PM 5-2 Desires of Emptiness  

10 of us got through this mission on Odin last night and I thought I'd share our experiences.

Our lineup was: NIN, NIN, NIN, WHM, WHM, BLM, RDM, SAM, DRK, RNG (me).

Getting to Promyvion Vahzl is pretty easy. The golem took us about 30 seconds to kill, although we did have a good number of 75s (as the golem fight isn't capped). Be warned, if you've got anything else you need to do for the next few hours, that the cutscenes when you enter the Promyvion are *long*. 10 minutes at least, by my count.

In fact, that's a good point to bear in mind with Vahzl. This is a long dungeon. It's 5 floors, compared to 4 for the earlier Promyvions and you have to fight 3 bosses on the way up. I'd suggest setting aside several hours to do this. I'd also recommend having more than 6 people, even if you just have a couple of escorts along. I'll explain why later.

The first floor is pretty trivial. The mobs are low level and it's not far to the memory receptacle. If you have an RNG, have him wide-scan for it. Fighting the receptacle is much like it was in the earlier Promyvions - stand with your back to an edge so that you don't get knocked back into any of the harder mobs. Contrary to what I've heard elsewhere, you *can* get fake receptacles in Vahzl - we had one on the third floor. Also note that on the higher floors, you encounter Weeper and Seether type strays. These have more hp than the regular strays and need to be dealt with quite quickly. They're not as hard as the regular versions of those mobs, though.

The second floor is also a standard floor, but this one is quite hard. There's a long, narrow section you have to go through to reach the receptacle, which is packed full of mobs. You'll know the area when you see it - it's got lots of girders and looks a bit like a building site. Expect to have to fight a lot of mobs to get past the "hell house". Most of the mobs on this floor are EM or T, so individually, they shouldn't be a problem. You will not be able to sneak through unmolested, though, and trying to do so could result in you getting drowned under a pile of aggro and adds. Take it slow, take it careful.

The third floor is the first that has a boss-fight. Before you fight the memory receptacle, you need to go to the Memory Flux and click it to spawn a Propagator. Be warned, there's no prompt after you click - the mob just spawns. This is the same mob type as the Promyvion-Dem boss. It's got a lot of hp and can spawn small versions of itself, but the Dem boss overall is so weak that you can kill it pretty easily. Once this is done, find a receptacle and kill it for a portal.

As I said above, we had a fake receptacle on this level. When moving between receptacles (we had a 2nd on widescan), we decided to clear a Craver that was blocking our route. Bad move. The craver is the mob-type that the Ptomyvion-Mea boss is based on. The regular IT versions of this mob (all the ones on the 3rd floor will be IT) are incredibly hard. They've got more hp than the bosses you fight in the spire at the top of Vahzl. We had 2 deaths to this mob, so I strongly suggest you go around any of the boss-type mobs you encountr.

4th floor has another NM that needs to be cleared at the memory flux. This one is the Solicitor, which is a version of the Mea boss. This is where you're going to want an alliance. This boss is absolutely mad. We had 6 deaths (out of 10) fighting him and only killed him by the skin of our teeth. He does his Carousel move almost constantly, causing massive AOE, hate-reset and 15-per-tick forum. Don't worry, the version of this boss in the BCNM is nothing like as bad as this. Once he's cleared, find a receptacle and go through. Happily, the receptacle spawns are pretty close to the memory web. Be warned that the strays on this floor can be fairly nasty, with the seether-types making their first appearance.

The fifth floor has the spire and another NM fight. Before you go into the Spire, go to the memory web and fight the Ponderer. This is the Holla-type boss. He's got a lot of hp and some nasty specials, but we didn't find him too hard. Once he's dead, go to the spire for another cutscene.

We did the BCNM fight in two runs. The first run consisted of:

NIN, NIN, WHM, BLM, RDM, SAM

After the first run, one of the NINs and the RDM came back up for the second run, which was:

NIN, NIN, WHM, RDM, DRK, RNG (me)

Both runs won the fight on their first attempt, without too many problems.

