Orastery Woes

After finally getting Ground Strike, the quested weaponskill for great sword, in March, I've been working on raising my club skill to 230 so that I could pick up the quest for Black Halo, the quested club weaponskill. I used some of my Saturday afternoons and Tuesday evenings for this, which meant I neglected my Campaign duties, but with all the scheduled events I have, I don't have much time for all the other things I'd like to do, so I have to pick and choose.

I'd already had it around 168 from messing around with it over the years, so I started out with the handy Windurst Walls entrance to Toraimorai Canal. As PLD/RDM with phalanx and regen on, I could walk away from the game and leave Kiki fighting Impish Bats without me paying attention. One really nice thing about leveling club is that I still have my shield on, and shield skill really helps Paladins an awful lot.

The next skillup spot was the Robber Crabs on the lower level of the Boyahda Tree. These are still easy enough for phalanx/regen/not-really-paying-attention fighting, and have the very nice side benefit of dropping coffer keys. Every half hour or so, I could take a little break and run around looking for treasure coffers, netting 10-13k gil from each. :-)

After gettting club skill to around 200, I had to move up to the DC-T Steelshells on the top level, since my skill level was getting too high to get reasonable skillups on the Robber Crabs. It was no longer the carefree task it had been on easy mobs, especially when I had a Tough Steelshell to smack. In order to conserve crabs, I would fight the one at the zone to the Cloister of Storms, and I would zone when I had it down to a sliver of health. That way it would despawn when I zoned, and a replacement would repop within a minute. If I had killed it, it would be 16 minutes for the next spawn, and I would have to go find another crab to fight. If there are other groups working off latents, skilling up, or Beastmasters leveling, the Steelshells can get pretty scarce at times.

Depending on the level of the crabs, I'd either wear my DD gear or my "turtle" gear, and I'd keep Phalanx and Stoneskin up. Stoneskin would usually get used up about the time Flash was up, so it was relatively easy to get Stoneskin back up with the help of Flash. On Tough crabs, I'd usually end up using Chivarly in the middle of the fight to recover 400-465 MP, but it still was pretty easy fighting these.

One evening, a Mithra WAR/NIN when flying past me into the Cloister, with an angry Steelshell hot on her tail. She came back out just after her attacker despawns, and knelt to heal. I tossed a Cure IV on her as I was working on my own crab, and she asked to team up. I hesitated momentarily, since I don't like to spend my skillup time healing other people, but since she was working on club skill herself, it seemed likely I could hold hate, so I teamed up with her.

Turned out she was less than 1 point to cap on club, then switched to her great sword. She also neglected to mention that she'd wanted to work on parrying skillups as well, so instead of just having someone lightly rapping on "my" crab with a club, not interfering with the rythym that works so well for me soloing, I now had to deal with someone using provoke to pull hate off of me, along with berserked greatsword weaponskills. She didn't keep her shadows up either, and took so very much more damage than I did with phalanx up. So my last hour of "skillups" netted me 0.1 skillup and I spent most of my time curing her and resting for MP. She didn't even pull either. Nothing like being treated as though I was someone's personal Soothing Healer NPC... It was a good reminder of why I prefer solo skillups - or at least self-sufficient skillup partners.

On May 5th, I finally hit 230 in skill, and headed back to Windurst to pick up the Orastery Woes quest and get my Club of Trials from Kuroido-Moido. I figured it was best for me to try to fight things that would give me club skillups (PLDs have an A- skill in club, which caps at 269), and since I needed an 108-Knot Quipu from DC Yagudos in Sauromogue Champaign [S] (for the quest, Knot Quite There), I decided to give that a try. It took me a couple of sessions, but I finally got the drop, and had some skillups and plenty of weaponskills in the meantime. The BLM Yagudos there are a bit deadly, but there's a handy Pixie patrolling the area, which helped a lot when I was fighting those.

