Low Man Limbus

[Lavi]

I am sure most groups are entirely aware that limbus is generally easy and can be done with small groups which is why if you know this, don't bother reading. However, in my time doing limbus and waiting on other groups to exit certain zones, it seems not every does and I'm not sure why, after all, it clearly states on wiki that zones be done with small groups and even what those small groups consisted of. Anyways, these are the strategies I've been using for over 2 years of running some given to me and some I've improved upon to make easier.

Northwest Apollyon:

Spoiler:

In my preference, the best setup is a manaburn. While it can be done with a melee setup, Kaizer Behemoth makes this a difficult choice. 3 BLM and 1 RDM guarantee win although it can be done with less.

Floor 1:
Kill ghosts until vortex opens. Use gravity and bind frequently as well as sleep(they do sleep) if necessary. Once the vortex opens, find and kill the boss, Pluto (doomed) to get the items chest. After boss is dead, get all remaining time chests and gather for HP/MP before going up. Use 2hr freely.

Floor 2:
Same thing, kill buffalo until vortex opens and kill boss (ram) for items chest. Use 2hr freely. Get HP/MP and time before moving up.

Floor 3:
Kill bugards until vortex opens, skip boss (Aspid) as he does draw-in and cannot be slept like other mobs so impossible to manaburn. 2hr freely and get HP/MP chest and times before moving up.

Floor 4:
Kill all wyverns on this floor, each has a guaranteed 2 coins and there are 5 in total. Once all are dead, the option to go up is there; however, boss can be killed as well, but it's not necessary. Nidhogg can be manaburned either by sleeping>nuking(need ES) or gravity kite. Open HP/MP chest if necessary during fight to reset timers and for full MP.

Floor 5:
Kill the 3 Behemoths, have RDM pull with gravity and Bind when near camp. I suggest using AM2 to kill them quickly because if both gravity and bind go, it'll kill a BLM quickly even with SS+blink and they're immune to stun. Full rest between behemoths. Once all three are dead, full rest and go for Kaizer Behemoth to win the zone. Now, there is a nice spot to nuke from which will allow your group to do this extremely easily. The map is a big doughnut and on the SW corner of the center, there is a notch. Have someone pull KB, kite around the map and everyone else stand on the opposite side of the notch so they can nuke as soon as KB comes in range. Nuke should land especially with /RDM before it has enough time to get to you. Kiter should not stop for any reason because if they do, it'll use meteor. Call out Meteor and run regardless of who has hate, KB can switch targets. Once dead, open chest to win and get a Magenta chip.

Southwest Apollyon:

Spoiler:

The crappiest of the four Apollyon zones. It's the quickest zone, but it has literally no potential for coins, expect 10-15 coins max. A small mixed group of 4 players can clear this zone in roughly 30-40 mins with no trouble. I prefer, BRD NIN BLM and RDM, but it can also be done with a NIN RDM and BLU.

Floor 1:
Upon entering, the zone is filled with fomor. To open vortex, kill 1 fomor of the race of the person who entered first and to get chests kill the 2nd. To make things easier, Galka=PLD, Elvaan=THF, Hume=SAM, Taru=BLM and Mithra=RDM, but to be honest, it doesn't matter a ton which you chose. Can only open one chest on this floor, get time chest.

Floor 2:
This is hardest floor, the trees just suck. Find the tree that is leafless, it's the boss of the floor and opens vortex to move up. Be careful, it has all the moves of a normal treant including a hate reset move, a heavy poison effect and pinecomb bomb (heavy ranged AoE). It's also pretty evasive and lots of HP. Make sure gravity is on for when hate resets and if BLM takes hate, kite around a large stone. Go up to next floor once dead.

Floor 3:
Open any chest on this floor, there are 3 random real chests and 8 mimics. Kill a single mimic to open vortex, not that hard to kill really. Depending on time, chose to find time and/or HP/MP chest then move up.

Floor 4:
This floor is filled with elementals, 3 of each type. Have someone pull one elemental of the corresponding day in which you entered that floor and pull to camp (NE behind portal has lots of free room). All three of that elemental will agro and follow the puller. At this point, sleep 2 and kill 1 at a time or if they're dark eles, have someone kite 2. Open item chest on portal to get Charcoal Chip.

