Excavation
Duty – Private
Second Class
Time
limit: 30 minutes
Your goal
here is to
destroy five “brittle walls” in the area. Brittle walls is a misnomer
though –
though you can destroy them with physical attacks, it takes
considerably longer
than a normal exp mob to bash your way through.
This is a
very commonly
spammed assault by people wanting to get assault points for Lebros
Cavern but
are still at low assault ranks. With the common strategy I’ll detail
below,
you’ll never lose, since it’s based completely on consistency and has
no
element of luck whatsoever. However this strategy tends to be very
“jobist” in
the since that jobs that don’t provide too much raw firepower get
entirely
ignored.
There are three ways to
destroy the walls.
First, there
are several bomb-type enemies in the area. If you engage a bomb and
fight it
very close to the brittle wall, when it does its classic Self-Destruct
move, it
might hit the wall instead, destroying it entirely. Might. I’ve only
gotten it
to work once or twice. More often than not, the Self-Destruct hits your
party
and kills all your tarus, putting you behind on time for this assault.
Or
perhaps you’ll kill the bomb without it ever using Self-Destruct at
all.
My recommendation; try
this once if you’re curious, but since it’s so luck-based, it’s nothing
to base
a strategy off of. Use prism powders or the invisible spell (well out
of range;
bombs aggro to magic) and just ignore the bombs.
The second way is to
kill the Qiqirn mobs roaming around for explosives.
However, the qiqirns are decently hard fights, so be prepared. They
don’t
aggro but
do link.
Whoever gets the kill-shot
on one of these will obtain a temporary item Quqirn mine that can be
used to
blow up a wall. To use this, engage the wall (as in, draw your weapon
and start
hitting it), then use the item in your inventory and stay engaged. The
mine
won’t damage your party and will quickly reduce the wall to rubble.
Fighting qiqirns for bombs
is a decent plan for a more traditional party setup rather than a burn
party.
Its faster to kill a qiqirn for a bomb than to slice through a wall. Of
course,
again, it’s luck based. Even though they’re not real items, treasure
hunter
helps, so bring a THF (or at the very least a subjob /THF) if you
want to try this. If you’re going to ignore
qiqirns,
you don’t need sneak – just walk right by them.
The third alternative,
and by far and large most common, is to just
bust your way through. Engage the brittle wall and wail away. You’ll
quickly be
humbled by single-digit damage, and 0s are common for light melees or
mages.
Magic nukes are similarly ineffective – mages should cast tier I nukes,
which
do about as much damage as tier IVs at a fraction of the MP. Weapon
skills
might break twenty if you’re fully decked out for offense.
Being just a pile of rocks
it has no attacks whatsoever, but your real enemy this way is time.
Jobs good
at TP burning with fast attacks or high-damage weapon skills will have
the
advantage here. Damage over time effect such poison, dia, and elemental
enfeebles from a BLM will help considerably. Haste and march keep the
attacks
flowing. DRKs with absorb-TP can do spectacular damage frequently with
their
powerful one-hit weapon skills.
If you’re doing it this
way, and you’ll likely have to at least for the first wall even if you
want to
fight qiqirns, I recommend as much offense as possible. You can
sacrifice every
other stat since defense and healing are completely useless against a
wall that
won’t fight back. This is where the jobism comes in – a WHM, for
example, is
nigh useless unless they’re completely decked out in melee gear, and
even then
a real melee job would considerably more damage. Still, with a strong
enough
setup you can afford to let some of the less damaging jobs come and get
the
mission for rank-up. And don’t worry support jobs – there are assault
coming
where a warrior with max merits is spectacularly less useful than you
(keep
reading!)
Once all five walls are
destroyed the rune will appear. As time is prolly tight, someone with
flee or
movement increasing gear should head for it. Just watch out for bombs
on the
way back.
Strategy tips:
Bombs can blow up
a wall, but it’s unreliable. If you aggro a bomb though you might as
well try.
