Operation Desert Swarm/Strategies

From FFXIclopedia, the free Final Fantasy XI encyclopedia

Please feel free to add new Strategies or adjust those listed, but please stick to the format for ease of reading and printing. A template for new Strategies can be found at the very bottom. If you can please insert sections in based on the order the jobs appear in the title. Find abbreviations in the glossary.

Do not sign additions to this page.

Tips

This is an uncapped BCMN fight. Buff up before you enter to save time from the clock.

Working Job Combinations

This section is not meant to discourage people from trying different combinations, but to illustrate combinations that have been tried and tested. Please feel free to try this BCNM with any combination you think might work, and above all, have fun!

SOLO STRATEGIES

Black Mage

High-end gear is required. Ideally you want to deal at least 20% of each scorpion's HP with one nuke. Exceptional BLMs are capable of doing this fight with only 4 nukes. You should always be sure Manafont is ready regardless of whether you plan on using it. Decide how much risk you want in choosing medicine. The fight can be done with no medicine at all (just Manafont) or as safe as you desire using Vile Elixir s(+1). Keep in mind medicine will cut your profits significantly, and should only be used if you're new to the strategy.

You will need:

Good nuking gear for Thundaga III. Rairin Obi, Sorcerer's Tonban, Jupiter's Staff, etc. Spirit Lantern and any other items to boost your damage are encouraged.
Red Mage subjob and 114 MND for Stoneskin casting.
Full Enfeebling gear and Pluto's Staff for Sleepga.

Enter on Lightningday. Eat defense food. Tavnazian Tacos work well. Reraise, Stoneskin, Blink, Aquaveil, Protect, Phalanx, and rest to full MP quickly. A Yagudo Drink is useful here. Ready your nuking gear, force your ring latent, etc.

Cast Thundaga III on the middle scorpion from 21 or so units of distance from the mob. Immediately run back for about 2-3 seconds while you're in the "can't cast again yet" phase. Stop completely and cast Sleepga II. If you don't stop cleanly, and you interrupt your Sleepga, you're dead.

Repeat 3-4 times, using medicine and/or Manafont to replenish your MP. After every Sleepga, rebuff Blink and Stoneskin and keep an eye on your Phalanx and Aquaveil timers. Alternating nukes other than Thundaga III is not recommended because you won't get the Day-of-the-week bonus. To win without medicine, go through 2 or 3 nuke-sleep-buff cycles, use Manafont, nuke, sleep, nuke. It may be possible to use 3 nukes during Manafont. Adjust your strategy based on your race, gear, etc..

Monk Video

See video strategy here.

Mixed Soloing

There are a number of jobs that can solo a scorpion by level 75. NIN, THF/NIN, BST (as described above), DRG/Mages, and even DRK/SAM with Dread Spikes have all been confirmed as being able to solo single scorpions.

For party setup, get 5-6 people that can solo a scorpion apiece. Having a Rdm or Blm for a 6th can allow you to sleepga the scorpions at the start for easier grabbing and pulling, and the mage can then keep one slept while the melees kill the rest. Alternately, it is likely that a RDM could solo a scorp on their own after sleeping the mobs at the start.

The basic strategy is to run in, have everyone grab a scorp, and pull them to opposite corners of the room. Once you finish off one scorpion, help the next person over. They'll grow in power as they die, so remember that the last couple will be hitting fairly hard.

quick little edit, BLU can absolutely destroy a scorp with little effort.

EDIT:Disseverment and Hysteric Barrage will easily knock off 25-30% of a scorpion's HP. Accuracy is not an issue. Tavnazian Taco and Cocoon are reccomended to minimize the damage you take. Start the party off with Diamondhide and a Diffusion buff ( Refueling, Warm-Up, Cocoon all have their merits in this fight) if the timer is up, and be sure to have Magic Fruit set in case anyone gets into trouble. Using only Disseverment, Hysteric Barrage, Frenetic Rip, and Head Butt, the scorpion will likely be dead before a second round of spells is cast. Blue Mage can kill a scorpion so fast that the rest of the party will likely only have theirs in the 40-50% range by the time he or she is finished. You can use Disseverment or Hysteric Barrage to finish off party members' scorpions to save time. Yagudo Drink is hardly necessary, but if you're concerned about MP, bring a few.

EDIT: WAR can do this fine as well. I tend to use O. Hat and Scorpion Harness to avoid as many hits as possible, but it is doable without this evasion gear as well.

