Notorious Monsters: Bo'Who Warmonger

Thanks to Ranzz, I got the TimeOfDeath for Bo'Who Warmonger, an NM Quadav in Pashhow Marshlands. He drops the Tortoise Shield, which happens to be one of the few shields that mages can equip, and has +1 INT and +1 MND, making it a nice addition to my mage gear for level 30 and higher. It's also rare/exclusive, so the only way to get it is to kill the monster and get the drop.

I headed out to Pashhow to be there in time for his 21 hour spawn window, as PLD75/BST37 for wide-scan. No one else seemed to be in the area looking for him, and sure enough, when he popped up on wide-scan, I had him all to myself. The fight took a bit longer than I expected (he's a PLD with high defense and kept trying to cure himself), but even with 3 lesser Quadavs trying to help out their colleague, I was never in any trouble. And the shield dropped! Hurray!

We were thinking that perhaps it was a 100% drop, as Ranzz had also gone 1/1 on Bo'Who, but we returned the next morning to try for a shield for Grymalkyn, and we didn't get a shield. :-(

Adventuring Fellows: Improving the Relationship

We've had Balu-Falu and Wagwei out with us several times in the past week or so, and we even got to the second to last level for headwear on them. I've also been able to give Balu-Falu his final weapon upgrade (stuck with Great Axe for him), and Grym gave Wagwei his second-to-last Great Katana. Since the final Great Katana for NPCs sell for around 400,000 gil, Grym doesn't think Wagwei will be getting that.

We've had them helping us with the NM fights for CoP 7-4, since we've had to do them multiple times with less than a full party, as the real-life schedules for our CoP static have been a bit hectic with the Thanksgiving holiday and internet troubles for Elboron (we haven't seen him for two weeks). Our NPCs were also a great help when we were farming Hurricane Wyverns for our Opo-opo Crown quest. Having Balu-Falu set as Soothing Healer helped keep me alive when I was blasted with Radiant Breath!

We also completed the final level cap quest for our NPCs, Mixed Signals, which raises their cap to 65. They're still only level 56, so we've got a long way to go with them. For this quest, we had to do a bit of running around from Jeuno to San d'Oria, back to Jeuno, off to the depths of Beadeaux (where we fought Ruby Quadav and got nothing but a ruby), and back to Jeuno, all as part of some deception to keep us occupied while our NPCs were leveling their cooking skills. Grym got a loaf of homemade bread from Wagwei, while I got a cone of homemade gelato from Balu-Falu.

One of the cute things they've added in a recent update - our NPCs will now bow with us. If you /bow to them, they will bow to you, simultaneously. If you bow to someone else, the NPC will turn to face that person, and bow at the same time as you do. It's kind of sad that it's the little things like that are the things that please me the most in the game.

New title: A Friend Indeed

Quests: Personal Hygiene

Because of the scent from the Blue Rafflesia pollen we've been covered with for months, the residents of Kazham have been telling us we smell really bad, and keep saying mean things to us. Having completed the Opo-Opo and I, we felt free to pick up the quest Personal Hygiene. A Mithra told us if we sat in a warm spring deep under the sea, we should be cleansed of the scent. We happened to know just the spot in Korroloka Tunnel, where several waterfalls and warm springs are guarded by the Notorious Jammer Leeches.

Grym had once been killed by a Jammer Leech, right near the entrance from Zeruhn Mines, because some idiot RMT (long since banned) had dragged it to the zone, where it could wreak havoc on the people trying to level there in the mid-teens. We figured we wouldn't have too much trouble with them at level 75. Grym arrived at the waterfalls before me and started fighting a leech, without even bothering to put up her shadows. We realized this wasn't the best approach when she was getting hit fot 150-200 points. Fortunately I got there quickly and was able to help out.

We ended up sitting in the springs for quite a long time, mostly because it seems that if you leave the springs before you're "piping hot", the "5 minute" timer resets. We ended up killing a few more Jammer Leeches, and finally got purged of our scent, much to the relief of people in Kazham.

Dynamis: San d'Oria and Jeuno

We've had two more Dynamis runs since my last update, but have yet to get a win. We did San d'Oria and then Jeuno. I believe we got nearly all the time extensions possible, but we've never even killed a trigger mob for the bosses. So they end up just being farming runs, but it gives everyone more experience with Dynamis, and hopefully we can do things better each time. We have so many deaths, especially the BLM party, which is in charge of sleeping the crowds and nuking the statues. There's got to be a better way of doing things.

