Leveling: Ninja Blues back in Qufim (23-25)

Sunday night, the Ninja Blues static headed back to Pug Alley in Qufim, and had a good two hours of exp there. There was another party there at first, so there was a bit of competition for the Pugils, but it wasn't too bad. It slowed down more when a third party camped on top of us. They were a bit odd in that they had 5 Tarutaru mages (3xBLM, 2xWHM), all in their starter RSE outfits, and 1 Galka PLD. They were only level 21, but did very well. The PLD would lose hate, but he was far enough away from the mages that he could usually get the mob back before the BLM with hate would get him. I think it's really a shame there are so many RMT groups making their way through the levels, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Since I hadn't had a chance to level my WHM and won't have Cure II on my /RDM until BLU28, Grym took over main healing for the night. I gave her all my +MP and +MND gear and I got all the +STR and attack gear. I still subbed RDM to backup heal, but I did a quick check in the moghouse to see how different the stats are between BLU/RDM and BLU/DRK. The biggest difference is about 20% more Attack, which explains why Elboron's been far and away the damage leader of the group. I did a lot more damage this time round, since I wasn't healing other than an occassional Healing Breeze between pulls, moving from 13% to 20%. Having a couple merits in Sword Skill helps my accuracy too.

We had one run-in with a Banshee that the three parties all decided to gang up on. We seemed to be doing well with it, getting it nearly dead, when it would drain HP from all of us and be back at full health. That happened two or three times, and things started looking grim. Fortunately Diasuke showed up and had Carbuncle blast it to bits for us. He stayed around to protect us from further undead attacks, which was nice.

Quests: Promotion - Superior Private

After completing a bunch of Private First Class Assault Missions, I headed to talk to Naja Salaheem to see if she was ready to promote me to the next rank yet. Sure enough, she thought I was ready, and told me to go out and find some evidence of the Dark Rider who's been recently menacing the Empire. The Dark Rider has been known to be in Wajaom Woodlands, Bhaflau Thickets, Mount Zhayolm, and Caedarva Mire. Grymalkyn and I had seen the Warhorse Hoofprint that we needed to find in the Thickets several weeks back, when we went on our first chocobo exploration of the area, so we were hopeful that we'd quickly find another one, now that we needed it.


Having chocobos available does make the searching a lot quicker, but we searched and searched through the Thickets and Woodlands, spending hours of time fruitlessly, spread out over several days. Saturday morning, the chocobo trainer was being held prisoner, and I even went out searching as my RDM/BLM, to no avail. When the chocobo trainer came back, I made a couple loops, then decided I'd try the possible spots in Mount Zhayolm.

I ducked into a Halvung entrance and used escape to get to Mt Zhayolm. I checked and few spots and worked my way though the Gates of Halvung and over to the Vozold Island, passing through Halvung again along the way. I had no luck finding the Warhorse Hoofprint, but I did see some new sights: the dragons called Dahaks, and the giant moth-like Wamoura. I've heard they can aggro through sneak and invisible in certain circumstances, but fortunately they didn't notice me.

We decided the hoofprint must be in the Mire, which is an area I don't much care for, because of the true-sight Imps. We reasoned that the Dark Rider might move after the conquest tally on Sunday morning, and gave it up for the day. Soon after the tally, we logged in and Itera sent a tell that he'd spotted the Dark Rider in the Woodlands, and followed him around until he got the hoofprint. We quickly warped to Al Zahbi, grabbed chocobos, and found the Warhorse Hoofprint as well. We then headed back to town to switch to our BSTs for widescan and hopped back on a chocobo to see if we could spot the Dark Rider as well, but we couldn't find him.

We took our evidence back to Naja, and she was a bit reluctant to accept it as proof, but decided to promote us anyway. Now we have another set of 5 new Assault missions to try out!

New Title: Superior Private

Assault: OK, So I've Changed My Mind

We've done quite a few Assault missions since I last wrote about Assault, and managed to complete enough to do the quest for promotion to Superior Private.

We tried the Orichalcum Survey with Akuma (BLM), Yobun (BLM), Izan (DRG), Grymalkyn (THF), Elboron (BRD), and Kiki (PLD). I think most of us subbed mage jobs for invisible. This was much smoother than our first run at this, since we knew about getting ourselves invisible as soon as someone found the ore, and were also lucky that there weren't any Qiqirn right on top of us when someone found the ore. It was Yobun who got the ore, and he safely made it back to the NPC with it.

Then we tried Preemptive Stike, subbing Wendell's WHM in for Izan's DRG. Yobun hadn't done this one, and we'd gone on and on about how easy it was. We learned that the ease depends on the set-up, and won by the skin of our teeth, with Grym disengaging on the last Mamool, and fleeing for the Runic Portal as time was running out. BLM BLM WHM BRD THF PLD just isn't as efficient as BLM BRD THF MNK MNK PLD.

Next we did Lamia No. 13, and had no problems with MNKx2, DRG/RDM, BLM/RDM, BLM/RDM, PLD/RDM. With enough dispellers and no bad luck, this is a really fun one to do.

On another day, we headed back to beat up the Mamools in Preemptive Strike, with just 5 of us, BLM, MNK, MNK, THF, PLD. I missed having Elboron there, but we finished up with plenty of time to spare.

Still later, we opted to try Lamia No. 13, again with just 5: BLM/RDM, MNK/WHM, BRD/WHM, THF/RNG, and PLD/RDM. Grymalkyn subbed Ranger in order to be able to do more damage with her ranged attacks, not wanting to be a leech in the mission. Unfortunately, this pissed off the Lamia, and she went after Grym about the same time she re-charmed all the Fomors, and with all of us running all over the place, no one could get to Grym in time to save her from an Arrow Deluge after being hit with Firaga III for over 600 points. I raised Grym and we went on to win. We tried it for a second round, and we kept closer tabs on Grym and we all survived for the win.

Elboron, Grymalkyn, Itera and Kiki were all able to pick up the Promotion quest after these missions. I'm really enjoying Assault now that we have a few people eager to do them regularly. I'm still disappointed that the original announcements for it made it sound like something you could do with a small group, and then it turned out that it was only if you had a specific set of jobs for that small group. However, they are really fun when you can win them consistently. The assault points are buiding up. I still haven't decided what to use my points for, since the only job I have in the level range for the new armor sets is PLD, and the only set that PLD can equip is the Amir set, and I'm not sure it's anything I really want. The Paluhwan set would probably be really nice for BST, but it will be a long time before my BST can use it. There are a couple other items that would be nice to have, like the Potent Belt, but I haven't decided whether I should horde points for the eventual "expensive" items, or spend points as I earn them on lesser items that I can actually use now.

Missions: Past Sins (CoP 5-3-3)

We finally completed one of the paths for Mission 5-3 last night: Louverance's Path. We don't have much left to do for Tenzen's Path, just sneak through the Level 60 cap Pso'Xja Tower for a cutscene, and of course the Snoll Tzar for Ulmia's Path. I just can't believe they consider this all a single mission. They went overboard with the Aht Urhgan missions and had them so short that it seems a single cutscene counts for two missions.

Anyway, back to last night.

Everyone took care of all the running around and watching cutscenes beforehand, and we met in Whitegate, ready for our level 60 BC fight in Mine Shaft #2716, A Century of Hardship. We were all on our "normal" jobs: PLD/WAR, THF/NIN, BRD/WHM, WHM/BLM, MNK/WAR, WAR/NIN. It was kind of nice to get the AF out of storage. I think it's been months since I've worn it. We were facing 4 Moblins and Bugbear, and our plan was to have Grym kite the Bugbear and two of the Moblins while the rest of us took care of first the BLM Moblin and then the WHM Moblin.

Grym was geared up with as much +Evasion as she could muster: Bat Earrings (with blinding potions), Emperor's Hairpin, Crow gear, Navarin for food, and had Flee, Powder Boots, and a Hermes Quencher. The guides all say they're resistant to sleep and don't mention Lullaby, so we didn't want Elboron to risk trying to sleep them either.

We headed in, Wendell buffed us up, and we got reraise on everyone. When Wendell's MP replenished, we ran down the long long corridor to meet our opponents. Elboron cast double Mambo on Grymalkyn, I targeted the BLM, Splinte targeted the WHM, and Grym ran up to them to body aggro all of them. She took off running back to the entrance, with the mobs all after her. Splinte and I provoked our targets, and we started in fighting the BLM, since he'd be the most dangerous to have around. Wendell kept silence on him, but it didn't keep him from shouting for Bugsby to come back and help him.

Bugsby came back, arriving just as the BLM died. Grym was planning to come and get him to keep kiting, but I auto-attacked him as the BLM died, spoiling Grym's chance to reaggro him. We quickly decided that Bugsby was going down, and Grym kept kiting the RDM and the THF, while the WHM stayed near us. Itera and Splinte used their two hours on Bugsby, as did I, and he went down fairly easily. Meanwhile, Grym was getting dangerously low on HP (in the low double digits), but I started casting Cures on her whenever she was within range, and she managed to chug hi-potions and get shadows back up thanks to all of her "flee" tools. Considering how little the Moblins actually managed to hit her, I'm surprised her health got so low, but I guess they were hitting her pretty hard when they actually connected.

