Dynamis: TheUltimates

Last Wednesday night, I made my first run with TheUltimates. We were supposed to do Dynamis-Beaucedine, which would have been quite exciting, as it would have been my first time. However, another LS also wanted to do it, and they had more people there earlier than we did, so we left it to them.

Venn cancelled Dynamis for the evening, but a few people decided we should do one of the cities after all. Bastok was the only open area, so we headed there to do some farming, and maybe get the flag for a couple people who needed it. We only had 23 people there for the run, since people who didn't have Beaucedine access already made other plans, and some people left when they heard Dynamis was cancelled. It wasn't a lot different than a typical Snakes run on Bastok, but TU does seem a bit quicker at killing mobs than Snakes was. We had 3 PLDs, NIN, WHM, and RDM in the tank party. Jarbit was the main tank - some people lobbied for me to main tank, but I didn't want to main tank on my first run with TU. I want to spend time observing how they do things first. Ezekiel ended up doing the pulling as SAM/THF, which was a bit tough on his exp buffer.

The drops seemed scarce, but we did get PLD, BRD, and THF AF2. Jarbit was the only PLD main without the coronet, so he was happy to get his shiny new hat. We ended up wiping on one of the trigger NMs, and started running out of time, so no flag for the new members, but it was fun. I only died the one time too, which was novel. It seems like a decent group of people, so hopefully I can fit in and be part of the family.

One big difference is that when the fee for entrance was announced, not a single person complained. With Snakes, any time we had an unsponsored run, Narsat ended up having the LS fund it, since several people would complain that they only had 765 gil and couldn't afford to pay 37k for Dynamis. It usually worked out well for the LS though, since on almost every LS-funded run we got a 100 piece, but the very idea that people don't even have 40k in their pockets at level 75 is a bit disturbing.

Saturday night, TheUltimates headed to Windurst. We had 34 people for the run, and it went quite smoothly and quickly. We had about 90 minutes left after defeating the Mega Boss to continue farming. I believe we ended up with 8 pieces of AF2 (3xTHF, PLD, 2xBLM, SMN, and NIN). I wasn't allowed to lot yet since it was only my second run with the group. Mayze was the only lotter and got his shiny new boots. Jarbit was the main tank again, and I was helping out with statues and slept mobs. I still don't feel comfortable with that role, since I don't feel like I'm doing enough or something.

Limbus: Apollyon NE and Temenos E

A week ago Sunday, we only had 6 people show up for Limbus: Venn (DRG/NIN), Ezekiel (SAM/THF), Ardan (SMN/WHM), Ranzz (BRD/WHM), Lucrezia (THF/NIN) and me (PLD/WAR). We decided to try Apollyon NE, but only made it up to the third floor. We were doing OK on the mandragorfas, but the Goobbue Boss really knocked my stuffing out. It's not really practical for us do do some of these Limbus areas with out a WHM main healing - cure IIIs just aren't enough on the bosses. The second floor had vultures and giant birds, but it was the third floor that was the toughest - with pots and a doll boss. We ended up with only 14 coins for the run, and two upgrade items no one in our group wanted. It was still fun, but I hope we can start having more consistent attendance.

We had more people show up this week, and we headed to Temenos East with 9 of us: Venn (DRG/NIN), Ezekiel (SAM/THF), Kojita (DRG/???), Thunderbolt (RDM/WHM), Lucrezia (THF/NIN), Sarntur (BLM/RDM), Alfrodo (BLM/RDM), Meshe (WHM/SMN) and Tsakiki (PLD/WAR). There are seven levels in Temenos East, and each has 4 elementals, with a different element on each floor. Each Elemental will drop a chest, with one time, one restore, one items, and one fake item on each floor. You're only allowed to open one, unless you open the fake item chest. That will spawn a Mythic Avatar corresponding to the elements on the floor. You have to defeat the avatar, and then you can open one of the other chests and move up to the next level. As soon as you open one of the chests, any remaining mobs and chests will disappear.

For the first two levels, Ezekiel opened the time chest as soon as it spawned, so we got to skip a few of the elementals on this first two floors. We had the most excitement on the Earth Elemental floor. They couldn't be stunned, and had an additional effect of petrification, so the fights got a bit sloppy with people getting turned to stone for a bit. Then we got a fake item chest, and a version of Titan popped out on us. His 2 hour hit most people for over 1300 damage, killing 6 of us. 3 of us survived, but I can't remember who the third one was. Meshe used Benediction, I used Invincible, one of the BLMs reraised, and the 4 of us got the avatar killed. Meshe got everyone up and we continued on.

We ended up opening 3 time chests and 4 items chests. The AF upgrade items on this run were for PLD (me), RNG (Lucrezia) and BLM (Alfrodo), and we got a Scarlet Chip on the final chest, which is used for one of the Proto weapon fights. We ended up with 39 coins, so most of us got 4, while the 3 high lotters got 5. It was a lot of fun to complete another area successfully!

