Salvage: Zhayolm Remnants

Venn, in an effort to spend every day of the week with members of his various Ultimates linkshells, has added yet another activity to the agenda. He's created a new shell, UltimatesForever, specifically for Salvage. We're meeting on Friday nights, and had our first run last week. We had 11 people for our inaugural run, and Albany is guiding us in our infancy.

Salvage is like Limbus in that you can have up to 18 people participating, you have a time limit, and you're trying to defeat mobs to get items that can be turned into really amazing gear, such as the Ares armor. It has a 100 minute time limit, with no extensions. The fee for entering is 2000 Assault Points, which means people have to keep doing assaults to get enough points for Salvage, as well as any Assault items they might want.

When you first enter Salvage, you have no access to your job abilities or subjobs, you cannot equip any gear, and your stats are all severely reduced (-50 on all visible stats at least). The mobs you encounter can drop "cells" of different types that will lift one particular restriction from the individual that gets to use it. There's strategy involved in deciding who gets what first, to best benefit the whole team.

We meant to start out with Bhaflau Remnants as our first run, but ended up in Zhayolm Remnants instead. It was pretty amusing watching the group running around in their underwear, punch mobs. Most of us were pretty pitiful, with no hand-to-hand skill, but Itera was doing a good job of killing things, even with his bare fists.

I nominated Jarbit to be main tank, since we were were the two PLDs and he's got more HP than me, so he was the first to get his subjob, then weapon and shield, then job abilities. Goto was our only WHM, and he was the first to get his use of magic unlocked. A few mobs will "drop" treasure chests, which contain temporary items such as regen milk and HP restore potions, which came in quite handy. It was a bit chaotic, and we ended up with nearly a full wipe on a Poroggo NM, but we got back up and continued on up to the second floor. We ended up timing out before we'd made significant progress, but it was really an awful lot of fun. I'm eager to go back tonight and see what we can do!

Dynamis: Qufim

This Wednesday, we headed to Qufim Island to see how'd we'd fare in Dynamis-Qufim. Like the other CoP Dynamis zones, we'd be starting without our subjobs. We'd have 60 minutes to get the Megaboss killed, and then would get an hour extension for farming. I won the tank /random, and Jarbit was on backup. This was Amyalfrodo's first run with us - one of the cities might have been a more gentle introduction to the Paladin role in Dynamis, but I think she had fun anyway.

Things were a bit disorganized, mostly because we had to move quickly, and people were a bit anxious. We were told we wouldn't do anything right away, as Goldfish, Lucrezia, and Krimsonfury would be off in search of the ??? spots to release our subjobs. As I was getting ready - eating my food, using my reraise gorget, Firenze pulled a group of bats. I wasn't expecting that yet, and someone said "don't pull", but Firenze appeared with five bats chasing her. My immediate reaction was to use my provoke macro, but a no-subjob PLD doesn't have provoke, so that was pretty useless. I switched over to my Flash macro, and grabbed one of them. Meanwhile, Firenze died and kind of bitched at me about it. I'm not sure what she expected me to do with multiple bats - it's not like I have Flashga or anything. Plus it would have been nice if she'd given us a bit of warning, and we'd known what was about to happen. The BLMs could have been ready with sleepga, the PLDs could have been ready with flash.

We finished off the bats, and headed off in one direction, then another. We pulled a statue that popped a bunch of Quadavs. The first one killed me pretty quickly, so I sat on the sidelines while they cleaned those up, then killed a Water Elemental. Apparently the Megaboss is resistant (immune?) to all types of elemental magic, but by killing different NM Elementals that are roaming about, you remove the resistance to that particular element.

The next victim on the list was an NM Kraken. He murdered a few pullers, but we finally got him to the group got him dead, not without a few more deaths in the process (including me and Jarbit, meaning Amy got her first taste of main-tanking in Dynamis). Killing the Kraken is supposed to reduce the Megaboss's auto-regen capability, which would be a good thing.

The thieves were having no luck finding the ??? spot, and were dying repeatedly while searching. So we pressed on, heading toward Behemoth's Dominion, killing some Quadavs along the way. There were a few snoll-induced deaths when people got aggro'd, but they didn't slow us down too much. We killed the Ice Elemental, and then a set of Nightmare Rocs, but we were running out of time, so we couldn't get to an NM that you kill to reduce the Megaboss's magic defense.

So it was on Antaeus, a Gigas NM, still without our subjobs. Antaeus is a ranger, and has a terrible version of Catapult called Trebuchet. It's an AOE, and inflicts massive damage on everyone in its path. Firenze was one-shotted while trying to pull him, and then when we finally got him to camp, he used it twice, which took out almost all of our damage-dealers. The PLDs took significantly less damage, so we tried to fight it for awhile, but we didn't seem to be making much of a dent in it. The last two alive were Buffdaddy (NIN) and Meshe (WHM), but first Meshe, and then Buffdaddy were killed, just as time was expiring on our hourglasses.

