Ambuscade Volume 1 - December 2018

Occasionally my lolnin lands blind, para, and slow on VD and by no means has bis macc lol. Idk the mechanics but maybe he becomes more susceptible to enfeebs under certain conditions

if adds had a BoG wilt from an idris geo (atk-100%), could a SMN tank adds and keep hate?
via /blu or something; to pull them, probably just stick wilt on main and move after adds are hitting the smn.

The drk adds hit -VERY- hard depending on difficulty. crits have done 1400+ (in tp set) on N

Add attack may or may not go up as you damage boss, not really sure

Addle, Blind, Paralyze and Slow are all easy to land on RDM. The boss just has a special resistance against Frazzle and Distract. Frazzle possibly only because it's Undead.

It's possible if your pt reaches certain level of dps. Because last 30% ends so fast, and adds will go after cure/silence person and that person can kite them for a bit. Which buys time for the pt to finish last 30% off.

We won every single run in a pt that can get 5-6 min wins even if tank die. But any pt slower than that = not 100% win.

I haven't been RDM this time around (I was last time this ambu was around, and my gear has improved tons since then).
Landing distract3 was a major mess.
I think I managed a couple of times but it took me so much time/attempts I gave up entirely even trying.

On GEO this time around I couldn't land Frazzle 1 even with Languor and Focus on the boss (Idris!).

I was not able to land Purulent Ooze's max hp down 10% on the qutrub. no problem w/ Corrosive ooze's attack/def down though.

I've landed distract 3 once when someone asked for acc. That being said I don't think it's worth it since with rema brd DD can reach 1500 acc in low acc tp set.

So, so far the only winning strat this month for pugs has been the isolate the blm strat.

Still 100% kite all the things fail rate. But killing the blms getting it done (though slightly slower). No speed hax required to kite tormentors and no fear of triple if they never kite close enough to boss.

If anyone is still struggling to get wins, kill the astrologers. Simple strat. Boss is in h2h mode when adds are out, almost zero danger of dying to him.

Interestingly, still not one single group has tried to go with mew yet.

So basically yeah, we beat normal fine using:

PLD/SMN (super tank and mewing adds)
RDM/SMN (saboteur slow II MB, haste II DDs, silence Astrologers and mewing adds)
BRD (Min5, Mad, Victory & Honor M. - DDs, elegy MB)
WHM (can really have RDM main heal and get a 3rd DD if desired. I just felt safer with this)
NIN or DD/NIN
COR/NIN

Can do the same on difficult. It’s just an additional add. Haven’t tried VD yet. I got tired of kiting so went with the super tank and mewing method. With two jobs mewing, it’s always ready and staggered to prevent triple reversal.

After watching tons of group do ambu this month using wide variety of setup, I kinda come to the conclusion that there are really no general best setup BUT if one setup doesn't seem to work, make some change with job shuffling usually works.

I mean, I've seen people uses mew setup and wiped every single run, then they changed to kite setup and won. I've also wiped every single kite setup in one of the ls pt, changed to mew and won. There can be 100 reason why mew setup works for 1 pt very well but not another pt, from slower dps to how players are more comfortable with healing on smn.

In terms of DD choice, the result is also random as hell. I've seen nin cor brd getting 9 min VD wins despite there are only 3 dd, or war mnk cor brd getting 5 min wins, or war dnc cor brd getting 6 min wins, or war blu cor brd took 10+ min (and 100% wipe rate) despite everyone has empyrean and it's all the same player between these pt on different jobs. Ive also seen nin drk cor brd took over 10 min and very high wipe rate too. At this point I don't even think DD matters anymore, rng is rng.

As for silencer choice...I've used geo as silencer and wiped every run (despite that person was in a very successful VD pt on the same role), I've had ***run with rdm as silencer which took 10+ min with tons of deaths, as well as smooth run with whm as silencer and getting 6-7 min VD clears. I still think geo is best silencer on paper because frailty, but my worst runs all came from using a geo, even though other pt are far more successful with it.

IMO this month is 95% random even if everybody has experience and gear for it. I can go with certain player, using certain setup, and wipe 5 VD runs. Next day I can go with the same player on different jobs(or different player on same jobs) and win 10 runs.

The only part thats not so rng, is to aim for fastest clears possible to minimize the chance of rng screwing you. Otherwise I'm not convinced that this month has a best setup for everybody anymore. IMO the best way is to enter with best player that you have, and make job adjustments from there. Because the more I do/see pt do VD, the more I feel "I think the best setup is...." Testimonial is nothing but confirmation bias.

