[Olorin401]

For many FFXI players, Dynamis is one of the first endgame activities that they will participate in. It’s also an activity that most successful endgame groups will continue to participate in because of the top quality armor available and the ancient currency which is used to fund linkshell banks and upgrade relic weapons.

If you look around you’ll find many different strategy pages for Dynamis, from the most basic things that all players learn in their first few runs to the extremely specific zone layouts showing which mobs come from each pull. And it’s all useful because the zones never change. So why are some Dynamis groups more successful than others? Why are some groups able to clear an entire city zone twice in one run with time to spare, collect 600+ ancient coins and get 20+ drops? Why are some groups able to clear the Death House in Windurst with ease? With a crew of 25?!

Hopefully this guide will give you some insight to help your crew improve its performance.

Alliance & Party Organization:

Some of the most efficient parties for gaining experience or limit points are mana or TP burn parties. Likewise, if you extend this idea to an alliance or larger group that efficiency would provide larger rewards for all. So let’s look at the most efficient - a TP burn group. Its components are:

Tank: Holds the mob’s attention and takes/negates damage
Healer: Helps keep the party running to its peak performance, with focus on the tank.
Damage Dealer: errr… deals damage and dances on the corpses
Support: Enhances the damage output of the party; controls and weakens the mob so it takes more damage at a faster rate, and backs up the healer in similar fashion. Also handles additional mobs that are nearby in order to prevent additional damage to the group and to keep things moving smoothly and quickly.

If you expand these components to fit a large group, naturally you will have a tank party, and several damage parties. These parties need to be both on their party duty, just as each member must be focused on their duty. Each party will need healing and support components, but the tank party would need to be the focus of healing.

Tank Party: Ideal Setup: PLD/NINx2, NIN/DRK, BRD, RDM, WHM
- Two PLDs allow greater control over the mob’s attention
- NIN/DRK allows an extra tank if needed, and support via enfeebling ninjitsu and stuns
- One has abilities and spells always ready to use
- In case one dies the other can take over right away
- WHM & RDM focus healing magic on the tanks. In emergencies they can heal other members of the group outside the tank party
- RDM & BRD provide support with Haste/March, Refresh/Ballad, and enfeebling.
* SCH is excellent main healer/support – you can use one in place of a WHM or RDM.
** A second WHM can be substituted in place of the NIN/DRK.

Damage Parties: Basic Setup: DD jobx4, BRD or COR, swing slot

The basic setup is just a guide here. There are several variations that should be used to focus damage in the best possible way. Obviously, five BLMs should all be together with a BRD or COR (COR is preferable because it can provide two different full-strength effects, as opposed to BRD that has to sacrifice a Ballad to give something else). A BLM party can also heal and support itself with Sleep/Sleepga, Stuns, Bind, and Gravity, so they don’t need to have a dedicated healer.

In a similar fashion 5 RNG should be in the same party so that all of them can share double Minuet. 4 DRK in the same party with a RDM for Haste/Cures and a BRD for double March is a really insane thing to watch – try it sometime. These focused parties also give you a huge advantage when fighting a zone boss.

The other DD jobs in the game don’t need an exclusive party, but they like all DDs would at least need a BRD or COR to enhance their damage output, plus a RDM for Haste and healing.


Managing each pull:

Most pulls will bring several mobs, usually 4-5 but sometimes as many as 15-20. Sometimes you can’t avoid a big pull. This is where your support staff needs to shine, and your group’s speed is most critical. Manage these hordes by using Sleepga & Horde Lullaby. Make sure to have some players hold back in case a small gang of mobs resist, or wake up and chase down the player that slept them. It’ll save some unnecessary deaths and lots of time.

Enfeebling and debuffing mobs is one of the most overlooked tasks in Dynamis. I mean, what's the point right? So what if it adds a couple extra seconds to each kill, or your tank takes a few extra hits from that Hundred-Fisting MNK... That is exactly the point! Time is key to your performance as a group and your DROP RATE. More mobs your group can kill in a run means more coins and valuable synth items and relic armor will drop, and less frustrating deaths to your members.

