The Hills Are Alive/Strategies

Strategy: Starting Positions - Everyone stands in the center of the BC, while the tanks kite the Turtle around.

Turtle out of shell- Melee should meditate and build TP as needed but do not hit anymore when at 100+ TP. When MP and TP is ready, set a time for all the BLM to use Blizzard IV, this will almost always make turtle hide in his shell. If he does not hide in just rest for more MP and wait for next timed nuke. You can alternately have your tanks stop kiting, and have the MNK use Chi Blast (Lvl.75 should do anywhere between 750-1k damage per fully boosted blast). One of the BLMs or RDM/BLM should use Elemental Seal and Silence prior to Chi Blast.

Turtle in shell- After the timed Blizzard IV that made the turtle go in, the SAM or /SAM will do a Distortion or Darkness SC that the BLM MB with Blizzaga III or Freeze II. Having /THF for the skillchain can help prevent hate transfer due to high-damage nukes from a BLM. This should pop the turtle out of his shell. If after MB and turtle is still in, BLM must keep using Ice nuke to make him come out at all cost. If any BLM is still casting while it popped out needs to cancel cast immediately, if over damaged he has a chance to go back in shell.

Just repeat these 2 steps and the win should not be difficult. The idea is to get him outside the shell as much as possible so he can't regen and never to have him go in the shell without TP and MP ready.

No random damage- No one is to deal DOT, hit, nuke or anything on the turtle without everyone knowing. If a /SAM needs TP it is best to wait till BLM have MP in case his damage will make the turtle hide in shell prematurely.

PLD - needs to keep hate and try to make the turtle face away from the center right before the timed nuke so when it enters his shell he will not frontal AoE the mages or he will silence the blm.

RDM - needs to silence the turtle right when he enters the shell. If all 3 RDM cast at least 1 will land even without ES it's not hard to land. Casting when he is out of shell is useless as it is dispelled when he enters the shell. And keep gravity on and bind randomly but not on mages.

SC Melee- the starter must make sure when he starts the turtle has entered the shell (it does not always enter shell after the timed nuke, its kinda random; can be fixed by having MNK use Chi Blast) and make sure the mages are not silenced before he uses his TP. They can continue to melee after the MB if it does not come out but must stop once it is out.

BLM - must watch the head to know when to cancel nukes.

• Note- If a change of mode (heavy regen in<->minimal regen out) is triggered while it is casting, the animation of the change (pulling head in<->sticking head out) will not occur until the cast is complete. For instance if it is out of its shell and starts casting Flood, and someone damages it enough for it to go back in, it will begin to regen even though it still looks like it is "out". The opposite is also true, and much more troublesome. If it is in its shell and casting and a SC/MB occurs, it is possible enough damage was done to bring it out safely but the turtle's head will still be inside. With long cast-time spells like Flood, this can result in BLMs thinking its still in its shell and over-nuke to the point where it really does go back in. Primal623 05:54, October 3, 2011 (UTC)

This can now be done with 3 players. You need a BLM with Ice MAB +5 or 6 staff, a healer, and melee with Provoke or possibly PLD to hold hate. Also bring Echo Drops. We used a WHM although I think RDM will be more useful for Refresh 2 and help with nuking. Our melee was MNK/WAR with empyrean level 90, but that's not too important as he only did 15-20 damage in shell. The point is just to hold hate while the BLM rests.

In shell, the regen is crazy, so have the BLM just unleash nukes right away. Blizzard 3-5, Blizzaja, Freeze 2 took it out of shell usually. We had to Aspir a couple times. Keep BLM hasted for recasts. Now you may think this will get the BLM ungodly amount of hate, but keep nuking, don't kite even, as the turtle can't move or draw in. Just Enmity Douse once it's out of shell, or keep curing the BLM until the melee gets hate back (ONLY USE PROVOKE AND TURN, DO NOT MELEE IT AT THIS POINT). Once that happens, rest BLM to full MP and kite or tank with melee. It moves so slow you shouldn't get hit. You want to hold it and let BLM rest when it is out of shell, when it doesn't Regen. If you overnuke or melee and it goes back in shell right away, Convert or Manafont and keep nuking. Allowing it to continue Regen results in time out.

Once BLM has full MP, melee its HP down till it's in shell and repeat. Done correctly, this is won in 15 minutes without 2 hour or meds even. We didn't have any death despite the BLM going all out. The first time we didn't understand when to hold damage until halfway thru the fight, but still won with 5 minutes left. This same setup also won the other KS99s if you're trying to avoid doing it with randoms who will ninja lot, or looking for somewhat of a challenge.

- Update - The mob progressively requires more and more damage to come out of his shell as his HP drops. Was able to get him out with Bliz V and a Blizzaja, next time took two Blizz V, Blizzaja, and Blizzaga III. Third time he regened to full after taking every nuke on the BLM spell list.

MNK/WAR + WHM/RDM + BLM/RDM was able to trio at 99. MNK would save TP for when it entered shell to WS (Ascetic's Fury), WHM kept MNK in full HP and everyone hasted. BLM would rest when it was out of shell, nuke hard when it went into shell. Took more nukes each time and MP became an issue near the end (even after using a Convert). In retrospect, changing the WHM for a RDM or SCH might have worked better for help in nuking. A 2nd BLM would have made this much easier. Took around 20 minutes. --Ctownwoody 16:22, June 13, 2012 (UTC)

SMN Solo

Can easily be soloed by SMN99 with good gear and using Astral Conduit with Heavenly Strike.

Was using Frazil Staff and reforged AF/Emp gear. Heavenly Stike was fully merited.

I was trying BP's every minute with no luck. Mob regen more than kept up. However, mob went down in about a minute once I realized I could make multiple strikes in a row using AC + HS.

Drg Solo = fail, with Ambuscade gear lv 119, max merits and 90 job points. Timed out didn't die just could not kill it fast enough.