Roc of Ages

Try staring at this wasteland for three hours.

When someone gets bored enough to start complaining about how bored they are, I always tell them the same thing: "Log out and do something in the real world." I was reaching that level of boredom and had was getting ready to either call it an early day or ask Neyla if he wanted to level BST again when Quieren sent me a /tell asking "Do you want to camp Roc with us?"

I left Notorious Hunters because the HNM lifestyle didn't strike me as a lot of fun, but I'd never tried camping one of the HNMs before. Neyla had told me horror stories about the soul-crushing boredom of camping Serket with them, but I decided I'd see for myself. I decided I'd take the Selbina Clay which has been sitting in my moghouse for months and use it on the monument out near Roc's spawn point. That way, I reasoned, I'd get something out of it either way.

Neyla must have been really bored, too. Both of us went along.

These HNM groups are obsessed with finding out what is called "Time of Death" (ToD) for their prey. If a monster spawns every 21-24 hours, knowing the time it was last killed gives you a window of opportunity to be camped in its area and waiting for it to turn up again. We were hustling out to Garlaige Citadel to get up top and in position before the window opened.

And then we stood there.

And stood there.

And stood there some more.

For three hours, we stood in one spot and waited for the bird to pop. We weren't alone, either. Other groups were rushing out to try and claim Roc. Like some coach after maximum coverage, they tried to have a player next to every one of ours. I was standing off in some distant corner, but I ended up with a player named Flyzero standing in front of me.

Someone in our group killed a bat and the batwing dropped into my inventory. Quieren joked that I always got the best drops. "I'll put it in my bazaar for you, Q," I joked. I put it and a rabbit hide in there for 100 gil each, and Flyzero bought them. I think he was just as bored as I was.

Another party puts down Roc while we stand around.

The entire experience was unworthy, as far as I'm concerned. It was interesting to see how these linkshells treat each other -- lots of idiotic trashtalk and psych-out moves, plans on how to steal claim if someone got it first, etc. -- and only reinforced my decision to quit Notorious Hunters.

A "lottery pop" monster wouldn't be so bad, because at least you could kill the "placeholder" monsters. In fact, I'd spent the hour before the Roc experience killing a ton of Rock Lizards in South Gustaberg in hopes that the next lizard to pop would be Leaping Lizzy so I could get a set of Bounding Boots. You can kill crawlers in East Sarutabaruta and eventually one will turn up as Spiny Spipi. Those NMs give you something to do. Roc and the others do not. You just stand there.

Roc eventually popped, and of course we didn't get it. One of our members tried his best to steal claim until someone in the party pointed out it was a "legitimate" shell who'd gotten him and not "the gilsellers." We stood back and watched them fight. They killed Roc, but the bird didn't drop any toys.

I won't be doing that again.

Beastmasters

Neyla and Halifirien are Beastmasters, although neither looks like Marc Singer.

Neyla and I have started leveling our Beastmaster jobs together. I had long ago stopped at Lv. 12, but Neyla caught up to me over the past week or so. It's a fun job where you charm the animals wandering around and make them do most of the fighting for you. When your pet dies, you can charm another one and send it in. When the monster you're fighting is down to its last sliver of life, you can release the pet (or allow it to die) and then finish off the monster yourself for full experience points.

The great thing about Beastmaster is you can solo your way to Lv. 75 if you want. You don't have to form your own parties or wait for a party to invite you. Rabbits and sheep don't care what kind of gear you have or call you a gimp. You set your own hours, basically. As Neyla put it over lunch the other day, it's very Zen.

We were both at Lv. 13 Sunday when we ventured out from Windurst to fight in Tahrongi Canyon. It's a popular spots for BSTs at that level because the place is full of pets and has plenty of dhalmels, yagudo and goblins to fight. The experience points were a little slow because we were still getting used to the dynamic of partying with another person, but we we adjusted.

I like having a duo partner because it's safer. When one of my pets dies, I can run off to find a new one while Neyla's is keeping the monster busy. Then Neyla can be grabbing a new one while my pet is going at it. Unless our pets are very weak and die too fast, we're not in much danger.

Charming canyon crawlers and making them fight dhalmels is priceless.

By this evening we were able to start going after Dhalmels, the large camel-giraffe animals which wander around in loose herds. Sending rabbits, saplings, mandies and crawlers after dhalmels wasn't always a fast fight, but it really started picking up once we were able to charm the dhalmels themselves.

I'm sure the old-school beastmasters would disapprove of some of our methods. I was using an Empress Band for an extra 1,000 experience points for the session, but the main difference was our use of the NPCs we quested the other day. We basically have our own tanks who can provoke the goblins and hold their attention while we and our pets do the damage. When my NPC tagged out, it was Neyla's turn to call an NPC.

Beastmaster is a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to leveling it again later in the week. Now that I'm Lv. 15 I can wear my Warrior's Belt +1 and Bird Whistle, which have nice stats I'll be able to use.

Carbuncle Mitts

At Lv. 20, a Summoner can equip Carbuncle Mitts. They give a nice little MP boost, and they have a hidden effect which reduces the drain created by having Carbuncle out. A higher-level Summoner with Carbuncle Mitts, Auto-Refresh and a Light Staff can keep Carbunle out constantly with no MP drain.

I don't plan to take Summoner that high, but I wanted the mitts.

To get them, you have to travel into the Temple of Uggelepih to obtain an offering. I had used Invisible to avoid detection by the wandering tonberries to get mine. The offering must then be taken deeper into the temple and used to pop a tonberry summoner called Crimson-toothed Pawberry. Pawberry opens the fight by summoning Carbuncle and casting Searing Light for heavy damage, and he repeats that attack every minute until he's dead.

The tonberry has to die.

Getting a Prelate Key to get to the bastard was a hassle, but we finally got one to drop and headed into the temple. We killed him three times and was about to do a fourth when the RDM who needed it got disconnected. Nanunanoo logged on as we were waiting for him to come back, so he ran to join us. Miriya went to let Nanu through the door and got killed after casting Invisible on herself and getting magic aggro from the Manipulator NM who patrols one of the rooms. After all of Miriya's admonishments about the Manipulator, that death was sort of funny to me.

Miriya ended up outside and none of us felt like waiting, so we popped the tonberry and got Nanu his carby mitts. The disconnected RDM, Atakor, finally came back on for his mitts.

I look forward to trying them out eventually.