Korrigan Deja Vu

I

Tank, little Korrigan buddy.

normally don't play on Saturday, but Neyla punked out on seeing The Simpsons Movie and hanging out because he was up late partying on Bard and then fighting Cerberus with TheFlock.

When I got home from the movie, I logged on and we went back to the Boyahda Tree to start working off my Destroyers latents with Neyla charming Korrigans to tank for us. Neyla suggested doing the entire thing in one shot so he could rebuild his xp buffer on Beastmaster, which really surprised me. It wasn't until later I realized it was because he thought we only had to work off 300 points instead of 500.

We stopped at 350 and checked the canals for Oni before we logged. He wasn't up. We'll finish it off on Monday.

Destroyers (Almost) at Last!

More

Having two wyverns in the mix is fun.

partying yesterday and today, as you can imagine. There's a line of thought that says the real Halifirien must've been kidnapped and replaced by a player who enjoys flagging up and waiting for the invitation to come through, but I've never been against partying. I just always seem to have something else to do because it's a big ol' world.

Having two Dragoons in the party fighting imps was impressive. Having two Penta Thrusts going off does some insane damage to the squishy little buggers.

The second party I got on Thursday brought me within 2k of dinging 73, if you can believe it. They were apologetic about it and probably would've stayed to get it for me if I'd pressed, but I just wanted to get in range of the ENM and escort taking me over the edge so I wouldn't get the urge to use my Destroyers in an xp party.

I did a Besieged today and made a few circuits of the necropolis to kill skeletons for that last 2k, but it turns out I really hate soloing on any job other than Beastmaster. I was 1k from my level when the same leader from yesterday invited me again, this time to the Mamool Ja Staging Point, to fight puks.

Of course it only took three fights for me to hit 73. I think it alleviated some guilt about not getting it for me yesterday. Heh.

I

I hate Mamool Ja evasion.

quickly grew to love puks. I knew they were squishy little bastards from the time Neyla and I were killing them as Beastmasters, but a Monk can rip them to shreds. Our leader, a Bard, acted as puller and it was just insane. We got Chain #10 a few times, which I don't think happened on the few merit parties I did in that camp as White Mage.

I got a 10k buffer and tried on my Destroyers for a fight or two. They suck pretty hard right now, which is why I can't wait to start working off points for them Monday with Neyla. I'll have to drag him away from his own meteoric ascent on Bard.

Manaburn, Go!

We had twelve people today for Limbus, and only three of them -- Paladin, Ranger and Samurai -- were melees. The rest were all mages: two White Mages, two Red Mages, three Black Mages, a Bard, and a Blue Mage straddling the line between the two. It took us a little bit to work out what we wanted to do, but we eventually decided to try for one of the Apollyon chips we needed.

"I

He never got a chance to charm us.

just realized," Achates said as we were running around the crag to enter Sea, "that we are about to manaburn Limbus."

It worked out surprisingly well, too. We were doing Apollyon SE, which I normally dread because it's an AoE hellhole. Having a mage squad nuking everything into the ground while the mobs bounced from one to the other, constantly being pulled in another direction before landing a hit, made it go quickly with minimal damage. There's a Benediction chest on each floor, so we could reset our two-hours for each boss.

For extra laughs, I ran in and started meleeing with my Morgenstern a few times. I managed to use Hexa Strike two or three times, mostly on the crab floor and again on the weapons. It was fun, but I started getting sloppy on status ailments and returned to my usual spot.

Dirt Tastes Good

Another day, another fight with Oni Carcass and no drop.

I'm

Drop the katana, you froggy menace!

starting to feel very optimistic about hitting 73 soon. I flagged up and had a party relatively fast. I didn't know anyone in the crew, although one or two of the names seemed familiar. We headed out for "Imp Alley" in Caedarva Mire and had to compete with another party for prey. Eventually the other group -- led by Khrnos and Ronen from yesterday's party -- took off and we rocketed along.

I started the party with a 500xp buffer and finished it 22k into the level, more than halfway to 73. It was a good party, but it ended badly. Dejavu joined us as a replacement Monk when the Samurai had to leave. The two of us were killed by one of the flies just as the White Mage disconnected. She never came back (I half-suspect it was deliberate, since she'd said her husband was due to come home) and we were left eating dirt for over thirty minutes. The Thief disconnected a bit after that.

