Leveling: Just Another Nuke-Happy Tarutaru

One of my long term goals for Kiki is to get her BLM to (at least) 40, since it would be useful for BCNMs and other capped events. One thing I didn't realize was how much I'd actually enjoy it, so who knows, I may want to take it higher some day. It's kind of nice to be playing a job that uses Tarutaru strengths rather than needing to offset some weaknesses. With all the other things I have on my to-do list, I don't often find myself with a whole day to devote to a solitary pursuit, but Saturday was such a day, as neither Elboron nor Grymalkyn were planning on playing.

I spent an hour shuffling gear between characters, getting everything for my BLM31, as well as gear I could switch to at 32. I headed to Selbina to pick up the one scroll I would need (Blizzaga at 32), and then headed to Jeuno to do a bit of shopping to round out my gear, and grab some extra food. I had two sub-zero gelatos and 5 sweet rice cakes in storage, and wanted more sweet rice cakes, but ended up settling for a stack of melon pies.

For my shopping spree, I picked up a Baron's Saio for its +INT, upgraded my old Black Cape to a Black Cape +1, and got a morion tathlum (someone was trying to jack the price, so I kept checking over the course of an hour until another one went up, and got it for the going rate). I might have liked a pair of garrison boots for their INT, but there were none up. With the gear I already had, I now had +19 INT at 31, and would have +24 at 32, without food. I believe I could have had another +4 with garrison boots, eremite +1 rings, and the rare/ex sweet sachet instead of the tathlum, but at too high a cost when I've got other gear waiting for a few levels (Mannequin Pumps at 35, Wisdom Rings at 36). I set up my heal macro to swap in my Pilgrim's Wand, Baron's Slacks, Seer's Tunic, and Wizard's Earring for +mp regen while healing, ate my lunch, and put my flag up for a party.

After awhile, I got an invite from a SAM, and joined the party. We had a NIN, RNG, SAM, WHM, RDM, BLM, ranging from 31 to 33, with me as the baby of the group at 31. We headed off to Garliage Citadel and fought bats and beetles on the stairs. It was fairly slow, partially because of a lack of prey, but we worked pretty well together and it was nice group of people. No chains, and we were getting 200 for the kills. The NIN got killed once, when a very evil bat got in 4 double attacks in a row, and dropped the poor guy faster than the three mages could cure him.

It took me a couple of fights to figure out the hate threshold, and with me as the baby of the group, I was getting resisted a bit, so I used the mage-friendly trio of enfeebles: Burn, Shock, Choke. I'd wait until I felt hate was safe and start tossing off the element-appropriate spells. Like Halifirien commented in his blog last Friday, I felt like I wasn't doing much, but it doesn't help having the BLM pulling the mobs away from the melees, possibly spoiling weaponskills. When I leveled to 32 and had more +INT gear, I had to relearn the hate-line. Eventually, our NIN had to leave. He gave us an hour of warning, and we were actively searching for a replacement, but there wasn't one to be found. Our WHM disconnected and didn't return, so we disbanded, and I put my flag and started running back to Jeuno (my homepoint is typically in Windurst these days).

I wasn't even halfway to Jeuno when I got another invite, this time from a SMN. When I got to Jeuno, she had switched to her high level WHM, and whisked me off to East Altepa, where a WHM was waiting. She headed back to Jeuno and grabbed a SAM and dropped him off, then went back to pick up a NIN. A second BLM was taking the long way, as she didn't have the Altepa Gate crystal. We gathered together a bit north of the zone to Korroloka Tunnel, all level 32 or 33. We started in fighting the beetles, and chained them pretty well, but the exp was a bit low, especially after the SMN left and we had a THF34 to replace her. The SAM was a Japanese player, and was trying very hard to get the group functioning better than it was, and for the most part succeeded. He had quite the set of gear on, including a peacock charm, and we later learned that he had 5 jobs at 75: WAR, MNK, RNG, RDM, and NIN. I really respect his patience with our somewhat unruly party - trying to improve it rather than abandoning us. We were plagued with the typical AFKs and waiting for replacements that go hand in hand with most pick-up parties I've been in.

We ended up moving on to Desert Dhalmels (which elicited a (Death) (Fear) comment from the SAM), and did pretty well on them, though we did have a lot of trouble with a link that left 3 dead (proving the SAM's fears were well-founded). If a bunch of higher levels hadn't happened by, it would have been worse.

I usually turn on the filters for other peoples' damage when I play mage jobs, but I left them off this time. The other BLM in the party was a Mithra a level higher than me. I didn't examine her, but her visible gear wasn't giving her any INT bonuses, and she wasn't eating any food. I was consistently out-damaging her by at least 50% when we would use the same spells. I really was surprised that the difference was so great. Now I wish I had checked her gear to get an actual comparison of our INT. She was one of those BLMs that like to constantly be casting something, usually opting to open with Aero II on the dhalmels, causing a bit of scrambling of the melees. I ended up with two levels in this party, but was happy to get back to Windurt, nearly 12 hours after I left it.