Low Man Dhartok HELP

Hiya all

Friend and i are doing some Sortie, attempting to 5 box AECG. So far we're stuck on Dharktok

Party setup

Friend Sam and whm accounts
me Rdm cor/dnc brd accounts

Our strat is to buff the Sam and have him go nuts

Fudo Kasha Shoha to Fudo is what he's doing

We are NOT doing water or darkness SC's, we ARE killing Bottulus and getting the item

Here is our issue almost every fight, and we do not know how to solve it

Around 65%, Dharktok kills the sam. We have ZERO poison stacks, we are super clean about getting them off him.

He is getting 1 shot by clobbering wave.

We get to about 65%, Dharktok throws a bubble on the ground, Sam rotates himself to get out of it, and Dhartok clobbering waves him for 2500+

Now, we know that there is a Def down debuff on Sam, so we are trying super hard to move the second the bubble (i think this is called Cesspool), but he still dies.


WHAT ARE WE MISSING?

Please dont suggest kiting. We dont have a tank, and my rdm could... possibly... do enough dmg following it, rotating between SB and other ws's, but it's a bad strat, and too chaotic.

We CAN swap in a geo for the rdm, but its not damage we have an issue with. The same has 30% DT gear in his TP set, we can jack that up, but i dont think that's our issue.


ANY INSIGHT PLEASE IS HELPFUL

With that SC pattern, if Kasha misses and goes unnoticed, then second Fudo will create Distortion(Water/Ice) off of Shoha, has that ever happened unnoticed?

Other than that, Cesspool is an aura around Dhartok himself, I thought, that lets it WS twice per filled TP. So is it just Clobbering Wave or is it a back to back TP that applies poison into Clobbering Wave?

If it's neither of those, idk, have the SAM alter his DT set to push his maximum HP higher. Should be able to get to roughly 3200+ with the right foods, Moonbeam Cape, and Platinum Moogle Belt. Just have him full time a set that gives him more HP without sacrificing DT. Doesn't sound like pressing damage is helping.

How long does it take to get that one shot?

I believe all stacks on all players count towards the potency of his clobbering wave. Are you removing EVERYONE'S stacks, or just the SAM's?

Other idea: are you using yaegasumi? If so, when? Should make him near invincible and really boost WSD.

Oh, just noticed 30% DT, I would definitely bump that to 40+, ideally 50, especially since you said damage isn't a problem.

Not much else to add.

Shell V is 29% MDT, you only need a combination of 21% DT and/or MDT to cap that since all of dhartoks damage is magic or dots. whm should barwater if they aren't. After that you should be good unless the magic evasion and magic defense bonus of the sets the SAM are in are terrible. If that doesn't fix his damage intake then you're failing a mechanic.

I can solo him on my RDM with trusts by getting the medal, getting rid of the poison if the trusts don't with remedies. It's not fast, sometimes takes as long as 15 minutes, but so long as I walk out of the clouds AND pull him out of the clouds he's not getting extra buffs and im not getting extra debuffs. There isn't a hard timer to him, he even runs out of clouds eventually so if you arrange them around the arena, you can save a section of the map where you don't have to deal with clouds, but that's like 10+ minutes into the fight.

So long as your magical defenses aren't terrible, Clobbering wave only does any damage if you have poison on, you're standing in the ***, he's standing in the ***, or he got wet.

Look at the tp/ws sets. Wearing stuff like abjuration or escha gear for zanshin+ is a sure way to get one shotted.

Put Fire Threnody 2 on him and have the SAM spam Kegaro. No SC to worry about and you should be hitting for cap dmg. Make sure to keep him out of any cloud and keep poison off him.

Wind Threnody2 and Jinpu work as well. Have the rest of the team WS as well to avoid the WS wall. If you are only doing E the SAM could also SP2.

It reads like it always happens around the 65% mark, I wouldn't know why but if it's always that predictable couldn't the SAM save yaegasumi for that moment?

A easy resistance gear adjustemt could be waterfall ring, thing seems to be made for this fight.

Another go to thing to do when having issues with magic dmg is considering /RUN sub.


Personly I've also experienced a odd high spike once from one of his moves going in the 1100-1400 range while he usually doesn't break 6XX. Could have been me just not paying enough attention and standing in clouds for too long though.
Or if Maletarus claim is true trusts were sleeping some other trusts poison stacks.

That missed weapon skill could def be happening. Any ideas on a diff pattern?

