Solo CP On Apex

Hey everyone,

I'm working on CPing DRK and am curious as to what trusts/skillchains you recommend. I recently finished DRG with quite a bit of soloing, but have Ryunohige so it was easy to push out skillchains with AM3 up. With DRK, while I do have Ragnarok and Anguta, it's just a bit slower. Here's what I'm using right now:

Trusts: Kupo, Sylvia, KoH, Ulmia, Joachim
Skillchain: I've been making Umbra with Vorpal Scythe > Spiral Hell > Entropy > Entropy, but frankly it's a bit inconsistent hitting that last Entropy.

Also, my TP set has 24% haste and 72/82 Store TP (with /SAM bonus and CP cape) - maybe swap out some STP for DA? Any suggestions for the above? I don't get to play DRK much these days so any tips are appreciated.

Thanks!

When I did Drk I simply used Entropy -> Cross Reaper -> Entropy -> Entrophy (umbra). No leave STP in, Drk has like no TP Gain as it is lol.

But instead of soloing, I highly recommend forming a party. Drk is pretty terrible to solo due to the low TP gain; I gave up on that super fast even with the Aeonic.

Just use Whm [Enpy pants], Brd [3-song {1hr @ start for 4song}], Cor [Chaos + Allies' roll], Cor [Corsair's + Samurai's roll], and then 2x 2 handed DD [With at least a WS and TP set {aeonic helps the most}]. Then run to Dho gates -> go to the bats -> have the melee solo their own Bat for maybe 20-45 sec kills based on the job due to over buff.

If you're lucky enough to grab an Aeonic job, you can see anywhere + 120jp/1hr. Without, I've seen Wars get 1 minute-ish kills, but they were decked out without a REMA. So with 1 Aeonic job and 1 non REMA it will be roughly 80JP per hour.

DRK solos just fine. Amazing actually. You're just not utilizing all of the tools to your disposal.

KoH/Sylvie (a must for DRK)/Joachim/Ulmia/You pick (can qultada for chaos/corsair's/fighters or use a whm)

Start the fight dsnv darkness mb drain 3, for capped HP. Now dread spikes, endark 2, and go to town on everything multi-stepping umbra with anguta. Mobs should literally melt, and with your hp pool, you cannot die reasonably with dread spikes. That's 3~5min of DPS heaven where you have no need for a serious healer that Joachim/Sylvie can't handle. If you want, can drop qultada after he rolls for a whm or shantotto II. I think DRK has great solo capability, and i did half of my CP on apex raptors just wrecking them with the above method (I didn't have anguta).

The other alternative is to form a reisenjima aoe party, and be the puller. Since DRK has no problem capping DT, they can also function as great pullers in aoe parties. You won't need a tank, just use carmine legs +1, sub rdm, drain 3 a random mob, dread spikes, full buff up (phalanx pro shell stoneskin ice spikes) and pull everything. Easy job and you should not die. If you have a whm at camp. Its the easiest thing I've ever done on DRK and those parties were quite fun back when I did them. Nobody was really using DRK for that, but dare I say DRK may be one of the best pullers for that style of party. Mobs would have to break Stoneskin and dread spikes of a 5-6kHP tank, all while in 50% DT gear. Kind of hard to do.

August, Apururu UC, Qulata, Joachim, Koru Moru.

Torcleaver, Torcleaver, Torcleaver, Torcleaver. (AG Calad, Don't judge me.)

Apex bat kills were fairly quick, Store TP + DA mix set made it fun and less of a chore. Possibly killed faster than some of the PTs that were there CPing there at the time.

Hey there,

why would someone go to Raptor Camp than, lets say Bats/Crabs in Doh Gates? Do they have a weakness on slashing wpns? Someone knows a Apex mob which are Weak to Slashing DMG (BG Wiki and Clopedia dindt help find weaknesses)?

Also i found this Guide very helpful:
WS's for SC
1. Insurgency
2. Catastrophe
= Gravitation
3. Cross Reaper
= Darkness
4. Catastrophe
= Darkness

Also this Video was nice imo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akei-9-tjXg

C ya!