Northeast Apollyon:

Spoiler:

Probably one of the harder zones, mostly because Rocs are pretty annoying for small groups. I suggest BRD, 2 melee, RDM and BLM minimum although BLU is pretty nice to replace a melee (constant stuns are great).

Floor 1:
There are 2 larger mandies (1 Black and 1 White) and a Goobue. One randomly drops items, 1 opens vortex and the last does nothing. Try to safely pull the large mandies without linking and kill Goobue if necessary. Avoid links as best as possible. Once vortex and items chest is opened, sleepga mobs surround HP/MP and time chests, then open and go up to next floor.

Floor 2:
There are 4 chest, each with 2 birds and 1 roc on top of them. Pulling a bird links the second bird, but not the roc. I prefer to have the BLM or RDM Sleep 2 (NOT sleepga...) one bird and have melees get 2nd as it follows. After they die, get Roc. Melee should stand on opposite sides so as to avoid AoE range of Lullaby. Keep gravity on and use stun/flash often. Be careful, Rocs double attack frequently and have lots of AoE that strip all shadows and if a tank should die, kite and manaburn the rest. One roc randomly opens vortex and one drops items. I usually skip items and just go for vortex. Once vortex opens, if there are any time chests unopened, have BLM sleepga birds and RDM gravity/bind the roc so you can safely open time chest. Zone up before gravity wears off.

Floor 3:
This floor is easy. There is 1 Doll per party in alliance so if you go with 6 or less, there is only one doll to kill and open vortex. Kill doll and afterwords, find the pots which are larger than the others. Use a ranged attack to pull and avoid links. One large pot should drop items chest. Use 2 hr freely and go up once all chests are opened.

Floor 4:
There are 3 Gigas bosses on this floor Hyperion, Okeanos and Cronos which are immune to magic, ranged and melee respectively. One gigas opens vortex so kill 1 at a time until vortex opens, leave Cronos for last if possible and manaburn it in an open area. Once vortex is open, kill the larger Opo-Opo, one drops items chest. If desired, kill remaining opo-opo, each drops 1 guaranteed coin. Get HP/MP chest before going up.

Floor 5:
Kill all 8 Dhalmel to win the zone. Each also drops 2 guaranteed coins so lots of coins to be had. There are 2 Manticore at the end, but are not required to win although they do drop 2 coins. Up to group to chose. If you kill, pull the left Manticore first since it has a blind spot on the left and will not link with the right. If you decide to exit, use the blind spot on the left to avoid agro. Final chest drops Smoky chip.

Southeast Apollyon:

Spoiler:

This is the final zone which is melee heavy. I prefer to do this zone when we do NW so that mage only players take that zone while melee only take this zone. I balanced group of weapon types is semi-required because each is floor has some immunity. I usually take BRD, RDM, MNK, THF or DRG, NIN and BLM which will cover each weapon type easily.

Floor 1:
8 slimes, all immune to blunt. If the MNK has vampiric claws, great, but not necessary. Kill all slimes, use 2 hour freely and kill boss. Nothing really special here.

Floor 2:
8 crabs, immune to slashing which means most everything. Daggers, polearms and blunt weapons still do damage. Have NIN bring daggers. Now, the boss on this floor is a manta which is never easy. It has a high counter rate and uses Hundred Fists so once you see animation run. Keep gravity on and either kite or manaburn remaing HP. However, a good thief will use Accomplice, Perfect dodge and still be able to melee. Once dead, open all chests and go up.

Floor 3:
8 Skeletons, immune to piercing. Have THF or DRG bring blunt or slashing weapons. This floor has one catch, skeles do link which can cause problems. I prefer to have the RDM or sometimes the BLM pull with Silence so they do not stop to cast and subsequently link with other mobs. Dispel at camp, all skeles have ice spikes up. Boss is a Corse mob which can charm. Be careful to sleepga charmed players immediately. Once dead, open all chests and go up.

