What abyssea NM's can YOU Solo?Follow

I have been hunting a lot of NM's in abyssea lately to try and make gil/ farm seals. I haven't had a LOT of playtime lately but I thought it would be interesting to have this discussion. Have you done any soloing in abyssea? What NM's have you tackled?

I'll start:

Gieremund: Got most of my head seals this way
Sacrophilus: Bersail Cap. (Sorry Banalaty, sold to you before price droped XD)
Avalerion: For spiral ring (to sell) and BRD leg seals
Piasa: For a friend who needed the shield
Athamas: For leg seals

There have to be more NMs, so I'm starting to research and I dont think any of these are all that impressive so I was wanting to get some feedback from the THF community to see what mobs you have solo experience with or speculate are THF friendly to solo?

Edit: Listing some of the THF soloable NM feedback and strategies used:

• Gieremund
• Sacrophilus
• Avalerion
• Manohra
• Asanbosam
• Funereal Apkallu
• Piasa
• Athamas
• Whiro
• Chasmic Hornet
• Ovni

Edited, Dec 24th 2010 2:45am by ThiefKiller

Sacrophilus should be pretty easy for a THF (and DNC I would excpect). I was suprised actually, at how easy he was. I was soloing him before I had any useful atmas at all (well, aside from TH atma since I was farming him XD).

Sacrophilus notes:

• THF mob = Highish evasion (you may need some acc food depending on your atma's/gear)
• Triple Attacks Frequently
• Has an enpoison effect that is weakish initially but seems to stack the more he hits you with it (and toxic spit). This is his only real threat in my oppion and can get really nasty if you let it. But antidotes are cheap so just bring a stack or two and you'll be fine.
• Seems to favor toxic spit (poison, ignores shadows but doesnt wipe them), geist wall (Dispels multiple effects. Wipes shadows) and numbing noise (Stun effect. Ignores shadows but doesn't strip them). Once in a while he will use cyclotail (aoe damage) and rarely have I seen nimble snap (single target damage)
• Spawned by trading a ripped eft skin (quite cheap on AH) to the ??? nnorth of conflux 2 in Konschtat Highlands
• The efts around him do not aggro but will link with him
• I like to pull him to the martello on the hill. No chance of adds up there.

THF solo notes:

• Para Arrows (These made things a lot easier in the beginning but I dont really use them now), Blind bolts, Bloody bolts, Acid bolts all proc well. But again, he has high evasion so if your racc gear is not solid you may want to consider racc food if you plan to use them
• 2x Evasion Kila +1. This is really enough for me to be comfortable idling in my regular tp gear. I have a max evsion set for emergencies: In case I'm stunned and shadows are down, or if he got a lucky triple attack and I had to cast ichi etc. All in all, his acc is managable though.
• Obvious things like making sure you have antidotes, getting all the HP restore items you can get for cruor, etc.
• I can't imagine anyone with a decent atma set having any trouble with him.

Hope that helps

Edit: Oh, and yes, its always me and just me. ALLLLL BYYYYY MYYYYsehEHellllf /song. I like to find things I can do by myself. Makes it easier to just pick up and get it done on my time. And I dont have a dual box account etc so yeah.

Edited, Nov 12th 2010 7:19pm by ThiefKiller

I think full evasion sets will be over kill for the birds (outside of Osh*t moments with manohra, like being stunned or silence aura).

The bat with his evasion down move and fast attacks I could see fulltiming evasion maybe. But without strong DD atmas that would be a miserably long fight and he would likely outlive you.

But yeah, my next plan is to start soloing Amhuluk pops soon.

Edited, Nov 12th 2010 2:48pm by ThiefKiller

Very nice. I might try chasmic some time for the mantle. You'll have to let us know how brooder goes.

I've kind of settled in to RR/GH (If I cant get away with RR/dread) but I dont have cloak and dagger yet so I havent tried it. GH gives a lot of evasion as well and also adds counter, which will help avoid hits where adding more evasion over the cap will not. AS well GH + RR should put you at about 74% crit rate so it makes the fights go a lot quicker.



Gieremund was a tough nut to crack for me. I died a few times before being able to consistantly kill it. He's definately doable but the fight itself is kind of tricky.

