Iron Giant Ambuscade V1

The fomors were great because any standard balanced party could do them fine. The frogs and other lame ***where one buffed person carried the entire party are weak as hell and need some drastic changes.

I wanted to ask about this. The video on the previous page mentions htbf bow with bow quest WS. I'm wondering why bow is so much stronger than gun. Aren't they both piercing damage? Couldn't find anything that would explain the difference in damage. Anyone know of any mechanical difference between the two weapon types in this fight? Or is this an IC thing where they resist metal bullets (lol) but take more damage from arrows? Sounds silly I know, that's why I'm confused

First things that come to mind:

1. Empy Arrow has a better ftp at 3k TP than Last Stand (5.0 vs 4.0). This would justify the Tenzen TP bonus Bow shown.

2. Archery's True Shot distance is further away from the mob than Marksmanship, likely meaning more chances to be at "proper" or at least closer to proper distance

The split modifier on Empy Arrow (AGI/STR) vs the pure AGI modifier of Last Stand could come into effect, though I doubt much, if at all.

I seem to recall (I can't remember where) that the Tenzen bow is 100TP bonus and that it's a typo.

It's none of that. It's just because Empyreal Arrow has an immense (as of yet not 100% known the value, but assumed to be 80-100%) attack bonus which is integral when youre not bringing a full suite of support jobs.

I noticed the modifiers. Brain farted on that True Shot bit. I'm so used to not being in ideal range I didn't factor that in. I guess with all the TS gear available it might be a lot more useful now than I gave it credit for. Thanks for the note.

Didn't know about e arrow attack bonus

Using decked out BRD songs and Cor rolls that's enough buffs for ranger.
I will test R15 Fail Not see how much difference it makes from the other weapons. Tenzen bow TP bonus will speed things up. But what I'm really interest to see is how Detonator will do on this with R15 Arma & Refulgent Arrow with FailNot. I'll try to mess around with it hopefully today

BRD songs and COR rolls will absolutely not cap your pDIF by themselves on RNG on VD iron giants. There's no mystery here, your arrows aren't magically stronger than your bullets. It's Empyreal Arrow's enormous ratio bonus.

Excitement! Keep me posted!~

no one said cap... i said enough.

We all know apex arrow sucks but in your testing there should definitely be one.

No better time to ignore defense after all

You don't have enough until it's capped. As an example with fake numbers, Empyreal arrow multiplying your damage by 3.8x compared to Last Stand getting multiplied by 2.5x makes it pretty obvious why one is beating the other.

Last Stand is enormously powerful, in any normal situation it should and will ***on Empyreal Arrow based on numbers alone (Last Stand has almost twice as much fTP, higher WSC). Ratio is causing this specific example (and potentially other low buff scenarios, too) to cause archery to pull ahead.

wasn't talking about Last Stand... Compare Detonator vs Emperial Arrow vs Refulgent Arrow. Detonator at uncapped situations does significantly good, so does Refulgent Arrow

That would be because Detonator is an almost 1:1 copy of Empyreal Arrow, except for marksmanship. Once again the reason it would be good for this kind of situation is due to its 2x attack bonus.

Refulgent is harder to explain, but no one really knows how it works.

Can confirm, Detonator works wonders in here. Had to jump over and assist on Blaze a few times and we ran CORx2 and a RNG

Gotta be another way beaides ranged cheese because I remember doing this last year with a diff strategy. The new mechanics are the issue with his 1hr, im guessing he does it always but people have said he doesnt on their runs. I had both separated and at 86% exactly and he 1hrd and spammed blizzard magic.

Thanks for the information. I wish the wiki would explicitly explain some of these things, particularly from someone familiar with testing it. I see the data on the JP side, but would have been nice to know about that very big attack bonus up front. Both the Detonator and Empyreal Arrow page reference a link to the attack bonus values from JP wiki, but no mention of it at the top, which is where most people look for relevant Ability/Trait/WS/Spell information. Something simple like "This WS benefits from a #% WS Attack Bonus".

