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.