---EDIT by Inquisitor

EDIT: SMN can easily solo their own scorpions. I always use Fenrir in this as for the -2 less MP cost of what normal Avatars would normaly cost, and as for Eclipse Bite can do considerable damage with Summoners Pigaches and Bracers for the Att & Acc+.

Garuda & Shiva are also good Avatars to use since they last alot longer than Fenrir would, but depending on how much MP garuda/Shiva are costing u would leave you around maybe 100~ MP left (depends on what race and equipment you have) and leaves u little healing power for the rest of your party making Fenrir an ideal choice for kiteing and healing the party on the side.

---EDIT by Imdraxx

EDIT: I use Garuda with great results. 3 Predator Claws = dead scorpion @ 2minutes into battle. I do not melee, I do cast Dia II and I stand just outside AoE zone.

---EDIT by Raise III

EDIT: Notes on DRK/SAM soloing: you can Meditate outside of the actual fight and the TP will carry over. As you near the Scorpions, activate Seigan but not Third Eye. When you have moved into position, use Third Eye and pull the first with Drain II. As it comes towards you, use Bio II on it to further weaken its attacks. Use Weapon Bash and Stun to space time between Third Eyes if it falls prematurely, the "buffer HP" gained by Drain II means that the scorpion should be unable to injure you severely. If your Guillotines are powerful enough (850+ per hit), it should fall in a very short space of time. It is then possible to fight a second scorpion, if necessary, by casting Dread Spikes then pulling a second one, again using Bio II to weaken its attacks. Drains can be used as they become available to keep your HP high; as a final note, when all of the scorpions TP move at once, if yours isn't the first to do it, it is possible to stun its TP move -- and it WON'T try to repeat it after it is unstunned, meaning you've permanently dodged a TP move.

---EDIT by Tengokujin

EDIT: DRG/mage soloing is viable from at least 72+. There may be close moments, but if focus is kept on survival over damage, a DRG has a very easy time of it. Remembering to keep your wyvern alive is also a good idea.
EDIT: A DRG/Sam can solo scorpions very easily. Just watch out for the AOE. You will most likely kill off your scorpion long before any of your other party members so you are free to help someone else or grab another one, though you will likely need at least one heal halfway through the 2nd scorpion because of AOE endured throughout the fight. Note that Earth Pounder WILL NOT dispell Third Eye.

Manaburn

See above. Same as solo BLM strategy but safer and with much less skill involved.

Watch video.

DUO STRATEGIES

None submitted yet.

TRIO STRATEGIES

75NIN/THF, 75MNK/NIN, 75WHM/NIN

This is done during the time of night with Ninja Boots movement speed activated. NIN/THF (for evasion purposes).

The fight starts and all 3 run up to the BC but stop before aggroing. NIN and MNK both put shadows up and WHM Protects and Barstonras. NIN runs in and aggros all 6, MNK chi blasts one. The MNK pulls the scorpion right outside the circle (so the NINis out of the MNKs AoE range and vice-versa) and solos the scorpion while the NIN kites them all. WHM main heals and has NIN sub to help protect from AoEs. The MNK just picks them off the NIN one at a time until they are down to two, where both the MNK and NIN each solo one on opposite sides of the arena but still so they are both in range of WHM cures.

Done at a good speed, the average trio should be able to get in 2 runs before night ends if they start at the beginning of night.

75RDM/BLM, 75BLM/RDM, 75BLU/NIN

The strategy is simple: enter, buff, rest. The RDM goes in and casts Dia II on a scorpion, immediately after the BLM casts Sleepga II on them. The BLU takes the DoTted scorpion, runs far and kills it. Meanwhile, RDM and BLM keep the scorpions asleep. The BLU keeps on like this til the 3rd/4th scorpion, when he finishes his MP. At this point, he rests to ~300 MP, stands up and finishes the work. The fight will take approx. 15 minutes if everything goes well.

Notes: this can be done with any DD other than BLU, and a RDM may be enough as well, but the fight would be far more risky, considering the resist rate of the scorpions.

75THF/NIN, 75RDM/WHM, 75WHM/BLM

Pretty simple strat, THF supertanks the scorps in full evasion gear, the rdm and whm keep him alive. WHM keeps regen up on the thf as well.Could possibly work with another evasion based 'tank', though I havent tested. Pull the scorps out to a raisable area though, incase something does go wrong.

PARTY STRATEGIES

Beastmasters

This is how it works in a BST PT.

