Dynamis-Bastok Interloper

Cythe's

The quadav get testy when you near the auction house.

dream of getting through Dynamis-Bastok without dying fizzled out shortly into the run. I wasn't in the main alliance, and I stopped keeping track of him because... well, he had healers in his party. So it was kind of embarassing to me that he got beaten down on normal mobs and deleveled to 74. After that, I kept my "/target Cythe" macro dusted off.

Otherwise, my first visit to Dynamis-Bastok was a lot of fun. We had 60 people again, so we swept through like a ravenous horde and killed everything that moved.

There's no AF2 for White Mage in Bastok, but lucky for me Asmodius already had the piece of Monster gear that drops there. I decided to lot that instead, since there are no other high-level Beastmasters in the linkshell. It seemed like better odds than competing against dozens of people for 100-bills. Three of those dropped, as well as a ton of AF2 for all the other jobs, but no Monster gear.

We

See the turtle of enormous girth?

killed the boss with plenty of time to spare, so we decided to clear the zone. We killed "the guard wall," which is a group of mobs that pop after the boss. We also worked our way to the moghouse and killed wave after wave of new monsters. They kept popping, and they brought along scorpions. I think that was the only time during the run when they managed to get off Breakga.

While I was doing that, Neyla was off leveling Monk and managed to get it to 39. I'd given him a short powerlevel at the Pashow Marshlands outpost earlier to get his Warrior from 19 to 20 so he wouldn't be gimped. He's going to take Monk to 41 to play around with Raging Fists before he sends my gear back.

Apocalypse Nigh

Over lunch, I mentioned the Ochiudo's Kote price tag to Neyla and how I would've bought it in a second if I wasn't saving up for the Hauby. He suggested I go ahead and pick it up, since he was still working on his own Hauby. Considering I love the Gaudy Harness so much that the Hauby would mostly be relegated to my Rampage macro unless I was doing a linkshell event, it didn't take much to convince me.

I was elated to have it, but I didn't bother trying it out. I sent it -- along with my Mythril Knuckles+1, Venerer Ring and Jujitsu Gi -- to Neyla so he could wear them while he continues his push to 40. I went back to the glacier to camp Nue (no drop again) and then returned to the Highlands for the Rampaging Ram; Neyla sent me /tells from Qufim Island as he tried them out on the soft and squishy gigas. We were both drooling over the increase in damage.

Lepruvian

Neyla's party fights a bat in Garlaige Citadel.

needed linkshell help to get his coffer in Garlaige Citadel, so I went out there with Wulfgar and Uliwela to get him through the banishing gates. Neyla's party was camped at the first one, and Wulfgar was shocked that I wouldn't powerlevel the party while we waited for Lepruvian to run back and get the key he'd left in storage. "I can understand not going out to PL," he said, "but they're standing right there!" to which I could only laugh and say "So?" Neyla thought it was funny, too.

Some schmuck dashed through the gates as we opened them and got the coffer before Lepruvian, so he had to camp a little.

Today's main event was "Apocalypse Nigh," the final battle tying together Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia. I was ready to beat Elvenroth senseless because he told me we were ready to go, only to get to the Empyereal Paradox and found out he was still trying to find a RDM/DRK.

Decidence (whom I know from QCDN) joined us for the attempt, but he was antsy to get it done as quickly as possible so he could spend twenty minutes synthing during Darksday on a New Moon and HQ some stuff. He kept pushing us to hurry. When we went into the battle and got slaughtered in spectacular fashion, he bitched us out, homepointed and disbanded. The words "douche" and "asshole" came into play at that point. I was more surprised than offended.

One of Elvenroth's Warrior friends, Cloudxz, joined us and tightend our strategies a bit. He also sent us back to the mainland to buy any additional supplies he thought we might need.

The melees used their Sleeping Potions to get 300tp. We went inside, popped Poison Potions, and waded into the fight. Longarm (PLD) provoked Kam'lanaut and then immediately unleashed Spirits Within on Eald'narche before kiting Kam'lanaut around the arena. The others used Rampage, Asuran Fists and Spiral Hell. Eald'narche terrorized us, and as soon as it wore off they used Icarus Wings, weaponskilled again and dropped the little punk.

I

We prepare to fight the brothers.

start throwing out Erase to clear Kam'lanaut's Slowga, but I was bound close to him. I got out of range and tried to restore Haste, which wasn't easy with Dispelga being thrown around. It was a straight-up tank fight at that point.

