August 2017 Version Update

PUP being a better DD than Monk does not make it the "winner" when they still got less of a buff than Monk did.

Might not be complete yet until you have more KIs. Also they change it to a temporary KI so might have to be consumed or something

Well, it mentions needing to have administrator status on it, before you can use it. I wouldn't be surprised if we could get admin now/work it out before the KIs are done.

PUP had no right getting ANY buff, so taking advantage of the H2H weapon changes (which appear FAR more significant than the MNK JA adjustments) is a totally unexpected buff that might realistically make the job competitive enough to bring in a "real DD" slot - which probably wasn't really justified before when talking about either MNK or PUP. I call that a pretty significant win for PUP.

Oh, and picking that PUP? That's taking another slot over MNK, which is, quite simply, worse at damaging things (Decent automaton > what MNK JA adjustments bring to the table). Even though MNK's sole role is a DD, while PUP still has its additional niche of being an awesome tank on lots of things.

MNK's niche? It's slightly less bad at DD now, but it has a lot of Subtle Blow (and Penance) if you're concerned about TP feed, and Mantra for some party HP.

It's bizarre to me that they spent so much effort reworking all relevant H2H weapons, when they should have been making MNK better at it's primary DPS role through (stronger) job exclusive adjustments to JAs.

Did Vol. 1 VE. Was BRD, DRG, MNK at first. Killed the DRG, then a 2nd DRG popped while fighting the MNK. Killed the MNK, then a 2nd MNK popped while fighting the 2nd DRG. Killed the 2nd DRG and then both the BRD and 2nd MNK fell to the ground.

Vol. 2 VD had the malboro periodically get weaker/stronger after doing the monster 2-hour animation, usually after taking large spikes of damage. A message would pop up saying her defense and/or magic defense weakened.

Fun Fact: the 6 Sahagin in Mamook don't count as Sahagin for the RoE. This actually makes a degree of sense since they link with the local Mamool Ja and can cast spells on each other. It was probably simpler to just code them as the same monster family. I imagine they would've counted for the Mamool Ja ambuscade month.

So... Pup got a buff? Should I pup/mnk now?

I don't see any mention of administrator being new in the notes; does this mean it's been an element in the game no one even realized existed since at least CoP?!

Well it's in the notes so... like the 2nd thing in the update notes first being about the new npc for it

heavily implies it existed before the update.
especially with old wiki entries mentioning the ability to get doctor status on several SA's at the same time even though they are in different areas.

edit: if it has actually been in game, it's possible some never seen items are possible from it. gold bed, sangha earring, and Thunder Shield (ah says item not found o.O) all come to mind. They've all been in dats since before AH.com; shield is the same level as rune weapons; bed and sangha just come to mind because one has a rare tag and the other an ex tag.

whats the strange apparatus stuff for anyway i thought that was old contant not really used for anything.

also anyone know if when using the new weapons in the secondary hand do you still get the weapon skill effect?

yeah, old content not used for anything nowadays.

a potentially old unsolved riddle almost has me wanting to resub and jump on this half dead laptop. If I weren't worried about another BSoD I'd probably do it too.

Ah didn't see the new part. It does imply that... but SE is also horrible with translating so wouldn't read too much into implication unless can confirm it similar does in jp. Hmmm a few people did say you can get on all so probably already existed. Also there were 3 apparatuses that no one could get to work but a couple gave some messages when trading right chips so who knows

Gold beds were actually obtained just not anymore

aside from hacking back before SE made that type of hack impossible, how was it ever obtainable?

Well, thanks to Funkworkz, here's all the text related to the next Apparati:

Almost certainly related to the new mount for Omega, with the name, so if you are interested, resub before the 11th and get the Vanaversary records done for the key item.

I'd say it's a win for PUP, I wouldn't say it doesn't have any right getting a buff as it really does need adjustments.


eh...live on the edge and /DRK instead.

Psh didn't say you didn't have to hack. :p. But it has been seen. Stuff was a long time ago though. I'd imagine if there was a legit way more would've popped up by now

Beat D Ambu Volume 1... NIN BLU BRD COR WHM GEO...... after like 10 tries... Keep the BRD enfeebled, and Silenced. Kill WHM first------>DRG--->DRG----> and keep killing the DRGs that respawn. BRD has their hands full resleeping ***. I'd rate this ambu harder than SL Master Trials unless something else is discovered. On VD we got close but ended up getting overwhelmed. We were killing Charby--->DRG (wait for Charby and DRG respawns). At some point we had 1900 acc and were wiffing. Ambuscade this month= Wut.

