Besieged: Update Changes (Level 6)

I was very surprised last week to log in after the update maintenance on Tuesday to find that Al Zahbi was not being attacked by three level 6 forces at the same time. Apparently our last Besieged on Monday night was enough to defer any post-maintenance attacks. On Wendesday evening, we logged in to find the Trolls were getting ready to head to Al Zahbi, for our first Level 6 Besieged (the Undead and Mamools had attacked earlier in the day, but Lakshmi fought fiercely and drove them off).

They've added temporary items to Besieged, which are really quite interesting. Apparently there are 15 potential items you can get, based on the presence of particular NPCs in Al Zahbi. If they are being held prisoner, you don't get the item for that NPC. For this Besieged, we had quite an assortment of goodies. A Giant's Drink which doubled our HP for about 15 minutes, a Wizard's Drink (double MP for ~15 minutes), a scroll of instant reraise, Max Potion +3, Max Ether +3, Carnal Incense (immune to physical damage briefly), Spiritual Incense (immune to magic damage briefly), a potion to restore all HP/MP, a revitalizer that resets all Job Ability timers, including two-hour, an item to reduce an enemy's TP, and so on. It was fun using the different items.

The fight itself didn't seem much different than the normal Level 5 Trolls. There's a new NM Troll puppetmaster that has 3 different puppets attending him. They can be pretty deadly, but people tended to focus on the Troll and ignore the puppets, since if they died, he'd call another, and if he dies, they disappear along with him. So killing the puppets is a bit of wasted effort.

Saturday morning, we had another Troll invasion, and we got fewer items (more prisoners being held), but got Daedalus Wings, which are like Icarus Wings in that they give you full TP, but different in that they don't give you a medicated state, which is good, since some of the potions do. It would be hard to use all of the items in a single attack if they all put you into a medicated state for 15 minutes, preventing the use of another medicated item.

My staff skillups have been getting better as I'm getting higher. I also have a bit more +ACC for the moment (bought a Scorpion Harness for the CoP 6-4 Mission battle), which can't hurt. I'll be pleased when I finally get that capped (249 now, 269? is cap). I really need to get a group together to do the WSNM for Retribution too. I think I'll focus on Great Sword next, though Club is tempting.