The Celestial Nexus V2 D/VD Walkthrough

Sup everybody, been looking around and noticed nobody has posted much on The Celestial Nexus v2, nor do many people have the gear from the BCNM. We do these on D and VD so i figued i'd walk you guys through our setup to help the community out. No point in hording info and being lame over virtual items so hope this helps you guys out.

Our working job combination.
The job setup is flexible but so far the most reliable and easy method i've hosted myself after lots of trial and error are the following jobs and specifications.

NIN/DNC x1 RNG/NIN x2 Aegis PLD/DNC x1 BRD/NIN x1 (pref 3 song for higher tiers) WHM/NIN x1

I won't go into details of gear but i suggest 119 everything for the PLD NIN and RNG's , and pref take 3/4 song bard if you want to do D or VD setting. PLD w/ Aegis is a must for Difficult and Very Difficult, but i have seen PLD w/ beautific tank on Normal >.>

Everyone needs to bring echo drops, poison potions/venom/fruits , shihei, 2 forms of Reraise, and ACC food.
Everyone should turn /autotarget off so as to not hit the Orbitals on accident.
You will need to keep shadows and poison up the entire fight.

Everyone buff outside and BARD will ballad outside before entering.

The Celestial Nexus

Eald'narch has 2 forms, his 1st form he is surrounded by an exoplate(floaty block shields) and 2x Orbitals. NOBODY should touch the Orbitals let alone even target them. 2nd form he drops all defense and goes on the offense with nasty TP moves and AM2 spells.

Once you zone inside everyone should immediately go backwards to the door behind you when you zone inside. Have PLD move forward to engage Eald'narch where he's at leaving the PLD's back to the entrance. Eald will not take dmg until his exoplate is destroyed but keep the PLD attacking him anyways. Once both orbitals have spawned and are actively attacking the PLD everyone else can then move forward taking their positions. Once everyone is in position have BRD prelude your RNG's and then Madrigal + March NIN and PLD, its fine to just buff NIN and let PLD keep ballad. Either way works for 1st form.

The RNG's and NIN won't be able to target the exoplate most likely due to 2 targets stacked on each other, your pld may have to move a few steps back after engaging to make Eald move so his exoplate can be targeted. Once you can target it have NIN take position on the other side of Eald'narch, use Innin the whole fight and start wacking away at the Exoplate. Rng's will begin to decoy off PLD and start attacking the Exoplate as well. To make good time we have 1 RNG 2hr at 75% of the exoplate's HP and the other at 50%. @ 25% have NIN wait for next TP move and redo shadows before popping Mikage and then commence blade: hi spam for some self skillchain darks. Once exoplate is down everyone {full attack} Eald'narch. NIN can land paralyze, slow, and Inhibit TP with relative ease depending on the NIN on both 1st form Eald and 2nd form. Also box step and violent flourish work perfectly. So feel free to lower Def and stun AM2's if your NIN takes hate. After 1st form is dead you're given a CS.
After cutscene you have roughly 10~15 seconds to rebuff and get ready before he starts warping to your party.

At this time have your BARD 2hr for Madrigalx2 Marchx2 first(assuming you have 3 song, if not use 2h for madrigal x2 march x1), so PLD and NIN can tank where you are after cutscene.
His evasion is gonna skyrocket on the 2nd form. Have support jobs get in position nearby. Usually after his TP moves either pld , nin or both will be terror'd and bound, and then Eald will warp to random party members due to hate reset. At that point anyone who has hate should run to the PLD in case he/she is bound. Keeping this up w/ rangers spamming ws's and PLD and NIN double teaming you'll be clear in no time at all.

Fastest clear time on Difficult we have is just over 15 minutes. Hopefully this will help some people out. Will post some screenshots later. If on Bahamut and need help feel free to send /tell. feel free to reply back if you try this strat and found it easier than what you currently use. Again i recommend 119 everything for this fight in terms of Front line jobs just to even land hit.

For those who attempt: Just make sure the ninja(s) is good.

