Dynamis-Xarcabard Interloper

Okay, so I haven't been updating much. That's not to say that I haven't been playing- although I think the picture from the last post should've illustrated that point clear enough. ^^ It's just that I haven't really done anything significant enough to write about.

Sure, I could write about how I've been meriting some more, gotten 3/5 Yigit pieces, including my plan for "Breaking Morale," but with the way the FF community at large has gone on, this information is readily available elsewhere, and really, I think I might actually be quite behind on the curve. >_<

But at least this is something I can write about:



It sure took me long enough, but I finally saw the Dynamis Lord go down, and got the spiffy "Dynamis-Xarcabard Interloper" to add to the collection of titles.

Explorer II went in with 44 people, with the main objective being the Dynamis Lord. I actually didn't really want to come along for the run, but Kitsume eventually convinced me to go along, if only just to help kill the Dynamis Lord. My relationship with Explorer II is not as strong as it used to be, thanks to me moving back to the opposite end of the planet (thus, dreadful times for our runs) and my "quitting" led Lostman to delete all records of my points with no backups.

So suffice to say, there's not much I have left with that linkshell. -_-

Likewise, I wasn't terribly happy joining the run. After all, I just lost all my points, and would lose another four hours worth of sleep on top of that just by attending (I've griped about the ridiculous amount of time Dynamis takes on several occasions). As you can tell, I ended up going anyway, although I was tired, sleepy, and very, very cranky.

The journey up towards Castle Zvahl Baileys was rather uneventful, sans me accidentally MPK'ing the entire mage alliance when I accidentally stepped too close to the "Wall of Eyes." It was pretty much standard fare, although I did notice that we picked up a few tricks, such as time-nuking said Wall of Eyes down by just nuking an eye one-by-one. That way, the accompanying Demons will spawn, but will not aggro if done correctly, and is a quick, painless way of getting past them.

Of course, until I MPK'ed the alliance. But enough of that.

In other news, we went 0/15 on the Xarcabard NMs (as usual), although we did pick up yet another Summoner's Horn (/wave Nivaud) en route to Castle Zvahl.

Fast forward a little bit more, we have all ten dragons down, and dispatched Ying and Yang flawlessly by whittling both down to more bite-sized HP chunks before dispatching both of them with a volley of Blizzaga IIIs. It went so smoothly, even the same BLM's Blizzaga dealt the killing blow to both dragons, and before long, we were sitting outside the entrance rearranging in preparation for the showdown against the Dynamis Lord.

We had seven RDM/DRKs to Chainspell-Stun the Dynamis Lord, with a generous amount of MNKs and BLMs for damage. An obligatory THF for Treasure Hunter, a few Rangers for the "Ranger death combo" and a few support mages to round it all up.

Unlike my last attempt against the Dynamis Lord, we fought on the slopes leading up to the entrance, rather than on the very bottom. A Ranger would pull via Shadowbind, and run past everybody, where the first group of RDMs would then hold the DL in place while everybody else unleashes hell's fury not seen since the Snoll Tzar.

For some reason, this fight went incredibly smoothly. I didn't see any Oblivion Smashes, nor did the DL get to make his clones, in fact, he just...stayed there (Chainstun, d'uh). It actually went by so smoothly, only one RDM died, and we were left scratching our heads as to why we had so much difficulty with the fight previously.

But in any case, it was a very nice, clean victory. Congratulations everybody! :D

On an unrelated note, you may notice the rather turquoise squares that dot the landscape in the picture above- something's happened to my graphics card, I think. I'm not sure exactly what, but removing and reinstalling the device doesn't fix things. It could very well be the FFXI files itself, but I don't think that's the case since some other games on my computer (e.g. POP:T2T) also show minor graphic errors, although nothing as major as this.

Does anyone have any ideas? ; ;

I haven't quit either!

...I've just been preoccupied with other things!


*CHOMP!*

Dawn.

OMG, The Empyreal Paradox!

OMG, I'm finally done with CoP!

Despite the majority of us at TrueRune being unable to organise anything cohesive together, when things click, they click.

Since TrueRune attained Al'Taieu access all the way back in June, it has taken us about seven and a half months for us to finally get together and complete the last chapter of CoP.

Of course, we completed that last chapter in two weekends. >_<

Anyway, the TrueRune "static" at this point basically consisted of just myself, Chummy, Akanea and Saoirse. Seraphpdh had gone on to completing CoP while I had "quit" the game, and Tumble had also left the game.

