Upper Delkfut's Tower*

[RunningDemon]

Reserved for information on Upper Delkfut's Tower.



Allak info:

This is up on the 11/12th floors where mobs are level 60+. The basic idea is to use the tri-bats in the floor joining stairwells (62-64) or the large single bats on 12th floor 60-66, and toss them at various Jotunn, dolls, or magic pots.

Jotunn are Gigas (65-69), so might have to release to stop link if the pull is not clean, so the place might be a little icky now, post 12/12. The pots (68-70) cast AM and Mysterious Light, so are nasty, but are doable on 1-2 pets without a problem. The dolls (68-70) are up on 12th floor in the middle and can meltdown and explode, so be very careful.

Now in regards to leveling here, I myself leveled here a lot, and want to mention that Alkyoneus and Pallas will spawn and are soloable by a BST, but if anyone else is there, do not bother unless you trust them not to steal it or kill your pets.

K, as for the levels to level here, you can go here 62-69/70. It is best to duo at lower levels, then change to solo at 65 when duo exp dies down if at all possible.

It's not the fastest place, but could be a lot worse.

[Climhazzard]

Re: Upper Delkfut's Tower*

Well, since there's no other posts here, I figure I'll throw in my 2 gil for UDT. It's been since Dec of '05 since I've been here and I haven't played FFXI in 3 months, so if I get something wrong, just correct me and I'll change it because I'm going to do this all by memory.

Pet: Incubus Bats 62-64 (3x Bats)

Skills: Sonic Boom - Attack Down - Removable by Erase
Jet Stream - Ranged Attack Damage, single target


Pet: Dire Bat 64-66 (1x Bat); aggro: sound + link

Skills: Ultrasonics - Evasion Down - Removeable by Erase
Blood Drain - Drain effect, single target

Prey: Jotunn (Wildkeeper, Hallkeeper, Wallkeeper, Gatekeeper) 65-69; agroo sight + link

Skills: Lightning Roar - Damage Attack - Single Target
Forgot the name - AoE damage - Barstonra helps with damage

Prey: Magic Pot 68-70; aggro magic only; do not link

Skills: Mysterious Light - AoE Damage - Causes weight effect (Gravity) - removeable by Erase
Spectral Barrier - Blocks all magic cast on the Pot except Dispel
Forgot the name - Gives the Pot a small amount of MP
Tier 3 and 4 spells
Tier 3 and 4 AoE spells
Ancient Magic - big damage to one target - easily interupted
Drain - Drains HP from single target
DoT spells: Drown and Bio 3; both purified by Erase

Notes:

-Your primary Pet and prey here are Dire Bat vs. Magic Pot. Bats do very nice damage to Magic Pots. Floor 11 has 3x Magic Pots and Floor 12 has 2x Magic Pots and your camp should be on the stairs between Floors 11 and 12. Your fastest EXP here will be at Lv66 using EM Dire Bats. If your Dire Bat gets Drown or Bio3'd, just Leave your Pet on the stairs between Lv11 and 12 and it will depop and repop at 100% HP with no DoT effect approximately 1 minute later.

-Keep Sneak up on Floor 12, and Invisible and Sneak up on Floor 11 and you'll be fine. Once you get acclimated to the area, you can skip out on Invisible and Sneak when you feel you do not need it.

-Keep AT LEAST Blink up during Pet Swaps. Magic Pots like to target the BST with high level magic as soon as the BST uses Leave. Shadows will sometimes block high tiered single target spells, DoTs and Ancienbt Magic. In fact, they block the spells more often than not, but it's not a 100% damage preventative measure. Don't count on shadows blocking these spells though, especially when you have low HP. Cast Stoneskin when you can, but always Blink first.

-If you're at least halfway up the stairs between Floor 11 and 12, Sneak + Invisible yourself and use the holes on Floor 12 to drop down to Floor 11. This will put you very close to the Magic Pots on Floor 11. If you're not halfway up the stairs, then use the stairs to get to floor 11. Some of these pulls chew up valuable time, so taking the fastest possible route to the next prey can make a difference in getting a Chain or barely missing it.

-When you're about to Leave your Pet for Pet Swap, try to Leave your Pet while the Pot is casting magic (you can use this strategy on any casting mobs) because it allows you more time. If the Pot is casting AM and you Leave your Pet, the Pot will go through the casting animation but not cast a spell. This gives you plenty of time to fail a couple of Charms before landing a successful Charm and the Pot will likely not even have came for you yet. Any spell will work using this technique, but try to Leave your Pets on the spells that take longer to cast to allow you more time for the Pet Swap and it's a lot safer as well.

