Fomor Ambuscade V1

FYI Excal still hits really hard AE for 13k on run with full DT did it second time hit for 7400. So yep like eiryl said just bounce if he in.

Usual monthly video covering solo and party strategies for this months run. Have a good month all!

They seem to have a lot of HP, can't one shot them as Eiryl says?

Easy but time consuming.

Shouldn't even be time consuming. 3 million damage. 2 minutes.

Around 300k hp per mob. Stun it, brd/cor/dd ws 1x, next mob.

Yeah well 300k isn't one shot, they do take a while to kill all (had whm and pld in the set, if it matters) though. 4-5mins.

Are you killing boss first then add? Is boss stunable with BLU?

Ah, I haven't done this ambu in a few years. I was hoping we had ways to get around this. I guess I will just exit if I see Excalibur

I dont think you need to depending on setup, did D last night with just my 3 chars and occultation was enough to avoid the Excalibur issues. I did a run on RUN earlier and battuta also did the trick. I doubt those are 100% effective the way utsusemi shadows are but still very effective with dealing with him.


My main issue 3 boxing has been the guttler charming me. Tried stun locking it, tried stacking runes and meva. Still get charmed, Im sure with an actual group he'd die fast enough that it wouldn't matter though.

The problem with Occultation and Utsusemi is that those fomors are, indeed, still fomors and so have access to most (all?) standard fomors TP abilities, among which there are those that completely wipe all your shadows AoE.

I wouldn't say you have to "exit" each time Excalibur pops though.
Just kill Kikoku (sacrosanctity/oneforall) > Excalibur > Mjollnir as last, and by then it's usually ok. Even if someone dies because of Exca at that point you can still probably manage to win.
Also don't quote me on this but I think the dangerous enlight on Excalibur only activates after he uses Knights Of the Round once?

There's other dangerous things though. Bravura can get nasty but it's usually not a problem and Spharai too has the usual hundred fists ***. Which is tipically not an issue as long as the tank keeps hate on him but things can get nasty if he doesn't and you don't kill fast enough.


My Horde Lullaby II on BRD lasts a long time, usually until we kill them all unless the DDs suck.
The other day though I was in pt with another BRD who has very good gear but his Lullaby was lasting ***. Wonder what was his problem really, maybe an error in his gearswap or something.

Knowing your group is the best tool.

It's all super cake unless it isn't. Literally buff stun kill, brainless. Nothing is a threat. But if your group is slacking simply having shadows or eating the death isn't a big deal.

Excal's en-ko can proc on the first swing, or no swings, or it can be stunned the entire 3 seconds it's alive. Whichever way you can do it. Or exit. Good ol lunge or leg sweep is essentially 100% effective and lasts a full 8-10 seconds, easily enough to go 100% to dead.

This right here it's not every swing is a kill. First run we got him the group I was in he first swing hit me for 13k next fight he did 0 7 times then hit me for 7k. Run we just ran in to die he never landed a single one on me. So it's just rng and they fomors so even with occ. You can be killed if group slow.

Relic added effects aren't related to aftermath

If I remember right the en-"light" added effect from excal can't proc if it doesn't do damage with the physical hit. So sentinel/battuta/invincible work well for disposing of excal.

It will still happen if you simply take 0 dmg, and for whatever reason the version that this Fomor has isn't just Slashing damage so Sentinel doesn't reduce it. Only way to avoid is by evading, parrying, or a shadow.


w/ Sentinel

Excalibur is easy to bind/gravity for what its worth. If a group is struggling with kill speed, tank can just keep hate on it and walk away while the DDs chase and melee like old school kirin.

Another thing to note is the Ahriman does curaga, so don't hold him next to sleeping adds.

sudden lounge can stun lock excal iirc. someone with a good sudden lounge set can go test it out.

Yeah tested it out yesterday. I was using frightful roar and using sudden lunge to stunlock enemies, especially the "dangerous" ones like Excalibur.

Works like a charm! Sometimes it would last so long that a single lunge was enough to kill it.
Other times the stun effect would get reduced duration but still pretty nice.

This somewhat lowered my DPS output as BLU, but made the runs incredibly smooth.
At that point the only "risk" is the Ahriman using curaga early waking up everyone I guess.
~4 mins runs with a completely PUG party I assembled yesterday.

