Kixxi the Grouch

I don't think I'd fully understood the magnitude of how long it was going to take to get my full set of Reverence +1 gear, but you know what? I'm not going to complain as it will be such an achievement when I do complete the set. Just the thought of going through three upgrades per piece! Anyway, I had all the pieces to get my Gallant Coronet to a iL119 piece, but needed the 25 Ancient Beastcoins to do it. Off I went to Apollyon.

Went to Apollyon SW and into a floor full of Fomor mobs known as Fir Bholgs. No sooner had I begun fighting the first one, pretty much the entire floor came heading my way and I had around ten on me at once, and even at L99, I was dropping into the yellow life, especially with a combination of Aegis Schism and Dancing Chains. I am embarrased to say that I even needed Invincible at one point!

It was Treants next, nice and simple, and then on the next floor Mimics! Noticed that there was a distinct lack of blue Armoury Crates compared to the northern end of Apollyon. Nevertheless, made it up to the Elementals floor and fought as many as I could before time was about to run out, then I checked the final Armoury Crate to get a bunch of Ancient Beastcoins, a White Rivet and a chip maybe. Unfortunately I only ended up with 18 Ancient Beastcoins but one more run should do it.

I then went to burn up some more Kindred Seals, and took another Atrophos Orb to Horlais Peak to fight Evil Oscar. Not sure what happened, but practically the second I hit him he began inhaling, so out of shock I began trying to run away, and as he hadn't done his second move, he began chasing me down the ramp. I then tried to reengage, but as he did his second and third inhalations I was forced to run past him and ended up getting caught in his Extremely Bad Breath and died, very frustrated. Noobed up with a rookie mistake. Was well pissed off.

I later went back, and this time was prepared for him to do it off the bat. He didn't but I think I figured it out. He always does three inhalations before readying Extremely Bad Breath. The first time he uses EBB, his inhalations are quite far apart, so you need to time the running away so that you start moving almost a second after the second inhalation. If he still coninues to follow, stop, let him hit once more, then peg it - as long as you are running away not past, you should be out of range. As the fight continues, he will reduce the time between EBBs and between each inhalation too - which is actually easier because it means as soon as you see the second inhalation, you run away!

I got another Malboro Fiber and a bunch of other things not worth much but useful for a bit of Gil. Also got a Philosopher's Stone, which I think is used in a Wings of the Goddess quest. Satisfied and not feeling annoyed at the waste of 30KS earlier, I went to go and do Horns of War, but didn't have enough seals to convert into KS. I then began converting higher seals (with the exception of the SKSs) but had to stop at 87 KS. Took years to build up all those seals and I've burned em up in a few nights LOL. Oh well, another incentive to level up my SMN!

A Source of Fiber

Was only on briefly tonight but had made up my mind that I want to upgrade my original PLD AF to iL119 Reverence Armour +1. Rem's Tales are 7,500 Sparks from the RoE vendors, and I could only afford five, so, I thought I'd go the long way round and start by upgrading to AF+1 before reforging. I already had the Snowy Cermet and the White Rivet, just not the Ancient Beastcoins, but I can get those no probs. I also began preparing for the jump to Reforged Armour, so picked up a Phoenix Feather and a Gold Sheet, which weren't too pricey.

Some of the other stuff, like Damascene Cloth and Malboro Fiber were much more expensive, but heard that they dropped from KSNM30 Contaminated Colosseum. After a bit of research I found out I'd be facing Evil Oscar, a Morbol mob with Extremely Bad Breath - an instant KO move. He gives three warnings in the chat log then breathes on you. OK, sounded simple enough.

Everything was going fine, I was chunking his HP down when all of a sudden I saw in the chat log that he was inhaling, and then 'bam' he used it and I was KO'd! Where was the second and third warning? Oh wait, I'd missed it, as I hadn't paid as much attention as I thought. Noob.

I was able to Reraise up, so I rested to full and went back in, this time, eyes fixed on the chat log. This time, I saw every warning and on the second inhalation, I ran away and got the message about no targets in range, which was my cue to run back in.

Towards the end of the fight, he began spamming it, so it was often a case of one or two hits and then run, but all in all, easy enough. I beat him and got a ton of treasure, but only the Malboro Fiber from the list I needed. Still, that saved me upwards of 200k.

Bush-Whacker in the Making

Today I continued with my exploration of Ulbukka, picking up Ionis and a coalition assignment to survey the Ceizak Battlegrounds. With that, off I went to scour the zone, but before I went too far, I spoke to the chap by the tent outside Adoulin, and learnt "logging" so I was able to get past the Knotted Roots at Colonisation Rieves. I made my way around the zone with my Expertise Ring active, killing almost anything I came across, getting Merit after Merit - it was great.

I found two Ergon Loci (one from the Geomancer quest?) but quickly got frustrated with them as each time I tried to survey them, I got told that it ended in utter failure, due to time of day and distance. I tried messing around with the range I stood from the Loci, but no joy, and there was no way I was going to hang around to see if an hour or so made the difference, no sir.

I headed south and eventually ended up in the Sih Gates, where nearly everything aggroed. I continued south and came across a rope leading up a ledge, but I wasn't able to use it so presume there's another survival skill (spelunking?). I had to go a longer way round, where I came across another Colonisation Rieve. This one was much harder because the respawn rate of the Chapuli and the Twitherym was so high. I ended up focusing on the Knotted Roots whilst the other things hit on me, using Circle Blade to ensure that I kept the hate. What I love about these Rieves, is that every so often you get a bunch of XP or LP and Bayld without having to do anything to get it - what I mean is, in Campaign, to get your reward, you have to get an assessment every so often, but here you automatically get given it whilst fighting so there's no interruptions!

