Cloud Of Darkness HTBF

Ya, looks like it popped random job voltos. Rather annoying.

1 add on ve, 3 adds on e

Did 1st run on normal, no danger of dying PLD WAR COR BRD GEO WHM with just war doing damage. took 10min because I was killing Volto Oscuro adds that seemed to pop every 20% but died in 1 skillchain. waiting after each primordial surge to feed tp with stone1 for next tp move. will be more aggressive next run

i got 2 ads on my VE run. August betrayed me by dying. chainspell bind let me ingore the ads for the rest of the fight.

Healed CoD for a bunch, then bound it and after waiting a bit walked slowly back into range. it did the TP move w/o anyone in range once I was probably around 15' away (wasn't watching the distance)

what horrible queue time... xD

VD


Killing adds is not required, were 2 up at the end when cloud died. Saw a plague aura and encumbrance aura from adds, not sure what else.

Oh, title

How does belt stack up with carrier's sash? Thinking maybe swap to warder's charm + null belt now?

how long did VD take you? are the adds sleepable or did you pick them off just enough to not die?

Just went in Normal solo on RDM to test its behavior. Did my standard Shinryu routine: buff > trusts > attempt to sleep/enfeeble>engage. Few things

-Immune to break
-Does not possess innate Regain or the ability to use TP moves on-demand like Shinryu can every 3-5 seconds. A mew/TP reduce strategy might be good here
-Highly resistant to enfeebling magic vs max RDM. Paralyze, Slow, and Sleep refused to land without multiple immunobreaks. Frazzle gave me no Immunobreaks and wouldn't land (not surprising; it's a dark-based enfeeble).
-First sleep with Stymie, second sleep took several Immunobreaks (3?). Also took 2 Immunobreaks each to land both Slow and Paralyze.
- Distract/Addle/Silence/Gravity lands fine.
-Cloud of Darkness does not deal a lot of damage with its normal melee attacks; after trusts died from TP moves (they get wrecked, RIP Cornelia), every attack hit me for either 0 damage or single/low double digit damage with just capped DT and Phalanx/protect5
-Sanguine does crap damage (around 2k). Forgot to test Seraph Blade. Savage Blade was fine
-Takes good enspell damage to favorable elements, so long as he's not in the absorbing phase
-Shearing Undulation wipes shadows and at least one of CoD's auto-attacks wipes shadows.
-CoD originally starts by itself. Spawns adds over time. On Normal, I saw 3 adds in 16 minutes. One Savage did 20k to an add and took it to 90%, so they have about 200k HP at least on Normal
-A wipe is possible if you are standing on the grey platforms at the edge of the battlefield. The moment I stepped into the black center, all mobs aggro.

Adds spawned one at a time every few minutes. Don't think CoDs health had anything to do with it. I wasn't attacking CoD, so it wasn't based on any TP moves since I wasn't feeding it TP.

Speaking of the adds, SE changed the orbs that spawn in the original Mission fight, the adds now replace them and they have a detrimental status effect aura when you get within 6' of them (how clever, mobile ENFEEBLES >.>). You're not going to be able to just run away from them.

One of them had a SUPER annoying encumbrance (minus weapons and range/ammo slot; it was the Taru with the Apocalypse). Definitely had to run from this guy and sleep it. Another had Avoidance down. They can use all WS from their weapon types it seems; the Apoc Taru used Vorpal Scythe and Catastrophe.

Adds seem to be highly resistant to enfeebling magic also just like CoD, but they can be slept with a couple of immunobreaks. Gravity also lands easily, making them easy to kite. Bind does not land well, though not immune, and they are immune to break as well.

I ended up dying, but it was moreso because I was learning behavior. If you break away from CoD (since he's not threatening and you can silence him) and kill each add, soloing Normal is probably doable for most.

13min, but I was in no rush and killing adds and only fighting with WAR. I imagine it will be much much faster soon. Tank has no problem getting hate on adds and they do hit a little hard, but didn't ever try sleeping them. The encumbrance aura is really annoying and one main reason to kill them.

Jesus, SE powercreep is going hard once again.. wtf lol, HYPE

Did easy first run, full party etc. Did 5 songs and bolster. Didn't get to pop mighty strikes died before add/s.

Neck dropped, going to try harder next.

Gl folks

2/2 on neck so far

RDM, COR, WHM, WAR, DRK, PLD

Normal Run: No adds

Not sure if you knew already, but Distract and Frazzle (and Addle 2) cannot generate Immunobreak.
To compensate for that they gave an innate ~150 macc bonus to Frazzle and Distract.

Was already using charm for 5% absorb chance. Belt replaces the meva from platinum moogle belt

What are the items like? Seems like we don't have update thread, sign of the times!

