Possible To Solo Cloud Of Darkness As SMN?

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Possible to solo Cloud of Darkness as SMN?
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By nilfalasiel 2020-09-08 09:21:32
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Hi all. As the title of the post states, I was wondering if it was possible to solo the CoD fight at the end of Rhapsodies as a SMN (with Trusts of course)? Has anyone done it or know of it being done?

The reason I'm asking is that I've split my jobs between several characters, and while I know that 3 out of my 4 characters can definitely solo it, I'm not so sure about my "mage only" character (SMN, BLM, GEO, SCH, WHM). I'd rather not level another job just for that fight, hence my question.

Thanks in advance!
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By Crossbones 2020-09-08 09:28:02
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Not only is it possible but it's laughably easy. I regularly solo it for noobs, if I use AF / AC it takes all of 15 seconds but even without it only takes a few minutes. Don't know what gear you have though, a brand new lvl 99 smn is incredibly weak. That being said you can only fail by timing out.
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By Asura.Pergatory 2020-09-08 13:22:37
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It's actually my preferred job to solo it on.

Open with Apogee and 2x Flaming Crush. This will likely deal enough damage that it triggers his absorb shield, which will likely be absorbing magic damage.

When an absorb shield is up, I swap to Ramuh. Watch whether the melee hits heal him or not. If they do, use Thunderstorm. If they don't, use Volt Strike. When the shield goes down (red light goes out) then you can change back to Ifrit if you want.

That's basically all there is to it. Try to stay 20' away, try to keep Stoneskin up, and try to use a BP that won't heal him.

Note: If you're a beginner SMN, I don't recommend using Conduit right away. I recommend waiting until he does his first shield, and swap to the appropriate damage type before starting Conduit. Otherwise he's liable to pop shield in the middle of your Conduit and you'll just start healing him back up instead of dealing damage.
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By nilfalasiel 2020-09-08 18:14:02
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Amazing, thanks a lot! I'll make sure to put that into practice!
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By nilfalasiel 2021-03-30 17:22:32
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Sorry for the necro, but I thought I might as well continue where I started. I have now reached lvl99 as SMN and have CoD flagged.

My gear situation is as follows:

Homestead Scepter
Elan Strap
Eminent Sachet
Weatherspoon Corona+1
Helios Jacket
Helios Gloves
Campestres' Cape (got lucky with the Gobbiebox)
Weatherspoon Pants+1
Helios Boots
Varar Ring x2
(rest of the gear is BLM hand-me-downs)

This gets me iLvl119 and iLvl116 avatars. Will this be enough, or should I get the Gridarvor from Oboro and the Seraphicaller before I attempt the fight?

I tried it as iLvl119 BLM just out of curiosity before I had SMN at 99, but noticed that Iroha was extremely uneven with her Raises. There were 2 instances where I died right next to her, with no Reraise on, and she completely ignored me (and I'd only died once before both times). Not sure what happened there, so I have no idea how to prevent it from happening again.
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By RadialArcana 2021-03-30 17:44:18
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Are you determined to solo it? A simple few shouts should get you someone to help with it. Do you have 50 job points or close to it? Getting a 119 sachet makes a big difference.

When I did this years ago she raised me over and over as long as I was in range, maybe she bugged out I guess but I never noticed it.

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 Cerberus.Kylos
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By Cerberus.Kylos 2021-03-30 18:21:03
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You can also do this on COR with tactician's and dancer rolls, using fire shots and Wildfire. Kite around the outer edge if you in trouble.
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By nilfalasiel 2021-03-31 03:04:45
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RadialArcana said: »
Are you determined to solo it? A simple few shouts should get you someone to help with it. Do you have 50 job points or close to it? Getting a 119 sachet makes a big difference.

When I did this years ago she raised me over and over as long as I was in range, maybe she bugged out I guess but I never noticed it.

I do want to solo it, yeah. It didn't feel insurmountable even as BLM, just that Iroha didn't do her job for some reason. I just hope they've not sneakily updated her behaviour so that she only raises you once now....

I've not started on JPs with SMN yet, so I'll just do that and get my avatars to 119. The staff can't hurt either.

