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.