A short trek later and I was in Foret de Hennetiel, a swamp of sorts. I began exploring and came across my first Lair Rieve, which was much harder than the Colonisation Rieves I'd done before. These ones were actually hitting me despite capped Evasion and high Parrying skill. The Craklaws seem to have a move which strips you of Protect and Shell, which was a bit annoying, and as I had Joachim out, not Kupipi, I had to waste MP on reapplying. Eventually I cottoned on that I had to hit the static object (obviously their 'lair') to win the fight, as the mobs kept respawning.

I then discovered a river where I could click on a cast-off point or something, and I was given the option to swim, so I clicked on it and found myself lying on the banks with a message about not being able to swim across. Am guessing I need to get some sort of swimming skill much like the logging skill. This really reminds me of old-school Final Fantasies or Legend of Zeldas where you need to learn a skill or obtain a certain item from a dungeon to get past an obstacle. But soon enough, after doing a Lair Rieve on a palm tree, I ended up chopping it down so it fell across the river and I could run over! How cool!

Somewhere along the way I picked up a yggrete shard, which I learned from the LS I could pop a Faded Craklaw NM with it in an area right near to where I was. I had Fablinix and Zeid out, so swapped Joachim for Kupipi and popped it. The bitch was hard! I could have happily tanked it, but its AoE moves were wiping the floor with my Alter-Egos. Quite a few of its moves were being Stunned by Zeid and Fablinix (love them as a combo!) but after getting it to 92% I had to give up and Warp out as my Alter-Egos couldn't hack it.

Wanting a change of pace, I went to the Cloister of Gales to start the Waking the Beast quest and entered a much-tougher fight against Garuda Prime. It wasn't Windsday, but she had around four Air Elementals with her, all of which were casting tier IV and ga tier III spells. Garuda herself was tougher, and even though they didn't hit hard at all, with all those spells, they did chip away.

Her Aerial Blast did some mean-ass damage, and the second she did it, all her elementals did a ga III spell in sync! I survived but had to use a few Cure IVs to do it! I beat her, nicked her power and then jumped back in for the regular Prime fight to get the Jar of Bubbly Water for the Summoning Ring quest.

Before bed, I finished San d'Oria 6-1 by fighting the Sabotender Enamorado in Western Altepa Desert, whilst going to pick up a Dreamrose by a pond I never even knew was there!

Of Corse I Can

For some reason whilst driving home from work I decided I was going to go and do Tango with a Tracker, a BCNM with Shikaree X and Y in Boneyard Gully, so after I'd got a few unrelated cutscenes in Aht Urhgan, I headed off to Attohwa Chasm and began heading (the long way as I am a noob) to Boneyard Gully. As it was nearing night time, I decided to camp Xolotl to see if I could get the Perseus' Harpe, a dagger I'd always wanted for my THF, back in the day. Like clockwork, Xolotl popped at 20:00 so I Flashed him and began beating him up.

He was super easy, even with his 'pets' and aggro from two cutlass scorpions, but unfortunately only the Zoolater Hat dropped. I then headed over to Boneyard Gully, entered the Tango with a Tracker BCNM and proceeded to defeat the Shikarees with no problem. I then wanted to come back and do the ENM Totentanz (as Wiki entry says it is 'uncapped') for the Blau Dolch but it was L75 (guessing it had not been updated since 2010) so I left. I wasn't able to go and get the Requiem of Sin quest (as I want X's Knife - notice a theme in my wish list here?) as I had to wait for the next conquest tally, so decided to go and get the Rainbow Resonator for the Carbuncle Prime fight.

On my way down to La Theine, I remembered something about the Carbuncle Prime fight (known as Waking the Beast) being in the Full Moon Fountain, and I still don't have access to the Toraimarai Canal, because 1) I can't get through the 'three-mage door' and 2) I can't get through the door in the Eldieme Necropolis on my own to fight Lich C Magnus (which then leads to Toraimarai Turmoil to get in the back way) because it needs two people. I could ask BBK or Aka, but I feel bad troubling them with such a minor thing, especially with all the help they've given me lately.

So instead of that I stopped off at the Cavernous Maw and thought I'd have a play around in Abyssea - La Theine, as this was the first time I'd entered Abyssea since getting L99. Everything was a doddle, so I went around popping a few NMs - Pantagruel, La Thiene Liege, Trudging Thomas, Akash and Lugarhoo.

Trudging Thomas was a bit of a bitch when he started spamming Ram Charge, as he did it back to back and each time it knocked me back preventing me from doing anything. Suddenly noticed my life dropping into yellow so I had to use my temporary Lucid Potions, but other than that it was good. Got a key item from Pantagruel, but other than that, I only got Poise Shoes from Lugarhoo. Still not bad for just 'messing around'.

Totally Brutal

Managed to get Ramuh done nice and quickly before work, also picking up a clump of Goobbue Humus for Windy missions whilst I was there. I was going to be late, so I logged out in the Boyahda Tree.

There was maintenance tonight, so I didn't come on until later, but BBK was on and kindly offered to top up my Ancient Beastcoin quota from 44 to 75, which was awesome, so I was able to pick up my Brutal Earring from Sagheera in Port Jeuno. Now all I need to do is to exchange my Ulthalam's Ring to Epona's Ring and I'll be quite happy with my gear. Oh no, wait, need to do something about the fact I'm still wearing a Chiv Chain and Warwolf Belt LOL.

Next was Garuda, whose Aerial Blast hit me for 1,100 damage even though it wasn't Windsday (still don't really know how resistances work), but other than that it was an easy fight.

After Garuda, it was over to Ifrit's Cauldron to get my favourite - Ifrit. No probs with him, his 1hr (Inferno?) hit me for 200 or so, which is what I'd expect at my level.

Final avatar of the night, and the last one I'm able to get until I complete Wings of the Goddess, was Alexander. I'd saved my Plumbago from when I'd been farming Trolls for a Hydrangea (Gadalar quest), so I was able to go straight into the heart of Mount Zhayolm to Megomak's door and get the Lightning Cell. Was a little surprised to find people camping Cerberus though! Alexander was harder, if only for the fact I was constantly Terrorized, so the fight took much longer than it should have done. He didn't even use Divine Judgement once, but then Odin didn't use Zantetsuken either.