Floor 4:
8 weapons, immune to magic damage. Each weapon drops a guaranteed 2 coins. Kill and move onto boss. Once all weapons are dead, boss is no longer immune to magic damage so nuke here as well. Open chest to win and get Smalt Chip.

Again, this isn't anything revolutionary or even perfect for everyone, but I just see quite a few groups entering with anywhere between 12-18 players and they could easily be farming 2-3 zones. Instead of doing Omega every 5th run, you can do it every 2nd or 3rd run. Also on a side note: This is why apollyon zones have become so crowded... and the same thing can be applied to Temenos zones as well; however, the tier 1 zones are time consuming so larger group cuts that down and tier 2 are a little difficult so the groups can be small, but not as small.

Edit: Forgot some information. When entering apollyon, make sure alliance is broken before chosing zone otherwise everyone in alliance is locked into chosing that zone until group finishes. Also, because of the crappy drop rate on coins in SW Apollyon, I usually split coins between the two zones we did that day so everyone gets a decent haul. Lastly, be careful of who lots; a player in SW can still lot chips in NE, etc. This is important if one person is getting chips from multiple zones, but do not form alliances while there is a treasure pool, everything will be lost. Either form before opening chests or disband and have other group invite chip holder.

 

[Bladewind]

Also on a side note: This is why apollyon zones have become so crowded... and the same thing can be applied to Temenos zones as well; however, the tier 1 zones are time consuming so larger group cuts that down and tier 2 are a little difficult so the groups can be small, but not as small.

Telling more people how to split into smaller groups is really going to help with the overcrowding! <_<

I do agree though, it's wasted effort to send more than 6-8 people into any Limbus zone, Apollyon or Temenos.

 

[Lavi]

Telling more people how to split into smaller groups is really going to help with the overcrowding! <_<

I do agree though, it's wasted effort to send more than 6-8 people into any Limbus zone, Apollyon or Temenos.

I've been doing Limbus at 9-9:30 EST Wednesday nights for 2.5 years or longer. All of a sudden, there are now a half dozen groups at that time which has significantly undermined the group's ability to farm. However, the shell is about to break so for me, it's not a problem and also the reason I am posting it now rather than 2.5 years ago.

 

[Rappa]

The fact that limbus (and dynamis for that matter) are still not instanced after years is just insulting to the FFXI userbase. My shell has had to wait over an hour to enter zones many times because 2-3 people are dicking around in them trying to get some ABCs to sell for a small profit. Considering they dropped the prices of both and thus drove up the demand of players to do both, you would think they would've realized that maybe it would be helpful if more than one group could be in each zone...

 

[Tim Wakefield]

The fact that limbus (and dynamis for that matter) are still not instanced after years is just insulting to the FFXI userbase.

Words cannot describe how much I agree with this statement.

 

[evanos]

Back when I was still playing my girlfriend Weiing and I did NW path with 2 (RDM and NIN). The key to our method was to not hang around much on the earlier floors, which involves a little luck.

Here was our setup, can be altered quite a bit depending on how you want to do it. I'm pretty sure that you could pop SCH in the place of the RDM also for this setup.

NIN/DNC (me) - I went /DNC mainly for the remedy aspect on the buffalos and to get rid of paralyze/silence from the wyverns, but I saw another post of someone who did this and went NIN/WAR and I think that would be more helpful on the boss.

RDM/NIN - I'm sure you could do this with a couple of other subjobs, we just did this to make Kaiser Behemoth easier, as that will be about 75% of your time in the zone. I can't recall what meds she brought, probably very few though. Just the usual echo drops, etc. etc.


Ok, our basic strategy was every floor we would go in I would start fighting mobs solo to try and open the portal while Weiing would run and get all of the chests. If we got lucky and hit the portal on the first mob I'd just run and meet Weiing at the floor up and she'd sleep mobs on the way. If she got the chests before I found the porter up then she'd help me kill mobs lightly nuking/enfeebling/curing. Since you don't have to kill the 3 kings mobs in this zone it makes going up pretty easy.

The most difficult part was the top floor. We would clear out the koppernitz behemoths one by one, taking maybe 10~15 minutes, and then for the boss she would just kite/DOT/nuke when possible and I would try (with little success) to get hate from her with animated flourish while running around smacking the behemoth and doing very minute damage.

