Now where was I?

It's been so long since my last real post, I don't know where to begin. Hmmm. I know, a Dynamis update!

On July 5th, we had our third Dynamis-Tavnazia run. We were supposed to do one at the end of May, but had so few people sign up that we had to switch to another zone. Since then, we've had quite a few more people gain access, with our recent wins in the other CoP Dynamis zones.

We had more than 18 people wanting to go on the run, so we conducted a lottery to decided who would go. Since only a couple people bothered to show up for the lottery, I ended up doing the /randoms for nearly everyone. Then of course on Saturday night we had people upset that they weren't included, and others who hadn't even bothered to sign up upset that they couldn't go. We'd been telling them for a couple weeks to sign up, and had it posted on the boards as well, but I guess people just don't pay much attention.

We gathered together in at the Heiroglypics in the Tavnazian Safehold, with 1xBRD, 1xTHF, 1xNIN, 2xPLD, 2xWHM, 2xRDM, 3xBLM, and 6xDD (SAM SAM SAM RNG MNK DRG). We did our usual walkthrough, since this was the first time for at least 7 of the group. We headed in, made short work of the Bugard, ran up to the top floor and took out the Antlion, then back to the main floor where were got our sub jobs back from killing the worm.

At this point, we had a choice: try for the two ??? time extensions and then head for Diabolos, or just head for Diabolos. We opted to try for the time extensions first. We nearly wiped on the third? set of Fomors pulled, and it just wasn't going well at all. We changed our minds, and decided to head for Diabolos after everyone was unweakened.

All four of the Umbral Diaboli were clustered together right at the entrance to the hallway. We stood watching and waiting for our chance to get past them without them noticing. Allia went first, and made it through, with a few more following soon after. The 10 minute warning came up and we felt more urgency, but still waited for our chances to get through. Unbelievably, we all made it past the NPCs, so Goldfish pulled one, the Jeuno Christmas music started, and Diabolos Spade spawned.

The fight started out fairly well, but quickly became messy, with much death all around. When I was killed, Diabolos didn't have a lot of HP left, and I quickly reraised, and Serenity sent me a tell to get her up, since she still had manafont available. I did so, and started getting hit by Diabolos, but the spell completed, and she got up and started nuking Diabolos Spade. I was dead again without having been able to get reraise back up. Soon after, Diabolos was defeated. Hurray! We'd won! Now it was a race against time to get people up so they could get the flag.

Peti raised me, I popped Chivalry and had enough MP to raise Goldfish. I managed to get the flag, but the ??? despawns at the 30 second mark, and both Goldfish and Erock just missed it despite getting raised "in time". We ended up with nearly half the group missing the flag. But they got the title for killing Diabolos, and we gave them preference on the roster for the next run. It was a very exciting fight, and it was so nice to win it, no matter how poorly it seemed to go.

On our next Tavnazia run, just this past Saturday, we went straight for Diabolos right after the bugard, antlion, and worm, but unfortunately the group wasn't as stealthy as we needed to be, and we aggro'd too many of the NPCs. So we gave up on the clear and farmed the rest of the evening. The only drop was THF hands, but that was our first ever drop in Dynamis-Tavnazia besides a 100 piece once.

In other Dynamis news, we've been having a bit of trouble again with people not playing nice and using the Rusty Buckets calendar. A couple HNM shells moved to Lakshmi, merged, and call themselves Vicious now. They've got a huge superiority complex since they get so many HNM claims with their botters, so they think they don't have to work with other linkshells cooperatively. So, we've found ourselves switching zones at the last minute a lot, and on Wednesdays, that usually meant a CoP zone. This suits me fine, since I enjoy the CoP zones the most, but we do have a lot of people needing cities, and others who still haven't managed to get up to Chapter 4 in the CoP missions.

I'm still struggling with the PLD crew, since people quit, get deployed to Iraq, or just plain don't show up on a regular basis. We do have a lot of PLDs now, but I can't count on 3 of the PLD mains to be there any given run. We've also had a few runs where neither Goldfish nor Lucrezia have been able to attend. As our main pullers and strategists, we've become pretty dependant on them for the success of our runs, but we've been able to win without them, which has been good for our confidence. It was especially nice to win both Qufim and Beaucedine with our less experienced pull team.

I've completed my BST relic armor set (shown here on one of my mannequins) - getting the gloves in Xarcabard in July when lotting went to BST60+, and then the helm in Windurst early in August to complete the set, also at BST60+. With so many BST75s running around, I was surprised I was able to complete the set relatively quickly as a BST60. I doubt the CoP accessory for BST will ever drop to BST60+, but who knows, maybe I'll get that one day as well. The big question now is will I ever find the time to level it further and actually use the gear?

New Titles: Nightmare Awakener, Dynamis-Tavnazia Interloper, Confronter of Nightmares

The End of an Era

Venn, the founder of TheUltimates and its sister shells, has quit FFXI. He'd been pulling back significantly over the past school year, as it was his first year in law school, but finally decided it was best for him to leave the game entirely. Some of us knew he was thinking of quitting, but most just thought he was taking a break for finals in April/May. However, I don't think his departure came as a huge shock to anyone. Fortunately for the shells, Venn put a good team of sackholders in place, and we'll continue to run things as we have been. Allia will get the dubious honor of being the shell owner when we re-pearl, so she'll get to head up the Complaints Department. Lucky girl!

I know he didn't have the best reputation with some people, but I was fond of our emo DRG leader. He had his ideals, and he stuck to them. His wild mood swings were even entertaining at times! Venn, if you're out there reading this, here's a /salute from one of your lieutenants. Best wishes for your life's endeavors!

Hmmm... I guess this as good a place as any for a quick update on Dynamis. The shell has been doing well lately, which is really nice. We seem to have the right combinations of jobs and players, and are beating the zones that have sometimes proven troublesome, like Qufim and Xarcabard. It's always so sad to wipe when the Dynamis Lord has just a sliver of health left. It's much more fun when we win. Even if he doesn't drop lovely Shadow items.

We're routinely going after the attestation mobs now every time in the Glacier, which provides a bit of a diversion from the normal exploratory or flag runs. I really dislike the PLD/WAR/RDM one, Goublefaupe. He uses Mighty Strikes when the sac puller aggros him, so I get beat on with huge critical hits as I drag him back to camp, usually dying just short of camp since Sentinel wears off before I get there. I used Invincible once on the pull, and that at least got me back to camp safely.

The tank pool is currently in good shape too, after a couple of months where Thom and I might be the only two tanks in attendance on a run. Lumikumi's back after a 2 month break for real life, and we've had a couple new PLDs join: Synne (our first Mithra PLD!), and Lobster. Elide is also back now one another character (Azadan), and he can come as either PLD or NIN.

One recent disappointment was not getting to do Tavnazia again. We had it scheduled for May 24, the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but not enough people signed up for it. I don't know if that's because a lot of the people with access were away for the weekend, or if people just don't want to do it. I really want to do that again. However, we ended up doing a terrific Qufim run instead, and got some more people access in the process.

The Shield of Dreams

"If you build it...", oh wait, that's something else entirely.

Lately, I've been day-dreaming quite a bit about the ultimate shield of FFXI, the Aegis, and entertaining thoughts of actually attempting to acquire one. I've always "wanted" an Aegis, with its incredible damage reduction properties and massive Shield Bash damage, but it just seemed so impossibly unattainable, especially for a Taru who said she was never going to do anything in end-game.

However, since I've acquired so many nice things for my Paladin over the past year and a half of Dynamis and Limbus and "end-game lite" events like Nyzul Isle, things I never thought I'd ever have, my wish list is getting awfully short. So I've started considering maybe, just maybe, I could indeed one day wield an Aegis. (Does one wield a shield? Or simply wear it? Since you can bash things with it, I'm going to go with wield...)

Here are the cold, hard facts on what I need for an Aegis:

12,500 Ordelles Bronzepieces
2,500 Tukuku Whiteshells
2,500 Byne Bills
Relic Shield (x2, since I need one to pop Almatheia)
Bulwark Shield x2
Almatheia Leather
Orichalcum Sheet
Ancient Lumber
Buckler
Round Shield
Koenig Shield
Attestation of Invulnerability
Shard of Necropsyche
Supernal Fragment

I've kept a relic shield in my mog safe for months, after having dropped several that auto-lotted to me during various Dynamis-Jeuno runs. I'd been saving my bronzepieces for over a year, to use for relic upgrades, but until a month or so ago, I'd sell off the whiteshells and bills for the gil. I currently have about 135 bronzepieces, and 25-30 of shells and bills. I also hung onto a Shard of Necrophyte that auto-lotted to me in Dynamis-Xarcabard (we normally pass those if we're not working on a relic, but some times it's too hectic to remember), rather than NPCing it for the gil.

