Private Second Class - Imperial Agent Rescue

Private First Class - Preemptive Strike

Superior Private - Sagelord Elimination

Lance Corporal - Breaking Morale

The Double Agent – Corporal

Imperial Treasure Retrieval – Sergeant

Marids in the Mist - Chief Sergeant

Imperial Agent Rescue – Private Second Class
Time limit: 30 minutes
 
The point of this assault is to open jail door gates to rescue an NPC. You can’t target the gates yourself so you need to have the Mamool Ja mobs in the area use their special moves to open it for you.

This is probably my least favorite assault so far. It relies entirely on the enemies you’re fighting to do certain moves, and even if they do, it might not work as it should. I really dislike things based either on luck or on enemy behavior, and this one is both.

Ignore everything in the west part of the map and proceed immediately to the east. There are some unarmed mamool NINs in the corridors of the east: kill them quickly as normal. Once you’ve found a locked, untargettable door, you need to go find a mamool with an axe (BST) or a staff (WHM). These are in the neighboring rooms with open doors. Drag lizard boy back to the untargettable door and line it up so that he’s facing the door and is as close as possible.

Now the fun. You want to give these weapon-holding mamools as much TP as possible so that they do either their weapon throw move or Firespit. If they do the weapon throw move it will immediately destroy the gate. Firespit does 200ish damage and requires four successful hits to break the gate, but can be done after the weapon is thrown (and by the NIN mobs if you’re running low on mamools).

Why do I hate this assault? Because even if you think you’ve done everything right, there’s a chance that the mamool moves will hit you instead of the gate. Especially if the weapon throw hits you – that’s very annoying.

What influence the chance of the move hitting the gate instead of you? Nobody is entirely sure. Some people swear that using equipment change macros that make you blink on screen helps you dodge it. Others put their faith in lots of evasion gear. Some think it’s simply a matter of fine-tuning the direction the mamool is facing. It all boils down to that annoying luck factor. If a mamool move hits you instead of the gate, try changing which way it is facing a little, and maybe start mucking with gear swaps. I’m certain gear swaps aren’t necessary as I’ve seen the moves hit the gate without them, but they may help. Who knows how SE thinks…

Once the gate is down, check the little pot-like jail cell inside. Either an NPC will pop out and the assault will be complete, or your luck fails again. There are three locations where he could be.

Strategy tips:

• Ignore all mobs in the west and proceed immediately to the eastern tunnels.
• Your goal is to line up the mamools against the closed doors and pray they use their TP moves to break the gate. Make sure the mob is close to the door and facing the right way.
• Because NINs don’t have weapons that can one-shot doors it preferred to use the other jobs. But NINs can use Firespit if you’re out of BSTs and WHMs.
• You want to give the mamools lots of TP without actually killing them before they can bust the gate for you. Tier 1 nukes and lame enfeebles help give them TP. So do lower level weapons. Also don’t break their weapons before they can throw them so avoid using multihit weapon skills and sneak attacks.
• My guess is that evasion helps the mamool move hit the gate rather than you, but that’s just my personal theory.

 
 
Preemptive Strike – Private First Class
Time limit: 30 minutes
 
If the previous Mamool Ja mission left you frustrated at the lizards, this is a great stress-reliever. Your goal this time – kill every mamool ja in the area! This mission favors TP-burn setups at low numbers, but even without a full party you can afford to have less-focused jobs and still have plenty of time to complete the slaughter.

There are thirteen Mamool Ja Executioners scattered around the area. You have to kill all 13 to win. They’re BLUs, NINs, and WHMs. They don’t 2hour and there’s nothing really fancy about the fights, so take out pent-up bitterness on them and kill them quickly.

There are also about half a dozen Puk Executioners in the same general area, but the map is large enough that you should be able to avoid aggroing any of them if you’re careful. You can get by them with sneak and invisible if one’s in the way. If you do aggro one it’s not the end of the world; you should have time to kill a few with a good setup.

It’s generally better to stay up on the top ledges as long as possible and pull the mamools up to you to avoid puk aggro. Eventually though you’ll have to go down and continue on the lower levels.