They're 4 and listed in the middle of page 3 of this thread.
All items are "all jobs" and quite interesting.

"YOU CANNOT ENTER THE BATTLEFILED AT PRESENT. PLEASE WAIT A LITTLE WHILE LONGER"

#JustAsuraThings

no it's like that on phoenix right now too. kind of shocking actually, there were 188 characters logged in and almost a 10 minute wait for me to try the fight one time. not just asura but asura will by far be the worst for queue times

Dont complain or they will just Nerf the amount of merits per ki..
You dont need all the shiny new toys 1st week of the update.

Well. I'm... not hyped. There are usable, and even very good, pieces here, but nothing I particularly wanted. It's at the, "Oh, nice, I'll work on picking that up on the side... once something else manages to make me want to resub" level for me.

Kinda bored and insomnia is a *** soooo. Going to go over a few, or maybe a lot of, thoughts for each piece.

==Head==
Weird piece. I feel like the theme phrase is,"but all jobs."(EDIT: for all of this gear actually) Less regen/refresh/regain/ than x, but all jobs. Would have appreciated at least refresh+2, to fully replace DM aug refresh heads. Although, it is significantly better defensively than the existing regen/refresh/regain pieces.

The weirdly high VIT/MND is interesting. The VIT+ actually puts this piece at higher physical defenses than Nyame. And more DT.

-18 def dif.
+26 vit dif.
DEF via vit: 39
+21 def gain over nyame.

Although, it's -23 meva vs nyame as well. So there's that to consider when looking at altering defensive/idle sets. Good MDB too.

Unusually high haste too, but I don't have a specific use case in mind atm.

Freakishly high MND with +50 macc. Off job mnd enfeeble piece? I feel like most actual mage jobs do better with their empy+3. Having 60~64 macc, and moderately high mnd.

==Neck==
The most notable thing to me here, is that there's a hell of a lot of macc on that(And regular acc.) Previous highest all jobs macc piece was.. what? Sanctity? At +10. A fair spread of jobs had erra pendant at +17. This is +50. Even JSE+2 necks only got +30 macc, for those that got macc at all. And even for the piece that got INT/MND as well, 30 macc, and +15 INT/MND is still always less effective macc than just +50 macc.

Although, like... RDM+2 neck isn't going anywhere. Between enfeebling magic effect+/duration, and dispel+1, I struggle to think of anything I'd cast in this instead on RDM. Non-enfeebling magic spells that need macc? I guess. Ahh, stun? Absorb-TP. Aspir if I want to drop the Aspir+5 on Erra. Probably worth it. My Aspir macc vs Aminon needed some work.

Still, huge macc option. Also great for WS with add effect debuffs, cause it's got physical acc, and macc.

I don't see myself ever using it as a TP piece unless there's some weird and extreme need for acc going on. No multi-hit or stp. DT/DEF/and HP, sure. so mayeb for some hybrid sets.. that really need acc?

Oh, I do see it as excellent for RDM enspell macc+ TP though. Like, say... Ongo V25, multi KI strat(KI#1, After Stymie frazzle has worn. Before that you'd use quanpur)

All this acc does make me wonder if upcoming content is going to be extremely evasive or something...

Defensively or as an idle piece, it's kinda so-so. Maybe could serve as a space saver if you just wanted a basic piece for all the things rather than using the best piece for a thing. Less def/DT than loricate(but has HP). Less HP/Def vs Unmoving+1(but has DT)

Why couldn't they have put a huge chunk of meva on this piece? That would have been fantastic, as it's a very low, if not non-existent meva slot for most jobs...

==Back==
Huuuge acc again. Although, technically only +5 more than a 20 dex/30 acc ambu cape. "But all jobs", lol.

But at the same time, 7 STP and 7 DA, is going to crush 10 STP or 10 DA in all but maybe a very few niche situations(Mythic AM3 up, or RDM Temper II TP, perhaps. Might still be better for AM3 anyway.) Assuming of course the the non-aug stats on a given job's ambu cape weren't a factor.

I'd still have to keep my DRG TP capes, not for actual TP, but for jumps, due to the all jumps DA+.

Also, excellent for RDM enspell TP again.

Meva is only +5 higher than what is possible on an ambu cape. And stacked with INT/MND augs an ambu cape could have more effective meva assuming the attack in question uses dINT/MND(and you're wearing the right one when it hits..) But it also comes on top of excellent TP stats. And all jobs. Too bad there's no DT though...

Very high macc too. So we've got the same acc/macc combo for add effect WS. And it's potentially the best macc+ for spells. Potentially cause Aurist's can be better depending on dINT/MND. 33macc/33 INT/MND vs 50 macc. And RDM is forever glued to the ambu cape's enfeeble potency for most spells anyway. "But all jobs", lol. So it's a definitive macc option for non-aurist jobs. And a potential space saver vs various macc ambu capes, or if you don't feel the need to go for Aurist on jobs that can use it.

