Missions: The Savage (CoP 4-2) - rounds one and two

We headed off to Riverne Site B01 for the first time (besides the mission cutscene) on Friday night. We were loaded down with hi-potions (I think we had over 30 between the 6 of us, I alone had 15), 8 mistmelts, reraise items for everyone, and had quite good gear for our level cap of 50. Our group consisted of:

Wendell WHM50/BLM25
Elboron BRD50/WHM25
Itera MNK50/WAR25
Grymalkyn THF50/RNG25
Splinte WAR50/NIN25
Tsakiki PLD50/WAR25

We had to fight two drakes to get the Giant Scale we needed for an unstable displacement, but used sneak and invisible and a bit of stealth to avoid everything else along the way. There was another party making their way to Monarch Linn as well, but they didn't bother with a Giant Scale, they simply waited for us to show up at the unstable displacement and jumped through when we stabilized it with the scale. Lazy gits.

While we were reviewing our strategy before entering the battle, the other party went in the BC, probably for an ENM. Within two minutes, they fell in a heap of dead bodies outside the BC. Serves them right for leeching on our Giant Scale. :p

Our strategy was pretty basic: don't get behind him, stay away from the front to avoid the frontal AOEs, use mistmelts when he starts to fly, use finale when he stoneskins, keep barstonra and earth carol up. Grym was the designated mistmelter, and felt miserable at being a THF in a fight where SATA is absolutely forbidden. Grym subbed RNG to help land acid, blind, sleep, and bloody bolts - and he did have a good hit-rate, so it seems a good sub job for this.

We went in and buffed up. I used a blink band, memento muffler (+7 VIT), and high breath mantle (+38 HP, +5 Enmity, Def: 6), and we all used our charm wands on one another for reraise. I ran into the open area and provoked Ouryu. He sure is a big fellow. We all started in doing our thing, and the fight was going so very well, I felt we could keep it up forever. Ouryu's normal attacks were hitting me for 70-90, crits around 130, and he was spamming Geotic Breath, but they were mostly for about 90. Sure there were some double (triple?) attacks, but it was all so manageable. The melee were having a bit of trouble with stoneskin - finale's recast is a bit long - but they were whittling him away.

Then I got hit for over 750 damage on a Geotic Breath, which dropped me like a sack of potatoes. My max HP in the fight was about 850, and I wasn't topped off when that hit me. Ouryu went straight for Wendell, who'd been dumping Cures on me throughout this. Splinte and Itera both provoked as fast as they could, but to no avail. Wendell was down in two or three hits. Elbo and Grym tried to sleep him, but Splinte and Itera weren't quite prepared for disengaging and that didn't go so well. I reraised myself when Ouryu's attention was on killing everyone else, and ran to the entrance to rest - using a instant reraise scroll for good measure. Grym tried to move Ouryu away from everyone else so they could reraise as well, but no one took the opportunity. None of us are used to wiping in a mission, and hadn't really thought about the logistics of reraising and continuing. Hopefully this isn't something we're going to have to become experts at.

When the other 5 were all dead, Ouryu simply went back to the middle of the field. It seems he hadn't noticed me at all. Itera reraised and got hit right away. Grym then tried, but was also noticed. She ended up coming near the entrance at one point, and it seems that Ouryu spotted me that time, since after he dropped Grym, he came back for me. I reraised again, and we decided to give up on round one and try again. I exited the BC, and 3 minutes later, the 5 others landed in a heap near me. We had 9 deaths. That's just not acceptable.

Only Elbo and Grym had used their two hours in the first fight, and we still had enough hi-potions for Kiki to have 12. Grym had all the mistmelts, and I had my NQ charm wand available, so we had reraise on both Wendell and Grym. We headed back in and faced Ouryu for the second time.

