Divine Might (again!)

As of late, my campsite project has been taking up quite a bit of my time, partially due to a particular insistence at actually checking out the place to "verify" the campsites.

One of these excursions brought me to Ro'Maeve to check out the {moon} camps down there. I was about to head out from Jeuno, when I get a very excited tell from Redherr,

Redherr>> TUUF!!!

Normally, excited tells that involve my name followed by one (or more) exclamation marks can only mean one thing. I'm needed for something, and that something usually involves me dying. More than once. >_<

Anyway, Redherr had Divine Might on the agenda!

I had already completed Divine Might in the past, although that was with a Black Mage alliance. Since then, I've wanted to try Divine Might again with a regular alliance, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. ^^

So off I went to the La'loff Amphitheater where I met up with the rest of the alliance. I don't remember the exact setup, but we had five BLMs, a WHM, two RDMs, four NINs, three SAMs, a BRD, and I don't remember the last two members. >_<

As this is one of the hardest BCNM fights the game has to offer, we sat down and talked strategy for a little bit while waiting for the last Ninja to arrive from Jeuno.

Actually, the basics of the Divine Might strategy is more or less set in stone by now. First, the Ark Angel TT has to go first, simply because not only is the Tarutaru the one with the lowest HP, the Taru will also wreck complete havoc should he be allowed to live. In short, the Taru is the one that will kill everybody if left alone, and so must go first. Our plan was simple- take out the Taru with a volley of Thunder IVs and Blizzard IVs while each of the tanks provoked their respective Ark Angels and started their kiting routine around the Amphitheater.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party would drag the Ark Angel MR (Mithra) over to the steps and start engaging it. This was where things started getting fuzzy. First off, we had people assigned to sleep the various pets that would be in the arena at the same time, however, we were unsure whether the Mithra could Charm players with a pet out. Most of us initially thought that the Mithra could not charm a player with a pet, but we decided to work out a backup plan, just in case. This backup plan basically involved sleeping whoever was charmed (probably the tank), and everybody going on {Full attack!} to kill the Mithra before too much damage was done. That'd be 2/5 down.

Our plan then involved having the BLMs rest a bit while the party then engaged the Galka upstairs, following which the Hume would be the next to go down. The Elvaan was saved for last mostly because of the 2-hour abilities she can use- both Invincible and Benediction. -_-

With that, we buffed up, entered the arena, and started the fight! Our first attempt showed the numerous flaws in our battle plan. For one, we couldn't kill the Tarutaru quite fast enough, since the Tarutaru has more than enough HP to take on the initial onslught of nukes, following which he will simply Warp away when we try to follow up with a Blizzard IV. Not to mention that initially, Lillath and I (both BLMs) were supposed to sleep the pets, only that...sleeping the pets meant that we couldn't kill the taru, and the taru really was the one you wanted to to kill fast.



After the taru was down, we turned to the Mithra, who we found out does not only charm a player with a pet out, but also has an AoE Sleep attack of some sort which really put the brakes on how quickly we could kill her. As it turned out, we wasted too much time trying to wake people up with Cures, and by the time we killed the Mithra and got around to killing the Wyvern, two of the tanks who were supposed to be on the Hume and Elvaan, had died. >_<

At which point, we made a bold effort at killing the Galka before the whole alliance wiped, but alas, failed to do so. ; ;

We waited for the Ark Angels to regroup back in the center before activiting Reraises and giving out Raises to those who had already used their Reraise. It was then we discovered our third oversight- some of us had died in the center of the BC. Since Tractor is disabled inside an arena, there was no way we could raise them without getting aggro and wiping all over again. From then, we resolved to make sure that if you were going to die, die at the steps.

After we had all reraised and rested up to full, we tried once again, to no avail. The Galka has some nasty AoE moves, including one that has Bindga or Stunga, which threw quite a large monkey wrench into things, not to mention the HP of a Galka which, suffice it to say, is rather considerable. -_-

Anyway, we managed to kill the Galka before the Hume and Elvaan tanks died again, and they killed the rest of the alliance. By the time we all wiped, there was only 6 minutes left on the clock, so we let it slide and waited to be kicked out of the battlefield so we could get ready to try again.

The second time was even shorter-lived than the first. We made some tweak to our plan, such as having the BLMs immediately cast Blizzard IV on the Tarutaru instead of having two of us sleep the pets (we gave those to the Red Mages), except the tanks didn't voke the Angels when the nukes went off, and as a result, some BLMs got hit and their spells interrupted. The Tarutaru warped away, we followed in hot pursuit to cast our spells.

The Ark Angel TT then used Amon Drive = massive damage + Paralyzega + Petrifyga. Not good.

However, as they say, third time's a charm. ^^ Things just went better this time, although I'm not sure why exactly. Sure, we killed the Tarutaru in record time, thanks to an additional attack by a SAM who opened with Meikyo Shisui on the Tarutaru which, in combination with five BLMs, dealt enough damage to kill the Tarutaru in no time.

The Mithra posed the same problems, but this time we were ready with preemptive Poison Potions for the Sleepga attacks, and when Jaxter (NIN) was Charmed, our plan of just sleeping Jaxter and going all out on the Mithra worked nicely. We killed the Galka's pet Wyvern next (which died really quickly, but unfortunately, engaged the Galka too low down the steps. As a result, the Galka's AoE Stun attacks hit the tanks that were kiting the Elvaan and Hume past the steps, and from that, the tanks were killed eventually.

So we wiped, but everybody had the sense to die at the steps so we could all raise without drawing aggro once the Ark Angels had returned to their starting location. From then on, things went more smoothly. Recognising what went wrong with the Galka, we resumed the fight, only with the Galka much further upstairs, actually all the way up in the hall since some of the melees had trouble navigating the stairs. -_- After some time, the Galka was killed without much further ado.

The Hume was also a piece of cake, but we had to remind the mages to put up Barfira in the event of Mijin Gakure, while all the mages scattered out of Mijin Gakure range. We actually dealt quite a lot of damage to the Ark Angel HM without Mijin Gakure going off, and for a second, I thought it wouldn't go. Alas, it had to go off at some point, but because his HP was so low by the time he chose to use it, it wasn't too bad. Also keep in mind that unlike players, Mijin Gakure does not kill off the Ark Angel HM when he uses it, so no free kills there. :P

That left the Elvaan.



By now, we could all taste victory, and from here on, it really just felt procedural. The only thing we really needed to keep in mind was that the Elvaan had access to both Invincible and Benediction, so all we needed to do was go easy until the Elvaan Benediction'ed, then hit her with everything we had.

And hoo boy, did we go all out once we saw that cloud of dust and her HP soar to full. 2-hour abilites were flying everywhere. And in the end, it was inevitable...



...WE WIN! ^^

I have to admit, it was very nice to beat this BCNM again, and the challenge made victory ever more sweet. ^^ Of course, now I can say that I've beaten Divine Might both with a Black Mage alliance and a normal alliance, so HAH! ^^

On a side note, we also have confirmation that you can only get one earring. Ever. One of us who had already previously cleared Divine Might threw away his Suppanomimi in an attempt to verify this and...he wasn't given the option to get another earring. ; ;