Iron Giant Ambuscade V1

BG Ambuscade Archive:

Old Thread:

Key Items:
Arcana

Videos:
Kaggra NINx2 PT VD 6min (JP): https://youtu.be/x2zwHBQNAu8
Logical NIN SOLO N - RDM SOLO E/VE (NA):https://youtu.be/XI-axEq3tkY
Kaggra RDM SOLO E (JP): https://youtu.be/7OyuSI8BZO4
Lute NIN SOLO E (JP): https://youtu.be/a3oHj17ZuuY
Lute SAM SOLO E (JP): https://youtu.be/InVuMnRKFFU

Key Notes:Strategies:

Solo'd as MNK on VE with no trusts for the fun of it. I used Chakra twice and kited while waiting on recast for second chakra. Just switch between the two you're fighting when one is in Terror/Invincible mode. With trusts would of been much easier.

Not sure if it was a problem on VE, but on VD it favors Turbine Cyclone which can be problematic with dispels. I assume it's a "punishment" for not following the gimmick properly but who knows considering most giant TP moves suck to deal with. You could circumvent dispels by using an extra GEO instead of BRD.

Blazemorne switched to Flame Arm Cannon (seemed same as normal Arm Cannon)/Eradicator after Frostmorne was terrored/Blaze started dropping "Blazing energies begin to coalesce/simmer/crackle"

I tried nuking opposite element of name occasionally/to possibly cancel message-related TP moves but didn't help. Used MNK, BRD and COR as DD (COR using Leaden) to try to give good damage type coverage but didn't really seem to change anything.

The important question is, are they invincible or invulnerable when they freeze.

It will be childsplay to spam them down with magic ws if they're merely invincible. I too did a VE just to see what's up, but didn't bother taking a job that had magic or call trusts that cast.

They are invulnerable. Leaden/nukes did 0 damage. Terror state also remains after a wipe/reset.

I fail to see what the "use magic" part of this is then. That was their message.

Frostlad takes full damage from magic WS (Leaden). Blazelad takes full damage from physical WS.

I would imagine that's what their message meant. I'm sure the idea is to have them never be terrorized which just makes them invulnerable regardless of what damage you do. How to do that, we don't know yet. Currently experimenting. Going to try to take them down simultaneously/keep them close in HP to see if that works.

Would COR/RNG as DDs be able to stand outside the aoe?

Yes, ranged DD easily outrange the dispel. You can also range the Eradicator weakness move if you are over 20'.

I'm getting the opposite, possible there's a switching mechanic though.

I was hoping more volatile matamata / faded crakclaw type "use magic"

This kind of "use magic" doesn't really reward "use magic" it's just another thing you can freely ignore. Oh well.

Just cleared on VD. Setup was RUN, COR, COR, BRD, WHM, GEO.

Two shooty boys, one doing Last Stand on Frostlad and the other doing Leaden Salute on Blazelad. (Which is weird because the attempt prior, the magic and physical resists of both were reversed?)

Keeping them similar HP negated ALL of the mechanics. The two only spammed Cyclone Turbine the entire time. No Eradicator. No chat messages. No two-hours. No blizzaga. No invulnerable. No regens. Nothing.

Cyclone Turbine over and over. Despite the RUN being buffless the entire time, it was pretty non-threatening.

The problem? It took 15 minutes and our COR's are geared to the teeth with full REMA buffs from the BRD and GEO.

If the intended method of doing this is keep them close in HP, then that leads to unending Dispel spam, then melee is absolutely not an option. Even in full m.eva gear, it would be a matter of seconds before you lose every buff you have.

Right now, ranged is the strategy, and it's a long one. If anybody else figures something out, let me know.

Has anybody tested stunning Cyclone, or does it appear to be in response to anything in particular? Curious if this is supposed to be a "*** you BRD's" month, or if it is verifiably avoidable.

Read the above. Seems like it's just a month to not melee.

Yep, I cleared VD last night with similar strats. One additional thing I notice was, if you spam high damage at the same time, the 2nd damage is reduced to under 1k. It seems like after 1 high damage WS, it causes the mob to have high DT so the next WS does like under 1k damage.

Yeah completely resists stun, I was hoping it would work because it would have been super easy to lock it with GEO/BLM with MNK solo DD. You could use 2x GEO to cover buffs but I'm not sure that it would be faster than the RNG strategy, and also may be more difficult to keep HPs matched if using say melee COR and MNK.

