Dynamis: Happy Xarcabard Farming

I had an exciting weekend, with lots of things to write about, but the one I'm most excited about is TheUltimates' Dynamis run on Saturday. We actually managed to do Dynamis-Xacabard as Venn planned. The Japanese shell that seems to be there every Saturday evening (Sunday morning for them), must have had something else to do. We still don't have the numbers to want to try taking on the Dynamis Lord, so it was just to be a farming run. Lumikumi won the lot for main tank, with me as backup. Jarbit came as PLD, and Daden was our only NIN. We'd only had three tanks on our previous run, and I felt more comfortable going in with 4 of us.

The first time statue pull didn't go quite they way we wanted it to, but we only had two demons come after us, and the BLMs got the statue and the time extension. The two eye pull went smoothly, now that we all know what to do. We made our way to the second camp, and while killing the eyes and demons there, a Melee Crown dropped! I'd never seen Relic drop from a normal mob in Xarcabard, but apparently TU has had a couple pieces drop over the years. Itera and Rassiter both lotted, and Itera won! Hurray!

We continued on to the NM demon trios, and had a number of deaths in the process, but overall, things were much cleaner than the last time, mostly because we had a "spare" tank to jump in when one of the others died. All the pulls went pretty smoothly, with just the BLM NM being troublesome, having blasted Daden with a Thundaga III before he moved off of his platform. We had to make a second sacrifice pull to get him.

On the final set of NMs, the Dragoon King dropped the Wyvern Helm. Venn was the only lotter, and finally, after 3 years, he's completed his Dragoon Relic. It was pretty exciting! At this point, had we been going for the Dynamis Lord, we would have snuck past a line of demons and eyes to get to the dragons in front of the Castle. Goldfish told us it had been a really good run so far, and we would have had plenty of time for DL, so that was really encouraging.

Since we weren't going for DL, we were going to kill all those demons lined up on the way to Castle Zvahl's. The first pull looked clean, but then turned a bit ugly. We were swarmed with angry eyes and demons, and ended up with a full wipe. We dusted ourselves off, rested up, and worked on killing them a few at a time.

After cleaning them up, we headed south, I think, for more farming. Goldfish pulled an eye, and we got quite a few warrior, monk, bard, and white mage demons. We went through them rather efficiently, with a few deaths, then on to the the next set. Lumikumi had gotten killed, and I jumped in to take over on a Kindred Bard. I was so surprised to see "You find a valor surcoat on the Kindred Bard" when we defeated it. Jarbit, Lumikumi, and I were the only main-lot PLDs. We cast our lots, and mine was the highest (then I was promptly killed by the Kindred Monk I was tanking). I couldn't believe it! I'm never that lucky. I'm currently the only person in TU with the Valor Surcoat. It seems to be a curse for the LS, since the PLDs who've won them in the past either quit the game or leave the linkshell. I don't plan on doing either.

We continued killing mobs and another Melee Crown dropped, completing Rassiter's MNK relic set. And then another mob soon after dropped the BLM hat, which has been promised to Sarntur. He'd won one on a previous run a year ago, but the hourglass expired before the hat had dropped to him and it was lost. That piece completed Sarntur's BLM relic. So it was an amazing farming run for us: 5 Xarcarbard relic pieces, which completed 3 sets, and the other two made Itera and I very happy, and our wins were blissfully drama-free. I think it's pretty neat that we both got our pieces on the same run. Now we should both get our Glacier drops on the same run too. :-)

As time was winding down, we had another swarm of angry eyes and demons that killed us all, so Venn called it a night and people were given R3s. I really hope we can have more Northlands runs like that. We need more relic armor for everyone!

I still can't believe Kiki actually has a Valor Surcoat. I remember talking about it with Yobun maybe two years ago, when what may have been the first NA linkshell to beat the Dynamis Lord got the Surcoat. We both figured it was something our PLDs would never have. Of course, back then, there weren't many good NA dynamis groups yet, nor did I think I'd be doing Dynamis, or any other "end game" sort of activity. Since then, I've seen Valor Surcoats popping up all over the place, so it was no longer had the unobtainableness it once had. I never thought I'd have mine just over 6 months after starting Dynamis, and just over 4 months with a shell that had enough members with access to the Northlands. I'm 3/5 on my relic now, with the hands and legs missing. I had been planning to upgrade my AF Surcoat with Limbus items, but now I think my AF pants are the logical upgrade.