Travels in Vana'diel

Roc Stars

2009-06-28T17:58:00.002-04:00

Roc takes a beating.

vaguely seem to recall a time when Roc was a regularly-hunted HNM on our server. I remember being dragged out to Sauromugue Champaign during my failed membership in Notorious Hunters and standing around with my thumb up my tarutaru ass while another linkshell claimed and killed it. Oh, the excitement! Now that Roc has been stripped of its Healing Staff and the gil it could bring in, the great bird can barely get arrested.

Neyla and I were back on the Campaign trail today, mostly focusing on Windurst areas and making trips to the Necropolis. The latter area is hit-or-miss, because at one point we were fighting -- or rather, whacking ineffectually at -- a gnole that was healing much faster than we were damaging.

By far the worst experience was in Garlaige Citadel, but only because we couldn't find the fucking NPC to start the battle. We know where it's located when Windurst controls the region, but the prick was hidden away in a storeroom this week. On the positive side, we were able to kill a steady stream of imps for impressive numbers with minimal effort. I could get used to that.

While we were doing that, Khrystal sent out a message over the linkshell asking if we wanted to help kill Roc. I missed the first message because I was making a sandwich, but I wasn't too excited when I read the follow-up invite. I was ready to log out and didn't feel like getting involved... but I did.

Khrystal was trying to duo Roc at first, but there were five of them teamed up and mostly dead when Neyla and I emerged from the Citadel. They seemed a little low on firepower. One had to leave because he'd deleveled and lost the ability to equip his sword. We partied up and killed it. The Dryad Staff didn't drop; I wouldn't mind having one for those rare times I'm on White Mage, but I would've passed anyway when there are others who could make more use of it.

Change of Venue

2009-06-23T14:20:00.001-04:00

Fighting imps in the Necropolis is new to me.

did a few hours of Campaign after work with Neyla, climbing closer and closer to than magical ninth merit point and STR upgrade.

Despite the changes made to the Campaign teleport NPCs a few months back, I've never taken advantage of them to do the battles inside Garlaige Citadel, the Crawler's Nest, or Eldieme Necropolis. Old habits die hard. That changed today. I usually follow Neyla from battlefield to battlefield, and he chose the necropolis at one point.

It's a very different vibe in the past, without all the ruin and decay of the present-day version. Sadly, the main enemy there seems to be comprised of the hated orcs. The few I fought didn't use Orcish Counterstance so I could beat myself into brain trauma, but I'm sure that was just luck.

Demoted

2009-06-21T14:18:00.003-04:00

Bleh.

Campaigning again in Meriphitaud.

I popped online to do some Campaign Ops on Warrior and was told my medal had expired. That's not unusual, but the difference is this time when I went for an evaluation they actually took the medal away from me. I lost my Wings of Honor badge. How lame is that?

Busted down a rank, I did the supply run and then flagged the escort. Neyla didn't log on until later in the evening, past the point where I'd already figured he wasn't logging on at all. We did the escort -- I dinged 51 on Warrior -- and then did some Campaign battles.

I need a few more merit points for my next STR upgrade, and then I'll try to get my medal back.

Mog Bonanza Results

2009-06-16T10:13:00.003-04:00

I've

I won a statue of Fafnir for my moghouse.

been away on vacation for a week, so I haven't gone near Vana'diel. I'd completely forgotten about the Mog Bonanza lottery, but the results thread at QCDN prompted me to log on and see how I fared. I didn't bother playing on the mules -- I would've been frustrated to win a super-uber-awesome prize on a mule and then be unable to transfer it to my main character -- so I only had ten chances to win.

I won a Rank 5 prize, which I used to obtain a statue of Fafnir for my moghouse. I can't complain, because I didn't win anything the last time they did this.

The winning Rank 1 number was 19367. Crumpet, who used to play on our server, had a marble with 19368. Poor thing. That's when I'd have to cancel my subscription and move to the jungle to spend the rest of my days living in a hut far from technology's heathen embrace.

Warrior AF: Collecting the Goods

2009-06-03T14:31:00.005-04:00

I'd

Neyla fought the Shadow Dragon during my run through Xarcabard.

tried to flag my Warrior AF hands quest yesterday morning, but it turns out I still had an active hands quest for Monk. Lucky for me, the old gauntlets were in the Crawler's Nest and I already had a key. When I got home from work last night, I logged on and ran for the nest as Monk to find and pop the coffer. I needed another key, and it dropped from the third mob in the back room.

