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!