Bats are the ideal Apex monster for solo, but they do use an attack down move that is somewhat annoying. Trust removes it just fine. They also are usually overcrowded, at least on Asura. Crabs do defense+/shell mechanics that can be annoying, but they are rather tame with their TP moves and in abundant supply. However, they appear to have higher HP and defense than Bats, so they are not ideal for newer CP players. Apex Raptors are glass cannons in that they have strong physical attack, but very low HP and defense, and you can demolish them in 2-3 WS if you're supported well enough. They can also put up some good damage physically, so your healer(trust) will be worked a bit. They aren't as frequently camped as Bats, due to their location amongst Matamata, which are pretty annoying Apex monsters that just get in the way.

Ty for the fast reply!

Once i had a CP pt where the puller pulled crabs and bats mixed, and always crab then ba.. PT also had a bad WHM, so we ended up with STR down Attack Down Eva Down. when the crab done the shield and SS (noone despelled it) we were hitting like 30 sec to get rid of the SS effect... that was the worst pt i ever had. :p

I use the following Weaponskills with Ayame in party for easy Light or Dark SC spam.

Sword: Savage Blade (Light)

Pole: Impulse Drive (Darkness)

GSword: Resolution/Dimidiation (Light)

GKatana: Tachi: Shoha (Light)

Katana: Blade: Hi (Darkness, can even 2 step this one)

Dagger (Tauret): Evisceration (Darkness)

I use the following trusts:

Ayame
Koru-Moru
Sylvie
Joachim
Uka

Koru-Moru's Haste II and Sylvie's Indi Haste are enough to cap magic haste. Sylvie will also help with cures. Her and Koru Moru should be able to keep you alive, but definitely consider resetting the 2 of them whenever their mp runs low. Koru will also Dispel monster buffs, and Sylve will Esuna/-Na debuffs off you, so they are a strong combo. Also of course Dia and etc, and often times Sylvie's Entrust buff can be very strong depending on your job.

Joachim's Madrigal and Uka's quicksteps are important to get accuracy up for Ayame, she needs to have enough acc to build up TP fast enough.

Ayame, of course, will spam open SCs for you. I WS at around 1700 TP or so for heavy FTP modded WSes like Impulse Drive and Savage Blade. I try and aim to lean on those two Weaponskills for any jobs that can use Naegling / Shining One, which covers most bases.

By the time I weaponskill and Light SC, Ayame is nearly back at 1K TP ready to open for me again. With pimp TPing gear I can often close SCs at like 2200+ TP.

On what camp Soralin? I've only really farmed CP solo on toads/pugils and ayame just doesn't have enough acc to do anything there.

You need Uka and Joachim for her to have enough Acc. Otherwise she just whiffs like mad.

Also have you done the +1 level quest so Ayame is lv 120 instead of 119? Thats pretty clutch to capping her acc.

Any of the Gates camps (Sih, Woh, Doh, etc) works, finding a spot thats open and not overcrowded is more important than the mob selection.

Bats and Jagils die the fastest though. Toads are pretty easy too.

Maybe I'm missing something, what does Uka do for her accuracy?

I haven't done the trust upgrade quest, I'm at something like 82/86 trusts needed to start the quest.

Pugils are pretty good IMO. Just a lot of the times their camps have some really lame aggro near them.

Read my first post, I cover that. But its Quickstep. Also Haste Samba helps a little bit to increase TP gains.

Sylvie will only use Indi-Haste if you're NIN, PLD, or RUN (tank jobs), otherwise, she will use Fury (entrust Frailty) on DDs. You can't cap magical haste with trusts between two trusts otherwise unless you're BLU, or have Cornelia (sigh...). The fact that you're using Joachim (he'll use one low level March) means you're still not haste capped.

On DRK, the trusts you posted above are not the ideal setup for soloing. I would argue Uka/Ayame are 100% meaningless trusts and you can swap in Shantotto II instead if you can self skillchain. She needs no haste or accuracy to keep up dps with MBs, and she rarely interrupts. You can use Qultada for your last trust if you prefer, but on DRK you can just grab a whm trust and be fine. The amount of attack you will have on DRK is so high, Chaos is somewhat unnecessary, in addition to his propensity to interrupting your skillchains.

