Chains of Promathia: Or, How To Make a Time-Consuming Mission (Big Post Part #1)

Well, I've been busy. Very busy.
[Dema's note: this post was actually gonna be about 3 things, but it was already huge by the time I'd finished the CoP bit. Look for a second part!)

Chains of Promathia

The Chains of Promathia expansion pack, released last year, was - in the eyes of many, myself and Saik included - a real waste of money. In order to progress through the expansion, which offered no new jobs, you had to pass through 3 level-capped areas called the Promyvions in a battle versus the Emptiness that is encroaching on the edge of Vana'diel's reality.

Sounds like a great setup, but lets go back to that phrase "level-capped". How many of you remember what it was like playing your favourite job back at level 30? Ok I admit, for some jobs it hasn't changed much. But some jobs are missing important spells or abilities that you've grown used to. Refresh? Utsusemi: Ni? Haste?

But anyways, get past the Promyvion missions (join the Promyvion Death Squad!) and there is much more content ahead. But alas, just GETTING to Promathia Chapter 2 is a nightmare, and many people wrote off the expansion because of it.

In chapter 2, there are level 40-capped areas. This is slightly better really. Ninjas have most of their abilities, Corsairs get their Refresh roll at 40, and jobs are generally tougher and more capable. Phomiuna Aqueducts faces you off against several taurus mobs (from which I still need to learn Frightful Roar on BLU, dammit!), then Riverne Site #A01 again caps you at lv.40 to fight some weird humanoid things.

Recently I started on the missions in chapter 3. PM3-1 and 3-2 were easy. Couple of cutscenes in Bastok. PM3-3, on the other hand, was the MISSION FROM HELL! Let me explain.

PM3-3 splits into two legs: the Sandy leg and the Windy leg.

The San d'Oria leg sees you looking for information about the expedition into the Northlands which investigated the Shadow Lord. Halfway through it, you have to go to Carpenter's Landing and fight a Malboro NM called Overgrown Ivy. She's a bitch! Incredibly fast attacks which seem to get more accurate as you wear down her HP. She ALMOST killed me on DRK74/NIN37 and I'm pretty good at soloing now. But eventually, she died, I won, and I completed the Sandy leg. That was, alas, the easy bit!

The Windurst leg sees you following the Chebukki tarutaru on their search for their father. As the run around Windy, they hassle several prominent NPCs, who then moan that their reputation is in tatters, and it is of course up to you to fix it! To cut a long story short, you end up having to repair a mirror. Sounds easy? It kinda wasn't.

Ya see, I ended up trekking to Attohwa Chasm as DRK/NIN again. I knew there was going to be a NM fight like no the Sandy leg, and I was expecting something of comparable difficulty. I was in for a surprise.

Took me almost thirty minutes of trekking round the Chasm to GET to the pop point. I then spent a further thirty minutes fighting the damned thing. Why thirty minutes? Well, because the damned thing binds you in place with some TP moves, then scuttles back to its spawn point and regens all its HP in about 2 seconds. So I had to pull it away, bind it, sleep it, stun it, whatever was up, to keep it from scuttling back. I got it down to a sliver of life several times before I ran out of ways to stop it, and had to start all over again.


There's the beastie. Anyways, he died eventually, leaving me with about 8mp and 114hp and I clicked his ??? to get the Mimeo Stone key item.

Next came one of the most frustrating things I've EVER had to do in FFXI. Make my way to the top of this sodding mountain in Attohwa Chasm. Narrow ledges that you can fall off, fume spouts that block your progress, no map or way to know you are heading in the right direction, and an hour's time limit as the light from the Mimeo Stone gradually fades. It took me an hour and thirty minutes. I actually had to go back for another key item, AND look up a walkthrough for the mountain on the web, I was THAT annoyed by the end of it. Ask anyone who was in Resurrection at the time. I was swearing a lot I believe.

ANYWAYS, I got it done. I got to the top, dumped the stone in the Cradle of Rebirth, watched the pretty lights (below) and got the hell outta there, returning to Windy for some more cutscenes. PM3-3 and 3-4 done!


Next up is PM3-5.... head into Pso'xja and fight Diabolos. Sounds easy, I thought, until I read up on the quest description. Sounds NOT so easy, I thought. Then I started the first bit of the mission to get the Pso'xja Pass to let me INTO the Diabolos fight.

And GOD DAMN!!!

Me and Aluve spent probably 2.5hrs in Pso'Xja last night, fighting Mimics, Diremites, Cryptonberries, golems, magic pots, bats, eveything that was there, we fought (mostly cos I kept aggroing stuff). It tooks us AGES to get the rare/ex chips we needed. Next time I am going on THF for chip-farming (need them for later missions ><) Aluve did manage to get a key and open a treasure chest for a map though, and I also got a key so I can go map hunting later.


Anyways, handed in our chips, got our Pso'xja Pass key item. NOW we can do the fight vs Diabolos (which we're doing at 5pm EST tonight, hopefully).