All in all, it was a really good learning experience, and we'll do much better next time!

Last Saturday we had a decent farming run in Windurst. We were supposed to have a Xarcabard run, but a Japanese linkshell went in about 90 minutes before our start time, so rather than wait, we headed to Windurst. Lumikumi got his Valor Leggings, and we also got DRK, THF, and SAM relic. I didn't get any screenshots in Qufim, but here's one from Windurst!

Leveling: Soloing as WHM/BST (15-17)

On Sunday, I decided to see how soloing as WHM/BST would work out. I got all my gear ready, grabbed three Vampire Juices Qiara had made out of red terrapin she had lying around, bought a brass hammer at the AH, and headed out from Windurt. I made my way to the Maze, stopping in Buburimu Penninsula on the way to check the mob levels (mostly Tough). The bats in the Maze were also Tough, so I fought the Akbabas near the zone, using one as a pet to kill the others. This went fairly well until night time. A Tough ghost proved to be much too tough, and I high-tailed it to the Crag and popped into Al'Taieu to escape its fury.

After that, I headed west a bit, and mostly fought Dhalmels. I'd been a bit displeased with how things were going with charmed mobs, so I called Balu-Falu to help me. I'd set him as Stalwart Shield before I left town, and that worked out really well. He pretty much held hate, and did more damage then pets did. I kept his health up, and bonked the mobs with my hammer. Things went quite well, and I managed several Chain #2s, which isn't bad for a solo WHM. :-)

Just after I hit 16, I spotted Serpopard Ishtar, the NM Dhalmel. The last time I saw him was before I created Kiki - back when Grymalkyn was a subjobless newbie herself. There was an Even Match Dhalmel near him, so I ran up, charmed the EM, and sent it in to fight Serpopard. I started fighting as well, but ended up getting scared, and ran off, leaving Balu-Falu and the dhalmel to whittle him down. As soon as I got out of range and put my weapon away, Balu-Falu came running after me as well. He still had hate, and as Serpopard got closer, I saw that they'd taken a good chunk off his HP, so I popped a vampire juice and started fighting again.

It was a really close fight, and when my pet came uncharmed, I was afraid it was all over, but I recharmed it, and we killed Serpopard! Both Balu-Falu and my pet Dhalmel had about 10 HP left, but at least we were all still standing. We got a bit lucky - Serpopard's last TP move was Berserk. If he'd used healing breeze, I think I would have lost the fight. I got 140 points for the kill, even with the penalties for having an NPC and a pet. I'd like to say I soloed a level 20 NM as a level 16 WHM, but really it was a trio...

My experience points dropped off a bit at 16, so I headed back to Buburimu, and was happy to see some of the bunnies and mandies were now even matches. Balu-Falu and I would fight those, or I would charm them and use them to help fight Toughs. I really did like soloing with Balu-Falu, and didn't end up charming all that much for the two levels, but when I do this again, I will keep subbing BST. It gives me that extra bit of safety in emergencies, as well as allows me to take on tougher mobs than I could without a pet. One thing I ended up doing a lot was charming a pet, sending it off to fight a tough mob, and waiting for the mob to kill the pet and come after me. Balu-Falu and I would then finish it off, and I'd get more points than I would if I had both Balu-Falu and a pet.

One interesting I noticed - Balu-Falu changed his outfit when I zoned with him, just as he normally would when I'd call him again after having him out.

After hitting 17, I walked back to town to send all my WHM gear back off to the mules and get back to my PLD75 for Limbus later that evening.

Assault: Nyzul Isle Investigation

Early in March, Jarbit announced his intention to start a static for Nyzul Isle Assaults. These were added in the last update, and from the description SquareEnix provided, they sounded like an exciting challenge. Jarbit wanted to go in blind - learning as we go, reading only things provided by Square - no strategy guides, no threads from internet forums. Several of us thought this was a great approach, and we ended up with a team that would do 3 of the Nyzul Isle Investigation assaults on Friday nights, hoping to have a fun time, and perhaps get some neat gear while we're at it.

The team ended up being: Jarbit (as BLM), Frostwitch (RDM), Goto (WHM), Venn (DRG), Itera (MNK), and Tsakiki (PLD). Meshe originally wanted to join us as well, but he's in a twice-a-week assault static with Divinities and Fliggity, so he doesn't have any tags to use for Nyzul Isle.

I've been putting off writing about this until we actually accomplished something, but it's really been a frustrating experience. For this assault, there are 100 randomly generated levels that you tackle in groups of 5. Once you've completed the fifth level, you can save your progress. Using tokens that you've gotten from your successful runs, you can start out at a saved level. The levels each have an objective, which can be "eliminate all enemies" (our favorite), "eliminate specified enemies", "eliminate specified enemy", and "light all the lamps". There can be sub-objectives added, such as "do not destroy the archaic gears". You're also limited to 30 minutes to get through the five levels.

