FFXI: SMN/WHM Soloing in Abyssea - La Theine! 4/9

Before I get into the details, here is some info on my SMN gear. I use HQ Elemental Staffs for all pets except Diabolos & Fenrir. They get the completed magian trail weapon for Dark Magic. As for gear, I use +1 Empy on everything except my legs where I currently use the base Caller's Spats until I get my last few SMN leg seals. With that in mind, I headed to Abyssea - La Theine to see what I could do.

Atma used are MM for MP, DC and Mount. Champion for pet tanking powers. I use MC for the Regen and Emnity- down. This allows me to either melee with my pet or keep spells like Dia and Flash on the mob while the fight.

First on my To-Do list was to attain a tier 3 VNM pop item for a future endeavor. Meditator was found with the Giant Wasps and was an easy kill. 1 hit from Garuda's Predator Claws too it down to 30%. Got Key Item upgrade first try so I headed east near the Psychopumps for the next fight. Brooder took longer to kill, but gave Garuda no issues. Occasionally had to have her heal herself, but it was cake. Once it was dead I luckily obtained the upgraded tier 3 pop. Lucky!

Onto another weak NM, Mangy-tailed Marvin. The only thing I saw value in was his Orison Cape, a WHM back piece that would give me 3%+ in my Cure potency. I used Ramuh for stunning Wild Carrot. I can tell you Wild Carrot heals Marvin for anywhere between 2800-3200 HP + adds a triple attack to the mob. The reason I know that is because I only stunned it 2/6 times. He was another easy kill. I could of set Ramuh on him and went to bed.

With 70 min left, I look through the tougher NMs of the zone I could get to easily. I decided on Ovni, who was near Conflux 7.

A little spoiler: I lost at 40%, but I strongly feel I could of won. Allow me to explain:

I prepared the usual way; Reraise, Stoneskin, and Blink. Summoned Shiva and ran under him for aggro. Once he dropped down, I realized something about my FFXI lifespan. After almost 9 years of playing, I never fought this family of mobs. In Sea, they were always avoided by my groups. Shiva's Heavenly Strikes (5/5) hit for about 900+ damage but the poor girl was almost dead by the time the mob was 95%. I made a little jog back to conflux 7 and summoned Garuda. I check my time and I was down to 45 min left in the zone and the mob was at 50% of life. Time went on as I used Pred. Claws (Wind Blade when mob's 2h was active.) and Healing Breeze. Eventually my time in zone was 30min and the mob was at about 35%. I knew if I didn't start increasing my damage output that I would time-out before I could kill. I decided I needed to switch to Ramuh and try to increase my damage output.

Ramuh has always been a good Tank/DamageDealer for Abyssea NMs. I often use him to tank Iron Giants and hold zone bosses for recoveries. He did the same here. With the added damage of his spikes and enthunder abilities, I knew we could take this thing down quicker. Unfortunately, Ovni here has enhanced movement speed and also goes back into the sky when being kited. Having Stoneskin/Blink up, I can usually handle an attack or two before pet regains hate. In this case it seems like he saved a TP move for me. Primal Drill hit me hard enough that every Tarutaru on the server probably felt it.

I do plan for a round 2, no doubt. Even though this mob doesn't have anything I really want, I want to kill it for the sake of doing so. For my round two:

1.) Go in with full time. I need to beat him one hour, but having that extra time will help with preparation.
2.) I'll try Leviathan. Being able to heal himself and super tank may help. If I need to make some distance between avatars, I will use the cliffs in La Theine to assist me.
3.) I'll grab some temp items such as Fool's Drink. They should help in case I get into a pickle!
I'll post how it turns out. See you online, Adventurers!