Didn't see that it could even use quickstep from the bg page.

You can my dude. When I go out and do my solo fights on Rune I use King of Hearts or Koru for 30% Haste II, and then Ulmia and maybe Joachim depending on fight, so I am almost guaranteed Marches if one of them do ballads. Which should cap the haste way over 43%.

Yeah for jobs that dont get Indi Haste from Sylvie, use Ulmia instead of Joachim. You lose about 40~50 acc though.

Another solution to really optimize is use AoE Acc food, Marine Stewpot. It's a bit pricey but also lasts 3 hours and Ayame's acc will be much steadier and more reliable. Uka's quickstep should be enough to shore it the rest of the way up.

Marine Stewpot also lasts 3 hours so it's pretty solid!

In which case I go:

Ulmia
Uka
Koru-Moru
Sylvie
Ayame

In this setup on Indi-Fury jobs, you will absolutely go even harder and faster, as Indi-Fury far outclasses Joachims Minuet.

Sylvie is still absolutely mandatory for those Esunas. The bat's Attack down effect is BRUTAL and without it being removed your DPS plummets to rock bottom. I go from like 22K savage blades to 7~8K savage blades when I have that attack down debuff on me. Sylve though removes it basically instantly.

If you are a job that can't take hits well, aka you don't have a hybrid 50% DT setup (Why tho), you may want to swap out Uka for a tank.

That's the thing: they will switch up your songs almost always a few moments after you lose HP, MP, Acc, or whatever other stat that will prioritize over Marches. So you're not keeping capped haste for extended fights with only 2 trust supports. Their AI is flukey, you generally need 3 support trusts if you're using both Ulmia and Joachim, since they will swap songs for any fickle reason.

RIP Cornelia

You don't really need that much acc for CPing though. I think the hardest place which is Ra'kazner Inner court need like 1350-1400. Stuff like Dho and Moh gates is pretty low since AGI nerf a while back. Probably like 1150 caps, maybe. Trusts should easily hit that.

You need to reset your trusts when they run out of MP every 5 or 6 fights.

Ulmia doesnt stop doing double march unless your party is sitting at ultra low MP for more than 2 minutes.

Resetting your trusts is easy, you can make a macro to automatically do it using the /retr command.

You need about 1250 in most Gates zones.

Ayame is a bit low, she does need about +100 acc from buffs. Marine Stewpot is the easiest and most braindead way to get her up there, Joachim's Madrigal + Uka's quickstep is also effective.

Dont forget Koru-Moru also applies Distract II!

Just returning after many years, wondering what the current trust setup would work best for solo CP?

I have Apoc 119 III, using KoH/Sylvie/Joachim/Umlia/Shant2 on bats

Currently you get to drop both bards for cornelia. Lets you pick up qultada (who will *** up skillchains, of course)

And there's just no good 5th trust. Maybe monberaux.

I prefer Koru Moru over KoH because he doesn't melee, and I summon Excenmille {S} for the first fight and dismiss him after Stag's Call (Stag's Call is an AoE Haste +15%, Attack +15%, and MAB +15, the haste buff doesn't interfere with RDM trust's Haste 2) and recall him every time it wears. I use Qultada, sometimes I dismiss him to stop him from WSing in between my SC.

Usually something like: Sylvie, Cornelia, Excenmille {S} (dismiss or keep)/Qultada (dismiss or keep), Koru Moru, Monberaux or Ygnas. Shantotto II is fine since she'll constantly dps off SCs, too bad Matsui-P isn't available since he's the best DPS when buffed. You may not need a healer, especially since you're using Apoc. But a WHM or Monberaux is helpful, as I mentioned before in my comment above: Bats use attack down move, so someone that erases it is useful. Unsure if Stag's Call prevents Attack Down buff from Bats

Its not solo if you use trusts

Saying using trusts isnt solo is like saying using a sex doll is actually sex

A mistake a lot of players make is thinking all Apex are the same, they are not. They are different levels.