Just keep barfira up on your party.
Qiqirns can drop
mines but they’re no pushovers. Don’t let them link. To use a mine,
stay
engaged with the wall and use it from your inventory.
When punching
through walls with physical attacks, ignore defense completely and
focus on any
moves that will increase attack power and speed. If going for this
strategy (I
recommend it over the other two) gear up for reckless TP burn with no
thought
to your own defense.
Job specific tips:
BLM – very
useful. Use DoT spells on walls and nuke with tier-I magic. A BLM can
solo the
wall to the far north using this method while the rest of the party
works on
the other three.
DRK – absorb-TP +
weapon skill = far more damage than any other melee will be able to
dish out.
BRD – double
march songs will improve your DoT against the walls more than any other
combination.
Lebros Supplies – Private First
Class
Time limit: 30 minutes
Fair warning – this is
probably the longest explanation I’m going to need to write up for an
assault.
Take your time and figure this out.
This is one of the weirder
assaults. You have to “feed” soldiers by talking to the provisions NPC
in the
center and then a soldier out near the edges of the map, all the while
dodging
true sound crawlers that you don’t have enough time to kill. Remember
where I
said above where there’s a mission where melees are far far less useful
than
support jobs? This is it.
This mission is absolutely
dreaded by the player base as the
worst, most evil assault ever designed. This reputation almost
certainly came
from melee jobs that found their weapons and attack gear useless. Truth
be
told, I found it kinda fun. The challenge here is being able to
coordinate with
your teammates and trying to keep sight of the big picture.
The learning curve is a
real wench on this mission. I’m going to give you lots of info here
that will
have your head spinning. I’ll put the parts to be sure to remember in
bold.
Here’s a promise: once you actually get started in this assault, this
will seem
a hell of a lot less complicated.
First, the food. Yazuhma
can give you five types of food, randomly, each worth a certain number
of
points. A soldier needs ten points of food to be full. The catch? Most
of the
food’s point worth is slightly randomized, making it impossible to tell
exactly
how much you’ve given each soldier.
Food Obtained
Points of
feeding
Bison Steak
5 (always)
Coeurl Sub
4 or 3
Bison Jerky
3 or 4
White Bread
2 or 1
Pea Soup
1 or 2
The strange “2 or 1”
notation is from the wiki. I’d like to think someone did tests and
found out
that white bread gives 2 points more often than 1, but the cynical part
of me
has its doubts.
Important part to remember
about food:
Each soldier needs ten
points of food
Steak =
great. Two steaks = full soldier
Sub or jerky =
okay
Bread or soup = weak
Talk to your NPC every
time you feed them. You will get one of two responses:
“Have you brought the
provisions?” – NPC is still
hungry
“There’s nothing like a full
belly to put the power
back your sword swing” – NPC is full.
Since each soldier needs
10 points, you don’t want to overfeed them by giving them more than
they need.
If you have given someone a steak (5 points) and a bison jerky (3 or
4 points) they’re at 8 or 9 points. So feeding
this soldier a steak would put them at 14, which is a gross waste of
the useful
steak. Even worse is giving any food to a soldier that is already at
ten points
and thus full.
The key to avoiding this
sort of thing is good communication. You’ll eventually develop a code
for
typing quickly while running around. Things like “giving spike steak”
or “gold
is full” can help you keep your teammates informed so they don’t waste
food.
“But wait”, you’re
thinking. “Spike? Gold?” That’s the second part of the complication.
There are
multiple soldiers in any given area. They pace around randomly. How do
you keep
track of who you’ve fed? Luckily, all soldiers in a given area have
different
shields. The three types of shields are spikey, grey, and gold.
(This is where a
screenshot really needs to go to explain this…)
So if you just fed a
soldier with a grey shield something and you got the “full belly”
message,
announce something like “grey is full” to let your teammates know that
soldier
requires no more food.