We got NIN and WAR AF drops in San d'Oria, both going to the same lucky lotter. We didn't have any main lotters for WAR, so the sub lot WARs got to lot on it. Jeuno dropped two pairs of Melee Gloves, and Itera got one of them. We also got a set of RDM tights which made one of our RDMs quite happy.

Quests: The Opo-opo and I

Many months ago, after getting two of the four rare/ex items needed for the Opo-opo Crown, Kiki decided to start the quest, giving items to the Opo-opo as she collected them. First she had to complete Even More Gullible's Travels to get covered with the Blue Rafflesia pollen that the Opo-opo adore. After that, talking to Lulupp on the airship dock in Kazham, a Mithran Beastmaster appeared and explained that if Kiki traded items to the Opo-opo in the correct order, they would crown her as their king (queen?).

Lulupp wanted a Broken Mithran Rod, so Kiki purchased a Mithran Rod from the Fishing Guild in Windurst and headed to the north cliffs on Qufim Island to try to break it. First she fished up a Tiger Cod using her Lu Shang's and Shrimp Lure, then sliced it into bait with a wind crystal. Using the Mithran Rod and the Sliced Cod, she was able to break the rod on the fifth cast, probably on a Gigant Squid. Kiki headed to Kazham to give it to Lulupp, who was quite pleased.

Now comes the really confusing part. I have absolutely no clue how anyone would ever figure out which Opo-opo to talk to next, or what item you're supposed to give to them. Vuih Stecoppah, the Mithran BST NPC, tells you to come talk to her if you have questions, but she doesn't seem to exist outside the cutscene that starts the quest. However, the internet provides detailed walkthroughs for this quest, so I know which items to give to which Opo-opo in which order. I still wish I knew how the first people ever figured it out, since if you mess up, you have to start over from the beginning.

Kiki had her associate Quincy pick up a workbench from the Auction House in San d'Oria and send it to her in Kazham. Kiki could easily have made one herself, but it didn't seem worth the time to get the materials needed, especially when a complete workbench sells for only 1000 gil these days. Kiki gave the workbench to a very happy Kukupp.

After warping home to Windurst, Kiki did a quick search on the Outer Hurototo Ruins and saw that it was completely empty. Hoping for a Ten of Coins, she hurried out there. There were actually two of the Ten of Coins Cardians, which gave Kiki hope that she'd get lucky and get a card from one of them. Sure enough, the second one dropped the card. Kiki later returned to Kazham to deliver the Ten of Coins Card to Mumupp, who was thrilled with it.

Kiki then picked up an inexpensive Sands of Silence from the Auction House (having helped farm Elboron's made her feel it's OK to buy some of the items, as long as they aren't priced too high), and headed back to Kazham and gave it to Roropp. These Opo-opo really want odd items.

Months later, Grym and Kiki headed to Fei'Yin to get a couple of wandering bulbs for themselves. We'd farmed one for Elboron while we were in Fei'Yin for part of Windurst Mission 8-2, but only got the one. Kiki took this to Popopp in Kazham, who was very pleased with the present.

Kiki had got a set of Giant Fish Bones months ago, while farming for mission items in the Temple of Uggalepih. After giving Popopp the wandering bulb, Kiki found Bubupp, and gave the bones to him.

Grym and Kiki were farming for seashells in Sea Serpent Grotto, and got a blackened toad, which was presented to Tatapp back in Kazham.

Many months later again, Grym and Kiki headed to Ifrit's Cauldron to get a wyvern skull for each of them from the Hurricane Wyverns. These checked Even Match or Tough to us at level 75, and we fought them as PLD/RDM, THF/WHF, with our level 56 NPCs helping out as Soothing Healers. It took us 9 wyverns to get the skulls we needed, but the wyverns weren't as difficult as we had feared. This was the last difficult item both of us needed to complete the quest, and we later headed to Kazham - Grym to start out with Lulupp, while Kiki gave the skull to Kakapp.

Next, Lalapp was given an Ancient Salt. Kiki got hers in February while we farmed one for Elboron, while we farmed Grym's last week (netting 1700 limit points on 20-point kills in the process).

Finally, we headed over to Nenepp to give him a Lucky Egg. Kiki got hers months ago while working off the latent on her Sapara of Trials, and I think we got Grym's while Kiki was working off the latent on her Staff of Trials, but I can't recall. Nenepp was the most difficult of the Opo-opos, since he stays behind a buiding, out of reach most of the time. You have to wait for him to hop over closer to you, and then be very quick with your trade to complete it before he hops away again.

