Leveling: LLS in Caedarva Mire (74)

We finally made it to Caedarva Mire to exp Monday night, along with all of the other level 73-75 parties on the server. At least it seemed that way - the competition for prey was fierce.

Since we had to take the ferry to Nashmau, we got a pretty late start on actually fighting, and I think we ended up fighting for about two hours. We fought Heraldic Imps, Spongilla Flies, and Jnun (undead Doomed). I can see why everyone goes here to level now. We were killing things so fast that we scarcely had time to breathe. Yobun would usually disengage and have the next mob there just as the one we were fighting was dead. I used Provoke and Flash at the start of each fight, but refrained from using them again just so they'd be ready for the next mob.

We had a lot of "breaks" because there just weren't enough mobs for all the parties. There was one brief period where one party left that it got better, but another party soon arrived, and we were back to losing chains because there was nothing to kill. We weren't seeing the Chain #50s people are regularly reporting in our LS (merit parties in Bhaflau Thickets usually), but we got a couple chain #7s and #6s, so it was kind of fun for us.

We ended up with a bit under 12K (with Empress Band) for the 2 hours, and Yobun said we'd killed 80 mobs. Exp varied from around 90-250 per kill, and it all added up pretty fast. Grymalkyn got to level 74, but Wendell's still 71. Hopefully he'll get to 72 on Sunday. Some of us should actually hit 75 next Monday. Hard to believe!

The Mire was a nice change from the Hilltrolls and their Diamondhide, but the zone is so dark and gloomy that it's really hard to see very well, and with our set-up fighting these, I often could only see the back of one of the Galkas. More than once, Grym had to ask where I was for Trick Attack, and the answer was usually "right in front of Itera". Poor little Taru gets so lost in with the big guys.

Leveling: Extracurricular Party (Lufaise Meadows 73-74)

On Saturday, Elboron, being the desirable bard that he is, got asked if he was interested in an exp party (this happens to him all the time when he isn't anonymous, even when he's already in a party). We'd previously discussed the fact that we wished we weren't so far behind Yobun and Itera, so he asked if Grym and I would be interested, and he'd see if the party needed us all. Grym really hates leveling in general, and it seems THF in particular, so he declined, but I said I was interested. The party didn't have a tank yet, so that worked out well.

We ended up in a party with a DRK75/THF37, DRG74/WAR37, RNG75/NIN37, SMN73/WHM36, BRD73/WHM36, and PLD73/WAR36, and we headed out to Lufaise Meadows to fight Abraxas, the giant birds that killed me at level 72. We wanted to avoid Tavnazian Rams, but they're pretty much unavoidable, so we knew we'd be fighting them too. Not having Stona was a bit of a worry, but needlessly so, since we had a freaking "power leveler". Level 73-75, and there's a 70+ WHM standing beside the party to help out. I think it was either a friend of, or perhaps a second character of the SMN's. Whichever, it did help quite a bit, since the WHM was able to use Stona on whomever needed it, and hand out the R3s when someone got killed. Plus Erase and Cure V after Great Bleat were pretty handy.

I dreaded being the tank for such heavy hitters two levels higher than me (the DRG leveled pretty quickly), but it wasn't too bad. It was a bit weird because some fights I held hate completely, while others had the mob flying all over the place. I used Cover more during those three hours than I had in the entire past year (from level 50 to level 73).

I felt bad when people got killed, but in each situation there wasn't much more I could have done to save them. The RNG got killed when he got a link while pulling, and he was one hit from death by the time he got back to camp, and I could only grab one of the birds before he was dead. The DRK got killed when he pulled hate just after a Ram used Great Bleat on us, and the DRK had around 300 HP and got one-shotted by the Ram. The SMN got killed at one point, when we were fighting two mobs at once and pulled hate. I had to laugh after he was raised and his HP while weakened was 8. He had on a lot of HP->MP gear. I wonder what would happen if you were converting more HP than you actually had?

The DRG left after awhile, and was replaced with a SAM75. He tried to SATA+WS on me to close chains with the DRK, but for some reason the DRK would do his weapon skill, get hate, and then spin the mob around so the SAM and I were no longer behind it, ruining the SAM's SATA. I don't know why he did that, and didn't ask.

Our SMN had to leave suddenly, and Elbo and I said we both had to go pretty soon (we were both 74 at this point), so they got replacements for us as well. The replacement for the SMN was another SMN, and the replacement for Elboron was a RDM/BLM. With the WHM power leveller leaving with the first SMN, I was sort of worried about the party not having stona, but hopefully they managed fine.

It was interesting to be partying as PLD with strangers for the first time in months, but even with the huge damage numbers the melee were putting up, we still struggled for Chain #5s, and with half the group being 75, the points per kill weren't all that great. Our "gimpy" Low Level Static does better on what I consider an off-night. I ended up with less than 12K exp in just over three hours, and I even used my Empress Band. Granted, the SMN wasn't really doing a lot. I think using his avatar buffs would have helped us out, but he rarely used them. The WHM outside the party did much more than he did.

General: And the n00b-of-month award goes to...

...Kiki, for getting most her friends killed in the Arrapago Reef during an LS trip to the two hardest-to-get-to assault staging points, Ilrusi Atoll and Dvucca Isle. Since these two staging points are a bit of a challenge to get to safely, we decided to have a large group at once, hoping for safety in numbers.

We started gathering together in Whitegate, but a few went ahead on the ferry to Nashmau while we waited for others to arrive. We ended up leaving Elbryan and Dadoo behind for the first staging point, since they were still on the ship from Mhaura to Aht Urghan when the rest of us were all in Nashmau. We had Diasuke, Trow, Charcole, Itera, Elboron, Grymalkyn, Aksukia, Kiki, and Aksukia's friend Lordvirus. Diasuke and Lordvirus both had already got these two points and came along to help. We were all level 73 or higher, and all but two had subbed (or mained) WHM or RDM for sneak and invisible. When we got to the iron gate that we needed to unlock with a Lamia Fang Key, we ran into Spot and Mango, both SMN75s (I think), also looking to get to the Ilrusi Atoll Staging Point, so we invited them into our alliance.

We slowly made our way through, trying to avoid detection, but Charcole lost sneak when no one was close enough to recast in time, and he got aggro and ended up dying. We raised him and continued on, fighting a few things as we went.

We got to the staging point and used the runic portal to attune ourselves to it. Back in Whitegate, we all changed to BLM to warp back to Nashmau, having set our home-point there to avoid having to take the ferry again. Spot and Mango left us, and we picked up Elbryan and Dadoo, who were now waiting in Nashmau.

Our second time out from Nashmau, Trow got aggro'd and tried zoning the skeletons, but ended up dying on the zone line. Aksukia raised him and we continued on. At one point, most of us got pretty far ahead of Elbryan and Dadoo, so we waited in a safe spot for them to get caught up to us. They had nearly made it when Dadoo got aggro'd, and killed in two hits. We all jumped up to rush to their aid, casting sneak and invisible to get to them safely.

Unfortunately, Kiki the n00blette didn't notice that when she cast invisible, it wasn't actually on herself. Grym said "wait, you're still visible" about the same time Kiki ran right through a cluster of Qutrubs and a Merrow summoner. /sigh Rather than leave Kiki to die alone, half the group jumped in to try to save her, to no avail, and to the detriment of their own experience points. First Trow, then Elboron, then Charcole, then Itera, then Grymalkyn were all dead. How embarrassing! At least a few people managed to stay out of the fray, and Aksukia handed out R3s all around. We rested up and continued on our way.

Most of us now have portal access to all 5 of the staging areas, so our goal was accomplished. It was pretty fun too I suppose. I couldn't help but laugh at my own stupidity. I feel so bad for killing everyone.

General: All those little things

I recently picked up a Kinkobo for when I want to use a staff for farming (though now that I have the Pole of Trials, I'll have to use until I get rid of the latent). I really like it. If I'm eating Pamamas, the delay is noticably reduced, plus I get an accuracy bonus. It also outdamages my old Battle Staff +1. I haven't really had a lot of use for staff yet, just farming and spirit taker, but I do want to get my skill capped, just in case I end up needing to tank with an earth staff at some point.

Grym and I helped out a BLM in Fei'Yin who was trying to get a treasure chest key (he was questing for Teleport-Vhazl). We were there farming Wandering Bulbs for our Opo-Opo Crown quest, and apparently he'd been there for 3 hours with no luck on the key drop, and wanted some help from Grym's TH2. It took us about half an hour of killing shadows and golems, but he got his key and chest.

Later that evening, I responded to a shout in Windurst asking for help with the dragon for Mission 2-3. I went along as PLD. We ended up with RDM, MNK, DRG, WHM, PLD, and set the record for the week. It was over 6 minutes though, nothing like the 2 minutes back when we helped Splinte and had 2xMNK using their 2-Hours. I really like helping people with this dragon fight, though it usually means getting suitable gear off of a mule first.

