Found this on BG and figured I'd repost it here so we have it available when we get to this point.
Yinnyth said:TL;DR:
Unless he has an extremely rare drop, the only reward for killing Diabolos is the titles and the CS you get at the markings. It doesn't matter how many of them you kill, the reward is always the same.
This is a goal I have dedicated my linkshell to for the past... half a year or more. We've been doing 2 Tav runs per month every month since before the time extensions in Tav were even discovered, and occasionally did boss kills just to get the titles. Recently, I made the decision that I wanted to compile as much information as possible about all 4 of them in order to devise a working strategy to kill all of them in a single run. Tonight, my linkshell finally succeeded in this goal.
I will share all of my current findings about Diabolos here so that any linkshell interested in attempting the same feat, or simply killing any one of them will have some information to go off of, because the wiki's information is horribly off base. Mostly however, I'm sharing this information because I want other linkshells to kill Diabolos, and I want to know what the hell he drops if anything. My linkshell has over 20 successful wins, but we haven't seen anything yet.
Umbral Diabolos
Boring stuff first. 4 umbral diabolos in the hallway to the zonelines. Each one spawns a random Diabolos suit when aggro'd. They have TINY detection range (I estimate about 5' sight, and you have to practically bump into them to aggro by sound). They move in a simple pattern like most bees in the game do (Face random direction, move short distance, stop immediately if wall is in the way, /wait a few seconds before moving again). Each one you aggro gives a short monologue in /say, flies north a little ways, then despawns which triggers a Diabolos suit to spawn. Diamond NW, Spade NE, Heart SE, Club SW. I really hope anyone who does Tav regularly knows this already, but I like to cover my bases.
Diabolos Heart:
Magic: Drain, Aspir, Sleepga II, Blindga, Dispelga, Bio III, Death
WS: Noctoshield, Dreamshroud, Ultimate terror
Special notes: Takes approximately 1/4 normal magic damage, uses noctoshield immediately upon aggro, casts all his spells instantly as though he has chainspell active. Goes into "spell frenzies" where he casts 2-6 (more samples needed) spells back to back. After his frenzy is over, he'll stop casting spells and melee/ws as normal until next frenzy. He takes approximately 1 minute from the end of one frenzy to the beginning of another.
When Heart's HP is below 10%, the ONLY spell he casts is death. This is extremely deadly when he reaches a spell frenzy, so the last 10% of his HP needs to go very quickly. More information is needed about what causes Heart to cast death before 10% HP. We've had battles where we fought him from 100% HP down to 10% HP before he even cast death a single time, and other battles where he cast death more than a dozen times before we even got him to 40%.
Appears to have damage resistance. More testing is needed, but tomahawk seems to improve zergs against heart substantially.
Diabolos Diamond:
Magic: Drain, Blindga(rarely)
WS: Hypnogenesis (AoE magical damage, ignores shadows), Cacodaemonia, Ruinous Omen, [Nightmare and daydream: see notes]
Special notes: Diamond is the weirdest of the 4. Does not melee at all. Only uses magic and WSs. Uses nightmare(20' AoE around current target) approximately every 2 minutes and immediately follows with daydream (single target charm, 1 minute duration) 1-5 times. These work independantly of his TP so if he has 100+ TP when using nightmare, he can WS >> nightmare >> daydream x1-5, or nightmare >> WS >> daydream x1-5 which is extremely dangerous.
Nightmare is a ranged ability with a large aoe (20') around the current target. After using nightmare, he will use daydream 1-5 times (increases in number the lower his HP gets) which inflicts charm for one minute and wakes the target if they're slept. The bio from nightmare makes it impossible to sleep anyone he charms if they were hit with nightmare. It is possible to be charmed by daydream even if you avoid nightmare, and it is possible to resist daydream with enough resist charm equipment. He will attempt to use daydream on his current hate target regardless of range, but daydream has a limited range (Tested to be greater than 20', possibly 25' max range). Therefore if someone pulls hate after nightmare and moves out of charm range, he'll waste his daydream attempts on a target out of his range.
