October 2016 Version Update

JP vid clearing VD Intense in 1m21s by doing damage during chainspell.

Elemental Seal > Burst Affinity > Subduction is their strategy

Yeah, hard to argue that kiting isn't the best method.

Just did a few of Intense on Difficult with a JP pickup just to see some different methods.

Party setup was PLD MNK DRK(Great Sword) GEO WHM RDM. We did a method where I silenced it on RDM. I don't really see being able to easily silence this thing ever. Its resist rate is pretty high, felt like landing Blind on Maju so I would spam silence until I got an Immunobreak then did ES+Saboteur Silence. I think I got to see all it's TP moves and I don't think they've been listed so I'll just list them in case anyone is interested. Correct me if I got anything wrong please.

Frog Cheer - Gives it a Regain effect, but this is dispellable.

Frog Song - AoE Defense and Magic Defense down. Haven't seen this actually charm anyone.

Providence - Heals it for 15382HP on Difficult (maybe different amounts on different difficulties?). Removes all debuffs which is not good when you're trying to Silence it to protect DDs. This move also seems to be what summons the adds. Random when it could happen from what I could tell and it could happen multiple times which isn't great, the healing effect is AoE and will wake up any adds you slept if they're close by.

Magic Hammer - Steals MP only? Not sure if this did anything else.

Quenching Hammer - Steals HP/MP/TP, damage based on the number of buffs it steals(?)/dispels. The animation for it shows stars all going into the frog so it might be absorbing instead of simply dispelling, I haven't checked with a dispel yet.

Water Bomb - AoE water damage/silence. Magic attack down?

Also each add it spawns seems to have its own element. One of them was pretty resistant to sleep, the one that had ensilence. Others I saw were enpoison and enparalyze. Not sure what the other 2 frogs have.

Lastly this is just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has Occult Acumen as a job trait which is why it might be getting TP moves off during Chainspell.

would like to comment on the occult speculation:

ive tanked this on pld quite a few rounds without feeding it TP and having my SMN only Bpacting it. It would never use a TP move during chainspell or almost at all, granted we start kiting and avoid TP/death/kaustra moves under 50% but chainspell is always finished well before then.

I think there's something more going on than Occult Acumen, possibly some reactionary mechanic. Other mobs that chainspell (Neak, Bashmu, Amymone, etc.) will not use TP moves while Chainspell is active despite how much TP you give them by meleeing or w/e.

Can confirm this strat works incredibly well. Clearing VD in under 60 seconds. BLU/BLM GEO GEO DNC COR PLD

So the whole point is that if the tank is far enough away it doesn't use the terrible TP move, right?

We are doing VD intense. Geo Pld Dnc Thf Cor Sch

Cor was /smn for caitsith but it isnt needed - it's over too fast.

- adlo and tacts for tp
- Geo fury frailty entrust dex on thf (AG vajra)
- sch opens gravitation
- Dnc climatic building rudras (darkness)
- Thf SA rudras (darkness)

And it's over. Fastest ambu points so far!

Yeah, personally I prefer it over using Cait Sith since it's less reliant on getting a huge bursty SC off and pretty much just allows you to do a standard melee zerg for the chainspell duration (and still get decent damage when its not off due to potency of the gravity). As long as the tank maintains decent range and doesn't lose hate it should never get a chance to use Quenching Hammer.

Confirming that the Subduction-kite method with melee works amazingly well. Need to be careful how much enmity your melees generate though, because if they tear hate off your kiting tank you're gonna have a bad time.

Is it possible to replace the blu with RDM doing gravity II? I'm not sure about the gravity potency for those spells. Just wanted more room to switch jobs around.

Not sure but it might be worth testing on a normal mob and seeing the results.

I tried as RDM/THF with Grav II using just focus from a non idris GEO, and it stuck fine (the SA/SB didn't hurt either). Although just eyeballing, the movement speed seemed pretty much the same. Added bonus of Dia3, distract etc.

You get about 3-4 minutes with saboteur off the bat, recast as needed. We had issues where DD pulled hate for just long enough to cause a hammer, even though Paladin was kiting in full enmity, Flash/Voke, C4 self when nuked and forcing HP down with C4 for hate.

If your tank is keeping his distance, there's relatively low risk and ample time to re-apply gravity if it wears.

Seems like Gravity/Gravity II have inconsistent potency.

Default: 100%
Gravity: 90%-67.5%
Gravity II: 67.5%-60%
Saboteur Gravity II: 22.5%-20%
Subduction: 30%
Rudra's Storm: you do it

It does seem like gear that affects Enfeeble potency (Hurkan Booties, RDM Empy body and Ambuscade cape) affects Gravity at least.

edit: reminder that Saboteur is nerfed on NMs, got around 55% Movement Speed with Saboteur Gravity II on the frog

Just to clarify, BA isn't really doing anything aside from making Subduction do marginally more damage.

BA increases magic accuracy doesn't it?

Unless there's testing that I don't know about or some blurb in an official JP guide book, it's just a *** rumor.

Don't know why you'd need MAcc on top of Ele Seal anyway.

So how do people feel about geo-debuffs here. Some people say frailty works, others say things like Malaise and Poison (to test) don't work at all.

I tried indi-gravity with a dunna mule and saw no discernible decrease in movement speed.

It makes sense, the fight is clearly *designed* to make us not so dependent on buffs, so comparable debuffs being useless seems logical.

BG wiki states that, not sure about any data supporting that though.

Yeah, normally one wouldn't. I'm not aware of any data that evidently says ES = capped Macc though. Is there such data?

It is possible to miss a debuff with ES from my experience, at least on certain target.

This totally works and is definitely the simplest way to go, assuming your THFs/DNCs are strong.

Couple of notes to flesh out the strat...

- Shell V/One For All/Unda x3 Vallation really help w/ survival,
- Dia II + Light Shot x2 to lower def,
- BOG Geo-Fury/Indi-Dex/Entrust Attunement,
- Might wanna think about entrusting Malaise, to boost SC damage,
- Tenebrae x3 and Gambit will also do the same,
- Allies' Roll and Chaos when done regaining,
- Melee can sub SAM if you want the TP-part to go quicker,
- Sub WAR for Berserk/Warcry/Aggressor if you wanna play it safe.

The actual fighting this way only takes about 30-sec. It's stupid easy.

There certainly isn't any from 2007.

If that's the case, then I'd do Geo-Fury, Indi-DEX and entrust Attunement.

Edit: counter-edit!

You're doing it again.

EDIT: You edit. :)

On this NM focus or ES is plenty for a geared RDM to land Gravity, I'm sure ES is plenty for subduction too. Would only see needing macc to help generate an immunobreak if you were trying to do silence since I got a resist on silence even with elemental seal on difficult without it.

Just as a side note, devs have said in the past 2 immunobreaks + ES will land on anything not immune. In my experience using chironic legs with it's Immunobreak+1 I've only needed a single immunobreak + ES to land on anything.

ES has been enough to land subduction every time for me without any immunobreaks or anything. pretty much a guaranteed win as long as you land any form of gravity