Fool Me Twice

I

Crabs are very relaxing.

caught a glimpse of Charybdis while fishing in the Sea Serpent Grotto. She was on the other side of my fishing spot, running around unclaimed and at full health. I was amazed enough to see a kraken, much less the NM. A taru Red Mage finally came out of nowhere and claimed it.

I wasn't really fishing so much as I was killing time while I tried to get a party. The Astral Candescence had been stolen earlier and I wasn't sure anyone would be in a partying mood. I ended up getting an invitation from Rizli -- the leader of the torture crawl from the other day -- to party in the Boyahda Tree. I had nothing better to do, so I decided to give him another shot.

Fighting Steelshells at this level isn't wonderful xp, but it was steady and stress-free. I would've been content to beat them all evening, but the Paladin eventually took off and we decided to move over to the Processionaire camp with our Warrior as the tank. The leader said he'd try to find another WAR for co-tanking, but it didn't work out.

We had tension because Rizli wanted to pull flies to camp, but there were three or four flitting around and they would've linked and killed us. The WAR and I made it clear that we wouldn't fight any flies he pulled, so he stuck to crawlers.

Sneakypants eventually popped on the radar as Paladin and joined us. Our Blue Mage took off and was replaced by a new one who knew a good place for fighting flies. We moved camps and the XP started to improve, but it was really too little too late.

We

I stole hate from Sneakypants! Pure win!

stuck around awhile, but we were soured on the entire Boyhada Tree experience and didn't really protest when Rizli announced he had to take off after he got his level (the same thing he did in Caedarva Mire). I don't think I'll be partying with him again, since both times have been awkward and slow progress. It really doesn't seem worth it.

He didn't know the way out, so I suggested death warping. I could've led him out, but I was tired and left them behind. I used my Homing Ring, switched over to Beastmaster, and farmed my Florid Stone before logging out.

Slow Torture

Today was a holiday and I didn't have to work, so I put up my flag when I woke up around 6 a.m. this morning. I knew I probably wouldn't get a party because I'm not Japanese, but I had nothing to lose. I eventually gave up and logged out for a nap, then came back later to try again.

It was hours later before I finally got a party, but I wasn't really worried because I'd been curled up in bed with a book most of the day. On the whole, I think I would've been better off sticking with the paperback.

I

The sight of a dead Summoner was common in this party.

managed to get myself killed by an imp on the way to camp, but that was really the least of my problems. The party setup was SMNx2, WARx2, MNK and THF. It's the sort of thing that can work really well if the Warriors get a good co-tanking rhythm going, but it was bitter failure in Caedarva Mire. The imps spam Abrasive Tantra and make it nearly impossible for them to Provoke off each other, so hate was all over the map and we had a lot of downtime. One of the Summoners took three or four dirt naps.

I was thrilled when one of the Warriors left and we got a Paladin to replace him. A dedicated tank, even one hobbled by a lack of Refresh, made it go faster. Well, a little faster. Sorta. One Summoner "disconnected" and never returned -- surprisingly, it wasn't the one who'd died repeatedly -- and was replaced with another who regularly gave us Fenrir and Diablo buffs.

But it was agonizing. I can't pretend otherwise. It took an ungodly amount of time to get that 11k I needed to ding 69, and by then I was itching to be gone. The party leader had recently dinged and was trying to find a replacement for himself, so I told him to get one for me.

I went back to my book after that and had a much better time. Bad parties like that make you appreciate the good ones.

Return to the Guild

Kagemusha, the tarutaru Paladin I partied with yesterday, was putting a group together and invited me to Caedarva Mire for more imp slaughter. It was a good setup. We had another Monk in the party besides me, a hume this time, and I couldn't resist checking his gear to see how we stacked up. My gear was slightly better, which pleased me.

I

Getting closer and closer to 69.

don't really worry about e-peen and high numbers, so I filter out party damage 99% of the time. I couldn't resist this, and after a few minutes felt confident that I was easily holding my own against him. I put my filters back in place and happily punched flies and imps to death. I was about 11k from hitting 69 when we had to disband.

Another party would've been nice, but I didn't manage to get one. I'd decided it was finally time to start working on points for the Woodworker's Guild in San d'Oria after months of neglect, so I bought a bunch of Holly Clogs and delivered them. Bored, I outposted and entered the Sea Serpent Grotto to fight Sahagins for a little while, but it was awkward since I couldn't Cure myself. I elected to fish instead.

Neyla had been up in Sky with TheFlock. He ended up the grotto to lead a BST duo to that great camp behind one of the doors, and I joined their party for a few fights until the BSTs turned up.

