Plan Ahead

I

Trade... trade... trade...

learned a valuable lesson this morning. When trying to undertake a quest in Al Zahbi, it's probably best to make sure the NPCs haven't been stolen during Besieged. I cashed in a bunch of Imperial Standing to get twenty gold pieces, rode the boat to Nashmau and hit my trade macro for about twenty minutes until I had 1,000 bronze pieces, and warped back to Whitegate to discover the Walahra Turban guy wouldn't give me the quest because he was worried about the kidnapped appraiser.

Yeah, that really blows. That's eleven inventory slots full of coins. On the positive side, I can keep access to my mog locker for three or four years. I hope somebody rescues that guy soon. I'm a big fan of my Cleric's Cap, but I'm willing to try the turban.

I also managed to find a Templar Mace. I'll have to rework my WHM macros for it, but I'm content.

Is This a Joke?

A Puppetmaster, Beastmaster and Dragoon walk into a bar...

It

Dhalmels are so crunchy and easy to kill.

sounds like a good setup for a joke, but actually it turned out to be one of the better XP parties I've had on Dragoon so far. I'd barely made it to Jeuno when I got an invitation to Bibiki Bay. I've never done lowbie leveling there with a full party and wasn't sure what to expect. The setup was PLD, NIN, DRK, BST, DRG, PUP and Powerleveler.

This was my first time partying with a Puppetmaster, other than that one time Moink brought his to Dynamis-Bastok for shits and giggles. The Beastmaster seemed to have a stack of every jug pet under the sun; we had a fun moment when her rarab did an AoE attack and caused a wild rarab to attack, but it just meant more xp for us.

The Paladin tanked the dhalmels and ravens while the Ninja served as puller. That little taru was quick, running out to nab new mobs before our current mob was dead. We killed so fast he eventually had to run down to the docks and start pulling mobs from there.

Leveling Dragoon has been a lot of fun, but it seems I've provided Neyla and Quieren with bonding material because they think it's a total joke. I thought Neyla would die laughing when I told him about my party setup, and Q nearly pissed himself. "Dear God, please tell me you're all tarus," Quieren laughed, "so I can keel over right here."

I don't care if they laugh. Fuck the naysayers, 'cause I'm having fun poking monsters with sharp sticks.

We

The citadel's bats are a little harder.

eventually moved to Garlaige Citadel to fight bats and beetles, and that's where the killing slowed down a little. We couldn't tear through the mobs as quickly, but we did okay. Neyla turned up on Beastmaster to point and laugh for a sec, but he didn't stick around very long because a Besieged was in the works.

The party eventually disbanded and I was going to head for Al Zahbi to join Neyla, but I decided to put my flag up and try to get a party before I committed. I got an invitation and we camped near the weapons in Sauromugue. I was convinced my wyvern would be dead most of the time due to Whirl of Rage, but Oboro managed to survive most of it. The XP was slower in this party, but I got one more level.

Our puller was 350 away from getting her level when we started to disband, so the four remaining members of the party ran around killing yagudo and goblins until we got it for her.

Getting from 28 to 33 in one day was unexpected to say the least.

In other news, Evildr had a red female chocobo card and let me have it. I'll have to get an egg this weekend so I can start on it as soon as BlackComet maxes out. He hit Outstanding Strength and Endurance today, so it won't take long.

Ravagers Redux

I

Proto-Omega goes down like a drunk cheerleader after the big game.

feel a little embarrassed for Proto-Omega. We killed him so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to use the High Ethers and Yagudo Drinks I'd been ordered to bring. We got two Homam drops. Wulfgar got the head piece and I really wasn't paying attention to the other. I think it was the feet, but I couldn't tell you who got it.

The most entertaining part for me was wearing Quieren's MP gear. He was tanking on Ninja and decided to let me wear his Astral Earring, Blue Cape +1 (I have the NQ version and stopped wearing it when I got a Rainbow Cape), Serket Ring and Hedgehog Bomb. With all that and /SMN, my MP jumped to around 1240, but my HP was down to 702. I would've died if Omega had farted in my direction. I had a scary moment or two during the fight, but nobody died.