At this point, I found myself surrounded by the Opo-opos, and Vuih Stecoppah came to explain that as a reward for my kindesses to them, they wanted me to be their kind and would give me their most prized possession. Grymalkyn and Kiki both became King of the Opo-opos, and now have their very own Opo-opo Crowns.

I felt kind of bad that the very next day I spent 3 hours slaughtering Young Opo-opos in Yuhtunga Jungle, trying to get two bunches of Wild Pamamas for another Kazham quest. I'm not a very good King.

New title: King of the Opo-opos

General: Vacation Time

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week, but I've had another at-home vacation, and as usual, I didn't take time to write things up as the week went past. Grym and Kiki spent a good portion of the week working on getting long-outstanding quests completed, so it seems we spent most of our time farming for elusive items in far-flung spots: Demons in Castle Zvahl Baileys (Sands of Silence), Sand Diggers in Quicksand Caves (Ancient Salt), Hurricane Wyverns in Ifrit's Cauldron (Wyvern Skulls), spawned crawlers in Crawlers Nest (Rolanberry 874s), Tonberry Stalkers in the Temple of Uggalepih (Giant Fish Bones), Brook Sahagins in Sea Serpent Grotto (Blackened Toad), Mycophiles in the Aywadeen Subterrane (King Truffle), and Young Opo-Opos in Yuhtunga Jungle (Wild Pamamas).

A lot of these actually gave us limit points, and some even provided some skillup opportunities, but it still seemed like a lot of time doing nothing. For the King Truffle, we gave up after getting 1 in close to 3 hours of farming. I'm surprised they don't sell for more on the Auction House. I was solo farming the Wild Pamamas, but after over 3 hours, left the jungle with 3 stacks of pebbles, 2 stacks of regular Pamamas, and 1 single bunch of Wild Pamamas. I bought a second on the AH in Windurst - they don't seem to sell more than once a month. I guess no one does that quest (Greetings to the Guardian).

Another colossal waste of time was the Vana'diel week (~8 hours) that we spent in Gusgen Mines. It was RSE week for Female Tarutarus, and I really want my Sweet Sachet for my mage jobs. For the RSE sachets, there are 3 possible spawn points in the dungeon for the RSE armor quest. If a character of the correct race/gender examines the ???, an Aroma monster spawns, and you have a chance of getting the RSE sachet from killing it. There's a 30 minute wait between spawns. The Mines were fairly quiet, with a handful of RMT miners running from mining point to mining point. There was one female Tarutaru PUP33 working on her RSE chests, but she did start scouting out the ??? spots between chest spawns when she had a high level BLM helper. Fortunately, we managed to get every single ??? spawn over the course of the day. Unfortunately, the Aroma Flies in Gusgen weren't very cooperative with me, even having Grym's TH2 and my own TH1 (PLD75/THF25). We went 0/14 that day, on top of another probably 6 more casual attempts in other dungeons on other days.

Between spawns, I spent my time catching Gavial Fish, but only ended up with .2 skillups on around 100 fish. Grym did some bone chip and elemental farming, but grew a bit bored with it, and left to do other non-game things while I fished. My fishing spot was close to one of the spawn points, and Grym would wait near another one, so we had good coverage of the three. Knowing the kill times helped give us an advantage over the PUP as well, so we didn't miss a single one (nor did they see us actually killing the flies).

I also seemed to spend a lot of time trying to get exp for my PLD, to build up a better buffer for all the Dynamis deaths I foresee in my future. We attended every Besieged we could, and did quests for exp scrolls as well. We did the Eldieme escort quest with Wendell, Ryrra, and Itera one Saturday night, made sure to get in chocobo races before and after the conquest tally, did back to back Cookbook quests in Sacrarium before and after the tally a week ago, and then tried the Crawlers Nest escort quest as a duo: PLD75/BST37, THF75/BST37. Our plan was to charm mobs that would aggro Olavia, use them to fight other mobs that would aggro her, use leave when Olavia was past, and then charm the ones that had been fought, and repeat the process as we worked our way through the dungeon. We thought if she took the coffer path we wouldn't stand a chance, but sure enough, that's where she was headed, so we decided to give it a shot.

Turns out it wasn't so bad at all. We had a couple mischarms on the Helm Beetles, but nothing critical. Olavia did get smacked pretty hard once, but we managed to pull the angry beetle off of her in time and got her health back up. We ended up completing the escort in around 12 minutes - much faster than we've ever done that particular route when we've had to fight all of the coffer mobs along the way.

