General: Sick of Looking for Keys

We spent a lot of time this weekend looking for keys in different places. Helped Hokadeka with his Palborough and Giddeus keys for the Kazham Airship Pass, Lauvi with all three Kazham keys, went to Gusgen Mines to get keys for the RSE quests for Grym and Kiki, and tried getting a Ordelle's Caverns key for either the Cunning Earring quest, or another RSE pattern (not sure which we'd get when both quests are active).

I accidentally lotted on the Palborough key when we were helping Hokadeka, and got it. Then we got two more, so Grym got one as well. We spent a couple hours later running between all the treasure chest spawn points, and never saw one. I think a miner, possible RMT, was beating us to them. When we went back with Lauvi, we did find one chest, and got a Flame Boomerang out of it.

Grym and I headed to Gusgen, and man, that's really a creepy place, with all the hume ghosts wandering around, weird lights, mine sirens and everything. We fought a couple Sadflies, and got a tell from Anklebiter, a Taru THF47/NIN23, who asked if we were key hunting. He offered to join us, so we could benefit from his TH2. So the three of us killed key droppers for ages, and one finally dropped. Anklebiter passed on it, and said he'd continue on looking for his. That was so nice! However, we insisted on staying and helping him get one too. I think we spent nearly three hours getting the two keys. I don't know if we'll try to get one for Grym or have her use thief tools to open a chest instead.

The Ordelle's was even more frustrating. Manon joined Grym and I, but key droppers were hard to find. There are so many people in there camping stroper chymes for the elusive archer's ring, and they're killing everything in sight. Gave up after awhile. It was too boring just standing around waiting for something to spawn so we could kill it. I'm not sure how I'll ever get a key in there.

Events: Holiday Time in Vana'diel

Between Real Life Christmas shopping, and holiday activities in the game, I feel like we didn't get much done this weekend. Grym and Kiki got all three of their holiday trees, while the mules simply got the one for their home city. Qiyuk got a Teleport-Dem from Jeuno so that she could participate as well. It's always so much fun running a level 1 around! She made it safely to Bastok without incident.

All 8 of our characters got their Dream Cap +1 as well, so we'll have a neverending supply of ginger cookies. This was a fun set of activities, since we didn't have to spend a single gil for it.

Nicest thing is the city-to-city moogle teleport service. It's a shame that will be going away when the event is over. It really made it easy to help with Kazham key hunting! We'd finish in one area and *poof*, we're at the next. Qiyuk used the service to get to Windurst. She's going to raise her fame and quest for Aspir before she heads back to Jeuno. Meanwhile, it's kind of a pain not having a character permanently in Jeuno, but we'll manage.

Leveling: Evening in West Altepa Desert (41-43)

We meant to go back to Gustav Tunnel on Friday night, but while we were waiting for everyone to show up, and looking at the potential invitees, we saw that there was one, then two parties in our level range in the Tunnel. So we decided we would head for Revelation Rock in West Altepa Desert and fight the beetles there.

Locmari invited Plumpixie, a Taru RDM/BLM, who had actually never been through Korroloka Tunnel, and didn't have the Altep crystal, so Grym and Kiki met him there, and we headed through the tunnel, snuck across the deserts and into Rabao. I invited Falofalot, a Taru WAR/NIN. Loc and Plumpixie headed to the crystal to sneak Falofalot back to Rabao and so Plumpixie could pick up the crystal too. Of course, by this time, Gustav Tunnel was empty, but it would have taken a long time for us all to get back there.

We had a really good time fighting the beetles. The EXP was great, and we had next to no downtime. Not having a WHM did make some things a bit more difficult, but I think we managed pretty well. We had quite a few links, but there was this cicular path around a rock area that was very handy for Grym to kite extras until we were ready for them.

Disaster struck at one point, leaving the entire party dead. It's been a couple days, but I think both Loc and Plump were AFK and Manon pulled, and Falo, the Taru Terror, pulled way too much hate at the start, and Kiki couldn't pull it off of him, and couldn't heal him fast enough by herself (berserk *does* reduce defense drastically, so he was really getting pounded). Oh, and we had two more beetles spawn on top of us. Falo was down first, then Kiki, then Manon, then Locmari, then Plump, then Grym. Grym HP'd to Rabao, switched to WHM and came back and raised the rest of us, warped back, switched back to THF/NIN and by the time she got back on chocobo, we were ready to go again.

