Talk:Aht Urhgan Mission 42: Path of Darkness

Did this earlier with 5 people. Setup was NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, BLU/NIN, BLU/NIN, RDM/BLM. What we did was buffed up, rested back MP, then ran in. She summoned the gears, and both NINs and BLUs each grabbed a gear. RDM used Elemental Seal+Sleep II on Amnaf, which stuck fine. One BLU (myself) died before gears were killed, due to AoE spam, but the remaining members got the gears killed and took Amnaf down far enough that she warped to the next room (I think one of the NINs died to Amnaf at some point too, and reraised). RDM raised me, and we rested off our weakness then went to the next room.

We picked off gears as fast as we could again, though this time the other BLU died in the process. We got the gears down without any further problems, then went to work on Amnaf. We got her to warp again without any problems, and got the BLU up. Rested off weakness again; when it wore and we finished healing up, we had about 10 minutes left. We ran in and attacked the Soulflayer.

I used a Diffusion+Exuviation at one point to erase the wicked Bio effect from Tribulation (and the other BLU had used Diamondhide before we attacked). Future Tribulations, the other BLU and I were only able to Exuviation ourselves (he didn't have Diffusion). It wasn't that hard really, except for the fact that she put up Ice Spikes at the start of the fight, and we couldn't get it dispelled (I suspect Finale or Blank Gaze would've worked for dispelling it, though). The paralyze from the Ice Spikes messed us up a bit. It even ate a shihei toolbag of mine. <.<; Anyway, she will cast any black magic spells, it looks like. We got hit with Thundaga III at one point (spells are stunnable, but our stun was coming from Head Butt, so sometimes we missed or the stun part just didn't go off), which hurt pretty bad, but didn't quite kill anyone. It also cast Poisonga II, which actually ended up helping us, because it cast Sleepga II a little bit later. Once it got low, we let loose and went all out to take her down. I used Azure Lore and spammed my dmg spells in quick succession, which took off a decent chunk of her HP, and we got her killed with under 5 minutes left.

Some things to note: Amnaf only seems to cast Tail Slap and Hysteric Barrage, and no other blue magic. She also uses sword WSs; the only 2 we saw were Seraph Blade and Circle Blade (used both several times, though Seraph Blade was more common). Naja deals pretty decent melee damage, though she only uses one WS from what we saw (Skullbreaker, renamed to Peacebreaker). I was very disappointed in that regard. :( She took hits about as well as I did as a BLU75/NIN37, which is to say, not that well. When she got hit, she usually took 150+ damage per hit. She doesn't have much HP either, so have a healer keep an eye on her. One odd thing to note though was that during the Soulflayer fight, she didn't seem to get hit with AoE spells while meleeing it, but did take damage from AoE DoT (Tribulation's Bio effect, and possibly Poison II?). The gears are strong, but have very little HP. Disseverment->Hysteric Barrage->Frenetic Rip with the random melee swings between usually was enough to kill a gear. The gears in the 2nd stage seemed to have a bit more HP, but not by that much.

Suggestions I'd make for this fight: a PLD tank would probably be nicer for the gears and Amnaf, so long as you have a healer. The gears like to do an AoE move that strips shadows and does around 200-400 damage, and I think it inflicts Weight. Both the gears and Amnaf seemed to hit about as hard as exp mobs, so I doubt a PLD would have any problems tanking them. Melees will probably want to bring Eye Drops for the Blind from Tribulation. None of the mobs seemed overly evasive, so meat would probably also be a good idea (especially since Amnaf and the soulflayer seem to have pretty high defense). --Kyrial 01:13, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Did this with SMN/WHM, BLU/NIN, BLM/WHM, BLM/RDM, BLM/RDM, BLM/RDM We tried other setups before before finding this one. With a melee-heavy setup, Naja died on the first part. With RDM+5BLM, we timed out on the third part, nukes just don't do enough on the Soulflayer, although he was pretty low on HP and we wasted time on the first 2 parts on that run.

A note on Naja : don't expect Prishe or Selh'teus, she's more of a liability you have to keep alive, think Aijudo-Marijudo from the Windurst rank10 fight with a bit more HP. She used Hexa Strike.

