BLU Melee Vs Neak

Why three blue mages?

(EDIT: Rumor has it that...) There is no HP penalty for 7 people so you may as well get more DD in for faster fights. Jobwise, BLU can self buff pretty quickly.

the amount of different numbers i've seen thrown out for hp penalty is ridiculous, but i'm pretty confident none of them are over 6 before it starts

that said, a third dps will easily outdo the hp gained (3/2 = 50% more damage, 7/6 = 16.6% more hp)

While the theory is true, in practice it isnt.

the first dd does 50% the second dd does 40% and the third dd doesn't pull enough damage to cover his body.

"you must play with some shitty dds"

-that's the entire point of threads like these. /actual/ scenarios, not groups that already win.

they only need to do 1/3 the damage of the first two DD to 'cover their body', it's up for interpretation but even someone without ws swaps will likely be able to manage that on a job like blu

I'd rather have that person coming on COR, though.

Neak is pretty easy with a WHM. We were killing Neak in under a minute with two DDs(Rag War/ Masa SAM), BRD(3 Song, no Aeonic : ( ), Geo(Idris), Cor(Just rolls) and wHM. Someone mentioned using Fade, I tried Indi-fade with an Idris Geo and noticed no difference in Meteor damage across our runs. Most likely better to use Indi-Vex and entrust Indi-Attunement when you can to avoid status effects. Scariest fights involved him putting some status effects up before chainspell.

Well er, I was asking why three blue mages instead of say, 1 blue mage and 2 other DDs or any other combination as the "optimal", not bringing 3 DDs itself.

Sounds to me like you've been playing with a lot of multi-boxers.

The WHM should run 20'+ away from your melee shortly after the fight begins to avoid getting hit with Breakga. It's rare that it casts this but it can be devastating if your WHM gets hit by it, especially if it follows Breakga with Chainspell. After Chainspell has started, you can run back in and do Curaga because it will never cast Breakga with Chainspell up.

Fade makes a very noticeable difference for my runs (500~600 damage -> 150 damage). It's not necessary if you have a WHM in every party. Many of my sessions end up with some misc jobs in a secondary party without a WHM though. It's nice to not have to worry about healing them. I think I end up entrusting it (or maybe Fury, idr) most of the time anyways as I super revit between every fight.

Some additional notes:

PLD WHM BRD GEO BLUx2 RDM might be even better. Distract and Silence (along with the other buffs) basically make Neak a joke up until he uses Voidsong. You just simply reapply buffs and debuffs and it should go down easy. Neak likes to spam Chainspell below 50% and this would be the main reason for a failed run (DD's not noticing and getting Meteored in the face a few times). Neak is also susceptible to Pining Nocturne.

lol

These are good WHM-related tips! I just used my alt/mule to WHM some Neak for the first time the other night. The only troubles for us were just the things Snaps mentioned: (1) I was too close and got Breakga-ed on WHM once followed by Chainspell, which went as poorly as you might expect, and (2) one run we tried to go with 2 parties, one party with several melees and no WHM - they died (they also didn't seem to particularly care about eating Meteors to the face despite lacking party healing).

I think our setup was:
Tank party: PLD WHM GEO
DD party: WHM GEO(Idris) WAR(Bravura?) BLU(Tiz) SAM(Masa) and 6th who was some other DD, BLU or WAR I think.

Also had rolls-only dualboxed COR to drop Samurai/Hunter's on DD party then join the tank party to roll and stand still out of range. Magus/Runeist on tank just because, which was nice but inessential (didn't want to just leave the COR outside party, cause personal spoils campaign).

We were getting 2 kills before ~8:30 rolls wore, including time for the popper to go make new KI between fights. I'm sure non-Idris or switching any of the DD slots with any other reasonably competent/geared DD would be fine for wins too.