Out of the Cellar...

I spent most of the morning farming with my Mithra mule, Milkshake, as she hadn't seen much action in a while. It had been so long since I last travelled on foot through Ronfaure and hunting rabbits beneath those trees whilst listening to that 'Celtic' music brought back so many memories of the first time I ever played the game!

Later on BBK asked for some help with his AF for BLM, so I came along as WHM, as well as Akashea, Doffo and Jeanius. We started out in The Eldieme Necropolis, dropping down to where the Coffer mobs are and began chaining anything we could find. Jeanius had recently hit L74 and was murdering anything his axe touched - twice as fast when Rampage was brought to bear. Makes me want to level WAR just for that Weaponskill!



After his Key dropped we Teleported to Xarcabard and enter Castle Zvahl-Baileys and dropped down into the deeper parts of the dungeon to get a Whine Cellar Key for his last part of AF. It wasn't too long before the Demons kindly parted with their Key and we headed on up into Castle Zvahl Keep to find the Whine Cellar.

We had some trouble finding it, as all the little rooms looked the same, but after a while, we found one that told us a horrid wailing could be heard beyond the door, so BBK traded the key and got his final piece of AF!

Jeanius then explained that he needed some AF for his NIN, so we Teleported to the Yhoator Jungle and made our way to Norg. I picked up a Silver and Gold Beastcoin from the AH and we headed on into the Sea Serpent Grotto to find the Coffer mobs, but me being a prune took everyone on a merry adventure through all the wrong tunnels before I had to log for dinner. Sorry about that guys!

At My Wits' End

This evening I put together my fourth party for Diabolos and I can now confirm I am 0/10 on this FRUSTRATING BCNM. Teila and me picked up our regular DRK, Renzoukan, and we found Selendrile again.

At the time we got 6, it became Lightsday, so we got all excited thinking, "cool, we have three Stunners and it's Lightsday", but then our MNK hot-foots it to Jeuno saying he needs the key item from Windurst. He warped to Jeuno and waited in Port for ages before getting on the boat. I asked him three times if he had Poison Potions, to which he didn't respond.

Towards the end of Lightsday he returned and we Teleported to Xarcabard but when we entered Pso'Xja, he said "OMG" and Warped straight back to Whitegate. He had a BLM sub on.

From Whitegate he went to Bastok to change, then OP Warped back to the Glacier, but not before keeping us waiting for ages. We send message after message asking him if he knew his way through or could we go ahead but he didn't respond. In the end I sent him a and he sent back in capitals, "MNK75/BLM37 NO THANKS " and at this point we all baffled at what he was up to.

He eventually turned up and we made it through Pso'Xja and entered the BCNM, but what happened? Half the party didn't use Poison Potions and so whenever Diabolos cast Sleepga II I had to keep using Curagas and my MP went down like hell. Because the melee kept going to sleep, no one could Stun and within seconds Nightmare killed half the party. The MNK didn't use Hundred Fists as asked and instead ran round the BCNM like a loon. Diabolos then wandered over to me and cast Dispelga (taking of RR) before killing me.

I had to HP, losing nearly 4k to come back to Raise the party, before the MNK Warps out and disbands without a word. He had purely come to ruin it.

2.5hrs of preparation and arguing for a 2 second fight, makes you wonder why I bother...

So then we discussed tactics for a further 15mins whilst Weakness wore, and went back in. Ren's plan involved the other DRK, Cuth, using Last Resort and Guillotine to get the hate, so that he could SATA Spiral Hell onto the PLD and Teila could MB with Blizzaga III.

We went back in and Cuth did his part, but before I'd even moved onto my tile and finished casting a Cure spell, Cuth went down so we were at four before we'd even begun. He'd managed to get his part of the Skillchain off so Renzoukan did his part and Teila MB'd and Diabolos's HP dropped to half. I Raised Cuth, but a Stun got missed and, well, you know the rest...