Gieremund Notes:

• Double Attacks frequently but his ACC isn't too high (for a THF anyway) so evading his melee hits should be managable.
• Shadow Claw: Single target damage + blindness. Eats one shadow, not really a threat.
• Howling: Aoe Paralyze
• Dirty Claw: Single target damage. IGNORES shadows.
• I haven't really seen him use any other hound moves than these, but wiki quotes him as having all hound moves so take that for what you will

Thief Solo Notes:

• Para Arrows and Marinara Pizza +1 (for undead killer) cut down his attacks nicely. Blind bolts and acid bolts also work. Obviously bloody bolts do not.
• I can't stress enough how much easier completing 2 evasion Kila +1 made my soloing life. I would suggesst this to any THF or DNC that hasn't finished them. They are a god send for soloing and tanking.
• Again, since bloddy bolts dont work, all the HP/status removal meds you can buy with cruor. I like to bring a couple of regen drinks and maybe an AH HP med or two to be extra safe. Most things are cheap now.
• Dealing with paralyze: There's two ways I've used to get around this. The easiest and safest is to just buy a stack of remedies for 35k (on my server). The cheapest/less safe way is to switch to a max evasion set, spam cast your shdaws constantly and wait it out while he whiffs at you. I've done both successfully but I reccomend the remedies if you have the gil.
• Dealing with Dirty Claw: This was the trickiest part for me. Shadows will not protect you from Dirty claw but it can miss you outright. Having said that, fulltiming in a max evasion set is just going to drag the fight out and letting him live too long is dangerous. What I've had to do is really get a feel for how long it takes me to feed him enough tp to use it. So I'll Idle in my TP set, but right before I know hes going to use one (or I'll try to force it with a WS), I'll make sure he's blinded and put on my max evasion set. He'll usually miss and then I switch back to my optimum DD TP set right after. Using this tactic I have been able to make him miss dirty claw the majority of the time. You WILL inevitably get hit with it, which is why its a good idea to have all cruor HP meds and some regen drinks.

It is not a terribly hard fight, but it can be a bit tricky. It's much, much easier with solid atmas.

Thanks for the tips on sarcophilus. Didn't know it was that easy and just went 1/2 on cap (dnc solo tho lol, maybe I'll farm a few on thf since they're going for quite a bit on my server =P)

Now if I can just get that damn dog to drop thf head seals >.>

I love you for this! I'm not confident enough with my THF soloing (no eva Kila +1s) but I'm gonna give it a try on PUP. How was the droprate on seals?

Adding Funereal Apkallu to the list. Just soloed him using RR/GH took 10 minutes give or take. No key item tho ><. Will try to add some notes later.

Edited, Nov 15th 2010 2:53am by ThiefKiller

It's look that you probably need good (or even greater) Atma to accomplish those challenge.
Quite sad when you start with the idea to hunt those beloved atma... Like a dog that try to bite his tail :S

Well if it's soloable this way, means than can be duoable with right support, this is still a good news ;)

Any word on whether you can still avoid Amhuluk's AoE by tanking it from the cliff, after the last patch?

Would also be good to know a list of things that can be duo'ed. I'm probably spoiled in that for low-man I'm usually using 2 characters.
I haven't tried many recent mobs but Manohra was a very easy duo. Did Flame Skimmer and it wasn't so bad, but losing any hate can cause a Rdm/Whm to get owned very quickly. Ignorantly I tried Warbler and I've never died so quickly and convincingly.

I've got very good PDT/MDT sets on my alt char Rdm, but not on my Thief. I'm so hurt for space. I mean we do have the mogsack now and more npc storage, which is a godsend, so it deserves more attention than ever.

I suppose the biggest thing keeping me back from it is laziness. If I'm duoing something, I don't really need to hold my solo sa/ta gear over other options, in my invent. With MDT/PDT, subtle blow, and new fast cast gear, it wouldn't be surprising to see like 50 pieces of gear in your "defensive/tanking inventory" than in your "standard," offensive one.

Maybe the biggest thing perking my interest into your thoughts are that I've encountered a lot of NM's lately that have silence auras. And there are a very few that tend to wipe shadows often. I've noticed that against a lot of these, you can survive quite well without shadows just due to the freaking ridiculous evade rate.

It may be hard to judge sometimes between wearing DD gear and -PDT. But if your mage has Minkin, etc, their MP pools seem simply endless. So DPS might not be such a concern; don't really need to zerg it down if you can attrition the NM.

