Pet Diabolos (consolidated info)Follow

PM Requirements: Must have completed 3-5 (Darkness Named).
Fame Requirements: Unknown; haven't heard of anyone failing it yet.

Process:
1) visit Windurst Waters (south), Rhinostery; talk to Kerutoto
2) obtain key item `Vial of Dream Incense`
3) visit Pso'xja-40 (Beaucedine, tower closest to the Outpost teleport point)
4) sneak and flee through Pso'xja to reach the Shrouded Maw
5) Enter BC to face Diabolos


Pso'xja-40:
The path is not hard. You can run this while naked but sneak is recommended and invisible may be necessary also.

Enemies: Gazer (Hecteyes, sound), Vampire Bats (no aggro), Snowball (snoll, sight/magic, only one though), Diremites (no aggro)

The goal is to find large warp-gates, each will be blocking a hallway. The order is red-black-red-black. After the fourth warp-gate you'll head for the elevator, ride it downstairs, then proceed to the T-intersection. A left turn and a run down stairs brings you to the gate of the Shrouded Maw.

Directions from Queuebick's guide:
Note; ENM40 (Test Your Mite) happens in this BC area. Consider coming back sometime. You need to farm a Florid Stone out of Pso'xja and trade it to the Mithra receptionist at Tenshodo in Lower Jeuno first, but they're easy to get, and the ENM is a fun 3k exp.


The BC Fight:
The `Vial of Dream Incense` key item is required to access this fight. If you lose, the Vial stays in your key items list. Your bodies will be ejected into the Shrouded Maw, so you can re-enter the BC as soon as weakness wears.

When you win, you are transported to the other side of the Shrouded Maw. You will be uncapped and can use magic to take yourself out of the region. If you want to get back to the Shrouded Maw for some reason you will have to take the walk through Pso'Xja-40 again.


Diabolos:
The Diabolos fight is fairly hard. Be prepared to use 2-hour skills and play like you mean it. You can't just limp through this like an Avatar Prime fight.

Skills:
Camisado - physical damage, knockback effect
Somnolence - gives a gravity effect on target
Ultimate Terror - big multi-stat drain effect
Nightmare - Sleepga+Bio; damage will not wake you up
Noctoshield - Phalanx - Dispel required
Dream Shroud - Magic attack and defense up - Dispels required
Nether Blast - AOE damage attack, can crush people easily
Ruinous Omen - Demi attack - Random % HP-down
Cacodemonia - AOE Curse - nearly halves your effectiveness

Black Magic: (can also cast lesser versions; can also cast single target versions)
Blindga
Sleepga II
Cursega
Dispelga
Bio III
Drain
Aspir


Falling Floor:
Diabolos can cause floor tiles to drop out, as per PM3-5. He typically does this as he approaches 50% health. As before, the falling tiles will glow briefly before they detach; use this time to move. Keep your tanks articulated so that their backs are not facing a hole in the floor; Camisado can knock a player right off an edge.

Below this platform is a pit full of Diremites. They aggro immediately and will attempt to kill whomever enters their domain.

* Special Note on the Diremite Pit *
It is possible to escape this death-trap. There is a path that leads from the diremite pit out to a short staging area where a teleporter platform seems to be. There is also a staircase leading back up to the battlefield.

When you touch the staircase, you are automatically teleported back up to the falling-floor platform. Be aware of this, lest you run up the stairs only to fall in a hole again. (I thought it was pretty funny, honestly.)

I survived the initial Diremite assault as a 75 Taru WHM with Blink and Stoneskin active. It was a near thing; they seemed to get off one set of attacks before I made it out of their pit. I am guessing they didn't pursue once I walked out of their area; I can't see how I would have lived otherwise. I had no lead time on them and didn't try to sleep them.


Notes on Nightmare:
The skill has the same range from the original PM fight. You are still on a 5x5 grid. The skill is still avoidable. However, with the number of floor tiles that drop out, finding a position where you can cast safely is hard. This is particularly true given that your orientation may be screwed up by Draw In.

The skill inflicts a hard Bio effect that eats away at you while you sleep. The damage does not wake you. If Diabolos attacks you, it will not wake you up; it's possible for you to sleep peacefully as he beats you to the ground. I do not think Poison potions will counteract Nightmare, either, though Cure spells will break the effect.

If at all possible, have a mage with Cure stand as far away as possible. This person will be responsible for waking the others. The WHM can do this, but it is a hard proposition, as if you're in Cure range, you're probably within Nightmare range.


Strategy notes:
Silence works.

Stun may or may not. My team tried using weaponskill stuns to interrupt Nightmare but we were not successful.

Try to keep at least one person with Cure outside of Nightmare range -- or pray that someone wakes up before Diabolos finishes dismantling your team.