The gears seem to be true-sight though, and definitely aggro magic from a long distance, so it's tough to kill the specified enemies while the gears are bashing away at you. Another really annoying sub-objective is when the lamps are meant to be lit in a specific order. The last time we got that level, it took us 28 minutes to get the order right.

At first it was kind of exciting, running around in a new environment, confronting mobs we don't normally see, but then it just started getting really annoying with the lost experience when we'd wipe to a swarm of angry gears we were trying to not kill, or the "puzzle" game of the lamps (of course aggressive monsters surround most the lamp posts).

Our last two Fridays we've done one Nyzul Isle assault, and then switched over to normal assaults, since we all need the points for items and/or Salvage, and it's good to get rank increases for Sanction. Two weeks ago we did 2 runs of Lamia No. 13, but lost the second when we were all too close and got charmed. As we uncharmed one at a time, we'd each get killed in turn. It was fun though. Last week we did one run of the Orichalcum Survey, but didn't find the ore until 1 second before we timed out.

I'm not sure what the future holds for this static. We all fell in love with Salvage after our first run last Saturday, so assault points are needed, and you don't get any from Nyzul Isle Investigation. Perhaps we'll try one run of Nyzul Isle each week, followed by two runs of other assaults for our Salvage points. All I know is that Nyzul Isle just ceased being any fun at all. It's not a challenge so much as random luck at what type of floors you get for your runs.

Crafting: Veteran Chef

I've been spending a lot of my "spare" time in-game working on Qiara's cooking skills, and it's been going rather smoothly. She made sole sushi until she was 84, started making Yellow Curry (85 cap), but that didn't sell terribly well, so I moved her over to Marron Glace (86 cap). It's really a very cheap synth, and sells quickly on the AH. Kiki made maple sugar from maple logs she bought at the Woodworking Guild in Al Zahbi, getting a lot of HQs in the process. Quiznos is the San d'Orian grocery boy, and buys whatever Qiara might need: Chestnuts, San d'Orian Grapes, La Thiene Cabbages, Selbina Milk.

I wanted Qiara to make some Pescatore for Kiki, so I spent a day running around everywhere, catching Gold Lobster in East Sarutabaruta, Grimmonites in Sea Serpent Grotto, and Sandfish in Rabao. I've also been keeping up with Black Sole fishing when I've got time before Dynamis or Limbus. Kiki's Fishing skill is 70.2 now as a result. I wish fishing skilled up as quickly as cooking has been for Qiara.

Tarutaru Rice prices went back up since my last crafting update, so I've had Ohrly busy growing a lot of it. I have about 8 stacks on hand for my next bout of sushi (Dorado Sushi caps at 93, so I should get busy catching Noble Ladies on the Ferry).

After capping on Marron Glace, I thought perhaps I could have Qiara start making Flint Caviar, which is made from Emperor Roe, which is made from Emperor Fish. So I headed to the Glacier to try fishing some up, but they were really hard to catch - using a stack of trout balls (they didn't bite on sliced carp), I hooked 8 of the fish, but could only reel in two of them. So the next plan was to make Coeurl Sautee (cap at 88), which I would then use to make Coeurl Subs (cap at 93).

Qiara had a lot of coeurl meat on hand, honey was cheap at the AH, grape juice is easy to make with a constant supply of grapes from San d'Oria. The biggest "trouble" was wild onions, but Kiki made several trips to the Outer Hurototo Ruins to beat up Goblin Thugs until she had a couple stacks to send Qiara, and repeated the process when those were gone. I ran out of meat before capping, and made one small trip to Zi'Tah to farm some more, but Ranzz and Lucrezia have been spending a lot of time killing Coeurls in the Labyrinth of Onzozo lately, and Ranzz sent me a few stacks of meat. By the time I had capped on the sautees, I had over 50 of them on hand.

Having reached 88, Qiara was ready for her next guild test. They wanted her to make a Seafood Stew, and all she needed was a Gold Lobster, so Kiki fished one up for her. Qiara made the stew, turned it in at the guild, and is now a Veteran in the guild. I really should start working on guild points and get her an apron and hat, but I'd rather just focus on leveling for the time being.

I laid in a good supply of white bread, la thiene cabbages, mithran tomatoes, crying mustard, and selbina butter, and Qiara made stack after stack of Coeurl Subs over the past week. I also threw in a few odd synths where I had the ingredients, just to see if she might get another skillup, such as Vampire Juice (handy for soloing WHM), and Rolanberry Pies (hit the cap of 90 for those on the three synths I had ingredients for).

I'll finish up all the Coeurl meat, since the subs sell relatively well (it will take me a long time to sell off all that I've made already, since I refuse to flood the market), but I'd also like to make a bunch of Tavnazian Salads, which cap at 92. Kiki uses about two stacks of tacos a week, and it would be nice to skill up while making some salads then turn them into tacos for Kiki. I'll have to do a bunch of fishing in the meantime, but a lot of it will have skillup potential, so it's all good.

