100% to 0% Rani Brew strategy

[Alderin]

So let's just assume all staggers were proc'd at 99% out of pure luck and being the brewer as NIN, you have to pop the brew and take Rani down. Now I know it is difficult to get Rani with a single brew due to his healing nature, however I have read on certain forums etc that it has been done. Which obviously takes a lot of timing and skill.

What they fail to mention is their precise strategy in doing so. What I am about to post is my assumption as to the way to go about it - however I was hoping those of you who have already brewed him could post up your precise strategy as to doing so.

So I have wiki'd this and they say to use magic damage when he casts a TP move, and physical damage when he is casting a spell.

Is the pure strategy to spam Blade: Yu during a TP and Blade: Jin/Hi during magic casting?

I am pretty much asking for specifics here - from your experience in what worked for you.

Did you use Ele Ninjitsu? (When I know, without MAB atmas do 5-6k on some NM's)
What atmas did you use for Rani specifically?
Did you heal him? And if so, how often did you do it?
Did you have any stunners? Specifically is RDM chainspell stunlock an ideal solution to stop him from casting / TP?
Did you use TP debuffs / subtle blow buffs?

I have been in 2x parties to take Rani down so far. The first was a Ninja that brewed him from about 60%. The 2nd was a terrible attempt, as a DNC used 1x brew and a BLU used 2x. Both instances killed him but the 2nd run was a complete fail attempt at getting him down.

Obviously I have my eye on Epona's, and will do the run with my LS when I have a brew and amnesia screen in hand - however I would like to go in 100% certain of the strategy I will be using so I am not having to worry about kiting him while I run back to the outpost to buy another brew.

Please share your experiences regarding Rani.

[Greatguardian]

Rani is fairly easy to take down as long as you don't rely on magic. Casting times make timing your spells properly a royal pain.

If we're talking specifically about NIN, I'd use a Martial Dagger (Kamome offhand) with Ultimate/Gales/Razed Ruins atmas. Switch between Evisceration and Aeolian Edge depending on what Rani is doing. Evisceration while she's casting, Aeolian Edge when she's using a JA, and whichever is dealing more damage when she's doing neither.

I've taken down Rani fairly easily with Apoc/GH/RR Mnk just using Victory Smite. I never used any stunners or special subtle blow gear. To be honest she died fairly quickly. The most important part of the brew is your atma selection. With all other stats being thrown to 999, you get a fairly huge boost from the stats you find primarily on atmas, like Crit Damage+ and Elemental Attack+.

Either way, as long as you're attentive about not healing her, she should absolutely not last more than 30-60 seconds with a brewed DD on her if they're using solid atmas.

[Alderin]

Rani is fairly easy to take down as long as you don't rely on magic. Casting times make timing your spells properly a royal pain.

If we're talking specifically about NIN, I'd use a Martial Dagger (Kamome offhand) with Ultimate/Gales/Razed Ruins atmas. Switch between Evisceration and Aeolian Edge depending on what Rani is doing. Evisceration while she's casting, Aeolian Edge when she's using a JA, and whichever is dealing more damage when she's doing neither.

I've taken down Rani fairly easily with Apoc/GH/RR Mnk just using Victory Smite. I never used any stunners or special subtle blow gear. To be honest she died fairly quickly. The most important part of the brew is your atma selection. With all other stats being thrown to 999, you get a fairly huge boost from the stats you find primarily on atmas, like Crit Damage+ and Elemental Attack+.

Either way, as long as you're attentive about not healing her, she should absolutely not last more than 30-60 seconds with a brewed DD on her if they're using solid atmas.

The first time I saw the big girl looked to be a pretty straight forward fight, as mentioned in my original post. Took her down to about 60% then the NIN just brewed her down. Since I had my chat filters on, I couldnt see what WS's he was using. I have however been able to pull quite a lot of damage on Blade: Yu alone while brewing Shinryu. Is the difference between Aeolian Edge and Blade: Yu (depending on atma selection) that different? I mean they are both single hit are they not? I would have figured that due to the C+ rating that NIN has for dagger, that using Katana regardless of capped stats while brewed would be comparable?

I could be totally wrong here, as I havn't used Aeolian edge while brewing - and have heard of THF's doing some huge numbers with it, but didn't even look at it with Katan because of skill ratings between Katana vs. Dagger. So I guess my question in all of this - Is Blade: Yu comparable to Aeolian Edge when NIN is weilding a dagger?

I do understand that Elemental Weapon skills are based on MAB and the damage does not rely on the DMG of the weapon - so in effect I could get out a bronze dagger and it would do the same as a twilight knife in regards to an elemental weapon skill? I apologise for the seemingly newb question - Elemental weapon skills to me have not really been used an aweful lot with the jobs I have levelled currently before Abyssea.

