Gration

So recently I retired my RDM to only be used for a few things one of them being to takeon the odd NM.....such as Gration.

This is a really fun, frantic fight. You are constantly on the move, being intimidated, keeping DoTs on, and nuking all the while trying to avoid his tp moves and high level Thunder spells.

The preferred method is to go as RDM/NIN to blink out all his melee hits and single target spells such as Thunder IV and Burst. If he starts with Thundaga III, you make a B-line in the straightest direction away from him and pray you get out of range in time. I gotta say though, with Shell IV and a full Stoneskin up, Thundaga III lands for 600~ or so which isn't terrible when you are doing it with a friend or 3 like I do. Solo, thats gonna hurt.

I've done this fight multiple times as a duo, a couple as a trio and this time as a foursome. More RDMs = faster kills but my favourite is as a duo where you have to concentrate that much more but still have the luxury of a partner if/when you get one-shotted by a Thundaga III just as SS wears.

So yesterday, I asked Ny if she wanted to run out and lay the beat down on Gration before our Ultima run 90 mins later. Taking into account that time might be getting slim with just the 2 of us, I also suggested that we get Tulaq and Zitale (fellow LS RDMs) to come along and help us beat him down a little faster. They agreed and off we went to Tavnazian Safehold to meet up.

Tuly was standing around showing off >.>

We headed out to the coast and killed off any potential links in the area after going over the strat with Tuly and Zitale. The pop was just fine and we got Gration up to the shed by the Riverne zone with minimal fuss.



He seemed to like Ny for some reason. Perhaps he wanted a pet kitty? Ny wasn't too impressed by this fact.
















My nukes were landing well. Having maxed elemental magic skill from BLM certainly helped. I was able to land 409 regularly with a high of ~450. The others reported ~350. Good damage all around. My nukes did however result in my fair share of attention from the big guy.
















All in all, a really fun outing with friends. We ended up with a 49 min kill. Good considering we weren't killing ourselves to finish ASAP and we only had one death when Zi got caught. No drop though ; ;

RDMs FTW ^^b