CoP 4.2 - a failed manaburn attempt

[IfritnoItazura]

Ouryu is a pain to tank. Before, took us at least three tries to get through CoP 4.2 ("The Savage") on my PLD, with a melee-it-until-it-gave-up setup, if I recalled correctly.

Now, three people in my BLM's static party needed the mission, so I figure I could bully a few friends to come as BLM's, and we'd manaburn it for "easy" victory. (Got the idea from here.) The setup was PLD, RDM, BLM x4. (That's all the BLM's we could field... Small LS, at late hour. =b )

I had a Giant Scale, two Mistmelts, and half a stack of Hippogryph Tailfeather from previous attempts at CoP 4.2. Figured it would be enough for a manaburn setup, so didn't do any more farming.

Well, it went badly. "Easy"? Heck no, unless we're talking about how good Ouryu is at killing BLM's.

In part I think it was because we weren't as organized as we should have been. No one had manaburn experience save for one BLM (dynamis statue trained). We did entirely way too much running around.

The experienced BLM said it looked like it would take 5-6 volleys of Freeze x4 to kill Ouryu. (Not sure he meant kill it or just get it down to 20%.) That's a lot of MP. >_< Not to mention the odds of resistance and BLM death goes up with each volley.

Looking back, I think we can comfortably get in 3-4 volleys if we stick to this plan: Freeze x4 / sleep / BLM move away to rest / gravity / sleep when it wakes up / ... until BLM's MP is good. (It does build resistance to sleep fairly fast, but the first 3-4 sleep should land, and we had 5 ES + sleep available.) Unfortunately, the goal is 5-6 volleys, not 3-4...

Anyway, some thoughts on the manaburn attempt.
- Have a detailed game plan, especially for people not used to manaburn. Who stand where, who cast what and when, and when to move to where, etc.
- BLM x5 would be better than BLM x4. Unfortunately, BLM x4 is our limit.
- RDM should dispel Stoneskin, silence Ouryu, and Paralyze it when possible.
- PLD is pretty good at making sure Ouryu doesn't go after BLM first.
- PLD is not that great at staying alive when Ouryu is awake and angry and there's no WHM to help with Flash and Cure.
- Ouryu starts to resist Sleep II around 4th or 5th attempt.
- Yes, BLM can land Sleep II without Elemental Seal; at least early in the fight it's quite easy.
- More Mistmelt is good; 5 was not enough for a our messy manaburn attempt. Recommend at least 6 per attempt--more the better.
- Don't use Elemental Seals for nukes. Use it for ES + Sleep to save our butts.
- Gravity Ouryu before it wakes. Move BLM's away when it's asleep. (Assuming this won't cause it to Spike Flail when BLM's are away but not behind.)

And, a mystery:
- We had an Aeroga II which did exactly 0 damage, and didn't look like Ouryu had Stoneskin up (it was right after a volley of Freeze x3).

There were a few "no effect" message for Sleep's right afterwards in the log, so is it possible Ouryu is somehow immune to Aeroga II while in air?! That would suck, if true. (The BLM who cast it was weakened, but not double weakened, so should not be nuking for 0.)

* * *

Should we try manaburn again? If so, how can we improve, with the limitation of BLM x4 max? (We can swap one BLM for SMN, but timing Freeze with Garuda's Astral Flow Blood Pact may be hard.)

Or should we go for a melee-heavy or SC+MB setup instead? What kind of tanking setup for non-manaburn would best ensure success? We should be able to field NIN, PLD, or NIN x2, or PLD x2, or NIN + PLD.

Between about 8+ people who can be available, we can bring DD's like BLM (duh), SMN, WAR, RNG, SAM, BST, MNK, and... er... THF. (Probably wouldn't bring THF; Spike Flail, no thanks.) No BLU's, and probably no DRK's.

For healer and support roles, we have plenty of RDM's, nearly as plentiful of WHM's, but only one BRD and no COR, most likely.

[Necropolis]

When I did this we tried heavy melee and it just horrible. Rdm, whm, 4DD with no luck for us.

We ended up doing it with a 2 blm, rdm, whm, pld, pld set up. The two invincilbes and covers are nice for the Blm and you could easily replace the whm with another blm.

Have your pld have a /assist <t> and use it on Ouryu to find out which blm has hate, so that one can be covered/cured first. Muslims are nice, 10 mp that they can use fast, ether work okay as well. If you want to bring a smn, you can swap out a blm and have them use garuda. Garuda doesn't take much damage from him, and can tank for quite a while (eliminating one sleep cycle for the blm)

I would say bring int potions or something, but there is likely death involved for the blm, so that would be a waste. But plenty of mp recovery items would be nice. Possibly a bard 2hr ballad could help if you have one available as well.

Personally I wouldn't try the melee approach. We failed 6 times with the melee approach, and won with a more mage happy party.

Hope you best of luck.

[Legal Fish]

Let me tell you, this fight is less about set up and more about tactics.

No, I'm not trying to sound like "ALL JOBS ARE EQUAL!" guy and I'm sure what I just said can be applied to every mission... but I really mean it.

If you prep yourself with stacking Mistmelts on a member(or members) who will be able to use them without hurting your group.