What I did love about this fight was the continuation of the Aht Urhgan mission storyline - which was a really nice surprise!

Avat-thee!

Been thinking a lot about playing Summoner, especially as it was the first job I wanted to level way back in 2005, even before THF! I know I've still got plenty to do with my PLD, in fact, I've hardly scratched the surface of things that are available to me at L99 but I still fancied it. Awhile ago I'd promised I'd get all the avatars before I levelled it beyond L20, so I started off with Shiva Prime tonight.

Went to Qu'Bia Area by the HP warp but found out that due to the walls in Fei'Yin, it wasn't much quicker. Not much to say about the Shiva fight - it was a doddle, and Diamond Dust only did 200 damage or so.

Leviathan was next, and it got harder here, because I went into the wrong entrance to the Den of Rancor! Wandered around, even confused by the online maps, but I made it back into the Den of Rancor (the Yallery Brown map), and found myself an Uggalepih Offering for my Carby Mitts! Fought my way out and went in the correct way, and en route to the Paintbrush room, I found myself a Uggalepih Whistle to spawn Sacrificial Goblet.

Once I'd got past the Paintbrush door it was a short walk and a short drop to the Cloister of Tides. Leviathan was just as easy as Shiva, except I hadn't noticed it was Watersday and his Tidal Wave hit me for 1,200! That was a little freaky at L99.

That's three of the originals down, plus Diabolos and Odin - Ramuh next!

A Giant Disappointment

Before work, I hot-footed it over to Apollyon in Limbus and entered Apollyon SW to continue with my Ancient Beastcoin farming run, and collecting enty items for Temenos to fight Omega. Oddly enough, the mobs in here were taking 200-300 per normal hit from me (unlike Apollyon SE), which is what I expected them to take. As a result it took longer, but I found plenty of chests to extend my time.

What I really like about Limbus is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason about it - it's just random mobs that have been put in for you to beat up - once I'd made it past the birds though, I hit a snag when I encountered the purple Gigas. I saw Hyperion and Chronos, and pulled Chronos not realising he was completely immune to any type of physical damage. After an eternity I got bored of reducing his HP through Enlight and simply warped out. Total of 44 Ancient Beastcoins so far though, so just another 31 until I can get my Brutal Earring.

In the evening I decided to switch to BLM and level it to... level 2 so that I could try the Adventurer Appreciation Campaign event as RDM/BLM to beat up the Moogles. I got L3 in like a minute, without even realising I'd hit L2, so I changed to RDM and dressed up as a Goblin to take part. Can't believe how cool Tarus look in the Goblin Costume! I got some very good points as a RDM/BLM, and with Chainspell did exceedingly well. It didn't take too long to reach 10,000 points so I could get Trust: Fablinix, but I sucked royally at getting 3,000 points on expert mode to go towards getting Trust: Aldo.

Read up online that you needed to be RDM/BLM with a dagger to do this successfully. I'm not so convinced - that reeks of old-school SE where only one job combination works on a certain day of the week during a specific moon-phase etc. but I think I'll take a break and do this again in a few days with a dagger to try it. I still don't even understand the balancing of points. It's an interesting event, and one that makes a big difference to hitting samurai armour or chasing ghosts around town.

What's for Odinner, Yoyoroon?

Spent most of tonight getting 10,000 points as a Moogle to get Trust: Moogle. I probably should have changed job as doing it on PLD was hard as I had no offensive spells. I think it took just over an hour to do, but finally I got the bugger!

Then went all the way over to Apollyon SW only to have realised like a noob that I'd forgotten to pick up another Cosmo-Cleanse from Sagheera! Ha! So, instead I went off to Aht Urhgan to do the Odin quest, The Rider Cometh. Brought some Sutlac and Irmik Helvasi and got the greedy Yoyoroon to accept my Timeworn Talisman first time! With the HP right outside Talacca Cove since the last update, it didn't take too long to reach the Hazhalm Testing Grounds to fight Odin.

Didn't realise how big the zone was, or how big Odin was for that matter - the bugger was huge! But the fight was ridiculously easy. I think the only move he did was Yggd or something - the one that summons adds. In the end he had so many I started taking a few hits but nothing I couldn't handle. Right at the end he began the speech which readies Zanetsuken but he never got it off as one short weapon skill to the face and he went down - Odin was mine!

Cosplay, Kupo?

I'd logged out in Rala Waterways, somewhere in the south-eastern sector, so I decided to continue fighting my way back through the mobs to the start to get a few more merits along the way. I still couldn't believe how easy these babies were, and the amount of LP they gave was amazing. I managed to find my way out of the Waterways into Eastern Adoulin, having made ten merits!

Wondering what other old memories I could do solo, I decided to pop my head into Dynamis, as I happened to be running through Jeuno to get my letter of approval to fight Alexander Prime. These mobs were no problem, but they took a long time to kill and kept repopping close to where I was. I think I managed to fight four NMs, I got an Ordelle Bronzepiece, a Montiont Silverpiece and SAM Relic legs, I think. Also got the gem to pop the Goblin Golem but left before I had looked up what it was for.

After that I headed out to Al'Taieu to try Limbus as I still wanted my Brutal Earring. Initially I ended up going to Temenos, and had to come all the way back as I didn't have the items to get in. I then came back in and hit SE Apollyon. Was seriously freaked out at how incredibly easy it was - I was hitting for around 700-1100 on the mobs, which was bizarre as I was only hitting for around 200-300 in Dynamis. They were both old-school alliance areas, right?