After the Bugbear was down, we switched to the WHM, then grabbed the RDM from Grym, and finally the THF. It was a rather MP and hi-potion intensive fight, but other than Grym, we never seemed to be in any danger. Wendell did end up using Benediction at the very end of the fight, so maybe we were all a bit low health.

Since the Bugbear will run back to help whomever you happen to be fighting, I think it actually worked out better than we killed him second, since it made the kiter's job a bit easier. If she had to keep running after the bugbear and re-establish hate, things might have not gone so well.

After the fight, we headed to Bastok to talk to Cid, then back to the Mine Shaft for another cutscene. First we all needed a gold key, but 5 of us had them sitting in our mog houses for months and months, so we only needed to get one for Splinte. It was pretty easy killing a few goblins/moblins in Newton Movalpolis to get the one key, and then we headed back to the Mine Shaft. One more trip to Bastok for another chat with Cid, and the mission was complete.

Next week, the Snoll Tzar!

New title: Companion of Louverance

Quests: Walahra Turban

Well, I'm not sure this counts as a quest really, but an Al Zahbi NPC named Gajaad has been trying to get people to sign a petition and to donate imperial currency to help rebuild Al Zahbi. For every 100 Imperial Bronze Pieces you donate, he will give you a (non-stackable) vial of Walahra Water, which gives you an instant 50hp/50mp, which are handy for some of our mission fights. After donating 1,000 Bronze, he rewards you with a Walahra Turban, which can be worn by all jobs at level 75, and gives HP +30, MP +30 and Haste +5%.

After spending all my ISP on maps, Runic Portal fees, Refresh with Sanction, and coins for Mog Locker expansions, I finally had enough to feel comfortable buying the 1,000 coins to give to Gajaad. I had donated 100 on two different occassion, figuring I'd do it piecemeal. Then last Saturday I saw there was only one prisoner and I took a chance that it wasn't Chochoroon the Qiqirn appraiser. If he's being held prisoner, Gajaad will not take any donations. I bought 200 coins, 5 at time, from the currency vendor, then decided to check if Gajaad would actually take them. Sadly, Chochoroon wasn't around.

Sunday afternoon, I ran past Chochoroon's stall, and there he was! I ran over to Whitegate and spent the next 40 minutes getting my last 600 coins, 5 at a time. A lot of people will get gold coins and take them to Nashmau to convert to mythril, then those to silver, then those to bronze, but I figured it ended up being about the same amount of time, what with the ferry ride and all.

I hurried off to Gajaad, gave him the coins 100 at a time to get my full supply of Walahra Water, and finally got my fancy turban. I feel like I was one of the last 6 level 75 on the server to not have one, but it is a very handy headpiece to have. The extra HP and MP and the little bit of haste certainly don't hurt. It's already become my general purpose headgear for my Paladin. Grymalkyn's getting close to being able to get one as well. Since he hasn't been in any exp parties since I hit 75, he hasn't accumulated as much ISP as I have, and has been relying mostly on Besieged for his points.

Leveling: Ninja Blues hit Qufim (20-23)

We had so much fun Sunday night that we decided to go out again on Monday night. This time we headed to Qufim, since Charcole was 21 and the rest of us were 20. We camped outside Delkfutt's Tower and tore into the crabs. We're getting used to working together as a party, and things went very smoothly. Kiki still hasn't learned how to handle Healing Breeze, and on one Pugil fight she ended up dying. I really thought hate was well-established at that point, since the Pugil was at about 10%, but I just got too much hate. I really must save it for the absolute end of fights.

It was fastest for me to homepoint to Whitegate, take the pay-for-warp Taru to Jeuno(the free one was kidnapped in our usual back-to-back-to-back-to-back post-maintenance Besieged), and run back out to the Tower.

After the five of us hit 21, we headed over to Pug Alley and fought there. We had a couple of links, but between Sheep Song and a level 35ish Monk soling while looking for party, we didn't have any disasters. All three of the Blue Mages learned Screwdriver during the party, which was a nice plus. We can't equip it until we're 26. Charcole hit 23, and the rest of us were well into 22 before we ended for the night.

I had switched to /RDM for the party, since my /WHM is underlevelled. The biggest problem with that right now is that I will not have Cure II until level 28 (and would have it now as /WHM). The 30 HP recovered from a single Cure just doesn't go as far as it did a few levels back.

The party went really well, and the Ninjas are getting used to bouncing hate back and forth between themselves and keeping their shadows up, letting everyone else do more damage and less healing. I actually think it would be a lot harder to be a single Blue Mage in a more normal party, since you're limited to a subset of all the spells you could be using. Having three BLUs in a single party lets us split everything up (though we all equip Headbutt and Bludgeon) and each have an effective enfeebling spell. BLU really is a versatile job.

Wendell liked the longer fights, since it allowed him to do more damage with his avatars. We still managed a lot of Chain #4, and averaged over 200 per kill. I'm pretty sure it was the best Qufim party I've ever been in, even with my death.

Tuesday night, the three BLUs headed out to learn our missing spells. We got Soporific from the Flytraps in Carpenters Landing off of North San d'Oria, then Claw Cyclone from the Forest Tigers in Jugner, and finally Poison Breath from the Bandersnatches in Gusgen Mines. It didn't take us too many mobs for all three of us to learn the spells, but it was enough that Grym and Kiki both got up to 23. I've been having pretty good luck with learning spells, and got Soporific on the second flytrap that used it, and the other two spells on the first mob. I'm not sure I'll use Claw Cyclone and Poison Breath (I don't care for AOEs), but with all of the different combos that give job traits, it's important to have every spell. Plus AOEs do have their place.

Missions: The Black Coffin (ToAU 9-18)

This Saturday, Yobun planned to get as many people in the linkshell through the latest set of Missions for Aht Urhgan, specifically the NM fight for Mission 14, The Dolphin Crest, and then the 6-man BC fight for Mission 15, The Black Coffin. The rest of the missions 9 through 18 are pretty much just cutscenes that we did mostly on our own. I've really enjoyed the ToAU mission cutscenes.

We all had to get a vial of Jody's Acid, a ~50% drop off of Ameratats in Wajaoam Woodlands. These didn't pose any problems for anyone in the group, and we all traded them to Pyopyoroon in Nashmau for a key item to prepare us for the ghost fight in Caedarva Mire. We ended up with 14 people for the mission. For the NM ghost, we fought as an alliance and easily defeat it and got the key item we needed for the BC fight (an Ephramadian Gold Coin, to use as fare for our boat ride) . Then it was back to Whitegate for another cutscene with Naja, and then off to Dvucca Isle for the BC fight.

We used the Dvucca Isle Staging Point runic portal and were able to quickly sneak over to the area for the fight. We didn't have two full parties, so we split up into two, with the PLD (me) and WHM (Wendell) needing to complete the mission and come back and fight it with the others. The poor second group didn't have much to do in the meantime but just sit and wait for Wendell and I to get back. Our first line up was pretty much the former LLS, with Yobun on BLM instead of THF:

Itera MNK75/WAR37
Elboron BRD75/WHM37
Grymalkyn THF75/NIN37
Yobun BLM75/RDM37
Wendell WHM75/BLM37
Tsakiki PLD75/WAR37


Second group:

Charcole MNK75/WAR37
Richelle BRD60/WHM30
Izan DRG75/WAR37
Anastasia BLM75/RDM37
Wendell WHM75/BLM37
Tsakiki PLD75/WAR37

For the Black Coffin fight, you first face 5 Fomor Crew members. Two RDMs, two RNGs, and one COR. Gessho, an NPC Yagudo, assists in the fight, and our plan was to have Yobun try to keep most the Crew asleep, while we would kill whichever Crew member Gessho was fighting. Once the first five are defeated, 4 more Crew members spawn, along with the Captain. You only need to defeat the Captain to win the fight, so we would go all out on the Captain, with the Monks using their two hours.

The fight wasn't quite as smooth as we had hoped, since the Fomor started resisting sleep, and we had a hard time coordinating which to fight (mostly because they all had the same name). We won without incident and found ourselves back in Nashmau for another cutscene.

Wendell and I ran out to the graveyard to get a second gold coin from the headstone (you don't need to fight the NM again), then warped back to Whitegate to complete the mission cutscenes. For one of the cutscenes, you are invited to the Imperial Palace, and Naja helps you decide how to dress properly. Some of us were already wearing acceptable clothing (my Adaman Cuirass), some had something appropriate with them (Grym's Blue Cotehardie), while others had to borrow body armor. I enjoyed the cutscenes and am very intrigued as to where they're leading, but I must say Naja's really getting on my nerves. She's just not a very fair boss, but I guess that's why she's the President and I'm a lowly mercenary.

Mission completed, Wendell and I used the Runic Portal to get back to Dvucca Isle and ran back to the Cutter, where the second team was restlessly waiting for us. We decided we would have Kiki get aggro and provoke the center Crew member, while Charcole and Izan would each provoke the two on either side of the one Kiki got. Anastasia would try to sleep them, and we'd pretty much ignore Gessho and kill the COR first, then the two RDMs, and finally the RNGs. It didn't go quite as planned, but near enough. When the Captain spawned, we focused our attention on him. Charcole used Hundred Fists and pulled hate, so I used Invincible to pull it back and cured him, but he pulled hate again, and was hit with a weaponskill while pretty low in hp (I was in the middle of a Cure IV on him at the time - I should have used the faster casting Cure III instead) and ended up dead.

