Aern's.  Also a thought, we should try bringing Icarus wings when we think we're close to winning the fight. 

Wiki says that Divine Judgment is physical(maybe wrong) but if it is, can it be Invincibled?  Not sure if Sentinel can mitigate Radiant Sacrament.  But if it can and you haven't tried, maybe use that around 50% when he uses Radiant Sacrament so that you can survive Divine Judgment?  Could be wrong about this whole thing of course.

One last thing, Wiki says that Alexander seems to be weak to Blizzard, like the ramparts and chariots in Salvage, maybe we can get Zerila to Chainspell Blizzard on him near the end or something.

EDIT:  Cake.

[Zerila]

I wasn't doing all that much damage with Blizzard III, I think less than 50, but I can sure give it another shot The trick is, making sure I have either enough mp or a handy convert in order to make chainspell worth it

I can do this again on Sunday, if everyone else is on. I'll be on briefly on Friday, but that will just be chocobo-races. Saturday I'll be on a little bit in the morning. But Sunday should be all right for missions

Edit: Maybe I'll experiment during the next fight... if Blizzard III does only 50 or so damage, what does Blizzard II do? It might be more effective to spam that, MP-wise

Edit again: Cake! 

[Nerces]

Some thoughts occurred to me:

1) Do we actually have to kill the BLU or can we just take the gear down to 50% in the first part of the battle?

2) Can /DRK Stun actually stun the BLU's Eyes on Me?

Anyway, on to the responses.

I can only do Aerial Armor so much so it's hard to time it right for that Eyes on Me.   I'll try to get it as soon as I see him using Azure Lore though.  I think that when we had Ryu tank that BLU guy, Eyes on me went through shadows.  Oh right, how much was that other WS he was using hit you by the way? 

I know I blinked the move. Areya even noticed it. I was thinking more of blinking it with a more reliable(?) Utsusemi. I can't imagine the move going only through Utsusemi and not Blink. But I suppose SE could be that evil. But Shield Bash and potentially Weapon Bash stuns work really well to interrupt his casting. I've noticed him be interrupted normally with melee hits and even interrupted by paralysis.

As far as the WS... Circle Blade just has vicious range, but the damage is not too bad for me as a paladin. It probably wipes shadows, being an AoE type move. Although technically it's physical, so it can miss (normally) and Sentinel can reduce damage. For some retarded reason Seraph Blade can do more than 600 damage. I'm thinking this might be an effect of Azure Lore, but I'm not exactly sure. It's an elemental WS, so Magic Attack Bonus does increase damage. His MAB can be stacked really high or made really high when he uses Azure Lore.

Wiki says that Divine Judgment is physical(maybe wrong) but if it is, can it be Invincibled?  Not sure if Sentinel can mitigate Radiant Sacrament.  But if it can and you haven't tried, maybe use that around 50% when he uses Radiant Sacrament so that you can survive Divine Judgment?  Could be wrong about this whole thing of course.

I know Sentinel works with all his TP moves, and his spells are really weak. So the only real threat in that fight is Divine Judgment. I don't know from experience if Divine Judgment is indeed physical. I guess I could just do a shot in the dark and use Sentinel around 50% and hope he uses Divine Judgment. The problem is that he doesn't give me enough of a cue for Divine Judgment. And with Invincible and Sentinel only lasting 30s each, I would hate to guess and then be totally off. I really don't like this insta-cast B.S. when they can dish out more HP in 1 sec than most players would normally have.

[Zerila]

From what I understand, the first part of the fight won't end until the BLU goes down for the third time, regardless of what we do to the armor. We can try sleeping the BLU right away and trying it out, though.

Here's a thought, though... maybe we should have a Ninja and a Paladin? The Ninja can try tanking the BLU (to absorb that Eyes on Me) and the Paladin can tank Alexander? Then the Ninja can just switch to full-on DD mode on the second fight. Maybe spamming the wheel would be effective? I'd be willing to give it a whirl on Ninja (though I have fairly cruddy gear for tanking ^^;)

Still another thought... I could go on BST and try kiting the BLU with a pet on his third form while everyone else recovers. I only say that because I always look for a chance to go BST, I don't expect anyone to take me seriously

[Ennaor]

What if after you beat the missions Ariamo's bro transforms!!! Into a talkative and happy person!! And becomes BFFs with Ariamo!  And he'll be like you guys are the bestest!  Free cookies for everyone!!!  You saved me from the evil curse that makes me emo!  Hurrah! Hurrah!

[Ariamo]

Enna, that'll never happen.  He'll just start talking to me as normal.  And yes, I know it's hard to time Sentinel and Invincible, but it's the effort that counts.

EDIT:  Blah.  Cake.