Strategy?[]
Hey so does anyone have a strategy or tips or something they can add to this page? I'm coming up on this quest, and I'm seeing nothing but people saying "oh wow! this battlefield is hard!" and the like, but not anything about it. Any advice or potential strategies would be greatly appreciated! --Mbsaxplayer (talk) 11:25, January 15, 2015 (UTC)
battlefield[]
An LSmember just did the battlefield for this last night, so I can tell you what he told me about it:
Your fight is against a Bygone Geomancer.
Apparently the enemy can have up to 4 luopans up at once and the only way to win is to deal enough damage to the luopans (by beating their element). For example geo-fade is fire based, so use water nukes.
Strategy:
She seems to have a permanent perfect dodge effect up, so melee will always miss. She's also completely immune to magic damage and debuffs -- your job in this fight is to destroy the luopans she sends as quickly as possible. She will also cast nukes on you inbetween luopan casts, so be aware of that. It's highly recommended to kite her around -- if you stand still, all her luopans will group together and it would be difficult to tell which is which (besides getting their negative effects).
Once she's at 1% HP, she will stop casting completely. Use one of the spells she's been casting on you on her and concentric pulse it to finish her off (geo-poison is obviously the cheapest for your MP).
Highly recommended to stack as much MAB as you can for this fight because of all the nuking you'll be doing -- faster you get those luopans destroyed the better. Go prepared, your MP supply will suffer. Keep indi-refresh up unless you need regen because of a hard hit. Her nukes shouldn't really tear you up in i119 though.
Alternate between T1 and T2 nukes to take down the Luopans, as they don't have much HP. 4-5 nukes will destroy them. As the fight progresses, she'll progress to using high nukes herself (starting at T2), and you can occasionally outrun her once she starts using T4s. You can also Aspir MP off of the light-based luopans but that's sort of a last resort.
Battle:
She'll begin with tier 1 -ra nukes and tier 2 elemental nukes. As for her -ra spells, she'll always stand at max distance when using them, so just take a few steps back to avoid getting hit (usually < 100 damage anyway.) Her T3 nukes can be problematic if she lands a good one, but the T4s are the real danger. Presumably she begins using higher tiers as her HP decreases, but a % is not known at this time. Typically you'll take 4-5% of her HP off per luopan. She will also occasionally use Concentric Pulse on you using a nearby luopan, but the damage is ~70, so it's negligible. However, expect to destroy 21-25 luopans (concentric pulsed luopans don't count towards this total!)
Expect to win almost as the time is up, however, and don't spend too much time buffing.
She does spells in a random order but LSmate said she always did the following spells every try, with no deviation:
Geo-Poison: water based (use thunder to beat it)
Geo-Fade: fire based (use water to beat it)
Geo-Malaise: thunder based (use stone to beat it)
Geo-Vex: light based (he used blizzard to beat it) *for light and darkness, use spells that would MB the opposite
Geo-Languor: dark based (he used fire to beat it) *see above
Geo-Slow: earth based (use aero to beat it)
Geo-Paralysis: ice based (use fire to beat it)
Geo-Gravity: wind based (use blizzard to beat it)
The time limit for the battle is 15 minutes and you DO NOT have access to your support job.
Good luck!
A big thanks to Siviard on Shiva for all the information!
--Kaalitenohira (talk) 06:14, February 12, 2015 (UTC)
Youtube video[]
Luopan Cheat Sheet Table and Some Suggestions[]
This section comes from both my personal observations of the fight and preparing for it.
Observations[]
Here are my observations from each of my tries.
First Try (Ran Out of Time)[]
I'm not sure how far down I got the Bygone Geomancer before running out of time. The last time I checked it was at 40%, but I killed many after the last check. One person mentioned the Beygone Geomancer keeps producing pets even once hitting 1%, so you need to check it often to avoid wasting time / recourses. One thought is to have someone around or use an application to remind you of the time left (SE does not supply a countdown clock, as it does for Ambuscade.
My Geomancer has 902 skill level (Geomancy and Handbell) and 1,810+ Job Points.
I went in using Vile Elixir, Vile Elixir +1, Amrita, and my Black Mage gear (when doing T1 and T2 spells). I was able to keep my MP and HP up using these for most of the fight. It was only much later. when I had to start using refresh and regen via Geomancer spells.
You MUST keep moving. The Bygone Geomancer uses you as the point to create the Luopan. If you don't move all of the Luopans end up in the same spot and determining the correct match (Luopan to opposite spell becomes difficult. NOTE: All of its pets have the same name Luopan. So keep moving. This was my first big mistake and really helped my running out of time.
If there are multiple pets out, your best bet is to use some spell and see how much damage occurs. If it is under 100, you have the wrong spell. I was seeing (with Tier 2 spells) 600+ damage.
If are not sure of the pets out, look at your status line! All of these pets put something on you (I'm going to update the table to include resulting status effect).
I printed out (PDF and physical) the cheat sheet and kept it beside both me and POL/FFXI on the screen. Sizing to both be on one printed page and as tall as the window you use for FFXI/POL is useful. I'm looking to move from a 1920x1200 monitor to 2560x1600 for the next fight to have all three columns visible. (I used a two column version (removed the middle column). I didn't realize till in the heat of battle how useful knowing the Luopan's element & status effect would be during the battle.)
If you want to know what the 2004 version of fighting Maat was like, this is the fight for you! I broke level 70 fighting Maat as a Red Mage and this fight is very similar and yet very different. IMHO, back in 2004 using Red Mage was the hardest of all the jobs in the level 75 break against Maat. It took me 7 runs to get my win (was with 15 seconds left, but it was a win). Between the fight and getting the testimony for each fight, I became a better player! Too bad SE doesn't give us a feature to self impose a specific level restriction (e.g. level 68) in a solo fight or for a party of level 99 players. It would be nice to go back and try some fights at a specific level for the purpose of becoming a better player.
Second Try (Coming)[]
Just leaving room for my second try. I'm thinking about using Geo-Gravity on the Bygone Geomancer from the start and magic attack up on myself. Using Vile Elixir, Vile Elixir +1, and Amrita gives one the chance to start out using different spells other than refresh and regen. Also I'm thinking about (only thinking) using tier 2 and 3 spells instead of tier 1 and 2 spells. I used mostly tier 2 spells in my first attempt and didn't have an MP issue till he very end.
I'd be happy to hear about your failures and successes, please!
Cheat Sheet[]
To assist in knowing the looks of each Luopan used by the Bygone Geomancer, I decided to create this cheat sheet table:
| Image | Geomancer Spell Luopan Element status effect |
Beat with Opposite Elemental |
|---|---|---|
 |
Geo-Fade Fire Magic Attack Down |
Water extinguishes |
 |
Geo-Slow Earth Slow |
Aero erodes |
 |
Geo-Poison Water Poison |
Thunder strikes |
 |
Geo-Gravity Wind Weight |
Blizzard freezes |
 |
Geo-Paralysis Ice Paralyze (Status Effect) |
Fire melts |
 |
Geo-Malaise Lightning Magic Defense Down |
Stone grounds |
 |
Geo-Vex Light Magic Accuracy Down |
Darkness-MB Stone Water Blizzard |
 |
Geo-Languor Darkness Magic Evasion Down |
Light-MB Aero Fire Thunder |
--IBHalliwell (talk) 04:53, August 29, 2017 (UTC)