Levelling: The LLS Hobnobs with the Hobgoblins in Bibiki Bay (68)

Kitti's been having internet troubles, so Itera found a WHM67 (Reefermadness) to join the Low Level Static for exp Sunday night. The five of us were all 68, with less than a 5K spread between us now, which is probably the closest we've all been in a long time. Kiki was actually 10 exp ahead of Itera! Elboron, Yobun, and Grymalkyn all used their Empress Bands, so they made up another 1K exp during the night as well.

I really wanted to go back to Bibiki Bay, and it was crowded, but we were able to find a camp and managed to pull enough to keep us happy. I know Grymalkyn (our puller and my husband's character) was very frustrated at times, since the other parties would some times snatch a mob out of her hands (crossbow up before it went purple), but I think she managed to out-pull most of the time. We were fighting Hobgoblins and Catoplebas, with a couple bunnies thrown in for fun on as a chain #5. The other parties would never pull the Hobgoblin Blagger, so we included it in most of our chains. The evasion on those is so high (they're Thieves) that it can take awhile to kill them, but even as a chain #3 they weren't too much of a problem.

I thought things went quite well, and we had mostly chain #4s (for 284 exp), with quite a few chain #5s thrown in. I think we ended up fighting for 3 hours, and netted 13.5k without rings. Reefermadness hit 68 before we disbanded, and Kiki's now about 10K away from level 69 (new shield at 69: General's Shield, with +2 Enmity!). We did have to rest a bit for mp between chains, just because the Goblin bombs and AOE spells took a bit more out of us than "easier" prey. I also liked it because we were fighting IT(+/++)s, and I got to tank more than Itera. :-)

It was really nice having a WHM healer for a change. As a PLD tank, I think Regen III is my favorite spell, followed closely by Cure V (doesn't generate much hate and brings me out of the red really fast). And having Protect IV (which I will get at level 70) is a nice defense boost as well. Reefermadness seemed to enjoy bursting on our Light skillchain as well. I would frequently burst Flash, but not sure that makes it last longer or anything - it's just fun to do, and not as wasteful of my MP as Holy would be.

I'm a bit torn about my new Byrnie. I was using Defender pretty much the whole night (was getting hit for 50-100 on normal hits with it up), so it seems "silly" to wear something with +20 Attack on it when my attack is reduced so drastically by Defender (cuts over 100 points from it). However, the defense and vitality on the Byrnie are really close to those of my AF Surcoat, so really, +20 Attack is still +20 more Attack than I have without it on. And as a Tarutaru, I can use all the +STR I can get. I suppose one would really need to parse fights to see just what diffence a specific gear set makes. My intent for the Byrnie was to use it when fighting VTs (when I wouldn't normally be using Defender), but it should be fine for any EXP mob.