Anyway, I cleared SE Apollyon without breaking a sweat, and collected 28 Ancient Beastcoins and a bunch of other stuff I wasn't sure what it did. Actually, I lie, I did almost break a sweat when I came to the floor with the Adamantshells, as everything on the floor was immune to slashing damage, and I thought I was going to have to do another 'Raubahn' but thanks to the all-new Mog Wardrobe, I pulled out my Eminent Dagger and made short work of them, even though my dagger skill is around 150.

I logged and spent most of the day gardening as its been so hot here, but did spend a bit of time trying out the new Adventurer Appreciation Campaign event dressed as a moogle! Had to fight some Goblin Rejoicers in West Ronfaure and every so often I got a status update saying "phase 1 complete...", "phase 2 complete..." etc. with a breakdown of how much curing, how much melee and how much spell damage I'd done, and at the end it converts it into 'points' and ranked me against other adventurers. Ultimately, the most amount of points obtained (from people dressed as either a Moogle or a Goblin) will lead to one of them being the Trust mascot. I got around 3k points before logging, and have heard that after 10k points I get a Cipher: Moogle. Oh, and I picked up a Cipher: Lion from the Greeter Moogle, so a good day in all.

Mission Quite-Possible

Still unable to get my reward for Apocalypse Nigh, I quickly continued with my Sandy missions, and soon enough I had to enter Fei'Yin to defeat Archlich Taber'Quoan to supposedly restore the seal keeping the Shadow Lord imprisoned.

Being a L50 fight this was no problem at all, especially as I was a PLD, so I turned him into Bone Chips and with the Home Point directly outside the Throne Room, was soon able to reach the Shadow Lord for the original game's final fight.

I'd summoned my three BLM Alter-Egos: Gadalar, Ajido-Marujido and Shantotto, as I seemed to remember him having a physical shield of sorts during his second form. The Shadow Lord went down so fast, it was unreal, but stayed around 1% for awhile, despite the mages unleashing hell on him. Then he could take no more and fell to my onslaught!

With Rank 6, I was able to talk to Aldo in the Tenshodo for my post-Apocalypse Nigh cutscene, and because it had been over a day since completing Apocalypse Nigh, I was able to go straight to Norg to pick up my Ethereal Earring - a lovely piece of PLD gear!!

Next up was Gessho for the continuation of my ToAU missions. Still don't quite know from the storyline why I had to fight him, but hey! Very simple fight until he split into clones and Mijin Gakure one-shotted me, even as an iL117 character! I sat staring at the screen for awhile before I accepted what had just happened, so that put an end to my ToAU missions for the day.

At that point I decided to continue with the Wings of the Goddess, and so I entered Castle Oztroja (S) for a cutscene before heading back to Fort KN (S) to do A Manifest Problem, an "Assault"-style fight against waves of cheapy Yagudo before fighting a slightly tougher NM.

This was even easier than I remembered it, and it had been easy at L75 back in the day. Most of the Yagudo died in one or two hits and the NM didn't take much more. Once I'd done that I ended up outside Windurst (S) and logged there for the night.

Apocalypse Nigh

Today was going to be the big day I did Apocalypse Nigh. OK, so it's not a big deal like it used to be, but it still represents the culmination of a long journey through Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia. Before I was able to fight Kam'Lanaut and Eald'Narche, I had to climb each of the original three prommies to get key item Slivers for the quest Shadows of the Departed. Even that back in the day would have been a right hassle. Nowadays its just a time-sink, but I stoically climbed up the three prommies and obtained the Slivers. Was hoping I'd find Home Points in the Spires for future ENM use, but alas no.

Once I was able to enter the Empyreal Paradox for the fight, I chose to get rid of Kam'Lanaut first due to his regular melee attacks. I left Eald'Narche until Last as he's a mage, and there's more of a delay between his attacks. Kam'Lanaut was very straightforward and posed no problem whatsoever. Eald'Narche was a bit of a hassle, as a couple of his spells hit me for over 900 during the course of the fight (so I'd assumed I'd been hit by some sort of magic defense down, but I checked afterwards and nothing!), but I was able to defeat him relatively quickly despite him teleporting around the battlefield.

I was unable to claim my reward, as I needed to be Rank 6 in order to receive the cutscene from Aldo, so I had to quickly press on with Rank missions. I easily made my way through Rank 3 (only hassle was waiting for Muu Buxu the Silent to repop (20min?) for the second shield) and the Dragon was easy! Rank 4 was also no problem, as I had the Delkfutt's Key (now a key item) and made my way to the prison cell very quickly to rescue the San d'Orian envoy. Two more fights to go!

L99!

I had the day off work today so I spent a few hours levelling to... L99! Yes, my first ever job to L99, but Bostaunieux Oubliette was packed so I had to find other levelling grounds. I ended up in King Ranperre's Tomb of all places, near the Vrtra spawn room, fighting worms and ghosts. I was so happy when I dinged and was able to equip my Eminent gear - felt like such an achievement, even if soloing with GoV books isn't the most glamorous way to hit the level cap!

I now had a million things I could do - Adoulin, Limbus, Dynamis, Einherjar etc. but I chose to continue with Rise of the Zilart and beat those pesky Ark Angels. Off I went to Sky and tried to navigate my way around Tu'lia (which I find a nightmare) but couldn't resist trying out my newfound strength on a Groundskeeper! Absolutely annihilated it! Tee-hee!

Getting through all the Ark Angels took longer than I had wanted because people were spamming the high level versions blocking entrance to the fights - that, and I struggled to get to all of them, but the fights were easy as pie. Once I'd done those I began the long trek to the Celestial Nexus to fight Eald'Narche, but with my Alter-Egos at my side, I made short work of anything which aggroed (yes I deliberately didn't use any Silent Oils or Prism Powders so I had an excuse to fight as a L99 hehe).

Eald'Narche was easy, and I finished him off nice and quick! I then ran about getting the final cutscenes from RotZ (never completed it first time round so this was all new) so I could begin Storms of Fate against Bahamut.