Since the Steelshells are so much easier to solo, I finished off both my trial club's latent and capped my club skill over another three days in the Boyahda Tree. I even had Balu-Falu join me for a bit. The Haste was certainly handy, and he needs to get some exp once in awhile. I teamed up briefly with a NIN/DNC who had 4 levels to go on getting her Dagger skill to 230 to pick up the quest for Evisceration. She and I were a compatible duo, and both benefited from the other's abilities, so teaming up isn't always a bad thing...

I finished my trial weapon before I capped club skill, which surprised me. I also thought I was keeping good track of the points, but I was off by about 30. Maybe my skillchains with Balu-Falu counted. I headed back to Windurst, and turned in my Club of Trials, and asked the linkshell for help with the WSNM - Eldhrimnir, a magic pot in Ro'Maeve.

Serenity, Ranzz and Erock offered to help me, so we met up in the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah, Serenity as SMN/WHM, Ranzz as RDM/WHM, Erock as WAR/NIN, and me as PLD/WAR. We made our way to the SE corner of Ro'Maeve, and killed an Apocalyptic Weapon that was near the spawn point for Eldhrimnir. I ran over and touched the ??? spot, and the pot spawned and I ran back to the group. We killed it fairly quickly, though we did aggro a Cursed Puppet in the process. While the others killed that, I ran back to check the ??? spot and obtained the Annals of Truth for Kuroido-Moido.

I hurried back to Windurst to complete the quest, and thanks to my helpers, I can now use Black Halo. It seems to be quite powerful, and as with all of the quested weaponskills, it has a more interesting animation than the "normal" ones. Kiki does a cute little spin as she gets in her extra hits with the club. I'm still not sure how much I'm really going to be using it, but I like having the ability there for when it makes sense to use it.

Quests: Summoner Preparations Complete!

I had been on a Carby Mitt run awhile back with a group Plumpixie and Chanell had put together, but I was only there for the first fight. I knew that I would probably not be able to stay the whole run, since I would have to get to Dynamis-Beaucedine, so I said I would go last. I didn't want to be a "got her mitts and ditched the rest" type of person. Sure enough, after our first kill, I was summoned to the Glacier, as another LS was gathering, and we needed to get people there early to make sure the zone wouldn't be stolen from us by another group (we're using the Rusty Bucket calendar, and wish all the other linkshells would as well). I knew I'd have another chance some day, and there certainly wasn't any rush for me to get mitts that can only be worn by a level 20 Summoner.

Now that Goto's actively leveling his SMN, he really could use a pair of Carbuncle Mitts, so I tried to get some people together to help. Thanks to Luiss dragging his friends into it as well, we had a decent little group with me (PLD), Goto (WHM), Luiss (BLM), Yumex (WHM), Madbender (BLM), Itera (MNK) and Fabian (MNK). Gilgameshrulz, another BLM, wanted to join us, but got girlfriend aggro just before we got the spawn area for the Crimson-toothed Pawberry, so he had to leave. On our way there, we stopped to pick up another offering, which was for Gil, but since he left, that offering was used for Madbender instead. Yumex also had an offering, so we fought the NM 4 times.

The fights went really well, with Rampart on my party preventing any damage from the first Searing Light, but I don't think we would have been damaged much even without it. We didn't get any Light Spirit Pacts to drop for our helpers, but we got the four pairs of mitts that people wanted.

I had Balu-Falu out as a Fierce Attacker for the last fight, since Itera had to leave. Balu-Falu leveled up to 57 when we were clearing the regular Tonberries out of the room, so that was nice too. He was nearly done in by the first Searing Light, but hung in there and fought with us until the next AOE got him.

Then on Sunday, Anrita put together a team for Diabolos Prime, which Frobro and I needed. He recruited Itera, Allia, and Habanero, and needed another MNK, so I asked Thoron if he'd like to go as well. He needed it too, so was very eager to join in. The seven of us made our way to the Shrouded Maw, and the three MNKs all slept for 100% TP. We headed into the arena for the fight, with Anrita waiting outside to raise us, just in case things went wrong.