We defeated the Captain soon after, and Wendell and I found ourselves on the dock leading to the Cutter, while the rest of the group ended up in Nashmau for their cutscene. Wendell had to get back to Nashmau to Raise III Charcole, so he cast Escape, putting us in Caedarva Mire. We snuck back to Nashmau, arriving just in time to see someone had got Charcole up before we got there. I learned that Wendell hadn't got his Caedarva Mire map yet, so a few of us walked him through the quest and headed out to Bhaflau Thickets to kill the Plaque Chigoe with him. The funny little flea really hits fast, but doesn't take too long to kill.

New Title: Ovjang's Errand Runner

Quests: The Die Is Cast

On Saturday evening, as many of us were gathering in Nashmau for the NM fight for ToAU Mission 14 (The Dolphin Crest), we decided to head out to Arrapago Reef to kill the NM Imp Bukki for the quest The Die Is Cast. 5 of us had the quest active, and Charcole was happy to come along and help (he was also finally able to get a cutscene for the Corsair flag quest after we were done).

The fight itself wasn't bad at all with 6 level 75s in a nearly balanced party (BLM/RDM, BRD/WHM, THF/NIN, PLD/WAR, MNK/WAR, MNK/WAR), but it sure was a pain to get to. I had nearly a stack each of silent oils and prism powders for the mission (actually, I always have them on me), but had to resupply after we were done with the quest. We ended up going back to Whitegate to finish the quest and then took the ferry back to Nashmau again for the mission. Our reward was a rare/ex Random Ring, which has 50 charges and gives you a random amount of Dexterity. I'm not sure how much I'm going to use it, but it's another quest off the list, and another bit of story from the game.

Leveling: Debut of the Ninja Blues (17-21, Korroloka Tunnel)

We've started a new static this weekend. Since 5 of us are the 5 remaining in the Low Level Static, we've decided to put aside the Low Level Static for the duration and have the new static meet both Saturday and Sunday evenings. I believe our initial intent is to get to 37, but we'll see if we want to keep it going further. The line-up:

Charcole NIN/WAR
Itera NIN/WAR
Elboron BLU/DRK
Grymalkyn BLU/WHM
Tsakiki BLU/RDM
Wendell SMN/WHM

We started out Sunday night with all of us level 17, except Charcole at 18. We headed to Korroloka Tunnel and tore through the worms so fast that we had a lot of time to wait for respawns. We ended up fighting bats as well, which took a bit longer than the worms, but not a lot. We were seeing a lot of Chain #6s and even a #7 or two, but of course it was a mix of Toughs and VTs. After Charcole hit 20, we probably even had Even Matches to him. But the exp piled up and we're ready to hit Qufim next week.

The three of us with mage subs are sharing the healing and buffing duties, which seems to be working OK so far. I subbed my WHM9 for the first session, and geared up with +MP and +MND gear with the intent that I'm "main" healer. This way Wendell can actually be a Summoner instead of the healer role most Summoners get forced into for so much of the game. I put a merit into MP this week for another +10, something I didn't think I'd do at this point, and I even bought an Astral Ring (boy have they come down in price!). Me, a Tarutaru who's always laughed at the very idea of needing more MP! Wendell (Galka SMN/WHM) and I (Tarutaru BLU/WHM) ended up with about the same MP with our gear and food, but I'm sure he'll be getting more MP per level than I will.

Even geared up like a WHM with a sword, I think I was still doing respectable damage. BLUs still seem a bit overpowered. Elboron, geared for damage and subbing DRK was pulling hate quite a bit, and I think he's really enjoying his first really DD job (although he did level BLM to 22 with the original ClanTen static a couple years ago). It must be a nice break from so many levels of BRD and WHM.

Missions: Head Wind complete (CoP 5-3U2)

Our second round with the Mithran Trackers went so smoothly last night that it was rather anti-climactic. We did everything we should have done last week, and defeated the three Trackers with no deaths on our side.

We headed into the battle field, everyone (sort of) used their Charm Wand +1s to cast reraise on someone else, we ate our food, buffed up, and waited for Wendell's MP to get back to full.

We headed further into the area this time, and I got my target on Shikaree Z, the DRG, while Grym ran in and aggro'd all of them. She used Flee and pulled them all back to the entrance area, while I provoked Z on their way past. Itera, Splinte and I started fighting Z, using Itera's Hundred Fists and Splinte's Mighty Strikes, while Elboron followed Grymalkyn and helped sleep the other two Mithra and the two pets. I used a blackened muddy siredon right away on Z, and we were able to nearly kill her before another Mithra came back to help her out.

With Z down, we switched to Shikaree X, the BST/NIN, trying to keep both X and Y fed with the fish. Grymalkyn rejoined us, Elboron was busy keeping the pets slept, and Wendell and I were busy keeping Itera's HP up, and then mine as well. Itera and I also used a few hi-potions. We killed X and moved on to the Shikaree Y.

Before we knew it, all three were dead, and we'd won. It went so quickly that Wendell even thought we were only killing the second one when it was the third and he used Benediction just as Shikaree Y fell and the battle was over. The fight took about 10 minutes, though half of that was just reading through the cutscene again and then buffing up.

We're finally done with the level 50 capped parts of CoP, and next week we'll move on to one of the level 60 caps. It will be kind of nice getting my AF out of storage. I haven't worn it for months! I think we're going to fight the Moblins next week, and save the Snoll Tzar for last.

New title: Delta Enforcer

New Addition to the Sidebar

I've really missed having categories available here, so I've cobbled them together using "index" pages that I'll update as I add blog entries. I'm not sure it will be of any use to anyone other than myself, but it does make it easier to navigate through the blog than the monthly archives do. The different categories are listed over to the left, and that takes you to a page listing all the posts for that particular category.

Apparently Blogger is adding "labels" as a feature in their next version, but I'd already pretty much finished doing this when I learned about it.

I've still got a lot of old Allakhazam journal entries to migrate over to here, and I haven't even started on my modblog entries, but some day I'll have it all in one place!

Assault: PFC Missions

Tuesday evening we decided to try a couple more of the PFC Assault missions. Elboron and Charcole had already done Preemptive Strike and said it was pretty easy, so we opted for that first. We had to wait a bit for Anastasia to get back from Jeuno (she'd been leveling MNK in Qufim and had set her home-point there, and her Olduum ring still had 15 minutes to go), and then we set out to the Mamool Staging Point with Ana (BLM/WHM), Charcole (MNK/WAR), Elbo (BRD/WHM), Itera (MNK/WAR), Grym (THF/NIN) and Kiki (PLD/RDM) with extra +MP gear for "main healing".

The goal here is to kill 12 (or 13?) Mamool Ja Executioners within the 30 minute time limit, trying to avoid aggro'ing the Executioner Puks in the area, since they don't need to be defeated. We ran around killing the Mamools, with little trouble. Itera fell off the ledge and had to sit out some of the fights, but we still won with plenty of time to spare. I blew through a lot of MP with Cure IVs, but there were never really any close calls. We had a couple links, but with both Ana and Elbo able to sleep them, it wasn't a problem.

Next on the agenda was Orichalcum Survey. This mission takes place on the same map as the Leujaoam Cleansing mission. You talk to an NPC when you enter and are given a pickaxe. Then you run around the Sanctum (??), looking for mining points, hoping to get an Orichalcum Ore. Once you get an ore, the previously non-aggroing Qiqirn Miners roaming the place suddenly start attacking, making it harder for the ore bearer to make it back to the NPC to complete the mission.

We ran around looking for mining spots, and would often get Mineral Worms, which were much easier to defeat than the worms in the cleansing mission. We got lots of "You find nothing" messages, and several pebbles, and were getting a bit discouraged that we'd find an ore before timing out. At just about the ten minute warning, Anastasia got the ore, but she was all alone. Charcole, Elbo, Grym and I were near a Qiqirn, who suddenly attacked us. He was much harder to fight than the Qiqirn in the Excavation Duty mission, and I was worried we wouldn't actually survive.

Meanwhile, Ana slept a Qiqirn that started attacking her, and headed for the NPC. She was chased down by 5 or 6 Qiqirns and was killed. We managed to defeat our Qiqirn, and Grym and I took off to find Anastasia so I could raise her. We were invisible, and the Qiqirn we passed ignored us. We found Ana, got her up, and raced for the NPC as Charcole, Itera and Elboron were getting beat up by another Qiqirn. Itera got killed and Elboron was close to death as Ana hit the rune of release and got us out. Another exciting assault completed. I think we can do better on this on future runs, being more careful about sticking together and using invisible as soon as the ore is found.