The last thing I did was travel to Bastok to complete that part of the "Lure of the Wildcat" quest. The NPCs who warp you to Whitegate will do so from all three cities -- not just your home nation -- if you've done the quest, and Bastok was the only one I hadn't completed.

Progress

I

I'm used to fighting these pugils as Beastmaster.

hit a lucky streak today and got a party almost immediately after logging on. The party wanted to hit Mount Zhayolm, which I wasn't wild about because the crawlers weren't pumping out xp like the imps do. We were killing them pretty fast, which more than makes up for it.

Our Summoner eventually put out the idea of moving down towards the cliffs to add pugils to the mix, so we changed camps. It was marginally better, and there were no undead or elementals to worry about. The only ridiculous part was that we had a powerleveler in the form of a 75 RDM controlled by the Dark Knight. I felt a little dirty about that.

Our tank had announced his need to leave well in advance, and we were getting close to his deadline when the puller brought the Energetic Eruca to camp. He didn't realize it was a notorious monster until it had shredded our Ninja in a few hits. It wiped the entire party, which pretty much signaled the end.

It was still early enough in the day that I put up my flag, figuring I'd give myself another thirty minutes before flying solo and finding something productive to do. I got a second party almost immediately.

This group had plenty of QCDN regulars: Myrrh, Kagemusha, Enlenne, and Exodusamphi. We used the Nyzul Isle staging point to get out to Caedarva Mire, since Myrrh was pretty sure he knew the way through all the telepads to reach the camp.

"Hali,"

Imps are delightfully squishy.

Myrrh joked, "if you don't maximize my xp, I'm flaming you." That set off a fun round of joking threats to flame each other and derail the threads as we settled in for some imp slaughter.

It was a great party and didn't last nearly as long as I would've liked, but Myrrh had to leave and the others wanted to join the Besieged that was in the works. I returned to the undersea ruins and started working my way through the telepads, marking them on my map, working out how to get to the camp in the future.

I jumped into Besieged long enough to get myself killed and deathwarped back to Windurst.

What a Nightmare

I

Quieren runs from Behemoth.

chatted with Feriz while waiting around in Jeuno for Limbus. He's decided he wants to finally get a job to 75, and more power to him. He's been playing longer than I have, and his highest job is Red Mage at 49. I'll have to help him get his G1 items eventually, but he plans to start working on White Mage as an eventual subjob. One of his real-life friends has recently started playing and is gung-ho about getting to 30 and unlocking Beastmaster, so I couldn't resist planting the idea of them duoing to 75 together.

The actual Limbus run was an easy run through the land kings zone. We had two people -- one of them was a White Mage -- who'd never done Limbus before, so I'm sure it was quite an eye-opener to see all these mobs.

My favorite moment was on the last floor with the Behemoths. Achates told the puller to grab two of the smaller mobs so he could kite one while we killed the other. They used their AoE stun move and Achates took a dirt nap because nobody could move to cure him. It's one of those semi-bonehead things that makes you grin since there's nothing you can do about it.

I logged out after the run to watch some DVDs and then came back when it was time for the ENM.

Neyla and I usually get out to the glacier pretty early and run around killing stuff, but today I wanted to do a little fishing. Neyla and Crookedmidget were already out there when I arrived, slogging away at an Ice Elemental with their staves and wands. Instead of wading in, I pulled out my Lu Shang and ignored them. It took them damned near forever to kill the thing, so I cut my fishing quota in half and started punching things. It went a lot faster after that.

We almost didn't get to do the ENM. Wulfgar was our White Mage this week, and he was having insane disconnect problems. It took him forever to get from San d'Oria to the glacier, and then he disconnected inside with a hecteyes horde trying to eat him. Neyla zoned them and then returned to sleep them if he logged back in. We waited and waited and waited, and Neyla had finally given up and zoned toward the Shrouded Maw when Wulfgar came back.

Wulf

Neyla and I detonate a bomb in the Eldeime Necropolis.

managed to disconnect before we entered the battlefield, and then again shortly after we started. Crookedmidget was Black Mage and switched over to healer, but it's hard to pull it off without Erase. Wulfgar got back in and we managed to finish off the diremite, but it was damned close. I took a hell of a beating and was down to about 60hp when it finally died.

Needless to say, Wulf didn't try to join us for the necropolis escort. We invited Crookedmidget, but he had the Bastok escort flagged and decided to go seek for a party. Neyla and I sliced and diced our way through the undead and claimed our scrolls before logging out. I'm now about 10k away from 68 on Monk.