Dynamis: Another Update

It's been a few weeks, so it's time for another exciting Dynamis update!

On April 4th, we had our first Bastok run in a long time. Amyalfrodo decided it was time to join her husband in Dynamis, so we made it a flag run to get her started as part of the TU team. It's good to get another PLD in the group, but she wasn't actually present for the run, having a previous real-life commitment. Alfrodo was playing BLM and couldn't really dual-box her character as well, but he made sure she touched the ??? spot after we killed the Mega Boss. It was a really good farming run - we passed our record for relic drops (14, I think it was), but we have killed more mobs on a previous run. Lumikumi finally got his Valor Coronet, so I think he was pretty happy. I was main tank on that run - I think it was the last time I won the tanking /random.

The following Saturday, we had a farming run in Dynamis-Xarcabard. It was a pretty sloppy run, and we only 32 people there. Goldfish wasn't there at the start, and we got confused on the first pull. Fortunately it wasn't a wipe, but it did slow us down a bit. Other pulls didn't go so well either. I guess it was a combination of lack of experience, bad luck, and people just not really being with it that night. We didn't get a single relic drop on the run, and not much currency either. Lumikumi and I were the only two PLDs, and Daden and Aphex were the only NINs.

On the 11th, we were supposed to have another Xarcabard farming run, and do better this time, but another LS, which doesn't follow the Rusty Buckets calendar except to poach places from other linkshells, took it about an hour before we would have been able to. Beaucedine was free, so we headed there instead, and got three pieces of relic (WHM and BRDx2), plus a 100 piece, so that worked out pretty well.

Saturday the 14th was simply miserable. It was my first Dynamis-Valkrum run, and I was pretty excited beforehand. I was expecting it to be more difficult than Buburimu had been, but I didn't expect it to be a complete disaster. It was the first run for a lot of us, so we weren't quite certain about what to expect, since reading guides on the web aren't the same as actually being there. Like Bubu, we start out in Valkrum with 60 minutes, and no subjobs. The first task at hand is to have three pullers grab Nightmare Flies from scattered areas in the Dunes, and to bring them back to the camp at the Outpost. Killing these three flies will give us back out subjobs. Ideally, this will be done within 10 minutes of entering the zone. The pulls went badly, and half the group was wiped out by a swarm of rampaging Nightmare Sabotenders. After recovering and getting clean pulls, we got our subjobs, but we'd already been in the zone for close to half an hour.

Next we headed down to the Valkrum Emperor's beach, where Fairy Ring, an NM funguar would be pulled from the tunnel. This funguar hits so hard and fas. Albany, then Jarbit, then I were dropped like sacks of potatoes. But the team was able to defeat the Funguar, and we headed over to the Selbina zone. The Mega Boss, a Malboro NM sits there. He doesn't aggro until you attack him, so we all started preparing for the Mega Boss fight. Killing the Mega Boss would give us a 60 minute time extension, which we would then use to farm for relic and upgrade items. So the melees put on their Opo-opo Necklaces and started drinking their stack of sleeping potions, while the BLMs tested their spell distance, and the RDMs worked out their stun order.

Just after I popped my last sleeping potion, a swarm of mobs suddenly appeared, and moments later, we were all lying there dead. Apparently one of the BLMs had a macro "accident", and hit the Mega Boss with a spell before anyone was ready. There was no way to reraise at that point - we would have been instantly killed again - so that was it for the night. We'd killed 4 mobs total. Hopefully things will go more smoothly next time. At least we got to learn a bit about the zone.

Last night, we headed back to Beaucedine for another farming run. We were a bit short on people (only 32), and didn't get quite as far as we normally do, but we did get RNG and RDM relic, as well as a 100 piece for the treasury. It's always fun when someone gets another piece of relic. The Socks were the final piece Firenze needed for her complete RNG set (including the belt), so she was terribly excited!

Notorious Monsters: NM Tuesday

Something is very odd in Vana'diel. We ran into three unclaimed NMs in one evening. It started out after our 645th Besieged (Undead Swarm). Yobun needed some help opening the Garlaige Citadel Banishing Gates so he could find a Treasure Coffer for his BST AF. Itera and I joined him, and he dual-boxed Ijin as well. As we were heading down to the basement behind Banishing Gate #1, I spotted a cockatrice up ahead. I've never seen a cockatrice in GC, so it was a bit of a surprise. Turned out to be Skewer Sam, an NM that drops a not-too-popular Wind Spear. We got a new title for it though, Beakbender, so that was fun.

Then just around the corner, Old Two-Wings was flapping about. We killed him as well, but didn't get the coveted Bat Cape.

