Delve is/was endgame content that originally required an Alliance of 18 people to best. Now, due to changes by SE and increases in gear stats, it is very doable in parties of 6-8 (with even some amazing low man strategies of 3!).
This guide will be used collect strategies for besting all of the beasties in the 6 Delve Dungeons. Please contribute, comment and add to it. I will update it as time allows.
For basic information on entry requirements, locations, and item levels, please refer to
Delve
Low-man Delve Guide ver 2.0
Delve 1
General notes: Acc up, Att up, Haste 2, or general melee buffing spells/rolls can all pretty much be used for all bosses unless otherwise noted.
Party compositions are purely suggestions for A functional method. All jobs can contribute and just because one isn't specifically listed in a strategy, does not mean it should not be brought. If you plan to make a static for Delve I a staple party set-up of: Whm, Brd, Sam (with bow), Geo, Rdm can go a very long way for content.
Morimar Basalt Fields
Map:
Party Setup(s): Whm, Buffer(Cor or Geo), Brd, Stunner (Sch or Blm or Rdm), DD, Piercing capable dd is nice, same with blunt capable. Buffer can be subbed out for a 3rd DD. Of all the Delve areas, this one is considered the most flexible job-wise. 3x competent DD in good iLevel gear can do fine.
Volatile Matamata
Gimmick: use one damage type (physical or magical) for 5ish tp moves (time based (45-50 seconds), not based on tp accumulation) then switch to the other and destroy before next tp move.
Example Strategies:
--The Stunner can kite/nuke or nuke and bind. After damage reduction to magic is sufficient, melee can trounce it rather quickly with melee damage.
--A blue mage can also easily solo this; use one damage type till ready, then flip to other type.
--A Monk with formless strikes switching at the damage reduction minimum is a staple strategy as well.
Buffs: Barfira can help
Perdurable Raptor
Gimmick: Magic damage leads to enraging.
Example Strategy:
--Buff melee with attack increasing buffs and quickly kill. DD should not use runes or any form of magic damage. Skillchains are fine.
Buffs: Barfira/Barvirus
Shimmering Tarichuk
Gimmick: Poison aura increases as his hp decreases. There is currently no known method to dampen the aura.
Example Strategy:
--Buff up and then kill quickly and there is nothing special required of players.
Tutewehiwehi
Gimmick: Blinding him lowers his evasion and reduces his use of gaze attacks. Calcifying Mist causes aoe Gradual petrification and cannot be removed before it fully petrifies nor can it be resisted. The Stunner can Stun Calcifying Mist, greatly easing the encounter.
Example Strategy:
--Keep mages out of range and facing away to keep them safe. Apply blind and keep it on the boss. Otherwise, simply fight as usual.
Kurma
Gimmick: Kurma takes increased damage the more times he takes magic damage or uses tp moves other than Tortoise Song. Tortoise Song resets his vulnerability.
Example Strategy:
--The Stunner spams thunder and aero spells to increase damage taken modifiers. Buff up melee and go to town on him. If he uses Harden Shell, it can be dispelled.
Tojil
Gimmick: Phased damage resistance and flame aura after using Blistering Roar. Stunner stuns TP moves(aim for Incinerating Lahar, Meteor, Batholithic Shell). If recast is low enough, or you have two stunners, you can stun other spells as well.
| HP% |
Damage weakness |
Elements to dispell flame cloak |
| 100-75% |
Magic |
Wind/Thunder |
| 74-50% |
Piercing |
Dark/Earth |
| 49-25% |
Slashing |
Light/Fire |
| 24-0% |
Blunt |
Water/Ice |
Batholithic Shell does a variety of buffs that need to be dispelled, including a potent Blaze Spikes. I believe Blistering Roar gives him a brief def/magic def bonus too.
Silence gets mentioned a lot for this fight. Some say Silence him to prevent the use some of his spells. Others argue that the spells are mostly ignore-able/stunnable and are preferred to his Tp moves. Choose the strategy that works for you.
Foret de Hennetiel
Map:
Sample Party Set-up(s): The original set-up used to be: Mnk/Run x2, Whm, Brd, buffer (Cor or Geo), Stunner (Sch or Blm or Rdm)
Variants: Sub Run not always required, but can still help. Blue Mage is very useful due to having acces to blunt, slashing, piercing, magic, and non-elemental damage. The Mnk/Run can be subbed out for most competent DD. This is just what I see asked for most on my server.
Faded Craklaw
Gimmick: As one form of damage (magic or physical) is done, resistance to it increases and damage from the opposite damage type increases. Riptide Eupnea may or may not reset the resistance.
Example Strategies:
--Monks use formless strike from the start. After 5% HP down, start WSing. A Victory Smite >>Victory Smite = Light can do 99k damage.
--Monks with formless strike damage to 20% without WSing, then start spamming weaponskills.
--Blue magic is reported to work very well for this as it counts as magical and physical and can be spammed to kill. Each successive physical blue spell should deal increased damage.
--A mage can hold or kite this mob, dealing magic damage until melee are available to come kill it. This takes good coordination and communication.
Aberrant Uragnite
Gimmick: Takes more damage the more debuffs on it. He takes increased magic damage (including skillchains). If it goes into its shell, it gains a 10 second doom aura (removed by running away).
Example Strategy:
--Debuff it (impact it great for this) quickly and it should die very quickly. Often with bard + rdm debuffing (especially with Impact), my parties would have this boss dead before the doom aura really even mattered.
Buffs: Scherzo helps to mitigate Painful Whip.
Divagating Jagil
Gimmick: Alternates elemental casting phases with a matching enspell damage according to the following flow, but starts in random location in flow.
Light -> Dark -> Fire -> Ice -> Wind -> Earth -> Lightning -> Water. He also absorbs the current element of his enspell.