This next trick is particularly useful in Windurst - If a pull has multiple statues, have one person Sleepga everything then kite the statues past the group to a cleared spot. Then your BLM party can focus on the entire group of statues at once using –ga spells.

A common method some groups use is splitting into two large units and fighting more than one mob at once. This is a great idea if you have a large group, say over 40 players. If you have a smaller group though, your best way is to fight as one unit. A 20-player group can kill the average Dynamis mob in under 8 seconds, without nukes! This lets your support players focus on controlling the sleeping crowd while your group plows through entire pulls in a few short moments.

Finally, the mob kill order. This is a basic thing you learn, but I've learned it's much more important to fight each mob in a different specific. This is the order I've come up with:

Eye > SMN > BST > BLM > BRD > MNK > RNG > RDM/SAM/WAR/DRK/DRG > PLD > THF > NIN > WHM

Also, the BLM should take down the statues first, then the pets once the BST is dead. Keep a DRG's wyvern around for Aspirs until the entire pack of mobs is down, then let the alliance kill it to get TP for the next pull.


Optimizing your drop potential:

Thanks to recent information from SE, we now have some ideas on how Treasure Hunter works. In order for it to activate, a THF must place enmity on a mob. Easy enough – just make sure your THFs apply hate to each and every mob you fight, and that your THFs have their Treasure Hunter trait maximized with Thief’s Knife and Assassin’s Armlets. Stacking enmity gear does not apply it to a mob – you must perform an action. That means damage the mob, or use a job ability that can get its attention. This also applies during pulls – your puller puts hate on the statue, but not the pops that come with it. They’re just along for the ride! If you want, you can have a THF/NIN hold a mob by blink-tanking and that will work. You can also tell one of your THFs to sub BRD – and get hate by casting party buffs or Horde Lullaby or Mazurka. These methods don’t guarantee you’ll get relic armor drops, but it will significantly increase the chances for each mob your group fights. One thing it will guarantee is that your group gets many more coins to drop (not to mention 100V drops and stolen coins).

-=-=-=-

This is all I can think of at the moment, though I’m sure there’s other advanced ideas out there that I looked over (like gear.. it's too big a variable in this game and too specific to each job). By all means, post a reply and help an old fella out. And despite these ideas, never forget the basics – bring reraise items, appropriate meds, foods and items to help enhance your job. I’m constantly told to bring poison pots to this very day, and I forget half the time!

[Callisto]

Eh I really don't like PLD/NIN in Dynamis, that's my only gripe. /WAR is still great and we've had fantastic results with /DRK.

And 25 people is kind of a lot isn't it?

[TheGrandMom]

Originally Posted by Callisto

And 25 people is kind of a lot isn't it?

Ya, I've done Windy will 14 people just fine. I believe that run we took someone in from another ls because they needed clear. I remember chatting in /t's with them and they were upset because they thought they wouldn't get clear. LOL

I think its based on the drive and talent of your ls personally. Here is my outlook:

I play this game with the idea of winning. To me that is my end goal. Gear is not on my mind, coins are not on my mind, gil is not on my mind.....nothing but winning. I do not watch tv, read a book/magazine, play PSP/DS, or do anything other than concentrate on my end goal.........winning. I think sometimes, with other people, you pull an NM in Dynamis and they think "Oh this doesn't drop the piece I want" and then they don't pay as much attention or concentrate on what needs to be done. When their NM is pulled, oh its "balls to the wall and lets get this down cause I want my gearz" attitude. Ditto that with any end game objective for some people. I'm not a gear whore, and I think that helps my ls because I could give a rat's behind. In fact, last night someone asked me on vent "If you could have one piece of gear in this game, anything you wanted, what would it be?" I had to honestly say that I don't even know what the best gear is for any of my jobs so my answer would suck. LOL I recently got to log Goliard Clogs (which I won) but had no idea how cool they were till I saw them drop. LOL

[Callisto]

Originally Posted by TheGrandMom

YI play this game with the idea of winning. To me that is my end goal. Gear is not on my mind, coins are not on my mind, gil is not on my mind.....nothing but winning.

