Roam If You Want To

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Neyla and I roam Sauromugue for prey.

dragoon action today, this time with Neyla and me roaming around Sauromugue Champaign. We pretty much slaughtered everything that moved, with the exception of Evil Weapons from the spine area; we killed one near the end, but it really wasn't worth the effort to take down one Tough when we could've killed two Easy Prey in half the time for the same xp. We also dodged the Tabar Beaks for the same reason.

It was fun, though. I'm halfway to 68. I toyed with grabbing a calculator and working out exactly how long it would take him to catch up to me, but I nixed the idea because partying, Campaign and ops would negate the result.

Neyla changed to Paladin before we went to Boyahda Tree to do some skilling up. The place was busy as hell, with Beastmasters and Dragoons running around. I didn't pass an unclaimed Steelshell on my way to the waterfall camp. We ended up fighting Processionaires in one of the side tunnels; they were Very Tough and gave me decent skillups. I would've stayed longer, but I logged out to play Left 4 Dead with Feriz.

The downside of Level Sync came when I realized that, unlike our Level Sync excursions, I had regained access to Spectral Jig as a 67 Dragoon. Meh. I wasted a few Silent Oils when I could've been dancing my way through the mobs without detection.

In other news, Dalamar's Red Mage is already 71. I admire his drive, but there's no way I could keep up that kind of pace. Also, Shmedley wants to come along for the next skillup session so he can work on parrying and polearm skills.

Peeling Back the Levels

I'm

Caterchipillers die quickly in the Maze of Shakhrami.

really enjoying the level sync feature, but it feels strange to have my progress tied to Neyla's this way. I'm used to duoing with him and gaining levels and abilities at the same time, but it's strange to be bumped down for one session and then regain levels based on what he's done while I wasn't playing. His Dragoon job was 33 when I logged out last time, but he got to 34 before I came back, making me 34 instead of the expected 33. It's awesome... but strange. I'm not complaining.

We returned to Shakhrami, stabbing all the squishy mobs for easy experience points. I love that place because the goblins, bats and crawlers are close and you don't have to roam a lot. Everything was Easy and Decent, so they died extremely fast and the points rolled in. I'm already a third of the way to 68. We'll burn off another Empress Band charge and do some polearm skillups Wednesday.

In other news, I bought two 9-drawer Almirahs for my Bastok mule. He holds most of my melee gear, and I'd given him a bunch of water jugs to boost his storage space. The two almirahs provide 32 slots in my storage, which is just godly.

I'll definitely buy more. I know I could sell off most of my old gear now that we have level sync, but I tend to horde that stuff anyway. I'd pick some up for my moghouse if I didn't have a full complement of mannequins and assorted decorations.

Synchronicity

As

Duo dragoons kill quickly.

expected, I didn't log on much during my vacation. I popped on last Sunday to burn through my Campaign Ops -- Crimson Domino III is a decent source of xp for my Dragoon -- and do the necropolis escort with Neyla and Dalamar, but that's about it. My chocobo hatched and is female, so I'm trying to decide if I want to raise it as a racing bird or just do away with it and start over.

I got back Thursday, spent Friday recovering and catching up on a lot of stuff around the apartment, and didn't really start playing until yesteray. I did several Campaign battles as Dragoon, drawing closer and closer to 67. I eventually quit and logged out because my sleep schedule was still messed up and I really wanted a nap.

Neyla's been leveling Dragoon himself, and he was partying in a level-sync party in Qufim. He somehow ended up as party leader and called me at home to see if I wanted to join him. I probably would have any other day, but my eyes felt like poached eggs and I just wanted to collapse on the couch.

We teamed up today for some Dragoon duo action in the back area of Shakhrami. It felt very strange to be bumped from 66 to 32 without a BCNM involved. We shredded through most of the mobs, even the Tough goblins, and it didn't take long for me to hit 67.

We attempted Bibiki Bay, but the bunnies were Toughs and gave us problems. We returned to the maze to finish up. The experience came to an unfortunate end when I went to Dia an Ancient Bat and got aggro from a goblin Black Mage who linked two of his buddies. We homepointed, but at least I kept my level.

Dalamar

Ramuh Prime didn't one-shot me this time.

was wrapping up his Campaign battle at that point, so we joined him for today's escort.

Neyla had mentioned the prospect of doing weekly rounds of avatar fights. Dalamar needs the items for an Evoker's Ring, but also as an easy 30k a week for stuff like chocobo and outpost fees.

We fought the "easy" ones today: Ramuh, Titan, and Shiva. I went MNK/DNC, since I don't want to be shelling out gil for jug pets if this is going to be a regular deal. It worked out surprisingly well, and I didn't get one-shot by Astral Flow the way I did last time when I was Beastmaster. Neyla said we killed them faster with my increased damage, but I couldn't really tell a difference.

We'll do Ifrit, Leviathan, and Garuda next Sunday.

We finished up with some polearm leveling in Boyahda Tree. The cap for my level is 236, and my skill was an uber-gimp 207 when we started. That's what I get for all the leveling I've done in Campaign. We teamed up with Arthur, who was in the tree working off Weaponskill points as Corsair/Beastmaster. We were only there about an hour because my buddy John called from California and I hadn't talked to him awhile. I ran to the cloister and logged out.

Now that I'm 67, Neyla and I will start camping Ose soon to get Assault Jerkins. It'll be awhile before he can equip one, but we may as well get both out of the way while we're there. It'll give us plenty of opportunities to level our NPCs, I'm sure.

In real-world news, Zeromous sent me a /tell and pointed out this blog is the top result when you search for "ffxi blog" at Google. That amuses me. I'm lower on the list if you search for "final fantasy xi blog," but still on the first page. Kinda cool, I guess.