Leveling: Another Evening in Altepa (34-35)

The static party headed back to East Altepa Desert last night, 4 of us at 34, and one at 32. We picked up a DRK34/WAR17, and it was really great having a trick buddy. It wasn't so great when provokes were a bit late and we'd miss the SAnTA, or when the SMN's avatars came out too early and we missed the SAnTA, but we only had one miserable failure when Manon the RNG died. I think she pulled *and* provoked, and I couldn't get the dhalmel off of her and we couldn't cure her fast enough and a double attack got her. She was also too far away to be able to use cover in that situation. It was very sad.

We started out fighting just beetles until 2 or 3 of us hit 35. Even though we'd fought a few dhalmels at 34 last time, they really were hard on the party. We discovered that Fragmentation is a truly awesome skillchain to use on Dhalmels (Shadow of Death -> Piercing Arrow). Aero and Thunder magic bursts added good damage as well.

When we'd land the SAnTA at the start, especially with Grym using Viper Bite, the battles when a lot faster and a lot smoother. It's so much easier for me to keep hate with 350 damage attributed to my wimpy little PLD!

We ended up with about 8500 exp (except Manon), over a 3 hour period, finishing the evening as a bunch of 35s and a 34 (Grym and Kiki are quite close to 36). We had to break a few times for Elementals, and people zoning Anticans and Scorpions, but the desert was pretty quiet last night, with no other parties exp'ing. There was one BST who at one point had their battle right on top of us, but they didn't seem angry at us or anything, so I don't know what that was all about. There was one party there that was leaving just as we arrrived. Their tank had to leave and before we'd formed our party, he had sent me a tell to see if I could replace him. Since they were then tankless, they disbanded. I don't really understand why there are so few tanks around. Do people just want to be damage dealers or mages? I'm always getting tells asking if I'm interested in tanking for a party, and I'm never LFG as a WAR or PLD.

Emith isn't going to be playing with us much longer, so I'm not sure what we will do when we lose our WHM. I'm tempted to post on Allakhazam to see if we can find someone who'd be happy with our schedule, but it's possible we'll just stop. We're not sure how much longer Manon will be playing FFXI anyway.

BST to 75! :-)

Beastmasters: Leveling in Carpenter's Landing and Bubu (15-21)

This weekend Grym and Kiki spent a lot of time as Beastmasters. On Saturday, we headed into Carpenter's Landing as Level 15s, with maybe 600 TNL. Hours later we emerged as Level 19s, with a safe buffer. The area just off of North San d'Oria is really amazing for a BST duo at those levels. I'd say 17 was the optimum level, but there were plenty of pets and prey to keep us happy to 19. We pretty much had the area to ourselves, with an occasional 40+ wandering through and killing everything in sight, but that didn't really hamper us too much (though our worst close call happened during one of these times). We did end up dying once when I was trying to get my pet killed and my "Heel" command got me too much hate from the fly trap prey. We're still learning!

At one point, there were way too many toughs, so we each picked a tough pet and used our two hour ability to get the tough pets to take out a bunch of their friends. The new spawns were more agreeable to being charmed.

One thing really nice about Carpenter's Landing is that the only things that aggro are the orcs, and the occasional glide bomb and bat. It felt like a pretty safe area. We would focus on getting rid of any aggro'ing monster, and really had a fun time. Got stacks and stacks of fire crystals while we were at it, and a few shrooms and beetle jaws. Plus the area is small, and has the handy zone into town.

For the Glide Bombs, we would usually send two new pets in to take it down to a sliver of HP, while we stood off at a distance. When the bomb killed the pets and came over to us, we'd quickly dispatch it, getting 200 exp a couple times while they were VTs. One time, actually after we were 19 and just getting our buffer before finishing up for the day, the Glide Bomb did a suicide explosion for the first time. Grym was caught in the blast and got hit for 278 HP. It was a really good thing that Kiki was out of the blast radius, as even at full health she only had something like 258 HP.

On Sunday we headed to the south beach in Buburimu Pennisula. We pitted snipper against snipper and had quite a productive day. We're now safely into 21, and need to figure out a good area to exp in next weekend. We were pretty much the only snipper fighters on the two connected beaches, though there was one WAR/THF there for a short time. Most of the other visitors to the beach were either hunting for Carbuncle Rubies, or just passing through to Bibiki Bay (and of course, the usual fish botters were there).