Fishing: Craftsman Status

Grym and I have been trying to keep at our fishing so we can finally get our aprons, but we still aren't very thrilled with our progress. We've been fishing mostly Tavnazian Goby in Lufaise Meadows, since we can easily target them (only small fish that bites on a minnow there), but we get so many "You didn't catch anything" messages that it's frustrating.

We've tried other spots, such as Trilobites on Purgonorgo Island (too many other things caught), Bladefish outside Windurst (too hard to catch), Emperor Fish (impossible to catch), Jungle Catfish (using up trout balls from Emperor Fish experiment), a bit of time on the ferry (Grym can't catch Silver Sharks with a composite rod, too many non skillup fish, and the wait time between), and I caught dozens of Gavial Fish while in Gusgen trying to get my RSE sachet one day. The Gavials were very easy to reel in, but I only got .2 skillups on close to 100 fish.

We both hit 58 on Gobies, then headed to the Ferry to get our Marlins for our Guild Test. We got to fight the Sea Horror again, and again didn't get the "good" drop, but it was nice to see we could handle the Sea Horror even with BLM subbed. I used invincible when it used hundred fists, which probably helped a bit.

We're now sitting at 59.1 for Grym and 60.6 for Kiki. I feel like Kiki gets skillups a bit easier than Grym (though Grym is a better fisherman), still making me believe there's more to the Lu Shangs quest than just the rod itself.

Chocobos: The Next Generation

Our new chocobo babies are hatched and being a nuisance. They're so cute when they're little though, it's hard to get too mad at them. Grym ended up getting a male, which he's named Poulet Souffle. Kiki's chick is female, and is as yet unnamed. Mine was sick the second day after it hatched, which was sad. Poor little thing. I've got it on the "listen to music" plan, and at day 16 she's been substandard in both Discernment and Receptivity for awhile. I'm taking her for short walks every day until she can't do them any more, and then watch over her to exhaustion. I got the story of a youthful chocobo from Pulonono, which is the story to teach Bore. I think that should be helpful for a digger. I'm feeding her Gyshal Greens, which she's content with.

Currently her personality is sensitive, making her good around people, and she views Kiki as her parent. She likes clear weather, but doesn't mind other weather.

Grym is feeding Poulet Souffle San d'Orian carrots (which he gobbles up), and has had him on the "walk around town" plan until his endurance was substandard, and then switched to basic care. His strength has since reached substandard as well. His affection level is finally at the "really likes you a lot" level, but it took a long time to get him there. He also prefers clear weather, but doesn't mind others. He has a patient personality, which is good for carrying packages.

Dynamis: Bastok Farming Again

SnakesOnADynamis headed back to Bastok again on Tuesday, since another group was planning on a San d'Oria run. We ended up with 22 people for the run, with several new members showing up. It was a good mix of jobs, and seemed a bit more balanced than our run on Saturday, with more BLMs and damage dealers, and only two PLDs and one NIN this time. Our main tank Takoom couldn't make it, and I was nominated main tank. This scared me a bit, but it wasn't really so bad. After all, I love tanking, and find my role as backup tank confusing (do I try to build some hate with provoke and flash? do I just fight and help heal people? should I be flashing/provoking slept mobs?). Being main tank is much more straightforward. I just have to learn which mobs should be fought first and be quick to get the next one when the one we're fighting is dead.

We started out very well, and the drops were drastically better than they had been on Saturday. It was Lightsday, Full Moon, and we had two THFs in the group. I'm sure all of those made a difference. We had three sponsors for the run, and I believe we got over 70 currency drops for them, as opposed to the 27 we got the last time. We also got an Assassin's Vest, Wyrm Brais, Abyss Sollerets, and a Valor Coronet. We had 3 PLD main lotters, and one of them (Tiah, attending as WHM) already has the coronet, so it was between me and Raycmd. I won the lot, and now have a shiny new coronet to wear. I wish Kiki's bangs didn't cover it up.

We were making good progress, and got quite a few time extensions. We had a lot of deaths on the waves of BSTs with the scorpions, but it wasn't a full wipe like it had been the last time. Things pretty much fell apart when we got to the first trigger mob for the boss. We weren't really prepared for it, and a lot of us didn't know what we were supposed to do. So we ended up with it being just another farming run. We're only going to improve over time though, and I have hope for future runs. I ended up dying 4 times over the course of the night, losing around 2.5k exp with my RR2s from my Reraise Gorget. I still have over 9k in my buffer, but I will start reading scrolls on PLD to help keep my level.

