My first (six) BCNM(s)

[Bamce Sylph]

honestly every bc i've done has been w/ mary's horn, and only mary's horn, for that situation i don't switch instruments i don't dispell, slow, dot anything but sleep, ballad, paeon, and curaga, i don't want to run the risk of accidnetally leaving another instrument on in place of the horn, so i don'te even bring them. i also don't do anything fancy i bring 3 mages, 2 melees and myself and get between 20-25 min kill times, not going for any record, just going to win,

summoners bring nice buffs in the form of prefight stoneskin, shock spikes, in battle blinkga, slowga, and they can curaga, heal, and auto refresh+huge mp pool helps alot. sec

red/whitemages, bring convert, convert is huge, gives your mage a second mp bar, and that takes a huge strain off. also with high enfeebling to keep hte blackmage silenced, an additional set of bar spells, an additional paralyna

blackmage, magic burst, thats enough right there big flashy numbers extra debuffs, an addional seal+silence, additional curaga, paralyna etc

bard,.. makes u win, nuff said.

i like pally's for being able to wake another person then having that person wake all w/ curaga. the other melee is whatever u like, so long as a decent skillchain can be made. cover is fairly nice too.

people who go with 1 mage, bard, 4 melees are asking for touble imo, lag spike, dc, paralyzed, a huge number of things can go wrong, and if something does go wrong, you loose.

2 healers is nice, which is what i go with, summoner and a red, but i could probably replace the summoner w/ a black for double magic bursts (i think 2 mages can burst simultanously right?)

i wear,
af,
mary's horn
compound eye circlet,
bird whistle,
enhancing earing
dodge earing
cuir bp
sentless armlets
lvl 36 +2 cha rings x2
tundra mantle (5 defense is nice)
corsette
combat casters legs (+5 evasion)
cuir feet.
+protect 3 from out of group 2nd box whitemage
+fishkabobs,

i also carry selbinia milk, gives you regen, heals 1/3sec for about 40 hps, i also make pineapple juices for ppl who bring me componets

[Xccoortri]

Seeker onos, why did you get hit with flood? The bard should never ever be in a position that the black mandragora is fighting him...have the tank pull them all back with a pebble or ranged attack, and then sleep them all and you're ready...the black one should never be fighting you.

[tnt118]

Maybe he had aggro from the first attempt to sleep? If flood was the absolute first thing the BLM tried to cast, I could see it happening (albeit unlikely) that the bard would still be targeted.

Bamce - any reason not to macro the instrument change with the corresponding macro for singing that song? That's what I do. I know there used to be an issue that if you did an /equip item while it was already equiped, you'd actually unequip it, but they fixed that.

I too watched Faranim's video many times; it's was a great help and I highly recommend it. However I still don't think *anything* is going to stop someone from losing their first time =). When I get more comfortable doing BCNM I'm hoping to make a video myself -- as much for myself to watch (and look for opporunities for improvement) as much as anything else.

I was able to float a loan for about 1/3rd of the cost of Mary's Horn so that I'd have it in time. That was paid back after our drops sold. Since this was mostly a LS event, the LS also did some group gil-farming the day before netting me another 30k towards the purchase. The rest I'd already saved up (gil-farming and quest-farming [drain, aspire, teleport-mae]. Maybe one of those methods can help you get the horn?

Seeker: I might suggest doing any spells you plan to cast *first* after your Horde. If any woke early, I had a decently high inturruption rate with Cure & other spells. I quickly changed to do all spells first (one or two, usually) then one 8-second song (not inturruptable) before readying my next Horde Lullaby.

Also if you use other macros, your /echo command may not fire. Just be careful and don't become too dependant on it lest it gets you in trouble. If you don't have Mary's Horn and they are waking before the reuse timer is up, personally I'd ctrl+m into the magic menu and keep the cursor on Lullaby ... from there you can watch the countdown counter and hit it the moment it reachs zero. Also I think the chat log is the least accurate way to know *when* things are going on, sometimes it seems to lag behind the actual movement on screen and the HP/MP bars.

