Frog Ambuscade V1

Ohtas, Rimeice, Cape, Sash +1 and attachments cover haste.


OD is still OD, but old content is older now. My fastest runs are done with a mix of STP and MA/Crit gear. Not to say Taeon is wrong, but it's overkill if you're going defensive with attachments. I usually have just under 1 minute left on OD timer when Bozo is down. Always activated about 5 seconds after I engage and get to safety.

I have been using this strategy on VD and I think I have found a way to largely reduce the risk of Kaustra by trying to use Silence only twice. The Silence at the beginning of the fight is casted with my standard magic accuracy + duration gear, with Crocea and Daybreak sheathed. At 51% HP I usually need to wait for some time until this Silence wears off. This allows the second Silence to be landed at 51% HP (BG wiki says it seems to cast Kaustra only under 50% HP).

To ensure the second Silence lasting for the remainder of the fight is the other key part of this strategy. I first cast a normal Silence with Chironic Hose to get one immunobreak (this is important). Then, I land the guaranteed Silence with both Stymie and Saboteur active. So far, this always lasts for the remainder of the fight. The fight takes about 10 minutes in total.

Note1: The relevance of that one immunobreak was recently discussed in length in the RDM forum here so I will avoid going into detail. Basically, without that immunobreak, a Stymie-forced Silence will be guaranteed to be half-resisted if the monster's Silence resistance rank is 5% (seemingly to be the case for the frog) or 10%.

Note2: in my case I have a GEO buffing me with Indi-Haste and Geo-Focus, and myself have Orpheus sash, but I think even without these, a RDM with decent gear can safely solo this using the above strategy.

Solo PUP/COR with max gear (aside from sortie earring) can confirm fluctuating between 50 seconds remaining on OD ~ 20% HP still left on the boss. The difference primarily, even above good/bad COR roll, using food, swapping sets for pet WS, applying Dia III/IV, seems to be the frequency in which the boss happens to TP reset (blare) while the pet has high TP.

Anyone else getting incorrect names for TP moves?

E.g., Forceful Blow is actually Providence (HP recovery and frog adds spawned)

Tyrannic Blare actually Quenching Hammer (?)

Windower "can't" (won't) update resources until square fixes slips.
(Edit; Apparently I can shame windower devs into updating the resources with one sentence)

They know the moves are from last month. Everyone using battlemod has the "issue"

If you update windower as of now it'll be correct

Premature bump for next month. Thank God we get a break from auras, lol.

You now remember Puppetmaster.

The one time, every other year, where pup matters.

...to slightly more than a very small handful of people. The 6th time you'll be able to use those Xiucoatl that take up inventory space 350 days of the year!

Hey I will always love PUP and I will always love this frog. And hey there's the Lamia one too, PUP rules on that one.

Mew+Solo DD strat in Subtle Blow set was the fastest/safest way to clear this from my memory. Even more disgusting now with gear creep/Stage 5 Primes being a thing. Or just do it the Aminon way and have DNC Climactic rotation.

PUP method was fun and gave me some good memories letting my robot eat Quenching Hammer while I idle halfway across the map. I think I remember 2 PUP duoing VD while bringing 4 bodies for free points. Good times.

...you had me at "idle halfway across the map."

Mana Jammer 3,4
Optic Fiber 1,2
Inhibitor 2
Turbo Charger 1,2
Magni Plug 1,2
Auto Repair Kit IV
Flame Holder
Attuner

Water, fire, Light

I’ve found having more than one automaton on it isn’t the best idea. It messes with the SCing of the one overdriving.
One pup, one COR, rest are just there for gallantry.

I've been wondering, since people are using SMN and Mewling Lullaby to help control TP gain, how well would GEO/DRK work with Absorb TP? Would that work too with a good Dark Magic set?

/drk works for aminon because he's set to 100%(150%?) dark, try it on the frog you'll have neutral element, no frazzle, no threnody, no weather and his int is probably higher than yours.

There's a reason it's never been a strat before.

Also, mew drainkiss tickle etc, take significantly more tp than absorb-tp

Also also, cooldown, 1 caster of absorb-tp isn't going to do a whole lot. And the frog is immune to geomancy, so geo isn't as useful of a job. It can still haste/fury.

Oh, I figured since frogs are usually light-based mobs that he would be weak to Dark element.

