Summoner solo/duo/small group vs Abysea NM Compendium

[Luvbunny]

BCNM - Horns of War
Horlais Peak - Orb: Themis Orb (99 Kindred's Seals) VS Behemoth
This is the BCNM for one of the Black Belt items.

Avatar: Fenrir
BPs of note: Eclipse Bite
What to bring: Tavnazian Tacos, eat it, reraise items.
What to cast: Earthen Ward, Noctoshield, Blink, Fenrir Buffs, Earthen Armor.
Recommended set up: 3 Smns or 2 Smns + Beastmaster (use slug's pet)

Notes: The Behemoth is one nasty piece when you get caught in its AOE Meteor. Have Beastmaster attack first then send your avatar and take caution of Meteor.

Extreme caution: You need to always have your stoneskin, blink, phalanx up at all times, non negotiable for taru especially - very deadly. Take care before you go in and do BP or if you are about to send a fresh Fenrir to summon. For safety, 2 Smns + Beastmaster is recommended since if both summoners got caught and end up dead, Beastmaster can finish it the battle rather easily. This is the easiest BCNM as long as you are not caught in AOE Meteor.

[Luvbunny]

BCNM - The Hills Are Alive
Waughroon Shrine - Orb: Themis Orb (99 Kindred's Seals) VS Tartaruga Gigante
This is the BCNM for one of the Black Belt items.

Avatar: Shiva, Fenrir for Dispelga, Leviathan for tanking.
BPs of note: Heavenly Strike when he is inside shell, Spinning Dive when he is outside shell.
What to bring: Tavnazian Tacos, eat it, reraise items, 2 stacks of echo drops, elixirs, high elixirs, dawn mulsums x 6
What to subs: white mage and red mage
What to cast: Earthen Ward, Noctoshield, Blink, Fenrir Buffs, Earthen Armor, Barwatera
Recommended set up: 6 Summoners

Notes: This battle cannot be done with small group, for safety you need your 6 summoners with Shiva. The reason being this turtle when it is inside the shell, it will regen so fast, and the only way you can force it out is to dish out your Heavenly Strike damage. If you want to be on the super safe side, bring 4 summoners and BLM/RDM x 2. You need massive ice magic damage to kill it while it is inside the shell. It will not move but casting water based spells, and dispelling buffs.

Summoner Notes: If you are so inclined to go all summoners for this, one summoner will use Leviathan and should be able to tank the entire battle, another summoner use Fenrir for dispelling his buffs, and the other 4 use Shiva for Heavenly Strike when it is inside shell. Toward the end use 5 Shivas.

Extreme caution: You need to always have your stoneskin, blink, barwatera, phalanx up at all times, non negotiable for taru especially - very deadly when you get caught in the floodga. Make sure you come and do BP from behind and not going forward facing it since if it casting, you will get hit with dispelga, silence and then big water spells. Don't have all Shivas attacking from front either have a couple from behind so that not all Shivas will be hit with water spells.

Alternate strategy: you can always come with standard party if you want, 2 melee DD, 1 healer and 3 magic damage 2 x Samurais and Beastmaster are great for this, with Whm/Rdm or Whm/Sch or Sch/Whm (can embrava) and Rdm + 2 Blms

[Luvbunny]

BCNM - The Palborough Project
Waughroon Shrine - Orb: Phobos Orb (30 Kindred Crest) VS Bomb
This is the BCNM for Fervor Ring and Fracas Grenade

Avatar: Ifrit
BPs of note: Flaming Crush, Inferno Howl
What to bring: Tavnazian Tacos, eat it, reraise items.
What to cast: Barfira, Earthen Ward, Blink, Pro + Shell
Recommended set up: 2 Smns - you can solo but it is dangerous if you want to just do it alone.

