User:Blendercat/Sandbox

Leviathan Level 20 Mini Avatar Fight Guide:

Even though this is a guide, please don't edit or move it! I'm still working on it!

=Intro=


 * I found that when I did my mini fight, the common strategy that most guides cover (Astral Flow and 3 Searing Lights to kill the avatar) didn’t work at all for me.


 * So I had to come up with something a little different, and this guide is just a walkthrough of the things I learned during the fights, and how I was able to beat it. It took me 4 attempts to win. Hopefully this will help anyone else who needs a few more ideas on how to beat the mini fights. I’m assuming here that anyone reading this is already familiar with the basics of the minis and the common 3 SL strategy.


 * I only needed to fight Leviathan because I got 5/6 avatars from the prime fights. But for my last avatar, I wanted to do the mini just for the experience.


 * Altogether I ended up spending about 10-15k per fight, for a total of around 50k. Any prices listed are all for Ragnarok server, November-December 07.

My equipment
Everything listed below I already had from leveling White Mage, unless noted below.


 * Weapon: Hermit's Wand
 * Head: Compound Eye Circlet. I did the quest Star Struck to obtain this.
 * Body: Trader's Saio
 * Neck: Bloodbead Amulet. I already had this for melee jobs.
 * Waist: Heko Obi +1. I bought this on the AH for either 2 or 3k.
 * Hands: Carbuncle Mitts. and Scentless Armlets See Attempts section for how I used them.
 * Legs: Black Slacks
 * Feet: Mage's Sandals
 * Rings: Shell Ring, Bomb Ring. I camped the Bomb King for the ring. Shell Ring I bought for 500 gil.
 * Earrings: Shield Earring. I had one from opening a treasure chest in Giddeus, I bought a second one for 1000.
 * Back: Cotton Cape

Items
Each fight I brought the following items. In some cases it was overkill and I ended up with extras, in other cases I used up all of items during the fight.


 * 3-4 Yagudo Drinks These went for about 1400 each on average. As a backup in my later attempts, I also bought along some Pineapple Juices for emergencies, because my cooking was high enough to make those at least. I think I only used one though.
 * 4-6 Hi-Potions These were about 700 each on average. Lowest I paid was 500 at one point.
 * 2-3 Ethers These were the most expensive, at about 2000 each (in one case, there weren’t enough Ethers on the AH, so I spent 800 and bought a Hi-Ether and planned to use it only in emergency. I think it’s still sitting in my Mog House).
 * 1 Boiled Crab I spent 4k to buy 2 of them. Then I checked the recipe and realized my cooking skill was high enough to make them myself. Whoops. I made my own for the last two attempts.

Fight conditions

 * Every time I did the fight, I went on Leviathan’s weak day, Lightningsday.
 * My summoning skill (which caps at 63 for a level 20 smn) was only 59 each time. I didn’t bother raising it between attempts.
 * Each time, I went as /whm for Barwatera, Dia, and Banish. If it took me more than 4 attempts I was going to try out /nin for dual wielding Hermit’s Wands, but I felt whm would be more useful.
 * In all four fights I was only interrupted twice, so I don’t feel it would have made much of a difference.
 * To concentrate, I set my status to /away, /anon, and unequipped my LS. Also, the BCNM music makes me nervous, so each time I either lowered the volume or turned it off completely.

=The Fights=

Here is a play by play of sorts of how each attempt went, what I did, and what I learned from it.

Attempt 1
Outside buffs: None. For my first attempt, while I wasn’t expecting to win on the first try, I really had no idea what I was getting into. I read every guide I could find, and still was totally thrown off. Reading something and then actually doing it are two very different things.


