Tanked

Neyla has a new taru adoptee, a girl named Lunarrie. Neyla bumped into her the other day and saw the "newbie" symbol over her head, so she's been answering questions and keeping an eye on her. Lunarrie's been leveling in the dunes as a Black Mage, and she's not relishing the return trip as a White Mage for subjob leveling.

Neyla

Nothing in East Sarutabaruta is safe!

offered to tag along on a lowbie job -- most likely Samurai -- and I figured I'd go. I've been kicking around the idea of Paladin for a long time, so I found myself running around East Sarutabaruta today and swinging at stuff with my sword. I'm trying to figure out when I used a sword in the past, since my skill was already capped. It may have been on Warrior, back before I found out axes were the way to go.

I couldn't use Cure until I hit Lv. 5, but I could use it plenty of times once I recovered it. Neyla, who eventually tracked me down outside to monitor my progress, accused me of "taru hax" when I told him about the size of my MP pool. It's definitely going to be a major benefit... assuming I don't get one-shotted by a pugil's Screwdriver move or something. I think Paladin has been the easiest lowbie job I've done in the starter zone because I didn't take much damage and could grind through a steady stream of Easy and Decent prey without stopping. Learning Fast Blade helped.

I continued until I dinged 7 and then geared up for Limbus. Tonight's main event: Proto-Ultima.

I've been looking forward to this fight because I missed the first time BigKahunas took him on. Quieren warned everyone that he was much tougher than Proto-Omega and that he would be taking specific jobs. The rest would do a farming run in one of the Apollyon zones. We had four tanks along for the ride: three Ninjas and Celvantes on Paladin.

"It's going to seem like the easiest fight in the world," Q told us, "right up until he's down to about 20% health. That's when he turns into an asshole."

The

Man, we are totally screwed.

tanks kept Ultima in one corner while the mages stayed just inside casting range, able to beat a hasty retreat to the opposite side of the arena when needed. Ultima has a move called Citadel Buster which targets the player with hate and begins a countdown from 30. When it reaches zero, KABOOM! AoE death for anyone nearby. The key is for that person to stay in that corner and die while everyone gets the hell out of the way. According to Q, they lost the last fight because someone decided to get in a final swing and wiped the alliance.

The Wire Cutter and Antimatter moves were usually the ones that killed our tanks, but they'd move off to recover and the next would step in. We cycled through steadily, and I don't think we had a time when all four were weakened until the very end when it started to go sour.

I avoided getting hate for the most part, although he did swat me down when I used Cure V on Veresko before he'd had a chance to establish his hold. Owie. At another point I'd died and cast Reraise on myself and went to rest, only to be drawn in and killed again.

We didn't win, but we wore him down to about 6%. Quieren and Veresko were extremely pleased by our performance; a few tweaks to strategy, they said, and we should be able to kill him the next time. Sounds good to me.

King of the Noobs

Finding

I have no luck finding the missing chick's owner.

the owner of yesterday's lost chocobo proved problematic. My only clue -- the owner's name starts with "K" -- helped me narrow it down a bit. I was finally prompted to ask about it and was told "No no, you must be mistaken." I'm thinking you only get one shot to complete the quest, and you probably receive more clues on your walks to aid the search.

I played the Hot and Cold game again, this time in Meriphataud Mountains. I got close, but couldn't hone in on the crate before my bird became too fatigued to dig anymore. Bah.

Neyla has been making some comments about raising a chocobo of his own. I don't get a sense he's after all the crazy little nuances of breeding so much as the sake of convenience. It makes sense to me. My first bird, Paprika, is just for riding. The new one is for show, an upgrade from Pinto to Jaguar. Now I just need to nudge Neyla to take the actual step of acquiring an egg.

My other main activity involved activating the new teleport option to Sky from the crags. The first step was changing my title from "Dynamis-Xarcabard Interloper" to "Warrior of the Crystal" in the Tavnazian Safehold. With that out of the way, I bought some Clear Chips from a goblin NPC in Windurst Walls and teleported around to repair the machines. I had to travel to Sky and register with the green telepads near Despot's stomping grounds.