I've got 25 coins now, as well as the White Rivet and Snowy Cermet I need to upgrade one of my pieces of AF, but I really want to get my Boxer's Mantle first (needs 75 coins), rather than spend 20 of the coins now on my AF upgrade. Then again, since the upgrade items are rare/ex, if I upgrade now, I have a chance to get more of the items on later runs for a second upgrade. Decisions, decisions...

Quests: Storms of Fate (Bahamut v1)

On Sunday evening, when I was in Jeuno waiting for our Limbus group, I ran up to Ru'Lude Gardens to talk to Esha'ntarl. She told me that Prishe and Ulmia had seen the Wyrms were back in Riverne and asked if I would go help them. I said I'd love to, so I would be ready if an opportunity ever arose to join an alliance of adventurers to go fight Bahamut.

I never imagined that an opportunity would present itself the following day. I logged in Monday evening, and Splinte sent me a tell asking me if I was interested in fighting Bahamut. His LS, Eminence, was doing a run, and possibly had an open slot for an eager PLD. I got ready just in case, and headed to Tavnazia to do some fishing while I waited to hear. Sure enough, they let me join them, and asked that I come as PLD/NIN.

We had a full alliance. I didn't check the list to see just what all we had, but I know there were 3 BLMs, at least 1 SMN, several WHMs and RDMs, and a bunch of melee. The main tank was a NIN/WAR, with two PLD/NINs as "backups". We had to travel through Riverne - Site B01 to get to the arena for the fight. The fight is uncapped, but Riverne - Site B01 is capped at level 50. Most of us ran through in our pyjamas, which was pretty amusing to see. We had to fight several Pyrodrakes to get the giant scale we needed to pass through an unstable displacement, and while we were waiting for one final person, we fought a bunch of hippogryphs to get tailfeathers for people to use to get mistmelts for some upcoming Ouryu fights. It was funny to see a bunch of naked adventurers punching the mobs into submission.

Since I wasn't main tank for the fight, and had NIN subbed anyway, I pretty much went all out on +HP, with the gear I have available. There are some items I don't have that could boost it even higher, but it was really fun to have over 1600 HP when we started fighting. For the fight, we tanks pulled Bahamut over to one side of the island, where we did whatever we could to keep his attention. The WHMs kept our health topped up and removed status effects, the BLMs stunned and nuked, the RDMs kept up refresh and dispel, and the melees, well, they meleed.

Every time we knocked 10% of Bahamut's health off, he blasted us with Megaflare. When he was about to do that, the melee ran out of range, while the mages made sure the tanks were at full health. We would take between 1000 and 1200 damage from it (it ignored our shadows), and continue on until the next blast. When we got him down under 10%, he used Gigaflare, and we actually lost a few of the people in the alliance, but we killed Bahamut at the same time. We had won, and Tavnazia was once again safe. It was a really fun fight, and I'm glad that Splinte was able to get me in on it.

New title: Conqueror of Fate

Dynamis: Leaving the Nest

I decided it was time for me to leave Snakes On A Dynamis, partly because I thought I should start doing Dynamis with TheUltimates since I've been doing Limbus with them. I talked with Narsat about it quite a bit, and last week attended my last two runs with them. For these two runs, we had Lumikumi main tank, so I could tell him what little I'd learned about being a main tank for Dynamis. I hadn't gotten any "training" when I had to take over as main tank, and thought it would help him get used to it before I disappeared. I think the linkshell will be in good hands with him, but I hope they can get a couple more PLDs to back him up. Chanell quit recently too (off to an HNM/gods linkshell, and very happy there from the sounds of it). I feel bad leaving so soon, and I'll really miss my Dynamis family, but I needed to go.

Last Tuesday, we hit San d'Oria, and did extremely well getting the flag. We didn't have any wipes until the post-flag farming! I'm so proud of how well we've grown as a shell. Lumikumi died twice (Eagle Eye Shot, and pulling the Mega Boss), but that was it for tank deaths until we started farming after getting the flag. AF2 drops were ok: PLD, WHM, and BRD. Lumikumi won the lot for the Valor Gauntlets over Raymcd, so he's got his first piece of AF2. Since I knew I was leaving the shell, I didn't lot, since it wouldn't be right. I've got my Valor Coronet to commemorate my time with the shell, and will never forget where it came from. Goto was thrilled to finally see a piece of WHM AF2 drop, and even more excited when he won the lot.

On Saturday, we headed to Windurst for our second run there with just our linkshell. We did a lot better than we had on our first attempt, but didn't make it past Shantotto's house. AF2 dropped for SAM, DRK, SMN, and THF, which was pretty nice.

I was very sad as I said goodbye, then posted the attendance list for the run and updated the Northlands points. I asked Narsat to change my forum access to "Former Member", and dropped my pearlsack. It's really been an emotional month for me in the game.

Missions: Dawn (CoP 8-4)

Friday night marked the end of a long and wonderful journey that Kiki made together with her friends Grymalkyn, Elboron, Itera, Wendell and Splinte. We started off just over 10 months ago with Ancient Vows, fighting 3 Mammets in Monarch Linn. We were determined to complete the entire Chains of Promathia together as a team, despite some people telling us we'd probably have to level different jobs for some of the missions, as our line up of PLD, THF, BRD, MNK, WHM, and WAR was considered unlikely to succeed.

