Missions: Shield of Diplomacy (ToAU 22)

When the last big update came out last October, Grymalkyn and I spent the first evening post-update running around in Whitegate and environs, getting all of the cutscenes for the new missions that they added. We quickly got up to Mission 22, Shield of Diplomacy, which involves a BC fight with Khimaira 13, in the Navukgo Execution Chamber. We decided we would try to do that one with our usual crew, but since our usual crew doesn't seem to play much any more (and when they did, it was just for CoP or Ninja Blues), I started thinking I'd need to find other people to do it with. Last week SquareEnix announced the next update in early March would be adding new missions, and on Saturday, my husband told me that Grymalkyn would no longer be doing anything in-game other than liquidating assets.

So after Dynamis on Saturday, when someone said they wanted to do mission 22, I raised my hand and said I wanted to go as well. We ended up with a team of 2 PLD/WARs and 3 WHM/SMNs (Mayze, Tsakiki, Meshe, Sarntur, Fliggity), since Karababa does so much damage on her own, and we just needed to keep her alive. We used the Runic Portal to get to the Halvung Staging Point in Mount Zhayolm, and made our way to the Navukgo Execution Chamber. It's a long and scary walk, and three of us ended up getting aggro from the giant mothra monsters (Wamoura), which are true-hearing and not fooled by Sneak or Silent Oils.

From what we'd read about the fight, it seemed a sacrifice had to be made. Mayze volunteered to get aggro and die, so that Karababa would start fighting and we'd just keep her alive. However, it quickly became apparent that Mayze and I could actually tank Khimaira 13. It was a long fight, but no one died, and it was a lot of fun too. Mayze did most of the tanking, but I tried to keep my hate level high and pulled Khimaira off of him when his HP dropped too low. We all blew through pretty much our full MP during the fight (I used a couple of melon juices, and the WHMs were using Devotion on one another), but it wasn't as bad as some people had made out.

On Sunday morning, I completed the cutscenes up through Mission 25, and now have to wait until the next update for new missions.

New Title: Karababa's Secret Agent