My first BCNM40 experience with BRD

[Sindinista]

This was a sort of test run, I went with a bunch of first timers and well we lost, the set up was:

BRD/WHM - Me(Elvaan), CHR+24, Mary's Horn, Fish Kabob, First time with BRD, I've gone about 30 times with RDM.
WHM/BLM - Elvaan, ok MP, First time.
BLM/SMN - Hume, Refused to sub WHM because it was under leveled.
DRK/WAR - Great gear, food, first time but followed instructions well.
PLD/WAR - Good gear, no food, says he's gone a few times before.
RNG/NIN - Great gear, JP but spoke good english, seemed like it was his first time, but I don't know.


Started out, we entered. After buffs my PC restarted, I know its cuz of my power supply and I plan to fix that soon. So I sing Ballad and MinneII and the PLD vokes and flashes the black mandy. I sleep the them all but miss 1 white. I sleep him individually and stand in my circle of whites. By this time the PLD was very low on HP and the WHM was struggling to cure him and myself. After a while I was able to get all the mandies on the same sleep track. By the time the black and the 1st white mandy were dead the WHM was completely out of MP. My hp drops to about 100 and I start to cure myself, but all the mandies wake up. I scramble to target a mandy but my macro messes up and I die, the rest follow. Any suggestions on how to avoid this? I was thinking of locking target on my sleeping mandy. Thanks for your suggestions.

[stormz]

you need another healer. at least 2 healers for BCNM 40 and maybe 3 with healing capabilities if you are going as first timers.

trash the blm/smn... he really needs whm sub.

bring yagudo drinks maybe and some MP+ food like apple pie.

the only problem it seems u had was not enuf MP for curing. One white mage is not going to have enough MP to cure both the tank and the bard.

[Vilurum]

Well, one white mage *does* have enough MP ... possibly with juice ... if the four other members are *serious* damage output (read: RNG/NIN, preferably all four ... especially since Flood is blinkable). As a solo mage, a red mage would be able to keep going longer, as they'd have Convert for a second MP bar.

It also bears mentioning that both the BRD and PLD can heal in emergency, meaning that they can take over healing themselves to give the solitary healer more time to rest (rather than getting up on the 30 second Lullaby timer when the BRD takes major damage).

However, that's more of an experienced party setup, and a party new to BCNM40 should absolutely bring two healers. And that BLM will have to get their subjob in gear eventually, because like it or not, the ability to heal (be it main, backup, or emergency) is an expectation of every "mage job", whether that's their main job or not. WHM sub vs. RDM sub for a BLM is a similar debate as BRDs have. Either of them is a far cry better than SMN sub for 90%+ of situations (most commonly exp).

Getting back to the topic at hand ... I do have a suggestion for your targeting issue. Leave the main orange targeting cursor on your centrally located mandy - the sleep target - at all times, and only target other people with the purple targeting cursor.

To do this, make some BCNM macros:

/ma "Cure II" <me> (any other cures, you can type by hand or use the menu - alternatively you can make this <stpc> and hit enter after hitting the macro; <stpc> will initially default-target you, if your current "main target" is an enemy)
/ma "Paralyna" <me> (for the Very Bad Situation where you get hit with Paralyga, have this macro'd)
/so "Battlefield Elegy" <stnpc>
/so "Hunter's Prelude" <stpc>

You shouldn't need to cast much of anything else that would cause you to change your target anyway. If you do have to cast something on another player, just type it out by hand.

Only other thought: your PLD shouldn't be so close to death just by gathering the mandies together, unless you were really slow on your first sleep (possibly because you were waiting for them to bunch together close enough). Try sleeping them with a harp for the first few sleeps until you've all (mandies most importantly) settled into your final positions, at which point you switch to Mary's Horn.

Harp hits a larger AOE (thus it's more forgiving and you can use it before the mandies have bunched together so tightly, hitting the PLD the whole time), though it's not gonna have the boost to resist rate that Mary's Horn has. So you'll have more early wakers and bigger chance of full resists. Point early on is to secure hate and gets mandies into position, more than to keep them all sleeping reliably full duration.

