Fishing and Seigan

Today started out beautifully because I finally got a .2 skillup from a black sole in Port Jeuno, bringing my fishing skill to 93. No matter what else came after, I felt certain that would be the best moment of the day.

The rest wasn't a complete waste, though. My brain eventually liquidated and started dribbling out my ears and soaking into my collar, but we finished our subjobs today.

We

Saying goodbye to the desert.

returned to the desert to focus on dhalmels. We had a Ninja tank ("No crazy Samurai shit," Neyla warned me), a White Mage and a Blue Mage this time. It's not easy for a Ninja to hold hate at these levels, so Neyla went /NIN and ended up tanking about half the time.

I took my fair share of hits, but they died down considerably when I reached 35 and learned Seigan. It's a job ability that boosts the power of Third Eye so that it blocks more than one hit and sometimes counterattacks. Best of all, it lowers the recast on Third Eye to 30 seconds. After that, I didn't take nearly as much damage. The only downside is you can't use Hasso and Seigan at the same time.

I spent a lot of my time skillchaining with the Blue Mage, who was trying to adjust his macro so he could close the skillchain and then hit the magic burst. I don't know how often he pulled it off -- I filter out everyone's damage -- but it was funny watching him make constant adjustments.

Neyla and I got to 37 and there was much rejoicing, but he'd promised to get Shmedly to 37 as well. We dinged 38 by the time that happened, although I'd mentally checked out long before. I didn't stick around to do anything else and logged out as soon as I got back to Windurst.

Shadow of Vsahue

Still

Back to the desert for more beetle and dhalmel slaughter.

no Veresko today, but we pushed on without him and and returned to the desert to work on our subjobs. I was Samurai, Neyla was Warrior, and Shmedly joined us as Bard. Demonknightx had already given up and leveled without us, and he wasn't online when we started. Neyla invited a White Mage, Paladin and Beastmaster to round out the party.

It went very well, and we climbed from 31 to 34 while we were there. The BST didn't use jug pets, choosing to run around and track down spiders to use in battle. Some of them were rated Tough to us and gimped our xp a little, but we were killing stuff so fast that it really didn't matter.

The only downside came near the end, when some asshat named Vsahue came riding through and checked our Paladin before starting to taunt him. Jelouogh is new to the game and Paladin is his highest job; he hasn't worked out a good method for gil and had told us earlier he was wearing borrowed gear. I didn't check his stuff because I honestly don't care what a tank wears as long as they can take a beating.

Our Paladin had done a fine job for us, so I didn't appreciate this guy saying "Get some real def rings nub" and other similarly grammatically-intense observations about what Jelouogh should be wearing.

Shmedly and I chewed the guy out. There's just no call to be a prick that way. It casts a shadow over what was otherwise a very enjoyable experience points party.

Paragon of Dragoon Excellence

No

The shadow fight was going so well at first.

sign of Veresko today, so we didn't level our subjobs.

Instead, Shmedly and Neyla agreed to tank the shadow fight for my Drachen Armet, the dragoon AF helmet. The shadows are fought in a chamber of the Temple of Uggalepih. It's the same room where Death From Above appears. I stayed invisible to avoid aggro while they killed some of the mobs near the spawn point. When it was safe, I went visible again and spawned the shadows.

I joined Neyla in fighting one of them, but I wasn't having a lot of luck hitting it. Eventually a tonberry noticed me and came rushing in to stab me to death. I'd put up Reraise before we left Windurst and told Shemdly to let me die, but he has that same nobility streak Neyla's infected with and tried to get its attention by using Flash, but he hit a crawler instead and they all swarmed in and wiped us out.

We went back for a second attempt, and this time I stayed invisible in the back until the battle was won. It kinda sucks when you can't contribute to a battle.

The three of us decided to farm coffer keys for Shmedly's other character, Glob. I went MNK/WAR for the farming, which was a lot of fun.

We

I enjoy punching things to death.

started in Garlaige Citadel, where everything is crunchy and weak to Monk-induced blunt force trauma. Probably the funniest moment was when Shedly saw a large group of weapons in one of the chambers and was trying to pick a target.

"They don't link," Neyla pointed out.

Shmedly cast Flash, and sudddenly the group was rushing at us.

"They do aggro magic, though," Neyla laughed.

We didn't have any problems beating them down, of course.

We went to the Crawler's Nest and started farming there, but it seemed to take forever to get a key. We started off in the back chamber with the Knight Crawlers and eventually moved to the Helm Beetles. Miraculously, we'd already found the coffer and nobody came along and popped it before we got the key, so all we had to do at that point was wait for Shmedly to walk Glob back to the Rumble Crawler room and claim his prize.

Not a bad day, really. We didn't get to work on our subjobs, but at least we were productive.

Dragoon Keys

I went out this morning as Beastmaster to farm the three coffer keys I needed.

My

The antican egg chamber is pretty cool.

first stop was the Quicksand Caves, which was absurdly easy because CourierCarrie can slaughter an entire zone of anticans, beetles and spiders without breaking a sweat. From there I moved to the Boyahda Tree and used mandragoras to kill Robber Crabs. I had a nice rhythm going until a Monk named Coolsalon waded into my area and started killing everything that moved. That slowed me down quite a bit, but I finally got the key.

Kuftal was more of an adventure, since I'd never been down the tunnel on the eastern side with all the raptors. My first attempt at charming a crab to kill a raptor didn't go so well, but it went very fast when I reversed it and started using the raptors to kill crabs. Each zone took thirty minutes to get the drop, so I guess I can't complain.

I wanted to fight the Sturmtiger, but I couldn't get to the island in Batallia Downs without someone to help me work the doors in the Necropolis. I waited until Neyla logged on and enlisted his aid.

After the tiger died, we did a few circuits of the Crawler's Nest to find his coffer for White Mage AF. It wasn't there, which was really annoying. Shmedly and Glob joined later for a Banishing Gate breech in Garlaige Citadel to snag that piece.

Return trips to the Quicksand Caves and Crawler's Nest proved fruitless. It's sad when the Ifrit's Cauldron coffer -- guarded by hecteyes and scorpions -- is the easiest one to get.