Thursday evening, the same group opted to try Requiem. This mission sends you to Periqia, where you're tasked with killing all of the undead. There are 10 skeletons, 5 with wyverns, 4 Bhoots, and two toads scattered in pairs through the area. The MNKs made such short work of the skeletons that I thought we'd have no troubles completing in plenty of time, but the ghosts slowed us down substantially. They used some nasty spells and we needed a lot of healing. As a PLD/RDM main healer, even a Tarutaru one with 704 MP, autorefresh, sanction refresh, double ballad and melon juice, I still had to rest for MP a couple of times while people kept fighting.

We still had 6 skeletons and 3 pet wyverns to go at the 5 minute warning, and it looked like we weren't going to make it, but after we killed everything, Grym used Flee and made it to the rune of release at the 10 second warning and had just enough time to hit the lootbox (for a worthless pair of cuffs) and then the rune of release to get us the win. It was so close, and if she'd made a wrong turn or got hung up on a rock on the way, we would have timed out.

After that, we did the Preemptive Strike one again. This has got to be the easiest of the 9 Assault Missions we've done. We killed all the Mamool Ja Executioners with plenty of time to spare, getting the 10 minute warning on our way to the Rune of Release. Our ??? loot this time was an Onion. I'm thinking that the good ??? loot is incredibly rare, having never seen anything worth more than 1k come out of the Assaults I've been on.

Quests: Double Dragonian (KSNM30)

Charcole's been keen to get his own pair of Destroyers for quite some time now, so he gathered a group of us together to see if we could defeat the two Dragons in the KSNM 30 Double Dragonian. The Destroyers are rare/ex and can drop in three different KSNMs, but the drop rate is thought to be best in this one. We had Charcole MNK/NIN, Itera MNK/WAR, Wendell WHM/BLM, Elboron BRD/WHM, Anastasia BLM/WHM and Kiki PLD/WAR.

We fought and killed the Berserker first, while Ana kept the Minstrel slept, with Elbo helping out. The Berserker went down pretty easily, but Itera pulled hate and went down himself. We kept getting all of our buffs dispelled, including food and juice. It made it harder to keep our MP up, since I was the only one with autorefresh, and +1mp / tick isn't a lot when you were expecting to have juice and double ballad on top of that.

Wendell gave Itera an R3 and we rested a bit, keeping the Minstrel asleep. I'd provoke and flash it when I could, to build my hate load as it slept. When it was time to fight it, we were surprised at how terribly hard he was hitting. We were all gravitied, the 100 damage from its thornsong spikes were painful (Elbo did a good job of using Finale, but has to wait to re-sing it), but it just plain hit like a truck.

I used Invincible, which bought us some time, as did Wendell's Benediction. Both Monks used 100 Fists at some point, but I can't recall which dragon they used it on. I got killed, and they tried to start kiting the Dragon, but it was hard with Gravity on. I think Itera was down next, then Elbo, and then Ana. It was down to Charcole and Wendell, and somehow they pulled it off. They were over a rise from me, and I couldn't see them, but I saw Charcole's HP drop, then jump up as Wendell's MP dropped casting a Cure IV. Then Charcole's HP was dropping again, and Wendell had just enough for one last Cure III. Wendell had 0 MP, Charcole didn't have enough HP to last too much longer, but he killed the dragon and the treasure box spawned. Hurray!

Charcole and Wendell ran back to the chest, looking a bit like Vana'diel Baywatch, in slow-motion while under the effect of gravity. Charcole popped the chest, and sadly didn't get his Destroyers, just a couple earrings and some dragon meat. However, we now have experience with the BC, and will gladly try again for him some time soon. Wendell and Itera have already got orbs to use for it, but we didn't want to try again on Monday with no two hours available.

Leveling: Mt Zhayolm Hilltrolls (75)

This past Sunday, we had Splinte's WAR/NIN join the LLS for our weekly outing. We all were eager to go somewhere other than Mamook, but Splinte didn't have the Dvucca Isle staging point, nor did he have Sky, which were our first two suggestions, so we headed the Halvung staging point and went to fight the Hilltrolls. It was a nice change of pace, especially for Charcole, who hadn't fought there before.

The trolls were a bit slower than the spinners, and probably lower exp per hour, but we ended up with over 10k for the outing. Both Charcole and Wendell were on exp rather than limits, since their buffers were getting pretty small. I thought about it, but I still had 5k, and figured I should be safe for awhile, so I stayed on limits.

For some reason I felt like hate was harder with the trolls than the spinners. It's probably a combination of them hitting me harder (and shedding more hate) and me not being able to hit them as hard (and not getting more hate). I was in the same gear, with about +30 enmity, but it just wasn't enough on some of the fights, especially when Splinte thought it would be a good idea to open with Berserked Rampages. Those fights I wouldn't even try to get the mob back. If he wants to tank that badly, I'll let him. :p However, it does make my presence pointless. If I can't tank when that's my role for the party, I'd be better off spending my time on other pursuits.

There was a spawn point in our camp, and with the fast repops, we would often have Elbo keeping one asleep while we fought another, but didn't have any crises. That probably helped our chains too, so we got at least one chain #6, which isn't bad for the stupid Diamondhide-spamming trolls.

Missions: The Celestial Nexus (Zilart Mission 16)

Saturday night, six of us traveled to the Celesital Nexus for the final Rise of the Zilart battle with Eald'narche. The future of Vana'diel depended upon us. It took us four attempts, but we prevailed, and the world can once again sleep soundly at night.

We'd all been reading about the mission, and knew it was going to be a nasty fight. Since nearly all of his devastating attacks can be blocked by Utsusemi, Charcole and I both used our underlevelled Ninja subjobs for the shadows. Hate is odd in the fight anyway, so not having provoke probably wouldn't make much difference. One of the LS members recommended subbing NIN so strongly that it was impossible to ignore the advice, however much it pained my little PLD's heart.

Wendell WHM75/BLM37
Elboron BRD75/WHM37
Yobun BLM75/RDM37
Charcole MNK75/NIN18
Grymalkyn THF75/NIN37
Tsakiki PLD75/NIN23

The trip through the Shrine of Ru'Avitau was uneventful, though Yobun had to go open the Yellow Doors for us. We headed into the Celestial Nexus and went over our plan. We'd brought poison potions to counteract Sleepga, but other than that, just the standard hi-potions, pro-ethers, echo drops, food and juice.

Our first attempt started out poorly. We all ran in a bit too close before drinking our Poison Potion, and Eald'narche decided to open with a Sleepga II. Charcole got hit and woke up, and assuming the rest of us were awake as well, used Hundred Fists on the Exoplates shielding Eald'narche. We were all dead before we even destroyed the Exoplates. Yobun had been using Sleepga to get the Orbitals, but he also hit Eald'narche, and since he was the only one with hate at that point, Eald'narche killed Yobun pretty early.

Our second attempt was a bit better. Grym was the last one standing, and the Exoplates blasted her with Phase Shift just as she destroyed them (it uses that move at 66%, 33%, and 0% HP). For this run, both Yobun and Elboron had used their two hours.

We made it a bit further in our third attempt. I ran in and tried to keep Eald'narche back further from Yobun, and keep him alive longer. We were able to destroy the Exoplates and Eald'narche's first form, but didn't last long with his second form, as our resources were pretty much totally depleted and we didn't have enough time to recover before he popped up again. Wendell had used Benediction and Kiki Invincible on that run.

As Wendell raised us and we all rested, we discussed what we should do differently. Yobun had been having a hard time with the Orbitals, which he had been trying to keep slept, but hadn't been using Stoneskin, since it would counteract the Poison Potions, and he wouldn't wake up from Sleepga. So the plan now was to have him Stoneskin and Elbo and Wendell would be responsible for waking him up if he got slept. We also discussed coming back in two weeks with Icarus Wings and Opo-opo necklaces for instant TP and a good skillchain. But we were all game to give him one more try, with no 2 hours besides Grymalkyn's Perfect Dodge, which would have been of limited utility in this fight.

The fourth attempt was much much better. I think Charcole and I were better with our shadows (though it's really a pain when you know you need to get them back up fast and either the recast timer isn't up yet, or you've been stunned by one of the AOEs), and Yobun had a much easier time with the Orbitals and was actually able to nuke.

Wendell ended up pulling hate during the first form and we couldn't keep him alive, but we made him reraise and cast reraise right away (RR1 to save MP). And he was immediately hit with an AOE and died again. We made him reraise again, and this time he was killed before he got reraise up. :-(

Elboron shouldered the healing responsibilities, with me helping out as I could, and we kept going. We defeated the first form, rested briefly, and started in on the second form when he appeared. When we had the second form to 30%, I was killed, and I sat back and watched as the four still standing defeated him. It was hard to believe that we won, but the fight went so much better than the first three.

After you complete the mission, you find yourself in the Hall of the Gods. People running past on their way to Sky were very surprised to see Wendell and me lying there dead, since there's nothing in the Hall of the Gods that can kill you. Fortunately one of the passersby was a high level WHM and he gave us both R3s, which (barely) got Wendell back to level 75. We all headed to Norg and then Jeuno for cutscenes to complete the Zilart Missions. There is a continuation of the storyline that you can only access when you've completed both Zilart and Chains of Promathia, but it will be awhile before I get to that.

