After a Fashion

Being 6k to my third stored Merit, I decided to attend Campaign as a WHM in order to get the Limit Points (LP) to get the final needed Merit and raise my Critical Hit Ratio some more.

Going to a Campaign Battle as a WHM is an easy but thankless job. Like Besieged you just buff people and toss out Cures as and when (plus you have Reraise) but very few people will acknowledge your presence. I learned long ago not to Raise dead people without seeing if they are present at the keyboard (due to those irritating AFKers who waste your MP) but I was surprised as to how many people I sent /tells to saying (Raise) (Do you need it?) to and get no response, only to watch other people Raise them a minute or so later and see them get up straight away. Bizarre or rude, who knows?

Anyway, after that I went out to lunch with T and then it was time to meet up in the Phomiuna Aqueducts for a Subligar hunt, the likes of which we haven't done in almost exactly a year. I didn't need a Subligar but I said I would take a NIN Subligar if no one else wanted it. I knew T needed a THF/DNC Subligar and a RDM/BLU Subligar, Aka needed a RDM/SCH Subligar and BBK was after a BLM/SMN Subligar (I think). Surprisingly enough, we were joined by quite a few others, including Omni, Doffo, Gotrunks (played by Iliona), Jiii (a new addition to our Linkshell), her friend Darknis and Nyclia, a friend of Jiii and a former member of our old Dynamis Shell, so we had an alliance of ten.

Doffo wanted a SAM Subligar, Omni wanted BRD/BST, Gotrunks wanted THF and PLD, Jiii wanted RDM/BLU and BRD/BST, Darknis wanted DNC/THF and Nyclia wanted BRD/BST, so there was much work to be done.

In the very first room I aggroed a Taurus hiding behind a wall (I didn't even see him and he saw me through the wall which was a little unfair) so we decided to kill them all to see if we could get a piece of Spruce Lumber for Aka, BBK and Doffo and also hope that some Fomor Codexes (Codei??) dropped too.

Aka got some Spruce Lumber and Teila took us to the ground floor Fomor camp, and we began pulling them.

The drops were terrible at first and there was something in the atmosphere to make me feel uncomfortable (possibly remembering the disasterous run last year) but the hours went by and gradually our inventories began filling up with the Subligars we wanted (except for Teila who kept rolling Lots like 6 and 28)!

We spent so much time in the Phomiuna Aqueducts that I made over 4k (including deaths) and several people levelled up!

As it began to get later and later, we decided to head upstairs to the ancient libraries, guarded by Fomor "duos" (they are actually in parties of two, so you cannot avoid a link), and in the corridors outside are large Stegotaurs, IT Taurus' with Mortal Ray, a move that inflicts Doom.

We pulled the Stegotaurs and Gotrunks (Ili) soon mastered the back-tanking approach to this move, clearly watching the log and turning every time this move came up - I've never seen people tank this properly before, so it was quite impressive! BBK was kitted out as his uber NIN, so he was set to back-up tank and 'Voked if Gotrunks (Ili) ever got low.

As we were split into two parties, Akashea main-healed Teila's group and Nyclia, who was BST/WHM, main-healed my group and both did a great job.

I was the puller, so I had to run up to the libraries and grab pairs of Fomor, run back and Omni would Sleep one using Foe or Horde Lullaby, but before we began, Teila and I scouted the areas by checking the libraries with Sneak on. To my joy, the map ??? was up and I was able to grab it quickly before it vanished for a map of the Phomiuna Aqueducts!

Omni did a good job of Sleeping as his Lullaby was Light-based and stuck a lot of the time on the Dark-based Fomors. There were a few occasions where Sleep didn't stick or a pull went wrong and a couple of people died (mainly Aka and me) but on the whole it wasn't bad.

Surprisingly we pulled a huge number of BRD Fomors and not a single Subligar dropped so Jiii got quite upset despite getting a RDM/SCH Subligar. We didn't get a PLD or a SAM Subligar either, but Doffo got a COR/RNG Subligar and Gotrunks (Ili) got a THF Subligar so everyone got something.

At midnight we logged out, having arranged another run for next week - everyone did a great job but I can't help feeling that people weren't as happy as they could/should have been.