Same for me, because I've seen 50 people obliterate a zone for 5 AF and 200 coins, and I've seen 15 clear normally for 12 AF and 500 coins. I would rather take less people that I know will do well, clear normally, have less drops diluted among 50 people, and less headache dealing with 25+ sheep to herd around. These days what I would consider 'advanced Dynamis' are the groups clearing DL with 20, not obliterating cities with 30+.

With Dynamis drops being as random as they are I'd rather just bring enough to clear and get drops. Same with Limbus, sure you can destroy a zone with 18 people and get 3 coins each(keep in mind that 18 people don't always have the jobs/skill necessary to split up and do 2 zones), or you can clear the zone with 6-8 and get 5 coins each.

[TheGrandMom]

Sometimes when we have 30+ people on in the ls and decide to do Dynamis, I wish they would trust themselves and split into 2 groups and do 2 of them. I would just be so thrilled to see this up on the frontpage and so happy for the confidence it would build in some ls members.

[Callisto]

Originally Posted by Olorin401

This is all I can think of at the moment, though I’m sure there’s other advanced ideas out there that I looked over (like gear.. it's too big a variable in this game and too specific to each job). By all means, post a reply and help an old fella out. And despite these ideas, never forget the basics – bring reraise items, appropriate meds, foods and items to help enhance your job. I’m constantly told to bring poison pots to this very day, and I forget half the time!

I did mean to say, this is probably the most important part of this post.

Also if you're low on support like BRDs/CORs, SAM/DNC with Soboro is fantastic.

[Olorin401]

Originally Posted by Callisto

Eh I really don't like PLD/NIN in Dynamis, that's my only gripe. /WAR is still great and we've had fantastic results with /DRK.

And 25 people is kind of a lot isn't it?

To be honest we're kinda lucky if we manage to get 20 for Xarcabard. We still manage well though. That reminds me we're doing a run at the Polearm fragment tonite and we were told to slot it off on our Blackberries and Day Planners, so I guess that means 45 people are gonna show up?!

On the PLD/WAR vs PLD/NIN thing.. I think it's a matter of what a player is most comfortable with and what their linkshell leaders expect them to bring. And of course having the gear & knowing how to use it helps (hullo Aegis). PLD/NIN is just really nice because it's a bit less maintenance for the healers. As for PLD/DRK that's something I haven't seen yet - we do have NIN/DRK and RDM/DRK tanks quite often, but that's reserved more for when we're fighting HNMs.
______________________________

Originally Posted by Callisto

I did mean to say, this is probably the most important part of this post.

Also if you're low on support like BRDs/CORs, SAM/DNC with Soboro is fantastic.

Heh we had the Soboro discussion last night. No one wants to do that fight (or most other triggered NMs) because it's a pain in the butt. We'll call each other at 5am Saturday for Tiamat tho..

[Callisto]

It's really nice on hate, in terms of being easy on healers, a PLD that can actually hold hate for the actual life span of the mob(especially one with Aegis) will suck a hell of a lot less MP than a DD who gets slapped by Hundred Fists because they chose to WS at a poor time, especially now that you can do things like take 2 MNKs in a row, Sentinel the first HF then Reprisal the second.

Also something that does need to be said, RDMs that just simply debuff every mob save more MP than anything else. Silence every caster, Dispel every buffer, and Para II every MNK and it's easier than shit.

[Callisto]

Advanced Dynamis: Playing Secret Agent Man to get to the Nue Tower eye and soloing it to pop attestation NMs...





...while your alliance is kiting an Orc NM around a tower, enacting a massive remote control MPK of 20 people with an Attestation NM.

[TheGrandMom]

On the PLD/DRK thing, we had a pld that tried it on kiting Kirin once and once was enough. I think he did Dynamis once too but I wasn't there for that one. I was the rdm in the kite party though for Kirin and {No, thanks.} But I can definately say that equips and attitude are a big part of it.

Ok here is the question for the day, anyone ever do Bard Attestation? We've done it about a dozen or more times for a very deserving bard in our ls but have had absolutely no luck. We usually run about 24 at most for Dynamis. Do we need more? Basic strat is to zerg and have blms sleepga2 the entire group when they come in and then have some blms alternate sleep/stun between them to keep the damn thing busy. I guess rdm/drk stuns don't work on it or we'd have tried that. I think we've gottne it to 40%ish but thats it.

