ZOMG 74!

Just a short update. I had agreed to help a fellow LS mate attain his Airship Pass (Rank 5) and we were going to begin with his Rank 4 Missions last night. After 30 minutes of waiting on him, I decided make the night productive and raised my party seek flag. Within 5 minutes I had an invite as a rep for a RDM so I hopped on the Staging Point Teleport thingie and went on my merry way to Bhaflau Thickets. All the party needed me to do was heal and use Hastega. Considering they had a Dancer, I barely had to do the healing part except for the rare occations when someone went into orange HP. In the hour that we partied, we made the 12,000 experience points that I needed to level. So like the title gives away:

Tatata ta taa ta tata! Summoner Level 74! One more level to go and I will finally attain 75. What will it take? I have no idea. I am hoping lots of very smooth parties versus lots of very unstable imp soloing. ;_;

Utter Chaos at Dynamis!

The title is going to be mega lame to you when you read further but I'm just a sucker for pun type stuff. I started doing Dynamis with my new Dynamis LS "Utterchaos" about two Thursdays ago. I got wins in both Jeuno and in Windurst so I am 2/2 so far. :D Its very exciting to be doing an event involving so many people while knowing that I am advancing on a storyline and working towards earning some cool gear. Heck, a WHM relic weapon randomly dropped on me during the Windurst run. It was funny getting to my Mog House to log for the night and finding that in my inventory. O_O; Its probably beyond useless to me but I still decided to store if for the time being, just to say "I have a relic weapon! har har har." The other comment I have to make about Dynamis is that it is very hectic. I found myself very relaxed doing my thing amongst the utter chaos that was ensuing, partly because of everything that was going on and partly because of the horrible lag. I can't wait till I pass the LS's probation period and gain the privilege of lotting. I want some Summoner Relic Gear!

In other news, Elden(LS mate) and myself have been working on skilling up our staves. We've been acomplishing this by whacking crabs in the Kuftal Tunnel. So far we have each gained about 10 skill levels and, while at it, Ripokeke leveled to 48! One incident(or two) worth mentioning was when one crap (EDIT: lol i meant "crab") linked to the one we were currently fighting. I had Buncles handle the link while we finished the first crab. Halfway through the struggle, a Bogy agroes Elden due to HP. >_< What do I do? I sicked Buncles on the Bogy and took upon myself to handle the second crab. Good decision since Buncles interrupted the Bogys Ancient Magic TWICE! Second crab died. Soon after, the first one did too. It was now Elden, Buncles and myself versus the Bogy; my MP wasn't in a good state so I popped a Yagudo Drink. The battle ensued with all our HP's usually in the yellow and orange but we wouldn't give up. Near the end, Elden was receiving most of the Bogy's attacks and his HP dropped to 40. He would've died if Buncles hadn't done his wonderful "Shinning Ruby II" just in time(which I told him to :P). Almost at the edge of having to listen to that annoying dead chyme, the Bogy fell and we began our boasting. ^_^;

Elden is the first person I meet who shares my interest of skilling staff till 230 and obtaining the Weapon Skill "Retribution". So, guess what, we decided that we are going to keep working together on skilling our staves until eventually we are able to do the Staff Trials and defeating the WS NM in order to each unlock "Retribution".

Final news for this post is Drimer and I were finally able to get some more experience on our WAR and DRK last night. It was SLOW xp as we had to change camps due to 7 minute mob battles and then 3 people left at random intervals in the night who we had to replace and wait for the individual replacements to arrive. The last thread was having multiple deaths TWICE because our Red Mage would refuse to Cure the Paladin and complained that the Paladin didn't have Echo Drops to heal Silence status. On top of that, when the Paladin(who was doing an EXCELLENT job) would ask for a Cure, the Red Mage would point out that the Paladin had MP. What the Red Mage failed to see time after time after time is that the Paladin WAS trying to Cure himself but, being the tank, was constantly being interrupted by the mobs attacks. The biggest shocker of the night was when, talking to our Paladin in /tells, I mentioned that the Red Mage was only curing the DDs and not him, the tank. To this he points out that the Red Mage hasn't been healing anyone, HE, THE PALADIN, had been the one to keep us all alive. We were both like: PLD/WHM {No, thanks.} I will refrain from naming this Red Mage to not stain this blog but I am VERY tempted to do so as a warning to everyone who calls Quetzy their world. To our, I'll admit it, JOY, the Red Mage took too much hate on the last fight and died. In a way, that reversed the night from a horrible annoying experience to a nice xp session where I met a great new friend. Quetzans, if you need a Paladin and Itsaboy is seeking, do not be discouraged by his Taruness and recruit him. It will be near impossible to take hate off of him once he starts.