It's a good area to level in, since there's the security blanket of having the Bibiki zone right there (we never actually needed to use it), and with the two beaches, the snippers are plentiful, and they don't link. The only thing to look out for are the bogies at night and the occasional water elemental. We did fight a few leeches, and had a couple leech pets after we hit 21, but pretty much stuck to the snippers. Once in awhile we'd run up above the beach and grab a sylvestre and maybe fight a goblin. We also charmed some bull dhalmels and had them beat up other bull dhalmels and goblins. The dhalmels are funny to have as pets, since the ground shakes so as they're following you around.

We have two different approaches we have been using. With one, we can get up to Chain #5, but less EXP per kill, and with the other, we get better EXP, but use up the pets pretty fast. We will often get two EM or DC pets, and send them in to fight a T prey. They will kill it while we heal. Then we send them to fight a second T prey, and wait until the pets are dead to finish off the prey. The other method, we would send our pets into fight, and join in with them right away. We could usually get to chain 4 with this, and once even to chain 5, with an EM or two thrown into the mix. On the final mob of the chain, we wouldn't fight until the pets were dead. It sure is a lot of fun.

General: Solo Thief and Fishing

We got Kiki's THF up to 18 during the evenings last week, since I was starting to be a bit embarrassed running around as a WAR36/THF15, even if I was only farming that way. Plus this way If I can get an EXP party that will let me be a damage dealer instead of a tank, I can sub THF and have it fully levelled through 37. I'm not sure how much further I'll take WAR, but I do want to get THF to 25 for Flee, which could be useful at times.

I had Kiki go fishing in Rabao for the first time last night. I thought it was really good. I used a composite rod with little worms and insect paste, and got 2.5 stacks of moat carp, a sand fish, 4 crayfish, and even a .2 skillup, with less than 6 stacks of bait, and just over an hour of time. It was fullmoon, so that probably helped. (Kiki's fishing skill is at 19.)

Leveling: Static in East Altepa (32-34)

Monday night found our static party back in East Altepa. We were fighting Beetles, and added Dhalmels to the menu after 3 of us hit 34. Some of the Dhalmels were a lot tougher than the others, but the IT high def but low evasion went down nice and easy.

It was so nice being able to set up SAnTA on those just by wandering up behind them. I know both Grymalkyn and Manon get really frustrated as THFs when they can't use SAnTA. It hits for so much damage and really keeps the hate where it belongs. It would be nice to get a real Trick Buddy for our parties, since we just can't seem to get it to work right with Manon the Ranger being the trick buddy.  

Funniest part of the evening: Grym's sneak attack/trick attack/viper bite having the Trick part fail, and her keeping hate for the entire fight. With her high THF evasion and her Utsusemi shadows, she made a better tank than Kiki.

Most annoying part of the evening: having the other party that was camped near us call us names for taking a beetle that spawned in our own camp. Especially since they had ranged one right out from under our noses when Grym and I were setting up to SAnTA on it. Grrr.

We managed to have a double pull on beetles toward the end of the evening, which got the RDM we had picked up mad when he was trying to sleep the beetle when THF/NIN Grym was trying to kite it. I actually prefer to have Grym kite adds. With Flee and Utsusemi, she's pretty safe. This worked great for Goblin Furriers, and should work fine with anything, provided there's enough space to avoid picking up more links. When a mage sleeps a link or add, the sleep usually doesn't last that long, and when the mob wakes up, it makes a beeline for the mage, who usually doesn't have the best defenses, and then has a hard time re-sleeping it when they're getting smacked.

General: Fun With New-ish Players

We decided that Thalia should have all three of the main Teleport Crystals, and since we had to drag her through Bubu, we thought we should get her the items she needs for her sub-job quest (she's 15 or 16 at the moment). So Grym switched to WHM35/NIN17, and Kiki to WAR36/THF15, and we set out from Windurst.

The sub job items were pretty easy - 3 bunnies got us the wild rabbit tail, 3 dhalmels got us the dhalmel saliva, and 3 bogies got us the bloody robe.

Unfortunately, the second bogy decided to smack Thalia (in a cursed state from the first bogy) before I got my sneak attack off. If I'd known Thalia was going to cast something, I would have provoked instead. The third bogy we didn't let her fight.  

Going through the Dunes, there were so many gobbie trains it was insane. We did a bunch of cleanup, and headed for the Dem Crag. Going back through the Dunes, there were more trains to clean up, but right near the La Thiene zone, a group of 7 goblins over ran us, and Thalia ate dirt again. :-(

After hitting the Holla Crag, we dragged Thalia into Jugner to fight a couple Toughs and Evens to get back a bit of the lost exp, then off to San d'Oria for the night. It was fun showing a new player some areas they'd never seen, but I wish we had been able to protect her a bit better.

