Playing With My Wood

I

I made arrow after arrow after arrow...

haven't developed my woodworking skills for awhile, so I decided to do that today with the money from all the emperor fish I caught. I started out at Lv. 30 skill.

The guide I've been following said Beetle Arrows are a good synth. It caps at 39, which presents you with a pretty large failure rate in the beginning. Luckily, the ingredients are so cheap that it really doesn't hurt too much when the stuff blows up in your face.

I had a few things in storage, but most of the stuff had to be purchased from the auction house and carted to San d'Oria so I could get synthesis support from the Woodworker's Guild.

Synthesis Costs:
Earth Crystals: 6 stacks @ 1.5k each
Chocobo Fletchings: 8 stacks @ 2.5k each
Beetle Arrowheads: 8 stacks @ 1.3k each
Arrow Wood Lumber: 7 stacks @ 5k each

Extra Costs:
Advanced Synthesis Support: 6 sessions @ 120 gil each
Outpost Teleport to Ronfaure: 3 times @ 800 gil each
Carnations for Quivers: 2 stacks at 720 gil each

Total Costs: 78,240k to get from 30 to 37.

I made 25 Beetle Quivers (1 quiver is 99 arrows), which I then took to Jeuno to sell as two stacks of 12 and one extra. Once they're sold, I'll get back 53k of my initial investment. My total loss for the session is 25,240 gil... which I can earn back simply by selling two emperor fish.

Crafting is fun. I don't plan to use Woodworking as a main source of income because fishing pays my bills, but I have to admit it can be lucrative.

I have very specific goals in mind, which is why I don't mind powerleveling it at a loss. In the short term, I just want to be able to repair my precious Lu Shang when it eventually breaks. In the long term, I want to be able to make a full set of signed HQ elemental staves for Neyla as well as signed versions of "The Big One."

Consumable goods like lumber and arrows are nice, but I kinda like the idea of making signed furniture. It doesn't sell quickly (if at all), but it appeals to me.

Lava Bombs

I'm going to hate it when Neyla and I have to leave Yutunga Jungle. We spent the afternoon leveling Beastmaster there, raking in the experience points by regularly getting Chain 4 and Chain 5.

We

Goblin Poachers are great sources of xp in Yuhtunga Jungle.

had a roaming camp in the passages east of the outpost, charming crawlers and sending them to fight goblins. We could chew them up pretty fast, and they were usually spawning again by the time we'd completed a circuit. We walked in at Lv. 40 and walked out at 42.

The lava bombs created a few problems. The first time we went after one was a treat because we survived the fight the bomb as well as aggro from two different goblins. It was intense, the sort of experience which makes you love the BST job even more.

I wasn't so lucky on the next bomb. It started to explode and I couldn't get around a tree root in time to escape. I died on that one, which kinda sucked. Neyla got taken out by another one later. We were getting close to 7 p.m. and wrapping up the session when another bomb took us both out at the same time. Neyla reraised, but the goblin standing there killed him again. I waited for the goblin to move away before reraising, warped back to Windy to switch to WHM, and returned to the jungle to raise Neyla.

I finished out the evening by fishing about 200k in Emperor Fish and fighting Shiva Prime with Otak, Wulfgar, Hadafal, Malystryxx and Veresko in Fei'yin.

Barbaroi Axes

Now that Neyla and I are Lv. 40 Beastmasters, we could quest for our Artifact weapons, the Barbaroi Axes. Brutus, the character at the Upper Jeuno chocobo stables who gives the quest to unlock the BST job, sends you to Delkfutt's Tower to bring back a bell from one of the chests. All you have to do is get a key from some of the monsters, find the chest, and get the item. Brutus then gives you the axe.

What

The gigas are too stubborn to drop their keys.

isn't so simple is the drop rate of the key. We went in as BSTs and worked our way up the tower until we reached the mobs who drop the key, but the stubborn bastards wouldn't give it up. It was frustrating.

The only mishap came as we were fighting near the spawnpoint for a gigas NM called Mimas. He attacked Neyla and started using Hundred Fists, taking out Neyla's pet tiger and then Neyla as well. Neyla died telling me to run for it, and I slipped down the hall to rest. Mimas didn't come after me.

We eventually got tired of running around up there and seeing the gilsellers camping one of the NMs killing the giants we wanted, so we switched to our respective White and Red Mage jobs and went back up to clean the place out. Veresko eventually joined us.

I think we were in there for six or seven hours before we finally got our keys and found the chests. We have our axes and will put them to use in the jungle in a day or two.

The Minotaur Panty Raid

Today the members of Wicked Ways tackled one of the Chains of Promathia missions by venturing into the Phomiuna Aqueducts to kill the minotaur. The area is capped at Lv. 40, so I went as White Mage and Neyla went as Beastmaster. I wanted to go BST as well, but the monsters in there have nasty AoE moves which meant I had to spam Erase.

Veresko

Yep, that's one dead minotaur.

was our guide, leading us through the zones and pulling the stegotaur monsters. They have True Sight and can detect you even through Sneak and Invisible spells, so some of them had to be fought when we couldn't simply go around them. Carlm died twice -- once when he got caught in a stegotaur's "Doom" move, and again when the minotaur used the same move.

Other than that death, the minotaur fight wasn't too bad. We had a three-party alliance and took it down fast. It used a nasty AoE poison move which kept me busy. Nobody warned me about it, so I didn't have Stoneskin up and saw my health sink into the red a couple times.

Once the minotaur was dead, we had to track down a gate in another area of the aqueducts. Along the way we killed a few Fomors, shadow-type creatures which drop job-specific subligar used for armor quests. The subligar are often very frilly-looking, which is why trips to the aqueducts are often called "Panty Raids." Neyla and I will eventually have to go back in there for the Beastmaster panties.

We

Wicked Wayz celebrates at the Ornate Gate.

found the gate and got the cutscene, took a few group photos to celebrate our victory, and the ones who still needed to complete the mission returned to the Tavnazian Safehold. I guided us through the next mission, which simply involved running out and clicking the Dilapidated Gate in the Misareaux Coast and returning to the safehold.

Neyla and I leveled Beastmaster after that. We tried the jungle at 39, but we were having a difficult time finding things to charm. We hit the Sea Serpent Grotto and charmed leeches to fight the skeletons running around in the circular hallway west of Norg. It was slow xp, but after Neyla hit 40 we returned to the jungle and started raking in the xp by sending crawlers after Incredibly Tough goblins.

We'll have no problems getting to 42 there, at which point we'll have to stop until Neyla levels his White Mage subjob.