I have also considered making a "Brew" gear set, with various elemental boosts etc. Do you think, from your experience this would be worth it?

I guess I have the 2nd experience of seeing the failed attempt and watching 3x brewers finally take her down is in the back of my mind - and don't want the same case to occur after farming the popset and buying the brew.

Thanks for your response.

[ThaiChi]

I've brewed Rani on my NIN several times already. My LS generally goes the brew route after we find Blue !! so we don't waste 15-20 min just whittling it down anymore so we can get more rings out. And my LS has been lucky and for the times that we've fought Rani it hasn't used its charm move while we brewed *knock on wood*. Basically if you're paying attention, you can just switch between Jin (or Hi if you have it) and Yu. It's simple enough, if its using a TP move, you use Blade: Yu. If it's casting (which will give a lot more room to spam physical WS) you can use Blade: Jin. Rani tends to alternate between the two, casting and tping. I might actually have the absorb order mixed with pantokrator though, but healing it once isn't going to kill you. 3 minutes is more than enough to kill Rani and still have time left over to run around 1 shotting the dolls in the area for laughs, just don't get into the mindset that it needs to die within seconds of you popping the brew, just stay calm, watch its animations and you'll actually be surprised how overblown the difficulty on Rani with brew is. A group kiting Rani around my exp party around there ran it into our sleepga range while I was xping my SAM. It started killing our party members and I popped a brew to kill it from 100%. I frantically spammed Gekko not remembering its healing properties and my brew ran out at 2% or something, it was easily the biggest waste of 3 mins of brew time I'd ever done.

But just to go over the specifics you asked for: you don't really need stuns and you're totally fine with RR + 2 other DD/mab atmas of your choice (I have standard set for a Blade: Hi NIN -- GH/RR/Apoc). It should only really take about 1 minute to take Rani down from 100% to 0, so you'll have to gauge how often you're able to heal it for margin of error, but as I said earlier if you're paying attention you won't really ever heal it. You're fine with Katanas, don't need daggers or anything fancy, Blade: Yu does fantastic damage while under transcendence -- around 12k I think, don't quote me on that because I might be confusing with Shinryu or Pantokrator. Blade: Chi is interestingly also decent as a magic WS, did 19k to Shinryu before. No extra buffs are needed, the brew, I've been told, automatically puts you at 999 subtle blow. The only thing I might warn about is using the same WS back to back, Jin to Jin, Hi to Hi, etc. Its constantly changing recovery with the tping and casting will inadvertently cause you to heal it with a skillchain, drawing out the fight longer than you'd really want it to be.

[Nacht]

I could get out a bronze dagger and it would do the same as a twilight knife in regards to an elemental weapon skill?
Yes


I have also considered making a "Brew" gear set, with various elemental boosts etc. Do you think, from your experience this would be worth it?
Not really. If you can find a martial knife, then that would be your best weapon and you should use it. However, gear won't have a big impact on brew damage. If you already have the gear, then sure, make a macro, but you shouldn't really go out of your way to get a full set.


Basically if you're paying attention, you can just switch between Jin (or Hi if you have it) and Yu. It's simple enough, if its using a TP move, you use Blade: Yu. If it's casting (which will give a lot more room to spam physical WS) you can use Blade: Jin. Rani tends to alternate between the two, casting and tping. I might actually have the absorb order mixed with pantokrator though, but healing it once isn't going to kill you.

Don't be too cautious. One guy in my linkshell was only using WS during TP and casting. Not sure why he was being that cautious, but he ended up failing to finish Rani during the brew. Mobs have a very predictable timing for casting. There's generally the same amount of time between casts. So after she casts, you can use maybe 3? elemental WS, before she has a chance to cast again. I don't really know the exact timing for her. You also have to factor in the meteors at certain %s.

[ThaiChi]

Yeah, I had that problem a few times with my own LS's early Rani brews. During our first attempt with a brew we tried to be too cautious, turning away so we wouldn't tp it or whatnot and a PLD brewer. I recall us barely winning with that, but we were still new to brewing, also on top of new to brewing Rani. Typically Magic WS is stellar with a brew as we all know. PLDs who brewed after that time swapped between Vorpal (and later CDC) and Sanguine Blade to keep damage constant. Iirc Meteor shouldn't do any damage under the effect of a brew, but should really only pose a threat to people who run within 30 yalms of the fray -- I can think of some overzealous THFs that wanted to try to raise the TH levels.

