Assault: Corporal Kiki

Amazingly, our BEB Monday night assault group has been continuing to get together and do 3 or 4 assaults every Monday night. Yobun, Daden, Itera, and I are the "regulars", with Anastasia, Goto, Thoron, Izan, and others being a bit more haphazard. We've been doing a lot of Preemptive Strike, and then to mix things up a bit, we did Lamia No. 13 and Seagull Grounded last week, neither of which Daden had done. Goto hadn't done Seagull Grounded either. After that, they were both able to pick up the quest for Superior Private rank, and we planned to do some SP assaults this week.

Jarbit's Nyzul Isle Assault static has shifted its focus a bit. We did one run of Nyzul Isle on April 27th, got two "easy" levels, and took the win. Then Goto had to leave for his gods linkshell, so we did two runs of Excavation Duty for Allia, to get her enough points for Salvage that evening. Every other time I've done Excavation Duty, we've always killed the Qiqirn to get mines, even with a BLM going off to solo a wall. So I provoked the first Qiqirn, surprising everyone else, since they'd never killed the Qiqirn - or did once and didn't get mines. Fortunately, we did get a bomb from the first one, so the time I wasted fighting one of them was made up for by the next wall going down immediately. The people who'd never used a mine were pretty impressed with how well they worked, but it really does leave it up to chance. On the second run, we just fought all the walls. With the right sort of group, it's a very safe assault and an easy win.

Last Friday, Jarbit and Frostwitch couldn't make it for our assaults, so we had a group of Salvage people do two runs of Leujaoam Cleansing, which was a new win for several of the people. We had Anrita, Venn, Habanero, Goto, Itera and I. Both runs went pretty smoothly - I like the "kill everything" sort of assaults, since it leaves less to chance than some of the others. Plus you get exp or limit points from them, which is always a good thing.

This Monday, we had Daden, Itera, Ana, Yobun and I. Goto was trying to do CoP 8-2, and didn't join us. We did three SP runs, starting off with Saving Private Ryaaf, which was new to Daden. Yobun came as PLD/SAM and I as PLD/BST. The roaming Experimental Undead were behaving well, and we had an easy time making our way from room to room, and had another easy win.

Next, we decided to try Troll Fugitives. For this assault, you have to find and eliminate 15 Broken Troll Soldiers. They all have between 25% and 75% HP, but the PLD types will heal themselves and others, so some end up a bit closer to full health. They're scattered throughout Lebros Cavern, alone, in pairs, or in sets of three. We didn't have any troubles with them, but without a strong DD group (like Daden and Itera), it would be pretty easy to run out of time on this one. Yobun had switched to RDM for this, and between Phalanx II and Sentinel, the one Troll that used Hundred Fists on me was sadly disappointed at how little damage he did.

Last up on the agenda was Extermination, set in Ilrusi Atoll. This one is also a kill everything assault, with leeches, crabs, doomed, and slimes scattered throughout the islands and boats. They can spawn an NM version of themselves when killed, and we did get one Undead Leech NM, which was much tougher than the regular leeches, but still not too bad. This is another one where you can get pretty tight on time. We left the slimes for last, and I was sent to the spot where the Rune of Transfer would appear so I could hit it as soon as everything was dead. I think we finished with about two minutes to spare. I got enough limit points to get another Merit, so I have the three I need to finish my shield skill upgrades. Next up will be HP, I think. I'll need 24 Merit points to get it where I want it. That's going to take me forever. :-(

After our assaults, Itera and I both were able to pick up the quest for promotion to Corporal. We headed out into Wajaoam Woodlands on chocobo, looking for a Warhorse Hoofprint for Naja. She gave us quartz transmitters to place in the hoofprint, which will somehow give her the ability to track the Dark Rider. I searched the southern section, while Itera got the northern section, where he found the hoofprint. Task completed, we headed back to speak to Naja and receive our promotions. Woohoo, longer Sanction time, and a new set of assaults available to us!

New title: Corporal