Kiki ended up with 12.5K EXP for the night (went from nearly 42 to well over 43), which I think was in about 4 hours of fighting, including the downtime for the mass death. All in all a pretty good night. I'm still not sure how people can get 5000 exp/hour, since we were hitting chain 5s for 286, and aside from the deaths, really couldn't have been pulling much faster.

Crafting: "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK..."

Kiki hit 28 in woodworking a couple of weeks ago, so she's been working on building Guild Points so she could trade them for the Lumberjack key item, which allows you to synth 3 logs at a time (using bundling twine) and save on wind crystals while making lumber.

It seems a lot of people work on GP, since the daily items and materials to make the items get a bit scarce or pricey when it's their day.

Some of the requied items are available in stores for less than the cost of synthing, like Lauan Shields. I could pick these up for around 120 in Port Windurst (low fame mule), and they were worth 30 GP. Problem was you could turn in 42. That was a lot of switching between characters, and I did it for two different days.

I think my favorite so far is the Holly Pole. These are worth 423 GP, and cost as little as 500 to buy, and 900 to make. My average cost for making them was 1200 and for purchase was 600. I think 8 was all I could turn in, but it was a cheap 3384 GP, and it put Kiki up over 10,000 GP.

So Kiki can now lumberjack, which should be beneficial, at least for making arrowwood and ash lumber.

We're also working on getting Qiara enough Guild Points at the Culinary Guild so she can get Raw Fish Handling and be able to make sushi.

Quests: Grym and Kiki Get Their First Artifact Items

After we headed home to Windurst after our party in Gustav Tunnel, Kiki headed to San d'Oria to turn in a bunch of Lauan Shields for GP at the woodworking guild, and to pick up her AF1 quest. Meanwhile, Grym grabbed her Quadav Stew out of storage and headed to Jeuno to do her AF1 quest. Months ago, Grym, Manon, and Naukhel had spent an evening fighting Quadavs and stealing the Stew for their AF1. After Jeuno, Grym had to go to Selbina, and back to Jeuno again, and now is proudly in possession of her Muarader's Knife. It's actually a nice dagger: +2DEX and +2AGI. Not sure if it's best as main hand or off hand though. We'll have to look into that.

Sunday morning, Kiki headed out to North San d'Oria to speak to the poor little Elvaan boy with the mean daddy. Fortunately Kiki had returned his fishing rod to him months ago, so he was happy to see her and wanted help sharpening a sword. Kiki zones into South San d'Oria to talk to people at the weapon store and then realized it was a woman at the other end of town she was supposed to talk with. While she was running through town, she sees a shout from a PLD looking for help with AF1. Oh boy! Sebring, a PLD54, was looking for help, so I said I needed to do the quest too, but didn't think I'd be the best asset, but he said I could come along too.  

He got a 50+ WAR/MNK, Berthuo, and a 45 RDM/BLM, Blacklink, to help us. We headed off to the Ordelles, and wandered around for nearly an hour looking for the stalacmite that spawned the Earth Elemental. The fight itself was pretty short, and really the only scary part was one Stonega II that knocked Kiki down to about 200HP (582 max for her at the moment, without HP boosting equipment). Kiki's Banish IIs did more damage than her sword, so it was kind of fun.

Berthuo needed help with the Davoi and Beadeaux parts of the mission for Rank 5, so Sebring and I said we'd help, and got Grym to join us as her WHM35/NIN17 for sneak and invisible. We headed to Davoi and had little trouble getting to the magicite, then it was off to Beadeaux. We thought he'd already killed the Named Quadavs and got the items to open the door in Qulon Dome, but when he couldn't open the door, we realized our confusion. So we headed back out and killed the first guy near the Pashhow zone with no trouble (he was walking around up top and we were able to provoke him when he got close). Made the long trek to get the other one, and Kiki got aggro'd so we had to fight a couple Quadavs. Grym kept Kiki sneaked after that. The Headhunter was being fought by someone else, but they only needed one of the items and allied with us so Berthuo could get an item too.

We had to go run some Real Life errands, so we left Sebring and Berthuo to head to Jeuno and come back to get the Beadeaux magicite. Since they're both over 50, they didn't really need any help getting back to Qulon Dome.

Grym and Kiki walked back to San d'Oria through the Dunes (I really love walking through the Dunes and helping out people being chased by gobs or bats, or killing ghouls and getting skulls for people without subjobs). Kiki went to talk to Ailbeche again, and he was so happy with his new whetstone that he gave her a sword he stole from his dad. Does it bother anyone else that the Honor Sword for the Paladin (a good knight in shining armor) was actually stolen?