Strategy tips:

• Stay up top if possible to avoid roaming puk aggro. But if you aggro a puk, just kill it.
• Having someone call out how many you’ve killed after each kill can be a good way to keep track.
• Its not necessary, but widescan can help find stragglers quickly.
• All three jobs have spells so silence them. Even without a strong enfeebling build my WHM was able to silence them all without issue.

 
 
 

Sagelord Elimination – Superior Private
Time limit: 30 minutes
 
If the previous Mamool Ja mission left you feeling better about lizards, this mission will make you frustrated again. Your goal this time around is to beat the snot out of Sagelord Molaal Ja, a BLU mamool. Mr. Sagelord is pretty weak himself, but every so often he’ll run off and link a bunch of other mamools, and the fight against a full party wipe will begin!

Sagelord Molaal Ja spawns in the far north area. Take the ledges to avoid the other mamools in the area until you’re close by, then drop down and engage him. He’s pretty much a panzy, but after you do between 10% and 20% damage, he’ll use Warm-Up, then immediately take off running off into the training grounds!  Any Mamool Ja Trainees that see the fleeing Sagelord will link with him and search out your party for a fight.

So really, the trick here is twofold. One is finding where the Sagelord has run off to. Keeping him on widescan or putting an avatar on him helps in this regard.

The much bigger trick is dealing with all the Trainees, which are BLUs, WHMs, and BSTs. Amusingly, these guys are all stronger than the Sagelord himself, though they have less HP. There are three schools of thought for dealing with them. One is to fight them; this eats up time but a dead mamool is one less to deal with. The second is to sleep them; this will keep them off your back, but only so long and will probably result in an eventual party wipe from overwhelming numbers of attacking mamools. The third idea is to have a good kiter with movement enhancing gear run around and kite as many as possible.

All of these methods work in the short-term. You can kill the first couple mamools that attack without too much worry about time. Sleeping will suffice if you have only four or so on you. The kiter will probably eventually get killed, though at least he’ll be the only one that mamools will have seen.

Whenever I’ve done this, we did the sleep method and resigned ourselves for a possible wipe. It didn’t happen the first time but did the second. If you’re going to be sleeping mamools you really need to be on the ball to catch and damage the Sagelord before the army overwhelms you.


Sagelord Molaal Ja is a coward to the end; he won’t let you kill him and will warp out after you’ve done 85% to 90% of his life. This is supposed to happen and is the trigger for mission completeness. The assault guys won’t even scold you for failing to kill him.

Strategy tips:

• Sagelord Molaal Ja is fast on his feet – he use Warm-up and flee off every 10% or 20% damage taken. He’s faster than anything you can throw at him. Widescan is a great way to keep sight of his location.
• Sagelord only flees after using warm-up. If you stun him as he begins running the run will be halted, which is very good.
• Work out how you’re going to deal with the inevitable linking Mamool Ja Trainees before starting. A well-equipped kiter is probably the best choice.
• DoT spells are useful since they keep doing damage while he’s running. Even if there’s no DoT on him Sagelord never regens HP in this mission.
• At about 10% or 15% he’ll warp out. Panzy.

Breaking Morale – Lance Corporal
Time limit: 15 minutes
 
 
This is a strange one. Your goal here is head out into the map, open chests, and return to the starting NPC (Quhaaja) – all without being detected by the mamools even once. This assault requires patience, timing, and a rather heavy dose of luck. I hope your sneaking skills are up to snuff.

A lot of the people I’ve talked to say this is one of their favorite assaults. Honestly, I found it a bit tiresome. It’s a bit like the PFC Lebros Cavern mission in the sense that it’s a frantic struggle against the clock and every time you are discovered it grates on the nerves a little more. You can probably get good and efficient at it with enough tries, but I’d put this up there with the assaults to beat once and not return to. Maybe not needing anything from this assault area has made be a little bitter.


There are eight chests and they always spawn in the same places. If you want, you can use the knowledge of chest spawns to send specific members of your group after certain chests to increase your efficiency.