Last weekend, Grym and Kiki headed to Lufaise Meadows to try to get an Extra Fine File from the Fomor Warrior, so she could finish up the Tuning In quest in Windurst. We were lucky, and it actually dropped on the third spawn for the night that we were there. It's so much easier killing the three fomor on this particular watchtower now, at 73, than it was back when we were 55. We killed a bunch of Orc and Gigas to shed our Fomor hate, and both got Tavnazian Sheep Livers and Chameleon Diamonds. We turned in the sheep liver in Tavnazia as part of X Marks the Spot, and took the Chameleon Diamonds to Jeuno for In the Mood for Love.

New Title: Pick-Up Artist

We spent a good chunk of time helping Lucrezia camp Kreutzet, the NM bird in Cape Terrigan that drops the Sirocco Kukri. It has a 24 hour spawn timer, but will only spawn during wind weather. During the hours that we were standing there, we didn't see wind weather at all. Grym and I had to leave for the Weapon Skill NM fights, and Lucrezia had to leave a bit later for Dynamis. Of course, about an hour later, the bird spawned and the other group that we were camping against got the bird and the knife.

Grym, Kiki, Elbo, and Itera headed to Gustav Tunnel with Splinte, hoping to get him a Warrior's Testimony so he can fight Maat again, but we didn't get the drop. Seems to me there are better spots to hunt for a Warrior's Testimony - there aren't that many Mercenary Goblins in that area, and we had to kill a lot of other goblins and crabs. Plus an exp party showed up and started killing the goblins as well. I think maybe the Jutons in Upper Delkfutt's would be better. Seems to me we saw that testimony drop a lot when we'd been farming up there.

Quests: Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee? (Old Wounds)

After hitting level 71 a few weeks back, Kiki started the quest for the sword weapon skill Savage Blade (Old Wounds). Grym and I had been working off the latent for their trial weapons, in places like The Boyahda Tree, Bhaflau Thickets, and Toraimarai Canal. Once we had removed the latents, we turned in our weapons to our respective quest givers and were told to go defeat a monster to collect the Annals of Truth.

These fights aren't to be taken lightly, and there were other people needing the fights, so we made an event out of it this past Saturday. We had three thieves needing to fight the Baronial Bat in Gustav Tunnel (Grymalkyn (THF73), Yobun, and Lemonyapple (THF74)), and two Paladins needing to fight Girtablulu in Quicksand Caves (Kiki (PLD73) and Tempezt (PLD72)). Diasuke (SMN75), Izan (DRG75), Itera (MNK73), and Splinte (WAR67) all came along to help. Yobun came as his BLM75 rather than his THF73.

First we headed off to Gustav Tunnel. Izan apparently forgot about aggro, and we ended up with a dead Splinte and Izan before we even started. Yobun dragged Ijin out of his moghouse to give them Raise IIIs, and we waited for their weakness to wear. Yobun popped the Baronial Bat with Sneak on, and Diasuke used Carbuncle to pull it back to our tunnel, so we didn't have to worry about the skeletons in the room with the spawn spot. The fight itself was a lot easier than it was many many levels ago when we did it for Lucrezia and Trow, but that bat really was hitting me hard. I was afraid I was going to die when my HP dropped down to 33, but all was well in the end.

Next we headed off to the Altepa Gate to fight the scorpion. Yobun ran around activating the columns to open the gate while we skilled up a bit on the Anticans hanging out near it. Splinte ended up dying again when we got four Anticans on us and everyone was fighting a different one. I think he got Burst cast on him, or something equally nasty.

After Yobun finished activating the pillars and made his way to the now-open Gate, we headed into Quicksand Caves and killed the Anticans along the way to the spawn point for the scorpion. I spawned it, and the fight went pretty smoothly. His Earth Pounder AOE did a lot of damage to everyone, but at least he didn't hit me as hard as the bat did.

A bunch of us continued on to do skillups/exploration in Halvung with a couple other people, stopping in San d'Oria or Kazham along the way to complete our quests. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive in Al Zahbi, I ran outdoors to try out my new weaponskill. I'm disappointed with the damage compared to Vorpal Blade or Swift Blade, but it sure makes me laugh to see Kiki soar into the air to smash her sword down on to the monsters!

I finally got my staff skill over 230, so on Sunday morning, I picked up my Pole of Trials for the quested weaponskill for staff, Retribution. Shantotto starts the quest (Blood and Glory). I always enjoy talking to Shantotto. She's so evil.

Crafting: 2 Years Later...

Kiki finally joined the Bonecraft Guild. I'm not sure why she didn't visit it when I first created her nearly two years ago - she started out in Windurst, and would have got a free wind crystal for it. Whatever the reason, she's now a member. I always planned one day to level bone as a support craft for her woodworking (which has been stagnant at 64.8 for months and months), and Monday seemed to be the day to start it.

Grym had squirreled away dozens of bone chips, and between the two of us, we had quite a lot of wind crystals, so it seemed to be an easy thing to work on for the holiday (it was Victoria Day here in Canada). Seashells are pretty cheap at the guild so I bought a bunch and made shell powder until I hit level 1. Next came Shell Earrings, to 3. Then I made bone hairpins to 4.

The guild was closed for their weekly holiday, so Grym and I headed to Sea Serpent Grotto. We needed blackened toads for our Opo-opo Crown quest items, and the Sahagins drop lots of seashells. We farmed for an hour or so, and Kiki made a bunch of shell rings to get to level 7.

Next on the list was bone arrows, good to level 10. I had plenty of arrowwood lumber on hand, and Grym and I killed a bunch of Yagudo in East Sarutabaruta for yagudo feathers. After I exhausted the supply of bone chips, we headed to Gusgen Mines and killed skeletons for an hour or so. Ended up getting to 9.5 with what we'd farmed up.

I sold the earrings, hairpins, and rings to NPCs, and pretty much "broke even" on those with the seashells and fish scales that I had bought. The arrows on the other hand will make money, even if I hadn't farmed the bone chips, crystals, and feathers. There are gelatin recipes good for the next 6 or 7 levels, so I'll probably go excavating for chicken bones and bone chips for those at some point. Qiara can always find something to do with the gelatin.

It's so nice crafting at the lowest levels since the skillups come so easily. Would that it were so fast in the 60s!

Leveling: Behind the Gates of Halvung (73-74)

The LLS ended up spending Sunday and Monday evening fighting Trolls again, at the same camp we had the previous Sunday. The trolls are pretty annoying to fight, since it appears that Diamonhide cannot be removed with Finale. I've grown weary of the bonk-bonk noises our weapons make on the troll armor. It even sounds like we're hitting for 0 (even when we're not). The Overthrow move disturbs the two thieves, since it screws up our positioning, and I get tired of being petrified by Rock Crush.

However, it's an empty camp, and has amazing sunsets, so I find it hard to really dislike it. Over the two nights, we got in just over 4 hours and about 20K exp. Yobun and Itera have pulled pretty far ahead and are level 74 now, which made the exp drop noticeably. We'll make more of an effort to find a new place for next week (imps in Caedarva are the best candidate, though we may not have the best party set-up for those). Kiki finished up around 8K away from 74, and Grym and Elbo are a bit behind Kiki.

Elboron got killed by an aggro'ing troll while he was out in the field trying to hit the melees with their songs. He had trouble sleeping it (was interrupted?) and was too far away for me to voke or flash the troll, or to cure him. Yobun also had a death - most of us were AFK for a quick break, and he decided he wanted to try to solo one of the Magmatic Erucas just outside the gate. Seems that Incineration ignores shadows....

We all did Rock Bottom, the map quest for Mount Zhayolm, since we were going right past the quest spot anyway. Early on Sunday, Grym and Kiki had done the map quest themselves with their whm/blm and rdm/blm, and took that opportunity to run around looking for the Cast Metal Plate key item needed to open the Gates of Halvung. I'm not sure how much we'll make use of it, but it's nice to have.

Besieged: Keeping the Astral Candy-Sense Safe

It seems the SquareEnix has been tweaking the mechanics of Besieged every other day, and I find that it's been getting to be more fun. It's still terribly laggy, but the enemies take quite awhile to kill, and don't die by the time you get engaged.

The recent changes have included increasing the frequency of attacks, increasing the number of enemies, as well as their strength, removing the home point from Al Zahbi (though it still works if you had set it there before it was removed), and randomly teleporting players to different areas within Al Zahbi after getting the opening cutscene for Besieged.

Monday evening I had logged in as Qiyuk, to check her mail and the AH in Al Zahbi. Her moogle wouldn't check her mailbox, which I thought was really odd, and so I headed out the door, and found Al Zahbi was under attack by the Undead Swarm. I had no choice but to stand there in front of the locked mog house door as a level 1 THF, watching the excitement from the sidelines (it was actually a bit boring that far from the gates, but peoples' shouts were amusing). Then as soon as we had won, the Trolls stormed the gates, before the mog house was unlocked. Qiara was warped to the main square, so I headed over to the gate to Whitegate, hoping to remain inconspicuous.

Not even two hours later, the Mamool Ja attacked the city, and Itera, Elboron, Grym and Kiki warped back to Al Zahbi to join in on the fun. Elboron kept Goddess Hymnus active on us, which is incredibly handy for this sort of thing. Itera, Kiki, and Elbo all were killed at one point, and having reraise on us meant we didn't lose our points for the event. Kiki's defeat came at the hands of a Mamool Ja Enchanter, which hit her with Radiant Breath for 9777 damage. 9777!!! Talk about overkill (my max HP is under 1200, unless I'm trying really hard to have as much as possible).