Jahrahan (MNK) died to a Light Blade attack for 1,472 damage. Health bars dropped, and I ran forward to use Benediction and clear all the status ailments. Another Light Blade took out Longarm. Kam'lanaut started chasing Solitia (BLM) at that point. Cloudxz provoked him, but hate was fastened on Soli. Jahrahan and Longarm reraised, but they were weakened and died again. Kam'lanaut was down to a sliver of health, and Elvenroth was the only melee standing. Cloudxz reraised and got off a quick Rampage before dying again. Elvenroth finished it. Spiral Hell for the win.

I honestly thought we'd lose, and I was very happy to be proven wrong. I couldn't resist a petty chuckle later when I saw Decidence looking for "Apocalypse Nigh" help on the message board.

I got my O.Kote today and tomorrow I can get my earring. I consider the day a success.

Neyla Guest Entry: Mighty Mithra Fists of Fury

Neyla and Bathory the Corsair smack around a mandy.

The last couple of days have been all about MNK and a suprising upswing in the quality of parties I've been getting. The first was in the jungles Tuesday with a pair of WAR/NINs tanking. I'm not a huge fan of WAR/NIN tanks because most of them are horrible and I figured I'd end up tanking more often than not, but the mithra and elvaan held their own and kept the workload surprisingly light for our WHM. Mandragoras and the occassional goblin were dying left and right while everyone dinged at least twice, except for the elvaan WAR/NIN who dinged 33 and left for grayer pastures over at the Citadel.

Quieren was leveling RDM in the next party over, miserable as could be.

For

Neyla punches a mandie.

a while we had an elvaan DRK in the party with us until she went AFK without telling anyone and leeched a handful of fights until we finally kicked her and carried on as five so the people closest to their next levels could leave satisfied. Really, in terms of frontline damage the only competition I had the whole time was the DRK and her scythe. It's so strange and satisfying to be up front and making physical contact with the mobs. It's unbelievably simple compared to mage work - I can basically hit auto attack and take a bathroom break or fix myself a drink while my fists carry on - but fun to see the big numbers.

Monk, along with Beastmaster and its access to Rampage, has made me better understand people who love to pull hate and drain MP pools. It's addictive. And it's funny to see people's reactions when you land a particularly good weapon skill. Maybe not the mages. I can almost hear the mages cursing from whatever part of the globe their in.




The second great party came yesterday when I had my flag up on Port Jeuno. I was suspicious at first because it was a blind invite, but when I searched the person's name and saw they were Rank 6 I figured I'd at least see what they'd put together. Again, it was duel WAR/NIN tanks with a WHM, BLM, NIN and myself. The NIN acted strictly as backup, which is probably best pre-NI with such heavy hitters around. Unfortunately, shadows are all he used. Attempts to paralyze, blind and slow the mobs would have been welcome from his end, but the mages did the best they could.

The WARS, like the pair Tuesday, had their timing down perfectly and set macros to let each other know when their shadows were down and it was time to Provoke. But try as they might, I'd still end up tanking somewhere in the latter half of each battle. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise when you add up all the stats from my gear and find out my Strength at level 35 is only two points lower than that of my level 75 RDM.

In the end we partied for hours with minimal replacements (switching the NIN out for a COR and later the WARs with a BLU and another WAR) and I got three levels and roughly 17k experience points, taking me from level 32 to 35. There were only four deaths the entire time, both from links on the pulls. The last death was mine, but I really didn't mind that much. I'd already received way more than I'd expected for the day.

The

Neyla punches a Borer Beetle.

biggest relief of the evening came courtesy of the months old MPK patch and just how much it's improved leveling in the Citadel. Time and time again idiots would come running through with massive trains of bats, skeletons and Revenants - and time and time again they'd simply disappear and repop wherever they came from. It gave our WARs and myself time to reflect on those days where that wouldn't happen, when a lone Revenant could shut the place down for half an hour by hanging around the zoneline until some higher level player finally came along and killed it for everyone. We probably sounded nostalgic, but more than anything we were relieved.

That said, when I switch back to BST I'm sure the patch will annoy me again at some point. Disappearing links/aggro are one thing...Disappearing pets can be another matter altogether.

My

Neyla punches a Siege Bat.

run with MNK is almost over...for a while anyway. I have to admit that it's a fun job and that there will probably come a point where I'll borrow Halifirien's gear again and go plugging away at it some more, at least until my WAR can use Rampage and cause comparable havoc. Jobs obsessed with big damage - BLM, MNK, DRK, etc. - always annoyed me when I was on my RDM because I knew their joy was probably going to cost me a healthy dose of MP, but now I get it. Everyone should level both sides of the fence - melee and mage. It'll open up your eyes and make people better understand each other.

