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