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.