There are two types of mamool mobs in the area. Mamool Ja Recruits (melee type) aggro and attack like normal – just sleep or flee from these guys if they spot you. The much, much bigger threat is the Mamool Ja Trainers (mage type). If you are detected by a Trainer, it will say a silly comment in /say and then immediately teleport you to a “prison” (so to speak; there’s not even a door on it) area. Also, any items from opened chests will be taken from you and returned to the chests from which you got them. Both types are true sight and the trainers cannot be slept or otherwise incapacitated.


Being in the prison area is actually sort of a mixed blessing though. There is a tub of Viscous Liquid right where you spawn in. Much like in Mamook itself, checking this will give you a Mamool Ja “costume”. You’ll look like a mamool and no mamools will detect you while you have it on. You’ll also move a little slower and take 22/tic poison damage. Stoneskin and regen effects can help here and are highly recommended for any job that can use them before checking the liquid. While incognito as a mamool you’ll have free reign to avoid Trainer detection to position yourself near a chest. You’ll have to manually remove the costume (by selecting the icon at the top of the screen) in order to open the chest.

As soon as the costume is gone you’ll be a free target for aggro so timing and careful movement are necessary to get you back to the NPC at the top. Thus, the main challenge of this assault is avoiding those jerks on the way back. The map is absolutely THICK with them in some areas and they move frequently. Note that you can be easily spotted on the wooden upper bridges and even on some of the ledges if a Trainer is looking right at you.


I know it’s right up there under the title, but I want to draw your attention to the fifteen-minute time limit. You have time to get caught a few times and still get all the items, but not a lot of spare time, especially with a smaller group. Talk with Quhaaja after giving her a few items – if you have the “give up” option you can select that to end the assault. No further items can be turned in and the rune will spawn. You’ll take an assault point hit if you fail to give all eight items to the NPC, but if it’s between running out of time and getting less points, the choice is clear.

Strategy tips:

• Avoid Mamool Ja Trainer detection at all cost when you have one of the chest items. Take a few extra seconds to wait for a good opportunity if you need to.
• The costume’s 22/tic poison quickly eats up HP. Stoneskin and regen help, but you’ll need to beeline for the chests once you put the costume on. Don’t let the poison kill you.
• Many of the chests are on the top level, only accessible by taking the south tunnels out of the prison area. You’ll want the costume for all of these.
• Tell Quhaaja you give up when you’re done. No further items can be turned in but the rune will spawn. You only need to trade one item in order to be able to give up.
• Once you get the five minute warning, it’s a good idea to leave someone at Quhaaja while the others try to get the remaining chests. Once you get the one minute warning, tell the NPC you give up and hit the box and rune. Don’t rely on someone getting back to the NPC from the field in time – they could easily be spotted by a trainer in their haste, and you could run out of time completely and fail the mission.

The Double Agent – Corporal
Time limit: 30 minutes


This is one of the shortest assaults ever. The goal is to decipher qiqirn babble about the location of a “spy” - a qiqirn that is hiding amongst all the rest.

The Qiqirn are all roaming around the large pit areas. Run up to one and talk to it to get a couple options. The first is to question him. Do so and he’ll give you a vague location of the spy, such as a compass direction (“south”, “east”) a distance in yalms (your guess is as good as mine how far a yalm is) or some general term like “very far away”.

The general strategy here is to talk to a bunch of them to narrow down where the spy is. The spy himself will lie about the location of the traitor, saying he’s very far away or doesn’t even exist. So if you’re almost certain you’ve narrowed it down to a general area, a message like that may be a good indicator you’re talking to the spy.

Keep in mind that these rats are a little loopy in the head, and they’re always moving, so their information may not be totally completely reliable even if they aren‘t lying to you. Work with your teammates by saying stuff like “He’s east” or “He’s really close” to compare information.

There’s scattered puks in the area that you can kill if you need to. A faster strategy is to have someone sleep it and then have all people on its hate list question a Qiqirn - this counts as a cutscene and will remove the puk’s hate. Handy, that.

