My First 4 BCNMs

[JFKFC]

0/4, dead dead dead.

I don't know what I did wrong. I'm a Taru with +17 CHR and all teh high def armor for my level, and Mary's Horn. My first Horde Lullaby would stick nice, and I thought we'd be fine. By the time we got to second or third, it would get resisted by most of them, then I would die, and we would all die.

Is +17 CHR not enough? I spent so much gil to get these items, I have to spend more? I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, if Lullaby wont stick with these stats, I don't know what to do.

[grunion]

here's what i have, and i NEVER get resisted. at most, one of them will wake up a few seconds early, so i foe lullaby it:

+2 rings (4)
corsette +1 (6)
jester cape +1 (10)
AF knife (2)
noble ribbon (3)

body is +10 MP
shoes are light soleas (evasion)
legs are RSE (HP)
gloves are ongycocas or something (HP + def)
earrings are enhancing and evasion (be careful if you are quartermaster with enhancing - they are rare and youll lose them if you get the drop)

total +chr is 25

hope that helps.

[ryry]

<<jester cape +1 (10)>>

this is level 54 so you can't take it with you in the burning circle. i suggest wolf mantle +1.

[frogurtx]

Try using a harp, imo Mary's causes way more trouble than its worth for BCNM40.

The harp has a much more forgiving radius, and because of its normal 15 second sleep time, anything that wakes up early can be caught very quickly with the second round of horde lullaby. The horn causes a problem because since the mobs are sleeping longer, they have more opportunities to wake up at strange times. And if you decide to horde the 2 or 3 that wake early, your going to be messed up when the rest awaken.

I've only tried the horn once, but it almost got me killed. I have an extreme dislike for this instrument. But thats just me =)
Give it a shot tho, you might be pleasently surprised with the results.

Btw, make sure your eating a boiled/steamed crab or a fishkabob before you go in. And make sure your mages have lots of juice, and mp items just in case. Worst thing is when everyone's doing a great job, but you run out of mana on your last 3 mandras :sweat:

[grunion]

oops good point. i have a level 39 cape with +6 MP or something that i wear for bcnm

hmm that's +15 ... and i dont get resists. are you skills maxed? how are you getting +17?

[Preacher]

You can also sing your +chr song which gives +5chr around there.

I sing Minuet Madrigal for melee.

Then Ballad then Minne 2 for pld and mages.

So then I sing the Etude and I'll have +def and +chr at the end of my singing.

Hope it helps :X

[grunion]

also i use fish kabobs for defense but you could use tea for another +2

[Peltar]

Hmm... Are you sure you're getting the "Blahblah resisted the spell" message as opposed to "Your Lullaby has no effect on Blahblah"? Not trying to offend or anything but this happened to someone I know... One of the mandra's sleep would wear off and he'd recast Horde Lullaby and all the others were still asleep. You can't recast it while they still have it on. Then they'd all wake up and own him pretty fast.

If one of them wakes up prematurely you can either single target-sleep it or just let it hit you till all the others wake up. I didn't usually mess with single-target since it messed up my sleep cycles, and I had a dedicated healer in my bcnm party.

If that's not the case and you really get resisted the second or third time around then I don't know why, sorry +17 CHR should be plenty.

[Damastas]

Try using a harp, imo Mary's causes way more trouble than its worth for BCNM40.

The harp has a much more forgiving radius, and because of its normal 15 second sleep time, anything that wakes up early can be caught very quickly with the second round of horde lullaby. The horn causes a problem because since the mobs are sleeping longer, they have more opportunities to wake up at strange times. And if you decide to horde the 2 or 3 that wake early, your going to be messed up when the rest awaken.

I've only tried the horn once, but it almost got me killed. I have an extreme dislike for this instrument. But thats just me =)
Give it a shot tho, you might be pleasently surprised with the results.

Btw, make sure your eating a boiled/steamed crab or a fishkabob before you go in. And make sure your mages have lots of juice, and mp items just in case. Worst thing is when everyone's doing a great job, but you run out of mana on your last 3 mandras

I noticed the exact same thing with that instrument. It is so incredibly useless, BECAUSE of the increases sleep duration.
They always wake up at random times, no matter what equipment you use, and you will always have random stragglers awake. I used Mary's Horn once, for about two minutes, and realized how it would end up killing me with that extended sleep duration.

One of the things I sit there praying the most for, is "please wake up soon please wake up soon." because the faster they wake up, the faster you can resleep the stragglers.

[Severian]

I dont have the horn, or any string skill. But i think im more prone to take into consideration what a lvl 72 bard says apposed to teh countless melees thinking the horn is better.. guess ill dedicate a day to string.. because what you said makes alot of sense.