Basically you are looking at always taking one full round of hits from each onion, baring the best timing the world and actually starting your lullaby *before* they wake (dangerous!). The key becomes simply making sure you start it in time to sleep before each one gets their second round of attack off. Personally as Taru, I'm not 100% sure I'd even live through a second round of hits.

[Deodorant]

11-0 BCNM 40 (with the same 6 people). 4/6 members had never done BCNM before, and we still won (21 mins). Out of the remaining 10, 9 were around the 14-16min mark. The last one was 27 minutes, because the BRD d/c'ed with 5 onions remaining and we all died. WHM reraised, raised everyone, BRD came back, and we still won. Lineup:

WAR
DRG
THF
RDM
WHM
BRD

Not an ideal PT setup, but really it's all about the bard. He does like 75% of the work, the rest of us do 5% each :spin:

[Bamce Sylph]

tnt i use equip change macro's for all my exping macro's, but bc's are diffrent and i don't want to risk goofing and having more early wakes than i need so i just leave mary's horn as my only instrument , besides, paeon/ballad don't have one u can use for hte bc40 fight

[Seeker_Onos]

Godd ideas, TNT - especially about doing the heals right after the Horde Lullaby.

Having up to 7 onions double - whacking on me would be killer on the interrupt rate :sweat:

I'm still saving/farming/mass-murdering sheep for Mary's Horn (looking forward to someday updating my sig to reflect success in that, gone 5-0 on her with no horn dropped)

Drain quest sounds like a plan - I think I might be able to qualify for it now.

I picked up a Noble's Ribbon finally, so that brings me to 42CHR+20CHR - with the horn, I'd drop back to +17, but I seemed to be able to sleep them all initial with the Ryl.Spr. Horn and the rest of my equipment giving me +17CHR... having the bonus to sleep will definitely be a plus.

I like te CRTL-m idea, for some reason I never thought of that, even though I used it primarily for leveling my BLM sub some time ago. Much more reliable than the macro /echo - I've seen a lot of my /echo comments get lost in the battle spam.

As for getting whacked with Flood by the BLM onion - I'm not entirely sure what happened there. I want to say it was my error; the BLM that was leading us said I should sleep them before they started whacking on the PLD - this made no sense to me, but what the heck - he told he'd led a number of PTs successfully in BCNM40, and who am I to argue with what I thought was an experienced BCNM'er... :sweat:

That was my first go at it... and finding myself KO'd 30sec into the battle, it gave me some time to scroll up through the battle log to see what had killed me. Apparently, my attempt to sleep it had worked, the PLD hit it and woke it up, it started to cast Flood - nothing anyone did stopped it. The WHM pealed on out of there when they saw I was gonna be a dead Taru (I did not know at that point it was casting Flood, otherwise I'd have run to the other end of the battlefield with the onions in tow) but she wasn't able to raise me - the onions made short work of the rest of the PT.

Apparently the BLM sleep(ga) is not as effective as Horde Lullaby at level 40 - he was the second guy to die.

I know now to Horde Lullaby after the PLD has engaged the black mandy... then to move out of Flooding range and wait for the train of white onions to come.

[Liberalkami]

I figured this deserved a little update. On Sunday I was able to win my first BCNM, and ended up winning three in a row. And just a few hours ago, I successfully won four in a row with another party. I'm on a streak of seven wins, and my record overall has improved to 7-6. Finally, finally, I've got sleeping the onions down. Once the loot from my latest rounds sell, I'll have enough to buy a Jester's Cape +1 and Corsette +1. ^^

[Xccoortri]

I'm up to 31 wins, and I just lowered my top time by 3 minutes...the way we did it was by having the mnk and war both use their two hours, and the black one went down quite fast.

