Dzemeal Darkhold Speed Run Guide

[tachikoma]

I wonder how stats affect your dps as mages, do you mind posting stats?

I have a very hard time with stats since I always am crafting for hq, right now i'm working on WVR crafts with high DEX and I need to keep 130'ish DEX. Am i killing my mage ability with such low DEX?

Also what wand does Kaeko use? I was using the Jade crook+2 but your usage of Aegis Boon II makes me want a shield.

[Cursive]

I wonder how stats affect your dps as mages, do you mind posting stats?

I have a very hard time with stats since I always am crafting for hq, right now i'm working on WVR crafts with high DEX and I need to keep 130'ish DEX. Am i killing my mage ability with such low DEX?

Also what wand does Kaeko use? I was using the Jade crook+2 but your usage of Aegis Boon II makes me want a shield.

kaeko is using the gridanian wand. there is really no benefit to using a two handed arm when a wand/brand and shield increase your ability to survive.

as thm i have 181 pie with gear and stat trait switches, 140 vit, 80 mnd. int is at base. seiken valk has high pie as well.

other cons have high vit and mnd only...pie and int at base.

[Kaeko]

I wonder how stats affect your dps as mages, do you mind posting stats?

I have a very hard time with stats since I always am crafting for hq, right now i'm working on WVR crafts with high DEX and I need to keep 130'ish DEX. Am i killing my mage ability with such low DEX?

Also what wand does Kaeko use? I was using the Jade crook+2 but your usage of Aegis Boon II makes me want a shield.

I'm using a Walnut Wand (of something, I forget). The best wand to use for the role I play in this (basically lots of Curaga spam, taking hate, and staying alive) is Gridania Wand since you get a reasonably high Potency with MP and MND (your curing stats) but I've been too lazy to pick it up. The shield is essential. Aegis Boon and Deflection are very broken, especially with a +2/3 Square Ash shield.

My stats are 174 MND (cap), then 132 VIT (dumped everything I could into VIT after capping MND). INT doesn't seem to make an appreciable difference in damage currently in 1.18 so there's not a huge benefit to stacking INT for nuke damage, especially when nukes do so much on normal mobs at 0 +INT. Really the concept of the build I play is pretty cheesy:

(1) Get the maximum amount of MP possible from stats and food (use divine Stone Soup)
(2) Go purely HP and MP gear on equipment
(3) Lots of defense buffs (Sentinel, Featherfoot, Aegis Boon II, Deflection, +/- Diversion and Decoy)
(4) Spam Curaga I/II +/- Spiritbind blindly with no regard for enmity or MP efficiency
(5) Use defense buffs for temporary safety with the assumption mobs will die before they break buffs

Our main healer Katsu Kobashi has a similar stat build but a much different strategy regarding play-style since he's the designated "main healer" and has to worry about other issues like enmity and MP efficiency.

EDIT:
Also, you can definitely sleep the skeletons for Batraal. They are slept a number of times during the video that was posted. I even accidentally wake one due to the clumsiness of auto-attack in 1.18.

[Cursive]

5 chest speed run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfGVL2hUIOY

after making some slight adjustments to the batraal kill we completed a five chest speed run. after some minor testing we found ws>ws>magic br did about the same dmg as spamming banish and scourge II. also, we kept an arc, thm and con to continue dmg on batraal while the three other cons nuked down the second group of skeletons. the plan for the third group of skeletons was to aggro and group them all and have all mages chainspell sleep in hopes that it would stick given enough tries and then focus on killing batraal. this sort of worked as seen in the video.

obviously this was a very sloppy kill, which we think illustrates there is a bit of leeway with your party setup in completing this. also, four archers instead of mainly mages can kill the bosses quicker, but we found it was much slower running through the dungeon and instead went mage heavy. we also had varying levels of success landing dots. sometimes all stick, other times only one or two. we think that two arc and a thm on dots would probably work best for constant dmg on batraal.

thanks to everyone who responsed with any ideas. if anyone wants more info we can write up a more detailed strategy.

[DoctorMog]

5 chest speed run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfGVL2hUIOY

after making some slight adjustments to the batraal kill we completed a five chest speed run. after some minor testing we found ws>ws>magic br did about the same dmg as spamming banish and scourge II. also, we kept an arc, thm and con to continue dmg on batraal while the three other cons nuked down the second group of skeletons. the plan for the third group of skeletons was to aggro and group them all and have all mages chainspell sleep in hopes that it would stick given enough tries and then focus on killing batraal. this sort of worked as seen in the video.

obviously this was a very sloppy kill, which we think illustrates there is a bit of leeway with your party setup in completing this. also, four archers instead of mainly mages can kill the bosses quicker, but we found it was much slower running through the dungeon and instead went mage heavy. we also had varying levels of success landing dots. sometimes all stick, other times only one or two. we think that two arc and a thm on dots would probably work best for constant dmg on batraal.

thanks to everyone who responsed with any ideas. if anyone wants more info we can write up a more detailed strategy.

Cant sleep undead.

Other than that. good stuff!

[Cursive]

Cant sleep undead.

Other than that. good stuff!

yea, we know...however, if you throw enough sleeps at them they will sleep...hence chainspell sleep. the few times we've tried it we've gotten 2 or 3. don't remember what happens in that video, but i think we got 2 of them.

[Neversleeps]

Cant sleep undead.

Other than that. good stuff!

You can sleep the skeletons, just with an incredibly low land-rate and with a low duration of time. That's why we have 4-5 mages chainspell + sleep the last set of mobs so that we have about 8-10 chances to sleep the mob.

You can't, however, sleep the Ghosts.

[Seiken]

Hey tachikoma, I'll try to remember our relative stats.

For the DPS mages, they were stacked mostly into MND with some Vitality, no INT whatsoever. For the DoT mages, 181 PIE with the rest split between MND and VIT.

The main reason why the dps mages have such high MND in our run is to Curaga tank the Purgatory Knights. Profundity II with Banish II will do about the same damage regardless of your INT.

I think Kaeko either uses the Gridanian wand or an NQ Walnut wand of Storms (He should really use a wind wand on the ogre to help build TP faster). The reason he uses a shield is to curaga tank more easily and better survivability. Sentinel/Aegis Boon II/Deflection with Spiritbind/Curaga is a guaranteed way to keep hate and stay alive. He used these skills to hold the 2nd and 3rd groups of Purgatory Knights.

I'll ask Kaeko to post his stats when he gets online after work today.

[SilvertearRen]

If a party can complete a speedrun with lancers, pugilists, etc, I will appreciate it if they posted on the forums a guide on how to do such a thing, because all these guides are heavily stacked in one direction or another.

A balanced party, please.

[Neversleeps]

If a party can complete a speedrun with lancers, pugilists, etc, I will appreciate it if they posted on the forums a guide on how to do such a thing, because all these guides are heavily stacked in one direction or another.

A balanced party, please.

Now that we have the 5 chest run completed, we are going to try to mix things up a bit with Lancers and other class combinations. One thing to note is that a reason you see so many guides with seemingly skewed parties is because while there does exist a margin for error (you can see it in how sloppy we are in this video), the instance is pretty unforgiving if you're trying to go for a "full" completion. The content is still relatively new, so you'll see more and more people stream-line tactics that'll eventually allow for more customization.

One minor caveat, however, is that a balanced party will still probably have 3-4 mages and either a Marauder or a Glad as your main tank. Which means there will really only be 3-4 spots left for other melee class. Another thing to take into account is that that melee class might not play like a "normal" variant of that class. For example, they may be borrowing so many other job skills as to give them a truly niche role that not every Lancer or Pug may be able to fulfill.