First Round with Proto-Ultima

We've got enough people showing up regularly for Limbus to be creative with our farming runs. One night we had a group of 11 head to Temenos C2 to upgrade a chip for my Ultima set, while a squad of 4 headed to Apollyon SE to try to find enough coins to make up for the lack of them on the upgrade run. Lucrezia took the low-man squad, while I led the other group. We ended up with a total of 54 coins for the night (35 from the farming team), so it was definitely a good way to split our resources.

Our next run, we decided to try for the two chips I needed to complete my Omega set. I had a team of 10 for Apollyon SW (fomors, treants, mimics, and elementals), while Lucrezia had 10 in Apollyon NE (mandies, birds, pots, gigas, dhalmels). This worked out really well for us. My team finished first, I got my chip from that run, disbanded and was invited to Luc's alliance, and got the second chip when they finished. Since Apollyon's all one zone, we were able to do that, despite me being in the western "lobby" while they were in Apollyon NE. We also had a whopping 96 coins total from the two runs, so we took 4 from the bank for an even 5 per person. My group could have had a few more coins perhaps, but I took the time chests on the first two floors for safety. Then on the mimic floor I got really lucky and the first three chests I opened were items, time, and restore, so the mimic level was very quick.

On Sunday evening, we were ready to face Proto-Ultima for the first time. I was very anxious about the fight, since it sounds so much worse than Proto-Omega, and Citadel Buster sounded difficult to survive. In preparation, I bought my first magic damage gear: two Merman's Rings for -8% Magic Damage Reduction, and a Lamia Mantle +1 and Lamian Kaman for +5 Magic Defense Bonus. I adjusted my PLD/NIN macro set to add a CB gear swap, and reorganized my +HP, +enmity, and +shield macros to get it all to work better (plus I got my Homam Cosciales and Ethereal Earring since my last PLD/NIN fight, and had to add them in).

Lucrezia's overall strategy was very similar to that for Proto-Omega, but we had more RDM/DRKs and BLMs and fewer SMNs this time. We started out with Luc as my co-tank, but switched over to Eulucia. Eulucia and I stood on opposite sides of Ultima, and as we reached our hate thresholds, every move we did or damage we took had Ultima flip around to the other tank. Things went incredibly well until we got Ultima under 20%. We'd take massive damage from time to time, but the stunners were hampering Ultima, and Anrita and Toshimitsu were keeping us healthy.

When the first Citadel Buster happened, people either didn't notice it was happening, or thought it would be better to stand and fight, rather than run away like we had planned. This resulted in over half the alliance being dead. People reraised, but we never completely recovered, and we ended up wiping with Ultima around 5%. At the end, Proto-Ultima was drawing in the final survivors one by one and killing them each in turn.

We did learn a lot from the fight though, and I'm sure we'll do better next time. I actually survived the first Citadel Buster - when I had buffs up, I was hit for just under 1400 (and my max HP at that point was ~1600). A later Citadel Buster that was under 1400 killed me because I was at low health, and Armor Buster got me while weakened. My final death was a 2100+ point Citadel Buster, when I think the only thing I was missing was Shell and maybe Light Carol. It was a fun fight, and I'm looking forward to a rematch.

Last night, we headed to Temenos C3 (Orcs, Yagudos, and Quadavs) for the third chip upgrade I needed to complete my Ultima set, so we're planning to head back to fight Proto-Ultima again on Sunday. This is just the second time we've done Temenos C3 since I joined TNU, the earlier being last March. I remember it as being fairly easy then, but it was just ridiculous last night. We had 16 people, and were killing all the lesser Beastmen in under 30 seconds, and even the NMs weren't too much of a challenge. We took a lot of damage from Astral Flow on the Summoner, but no one died. One of our RDMs died on the next NM from an AOE right after he used convert, but that wasn't because the zone was tough. We ended up with 50 coins, and a Cobalt Mythril Sheet which went to Venn.