Abyssea Experiences

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

The do link, you should go check, lizards always link with other lizards.

Shadow Lizard - 4 hr 41 min: 27.2k exp/hr average
Shadow Lizard - 2 hr 51 min: 21.5k exp/hr average
Jaguarundi - 3 hr 29 min: 40.9k exp/hr average (JP alliance; I left once to use up merit points then returned)
Pachypodium - 3 hr 35 min: 21.1k exp/hr average
Shadow Lizard - 3 hr 42 min: 35.0k exp/hr average
Shadow Lizard - 1 hr 37 min: 15.9k exp/hr average (failed to achieve sustainability)
Shadow Lizard - 2 hr 16 min: 17.0 exp/hr average (slowly collapsed)
Shadow Lizard - 3 hr 49 min: 52.7k exp/hr average

Think I had another one which I forgot to turn on the parser for. Can believe me, now, when I say they do not link?

That's what's so damn awesome about abyssea, you can do it 10 different ways and 9/10 times its going to have the same result.

Well, just from the ones I've looked up, 6 out of 8 times the results were ho-hum. There were also two or three other complete failures I didn't list.

It's fun and addictive, but not always fast exp. If you want fun and fast exp, bring a fast kill alliance (plus all the Abyssea specific requirements like a good box opener w/keys, someone to direct lights, etc.).

I'm pretty sure lizards do a TP move called "Secretion" which enhances Evasion. You personally might not have had a problem with Acc, but anyone below 85% should have probably done something to correct that situation

Like I said, pizza for two-handers. (Which implies decent sushi for one-handers.) Not a problem for any real DD who puts efforts into their builds. Even AH DDs should be able to get above 85% with ease.

This isn't a Mamool Ja THF we're talking about here.

shit was so easy, and so god damn boring.

If it was easy and you had time to be bored on BRD, your alliance was doing it wrong.

You should've been pulling for a fast-kill alliance. My BRD routine on Jaguarundi:
March
Run off.
Sleep one with Lullaby (away from party), pull another with Elegy.
Run back.
Sleep the incoming #1.
March, while waiting for the previously slept one to wake up.
Sleep the incoming #2.
If alliance was a bit slower at this point, attempt to sneak in a Ballad on the COR/WHM*.
<repeat run off, lullaby one away, pull another with Elegy, etc.>


Pulling one at a time wasn't nearly fast enough for that JP alliance. Several times, I've actually intentionally used Horde Lullaby on two to three of them while away from camp to bring them in a batch. Thankfully a few also repop in camp and most pulls were short distanced, otherwise I'd never been able to keep up.


* DD/NIN x3, DNC, BRD/NIN (me), COR/WHM was the party build.

[Truece]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

and 9/10 times its going to have the same result

Which, for me, has just been 120 minutes of mediocre xp...

I'm hoping for another good abyssea experience soon!

[ShepardG]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

The do link, you should go check, lizards always link with other lizards.

We had a main assist, but when I roll up into camp with 4 Pac's on me, and the get sleepga'd, and I roll out and get 4 more, it made for easier kills. also didn't have a bard, because yeah, bards are scarce and/or already to 80 and nobody wants to play them anymore lol.

That's what's so damn awesome about abyssea, you can do it 10 different ways and 9/10 times its going to have the same result.

I'm pretty sure lizards do a TP move called "Secretion" which enhances Evasion. You personally might not have had a problem with Acc, but anyone below 85% should have probably done something to correct that situation, BUT again, probably didn't affect the party as much as it would had there been only 6 people. I fucking love abyssea.

Litterly did this for 2 1/2 hours last night on Brd:

Sing Victory, sing advancing....

Look for my only mage

run to them and sing Ballad, Ballad 2

run to the mob, sing march x2

shit was so easy, and so god damn boring.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

but now your dealing with the fact that lizards just suck, AoE Dmg, Evasive (you and i know that pick up groups are gonna have the Domaru Sam's) and they link.

"AoE Dmg": Fireball is pretty easily countered with Shell, Barfira, and Curaga. If a SCH is in party, also have option for Accession Stoneskin (and Phalanx if SCH/RDM). WHM80/SCH or RDM/80/SCH can also provide AoE Stoneskin, of course.

"Evasive": They are not. TP set with reasonable accuracy plus Marinara Pizza would just fine for two-handed DDs. (I TP in Askar body on SAM, by the way, and I got 93%+ hit rate in both sessions.)

"Link": Nope. They don't link, they don't aggro.

Lizards aren't really all that bad, but the real draw is how easy it is to reach the camp for those without the Veridical Confluxes activated.

Admitedly, they go down fairly quick, but the fact that half your DD's are probalby /war or something not suited to self sustainment, puts a tax on the support that the other camps (birds/mandies/bats/Crapaudy's) don't have.

