Soloing Mission 2-3 Dragon BCNM

[Tomato_Kai]

That is a great idea.

[Neomage]

I also think that /DNC would work well. I am not sure if you need the extra HP, but the extra damage will help ALOT with something like Hundred Fists. Or, if you are up to it, you can climb Pandama Tor in Ahwatta Chasm(sp?) and get an Enfire or Blaze Spikes Feather that you can use to give yourself the effect. Since a Lv1 newbie can technically get these items just by taking the time to travel (Though Aggro may still pose a problem, still I could do it on a lv 1 mule) It's not breaking the contract as much as other things...

[Armando]

You don't need a Jack-o-Lantern, you DO want to use TP as soon as it reaches 100 (I won't get into the math behind this, but a LOT of damage is wasted from holding on to large amounts of TP past 100, and doing a WS only halts your autoattack cycle for like 2 secs,) and some flavored Milks will go a long way.

Holy Water because Curse (See: Chaos Blade) WILL kill you. Obviously not directly, but it will. And about Hi-Potion or two to get back on your feet if you do get hit by Chaos Blade.

[Tomato_Kai]

...you DO want to use TP as soon as it reaches 100 (I won't get into the math behind this, but a LOT of damage is wasted from holding on to large amounts of TP past 100, and doing a WS only halts your autoattack cycle for like 2 secs...

I think under normal circumstances I would agree to this, except for in that if in this case, I think by the time I have 100 tp, the Eye mob (which should be about EM to me) will be dead or nearly at it, and so tossing a WS for 250 damage will be wasted if the mob only has 30 hp left. Likewise, the whole issue with the dragon fight itself was basically if I could kill the eye fast enough to get to the dragon before my hp dropped below unrecoverable levels.

I'm gonna make my first calibration attempt at this tonight, running it without meds, some of the gear I've got planned, and other things. I don't expect to win, but mostly at this point, I wanna see what kind of things I'll need for a serious attempt: more hp, more eva, more acc, etc.

Just out of curiosity, am I totally off my rocker for thinking this is possible? The LS I'm in seems to think that it's not only impossible, but especially impossible for a DD class like MNK.

I thought I had things pretty well layed out, but doubt has definitely begun to nag at me.

[Armando]

It's far from impossible, though it's not easy for many jobs. MNK isn't one of those jobs though, because Hundred Fists is so good and technically speaking the BC mobs have poor defense and evasion.

I think under normal circumstances I would agree to this, except for in that if in this case, I think by the time I have 100 tp, the Eye mob (which should be about EM to me) will be dead or nearly at it, and so tossing a WS for 250 damage will be wasted if the mob only has 30 hp left. Likewise, the whole issue with the dragon fight itself was basically if I could kill the eye fast enough to get to the dragon before my hp dropped below unrecoverable levels.

Then just do the WS at the dragon, while still targeting the eye.

[Ryuuhikiuu]

Are mission 2-1 and 2-2 soloable? I think I might try this when I hit 25 as well

[Ziero]

Just out of curiosity, am I totally off my rocker for thinking this is possible? The LS I'm in seems to think that it's not only impossible, but especially impossible for a DD class like MNK.

I thought I had things pretty well layed out, but doubt has definitely begun to nag at me.

I saw a vid of a Galka Mnk solo it a LONG time ago. A rdm friend in my LS soloed his, though it was his third time going through the missions and had a lvl 75 job with cap skills to help him out. And I came pretty damn close to accidentally duoing it as a war with a thf friend with niether of us being geared to duo it in any way shape or form. We were supposed to have a healer with us, but they forgot a CS, but we tried it anyway while they went back for it and came within a hair of winning. Had two bad Sturms (less then 100) and three whiffs in a row at the end, which combined with the thf forgetting to two hour, was what killed us.

Prepped up with proper meds and gear, I'm pretty confident I could take it as a War.

[Tomato_Kai]

So, I ran my first calibration attempt last night.

It went suprisingly well.

Essentially, I burned through the Eye, as was expected, and ended up with about 85% tp by the time he fell. The dragon was auto-targeted, and I had about 10-15 seconds left on Hundred Fists. I started pounding on him, and got him to 70% when he used Chaos Blade to drop my hp drastically. It was his first TP move. I managed to get a second WS on him in hopes that I'd be able to do like, 500 damage or something ridiculous, but it didn't work. I ended up dying with him at a little over half his HP.

Essentially, If I simply had a holy water - and *maybe* a potion with me, I would have succeeded. I doubt I would have even needed an icarus wing, though that's debatable.

What was my current gear like?

Lynx Baghnahks
Federation Hachimaki
Federation Tekko
Federation Kyahan
Cotton Doublet
Beetle Earrings +1 (x2)
Courage Rings (x2)
Rabbit Mantle
Martial Slacks
Purple Belt
Spike Necklace

My food was a strip of Jerky XD

I had no prior buffs, except for signet.



So, yeah. I'm pretty confident now that I'll be able to do this.

[Zoltar]

you'd probably do slightly better with Republic Knuckles (lvl15) for the Acc +2 Att +3 and get a lvl18 Dhalmel Mantle

[Tomato_Kai]

Actually, you don't wanna argue that first point with me. See, I made the mistake of arguing that with Armando, and ... Yeah. Apparently, he always wins.

The gist of it is, that the speed difference more than makes up for the higher attack and acc. I actually sold my republic knuckles when I hit 24. Honestly, I haven't noticed a significant difference either way, but, dps is dps.

To the point of the dhamel mantle; I'm using a rabbit mantle and cotton doublet vs. the gear I had originally posed because honestly - I haven't got that far in my farming yet. I'll buy upgrades before my final attempt, but for now, it doesn't matter to me that much when I'm doing calibration attempts.

[Tomato_Kai]

Please don't hate for the double post, but I thought I'd let folks know, I made my first real try on the Dragon last night.

And I won.
What was the situation?

Same gear set up as before, no changes.

Food used: Meat Jerky
Items Used: Icarus Wing, X-Potion & Holy Water (Accidentally~)

So, the fight went roughly like this. I had my LS wish me luck and entered the battlefield. Watched the cutscene, and went in. I immediately popped my macro which tossed Dodge, Focus, and Hundred Fists (in that order). I started pounding the Searcher (the eye) and took him down almost immediately. It really only took about 5-6 hits to kill him. He dropped nothing, gave me exactly 46 exp. That would equate him to roughly a EP mob. I was moved around so I autotargeted the dragon at that point, and started banging on him. I unleashed combo for about 250 damage right off the bat, taking him to 2/3 his health. Then accidentally hit my Chaos Blade removal macro, causing my char to use a holy water, then an x-potion. Little frustrated, but no biggy. Since I had about half my health at this point, it wasn't "entirely" wasted, but no problem. Hundred fists wore off, right about the time the dragon used "Lodesong" which I guess has the effect of gravity? It "weighed me down" but did no damage. After that, I had just enough tp to hit another WS, this one only for 75 damage, then popped my ica wing for another 145 damage. The dragon was basically dead at this point. I stuck him a few more punches, and ended the fight with about 45% hp.

All in all, the whole event took me 2:47. 17 Seconds off the current record. Had I been paying attention to speeding up the whole thing, I could have easily taken out the record with my 1 man party. XD

Anyhow, this was the most fun setting up and performing that I've had in this game. I'm glad I did it, and glad I got to do it. Thanks to everyone for their advice.

EDIT: Adjusted for continuity.

[Armando]

Congratulations. And yes, Lodesong is Gravity.

By the way, for future reference, if you're going for the record, you should enter the BC, leave it, and enter it again. The second time, you won't get the cutscene, which DOES take away from your record time.