BLM Miser Burn Strategy

[Seiken]

So following Kaeko's MATK testing, we started thinking about how BLM is potentially the strongest DD with the right gear setup. We wanted to test this theory by trying to kill The Miser's Mistress in a sub 2 minute kill. The tangible benefit from this is not only do you get Miser out of the poison state fast, you also kill the Miser before it moves making the fight much safer. Very few melee (MNK) setups are able to do this safely and effectively.

The Setup

WAR
WHM
BLM x5
BRD

The Plan

1) Before porting into the Miser room, have your WHM switch to BRD. Have the WHM/BRD cast Ballad of Magi (and already have Sacred Prism on his bar). Have the other BRD cast AoE Stoneskin. Have the WHM/BRD switch back to WHM

2) Enter the portal and have the WHM AoE Regen. Start the Miser fight.

3) Important! Have all 5 BLM prebuff Parsimony/Excrutiate/Quelling Strike/Resonance. Have your WAR tank Collusion a BLM without Quelling Strike. Preferably have this BLM use a Mega-potion of INT. Have all 5 BLM cast Firaga on Miser to open the fight.

4) During the Firaga cast, have the BRD cast Battlevoice Minuet of Rigor. This will help tremendously with resists and the +1000 HP is useful for Convert.

5) Continue killing Miser as normal. Using Fire/Fira/Firaga when up and Thunder/Thundara when up.

6) Depending on Miser's moves, the tank will have decent or great hate, so use Chameleon as necessary and Freeze if needed.

The Gear

Most of our BLMs had a mix of single/double socketed gear. There are no overly difficult pieces to get. One of our BLMs went in with entirely single socketed gear and still was within 1.1k of the top DD.

Weapon: Lightning Brand with INT
Shield: Aubrest's Allegory
Head: Felt Cavalier Hat with INT
Body: BLM AF
Hands: Mage's Halfgloves
Waist: HP Belt or Grid Belt
Legs: Sorcerer's Tights or Woolen Tights with INT
Feet: Mahogany Pattens with M.ATK

Rings: Zircon Ring +1, Zircon Ring +1
Neck: Rubelite Choker +1
Earring: Mage's Earring
Wrist: Zircon Bracelet +1
Food: Crowned Cake

The Results

1:49 Miser Kill before Miser moves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSo25Bm075Q


For those of you who care about DPS, the Max DPS was 164.47


I hope this info is useful to parties still struggling with Miser or for those BLM enthusiasts who want to try something new instead of MNK burning. The parse/video listed was after our 2nd attempt so there is definitely room for improvement. We made a lot of mistakes as well (missed combos, out of range, no regen to start, etc). But following this guide should get most groups a 2 minute kill. As a side note, my LS and I find it very hard to find any situation where BLM is not the best DD. Until SE brings back incaps or something else that makes melee useful, BLM is the DD of choice.

[Dakin]

Very impressive.

My only question would be: Do you feel this would be the optimum set up for standard speed runs? From watching the video, the prep time for buffs/class switching was kind of long. Also, depending on switches and party composition up to that point, convert may not be up for all the BLMs? MNK burn may not be quite efficient, but seems more economical.

[TheFatHousecat]

Very impressive.

My only question would be: Do you feel this would be the optimum set up for standard speed runs? From watching the video, the prep time for buffs/class switching was kind of long. Also, depending on switches and party composition up to that point, convert may not be up for all the BLMs? MNK burn may not be quite efficient, but seems more economical.

I think the point was that, although I believe MNKs are faster, not everyone is able to reach the required numbers to kill Mistress before she moves, safely. So this strat. is sort of like a "poor man's" guide, for those who want to kill Mistress before she moves but don't have enough familiarity with MNK to pull it off, or, simply for people who want to play BLM at AV.

[carraway]

This is an interesting approach. We still use one BLM on Mistress to DS/sleep Hearty Victuals in case they spawn on top of us. Do you have one BLM designated to control adds, or just FFA it?

On a stationary fight, our best MNK with Corselet has been able to break 160 peak DPS, but we haven't had a perfect kill where he ends at 160+. I think it's pretty cool, and it speaks well for overall balance, that two completely different min/max setups can achieve the same thing.

[carraway]

I think the point was that, although I believe MNKs are faster, not everyone is able to reach the required numbers to kill Mistress before she moves, safely. So this strat. is sort of like a "poor man's" guide, for those who want to kill Mistress before she moves but don't have enough familiarity with MNK to pull it off, or, simply for people who want to play BLM at AV.