Teila tried to nuke him to death whilst I cured her, but one hit plus one Camisado (over 500 damage) and Teila went down. Funnily enough, along came a Dispelga and I went down.

After the fight, Teila's Reraise was still up so she Raised up and changed jobs, before coming all the way back to Raise me so I could Raise III the others.

3hrs of wasted time, and almost 5k of XP down the tube.

Diabolos 10, Kixxi 0...

Tis the Season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!!

I told myself that I wouldn't play today - that all day would be spent with the family. Well, I woke up around 10am (having been up til nearly 3am last night for Diabolos) and went downstairs for breakfast. Felt very unwell; dunno whether it was cold or symptoms of flu, but I ached all over and had a very dizzy head.

After breakfast I opened presents with my family by the tree, but for the first time in my life, I fell asleep whilst the fun was going on - I was so out of it. I got some very nice gifts from them and Teila's family too, which was cool.

I had begun to feel better by lunchtime, so we sat down for our roast; Mum as usual, had made too much. Afterwards, I spent the next hour or so being sick, but I think it had more to do with my illness than overeating.

As the late afternoon came around, my brother went to see his girlfriend and my parents dozed off on the couch (as parents seem to do), I couldn't resist any longer, and I logged in.

Surprisingly, I got an invite as a SMN very quickly and made my way to Jeuno for a very nice party. People seemed to be extra nice because of Christmas, so it made it all the more enjoyable.

We moved to the Quicksand Caves where I shared healing duties with the RDM. Everyone was 45 except the PLD who was 43 so what started out as organised buffing with my summons, turned into a manic spam-cure-fest. I was very impressed with Fenrir. Being able to up everyone's stats by around 5, plus being able to reduce the monsters' Accuracy and Evasion really helped. Then finally, I hit 46 and the long-awaited Earthen Ward was mine!



I then found myself with too many buffs to choose from. Aerial Armour? Earthen Ward? Ecliptic Growl? Shining Ruby? I had to pick and choose depending on the moment, but it was fun. We finished when I was 2k to 47, whereupon I would have Spring Water! Getting ever-closer to the big Five-Oh.

After the party disbanded, believe it or not there was a Besieged with the Mamools. BBK, Teila and I teamed up with Tigrus from our last CoP run and hit Al Zahbi where there were 204/705 people in the area for Besieged!

When the Mamools invaded we noticed we had only one general, Mihli the Mithra, which made it all the more hopeless. Within minutes the lizardmen had breached the Hall of Binding and Fleetfingered Mobel-Ja stole the Astral Candescence!

Oh well, I'll leave it to the Japanese to steal it back from Mamook.

Off to watch The Man with the Golden Gun now.

Shameful...

This evening I decided to have another go at Diabolos Prime and within moments of shouting, I had a full party together. Teila was with me, and Renzoukan joined up again from our first attempt. Selendrile, a Mithra Samurai, who had joined the other night on my second attempt to put a party together, also came along, so there were some familiar faces.



We fought Diabolos three times, and lost on each one, so I am now officially 0/8 on this guy, my worst record so far. And yes, before you ask, Nightmare was the bane of our life... again!

Have you ever wanted to throttle someone in this game for totally messing up some really hard work? We spent shedloads on Hi-Ethers, Vile Elixirs, Poison Potions, etc and one person lets you down, three times, when we were within one nuke of winning each time.

On, the plus side, the SAM and the DRK set up an amazing Light Skillchain. The SAM meditated to 300%TP and opened the fight with Tachi: Kasha, to which the DRK replied with Spinning Slash. These both did around 800 damage with a Light Skillchain, and the BLM MB'd with Thundaga III for further incredible damage. I kid you not, each time that took off 2/3 of his lifebar, so Diabolos responded with his 2hr, Ruinous Omen, reducing all our HP to red and orange.

So in future, I'm gonna recommend a Light Skillchain for sure!

Diabolos 8, Kixxi 0....

