Author: Aydin
Setups
Generally accepted PUG Setup
- DD
- DD
- WHM or SCH
- COR
- BRD
- PLD or RUN
Standard setup. If you see someone shouting, this is what they’re aiming for.
Tryhard Setup
- COR
- COR
- SCH
- Strong DD (Usually WAR or DRG)
- BRD
- PLD
I don’t see this a lot on this server but this is a very strong comp that can clear very quickly. If all players are well geared then try this out. Chaos/Sam, Miser/Fighter, and the BRD SVCC at the start gets double Cutting Cards. Can also substitute the SCH for a RDM and expect to use Panacea/Remedy if needed.
Best Setup
- The group you can put together
Really! Don’t have a tank but want to just BLM Manawall tank instead? Sure why not. Only have GEO? Cart that bubble around gurl, and use bubbles that buff instead of debuff (Geomancy on mobs is greatly nerfed). BLU Cruel Joke is also great when you can’t get a full crew. I’ve done 3-man setups with BLU+COR+PLD where the PLD just mass pulls all the Joke-able mobs on the floor and the BLU goes to town with COR for JA resets. Have fun even if it’s not the optimal setup.
Any segments is better than no segments and when you’re starting out it can be daunting to join a shout. Grab some friends and just feel it out. See what works and what doesn’t, be sure to touch the end goal, and have fun. Your friends you make when learning this content will end up being your friends for your odyssey climb if you stick with it. Chances are there are others that are just like you and want to start doing the content and are just missing someone to bring them together.
Remember you only need 9k segments to do a full round of Sheol Gaol - if that comes in 1 run or 10 runs, then as long as those runs are actually occuring you’re making progress towards your goal. If Sheol C is too tough for now you can always do Sheol A/B (which I do see shouts for occasionally) and snag some sweet lustreless scales/hides too. This guide goes over the “meta” setup but don’t let that keep you from just going out and doing the content.
Full clear (Sheol C): 14000+ Segments, 1540000 gil
A full clear can be achieved by 5-6 extremely well geared members and can be considered a long term target but is not the actual goal of this guide. This guide is intended to give an outline of what a complete run looks like so you can build up to it. Notes will be provided for things to drop/avoid if a full run is not being attempted or Fun™ has occurred and you need to reevaluate the rest of the run.
Pre Buffs
Meet at the nomad moogles by the oasis and prebuff your party here. This saves stratagems and can even give your group better buffs than what you’ll normally have access to in the run itself.
Let the SCH/WHM handle the prebuffing - what they have access to will determine how far you can go here.
Naturalist’s roll - COR should roll a nice one to make all of this last long enough to be worth it. Start with this before proceeding to the other buffs.
ProtectV - if you have a RUN, they will want to embolden this and if you have PLD Majesty+ProtectV access you can switch to PLD and give them a nice juicy one here.
ShellV - yea cool get it on there.
Haste II - if you have access to RDM and you don’t have a RDM coming with you on the run, you can switch and haste II everyone. This will cap everyone’s haste with just honor march for the first part of the run.
Haste - if you don’t have RDM you can go ham on perpetuance haste if you’re SCH otherwise storebought is fine.
RegenV - a naturalist+perpetuance regenV here with duration will make your life a lot easier. If you’re WHM for the actual run this will last until the later floors.
You can keep going with your regular buffs while the queue pops but don’t spend too long on it as you want your run to have the good stuff as long as possible.
Role Notes
DD
Expect the DD to each do about 33% of the damage.
WAR DRG SAM RDM tend to have the best available slashing/piercing/blunt/hybrid ws, so they have a good answer for each mob family.
Other DD can work, but some packs may be more annoying based on the DD you have available ex. if you have two DNC, about 1/3 of the mobs are going to take 1/2 piercing damage and DNC don’t have the best slashing/blunt options available to them.
If you have a DD that doesn’t have a good weapon for a pack, be sure to split up the mobs amongst the DDs to cover up any weaknesses. Ex. You have a DRG and a DRK and you pull lamia and sheep - let the DRG handle the lamia (slashing resistant), let the DRK handle the sheep (piercing resistant).
I like to have at least one WAR for Warcry. If you’re having trouble with time, having a BLU cruel joke 1-2 groups at a time while everyone else fights the next group can also be an option.
Know your enemy (use sheolhelper) resistances, switch weapons accordingly. Make sure you’re DPSing in a DT set. Try to pick a different mob than other people. I try to face my guy towards different mobs than others so auto-target doesn’t grab the same stuff and I can just go to town. Don’t forget to use your Arcane Circle / Ancient Circle / Warding Circle for appropriate mobs.
Accuracy requirement around 1300-1400 for later floors.
Healer
Both WHM or SCH work fine as healer. be sure to open chests along the way. Don’t forget to keep up hastes (unless you have a RDM handling it) and barspells. I usually start with barparalyze/barthunder and adjust along the run as needed. pro/shell/rr/auspice/aquaveil/regen/boost-str/phalanx. Keep people up and erased and happy np. This won’t be stressful unless your party members are glass cannons.
COR
Should be doing ~16% of the damage.
Chaos/sam rolls. Your random deal / wild card / Cutting Cards belongs to the BRD. Be sure to have weapon sets available for savage blade, leaden salute, hot shot or wildfire or last stand. You will mostly be savage blade-ing. Try not to pick the same targets as others.
BRD
Should be doing ~16% of the damage.
Honor march / minuetV/IV/III / aria . have weapon sets available for slashing (savage blade) / piercing (rudra’s storm). Try not to pick the same targets as others. Horde lullaby when the tank gathers the mobs so they can run off and go pull more - can’t sleep rams, qutrubs, agon mobs.