I only "locked" Frost in my melee attempt. If Frost's response to locking Blaze is "just" chainspell/Blizzaga as opposed to weakness/hp down TP moves, seems like that wouldn't be too difficult to negate and the easier option? They always have some access to cyclone though.

Anybody test melees subbing NIN for aoe and dispel? Or does it spam it that often?

If you are doing the mechanics right, it ONLY spams dispel. Full melee buffs gone in under a minute.

I noticed that too. Wasn't sure what was going on. Thought maybe it was a magic accuracy issue with Leaden.

Stayed at range using Leaden on Blaze, planning to MNK burn down Frost with buffs after terror. Once Frost hit 85% he became terroed and Blaze un-terrored, so it seems the intention is definitely to take them down in unison (or they rotate terrors a few times before stopping, which wouldn't be worth doing considering they regen to 100%). If 15% HP difference is the limit at least the mechanic of taking them down together doesn't have to be super precise, but if it goes on forever you're SOL once you trigger it.

MNK would go through occasional 10 second windows of 0 damage before returning to full damage. Usually immediately after message (though at initial engage was doing 0 damage with no message). Similarly Leaden would usually go 100% Damage > 50% Damage > 25% Damage (before any terror). Possible these were resist states but I don't think that's the case since I was still getting them after switching to Focus/Lang. Doesn't seem entirely tied to WS usage. Probably cumulative damage of X type up to a limit, possibly offset by dealing enough damage of a different type (High VS into Light didn't cause it), otherwise resets after a certain amount of time has passed. Frost only TP move during terror phase was Scapula Beam which is very manageable with Sacrifice.

Edit - Shadows work on Cyclone, seems to eat 2-3. May still be difficult to manage since both using at the same time is a definite possibility. Was also able to resist entirely 2x in a row with Malignance/Kenda+1 + Attunement/Vex/Runeist Roll but probably not a reliable gamble.

We noted that GEO Malaise & Frailty had zero affect on damage. They are either nerfed to oblivion or just don't work. I would assume the same goes for Vex and any other GEO debuff.

We eventually changed the setup to:

RUN
GEO (Indi Acumen, BoG GEO Fury)
BRD (Honor, Minuet 5, Prelude, Dirge)
RDM (Flurry 2/Dia 3/Frazzle 3/Distract 3/Keeping tank alive)
COR (Samurai/Chaos)
COR (Wizard/Miser)

In the end we were able to shave a couple minutes off the time, but it's still a very arduous process. We did try to throw a SAM at it and just stacking GEO buffs, but as soon as Hasso gets dispelled and goes on cooldown, it's just aids.

I would imagine RNG would be fine instead of a second COR.

If you WERE a lunatic and were hell bent on meleeing this, you would absolutely need a GEO. The fight is so long that a BRD and COR would go crazy putting buffs only to have them taken off seconds later. MNK would be fine, but any job that relies on Hasso would be boned. You would still need somebody to do the magic damage however to keep their HP's even. You would also need a WHM to keep up with the damage from Turbine. It can get spicy in there.

Poison shaved from 100 to 99% on both so they're at least functional, but nerf is definitely a possibility.

Just curious what mechanic triggers 2hours. We were keeping the two giants at similar hp levels (+/- 2-3% max) and they seemed to always 2 hour around 85%ish hp

It seems 15% is the terror limit, but 2-3% might be too much and trigger 2hr at 5% intervals or something. I triggered 2hr at 93%/90% but not at ~91/90 or 85/84.

More observations: Mewing Lullaby works but not sure if main SMN + one /SMN would be enough or not.

Did this with 2 PUP tanks, SMN, COR, RNG, GEO all well geared on VD. Kept giants HP similar, Was very chill setup, no stress, less than 16 mins.

Haven’t touched this months yet, but any idea how much HP they have?