Eye of Nept

My RL friend I was supposed to visit tonight cancelled on me so I had another night free for the game!

This evening was spent pretty much tying up loose ends - namely getting Teila her Evoker's Ring. She needed a drop from Ifrit and Leviathan, and then she was done, so we headed over to Kazham and then Norg to get the Tuning Forks.

Ifrit's Cauldron was devoid of adventurers as usual, so we made our way down into the crater of the volcano and into the Cloister of Flames. We just missed Watersday by a second or two, but the fight with Ifrit Prime went nice and smoothly, only taking around 200 damage from his 2hr, Inferno.

Then we headed over to the Temple of Uggalepih and decided to grab a Paintbrush of Souls each (key item required to enter the Den of Rancor beneath the temple). We found the Tonberry Priest and reset our hate, called Yawawa and Beatrice before slaughtering every Tonberry that got in our way until 2 keys dropped - well actually it was more of a case of our NPCs AoE WSing everything in sight, including Opo-Opos and Wespes, but hey, it was a blast!

We then considered fighting Death from Above so that Teila could get her Hornetneedle, but considering the fact that it hits at around the speed of Hundred Fists and Teila only had 99 Shihei on her, we decided against it. I suggested spawning the Carby Mitts Tonberry but neither of us knew what the required spawn item was, and we were too lazy to look it up.

Winding our way deeper into the Temple, we found the library and used our keys to get in. Searching amongst the books, we found a rusty key to open the casket containing the key item: Paintbrush of Souls. I was pretty chuffed as I needed this for ZM4 so now I feel I can continue with Zilart as and when!

After the library, we tried spawning Trompe o' Leill, the NM Golem for the Angelica quest, but we'd forgot to actually pick up the paintings from Kazham, so we moved on.

We then went to the gallery in the Temple and I used my Paintbrush on the blank canvas and the door to the Den of Rancor opened. I hate that place. Dropping down to where the Doomed and Pugils were, things rated VT++, scary.

Inside we found the Cloister of Tides and took on Leviathan Prime. Unlike Garuda Prime, he kindly refrained from spamming his healing move, Spring Water, instead using Grand Fall over and over, but it wasn't too bad. Again his 2hr did little more than 200 damage.

Teila then returned to Norg to pick up her Eye of Nept from defeating Leviathan, and then that awesome L72 SMN's ring, whilst I went back to Whitegate to begin shouting for Diabolos Prime again.

It was a bit of a joke. With Besieged at 4-5, and our BLM logging without a word, we remained at 3 for almost an hour, before I gave up and went to bed. Oh well, Diabolos will have to wait.

But I will get him!!! I will!

A Diabolical Idea

As this was my last full evening on the game before I went away for the Christmas hols, I thought I'd try to get myself a couple of little Christmas presents called Fenrir and Diabolos. As I still needed two of the Whispers from the Primes (Garuda and Ramuh), and Teila needed one of the drops from both Primes to go towards her Evoker's Ring, we decided to head on out to Cape Terrigan to make the long trek up to the Cloister of Gales.

I used to remember fearing for my life whilst taking this route - sneak and invis mobs who rate Tough, with little or no room to stop and recast, it's awful. Plus I always get stuck on the same bit of foliage by the Greater Manticores!

Garuda Prime wasn't too bad, but she seemed to enjoy casting Whispering Wind on herself alot, healing 800 or so a time. We managed to beat her, but almost a minute behind the current record. Her 2hr, Aerial Blast, hit me for 0 and Teila for 38, which we found rather amusing!

Ramuh Prime was much easier, simply for the fact he didn't keep healing himself, but he did like to Paralyse and Stun a lot. We managed to beat him taking 0 damage from his 2hr, Judgement Bolt, and even set the record for the fight - probably because no one had fought him since last night's update!!!



