Diabolos - CoP 3.5

So I'm really tired right now all I can say is I fought Diabolos 6 times tonight and died all 6 times. WHM fell off tiles on his own, then we found out he didn't have erase, we had no way to stun Nightmare... the whole experience was, well, a nightmare.

We regroup and find a BRD and a DRK and go in as NIN, DRK, BRD, WHM, WHM, BLM. Needless to say we never got into yellow, never used 2 hrs, we had 1 Nightmare that got stunned, and I ended up with about 6 Yag drinks and 4 Au Laits that I don't need for the fight. Oh well, we won. He's a scary S.O.B. though, and if done without stun is the hardest BCNM in the game to date.

Sky HIgh after this run

Last night was a very full night. We got to sky and managed to pull Despot, BB, and Zippy within 10 mins of trying to spawn them. Then we did two Genbu runs. As always Genbu was a breeze, dropping Genbu's Shield one time, but overall the drops were kind of "meh". Senrez was taunting him as he tanked him, and he didn't like it very much.

Another thing I noticed is when we do Genbu we have a firing squad. Souj, Cnalk, Osk and Blood have a nice little line up they do and fire away.

After Genbu we headed to Byakko. Sen and Tip have this down to a science. Even though they have to wear their weird purple robes and goofy helms, I still can't believe they stand their ground against a big angry white tiger. He likes to give big claw filled hugs to tanks, and luckily Sen and Tip and good enough to not eat it from one of these moves.

Let's just say... I'm glad I'm a mage.

Nice, um... sprout.

So I got my (ex)roommate into this game about a month or so ago. His name is Bladow. He chose Galka because he wanted to be a Galkan SAM. Well, he didn't like dying in melee I guess because so far he has leveld WHM, BLM, and RDM so far. I finally got him to level MNK and WAR up to at least 17, and since I got him into the game during the "New Adventurer" program, after 30 days we got our rewards. A Sprout Beret and a Guide Beret. When he wears his hat and I wear my beret, we become the same level. Meaning even though I have a 74RDM, if I wanted to party with him while he was a 18WAR, as long as we were both wearing the hats I would be deleveled to 18RDM.

So now (if we want) we can party together... which we haven't done yet because I dont feel like going out and buying gear for level 18 right now. As of the look of the berets, well, we kinda look like idiots.

I... Hate... Wespes...

So Carby Mitts were supposed to be done tonight. I headed down to Temple of Uggalepih and met up with Cnalk who was killing Wespes to get the ultra uber insanely impossible rare drop larvae. In between unsuccessfully getting the drop, we noticed good old gil seller Heimf come in and start clearing the Tonberry Harriers. He was camping Sozu Terberry. The Light pact used to be around 1,000,000g but gil farmers have brought it just below 400k. Within 16 mins Sozu Terberry pops, and they start fighting him. A 74NIN and a 75WHM.

Now Cnalk and I are good guys, but we hate people like gil farmers. Cnalk spammed Shadowbind while I spammed Dia. Sure enough, a placeholder spawns and Heimf goes to sleep him... Well if you know the claiming system of FFXI you know that you cannot have 2 enemies angaged at the same time. When Heimf engaged the link to sleep it, the NM became unclaimed, and Cnalk and I almost simultaneously claimed it with Shadowbind and Dia. At that point, the NM was already down to 5% and about 10 seconds later we killed it. Unfortunate for us, we didn't get the 400k scroll to drop. So we went back to farming. If those bees drop larvae, they drop one very 200 kills. Because that's how long it took to get one. After we finally got the drop we headed to where you force spawn Death From Above NM. A big mean bee.

We got to the room and Cnalk spawned. Man that thing hit fast. I eventually gave up enfeebling it and just decided to spam Cure III on my teeny tiny Taru RNG. Brave lil bastard was taking all the hits. After about 2 mins and 2 Slug Shots later, Cnalk had his Hornet Needle.

After we got Cnalk his dagger, I suggested that we head over to Sozu Sarberry since it was right aeround the corner, and see if we could pop that NM. It didn't drop anything special, a couple of NIN scrolls for around 30-40k, but I figured why not? So we come around the corner and who's clearing placeholders? Hemif! The 1st thing he does is "Heimf motions angrily at Gorokai." So I smiled, waved, and danced with him. We're waiting no longer than 1 spawn cycle and up pops Sarberry right next to me. I claim him through Dia but we end up getting a link. I couldn't believe how hard his throwing stars hit me for ranged attack, but after a link engaged us and MP was running low, Cnalk had to go and get Everyone's Grudge for 800+ and I got a Throat Stab for 480. Within about 5 minutes we were dead, and Heimf pulls the NM. He ends up killing it easily but to my surprise, he casts Raise III on both me and Cnalk and goes on his way. It was an extremely weird moment. I felt embarassment, shame, and happiness all at the same time. Well he ended up with a 40k Hojo:Ni scroll. Soon after I warped back and Cnalk ran back to Norg to warp on his own. Overall it was a surreal, yet interesting, night.

Kirin Round 3

Well we decided to go round 3 with Kirin. With so many people there it seemed inevitable he was going down. Our only misstep was Sen getting the Pots room 15 straight times. Lucky number 16 and we were on our way. We came with 31 strong, and he paid dearly. All 4 SMNs went well, a lil mis-step on Suzaku, but recovery and experience paid off. When we killed all his friends he got really angry.

