Easiest Giant/Avatar To Kill For Ochain Items

A simple MDT set will do the trick as long as you've got appropriate barspells up, though not sure of the quality of the WHM you'll have along, so Atma of Future Fabulous probably wouldn't hurt at all if you got it. Simple things off the AH, such as Lamia Mantle +1, and some R/E like Twilight Torque should mostly do the trick. PLD's JSE Belt from Abyssea from that one giant can be used as well, if I'm remembering the math stuff correctly about how you want to stack MDEF over MDT gear if you can get a good Shellra V from a WHM.

As far as Azdaja Horns goes, your best bet is to build 5-6 sets at a time, and have a THF pull them to you while you WF Brew on COR with good MAB from rolls and gear. Since he has just a single 10 minute repop KI NM that nobody camps, and the sheer volume you'll do like this, it's pretty easy to get everyone +2 off him for whatever they need, so you COULD do pickup shouts like this.

You'll just want to make sure you bring Poison Pot / Doom / Amnesia / Petrify and possibly Terror Screens for your COR, and also apply /blockaid on while you're stalling at the flux, and you should be good to go. A THF with max TH set and Atma of Dread will auto apply TH8, which is basically high drop rate of x2 items in Abyssea for Emp upgrades, so you'll be looking at about... 40-45 pops or so, while COR can knock out about 6-7 per brew.

Hardest part will forever be souls, but otherwise, it's cake if you prep properly. Just gotta hang in there, and you'll get it eventually.

Some sample sets I just threw together, probably not all the most ideal or whatnot.

Thanks for all the replies~ its making this much easier. only really hard pieces i see for the sets are mekira and ogiers.. time to pray i can trick ppl into letting my war get in for chances.. they check me and see no ukon or rag and /kick~. my set up atm if all my nooblets get on are nin, thf, whm, whm or blm and prolly pld when i finish off my af3.

VW gear is always about luck, though it's getting tougher to get certain pieces now that shouts for more particular VWNMs are drying up. Try to pounce on shouts when you see them. I tried to get Ogier's feet for quite some time, but shouts for Rw Nw Prt M Hrw are practically non-existant / never draw enough people. I ended up joining a lot of T4 clear runs over and over for shots at the feet... eventually lucked out.

But I digress, keep at it, and start from basic things you already have / can easily get. Once you get a starting set going, it'll be easier to build upon it and improve.

honestly think the mail is harder to get than d.ring these days
/sigh

If you can't make a ukon, make a farsha. It's much easier than making a ukon - then tell everyone youre an empy war.

V.gear can be replaced with the Odin V2 versions :< prolly dont even need a hands slot for PDT/MDT after those.

and to answer OP question

Ironclad Altepa -> Brulo is the easiest Plates -> Souls.

plus you get to keep your nice built up lights and time extensions so you dont have to burn stones...only problem with getting colorfuls-> T3 in heroes areas would be the elementals to upgrade and competition.

I've duoed Maere easily many, many times (well, a 3-box Thief that literally only tagged it and ran out of range).

Maere can suck if your mages get slept. I always tri-boxed him with 2 WHM mules and had one drop party just in case.

It's possible to position your WHm mule where it can land heals on you while being out of Nightmare range when doing Maere, but it's a pretty thin line so not as easily done if you aren't running windower.

It's not so much that as the draw-in it uses. Seems random to me

Its not impossible as a duo. Just sucks if your popper gets drawn in. It resets hate which is the worst part, and boom your T3 pop is gone.

I've only lost a Maere pop once though. But i've had a handful of close calls. But i always had 2x dual box (4).

edit: necro, sorry

WHM drops party and is no longer drawn in.

granted ive only done about 8-9 kills on maere they where all duel boxed sch/rdm+thf/war.. nightmare is alil annoying but I haven't died from it yet, even when sch gets drawn in and both chars hit they both wake up before maere can take down the thf. I have lost the sch a few times when he ends up having hate after nightmare tho but still haven't wiped once. (I keep regen 5 up on both chars which makes a huge difference, im pretty sure I would die often from nightmare with thf+whm, plus random embrava makes nice 60 second fights lol) using all DD atmas on thf but full hp merits/abyssite makes my thf have ~3.2k life in hero zone abyssea. experienced duel boxers or eva tank+healer shouldn't have a problem, its getting the pops that are horriable

lol... Honestly in my experience, Maere is the easiest Nm to farm for colorsouls. I've always dualbox him as mnk/thf + whm. Just put whm at far as possible to be able to cure. I have vere. It shouldnt be that difficult on thf. And I have never gotten any drawn in on maere. Hope this help.

