Maat Fight

[yavimaya]

As I close in on level 70, I have a few questions about Maat. I have heard that I will need to steal from him as my job is THF. Do I need a key item to fight him? I seem to recall some sort of Testimony, but am not sure if that is Maat-related or not. Any advice on equipment, or food items? I plan to have my evasion and dagger skill at cap. If any other piece of advice would help, all input is appreciated.

[Armando]

Re: Maat Fight

You need a Thief's Testimony to challenge him on your Thief, they drop off high level Thief mobs. Check FFXIClopedia for it. You can win the fight automatically by stealing from him IF you succeed, or you can kill him. I would imagine THF maat is a pain in the ass to kill since you have no Utsusemi to hide behind, and his Evasion will be insane.

[yavimaya]

Re: Maat Fight

Will i need anything flagged for this testimony to drop? as well, if I die from him a)do I lose xp? b)do I have to find another testimony?

[Truece]

Re: Maat Fight

You don't need to have any quest flagged; testimonies are regular drops off of regular THF mobs.
There is no exp loss inside of the BC.
If you fail, you will need to farm a new testimony.

[Zoltar]

Re: Maat Fight

If you lose (hoping you do not), you will still retain a copy of the testimony but you have to drop it and get a new one. Don't be fooled, it will be no good to use again.

[cadoxangelus]

Re: Maat Fight

I fought maat as thief, as thief was my first 75. I stacked up on alot of steal+ gear for my first try, and no luck. Also, what you end up stealing is a Warp scroll, so make sure you do not have one in your inventory if you attempt that. It's been about 2 years since I fought maat, so my memory is a bit off. I remember sleeping for 300 tp using a opo-opo necklace with sleep potions. I also remember sneak attacking him for my first attack. He does not aggro until he is hit first. When he uses perfect dodge, thats the time you PD also and kite him around. I remember using a mix/match set of evasion gear, and normal acc gear. When I went this approach, I did die. So having re-raise on is a good idea, because of that I was able to win with one last sneak attack.
Nowadays, you can find alot more evasion gear, then i was. I also remember the rumor of going into the fight naked is a good thing. Maat has all the same stats you do when you enter, so any negative stats may be helpful also when entering the BC.
Unfortuanly, that is all i remember at the moment. If you have any questions PM me, and hopefully I can help.

[Armando]

Re: Maat Fight

If you're gonna try to take his ass down the hard way, there's a little-known exploit in this game that will shave off a lot of damage in situations like this.

If you go into first-person view (and you remove target Lock) you can run backwards at full speed while still facing your enemy. To other people it looks like your back is turned to the enemy, but your camera will be facing it, and you'll still be able to block, parry, and attack. Now this is a useful little exploit because if you're constantly running away, Maat won't be able to hit you with Weapon Skills; you'll move out of range during the 0.5 second readying time. So no Maat Tackle, no Combo, no Asuran Fists. Of course, you can't run in a straight line forever, but it works even if you're running in a circle, so just run in a big circle along the arena's walls. Spartan Hoplon could also be huge for staying alive, if you can find one on the AH.

As for stats, I have no experience against THF Maat but you're going to need Accuracy to get past that Evasion Bonus IV. I would recommend Marinara Pizza to cover your Attack and Accuracy needs and then gear primarily for Evasion and Defense, with extra Acc in slots where you can't get either.

I wouldn't recommend sleeping to 300 TP, because that takes up most of your time and the increase in damage won't be very big. 100 TP will do. With an Icarus Wing you can open the fight with SA Dancing Edge -> Dancing Edge -> Detonation (50% damage) for a big bang. Fortunately staying alive is pretty affordable these days, with Hi-Potion Tanks going at 10k for 20 pots (500g per pot.) There's also the old EXP scroll trick (go in at level 69, less than 500 tnl, get an EXP scroll, and use it to level up and regain all your HP instantly when you're dying.)

If you can cap Marksmanship, I would eat Squid Sushi(+1) instead, because with the extra acc, you'd be able to land Sleep Bolts for extra Sneak Attacks. Just remember - time the /ra right after a melee attack, and once he's asleep make sure you're not locked on and run THROUGH him, NOT around. If you're going to use SAWS then you want to be behind him with SA up before your next attack round, which means you've got under 3 seconds - don't waste time going around. If you've never done this before, practice on normal mobs.

[Neverslip]

Re: Maat Fight

you can run backwards at full speed while still facing your enemy. To other people it looks like your back is turned to the enemy, but your camera will be facing it, and you'll still be able to block, parry, and attack. Now this is a useful little exploit because if you're constantly running away, Maat won't be able to hit you with Weapon Skills; you'll move out of range during the 0.5 second readying time. So no Maat Tackle, no Combo, no Asuran Fists.

Wha... Wha... WHAT?!?!?!?!? OMG!!!! Nice dude... I didn't need to fight Maat cuz Dnc was my first 75 but can I assume this lil known exploit is not exclusive to Maat??

run THROUGH him, NOT around

/em face palm.