There are twelve soldiers
total, scattered
throughout the map in groups of three and four. You’ll spend the entire
time of
the assault running from Yazuhma to the soldiers. Because of this,
you’ll want
as much speed as possible. Movement enhancing gear (NINs may want to
wait until
night for their AF feet) is good. Any job that can go THF or /THF
definitely
should for flee. Powder boots can also be useful but aren’t strictly
necessary.
Its generally better to
feed a group of soldiers fully before moving on to the next. Always ALWAYS check every since soldier in
a
group to make sure they’re full before moving on. Double check, for
that
matter. Not feeding someone you thought was full is a great way to lose
this
assault.
POP QUIZ!
Question 1: what’s the
best possible food from Yazuhma?
Question 2: what do full
soldiers say when you talk to them after feeding them?
Question 3: am I making
this more complicated than it needs to be?
The answers are:
1 – Bison Steak
2 – “There’s nothing like
a full belly”
3 – no, not really. It’s
naturally complicated.
So far, so good? You with
me?
One last thing. Crawlers!
Yep, this would be way too easy if there weren’t true sound enemies.
Keep
reraise up on everyone for this. Avoid them as long as you can, but
eventually
someone will aggro them, and the games will begin! You don’t have time
to fight
them so you’ll have to try to keep them slept. They move pretty quick
when
chasing someone down but move RIDICULOUSLY SLOWLY back to their
starting areas.
Being NMs they don’t depop.
Alternatively, you can try
to have someone kite them into a dead end and die there. The crawlers
will take
a long time to get back into the food supply route.
I’m not going to mince
words; this mission is pretty nasty. The key though is communication
and
consistency. Inform your teammates of what you’re doing and try to keep
an idea
of how full each soldier is and you’ll get into the swing of things
quickly.
The rune pops in the center once all twelve soldiers are fully fed.
Strategy tips:
Unlike the last
mission, offense is a non-stat here. Gear up on movement enhancing gear
and an
earth staff. Go with jobs that can sleep, cure, or flee. My WHM/THF was
quite
useful here.
The basic cycle
is talk to Yazuhma for food > run to a hungry solder > talk to
them to
give them the food > talk again to see if they’re still hungry >
run back
to Yazuhma.
Keep
communication tight to make sure all members know which soldiers need
food and
roughly how many points they still require.
Always
double-check to make sure every soldier in a group is full before
moving on.
Sleep or
otherwise incapacitate the crawlers. Keep reraise up at all times. You
simply
don’t have the time for multiple party members to stay dead.
Job-Specific tips:
THF or /THF –
flee as much as possible down the long corridors. A /recast “Flee”
macro will
help remind you how much time is left on the recast.
NIN – use your AF
feet at night.
BRD, RDM, or BLM
– try your best to sleep the crawlers if/when they aggro. They won’t
stay
sleeping forever but if it delay someone dying, so much the better.
It hurt me more to
organize that than it did for you to read it, I’m sure…
Troll Fugitives – Superior
Private
Time limit: 30 minutes
Thank God! A Lebros Cavern
mission that won’t take forever to type up! Your goal this time is to
mash
fifteen troll mobs. They all start out between 25% and 75% dead, making
it
easier, but fifteen mobs is still a lot. Move quickly and mow ‘em down.
The trolls are all PLDs,
RDMs, or MNKs. Being trolls they’re more defensive than other jobs,
having high
VIT and moves like diamondhide. One thing to watch out for is 2-hours.
Not
every troll will use it, but some will. The MNK 2-hour is the only
dangerous
one. Though I’ve done this mission twice now and not seen it yet. But
if you
encounter it, its probably safer to just disengage and sleep it for a
minute.
Most trolls are in groups
of 3, so pull them one at a time and sleep any links. Yeah, I know,
that’s a
real in-depth strategy tip. But there isn’t much to this mission. What
else…
oh, silence them, since the RDMs cast Cure IV often.
