Beastmasters: The Duo Returns (25-27)

Kiki and Grym dusted off their Beastmaster gear on Saturday, hoping they could get back to levelling BST. Ever since our bad day of trying to level at 25 around New Years (with our run-in with the gilseller over Bloodpool Vorax in Passhow being the final straw for a bad day), we've been afraid to try again. So we grabbed a couple stacks of Fish Broth jugs and headed off to Qufim. We were actually able to find enough Even Match clippers and Dark Bats at night time, and had quite a good time. We only had one Wight-induced death, and are now a safe buffer over 27.

The BST that Grym and Kiki had met while farming in Promyvion in January spotted us while we were fighting, cheered us on and asked if we wanted to join an all-BST linkshell, AnimalLove. So we took linkpearls, but I feel weird not being on the ClanBEB pearl, and Grym felt weird being in an LS with people she doesn't know, so I'm not sure how much we'll use it. They do have a lot of BSTs in the group though, so it could be a good resource.

Leveling: Red Mage Hits the Jungles (25-30)

Kiki's joining a 32-33 static as a Red Mage on April 10th, so she has some catching up to do, since her RDM was only 25. So she got all the gear she needed, set up her macros to swap INT and MND gear, and headed to Kazham. While waiting for the airship, a WHM26 invited her to join a party, so it sure seemed like she was off to a good start. I won't go into all the details of the three EXP sessions she had on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (and not just because I don't remember them all), but just wanted to comment on a few things.

Got from 1000 into 25 to about 1000 into 27 on Saturday, but it took over 8 hours. Between all the people going AFK all the time, then people leaving without notice and needing replacements, it just was so slow. There also seems to be a new trend for Power Leveling. I think a PL is ok as long as it's someone's friend, and they're more there to make sure you stay safe rather than replacing the normal party functions, and I was happy having Itera around for a bit, but for someone to say "I've hired a PL and you all have to chip in" just seems wrong. Seems like people die more often with a PL than they would if the party was trying its best on its own.

One WHM we had joined when Itera was still there, but didn't seem to notice when that he had left soon after that. They never did their job, and really seemed AFK most the time. Finally they said "I've got to go to the store, I'll be back in 20 minutes, the PL will take care of you". We all said "we don't have a PL", but they were already gone. After 30 minutes we kicked them out of the party and got another WHM.  

I also think the young warriors of Vana'diel aren't taking their jobs very seriously. Not one of them I partied with from 25 to 30 used either axe or greataxe. Sword, scythe, and polearm seemed to be the choices. If they realized just how much more damage they could do with a greataxe, they could be so much better at holding hate and killing mobs faster. And don't get me started on underleveled subjobs.... Had one tank who kept running all over the place, so I finally said "Can the tank please stand still?", and he seemed to jump around a bit less after that.

Sunday and Monday evenings Kiki had more efficient parties, and made it to 400 away from 29 on Sunday, and then 1.4k over 30 on Monday.

Got an invite pretty quick on Sunday for a party that was just forming and getting ready to head to the second jungle. That party's surprise was a WHM28/BLM1 who didn't even have a chocobo license. Apparently she was trying to get to 30 as fast as possible, at which point she was going to become a Beastmaster. This person also has a character that's a level 56 Summoner. Kinda odd.

At one point in Sunday's party, the BLM needed to go AFK, but rather than saying anything, he just had his roommate take over for him. His roommate normally plays MNK. So when the BLM used Aeroga and aggro'd the lizard and 12 people died, he was very apologetic.

Monday evening Kiki didn't wait long for an invite, and was to replace a level 31 Red Mage in a party in the second jungle. Nice camp - dead end cave with a lizard living in it, but no golbin spawns. Very safe as long as you stayed in far enough. The party had lots of people coming and going, and ended up being quite decent, but at that point Kiki was already staying later than she had intended, keeping the party full while waiting for other people's replacements. I also don't understand people not giving any warning before leaving.

As Kiki was leaving (logged out at the camp), the Taru Ninja, Drxcrist, gave Kiki a linkpearl to Leprechaun, a Taru-only linkshell.

Quests: Saturday Morning Quest Cleanup

Saturday morning, Grym and Kiki headed out to Qufim to try to break Trow's clothespoles and maybe get some fishing skillups. They both got to Fishing 38, and each took one of their tunas to the fishing guild to pass the test to become Apprentice fishermen. Then they headed to Selbina to do a couple quests there. Next up was Beaucidine Glacier for the Love and Ice quest, so they walked through Ranguemont Pass, hoping to get a couple Arhiman lenses for the different quests they need them for. They managed to get one, but didn't want to spend the whole morning waiting for new spawns, so they headed for the Mirror Pond in Beaucidine Glacier and tossed in the song sheets, and ran out through Batallia Downs.

Moat Carp count is 3107/10000.

General: Friday Night on the Ferry

ClanBEB's Friday night linkshell event was "help Trow level woodworking". A big group of us headed to the ferry where Trow supplied us with Clothespoles and bait, with the expectation we'd break a lot of rods and he would repair them, hopefully getting some good skillups in the process. We were also hoping for the Sea Horror (probably could have killed it with the whole group we had at the start) and Pirates for Sand Charms.

I thought it was a lot of fun, though I kept catching tunas instead of breaking rods. I did get about .6 or .7 skillups for my fishing as well. Grym had much better luck with breaking rods, and we decided that my +4 from gear made it more likely for me to actually land the tuna, since our skill level was the same, and Grym just wears +3 in gear.

We didn't see the Sea Horror, but we must have had pirates on 5 trips. I think everyone who needed a Sand Charm got one. It was nice to finish that quest finally, as it allowed us to do two more quests in Selbina (The Real Gift, Inside the Belly). Kiki also got a Bronze Box finally, and was able to finish the Scooped! quest in Windurst.