Most of the DDs were smart enough to use /NIN, but, yes, there were always one or two idiots with /WAR and /SAM.

IIRC, birds have AoE damage, too. Mandies stripe shadows faster with hand-to-hand and counter (plus they have Guard to lower damage taken from the front). Crapaudy hit harder than lizards, plus they link, and practically immune to light based sleep.

I could hold 5 manides at once. I was litterly going out, banish,flash,provoke,ranged atk, coming back to camp, Defender, sentinel(if it was up), reprisal, phalanx and i could usually cure 4 myself through the hits even with 4-5 mobs on me.

with a rdm to refresh/cure me, I was pretty much untouchable.

Guess that's sorta off topic, but I was subtley trying to inform any fellow plds on the best way to tank those pacy's, also it will near cap your shield skill.

Er. Or you can just gear up as a DD on PLD/NIN, have a BRD do the usual stage pulling, and direct the fight as the main /assist like in Dynamis. (I mean, think about it; what if the current target dies while you're off 'pulling' another? All the melees would have to run after you? That's just not efficient; much better to keep one slept and ready at all times.)

There's no need for a 'tank' in an Abyssea exp alliance; a main /assist who won't bleed all over the floor is all that's needed. Frankly, if the melees can't pull the mob off of a PLD/anything with WS, you need to replace them with real DDs.

I guess you can play puller on PLD if you don't have a BRD to pull, but it really isn't ideal.

[ShepardG]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

If you had looked at my list, you'll noticed the vast majority of the alliances--including the under 30k exp/hr ones--were on lizards in Konschtat. Can definitely build ruby on those.

I agree, but now your dealing with the fact that lizards just suck, AoE Dmg, Evasive (you and i know that pick up groups are gonna have the Domaru Sam's) and they link. Admitedly, they go down fairly quick, but the fact that half your DD's are probalby /war or something not suited to self sustainment, puts a tax on the support that the other camps (birds/mandies/bats/Crapaudy's) don't have.

I was main tank on mandies for my pld on friday. I Idle in this:

Hauteclaire(Magain is better nowadays, i just haven't had time to do it)
Koenig
Lamia Kaman+1
Dst Cap +1
Repellting collar (-1pdt,+1mdt)
earrings don't matter
Versa Hauberk
Dst Mittens +1
Jelly ring
Odium ring
cerb mantel +1
Warwolf's Belt
Dst Subligar +1
Askar Gamberias (or DST leggings +1)

I could hold 5 manides at once. I was litterly going out, banish,flash,provoke,ranged atk, coming back to camp, Defender, sentinel(if it was up), reprisal, phalanx and i could usually cure 4 myself through the hits even with 4-5 mobs on me.

with a rdm to refresh/cure me, I was pretty much untouchable.

Guess that's sorta off topic, but I was subtley trying to inform any fellow plds on the best way to tank those pacy's, also it will near cap your shield skill.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

It's more mobs vs lights and how they are built. Brds and Cors have largely so far been an oddity for me to see, starting to see them a bit more now, but still not terribly common. There might be one Brd and one Cor on average per alliance, nowhere near enough to make a difference IMO.

Well, think about it this way:

Alliance A: Kills one mob every 40 seconds on average.
Alliance B: Kills one mob every 25 seconds on average.

Which alliance can build lights faster? And, at the same exp/kill, which alliance will be making more exp/hr at that moment?

While the light building requirement makes it a bit more complicated, the fundementals have not changed: Stronger damage output leads to faster kills, and thus better exp/hr.

It has been explained to death what March x2 + Haste (+ Haste Samba) do for melee DDs, so I'll skip that. (COR has some good stuff as well, of course, and it's an even better fit for the nukers.) Suffice to say that when you have three strong DDs and someone to cast Haste for them, adding a BRD will do more for the damage output than adding a fourth DD. (Of course, if you don't have three good DDs to start with, you might as well just add yet another average DD instead of getting a BRD.)

You want the DDs to be well geared, well merited, and buffed by BRD/COR/DNC. If you can, spare a COR for the nukers, too.

Because faster kill is, well, faster.

Even then they are commonly the chest openers, and rolls/songs are not being kept up.

Thankfully, I have not seen any idiot leader making BRDs do this. Just about every alliance I went to has one lower level player on boxes. Sometimes a RNG or some spare DD when the lower level player gets too busy. Wasting a BRD like that would have been stupid.

I can sort of see COR in nukers' party opening boxes, since the rolls lasts what? Four minutes? But, definitely not BRD.

If I've had an Abyssea alliance that made under 30k/hr it was typically on mobs where you could not build ruby light for instance.