Neyla came out as Warrior, and I found the next coffer so he could pop it and obtain the Fighter's Mask.

Before logging out, we went to Behemoth's Dominion to fight three goblins. Neyla kited the White Mage and Ranger while I focused on the Thief. It was a fun little fight, and I saved Hundred Fists for the last mob.

We were supposed to see a movie before work today, but I figured I could at least pop on long enough to fight Dark Spark and possibly flag the Warrior version of the same quest. Neyla called to cancel, but said he'd log onto the game awhile.

Instead of spreading the quests out over consecutive nights, we managed to knock out the rest of our AF in about two hours. We took turns babysitting each other. The Crawler's Nest coffer was back in the dragonfly room, so he had to fight the mobs for me. We lucked out in the necropolis because both coffers popped on the upper level.

Castle

My taru mannequin is a sexy Warrior beast.

Zvahl was trickier, of course. I escorted Neyla around first, and we dropped down the goblin and quadav chutes before I thought to check the center area where you can see four pop points at once. That's where we found the coffer. Neyla didn't have a warp scroll, but he had a buffer and used to to bloodport out. I fought off an ahriman and then warped out behind him.

My escort through Castle Zvahl was almost cut short by a UPS deliveryman who buzzed my door as I was heading for the goblin area. Neyla had scouted ahead and found the coffer while I waited in the small tunnel between maps. I was on my way to join him when the buzzer went off. I was able to sign for my package and run back up the stairs two at a time get to to my PC before things took an unfortunate turn.

Naturally, we dumped the armor into NPC storage before we logged out. That makes six sets for me and seven for Neyla.

Warrior AF: The Key Farming

2009-05-31T13:50:00.001-04:00

I'm

We kill a Crawler Hunter in the Crawler's Nest.

obviously no stranger to coffer key farming, but there are a few areas that fill me with dread because the mobs tend to be stubborn about giving me what I need. One of those areas is the Necropolis. Neyla and I did the escort and then dropped down to the lower levels to do battle with ghosts, shadows and bones.

Shockingly, they gave us two keys almost immediately. We only had to do one lap.

That was the pattern for the rest of the day. We left the Necropolis and ran for the Crawler's Nest. We cleared the chamber with the Crawler Hunters and Knight Crawler, earning the first key almost immediately, and then got a second from the first round of re-pops.

The one I actively hated was Castle Zvahl, but that's just because the constant running and stair-climbing is as obnoxious as a galka's chili farts. The only saving grace was I was largely on auto pilot and following Neyla while I watched Seinfeld DVDs.

We claimed our escort scrolls and finished up by hitting Palborough Mines to fight Ni'Ghu Nestfender in his egg chamber (I always wondered what the ??? was for) and then traveled to Castle Oztroja to get Parasite Skins from the leeches in the upper pool.

We plan to finish the Warrior AF quests this week and then focus on Campaign awhile.

Warrior Ring Charge

2009-05-28T13:48:00.001-04:00

Ah,

Fighting more goblins.

Warrior. I never seriously thought I'd have you any higher than 37 for a subjob, and now here you are... reaching the AF-quest levels.

Nothing too spectacular from an adventuring perspective today, I suppose. Neyla and I went to the desert to burn off an Empress Band charge. We did three rounds of Fields of Valor while we were there and managed to get to Lv. 50.

Our next step will be questing the Warrior Artifact Armor. I have no clue if any of it is worth using -- the upside of leveling jobs outside of the conventional party system is a complete lack of concern about having "good" gear -- but I'll quest it just the same. If nothing else, my mannequin can show it off before I sink it into NPC storage.

Sandsick

2009-05-24T15:02:00.002-04:00

We're

I've got sand in my shorts from all this desert living.

getting really sick of the desert. After we finished the escort and Neyla suggested we shoot for Lv. 49 on our Warrior jobs, he said he was going to look up a new camp. Unfortunately, nothing looked good. We trekked back out onto the sand.

