After many, many unsuccessful runs, we finally cracked it on
Very Difficult tonight using a VERY repeatable strategy. I've seen a lot of iffy or partial strategies so far and wanted to add to the wealth of knowledge. I hope that it helps someone struggling with this fight. I'll walk through
our strategy from start to finish.
1. Party setup: This is by far not the ONLY setup, it's just what we used.
PLD/WAR Aegis, Full Souveran +1/AF +3 body
SAM/WAR Aeonic and a mix of +3 artifact and Hizamaru +2 ~1350 acc./485 STR WS set
GEO/RDM Idris and capped skill
BRD/WHM Ghorn, Carnwenhan, Daurdabla and Marsyas
COR/WHM Standard duration gear and capped roll potency
WHM/SCH 12 tick gear refresh, capped cure potency and capped fast cast
2.) The Adds: Buff at spawn. Have the PLD run in and group the mobs up in the center. BRD catches the end of NT to sleep the group with Ghorn. SAM runs in and grabs the mobs in the following order, using the following skill chains.
MORAINGIST: RANA -> SHOHA -> FRAGMENTATION
LANCER: SHOHA -> FUDO -> DISTORTION (Then kill the wyverns if they weren't absorbed during spirit surge)
ERUDITE: FUDO -> KASHA -> FUSION
PROTECTOR: KASHA -> RANA -> GRAVITATION
Keep in mind that the skillchains MUST be closed while the mob is idle, not casting magic or charging a TP move. If you
CLOSE the skill chain while the mob is sitting idle, you will almost always get a message in your chat log. You need to see this message 4-6 times
(WITHOUT KILLING THE MOB) until you receive the special message "The foe's
LEADER grew even more oppressive". Once you receive this message, the aura glow will fade from the mob and it can be killed quickly. After the aura was removed, I was killing each mob with a 2KTP Shoha -> 1kTP Kasha -> LIGHT -> 1kTP Fudo -> RADIANCE.
3. The Mega Boss: The Mega Boss can be kept slept through the entire fight up to this point. After killing the last add, ensure he's slept and rebuff. At this point, the mega boss's aura should be down because you removed it from all the adds. Have the PLD run back to the spawn corner after flashing and voking the mega boss. Once everyone is set, whack him once with SAM to wake him up and he should head right to the PLD.
He's fairly docile without his aura up. At what seemed like 75%, 50%, 25% and often many times under 15%, he would gain a special double aura of both light and darkness. This was easily removed by alternating between RANA -> FUDO -> DARKNESS, then FUDO -> FUDO -> LIGHT. Alternate back and forth until the aura is gone. Then continue pounding on him. At a casual pace, we were able to clear the adds with about 15 minutes remaining, and clear the boss with about 5 minutes remaining.
A few things to keep in mind.
The adds must not be killed before the aura is removed. If one dies before the special message and aura removal, just warp out and re-enter. I used an old low level garbage AH katana (with capped spell haste, capped gear haste and GEO precision) to skill chain on the weaker adds and the UCNM multi-hit katana to chain on the stronger ones.
Hate control is a bit of a nightmare. The wyverns like to dance around everywhere, so a good, hasted tank with quick flash and voke reactions is VERY helpful for keeping weaker party members alive.
While this is far from proven, we used NO enfeebles on the mega boss as it seemed to piss him off a little bit. All spells and JA's were party facing buffs.
I hope this helps everyone really crush this months Ambu.