Missions: The Celestial Nexus (Zilart Mission 16)

Saturday night, six of us traveled to the Celesital Nexus for the final Rise of the Zilart battle with Eald'narche. The future of Vana'diel depended upon us. It took us four attempts, but we prevailed, and the world can once again sleep soundly at night.

We'd all been reading about the mission, and knew it was going to be a nasty fight. Since nearly all of his devastating attacks can be blocked by Utsusemi, Charcole and I both used our underlevelled Ninja subjobs for the shadows. Hate is odd in the fight anyway, so not having provoke probably wouldn't make much difference. One of the LS members recommended subbing NIN so strongly that it was impossible to ignore the advice, however much it pained my little PLD's heart.

Wendell WHM75/BLM37
Elboron BRD75/WHM37
Yobun BLM75/RDM37
Charcole MNK75/NIN18
Grymalkyn THF75/NIN37
Tsakiki PLD75/NIN23

The trip through the Shrine of Ru'Avitau was uneventful, though Yobun had to go open the Yellow Doors for us. We headed into the Celestial Nexus and went over our plan. We'd brought poison potions to counteract Sleepga, but other than that, just the standard hi-potions, pro-ethers, echo drops, food and juice.

Our first attempt started out poorly. We all ran in a bit too close before drinking our Poison Potion, and Eald'narche decided to open with a Sleepga II. Charcole got hit and woke up, and assuming the rest of us were awake as well, used Hundred Fists on the Exoplates shielding Eald'narche. We were all dead before we even destroyed the Exoplates. Yobun had been using Sleepga to get the Orbitals, but he also hit Eald'narche, and since he was the only one with hate at that point, Eald'narche killed Yobun pretty early.

Our second attempt was a bit better. Grym was the last one standing, and the Exoplates blasted her with Phase Shift just as she destroyed them (it uses that move at 66%, 33%, and 0% HP). For this run, both Yobun and Elboron had used their two hours.

We made it a bit further in our third attempt. I ran in and tried to keep Eald'narche back further from Yobun, and keep him alive longer. We were able to destroy the Exoplates and Eald'narche's first form, but didn't last long with his second form, as our resources were pretty much totally depleted and we didn't have enough time to recover before he popped up again. Wendell had used Benediction and Kiki Invincible on that run.

As Wendell raised us and we all rested, we discussed what we should do differently. Yobun had been having a hard time with the Orbitals, which he had been trying to keep slept, but hadn't been using Stoneskin, since it would counteract the Poison Potions, and he wouldn't wake up from Sleepga. So the plan now was to have him Stoneskin and Elbo and Wendell would be responsible for waking him up if he got slept. We also discussed coming back in two weeks with Icarus Wings and Opo-opo necklaces for instant TP and a good skillchain. But we were all game to give him one more try, with no 2 hours besides Grymalkyn's Perfect Dodge, which would have been of limited utility in this fight.

The fourth attempt was much much better. I think Charcole and I were better with our shadows (though it's really a pain when you know you need to get them back up fast and either the recast timer isn't up yet, or you've been stunned by one of the AOEs), and Yobun had a much easier time with the Orbitals and was actually able to nuke.

Wendell ended up pulling hate during the first form and we couldn't keep him alive, but we made him reraise and cast reraise right away (RR1 to save MP). And he was immediately hit with an AOE and died again. We made him reraise again, and this time he was killed before he got reraise up. :-(

Elboron shouldered the healing responsibilities, with me helping out as I could, and we kept going. We defeated the first form, rested briefly, and started in on the second form when he appeared. When we had the second form to 30%, I was killed, and I sat back and watched as the four still standing defeated him. It was hard to believe that we won, but the fight went so much better than the first three.

After you complete the mission, you find yourself in the Hall of the Gods. People running past on their way to Sky were very surprised to see Wendell and me lying there dead, since there's nothing in the Hall of the Gods that can kill you. Fortunately one of the passersby was a high level WHM and he gave us both R3s, which (barely) got Wendell back to level 75. We all headed to Norg and then Jeuno for cutscenes to complete the Zilart Missions. There is a continuation of the storyline that you can only access when you've completed both Zilart and Chains of Promathia, but it will be awhile before I get to that.

I don't understand what SquareEnix was thinking with fights like this. I don't think there is any way I would have survived 20 seconds of that fight as a PLD/WAR. I can understand wanting to sub Ninja at times, but to absolutely have to makes a mockery of the one job that was meant to be a tank and nothing but a tank. I also think if I had Ni I probably would have survived, but with my gimp subjob and only having Ichi available, I couldn't recast shadows when I needed them. So I'll keep working on leveling Ninja to 37, but I don't have to like it. :-)

New Title: Burier of the Illusion