Leveling: Partial Static Gets to 46

The static party spent a lot of time Friday evening and Saturday afternoon trying to level. Overall, things went pretty well, but came to a miserable end on Saturday afternoon.

Friday evening, we were able to get a WHM (Brega) and a WAR/THF (Marc), and we headed for the Labyrinth of Onzozo. We were at 43, and I think this may not have been the best place for us. The goblins were too weak, and there was someone farming the Cockatrices, so the three goblins->cockatrice chain plans were a bit ruined. The cockatrices were kind of funny to fight. I didn't like getting petrified much. Hard to hold hate when you're a statue. More interesting to get cockatrice meat as drops instead of insect wings though! Marc had to leave for a bit, and when we thought he wasn't coming back, Loc invited Draconian, a WAR/NIN to replace him. Of course Marc got back just before Draconian arrived, but was good natured about it and left the party.  

Funniest moments: pulling a Goblin Trader with a leech pet, and getting a dozen leeches linked on the way back to camp. I was laughing so hard it was difficult to zone. Emith dropped by for a bit to see how we were doing. If he stops levelling long enough for us to catch up to him, it would be fun to have him in the group again.

Saturday, we decided to head back to Western Altepa Desert. The beetles were still pretty good here until we got to 45. We picked up Gamemadness, a WHM, and Redek, a DRK. Gamemadness had teleport-altep, but hadn't been to Rabao, so we stopped in there so he could get his map and so we could chocobo to the camp. It was pretty uneventful and good exp, but really slowed down a lot when we leveled.

Redek brought up goblins in Yhoator as a suggestion, and since Grym and I had previously scouted out a camp near the Ifrit's Cauldron zone, thinking that sounded like a good spot for the mid-40s, I quickly added my two cents. Everyone agreed, so Gamemadness teleported us to Dem (only 3 of us had the Yhoator crystal, plus it's a long scary walk from there to the camp), we rode to Jeuno and took the airship to Kazham. It was a long trip, but ended up being very worth it.

The camp is wonderful - at a zone, so no spawns. No one else around, just an occasional miner heading to Ifrit's Cauldron. Plenty of goblins, with fairly easy pulls. We fought Hunters (nice and soft) and Bouncers (very hard on us before we hit 46), and were routinely getting chain 4s for 280 exp. It ended badly however. When Manon headed out to pull for what was to be the final fight of the day, she got a link (hunter and bouncer). I thought we were all going to zone, the WHM thought it would be a good time to cast a teleport spell to use like Escape, Manon was getting smacked by two gobs, and I thought a Cure III would be a good way to grab them both at the same time. Sadly, it was too slow, Manon died, and the rest of us were standing on the teleport crystal at the Dem crag. We should have all just zoned, and I should have provoked the Bouncer and hit Invincible. Looking back at the log afterwards, Manon was getting hit for nearly 150 HP with each hit. I guess our RNGs are nice and soft too, just like the goblin ones. It was very sad.