Thanks for the video!
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By Disastaru 2021-03-31 08:58:17
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I solo it with trusts as master smm, easy fight dies in around 3 mins typically
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By RadialArcana 2021-03-31 09:03:05
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Disastaru said: »
I solo it with trusts as master smm, easy fight dies in around 3 mins typically

Master smn with good 119 gear and a 119 sachet isn't the same as someone with no job points and basic gear.
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By Mrxi 2021-03-31 11:16:24
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Just did this as blu with no trusts no tp set or ws set, but has 2 ambu clubs and was super easy. just dont melee it when its ruby on head is glowing. smn kills it in 1 or 2 bp so kinda meh.
This mule does have nuke set and it takes a lot of dmg from subduction or just normal dmg so its a joke.
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By Odin.Creaucent 2021-03-31 11:36:59
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nilfalasiel said: »
RadialArcana said: »
Are you determined to solo it? A simple few shouts should get you someone to help with it. Do you have 50 job points or close to it? Getting a 119 sachet makes a big difference.

When I did this years ago she raised me over and over as long as I was in range, maybe she bugged out I guess but I never noticed it.

I do want to solo it, yeah. It didn't feel insurmountable even as BLM, just that Iroha didn't do her job for some reason. I just hope they've not sneakily updated her behaviour so that she only raises you once now....

I've not started on JPs with SMN yet, so I'll just do that and get my avatars to 119. The staff can't hurt either.

Thanks for the video!

It was a rough fight on my fresh to 99 SMN but i cleared it 1/1. Espiritus and the Oboro weapons help as does seraphicaller. I was using ramuh and changed the BP depending on what it was absorbing. I did try using Ifrit but it was doing ***damage so stuck to Ramuh. Cloud wiped out trusts fairly easily till i ended up having Koru-Moru and Sylvie following me around.
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By nilfalasiel 2021-03-31 13:54:14
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Odin.Creaucent said: »

It was a rough fight on my fresh to 99 SMN but i cleared it 1/1. Espiritus and the Oboro weapons help as does seraphicaller. I was using ramuh and changed the BP depending on what it was absorbing. I did try using Ifrit but it was doing ***damage so stuck to Rmauh. Cloud wiped out trusts fairly easily till i ended up having Koru-Moru and Sylvie following me around.

Great to know, thank you! I did notice that Thunder consistently did good damage to it as BLM, whereas other elements sometimes got resisted, even when it wasn't absorbing magic.
By DeusDisciple 2021-03-31 20:17:06
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You can definitely solo it with your current gear on SMN. When I came back to FFXI in 2017 after like a 9 year long hiatus, I was only lvl 99 SMN at the time. I went through RoV story and grabbed reforged relic and artifact gear along the way to get up to iLvl 119. Since you have Helios gear that is fine as well.

I had zero job points at the time and my avatars were only iLvl 115, due to having to use the sparks sachet until I got the 50JP to equip the first 119 one. So it's doable without 119 avatars, but it will definitely be easier for you to solo if you grab the 50JP first. Or if you can get the seraphicaller you can have 119 avatars with zero JP, but that isn't easy to get without help from others.

It took me multiple tries but I managed to solo cloud of darkness with that gear setup and trusts. Only other significant upgrade I had at the time was the base Gridarvor staff from Oboro, which isn't needed but can help your overall DPS. Easiest way to unlock that is just do a V2 Ambuscade on Normal difficulty if you haven't yet. This month's is especially easy with the leeches. Like Creau mentioned, Ramuh's volt strike is your best best without job points and higher end gear. That's what I used, one major tip though is if you die near CoD during the fight and Iroha revives you, don't raise up until CoD is done using a TP move, otherwise you'll end up dying again right away due to low HP and being in range of it's AoEs.

Whenever you need to Reraise, run away to the very edge of the arena, fully heal your HP and get all your trusts back out before re-engaging CoD. Long as you don't attack the boss you're able to resummon your trusts in this fight since CoD has hate on Iroha when you raise back up instead of on you. The hardest part of the fight as a fresh 119 SMN honestly is running out of time before you can kill CoD. Make sure you have some grape daifuku, as those are pretty much the best food overall for SMN at this point.

I was usually able to avoid wiping until CoD got down to around 25% to 40% HP then it would start to go crazy with AoE spam. Like Perg mentioned, watch out for when it's head glows as it will absorb magical damage during that, which includes flaming crush since it's hybrid damage type. I would avoid any magical DD trusts for this fight since they could end up healing CoD. It's probably best to use astral flow and conduit volt strike when it's down to below 30% to 40% HP to be on the safe side.

Also if you're able to, I would get Yoran-Oran as your unity leader, as he is in my opinion the best healer trust that isn't like Monbreaux or Ygnas, who are both pretty tough to get early on.
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By nilfalasiel 2021-04-01 17:50:29
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Fantastic, thank you very much, that sounds reassuring! I'll definitely try to at least get one of the iLvl19 sachets.
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By RadialArcana 2021-04-01 18:05:27
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Just be prepared to die, some people walk the fight but I died a lot on dancer when I came back many years ago. I died well over 15 times+
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By nilfalasiel 2021-04-02 06:44:32
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Oh, I have no problem with dying. I'm just worried that Iroha might bug out again and not raise me. Even worse if she's had her script updated by the devs. It's hard to know what actually happened there, as I've not seen any recent testimonials about the fight that involved people dying repeatedly. It's usually people who have cleared the fight a couple years ago or that are so well geared that it takes them a few minutes without dying.

