Quests: Divine Might

I had the past week off from work, and as usual, I probably spent more time playing than I should have. However, this has provided some blog fodder, so maybe I really will get back to posting regularly again.

Saturday, as I ran through Whitegate to get Sanction before heading out to solo Lesser Colibri to get Great Sword skillups (and work off the latent on my Subduer), I noticed a shout recruiting jobs for Divine Might, including PLD. This has been on my to-do list pretty much since we got Sky access in April 2006, but I've always been afraid of pickup groups. Last year, a ClanBEB group did Zilart Mission 14 instead, so I'm one of what seems like only a handful of people to complete Zilart without doing Divine Might.

I decided to throw caution to the wind, and I sent a tell saying I'd like to join. Since they needed a PLD, I was invited to join. We were to gather together in 90 minutes, so I headed out to work on my great sword (202 now, only 48 more levels to go...) before heading back in to town to get ready for the fight. I got all my gear and items ready, and was invited to the growing alliance as we waited for everyone to gather. It was full moon, so I grabbed a piece of parchment and went to Rolanberry to check bazaars for an Illuminink, but couldn't find one. Then I headed to Ro'Maeve from Jeuno and waited for everyone to gather together. It turns out that all the full moon nights on Saturday had weather in Ro'Maeve, so even if I'd gotten the Illiminink, I still wouldn't have been able to get an Ark Pentasphere. You can only get them during clear weather between 00:00 and 03:00 with a Full Moon. I did however get to use the bridges and run straight back to the Hall of the Gods. I'd never done that before.

So I found myself in Sky, for the fifth time ever, and first time since we'd beat Eald'narche last August, completing the Zilart Missions. I guess people who don't do gods don't have much use for Sky any more. I think Grymalkyn and I would have leveled our BST duo there if we'd ever continued past level 60.

Anyway, back to Divine Might. Finally we had everyone gathered together, and we started going over strategy. One person kept yelling to just trade the ark already. Apparently this was his 8th attempt and he was impatient to get in there quickly so he could add another failure to his list. For our first run, I think we had 3 NINs, 2 PLDs, 3 BRDs, 3 WHMs, 2 RDMs, a DRK, a WAR, and 3 BLMs. Each tank was assigned an Ark Angel to kite (I got the Galka) and the kill order was set for TT -> MR -> GK -> HM -> EV. We planned to kill the first two, wipe, reraise, and finish the rest. Unsure about buffs, we buffed once we entered the arena. The first two went down as planned, but a few of us didn't make it to the stairs before dying, so we couldn't reraise until the rest were up and unweakened and started fighting again.

We ended up timing out on the EV, but in general, the fight had gone extremely well for a first run with a bunch of strangers. We were all confident we could pull it off. People needed more reraise items and echo drops, so the other PLD headed back to Whitegate to resupply people. Meanwhile, one of the WHMs and RDMs had to leave. There was another group that had just made an attempt or two and failled, and three of their people (two BLMs and a PLD) wanted to join us if they could. Our other PLD didn't "need" the fight, so he bowed out after delivering his supplies.

For the second fight, we changed things around a bit. We knew buffs wouldn't wear, so we buffed up before entering, saving a few minutes. The tanks were supposed to kite the HM, GK, and EV up near the entrance, keeping people safe from AOEs and also ensuring no one would die in the arena. This time I was in charge of keeping the wyvern and BST pet off of the Bards as they kept them slept. The TT petrified the BLMs right at the start, which meant it took a bit longer to get him dead. The kite support people missed the memo on the kiting changes, so at one point I dumped a Cure IV on one of the NINs who'd dropped under 200 HP, which meant he was no longer kiting. We didn't even get the MR on this round. So we wiped, and decided to abandon the attempt and try again.

The third fight went extremely well. We'd learned from our other attempts, and very nearly even killed the GK before wiping. I think we would have if the person who'd had hate had brought him back to the arena when he was supposed to. For this fight, I was again on pet duty, but I also stuck close to the BLMs and helped keep them alive. We all died in safe places, reraised, unweakened, and took out the remaining three Ark Angels, without too many casualties in the process. Everyone ran off to the Palace to get their earrings, and great joy was felt within the alliance.

Many thanks to Killarutaru for gathering us all together, and to Djnem for taking charge and telling us what to do. And thanks to everyone who participated. I didn't write down everyone's name, so I won't try to list them from memory and leave someone out.

I picked the Suppanomimi over the Knightly Earring, since it's really unique in what it does for you. Even if I'm not dual weilding, it still gives me an extra 5 points of sword skill, which is very nice. It's definitely for when I'm in merit parties rather than tanking in Dynamis or Limbus, but I don't need the shield skill from the Knightly earring, since it's only a bit better than the buckler earring, and I already have other earrings I prefer for tanking (Hades +1, Cassie, and hopefully soon, Ethereal). With my normal tanking setup, I already have 313 shield skill: 276 base, +8 from merits, +10 from my boxer's mantle, +12 from my Gallant Leggings +1, and +7 from my shield torque, without wearing my Buckler Earring. At one time, I thought the Beastly Earring would be my choice, since I thought Grym and I would be BST75s, but that's never going to happen. The Suppanomimi just makes the most sense, much like the Sattva Ring made the most sense for me from CoP.




New title: Pentacide Perpetrator