Use Clarion Call at the beginning and have the COR Cutting Cards you. Unless there are two COR, save Soul Voice for later in the when it would last the rest of the run (ask COR for RD/WC to get your nitro back). Ballad/Minne for tank/healer if they want it.
Tank
PLD or RUN both work. If you trust your group - RUN will do better. If you don’t - go PLD, you can save the run in times of need and you can sustain yourself forever.
You are mostly pulling groups of mobs for the brd to sleep, then you move on and start gathering the next group. If you’re PLD be sure to use fealty for annoying groups that have casters who can bind/sleep/paralyze/etc. and mess up your cadence. Don’t tag groups unless you’re staying to fight them or it’s an agon group. Your aoe will hit the invisible agon mobs as long as you “anchor” the aoe on a targetable mob, so your bard can safely sleep the non-agon mobs without dying horribly.
Try to land frightful roar on the groups you can stay and play with. Agon mobs will link but normal mob groups will not so you need to make sure you grab all of them, including annoying ones like birds who only aggro sight.
Floor checkpoints
Not a hard and fast rule but if you’re full clearing these are the clear times for each floor you want to shoot for.
Floor 1: 8 min (22 min left at port)
Floor 2: 4 min (18 min left at port)
Floor 3: 9 min (9 min left at port)
Floor 4: 8 min (1-2 min left at port)
Mob notes
Mob groups
Some mob groups are not worth doing if not attempting a full clear - listed here to know what to skip to save time or agony.
Puks, Dahaks, Ameretats - These have dispels. Less geared DDs should avoid fighting these as not oneshotting them will ruin your day if they get a dispel off. Dahaks are fine if you get an enwater (note DRKs pls take off your endark so that you can get enwater) since that will drain their TP, or WHM can pop Asylum.
Apkallu, Korrigan - These are bitey especially on later floors.
Clots, Wamouracampa, Pudding, Ghosts,Gghouls (with scythes) - These guys can really slow a run down with ice spikes and sleeps and general chonkyness.
Agon groups - Trolls can be dangerous because of the aoe severe defense down, which is why it is important the BRD sleeps the additional mobs after the tank has a hold on things. Healer/Tanks keep an eye out for Enervation! Skip them if you’re not confident, and skip the last floor Agon if not confident.
NMs
You can pop 1 NM each floor from the open ethereal junction. These are good to pop as they don’t have slashing resistance and don’t have time waster 2hrs:
Lotanu (Wyrm) - Hidhaegg’s Scale
Asena (Cerby) - Sarama’s Hide
Chaos Steward (PW) - Tumult’s Blood
Dabbat al-Ard (Behemoth) - Sovereigns Hide
The higher the floor, the more pop items you need, up to 10 on floor 4 if popping for the first time.
There is also an ethereal junction that appears after defeating the halo but that is a random NM so it can be one of the PD/Invincible 2hr ones (wastes time). Don’t bother until you have these runs down with plenty of time left over.
Floor 1
8 min (22 min left at port)
Go straight and down the stairs to buff. WHM/SCH - rr/buff. The PLD can pull while buffs are going out.
BRD - nitro/marcato(honor march)/clarion call.
COR - crooked chaos/sam roll. CC the BRD when they 1hr.
PLD/RUN - can stay and fight the first two packs since the trip up each stairs takes a while.
Floor 1 should take about 8-9 min if trying for a full clear. Don’t forget to pop the NM.
Floor 2
4 min (18 min left at port)
PLD/RUN can gently pull each group. Make sure if songs/rolls are redone the tank is getting them too.
Can go ham and pull everything to the corner by the teleport up and lag everyone out (BRD doesn’t sleep the mobs and you just spam savage with all the tp you get from shield blocks) which is fun but not really advised.
Be very cognizant of mobs that aggro JA/Magic here and pull them before someone accidently makes a bunch of friends.
Floor 3
9 min (9 min left at port)
Make sure PLD/RUN has buffs! Main crew will kill the first two packs while the PLD/RUN runs downstairs (group 3) and grabs the mobs down there.
If the Agon is in the first two packs - PLD/RUN stays and grabs it before running downstairs.
If the Agon is downstairs - PLD/RUN will kill the Agon alone and then bring everything upstairs. If the NM is down there, pop it and bring it with. This will take you forever if you don’t have songs hence making sure you’re buffed. Use a DD set that will allow you to self-SC but also not die. It takes me two Atonement->Savage Blades to kill it. If you are not comfortable, feel free to ask the COR to come down and help you. If there are spellcasters here they will lose aggro if you get too far from them, just pull best you can and re-round them up if necessary. Call a DD down if there are worms to clear it quickly.
The main crew will keep gently pulling mobs while you’re gallivanting around floor 3. Once you pull the downstairs, you can pull the ones near the fountain and BRD can sleep them while PLD/RUN then does the same to grab the upstairs mobs (group 6). Basically you want the tank around for the Agon wherever it is but they are working on pulling the out of the way groups while everyone else works on the regular packs. Soul voice should go out on this floor (don’t have to wait for the tank for their songs, who is running around like a lunatic), BRD if you don’t have your JAs up make sure you ask the COR to reset you.
If not going for a full clear, skip groups marked 3/6.
Floor 4
8 min (1-2 min left at port)
This floor goes fast (6 packs + NM + Agon) just be mindful of time in case you can’t do the full clear and need to just get to the end for your gil.
For the Agon: make sure you OFA/Rampart when the Marquis is started (although with modern gear Mijin isn’t a threat anymore), make sure you flash the monarch who will be out of range shooting at you, and either pop Praetor’s Invincible early, set up a skillchain to one shot like Fudo->Leaden, or save it for last so you can shield bash / flat blade before he invincibles and everyone can just instagib him.