Recently, we've been going after attestations for people on every Dynamis-Beaucedine run, since there are several people at, or close to, the point of needing them (for the level four upgrade of their relic weapon). In mid-April, we hit the NM that drops the attestations for sword, great sword, great axe and shield, hoping for a great axe one for Fliggity, but instead we got an Attestation of Glory (for the sword Excalibur) and an Attestation of Invulnerability for the shield. I guess I'm the only PLD in the shell with such a crazy dream, and I lotted on the Attestation. So it sits next to the Relic Shield in my mog safe, taunting me.

Now I find myself wondering how in the world I'm going to come up with the 85-100 million gil I'll need to turn this daydream into a reality. It really seems impossible with the way I'm currently playing the game. I'd pretty much have to stop doing anything other than working on earning gil for the currency. I'd probably be so sick of it that I'd want to quit as soon as I got the silly thing. It's really something I should have decided on years ago.

Some Dynamis linkshells allow sponsorships, where the sponsor pays the million gil for the hourglass and gets to keep all of the currency that drops. In the city zones, this can be a really good deal, with 300-900 pieces dropping per run. On the open market, currency will run you 4k-9k a piece, depending on the type. TheUltimates doesn't allow sponsorship though, so that would be out of the question.

Then a week ago, along came something to add fuel to my daydream's fire: the announcement of the Mogbonanza lottery, in honour of the 6th anniversary of FFXI. The top prize is 100 million gil (or the choice of quite a few very nice, very difficult to obtain items like the Salvage body pieces and HQ abjuration bodies). That would certainly change things. If I did win that (1/100,000 chance for each of the 120 entries I'll be getting), it would still take me months to accumulate the currency, but at least I wouldn't have any worries about the money!

Dynamis Lord Gives Up the Goods

There's nothing more satisfying in the game than when a large group of people manage to pull things together and defeat mobs that have proven troublesome in the past. We've had two perfect Dynamis Lord fights this month, and he's started coughing up his shadow items.

Our Dynamis-Xarcabard run on the 6th didn't look like it was going to end well. It seemed that everything that could go wrong on the way to DL's castle did go wrong. We had an enormous link and a wipe on the first time statue, and then someone managed to aggro the eyes on the first NM platform while we were trying to clear the eyes and Kindred down below for kiting space. We had another wipe while pulling the eye wall before the dragons.

However, the DL fight itself was a sight to behold. He dropped a silverpiece and a Shadow Ring, which went to Lucrezia. Hurray!

From the Kindred on this run, we got a RDM hat that went to Divinities, and a PLD body that went to PLD75s, since no mains that needed it were eligible. Thom won the Surcoat, and I've been making him put it to good use lately.

Last night's Xarcabard run was much much smoother. The only glitch in the machinery was when Thunderbolt lost connection just as we were pulling the two eyes on the first platform for the time statue. We had to do the sac pull a second time to get the other eye, but other than that, everything went wonderfully. I was main tank, with Thunderbolt and Thom kiting on the NM pulls. They were also on Ying/Yang duty, while Draden and Deathstorm were on crowd control duty. We got to the Dynamis Lord faster than we ever had before.

The DL fight itself was once again perfect. The stunners kept him locked down, and the damage dealers did their work. We have a new Kraken Club DRK in the linkshell, and he showed us why people like having k-club DRKs to zerg things. We killed him so fast that he didn't even get to resummon Ying and Yang. To top of the fight: we got full drops! A Montiont Silverpiece, a shadow ring, and a shadow mantle! Lumikumi and I were the next in line for Shadow items, and I got the ring while he got the mantle. It's hard to believe that we have Shadow items, and it really pleases me that we got them on the same night!

For the past year, I'd been thinking that the Shadow Mantle, which "occasionally annuls physical damage" made the most sense for me, since mobs are always hitting me, while the Shadow Ring, which "occasionally annuls magical damage" was more of a special case item, since not every mob has magical attacks. However, after doing some research, talking with others, and just thinking it over carefully, the Ring actually seems a better item to have in my bag of tricks.

This change in my thinking is partially because I won the Valor Cape last month, and I love the HP, VIT, and Enmity it provides. I might only use the Shadow Mantle against mobs that hit really hard, and most of those I tank /NIN, so I'd end up only using the Shadow Mantle when my shadows were down. I figured Lumikumi might get more use out of the mantle than I would, and even when he's on MNK, he could swap it in and save himself some hits.

Also, PLD has so many job traits, abilities and gear to help minimize physical damage, but little to stop magical damage. The biggest single hits I take tend to be magical - Astral Flow, Mijin Gakure, tier IV spells, tier III -ga spells, and so on. Having the ring annul these from time to time should prove really useful.

Even after using points last night, Lumikumi and I are still very high on the DKP list, and should be able to get the item we didn't get last night relatively soonish. It's really pretty amazing to find ourselves in such a position after such a long time of wondering if we could ever manage to even kill DL consistently. We'll be unstoppable! :-)

Other recent runs of note:

We had a really smooth Dynamis-Tavnazia run on the 2nd. Everything went quite well, except for the fight with the two Diabolii we were up against. I think we got really unlucky with the moves they chose to open with, and they mopped the floor with us. We didn't get any drops on the run either, but I was very pleased with how well everything went. It would be nice if we had enough people with the right jobs to have two full teams for it, rather than having to leave out a lot of people.

On the 13th, we had a Dynamis-Beaucedine flag run, with the unusual twist of fighting an Attestation NMs. To pop the NMs, Goldfish took a special ops team with a BRD, WHM, BLM and 2 SAMs, I believe. They snuck off to kill an eye which would trigger the NMs to appear in the towers scattered throughout the Glacier. Meanwhile, the rest of us continued along our normal path, killing monsters looking for relic and time extensions.

We accidentally aggro'd the NM in the tower near the Orc lake (we hadn't been warned that they'd be up yet and weren't being careful). The NM and his six minions wiped us out before we knew what had happened. After we picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off, we headed up to another tower and had a control sac pull on the NM that can drop the attestations for dagger, club, and horn. The fight itself was pretty easy, since the NM's jobs were BLM WHM and BRD. And the Attestation of Harmony dropped, making Habanero a happy Bard. We'll probably try doing these on all of our glacier runs going forward, as long as there are people working on relic weapons that need them.

Pinch Me, I Must Be Dreaming

As unimaginable as it was a couple years ago, my little Tarudin has not only completed her Valor armor set, but even has the HQ of the coronet. Over the past month of Dynamis we've had our usual ups and downs, with two failures on the Dynamis Lord (one the melee rushed out to meet him instead of waiting at camp, messing up the mages, on the other, we just didn't do enough damage in a short enough time), some really amazing runs in Beaucedine (8 drops one night), cleared Bastok, fell apart in San d'Oria, had a rousing win in Valkurm, and a bad Megaboss pull in Qufim (but a few nice drops for people). We've had some rare Northlands drops showing up lately, in addition to my new breeches. Lucrezia finally got her Assassin's Armlets, Morgoth his Duelist's Chapeau, and Asarath won the elusive Summoner's Horn.

We're in a phase of shifting members, with some people leaving while others are coming in. We're still a bit short on full-time PLDs, with just Amyalfrodo and I, so we keep trying to rotate through all the people who have PLD at 75. Some grumble more than others, but overall, it feels like it's working OK. Most of them don't want to main tank, so if Amy doesn't make it and Lumikumi's on MNK, it's up to me. I get fewer nights "off" now, but it keeps me busy.

On our December 8th Dynamis-Valkurm run, the Valor Coronet -1 dropped, and I was the only PLD main lot on the run, so it was mine! Bwahahahaha. Oh sorry. Got a bit carried away there. It did make me reflect though, of all the goodies I've got in Dynamis and Limbus, my Valor Surcoat was the only thing I'd actually won a lot on - everything else was mine uncontested. So much for "Kiki always wins". :-) I took my Coronet, my -1, 20 Ordelle Bronzepieces and a gold ingot to Sagheera in Port Jeuno after the run, and the next morning, picked up my fancy new Valor Coronet +1. It gives me 18 more MP, another point of DEF and another point of Enmity over the NQ, and was definitely worth the upgrade, since it's my normal headpiece for most tanking duties. My original coronet was the only relic drop I had from Snakes, so it was in a sense bittersweet, yet somehow appropriate, that it's been replaced by a item I got with TheUltimates.

Last Wednesday, we had an "Expeditionary Force" in Dynamis-Beaucedine (never say the word "farm", or the game punishes you) that was more exciting than usual. Lucrezia deviated from our normal path and opted to take on the Dynamis Icon just past the Yagudos, on the way to the Quadavs. We did fairly well with our massive linkage, but suddenly there was only 10 minutes left on the hourglass, so we quickly ran up to the Quadavs and Luc got the 2 time extension statues there pulled quickly. We moved on to the cliffs, back to the Orc lake, and up to the Goblins for further time extensions, and had well over an hour of good "expeditioning". The drops were scarce until we hit the goblins, but we were fairly well-rewarded at that point, getting DRG, WHM, BRD, NIN, and PLD.