Strategy:

I like to start out by killing at least 2 of the Pots on Floor 11, usually all 3. We get more time for EXP chains the earlier in the Chain. It's a long way to travel to grab the Pots on Floor 11, so the extra time for early Chains help a lot. After that, I kill off the 2 Pots on Floor 12. Position yourself so you can get to the next prey quickly, but don't put yourself so close to the next Pot you plan on killing that you'll draw magic aggro because, many times, after you kill off a Pot, you're going to have to use Erase to purify weight from Mysterious Light.

As stated earlier, Lv66 will be the fastest EXP. You can Leave all Bats on the stairs when they have a DoT on them or they're in dire need of HP. Anytime your Pet does not repop EM, Leave your Pet on the stairs to force a repop. Keep all EM Pets as long as possible, but if they're going to die from, say, being Bio3's and they have low HP, just Leave them outside their spawn radius (the stairs are where I normally Leave my Pets to force a depop/repop, but anywhere outside their spawn radius will work).

Don't be afraid to melee along side your Pet when you're 100% sure you don't need another Pet Swap. You'll have to judge this for yourself because every BST fights differently. What takes me 1 Pet might take another BST 2 Pets, so use your own descretion.

Don't let Mysterious Light scare you. Show no fear when fighting Pots. If you do, then you doubt your own abilities as BST and that's when you make mistakes. Have confidence in yourself because you know what you're capable of. So just do it. If you get Mysterious Light'd, do not cast Erase until the battle is over because the Pots like to use this skill more than once per fight. This skill wipes shadows and Stoneskin helps alieviate some damage. Resting MP on your first Pet will give you enough MP to cast both Blink and Stoneskin on nearly every Pet Swap.

The EXP here is very good. I stayed here until I hit 69. If you kill all the Pots and they haven't respawned, kill a Jotunn. Avoid the Hallkeepers (MNK) and Wallkeepers (WAR) if possible because these take a lot longer to kill than the RNG or BST Jotunn. If you decide to kill the Wildkeeper (BST), watch for Bats linking with the Jotunn's Pet Bat as you're pulling it.

Both Alkyoneus and Pallas can be solo'd at 64, so don't be afraid to kill them if they pop... good luck keeping the claim though. ;;

And that's about it. This is one of my favorite spots in the game to EXP because I love picking on Magic Pots. This is good practice for when you get to Sky. Be aggressive and you're EXP will be very nice. Sell all spells dropped by Pots except Burst to the NPC merchant because they normally sell for more there than on AH. If they do sell for more on the AH, it normally isn't enough more to makje it worth taking an AH slot from you so you're better off to just vendor them.

EDIT: Added some stuff I forgot last night.

[Idun_Midgardsormr]

Re: Upper Delkfut's Tower*

I've been levelling in here for the past couple of weeks (I'm a slow leveller) and have been fighting everything in sight except the NMs.

A couple of changes to Climb's post:
There are two dire bats on the 12th floor at the top of the stairs and 2 sets of Incubus bats at the bottom of the stairs - bear this in mind when you pull a wallkeeper (RNG) and have to run to the bottom of the stairs.

If you are fighting a wildkeeper (BST), set your pet on its pet first, before even pulling it - a dire bat can take the pet down in about 4 hits, then you can pull the jotuun safely and without bat links!

The pots move to regen MP is {Battery Charge}. It generally gives them about 40-80mp, nothing spectacular

Also, if helping out friends, the mobs also drop testys:

Hallkeeper - MNK
Wallkeeper - RNG
Gatekeeper - WAR
Wildkeeper - BST
Magic pot - RDM

One last word of advice - be very careful what you target! I was fighting a T Wallkeeper and needed a pet swap. I disengaged, cast blink, ran up the stairs, {leave} the dire bat pet and mischarmed on the fresh one. The wallkeeper hit me with a ranged shot from below the floor and I looked around to see where he was - not in sight, good! I then hit {tame} and wondered why the bat kept hitting me ... then the Fire 4 hit!!! When I'd looked around, I'd accidentally targetted a pot instead of the bat and tried taming that instead! Charm on the bat at 20%hp, attack on the pot, then attack on the wallkeeper, I nearly made it too! Gotta love reraise!

[Wind Adept]

Re: Upper Delkfut's Tower*

It might be worth noting that (at least on Unicorn server) the giants are almost always being farmed for pop items. Depending on your kill speed, this can be beneficial - it lets you wander around without worrying about giants - or detrimental - if you run out of pots, your chain is most certainly dead.