Looking For Leviathan VD Solo Advice

Just curious if any RDMs have been soloing this fight (with trusts is fine)? I see a lot of BLU/WARs soloing this lately because they can go in there and self max haste, saline coat, occultation, barrier tusk etc.. and spam CDC until it's dead. I'm having a lot of trouble trying the same on RDM/NIN though. Usuaully I'm getting one shot by a aoe water spell or I'm just not hurting it fast enough. If anyone has had some success in doing this fight quickly please share some pointers. Thanks.

You can completely outrange all of his TP moves by walking away as soon as you see the animation. 8 yalms should be enough to avoid them.

As for the AoEs, are you keeping shell and barwater up at all times? If you're getting hit too hard through that, I'd suggest hitting a macro for an MDT set when you see him start casting.

But does the walk away thing work with the 1h as well? Id suppose thats the ability thats most dangerous.

No, but Grand Fall is, by far, his most damaging ability, and that's where the range works best. I've regularly seen 2.2k+ damage from Grand Fall through Vex and Barrier Tusk, but I've never seen above 1.5k Tidal Wave. Definitely still something you want to be prepared for, but for whatever reason, it's not as much of a threat.

I think part of it might be the lack of abilities for that last proc. Blu/war can use magic for yellow, voke for blue, and a ws for red. This helps alot. When i 1st started soloing these, i wasnt procing and it hurt alot. After i started to proc those 2.2k grand falls were doing about 1k to me. I think rdm can do it, but it will be a pain in the ***.

Didn't realize the procs did more than freeze it a moment, I tried Mayakov and he finally landed a step and I did notice its MAB go way down :-/ Yea that's a problem, also an issue after Tidal Waves I can't get hate back immediately so NPCs are dying too.

To piggy back: do we have any conclusive knowledge as to what exactly the proccing does? Red/Yellow/Blue, what do these specifically do? I know they inhibit a tp move or casting, but do they weaken the respective abilities (1h, ja, spells)?

Also, I was not proccing with spells. Is this effectively the same thing as voking when he casts? Just use a spell like Sudden Lunge and get proc? I also had not realized this was making a significant difference, but had always done it in groups out of a force of habit.

Of the BLUs who are soloing Leviathan VD, how long is it taking you to clear? Right now, I do Tenzen VD solo in about 5-6 minutes, and if Leviathan can be soloed faster, I'd definitely be open to trying it out.

For one I would sub rune fencer and not nin, with a solid single wield set you will be able to mitigate most of that dmg and still deal noteworthy amount back.
Absolutely must have -mdt macro to swap when you see the animation as you don't have a geo.
Those 2 things alone should cut the dmg of grand fall way down. Beyond that you can use lunge for proc. That way you have all 3 forms, JA, WS and magic.

You guys are correct in saying there is no definitive proof of procing lowering anything. This is based purely off of my own experience. I do about 7 solo per day (duo with pocket geo if I'm not lazy) and it makes a huge difference. Ive tryed not procing and ill lose 1/5 fights. As for the rdm/run thing, there should be no issue using /nin. Rdm has access to barspells and amazing mdt gear. The issue i have with rdm is the kills just take too long. I have all the toys for mine and i still prefer blu for obvious reasons lol

Depending on how spammy levi is, i can clear in about 2-3 min (pure fighting, not time in the fight). Ive tryed tenzen but i dont like certain phases and i dont like the idea of dealing with the tarus. Yeah they are easy to sleep and yeah i can always reapply i just dont wanna deal with them

I do pretty respectable dmg as rdm/run and you also get the added bonus of lunge.

Fact is there is no correct or incorrect way to do this fight, if you can't survive /nin, switch to something else. OP is having issues surviving, these are options to his question, not a debate topic.

Add in -mdt to your sets see if that works, if not set up for /run see if that works.

I dont see how this can even be considered a debate. All i said was as rdm, you shouldnt need the runes from /run. I agree with the lunge part tho. But if he's gonna give up dual wield then war would be a better choice. You get voke for a proc plus you also get fencer and 10% double attack.

I can see how that would be valid, sorry didn't want to come off rude there, wasn't my intention. War is good for sub assuming you don't need that extra m. def from runes. Again this goes back to no correct answer, use the system that works.

No worries man, tone can be distorted when writing something. This is why i hate non face to face discussions lol.

Procing all 3 Red/Yellow/Blue removes his enspell effect if I remember :X
Doesn't do anything else besides the stun.

Could try using Brygid for the extra defensive aura

And Grand Fall damage is rngesus as ***. It could either do 1k or 2k or 3k even with saline coat, vex, attune, barwater, shell 5 and brygid.

One of them lowers their innate DT a tad. Don't remember which as I haven't done HTBFs in a while, but I think it's the JA one.

I don't remember what does what but i do know that not procing lowers my win rate lol.

2-3 minutes duoing with pocket GEO or 2-3 minutes solo with trusts up?

Waterja is really the only thing that is a danger to trusts now, saving a proc for that isn't a bad idea.

ws:red proc, reduce levi's enwater damage
ability:blue proc, remove magic damage cut
magic:yellow proc, remove pdt
pet ability:white proc removes ranged cut

You can outrun tp moves, but due to animation locks making it less reliable and the huge cut to damage it's more cheesing a win than anything. If you want to win reliably and fast you need to do big damage. Your self chain lights should do around 9k to 23k base with that doubled in light damage and it should sit around 17k most the time. Grand Fall is breath damage on this fight meaning it will bypass shadows and not remove them and that MDT won't help you. You can also do radiance self chains for very big damage with sequence. The BLU I spoke to uses delta thrust for procing yellow.