Strategy tips:
Kill trolls. They
start out between 75% and 25% life.
Sleep links.
Silence RDMs and
PLDs.
But mainly kill
trolls.
Evade and Escape – Lance Corporal
Time limit: 30 minutes
Good lord. Of all the assaults in the first four ranks, this is by far
and large the easiest. Your goal is to hit three switches, all within
about a minute of eachother. The switches can spawn in seven possible
rooms so the strategy is to leave a member at each switch and then hit
them all at the same time. You have to avoid patrolling Dahaks too, but
there are only three and the area is rather large.
There are nine dead-end rooms. You start at the northmost and the
middle one has the rune. The other seven are the possible locations for
the three switches. Since the only enemies in the area are too strong
to reasonably fight there’s no reason not to split up – send a member
down every dead-end path to search for a switch while the others
proceed.
Once someone’s found a switch they should stay there. They can poke the
switch to turn it on; it stays on for about a minute and turning it on
early doesn’t hurt anything.
The three Dahak’s roam the majority of the area. They can turn around
at any time and will do so at random. They have true sight but move no
faster than a player. The only real danger is meeting one around a
blind corner or following behind one and having it turn around on you.
If you see one coming, just head down a dead-end path; the dragon might
follow a little but won’t go all the way to the switch room.
Note that in the picture above, despite being off to the side, the
dragon did see me and kill me. But that was okay – I was specifically
looking for one for that screenshot. (I know, I was looking for one and
that was the best I could get? Meh) The area is large enough that, even
thought I was stationed at one of the south switches, I saw no dragons
the entire time and asked my group to delay mission completion while I
searched one out. Your members will run into them if you need to go for
the way far switches, but it’s not like they’re around every corner.
Once you’ve found all three switches, hit ‘em. The rune will spawn –
mission complete.
Strategy tips:
Have someone wait at each switch as they are found. Generally, it
should be someone without reraise or movement speed increasing items.
If you see a Dahak coming, find a dead-end room to escape too.
There are infrequent large rocks in the main corridors that you can
hide behind too if you happen to be nearby.
Once all three switches are active at the same time, the rune
spawns in the middle area. If you have enough members you could even
station someone here too.
Job-specific tips:
WHM - the best job for this assault. Reraise III makes a dragon
spotting you a minor inconvience.
Siegemaster Assassination – Corporal
Time limit: 30 minutes
This sounds sort of like a boss battle assault, but it’s not - it’s
actually a straightforward “kill all the enemies in your way” type. The
trolls are actually kinda strong though so you’ll want to take a
decently balanced old school party with, like, a main healer and a job
that can sleep. I know, it’s hard to think in those terms in the /NIN
burn era, but its for the best.
There are eight trolls in total, all of them named Old Troll. There is
one specific troll you need to kill. Which one is it? There’s no way to
know, so you’ll have to kill them all until you get results. They’re
all rangers that use that Zarraqa troll move that goes through shadows.
Most, if not all, of them will also use Eagle Eye Shot at some point
that also goes through shadows. So be sure your tank and any members of
the front line have more than paper thin armor and you can heal decent
amounts of damage. PLD and WHM recommended.
Old Trolls will repop after about 5 minutes. Repops will never be the
one you want to kill but obviously if they attack you then you need to
defend yourself somehow. It’s best to work at one end of the room and
cross your way to the other side so that repops pop behind you. Even
so, if it’s taking a long time to find the correct troll you may have a
lot of repops on your case so having a BRD or BLM for sleeping is also
a very wise choice.
The correct troll’s Eagle Eye Shot will be somewhat stronger than the
rest of the goons. Once you kill the correct troll that was the
siegemaster in disguise, all the trolls will depop and the rune will
spawn back in the starting room.
Strategy tips:
A more traditional party that can take hard hits and heal damage
is recomended for this assault, though you'll still need to do damage
rather quickly.