We did the normal rounds of antican fighting, but then we advanced to Page 4 to fight goblins. That was pretty cool, actually. The goblins all roam near the outpost, so you're near a Field Manual when you need to renew buffs. I don't know if we'll be doing any more sessions there or moving on, but it didn't suck too bad.

Of course, I was watching Seinfeld DVDs at the time. That's enough entertainment to keep the urge to curse the sands at bay.

In other news, Neyla forwarded his player stats to me.

"PLD and Campaign have a lot to do with the KOs at this point," he pointed out.

Chat Frequency: 318,598
Conversations with NPCs: 74,903
Parties Joined: 1,913
Alliances Joined: 238
Battles Fought: 79,275
Number of Times KO'd: 1,432
Enemies Defeated: 51,200
GM Calls Made: 1

Want to See My Crysknife?

2009-05-17T12:08:00.011-04:00

Adventuring

We had to fight a desert manticore.

has been sporadic at best. Neyla and I have popped on after work a few times to burn through some Fields of Valor pages, but that's it. Today was our first full day of gaming in weeks, and it felt pretty good to be able to cut loose and kill stuff without having to worry about sleeping or getting ready to go to work.

We were at Lv. 44 on our Warriors when we started, this time crossing over to the Western Altepa Desert do tackle the first page. We had to kill seven Desert Spiders and three Antican Essedarii, which are Ranger-type monsters. It wasn't too bad, although the spider poison was a little more potent than the eastern variety.

We did three rounds of that before hitting the necropolis for the escort, and then returned to the Eastern Altepa Desert to try Page 4 of the Field Manual. We had to kill five Antican Decuriones (Paladin), two Antican Saggitarii (Ranger), two Antican Speculators (Black Mage), and the pièce de résistance, a Lesser Manticore. Those were trickier because they hit harder and because there were undead and goblins roaming all over the place. I thought the Decurio ants would be a big hassle, but they hit like infants.

"The next set of jobs we get in this range," Neyla added as we were dodging mobs, "we're going to level somewhere else."

I agreed. The desert has provided a lot XP lately, but I've spent so much time there I'm ready to turn Fremen and start worshipping Shai-Hulud.

Neyla

Death Scissors sucks even at lower levels.

was using an Empress Band for the workout, but I used my Anniversary Ring. I'd just learned the moogle in Windurst was giving out fresh ones, and I still had two charges on last year's ring to burn through. As a result, I got ahead of Neyla pretty fast. He's probably going to stop working on Warrior when he hits 50, but I'll probably keep leveling it while teamed with his Ranger. I'm tempted to try leveling Dancer or Puppetmaster again.

Speaking of Anniversary Rings, the moogle relayed some gaming stats before he forked it over:

Chat Frequency: 298,611
Conversations with NPCs: 76,127
Parties Joined: 2,127
Alliances Joined: 266
Battles Fought: 52,427
Number of Times KO'd: 931
Enemies Defeated: 29,668
GM Calls Made: 2

Kibbles and Bits

2009-05-06T12:03:00.004-04:00

I can barely play one character with any degree of skill, so I can't imagine the mental gymnastics required to play two characters at the same time. There are some psychotics -- like Neyla's taru adoptee Pandorda -- who could skillfully play three at once. That way lies insanity for mere mortals.

Today

The Beastmaster gigas were problematic.

Neyla and I helped Sneakypants get his other character Kibble through the dragon fight for Rank 3. I'd logged out in the desert, so it seemed best for me to simply run through Korroloka to meet them in Bastok. I almost got killed along the way when one of the gigas Beastmasters noticed me and attacked. It wouldn't have been so bad, but his pet spider linked the local wildlife. I managed to survive, but it was touch-and-go for a few minutes. I got attacked by another gigas near the end of the tunnel, but he was far enough away from the other spiders that it didn't matter as much.

The dragon fight wasn't too bad. Sneaky and I were on Monk, which gave us a definite advantage. Neyla tanked the dragon for us. Unfortunately, it opened with a nasty breath attack and Sneaky wasn't so great at healing other people while controlling multiple characters. We were KO'd, but we'd done enough damage that he was able to win the fight. Conscious or unconscious, I love doing that fight.