We tried looking up our friendlists to see if anyone was willing to help us with 8-2 and 8-3, but the sheer length of the missions was a major turnoff for everybody.

Except one.

Enter Saintjust.

Like myself, a {Tarutaru}{White Mage}, he also needed to complete CoP from 8-2 onwards, and we quickly picked him up for 8-2. Figuring since we were only going to do 8-2 at that point in time and it was only escourting a bunch of Quasilumins around the Palace, we just went with the five of us,

NIN, SAM, BLM, RDM, WHM.

I came RDM/BLM, since I figured we needed to shore up a little on our offensive power, but boy I should've come /WHM instead, or at least BLM/WHM. While the mobs weren't exactly spamming status effects, there was enough Silence to make things irritating, and everytime Akanea and Chummy skillchained to make Dark, I wish I were BLM so that my MB would actually, y'know, finish off the mob instead of leave it at like, 10% health.

Of course, I corrected that for 8-3 and came BLM/WHM. Blade: Ku → Tachi: Gekko for Darkness, MB 2x Blizzard IV/Freeze II for the kill!

I have to admit, although 8-2 and 8-3 did take as long as most people said they would (roughly 3 hours each) they weren't nearly as hard as I thought they might've been. In fact, I felt they were rather easy, with the only tricky bit being dodging spinning pots (of which, I am not joking when I say we were initially incapable of sneaking past. -_-)

I shant really go into the details of 8-2 and 8-3, other than the fact that by the time we were done with 8-3, everybody in the party finally managed to get that spinning pot thing worked out, except for those in the Garden that spin really quickly against you. I don't think we ever managed to sneak past one of those. >_<

One of the reasons why we took so long though was our insistence that we get the map for both places, which as you can tell, isn't exactly the quickest of things to do. Speaking to Quasilumins from all over the Palace of Hu'Zxoi was bad enough, especially one that had to be done in the middle of an escourt, although I guess it strengthened our resolve a bit when it came to getting the map of Ru'Hmet, which involves climbing all five towers.

Fortunately, actually climbing said towers is rather quick and painless, and easily done with a few Sleeps/Binds here and there.

As the five of us were getting the Quasilumin from the last of the five towers, Fishura decided to come along, and from there, the party became 6,

NIN, SAM, RDM, WHM, BLM, BLM.

When it came to the gauntlet, we ended up just saccing to it while Fishura took the "easier" way through, having already completed CoP himself, and the final pots BC wasn't nearly as hard as we thought it might be. Of course, I guess when you have two BLMs, the pots go down quicker than normal.



Blade: Ku → Tachi: Gekko for Darkness, MB Blizzard IV + Freeze II killed one BLM pot.
Meikyo Shisui → solo Fragmentation, MB Thunder IV + Burst II killed the other BLM pot.

As the usual strategy goes, we wiped by the south door, reraised, rested to full recovery, slept one of the last remaining RDM pots, went all out on the other (toss in a Benediction), and the last was a piece of cake. Pots done!

After the last supposedly "hard" BC was over and done with, it was almost as if an unspoken revelation swept over us- we were very nearly done with CoP.

All that was left to do was the fight against Promathia himself in the coolest BC zone in the game- the Empyreal Paradox.

Of course, we weren't really sure what to expect. We heard he wasn't all that difficult, but we were in a funky setup with no medicines or supplies. Fortunately, Fishura assured us we could take him down easily, and so we just went straight into the Empyreal Paradox and comfronted the big P himself.



And yeah, he went down pretty easily, too. ^^

I have to admit, the Empyreal Paradox was every bit as spectacular as I thought it would be, and finally being in there myself after hearing other people tell me about how cool it is and seeing other people's screenshots, was really satisfying for me.

I kind of wish Promathia were much much harder than what he is- the way the fight goes right now, it is practically an anti-climax to the whole CoP, given some of the other fights you've had to go through along the way to get to this point.

Still, it's a ridiculously fun fight though, with a lot of running around, kiting, and watching NPCs own other NPCs (Prishe ftw!).

That, and you can Raise Prishe! No weakness, either! XD

It had been a long road, but it's finally over. I'm done with CoP. Congratulations, TrueRune. ^^



That, and I finally have my Tamas Ring. :)

Of course, now with CoP over and done with, I wonder what I'll do next...

But on an interesting note, Saintjust apparently had a bit of a starstruck moment as we were doing 8-2. It seems I'm more well known than I thought- he took screenshots of him doing CoP with me, and showed them off to his friend...

Tuufless's ego rises 0.1 points. XD