Not for nothing, when people consistently play with 2 geos 2 bards and 2 cors with max 2hour everything, information like that simply doesn't matter

No one looks into it, why would you when you can be spamming leaden or true flight or your enemies defense is already literally zero.

Case in point, the sunburst thing, 20 years, not one *** was given into looking into it. Hotshot was going over cap for who knows how long. No one looks into anything.

It is there.

Thank you proth. I am blind

You can NIN it pretty easily so long as the giants are spaced enough that you're not getting hit by both turbine cyclones at the same time.

When the Manafont Blizzaga spam starts you just have to back out and wait for Manafont to end.

You can't always just back out, he spams spells from the start. You can have paralyze stop him a few times but you aren't easily running away so its a risk without buffs against it. If he didn't 1hr it would be no problem at all, but I guess defensive buffs would be better.

I meant the NIN(s) (or whoever you're using to melee) need to back out, your tank just stands there and gets healed.

Last Stand is 2 hits.

Can confirm. I run this month easily as NIN COR COR RDM PUP BRD with 8~10 minute clear times, including buffing.

Ninja: Solo the the Frostnought with either Savage Blade spam or your favorite multi-step skillchain. Keep Migawari up from 100% until after Manafont wears off. The Frostnought will gain a potent gravity effect and stop moving to cast during Manafont. Use your one free Migawari proc to run about 40 yalms away as soon as Manafont is used, which can happen as early as 87% or as late as 64% from what I've seen. Hang out about 40 yalms away with Migawari up in case he gets close enough to cast while you aren't paying attention. The Frostnought will begin to move quickly/normally again after Manafont wears off. Keep shadows above 2 throughout the fight or you may get silenced and/or dispelled. Keep Echo Drops ready in case you get greedy and end up silenced by the Frostnought's EnSilence effect.

Red Mage: Keep both giants enfeebled, especially the Frostnought, since a potent paralyze and slow reduce the time that the Ninja spends recasting shadows. Keep the Ninja hasted in case they get greedy and have their marches dispelled.

Corsairs: Leaden Salute spam on the Blazenought. Use Wizards+Warlocks/Hunters and Samurai+Tacticians for rolls. Coordinate Random Deal to maximize Triple Shot in order to keep up with the Ninja on the Frostnought.

Puppetmaster: Do the thing to make your automaton tank the Blazenought. I don't know how to play Puppetmaster...

Bard: Melee buffs for Ninja, ranged buffs for Corsairs. I don't know how to Bard either. The Ninja must be haste capped to maintain shadows.

Keep the giants separated and within 11% HP of each other or they may do bad things.

RNG/DRG ML20
Stack 25
Buffs: BRD: HM Min x3 COR: Chaos/Sam
few tweaks and 99k reachable for Detonator

Don't know what the text says, and its probably a lower difficulty, but this guy isn't keeping them close in % and they seem to freeze after a certain point? Then he swaps targets to repeat the process. What causes the freezing, just a dmg threshold? Apparently the en-silence on attacks is something new too.

This is a Kaggra solo RDM video on Easy difficulty.
Freezing is based on damage difference between the two; he's alternating damage instead of balancing damage to take advantage of the fight's quirks.

Here's what the video says in case it's useful to anyone.

Hello, this is Kaggra.
This time I'll be explaining using my alt on Bahamut.
Getting right into it, RDM is great for this month's ambuscade!
Of course, you can win with other jobs, but there's a reason why I recommend RDM.
The Iron Giants are split into physical and magical types, and they each have their own weaknesses.
Using the colours to identify them, the red IG is weak to magic, and the blue IG is weak to physical.

Blazenought: Magic+50%
Frostnought: Physical+50%

And what job is equipped for both? That's right, RDM!

Speaking of which, the official [broadcast] did say "It'll be easier if physical attackers and magic attackers keep their roles in mind when taking this on."

So, I think it's more efficient to run this on Easy difficulty.