Pulled Mobs to the SE corner, N/T Slept them then brought them back to the BRD boss one by one where the party was waiting. Used Kill order stated above~

Used Idris Wilt/Frail Entrust Fury, DDs subbed NIN, COR used swords, Sam/Chaos, Honor/Madrigal/Minuet/x2, MG, haste 1. BRD has to Lullaby like 15 times, single target or AOE.

Hope this helps people trying this/hope others figure out something else to make this easier.

Heard a rumor the gimmick for V1 is number of adds = number of enfeebs you need on the main NM, then you kill off the adds then kill the boss. Yet to try it though.

What do the enfeebles do? Remove the Bio Aura? Remove the adds' regen? Weaken the adds in general?

Well vol 2 is kind of pathetically easy this month anyways. As stated gives you a text that is somewhat broken (Specifically it's "[The /] Popular Penelope 's defense/magic defense has weakened") telling you what mode it's in increasing the dmg those deal by a decent chunk though as the fight goes on even off mode their seems to be an increase so seems like the weakness might persist some. Just spammed skillchains and it would cycle between physical and magic fairly consistently.

Only moves I saw were sweet breath and "rhino attack". I quote rhino attack because 1. Not a beetle. 2. Animation was a breath attack. No not using text replacement stuff. Rhino attack did decentish dmg but otherwise yawn fest

Rhino Attack is a typo on the English dats, the japanese dats show 臭い息 which is bad breath.

Stanislav examines you.

http://stanislav.ytmnd.com/

I still don't get the sound file but collage is real lol

For volume 1 seems they level up if tanked away from mega but then delevel when brought back. Will do more testing later.

Tried to AoE down it for fun. Targeting the boss the adds took basically nothing. Targeted the adds and one would take dmg while other still took nothing. Looks like anti AoE thing again

I'm saying this as someone who has always considered himself a PUP "main" at heart, and who is happy to get the unexpected buff. I'm pretty excited about my new and improved Kenkonken for sure...

But really, I don't think PUP needed it. That's not good balance or particularly fair to MNK. PUP actually (finally, after all these years) has some good niches as an excellent tank and in some pet setups. Sure, it could always do some damage as a melee alongside a pet, but the job was never really designed as a pure DD. MNK is a DD, and nothing else. So, I would have found it perfectly fair to improve MNK DPS by a bigger buff to job-exclusive JAs, but leave PUP out and rely on the additional things you can do with a puppet plus the capability to be a lower end DD.

In fact, it's one of the reasons I always brought up the point that just buffing H2H WS wasn't the way to go since to get that to the point where MNK became a viable high end DD, it would make PUP honestly a bit overpowered (same WS buffs AND the puppet that has been improved immensely over the past couple years?).

But now? Any improvement MNK made to potentially deserve a seat at the DD table is trumped by PUP getting most of that benefit while also having a puppet that still provides more additional offense than MNK's added DPS from their array of JAs. MNK seems to still be a below par DD with some defensive benefit (low TP feed, Mantra) - which prob isn't really that desirable for most setups. And even if it is, it's not unique. NIN, BLU with a more defensive-oriented spell set, ranged damage with RNG COR SMN etc., nuke setups... those all work to address that situation just as good, if not better, than throwing MNKs at it.

So some extra info on the strange apparatus stuff.

Once you get doctor status you have it period. It's not per apparatus.

The npc for the strange apparatuses says he thinks the name code part is still right but the element has shifted. I tried shifting 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and think I stopped at 17

So decided to look for other clues. That's when I remembered these have actually been used recently (for run af and af3 quests) and that the previous inactive apparatuses are actually 3 elements each which have clues on the back to what they are (Fei'Yin being ice thunder light). Which correspond to 04, 05, 06. Tried a lot of things with those numbers from using the total to shift, to using each number itself to lining them up with different letters going with different elements and then using the sum of the elements to add together or nothing or average. Feels like that should be the line but I'm stuck. Also checked out the other ones in the pass and KRT and nothing really helping there

Also tried trading cyan chip, infinity core, both together and gray chip and nothing. Though trading the ore to the one in KRT gets you an interesting if old message

This reminds me of the Adoulin secret "Password" we had to find out lol
Anybody remember that?

Three elements strikes me as interesting. An element per letter, could be something maybe. Is there a specific order for the elements that are listed for the RUN quest?

For the run quest yes they have to be a certain. But pretty easy to figure out since it's the order the thing on the back tells you

I think the number was
The galka has given me the next line of dialogue but isn't progressing onto anything. May be a game day/Japanese midnight wait after this for more stuff.