Airship Guide By Paragon

de:Vorlage:Leitfaden

Introduction
This guide is what my CoP had written up for our Linkshell after we had beaten it. It has been posted on our website, and I've decided to use it as my very first guide addition. If just one person finds this helpful, I will consider this a success. This was created and members added in their own piece.

Jobs

 * NIN/WAR Keyser  roles: "Supertank" the mammets with Evasion+81 gear. Against the NMs, "more "standard" tanking gear was used.
 * MNK/NIN Khan  as a melee DD; /NIN is essential against the two NMs. Khan also was careful to avoid taking hate from our tank during the NM fights.
 * SAM/RNG Rdog  Rdog pulled individual mammets off Keyser during the "Supertank" strategy. Against the 2 NMs, /RNG allowed him to stay away and use ranged attacks and weapon skills to great effect.
 * RDM/SMN Jilliana  against the mammets: Jill acted primarily as a healer for Khan, Rdog, and Dari; vs the NMs: as any great RDM knows; the strength of a RDM is the versatility of the spell list. Secondary responsibility: back-up healer. Ultima fight: Was another primary healer (see WHM's description for more details). On the "bright side," this fight is far too hectic to have to worry about dispensing Refresh spells. Other mages will need to bring a supply of Yag Drinks.
 * BLM/WHM Darielle  Dari likes to blow stuff up. Which is good; because that was her primary role in this fight. Secondary responsibility: emergency healer.
 * WHM/SMN Dominick  vs. Mammets: Primarily kept our NIN alive; although RDM and WHM help each other out at this point. Important point: only a WHM will have access to the Erase and Stona spells; so you will not get a chance to rest against the NMs, EVER. Bring Hi Ethers, Pro-Ethers, Mulsum, Vile Elixers, and Yag Drinks as needed to keep yourself with the needed MP. For WHM gear list, see below section. WHM also acted as the time-keeper and "spotter" for this fight; yelling when someone (usually MNK) took hate away from the tank.

Overview
''NOTE: Each fight will begin once the party initiates it (either by sight aggro, attacks or Provoke, etc). after each fight; all surviving PT members will be restored to full (or weakened) max HP/MP. If possible, try to switch to max MP gear just before the NM dies. All mages should be prepared to act as supporting / emergency healers on short notice. Also: all DDs (melee, ranged, magic, etc) should be very careful not to pull hate from the main tank. One last thing: if you have to melee either of the NMs and you are not the tank; attack them from the sides or it'll get very nasty, very fast rearward direction AoE attacks are brutal.''


 * Mammets: we used the NIN "super-tank" strategy. NIN runs in and sight aggros all 5 mammets, with SAM pulling 1 mammet at a time off of NIN. As WHM, my primary responsibility was to keep Keyser alive; with a secondary responsibility to keep everyone else alive. RDM's role in this fight was the opposite of mine (heal others first, help cure NIN when needed). This fight is a just a warm-up for the upcoming NM fights, as difficult as this is to believe at first.
 * Omega: relatively straightforward NM fight; has AoE paralyze attack and AoE petrify attack (behind the NM) in addition to other moves; so I kept on the look-out to cancel those effects, as well. From my perspective, this fight wasn't nearly as bad as Ultima Weapon, even though Omega weapon has more HPs.
 * Ultima: this is an extremely annoying NM, from a WHM's perspective. One move does both Slow and Elegy on target(s). This move MUST be countered as soon as possible. Other moves cause different negative status effects; in descending order of priority: petrify move, silence move, parelyze move; then poison move and plague move have a low-priority. Ultima weapon hits harder than Omega weapo and its melee attacks can also cause paralysis (just more for the WHM to do, lol).

''CCB polymers: These items, although optional, are almost essential to success, against the two NMs. Start using these items at approximately 40% of the NM's health. and don't let them use their special moves, if at all possible.'

White Mage Notes
WHM/SMN gear, item list:
 * Light Staff
 * Dark Staff
 * Holy Ampula
 * AF1 Hat
 * Gold Hairpin
 * Holy Phial
 * Insomnia Earring
 * Antivenom Earring
 * Crow Jupon
 * AF1 Body
 * AF1 Hands
 * Electrum Ring x2
 * Aurora Mantle
 * Adept's Rope
 * AF Leggings
 * Custom Leggings
 * AF Boots

From the above: Crow Jupon (Enmity -8) is incredibly useful in this mission. The Custom leggings are Hume RSE gear, with +32 MP; 15 MP more than the WHM AF leggings. I also use equip changes in Cure Macros, and 2 Equip Change macros to switch between the "normal" and "resting" gear. Substitute gear that adds: max MP, enmity minus, and MND gear in decreasing order of importance. For example, Intensifying Cape is a huge upgrade over Aurora Mantle, and is available at a reasonable price on the AH (or for assault points).

