Waiting for Aht Urhgan...

Yeah, I haven't been playing much this past week, if at all. Real life has been keeping me plenty busy lately, and I feel a little bit burnt out on FF for now. That being said, I will probably come back once I get my copy of Treasures of Aht Urhgan.



The new expansion looks well thought out, at least from first sight. While I hear the missions aren't as trying as CoP, nor is the storyline as compelling, the new jobs look really well thought out.



BLU might very well be the most versatile job out there now. I still can't decide for myself what kind of role BLU should play in a party, but creativity is king here, as reports of a BLU/WAR tanking with Metallic Body and Cocoon. Puppetmaster falls in the same category of flexibility, with you building your automaton to fill in missing gaps in the party makeup. The best part is that all this has to be decided before leaving town, so good players are further rewarded by being able to anticipate and adapt to individual party setups.



I suspect a future discussion in the forums will lie along the lines of "What you should do with (this) party setup?"



Then comes COR, which is another job that's somewhat dependant on the other jobs in the party, although this time, even more directly so. I'm not actually sure what about COR interests me. Of course, there's the spiffy hat, but I think it's also the complexity of keeping appropriate buffs on the correct people, and the chance/risk element involved. In either case, I'm glad we have a new job that can Refresh though, although unfortunately, COR cannot Dispel, at least not to my knowledge (until 64), so I don't know how good a replacement it will be for RDM or BRD, especially off the Crawlers and Crabs that line up peoples' xp routes.



Am I waiting to level COR? Perhaps. I don't know if I can resist it, however. I'm already looking forward to wearing a pirataru hat! ^^







In other news, I've been pleasantly surprised to find out that an article in 1up.com has linked to Campsitarus. 1up.com's recent feature article is an in-depth beginner's guide to FFXI, and I've been linked from the section on leveling (naturally).



Although as Gyogi mentions,

Gyogi says:

"WHERE DO I GO?" Looking for a suitable camp? Check out Campsitarus for the latest updates on where to go for the best experience points for your level!

Hehe, "the latest updates?" Darn, I really ought to update that site now- I haven't updated it in months! >_< Ah well, with COR, I'll be able to drag some people out to the more obscure places to xp, and get some of those entries filled in! ^^

CoP Conundrums

One week ago, TrueRune took on the Snoll Tzar, and emerged victorious. With the Snoll Tzar's defeat, the stage was set for us to take on the Airship battle, arguably one of the hardest BCNM style fights in the game, and following that, one more BCNM fight before finally getting Al'Taieu access.

Unfortunately, defeating the Snoll Tzar would be the start of some new problems.

The TrueRune CoP group has changed a lot from when we first set foot in Promyvion, long, long ago. Because of the rather laid back nature at which we do things, in addition to our real life schedules, we progress through the CoP missions at a much slower rate compared to everybody else. That being said, only Akanea, Saoirse, Seraphpdh, and myself were with the group from the very beginning. We'd since picked up Chummy, who left his CoP static around the Three Paths in order to join us, and finally, picked up Tumble, whose own CoP static ditched him at the (you guessed it) Snoll Tzar battle, electing to pick another job that would "contribute better" to that particular fight.

When we picked up Tumble, he had already cleared all of the Three Paths except for the Snoll Tzar fight, and we figured that by grabbing him, we could finally have the entire CoP group be all-TrueRune, as opposed to "mostly-TrueRune-with-some-outsiders". We fought the Snoll Tzar four times before beating it in one of the most well-executed plans I've seen in a while, and we were raring to go onward with CoP.

Except that due to real life, Seraphpdh needed to take a break for this weekend, so we let that slide and figured we'd continue the next weekend.

Then, one or two days ago, Akanea sends me a /tell saying that Tumble was doing the airship battle without us. He, for obvious reasons, was not very happy with this, and was actually mad to the point where he almost kicked Tumble out of the LS right there and then. I wasn't all-too-happy myself, but I figured having someone go through the Airship battle to get a sense of what was going on, and what we should prepare for, would be a good thing. After all, as they say, knowledge is power.