Yes, Valor Breeches dropped. I couldn't believe it, and I happened to be dead at the time (we were fighting the Hydra Corps at this point). They dropped from a Hydra Ranger, not sure why he had them. I typed, "get me up!! quick!!", and I think I had 4 people casting raise on me at the same time. Amyalfrodo was the only other PLD main needing them (Lumikumi got his earlier last year), and she lotted a fairly low double-digit lot. I out-lotted Amy, but she said she would have passed for me since they would complete my set, which is really sweet of her. She's currently the only PLD main with access to Beaucedine and Xarcabard, so hopefully we can get hers soon. She doesn't even have her gauntlets from San d'Oria yet, since we get multiple pairs only on the runs she has to miss, and none when she's present.

So here Kiki is, sporting the complete Valor Armor set (not counting the Valor Cape), something I never thought I'd see her do. Since I upgraded the Coronet, I can't store the set, but eventually I can pick up a new one in Bastok. We had a Bastok run on Saturday and one dropped, but we had a PLD on his first run with us (Deathstorm), and I let him have it instead. Technically he's not allowed to lot until after two runs with us, but he could put it to better use than me. It would have been selfish of me to take it.

I couldn't get a good look at my fancy new pants, so I dressed up my Mithra mannequin in the full set. She's showing a lot of leg for someone in heavy armor, but it looks pretty nice. :-)

Lifter of Shadows!

The biggest news on the Dynamis front is that I finally got to participate in the toppling of the Dynamis Lord, on November 14th. Since I was in the alliance with the person who dealt the killing blow (Bizcuit), I even got two nifty new titles for the evening. It was really nice to finally have everyone working relatively well together and to win the zone, after several failed attempts over the past year. The megaboss fight itself was pretty amazing - the stunners pretty well kept him locked down, and I think the only deaths were a couple of the DRKs. The run itself was light on drops - no relic dropped, nor did the Dynamis Lord cough up any Shadow items. We did get 2 100 pieces during the run, but the win was the important thing here anyway. I'm actually kind of glad that no shadow items dropped, since there would have been some huge fights no matter whom they ended up going to. It's sad that things like that can destroy linkshells.

We've been having a hard time finding and retaining good Paladins for the team. Just when you think you've got a decent one, he decides he'd rather go be the first to unlock Dancer the night the Wings of the Goddess expansion was opened, so he flubs up the first eye pull, dies, and home-points because he simply can't wait a couple of hours. We've had other Paladins join over the months who then need "time off" and we never see them again. So we're pretty much down to me, Lumikumi and Amyalfrodo as the "regular" Paladins, just when Lumikumi thought he could come as MNK more often than not. But he got his shiny new surcoat on our last Xarcabard run, and he's got to give it a good workout. :-) We've got quite a few people with PLD at 75, but most prefer to not be PLD for Dynamis runs. I try to rotate through them, and we're starting to let NINs main tank if they're interested as well.

We had our first Dynamis-Tavnazia run on November 3rd, and I was one of the lucky 18 who got to go. We had a lottery based on so many slots for so many roles, and Lumi and I were the PLDs. It was really fun to see the last Dynamis zone, but we didn't do as well as we'd hoped, partially because of two accidentally dropped hourglasses, and the need for someone to go give the two another hourglass. But we learned more about mob placement and the pulls than you can learn from reading posts on forums, and we learned that people just aren't as good at following instructions as you would like, but I'm sure we'll do better the next time we try the zone. One problem is that it will be a somewhat different set of people, so we'll undoubtedly have more newbie moments. I'm hoping we'll actually have 36 people Tavnazia-ready, and can field two alliances, but that's probably a pipe dream.

In October, we had a really good Dynamis-Qufim run, with a satisfying win, and three drops: ranger belt, warrior mask, and Monster Gaiters -1, which went to me. Lucrezia was the only other BST present on the run (Quetzal had been there but had to leave early), and she didn't want them. I have the Gaiters, so I was told to take the -1, so I could have a relic +1 piece for my BST, if I ever manage to level it to 75.

New titles: Lifter of Shadows, Dynamis-Xarcabard Interloper

Voices in My Head

Goldfish set up a Ventrilo server for TheUltimates this week, and a few of us used it last night on a Dynamis-Bastok run. This should prove to be extremely useful for situations where it's not really very convenient to remove one's hands from one's controller to quickly type an urgent question/command/confirmation. On certain pulls, like the NM trios in Xarcabard, we usually have a small group of people that all need to be ready at the same time, but by the very act of moving my hands to the keyboard to type something as simple as "/s /" to say I'm ready, I'm not actually ready.

It's odd to have real voices to associate with these characters I've been playing with for months and months, but it's nice as well, since it humanizes us, and reminds us that there are indeed real people behind the pixels. It also interesting to see how other people pronounce some of the game terms. Lumikumi says "tar-oo-tar-oo", while we've always said it more like "tare-oo-tare-oo" (yet we say "paw-sta" while a lot of Canadians say "pass-ta" for pasta). I can't remember how he said Xarcabard, but it was quite different from our "zark-a-bard" (with the X like the first one in Xerox). And Goldfish says "die-NAM-is", while it's always been "DIE-na-mis" to me. Meshe has some interesting inflections on non-game words, but that's to be expected from people who aren't native English speakers! People didn't talk a lot, so I'm not sure I could pick either Albany or Morgoth out in a crowd, but I'm sure we'll get more used to it as time passes. Amy was on vent at the beginning of the run, but I think she took off her headset quite early, just before Goldfish turned off the Monty Python recording he'd been playing for us.

Dynamis has been going pretty well, with a decent mix of cities, Northlands, and CoP zones. We've even had some long farming runs in Dynamis-Beaucedine, which was a nice change from our usual "we're getting the flag for one person" runs. We've had a few new members join, and with prompting from the sackholders, Venn's resolved to face the Dynamis Lord every time we enter Dynamis-Xarcabard, since if we don't try, we can't refine our strategy and bring the big guy down. Can't win if you don't play! We've had a bit of crankiness and flaring tempers on different runs in the past month, but rather than let it tear apart the shell, people actually discussed issues and we're probably better off for the conflict. As with any endeavor that requires a large group of people, we will have personality conflicts and hurt feelings, but if people don't let resentment fester and actually get things out in the open, we can hopefully move forward.

We have a few new PLDs, either main or with other jobs also at 75, so we've got plenty of fodder for the tank party now, but there are still runs where we end up a bit short and have to make Thom and/or Phelan bring their PLD. Lumikumi can even bring his MNK once in awhile if he wants to, now that it's 74/75. One of our newer PLDs missed out on two pairs of Valor Leggings that dropped to PLD40+ during our post-boss farming in Dynamis-Windurst. He mistakenly thought we were done after we'd killed the Mega Boss and he got his flag. Other people were leaving early, so he thought we were done and dropped his glass. This probably stemmed from the Jeuno run we'd done the week before - we don't farm Jeuno after the Mega Boss. We could have sent someone out to get him a new glass for the post-boss farming, but he decided he was tired anyway. At least it's a common drop for us there, so he'll get his boots some time soon.

We regularly have to play "musical zones", what with all the different Dynamis linkshells wanting to do certain zones at pretty much the same time. Usually this is just on Saturday evenings, when we have conflicts with early Sunday morning Japanese linkshells. There are no websites for "reserving" areas (and no in-game mechanism) that are used by both North American and Japanese linkshells, so it's pretty much whoever gets there first. Since our Wednesday runs usually start at 9pm, we can't enter Dynamis on Saturday until 9pm, so it's not like we could gather early and jump into a zone as soon as we have enough people. On Wednesday nights, most of the linkshells use the Rusty Buckets calendar, but every once in awhile we'll get bumped to another zone than the one we intended to do. The night of the Windurst run I mentioned, we were supposed to do Beaucedine, but a group that had been bumped from Xarcabard decided to jump in Beaucedine ahead of us. They only had 7-11 people for a quick farming run, and I'm pretty sure they were out of there about the time we entered Windurst. It just takes so long to decide where to go (and what zones are available), and then for everyone to travel there. In this case, we would have been better off staying put, but we did get the Windurst flag (and Beaucedine access) for at least one person, and 2 100s for the shell and a bunch of relic for our members, so it's all good!

Dynamis-Valkurm Interlopers!

TheUltimates had a very exciting time last night, when we finally beat Dynamis-Valkurm. This was either our 3rd or 4th run since I joined the linkshell in January, and the previous runs have always been unhappy events. Lucrezia modified the strategy a bit, and made perfect pulls up to Cirrate Christelle, the Mega Boss, leading to a wonderful win. Instead of sending 3 runners out for each of the Nightmare Flies, Luc pulled each in sequence. I shadowed him just in case of links, and it was interesting to see just how far away the flies could be. He pulled the fly from the northeast first, bringing it back to the outpost as people were still in the process of entering. He and I immediately headed to the southeast for the next fly, while Lumikumi led the team to Selbina when the first fly was dead. Luc brought the second fly back to them, then he and I headed to the western fly, with Lumi taking the team to the eastern edge of the Valkurm Emperor's beach after the second fly was dead. The pulls were completely clean, and the group dispatched the flies with ease.

