Cloud Of Darkness HTBF

BLU sleeps are centered around caster and despite the auras not covering a wide area chances are you'll cast encumbered so resists are common. Not to mention BLU sleeps don't last very long and someone else reported adds build resistance to bind or gravity rather quickly, I suspect that's the case for all crowd control.

Just had a run with avoidance(no parry, shield block and so on) and magic attack down auras
which went much smoother and faster. Guess which auras you get is completely random.

Attempted Ice break but didn't land despite macc food and no avoidance aura. Maybe going to try again with full macc set.
*edit* ice break doesn't land despite macc set and food.

btw, does SCH strat involve MB helix here? couldn't that backfire if cloud decides to absorb magic?

This is definitely the case here. On VE / E with my BLU I'm consistently able to get one Sheep Song that gives 20 ~ 30 seconds, then after that you only get 5 or 6 (if at all). Not worth it for this HTMB. It is much easier to just kill the adds on lower difficulties and go on a job that deals more solo damage if you are going to solo it at lower difficulties (MNK, WAR, DRG, etc).

Helix does not seem to be an issue as a DoT effect, so my assumption is that the mechanic works as direct damage.

I've been doing buffs > tabula > MB Helix > then as many sc's and bursts as I can fit in during Tabula, while casting stoneskin between each sc/mb window. I personally just let it hit me into a pillar during this process as I feel I get more efficient use out of my tabula window. After tabula ends its more about the gravity and kiting while maintaining helix. Add(s) start to come out and maintaining stoneskin/gravity becomes more challenging/important. Just ride out helix at that point and try to limit tp gain by maintaining stoneskin/gravity the best you can. I am very hit or miss on VD though personally.

It's far more hassle than its worth though as I had said previously. Its super easy to just grab a few players and pug this fight for the most part.

I agree with you, and my FC comment was a bad point. My point was that properly gearing up RDM to be able to effectively solo these fights takes a lot more than just level 1 daggers.

Once it uses Primordial Surge it can only cast spells for 50 seconds ish so if its only absorbing magic its easy to zerg before adds pop usually.

for what its worth, enspell method on this is balls slow or near impossible idk i gave up after 20min.

Because I automated it, and it was hard.

Everyone else already said everything else that was needed to be said about it so I won't repeat it, except the final point: RDM cheese is not a win button the way people who do not play RDM think it is. And for Cloud of Darkness specifically, a PUG can spam VD much faster anyway, so the point is moot - Odin was a lot harder.

kiting works well

https://x.com/strikeret/status/1878096661798584812

run/drk builds hate from afar with flash/stun/jas
rdm subs sch for faster buffing and grav/addle
everyone else subs drg to shed hate
brd sings dirge on dds
cor does normal cor stuff
dds can be whatever

cloud of darkness never uses a tp move, summons adds, or absorbs damage.

https://strikeret.hatenablog.com/entry/2025/01/12/080018

That's next up to be patched in future content: Gravity Kite strategies.

Every nm shouldve already been immune to gravity.

Oh boy, cant wait for every NM even things that should move super slow to have +150% mov speed. You wanna grav kite? Gonna need to bring the rdm and the GEO(bubbles nerfed 90% btw)

Certain mobs already are immune to gravity. This month's ambuscade is a perfect example. I'm telling you, they're cracking down on every single cheese mechanic we employ because they have to keep it interesting. Eventually people are going to have to learn how to deal with the mechanic vs ignoring it entirely. Ain't no way in hell they want us to kill Bumba with Kaustra. Sooner or later every fight is gonna feel like August master trial where you just have to fight EVERYTHING.

Have fun with new Omega/Ultima popping dozens of Detectors that have to be killed or mega gains -10% dt per add alive

cracking down on various "cheese" methods doesn't keep anything interesting. It's how you get the XIV formula for one strategy for every fight. It's stupid and people complaining because their job can't solo a fight are ridiculous.

FFXI is more fun when you can use debuffs for their purpose.
SE just doesn't know how to make fights interesting without them being so BS that people feel the need to cheese them.

This community is literally impossible to please.

"WAH I can't believe SE is making mobs immune to my favorite cheese strat"

"WAH this fight is so easy, you can cheese it with XYZ cheese strat"

If SE makes a mob immune to gravity, everyone whines that they just make everything immune to gravity. If they don't make it immune to gravity, everyone whines that it's so easy because you can gravity kite it and it will never hit you.

Rinse and repeat for AFAC, TP denial, Sleep/nuke, face-smashing with Naeglings, SE BW KC, RDM enspell, or whatever other strategy you want. Any time anything is the popular way to win a fight suddenly everyone moans regardless of whether SE blocked it or not.

Can't we just appreciate for one moment that there are 200 fights in this game and there are a variety of ways to play the game, instead of just bitching about how your preferred strat doesn't work on every single fight or how the meta strat for a fight isn't one that you like (or have jobs to play)? The variety is literally the best part of the game and somehow the community still shits all over it every time SE releases anything.