Notorious Monsters: No Swift Belt for J00!

Elbryan organized a Swift Belt run for his gods LS, and invited Lucrezia and I to join in on the fun, since we both "need" a Swift Belt. He planned to have us start out in the level 40-capped Phomiuna Aqueducts to farm the Fomor Codices that would be needed to spawn the NMs, then switch over to the level 50-capped Sacrarium for building Fomor hate and spawning the NMs. He didn't think farming would take too long, but it ended up taking about 3 hours to get the six that were needed.

I got dressed up as BST/RDM and headed to the Aqueducts. Elbryan (RDM/WHM) and Littlejohn (THF/NIN) were already there, and we started in killing the lower level Tauri that are in the first room. The team filled up with Kaela WHM/BLM, Yobun DRG/WAR, Lucrezia BST/NIN, Ranzz BRD/WHM, Easykill NIN/WAR, Amyalfrodo PLD/WAR, and finally Davos BLU/THF. As we got more people, Lucrezia started pulling the higher level Stegotaurs from the next room further up. After everyone was there, we split into two groups, with Luc and I duoing the easy ones, while the "real" party moved up to the next area and took on the higher level ones.

There were plenty of Mortal Ray deaths all around, but in the BSTs' case, it was always our pets rather than us. After we got all the Fomor Codices we needed, we headed back to the Safehold and switched to other jobs for the level 50 capped Sacrarium. Littlejohn and Kaela both switched to NIN, Easykill switched to MNK, Yobun to WHM, and Lucrezia to THF. Jugernaut (RDM) and Rassitier (MNK) also joined us to help out.

Swift Belts drop off of spawned NM Fomor in the classrooms in Sacrarium. There is one of each race, and only a member of that race can spawn that particular NM, and they must have a very high level of Fomor Hate in order to do so. The different NMs have different jobs, which make some more difficult to fight than others, so our plan was to fight the Hume (RNG/MNK) and the Mithra (RDM/NIN), but we decided to try the Galka too (BRD/PLD). The Tarutaru and Elvaan are considered much too dangerous. Since we had to have an order for who would get a swift belt from which run, we decided to /random before each run, and the winner would be the one to use "their" codex, and get the swift belt if it dropped.

The first thing we had to do was get people enough Fomor Hate, so we started in killing all the Fomor around the Mithra's room. It took a longer time that we'd expected before we could actually spawn the first NM, but we got a bunch of subligars (I think every DRK Fomor but one dropped a subligar), and a couple chest keys as well, not to mention all the exp. The fights generally went pretty well, but the DRKs seem to like to use Grim Halo twice in a row, usually killing a bunch of us in the process. Amyalfrodo was given priority for the first spawn, since she had to go to work. Kaela spawned the Mithra NM, Caithleann, by trading a Fomor Codex to the Stale Draft spot in the room. We killed the NM, and sure enough, there was a Swift Belt for Amy.

We headed through the maze to the Hume room (since the Mithra room needed 15 minutes for the Stale Draft to return), cleared the area, and either Elbryan or Ranzz spawed Balor, the Hume NM. This one was for Easykill, and again, a Swift Belt dropped. We were pretty excited at that point, since we were 2/2, but ended up hours and hours later with only 4 Swift Belts out of 10 spawns. Yobun and Elbryan got the other two.

Since hate is reset when you trade the Codex to the Stale Draft, we decided to include the Galka, Indich, as well, since Yobun and Littlejohn could both spawn that. So we spent the day moving between the Mithra, Hume, and Galka rooms, clearing the Fomor, building hate, and spawning the NMs and getting or not getting swift belts in the process. We finished up at 8PM, 10 hours after I arrived in the Aqueducts for farming. At this point, we had dwindled down to just 8 of us, the helpers and the first two to get their swift belts having left us. What a long long day it was! There were plenty of deaths throughout the day, but I ended up with several thousand exp on my BST that I hadn't had when we started out in the morning.

Lucrezia and Elbryan have concocted a plan to try again as a foursome with Ranzz and me, since Lucrezia and I still want our swift belts. It should be a lot of fun trying at least. I think we're going to try it as RDM, RDM, THF, and BRD, but we'll see. I headed into the Aquaducts last night as BST/RDM to farm a Fomor Codex for myself, and I got one on the second Taurus, which was really nice. It was also good I did, since another BST showed up just then with the same idea in mind. The three Tauri aren't enough for two BSTs wanting the same thing.