Example Strategy:
--Don't use runes and keep this guy silenced to help mitigate some of his spells. They can also be stunned. All of that aside, he dies rather quickly with buffs up.
Nerrivik
Gimmick: Destroying his lanterns with critical hits prevents charm and sleep moves. Casts high level water spells.
Example Strategy:
--DDs stand in front of it and fight till the lanterns break. Stun Deathgnash if you can. Dispel icespikes. Silence him.
Buffs: Crit plus (if Cor) Att up/Acc up. Scherzo can help.
*Bonus Intel: Have ALL party members face Nerrivik (and keep Dia on him); if he does manage to charm, you won't end up needlessly killing your mages. Absolute Terror works great on locking him down.
Krabakarpo
Gimmick: The damage type done for the first 50% becomes his strength for the second 50%. Balanced damage (skillchains help balance melee damage) can leave him with no benefits after 50%. His venom shower move has a 20' range, deals relatively high water damage, and has a strong poison effect.
Example Strategy:
--Good DD should have little issue just fighting straight on and skillchaining to kill. Requiescat and other element free damage are also great ways to bypass this resistance.
Dakuwaqa
Gimmick: Water aura, Marine Mayhem (donut aoe death), rotating damage resistance by HP %.
Dakuwaqa uses Carcharian Verve at 100/75/50/25/ and any time below 25%. This puts up his water aura. The aura makes him un-stunnable.
The next move following Verve will be Marine Mayham, which kills anyone that is between 5.1 yalms an 20 yalms away.
Stun tp moves if you can. If Verve was not stunned, he needs to be displled x2 to remove attack and magic attack bonus.
Repeated Thunder damage will remove the water aura(Sulpor works well if sub run)
| HP% |
Damage phases |
| 100-75% |
Resistant to blunt; weak to piercing |
| 74-50% |
Resistant to piercing; weak to blunt |
| 49-25% |
Resistant to Magic; weak to slashing |
| 24-0% |
Resistant to slashing; weak to magic |
It is very important to dispel him twice when he uses Charcharian Verve.
His TP moves can kill you if your HP is below 50% so stay topped off.
Below 25%, he can use Verve freely, and the following Mayhem readies much faster. Strip his aura with lightning damage, easily done with melees subbing RUN and using Sulpor.
Ceizak Battlegrounds
Map:
Party Set-up(s):Piercing capable DDx2 (ranged damgage in particular is very useful for the last boss), Whm, Brd, buffer (Cor or Geo), Stunner (Sch or Blm or Rdm)
Suggestion: 3x Cor for DD and as Buffers is reported to do nicely. A Sam with a bow can do very well also.
Unfettered Twitherym
Gimmick: Gains -PDT every 25% (including at start). It can be removed via skillchains. It is unconfirmed whether a specific element is needed, a number of ws is needed, or just a certain amount of skillchain damage is needed.
Example Strategies:
--Competent melees can just whittle this boss down as long as the coordinate the timing on their skillchains. A single strong blow can send him through multiple phases at once. A Sneak attack Rudra's Storm in particular can be brutal to him.
Supernal Chapuli
Gimmick: Using weaponskills when he isn't using tp abilities or spells can lead to his evasion increasing permanently.
Example Strategy:
--The evasion boost is probably not so big a deal these days with how good of gear people can bring, so don't be afraid to dish out a nice skillchain or something even if he's not casting. This dude has surprisingly low HP compared to other Delve NMs.
Transcendent Scorpion
Gimmick: If he has 1 debuff on him, his Earthbreaker does minimal damage.
Example Strategy:
--Reapply debuffs every time he uses Earthbreaker. A Samba effect can keep him debuffed very easily. Dia's fast cast rate makes it an ideal debuff as well.
Buffs: Scherzo in the event an un-debuffed Earthbreaker gets through.
Mastop
Gimmick: Builds damage resistance to a type of damage the more it is used against him. Balance physical, magical, ranged, and non-elemental damage and he has no resistance. Also, Mastop's damage resistance and evasion get dropped a bit by hitting him with more debuffs, based on when he uses Emetic Discharge on you.
Example Strategy:
--Make sure you don't use the really debilitating debuffs like Slow 2, Elegy, Paralyze, but rely on "safe" ones like Threnody, Dia, Samba, Steps, etc. Balance your damage type and he should go down rather easily. Reapplying the safe debuffs every Emetic Discharge will keep him weakened.
Buffs:Bar-Stonra, Bar-Petra, mages bring echo-drops in case.
Tax'et
Gimmick:Takes more damage the more times he uses Exuviation(triggered by having 3+ debuffs on him). Exuviation will not heal if the debuffs are bard debuffs or samba debuffs.
Example Strategies:
--The normal straegy for this boss is to debuff him while melee fed tp. BRD songs don't count towards the HP restored, so you could just use those to keep him from healing and make the fight very fast. Keeping Requiem, Elegy, and Threnody on him should be enough debuffs to force Exuviation every time, with the bonus that none of them will heal him.
Muyingwa
Gimmick: Every 25% will use Droning Whirlwind and gain 25 shadows. Remove shadows by using ice magic or hitting it until all of the shadows are gone (fast hitting dual wielders work well for this). Gains -dt the longer the fight continues. Use status free abilities (Requiescat) or ranged attacks to deal normal damage.
Incisive Denouement and Apotheosis are both hate resets, with Denouement being all stats down and Apotheosis being Weakness.
Stinger Volley can be pretty dangerous too since does paralyze and a zombie (can't be cured) effect too, which can add up with the poison and other attacks.
Buffs: Bar-Areo can help
A blue mage to use requiescat is very helpful for dealing consistent damage. A sam with bow skill can also be very useful for damaging this boss.