Made my way up to Riverne Site #B01 to where the Wyrmking was waiting and entered the "BC". Fighting him was pretty easy until his first Megaflare which did 700 damage, and then I thought I was in for a tough time, but oddly enough all remaining Megaflares and even the Gigaflares hardly touched me, so the fight was relatively easy. I bested him and returned to Ru'Lude Gardens to get the next cutscene.

As I had to wait another game day, I went back to Aht Urhgan and proceeded to continue with my ToAU missions. I had recently fought Lancelord Gaheel Ja and died, so I returned to the Jade Sepulcher and wiped the floor with him. No tactics needed, no highlights, just a very simple fight. I then continued with the missions and had to follow Luzaf to Periqia, where I began an Assault-style mission against a series of Lamiae.

I remembered from the last time I did this fight many years ago, these Lamiae did a poison move which chunked life down around 100HP a tick, and I got caught with it, so I did need to Cure myself quite a bit in this fight. However, killing the Lamiae wasn't difficult and I won the mission easily. I then had to wait until the next JP midnight to continue so I left it there for the evening.

The Contractaru

After that horrendous defeat at the hands of Atori-Tutori ??? last night, I was determined to farm up the items to trade Degenhard for the Olde Rarab Tail, so I decided to head to Bostaunieux Oubliette to farm Wurdalaks for the drops (and also because I'd never fought a Vampyr before). On the way there, I bumped into Phanduron and Drexerion, and pummeled them both into a (second) early grave.

I got the Shadow Mask off Phanduron, but not Ascalon which I think is the good drop. Wiki says the two link, but they didn't, mainly because they were at opposite sides of the room, but at one point I aggroed arount three Garms and one Haunt from going into yellow life. No drop from Drexerion, unfortunately, but my ability to attract drops as a PLD is bad!

Eventually I found the Wurdalaks, surrounded by Dabilla hound mobs. Sad as it is, it's always exciting to encounter a new mob in FFXI, and fighting Vampyrs for the first time was an experience. These babies were hard! Each one was like an NM, with Dispelling moves, aoe Stun moves with knockback, freakin' aoe Doom moves! Kupipi was quick off the mark with her Cursnas, but either she got Silenced or ran out of MP, but at one point I was spamming holy water, and it wasn't until my Doom counter got to one that it worked!

I did get a Seasoning Stone off the first one, but after completing the book once (so two Wurdalaks in total) and nearly dieing twice, I said sod that and went off to the Ranguemont Pass to fight the Hovering Oculi (Ahriman) mobs, and got a further two Seasoning Stones, but only one Fossilised Bone. This meant I had three Seasoning Stones, three Fossilised Fangs but one Fossilised Bone so still only enough for one Olde Rarab Tail. I was also at the XP cap.

BBK came back from a successful Temenos farming run and suggested we go with his BLU and wail on Akori-Tutori for the two minutes I could freeze him, and after seeing his martial skill on Orthrus yesterday, I knew he could do it! If that wasn't enough Aka logged in and offered herself up as a BLU straight away to help out as well.

Extremely grateful, I traded my items to Degenhard and got my Olde Rarab Tail before getting a spare Soul Gem Clasp and met them in the Waughroon Shrine. We entered the BC and after buffing I charged Akori-Tutori ??? and threw him an Olde Rarab Tail. BBK and Aka then let rip, whilst I poked him with my sword. Before the two minutes were up, Akori-Tutori had been defeated and I was free to sail to L99!

Feeling cheeky, I then asked if they were able to help out on my Rank 9-2 Bastok fight against Zeid. Aka didn't have the Throne Room home point but BBK said he did have a teleport there so I went over and waited for BBK. Unfortunately, his teleport wasn't the home point so he was right at the entrance to Castle Zvahl Keep. I knew the way up, so I ran to meet him and we went up together. I felt good as he was quite grateful for the home point (I don't like asking for help a lot so this made me feel better LOL). However, unfortunately he hadn't done Rank 9-2 Bastok before so only I could enter the Throne Room fight.

Earlier today I'd been able to pick up the Mekira Toshugai, the body piece which complements my Mekira-ota, so I now had the set, with some great stats. Whether it was that or the loads of skill-ups I'd had farming my Olde Rarab Tail items, or a combination of both, but this was a doddle this time! No potions, ethers, Yag drinks or anything, I wiped the floor with Zeid and his shadows, no help needed, so as well as completing my final LB, I also got Rank 10 in Bastok - the first time I'd ever completed a Rank storyline in the nine years I've been playing FFXI. Not bad for a day's work!

L95!

I had hoped to meet with Akasheaa tonight to get some fluxes for Abyssea-Altepa, whatever they are, but I was unable to log on until 8pm, so I think Aka had already logged. Things are pretty busy for me IRL this week and for half of next week so I can't always garuantee that I'll be on early.

I decided to continue levelling, but there were a bunch of L99s in Bostaunieux Oubliette, so for some random reason (maybe cuz it was close) I decided to go to the Zeruhn Mines and level on the Colliery Bats and Veindigger Leeches. It was slower than the Bloodsuckers, but the XP was OK. I had Prishe and Ulmia out for the first time, and noticed that Prishe has an AoE weaponskill and Ulmia doesn't seem to heal or debuff like Joachim, so not sure what advantage there is to having Ulmia out over Joachim. After Prishe aggroed several worms I got a bit bored and decided to leave, but on that kill, I levelled up!

At this point I left and checked the AH - managed to buy a new helm which made me look like a rabbit, the mekira-oto. Hoping to pick up a mekira-toshugai, but I need my stuff to sell for once! It's got to the point where I actually sold my Adaman Gauntlets (the purple PLD gear) to a vendor. I've got 60k rings in my bazaar which will sell for 33k to a vendor so I am tempted. It just seems unthinkable that this stuff is being vendored now, especially as the Sparks rewards are basic stuff.