I still don't understand how they decide on the points. For this run, Elbo and Kiki both got 700 EXP/IS, while Grym got around 200. Grym and I fought the same mobs, and probably did about the same amount of damage, but I used Rampart (party defense boost), and cured myself as well as other members of the team. It's got to have something to do with the amount you help out the team, and seems to cap at 700, but that's just so unfair to a melee. I think Grym should sub WHM next time and use protectra and curaga, just to see if he gets more points.

Between exp'ing in the new areas and the points from Besieged, we have enough IS points for 2 of the 3 maps we can buy with them. Grym and I both got the Arraparo Reef map, and Grym got the map for Halvung, while I will pick up the map for Mamook later. The last time I had checked, Lakshmi had successfully repelled all 27 enemy invasions. There have been some prisoners taken hostage, but people were quick to put together rescue missions to save the prisoners. We were thinking it would be funny if the enemy forces would take player characters hostage, but then reflected that perhaps there were some players that would never be rescued, and that would pretty much suck for them.

Assault: 95% Luck?

Kiki has participated in four assault missions now, and I've decided that, at least for the Excavation Duty Assault Mission in Lebros Caverns (Halvung Staging Point), it's really 95% luck. We're 0/3 on that. There just haven't been enough Qiqirn Mines dropping from the cute little rat people to be able to get all 5 rock walls down in the time allotted, unless there's some secret to getting them down without mines. Our set ups for this were BLM75/WAR75/PLD72/BRD72/THF72, RDM75/BLM75/WAR75/PLD72/BRD72/THF72, and RDM75/PLD73/THF73/BRD73/MNK73. Admittedly, we were a little light on the melee damage, but even then we'd managed to kill all of the Qiqirn on two of the runs without getting enough mines. We got 100 points for each of the failures, but at that rate, it will be a long long time before I have enough points to get one of the new Assault items. Plus we have to win this to move on to the second level ones.

The Leujaoam Cleansing mission in Leujaoam Sanctum (Azouph Isle Staging Point) was more fun. We had 30 minutes to kill 15 worms. We did this as BLM75/BLM75/WAR75/PLD72/BRD72, and had no troubles. I was the leader on that run, and got 660 assault points. The leader of the mission has to spend 50 Imperial Standing points to get the leader's armband from the NPC in the staging area, and is the one to initiate the mission at the runic gate. The extra assault points makes up for having to spend the imperial standing points, but really the latter are a lot easier to get!

Events: Adventurer Appreciation

Moogles have shown up in the towns, ready to tell adventurers some statistics pertaining to their adventures, and they're handing out presents as well. You can either ask for your present right away, or you can wait to hopefully get something better. It seems pretty arbitrary though, as Grym's mule Qimirpik requested his present right away and got a Chocopass (and went for a ride as a level 3), while Grym chose to wait, and still got just a Chocopass. Qiara got a Return Ring.

My newest mule, Ohrly, with less than 2 hours of play time, waited, and got a Homing Ring. Just what every Question-Mark-Head level 1 player needs. Qiwi got a Bronze Moogle Belt, Quincy got an Adventurer's Certificate, and Kiki got a Chocobo Wand. Qix waited two days, and got a Homing Ring. Kiki went back to talk to the moogle again after another day, and it seems you can get multiple presents from the moogles, but limited to one per real-life day. Kiki's second present was a Return Ring, and Grym's was a Homing Ring.

As of 8PM Eastern on Friday May 12:

Chat Frequency: 127409
Conversations With NPCs: 26473
Parties Joined: 1124
Alliances Joined: 123
Battles Fought: 36615
Number of Times KO'd: 186
Enemies Defeated: 17733
GM Calls Made: 0

Playtime: 165 days, 20 hours, 38 minutes and 27 seconds

Leveling: Two Evenings in Mount Zhayolm (72-73)

The Low Level Static met on Saturday and Sunday evenings this week, since Yobun got invited to a Divine Might run for Monday evening (with his BLM75, presumably). We decided to head to Mt Zhayolm, since it's easy to get to from Al Zahbi, especially since Wendell could Escape us from Halvung. Since Wendell hadn't yet delivered his supplies to a staging point, and couldn't yet get Sanction, we headed to the Halvung Staging Point first. Wendell delivered his supplies, used the runic portal to return to Whitegate, completed the mission, and could get Sanction. Meanwhile Yobun was looking for a camp, and decided it would be best for the rest of us to meet him at the escape point, so the rest of us headed back to Whitegate and returned with Wendell. We got some aggro on the way through the Thickets, but the DC Amerats aren't as bad with 5 people as they were with 3.

On Saturday, we ended up spending just over an hour killing Tough pugils (Sicklemoon Jagils) and crawlers (Magmatic Eruca). It was kind of fun in that we had several chain #7s, but the exp per kill was quite low, and in our haste to kill as many mobs as fast as possible, we ended up killing Elboron. We were fighting one pugil, Elbo went to pull a crawler to have ready when the pugil was dead, and meanwhile, a second pugil and a ghost spawned on top of us. Itera and I tried to spread the hate around - using provoke and other abilities/spells on the links as Elbo kept them asleep, but the crawler was too pissed at Elbo, and blasted him with an 800 point incineration the second it woke up. After just over an hour of fighting, we had to disband for the evening. We got around 5k (without rings), and Itera hit 73.

Yobun spent a couple hours in Mount Zhayolm trying to get the cast iron plate needed to open the Gates of Halvung, which would get us access to some higher leveled mobs. Yobun was successful, so on Sunday evening, we headed back to the area, and he led us through the Gate at H-8 on the map. We started out fighting past the tunnel to the left of the gate, but after repeatedly having a troll respawn on top of us while we were fighting another one, we moved back to the gate area. We fought Hilltrolls here, and they were all IT to us at 72. I think SquareEnix has lost some of its creativity in mob names, since we were fighting "Hilltroll Red Mage", "Hilltroll Dark Knight", "Hilltroll Monk", and "Hilltroll Puppetmaster". There was also a "Hilltroll Paladin" running around, but we never fought him. However, it's handy to know what job they are without having to remember "oh yeah, Alastor is DRK". The PUP Troll's puppets were usually VT as well, giving nice points when he had it out before we pulled it.

The mobs respawn in 5 minutes, so there was always one ready to pull. This was a bit troublesome as well, since the camp area is small, and Elboron would be in aggro range while singing songs on the melee, but we didn't have too much trouble with the adds. I just made sure to use Flash and Provoke on the sleeping Hilltroll as much as possible to try to keep it off of Elboron when it woke up.

The Hilltrolls have some interesting moves. Overthrow is a damaging knockback move (and it looks like they're scooping Kiki up and tossing her), which is annoying because as soon as they knockback whoever had hate, they move forwards to where the person ended up, which spoils weaponskills for anyone who just happened to be trying to use one from behind the mob. More annoying though is Diamondback. We think this can be dispelled, but with the recast timer on Elbo's Finale, we often had to just keep hitting for 0 all too often. They seemed to re-use it the second Elbo would knock it off of them, and were especially fond of using it just before weaponskills, and to prevent us from getting chain #5s.

With our travel time and a bit of a break, we ended up fighting a bit more than 2 hours, and with an empress band, Kiki got about 9.6k exp. Kiki, Grym, Elbo, and Yobun all hit level 73. I got to dress up Kiki in her new purple armor, so she's a bit of a cookie-cutter Paladin again, after a few months of wearing things other Paladins don't seem to wear - so much so, that she seemed to get /checked a lot more than normal. I didn't get the full Adaman set, as the Taru RSE Creek Clomps and Mitts, to me, are better pieces. It's going to take me awhile to get used to her in Purple, but I kind of like the helmet - I can see her face, unlike the Lord's Armet, which has a creepy undead face lurking underneath the grillwork. I think I would prefer some Relic Armor, but since I don't intend to try Dynamis for a long time, I can live with the purple stuff. :-)

I noticed a bit of a reduction in the damage I was taking, and seemed to have a better time with hate after equiping the Adaman gear and Koenig Shield - I had higher defense, VIT, enmity, and more MP - but some of the difference could have been that Itera had been a level higher than me until I leveled. I had started out the evening in full +VIT mode, but after seeing I had +52 VIT with my new gear, I switched to my Company Sword, replaced my Mercenary's Earring with a second Drone, and put on my RK Collar instead of my Medieval one. I still had good damage reduction, and seemed to do more shield blocks with the extra AGI.

Missions: The Savage (CoP 4-2) - Third Time's the Charm

We headed back out to Monarch Linn through Riverne Site B01 last night to face Ouryu again, hoping to show him he couldn't push around like he had last week. We went with the same jobs:

Wendell WHM50/BLM25
Elboron BRD50/WHM25
Itera MNK50/WAR25
Grymalkyn THF50/RNG25
Splinte WAR50/NIN25
Tsakiki PLD50/WAR25

I didn't bother with any au laits, since Horrid Roar would just remove it, so I used the space for more hi-potions, and had 20 of those on me. I also had Qiara make me a stack of fish mithkabobs, since they're still a good defense boost for the level, and a lot better to use as a one minute food (assuming they'd get stripped from me) than Tavnazian Tacos. I also set up a separate macro palette, just for things I'd need to do in this particular fight. Other than that, I had the same items as last week: Blink Band, Memento Muffler, High Breath Mantle, and the rest of my level 50 tanking gear. We all had reraise items, and a strong will to not let the nasty wyrm beat us again.

