The Savage

After some weeks of planning, today was the day TrueRune would attempt the next Promathia mission, CoP 4-2 "The Savage", better known as the fight against Ouryu.

After beating Diabolos and reading the various forums out there for ideas on strategies, we initially came to one conclusion: we would be very hard pressed to beat Ouryu with our typical setup of SAM PLD THF SMN mage + one other. All the strategies out there (at least the ones that make him easy) involve a manaburn strategy of some sort, usually involving a combination of up to three BLMs or SMNs. Furthermore, Ouryu is a wyrm, and as such as most of the typical Wyrm attacks, including Spike Flail, which is triggered by getting hate from behind Ouryu.

In short, {Sneak Attack}{No thanks.} ; ;

And so Saoirse undertook the long, arduous journey to level a BLM to 50 for this very battle. It took a while, but she eventually managed to get it done, and I really thank her for taking the trouble to do so, especially since she really wants to level her THF up. >_< We also managed to find a 6th member for our CoP group, a RDM by the name of Akeem, and so our Ouryu party could look like PLD SAM BLM BLM RDM SMN, which didn't look too bad.

Then one day, after talking to Onekomaru about CoP missions, we got the idea of allying with her social LS, Subligar Connection, and using all our combined BLMs, we theoretically would be able to whisk everybody through the BC without too much of a hassle. After the initial chit-chat was done, all that was left was to decide on a day to actually go try to beat Ouryu.

That day was today.

Of course, there was some preliminary work that needed to be done first in order to make the battle easier. Notably, one of the bigger problems with Ouryu is when he decides to fly. Not only does it make him immune to regular melee attacks (since the melee can't reach him), he also hits twice as hard while flying and is generally a bigger pain to deal with. However, certain EX items, called Mistmelts, can be used to force Ouryu to the ground, at least temporarily.

You get Mistmelts by farming Hippogryphs in either site in Cape Riverne, and trading two tailfeathers to Ferchinne, who can be found at (G-9) of the ground floor of the Tavnazian Safehold. Previously, TrueRune went out to Riverne Site #B01 and farmed up twenty Hippogryph Tailfeathers, or enough for ten Mistmelts. If you are going to do this BC anytime soon, Mistmelts are incredibly important, so don't skip this!

Of another note, be sure to note that while the tailfeathers can be traded between players, the Mistmelts are EX. In addition, the person who uses a Mistmelt in the battle may be stunned for a short period of time, so I prefer giving it to the melee, since they need something to do while Ouryu's in the air anyway.

And so, when the time came, we all trooped over to Monarch Linn once again, where we discussed our battle plans. It was decided that we'd split up into three runs, and have each BLM go twice. Of course, this didn't work out in the end, but that's another story altogether.

Anyway, entering the BC, who did we find, but Bahamut! Evidently, something was going terribly-werribly wrong with the world, for Bahamut had this strange notion that the return of the Keeper of the Apocalypse would spell out the doom of all the children of Altana! In short, Keeper of Apocalypse returns, and everybody dies. Yeah...

Calling out all his brothers, what resulted was an impressive display of dragon power. Just imagine all the dragons together in one place- Bahamut, Tiamat, Jormungand, Vitra, Ouryu, and a bunch of other dragons I couldn't recognise. Nidhogg, perhaps? >_<



Of the wyrms, we would be fighting this one in particular:



Here are some notes about Ouryu for those who are thinking of going up against him sometime in the future:

* As I've mentioned, Mistmelts are very important. One thing that led to our (eventual) failure was that we didn't bring enough of them. I'd recommend the party bring at least six Mistmelts against Ouryu. The one time we did beat Ouryu (more on that later), we had five Mistmelts on us and we still ran out.

* Ouryu is earth-based, and so is weak to wind. That being said, do not cast Earth-based or Lightning-based spells against him.

* Keep positioning in mind. The last thing you want is a Spike Flail to wipe your entire party. On the other hand, Ouryu also has a conic frontal attack, so having the mages stand right in front of him isn't such a great idea either. The trick is to find the balance between the two.

* He is fairly easy to enfeeble with Silence, Paralyze, and Blind. Red Mages also need to Dispel his Stoneskin, which is very strong. His Enstone attack evidently cannot be Dispelled.

* He builds resistance to Sleep and Bind as the battle goes on. The third sleep gets pretty hard to land, and from then on, you'd need an Elemental Seal to stick Sleep for a whole...five seconds or so. >_<

* His Slowga cannot be Hasted over- it needs to be Erased first, then Haste reapplied.