Healers should stay a good distance away from Diamond to wake everyone after nightmare. Everyone should be prepared to remove their weapon as soon as nightmare is used so they don't kill anyone if they get hit with daydream. Anyone with utsusemi, blink, and/or stoneskin is capable of tanking diabolos between nightmare cycles. The only dangerous attacks he has are drain(400+ damage) which he casts frequently, and hypnogenesis which he can only use when he has TP.
Diabolos Club:
Magic: Blindga, Dispelga
WS: Nether blast (1k+), Ultimate terror, Somnolence, Camisado, Ruinous Omen (rarely), Nightmare (rarely)
Special notes: Sometimes after a WS (usually nether blast), 1 or 2 copies called "Diabolos Shard" will spawn and copy Club's WS (weaker than Club's). Attacks quickly and frequently double attacks. Difficult if not impossible to debuff.
The biggest difficulty with Club is surviving the big damage spikes he's capable of with nether blast and his shards copying WSs. If he needs to be held, it's best to have a ninja kite him. More information is needed to discern if his accuracy is low enough for evasion or -damage to be more important for tanking. Shell is vital for everyone because of his powerful nether blasts, and some extra mdb isn't a bad idea either (especially for tanks). Since he casts dispelga, healers need to be vigilant keeping shell on throughout the fight.
Diabolos Spade:
Magic: (none)
WS: Nether tempest (AoE nether blast, 10'?), Sweeping somnolence (AoE somnolence, 10'?), noctoshield, more?
Special notes: Melee attacks are very fast, double and possibly triple attack. Appears to only use AoE damage and defensive WSs. Is capable of spamming WSs several times every time he reaches 100 TP (I've seen up to 3 so far). Resists ESeal slow. Due to the facts that he has at least 2 AoE damage WSs which both ignore blink, and that he can use several WSs one after the other (a la Dark Ixion in aura mode), he can trigger a quick wipe of any unprepared group. Keep shell up, melees run away everytime he starts WSing. Ranged damage is much safer for Spade.
I've only had a chance to watch Spade extensively once so far, so my information is largely incomplete. However, he is by far the easiest of the 4 as long as you don't panic and stay in control.
Our strategy for killing all 4
The basic strategy we walked into the battle expecting was to spawn 3 of the 4, zerg the first, use whatever we have left to zerg the second, hold the third to recover, bring it down to 10% HP, spawn the fourth, kill the third, hold the fourth to recover again, and finish it off. Kill order is Heart >> Club >> Spade >> Diamond.
We were lucky because the 3 we got were Heart, Club, and Spade (in my opinion, the easiest 3 to begin with). Our thf held Club, and one pld held Spade with 1 pld on backup to help wherever there is trouble. Our zerg on Heart fell short because we had so much prep work going on, I forgot to remind people to use poisons and he opened with sleepga II. He managed to cast about 6 deaths (most of which were on blms and our heavy DD) before we took him down. Because of this, our kill on club was fairly slow, but our tanks and healers deftly kept things in control while we recovered from Heart. Once Club was down, we took a few minutes to rest up and moved on to Spade. Spade's WS spam took us a bit by surprise since he's been the rarest of the 4 for us, but he was still a pansy. When he was at 10%, I aggro'd the last Umbral Diabolos to spawn Diamond, then ran and used quick draw to get his attention and hold him as far from the group as possible.
Special (pld/war) and I (cor/nin) took turns holding Diamond in a far corner while the group recovered. I used utsusemi to block his drains, and dnc roll to counteract nightmare. We took off our weapons so when we were charmed, we wouldn't kill anyone. Everytime he used nightmare >> daydream, we flagged the next tank to get ready to hold him. When he moved in towards the group after daydreams, next tank grabbed him and pulled him right back to the corner he was in before. Once everyone was recovered, we waited for him to charm the current tank, then rushed in and started killing. At about 15% HP (2 minutes after his last nightmare), I told everyone nightmare was coming soon, so scatter and take your weapons off, which they did. Nightmare only hit the current tank, daydream only got about 2 people, and the blms were quick to finish him off.
A lot of effort went into this, and I would like to thank my entire linkshell, Turtle of Fenrir, for putting up with me spending this much time on something that ended up having no reward at all. I hope someone finds this information useful, and I hope someday someone gets this bastard to drop something.
