Meritocracy

Bibiki

"I'll chew your kneecaps off!"

Bay was open when Neyla and I logged on, so we rode back out and started working on another merit. I love that camp; it's so easy to rake in the xp on the dhalmels. It's my sincere hope that the next expansion, Wings of the Goddess, contains a few more BST-worthy camps like that one.

We did a full 10k and left. It didn't take very long, so I did a little fishing to restock my mules and then farmed my Florid Stone for Sunday's ENM.

Since I had to go to Jeuno to turn it in, I decided to leave the city and camp Deadly Dodo. He didn't pop and I eventually gave up. The high point was being there when Veresko, after five hours of being chained to his computer while seeking a party, learned about the /tell chime.

"OMG," was his stunned response.

"Welcome to 2007," Neyla told him.

Dusting Off the Axe

I geared up Monk and started seeking, ready to start the big push to 75. I started working on a new forum sig and needed a good chocobo-riding pic, so I switched over to Beastmaster and used my ring to hit the Wajoam Woodlands. Neyla saw me on BST and asked if I wanted to try and find a merit camp in Mount Zhayolm he'd heard about.

I

Leeches take down trolls on Mount Zhayolm.

returned to Windurst and finished making my sig before joining him. The first order of business was finding the ??? for the Cast Metal Plate to get through the gates. We died from aggro by two sets of Sweeping Clusters; let me point out that Assassin Flies have a terrible name because they're weak as hell and couldn't save us. Neyla found the plate when the weakness had worn and we made our way to the western cliffs.

There are two slimes a short distance from the tunnel entrance where we camped. They're heavily resistant to charm, but we got them under control and turned them loose on a Hilltroll Puppetmaster's automaton. I was expecting some wimpy little beastman pet scenario, but the automatons can hold their own in a battle. We took down his master next and then charmed the Volcanic Leeches.

We were basically killing the same three or four mobs over and over again. The Puppetmaster and his automaton, the Hilltroll Red Mage and then the Hilltroll Warrior. Usually the Warrior would die in time for us to start on the PUP again before he could call his little buddy.

"Christ," Neyla exlaimed as we hacked away at the Warrior, "I think the PUP puts up a bigger fight."

"They have more to prove," I joked.

The learning curve is a little steep -- we died two or three times -- and I haven't gotten the hang of evading aggro from the trolls while trying to get to a fresh leech. We avoided the Hilltroll Paladin like the plague because PLD mobs are always more trouble than they're worth. When we died, we'd have to go back and charm the slimes again to start over.

Still,

Bibiki Bay is more relaxing.

we both had to admit it felt great to be out on Beastmaster again. Exploring new zones and confronting unknown dangers is exactly what we needed. I'll just have to pick up a fresh Reraise Gorget the next time I'm at the auction house.

As fun as it was, I admit I prefer Bibiki Bay's more relaxed pace, but Mount Zhayolm will make a good alternative camp. As luck would have it, we did a search and saw Bibiki Bay was nearly deserted. We immediately teleported out and set in for a nice bit of dhalmel slaughter using the rarabs as pets.

We fell into a nice groove of Neyla pulling the three Catoblepas from the south while I grabbed the two from the north. We each got a merit before we left. He's planning to level White Mage next and would like to sink more merits into MP, so I imagine we'll be in Bibiki Bay quite a bit for the next week or two. Considering how many merits I plan to sink into Monk when the time comes, I have no problem helping him with that.

As for my new sig, here it is:

Use Both Hands

The changes to two-handed weapons were certainly felt in Limbus today.

We

I'm impressed. They usually die too fast for skillchains.

had thirteen people and hit Temenos West for a nice coin-farming run. There were three Samurai and a Dark Knight, and their damage and accuracy boosts were obvious. Weaponskills were doing insane amounts of damage on the enhanced animals. We swept through the zone like a mongol horde, slashing and stabbing everything in sight.

Hate management is going to be a big issue for these guys. When you're popping off that kind of spike damage, you tend to get a monster's attention. The beasts usually died before they could get dangerous, though. I actually feel a sense of hope about our fight with Ultima. We might actually be able to pull it off.

Everyone walked away with six Ancient Beastcoins. Hooray.

While I was doing the run, Neyla was reading the Monk forums over at Killing Ifrit. The Monks are already screaming for a nerf on two-handed weapons, going the wailing titty-baby route about not being the uber-damage darlings. I have to laugh about that. I like getting big numbers on a weaponskill, but mostly I just like punching things and leave the "OMGWTFBBQ!" numbers to people who actually give a damn.

A Day at the Track

Yesterday's update finally opened the gates to the Chocobo Circuit. The Windurst Woods stables were my first destination when I logged on, and I started exploring.

The

Spectators wait for the races to start.

track is large, connecting every city in Vana'diel. You can't shortcut by entering in Windurst and exiting in Bastok, but you could certainly meet someone there if you needed to do a trade. I was amused to hear an NPC admonish me to avoid setting up a bazaar there.

It took me a little while to figure out how the betting windows worked, and even longer to figure out how to enter RedGirl in a race.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn about the gear and item factors. RedGirl was the only trained bird in a race against seven NPCs. She was the fastest -- the only chocobo with First Class strength and endurance -- and she came in last. That was painful.

When I'd had my fill of the races, I left for another unfulfilling task by camping Deadly Dodo. It didn't take very long to pop, but I didn't get the skin.

There's a lot of changes in the update. Two-handed weapons got a huge boost, which has the Dragoon, Samurai and Dark Knight players cheering. Beastmasters received some nice tweaks; our jug pets last longer and the xp penalty for charmed pets has been removed. We can also regen our pets with the "Stay" command, which I'll have to macro in because I've never had a reason to use it.

Closer and Closer

We had a moment of loldrama in Big Kahunas today because we couldn't fight Proto-Ultima. We had the numbers for it, but Mirewen couldn't make it and we held off. Under Quieren's system, he wouldn't do the fight unless the three or four of us who actually wanted Nashira gear were there to lot it. Achates is changing that, and I don't really blame him. The way it is now, there's really never a good time to fight him.

I guess they'd wanted to tackle him Wednesday and couldn't do it because I had the pop set for it. I'm not sure why that caught people by surprise, considering I'd announced the week before that I would be on vacation and therefore not online. They killed Omega instead, which I gather offended some people who wanted to do that fight but not Ultima.

We're

Crookedmidget and I kill time... and gigas.

scheduled to fight Ultima next Sunday, which is fine by me. I have no desire to screw Mirewen out of a chance to lot. I've been sitting on the pop set for nearly a month now in hopes that we could actually use it, so another week won't kill me.

Other than that, it was my normal Sunday routine. The ENM went well. Crookedmidget came to fill in for Hadafal, who wasn't supposed to be on but turned up anyway. Instead of the ENM, Hada joined us for the escort through the necropolis. I now have a 4k buffer on Monk, which I need to expand in the coming days and finish out.

A Lv. 8 Besieged was brewing while we were doing all this, so we hit Al Zahbi as soon as we got our scrolls. I changed to White Mage for it since I hate the evasion on Mamool Ja and spent the entire time babysitting generals.

We lost, and we lost spectacularly. When the last general went down, the horde waltzed into the chamber and took the Astral Candescence in about sixty seconds. It was embarassing.