* If Ouryu is slept, he will fly when he wakes up.

* You only need to get Ouryu to 30% HP in order to "win" this fight.



The plan was to randomly whittle away at his life until he flew. Then, one of the melees would use a Mistmelt, and the BLMs would Sleep him. Then, the Freezes would start. Gathering at Ouryu's front leg, all three BLMs would simultaneously cast Freeze. When the Freezes go off, Ouryu will fly again, whereby another Mistmelt can bring him down, and then the mages put Ouryu to Sleep again before going for a second round of Freezes.

The problem with this was that we were sleeping after each time Ouryu flew. That meant that when it was time for the {Freeze}{Full attack!}, we could not sleep Ouryu. After going through the battle many times (I died like, five times ; ;), many of us were feeling very disgruntled and frustrated at this fight. Finally, it came to the last group's turn.

Ironically, this was the group that we thought would stand the least chance at beating the BC. Our setup was NIN WHM RDM BLM BLM BLM. That is to say, one tank and five mages.

However, we actually managed to beat Ouryu, despite three of us, including the tank, dying! Personally, I haven't the foggiest idea how we managed to do it, especially since Ouryu also got off an Absolute Terror that forced us to Sleep him so our tank could wait out his terror (which can't be Erased). I think it must've been the extra healing support the WHM gave us in exchange for a melee, that, and we had an extra Mistmelt which we put to good use. Another deciding point was recognising that sleeping Ouryu after the first Mistmelt just wasn't going to work, since in all the previous runs, Ouryu's sleep resistance was too high by the end of the battle to execute the Freeze plan smoothly.

Despite all these improvements, the battle was still on the ropes. After the initial Freeze volley, I got hate and died when we couldn't ground Ouryu and Sleep him in time. I activated my Reraise, and then ran over to try and wait out weakness safely. That was one of the longest five minutes I've ever had, during which our RDM and NIN died. >_< What resulted was a rather (in hindsight, amusing) attempt at kiting Ouryu by the members left standing, that is to say, we were kiting Ouryu with mages. >_<

Somehow or another, we managed to actually last five minutes for my weakness to wear. One more round of Freezes later, Ouryu was at around 45% HP, or something like that. However, we were slipping away. Using our last Mistmelt, one of us landed an Elemental Seal'ed Sleep II on Ouryu and tried to rest up enough mana to get the 307mp needed to cast Freeze again. We hit 307mp, and went straight for the kill...

...except Ouryu woke up while Freeze was in midcast. >_<

The last few seconds basically involved me praying things would go well. I was unfortunately positioned behind Ouryu after Ouryu got turned around, and I really did not want a Spike Flail in my face, especially with us so close to victory. Two Freezes went off, to when we realised that Ouryu had run out of range of the third BLM's! >_< The last BLM ran closer in range and started casting Freeze.

In the 19 seconds it took to cast Freeze, we were all dropping like flies. I had long died after giving my last shot at an Aero II, the Ninja was down. A Stonega II from Ouryu took out two more members and soon it was just the White Mage, and the Black Mage desperately trying to get Freeze to resolve.

Thankfully, the final Freeze went off (no physical attacks to interrupt Freeze! ^^) and the next thing we knew, /cheers were going off as we realised we had actually managed to beat Ouryu! ^^

Of course, now I have to figure out how to get the rest of the TrueRune contingency through this BC, but I think I've learnt enough from our losses (and victory) that we are in good shape for trying again.

Here's a quick rundown of what I would recommend for everybody:

Have 8+ Mistmelts split between members. Everybody have a Reraise Earring and Hi-Potions for the melee. More Potions, obviously (15-20) for the tank. Since this is a very intense battle for the RDM, the RDM will probably not be able to keep Refresh up on the mages. Thus, everybody with a mana pool bring 3+ Yagudo Drinks. Melee should be able to perform some form of a ranged attack too, so they're not completely useless when Ouryu's in the air.

For the first part of the battle, use Mistmelts to ground Ouryu when he flies. However, do not Sleep him. You need his Sleep resistance to be low when it's time to start the Freeze volley, so just try to whittle his HP down. BLMs just alternate between Aero, Aero II, and Drain, while throwing in Cures to keep the tank alive. When Ouryu is at around 60% HP or so (I'm not sure exactly when), then it's time to start the Freeze plan as detailed above.

I'll try this strategy out with TrueRune's next attempt. I'll have to obviously change a few things to accommodate for Ksayyah's Astral Flow, but hopefully things will work out alright. ^^