Here's a suggesgion for a goal to add to your set thiefkiller



Neck: Twilight Torque Damage taken -5% all jobs.

Yeah I know I know.... you don't have to tell me. It's a drop from Shinryu in Abyssea-Empreal Paradox. But sooner or later people are going to be getting access to this fight in more respectable numbers and when that happens we can try and add some of the twilight gear to our sets. Plus you can use a primordial brew in there so once you proc red you can cheap out and play god mode if you have cruor. Shinryu has a very interesting atma

Atma of the Apocalypse -- Superior Triple Attack (15%), Quick Magic (Instantaneous spellcasting) and Auto Reraise (permanent reraise III effect, and it reapplies itself instantly the moment you revive)

That atma isn't ideal for pure DD (I'd take Alpha/Omega for pure DD first. 50 attack >>> 5% TA rate) however instant utsusemi casting is awesome, and permanent reraise 3 is also awesome. It does not affect recast delays like chainspell but it's one hell of a tanking/mage atma. I would probably fulltime the apocalypse anyway just for permanent reraise 3 so it's a pretty nice goal to set. I know it'll take a while for (a majority of) people to get access to the fight, but it's something to shoot for.

Edited, Dec 17th 2010 10:28am by Melphina

Brought to you by the combined might of The Razed Ruins, The Voracious Violet, and The Stronghold I give you

Ovni solo

Bullwhip belt is mine. I did that just before a small group of my friends and I ran out to abyssea-Altep today to brew down Rani into oblivion. Afterward we did the same to Raja in Abyss-Grauberg. The 2 most difficult Catuare's are done as well as 7/9 bosses. This has been a good day.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2010 10:42pm by Melphina

There really isn't too much to be said. I fought Ovni twice. The first time I used Razed + Stronghold + Impentrable for a 30 hp/tic regen. I whittled him down much slower and he got off 6 or 7 2hr's before I killed him. The second time I was much more aggressive and he only 2hrd twice and I killed in less than half the time.

Ovni's accuracy is pretty terrible so if you have a good evasion set you can tank him. I have over 2500 hp inside abyssea since I have all six abyssites of merit (if you don't have them, GET them... they HELP). I'm also very good about utsusemi recasting, and I've become a pro at recasting ichi through ni and using NI to cover AoE, and the rest is using my eva swap when needed. The only things I really watched out for was this

1:) Bring Antidotes --- Vitriolic Barrage is not only a 1,000 damage shadow stripping AoE, it also has a bad poison effect. You will want to remove poison fast.

2:) When Ovni uses Invincible I swap to evasion and ready feint + acid bolt for when it wears. Simple enough.

3:) Watch out for Fluorescence. That boost can destroy you.

4:) Ovni does not use charmga, but he still has Torrential Torrent and it's annoying when he takes your cloths and weapon off.

The rest was pretty easy. Bloody Bolts DO work on him for full drains (I usually got back ~ 80 hp per bloody bolt) and acid bolts work wonders. I usually countered Primal Drill and Concussive Oscillation with my shadows, but if I got hit with gravity I used Flee to remove it (I always use flee to counter gravity when I'm tanking). Aesthitic Fog is countered nicely by the stromghold, so I never took any additional damage when I got hit with drown, and the rest was just tanking him to the ground.

My first battle was prolonged because I was playing defensive. I think it took about 20-25 minutes. My second go around I swapped out the impentrable atma for VV and went on an all out attack. I had 15 hp/tic less regen but I spent much less time trying to protect myself and more time tearing through his HP. I used several temporary meds my second time around as well as my 2hr toward the very end, but I was zerging him at that point and I could have avoided using them by being more careful. I got a megalixir from both kills anyway and my azure was capped so I just restored my 2hr after. In this case my best defense was a strong offense, but tbh he isn't that hard with 3 atma's and good key items.

That right there is the real secret. I can use 3 good atma's plus I have the 6 abyssites of merit and 3 furtherance's. Ovni is a piece of cake with that stuff.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2010 9:23pm by Melphina

Was dispelling Flourescence with aurasteal part of your strategy? Do you feel it can it be done without?

edit:

Thanks Mel. I think I love you! lol I just did my first solo tonight....no drop tho :(. You were right, he wasn't all that hard (as long as you are prepared. Thanks for the tips) and I still only have 2 atmas.

