1-5 + Tojil Failing

Um, what? You cast Silence at the start, and again in the middle if needed, you shouldn't need to be spamming Cures back to back if you have capped 80% cast time for Cure and curaga.

if you are referring to the odd time it might get one off, thats entirely different and if it was Breakga / Slowga / Meteor I would obviously try for those, however you should be plenty able to silence it and almost never see it cast anything.

You're now picking up what I'm putting down.


Side note: What has changed significantly since delve2.0 has come out that silence is lasting near to 2 minutes on Tojil? I haven't touched him in awhile, but I recall silence wearing off fairly quickly under 50%.

Wearing off quickly or not, it's not THAT hard to cast silence in the middle of cures.

The point is that while you are mid-cure, it could wear and he could start casting. It happens quite often. Are you going to let that spell go through without being stunned when it is as detrimental as the ones mentioned? I imagine not.

Better gear perhaps? Honestly I don't sit there and count how many times I cast Cure in a fight or when I re apply Silence, I just do it as soon as I can between cures, I never heard of someone doing their job properly as hard.

The point is, you shouldn't be having to stun spells significantly enough to even consider it an issue.

I'd still say I'm stunning spells though.

This. You aren't letting certain spells get through, thus you are stunning them. The amount of times you have to do it is irrelevant. Hopefully this was helpful.

Normally after silence wears he doesn't cast Meteor and ***.

When I aid lol show stuns magic, it was more who stuns pointless magic IE Firaja. Granted I didn't specify but I attached a certain amount of intelligence to the readers of this thread to understand that much.

Besides groups can eat a Meteor and live.

Again Breakga isn't Bad unless the WHM is in range for it, Dispelga can suck if it removes a Brd Song. Slowga is uhg, because you need Sacrifice (in most groups) to remove it.

So now you've blown a point out of proportion, wheres these sets for your DD's or that video !

So we've gone from "lol who stuns magic at all" to "well you do, but you need to stun a certain # of important spells to consider it stunning" to "well he probably won't cast bad stuff after silence" to "well actually lets just take meteor and brekaga to the face because at least it's not Death-ga".

This is a group who can apparently barely clear 1-5. Their stunner is probably too nervous and will stun if the mob twitches slightly, and I'm sure they don't want to eat Break/Slowga/Meteor because "why not?"

It would be recommended they stun magic.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying don't stun magic if you're uneasy about it. By all means stun it and pop alacrity and TR to stabilise your fight.

But if you're a seasonal scholar, there's more/better things you can do than to stun magic that you don't need to stun. (i.e. nuking).

Some notes:

1) Time: Morimar should basically never be a battle against the clock. If you're taking so long to get to Tojil that you're timing out, there must be some fundamental issue: under-geared DD, you're letting DD die or not buffing them, you're utterly lost on the map, etc. The much more likely issue is the Tojil fight itself: missed stuns, poor support/erases/etc. - and that shouldn't be a clock issue either, if you can't beat Tojil before he becomes immune to Stun you're kinda screwed anyway.

2) Mata: Not to beat Mata talk to death, but if for whatever reason the Raptor/Eft are still alive when the Mata is ready, just have any jobs who can help kill the Mata (i.e. MNKs) turn their attention to it. It doesn't matter if they have hate from Eft/Raptor, once you pop Formless and start punching the Mata will die in seconds and you can just turn back around and finish off the remaining NM with all of your DDs. There's no need to worry so much about timing or sleeping anything, just keep in mind to start prepping Mata as soon as you can and kill it once it's ready after 5~6. If you're not confident in your group's ability to kill after 5, waiting 45 more seconds for 6 should not kill your run.

3) DDs: What food are you eating? A 119 DD with a decent amount of accuracy shouldn't need Acc food in Morimar to cap. Maybe you're going Acc overkill when RCB would increase your kill speed more. (also, if your food runs out as you're about to fight Tojil... um, remember to eat more??)