[Nacht]

Iirc Meteor shouldn't do any damage under the effect of a brew, but should really only pose a threat to people who run within 30 yalms of the fray -- I can think of some overzealous THFs that wanted to try to raise the TH levels.

Well I was more referring to the fact that she will cast a meteor at certain %s. I'm not sure whether she just casts it as her next spell when her cast time comes up, or she immediately casts it, regardless of her spell timing. So, I mean be careful not to heal her when she casts meteor.

[Alderin]

Thanks for the pointers guys.

Helps a lot and puts my mind at a little ease - Will probably go low man the popsets when the servers come back then go do it.

I do agree with not being over-cautious but also not being panicked. Have brewed a few times and being calm and paying attention gets the job done faster and more efficiently. "Spamming" macro's don't work that well either.

Once again thanks for the tips.

[ThaiChi]

Oh yeah, I gotcha now lol. If I'm not mistaken Meteor should be her next move that she will do immediately after hitting each % mark. The meteor casting should be near instant, but I'm actually not quite sure of that one myself either :p

edit: GL getting the ring, I never take mine off :-D

[Nacht]

Oh yeah, I gotcha now lol. If I'm not mistaken Meteor should be her next move that she will do immediately after hitting each % mark. The meteor casting should be near instant, but I'm actually not quite sure of that one myself either :p

Wiki claims meteor can be stunned, so near instant is out.

Also, be aware of amnesia from Malign Invocation. Forgot to mention that earlier. Don't really know how big of a problem that is either.

[Alderin]

Also, be aware of amnesia from Malign Invocation. Forgot to mention that earlier. Don't really know how big of a problem that is either.

Yep just to play it safe I intend to get an Amnesia Screen from Dominion Ops. It lasts 2 mins so I figure if I pop the brew > amnesia screen... Rani will be dead by the time it wears.

[ThaiChi]

Ha, I completely forgot about amnesia too, its 1AM x.x The amnesia doesn't last a cripplingly long time usually. If your brewer is really that worried about it though as it does have the potential to really screw things up, they sell amnesia screens at Flux 1 at the Dominion guy. My biggest concern while brewing Rani is honestly the charm, I can't really comment on the resist rate with a brew on but I personally have yet to see someone I know be charmed while attempting to brew, although I have heard some horror stories about 5 brews in and Rani still being alive -- pick up groups, nothing within my own events that I've attended. I may actually speculate that the longer the fight goes on, the more frequent the charms will happen, but that's just something I would throw out and can't particularly prove.

[Mojo]

Blade: Yu and Aeolian Edge both have secondary mobs of 28% DEX 28% INT, so WSC for both weaponskills is the following.

WSC = floor(0.85*floor((999*0.28)+(999*0.28))) = floor(0.85*floor(559.44)) = floor(0.85*559) = floor(475.15) = 475

The systematic factors for both weapon skills is the regular dINT which will be capped at 32. Blade: Yu has a constant fTP multiplier of 3.00 (more TP = longer Poison) while Aeolian Edge is 2.75 3.50 4.00. Thus the damage before atma and magic attack bonus are applied will look something like this.


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 1733 1733 1733
Aeolian Edge 1591 2016 2300

If you happen to have the elemental obis/gorgets (which are best in slot for any weaponskill under brew), then it looks like this.


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 1846 1846 1846
Aeolian Edge 1704 2129 2413

The next step is to evaluate gear and Atma. The only thing that you can do besides the elemental obis/belts gear wise is MAB equipment. Transcendancy grants +900 MAB, thus reducing the benefits from additional MAB to 1/10th of what it normally would be. There is little MAB gear available for NIN anyways, so I'm just going to ignore it for the sake of comparison (it's honestly not worth worrying about.)

For Aeolian Edge, Martial Knife is your best bet. It increases the damage by quite a bit as you'll start out at the TP 200 spot on those tables. The best Atma is Atma of the Gales, it adds 30% wind potency to your spells and weapon skills. The next best is Atma of the Smiting Blow. It gives you another 100 TP bonus that stacks with Martial Knife. There's not much else for Atma, Atma of the Ultimate is a distant 3rd place (+50 MAB +50 MACC.)

For Blade: Yu, the best Atma are Atma of the Noxious Fang (40% water potency) and Atma of the Tusked Terror (20% water potency.) This is followed distantly by Atma of the Ultimate. The best weapon is the magian katana that gives weapon skill damage +10%, but I don't even think a single person ever bothered to get this.

Damage tables for this are as follows (weapon skill damage +10% not used for this.)


