Ochain trials... why?

[Arkine]

Hello folks.

I reactivated my FFXI accout in august and so far I've been having fun in Abyssea and just like anybody with a favorite job, I started collecting gear for my PLD.

Got some interesting pieces and found myself slowly discarding piece of gear I used to love, and getting better (easier to get too) things.

That includes my beloved Joyeuse, now just serving as a red proc weapon for my WAR while on my quest to obtain Almace.

Then I figured why not go for Ochain too. Almace's path isn't hard since I'm up to Briarius and @20/50 helms via shout groups and friends whenever they're in the mood.

I started researching and found out that its only 3 trials! awesome!

Except it isn't when comparing it to Almace's trials.

50 briarius helms: I average 3-5 pop sets in 1:30-2:00hours, followed by 30 minutes to kill the Bosses and end up with 5-10 helms. with of course 3 to 5 people, my basic set up is WAR NIN WHM (WAR tanks Bri and his babies with no issues NIN can change to THF ).

50 Sobek Skins: A few Sobek test runs proved that his KIs aren't hard either, except for Guku, but its easily farmed off gold boxes and in general it takes the same amount of time to get 3-5 Sobek sets. (Though the battle is a little harder than Bri's but still not a real challenge)

75 Apademak's Horns: I've killed a few Apademaks, and 5-8 people are ideal and kill it without any issues, and the only real challenge is Sisy's fragments. (obtained from boxes) but still take more time and effort to get Apademak's set.

But Almace is still pretty powerful @85 and the lv90 upgrade is minimal but still, Apa drops some nice stuff that will keep people coming to help. (if you want to proceed with Almace that is)

Now Ochain is a different story.

50 Iron plates: Ok Ironclads are worse than Bri and Sobek, though to pop one it takes about the same time it takes to get for either of the two mentioned above so its alright, though still being somewhat more annoying.

75 Colorless souls: What the hell is this? why 75 not 50? how weird... anyway to get your hands on them souls you have to fight T3 VNMs.
These guys are a million times worth than anything I mentioned up until now. To get your hands on a T3 Abyssite you need to upgrade your T1 Abyssite and that is very random.

1/6 T1 > T2 1/1 T2 > T3 on my 1st test run.

0/25 T1 > T2 on my second try which I'm still on.

Now the T1 battles are ridiculously easy and solo-able, if wasn't for the random drop rate on the Abyssite it would take 5 minutes to jump into T2. (The repop time is instant on the T1 NM)

T2 battle is as hard (sometimes harder) than any KI holder for either Bri or Sobek and upgrading isn't 100% thus taking a lot more time to get to T3 and takes 2-5 people to kill a T2 efficiently. (T2s also use 2H abilities that range between laughable and devastating unlike other KI NMs). These guys repop once every 10-15 minutes, only one per zone and requires you to run around to pop one.

Now that you got your hands on a T3 set (only one) you have to battle the T3 NMs, how hard can it be? well... pretty hard.

The popping: you need to run around until you catch the NM, ok not that bad... except that the repop is an hour, and only 1 T3 per zone (compared to 3 ???s for the other NMs and a 3-5min repop on the ???)

The battle: Harder than the other bosses and the T3 won't die without using its 2Hr which can be pretty risky, and it takes more people to take it down.

Time: assuming you and your 3-5 friends managed to get lets say go 1/1 on T1 and T2 pops resulting in 5 T3 pops in one zone it will take you 5 to 6 hours to get the battles done and net you 5-10 souls.

Of course in reality it'll take much much longer to upgrade one T1 into a T3 and even longer to get the 5-10 souls we talked about.

Now you might say why not have 1 person per zone on T3 thus reducing the repop time by just jumping to the next zone?

Short answer is competition.

On the ??? based NMs, people will take turns, kill them quickly, 100% rate on KI with a red proc and a very short repop time.
Then 3 ???s allow 3 groups to fight the boss at the same time, and still repop fast enough to keep the killing consistent.

Vs

Only 1 group may kill a T2 every 15 minutes and more than once per member to get the upgrade, then only 1 group per 1 hour (compare to 3 every 3 minutes) for the boss.

Even on a good day it'll still take alot longer than other trials.

I dare say this trial alone take more time and effort that Almace's entire series of trials. and the end result is Ochain 85 which is... well not as good as any other Lv85 empy.

