On the Beach

Neyla

I hate the Terror Pugils' evasion boosts.

and I hit the Crawler's Nest for the escort quest, and this time Olavia took a different route. She ran through a bunch of lizards, Soldier Crawlers, Witch Hazel and Exorays, making for a more entertaining trip. Neyla ate the scroll on White Mage and I ate it on Beastmaster to tighten the xp gap between us.

With that out of the way, we returned to Cape Terrigan for awhile. Another Beastmaster duo turned up and started killing our raptors, but I waved them off until we were finished -- I put the camp in my search comment for a reason, people.

We didn't stick around for a huge buffer. There are still enough Toughs in the area mixed with Very Tough pugils that we could get to 67 there with few hassles, but I doubt Neyla wants to do that. Pugils have that annoying evasion boost that makes even a double Rampage iffy about finishing it off.

Dynamis-Xarcabard

That's a lot of demons.

went even more smoothly than the last time. There were several AF2 drops -- Takumifujiwara got SAM gloves, Truegrave got NIN, Gladdy got THF, Omicron got BRD, and the SMN went to Aerdrie. We even had a 100 Byne Bill drop. It was nice to see that many people get drops, since it shuts them up about "lolBST."

The line of eyes and demons went semi-smoothly. Cythe had a strategy to take them out with few problems. We sniped a few and slept the demons and took them out one by one, but someone managed to aggro and link an entirely new set of demons who rushed in as a horde and wiped us. Annoying, but it's still a learning process.

Neyla returned to Ifrit's Cauldron after Dynamis and found a Treasure Coffer. I logged out after he opened it and got the map.

Stupid Monkey

Today was a good day to die.

Our camp options limited, I voted to level in Cape Terrigan because we know the area and I didn't feel like losing time to scope out Attowha Chasm. We teleported out and Neyla immediately got aggro. We dispatched the goblin and started looking for a good camp north of the outpost. My Invisible dropped and a Goblin Shepherd -- curse their keen night vision! -- started attacking me. We grabbed pets and I ran up to help kill off its bunny, but I was already in the red and the goblin killed me with an early bomb. Bah.

We

Say hello to our little friends!

tried killing a cockatrice and had to zone, so we contented ourselves with goblins and a velociraptor that roams that area. Timing against goblin suicide drives me nuts, and I suggested we check out the beach near the zone to the Valley of Sorrows. It turned out to be a great camp. We were in the little corner north of the cave where parties camp, using Beach Bunnies and Robber Crabs as pets to take down the Velociraptors and Terror Pugils. I like the bunnies because they destroy raptors and intimidate them as well.

There was a party in the cave, so we generally left the crabs alone unless they popped in our camp. When that happened, we'd charm it and keep using it until our prey had killed it off or had worn it down so far that we could finish it with Rampage.

At one point we were fighting a raptor when a crab popped near us. I was keeping an eye on it, and it eventually took notice and moved in and started attacking Neyla. I'd been holding TP on my bunny until I knew what the crab was up to; I used Sic, and the Dust Cloud hit both mobs, pulling aggro off Neyla and keeping it on the bunny until we could finish the raptor. It was a piece of quick thinking which made me feel redeemed for an earlier Robber Crab train I'd brought to camp.

Like a total idiot, I'd forgotten my Warp Cudgel in my moghouse and none of my ring timers were up. With the area under beastman control, I had a long walk ahead of me. Neyla decided to tag along, and we had some fun in the desert by charming cactuars and trying to get them to use 1,000 Needles on the Desert Manticores. It never gets old.

We

Where's the goddamned coffer?

ran back out to Ifrit's Cauldron to look for the Treasure Coffers and get our maps. We found the first one pretty quickly but had to wait for the first Flame Spout to die down before we could reach it. Neyla let me open it since I'm a map whore. With a thirty-minute wait until the next coffer repopped, we called our NPCs and went around killing Volcanic Gas and Dire Bats to pass the time.