 * So I enter into the fight. Cast Protect on myself (no Shell), Aquaveil, Barwatera. Ate my Boiled Crab. Run up towards Leviathan, summon Carbuncle, drink Yag drink, and Assault Leviathan. I Astral Flow right away, and immediately do a Searing Light. My problem was that Leviathan decided to do a Tail Whip at the same time, and Carby’s health was low from it. Carby promptly dies BEFORE my SL could hurt him. Zero damage. I am left with zero MP. So now, not only do I have to wait for the Recast timer to end before I can try again, I have a very angry Prime heading straight towards me.


 * Basically, I panic here. I recast Carby successfully, and run away. Leviathan still chases me. I keep running. Finally Carby manages to get hate and I can use a badly needed Hi-Pot. Whoops, now I have hate again. I really didn’t anticipate getting (and keeping) so much hate from Leviathan. I also keep forgetting to watch Carby’s health bar and don’t notice he’s dead, leading to a nice pummeling of my health and a panic filled recasting. Carby dies pretty quickly so I spend a lot of time recasting and running away. Finally I have full-ish health and around 40 mp so I get close to Leviathan and do a second SL. This one actually lands for full damage, 210. Yay!


 * My excitement is short lived, because I spent so much time running from Leviathan that I wasn’t paying attention to the SL recast timers, and Astral Flow wears off. As does the Yag drink. So I have very little MP, no more Searing Lights available, and a Prime chasing me with 2/3 health. Obviously the rest of the fight was no contest, and Leviathan basically chased me around until I was dead. At first, as I ran for my life, I planned to try to spam hi-pots and ethers to stay alive, but realized I had no chance of winning either way without a lot more MP or a SL. So I stopped running, died, and HP’d back to Norg. What a super fun experience! I realized upon arriving in Norg that in my panic I didn’t use a single ether. I used all of my hi-pots and 2 yag drinks though.

Attempt 2
Outside buffs: Got Protect 1 and Shell 1 in Norg from my boyfriend, before warping to the crystal. I was a tiny bit calmer the second time. I knew to watch Carby’s health bar over mine, and to pay attention to the SL recast timer to try to get more than one SL off. Ha. ha.


 * I go in, do all my buffs, blah blah blah. I Assault with Carby, waiting for Leviathan to Tail Whip, which sure enough he does right away. I stand back, let Carby die, then recast. With Carby now at full health, I AF and then SL. It lands for full damage of 210. All right! I run away. Use my hi-pot. Carby dies so I recast, then run away from Leviathan. I remember to use my ether. I get my second SL in for full damage of 210.


 * But as I’m waiting for the recast to be up, Astral Flow wears. Gee, fantastic! At least this time Leviathan’s health is very low. I look at his HP bar and I’m guessing it’s at maybe 5% so he’s almost dead. I use another yag drink once the refresh wears and another ether. I spam hi-pots and ethers and while keeping Carby out and casting Banish on him. I soon run out of both Hi-pots and ethers. My HP bar is red and I have maybe 30 mp, but his health at this point is closer to 1% or so. I start casting a Banish, but as it’s casting, Leviathan hits me, and I die. I realized as I was casting that it would have made more sense to cast Dia first, then Banish, in the hopes of getting some form of DoT in. I HP back to Norg. I used everything I had brought with me, so I’m completely out of items for another fight.

Attempt 3
Outside buffs: Protect 2 and Shell 2 from a 75 WHM friend. Went in calmer than before and feeling full of hatred for Leviathan and I just wanted him dead.


 * I go in, buff up, and let Carby melee while I wait for Leviathan to Tail Whip. I recast once Carby is dead, and then AF and SL for full damage of 210. Run away. I get a second SL for full damage of 210. Again, as with all previous attempts, I can’t quite get the hang of the timing for the SL recast timer, and AF wears off while I am waiting for the SL recast to be up. Spammed Yagudo drinks, Hi-pots and Ethers in order to Dia and Banish him. Once again, although I got him down to 1-2% or so, it wasn’t enough and I eventually run out and die.

