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.