(Note: if your string skill is under cap (for level 40), I'd suggesting skilling it up - with debuffs, obviously - before attempting this suggestion. Otherwise your resist rate will be even more compromised.)

[CarbonFibre]

I've only done this BCNM 3 times. I don't even see the need for one major tank the way we did it. Our party was SAM, MNK, DRK (all war subs) and then BRD/WHM, WHM/BLM, and a RDM (not sure of sub). Basically, all three melee would bounce hate around so that not one person would get too low on life. The RDM and the WHM cured while us melee did the damage and/or tanked. BRD did the BRD thing and slept everything. DRK was Galka, but thankfully had enough MP to stun any flood that the black one tried casting. We always killed that one first anyway. If the BRD had too much hate from his lullabies and the mob couldn't be provoked off, DRK did Souleater and/or Last Resort to get the hate off. Two of the fights were complete pieces of cake with only the third being a little harder (I forget why). Melees all used meat kabobs while mages used some pies I guess.

[Xodia]

My Setup

I Think The Best Ever Setup ->


BRD/WHM
RNG/WAR
RNG/WAR
DRK/WAR
WHM/BLM ( Or SMN )
RDM/WHM ( lol Or SMN or BLM)


BRD-> Sleeps Mandies
RNG's-> Pwn Like You Know How
WHM-> Take Care Of Melee OR BRD
RDM-> Take Care Of Melee OR BRD
DRK-> Tank Them And Stun Tha Blackie If He Tries any Crap (flood)

[Sebazy]

A few tips and tricks for a smoother BCNM...

Nins and /nins nulify flood almost completely, short of the blacky flooding a healer early, utsusemi remotes this threat from the picture as long as they are smart enough to cast utsusemi whilst they see flood casting.

Theres absolutely no reason why a bard can't pull themselves, I'm a taru, I use bog standard RSE, AF1, shield and pretty much ho hum gear, I don't even bother with a cloak as there is nothing worth wearing at that level, I don't bother with food as to be honest its a waste of money, I take a few Yag drinks and thats about it.

The way I do it is this.

I have the entire group bar one of the healers just off the top of the ramp leading up into the circle, one of the healers I instruct to put me on autofollow, I shuffle forward a little just over the ramp lip into the circle till I'm in casting range of the Black mandy, play ballad, play minne, then I hit the BLACK with SINGLE lullaby from my horn. The second that lullaby hits, I shift targets to the very furthest white Mandy.

Now comes the nerve wracking bit, I've got a large lynch mob of angry mandy making a beeline for my throat, I run a few feet back to the top of the ramp and switch to a harp, any does the trick, (You DO have your string skill in good shape right?) the second all those Mandy are in melee range of me, I start playing Horde with a harp. Harp guarantees that I will ALWAYS hit every single one of the sods.

The second I start casting horde, everyone but the healer AFing me rushes the Blacky, it must be voked before its attacked, having the black rush me and paralyzega is the only way this strat can screw up badly.

Naturally I'll take a couple of hundred hp damage in doing this, this is where that healer on auto follow comes in to play, ONLY this healer following me can heal me at first, the other healer must stay out of the way. Said healer must remain on autofollow to me, for a few sleep recasts till I have good solid agro on the sleeping whites. During this time I'll be doing my utmost to heal myself as much as possible.

Once you've got to this stage, /pat on the back, hope the drops are good, you've basically won as long as your timing on sleep is ok, and your melees blink/stun off flood. Its pretty damn hard to mess up by now.

I'll make a video of my strat sometime, whilst its not going to win any awards for speed, imho its a very safe approach.

[Vilurum]

About food ... you can win reasonably easily with or without it. But it is *very* obvious to me (even if not to anyone else) the difference in damage I take per sleep round if I bring food or if I forget it. Just for my own peace of mind in knowing I'll live a few hits longer, I eat my boiled crab.

It's not like it's *that* expensive. A stack of it will get you through 12 BCNM runs, and if after 12 BCNM runs you haven't more than reimbursed the cost of a stack of crab, you've got problems.

[Sindinista]

Thanks for you suggestions guys, I'll take them to heart. I can't wait to try this again with my experienced friends. :p