We left Yobun behind Banishing Gate #3, with several RMTish BLMs, and Itera headed back to Whitegate, while I went to try farming Coeurl Meat in the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah (note to self, sub Thief next time). Yobun got a coffer pretty quickly, and headed out the back entrance to Sauromugue Champaign. He nearly ran straight into Roc. Thoron and Itera quickly headed from Whitegate to Sauromugue, Thoron enlisted the help of his BLM friend Shutupanddie, and I used OP warps to get back there myself. Yobun logged Ijin back in, and we all gathered to the north of Roc's plateau. Yobun charmed a raptor, sent it to fight Roc, got drawn in, but managed to make it to the cliff edge without dying.

It took us awhile to kill him, especially since he used Benediction to heal himself for nearly 14,000 HP at one point, but Ijin and I kept Thoron alive, and we defeated the giant bird. We got a vile elixir, reraiser, and crimson blade for our troubles, but again, the new title, Roc Star, was the real reward.

New Titles: Beakbender, Roc Star

Assault: Repeats for Assault Points

I've been doing assaults some what regularly, and even managed to get enough repeats to be able to do the Lance Corporal promotion quest 4 weeks ago, despite having only done 2 unique assaults since my Superior Private promotion. Of course that was last August, so you'd think I'd have gotten 25 points a bit sooner..

ClanBEB has started doing Assaults on Monday evenings, and the thought is to repeat easy ones in areas where people need points for a specific piece of gear until everyone has what they need, and then move on to the next one. Meanwhile, people are getting enough repeats to be able to rank up, but some of us would like to try more of the assaults we've never done before.

The main one we've been doing is the PFC Mamool Ja Staging Point Assault, Preemptive Strike. I kind of like it since we end up with close to 1,000 exp/limit points for each run, and it's so quick and easy with a couple of monks and a war plowing through the Mamool Ja.

Anastasia, Yobun, and I also did several runs of Saving Private Ryaaf - this time with me as PLD/BST for wide-scan. That was helpful for seeing whether an Experimental Undead was blocking a corridor on the way to the cell rooms.

The Lance Corporal Promotion quest was pretty easy - I had to collect water samples from 5 springs in the Woodlands and Thickets, and bring them back to the Alchemy Guild in Whitegate. I was a bit worried about getting aggro near the ponds, but it wasn't really a problem. I used my chocobo whistle to get my chocobo to take me from pond to pond as well, which was pretty handy. When I got back to Whitegate, I tested the samples with the alchemist, and came up with a sample with a high concentration of Mythralline, which netted me two gold pieces as my reward, along with my new mercenary rank.

New title: Lance Corporal

Leveling: Black Mage, Solo versus Party (34-35)

Easter Sunday, I decided it was time to dust off my Black Mage gear, and see if I could get a level or two. I figured I'd go solo worms in Attohwa Chasm, so after I pulled together all the gear I needed, I used the OP warp to Bubu and walked up to the Chasm, using a Silent Oil to get past the Hecteyes so I could kill the worms near the first bridge. I had just finished killing my first worm when I got a tell from a THF34 that was trying to put together a party for Garliage Citadel. I hadn't had my flag up, but I said sure, and warped back to Whitegate, headed to Jeuno, grabbed a stack of Melon Pies +1, and headed to the Citadel with the party.

I knew it had been awhile since I'd played BLM, but was surprised to realize that I hadn't actually leveled BLM since February 2006, especially since I easily fell back into the BLM rhythm of Rasp/Frost/Choke, wait for the second provoke, nuke, repeat enfeebles as needed, help out with healing, sit on my butt for MP. The party itself was a bit odd: THF/NIN, Galka MNK/WAR tank, DRK/WAR, WHM/SMN, RDM/WHM, BLM/RDM. When I say "odd", I guess I mean it was a pretty crappy little party. The MNK had loads of HP, but took loads of damage. The DRK/WAR loved popping Berserk and Last Resort, which of course pulled hate and he'd take massive damage. The WHM would tell the THF to pull when he had less than 30 MP, since the little Taru BLM had "plenty" (i.e. 150/499), and we all know that little Taru BLMs love using all their MP up dropping weak Cure IIs on people.

I did get to 35 with the party, but the WHM suddenly announced "g2g" and disbanded. No one seemed to want to reform, so I made my way back to Attohwa Chasm and spent a couple hours nuking worms. It wasn't very speedy experience, but was kind of relaxing really. I'd pretty much just kill a worm, wait for Rasp to wear, rest until my MP was full, and repeat. Handy when I need to go AFK a bit. I think I'll start in on Goblin Pets the next time I take my BLM out to play. That should be pretty exciting!

Leveling: White Mage meets the Dunes (11-15)

I've had a couple of Fridays off work recently, one on an at-home vacation week, the other for Good Friday, and I opted to take my White Mage off to the Valkurm Dunes both of those days. I changed into my WHM11, gathered the gear I needed, and spell scrolls for the upcoming levels, and got a Teleport-Dem from Ijin. I was a little disappointed that the Dunes were fairly deserted, but I stood by the outpost guard at the zone with my flag up and waited. And waited some more. Eventually, a subjobless WAR14 asked if I wanted to team up, and since it's less important for the WHM to be the same level as the rest of the party, I agreed.