We rejoiced to have our subjobs back and moved on to the Fairy Ring. Phelan's RNG headed into the Fairy Ring cave after Lucrezia made a sacrifice pull on all the Yagudos to give Phelan a safe passage. Phelan used Shadowbind on the funguar and ran back to where we were all waiting on the beach. Lumikumi, Amyalfrodo and I shared hate and seemed to keep it on us pretty well. The only death was Amyalfrodo. It was hard to believe we'd already made it past the Fairy Ring, with only 2 deaths (one intentional), and not a single bit of aggro.

With plenty of time on the clock, we headed east to get Nant'ina, a Goobbue NM, from Highland's zone. The group had to fight several Quadavs and statues to clear Luc's path to the NM, but nothing gave us any trouble. We thought we'd given them enough to keep busy while Luc and I skirted past several Manticores to get the NM, but it's such a long pull that they were impatiently waiting for more things to kill before we got back to them.

Now that the Mega Boss had been weakened by killing the Fairy Ring and Nant'ina, we headed over to the Selbina gate, gathered in our appointed spots near the Mega Boss (tanks with their backs to the gate, support mages to the tanks left, damage mages a bit north of the support mages, melee behind the malboro). We buffed up, some slept for TP, and we cut loose. The actual start of the fight was a little bit chaotic, as Lumikumi was counting down from 5, and the Malboro went red when he was at 3, so someone jumped the gun. We had quite a few deaths during the fight, but I think it was only around a third of the alliance. We had to immediately kill the two Nightmare Malboros that were spawned when we engaged the Mega Boss, then we got everyone on their feet and everyone got their Dynamis - Valkurm Sliver and danced around happily, basking in the moment of triumph.

We had about 70 minutes left on the clock for farming, and we were pretty lucky with the drops. We got two Cleric Belts, a Warrior's Mask -1, and a Warrior's Stone. Meshe won the first belt, while Fliggity was blessed by Altana, and won the three other items. He's now 6/6 on WHM and WAR relic, the lucky bastard!

Some of the pulls after the Mega Boss can get pretty messy, but we didn't have a lot of deaths, and pretty much just mowed through the mobs. We fought mostly Manticores, Hippogryphs, and Cactuars, with a few Sheep thrown in for good measure. Unbelievably, I survived the night without a single death (I was backup tank, so was main tanking whenever Lumikumi got killed). The lag was absolutely wretched, especially on the Nightmare Cactuar pulls. My screen froze so badly several times that I thought my PS2 was crashing.

We now have a bunch of people with access to Dynamis-Tavnazia, but I'm not sure when we'll be trying that. There's a limit of 18 people in that zone, so ideally we'd have 36 people with access and go in on a Saturday night in two waves (so the three day wait doesn't interfere with our Wednesday night runs). We'll have to revisit Buburimu and Qufim to get more people their slivers for access. I messed up the Mega Boss pull on our last Qufim run, spoiling the flag chance for a few people. I was a bit emotionally distracted at the time, but shouldn't have let that get in the way of doing my job.

We've been having some pretty good runs in general over the past month or so. We completely cleared Bastok before the Mega Boss one night, and that was exciting, and another night in Windurst, we just pulled from the Death House and killed them all while working our way through the trigger NMs. It sure made it easier to set up camp for the BLM and SMN trigger NMs.

For awhile there, the linkshell myth was that Kiki always wins (drops, main tank), but lately it's been Lumikumi who always wins. He's been main tanking quite a bit, and on a recent rare farming run in the Glacier, he won the covetted Valor Breeches. It was nice to see them drop! We got further on that farming run than we ever had before too, so that was fun.

We've been having troubles farming Xarcabard some nights, mostly because of a lack of tanks on a particular run. We just need to have more on some of those pulls. We do so much better there when we have at least 3 PLDs and 3 NINs. I think we'll be ready to try the Dynamis Lord again soon. I'd really love to see us beat him!

New Title: Dynamis-Valkurm Interloper

Dynamis: Dynamis-Qufim Interlopers!

It's been about three months since my last Dynamis update, so here's a bit of what's been going on in The Ultimates. We've been doing lots of runs, both farming and flag, and have been getting lots of relic drops for people along the way. We frequently lose our scheduled zone on Saturday nights to Japanese shells doing their early morning Sunday runs, but no matter where we end up, people get relics and/or flags, so it's all good. Plus it's just really fun when we can roll through the cities with 40 people.

We've been coming up a bit short on members for runs lately, partly because a lot of people are taking breaks from the game, but also from general real-life activities and a few just moving on to other shells. So we're under a big push for recruiting new members right now. If you're on Lakshmi and looking for a nice bunch of people to do Dynamis with, please apply at the TU forums. We're currently taking applications from all level 75 jobs except for Summoner. Our runs are 8:30 PM Eastern on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

A couple of weeks ago, Venn promoted 5 of us to sackholder, since it's a lot of work running 3 linkshells, and his management team was pretty small. Albany, Allia, Fliggity, Lucrezia and I are now sackholders of The Ultimates and the sister linkshells that we're already in. We've had a few meetings to try to get responsibilities spread out amongst the group, and come up with ways to improve linkshell morale and increase attendance. Venn needs to have more leaders in place, since he's starting law school in a few weeks, and won't be able to spend as much time with FFXI any more. At least he'd better not, if he means to do well in school.

We recently had a flag run for Dynamis-Beaucedine, but managed to get three drops (MNK, BLM, BRD) as well as 2 100 pieces. We even skipped the Orcs for time. Itera was the only lotter for his Melee Cyclas, and now is 5/5 on his Monk Relic armor! He was a very happy Galka. We thought we'd come back in and farm after the we'd killed the Megaboss, but the dragons were still wandering back to Fei'Yin and killed us all after we'd reentered. We never had troubles with them before, so that was unexpected.

Our practice of having the PLDs /random for main and sub tank responsibilities has mostly been working out pretty well. There's this myth in the LS that Kiki always wins, but I think we've kept it spread around pretty well. It seems like there will be a few times in a row that I'll win the lot, but then I'll go quite a few runs as backup or just a kiter. Lumikumi wasn't able to make it for quite awhile because of work, but he's back in action now. Jarbit (and Frostwitch) are currently on a break, but I hope they'll be back soon. Amyalfrodo has real-life conflicts frequently as well, but we always have at least 2 PLDs show up. There are quite a few others in the LS with PLD at 75, so we could always have them show as PLD if necessary.

One of the most exciting runs in the past few months was our third (since I joined the shell) Qufim run. We did two runs in July. The first was with 30 people in the zone, and it went really well, but we ran out of time when we messed up the pull on the megaboss. However, Lucrezia and I learned a lot from that failure, and we went back two weeks later and had what was nearly a picture perfect run, except for the part of not quite killing the megaboss. Lucrezia unlocked our subjobs within a minute of entering the zone, and we quickly worked our way through the zone - killing some Quadavs, the Water Elemental, the Kraken, then more Quadavs as we made our way towards Behemoth's Dominion. We killed the Rocs, the goblins, and the Golem, then headed out to get the Ice Elemental before taking on Antaeus. Lucrezia had us approach from the side (we'd gone in from the front the last time), while everyone was camped back in the corner. I'd brought my Powder Boots for the pull, an d Luc ran in and aggro'd everything, while I grabbed Antaeus and headed back to camp with him. I think our main problem is we had all the mages too close, and a few of them got killed by one of his AOEs before they'd even got a spell off. But we ended up getting him down to just a sliver of health before we wiped. It was very exciting, and very encouraging for future runs.

Even better was our fourth Qufim run this past Saturday, with 34 or 35 people in the zone. We won! Hurray! We got our subjobs before we got to the Quadavs, and did well until someone got aggro'd by the Nightmare Snolls on the way to the Rocs. We quickly killed them off though, and ended up doing better on the Golem than we had previously. We did the Antaeus pull with 10 minutes left on the hourglass, and this time the BLMs lived through it, and we beat the Gigas with not all that many deaths! We were all very excited to have won, and went on to try to farm for the next hour, but we lost a lot of time wiping on the Nightmare Diremites (they just kept multiplying), and ended up with no drops for the night. In addition to the diremites, we cleaned up the snolls and killed some Orcs as well.

I think we're going to try to do a few Valkurm runs in the near future, and finally get the win there as well. It will be exciting to finally be able to try Dynamis-Tavnazia.

New Title: Dynamis-Qufim Interloper

Dynamis: San d'Oria

On Saturday night, after winning my Valor Surcoat and putting it on and admiring it for the first time, I noticed my Creek F Mitts, fondly referred to as the Oven Mitts, just didn't do my new coat any justice. I said to the LS, "When are we doing Sandy next? I need some gloves to match my my new jacket." Well, wouldn't you know it, San d'Oria was next on our agenda. So Wednesday night, we gathered together in San d'Oria, going for the flag for a couple of new members, and hoping for a good bit of farming as well.

