12 November, 2005

The Savage, Part II

About one month ago, TrueRune tried taking down Ouryu is the Level 50 cap CoP mission, with the help of Subligar Connection. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned, and there was a lot of grumbling as we failed to get people past that fight time and time again. That particular night wasn't a total loss though, since of the seven attempts to take down Ouryu, the very last attempt (which I was part of) managed to take Ouryu down.



However, that then meant that I was the only one in our group that was actually cleared to enter Sacrarium. Tonight was when we would go fight Ouryu again, for the rest of us. Granted, it took a month, but hey...^^



We decided to stick this one out on our own though, since there was quite a bit of confusion the last time, and people weren't quite used to working with one another, and so for everybody's peace of mind, we did this all TrueRune.



With lessons learnt from that last attempt, we decided to take no chances on this one. And when I mean no chances, I mean, no chances. Our first order of the day was to head down to Riverne Site #B01 and farm up some more Hippogryph Tailfeathers to trade in for Mistmelts. Whiel the last time we went, we brought just 3 or 4 Mistmelts, we learnt the hard way that that was far too little. Mistmelts are fantastic for the fight, and so we decided to bring more in with us, and then some more just for good measure.



In the end, we farmed up enough Hippogryph tailfeathers to supply us with ten Mistmelts for the Ouryu fight. What's more, during this process, we also got two Hippogryph feathers which are the AH'able drops, that sell for a very pretty 300k/ea down in Jeuno.



With 600k in funds to blow on this fight, we all decided that we really wanted to beat this dragon, and nothing was held back in terms of medicines. That was 600k well spent though. Hi-Potions were upgraded to X-Potions. We got a Reraise Earring for everybody. 3-4 Yagudo Drinks per mage, since we realised the RDM's too busy to rely on Refresh. Heck, we even got each mage a Vile Elixir (80k!) each! We should've probably also gotten Akanea an Icarus Wing, but that didn't occur to me at the time. >_<



In short, we were ready, and raring to go.



Our strategy was altered significantly in lieu of the last attempt. The big difference was that the idea was to not sleep Ouryu during the fight, instead using Mistmelts to keep him under control. Sleeps were to be saved for the very last part, when the BLMs really needed the Sleeps to both land and stick for Freezes to go off safely.



And so, we came up with this plan. For the record, here's the setup we took in with us:



Me (BLM/WHM)

Saoirse (BLM/WHM)

Ksayyah (SMN/WHM)

Akeem (RDM/WHM)

Seraphpdh (PLD/WAR)

Akanea (SAM/WAR)




We broke the battle up into three sections, with the following strategies:



Stage #1 (100%HP ~ 80%): Just melee Ouryu and use Mistmelts to keep Ouryu under control. BLMs on light nuking with backup healing. SMN main healer. RDM to enfeeble/Dispel, heal, and keep buffs on PLD if they get Dispelled. PLD Mistmelts.



Stage #2 (80% ~ 45%): SMN Astral Flows with Garuda (Aerial Blast). BLMs are now main healing with RDM support. PLD and SAM Mistmelts keep Ouryu under control still.



Stage #3 (45% ~): Freeze. Everybody disengages while RDM Sleep IIs Ouryu and BLMs get the Freeze cycle in action. Use Vile Elixirs and Manafont to cast Freeze if mana is an issue.



With the plan set, everybody knew what they were doing. Basically, the idea was to just endure Ouryu, come hell or shine. The only time we agreed we would sleep Ouryu was if we were in dire need of a recovery period. Even if Seraph was Terrorized, we wouldn't sleep Ouryu (since Terror only lasts about 10 seconds, anyway).



That being said, we lost the first time on Windsday. We were doing really good as well when we realised just how low we were actually getting Ouryu down to without any fancy tricks or anything. However, Ouryu's continuous dispels on Seraph made things a little hard. Just as Ksayyah was about to Astral Flow, Ouryu used Geotic Breath and one shotted Seraph (he dispelled Barstonra) >_<. I died shortly thereafter, and we slept Ouryu and ran for it.



Unfortunately, Ouryu had dispelled Seraph's Reraise, and when he selected "Yes" to reraise, he didn't realise that the question he replied "Yes" to, was not, in fact "Accept Raise?" but instead "Return to Home Point?"



As such, when we saw Seraph back in the Tavnazian Safehold, we really ran for it then. >_<



The second time went a lot smoother though. We adjusted things a little to give Akeem more responsibilities (keeping buffs on Seraph, including Barstone), and realised that we could've started the Aerial Blasts earlier. I Escaped to escourt Seraph back to Monarch Linn (since I had the only other Giant Scale), and by the time we got back, it had turned to Iceday.



We still went for it anyway. ^^







The second attempt had its moments of {excitement} as well, but on the whole, went rather smoothly. Sure, there was some yelling (on my part >_<) going on, but that was because we were approaching the very end, and I really did not want to lose it. ; ; Ksayyah Astral Flowed as planned and got off two Aerial Blasts before Astral Flow wore off. Before too long, we started the Freeze routine. Three Freezes later (and two Vile Elixirs), Ouryu gave up!



It sounds really anticlimatic, I know, but I can't remember very many details about the fight since I was rather tight-strung. I remember trying to Stun a Geotic Breath that somehow must've gone off despite the fact that Ouryu's supposed to resist Stuns (Stun is Lightning-based) and literally spamming Cure IIIs on Seraph trying to keep him alive while Garuda did its work. The fight didn't go perfect, but we beat Ouryu and that's all I was looking for. ^^



In retrospect, I feel Ouryu's very possible without the "optimal" setup. Sure, it's rather easy when you have BLMs and SMNs to take out large chunks of his life, but Aka alone was dealing a fair amount of damage to Ouryu when he could, so I'm sure the BLMs and SMN could be swapped in for other jobs if your CoP group can't get ahold of any. The only job I'd say is a must in this fight though, is a RDM. Ouryu's Stoneskin is {Incredibly tough}, and a RDM's enfeebles work very nicely versus Ouryu. In fact, there was one part where Paralyzed caused Ouryu to skip three of his turns, which got quite a few /cheers out of us. ^^ RDM is also needed to land Sleep II and Silence on Ouryu as well.



Mistmelts are also invaluable to the fight. Not only does it force Ouryu down to the ground, it does so without Touchdown damage, and keeps Ouryu grounded so he doesn't go berserk with his attacks in the air, where his attacks do double damage . They also let the melees (well, in our case, just Aka) actually play an active role in the fight as well. We used a total of six Mistmelts in that last fight. If you're taking in a non-BLM/SMN party for this, obviously bring more Mistmelts to accomodate for this. Overcompensate too. Heck, it's better to have Mistmelts and not need them, than to need them and not have them, rightaru? ^^ Besides, just think of all the time and money wasted if you lose the fight...



Now then, onto Sacrarium...^^

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