Late-Night Desert Dwellers

2009-05-04T14:22:00.001-04:00

The

Beetle evasion kinda sucks.

gaming is still sporadic at best, but Neyla and I have carved out small bits of regularity from our new evening shift. We're basically hopping online around 1 a.m., depending on what time we reach our respective homes. I've popped on a few mornings as well, but it's hard to get into a game when the shadow of work hangs over you. You go into it just knowing that you'll have to leave soon. It blows, but it's better than being unemployed.

At any rate, we've been hitting the desert and working our way through the Field Manual training regimens. We started out killing spiders, moved our way up to beetles and the anticans clustered near the Titan entrance of the Quicksand Caves, and then started roaming to kill dhalmels.

The desert is a busy place at night, that's for sure. There are always people killing things near the Korroloka Tunnel entrance, but we rarely saw them roaming out very far.

The only time we came close to dying was when we fought a Sabotender. It was a little green pushover until it decided to hit us with the dreaded 1,000 Needles attack I'd managed to forget it had. He knocked us into the red, but we recovered quickly. As I've said so many times, fighting as /DNC is almost like cheating.

When we finished tonight's two-round session, we were about 2k away from hitting 44. It won't take long to finish that off. I haven't checked to see what the other Field Manual pages require, so I don't know if we're high enough.

In

Anticans make for entertaining battles.

other leveling news, Neyla started working on Ranger the other day. He bought some lowbie gear from the NPCs in Port Windurst and shot arrows at monsters in West Sarutabaruta until he'd reached Lv. 11. He knew Ranger defense was lousy, but now he's realizing just how bad it is because he can't take a hit worth a damn. If his Ranger teams up with my Warrior, I'll definitely have my tanking work cut out for me.

We're off work Wednesday, so we're going to help Sneakypants' mule get through the low-rank Dragon fight before heading off to see Wolverine.

Old Man of the Desert

2009-04-24T13:09:00.002-04:00

I've

Giant Spiders are good prey.

been online for small snatches of time this week, still trying to figure out when I want to do my gaming under my new work schedule. I've just been focusing on Warrior, catching up to Neyla for some eventual duo action.

The recent addition of Field Manuals to the Altepa Desert have been very handy in that regard. I used the one at the Korroloka Tunnel zone. The first page calls for the deaths of ten Giant Spiders, all of which checked as Easy Prey. Using Dancer as my subjob, I was never in danger of dying. I just hacked at their legs and claimed my bonus xp. I tossed in a few beetles for good measure, but mostly I just took it easy and cruised my way to hitting 40 this morning.

I hit Bastok and flagged the Artifact Armor quest for my Razor Axe. It involves finding some axe grip materials in Davoi -- at the same area where I recently died in the past to the much stronger mobs -- by clicking on a tent flap and killing two orcs. They were pushovers since I went as Monk.

I have to track down my Lv. 40 gear soon. I imagine most of my Beastmaster stuff will work, since it's likely just going to be me and Neyla as a duo. If I were going full-blown professional Warrior, I'd be using my Great Axe all the time and trying to keep my skill capped. Somehow I don't think it's going to be an issue.

Mazes and Monsters

2009-04-20T11:55:00.002-04:00

Neyla and I have been moved to the evening shift at our job, which will no doubt impact our gaming a bit. This week is transitional, where he's still working mornings, so we only have about two hours of overlap if we wanted to do any serious running around in Vana'diel. Next week we'll be on the same hours, so it's just a matter of figuring out when we want to play. It's going to take some getting used to.

Since

My maze was full of beetles.

I had nothing better to do this morning, I finally tried Moblin Maze Mongers. I'd acquired the basic starter kit last week, but this was my first time going in. I knew I couldn't win by myself -- "Don't die too much like a bitch," Neyla told me as he was logging off yesterday -- but I wanted to see what it looked like. Hell, I wasn't even sure what mobs I'd face.

They were beetles, as it turned out. The first four or five near the entrance were all Decent to me. I killed them easily enough, but then I was faced with an Even and a Tough standing together and obviously ready to link, so I used the compass to warp out.

The mobs scale to the lowest member of the party, so I told Neyla I'd probably drag him in there on a lowbie job to make it easy for me to farm the marbles and assorted goodies to add to the customization levels. It'd make a nice playground for us to duo in at some point. I can see why the update added a bribe to keep people from using it every day.