We had to fight three drakes (and a hippogryph) to get the Giant Scale we'd need for the unstable portal. We were doing a good job avoiding any of the mobs as we made our way through the different islands until we got to one with 2 hippogryphs (true sight) and a whole herd of malboros (detect by sound). Wendell and Elboron cast Sneak on us all, and we made our way to the next portal. We were spread out across the island, and at the exact same moment, on opposite sides of the island, Grym and Splinte were spotted by the two hippogryphs. Because we were spread out, and because the malboros immediately joined in when the hippogryphs hit the Mithras, we had to let them die. The aggroing mobs despawned or wandered away, and I raised Grym and Wendell raised Splinte. We waited for their weakness to wear, and continued on to Monarch Linn. We hoped their deaths weren't harbingers for more doom.

Our plan was to fight Ouryu near the entrance tunnel, with me standing just to the right of the entrance, having Ouryu perpendicular to the tunnel, and Wendell and Elboron right at the tunnel. The last one standing, presumably Grym, was to drag Ouryu to the back of the arena to give us time to reraise and run back down the tunnel to recover without Ouryu noticing us. Grym was also planning to Perfect Dodge, Sleep Bolt Ouryu, then give him a good smack with Sneak Attack before dying.

As we were reviewing our plans before going in, Wendell made a comment about "when Kiki dies", so we made fun of that word "when", though really, I didn't think we wouldn't wipe. (I love double negatives.)

We went in, buffed up, got reraise on everyone, rested for MP, and headed in. Grym ran in to get aggro and pulled Ouryu to where I was waiting, and we started in on the fight. I did what I could to keep hate and help keep my HP up. Provoke, Flash, weaponskill with TP, Cure IIIs when I could, Shield Bash - the usual PLD stuff. Itera and Splinte were using Raging Fists -> Raging Axe for Detonation. Grym was using blind and acid bolts to help enfeeble Ouryu. Wendell and Elboron were keeping Barstonra and Earth Carol on us, trying to keep Ouryu Silenced and Finaled, and both were frantically trying to keep Kiki and everyone else alive.

Ouryu did Horrid Roar twice, the first time knocking off 8 of my buffs, the second time just 7. Wendell was quick to get Protect III back on me, and Elboron made sure to get Earth Carol back up, and I quickly ate more food, drank another juice, and used another charge on my Memento Muffler. Ouryu did more AOEs than I remember from our two fights last week. Typhoon Wing would take around 200 points off each of us, and Stonega IIs were doing 100-140 damage. Slowga was annoying, but at least not deadly. I only remember one Geotic Breath, which hit me for just 93 damage. Ouryu hits like a train at times, but it was so variable. Sometimes he'd hit me for as little as 50 points, and other times as much as 280, on a normal hit. Usually it seemed around 100 damage.

The fight was very tough, but we really didn't have to do anything "strategic". We just kept plugging away at him, and I just kept getting hit. I held hate throughout, but with the AOEs, there was a lot of damage to go around. The melees all had au laits, which helped out, as well as a few hi-potions. I ended up going through my entire supply of 20 hi-potions, and most of my MP. At one point, it looked like we were going to eat dirt, since my health got down to 28. But I chugged some potions in quick succession, and Wendell and Elboron got me back up to a better health level.

When we got Ouryu down below 50%, Itera threw on Hundred Fists. Unfortunately, Ouryu decided to jump up in the air about then, so a few of those fists didn't hit until Grym's mistmelt brought him back down. Splinte threw on Mighty Strikes to time it with their skillchain, and Splinte's 262 point Raging Axe was the deciding blow for the fight. We had won! No deaths! We won! We couldn't believe it. I think Grym was a bit disappointed he missed out on the sleep bolt/sneak attack he had planned, but I'm so happy we won and didn't have to die to do it. Grym ended up using 4 of the mistmelts during the fight.

The fight took us 11 minutes and 22 seconds, about a minute off the current record, so we felt it wasn't too shabby. As usual, I didn't get any action shots, and had to settle for a post-fight screenshot of the happy group.

New titles: Mist Melter, Nag'molada's Underling

General: Thises and Thats

Evenings this week were going to be devoted to getting ready to face Ouryu again tonight (Friday). The LLS wasn't meeting on Monday, so Grym and Kiki started shuffling their gear around so the could go farming for Hippogryph Tailfeathers in Riverne Site A01 on Tuesday.

Yobun asked me if I wanted to "unlock" the runic portal for the Ilrusi Atoll Staging Point through Arrapago Reef. I ended up having time, so I joined him on the trek. First we got my "free" Lamia key to make it easier to get through one of the gates (without needing to kill Lamia for a key). Yobun took me through a different part of Caedarva Mire than I'd been in before, so I finally saw my first Lamia (outside of Beseiged anyway). The reef is very creepy and convoluted. I really would have a hard time finding my way back to the staging area, but Yobun got us there without incident. He and I played hide-and-seek with the Imps hovering in the tunnels just before the staging area, and fortunately they didn't notice us.

I haven't spent much time in Al Zahbi this week, but apparently the Beseiged events since the update have been much more exciting and ferocious. Deaths all around, NPCs taken prisoner, rescue parties organized.

Tuesday evening, Grym and Kiki headed out to Riverne Site #A01 as BSTs, and found that there were 5 Hippogryphs within easy access (one on the entrance island, one on the island to the south, and three before going to deep into the big island to the west). We charmed flytraps and vultures and had little trouble killing the Hippogryphs. By the time Elboron logged in to join us with his WHM, we already had 4 of the 13 feathers we needed. The farming went quickly. When we had killed the 5th hippogryph and headed back to the 1st, it was back already, ready and waiting. In less than two hours, we got our 13 feathers, and headed back to Windurst for the night. We have enough for 8 mistmelts again tonight, but this time Grym will get 6 and Kiki 2.

Since it didn't take all week to get the tailfeathers like I thought it might, for the next two evenings, Grym and Kiki headed to the Boyahda Tree to work off the latents on our trial weapons. In order to unlock a special weapon skill once you get to level 71 and have sufficient skill in a specific weapon, you start a weaponskill quest. For me, the weaponskill is for sword: Savage Blade, obtained from the quest Old Wounds, started with Curilla in San d'Oria. She presented me with a Sapara of Trials and told me to come back when I'd used it enough to prove my worth. This means getting rid of a latent effect on the weapon by obtaining 300 points through weaponskills and skillchains on monsters that are high enough to give you experience points, and then fighting a spawned monster. Grym's quest is for the dagger skill Evisceration (from the quest Cloak and Dagger).

We've had the weapons for several weeks (since we hit 71 and could pick up the quests), and have been using them while we've been out exploring and stuff, but hadn't made a concerted effort just to work on the weapons. The best we can do point-wise with the two of us is swift blade -> sharkbite for Fragmentation, a level two skillchain. For this, I get 2 points, and Grym gets 3. We opted for the Tree so we could kill Knight Crawlers and hopefully get the Lucky Eggs we both will need for our Opo-Opo Crowns (we don't really need Opo-Opo Crowns, but they'll be fun to have, and maybe even useful at times). Grym also had a coffer key, so hopefully she'd finally get her map for the place. We killed lots and lots of crawlers and crabs as well. I actually prefer the crabs, since Poison Breath from the crawlers isn't very pleasant.

Before we finished up the second evening, we both had our lucky eggs, and Grym had found a coffer, and removed the latent from her Dagger of Trials. Hurray! My Sapara has to be pretty close at this point. I'm really eager to get Savage Blade just to see how it looks, but I'm not sure it's that useful a weaponskill in general, so I'm not in a huge rush. It's such a pain to get the people together and drag them to the furthest reaches of Quicksand Caves for the fight.

Leveling: Maybe Bibiki Bay isn't so bad after all (72)

I lobbied hard to not return to Bibiki Bay on Sunday night. It looked pretty crowded for one thing, and it has been just so disappointing exp-wise since we hit 72. Yobun doesn't really like fighting Weapons without a RDM (their Dispel can be used more often than a BRD's Finale, and the RDM-type Weapons will spam their buff spells), so we headed to Lufaise Meadows and found the first camp empty. Yobun recommended avoiding the Tavnazian Rams (they have a max-HP down move that left his Galka PLD with less than 200 HP at level 74, which makes it pretty dangerous), but they were intermingled with the Abraxas (giant birds), so Grymalkyn wasn't too happy about how hard it was going to be to pull.