Well, thirteen tries later, Tumble manages to clear the airship. I was happy for him, yet, rather unsettled at the recent turn of events, but decided to hold my tongue to see what would come next. Just to reiterate, all this was a few days ago.

Today, I logged in and said my helloes to the linkshell, when Tumble tells me that he beat Promathia last night, and is now getting the cutscenes to pick up his Tamas Ring. Thankfully, Akanea wasn't on the linkshell at the time, otherwise, goodness knows what would've happened, but suffice to say, I was not impressed.

While, yes, I suppose I should be happy for Tumble in that he has cleared CoP and gotten his Tamas Ring, I can't help but feel used, perhaps even exploited at the recent turn of events. When you, a White Mage, ditched by your CoP static at one of the hardest BCNM battles in the CoP storyline get picked up into our CoP group and through our combined efforts, clear said BCNM, your way of thanking us is with a "Hey guys, I beat Promathia last night?"

Of course, he says he will come back and help us, everybody does. In fact, we've had a number of offers from friends who have already and since cleared the CoP missions to come to our aid should we need it. But that isn't the point. For one, whatever happened to group unity, of sticking it out through to the end? That communal sense of wonder as the CoP storyline unfolds? We may not be the most optimal of jobs, and I could've circumvented all this by getting some of my other, high-level friends together and just powering through the CoP missions, but all for what? I wanted to complete CoP with this group of friends, and to that end, I expect everyone to stick together.

Admittedly, as I said, we aren't exactly blasting our way through the CoP missions, but if that wasn't your cup of tea, don't join us in the first place.

This creates a lot of dilemmas for us now. For one, because Tumble has now cleared CoP, CoP missions are no longer a priority. That is to say that if there is something else going on that concerns him, he will (understandably) want to go do that something else instead. Secondly, it is difficult to try and find someone else who has not only cleared the Snoll Tzar, but not the Airship, but is also willing to stick with us to the very end, to the end of CoP.

Of course, I could very well be mistaken about Tumble, and perhaps in the future, he really will come back and help us out through CoP. I am very dubious of this though, after all, how many missions do we want to do more than once? Especially the difficult, time consuming CoP missions?

I guess all that's left now is to see what happens.

Return to White Mage

After finally hitting Goldsmithing 80, I decided that my next course of action would be to carve Elemental Beads up to 87, and use the proceeds from that to purchase another Nobles Tunic, to replace my old Nobles Tunic which I sold in an effort to plow through the Goldsmithing hell.

Well, things almost went according to plan. The money I got from the Nobles Tunic was just enough to get me Goldsmithing 80, however, I had trouble finding a buyer for my Elemental Beads, so I had a few of them sitting in my delivery box for about a month while I tried to figure out my next course of action.

Eventually, I stumbled across an old friend from my Dynamis linkshell (she had since quit the LS) who gave me some beads to carve, and was so grateful, she signed and gave me an Aquilo's Staff as a "thank you" present. ^^

I sold my old Aquilo's Staff, sold my spare Astral Ring (which has since gone up another 400k ; ;), and all of a sudden, I had just over 10m gil. I could buy my Nobles Tunic back again!

My next concern was just how to get my Nobles though. I could buy straight from the AH, but I figured it would be nice to have Sakurato sign one for me, and besides, there was always that chance she would HQ it into an Aristocrat's Coat, which would be very nice. On the other hand, there was also a chance that she might fail the synth, and lose the Shining Cloth, and that would've financially finished/bankrupted me, so I didn't really want to do that either.

However, she said she had all the non-Shining Cloth materials on a mule, so all I had to do was to find a Shining Cloth around, and she could make my Nobles for me! Saving 1m off the AH price was enough to make me decide to have it synthed. Unfortunately, the AH only had one, and it wasn't selling for the 9m price tag that the AH history indicated, so I looked around people's bazaars in Upper Jeuno and the Batallia Downs for a Shining Cloth.

