Feedback Needed For Divine Might II [Difficult]

Hey folks,

I'm looking to pick the collective minds of those who have successfully beaten Divine Might II on Difficult, and see how you make the best use of time starting from first entering the BC to the individual fights throughout.

The short version: Last Sunday, we timed out on the very last AA (Hume) at around 60%-ish HP.

The long version: In my best guestimation, we needed another 3-5 minutes to beat AAHM and finish up the run. Our firepower was pretty good (mixed blend of relic and non-relic RNG's), but I'm wondering how we can get those 3-5 minutes back.

Did we spend too much time buffing once everyone zoned in? Did the few deaths due to Amon Drive and Meteor slow us down too much?

I've had folks suggest the idea of buffing the alliance outside the BC before entering (in order to potentially save time), but there seems to be mixed feelings on both sides of the fence on this. And obviously, any deaths at all reduces the overall damage output. I think we took too much time on TT, especially since we had several deaths on that Taru. But beyond that, everything seemed to flow quite nicely. We just took too long somewhere.

Any thoughts, suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated. Despite not finishing, we had some really good drops (Seraphicaller, Kyujutsugi, etc), so I'm going to probably look at doing Difficult mode from here on out, but we need our 3-5 minutes back. We bled out that time somewhere, so I'm looking to put a bandage on that for next weekend.

Parse your rng number of shot, wsavg; racc; also w/o telling us more about your buff/debuff/pt setup beside "relic and non relic rng" we can't help at all.

Party 1: PLDx2 WHMx2 THF BRD
Party 2: RNGx4 BRD COR
Party 3: RNGx4 BRD COR

About half the RNG's had relics, and in terms of the BRD buffs, I honestly wasn't paying any attention at all to which songs the RNG parties received. I'm usually focused on my PLD and ensuring I'm ready to start healing/supporting asap.

Assuming your brd are 2 song and rotating, buff should be minX2/preludeX2/chaos/hunter/courser/sam roll.

If you have issue on TT; do it last; you should parse your rngs and have the better rngs help improving those who do bad.

Since this is difficult and you are having issues, I would suggest the safe route: 2 PLDs are /run. The other can be /dnc.

party 1: PLDx3, WHMx2, THF or BRD,
party 2: RNGx3, BRD, COR, WHM,
party 3: RNGX4, BRD, COR,

Party 2 and 3, stay at the entrance/portal.
When ready you have PLD/DNC run into the arena and pull agro and bring the 4 AAs that will leave the arena upstairs and into the hallway. They can not turn their back or they will die so remember to target lock and move backwards. You are going to want to position the super tank in the hallway so that the white mage can stand in between the them and the plds holding the current target with out getting target blocked by walls.

Ideally you want to have the current Target AA at the end of the hallway from the entrance just before it hooks to the left.

Its fairly easy to go EV>GK>MR>HM leaving the TT for last.

For EV you want the pld/runs to have Tenebraex2+Vallation+pflug up as much as possible, for TT it's Lux x2.

Only issues at this point will be Rangers not having the DPS (the mobs should die pretty fast),someone being an idiot trying to win a parse pulling hate and causing your RNG parties to die, and of course people not understanding how the TT's targeting works and getting caught by Amon Drive. Which can easily be countered with /nin if you aren't confident in peoples ability to maintain proper distance from each other.

Why not bring 2pld rather than 3?
Pld pld whm smn brd thf
Rng rng rng brd cor thf
Rng rng rng brd cor whm

EV is a joke with EA/Scherzo.
Pre buff to save time approx 2min+.
Pld can turn back wile pulling the aggro long as they sentinal (common cause of death is not doing so)
Fight where your party fights. Portal, hall or stairs everyone does it diff.

All and all most time lost is from buffs, deaths & pulling hate.
Prebuff, dont suck, and use Apex over jishnu as JR takes hate to easy. (Unless on TT and or can have pld Invinsible GK and 2 rng overkill JR him to speed it up without risk of him losing hate)

MR Fealty around 40-50% and 2 rng overkill. Pld should have resist charm set incase fealty wears "realistically it wont" (i have resist multiple times on D/VD w/o fealty up)

Remember to use posion pots on TT, also use Larceny on MF not Invinsible. Kite during BW and keep shooting.

