A Feast for Gnats

I hadn't planned to be online -- other than basic chocobo maintenance this morning -- but Neyla's sleep schedule was messed up after a week of nocturnal vacation life and he didn't come over to hang out.

He

Neyla, Dalamar, Nanunanoo and I prepare to enter the fray.

helped Nanunanoo and Dalamar caught up on Windurst's Crystal War missions before I logged on. They had to fight the dragon in La Vaule. Zoner went as Red Mage to help out. I got on just as Dalamar and Nanunanoo were preparing the new quests, so I went fishing again.

We took another shot at "A Feast for Gnats." Our strategy was for me and Nan (as PUP) to attack the belfry while Neyla and Dalamar kept the mobs busy and cured Romaa Migho as necessary.

It didn't work. We were quickly overwhelmed and lost.

Since the zerg strategy wasn't going to work for us, we wanted to try the other method of killing the mobs and keeping the mithra healed. We were going to switch jobs and go again, but Nan fell asleep and we had to give up. Neyla, Dalamar and I did a few Campaign battles and I logged out with Nan sitting alone at the abandoned mineshaft.

We'll try again later.

Suck It, Gauldeval

I

Courier Carrie and I destroy poor Gauldeval and his crab companion.

changed tactics for my rematch with Gauldeval. Instead of going MNK/DNC and facing an angry Paladin, I went as Beastmaster and subbed Ninja. He was using the same job combo when I entered the arena.

It was absurdly easy that way. I ran to the edge of the battlefield and sent Courier Carrie scuttling in to attack his crab and get their attention. I went in swinging my axes at his pet, and we quickly took her down. We turned our attention to Gauldeval, and every Rampage was quickly followed by a Snarl that put his attention back on my pet. He never landed a single hit on me.

That victory raised his level cap to 70. Now I just have to wait for Neyla to do the same so we'll have an excuse to run around and kill things.

Speaking of Neyla, he emerged from his vacation cocoon and logged on today. He started on the new Windurst missions from the Crystal War, which I'd ignored. Luckily, the first one involved my area of expertise: fishing. Lehko Habhoka -- my emo kittyboy future boyfriend -- was starved and needed food. I caught pipiras and greedies for us to trade.

There were lengthy cutscenes of an awesome battle in Sauromugue between the mithras and a bunch of quadav and gigas. Shantotto's arrival on the scene was freakin' sweet. It's all prelude to another Assault-style fight in an abandoned mineshaft.

The

Kitty McDreamyPants Lehko Habhoka demands fish.

battle called "Feast for Gnats," involves running through tunnels with the mithra while they try to take out a Confederate Belfry. One strategy said you could rush the belfry and take it out quickly to end the fight, so that's what we tried.

It didn't work out.

I ran in and used Hundred Fists right away, managing to take it down to about half its HP. Unfortunately, the mobs were kinda pissed about that and attacked me. Romaa Mihgo died, which is an automatic loss. We were booted out of the battlefield and Neyla gave me a Raise. We'll need more firepower to try that again.

Chocorookie

Getting enough chocobucks to compete in the official races is going to be a pain in my tarutaru ass. I can get some from the Hot and Cold game, but mostly I have to compete in the "free run" practice races. A first-place win gets five, a second-place win gets three, and third place earns one. I'm not surprised the bazaar next to the stables is charging 85k for chocobo dye, since each one costs 75 chocobucks.

But

The Bronze Trophy looks great with my other chocobo stuff.

I took another shot at the Rakapopo Cup today, and this time I won. I got the Gysahl Medal, the Bronze Trophy, and earned the title "Chocorookie."

I may have to raise a dedicated racing bird at some point. RedGirl has the Gallop ability for increased speed, but it would be nice to have a bird with two race-centric abilities and better mental stats to avoid mishaps on the track.

There are six races to win in the next round. I want to clear them and get the Mythril Trophy for my moghouse, but winning the fifth race earns a very nifty prize: the Chocobo Pullus Torque. It's a neck piece that gives the wearer a costume of a baby chocobo! How adorable is that?

Speaking of baby birds, I finally hit Jeuno to pick up the new egg.

In other news, I decided to run out to Fei'yin and fight Gauldeval again. I did better this time, but he still beat me. I'm starting to get seriously annoyed. I'll try again tomorrow.

Failure

Today

RedGirl digs in Valkurm Dunes.

kinda sucked, but it was okay because I wasn't online very long. I started out by hitting Valkurm Dunes for another round of Chocobo Hot and Cold -- every chest has a slip for three chocobucks inside, and it's considerably easier to find there than in the desert. I wasn't able to zero in on the chest, and the bird got tired and refused to dig anymore.

I also took my first shot at the Bronze Trophy chocobo race. The only competition I feared was Starlight, a bird ridden by former Rhinostery minister Yoran-Oran. I lost.

