Iron Plates And Colorless Souls

So what did you guys do to speed up this process? I'm currently collecting Iron Plates.

I dual-box so I've been running with this setup:
MNK/WAR - Razed Ruins, Apocalypse, Dread (with Tarutaru Sash)
WHM/BLM - Allure, Apocalypse, Minikin Monstrosity

I could swap to THF/WAR and pick up Gnarled Horn instead of Dread but I it's kinda hard to say if that'd be worth it since my MNK has Verethragna and my THF just uses a couple str daggers.

My question though is which giant and which T3 VNM did you find easiest/fastest? I've been doing the Ironclad Smiter in Altepa just because he seemed like the easiest one to pop. I haven't though about which T3 VNM I'd do yet but I was thinking I would probably just hop between each zone so I don't have to sit around for 10-15 minutes and wait on T2 NMs to repop.

What did you guys do when farming for Derpaderbla?

We did a mix of everything for our PLD's Ochain in a desperate attempt to finish it faster/easier, for my harp though, we tended to stick to Smiter, it was just the most convenient and easiest one. The pops are easy to get, tablilla is a quick and easy kill and often people will bazaar the shard so occasionally you don't even have to kill for pops. Your set up is less bothered by smiter's ballistic kick (if you can't stun it) since you can just punch it bare handed and get hate back.

We did Ule as MNK / WAR / WHM / THF (whm and thf being dual boxed mules). Took us 3 days (this is with work/adl/legion breaks) to finish both plates and souls. We actually finished souls before plates, lol.

The only reason I avoided Sunderer initially is because Teek frags can be such a pain in the *** to get compared to Tablilla Mercury. Like Sekundes said, Sandy Shards is as simple as shouting at flux 8 "[Sandy Shard] [Can I have it?] [Bazaar] [please]" and then you don't ever really have to farm them. Plus Tablilla doesn't have those stupid spikes, sleepga, breakga, or slowga. Also, from my past experience, bubbling oil doesn't seem to drop very often.

I might give Sunderer another try, although I have a friend who could use the DRK body seals from Smiter so might just stick to him to knock out 2 birds with one stone.

I just stun it with my WHM/BLM mule, which is one of the reasons I had him /blm instead of /thf. That, and I've never actually leveled up his thf for a subjob.

So you just did Ule for both the Plates and Souls? I thought the Ule Ironclad was a pain in the *** b/c doesn't he have invincible? I know I know I can pop Formless Strikes if I stay on MNK, but 10 min cooldown kinda sucks. Also, I was just thinking I'd like to be THF at least for the souls, only b/c killspeed doesn't matter as much since you're waiting on the T2 VNM to respawn anyway.

Diabolos is really easy to duo/dual box as well, as long as your mage keeps reraise up.

Yeah I'm not worried about the difficulty at all. Just wondering more about what's best in terms of time efficiency. I've fought just about everything in Abyssea as either MNK, BLU, NIN, or THF with WHM, BRD, or BLM mule. I've just never bothered collecting souls/plates before now.

dont know what triggers triturator to use 2hrs but if you just keep him right on the ??? and kill asap its not an issue at all 9/10 times, will occasionally get one that spams ms/invincible nonstop though

that said its very easy, solo dd'd it down with ukon and dualboxed whm quite a few times and imo thats the fastest way to do plates/souls at the same time, farm ic pops and kill between chione windows

I just didn't want you to avoid Grauberg thinking that it was more difficult. When I did souls for my mule I switched between zones based on competition.

Thanks! That sounds a lot better than farming just plates and then souls. Initially I was thinking I'd do plates, and then afterwards jump between zones each time I killed a T2 VNM, but I'd cut down on a lot of travel time by just staying in the same zone and farming plates, or pops for plates, when VNMs are down.

Sounds like Ulegeurand is calling my name.

Just to confirm, but red proc does nothing for upgrading to T3 does it? I remember one of the updates not too long ago changed something concerning upgrading your abyssites, but I can't remember what it was.

Your tank should be able to survive the full duration of nightmare; otherwise, the tank isn't being healed often enough. I would also recommend keeping Regen IV up, but it isn't needed to stay alive. My mule has died several times due to hate reset, but I've never died on my main.

This was done THF + WHM, by the way. It shouldn't be hard for a MNK to survive either if you swap into a PDT/evasion set.

You're almost certainly going to want some form of treasure hunter. Your WHM could probably sub THF and get away with it because TH3 will be better than THnothing. There isn't much point trying to fight the most time efficient ones and then have to kill additional pops because you don't have treasure hunter.

I always found the Altepa Ironclad to be the easiest of the three. You can farm pops in an extraordinarily fast time compared to the other two and, thanks to his constant shuffling of resistances, he seems to die faster too. The one in Uleguerand was a pain if you don't kill him quickly and the one in Grauberg has trickier pop items.

With Tier 3 VNMs, I generally do whichever zone has nobody in. Competition for Brulo lately has been awful on Lakshmi so I've found myself in Grauberg and Uleguerand more. Brulo is definitely the easiest though. Then I'd put Maere before Ogopogo. Maere's difficulty is grossly overrated in my opinion. So long as your White Mage has Apocalypse on you should never fail to kill him.

Heck, I can solo Maere on Summoner. He's got the least HP of the three so he dies quicker, too. The Garuda can be a pain, though. I guess in retrospect, Altepa is definitely the easiest and quickest zone to farm your Souls.

The biggest plus to Uleguerand and Grauberg, at least on Lakshmi, is nobody is ever there. Everytime I've gone to Grauberg there has never been a time the T2 or T3 was not up. People avoid it for some reason, which is good news for anyone willing to give it a try.

Edit: When I've done Maere on Thief Nightmare has always worn off before I die. And on Summoner solo I have never been drawn in.

I've actually done a really large amount of the Ironclad in Ule (can't recall the name offhand), as long as you kill it quickly (as in aren't holding it for red/yellow) and keep your mage away, it's pretty stupidly easy. We were doing Whm + Nin and it never got even anywhere near dangerous. I mostly stuck to that one because I'm cheap and the pops for him were the least expensive off the ah.

Maere in Grauberg always seemed the least camped out of the 3 T3 VNMs, but I've had some dumb mechanics with it where it'll nightmare on pop, someone will die and he'll despawn, even if 2 people had hate on it and only one died. (As in I'd pop on mage, partner would voke, he'd nightmare and kill me then despawn). Pretty frustrating.

When I spawn on Summoner that can't happen. Garuda auto attacks anything that aggros me and she always hits before he appears. Even if he uses Nightmare upon spawn hate will be on my pet and not on me. And it takes a considerable amount of time for Maere to bash Garuda down to nothing... And by considerable amount of time I mean never.

I know this isn't helpful for the OP since he doesn't have SMN available, but somebody else reading the thread might benefit from this useful piece of information.

In Ule you could do Iron Plates in downtime of the T3 and upgrades (whilst you get those annoying upgrades on the THF)

I personally did Ironclad in Grauberg for all my plates in 2 nights which was just evenings.
Managed to get 26 Souls in a day then upgrades can really f you over >.> in all Souls were done in about 4/5 days.