It took us awhile, but eventually we put together a full party. I'd been given lead at one point, and the level 13s and 14s were reluctant to even respond to tells from a WHM11, but I pointed out the rest of the party was their level and I was just healing anyway. We tried hard to be a good little party, but just couldn't quite pull it together. It took hours to get one level, and then it was time for me to head off for my Friday night Nyzul Isle Investigation static (which I really should write something about at some point).

The next free Friday, I was feeling masochistic or something, and repeated the process. I was in Bastok at the time, and with the Egg-stravaganza event, I was hoping I could get a Teleport-Dem from there. Before I'd finished getting my WHM12 dressed and ready to leave town, I got a tell from a WAR13 in the Dunes, promising me a party if I could get out there. I finished my preparations, shouted in Markets to offer 5k for a Teleport-Dem, and got one nice and quick. I figured from one of the starter cities, you have to make it worth someone's time... Meanwhile, the WAR13 had disappeared. So, I put my flag up and stood next to the outpost guard at the zone until I was invited to a newly forming party.

The party started out with a BRD, DRK, WAR, WAR, WHM, and BLM I believe, and we camped up on the ridge near Siren Sands. We had a PL for a bit, which I still don't like. Between the PL doing all of the curing, and the BLM casting Dia, Paralyze, and Slow, I didn't feel like I had much to do. The PL left, and we mostly did OK, though once in awhile we'd get a tougher than usual Snipper and we'd have a death or two. I couldn't keep up with the healing using Cure Is, and I'd pull too much hate with the Cure IIs. Usually the WARs could pull it back off of me before I died, and I even resorted to trying to kite one or two to buy some time. I'd set my HP at the zone guard, so I was quickly back to camp after my deaths.

The afternoon turned out to be better than I expected, but that's not really saying it was a good time, it was still the dunes. I got to level 15 though, so at least the next time I take out my WHM, if I need to go to the Dunes, I can chocobo there from San d'Oria or Bastok. When the party disbanded, I made my way to the Holla crag and took the short-cut to the Tavnazian Safehold through Al'Taieu. I guess I could probably have run to San d'Oria in about the same amount of time, but there's something about running through Sea as a level 15 White Mage that I find amusing.

One thing that I found interesting was that there are still a lot of subjobless people working their way through the dunes. I'm sure some of them are new characters made by experienced players, but a lot of them are completely new. It's nice to see people are still being attracted to a game that's coming up on its 5 year anniversary. I can't believe I've been playing for over 3 years myself.

Events: Egg Hunt Egg-stravaganza 2007

I hadn't really planned on participating in this year's Egg-stravaganza, since Grymalkyn and I used to have fun doing these events together, and Grymalkyn isn't really there any more. However, I decided I "needed" an Egg Helm and a Jeweled Egg. I had all of the other items from previous Egg Hunts, so I would just need eggs spelling T, S, A, and one of the regions controlled by one of the countries.

Itera had a T and S for me, and had given me some random eggs as well, and I picked up a couple from moogles on Sunday morning. I ended up buying an A, and L, K, H to go with my Z-U from bazaars for 800-2000 each. I first traded the TSA to a moogle for my Egg Helm, and then the ZULKH for my jeweled egg, and I was done!

I really can't believe the design they used for the helm. It will always be known as the Boob Hat in my house. Here's a picture of Goto, Itera and I having some fun posing in Jeuno before Limbus on Sunday...

Limbus: Limbus Update

I've fallen behind on my Limbus entries, but we've been going regularly every Thurday and Sunday evening, usually with 10 or more people each time. We've also been completing the levels, gathering more chips for future Proto-Omega and Proto-Ultima fights, and it's been a lot of fun.

We fought Proto-Omega several weeks ago, with 16 people in the alliance. We had both Thom and I as PLD/NIN and Daden as NIN/WAR for tanking. The fight was really a chaotic mess, and we were dying and reraising over and over. Hopefully we'll do better next time. I'm not positive that the /NIN really helped me all that much, as so much of Omega's attacks ignore shadows. It was so hard to get hate as PLD/NIN, especially with Flash timers so long while weakened.

Several weeks ago, Venn, Meshe, Itera and I tried to help Armageddon and Goto with CoP 6-4, the Omega/Ultima airship fight, in an effort to get them to Sea quickly. I went as RDM, and Army as PLD, with Venn as DRG, Meshe SMN, Itera MNK and Goto WHM. We tried three times, but just couldn't do it. Goto was able to do it later with a pickup party, and on Sunday he was still stuck on Mission 7-3: just 3 NMs and a Tenzen fight away from Sea.

