Tuesday, March 20, 2007

White magery

Since I'm growing a bit bored with my Warrior job (hey, it only took me 3 years), I've picked up WHM again at level 13. I took a couple of evenings to re-orient myself with the job: reading all the FAQs, muling and updating equipment, updating my spells, creating a new macro register, buying juice ingredients, and selling my Promy gear in a desperate attempt to compensate for my inevitable loss of 300k gil to an Astral Ring purchase.

I'm Elvaan. I had to do it.

I had a grand time in the dunes last night, getting from level 13 to a little over 1k TNL until 16.

Within seconds of arriving in Sandy with my flag up, I received an invitation which was a bit inauspicious at first, but I tried to remain positive and I'm glad that I did: BLM,WHM,WHM,BST,MNK. Although the leader (BST) first assumed that the MNK would be de facto tanking, he eventually found a PLD for the 6th slot.

Hiking all the way from Sandy without benefit of bird or OP warp, I rediscovered how excruciatingly slow transit can be at this level. Finally getting to the Valkurm outpost alive felt like a feat unto itself, although I was kicking myself for having forgotten Signet since the OP was owned by Windurst at the time.

We camped at the southeastern corner of I8, killing VT and IT Snippers for the remainder of the evening. The pulling could have been a bit faster, but we were competing with a couple of parties in the area, and I actually appreciated the pace since it allowed me some time to get familiar with the job again. The other WHM was subjob-less and had a substantially lower MP pool, so he enfeebled and backup healed while I main-healed.

I must confess that I had a couple of ACK! moments where I was completely flubbing my macros, and mistargeting, and letting nerves interfere with my performance, but for the most part I'm confident that I did a good job. No one died on my watch.

I'm getting a feel for how much juice to drink (kinda overdid it at first), and how long it takes to regain MP to a passable level for a pull, etc. I never hit a point where dipped below 25% MP, and for the most part the juice and cookie-resting kept my pool at a steady 60-80%.

I had a lot of fun, even when the backup WHM eventually had to go to bed. It was a very different feeling, this remote responsibility for the survival of the party, and I may very well end up taking this job past the 37 levels I was begrudgingly planning. Who knows...

11 comments:

Guankim said...

Wow...I may have to change my link to read "Frohike's Friendly Fun" or something soon. The path of the healer, eh? Yep, that's a turnabout! What can I say, after have main RDM, WHM, BRD, BLM...I've now gotten THF up to 40, taking it higher, haha!

Definately doing more damage all the while... *nods*

Anonymous said...

Sweet, send me a tell if ya wanna pt. Or if you can. and remember one very important thing about whm; first to cure and last to die.

Darrett said...

No death in the dunes is pretty impressive. It must have been a very nice group that worked together. Congrats on the first baby steps as WHM! Wait till you get regen, life will become sweeter.

Paul Bauman said...

They were all rank 8+ and played quite well. 3 of them shared a pearl, I believe.

The party didn't overcamp, which is uncommon behavior in the dunes. We did try a goblin at one point and quickly decided to stick to VT and low-end IT crabs for awhile.

Bombs before Barfira = sheer nastiness.

There were only a couple of occasions where the puller had to kite a mob to the zone while the rest of the party took care of the other mob. He survived on both runs to town, although he did die to a Bogy once on the trip back to our camp.

But I don't consider that a real WHM-preventable death ^^

Anonymous said...

Ah WHM ^^
my favorite job still, although I realize it isn't for everyone.

One thing that If you could get, may be benefical would be the lvl 10 Pilgrims Wand.

It's rare/ex and drops off of a pretty easy NM in the Windurst area. It gives you mp while healing boost that is nice. I didn't have it for my whm but did have it when I was lvling rdm in the dunes, and very much liked it.

May be something to look into if you have some extra time to Camp that NM.

Good Luck & I hope you enjoy your time ^^

Paul Bauman said...

I actually have that wand and get asked about it about half the time someone checks me. ^_^ +2 hMP is indeed quite nice.

I also nabbed the Fasting Ring from the popped NM in Tahrongi Canyon. I figured if I can't afford 2 Astrals, I might as well have some other +MP ring for the other finger and this one fits the bill nicely. +15 MP

Paul Bauman said...

Correction, the fasting ring is +10 MP

Whatevah...

Unknown said...

i levelled whm... for the teleports lol

Anonymous said...

Ah, I had an old character who happened to be an Elvaan WHM. I took it to 37 and surprisingly enjoyed it. It was just a completely different change of pace from THF, and I somehow managed to never have a party member die the entire way to 37.

Faulsey said...

Not commented in a while, not been keeping up to date on blogs!

Terrible, I know.

Hehe, glad you're enjoying a completely different job from what you're used to.

Personally, I'm not a WHM person; it's way too... unactive for me. Yes, you do get into situations where cures need to hit everyone, and fast, but usually, with a good tank, it's a case of waiting around till they take enough damage to warrant a cure.

However, that makes me respect those that do enjoy the job all the more, since I know it's something I could never do well.

Unknown said...

ditto, i tend to fall asleep after extended partying as WHM... although ironically i tend to NIN/WHM alot whenever i solo stuff :P