What a Steal!

It was a really nice surprise today to receive a Thief's Knife from Teila for my birthday! I had wanted one for ages but given my really rare spawn item to Bass ages ago to help him get the Knife in return for always helping me, and I had never been able to get one again since. I was really chuffed!

I was out several times throughout the day doing RL stuff, but I did play for some of the day on FFXI. I did nothing but Campaign and made my 10k (plus a 3k buffer) finally reaching L72! This means I can now wear my Pahluwan Crackows and macro in my L72 Emerald Rings for Trick Attack as opposed to the L14 Reflex Rings I had been using!

I also got to see the Sandworm today, an immensely powerful new HNM which can pop in any of the WotG zones from a crater. It happened to spawn in my favourite Campaign spot, Meriphitaud Mountains (S) and it was annihilating everyone who came near it.

It was there all night and even after I went to bed Teila told me it was still there!

Better the Demon You Know

Today was the final fight in the Koblakiq series of quests. We had to return to Castle Zvahl-Baileys and confront Marquis Andrealphus (DRK Demon NM) and his four servants (2x THF Demon Bannerets and 2x BLM Demon Secretaries).

This fight is unique in that at 66% and 33% Marquis Andrealphus "Escapes" the person who has hate out to Xarcabard (just in front of the Castle) unless you solo it, whereupon it has no effect. So Teila and I decided to cheat! We disbanded from each other and I stood back to heal her and then afterwards I returned to Whitegate, swapped to THF and came back and she healed me.

To be honest, we didn't need much curing, as the fight wasn't hard, but the fact there were five mobs ganging up on us meant our shadows were down most of the time, and being Dark-based mobs, it was hard to Drain them using Bloody Bolts.

You can watch my fight here.

After that it was off to Grauberg to help Teila obtain a Red Oven Mitt from the Quadav running about just north of the Guntower. This took forever as the Quadav just didn't want to play ball.

The net was a bit vague as to what mobs dropped the Red Oven Mitt, but it said confirmed drops were from Onyx and Copper Quadav, but to make sure we pulled all the Quadav we could find. What bothered me was that these Quadav checked as EP- but I could hardly dent them alone. That's WotG mobs for you!

Eventually, just when we said "right last one!" we got the drop and I was able to return to Windy Waters (S). After a long chat with Teila, she had convinced me to push on with THF saying that as soon as I got L72 I would feel relieved.

So I went into Campaign and ended up 10k to L72, which felt satisfying.

Penultimate Attempt

Today Teila and I went up to Xarcabard to try and get Demon Pens from the Demons in Castle Zvahl-Baileys for the quest Better the Demon You Know.

On the way, just to test my Evasion, I decided to try to solo the hardest of the three LB2 mobs, the Boreal Hound to see if I could do it.

The fight took a long time and although it missed me practically every time, its magic took me down a long way, which makes me think I won't be able to do this until I am stronger.

Inside Castle-Zvahl Baileys we made our way up to one of the three circular pits and dropped so we landed on the lowest ledge which jutted out and took a peak at Demons I had never seen before. These were the most powerful residents in Castle Zvahl, checking as Tough to me at L71! Teila said she knew that the Demon Pens dropped from the Blood Demons but we couldn't see those.

After awhile of fighting these scary mobs we checked the net and found that Demon Pens also dropped from the very easy Demon Generals, so we stopped fighting the hard mobs and turned our attention to the easier ones and after a long time got our Demon Pens!

On the way back to Oldton Movalpolos we heard the alarms go off in Gusgen Mines so decided to take a peak to see which NMs had popped. It turned out to be Crushed Krause, but he didn't drop anything.

We traded our Demon Pens over to Koblakiq and got a cutscene but we weren't able to continue with the quest until the next JP midnight, so I logged out there.

A Learned Approach

Having logged out as DNC and SCH, we logged back in and went up to Tahrongi Canyon to continue levelling. Teila was getting used to her new JAs, such as being able to reduce the cost of her next WHM spell by 50%, a very useful thing indeed.