Gauldeval dinged 52 pretty fast, which surprised me. I was also amused that, after all the key farming we did yesterday, we got three keys today in a fifteen-minute span. Altana obviously has a sense of humor.

My second death of the evening came as we were looking around for the second coffer. We made our way into the cave with the goblins and Sulfer Scorpions. We'd charmed Old Opo-Opos, and mine decharmed while I was standing next to a Dodomeki hecteyes. The monkey attacked me, knocking off my Sneak and Invisible, causing the Dodomeki to pile on and kick my taru ass while I was trying to recharm the monkey.

Neyla raised me and we looked around a little longer, but we didn't find the coffer. We're going to go back tomorrow and look again. I finished the day about 3k behind Neyla, so I'll eat my XP scroll from the Crawler's Nest escort and he won't use his Empress Band. We should be able to do the escort and get to 66 in Cape Terrigan with plenty of time before Dynamis-Xarcabard.

I'll eventually go back and start exploring Ifrit's Cauldron. I've already starting marking my map.

"This place is kinda boring on BST," Neyla said before we left.

"You still haven't the top area with all the wyverns," I pointed out.

Later...

After I logged, Neyla got a /tell from Mattaru and joined TheFlock for another run at Cactrot Rapido. From the sound of things, it was an intense fight and a lot of fun. Not only did they kill Rapido, they got a slew of drops in the bargain: Cactuar Root, Cactus Arm, Water Crystal and the Arete Del Sol and Arco De Velocidad!

Besides the great title and a cut of whatever gil they get from drop sales, Neyla got this bit of history for himself:



Man, I can't wait to fight that thing.

Sage Advice

Have I mentioned how much I love being a Beastmaster?

More

Scorpion pets should use Death Scissors more often.

eye farming for us today. This time Neyla and I went into King Ranperre's Tomb to fight the five Thousand Eyes that pop there. I fished awhile first and had to synth a bunch of Pet Food Zeta Biscuits, but Neyla went ahead to solo back the xp lost to the Stegotaur.

We used Dire Bats and Cutlass Scorpions as pets, and they'd easily tear through the mobs. We received countless Fire III scrolls (which we threw away) and about 30-50xp per kill. The scorpions were my favorite pets because of their Death Scissors move, which we managed to coax out of them a few times.

We were there a long time before the first Burning Hukutuku Eye dropped. We both lotted low, but I won by 20. Neyla amused himself by fighting Tomb Worms in the hall behind us between Thousand Eyes spawns, but luckily the second drop didn't take nearly as long as the first. I was happy to get out of there, since we were close to the Spartoi skeletons which Monks kill in merit parties.

I expressed interest in heading out to Ifrit's Cauldron to see how things rated and possibly farm a Coffer Key to get the map. We returned to Windurst to clear some inventory space. While I was still in my moghouse, Neyla outposted to Yhoator Jungle and spotted a Notorious Monster treant called Woodland Sage.

He

Woodland Sage is susceptible to fungus and axes.

started charming the local wildlife and throwing them at it, but the tree was demolishing them. Neyla outposted back to Windurst in a hurry. A quick bit of research gave us the answer; we outposted and called two Funguar Familiars and reduced the poor thing to wood chips. It used Benediction, but it didn't help.

Woodland Sage drops some kind of staff that gives Regen during daylight -- sounds worthless to me -- but all we got were Mahogany and Ebony logs for our troubles. We were heading for the Ifrit's Cauldron zone when Neyla got aggro from the goblins wandering around there, so we started hauling ass and zoned so fast only the Ebony Log ended up in my inventory. We lost the other. Ah, well.

Now, here's why I love being a Beastmaster. I absolutely hate being in Ifrit's Cauldron. I've never been there on White Mage without feeling extremely spooked and being convinced I was going to die.

As

Volcano Wasps are great pets.

