How Long Is Too Long?

[Banhammer]

A twist in the recently added Zeni Notorious Monster system has provoked large amounts of comment in the FFXI community. As reported on Pet Food Alpha, the Pandemonium Warden, the final boss of the Zeni NM system, can apparently take over eighteen hours to fight:

Ever since the introduction of the ZNM system in the last update, players have been spending their time going up the ZNM tiers in order to gain access to one of the most difficult enemies in Final Fantasy XI: Pandemonium Warden. But we have only heard of a few accounts of the fight which talk about PW changing into different forms along with the Pandemonium Lamps.

The LS “Beyond the Limitation” on Seraph has given Pandemonium Warden a great attempt and even after EIGHTEEN hours, was unable to defeat this monster.

This begs the question “How Long is Too Long?”

Has Square-Enix created an boss that's simply too hard for the playerbase to defeat, or is there some key to the encounter that we're missing? We at Stratics want to hear your opinion!

Personally, after reading up on the encounter (haven't gotten quite that far myself), I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be a way to skip PW forms -- possibly involving the titles obtained by defeating earlier enemies in the sequence. This may have been tried already, I'm not sure, but I'd be shocked if the fight was intended to take that long.

 

[Trish]

I haven't done anything with zmns yet, and though several of those pieces I'd like to have, I doubt I'll do any til I finish some other stuff I have already made goals for. But my opinion is, like AV, there is a trick that no one has discovered yet. I can't imagine SQUARE would put a disclaimer about not forgetting real life, then turn around and create an 18 hour fight.

 

[Mooge]

Wow. There has got to be an easier way lol.

 

[Onewing]

If SE did make a battle that was intended to take this long, they would probably allow sufficient break times. Say you beat form 1, then your entire LS receives some item to certify you to take on the next form 24 hours later. And so on and so forth.

At least, that's how I'd handle it.

 

[tanls]

I'm sure that after more ppl do this fight, different strategies will pop out. Right now, as ppl try to feel out what the mob can do and what kind of job combos are best, I'm sure the fight will become easier. I know just from some of the fights I've done, the mobs usually get easier as more experience is gained fighting them. Of course, there's always that chance that something will go wrong with any fight. I'd be more interested in hearing how long it takes to take the NM down in a couple more weeks/months after more ppl have fought him. My LS has a couple groups doing ZNMs so I might a a chance to see this guy in person.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

I was just curious, has there been some sort of update on the ZNM? I took a break after that one came out. Seems to me though, Absolute Virtue was a very long fight as well. Additionally, not beatable at that.

Any updates or threads/pictures would be appreciated.

 

[Trish]

AV was nerfed so it was beatable. I've never done it, but I know friends who have and it's now a 30-or-so minute fight. AV will despawn after two hours, straight up, so the fight will never be more than two hours long.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

AV was nerfed so it was beatable. I've never done it, but I know friends who have and it's now a 30-or-so minute fight. AV will despawn after two hours, straight up, so the fight will never be more than two hours long.

Hey thanks for the reply. lol, wow! What a joke then. I think so anyways. Have you done the ZNM fight that was in question? My linkshell was that far along when I took a break.

 

[Trish]

I still haven't done a thing with Zeni. I've been slowly gaining zeni points for when the day comes, but that's it

 

[Diomedes Artega]

I still haven't done a thing with Zeni. I've been slowly gaining zeni points for when the day comes, but that's it

Oh okay, well fair enough then. If you play bard as well...there is some nice equipment for that job that comes from the ZNM mobs.

 

[Trish]

Yeah there's a neck piece (I think?) that makes Garuda free. I want THAT for sure. Beyond that I haven't even looked at the stuff I could get. But I want next to nothing in sea and I'm racking up the points in my endgame shell so anything i want should be mine.. lol

I haven't worked BRD yet, to speak of. I wanna, but I'm tryin to work RDM to 75. And that's difficult cuz I REALLY hate partying..

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Yeah there's a neck piece (I think?) that makes Garuda free. I want THAT for sure. Beyond that I haven't even looked at the stuff I could get. But I want next to nothing in sea and I'm racking up the points in my endgame shell so anything i want should be mine.. lol

I haven't worked BRD yet, to speak of. I wanna, but I'm tryin to work RDM to 75. And that's difficult cuz I REALLY hate partying..

Interesting. Well very good then.

In terms of what you had to say, I was a career redmage when I played. I loved mainhealing and did it as a whitemage as well. My thoughts are if you know a good whitemage, just have them be main healer and you can be the "refresh queen" and just spot heal as necessary.

If they aren't a good healer well...lol, getting hit by an imp several times should solve the problem.

 

[Trish]

LOL, indeed it will.

I don't mind RDM in general. I like it better when I'm enfeebling/refreshing/dispelling than main healing, and I like it even more when I can whip out my sword and fight while doing it. I get frustrated while trying to heal on another job because I KNOW how much better a WHM could do it. And knowing that it's frustrating when I see people refusing WHMs for RDMs.


And back on topic (lol), looks like Pandemonium Warden was finally beat by a shell on the Remora server. Unfortunately they had to glitch (for lack of a better word) to do it. http://www.shardofapathy.com/forums/#redirect

 

[Diomedes Artega]

LOL, indeed it will.

I don't mind RDM in general. I like it better when I'm enfeebling/refreshing/dispelling than main healing, and I like it even more when I can whip out my sword and fight while doing it. I get frustrated while trying to heal on another job because I KNOW how much better a WHM could do it. And knowing that it's frustrating when I see people refusing WHMs for RDMs.


And back on topic (lol), looks like Pandemonium Warden was finally beat by a shell on the Remora server. Unfortunately they had to glitch (for lack of a better word) to do it. http://www.shardofapathy.com/forums/#redirect

Nice link you provided. Thanks for the information. I had not seen that in my findings.