One thing im wondering is, with me on rdm, and my cor alt (who has a good sb set), if we're better off all trying to kill him, black halo, sb, and w/e the sam wants to spam (that doesnt make water or darkness)

Tonight we're going to turn on logger and see what's happening in our chat logs

The HP is a good idea, i think he's around 2700, ill double check his TP set

THIS is what we are wondering. Is it better to MOVE Dharktok OUT of his cloud? We are SUPER good about getting poison off, meds and alts to cast poisona, but we are having the Sam sort of "rotate" around Dharktok, so that the Sam isnt in the cloud, but Dhartok still IS

When we try to move him, he just sits there and keeps spamming ***from a distance, so we're kind of at a loss.

LAST question, we also noticed when we try to Kite him out of his poison bubble, that the just keeps dropping them. Like, we'll have 8+ around the arena, and then we have no place to fight. So it's either stand still, and Sam has mag def down, even if he does get out of the bubble quickly, it takes a sec to wear, and he gets clobbering, OR we try to kite Dharktok out of his own cloud, and he ends up throwing another down and not really following us

He gains a very potent regen while inside a cloud, so yes you need to move. With that many clouds DPS is a bit low so you probably want more people on it.

You can control where the miasma clouds are placed by watching Dhartok's animations. When you see the first TP animation go off, get into position where you want to drop the next cloud. Wait until the second TP animation completes for the cloud to be placed at your current position. I'm unaware of any buffs Dhartok gains from being in a miasma cloud. [Edit - wasn't aware of the regen gained by Dhartok mentioned above, good to know]

It's very likely you're capped DT between Shell V & the assumed Nyame / Empy gear you have in your WS sets, but worth double checking to be sure.

Jinpu / Kagero spam are solid options if you can manage your alts WSing to help mitigate the WS wall as was mentioned above.

Thank you, i think we're going to do this, it will get a bit messy, but if we carry our own antidotes then it shouldnt be hard

Didnt even realize this, so we could control WHERE the cloud goes

Capped DT matters for frak all if you're in armor with low meva/mdb.

Yeah the fact the sams tp set only has 30 dt is very telling, I'm guessing this is both a skill and gear issue. My group has done 8 boss runs with 5 people abd a trust. E boss shouldn't be giving this much trouble.

If his TP set is -30 DT for mobs that exclusively deal magic dmg like the wiki states then it tells us that he read up on sortie and is -mdt capped due to shell.

Although the wiki isn't always correct and some of dhartoks moves at least visually look like they could be breath type attacks.

I was lucky this never happened to me, now I know it could it would scare me to do it.

WAR can also solo it with RR>RR>UH>UH nicely. I have also solo heavy DDd G on WAR (though COR DDing, probably BRD too but don't think RDM was). Just use Warcry>MS>RD>Warcry>Wild Card>MS and Warcry with 5 SV songs and I doubt you can lose (this was 5 man no GEO).

sure capped mdt but he's probably lacking in meva which is just as important. I would almost put money on the sam running ryu feet...

I'm not convinced that is the only cause. I've just checked my engaged set for dhartok and I'm runing 4/5 herculean pieces which aren't exactly meva heavy either. I'm not even mdt capped with shell, only sporting -19% DT + -3% mdt.
Besides that one odd spike of 1100-1400 I've mentioned befor his hit's usually range around ~150-650.

MDB is also a factor for how much magic damage you take and lots of DPS gear has ***for MDB.

To give your SAM a point of reference, my Dhartok engaged set has 408 meva and 26 mdef (just gear). + roughly 14 meva from job trait and 5 mdef from brygid trust. Imho nothing to write home about.

I believe both monberaux and Ygnas also have some mdef buff but I think I did enough runs/ate enough hits without either beeing active to tell it's not the deciding factor between my observed numbers and spikes way past 1k.

ItemSet 397792

Thats the set I use to tank E boss with and had no problems so far. Typical buffs Honor, Minuet 4/5, Mad, Aria, Chaos/Sam, barwater/poison. If you have it available SAM SP2 basically shuts down E boss and makes the fight a joke if you are having that much trouble.

Quick update, Sam has 40DT in tp set

We're just 2 people, controlling 5 accounts haha, currently our only issue is Sam keeps getting 1 shot. We think he's standing in the poison bubble and receiving Mag def down

We are VERY good about wiping poison stacks immediately, so we're just working on positioning

Do you mind if i ask, WHAT do you do when he drops his bubble/cloud? do YOU just move, or do you move Dharktok OUT of the bubble?

I move dhartok out of the bubble due to the regen he gains and maybe other benefits we aren't aware of. However I do casting strategy so I can still cast while moving bit by bit and not lose as much DPS.
Up in the thread is a video of a WAR who's ramboing thru dhartok within around 5 minutes and he's only straving to the side when he anticipates the second TP move that triggers the cloud. When straving back to his original position his character is out of the cloud but dhartok probably still gets the regen bonus this way.

Ty!

Am i crazy? i dont see this link in this thread?

Was a different thread, my fault.

Engages dhartok at around 25 minutes.