Amyalfrodo won the lot for main tank, and despite her trepidation about the role, this being her second dynamis run ever, we insisted on throwing her into the deep end to teach her to swim. San d'Oria's really a pretty good place to start learning anyway, and with Jarbit, Lumikumi and I backing her up on the PLD team, along with Daden as NIN, we figured it would go pretty well. Goldfish was pulling like a mad man though, so poor Amy was getting a bit overwhelmed, but she's catching on quickly. Hopefully she enjoyed it as well.

We had some massive pulls, but it was a pretty uneventful journey up to the Megaboss. Amy and Crazyxen got their flags, and we continued to farm afterwards. One of the mobs killed Amy, and I took over main tanking, and I believe it was the mob that actually killed Amy that dropped the Valor Gauntlets, just as I believe it had been the mob that killed Lumikumi that dropped the Surcoat on Saturday. Since it was Amy's second run with us, I was the only PLD lotting on the glove, and they were mine! Hurray! They look so much better than my oven mitts. I miss the HP I've lost by not wearing my RSE mitts, but I think the Enmity and Defense are probably worth it. I'll keep the mitts around for when I'm a lolDDpld, and when I need max HP, but I think my Valor Gauntlets should be my default tanking hand gear, at least until I get my Homam gloves. :-)

We ended up getting probably 8 drops of relic that night, and ended up wiping horribly, twice, near the death courtyard that we had so much troubles with on an earlier run. These late night post-Boss famring runs tend to break down a bit, as people start to leave, and the ones who stay are perhaps getting a bit sleepy.

Here's a couple of screenshots comparing my oven mitts to my proper Valor Gauntlets:

Sure is a big improvement!

Dynamis: Happy Xarcabard Farming

I had an exciting weekend, with lots of things to write about, but the one I'm most excited about is TheUltimates' Dynamis run on Saturday. We actually managed to do Dynamis-Xacabard as Venn planned. The Japanese shell that seems to be there every Saturday evening (Sunday morning for them), must have had something else to do. We still don't have the numbers to want to try taking on the Dynamis Lord, so it was just to be a farming run. Lumikumi won the lot for main tank, with me as backup. Jarbit came as PLD, and Daden was our only NIN. We'd only had three tanks on our previous run, and I felt more comfortable going in with 4 of us.

The first time statue pull didn't go quite they way we wanted it to, but we only had two demons come after us, and the BLMs got the statue and the time extension. The two eye pull went smoothly, now that we all know what to do. We made our way to the second camp, and while killing the eyes and demons there, a Melee Crown dropped! I'd never seen Relic drop from a normal mob in Xarcabard, but apparently TU has had a couple pieces drop over the years. Itera and Rassiter both lotted, and Itera won! Hurray!

We continued on to the NM demon trios, and had a number of deaths in the process, but overall, things were much cleaner than the last time, mostly because we had a "spare" tank to jump in when one of the others died. All the pulls went pretty smoothly, with just the BLM NM being troublesome, having blasted Daden with a Thundaga III before he moved off of his platform. We had to make a second sacrifice pull to get him.

On the final set of NMs, the Dragoon King dropped the Wyvern Helm. Venn was the only lotter, and finally, after 3 years, he's completed his Dragoon Relic. It was pretty exciting! At this point, had we been going for the Dynamis Lord, we would have snuck past a line of demons and eyes to get to the dragons in front of the Castle. Goldfish told us it had been a really good run so far, and we would have had plenty of time for DL, so that was really encouraging.

Since we weren't going for DL, we were going to kill all those demons lined up on the way to Castle Zvahl's. The first pull looked clean, but then turned a bit ugly. We were swarmed with angry eyes and demons, and ended up with a full wipe. We dusted ourselves off, rested up, and worked on killing them a few at a time.

After cleaning them up, we headed south, I think, for more farming. Goldfish pulled an eye, and we got quite a few warrior, monk, bard, and white mage demons. We went through them rather efficiently, with a few deaths, then on to the the next set. Lumikumi had gotten killed, and I jumped in to take over on a Kindred Bard. I was so surprised to see "You find a valor surcoat on the Kindred Bard" when we defeated it. Jarbit, Lumikumi, and I were the only main-lot PLDs. We cast our lots, and mine was the highest (then I was promptly killed by the Kindred Monk I was tanking). I couldn't believe it! I'm never that lucky. I'm currently the only person in TU with the Valor Surcoat. It seems to be a curse for the LS, since the PLDs who've won them in the past either quit the game or leave the linkshell. I don't plan on doing either.

We continued killing mobs and another Melee Crown dropped, completing Rassiter's MNK relic set. And then another mob soon after dropped the BLM hat, which has been promised to Sarntur. He'd won one on a previous run a year ago, but the hourglass expired before the hat had dropped to him and it was lost. That piece completed Sarntur's BLM relic. So it was an amazing farming run for us: 5 Xarcarbard relic pieces, which completed 3 sets, and the other two made Itera and I very happy, and our wins were blissfully drama-free. I think it's pretty neat that we both got our pieces on the same run. Now we should both get our Glacier drops on the same run too. :-)

As time was winding down, we had another swarm of angry eyes and demons that killed us all, so Venn called it a night and people were given R3s. I really hope we can have more Northlands runs like that. We need more relic armor for everyone!

I still can't believe Kiki actually has a Valor Surcoat. I remember talking about it with Yobun maybe two years ago, when what may have been the first NA linkshell to beat the Dynamis Lord got the Surcoat. We both figured it was something our PLDs would never have. Of course, back then, there weren't many good NA dynamis groups yet, nor did I think I'd be doing Dynamis, or any other "end game" sort of activity. Since then, I've seen Valor Surcoats popping up all over the place, so it was no longer had the unobtainableness it once had. I never thought I'd have mine just over 6 months after starting Dynamis, and just over 4 months with a shell that had enough members with access to the Northlands. I'm 3/5 on my relic now, with the hands and legs missing. I had been planning to upgrade my AF Surcoat with Limbus items, but now I think my AF pants are the logical upgrade.

Dynamis: Qufim

This Wednesday, we headed to Qufim Island to see how'd we'd fare in Dynamis-Qufim. Like the other CoP Dynamis zones, we'd be starting without our subjobs. We'd have 60 minutes to get the Megaboss killed, and then would get an hour extension for farming. I won the tank /random, and Jarbit was on backup. This was Amyalfrodo's first run with us - one of the cities might have been a more gentle introduction to the Paladin role in Dynamis, but I think she had fun anyway.

Things were a bit disorganized, mostly because we had to move quickly, and people were a bit anxious. We were told we wouldn't do anything right away, as Goldfish, Lucrezia, and Krimsonfury would be off in search of the ??? spots to release our subjobs. As I was getting ready - eating my food, using my reraise gorget, Firenze pulled a group of bats. I wasn't expecting that yet, and someone said "don't pull", but Firenze appeared with five bats chasing her. My immediate reaction was to use my provoke macro, but a no-subjob PLD doesn't have provoke, so that was pretty useless. I switched over to my Flash macro, and grabbed one of them. Meanwhile, Firenze died and kind of bitched at me about it. I'm not sure what she expected me to do with multiple bats - it's not like I have Flashga or anything. Plus it would have been nice if she'd given us a bit of warning, and we'd known what was about to happen. The BLMs could have been ready with sleepga, the PLDs could have been ready with flash.

We finished off the bats, and headed off in one direction, then another. We pulled a statue that popped a bunch of Quadavs. The first one killed me pretty quickly, so I sat on the sidelines while they cleaned those up, then killed a Water Elemental. Apparently the Megaboss is resistant (immune?) to all types of elemental magic, but by killing different NM Elementals that are roaming about, you remove the resistance to that particular element.

The next victim on the list was an NM Kraken. He murdered a few pullers, but we finally got him to the group got him dead, not without a few more deaths in the process (including me and Jarbit, meaning Amy got her first taste of main-tanking in Dynamis). Killing the Kraken is supposed to reduce the Megaboss's auto-regen capability, which would be a good thing.

The thieves were having no luck finding the ??? spot, and were dying repeatedly while searching. So we pressed on, heading toward Behemoth's Dominion, killing some Quadavs along the way. There were a few snoll-induced deaths when people got aggro'd, but they didn't slow us down too much. We killed the Ice Elemental, and then a set of Nightmare Rocs, but we were running out of time, so we couldn't get to an NM that you kill to reduce the Megaboss's magic defense.

So it was on Antaeus, a Gigas NM, still without our subjobs. Antaeus is a ranger, and has a terrible version of Catapult called Trebuchet. It's an AOE, and inflicts massive damage on everyone in its path. Firenze was one-shotted while trying to pull him, and then when we finally got him to camp, he used it twice, which took out almost all of our damage-dealers. The PLDs took significantly less damage, so we tried to fight it for awhile, but we didn't seem to be making much of a dent in it. The last two alive were Buffdaddy (NIN) and Meshe (WHM), but first Meshe, and then Buffdaddy were killed, just as time was expiring on our hourglasses.

All in all, it was a really good learning experience, and we'll do much better next time!

