Missions: Ancient Vows (CoP 2-5)

Our newly formed CoP static is off to a great start. After months and months of thinking about how we were going to tackle this mission, the pieces came together and we finally had a group of six people who really want to do these missions together. The challenge is to find strategies that fit with the jobs the six of us have available.

Last night we were finally ready to face the Mammets in Monarch Linn. This fight is capped at level 40, and we opted for this set-up:

Grymalkyn BST/NIN
Tsakiki BST/NIN
Elboron BRD/WHM
Itera MNK/WAR
Wendell WHM/BLM
Splinte WAR/NIN

With everyones' pockets full of hi-potions and yellow liquids, we set out from the Tavnazian Safehold, and made our way to Riverne Site #A-01. Elboron had a giant scale from a previous outing in Riverne, so we would only need to get one from a Firedrake. These are used to stabilize Unstable Spatial Displacements, and we would have to go through two of these to get to Monarch Linn for the fight. This was good, since it would minimize the amount of fighting along the way. The drakes and hippogryphs have some special moves that can be pretty hard on a party, so the less we had to fight, the easier the trek would be.

Grym and Kiki both picked up an Even Match Riverne Vulture to accompany them along the way, and without too much fuss, we made it to the final displacement that takes us to Monarch Linn. We had to fight only one Firedrake and one Hippogryph, so it was a pretty painless trip. Grym and Kiki had been using leave/charm to keep their pets with them for the whole trip, and then made a fatal mistake. We both jumped into the portal to Monarch Linn without releasing our pet birds first. 5 of us made it in, and Itera wasn't there. He'd gotten attacked by our birds after we zoned, and by the time we all got back out to him, he was dead in the grass. We MPK'd Itera. :-(

Wendell raised him, and we all headed back to the BC area, rested up, and went over our strategy. Wendell has already got up to CoP 4-2, but fortunately agreed to join our static now, and re-do the missions with us, so we had one person with prior experience with this mission with us. Nervous as a bunch of cats in a room full of rocking chairs, we headed into the BC.

Immediately after the awesome cutscene on entering the BC, Grym and Kiki called their first crab, to get the cool-down going. We also used Familiar to toughen up our first pet, and get them to last as long as possible. We got reraise on everyone, thanks to our handy Charm Wands from the Valentione's event, Wendell cast protectra ii and shellra ii, we ate our food, and waited for Wendell's MP to recover. Wendell said he was ready, and suddenly we notice Itera has the Red Dot of Doom next to his name, and poof, he vanished. Ack!! I think Splinte nearly had a heart attack.

Fortunately, Itera got back quickly - his anti-virus software started a scan and kicked him out. I think it would have been much much worse if we'd actually started in on the fighting before he'd been disconnected. He did lose his buffs though, so we had a little bit more of a delay. By the time we actually headed in to start fighting, we'd been out of the cutscene for 5 minutes, as our Call Beast timers were back to 00:00.

Grym sent her crab after the left mammet, Kiki sent hers after the right mammet, and Splinte voked the middle one, and pulled it back in to the hallway, where Itera, Elbo, and Wendell were waiting. Grym and I ran and used Sic and Heel on our pets, but hadn't got far enough away and pulled hate from our mammets, so we had our pets re-engage for a bit. Since our pets weren't on the run, they took more damage than they might have, and our first pets died pretty quickly. I think our second, non-Familiared crabs lasted a bit longer, but it's so hard to tell. Grym and Kiki basically ran counter-clockwise around the circle area, with their pets running after them and the mammets running after the pets.

Meanwhile, the mammet the others were fighting refused to switch into a "good" mode, and kept using Transmogrification, which meant it would absorb damage and heal instead, so they would have to turn around and just stand there until they could start hitting it again. Finally it switched to DRG, they locked it in with a yellow liquid, Elboron used Soul Voice and +attack and +accuracy songs, Itera used 100 Fists, and Splinte used Mighty Strikes. Apparently it died quite fast - I would have liked to have seen it!

Grym took her mammet over to the hallway, while Kiki continued to run around the circle. When my second pet died, I opted to just run and use Charm on the Mammet to bind it. I wasn't sure if my call beast timer was back yet, and didn't want to take the time to check either. Grym and I had both equipped a Minstrel's Dagger and a De Saintre's Axe to maxmize our CHR and +Charm just for this purpose (plus we had our Noble's Ribbons, Loyalty Rings, Corsette +1, and Bird Whistle). It worked very well - each Charm "landed", binding the mammet for a few seconds, letting me get a bit of distance and get a few hi-potions in me. My mammet decided it wanted to be a BLM and kept nuking me, but the others quickly killed the second mammet, and I went running over to the group with 120hp left, and Wendell and Elbo quickly healed me up.

Despite having 4 melees, a funguar, and a tiger ripping into the final mammet, it seemed to be a bit slow, simply because it used Transmogrification 3 or 4 times and we'd have to stop hitting it. Then suddenly, it was all over, and we were in another cutscene. Our clear time was 17:56. Hurray! We had won on our first try, and didn't have a single death. Our plan worked, and we were well-prepared for it.

Five of us found ourselves washed up near the Bubbly Bernie spot in South Gustaberg, while Wendell was left behind in Monarch Linn. He came to meet us in Bastok so I could take a picture, and the rest of us continued running around getting cutscenes for the next two missions, and are now on CoP 3-3. After being "on" CoP 2-5 for over a year, it's weird to finally have it done.


New title: Tavnazian Traveler