I was level 10 and still using L1 Cesti, so I noticed my damage was lower than it should have been but due to having capped Hand-to-Hand from levelling Yawawa in the Prommies, it wasn't too bad, especially as Combo is a very powerful low level WS.

After that, Teila came back with me to the Eldime Necropolis and we took our revenge on the mobs in the lower tunnels where I had been savaged yesterday. We found for quite a long time but eventually a Coffer Key dropped for me!

Taking Evasive Action

First of all today I went to the Eldime Necropolis to see if I could solo a Coffer Key there, but no sooner had I began I regretted it. I still hadn't uncapped Yawawa so she was still L60 and struggled to tank the Undead that lurked there. I was able to handle the Dark Stalkers (Shadow family) but the Tomb Warriors/Mages (Skeleton family) were a different story.

I had stupidly forgotten that I was unable to Drain undead with Bloody Bolts and Skeleton mobs have a nasty habit of Draining life rapidly with their AoE moves (Blood Saber and Black Cloud) so my life was plummeting and other undead began to link in. My Evasion was not holding up against them (due to being so low) and eventually Yawawa died, and I, Paralysed by their Ice Spikes, could not get my shadows back up and died too.

Eventually they moved away from my body and I was able to Reraise up, whack on Perfect Dodge as they started to run towards me and I quickly used my Olduum Ring to get out of there, feeling very sorry for myself.

Disheartened with how slow my THF was progressing lately, and frustrated with how low my Evasion was (218 at L71; cap at L75 is 276), I decided to opt for a complete change and go back to DNC. DNC is one of those amazing jobs which is simply brilliant as a sub too. It would be perfect for trying to skill up Evasion for as long as you can hit the mob you're soloing you can keep yourself alive, unlike /WHM sub where you will eventually run out of MP and can be interrupted.

I had forgotten how quick it was to solo at low level and saw the Level Up message on quite a few occasions during the afternoon!

Eventually Teila came out to join me as her SCH and we began going through harder mobs at a much quicker pace. We stopped at L10 once she got access to her Light and Dark Arts.

Wolfin' Food and Goblin' Drink

Yet again I put off levelling in favour of more fun stuff. Still L71 (a month now?), when I had planned to be L75 for my week off next week, I decided to do something really random and poked my nose into Oldton Movalpolos to farm a Chest Key (map) and to get some Hoary Bomb Ash for a Bastok quest. I was also aware of a poppable NM, the Goblin Wolfman (DRK), who can be spawned by trading a Goblin Drink to some Scrawled Writing (in either G-13, I-9 or I-11), and has a 20% chance of dropping the Parade Gorget.

Inside, I pulled everything I could to try to get a Key and even with Treasure Hunter II, it took a substantial amount of time for an Oldton Chest Key to drop. I was the only person there but I couldn’t find a Chest anywhere and I did get lost quite a few times, as it’s not an area I’m at all familiar with.

I found the Ancient Bombs without a problem and fought them with ease for the Hoary Bomb Ash, and got four drops very quickly (it wasn’t until I had logged out at the end of the night I found out I needed a stack of 11 and not four), and then moved deeper in to find the Scrawled Writing.

Every fifteen minutes the Scrawled Writing moves between the three locations above and because the paths are often quite narrow in Oldton Movalpolos, sometimes you have to venture far away from the coordinate to come back in at a different part of the square at the same coordinate, so it was tricky to get around to all three locations.

I found the Scrawled Writing where the harder Oldton mobs were (but still Too Weak) and traded my Goblin Drink. I got the message “a chill runs down your spine!” and the Goblin Wolfman appeared.

I fought the fight in my Evasion Build (sacrificing a lot of Attack) and with a Jack o’ Lantern (with a huge penalty to CHA, meaning my Dancing Edges were weakened) and the Wolfman only hit me once (but when he did it was for 148 (I heard stories of this thing hitting for 300+, but that was probably a critical)).