We did use different jobs for two of the missions, with the PLD and THF both using BST for the Mammets, and the PLD as DRK and the WAR as NIN for Diabolos, but other than that, we stuck to our guns, and proved that we could do it. It wasn't the easiest way to get through CoP, but we didn't see it as something to simply "get through". We enjoyed the challenges each mission presented, and it was very satisfying to come up with a winning strategy for each.

At times, real life seemed to threaten our progress, since Friday evenings were the only time that all six of us could be together in the game. This just meant it would take us that much longer. It's not like there was any time limit on saving the world. I'm so happy that we were able to do it all together as a team.

This past Friday, we headed back to the Empyreal Paradox for the final showdown with Promathia. From our sight-seeing trip the previous week, we knew the first form was pretty easy, and that I would have to bulk up my HP while I was kiting the second form. Grym, Itera, and Splinte all subbed NIN for some protection from shadows, Wendell subbed SMN for the autorefresh, while Elboron was his usual /WHM and I was my usual /WAR. We slept for TP before entering the BC, buffed up and headed in. With my gear and food (Carbonara), I had just over 1500 HP, and as much enmity as I could have, balanced with the increased HP.

The first form was pretty annoying, using his stun move more than I would have liked, but we got it down, rested up and started in on the second form. I was kiting around the edge of the BC, as I had with the Elvaan Ark Angel in Zilart Mission 14, but this meant I was out of range of Wendell's cures too often. We ended up wiping, but Splinte and Prishe made a valiant effort when the rest of us were dead. A timely Benediction from Prishe got the two of them back to full health, and Splinte avoided Promathia's attacks for a good while, but got a bit over-zealous with a Rampage, pulled hate and died. I really hate the AOE stun, the amnesia, and the perma-silence from Promathia too.

Itera and Elboron had both used their two hours on the first attempt, but we weren't concerned about having them missing for our second attempt. This time the first form was less annoying, and I opted to kite the second form across the circle rather than around the edge. This worked a lot better. It also helped that Promathia used Comet more than Meteor, which meant only I was taking damage, if I was in range when he finished casting. I ended up dying as we got him down to under about 10%, having got hit twice quickly for ~300 points each, then hit with Comet for over 1000 damage, all in quick succession. Everyone else finished him off, and we had won!

After our cutscene, we headed to Blueblade Fell for a final group picture. That's the location for the final cutscene from the missions, and I didn't think we'd be able to do them as a group, but thought it would be a fitting setting for the last group picture. It was a bittersweet conclusion.

On Saturday, I traveled around Vana'diel to see all the cutscenes to complete the mission, effectively saying goodbye to the starring characters. I started off in Windurst, headed to Mhaura to see the Sin Hunters, then Purgonorgo Isle for the Chebukki siblings. Later I went to San d'Oria, followed Louverance to Uleguerand Range, and then back to San d'Oria. Next I went to talk to Cid in Bastok, and said farewell to Tenzen, then saw Jabbos in Oldton Movalpolis. It was off to Jeuno where I talked to Wolfgang at the Palace and then Esha'ntarl at the Marble Bridge.

Esha'ntarl offered me my choice of three rings as a reward: Rajas Ring, Tamas Ring, or Sattva Ring. My intention for months and months was always to get the Rajas Ring, which is considered by many to be the supreme melee ring available in the game. My life in the game has changed significantly since I made that decision, and I'm actually doing things I never thought I'd be doing: "end game" tanking.

I'm a PLD, I love being a PLD, and I really don't envision leveling any other job past 60. So it became clear to me that the Sattva Ring was the right one for me. There's just so much good on that one ring. It's like having a Nimble Ring, a Robust Ring, a Hercules Ring, and half a Bomb Queen Ring all on one finger. I get 5 VIT, 5 AGI, 30 HP, and 3 Enmity. How could I turn that down? It's true the Rajas Ring would be much more useful for other jobs, but even then, I see it as a weapon-skill-only ring, as I'd generally be wearing +Accuracy for TP-build.

After getting my new ring, I headed to Tavnazia to see Ulmia and Prishe. Prishe went running off, but I found her in Lufaise Meadows, above Blueblade Fell. A final fullscreen cutscene later, and it was all over. I'd completed the Chains of Promathia, along with my best friends in the game. It's a very sad conclusion to our long journey though, as it signals the end of the game for Grymalkyn, and most likely Elboron. I'll miss them both so much, but I'm glad that we got to save the world a few times together (Mission 5-2, Windurst Mission 9-2, Zilart Mission 16, and CoP Mission 8-4). Hopefully the world won't need saving again, since it will be hard to do it without them.

