Dragon and Done It!

I know I refer to milestones a lot in this game, but I don’t think I’ve passed such a big one for a long time. A lot of THFs say that when they get to L60 they are so used to SATA that they find it difficult to separate their SAs and TAs (due to the Trait Assassin) and they need to relearn their job. As I had been using TA on my NPC since L50, even though it was largely ineffective, I was already used to separating my SA and TA by the time I got to 60 so there wasn’t much to relearn.

Then in my mid 60s I learnt to macro gear properly giving myself a melee Build, an Evasion build and a WS build but tonight I got L73 and became able to equip my end-game JSE, the Dragon gear.

For the majority of their careers, THFs are “told” to equip Accuracy for their melee build and at end-game, Accuracy can be forgone to some extent and replaced with Haste and more damage, provided that Dagger is kept capped and Merits are put into it. Of course everyone can do their own thing, but I am a firm believer that a THF shines in its SA or TA plus WSs such as Sneak Attack + Dancing Edge means I can pull off weaponskills of just under 1000 damage on Campaign mobs, and I’m a Taru!

So now that I’m technically end-game, what do I melee in? I cannot afford a Haste build yet, so do I now drop my Accuracy build and go for Attack, as the Dragon Gear has a lot of Attack on it? I am loathe to drop my Store TP gear as I have a total of +9 Store TP on and my TP is rocketing up. Anyway, I also bought a Potent Belt (STR+3, Accuracy +8) to replace my Life Belt and bought an Ecphoria Ring (Accuracy +4, Store TP+1, Cure Amnesia X100 charges) to use until I could get my hands on the Ulthalam’s Ring once I complete ToAU. Although I haven’t finished breaking the latent yet, I have my L73 Dagger, the Heart Snatcher so once I break that, it can replace the Hoplite’s Harpe (my green sickle-shaped dagger). Whilst I like the way the Hoplite’s Harpe looks, I am a sucker for Rare/Ex gear and the more I can get, the more non-Ex gear I can sell back to the AH.

So anyway, I went back into Campaign to try out my new gear and was very impressed with the numbers. Only problem is I now pull hate very easily and need to get my Evasion skilled up to compensate.

After Campaign I was very tired so didn’t speak on the LS but I went with Teila to the Sea Serpent Grotto to get a Coffer Key for Balbir’s SMN. I enjoy putting Treasure Hunter to good use, but ironically the Coffer Key dropped from a Rock Crab that I wasn’t fighting. We soon found a Coffer nearby so Balbir unlocked it to find his Old Gauntlets.

At the same time I noticed an NM lurking by a pool nearby called Worr the Clawfisted. It aggroed me from a reasonable distance, linking in with a couple of Sahagin, so I had to clear the normal mobs out of the way ASAP to concentrate solely on Worr.

As his name might suggest, he was a MNK NM and therefore had lots of HP and attacked twice, meaning my shadows didn’t stay up for long. Due to his level (can’t have been more then L60), I was able to land Bloody Bolts easily so I was able to Drain regularly, and as I had my NPC Yawawa out, I could TA onto her so she could take the hate.

I was pretty tired so I didn’t play to my best and was pressing the wrong macros/forgetting to Drain etc, but it wasn’t too bad, especially when Teila and Balbir caught up with me and assisted. We also got the drop, a L60 pair of Hand-to-Hand weapons for MNK, which were pretty good.

You can watch the fight here.

Balbir then returned to Jeuno to try to put a party together for Dark Spark whilst Teila and I stayed a little longer to see if the other NMs were up and sure enough the second of the three behind the Mythril Door was there, Pahh the Gullcaller. Pahh was much easier and the two of us took her down in half the time, again getting the drop, a Rare/Ex icy-blue Polearm which has a hidden effect of allowing you to eat raw fish even if you are not a Mithra.

You can watch the fight here.

We tried to find the third NM which drops a nice Rare/Ex Dagger (I need more Daggers for capped events) but despite trying to pop it by clearing the Sahagin, didn’t appear. There was another THF running round who may have got the claim before we were there.

Falling asleep at the keyboard, I logged out in the Grotto to see if he was there next time I logged in.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Having not played since Wednesday today was a Campaign blitz, but even then I didn’t get on until the early evening due to other commitments. The weather in England at the moment is stiflingly hot and the heat in the room where my PC sits makes playing for extended periods uncomfortable.

