Shadows of the Mind/Strategies

==Solo==
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Just bring a 90NIN/WAR, DNC/NIN or THF/NIN (hell any DD sub /nin could probably do it) and a BRD/WHM and its cake. NM dies in like a minute or less.
--Asagii53 17:01, August 15, 2011 (UTC)
Just did this solo 95BLU/NIN trying to learn White Wind. Was geared with -39% pdt, mavi+2 body/head, haste +12%. Buffed with standard spells, including Barrier Tusk. Initially tried killing the shadows when spawned using Whirl of Rage and Battle Dance, but found that sleeping with Sheep Song much more time and mp effective. Used Sudden Lunge when needed for getting buffs back up and Plenilune Embrace for curing when needed. Moderately easy fight. --Faey 08:51, October 23, 2011 (UTC)
Solo'd this just now BRD95/NIN47, geared well for DD'ing. Used Nightingale/Troubadour/Marcato -> Mambo X2 and that lasted me the whole fight lol. Only got hit once. Just tossed on Evasion gear when it was readying Boreas Mantle and the Horde Lullaby II'd and sat there while I waited for them to depop. Was pretty easy to evade when they popped. This fight was super easy but I've wiped at earlier levels before. If you cast Horde Lullaby too early while its readying Boreas Mantle, not all Puks will get hit with it :x --BruHouse 18:11, November 1, 2011 (UTC)
Summoner/Redmage 99 - Keep Stoneskin and Blink up. Summon Ramuh And use Ramuh's Favor Summoner kite strategy. Summon use Chaotic Strike run and keep doing this. If you are a Summoner level 80-90 you can do a slow kill by using kite strategy and Thunderspark to whipe illusions. --Frost Bahamut 20 jan 2012. 
== Ideal Setup ==
I've done this ISNM quite a few times now. Here's what works well:
* 1 tank: pretty much any job with provoke; best if can also sub NIN; PLD will want RDM for Refresh as BRD will need to play other songs on the front line)
* 2 damage dealers: subbing NIN for guaranteed wins; use whatever sub you want for record breaking
* 1 BLM: having one along with a BRD pretty much ensures a win (Thundaga II or Blizzaga II the Boreas Mantle move)
* 1 BRD/WHM: having one along with a BLM pretty much ensures a win (Horde Lullaby the Boreas Mantle move)
* 1 healer: SCH is ideal (great for buffing the whole party with Stoneskin), WHM works, but take a RDM if your tank is PLD
You can buff up outside as they do not wear upon entering (including songs). Upon entering the battlefield, BRD uses double mambo on the front line and tosses up Baraera along with another Bar spell (Ill Wind will dispel a few buffs so this will help prevent good buffs from being dispelled). The battle should be fought inside the tunnel, with the Phantom Puk facing either wall so that you don't get knocked around when it uses its knockback move. The back line can stand either by the door or in the open area where the Phantom Puk spawns. There is generally enough time to do double mambo and double ballads between consecutive Boreas Mantle moves. The BLM should start nuking heavily toward the end (after Boreas Mantle). It is possible to do this without a BLM and rely only on the BRD. However, White Wind at the wrong time will wake up all the shadows and your BRD will die and chances are your party will wipe soon after. This strategy is the "safe" strategy; you can vary the songs and subjobs if you're looking for faster kills. -- Boogers on Hades
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Jotting down some quick information about this ISNM.
Get the Key item from the NPC in Aht Urhgan Whitegate for 3000 IS points. No cooldown, so you can do 6 of these at a time, or however many as you want if you have IS points.
Fight is against one Puk class mob called "Phantom Puk". Completely resistant to Sleep, but Lullaby works. However, it continues to spawn Shadows every 45s regardless of if its awake or asleep.
Does normal puk moves, except it seemed like every 45 seconds he would do this split move where he would gain 6 shadows or so and split into 6 copies of himself all aggroing the current tank. Horde Lullaby worked wonders, and a single Thundaga III would wipe out all of the clones. Thundaga III actually did about triple damage to the clones, doing upwards of 2100 damage (versus 700 unresisted on the main enemy). Very very simple, our party setup was this:
NIN, BST, WHM, BLM, BLM, BRD
The BLM's took turns being the "thundaga" button, which was helpful because of the recast on thundaga.
Thundaga II took out all shadows, as did Thundaga.
We were 6 for 6 on this ISNM, notable drops are:
Chocobo Egg - always dropped
Looks like the "big ticket" item has the chance of being one of the following:
Dragon Talon - dropped in 2/6 fights
Khroma Ore - dropped in 1/6 fights
Behemoth Horn - dropped in 3/6 fights
Luminium Ore
And the "garbage" drops:
1 Scroll (Prot4, Shell4, Water4, Dispel, Eraseetc)
1 Puk Wing
1 Attribute Potion (Mind Potion, Agi Potion, etc) / Icarus Wing
1 Merrow Scale
Sometimes we got a "Magnetic Dagger" which is new to the update. I think we got 2/6 runs to drop one of these.
*THF & BLM duo'ing
Heard accounts of THF and BLM duo'ing this easy so I (THF/NIN) and a BLM/RDM attempted it. Was fine (271 evasion, or lv74 cap, was adequate, along with SH, emp hairpin, etc etc) until the Puk popped his 6 clones, at which point Evasion ceased to exist and I got killed in a second. So for duo'ing the BLM would probably have to time his spells to knock out the clones before they even start moving. Have not tested Sleepga due to BLM having to leave.
