Soloing everything in Sea + HP fun + Advice to new Monks for NM hunting
Soloing everything in Sea + HP fun + Advice to Monks for NM hunting (Mee Deggi etc.)
In previous entries I showed how monk can solo very high and very fast xp on VT imps (level 80-81), and how new job combinations like MNK/DNC can let me solo BCNMs like the 6 scorpion Operation Desert Storm or get solo xp/merits even more smoothly. But that doesn't mean all you can kill is imps or that older subjobs can't still be great or even better in some situations.
So for this entry I thought I would show an example of where older more conventional subjobs are still best, and how monk can fight countless types of VT+ monsters (although usually there is no special reason to fight most of them).
To show this, I chose farming various sea monsters, since getting the r/ex organs is a very useful goal in itself.
But first, just for fun, here is a screenshot of my HP-build in besieged (using a giant drink, which doubles your base HP, but not your +HP% gear unfortunately, that's why my HP is 2565|4565 and not 2565|5130). So here is my HP before and after using the giant's drink (note, this is not quite my absolute max HP, I just used carbonara food instead of turtle soup for example, and no cassie earring, so I could easily add another 200ish HP or more to that).
Anyways, back on topic. Basically as monk you can solo everything in Sea (except NMs like UFOs/Youvra, which you can still duo however as mnk/nin with a RDM). For example here is a few kills like the blue VT shark phuabo (as mnk/dnc), the shapeshifting VT aw'ghrah (usually as mnk/nin), the VT pot-shaped aw'zdei (also usually as mnk/nin), aerns (although more of a pain and no reason to ever fight the harder ones):
Flawless VT Euvhi Solo as mnk/nin:
One of the most useful but hardest monster to solo for monk is the flower-type Aw-Euvhi.
It can be hard because it attacks very fast (with double attacks etc) and can hit for 200~300 damage with just normal non-critical attacks, plus it has a lot of TP moves, some of them very powerful.
It is useful because it drops pop item for the Jailer of Faith NM and because it drops organs for the sanative earring, the highest hHP+ earring in the game (not all that essential but nice to have).
Below is a video showing how to solo VT flower monsters without getting hit at all (which requires strategy, timing and gear swaps to get the right mix of counter, evasion, haste and job abilities).
I think other people showed how to solo this before, but it was never too smooth of a fight, and people used too much unnecessary support or preparation (like trying to fully boost chiblast to take the monster down to 75% from the start). Instead I wanted to show how easy it can be just straight-tanking and using monk's other great stats and JAs, and how you could chain even 3-4 of them back to back without the need for all that boring boosting. I picked a slightly harder to reach camp (around J-12) to get 4 flowers next to each other, but as monk you can solo all the VT monsters in the area (like the zdei pots) and any VT spider that might accidentally aggro on the way.
I show 3 fights without any extra buffs (just food, not even signet to keep tp while healing etc) to show how monk can solo even the VT ones without getting hit even once, and demonstrate how you can get some nice chain2+ from just the flowers on both sides (reducing unnecessary wait for repops), and to give yet another example of how shiva's claws can be very effective even on VT enemies like this (in the third fight).
Here is the video:
and here are some screenshots of the solo xp chains (without xp rings) and possible drops:
Click to view
Tips and Suggestions to new Monks (and everyone else) for camping NMs:
I thought I should post on this topic because some people can get very frustrated by the extremely low drop rates and competition setup in this game.
And what's even worse, some starting monks get talked into doing things like essentially abandoning normal fun play and leveling because they are told it is somehow disgraceful to level a certain job past a given level without some specific rare or expensive gear drops...
Of course some gear has very nice stats, but nothing that will have such an impact that it could really justify not having fun for long periods of time. In fact people with actual parsers or trying to do the same things before or after obtaining one of these items will generally end up disappointed by the smaller actual impact compared to the inflated expectations they had built up.
What I would recommend to people is to try to shift a bit that attitude and try instead to do that as an extra bonus activity, for example whenever possible try to simultaneously farm for gil, get decent solo XP, BCNM seals and maybe even level up your NPC fellow in the same area where the NM pops. so that you still have fun and get something accomplished whether you get the drop or claim or not. And if you can't ever seem to get the drop, by then you probably have plenty of seals to try and get the equivalent BCNM drop with a couple of friends, or enough gil to just buy it.
As an example, two useful pieces for monk are o.kotes and fuma boots. They are in no way required but they are a very nice boost at the level when you can first wear them (and for capped areas activities if you are already 75).
They made both items R/EX so they are not targeted by gilsellers and hopefully now anybody trying to use bots etc gets banned quickly, so it's a much more leveled plainfield.
The first piece of advice specific to these two is don't expect to get a drop just because you claimed and killed the NM, many people will go as high as 0 drops in 40 kills before getting one.
I was recently playing around with BST37/DNC and decided to get xp and seals from Castle Oztroja with the possible (but improbably) bonus of getting the shinier R/EX drops (just to use on capped areas since I have better gear at 75 of course). BST has the added advantage of widescan (and provoke from /DNC) and if you see a given NM pop enough time you get a bit quicker at getting to it and claiming. Anyways, here is an example of typical drops for Mee Deggi as I was getting seals and xp for BST (I ended up leveling up 5 times in this area alone, notice the changing XP):
and finally (after more of the same,
So if you have a job of the right level, consider putting your solo XP camp near a NM instead of just feeling like you wasted your time unless you get a rare drop.
Eventually you will stop playing this game, but while you still play you might as well keep it as enjoyable as possible. Plenty of things ingame have no real point but might still be nice to do...
