Captain, Here We Come!

The ClanBEB assault group has been plugging away at the missions, trying to do as many unique one as we can every Monday. With our haphazard attendance, people are missing a variety of them that others have done. I think at this point, Lucrezia and Erock have the most unique ones, since I missed a few when I helped out TheUltimates assault group one night. We'll have to start going back and filling in the gaps for people after we've done them all. I've currently completed 36 of the 51 assaults, so just 15 more to go for my Captain rank (and free runic portal use! and an extra tag!).

Some nights we have people with lower ranks join in, so we're still doing repeats, but it also gives us an opportunity to do some of the lower leveled ones that people either missed, or we never managed to do. I think our core group are now all Second Lieutenant or higher, so soon we'll get to try out the First Lieutenant ones, which look like they might be a lot of fun. We've also thrown in a few Nyzul Isle assaults, but haven't reached the 10th floor yet, so it's probably only slightly less annoying than it used to be. :-)

I've actually done a lot of new ones since my last update, so here's a quick rundown on those:

Azure Experiments (Leujaoam Sanctum): An NPC uses your group for experimentation, grafting animal tissue on to you and seeing how you perform while fighting groups of Lamiae. It was kind of fun, and I loved having perma-flee from the Raptor Tissue, but it doesn't seem to be one to spam, unless people really really want to have a Divisor Ring.

Blitzkrieg (Mamool Ja Training Grounds): This one's kind of wild - you have to kill 200 mobs that all come swarming at you. They're celebrating a molting season or something like that, so they're really pretty weak. You're supplied with a bunch of temporary items to help you out, just like in Besieged. It was pretty funny to just stand there fighting the hordes, which included Mamool Ja, puks, bugards, raptors, and ziz. Supposedly an NM Mamool Ja can spawn, but we didn't see him.

Wamoura Farm Raid (Lebros Cavern): Another kill-everything assault, the twist on this one is that the Wamouracampa that fill the area can turn into Wamoura, which are a bit tougher to fight. We only had to fight two of the nasty Mothra-wannabes on our run. I think I prefer Troll Fugitives for my "exp while assaulting" runs.

Imperial Treasure Retrieval (Mamool Ja Training Grounds): I enjoyed this one, but think it would be hard to max out your points with a small group. Our goal for this is to retrieve treasure, hidden in coffers throughout the area. Meanwhile, Mamool Jas are trying to do the same thing, and you need to steal gems from them (and avoid having them steal them from you). So basically it's a big game of tag. We found the best approach was to travel in pairs, so if one of us had our gem stolen, the other could steal it right back. When you're the victim of a theft, you get warped back to your starting point. We ended up with all the treasure and had a nice win. It seems to be an easy one to do with no fighting required.

Defuse the Threat (Periqia): The object for this assault is to find and defuse Qiqirn mines that have been hidden throughout the area, and to try to avoid being spotted by the Qiqirn, since fighting wastes time. I didn't really much like this one, because it was hard to find the mines before they exploded. Apparently it's OK for them to explode rather than be defused, since we had many blow up on us, but we still ended up with the win. This might be easier with a full group seeking the mines (we had just three of us).

Apkallu Seizure (Ilrusi Atoll): I found this one annoying, and not sure I'd care to repeat it after doing it once. You're supposed to get Apkallus to like you and then follow them back to the NPC waiting to capture them. To do this, you need to /bow and /welcome them, feed them Hamsi that you find at ??? spots scattered about the zone, and then make sure you don't annoy them on the trip back to the NPC. If they spot one of your team mates, or one of the pugils hovering about, they'll take off and run away. I'm still not sure how Lucrezia or Erock managed to get one to the NPC.

Escort Professor Clavauert (Leujaoam Sanctum): One night we were restricted to SP missions or lower, so we decided to give this annoying assault another try. We had NIN/WAR, 2x RDM/WHM, BLM/WHM, WHM/BLM, and PLD/WHM. We did a lot of cure bombing on the NPC, and tried a lot of binding on the skeletons and ghosts throughout the area. It was a really close call, but Goto and Ranzz managed to stay alive and the NPC got to the end point. I think Ranzz held off some undead there, while Goto was able to sneak back to the Rune of Release undetected. This is another one I don't really want to try again, but we had some people miss it, so I'm sure I'll go back again one day.

Lost and Found (Ilrusi Atoll): This was a very annoying hot and cold game with an NPC. There was no fighting needed (there are krakens that can aggro, but have a very small range). Once you've found "hints" at ??? spots, the NPC will tell you which party member is the closest to the ring that she's looking for. It took us 15 minutes of moving her ever so slightly in the same spot to finally get the win, and Lucrezia fled to the Rune of Release, getting us out of there with less than 60 second left.

Imperial Code (Leujaoam Sanctum): I enjoyed this one, which wasn't quite a kill-everything mission, but we did have to fight a number of Kusa along with the main object of the mission, 3 NM fomor ninjas that had a stolen cipher we were sent to retrieve. There are a lot of ghosts in the area too, but we managed to sneak past them. With just 4 of us (PUP, THF, RDM, PLD), we were pretty close to the time limit on the win. This was the first CS level assault we'd done, and gave us 1999 points for the first time win. I could see using this one for Leujaoam points if people needed them.

Marids in the Mist (Mamool Ja Training Grounds): I thought this one was a lot of fun too. We just had three of us for this, and were down to the wire for the win. We had to "capture" eight Marids, which are in four separate areas in the training grounds. The Marids are being tended by Mamool Jas, so it helps to have invisible when pulling the Marids (Erock slept some to pull them, and Luc was able to pull, flee, and use Tonko on a few of them). To capture them, you need to weaken them, and use tranquilizer darts from the NPC at the entrance to sedate them. It takes several darts before they take effect, so you pretty much have to fight them right by the NPC at the start, so you can get more darts as needed. The Marids drop Chigoes too, so you need to be ready for those. You get some exp from the Chigoes, but this isn't a good exp one. I think I'd stick to Preemptive Strike if people need Mamool Ja points and you have a good fighting group, otherwise, Breaking Morale is a quicker win.

Deserter (Ilrusi Atoll): I found this one to be very annoying. You're supposed to disarm 12 Lamiae/Merrows, and you lose points if you kill any of them. Critical hits have a chance to disarm them. You only need to disarm one for the win, but we got lucky on the first (Erock used Mighty Strikes) and opted to fight more. We ended up with two disarmed and two killed, and got less than 500 points for the assault, even as a first time win and having the armband.