Crystalline Quests

2009-04-19T11:09:00.001-04:00

Neyla and I did the first quest of "Crystalline Prophecy" on Thursday, farming Seedspall items from the yagudo, quadav, and orcs in present-day zones. We usually had competition, which made it a little frustrating. There's a nifty cutscene in Qufim Island when they're gathered.

Today

The mandragora fight was absurdly easy.

was much easier. We met in Batallia Downs for the escort, and it turns out the first item we needed drops from the mobs in that zone. It's a little lame in that the key item goes to a random person in the party, so I got it from one of his mobs, etc.

We did the escort before traveling to Rolanberry Fields. There's a heavy goblin concentration near the Crawler's Nest, so that's where we farmed. Items in hand, we traveled through the nest and back outside to fight a goblin NM. Man, that was a seriously weak-sauce monster. The other two goblins were also easy, although we had to travel through Beaucedine Glacier to reach the rear entrance of Batallia Downs for one and then use the Cavernous Maw to reach the Sauromugue fight.

From there, it was off to Qufim Island for a battle against mandragoras. They were weaker than the goblins, usually dying to a single punch. We had to kill 30 of them, which took no time at all.

We finished up with the quest "Those Who Lurk in Shadows," which takes place in Fei'yin. That one was trickier, since you have to gather nine Seed Afterglows scattered throughout the dungeon. We ran out of time on our first attempt, but Neyla found a handy walkthrough which explained the mission structure and locations of the afterglows. We're ready to do the fight in the Qu'bia Arena when we have a fully party available.

While running through Fei'yin, we encountered a MNK/DNC named Apachie doing battle with the ghost for Beastmaster AF. He wasn't winnning, so Neyla invited him into our party and we beat it down for him. As Neyla said, we couldn't leave a BST hanging.

The Fortification Nerf

2009-04-15T10:53:00.001-04:00

The

Neyla and I took the bones while Shmedley tanked the Weapon.

latest update had an unfortunate effect on Campaign: attacking the Fortification now gives a paltry amount of XP. A typical round of punches would bring in at least 1-2k, but now it's more like 80. Ugh. I understood it when they nerfed the /BRD song spam because those leeches weren't contributing to the fight, but now they've taken away any incentive I had to punch a fort. When that part of the battle comes along, I'll leave and look for mobs elsewhere.

I don't think the mobs are giving as much XP, either. It's harder to tell, since the fights tended to be kind of short today.

We finally left Campaign and decided to retire our Delkfutt Keys by getting the new key item replacement. We anticipated having to ride up to the top and killing the gigas NM all over again, but we only had to unlock the door and walk through. Handy, if a bit disappointing.

We ended up climbing the tower anyway to do Neyla's AF fight for Dark Knight. Shmedley came along, since there are three mobs and it seemed best to split them up. He fought the Gerwitz's Scythe weapon while Neyla and I fought the Scythe Victim skeletons. It was an easy fight. We had a harder time just getting back down to the first floor, ha-ha.

Goblin Belt

2009-04-12T05:37:00.002-04:00

I started my day by watching the big battle cutscene at Fort Karugo-Narugo for the latest Windurst mission and was immediately blown away. Seeing a mithra with a handful of grenades going after a bunch of demons is awesome to say the least. I'm now ready for the big fight against the demons and ahriman when we can get some people together.

Windurst

Neyla and I killed Ranger goblins in Rolanberry Fields and Batallia Downs.

lost control of most of the past zones, so I did my Campaign Ops as Warrior by setting off bombs at the tower in Sarutabaruta. Between that and the escort, I dinged 38. Neyla hit 40 on Warrior when he used his escort scroll, so we'll probably start duoing some levels in the next week or two.

With the escort out of the way, we started farming for the Goblin Mess Tin. I can see why he was getting so frustrated on Friday. There's a lot of running around to get from one spawn to the other. We ran from one end of Rolanberry Fields [S] to the other with no luck and switched to Batallia Downs [S]. There were more goblins and they were clustered a little closer together, but it was still annoying. Add to the mix another duo who was killing every goblin in sight, and it was easy to get fed up with the entire mess.

We finally retreated to Jeuno and bought the damned things.