If you had looked at my list, you'll noticed the vast majority of the alliances--including the under 30k exp/hr ones--were on lizards in Konschtat. Can definitely build ruby on those.


* * *

Yes, with enough badly geared DDs not using food, holding TP, and skilling up and/or breaking latent, it will take over 40 seconds to kill each mob on average. Seen it happen way too many times. /sigh

* * *

This is not a "scientific comparison", but to give you an idea why I take strong exception to " one Brd and one Cor on average per alliance, nowhere near enough to make a difference", especially for BRD. Both sessions were on Shadow Lizards; was using same food, and nearly identical gear except feet for WS. (Rutter -> Perle)

SAM77-78: COR in party; he kept switching buffs between Chaos/Samurai/Fighter, I think. No Haste. After a few DDs swapped out (for the worse), I couldn't keep Hasso up and stay alive.
Melee DPS: 12.76
WS DPS: 24.66
Total DPS: 37.44

SAM78-80: BRD and RDM in party. RDM left after a few hours, but while he was there I was getting Haste consistently, and the BRD did only March for front line jobs.
Melee DPS: 19.48
WS DPS: 33.20
Total DPS: 52.68

I was at 93%+ accuracy (melee hit rate) for both sessions, so accuracy wasn't an issue.

Part of the improvement was due to being at higher level, but I don't think that explains a whopping 40.7% increase in DPS (37.44 -> 52.68). The better buffs (i.e. March and Haset) and the timely cures (which let me keep Hasso up) deserved most of the credit, I think.

And, get this: I was holding TP a lot more in the second one--someone kept demanding we don't kill with WS. Holding TP to 250% in an exp setting made me die a little inside every time... I use Hagun, so anything over 200% is an automatic waste. lol.

[Vyuru]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

Silver? Don't silver lights only increase your cruor per kill? After one or two Abyssea alliances you have more cruor than you can ever use, unless you want to try that 999 stats drink.

Well, yes and no.

If you are ever in the position of chest opener, you need about 4 stacks typically at minimum, which comes to 24,000 cruor, upfront. So having additional cruor is quite nice. Also I am thinking that SE will have more uses for cruor, so again stocking up on cruor is good to do.

And finally, if you are the main chest opener, there is no reason you shouldn't open silver light chests. Especially since quite often the chest opener is someone who is below lvl 70. Temp items also fall under this category of often ignored by the chest opener.

[Elwynn]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

Disagree with you slightly IfritnoItazura. It's more mobs vs lights and how they are built. Brds and Cors have largely so far been an oddity for me to see, starting to see them a bit more now, but still not terribly common. There might be one Brd and one Cor on average per alliance, nowhere near enough to make a difference IMO. Even then they are commonly the chest openers, and rolls/songs are not being kept up.

As a PS2 user, I'm kinda cool with that. BRD and COR effects show up on multiple people at the same instant, and that's exactly the kind of thing that causes my PS2 to go into 0.1FPS mode if there's too much of it in a small area. Some BRDs seem to like to recast their stuff before it's even halfway worn off, and of course if they're doing that, they're also doing both front line and back line buffs, so they're casting even more often. Ultrasonics from bats just makes everything worse. Add in WS kills mode and my UI gets one hell of a Gravity effect. Just farming in Pso'Xja with a bard nearby (didn't even have to be same party) has been enough to cause this. Even if I try to run away from the crap, it doesn't end until every fucking effect involved finishes its last frame.

In extreme cases involving NPCs fighting each other (campaign, besieged), it can even cause a PS2 crash. In one extreme case where I died under NPCs fighting in a hallway, the reraise prompt took five minutes to appear. At least I haven't crashed in Abyssea so far, and the only time I got constant 0.1FPS mode, I was already capping off my 11/10 merit.

Unfortunately the effects filter does not filter out everything on PS2, just the long shiny parts. It helps a little, but not much.

you can focus on getting gold/ebon/silver light chests and getting the exp up to 600 exp/kill.

Silver? Don't silver lights only increase your cruor per kill? After one or two Abyssea alliances you have more cruor than you can ever use, unless you want to try that 999 stats drink.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

As more people cap their jobs at 80 there will be less and less choice of jobs to take in there. The way the event is set up the exp reward doesn't become decent until around the 3-4 hour mark by which time most 80s who entered with no merits will be close to capping out and having to leave to spend them. I've capped all the jobs I had at 75 now and have zero reason to enter Abyssea for exp. S-E really need to remove the archaic mechanism of only being able to spend your merits inside your Mog House.

[Vyuru]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

Disagree with you slightly IfritnoItazura. It's more mobs vs lights and how they are built. Brds and Cors have largely so far been an oddity for me to see, starting to see them a bit more now, but still not terribly common. There might be one Brd and one Cor on average per alliance, nowhere near enough to make a difference IMO. Even then they are commonly the chest openers, and rolls/songs are not being kept up.

