RDM / NIN build 74+

[Solathan]

Thank you

Thanks for the inspiration Gladesinger. After reading your 2nd post i finally gathered my courage and went after Ramuh Prime.

Wow, was it easy or what? I didn't even have to convert, and stone III'ed his last 15% life.

Then I immediately flew to the Cloiser of Ice and destroyed Shiva~ a bit harder but she died took only 45 seconds longer.

I'm too tired~ I'll visit the other avatars later

My setup is very similar to yours~ but here it is:

Head: Emperor Hairpin ( Optical hat soon~ stupid wooden eye)

Neck: Evasion Torque

Earrings: 2 Dodge (+6 evasion and no -minus attack )

Body: Cardinal Vest ( Only upgrade in mind is Scorpion~ 0.7/6 millions )

Hands: Warlocks. Nice defense, 4 dex and +10 parrying. I'm so glad i didn't drop them

Rings: Astrals. Elvaan~ can't really go without them

Back: Dodge cape. A 50k gil Bat cape! Can't get better

Waist: Life belt. Can go for more evasion, but I won't.

Legs: Combat Casters.

Feet: Dance shoes

Range: Lightening Bow

Main & Secondary: Royal Guard Fleurets // Misericorde & Hornetneedle.

The Fleurets along with the Warlock's gloves are nice +20 parrying. Skill's going up fast too ^^

Hope this helps.

[Gladesinger]

Thanks for the feedback all.

I thought i would share some more experiences on avatar fights, as the Avatars are a bit different from each other.

I went to see Shiva the following day :

- Shiva couldnt be slowed, paralyzed or blinded.
- She had a higher double attack rate than Ramuh. This could be pure randomness, but she was very constant throughout the fight with mixing in double attacks.
- Shiva's Enspell dmg did upward of 89dmg where Ramuhs never passed 50dmg.
- Shiva's can cast a Sleepga spell, which bypasses shadows, barsleep took 2 out of 3 spells.

Shiva's abilities was quite a bit meaner than Ramuhs, as she had more that burned shadows away and did dmg :

- Rush : a Multihit WS, generally took my all shadows and once dmg'ed me for up to after stoneskin for 140dmg
- Frozen Armor : Gives her Ice Spikes, pretty harmless
- Heavenly Strike : This is Shiva's answer to Ramuhs Thunderstorm, but it is a lot more annoying, where Ramuhs's bypasses Shadows and does dmg, Shiva's Burns all the shadows and does dmg.
- Diamond Dust : Shiva's 2hr. This was a mean one, first try i got one shotted for 1304dmg, pretty shocking with bar, shell and stoneskins up. Second time (fireday her weakest day) it did 400+ dmg after Stoneskin. It also kills all shadows.

Shiva's difficulty seems more higher and a tad more random than Ramuh's.

Her 2hr was brutal to me, but i suspect some randomness there, still, going on fireday is probably a reasonable idea if you are solo and no whm around (or bring a reraiser if in doubt).

Since she dont take to slow, para or blind and her Heavenly strike > Thunder Storm, i would rank Shiva a good tad above Ramuh for soloing with /nin.

[Gladesinger]

Here is Titan :

- His enspell dmg did around 50dmg
- He couldnt be slowed (no surprise there being earth based and all), didnt take to paralyze or blind.
- His attackrate was rather slow, compared to Shiva's. He double attacked more than Ramuh, but fair chunk less than Shiva.
- Titan seemed to boast a better physical defense that Ramuh and Shiva, hits from 15-20 on the latter two, did 12-14 on him.

His Abilities was rather harmless compared Shiva and Ramuh :

- Megalith Throw : He takes a huge rock and throws it, looks fun. Shadows can take this ws. Never damaged me.
- Earthen Ward : All should know this one, its a Stoneskin spell, about 150-200 dmg absorbtion.
- Mountain Buster : Memory bit fuzzy here, but i think Shadows took it, got past defense one time, but was lowish dmg about 100.
- Geocrush : Bypassed shadows i think, again bit fuzzy here, will have to go again and than update this. It was low dmg when hit.
- Earthen Fury : His 2hr, burns shadows, but didnt get past Stoneskin.

