Avatar Fights

So I am new to the job and even though I've been playing the game for some time now, I never paid attention to SMN and don't really know too much about the job.

I am currently level 20, ready to go get my carby mitts and start getting the other avatars. I have actually helped a friend once to fight leviathan but I did not had the job unlocked so didn't get.

Anyways, I know that you can fight the avatars solo (level capped 20 I believe) and also as an open fight with a pt, but that was before the whole level cap update, so here are my questions:

* Which method is better at this point, Capped fight or open?
* If it is the open fight, can it be soloed @90? If so which job would be ideal?
* any recommended order to fight the avatars?

Thanks for the help!

Not to mention the solo fights take much more effort to kill, they are a challenge and you will need your 2-hour to kill them, so you would be looking at a minimum of 2 hour waits between fights. I personally found pld to be the best at soloing them, a purple pld could do it at 75 with little difficulty.

Having done this alot (especially lately for some new smns), You can use the level 20 cap warp to get to the BCNM without having to fight the 20 cap version. A level 90 smn can solo all of the fights without trying, but if you go on your level 90 PLD or BLM (cant use 20 cap warp) you can solo all the uncapped fights yourself.

Well honestly once you get the pattern of the fights down they arent that challenging, but they will still be longer than the solo fights and cost a little more cause you will need eithers and yags for your 2-hour

Thanks guys this is very useful. I have a few 90's myself including BLM and PLD, so might give that a try.

Nin, dnc, thf, bst, pup, drg (to name a few) can solo all uncapped fights. Hardest is Fenrir, recommend a party for him

Fenrir is a joke, rdm can solo him.

At level 90 it's just sad. SMN and PLD can solo it easily now.

i didthe lvl 20 fightsto get my avatars. and the uncaped version to get my evokers ring.

Ok so following your responses I guess I'll go PLD/RDM and beat the **** out of them, except Fenrir...

Sounds like a fun friday night project for me lol. Thanks again for your help guys.

It's worth noting that Fenrir is the hardest, so keep it in mind. All smns 2hr which can suck

Gotta watch Fenrir, he has a dispel move that removes all of your buffs. This is a killer.

Actually people who do the lvl20 capped fights can now warp to the cloister too afterwards if they want.

Something awesome SE ninja'd in in a recent update.

I suggest doing the Lv20 fights, or at least a few of them. They teach you a lot about SMN soloing under stressful conditions: How to resummon safely, how to avoid hate, etc. A lot of SMN these days simply suck at their job because they've never been placed in a truly difficult scenario. Many SMN when they see me doing stuff, they call me crazy and suicidal, but it's because I know what my avatar is capable of and how to control the flow of the battle.

But at a higher level, wouldn't you have more abilities at your disposal, completely changing the way you play? It would make a challenging fight at Lv20 meaningless.

Agree so much, friends offered to let me leech the prime fights when I wasnt high enough to take part in them properly, but I declined because to me personally I felt like I didn't deserve my avatars unless I defeated them myself so I did all the lv20 fights. It taught me so much about hate control and handling dangerous situations I've never regretted the loss of cloister warps.

But now I can cloister warp, so all good :D

The mechanics of kiting and control over avatars are still pretty much the same at 90, only real difference is that avatars have better blood pacts, including ranged magic type ones that can pull hate off you from a distance making kiting a lot safer.

I don't think so. If you can't master the basic abilities a SMN20 has to deal with in a challenging scenario, then what's to say you can master all the souped up abilities a SMN90 has?

Sadly, I had no idea about the free eternal warp trick when I did this, but I ended up solo fighting all avatars at level cap :( Was hella fun and challenging, but if only I knew . Not like it matters but this is still good info to know for someone that hasn't done the avatar fights yet

The myth that essentially spending more time grinding creates better players I find is completely unfounded. The people who suck at playing various jobs do not suck because they have not faced difficult scenerios, but because they either:
A. Are unwilling to put in the time/research to look stuff up and improve themselves.
B. Have terrible co-ordination or react in an illogical manner under stress (like White Mages running when the monster heads their way, or curing late lol).
C. Do not have the mind set to play a game that actually recquires a touch of thought/maths to excel at.

Give me any job @90. Within half an hour I will have a complete spellcast script setup for it with complete understanding of all it's abilities. Within 2 hours I will probably be better than 90% of the people playing it, though granted my gear could do with some work lol.
(Abyssea + Kparser are my evidence lol.)

In answer to the OP. Did Carby NM & all the avatars barring Fenrir solo as 75 RDM/BLU (seriously easy). Fenrir I soloed @80 BLU purely because I never got round to doing it @75.

In the end, I don't think more time grinding is a huge overall help. However, having extra practice with your abilities, spells, and responsibilities as any given job is good. For example, I burned to RDM90 through Abyssea, and while I'm ok at it I know I'm not great, simply because I don't have a ton of practice with which mobs need which debuffs, or with keeping up with my buff order. I can keep my mages Refresh'd and my melees Hasted, plus the tank Phalanxed if I need to, but I usually forget to do things like Composure or... well, debuffs in general.

Also to the OP - I did the 20-cap fights. They aren't difficult if you watch your Blood Pact: Rage timer and come prepared, but I found them to be a lot of fun. I went 6/7 (lost my very first one to Garuda, since I didn't do the aforementioned timer-watching and ended up not getting off a third BP before Astral Flow wore) and enjoyed getting my avatars on my own. (I didn't have a 75 yet, so this was the only way for me to do that.)

I hated the 3 searing light method, way too risky if you don't get that 3rd one off then the avatar isn't dead and you have almost no MP lol.

My strategy was to carby kite them down to around 50-60% then 2 searing lights did the trick, a lot less chance of failing if you're good at kiting.

Well, after almost 2 weeks and with limitations of work and family time, I was able to do get Shiva, Garuda, Titan and Ramuh. I went PLD/RDM and the fights were a walk in the park except with Shiva because I forgot to keep stoneskin up and her 2hr took me down to 200ish hp. The fights are consistently lasting around 10mins, but I am sure it could be done in less with better gear.

Now I need to go get Levi, Ifrit and start thinking on Fenrir and Diabolos. For what I have read, Fenrir and Diabolos might require some additional help, but looking how easy the other fights are looking, is it really necessary?

Also, I am only level 34 and even though I enjoy the job, I am getting tired of soloing and it will take me forever to get it to 75 without abyss, so I might just burn it this weekend... with that said, what's the most effective way to skill up after that? Stand outside port jeuno and start casting spell after spell or to go somewhere and use bloodpacts?

I leveled my skills in an alliance in abyssea. I didn't burn summoner up but going from capped at 75-90 there were a lot of skill levels to gain. I just did ward and rage whenever they were available. While this might take awhile, you get cruor while you are there :)

Guessing no Atonement? that weapon skill speeds up the fights, I usually average around 6-8 min fights. Congrats on the ones you have so far.

Fenrir could be solo'd by either rdm, dnc, or nin/dnc not sure if any other jobs can do it. Diabolos can be a little annoying but 2 sam's 2 houring can take him down without a problem.