It's Raining Mannequins!

My recent delvings into other jobs, of which has so far grown to encompass BLM, WHM, RDM, SMN, NIN and BRD has given rise to a very glaring problem:

I have nowhere to store all my gear! >_<

Sure, there's always muling, but with the horrible limit on the number of items one can send through delivery at any one transaction, I really really detest muling, not to mention that I have to take one of my mules, run all the way to the Auction House, and run all the way back! No Warp! ; ;

With that in mind, I set about trying to complete something I've been passively "woking" on: completing a Mannequin.

Here's the run down. A Mannequin adds seven storage spots, so effectively, you trade one Mog Safe slot for 7 Storage, effectively gaining an extra 6 storage slots to keep things in. What's more, you can even equip your Mannequins with gear, so not only do you have a place to store your gear that you've accumulated, you also have a way to store it such that you can look at it and admire your little collection~. ^^

The problem is, you have to assemble the first Mannequin by yourself. There are five pieces you need to collect in order to complete the quest, which the Mithra in the Mhaura Goldsmithing Guild gives you. After talking to some people all over Vana'diel, your task then becomes to collect a Mannequin Hands, a Mannequin Head, a Mannequin Body, a Mannequin Legs, and finally, a Mannequin Feet.

Three of these pieces drop from BCNM20 fights in Giddeus, Waughroon Shrine, and Horlais Peak. These are 3-man fights, and each fight has one of the Mannequin parts as a guaranteed drop. In addition, each of them have a chance at dropping a second part, but this doesn't always happen.

Here's where you can obtain the first three parts:
Mannequin Head: Horlais Peak BCNM20 "Shooting Fish"
Mannequin Body: Waughroon Shrine BCNM20 "Crustacean Conundrum"
Mannequin Hands: Balgas Dias BCNM20 "Charming Trio"

The last two parts, the Legs and Feet, are dropped from any of the three basic city's Garrisons.

Previously, I had already completed "Shooting Fish" with Starfox back sometime in May. One of the easiest ways to get this fight done is to bring two Summoners in, and basically with a combination of Judgment Bolts and Thundersparks, the BCNM fight is both safe, and easy. So that was the Head down. ^^

I ended up buying the Mannequin Body of Thazienne when I chanced upon her Bazaar up in Upper Jeuno. I'm personally not a fan of buying parts, but I didn't think I could find a group to go do Crustacean Conundrum, since that is reputedly the hardest of the three.

I did, however, manage to gather up Akanea and Saoirse for "Charming Trio". The fight pits you against three Leeches, named Prune, Phoedme, and Pepper (don't ask why :P). The strategy for this is pretty simple. Grab two melee DD (no tanks) and a WHM, suit up with some Hi-Potions and a Yagudo Drink, and just go for it. Okay, so the battle isn't quite that simple. As it turns out, all three leeches have attacks that can not only Drain and Aspir, but also sap TP and even buffs, including food buffs! As if that weren't enough, they can also drain one's stats over time, so this fight isn't quite as simple as "run up, beat up a few things, and run out".

You definitely want DDs for this fight. Conventional tanks generally don't stand much of a chance since a Paladin will just succumb to the massive draining over time and fall, while a Ninja can't keep up with several Leeches pounding away at him, especially before Utsusemi: Ni. In fact, the message boards recommended DRG, since they do more damage than a WAR at this stage, and can wear the same DEF gear. That being said, Akanea had quite a shock when he found out that I actually wanted him to come as DRG. ^^

Saoirse came down as MNK as the other DD. I came as healer, WHM.

The strategy for this fight was relatively simple. Akanea would run in and aggro all three leeches, but only take on one of the weaker leeches (Phoedme or Prune). Saoirse (not being the tank), would Provoke the other weaker leech off Akanea, and each of them would solo their own leech, with me giving healing backup (and Aka having Pepper pounding on him as well. -_-) Once one of the weaker leeches were dead, whoever killed it would help the other out with their own leech until both weak Leeches were down.

Then it was {Full attack!} on Pepper. ^^



Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm wearing my Goldsmith's Apron, I came all equipped with Level 20 gear, but forgot that my Cotten Doublet is Level 23. So Goldsmith's Apron it was. >_<

We ended up beating the fight, and actually went through the BC two more times, once for Akanea and once for Seraphpdh who also wanted a mannequin of his own. My drop actually dropped both the Hands and the Head (which doesn't always drop), and I let Seraph take it.

After we were done, I went back to Jeuno where I found somebody Bazaaring a Mannequin Legs in Upper Jeuno. Granted, the price was rather >_<, but I figured I could syphon the KS99 money into my Mannequin, and so I bought the Legs. I had already previously bought the Feet for a rather cheap price some time ago, too, and so, I had my completed set!

I trundled over to Mhaura, and showed the Mithra what I had collected~



She said she needed some time to piece everything together, and so, one real life day later, I came back to find that she had managed to piece together a Mannequin for me! When I left Mhaura, not only did I have the Mannequin she gave me, but I also purchased a second Mannequin off her for 250,000 gil. You can have one Mannequin for each race/gender combination but I only needed two for now.

I went back to my Moggie-Woggie house, and started putting my WHM and RDM AF up on display!



These Mannequins are great- I finally have a place to store all my AF, and managed to free up enough slots in my Mog Safe to store NIN gear as well (I've been leveling NIN recently). Sure, I have to go back to Bastok to retrieve my WHM or RDM gear whenever I want to play either class, but I don't really see that happening anytime soon. Besides, they look purrrty! ^^

On an additional note, Sotose and I later went to help Seraph out on Crustacean Conundrum (which made me a littaru bit mad at buying my Mannequin Body, but oh well. ; ;). The reason why many people consider this BC20 fight to be the hardest of the three is because there are three crabs, like the Leeches. The good news is that they have very little health, like 25HP or so. The bad news is that not only can the crabs Drain you, all attacks against them do 0-2 damage. Period. It doesn't matter if it's chucking a Pebble, or Astral Flow, 0-2 damage.

And so the idea is to pile as many attacks as we could on the crabs. A Monk's Hundred Fists comes to mind, but instead, we went with PLD/WAR, RDM/NIN and RDM/NIN, with us Dual Wielding two 150-delay Daggers (Platoon Dagger + Beestinger) with Enthunder.



For some reason, it didn't feel so hard after that, and I have to admit, dual weilding low delay weapons stacked with Enthunder is quite fun. ^^ For those who are interested in trying this particular BC20, it's nice to have a Paladin for Invincible, since that negates any Drains the crabs do against the PLD, so you don't have to deal with the crab regaining its HP again. ^^