Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Called to Task

In no mood to craft or farm, I put up my flag for more meriting last night. I got a replacement invitation fairly quickly to a party in Bhaflau Thickets. They were camped in the back, by the zone to the Jade Sepulcher, which is actually a fairly risky camp since mobs repop pretty quickly, making linkless pulls trickier if not impossible at times. The Mamool Ja Philosophers (BLM) can be particularly nasty when linked to an incoming pull since they enjoy spamming -ga spells and sleeping folks.

We got one of those on the first pull, and a nuke hit the entire party pretty hard. I pulled hate instantly and died before I could get my shadows back up. Yeah, death on the first mob. I could only chuckle, as I cautiously melee'd in weakened status for awhile.

But the party went well: RDM WHM WAR RNG NIN DRG. This wasn't really a standard "bounce the hate around" sort of merit party, so I was conservative with the Provokes, trying to let the hate land on the Ninja as much as possible and Voke/Warcrying the mob off of her when shadows were exhausted and a Firespit or Rushing Drub would hit particularly hard. The mages had to leave around an hour later, so we disbanded with me around 3k until the next merit.

I got a "{Party}{Long time}" invitation at 11PM as I was walking from the Runic Portal to my MH to log for the night. It was from a Japanese player whom I recognized from the Ziz party I blogged earlier this year. It was late, but I took it anyway... and once again the EXP camp proved to be unconventional but interesting.

We headed out to the Halvung staging point in Mount Zhayolm and people used their Cast Metal Plate to open the gate at J-7. I didn't have one but followed one of the other members through the door to make my way to the camp at I-9. This was Hilltroll country, and we camped up the steps in a location where trolls spawned on both sides of us, leading to an impressively endless 'sleep queue' of trolls. Party makeup was RDM WHM BRD NIN DRG WAR.


The killing went underway, and I made the initial mistake of eating meat when my sushi wore off, which didn't work so well on the Hilltroll Paladins and Hilltroll Dark Knights.

Live & learn.

This combined with an undispellable Diamondhide (I wish I had known this since the poor RDM opened every fight with Dispel), which made it impossible to gain TP very quickly, and the Paladins loved to Cure IV themselves. Thankfully the other trolls weren't as problematic.

I did my usual thing, spamming damage as much as possible while keeping the shadows up and trying not to interfere with what I assumed was the main tank. I assumed incorrectly, and the BRD eventually exploded:

{Warrior} {Provoke} {Do you have it?}.
...
{Warrior} {Too weak}?
...
Bard pokes Frohike.
[/say channel]: "you"
(I assume he was trying to clarify that he wasn't talking about the Hilltroll Warriors -_-;).

Let me tell you. If you ever need to galvanize a lazy or clueless Warrior into a crazed flurry of Provokes, Warcries, Rampage and rampant hate-stealing, you only need to use those two simple little auto-translates.

{Warrior} {Too weak}.

I'll admit I should have previously analyzed the party makeup and mob effects with a little more...engagement and turned off the auto-pilot for this one. I was angry at first, that the BRD should state this so rudely. But in a sense I was also relieved. At least the party didn't go for hours thinking what the BRD said but keeping it to themselves.

I was the only other Utsusemi user in the party, and the DRG wasn't going to bounce hate. Of course it was my job to trade hate with the NIN, and I should have known this. After bouncing the enmity around between me and the Ninja for a few mobs, I confirmed that this was what they wanted. {Provoke} OK? And the response was {Yes, please}.

And we kept going from there. When my damned Sis Kebabi finally wore off (sometimes that Sanction can be a double-edged sword), I switched to Sole Sushi and swapped in the Swordbelt+1 rather than the Life Belt, and we plowed through the mobs without too much trouble (excepting Diamondhide).

The party continued with no pauses until we disbanded around 2AM, with me close to earning my 3rd merit for the night. I closed with "{I'm sorry} {Provoke} {Slow}", which elicited a "np ty^^" from the Ninja before I logged out.

That darned language barrier can be tough at times, but the Bard got through to me loud and clear last night: Pull your weight, muthaf***a!

Live & learn.

I spent 2 merits this morning, trimming 10 seconds off of my Aggressor and Berserk recast timers. I want to upgrade these evenly to keep their timers in sync, while continuing to upgrade Crit Attack rate until capped. I'll keep upgrading Bergressor until I hit 3 upgrades each, then decide whether to begin working on Double Attack upgrades or go for the full 5 Aggressor 5 Berserk route.

8 comments:

Tuufless said...

Frohike, I've heard wind of a new xp camp in the Bhaflau Thickets for you to try out some time:

- Enter the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins from the Bhaflau Thickets.
- Take the really bright looking portal
- Once you're teleported, take the other really bright looking portal.
- Then, head south, follow the path, and take the first portal you see.
- Take the dim-lighted portal
- Exit as normal.

You _should_ exit to the Bhaflau Thickets, filled with VT-IT Mamool and VT-IT GREATER Colibri. Try those. ^^

There may or may not already be a Runic Portal to here- as you know, I haven't been on for quite some time now, so I can't log in myself to personally check this. >_<

Paul Bauman said...

Mmmm VT-IT Colibri... {Yes, please}

I'll check it out. Thanks, Tuuf!

Boa Valenwood said...

I love reading this stuff, the sarcasm makes any situation quite comical.

Just be glad you're not a woman. Some RDM told me I was "useless" once before we even got to camp, just from seeing that I was a Taru, I guess. That PT disbanded real quick.

But I suppose your incident was ... lol .. "provoked." Mine wasn't.

Anyway, keep up the humour, making my days a little easier. And even if you overcome the language barrier, there's still a pretty big cultural one. I'm surprised a JP would say that, they're usually pretty polite, or just trash you in JP when they think you can't read it. >.>;

Paul Bauman said...

Glad people enjoy it! XD

I know most of my adventures are rehashes to folks who've done the grind through 75 and merits many times, but I hope to at least entertain with a sense of humor and my tongue firmly in cheek.

3 years in any environment, whether work or play, will instill a healthy sense of sarcasm... and I have no other outlet than this blog :)

Happy holidays, Berrie.

Guankim said...

{Warrior} {Too weak}?
...
Bard pokes Frohike.
[/say channel]: "you"

<33333333 that BRD ^^

That comment and the reaction to it just made my day. I'll have to remember that auto translate next time we have a WAR who's scared to take a hit...not that that was your case of course, you've shown us plenty of blogs where death abounds! Haha!

Paul Bauman said...

Yeah, to be honest part of it was just not being used to how tankable WAR really is at 75. When you hit the right sequence of Utsu:Ichi and Utsu:Ni, you barely get a scratch... and combined with Defender in a pinch. Yeah, I'm not so afraid to 'steal' hate anymore.

Besides the concept of a set 'tank' pretty much goes out the window in a merit party.

All these little things you don't really learn until you do 'em...

Sorry for the slow updates. One will be forthcoming today.

Anonymous said...

Why the hell are you using great axe in a meripo? Axe/sword onry.

Paul Bauman said...

Um I wasn't using great axe... Never have in meripo. I always use my trusty Woody/Maneater combo.

You might be misreading one of the screenshots?

That great axe you see there is being wielded by one of the Hilltroll Warriors; not myself.