Maere is a joke. Put your WHM outside the party and it's dead in two minutes.

They're all a joke, really. You can engage and AFK on Brulo with barfire. Even without Sacrosanctity, Ogo's death Tidal Wave has never killed me, just equip MDT before it goes off. No need to deviate from standard DD atmas on any of them.

This doesn't work when you're farming the souls for your mule unless you make sure to reinvite them to the party before Maere dies. If you *** up though, then you get the souls instead of your mule.

^^it works. Hits harder than most gimp DDs with 85 Ukons anyways.

Over the past month or so my small LS has done approximately 25 KSNM99 for the Behemoth pop item and, with TH10+ on nearly every Behemoth, we only got 2 (I think) KB pops. And of course, none of the KB we popped actually dropped the ring since it's a pretty low percentage drop itself. So I wouldn't downplay the difficulty of acquiring a D.Ring.

We seem to have been talking a lot about which VNM T3 to fight but i think its more like which one is up vs which one is easier. At this point, nearly anything if not everything in aby should be easy, it more comes down to saving time. Now as far as the ironclads go, i'd vote smiter. Although i could probly take out the other two a little faster, getting his pop vs the others is such a total joke. ppl are always putting sand in the bazaar for 1 gil. you can kill the doll in like 2 minutes, and then just kill the bombs next door. done and done.

So let me get this straight... An outside White Mage can cure you on Maere with zero danger of being drawn in and slept?

Why farm souls for a WHM mule?

Anyway, I guess that's true. Either put a dummy body in the party, fill your inventory so the drops sit in the pool, or keep your WHM in party and stand out of max range. Not like it hits hard anyway.

Edit: And yes, Nightmare only hits inside the party.

Because they are outside of pt that toon cannot go on the monsters hate list so therefore is not effected by its attacks. Almost all nms can be killed this way although from memory there might be some that can still hit outside of pt people (KB meteor comes to mind back in the day)

This is the same for azdaja, I back tank it on war pop a few ukkos and it is dead. Eat the spike flails whm doesnt get touched.

The only thing about the T3 vnm is if for some dumb reason you let the toon die tanking it will insta depop because your healer isnt on hate list so you lose your pop. However if you let this happen you need to be slapped.

If you're outside of a party curing you're still on the hate list, you just can't get hit by area attacks that only hit party members.

Being out of party doesn't make you immune to cure hate. Ever cure bombed someone randomly in say, the dunes only to turn round and see them and their mob chasing you all the way to selbina?

Can be seen more by fighting mobs that have hate reset moves. The mob will turn on your whm even if they are out of party healing.

Healing outside the party still puts you on the hate list and you can still be drawn in, i've had it happen to me which is why I always bring 2 WHM mules for it. Also, all T2-3 VNMs 2hrs will hit anyone standing nearby whether they are in party or had any hate.

Reasonably confident Maere doesn't do Ruinous Omen. I never saw it anyway. Nightmare doesn't hit outside Alliance. In the ~15 or so I killed, my WHM never got drawn in. If your WHM is pulling hate (which is the only way it would draw them in) you're taking way too much damage.

I think I know why it happened then. Could it be because I had my mule pop it before disbanding? I'm going to farm souls today i'll focus on Grauberg/Maere and I will post again to confirm.

That may cause it, I'm not sure. It only draws in (in my limited experience, anyway) when the person with hate is out of range (~15-20'). I was the only one popping, my WHM never did, so I'm not sure if that'd cause the draw-in or not. Hate can be a little wonky at the start, so it's possible.