Talk:Darkness Descends

So we can get some more information flowing in here, we won this fight last night on Lakshmi with a party of 6: Blm Blm Rdm Whm Mnk Sam (myself). Lilisette will charge the NMs on her own after a period of time (3-5 mins). Our strategy was to let Lilisette do the work (similar to the Cait Sith Ceithir mission) and stun Aquila's spells - in addition to keeping Lilisette safe, this had the added effect of letting Haudrale get Lili's "hate", so he would be the first she took down. With Aquila being stunned/kited/otherwise distracted, Lilisette took Haudrale down quite easily with cures. Afterwards it got sticky due to some of Aquila's nukes getting through, but we won with mine and the Mnk's 2hrs. Aquila himself has a TP move which appears to be like a ranged attack Altair Bullet which was AOE, possibly target-centric, it also had knockback. In addition, at some points he would have an effect similar to Transmogrification (Mammet move) - that is, damage would heal him. I did not manage to see what sparked this, and Lilisette herself actually stopped attacking until the effect wore. Hopefully this helps, and someone else can utilize this information. --Aryujin 14:04, March 24, 2010 (UTC), Lakshmi


 * Whm Whm Whm Blm Cor Blu both Blu and Blm shared stun duty, Whm spam Cure III, Cor put up magus roll and evokers roll


 * Just did this with WHM/BLM, WHM/SCH, RDM/WHM, RDM/WHM, RDM/DRK, BLM/RDM. At first I was worried we'd lose, as Lilisette seemed to be taking too much damage and not taking down Haudrale quick enough. I was burning through MP like crazy. We managed fine, though. Me and the other WHM both used Devotion on each other at some point, and were able to rest a couple times during the fight while the RDMs kept Lilisette alive. The RDM/DRK and BLM/RDM were stunning Aquila and kiting him until Haudrale died, and continued kiting him for awhile afterwords, until Lilisette could get hate. It went smoothly for awhile after that, but when Aquila got down to maybe 30% or so, I went to rest, and Aquila randomly ran up to me and kept hitting me, and I died. He went for one of the other mages once he killed me, but didn't kill them. I reraised and ran up the stairs to hide and rest until I had enough MP to recast Reraise, then rested again til I had around 200ish MP. There was one more death before the battle ended, as Aquila actually cast Death on someone (he was around 10-15% at that point). Really, aside from the two deaths near the end, it went quite smoothly. Just make sure you have Elshimo Pachira Fruits or Poison Potions, as Aquila does regularly cast Sleepga II, and with him being kited, anyone can get hit by it. And watch your Reraise, as he does cast Dispelga regularly, too. Really, the hard part was getting to Throne Room (S) with a PT of 2 WHMs, 3 RDMs, and a BLM, due to all the doors you have to open along the way, and the VT-IT mobs that hang around said doors. :P --Kyrie 09:42, March 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought Reraise wasn't supposed to be Dispelled anymore. Is this an exception to the rule?  Did your Reraise actually get Dispelled? Tekie1016 01:38, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * Won with whm\smnx2, whm\sch, and whm\drk(lol). Two WHMs stood to the North and South and cured Lilisette and we basically took turns like that. It was a little bit rough especially when Aquila reset hate and ran around using -GA's on us. Having \SCH is recommended due to the reduced MP cost.  The fight was rough but I think this strategy can work. \DRK isn't recommended because using Stun generates a bit of hate and can get messy for the poor WHM. go whm force!


