Quests: Operation Desert Swarm, Melee Style (KSNM30)

On Sunday, Corbun wanted to do a round of Operation Desert Swarm, melee style. We ended up with Corbun (SAM/NIN), Yobun (WHM/SMN), Daden (NIN/WAR), Lucrezia (THF/NIN), Jaerik (SAM/NIN), and Tsakiki (PLD/NIN). I've been on a few manaburn runs, with Black Mages for hire, but on those I would merely stand back and watch the spectacle. For the melee style, the plan is to have a NIN tank 2 of the Platoon Scorpions, with 4 melee with NIN subbed each taking care of one of their own, and a WHM on hand for cures, buffs, and status removal.

We each picked up a Lachesis Orb in Port Jeuno, trading 30 Kindred Seals for it, then headed up to the Waughroon Shrine in Palborough Mines. The fights all went very smoothly, and were quite a lot of fun. We were each assigned a particular Platoon Scorpion (or two in Daden's case). We ran up to the edge of the arena, targetted our assigned foe, drew our weapons, and Corbun used his bow and arrow to pull them all to us. We each grabbed our Scorpion and fanned out over the arena to avoid each others' Scorpions' AOE attacks. Daden pulled his two into the entrance. We each worked on killing our own, then jumping in to defeat the others. Lucrezia usually finished hers first, then ran over to assist me, while Corbun and Jaerik would finish theirs and go help Daden. When Luc and I finished mine, we'd help get the last blows in on Daden's second scorpion. Meanwhile, Yobun would run around casting spells on people as they needed them.

It was really quite an easy way to do this KSNM, and I don't know why it has a reputation of being hard to do without manaburning it. Of course, it took us 5-6 minutes for each run, compared to under 2 minutes for a burn, but still, it's not like it's really time-consuming. Unfortunately, despite the full moon, we got terrible treasure. I think the total for all 6 runs was under 300k - not exactly a good payoff for the 180 Kindred Seals.