Taru Brigade

I

Shakrami is played out as a Ninja leveling spot.

hit 32 in Shakrami today on Ninja, but Neyla wasn't in the mood to take his turn with the katanas. He spent a big chunk of yesterday camping a goblin named Soulstealer Skullnix in Onzozo while waiting for Besieged to start, and he wanted to go back today. The plan is for him to ding 32 on Monday in a full session. On Tuesday we'll switch over to only burning off a ring charge until we hit 37. So close.... so close...

I rode to Bibiki Bay to see if we could start there, but the bunnies are still Very Tough and Incredibly Tough. I'll scope out Lufaise Meadows and some other spots.

I had nothing else on the agenda, so I grabbed my Dragoon gear and started seeking. It didn't take long to get an invitation, and I rode to Garlaige Citadel to join a party comprised of five tarutarus (RDM, THFx2, DRK and DRG) and a lone mithra as our Ninja tank. Adorable as all hell.

Unfortunately, "adorable" is the only high marks I could give the party. It was slow as old creeping Moses. A Red Mage at that level just isn't a sufficient main healer. I give him points for effort, but you can't keep that many people alive while also enfeebling (their primary task), so the only debuffs were coming from the Ninja. I have a feeling there are a lot of new Red Mages out there who are capping their healing skills and not their enfeebling because there's a dearth of White Mages. Don't get me started on how handy Erase would be for taking Evasion Down off the Ninja.

The high point was watching the constant wipes by the team of gilsellers trying to level on the steps with us. They had better gear than I've seen on them in the past, but it didn't help. They'd pull a beetle and die, wait for their weakness to wear off, then pull another beetle and die. I was getting the giggles. After the third or fourth wipe (while I was there, anyway; the party said they'd been wiping all afternoon), they finally homepointed to try again another day.

One

No ankles are safe from the taru brigade.

Thief acted as puller, constantly bringing linked bats to camp and having to zone them. My only death of the night came when a linked bat returned to camp and ripped me a new one. Our taru Red Mage eventually took off and was replaced by a lackluster hume White Mage who was only doing it as a subjob and didn't have Reraise, which of course meant standing around with our collective thumbs up our asses and waiting for a raise when he died to another bat link.

The other Thief was main SATA, and he had a tendency to take forever to set it up. I eventually offered to take over from the Dark Knight as first voke, but I was still getting the shit beat out of me on a regular basis because he'd take too long. Ugh.

My only real goal was to hit 34 so I could equip my Venerer Ring, but it took damned near forever to get there. I was getting tired of wasting food on them, so I gave them notice I'd be taking off in an hour. I was there a little longer because the Ninja and a Thief were close to getting their level, but at least I got a decent buffer out of it.

Neyla was eventually joined by Crookedmidget and a few others from KeitaroPrime. They killed most of the NMs in Onzozo over the course of the night, and Neyla won the lot on the CHR dagger he wanted from the goblin.

Skin of My Teeth

Neyla

I'm getting really sick of this tiger.

and I did another round of Ninja in Shakrami today, hitting 31. Neyla's been scanning the map regularly for Besieged, hoping to catch a few so his Bard will ding 60 during Sunday's ENM and escort, so he was happy to see the trolls preparing to invade.

I spent time out in Beaucedine Glacier camping Nue while I waited. I'd killed several rounds of mobs by the time the trolls started their advance and was waiting for one final spawn before heading to Al Zahbi. That's when Nue finally popped; I killed him, and of course only received a black tiger fang for my troubles.

"Doesn't that make you like 0/20?" Quieren asked.

"Feels like it," I said. I really hate Nue.

The Besieged was fun. Quieren, Apu, Wulfgar and Lepruvian were there, so the six of us partied up to kill things. It was relaxing to have my own party to heal instead of throwing cures and hastes at random strangers. When it ended I'd earned a third Merit Point towards my second Beast Affinity upgrade.

In other news, I finally got some pics of my Nintendo DS with its new beastmaster skin. I like it, although I probably should've done full color correction on the skin before I ordered it. The black saturation isn't as good as it could be, but they may be a problem on their end.

It looks pretty good with some Resident Evil action going on. Click them for larger pics.

Cynoprosopi Sloppy

Limbus almost went down in flames when we reached the floor with the Fafnir clone.

We

Why does the big bad wyrm hate us so much?

usually clear out the wyverns before taking on Cynoprosopi and kiting him around the central island, but Kougaiji managed to aggro the wyrm and died to avoid bringing it to camp before we were ready. It came for us anyway, lumbering into the middle of us. We had not choice but to run out and start. We've killed it a few times, but this was the fight where he decided to be a complete bastard. His breath attacks were fun, knocking off my Stoneskin without actually injuring me.

"Does this version of Fafnir use Spike Flail?" someone asked.

"No," Quieren said.

BOOM! Half the alliance falls dead.

"Hey," I said, "guess what? He uses Spike Flail."

It wasn't a complete wipe, but it was damned close. I died two or three times until we finally had everyone up and recovering. Then we cut our losses and ran for the zone, bypassing him and heading upstairs to do the behemoths.

We have a new guy in the linkshell, BreakerXD, and he's not getting a good look at BigKahunas at this rate. We wiped to Proto-Ultima on his first run with us, and now sloppy wyrm work. Heh. I can't complain too much because I still got three Ancient Beastcoins.

There's not a whole lot else to report. Neyla, Gliran and I helped Dewson breech the citadel's Banishing Gates to find some Red Mage AF. Gliran's highest job is 40 and he ended up dying at the gate with the two slimes. He took it well.