Consider using your 2-hours and treating this like any other PM mission. Medicines may not be needed but you don't want to go easy on this enemy.


Victory:
You get a CS with Diabolos when you win. You are teleported to the other section of the Shrouded Maw. To finish up..

1) Go back to Windurst Waters (south) | Rhinostery, and talk to Kerutoto. Get his CS.
2) Choose your prize!


Prizes: Copied from FFXI-main, minor edits.
In addition to these items, you will have the option to accept the Summoner's Pact with Diabolos, or to recieve gil.


Diabolos as a pet
A teammate and I took our Diabolos' out to Sarutabarata for testing. With a maxed SMN sub, you get the following skills..

Camisado
Somnolence
Nightmare
Ultimate Terror

At Lv24 SMN, you get ...

Camisado
Somnolence


Diabolos is a biiiiiig summon. His wings can block out the sun. His glance can cause the plague! So on and so forth - he's pretty cool to bring out.

Diabolos has a higher physical attack power than any other summon I'm aware of. A SMN from my party rated his attack power as higher than that of Fenrir.

He is a strong beast, and he looks great. Go get him!

Good luck.



Thanks to:
Kajiwht - mentioned bio3, drain, aspir, dispel, dispelga
JoranDax - extra note on Dream Shroud
KharmicHammer - mentioned dispelga and Cacodemonia
Etain - also reminded about Dispel ^^;; (updated)

Edited, Wed Dec 14 14:47:04 2005 by Wingchild

Conversely, the fight is also doable without a manaburn configuration. My team -

PLD/WAR
WAR/NIN
DRG/WAR
SMN/WHM
RDM/BLM
WHM/BLM

There is almost always more than one way to get something done.

The new Dragoon 2-hour helped quite a bit!

In all honesty though, everybody on my team gave their absolute best. I was happy to be part of it while we kicked the Avatar around. :)

Thank you for this fine thread. Yet another excellent guide. ^^

Nice guide Wingy

Too bad you can get the Dream Shroud ability with a subjob. That would be great for BLM/SMN


Also, I do believe that Dream Shroud enhances Magic Attack Bonus as well as Magic Defense Bonus.

Awesome! Muchas Gracias! ^^

Chainspell Stun with BLM's is definately the easiest way.

One thing I noticed tho. A phsyical attack does wake nightmare, at least in my experience. I was chainspell stunner, he resisted 2 stuns in a row, which gave him time to get nightmare off, but as soon as he hit me I was able to get a cure off, and back to my stun chain.

Dunno maybe I just got lucky, but it seems that way with mobs too. I can Nightmare a mob, but it wakes up as soon as Diabolos hits it. Dunno, i've only played with him last night and this morning, so could just be a random thing.

_Code

I fought him with 3 BLMs. We each took turns on Stun. Once he reached 40% HP, he went nuts with Nightmare. I stunned Nightmare, then he immediately readied another. Next BLM stunned it. Then he readied a THIRD Nightmare. Next BLM stunned it. After that he readied a FOURTH Nightmare. All three of our Stun timers were down, so we were unable to stun that one. After he got that Nightmare out of his system, we were okay. We didn't have any problems with stun resists, however.

Additional note about Diabolos' spells:

He also casts dispel. He dispelled my party's NIN's Marches more than once . >_<;

This is in addition to the black magic spells listed above.

Very fun fight though. ('_^b)



You have these before level 24, as my SMN is only 23 and used both of those in an exp party last night.

Edited, Wed Dec 14 13:56:18 2005 by Etain

Great info, as always Wingchild. Just what I was looking for, thanks. ^^

Struggling to get this fight done, although having read this I think I know why now.

Hoping to take the same setup back and try again but with some tweaks. Went in with PLD, WHM, 3 x BLM and a RDM/DRK. The WHM is me and I need it for my 61 SMN so no getting rid of me.

We went in - PLD disbanded, got drawn in and we reinvited. THE BLM nuked from the top. Next up I got drawn in and one of the BLM but the last 2 BLM and RDM didnt.

I *think* we probably asked the RDM to chainspell stun too early because with 3 x BLM we couldn't kill him in 2 rounds.

We survived a nightmare and got him down to less than 20% but the BLM were focusing on nuking and chainspell wore and so we got hit by a second nightmare.

At what point should the rdm/drk be hitting chainspell? And (noob question) if they use stun without chainspell and then need to go into chainspell before timer is up am I right in assuming that chainspell will negate the recast timer?

Party:Pld/War
Smn/Whm
Whm/Smn
Sam/War
Thf/Drk
Blm/Rdm

On Drk's Day no less. >:D

eh, Manaburn is for cheatears far as I'm concerned.

I can't wait to try this fight in a normal set up, even if I get clocked. This game has a lot of awsome chalenges in it and I hate using cheap tactics.