[Olorin401]

I've been waiting to do this fight for over a year.. and I finally got my chance last night. Well OK, I actually got two chances, and both failed.

Our party setup was:
WHM/SMN (me, in retrospect I should have subbed RDM or NIN)
NIN/WAR
NIN/WAR
RDM/WHM
BLM/WHM
DRG/WAR

Given the wide range of feedback I've seen about this particular mission (ranging from "The Hardest Mission EVER" to "Fairly easy if you prepare and don't panic") we did our best to prepare for this one and get comfortable for a good half hour of hard-knuckle action!

Part 1 - The Mammets

These guys are EXTREMELY overrated. While there are more of them and it takes a bit of careful management to prevent a mage from getting beat up, they actually go down pretty easily. My two NINs and the DRG beat down a pair of mammets, while the RDM and BLM kited. I didn't have to do much - just Regen and Haste, and if someone got in trouble I'd drop a Cure 3 and kite.
Total Time on this section: about 8 minutes, including the opening cutscene.

Part II - Omega

Now things started getting serious.. The first time through I was a bit thrown off by this thing spamming Paralyze on my main tank, almost too fast for my Paralyna timer. What really killed us the first time though was when it used combination attacks, like Hyper Pulse followed immediately by Guided Missile and a couple regular hits. My tank went down hard. The next moment, the other NIN and DRG were both petrified and we were well on the way to a full wipe.
Thankfully, on the first run we didn't have a chance to use our CCB Polymer Pumps. So when we went for the second time, we had both experience and all our supplies. And everything did go much easier - I juggled my macros around to make casting needed spells easier, the RDM assisted me with healing, and my secondary NIN and DRG avoided standing behind the thing. Regen II was a huge MVP, saving me a lot of time and casting for when it became completely necessary after Pile Pitch left my main tank hurting and my BLM dead.
Total time on this section: about 15 minutes, including the second cutscene and weakness time.

Part 3 - Ultima

Well.. I think this one went about as well as we expected it to. We came into this part with about 25 minutes on the clock, so there was no rush. I was keeping an eye on Chemical Bomb, since that was the one thing that concerned me the most.
Sure enough it threw one when we got him down to about 75%, and again at 50%. Both times we immediately used CCB's to stop any further damage. I should mention that upon reading over the notes I printed before the run, I now realize that recasting Haste after Chemical Bombs doesn't remove the secondary Slow effect. This didn't makes a big difference until later, when Nuclear Waste combos started killing off my party.
I have to give some major league props to our main tank - he burned through a Reraise earring and several stacks of shihei trying to beat this thing for us, even after the rest of us had wiped and used our reraises he was still getting up and beating away. I think he managed to get Ultima down to about 5% before using his last Reraise, about 7 Hi-Pots and a Mijin Gakure. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for the win.

We're doing the run again tonight. Third times a charm? Let's hope so!

[Mog]

Originally Posted by Olorin401

I've been waiting to do this fight for over a year.. and I finally got my chance last night. Well OK, I actually got two chances, and both failed.

Our party setup was:
WHM/SMN (me, in retrospect I should have subbed RDM or NIN)
NIN/WAR
NIN/WAR
RDM/WHM
BLM/WHM
DRG/WAR

Very solid party setup. Two ninjas in this fight proves to be verrrry helpful when it comes to tanking different mobs.

Originally Posted by Olorin401

Part 1 - The Mammets

These guys are EXTREMELY overrated. While there are more of them and it takes a bit of careful management to prevent a mage from getting beat up, they actually go down pretty easily. My two NINs and the DRG beat down a pair of mammets, while the RDM and BLM kited. I didn't have to do much - just Regen and Haste, and if someone got in trouble I'd drop a Cure 3 and kite.
Total Time on this section: about 8 minutes, including the opening cutscene.
!

Another really good way of doing this is letting one ninja kite 4 of them and having the other ninja pulling to the rest of the party. This worked very well for my party. Then again, we had a whm to help with cures, so this may not be the best option. >.<

Don't have time to quote the rest, but I can say this. Whenever you get into CS, skip it fast. The cutscene time cuts into the 45 minutes you have to beat the mission.

[eticket109]

That pt setup is exactly what we had for the BC at least for main jobs. For DRG I subbed NIN though just to lessen AOE damage etc. It didn't really seem to affect my damage numbers much either. It helps to do this part of the fight at night but its not necessary.

For the mammets, we did what Mog mentioned. I teamed up with one NIN, while the other kited. The mages stayed just in healing range and supported/nuked.

We each had a CCB and used 3 on each. I don't think we started til about 50% on either one of them.