The mission will be considered complete as soon as you kill the
correct Old Troll chosen randomly of the 8 original trolls at the
beginning of the mission.
Old Trolls respawn. The correct troll is never a respawn. Sleep
repops if they aggro.
Expect every troll to Eagle Eye Shot you. Keep HP high.
Apkallu Breeding – Sergeant
Time limit: 15 minutes
It’s everyone’s favorite “guide NPCs to places they need to go”
assaults, this time in morse code!
The general idea is to talk to a male Apkallu (larger of the two
sexes). It will give you a list of squees and quarks which are morse
code for some word. You then lead it to a female that is making squees
and quarks that translate to a similar word. The two pair up with
little hearts over their head and it’s all good.
I’m not even going to pretend I worked this one out myself,
Ffxicyclopedia probably didn't either, but they have a nice chart that
explains well enough. The locations of the females are on this map; the
males are entirely randomized and are wandering through the rest of the
map.
For example, if a male says Quark Quark - Quark Quark Quark - Quark
Quark Quark - Quark Squee, you look on the little chart and see
QQ QQQ QQQ QS translates to “Moon“. You then find the female that
translates to a similar word (in this case “Star“), see where she is on
the map, and bring the male to that female.
It’s NOT as complicated as it sounds if you have the chart handy. If
you don’t you’re pretty much royally screwed.
If you get too far ahead of a male that is following you it will give
up, so be sure to check behind to make sure the little guy is still
there. They move fairly fast though not as fast as your run speed.
“BOMB” on the map isn’t a word the females say - it represents
Bomb-type enemies that will aggro sight and magic. If you need to pass
by one of them, use the invisible spell outside aggro range or use a
prism powder. Your male Apkallu will still follow you while invisible.
It only takes one successful pair to meet the win condition, though an
organized group can probably do all of them without much hassle in the
allowed fifteen minutes. Failing to match all eight results in an
assault point penalty per pair unmatched. Matching all eight
immediately spawns the rune - if you don’t have time for all of them,
talk to the NPC Rhap Nelhah and give up to spawn the rune.
Strategy tips:
Everyone in the party should just pick a random male Apkallu.
Decypher its morse code word, identify the correct female to take it to
on the map, and lead the little guy there.
Don't let the little bird get too far behind you or he will stop
following.
Don't get killed by bombs.
Wamoura Farm Raid
Time limit: 30 minutes
Wamouracampas grubs are pretty annoying enemies. Their evolved forms,
the mighty Wamoura moths, are even worse. You have to eliminate all of
them from the lebros cavern as you can within thirty minutes.
They spawn both in the north and in the south. It’s better to head
south first since you can make a big circle and eliminate lots of them
and start out close to the north, but you’ll want to go both ways
eventually anyway.
Fighting the defensive Wamouracampas and their big nasty blaze spikes
can be a real drag on your healing magic. I completed this assault in a
manaburn party with black mages using gravity. A meleeburn party with
shadows should give similar results. A more traditional party would
have to work hard to defeat all the enemies in the time given but it
should be possible. Make sure to include dispellers.
At least one Wamouracampa will turn into a Wamoura moth at some point
in this assault. Which one seems to be random. The moth is a tougher
fight but any group that has a serious shot at beating this assault
shouldn’t have much trouble with it.
The three dead end paths at the top may or may not contain any enemies.
Splitting up and using widescan can help narrow down where they are.
The run spawns at (H-8) near the middle of the map once the last enemy
is defeated. You must defeat them all to spawn the rune.
Strategy tips:
Either manaburn the grubs or have dispellers ready to remove the
powerful blaze spikes effect.
The mobs can be seen on widescan which makes it good for
scouting the last few tunnels.
Job-specific tips:
RDM, BRD, or BLU - a very valuable addition to your party to
dispel the blaze spikes and en-fire effect of the Wamouracampas.
