KSNM99 Turtle Strategies

Wondering if anyone has any strategies/anecdotes from The Hills are Alive ksnm99? I am looking to get my last BB item and I did my other items the old fashion way before the update. Unfortunately, although I soloed the nq turtle 6 times on Monk I was unable to claim Aspid to guarantee that 100% drop :/ At anyrate if anyone has any advice on setups and strategies I would greatly appreciate it. I just want to be 100% prepared for the fight so I don't waste anyone's time or orbs. Looking for lowman strats and also can do with some low mage strats also if possible. I could probably get 3-4 blms to help but sublte nuances like when to nuke/MB etc would be awesome. Thanks in advance for any help!

just take a bard and a few blms. done.

Thats cool but I mean strategy not just jobs and thats it lol. I read up that mages are the way to go I am looking for help on how the fight progresses etc. Like should I have the mages stagger their nuking or attempt to silence gravity nuke etc. I just want to make sure that I understand the concept of the flow of the fight in order to minimize mistakes due to a lack of strategy. At any rate if anyone has their own personal stories/strats I would appreciate it. Could send me apm or just reply here thanks!

We used to have plds hold it with an army of blms nuking it down. in shell>nuke, out of shell>hold/melee.

if you have 5-6 good blms and only 1 orb, pop manafont and spam nuke. Worked on aspid, should work on ksnm99.

If you have seals to use, could try bringing a twilight scythe drk. It would be very likely that if it works, drk/brd/healer would be an easy enough trio. (haven't gotten around to actually trying it, but logistically should work fine).

Tanked it fairly easy on BLU. Can skillchain CDC > Rana or the reverse for Magic Bursts. It's still basically the same strat. as it used to be, it's just a lot easier now.

It doesn't work. The DMG resistance still knocks it down to minimal damage.

The linkshell I am in did this fairly recently. We brought 2 SAM and 5 BLM as the primary DD, with a PLD to kite and a WHM, RDM and BRD for support. The two SAM meditate TP outside of the arena to build to 300% because it does not reset when you enter. If both SAM have access to Tachi: Rana, then they can each solo a darkness for the BLM to Blizzard4/5 magic burst. The high damage output from the BLM in a couple of seconds causes the turtle to enter his shell but instantly leave again if done correctly. The SAM continue to meditate and skillchain until the turtle is dead. If it doesn't manage to Regen at all, it takes only 4-5 skillchains to kill this way.

Edit: Nobody engages the turtle, the SAM just turn their backs and wait for Meditate. The first fight we lost an orb because it went into its shell too often. This may or may not have been because the SAM were engaged and meleeing on it for TP.

Strat that finally worked for me:

Tank pt:
PLD BRD WHM BLU BLU BLM

Nukers/DD:
RDM BLM BLM BLM SAM SAM (with rana)

Basic strat once fine tuned works amazingly well:

Tank is the only constant melee, SAMs or BLU do darkness, BLMs follow with blizz5. If done correctly, he goes in shell when darkness skillchain opens and comes out when BLMs land magic burst. It happens so fast you don't even really see him go in or come out. Enfeebling magic/songs are ok but not really necessary. IIRC, he dispels them when he goes in shell anyway. BLU keeps "Loweing?" (the buffalo move) on it. Zerg it down from around 15-20% down to dead. The main thing for our runs was NEVER any random damage!! All damage is controlled by the person setting up the run. Random spike damage will ruin a perfectly good run. I know there's other ways of doing it but in the end this is what successfully worked for me. Good luck on your egg :)

It was back during the 75-capped days that I last did this KS99, but I would still use the same strategy, although fewer people are probably required now @ level 90.

The NM is susceptible to both Silence and Gravity, and keeping both on it makes this battle much easier.

Use 1-2 melee jobs that can frequently make Distortion or Darkness skillchains. SAM main and/or SAM subjobs work great for this role.
Kite the NM until TP is ready for the skillchain, then uncork it and have a handful of BLMs, RDMs, and/or SCHs MB ice-based spells. Resume kiting and rest MP as needed. Rinse and repeat.

The only hitch is that if you leave the NM in "inside the shell" mode, it will regenerate HP at a very rapid rate. The only way to force it from this mode is to damage it, but it has a strong damage-reduction trait also (when in this mode). Keep nuking with ice spells until it comes back out of its shell. It's *very* important for the nukers to *quickly* recognize when the NM comes out of its shell, because if you accidentally continue to land nukes once it's out of the shell, it will go right back into the shell again.

All of these set ups sound exactly the same as fighting Aspid more or less. I'll try it out with how I fought Aspid when I get the chance and tell ya how it works out.