Arthur and Xemo were up there doing the same thing. Xemo finished up and started Warping out, only to be slaughtered by all the pots and dolls standing nearby. The mobs despawned, so Arthur raised him.

"What a fuckin' noob," Xemo laughed. The three of us Warped out before the mobs could return.

I

Xemo, Arthur and I register with the telepad.

was annoyed to hear the chips have a chance of breaking when they teleport you. The damned things cost 21k each, so I'm hoping it's not something that happens very often. The joke is that I don't even go up there very often, but (as one of the posters at Allakhazam pointed out) I did it to be an asshole and lord it over the people who haven't completed Chains of Promathia. When I told Neyla what I was doing, his response was short and to the point: "Whore." Ha-ha!

Speaking of noobs, I paid 500k for an Amemet Mantle. Not the HQ version, but the plain one that goes for 3k. I'd been bidding low on the +1, trying to get lucky on undercutting. Somewhere in my slow climb of bids from 400k to 500k, I changed targets. I checked the history and saw I'd bought it from Flamey, who I know from my time in Notorious Hunters and from QCDN.

"I'll send back 460k," he told me. "A 40k NQ mantle should teach you to be more careful next time."

"Much obliged," I said. A harsh lesson, perhaps, but I'm not going to complain because I'm happy I got it back and could buy the +1 mantle I'd desired.

I decided to erase my gaffe from the history by buying and selling the mantle for 1 gil, 2 gil, 3 gil, etc. Not that it's really gone, since you can look on that Auction House site and see it, but still...

For my next trick, I'm going to pay 100k for a stack of millioncorn.

Post-Update Celebration

Today was the big update introducing Salvage, new armor, new teleport options for getting to Sky, and lots and lots of chocobo stuff.

I

Paprika finds the VCS Crate in Tahrongi Canyon.

couldn't wait to log on and visit Camp Kweh with the new chick in tow, but I was denied entry because I haven't named her yet. It'll be another week before she hits the adolescent stage and I can see what color she'll be as an adult, so I guess I'll just have to wait.

Instead, I contented myself with the new Chocobo Hot and Cold game. The new NPC at the chocobo stables gave me the rules and a piece of wildgrass to use when I reached Tahrongi Canyon. I used it to summon Paprika and followed the marker on my map to the vicinity of the hidden crate. It took a few digs, but I eventually found the VCS crate and popped it open to find... a parasite worm.

It was a fun game, and I look forward to playing it again tomorrow. It seems most of the mental traits are more important for the game, so I'm curious to find out how a smart bird handles it. Paprika is strong and fast, but he's as dumb as a bag of hair.

The new chick found a Flint Stone during his walk around East Sarutabaruta and also found a stray chick that followed us back to the stable. It's a new quest, and I guess we have to find the owner. I've been a big fan of the chocobo raising element, and it pleases me to know it's getting continual support.

The

Who brought crabs to the party?

next bit of post-update madness involved running to Whitegate to upgrade my Mog Locker to 70 slots. As soon as I dismounted Paprika and entered town, I saw people running around and shouting for Besieged parties. The Undead Swarm was set to invade, so I ran to the moghouse and changed from White Mage to Beastmaster because swinging an axe next to a basket-carrying crab is more fun than throwing out an endless stream of Raises.

This was the first Besiged I've done where my pet wasn't constantly lagging out and becoming impossible to use. Hooray for maintenance clearing out the population in advance. I partied up with Veresko and Zaria, but we didn't stick together. I just ran from mob to mob, helping people carve up some bones. The lamias were awful, since they had a nasty habit of stripping me naked right before I could Rampage them.

We eventually drove them off and I received 1000 limit points as a reward. I ran to the coin exchange NPC and snagged five Imperial Gold Coins to expand my locker. I didn't have time to move anything to it; I hustled back to Windurst to gear up for Dynamis-Xarcabard.