I'm so happy that Kiki was able to get this before she hit 42, so it's there for her to equip when she next levels! A big thank you to Sebring and Berthuo and Blacklink!

Leveling: Smaller Static Heads to Gustav Tunnel (38-41)

We were able to level on Saturday during the day! Hurray! It would be nice if we could do this every other weekend or something. The four of us were all 38 (PLD/WAR, THF/NIN, RNG/WAR, SMN/WHM), and had decided to give Gustav Tunnel a try. We had hoped to start out at 1PM, but it took awhile to get two more people.

Locmari was able to convince Cognac, a WHM/BLM, and Kingmog, a RDM/BLM to join us in the "unusual" levelling spot. Again, we didn't get a first voker, but amazingly Hell Bats don't aggro, and would spawn in our camp, so we still were able to start off several fights with SA/TA on me. /cheer Even without that, hate was pretty well under control.

I have to say I really loved this camp, and hope it's good for a few more levels. The only trouble was the occasional goblin being zoned past us, but again, we never had too much to handle (though we did zone once when a hawker spawned behind Manon as she pulled another). I think that might have been the time that Manon was down to 7HP before getting back to camp. Yikes. We also needed an Invincible/Benediction one time when we had a link, but we all survived.

We fought Hawkers and Hell Bats, with an occasional Goblin thrown into the mix (Poachers, Robbers, and Reapers). The Reapers are DRKs and drop DRK scrolls, so I was able to get Stun to have on hand for when my DRK hits 37.

And I must say, having a RDM at 41 with Refresh was awesome. No need to rest for MP until after a crisis!

We levelled for hours, and took a break for about 30 minutes around supper time. Not sure of the final exp count, but it was probably close to 15K in about 4 or 5 hours. We ended up with Grym less than 100 short of 42, and Kiki less than 600. I can't believe we're nearly 42.

We gave linkpearls to both Cognac and Kingmog, but their first introduction to the linkshell was a very grumpy Emith arguing with Magery. Hopefully they'll realize that isn't typical. :-)

Leveling: Static Party Levels in Sanctuary of Zi'Tah (38-39)

Friday night found the static party at levels 35-38, and we headed to the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah. We couldn't find a WAR/ or /WAR, but picked up a BLM/WHM. It was a refreshing change of scenery from the hours and hours we'd spent in East Altepa Desert, but we probably should have gone there a couple of levels earlier. The EXP wasn't too great, and Manon didn't really like the pulling, with the Gaylas being tough to see, and the Goblins having what seemed to be a wider circle for aggro. No problems we couldn't handle, and lots of wind crystals to take home, but only 11.3K EXP for about 4-4.5 hours of fighting, leaving us at 37-39.

Since we didn't have a first-voker, it wasn't as smooth as it could be with hate control, but we managed pretty well. We fought mostly ogreflies, with a few funguar, goblins, and gaylas thrown in.

It was handy that we camped right at the outpost and that Windurst controlled the area, so we could use the Outpost Teleport service for a quick trip home. The BLM thought it was amusing that I'd set my HP there until I mentioned the teleport service.

This was probably our last party with Emith as WHM. He had originally only intended to level WHM to 37, so he made that goal, but it would have been nice for him to get to 42 so he could have all the teleport spells.

Leveling: Dark Knight Kiki Returns to the Jungles (28-32)

Since we overdid it Friday night, Grymalkyn didn't feel like playing on Saturday, so Kiki decided she would head to Kazham and see if a party would be interested in her DRK28/WAR14. After 2 or 3 hours of standing around with her seeking-party flag up, she got an invitation from a WHM27 in Yhoator, and happily accepted and headed out there. The party was WHM/BLM, WHM/BLM, NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, DRG/WAR, and DRK/WAR. The leader, Mirrorlan, was a really good organizer. She put together a good combination of jobs, broke the melees up into two groups for skillchains, and off we went. It was a good fast party, and we all worked well together.

Disaster struck when someone dragged a Goblin Pathfinder right on top of us, leaving 2 dead. One of the NIN/WARs HP'd and left us, so he was replaced with a WAR/THF. Unfortunately, it was a sub-30 WAR, so THF was a useless sub for him, and when I noticed he was hitting for about 8 points of damage with his greataxe, I wasn't too surprised he was still using a level 8 greataxe. At least he had his chainmail body armor and wasn't still in leather!

