Ambuscade Volume 1 - May 2019

Link to fight info on BG-Wiki

I've never done this one before, but reading the strat it seems like it's going to be annoying...

Ohhh I remember this one. Iirc, it’s not that bad, just don’t attack it when it’s doing Boiling Over need Light-Based dispel and the tank and WHM might need to /heal while everyone else clears out for some move?

I don’t remember if the add is to be killed or supertanked

Spikes are nasty, and apparently resistant to dark based dispels. So...

BRD = Finale for light dispel
BLU = Blank Gaze for light dispel

It was a ranged attack month mostly -- Dullahans aren't fun to melee.

Dullahan was a game of red light/green light with a twist.

It also had a pet unicorn that absorbed damage during TP moves, and could one-shot your tank with repeated use of Scintillating Lance. Stack enfeebs on it to lock it into using Grace of Hera.

optimal KI spot?

Inner Ra'Kaznar HP -> Teleport (K-9) -> Dullahan Axegrinder (L-10)
Inner Ra'Kaznar HP -> Cirdas Caverns (J-8) -> Imposing Dullahan (H-7)
Ceizak #1 -> Sih Gates (G-11) -> Unrelenting Dullahan (I-7)
Morimar #5 -> Moh Gates (H-5) -> Somatophylax Dullahan (I-8)

Good month to slum it on N, or just skip unless you have every job mastered.

Yeah I've meleed him before, it's not pretty and requires everyone to be god tier in skill. Most just used ranged attacks and eventually the robot master mercenaries figured out a way to SMN burn it for gil.

I think I did this 2xPUP, 2xSMN, GEO, COR/whm.. I remember it being fairly easy though.

Molting Plumage is Light based dispel also

Jeez not more SMN spam. I hope some groups try for RNG strats at least. But hey, here’s hoping

Do you remember the strategy?

I remember a couple strategies.

The high risk/high reward strat was something like this:

1 is to spam mewing lullaby or tp drainkiss during boiling over, so that he never reaches 3k tp, and therefore never use Nether Castigation or any other tp moves.

During this same time, the dd's will have tons of tp to spam weaponskills and he takes extra damage iirc.

if he ever gets 3k tp he'll wipe out the tank and everyone close enough this way. but if you do it right, the fight will be pretty quick.

Other method was that only tank is close enough and all ranged dd. they don't do damage at all during boiling over. otherwise they just keep steady ranged damage and take him down.

Oh, and no matter the strat, we always killed horse first to get it out of the way.

I was always curious if behavior would be different if killing dullahan first, but it never seemed practical.

oh, and pup tank w/ regulator was really stable.

Its mentioned in those posts there that spamming light skillchains blocks Miasma?

How susceptible is this month's boss to a Magic Burst strat with a Run or Pld spamming Light SCs

Retaliates against magic with Absorb-TP

but pretty sure it works to tank and nuke.

Is Absorb TP a good or bad thing?

Feels like you could just spam force TP feed it and itll waste time just casting absorb TP, then /heal to dodge the AoE death move?

I did it like this, think we sent one automaton on each mob, SMNs killed unicorn then switched to dullahan? I used SS (tanked unicorn, then assisted with damage on dullahan) and my wife used VE for it.

Yeah I think this boiled down to Ranged attacks or SMN burns. The way we did it was to have a RUN or PLD tank both the boss and his horse, the SMN's would AF AC super zerg the boss down, then after blow up the horse a bit more slowly.

Dullahan was not ranged style. Cake to melee.

Would a well geared BST (friend of mine) do well in this fight? Or does it absolutely have to be SMN?

SMNx3, COR, GEO, RUN worked for us. COR prerolled BST roll/PUP roll. (V.1 VD)

RUN pulled Dullahan and then Ixion (make sure tank does single target hate pulls on both at start).
GEO/WHM precasts Indi-Refresh. Entrust > Bolster > Indi-Mal RUN on pull, Geo-Frail on Dulahan and Dia 2 + Banish 2 after. Heal Tank.
SMNs Ifrit burn Dullahan (sometimes ends up around 10% by the end). Finish it up quickly. Switch to Ixion and use Ramuh, he dies really quick compared to Dullahan.
COR can ranged DPS (watch hate), but on horse dont WS when it WSs.

Well geared non Nirvana/ non Idris would prob work on D.

smn x4 nq geo pld/run can kill vd no issues

bis nirvana smn x2, idris, pld/run can 4 man vd also in like 3min with flaming crush

It's very important to not stack up though. 100% shield blocks.

Mad love for smn burn ambuscade. Easy merc. Easy life. Means queue won't be dogshit. Get to just buy 20 runs and ignore it the rest of the month once the tards stop over paying.

yea, not so much a issue with Volt strike since its stun locked till death, but flaming crush yea

I see a lot of people forgot this ambuscade. It's braindead easy, even if melee. If it so happens that you over tp while it's boiling over, everyone except the tank can run out and only he will eat it. Ninja can straight up tank it with Migawari, making NIN DDs ideal if you're going the melee method (they never have to run out if its 3 NINs).

Basically, you have 3 messages. The one that matter is Boil Over and Noxious Miasma. I think you have to break the miasma with something like a skillchain or a strong WS, but not too much TP where he will use Castigation. Boiling Over means you should stop TPing and have a mage spam stone/dia until it uses Nether Castigation, which is essentially pain sync. Once that's over, you can repeat as normal. The other message is something tame which means you can continue BAU. Under 25% he gains access to a move "Eisenchanzer" or something. Basically you have to /heal like odin or you're dead. He also does an AOE swinging physical AOE move, Noahnito, which can one shot DDs if not careful.

The best way to clear this outside of SMN burn spam is to use 3 COR, GEO, <mage>, Tank. Triple shot gets to stay up fulltime, you get 6 rolls, unlimited random deals, don't have to worry about Miasma/Boil over as much, and if the tank dies, he can get back up ansd tank again while weak. The Ixion is harmless unless you let him absorb too much damage during his tp moves, in which case scintillating lance will OHKO your tank. You can cheese past this by just dumping a ton of debuffs on him and forcing him to use Grace of Hera, and then he's cake. I recall 3min clears doing the 3-COR killshot method

Even with a melee setup, your worst challenge will be people not paying attention during boil over or not breaking miasma. Every DD works fine, but as mentioned in other postsand mine, NINs, CORs, or SMN method was the easiest from what I remember.

Quite a foolproof fight with pup based setup (4 pup , 1 cor 1 smn). Did 3 runs of VD today.

PUP x3 ranger body tank head
Ideally the pups should have the Su4/su5 weapon maxed
Don't use inhibitor for horse fight to force Arcuballista. One of these pups will be hybrid tank just for as long horse doesnt die.

PUP x1 pure tank to hold the Main boss and make him face away from other the puppets avatar and cor.

SMN x1: AC/AF the horse to kill it asap. DD boss when its safe.

Cor x1: rolls and ranged dd.

Burn horse down first with ac/af and maybe one overdrive, avoid using debuffs. Then the rest of pups overdrive the Boss. The puppets gets aoe one-shot from the miasma then just re-summon and deploy. Corsair tends to be the one the boss will chase after the puppets die. Until the tank pup can voke it off him.

How long did the fight take? From entry to end?

13m

I can't believe you even found 4 Su5 pups. I know 3

Nah if only
Pups were
1 su5 bis fully upgraded,
1 pup su5 not fully upgraded with non ideal gear,
1 su4 pup with above average gear,
1 regular pup

When i did shout iniatally for pup su5. I got bitched at saying "pup was a dead class that noone should have to get su weapon for..."