The MNKs boosted a few times, Habanero used Soul Voice and gave us double attack songs, Itera Chi Blasted Diabolos and we were all drawn in. Allia let loose with Chainspell Stun, and three MNKs tore into Diabolos with Hundred Fists and their weapon skills. I cast Cure IV on Itera, then on Thoron, and then a Cure III on Thoron, and it was over. The poor avatar never stood a chance. I feel like it was cheating, but after my 6 failures and 10,000 exp lost to Diabolos Prime last year, maybe it's not so bad. I was just making the best use of available resources. Yeah, that's it. At any rate, it was pretty impressive to see them demolish him so easily.

I headed to Windurst Waters and claimed my pact with Diabolos, and ran out to play with him for a few minutes before heading to Jeuno for Sunday's Limbus. I'm still not sure if/when I'll ever level Summoner, but if I do, I'll have a full set of avatars on hand to do so. I'm still missing three of the elemental spirits, I think: Thunder, Light, and Dark. I think the prices have come down a lot, so even if I resort to buying them, it won't be too bad.

New title: Heir to the Realm of Dreams

Leveling: Soloing as WHM/BST (15-17)

On Sunday, I decided to see how soloing as WHM/BST would work out. I got all my gear ready, grabbed three Vampire Juices Qiara had made out of red terrapin she had lying around, bought a brass hammer at the AH, and headed out from Windurt. I made my way to the Maze, stopping in Buburimu Penninsula on the way to check the mob levels (mostly Tough). The bats in the Maze were also Tough, so I fought the Akbabas near the zone, using one as a pet to kill the others. This went fairly well until night time. A Tough ghost proved to be much too tough, and I high-tailed it to the Crag and popped into Al'Taieu to escape its fury.

After that, I headed west a bit, and mostly fought Dhalmels. I'd been a bit displeased with how things were going with charmed mobs, so I called Balu-Falu to help me. I'd set him as Stalwart Shield before I left town, and that worked out really well. He pretty much held hate, and did more damage then pets did. I kept his health up, and bonked the mobs with my hammer. Things went quite well, and I managed several Chain #2s, which isn't bad for a solo WHM. :-)

Just after I hit 16, I spotted Serpopard Ishtar, the NM Dhalmel. The last time I saw him was before I created Kiki - back when Grymalkyn was a subjobless newbie herself. There was an Even Match Dhalmel near him, so I ran up, charmed the EM, and sent it in to fight Serpopard. I started fighting as well, but ended up getting scared, and ran off, leaving Balu-Falu and the dhalmel to whittle him down. As soon as I got out of range and put my weapon away, Balu-Falu came running after me as well. He still had hate, and as Serpopard got closer, I saw that they'd taken a good chunk off his HP, so I popped a vampire juice and started fighting again.

It was a really close fight, and when my pet came uncharmed, I was afraid it was all over, but I recharmed it, and we killed Serpopard! Both Balu-Falu and my pet Dhalmel had about 10 HP left, but at least we were all still standing. We got a bit lucky - Serpopard's last TP move was Berserk. If he'd used healing breeze, I think I would have lost the fight. I got 140 points for the kill, even with the penalties for having an NPC and a pet. I'd like to say I soloed a level 20 NM as a level 16 WHM, but really it was a trio...

My experience points dropped off a bit at 16, so I headed back to Buburimu, and was happy to see some of the bunnies and mandies were now even matches. Balu-Falu and I would fight those, or I would charm them and use them to help fight Toughs. I really did like soloing with Balu-Falu, and didn't end up charming all that much for the two levels, but when I do this again, I will keep subbing BST. It gives me that extra bit of safety in emergencies, as well as allows me to take on tougher mobs than I could without a pet. One thing I ended up doing a lot was charming a pet, sending it off to fight a tough mob, and waiting for the mob to kill the pet and come after me. Balu-Falu and I would then finish it off, and I'd get more points than I would if I had both Balu-Falu and a pet.