[Bamce Sylph]

bah thats cheating to use 2hr's. i remember reading somewhere if u rely on 2hrs you've already lost (not saying u've relyed on them as u've beaten them before just to speed it up) but yeah, thats cheating

[Zonzon]

They're not relying on two hours. They're just using them to speed up the killing.

[AtraposBLM]

The first time I ever did a BCNM40, 5 of us had never done it, and one of us had. That person was solely the reason why we didn't fail. His name was Xavier, and he taught me everything I know about BCNM40's (I've since picked up a few things, like not needing poison pots of even drinks...but those both make the run much safer). Anyways, he organized us, told us what we needed to know, and with the following party:
WHM
BLM
BRD
PLD
DRG
MNK
We beat it, ~18 minutes. This attempt we won mostly due to the fact that Xavier used his 2 hour, so the black mandra got deaded real fast. IMO, rather than trying to do runs without 2 hours first, I think it's easiest to do the runs WITH 2 hours, so that yes, you do less of them at a time, but it's more forgiving, and there's more room for error. After you get a few under your belt, you start delaying your 2 hours, and after 2 or 3 successful runs, you'll be able to do them without using any 2 hours at all. A few notes:

On your first run:
Here's where it pays to come prepared. The most important thing is that everyone have the best gear that they can wear for their job. It doesn't mean you have to have full defensive gear if you're a mage, but you should have every bit of +mp you can muster (electrum rings at least, astrals if you're rich), and after that, every bit of +mnd you can.
Specific Notes (gear):
BLM - I carry a linen robe (I think), the highest level hairpin I can wear, black silk neckercheif, electrum rings, morion tathlum, chestnut wand, combat caster pants, random glove/shoes, mercenary captain's belt, and black cape +1. After I use up the ~60 mp given by the rings and the hairpin, I switch to combat caster tunic and 2 eremite rings. I eat a pumpkin pie (apple pie works just as good), and carry 2 yagudo drinks per run.

RDM - basically, same thing as above. Focus on +mp gear first, +mnd gear second. No need to have defense gear as you won't be getting hit.

WHM - again, same as above.

MNK - The +4 accuracy hooks...don't remember their name, and Jujitsu gear, are the key notes you should wear. Other than that,
just some +str rings, and your normal EXP setup. Meat Mithkabob

BRD - Runs can be done without mary's horn. I've done lots of successful runs without it, but I've never failed a run *with* it. It adds a lot of breathing room. Eat Boiled Crab. Switch to high defense gear also. Minimum of +15 chr to be effective...but anything above 10-12 will be fine also. More tends to be overkill...but we like overkill

PLD - 2 yagudo drinks, top defense gear, and the key, the best sword you can use for your level. Also, eat a MEAT mithkabob. You DO NOT NEED the fishkabob because you'll notice that the mandra's hit like little school girls. Plus, the faster you kill them, the less MP will be required to heal you. Conserve your MP for flash, and try to spread out your job abilities to constantly keep aggro on you. Once the black mandra dies, you'll find you can actually use berserk as an aggro tool (I'm telling you, they hit like wimps...just 7 wimps at a time hurts just as much as 3 thugs) as well. PLD's tend to give you 2-5 minute longer clear times, but they add a lot of safety to the run. Save shield bash for flood though...my pld friend and I successfully stopped 4 floods one time (bashed the first one, I silenced the second, he bashed the third, and I Fire II'd to kill the mandra before he finished the 4th)

WAR - entirely damage dealing gear. Use a great axe if you aren't tanking, sword/shield if you are. I'd imagine /mnk would be best, but I've only done 2-3 runs with wars, and they seem to be interchangeable with sam/drk/drg's.

DRK/SAM - same as above, but DRK's should save Stun incase of a flood, and SAM's should save meditate for a meditate -> Tachi: Kagero (or is it Hobaku that stuns? Whichever ws stuns) to stun the black mandra. Once it's dead, treat each white mandra as a regular exp mob (you'll find they're much weaker )

DRG - a lot of people won't want to take you, as your wyvern tends to spend long times sleeping...but here's a little trick. If you're higher level than 40 (ideally 50+), summon your wyvern outside of the bc, but INSIDE balga's dais. When you get level limited, your wyvern will still behave as it did at whatever your level was before the cap. My friend's wyvern was hitting for SO MUCH damage, and it resisted every single sleep...very awesome On the black mandra, try to save TP for leg sweep.