So instead of just standing around in Jeuno waiting for our Cosmo-Cleanse to be available, the Limbus group took off on a whirlwind tour of Bibiki Bay, Carpenters Landing, and Misareaux Coast to kill the NMs for Goto. He headed to Bastok for a cutscene with Cid, while Ezekiel (SAM), Itera (MNK), Neborin (BLM), Daden (WAR), and I (PLD) grabbed Icarus Wings and waited for him in Sealion's Den. We made short work of Tenzen, and a very excited Goto got to Sea for the first time, where he apparently was promptly killed by a UFO. Then we gathered together in Port Jeuno for our Limbus run.

This Sunday's run was Apollyon NE, which is probably my least favorite of the zones. I ended up dying 4 or 5 times - the Goobbue, Greater Birds, and Giants just hit too hard and too fast. We still won though, getting 59 coins, even though we skipped the pots and some of the Opo-Opos. We also didn't need to kill the melee-resistant Gigas, which was handy, since we were light on the mages - just Thom on SMN and Neborin as BLM this week (and Morgoth's RDM). I think Goto really enjoyed his first Limbus run! We had 13 people for the run. I think our group is pretty close to being full now, since several people were missing because of the Easter holiday. As more members of TheUltimates get Sea, they'll start a second Limbus shell.

This run put me over the 75 Ancient Beastcoin mark, so last night I went to see Sagheera in Port Jeuno, and finally bought my Boxer's Mantle from her. Hurray for 10 more Shield Skill! I think that puts me at 312 Shield Skill. I'll have to see how the enmity loss from not using High Breath Mantles works out, but I'm hoping this will be my default mantle until I get my hands on either a Valor Cape or Shadow Mantle... hahahaha... /sigh

Dynamis: Dynamis-Buburimu

I was very excited on Saturday, since TheUltimates had Dynamis-Buburimu scheduled. This would be my first run in a Chains of Promathia Dynamis zone, also known as Dreamworld Dynamis. In order to enter CoP Dynamis zones, you need to have beaten Diabolos in CoP Mission 3-5. There's been a big push in the shell to get people past that point, with some even doing the mission that morning to be ready. There are still a few people that haven't even done the Promyvions yet, but hopefully they'll get up to Chapter 4 before too long.

The run was really a lot of fun. It differs quite a bit from the "regular" Dynamis zones. First of all, you only have 1 hour in the zone until you've killed the Mega Boss, which gives you a time extension of an hour. There are no other time bonuses available. You're only allowed to take a maximum of 36 people in the zone, as opposed to the 64 in regular Dynamis. When you first enter, you have no subjob. In order to regain our subjobs in Buburimu, three runners had to find a ??? spot that can be in one of four places scattered throughout the zone. So beforehand, Goldfish took Lucrezia and Krimsonfury around the Buburimu Pennisula to get a feel for where to go to look for the spots.

We were missing a few people, and only had two of our normal PLDs show up (Jarbit was needed on BLM), so Albany was asked to come as PLD too. Eulucia was the only one there as NIN. When it came time to /random for main tank, Lumikumi went first with a 165, Kiki followed with a 134, and then Albany with something like 62. It was pretty funny to see the really low lots. We ended up with 32 or 33 people for the run, and got ready to head in. Goldfish, Lucrezia and Krim got the first three hourglasses and headed in to run off and try to find the ??? spot, while the rest of us tried to hurry and get in as well.

The Mega Boss is a dragon, Apocalyptic Beast. He's already there when you enter, and walks all over the zone, apparently sticking to the roades. There are Beastmen NMs and Dragons that each have specific job two-hours or dragon abilities, all of which the Apocalyptic Beast can us if that particular Beastman or Dragon is still alive. So the strategy is to eliminate the Beastmen and Dragons with the most dangerous abilities.

I didn't keep track of the mobs we killed, and we all followed Goldfish to different locations and killed what was brough to us. We started out with a few dragons at the zone which ended up dispelling all of our buffs - reraise, food, what-have-you. Next time I'll know to wait until we get past those dragons efore using items. We ended up over at the ramp down to the beach that heads towards Bibiki Bay and Goldfish pulled a dragon and told us to pull it down the ramp. People missed that part, and we ended up with a full wipe from repeated Body Slams. At one point, it was just Lumikumi and I futilely trying to "finish" it off, and Goldfish got in a couple shots after we fell.

Goldfish declared the run a loss, as time was getting short, and we'd lost sight of the wandering Apocalyptic Beast, and that dragon would be at full health by the time we'd be back on our feet. However, Goto especially argued that we could do it, and certainly should try. Venn agreed we could try, so we quickly raised everyone, handing out R1s, R2s, and R3s as they were available. As soon as everyone was unweakened, Goldfish brought the dragon back to us, and this time we fought it at the bottom of the ramp, with mages up on the cliff, out of range of the AOE. We killed it with only a few deaths, and then the hunt was on for the Boss.

