Ambuscade Vol.1 - September

Yeah, there is a wide range of COR you can get no doubt. I feel like its that way with most jobs. My personal opinion is most of the player base has no idea where the ceiling for most jobs is or they mistakenly think they are far closer to it than they are. I try make a point at least 1-2 times a week to browse thru the various forums on the jobs I play to make sure I'm keeping up with the latest stuff but there are tons of people who literally never do this. I find some ppl still play like its 2015 or something and haven't adjusted to all the new gear and strats. Take WSD gear for example.. the balance of power has shifted towards different WS being the optimal ones now than was the case 2-3 years back. I feel like /DRK tank for RUN is a relatively new thing? I could be wrong there, I've only played RUN over the past 6 months or so and it's still more of a project for me than one of my top-line event jobs. But I feel like I'll often run into ppl who aren't /drk, suggest they try it, list the benefits and they just dont get it.

I think RUN especially had a massive range. You get the top of the line types who can hold hate against top-flight DDs, use all their JAs properly etc etc then you have ones who literally have no idea what to do on the job.

GEOs might be a better comparison for the COR range. You got your bubble-only, afk types then you got others running around with great pet DT/regen sets, great enhancing sets, cure sets, free nuke and burst sets, enfeebling sets, those who use cardinal chant to their benefit as needed, etc etc.

I just think too many players either have no idea how good some of the top-line players are or they have so many blinders on that they can't see it even when everyone else can. I've run into many players who think they are amazing and just refuse to see it any other way, even when they continually come up short.

Considering the amount of time, energy and mental headache a player needs to go through to have 1 top end job, I can totally understand why most people choose not to care. FFXI is a game, after all.

One really need to be passionate about a job to get to that stage, imo. Otherwise it becomes work and antithesis of playing. But for those who really love a job, it's more enjoyable to improve a job and it feels less like work.

I used to think a job needs 50 gear sets to be good, now I bring 5 gear set jobs to event and don't give a damn, as long as I have full control of the final result and friends don't care anyways.

Eh, most of the current end-game content is pretty forgiving tbh. Maybe that's where the misconception comes from. Some of the nastier ambus, wave 3 stuff, I guess the Trove chest (havent fought it) still require a lot more than it takes to sleepwalk through Omen or a SMN style aeonic round.

My main deal is I want to be a "complete" player.. not in the sense that I need BiS slot everything but the basic things that the job can do should def be covered. For COR, you gotta be able to melee and shoot, gotta have savage, last stand, leaden, QD, light n dark shot covered, a preshot set, DT, etc. For GEO, even though healing isn't typically a big part of the job, at least have that 50% cure potency squared away to chip in as needed or, with that ambu a few months back when we all had to take our own orcs or goblins or whatever they were, the GEO babysat the DD that took on the WAR mob.

I guess the baseline for considering something event-ready is just higher than some think. I guess my main "thing" here is just I find so many players who either don't think they need to improve in any way or maybe just don't want to, idk either way... they end up staying the same. As the level required to do the current end game goes up, they dont go up with it because they can be in a group that can trash Ou or clear ambu on D most months. It's a game but one we all have invested a ton of time and effort into.. no way around it. But yeah, I've run into a lot of situations where I see a player or players who think they're on a certain level compared to another person (not gonna lie, I'm often that person lol) and it's just not even close. Take COR for example... in dyna with leaden... if you lack DP, living bullets, relic +3 body and feet, but have most of the other stuff.. then factor in the play-style technique gap that exists between a COR main and a not COR main.. the gap is huge.

Fixed for accuracy. The game has tons of room to bring lesser geared jobs these days. Wave 3 is one of the easiest(beaten in 2 weeks by community) "hardest endgame" at release since 2012, compare with legion, NNI, pre ilv delve, max ilv incursion in 2014, aeonic in 2015, pw2 and original 3 master trials that is. If you have done any of the above content first month when they were out, you'd know their difficulty was far above wave 3.

And vd ambu is 10 ilv below the hardest endgame ilv, I wouldn't rank ambu serious content at all. It requires communication skill wayyyyyy more than gears IMO.