I think we're working on another Omega chip Sunday, and then Wednesday it's the big battle against Ultima. I hope we win as easily as we did today, but I'm not holding my breath.

While all this was going on, Neyla managed to get two parties on Bard and draw pretty close to 59. I've been teasing him for the past few days that the secret to getting a party is to keep your flag up for more than twenty minutes before taking it down again, and I was starting to think he'd never catch up to my Monk.

In

BlackComet digs for treasure in Jugner Forest.

other news, I was riding through Jugner Forest on BlackComet, trying to find the VCS crate for the "Hot and Cold" game, when I stumbled across the treant NM Fraelissa. It was standing near the crate's location, and I wasn't sure if the thing would aggro me when I dismounted. The only other time I'd seen Fraelissa was the day it was added to the game, when Veresko went to track it down and I tagged along to help him kill it. Neyla looked up the info and said it was a whopping Lv. 35 monster, so I dropped to the ground and beat it to death with my club. I didn't get a drop, but I pulled some dragon scales from the crate.

I also scored four red male chocobo cards from Bajaratt. I'm going to try and find a red female in the next few days. I saw someone riding a red bird a few days back and was instantly determined to have one as my main steed.

The Skin Trade

I

Two wallpapers from the shoot.

found a site that lets you design your own customized skins for game consoles and decided awhile back that I wanted to make a Beastmaster skin for my Nintendo DS. I'd managed to destroy the shoulder buttons on my old one, and last week I replaced the machine with a shiny new DS Lite.

My skin dreams renewed, I dragged Neyla out to Lufaise Meadows today so I could get a good screenshot of us in front of long-abandoned Tavnazia. I chose that spot because it's one of the more iconic images from the game's introductory movie.

I didn't know fomors popped on that overlook, but thankfully my hate levels are so low they didn't aggro me. We had to wait for them to leave and the sun to rise before I could get the shot I wanted for the front of my DS.

I've spent the rest of the day fishing -- I received two .1 skillups, bringing me to 92.7 -- and rummaging through my screenshot folders for material to put on the inside sections. I found a pic of our CourierCarries ripping on yagudo in Castle Oztroja for one and used an NPC-leveling trip in Ifrit's Cauldron for the other.

Here's what the finished product will look like. Click it for a larger view.



It'll be a few weeks before it's made and delivered, but I'll let you know how it goes. It's possible the inside skins will be discarded if they make it difficult to play the machine, but that front cover is going to be nice.

Spartans Are Wimps

I

It feels dirty, but it feels good.

decided to undergo the ritual humiliation of getting a party for Dragoon. I got an invitation from a player named Jojojo, asking if I wanted to join a powerleveled party she was puttin together for her boyfriend, a taru Red Mage named Sugino. She also asked if I'd voke the mobs off the puller -- "I hate to waste a slot on a tank," she told me -- and she'd take over tanking by cure-bombing me. That's a hell of a lot more PL handholding than I'm used to, but I agreed. We went to the camp where my spirit had been broken on Saturday and chained mandies and goblins for some incredible xp. I got to 28 in about 40 minutes.

Unfortunately, I ran afoul of their desire to keep experience levels close with a member of their linkshell. A Paladin who'd been standing off to the side was basically waiting for Sugino to catch up to him, at which point I was asked to leave so the Paladin could slide into my place. I was annoyed, but I was gracious about it because I'd managed to reach the goal I'd set for myself so quickly that the rest of my afternoon was free.

I put my flag up for a few minutes, but took it down again for Besieged.

The Undead Swarm swelled to a Lv. 7 assault and swept into Al Zahbi. Neyla was there on Bard, so we partied up. He invited a White Mage and Black Mage who were running around the zone in need of Mage Ballads. The zone had about 200 people in it, which did not bode well for us.

I've pretty much figured out my main goal for Besieged is to find the generals and keep them alive. I'll buff and Haste random melees along the way. I keep tracking down General Zazarg, which Neyla insists is because I have a fetish for Monks. Mostly it's because I think he's a supreme badass... but being a Monk no doubt is part of that.

