Climbing assault ranks

With people moving on to gathering capacity points and other newer content, it's now very difficult (read: impossible) to get a party for assault missions these days. This is one of the few types of content where Trust NPC's can't currently be used, and some types of content just can't be done solo.

My personal preference would be for them to just make Trusts usable there, but until then does anyone have any tips for someone who wants to increase their rank?

Which assaults in particular are you having trouble with? I managed to get hit captain rank solo semi-recently. The only ones I really had an issue with were the ones that are RNG crapshoots where more people means more chances, but even then you can just redo them until luck favors you.

I gotta second this, I've done the entire run of 'em from beginning to end solo, so it's very doable. Some were super annoying though! Some of the more annoying ones included Lost and Found, Lebros Supplies, and my personal bane: Orichalcum Survey. The joys of hitting mining points and breaking the SHODDIEST PICKAXES EVER in a single hit for a half hour each run just was not a pleasant experience, but I did manage to do it after like ten or so tries.

The ones that are a trouble are mechanically troublesome and trusts wouldn't really fix this.

To add an annoying one to the list, i'd like to see Azure Ailments grant an accuracy buff (no other stat) to the monsters. Naked 99 can have enough trouble getting debuffs, let alone 119'd.

But yeah, Lost and Found (find the ring) is annoying, and Orichalcum Survey could use a buff in drop rate.

That being said, I can't imagine the harm in allowing trusts in there.

Several actually. Those boulders you need to break on several assault missions in particular are almost punishingly difficult solo. They take very little damage, even at level 99, that there's no way you'll break through them in time. It took me 15 minutes of constant wailing just to get through the first rock so I could kill mobs for the bombs. Stuff like that would make trusts infinitely useful.

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Originally Posted by Seiowan

Several actually. Those boulders you need to break on several assault missions in particular are almost punishingly difficult solo. They take very little damage, even at level 99, that there's no way you'll break through them in time. It took me 15 minutes of constant wailing just to get through the first rock so I could kill mobs for the bombs. Stuff like that would make trusts infinitely useful.

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What job/weapon, specifically, are you using for that particular assault? It shouldn't take you that long to break through one set of rocks.

Ya, wondering the same myself. Went through that several months back only took me about a minute or two to break through each one.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

What job/weapon, specifically, are you using for that particular assault? It shouldn't take you that long to break through one set of rocks.

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Let's see. Tried it as a THF/DNC, with each swing dealing 1-2 damage each. Tried it as a SCH/RDM, with each swing dealing 1-2 damage each. The rocks are basically damage resistant sponges designed purely to impede your progress. I don't think they were made to solo.

We soloed those walls back in the day on BLM.... You even mentioned that you have SCH, all your DOTs should have wrecked it.

Are you certain you didn't accidentally level cap yourself?

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Originally Posted by detlef

You even mentioned that you have SCH, all your DOTs should have wrecked it.

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My Helix spells cap at 19 damage on the rocks, and that's regardless of weather/day bonuses. That's the only DoT Scholar actually gets. The other DoT's are from your support job, which means going with either Black Mage or Red Mage. Elemental DoT's don't seem to do much damage per tick, so it's a fair bet those are also reduced in effectiveness also. All weapon strikes cap at 19 damage on a critical, with +2 for enchantments if I go /RDM.

Each rock has upwards of 2k hp, so to do the math each rock basically takes 6 minutes to whittle down by pure melee alone (6x5 = 30 mins, out of time). Being generous, that can be reduced to about 5 minutes with DoT. That's still 25 minutes already taken up, and I haven't even considered travel time.

The Qiqirn Bombs would be helpful, but they don't drop often, and equipping /THF means no DoT besides my Helix spells to work on the rocks. Maybe tier 2 helix spells work wonders, but I've got a long way to go before I get that many job points and my highest gear is only level 117.

I didn't really mean helix, nukes are pretty weak (although that's plenty strong). The assumption was that if you had SCH leveled you'd have a subjob like /RDM or /BLM leveled as well. But Bio, Poison, and elemental DOTs were all we needed back then (I think Poison landed, and it's received a huge buff since then). Did you do those?