Having sat on two stacks of virtue stone pouches for over a year, I've wanted a Fortitude Axe to play with for some time now, but I've never had any reliable connections to mine so that I could leech one, only BS promises based on a quid pro quo, but where I did all the giving and ended up getting nothing in return.
My interest in getting the axe was rekindled recently when I came across a thread on BG discussing various NMs for ninja to solo. Prior to that, I only vaguely remembered Jailer of Fortitude (JoF) as soloable by a black or red mage, but I wasn't familiar with the tactics involved, so I was surprised to hear that ninja could also solo JoF. Upon further investigation, I discovered that having some form of movement speed is important to maintain separation between yourself and the jailer so that you can actually have an opportunity to do damage to it, and that even a corsair with movement speed could kill JoF alone. But since I wasn't ever going to come across a pair of Herald's Gaiters for use on my black mage, ninja it was, but where to get ghrah chips?
The prospect of having to farm 12 ghrah M chips was really the only reason I didn't try Jailer of Fortitude sooner, but after several weeks of trying to find these chips in bazaars (I found none), I resigned myself to mind-numbing farming in Hux'Zoi. I managed to cobble together 12 chips from 60 ghrahs, including a nearly four-hour session when I got 7 chips from 36 ghrahs (38-40% waxing moon).
While the general approach to kiting Jailer of Fortitude is well-documented (if not widely documented), there are a few specific things that may be worth considering based on my observations:
After you find the ??? to which you trade the 12 ghrah chips, it's actually possible to trade the chips and run out of the room so that JoF and its assistants have neither hate nor aggro, as long as you open the door right before you trade the chips and immediately run outside (so you don't get impeded while opening the door on the way out). (I had both the quickening effect from Sprinter's Shoes along with the movement speed from Ninja Kyahan.) Thus, I don't know if JoF actually spawns claimed and whether what happened to me was merely a fluke.
For my attempt, I kited from the "elvaan tower," where the ??? was located, directly to the "hume tower" without any problems shaking JoF's assistants, so I think there isn't much need to go to such extremes as zoning. You could probably use the elevators as a safety net to shed aggro from ghrahs and possibly zdei, though.
As a ninja, I relied entirely on elemental ninjutsu spells ("the wheel") to deal 26,264 damage, broken down by spell as follows:
Spell Spell Dmg #Spells S.Low/Hi S.Avg
-----------------------------------------------------------
Doton: Ni 3748 38 15/143 98.63
Huton: Ni 4862 39 16/138 124.67
Hyoton: Ni 4644 41 17/143 113.27
Katon: Ni 4577 42 15/143 108.98
Raiton: Ni 4466 39 16/138 114.51
Suiton: Ni 3967 42 14/143 94.45
After turning each corner, I would cast one ninjutsu given enough distance between me and JoF. Otherwise I would continue moving until I felt I was safe to cast. While JoF usually pauses movement to "reflect" magic back at you, the "reflect" move can be "overridden" by Actinic Burst (flash effect). I didn't feel like taking a chance that I would get sliced and diced by a Vorpal Blade instead of being hit with Actinic Burst.
The upside to soloing JoF as NIN as opposed to BLM is that your rate of damage output will be higher with ninjutsu than with Bio II alone. Using Bio II alone, a black mage should take at least 2 hours, 45 minutes, or 83 casts of Bio II (320 HP per 2 minutes), to take down JoF. (I assume JoF is immune to magic-based Poison, as opposed to Disseverment Poison, but I may be wrong.) It took me about 2:10 to kill JoF, and I have mediocre nuking gear for ninja (only Ninjutsu Torque and Ninja Hatsuburi, 72+25 INT with Cream Puffs, and a Moldavite). In fact, I had to wait out two daytime periods during this time (first nighttime period, ~32% damage, second nighttime period, ~43% damage).
(2 hours, 10 minutes? And to think I was complaining about Cheese Hoarder Gigiroon the other day...)
The downside to doing this as NIN is that for half the game day (at worst) you can't safely do any damage to JoF. Since you don't have movement speed in the daytime to help create distance between you and Jailer of Fortitude, it's not a good idea to let JoF close on you while casting ninjutsu. Unlike other mobs in the game that you might consider kiting to kill, JoF actually has good path movement around the circular ledge that you're supposed to kite along, so it can be troublesome to maintain distance. But even if JoF does catch up to you in the daytime, as long as you don't take wide turns around each corner it should never get close enough to hit you actually. (I have seen Powder Boots suggested as a safety net in case it's getting too close for comfort.)
As is my wont, over the course of suffering this "game" I've found progressively more tedious things to solo--from firedrakes for giant scales to Promyvion mobs for white memospheres to rank missions (the infamous Bastok 9-1, for one), and so on--to the point that I've actually gone out and done things like soloing Genbu and killing JoF that really deserve a bit of ribbing. Sure, we all covet shit to some extent, but is it really necessary to go to such extremes? Ugh, I even started a blog partly to cover such things. I think I've finally reached the limit of what I can endure. Finally!
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