I then went to Port Jeuno to see if I could find some Ancient Beastcoins - laugh if you will but I really want my Brutal Earring, if only to get back stuff I had on my previous account. However, there were no Ancient Beastcoins in anyone's bazaar - just lots of shanks. I suppose I'll need to farm my own Ancient Beastcoins from Limbus.

Make a Prishe!

I didn't think it would take that long to go around collecting the final CoP cutscenes, especially with the Home Point teleporting which we didn't have back in 'my day' but I was surprised, especially with the wait for the right Manaclipper to come along. Between entering Bibiki Bay and arriving in Purgonorgo Isle, I think it took around 45min? But it was worth it as the CoP storyline was wrapped up (such a deep story, so epic), and I was able to obtain Trust: Prishe for my collection! When Distant Worlds played, it nearly brought a tear to my eye - again!

On the way up to Uleguerand Range, I bumped into Barbaric Weapon in Xarcabard. He surprised me with how difficult he was, spamming Whirl of Rage (preventing casting). He didn't drop the Rover's Gloves though: I do seem to be incredibly unlucky with NM drops as my PLD.

BBK and Aka have been spending a lot of time in Abyssea: Altepa lately, duoing Orthrus as Aka needs one of the drops (a spell?) and BBK suggested we get me the Atheling Mantle, which looks pretty good with its Attack and Double Attack bonus. We've arranged to go and have a bash at him at the weekend. I'm really excited, as I've wanted to do Abyssea properly for so long but haven't had the guts to do it with a PUG, mainly because I know next to nothing about how it works, so to do it with old friends, is fantastic. I also never see Abyssea parties anymore, as I think everyone is in Adoulin.

BBK also wanted to try duoing with me in Rala Waterways beneath Adoulin, so after I finished CoP, I 'ported over to Western Adoulin and we partied up. I'd never been to anywhere beyond Ceizak Battlegrounds or Yahze Hunting Grounds (for GEO/RUN) so I was totally in his hands with where to go or what to do. He led me down a winding path to what looked like a sewer entrance, and in we went - right beneath the city streets.

BBK came as his PUP and we took on the crabs there - two at a time - as he set Kenbishi on one and fought another. Some of the crabs looked different (Barnacled Crabs?), which was nice as it made for some variation. Kenbishi's weaponskills were hitting for over 3k, and BBK's were almost 3k - these crabs were over L100, and I could barely hit them at L94, yet he mowed through them. I was getting over 400 XP a kill, and made around 10-15k in no time, before BBK had to go as he was getting up for work early. Just 5k XP to go until L95!

Prom Night

Massive amount of world 'technical difficulties today', which started with an R-0 in Bostaunieu Oubliette whilst levelling on Bloodsuckers. Couldn't get back in for ages so I checked the forums and eventually messages went up about it being offline.

Got back in around 1pm BST, and noticed that everyone else was logging back in too as the numbers were filling up fast. Shit thing is, my XP had reset so I'd lost half a freakin' level's worth of XP. Had also noticed that I was 40 kills off the Records of Eminence achievement of 200 kills, which I'd got just prior to DCing.

I've never, ever, in the nine years of playing FFXI known XP to be lost following a DC.

Even shitter, is that the server has just gone down again so it will probably happen once more.

Hours later, the problem was resolved and I continued with XPing on Bloodsuckers for a bit before hitting L94 and heading off to Besieged. BBK had agreed to help me out with the Zdei BCNM for CoP 8-2 so he met me in Al'Taieu as his BLU. I still couldn't get through directly to the elevator so we ran around and through the Zdei gauntlet to get in. On the way, we dispatched aggro and BBK was casting spells for over 2k damage!

The Zdei BCNM was hard, even with two of us. Well, BBK took no damage, but I still got knocked into red from the -ga III spells. We managed to do it, or rather, he did whilst I kept myself alive. A few more cutscenes and I was on Promathia's doorstep. I hadn't expected BBK to want to stay around but he wanted to come in to fight Promathia with me. If we'd have known it would have been that easy, he wouldn't have killed it so quick, LOL - we got the record of 2mins, and that was with cutscenes. Honestly, I've never seen a boss drop so quick.

It took us six attempts the first time we did this back in 2007, and I remember it being a long and challenging fight. It was a total anti-climax to CoP but I've done it before in the old days so it was just good to be in a position where I could get my Rajas Ring back, although I have to wait until JP midnight tomorrow to get it. I still managed to get Trust: Ulmia though, which was cool.

BBK disbanded and went AFK, so I went off to continue with my ToAU missions. Made it all the way to Puppet in Peril but that was as far as I got. This was always a fun fight - the one in Jade Sepulcher against Lancelord Gaheel Ja and his Wivre. It was a slow but easy fight to begin with but it started to get very hard when he used his first Flaming Angon.

I'd forgotten that Flaming Angon has a massive defence down effect, making the Wivre's hits go from 0-30 to over 100 before crits. As he got lower and lower in health, he began to spam this move and not even Invincible or Chivalry allowed me to keep up, especially with his regular Cure IVs. I got him to 9% before dying - so another fight I'm going to wait until I'm L99 for.

After that I continued with WotG, and managed to get myself partway through A Manifest Problem before noobishly noobing up outside Castle Oztroja (S) and taking more aggro than I could handle, so I Warped out and logged there for the night.

Just a Quick Trim?

My linkshell, Blue Alliance, has been dead for sometime - or so I thought! I'd equipped it today and Akasheaa was on! Not spoken with Aka in years(?) maybe. Was really good to speak to her again, and after awhile, BBK also popped on. Turns out Aka has been away for some time, and BBK only plays on certain days due to work commitments, so I guess I had just been missing everyone's schedule. Now to see if Sirdante, Cheekee and Teila will come back on it will be like old times.

I began with continuing my Treasures of Aht Urhgan storyline, which involved escorting the Lady Karababa around. Went to the Shararat Teahouse first, then to the Aydeewa Subterrane, and finally to the Navukgo Execution Chamber in Mount Zhayolm. Did this almost the second it came out last time, before guides were written, but today I followed the 'how to get there quickly' guide on the wiki and can't believe how close it is if you take that route!