I found a Shining Cloth for 9,500,000 gil. Nope, sorry, too expensive.

The next day, I found another Shining Cloth for 10,000,000 gil. Hah.

Then Sakurato remembered that she signs Nobles Tunics out of the Shining Cloths that an HNMLS, LuckySevens gets on their drops, and told me to ask them. Fortunately, I know the leader of L7, Kitsume, from my Dynamis linkshell, and Kitsume then referred me over to the linkshell's treasurer, Kaylea.

Unfortunately, actually getting ahold of Kaylea proved to be a little tricky, but Kitsume sent her word that I was looking to buy one of the LS's Nobles Tunics, and she eventually sought me out. All that was left was haggling over the price.

Nobles Tunics were selling on the AH for 10,000,000 gil. They were on a downtrend, originating from around 11,600,000 gil. Based off the listing fee, Kaylea gave me a starting offer at 9.8m gil, which I felt was so-so, but nothing to get all excited over. I was sure the price was going to fall further, as people gear up for leveling the new Treasures of Aht Urgan jobs, and I knew that the HNMLSes were looking to get rid of stock.

So I asked Kaylea if she could give me a better price. Her next offer was 9,000,000 gil.

Personally, I was rather shocked at how quickly she went down 800k down to 9m! After cross-checking with Sakurato to see if I should get it at that price, and checking with Kitsume to see if the price was okay for L7, I decided to buy the tunic!



I can now level WHM again with a clean conscience! ^^

Even better, Sakurato had signed the tunic for L7, so I get the best of both sides- a cheap Nobles Tunic (well, relatively -_-), and signed by Saku too!



All that is left to really complete my WHM would be to pick up the non-Body parts of the Blessed Set, and then a Faerie Hairpin and Hedgehog Bomb for completeness' sake. However, both of them are ENM drops, so I can try getting them that way, and besides, seeing as how I still don't have a Phantom Tathlum for my Black Mage, my WHM accessories aren't the highest of priorities. ^^

I'm not sure what to think of the purchase though. I'm of course, happy at the price, although I can't help but feel that if Kaylea was willing to lower the price 800k so quickly, perhaps she too, anticipates a further drop in price, and I may end up stomping my foot in the future. Either that, or it's a testimony as to how little 800k means these days, but I don't think I'll let such concerns get to me. I have my Nobles Tunic again, and I'm a happy taru. ^^

Unfortunately, my purchase has had an inconvenient side effect- I don't have the capital to buy many Elemental Beads anymore, and with fifty-one Wicker Baskets in my Mog Safe (for overwhelming Moghancement: Wind), I'd certianly like to get out of the Elemental Beads stage, so I can free up my Mog Safe for my three jobs' gear! >_<

Snoll Tzar DEFEATED!

I could call this "Treader of an Icy Past", but somehow, that doesn't quite have the "oomph" I was looking for when writing this entry. ^^

Simply put, fourth time was the charm, and as a result of our efforts, we have this:



The Snoll Tzar is DOWN! (/joy)

Here's the long version of the story. ^^

After trying and failing three times against the Snoll Tzar for a multitude of reasons, we found ourselves stuck on this particular fight and without any more Cluster Cores to make any Shu'Meyu salt that was needed to help us buy time to defeat the Snoll Tzar. In the past few days, Akanea and I have been trying to farm Cluster Cores off Cluster mobs in the Tavnazian Archipelago, however, standing around the Lufaise Meadows and the Misareux Coast, waiting for foggy weather to appear was just too aggravating and inconsistent to really be a good source of Cluster Cores.

What we really needed to do was to get in Cape Riverne, and farm Cluster mobs for their Cluster Cores.