As it said at the top, since he's having issues you can play it safe with that set up, having 2 plds on the main target will also make Charm a non issue.

But why bring 6 rngs when you can bring 7 or 8 ^^?

edit: the 2 pld set up also helps curb the annoying instance when rangers are bringing the MR down so fast that your tank doesn't switch to Aegis fast enough and gets dropped by Splitter. As does /run with Tellusx2 up help to prevent this annoyance.

whats the benefit of /run? We beat if regularly on d/vd. Just curious on /run over /rdm /war /blu

Runes+Vallation by itself is -30% from Arrogance Incarnate (Tenebrae) and Amon Drive (Lux). Also /RUN gives you Swordplay which is like Schzero/Migawari/Earthern Armor.

Our current strategy is this:

After everyone zones in and buffs, the super tank gets initial aggro and rounds up all the AA's and heads up the stairs to hold in the hallway. The other PLD vokes (in our case TT) and holds the AA with his back towards the RNG's on the arena floor. I will say in our Sunday run, there was a small delay in all the RNG's getting out onto the floor to line up behind the PLD. Perhaps some time can be saved there.

TT > EV > GK > MR > HM is our current order

I honestly think time could have been saved on TT if 3 things didn't happen (should have happened): Everyone paid closer attention to their shadows to ensure at least 2 were up at all times (for Amon Drive), and that some RNG's didn't pull too much hate prematurely causing unnecessary deaths and finally - once Manafont happens all the RNG's run up the stairs away from Sleepga + Meteor. I think our THF was dead and wasn't able to use Larceny, but I honestly don't remember the particulars.

One change I'm going to make for next run is ensuring all the Ranger's have at least 2-3 El. Pachira Fruit or Poison pots each to pop right before Manafont. That way they can just run for the stairs without being slept and exposed.

Since we more or less had the run in the bag (except for obviously timing out), I don't think a 3rd PLD would be necessary for us. I'd rather use that slot for something else. I may opt to have a WHM in one of the RNG parties subbing /NIN to provide healing support.

Thanks for all the feedback though so far.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that our supertank usually subs /DNC and our arena tank is PLD/WAR.

Do TT 4th or 5th. If you wipe to meteor or even Amon you waist NT/SV. Also larceny MF. Should down EV 1st thats most dangerous you are risking the run by super tankng EV with others. EV > everyone. Dont matter who your pld is or how good they are. If given the chance EV will ruin your day. Knock him out asap is the goal.
TT not going any where, let him hang out.
EV > GK <> MR > TT <> HM.

The taru won't leave the BC unless it's under a 2hr which it won't do unless damaged.

So if you fight back on the stairs and the holding pld fights further back in the hall you only have to deal with 3 on the super tank. This is pretty critical especially considering the elvaan can stun which will ruin a super tanks day.

so general strat is fight on the stairs above the little platform,

Elvaan first, kinda preference after that depending on your capability to kill the rest or specific drops you are after.

Hmmm... I'm trying to picture what you're saying here.

Yeah, I think we may change up the AA order.

So you are saying that "Arrogance incarnate" is light based? Sorry to ask, because I can't find this information anywhere. Always thought it was non elemental.

Belive they are saying is if you are not after specific drops then change order (hense the reason doing TT 1st seems like you want maybe staff and plan on timeing out). If not then do EV GK MR HM TT. Super tank in hallway or portal. Main Pld mid way on stairs. Rngs at top of stairs shooting down. That how most do it.

I was always under impression it was as well, its considered Breathe dmg isn't it?. Similar to discoid or 10,000 needles as its dmg is divided by number of targets hit and Aegis will not reduce dmg therefore its not elemental in which case how does /run help? Also swordplay is only removed by severe dmg, it wont prevent or reduce dmg delt in any way.

Coincidentally, I'm after Venabulum ^^;

Up to this point, we've been starting with TT, but not necessarily with the assumption that we'll be timing out, but more because we wanted the Taru done and over with (Amon Drive and Aga spells).