Missions: Rovont and the Shadow Lord (San d'Oria 5-2)

Rovont (PLD60/WAR30) wanted to get Rank 6 this past weekend, and recruited Itera (MNK75/WHM37), Grym (THF75/NIN37) and I (PLD75/RDM37) to help him fight the Shadow Lord. I was curious to see what the fight would be like at 75, since it was pretty challenging for us as a well-balanced party at level 56. Splinte was supposed to come with us as well, but he got waylaid before we got to the fight. It's a lot easier making our way to the Throne Room at level 75, but even without needing to worry about sneak and invisible for anyone but Rovont, it still take quite awhile to weave through the rooms and wait for the teleporters to be active.

We buffed up and headed in to face His Massiveness. Getting antsy while Rovont was busy with his cutscene, the three of us went ahead and got started on the fight. We had Itera Chi Blast at the start, then Grym SATA'd on me to make up for my lack of Provoke. The Shadow Lord wasn't a pushover, and even with all my MP as PLD/RDM, I pretty much used all of it (plus autorefresh and a couple of melon juices). When the Shadow Lord became impervious to physical damage, Rovont and I used Holy and Banish, and Itera used Chi Blast to keep the damage up. I also had enblizzard on, so though my sword hits were doing 0 damage, I was still getting additional damage of 15 from the effect. Grym was hoping to use bloody bolts for the HP Drain, but hadn't really mentioned it to me, so I had cured him when he took damage, negating the effect of the bloody bolts. Sorry about that. Through the course of the fight, we all ended up taking quite a bit of damage from his AOEs, so I used a lot of MP curing myself and others too. It was a fun fight, and Rovont now has Rank 6!

Leveling: Ninja Blues in Behemoth's Dominion (33-35)

The Ninja Blues static headed to Behemoth's Dominion to fight Lesser and Greater Gaylas on Saturday night. Charcole wasn't able to make it, so we had Ryrra filling in with her WAR33/MNK16. We were probably "over camping" at 33, since the fights did take a bit longer and use more MP than we were used to, but it was all good fun, and the exp added up pretty quickly. We ended the night with Ryrra and Itera at 35, and the rest of us just shy (had another triple level-up with Wendell, Grym and Kiki at 34). The three Blues all got to learn Jet Stream as well. It's always a nice bonus to learn one of our spells while exp'ing.

The next morning, Grym and I headed to Attohwa Chasm to try to learn Death Ray from the Hecteyes there. I ended up dying to one, but a group that must have been doing an ENM or something happened to be there when I died, and they raised me. We both learned Death Ray and squeaked across the boundary to Level 35, with me soloing a bit in the Maze to get caught back up to Grym.

Dynamis: Bastok Farming

SnakesOnADynamis had its inaugural run on Saturday, farming in Bastok with a group of 18. It was the first Dynamis run for a number of us, and we had a few newbish moments, but overall, it was quite promising for the future. Assuming of course we get more committed members in our shell.

Out of the 18 participants, we had 5 Paladins. Vawn and I are thinking that maybe I should try going as PLD/RDM and do more healing than tanking, since that's what I was doing on Saturday anyway. With the extra MP boost from /RDM, plus having stoneskin, it might help out the group more overall. I'm trying to not be too defensive over the "aw isn't the little beanie baby PLD cute?" comments, but subbing RDM isn't going to help prove that Tarutaru are viable PLDs.

Narsat did most of the pulling as RDM/SMN, and had the most deaths on the run. We ended up having two full wipes, but got at least two time extensions, and were probably seconds away from a 30 minute time extension when we got booted from Dynamis. It was kind of fun, though we didn't see many drops. We got Bard Cuffs, the Relic Axe which gets turned into Guttler, and the Relic Blade which gets turned into Ragnarok.

Notorious Monsters: Leaping Lizzy

I was running from the outpost in North Gustaberg to Bastok on Saturday for Dynamis, and happened to stumble upon the Notorious Leaping Lizzy, just hanging out, minding her own business, with no one else anywhere to be seen. This was my first chance to kill her as Kiki (I'd stumbled upon her once when I was playing Grymalkyn years ago), but I didn't get anything from her. I think it's odd that there didn't seem to be anyone camping her at all, but find that I wish more of the game were like that - you just stumble upon a notorious monster as you're wandering around.

Lakshmi has been oddly quiet during the "off hours" for the Japanese though, usually running under 2000 people (as opposed to 3000-4000 during Japanese prime time). Some people are speculating it's because so many people have been playing FFXII since it came out a couple weeks ago, which could well be the case.