I am extremely happy to report we completely rocked the zone. We were quick to dispatch the demon NMs and got a set of those lovely Thief gloves for Drq. The only awkward moment came at the "wall of eyes," when Celvantes accidentally moved too close before the pull and got aggro. It was a wipe, but we had plenty of time to recover and take care of it.

And

I'm glad I'm up here and not down there.

Dynamis Lord? Ha! We slaughtered that big purple goofball. Ikari was there as MNK/DRK, popping off Soul Eater and then Hundred Fists for some insane damage; there were four White Mages spamming that crazy mithra with Cure V. I may actually have to unlock and level Dark Knight just so I'd have that option down the road.

Celvantes now has a shiny new Shadow Mantle. I'm thrilled because it's going to save me a lot of MP in Dynamis and Limbus. Even better was the knowledge that our first encounter with Dynamis Lord wasn't just a fluke. I wouldn't want to fight him every time we enter Xarcabard, but it's good to know it's not an automatic death sentence to try.

It was Ajs' last visit to Dynamis-Xarcabard, so at least he got to go out on a high note. Everyone crowded around the bailey entrance for a group photo and celebration. Fun times.

Weekend Update

I had dread in my heart about Friday's Dynamis-Beaucedine run. After that hideous abortive attempt at Xarcabard on Monday, I was convinced we'd have several people quit in the days between. Maybe the loss was a nice wake-up slap, because everyone came prepared and we did a great job. Hell, I didn't even die. We got a few pieces of relic armor -- Moink got the Summoner one -- and pulled off a win for the ones who needed it. Vast improvement.

Neyla

I pity these poor demons.

and I were going to see a movie and hang out on Saturday, but he begged off. I had a little Firefly marathon and played lots of Twilight Princess and didn't go anywhere near Vana'diel until about 9:30 that night. Neyla and Hadafal needed coffer keys from Vahzl Castle Bailey, so Veresko joined us for a farming run.

I didn't really know my way around, but I certainly got a good feel for it because we stayed there for hours. We'd drop down one of the shafts near the beastmen, clear out the nearby room of its coffer mobs, and then run back upstairs to drop down another shaft. Wash, rinse, repeat. A Ninja and two Beastmasters with jug pets would rip those demons apart.

I went as White Mage to try and get more WS points toward unlocking my Morgenstern, but I quickly relegated myself to the healer role.

The demons kept dropping their weapons. I found myself with two Yagudo Freezers.

"Great," I said. "Now I can safely store yagudo."

Otak and Apu eventually joined us for even faster slaughter. One key dropped, and Neyla passed since Hada's Warrior job is actually in AF range. We'll go back and get Neyla's key later. He still has 11-12 levels before he can quest his Bard Stuff.

Sunday's

Leviathan wants to drill Quieren.

Limbus run went well. Quieren grabbed three Bards and distributed them through the alliance for the second floor of Temenos Central. There are elementals and avatars to kill, and Carbuncle is the mega-boss in the middle of it all. I'm pretty sure we only fought Shiva when Veresko led it, but Q took us around to do her as well as Titan, Leviathan and Ramuh.

Deaths were minimal. Quieren got dropped like a rock at one point because I'd just used Cure V on someone else. Q had full health at the time, so I wasn't expecting him to die so fast. Ah, well.

We took out Carby with little fuss and waited at the Dem crag for Ver's team to finish up. Everyone got three Ancient Beastcoins. I only ten more to get my BST pants upgrade. I've also been thinking about upgrading some of the White Mage stuff. I'll have to compare stats and see if it's worth it.

To finish off a good weekend, the "Test Your Mite" static was rewarded with another Woodsman Ring and a Geist Earring. Cmdrfly couldn't make it, so I went as White Mage and Dantin tagged along as Monk since he already had the key item. Everyone should clear a little over 100k when they sell.