The Paladin could've raised us, but he'd fallen asleep. That's when I remembered his name: Kazemura was the same guy who'd fallen asleep near our camp a week or so ago. He eventually came back and gave me R1, at which point I said my goodbyes and warped back to Windurst. I wasn't staying to rebuild.

She Parties?

Oni was slopping around the canals when Neyla logged on, so I ran down and helped him kill it. He didn't drop the katana, of course. We decided to try our luck getting parties. Neyla had actually flagged up and got his Bard to 64 on Saturday, and he's ready to start leveling it in earnest.

I

Squishy imps are no match for three monks.

was ready to do some fishing while I waited, but I got a party invitation right after I bought my bait. We went to Caedarva Mire for more imp-smashing goodness. Our healer, Xalioniaf, cheesed me off a bit by having Harry Potter spoilers in his bazaar comment; I probably would've chewed him out and disbanded if I hadn't blazed through the entire book on Saturday. As it was, I lightly scolded him and let it go.

We lost our Ranger pretty early. He ran over to a safe corner and force d/c'd on us without any warning. A lightning strike took out our Puppetmaster's internet connection. We rebuilt and suddenly it was a proto-cannon: MNKx3, BRD, RDM and NIN. Doing it as a cannon-style party was kinda fun. I've never reached Chain #9 before, so I can only imagine how insane it gets in actual merit parties.

The biggest shock was that Lululn was the Ninja. She's infamous for being a solo effort. She's a Japanese taru who leveled everything by herself for the longest time. Neyla and I joked that she was saving Beastmaster for last because it would be a vacation soloing that after doing the other stuff. I was really surprised to see her in a party.

Neyla got to 65 in her party -- they were camped to the south of us -- and I managed to get to 72 before we disbanded. My goal is to have 73 by the end of next week so I can start on my Destroyers and relax a little.

Experimentation

I

Chopsuey Chucky makes it fun.

got my wish and went as Beastmaster for Limbus today. There were already three White Mages in the linkshell when I got there, so I was relieved. One of them switched over to Monk, but it was still plenty of healing power for Temenos North. I went /NIN and did my best with it, enduring some good-natured "Isn't he adorable?" digs from the other players.

I used Chopsuey Chucky and got him out of my moghouse, and that was kinda fun. I probably would've enjoyed it more, but I'd screwed up some of the macros and it would swap in my Tatami Shield instead of the second axe and killed my TP gain. I also spent a lot of time worrying my pet would go after a sleeping mob and wake it up.

But at least I got the BST bug out of my system. It didn't take me long to realize I definitely prefer being the tank party's healer, since it gives me something to do besides auto-attack. I'll gladly go back to White Mage for the next run.

I took a break after the win and came back to find Neyla and Pandorda helping someone with a Windurst mission. They were getting ready to do the Queen of Cups cardian fight in the northern tower of West Sarutabaruta, so I tagged along as monk. I'd gone to the wrong tower and missed it when they wiped, so I hit Windurst and switched over to White Mage to raise them. We tried the fight again and won it.

One of them needed to kill Bodach for Asuran Fists, so I switched back to Monk since they had another White Mage on the way. It was an entirely different experience with a party, in that we managed to kill him in no time and I didn't come anywhere close to death.

I

I miss my spells.

had to scramble to reboot my computer in time for "Test Your Mite" and ended up at the battle a few minutes late. We didn't have major hate issues this time. I went as MNK/NIN (hated that) and Ghaleon used a High Breath Mantle for an enmity boost. It wasn't too bad, really. The lack of Berserk was maddening, but I guess I'd better get used to it. We even got a Woodsman Ring for our troubles.

The necropolis escort came next, and it was a nightmare because some jackoff was playing with the doors and our NPC got killed because we couldn't stop her from running into the mobs and dying. We had to start over.

I was BST/NIN this time. Swinging two axes is kinda nifty, but I really missed my /WHM spells because status ailments couldn't be removed and I spent a big chunk of it running around Cursed or Paralyzed. We didn't have anyone who could tele us, so we had to run back to Jeuno and catch the airship to San d'Oria.

I was ready to log at that point, but I hit the canals under Windurst to help Neyla kill Oni. He was nowhere to be found and we waited a little while for him, but he'd probably already popped and been killed.