Bastok's storyline is the one with the least emotional resonance for me, but I like the reward from the new "Quelling the Storm" quest. It's a Goblin Belt that gives you a goblin costume. I love stuff like that. It's too much to hope they'd give us a Yagudo Belt at some point. The quest involved a lot of running around Vunkerl, but it was more time-consuming than dangerous. Again, I'm ready for the fight when we can get some people together.

The Long March North Begins

2009-04-10T05:35:00.003-04:00

More Leckho is a good thing.

was late logging on because I had maintenance guys streaming in and out of my apartment to fix the water leak from the shower in the apartment above mine. I wanted to start the new Windurst quests for Wings of the Goddess, and I got a cutscene as soon as I zoned out of the Moghouse in Windurst Waters [s]. I'm biased, but I love the Windy storyline and think it's the best of the three. The drumbeat of war continues to sound as the troops are massing for a march on Xarcabard.

For today's quest, I had to help smoking-hot manthra Lehko Habhoka acquire a few items to destroy the beastmen's armor. There are a few places you can be asked to check, so naturally I was given La Vaule. Ugh. I knew the general area to search, but I managed to get myself killed trying to find the New-Turned Earth. With all the Campaign mobs walking around, I didn't notice the imps who attacked me, knocked off my buffs, and exposed me to the tigers stalking around. The return trip was much better, and I got what I needed.

Neyla was killing goblins the entire time I was running around. The new Bastokan quest requires a Goblin Mess Tin, which only drops off the Ranger goblins in a few zones around the Jeuno of the past. The mobs are spread out and the drop rate is terrible, so it's no surprise the tins are selling for $40k at the auction house. I promised I'd help him farm on Sunday

The Update

2009-04-08T05:34:00.004-04:00

"Crystalline Prophecy: Ode to Life Bestowing" launched today.

didn't play the game today. Neyla and I ran out to the mall after work and then played a bunch of Peggle on the Xbox, but I logged on long enough to download the big update. In addition to all the new Wings of the Goddess quests and the launch of the Crystalline Prophecy: Ode to Life Bestowing scenario, there are a lot of nifty extras. A few highlights:

* Field Manuals were added to a ton of new areas, including Altepa Desert, Zi'Tah, the jungles, and Behemoth's Dominion.

* The teleportation service in past Vana'diel requiring payment in Allied Notes has been expanded to cover the following destinations: Garlaige Citadel [s] / Crawlers' Nest [s] / Eldieme Necropolis [s]

* The following job abilities have been added: White Mage gains Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Misery, Sacrifice, Cura, Esuna, and Auspice. Red Mage gains Composure and new En- spells.

* The "Augment" system has been added.

* New Gobbiebags and the Mog Satchel provide even more storage.

* Mannequins now give 28 storage. I'm retiring my Hume and Elvaan mannequins as a result.

* The Delkfutt key may now be obtained as a Key Item.

A solid update, as far as I'm concerned. I'm rarely on White Mage except to travel around, so I won't get much use out of the new abilities. I'm glad they finally adjusted the level requirements of Raise II/Reraise II and Raise III/Reraise III so you can learn them both at the same time. It never made sense to have them spread out.

What's The Deal?

2009-04-07T05:27:00.002-04:00

Neyla

What's the deal with this dragon in Fort Karugo-Narugo?

and I did the escort yesterday, but I had other stuff I wanted to do and logged out shortly after. I was back at it yesterday and today, jumping into Campaign with renewed gusto.

I noticed a sleeping dragon in Fort Karugo-Narugo. I'm not sure why it's behind the tower. Is it a glitch? Does it wake up and join the fray every so often? It's very strange.

It seemed like we were heavier on NM assaults for some reason. The battlefield in Sauromugue was a little understaffed and we were low on tanks. The only way we could bring down Yaa Haqa the Pious was to wade in for some damage, die, wait for weakness to wear, and then hit him again. He killed me at one point with freakin' Feather Storm, which hit me for 616 damage. Very sad.

Another high point (or low point, depending on your point of view) came during a fight in Fort Karugo-Narugo. There were only three peoples -- the two of us and a stray Ranger -- against the Shadowfang Voids. Neyla went to pull but came back with two elementals. Splitting our efforts made for a long, protracted battle which we eventually lost. I'm pleased that I mananaged to solo mine down to around 40% of its health before it killed me, though. Other players eventually filtered in, but it was too late. We could've won with two or three more damage dealers, I think.