SE made the game more accessible to those who don't play the game at absolute top end, so people could really use this opportunity to enjoy the game a bit more IMO.

Personally, I find the game a lot more enjoyable to play in a casual manner. And when I occasionally play the game seriously, it's usually because I'm on a job that I actually enjoy the serious gameplay. Serious gameplay should be a bonus, not a requirement at this point.

If you cure on geo and have fun doing that, then by all means go for it. But it's rarely an absolute requirement to get win IMO(minus some healer-less setups). And same applies to most jobs.

not to mention the gil

Ambu is 139, same as omen. It doesn't require a full pt of max gear player to clear effectively, just pt coordination, that's what I meant.

Looking for this as well

This has to make it on here for accuracy.

Easy fix is react, lol. Tank can hold all 3 in VD with pretty much 0 chance to *** up with it, and vice versa if you are not in JP.

If you try to turn manually and live outside of JP there's a chance that as soon as text in chat log pop it's already too late because lag. It really has nothing to do with tank player skill nor knowledge. A "competent" tank that normally perform well in every other content can still be screwed without react this month.

Like that moogle fight, SE just happened to design a mechanic that doesn't work well in FFXI because game server is in JP. To the point that tank needs a tool that reads tp move packet before it appears in chat log.

I mean.... obviously. The easy answer is automate the process.

I took a screen shot of me getting charmed, while the text displayed "unable to see The Bozzetto Frigg" I've also had an automaton get terrored, while facing away, and not have hate reset. That's literally impossible. Dozens of times I've been standing 180 degrees away from another player and both have been hit by "cone attacks".

Clearly, the game doesn't work perfectly.

You still end up charmed on occasion with a plugin responding to the packet, because their server fails to send the tp readies packet pretty often. I was still able to win consistantly though, they are not that bad to kite in the event of a charm.

No question PUP is more reliable, what should be a relatively simple and fun mechanic is ruined by their server implementation.

If tank don't use react one way to deal with frigg without PUP is to have a dedicated tank(can be anything from pld, run to nin) hold frigg while pt kill the other 2. And the tank on frigg should turn on tp move animation because mute and amnesia is easier to deal with than charm. If charm lands then mages needs to bind the charmed tank because sleep doesn't work.

I think a blink tank is probably better in VD on Frigg too, because en-petri. But I'm not 100% certain on that.

But this setup is still somewhat less efficient than react(most efficient because you only need 1 tank) or pup(2nd most efficient setup with 0 chance to get charmed).

I've yet to run into any tank without react willing to solo tank all 3, Everyone just avoid tank role like plague this month lol.

A tip to counter Divine Retribution spam after Skathi gets to <50%: move your RNGs/CORs closer so they get hit w/ the hate reset too. It's easier to cure/poisona/stona them than it is for your tank to try to pull hate back from CORs who've been raining down 40k Last Stands. Prevents Imperiling Disregard from getting anywhere near your backline.

There's not really any reason to not bring a PUP. Frigg does so little damage that you could get any 99 PUP and they could hold her without issue.

PUPs, enjoy the easy points this month. Even VD is dog-easy to tank.

The reason is opportunity cost.

You really cant do that, it'll glow and go run off charming people. Tough to pull off kiting with a pet.

If youre using SMN, just burn them in 2 mins.

I know you blocked me so you probably didn't see.....the entire reason why it's brought up is because tank needs react(or JP button) to tank all 3 smoothly, and not everyone uses them, so discussing ideal setup based on using an automated tool isn't viable for some people.



Yes there is, which is group benefit > optimal setup.

Because the way I do ambu is that I'd ask "who needs ambuscade" in LS1 and 2, then invite anyone that says yes unless they absolutely don't have a job that can't fit in at all. I only invite outsiders if There are extra space after this step.

So if none of the people that responded in LS has PUP but have a different tank job like pld run nin etc that also works as an alternative, Im not going to tell them that they cant come because I'm going to shout for a random PUP that's not from LS.

Personally, I prefer not to be kind of people who kicks LS mate out of pt and shout for a stranger for ambu just because they want "optimal" setup. The "optimal setup or bust" mentality can burn in hell >:O

Other tank job works just fine if they can turn. We've used NIN and they managed to solo DD down frigg with minimal support too. Although they are also more likely to go wrong than using a PUP.

