Low-manning NMs/farming NMs & seals

I'm not sure how the upcoming release of FFXIV will affect things... It sounds like there are quite a few people who intend to start playing FFXIV when it comes out this week. (Wednesday I believe?)

The next couple of weeks should be interesting at least. With Kelly taking a break, the release of FFXIV and well, the latest Abyssea expansion completely changing expectations of FFXI again, who knows who will be around after the shakeout is done.

In any case, I'm still around and intending to poke things. All jobs are 85 now in record time (2 weekends of Abyssea exp -.-) After looking at things, I'm currently left with 2 1/2 jobs left to get up to 49, and about 250 merits left to completely cap all jobs. That's about 13-14 Abyssea exp sessions at the very most, and while having more merits on my jobs would be nice, it isn't something that's too high of a priority for me, especially since I intend to mainly focus on DNC in the first place xD The bad news? AF3 feet being gold chest pops... considering the super-low drop rate and the difficulty(annoyance?) from building up Amber lights enough for it. I'm not sure how to structure an event to farm AF3 feet... We'd pretty much need people to be on their "A" jobs and be willing to focus on getting giant gold chests and forsaking exp/merits for hours at a time.


In any case, yesterday evening the VNM prep crew (Fuuji, Vanh, Ghiren, me and... Val) went to low-man some NMs with some success. Beelz joined us later. Setup was:
- RDM - Fuuji - Haste, backup heals + lots of enfeebling
- SMN - Ghiren - Hateless DD, -na spells with /WHM
- SAM/THF - Vanh - TA DD
- DNC/NIN - Ascule - Evasion tank
- THF/... SAM - Val - TA DD, bait, TH
- PLD/NIN - Beelz (joined us later in the night)

Which... pretty much describes my default low-man strategy. Get a tank + support capable of holding the mob indefinitely, then add in as many DDs as you have available people to take it down to speed things up. TH if possible, though at the end of the day, the core of the strategy is a tank + support.

This seemed to work well against the VNMs, plus last night we tackled Khalamari and Gieremund. We tried the frog NM, but that one ended up killing us as it spammed Waterja and Water-ga x.x

The other low-man tactic I've seen executed is... well, nukers ping-ponging hate, kiting the mob around until someone else can pull it off. Works especially well among NMs who have slow movement speed, or if you have enough room to pull the kite, but is highly risky if you're fighting something that hits hard or has many AoEs.

I'm hoping to continue low-manning NMs to get some gear for people, or seals, whichever it may be. I try to avoid the "dying" types of fights where you use damage-over-time attacks and either die & reraise, or run until the mob deaggros simply due to the time it takes to do these fights

Farming seals/Which NMs?
So... the big question is which NMs to hunt, and when to hunt them... I'm hoping to make this a regular thing on Sunday nights, but... we'll see... too much in the air right now.

So far the list of possible wants are:
Ascule - DNC stuffs
Fuuji - RDM stuffs
Ghiren - WHM or SMN stuffs
Valharin - THF stuffs
Vanh - SAM, THF stuff, BRD feet

I'm looking to build a list of NMs that people want to kill and figure out how to kill them. So far my list is:

Khalamari (Squid - Konschat)
- Wanted by: Ascule - Charis Necklace
- Other drops: Varangian Helm - Str+12, Accuracy -20, Attack+24
- DNC evasion tanking, has some heavy hitting moves, Utsusemi + full time Fan Dance a must
- Success - Probably can be duo'ed or trioed

Gieremund (Hound - Attohwa)
- Wanted by: Ascule - DNC seal: Head
- Other drops: WAR, DRG, THF head seals, Yoshihiro (magnus stone GK)
- DNC evasion tanking, has heavy hitting moves that go through Utsusemi. Howl causes Paralyze and needs to be removed ASAP
- Success - Possible trio, better with 5 or more

Ironclad everything (all new zones)
- Drops: Various job-specific accessories, some nice body pieces
- In theory, nuke-kiting should work, just be sure to ping-pong hate. Movement speed atma or gear would help
- Doable? Possibly... half-assembled remnants of an exp alliance was able to kill this twice, so a coordinated low-man effort should be possible

Seps (Puk - Vunkrel)
- Wanted by: Fuuji - RDM seal: feet
- Other drops: SCH seal: feet
- No further info on Wiki at this time. Probably can get away with evasion tanking. Probably has AoE moves

Iktomi (Spider - Vunkrel)
- Wanted by: Fuuji - RDM seal: feet
- Other drops: SAM, PLD, THF feet seals
- Sickle Slash goes through shadows, double attacks frequently. PLD/NIN tank possibly?
- Probably best to test with DNC & PLD tanks

Gukumatz (Peiste - Misareaux)
- Wanted by: Fuuji - RDM legs, Ghiren - WHM legs
- Other drops: SCH, BLM legs, magnus stone Great Axe
- Lots of annoying moves, gaze attacks, knockback, lots of ignoring shadow moves and plague
- Probably can do ping-pong nuking with this. Face away from the mob to avoid gaze attacks. Would need at least one person WHM or /WHM to remove plague & erase bind

Wherwetrice (Cockatrice - Attohwa)
- Wanted by: Fuuji - RDM seal: head, Ghiren - WHM head
- Other drops: SCH, BLM, Divinus Grip
- Popped NM. Has Sound Vacuum which causes mute AND en-amnesia. Sounds like a pain to fight... I think I'd rather go after the Peiste

Pallid Percy (Worm - Attohwa)
- Wanted by: Fuuji - RDM head, Vanh & Val - THF head
- Other drops: SAM, PLD head, Incantor Stone
- Popped NM. Has draw in, AoE damage, lots of -ga spells like Silencega, Slowga, Graviga, Aeroga, Stonega. Probably a pain to fight

Granite Borer (Wamouracampa - Attohwa)
- Wanted by: Ghiren - WHM head, Ascule - DNC head, Vanh & Val - THF head
Other drops: COR head, Volley Earring
- Popped NM. High movement speed, casts Firaga IV. No fast cast
- Might be doable. Covers a lot people's jobs. Bring a stunner for Firaga?

Whiro (Eft - Attohwa)
- Wanted by: Ghiren - WHM head, Vanh - SAM head
- Other drops: DRK, BLU head, Fluid Crossbow
- Conal stun, AoE damage, AoE dispel. Can spam AoE damage moves. Sounds like a pain.
- Probably skip this one and find easier sources

Npfundlwa (Rabbit - Misareaux)
- Wanted by: Ghiren - WHM legs
- Other drops: WAR, COR, DNC legs, Quire Grip
- Popped NM. Don't rabbits have that evil AoE move that one-shots most people? Mmmm... Wiki only has Dust Cloud listed as the ability, might be worth checking out... or waiting for more info to be posted

Mmmm... that's enough NM checking for now... still many more to list/check.

If you have a NM or specific seal that you'd rather prioritize, let me know so we can check to see if we can fit a strategy to it. If the quest is SOMEWHAT reasonable to do (as in, you can get all 8 seals in like... under 6-8 hours), then it is probably better to just do the quest method.

Oh, also, if there are other NMs that drop things people want, like job-specific accessories(like Khalamari), let's check them out as well