Solo each scorpion.

First off, bring Carrie. Buff up before you enter. Unlike capped BCNMs, uncapped BCNMs do not remove your buffs when you enter. Carrie now disappears if you use before you zone, so Call Beast inside the BCNM. Check your Call Beast timers. When your timers are at the 3:00 mark, you're good to go.

Enter the BC.

The scorpions are arranged in the following manner as you enter:

A,	B,	C,	Back Row
D,	E,	F,	Front Row

Make SURE that everyone has called out and locked on to their target scorpion.

BST assigned to D, E, F stand at the edge of the BC, and send their carries in to fight their respective scorpions. A, B, C BST run in and send their pets in as well to their targets.

Once aggro is established on your pets (watch your pet lifebar), HEEL.

A,	B,	C,	remain inside the BC.
D,	E,	F,	pull theirs into the tunnel leading to the BC.

Space yourselves apart. Make sure that all of you are outside of the AoE radius of your teammate's Scorpion. At this level of BST, you should be aware of the AoE radius of Scorpions, so I will not go into detail for that.

From there on, solo the scorpions. However, I highly recommend you not use an Axe, OR if you do use an Axe, do not use combat gear (use your charm gear). If you hit too hard, you will pull hate from Carrie. Carrie can tank these things, but she will have a hard time holding hate. I had my Hauberk + Thick Set + Sniper's + Amemet Mantle + Life Belt on and I was hitting really hard, kept pulling hate from Carrie. All the BST in my party had to switch to secondary non-Axe/Scythe weapons so that Carrie could hold hate. That means either Sword, Dagger, or Club.

We actually call this BC our Skill Up BC (>.<)b

Expect to use a 2nd Carrie on the Scorpion. However, the higher level you are, the tougher your Carrie. One stack should last you enough for 6 battles.

Once one Scorpion is down, look for the nearest Scorpion to you and Sic your Carrie on that one, but do not join in to help. Sit down, rest MP, and cure your BST buddy.

Through out all that, make sure to keep in constant communication with the rest of the PT. There will be a few instances where you will not see your team members because you have your back to them, or they are in the tunnel. But make your messages on party chat short and sweet.

Summmed up:

Use Carrie, wait for timer to be down to 3:00 before entering. Buff before entering. Don't forget Reraise, just in case.
Separate the Scorpions, 3 in circle, 3 out of circle.
Be lvl 70+ anything below 70 and you'll have a gimped Carrie who can't stand up to the Scorpions.
Don't let the Scorpions have overlapping AoE radii. (see #2)
Don't panic. If you need a Cure, request for it. Remember that there are 5 other people in there who can toss a Cure your way if you need it. If all else fails and you're about to die, close your eyes and remind yourself that you're BST. ^^
See #2

Finally, save your teammates the hassle of running around. Before you pop the chest, have everyone else run out and exit the BC. Then you pop the chest. That way, they won't be running around Palborough and they can rest up while you run around by yourself.

Best of luck and be sure to share your stories on the BST forum. ^^

Oh, and on another note, RDMs can do this strat as well, they just take a tiny bit longer, and must be a little bit higher in level.

By: Aiantes Scholar. Original post found here.

With Snarl going all out and attacking shouldn't be too much of a problem, right? Unleash the damage and Snarl away the hate to help Carrie hold aggro better? -Zellos

6 Melee/Nin

-ODS Melee Style-

6 Members 74+ with /NIN subjob and Utsusemi: Ni.

1	2	3	<- Back Line
4	5	6	<- Front Line

Each member picks a number, and a spot.

Example

input /p Player 1 - #1 - North West - Main Circle

input /p Player 2 - #2 - South East - Main Circle

input /p Player 3 - #3 - North East - Main Circle

input /p Player 4 - #4 - South West - Main Circle

input /p Player 5 - #5 - South South South - Burning Circle

input /p Player 6 - #6 - South South - Hallway

When you enter, walk to the end of the path, but don't get close enough to agro. Whomever is pulling the furthest away should fire / attack first, and should have a bow /xbow/gun/throwing type weapon for range. Never let a melee who is moving TOWARDS the Scorpions attack first. They will most likely have extra shadows lost before the other 5 members claim their mob. When you are ready to attack, call out in PT chat. "##(Your number of the scorpion) (Lock On)"

A confident player with evasion gear, or high natural/merited evasion(Thief, Ninja, Puppetmaster, or Dancer) can pull one of the Scorpions back to the Burning Circle. This player, or whomever is pulling furthest, should fire first, as mentioned above.

