Yes, I'm still doing Salvage

I was going back through my notes to see what I should use for my next blog entry, and realized that I haven't said anything about Salvage since August. I somehow still find myself in Whitegate every Friday evening for our UltimatesForever runs, though I still haven't quite figured out why.

It seems like we've done a zillion Bhaflau runs, but so many of them are completely drop-free, and time and time again it feels like all we're doing is spending 100 minutes killing mobs to see if we can put all our armor back on. We've made a few attempts on Long Bow Chariot, but have yet to defeat it. As for the other zones, we did a bunch of Silver Sea runs in the fall, but Zhayolm and Arrapago runs have been less frequent.

The most exciting thing really in the past 7 months was when we actually got a drop off of one of those silly Qiqirn in Arrapago Remnants. It was the level 35 piece that goes towards the Ares's Cuirass, and went to Venn. We also managed to get a drop off of the Dune Widow NM (level 35 pants for the WHM set, which went to Meshe) back in November. It's so rare for us to even get an NM out of those Ramparts, let alone get a drop from it. This past Friday, we popped the Don Porrogo NM Silver Sea, and got the level 15 Ares's body piece, so Venn's now 2/3 towards his Ares's Cuirass. We got two other pieces on this run as well, but all three of them are 100% drops from their respective mobs, so the excitement is in actually getting to and killing the mobs, rather than getting rare drops off of them.

It would be nice if we could actually manage to complete a piece, but Venn's 2/3 is the closest we've gotten, and the third piece is a possible drop of LBC, so doesn't seem likely in the near term. The more this drags out, the more convinced I've become that Salvage simply doesn't work if you only do one run a week. I really think to do it "right", you'd need a group going 5 times a week, but in order to do that, it would have to be the only thing I do. It would also be difficult to find people with the assault points to be able to do that as well. It's easy enough for me with over 27,000 points stockpiled in each of the 5 zones, but so many people seem to have barely enough for one Salvage run a week (1500 AP needed).

Some of the runs actually have been a bit of fun, but in general, it's a really frustrating event. I think it's time that I reclaimed my Friday evenings, but I don't know how to quit. As useless as I feel at times, I still feel like they do need me, but that's probably more of a "any warm body will do" issue. There are others who could tank if I wasn't there. But knowing me, I'll just keep showing up.