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.