We had another fight there against the gigas. That same Ranger from earlier was trying to drum up support for a run at Kaiser Behemoth, but he didn't get any takers. Neyla pulled Eurytos instead. The fight was going well until the monster used Eagle Eye Shot and dropped me with 1,615 damage. Ouch.

We

We rarely do fights in Batallia Downs.

also strayed outside of our comfort zone to do a fight in Batallia Downs. I tend to avoid San d'Orian zones like Jugner and Vunkerl Inlet because, seriously, screw the orcs. Fighting them is pure misery because of Orcish Counterstance, which always results in me punching myself to death. The Batallia Downs fight was no exception.

We killed plenty of mobs, but it eventually came down to just the final NM boss. I checked the campaign map and saw some Windurst zones were under attack and suggested we abandon the elvaan to their fate because, again, screw the orcs.

Tomorrow is the big update, so I doubt I'll be online. Hopefully I'll be back in there Thursday, because I'm closing in on a sixth merit point and would like to be able to do another Strength update soon.

Best Duo Ever

2009-04-04T18:41:00.004-04:00

Neyla and I logged on a little yesterday to try some Campaigns, but we just weren't in the mood. Neyla died almost immediately in Sauromugue and quickly gave up to hit Gustav to camp that Goblin NM for the Ortheus Bow. He's been toying with leveling Ranger, and figured having the bow would be a strong motivator. It was just one of those days when neither of us felt like playing. I logged out and spent the rest of the evening having a Smallville marathon.

On the positive side, this morning Otak sent me a link to a new pic at her DeviantArt gallery of me and Neyla on our respective Beastmaster and Red Mage jobs. I think I look significantly more badass in this one than the last, so I'm happy.

"Best Duo Ever," by Otak.

Falsey

2009-04-01T18:31:00.001-04:00

Falseprophet

I do very well against this Campaign NM in Grauberg.

was in Campaign today and partied up with me and Neyla awhile. I hadn't seen Falsey in ages, so it was good to hang out with him. He was playing back when Neyla and I first started.

We didn't do anything spectacular, other than Campaign. We had a nasty moment in Fort Karugo-Narugo when some douchebag Paladin tried to solo a Shadoweye Gnat near us and died, which doubled our trouble and got us killed. Falsey had slept the gnats before he went down, so he reraised and dashed off. A Summoner who'd been fighting beside us popped up and quickly raised Neyla.

Wyvern Retirement

2009-03-31T05:45:00.000-04:00

Fighting in Passhow Marshlands [S].

was a little late logging on yesterday, so Neyla was already doing Campaign battles when we partied up. I was on Dragoon, inching closer and closer to 75. In fact, I was only 600xp away from it when we stopped doing the fights for another round of key farming in the Necropolis. I'm happy to say we finally got the damned key.

We went around popping coffers and working on Neyla's Dark Knight AF this afternoon. The Monastic Caverns weren't bad, but the Necropolis coffer was a headache. We had to enter through the glacier to find it.

Oztroja was also annoying because an AF-seeking Bard was up there by himself, unable to get through the door on his own and clearly hoping we'd open the door so he could dash through and claim the coffer. Neyla wasn't in the mood to compete -- "He has two strikes against him," Neyla said. "He's elvaan and he's a Bard." -- and warped out, so we focused on the other stuff he needed. The Bard logged out soon after.

We hit Beadeaux to farm some Quadav Mage Blood from the Topaz Quadav. Actually, we hit it twice because we made some job changes when we saw they were Easy Prey to 75s. I think we killed a dozen before the item dropped. We followed up by killing Dark Spark and then returning to Oztroja to pop the now-accessible coffer.

I also did my Campaign ops to ding 75 on Dragoon, effectively retiring it.

In other news, I dropped six merit points into another Strength upgrade. The next one requires nine points. That'll take me awhile.

They Are Stubborn Pricks

2009-03-29T05:42:00.002-04:00

Neyla and I farm a coffer key in Davoi.

addition to our Sunday escort, Neyla and I went farming for his Dark Knight AF coffer keys today. The yagudo in Castle Oztroja were very helpful and didn't even make us clear out the entire top floor before handing over what we needed. Davoi was a little more annoying, but only because we eventually gained a little competition from a Ninja.