Other seemingly obvious stuff that I guess should still be said:
- Don't sit on TP, WS right away
- HAVE A DT- SET AND USE IT (say, Lahar slips through); even for TP gear you can help things go more smoothly by going a little more hybrid/defensive (for instance, in Adoulin content I usually TP in Qaaxo body as opposed to Thaumas)
- Use Remedies if your support is busy and you can remove your own Para/Virus/Poison/etc.
- Don't waste good duration-based JAs (Impetus, Focus, etc.) toward the end of an NM just because the timer is ready. Hold them for the start of the next NM kill to get the full benefit.

4) Support: the support jobs (other than WHM) should be on top of helping out with haste, erase, dispel, enfeebles, etc. I've seen way too many BRDs who sit around and do nothing other than marches/ballads, and wait for the WHM to juggle cures, erases, haste, Dia, silence, the works. Accession isn't always up! It's obviously easier to slack if you're running with a Yagrush WHM... which often isn't the case for most players.

You can't blame "bad DD" if their gear is fine but they're unable to do the damage they should because they're frequently slowed or not hasted, the mob doesn't have Dia on it, they're missing songs, etc. Assign support jobs to specific DD buddies to prevent duplicating efforts on stuff like haste and erase. WHM: you get DD#1, BRD: you get DD#2 and DD#3.

5) Using COR: I've had this conversation with Afania (who is obviously a very good COR) and others before, and I have a pretty solid COR myself even though I'm usually on MNK in Morimar Delve. It's certainly correct that a DDx2 + GOOD COR setup can beat DDx3 in total damage output... IF your COR is well geared to contribute some damage. 119 melee weapons and appropriate melee gear, /DNC and diligently using Box Step to increase everyone's damage, etc. I wouldn't trust a random pickup COR to be up to the task, and it's certainly not necessary.

Probably EASIER to get a DDx3 WHM BRD SCH 6-man team. Honestly if you're still struggling for wins, I think you have more room for error by bringing something like a SAM DRK or 3rd MNK instead of a COR. COR replacing a "pure DD" slot tends to be one of those things that you can work into an already good team to make them even better and reduce clear times for farming when you're already able to do it with a MNK MNK [3rd traditional DD] setup. And really, this also relies on your other two DD not being weak links. Buffing two already great DD gives good results, relying on only two highly buffed DDs if one or both of them are less then really good is risky. Plus, COR itself is a bit more fragile than other DDs, so a bit more risk of death that would really put your team out.

I agree, I think people are just starting to make too many assumptions about this particular group that they take for granted. Considering Tojil is something a good chunk of us were doing successfully before ilevel was introduced, and this group can't seem to clear 1-5 with good timing, I'm not assuming any of them are particularly "seasoned"(which is of course unfair of me to assume they all have the same skill level when it could just be 1 or 2 people that need tweaking).

That being said, I'd be looking to distribute the performance weight evenly among them and not want, say, the WHM picking up any extra slack that he/she may not be capable of handling.

OP certainly has a lot of piss to search through when he gets back to this thread.

Send me a tell in-game and i will go over step by step on how to beat each nm. Also i can check your dd's and mages and go over some upgrades if necessary.

Better yet lets just do a delve with him and teach them first hand.

Midgitis being nice........ what blasphemy is this?!

If your struggling with the turtle and you know you won't need to 1 hour extra strats for tojil could always embrava turtle for undispelable haste.
As said dispelling harden shell, defence down debuffs and spamming thunder 1 will also make it a lot faster.

In my experience, the biggest potential timesinks on 1-5 are:

1) Calcifying Mist not being stunned
2) Songs not being reapplied immediately after Tortoise Song / Harden Shell not being dispelled immediately

If neither of those issues are plaguing you, then it's likely a DPS issue. As many have said, melees need to be timing JAs/TP use appropriately and swapping gear. 119 weapons, or any of the best weapons in the game, will not make melee jobs work well enough on their own. They can raise the ceiling on your potential, but that potential has to be realized in many other ways. If you use Windower, I recommend using Scoreboard to parse to help identify where improvements need to be made. For example, if Scoreboard told you a melee had even a 10% accuracy deficit, that will make quite the difference.