Trick in a nutshell is to rest if you need to rest that is and rebuff when its out of its shell and make sure at all costs when it goes into its shell all your nukers are prepared to deal alot of dmg fast till it pops out again and repeat.

DO NOT ENFEEBLE IT. DO NOT ENFEEBLE IT. DO NOT SLOW IT. DO NOT SILENCE IT. DO NOT PARALYZE IT. DO NOT DIA OR BIO IT. DO NOT POISON IT. DO NOT ENFEEBLE IT. SERIOUSLY. JUST. DON'T.

That said... enfeebling it increases it's regain by a ***-ton. So just... don't.

Easy way is have someone kite the turtle around, and have people tier III it until it goes into it shell. Then time nuke a TIV or V Blizzard spell and it should be out. Then repeat the process until dead.

Everyone says just bring an army of BLM's and its a win. but..

Is it remotely possible to win this w/ a PLD, BLM, BRD, and RDM?

Just wondering -_-. After BB items and was looking for some input. I usually go out of my way to not ask ppl for help in this game. I fear this might be something I'll need help w/ huh?

I haven't done it since like 80 cap, but I'm going to say no on the PLD BLM BRD RDM setup. I could be wrong but I'd rather be safe than sorry and waste KS.

I did it in December at 90 blm uncapped skills just after update came out was 18 man alliance just because we had the ls members. Makes a big difference being 90 as well as full af3 and trial staffs+2 now which I didnt have then. Id estimate I did about 25% total dmg on it at least, perma kiting it myself as some of the other blms hadnt had time yet to lvl to 90 iirc. But would defo be an uphill struggle to do it with 1 blm, I rekon the most I could contribute now as blm/rdm with vert and 2 hour fresh2 is 40% give or take.

Going with just one blm the trick really would have to be totally preparing the blm for when it hides in it shell to go all out and pray 1 blm is enough to force it out of its shell. Then somehow get that blms mp back up to full to rinse and repeat.

Despite what Niniann said above, I'd still recommend Gravity and Silence on the NM. Gravity makes the kiting effort much simpler, and Silence prevents the NM from interrupting your mages that are kneeling to rest hMP.

I would not recommend trying this with just one BLM, although it's possible. Using Soul Voice and Manafont may be enough to win the battle once. But if you're planning to use more than one Orb, you should bring multiple nukers.

We did this recently with just 2 BLMs (myself and another) and lost badly). 1 set of nukes wouldn't knock it out of it's shell, but 2 sets would sometimes knock it out and immediately knock him back in, allowing him to completely recover all of his HP. His regen is absurdly high in his shell, such that if you leave him in there for 15 seconds he'll have more hp than the last time he popped out, or be back at 100% if it's the first time he's been in. He seemed to go in after ~6% damage while out of shell.

We got lucky and met up with another small group who had 3 or so BLMs. It was very fast (about 1-3 minutes) with 2 SAMs and an assortment of nukers. Just tp or whatever until he's in his shell, darkness SC and bliz 5/ strongest ice spell MB and he should pop out, not to mention he'll be somewhere between 40% and 70% HP depending on how many nukers you have. Basically rinse and repeat. Shouldn't even be that important to wait for recast timers since the BLMs can switch over to Freeze2 or something for nearly as much damage as Bliz 5. 2 to 3 darkness SCs while he's in his shell and ice MBs should kill him with little to no fuss.

If you have an 18 man alliance sure, if you're doing it with a party... nooo. Trust me. Noooo.

Not like he hits hard and not like getting MP back should be an issue these days.

Did this not long ago as PLD NIN BLM WHMx2
Both whms beeing dualboxed.
We timed out at like 10% or so(my net went out for a long time, so idk how far down it got), but that was because PLD dcd very early on and we could'nt dish out enough dmg so it regened up.
And then I dcd towards the end(blm), so that was 10min wasted from people dcing >_>
But yeah, totally possible with that setup.
PLD and NIN make darkness with CDC/Hi.

We did this last night and got him to 20% before timing out. We have won it before but last night was just....well idk. But we always had him Enfeebled and his Regen was 2% a tick. I told our RDM who was enfeebling him that enfeebles might make his regen worse. He just gave me a freaked out look. But I will say we had no PLD to tank it and only 1 SAM. I would not suggest going without two people who can make a SC consistantly or a BLU. BLU can both tank it and make the SC. But make it clear that no one should WS after the SC.....cause that ruins the whole Magic Burst thing.