>5min runs are super stressful. lol jk

I'll also share what I mean to have seen personally, together with a few friends so far. Just observations, nothing definitive here. We just tried E and N. We did E once with PUP(mediocre, me), SMN(very decent), SMN(REMA). Took almost the whole time (8m left). We tried Normal with several setups including more people with several jobs like BRD, BLM, PUP, COR, GEO but couldn't get them even below 60%

- Have tanked with PUP, physical damage ain't no issue at all but Chainspell Blizzaga from Frostnought definitely is and can catch you off guard
- They can use their 2h several times and it seems to me they don't have a real trigger % for using their 2h; I first did think so, but after seeing them fire at very random HP I do not anymore
- On Normal difficulty they did use their 2h even despite being almost exactly on same %HP
- Can PUP tank both at once up until Normal but have to prepare very well for magic damage and party should be prepared to panic kite...
- If you happen to get stuck in the invulnerability/terrorized stage dynamic it's pretty much un-managable from Normal difficulty onwards due to the damage mechanics and Regen, VE/E could still be done but kinda annoying
- After waking up from invulnerability hate seems to get reset and Frostnought might still have Chainspell up (depends on difficulty and situation of course). Simply try not to stand in a close group formation if possible
- Have brought GEO too, but also couldn't find it to be of much use other than buffing and nuking. Debuffing does not seem to help much (if any at all)

Our damage resistance theory is this:
Visually it seems to be as easy as Frost being indeed an ice based mage and Flame being a fire based warrior. Flame uses Mighty Strikes and Frost uses Chainspell to nuke through all it's Blizzaga/ja tiers it's got available. (Tiers depending on Difficulty)
From what we read from your guys observations here and our own in addition, we too tend to believe that they build resistance to their damage type weakness.

- We tend to believe that the mage is weak to physical dmg generally speaking and the warrior to magic dmg generally speaking.
- However it also seems they build up a lot of resistance (as mentioned) after receiving heavy dmg of the according type.
- We further think that you might counter this by also doing the opposite type of dmg to lower their original weakness again.

This would mean: keep triggering Frostnought with magic (low tier?) to have your physical DDs do consistent dmg to it and vice versa keep triggering Blazenought with physical attacks to have your magic based DDs (including magic WS) do consistent dmg. This could be totally bogus, or the other way round though and maybe it's just a short time window where the enemy gains resistance.

Personally I'm currently inclined to combine this while switching back and forth between the two with all players and never let the gap get further than 10~12ish percent. Cause once you see them spread out 15% HP it's basically too late. On Normal difficulty the Regen during Invulnerability is already so strong that it will take only a few seconds to be back at full.
From our Normal difficulty fight I believe this could be more effective than people just randomly bashing away at both at the same time.

This is just beliefs though, nothing else:)

One addition I forgot: If you do not kill them both at the same time (in a very short time window? few seconds?) the other one will crumble and it will now attack you with its head only. (Post #2 also mentions this) This head seems to be physically strong. This happened to us on a later run on E so it went down very quick, but it might become a problem on higher difficulties .

Able to solo fairly easily on Easy with Blu/Nin using Expiacion spam with unranked AG tiz+thibron. Naegling should be able do the job just as well if you can keep MP up.

Trusts:
Sehl'teus
Iroha II
Arciela II
King of Hearts
Yoran-Oran

Mostly chose these trust for their aoe heal abilities, and tanks seem pretty useless here since they seem prone to being one shot.Though Maybe Gessho/AAHM will work if they can hold hate, haven't tested them.

The giants don't hit hard outside of their spells so it's not really too dangerous. You could probably run geo trusts like Sylvie and Kuyin if you want faster clear, especially if you have Ygnas&Monberaux. Blizzaga spam is really the only danger in this fight, though if you don't take hate fast on fire giant he can 1 shot trusts with flare. Diamondhide might be able to save them but havent tried it.

Choose a DD loadout, but make sure to have White Wind for keeping trusts topped up for blizzaga spam, and Magic Hammer - since even with Tizona I was running out of MP(plague?).

fire giant 2hr doesn't seem to do anything, but the Ice one used Manafont and seemed to spam blizzaga tiers in sequence.

Fire giant takes reduced physical and seemingly magical(?). Maybe he's weak to ranged. Skillchains seem to do normal or increased damage him. Ice giant seems to take normal or increased physical damage so he's a pushover.

/nin is just for blocking flare since it hits like a truck and can easily one shot you. Occultation is too unreliable for this.

At start buff with the usual but save mighty guard until first terror since after terror they don't seem to use dispel. Pretty straightforward from here, just get AM 3, keep meditation and tenebral up and spam ws. Utsusemi when he's casting flare, and heal when needed until win. Not sure if the head is dangerous, it just seems to die in 1-2 WS without doing much. Used Grape Daifuku as food.

Took about 15 mins, so not sure if its worth soloing. There is probably a better strat to use than this.