Blind Inviting the Blind

I had just OP Warped to Jugner Forest to go and solo the BCNM Shooting Fish again when I remembered I had forgot to get my Cloudy Orb from Jeuno. I hopped onto FrostMoon and began Chocking it back to Jeuno, when halfway across Batallia Downs I received a a blind invite, but not only that, it was to actually fight with Summons as we had a WHM and a PLD!

I jumped at the chance and made my way to Garlaige Citadel where we were intending to fight. Most of the Party were L50s, and I was L53, so I knew I was gonna be a bit of a killer when it came to XP but I thought that it wouldn’t be too bad with the Anniversary Ring on. I think the leader was a little inexperienced as he wanted to take on the Vault and Over Weapons, incredibly tough mobs in their 60s, but fortunately we also had a RDM for Dispel (Weapons love Protect and Shell). So with a WHM and a RDM in the party, I thought I was in for a fun ride!

How wrong I was.

We camped in the Serket room, near the Donut room and decided to try our luck on a Skeleton mob (Fallen Something) which was in its L60s. It was insane. It keep doing AoE Black Cloud and catching everyone, knocking us right down. When we’d eventually got it to low life it did Blood Saber, taking 150hp back from all of us (that’s 900hp!), and I gave in and Astral Flowed on the first mob. I managed to finish it off, but straight away the PLD DC’d. Whilst we waited, several people went AFK and the PLD didn’t come back.

We waited and waited. It had been one and a half hours since I’d joined by now, and I’d made 300xp. Eventually the DRK decided that he would tank the Bats and Beetles and chain them for low xp. We did and even with the Anniversary Ring we got appalling xp. The PLD then repopped and rejoined us, claiming rain had been the cause of his DC. With a full party again, we moved back to weapons. The DRK had been pulling with Bio and ran to the Weapon tunnel and, knowing they didn’t link, cast Bio on the nearest one. Not realising Weapons aggro to magic, all four or five come running out and annihilate him. He died and the party carried on fighting one of them, but before long, the PLD DC’d a second time, leaving us at four. Then our WHM died, Reraised, and moved aside to rest up. Fighting at three wasn’t gonna happen, so our BLM began casting Escape. Even with calls, it was too late. We Escaped out and left our WHM behind.



Why does this always happen to my parties? The WHM politely left at that point so I agreed to main heal and asked them to look for another DD. After a few more bats and many AFKs, the PLD came back again and we nabbed him up. Then we got a SAM for the sixth and carried on with Beetles. Before long, the DRK had to take another AFK for twenty minutes and the PLD DC’d a third time. Everyone was getting mad and I don’t know how we stayed together with so many AFKs and DCs but we decided to replace the PLD with a NIN and our RDM got us a PL from Bastok. She took around an hour to show up, and the NIN took his/her sweet time too. When the PL showed up, we moved back to Weapons and began getting 300-400xp which was cool, but within three fights, the PL DC’d when I had just used Astral Flow again so I had no MP to heal. We managed to beat it after three Astral Flows, but half the party was dead. I Raised everyone up, and we agreed to disband after acknowledging the party was jinxed and not working at all. I made 4k in as many hours.