Nothing "poor man's" about it; that kind of DPS is far more difficult to consistently achieve on MNK without near-perfect execution and excellent gear.

edit: Just for comparison's sake, our fastest kill thus far was around 1:55~6, with DPS as follows:
MNK 152.8
MNK 146.4
MNK 144.6
MNK 134.9
BLM 132.2
BRD 105.9
WAR 75.9

From what we've seen, without Corselet, but good gear in all other slots, and perfect execution, a MNK's practical stationary DPS ceiling for this fight is around 150, slightly higher if everything goes particularly well. With the BLM strategy including BV Minuet, it looks like five equally well-geared BLMs (double melds in all applicable slots, HQ accessories, etc.) could all push 160, which is outstanding DPS without positional requirements.

[Kaeko]

There was a small argument I had with Valk over how to approach this setup. Valk was insistent that we max out the DPS for proving the concept at the expense of viability for incorporation into a normal speed run; whereas I was trying to see if we could just kill Miser within 2 minutes without sacrificing setup time to streamline this with a speed run.

Ultimately, the way this was done in the video is not viable for a speed run; however, you can really streamline this with a 5 chest run by only sacrificing the paeon of war to give the BRD and WAR 3000 TP to start (we basically wasted 15 minutes prepping just to get the 3000TP to start for 2 characters). Everything else is actually the same.

All that is really "required" for this to work setup wise is Battle Voice Minuet and possibly an NQ ballad. I say possibly because the first time we did this the BRD accidentally forgot to Ballad period and there was no Paeon of War so the melee started with 0 TP. We did the fight with no MP regen, no starter TP, one of the BLM was out of range and lost about 5000 damage, and still got it down in 2:01. So I'm confident that this strategy actually streamlines very well if you just remove the Paeon of War and go WAR BRD WHM BLM x5. This is pretty much what we normally use anyways.

****

Regarding the idea of "top DPS", I personally find the idea a very misguided way to assess the viability and strength of a strategy; however, if we are to indulge in such an argument, BLM will produce higher numbers when completely optimized. I'm very sure of this especially if it takes a Corselet MNK to break 160 for you guys, when we have multiple single socket gear BLMs breaking 150 on just a 2nd attempt. Formula-wise, MATK and INT scale better for damage over melee stats so going into a decked out gear argument only favors BLM more as well. I'd be interested to see Actus parsed in a strategy like this one.

I think the reason BLM has the advantage here is because you can open with Firaga + Excruciate + Collusion at distance. This gives us an initial first strike burst of 1,500-2,000 damage per BLM at basically time = 0 seconds that you just carry with you until the end of the fight. I actually made a curve that showed how DPS from a BLM whittles down as the fight lingers - it starts incredibly high around the 700 mark after 5 seconds, then obviously falls continuously as the fight drags on. If you ever reach the point where MP = 0, it free-falls as opposed to a steady 150 MNK as you mentioned above. This actually seems in line with what Yoshi-P wanted out of BLM, since he stressed BLM as a job with top-tier 'burst' damage that quickly fades as MP runs dry.

But again, to reiterate the point, the ultimate goal should be to kill Miser within 2 minutes WHILE streamlining it with your 5 chest run setups. A DPS war between MNK and BLM is fairly pointless in my opinion. So is trying to say a 1:50 kill beats a 2:00 kill in merit somehow. I'm positive the BLM setup we use can do this with fairly minimal gear requirements, similar to a MNK method. It's just another alternative for LSs that cater more towards mage over melee.

EDIT:
Regarding your question about adds. If we fail to kill it within 2 min in our usual runs, we just sleep the tenders and go back to killing. If we're off, we're usually not so far off that we can't kill it with an extra minute, so we don't have to worry about the tenders waking or hearty victuals popping. A heavy BLM setup has the advantage of if shit hits the fan, you have 5 AoE sleep spammers and Miser is easier to get out of the pool because your DD is completely ranged.

[carraway]

Yeah, I think it's far easier for a BLM to hit any kind of practical DPS ceiling, and I'm not trying to put forth any kind of argument as to which job is preferable. It's going to boil down to individual player and group preference. A short, stationary fight really plays towards BLM's strengths, and I'm glad you guys are pushing BLM setups to their limits. This guide illustrates that most of us have just scratched the surface in min/maxing.

As for adds, we've observed that trying to kill Mistress in under 2 minutes always leads to the giltrap/hearty victual spawn configuration. If we slow down our DPS (on one run while I was on MNK, I purposely left Fists of Fire off), we get tenders/giltraps. Have you noticed any kind of correlation between Mistress's HP at the time of adds spawning to the configurations in which the adds spawn?