Every time he does his one hour, you have to redo all the procs. Spring Water will cleanse any debuff that has a -na associated with it as well and possibly more as BCNM versions of pacts are stronger and behave different for example, Grand Fall isn't breath damage when used by a SMN it's magic damage. A set high in DT can survive grand fall, waterja is the biggest threat as it will kill your trusts unless you have positioned them correctly and it also does very big damage. Attack boosts will do a lot more for this fight than defense down, and I'm not sure why. I don't solo it myself just talked to people that do. Good luck.

The fight generally takes around 2 minutes. With calling trust/buffing yourself at the start taking around a minute. I run into the right corner at the start to position the trusts there, voking if it decides to use any TP move or spell, with glutinous dart ready if it decides to do another before I actually hit the mob for the trusts to be engaged. Personally, I use Tizona/Almace for this fight, since I summon Selhteus(Expiacion > Revelation > Savage Blade > CDC) I double light with him while having the mp for if anything goes wrong.


If you are going with Trusts, trusts with a magical auto-attack will proc red. My preference is Shantotto 2, since she will contribute a little damage and proc red with her auto-attacks, but she sometimes dies to Tidal Wave if it lasts that long. Teodor, and Arciela II are also good options, since they both will burst and they both proc red. Balamor is okay, since he procs red and enhances Qultada's Chaos Roll, but he does no damage. If using Apururu remember she is semi-HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE, if she is running around she may be late to cure you.

Occultation is a must for this fight on BLU. The only way you will die is by a mistake on your part. Like not swapping to DT for Grand Fall etc. It can be done quicker with a little more risk, but I prefer the more conservative approach instead of trying to break the record. With the clear times around 3-4 minutes.

Trusts no geo

Went back to try this tonight with the new Ambuscade armor set with all the -DT on it allowing me to get up to 38% BDT total from everything I have. Just swapped into my DT set whenever I saw Grand Fall and was able to keep the damage low enough to survive it every time. Worst I saw was 1549 from Grand Fall. With shadows pretty much every other move he can do is non threatening and I am able to keep hate through damage alone. My clear time was ~8 mins so not exactly a speed record, but room for improvement for sure I think.

Thanks to everyone who replied and all the info, the advice on outranging TP moves was really helpful and allowed for some easy duos/trios with friends as well as the info about the Grand Fall being breath damage based.

There might be an answer in another thread but I couldnt find it: how do you position your trusts to make sure they dont die to Grand Fall (or 1h in general if you take other avatars)? The -ja spells have small enough range so you can avoid hitting any but retard Apururu running around.
Even if I can survive 1h, on D+ my trusts usually die at some point (outside of campaign).

Trusts I used for my run were Yoran, Qultada, Nashmeira2, Uka, Joachim in that order. I engaged ~25' and approached Levi, soon as I saw it move I cast Dia3 Yellow procing it. I then ran up to it to hit it and melee'd a bit to WS for next proc. After that I had hate and I can just stand ~5'+ away from it opposite my trusts to avoid them getting hit with Waterja. The first Tidal Wave doesn't seem to kill them with 3 procs if that affects damage at all.

Some other trusts that seem good are the other red procing ones mentioned in this thread as well as Areuhat who can do Blood Rage which increases your Crit Hit Rate a short time, which I imagine on a fast high damage job like BLU would be useful enough to use.

Yoran did run behind me I guess though and died to the Waterja which made the fight more difficult half way through so I need to work on that. I imagine positioning closer to an edge can help avoid Yoran or Apururu randomly standing so close.

So they wont be hit by Grandfall and Waterja, only by Tidal wave and they survive? Hmm...gotta try that out. Usually I do avatar fights on Run but never tried more than D as this was usually enough to kill trusts with the 1h.

But Ill try again! Thx for the advice :)

Sorry to continuously abuse this thread but is there a specific reason why I see most people talk about doing Leviathan on VD rather than any other avatar? I can see why ppl would try to avoid maybe Shiva (eg. to avoid Para) but why would you not fight Titan for example?

Compared to Levi titan takes longer due to defense.

I stop at the end of the path and let the avatar come to me, yellow proc it w/ a spell, then run behind it. The trusts should still be on the path, and you'll be the only one in the open area. Grand Fall is conal, so your trusts should be 100% safe from that. Waterja I run away a bit so it doesn't clip any trusts, and in case it follows it up quickly w/ Grand Fall. Tidal Wave is unavoidable, but the good thing is that it resets procs, so you can stun up to 3 more waterjas/grand falls while your trusts get everybody healed.

If you'd like me to demo positioning for you, send me /tell.


It all depends on which procs you can trigger on a particular fight -- Yellow/Red/Blue/White all have different effects on each.

Titan requires white proc (pet WS) to lower it's -pdt, so it's not the greatest option for most jobs to solo. Leviathan -pdt drops with red (ws), I believe, which is easy for melees. Yellow drops it's en-spell damage, and blue (ja) drops its -mdt. I forget what white proc does on Leviathan, but it's not necessary to kill it quickly.

I have a question about all this. The procing thing, can you just spam them in a cycle and keep the *** locked? Or is it proc until it does a move then you can proc some more?