But it shines @90 and the trial is...

75 Azdaja horns: To pop you need 1 Deelgeed KI, and he pops every 15-30 mins so on a good day you (and your 4 good friends mentioned before) will take around an hour to get 5 Azdaja pops, then battle him for his horns so all in all its 2-3 hours per 5-10 horns. (Very average time/effort very realistic and doable)

End result Ochain90 is very powerful and a great tool for your PLD.

I can say the same about Almace85, but all things considered, Ochain is far far far harder to get than Almace and that is only because of the colorless souls stage alone. and even after that hard stage Ochain85 isn't as good as any other 85 weapon.

Why is that? how come BRD and PLD get trials far harder and takes much more time to complete than the other empy weapons?

Its possible to pick up party your way through any weapon trials at the pace I mentioned (5 pops per 2-3hrs) but be dead in your tracks on the Colorless souls stage if you don't have dedicated friends willing to waste an ungodly amount of time to upgrade their T1s then even more time to wait for T3 pops. (Or hire mercs for 400k+ per soul)

Now... whats the big picture I'm not seeing here? because this looks very unfair.

Killing 3 NMs for 3 KIs to pop a boss that drops colorless souls just like any other trial doesn't sound so ludicrous to me.

Heck I'd settle for 5-6 KIs to pop one boss to the souls to balance it out since shield and harp don't have any of the kill NM x3-8 times trials. (Which I would welcome btw).


Thanks for reading through my wall of text and sorry for being ranty.

[Greatguardian]

The Dev team justification is that Ochain doesn't have to deal with the mind-numbing tedium of camping a ton of NMs and overworld VNMs. When you add it all together the actual Time component of the trials is fairly similar. Ochain just requires that you actually pay attention during the whole trial rather than AFK/PH kill like you can do for half of the weapon trials.

It's harder, but it's really not too terrible. Drop rates on Ifrit and Diabolos were fixed, too, so that'll help a lot.

[Arkine]

The Dev team justification is that Ochain doesn't have to deal with the mind-numbing tedium of camping a ton of NMs and overworld VNMs. When you add it all together the actual Time component of the trials is fairly similar. Ochain just requires that you actually pay attention during the whole trial rather than AFK/PH kill like you can do for half of the weapon trials.

It's harder, but it's really not too terrible. Drop rates on Ifrit and Diabolos were fixed, too, so that'll help a lot.

While its some sort of justification it still creates a problem with obtaining Ochain when compared to other empys (to me)
which is "help".
You can go shout for 4 people with promises of loot, go do lets say Sobek, get 4 pops and do 5 battles in around 2 hours, but you can't do that with an Ochain, not at the same efficiency.

You can't get 5 people to upgrade from T1 to T3, then fight 5 T5s in 2-3 hours and that severely cripples the pace you get souls at, and the chances of you being the only one camping T2s and T3s is very slim, with the ridiculous re-pop times, it makes getting the shield "alone" unbelievably hard compared to other Empys and it makes the NM camping trials look like a cake walk. (and they already are).

[Arcon]

There's been so many threads complaining about this, every week a new one pops up with the exact same complaints. Not to say they aren't valid, but it's all been discussed to death.

I'll say it here again, personally I don't think it's too bad. It's more casual-gamer friendly than other trials, even if it takes longer. I still know (several) people who got 75 souls in less than a week with the right dedication, and even if it takes a month or so, it's definitely not complain worthy imo.

[Gallys]

As far as I know, T3 repop every 10-15mn not 1h (unless they changed that).
With the right Atmas you can solo/duo the T2 VNMs , Garuda being the hardest one cause of her 2h,still easily handled with wind resist atma/MDT set.

As for T3 , I duo'd most of my souls WHM + MNK/THF(lol).
With atma of future fabulous Ule & Altep T3 are a joke.
For Maere you want a 3rd person because he likes to be an ass and draw-in your healer > nightmare.

The only hard part to me was competition , I did the trial before the update so everyone was spamming Ule.
When you see 15 JPs roaming at Chione spawn area with 10 of them having a T2 abyssite , you know it's time to move.

Good Luck!

[darkvision]

tbh anyone making ochain now have it easy since SE has fixed Maere and Brulo on thier drop rates, tbh Maere was not that bad and was rarely camped for me but brulo was the worst for double drops

everyone used to camp ogopogo but not to sure how it is now.