Do not camp on top of anyone else. Never let more than one person attack a Scorpion at the same time because it can cause it to gain TP too quickly, and you'll actually get someone killed because of the TP spam. Evasion is king here, unless you're playing a job that can utterly zerg it exceedingly fast. A 75RNG/NIN, equipped with Vulcan's Staff using Coeurl Sub +1 food, Eurytos' Bow and Demon Arrows did 2000+ DMG on Barrage and between 2500-3000 DMG with Sidewinder. Recommend using Optical Hat and either Peacock Charm or Scout's Braccae for RAcc bonus, as a miss on Barrage or Sidewinder can make this fight a little more interesting than you might like. After RNG's scorpion is dead, move on to any other claimed scorpion while waiting for Barrage to become available again.

Conventional

(72)NIN/WAR (72)THF/NIN (73)SAM/WAR (73)RDM/BLM (74)BLM/WHM (66)WHM/BLM

Enter BCNM, THF goes to pull Scorps, line up against the wall right after the circular entrance in the tunnel. THF shoots the middle front scorpion (doesn't really matter which, but I always shot that one :P) with Utsusemi up and runs all the way to the Circle - recast Utsusemi: Ichi - should be able to recast it and not take any dmg, these things have crappy accuracy (against a THF, anywho).

NIN Vokes the red scorp Dynamis style when THF runs past and begins fighting the one scorp -very- far down the hall (Remember, you should be -well- out of range for a ranged attack).

RDM Elemental Seal/Sleepga the 5 scorps remaining when the THF gets to the BC. At some point BLM cast Sleepga II on the sleeping scorps, and from here it's just a normal fight. You must -always- pull the scorps way out of the tiny little circle to fight them or you risk them all waking up with recasts down. Mages keep Stoneskin/Blink up par normal, and things should start getting hairy with 2-3 scorps left (When they're hard/impossible to sleep), but shouldn't be anything too hard as long as you've been fighting out of AoE range earlier. The scorps by the mages never AoEd for us, so it was a matter of ping pong, Stun, Sleep, Bind, Gravity while melee killed the scorps farther out.

The reason fighting here is so nice is that if you wipe, you can Reraise and still win the BCNM. With this setup if we did things properly it took 10 mins to win the BCNM. When we wiped it took us 24 mins once, and 27 mins the other - and we waited on all members to lose sickness.

This is a very easy BCNM, I actually had to more or less solo the 6th scorpion once because everyone but me was dead or out of MP, and it wasn't horrifically difficult (yay for status bolts), though I did have to 2HR when it was around 30% (from full) when it's AoE dropped me to 200ish HP.

By Vryali Sage, Original Post found here

71NIN/WAR, 74MNK/NIN, 74WHM/SMN, 75RDM/BLM, 69BLM/WHM, 71RNG/NIN

After doing 7 runs of this last night without a single death, I decided to write down our strategy just in case someone decides to attempt this without 5 BLM.

And on our first attempt we replaced the RNG/NIN with a 73PLD/WAR

I believe the key to doing this was having 2 NIN tanks, although the first time I did this I had only one, but I’ll talk about that later.

You can buff outside of the BCNM, do this to save some time.

When you enter the BCNM, there will be a long path leading up to a large opening. After fully buffed, have the BLM Elemental Seal + Sleepga II either of the two middle scorpions.

I was the MNK/NIN and I brought a full set of Chi-Blast gear. As soon as I hit my 6th boost, the BLM would cast his spell.

MNK/NIN runs in and Chi-Blasts the front right scorpion and pulls it as far to the right as possible.

NIN/WAR provokes the front left mob and pulls it as far left as possible. RNG/NIN goes with the NIN/WAR.

Having done this before without the luxury of two players with Utsusemi: Ni, I can tell you this makes it much much easier. Scorpions in general have horrible accuracy and can be blink tanked quite easily. While it is beatable without NIN tanks, this will drastically increase chances of success

The WHM had a pretty simple role, run around and cure anyone who took some damage. Surprisingly enough, this is usually the BLM and RDM since they will be holding agro from 4 scorpions.

The BLM will recast Stoneskin and Blink and prepare for the scorpions to wake. A good way to think about the scorpions is, every time one dies, the others all level up. So as there are less scorpions, their resistance to sleep will increase. From memory, only the first two Sleepga actually slept all the scorpions.