Black Dragon Slayer

More

Neyla fights a goblin in the Maze of Shakrami.

tag-team powerleveling of Ninja today, this time exclusively in Shakrami. We spent a few levels there on Beastmaster back in the day, and I still remember where all the mobs are. I'd kill almost everything in the main room and grab a crawler or bat from the sloping corridor at the far end until we got respawns.

They were dropping treasure chest keys like mad, and the chest popped by the bones in the corner. I was going to party up with Neyla after I dinged 31 so he could get some free gil, but he said they only contained items. Nope. I got 2,400 gil. I blew myself up and returned to Windurst to change jobs for Neyla's turn.

I had him check the goblins and crawlers after he dinged 31, and they were all Even and Tough. I'm glad, because that means we can get to 32 there easily enough. We'll probably need a transition zone to reach 33, but then we can hit Bibiki Bay and stay there until our subjobs are complete.

I imagine we'll have to switch from level-a-day mode to only working off a ring charge if we want to avoid burnout, but then again we don't really have anything else to do and we want this stuff done. I won't complain either way.

The main event for the day was the 3-2 dragon fight for some San d'Orians, Tarsuel and Notta, who'd posted at QCDN asking for help. Neyla volunteered to come as White Mage, which is somewhere up there with Dubya admitting he was wrong. It just doesn't happen.

I've

I feel nothing but pity for this poor dragon.

wanted to do one of those fights since I got Dragoon to 25, but I didn't really feel like dodging aggro on the way to the BCNM area and went Monk instead. I'd almost zoned into Fort Ghelspa Outpost before Neyla sent me a /tell that the fight was actually in Giddeus. Oops. I had to backtrack.

Tarsuel came as Puppetmaster, but he activated his automaton before we entered the BCNM. It despawned, and we didn't feel like waiting twenty minutes for him to be able to use it. The fight was ungodly easy. I felt sorry for the monsters, really. We went in and Notta did an Elemental Seal and Sleepga, and I started punching things.

I punched the eye to death, popped off Hundred Fists, and slaughtered the dragon. I have no clue how much damage the others were doing because I had it filtered out, but Neyla laughed that I could've done the fight solo. It was a lot of fun.

Secret of the Damp Scroll

I'd

There's too much running around to find goblins.

scoped out the big pond in the western region of Rolanberry Fields, and it seemed like a great spot when I was riding through on my chocobo. There were plenty of goblins and crawlers to kill; we could make a circuit around the pond and kill everything that moved for good Ninja xp.

It turned out very differently. What looks great when you're riding through at high speed has multiple flaws when you're on foot. There were goblins and crawlers, but they were very spread out and it was a lot of running around trying to find stuff to kill. Neyla kept me cured up while I sliced and diced my way to 30, though. He had to kill an ochu or three, but we got my level.

I wanted to scope out the back entrance to the Maze of Shakrami, the area where you zone in from Buburimu to camp Argus or the Leech King. The mobs were in the good xp range -- almost exclusively Evens and Toughs -- so Neyla went there when it was his turn on Ninja.

Shakrami was a hell of a lot better. The mobs are all clustered in one big room, so they're easy to pull and you don't spend five minutes tracking down new things to kill. I wish I'd thought to go there first. I'll get my chance tomorrow, I guess.

I

The monsters in Shakrami are conveniently close to each other.

decided to spend some quality fishing time in the Sea Serpent Grotto. While I was there, I looked up the requirements for the Lv. 30 Ninja scroll, Jubaku: Ichi. It turns out I was in the right place, because you need a Damp Scroll from the grotto to flag the quest. Altana has a sense of humor, because I'd tossed dozens of those things to save space and this time I couldn't hook one. I checked my mules to see if they had any unsold Damp Scrolls, but I eventually gave up and bought one from the Bastokan Auction House in Norg. God, that whopping 5k gil is gonna break me!

I changed jobs and trekked through Yughott Grotto until I reach the hot springs near Horlais Peak, traded my scroll, and was rewarded when the spell was revealed. I'll put it to use tomorrow, because it never hurts to Paralyze the enemy.

No Chocolate Bunnies for Joo!

I figured we'd be farming in Limbus today because it was Easter Sunday, but it turns out BigKahunas is filled with just the right mix of heathens and believers with flexible worship schedules. We had enough people to take on Proto-Ultima. Quieren, Celvantes and Reko went as PLD/NIN, which saved the mages a ton of MP. It started a little rough, but we eventually hit a groove where I almost had my MP back to full.

Of

Oh, the humanity!

course, that didn't take into account the last bit of Proto-Ultima's life, when he turns into a complete bastard and starts spamming Citadel Buster. We got close... so damned close. I think he was down to 5%-6% when the massive deaths started and we couldn't recover. It was a wipe, and the thing managed to Regen its health all the way to full before we got tossed out of the arena.

I logged out awhile after that, but came on to help Wulfgar get his Red Mage AF hat. Neyla and I joined him in Fei'yin to take down Miser Murphy; the ghost has some nasty Drain and killed Neyla uber-fast, but we took it down. Nanunanoo tagged along to help us get through the Banishing Gates in Garlaige Citadel so we could kill the doll.

"Test Your Mite" had some cast changes this week. Wulfgar tanked on Ninja, Naunanoo came as White Mage, and Crookedmidget joined us on Black Mage since Cmdrfly and the new NIN couldn't make it. With the XP from that and the escort, my Monk is now 3.4k away from 60. I can't wait to ding next week.