We had a tough fight with the first bird. I think it must have used a defense boost move, since we were not doing much damage to it, and since we're so used to fighting low ITs, it felt like we were all missing more than we should. The birds also hit really hard. I was in my full-defense gear, with +48 VIT including my food (when we're fighting VTs and low ITs, I usually have more like +30 VIT), and had Defender on full-time. Even with all that, I was getting hit for 150 on normal hits. I'm happier when normal hits are under 100. The second bird we fought was hitting me hard, then hit me with a Triple Attack for over 500 damage, which came right after a hard hit and was followed up with another two in quick succession, killing me. Fortunately they managed to kill it just fine without me (Itera use Hundred Fists), but we decided maybe we weren't yet ready for this camp.

So a quick teleport to Mea, and back to Bibiki Bay, where we camped to fight mostly Efts with a Goblin in the chain. The exp was low, but it was fast. We stopped doing our skillchains, and just weaponskilled as soon as we had TP, which seemed to speed things up for these particular fights. It was actually kind of fun for me, since I got to play around with my different weaponskills. I threw on as much of my so-called damage-dealer gear as made sense (ended up taking around 90 damage from the efts, which could have been under 50 if I'd been wearing more tankish gear), and tried out Vorpal Blade and Swift Blade. It seems that Swift Blade averages higher, probably because Vorpal Blade has more hits, and if you miss any of them, the damage is reduced quite a bit. My favorite was a 568 damage Swift Blade on an IT Catoblepas. Sure it was a low IT, but still, it was an IT. Pretty exciting for a little Taru PLD who's best damage is usually a 500 damage Spirits Within with 300% TP and full health, and never gets to see that any more now she's part of the static's skillchain. Most of my Swift Blades were closer to 200, which is still higher damage than I'm used to delivering.

We did have one disaster. Efts supposedly link by sight, and Grym pulled one with another near it, but its back was turned - I saw it on his screen. It certainly looked safe to me. Whatever, it ended up linking, and Elboron and Wendell thought Grym would use Hide, not realizing it doesn't work on them. I tried curing Grym, but got interrupted, and by the time I had fumbled for Flash in my spell menu (my flash macro is for t, not stnpc), Grym was down. We had a hectic fight with the two efts, but they were soon dead. I have to change my habits for this. My first instinct is to try to heal the person getting hit, but when I'm getting hit myself by another mob, it's likely I'm going to get interrupted, since it's a panic cure and I'm not paying attention to the timing. I really have to Flash first, to get the link's attention.

We had got a late start, and then with changing camps, ended up fighting for a bit less than 2 hours. With my death (and R3), plus using an Empress Band, I think I ended up with around 8k. We weren't able to go out Monday night this week, so it feels like we've slowed down again, especially when I add in the Ouryu-induced EXP losses.

Events: The Festival of Swords

This year's Festival of Swords was slightly different from last year's. You're still given a wooden katana (Lotus Katana) and capped at level 1 and have to run around chasing down enchanted sets of armor, but they threw in a rogue mithra armor, Usukane Armor, which seeks out and destroys all the partcipants in the festival. This actually made it more fun, since there was an element of "danger". Elbo, Grym and Kiki all wanted Federation Stables Scarves, good for 10 teleports to the Windurst Chocobo Stables, which can come in handy if we need to get to Windurst quickly and have our HP somewhere else, and no outpost is convenient or under some nation's control.

Our first attempt at this was as a mnk/blu trio. We demolished one of the sets of armor with our Hundred Fists times 3, but didn't get a scarf. We went after another, but Elbo had forgotten he had to set his BLU spells after changing jobs, and Grym didn't have a juice, so they died. Kiki was able to keep going, and another player started whacking on the same armor, hoping for the kill, but Kiki got the killing blow and a scarf dropped, as well as a bunch of mochi (food that gives you a "costume" for a boy of the different races). The armor can also drop the colored drops which give a temporary stat bonus based on their color (e.g. Yellow Drop = +VIT).

We kept at this for several days, usually switching to BLU/WHM after burning our MNK 2 hours. Grym started using RNG/BLU, in order to use widescan to find the armors, as well as keep an eye out for the Usukane. One time, Grym and Kiki were resting for hp/mp, and Elbo was standing next to them. The Usukane Armor came running up, killed Grym, then Kiki, but not Elbo. He'd done a /wave emote at the armor, so we joked about her figuring he was a friendly little taru and she shouldn't kill him.

We discovered that the Tarutaru armor, Ubuginu Armor, could be fought in one of the canyons in East Sarutabaruta without the Usukane Armor showing up. This meant we ended up fighting him over and over and over again. Grym and Kiki together collected about 150 Tarutaru mochi, mostly on Saturday. The three of us also got complete sets of the 8 colored drops, which are probably just going to eat up storage space for years to come.

The best part of all of this was having a permanent Flee effect while under the level cap. It was so much fun just zooming around the Sarutabarutas as we searched for the armors. Normal movement speed just seemed so terribly slow after hours of perma-Flee.

Missions: The Savage (CoP 4-2) - rounds one and two

We headed off to Riverne Site B01 for the first time (besides the mission cutscene) on Friday night. We were loaded down with hi-potions (I think we had over 30 between the 6 of us, I alone had 15), 8 mistmelts, reraise items for everyone, and had quite good gear for our level cap of 50. Our group consisted of:

Wendell WHM50/BLM25
Elboron BRD50/WHM25
Itera MNK50/WAR25
Grymalkyn THF50/RNG25
Splinte WAR50/NIN25
Tsakiki PLD50/WAR25

We had to fight two drakes to get the Giant Scale we needed for an unstable displacement, but used sneak and invisible and a bit of stealth to avoid everything else along the way. There was another party making their way to Monarch Linn as well, but they didn't bother with a Giant Scale, they simply waited for us to show up at the unstable displacement and jumped through when we stabilized it with the scale. Lazy gits.

While we were reviewing our strategy before entering the battle, the other party went in the BC, probably for an ENM. Within two minutes, they fell in a heap of dead bodies outside the BC. Serves them right for leeching on our Giant Scale. :p

Our strategy was pretty basic: don't get behind him, stay away from the front to avoid the frontal AOEs, use mistmelts when he starts to fly, use finale when he stoneskins, keep barstonra and earth carol up. Grym was the designated mistmelter, and felt miserable at being a THF in a fight where SATA is absolutely forbidden. Grym subbed RNG to help land acid, blind, sleep, and bloody bolts - and he did have a good hit-rate, so it seems a good sub job for this.

We went in and buffed up. I used a blink band, memento muffler (+7 VIT), and high breath mantle (+38 HP, +5 Enmity, Def: 6), and we all used our charm wands on one another for reraise. I ran into the open area and provoked Ouryu. He sure is a big fellow. We all started in doing our thing, and the fight was going so very well, I felt we could keep it up forever. Ouryu's normal attacks were hitting me for 70-90, crits around 130, and he was spamming Geotic Breath, but they were mostly for about 90. Sure there were some double (triple?) attacks, but it was all so manageable. The melee were having a bit of trouble with stoneskin - finale's recast is a bit long - but they were whittling him away.

Then I got hit for over 750 damage on a Geotic Breath, which dropped me like a sack of potatoes. My max HP in the fight was about 850, and I wasn't topped off when that hit me. Ouryu went straight for Wendell, who'd been dumping Cures on me throughout this. Splinte and Itera both provoked as fast as they could, but to no avail. Wendell was down in two or three hits. Elbo and Grym tried to sleep him, but Splinte and Itera weren't quite prepared for disengaging and that didn't go so well. I reraised myself when Ouryu's attention was on killing everyone else, and ran to the entrance to rest - using a instant reraise scroll for good measure. Grym tried to move Ouryu away from everyone else so they could reraise as well, but no one took the opportunity. None of us are used to wiping in a mission, and hadn't really thought about the logistics of reraising and continuing. Hopefully this isn't something we're going to have to become experts at.

When the other 5 were all dead, Ouryu simply went back to the middle of the field. It seems he hadn't noticed me at all. Itera reraised and got hit right away. Grym then tried, but was also noticed. She ended up coming near the entrance at one point, and it seems that Ouryu spotted me that time, since after he dropped Grym, he came back for me. I reraised again, and we decided to give up on round one and try again. I exited the BC, and 3 minutes later, the 5 others landed in a heap near me. We had 9 deaths. That's just not acceptable.

Only Elbo and Grym had used their two hours in the first fight, and we still had enough hi-potions for Kiki to have 12. Grym had all the mistmelts, and I had my NQ charm wand available, so we had reraise on both Wendell and Grym. We headed back in and faced Ouryu for the second time.

This fight was very different. He was seemed to be casting Stonega the second Silence wore off, taking hp off of everyone, moreso than in the first fight. Instead of spammimg Geotic Breath, he instead kept using Horrid Roar, which stripped eight (!?!) buffs off of me. Suddenly, with no protect, shell, ballad, juice, vit-bonus, barstonra, earth carol, or food, I was getting hit for 175-190. And he kept doing this, seemingly as soon as I'd eat another taco, drink another juice, and Elbo'd get songs back on me. It was not amusing. Wendell and I were both pretty well drained just keeping me on my feet, and then a good smack followed with a double attack knocked me down, and Wendell was next to go. I probably should have used invincible somewhere in there, but I didn't get to my macro fast enough.