I don't understand what SquareEnix was thinking with fights like this. I don't think there is any way I would have survived 20 seconds of that fight as a PLD/WAR. I can understand wanting to sub Ninja at times, but to absolutely have to makes a mockery of the one job that was meant to be a tank and nothing but a tank. I also think if I had Ni I probably would have survived, but with my gimp subjob and only having Ichi available, I couldn't recast shadows when I needed them. So I'll keep working on leveling Ninja to 37, but I don't have to like it. :-)

New Title: Burier of the Illusion

Missions: Head Wind, Round 1 (CoP 5-3U2)

Our CoP static failed our first attempt with the Mithran Trackers in Boneyard Gully on Friday night. We made a few mistakes, but are confident our strategy will work when we head back again this week. We had a total of 10 Blackened Muddy Siredons to give to the Mithras, which would keep them from building TP for about 30 seconds. Since they spam weaponskills otherwise, and skillchain with each other, keeping them from building TP is a very good thing. For this fight, you have to defeat Shikaree X (BST/NIN with rabbit pet), Shikaree Y (DRK/MNK), and Shikaree Z (DRG/WHM with a wyvern).

We did the fight as PLD, THF, WAR, MNK, BRD, WHM. Our plan was (is) to kill Z, the DRG as fast as possible, with Itera and Splinte using their two hours, since her wyvern spams Healing Breath on her. The key thing here is to make sure she's dead before wiping. We fought them far enough away from their resting spot so that we could reraise and rest to full without aggro after they wander away from our dead bodies. The Mithras regen while we're resting, so any damage done before wiping would be negated. The BST goes second, and finally the DRK.

Mistake number one: I pulled. My theory was that I'd body aggro them, and they'd fight me for a bit before other people got hate. The first problem with that was I got beat up really badly on the way to where we were fighting, partly because I got hung up on a rock. Second problem was that Elboron was planning to sleep them immediately. The Mithras do sleep, but they talk to each other and wake each other up. I can't remember if Elbo or I was dead first, but both of us were down pretty fast.

Mistake number two: Splinte accidently was hitting one of the other Mithra when he used his two hour. He quickly realized it and switched targets, but that hit or two would have been better on the right one. When we wiped, the DRG was at a sliver. With better execution, we would have been able to do this as planned.

We reraised and rested to full. We all had enough reraise items for a second wipe, so we used them. This time, Grym pulled. With no two hours, we managed to kill the DRG, which had regen'd back to full health, before our second wipe. After our second reraise, we realized that the DRG's wyvern despawned when we wiped, which meant we only had 3 enemies to fight. We were doing very well at staying alive and getting the remaining 2 Mithra killed, and we ran out of time. I thought we had another two minutes, based on the timer on my High Breath Mantle, but I guess that wasn't a good way to keep track of time. Next week I should set up a timer.

We definitely can do this if we get the DRG dead right away, before wiping. We just have to be better than we were the first time through. In the future, it might be worth doing dry runs with no items and no two hours, just to get rid of the jitters, and see the lay of the land before the "real" fight. I used to be opposed to dry runs, but we've been failing things too much lately, and I'm just not used to that. If our fight Friday had been a dry run, we would have been able to do it again right away, with two hours and items intact, rather than having to wait another week.

Using the fish definitely helped (and the Mithras were pretty funny about it), but we can't figure out why some times they will refuse a second fish ("I won't fall for that again!") and some times they would take it ("Another fish for me? Thank you Adventurer!"). We'll have to head to Phanauet Channel again this week to get more of them.

After the mission failure, we ended up heading to Crawlers Nest to do the escort quest with Olavia, so at least we did something successfully that evening. :-)

Quests: Diabolos Prime 6 - Pickup Party 0

At least I think it was 6. It was late, I might have lost count. It all started last Thursday evening. I was doing some window shopping at the AH in Al Zahbi when I got a tell from someone I didn't know, Darkdemon, who used the autotranslator to ask if I was interested in fighting Diabolos. While I was looking him up (RDM74/DRK37), a second person, Supertim, asked. He was a SMN75. I looked at my husband and said "Should I?" It couldn't hurt really, so I said yes. At the very least I'd get an idea what the fight would be like.

They already had two BLMs, Ethecent and a Mithra who's name I can't recall, in the party and were actively recruiting a third. I thought this was going to be a piece of cake, and I'd have another avatar added to the list. My naiviety and optimism amuse me at times.

The third BLM, Miracles, was apparently a friend of Ethecent's, and he came BLM/SMN. We waited for Ethecent to head to Windurst and get the quest activated, then headed to Pso'Xja. It was a bit odd running though Pso'Xja in our pyjamas (it's capped at 40, while Diabolos Prime is uncapped), but we made it without incident. When we got to the BC, the Mithra BLM piped up and said, "Which ENM are we doing?" and when it was pointed out we were fighting Diabolos Prime, the response was, "Oh, I can't do that. Good luck!" and she warped out.

We decided since we were there, and it would be Darkday in less than an hour, we'd try the fight with the 5 of us. There was no real discussion of strategy, and no one had thought to bring poison potions or anything. Basically it was "BLMs nuke together to start, tank get hate, everyone keep nuking and try to stun Nightmare". So we did that, and I used invincible to pull hate back after losing it on the third round of spells. Did they go all out at that point and blast him into netherspace? No. I think we ended up getting hit with nightmare and were picked off one by one.

Round two: same plan, a bit more coordination on the stuns. No PLD two hour, but everyone else used theirs. We got him quite close to death, but he resisted stun, we got nightmared, and again picked off one by one.

We decided to wait out Darksdays (and regain our 2 hours), while Supertim tried to recruit another BLM. We'd been so close with 5, we figured we'd have no troubles with 6. Firesday arrived along with our new recruit, Hctlr. Still waiting on our two hours, we decided to give it a try without them. Nothing to lose but exp, and maybe we'd get lucky. Close, but again, we just couldn't pull it off.

When our two hours were back, we went back in. Just like the first fight, I used my two hour to pull hate back after the third round of nukes, but once again, they didn't use theirs. And once again, we wiped.

Fifth round was like the second. And the sixth was like the fourth. We all decided we'd lost enough exp for the night and gave up. It was way past my bedtime as it was.

Every round, we were painfully close to winning. That's probably why we obsessively continued to fight again and again. There were things we could have done better each time, and if we'd been a group of friends who've played together before, I'm pretty confident we would have been better. The lack of planning and coordination pretty much did us in. It would have been nice to have Diabolos, but instead I just lost most of my exp buffer, and got to bed three hours late.

One thing I found interesting: I got dropped to the Diremites below on the final fight while nightmared. The horde of hungry Diremites poking me to death didn't even wake me up.

We did consider trying the strategy that would have me drop from the party, drop down and aggro Diabolos, then rejoin the party, hopefully preventing the mages from being drawn in for a bit. I was reluctant to change things when we were so close each time, especially since as soon as the BLMs pulled hate, they'd be drawn in anyway, so it didn't seem like it would buy us much time.

Assault: Private First Class Wildcats

With some nudging from the linkshell, we've finally made more progress on Assault, and have given up our hopes of being able to trio them as a BRD, THF, and PLD. That was just too discouraging. A week ago, we did three assaults with Yobun, Akuma, Vyce, Elboron, Grym and Kiki.

First we started out with the escort one in Periqia, Seagull Grounded. Yobun went as BRD, Akuma NIN, and I subbed RDM since I'd be "main healer". Yobun was in charge of the NPC, making sure he wouldn't run off when he saw monsters. I believe he visited two crab rooms, and we would kill the first two crabs, then pull the third across the hall to kill it while Yobun would get the NPC to continue on. When we got past the crab rooms, we pretty much had to kill everything, trying to get it out of the NPCs path. Things went quite smoothly and we won. Much better than the first attempt we had made long ago.

Next up was Leujaoam Cleansing. Yobun switched to BLM for this one. The worms were pretty hard on us, and I had a tough time keeping peoples' HP up. Yobun died once when an unseen third worm in a clump got mad at him. We still managed to finish though. The first time I had done this one, we had two BLMs, and it was a lot smoother, but this was definitely better than the time Grym and Elbo and I tried it as our trio.

For our final run that Saturday, we tried the Imperial Agent Rescue one in the Mamool Ja Staging Point. Yobun switched back to BRD for this, and I changed my subjob to WAR. We got lucky and the first door fell fairly quickly, and the prisoner was right there. It felt so good to have two more completed, and another win from the worms.

On Monday night, we trid two more with Wendell, Charcole, Itera, Elboron, Grym and Kiki. First we did the Agent Rescue again. I think the prisoner was behind the second gate that we got the Mamool Ja to break down, but we finished with tine to spare. We then opted to try Excavation Duty, but timed out on the final wall - we'd run out of Qiqirn and mines, and had to fight it instead. We decided that a WHM, BRD, MNK, MNK, THF, PLD setup was too reliant on getting enough mines from the Qiqirn and would have to try something else.

On Wednesday night, Wendell wanted to do the Agent Rescue again, since he was only 10 points short of being able to get the Antivenom Earring. So after an incrediby rough Besieged with the Undead Swarm (the Hall of Binding was filled with undead! but we still won!), we headed to the Mamool Ja Staging Point with Wendell, Charcole, Elboron, Anastasia, Grymalkyn, and Kiki. We had to break down all three gates to find the prisoner, and we very nearly timed out, but Grym fled to the rune of release as the door came down, and popped the treasure box and got us out with just seconds to spare.

