Nyzul Isle Investigation/Strategy

From FFXI Wiki

Chaos Wrote:

Introduction: Nyzul Isle Assault can be one of two things: Very fun, or very frustrating. Some runs, luck just doesn't go your way. Others, you can get through a set of five floors within 10 minutes with no problems. Hopefully this guide will maximize your group's potential of clearing floors and getting the Askar, Denali, and Goliard gear you are seeking.

To start the quest, pick up an assault tag and get your orders from Sorrowful Sage. Proceed to the Nyzul Isle Staging point and enter like any assault. I recommend using 1-2 people's data constantly (if possible, not your tank or melee... I will expand on this later). I recommend that whoever has data recorded also gets the armband for the coin bonus, although this is not necessary.

Before starting, you need to make sure you have an appropriate party setup which depends on what kind of run you are planning on. Typically, the goal of this assault is to clear floors in sets of 5 (you can only restart from floors 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26 etc, so you must clear 1-5+ to start on 6 or 16-20 to start on 21)

Clearance Run Preparation:

Suggested Setup: WHM/BLM or RDM/WHM Bard/WHM DD/NIN DD/NIN DD DD (note: Sometimes I use a BLM as our sixth, as some floors are made MUCH EASIER with a BLM)

Items Needed: -Everyone needs sneak/invisible/reraise, whether its a spell, a RR item, or an item from the chest at the start. -Items from chest are optional, although elixir/ethers are helpful for mages.

Farming Run Preparation: (20,40,60,80,100)

Suggested Setup: WHM/BLM or RDM/WHM Bard/WHM PLD/NIN or NIN THF DD DD

Items Needed: -Everyone needs sneak/invisible/reraise, whether its a spell, a RR item, or an item from the chest at the start. -Melee/Tanks/Anyone in melee range MUST HAVE Body Boost -Mages should try and have Mana Boost

Entrance: I suggest upon entrance to Nyzul Isle, mages and anyone else with AOE buffs wait until transported to the first floor to use them as casting spells interrupts anyone trying to get items from the chest and whoever is operating the rune, wasting valuable time. However, I do suggest everyone uses their food and RR items.

Floor Types

Overview: There are a variety of floor types in Nyzul Isle and the floor type is randomly generated each time you enter that floor. Each time you enter, clicking on the Runic Portal will tell you what your objectives are for the floor. They usually give you a main objective, but sometimes also contain a sub-objective concerning gears. This will be discussed later. For now, I will list the main objectives along with a strategy for each, starting, in my opinion, on the easiest, and ending on the hardest.

1. Free Floor This is pretty self explanatory. Upon arriving, you will notice that you can choose to leave the floor immediately. However, there are treasure chests scattered around the zone, and if you are doing a farming run, I suggest taking a look at some of these items as they may be helpful. However, unless you have a ton of time to spare, I suggest heading to the next floor as soon as possible.

2. Eliminate Specified Enemy This floor is almost as easy as a free floor, as only one enemy needs to be killed. Sneak/Invisible immediately at the start and send your party out to find the monster that checks "Impossible to Gauge". NOTE: THIS MONSTER IS NOT A NOTORIOUS MONSTER THAT IS FOUND IN THE GAME. Instead, it is a normal monster such as a Manticore or Sea Puk, which dies VERY quickly. I usually leave one person, such as the bard, at the Rune so they can jump up to the next floor as soon as the monster is dead.

3. Eliminate enemy leader. This floor is pretty much the same as the previously mentioned floor except that the boss is usually a NM Imp, Pudding, Psychflayer, or Qiqirn type mob that looks MUCH different than that family of mob usually does (Also this mob will have a strange name and won't appear anywhere else in the game). For instance, instead of being purplish black, the flan NM will be yellow. These NMs are usually slightly harder than the monsters on the previously mentioned floors. Sneak/Invis at the start, find the right mob, and kill it. Things to take note of: -Pudding nms usually absorb one element of magic and take tons of damage from another. Have your blm test this with a tier I nuke so they don't heal it with a 2k Burst II. Blms usually destroy puddings, so they are good to have around for this type of floor. -Occasionally you will encounter a Qiqirn NM that will drop mines and occasionally run away. Don't bother following him, he will come back to you.