Notes: Straight forward BCNM, send Ifrit, use Flaming Crush when it is up, run back far far away. Make sure Inferno Howl is used since it adds 20-40 damage per hits. Resummon Ifrit and run back in to send it to attack, time it so that not both Ifrit are dead at the same time.

Extreme caution: You need to always have your stoneskin, blink, barfira and phalanx up at all times, non negotiable for taru especially - very deadly. Take care before you go in and do BP or if you are about to send a fresh Ifrit to summon. WATCH when he resummon mini adds, because these will self destruct and will kill you if you get caught during the self destruct phase. Hence soloing is tricky and if you duo make sure not both avatars are dead within seconds of each other.

[Babekeke]

Lots of references in the BCNM battles to 'take care when you run in' and 'always keep up phalanx, barspell and stoneskin'...

I therefore recommend using Twilight torque, 2 dark rings (or defending if you have it), 2 merman's earrings, colossus' mantle and any other -mdt gear you can whilst maintaining BP timer -15. You should be able to hit BP in this gear then decide if it's safe to swap into BP damage gear before it hits.

[Luvbunny]

Thanks for the advice, some of these mobs can still hurt summoner at 99 with our paper thin defense, especially taru summoners out there

[Babekeke]

Thanks for the advice, some of these mobs can still hurt summoner at 99 with our paper thin defense, especially taru summoners out there

Lol you don't have to tell me that! It always annoys me how a well-geared Galka SMN has ~500 HP more than me and ~1-200 mp less than me, especially since it's practically impossible to run out of MP on SMN. Plus they get more mp back from convert, too!

[Mokeil]

It always annoys me how a well-geared Galka SMN has ~500 HP more than me and ~1-200 mp less than me, especially since it's practically impossible to run out of MP on SMN. Plus they get more mp back from convert, too!

I'm right there with, ya! Low max MP has never mattered as much as how quickly you could get it back. Low max HP on the other hand, just gets Tarus dead.

To force-ably shift myself away from one of my favorite gripes about life as a Taru, I'd like to report a successful solo on a fellow that's been giving my group trouble lately:


Glavoid - Abyssea Tahrongi
Avatar: Garuda, for the earth resistance.
Blood Pacts of Note: Predator Claws and Whispering Wind
Atmas: Ducal Guard, Mounted Champion, Razed Ruins
Notes: (I apologize for the copious notes here, but the trouble Glavoid can cause has prompted me to be thorough in attempting to address concerns.)

This turned out to be surprisingly easy, if a bit slow. Ducal Guard + Garuda's natural earth resistance takes the sting out of this fellow's most dangerous move. Disgorge likes to one-shot monks, making him very risky for small groups, even at 99. Garuda, on the other hand, never took more than half her HP from it. (I was out of range recasting buffs, so I'm afraid I can't report the exact number!) More often than not, Garuda stayed well above 80% of her HP, and keeping her alive with just Whispering Wind was never an issue.

I was able to plant myself to the side of the mob at max BP distance and be safely out of AoE range. With only Razed ruins backing it, Predator Claws had a lot of variation, but still managed to sit between 1,800 and 4,500 damage.

Glavoid can heal back damage for a few seconds during and after using a TP move. For once, our avatar's high attack delay works in our favor, as Garuda would never get in more than two auto-attacks during this time. I made a personal choice to hold Predator Claws until after his TP moves just to be sure not to heal him.

One other tricky factor to note is Blood Weapon. Glavoid can do this randomly, multiple times, at any point after it is under 75% of its HP. Firstly, this has a chance of resetting hate! Just sit tight until Garuda pulls it off of you again, then move back to your position at max BP distance. Ducal Guard slows down Garuda's movement speed, so do not run away, or she won't be able to pull hate from you. Towards this end: always keep up Blink and Stoneskin (and Phalanx if you're /rdm).

Secondly, Glavoid randomly becomes immune to either Weapon Skills (including Predator Claws) or magic (including Wind Blade) during the 30 seconds Blood Weapon is up. Again, I made the personal choice to hold Predator Claws until after Blood Weapon wore off, but it you're feeling lucky, go for it!