But the necropolis again... oy. I want to go on record and say the Haunts, Spriggans and Tomb Mages and Warriors are stubborn, selfish pricks. We looped around that circuit several times and never got a key. I popped an Empress Band when we started and we'd burned through the charge before giving up in disgust.

I don't know what's in the coffer that they're so keen to keep us out, but it can't be that great.

In Recovery

2009-03-27T05:34:00.003-04:00

Bleh.

Shmedley and I kill the Chandelier.

I was sick as a dog for a few days, so jumping into Vana'diel was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to curl up under the blankets and shiver while simultaneously burning with fever. Fun combo! I was finally back into it today, doing a few Campaign battles with Neyla so I could upgrade STR again.

We went after the last piece of Neyla's Dragoon AF today, too. He asked Shmedley to help us with the fight in the Temple of Uggalepih, and I reminded Neyla to Sneak pull the fomor so we wouldn't have a repeat of the nastiness from last time. The fight was a cinch; Neyla was able to put the gear into NPC storage when he got back to Windurst.

Since we were partied up, we helped Shmedly with a piece of Thief gear he needed in Garlaige Citadel. We had to fight a bomb -- the same one we helped Crookedmidget kill a few months ago -- and got the pull right on the first try so we weren't standing around for ages.

All Your Jeuno Are Belong to Us

2009-03-22T05:44:00.005-04:00

Cernunnos hits hard.

spent the weekend at my parents' house, hanging out and sleeping and not doing much of anything except going to my sister's house for dinner on Saturday. When I got home this afternoon, I logged on to flag the escort and try to knock out some Campaign Ops before Neyla came on.

We hit the Necropolis and earned our scroll, but we stuck around to farm a coffer key down below. The undead were stubborn as hell, and an hour or so of monk-on-bones violence did little to change their disposition. We called our NPCs twice -- I wanted the protective buffs -- and eventually had to leave for a fight Neyla had scheduled.

He'd been talking to a tarutaru named Rari about the Wings of the Goddess mission we're on, "Daughter of a Knight." We'd done all the running around and watched the cutscenes, but we needed more people to fight the NM treant Cernunnos in Jugner Forest. Rari had a Corsair friend named Aviana who needed it as well, and Aviana brought a Dragoon named Thereaver. The odds looked pretty good.

Neyla and I went as Beastmaster/Ninjas, since I wasn't about to try blink-tanking it as Monk and he didn't want to try it as Paladin. Naturally, we were the only ones to get through the fight without taking serious injury because we could use Snarl and transfer our enmity to our crabs. Cernunnos is a prick, and he one-shot Rari and then killed Aviana for using Slug Shot. We killed it and got our key items.

Well, you can't argue with decent group chemistry. We decided to push on and try the next fight. We had a little running around to do for cutscenes. I had no idea you could use NPCs in other nations to transport you to all the Campaign battlefields, since the only NPC I'd ever spoken to teleported me directly back to Windurst. I ended up hopscotching around while everyone else was getting shot directly the North Gustaberg [S] from South San d'Oria [S].

The

One-Eyed Gwajboj hurt me.

Battle for Jeuno was actually pretty sweet. You go in and fight beside a few NPCs from the different nations. They fan out to kill beastmen, and eventually they meet to battle One-Eyed Gwajboj in the middle. Neyla and I, on our respective Red Mage and Monk jobs, were tasked with babysitting Zazarg. It felt a little like Besieged, since I'd always stick with him. We took out an initial cluster of quadav and then moved on to another group, but I jumped in too quickly and they killed me. Neyla was forced to 2-hour to try to keep me alive. I popped back up when Gwajboj arrived and started hitting him in my weakened state; he spams Battle Dance, but players aren't affected if the NPCs have hate. Unfortunately, we lost.

We had time for another round, and that time was much better. I held myself back a little on the second wave to make sure Zazarg had the quadavs' attention, and so I was free to punch Gwajboj with full force when he appeared. I was the only player who hadn't blown my 2-hour in the last fight, so I used Hundred Fists to speed up his death.

We received Jeuno banners to hang in our moghouses for saving the city. We're now completely caught up until the next round of quests and missions are released in the impending update.