Dynamis - A Guide (Volume 1)

Contents
•Introduction to Dynamis
•Dynamis Basics
•Dynamis Monsters & their jobs
•Party Formations
•Preperation Work


•Introduction to Dynamis•
Dynamis is arguable one of the most fascinating end game features of FFXI. However, many are not sure what exactly Dynamis is, especially so if you have never entered one before, or rather, not heard of them before.

Firstly, Dynamis is an instanced area, which means that nobody except your alliance can enter, or those who possess similar Perpetual Hourglasses. This means it is a private zone only for your alliance. The initial time limit for your alliance to complete Dynamis is exactly 60 mins or 1 hour. You can however, prolong your time limit but killing certain statues inside Dynamis, which provide time extensions.

In Dynamis, there are mainly 3 different kinds of Mobs:
1)Statues
2)Summoned Monsters
3)Boss

Statues are often pulled from a designated camp in Dynamis. When pulled, this triggers the summoning of various other Beastmen as well as other Statues.
Statues in Dynamis server various purposes. For example, statues with green eyes will replenish the MP of players within a short radius of its death, while statues with blue eyes will refill the HP of players within a short radius of its death. Finally, statues also allow time extentions inside Dynamis, as mentioned before earlier. The main source of damage for these statues are ranged attackers, mainly Black Mages, due to the fact that they are weak to magic. Furthermore, it has to be noted that these Statues perform AOE Sleep as well as AOE Poison.

After Statues are dead, a selected puller or mob-selector will select, identify and determine the order of kills. Once that happens, the puller will pull the summoned monsters to the camp. Black mages & Bards will then keep the pulled monsters asleep. It is crucial that the monsters are killed in a certain order based on their jobs because certain jobs prove to be extremely dangerous. We will go on to that later below.

It is also crucial that Paladins and Ninjas continue to Provoke & Flash the pulled monsters to ensure that a premature wake up would not result in an aggro towards the Black Mages or Bards who slept them. This is because Sleep draws a large amount of hate from the monsters. Usually only 1 monster is fought at a time, and it will be tanked by a Main Tank. The rest of the Paladins and Ninjas will have to ensure that they keep a proper Provoke/Flash cycle on the slept mobs.

To clear Dynamis, or win it, one would have to defeat the Boss of the Dynamis. Usually, skillful Dynamis Alliances perform the defeat of the Boss so fast that sufficient extra time is remained to 'farm' the area, mainly for AF2, relic weapons and ancient currencies. Clearing the particular Dynamis earns you a title, such as Dynamis-Bastok Interloper etc.

•Dynamis Basics•
To be able to participate in Dynamis, you will have to be at least Level 65 and be at least Rank 6. After that catch a Teleport-Vahzl and you will see a cutscene. When that ends, go to any of the 3 Main Cities (Bastok, San'doria or Windurst) or Jeuno and examine the trail markings on them, to receive a Key Item : Vial of shrouded sand.

Now to the real thing.

A maximum of 64 people are allowed in a particular Dynamis, and to be able to participate in one, the organiser would have to purchase a Timeless Hourglass Goblin Antiqix, for 1,000,000gil. He can be found in Beadeaux, Davoi or Castle Oztroja.

With it, duplicates of Perpetual Hourglass can be distributed to participating members of the Dynamis. To enter the Dynamis area, simply trade the Perpetual Hourglass to the Trail Markings of their corresponding cities.

It has to be noted that after a player enters any particular Dynamis, he is unable to enter another new Dynamis even with a brand new Hourglass for 3 Days or 72 hours (Earth Time).

To complete the Dynamis, simply examine the ??? after defeating the corresponding bosses.

•Dynamis Monsters & their jobs•
It is crucial that the summoned monsters are killed in a certain order, because some jobs are more dangerous than the rest.

These are the jobs which are of top priority and has to be defeated first:

Beastmaster - Their AOE Charm is simply devastating, as it can charm your own teammates and they will seek out to attack you. Most of the time, the charmed teammate is kept asleep so that he is unable to harm the rest.
Black mage - Ancient magic spells from them are lethal, but can usually be stopped with Stuns from Black Mages and Dark Knights. If possible, they should be silenced.
Summoner - Avatars have to be kept asleep at all times. Astral Flow is disastrous, very very disastrous.
Ninja - Massive kills from Mijin Gakure.

