Lookin' for Odontotyrannus In All the Wrong Places

I've been reading Neyla's Punisher paperbacks and being a lazy taru bastard, so I haven't been seeking or doing much except collecting guild points for the past few days. We even skipped our normal routine of seeing a movie today because nothing new was demanding our ticket money.

I

I watch Neyla's party battle a beetle in the citadel.

might not have left my moghouse at all, except that Neyla got a party on Paladin that went on all day and he almost ran out of food. I hit Jeuno to buy a stack of fish mithkabobs and delivered them to Garlaige Citadel.

Neyla reached Lv. 50 and was able to start flagging his Artifact Armor quests when the party disbanded. I volunteered to fish up the NM pugil in Castle Oztroja, although any fishing skill level will work. We had a small nightmare at first because we were at the wrong pool of water; instead of the one down in the basement, we were at the leech pond in the upper levels. I was unable to hook anything and even handed Neyla my beloved Lu Shang to see if he could hook one.

It's what I get for not actually looking at my map, since I have helpful notes like "To PLD AF" marked on them. Once we reached the correct spot, I hauled up Odontotyrannus on the first try and we killed him. We'll finish up the rest on Sunday before the escort and ENM.

Paladin Keys

Neyla

Larry, Curly and Moe feel my taru wrath.

will be reaching Lv. 50 on Paladin soon, so we spent the day farming the necessary coffer keys. We've had a fun evolution for this duty; we started out as a RDM-WHM duo, then moved on to greater speed with BST-BST, and now it goes even faster with RDM-MNK. I'd originally planned to go Monk for the bones in Garlaige Citadel and the Eldeime Necropolis before switching over to Beastmaster. I'm glad I was too lazy to hit my moghouse and swap out gear, because the poor quadav and demons turned out to be much crunchier than expected. With Neyla healing and hasting me, we were able to chew through all the coffer mobs.

The only rough spot was Beadeaux, because the turtles were stubborn as hell and didn't want to cough up the goods. A Thief was farming the mobs in the room we normally camp, so we moved on to the four-way intersection room. Neyla slept the quadav when they linked and I beat them down. It was very easy.

The Thief asked if we wanted to team up, but I declined since I really didn't want the hassle of farming two keys. The guy got his first and offered to help again so we could have Treasure Hunter, but I turned him down again because it would've been rudely opportunistic to take advantage of him at that point.

The Zvahl Coffer Key was only annoying because we spent a lot of time running around from room to room, but we eventually got it.

I also managed a Highlander reference as we were leaving the Citadel. Neyla used his Sprint Shoes, and I saw he'd received "the effect of Quickening," to which I responded he must've killed Adrien Paul.

"Dear lord," he groaned.

The Leader of the Pack

Not

I love fighting birds.

only did I get a party invitation today, but I got to drag Neyla along for the right. He'd been seeking on Paladin but was having no luck, and my party needed a healer. We all met up in Whitegate and rode out to the colibri camp near the ley point.

The great thing about Dragoon is how weak colibri are to piercing weapons. It wasn't long into the party when our puller, Ravensmage, pointed out that I was first on his parser in terms of damage, jumping quite a bit ahead of the others That made me grin.

"Can't let that happen," Neyla joked. "Looks like I'm going to have to whack it a few times."

It was a good party, and I went from 54 to 56 while we were there. I was the regular SATA partner, but the Thief knew what he was doing and didn't leave me hanging.

Neyla's only real gripe was trying to deal with the boredom of being a White Mage for a Ninja tank. Actually, I did my best to alleviate the boredom by being an MP sponge when I took damage... regularly. What can I say? The birds hate me.

Snapped Lu Shang

I

Hooray for the Woodworker's Guild.

was running errands today, so I didn't do much online except attempt guild points. They were asking for Sea Zombies, which can only be caught on the Selbina-Mhaura ferry during a pirate attack. I figured I'd buy a few stacks of meatballs and do some circuits.

The pirates never attacked, but I caught several Titanictus and a Ryugu Titan. I had a few snapped lines, but of course didn't get any skillups.

I managed to snap my Lu Shang on one of the Ryugu Titans. My woodworking is uncomfortably under the cap to repair it, and I blew a few light crystals in my moghouse. I finally carted it off to San d'Oria for advanced synthesis support and now it's good as new.

That's More Like It

It

Today's visit to Kuftal Tunnel didn't suck.

had to happen sooner or later. I got a party invite to Kuftal Tunnel and we had a good time. We camped at the Terrigan zone and tore our way through crabs awhile. It was going so well that I pointedly ignored our Samurai party leader's Dream Hat the entire time. The only real downside was the way the Ranger kept stealing hate and dragging us down into the crabs' pop zone. It made me a little paranoid, although it really wasn't anything to worry about.

Our main healer was a Scholar, the highest-level one I've seen. I'm impressed by some of the stuff they can do, like making a spell go AoE. Most of the melees were /NIN, so he was giving us all Aquaveil for a little while.

I managed to get myself killed when the party leader starting yelling "Zone! Zone!" I didn't realize it was because the healer had disconnected, so I was slow getting out and died just as I reached the zone line. Ooops.

The party went from rockin' to stoppin' when we lost all the jobs with Dispel. The Blue Mage could do it, but didn't have the MP to keep up with the crabs. Suddenly our damage was knocked down to nothing and we eventually disbanded in disgust.

Delta Strike

I managed to get myself killed Saturday morning while trying to fish Zebra Eels in the Den of Rancor. It turns out the opo-opos down there will aggro, so only having Sneak was... deadly. There were three of them surrounding me, and I had to wait until they were turned away before I could Reraise and get to safety.

Today

I had to fight a Goblin Picaroon in West Sarutabaruta [S].

was more sedate. I signed up for my first evaluation of the campaign and got a ribbon upgrade. Some new campaign ops were available, so I tried the Delta Strike op Neyla mentioned. It involves running out to West Sarutabaruta to click a ??? on the ground and spawning a Goblin Picaroon.

I went MNK/WHM, and it was a little awkward at first. He landed some hits and knocked me into the yellow a few times, but I beat him into the ground and claimed my XP and allied note rewards.

The necropolis escort and "Test Your Mite" brought my Dragoon to Lv. 53. Hopefully I'll get more parties this week and continue my climb to 60. I won't be content until I can equip my Dragoon armor and use my Tavnazian Ring again.