Food and Drinks:
 * Rolanberry Pies (or Marron Glace)
 * 7-10 Yagudo Drinks.

Other Medicine:
 * CCB Polymer
 * Reraise Earring
 * 1-3 Vile Elixers
 * 1-3 Pro-Ether
 * 1-2 stacks of Mulsum and/or 2-4 Hi Ether

As the last mammet and Omega are about to die, try to equip any MP+ gear. Although this may not seem like much, it does save up to a minute (or more) resting time before the next fight.

Red Mage Notes
Gear (60 cap):
 * AF head, body, and gloves
 * RSE legs and boots
 * Staves (Light and Dark are the only ones absolutely necessary)
 * Holy Phial
 * Morion Tathlum
 * Antivenom Earring
 * Insomnia Earring
 * Ether Ring
 * Electrum Ring
 * Red Cape.

Food/Meds/items: Melon pie +1s are what I used, but you would be better off with marron glace, or rolanberry pies. CCB polymer is a must, so farm it or buy it. Pro-Ether (this item has a reuse timer, so you will not be able to use more than two in this fight), Super-Ethers, an X-potion or two to use on yourself and spare some mp when you get hit. Bring a RR gorget + reraiser potion. Use the gorget at the start of the fight or between fights if you have to. The beauty of this is that if you have to RR during a fight, you can pop the reraiser in about 5 seconds and don't have to equip an item and wait on a timer. Vile Elixirs are nice if you can afford them, but at this point you will be dropping a shitload of gil. Macro all meds/items.

Strategy: The main thing I had to do in this fight was heal. Make a /p cure III + IV macro with a gear change for your light staff. This will increase your speed and will prevent the whm from double healing. MP is your best friend here, and you need a lot of it. Sub smn absolutely if you can, and use your best mp gear. If you have less than 700 mp (remember this is 60 cap) you might struggle. Your enfeeblements should stick to Omega and Ultima np, but you will not have very much time to cast them at all, and you will never have any time to rest unless your PT wipes. Obviously keep SS/blink/phalanx up at all times b/c you will take hate so you need to be able to take a shot or two. If you can, refresh your mages before each battle starts, but you should not have to refresh them during a fight.

Mammets: Just heal. I think I had to heal all PT members at one time or another here. You should not have to use convert here, so save it for the big guys cause they will be a serious drain on your mp.

Omega: The biggest whore of the group imo. He gets progressively nastier as the fight goes on, and you will often find yourself having to panic cure people on their last limb. You will need to use your ethers plus convert in this fight. If you need to use chainspell to catch up on your heals/buffs/enfeeblements anytime in this fight or the next fight is cool. It is really just the melee/DD that need to save their 2-hour for the last fight. Before you start spamming the enfeebs make sure you can keep up with healing.

Ultima: Same as before but now you have to dispel a bunch. Ultima likes to spam his /ja that gives him protect, and you are already challenged to kill him fast. He also liked to resist Keyser so you need to try and help your ninja with enfeeblements. Curing here is also a full time job. Converting, and either a pro or super ether should give you enough mp to make it through this fight.

Black Mage Notes
Meds:
 * Yag Drinks, 4-5 since the rdm may be too busy to refresh you

Food:
 * Marron Glace or Rolanberry Pies (at least 2 or 3 in case of a wipe.)

Equipment: Max MP equipment. I used all of my AF1 gear and that worked fine. If you have anything that gives higher MP use it. Don't worry too much about defense because if you're getting attacked, chances are the tank is down and you're doomed anyway.

Mammets: As each mammet is pulled off, use tier 2 and 3 spells for damage as tier 4 will get you immediate hate. Backup cure if needed. Always pay attention to the Nin HP. Don't use aga's (except on the last one if you want). Remember you're MP will be fully recharged in between battles so you can let it fly on the last few mammets if you have enough MP left.

Omega/Ultima: Stand with the mages away from the tank. Don't get close as the AOE attacks will wipe you quickly. Wait for tank to establish hate. If needed throw in a few low level cures at first. Get DoT spells on and try to keep them on. The rdm may DoT so try not to duplicate effort and waste MP. Discuss this ahead of time and decide before you start. If tank goes down DoT right away since this means a wipe. Use Tier 2 and 3 nukes to start to keep hate down. You don't want to pull hate from the tank. Bind does work so once Omega/Ultima start to use their special moves which result in hate reset this can help keep them from attacking everyone and give the tank a chance to reestablish control. Once HP is down to 10% consider an ES/Burst or ES/Flare or ES/Freeze. This will do about 7-8% HP damage and with long cast time the melee should do the other 2-3% before the spell is cast.