Just out of interest, which fight would you say is the best option for getting a Seraphicaller? I've tried looking it up on FFXIclopedia, but there aren't any drop percentages, so it's hard to tell. I know it drops from the individual Ark Angel fights, even on VE, but I imagine the drop rate is abysmal.
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By RadialArcana 2021-04-02 07:00:56
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When I say die keep in mind I'm talking about a wipe, getting the KI and starting again. Not saying that will happen for you but that's what I had to put up with long time ago. Although that was partially because I didn't understand the mechanics and I had 115 gear on WS sets (not knowing at the time that delevels trusts).

Easiest is Tenzen, chance of getting a good drop depends on difficulty and treasure hunter. Keep in mind you're looking at many runs to get a 119 sachet most likely.
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By Ragnarok.Hulkamania 2021-04-02 07:06:10
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As others have suggested, SMN is very doable for this fight. Having fought this multiple times with multiple jobs, the easiest I've found was SCH. Luminohelix II MB, wait, win. I want to say the Seraphicaller drops rather easily from the 10 point merit fights rather than the EVs. Stellar Fulcrum or Sealion's Den might be good choices there.
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By Odin.Creaucent 2021-04-02 07:33:09
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nilfalasiel said: »
Oh, I have no problem with dying. I'm just worried that Iroha might bug out again and not raise me. Even worse if she's had her script updated by the devs. It's hard to know what actually happened there, as I've not seen any recent testimonials about the fight that involved people dying repeatedly. It's usually people who have cleared the fight a couple years ago or that are so well geared that it takes them a few minutes without dying.

Just out of interest, which fight would you say is the best option for getting a Seraphicaller? I've tried looking it up on FFXIclopedia, but there aren't any drop percentages, so it's hard to tell. I know it drops from the individual Ark Angel fights, even on VE, but I imagine the drop rate is abysmal.

I got mine from Ouryu on E which isnt too bad as a fresh to 99 SMN Garuda takes hardly any damage from it.
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By nilfalasiel 2021-04-03 05:15:35
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RadialArcana said: »
When I say die keep in mind I'm talking about a wipe, getting the KI and starting again. Not saying that will happen for you but that's what I had to put up with long time ago. Although that was partially because I didn't understand the mechanics and I had 115 gear on WS sets (not knowing at the time that delevels trusts).

Easiest is Tenzen, chance of getting a good drop depends on difficulty and treasure hunter. Keep in mind you're looking at many runs to get a 119 sachet most likely.

Ah ok, fair enough. I don't mind that either, Hades took me a few attempts too before I figured out the right Trust combo to take him out.

Thanks for the fight recommendations, I'll give Tenzen and Ouryu a try.
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By RadialArcana 2021-04-03 05:28:13
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Which you pick to do depends on what job you're going to use, I would guess ouryu is the easiest for smn. Tenzen for a melee.
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By nilfalasiel 2021-07-14 07:49:44
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This is just to report that I have just managed to beat CoD on my first try as SMN/RDM (and to document it in case anyone else needs it in the future). An extremely smooth run, thanks to everyone's advice!

My final gear was as follows:
Gridarvor
Elan Strap
Seraphicaller (dropped from Ouryu Easy)
Weatherspoon Corona +1
Summoner's Collar
Kyrene's Earring
Moonshade Earring
Helios Jacket
Helios Gloves
Varar Ring x2
Campestres' Cape
Klouskap Sash
Weatherspoon Pants +1
Inyanga Crackows

17 JPs spent, with 5 points each in Accuracy and BP damage (plus 3 in Mag Acc, 2 in AC, 1 in AF and 1 in Elemental Siphon).
Trusts: Amchuchu, Zeid II, Selh'teus, Koru-Moru and Apururu.

Ate Grape Daifuku +1. Used Ifrit almost exclusively (tried Ramuh a couple of times while the Physical Absorption shield was up, but Ifrit did all the heavy lifting). Didn't die a single time, popped AF/AC at around 30% (spammed Flaming Crush). Used Convert once and Elemental Siphon twice. Trust-wise, Selh'teus was the first to go, followed by Zeid and Amchuchu. Koru-Moru and Apururu managed to survive until the very end. Clear time was 24 min 15 sec.

Thank you very much for all the tips!
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