It has been a month since Suteki’s latest installment of his linkshell’s battles against Absolute Virtue. While some posters have presented valid theories for defeating the monster, it shockingly remains a mystery.

Can the hints and strategies in this month’s ConnectOn! provide the key to victory?

Sorry for lack of pics, posting from net cafe. Honestly, the pictures don’t add any new info, but they do make the article look nice

まさかこのサイトを読んで頂いたら、ヴァナ通編集部Sutekiヘ：　勝手に記事を翻訳して発表したこと申し訳御座いません。ConnectOn!の発売日、いつもすぐ買って、楽しんで精読します。海外プレイヤーと一緒にその楽しさを分け合いたいので、翻訳活動しています。今月もどうも有難う御座います。更に、大変な実験を行って、わざわざ結果を発表してくれて海外プレイヤーの心から有難いのです。これからも宜しくお願います。

In order to test our new method for sealing special abilities, we gave Absolute Virtue another shot! For details on the method, check out the recap off to the side.

Recap

I proposed a theory in which the Torques that are dropped by Jailers have some connection to sealing Absolute Virtue’s abilities. The reasoning behind this was that our Dragoon, who equipped Love Torque, was always able to seal Call Wyvern. I’ve never received such a response as I did from the last article. People from not only my World, but many other Worlds flooded me with messages. It even became a hot topic on foreign sites! I had to basically take this theory back to the drawing board, but I’m think I’ll come out with some I can really put my full confidence behind. I appreciate and look forward to everyone’s feedback!

Back to the Article…

First, we have to deal with Chainspell and Manafont, two abilities that all but guarantee a wipe. To do this, we added a second tanking party. For example, if the first tanking party eats a Meteor and falls, the second tanking party can step in and pull Absolute Virtue. This effectively maintains our momentum from before Meteor hits. By the way, the fallen first party then takes their turn on standby duty.

Now as for offense, we placed a large number of Rangers to deal out some serious physcial damage. With Chaos Roll and Minuet active, I expect there is no enemy in the game they can’t damage. So first, it was about taking out Jailer of Love in 30 minutes. In order to weaken AV’s Regen, we waited until it would only spawn Phaubo, and unfortunately, that was about how long it took. Once AV popped, it was time to test the new sealing theory.

When AV activates a 2-hour ability, each job with a Torque equipped simultaneously uses their 2-hour ability. This should allow you to seal the ability, but… somehow only Call Wyvern was successful. I hate to say it, but it appears the Torque theory is a bust. That one moment killed our hopes, but our organizational improvements did not go unrewarded: it seemed we could stand up to this monster.

We were blasted with Meteor multiple times, but switching in-and-out tanking parties meant we never wiped. On the offense, our Rangers proved their worth and we were shaving away AV’s health with unprecedented speed. Of course, without being able to seal Benediction, we were unable to fully defeat AV… Still, despite all the dangers we faced, we were able to last the full two hours allowed for the fight.

Honestly, I feel being able to continue fighting without a wipe made this attempt a success, despite the failure of the original theory. I wasn’t able to fufill everyone’s expectations, but we managed to take another step forward towards solving this mystery!

What We Learned

Unfortunately, sealing the special abilties did not pan out, but strategically, I’d say we gained a lot of experience! The tanking party switching was especially effective, much more than I anticipated. Without it, we would not have been able to continue fighting until the end. More than anything else, I was shocked that we were able to withstand Meteor. There were some members that resisted Meteor, too. I’ve never seen Meteor do only 26 damage before!

Now, although we were able to take down AV’s hit points significantly, Benediction is tough to deal with. It would be great if there were some way to seal it, but so far I do not know how. For now, I’ll be racking my brain, trying to come up with a way to defeat AV without being able to seal his abilities. If I can find an answer, you can be sure I’ll present it here for you to see!

Additional Notes

Surviving Meteor

Without any buffs on, Meteor will do unbelievable damage, but if you properly buff yourself, it seems more than possible to survive it. One key to survival is Magus Roll. Parties that don’t have this cast on them are best to run out of the spell’s range.

Is Zerging Possible?

If your luck is good, and AV does not use Benediction, I think it is possible to defeat him. Souleater and Stun do not affect AV however, so zerging him with Souleater/Blood Weapon and Chainspell/Stun will not work. Perhaps a method involving the use of Rnagers and Black Mages could be more likely…

Why We Could Seal Call Wyvern

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, but what sticks out is that Call Wyvern is the very first ability that AV will use after popping. On very rare occasions, he may use another ability, but almost every single time, he opens with Call Wyvern. What this means is that when everyone uses their 2-hours at once, it is almost always against Call Wyvern. With this in mind, perhaps if more people used their 2-hours against Benediction all at once, it would become possible to seal that. But it’s difficult to say how we could arrange that…