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