Since we had Ana's BLM in tow, we next decided to try Excavation Duty. We'd all break down the first wall, then Ana would head off to the north wall while the rest of us fought the Qiqirns to get mines. We ended up getting 3 mines off of 5 or 6 Qiqirns, and Ana got her wall down before we finished getting our mines. Kiki managed to die when we were fighting the final two Qiqirn, but everyone else survived and Charcole and Grym ran off to blow up the last two walls, while Ana headed to the Rune of Release and Wendell raised Kiki. We got the 5 minute warning when Ana hit the Rune of Release and got us out, so we won with plenty of time on the clock!

This Saturday, Elboron, Grymalkyn, Itera and Kiki all needed Golden Salvage, and we recruited Charcole and Izan to help us with that. We had to do the brute force method and just fight any mimics we came across, but it seemed like we could do it as BRD/WHM, THF/NIN, MNK/WAR, PLD/RMD, MNK/WAR, and DRG/RDM. Izan led the way, and we fought the mimics we came across. I think the 6th or 7th chest was the right one, so for some of us, our final Assault needed for promotion to Private First Class was done.

Itera needed Leujaoam Cleansing to get his promotion, so I switched to PLD/WAR, and we swapped in Yobun's BLM/RDM and Wendell's WHM/BLM for Charcole and Izan. This was the first time Itera had been the leader for an assault, and he mistakenly selected the Level 70 cap for the fight, so we ended up zoning in with half of our gear off. Itera had no weapons and Yobun didn't have much gear besides his staves, but Grym and I were fine. I said it couldn't hurt to try it, since at that point if we just left it would be a loss any way. We did quite well, and made it through with 5 minutes to spare. Even with bare fists, Itera was doing quite a bit of damage to the worms.

The 4 of us ran off to talk to Naja Salaheem and were promoted to Private First Class. Hurray! Next we decided to try Lamia No.13 in Ilrusi Atoll. Wendell couldn't make it, so we had Charcole back for this. For this Assault, you have to defeat Lamia No.13, who has 3 Fomor "pets" that she's charmed. You can dispel the charm from them and they will fight her with you. If she recharms them (or your party), you can dispel them again. I went as PLD/RDM, Yobun was BLM/RDM, and Elboron was BRD/WHM. We were in charge of dispelling the Fomors, and everyone tried to keep their distance, use ranged attacks or keep up DOT spells on the Lamia. At one point, Elbo, Yobun, Grym and I got charmed, and it was so funny to see us chasing after Charcole and Itera. The Assault was a success, and seems pretty easy with enough dispellers in the group.

Our Assualt points are starting to accumulate, but I think it's going to be a long time before I have enough in any given staging point to get some of the wonderful gear they have available. It's definitely more enjoyable when you can actually win the assaults, but it still seems a bit heavy on the luck, especially the agent rescue one, where you have to get the Mamools to break down the gates by missing the tank with special moves.

None of our mystery rewards have been anything good: leather gloves, shell earring, eggplant, sage, copper ring, brass ring. But we get some limit points on top of the assault points, and it's been fun as well.

New Title: Private First Class

Beastmasters: Labyrinth of Onzozo (47-48)

Monday was a holiday here in Canada, and Grymalkyn and I decided we'd take our BSTs out leveling. I really want us to get to 50 "soon" so we can start collecting our AF, but when we only seem to level once every few months, it might be awhile still.

By the time we were ready, the Labyrinth of Onzozo was empty, except for the three fishbots that are always there. We camped in the tunnel between the first Goblin room and the bigger room with Cockatrices, Goblins, and a Mushussu. The leeches all checked DC or EM, and we started in fighting. I like the camp a lot, since the leeches usually wouldn't despawn after leave, and we had enough pets to keep fighting.

The goblins ranged from DC to T, so they were a bit annoying, since we had to kill them all, but didn't get much exp for them. Every bit helps though. While we were still level 47, our pets did a good job of holding hate, which made our fights pretty safe, especially since they'd get petrified by the cockatrices rather than us. At one point I checked one of the leeches and noticed it was a Tough, so we started checking before charming and killed the Tough leeches.

After we hit 48 and switched from our AF axes to our Viking Axes, and put on our Life Belts, we were pulling more hate. This slowed things down a bit, since we'd turn around and stop fighting, plus we'd take damage and need to rest for MP. I think maybe we'll need to keep our old axes around until we hit level 50 and can have some pieces of Crow gear for enmity reduction.

It was kind of funny camping there and seeing the RMT streaming in at one point. The Lord of Onzozo's window must have been up or something. I noticed Mysticmaker Proflibix on widescan a couple of times as well. The first time he seemed to be there for awhile. I suppose when I actually decide to get my hands on a Moldavite Earring I'll never find him wandering around unclaimed.

At one point, another BST suddenly materialized. He must have logged out there. I was a little surprised to see him grab a leech and start fighting a goblin, but he leveled to 48 on that kill, did a /bow, and left. I had been getting angry that he was camping on top of us, but he just wanted that last bit of exp for his level before leaving the camp to us. We later saw he was in Gustav Tunnel (the only person in Gustav Tunnel).

A PLD66 showed up with his NPC and started killing all the goblins and some of "our" leech pets, but after he finished killing everything near us and I /sighed at him, he moved to another spot. It's such a huge world, why do people insist on killing things other people are obviously exping on?

After we were a third of the way through 48, disaster struck. We were fighting a cockatrice when my leech came uncharmed. Of course there were three other leeches right there as well, so they all joined my ex-pet in beating me to death. Grym joined me and we HP'd to Whitegate.

We headed to check out Revelation Rock in West Altepa, but it just wouldn't work with two beastmasters and beetles despawning after Leave. Plus there were two exp parties there already. We rode around in West Altepa, checking different nooks and crannies, but didn't come up with anything. Then it was time for supper and getting ready for Monday Night activities with our level 75s, so we packed away the BST gear.

I think we'll probably head back to LoO next time we level, but maybe Gustav will be good if we can find the Goblin pet camp and it works for a duo.

Events: Sunbreeze Festival 2006

This year's Azimuth II event, part of the Sunbreeze Festival, involves sending you and a partner to Tahrongi Canyon, La Thiene Plateau, or Konschtat Highlands, where you need to guide each other to various "Checkpoints" using a "compass" from the event moogle. At the correct checkpoint, you will find a doll. You trade the doll to your partner and then give the dolls to the event moogle back in town for your reward, a kimono that dispenses a stack of fireworks once a week.

Since Grym and Kiki didn't feel the need for yet-another rare/ex kimono, yet we wanted to do the event, we decided that Ohrly and Yarly should do it. This was their first chance to get a new outfit from an event too. The moogle sent us to Konschtat, with a very short sneak and invisible status. One of us did /heal to use the compass to direct the other to the proper checkpoint. For the first time through the event, we got compass directions, like Southeast, West, etc. We found out proper checkpoints, got our dolls, and used the gate glyph from the moogle to return to Windurst.

Ohrly and Yarly were pleased with their new outfits, and had fun playing with the fireworks, and decided we didn't really need to do the second round. We later learned that the second set of fireworks was actually more like a costume and you could use them while fighting, so we decided we must have these after all.

So Ohrly and Yarly were sent to Konschtat once again. This time the directions were distance - yalms, or paces. So giving directions was more like the old game of hot-and-cold. You're getting warmer - warmer - colder - warmer - hot! Both of them had one of three spots close together, with a couple goblins nearby. Yarly got her doll first safely, then Ohrly ran in and got her doll just as the goblin was killing her.

Then we decided this was the perfect opportunity for the twins to get all of their crag crystals, so we kept having the moogle send us out for the event until we got to all three zones and safely got our crystals. If they ever need to do some traveling, it will be useful to already have those.

Leveling: LLS and, wait for it, yes, Spinners! (75)

The Low Level Static has had another departure. Yobun has abandoned THF in favour of other things (he's got 4 jobs at 75, which means there's still many to go) now that Wendell's reached 75. We'll keep meriting as a group as long as it makes sense for us. Wendell needs his limit points!

This week, we recruited Daden's WAR75/NIN37 to fill in as our sixth. I thought it'd be fun to try the Lamia Idolators at the Dvucca Isle Staging Point, but it turns out that Daden, Mister Merit Happy, has been too busy getting his 100 Merit Points to visit all of the Staging Points.

So we headed back to Whitegate and headed to Mamook and fought Spinners yet again. Things actually went pretty well, at least until Elboron started getting pummelled on the pulls and we'd have too many spinners around to be able to save him. He ended up dying 3 times, the third while still weak from the second.

I think they changed the number of Spinners when they added more Mamool Ja to the zone to guard the Archaic Mirrors. Ever since that update, we've been running out of Spinners, while when we first started there, the first kills were respawning as we were killing the last. Either that, or we've just become that much faster at killing what's there.