New titles: Averter of the Apocalypse, Banisher of Emptiness

Limbus: Apollyon SE

Last Sunday night, the same 9 of us showed up for Limbus that had been there the previous week. This week, Thunderbolt went as BLU/THF, Ezekiel was SAM/WAR (instead of SAM/THF, having forgotten to change his subjob before we left Jeuno), and Alfrodo was RDM. We decided to try Apollyon SE, and had a fun time. We cleared the zone, ending up with 52 coins for the 9 of us. I also got a White Rivet, which is one of the items I would need for upgrading one of my pieces of AF. I think I'll wait until after I get my Boxer's Mantle before I consider an AF upgrade though (you need to use ancient beastcoins for both of them). We also got a Smalt Chip, which is one of the chips needed to enter the fight with Proto-Omega.

This zone has 4 levels: slimes, crabs (sea monk boss), skeletons (corse boss), and weapons. The slimes are resistant to blunt damage, the crabs and skeletons resist slashing damage, and the weapons are magic resistant. For the crab and skeleton floor I used my Eight-Sided Pole +1 and did decent damage, but I missed having shield bash for the skeletons. They really like to cast tier IV spells and we never seemed to interrupt them. Both Thunderbolt and I ended up dead from massive spell damage.

Missions: When Angels Fall (CoP 8-3)

A week ago Friday, our static met in the Tavnazian Safehold and headed to The Garden of Ru'Hmet for the penultimate mission in the Chains of Promathia story line, When Angels Fall. First we had to make our way to the top floors of three of the towers in the Garden, so that we could each get a key item specific for our race. The Galkas needed the Light of Al'Taieu, the Mithras needed the Light of Dem, while the Tarutarus needed the Light of Holla. Good thing we didn't have a Hume and Elvaan in the group, as it would have taken a lot longer.

We had to do a lot of sneaking around and some fighting as we made our way through each tower, and we had a few deaths along the way. The strategy that worked pretty well for us was to have Grym flee through each level, gathering up the mobs between the entrance and the exit elevators, hopefully making it to the elevator safely. Then the mobs would despawn and the rest of us could make it through.

Once we had all obtained our Light, we had to then get the Brand of Twilight and the Brand of Dawn, from opposite ends of the second floor of the Garden. To get to the central elevator, we had to pass through a gauntlet of 4 pots. The door at the far end would shut as soon as they leave their pedestals when they spot someone in their room, so our plan was to have Grym run in and have them all kill her in a corner while we hid in an opposite corner. That didn't work as we planned. So Wendell reraised and managed to raise the rest of us without the pots noticing after they returned to their posts, and we were able to get through the door and head up the elevator.

After more sneaking around, we were ready to enter the battlefield for the mission. We first fought some of the Ghrah to build up TP, and we headed in to fight four pots, called Ix'zdeis. Our plan was to have me run in first to get aggro from them all, and pull them to the back side. The two at the back are BLMs, and it's best to kill them first, since they can cause more problems with their -aga spells, and they have a bit less HP than the other two pots, which are RDMs. We hoped to kill both of the BLM pots before wiping, and hoped to reraise safely and continue with the fight after we were unweakened. Wendell would use Elemental Seal+Sleepga to put the other 3 pots asleep, with Elboron trying to see if he could land Lullaby on them as well (couldn't, not even with Soul Voice).

It didn't work quite the way we intended. The pots bound me before I got them all the way to the end, and then we only got one dead before we wiped. We were using free weaponskills rather than a chain, since our best weaponskills didn't make a good chain. The pot's special moves really did us in, as we got petrified repeatedly, and there was little we could do. Then, before we could reraise, Wendell got disconnected, and we also figured we were going to get aggro on our reraise, so we just stayed down and got booted out after 3 minutes. Meanwhile, Wendell got logged back in.

I wanted to try a dry run, since Itera still had his two hour left, and I needed to see what that would do so we would be better prepared for the following weekend. We were running short on time, so we didn't get TP either. We had the same problems with petrification, which ended up wasting most of Itera's Hundred Fists, and then just as we got the first pot nearly dead, it jumped back up on its pedestal to "regen", which looked more like a Benediction, since it was instantly full health. That was good to learn as well.

It was a pretty discouraging evening overall, and I wasn't really sure how we could improve. One idea I came up with was to merit Fealty, which would give me 60 seconds of "powerful resistance" to status effects, which could save me from a lot of the crap the pots were throwing at us. So over the week I soloed Lesser Colibri as PLD/NIN and my new Mensur Epee, and had some fun getting the 4k limit points I needed to get to my 3rd merit point, and I "bought" Fealty with it.

For our rematch on Friday, Splinte decided to come WAR/SAM for the TP gain, and I decided using powder boots might help me make it to the back of the BC before getting bound. We had better luck making it to the central elevator this time, with Grym managing to sneak past the pots and through the door, which she could open for the rest of us. I then ran in to aggro them all and die so that the others could all make it up the elevator safely. Elboron got caught though, and died as well. Wendell gave us R3s, and we headed upstairs.

