Stabbity Stabbity

One of the long-standing items on my wish list has been that pointy blue sword that "everyone" but me had, the Joyeuse.

However, I had a couple things standing in my way. First, it's from an NM with a long pop window, so even if you have ToD, you can still be killing place holders for 8 hours or more without Charybdis spawning. My schedule, both in real life and in-game, have made it nearly impossible for me to have any sort of hope of camping it. Secondly, I really have a difficult time asking anyone for help with something I want for me, and this is something I couldn't do without help.

A few people have helped me with some random attempts over the years (like Erock, Yobun, and Narsat), but it just seemed I would just have to live my life in FFXI without a Joyeuse, unless I happened to get lucky at some point. It's truly not a necessity, but would be really nice for things like merit parties and Nyzul Isle, where I'm not really tanking things. After getting my Justice Sword, and having troubles keeping myself supplied with the Virtue Stone it required, I have been feeling like it would be very nice to have one after all, but still gave it up as a lost cause.

However, I got lucky this week, thanks to my friends. :-)

Goldfish has been leveling PLD recently, and several days ago remarked to me that he was going to see if he could manage to solo Charybdis as THF/NIN for his Joyeuse. I whined to him about being the only PLD in the world without one and wished him luck on his solo attempt. Goldfish was surprised I didn't already have one, and offered to try to get one for me if his soloing worked - even if I couldn't be there, I could leave Kiki in SSG, in party with Goldfish. I hated the thought of leeching a sword like that, but was a viable option, assuming he could indeed solo it.

On Thursday, Goldfish headed down to Sea Serpent Grotto, and found the place empty. He killed the place holders, and Charybdis spawned on the next round. Apparently his solo attempt wasn't as much fun as he had hoped, and Allia headed to SSG to help him win his shiny blue sword. Allia also thought I already had a sword, so with ToD in hand, they offered to get one for me that evening, after the Thursday linkshell event for Eminence. I was hoping that we could get an early spawn, so I wouldn't have to leave, but when I arrived in Charybdis' room, there was another group camping her as well.

They had 2x THF/NIN, RDM/WHM, and MNK/NIN. One of the THFs was after the sword, and offered us 500k if we'd fight with them and he could have it. He'd been camping "non stop" for days, and had been after the sword for years, but "non stop" wasn't really non stop, since he hadn't been there for Goldfish's earlier kill. I told him that I didn't need gil and I didn't have a Joyeuse. I wanted one as well. Lugh came to help as well, and the four of us were watching for spawns. On the third round after we arrived, we fought the first devil manta that spawned. The other group did a bit of a fake-out and pulled one of the outside devil mantas up to the door to fight it, so we assumed that the second spawn was outside the door, so we figured it was 16 minutes until the next spawns and put down our guard as it were. Suddenly, Charybdis spawned, and the other group got claim, since they had faked us out with the other devil manta, and were watching still. However, they wiped fast. They had no hope of handling the kraken. It was basically whap-whap-whap-dead, move to the next, and repeat.

I felt bad for them not being able to handle the fight, but we took claim when the four were dead, and had no troubles whatsoever with the fight. Goldfish was tanking, while I started out just curing him, waiting for him to have plenty of hate before I joined in fighting as well. With double Mambo from Lugh, and the enfeebles/debuffing from both Allia and Lugh, the fight was painless and over quickly. And I finally had a pointy blue sword to call my own! And best of all, I didn't leech it, and I even got to bed at a (sort of) reasonable hour. I was happy too that the other group got the claim and proved they couldn't handle it.

Thank you so much you guys! It really means a lot to me.

Goldfish, Allia and Lugh returned the next morning to get one for Lugh as well. Apparently they were there for close to 8 hours before Charybdis spawned. There had been quite a few campers with them, but they had all given up about an hour before the spawn.

I haven't gotten too much chance to play with my new toy, but did try out dual wielding justice/joyeuse. With double marches, it was fun to watch the swords double attacking. TP builds up really quickly, and it should be a lot of fun on the "kill everything" floors in Nyzul.