I

I bet Puppetmasters see these things and weep for what might've been.

was doing a fair job of keeping Zazarg alive, but he eventually got swamped by ghosts. There were at least a dozen on him, and they decided to cast a bunch of hideous spells that knocked him from full health to dead in about two seconds.

The rest of the generals had started falling as well, and it was finally down to the mithra doing battle in front of the Hall of Binding. I scrambled across the zone to help keep her standing, but a lot of people were also rushing there and the lag grew so terrible I lost my lock on her. She never loaded back onto my screen, but I got the message that she'd died.

The seal on the Hall of Binding was broken, leaving the mobs free to move in and steal the Astral Candescence.

By that time more people had entered to come to the defense of the city, but it was bedlam. Medusa and Lamia No. 13 were right outside the hall, stripping players of their armor or killing them en masse with AoE Doom attacks, gloating alongside their ghosts and qutrub flunkies.

I turned into a complete combat medic at that point, patching up players and sending them back into battle to die again as soon as their weakness had worn. There were bodies everywhere as people did their best to repel the invasion.

"This is like something out of 300," Neyla said at one point.

I dared him to yell "This is Sparta!" but someone else beat him to it.

Seeing

It's pretty bad when you can rest beside the plinth.

so many people working together was amazing and more than a little awe-inspiring. A mob would enter the hall and start moving toward the plinth holding the Astral Candescence, and suddenly you'd have a dozen people blasting it with Provoke or -ga spells to lure it back outside. One poor ghost got into the last room and found himself burned to the ground by weakened Black Mages who were there to recover. Hell, I was still weakened and tossing out Flash and Banish III to try to turn one of the mobs.

Veresko joined us on Ranger and pelted the mobs with arrows. Neyla kept our MP pools topped off and I did my best to Raise and repair as many players as I could. I couldn't believe it when the Undead Swarm retreated. We'd managed to win and save the Candescence.

It was by far the most epic Besieged I've done, exactly the sort of thing I'd hoped it would be.

The Spice of Life

I'd

How can I say no to that face?

planned to retire BlackComet when he reached the adult stage. I don't really need a new bird for riding, so it seemed best to use him for breeding stock and start on the green chocobo right away. Naturally, I couldn't resist when I saw him in full plumage. I'm going to max out his physical stats after all, and I even registered him to my whistle so I can start riding him. I like having that kind of variety in my steeds, I guess.

The green bird is going to be raised for mental stats until I can teach him Gallop and Cantor, at which point I'll switch him over to physical and hope I can max him out before he reaches his peak. That'll be my racing bird when the time comes.

In other news, BigKahunas finished the final zone we needed for a Proto-Omega set. I think the plan now is to do Ultima on Wednesday and Omega on Sunday. I don't have high hopes of beating Ultima, but Veresko posted a pretty involved strategy that could do the trick. I'd like to see us win so I could get my grubby little paws on a Nashira Turban or those M.C Hammer pants so I can yell "Can't touch this!"

The "Test Your Mite" static got a Woodsman Ring and Geist Earring. Neyla won the lot on the Geist, and Wulfgar is selling the Woodsman to be split with us later.

Neyla

Pasuk gave up the goods this week.

still wants to do a static xp party with his Bard and my Monk, which would effectively knock those jobs out of the weekly ENM if we have other people involved. I'm trying to get my Dragoon to 40 so I can start bringing it. This is all hypothetical until Neyla catches up to my Monk.

The escort through the necropolis went well, except Neyla didn't realize he'd forgotten to speak to the NPC until he tried to claim his scroll in North San d'Oria. I returned to the crypt so the two of us could run through it again with CourierCarrie slaughtering everything that moved.

We finished up our evening by hitting Ifrit's Cauldron for our final NPC-leveling session. Gauldeval and Yawawa hit 65, which is somewhat bittersweet. I'm glad to have it finished, but I'll miss that forward progress.