The Hornsplitter

Neyla's recent post is correct about the listless feeling we're getting from not leveling Beastmaster. My "drive for 75" on White Mage is fizzling out because I just can't get excited about leveling it, although I really need start pushing myself again. Getting WHM to 75 is sort of an afterthought at this point.

On

A wise man once said "Nue is frustration in tiger form."

a whim, I returned to the glacier and found myself alone at Nue's tower with nobody to stand in my way. I called my NPC and started killing everything that moved. Goblins, tigers, Living Statues... it didn't matter. It took awhile, but the kitty finally popped. I got a Black Tiger Fang for my troubles.

Questing the Brown Belt is actually getting ahead of myself, since I still haven't completed the Purple Belt quest. I switched to /RNG for Widescan and teleported out to LaTheine Plateau to camp Lumbering Lambert. A Black Mage I know named Psylentcuda came out to farm horns, so we decided to team up. He took the northern spawn and I took Lambert's area.

Naturally, Bloodtear Baldurf popped.

I sent a /tell to Quieren in hopes he'd come running with some friends to kill it. He asked if it was claimed, and when I said it wasn't he was on the way. Then he told me to claim it. Some guy on a chocobo was standing there, no doubt relaying information to his linkshell, as I applied new buffs and cast Flash on Bloodtear. The entire time Q is sending /tells along the lines of "I promise you won't die! I swear!"

I

Hexa Striking an HNM is a lot of fun.

know Bloodtear has crap accuracy and I've seen a RDM/NIN solo him before, but that doesn't mean I think a 71WHM is going to do a good job of soloing him. I had to Flash him again as soon as the timer was up so I could reapply Stoneskin, and even then he kept interrupting me. I had to Cure myself instead.

Quieren and his RNG75 friend Orestes were trying to get to me, and I had the bright idea to run after them. Bloodtear drew me in; no escape. "Fuck it," I said. I pulled out my hammer and started hitting him. Psylentcuda got there and threw out some enfeebles, but mostly it was just me hitting it while Q and his buddy went the wrong way.

Bloodtear used Mighty Strikes, so I Flashed him again and countered with a Hexa Strike that did nearly 600 damage. He used Rage (I'm assuming it's like Berserk, lowering his defense) and the next Hexa did nearly 800. I'd just fired off a third Hexa when Q and Orestes finally rode in to save the day. We killed him, and to my considerable surprise he dropped the Lumbering Horn I needed. We also received the title "The Hornsplitter" for our troubles.

I've got to do the Rampaging Ram next. I wish I hadn't thrown away the horn I got last year when I killed it with Feriz.

Something Fishy

I'm

I love to fish at the glacier outpost

closing in on the Hauby, so I spent the entire afternoon fishing. I like having a diverse bazaar when I have time to travel all over, so I as in the glacier for awhile to catch Emperor Fish, the Sea Serpent Grotto for the untold riches found there, and even took time to hit Qufim Island for some Gigant Squid. I managed to get .3 in skillups, which made me a very happy angler. The only thing I didn't do was get my guild points.

I also ran around a little to get my cutscenes for the Apocalypse Nigh fight, which is still slated for Thursday.

My NPC was ready for the Lv. 5 weapons upgrade, so I bought a set of Katars and traded them to Luto. I toyed with the idea of leveling Gauldeval while camping items for the Brown Belt quest, but a 60s-something Monk was camping Nue and I left him to it and returned to the fishing hole for more Emperors.

Meanwhile, Neyla (who's actually posted a new entry) got a jungle party and made it halfway to 33 before they disbanded.

Neyla Guest Entry: Lost Among the Lowbies

Malystryxx, Halifirien and Neyla take down Ifrit Prime.

Another extended period with no updates...but some things remain the same, like my remaining somewhat listless and lost without leveling BST. It's funny how Halifirien and I both seemed to be burning out on it with our hard push through the 50s, which I think actually started somewhere in the 40s, but it was little more than a few days after we'd pushed it aside for a while that we started talking about how much we missed it.

Once we both have our Haubies and Kabrakan's Axes - along with a couple other items - we'll be running back to it and doing a few more levels. I'm even considering stepping back into Dynamis to perhaps lot on the Monster gear. It's been months since I've done anything endgame, but Monster gear would probably be easier to get than the Duelist set. And, really, far more valuable to me personally.

