Contrasts

I got to see both sides of Valkurm last night.

The side we all enjoy to decry was actually pretty comical. The party consisted of a random assortment of melee, all rank 1 or 2, at least a couple of sub-less players, and an anon player whom I discovered was to be our backup healer. I didn't really check anyone, and frankly didn't care. The night was young, and if things went wrong there would be plenty of time to recover.

The party self-destructed within 20 minutes.

We were having fun with flies at the outpost, which gave me some good practice on my Poisonas, and a retrospective note-to-self to use Barwatera more often to mitigate Cursed Sphere damage. But the players were just kinda clueless. One of them had to leave within 5 minutes of starting and was wondering what job to bring in, NIN being one of the options. He was a melee, so it didn't really matter, but the PLD stated NIN would "make a better tank". Ooook then...

Meanwhile the puller was grabbing anything by the OP that con'd...anything. The taru "backup healer" ran out of MP at almost every fight and grabbed agro constantly. The puller of course eventually got a sheep, which AOE'd as I was running in for a Barsleepra. It put everyone to sleep and pecked away at a single player (not the PLD, incidentally) killing him pretty quickly. We eventually defeated the sheep with 3 melee before one of them logged randomly. The dead guy lay there for quite awhile before I asked about his home point (as if I had to). Jeuno.

The NIN who showed up to the OP refused the invite, probably because of the epic sheep battle he'd just witnessed.

When the party disbanded, the /anon backup healer remained anon and put his flag up. That's when I checked him. He wore a random assortment of melee gear with a few +INT here & there, no rings, no earrings, no hand gear, no waist gear. I had to explain the anon status to him, and explained how to turn it off. Once it was off, he checked as a subless 18 RDM. He then proceeded to do his version of a /shout...only in the /say channel.

"I need a party."

"I will main heal."

Every 10 seconds or so, with only the two of us as an audience. Yeah, I was scared too.

Anyway another invite came within minutes and I accepted. Thankfully this party consisted of higher-ranked players (8-10), with a couple of new players, one of whom still needed a map to the area ^_^. Zorrandor had volunteered to help me out with my next party, and these folks needed a tank, so he came out on his PLD (18). We headed out to the secret beach, only to find a surprise PL waiting for us.

ORZ

Fortunately, the PL got tired and left within a half hour. I shared healing and buffing duties with a SMN, who incidentally loved to spam the /p and /s channels with dorky RPish dialog with her avatars >.>;

{/echo} {Please check it.}

But it didn't interfere with my job or hers so I didn't mind so much. It's just fascinating to see what levels of geekdom people can take their fantasy worlds to ^_^. I know, pot kettle black, right?

The puller was kinda crazy, but I liked it that way. I let her pull at 100MP just to see if I could swing it, and for the most part it was fine although it did cause me to drink more Melon Juice than I was accustomed to, and any post battle Curagas would drain my pool down to 20ish MP. But I figured I'd better get accustomed to the faster-paced fighting that would lie ahead, juggling resting time with the right amount of cures/buffs etc.

The party went really really well, and I dinged 19 & change before I needed to log for some sleep.