Coolwhip belt for me soon! YAY!


Edit 2: 0/3 on Belt. 1/3 on mage body. But its definitely farmable with a quick repop.

Edited, Dec 24th 2010 5:31am by ThiefKiller

Funny story, I dropped a few merits into aurasteal because I've been sitting on 20/20 for a while and I haven't exactly been riding my feint timer lately.


I tried to steal flourescence 5 times and was unable to do so (or dispell it). Very strange.

Yeah, I tried to time it so that I got it in before it got a round off. Maybe I just had porr timing.

I believe we have only scratched the surface of what a good thief is capable of soloing now, and I have so many things I want to say but if I was to put them all in words it would be too long and people wouldn't read it. There are a lot of powerful temporary items inside abysea as well as gear choices and unique atma's. Resist traits DO work, I resisted Ahlmuk's graviga a lot, and I even resisted Raja's graviga earlier this week. Our resist gravity trait is no joke, and there are a lot of atma's with resist traits which I may consider trying out. Furthermore there are some GOOD temp items

Cruor Prospector
Lucid Potion I
Lucid Potion II
Catholicon
Dusty Elixir
Stalwart's Tonic
Champion's Tonic
Lucid Potion II
Lucid Elixir I
Healing Powder

Baston Prefect
Lucid Potion III
Lucid Elixir II
Lucid Wings I
Cleric's Drink
Dusty Wing
Sprinter's Drink
Monarch's Drink --- REGAIN
Berserker's Tonic (Double Attack)
Fanatic's Drink----- Physical Shield (1 minute)
Fool's Drink --- Magic Shield (1 minute)

Dominion Tactician
Doom Screen -- 2 minute NEGATE Doom
Amnesia Screen -- 2 minute NEGATE Amnesia
Terror Screen -- 2 minute NEGATE Terror
Petrify Screen -- 2 minute NEGATE Petrify
Poison Screen -- 2 minute NEGATE Poison

And we can farm some more items from boxes and mobs. Here's just a few examples

Megalixir (Ovni)
Fanatic's Powder (AoE physical shield)
Fool's Powder (AoE Magic Shield)
Revitalizer (duh!)

The worst thing a mob can do is My hp == 0 and I may need to home point or reraise (oh no) so I like to think big, and some of that stuff is very nice. Imagine whittling down Megantereon to 50% hp then popping Perfect Dodge and using a conjunction of Amnesia Screen and Doom screen and Fanatics Tonic/powder to render him powerless for 2 full minutes (bring remedies for paralysis), or using a combination of both Fool's Tonic, Fool's Powder, and then Petrify Screen + healing potions to take out Tunga. What about Luhgarhoo? Yeah it can already be soloed easily enough but use a Terror Screen and his final 30-40% will be gone in no time flat. What about mobs that may have an Aura effect? When I got my Indigo Abyssite of Merit the Doom Screen countered Xilbaba's Doom Aura (it had no effect), so things with a wicked Poison aura.... use Poison screen. You can already solo Alectryon but poison/petri screen allows for a full zerg.

Combine this with the massive versatility Atma's have (a lot of resistance stats, max hp boosts, crit, regain, regen, physical and magical damage reduction, movement speed, it's all there), and I think we can really push the limits.

I gave the Atma of the Despot a test drive two nights ago and I was sadly disappointed. I poked Bakka and the first blizzaga III was absorbed (healed for 0 damage at full hp) but the next 10 ice nukes I ate for full damage so it's been a let down so far. Nevertheless I see a lot of stuff I can tinker with, and I want to play with soloing a lot more in the coming months just to see what I can REALLY do.

Edited, Dec 24th 2010 8:10pm by Melphina

Way way back when we all wore scorp harness I used to hate it for fighting Couerls. I noticed a huge difference in the paralyze with just -10 ice. Without id get hit occasionally and it would last for maybe 10 seconds. With scorp, it would stick every time for a long time ~2 min. And this was comming from a TW mob.

So I see something with -50 to every element and it scares the hell out of me. A bit more haste is nice, but I'm not sure it is worth the cost of having every enfeeble in the game hit you 100% of the time for full effect.

Edit: Congrats on that amazing feat though. quite impressive.

