Avesta the great Red Mage

[hongman]

Iv seen lots of posts about him in doing a search, and found a few random vids on YouTube...but a lot of the links dont work anymore.

I am really interested in seeing more/reading more about this player, certainly seems to have the respect of 99% of the people that have heard of him/her.

Can anyone share some decent links? Maybe I can learn off Avesta the secret to great RDM soloing!

Thanks

[Skoal]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Maybe I can learn off Avesta the secret to great RDM soloing!

Lots of free time, millions in items, outside help.

First off, this should be in RDM forum. Second, there are two schools of thought on this person. One side thinks of him as all powerful while the other finds things that discredit his soloing techniques. Either way, he will most certainly do more than I will in game. He has done some cool things, I just don't have the patience to watch him fight something for more than a few minutes.

BTW he has his own site, and there is something one of the mods posted about him a while back.

[Armando]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Not to discredit Avesta (he has done some really impressive things, some with help, some without help) but I wouldn't turn to him for "the secrets of Red Mage soloing" unless you're going for really strong NMs. I'm not a high level RDM, but if I'm not mistaken a lot of the strategies he uses to beat NMs are excessive or impractical for normal soloing.

[hongman]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

{um...} Ok....

Thanks, I guess. Mods, please move to Red Mage Forum...

[Aeolus]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

He only comes up with the ideas though, it doesnt make him the best rdm ever. You can come with an idea that someone else can perfect.

[hongman]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

So am I wrong to choose him as a "role-model" for RDM Soloing?

Are there better examples?

looks like he isnt all that he is made out to be, by the sounds of it.

[Skoal]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

He has done things 99% of us could not do. You will need to start small with your soloing abilities. Watching him solo Genbu really won't help you solo things that are more realistic.

[Raydeus]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

I'm not a high level RDM, but if I'm not mistaken a lot of the strategies he uses to beat NMs are excessive or impractical for normal soloing.

Yep, he has soloed and killed stuff that most players will never even attempt, but that doesn't mean he is the ultimate RDM or anything like that (or that his strategies are the end all for other situations), simply because that doesn't exist.

Players can learn some stuff from his videos though, but for most situations a good soloer (regardless of the job) has to be able to adapt and choose strategies acording to their playstyle and the mob they are fighting.

Watching Avesta or any other player fight can give them ideas, but soloing is something players have to learn by themselves simply fighting and getting some field experience.

[hongman]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Thats where Im at right now...trying to gain experience in soloing (both types of exp), and I dont think Im doing so great. One RDM said soloing isnt really all that do-able until 74 when you have access to Ni but I have read about others that seem to be able to take on EM-T mobs.

Last time I tried was (wow, wuite a while now I think about it) at lvl 45 I think, maybe things have changed now Im a little higher.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Thats where Im at right now...trying to gain experience in soloing (both types of exp), and I dont think Im doing so great. One RDM said soloing isnt really all that do-able until 74 when you have access to Ni but I have read about others that seem to be able to take on EM-T mobs.

Last time I tried was (wow, wuite a while now I think about it) at lvl 45 I think, maybe things have changed now Im a little higher.

Before you reach 74 and sub NIN for Ni, there's probably several ways you can solo stuff...
1. Kite the mob with Gravity and keep DoTs on (Bio, Poison, etc).
2. Sleep / Nuke the mob.
3. Straight up melee with Stoneskin / Blink / Phalanx (you'll want to research which stats give Stoneskin and Phalanx max effectiveness, and macro in appropriate gear for them).

[Sabaron]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

A lot of the things Avesta does are for Glory & Fame rather than practical soloing. For instance, soloing Mission 5-1--by the time you can solo this, it is likely that you have already beaten it normally and it requires a good deal of unusual RDM gear (basically +attack gear) and a DRK sub. Macan Gadangan (Wild Wild Whiskers) can be done much more easily by a duo or trio without the high risk of seal loss if you don't kill the cat in time--Avesta squeeks through the BCNM with less than a minute left on his timer. He soloed Genbu, but I doubt he could have soloed the Ollas (pots) needed for the Winterstone. There is a post on his site that he may have soloed Zipacna for the Gem of the North, but the video, if any, is not posted. He solos Hakutaku which might actually be practical since if you go with an alliance, remember, that you have to repeat the NM for each member of the alliance (an O-hat run with 6 spawners would take at least 3 hours to do). Charybdis may also be practical as you may not be able to get the necessary number of people on that would take to do it in a group and the camp can be awfully long (up to 8 hours if you know the ToD, if you don't know it, it's basically a 24-hour camp), so with that in mind, you may need to kite him for awhile until assistance could arrive, or if none is available, complete it yourself. Not that it's necessarily practical to do so as it takes a long time, is extremely dangerous, and requires large amounts of gear and consumables.

Here is his website:

http://redmage.k-free.net/nm2.html

[raidenn]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Sounds like a sleeping pill...

[Jei]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Moved

While Avesta's videos are really cool to see, you have to think about your play style too.

Are you willing to spend 3 hours DoTing down a mob just for the sake of accomplishment?
Or would you prefer to go as a team and beat that very same mob in 5 minutes?

Personally, I try to download every Avesta video I came across as they are great collection video.
But I don't care to go do those kinda stuff myself. I don't care to solo that much since I'm quite a team player.

[Mhurron]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

Are you willing to spend 3 hours DoTing down a mob just for the sake of accomplishment?