Last Saturday we had a decent farming run in Windurst. We were supposed to have a Xarcabard run, but a Japanese linkshell went in about 90 minutes before our start time, so rather than wait, we headed to Windurst. Lumikumi got his Valor Leggings, and we also got DRK, THF, and SAM relic. I didn't get any screenshots in Qufim, but here's one from Windurst!

Dynamis: Another Update

It's been a few weeks, so it's time for another exciting Dynamis update!

On April 4th, we had our first Bastok run in a long time. Amyalfrodo decided it was time to join her husband in Dynamis, so we made it a flag run to get her started as part of the TU team. It's good to get another PLD in the group, but she wasn't actually present for the run, having a previous real-life commitment. Alfrodo was playing BLM and couldn't really dual-box her character as well, but he made sure she touched the ??? spot after we killed the Mega Boss. It was a really good farming run - we passed our record for relic drops (14, I think it was), but we have killed more mobs on a previous run. Lumikumi finally got his Valor Coronet, so I think he was pretty happy. I was main tank on that run - I think it was the last time I won the tanking /random.

The following Saturday, we had a farming run in Dynamis-Xarcabard. It was a pretty sloppy run, and we only 32 people there. Goldfish wasn't there at the start, and we got confused on the first pull. Fortunately it wasn't a wipe, but it did slow us down a bit. Other pulls didn't go so well either. I guess it was a combination of lack of experience, bad luck, and people just not really being with it that night. We didn't get a single relic drop on the run, and not much currency either. Lumikumi and I were the only two PLDs, and Daden and Aphex were the only NINs.

On the 11th, we were supposed to have another Xarcabard farming run, and do better this time, but another LS, which doesn't follow the Rusty Buckets calendar except to poach places from other linkshells, took it about an hour before we would have been able to. Beaucedine was free, so we headed there instead, and got three pieces of relic (WHM and BRDx2), plus a 100 piece, so that worked out pretty well.

Saturday the 14th was simply miserable. It was my first Dynamis-Valkrum run, and I was pretty excited beforehand. I was expecting it to be more difficult than Buburimu had been, but I didn't expect it to be a complete disaster. It was the first run for a lot of us, so we weren't quite certain about what to expect, since reading guides on the web aren't the same as actually being there. Like Bubu, we start out in Valkrum with 60 minutes, and no subjobs. The first task at hand is to have three pullers grab Nightmare Flies from scattered areas in the Dunes, and to bring them back to the camp at the Outpost. Killing these three flies will give us back out subjobs. Ideally, this will be done within 10 minutes of entering the zone. The pulls went badly, and half the group was wiped out by a swarm of rampaging Nightmare Sabotenders. After recovering and getting clean pulls, we got our subjobs, but we'd already been in the zone for close to half an hour.

Next we headed down to the Valkrum Emperor's beach, where Fairy Ring, an NM funguar would be pulled from the tunnel. This funguar hits so hard and fas. Albany, then Jarbit, then I were dropped like sacks of potatoes. But the team was able to defeat the Funguar, and we headed over to the Selbina zone. The Mega Boss, a Malboro NM sits there. He doesn't aggro until you attack him, so we all started preparing for the Mega Boss fight. Killing the Mega Boss would give us a 60 minute time extension, which we would then use to farm for relic and upgrade items. So the melees put on their Opo-opo Necklaces and started drinking their stack of sleeping potions, while the BLMs tested their spell distance, and the RDMs worked out their stun order.

Just after I popped my last sleeping potion, a swarm of mobs suddenly appeared, and moments later, we were all lying there dead. Apparently one of the BLMs had a macro "accident", and hit the Mega Boss with a spell before anyone was ready. There was no way to reraise at that point - we would have been instantly killed again - so that was it for the night. We'd killed 4 mobs total. Hopefully things will go more smoothly next time. At least we got to learn a bit about the zone.

Last night, we headed back to Beaucedine for another farming run. We were a bit short on people (only 32), and didn't get quite as far as we normally do, but we did get RNG and RDM relic, as well as a 100 piece for the treasury. It's always fun when someone gets another piece of relic. The Socks were the final piece Firenze needed for her complete RNG set (including the belt), so she was terribly excited!

Dynamis: Dynamis-Buburimu

I was very excited on Saturday, since TheUltimates had Dynamis-Buburimu scheduled. This would be my first run in a Chains of Promathia Dynamis zone, also known as Dreamworld Dynamis. In order to enter CoP Dynamis zones, you need to have beaten Diabolos in CoP Mission 3-5. There's been a big push in the shell to get people past that point, with some even doing the mission that morning to be ready. There are still a few people that haven't even done the Promyvions yet, but hopefully they'll get up to Chapter 4 before too long.

The run was really a lot of fun. It differs quite a bit from the "regular" Dynamis zones. First of all, you only have 1 hour in the zone until you've killed the Mega Boss, which gives you a time extension of an hour. There are no other time bonuses available. You're only allowed to take a maximum of 36 people in the zone, as opposed to the 64 in regular Dynamis. When you first enter, you have no subjob. In order to regain our subjobs in Buburimu, three runners had to find a ??? spot that can be in one of four places scattered throughout the zone. So beforehand, Goldfish took Lucrezia and Krimsonfury around the Buburimu Pennisula to get a feel for where to go to look for the spots.

We were missing a few people, and only had two of our normal PLDs show up (Jarbit was needed on BLM), so Albany was asked to come as PLD too. Eulucia was the only one there as NIN. When it came time to /random for main tank, Lumikumi went first with a 165, Kiki followed with a 134, and then Albany with something like 62. It was pretty funny to see the really low lots. We ended up with 32 or 33 people for the run, and got ready to head in. Goldfish, Lucrezia and Krim got the first three hourglasses and headed in to run off and try to find the ??? spot, while the rest of us tried to hurry and get in as well.

The Mega Boss is a dragon, Apocalyptic Beast. He's already there when you enter, and walks all over the zone, apparently sticking to the roades. There are Beastmen NMs and Dragons that each have specific job two-hours or dragon abilities, all of which the Apocalyptic Beast can us if that particular Beastman or Dragon is still alive. So the strategy is to eliminate the Beastmen and Dragons with the most dangerous abilities.

I didn't keep track of the mobs we killed, and we all followed Goldfish to different locations and killed what was brough to us. We started out with a few dragons at the zone which ended up dispelling all of our buffs - reraise, food, what-have-you. Next time I'll know to wait until we get past those dragons efore using items. We ended up over at the ramp down to the beach that heads towards Bibiki Bay and Goldfish pulled a dragon and told us to pull it down the ramp. People missed that part, and we ended up with a full wipe from repeated Body Slams. At one point, it was just Lumikumi and I futilely trying to "finish" it off, and Goldfish got in a couple shots after we fell.

Goldfish declared the run a loss, as time was getting short, and we'd lost sight of the wandering Apocalyptic Beast, and that dragon would be at full health by the time we'd be back on our feet. However, Goto especially argued that we could do it, and certainly should try. Venn agreed we could try, so we quickly raised everyone, handing out R1s, R2s, and R3s as they were available. As soon as everyone was unweakened, Goldfish brought the dragon back to us, and this time we fought it at the bottom of the ramp, with mages up on the cliff, out of range of the AOE. We killed it with only a few deaths, and then the hunt was on for the Boss.

Firenze, who'd come as RNG for the run, spotted the Apocalyptic Beast on widescan, and was sent to quickly pull it. We went all out on the boss, using our two hours, and somehow, we managed to win, with merely a few seconds to spare! It was terribly exciting.

We'd bought ourselves an hour for farming, and cleared the Nightmare Crabs and the Nightmare Efts, getting Valor Gauntlets -1 from the crabs and Sorceror's Gloves -1 from the efts. Jarbit won the lot for the PLDs, and Sarntur won the lot for the BLMs. These items are used to upgrade their Relic items to the +1 versions, which will be quite nice for them to have! We headed over to the outpost and started killing the Nightmare Bunnies, but they decided to kill us instead. After a half wipe, we somehow managed to lose aggro from all but one of them. Allia was keeping that one slept until our hourglasses expired, which provided a nice photo opportunity with the nice little evil bunny rabbit. Before we timed out, we killed the bunny, but a couple of people who were still weakened got hit with whirlclaws and died again.

It was a really fun and exciting run, and a nice change of pace.

New Title: Dynamis-Buburimu Interloper

Dynamis: The Northlands

Since I've fallen behind on my posting, here's another update-type entry for Dynamis. After our St. Patrick's Day failure in Dynamis-Beaucedine, we headed back again the following Wednesday. There was another shell that doesn't use the Rusty Buckets calendar that was hoping to get the zone before us (and this LS is notorious for "stealing" zones from others), but we got everyone there early, so we would be ready to go in as soon as WeMeleeStatues finished up their run. We worked with WMS to know exactly when they were exiting, and Venn was able to trade the Timeless Hourglass before the other LS's leader. Hurray! Many thanks to Ayvaen and Akuma and Verence for their cooperation. This run went much better than the previous one, and we even got WHM and RDM relic, as well as 2 100s. We had a fairly uneventful run to Fei'Yin, made a clean pull on the Mega Boss, and won the flag for 6 more members of TheUltimates.