I'm sure we could have improved our strat a few ways, but it worked for us. The most obvious way that I can think that would make the run go smoother would be to have the NIN go /WAR and buy remedies, but I was way too cheap for that.


Also, we did this with a BLM friend that came along once and it made it extremely easy. We got up and killed the boss with plenty of time to spare. The BLM basically helped me kill the mobs on the way up and then helped kill the Kaiser at the top.



Its been quite awhile since I've done this (at least 9 months) so some details may be missing, but if you have any questions I'm sure if you ask about certain details it will make me remember more about the run.

 

[Shirai]

The above is indeed a very solid duo strategy for that zone.

Although they don't do too much a little improvement would be using the elemental wheel yourself as ninja on KB.
It does however require you to carry a lot of extra gear (a ninja mage kit) if you want to have decent results.
And of course the tools.

However I can agree with above posters too that even though low manning with the right strategy is very doable it usually takes up the full time you get inside a Limbus zone keeping out any groups that are waiting if you happen to go during hours where a lot of shells do Limbus.
Often enough we have been forced to pick another zone because the zone we needed to do had another shell waiting while 3 people were in that zone happily taking their sweet time.
Which is extremely annoying to say the least.

I'm pretty much of the same opinion that SE needs to instance (at least) Limbus, it's not 2~3 years ago where only a hand full of people per linkshell had Sea access.
Limbus crowding is becoming a serious problem.

 

[Lavi]

There are a lot of ways to minimize the number required to a bare minimum especially in apollyon where time extensions are plentiful and more often than not, getting time does not negate opening another chest. I imagine most can be done by as little as 3 players very successfully; however, you do run into the problems of then needing to split into 3-4 groups for a full LS and with things being as crowded as they are, not often possible. Also, any mistake with so few players can cost you the entire run.

NW: Can be done by a single BLM, but I've done with 2 BLM and 1 RDM although I am certain I could have won with 1 RDM and 1 BLM or 2 BLMs just as easily.

SW: 3 is the lowest I have gone, I just don't feel safe with going for less with that dumb treant, but I bet it can be done with 2.

NE: I bet this can be done with less and could quite easily be manaburnable if not for the Gigas that is immune to magic. In that case though, it's a 33% chance for failure or just get a RDM/NIN to tank. Maybe 1 BLM and 1 RDM?

SE: I've heard of this zone being done with 3: 1 NIN, 1 THF or NIN and 1 RDM (or was it BRD?).

 

[Gohaan]

I want limbus access ><

 

[Nicholette]

A duo in NW is consistent win with 2 blm/rdm doing the following.
Floor 1
BLM A 2 hrs nukes down the first ghost and BLM B helps, Should kill it w/o rest. If vortex pops hit times and 2hr chest then go up, If not pull second ghost, BLM B 2hrs and BLM A nukes MP pool out. If vortex time and up if not both rest and kill the third. I havent had it take more than 3 ghosts, I suppose it's possible that it could.

Floor 2- Use the same strat and kill that was used with ghosts to kill on floor 1, hit times + 2hr and go up.

Floor 3- same 2hr pattern strat as 2 previous floor. This floor is incredibly easy and a blm can kill a bugard with just 2 hr worth of use. so Time chest 2 hr chest then up.

Floor 4- same 2hr pattern. I usually kill all 5 wyverns but if I had some kills on the early floors that took till the third kill I might skip one or two. Time + 2hr then up

Floor 5- Kill mini's 2 hr these, 2hrs are useless on a boss that runs out of range, Kill the big one, you know what to do here. Also hopefully one of the blm's has over 291 dark magic skill for 8hp/tic bio. Every little bit helps.

The mentality used here is what you do when you try to solo it, I have managed to solo all the way up, kill all the little Behemoths and start the big guy, I however dont think it is possible for me, a hume, to do it solo. I could be wrong and a blm with additional gear and my race plus full mp merits and int merits might make the grade.

Edit: Also to add about limbus crowding. Doing a 2 person run on off peak times and having your shell leader there to catch the chip is a possible way to deal with overcrowding.