Ninja Notes
Meds:
 * Blind Potions (2 per attempt will be fine)
 * Hi-potions (buy a Hi-Potion Tank, I'd recommend having 6-8 Hi-Potions ready in your inventory to use)
 * Squid Sushi(+1) (2-3 per attempt, you'll want the accuracy and the extra AGI to boost your evasion cap)

Equipment: Basically, you want to pile on as much Evasion and AGI as you can, dont worry about dealing melee damage, thats what you have DDs for.
 * Nikkariaoe (spell interruption rate -25% is exceedingly useful)
 * Yoto(+1) (x2 if you don't have a Nikk)
 * Earth Staff (Mammot fight only, you should have enough EVA from gear already, the damage -20% on the Earth Staff is quite valuable, as -ga's from the mammots in BLM mode will strip shadows very fast and you will be taking many hits)
 * Scorpion Harness
 * Emperors Hairpin
 * Bat Earrings x2 (Mammot fight only)
 * Elusive Earrings x2 (or Dodge Earrings)
 * AGI rings if you can (to boost evasion cap), if not then STR or DEX is fine
 * The rest was all gear with Evasion or AGI

Mammots: Supertank with your Earth Staff and Bat Earrings on. Use a Blind Potion, then run in and sight aggro the Mammots, stand in the far left corner. make sure you are hasted also, you will need those Utsu timers as short as possible. All you are doing during this fight is recasting Utsu asap when it is down. When a Mammot switched to BLM, they WILL -ga you, it sucks, but you have to deal with it. DO NOT use Yellow Liquid on the Mammots you are tanking, you will lose the sight lock on that Mammot and it will head right for your healer the next cure you get. There will be times when you have a BLM Mammot that you will be -ga'd, lose shadows, and your closest Utsusemi will be 10 seconds or more. Let your healer know this so they are prepared, tell them ahead of time that when you say "10", that means you have no shadows up and closest timer is at 10 seconds. This is simple, and effective. Watch for the Blind Potion to wear off, use the second one you brought. The melees will be picking them off you one at a time. Once you have 2 Mammots left on you, you can switch to your katanas and start to melee one of them. In theory, you can melee one of them from the get-go also, in hindsight I don't see why you couldn't. You'd just need to keep your hate level up on the one you are fighting. Voking, meleeing, and WS'ing should take care of this. Just make sure you don't use ANY Ninjutsu on any Mammot you are not actively fighting, you will lose sight aggro status with it like I mentioned with the Yellow liquids.

Omega: Personally, as the NIN I found Omega easier than Ultima. You will be straight tanking Omega in the same back left corner as you did with the Mammots. Swap those Bat Earrings out for your Elusive or Dodge Earrings, you should have your katanas out already. You'll be relying on melee, WS, and Ninjutsu for keeping hate here. A struggle, yes, but any NIN60+ should be used to this by now. I can't remember Omega resisting my Ninjutsu debuffs even a single time. Keep Kurayami, Hojo, Jubaku, and Dokumori up AT ALL TIMES. If you don't already, I suggest filtering as much chat out as possible, especially party damage, so that you can see when your debuffs wear off. All in all, this fight isn't really anything new for a NIN tank. Just do your NIN thing, keep shadows and debuffs up, WS as soon as you hit 100 TP, voke every 30 seconds, and assuming you have a capable party behind you, you'll be fine.

Ultima: This is go-time for the NIN tank. Same strategy as Omega, except now your Ninjutsu debuffs will be resisted often, and you now have a very nasty double slow effect to deal with. When you start fight, voke right off the bat and pull him over to the same corner again. Cast your debuffs, and let your RDM know what didn't land so that they can try to land it, it is very important that Ultima has every debuff possible on him. You will have a bit harder time keeping hate on you with Ultima. I suggest casting the Ni debuffs (Hojo and Kurayami) whenever their timers are up, purely for the hate generation, as little as it is. I don't remember the move name, but Ultima can nail you with both Slow and Elegy (Bard Slow song) at once, putting your Utsusemi: Ni timer at well over a minute. Don't be ashamed, I cried inside too when I saw my timer. You need to let your WHM now asap when this happens so that they can remove the effects.

Biggest thing I can tell you is communication is key here. Being a NIN60+ everything I wrote you should already know by now. BUT, let your WHM know whats going on. When you are Paralyzed, tell them. I don't care how good your WHM is, you do not have any room for error here.