Once you’re pretty sure you’ve found the filthy traitor, choose the second option to capture him. If he’s the correct one, mission complete. If you got it wrong, it’s not THAT big of a deal - you just take an assault point penalty when you finally get it right and that qiqirn refuses to give you any additional information.

If you somehow manage to run out of time on this assault, maybe the whole assault concept isn’t quite right for you.

Strategy tips:

• Question as many qiqirns as you want to get information about the spy. Share useful information with your allies.
• The spy will lie to you. If you get a response that makes no sense, that may be your spy.
• Sleep aggro puks and question a qiqirn to shed hate. If you don't sleep them you wont be able to get far enough into the NPC dialogue before getting an event skipped message.

'


Imperial Treasure Retrieval – Sergeant
Time limit: 15 minutes


This assault is similar to the previous assault Breaking Morale but with a little less frustration and no costumes to drain your HP. You’re still trying to open chests to take items back to the start while avoiding mamools, but the mammols are trying to do the same thing while avoiding YOU.

Your party starts in the south. The Mamools start in the north. Once the assault starts the game is on! Find a treasure chest, open it, and try to get back to the start without being detected exactly like in Breaking Morale.

The twist is that if a Mamool sees you, that specific NPC will take your gem and try to get to HIS NPC. So if another party member can intercept that mamool and click on him, he’ll take the mamool’s gem and the mamool will be warped away.

Trying to do this solo is as frustrating as it was in Breaking Morale - you‘ll almost always get spotted on the way back and lose your item. It’s best to travel in teams of two or three - the person with the gem in front with one or two other players behind. If the first player is seen the rest of your party can catch the mamool and re-steal the item.

There’s no combat in this assault at all, so speed-enhancing items and jobs are best yet again.

Odds are that the mamools will get a fair number of the gems back to the north without you being able to stop them. Oh well. You only need to turn in one in to the NPC in order to be able to win - talk to Zahakahm when you’ve turned in at least one and choose to give up in order to spawn the rune. You’ll also get a message when all the gems have been turned in, but you still have to give up to spawn the rune.

Strategy tips:

• Mamools will capture your gems, but you can capture enemy gems. Check mamools that pass you and you may snatch a freebie.
• Use the buddy system to get gems back to your goal. If the person carrying the gem gets caught a buddy can reclaim it from the mamool that stole it.
• Don't worry about getting every single gem - just get as many as you can. You only need one to be able to give up and win the assault
  

Marids in the Mist
Time limit: 30 minutes

This assault is a lot more straightforward than it would appear to be. The goal is to tranquilize 8 marids using temporary item darts give to you from the starting NPC.

It can take a few tries though, so you want to pull the Marids into the starting tunnel to have a fresh supply of darts. Designate a puller to head out and find them. The Marids move slowly but they’ll eventually get there. There are also some Mamool Ja enemies, but they are not true sight so the puller can use invisible to get past them with minimal difficulty.

Because they move so slowly, to save time, you’ll probably want to bring two back and sleep one. Once they’re the puller should immediately go look for another two.

The darts seem to have more effect when the marids are at low health. It’s okay to damage the Marids down to 70% or so. Once at that health, just have everyone in the party spam darts. It may take one, it may take 20. The marid will be unable to act while the dart takes effect and any affects you try to put on it will fail - attacks will hit for 0 and all spells will be resisted. But at that point there’s no reason to be attacking them anyway. Just use darts.


Most darts will fail. Occasionally a dart will berserk the marid, which won’t matter since you’ll be stunning it with more darts anyway. Once a dart succeeds the Marid will turn green like an NPC for a few second than despawn. Reportedly, killing a marid will give you an assault penalty but not fail the assault. But there’s completely no reason to kill them. Just use more darts.

You must tame or kill all eight marids on the map for mission completion.

Strategy tips:

• Because they move so slowly, pull two marids at once and sleep once to save time.
• Damage the marid a bit in order to get the darts to be more accurate - 75% to 50% is plenty.
• Once it is damaged there’s no reason to do anything but use darts on it. Eventually you will tame it and it will vanish.

(back to the main page)

Information in part referenced from FFXIcyclopedia