Beastmasters: Early Adolescence

On Saturday, Grym and Kiki took their BSTs out. I can't remember what order we went in, but we went to the Dangruff Wadi and had a fun time until a party of 3 goblin ambushers decided to gang up on us. We also headed to check out Carpenter's Landing, and a gang of digger wasps got sick of us, spoiling our fun. We also spent a bit of time in the Highands. When we hit 14, we headed back to Carpenter's Landing, and had to zone an Orcish Grunt. He hit a lot harder than his Neckchopper buddy.  

An LS mate (Thalia) was looking for people to exp with his RDM14, so we met him in Tahrongi and headed to the outpost in Bubu, where the 3 of us had a fun time fighting tough bunnies and sylvestres. There weren't any EM or DC mobs at that level, so we just meleed until the 3 of us were safely past 15.

On Sunday, we headed back to CL, but still had a hard time finding enough even matches. 15 seems an awkward age - the places with Ts don't have the EMs or DCs you need to fight them. We tried Funguar Alley in La Thiene, the Ordelles, the Dunes, Bubu, Tahrongi, and Meriphataud. I think CL will be really good at 16, so we'll inch our way up and try that out. Sunday's only death came at the "hands" of a bomb. We just didn't have enough bunnies and saplings to throw at it.

When we hit 15 and decided to try out "Stay", we realized we had "Heel" available since level 10. We're such noobs. I guess we were checking Job Abilities rather than Pet Commands, and since we had macro'd Fight, we never looked at the Pet Command menu.

Leveling: All Over the Map (31/33 and 34/35)

Our attempts to party in off-the-beaten track places this weekend were disappointing.  

Friday night, the 31-33 "static" party headed to Norg, picking up a BLM30 to fill the sixth spot. Poor guy got killed a couple of times trying to get through Sea Serpent Grotto. The idea was to camp at the zone and fight Ironshells. Unfortunately, the ghasts made it difficult, and we broke up after only 90 minutes (BLM dc'd and didn't come back either).

One ghast fight went really poorly, and Manon got killed. Not sure why she didn't zone - shouldn't have to die when you're on a zone line :-(

Saturday night, we took out our other jobs for a 34/35 party at Behemoth's Dominion. We had BLM34/WHM17, BLM35/WHM17, WHM34/BLM17, THF34/WAR17, WAR35/MNK17, and picked up a RDM34/WAR17.

Here the idea was to fight Lesser Gaylas. The place was empty to start with, but we got off to a poor start with doing our viper bite -> gale axe = distortion skillchain followed by 2 aero ii magic bursts from the BLMs too close to the start of the fight. This meant I lost hate and poor BLM Magery was the target of Jet Stream for something like 388 damage. This happened twice.

Another failure was trying to get SAnTA set up with the RDM voking. One fight the SAnTA missed and I couldn't get hate off of the RDM and he died.

So with the three deaths and waiting for weakness to wear off, we were off to a slow start, but we got into our groove and things improved. Then another party showed up.

Manon had trouble pulling since the other party had 3 pullers working against her. That place just can't support more than one party.

When Magery hit 36 (and it was getting close to 6am his time), we ended up disbanding, since the RDM had to leave soon too.

Beastmasters: Level 13!

Kiki and Grym continued their exploits as Beastmasters over the weekend, and are still having a blast with it. I think my favorite prey are VT Goblin Tinkers or Goblin Ambushers, when we have plenty of pets to throw at it. Since they stop to cast or shoot when they're running after you, you have a bit more time to send a new pet after them. We've started using the Wide Scan Track capability to keep track of where the prey is, so when we're off rounding up a new pet we can both get back to the right place.

We levelled to 12 in Tahrongi Canyon, with our last death being right after hitting 11. Those Dhalmels just hit way too hard. It was pretty funny when our pets died, and a second Dhalmel linked, and we were running for the zone to the Mountains. Grym even managed to charm the tough dhalmel for a brief moment. Later, back at our HP in Windurst, we smacked our foreheads and said "should have used our 2 hour".  

At level 12, we headed over to La Thiene Plateau and fought mostly crabs and funguars around the pond near the zone to the Dunes. I had picked up a stack of pet food alpha, since Reward is a new ability at 12. The alpha biscuits would add 33 HP to the pet, which came in handy at times. We finished up the evening well into level 13. I'm looking forward to getting new Charisma gear at 14 (though not really looking forward to spending the gil).

