Astonishing Wyrms

Rather than clear my backlog on all the exciting things I've done with Eminence, I'm skipping ahead to the most recent adventures. I intend to go back and cover what I've missed, but I'm too excited about the lastest to let it sit. Thanks to Alibeemac for her wonderful screenshots. They sure put my PS2 ones to shame!

The second Bahamut fight, as the BCNM The Wyrmking Descends, takes a bit of work to get to the point where you can do it. Everyone needs to have completed the Chains of Promathia missions, won the first Bahamut fight (The Storms of Fate), and then gathered Cloud Evokers, which are a rare drop from various ENMs. The Cloud Evokers are used to fight the BCNM Ouryu Cometh, where you face Ouryu. From winning this fight, you get a Monarch Orb, which allows a group to enter The Wyrmking Descends. I originally did Storms of Fate as a tag-along with Eminence back in January '07, so I had that part out of the way.

Eminence hadn't faced Bahamut V2 for quite awhile, and we finally had enough Cloud Evokers to plan the runs. For our Thursday event on August 21st, we had 3 Ouryu battles lined up. We headed out to the proper spot in Riverne Site #A-01 with more than an alliance, planning to rotate people in so we all got to fight at least one of the BCs. Naramaska wanted the PLDs to try with /RDM subbed, so most of us did that. It works so well with the Jailer of Love, I was curious to see how it worked with Ouryu. The basic strategy we were following was to sleep Ouryu when he was on the ground, and nuke him while he was in the air.

I sat out the first fight, but co-tanked the second with Sanjiyan's PLD/NIN. Kachiko was in the tank party with her relic horn, and the fight went really great. I had endless mp, despite spamming flash, bind, blind, gravity, dispel, and my cure-kit, and it was really a lot of fun. Sanjiyan couldn't keep up hate-wise without the extra spells, but did what she could to keep Ouryu under control along with me.

For the third fight, Tanta and I were co-tanks, both of us as PLD/RDM. Kachiko had to leave, so we just had a "normal" bard. The fight was so very different from the first. I had a lot of MP issues, getting devotion from Alibeemac twice, in addition to my chivalry. Hate was a lot looser. Ouryu also seemed to use more of his most annoying moves, making it that much more of a struggle. We still won, but I don't think we'll be using PLD/RDM on it again, at least not on both tanks.

With three Monarch Orbs available, we had The Wyrmking Descends on the schedule this past Saturday. A lot of shells melee-zerg this fight now, but we needed to use an army of black mages. Again, we had more than a full alliance available, so we rotated people in for the different runs.

Tanta went over strategy with the PLDs, and stressed that this is the hardest fight to tank in the game, since the main tank is solo on Bahamut, and doesn't have the safety of a co-tank. We went as PLD/NIN, with two per fight: one on Bahamut, one waiting for the wyrms he summons, as well as being ready to step in if the main tank was killed. For the first fight, Tanta was main tank, and I was on summons duty. I helped cure Tanta while waiting for the other wyrms to appear, then would flash the wyrm and bring it near the BLMs for them to quickly get rid of it. On our second summons, we got Vrtra, and he charmga'd all of the BLMs when he was at about 5%. They quickly killed me and ran around killing everyone else. It was a wipe, a wasted orb, and a sad loss.

For the second fight, I was main tank, with Infi on summons duty. I felt I did horribly on the fight. It started out poorly, with me taking so much damage trying to get Bahamut into position that Muffins pulled hate keeping me alive.

Over the course of the fight, I used up too much mp for healing and didn't have much left for hate. I always seemed to get my shadows wiped just before being terrorized, wasting the support crews' mp healing me. I had a hard time keeping Bahamut lined up properly as well, partially because I was having camera issues with my character being right up against a small wall to reduce knockbacks. Overall, it was a frustrating fight, but fortunately we won, with only 5 minutes to spare. And I learned a lot from it and hope to do better, given the chance. We won a Bahamut's Mask, which went to a happy Ragnorok.

On the third fight, Infi main tanked, with Karupt on summons duty. I sat outside the unstable displacment, going over my problems with Bahamut with Tanta, and got some good advice. As long as I can learn how to improve my tanking, having imperfect fights isn't bad. The third fight was also a win, and I was very surprised to see Ali say "kiki and karupt lot the mask". I really didn't expect to be able to obtain a Bahamut's Mask so soon. I was invited to the alliance, and out-lotted Karupt, winning one of my "dream" items for my little Tarudin.

I really thought I was further down the list for this, but with Solarus on a bit of a break from the game due to real-life circumstances, a couple other PLDs not there for the event, and Infi feeling the PLDs without an Aegishjalmr should get it first, I got really lucky. Karupt and I were within 10 points of each other in DKP - he's been with Eminence for years, but hasn't played a lot recently, and has spent a bunch of points in the past, so I actually had a few more than him.

I love my new mask! I still can't believe it's mine.



New titles: Ouryu Overwhelmer, Wyrm Astonisher