Drimer and I each gained a level last night. I can't wait to keep advancing Dark Knight. Already I am feeling its power; specially when I activate Souleater, do a Weapon Skill for 200 damage, then use Absorb-TP on the mob and score a full TP bar, pulling off a second Weapon Skill for similar damage, then finalizing with a nice 50-150 HP Drain on the mob to recuperate my Souleater damage. Its evil, I know.

[Note: As always, some pictures will be added when I sit down to do this from the right computer. Thanks for the support!]

The Rise ^(o\_/o)^ AND FALL <(x " x)> of the Shadow Lord

On Monday, Drimer, myself, and a crew from my LS, went up to the northlands to do Rank Missions 5.1 and 5.2 in order to give me access to Dynamis, which I will be starting tonight. (little wootz). We were incredibly successfull! Here was our setup:
Zerayla (PLD)
Xean (MNK)
Alianne (BLU)
Onedarkflame (WHM)
Drimergirl (WAR)
Soulstar (SMN)

We took down the skeleton sorcerer for Mission 5.1 in stable fasion and completely obliterated the Shadow Lord. I think we might have spent more time buffing and healing MP at the beginning of the battle than what I took us to defeat him. Still, It was a lot of fun and the cutscenes were more than worth it.

When I began my journey in Vana'diel I realized that this game would not have a clear end but that of character development and maybe defeating very powerfull foes due to teamwork and strategy. This past month I've come to think I was wrong. There is an "end" or, at least, a touchable goal one can strive to acomplish in this game: finishing all the storyline missions. Its quite a feat considering there are 3 Nation storylines, Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan and now Wings of the Goddess. Still, it can be done and definitely gives me a frame by which guide my progress in the game.
On another note, I got tired of seeking fruitlessly with Summoner while dying excessively trying to solo Imps so I went out and formed a party last night. By forming party I mean that I asked a Ninja if he wanted to party and he said yes. Before I could continue to invite more people he had already setup up the entire party and was just waiting on me to arrive at the city so we could take off. I wasn't going to complain. I was now part of something I had only heard about up to that point: a merit party! It was a RIDE! We made about 20,000 xp in two hours. Our bard just kept pulling non-stop the whole time, usually 2 mobs at a time. I didn't get to level up but I am now at 15,000 TNL to 74 which means I need to go get myself some scrolls, Shell II and Shellra II, before I level.

This definitely raised my spirits a abit about leveling Summoner. I was starting to fear having to solo my way to level 75. Now I will be looking to make my own parties in case I don't get invites since I have a better idea of what a good meriting party needs and know at least one camp. Yey, I feel one bit less noob now. Lets see how I feel when Im done with my first Dynamis run tonight. >_<;

Farming Ameretats for Aht Urghan Mission 12 with Alianne.

Re-embracing my inner EMO. U_U

Bubbles is still missing and his absence was most felt a couple of days ago. I discovered some Bahuts(furniture) on bazaar near the Sandy Residential Area and I just had to get a couple. Eight storage space in a single piece of furniture, it is just what I needed to aleviate my overcrowded Mog Safe. All excited, I spent a good half-hour playing around with our furniture to make space for the two new Bahuts. Bubbles would've been so psyched.
Truth is that moving all the furniture reminded me of all the great times we had together and it put me in a sort of emotional mood. Knowing that Drimergirl wanted to party and feeling the darkness pulling me in, I embraced the EMO once more and prepped up my Dark Knight. After an hour of eager and bloodthirsty party seeking, we were invited to a party.

For a change, it was a fully functional party consisting of a Paladin, Drimer(WAR), Myself(DRK), a Thief, a Bard and a Red Mage. The Thief was Japanesse and wouldn't stop pulling even if random people went AFK which would break most parties after a single incident of pulling when the healer has no MP. The "but" here is that we never had a reason to stop the party. The Red Mage, a Taru, did not once run out of MP. He had the convert cycle down to a science. Bundle that with our Galka Bard, who was just as efficient in his duties, and you gain almost two whole levels in the course of 2 party-hours.