This fight was very different. He was seemed to be casting Stonega the second Silence wore off, taking hp off of everyone, moreso than in the first fight. Instead of spammimg Geotic Breath, he instead kept using Horrid Roar, which stripped eight (!?!) buffs off of me. Suddenly, with no protect, shell, ballad, juice, vit-bonus, barstonra, earth carol, or food, I was getting hit for 175-190. And he kept doing this, seemingly as soon as I'd eat another taco, drink another juice, and Elbo'd get songs back on me. It was not amusing. Wendell and I were both pretty well drained just keeping me on my feet, and then a good smack followed with a double attack knocked me down, and Wendell was next to go. I probably should have used invincible somewhere in there, but I didn't get to my macro fast enough.

Elbo did manage to sleep Ouryu this time, but he didn't stay asleep for long. We decided to have them go ahead and use Mighty Strikes and Hundred Fists and try to bring him to his knees, with Wendell and Kiki dead, but it just wasn't quite enough. Again, Grym was the last one standing, and it really looked like they had him close to 30% health, which is when people say he gives up. We fell out of the circle and Wendell handed out R3s and we headed home, tails tucked between our legs.

This was the first time Grym and I have ever had to give up on a fight, and had to come back and try again at a later date. We have always over-prepared, and have nearly always succeeded on our first attempt (it may not be pretty at times, but a win's a win, even if there's only one person alive at the end). Diabolos was the first time we had a wipe and had to try again, but that was the same night, and we didn't leave and return. It's just not fair that a well-balanced party (no nukers, but why do we have to have nukers?), that comes fully prepared, with special items only relevant for this particular mission, well-stocked with medicines, only to lose because of luck on the attacks the monster chooses to use for that particular fight.

It's incredibly frustrating, and makes me pretty grumpy. I get so tired of the people going on and on about how easy all the CoP missions are, provided you have 2 SMNs and 2 BLMs in your static. I don't want to have to sell-out. And I'm really afraid we won't be able to avoid it. I want to be able to do it with the jobs we have, which really is quite balanced, except for the nuking aspect. A white mage, a bard, a paladin, and three solid melee should be able to face anything with good preparation and adequate supplies and a strategy. Luck shouldn't be the biggest factor in this.

Saturday morning, Grym and I headed to Rolanberry to farm Malboro Vines and Grym made enough hi-potions that we have 32 of them on hand for next Friday. She even HQ'd one of them. (Hi-Potions cap at Level 60 Alchemy, and that's Grym's skill level, so HQs are a bit rare.) We're going to have to spend all our evenings this week back in Riverne, farming tailfeathers for more mistmelts. Grym still has one mistmelt and one tailfeather, so if we want 8 mistmelts again, it means we need 13 tailfeathers.

The only thing I can see that we can change with our current line-up is to plan where we die better. We'll try to fight Ouryu right at the entrance, rather than in the middle, where he goes to rest after killing us all. The last one standing (probably Grym) will have to drag him to the opposite side, giving us a chance to reraise and run to the back of the tunnel to recover and get back to the fight. Since Grym might be out of commission a bit longer, I'll have two mistmelts and be on mistmelt duty until Grym's back up and fighting. I only hope Ouryu doesn't have a really strong regen or something, making it futile to try to keep going after a wipe. We can also try a planned sleep before anyone dies, in order to rest for HP and MP.

Why do we have to have wiping as part of our strategy! It's just stupid. Stupid Wyrm. Stupid Square-Enix. Stupid missions. And it's just going to get worse as we continue through CoP.

Itera and I are the only two of our group who have more than one job at 50, so we do have the option of having me go as RDM, and Itera as PLD. I hate losing Itera's MNK's damage with a PLD-THF-WAR-RDM-BRD-WHM line-up, but it could be that having me responsible for Dispel, Silence, Paralyze, Gravity, and probably Chainspell-Aero-whatever, plus helping with Sleep, and letting Wendell focus on keeping Itera alive and Elbo on other things besides Finale, that it might work. But I really feel like we have to try it again with the same line-up first, since we do have a couple things we can tweak and try to just do it better and win this time. I'm of the belief that you shouldn't change too many things when you feel like you were really pretty close to winning.