Kill Raptors, they are lower level and you'll kill them far easier.

Go here

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Category:Apex_Monster#Moh_Gates

Also killing Apex is about setting up skillchains, so you want to attack as fast as possible and pick trusts that allow you either self skillchaining or that you can skillchain and magic burst with.

Bats are better if you're using daggers or polearm, for piercing bonus.

Many of us forget the basic concepts after being away for so many years. (We're hanging out in sketchy neighborhoods—private servers and all) To cap attack, you need a ratio of 3.25 for 1H weapons, 3.5 for H2H and Great Katana, 3.75 for 2H, and 4.0 for Scythe.

In simple terms, you need at least three times as much attack as the mob’s defense to start dealing real damage, rather than just tickling the enemy.

These are the trusts you need to go full LeBron mode

Sylvie: Provides an Attack Buff.
Qultada: Grants an Attack Buff.
King of Hearts: Starts battles with Dia 3.
Cornelia: When available.

The rest of the Trusts are a matter of personal preference. Don't forget Berserk or Last Resort for an additional 25% attack 60% of the time. Also, using food like Grape Daifuku instead of Sushi is recommended.

Trusts like Excenmille (S), Ygnas, Koru, and Cherukiki would be A-Rank. They're good because they offer Regen, delayed Dia, and Attack buffs, but they're not as efficient as those mentioned above.

The goal is to be able to perform at least a double Light/Darkness Self-SC. Unfortunately, if your build can’t achieve this, you may need to check if you have enough Haste, Multi-Rounds, or Store-TP. Resorting to Ayame, Zeid, or other melee Trusts for self SC suggests a build with deficiencies.

Thank you for all the input. I have no problem self-sc'ing but I am still in nq ambu gear so my ws hit for 3-5k on average.

Monberaux is good as a healer compared to others for some reasons:
1) he's faster than usual in removing debuffs
2) many debuffs (like silence etc) have little to no effect on him
3) he never runs out of mp and actually recovers your mp every now and then with elixir
4) He doesn't have AoE abilities that will occasionally aggro surrounding mobs
5) he doesn't cast haste

Last part might sound stupid, but Koru Moru doesn't cast Haste2 on yourself if you have haste1 on you, and King of Hearts, well, sometimes he does sometimes he doesn't.
Arciela 1 always does regardless (unless when she swaps stances) but she casts buffs only on yourself and has annoying AoE moves.
Arciela II sometimes does and sometimes doesn't, but again she's not exactly the best.
KoH is probably the best RDM because he prioritizes Dia3 the second you engage and his buffs last longer, but he will only buff himself and yourself, not the other trusts, also if you use Fusion or Light SCs he will AoE magic burst aggroing any other target around and that can be very annoying.
Koru-Moru is a more generic but more solid RDM that also buffs other trusts but has less priority on Dia3 alas and will never use Haste2 on some jobs, sadly, and also never if you have Haste1 on yourself.

Other healers like Apururu, Ygnas and many others have some of the issues that Monberaux does not, alas.
Basically the only negative parts I can find about Monberaux are his annoying Pro/shell lasting only 5 minutes, and his cures being on average slightly weaker than what you can get from other healer trusts. This is tipically not an issue for content like CP of course, but saying just in case.



Another thing on Sylvie (UC), of course you need to be in her unity to be able to summon her. She won't always use Indi-Fury and entrust indi-frailty on you.
The spells she uses depend on your class. For instance on RUN and NIN she will use Indi-Haste, on other mage jobs she will use Indi-Focus or Indi-Acumen etc.

Last but not least, for the jobs on which she would normally use Indi-Fury, sometimes she uses Indi-Precision.
Normally this change happens if your accuracy is too low, so it should be a good change in theory, but sometimes swapping out to a low-acc idle set when you're out of fight can seldomly generate this change, which can be easily solved by locking your character in your TP gear.

Sylvie also has the super annoying thing of using Haste on the player character, which as explained above can create issues if you intend to rely on Haste2 from RDM trusts.