After building our TP, we headed into the fight. My powder boots did get me to the back of the room fast enough, but the one BLM pot that was our first target didn't follow, and sat right next to its pedestal. So we ended up fighting it there. Elboron used Soul Voice and gave us double attack songs, while Wendell put the other three pots to sleep. The fight was much smoother this time, whether Fealty helped, or we just got lucky with the TP moves, I'm not sure. Grym, Itera, and I did our 3 part light skillchain twice, first with the TP we had coming in, then using icarus wings and doing it a second time, and that helped take out a good chunk. Splinte spammed his WS. I think Itera also used Hundred Fists on the first one. It was very scary when the first pot was almost dead, as it started to hop back up on its pedestal for its "regen", but we got it dead somehow. We moved on to the second pot, and Wendell ended up using Benediction and I used Invincible, but we both ended up dying halfway through the second BLM pot. I think it was Splinte, then Elboron, then Itera, then Grym, but they all survived long enough to kill the second pot, and get about a quarter of the HP from one of the RDM pots.

We reraised, rested up, and finished off the last two pots. Splinte did some big weaponskill right at the end and got blasted with Optic Induration for about 1800 damage, so he was dead at the end of the fight, but it was over, and we had won!

We headed across the room for a cutscene, and since the night was young, we decided to check out the fight for the last mission, with no items or two hours or even a plan - just to see what was in store for us the following Friday. It looks like it will be a pretty fun fight. You face Promathia, but have Prishe and Selh'teus helping in the battle. Promathia has two forms, and we killed the first form (I died pretty fast), and even got the second form down a good chunk before wiping, so I think we'll be able to do it just fine when we face it for real.

New Title: Warrior of the Crystal

Dynamis: Bastok Times Two and Jeuno

Last Saturday, Snakes headed to Dynamis-Bastok again, hoping for the flag, but we didn't do so well. The trouble started when we wiped at the trap just west of the Auction House, and some people were too close to the mobs when we started reraising, so we wiped again, and at that point gave up the day as lost. We farmed some more, but didn't get any AF2 drops??

On Tuesday night, something I never thought I'd see again happened. We teamed up with DynamisSoldiers for another run for the Bastok flag. We had planned to go to Bastok again to make up for our failure on Saturday, but Soldiers also wanted to do Bastok, partly because a BLM who used to be in Snakes but is now in Soldiers needed the flag. At first they asked us to just take her with us, but ended up saying we'd team up for the run, with our sponsor paying for the hourglass and getting all the currency, while only our LS would be allowed to lot on AF2. There may have been an understanding that after we got the flag, anyone who stayed to farm would be allowed to lot, but I'm not certain about that.

Everyone in Snakes was given DynamisSoldiers pearls for the run, but we kept our alliance as Snakes-only, and we did things "our way", with PLD tanks, but Miracles, the DS leader, instructed his puller for the pulls, which was a bit confusing. I was main tank, but some times the guy in their LS that is usually main tank would jump in and start fighting a different mob than the one I had selected. I also liked the time there was a mass pull and Miracles didn't mention there would be an NM in the group that I should grab until after I had already picked one of the normal mobs. Lumikumi quickly grabbed the NM and tanked it while we killed the normal mob first. The lag was horrendous as well, since we had over 60 people in the zone for the run.

There was much bickering back and forth between the linkshells throughout the run, which made it quite unpleasant. However, we got all the triggers killed, and they made a relatively clean pull on the mega boss, and we all got our flag. Then the drama dial was turned up to 11. Tempers flared, and Narsat decided we didn't want any Soldiers staying to farm, so they started dropping their hourglasses and left the battlefield. The BLM who had been in Snakes stayed, and for some reason really has a grudge against us, and had been one of the worst in terms of insulting Narsat and the rest of us. We decided to start pulling mobs to farm anyway, and we got some links, which were quickly put to sleep. Suddenly, the turn coat BLM started casting Dia on all of the slept mobs, effectively MPKing our team. I understand the name calling and back biting on some level, but to purposely cause other people to lose EXP is just so lame. Miracles hadn't left the area yet and there was some talk back and forth, but as we were recovering from the wipe, my ISP failed (was out for 20 hours), and I missed the end of the run. I heard they did OK after that, and ended up with two more pieces of AF2 (for a total of 5 pieces on the run).

We tried for the flag in Jeuno again yesterday, and had a really good run currency and relic-wise (NIN, BLM, MNK, RNG, and RDM all dropped), but a massive train ended up jumping me when I was pulling the mega-boss off of Narsat's suicide pull, taking him back to the palace. I'm not really sure where they came from, since when I looked back just before getting to the bridge at the palace, I saw just the Goblin Golem chasing me. Anyway, I don't think I've ever seen so many mobs in one place. It was pretty impressive.

I'm finally flagged for Dynamis-Beaucedine, but we will have to beat the four cities again to get more flags for more members before we can head to the Northlands.

Besieged: Lakshmi's Record Continues

As of January 11th, Lakshmi and Siren are still undefeated in Besieged. We thought all the changes they've been making to Besieged were finally going to cause us to lose, but that hasn't been the case yet. I'm continuing to participate when I'm able, and it's nice now that you can get limit points if you're in limit mode. That helps feed into my plan to cap my exp and only do limits when my buffer is full. I may end up deciding I need some specific merit abilities though and change that plan.