Hate control actually seemed a bit better Sunday night. I don't think I really changed anything from the previous week, and was still using all my +enmity gear and food. I certainly hadn't used any Merit Points last week. I noticed that Itera wasn't provoking slept links as much as usual, leaving them to me, since I would usually provoke the red spinner, and toss a flash on the linked one as Elbo slept it. Then when provoke was back up, I'd use that on the sleeping one, so it would come for me when it woke up. When Itera provokes the slept links, it makes it harder for me to hold hate when we get to fighting it.

I ended up with another two Merits, bringing me up to 5 Merits I needed to spend. I put 3 of them into my first upgrade for STR (+1), and the other two for the second upgrade in Critical Hit Rate (bringing me to +2%).

Missions: Ark Angels (ZM14)

Saturday night, we headed back to Sky to finish Zilart Mission 14, and fight the remaining 3 Ark Angels. Izan and Midget had real-life conflicts, while Itera was on an Optical Hat run, so we had a single, well-balanced, party:

Wendell WHM75/BLM37
Elboron BRD75/WHM37
Yobun BLM75/RDM37
Charcole MNK75/WAR37
Grymalkyn THF75/NIN37
Tsakiki PLD75/WAR37

We chose to face the Ark Angel GK, a Galka SAM-DRG. He has some fierce attacks, but it sounded like it would be a fairly straightforward fight, though his wyvern would need to be slept. We were surprised at how quickly the fight was over, and with no deaths!

Next up was the Ark Angel EV. He's an Elvaan PLD-WHM, with Invincible and Benediction abilities, meaning you basically get to fight him twice. He can use Spirits Within, has a really annoying shield attack that damages and stuns, and a cone AOE that does damage and silences, and we learned will dispell buffs like Wendell's Reraise 3. As annoying as the Ark Angel TT was the previous week, this guy took top place on my list of most hated fights.

Our plan was to kite the Elvaan until we got him down to 50% after he used Benediction. Yobun lent me his Terra's Staff, and we headed in. I figured I would have a bit of time to get some hate before starting to kite, but that was a bad assumption. I voked, I flashed, I started to shield bash and was ready to turn and run when BOOM, Spirits Within for 1875 damage (my max HP was ~1250). The guy must have used an icarus wing before we entered the arena, or else he stores TP up from previous fights. :p

Wendell raised me and we kept fighting, but it was going really poorly, so we ran away and escaped the arena.

Second fight, I merely provoked on the run and took off with the Elvaan chasing me. I'd stop and flash when I could, provoke when it was up, and tried my best to keep or regain hate while running around in circles, using all my job abilities when they were available. I believe on this fight Charcole, Elboron, and I all died at various points, but Wendell gave us Raise Is to save MP, and we continued fighting. When we got him to 50% (before Benediction), we stopped kiting and Yobun started casting one of his Ancient Magic spells. In the middle of his casting, the Elvaan used Benediction, so he wasn't killed. We continued to fight, but started being picked off one by one and we had a total wipe.

This was when we learned that Wendell's Reraise III had been stripped off by the cone AOE. Yobun got Ijin to come to Sky to get us all back on our feet again.

For the third fight with the Elvaan, we stuck to our original plan. Charcole died fairly early in the fight, and Wendell opted to save his MP and not raise him. I think Elboron died once or twice on the third fight, but somehow I managed to survive, running and running and running in circles, trying to keep hate, while Charcole and Grym would try to hit the Elvaan, and Yobun would use Gravity and damage spells. It took us nearly 25 minutes, but we finally killed him. I think we also used Benediction, Invincible and Soul Voice on this third fight with the Elvaan. I don't think I want to try that fight again.

Then we moved on to face the Ark Angel HM, a Hume WAR-NIN. We were worried about being wiped out by Mijin Gakure, but other than that, it sounded like it would be a pretty straightforward fight. He hit really hard, and I ended up losing hate to Charcole, who ended up dying the Ark Angel used Mijin Gakure. We killed the Ark Angel pretty quickly, and then we were done.

Wendell raised Charcole and we ran up to Shrine of Ru'Avitau for a cutscene, then headed to Norg for another cutscene. We're technically in the middle of Zilart Mission 15 now, but the end of the mission is another cutscene at Ru'Avitau before heading into the big fight for ZM16.

Quests: Friday Night Fun

There was no CoP static this past Friday night, with Splinte away for the weekend, so the five of us opted for some questing and skillups.

Escort for Hire (Windurst)

First we talked to a Mithra in Port Windurst, and she told us about a rich Tarutaru who needed an escort through Garliage Citadel. We headed there and met him at the entrance. He ran somewhat willy-nilly through the corridors, with little heed for his own safety. Fortunately Elboron was able to get him to stand still long enough for us to clear his path, and to get Banishing Gate #1 open.

He only needed to get to one of the rooms back behind the Banishing Gate, so before we knew it, our services were no longer required, and we headed back to Windurst to collect our reward.

Trial by Lightning (mark two)

Next, we headed off to the Cloister of Storms to fight Ramuh once again. We quickly defeated him, with no deaths at all, Elboron's Lightning Carol and Wendell's Barthundra made us all resistant to his elemental attacks. This was the first time I went to an avatar fight as PLD/RDM, and it seemed to work pretty well. Stoneskin and Phalanx reduced the damage I took, and when I lost hate to Itera, it was easy to help keep him healthy.

I've now got whispers for Ramuh and Titan, and still need the avatars for Levithan and Ifrit, so there are (at least) 8 avatar fights between me and my moon bauble.

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After we were done with Ramuh, we ran around in the Boyahda Tree killing crawlers for skillups, and had our NPCs out for some exercise as well. Wagwei hit 54, so I guess Balu-Falu is 54. I haven't been paying too much attention to the poor fellow lately. I still need to do that level 50-capped BC fight in Pso'Xja with him. I think Grym and I will do that when our BSTs hit 50.

My Pole of Trials seems to be broken. I would have thought I would have removed the latent long ago, but it's still there. The only thing I can think of is that Spirit Taker doesn't count as a weapon skill for removing latents. One of these years, I'll have it removed though, and can go fight the NM for Retribution.

Besieged: Could be a full-time job

With the latest changes to Besieged, the beastmen forces are attacking more frequently than ever. They're harder to defeat, with new Notorious Monsters joining them, and they take more prisoners than ever, but the Lakshmites continue to be successful in maintaining control of the Astral Candescense. As of August 3nd, we're 181/0.

I've discovered that Gajaad, the NPC who takes donations for the empire (and rewards you with a Walahra Turban when you've donated 1000 Imperial Bronze Pieces), won't take any donations when Chochoroon the Appraisal Qiqirn is being held hostage. This will make it harder for people to get their turbans, but I'm probably one of only three people on the server who don't yet have one. I've been spending all my ISP on Mog Locker expansions instead.

Currently, my only real complaint about Besieged is that if you just happen to be killed right before the enemy forces retreat, and don't have time to get a raise, you get absolutely nothing for the time you've put in helping repel the enemies. Grym was in the middle of casting Raise on me when one Besieged ended. I think they should change it so that all the KO'd players are automatically raised at the end of Besieged and awarded the points they would have earned if they'd been raised right before the end. So if someone's been lying dead for 45 minutes, they wouldn't get as many points as someone who's just been killed.

The new tougher monsters take awhile to kill, but it's kind of fun having 300-700 people in one zone, all hacking away at the intruders or curing the combatants. Everyone who can raise others helps get everyone back on their feet, and the generals are protected to the best of our abilities. I worry that we'll end up losing the Astral Candescense to the beastmen because of server maintenance, as has happened on several other servers, but so far we've been OK. We had been participating as Grym's WHM44 and Kiki's RDM60, but since they made it tougher, I've been going as PLD75/WAR37 while Grym's been going as THF75/WHM37. We're managing to get our full 700 points (unless we're dead at the end), and getting nice buffers. I miss a lot more than I'd like, but I think some of the mobs have special evasion moves. Once I missed 12 times in a row, which shouldn't happen to a level 75 with an A+ weapon that has 2 merit upgrades and is wearing some +Accuracy gear...

Thursday night we had an exciting time. The Undead Swarm attacked at their usual level 5, and when they first arrived, we had fewer than 200 people in Al Zahbi. I was warped to the Hall of Binding area, while Grym was near the chocobo stables. She had a hard time making her way to me with all the closed gates, and ended up as the only PC in the Bastion. The hordes of Undead started ganging up on her, but she was able to safely flee and found me.

We spent most of our time fighing Lamia No. 4, and her attendants, trying to protect the Mithran General. It was pretty funny getting charmed, especially since we pretty much would just stand there with swords drawn. One by one the generals were getting killed across the city. The Mithran fell and Lamia No. 4 headed for the Mog House area, and the last remaining General. Since I happened to be charmed at the time, I automatically followed her and was able to help finally defeat her after coming uncharmed.

We couldn't save the General though, so everyone headed to the Hall of Binding, now open to the invading Beastmen. At this point, we had over 400 combatants, but I was very concerned that we were going to lose our first Besieged. Lamia No. 9 and Medusa were killing people right and left. We took our positions right at the Hall of Binding gates and fought the minions there. The most annoying were the Merrows that would strip our clothes off. By the time I got all my gear back on, she'd do it again. I'm not very effective punching bare handed in my pyjamas.