Like I have said forever - Sudden Lunge is the most underrated spell in this game. It can completely stun lock A/E,C/G and all lesser NMs in sortie too btw.

Yeah but lunge doesnt do 40k a cast. Terrible spell honestly

I'm honestly amazed at how infrequently I see people use Sudden Lunge. It's honestly become habit to toss it out at the start of combat and as soon as I see a mob get to 25% health even if my team doesn't need to be defensive. For 18 MP, you can save on tons of healing power and needing to Erase/Dispel a bunch of status effects.

Some bosses even in can be permanently stun-locked, too. One example I took advantage of was the Ambuscade V2 hydra a while back. It couldn't even autoattack, let alone apply its damage immunity. I didn't even need a healer trust, making it crazy-easy to solo even when I was still a fledgeling 119. In fact, I think grinding that was how I got my Naegling lol

Its a half joke but blus seldom use their spells unless its a buff or magic aoe, youll get a def down and thats about it.

DPS onry.
Swordwarrior no cast spell. Onry DPS.
Swordwarrior no utility. Onry DPS.
Swordwarrior no healing. Onry DPS.
Swordwarrior no skillchain. Onry spam.
Swordwarrior no MB. Onry DPS.

I remember how funny it was to farm Sinister reign when I came back to the game. Everything there just stun locked whole fight. That Dread Spikes whales in Escha or that Monty Python rabbit, same deal. I need to revisit Zerde at some point and see if Lunge can work there with all the power creep.

I've definitely noticed a lot of people either don't know or don't care about their jobs. Granted, most of the time it isn't their main job or whatever. The contrast is very stark between people that understand the game and the people who simply follow instructions.

It's honestly kinda helpful for me. My gear still leaves a lot to be desired, but the group I've been running with keeps me around because I know how to make the best of what I've got. Especially on Corsair, a job where everyone seems content using nothing but Chaos and Samurai Roll for every single setup.

Incidentally, I wonder how a high-evasion setup could fare against Excalibur in this. Ninja Roll can get 85-105 Evasion. You can get another >100 Evasion from Mambo. Throw on some shadows and Slows, maybe a kiting strategy to avoid TP moves chunking Utsusemi, and you could outright avoid its melee attacks, couldn't you?

Youll still be subject to the evasion cap which is 80% i think? It could work just seems excessive when you just a. Not fight him or b. Save him for last and mow him down

Problem with "saving last" is that there's multiple weapons that you might want to "save for last" if your DDs are slow.
Guttler for Charm, Mjollnir because if he Benediction will wake up everybody else, Excalibur for the mentioned reasons.
I guess Kikoku too if you're scared about Mijin.


In my opinion, specifically for Excalibur, it's better to handle him immediately.
If all goes well rest of the run will probably go easy. If he starts slaughtering people well, at least it happened at the beginning of the run and you can exit-and re-enter instead of wasting 4+ minutes inside.
Jm2c of course.

You can sleep/bind/break the charmed, same for the pld iirc, mijin shoukdnt be a huge issue with dt/meva in most dd sets, and benes just an annoyance if you have multiple mobs up at the time

Tbh i agree with the above where id just leave and re-enter.

Yeah. I'm just suggesting some alternatives. The common strategy for everything seems to solely include killing things faster, because a dead enemy can't fight back anyway. But when an enemy has that same idea, falling back into a more balanced approach could do some good.

If the common concern is that any time a boss hits someone it has a high chance of one-shotting even the beefiest tank, maybe avoiding being hit at all is the way to go. I mean yeah you can just leave or force a wipe, but I feel like we haven't exhausted a whole ton of options.

I mean that one video by Xolla a page back shows it's possible to do it without a dedicated tank or a Bard, even in the face of the Excalibur mob.

Excals more than doable, just have shadows/ride scherzo, he's just annoying is all, evasions another option i just donno if id give up kill faster buffs for dodge more buffs on 1 mob that takes maybe 1~2 mins to down

Or like above, just stun lock til dead

You can rotate buffs in and out depending on the situation. For example, you can go Ninja Roll, Chaos Roll, kill Excalibur, Samurai Roll.

Another couption could be to split rolls up. You could even have one person safely soloing Excalibur while the rest of the party focus-fires other enemies down one at a time.