I also like getting 1000-1080 Imperial Standing Points from each Besieged, giving me a bit of a surplus and allowing me to feel like I can "afford" the pay warp Taru in Whitegate. It's most convenient now for me to keep my homepoint in Whitegate, and pay a silver piece to the Taru to get to Windurst instantly. Since he drops you off right at the Outpost Teleport NPC, it's handy to get anywhere quite quickly.

I still mostly attend Besieged as PLD/RDM, wearing all my accuracy gear, my Opo-opo Crown, wielding my Kinkobo, and eating pamamas (which gives me 50 hp and mp and makes the stats on my staff very nice). I've gotten my staff skill up to 265 doing this (mostly), and only have 4 more levels to go to cap it. Now that I have Retribution, I like to find Qutrubs to fight during Undead Besiegeds. It's pretty fun to smack them for over 800 points of damage. I also finally managed to cap my Healing Magic in one besieged about a month ago - healing a skeleton. I still can't believe it took me 7 months to cap healing magic since I hit 75, since I seem to do nothing but heal so much of the time.

I'm not sure what I'll do once I've capped staff in Besieged. My Greatsword skill is so low (170-ish) that I probably will have troubles even hitting the mobs. I'll probably just go back to sword/shield instead of using it as an opportunity for skillups, though it is quite handy having Spirit Taker from staff.

Limbus: Temenos, Northern and Western Towers

The New Ultimates met in Jeuno on the Sunday night a week before Christmas, got our Cosmo-Cleanse from Sagheera, and headed to the Spatial Distortion at the Holla Crag. We had ten people for this run: Venn (DRG), Climixious (NIN), Ezekiel (SAM), Meshe (WHM), Astran (SMN), Sarntur (BLM), Kojita (DRG), Lucrezia (THF), Ranzz (BRD), and Tsakiki (PLD). We killed the NM flower to get our key item, and headed in to the Northern Tower of Temenos. This Limbus area has an environment similar to the Grand Palace in Lumoria. The mobs here are all different types of Beastmen: Moblins, Gigas, Sahagin, Demons, Antica, Tonberries, and then Goblins.

Having two tanks was a bit more confusing, but Clim would voke first, then I'd get on the opposite side of the mob, allowing Luc and Ezekiel to use SATA on either of us, depending on who had hate when their timers were back up. We didn't get as much time here as we had in Apollyon the week before, but we got 3 coins each, with two leftover for lotting - those went to me and Lucrezia. We also got the items for MNK, WHM, and BLM AF upgrades, so it seems like we did pretty good. We ended up wiping on the Tonberry floor - there's just too many summoners amongst them.

On Christmas Eve, only 5 of us we around, and we decided to give Temenos - Western Towen a try. We had Venn (DRG/NIN), Ezekiel (SAM/THF), Lucrezia (THF/NIN), Ranzz (BRD/WHM) and Tsakiki (PLD/WAR). The first floor has Enhanced Tigers, and we had a really tough time with the AOE paralysis attacks. We unlocked the transporter to the next floor rather quickly and decided to leave the tigers and move to the next floor, but ended up with two tigers on us and it was more than we could handle. It was a short run, but I ended up with two more coins.

We skipped New Year's Eve, and then last Sunday, we headed back to the Temenos - Western Tower again. We had 9 people this time, 2 BLMs, DRG, SAM, WHM, RDM, BRD, THF, and PLD. Thunderbolt the RDM was the only "new" person on the run, and I think we're getting more used to working together as a team. I had a lot of fun, and we did pretty well with the "small" group, ending up with 41 coins for the 9 of us. We made it up to the sixth floor (enhanced pugils), having fought tigers, mandragoras, beetles, lizards, and slimes along the way. One of the cool things in limbus is the Restore Chests - not only do they give you back all of your HP and MP, but your Job Abilities as well. So if we would get one of those, we wouldn't open it until after the next mob, when we'd blow all our 2-hours and mp. It's fun to be able to do that several times on a run.

I now have 14 coins. And 61 to go, just for the first item I want. :-)

Leveling: OK, Maybe I Should Just Cap Exp

With all my deaths these days, I've decided that maybe I should just get my exp capped at 43,999/44,000 and stay on experience mode so that I gain exp when I'm not capped, and limit points otherwise. Now that my Ninja is "done", I can read scrolls on my PLD again too. So, I actually went out for a couple short exp parties with other ClanBEB people over the New Years weekend.

We had one party at King Ranperre's Tomb with Itera (MNK/NIN), Thoron (MNK/NIN), and Elbryan (RDM/WHM). I went as PLD/RDM, and used staff since skeletons are weak to blunt weapons, and having Spirit Taker for getting MP would be handy. We probably fought for about an hour, but it was fun with just the 4 of us. I also got up to 265 on my staff skill - only 4 more levels to go until it's capped.

