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.