At mid to low HP he used Blood Weapon but this never got past my shadows thankfully. After around six or seven minutes I defeated him but I didn’t get the drop. Fortunately I knew that the Scrawled Writing reappeared after a 15 minute wait, so I went AFK for awhile and came back. The Scrawled Writing had moved to another point so I traded my second Goblin Drink to it and got the drop this time.

You can watch the fight here.

After that I went off to Carpenter’s Landing to try to get the Mycophile Cuffs which BBK and Teila had told me about some time ago. The Mycophile Cuffs are a great L30 Rare/Ex piece for WHM, BLM and SCH (not RDM oddly enough) and as I sell all my lower level gear, it’s great to have some Rare/Ex gear standing by for level-capped events such as BCNMs and Promathia missions (Prommies especially!).

I didn’t have a Warp on me, nor do I still have the Gustaberg OP Warp, so I had to use a Chocobo Whistle from North Gustaberg and go to South Gustaberg, back into North Gustaberg, up through the Konschtadt (sp) Highlands, through the empty Valkurm Dunes, through La Thiene, through Jugner Forest and up into Carpenter’s Landing. I hadn’t done a journey like that in a long time and it was quite nostalgic, considering nowadays I seem to Warp and Teleport everywhere.

On the way through North Gustaberg I came across a shimmering by the side of the cliff, targetable with a blank ???. Recently I had discovered Lycopodiums besides shimmering in the old world, and when you talk to them they give you a brief but bizarre custscene. Therefore I had to dismount and check this modern-day shimmering, to which I was given the message that trading something would trigger memories, or words to that effect; it had to be connected to the Lycopodiums.

I carried on and in Carpenter’s Landing didn’t have to go far until I found the ??? for the Mycophile, an NM Funguar. To spawn the Mycophile you have to trade a Danceshroom, a Sleepshroom and a Woozyshroom to the ??? but the Mycophile Cuffs are not a guaranteed drop. If they don’t drop, the ?? respawns after fifteen minutes, but does not change location.

As with the Goblin Wolfman, I had to fight it twice before it dropped the Cuffs and noted it was a caster, possibly a RDM. It was not a difficult fight, but would be quite tough to lower levels due to the enclosed space and sight-linking Diver Beetles in the room.

Quick Quips

Did a few Campaigns tonight but they were pretty poor and I ended up dead more than alive I think. In the end I just got fidgety so we went to Sauromugue Champaign (S) and then up to the watchtowers where the Tough Yagudo were.

These Yagudo drop a 108-Knot Quipu, a Rare/Ex item normally used for the Garrison event, but these particular ones were required for Windy (S) mission 3 (just like mission 2 had several quests in order to move on to 3, 3 has the same, I am sure of it; the plot is too continuous (although there is no mission 4 yet)), so we carefully pulled them one after the other from the watchtowers.

It soon became apparent that their respawn time was very quick, with the previous one respawning straight after we’d defeated the last one. This was a blessing rather than a curse as we were chaining them for half-decent XP and we made a couple of K or so before the Quipu dropped.

I then went over to the door to Jeuno (from Sauromugue Champaign (S)) and traded the item to advance the story, which then prompted me to go to Southern San d’Oria to continue. One thing I’ve noticed with WotG mission cutscenes is that they’re really idiot-proof. I’ve always said that RotZ and CoP cutscenes were really cryptic in what to do next sometimes, but these are different in that if you, say, click the Jeuno door a second time, it will repeat the cutscene in the form of a brief summary.

So naturally I trundled off to Southern San d’Oria and upon entering the city I received another cutscene advancing the story (again leading me to believe these have to relate to the missions, as this has been the same story since the start) but I didn’t progress any further. Instead I returned to Windurst Waters (S) and did a couple more Campaigns (which were still bad) before giving up and logging out for the night.

I did, however, receive a Platinum Beastcoin in Southern San d'Oria (S) for my efforts, a new type of Beastcoin supposedly worth more than Gold. I will have to see how much it is worth!