You wouldn't be doing an Avesta style solo for any practical reason. It is straight out bragging rights, and if you're the type of person that likes that then ya, you'll do it.

I would, but I don't have the time to spend amassing that much gil, or on the trial and error getting a process down just right and I refuse to level NIN.

[Taskmage]

Re: Avesta the great Red Mage

The videos are a pain to get off the official site, if possible at all. The filefront site I get them off of is linked in Itazura's sticky. Here it is again: http://hosted.filefront.com/Wrish/1492926 It looks like a lot of them have been removed though ...

Avesta has absurdly good gear that makes it unproductive to try to copy him directly. Duelist's Chapeau and Dalmatica give him almost twice as much Refresh as most rdms and thus nearly twice as much mp, allowing him to pump out twice as much damage between Converts. The uncapped battlefield solos he's done, such as Brothers and Bionic Bug, would probably have been impossible without that factor. Getting either piece would take months of investment into a dynamis or HNM LS, respectively.

There's still a lot to learn in the way of tactics from watching the videos, don't get me wrong. For instance, Avesta's preferred method of soloing is to kite the mob while keeping DoTs on it and nuking. Challenges specific to the mob cause him to deviate from this strategy to varying degrees. For instance, Bugboy's very high HP and the time limit imposed on the fight make him impossible to kill with only the MP provided from three Converts and his Refresh. So, during the first part of the fight he leaves off the DoTs while kiting to give him the ability to sleep the mob and rest for MP while waiting on Convert to ready again, giving him some extra nukes. While waiting on the third Convert he swaps to melee gear and blink tanks it instead, probably because the Bugboy has built too much resistance to Sleep at that point to make the other approach feasible.

For Macan Gadangan the time limit is even more severe, so he uses Chainspell immediately, allowing him to burn through his MP with nukes as fast as possible and Convert early enough in the fight that it becomes ready again before the battle's 15 minute limit is up. Without that infusion of MP for a second volley of nukes, there wouldn't have been enough damage to beat the mob before getting kicked out of the battlefield.

Ash Dragon and Bune are unkitable because they both have Draw-In, but their TP moves are so devastating that feeding them TP through normal melee is a very bad idea. Avesta avoids this problem while still taking advantage of the fact that he's forced to be in melee range by using a Ceremonial Dagger to melee, which is so weak that it deals no physical damage and thus gives no TP but still pushes more damage through by En-spell to supplement the DoTs and well-rationed nuking.

Cactrot Rapido is also unkitable, not because of Draw-In but because of his incredibly fast running speed. Add to this his considerable attack power and the fact that one of his TP moves (10000 needles) is literally unsurvivable by anything less than a small alliance. For this arguably most impressive and most boring solo, Avesta chose not to nuke or melee at all, dealing damage only through Poison II and maximizing defense through fast cast and damage reduction gear to ensure the mob would never get any TP.

These are the main lessons as far as rdm soloing is concerned:

• Nin is an extremely powerful sub for defense. This is true for a lot of jobs, but especially for a solo rdm that has reduced timers from Fast Cast traits and the ability to recast Utsusemi or Stoneskin without fear of interruption while the other buff absorbs damage.
• Be able to kite or melee as the situation calls for it. Melee is simpler and less MP-intensive against mobs that allow it, but against mobs whose physical offense or defense is prohibitively high kite-nuking forces through damage faster and more safely.
• Have the best gear you can for multiple purposes. Melee stats, damage reduction, fast cast, refresh, nuking and resting sets all have their uses. Even nearly invisible improvements can have significant impact on your performance and ability.
• Know your enemy. /check isn't everything. TP moves, attack speed, the availability of aspirable MP and a myriad of other factors make a world of difference between two mobs that might otherwise appear equal in difficulty.
• Know the game mechanics. This goes for everything from knowing which stats affect which spells to knowing how mobs gain and use TP.
• Be flexible. This pretty much encompasses everything above. Be able to respond to the situation with an appropriate balance on offense and defense in tactics and gear.

Personally I never even learned to kite until I was level 70+ and Wamoura Princes became a solo/duo target. I still like to melee solo more, but obviously kiting has its uses. I don't exactly have the nuances though so I couldn't give you any pointers.

Red mages can start melee soloing EM-T beetles and crabs at level 40 with /drk, 50/51 with /blm or a dagger. Aspir and/or Energy Steal combined with Refresh give you enough MP to sustain all your buffs between Converts. Just keep the mob debuffed with Slow, Bio and Blind and keep Protect, Refresh, Haste, Phalanx, Ice Spikes and Stoneskin up. So long as you can stay alive the mob will eventually die. The hardest part is learning to time Stoneskin to give it the best chance of going through uninterrupted.

Thing is, beetles and crabs don't exactly give great drops and your killing speed is soooo slow that it's not a practical way to farm or exp. The only reason you'd ever do it is for practice, skillups or if you needed a coffer key from them.

Btw Sabaron, it wasn't Avesta that did the mission 5-1 solo, it was Grendal/Apple Pie. The equipment really isn't that difficult. Nowadays you can probably get better melee gear than what was available back then for less gil. War, drk, drg or I think nin or blu subs will work. Trouble is you have to be 63+ for the prebuff and the meds are really expensive. And, as you said, there's really no reason to do it solo except for bragging rights, but that's good enough reason for me. ^^ Oh yeah and the Zip solo is posted at the link above, but I haven't watched it since I didn't even know what Zipacna was until recently.