Paragon of Warrior Excellence

God, it sounds so pretentious but that's my title as of last night.

I partied on Friday night and reached level 63 in Bibiki Bay. I don't think I want to use this camp again unless, by some chance, it isn't crowded... which it always seems to be. There were a total of 4 parties in the area, all targeting the Tragopans, so the competition was ridiculous and we ended up killing more Hobgoblins than we cared to (the BLM Hobgoblin Fascinators were particularly nasty), but the EXP was decent and once again I was lucky to have a party of friendly players who knew their jobs. We shared pulling duty a bit, since I couldn't be everywhere at once, and it went rather well.

Since my little craftless EXP streak reduced my gil to 60K (yeesh), I spent a couple of evenings doing the old Alchemy routine: camping the Bibiki bay fishing shop, crafting Mercury for Poison Potion, and gathering materials for other consumables, namely Sleeping Potion & Firesand. I haven't had the time to get everything on the AH, but the few stacks I did sell have put me in the more breatheable 200k range.

While muling in Jeuno, I picked up a shout for help on The Talekeeper's Gift. I ping'ed the leader and let him know I was definitely interested although I hadn't flagged the quest yet. I wasn't certain I could get it done in time since they already had 5 members and were nearly ready, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least prime the quest for later and if I could hop into their party, all the better. My XBL connection decided to crap out at that point. By the time I was able to log back in, the party had already killed the NM Goblins. Since this turned my focus to AF, I started to drop help requests with TheRebirth periodically. First evening was a no-go, but several friends said they'd like to help once they were free. On the second evening I was a bit too busy crafting, but still dropped a polite request just to stay on the radar.

I logged in last night for a quick session (it was late), just to put some more product on the AH and log out, but someone in the shell was asking for AF help and several others were expressing interest. So I took the opportunity and requested help as well. Presto... With Qufim so close, mine was the first stop, though I volunteered to tag along and help with the next quest (for RNG socks in Xarcabard).

We tried going trio, but this resulted in a couple of deaths, including mine. By the time we died, a couple of high-level Red Mages and a Dragoon had logged in and were looking for something to do, so we had a full party on our second attempt. We went after the WHM (named Doglix Muttsnout, /snicker) first while one of us kited the THF and another occupied the RNG away from the goblin healer. Doglix got off one Benediction, which slowed things down a bit, and the kiter wandered a bit too far from battle and went deeply into the red before one of our healers tracked him down. But we eventually won. I got an interesting CS, my Fighter's Lorica, and my new title when I zoned to Qufim.

A little moment of meta-irony: the final Talekeeper's Gift CS tells you that you own the only true artifact lorica, and awards it to you as a way to conceal it's role in a potentially scandalous political plot. How will they keep you from being conspicuous while wearing this unique artifact? Why, manufacture thousands of others, of course! So, that explains why so many other Warriors are wearing my 'unique' gear. Or... what if all the others have been told the same thing, and there is no 'true' artifact? Dun dun duuuuuun.

Hey, I thought it was funny.

The NM tiger fight for the Ranger artifact armour (also a 'Paragon' piece) was pretty straightforward and included the same group of people. Some expressed hesitation at the lack of a WHM, but it turned out fine, even when a couple of demons re-spawned halfway through the fight.

So at least two Paragons got their wings on Ifrit last night.