Necessary Evil

I'll admit, I take a certain perverse pleasure in Neyla's absolute hatred of playing White Mage. The "I don't know how you did this for 75 levels" vibe bakes off him like heat, and I giggle because I not only did it, but thrived and loved every minute of it.

Friendship

Finally, an excuse to use Fenrir.

kept me from dragging his ass to Behemoth's Dominion and making him heal in a standard xp party. Instead, we explored the alternative leveling method of subbing Beastmaster. Specifically, Neyla went WHM/BST and I went SMN/WHM. We returned to Bibiki Bay, which was the camp where we leveled Beastmaster at 35. The area from the Buburimu zone all the way down to Sunset Docks provides multiple bunnies and dhalmels to charm, along with plenty of prey.

It wasn't always easy because the mischarm rate is higher and Neyla would get pummeled by rabbits. I mostly used Carbuncle for melee -- I could make a Compression skillchain by following Carby's Poison Nails with a well-timed Star Burst -- and would drag out Titan for Megalith Throw and Garuda for Aerial Armor.

After Neyla dinged 36 and ate his Teleport spell scrolls, I warped back to Windurst and changed my subjob to Beastmaster as well. The process revved up considerably when both of us could charm pets, although we were taking an xp penalty without Leave. It was a flashback to the old days, when we'd have to use pets until they died and charm new ones.

I got into a running argument with a guy named Stormboy, who was in the area to camp Intulo. Every time I charmed one of the two efts hopping around on the upper level, he'd send me a snarky /tell expressing his displeasure that I was "stealing" his placeholders.

"Do you want it alive or dead?" I asked him.

"Dead," he replied.

"Well," I explained, "I use these until they die. So leave me alone and go back to camping your NM."

He kept complaining and I kept telling him to buzz off, eventually nearing the point of blacklisting him because I was tired of the bullshit. He finally stopped, no doubt because of the Beastmaster in the area who was killing the efts near the dock.

We

Neyla's first teleport! Next stop, Tahrongi Canyon!

got halfway to 37 before I had to quit. We could've walked out, but Neyla wanted to try out his teleports. We grabbed birds at the Mea crag and rode them to the Buburimu outpost to be sent back to Windurst. We'll finish the subjobs on Tuesday and then start leveling Beastmaster again. I want 72 and the return of my ability to teleport as soon as possible.

Speaking of BSTs, Zaria got a party in Bibiki Bay on his Ninja job... but they wanted him as a damage dealer because they also had a Paladin. There were two Beastmasters in the party; one of them was Mysterie, who'd almost gotten herself killed a week or so ago trying to help me and Neyla kill Aquarius. She's getting close to being kicked from TheFlock for camping on top of others and general ineptitude.

"I hope you like your Beastmasters with a side order of gimp," I told Zaria. "Both of them are subbing White Mage."

If you're going to be the lolPartyBST, at least show some pride and dress like a damage dealer, y'know?

Axe Me

Coffer

I can't wait to be rid of this pick.

keys were dropping like Halloween candy while Neyla and I were in the Boyadha Tree to finish off our Axe points. It took us a little less than an hour to work off the latent effects, and we obtained five keys. We tracked down two coffers for gil, and then it was time to head for Jeuno to return the axe to Brutus. Hopefully we can get the linkshell together and kill the sapling NM in the Temple of Uggalepih next week; I'm not in a huge hurry.

While I was buying my Limbus detergent and gearing up White Mage, Neyla took his coffer key and obtained a gem worth about 60k. I doubt we'll get much use out of Decimation once we've learned it, but at least the work has already paid off in gil and xp.

BigKahunas is finishing off a chip set for another Omega fight, so we hit Apollyon SW.

It's

I'm waiting for the monkey to pop out.

one of the easier zones. There are fomors, treants, mimics and Elementals to slaughter, and we did well enough on time that we killed several Mimics with minimal death. I was the only healer in the alliance, which kept me pretty busy.

Wulfgar joined us for the run, which kinda surprised me because he doesn't like Quieren very much. It's good to see he could suppress his feelings for two hours a week.

