Friday, January 12, 2007

32,759

Limit points, that is. In a bit over 3.5 hours. Setup: BRD, WHM, WAR, WAR, MNK, NIN

People must have been off doing Salvage or Assault runs, because Caedarva and the Mamool Ja Staging Point were almost entirely deserted, although the thickets took a bit longer to empty out. So we played in both, starting in the mire and moving on to the thickets when people were getting exasperated with Amnesia.

The pulling was a bit chaotic at times, but we managed to hit a chain #20 in the thickets before a Sleepga from a Philosopher stopped us in our tracks.

Due to the endless queue of BRD pulls, I was making heavy use of my /ja "Provoke" <stnpc> to grab hate from soon-to-be-slept mobs without interrupting my own hits on the current mob, and to enable the BRD to run back out into the field without worry of being followed (or losing too much HP while getting Sleep to stick).

That's when I learned that the nifty /ignorepet has it's drawbacks in certain situations, namely with Mamool Ja pets (Wyvern or Raptor) which are usually first in line in the kill queue before the pet's owner.

On the subject of targeting, why does the 'tab sequence' sometimes choose to target a mob behind you, 20 feet away, rather than a mob right in front of you? -_-

All in all, though, it obviously went well. I constantly had that feeling that the party was teetering on the edge of control, but it was a pleasant element of danger. The lack of players was unfamiliar and amplified the pulling to occasional breaking points. The Bard did die a few times; twice in the mire due to awkward pops and Amnesia timing, and once in the thickets because of a linked Skoffin, Pikeman, Seapuk combo. Sometimes, there just aren't enough Vokes to go around...

In Lifthrasir news, the LS was successful in completing Lexxi's Choral Justaucorps quest last night. I was sorry to miss it, but had already been inducted into the aforementioned merit party for about 30 minutes before the rest of the shell signed on. Congratulations, Lexxi, Paragon of Bard Excellence! And a belated congratulations to Maloc, who recently attained Paragon status on his Dragoon. Movin' on up!

5 comments:

Darrett said...

Hey, I'm still around. Just been busy with stuff and not really updating too often as you can tell.

By the way, a BIG thank you from all the Bards out there in the FFXI community. There have been way too many WARs who have forgotten how to provoke at level 70+. They'd rather have the Bard take the hits while they avoid taking "damage". Until someone provokes that slept mob the BRD can't run to grab another one. So THANK YOU!

BTW, I'll update soon.

Paul Bauman said...

Hiya Darrett ^_^

You know the funny thing is, no one ever actually told me to do this...ever. Which is kinda scary, considering how many BRD pullers I've had in the 70's. Perhaps the NIN or PLD were doing it, and I never noticed.

It just dawned on me awhile ago that, since you could voke mobs without waking them, it would be a great way to shed hate off of the sleeper (whatever mage class that might be). And since BRD basically pull and sleep in these zones, I put 2 & 2 together. It still didn't really click until I started using STNPC to prevent screwing up my lock on the current target.

Now that I have it macro'd, it's actually a great way to multi-task. It just complicates your shadow counts, and leads to some consternation when a random melee pulls hate and my Voke isn't up. But it sure gives us a steady stream of pulls...

Darrett said...

Hehe, I've told, scolded, whined, and yelled at WARs to no avail. It's to the point where I hate TP burns and would rather do a manaburn (it's so much easier just being a ballad whore and yeah some sleeping involved). BTW, I think I accidentally erased your comment on my site. :-(

Paul Bauman said...

It's all good, Darrett. I'm just glad you're still around ^^. And keep yelling; it's the only way Warriors will listen, if ever.

"Provoke a mob I'm not hitting? Whaaa? {Rampage}! {Raging Rush}!" /em does the Hulkamania flex, like an idiot.

Jowy said...

This is impressive. 30k merits in a mere 4h. Oh pardon me, less than 4h

And this reminds me I should merit too ._.