On New Year's Day, after I got my NIN to 37, we had another group head out to the new part of Bhaflau Thickets, where we fought VT Mamool Ja. I got to go as PLD/NIN and not have to pretend to tank, which was kind of fun. It was especially fun when we had about 4 mobs on us at once and we were all getting put to sleep and dangerously low on health. However, my damage numbers were pretty low, since I was spending half my time casting Cure IVs on everyone. We had Daden (WAR/NIN), Splinte (WAR/NIN), Easykill (MNK/NIN), Vyce (BRD/WHM), Yobun (RDM/WHM), and Kiki (PLD/NIN). Daden, the monster that he is, did 34%, Splinte and Easykill were both about 27%, and poor Kiki was just 11%.

I'd like to see how I could do in a party where I didn't cast a single spell, but that's never going to happen. My gear wasn't terrible (+34 STR with food, +47ish Attack, capped sword with 2 merits), but since that exp group, I've already improved it with a pair of dusk trousers I bought (another +15 attack, plus 35 HP to boot), and an upgrade to an Amemet Mantle +1 (another +1 STR and +5 attack). I picked up a Spike Earring, and am now trying to get a Bayard's Sword, but missed one on the AH by about 10 minutes. There seems to be one up a week, so I'll just have to keep at it. I guess I'll have to break down and get people to help me get a Joyeuse some day. I really hate asking people for help.

Dynamis: Another Flag

We didn't take any holiday breaks with Dynamis, and kept up with our twice a week runs. The LS has been improving and working better as a team, but we still have attendance issues, and really need to get more people if we want to beat Windurst and the Northlands. We haven't had sponsors lately, so the LS has been sponsoring runs and selling the currency to fund future unsponsored runs. What's been really odd about this though is that we've got a 100 coin/bill/shell on each of our LS funded runs. However, the AF2 drops have been very bad. It seems like it's one or the other. We're a bit light on THFs these days, which may be the reason AF2's been lacking.

We were really short on members last Saturday when we were going to try to farm Windurst. Another LS, DynamisSoldiers, wanted to do Windurst at the same time, so we decided to team up with them for the run. Each LS put up 500k for the hourglass, and we would let everyone main lot one job. We ended up with 50-55 people in the zone for the run, and we managed to get the flag. It wasn't really a pleasant experience - too much drama between the LSes - but it was interesting to see another group's tactics. We did things their way. The PLDs were simply on voke/flash/cure duty to protect the mages, and even got yelled at if they tried to melee. They used NINs as main tanks, and since the mobs were dead so fast with so many people, even the MNK mobs 100 Fists didn't matter much.

This week, we had what I think was our best run ever, in San d'Oria. We won again, getting more members the flag, but we didn't get a single piece of AF2. The trigger NM fights went very smoothly, as did the boss fight. We had one full wipe with the Summoners at the north gate (someone accidentally woke up an avatar and astral flow happened before anyone could get it asleep again), and another wipe while we tried to farm at the end with only 12 people still in the zone, but other than that, there weren't all that many deaths.

I've really been enjoying the changes they made to Sentinel, Rampart, and Shield Mastery in the last update. They've all helped improve my survivability in tough fights, as well as improved enmity and just overall damage reduction.

Missions: A Fate Decided (CoP 8-2)

Some of the people in our CoP static were pretty busy over the holidays, so we didn't get to Mission 8-2, A Fate Decided, until New Year's Day. We met up in Sealion's Den, and headed into the Grand Palace of Hu'Xoi. Yobun wanted to come along and help us, and met us there.

For this mission, we have to escort several Quasilumins though the corridors and rooms in the Palace in order to pass through certain gates and teleport between floors and finally make our way to the room where we fight an NM. Erecia's guide says this can take 4-5 hours, so we were concerned we'd be able to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Yobun and Akuma both said it was more like 2 hours, and Daden recently did the mission with a pickup group, and he said it took them 3 hours, so that made me feel a bit more comfortable.

The Ghrah mobs in the Palace change forms, and when they're in their ball form, they don't aggro, so we were able to avoid fighting several of these. Many rooms had spinning pots that detect by sight, and I don't think we managed to slip past one of these without fighting. For the parts of the trip that we had to escort the Qausilumins, we just killed everything along the way, to make sure the Qausilumin didn't get killed. The fights weren't too bad, though one of the Ghrahs hit us with a Blizzaga III followed immediately by a Core Meltdown, and Elboron got killed. We also had both Itera and Wendell disconnect at some point on our trip, but they both got back quickly.

One of the Quasilumins made it to his final spot while we were busy killing a pot, and it despawned before I could talk to it and get the gate unlocked. Fortunately none of the mobs had respawned along that path, and we just had to follow along as the Quasilumin sloooowwwlly floated along its path.

We were hoping to make it to the NM fight while it was still Darksday, since it will spam spells of the element of the day, but we ended up starting the fight on Firesday. The NM spawned in ball form, and sure enough, started spamming Firaga III on us toward the end of the fight. We lost both Grymalkyn and Splinte during the battle, but we won. Wendell raised the dead, and we all got our cutscene to complete the mission.