This can also be done with 1 pld, 2 Nin, 1 rng, whm, brd as well. But if you're ninjas suck and don't understand how fast the orbs spawn and aren't quick to react, its an extremely annoying experience.

we let the PLD go engage first with everyone out of sight range at that door so as long as PLD is engaging Eald and rng's are decoying, orbitals will never lose hate on PLD. once orbitals are spawned and attacking PLD will give us the signal in party chat before we move into sight range of the NM.

i might take another NIN tonight and see how we look on time, might be faster idk.

yea i think i like taking 2 rng's 1 nin and pld more, rng's seem to generally survive more and still take home the parse at the end

sometimes just for the lulz, during phase 1 we send the non rng DD to kite the orbs in the back area behind the crystal. It actually works pretty well.

Thank you for sharing.

we lost earlier on Difficult, both rangers got 1 shot by aoe on 1st form for being too close w/ shadows down. made me lol in real life, couldn't get upset at em cause they both didn't know what happened, not our regular rangers we take.

People seem to be fighting other DDs for parse more than mobs and forget the basics.

the best one is after you explain over and over not to hit orbitals...a rng shoots one

Do you guys ever have an issue with targeting the Exoplates?

There are times when cycling with tab/Number key 0, at the beginning all I will get is Elda' or the orbitals for 30-45s before actually getting the Exoplates to come up as a target. It's pretty annoying.


So many times in DM and AA runs someone pulls hate because of this.

The exoplates issues occurred with the old version as well.

*Cough*JishnusRNGs*cough

:D

yes we have the same issue, you've seen it before and just don't remember it yet too, at homepoints or warp points when people stack with each other you can't target 1 sometimes , even when cycling tab. Its the same bug, just make him move a few steps and it comes up.

A bard with a decent lullaby set could sleep them at the start. Aspecially if he's using soul voice.



Pretty sure the exoplates dont have hate and go by Eald emnity. So not sure decoy would help, or do anything really. PLD just flashes the Eald, nin maybe vokes, to keep first form in place while shields is on. When Shield goes off i think decoy should be used.

With sleeping adds, you could probably lose a pld and take a 2nd rng.

rng/nin rng/nin brd/whm cor/nin geo(or whm)/sch pld(i use pld/war, but /drk might be better if you use a whm.. /blu is probably not awful but spike hate is helpful in phase 2)

throw up minnes before entering, make sure everyone's ready, enter, all but pld log out, pld aggros eald when last person says @10sec

if orbitals would have gone for someone else they dont make it there in time and go back to pld

relog and decoy down

recommend meat for rngs + antacid to swap to sushi when plates are dead

form1 doesn't do anything too threatening, aegis spells and make sure the brd actually uses their mp.. accession stoneskin before each phase shift and have the whm and brd run to >30'

form2 resets hate frequently, lot of repositioning and you have to wing it a bit, but hp isn't that high and as long as your group is somewhat coordinated it's pretty easy

can win VD 80-90% 6box with this setup, would easily be 100% if the rngs were both played by real players with the same gear

nexus was never anything special, dozens of people beat VD the day it was released.. fulcrum is the shitty one

on 2nd form even w/ innin up i still tend to take hate but with 2 rng's decoying on 2nd form when he's not warping around, the pld usually keeps hate and takes the TP moves to the face. and worse case if i get put facedown the rngs and pld still got the fight down pretty much

so true

givin it a bump for the people who were looking for info on this thread and couldn't find it.

Been doing this fight a lot lately on RUN/NIN and I'd like to add a few details:

--FIRST FORM (Eald'narch, Exoplates, 2x Orbitals)--
About the Exoplates:
Exoplates have no standard attacks, and can only use WS's, which are physical and can be blocked by Utsusemi. Every 33% (including the final 1%), they will use Phase Shift, which is a strong, large range physical move that has a long stun effect. RUN tanks should aim to have Tellus Pflug going at those 33% marks in hopes of reducing the Stun proc/duration. Utsusemi is pretty important for anyone besides a PLD to survive this attack on higher difficulties.
Because Exoplates are not independent, the hate they accumulate is arbitrary; any damage dealers need not worry about holding back on them. Exoplates also are magic resistant from what I've seen with Lunge.
About the Kid:
With the Exoplates down, he's no longer invincible, and actually really pathetic. The kid does not have any TP moves or standard attaacks, only casting (with no fast cast), which is either ancient magic or Sleepga. Assuming your damage dealers are /NIN, they are quite safe to pull hate provided they are not slept or for whatever reason have Orbitals attacking them. Tanks should conserve time-sensitive defensive JA's for the next phase of the fight.
When Exoplates are up, the tank need only maintain enough hate to keep the kid off the healer, as this is the only other person who will have any hate on him. In the meantime, the tank can be meleeing the Exoplates. The kid's defense, evasion, and HP are all quite poor, and he can be paralyzed, possibly other statuses may work but I haven't payed attention.
About the Orbitals:
These are the only things tricky about the first form. The first pops as soon as the kid is aggro'd, the second about 5-10 seconds later. They have an extraordinarily large aggro range and seem to prefer going after people in the back, hence why only the tank runs in at the beginning until both are spawned. If killed, the kid will resummon them fairly quickly.
They can be slept, I have found Lullaby and Light Shot both reliable (haven't tried other sleep forms), but will build resistance over time. Their attack speed is rather high, and they seem to possess triple attack. Depending on the skill of your tank and what kind of support you have with you, it can be possible to super tank both Orbitals, especially during defensive JA's like Battuta.
If super tanking, make sure to switch to the kid before the Exoplates die so you don't develop hate on the Orbitals, exposing your healer to a beating. Their movement speed is normal, so in an emergency, it is easy for someone to kite both around the large crystal at the bottom of the BC. I'm considering testing Shockwave as an emergency sleep sometime, I'm not expecting much but it might prove to be a practical sleeping method.

--SECOND FORM (Eald'narch solo)--
The amount of time before he gets impatient is more like 30 seconds. There isn't much to say about this form that hasn't already been said, but to summarize/add:

He begins to attack in this form, and does so with high attack speed. Ice Spikes does not seem to proc paralyze beyond Normal. As a RUN, I find myself most vulnerable when he simply attacks constantly without casting or WS'ing.
His spells are limited to Tier II AM, Sleepga II, and Bindga, all with no fast cast. Below 25%, he will gain access to very fast cast -ja spells, which do about 2,000ish damage unresisted on Difficult. The -ja spells are in addition to his other spells, I often only see him attempt 1 -ja per fight if we're not killing slow. He often has TP by the time he finishes casting, so be ready with shadows.
His WSs raw damage are not particularly strong, but come with added effects. They are:
- Omega Javelin, single-target physical with added effect petrify. Can be absorbed by Utsusemi.
- Stellar Burst, AoE that adds Silence, powerful Slow (needs erase), and Attack Down. This one is strange, I'm pretty sure it's actually magical because I sometimes get hit by the added effects without losing shadows. Regardless, the effects are not particularly accurate, at least not on a RUN.
- Vortex, AoE that adds Bind and Terror, and resets hate. Can be blocked with Utsusemi, but it is capable of landing even with 3 shadows up. I suggest saving strong hate-building moves in case he gets this move off and resets hate. If he never gets this move off, he won't be teleporting around, making the fight much simpler.

Final Thoughts:
Any melee job is fine for this fight. Realistically, for DD's, they only have to watch out for a few things. One is keeping up shadows, to which there is plenty of time unless the kid casts sleepga, in which case it would only hit meleeing DD's. This can be resolved by using Poison Potions or Berserker's Torque/Frenzy Sallet setups. The other is being in range of -ja spells and Bindga. RNG will likely be out of range of the -ja and Bind, while potentially problematic, will not render them useless. Meleeing DD's might have difficulty keeping shadows up in the event of hate reset/AoEs without the help of RUN's Fast Cast (which is available 65% of the time). Hope this post helps some of you figure out ways to handle this BC better, and I can provide more detailed information if there are any questions.