Missions: Calm Before the Storm (CoP 7-4)

Because of US Thanksgiving and other Real Life stuff going on with various people, we ended up doing CoP Mission 7-4, Calm Before the Storm, three times with various combinations of our group to get everyone through so we could move on to the big fight with Tenzen in 7-5. We all had run around everywhere to get our cutscenes for Missions 7-1 through 7-3, and started Mission 7-4 with Cid in Bastok.

For this mission, you have to fight three NMs: a bugard in Misareaux Coast, a kraken in Bibiki Bay, and 4 Tonberries in Carpenter's Landing. Our first time through we had Itera (MNK), Splinte (WAR), Grymalkyn (THF), and Tsakiki (PLD). We decided to use our NPCs, set on Soothing Healer, to help fill in the party, which worked out really well. Yobun joined us as his SMN to help with the Tonberries, and we found a dead NIN/WHM there as well. He'd been trying to solo them, and was happy to join with us. He ended up dying again, but at least we killed off all the Tonberries and were all able to complete the mission.

The bugard is highly resistant to physical damage, and since that's pretty much all we had, that fight usually took us awhile. For the third time we fought it, we decided to try our old three part light skillchain (red lotus blade -> raging fists -> shark bite), and with Elbo's Light Threnody on the bugard, ended up doing over 1000 damage with just the Light part. The fight was a lot shorter that time.

The second time through the fights, we had Wendell (WHM) and no Splinte. Once again, the NPCs were a big help. The only tricky bit was again the Tonberries, with Wendell ending up getting killed. We had tried to pull the NIN away from his minions, but didn't get him far enough, and they all ran to help him when he called.

For our final time through for Elboron (BRD), we did manage to pull the NIN Tonberry far enough and killed him without trouble. However, it turns out you really have to kill all four Tonberries. We had let the 3 others despawn, and Elbo couldn't get the cutscene. He popped them again, and we had a very messy fight with Astral Flow killing all of us but Itera. However, he managed (with his NPC's help) to continue fighting, and Wendell reraised and kept Itera alive until the Tonberries were all dead. Wendell raised Elboron, and he got his cutscene and could complete the mission.

New titles: Esha'ntarl's Comrade in Arms, Prishe's Buddy