Ground Strike!

I decided that I needed to make a concerted effort to break the latent on my (Great) Sword of Trials, if for no other reason than to free up the inventory space, since seriously, when do I actually use Great Sword? But my skill level is capped, and the quest (Inheritance) was open, so it really must be done.

For quested weaponskills, you are given a trial weapon of the type for the specific skill, and you need to perform weaponskills on mobs that are Easy Prey or higher. The mobs in Besieged count for this as well. You need to get 300 points to break the latent, and get 1 point for solo weaponskills and 2 to 5 for opening or closing various levels of skillchains.

I picked up the quest in November, which was a bit more recent than I remembered, but it was the week before the expansion came out, and I've been spending all of my spare time in campaign battles. Since you can't break latents in campaign, I wasn't getting very far on the task. I'd done a few random Besiegeds, but at the rate I was going, I wouldn't be done for a few years. Since I hate bugging people to help me with stuff like this, I geared up my PLD/RDM and took Balu-Falu to The Boyhada Tree. My trusty NPC kept me hasted, and we killed dozens of Robber Crabs, but I quickly realized I really didn't need his help at all. With Phalanx up, the Robber Crabs were frequently hitting me for 0, and I never came close to running out of MP.

After Balu-Falu called it a day, I decided to head up to the upper level and see if I could get any parrying skillups from the Even Match/Tough Steel Shells up there. I'm between 0.8 and 1.0 points off my parrying skill cap, and I'd love to finally have that done. I switched to sword and shield, used my Parrying Torque and Boxer's Mantle to enhance my parrying skill, put on my most defensive gear, and pulled a Tough crab to the Cloister of Storms zone for a quick escape if things got bad. I was actually surprised at how easily I handled the Tough. I was able to get Stoneskin up reliable with flash, and with Phalanx and shield blocks, I avoided a lot of damage. I did use Chivalry during the fight and had to rest for mp before pulling the next crab, but still it was a bit surprising to me. Alas, despite frequent parrying, I got no skillups on several crabs, and I headed back down to the Robber Crabs to work on my trial greatsword a bit more before heading home.

A couple days later, I headed back to the Tree to see if I could finish the latent, since it had to be close at that point. Sure enough, after two or three crabs, the latent was gone, and I was finished! Hurray! I headed upstairs to try for parrying again, but after two crabs and no skillups, I decided I'd try Pucks in the Den of Rancor. This was actually much more exciting than the crabs, since I couldn't keep stoneskin up at all, and by the time my fights with Toughs that yielded 180 exp points, I had no mp, my HP was below 400, and I was poisoned to boot. I parried a lot more with them as well, but still no skillups. After 3 Pucks, I decided it wasn't worth the effort, and I'll get my capped parrying some day in Limbus, Dynamis, Nyzul Isle, or Salvage. :-)

I took my trial greatsword back to Gumbah in Bastok, and he told me to head to West Altepa to obtain the Annals of Truth to prove my worth, so later that afternoon, I asked ClanBEB if anyone could help me with the WSNM for Ground Strike. Itera, Demin, and Wendell (yes! Wendell! he's back! Sort of...) all volunteered, and we met up in West Altepa. After killing the local goblins for TP, I popped the NM Tiger Maharaja. It was an "easy" fight, though both Itera and Demin used Hundred Fists at some point, and both Wendell and I were a bit low on MP when it was over. Hurray! Thanks guys! Allia had suggested that she and I could duo it as RDM/WHM and PLD/NIN, but that probably would have taken quite a bit longer.

I ran back to Bastok to give Gumbah the Annals of Truth, and he rewarded me with the knowledge of Ground Strike. I played around with it a bit in Campaign, which was fun, but as I mentioned, I'm not sure how much use it will get. In the meantime, I'll be using my Subduer when I get the chance, and one day, its latent will be broken as well.

I guess club should be the next weapon I work on capping. Again, the uses for this are a bit limited, but there are situations where something like the Templar's Mace and its increased Cure potency might make sense (main healing as a melee PLD/WHM perhaps?).