I made around 11k in Campaign, but BBK, without my asking him, or without any kind of prompting, took off to Valkurm Dunes to camp the Valkurm Emperor, which, as many of you probably know, drops the famous Empress Hairpin, a Rare/Ex version of the Emperor Hairpin.

In the “old days”, prior to the implementation of SE’s Special Task Force Unit (STFU) which were set up to tackle RMT issues, most NMs dropped sellable items such as Argus and his Peacock Charm, Lord of Onzozo and the Kraken Club etc. Valkurm Emperor was no exception and he only dropped the quite-sellable Emperor Hairpin. During those times, the Emperor was so heavily camped that no one could get a look in, and as a result I had to farm 3.5mil Gil to pay for mine (but it was easier to make money in those days too as due to the inflation, you could farm anything and sell it for decent Gil.

Anyway, since the STFU got involved, SE have made it so many of these NMs now drop Rare/Ex versions of these items, which means Gilsellers cannot profit from them. Argus now drops the Peacock Amulet, Lord of Onzozo now drops the Octave Club, and Valkurm Emperor now drops the Empress Hairpin. As I am approaching L73, when I can equip the Dragon head piece, I was tempted to sell my Emperor Hairpin to make some money, and BBK reminded me that with the Empress Hairpin being a Rank 4 prize in the new lottery, the price of the Emperor Hairpin will plummet, so best to sell it now.

He was there for around an hour, or maybe an hour and a half when I couldn’t take it anymore. I was so unfair that he camped a Hairpin for me whilst I gained XP in Campaign so I left and went to the Dunes to meet him, making sure I brought my Thief’s Knife to improve the drop rate. Within five minutes of me being there the Valkurm Emperor popped and BBK got the claim. I ran over and joined in, and we annihilated it in seconds, getting the drop first time! That makes 1/1 on Leaping Lizzie and now 1/1 on Valkurm Emperor.

So now I have a nice new piece of Rare/Ex head gear that I can macro in for my Evasion build or use for lower level jobs, and I won’t (or rather can’t) be tempted to sell it!

Thanks mate!^^

I Love Rock n' Troll

One of the first quests I obtained from Whitegate on the day that ToAU came out was to assess the weaknesses of the ToAU Beastmen and to report my findings back to the guards, so that they can launch an effective assault on them.

In over two years I had not even begun to attempt this quest but I had accepted a quest to investigate the Mamool Ja. Teila on the other hand, had accepted a quest to investigate the Trolls, and this involved popping a Troll PUP NM called a Speculator on Mount Zhayolm. This one is pretty tough to solo, even for a L75 RDM (as the Automaton hits very hard), so I agreed to help her.

The idea was that as the Troll double-hits (Hand-to-Hand), it would eat through my shadows (I still don’t have Ni), so Teila was to solo the Troll whilst I kite the Automaton until the Troll was defeated. So we popped the NM and out he came with no Automaton. At this point we both duo’d the Troll.

Eventually he summoned his Automaton (a PLD) and I switched targets to get its attention, whereupon I began kiting it around Mount Zhayolm.

I switched to my Evasion build and everything went really well for some time until my shadows went down a bit sooner than normal and my timer wasn’t up yet. I just completely lost the flow and no matter what I couldn’t get Utsusemi up again. Hit down into red (over 100 a punch), I had to Flee into Halvung.

When I came back out Teila had the hate of both, and because she began Curing me back up it became difficult to peel it off her. As a result I ended up meleeing it alongside her and although I was able to knock it down substantially, I couldn’t evade its attacks and I went down when it had a sliver of life left.

Fortunately, Teila finished off the Speculator at this point but to our horror the Automaton didn’t vanish. Teila was in red life at this point so I Reraised up and Trick Attacked her to take it down quick – we finished off both with around 50hp or less.

This fight was very hard to duo, mainly because of the Automaton and for the fact that the Troll regularly used Rock Smash on Teila to Petrify her, meaning she could not reapply Utsusemi or Stoneskin. I filmed it from start to finish and although the whole fight too around 15 minutes I had to cut it down to just over nine for YouTube.

You can watch the fight here.

After that it was the usual slog in Campaign for an hour or two before logging for the night.

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.

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.

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!