Khimaira 13 hits really fast and really hard, critting for over 100 on my 92 PLD (speed of hits made curing very hard), but occasionally grows weak, hitting softly and very slowly. Using Invincible and Chivalry, plus a Tav Taco (but no Yagudo Drinks or potions / ethers), I was able to hold out and kept myself alive whilst Lady Karababa nuked it. She finished it off and I was able to complete that leg of the missions - now to wait until JP midnight tomorrow.

With my final LB fight coming up against the Taru, I decided to try my hand at farming the item for the BCNM and also the items for the Olde Rarab Tail. I started off in the Bostaunieu Oubliette on Blind Bats and Panaa Cottas but although the bats were OK with my three BLM Trust Alter-Egos, the Panaa Cottas (slimes) annihilated them using Fluid Toss! Getting a bit frustrated I went to the Dangruf Wadi to try my hand at the Trimmers and Natty Gibbons

Crab mobs are relatively simple to fight, nothing really nasty but the Natty Gibbons have that AoE claw move. I had some very lengthy fights and after an hour or two I only got a Fossilised Fang. It was more frustrating that enjoyable or satisfying but then maybe I'm getting too comfortable on Bloodsuckers in the Oubliette!

Boom! Shake, Shake, Shake Ta-ru!

Wasn't looking forward to Chapter 8 of CoP, mainly because I remembered it took hours getting round the Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi and the Garden of Ru'Hmet with a party back in the day. But I thought I'd give it a go as my L90 PLD and brought along my Trust companions, Luzaf, Ovjang and Kupipi. Thought I'd bring Ovjang because of the buffs many of the Sea mobs have as he can Dispel them.

There was something strange about exploring the Palace without quivering in fear at lots of IT mobs - they were only EP to me allowing me to look around a bit. I couldn't be bothered to Sneak/Invis past them all, and if I remember, many of them are True-Sight/Sound? Anyway, fought my way past those that aggro'd and activated the Quasilumins to open the doors when it was safe. At the end I had to fight the Ix'Ghrah, who was a really easy boss to fight. Went down very easily.

The Garden of Ru'Hmet was harder. There were some DC mobs in here and, of course, the infamous Zdei gauntlets. Zdei are urn-like mobs which rotate. They have two eyes on them (a small and a large one at opposite sides) and you must run past whilst the eyes can't see you or get aggro'd. They're not hard, but just an inconvenience. However, it wasn't until getting aggro'd by the zillionth Zdei that I really got annoyed and looked them up. Amidst the many different opinions, someone had left a gem of knowledge: there is a tiny eye at the top and bottom of the urn - this is it's "true" eye. Lo and behold, there was a tiny eye that you'd never see unless looking for it. This made it a little easier to get past them, but the Zdei gauntlets still caught me out. I had to kill the Zdei, wait for them to respawn and quickly head out the doors.

The 8-2 fight was insane. Going from the Ix'Ghrah to the blue Zdei mobs (2x BLM and 2x RDM) was a steep difficulty curve and I only managed to get one Zdei killed before wiping - I can only stun one mob at a time! That's going to be one for L99 or one to do with a friend. Still, now that I've got my key items, I should be able to go straight to this fight next time I come.

After doing that for a few hours, I returned to Aht Urhgan to participate in a Besieged against the Undead Swarm. We saw them off very quickly and then I decided to go exploring for a bit before logging out. I went into the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins and quickly came across an NM called Boompadu, an Acrolith. I engaged him and managed to get him to around 50% before just running out of MP from his Sinker Drill and Earthshatter (or something). I used a Warp Scroll and left to go fight Bloodsuckers.

Nail in the Coffin

I was determined to beat The Black Coffin fight in Arrapago Reef today, after that frustrating DC the other day, so I spent the morning levelling in the Oubliette before picking up a few Yagudo Drinks and a Pro-Ether +3. I went to Dvucca Isle Staging Point and ran across the Mire to the Reef and entered the battlefield.

Much easier this time! The Crew hardly dented me, and keeping Gessho alive was the only minor annoyance. The only real issue was the Captain's Vulcan Shot, taking huge chunks out of me, but thanks to the Pro-Ether +3 and Chivalry, I was able to keep up enough MP to Cure myself out of trouble!

After I finished the fight, I did all the cutscenes I could before the "wait for JP midnight" barrier and then went to Al'Taieu to gain access to the Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi. I had to travel around Al'Taieu to find the Rubious Crystals, and touching each one spawned three NM Aerns. These were no problem for me, so I dispatched them easily and was able to enter the Palace.

Fit Birds

I had logged out in Caedarva Mire where the Slough Skuas were, Anniversary Ring equipped but I'd forgotten to activate it earlier, so I had to use it and wait an hour for the next charge. Before going to work this morning, I managed to make another four Merit Points, something I'd not seen since the days of duoing Heraldic Imps on Heldiva Isle with Teila.

This time I decided to change camp, moving to the eastern exit from the Skua area as opposed to the southern one near Jazaraat's Headstone. There's more room here between the Marsh Murre that pops on the path, and less chance of links from other Skuas. So again with Shantotto, Gadalar and Ajido-Marujido, I burned through them, for over 1k XP, making them extremely viable mobs for Meriting at L85. Before going to work I remembered to use my Empress Band!

This evening I logged back in and continued to beat up the Skuas. I soon settled into a rhythm of:

Summoning Shantotto, Gadalar and Ajido-Marujido / killing two Skuas / resting / killing two more Skuas / killing the Marsh Murre in the passage / releasing the Alter-Egos / repeat

This method allowed for the least downtime, and helped me to get chain #5s.

Logged out with 12 Merit Points, so I need to make sure that I spend them on uncapping to L95!