The IGs gain more DT as the difficulty goes up.

Blazenought
VE Phys -0%, E Phys -25%, N and up Phys -50%

Frostnought
VE Magic -0%, E Magic -25%, N and up Magic -50%

This time, the IGs have regen, and once you get up to N difficulty, they have 50% DT + regen, making them very hard to burn down.

Up to E difficulty, you can still do it solo without losing to the regen, so I recommend keeping things manageable with Easy runs of this month's ambucade.

For trusts, you'll get by as long as you favour AOE healing. Once you get used to it, you can also replace Iroha II with Qultada.

Recommended Trusts
Valaineral: Tank/AOE heals
Selhteus: AOE heals
Iroha: AOE heals/AOE stoneskin
Joachim: March
Monberaux: Heals/Status recovery

Buff magic looks like this. Blazenaught is vulnerable to water, so Enwater is important.

Magic/roles:
Barthunder - Resist stun
Baramnesia - Resist amnesia
Enwater - For red IG
Gain-DEX
Temper II
Aquaveil
Phalanx II

Now I'll explain the flow of the actual fight.

For debuffs, you'll get by with just Paralyze II and Dia III on the blue IG!

Start by hitting red IG.
The key point here is to NOT hit red IG with WS.
The red giant has +50% vulnerability to magic, so enspell damage is enough.
In fact, using a WS anyway will just reduce your DPS.
It's plenty to just keep hitting it. Take it easy!

I think there's two methods of handling the iron giants - dealing damage equally or alternating damage - but this time I'm alternating.
If you focus damage on one IG it'll freeze, so when that happens, switch to the other one.
The blue IG is weak to physical, so that's when you get to spam WS.
Once blue freezes, go back to the enspell damaging the red IG.
So basically you just have to keep hitting them one at a time.
Alternating damage makes them unlock various special skills, which may seem like a hassle at first, but on Easy nothing will kill you immediately, so don't worry about it.
In fact, for RDM Hurricane is a real hassle because it wipes buffs.

Incidentally, as a bonus for alternating damage, one IG takes extra damage while the other is frozen.
I think the actual figures are about this much. Basically, double damage.

Blazenought
Magic +100%

Frostnought
Physical +100%

With double damage, you can blow right through it.

The damage bonus is making enspell damage OBSCENE here.

When you defeat an IG while the other is frozen, a head will appear at the end.
Defeat this and and you win.

Generally one fight takes less than five minutes.

To finish up, I'll go over my enspell gear.

Crocea Mors is on path C, and it doesn't matter if you have Orpheus Sash or not, but not having it will add about 20 seconds to the run.

[Gear shown on equip screen:
Crocea Mors, Tauret, Aurgelmir Orb +1,
Malignance head/body/legs/feet, Ayanmo hands,
Orpheus sash, Sucellos's Cape [Dex 20, Atk/Acc +20, Dual Wield 10, -5% DT]
Anu Torque, Sherida Earring, Dedition Earring, Chirich Ring +1, Hetaroi Ring]

If you don't have a path C Crocea or Orpheus, do Requiescat -> CDC on the red IG to make Darkness then burst water.
I don't think there's a major difference in the time it takes whether you're damaging with enspells only or using magic bursts.

That's all for me for this time.
Thanks for watching!

Nice what gear you using for those? R20 ikenga?

You keep repeating this for ages at every occasion, while its obviously not true for years now. We talk a lot about capped and uncapped attack sets (DNC sets in guide I updated has such sets for example. Izanami's NIN's WS sets he found with Python also had low and mid buff variants. Thats just fast 2 examples). We were talking a lot about Hybrids before too, but the problem with hybrids before wasn't lack of knowledge, but lack of gear that has everything that hybrid needs which is mab/macc/acc/att in high amount at least and optional WSD. This came with Nyame and thats why Hybrids gain popularity, because they no longer requires Malaise/Frailty and macc buffs to perform good/amazing.