All-in-all this fight took around 20 minutes, and could potentially have been sped up by not holding back on Predator Claws. I never needed to re-summon or use an item to heal Garuda. I will admit that my MP was starting to get down to the Under 1,000 range by this time, however.

So, a bit slow to solo it, but it also avoids the, "Oh the humanity, he's eating us all!" kind of moment you can get with a more traditional setup. Also works very well as part of a traditional group, letting Garuda function as an excellent backup tank for when (not "if") your actual tank eats Disgorge.

[Artharian]

Kharon - Abyssea Attohwa
Avatar: Ifrit, Fenrir
BPs of note: Flaming Crush, Eclipse Bite, Lunar Roar
Atmas: Ducal Guard, Minikin Monstrosity, Razed Ruin
Notes: Opened with Ifrit and pulled around the corner to the Martello. Ifrit's Flaming Crush did reasonable damage, however once Kharon cast Dread Spikes the drain effect swung the battle so switched to Fenrir. Lunar Roar dispelled spikes and we continued from there. Eclipse Bite did reasonable damage ~ 1.5k, but when I needed to resummon Fenrir Kharon quickly cut through blink and stoneskin, making the Martello very useful.

Art.

[Dreamin]

BCNM - The Hills Are Alive
Waughroon Shrine - Orb: Themis Orb (99 Kindred's Seals) VS Tartaruga Gigante
This is the BCNM for one of the Black Belt items.

Avatar: Shiva, Fenrir for Dispelga, Leviathan for tanking.
BPs of note: Heavenly Strike when he is inside shell, Spinning Dive when he is outside shell.
What to bring: Tavnazian Tacos, eat it, reraise items, 2 stacks of echo drops, elixirs, high elixirs, dawn mulsums x 6
What to subs: white mage and red mage
What to cast: Earthen Ward, Noctoshield, Blink, Fenrir Buffs, Earthen Armor, Barwatera
Recommended set up: 6 Summoners

Notes: This battle cannot be done with small group, for safety you need your 6 summoners with Shiva. The reason being this turtle when it is inside the shell, it will regen so fast, and the only way you can force it out is to dish out your Heavenly Strike damage. If you want to be on the super safe side, bring 4 summoners and BLM/RDM x 2. You need massive ice magic damage to kill it while it is inside the shell. It will not move but casting water based spells, and dispelling buffs.

Summoner Notes: If you are so inclined to go all summoners for this, one summoner will use Leviathan and should be able to tank the entire battle, another summoner use Fenrir for dispelling his buffs, and the other 4 use Shiva for Heavenly Strike when it is inside shell. Toward the end use 5 Shivas.

Extreme caution: You need to always have your stoneskin, blink, barwatera, phalanx up at all times, non negotiable for taru especially - very deadly when you get caught in the floodga. Make sure you come and do BP from behind and not going forward facing it since if it casting, you will get hit with dispelga, silence and then big water spells. Don't have all Shivas attacking from front either have a couple from behind so that not all Shivas will be hit with water spells.

Alternate strategy: you can always come with standard party if you want, 2 melee DD, 1 healer and 3 magic damage 2 x Samurais and Beastmaster are great for this, with Whm/Rdm or Whm/Sch or Sch/Whm (can embrava) and Rdm + 2 Blms

For alt setup, 4x decently geared (and SKILLED near or at cap) BLM would make this very easy too. Gravity/Bind/DoTs and all Ice nukes make this pretty easy and fast BC.

[Luvbunny]

I admit there are far more efficient ways to kill some of these NMs without using SMN job in the process, but the thread is for people who love SMN job despite its many weaknesses and the fact that the job is the bastard child of pet jobs A lot of these NMs can be killed with Heavily geared empy DD + whm combo, lol. Or your main and a cure bot works fine too.