Elbo did manage to sleep Ouryu this time, but he didn't stay asleep for long. We decided to have them go ahead and use Mighty Strikes and Hundred Fists and try to bring him to his knees, with Wendell and Kiki dead, but it just wasn't quite enough. Again, Grym was the last one standing, and it really looked like they had him close to 30% health, which is when people say he gives up. We fell out of the circle and Wendell handed out R3s and we headed home, tails tucked between our legs.

This was the first time Grym and I have ever had to give up on a fight, and had to come back and try again at a later date. We have always over-prepared, and have nearly always succeeded on our first attempt (it may not be pretty at times, but a win's a win, even if there's only one person alive at the end). Diabolos was the first time we had a wipe and had to try again, but that was the same night, and we didn't leave and return. It's just not fair that a well-balanced party (no nukers, but why do we have to have nukers?), that comes fully prepared, with special items only relevant for this particular mission, well-stocked with medicines, only to lose because of luck on the attacks the monster chooses to use for that particular fight.

It's incredibly frustrating, and makes me pretty grumpy. I get so tired of the people going on and on about how easy all the CoP missions are, provided you have 2 SMNs and 2 BLMs in your static. I don't want to have to sell-out. And I'm really afraid we won't be able to avoid it. I want to be able to do it with the jobs we have, which really is quite balanced, except for the nuking aspect. A white mage, a bard, a paladin, and three solid melee should be able to face anything with good preparation and adequate supplies and a strategy. Luck shouldn't be the biggest factor in this.

Saturday morning, Grym and I headed to Rolanberry to farm Malboro Vines and Grym made enough hi-potions that we have 32 of them on hand for next Friday. She even HQ'd one of them. (Hi-Potions cap at Level 60 Alchemy, and that's Grym's skill level, so HQs are a bit rare.) We're going to have to spend all our evenings this week back in Riverne, farming tailfeathers for more mistmelts. Grym still has one mistmelt and one tailfeather, so if we want 8 mistmelts again, it means we need 13 tailfeathers.

The only thing I can see that we can change with our current line-up is to plan where we die better. We'll try to fight Ouryu right at the entrance, rather than in the middle, where he goes to rest after killing us all. The last one standing (probably Grym) will have to drag him to the opposite side, giving us a chance to reraise and run to the back of the tunnel to recover and get back to the fight. Since Grym might be out of commission a bit longer, I'll have two mistmelts and be on mistmelt duty until Grym's back up and fighting. I only hope Ouryu doesn't have a really strong regen or something, making it futile to try to keep going after a wipe. We can also try a planned sleep before anyone dies, in order to rest for HP and MP.

Why do we have to have wiping as part of our strategy! It's just stupid. Stupid Wyrm. Stupid Square-Enix. Stupid missions. And it's just going to get worse as we continue through CoP.

Itera and I are the only two of our group who have more than one job at 50, so we do have the option of having me go as RDM, and Itera as PLD. I hate losing Itera's MNK's damage with a PLD-THF-WAR-RDM-BRD-WHM line-up, but it could be that having me responsible for Dispel, Silence, Paralyze, Gravity, and probably Chainspell-Aero-whatever, plus helping with Sleep, and letting Wendell focus on keeping Itera alive and Elbo on other things besides Finale, that it might work. But I really feel like we have to try it again with the same line-up first, since we do have a couple things we can tweak and try to just do it better and win this time. I'm of the belief that you shouldn't change too many things when you feel like you were really pretty close to winning.

Real Life: A Need to Vent

Even before I started playing FFXI over 2 years ago, Allakhazam was a site I read regularly to learn more about the game I was eagerly anticipating. Within 5 weeks of starting the game, because I found the site so useful, I paid for a premium membership. This meant I didn't have to suffer with ads, had my own journal space, could use an avatar, and had the ability to use the search function. Plus I was supporting the site. There are really a lot of questionable posts in the forums there, but there is also a great deal of useful information, and a lot of helpful, informative people, and my husband and I try to be part of the latter group. I really like the character pages, where you can "dress" your character with its gear, both as a guide to others, and to ask questions like "is my gear ok?". And it's useful for figuring out what to wear for level capped events. I also find the threads for quests and missions very helpful while trying to come up with strategies.

I feel that Somepage is superior for their item database and crafting recipes, as well as their monster database, but they just don't have the same sort of walkthrough information, nor is their forum system terribly useful. I also love their Food page, and refer to it quite frequently. I do get annoyed by their ads at times though.

There are a few other forums out there, but I never really found a general FFXI forum that held my interest. Some of them seemed to be filled with juvenile insults rather than helpful information. The FFXIcyclopedia recently added forums, and while I use the site extensively, the forums haven't seemed to get off the ground yet.

Yesterday, my happy little FFXI internet resource world came tumbling down. The owner of Allakhazam announced that they had been bought by another company (see this thread). At first, this news was cause for excitement: it would mean new hardware, more staff, and more features for the "community". Then, as he revealed more details, a sense of betrayal set in. The new owner of Allakhazam is apparently a holding company, which also owns one of the most notorious gil-selling sites, whose name starts with an I, followed by a G, and ended with an E. Some posters are claiming that the holding company was set up by the gil selling company just so it could gobble up all sorts of game-related internet companies, while the people running the companies being bought could rationalize the sale to themselves and pretend that they weren't in any way benefitting the evil gil sellers.

I really hate the business of selling game money and items for real life money. Anyone who buys gil is nothing more than a cheater. If they can't earn their own way in the game, they have no place in the game. Many argue that their time is worth too much to "waste" game time generating game money to support their character, but THAT'S PART OF THE GAME! If they don't like it, FIND ANOTHER GAME! There's plenty of time: there's no deadline, you don't have to be 75 within three months, it's not a race. The gil selling companies prey upon these people, and make a fortune in real life by supplying virtual items/money for the cheaters. Since there's so much money to be made, we end up having people playing the game simply to generate as much in-game income as they possibly can, then sell it to the impatient cheaters. They're not playing the game for fun, they're not playing the game for entertainment, they're not playing the game for the sense of accomplishment you can derive from it, they are playing it to make as much real life money as possible, and will go to extremes to interfere with the real players. If people would just stop cheating, and not resort to Real Money Trading, we wouldn't have this problem.

Given these circumstances, I simply cannot promote Allakhazam any longer, and must cease to contribute to it as well. I simply cannot be part of anything that helps the gil-selling company, holding company parent or not. It's unfortunate that my premium account auto-renewed for another year just this past Saturday. I originally started chronicling Kiki's adventures in my journal at Allakhazam, but will now work on moving it over to here, back-dating the posts to their original post-date. I always intended to do that some day, but this news makes it more important for me to do now.

I would like to encourage people to turn to the FFXIclopedia Forums, and help contribute to its success. I will be doing that myself.

Leveling: LLS in Bibiki Bay (71-72)

The LLS was able to party both Sunday and Monday this week, which was nice, because it definitely gives me a sense of progress. I can actually believe I will live to see Kiki as a PLD75 now.

Wendell had had computer troubles over the weekend, and he and Yobun spent some time on the phone trying to get Wendell up and running. We ended up starting late on Sunday, and Wendell hadn't had time to take the ferry to Aht Urhgan, so it was back to Bibiki Bay. We camped in a different spot, and for most of the nearly two hours, had the prey pretty much to ourselves. We fought Catoblepas and Goblins for pretty easy chain #5s, but had to grab an eft from behind us once in awhile when another party showed up and camped the same mobs. Itera, Kiki, and Grym all hit 72 on Sunday.

On Monday, it was back to Bibiki, and we had the camp above the Hobgoblin Angler beach. There seemed to be a party on the beach when we got there, so we ignored the goblins down there. We had the goblins to the west all to ourselves for the first hour or so, but another party moved into the camp with the cave, frustrating Grym's attempts to pull enough Gobs for decent chains. We've outgrown the area, so we really needed a steady stream of mobs to make it worth our time. At that point, we investigated more closely, and determined there was no longer a party below us, so Grym started pulling the Anglers. They were pretty easy, and not really much better exp than the Toredors, Alastors, and Physicians we'd been fighting. Not sure why we'd been reluctant to try them. Elboron hit 72, and Wendell got 70 (and Raise III! yay!).

Over the two evenings, we ended up with 4 hours of partying, and around 21K exp. I'm really hoping we can try a camp in the new areas next weekend. I think we're probably a bit low still for the Abraxas in Lufaise or the Weapons in Sky, but we really can't go back to Bibiki Bay again.

General: More Fun in the New World

Friday evening, Elboron, Grymalkyn, and Tsakiki decided to try to get to some more Assault Staging Points (there are 5, and we'd only been to 2 of them). We took the ferry to Nashmau, and opted for Azouph Staging area, which is closest to Nashmau, and the one we'd had troubles with before. This time we made it clear it was going to be every man for himself, and were ready to warp out if we got aggro'd by those damn imps. We all set our home point in Nashmau to make it easier to reattempt in case of failure. Grym got spotted by one imp, which ended up clearing the way for Elbo and Kiki, as well as a couple other people trying to make it there at the same time. He used perfect dodge and warped back to Nashmau. Elbo and Kiki were able to take the runic portal back to Whitegate, while Grym was stuck in Nashmau, where he logged for the night (having used his two hour, it wasn't safe to attempt again until later).

