Playing With My Wood

I'm

There's gotta be a faster way.

at my parents' house for the weekend, and that means I'm not online very much. I was on yesterday just long enough to catch three Black Sole to max out guild points.

The little bit of time I spent in the game today involved woodworking. It's time I started to get a few more levels on it, since it's been stalled at 48 for months. I didn't feel like synthing a billion arrows. Instead, I bought a few stacks of Light Crystals, some Meatballs, and six Fastwater Fishing Rods.

I rode the ferry from Selbina to Mhaura in a circuit, breaking the rods and repairing them for skillups. It's a slow way to do it, but it's cheap.

The changes to the fishing system kicked a lot of potential woodworkers where it hurts, since they have to be able to wear down the fish before they can break the rod; otherwise, all they get is a line snap. As a high-level fisherman, that road is still open to me.

Later...

On a whim, I decided to try Emperor Fish. They snap the rods, and I don't have to deal with A) Ryugu Titans I can't wear down, B) Sea Horror aggro, or C) downtime on the docks. I even got two .1 fishing skillups on the first stack of bait.

Quiet Time

Neyla and I needed a break from Beastmaster leveling, so today was mostly about fishing. I was all over the map today, stocking my bazaar mule and just relaxing with my Lu Shang.

The high point was getting a .1 skillup off a Grimmonite in the Sea Serpent Grotto. That bumped me to 90 fishing skill and made me cheer. Neyla called me a freak when I shared my triumph with the linkshell, and I corrected him: "Freak with Lv. 90 fishing skill!"

While

It's our old friend, Woodland Sage.

I was fishing, Neyla was off doing the "Blessed Radiance" quest for his NPC and helping out with Windurst Mission 9-2's fight in the Full Moon Fountain. He was finishing up as I outposted to Yhoator Jungle so we could level NPCs in Ifrit's Cauldron.

Woodland Sage was strutting around the clearing, so I called my Funguar Familiar and let the recall timer cool down a bit. When I was ready, I set my pet on it and started chopping away. Neyla got there after it had used Benediction, and we finished it off. The only drop was a Rosewood Log.

A ninja named Lillth was there, asking for help with an AF fight against three Sahagins. Not knowing what we were in for, we agreed. I was caught off guard and almost got my ass handed to me, but we managed to bring them down.

We roamed Ifrit's Cauldron and killed more bombs. Gauldeval dinged 55 and Yawawa got close to 56. Another session and I imagine we can both do the next limit break quest, which will involve traveling to Qulon Dome and clicking the ??? for the regular G3 quest.

We

Rapido didn't expect this reception.

finished the evening by joining TheFlock for Cactrot Rapido. We were supposed to start at 10 p.m., but a bunch of them were off killing Xolotl in Attowha Chasm. Neyla and I Rampaged through the desert, killing a ton of anticans to pass the time.

It took us about 25 minutes of standing around with our squeaking Sabotender captive before Rapido finally noticed us and stopped zooming all over the desert sands. It was our fastest takedown so far, but he didn't drop anything of value.

In other news, Veresko seems to be leaning toward Sunday mornings for Limbus. There are plenty of goodies to be had in there -- Jeager Mantle would be sweet -- but the main one I'm interested in for now is Beast Trousers +1.

HP +15
Strength +6
Charisma +6
Enhances Killer Effects
Charm +6

Bringing Down the Mountain

No

Save me from mischarm hell.

real adventuring today, but Neyla and I went back out to the Wajoam Woods and its Puk camp to finish our climb to 67. We were still mischarming spiders, and I died once because I kited one out of Neyla's casting range and missed the Cure III he was trying to give me. Live and learn, I guess.

Other than that unfortunate incident, we quickly got into a nice groove of watching each other's backs. We stopped charming spiders at the same time, instead having one go first so the other could jump in for a second charm attempt if the first failed. Even so, there were two or three time when the damned spiders absolutely refused to be charmed -- even with Light Staff equipped -- until the sixth or seventh attempt. It was crazy.

We got about 3k into 67 before we took off for Ifrit's Cauldron and more NPC leveling.

No deaths this time, although there were a few Opo-Opo mischarms. I learned that Gauldeval will tell me when his MP is getting low and that I can rest and he'll tell me when he's got full MP again.

While

Ifrit's Cauldron explodes while we stand in awe.

we were there, we witnessed a fun event. We were fighting bombs in one of the tunnels leading out of the caldera when the volcano erupted. Lava started shooting high into the sky and gigantic rocks fell back down. I have no idea if there's a pattern for it or if (as someone suggested) it goes off when Ifrit Prime is defeated, but I hope I get to see it again sometime.

I retired to Gusgen Mines to fish up a few Gavials for guild points and then hit the Sea Serpent Grotto for an hour of fishing. Grimmonite prices are back down to 9k from their usual 15k, and it's getting annoying. I'm riding it out, hoping the schmucks who suddenly started flooding the market will eventually stop.