So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're suggesting this:

[Hallway] Supertank+AA's <-----> [Top of the stairs] Rangers+Support -----> [Platform on stairs] PLD+AA <----- [Bottom of stairs] WHM+BRD

Does that look about right? It's definitely an interesting strategy! Does creating a bottleneck reduce cone/AOE attacks to just the front and back only?

There is only one thing to it but to do it. Try it out test it. PLDs on our server did and found it quite nice. (in regard to /RUN)

I'm guessing this would also need to happen:

[Hallway] Supertank+AA's <-----> [Top of the stairs] Rangers+Support -----> [Platform on stairs] PLD+AA <----- [Bottom of stairs] WHM+BRD

[Platform on stairs] PLD+AA --------(provoked)----------> AATT [Arena](voked previously so the WHM and BRD aren't exposed at the bottom of the stairs)(PLD is beyond the range of TT's spells?)

Don't need to voke TT, pld just run in and out with aggro (not hate) TT wont move. Pld Standing 1/2 way up stairs looking down is out of range of TT. All rng + support on top stair landing facing down. Super tank pld + whm in hallway or as we do in portal room. (Doesn't really matter) as for rng support they shouldn't need any as they shouldn't take dmg or hate if done correctly.

Okay, I understand now. I didn't realize that huge detail about the difference between aggroing TT (where it stays put in place) and getting hate on it (doing damage causing it to move from his original spot). That's an absolutely awesome thing to know now.

From the entrance you have a 20+ malm length hallway then you have to take a left and quick right then you have another 15 malm hallway before you make a left and head down the stairs to the arena.

The way we do it is, we don't move the Rangers and Support from the starting room until its time to kill the TT, you have the supertank hold inside the hallway at the top the stairs, you have the PLD+AA at the end of the hallway from the entrance, right where would you have to zig left then zag right when heading to the arena.

This gives you room for error and the ability to be out of range of Mijin Gakure since one party is not going to get Sacrosanctity.

Zero's strat is another way, its all in preference with same ideas/strat. we do TT 4th & HM last and fight in arena, good thing about this is if anyone gets got by Mijin you don't have to recover cuz he is last kill. TT we larceny MF so no worry about meteor.

A few thoughts:

Not larceny-ing the manafont wastes a lot of time, maybe you're better off ensuring the thf doesn't engage till then (even if he engage he shouldn't really be dying, it's not that hard to get out of the way while shadows aren't up - sounds to me your thf isn't really paying attention).

Rngs really shouldn't get hate, dying off amon drive sounds like a thing that shouldn't happen (sure, they might get hit randomly when the taru warps, but shouldn't be frequent enough to not have shadows up)

did charm go off on MR? that's another time waster that could be avoided with a mixture of fealty/asylum.

Were the bards 2 songs? you might not need dharp bards for the fight if you rotate, but 2 song bards probably mean they aren't career bards and not very well equipped. for e.g. if they don't have prelude/minuet instruments, or don't have song duration gear - duration gear would let you have SV song buffs for longer which would help a bit on dps.

Also like Ccl said, it's worth parsing the rngs. even if they have a 119 annhilator it doesn't mean they know how to play rng and they are geared for it, unless you had a complete wipe during the run it sure sounds like dps is lacking. Parse them, check the racc/dmg etc.

A whm shouldn't be needed in the rng pts unless the rngs aren't doing hate management properly/pld isn't good enough. your bard can come /whm and can easily main heal the rngs.

This is also an interesting idea.


Yeah, that's why we're currently doing AAHM last - Mijin Gakure. If HM isn't last in a different setup for next time, then we would have to know that no one (or as close to no one as possible) would die from it. I don't think we could recover from a huge wipe and still finish on difficult mode.

Thanks Chubs, I always appreciate your feedback.

Swordplay does not work like Scherzo/Migawari/Earthen Armor, it is only deactivated by severe damage, it does not prevent it in any way. All it does is boost ACC/EVA over time until it wears.

It may be worth mentioning since it might not be apparent at first glance but the TT's amon drive is target centered. The ONLY time you will get hit by it is if you are within 10' of your tank. Unless someone pulls hate.

Since the rngs are likely trying to put the tank between then and the TT for decoy shot, they are probably too close to the tank.

This is the case with what happened on Sunday. They just need to resist the urge to keep on pew pew'ing knowing they're at 1 shadow.