With Kirin all alone it was just a matter of time. He tried his best and pulled out all the stops... Astral Flow hurt a bit, as did Stone V and a few big hugs he gave people. At the end of the day though, we were just too strong. Props go out to Tip, Sen, and even Speedgirl who were quick and efficient when it came to kiting duties. This time we didn't have an unlucky person die 5+ times, (Dragosal and Cnalk before him) so the overall run went quite smooth. We thought Kirin would be so much harder after the RNG adjustment, but the switching in and out of SAMs make it just about as hard, if not somewhat easier than before. Overall it only took us about 90 mins from pop to drop. When he went down, there was much rejoicing. Not only over the kill, but Wyrmel Abjuration: Legs dropped. (Movement +12%). Having lotted a 201 I was disappointed, especially seeing as the winning lot was a mere 270. Personally, (and this is just my feelings!) I believe that if it is something that will benefit the LS as a whole (movement speed increase for a kiter), then our main kiter should get them. That is not always the general consensus because we kite so few things, which I totally understand. Seeing as I lotted myself, I understand where the leaders are coming from. Also dropped was a scroll of Quake, which was randomed off. Unfortunately, no Pole or Osode but we have all the seals to go again. Seeing as last run was Shining Cloth and the run before that was Osode... I think we were due our W. Abj: Legs. Hopefully we're back to Osode next week for one of the lucky members. Great job Envy! I'm very proud of you and proud all!

Sky Sweep (almost)

Last night in Sky we decided to head up a bit early. Good thing too. The forces started to gather around 7:15pm EST and surprise, Zippy pops. Within 5 mins, Faust is up. So we start to head up to Faust which is a sure thing. No tanks were here yet but he was just sitting there. Vagus makes the judgement call to pass on Faust and try to pop Ulli. In the past, Ulli has been a bitch. We've spent 7 hours one night killing statues with nothing but a crap load of Light Crystals, Mythril Ore, and about 4k xp to show for it. As we reach the top floor, we see Jokerr is there, and at first I think he's camping it but he's actually in an XP party. I run across the spawn point and start killing statues... and within 3 kills Ulli pops. Some nights things just go your way. Grog does a great job of keeping hate, (until Bloodraven arrives and is just too uber for their own good) but we take Ulli down. Onto Faust. We escape, get back to Faust floor, and that stupid statue is still looking from side to side. No claims! This was about 8:15pm EST at this point. Ulli dropped about 8:00pm. We get to Faust, Alag is watching no one pull him, and Grog tanks like a beast, everyone does their job. Summerstone is ours... Onto Despot. This was the interesting fight of the night. We hit Despot camp and Masamune is there, but no one else from RK. As soon as the Envy Army rolls in 20 strong, Masa decides to relocate. We start pulling our Dolls, and just as things are looking good and we're setting up SC's and chatting away...


BOOM. Yup, this was the final seconds many of us saw before we saw the dusty ground of the entrance to the Shrine. This is the exact second everyone who could have stunned realized, "Oh darn, should I have stunned right there?" I knew it was gonna happen when the doll started floating for 2 seconds and no stuns came. I was either gonna get a pic of someone saving the day, or of us witnessing the Big Bang up close. Well, we all had good seats to a fireworks display. Just happened to be right in our jaws. As soon as 14 of our 18 fell to the ground, someone said, "I bet Despot is up now, we made a sacrfice to the Sky Gods." Well, sure enough, *pop* Despot pops about 10 feet away. We do a massive raise, boot the waeaklings, and our tanks get to kiting. Speedgirl did an incredibly good job considering she's never been with us up in Sky before. We had no deaths on Despot the NM, though I did get a cool shot of one of his special attacks.

With Despot down and a Gem of the West in tow, we start on our way to Zippy when Ristin shouts, "MG IS UP!" "MotherGlobe Found it!" so we all make a bee line to MG. We get there and only have 1 BLM. Grog pulls and goes down right away, (I don't know what that was about), and within 10 seconds Luda is down too. So I'm thinking, "Oh great, BLM + tank down, this should be fun" but the LS reorganized, we got up whoever went down, and after that it seemed an incredibly easy fight. Maybe it's just that I'm in the back lines casting away whenever while the melee are up there taking all the damage. Either way, MG went down and we got our Springstone. Onto SteamCleaner.

Well Sen came up and since I do Steam Cleaner with him most of the time we got a party together of me, Sen, Whitenine, Dragosal, Luda, and Zicdeh. Let's just say Whitenine knows now that cure 2 will cause a Magic Pot to return the favor with a Firaga III. Anyways, one we got to camp RK was there... ugh. So Sen regroups us to the other side of Shrine. I spend 20 mins just staring at this...

When Sen sees that RK is gone I'm informed by one of their LS members they just got SC, so we escape and head to water. Upon arriving there guess who claims camp 5 mins earlier? Lineage. We head to the telepad room to get our ghetto camp, and after about 10-12 pots... Ro Maeve Water! As we head back to the Olla room Lineage is still farming water. Suckers. Luckily they were nice enough to not only step aside, but to even leave the room. Surprising considering the animosity I sometimes see in the Sky/HNM LS's. We destroyed Olla, and got our Winterstone and called it a night. And what a great night it was. We never spent more than 20-25 mins camping a NM. We got no weapon drops, but we did get all our pop items and things turned out extremely well for our 1st Monday farming run.

Kirin Tuesday! x2? Maybe!

Shen

So we did Shen this past Friday, and I was hoping that since we were going with a different strategy than last time, we would be successful with the NM. Well, after having this happen to me a few weeks back:


we tried with more nukers and no kiting. Well, we wiped. Twice. So the LS starts getting kind of upset until we start arranging people in certain places. Sure enough, 4 straight wins, and the last one we did we had zero deaths. We got Reverend Mail for Strawberrie, Dragosal, Valdor (i believe), and a WHM/SMN who we helped get one. In return she gave us a spare Shrimp Lantern she had. I even got lucky one time.
I still don't understand why SE wants it's WHM's meleeing...