Leveling: Static in Eastern Altepa Desert (30-33)

We started out as a group of 30-31s, and finished up as 31-33s. Had a really fun time plowing through the Sand Beetles. It went so smoothly that it was almost boring. I used Steamed Crab for the first time, and it did make a difference over Boiled Crab, but wasn't really necessary. Our RNG has to learn that starting a fight with Barrage and a weapon skill isn't good for his health, but at least I'll get Cover at 35. He's decided to stick with RNG, rather than switching to THF.

We had the RDM from Friday join us, and she was awesome as usual. We hit 32, she reads Dispel. We hit 33, she reads Phalanx. :smile

The only low note of the evening was a BST threatening us. It's no wonder BSTs have such a bad reputation. A polite discussion with our puller of why the BST was simply standing next to a Sand Beetle would go a lot further than a "you take my pets and you will die".

We're going to try Sea Serpent Grotto and Ironshells near the Norg zone for this Friday's party. Grymalkyn will be switching to THF too, so we'll have try to pick up a trick buddy from here on out.

Leveling: Kiki's DRK goes to the Jungles (25-28)

I had the day off on Friday, and spent all day in the Jungles levelling my DRK. It was pretty wretched at times, but I did go from 25 to 28. Used 9.5 hours worth of food, but it was a total of about 11.5 hours, with lots of regrouping, and waiting for raises and stuff. Died 4 or 5 times, almost always from Goblin aggro, which wiped out 4-5 party members each time. It reminded me of why I really don't like the Jungles very much.

A Rank 8 THF and I convinced my first party to head to the Yuhtunga Outpost, but as soon as we got there, our WHM said "I have to go". Since there were no WHMs looking, we disbanded. You can't really fight the Furriers without a WHM.

My next party was led by the worst RDM in the history of the game. He was our main healer, yet wouldn't rest for MP between fights, and he was actually the puller most of the time (I offered but was told he wanted to). After a couple of near-death experiences for the whole party, I ran into town and switched my sub to RDM instead of WAR, to help as a back up for healing (we had the "good" camp right near the zone into Kazham). However, the RDM decided that I was now the main healer, with my pathetic MND and low powered cures. :eyeroll DRKs should be smacking the monsters, not trying to keep everyone alive. I didn't even have Cure II yet. He used Regen only once, and that was on himself. I believe one reason he wouldn't rest was because he wanted to use his TP. :sigh

This party morphed over the hours, and moved to Yhoator when some of the group hit 28. It was really awesome for a brief time, when we had NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, BLM/WHM, BLM/RDM, BRD/WHM, DRK/RDM. No downtime, and nice chains, all for 200+ exp. Unfortunately, that configuration only lasted for about 30 minutes.

In the final configuration before I left (SMN/WHM, RDM/WHM, MNK/WAR, NIN/WAR, BLM/WHM, DRK/RDM), we had a nice Compression/Transfixion skillchain going with Shadow of Death -> One Inch Punch -> Blade: Rin. Not sure it was the greatest skillchain to use on the Mandragoras, but it sure looked cool. :-)

Leveling: The Not-So-Static Party (25-31)

Our static party has been making decent progress since we changed it to the "not-so-static" party. We're trying to schedule outings every Monday and Friday night, and if people can't make, they try to get caught up before the next night. We've lost Elboron, our BLM, to Real Life, and so end up picking up at least one random player, but it's been working out pretty well.

For 25-29, we fought Goblin Furriers near the Outpost in Yuhtunga Jungle. We were all quite pleased with that, though the gobbie bombs did smart a bit at times. For 29-31, we were fighting Makara and Sahagin by the Waterfall zone to Sea Serpent Grotto in Yuhtunga. That started off slowly, but picked up a bit when we hit 30. Planning to head to Eastern Altepa Desert tonight as a 30/31 party, fighting Sand Beetles.

It was so nice hitting 29 with PLD and being able to wear all that nice Kampf* gear as a PLD. Yes, Kiki'd been wearing it as a WAR since she bought it weeks ago, but hadn't really worn it for an exp party yet.

Grym's going to be switching back to her THF when we hit 33 with the static. We had a pickup THF Friday night with the static, and SAnTA sure made it much easier to hold hate!

Beastmasters: The Start of a New Career

Grym and Kiki started their Beastmaster careers this weekend. We spent levels 1-8 in the Sarus, and headed into Tahrongi Canyon at 9. We have really had a blast so far. The standard recommendation for BST is to solo to 10 and not even bother trying to charm, but we didn't follow that advice.

Though it's a bit slow, it was really fun to take on Tough mobs by charming a DC or EM mandy or bunny and standing back while the monsters fight each other, looking for the next pet when the mob kills the current one. It gets a little scary when you can't find a pet, or worse, fail to charm it.

