June 2019 V1 VD Ambu

3 unda, valiance and ofa on my party, run in and aggro - drop every other ward but battuta, run to corner, engage and battuta, then foil and into regular hate rotation. I don't usually flash at all until everything is already solidly in position and on me, and if you're using battuta before you're engaged and in a position to parry you're just wasting duration. This has worked pretty consistently for the 180k or so hm of runs I've done so far.

I also usually stack everyone up in the corner of the wall to left of entrance so I'm not hitting my entire party with encumbrance on the pull.

This random *** 99k crap is annoying. No one has figured out the gimmick to this yet?

No ones figured it out, and no one is going to either.

Its not punishing enough. It's easier to just risk it than to bother putting in any actual effort into figuring out how to stop it.

(if it were even possible to stop, mechanically, which I sorta doubt) Just stun it 4head Just parry it 4head Just don't die 4head

Just buy a house.

We've got a very good idea, don't make light or dark SC's. We're pretty sure it has to do with him taking over a certain amount of light or dark elemental damage. Last night we were spamming VD and noticed the following.

RUN
WAR (me)- Lots of different WS
DD COR - Savage Blade
DD BRD - Mandalic Stab / Evisceration
GEO
WHM

First run I used Resolution cause I was doing MS zerg on the boss, no 99K silliness. Next two runs I switched to Chango and almost immediately the boss would do a 99K hit to our tank, both cases had me and the COR accidentally making a big SC due to Savage and Upheaval linking and Savagery Warcry being pure awesome. Fourth and all subsequent runs I switched to Shining One for Impulse Drive and the BRD switched to main hand Ambu dagger for Evisceration, never did and 99K hits.

This isn't conclusive but it's enough of a pattern for us to deliberately not use WS's that make Light / Dark SC's.

It's got absolutely nothing to do with light or darkness skillchains.

Realmnk triboxes it sch sch run and gets 99k'd

I'm also reasonably certain it did it to my automaton twice (but it doesn't show up in chat log, auto just despawns) and I was in pure tank mode absolute zero magical/skillchain damage

Due to the timing in the chatlog for the cases where I've seen 99k pop off on the tank... I'm pretty sure it's just the NM creating a SC and the target getting MB'd.

Pretty sure this also isn't the only Ambuscade fight where that has been a thing before..

Might simply be a case of set elemental dmg, so spamming light/dark sc its taking a certain ele dmg repeatedly, in a mb format its taking specific mb dmg of the same ele


Tonberry had a similar sc + mb mechanic, theory was hate i think as to why itd spike to 99k randomly

We've been able to reliable repeat this behavior on VD, if you deal a high amount of Light or Dark elemental damage, it will respond with a 99K attack to whomever has hate. It might have other triggers built in but so far we've seen 100% wipes whenever we open the fight up with Upheaval -> Savage -> Upheaval.

We stopped doing that and just used Savage Blade and Impulse Drive and no 99K's out of dozens of runs. We clear the battlefield in 5min or less on VD so this isn't a slow or held back kill.

RUN can solo light though. Also, what’s the purpose of two SCH? He doing MB method for continual SC?

Run is purely there for tanking. I'm not him. but I'd guess more strategems. It's faster to double sch so you never have a wait. Healing is completely pointless, simple regen does the job. (and turms parries are broken)((and yoran trust, cause tribox))

Its likely light or dark magic damage during it's WS or something like that. SCs are just the most frequent ways to generate large amounts of those damage typea randomly. Like I said we are able to reproduce it reliably.

Skillchains definitely aren't the cause of 99k... it's pure RNG and it sucks. I went 12 runs without seeing 99k once, I thought we got the mechanics figured out from forcing the mob to break the SC at the start, doing Reso and Savage spam 0 skillchains were made. Still 99k happens. It is freak luck if you don't die. As someone said, this mechanic hasn't been figured out yet and it won't be figured out. We just gotta deal with some shitty mechanics for the rest of the month.

I got 99k'd while 4 boxing with RUN as the only DD, and I only made light two or three times. Theres nothing at all consistent about it, I've eaten it at the start, at 10%, every different DD, sc or no, aoe hate or no, after a nether casti darkness or just completely out of the blue.

The longest streak I had with no 99ks was with a croc rdm solo DD, but if someone's still getting 99k'd with schs water damage has nothing to do with it either. Takes two minutes to reset JAs and re-enter so I've just stopped worrying ahout it at this point.

There ya go.


We've been able to reproduce it and therefor it's not random. It's likely caused by dealing over a certain number amount of Light / Dark elemental damage during an animation causing it to counter with a 99K MB attack. SC's just happen to deal magic damage, I know shocker right. It only appears random because SE is convoluted with their battle mechanics and doesn't like to telegraph stuff or give hints.

Anyhow for those trying to avoid the 99K problem, just don't cause any high spikes in magic damage, specifically Light / Dark (the only ones we tested).

The thing is, I've had 5 runs in a row where all I did was buff up, then pull the mobs, and I got 99k'd right away - no damage was done to the boss besides auto attacks.

:/

Yeah, if it had happened again the next 5 runs when I did the same thing I'd agree with you, but that wasn't the case. It's random, it's still happened to me and others without ever skillchaining once. You're just getting a lucky streak.