The RDM had to be the busiest job in this set up. He was frantically running around refreshing the mages, hasting the NIN and sleeping any mobs the BLM couldn’t take care of. I also remember him having time to cast some Slow and Paralyze on the scorpions, which from my perspective was amazing with all the stuff going on.

By the time I finished my first mob, so had the RNG and NIN. At this point, all the scorpions have been slept a couple times, and the BLM, RDM, and WHM have built considerable hate. For this reason I would save TP so that I can pull the mob with Asuran Fists. And on the occasion that Asuran Fists wasn’t enough, I’d pop counterstance.

A MNK/NIN 74+ has some awesome tools a NIN doesn’t get. Dodge is a huge bonus when trying to recast Utsusemi, and Counterstance believe it or not is amazingly helpful. When shadows are down, usually you hope to evade a hit, but you can cast Utsusemi and counter at the same time, and this happened quite often.

In the case of the PLD tank, the RNG/NIN can really be replaced by nearly any job as long as you keep the 2 NIN tanks. In this scenario the PLD is very handy. He was able to melee with the NIN, and Provoke + Flash sleeping mobs so well, the BLM almost took zero damage.

Other Strategies:

Earlier however, I had done this KSNM with a tougher set up.

PLD/WAR 70 MNK/NIN 75 MNK/WAR 71 WHM/BLM 70 BLM/RDM 70 RDM/BLM 74 And I can speak from experience that NIN tanks are the way to go. We won 4/5 on this set up, but when the WHM has to cure a tank, and a MNK that keeps stealing hate from the tank, MP gets extremely low. On one occasion, we only won because 2 of the members had Reraise up. So it is doable, but takes a very talented group.

Not too much more to say. The scorpions have an AoE move that gets stronger the more you kill. I remember the 2nd and 3rd to last mobs AoE would take 2 shadows and do about 150 dmg to me. And the last Scorpion’s AoE did about 300+ and took all shadows. But at this point, the BLM was casting AM, the RDM was nuking, the WHM barely had to cure, and the melee WS like it was a contest to see who could score the kill.

I hope this helps! Good luck on your drops!

By SingBismark Sage, Original post found here

6 PUP/WAR

This KSNM can also be done with 6 puppetmasters.

75PUP/WAR x6 (The use of /WAR instead of /NIN is for damage purposes and Provoke, the automaton will cure the puppetmaster, keeping them alive without fail.)

Basically the same as the normal strategy, each pup takes a scorpion, separate them from each other, deploy the Soulsoother Head frame automatons right next to each scorpion to have them melee too. The puppetmasters can also skillchain light, when their automaton uses Magic Mortar, which is one of the reasons to have them melee. Equip Shock Absorber to your automaton to give it Stoneskin as well with Flashbulb, Mana Converter, Mana Tank, Armor Plate II or Equalizer. Also, Analyzer might be useful here, since the scorpions only use 2 TP moves throughout the battle. Anything to increase casting time except mana processor will work fine, because if you Overload, you will have to have another automaton cure you which will take Cures away from the other pup unless you are low enough in HP to get a cure without having a light maneuver activated. DO NOT use Ventriloquy or Role Reversal, it will get your automaton killed, resulting in your death and possibly others unless someone else's automaton takes up the duty of keeping you alive too. Ventriloquy will work if you happen to not have hate, be sure to Provoke your scorpion once.

<NIN/WAR THF/NIN THF/NIN DRG/WHM SAM/NIN WAR/NIN>

Strategy:

Before entering it should be decided who will fight which scorp, everyone will solo 1 scorp each. And it's important to have the scorp separated so that their AoE moves wont hurt anyone but the one fighting that scorp. Good start is have someone bring his scorp all the way back to entrance of the burning circle, another one in the hallway, while the rest spread out in the main fighting area. DRG/WHM can help healing if anyone should be in trouble, so keep him in the main area. Have the NIN and a THF set in hallway and by the entrance, because they are most likely the 2 that wont need any healing. As soon as someone got their scorp down, he will run over and help killing the next one. This is a very easy strat, just be on your toes, and keep shadows up. Meds can be brought if you feel unsure about not having a dedicated healer with you. The scorps miss alot and at times wont hit at all having their leg stuck, lol.

TEMPLATE for future entries

<Strategy Name or JOB/SUB, JOB/SUB & JOB/SUB for future entries>