The only thing I would like to see more of and less of. less trying to kite all the mobs, fail rate is too damn high. more shadows and more fast cast. stop trying to save 1 second and just wait for unblest. all the endeaths are from people getting hit right after an unblest, because they were busy wsing instead of casting new shadows.

utsu:ichi takes an eternity to cast thats what kills most of the people. make a set.

Do blms repop at 30% if you kill them?

Yes, we just kill em twice. or put a pet on them or anything that keeps them away from the darks.

Speaking of which, does unblest remove all shadows or just 3? Bg wiki didn't say.

Another possible death happens if other DD didn't pull hate after stun+shadow dispel move.

And yeah capped FC set is 100% mandatory. More so than having utsu San. When I pick DD in PUG my choice goes have FC set > have empyrean weapon > be a NIN.

I think killing all blm will completely remove the risk of TR in kiting setup too, worth a try.

Unblest - full wipe

Genei - 5 shadows every hit dispels

Shikyu whatever - full hate reset and throatstab type damage

In that case, utsu San really isn't going to save people from dying, lol. I can rotate ichi ni forever against this nm with a FC set if melee attack is all they use. But quick swing or ws animation lock after unblest is usually the most dangerous, follow by genei stuns> nobody pull hate.

So yeah, certainly gonna prioritize empyrean DD or mnk as long as people has capped fc. Kill fast = least risky of all.

The risk of dying from endeath is low when you have capped magic hasted and utsusemi, especially if you land slow and elegy on the NM.

Of course there can be bad luck with the sequence of TP moves used... ***happens etc, this risk is higher the higher the number of people TPing on the boss I guess.
But most of the time you'll be fine.

What's really annoying for non-NIN main DDs is that move that consumes 4+ shadows. Unless you have 4+ to absorb it, it's gonna dispel one or more of your buffs.
That's soooooo annying.
I'm totally biased being a BRD but still that's the thing that makes me prefer NIN tipically, despite the slower (on average) kill speed compared to some other DDs xD

NIN main is not bad at all in terms of kill speed anyway, and if they have Kannagi and can keep up Aftermath it's gonna be pretty nice!

Goes without saying; less dds, with more subtle blow, really does make it easier/safer. more shadows is just extra frosting. They take increased skillchain damage too, so if you do less than max damage ws, multistep some sc's.

Either way more insight and observations from me about the Mewing strat.
Normally my setups were like this:

1) Tank (I find PLD better, but realistically RUN can do it too. My impression is that you need really good gear for VD, the further away from BiS gear the more you'll need to compensate with food and buffs. PLD will use any non-Aegis good shield)
2) SMN
3) BRD
4) Buffer
5) 2x DD

Anybody who wants to DD will have to /NIN, if not NIN main.
Tank will take a lot of damage from the Astrologer's spells if silence wears off and you're not fast enough to reapply it.
They only cast blizzard and thunder spells, so to help with the possibility of spells going off I was using the following countermeasures:

1) Barblizzard (can apply it before entering the Ambu zone)
2) 1x Lightning Carol (other songs from BRD were 1 Victory March and 2-3 Minnes)
3) If the Buffer role is covered by a GEO, I had him using indi-Fend (or Fade) and stand in range of the PLD, ready to re-silence the Astrologers and to cast some random cures on the PLD (necessity of cures is higher the worse his gear is)
4) If the Buffer role is covered by a RDM, have him Addle2 the two Astrologers to slow down their spellcasting (more time to reapply silence) and to reduce their Macc


If GEO I was putting a Geo-Frailty bubble at the boss, make use of Ecliptic Attrition and BoG as you see fit but keep Dematerialize for when the boss is under 30% or his AoE drain move will absorb health from the Bubble and kill it fast.

If RDM I was making sure he would cast Dia3, Slow2, Paralyze2, Addle2, Silence etc.
GEO can cast some of these debuffs in Tier1 version, but it takes good gear to land them on first cast.


Other than this what else to say, RDM and GEO are both nice and offer different pros and cons. RDM's silence will last longer for instance altough, unless your fight is 5 mins or shorter, I don't think you'll manage to complete the fight with a single cast on the astrologers.
If you're that fast then the RDM can probably go /NIN and help with DDing!

I like them both, I thik it's down to personal preference.
GEO probably better if your tank is not the best, makes it easier to compensate for his shortcomings in gear.

For the purpose of surviving the endeath? Absolutely. I said it before, I don't really think that's the really dangerous/annoying part of the fight.
Sure occasionally people will die because of errors or bad luck, but normally it's fine.

If we're talking about those moves that are absorbed by 4+ shadows though, espcially the one that dispels buffs unless you have that many shadows, then it's a different story.
Granted this doesn't make or break the fight, but it sure is unbelievably annoying.
Again: I'm biased because I'm normally a buffer but still, it's something to consider!