We got a bit overly ambitious and tried taking on some of the crabs fished up at the cliffs in West Saru - some of those (Passage Crab?) were one-shotting our tiny mandragoras and river crab pets. Also later decided to take on a Very Tough Goblin Ambusher, and decided when it was at 50% HP we could take it on without pets. Ended up being a quick way back to Windurst. :)

Leveling: DRK in Qufim (23-25)

Kiki was eager to get back to levelling her DRK, which was 400 shy of 24, so she headed to Jeuno and put up her flag. After not too long, she got invited to a party by a WHM24. It was a small party, with just a WAR24/WHM12 as the other member. We decided to go fight worms by the lake while we waited for more people to fill out the party, but since it was night, this wasn't the brightest idea. The WHM and Kiki both got killed by a couple of Banshees. A passing Paladin tried to come to our rescue, but it was too late. He did raise us afterwards though.

We filled out the party with a THF, a NIN, and a RDM, and headed into Delkfutt's Tower. Things were pretty good there, despite some close calls with links, but the THF had to go, then the WHM had to go, then the RDM had to go. We disbanded and put up our flags, and the three of us were quickly invited to another party. The party make-up wasn't the best level-wise: WHM25, NIN23, WAR24, WAR22, NIN23, DRK24. We weren't getting very good exp, since Qufim's really not a good place for a 25. The WAR24 from my first party got DC'd and the WAR22, who didn't speak English (not sure what his native language was), immediately replaced him with a WHM23. At one point the WHM23 had an amusing mistell in party chat that was either in spanish or portugeuse, which I don't know, but know language well enough to discipher it into "i'm in an exp party in qufim that's getting really bad exp". We all had a chuckle and kept fighting.

The WAR22 had been pulling, but with no macro to warn that he'd actually pulled something, it was kind of annoying. Then at one point he starts pointing at me, but didn't say anything. Finally figured out that he wanted me to pull (I had my crossbow and acid bolts equipped), so I did. We kept fighting in both Qufim and Delkfutt's for awhile, and the WAR22 would some times run off and pull things without saying anything, so it was really hard to decide if I was supposed to be pulling or not.

Soon after Kiki hit 25, the WHM25 had to go. I offered to leave as well, since I really don't think 25s should be fighting there, but they said no and replaced the WHM25 with yet another NIN24. 3 NIN parties are pretty cool as long as the stupid WAR22(now23) doesn't voke and need healing. We moved to Pug Alley, and I was pulling them as fast as I could, but they were mostly toughs with a few very toughs mixed in. I even got a /hug from the new NIN for using acid bolts to pull. ::smile::

After nearly 3000 exp since the WHM25 left, the new NIN asked me in /tell if I would mind leaving if she got a replacement for me, and I said not at all, and said I had offered earlier just before she joined. I said I knew I was killing their exp and we could only chain so many toughs. So she asked the non-english speaking leader multiple times, using the auto-translator, to pass leadership to her, but after getting no response, I got to witness my first mutiny in FFXI. It was funny. They all disbanded, she invited the 3 she wanted to keep, and replaced me and the former leader. I don't think he quite understood, but I'm sure the party was much better for it.

General: Weekend Update (Oct 30-31)

Saturday morning, Grym and Kiki headed to Bastok, so Grym could do the quest for Fukuro, a level 28 Katana, since her NIN is now 27. This involves getting a key and finding a treasure chest in the Palborough Mines. We headed into the mines, farmed a bunch of funguars, and headed up to the key-drop area. There were several people looking for their Kazham keys, but we started looking for our own key as well. Noted a treasure box in one room and we got our key the next Quadav we killed. The treasure box was still there, so Grym got her item for the quest very quickly.

We then asked a three-some if they'd like some help getting their keys (they were all 24 or 25), and they gladly joined up with us. As we were running around killing all the quadavs in sight, getting them their 3 keys, we noted a WAR24 who seemed to be soloing for his key as well. After we got the 3 for our group, we asked the soloing WAR if he needed help, and helped him get his key. He seemed surprised when the key dropped and we didn't want it - it was for him. There were other people key-hunting, but at this point, we were tired of killing Quadavs and headed back to town.

We both still needed our Treat Staff II from the Halloween event (had every other item), so we spent some time running around Bastok Mines, handing out oranges, wearing our Trick Staff IIs, and keeping track of the time we'd get a jack o'lantern. Most of the NPCs really seemed to be on 7 minute timers. In less than an hour, we both had our coveted Treat Staff IIs. Between the different staves from Halloween, we should really be able to cut down on instant warp scrolls when we're doing things that we can't do with our BLMs as mains or subs.