I'm pretty sure I was main tank for this run, but I can't really remember. We've since switched to having the would-be main tanks all /random at the start of the run, with the top lotter being the main tank and the second lotter being back-up. I think it makes for a strong tanking force to have us all sharing main tanking duties, rather than designating a single person. Plus it splits up the responsibility and keeps one person from getting burnt out, or worse, not being there one night and having no one else used to it.

On Saturday evening, we headed back to Dynamis-Xarcabard, for our re-match with the Dynamis Lord. Leroi won main tanking duties, while I was on backup. We had a really good run, with no wipes, and no mass links like we had my first time there. We even got RNG, SAM, and NIN relic drops, but of course we ended up with controversy over the lotting, which has caused a great deal of turmoil in the LS this week.

Since it was pretty much the same sort of drama as our last run in Xarcabard, Venn is trying to come up with a way so long-time members don't feel cheated out of "their" relic. No one seems to want a points system, but the original rules don't seem to work either. As much as people espouse the notion of being one big happy family and being glad the LS got the drops even if they don't get it themselves, when it comes right down to losing the lot on something you want, emotions take over. This stress is on the verge of tearing apart the linkshell, with some people threatening to leave if we switch to points, and other threatening to leave if we don't. Right now the idea of a "dream item list", stolen from the LegacyOfOld linkshell seems to be popular, but I don't think that will please everyone either.

The Dynamis Lord himself spanked us again. We had him down to about 25%, but Oblivion Smash smashed us into oblivion, and it was all over. With my new Bomb Queen Ring, I ended up with 1675 HP for my initial Spirits Within on the Dynamis Lord. That was kind of fun, but I need to work on a macro palette to use just for the DL fight. The one I made on Saturday just isn't doing it for me yet.

This Wednesday (March 28th), we had a very fun farming run in Dynamis-Beaucedine. We got further into the Hydra Corps than we had on previous farming runs, and even got 4 relic pieces to drop: WHM for Meshe, BLM for Luiss, THF for Lucrezia, and DRG for Kojita. That completed Kojita's relic set, so he was pretty happy. Actually, I think everyone was pretty excited about the drops. We also got one 100 piece for the Treasury. Daden won the /random for main tank, with Lumikumi I think on backup, so I tried my best to keep statues and slept mobs pre-occupied with me rather than smacking on the pullers or the sleepers.

It's off to Dynamis-Buburimu on Saturday, and I've very excited to see what that's like!

Dynamis: Thar Be Dragons

TheUltimates has been busy getting newer members all the flags they need so we can have more people when we next face the Dynamis Lord in Xarcabard (this coming Saturday). On March 10th, we cleared Jeuno, getting 5 pieces of AF2 in the process. I was main tank for this run, and it looked like I was going to actually make it through without a single death. The Ranger NM mob knocked me down to 3 HP, but I must've lost hate after taking so much damage, because I seemed to hang there at 3 HP for many seconds before all the cures hit me and I was back to full. I did finally succumb to one of the final mobs before the Mega Boss (it was a MNK this time). Both Itera and Lumikumi (and at least one other person) had needed the flag to finally get Northlands access.

Then on the 14th, we headed to San d'Oria. It was the night of the Ninja pants - 4 dropped on the run, along with Monster Trousers (I'm now 3/5 on my BST relic), WHM, and RNG. The run wasn't as smooth as some - it's almost like we think San d'Oria's a walk in the park and get a bit careless - but it was fun, and we got 3 more members Northlands access. Lumikumi was main tank for this, with Armageddon as backup tank. This was our second run with the Taru Tank Trio, aka the Tonka Tanks. It's pretty cool being part of a Tarutaru PLD team. We go well with our legion of Elvaan Black Mages.

On Saturday, with quite a few people needing the Beaucedine flag, we headed to Dynamis-Beaucedine. Daden just returned to the game after a brief paternity leave, and asked to main tank in Beaucedine (as NIN75). We had too many tanks for the tank party, so I dropped and joined the "suicide squad", hoping to help Meshe keep them alive while I kited statues and provoked/flashed slept mobs. The run went very quickly, and as typical for the Glacier, we didn't get a single piece of AF2.

Things went horribly wrong with the Mega Boss pull though, and we ended up failing to get the flag. Daden lost the eye in the dragons and it got too far away from him for provoke, so Goldfish slowed down to let Daden get it, and got killed. So the dragons all came running back right away to slaughter us all. We learned that they have an enormous aggro range, and you simply cannot reraise anywhere closer than the top of the ramp down to Fei'Yin. No corner of the Fei'Yin "field" is safe.

No one has the zone scheduled for Wednesday, so instead of doing Dynamis-Valkurm as we'd planned, we're heading back to Beaucedine. We need everyone for Xarcabard on Saturday!

Dynamis: Update-type Thingy

I'm a bit behind on Dynamis entries (part of the Blog Boredom I mentioned awhile back), so here's an update type of post.

February 24th, we had our first San d'Oria run since I joined TheUltimates. No one needed the flag, so it was just a farming run, and I got to see more of Dynamis-San d'Oria than I had with Snakes - we headed past the east gate and through the streets and ended up in one of the courtyard off in the northwest part of town. Lumikumi was main tank, with me as the backup. We didn't get any AF2 to drop until we were past the east gate, but then it started raining pants. We ended up with 4 pairs of MNK shorts, 2 pairs of RNG shorts, and 1 pair of NIN whatevers. The Monks were all pretty happy - I believe this was the first time TheUltimates had ever had the Melee Hose drop.

February 28th, we had a farming run in Beaucedine Glacier. I was main tank, with Mayze as backup. I seemed to die a lot more than normal, usually from an Eagle Eye Shot from one of the RNG mobs. Someone commented that maybe I needed more +HP gear, but since I'd lose enmity in each slot that I'd equip more HP, I don't think that's really the answer. It's more of a case of "keep the tank's HP over 1000 until the RNG uses EES". My standard dynamis tanking HP is 1308 with a taco and a high breath mantle. I can get another 187 HP from my gear, but at the expense of 15 Enmity and 15 Shield Skill less than my standard gear. We got more AF2 than we'd expect from a Northlands run: MNK, WHM, and BST. Rassitier was the lucky MNK, Reefermadness the lucky WHM, and I was the only one lotting on the Monster Gaiters when it dropped to "BST50+ may lot". I've put it on one of my mannequins along with my Monster Jackcoat.

On March 3rd, we made a flag run in Windurst for Fiftycent. We had a smaller crew than usual, with around 30 people at the start. I was the only "normal" PLD to show up at first, so Thom came as PLD too. Leroi eventually popped in, but could only stay for about an hour. I was main tank, with Leroi, then Thom as backup. Goto vowed to keep Kiki alive on this run, and it worked really well until I screwed up the fourth trigger pull. Thom and I ended up dead, and people had to fight a few linked Yagudos that they shouldn't have had to fight. It turned out OK, and we killed the mega boss without too much trouble. The drops were bad, with little currency, and just WHM (Albany) and RNG (Fiftycent) dropping. A lot of people left after the mega boss was down, and our farming didn't go terribly well afterwards.

Over March and April we're going to be focusing mostly on Northlands and CoP dynamis areas, so it should be pretty fun.

Dynamis: Xarcabard

TheUltimates gathered together at the Trail Markings on Wednesday night, hoping to defeat the Dynamis Lord. TU has been through a lot of changes over the past year, and though they had defeated DL in the past, this was the first time in many months that the group was strong enough to attempt it again, thanks to the influx of a lot of new players. This zone is much more difficult than the four cities and Beaucedine, and we all came prepared with items specifically for the final showdown with the Dynamis Lord: opo-opo necklaces, sleeping potions, icarus wings. And everyone had posion potions and reraise items. Since I'd be using Spirits Within, I also brough all my +HP gear and some Carbonara, to make sure I got the most out of my weaponskill. The run was free for us, thanks to the linkshell treasury and a gift from an anonymous benefactor. Some people had been grumbling about the cost of the required items, but having a free run balanced that out.

Venn and Goldfish went over the general strategy for the zone (and promoted Firenze and Meshe to Sackholders), and we all headed in (there were 41 of us). Easykill was main tank, and I was backup. Leroi and Mayze were the only other PLDs, and Rheanos, Eulucia and Aphex were the NIN team. Goto formed the tank party again, since he really likes being the WHM for the tank party, and that's a sure way to be in it. Firenze also likes that role, but she didn't push the issue. Maybe they can alternate, and have one take Wednesdays and the other take Saturdays.

Dynamis-Xarcabard has mostly eyes and demons. The eyes are dangerous, so we'd fight them first. The demons have very uninspired names, but it certainly helps to figure out which to fight. Can't be any more clear than "Kindred Summoner". There are several platforms in Xarcabard with eyes that spawn trios of Demon NMs. For these, Goldfish or Lucrezia would sacrifice pull the eyes away, while Easykill, Rheanos and I would each grab one of the demon NMs. These can't be slept, so Rheanos and I would kite ours while the group killed Easykill's first. Goldfish and Lucrezia had to die so many times on the run. They really should have been the only ones to get the experience point scrolls, but after others started dying, and then we had a full wipe, people started lotting on those themselves. Our wipe came on our first pull after all of the NM demons were dead. We just got more demons and eyes than we could manage.