Edited, Dec 25th 2010 1:06pm by Everydamnnameistaken

Do you mind elaborating a little on that particular duo? This is what I do a lot and tried Ika-Roa as Thf, Blm/Brd and Rdm for max Yellow !! flagging. We never ended up flagging - it must have been a WHM spell or a spell I don't have as /nin, but it was not easy by anymeans. I macro'd in what little -MDT and MDB gear I have but it got insanely spammy near the end.

IIRC, I just went thf/nin and rdm/whm. Shell5 is a must. I also kept up barwater full time. Otherwise it was fairly standard. My go-to Atmas for dual box are RR (duh), SS (HP20% and crit damage), and GH (Big Agi=subtle blow/eva and crit rate boost).

Other than that its pretty standard. I have slow/para2 both capped on rdm. Stick blind, keep haste up etc. The only other thing i did was start using Addle.

For the most part, its smooth sailing when its debuffed to hell with para2/slow2/blind. The only real danger is the aga spells, but when its all said and done, there were a lot of layers of defense. Para2 ate a few of them, addle gave lots of time to try to intterupt with evis if TP was available, or just intterupt with a flurry of high crit rate melee. If it did get off, then there was still barwater (REALLY gimped enhancing skill on rdm. Its still like 220 at lv 90) to help resist. If it got past all of that, there is still shell5 and my 3 of 4 HP cruor buff i have and 20% HP boost from SS. If HP gets dangerous, still have 2 more emergency buttons of Divine seal C4 to recover to safety faster, and PD to buy time to get shadows and spam C4 to safe zone well before next spell.

I was really worried about this fight, but it seems that at higher HP it doesnt always use waterja>waterga back to back. It often just used one. Also, it doesnt cast on the normal mage mob 'timer' of every ~45 sec of whatever it is. It doesnt have that spell timer like most mage mobs. It seemed really random. I am still not sure if its casts are a TP move, or just random like some mobs 'randomly' use mightystrikes or bloodweapon multiple times. Either way, it didnt cast spells very often and allowed plenty of time to recover even with gimpy C4 spam.

If it is a TP move, the additional people might have been part of the problem.

This is not to say i didnt have quite a few close calls, but overall, it is very doable. An enfeebled slow/para2+blind+addled mob just isnt very dangerous. Survive the spells with multiple layers of defence (Para, addle for more time to intterupt, barwater, Shell5, HP boost atma) with a few emergency tricks (Divine seal, P.Dodge, various healing temps) and things have to go really really bad to actually kill you. Though i never actually used any temp items which i probably should have at a few points.

Hope that helps.

Well just tried to dual box glavoid. All was well until about 62%. I even got stupid yellow proc off water ninjutsu -_-

Got 1shotted with shell5 and an HP superior atma+HP major Atma+cruor buffs+barstone by a 2900+ disgorge.

The whole "Mnk+whm can kill anything in abyssea" crap is getting old. We get it. Mnks have lots of HP. That shouldnt be the single solitary requirement to kill EVERYTHING. There is something VERY wrong when i have a better chance at killing a mob by leveling up my alt accounts lv 75 gimp ass Galka mnk wearing a SH than my leeted out thf that has been tweaked for year after year.

/goes off to build another glavoid pop and get more abyssites of merit since HP is the only stat that matters anymore.
_________________________
Edit:
Always just feels like a cheapshot to get 1shotted. I love to loose If I can adjust my strategy for the next go around. When I loose a fight, I want to look back and say 'what could I do differently'. Getting 1shotted doesnt allow that to happen (when buffed up). I cant think of 1 thing I could have done to have lived through that short of taking off all DD atmas and fighting in HP gear (making hate an issue and the fight drag on from a 20 min fight to a 60+). Mitigating 90% of its damage, staying on top of everything, killing it quickly only to just explode at the mobs behest is infinitely frustrating. Especially when I see rather avg (not terrible, but nothing to bow down to) mnk/WAR I know that dual box whms just waltz around killing virtually anything he wants. Not wearing -damage gear. Not counting shadows. Just facetanking as mnk/war getting C6 spammed and can kill even more difficult things than glavoid. Its quickly becoming a rather large pet peeve of mine.

