Dynamis: Interlopers!

On Saturday, SnakesOnADynamis was planning to start our run on Dynamis - San d'Oria at 12:30pm EST, but we logged in Saturday morning to discover an emergency maintenance was going to have the server down from 12 to 2. We rescheduled for 2:15ish, and hoped we'd have enough people to go for the win.

We ended up with a group of 23, but we were missing people we know probably would have been there had our run been at its normal time. I ended up being the only PLD, and my tank party had 3 WHMs, a RDM, and a NIN. The NIN had done Dynamis, but only as a kiter rather than the backup tank, but I ended up not dying on our "normal" fights. I think I should always have 3 WHMs in my party. :-)

This was far and away our best run yet, and we're starting to work together better. The first trigger NM didn't charm anyone until he was nearly dead - we didn't melee him this time. We had some big link-fests, but handled them all one by one, thanks to the sleepers. We did have a lot of deaths from a couple NIN mobs blowing themselves up, but we changed our approach on them and got much better. The SMNs that gave us so much trouble on an earlier run were a piece of cake.

It wasn't until we tried the second trigger mob that things started going poorly. Narsat was RDM/THF and was sacrifice pulling on that one. I was to grab the NM Summoner and bring it back to the chocobo stables for everyone to kill, while one of the RDMs was supposed to sleep the avatar. When Narsat went running past with a thousand angry Orcs chasing after him, I couldn't find the NM in the crowd, and it wasn't until after Narsat was dead that I could get him, along with a few of his friends. This didn't work so well, and we ended up with what was probably a full wipe.

For the second try, the RDMs were going to nuke a time extension statue as part of the sac pull, but they ended up dying right near the mobs. Sharingan (the NIN) and I grabbed the avatar and SMN, but since the pull wasn't going to work, we died outside the stable entrance, and kept the rest of the team safe from certain death. We did get the time extension though, so we still felt we could get the win.

The third time's the charm, and it worked perfectly. Narsat went running off toward the Moghouse with all the Orcs in two. I picked the NM out of the crowd and voked it, while Sharingan voked the avatar. We ran back into the chocobo stables, where everyone "stood back" and used what ranged attacks they could (nukes, chi blasts, arrows, bolts), while they tried to keep the avatar asleep. I stood by the SMN to keep him focused on me, and used my two hour to buy a bit more time. We got the SMN nearly dead when BOOM, 15 HP bars on my screen suddenly dropped to 0, thanks to Astral Flow. Itera and Latch were the only two still standing. Itera quickly fell, and Latch was able to kill the SMN using his two hour. Hurray! We'd popped the Mega Boss!

We quickly reraised and raised everyone, then rested up. Narsat made another sacrifice pull on the Boss statue, and I was able to get him cleanly back to the stables for everyone to kill. This was harder, since we could only use magic on him. I was killed pretty quickly when it used Death on me, and the mages were kiting him around and nuking him. I reraised and tried to "tank" a bit more, throwing in holy and banishes when I had MP, and we finally managed to get him dead. We got everyone on their feet and we all ran over to get our key item for "completing" Dynamis-San d'Oria. It felt good to finally win one.

We still had 10 minutes on the clock, so someone had the bright idea that we should farm a bit more. Unfortunately, pulling a mob resulted in about a dozen mobs on us, so we had another full wipe, which somewhat dampened our celebratory mood. The drops on the run were a bit disappointing, mostly because there was no one there who could actually use them yet. Our only DRG-main couldn't be there, so the Wyrm Greaves ended up going to Purr, who's DRG is 30-something. The only other piece of armor was the Monster Trousers, and Metah and I were the only BST (sub) lotters, with our BSTs at 60. Metah won the lot on those. There were several relic weapons as well, but until people actually start upgrading those, I don't find those to be too exciting.

New Title: Dynamis-San d'Oria Interloper