Notes on strategy:
If it's your first time...
...as a mage:
Drink poison potions, and bring either 3 yagudo drinks, or 5 melon juices. You won't have yags for the last 2-3 white mandra's, but if you get that far, you're locked. If you use melon juice, the 5 will last you till the end, but you'll have less mp. 3 poison potions will last you most of the fight, and it lets you stand wherever you want without fear of being slept. As you get better and better at doing runs, you'll realize that the better your melee are, the less you have to worry about sleeps. For me, I normally stand right next to the bard. Whenever they kill a mandra, I back up down the tunnel, and wait for them to get the mandra away from the bard before returning to my position. It lets me stay outside of sleep range, and still cure everyone.
Your function:
All mages have the SAME function in BC40. Heal. For safe runs, you need at least 2 mages, and you can go as high as 3 if your 2 melee's are MNK/RGN (or MNK/BST). The differences:
SMN - highest mp, natural refresh, blinkga, stoneskinga. I haven't done a BCNM with a summoner, but I'd imagine they'd be pretty sweet support.
RDM - imo, the best support, as they have just as high cures as a WHM, and convert doubles their effective MP pool (and if they convert ~3-4 minutes into the fight, they can convert twice, so that triples their effective mp pool). Best sub for this is /whm, so you can paralyna and curaga.
BLM - 2nd highest MP, good because of elemental seal silence (since rdm's will want to sub whm for status cures, they will lose elemental seal), and for the black mandra, can MB. By no means should you nuke - nuking reduces your endurance, and you're not trying to set records, you're trying to win. In any given BC40, I'll nuke no more than 1-2 times outside of MB (like getting a killshot on the black mandra when it's casting flood)
WHM - highest level cures, good because a high level whm can cast protectra III on you (big difference). Cast barparalyna/barwatera before going in (actually helps a surprisingly large amount)

...as a melee:
You might also want to bring some poison pots...I tell my melee's not to bother, as I can heal them, but if it's everyone's first time, they make a good backup.
The differences:
Honestly, the difference between a pld (setup like I mentioned above), a sam, a drk, and a drg are negligble. PLD is safest, DRK would probably be fastest, and sam/drg are sort of the middle road.
The 3 best melee's to bring are MNK, RGN, and BST (not in that order). If you're doing multiple runs, a RGN outshines a MNK. If you're doing one run, 100 fist will DOMINATE the black mandra (add in eagle eye shot and barrage...and that's one dead black mandra in ~2 minutes). BST are in a category of their own...if you fail a BCNM with a bst in your party....you have no hope. I've not had the honor of doing a BCNM with a bst, but most of my friends have. Also, a party of 6 bst's is the ONLY party that can beat BC40 without a brd...gives you an idea how strong they are in it. 6 bst's currently set the record on BC40 on midgardsormr after every patch (or at least they used to).

Strategy notes:
Buff up outside (you want every minute inside spent fighting ). Notice that higher level protects will last on you if cast outside, so that's another bonus. Tank and brd run in unison into the middle (brd slightly behind so they aggro the tank). For EASIEST SLEEPING, after the first lullaby, the BRD should NOT MOVE AT ALL. My friend Dumdumdideh actually showed me how effective this is. When you move after the first sleep, you run the risk of missing a mandra or two with horde lullaby, which will mess up all of your timing. If you want to fix this, have a BLM sleepga (it overrites lullaby, so it will reset the sleep timer on everything...just don't try to have a blm main sleep ). After this, the melee's should pull the mandra's WELL AWAY from the mage/brd group. Once they kill one, they come back, pick a mandra, and pull it away. Rinse and repeat.