I'll be visiting family this weekend, so I won't be there when they bypass Limbus and go for a Jailor run. I wouldn't mind a shot at a Temperence Axe, but it's not like this is the only time we'll do the fight.

Later on, Malystryxx died trying to solo the Plague Chigoe for the Caedarva Mire map. I used my ring and tracked down his corpse for Raise III. Zaria, Dewson, Neyla and I still needed that map, so we decided to gang up on it. I've heard lots of nightmare stories about that fight, since it hits hard and Drains when it does. Zaria got called away and had to log out before we coudl begin.

Neyla and I charmed two Wajoam Tigers and attacked it. Ha! They shredded that poor bug. The Drain move was firing off so fast it looked like a blood tornado, but we didn't even have to worry about pet swaps. I'm glad I finally have that map; it drives me nuts when I can't mark stuff down. Neyla and I can take Zaria out there again sometime soon and fight it again.

In other news, PapaPaprika is coming along nicely. I've got him racing against other chocobos on a daily basis to build his strength. I look forward to being able to ride him soon, and I'm also eager to begin raising a new bird with the knowledge I've gained from this first attempt.

What... The... Hell?

Neyla

So many crabs...

and I tried working off points toward Decimation, doing our Fusion skillchain on a series of Robber Crabs in the Boyahda Tree. We've kept very careful count of our progress, so we were understandably perplexed when we reached 300 and discovered the latent effects on our Picks of Trial were still very much in effect.

Clearly, something is wrong. We've been doing Spinning Axe into Raging Axe, alternating who opens and closes so that we should have five points after every two skillchains. I have a horrifying suspicion we've only been getting three points for every two skillchains, which would mean we only had 180 points when we thought we'd reached the goal.

Still, it wasn't a complete loss. We earned 4k in xp from our continual slaughter of Decent prey, and we gained three coffer keys and tracked down the coffers for about 20k in gil. We're going to go back in on Monday and finish up our points.

Loot Whore

We've had some rough Crawler's Nest escorts the past few weeks -- it's almost always the lizard room that screws us over -- and usually had to do them twice for the win. Today's was like finely-tuned clockwork. I despawned everything in Olavia's path while Neyla stopped and started her on cue. We're very close to having our subjobs to 36 now. Hallelujah.

Neyla

Sulfur Scorpions are lovely pets.

and I had nothing planned, so we ended up hitting Ifrit's Cauldron to level our NPCs for the first time in weeks. The opo-opos were easier to charm, and we made our usual circuit to kill every bomb we could find. Gauldeval got about halfway to 59, which means I really need to wander into Qulon Dome and finish his Limit Break quest.

Neyla pulled a few Dodomeki to kill, and he couldn't resist charming a Sulfur Scorpion now that they're Even Match to us. Awesome, to say the least.

Quieren wandered in as Beastmaster to camp Tyrannic Tunnock, a Notorious Monster scorpion in that area. It drops a Rare/Ex Lv. 69 Beastmaster axe and sometimes a Venomous Claw. Quieren wanted the axe because it's free and would allow him to sell his Woodville's Axe, although I'm sure possibility of a V-claw was factored in. He brought another 75 BST to help, and they eventually called two other BSTs for reinforcements. It was a 45-minute fight, but they killed it and he got his axe.

He asked me if I could help, but I declined because it was almost time for Dynamis.

The big news was Cythe's decision to quit Final Fantasy XI. Dynamis was the only thing keeping him around, but his new work schedule has taken that away from him. The linkshell has to decide what to do with all the coins. We'll either choose a new relic weapon to upgrade or sell the coins and distribute the gil. Ajs put it to a vote and we had an even split.

Tonight's run surprised me. After Friday's clusterfuck marathon of death, I was half-convinced the shell would fracture and that it would probably be best to just take the money and run. Instead, we kicked ass. You would've thought we'd been doing Xarcabard on a daily basis, it was so smooth.

We

I like wyverns when they're sleeping.

were still short on attendance and didn't kill all the demon NMs, but we held our own and I know I can't be the only one who left the run feeling much more optimistic about the linkshell's survival. I'll be curious to see how Friday's vote about the fate of the coins compares.