Its still going without a single 99K so far, statistically not a lucky streak. Like I said it's not SC specifically, it's something around magic damage, likely during one of it's attacks or WS animations. And again we can reproduce it on demand. Buff up, go in and the moment it gets back to the corner do Upheaval + Savage Blade spam, does 99K to the tank within 10s and we wipe. There could be other ways to trigger it but for us that's been a guaranteed way, and by avoiding that scenario along with all forms of Light/Dark elemental damage, zero 99K's.

Your playing a RUN, what runes do you have up, just for example.

just curious are you still doing impulse/savage spam? Or did you swap to a different WS spam?

We would have seen this with a croc rdm doing 4-6k enspell rounds constantly if it was magic damage, and those were the runs where it didn't happen once. Either its specifically skillchain damage and regular magic damage doesn't matter, something else entirely(too much damage period during meikyo, except I ate a 99k at 10% without the mob scing, or me scing, so even that seems to not be the case), or we're all just having either very good or very bad luck and attributing it to something in our strats.

To be 100% clear there can be, and is likely more than one condition to trigger a 99k.

It does not have to be "this one thing"

It can also be "doing this thing has a chance of 99k"

I don't get this. I posted in the same paragraph that I used Reso AND Savage Blade. Both Fragmentation, both do not skillchain together. I went on a 12 run streak without a single 99k going off, nothing changed in any other runs, but 99k still happened on the 13th and 14th run. Not skillchaining at all. You may think you have this mechanic down, but it's not. It's almost impossible to prove due to how RNG and *** this mechanic is.
The chances of being 99k are so random that it's impossible to say what is causing it and what isn't.

I don't get how that doesn't prove your point null.


I have even went into Ambu VD solo (sorry for whos queue I delayed) and never Weapon skilled once and I STILL died to 99k on the odd run or two. This 99k mechanic is not being figured out at all. Just know you're gonna die eventually and move on. Nothing anyone can do.

Probably right, but im curious if its possibly a reaction to consecutive dmg/x number of dmg of a certain type, so say magic, or sc dmg since thatll hit a certain element in the sc whatever its weakest to, or possibly slash/pierce/etc. In most of these examples its 2+ slashing jobs making scs, in saevs example its pierce/slash spam

Has anyone tried to modify the kill order as a way to minimize it eliminate mercurial strike and subsequent 99k burst? Every party I've been in has the mega boss going first. What are the consequences/mechanics of killing the adds first then him?

*slams head on desk*

It's like your not even reading what I wrote.


There could be other elements but we know those two, at the wrong time, cause cause it to happen.


Read what was wrote, actually read it and think for a moment. I know it's crazy to expect people to listen to each other on the internet but hey there could always be a first.


That was what we settled on as I was on WAR and our COR is stupidly OP. The BRD was doing Evis though their damage is much less an issue.


Just him doing more AoE damage. The MNK's can hit kinda hard during hundred fists and the BST can charm your tank and instantly zap their hate. The boss dies pretty fast anyway so it's not a big deal to kill him first.

You... you do realize how Darkness and Light skillchains pick their damage, right? The monsters weakness is water, darkness skillchains are picking water as their element for damage, Enwater would 100% have triggered this is if it's what you're saying it is.

You're arguing with a bunch of people who've tried the same ***you're saying works and gotten 99k'd. Using savage spam was something we tried 50 runs ago and it didn't make a difference in the frequency of 99ks. The reality is we still have zero clue what the reason for it is.

Oh almost guaranteed there is more then one way to trigger it, we just stumbled across one of them.


Skillchain ~IS~ magic damage, it's effected by MDT, Weather, MDMG and elemental affinity. Light SC's attack with all four elements (Fire, Light, Thunder, Wind) while Dark SC's attack with the other four (Ice, Darkness, Water, Earth). The element that is usually chosen is the one that the target has the lowest resistance to. This is why we believe dealing over a certain amount of elemental damage during a specific window like attack or WS animations or even during the 2HR itself will trigger one of the conditions.

It could also be (and likely is) accumulative which is why we make sure no other form outside of Dia II. Meaning no light or dark runes.

oh i know its magic dmg, i just meant maybe its counting say nukes and scs are seperate forms of magic dmg, my shot in the dark in all this is its responding to consecutive dmg from 1 type, whether that be sc elements, nuke elements, or phys dmg types, atleast just looking over the thread that seems to be the correlating factor; the same SC or the same dmg types being used throughout cept in your case where its a slash/pierce with no SC factor.

Again, just a shot in the dark

Not always, when battle mechanics are associated with magic damage it gets really weird and SE tends to choose the one that hurts the player the most.

We're about three posts from ad hominem though.


We have a solid idea on how to avoid 99K's, we can reproduce it and avoid it on demand, that's good enough to show it's not random.

Well we've bashed it's head in over and over again using very powerful WS's. Several of those times involved me with a GS doing MS Zerg with the uber COR doing his Savage thing, so consecutive high slashing doesn't cause it.

As Eiryl said there is likely multiple conditions to trigger this, and that is what is messing with people since they are looking for a single "don't do this thing" and discounting everything else. Since I largely do melee burns on these I just search for a way to avoid it using that method.