And that's what we ended up doing. While Seraph had a sky run to attend, Tumble was busy getting the last seven-thousand or so xp he needed to ding BLM60. That left the four of us to try and fight Cluster Cores in Riverne Site #B01, which are about 6-8 levels higher than we would be in the level capped regions. Basically, stuff suitable for an xp party.

Because of that, I've been reluctant to try going in there with litle people, although I got word from Hirushi that you can farm the Clusters there with just four people. We managed to round us Akanea and his NIN, Saoirse on BLM, Chummy on SMN, and myself on RDM, and the four of us went to get our 50-cap gear and headed off to Riverne #B01.

After dodging a few Nimbus Hippogryphs on the way, we eventually found ourselves on a small island with just two Nitro Clusters on it. Figuring they were only VT to us, we went up and engaged!



Nitro Clusters were weaker than expected, although I seemed to have trouble enfeebling them with any consistency, other than Poison II. Nitro Clusters have (as we found out) some kind of AoE fire move that is also a Gravity-ga, can Haste themselves (these got Dispelled), and can also Self-Destruct, although Self-Destruct doesn't actually kill them. See, Nitro Clusters are three bombs put together, so a Self-Destruct only blows up one of them.

Nitro Clusters are also on a 15-minute repop, so suffice to say, we were sitting on that little island for quite some time, farming up the Cluster Cores we needed for the fight. We decided to take no risks, so stayed until we got a full six Cluster Cores for three Salts, then decided to stick around for six more, "just in case".

In the meantime, Seraph had completed his sky run, and Tumble had actually managed to get his BLM to level 60, and so, the new plan was set in motion.

First off, the new party formation: PLD SAM SMN BLM BLM BLM!

I have to admit, I was somewhat skeptical of this setup at first. After all, would Seraph be able to survive without a healer? Would he really be able to hold hate off three Black Mages who are doing their darnest to nuke the Snoll Tzar to kingdom come? I toyed with the idea of having Tumble come in as WHM, but eventually decided that Invincible would buy us enough time, and keep Seraph alive for longer, so three Black Mages it was!

Being on more familiar territory, I came up with a plan to harness all this firepower. Because the Black Mages would be constantly preoccupied with nuking, salting the Snoll Tzar was left up to the remaining three. The salt order would go Chummy (SMN) →　Seraphpdh (PLD) → Akanea (SAM).

Chummy would open with Inferno as usual, while Akanea goes with Meikyo Shisui. In the meantime, Seraph has the first thirty seconds to get as much hate as possible before the Black Mages unleash their full attack.

On the Black Mages side, my instructions were to first spread out to avoid getting all hit at once with a high-damage directional move (read: Heimel Storm). Once we were in, we split up some debuffs to first make the Snoll Tzar more manageable (Bio II), but also debuffs to help out with our nukes (Burn and Shock). We each took one of these spells to maximise efficiency. Because Tumble had just dinged BLM60, he had the lowest Elemental Magic skill, so I gave him Bio II. I, on the other hand, had the highest from Elemental Magic skill merits, so I took Shock, which I felt was the more important one (affecting resist rates). Saoirse was in the middle, so she was left with Burn, as the Snoll Tzar is weak to Fire.

Then, we would each power up with Elemental Seal, and send some Ancient Magic in the Snoll Tzar's direction. Tumble didn't have Flare, so we went with two Flares and a Burst instead.

From then on, we went on with a suggestion Vile gave me in the last Snoll Tzar post- going through a cycle of "Firaga →　Fire II → Firaga II". I could see the logic in that post, and decided to implement it in our strategy.

However, I made a few tweaks. Because we wanted to also Stun the Snoll Tzar's more damaging moves, like Heimel Storm, Stun needed to be incorporated in there somewhere. Furthermore, with all the lag and time pressure, I wanted to keep things as simple and automated as possible to avoid any mistakes. Besides, I figured all the BLMs would be spamming nukes, so nobody could really look out to Stun a devastating move. So, I tacked on a Stun onto the end of the Fire nuking sequence, making it "Firaga → Fire II → Firaga II → Stun" instead.

