03 December, 2005

Promyvion-Vahzl, Part II

Yesterday, TrueRune's goal with respect to this (very long) mission was to get to the fifth floor of Promyvion Vahzl, and defeat the Ponderer that would let us have a "save point" at the fifth floor, where only a short walk from the fifth floor Memory Flux to the Spire of Vahzl awaits.

We used up quite a few of our anima yesterday trying to beat some of the mini-bosses on the way up through Promyvion-Vahzl, and so we needed to replace them, in particular our Hysteroanimas which are very, very handy to have on you.

And of course, in TrueRune style, we decided that this was something we really didn't want to do twice, so we threw a heck of a lot of money at the BCNM. We each came equipped with:

* Reraise Earring
* Antidote
* Holy Water
* Poison Potion
* Hysteroanima, Terroanima, and Psychoanima
* 2-4 Yagudo Drinks (if you have mana)
* Panama au lait (if you're melee)
* Hi-Potions/X-Potions (if you need it- this is mostly Seraph)
* 2-hours!


And in addition, I also brought along a Pro-Ether, a scroll of Instant Reraise, and a Vile Elixir +1.

Our party setup this time was PLD SAM THF BLM RDM SMN.

Thanks to yesterday, we could just warp straight up to the fifth floor of Promyvion-Vahzl, and from the Memory Flux, it's just a quick run south-east to the Spire of Vahzl. There were a few mobs that would aggro us if we weren't careful, but in the end, we just decided to have Titan Earthern Ward us up, and then we ran for it. ^^

The Promyvion-Vahzl BC fight is against all three basic Promyvion bosses in one arena, except with different names- the Procreator (Dem), Cumulator (Mea), and Agonizer (Holla). Thankfully, you don't actually fight all three at once.



What happens is that you will fight one normally, but once its HP reaches around 20%, one of the other two bosses will "awaken", and join in the fight. Once the second boss's HP reaches around 20%, the third will also awaken and join in.

I chose to come BLM because with Freeze, we can quickly finish off a boss if needed via a Tachi: Enpi > Viper Bite Distortion skillchain with a Freeze to top things off. Basically, each of the bosses individually aren't all that difficult, but the real trick to this fight was dealing with the links in a smooth manner.

We chose to go with what seems to be the accepted "best order" to fighting the mobs. Starting with the Cumulator (Mea), the Procreator (Dem) will then aggro, finally finishing with the Agonizer (Holla). While Mea's generally known to be the hardest of the three, it is also followed by the easiest (Dem's). The logic would be that because Dem's boss is so slow, we could easily just kite it around while we not only finished off Mea's boss, but also let our mages rest for a bit.

Of course, Animas are your friend here, especially Hysteroanimas which go a long way towards blocking the various deadly special attacks that Mea's boss can dish out. However, we also wanted to save some Hysteroanimas for Holla's boss, so we agreed on just splitting them 3-3. Psychoanimas would be used "on a judgment call" basis, and since they only block regular attacks, they really only just served to help Seraph take less damage, which is still a good thing in itself.

Finally, we'd also use Terroanimas here, which are normally eschewed when going on a Promyvion-Holla/Dem/Mea run. Terroanimas basically make the boss run around randomly for thirty seconds, which isn't great if that's the only thing you're trying to beat, but in our case, Terroanimas would be very useful at keeping a boss occupied once it "awakens".

Our plan was as follows: Engage Mea. Keep a Hystero and Psychoanima on it to minimize damage. Once the Propogator aggros, a Freeze Magic Burst off a Distortion skillchain would put a quick end to the Cumulator. In the meantime, Akeem would use a Terroanima in conjunction with Gravity and Bind to keep the Propogator busy while the rest of us took a bit of a breather.

We didn't really plan on using any anima for the Propogator once we actually started engaging it- the fight's just that easy. :P We were saving our anima for the Promyvion-Holla boss, particularly towards the end when it starts spamming it's various AoE damaging effects (to the point where, en route to the top of Promyvion-Vahzl, I was literally alternating nonstop between Curaga II and Curaga).

The nice thing is that the bosses don't actually aggro you- you have to first engage it, and we took advantage of that with a good SATA off Seraphpdh for the extra damage. And then we were off!

Surprisingly, I don't really have much to say about the fight, other than I'm happy the way it turned out. I'm aware other group have had trouble with this fight, but for us at least, things went really smoothly, which I can definitely attribute to having a full eighteen animas to spend on the bosses as needed (rather liberally, too). There was a point when kiting the Propagator didn't quite go as planned, but a few Terroanimas bought us the time we needed to get some valuable rest . When the time for the Propogator to spawn its Offspring came, we just ditched our original plan to control the Offspring, and just killed the Propogator instead. ^^;

We then went {Full attack!} on the Agonizer. Actually, by this time, I was practically out of mana, and so I managed to keep going with the help of a Vile Elixir +1 and a Manfont, and just spammed nukes at the Agonizer mob. The only real trick to dealing with the Agonizer is remembering to use Poison Potions to counter Shadow Spread, which is the "party killer" with AoE Cursega and Sleepga. In the meantime, Ksayyah Astral Flow'ed out Ramuh, and while his first attempt at Judgement Bolt was countered with a Shadow Spread (/comfort Ramuh), the second one was enough to defeat the Agonizer, and clinch victory for us in what was probably the smoothest fight we've had in a while. ^^



The story unravels further with even more cutscenes, including one rather familiar figure...



...But for now, I'm afraid TrueRune's CoP static will have to be {Taking a break} for now. We hope to resume our missions next February, but there'll be more details on that to come as the time ripens. ^^

1 comment:

Thazienne said...

Flawless Victory! lol, the static that I'm in just started 2-3 and finished it last night. We could have finished it rather quickly, but wearing our level 40 gear brough back some newB moments....