The jobs below are then killed in any order as the person chosen to select the kill order deems fit:

White mage - Heals are really irritating.
Warrior - If you were paying close attention, you will have noticed that all of the monsters use their 2-hour abilities, corresponding to their jobs. Well... Mighty Strikes is... ><
Ranger - Dangerous because Eagle Eye Shot can deal severe damage to most people. In more serious cases, you just get one shot-ed.
Paladin - Invincible is countered by nukes from the mages.
Monk - Hundred Fists as proposed.
Thief - Melee attacks are futile when Perfect Dodge is on. Nuke and use Ranged Attacks.
Dragoon, Bard, Red Mage, Samurai, Dark Knights - No Comments.


•Party Formations•
I'm only listing the crucial jobs/formations here:

Paladin Party - Various Dynamis groups have it for different purposes. Sometimes the Paladin is used as a sacrificial puller, while other roles include Provoke/Flash order while mobs are asleep.

Stun Party - Extremely crucial, especially at stopping many disastrous incidents from happening, for example, Black Mage-based mobs from casting Ancient Magic. This would usually be where Dark Knights shine.

Black Mage Party - Bread and butter for damage dealing, and especially useful for dealing with Statues. One main Black Mage would choose Statues and Targets to focus all attacks upon. Must be very skillful too at timing Sleepga IIs.
The /assist command is widely used to improve communication.

In every party there should be at least one White Mage and if possible, a Bard.


•Preperation Work•
Battle Spam:
To minimise the Battle Spam you receive on your chat logs, it is strongly advised that all /p macros which alert the party of what you are doing should be removed.
An exception would be for the designated 'Mob Chooser' to have /p macros.
Example: >>>Attacking Taruroaster Biggsjig NOW! Melees Assist<<<

Graphics Quality:
Lower the quality of your graphics. In situations whereby you have a horde of 10 mobs charging at 2 alliances, the lag is simply terrible.
Performance > Quality here.

Chat Filters & Misc.:
1. Say
2. Shout
3. Tell
4. Party - Off
5. Linkshell - Off
6. Emotes
7. Special actions you initiate
8. Effects of special actions on you
9. Your attacks - On
10. Your missed attacks - On
11. Attacks you evade - On unless blink or utsusemi tanking.
12. Damage you take
13. Effects of special actions on others - On
14. Others' attacks - On
15. Others' missed attacks - On
16. Effects of special actions on party - On unless curing party member's status effects.
17. Party's attacks - On
18. Party's missed attacks - On
19. Attacks evaded by party - On unless using blinkga on party.
20. Damage taken by party - On unless healing party members.
21. Effects of special actions on allies - On
22. Allies' attacks - On
23. Allies' missed attacks - On
24. Attacks evaded by allies - On
25. Damage taken by allies - On
26. Special actions initiated by party
27. Special actions initiated by allies - On
28. Special actions initiated by others - On
29. Other PC's synthesis results
30. Lot results - On
31. System Lv. 1 ("Check" notices)
32. System Lv. 2 (Bazaar notices)
33. System Lv. 3 (Countdowns)

Config > Misc.
Shadows: Off
Character Models Displayed: Min

Config > Misc. 2
Footstep Effects: Off
Animation Frame Rate: Min for slower systems.

Config > Misc. 2 > Key Assignment > Commands
Call For Help: The default key is G, so move the arrow next to it and press G to clear it.

Config > Effects
Make the icon to the left of each option show "On" to disable battle effects.

Keep the icon for "All effects during battle" set to "Off".

Targeting macros:
/assist (monster chooser's name)
/target <stnpc>

Others:
Go to Final Fantasy XI Config, accesible from your start menu, and set all settings to low.
General-
Enable MIP mapping: Uncheck to improve performance but lower quality.
Screen Size-
Overlay Graphics Resolution: Size of menues and chat log.
Background Resolution:
Size and quality of 3-D world. 512 x 512 is recommended for slower systems.
Textures-Texture Compression: High for slower systems.
Effects-
Enable bump mapping: Uncheck to improve performance but lower quality.
Environmental Animation: Off to improve performance but lessen visual effects.
Sound-
SoundEffectNum: Set to 12 for slower systems.