In order to spread out the Stuns, each of the BLMs would start at a different point in the cycle. So after the initial burst of Ancient Magic, I'd start my cycle on Firaga (because I'd have the most hate from a Republic Circlet-powered Flare), Saoirse would open with Fire II, and Tumble on Firaga II. That way, Tumble would be the first to Stun, and after a short while, Saoirse would then Stun, and I would follow suit after that.

One thing that I might need to explain though, is why, although the Fire sequence is more efficient in terms of damage-per-second, I still chose to go with Ancient Magic. First of all, Seraph needed some time to establish hate, and the Snoll Tzar also needed to be still in order for Chummy to use the first salt. Going with the Ancient Magic sequence gives both Seraph and Chummy about 30 seconds to get all their prep work done, whereas opening with the Fire sequence might cause the Snoll Tzar to bounce around, making salting impossible.

In addition, I also wanted to reap the most out of Elemental Seal, which is an ability that is best used to ensure maximum damage on a single nuke. That being said, Flare is the single most damaging spell available to a BLM60, so I chose to use Ancient Magic to get the most out of Elemental Seal. (Elemental Seal-Firaga II is, well...not as good.)

After going over the plan and double checking everything, we were off to face the Snoll Tzar for the fourth time. Some of us had reservations about going on Lightsday, since waiting for a Firesday would've been better, but I didn't particularly fancy waiting another two hours for Firesday to roll around. ^^

We buffed with the usual spells: Protect, Shell, Aerial Armor, Earthern Ward, food, Reraise. After a quick countdown, we rushed in, and engaged!

The plan worked beautifully.

I saw Chummy use Inferno just as the BLMs moved to form a triangle of sorts around the Snoll Tzar, and we started the debuffs. Akanea Meikyo Shisui'ed and started to work on the Snoll Tzar as well. Then, the Elemental Seals went off, and while not simultaneous, we got our Ancient Magic in there. My Flare took hate off Seraph, so I ran in to quicken the recovery time, and that was also a signal for Seraph to Invincible.

When all three ancient magic nukes landed and I saw the Snoll Tzar at around 1/3rd health, things were starting to look up. ^^

We then started our Fire sequence. Luckily, Tumble's random Stun caught an Arctic Impact, which saved us a lot of trouble, but what was more surprising was how fine we were riding the hate line, despite Seraph's Invincible. However, the end result was very nice, with hate literally bouncing in between Seraph and myself. I Manafonted when I ran out of mana, and continued the nuking, until as you can see from the first picture, the Snoll Tzar was finally defeated to /cheers of all of us.

I have to admit, it felt a lot easier that time around. Part of it probably was because we had replaced two non-damage jobs (WHM and THF) with two BLMs that could really contribute damage, but overall, I think our success was due to the fact we had a system, a plan, and we managed to follow it through. The fight was incredibly smooth, although intense (I forgot to take screenies ; ;), and it was a very well earned victory, in my opinion.

Suffice it to say, we were very happy with the results. So happy, that upon exiting the battlefield, the /cheers and /joy completely overshadowed the fact that the Snoll Tzar's Frost effect was still on us, that is, until...



(Yes, it's a really strong Frost...o.O) So, er, yeah...remember to Cure yourselves after you exit the battlefield! >_<>finally done with the Three Paths, it is now time for TrueRune's biggest challenge yet. Just what exactly? Well, I skipped a little bit ahead to watch some cutscenes, to get a taste of what was to come, and...




{fear}.

Red Mage. Seventy. Five. ^^

It's been nearly a year since I dinged BLM75, but now, I have finally reached my second job at 75. ^^

I have to admit though, it certainly felt somewhat easier the second time through, partially because of the shorter tnls this time around, as well as access to various melee-spam parties that generally go really quick. A MNK party, a merit party off Decos, and a SAM party to boot got me within 2k of Level 75, however, I was tired enough that I just wanted to logout.