It felt great to draw my Great Sword once more and slice away at everything. I was rather annoyed that bats are strong agains darkness since I couldn't absorb an inch from them. Still, I had a blast hurting myself to torture the poor things in order to have enough space to pull 150dmg Drains on them. Its so wicked, really.We ended Friday night more than halfway to our weekend goal of lvl 50. When we gathered again on Sunday to seek for a party, our luck had definitely run out or the kharma of taking all those bat souls had caught up with me because, in the two hours that we seeked, we did not receive a single invite. ;_; So, we had to call an end to the weekend without acomplishing our goal. Guess we will just have to plan for longer seek periods as, from what I hear, is normal for {Paper} {Knight}s.

Next weekend seems months away but I am hoping it will come quickly. Same with the next weekends as the more experienced gained, the closer I come to the Haubergeon and becoming one spiffy looking Taru Dark Knight! :D For now, I will just pass the time mastering my Summoner and helping my shell as much as I can. Till next weekend...

Venturing Back

A couple of days ago, while trecking the Rolanberry Fields with Drimergirl, we stumbled upon a very nasty looking structure. It was heavily covered in vines and resembled some sort of giant mouth; big enough to swallow a large Galka. >_< The next bits are a bit hazy but we do recall being in a Promyvion looking place where a very weird cat person was rambling on about god knows what until we just kinda fell over the edge and into nothingness. See what I mean? HAZY! When we woke up again we were in what seemed like Sauromugue Champaign. The only odd thing was that, where once stood ruins, there where complete fortifications! Who the heck repaired all this so fast? o_0 We were suddenly surrounded by some soldiers, appeared to be San d'Orians, who, after questioning us like scum, told us to head to Garliage Citadel immediately. We made it to Garliage and into another great surprise. The walls looked newer than what we are used to and the stairs were covered by steel panels which seem be used to hawl the brand-new looking trebuches in there. Could it be? We tried to get our bearings and nothing made sense. So we decided to find the person we had been referenced to. After a very smooth hole-less treck we found the commanding officer. He graced us with the news that we were at war with the united beastmen races. WTF?!?!? He told us that we should immediately report to San d'Oria for orders. WTF?!?!?

We decided to make our way to San d'Oria. Just after leaving the Citadel, we noticed bands of Yagudo entering Garliage. We have faced many things, but full out war, this is new. Our way to San d'Oria was not clear. We had to go around walls and discovered that the routes we knew were not there anymore. How long did we pass out? Eventually we made it to San d'Oria where, after some hassles, we joined the ranks of the Knights of the Iron Ram.

The San d'Oria we were in now also looked newer and battle ready. We wondered about and stumbled into a band of teenagers clad in armor and armed who called themselves the Young Griffons. Like with everything else in Vana'diel we became entangled in some drama and ended up being asked to babysit the Griffons under the cover of wanting to be part of their group. This reminded me a lot about the Star Onions Brigade. Behind their caretakers eyes, the Griffons went on a mission to intercept an orcish attack in Batallia Downs. Worried for the dumb teenagers, Drimer and I decided to keep a close eye on them. We got to Jugner Forest to find them fleeing from the orcs, one of them cornered by the orcish leader. With some help from Alianne and Carste, we decimated Dradzad and saved the Griffons.

Alianne and Carste were a little bit more knowledgable about what the hell was going on than Drimer and me hence they told us to return through the ugly mouth thing, which is called a Cavernous Maw, and all our questions would be answered. Drimer and I headed to the maw a little hesitant to be digested again. @_@ We were again taken to the promyvion looking place with the cat. This time, the cat was a lot more eloquent and he explained that we were now gifted with the power to travel through time. Cait Sith was the cat's name and she told us that we should use this power to help her improve the horrible outcome of the Crystal War. OMFG! It all made sense to us now. We had actually been transported into the past; to the great war. We told Cait Sith we would do whatever we could to help. She thanked us greatly and then we opened our eyes back in present time Rolanberry Fields.

When we thought we had everything figured out, we realized that we have no idea HOW we are going to help shift the fate of Vana'diel so we decided we will venture back soon and further involve ourselves in the growing struggle. Just like we have always supported San d'Oria in our time, we will campaign under its flag once more in the past.