The Passion of the BSTs

Neyla and I try to keep our xp levels close, and last night as we were logging out he said he was 1500 ahead of me. Unfortunately, I missed the part where he corrected himself to saying he was only 500. I flew solo in Caedarva Mire to catch up this morning, killing the Even and Tough birds flying around the graveyard and ended up 1k ahead of him. Oops. No Empress Band for me.

Today

Puks are cute and repulsive at the same time.

was my first Puk sighting. There's an awesome camp in the southern part of Wajoam Woodlands with lots of the little bastards flittering around like reptilian dragonflies, and plenty of Attercop spiders to charm. The downside is that many of the spiders were still Tough to us at 66 and we'd regularly fail charms and have them slashing at our faces.

The Puks are great xp, though. They're soft and squishy and spiders rip them to pieces, but they have an annoying AoE Flash which can really screw up a Rampage if they use it at the end of the fight, and their knockback move has some serious kick to it. We fought them under a crumbled archway with our backs to the wall so we wouldn't get slammed into one of the malboro mobs dwelling nearby.

"I watched The Passion of the Christ while I was waiting for you to log on," I told Neyla. "Mel Gibson is a sick, sick man."

At one point we had a run where several of the spiders popped Even to us, and I joked that we were being blessed because I'd watched Gibson's movie.

"If Jesus is blessing us," Neyla said, "have him send Jessica Alba over."

"If you think Jesus isn't keeping Jessica Alba for himself, you're seriously deluded."

We

Back to the beach for more Velociraptor goodness.

had a few deaths from mischarms, so we finally decided to return to the beach at Cape Terrigan.

Terrigan was a slower grind, but generally more relaxed. We had fun when Neyla's macro bank shifted and he ended up casting Diaga and hauling in a bunch of Beach Bunnies and Robber Crabs in addition to the Velociraptor. It's entertainment of the highest sort to charm and release a series of linking animals to calm them down while also keeping the prey from killing us both. He did it again awhile later, but there weren't nearly as many animals nearby.

I've had that happen several times, although in my case it usually switches to my Summoner macro bank and instead of charming something I try to call Garuda. Nothing life-threatening.

We stayed on the beach until I hit 19k into level, and we returned to Windurst to outpost back to Ifrit's Cauldron.

The

Leveling NPCs in Ifrit's Cauldron is very relaxing.

only other person in the zone was Wildpuss, the Beastmaster I've seen around. He probably thinks we're stalking him, since we tend to end up in the same places. We charmed Old Opo-Opos again and turned them loose on the bombs, but we'd only killed maybe a dozen before Neyla mischarmed a monkey and got slaughtered by its friends who'd been previously hopping around with their monkey thoughts.

I had to wait for the bomb to self-destruct before I could do the Raise. We waited for his weakness to wear off and warped back to Windurst.

I called Gauldeval at the Rendezvous Point and was pleased to learn our bond is now strong enough that I can lock down three pieces of armor. I'm not going to be happy until he looks like a fisherman. A fisherman that punches things. Hard.

We're going back to the Puk camp tomorrow if it's open. We're only 8k from 67, so we're willing to endure mischarm hell for awhile in hopes that it significantly improves after we ding.

WannaBSTs

The Crawler's Nest escort saw its first death today when two Blazer Beetles ganged up on Olavia. We had to zone back out and try again, and the second run was much better. No real hassles that time, and Neyla and I ate the scrolls on our respective White Mage and Summoner jobs again.

In

The sabotender is pissing me off.

Kuftal, we ran around looking for the coffer for Neyla's map, and we found it right behind that rock blocking the path down to the Ovinnik tigers and Perytons. The rock drops every fifteen minutes, so we had to wait for it. I was getting annoyed at having to recast Sneak becaue of the Sabotender Sediendo roaming around, so I charmed and 2-houred it; I figured I could fling it at one of the tigers if it attacked Neyla when he finally got back there.

Neyla got the map without aggro and we started to leave, but at Neyla's prompting I turned the Sabotender loose on the Robber Crabs near the Terrigan zone. We went through four crabs before it finally used 1,000 Needles and left us feeling satisfied.

I went fishing awhile in the Grotto, and Neyla went off to do the next Limit Break quest for his NPC.

And then we had Dynamis-San d'Oria. Some player wandering by the Trail Markings and seeing all the high-levels in South San d'Oria asked if we were doing a run, and someone said "No, we're camping this tree."

"We've been killing placeholders for hours," I joked.

"I hope we get claim," someone else said.

The

It's nice seeing Courier Carrie in the mix.

relic armor drops were a little less impressive this time, since nobody was there who still needed Warrior and Bard stuff. A Relic Gun dropped into my inventory and was thrown away.

The big surprise was the addition of Manasha to the linkshell. He's a 75 Beastmaster who came along and used Courier Carrie during the run. Naturally, this set Mejiro on an other anti-Beastmaster tirade.