Grym got killed a couple times, but had reraise up for most of them. Somehow, I managed to avoid death for the entire hour, though I was awfully close at times. As Besieged progressed, we picked up a few Linkshell members - Itera, Wendell, and Izan were all helping to defend the city. I was surprised we were actually able to drive the Undead to retreat, and relieved to see that the other forces weren't set to attack soon. I'm not sure how we'd do starting out a Besieged with no generals on hand.

It was "nice" to finally get inside the Hall of Binding and see the Astral Candescence. Izan said he wanted us to lose so he could see the cutscene you get when you lose, but I'd prefer we never see that!

Leveling: More Baby Jobs

Grymalkyn and I decided to try to level Grym's Corsair and my White Mage a bit this week. We subbed Puppetmaster as we intended, and Grym picked up some new attachments in Nashmau when he went to get some Corsair Dice. So our automatons now have "extra MP" (I think it was 1 more MP), and the ability to refresh themselves when we use Dark Manuoever.

We started out as level 4s in North Gustaberg. After a mishap where we ended up attacking separate (tough) mobs, we headed out to South Gustaberg after we got back to Bastok. Keeping our homepoints in Whitegate does slow things down a little bit in our low level misadventures, but it's not so bad. Over the course of two evenings, we made it to level 8, venturing into Dangruff Wadi after we'd hit 7.

We headed to Windurst on Thursday evening after besieged, and made our way over to Giddeus and got ourselves to level 9.

After duoing BLU and then PUP through the baby levels and feeling they were a bit overpowered, let me be the first to say that a Corsair-White Mage duo is not overpowered. It's kind of sad when a half-level Automaton is pulling hate off of us. And even my White Mage, bonking monsters with a high delay hammer, usually has more hate than Grymalkyn's Corsair. I'm hoping that her damage improves when she can start using guns.

It's handy having our puppets helping us out, though I'm not sure they'll continue to be useful much longer. They're getting pretty weak relative to us, and when they don't have stoneskin up, they're getting hit pretty hard by the monsters that are Even Match or Tough for us. But the extra melee damage and their use of Dia help us kill the mobs faster.

It's nice to have poisona now, since the lizards and the Quadavs and Goblin spellcasters like to poison us, and protectra's always handy. I'm pretty sure I want to take WHM to 37 to use as a subjob, which means I'm going to have to get my hands on teleport scrolls to replace the ones I quested and sold a long long time ago. I'll have to see if our mules can pick up some of the quests and get them for me.

Leveling: We're all 75! (Mamook Spinners)

The LLS got in two sessions this week, and we fought the Spinners in Mamook both times. I think we need a change of scenery again, but it has been really nice being there without any competition for pulling. I really like it best when we get a single spider and I can use all of my hate tools on it, since I actually can manage to hold hate through most of the fight (with loads of +enmity and a few Trick Attacks). Unfortunately we nearly always have links, making me fell less like a tank and more like a back up healer.

On Sunday, we ended up with about 15.5k limit points with Sanction and Empress Bands in 2.5 hours, with two breaks for two deaths (Itera and Kiki). On Monday, we fought for less than 2.5 hours and got about 13k, again with two or three breaks (one for Charcole's death). Best of all though, Wendell finally reached Level 75, and can have Reraise III for himself. Now we just have to make sure he gets a buffer before we hit the Ark Angels next Saturday. I don't want him losing his level!

I earned another 3 merit points, and haven't yet decided where to put them. So far I've given Kiki 2 upgrades for Sword and Spell Interruption Rate, and 1 each for HP, Crit Hit Rate and Enemy Crit Hit Rate. Thoughts at the moment are using all 3 for +1 STR or another Spell Interruption upgrade. Or I could put them into 2 upgrades for Shield Skill. Or 2 into my next HP upgrade. Too many choices!

Leveling: BLU Trio in the Dunes (16-17)

On Saturday, we decided to head to the Dunes with our BLU trio and see if we could learn Cursed Sphere. Qiara made three servings of Menemen for us. It's a 3 hour food with +30 MP and HP, and +1 for MP and HP regen while healing. We ended up going to San d'Oria first, and grabbed chocobos for a safe ride to the Dunes.

We were a bit surprised at how many IT Damselflies we saw, but we found some T and VT, and picked a safe spot to use as a camp. The flies were pretty annoying to fight with their poison and AOEs, but they were easy enough for us to whittle down to a sliver of health and keep around until it would use Cursed Sphere. I was lucky and learned it on the first one, but it took quite a few more for Elboron and Grymalkyn. We were getting plenty of exp from them though, and quickly leveled to 17.

Once we all learned Cursed Sphere, we switched to fighting everything else that was around: bunnies, goblins, crabs, and sheep. We were having fun, but we had to cut it short and head back to Whitegate to get ready for the Ark Angels. The next spell on the list is Claw Cyclone, which is level 22. I think it will be a few levels before we're ready to face the tigers in Jugner Forest though, so we'll just be leveling in the meantime.

Leveling: Puppetmaster Duo from 1 to 10

Grym and I decided we'd level our Puppetmasters to 10 to use as subjobs when leveling COR and WHM. I headed to Nashmau on Saturday morning to pick up a couple of attachments (for Stoneskin and Enthunder), and we had them installed at the Automaton Workshop in Aht Urhgan Whitegate. We then headed to Windurst and got ready to go out and level. We had one mishap with a tough crawler at level 3 or 4 that sent us to our homepoints in Whitegate, so we made our way back to Windurst again and continue the process of fighting alongside Tsukushi and Quenotte, quickly making our way through the levels.

I died a second time, but Grym survived and ran to town to switch to WHM and came back to raise me. I made up the exp difference while he ran back to switch to PUP again. As our levels increased, we made our way from the south part of West Sarutabaruta over the Twinkle Tree hill and into East Sarutabaruta. We eventually ended up near the Tahrongi Canyon zone at level 7 and Elboron showed up to help us out.

So we headed into Tahrongi Canyon, and would invite Elbo into our party for double Minuet (increases attack), and then he'd drop out and we'd fight 2 or 3 mobs and repeat the process. It made the mobs drop a lot faster and having him there as a safety net for cures really helped a lot as well. We still needed to rest so our Automatons could keep using their spells, but we quickly got to level 10 and headed back to town. We had been feeling really guilty about still being in our level 1 gear at level 10, but it turns out the first hand-to-hand upgrade for PUP is at level 10 anyway, so it wasn't that big a disgrace.

It was pretty fun, though we don't really completely understand all the details about what the automatons are capable of, and whether we should get them more attachments, even though the plan is just to use them for sub jobs. At these baby levels, a PUP duo can really take on a lot stronger challenges than our BSTs could, even if they don't have a BRD75 friend helping them out.

Missions: Ark Angels, 2 down, 3 to go (ZM 14)

(Sorry about the lack of pictures lately. This is getting pretty dull!)

Yobun decided it was time for us to get a move on and try to complete the Zilart Missions. Most people are on Mission 14, at least those of us who were 65 before the Treasures of Aht Urhgan came out. There seems to be little need for Sky for leveling to 75 these days. We had fewer people than we expected show up on Saturday evening for the event, leaving us with 9 to mix and match into parties of 6 for the BCs.

Wendell WHM74/BLM36
Elboron BRD75/WHM37
Tsakiki PLD75/WAR37
Grymalkyn THF75/NIN37
Itera MNK75/WAR37
Charcole MNK75/WAR37
Izan DRG75/WAR37
Midget RNG75/NIN37
Yobun BLM75/RDM37

We decided to face the Tarutaru BLM-DRK first. We headed in with WHM BRD PLD THF MNK DRG, and ended up with a full wipe. Grym lasted the longest (having bloody bolts really helps), but just didn't have the Ark Angel TT down far enough to do him in. The Amon Drive spam kept petrifying and paralyzing us, rendering us useless. His constant warping around the arena made it so difficult for a group of melee to fight him.

We thought about it a bit and swapped in Yobun's BLM for Izan's DRG, and were able to win, setting the record for the week.

The third run was with WHM BRD PLD BLM MNK RNG, then the fourth WHM BRD PLD BLM DRG RNG. We got better each time we did it, resetting the record with each run, but we had plenty of deaths along the way. I can't remember them all, but I do remember my own. For the TT, I died on the first 3 runs, but managed to live through the 4th.

Next we moved on the the Mithra, THF-BST. We ended up doing this one three times, with the WHM BRD PLD BLM repeating it each time and rotating through the melees. I died on two of these, once when Itera was charmed and the Mithra's pet tiger got me, and once Charcole got charmed and killed me. I think on that run Charcole was the only one left alive at the end, though Wendell might have reraised before the end of the fight. While Charcole was still charmed, Grym got the Ark Angel MR down to a sliver, but a triple attack from the Ark Angel MR just after Grym's Perfect Dodge wore off did her in (I think Charcole was awake and hitting Grym by that point too). Charcole came uncharmed and finished off the MR.

I ended up dying in 5 of the 7 fights, but with Wendell there for Raise IIIs, I didn't lose all that much of my buffer (still over 11k into 75). Wendell only had Reraise II on, and ended up losing about 3k. Next weekend we'll head back and see if we can get through the rest of the Ark Angels.