The AF2 was dropping very nicely for us last night (tail end of the new moon?), and we got RDM, WHM, DRK, and DRG. What should have been an exciting run was soured by some petty drama over who was winning the lots on the AF2. Frostwitch won the Duelist's Chapeau, and then Goto won the Cleric's Mitts, and they're both new-ish members. But rules are rules, and they met the criteria for lotting. People should be happy for them and not bitter that they didn't win. If we're going to be a family, we can't have some people eating peanut butter sandwiches at the kids' table while the grownups feast on steak. If people feel like they belong to the group, they're more likely to be there long-term to help everyone get the items they want.

Theodoric now has complete DRK relic, and Kojita won the Wyvern Helm over Venn. Venn was being a bit emo over his squabbling children, and didn't even want to lot, but people nagged him enough so he did, albeit poorly.

As we made our way towards Castle Zvahl, we started fighting the dragons that were lining the zig-zag path up to the entrance. The final two are the Dynamis Lord's "pets", Ying and Yang. We had to kill these at the same time, otherwise the one that was still alive would respawn the dead one. So we first fought one down to about 10%, then the other to 10%, and then the BLMs nuked the two at the same time.

Next up was the Dynamis Lord himself. The melee all slept for TP, Goldfish pulled the Dynamis Lord, and we all started in fighting him, unleashing our strongest weaponskills. The PLDs set up an invincible order, but I can't say we really held hate all that well. The RDM/DRKs were using Chainspell-Stun, the BLMs were nuking, and we got him down to about 50% when he did something that killed a lot of people. Meanwhile, Ying and Yang showed up again, and Easykill took them away from the main group. DL then warped over to the mages, with nearly everyone dead but the PLDs (I wouldn't have survived the 1300-point hit without all my extra HP), but then it was all over with no hope of beating him.

It was a lot of fun though, and we will do better next time. One thing I need to do is swap back in all of my +enmity gear as soon as I've used spirits within, and maybe I'll have a chance of holding hate. I don't think I even got him to turn with invincible, though I'd been using every JA I had at my disposal.

My exp buffer has taken a beating this week. Maybe I can get a party on Saturday and cap it again, and get working on some merits as well. I had one merit point that I used for my first shield upgrade, so I'm sitting at 300 Shield Skill now in my normal tanking gear (AF+1 leggings, Buckler Earring, Shield Torque give me +22 shield skill). I think it's time to add Chivalry to my toolkit, and I'll need 3 merit points to open that.

Dynamis: Bastok and Beaucedine

On Wednesday last week, TheUltimates headed to Bastok for a flag/farming run. It was the first run for both Itera and Lumikumi, and it was nice to have them back in the same Dynamis group with me, though I do feel bad for Snakes having lost them. We had a really good run, with nearly unbelievable drops: 4 100s, and 10 or 11 pieces of AF2. Mayze finally got his Gallant Coronet, and Corbun got his RDM gloves, as a sub-lotting level 69. I was the main tank for this run, and I died way more than I should have. We didn't have a refresher in the tank party until we were ready to pull the mega boss I think, and that made it hard for people to help keep little Kiki alive. Some of the monk mobs are no problem, with Phalanx II and Sentinel and lots and lots of shield blocks, but when you get more than one in a row, it makes it a bit tougher to survive without several people helping out with the cures. I felt like a yo-yo at times. I'd get killed, I'd rest until unweakened, jump back into the fray and get killed again on the first mob. /sigh

All of our sac pulls were extremely clean, and we had tons of time to farm after the Mega Boss. We mopped up the slums and the Gustaberg zone, fighting up until our hourglasses expired.

On Saturday, we headed back to Beaucedine again. Since we're planning on facing the Dynamis Lord in Xarcabard tomorrow night, and our two Bards (Ranzz and Habanero) needed the flag from Beaucedine, we did another flag run. Mayze was the main tank, with Leroi on backup. I'm getting more used to crowd control, but it ended up getting me killed a couple times when I had to keep an NM's attention while the group fought something else. They seem to resist sleep more than the regular mobs.

Our only relic for the evening was Valor Breeches. Easykill won the lot, and is now 5/5 on his Valor set (not counting the cape). I'm not sure if he's going to switch his main lot to MNK, or if he'll leave it on PLD for the cape, but at least he has the opportunity now to switch. TheUltimates requires you to get five of the pre-CoP AF2 pieces on your main lot before being allowed to switch.

We wiped on the Orc NM canyon, and since that cut into our time, we didn't finish the Orcs off and instead made our way up to Fei'Yin for the Boss fight. We had a lot of people getting hit with Death during the fight, but it went well, and we have two more members ready for Xarcabard!

Dynamis: Windurst and Beaucedine

Last Wednesday, we headed back to Dynamis-Windurst. We had been scheduled to take Dynamis-Jeuno, but since we had just done that on Saturday, we took the only free city zone. It was a really good run, and an easy win. We had about 38 people there for most of the run, and brought down the Mega Boss even quicker than we had on my previous run there with TheUltimates. The most exciting moment for me was when Valor Leggings dropped and I was the only main-lotting PLD who didn't already have them, so they were mine! They enhance the effects of Sentinel, so I'll macro them in for that and use them for kiting, but my AF+1 are better for normal tanking with their +12 Sheild Skill.

We got quite a bit of AF2 on the run: 2xPLD, 2xWAR, BLM, DRK, and SAM. The linkshell also got a Jadeshell, which gets added to the treasury. Jarbit was main tank for the run, with Meshe as back up. I had a better time with crowd control than I've had previously, but poor Allia, the RDM for the tank party, kept getting killed by mobs neither Leroi nor I had voked or flashed.

On Saturday night, we did a flag run for Dyanamis - Beaucedine Glacier. We started a bit late because there was another LS finishing up when we were ready to go, but that won't affect our start time next Wednesday. Jarbit was main tank, and I was backup tank for the evening. Backup tank in Dynamis is a role I can really sink my teeth into, as I'll fight alongside the main tank (so I'm ready to take over should he get killed), but there's none of the "OMG did I pick the right mob?" stress I get when I main tank, and it feels more "defined" than being part of the crowd control crew. I'll still Flash and Provoke incoming and slept mobs to help keep them off the sleeper crew, but I do my best to make sure the main tank stays alive. Jarbit died once before the mega boss, on one of the Monk-type NMs, but he was back up quickly to resume his duties. Goto's made up his mind and is now officially in TheUltimates, and somehow we managed to get him as the WHM for the tank party.

The run went very smoothly. We had 36 people in the zone, and though there were a handful of deaths here and there (and of course our THFs Goldfish and Lucrezia sacrificed themselves for the greater good all too often), it was a really painless run. The final boss for the flag in Beaucedine is interesting. It's a giant eye, located near the entrance to Fei'Yin. It spawns 4 dragons that are tied to it for hate. The strategy for this final fight is to have the THF puller aggro the eye, getting hate from him and the 4 dragons. The PLD tank grabs the eye off the train as the THF goes zooming past. The THF keeps running, all the way to the Ranguemont Pass zone. Meanwhile, the rest of the team is not allowed to do any damage to the eye whatsoever, as it would cause the dragons to suddenly come running back to help the eye. When the THF gets them to the zone, the signal is given to go all out and kill the eye.

For the four or five minutes it takes for the THF to get to the zone, we would provoke, flash and stun the eye to keep him occupied, and build up a good hate threshold as well. The eye has a bunch of annoying AOEs, like sleepga, silencega, and dispelga, but nothing too deadly in that phase of the fight. Once we actually started fighting the eye, it would occasionally warp around the "arena", but SMNs had their avatars on it, and DRGs their wyverns. The pets would head towards the eye when it warped, so it was easy for us to quickly find it and keep fighting it. The urgency here is to get it dead before the dragons get back from the zone, and once you get the flag from the ??? spot, you drop your hourglass and get the hell out of Dodge to avoid a nasty death from the dragons. Both Jarbit and Mayze ended up getting hit with Death, but they reraised quickly when we defeated the eye and were able to get the flag.

Zune needed the flag, but he managed to fall asleep before we fought the eye (or while we were fighting it). It was close, but he managed to wake up and get the flag before a gruesome death. Most of us had already dropped our hourglasses before we realized Zune was asleep, but a few people stayed in and made sure he got his flag. There were also a few people who wanted to play with the dragons, so they stayed behind as well. I suppose it would be fun to see them some day!

Because of the way the boss fight is, you can't really farm after the mega boss is down, unless there is someone waiting at the trail marking to hand out new hourglasses to people when they drop their hourglasses to get out. I wonder if the drops are better after the mega boss fight, since they're so horrible beforehand. At least we got one item this time - Koga Chainmail that made one Ninja happy.

New Title: Dynamis-Beaucedine Interloper