Events: ClanBEB Third Anniversary Celebration

ClanBEB celebrated its third anniversary on Friday night. We decided we'd head to Mamook and kill a bunch of Mamools and Archaic Mirrors to help the Empire in its battles with the beastmen. I had a lot of fun, but fighting Zizzy Zillah wasn't our best idea. We did get the Namikirimaru, but not the Fencing Bracers. We also had 3 deaths. ><

We had a group of 14 for the event, most of us at 75: Yobun (SMN69), Lucrezia (THF75), Izan (DRG75), Vawn (BRD75), Daden (NIN75), Splinte (WAR75), Itera (MNK75), Elboron (BRD75), Rannz (BRD75), Wendell (WHM75), Jaerik (SAM75), Corbun (RDM68), Rovont (PLD60), and Tsakiki (PLD75). The Mamools were no match for us, and we took out 6 of the mirrors before we ran out of time and people had to leave for the night.

Yobun had a couple presents to give out as a legacy from Trow's departure from the game, and Kiki won a Flora Cotehardie. Since I don't have a lot of use for that particular piece of equipment, I'm thinking of turning it into something else, which will in turn become an LS legacy item if I ever quit. Things that come to mind at the moment are a Viking Shield, or an Emperor's Hairpin, or an Apollo's Staff. It doesn't really feel "right" selling a legacy gift though!

Dynamis: I Didn't Expect This

My new Dynamis shell had to cancel our scheduled runs on Saturday and Tuesday because we didn't have enough people show up. So I still haven't set foot in Dynamis. On Tuesday, Narsat decided to make a new shell, since Atreyu's not playing much lately, and he's the owner of the shell. This means that only Atreyu can create sackholders, which limits the recruiting abilities of the shell.

Narsat asked everyone present if they wanted to stay with the LS or try and join another one that's a bit more established. I think most of us said we wanted to stick with it and help make it work. So Narsat made a new shell (SnakesOnADynamis), and made Takoom, Vawn/Latch, and Kiki sackholders. Kiki?! A Dynamis Linkshell Sackholder?! How did that happen?

Anyway, I had said that I'd much rather be a newbie in a new shell, trying to make it work, rather than jump in with a more established linkshell, where I'd just be riding other peoples' coattails to get my flags and my relic armor. This will be more of a challenge, and hopefully a lot of fun while we're doing it. And if it's a complete failure, at least we'll have tried. I guess that's the sort of attitude Narsat would like in his lieutenants.

Vawn's really taken to his new role of responsibility and has been heavily recruiting, getting several new people interested in the shell. I really hope we can get enough people to do a run on Saturday. I will have to do some reading up on Dynamis, since I'll be expected to know what's going on, rather than just being told what to do.

Fishing: The Horror! The Horror!

Grym and Kiki have continued in their quest for fishing skillups, but haven't made a lot of progress. On Sunday, we felt like we did as BSTs searching for a new camp after leveling. We tried Crescent Fish in East Sarutabaruta, Elshimo Newts in Yuhtunga Jungle, Noble Ladies on the Bibiki Bay Manaclipper, and finally took a couple of trips on the Mhaura-Selbina Ferry. We ended up with .5 skillups for Kiki and .2 for Grym.

The next evening we headed back to the ferry again, loaded with sliced bluetail. We caught a fair number of Marlin, and Kiki got a few Silver Sharks using her Lu Shangs, but Grym couldn't reel them in with her Composite Rod. We both got another .2 skillups for the evening. We ended up taking our fish to Zaldon in Selbina, and we both got Pirate Charts. Hopefullly we can try the "BC" for those with Elboron some time soon. It would be so cool to get a Mercurial Kris out of it! Grym also got a Brigand's Chart, which is for a solo endeavor in Buburimu.

We saw the Sea Horror twice in our travels. The first time there was a party of 4 that were probably hoping for Pirates, and they grabbed the Sea Horror and killed it. On another trip, the Sea Horror was there as we went up on deck. Grym and I didn't have any troubles killing it, though a couple of its attacks did quite a bit of damage. It mostly missed me, or hit me for between 0 and 20, even before I got Phalanx up (PLD/RDM). It was fun getting our revenge on the monster!

Grym spent some time on Tuesday fishing Tavnazian Gobies in Lufaise Meadows, and got a few skillups there, but felt they didn't bite any better than Crescent Fish.

Assault: Ryaaf needs help again?!