In all my frustrating attempts at solo lvl'n THF, this never occurred to me to try. I have been taking the long way around this whole time. Thanks... some eye openers there for me (^,^)d

[Armando]

Re: Maat Fight

Wha... Wha... WHAT?!?!?!?!? OMG!!!! Nice dude... I didn't need to fight Maat cuz Dnc was my first 75 but can I assume this lil known exploit is not exclusive to Maat??

It's not. I do this all the time on all my jobs, both to fight and to retreat. When fighting you avoid certain TP attacks giving you an obvious advantage. When retreating you get to parry and block while you run, improving survivability, and since you're attacking the mob you're feeding it TP very quickly (hitting the mob gives it more TP than it hitting you) which means you'll eventually force a TP attack, and when it does, regardless of whether you can move out of the move's range, he'll have to stop during the ready phase. That'll put some distance between you and it, getting it off your ass for the remainder of your dash to the zone line.

Of course retreating is harder to pull off, and impractical in dungeons. It's more for wide open spaces. The thing about retreating this way is that you can't see where you're going. You're gonna want to get a good look at what's ahead before you start, and you'll need to take quick "peeks" behind you every so often. I do this by moving the camera as far to one side I can - let's say right - so I'm looking 90 degrees to my right (while still running backwards.) Then I'll briefly change course to the left, so the right-facing camera can get a look at what's behind me. Then, having seen what's behind me, I change to my original direction. In other words, I go from:

^.......camera direction
V.......direction of movement

to
<.......direction of movement
v.......camera direction

and back to
^
V

This is pretty easy to do with a PS2 controller, might be complicated with a keyboard.

Note that running from the mob will only prevent melee TP moves - things that have the same range as our melee WS, like Goblin Rush, Sickle Slash, Screwdriver, Head Butt, etc. Cone attacks (e.g. Wing Cutter), Breath Attacks (Incinerate), non-charging AoEs (e.g. Cursed Sphere) will still reach you. Still, you can really hinder many monsters like that. For instance, Shadows can only have Dimensional Death, which you can outrun - so you effectively negate all their TP. I solo Peiste on PLD/RDM by outrunning Delta Thrust (3 hits + plague), turning away from Torpefying Charge (AoE gaze Paralyze) and putting up Barwater and Barpoison for Aqua Fortis (ranged damage + knockback + potent Poison.) You can even use this on Avatar fights to outrun things like Grand Fall. Not only do avatars have several close-range moves, many of them have longer than usual charge times giving you extra leeway.

It's also noteworthy that you can reliably outrun just about any Self Destruct by constantly running while you fight. I've outran Bomb Self Destructs, suicide Bomb Tosses, and Meltdowns consistently. If you're the only person fighting the mob, it simply dies and gives you free EXP. You can do this without actually having to be running beforehand, but this saves you the gamble of reacting to the move. I think the only one that can't be out run is Final Sting, but that one's not nearly as dangerous as the others.

You can also outrun moves even if you're equipping 3 Dusk Pieces; I do it on PLD, and when fighting this is convenient since you move less and minimize your risk of running into other baddies. The slowness of your movement combined with keeping your circle relatively small can let you use this even in cramped spaces. Would not recommend keeping the Dusk on during self destruct moves though.

You can manipulate mob TP moves a bit with Sleep Bolts or Head Butt, as well. But this post is big as it is so I guess I'll leave that for another post, if anyone cares to ask.

[Firewind]

Re: Maat Fight

As a note, running backwards in first person mode WILL get you killed very quickly on WHM/BLM/RDM Maat since you won't be able to dodge out of spell range if you run around the arena in circles and it's nearly impossible to guarantee that he will start casting at one end of the path so you can outrun his spells.

Then again, being a WHM I usually just hit Flash or the appropriate Barspell when a mob is prepping a delayed TP move . All this silly kiting is for those squishy melee fighters who have no Red Mages to hide behind

[Armando]

Re: Maat Fight

Yeah, this technique isn't for casters. But caster mobs are still exploitable because they can meet their TP quota mid-cast, so when casting ends it'll be forced to try to TP you, but you can anticipate that and step out of range. Especially useful when you take the mob below 25% HP mid-cast, since mobs switch from random TP amounts to always going at 100 TP - odds are they had over 100 and will immediately try to TP attack.

[Feba]

Re: Maat Fight

I wouldn't consider it an exploit so much as an unintended strategy. If this is an exploit, then the ability for mobs to hit players they're chasing but not vice versa (due to lag; and yes I know you can unlock and run ahead of the mob to negate this) is a bug. Also classifying this as an exploit makes just about all kiting exploitative-- it might not be what the developers want, but it's certainly a valid strategy. The only real difference is that this allows you to kite solo, effectively, which still isn't that much more than a melee version of what Avesta does, which is inarguably not an exploit.

[Armando]

Re: Maat Fight

Oh, I didn't mean an exploit in the literal "you could get banned for this" or "this breaks the game's rules" sense, but it gives a pretty huge advantage and I doubt it was intended. But I've either never been reported, or if I have, no GM's ever considered me to be cheating, because people have seen me solo mobs this way and I've never gotten in trouble.