Feb 2018 Ambuscade Vol 1

tldr; this reminds me a lot of the soulflayer fight, the only difference being that rather than using a SMN to remove the aura, you're using weak nukes to make it blast, then rinse, repeat.

Here's some info we found out during our win:

Don't attack the unicorn when it does TP moves (in particular the lance move) since it will heal it. Otherwise, just all out DD to take out the unicorn. Watch out it can one-shot a DD, though (perhaps due to standing in front of it?)

During the charge phase on the boss, use low damage to push it into a TP move (most likely Atramentous Libations). All but one DD should turn and perhaps even pull back to avoid getting aoe from Atra. Lib.

EDIT: When you see miasma effect, use light WS to prevent full-party KO. Not so sure about this after a second run. The TP move that comes after miasma is triggered seems to take a very long time to initiate so perhaps an alternate strat may be to run out of range (is that possible)?

Having our rngs alternating weaponskill's so not to get caught with pants down helped on main guy. Perrrrty painless this month again.

What's it to say melee is still viable this month? Just gotta run away when its charging, not do any do enfeebles, maybe throw in some finales and feed tp with tier 1 nukes so it doesnt destroy the tank?

This sounds too easy. What makes D or VD spicier?

JPs ambu PUG are shouting for NIN so maybe NIN will be a thing again this month.

Without serious buffs, damage sucks. I still think there has to be a gimmick to it's DT. Other than that though, it can be a little tricky to use pets since there is a delay before they go off which can be a Bad Thing if the boss decides to be a jerk w/ TP move timing. Does that count?

We are def still missing something for us lower teir people i think. I tried a few more runs, if we kill the unicorn in like 60 secs or less he is easy, but if he gets the lance move off, the tank is dead.
The mega has some serious def, i think there is a way to break his shield or stagger in some way we haven't discovered yet.

All of my runs have been repeats of going splat.

Odd question, but does breaking the unicorns horn do anything for DT on boss? Can you even break it?

So breaking the unicorns horns (any of them) is exceptionally difficult and even when you do, they regrow

Cleared D no problem BRD RUN SAM COR GEO WHM its an easy fight

It's not nuke-based at least. I've tried all elements, free-nuke and MB, off of all types/tiers of SC, and nothing so far. It's stupidly resistant to all elements besides Fire and Lightning btw. Which is interesting, since Dullahan are normally weak to Fire/Light. Made me sad because I was kinda hoping it was weak to Water since, well, folklore. :(

Ya, i was playing w/ banish nukes earlier to see, figured its undead maybe? lol got nothing with it tho.

I can confirm that a Light SC does NOT break miasma, so when it orginally broke on me (see opening post) it was caused by something else. I did 2 light scs on him during miasma and it still fired

We're clearing VD in 5 minutes using PLD GEO COR SMNx3. PLD voke/flash dullahan, smn's volt strike the unicorn, then bolster+ac/af 1 by 1 from behind on dullahan.

Ac/af with flaming or volt still?

volt strike the whole way

When you say 1 by 1, do you mean 1 use, wears off, another after him ect. or all at once.

cause 1 aoe will kill a burn if afac active

1 SMN AF/AC at a time because he turns and shield blocks after like 4-6 BP. Once the pet dies he turns back to the PLD. Just repeat and dies during 3rd AF/AC.

What bubbles and rolls were used?

Is the move that can do 5k-12k absorbed by shadows or is NIN suggested because they can Migawari it while going all out? That makes sense as its fastest possible without taking a break.

I'm in ls/groups with limited job spread, and if we can /nin that'd be fine. Post above mentioned something about DT making it super slow but I don't see how it'd be THAT much faster with other setups if the plan is to keep taking breaks just cuz you gotta feed tp w/ tier 1 nukes.

The horse seems like too much of a pushover, and there's no sign of what mechanics change between E-VD. I want to say the horse plays a part in the DT or extreme damage of the NM.

Probably geo-frailty since its volt strike.

I am wondering the same maxiel.

I think there is something about keeping the horse alive, and breaking its horn or something to kill boss easy. Maybe the difference between E-VD is amount of "X" it takes to break horn (no clue what X is lol)

If you want to do non range style have the dds coordinate weaponskill's after first message then after boil over have just 1 switch to a low level low damage weapon to make him tp.

Prob if you use your pld 1h in enmity set it wont turn to pets even with 99999

Trying to use the ranger method. Having trouble with the lance move. Fully deck PLD takes 7.5k. Anyway to mitigate that?

I did some D runs last night and never saw the lance hit remotely hard. Are you forcing Grace of Hera with Multiple debuffs?

Double post but different topic.

Did some D runs with WHM/COR(Rollsonly)/BRD/GEO/SAM/RUN last night. Fight is pretty easy but was just time consuming for us because our SAM D/Ced a few times. We just kill the pony boy and spam him with debuffs to force grace of hera often.

Main boss is just tank and spank until he starts charging. We got the "Miasma" message once and we just made light and he went straight to boiling again (don't hit). we would force TP with low damage stones. He ended with Somersault kick most of the time that did low damage.

Basically just pull off of him if you see the 2HR animation and read the message, if it mentions miasma make a light Skillchain and then stop until his next TP move otherwise just stop dpsing until his next dps move. He will use Bloodweapon at some point in the fight which uses the 2 HR animation too.

Overall easy fight tbh, you don't need to SMN cheese it.

Is it doable w/o AC because everytime I do ambuscade and I have to reset 2H in MMM it kills the gil/hour.

You're killing your gil/hour not resetting...

Prob you can keep your gil/hour ratio by using your 1h then selling stuffs to npc in the cooldown time.