 * Won with SCH SCH RDM COR PLD. You MUST have someone distracting Aquila.  Lilisette cannot hold the hate of the two fomors and if Aquila turns his attentions to the squishier members of the party it's game over.  PLD ran in, Voke + Flash Aquila and ran to the very top.  RDM followed to keep him healed.  We had no stunner.  MP was tough; SCH recommended to use Penury instead of Rapture.  Once Haudrale died it was a breeze to manage.  So, in the beginning we had SCH SCH COR on Haudrale/Lilisette and PLD RDM on Aquila.  Recommended the RDM run up with the PLD and suck up the AOE spells (if no stunner) instead of taking dmg from the fomors' AOE abilities, since Aquila won't move into melee range and Lilisette controls Haudrale's movement. Tekie1016 01:56, March 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * Won with SCH/RDM WHM/SCH RDM/DRK x2 BRD/WHM and SMN/WHM. SCH and WHM kept npc and everyone else alive. Both the rdm/drk were on aga stun duty. brd ballad and threw a few cures. SMN constantly used earthenward on npc and party. Because smn is able to do both magical and physical damage she was able to damage both the enemies without worrying about healing them. NPC finished off the elvaan pretty fast but the hume took a while longer since it was harder for her to keep hate on him since we had to stun his aga's. There were a few deaths but since most the party had RR and anyone could raise and cure it was nothing we couldn't handle. When Hume got low on health about 15% left he started casting the spell death. SCH and both the RDMs used their 2hrs to finish him off with nukes. Fight took 21 min total long but not too difficult.  -Squallviii Ragnarok March 29th, 2010


 * Just some observations: Both enemies in this BC will heavily resist Zantetsuken (Blood Pact). Lilisette is affected by Perfect Defense (Blood Pact). Both enemies resist Head Butt and hit like trucks. That is all. --Eremes 06:57, March 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * Won with Trio: SMN/WHM, WHM/DRK, RDM/DRK. (Done with small problems) Lilisette Tanking both NPC. SMN curing Lilisette all the time. RDM and WHM curing Lilisette and Stunning in Stun order the BLM NPC's Nukes. (Like AGAIII and TierIV spells). When Lilisette done with Elvaan NPC, the fight getting easier. Try let Lilisette get hate of the Hume NPC. Cure Lilisette full, and keep Stun order until the end of the Fight. MP Food, and Vile Elixir for MP is recommended. RR Item is a must! If you die just RR and get RR up again asap, its still not a problem to win this fight! --Toby, Caitsith - 3. April 2010 - 22:30 GMT+2

Removing the "frontal" comment about Savage Swordhand. Haudrale killed 3 of my party members who were standing behind him with this, while targeted on Lilisette. It's not frontal. --31415 04:33, April 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Won with SMN/WHM, DRK/WHM, RDM/DRK, WHM/SCH, and WHM/SCH --Tsuna-dono 03:27, April 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Won with WHM/SCH, WHM/BLM (I think), COR/NIN, THF/NIN, SAM/NIN and BLM/WHM (me), although, uh, I wouldn't actually recommend the setup unless you're lunatics. THF and BLM ran to the head of the stairs and tried to distract Aquila with shiny things like Stun, while the others worked Haudrale down. If two people are positioned on the stairs at opposite ends of the platform at the top, a -ga 3 spell will only hit one of them! Aquila casts much too quickly for a BLM to solo stun effectively, unfortunately; after a few rounds of -enspell -> Stun -> -enspell -> -ga3, the THF and I went down, but (on our fifth attempt) at this point Haudrale was almost toast, and everyone else had managed to stay alive to defeat Aquila. Still came -really- close with a -ga 3 that Aquila managed to get off, and it came down to Lilisette and the WHMs. I wouldn't recommend using this setup (at the very least, another Stun or another WHM would have made it a lot more foolproof, or the THF on NIN, but we didn't want to do the climb again), but it's notable that with enough determination and control over battlefield positioning you -can- win this fight with a suboptimal setup. Lilisette is your best friend here. Teakwood 09:57, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

Did this with WHM/BLM, BRD/WHM, BLU/WHM and RDM/DRK. BRD double marched the RDM to maintain a good recast on stunning whatever -gas RDM could and used ballad on WHM and BLU. WHM focused on buffing, Cure V'ing and hasting Lilisette. Be mindful of your distance within -gas, watch hate reset + paralyze AoE and keep Lilisette alive. TecloIfrit 02:51, April 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * Did this WHM/SCH, WHM/DRK, RDM/DRK and RDM/WHM...we died a few times, but were able to rr up and keep Lilisette alive. We were really close to losing but one last Cure V from the WHM/DRK, then WHM/DRK was killed and the only living person the WHM/SCH who didn't have anymore MP we relied on Lilisette to finish which she did. Lilisette was able to finally kill Aquila. I recommend another mage or so for curing.