Enjoy.
If in one way or another I made any mistakes, please feel free to correct me. Thank you.

Credits: Dynamis Cat Attack Linkshell & My very own Illuminati Linkshell.











Edited, Tue Feb 22 10:15:14 2005 by fedex

Edited, Tue Feb 22 10:29:19 2005 by fedex

Edited, Tue Feb 22 10:34:16 2005 by fedex

Edited, Tue Feb 22 10:38:03 2005 by fedex

Edited, Tue Feb 22 20:39:36 2005 by fedex

Opps, left out on Monk indeed >< Will correct it.

You neglected NIN and MNK types, which are among the most dangerous (though, nowhere NEAR as dangerous as SMN)

rate^

Great information ^^

Rate up!

don't forget BST Pets with their nasty AOEs like Silencega, Petriga, etc.

When charmed by a BST, does a RNG only use melee attacks, or does it use a ranged attack also? (Could be disasterous if he just used a PPA for a heavy sidewinder)

Ninja 2hr can be VERY nasty, our linkshell was doing our first Dynamis a couple weeks ago, and we were fighting a NIN mob. Suddenly almost everyone dies; it takes us a few seconds to realize it was Mijin Gakure ^^;

Just as a note- regular BST mobs do not use Charmga. They do have very annoying pets though:

Dynamis-Bastok pets (Scorpions) spam breakga.
Dynamis-Jeuno pets (Ooze) spam Fluid Toss.
Dynamis-San d'Oria pets (Hecteyes) spam dispelga and can only be slept by Bards.
Dynamis-Windurst pets (Birds) spam silencega.

So it is absolutely crucial to sleep and silence all of the pets (except Oozes) until the alliance is ready to deal with them.

NMs are a different story. Both trigger NMs (explained in Vol.2 I hope) in Dynamis-San d'Oria can cast Charmga. One is a BST, the other is a SMN.

Nice post. Worth tagging for future reference.

Volume 2 will feature individual strategies for all the respective Dynamis. Stay tuned =)

BTW, I've edited the part where I left out Ninja & Monk.

Beastmasters - To avoid being charmed, kill the beastmaster before killing the pet.

Monks and Ninjas - Save for *LAST* Monks before Ninjas as a Mijin Gakure with other orcs still present will guarantee you wipe. You want all your mages done nuking statues when you engage Monks, so they can Flash, Stun, etc. to keep the monk from killing your main tank.

Paladin's and Thief's - have a two hour that prevents melee attacks for thirty seconds. If you're black mage's are busy with statues, try to save these two monster types towards the end of regular melee's.

I try to ascribe to the belief that mages should be killed before melee in the non-critical jobs.

Also, if you save dragoon's til last, then you will have one less mob to worry about while you're killing other orcs. The Orc summons the wyvern as their 2 hour, so why not have him wait until the end of a lot? :)

There's more then two Orc NM's in Dynamis San d'Oria, one named Voidstreaker is a NIN NM that hangs out at the manor, and gives a nice 30 minute time extension, which you don't get from beating the boss.

STICKY please

No comments on the jobs of red mages in dynamis? We crowd control all the crap that's being pulled - keep it silenced and slept - I think that kinda warrants a mention somehow! I've not been in a shell yet that uses BLMS for sleeping duties when RDM/BLMs can do it and take a lot more hits than a BLM.

Excellent as always.

Rate up, Sticky please!!

Thanks for all the great info. Only things I would add are that Rdm/Drk can chainspell stun. Also, Rdm can refresh and refresh does not stack with drinks, making it less important for the mages you did mention to spend gil on drinks. Rdm also has Sleep II and can help with curing and nuking. Aside from that and ignoring mnk, excellent information, greatly appreciated!

Well since this got bumped, I'll add a better killing order:

SMN - First for Astral Flow Reasons. With a Fresh Sleep on their avatar, it's highly unlikely that the avatar will wake up to do a devastating attack before the SMN dies.
NMs - Sometimes resistant to sleep
BLM - So there's less chance of your sleepers not noticing one casting an -aga III
Everything Else
NIN - Since they can possibly kill all of your sleepers with mijin, it's better to have few mobs left when you engage them.
WHM - Benediction heals and wakes up other mobs.