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!