The fight is basically as described in the mission text at the top of this page. You pull the Mea-type boss first, as he's by far the hardest. The other two mobs do *not* aggro or link at this point, unless you attack them. When the Mea boss hits 20%hp, the Dem boss wakes up. This is a dangerous point, as the Mea boss will have the party on low hp by this point. If you have an RNG, he can buy you some time by shadowbinding the Dem boss. If you don't attack it, this can stick it in place for a good 30 seconds. Then the RDM can cast gravity on it and one of your two NINs can break off and kite it. Go all out on the Mea boss to finish it off - this is the most dangerous point in the fight, so don't mess around.

Once the mea boss is dead, you can kite the Dem boss for ages, with gravity (100% stick rate for our RDM) and one of the NINs. This lets the mages rest to full hp. On the first run, they even let one of the NINs who had died rest until weakness wore at this point. The Dem boss is incredibly slow and pathetic, especially with Gravity. Once you're ready to go, kill the Dem boss as fast as possible. The Holla boss will wake up at 20% hp, so go all out again at the end.

If you have everybody alive when the Dem boss dies, you should win. The Holla boss is more annoying than hard. I strongly suggest using poison potions to avoid his sleep attack, as he does it constantly. If you still have 2hrs, use them when he goes below 25% hp (except the NINs, of course) as he does his specials a lot more at this point.

This is not the hardest fight in CoP by a long stretch. The dungeon to get to the BCNM is a nightmare. However, compared to Riverne A and B's bosses, the BCNM is a walkover. The bosses are higher level now than they were when you met them at 30 in the 3 basic Promyvions. However, they are lower relative to you than they were back then. I'd guess that the Promyvion Mea/Holla/Dem bosses were IT high-eva-high-def, while the three bosses in the BCNM in Vahzl are all VT. Have a sensible party and you shouldn't lose. No animas needed.

Rogueone
Odin Server

All the post below are very informative and much appreciated.

However, folks only talk about what to do inside Promyvion-Vhazl, but nobody says how to get there.

dRouge's First Look post states "Do NOT cast magic on the elevator ride down"; from this warning, I'm assuming Promyvion-Vazhl is accessed via Beaucedine Glacier > Pso'xja. Is that correct?

If so, which Beaucedine Glacier tower do we enter through? Tower 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6?

Once inside Pso'Xja,does anyone know the walk-through directions to the elevator?

JAN 2006: HELP!!
Still looking for a walk-through of what happens between the fight in Pso'Xja with Golem NM Nunyunuymi and zoning into Promyvion-Vahzl.
Someone please share your experience. It would be most appreciated! ^^ Hmmm. One wonders if the answer is simply... "After you beat the Golem NM Nunyunuymi and you are automatically teleported into Promyvion-Vahzl?

FEB 2006: Thank you Neoloop for your reply. Much appreciated!!


P.S. As a reminder the three Promyvion-Dem/Holla/Mea ENMs are:

Dem ENM Progenerator

Holla ENM Wreaker

Mea ENM Delver

P.S.2 Since there are 3 ENMs, it would probably be best for everyone in party to have all three Rare/Ex animas in their possession for the ENM fight:

Terroanima obtained from Recollection of Guilt

Psychoanima obtained from Recollection of Fear

Hysteroanima obtained from Recollection of Pain

Edited, Tue Jan 31 01:01:17 2006

This Promyvion seemed easier than Mea/Holla/Dem for several reasons - 1) everyone has access to better equipment and skills (Utsusemi:Ni Flash, Haste, Minuet III, Refresh) 2) SMN have Double Slap which pwns Poison Nails, thanks 3) while the normal mobs are pretty tough, the Memory Receptacles are a joke, 3) only 1-2 Memory Receptacles each island, so no having to kill 4 to get a warp gate.