This is what I've found to be the most effective and safest method for killing.

Over the limit O.o...I'll post final notes in another post

[AtraposBLM]

end of the post:

About the perfect lullabying -
after sleep wears off, and just before the notice shows up, you'll notice a *slight* shift in the mandra's. This is the start of their attack timer. If you time it correctly, you can have lullaby land RIGHT as this happens. Do that, and you'll never get hit. A few rythms that bards I've been with have done that I noticed worked well were the following (all with mary's horn, btw. You'll only have time for 1 thing without mary's):
lullaby
ballad + minne
lullaby -Repeat

lullaby
ballad + minne
lullaby
stoneskin+something
lullaby - Repeat

and a few others. For your first run, however, I advise that you don't worry about the other things, as it'll most likely just mess up your sleeping. Another thing you might find helpful is to make whatever macro you use for horde lullaby be surrounded by macro's for horde. Meaning, let's say you use ctrl+7 for lullaby. Make 6 and 8 both lullaby's too, so just incase your finger slips and you hit the wrong button, you STILL lullaby. My friend messed up a lullaby like this once, and his solution was to turn EVERY SINGLE ctrl macro into a lullaby macro. I don't think you have to be that intense, but it helps. Also, I dedicate an entire palette (number 10) for BCNM40 controls, so that no matter what my normal exping setup is, I always know exactly what I can/will need to cast in a bcnm40. I know that if I hadn't done that, I would never have remembered that Fire II and Aero II were my best spells for that level, so you might want to do that as well (so you don't try to cast ballad II or minne IV or something).

Anyways, that's my read on BCNM's, feel free to disagree if you want, but I've done tons and tons of 40's, and I've won runs where everyone else had never done them, and I've lost runs where all but one person had done them before. I would never do a BCNM unless I knew at least 2 of the other people there, and one of those 2 vouched for the brd. Pickup groups are REALLY not fun for this. It's pretty awesome joining a group of 5 friends though...so I tend to just accept bc40 invites no matter what...even if we lose, at least I help some people learn ^^

[Liberalkami]

My current group consists of me, 2 RNG, 1 DRK, 1 RDM, and 1 BLM. We decided to go in with all our two hours on last night to see how quickly we could win. We turned in a time of about 12 minutes, which would have been insanely faster had we had 3 RNG.

Anyway, our strategy is simple. The DRK runs up and gets the attention of the Mandys. I target blackie and start singing Lullaby before they reach the top of the bridge. When my timing is right, and if the pull doesn't seperate all the onions, I'll have put to sleep every onion when they reach the top of the bridge. Then the melee take blackie to the middle of the circle and start beating down on him. The reason we have the DRK with us is an insurance policy against flood. If blackie starts to flood, he simply stuns it.

While the black onion is being beat up on, I cast Minne and Ballad in between sleeps. Both mages realize their primary duty (keep me alive) and they do it so well I don't feel nervous at all about any early wakers. When I can, I toss a Prelude out to my 2 RNG. It doesn't take too long for blackie to go down, and then they start taking out the white ones, then victory.

And once you find a group, stick with them. No more time wasted discussing strategy, no more not knowing how your team will react in a specific situation. I know my team and how we fight, and I'm confident that unless we have some hellish bad luck, we can't ever lose. But you know, hell, last night we had TWO, count 'em, TWO flood deaths! Both RNG went down. And we still managed to win in less than 20 minutes! A pickup party would have croaked in an instant.

Just find yourself a group of people you feel comfortable with, and find a strategy that optimizes your party setup. If you can do that, you will be unbeatable, and watch the money flow into your delivery box.

[Helltaru]

All I can say is that I am happy I don't play on any of your servers. Mary's Horn goes for next to nothing on Sylph just picked up mine for 5k :spin:

[dhermann]

What's that smell? Does anyone else smell something? Whatever it is, I'm knee deep in it, and Helltaru is shoveling it at me.