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 29113 29113 29113
Aeolian Edge 21716 27518 31395


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 31012 31012 31012
Aeolian Edge 23259 29060 32936

There's also one last thing to be said about these weapon skills. Aeolian Edge has three different skill chain properties and is capable of creating a skill chain with itself. It can do this indefinitely (scission > detonation > scission > detonation etc.) Blade: Yu, although I haven't used it since I brew mainly on Thief, I think is capable of doing Induration > Fragmentation, although I'm not completely certain. Either way, these skillchains can contribute a lot of damage if they're unresisted.

These numbers may be off a little bit on normal mobs due to where I truncated numbers, but they will be very close (within a fraction of a percent.) You won't see numbers that big on Rani because caturae have some MDB or MDT-% trait and Rani also builds damage resistance. However, I was able to casually kill it with Aeolean Edge after waiting a while to proc (I didn't have the right atma on either because I was tanking.) So I don't think that it will be a problem. If Rani resists water (Blade: Yu is water based), then you may not be able to use that weaponskill.

As far as strategy goes, this is what I recommend. When you're done procing, keep on fighting it regularly until it weaponskills then immediately use your brew and start spamming. The reason for this is you want it to die fast without accumulating TP, or you could become charmed if you're unlucky when it gets down. Turn around while it's casting so you don't heal it. Forget about using Evisceration, it's really not worth the effort and you don't want to be giving it TP anyways. Really though it should only take 4-5 WS to kill it if you have a good set up for one of those weaponskills.

[Nacht]

Water atmas should be 30% for major, unless it's different than every other elemental major atma (wiki lists some at 40, but it's wrong).
Elemental damage minor atmas are 10%, unless the wiki's wrong about that. Never tested this personally.

[Mojo]

Elemental potencies aren't consistent. Minor can be 10% or 20%, Major can be 30% or 40%.

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/21869.html
http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/20891.html
http://www32.atwiki.jp/studiogobli/pages/105.html

Two different places agree both which are usually accurate.

[Nacht]

Elemental potencies aren't consistent. Minor can be 10% or 20%, Major can be 30% or 40%.

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/21869.html
http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/20891.html
http://www32.atwiki.jp/studiogobli/pages/105.html

Two different places agree both which are usually accurate.

Interesting... I concede my point, but I won't fully accept it until the servers are up and I see it for myself.

[Mojo]

Honestly I've been wanting to test all of the different potency atma myself too. I haven't seen any really solid data on it, just trusting the sources I see. Shouldn't be hard at all though, just need to get Smoldering Sky/Undying/Holy Mountain still.

[Nacht]

I'm missing claw, undying, lion, and blinding horn. Between the two of us, we can check all but undying.

[Alderin]

Very nice post Mojo.

Thanks a bunch for that.

So basically to sum it up - both are a viable ws to use and the extra damage due to the fTP multiplier with Aeolian edge is there, but not a huge difference.

I do recall a couple of Shinryu fights and I was hitting about 11-12k without MAB or Water atmas on with Blade: Yu (Which isn't ideal but was still sufficient to get the job done at the time.) I do understand Rani may be a different story but in the end it's a "much of a muchness" case.

My next question is - I notice the lack of Razed Ruin in your atma lists. Do Elemental Weapon Skills have absolutely no chance to crit hit - and does the MAB / Water based atmas outweigh reducing the chance to crit hit?

[Mojo]

Elemental weaponskills cannot crit, so Razed Ruins doesn't help aside from adding 50 DEX (which is nullified, however, if you're using brew since Transcendancy puts you at 999 DEX regardless of job/race/gear/buffs.) Both WS should work fine, just use the one that produces the best damage with the gear/atma you have available.

[Frost]

Please note, While the brew might give you 999 Subtle blow, it does not give said buff to anyone else.... I seen so many Rani get messed up because someone tries to "help", in turn TP'ing Rani, leading to hilarity as Rani + Charmed Demigod go omnomnomnom on an entire alliance.

In short make sure everyone is away from the fight when the brew goes off.

[Alderin]

Great thanks for the advice Mojo - and the stats to go with them.. Guess I will start farming pops when the server goes back online.

And yep, when I am brewing I tell people to back off - Not only cause of the TP point (which is a valid one), however People interrupting skillchains etc.

[Khajit]

I'd recommended just proccing red right before using brew since if it's frozen you can just gank it right then and there instead of caring about accidentally healing it.

[Mookie]

I just used Jin, wasn't really a problem. RR/SS/Apoc + temps and it was hitting for 8-11k. And Jin chains with itself for detonation which was doing another 3-5k. Your 2 biggest problems, timing and amnesia. Amnesia screen wears before your brew, so drink it last. And as for timing. Rani absorbs physical damage during tp move. Just make sure the animation is over before you ws again and that she's doing regular attacks or casting. Best to time spam ws, is when she's casting. It's when she's most vulnerable. Especially long casting spells like AM and Meteor. During those times you can WS away with impunity.