They're typically water based, aquans and all that.

I'm disappointed that amphibians are not water and earth based. RIP immersion

This is a misconception that I generally had for a while, because the BG wiki page does list resistance values for monsters in the same grid as the weapon type weaknesses. You would naturally think "if monster A is <element> based, then <opposing element> should do more damage on it". But that grid just shows the monster's resistance to an element, not necessarily their weakness (Thanks Martel). It's also not always as simple as "mob is <element1> aligned so <element2> should work on it". Umbrils are Dark-aligned monsters, but take extra damage from Fire+Light (as a native species weakness), as well as Earth element, which is darkness aligned. There's not always a formula to how monster weaknesses and resistances work in this game, it's kind of weird but also unique to each mob.

In any case, the ambu Poroggo is the blue kind*, which has a 70% resistance rank to Darkness element, and he's a BLM, so super high INT (Jesus Christ, look at his MDB LOL). Just like you can't land most enfeebles on Ongo without Elemental Seal, I doubt you can land anything on Frog without Stymie or ES either. Casting anything besides Dia on this guy is just a waste of time.

*

Did they change something? I missed the last run, but prior to the last time they had this one, I don't recall ever doing TP drain. It made it safer but wasn't necessary. Is that necessary for some reason w/ the SB capped MNK strat?

Probably not with gear creep, Penance, Primes and multi step. Mobs don't use their TP move until they hit 3000%, which is a long time but you've got five other people in the group with you (BRD COR GEO, someone to silence it), someone can come summoner or at least sub it and pretend to be useful. Gives BST something to do after Ooze? If the frog gets a spell off, he'll have TP for Hammer, so it's almost always just a safety mechanism rather than a requirement. Think he normally dies in a single footwork multi step.

edit: oh, and Crystal Blessing from SMN (unless you bring WAR Warcry)

Plague from SS also making sure TP is non-issue.

For PUP method, what sort of Master gear is required these days? I mastered PUP over the past XP campaign but still building out my automaton sets.

The pieces of tp bonus and DA taeon + Su4/5 weapon

sakpata may be good enough to pull it off now

Bonecrusher OD build, iirc it takes reduced damage from arrows, can't remember for sure and can't find the post

Most of the pup info for this ambuscade is in the actual pup thread, not here, around page 72

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/52194/string-theory-a-puppetmasters-guide-new/72/#3594001

Ohtas/Condemners is acceptable, and you don't need to be mastered PUP. I completed this fight years ago several times at ~500JP PUP, and it's still not mastered. Obviously better = better, but the bar is low for what the robot can handle, so long as you're in the right set and keep up the correct maneuvers.

Did DRK using Blood weapon got nerfed on frog this time?

LS mate reports that the frog got buffed, so maybe? About to enter myself and see

Still as good as last time. Pretty easy to solo VD runs in just 3-10 mins. As long as you negate the use of Quenching Hammer in some way it's pretty trivial on any difficulty.

Bring a BST for Beast Roll job bonus if you can. I was having gallantry friends come on lv1 BST in past years. Trusts work if you don't have 6 actual players. BST trusts: Ark Angel MR, Lhu Mhakaracca, and Morimar.

RDM is also fantastic here. Dia III (the biggest reason), and can stick some debuffs like paralyze, slow, distract.

pup/whm 1300ish JP
bst 100 JP + slug
cor(fresh 99 , 0 jp- only barataria ring + compensator + unaugmented ambu cape for duration)
beast roll then companion roll (crooked)

-bst(me) as party lead summons king of hearts, slug pet.
I am 1st to aggro and melee engage, take 1 swing, kind of hearts does dia3 immediately, I put the pet on it and do pet ability and run far away.

- Corsair hits lightshot after dia lands, runs away
pup does flash + ventriloquy, overdrive, also runs 35' away.

If you're trying to be close enough to see chatlog message for casting like 31-32 yalms or something, you're going to die. The quenching hammer cares not.

My friend on pup told me a trick: when their pets tp is reset to a very low number :if sub 50ish tp means it was quenching hammer, if its 100+tp return then they know it was the puppet ws'ing.
They use this trick to more safely discern if they can get back close to use repair Oil, which is needed 0-2 times a fight until they have jobmaster + better gear.

we farmed 40k ambu pts today on VD without seals, puppetmaster is godmode on this thing