Back in Al Zahbi, it appeared that the Undead Swarm might actually attempt an attack on the city. So Elbo and Kiki headed to the Bastion to stand and wait as the enemy forces slowly increased. We were very curious to see what Beseiged was like, and were willing to stay up late for it. When the forces hit 139, they moved to Level 4 Advancing and there was an announcement that the enemy was in the Thickets and headed our way. The excitement grew, and people streamed into the Bastion, anxiously awaiting the appearance of the enemy through the gates. Diasuke, then Yobun, then Demin joined us at the gates. Finally we were thrown into a cutscene - the enemy had breached the gates!

What followed can only be described as the most incredible lag-fest I've ever seen in my FFXI career. We had over 600 players in the zone, all trying to fight the Undead Swarm. By the time I actually managed to target a monster, it would usually be dead. I did get to actually fight a few of the monsters, and Elboron managed to cure me a few times (and I think I cured him once). I used Holy Circle, which helped intimidate the mobs. Before long, it was over. Both Elboron and I got 338 experience and Imperial Standing points, but Demin only got 80, and Yobun was in the 100s I believe. I don't understand how they calculate your experience for this, but it could be related to the number of mobs you interact with.

The next morning, Grymalkyn was finally able to make it to Azouph Staging Area, with Kiki running interference on the Imps. I got aggro'd and popped Invincible to warp out, but there was a party there and they pulled the Imp off of me, so I just wandered back to Nashmau. Grym used the Runic Portal to Whitegate, then warped back to Nashmau to pick me up and teleported us back to the old world for the afternoon.

Later that evening, we teamed up with Elbo and did some exploration of the Wajaom Woodlands and Aydeewa Subterrane. We wanted to fight some of the different monsters, and also check to see what kind of aggro we'd get, since we've mostly traveled through there with sneak and invisible both on (yes, we're scared little babies).

We learned that the Lesser Colibri (they look like toucans, but apparently in real life, Colibri are hummingbirds) don't aggro, and they don't link. They have a special move called "Snatch Morsel", which will remove the food effect from target (and presumably absorb it itself). This would make them very annoying for an exp party, unless we could come up with a good cheap "snack" food for tanks. I don't think Bretzels would really cut it for a party in the 60s.

The Wajaom Tigers appeared to be aggro free at first. Grym actually had to get right in its face before it noticed her. I don't remember any unusual moves from it that I hadn't seen from other tigers, and they go down pretty easy. Later, Kiki was spotted by a Tiger at a much greater distance than Grym had needed to attract the earlier one's attention, so perhaps they're not as near-sighted as they seemed.

We fought a Qiqirn in Aydeewa Subterrane. They don't aggro, and I think they're cute, so it seems mean to kill them. The one we fought spammed both Faze, which renders the target unable to use Job Abilities or Weapon Skills (amnesia), and a terrorize move.

I was a bit worried about testing an Amerat (malboro) in Wajoam. They were mostly DC to us, and malboros can be pretty nasty to fight even as Easy Prey, but we finally mustered up some courage and gave it a shot. Grymalkyn ran up to one and danced around in front of it. No sight aggro. She got closer and danced around. Doesn't seem to aggro to sound. She got even closer, and stepped on one of its tentacles. That got its attention! I don't really believe it was "touch aggro", it's probably a very close-range sound aggro, which we can check some other time with Sneak active. The fight was miserable, but we did manage to kill it, for a whole 35 exp with Sanction on, which seems to give about a 10% exp bonus. (Kiki had got 27 exp on our first toucan without Sanction, while Grym and Elbo both got 30 exp.) The Amerat seemed to be spamming Vampiric Spike, which first removed all of Kiki's buffs (phalanx, stoneskin, shell, protect, ballad i, ballad ii) and then took off nearly 300 per hit. Each of its normal attacks had an additional drain effect as well. The fight lasted long enough that Grym and Kiki got in at least 5 skillchains (Swift Blade -> Sharkbite), and both Elboron and Kiki were depleted of MP. It was exciting, but I don't think we'll make it a habit to fight these.

We ran through an area with a Woodland Runner (raptor), a Puk (wyvern/fly?), and a Mamool Ja. The Raptors aggro on sound, I would guess the Mamool aggros on sight, and we didn't do a test on the Puk, we just know it aggro'd. Those were all Tough to us, so we zoned rather than fighting them.

I enjoy exploring new areas, since as you become more familiar with them, they become less intimidating. However, there sure are a lot of nasty beasts waiting to tear us from limb to limb in the new regions. And there are several areas we haven't even set foot in. We really have to complete the COR and PUP quests one of these days, as well as reach the final two Staging Points through the reef.

Leveling: Filling the Empty Vessel

I'm not really sure this should fall in the "Leveling" category when we're basically just fighting things to learn blue magic, but we have been leveling, so I guess it works. We've been having a lot of fun collecting our spells, and are now at Level 8, with all of our current spells, plus the 3 we can use at level 12 (Battle Dance, Feather Storm, Head Butt) and 2 of the ones for level 16 (Sheep Song, Helldive).

We've been playing BLU both as a duo and a trio with Elboron. He's been soloing BLU as well, and has pretty much the same sells. I think he's missing Sprout Smack, Head Butt, and Sheep Song, so he'll need to spend a bit of time in Gustaberg. We're at the point now where we really have to get proper gear - we've been wearing what we call "Mule Wear" up to now: Dream Hats, Aketons, swimsuit bottoms, starter ring. I'm still not sure what stats are most appropriate for BLU, though I assume it should depend on what role we decide to play in a party.

We spent one evening in Ronfaure, trying to pick up Power Attack, Queasyshroom, and Battle Dance. We didn't all manage to get all of them, and went back the next evening to complete our collection. The first evening, Kiki got aggro'd by an Orc while we were fighting a beetle, and ended up dead. Grym ran back to San d'Oria to switch to WHM to raise Kiki, and Elboron decided to keep fighting a beetle, but a tough golbin had other ideas and went charging after him. Grym raised Kiki first, and another Orc was too close and smacked her down again. After we were both raised and no longer weakened, we headed back to San d'Oria, fighting things along the way. Even with a level 43 WHM in our party, Elboron was able to learn both Queasyshroom and Power Attack, so I'm not sure what the "rules" for being able to learn Blue Magic are. It sure seems like it's too easy if you can party with higher leveled friends and get the spells without being able to earn any EXP points at the same time.

The second evening, we headed to Sarutabaruta after finishing up in Ronfaure. There we fought crabs for Metallic Body (Grym and Kiki got it the same time, on the second crab they fought), crawlers for Cocoon (this took a lot of crawlers for Grym to learn), yagudos for Feather Storm (all three of us learned it fairly quickly, mandies for Wild Oats for Elbo, and vultures for Helldive (Grym and Kiki got this pretty quickly, but Elboron had to keep trying for several days).

We've still been sticking to the process of engaging, fighting with our bare fists and blue magic to get the mob down to a sliver of health, and letting it fight us until it's used its TP 2 or 3 times, hopefully getting the move that we're trying to learn. As I mentioned above, we've got to start wearing proper gear for this, as things are starting to hit us a bit hard. However, we've gotten good at bouncing the hate around, using Pollen or Cures to pull hate when one of us starts dropping a bit low in HP. Since we're basically spamming Pollen on ourselves in every fight, it's been getting our Blue Magic skill nicely capped before we level.

Saturday morning, Grym and Kiki headed to the Gustabergs to try for Head Butt and Sheep Song. Head Butt came pretty quickly, but Sheep Song took awhile. We never saw a "Grymalkyn has learned Sheep Song!" message, but at one point Grym was looking at her list of spells, and there it was! He scrolled back through the chat log, and there never had been a message. That's a bit annoying, as we may have kept fighting sheep long past him learning it, since we didn't know. I've read reports of other people having the same problem, but I just assumed that they missed the message. Now I'm of the belief it's a bug. It just means we'll check our spell lists regularly to see if we've learned something without realizing it.

We got some Fresh Blood off of one of the sheep, so we decided to change to our level 71s and headed out to Dangruff Wadi to see if we could spawn the Chocoboleech and get the rare/ex katana Gassan for Kiki's NIN20, since she really will have to level it to 37 some day, as much as she's adverse to the concept of using NIN as a subjob. We had to run around and check the three different spawn spots a few times before it finally appeared. We popped the leech, and did him in rather quickly. A passing SMN seemed to be looking for the same thing, but he'd have to wait and find the right spot when it spawned later.

Fishing: City Fishing in the Expansion

I did a little bit of casual fishing in the moat near the Auction House in Al Zahbi, and at the two ports in Aht Urhgan Whitegate, just to see what different fish I could catch.

In Al Zahbi, I was able to catch Sazanbaligi with shrimp lure and little worms. This fish is probably identical to Gold Carp. It bites the same bait, it fights the same, it NPCs for the same (300 gil), it doesn't seem to be useful for anything, and I got a .2 skillup on it at level 53. I didn't get anything but a rusty bucket with a sinking minnow, but I didn't make many casts either. I caught several Kayabaligi with both minnow and little worm, and this one seems more like the tricoloured carp, but it's worth more to the NPCs (310 gil). I caught an eel, Yilanbaligi, using little worms. There hadn't been any listed on the AH yet, so I sold it to myself for 1 gil, then took it to an NPC. I also caught a few regular old crayfish.