[Brigandier]

Blade: Yu and Aeolian Edge both have secondary mobs of 28% DEX 28% INT, so WSC for both weaponskills is the following.

WSC = floor(0.85*floor((999*0.28)+(999*0.28))) = floor(0.85*floor(559.44)) = floor(0.85*559) = floor(475.15) = 475

The systematic factors for both weapon skills is the regular dINT which will be capped at 32. Blade: Yu has a constant fTP multiplier of 3.00 (more TP = longer Poison) while Aeolian Edge is 2.75 3.50 4.00. Thus the damage before atma and magic attack bonus are applied will look something like this.


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 1733 1733 1733
Aeolian Edge 1591 2016 2300

If you happen to have the elemental obis/gorgets (which are best in slot for any weaponskill under brew), then it looks like this.


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 1846 1846 1846
Aeolian Edge 1704 2129 2413

The next step is to evaluate gear and Atma. The only thing that you can do besides the elemental obis/belts gear wise is MAB equipment. Transcendancy grants +900 MAB, thus reducing the benefits from additional MAB to 1/10th of what it normally would be. There is little MAB gear available for NIN anyways, so I'm just going to ignore it for the sake of comparison (it's honestly not worth worrying about.)

For Aeolian Edge, Martial Knife is your best bet. It increases the damage by quite a bit as you'll start out at the TP 200 spot on those tables. The best Atma is Atma of the Gales, it adds 30% wind potency to your spells and weapon skills. The next best is Atma of the Smiting Blow. It gives you another 100 TP bonus that stacks with Martial Knife. There's not much else for Atma, Atma of the Ultimate is a distant 3rd place (+50 MAB +50 MACC.)

For Blade: Yu, the best Atma are Atma of the Noxious Fang (40% water potency) and Atma of the Tusked Terror (20% water potency.) This is followed distantly by Atma of the Ultimate. The best weapon is the magian katana that gives weapon skill damage +10%, but I don't even think a single person ever bothered to get this.

Damage tables for this are as follows (weapon skill damage +10% not used for this.)


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 29113 29113 29113
Aeolian Edge 21716 27518 31395


Weaponskill TP 100 TP 200 TP 300
Blade: Yu 31012 31012 31012
Aeolian Edge 23259 29060 32936

There's also one last thing to be said about these weapon skills. Aeolian Edge has three different skill chain properties and is capable of creating a skill chain with itself. It can do this indefinitely (scission > detonation > scission > detonation etc.) Blade: Yu, although I haven't used it since I brew mainly on Thief, I think is capable of doing Induration > Fragmentation, although I'm not completely certain. Either way, these skillchains can contribute a lot of damage if they're unresisted.

These numbers may be off a little bit on normal mobs due to where I truncated numbers, but they will be very close (within a fraction of a percent.) You won't see numbers that big on Rani because caturae have some MDB or MDT-% trait and Rani also builds damage resistance. However, I was able to casually kill it with Aeolean Edge after waiting a while to proc (I didn't have the right atma on either because I was tanking.) So I don't think that it will be a problem. If Rani resists water (Blade: Yu is water based), then you may not be able to use that weaponskill.

As far as strategy goes, this is what I recommend. When you're done procing, keep on fighting it regularly until it weaponskills then immediately use your brew and start spamming. The reason for this is you want it to die fast without accumulating TP, or you could become charmed if you're unlucky when it gets down. Turn around while it's casting so you don't heal it. Forget about using Evisceration, it's really not worth the effort and you don't want to be giving it TP anyways. Really though it should only take 4-5 WS to kill it if you have a good set up for one of those weaponskills.

Mojo, this post was very enlightening. Playing around with my first brews, I noticed Blade: Teki was doing 16k'ish on Shinryu while Blade: Yu was doing around 12k. On both I used Noxious Fang / Tusked Terror / Baying Moon (don't have Ultimate yet).

I'm not a math wiz, but judging by your comparison between AE and Yu it seems you understand how this is all working. Considering Blade: Teki has .5/.75/1.0 "damage varies with TP" modifier, do you have an idea of how well this would do with Noxious Fang / Tusked Terror / Smiting Blow, perhaps with Shamo (TP Bonus Katana)?

[Wojo]

Atma of the Griffon's Claw
Atma of Gales

Jinpu

..., even on NIN.

[Catsby]

Suppose you have 2x MAB katanas... <.<