It's main difficulty is one of endurance, because trudging through five islands and knowing when to avoid aggro and when to clear a path (and there is a LOT of aggro) takes a long time. My group got a warp gate first time each island, and it still took us 4 hours to get to the Spire, including killing the checkpoint NMs.

The BC was a lot easier than we expected too... we only had 9 people (weren't planning on doing the BC but since some people were toting enough meds and anima, we thought we'd try) so we did two successful runs:

#1: NIN/RNG/RNG/SMN/BRD/RDM - RNG had a lot of trouble with hate, both died at least once. MP became an issue near the end, but they forgot to use anima. Don't believe the SMN used Astral Flow because healing was too much.

#2: NIN/PLD/RNG/BRD/RDM/WHM - Things went SO much better this run; NIN was main tank and PLD was secondary when NIN was in trouble, and would tank other mobs when they woke up. BRD songs went Mambo/Minuet/Prelude, with usual debuffs on the mob. Only time someone went into the red was when the first mob used Impalement on the NIN. After that it was either white or yellow from AoE damage.

Moral - Consider bringing two tankers

Our CoP static finished this one up a few days ago. From the last Memory Flux isn't too far. We ran until we could see the Spire entrance then we trained our way to the Spire

Once again, we did a few "dry run" at the Spire. The first one was planned. The ones after were "unplanned" (i.e. someone got killed so we retreated).

The NM's will wake up in a Left to Right order, so the order which you can kill them are somewhat limited. We decided to go with the recommended order Middle, Left, Right.

After we entered the BC and buffed up, we took on the middle NM. This was pulled into the steps where we entered. This NM has (at least) 2 special moves that do quite a bit of damage. The first one is a AoE knock back move. This is why it was pulled to the entrance. Since the hall way is narrow there, the people don't get knocked too far back. All the melee's are in there fighting; the mages are down the stairs (away from the AoE). The other special move is Impailment (or something like that). This can take a person from full health to below 100. It is important to voke off of that person as soon as this occurs.

Once the first NM was down to about 10%, the Left NM wakes up. So, it is important to have a Rdm cast Gravity on this.. and to have someone kite this. I cast Freeze on the first NM to help kill it off quickly.

The 2nd NM will spawn Offsprings. The Offsprings will spawn more frequently if its close to dying (it appears); but it will spawn them if you kite a while. (So, it's not just health dependent, it's also time dependent (it appears)). With the Rdm recasting Gravity and our Nin kiting, the rest of us were able to rest and recover most of our health and mp. Once again, the goal is to get this NM down to around 15%-20%. At this point, it helps a lot to use Anima's to stop it from spawning Offsprings. We ended up with 2-3. Focus on the NM, since the Offsprings will "die" once the NM is dead. Once again, the goal was to kill off the 2nd NM quickly when the 3rd one wakes up. Our Rng Shadowbind'ed the 3rd NM as we went to kill off the 2nd NM. Once again Freeze did about 700 points of damage and this helped kill off the 2nd quickly.

The 3rd NM is the one that can Spam AoE sleep, so everyone popped Poison potions. Also, we spammed bogus buffs for the Trinity Absorbtion. This is where we went all out. I think I drank 4 Super-eithers. Our Rng finished it off with EES.

I think people should bring enough meds for a few "shots" at this. If you can save your 2hrs and Anima's until the 2nd NM is over half dead, then go all out for the win. If someone gets killed before then, retreat and try again.

We all had farmed Recollections before coming, so we all had at least 2 Anima's (Hystero and Psycho). One person had all 3. I think we used 4 or 5 through out all of our fights.

Oh, our party was: Pld/War, Nin/War, Rng/Nin, Whm/Smn, Rdm/Whm, Blm/Whm (me)


Edited, Fri May 6 13:51:31 2005

You click on the Memory Flux to spawn the NM. You also need to click on the Memory Flux after the NM is defeated to get a cutscene.

If you have cleared a certain Memory Flux's NM and you come back later, do not click on the Memory Flux again, otherwise the NM will pop (and you will need to kill it again (or run away)).