If there are no identifiable issues with the melee, make sure you're singing buffs on them with the right instruments. Most of the relevant +3 instruments are trivial to get if you don't already have them (Langeleik aside. If you can't get your hands on this, at least use a +2 March instrument.).

Ballads are what suffer the most from lack of GHorn, but +2 ballads should comfortably get the job done. GHorn ballads just offer a lot of elbow room. One benefit to GHorn is not dealing with the absurd AoE range on harps and having your buff durations standardized which makes getting the right songs on people much simpler. When not using GHorn, take special care to ensure the right songs are on the right people.

At first every connection of mine were skeptical about my theory of COR+2 DD> 3 DD, but after trying they mostly agree that killing speed is faster if 3rd DD slot is a COR. I rarely play with "elite" tier player nor super efficient group. Most of the time I play with PUG and above avg player, using a COR as 3rd DD usually get faster kill speed according to other PUG leader and my experience.

That being say, in order to make it worth bringing to delve1, it'll face fundamental DD issue as SAM MNK DRG....if ppl can't DD on SAM MNK DRG fat chances are ppl can't DD on COR:

1: Your accuracy. Your accuracy should be "just right". Some say "you need to worry about accuracy being uncapped", this isn't correct. You can't overcap acc or else you'd lose DPS, you can't leave acc uncapped too. Once I see a MNK eat sushi in foret and ended up parsing lower than COR on certain NM, it made me wonder "why do you need sushi here".

You need to have your DD parse and make different TP set for different NM. Most of the time if I ask a DD "What's your TP and WS set looks like" and they only show me 1 set and use 1 set for every event, then you'd know that DD doesn't have correct understanding of DD fundamental. Once I asked a MNK to prepare a high acc TP set for mandy T4 in yorcia and he used the same set on T1 too, D:

Parse, keep parsing. And don't waste too much accuracy on certain NM if you don't need that much acc.

2. WS at 100 TP, not 120 TP. Enough said. Also swap back to TP set ASAP right after WS, you don't want until WS animation done to swap back. Just parse and see if your WS frequency fall behind other DD in same category.

3. DT- set. You need it, but you want to use it smartly. Personally, whether I swap in DT- set or not completely depend on who's playing the support and how dangerous is the NM. I also tend to stand apart from other DD unless I'm pting with a THF.

4. Use spreadsheet, it helps a lot if you can't decide what to use.

5. (And in the case of COR, don't be afraid of double up on 6 or 7 if fold is up, getting a better number is so much better than having ***buff for next 7 min. Once I even double up on 8 and got a 11, feels good. Refresh buffs before longer fight.)

DD in this game, is a lot more than "I have my 119 weapon and I'm done". It's a lot of experiment, parse, research with spreadsheet, find solution, improve your sets and repeat. Reading AH guide or asking for set advice is, IMO, no where as effective as sitting down and collect parse data myself.

Although you can get your DDs to find help on the internet and get some set advice, most of the time DDs only get better if they really, really really want to push their DPS to their next level by spending more effort on it.

I've had a DNC perform better than a COR and a DD due to the following - Box Step (WHich is equal to or stronger than Chaos Roll du to the Defence -) Haste Samba to Cap the delay on jobs that can't do so IE MNK ~ plus it has a very decent amount of Piercing damage available.

Further more if you made the dnc /run you could efectively rmeove Tojils Aura increasing damage again and removing his Attack down aura.

Again though where are you going to find a good DNC if you can;t find good normal heavy DD (Well geared that is).

As far as I know haste samba from /DNC can cap delay for MNK, unless I understand MNK wrong.

COR can also step unless DNC main has much higher step acc(I'm not sure about this one) You can also get dia2 enhancement via light shot, so the support aspect is more than just chaos roll. Step also needs time and such, but dia enhancement is instant.

