Soulflayers

[Not Kuno]

Does anyone use these? Are they any good? Their low (65) FP amount is kind of shitty but in theory they shouldn't be sleep or dispellable. They're also strong casters with pretty good wses (if you figure out how to trigger them). I want an elemental killer but something that isn't reused to hell. Seeing dark elementals just change places in Diabolo is pretty boring.

[Not Kuno]

I never messed around with spell casters and I'm having a bit of trouble. Basically, what type of temperment is needed to get it to spam offensive magic and do offensive wses as well? Do they not cast if they are wild or aggressive?

[Mansin]

My Dark Elemental

Guard block parry hold: aspir/drain
Back off a bit: sleep nuke

I haven't really used any other commands than those two, so with caster types i'd like to hear what you can do with other commands. I hate having him cast aspir

[Not Kuno]

Dark Engel, the Baha Dark Elemental whore is Very Tame and Very Agressive. It just spams ga nukes and doesn't bother with sleeps/drains etc. I will try to set up my Soulflayer that way and I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

[nivlakian]

The caster types that I've seen that lean toward using offensive spells often tend to be referred to by the announcer as some form of "tame" + "aggressive". I'm not sure how the variations of degrees of tame and aggressive affect their spell choice / cast rate though.

[Not Kuno]

Ah, gotcha. Gonna need to wait a while for more Soulflayer info cause I started a new one. We were doing Ein and we got the Bhalran chamber, so I asked everyone with a camera to take pics and I managed to get another MAB+15% innate except now with a really cool design. So fucking awesome.

[Graiza]

I've seen a few flayers in Pankration, and fought one with my drak elemental, they're kind of a joke unless you get the perfect temperment. My elemental just stunned this dude every time it tried to cast, and ignored it when it casted sleep and drain (its a drak elemental, so yea it doesnt seem to care). The fight was always a draw with the elemental at 100% and the fayer around 50%, seemed fairly resistant to drain which was about the only special thing i saw in the fight.

I'm gonna make a post in the magic pets and temperments and how the perform in the magic user thread. I'll edit and link when i dig it up.

[Edit] Heres the link I said i'd put in here, didnt put it where I had originally intended lol

[Not Kuno]

I don't see elementals on Bahamut stun. They all just spam -ga or sleep/nuke.

[Graiza]

Originally Posted by Not Kuno

I don't see elementals on Bahamut stun. They all just spam -ga or sleep/nuke.

My elemental doesnt have Black Magic Scrolls, so it has a limited supply of nukes, it stuns everything and drains in the off time, and most the time it can go 3minutes with an undead. Its a Draw pet really (east bunnies for breakfast ). Theres a Ram that keeps kicking my ass and i'm not sure how yet, never seen it beat me lol always afk when it happens.

[Suiram]

My dark elemental set on tame and extremely defensive with no black magic scrolls casts drain every 10 seconds or so, mixing in aspir if the mob has MP (which is annoying, especially if the mob doesn't even cast but just happens to have MP, but I don't think I can change that). It stuns TP moves and spells with stun or sleep, but it doesn't seem to realize that sleep won't stop a TP move from a Corse. Also, if it stuns a WS or spell with sleep, it immediately defaults to casting drain regardless of the internal timer for the spell, which is funny on Niv's ghost because he just spams it nonstop 2-4 times until he sneaks in a melee hit to wake it up since the drains have no effect and it stays asleep. Of the common champs in Diablo, I can dethrone the sneak-attack Whirl Claws Ule rabbit and the superdef mimic, I can play the sleep-nuking Corse to a draw consistently, but I lose to VZX's enlight chigoe.

[Leonstrife]

My soulflayer Seems decent. It responds to "Give it a little more bite" with it's blind+Bio move, and it's self buff MAB/MDB WS to defensive commands. Soulflayer are highly resistant to water DMG naturally. As I recall at lv20 or so a lv50 Dark Ele cast Waterga 2 for 15DMG with no form of buff on my Soulflayer. Sadly no Mind Blast from what I see.

I would think it would be very nice if it could get innate Auto Ice Spikes. Can Auto Spikes be gotten? Mine had no Innate.

[Drex]

I fought a flayer today that nearly one-shotted my dark-ele with an aga2 lol, so they can be pretty powerful. I would guess you'd need black mage traits and/or some MAB to make it happen.

If you're just lookin for a ele killer, anything that side-attacks and has levelable en-light can go to town on them. Bonus points if they use the spell stun or a stun tp move to interrupt those nukes too.

[Not Kuno]

My flayer can beat a dark ele.. sometimes. Other times it decides to cast dot and drain/sleeps. What the fuck. Can someone tell me what temeperment works? Even when I tell it to show no mercy it'll cast gay dots when I know it has MP.

[Kellen]

With all this Soulflayer talk, I decided to start up a new one. After about an hour of Repose spamming, I got a pretty good plate for my flayer.

Currently it has this:
BLM/
Darkness Resistance Bonus (Innate)
Magic Attack +15% (Innate)
Magic Attack Bonus
Black Magic Scrolls

Planning to add BLM traits as soon as I can get the plate. I've been trying to make it Very Tame/Very Aggressive but it keeps acting odd from fight to fight. Sometimes it'll open with a nuke, and other times it wont cast a thing and it'll just melee. I'm assuming its like that because its still a new pet and such, but I'm hoping for better results later on.