Firenze, who'd come as RNG for the run, spotted the Apocalyptic Beast on widescan, and was sent to quickly pull it. We went all out on the boss, using our two hours, and somehow, we managed to win, with merely a few seconds to spare! It was terribly exciting.

We'd bought ourselves an hour for farming, and cleared the Nightmare Crabs and the Nightmare Efts, getting Valor Gauntlets -1 from the crabs and Sorceror's Gloves -1 from the efts. Jarbit won the lot for the PLDs, and Sarntur won the lot for the BLMs. These items are used to upgrade their Relic items to the +1 versions, which will be quite nice for them to have! We headed over to the outpost and started killing the Nightmare Bunnies, but they decided to kill us instead. After a half wipe, we somehow managed to lose aggro from all but one of them. Allia was keeping that one slept until our hourglasses expired, which provided a nice photo opportunity with the nice little evil bunny rabbit. Before we timed out, we killed the bunny, but a couple of people who were still weakened got hit with whirlclaws and died again.

It was a really fun and exciting run, and a nice change of pace.

New Title: Dynamis-Buburimu Interloper

Notorious Monsters: Swift Belts!

After our swift belt run in February that left Lucrezia and I empty-handed, Lucrezia wanted to go back and try again with a smaller group, hoping to finally get one for himself and Kiki as well. Lucrezia spent hours and hours farming four of the Fomor Codices, while Kiki got lucky and only had to kill two Tauri to get hers. Since they're rare and can't be mailed, it takes a bit of coordination to get multiples. Lucrezia handed them off to Ranzz, Elbryan, and Grymalkyn. Grymalkyn's been living in the Tavnazian Safehold pretty much since my husband quit playing in January, since it's easy for me to leave her home point in Windurst for fishing guild and mog storage access, and she has her Tavnazian Ring to get back to the Safehold quickly and use the Jeuno Auction House to sell off her inventory.

Since we didn't want to fight the Tarutaru Fomor NM, and you can only pop the NM of your own race, all of Kiki's accumulated hate was worthless. I took Grymalkyn out with Lucrezia and Ranzz and Elbyran into Lufaise Meadows for several evenings of Fomor hunting to build Grymalkyn's hate, and would use Grymalkyn to pop the Mithra NM.

After weeks of not being able to come up with a time when we could actually do the run, we finally went last night. We had a different set of people than we thought we would, and more helpers than we had hoped for, which turned out to be a good thing. Our original plan had been to do something like BST BST BST RDM, but based on our experience last night with BST/NIN (Lucrezia), BST/WHM (Grymalkyn), NIN/WAR (Daden), BLU/WHM (Diasuke), SAM/WAR (Midget), PUP/MNK (Anastasia), we wouldn't have been able to do it. This group had troubles getting the Mithra classroom cleared without respawns popping up, mostly because the nasty damage Grim Halo would do (and the deaths it induced), and the need to rest up before proceeding. So Midget switch to Lalandra as SMN/WHM, and Yobun joined us as THF/NIN.

Grymalkyn ran in to pop Caithleann as Lalandra and Yobun were making their way to the classroom, since the path was clear and wouldn't stay that way for long. Unfortunately Lalandra ended up getting aggro in the maze and dying before getting to us, and our fight went really poorly. She's a RDM-NIN with chainspell, and a bit of a pain to fight. It looked like we were going to have a full wipe, but Lucrezia and Yobun hung on to the bitter end and won. Better yet, a Swift Belt dropped! Yay for Lucrezia! I think this was his 6th attempt to getting one.

Fortunately I had reraise up on Grym, and was able to start getting people back on their feet. While we were waiting for weakness to wear, I logged Grym out and logged Kiki in, charmed a Gazer from the first section of Sacrarium, and joined the group at the Mithra classroom. After we cleared the room, Lucrezia had enough hate to spawn Caithleann with his Fomor Codex. This time our fight went much much better, with no deaths. Having real pets probably helped a lot too, as both Lucrezia and I had been using funguar jugs on the first spawn. And again, a swift belt dropped! Yay for Kiki! That made it 1/2 for me. Not as lucky as some, but pretty darn lucky nevertheless. Now to figure out what else I'd need for a PLD/NIN haste build....

Since we still had 3 pop items on hand, and several of the helpers would also like a swift belt, we headed over to the Hume classroom, so Daden and Diasuke could pop Balor. Balor's RNG-MNK, and the only thing you really have to worry about with him is Eagle Eye Shot. As long as hate was either on a pet or a fully-shadowed Daden, it wasn't going to be an issue, and wasn't. Balor's a lot easier to kill than the Mithra. We did two rounds of clearing the area and spawning the NM, and were going to go for a third and final spawn, but we had several deaths when one of the Fomor Samurai used Grim Halo twice in a row. People were sleepy, so we called it a night. We'll probably head back soon to try for another bunch for other people.