*It can be done, must have full evasion gear though. 315 on my THF and was fine most of the time. BLM timed it fine and got an AGAII spell of, killing the clones. Had a DRG along who basically only used Healing Breath. Did it three times in a row. (Tried 2 thf and drg, that turned out to be extremely bad lol the shadows stayed out far longer than expected and down we went) --Clari
*NIN & BLM duo
Nin/dnc and blm can duo this with ease as long as the nin has a decent eva build. BLM uses blizzaga when it uses boreal mantle one shotting the clones. Was a pretty smooth fight and nin's & blm's enfeebles landed easily. 
another set up is 
WHM SMN NIN BRD BLM NIN
I truely think this is the best setup because I got two tanks just incase one falls then you have the brd to sleep then the blm nukes them. The whm and smn switch heal and make sure you have the smn use earthen ward so the tanks will have stoneskin.
Another setup: SAM BLM WHM BRD
This was an incredibly easy fight, that lasted just over a minute (he died shortly after his first Boreal Mantle). It was an unintentional setup, as one of our original members' went in before I (the WHM) was ready, so we wiped pretty bad. Since this was a 30min fight, we decided to Raise and try again, but our MNK ditched us. Soon after, our DRG also left (it was his run), leaving it as just us four. We decided to go ahead with the run anyway and split the spoils, as the other two had logged off. We rested and buffed to full, Pro/ShellV, Stoneskin, Blink, Aquaveil. The SAM used Sekkanoki, and he pretty much decimated the Puk before any damage could be done. I used maybe 2 CureV's on him the entire "fight". Noone even had to 2hr. The best part was that the Khroma ore dropped, so we split it amongst the four remaining members :) if you want to try this setup, it's very easily done, but I still suggest going with another two DD. ~Shiroineko, Asura Jan. 17, 2009
The Easy Way:
Setup: NIN NIN WAR BRD RDM BLM
Just go with BRD casting dual mambo and lullaby-ga the clones when they pop. BLM uses Thundaga II to kill off pops, and just straight tank the Puk to victory. When the Puk clones himself, have the other tank voke the main off the person being targeted so he does not die. Easy 6/6 victory in minutes.
Your BLM d/c? Don't worry if you have a BRD in party!
An "Horde Lullaby" can save your run, clones depop after 10 sec.
== A Better way to kill the Shadows ==
We tried this a couple times with PLD DRK WAR BLM SMN RDM. Our plan was for the BLM to use Thundaga of an unknown tier. We quickly decided to use Thundaga II instead of III since its casting timer is much faster and does sufficient damage to kill all the shadows. (We never tried plain Thundaga, although it seemed likely it wouldn't kill all the shadows if any resisted.) This method worked moderately well, but there were instances when the shadows would kill our PLD before Thundaga went off. On a whim, someone suggested the SMN try Ramuh's Thunderspark. It worked amazingly well. It kills all the shadows instantly. In the approximately 12 runs we've done with this setup, the shadows were never resummoned before the one minute Blood Pact timer was up. In fact, it seems to use Boreas Mantle almost exactly every 75 seconds.
Even with this method there have been a couple occasions where the shadows attacked and killed the mages instead of the tank. It seems that they pop with little or no hate towards the tank. If they attack a DD, and a mage cure bombs which pulls hate before Thunderspark goes off, it's likely the shadows will be out of range of the AoE and you're pretty much guaranteed you'll wipe. To try to prevent this, we found it safest to fight near the end of the tunnel and have the mages only far enough in the tunnel to avoid the normal AoE attacks. It's also wise to try and avoid large enmity moves when the next Boreas Mantle is expected.
== Another way to do this ==
The setup for this is typically a BRD + Healer + AoE magic + 3x DD. 
The melee stand about 10 ft in from the entrance of the cave while the mages stand by the door. 
BRD: Self explanatory. The bard will give buffs to melee first. When everyone is done buffing, including the healer finishes buffing they will elegy pull the puk to the group of melees running past then to the mages, then give them ballad.
Healer: Can be almost any real healing job; WHM, RDM, SCH. Healer casts Protect/Shell before you enter, haste on the melee, curing, enfeeble on the main Puk. 
AoE Mage: Any AoE mage can do this for the Boraes Mantle move. BLM: Thundaga2 or Blizzaga 2 on the start, then can move to T1 aga when they have less HP. Clones have HP based on the main mob. I typically like to switch to T1 right after the first boraes. Sometimes not even a second is required, depends how heavy your DD are. WHM: Banishga 2, SMN Ramuh thunderspark etc. Various jobs can do it depending on your setup. If you're not confident don't do it or test it on your own pop. Some RDM are able to do this some are not.
DD: Any DD would work. Higher DD means faster completion. The only thing is that after the elegy pull at least one of the DD should gain hate over the puk. You don't really need to tank it as hate should be bounced much like a merit party. Any hate generating tool should work; Warrior has voke, DRK has Absorb spells, THF has accomplice, MNK has chi blast etc.
I've done this about 800 times when you count each person in the party as one time. Works really well. No tank needed and the only super specific job you need is BRD.
--Thistle, Quetzalcoatl May 22nd, 2010