Now that I finally had all six Whispers I headed back to the Rhinostery in Windurst and picked up my Moon Bauble from Leepe-Hoppe and warped back to Whitegate. I managed to get a party in less than a minute for Fenrir Prime, including the luxury of a RDM/DRK for Chainspell - Stun.

Getting to the Full Moon Fountain was easy, oddly enough. Whereas the others require you to Ninja past difficult monsters, the route through the Toraimarai Canal was full of Too Weak monsters, most likely to throw you off guard for what's to come.

This was my first ever attempt at Fenrir Prime and it went horribly wrong. He repeatedly did a move called Lunar Cry to put a huge Accuracy and Evasion Down on the party, and our NIN tank couldn't evade the attacks. He also used Lunar Roar, a Dispelga move, and took all buffs off the party, including our Reraises. His damaging TP move, Moonlit Charge, hit the NIN for around 800 each time, and on one occasion, he was one-shotted. Only the RDM and myself made it out of the BCNM alive.

The second time was much better. Teila and me shared the Erases for Lunar Cry, and when Fenrir Prime was at low health, the RDM activated Chainspell and Stunned Fenrir repeatedly. This tactic got him killed (I was a second too slow with Benediction, as I was resting MP), but we managed to win by the skin of our teeth, so his death wasn't in vain. Teila returned to Windust to pick her item to contribute to the Evoker's Ring, whilst I selected the Pact with Fenrir! Yay, finally!



On a complete roll, we returned to Whitegate to shout for Diabolos Prime. I thought Fenrir Prime was hard, so I wasn't confident at all for Diabolos Prime. As fortune would have it, people were relatively quick to respond, and we ended up with the following setup:

NIN75/WAR37
BRD75/WHM37 (Teila, but came back as BLM75/RDM37 after 3rd attempt)
DRK75/NIN37
SMN75/WHM37
BLM75/WHM37 (but was replaced by a SMN75/WHM37 after 4th attempt)
WHM75/SMN37 (me)

We tried this five times and lost on all of them. Admittedly three of those attempts were on Darksday, but each time it was the same thing that killed us: Nightmare.

OK, I'll be honest, this wasn't a tough fight. We survived everything really well, and had a Stunning order for Nightmare, but towards the end of each fight, someone always seemed to miss-time a Stun, but through no fault of thier own. Diabolos regularly cast Sleepga II before doing Nightmare, but even with Poison Potions to avoid the Sleepga, the Sleepga acted as a mini-Stun, so it wasn't always possible to get the Stun off on time. The Bio effect from Nightmare was a Bio III, which absolutely annihilated us, and I couldn't wake up despite having 108 Dark Resistance.

He also had some other nasty moves, like Cacodemonia (Cursega), Dispelga, and his Nether Blast and Camisado were murderous too. I used my 2hr in the first fight, but I missed the tank so she went down. Our SMN also 2hred in the first fight, but died as he was readying Diamond Dust, which was also disappointing. That was our closest fight.

After the forth fight, the BLM left, but the DRK brought along another SMN friend, who turned up in Relic Gear. Also, at this point, the day changed to Firesday, so we thought that this time we'd do it. After waiting til nearly 2am for this SMN to turn up, what happened? She didn't have the key item to get into the BCNM, so we went in at five and lost again.

Diabolos 5, Kixxi 0

To be continued...

A Cold Start

With tomorrow's CoP fight approaching, I decided to solo SMN again in the Glacier whilst seeking. Despite being a Saturday, there were very few people online, and not enough players seeking in my level range to start a party.

Still, not to worry, if Teila comes with us tomorrow, she can cast Earthen Ward, and I can cast Aerial Armour, so that way we can continue to divide the responsibilities between us without my level being too much of a restriction.

Had a nasty link of three Goblins when my radioactive squirrel refused to Retreat, so I pegged it to the entrance of the Ranguemont Pass and as luck would have it, the weather effect turned to double ice, so I brought out Shiva, and hit Astral Flow. Shiva used Diamond Dust and 887 points of AoE damage later, I was in the clear.