This morning, I dragged Sakurato up to the top of Uleguerand Range to both get us some Zephyr Fans for the Bearclaw Pinnacle ENM, and also to duo the King Buffalo at the top for the missing 2k. It only took about twenty minutes before I finally hit the final level. ^^



For now, I think my Red Mage will go the same route as my Black Mage, and I'll eventually cap my RDM's xp before moving onto limits. However, as merits aren't my highest priority at the moment, I figure I'll get cap my xp in the occasional spam party I get dragged along to. In the meantime, I think I will get my White Mage to 75 and complete the mage trinity. It just feels odd that the first job I leveled is the last one to 75, but we'll see what happens.

But first, I need to get my Nobles Tunic back! >_<

Snoll Tzar 3 -- True Rune 0 {/fume}

I have to admit, the Snoll Tzar really is quite good at trying your patience. ^^

After nearly a month since our first attempt at the Snoll Tzar, we finally managed to get together to attempt the nefarious bomb once more, this time with lessons learnt.

To make things even better, Saoirse's BLM had since hit BLM60, so our party setup for the Snoll Tzar battle is now PLD SAM SMN WHM RDM BLM. One of each mage. I quite like that. /grin

As people slowly logged on, Akanea and I were standing around in the Tavnazian Archipelago trying to farm up some Cluster Cores which we needed to get some more Shu'Meya Salt. Last time, we used up two salts, and needed to replace them. Fortunately, Avar had recently beaten the Snoll Tzar with some spare Cluster Cores, so he donated them to us, but we still needed two more to make the last salt.

So we were standing around, waiting for Cluster Bombs to pop.

It was very boring.

See, Clusters only pop when the weather is "foggy". Now, I didn't know what that meant at the time, in fact, I thought "foggy" meant having dark weather, although I eventually found out that that wasn't the case. There's no real way of telling when it would become foggy, although I recall hearing that only mornings had a chance of being foggy, which kind of makes sense, what with dew and all.

Alternately, Clusters also spawn naturally in the level-capped zones of Riverne Site #A01 and #B01. However, they would be 6-8 levels higher than us, and wasn't really something we could duo. So Tavnazia it was. >_<

Some changes we made:
* Saoirse is now BLM instead of THF. Hooray for {Flare}. ^^
* Akanea now uses sushi instead of steak, and uses his strongest weaponskills instead of Tachi: Enpi.
* I, well, don't Chainspell from the get-go, and also tried out Thunder II in addition to Fire II.

Long story short, it was a bit of a heartbreaker. Everything was going according to plan. We opened with Tumble (WHM) using the first salt of the first, Chummy (SMN) letting loose with Inferno, and Saoirse casting Flare. I (RDM) would Dia and Poison the Snoll Tzar, then alternate between Fire II, Thunder II, and curing Seraphpdh (PLD). In the meantime, Akanea (SAM) Meikyo Shisui'ed and started spamming his more damaging weaponskills, although the name seems to escape me at the moment.

Things start to go wrong about 20 seconds into the fight. We signal Chummy to start getting his salt ready, and he runs up to the Snoll Tzar, who at this point, is fairly big in size. Unfortunately, I think Chummy accidentally approached from the front, and the Snoll Tzar readies Heimel Storm, hitting Chummy for over a thousand damage and one-shotting him.