Beastmaster? No worries. We'd charm wasps and set them on the bombs, which would either use Berserk and reduce their defenses to nothing or use Self-Destruct and kill themselves. We called our NPCs and wandered all over the place, killing wasps, bats and bombs to get the keys. Neyla couldn't resist teasing me -- I believe the phrase he used was "Suck it!" -- because Yawawa was set to Soothing Healer and would regularly give him Haste and Protect III. Yawawa dinged 52 and Gauldeval dinged 51 before they were dismissed.

Neyla won the lot on the first key, and we were about to give up hope of finding another when mine finally dropped. We poked around in search of a treasure coffer but had no luck. We managed to find a colony of Old Opo-Opos and stumbled across the hecteyes mobs we need to farm for our eye cluster, although there was nothing in the immediate area we could charm.

We're going back to Ifrit's Cauldron on Friday to hunt for the coffers.

"I'll never come back here on any other job," Neyla said, "unless I'm killing Ifrit." I readily agreed with that sentiment. The monsters aren't nearly as scary when you're no longer a squishy mage.

Neyla

You can solve any problem by throwing funguars at it.

logged, and I hit Jeuno to talk to Luto to see if Gauldeval was due for a weapon upgrade. Instead, I got the cutscene for the next NPC limit break. I had to travel out to Qufim Island to fight an NM gigas named Ingaevon. Like the Woodland Sage, it quickly died under funguar assault.

I got a /tell from Rimare while I was traveling out there. He asked how I was doing and asked if I loved Beastmaster more than White Mage.

"Yeah," I said. "I love being WHM, but I gotta admit I love BST more."

Eyes on the Prize

Neyla and I were going to level Beastmaster today, but yesterday's late-night session in Dynamis-Xarcabard destroyed our ability to do any heavy lifting. We mostly wanted to sleep.

Instead,

The Fomor Beastmaster gets countless grief.

we returned to the aquaducts today with Hadafal and Quieren in tow for another Gaudy Harness run. Hada mischarmed his slime at first, but got it on the second try. We waited for the Stegotaurs to turn away, but Neyla got aggro on the way to the tunnel and died. He reraised and rested up while I watched for the Fomor Beastmaster to move away from the bats so Hada could pull. The NM fomor, Eba, was standing there and we gave her a very wide berth. Two Beastmaster with Incredibly Tough slimes can take her out, but I didn't feel like trying.

Quieren had picked up a stack of Antlion jugs and gave me and Neyla one so we could try them out. I'm not really sold on them, but they look cool as hell. We set them on the Fomor Beastmaster when it was safe and killed it. No drop.

"Fifteen-minute wait on the repop," I said.

"Want to kill the other fomors while we wait?" Q asked.

"No."

"You guys have no sense of adventure."

"If I didn't have a sense of adventure, I wouldn't be playing BST," I laughed.

We waited, and it finally popped again. Hadafal pulled and we got the subligar. I was relieved, because I was tired and didn't feel like dicking around in the sewers all day. It would've been amusing to send Quieren past the Stegotaurs to get a fresh slime, though.

With that out of the way, Neyla and I returned to the Sea Serpent Grotto for more eye farming. The Flock is planning an Optical Hat run for Friday; we won't be there because of Dynamis, but we want to get the cluster and have it ready. I fished while Neyla took out Blubber Eyes, and I'd join in when the Mindgazer on the bridge popped.

We

Neyla is right: they're ugly.

hadn't been there long before I got a /tell from Spriggan asking if I could raise Lecan, who'd died behind the Ornamented Door. Lecan is one of the Beastmasters most directly responsible for inspiring me to take up the job (the other being Miros), so I readily agreed to go. Spriggan snagged a fresh key and we went inside as soon as their White Mage friend Urywury got there.

It turns out they were farming an eye for Spriggan when Lecan caught the ear of the Abyss Sahagin. I got him back on his feet, and the five of us teamed up and started killing Mindgazers. It took awhile to get three (and Lecan managed to die again to the hated Abyss Sahagin), but it still went faster than Neyla and I could've done it. I even managed to get club skillups to 228.