If I've had an Abyssea alliance that made under 30k/hr it was typically on mobs where you could not build ruby light for instance. Against mobs you can build pearl/azure/ruby the exp skyrockets, depending on time extension chests, simply for the fact that once you have pearl/azure/ruby and suitable time extensions, you can focus on getting gold/ebon/silver light chests and getting the exp up to 600 exp/kill.

Or to put another way...

In Abyssea Tahrongi Canyon, I'll hit the 10 merit mark while getting somewhere between 300-400 exp per kill vs bats or mandies. In Abyssea La Thiene I will hit the 10 merit mark much sooner getting 600 exp per kill vs birds.

It's kind of like having one big party, there are so many variables to it you can't just say that it is all about support or all about elite DDs or something else. You need enough tanks to hold the mobs while the DDs work on each one, you need suitable pullers who may or may not be Plds tanking as well, you need the healing and ability for magic kills.

Otherwise yeah, get rid of the gimps, keep up hastes and all that good stuff.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

Abyssea exp is fun and addictive, but it's not the ultra fast exp in normal groups as it has been advertised:

Shadow Lizard - 4 hr 41 min: 27.2k exp/hr average
Shadow Lizard - 2 hr 51 min: 21.5k exp/hr average
Jaguarundi - 3 hr 29 min: 40.9k exp/hr average (JP alliance; I left once to use up merit points then returned)
Pachypodium - 3 hr 35 min: 21.1k exp/hr average
Shadow Lizard - 3 hr 42 min: 35.0k exp/hr average
Shadow Lizard - 1 hr 37 min: 15.9k exp/hr average (failed to achieve sustainability)
Shadow Lizard - 2 hr 16 min: 17.0 exp/hr average (slowly collapsed)
Shadow Lizard - 3 hr 49 min: 52.7k exp/hr average

Extraordinary alliances are uncommon. Well, that's why they are extraordinary, I guess. Looking at the parses, it's obviously that once the alliances become sustainable, strong DDs with BRD/COR and Haste support are what makes the exp good. Oh, and a good main /assist and a good puller together is an invaluable combination.

Iffy party/alliance setup staffed with meh-ish DD players can work, but you would be missing out on heck of a lot of exp. You want the BRDs, you want the CORs, and you want the non-lazy healers who would cast Haste.

Most of all, you want to get RID of the DDs with under 70% accuracy and AFK half of time. (Yes, elitism is back, and you want in on it. Sorry, but trust me on this.)

[Truece]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

I went from a few thousand exp into 79 all the way to 36k exp into level 80. Now I can use Convert as WHM, which is really quite exciting. Either that, or I can sub BLM & D2 people at the end of the party. Sweet!

You mean sub SCH and take advantage of 10% cheaper/faster cures/-nas, accension, sublimation, aspir, etc. don't you?

[NightShayde]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

A bunch of people in my LS have been going into Abyssea twice a week. Before Sunday, we hadn't gotten the time chests or anything else super-nifty. We've been going in with 10-11 people & I just figured that the awesome exp wouldn't happen with such a small group.

I was happily proved wrong on Sunday. With 11 of us, we spent about 3 - 3 1/2 hours in there & must have gotten about 77K exp. We stopped not because we ran out of time (didn't seem like that was going to be an issue), but because it was getting late at night & people had to go to bed so they could get up for work on Monday. When we stopped, we were getting 575 exp per monster -- it was so hard to tear ourselves away!

I went from a few thousand exp into 79 all the way to 36k exp into level 80. Now I can use Convert as WHM, which is really quite exciting. Either that, or I can sub BLM & D2 people at the end of the party. Sweet!

[Laynton]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

(Much thanks to the wife, who allowed me to play all day and ignore my fatherly duties)

need to find me one of those

[Truece]

Re: Abyssea Experiences

I finally got one of those Abyssea PTs. Started w/ a fail PT @ 11:30 AM... lasted just 1.5 hrs or so... Then, got another invite... Started ~2PM... and I left @ 12:30 AM.

While I was there, I took MNK from 76 (10k tnl), dinged 80 and capped xp... Capped merits (4.3 merits), job changed, used all my merits, went back out and capped xp on BRD (I was just 100 into level 80), then proceeded to cap merits again.

Unless my math is wrong, I got 394,000+ exp in ~12 hours or so (which averages out to almost 33k/hr after you take out short breaks). I also gained almost 90k cruor while I was there...

I left with more time than I entered with, and still have 3 stones on me, with more available from Joachim. I'm glad to finally have gotten into a good PT ^^

(Much thanks to the wife, who allowed me to play all day and ignore my fatherly duties)