4. Eliminate All Enemies This floor usually takes longer than the other floors, but is not usually difficult. Sometimes various NMs will appear on this floor that could be deadly but other than that, mow all of the enemies down and head to the next floor.

5. Lamps This floor can either be EXTREMELY EASY, or VERY DIFFICULT depending on which type of lamps you encounter. Sneak/Invisible, find a lamp, and it will give you a clue to which type of lamps you are doing.

-If your lamp says something about a confirmation code, you have struck gold. Have EVERYONE run to this lamp as quick as possible and touch it, and you will be ready to head to the next floor. -If your lamp says "These lamps must be activated at the same time" have your group split up with sneak/invisible and have everyone find a lamp (there can be anywhere from 3-5 of these). Call a time, and have everyone activate their lamp at that time. there is a window of about 5 minutes. If there are monsters that aggro by sight by the lamps, have a mage or Bard that can keep them slept cover that lamp.

-If your lamp says "These lamps must be activated in a specific order" I suggest killing any monsters around lamps that aggro sight. Monsters that aggro to sound can be ignored. Have each person head to a lamp and have ONE PERSON call an order. Each person activates their lamp (and communicates that it is activated). At this time, the lamps will NOT turn on. Once all the lamps are lit, they will ALL turn on. After a short period of time, the lamps of the people that were in the wrong order will turn off, while the lamps activated in the correct order will stay on. For instance, the leader calls: A, B, C. If C's lamp stays on (and A and B turn back off),C must be third in the order, meaning the correct order is B, A, C. The leader should call this order, and everyone must reactivate their lamp EVEN IF IT IS ALREADY ON.

If there are five lamps, I suggest using the following strategy:

Have one person call an order "A B C D E". Say only D stays on. The next order should be "E A B D C". As you can see, everyone shifted one to the right except D which we know is 4th. Continue doing this and worst case scenario you will only have 5 attempts before you get the right order.

Lamps can be used to lose aggro on these floors. If the player is able to light a lamp quickly between the monster's attacks without an "Event Skipped" message, the monster will lose all hate on the player and become passive. Monsters do not despawn in Nyzul Isle Exploration, however, so the player must then quickly remove him or herself from aggro range in the approximate three second window that the monster is passive.

6. Defeat Specified Enemies

This type of floor is much like the specified enemy floor, except for there are multiple mobs of a single family type that you must kill. The types I have encountered include: Imps, Soulflayers, Chariots, Qiqirns, and Ebony Puddings. I have ranked this as one of the most difficult types of floors because 3/5 of these are obnoxiously hard without the right jobs. Chariots spam Inertia Stream which is AOE damage + paralyze, along with a move that binds everyone as well. I usually bring a BLU with me just in case I run into a floor like this because BLUs can spam stun spells and usually only 1-2 AOE get through per fight instead of 5-6. Soulflayers have one of the most obnoxious moves in the game in Tribulation, which includes AOE blind and bio that does -39 per tick. I recommend /WHM for all mages and Bards to help with erase and blindna if this move gets off. Finally Ebony Puddings are very slow to kill in melee-burn type parties with no Black Mages.

Remember, there can be anywhere from 2-6 mobs of this family type that you must kill before you finish the floor.


Subobjectives: The Sub-objectives are one of two orders: Do not kill gears, or do not be detected by enemy gears. For the first type, I advise at least one person with movement speed + gear, as training the gears around for 30 seconds or so while your party runs past them can save valuable time and reduce risk of dying. However, if there are tigers or faster monsters that will also aggro you while kiting, it may be better to sleep gears that are unavoidable.

As for "Do not be detected by enemy gears", you must NOT aggro gears, including magic aggro. Depending on the main objective, I either avoid these or have the group pull with a ranged attack or song from a safe distance to avoid aggro. If you do aggro however, you will receive a penalty such as "Potential Coin Reduction" or "Time reduction" which takes a valuable minute away your 30 minute timer. Avoid aggro at all costs.