/rant off

Edited, Dec 30th 2010 9:52am by Banalaty

Some real good stuff in here in the evolution of solo/lowman with Melphina and Everyname showing the importance of screens/drinks and resist traits/stats. Personally I still want to take out Warbler for another abyssite of merit. Would like to load up on some screens and try that duo some time.

I agree that Ika Roa, the pugil for hand seals, is a very easy duo.
The one point to be illuminated that we keep coming back to is: HP

There's not much else to it other than that. Play standard, keep HP at max and cure fast after any -ga's. With no mistakes and 2k or perhaps 2.5k, you won't get 1-2 shotted. And if that doesn't happen, you're basically invincible.

I totally feel your pain, Banalty. I'm glad someone said it, cuz that's the biggest mechanics/balance problem right now, I feel. Right now with so much gear coming out and all the powerful atma/abyssites/gear, most people are just letting the endorphins run wild and rejoicing at how much of a pimp they've become.. when really it's just that the new content is simply very easy. Eventually after the level is capped and abyssea becomes old news, the puppy-love for power will wear and we'll all realize that the game is just not very challenging right now. And things could get very boring if things stay permanently as-is.

I agree, there's something a bit silly about Mnk/War with no shadows, the easiest and plainest job to play in the game, just running around brainlessly blood-tanking and firing off stupid 1-hit WS's for 3k dmg. And just getting cure6-bombed. And if it isn't a long attrition battle, they still have hundred fists so that they can duo zerg without the need of a bard.

If you compare where thief stands now though and where it stood before, it's certainly not worse off on the food chain at least. After Mnk, we're the obvious go-to job for DD tanking, along with Nin. Right now, clever gear combinations and trying to find the optimal amount of DD stats, evasion, and subtle blow just is not much of an issue. Most of the hard mobs can be evasion tanked in a DD set with the right atma. Thief's massive evasion is more massive than ever before, but it just doesn't really matter much anymore either. Right now we really need to focus on maximizing HP as a top priority for low man. HP from atma and abyssites. HP from food (carbonara). And HP from gear. Some that I can think of are: bomb queen ring, meridian ring, gigant mantle, bloodbead earring, cassie earring, bloodbead ring, and bloodbead gorget.

When I was doing Iratham recently, I had about 2.9k HP in my evasion set, and something like 3.1k in DD. I had, iirc, 4 merit abyssites, atma of the ebon hoof, carbonara, gigant mantle, and meridian ring.
Unfortunately even that wasn't enough. I'm assume he can curse and follow up with Blizzaga IV or Shadow Wreck. That would be devastating. But right now I can't survive his usual combo.. past 50%, unless you're really lucky, he'll eventually hit you with Blizzaga IV followed by Shadow Wreck. With an MDT set and resists, I can get Blizzaga IV down to a reliable 2k or under. But Shadow Wreck, which he seems to love using right after, has hit me for 1.7k and can occasionally do more. I don't know if I can possibly get 3.7k but to think that that's what I'd need to do to compete with a Mnk is just silly. Iratham can resist stun with shield up. Seems like, for fights like this where you can get 2-shotted, Rdm as a duo partner could simply be coming obsolete.

So with a Whm partner and a well timed Cure VI, I could potentially survive that combo. Blizzaga IV bringing me from 2.9k to 900HP. A cure VI bringing me up to 2k+ HP. With enough HP and a perfectly timed cure, one could survive a following 2k TP move just barely. More HP, MDT, and resist would be the next best option to maximize on luck, after moving from a Rdm to a Whm alt. I'm sure Banalty agrees with me, that lately Cure4 is feeling just a liiiiiiittle weak. Who needs a Rdm for refresh, convert, and debuffs these post-atma days.

RR, face away and evasion tank until weak wears?

While the different Atma options is a good thing to keep in mind, 'go level mnk' isn't really a useful addition to the Thief Forum's "What abyssea NM's can YOU Solo?" thread.

Didn't see any mention of Minhocao. I was playing around with aeolian edge and he was up, so I pulled him for the lulz. Turns out he's pretty soloable. The only real issue is gorge. With better atmas (was using beyond/full moon/mounted champion) I'm pretty sure I'd have won. Bring echo drops for aeolian void, and HP atmas/abyssite of furtherance merit to deal with gorge and it shouldn't be too hard.

Edited, Jan 11th 2011 9:51am by Desoo