We went 1/3 overall but the two losses were due to DCs. Once we got rolling and kept everyone in the BC, it went pretty well.

[Olorin401]

OK it took a while (one of my two static partners had a computer meltdown) but we set out to beat this mission again last night. Our third try, two friends of mine who were on their first run, and the founder of my Dynamis/COP linkshell who beat this one a while back. We deliberately did one practice run (where we used absolutely no meds) and one all-out run.

Party Setup:

WHM/BLM (myself)
NIN/WAR
RDM/WHM
BLM/WHM
DRG/WAR
MNK/WAR

In addition to the complement of med tanks, vile elixirs, CCBs, Yellow Liqs and food/drinks we used the last time, all of us got RR Hairpins/Gorgets - even myself to save us time and MP. I also brought 2 stacks of mulsum, and the BLM brought four flasks of walahra water!.

Part 1 - The Mammets
Practice run : Cheese.

All-out run : Cheese.

Total time on this section : 5 minutes, including cutscenes.

Part II - Omega
Knowing what was coming, I prepared a special macro set to include Paralyna, Stona, Erase, Cure 3 & 5 (Cure 4 is way too much hate), Haste and Regen 2.

On the dry run, we got Omega down to about 50%. As expected, once the nasty attacks started things went downhill fast. We wiped out and exited at this point to prepare for the all-out run.

The second time through, things went a lot smoother. We got Omega down to about 5% when some nasty bits of luck and timing caused us to wipe. However, we got back up, rested until unweakened (to save some time, when we shook off weakness I used my Benediction to get everyone up quickly, then we tossed a flurry of nukes including a Flare from our BLM to finish this part.

Total time on this section: about 13 minutes, including the second cutscene and weakness time.

Part 3 - Ultima

We knew what needed to be done here, so we took it easy and slowly worked through the first 50% of Ultima's HP. Once we started seeing Nuclear Waste going off, we broke out a CCB and the MNK and DRG unleashed their 2hrs and brought the pain. The MNK went down first, followed by the RDM and then me. We had Ultima to about 10% when we wiped, and we still had the BLM and RDM 2hrs left, with well over 10 minutes to go. We rose up, waited for weakness to fall off, then I tossed off a DS Curaga 3 and everyone popped ethers to fill our MP for the final assault. BLM did Manafont/ES/Flare first, then just before he cast the RDM broke Chainspell -ga2 and Tier 3 nukes to end the fight before Omega could get off another Antimatter hit.

Clear time : 34 Minutes & change

[eticket109]

Congratulations!

[Icemage]

Good job! Your fights sound a bit sloppy, but a win is a win.

Reraise items are useful here for saving MP, but the real MVPs are Hi-Potions and Vile Elixirs. Weakness is a major enemy, as it lasts 5 minutes, plus the time and/or resources to bring you back to full.


Icemage

[Olorin401]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Good job! Your fights sound a bit sloppy, but a win is a win.

Well, I think the experience I'll take away from this particular fight is that if you prepare enough, and study the various strategies that have been created, then you can manage to still beat it even if you have some down time. You won't be setting any record times though.

Reraise items are useful here for saving MP, but the real MVPs are Hi-Potions and Vile Elixirs. Weakness is a major enemy, as it lasts 5 minutes, plus the time and/or resources to bring you back to full.
Icemage

Well as a White Mage, it's always easier to just cast your own Reraise. However most other BC fights in this game don't require you to perform as much in the provided time limit as this one. The first two times I did this run I didn't use a RR pin, and it caused me to run out of MP half way through the Mammets and one of my party went down. Looking at it afterwards, no one should be KO'd at all from the Mammets. They're too easy to beat.

I have to agree on the meds - Hi-Pots and Viles are just insane. And like my BLM friend, if you can manage to farm up a pile of Walahra Waters do it.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Olorin401

Well, I think the experience I'll take away from this particular fight is that if you prepare enough, and study the various strategies that have been created, then you can manage to still beat it even if you have some down time. You won't be setting any record times though.

This absolutely true. Too many people get caught up in the "this strategy worked so it's obviously the only strategy that will work" mindset. It's just not true in CoP. There are many ways to beat every battle.

I remember when I was doing CoP right as it was introduced, everyone talked about how only Ninjas and Summoners could help you pass many of the fights. My group didn't have a Ninja, just a Paladin, and only one Summoner, but we were able to play to our strengths and find ways to beat every single battle all the way to the end with no guides and only occasional sketchy information about each battles.

Stay flexible, study the enemies, persevere, prepare, and you'll do fine.


Icemage