We had the 2 rdm/whm focus healing on Lilisette, while I kept the BLM NM (Aquila) Busy as Rdm/drk. Using stuns for T3 Aga's n such. Went fairly smoothly, but this strat works a lot better with 2 stunners. Took 15mins 20 secs.
 * We did this as Rdm/whm x2 Rdm/drk and a sam/nin


 * Just won this on 2nd attempt with WHM/SCH, SMN/WHM, BLM/WHM, RDM/BLM, PLD/WHM. Basic strategy was the one written on main page, to keep Lili attacking Haudrale, while holding Aquila away. No 2h had been used. Died a couple of times, but timed reraise and cure spam on Lili was the key, after weaken timers prevented from stunning accordingly.


 * Won with WHM x2, SMN/WHM x2 and RDM/DRK x2. We had tried several times previously before inviting a 6th member and Lilisette appeared to "Rage" when her life dropped down to around 30% every time, I even went in solo (four times!) waiting my pt and she raged at 30% and she was able to take Haudrale down to 11% before I got sleepga'd and let her die. Our strategy was as follows: Let lili aggro the bosses, dont cure her til her life drops to 30% or when she rages, unfortunately this time she decided not to rage! but we still managed to win ok. It helps to bring something to prevent sleep and it may help if all mages are spread out to prevent everyone dieing to AOEs. Us RDM/DRKs took Aquila and dragged him to the area with the stairs where we held his attention and stun'd his damage dealing magics with a stun rotation while the WHMs kept Lili cured. 2 stunners to preoccupy Aquila will really make your life easier while Lili is killing Haudrale. The SMNs casted buffs on lili and did some BP:rages. It was really smooth until Aquilas life got around 35%ish, he starts resetting hate and killing squishy people. We kept his -gas stunned as best we could and a SMN used Alexanders 2hour and as we were about to die Lili "raged" and killed him.


 * SMN/WHM, BRD/WHM, PLD/RDM, BLU/NIN, WHM/SCHx2 cleared with minor difficulties (dry run, no food etc...). The BLU and PLD can hold Aquila relatively easily, focusing entirely on Magic Defense, Self-Curing and Stun. Shockingly, with +20 Skill from gear, capped Skill/Accuracy Merits, and +20 Magic Accuracy from Dual Wielding Soulsabers, Aquila rarely resisted Head Butt, making it ideal for this fight. In this scenario, we had the PLD/RDM in full MDB/MDT gear stand as far away from everyone else as possible to soak up the nukes that the BLU couldn't Stun (due to lack of accuracy food and some bad luck with Savage Swordhand). The BLU was also using Saline Coat and the Magic Defense Bonus trait just to be safe. If your BRD can keep the PLD refreshed, you can do this indefinitely. The WHMs of course kept Lilisette buffed and healed, while the SMN assisted with some Blood Pacts and heals/raises where ever needed. Once Haudrale goes down, the fight becomes a lot easier, but still keep an eye out for -gas. A bunch of yellow-HP or weakened mages will still get one-shotted by Aquila, so stay back and keep stun up if possible, even during his physical absorption shield. Also, beware of Sleepga II! This can really mess things up if you get too many people caught up in it. Good luck! --Eremes 04:58, May 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * WHM/SCH x2 RDM/DRK x2 PLD/NIN BlU/WHM Just have PLD and BlU and 2 RDM keep the BLM stunned and busy while Lili takes down Haudrale. One death and we recovered the PLD died. Was fairly easy to maybe -1 decent challenge.

Won this fight as 4! Pld/nin, Rdm/drk x 2, Whm/sch. Pld ran to the top of the alter and was shadowed by 1 Rdm/Nin. Pld Kept hate with flash only, while the 2 Rdm/drk stunned Aquila's Ga-Spells out of its range. Haudrale droped dead after 7 min or so, 3 mages worked together after Whm/sch ran out of mp. This Strategy was attempted first by 5 of us, 1 additional Rdm/whm. So it is my conclusion that the fight rests on stunning the Ga-spells, Lilisette is not hard to cure with 1 mob to worry about. Do know this strategy took 4-5 attempts... but if you get those stuns off it should take you only 1-2 attempts. Good Luck ^^