One advantage for chaos roll v.s def down such as angon/step is, chaos roll is up all the time, step/angon you have to apply on the target. You often have to kill adds after NM pull unless you have other ways to deal with it. It's not practical to angon or cap step on every adds, but chaos roll is always on DD and fully effective even on adds, even if DDs all target different adds. According to bg-wiki step is only 13% def down max(and it takes time to apply), which shouldn't be equal to chaos roll unless the number is bad.

If you prioritize chaos roll(you should) and save fold/snake eye for it, you should never get a bad number on chaos. It's usually No.4, No.9~11 at least 95% of the time, unless I'm really, really unlucky.

I usually don't remove aura, but if I want to there's always QD without the need to /RUN.

DNC/WAR is usually stronger DD than COR/DNC but support wise COR is probably better. I'm not sure how strong DNC/WAR is v.s another MNK.

What I've gotten from OP is that he is running this with friends, at least, based on him saying DRG was his friend and that it wasn't possible to switch that out for anything. That being said, I don't think suggestions of "I run this comp and it's better" are of any particular use to him. If we aren't trying to cater to help OP, we're ultimately just running around flaunting our own achievements after all.

I don't really think it's flaunting achievements to show that there are different setups that work. People are mentioning DNC, COR, DRG, WAR, SAM... really showing that it's not just using the "One Correct Setup" for a run.

If this guy has a DRG friend who's gonna come on DRG, fine! Their party sounds like it's composed fine to get wins, there are just other issues to deal with.

Yes, different setups do work. So I don't think there's any problem with what he currently has. I guess I just don't understand how bringing up the dry COR+2DD vs. 3DD+No COR argument really helps him at all. Maybe its just my fault for assuming his composition is set in stone, but I'd rather try to work around what he uses as opposed to just throwing out my personal comp. of choice.

Ppl already bashed DRG pages back. Also if you read my reply I was advocating "play DD better" before considering COR+2 DD. It doesn't really matter what job you're playing tbh. The DD fundamental is the same regardless of the job.

The OP hasn't responded for a bit, people are merely suggesting various other methods that may allow his friends to still go but have a potentially better or easier time of wining.

I don't understand why you are shooting down other methods, granted the OP has said what jobs he uses etc but to be fair adding anything else about his group would only be about making assumptions, which until the OP responds, no one can even begin to help.

Any advice that is constrictive ie: COR DDx2 works, might work if for instance one of the DD's who not as well geared who immediately ruled COR out as they were unaware that the content would allow it. Its helpful and constructive and everyone's just trying to help. If you believe things here are not helping please advise how its negatively impacting the OP.

The only person who can say helpful or nay is the OP so I will ignore your attempt to stop people from providing different scenarios, possible set ups, and any NM tricks / advice they are providing as it's all helpful.

You're absolutely right here. For the most part we're more or less casual players and it takes a little longer for us to upgrade gear for any one job than it might take for others.

Thank you everyone for responding to this post, we now have quite a bit of info to work with. We plan on running AAs and working on getting better gear until we can have another go at it. Thanks so much!

If youre mostly 109-119 gear on all the characters and the bard is 3 song then gear would not be your problem.

It takes repetative attempts to get a feel for the fights, those people who say its easy only think so cause they've done it 100 times and forget their struggles of when they were first learning it.

It takes time stunning on scholar to figure out what actually needs to be stunned and what can be let through to save strats. How to re-prep mata if your count gets messed up and your initial attempt at killing fails etc..

If you do runs again maybe this weekend Reiden or myself can help you go over things or even join you in the fight as like scholars or something.

Reiden and I just helped him out and we've narrowed the issues, should be easily fixable now.

You where in the process of instructing me personally on Bard help when we timed out. Another big thanks to the group that just helped me, I've noticed a couple things we're doing wrong (No dia on Kurma!! 0.0). Doing Matamata at the same time as another NM also gives quite a bit of precious time back to you, so we'll have to try that.