I would take a kannagi Nin if they have kannagi. But I don't know anyone with kannagi. And the one using aeonic do half dps of empy drk.....

I've seen pt using a safe and slow double nin strategy wipes every single time because the fight is so damn long, and people make mistakes one after another. From bad tank Position to tank anti virus pop up to nins die to tp move shadow wipe to healer didn't cure tank fast enough and 12345678 other random reasons.

The faster you kill the less likely you will run into random oh ***moment, and the faster you get to retry after ah oh ***moment. If pt is slow and painful, then it become frustrating for everyone to retry after a mistake, and they just ended up making even more mistakes because frustrations. I have damn close to 100% win rate combined in multiple pt getting 5-7 min wins regardless of method. For a pt that needs 9+ min the win rate is noticeably lower.

So personally, I'd aim for highest dps possible when I make pts. More so with PUG.


I've try that, while it works it doesn't help much. This is because in mewing setup tank will need tons of cure to the point that rdm can't really DD that much. But more importantly I've seen nm lose hate and go after rdm to the back line, and made hate extremely hard to manage once they enters tanks enmity ja range.

It's not the end of the world, but in PUG it's probably going to make things less manageable. So I would avoid that, personally.

I find whm somewhat underrated in mewing setup. Since smn covers haste 2 the lack of haste spell doesn't matter as much on whm. And it does have some advantage...Super strong single target cures which makes tank alive more easily than a geo or smn heal, and if DDs die during endeath phase arise > normal raise. Higher bar spell probably means weaker stuns after dispel move, maybe.

Geo is still the best choice on paper because frailty, but my personal experience is that I have best runs(both ls and pug) with rdm and whm lol. So job doesn't really matter, what matter is the people and pt synergy between members, imo.

Iv only been in super tanking strat setups aside from 1 kiting method run. Super tanking shouts are all I see lol

Personally I'm more for Safe & Relaxing, but to each his own! ;-)


As I said before, it depends on the tank!
I've been with PUGs where I was literally spamming cure so much that I had to Convert (on GEO) and I considered swapping to indirefresh.
When I did most of my runs with a LS buddy he was barely taking any damage. The only damage he was getting was if the Astrologers silence was over and nobody bothered to reapply it.
In that scenario yes, he was taking some damage but thankfully nothing too big because of Barblizzard, Lightning Carol and Geo-Fade! ^^


This normally doesn't happen with NINs using Yonin and Gekka :D
I personally keep adds and tank very far away though, in two different corners of the square Ambuscade room.


In my experience Frailty makes a *huge* difference in the kill speed only if you have DDs with Empy weapons. Possibly to a certain extent it applies to Relic and Divergence ones as well, double damage path? I can't say but I guess in theory...
Still from my experience, while I normally kept using Frailty, it wasn't really affecting our kill speed a lot, to the point I considered using Geo-Slow (which I was normally entrusting).


If you Regen5 before entering anyway there's hardly any healing to do for both the DDs and the tank :3
And yes, SCH can be another alternative to the slot I called "Buffer", can help with enmity on jobs with no Crusade/Gekka etc, and so on.
While perfectly viable, same as WHM, I still consider both inferior options to GEO and RDM, but hey! To each his own :D

If you use geo wilt then of course tank will take less damage lol. The scenario that I'm talking about is no geo, so tank takes more dmg even with good gears.

I've tried geo slow(hence I ask if they stack in another thread), but it's not really make or break when if comes to getting wins.

Safe and idiotproof is my go-to. Too many people; can't follow simple instructions and/or can't give minimal effort pay consistent attention for the 10 solid minutes an ambu run takes.

NM loses hate because singletarget drain is full enmity reset. If you have 2 dd and it does back to back, well, obviously.

Indi-Slow sped up our fights a noticeable amount. less time casting shadows = more time dpsing. (no bard for elegy)

Yeah, that's what I thought too. Any DD should be capped hate that the only way to lose hate is from hate reset moves. I'd still think rdm/nin running between front and back line doing both dd and support is somewhat more risky for inexperienced pt.

I don't use Wilt :o
Or rather I did on the very first runs, but then I noticed tank was hardly taking any damage at all and the only "danger" was if a spell went off. I started experimenting with Vex/Fend/Attunement/Fade since then.
Of course we're talking about a Tank with really good gear, not BiS but still very good.

As I mentioned when I was with a PUG Tank omg, I spammed so many C4s ;_;


Agree it hardly makes a big difference.
But then again the same can be said for Frailty, aside from the Weapons I mentioned before (through which Frailty really makes a noticeable kill-speed difference!)

I personally ensure all my tank got epeo or ochain and burtgang in vd. So idk where the difference came from then._.