One interesting I noticed - Balu-Falu changed his outfit when I zoned with him, just as he normally would when I'd call him again after having him out.

After hitting 17, I walked back to town to send all my WHM gear back off to the mules and get back to my PLD75 for Limbus later that evening.

Leveling: Holiday Ninja

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything here for awhile. I've been using up my vacation time over the holidays, and as usual, spent more time playing than I should have.

One of my "projects" for the holidays was to get my Ninja to level 37, and have it as a useful subjob for my Paladin. I had soloed Ninja to 20 well over a year ago, with some assistance from Grymalkyn's WHM and Elboron's BRD for the last few levels, but then read exp scrolls on it, bringing it up to 28. That was just taking too long, so I decided to try soloing with Balu-Falu set as Soothing Healer.

I bought the quested scrolls I had previously sold for Blind, Slow and Poison, made a bunch of Shihei, Tsurara, and Sairui-Ran, bought some Kaginawa and Koduku, and gathered up the gear I needed, mostly from Grymalkyn and her mules. I headed out to Carpenter's Landing as a NIN28/MNK14, since the beetles there looked to be the right level. Things went pretty well, but one Tough Tiger was just too much for us, and I had to use my two hour after Balu-Falu was killed and I was paralyzed and couldn't get my shadows back up.

After that, I headed to Lower Delkfutt's Tower, and fought bats and giants. The AOEs from the giants weren't quite as bad as the tigers, but Balu-Falu had a couple pretty close calls there as well. When my empress band was active, it more than made up for the exp cut from having my NPC out, but it did get slow when it wore off. I got to 30, and decided I'd try looking for a party.

I had to buy the quested scroll for Jubaku, crafted a couple stacks of Jusatsu, replenished my other tools, and put my flag up. I didn't have to wait long for an invite, and headed off to replace a person in a party in Yhoator Jungle. I was pretty nervous to be tanking as a Ninja in a party for the first time, but figured I pretty much had the basics down. The party wasn't bad. We had a WAR/MNK who had been doing most of the tanking (I "replaced" the WHM), a THF who was about to hit 30, a BLM, a RDM, and a DRG. The WAR and I bounced hate around pretty well, and we made good progress. After the THF reached 30 and got SATA, we had the WAR first voke and then I'd get the SATA. This helped us keep the mobs off the BLM too.

The party dissolved, and I soon got another one. This one had a second NIN, and it was fun once we got in the groove and shared hate. The THF from the earlier party showed up as a replacement for the other Ninja, and when people started hitting 32, we headed for East Altepa, picking up another Ninja to replace a WAR that left. We had a really good time fighting the beetles, and even the dhalmels weren't so bad, though I did get killed once by them. I was surprised that it wasn't so bad playing NIN in a party after all, and finished up the night at level 33.

The next day, when I was getting ready to put up my flag, I got asked if I was interested in a party. I said yes, and headed off to Garlaige Citadel. The same THF (Blckfrncs) was in the party too, so I was hoping it would be another good one. Alas, it was really bad. The WHM was the party leader, and announced that he was dual-boxing another character to power level us, and wouldn't be doing much on his WHM character. We had a BLM, a WAR/NIN, and eventually a WAR/MNK rounding out the party. The WHM didn't cast protect, didn't once erase the constant evasion down from both the bats and the beetles, and had a hard time keeping up with the cures when my shadows were gone within 5 seconds of getting them up. The WAR/MNK didn't seem to know how to use provoke, and the WAR/NIN didn't like sharing tanking duties (was in DD gear rather than tanking gear). I ended up dead twice in less than an hour of fighting.