Titan was much easier than Ramuh and Shiva, as his abilities on average did a lot less dmg when they got past my defenses. Also most of his abilities end up in the Shadows.

So far its Shiva > Ramuh > Titan for an order of difficulty.

[Solathan]

Thanks

Gladesinger,
Thanks again for the inspiration

As you said above~ titan fell easiest, even tho he took longer than even shiva.

Ifrit's next!

Garuda & leviathan are supposed to be the hardest due to self-heals...

Well, I think with them the timer will be the only difficulty. We'll see.

Please keep us updated

[Solathan]

Ifrit

Ifrit went down~ just as easy as the rest of em.

Here's the quick rundown

-Can't slow, paralyze or blind him
-He hits faster than Titan & Ramuh, might be as fast as shiva
-His En-damage was less, but melee damage a bit more
-Has the weakest physical defense


Abilities:

Crimson Roar: Gives him 'Warcry'
Meteor Strike: All my shadows fell as it landed~ hit me for 144.
Flaming Crush: Tore off both stoneskin and all shadows, did 39.
Inferno: Tore em both off, did 4 damage.
Burning Strike: Shadow took it off. Next time it hit for 267

Garuda & Leviathan will be the real challange ^^

[Gladesinger]

Update to Titan :

- Mountain Buster : Shadows can take it
- Geocrush : Bypasses shadows, short term stun regardless of dmg or not.

Update to Ramuh :

Thunder Spark : Paralyze, seemed unresistable, rather annoying, bypassed shadows.

Ifrit :

- He attacks bit slower than Shiva, less double attacks also, but faster than Titan and Ramuh (when slowed).
- His defense seemed on par with Shiva and Ramuh for me. Lower than Titans though.
- Slow etc. didnt land

- Burning Strike : Ends up in shadows
- Crimson Roar: Short term Warcry boost, harmless.
- Flaming Crush : Akin to Shiva's Heavenly strike, kills shadows and does dmg, lower dmg that Shiva's though
- Meteor Strike : Killed shadows, Stoneskin took it.
- Inferno : His 2hr, Burns shadows, and hurts stoneskin

General for avatars :

- Going on the day of their opposed element will greatly lessen their 2hrs dmg output.

Shiva - Fire day
Ifrit - Water day
Leviathan - Thunder day
Ramuh - Earth day
Titan - Air day
Garuday - Ice day

Even at 74 we are not immune to their 2hrs, Shiva managed, a no doubt lucky but still, 1304dmg on me when i went on a wrong day.

Shiva > Ramuh > Ifrit > Titan

Ramuh earns his place in front of Ifrit due to the paralyze with potentially can get one into trouble if unlucky.

[bonovoxpsu]

i guess bringing paralyze potions (not sure what cures it) is necessary.

thanks for the update.

man, we now have 2 people. this is something i've always wanted to do... can't wait to try.

[Justarius]

How would a Genbu Shield factor into solo?

DEF 24 Fire -10, Earth+10Evasion +10, Physical Damage -10%

I know, using a sheild is againt /NIN rules, but DW2 @ 25 is -15% combined delay I believe.

[Gladesinger]

Using a shield, even genbu's, wouldnt accomplish much in the regular fighting.

Thing is, its all about the shadows in the regular fighting when it comes to surviving.

Granted the shield would make stoneskin last a bit longer and you would be hit a bit less. but your dmg output would suffer as the tradeoff.

Killing an avatar solo takes me around 18-22mins. Personally i wouldnt feel very comfortable to push that number up due to wielding a shield. On the other hand if you have a Joyuse or similar then you'd probably end up at 18-22mins even with a shield.

What the shield would be good for is an equipment swap, when getting in trouble or when the avatar pulls out a big WS or its 2hr.
Their 2hr is the big gamble when fighting them, and cutting down on its dmg is worthwhile.

Fx. i took 1004dmg from Ifrit last night on water day, with bar, shell and stoneskin up, i even had brd amongst the LS people i was killign ifrit for, singing a fire carol. I survived and won, but we are by no means immune to the 2hrs.

[Justarius]

Hmm sounds reasonable. So how many shihei do you use per fight? 40-50?

