My advice is this: go through the island instead of around it. Amandis should aggro something at the north tip of the island, at the west tip and (if he survives) at the south tip. I don't remember precisely what, if anything, he aggroes at the north tip, but he should snag on the Afflicted and the Leviathan bits at the west tip. Those two mobs should whittle his "party" pretty low but in my experience not kill him. Then, if he happens to get to the south tip at the most inopportune moment, he will aggro the usual Jade Sea mobs of Creeping Carps and Irukanji. One of these won't kill him if he's still with some "henchies," but stopping to fight Creeping Carps usually means that more will wander in and overwhelm him.
What I suggest is catching Amandis at the west tip of the island, near Zenos (The Zenos Squad quest) and Albax (If It Wasn't For Bad Luck quest) and the resurrection shrine. You'd have to go through two separate groups of Afflicted and one Afflicted boss mob (Assassin's Construct), but you shouldn't have a problem catching up to Amandis with a full hench party. If you luck out, Amandis will still be on the west tip of the island fighting either the Afflicted or the Leviathans when you approach. If you don't, he will have avoided at least one of the two mobs, which means he'd have more "henchies" to take care of any Creeping Carp/Irukanji mobs he would aggro. In either case, you would be in the perfect location to track Amandis since he only goes around the island, and you would easily be able to catch him on the second lap by going back to the bridge (assuming he survives for the second lap, which I've seen happen a few times).
Not to mention you could also get some Kaolin Daggers
and got only 1 staff..... so drop rate is no that great.