Attempt 4
This time, I knew I needed a different strategy so I spent a lot of time thinking of new things to try before I went in. My single largest problem was the inability to get 3 SL’s off before AF wore off, so I decided to simply not work against my forgetfulness of the SL timers. I was spending so much time watching Carby’s HP or recasting or running away that it became too many things to keep track of. I decided to try to automate the process as much as I could. I added two lines to my SL macro: “/wait 4” followed by “/Recast “Searing Light” ”. I figured that seeing the time left on my log would force me to look out for it. Then, I added a separate macro right next to it that was just “/recast “Searing Light” ”. I figured that way, inbetween recasting Carby or Hi-Pots I could just hit the macro to know how soon I could run back to Leviathan to SL.

Secondly, I was surprised to see how much damage 2 SL’s alone could do. Each time I got 2 to go off, Leviathan was almost dead by the end. I figured, since each time I had him to less than 10% by the end, I would just take that 10% off in the beginning of the fight, before using AF, where I’d still have the MP at that point to do so. Then, if I did get a third SL in, it’d be overkill, but at least that way I’d win and not see all those expensive items going to waste. This is where my Carby mitts came in. For each fight I had planned on using them at the beginning, where the –perp cost would help, then switching to Scentless Armlets after my Astral Flow for + evasion. During my panic, I naturally forgot to do so during every fight. My plan was to keep the mitts equipped for a lower Carby perp cost, then let him melee for awhile, and THEN do AF and SL. Before I did the fight, I found and watched a wonderful video on YouTube of someone doing exactly this strategy of kiting the prime then using SL twice. This helped a lot. (I'll find a link to this video and add it at some point.)

Outside buffs: Protect 2 and Shell 2 from a random kind WHM passing by who saw me standing in front of Verctissa in Norg.


 * So I get all of my items together and go into the fight. I buff up, use a Yagudo drink, and let Carby melee. I just leisurely stand back while Carby fights, and recast when needed. I go through 6 Carby’s this way. When Leviathan is down to about 85%, I resummon a new Carby and finally use AF and my first SL. It lands for a partial resist of 104 damage. Crap. I recast, use Hi-Pot, check my timer, use Refresh because the first one had run out, check timer again and realize I’m close to being able to use it. By this point my MP is 45 so I don’t bother with an ether. SL lands for full damage of 210. Leviathan’s health is very low by now. I use my Hi-Pot and keep checking my timer. I have 8 seconds left and then AF wears off. So I use another Yag drink, then cast Dia and Banish. I run away to a safe distance because Carby is about to die. I recast, then run over and cast Dia again. Then I cast Banish once more and see the following wonderful message: “Leviathan takes 23 points of damage. Blendercat defeats Leviathan Prime.”


 * My clear time was 9 min and 42 seconds. Not exactly setting any records but I don’t really care. All that matters is I won before the 15 min time limit was up. Total items I used for the final fight were 1 boiled crab, 2 Hi-Pots, and 3 Yagudo drinks. I somehow managed to use 0 ethers.

=Summary=


 * I think if I had either gotten 3 SL’s in, or not had a partial resist during my final attempt, this would have been a piece of cake.


 * Side note though, a Summoner can solo the BCNM Shooting Fish using Ramuh and Astral Flow. Doing this, I finally figured out how to get three attacks in before AF wore off, by spamming Recast macros similar to the ones I used in my final Leviathan attempt. I’m so comfortable with it now, I really am tempted to find a way to try the mini’s again. If it weren’t for the expenses of the items, I’d do them again just to try to get the timing down. Well, I can always level smn to 20 on a mule, and my boyfriend will need the avatars if he levels SMN, so maybe someday... haha.
 * I have to say, of all the things I’ve done so far in FFXI, I am most proud of beating this fight. :D It was something I did by myself, without needing higher level people to do it for me, and it required strategy and to actually plan out how I would win. It was frustrating to lose when I was so close to winning (in the second and third attempts at least) but it made it so much more meaningful when I actually won.