I spent the night chasing Djrealmz while he kited, usually getting frustrated because he'd zoom all over the place where I couldn't cure him. Dantin kited in a tight pattern and was easier to take care of -- I'm used to curing him, since he's usually main tank for our Limbus runs.

The Duelist's Chapeau dropped and went to Starfyre, bumping Neyla to first in line for the pimpiest of pimp hats the next time it drops.

I managed to lot 996 on a 100 Byne Bill before the wipe that ended the run. To be fair, Ajs pointed out anyone who died before having a chance to lot could do so after we were booted and raised. "But you have to beat a 996," he said.

"Good luck, citizens," I joked.

Without Merit

Chocobo

PapaPaprika has white-tipped feathers.

breeders across Vana'diel are rejoicing because our birds are finally starting to mature out of the chick stage. Papa Paprika now has white tips on his feathers, so of course I'm wondering if I can breed him to another white-tipped bird and get a snow-white chocobo as offspring.

A few new care options are available, including "Compete against others." He ended up racing around Windurst Woods and losing to three NPCs who were teaming up to raise birds as part of the chocobo storyline.

I returned to Aydeewa as WHM/BST to rebuild my diminished xp buffer and get a few more levels of Club skill before the Limbus run with BigKahunas. I had a tough time of it, since the jellies were not in the mood to be my pets and constantly resisted Charm. I almost died twice. Very lame.

Once I felt better about my chances of staying 75 awhile, I hit Jeuno and went AFK to play Doom 3 until gather time.

We got off to a late start, but it didn't really bother me this time. An Om'yovra mob was blocking our path, and we decided to bring it down and get its organs for the people working on gorgets. It was a fun fight, especially when it started rapidly spinning and its flippers started striking the melees like fan blades.

The

Time to kill a UFO of our own.

actual Limbus run went well. I'd forgotten to bring my new Cleric's Mitts along, so I couldn't try them out against the ghosts. We detoured and fought Millinery Mossback -- an alternate version of Aspidochelone -- but the stingy bastard didn't even drop coins for us.

The Kaiser Behemoth fight was a bit of a mess compared to the last one. Instead of Quieren kiting him as Paladin, we had Dantin and Aarjuna handling it as Ninjas. Hate control was a serious issue, and KB got off a few Meteor strikes that killed me twice. We won, though.

I wanted to take a nap at that point, and I was preparing to log off as Neyla was logging on. I reminded him that Hadafal was going to be in Vegas and couldn't make the "Test Your Mite" run, so Neyla said he'd scrub it.

I'd been in bed with my eyes closed about fifteen minutes when the phone rang. It was Neyla: "Come raise me." He'd died in Toraimarai Canal while trying to solo Oni Carcass.

I logged on again, trudged into the canal and tracked him down. Once I'd tractored him to a safe corridor, I got him back on his feet and warped out after his weakness wore. He didn't have any problems after that and sent me updates on his progress. The katana didn't drop.

Instead of trying another run at my nap, I put up my flag and got a party in Mount Zhayolm. I sent a /tell to Neyla that I didn't care how good or bad the party was, because I only wanted an xp buffer. It turned out to be pretty bad.

We

Two healers are not always better than one.

had no Refresher, and our leader invited a second White Mage. It turned out to be Leeeleee, a leader of one of my first linkshell. I thought maybe she was planning to switch to Red Mage, since she has that to 75 as well, but it wasn't so. Having two healers meant a drastic reduction in our firepower, although you certainly don't need Refresh when you can alternate healing duties and resting.

We crutched along on trolls, camping on the upper level. We had a regular problem with the Hilltroll Ranger spawning on top of us, and I was the only person in the party who could Sleep it. I didn't have any problems, but I'm thinking I'm going to go BLM/BST at some point and cap out my Dark Magic skills to be safe.

I gave them notice an hour before I planned to leave, and when the time came they decided to keep going with five people since the leader was close to dinging 75. I don't know how well they did after I took off, but I shared my dire predictions of their Sleeper-free doom with Neyla.

Speaking of, I got a message from Neyla later. He'd been farming in Zitah and popped the Keeper of Halidom. He said a Funguar Familiar took it down easily (no drop).