Strategy :

Part 1 : - Buff up (Stoneskin, Blink,... usual stuff). - BLU runs in to aggro Amnaf, in order to spawn Gears. - BLMs immediatly cast ThundagaIII. This is why it's important for the BLU to aggro before cast, otherwise the Gears spawn too late. - BLMs cast BlizzagaIII immediatly after ThundagaIII. - Amnaf teleports, Gears die, rest, buff. The Gears don't despawn when Amnaf teleports, they have to be killed.

Part 2 :

Repeated part 1, it's exactly the same.

Part 3 :

Resistances : like all Soulflayers, Amnaf is resistant to both melee and magic damage. She's also very resistant to Dark, Sleeping her is extremely hard if not impossible and Drain/Aspir returned low HP/MP, to the point they weren't worth casting.

- Opened with a volley of nukes. - Gravity, BioII, Burn, Shock and Choke were kept up. We never had trouble landing Gravity. - Stunned when he cast a nasty nuke. - Predator Claws was our main source of damage, although ES nukes can be decent. - The BLU semi-tanked, the rest of the fight Amnaf was Gravity-kited. - BLMs focused on Stun, Curing the BLU and keeping DoT and Gravity up, with occasional nukes. - Predator Claws finished her with 10 minutes left.--AshmadaLakshmi 06:23, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Third Room Soulflayer fight
just did this with rdm, rdm, blm, nin, blu, drk. was fairly straightforward, similar to fighting an actualy soulflayer just with higher defense and more hp. the 100% physical damage resistance thing i read on here earlier was wrong, it's just very high defense so 1h weapons hit mostly for 0 similar to any HNM.--Jerm 14:43, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Second Room
Another strategy for this room involves a different tactic used by a party in the Unicorn Server.

When doing the strategy above, my party was consistently slain when our mages kept trying to sleep the Imperial Gears. NOTE: I would not suggest doing this on the 1st OR 2nd room. Due to the Blue Mage's convenient Flee effect, Naja's first target more often than not is the blue mage forcing your party's strategy to immediately change if they can't put the gears to sleep.

''Note Again: The gears cannot be slept easily. I would not recommend this as a tactic unless you have a Red Mage or Black Mage with a very high merited or equipment enhanced skill! I have not yet seen what a Bard can do in this instance. More information would be greatly appreciated.''

Here is how we easily beat the second room:

Party Setup

PLD/WAR (Saviour)

SAM/WAR (Kouru)

WAR/NIN (Raagnar)

THF/NIN (Ciaphas)

RDM/BLM (Silentshadow)

RDM/BLM (I'm so sorry... I'll edit this as soon as I can remember your name!! lol >.<)

The thief (or another designated member) will be responsible for kiting the gears. Now that the first room is clear, this can be done easily. Ensure the thief has Utsusemi and Flee ready as they will be needed.

Have the thief pull, Flee, and run. Meanwhile, your tank will immediately provoke the Blue Mage. This is essential, as Naja will attack the closest mob to her, as you must ensure that it is the Blue Mage.

Enjoy your "Tank and Spank" as your heavy DD in the party give the Blue Mage a big dose of fun. As she reaches 30% or so, have your kiter (ours was a THF) run back and have one of the DD (Samurai with Seigan/Third Eye or anyone with Nin sub is ideal for this) grab one of the gears off of the kiter and begin to kill it as the Thief continues his/her kiting route into the other side of the room. Given the damage capabilities of your party's DD, they should have it dead by the time your thief makes 1 pass around the room. Saving TP for the gears when the Blue Mage is about to warp is recommended.

''NOTE: It is possible for the gears to slap the kiter with their Gravity AOE attack as the THF makes their pass. The party will have to improvise if this is to happen. The tank and both DD should yank 2-3 mobs off of your kiter to prevent any un-needed deaths.''

Continue doing this until the gears are killed. If you run into trouble, have your THF use his/her Perfect Dodge and stand away from the party as your DD quickly dispatch the Imperial Gears one at a time. Your thief will need to plan his/her kiting route based on the damage capabilities of your party. For example: A shorter route for a more damage intensive party or a longer route for a less damage intensive party.

Strat by: Kouru, Raagnar, Ciaphas --Kouru 11:32, 30 August 2007 (CDT)