Then the WHM said he had to have dinner and would be back in 10 mintues. An hour later, he finally came back, but Blckfrncs had had to go in the meantime. We decided to continue as a 5-some, hoping he'd be back soon. After my third death of the party, shortly after we started fighting again, I said I just couldn't do that any more and left them. I've never once bailed on a party like that, but I was so furious that I couldn't stay. I killed easy prey beetles in Sauromogue for a bit and got to 34, then headed into Jeuno and got ready to go back out with Balu-Falu.

I decided to level around the Tavnazian Safehold, and killed bees and sheep in Lufaise until I hit 35, then mostly sheep, bugards, and crabs in Misareaux into 36. I'd also got scrolls from two escort quests, chocobo races, and cookbook quest over the weekend, and ended up less than 1000 exp from 37. I got my utsusemi ni scroll, and headed for East Altepa from Bastok, fighting a few giants in Korroloka Tunnel along the way. Balu-Falu and I fought a few tough beetles and I got my level! Hurray! I was "done" with Ninja! I read my pricey scroll and fought another mob to see how Ni worked. It's amazing how fast it casts.

It's just wrong that I could "solo" Toughs and get 252 points on a chain 1, but it was definitely fun. I was typically getting closer to 100 points when my ring was active, and I did have to let Balu-Falu get back his MP every few kills, but it was so much better than having to deal with idiots in a party. Using MNK as a subjob helped by having counter, but boost didn't generate quite enough hate for those times when Balu-Falu would pull hate. I had quite a few close calls with him.

Adventuring Fellows: Improving the Relationship

We've had Balu-Falu and Wagwei out with us several times in the past week or so, and we even got to the second to last level for headwear on them. I've also been able to give Balu-Falu his final weapon upgrade (stuck with Great Axe for him), and Grym gave Wagwei his second-to-last Great Katana. Since the final Great Katana for NPCs sell for around 400,000 gil, Grym doesn't think Wagwei will be getting that.

We've had them helping us with the NM fights for CoP 7-4, since we've had to do them multiple times with less than a full party, as the real-life schedules for our CoP static have been a bit hectic with the Thanksgiving holiday and internet troubles for Elboron (we haven't seen him for two weeks). Our NPCs were also a great help when we were farming Hurricane Wyverns for our Opo-opo Crown quest. Having Balu-Falu set as Soothing Healer helped keep me alive when I was blasted with Radiant Breath!

We also completed the final level cap quest for our NPCs, Mixed Signals, which raises their cap to 65. They're still only level 56, so we've got a long way to go with them. For this quest, we had to do a bit of running around from Jeuno to San d'Oria, back to Jeuno, off to the depths of Beadeaux (where we fought Ruby Quadav and got nothing but a ruby), and back to Jeuno, all as part of some deception to keep us occupied while our NPCs were leveling their cooking skills. Grym got a loaf of homemade bread from Wagwei, while I got a cone of homemade gelato from Balu-Falu.

One of the cute things they've added in a recent update - our NPCs will now bow with us. If you /bow to them, they will bow to you, simultaneously. If you bow to someone else, the NPC will turn to face that person, and bow at the same time as you do. It's kind of sad that it's the little things like that are the things that please me the most in the game.

New title: A Friend Indeed

Index: Adventuring Fellows and Chocobos

Adventuring Fellows

Tsakiki and Grymalkyn don't often call their Adventuring Fellows, Balu-Falu and Wagwei, but they're good buddies to have around.



11/2005: Strengthening the Bonds
12/2005: Update
01/2006: Getting Harder to Level
09/2006: Mirror Images
11/2006: Improving the Relationship
04/2007: Solo WHM/BST (15-17)



Chocobos

In the August 2006 update, SquareEnix introduced Chocobo Raising to the game. Along with nearly everyone on the server, we got our hands on a couple of eggs and started raising our very own chocobos.

09/2006: Yes, of Course We're Raising Chicks
11/2006: Early Retirement
11/2006: The Next Generation