Royale Ramble?

[Taskmage]

Lachesis Orb KSNM in Balga's Dias. We're looking at doing this in my LS to get a Gondo-Shizunori for a sam, a Dissector for a blu, and a bit of cash all around as the drops seem to be pretty in line with Copycat which we've been doing for money.

Has anybody had any experience with this BC? Depending on the source, there seem to be a lot of special rules in this fight. I've heard that casting spells on the kings causes their attack power to go up, and that killing one queen with melee causes the other queen's melee defense to skyrocket. There's also a list of some nasty additional effects that each cardian has on their melee, but nowhere has complete information.

Help me out?

[IfritnoItazura]

My LS did this recently, and I think they won on the second attempt. (I'm too low leveled, and wasn't online at the time.) Unfortunately, no one in my LS has showed as much interest in writing guides as I do, and I'm unqualified to write about this BC.

I'll quote the event posts from both attempts, and maybe you'll find some useful info in them. (The forum is not open to the general public, so no links.) Good luck.

Attempt #1:
I was reading up on this BC the other day, and the more I read about it, the more it seemed that we could win this without much trouble. Based on what happens in the BC, this won't turn into another Copycat fiasco.

For info on the BC refer to http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Royale_Ramble.

Scheduled Time: 2006 - 12 / 27 @ 7PM EDT

PT setup:

Evele - PLD
Zaanea - RNG
Cygnus - DRG
Cypheron - WHM
Shinku - THF/WAR
Tamyaa - NIN/WAR

Mobs start as:

King of Cups: WHM
King of Clubs: BLM
King of Coins: RDM
King of Swords: PLD

After one of them is attacked, the rest despawn and two of these appear:

Queen of Cups: WHM
Queen of Batons: BLM
Queen of Coins: RDM
Queen of Swords: PLD

There's one key element that you need to know about this BC to be successful. NO MAGIC, including Ninjutsu and Bard Songs, are to be cast on the Cardians at anytime.

Depending upon which King is chosen, the kiters will proceed to voke the two Queens (or a Queen and the King) and run away far enough so that the Cardians won't be able to cast on either the main DD party. After that, it's just a matter of getting just out of casting range as one of the two Queen begins sending out -ga spells. This doesn't sound to hard, but if you eat more than 1, or you are close to the main party, this could get bad.

Probably start by killing the King, whichever one is chosen. I'd suspect picking the PLD one might actually be the easiest, because Silence isn't an option. Also, Invincible doesn't mean we have to kill it over again, nor do we get nailed with tons of spells. After that, move onto to the BLM Queen, then the WHM Queen.
Did a google search on this KSNM and found the following listing:

http://www.qcdn.org/showthread.php?t=19143

The article states that the Queen Cardians are suseptable to Bind and Gravity, and if that is the case, it might be easier to kite these as RDM. It also states that the Pld King hits like a Mack truck, so Cyg may want to come as /whm for the additional healing power. Let me know your thoughts or we can talk about it this evening. See ya'll soon!


Attempt #2:
So as we've learned from this past set of runs, we can now take down those obnoxious Cardian aristocrats.

Evele - PLD
Zaanea - RNG
Cygnus - DRG
Cypheron - WHM
Tamyaa - RDM
Shinku - THF

We will take the King of Swords, who will spawn the Queen of Cups and the Queen of Batons. I will kite the KoS, Tam will kite the QoC, and the rest will take the QoB back down toward the entrance and kill it. Once it's defeated, proceed to killing the QoC, then the KoS.

[Icemage]

I've tried this BC twice, and barely lost both times. It's pretty difficult, but I agree with the observations. Casting magic on them does seem to make them stronger. You can cast magic on your party all you want with no risk, however.

I also agree with the choice of the King of Swords, as it makes both of the Queens spawn as dedicated spellcasters (and thus make them much easier to kite since they'll want to cast magic instead of just chasing you). Make no mistake though, even the WHM and BLM cardians pack a punch when they hit you in melee, and the King of Swords hits really hard.


Icemage