My favorite moment came when we got bat aggro. Lecan swooped in, planning to save the day. "You say 'aggro,'" he said, "and I say" -- his little pink Care Bear Stare hearts flew at the bat and did nothing -- "I fucking mischarmed." That cracked me up.

Neyla logged shortly after, but I stayed on another hour to fish. I caught some Emperors and hit the ferry for the three Titanictus I needed to get max guild points. Some poor bastard Paladin fighting a Water Elemental on the deck got killed by the Sea Horror. Fun times.

I'm going to have to scale back my Monday night participation in Dynamis; next week isn't an issue because Tuesday is a holiday and I don't have to work, but after that I'm probably going to have to drop out after the Monday night wins and skip the farming. I can't compete with 17-year-olds on summer break.

Altana Loves Beastmasters

Quieren and Hadafal are close to being able to equip the Gaudy Harness. I offered to help out by leading them into the aquaducts under the Tavnazian Safehold to get the subligar.

Hadafal overslept and was nowhere to be found, so Neyla and I took Q. It's a more interesting trip with three Beastmasters, since we could grab pugils and use them to kill the three Taurus mobs near the first ladder. Neyla's bat took a Mortal Ray to the face and died, but otherwise it went as smooth as silk.

We

Catching a breather in the aquaducts.

had to stop and wait a few minutes while Q went to pick up his wife, but we dropped and ran past a Stegotaur to reach the Incredibly Tough slimes. Quieren mischarmed and had to kite one around until he could try again and Familiar it. We waited for the Stegotaurs to turn away and bolted behind them. Once we reached the circular room, Quieren pulled the Fomor Beastmaster's pet; we killed it and started on the fomor. The subligar dropped, proving Q is one lucky bastard.

Well, sorta lucky. Hada eventually popped on and they headed out to the Crawler's Nest to level. I was fishing in the Sea Serpent Grotto at that point while Neyla farmed Mindgazers and Blubber Eyes. Since the four of us were still partied up, Neyla and I could listen to the pure comedy gold of their constant mishaps.

"You guys are the Abbott and Costello of the Beastmaster world," I joked.

"Lenny and Squiggy," Neyla suggested.

"LaVerne and Shirley."

"Beavis and Butthead."

"Lucy and Ethel."

"Ren and Stimpy."

"Pinky and the Brain," Quieren finally corrected.

"Narf!" I yelled.

"Exactly."

I kept fishing and Neyla kept farming until time for Dynamis-Xarcabard.

Gods,

I thought they were joking about the wyvern.

what a great zone. The music is different, much more energetic and exciting. Best of all, almost none of us had ever been there before. It's fun to have a leader like Cythe feeling his way, not 100% sure exactly what needs to be pulled next, how the mobs will respond or how hard they'll hit.

We ran in and hit the first open area, following the spine and standing clustered together while Demons and Ahrimans circled around just out of range. We looked like we were standing in line for Star Wars tickets. All we'd need to complete the illusion would be an unwashed galka in a small tent at the front of the line, growling about line-jumpers while he boiled water for Ramen on a small hotplate.

Cythe guided us along, though. He'd pull the Black Mages from the alliance and have them nuke down three eyes and then bring back three demon NMs. We'd focus on killing one while the other Paladins kited the other two. There are fifteen such demons which have to be killed, five trios which must be taken out along with Vanguard Dragons and dragons called Yin and Yang in order to pop the boss called Dynamis Lord.

We weren't going for the win tonight. Cythe was bitter that very few of the Red Mages had leveled /DRK so they could Chainspell+Stun Dynamis Lord, which I found sort of amusing. When he first put out the idea a few months back, I had a hard time taking the command seriously because we were getting so royally fucked just trying to win Jeuno that the odds of us reaching Xarcabard seemed almost nil. I imagine some of the RDMs will be more likely to step it up now.