That Private Ryaaf is always getting himself and his two companions captured, so we set off to save him again a week or so ago. We had an interesting set up: PLD75/DRG12 (Yobun), MNK75/DRG12 (Itera), and PLD75/DRK37 (Kiki). Once again, this was way too easy. We didn't encounter any Fomor, and the Chigoes were no match for shield bash, jump, and weapon bash.

We first check the north room, where you can see whether the hunched figure is facing north or east. If it's facing north, it's a human, and based on which it is, you know which rooms the other two are in. If it's facing east, it's a fomor, and you move on to the west room, where it will be a human. Again, once you know his name, you know which rooms the next two are in. As long as you are able to avoid the Experimental Undead roaming the halls and can quickly kill the chigoes with Job Abilities like Shield Bash, Jump, and Weapon Bash, this is a quick and easy win.

We've fallen behind again on Assault missions, so my points aren't piling up. My highest point count is now for Periqia, thanks to Private Ryaaf, but it's barely over 7000. Maybe I need to get myself an Unyielding Ring...

Leveling: Ninja Blues in East Altepa (31 -> 33)

The Ninja Blues static finally got another leveling session in. We were all 31, and headed to East Altepa when we saw that it was pretty much empty. We camped next to the outpost guard at the zone to West Altepa, and had a fun time fighting beetles for a few hours. We killed them pretty quickly, but Charcole sometimes had to go pretty far for the pulls, so it did seem a bit slow overall.

We're a bit more spread out in the levels now, with Itera, then Charcole, then Elboron leveling first. Grym, Wendell and Kiki are all close enough that we had triple level ups both at 32 and 33. It's always fun to see the multiple level ups.

When we hit 33, we decided to see what the Dhalmels were like (they checked simply "Incredibly Tough"). It was a more exciting fight than the beetles, but without having Silena in the group, it's a bit dangerous for the Ninja tanks. And the defense down effect was nearly fatal when Elboron pulled hate with his defenses down. I'm not sure where we should go next time. I love fighting beetles since they have no damaging AOEs, and their TP moves aren't terribly debilitating. I'll have to compare the beetle levels in Altepa to those in Garliage. We were still getting some good beetles at 33 in Altepa, but there were a lot of Toughs in the mix at that point as well.

Quests: Celery (BCNM60, Qu'Bia Arena)

A week or so ago, with some time to kill on a Saturday as we waited for enough people to show up for the new Pirate Assault (didn't happen), Yobun suggested a round of Celery. Grym and I had been thinking of doing that one with our BSTs at some point, but we opted to go with Grym's THF, Yobun's SMN, and Kiki's PLD.

The fight has a 15 minute time limit, as most of the 3 man BCNMs, and is capped at level 60. Four ghosts spawn in the arena, and you choose which you want to fight. They will not aggro you until you start fighting them. Each ghost has different weaknesses. One is weak to slashing, another to piercing, a third to blunt, and the fourth to magic. We chose to fight Shredded Samson, which is weak to slashing (my sword) and ok with piercing (Grym's daggers). The fights were really pretty easy for us. Having the PLD job trait of Undead Killer, along with Holy Circle, helped save a few attacks from the ghost. The biggest danger was Ancient Magic, but with such a long cast time, it was very easy for me to run away out of range before ths ghost finished casting.

We won all three rounds in 6 to 10 minutes, and got "decent" drops. 2 of the 3 runs dropped an Evasion Earring, but we lost one as the treasure dropped and a gobbie bag filled up. In the end, we each got about 400K from the three runs. If we hadn't lost the second earring, it would have been closer to 550K. One of the nice things was that each run dropped Oblation and Libation Abjurations. Yobun had a couple already, and let us take them from his run as well. With Cursed Soup running just 4K a serving, Grym and I decided we could use Ambrosia for our next attempt at CoP 6-4. Of course, we ended died 60 seconds into the fight, wasting the ambrosia, but I had two and used my second during our win.

Missions: O/U Grounded (CoP 6-4)

We all met in Sealion's Den on Friday night for another try at beating CoP 6-4 (One To Be Feared). We didn't really make any changes to our strategy from our first attempt, other than making sure we would wipe in safe spots if we were going to wipe.

Grymalkyn and I decided to get ambrosia made with the Oblation Abjurations we'd got in a round of BCNMs the previous weekend, but brought other food knowing we would likely die before the end of the fight.