At both the north and south ports in Whitegate the fish seemed to be the same. I was able to catch nothing with a shrimp lure, but got Denizanasi (like cobalt jellyfish) with Robber Rig, Sinking Minnow, and Minnow. I also got Kalamar (cone calimari) with the Minnow. Both of those are used in new recipies for Mercury and Black Ink, so I'll save those up to sell when I get full stacks.

We did some exploration in Aydeewa Subterrane and found a beautiful little pond that's just screaming for some sneak fishing. I would bet the Lamp Marimo comes out of there, since we saw glowing globes in the water, but it just looks like such a nice spot to fish.

General: Support Staff

Grymalkyn and Tsakiki wouldn't be where they are today without the dedication of their support staff, scattered throughout the various cities, ready to do whatever tasks are needed. OK, so it really boils down to the fact that we've got too much crap and need more characters to hold it all. They all help out with selling things on their local AHs, so we can target the markets most likely to buy up our items quickly. Grym's characters are:

Qimirpik is a Galka in Bastok who mostly hangs on to anything we've collected that could be useful for Grym's craft leveling in Alchemy, Clothcraft, Smithing, Goldsmithing, Leather, and Bonework.

Quiznos is a Taru in San d'Oria, and collects stacks of crystals and stacks of items that sell well in San d'Oria. He gardens sporadically, usually for items Qiara uses in her cooking (i.e. Tarutaru Rice).

Qiara, an Elvaan in Windurst, is an aspiring chef (level 74) with raw fish handling and noodle kneading. She hangs on to all the ingredients useful for food she can level on, turn in for guild points, or that Grym and Kiki can use in their adventures.

Qeebler, an Elvaan in Jeuno, is responsible for much of the armor and accessories that Grym needs for other jobs, or level capped events. He also is Grym's banker, taking care of most of the Jeuno purchasing and selling for Grym.

Kiki's crew consists of:

Qiyuk, a Hume in Jeuno, responsible for most of Kiki's gear for level caps and other jobs, and checking the AH regularly for cheap tree cuttings for the gardeners in the crew. She's Kiki's banker as well.

Quincy, a Tarutaru in San d'Oria, collects stacks of crystals, and gardens regularly. He usually has a few pieces of Kiki's level 40 BST/DRK/PLD gear in his delivery box, for lack of a better place to store them.

Qiwi, a Galka in Windurst, hangs on to all the consumables needed in our adventuring: partial stacks of food, BST jugs and pet food, various medicines, as well as the fish being saved for Guild Points.

Qix, a Mithra in Bastok, is in charge of Kiki's fishing gear and woodworking supplies. She's also a gardener.

Qlone, a Hume in San d'Oria, was meant to be a temporary fix to a short term storage issue (mostly stuff we'd been collecting for CoP missions), but it doesn't look like we can give up the space any time soon. He also hangs on to a few of the sub-20 accessories for Kiki.

They all have at least level 3 fame in their home cities, have done one or two mog safe expansions, most have travelled to Windurst to quest for Aspir scrolls. Quincy and Quiznos both got Rank 2 in San d'Oria (a very exciting fight for the level 7 and 8 Tarutarus!) in order to quest for Drain scrolls. Quincy had actually got to level 9, but a couple of weeks ago ended up deleveling to 7 in order to help Windurst take over Ronfaure. He may be a San d'Orian, but his heart really is with Windurst - must be genetic for Tarutarus.

I know a lot of people hate the idea of mules, and feel that everything in the game is liquid enough to sell things and re-buy as needed, but I've found that a lot of the gear we have isn't all that easy to find, especially the HQ items, and I hate being held hostage by the AH when I need to gear up for a level capped BCNM or mission, or if I need to switch to one of my other jobs, or if we go on a crafting spree. So we end up having tons of gear sitting around, just so it's there when we need it. Kiki's got everything she needs to be well-equipped for Level 20 MNK/WAR/THF/DRK/PLD/RDM/BLM/NIN/BST, Level 30 WAR/DRK/PLD/RDM/BLM/BST, Level 40 DRK/PLD/RDM/BST, Level 50 PLD/RDM, Level 60 PLD/RDM, Level 72 PLD, while Grym has her own set of gear for her various jobs at various levels. A lot of this gear is useful for multiple jobs, but it's still quite a collection of rings (+INT, +MND, +STR, +ACC, +VIT, +DEX, +MP), earrings, weapons, armor, and other accessories. Grym herself must have every dagger she ever bought.

So our stable of mules has grown over the years, and even with Gobbiebag VI, full mog safe expansions, AF storers, event item storers, multiple mannequins, and now a mog locker in Al Zahbi, we still end up with multiple layers in our delivery boxes for "storage". On Saturday, when Grym couldn't bear to sell off crystals at the currently reduced prices (everyone's leveling BLU, PUP, or COR, plus there's a new influx of Xbox 360 players starting out), my husband admitted he needed to add another mule. While discussing this, we also decided that one of our mules needed to move to Aht Urghan.

We chose Qiyuk for this adventure, since we had two mules in Jeuno, and neither of them has furniture for extra storage (which they couldn't access in Jeuno, or Aht Urhgan). Qiyuk's long been a Tenshodo member, and had no trouble picking up the quest of the Aht Urghan Boarding Pass. We decided it would be easiest to gather the six sub-job items, and Grym gave Qiyuk a Teleport-Dem to start her journey. Qiyuk, traveling as THF1 for mob radar, made her way safely to the Dunes, while Grym warped to Windurst, changed to THF71/WHM35 and OP warped to the Dunes. It was just turning 04:00, so we missed out on the ghouls and bogies, so Grym killed a few crabs and flies, and quickly got the Crab Apron and Damselfly Larvae that Qiyuk needed. Qiyuk was trying to make her way to Selbina on her own, and ended up getting killed by a goblin after she got through the tunnel, so Grym raised her and escorted her the rest of the way.

Since it was so early in the day, we decided to head to Mhaura and get a Magicked Skull in Bubu or the Maze of Shakrami instead of waiting for night in the Dunes. The ferry trip was uneventful, but we felt pressed for time when it was nearly 00:00 when we arrived in Mhaura. Grym quickly headed out to Buburimu and used flee to get to the bogies and ghouls while it was still night. The first Bogy dropped the Bloody Robe, and the first Ghoul dropped the Magicked Skull. I think it took 4 dhalmels to get the Dhalmel Saliva, and 5 rarabs to get the Wild Rabbit Tail. We then made our way to the Mea crag so Qiyuk could get the crystal, and she death-warped back to Jeuno to turn in her items at the Tenshodo HQ. It was soon a new day, and Qiyuk got her boarding pass.

Grym teleported Qiyuk to Mea, and they made their way back to Mhuara, rode the ferry to Aht Urhgan, and got Qiyuk settled into the mog house in Al Zahbi. It will be handy having her there and having access to a variety of stores with some things more readily available than the other cities. Plus it will save a bit of gil selling things on the AH, since (for now anyway) the AH listing fee is lower than in Jeuno.

The last thing we did before going to bed Saturday night was to create a new mule for Grym. We picked out a character (Taru female, model 3b) and tried to come up with a name. We've always used Q names for our mules, just because, but couldn't come up with one. I cycled through the auto name generator for 15 minutes, and we didn't see a name we liked. We had always joked about creating characters Orly (oh really?) and Yarly (yeah, really), so we decided to see if Yarly was taken, and it wasn't. So a mischievous question-mark-head Taru suddenly appeared in Windurst, bearing the name Yarly. She decided to grab a lotus katana and zoom around East Sarutabaruta looking for magical suits of armor to beat on, but ended up being killed by the Mithra one, and turned in for the night.

Sunday morning, my husband told me that Qlone had to go, and be replaced with Orly in Windurst. We initially opted for a red-headed male taru brother for Yarly, but discovered someone else had a character named Orly, and named him Orlly instead. We decided the name didn't look right, so we deleted him, and this time made a twin sister for Yarly, and named her Ohrly. We then changed their jobs to MNK, grabbed their Lotus Katanas, and ran out to find the Spirit Armor to kill.

First we went to West Saru, where we zoomed around with our perma-flee, but couldn't find a set of armor. However, the Mithra armor found us, and killed us in one shot. Then we ran out to East Saru to try again, and soon found a half-dead set of Tsukikazu Armor. We caught up to him, engaged, activated Hundred Fists, and killed it! It was so funny seeing the little question-mark-heads just whaling away at the armor with their Lotus Katanas. We got a Purple Drop, a bunch of Elvaan Mochi, and a Federation Stables Scarf, which is oh so useless for a new mule in Windurst. We joined in with some other people fighting another armor, but made sure to turn away before it was killed, to let other people get the killing blow and so get the drops.

Later in the day, we transferred everything from Qlone to Ohrly, and Qlone was deleted. Poor fellow. He never really got to do much of anything.