Also if your determined enough with friends that is willing you can complete ochain in 1-2 weeks which is the same for any other empyrean weapons

50 Iron Plates took me 22 hours
75 Colorless souls took me 1.5 weeks
75 Azdaja Horns took me 44 hours straight

there is no camping NMs before these trials and no VNMs out of abysea to do, tbh i think the trials for ochain and harp are suitable. if your gonna complain about it and not work your butt of for one then its simple, you do not deserve to have one.

stop complaining and just get on with it ffs

before you wonder i have 5 empyreans, that includes Ochain, so i know what it takes to make weapons compared to Ochain.

T2 repop is 10-15 mins
T3 repop is 15-20 mins

just seems Abyssea "easy mode" rubs of for everything whats wrong on working for something for a change?

[Aeonk]

tbh anyone making ochain now have it easy since SE has fixed Maere and Brulo on thier drop rates, tbh Maere was not that bad and was rarely camped for me but brulo was the worst for double drops

Cue the "I did Ochain when it was harder!" remarks.
starting.... now.

I did Ochain when it was harder!


All sarcasm and sillyness aside, OP: yes the 75 souls used to be a gigantic pain in the ass compared to the effort it took to make my sword. But the payoff was well worth it. This shield is not a marginal increase. In fact I'd say it has a better effort/reward ratio than some of the weapons. Suck it up.

[Arkine]

As far as I know, T3 repop every 10-15mn not 1h (unless they changed that).
With the right Atmas you can solo/duo the T2 VNMs , Garuda being the hardest one cause of her 2h,still easily handled with wind resist atma/MDT set.

As for T3 , I duo'd most of my souls WHM + MNK/THF(lol).
With atma of future fabulous Ule & Altep T3 are a joke.
For Maere you want a 3rd person because he likes to be an ass and draw-in your healer > nightmare.

The only hard part to me was competition , I did the trial before the update so everyone was spamming Ule.
When you see 15 JPs roaming at Chione spawn area with 10 of them having a T2 abyssite , you know it's time to move.

Good Luck!

I honestly thought it was an hour since thats what I've been told by people doing them... oh well, and the MNK + WHM thing seems great, I can do that.

It looks alot less of a hassle than I originally "Calculated".

Now the real time sink is upgrading abyssites to T3, so far I have 3 T3s on 3 characters, and it went like this

Grau T1 > T2 1/7 T2 > T3 1/1
Ule T1 > T2 0/28
Altp didn't try yet

Grau T1 > T2 0/8
Ule T1 > T2 1/9 T2 > T3 1/6
Altp didn't try yet
Grau T1 > T2 0/9
Ule T1 > T2 1/5 T2 > T3 1/3
Altp didn't try yet

While enlightened and motivated by what I learned in this thread, I'd be happier if I was able to get these Abyssites to change color faster than this.

WHM THF SAM is the combo I'm using for the T2 and 3 fights.

@darkvision: My issue was never that I'm not willing to work for the shield, the issue was that the way the trial is made prevents me from working alone or with quick pick up PTs.
That created a problem, since I just got back to a very different world with most of my friends (that I can impose on to get T3s made) gone. While I can shout my way to an Almace, I couldn't do so with Ochain.

I still would like a none-VNM path for souls, but since I changed my approach from looking for help to using 3 accounts, I'm hoping to get 10 Souls a week and getting this done in 8 weeks or so.

[Zagen]

Now the real time sink is upgrading abyssites to T3, so far I have 3 T3s on 3 characters, and it went like this

For those who are doing these trials don't bother upgrading on a mule, while it seems faster to do 3 at once it takes just as long as 1 at a time since you're personally doing all the work. If you have real people farming pops while you upgrade in a dif zone/kill T3s then this doesn't apply.

And I'll second (or third w/e its up to) the MNK+WHM works very well on T2 and T3s, imo better than evasion tanking does.

[Arcon]

And I'll second (or third w/e its up to) the MNK+WHM works very well on T2 and T3s, imo better than evasion tanking does.

THF+WHM works too. A tad slower kill, but the tad better rewards make up for it. Survival is a non-issue anyway, except on Ogopogo, depending on your Atma/buffs, but WHM can finish it off easily too.