Phew!

Elsewhere my chocobo, SilverStar, has fallen in love, despite her ongoing illness. I'm not sure who her heartthrob is, but I doubt it's someone I will approve of.

Still, fed her a Tokkopeko Wildgrass, a Vomp Carrot and a Cupid Worm in the hope that she'll recover shortly and become happier.

Finding it near impossible to level her stats. Despite the fact she's eaten enough carrots to feed a small army of Vorpal Bunnies, her Strength and Endurance seem forever locked on Substandard.

Perhaps I need to rethink her diet.

Summoned to the Caves

Hey everyone!

Welcome to my blog! The T-Files chronicles the adventures of Kixxi the Tarutaru on the Unicorn server with his Linkshell, TheHelpingHand. I wanted to keep a little diary of the stuff I get up to in Vana'diel, so one day I can look back and say "did I really do that?"

I've been playing since 2nd March 2005, but this blog begins on 15th December 2006.

Yesterday started off really badly when I changed to SMN and paid the Taru in Whitegate to warp to Windy. Once there, I used the Outpost Warp facility to jump straight to the Beaucedine Glacier, but the moment I got there I was being pummelled by a Goblin and its pesky tiger pet! I didn't even have a chance to move, or to summon, or to even call Yawawa for help, so I dropped to the floor in a matter of seconds!

As fortune had it, a Japanese PLD ran past and offered me a Raise! I couldn't believe my luck! The Glacier is always empty except for end-gamers looking to do Dynamis. So I raised up, summoned Yawawa, and hid until Weakened wore off.

Funny thing was, the moment I began taking on DC+ Bat Eyes (90xp-ish with the Empress Band active!), I got a party invite in the Western Altepa Desert! They must have just lost their WHM, I thought. Anyway, I ran back to the OP and teleported back to Windy, then teleported off to the Eastern Altepa Desert, where I legged it post haste to Revelation Rock in the Western Altepa Desert.

I was asked to main heal but I didn't mind - hey, after all it was in my search comment! I was so desperate for xp so that I could reach 50 by the weekend for the CoP Wyrm fight that I would have pulled if they wanted me to!

Anyway, as luck would have it, after three fights, the DCs began, to be followed by the "I gotta go"s, but the leader was not having it, and got together another party, whereby we headed off to the Quicksand Caves to continue levelling.

We had the setup of NIN, DRK, RDM, WHM, THF and SMN, but the fights went on forever, as we were only 43-44 and the RDM either didn't have Dispel or kept forgetting to use it on the Helm Beetles.

Luckily, I had a SMN's dream job of DDing, but I tried to play it properly, buffing the melee with Shining Ruby (adds +30 defence and magic defence - stacks with Protect and Shell) and Aerial Armour when possible, but also trying to MB with Shiva or Ramuh where possible, as Beetles are weak to Ice and Lightning.

Although slow, the XP was amazing, and I soon approached L45. On the last monster, I used Astral Flow, and with Ramuh's 2hr, Judgement Bolt, I MB'd off a skillchain for almost 900 damage! My mp dropped to 0, but a quick level up a second later, and back up it went. The THF quickly went to pull another Beetle, and *boom*, another Judgement Bolt went off! Ramuh ended up tanking that one for a little while, but it was fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get to use the 3rd one.

Soon after, people began getting tired, and concentration fell. Our NIN fell asleep twice, but agreed to hold on until the THF levelled. Thing is, an asleep tank may aswell be a non-existent tank, and 2 wipes later, we agreed to disband.

79 into my level, I headed over to Whitegate for Besieged. It was the usual crew of Akashea, Bigboykoala, Jeanius, Teila and me, versus the Undead Swarm.

"Hey, BBK, look out!" I warned as Medusa crept up behind him.

"Watch out!"

Whack!

"Ty, Kix."

BBK has officially won the award for most deaths in a Besieged, all competition vanquished!