Yea, when we did it the other night and we actually won it....our SAM would run in and use a WS right after the BLU did a SC and no one ever got off an MB. New School DD's just don't know how good things can be sometimes... /sadface

GL to all those after thier eggs, I'm hoping to get mine soon. I did get my Red Pondweed, so if my ls doesn't get me an Egg through this...I'm hoping Aspid will put out.

this is how we did it when we spammed him before the update for bbelt items. We figured this would be cake since we were @ lvl90 but every time we brought in new people it took them 1 round or so to fully understand the strat. First time we went in we ran out of time, 2nd and 3rd time we got win but no drop. Then we tried another day with some of the same and some new people and same thing it took the new people a round to understand what was going on no matter how well I explained it. Once everyone understood and played as a team the fight was easy.



4+ BLMs
1 WHM
1 BRD (optional really can help remove some regen from turtle and ballad BLMs but sometimes its difficult for the BLMs to all rest next to each other)
we had a RDM sometimes but it wasn't really needed he helped with the silence
1 Tank PLD works cool its mostly just non engaged tanking


I was on WHM I really didn't even do much other than lead the group with instructions.

Tank walks in and gets hate and lets it hit him, BLMs get into position and get ready. I setup a macro so that all the BLMs could start nuking at the same time.

something like

/p BLMs get ready
/wait 1
/p Freeze II
/wait 1
/p CAST NOW!!!1!!!1 <call14>


so then all the BLMs start to cast Freeze II at the same time this will put the turtle into his shell (every time the turtle goes into his shell the WHM or RDM needs to cast Silence) at which time all the BLMs would nuke with everything they had (Ice) starting with Blizz V than Blizz IV if the turtle was not out of his shell yet (sometimes he would go in out back in with all that nuking power @90) then they use Blizzga III and Freeze I etc until he comes out of his shell.

Once he popped out of his shell it's important to tell EVERYONE to STOP!!!!! the BLM with hate should douse or kite him around the circle so the PLD or whoever tank can get some hate. At this point all BLMs without the hate should be resting MP once the PLD gets hate again the last BLM should be resting. No one should hit the turtle at all when its out of his shell and the BLMs are resting, this is why PLD/WAR is nice for voke flash etc. rather than hitting for hate it could put the turtle in his shell too early and the BLMs wont have enough MP to nuke it back out.


Once all your BLMs are at 70% + MP then you start all over with the macro for them to all cast Freeze II again


..rinse and repeat for win.

as for enfeebs:
for the record we only silence when it goes into it shell (all debuffs wear immediately when it goes into it's shell so no point doing it before hand) and we did have the RDM grav when it chased the BLM and the PLD got hate back. When the PLD got hate he usually just stood there taking hits he didn't have any problem I rarely needed to cure. If you do not silence him when he is in his shell it can cause a lot of problems with his -ga on your BLMs it really slows down your fight if you have a couple weak BLMs it happened to us one time.

We got the win 7 or 8 times before we got our drop before the update.

I second what Tweeek said. If you can't make a SC consistantly have a timed nuke volley. That will help bring his HP down faster and you'll see higher dmg when he's not in his shell. I wish we had realized this sooner than with 10 mins left in the fight =/

Partly off topic: does The KSNM Still drop The bb items?
What are droprates on NM popitems?

Yea they still drop the items. But we went 0/5 on the Turtle and 2/10 on the Wyrm. Compared to preupdate we went 2/4 on the Behemoth. Random drop is random though.

Yes.



The Beastly Shank was 100% drop. It's been rumored that two Shanks can drop from one Treasure Pool, but as far as I know, that's unconfirmed.
The Behemoth Tongue our group went 2/6 on drops. Based on that and what I've read/seen from other groups, I'd estimate drop rate is between 15% and 25%. Would need more data to be more specific.

Nice n clear strat need moar like this

thanks

I did this fight 10+ times this week trying to finish off my last bb item, finally getting joy with my last adamantoise pop item converting to an aspid pop.

In terms of strategy we had 3x BLM 1x PLD 1x WHM and 1x DD(did with drk, dnc, sam).

To start the fight PLD runs in and holds onto turtle and gathers 100tp while dd meditates to 100tp. As soon as turtle goes into shell (seems to go in after 45~ secs or so or after it takes enough dmg) PLD opens darkness with swift blade and dnc was closing with pyrrhic kleos. BLM would magic burst with Bliz V this was consistently enough dmg to bring turtle out of shell, when he pops out a blm would gravity him as PLD had a har time keeping hate. Basically rinse and repeat this step the whole way through, BLM shouldn't run out of mp ever with aspirs and convert. Only time fight would get hairy is if 1 of the blm's missed the magic burst, then you'd end up dumping a whole mp pool just to get the turtle back out of his shell. Extremely important that if he comes out of shell any blm casting cancels immediately.

I have a question.

If doing this with a pick up group, what are the best & fair offer you can put on the table. When anyone decides to shout for players.