Back to the drawing board tomorrow.

Saddle Sore

Neyla's on vacation and hasn't been online, but I managed to keep myself busy all day.

The

RedGirl dug up a chest in the Altepa Desert.

chocobo fever has hit me again, and I played my first round of Chocobo Hot and Cold in months. I teleported out to the Altepa Desert and used the tandjana wildgrass to start it. The treasure chest was near the outpost oasis. I found it quickly, but the desert is tricky because they're buried deep and the bird tires quicky in the heat. I managed to dig it up, though. I found a wooden flowerpot, a chocobuck slip worth five chocobucks, a pod of blue peas (/toss) and a gregarious worm. Not a bad way to get back into the swing of things! I'll have to check out the easier zones and stock up on those chocobuck slips.

I even did one of the official challenge races when I returned to Windurst. I'd completely forgotten about the mission-based racing, so I was surprised to find myself going up against Polunono and Team Best. I didn't use any items, but RedGirl was still able to run rings around their chocobos. I did a little research, and the next mission is the CRA Classic. I get a bronze trophy for my moghouse if RedGirl wins.

Looking for something to do while I waited for Stine to log on, I decided to quest my Temple Cyclas again so I could put my Monk AF back into NPC storage. I had to travel to Jeuno and pay 10k to reset the quest, and from there journeyed to Bastok to flag to start. My first destination was Gusgen Mines to defeat Wandering Ghost. It died easy, and I couldn't resist killing Juggler Hecatomb before I warped out.

A player named Alinia was bazaaring chococards near the stables in Bastok Mines, so I decided to take a chance and bought a red male card for 14k. It'll be a sucky waste of gil if my current chick matures into a red male or if there's no truth in advertising and I bought a yellow bird. I wish the game developers would add that kind of info to the cards so you know what you're getting.

Stine

I romanced them on the Gourmet Plan.

eventually popped on and I met her in Windurst to exchange breeding cards. My homepoint was in Jeuno, so I warped back and hit the stables to romance Stine's ZippyStardust (awesome name) with the bird I got from Shmedly. I used the Gourmet Plan to try for a male. I hope this works better than my last attempt at a green bird, where one of the greens had a yellow parent and I got a plain bird that was immediately retired.

From there, I rode out to Beadeaux as MNK/DNC to get the Temple Cyclas. I found the coffer near the first afflictor, which has two quadav wandering around. I'd had to kill two the other day during our visit, so I wasn't worried about getting killed. It didn't matter, because the mobs had wandered far enough away that I was able to pop the coffer and scramble back into the tunnel before they noticed.

I dropped off the Temple set and logged out. A productive day, to say the least. Tomorrow I'll pick up my egg and try to win that bronze trophy for my moghouse. It'll look good with all the breeding awards. I might even do a little crafting and try to raise my Goldsmithing levels so I can make Hobby Bo furniture.

Exploration

Today was the big update, and I was surprised at how well it went. Normally they're teeth-grinding endeavors, but I got the entire thing downloaded in about 40 minutes and never got disconnected from the server.

The

I love these heavily-armored birds.

first thing I did was take all of my seals to Shami in Port Jeuno and turn them in to clear space in my moghouse. The final tally was 626 beastmen seals and 394 kindred. I shudder to think how many Neyla has, since he solos more often and I've done more BCNMs than he has.

Then I traveled into the past to try out the new chocobo rentals. I was disappointed to discover the green bird at the entrance to Windurst had been replaced by a black one, but its coolness quotient was boosted by the fact that it was heavily armored. I rode all over the place, swinging through Fort Karugo-Narugo and Meriphataud Mountains, and even Sauromugue. It's nice being able to roam through Tough and Very Tough mobs that I normally avoid. I even stumbled on raffelasia NM named Kirtimukha.

In addition to seal storage and chocobo access, the updated introduced the Level Sync feature for letting higher-level jobs adjust downward to match lowbies. It added relic armor for the Aht Urghan jobs and lowered the Dynamis entry fee from 1,000,000 to 500,000. There were plenty of other tweaks and adjustments to the Nyzul Isle assaults. It's a solid update, to be sure.

Baby Steps

I

I planted bombs in West Sarutabaruta.

didn't spend a lot of time online today, but I tried to be productive by burning off Campaign Ops on Dragoon. I set off a bunch of bombs in West Sarutabaruta [S] to inconvenience the yagudo. It put me extremely close to hitting 65, but I decided to wait until after the big update to start soloing because they're supposed to raise the amount of xp you get from Easy and Decent mobs.

In other news, I placed an auctionhouse ad at QCDN requesting green male chococards. Stine said she had a few, but was about to do the last CoP mission and fight Promathia. We're supposed to meet up later in the week; I'm giving her a few chococards from BlackComet in exchange.