I

Demons, man... they creep me out.

firmly believe Dynamis is Square-Enix's way of giving love to Beastmasters and Dragoons, because of course DRG armor dropped first, followed by Monster Gloves. Asmodius was at the top of the BST tier, and I cheered the completion of his AF2 set. I was also happy because it bumped me to the top. There was plenty of bitching from the linkshell about the BST drop, which rubbed me and Neyla the wrong way.

We cleared out all the demon NMs and soon found ourselves staring at a valley with a straight line of Ahrimans and Demons standing like a solid wall of pain. Cythe issued commands, got everyone organized to move, and then the nukes began.

Those mobs moved in like a greasy tidal wave, knocking us down and killing us in droves. It was discouraging, but at the same time I was laughing so hard at the unexpected carnage that I could barely type. We reraised and started getting people on their feet -- despite Cythe's pronouncements, more than a few refused to accept anything short of Raise III -- and soon got another demon onslaught. We had taken out a few more Ahrimans before the second wipe, and we received the three-minute warning before starting the third round of nukes. We won a thirty-minute time extension and proceeded to take out the remaining demons horde.

To

Can I get a "Hell, yeah!" from the crowd?

my delight and the considerable consternation of the linkshell, another pair of Monster Gloves dropped. One of the Summoners, a taru named Mejiro, did not endear himself to me or Neyla by being vocally hostile to Beastmasters. He earned himself a nice "Fuck you" from Neyla when he said Beastmasters were useless for endgame and could only get stuff by coming as other jobs. The thought of outlining the full range of our abilities in endgame situations -- damage dealers, crowd control, kiting duty -- flitted through my mind at that point, but I think "Fuck you" was probably the appropriate response.

As I pointed out to Neyla, the poor guy has to rely on five other people to get xp. That's enough to make anybody bitter.

Bonds of Fellowship

I hit Jueno this morning and was happy to receive a cutscene from Luto, giving me the "Mirror Images" quest to increase the maximum bond with my NPC.

I

That's my cue to leave.

had to travel out to Fei'yin for a 50-capped BCNM in the Qu'Bia Arena to fight a guy named Vassago. I decided to try it as Beastmaster, and I switched Gauldeval's battle style from Fierce Attacker to Stalwart Shield so he could tank it. I went into the arena, used a Reraise Earring and Funguar jug, and went in. It was an easy fight. Vassago uses a move called "Blighted Gloom" which can be pretty nasty, but I would move back into the tunnel to let Gauldeval shrug it off and counter with Blessed Radiance.

I returned to Jeuno to complete the quest, and while I was there I checked on Hauby prices. To my considerable joy, the price had dropped nearly a million from the last time I'd looked. I bought one, and now I'm close to broke again... but I'm a sexy beast now. It's going to be my walking-around piece when I'm on Beastmaster.

I logged off a couple hours at that point, and when I came back Neyla and I helped linkshell newcomer Lordsephiroth farm a Carbuncle Ruby in Shakrami. I'd never tried farming as Beastmaster before, but I quickly fell in love with how quickly the Funguar jugs cleared the room. I think we were in there an hour before the thing finally dropped.

There

I feel damned sexy in this thing.

was nothing else to do but kill time until "Test Your Mite," so I wandered out to Nue's tower and arrived just in time to see him die. Thwarted, I went into Pso'xja and farmed next week's Florid Stone.

Darkmagnus is leaving the game, so Neyla recruited a taru Ninja named Mikeman to take his place in our ENM party. The diremite NM killed him near the end, which kinda sucked, but we got him on his feet in time to get his 3,000xp.

I finished out the day by taking Lordsephiroth out to the glacier for Ice weather and through to Xarcabard for the Vzahl telepoint. He kept disconnecting along the way and it took awhile, but he'll have White Mage high enough to teleport out there soon enough.