I don't really eva tank anything, and... I think technically you can get more effective eva+ on an ambu cape.. Dust(+20), Dye(+10), Resin(+15)= +45, +20 agi= 10 eva, total 55 effective. "But all jobs". So you have a near max possible eva+ cape that's also a good TP cape, and meva cape at the same time.

No def+ on this one though. And no DT. For my tank jobs, I think I'll be sticking to my dedicated idle/meva capes. But if I didn't already have those, the inv savings would be tempting.

==Waist==
Quite a high acc belt. But no haste for TP. Though some jobs don't have an issue with that, and could still use it as a high acc, or meva hybrid belt.

Again we have high phys and macc. So, even more accurate ws add effects.

As a casting piece, it's tied with Obstinate[R30] for INT enfeebling magic, and potentially slightly behind for MND spells due to the 5 MND on obstinate. I'd still be using obstinate for the jobs that can wear it on enfeebling magic. Duration+, and occasionally there's benefits to using skill over raw macc. "But all jobs", so useful for the large pool of jobs that can't use obstinate. And it's a stronger option on non-enfeebling magic spells.

In terms of meva, this is +10 stronger than the next highest meva piece I can recall(Asklepian belt, which is +20. same MDB too), "But all jobs". Only a few jobs can wear Asklepian belt. It's also 15 higher than platinum moogle belt.

But personally, The issue I have here is the slot conflict with Carrier's. Need that all elemental resist. There's the option of using Warder's, but that drops light and dark. You can reasonably argue that you don't need those two as often, but I like to maintain the possibility of a 1/8 resist for all elements. There's pretty much no way I'm going remember to swap to an alt idle set in the case that I do get hit by something light/dark based. But if you're getting what you consider the needed elemental resistance elsewhere, it's definitely and overall upgrade. I just.. want all the resistances. Not just 6.

Pretty sure that's also the highest physical evasion+ belt. And regen+3. I think that's the highest regen on a belt as well.

Well, that was an entertaining thought exercise. Maybe now I'll be able to sleep.

Those that have tried the fight and have some insight, what would you say could work with a dual box setup with 2 chars, and at what difficulty level? Assuming well geared chars.

The title makes me wanna do something beside login and out of the drift mines just to do sortie. Maybe ill log in and see what the rest of the game is like again.

Soloed VD on SCH, without Trusts, in 19 minutes 32 seconds. Could've been faster, but I was wary of adds. Few notes:

-Adds only seem to spawn after certain TP moves. Saw them from Celling Rupture and Essence Devour, but NOT from Shearing Undulation, Primordial Surge, or Expunge.
-Fire damage is effective, I was able to cap damage on Pyrohelix II on VD without a SC using Ebullience. Didn't try other elements.
-Gravity lands easily on everything, even from SCH. Silence lands on CoD after a few immunobreaks. Dispel is resisted except when it's healing after Primordial Surge, but I was able to land it on Normal so might just be a MACC issue. Boss doesn't seem to build Gravity resistance, but the adds do (or at least the duration was far less on them).
-Depending on how TP reduction effects work on this, TP denial strategy might be pretty easy. He has zero Regain and SCH can 0 out most of his auto attack damage just with capped Phalanx and a MDT/MDB set, so PLD or RUN would probably have zero issues. The adds are far more threatening than the boss.
-All of his TP moves that I saw except for Essence Devour can be outranged without issue by kiting. Add WSes can be outranged too, but it's trickier and I only ever did it by accident.
-None of his nukes are very threatening even at low %s, but at some point his Absorb-Attri gets upgraded to drain two buffs instead of one, so it's probably worth Silencing him anyway.
-I might have just gotten unlucky, but of the three adds I saw (one on N, two on VD), all of them were using GKT and had a MAB down aura. Maybe it has something to do with the job that has hate, or what type of damage is being dealt?

Why you aint take me :(

I've put together a video on how to crank this new fight relatively easy. MNK with full subtle blow does the crankin. Adds seem to only come out on TP moves under 50% but they'll go after the WHM and take their annoying auras with them. And with Subtle Blow, Penance, Shijin, you won't have to deal with very many. I just let them beat on the backline while MNK just focuses on the boss. Good luck on drops! MNK GEO BRD COR RDM WHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rShfCsiya24

Will the belt fit into new idle options for some jobs like WHM?

I mean with that -Meva/MDB/Regen it's a very good choice. Not sure what other options WHM hasm on other jobs I just throw on a carrier's sash

anyone got a mask yet? i assume it's the rare to keep us running it