Leveling: Subjob Static In East Altepa (36-37)

Saturday evening, we set out to get some experience points for our 36-37 jobs, since I'd really like to use Kiki's DRK for fighting Diabolos in CoP Mission 3-5, and we'd like to do that mission sooner rather than later. There were no people seeking for parties in level 35-36, and there were actually only 10 players total at level 36 on the entire server. So we decided to head to East Altepa, where we could still find IT Dhalmels, and we opted to use two NPCs to fill out our party.

We had Itera WAR37/MNK18, Grym NIN36/WAR18, Elboron WHM36/BLM18, and Tsakiki DRK36/WAR18. Our NPCs some times would mess up an intended skillchain, but overall, they were quite handy to have around. Other than a BST35 fighting beetles with spiders, there was really no one else in the area, and we had plenty of dhalmels to get decent chains. We all soon hit 37, and Grym got to read her expensive Utsusemi: Ni scroll (1.5 million - I think we should do a few BCNMs some time), and Kiki got to read the free Stun scroll she's had in her mogsafe for over a year. She got it when our old ClanTen static was fighting goblins in Gustav Tunnel at levels 38-41, in Decemeber 2004.

I'm enjoying DRK a lot, but it feels odd to not be able to help out with healing people, since PLD70 and RDM60 are my two highest jobs, and both of those are not only capable of healing, but are expected to. However, I don't really like that my Dark Knight, a force to be feared, looks like a little rodeo clown in her Wonder Kaftan, which is really the best body armor for her to be wearing in the 30s, stats-wise.

Itera had to leave a couple thousand points shy of level 38, so the three of us decided to stay a bit longer and get closer to his level. At this point, I think we were down to just Elboron's NPC, since Elboron was a bit ahead of us and the exp cut would help Grym and I get caught up. We started fighting tough beetles and tough dhalmels, and things went so smoothly, I pulled a VT dhalmel. No troubles there either, so I grabbed an IT low evasion, low defense dhalmel. Again, no problems. Our PLD/THF/BRD trio would certainly never try fighting a low IT mob, but it wasn't a problem for our DRK/NIN/WHM trio.

Once Grym got Ni, he decided that he could understand why people actually like NIN. The cast time is so much shorter than Ichi, and the extra shadows make it easier to keep them active. I'm still not convinced, but i really should get Kiki's NIN from 20 up to 37 one day.