What is the hardest MMO fight you ever had?

[Queezy]

Ummm..no AV was only beat pre-'nerf' with justice exploit. Also PW wasn't cleared 'plenty' before his nerf either.

wrong and wrong

[Delsus]

FFXI imo had some of the hardest and most memorable fights. The usual AV and PW have been mentioned already, but the whole of CoP was difficult as it was all level synced, you could not over level or overgear the content. My single worst fight was CoP's Airship fight before level capping was removed, I think it took me over 50 times to beat it but this could have been down to bad luck, badly timed pumps, stacking pumps etc. but nonetheless it was a very fun fight.

[Anty]

just exploring new areas was harder in ffxi then boss fights are in ARR lol... i think Yoshi really will not change his baby-hand-holding-direction...

[Mattia]

FFXI The Eco-Warrior quest I think it was Bastok was as hard as Absolute Virtue. Also the CoP quest line. Some of those were hard as hell.

[Ghishlain]

So, on the topic of PW / AV from XI fame, I decided to do some research just to see how valid my own opinion was and came up with the following thoughts and stats on the whole thing.


For the matter, I've changed my thoughts from "AV / PW being only killable via exploits" to
(1) PW can be killed, it just takes time, dedication, and skill
(2) AV can be killed, it just takes time, dedication, and skill, and a lot of luck if you do it legitimately (There's a report that AV used Benediction SEVEN TIMES in the course of a 30 hour fight)
(3) AV was killed in a variety of ways, all deemed to be exploitable
(3a) Wall was used to immobilize AV, making him just a punching bag for death (apparently TONS of people were jailed for this)
(3b) Modus Veritas allowed SCHs to stack a Helix up to UNGODLY damage, allowing near instant death of AV (patched so this ability couldn't be stacked)
(3c) DRK KC spam (leading to the, imo, hilarious death of AV in around one minute) - I do believe this was patched to make AV less susceptible to Souleater damage? I could be mistaken in this respect

I don't think these two behemoths is as killable as some would like to think, but is doable for some high tier players (back in the days). Overall, I find AV to be much less controllable over PW, namely due to the fact AV could (1) Benediction and (2) "I'm just gonna wipe you out" via Chainspell Meteor or Mijin Gakure or just, yeah.



Here are some stats I compiled using AV and PWs drop data and finding out how many people had possessed X equipment before Abyssea was introduced (June 6, 2010). I used FFXIAH Ownership history to determine the dates people had first possessed an item, with the respective number being in parenthesis.

Pandemonium Warden
Shenlong's baghnakhs (18) - February 6th, 2009 to May 24th, 2010
Nanatsusayanotachi (7) - August 11th, 2009 to May 20th, 2010
Hachiryu Haramaki (22) - June 28th, 2009 to May 17th, 2010
Dorje (14) - October 30th, 2009 to May 15th, 2010

Absolute Virtue (Not full drop table used)
Futsuno Mitama (15) - July 1st, 2008 to May 13th, 2010
Ninurta's Sash (44) - July 4th, 2008 to April 15th, 2010
Aureole (34) - June 6th, 2008 to June 6th, 2010
Minerva's Ring (36) - September 12th, 2008 to May 13th, 2010

Bear in mind that ownership will skewed to be lower than shown for PW because of the fact AH only acquires data if the player chooses to allow their data to be scanned.

Conversely, AV drops will most likely be higher than recorded due to the fact most AV gear is tradable, so who knows how many of those owners were legitimately killed AV or just bought the item from someone else who had it, etc.

Random tidbits
PW was reportedly first killed in January 2009
A blog's report on AV data collection from LimitBreak LS in the 2006 era

TLDR: Opinion changed from "AV/PW can't be killed legitimately" to AV / PW can be killed, not as "farm status", here's some random info / stats to go with the opinion.

[SekhmetM]

Every FFXI battle ever

[Pterois]

Kirin and his regen from hell



and his four friends of hate

[FranSeara]

I've yet to have "IMO" a real fight in this my first/last and only MMO. Most fights in FF 14 are not fights. The fights in FF 14 are like a "D*monic game of Simon Says" I hope for more Solo stuff in the new expansion that allow "you" the player to have more of a say in how the battle play out. Right now all it takes is one or two BAD dancers to ruin the fun.