[tdh]

This is the kind of things I plan to do later down the road. I've heard of RDM/NIN's soloing Rank2-3 Dragon, and the Shadow Lord. Those are things I really want to do myself. I hate leveling NIN, but I will do it just so I can do this kind of work.

Good job to you two! Keep up the good work, and let us know how Guaruda and Leviathan go.

[Solathan]

Stuff:

Each fight took me 15-16 minutes. I've not needed to convert.

Each fight was under 40 shiheis ^^

I've yet to gather the courage to do Garuda or Leviathan, waiting on braver souls ^^

[Gladesinger]

Here is Garuda :

This fight was different for me, as i knew Garuda could heal herself. So i decided to go quite a bit different to work than normal.

Strategy was as follows :
I buffed everything outside, and was in my max mp gear when doing it (so that the short duration buffs came from the 'free' mp difference between normal /nin gear and the mp gear).

Entered, and ran up to Garuda, Opened fight with a Blizzard III.
Changed into normal /nin gear, minus the rings which i kept as +mp -hp.

I knew from earlier fights that i tend to hit my max mp in the normal /nin gear in the first quarter of the fights quite a bit, which is a bit of a waste of mp from refresh, so i kept an eye on mp and put another Blizzard III in for good measure once i hit the mp limit and changed into full /nin gear.

I didnt Phalanx (which i normally do just to play it safe) to save mp and i used meat kabobs to up my melee dmg.

Garuda and i traded punches and i kept an extra good eye on my shadows (counted them etc, which i am normally a bit lazy with)
She did her WSs, amongst others Wispering Wind that healed her for around 500-600hp (guesstimate, since i had forgot to turn on the speical actions on others, option under my config)

Kept fighting and found the room to place another Blizzard III, to counter her heals somewhat, basically trying to null her heals influence and a bit extra when i could.

Fight progressed over her 2hr, which didnt scratch me too bad, and down to her 30% health limit. Which is where Avatars often get their second wind and does 2-3 WSs quite fast after one another.

That was where i kicked in my second part of the plan, i had partially been conserving tp and now i horded the last of them for a 300% Spirits within.

Blizzard III > Blizzard III > Spirits Within (while she was doing a Wispering Wind, but Spirits was faster !).

Won the fight solo, on first attempt and first time facing Garuda ever in 16mins and 40sec.

Here is the normal breakdown :

- Garuda didnt take to Slow or Blind, Paralyze stuck very well (as expected as para is ice based) and worked well.
- She was hitting about Shiva's speed, but with poorer accuracy.
- Her physical defense was comparable to the rest of the avatars minus titans, which was better.
- Her enspell dmg was significant at 60-80 and her melee was normal at 60-100dmg.

Abilities i faced :

- Wind Sword : Bypasses shadows, didnt penetrate Stoneskin, probably her version of shiva's heavenly strike, but apparently lower dmg.
- Hastega : Hastes herself, cant be dispelled, seemed about 1min duration, semi dangerous if not keeping an eye on shadows
- Aerial Armor : Blink WS, well known from PTs, totally harmless when soloing her, as it only gives her 2 blink shadows and we deliver 2attacks pr 'round' when dual wielding.
- Wispering Wind : A powerful Heal WS, i didnt get the exact amount healed, but estimate in the area 500-600hp which is very significant, as we do 20 + enspell dmg pr hit. Beating those hp away again will give her more than enough tp for another or the same ws.
- Aerial Blast : Her 2hr, took shadows, didnt penetrate stoneskin.

Technically Shiva was harder on me, but Garuda has much more potential to be nasty so :

Garuda > Shiva > Ramuh > Ifrit > Titan

In the Cloister of Tides the Leviathan awaits.

[Justarius]

And save Chainspell for emergencies! Uts > Cure IV > Stoneskin > Uts > refresh with no delay or recast timer. :spin:

[Gladesinger]

I am a miser when it comes to using 2hrs, in the Garuda fight it didnt use chain spell either.

I patiently waited for the Blizzard III timer to refresh, before hitting the next, as i wanted a 2hr to back up a convert if it came to that.