[UnnamedGalka]

Weird.

I'm a Galka, so my base CHR is less than impressive...and in the Burning Circle, I've only got a +18 CHR bonus (the rest of my accessories go toward +MP). And even so, very rarely do any of the Mandragoras fully resist my Lullabies. And if a full resist does happen, most of the time it's only one, which a quick retarget-->Foe Lullaby can easily deal with.

I think your problem might stem from the Mandragoras moving around too much when they wake up and stepping out of your horn's radius (which is fairly easy for them to do, since wind instruments have weird range...I can hit the Mandragora that's standing WAY over there, but I miss the one that's practically riding on my tail?!?:mad: ). In the heat of battle, it's easy to assume that because a few Mandragoras are still attacking you after a Horde Lullby it means that they resisted the song...when in fact, the Mandragoras might've simply been out of range.

It might be useful to change strategies and just use Mary's Horn for the initial sleeping, then switch to a harp and use that for the rest of the battle. You lose the Lullaby bonus, sure...but with a string instrument, you don't have to worry about those odd misses that can sometimes happen with the horn.

Another thought: maybe you replayed Horde Lullaby when not all of them had woken up yet? As you probably already know, Lullabies, unfortunately, do not stack, so playing a Lullaby when a Mandragora is still sleeping would have no effect on it. It is imperative that you wait until they ALL wake up before you play Lullaby again. It might cost you some extra HPs to wait a few more seconds for all of them to wake up, but if your Lullaby resleeps the ones that woke up earlier than the rest, and the ones that were still sleeping wake up a second or two later, things can go to Hell in a hand basket really quickly.

Cheer up, though...I lost my first few BCNM battles, too...but I learned from my mistakes, and since then I've participated in 40+ BCNMs, easy. The wins greatly outnumber the losses.

[Severian]

the chr items i had on my first BCNMs *which i all died* were

Signa + 7
Collar + 3
Noble Ribbon + 2
Ring + 2
Ring + 2
Footman Horn + 3

i would have had corsette but i died right before i did it *long story* With that chr i wasnt resisted any. unless they moved or something.

[Luthyr]

One is always going to wake up early, otherwise a bot could easily keep them asleep. Always sleep the entire group at once, never use foe lullaby. If you need to keep agro, cast slow or elegy.

[Seeker_Onos]

I have died in all 10 BCNM40's I have been a part of.

The first 6 were pick-up PTs (very bad) and the last 4 were with my LS.

If what Frogurtx says is true - then that makes Mary's Horn fairly useless - if we get half decent range and unpredictable wake-ups.

Utterly worthless for BCNM40, and a waste of 100K + gil.

And the other BCNM god-item -- Monster Signa (a cool 300K on Pandemonium) -- is worthless for me as a Taru because of the -5 VIT hit.

That leaves me with my next attempt at BCNM40 with the following equipment:

Head - Noble's Ribbon: +3 CHR
Neck - Bird Whistle +3 CHR, +5 HP
Rings - Pearl Rings (total) +4 CHR
Hands - (RSE) Wonder Mitts
Body - Cuir Boulli
Legs - Cuir (pants)
Boots - Cuir Highboots
Back - White Cape
Main Weapon - Paper Knife (AF1) +2 CHR
Range - (basic) Harp
Waist - Corsette +5 CHR
Earrings - (empty)

For earrings, I am thinking of the +3 EVA (evasion) mythril earrings - I can take the combined -4 to my attack since I won't be attacking anything in this particular battle.

That gives me +17 CHR on top of a base of 42 CHR, and I can +CHR song to boost me to +22 before dropping the first Horde Lullaby.

I go into BCNM40 with Boiled Crab, and I will also pick up some Royal Tea (San D'Orian if I can't get Royal) before next weekend.

The only other thing our LS PT has to do is to shore up our tactics vs. the BLM mandragora :sweat:

That little punk needs to die.

[UnnamedGalka]

I'm curious...to all you Bards, what's your usual BCNM PT make up?

My regular BCNM PT consists of: NIN/WAR, THF/NIN, DRG/WAR, WHM/BLM, RDM/WHM, and BRD/WHM (me). I haven't lost once with this group.

The BEST group I was ever with, however, was a JP party consisting of: RNG/NIN, RNG/NIN, DRK/WAR, RDM/WHM, RDM/WHM, and BRD/WHM (me). This party was frighteningly efficient; each Mandragora died so fast it was unbelieveable. The RDMs kept me in white life and never even came close to running out of MP. We won each battle in less than seven minutes, and ended up with three Erases and two Phalanxes after our run. A very good night indeed.