[Callisto]

Haha, /DRK for Kirin is a horrible idea, even if the hate was solid the mob being practically immune to Stun and having 1-shot capability kind of rules that out as an option. It works much better for the Dynamis fodder mobs.

And do you mean the Animated Horn? That's Fragment, not Attestation.

[TheGrandMom]

Ya ya sorry.....grandkids driving me crazy today. Had to snake the toilet out to get a Matchbox car out of it for petes sake. ><

[Caspian]

Originally Posted by Callisto

Advanced Dynamis: Playing Secret Agent Man to get to the Nue Tower eye and soloing it to pop attestation NMs...

MGS'ing it was awesome. We'd usually take one party lead by a thf to train them all and whm to raise them after each eye line. One of the most fun things I've ever done in dynamis.
We were (and they still are) a large dynamis group, largest on the server from what I was aware and we usually had 30-40 people on any given run. Full cleared all cities and usually had plenty of time to screw around on icelands before downing the bosses. Initially had problems with DL for a couple months when we first reformed due to RDM/DRK's not being able to time stuns properly and keeping him chainstunned. Thats pretty critical for him, he gets TP way too fast and will smoke your group if not stunned properly.
We always had enough THF's with full TH gear to tag everymob we killed, started taking a THF/BRD or THF/BLM to -ga spell groups of stats for more coinage (mild increase in drop rate).
And you're wrong Callisto, nothing much more fun than going rng/war throwing up zerk and sidewindering a mnk mob at the beginning of a fight, or doing the same to a rng mob and getting EES'd.

[Callisto]

It's fine for the DD, it sucks for the WHMs, lol.

Basically how we do the Nue eye(got the strat from Wizerd on BG): When we're headed for the 2nd Goblin TE we take that first Eye off the ramp(the MNK/BRD/RNG one), then go about the run like normal. Make our way to Quadavs, after the TEs there myself and a helper head back to the Hydra area.

Supposedly you can target an eye from the middle level, cast on it, and clear a lot of room on the 2nd level, but for my life I can never get it to work when I need it to. Instead my helper comes and pulls the first 2 eyes on the ramp, I run past and go as far as I can before coming to another eye. Pop a Poison Potion, pop Powder Boots and immediately swap to a 2nd pair of Powders while I'm running(this is really important). Make my way down the ledge, Flee should wear when you're right about at the end of the cliff ledge before the big clearing.

Pop 2nd Powders, bail through the clearing and up the ramp...this is where it kind of sucks, the 2nd Flee generally wears while you're still in the tunnel to Nue, I got extremely lucky that Blink ate a Bind that an Eye threw at me(would recommend doing this /NIN but we needed me /BLM for the rest of the run)...when you reach the tower go die in the NW corner.

RR up, put a fresh RR on, and put up shadows/Stoneskin. You have to face kind of a weird north-eastish angle so that you can target the Eye inside the tower through the wall when you tab(360/PS2 controller is great for this). From there just cast Bio/Poison II, die, RR, rebuff and put up new RR, recast DoTs when they wear. Takes about 4-5 deaths, 6 for me last night b/c I goofed and didn't see DoTs wear and it regen'd 10% at one point, the next round of casts left it at .000001%

Sucks that it didn't drop the Attestation we wanted, but at least we know that we're capable of farming them now, LS leader still has a bit of currency to go to hit Stage 4 so we have a bit of time to make things smoother and make it common.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I usually go COR/DNC to most cities save for Jeuno, which is full of status spam and forces the issue of /WHM. Though, if I'm placed in a melee PT, I'd probably /DNC anyway just because its a waste of time for me to run back and give myself Evoker's when I can just melee to help cure and do status removals.

/DNC does a lot of good for SAM, MNK and COR alike in there, I've seen.

Also important to not that SCH isn't just for healing. They're a great crowd controller and nuker as well. SCH shouldn't be turned to only as a healer unless you're lacking them, though for tank PTs, yeah, no questions, they're a healer there and there for the SS/Phalanx spam.