Only two more missions to go!

Leveling: Holiday Ninja

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything here for awhile. I've been using up my vacation time over the holidays, and as usual, spent more time playing than I should have.

One of my "projects" for the holidays was to get my Ninja to level 37, and have it as a useful subjob for my Paladin. I had soloed Ninja to 20 well over a year ago, with some assistance from Grymalkyn's WHM and Elboron's BRD for the last few levels, but then read exp scrolls on it, bringing it up to 28. That was just taking too long, so I decided to try soloing with Balu-Falu set as Soothing Healer.

I bought the quested scrolls I had previously sold for Blind, Slow and Poison, made a bunch of Shihei, Tsurara, and Sairui-Ran, bought some Kaginawa and Koduku, and gathered up the gear I needed, mostly from Grymalkyn and her mules. I headed out to Carpenter's Landing as a NIN28/MNK14, since the beetles there looked to be the right level. Things went pretty well, but one Tough Tiger was just too much for us, and I had to use my two hour after Balu-Falu was killed and I was paralyzed and couldn't get my shadows back up.

After that, I headed to Lower Delkfutt's Tower, and fought bats and giants. The AOEs from the giants weren't quite as bad as the tigers, but Balu-Falu had a couple pretty close calls there as well. When my empress band was active, it more than made up for the exp cut from having my NPC out, but it did get slow when it wore off. I got to 30, and decided I'd try looking for a party.

I had to buy the quested scroll for Jubaku, crafted a couple stacks of Jusatsu, replenished my other tools, and put my flag up. I didn't have to wait long for an invite, and headed off to replace a person in a party in Yhoator Jungle. I was pretty nervous to be tanking as a Ninja in a party for the first time, but figured I pretty much had the basics down. The party wasn't bad. We had a WAR/MNK who had been doing most of the tanking (I "replaced" the WHM), a THF who was about to hit 30, a BLM, a RDM, and a DRG. The WAR and I bounced hate around pretty well, and we made good progress. After the THF reached 30 and got SATA, we had the WAR first voke and then I'd get the SATA. This helped us keep the mobs off the BLM too.

The party dissolved, and I soon got another one. This one had a second NIN, and it was fun once we got in the groove and shared hate. The THF from the earlier party showed up as a replacement for the other Ninja, and when people started hitting 32, we headed for East Altepa, picking up another Ninja to replace a WAR that left. We had a really good time fighting the beetles, and even the dhalmels weren't so bad, though I did get killed once by them. I was surprised that it wasn't so bad playing NIN in a party after all, and finished up the night at level 33.

The next day, when I was getting ready to put up my flag, I got asked if I was interested in a party. I said yes, and headed off to Garlaige Citadel. The same THF (Blckfrncs) was in the party too, so I was hoping it would be another good one. Alas, it was really bad. The WHM was the party leader, and announced that he was dual-boxing another character to power level us, and wouldn't be doing much on his WHM character. We had a BLM, a WAR/NIN, and eventually a WAR/MNK rounding out the party. The WHM didn't cast protect, didn't once erase the constant evasion down from both the bats and the beetles, and had a hard time keeping up with the cures when my shadows were gone within 5 seconds of getting them up. The WAR/MNK didn't seem to know how to use provoke, and the WAR/NIN didn't like sharing tanking duties (was in DD gear rather than tanking gear). I ended up dead twice in less than an hour of fighting.

Then the WHM said he had to have dinner and would be back in 10 mintues. An hour later, he finally came back, but Blckfrncs had had to go in the meantime. We decided to continue as a 5-some, hoping he'd be back soon. After my third death of the party, shortly after we started fighting again, I said I just couldn't do that any more and left them. I've never once bailed on a party like that, but I was so furious that I couldn't stay. I killed easy prey beetles in Sauromogue for a bit and got to 34, then headed into Jeuno and got ready to go back out with Balu-Falu.

I decided to level around the Tavnazian Safehold, and killed bees and sheep in Lufaise until I hit 35, then mostly sheep, bugards, and crabs in Misareaux into 36. I'd also got scrolls from two escort quests, chocobo races, and cookbook quest over the weekend, and ended up less than 1000 exp from 37. I got my utsusemi ni scroll, and headed for East Altepa from Bastok, fighting a few giants in Korroloka Tunnel along the way. Balu-Falu and I fought a few tough beetles and I got my level! Hurray! I was "done" with Ninja! I read my pricey scroll and fought another mob to see how Ni worked. It's amazing how fast it casts.

It's just wrong that I could "solo" Toughs and get 252 points on a chain 1, but it was definitely fun. I was typically getting closer to 100 points when my ring was active, and I did have to let Balu-Falu get back his MP every few kills, but it was so much better than having to deal with idiots in a party. Using MNK as a subjob helped by having counter, but boost didn't generate quite enough hate for those times when Balu-Falu would pull hate. I had quite a few close calls with him.