Somewhere in there, Seraph Invincibled, and I started my Chainspell. I cleared out my mana, and Converted...only to have the Snoll Tzar do some AoE move that killed me after the Convert. The Snoll Tzar's attention was then focused on Saoirse, who then fell shortly thereafter. Essentially, our damage front was now gone, and eventually Hypothermal Combustion came and blew us out of the arena with the Snoll Tzar at a meagre 6% health. ; ;

Until now, I still question if I should've used the Pro Ether and Vile Elixir +1 I was carrying instead of Convert. The extra mana might've let me get off the extra nukes I needed to do that last 6%, and I was only just bordering the hate line. In fact, the Snoll was on me for a moment, then a nuke from Saoirse took it away from me, whereby I converted. Had I survived the Convert, I'd have cured myself up, reapplied my Stoneskin and Blink, then went to town nuking. I'd grab hate, sure, but I'd have boght both myself and Saoirse extra nuking time, whereby we might've been able to kill the Snoll Tzar.

One mistake was all it took. ; ; (Actually, there were probably more things we could've done better, but I can't think of them at this point in time.)

We had only used one salt that fight as well, since Chummy died before he could finish using his. With the Snoll Tzar at 6% health in just 60 seconds, we could definitely beat him if we did things correctly. None of us fancied waiting another month for us to gather together again, so we decided to wait out our 2-hour abilities and try again.

In the meantime, Akanea and I headed back to the Tavnazian Archipelago to get us some more Cluster Cores. Unfortunately for us, fog never came, and by the time our 2-hours had reset, we settled for making do with just two salts.

Lessons learnt from that attempt:
* Positioning is important in the battle. Approach the Snoll Tzar from behind when using salt. An easier way to do this is to have everybody run in and engage, but have the tank rotate so he's facing the mages (and consequently, the Snoll is thus facing the tank only.)

* Thunder II was doing surprisingly better than Fire II, despite the fact that the Snoll Tzar is supposed to be weak to Fire. While the data was skewed, I had no resists on Thunder nukes, while I had 2 or 3 resisted Fires. Thunder was also doing 50-60 extra damage per nuke.

* Invincible is actually pretty good when it's the Paladin's turn to use his salt. ^^

Our third attempt was a complete reversal of the first. We were careful, and overall, did an excellent job at staying alive. Actually, too good a job staying alive. We spent too much time "not dying" and not enough time "killing the Snoll Tzar", it Hypothermal Combusted with a considerable amount of HP remaining, and that was with us using two salts! We did a whole lot better the last time with just one salt!

But I think our technique had been greatly improved. Now all we need to do is smooth out some of the crinks, and we should be ready to take on the Snoll Tzar again the next time. I myself, was too conservative that fight, and focused on not killing myself with the Convert, so much so that I Stoneskin'ed before going into the Chainspell sequence (should've Chainspell-Stoneskin'ed before continuing), but in the end, I wouldn't have had the time anyway to do any real harm. Essentially, I started my Chainspell too late (as opposed to too early. -_-)

Also, Thunder II wasn't quite the wrecking ball I had hoped it would be, maybe because the Snoll's stronger when it's not Firesday, but that was just speculation. I still think that overall, Thunder II might just be better, but of course, if you're willing to take the risk on resists. Maybe I should get around to meriting Elemental Magic to help out here. ^^ That last attempt felt like it went by really quickly though, so I suspect our salt timing might also need to be re-examined.

Our next attempt might see some overhaul if Tumble gets his BLM up to 60 (it's around BLM56 at the moment, I think). I could then come as Black Mage as well, and our setup would be PLD SAM SMN BLM BLM BLM. Open with Salt, Invincible, Inferno, 3x Flare? Close with Inferno, 3x Burst? Perhaps. ^^

Vampire Taru

I was riding through Bibiki Bay en route to the Fishing Guild to pick up some Cobalt Jellyfish, when a wave of uneasiness spread through me. It's rather difficult to describe exactly what was wrong, other than something just didn't feel right.



Only after stumbling across the problem quite by chance did I find out what was wrong.







I was riding a chocobo through Bibiki Bay, but while the chocobo cast a shadow that made a crisp, dark outline upon the sun-hardened ground, the shadow's seat was empty.



Yes, I don't seem to have a shadow, or at least, not at the time. o.O



{fear}...RAWR!