"You mean we have an actual lolBST?" he asked. "Not just wannabe BSTs who bring good jobs?"

That pissed me off -- there are now four high-level Beastmasters in the shell, not just Manasha -- and I told Mejiro to bite my taru ass.

Manasha's arrival created a small dilemma for me. As a 70+ Beastmaster, he would normally get first dibs on the Monster Trousers if they dropped; however, first-timers can't lot AF2. I asked Cythe which of us would get them, and he said I would. Lo and behold, they indeed dropped -- "You're a lucky little shit, Hali," Cythe said -- and I lottted them.

Someone asked if they shouldn't go to Manasha since he could wear them, and Cythe said it was my decision but it didn't look like I was letting them go. He was right. Manasha automatically gets the next Monster Helm and Monster Jackcoat that drops (unless Neyla and I get BST to 70 pretty damned fast), so I'm getting what I can while I can.

Mejiro's

My mithra mannequin models Monster merchandise.

attitude annoyed me, but I was placated when Cythe pointed out to him that Beastmasters and their pets are awesome damage dealers. I want to do a run as BST/NIN sometime far in the future when I have the job in the 70s and my sub is leveled, but mostly just to try it out. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm more valuable to the runs as a healer. Neyla could get away with it because they're drowning in Red Mages.

That puts me at 3/5 Monster gear. I hope the Monster Gloves drop in Xarcabard before Manasha gets Northlands access, or Neyla could be in for a long wait.

We were still keyed up after the Dynamis run, so we took our NPCs out to Ifrit's Cauldron again for more leveling. We made a circuit, feeling very relaxed and detonating bombs safely from a great distance by using our remote-control monkeys. Gauldeval hit 54 while we were there.

Fuck Mejiro.

Cactrot Desacelerador

My short time online this morning saw me upgrading my NPC's weapons by trading a set of Patas to Luto. He gets one more upgrade before he's topped out. I also took a quick spin into Promyvion-Mea for the Tactics Pearl quest, which was faster than usual because a party was in there killing everything around the ???. I even went out to Al'taeu to give Veresko a Raise III, where he'd died while farming goldfish organs with Otak, Zoner and Aimartaru.

When

Their outfits are hideous. It burns my eyes to look at them.

logged on hours later, Neyla and I went into Kuftal Tunnel to kill Recluse Spiders in hopes of finding Shoalweed for the Star Onion Brigade quest. We haven't actually found the coffers in Toraimarai canal yet, but having the stuff in advance can't help. It gave us a chance to build up a buffer and level our NPCs at the same time -- Gauldeval hit 53, Yawawa 54 -- and work toward getting them to switch from the hideous orange-red outfits they started wearing from Ifrit's Cauldron.

The NM lizard Amemet popped while we were there and kept doing a circuit through our area. He didn't aggro, but I had nightmares of either a pet or an NPC using an AoE move and pulling him in to slaughter us. It was running around for a good 15-20 minutes before someone claimed and killed it.

Mikeman was nowhere to be found when "Test Your Mite" rolled around, so we had to call off the run. Neyla and I returned to Kuftal for more NPC leveling and used our Empress Bands to add to the buffer. When the NPCs reached their quota, we went out to the beach to finish burning off the rings. My axe skill got high enough to learn Mistral Axe.

While all this was going on, members of TheFlock claimed and killed Lord of Onzozo. It didn't drop the Kraken Club.

We had just finished up in Cape Terrigan when word came over that Cactrot Rapido was up and running, so we headed out to the desert to join the fun.

The

We're waiting for Rapido to make his entrance.

tension was high as we worked out the details. Dejan asked that anyone 65+ use jug pets whenever possible; I called mine right away so the Call Beast timer would be reset and ready to go again. We also had to work out melee details and who would stand close to absorb damage from 10,000 Needles.

Rapido doesn't aggro -- which is great, since he runs so fast you'd be dead before you knew what hit you -- but he links. You have to fight one of the cactaurs running around and wait for Rapido to notice; he blazes in and stops on a dime to start attacking. I was tracking him on widescan, and it was fun to watch him zooming from one side of my compass to the other while we fidgeted in anticipation.

Unlike the last fight, which Neyla said involved people running all over the zone to scour the place for charmable pets, Rapido stayed put because there were enough high-level jugs. We hacked him down, and my Funguar Familiar almost lasted through the entire fight. Rapido didn't drop anything impressive this time, but at least I got the title "Cactrot Desacelerador."

Speaking of drops, the bow they got the other day sold for 25 million. Not bad for about twenty minutes of work, and I wish I could've been there for that. There'll be other chances, though. Rapido is sooooo our bitch now.

In other news, Veresko and other members of WickedWayz are wanting to start up some Limbus runs now that they have Sea access. Ver asked if I would be interested, and I told him I'm very interested. The only problem will be the schedule, since they have a tendency to do linkshell events on Saturdays when I'm not playing. I'm hoping we can work something out.