The new WAR was pulling, and got aggro'd a couple times (and died twice). He didn't want to pull any more, and suggested me as puller, but since DRKs need to rest for MP, the leader sent our NIN main tank out as puller. This worked well, though a couple times the WAR still went out looking to pull, which added some confusion.

The other WHM left, and we replaced him with a THF/WAR, but the party didn't last much longer. We broke up conveniently at supper time with Kiki more than halfway to 30. A BLM was offering Warp 2s, so Kiki took one and headed back to Kazham for a break. She had barely been there 2 minutes when she got an invitation to a party being set up by a RDM29, but I said I had to go for about an hour. I set status to away and went anonymous, and made supper.

When I got back to the game, I didn't have my flag up 2 minutes when the same RDM invites me again. Poor group still wasn't fully formed, but I think it was worth the wait for them. We had a really great group, and headed to the Waterfall in the Hidden Valley, and just shredded the Makara and Sahagins. Set up was RDM/SMN, WHM/BLM, BLM/WHM, WAR/NIN, WAR/NIN, and DRK/WAR. I was one of the babies of the group, with some 30s and 31s. It's not fun being the baby as a DRK, I miss more than normal!

Had a really great fragmentation SC set up with the greataxe weilding WAR (Moods): Shadow of Death -> Sturmwind. I'd magic burst with Aero and the BLM would use Thunder. Really made short work of the fishes. The main tank, Yobun, is a Galka, with his PLD at 58. He's the type of player that makes you want to just hug him. None of the mages had juices, so he brought out his "mule", a WHM43 character, using his other pc/ps2 (he and his wife both play), to bring him pineapples and water crystals and made juice to give to the mages. The mule then stayed to cast haste on the WAR/NINs as well.

We did a lot of standing around and waiting when people had to leave (and the RDM had to go to Norg for awhile too), and some confusion when the WHM left and Yobun got a RNG friend to come replace him, but the RDM talked a WHM friend (Naynaeve) into leaving her party and joining ours, so the RNG didn't come. That configuration didn't last long, as the BLM and RDM had to leave, so Yobun again got his RNG friend Midget to join the 4 of us left, and we had a really great time as a party of 5, WAR/NIN, WAR/NIN, RNG/NIN, WHM/BLM, and DRK/WAR (sort of felt left out not having /NIN!). We consistently got chain 5s and one time *nearly* got a chain 6, but it was one of those stupid Sahagins that take soooo long to walk after the puller that we didn't quite make it. Of course we were mostly fighting Ts and VTs, but we sure made short work of them.

Soon after Kiki hit 32 and Yobun ran out of Shihei, we stopped for the night. Teleport out courtesy of "mule" Exzavier, and safely logged out at Holla. Nice people that were fun to party with, and really good players! That was so unexpected, and definitely worth staying up later than I should have. :-)

Leveling: Yet Another Evening in Altepa: Not-So-Static Reaches 38

We had a really good EXP party in East Altepa Desert Friday night. We picked up a NIN35/WAR17, Ragekage, who was trying to get his NIN to 37 for his RNG main (currently 56). It was so nice having someone who did a great job as a trick buddy for us. No deaths, no missed SAnTAs. We really were plowing through the dhalmels. The only disruptions were from the nasty earth elementals.

One of the coolest things of the evening: there were tornados in the desert! I'd never seen that. I just love this game. :-)

We started the night as a party of 34-35, and finished up maybe 5 hours later as 35-38. Emith (was WHM34) had to leave early, so he didn't get as levelled as the rest of us. Our replacement WHM (Zean) was really good, and we were able to keep plowing along. Grym was close to 38 when the NIN had to leave, but he stayed until she levelled. Since it was so late, we didn't look for a replacement, but fought a couple EP and DC Sand Beetles to get Kiki over the edge (3 points over 38!).

Getting Flash at 37 really is as wonderful as everyone says on the PLD boards. Between SAnTA and Flash, I really felt like I didn't have to work too hard for hate. I did have to use Cover a few times for Manon. I think we've figured out how that works pretty well. I do wish it lasted about 50% longer though. I sometimes didn't get hate back before Cover ended.

A wonderful perk of a WHM in a post-36 party: Teleport out of the battlefield when the night's over! It was a long night, but it was worth staying up late for.