The group decided to do a dry run first, just to get back into the swing of things. The mammets took us a long time to kill, and I had to use up some of my hi-potions just to make it to the next part of the fight. Fortunately hi-potions are nearly free these days with all the hi-potion tanks from Assault missions, so it wasn't really a big deal. We didn't get Omega down as far as we had on our dry run last week either, so we were starting to be a bit less confident.

We got psyched up to do the real run. We headed into the mission, buffed up, ate our food, and went to face the mammets. I gathered them up into my corner, while Splinte grabbed one for everyone else to fight. They scarely touched me, until they all changed to BLM and simultaneously cast tier II -ga spells on me. I was quickly dead, and we had to abort. We had decided any attempt that didn't get past the mammets was cause for starting over, since it just isn't a good way to start. So much for our fancy ambrosia. So we had our second official failure.

I homepointed to the Safehold to save a bit of time and grab my second ambrosia from my moghouse and get a couple yag drinks to replace what I'd used so far. I went back in to get the first cutscene of the mission so it wouldn't waste time when we went back in for our third attempt. Our mood wasn't great, but we were determined, and prepared, so we dusted ourselves off and headed back in after everyone's weakness wore.

This time, the mammets went incredibly smoothly. Elboron's mambos kept me from getting hit much, which really helped. The mammets were dead faster than any of our other runs, dry or real.

We moved on to Omega, and were doing quite well until we had him at about 50%. Grym got hit badly on an AOE, dropping into the red. Wendell thought a Cure IV would take too long and used Benediction to get Grym healed fast. He didn't think it would pull "that much" hate since it was really only Grym who needed it, but it did indeed pull hate. I quickly used Invincible, but couldn't pull hate back. It was the first time in my career as a Paladin that I lost a WHM using Benediction. I've always been able to keep them alive in the past. We hadn't used any of our CCBs, so when Wendell died, we kept fighting, using no items or 2 hours, until we all were dead, safely on our end of the airship.

We had knocked Omega down to 37%, and still had plenty of time on the clock, so we reraised, rested to full, put back up our reraises and other buffs, and started back in on him. He went down fast, with the 3 CCBs keeping him pretty tame, and then it was on to Ultima!

The fight with Ultima is definitely more chaotic than that with Omega, but we kept chipping away at him, starting to use the CCBs at around 50% health. Itera used Hundred Fists and Splinte Mighty Strikes around this point too, quickly taking big chunks out of Ultima's HP. I felt like I was spamming hi-potions on this part of the fight (I went through 25-30 total), but they are faster than casting cures, and I was taking quite a bit of damage throughout the fight. Elegy and slow helped us a lot for this fight, and both Wendell and Elboron were on top of debuffing the rest of us when we got enfeebled. As we got Ultima down to near the end of its HP, things got really wild. Itera got killed, then Splinte. Itera and Splinte reraised just as I got killed and they started fighting again immediately. Grym said to me "this will probably kill Itera" and then activated Trick Attack and unloaded a Dancing Edge from behind Itera for the final killing blow.

We'd actually done it! We'd won! And with only 9 deaths for the fight! We still had 9 or 10 minutes left, so even if we had a full wipe on Ultima, we would have had time to reraise and rest up to finish if we'd had to. Fortunately we didn't have to.

After going through the long cutscenes, I finally found myself lying dead in Lufaise Meadows, a very happy Taru. Wendell got disconnected during the final cutscenes, and we were all concerned that he might not get "credit" for winning the mission, but when he logged back in this morning, he got the cutscenes and his shiny new Ducal Ring.

New titles: Ultima Undertaker, Branded by Lightning

Chocobos: Early Retirement

Disappointed with our inability to have well-balanced chocobos, RagingTerror and FuryWing have been sent out to pasture. Grymalkyn had given up even visiting RagingTerror regularly, and she had the lowest possible level affection. Plus she was sick, and no stats above poor.

I'd placed FuryWing on a regime of doing nothing but listen to music for several weeks, and did get Discernment and Receptivity up to "a bit deficient", and was able to maintain a decent level of affection (getting it back to "views you as her parent" without too much effort). I ended up breeding her with Yobun's MetalGroove, which knew Autoregen and had stronger discernment and receptivity stats. I sent them on a Gourmet Plan honeymoon, which increases the chance that the chick will be male and will have high strength.

I turned in my egg on 10/30, and haven't really decided what I'll want to focus on for it.

Grymalkyn bred FuryWing with Elboron's SwiftMelody, which has good endurance. Grym opted for the Jeuno Tour honeymoon, and hopes for a female chick. I'm not sure how we get suckered into this Tamagotchi minigame, but looks like we're keeping with it.