Lately, while cooking up gil for my BST upgrades, I've been leveling Monk using some of Halifirien's gear. The plan at the moment is to take it to 37 at least, or perhaps 40 for some events. I don't have to take it to 37 - most people wanting to level WAR would probably only take it somewhere in the 20s, but it's kind of fun being on the other side of things in a party. I can rip hate off a tank like no one's business. The party system is a grind though, and I've been spoiled by both BST and RDM in those regards. Invites are slow and I spend more time cooking, farming and playing around with my NPC than ever before.

When

Neyla spends some quality time with the goblins and newbs of Valkurm Dunes a few weeks back.

you do get an invite these days it's a crapshoot in terms of what you're walking into. The recent glut of XBox players has made life...interesting. OK, unbearable might be a better word sometimes. I've run into tons of underleveled subjobs - not to mention seen people leveling in the jungles without any subs at all - and I've come across WARs who won't Provoke or tank for fear of death. Then there are WHMs who skip out on their Bar- spells because all they want to do is level and not raise money to keep their characters up to date, or WHMs who will wait until half the party is in the orange before they stand up and start casting cures and regens...after they cast Stoneskin on themselves first of course.

The best party I've had over the last week was one that basically got hijacked by more experienced players. The leader was a newb WAR/MNK with a healthy interest in learning, but not enough backbone to make the other newbs around us fill their slots better. Over time the roster changed - another problem these days, people will only stay for half an hour or so before bailing because their mommy needs them - and four out of six of the party's members ended up being Rank 7 or higher. That's when the chains started rolling in, for the little bit of time it lasted. Sadly, the JP galka BLU was a more efficient healer than our tarutaru WHM and the JP NIN preferred I countertank the mandragoras because for whatever reason I handled the beating better than the elvaan WAR.

Of course I'd end up tank half the time from my damage output anyway, but that's just me bragging.

The only other thing that's been happening lately is my helping a tarutaru named Magix with his efforts to become a Summoner. He's a lucky little bastard for making his way into an established LS with enough experienced players to help him out with some of the things he needs and advice good enough to help him with his fame to flag the avatar fights. He's even luckier for having come across me when I was leveling MNK in Qufim, which ultimately won him a level 75RDM ally for his endeavors. I have to give him credit for the fame thing - not many new players would have the patience to quest so much and start fighting avatars so early in their careers. His highest job is level 30WHM and his SMN is only level 10, but he already has Ramuh and Ifrit from the prime battles since Malystryxx and I duo'd them for him yesterday.

We'll kill the others when he's able to flag them.

Vana'diel bid farewell to one of my earliest tarutaru adoptees this week, though. Real life responsibilities brought Pandorda's FFXI life to an end. I wish him luck with wherever it takes him.

Windurst on the Flip Side

Magix

Malystryxs, Neyla and I smack Ifrit Prime.

is a very lucky taru. Magix leveled White Mage to 30 so he could unlock Summoner, and Neyla arranged to duo some prime avatars with Malystryxx. Magix traded cornettes and raised his Windurst fame high enough to flag Ifrit and Ramuh, so we set out to get them. Other than a bit of bomb aggro in Ifrit's Cauldron -- solved by nuking and sleeping it until it was dead -- we had a smooth run through the volcano. I contented myself with keeping Haste and Regens on the Red Mages as needed, although I stepped in to use Hexa Strike and make a Light skillchain with Neyla near the end.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for a dynamis run and didn't get to go along for Ramuh. Neyla died at the top of the tree to aggro, and Ramuh almost one-shotted Maly after doing a souped-up Thunderspark move that paralyzed the stalwart Red Mages. Finding out Magix hadn't learned Paralyna was no doubt a treat. I'll go along on the other runs once Magix has fame leveled in the other cities.

Quieren sent a /tell asking what I was doing in Ifrit's Cauldron. I explained Neyla's affection for the tarutarus and joked I wouldn't be surprised if he died and the police found piles of midget porn in his house.

I've never been in Dynamis-Windurst before, but I'd read that it's the hardest of the four cities. There are four trigger NMs which have to be killed before the boss pops, meaning there's a lot of backtracking involved. For some reason a lot of people turned up for the run. We were standing around the Trail Markings in walls with an unprecedented 60 people waiting for hourglasses.