[Seiken]

There is a little more involved than for normal speed runs, but this setup could easily be optimized for 5-chesting. Normally we fight Coincounter with 1 WAR, 2 WHM, 3 BLM, 2 BRDs (2 WHMs for safety). We get to Coincounter around 52:30-53:00. Being very conservative, let's say you start at 52:00 and take 4 minutes to kill him. That leaves 48:00 on the clock. 1 WHM and 1 BRD can switch to BLM at this point. You will have Convert up around 40:30, or if you plan ahead, you can start fighting Miser around 41:30 and have it ready mid-fight. Alternatively, if your tank is skilled enough for Coincounter, you can solo WHM heal him with 5 BLMs and 1BRD. This would eliminate the convert problem altogether. The only other job switching is the WHM switching to BRD and back. With macros that is maybe a 20 second penalty.

The reason our time (started Miser around 18:15) is so low is we took an extra precaution and got our tank to full TP with Paeon beforehand while also talking over our strategy (we made a lot of mistakes our first attempt ). In hindsight though, this turned out not so useful as our tank ended up slept/paralyzed most of the fight anyways. Also, in the video you see 2 BRDs right before Miser. This was to get BV Ballad and BV Minuet up before fighting. In our subsequent attempts, we noticed that this was overkill and we only needed a normal Ballad. A lot of the stuff we did in this video is a little over-the-top and we've since streamlined it to the process listed in the OP. Honestly if we did a flawless 5 BLM run on Miser, I could easily see <1:40 maybe even around 1:30. But a group with average single/double melded gear should be able to execute this speed kill.

If I had to give a total optimized 5-Chest run setup it'd be

[60:00]BLM x 4, WHM x2, BRD 2x Until Coincounter
[53:00]BLM x 5, WHM x1, BRD x1, WAR x1 For Coincounter Fight
[50:30]BLM x 5, WHM x 1, BRD x1, WAR x1 Up until the portal to the Miser room
[46:30]BLM x 5, BRD x 2, WAR x1 For BRD to cast Ballad
[46:00]BLM x 5, WHM x 1, BRD x 1, WAR x 1 Miser Kill
[43:30]Miser Dead

Of course that'd be a flawless run. I'd tack on like 30s-1min to each section. But you'd still end up with plenty of time left. Also you sacrifice the safety of having 2 WHMs, so is killing that much faster really worth the loss of safety? That's up for debate. For a safety 5-Chest run

[60:00]BLM x 4, WHM x2, BRD 2x Until Coincounter
[52:00]BLM x 3, WHM x2, BRD x2, WAR x1 For Coincounter Fight
[48:00]BLM x 5, WHM x 1, BRD x1, WAR x1 Up until the portal to the Miser room
[41:30]BLM x 5, BRD x 2, WAR x1 For BRD to cast Ballad
[41:00]BLM x 5, WHM x 1, BRD x 1, WAR x 1 Miser Kill
[38:30]Miser Dead

Anyways, it'd be about 4 Job changes and transitions well with a 5-Chest Run.

[Kaeko]

As for adds, we've observed that trying to kill Mistress in under 2 minutes always leads to the giltrap/hearty victual spawn configuration. If we slow down our DPS (on one run while I was on MNK, I purposely left Fists of Fire off), we get tenders/giltraps. Have you noticed any kind of correlation between Mistress's HP at the time of adds spawning to the configurations in which the adds spawn?

From studying video, I believe the Hearty Victuals will spawn with traps (as opposed to traps only) if Miser's HP is below roughly 40% when the traps are set to spawn. I haven't seen a video from you guys, but if this were true, it would imply that you guys get Miser to ~40% or better within the first 60 seconds since the traps spawn 1 minute after engaging Miser. If you slow damage down to only get it to say ~50% HP after 60 seconds, you'll get the normal non-Hearty Victual configuration.

[carraway]

Sorry, I made lots of edits to my second and third posts in this thread.

I've parsed over 150 peak DPS on Mistress without Minuet, using a mixed INT/m.atk/m.acc build (around ~505 m.acc with food); on a few ~2 minute kills, I typically end around 130-135 if I don't need to sleep anything. I'm positive that with better BLM gear and your specific strategy and setup, most BLMs could reach even higher ceilings -- I wouldn't be surprised if your team all starts pushing 170+. Triple melds are pretty expensive to come up with in the long run, but aren't entirely impractical.

What are the damage breakdowns like per spell?