Ok so...finally got some time to try some setup tweaking before monthly reset, so far we have the fastest VD kill(4.5 min including 2 min buffs) with this:

RUN(react)
Cor (chaos/sam)
RNG or cor
GEO(fury/frailty entrust wilt on tank, cast bubble on frigg or skathi)
Brd(honor/prelude x2/AGI etude or minuet
Sch(animus spells)

Notes:

1) Like comeatmebro said, react isn't 100% dance proof but it makes every VD run drastically faster and easier. Not having to use 2 tanks means 1 more slot for support, and the kill speed difference is huge with more supports.

It seems to me that using both brd+geo is faster than only having geo or only having brd as support.

2) Attack seems capped with just fury/frailty/chaos, ws avg nor clear speed doesn't change with or without bolster.

My ws racc wasn't capped on main boss at 1450, so 1500+ is a better goal to aim for.

3) I like having entrust wilt on tank to prevent EES randomly one shot people.

If we use 2 cor instead if 1, we do chaos/sam/allies/gallant to further prevent EES one shot people. But if the team is comfortable with safety then hunter(for more room to lower acc by changing food to stp food) or regain can be used instead of gallant.

4) SCH is pretty awesome for it's enmity control spells. Post wsd adjustment I popped several 53k to 54k last stand on skathi despite my aeonic augment isn't even max rank. But after 1+ hr of VD spamming I never pull hate once despite ws hits so hard now. I Didn't gear for enmity- either.

I also like the trick of getting RUN to pull everything back to the starting corner and have aoe liement/valiance hitting all 6 member at start for instant high hate so DD can go all out from the start and kill faster.

I feel that post ws adjustment, sch may be the standard healer for cor ranged setup on anything weak against piercing. Last stand just hits way too hard and generates too much hate if piercing bonus is present. So we need every enmity control tool we have in game.

If hate is not an issue I think geo+brd is enough to heal, so that's another DD slot for even faster kills.

5) like every other ambu, it gets easier the faster you kill because they are less likely to go wrong. The best way to deal with shitty skathi hate is to kill it in 20 to 30 sec so she can't do a thing before she dies, lol.

I didn't mean any offense. I play PUP and generally have access to another geared PUP, so it's easy for me to deploy the job for Ambu with lsmates. Even on Asura, there aren't *that* many well-geared puppetmasters, so for a month with such an obvious PUP strat I always use the job.

TBH for such an easy month, taking an hour and a couple million gil to get a basic PUP, even without skill, would probably have been easier than working another job into the strat?

Here's the long and short of it. PUP strat, crazy easy. AFK easy in fact. 3 attachments, zero jp, zero gear, you're good to go. (and somehow people still manage to *** it up, it's hilarious)

But its slow. Therefor it's wrong.

Or even easier way, react and deal with it >.> Because nothing beats the effectiveness of react this month imo.

I don't think we can hit 4.5 min a VD run with our DD level if we use PUP which takes up another support or DD slot. One of our RNG is returning player and I'm not max geared either. Ive seen way too many pt with tank+PUP that takes 10 min to clear VD. And I feel the key to push VD clear speed to sub 5 min is 1 tank on all 3.

Classic disconnect.

You think people care about how fast they're clearing it. People just care about simply being able to do it.

Two completely different oconversations

No I didn't miss the point at all, I addressed the point.



And yeah most PUG that I've seen, clear speed is serious business. If a pt takes 20 min v.s other pt taking 5, get ready for people dropping pt after 1 run.

I've PUG'ed a whole bunch this month and this doesn't seem to be true. People are happy to get clears, in general, Eiryl is right. I've been in 7-8 minute VD runs and 15 minute D runs. When we win people are happy. It's a tight month for party composition and not melee-friendly. There have been a lot of V2 farm shouts this month, and it's the second month in a row that has been tough on melee.

just encountered a glitch or something on VD. Its like the EVA of all the mobs sky rocketed. Both cor in party 1450+ racc were missing shots and ws left and right. Idk if something can trigger a level up but strange.

not that it matters much this close to the end. but still