A Re-Zeiding Storyline

Today I pressed on with the Bastok rank missions and began with 8-1, The Chains that Bind Us, to search for the Talekeeper Statue in the Quicksand Caves. I don't think I'd ever been to this part of the Caves before, and it was full of weighted doors, so I was thankful I'd recently got my Lodestone.

Examining the Talekeeper Statue popped three Anitcan NMs, which were no match for my Alter-Egos and me, so I finished them off and continued with some very interesting cutscenes about Galka folklore. I sort of have an inkling about what's going on with this storyline but then am not quite sure.

8-2 was pretty straightforward and involved killing three ghosts from Quicksand Caves. There were lots of people there fighting Robber Crabs, so I only had to deal with the Haunts. I cleared the part of the room by the cliff and spawned them. As a PLD they weren't difficult, but they did have a few nasty spells. I liked how the cutscene after explained the presence of so many Haunts in the room.

9-1 was very challenging. I had to go deep into Gustav Tunnel to retrieve some Miraclesalt, and upon examining the ??? I spawned a Gigaplasm. With this mob, when you kill it, it spawns two Macroplasms, then killing them spawn Microplasms, then Nanoplasms (so 15 Mobs in total). I hate slimes anyway (Fluid Toss!), but followed the suggested strategy of killing one branch at a time rather than trying to mow through both. It started off slow and tough but killing each 'layer' of slimes they got weaker, but faster.

Unfortunately I lost most of the party, and in the end it was just Zazarg and myself. I had to use Invincible and Chivalry, then ended up using Sanguine Blade whenever I could just to top up HP. I thought I was going to get aggro from the roaming undead but they left me alone. By the time I had finished off the last Nanoplasm, Zazarg was down to double-figures and I didn't fare much better!

The final mission, Where Two Paths Converge, pitted me against Zeid the Dark Knight in the Throne Room of Castle Zvahl. It was a bit of a trek getting there (nothing like the old days of being low level and getting aggro trying to open every door in the Keep though!) but fortunately there was a nice Home Point by the entrance to the Throne Room so I'll never have to make that run again!

Zeid was a bitch. He hit very hard (60+ with Protect IV, Defender and Tavnazian Taco) and his accuracy was top-notch, critting regularly for over 100. His first form was quite doable, and when I got him down to 70% or 65% life I got a cutscene and Volker joined in. I cast Protect IV on him and rested to full.

As soon as we started fighting Zeid again it all went wrong. He instantly summoned two 'shades' of himself, which hit just as hard and added to Zeid's Stuns, it became impossible to Cure or to Keep up with curing. I got him to 50% before wiping. I either need to level up or try it with NIN sub.

After that I went to Caedarva Mire to pick up another Ephramadian Gold Coin from Jazaraat's Headstone and thought I'd explore a bit. I'd never ventured past the graveyard so I carried on going north and came to a field of Slough Skuas (a type of bird found in a marsh apparently), which checked as VT. I thought I'd give it a go, and summoned Luzaf, Kupipi and Nanaa Mihgo. Got some decent XP from this and thought I'd try to Merit a bit. It was OK but a tad slow, not good without a book really.

I then thought of trying the BLM nuke approach and summoned Gadalar, Shantotto and Ajido-Marujido. The birds went down in a matter of seconds! Managed to get to four Merit Points before logging out and tonnes of skill-ups too!

Trans-mission

I really wanted to progress with the ToAU mission storyline today, as anyone who knows me knows that ToAU has always been my favourite expansion (but then I've never completed most of the mission storylines, so what do I know?).

I went off to Nashmau and headed out into Caedarva Mire to pop Jazaraat, a former Ashu Talif captain bitter about the loss of his fleet. With my Trust Alter-Egos out, I popped him and beat him up to get the Ephramadian Gold Coin key item, which I needed to use as payment to get into the Ashu Talif fight.

With Jazaraat laid to rest, I returned to Whitegate, and then took the Dvucca Isle Staging Point and made my way to the cutter in Arrapago Reef. I then boarded the Ashu Talif and buffed up. I even popped Gessho the Yagudo NPC a Protect IV. The fight went pretty smoothly, with me holding all the aggro and taking little damage. Gessho seemed to jump around the deck, hurling enfeebling magic at the crew rather than meleeing.

After the first wave, the second wave of Fomor crew members appeared, this time with the Ashu Talif Captain, and this is where things went wrong - not because I couldn't handle him, but because my computer lost its bloody internet connection and I was booted out! When I came back I had been killed and had been left lying in an unceremonious heap in Arrapago Reef. Needing another Ephramadian Gold Coin to enter the fight, I left and went to do something else.

I thought I'd give Rise of the Zilart another go, so I headed off to the Quicksand Caves and made my way to the Chamber of Oracles (LOL to the home point just outside). I was nervous about this fight as anything involving multiple mobs that includes a PLD and a BLM is going to cause a problem - if you try to take out the BLM first, you get melee'd by the other two - if you try to take out the PLD first, you spend so long beating it up that the BLM kills you!

This fight was exactly as I feared, and was too much of an MP-sink. I took the PLD first and the BLM indeed nuked me down. After awhile I thought I'd try to kill the BLM first but couldn't Cure fast enough. In the end I warped out.

I then decided to continue with the Bastok Rank missions and my next fight was in the Waughroon Shrine against four Quadav, a WHM, RDM, DRK and WAR. I can't remember the order I took them out in, but this was a very hard yet rewarding fight. I kept up Yagudo Drinks, had a few minor meds from brown treasure caskets and a Tav Taco. I had to use Invincible and Chivalry twice, as this fight took a good portion of the allowed BCNM time. Four mobs means lots of hard-to-time Cures, and I got interrupted on more than one occasion.

Naturally this got easier as I killed them off, but honestly, if it wasn't for Sanguine Blade, my newest weaponskill, I wouldn't have been able to have done this fight. I beat it, but only just!