You can go something like

Tank(PLD or NIN) Melee Melee BLM RDM WHM and come out a winner if you play right. Don't be afraid to use Sleep to recover.

I don't remember the strategy exactly, but I've beaten Ouryu with multiple set ups, both normal and manaburn, both with NIN and PLD. It's not impossible and should be a relief after dealing with Mammets.

[DakAttack]

Ouryu is easy to kite. While in the air and attacking your back he does less than a hundred damage, and he's easily tangled up pathing issues in the center if you run around the edge. If I remember correctly Freeze drops about 8% of his health. That's about eight freezes, so really only two volleys. You can get a volley off without having to aggro or sleep Ouryu, then sleep, volley, and ES Sleep if you need for another volley.

[Malacite]

This fight was cake when I did it.

Our set up at the time was WAR (me) MNK PLD SMN RDM WHM. Ouryu didn't stand a chance.

We opened with raging fists -> Raging Axe for detonation with Garuda MBing for just over 1k dmg. From there we more or less zerged him with 2-hours and mistmelts whenever he took to the skies. Got him down to 30% in no time and he gave up. No one ever went into orange HP.

It's all about being prepared and *not* panicking. We had a "suboptimal" set up and kicked the crap out of him 1st try.

[Necropolis]

Well I just did this mission again with some random pick up party.

Setup was blm, blm, rdm, blu, pld, smn. Melee did next to nothing, pld tried to hold hate (hard with two taru blm :x)

We went it, buffed, and just let loose everything. Rdm opened with dispel, freeze, freeze, AF, Aeroga II, manafont, freeze, aeroga II et cetera

I alone did 2800 damage in about a minute, then another blm, and a smn Astral Flow it was down in no time.

Could just try the go all out route and see if it works for you.

[Sevv]

We had ta odd set up back when i did this:

Rngx3 Rdm Blm Smn:

Basically the plan was for the Smn to run in astral flow to get hate while the rngs built about = hate (enghorr and his emnity merits messed it up >.>) bounced hate around while the smn got off all his bp's. This was very quick and effective, basically more about heads up thinking, being able to commincate rather then XYZ job = win.

Itazura, if you guys need help on this let me know I would be happy to help.

[IfritnoItazura]

Well, to clarify, IIRC, I'm actually 1/4 on first attempt and 1/3 on second attempt using regular party setup for CoP 4.2, for a not so impressive history of 2/7. It's manaburn setup that's 0/1. =b

Sounds from people's testimonies on mage performances, sounds like manaburn should be workable. We did it on Iceday, too, but perhaps was just unlucky, and too few Mistmelts.

I know we can get through this, just looking to improve on my 2/8 record (and spend less time recovering from death weakness). ^_- I'll see about setting up SMN to MB with a Fragmentation SC. It's about time some of our WAR's use Great Axes for something other than merit party skill up sessions.

[Kisshu]

How much dmg did each Freze do? When I did this fight as BLM my Freeze did around 500, we were using a mana/astralburn to deal with it, so roughly 2 BLMs and 2 SMNs for the killing with 1 PLD tanking/mistmelting and 1 RDM for support.

We started with casting Freeze and Garuda Astral Flow, RDM would dispel before they got off and PLD would voke, we slept it and rested. Everyone should make sure to have enough MP within one min after sleep to maximize the SMNs Astral Flow.

I went 0/4 on normal setup and 1/1 on Mana/Astralburn setup.

[Feenicks]

From what I remember of my Ouryu fight, our BLMs were using Aeroga II instead of Freeze because of the cooldown and the mana cost.

[Samuzuki]

I love it when manaburns fail :x .

[IfritnoItazura]

I love it when manaburns fail :x .

How mean. =/

I'm just trying to help LS members get past CoP 4.2 here, you know.

[Vyuru]

I wasn't part of the LS run to beat this guy, but I know they took something like 12 mistmelts along to keep Ouryu on the ground.

You might want to bring some more, and I'd think that if you could create some kind of SC and get all of your blm to MB on it, it'd make the fight alot easier.

Hmm, now that I think of it, could you gain TP for a SC, SC + MB, wait a bit for spell cooldown timers, pop Icarus Wings, then toss out another SC+MB?

[Icemage]

You can manaburn Ouryu relatively easily, but you need BLMs who are smart and coordinated.

RDM/BLM + 3xBLM + anything should work, but you need to know how to deal with him when he's flying. Get Gravity on him and keep him Dispel/Finale'd until someone can nab him with a Mistmelt.

In actuality, though, the safest tactic I've heard of is to just use Summoners against him. He can't really hurt Garuda, so 3+ Summoners with MP recovery backup (COR, BRD or RDM) can toast him pretty handily, just have to watch out and not be near while he's flying to avoid ugly things like Bai Wing and Ochre Blast.

If you really must do the manaburn thing, use 3 BLM + RDM + 2 others. This battle IS doable with 3 nukers and a RDM who have decent gear. Don't rush, bring mistmelts - at all costs you have to keep him from using Bai Wing and/or Ocher Blast, bring potions/drinks, and keep your cool (oh, and spread out a bit so you don't get nailed by a stray AoE Stonega II).


Icemage

[Vyuru]

Zounds! He lives!!!!

Good to see you posting again IceMage