Its been ages since I've done Pankration so any advice on how to make a decent nuker type would be appreciated.

[Not Kuno]

Maybe it doesnt cast because it's trying to cast a spell it doesn't have yet. I noticed it started casting AM when I finally moved it from Very Tame/Extremely Tame so.. each level of tame/aggressive seem to make it do completely different stuff.

[Kellen]

That would make sense, its still just lv15 so I'll keep at it and hope for the best.

[Not Kuno]

It might be trying to cast -ga spells or something.

[Leonstrife]

Well my Soulflayer is a Lv50 BLM
BLM Traits
BLM Scrolls
Stoneskin Lv.50
Blink Lv.50

No innate, he was just a sucky ZNM side project but I ended up loving it.

Temperament is Extremely Tame Very Aggressive
Discipline Extremely high.

He does not cast nukes near enough to be effective. Anyone know what command does nukes? x.X He was Extremely aggressive but all that did was make him melee and maybe a Blizzaga1 once a fight. As very aggressive he nukes somewhat more. I have seen Freeze and Blizzaga 2 which do insane DMG considering he has no MAB added besides traits. So if he would nuke reliably he could be very powerful.

The transfer from Very tame to extremely seems to have dropped off his nuke frequency to near nothing and as a BLM he just is not meant to melee so he fricking sucks.

About how many times do you need to use a command to change temperament?

[nivlakian]

Originally Posted by Leonstrife

Temperament is Extremely Tame Very Aggressive
Discipline Extremely high.

He does not cast nukes near enough to be effective. Anyone know what command does nukes? x.X He was Extremely aggressive but all that did was make him melee and maybe a Blizzaga1 once a fight. As very aggressive he nukes somewhat more. I have seen Freeze and Blizzaga 2 which do insane DMG considering he has no MAB added besides traits. So if he would nuke reliably he could be very powerful.

The transfer from Very tame to extremely seems to have dropped off his nuke frequency to near nothing and as a BLM he just is not meant to melee so he fricking sucks.

From my experience, it seems that "extremely" anything (not discipline) should be avoided. Anytime one of my pankration mobs ends up extremely tame and/or aggressive, it does not behave properly in battle at all when left on its own. Try for Very Tame + Very Aggressive or Very Tame + Aggressive and see if your Soul flayer begins acting like you want it.

[Leonstrife]

Thanks! I seemed to see that change also. But how do I make his tame lv lower after it is extremely?

::Edit:: Show No Mercy boosted Aggressiveness back to Extremely

[nivlakian]

Use "Don't think, Kill!" to move away from extremely tame.
"Guard, Block..." to move away from extremely aggressive.

It can take many battles to fix those extreme temperaments. I'd work on tame first, basically using "Don't think, kill!" as the only command in every battle until that is fixed and then do the same process for aggressive (or vice-versa of course).

[Leonstrife]

Thanks I'll try moving hm down lvls of temperament and post my results

[Leonstrife]

I have lowered Both stats to Very instead of extreme and he does much better. I still am not sure what to do to make him cast more but he does usually open with a spell of some kind now. He seems to make a good ele killer and if he can get a good -ga off before he dies, he will beat a chigoe. Downside is the low Max FP means I cant buff his nukes too much. Good DMG nukes with the set he has but leaves much to be desired. I am happy to be able to hold the Diablo cage for a few hours now with him though. lol With a Soulflayer with a good innate (mine has none) I think this could be a very good monster.

Another problem I have noticed is he will sometimes decide to spam DoT spells. In a short fight like this I think that is a waste of time that leaves him open to attack. Stopping that would be good also.

[rath]

Originally Posted by Drex

I fought a flayer today that nearly one-shotted my dark-ele with an aga2 lol, so they can be pretty powerful. I would guess you'd need black mage traits and/or some MAB to make it happen.

If you're just lookin for a ele killer, anything that side-attacks and has levelable en-light can go to town on them. Bonus points if they use the spell stun or a stun tp move to interrupt those nukes too.

I tend to see a soulflayer pop up occasionally, but a wyvern easily kills it if it ever gets the win from champ. It seems kind of like this for our main champs lately.

Dark elemental: (only casts drain on wyverns, nukes on other mobs) kills wyvern and usually stays in until a chigoe kills it.

Chigoe: with enspell kills off mimic, usually loses to wyvern later.

Wyvern: (attacks from side, or goes all out on chigoe) usually kills any mages unless they just spam drain and have a lot of defensive plates).

Ant lion: get random wins, usually lose next fight. Usually brought in by the ghost user to try and kill wyvern.

Soulflayer: Can kill most mobs, but usually loses to wyverns/ghosts/skeletons

Ghosts: kills most mages, dies quickly to wyvern

Mimic: can kill a wyvern or other non-mage if lucky, then only loses to a chigoe usually.

Usually all of these are owned by 3-4 people that change mobs when they encounter the ones that their usual pet cannot kill. I would like to point out that the dark ele only casts drain on wyverns for some reason, never any other spell. Other dark ele do not behave that way, and die to the wyvern we tend to see a lot of like other casters. The wyvern usually wins a lot more when manually controlled, but the rest of these are never controlled.