Elemmire

Don't get your feathers ruffled.

asked me to form one of the parties, so I grabbed a Red Mage, Summoner, Samurai, Monk and Ranger (Veresko). My RDM quickly got reassigned, so I replaced him with a Bard. Being the healer in a DD party is much less stressful than being in the tank party, although I made a "/ta Cythe" macro so I could keep track of him.

Windurst is full of Yagudo. They're annoying because they do that leg sweep move that stuns everyone, but otherwise they're not too bad. Having so many people made it easy to rampage through the area and slaughter everything in sight, although there were enough new people that a few snags popped up.

For example, there was Koru-Moru's Manor, also known as "The Death House." I'm the kind of person who likes to know why it's called "Death House" and not "House of Fluffy Bunny Kisses," so I asked what was so bad about it. Cythe explained that getting aggro from any of the mobs there would cause a huge spawn that would probably kill us all or at the very least block our retreat.

So what happens? We hugged the wall opposite the house and had made our way past when we heard the pop-pop-pop of mobs appearing out of thin air. One of the players had been set on auto-run and of course got aggro.

It's

Waiting for the puller is the hardest part.

great that we had 60 people, because we were able to survive and clear the house. I'm not sure what our chances would've been with a smaller force, and I don't want to know. Once it was safe, we forged ahead and took out another trigger NM.

It's wild being in the alternate dimension side of my beloved hometown. Walls is a big zone, and we'd hop from island to island or make our camp on the large round elbow bends of the bridges circling Heaven's Tower. We ran into very few snags.

We only got two pieces of AF2 during the run. The first was an Assassin's Bonnet, and the second was a Monster Helm. I would love to have the latter, but Asmodius was the only one there with Beastmaster high enough to equip it, so he won it by default. In ten more levels Neyla and I will be able to give him some competition.

We

We're being attacked by the Maltese Falcon!

got the win and people started dropping out. We still had plenty of time to farm, so we worked our way back to the moghouse and killed everything there. We started for the Auction House, and it all went to hell at that point. Gladdy did two pulls with minimal linkage, but the third pull brought everything. Our kiters didn't drag one of the stones away from the alliance, so we were Slept, Slowed, Silenced and slaughered in short order. We waited for the yagudo to return to their perches, reraised, and started getting people back on their feet as time on the hourglass ran out.

I was amused to find a Lancewood Log in my inventory when it was over. They sell for 80k-100k.

We're doing Bastok on Friday.

Death From Below

Kirutaru

We're adorable death machines.

organized a run for Promyvion Shards for those of us who still need them to access Apocalypse Nigh. I only needed Promyvion-Dem, but I said I'd help with the other crags. I again went as Beastmaster. I have to admit to a sick feeling of dread when I realized only four of us were going, but I have to award extra points for cuteness because we were all tarus. The setup was BST, SMNx2 and BLU. It seemed best that I go BST/WAR so at least one of us would have Provoke.

We started with Holla, the agonizing hellhole realm with fenced in areas that corral you past hungry Wanderers and Weepers. Kirutaru, Wakmidget and Solitia took turns getting aggro and dying, or sac-pulling the zone and dying, or getting aggro and deciding to use the opportunity to sac-pull the zone and then dying. They were draining their Reraise Earring charges.

I didn't volunteer to train. Beastmaster xp is too precious to me to consider throwing it away for strangers. I died twice -- once when I got aggro and another when Solitia got aggro and I provoked the Weeper without noticing it was Very Tough -- and counted myself lucky. Besides, they can party and get it back pretty fast.

We

The very tall Alucardx joined us as BLU/NIN.

worked our way through, and the Memory Recepticles weren't very hard to take down. I had Stray duty, since my pet crab can take them out in two hits (one if it's a critical). I'd build TP on the strays and then unleash Raging Axe on the MR before going after the next Stray.

A hume BLU/NIN named Alucardx joined us at Dem. There are more open areas, so that run went much faster despite all the taru deaths. Mea was also a relative cakewalk.

I took a nap until time for the "Test Your Mite" ENM, which was scrubbed again because Veresko wasn't online for some reason. To say Neyla and I are frustrated is an understatement because we were counting on these ENMs to get an extra 3k Experience Points for our Beastmasters each week. So far we've had to cancel four or five runs for one reason or another, and it's galling because we'd have dinged 61 this evening if we'd done all of them.

Instead, I went fishing in the glacier and then spent an hour in the grotto while Neyla went off to level MNK. Feriz had a homework assignment about interviewing someone, so he riddled me with questions the entire time.