Multitasking

Merits

I did in fact end up meriting with Feon and his posse on Friday night, taking the south camp at the Mamool Ja staging point and EXP'ing away the hours. I got up to the 3 merit mark and about 8k into my next merit before we called it a night. It was another BRD-pull style party, so I had more fun with the voke <stnpc> macro ^_^

I spent 3 of the merits on another Axe upgrade, for a total of +6 skill so far. I think I'll stop at 4 upgrades there, in case I do end up meriting sword someday.

Shopping

The next evening consisted of selling off old gear and putting a few remaining Poison Pot stacks into the recovering market. I was able to finally upgrade my Tarasque Mitts to the +1 version, an item on my shopping list that had been nagging me for quite some time.

"Crafishing"

After reaching 30 in fishing last week it occurred to me that I could be profit-fishing a bit, even though the fish market has reportedly taken quite a beating from relentless botting. Rather than go on dedicated fishing sessions, however, I've decided to build them into my Cobalt Jellyfish expeditions to Bibiki Bay: hit the shop at 1AM, synth all jellies into Mercury, zone to Buburimu and fish up Shall Shells & Bluetail between sessions. And the shop holiday (Lightningday) becomes a fishing day.

It's a great way to kill that 'idle' feeling when I'm stuck out there waiting for the shop to open again, and it supplements the income. It's not huge, but certainly better than twiddling my thumbs.

Operation Desert Swarm

I was in the middle of such a session when Minusjoker invited me to a KSNM 30 (Operation Desert Swarm). It was a party of 6 and we each brought an orb. Our setup was BLM RDM WHM SAM PLD WAR. The initial plan was to open with Sleepga, have the PLD and SAM pull a Scorp while I solo'd another at a distance, while the RDM and BLM handled the awakening mobs and supported the WHM in her healing.

The first attempt went badly when we carried out the plan in the main room. I managed to solo 2 of the scorpions, but AOE kept awakening the others and killed off the WHM pretty quickly. On the next attempt, we decided to pull the scorpions into the hallway to the BC. It went better, although I still didn't manage to pull mine quite far enough into the hall, and a couple of the Scorps also awoke more quickly than the others. 0/2 so far.

The third attempt was a near-perfect run. We pulled the first 2 scorpions all the way back to the entrance and battled from there, running back to the room for refills. Minusjoker was still noticing that the same 2 mobs would awaken before we had finished off the initial mobs, so we decided to hit those first on the next attempts. Something caused this third attempt to go FUBAR, but I don't recall what it was. In any case, we were ready for the next 3.

The WHM suggested that the SAM assist me when he and the PLD had finished off their mob, then switch back when mine was down. From that point on we had our formula and completed the remaining BC's cleanly. Unfortunately there were no big money drops, but we're now all very familiar with this KSNM and will certainly burn more seals on it again.

As I warped around to resume my fishing, I got an invitation from Feon to complete San D'Oria mission 7-1. Of course, I accepted ^_^

Prestige of the Papsque

It was a quick trip through Bostaunieux Oubliette, and the pace picked up considerably on the last stretch to the West Ronfaure zone when Feon made an announcement ... "Whatever you do, don't stop running." He gunned it through mob agro, making quite an impressive chain of Gespents and Hetacomb Hounds.

The NM Orc fight went well, though I was stunned at the Orc's speed at the end of the fight when Hundred Fists seemed more like Millisecond Fists and I couldn't pull hate off of Feon. Voke & Warcry did nothing, and of course ... being the zombie that I was, I forgot to 2-hour, which would have been quite effective (/slap me). So Cozmos had to pump quite a few HP back into Feon before the Orc died.

I got my key item and returned to Sandy, thanking the group, still amazed at how friendly some folks can be in this game. I mean, it was 12AM PST >_>;

To close the night, I pumped a few more stacks of Poison Pots into the AH before the price deflated from 20k again, and passed out around 12:45AM... only to be awakened by my baby daughter who experienced her first earache at 2AM.

Yep, I'm just a wee bit exhausted this morning.