Dark, Ninja and Skillup... Oh My!

Dark Knight

The big push on DRK is still underway. Night before last (after that awful party on BLU) Resurrection LS again took to Bhaflau Thickets for a 2-3hr party versus the Mamool Ja Savages, the Sea Puks, and the .... *shudder* ...* Skoffins there.

We made short work of everything except the Skoffins which killed me. Twice. In two pulls. MAN they hit hard!!

The skoffin hits Demajen for 280 damage.
<Demajen> Ow!!
The skoffin hits Demajen for 247 damage.
<Demajen> Double ow!!
The skoffin crits Demajen for 420 damage!!
Demajen was defeated by the Skoffin.
<Demajen> Buggerit!

Anyways, I hit DRK74 in that party, Damen hit BLU75, and Edari hit RDM74(75?) too. I also learned that when your tank is a NIN, subbing /THF is probably the best option for DRK. I was drawing FAR too much hate sub /WAR.

It was also suggested that I do what many high level DRKs do and sub NIN and go Rampage crazy. I must confess that the ludicrous numbers Spampage puts out is one of the reasons I started leveling Warrior, but until I could do this effectively as DRK/NIN, there were two obstacles to overcome.

Ninja Sub

Yes ladies and gents, my NIN was only level 32. DRK74/NIN32 is gimp as hell. At 74 my sub should be 37 and on NIN, that means having Utsusemi: Ni for double the shadow protection. After the party on DRK, I decided that really, I should force myself to get NIN to 37 as soon as possible so I can get rid of all my stuff for it (inventory space is still at a huge premium). I kitted up my NIN before logging off for the night.

Last night I'd not long logged in before I got a party invite. I hadn't even started lookin for a party. I informed Saik of this over MSN, and he said to drop him a line if we needed a WAR for this new party. I asked the leader, and it turns out that we did, so for the first time in several months, the indomitable duo of Saik and Dema ventured forth into the lands of Vanadiel... this time to the ancestral home of the galka, the Altepa Desert.

As a 32-33 party we camped at the zoneline and fought beetles and eventually dhalmels. Party setup was:

Dema ~ NIN (backup tank cos Saik's so damned good at getting hate)
Saik ~ WAR (main tank cos he keeps putting out huge crits and numbers on Sturmwind)
Draven ~ BLU
Blazed ~ WHM
Amaykun ~ MNK (also putting out damned impressive numbers; he was taru too)
Stormont ~ BLM

To be honest, it was a bit of a ropey party. Blazed ain't the best WHM in the world, and Stormont is lucky he didn't die any number of times - even with two people voking, sometimes we couldn't tear hate away from him opening the fight with Firaga. ~_~;;

We fought for probably 2+ hours, and in all fairness, made surprisingly good XP. Both Saik and myself hit 34, from starting off at only 500 into 32. This leaves us both with only 3 levels to go before we both have fully levelled subs for THF (and DRK/BLU/RNG/WAR o.O;) and SAM. While I'm not looking forwards to purchasing Utsusemi: Ni, I can at least bare 3 levels of NIN. Its not that I don't like NIN, I actually do quite like it, I'm simply a) afraid of the cost and b) have stigmatised it simply because I view it as a subjob, and we know how I feel about those (see previous blog entry).


Anyways, 850xp into 34. Getting there.

Skillup

The other thing holding me back from going DRK74/NIN37 (after those 3 sub levels) is the lack of axe skill. I believe Axe is a B class skill for DRK, so its not too shoddy, but since I started off with axe around level 130, I'd got quite a way to go till I get it anywhere near cap level (236 at 74).

Night before last, Damen, Edari, Numair and I tore through Kuftal Tunnel. And I mean tore. Robber Crabs, Recluse Spiders, the odd Elemental, a Sabotender. We ripped each of them a new one before proceeding to batter their mates too. Having started at 130 axe, I'd made it up to 153 by the end of the session (which was only about an hour n a half) and learned a new skill - "Spinning Axe" (which, thank god, isn't an AoE attack like many of the other 150 WSs) - before I went to bed.

After my party with Saik last night, Edari, Numair, Griss and I went to The Boyahda Tree for more skillup. As soon as we got their we noticed Aquarius was up and prowling around in his crabby way. I noted that I'd actually quite like his Francisca, since I do need it for RNG should I ever get round to levelling it again, and I know some WAR use it for Xbow spammage. Anyways, we fought Aquarius and we whupped his ass. Only time someone went down into the red was when Edari used convert mid-fight. Aquarius hits pretty hard, but since we were all (apart from Num) subbing NIN for faster skillup, we didn't get hit too often (and my Drains and Aspir were doing rather well too!)

So now I have a nice Francisca to use in skillup or solo play, when I like to spam bloody bolts :) Go me! (and thanks guys!)


On to the skillup. Apart from me getting horribly killed when I discovered that I can't tank robber crabs in the Tree as well as I could the ones in Kuftal, we had a relatively successfull hour or so. We moved onto Steelshells on the second level of the tree fairly quickly, as robbers weren't offering much in the way of skillups. Steelshells were better, but still nowhere near as fast as I expected.

In other words, no Rampage for Dema. I think I ended the party at axe 164. 11 levels to go. >_< I DID break my Absorb-TP record in that skillup party though, draining 98TP from a Robber Crab!


Once I get that, I don't get any particularly good WS [as Calamity (skill 200) and Mistral Axe (skill 225) are both WAR-main only] until Decimation, which I won't get until DRK75 anyways. Of course, I'll get them both on WAR when I get that high ^^ I think that means that I'll get Decimation a level early on WAR too, since the trial weapons tend to be level 71, and WAR can actually have the Axe skill at lv.70, which will be a bonus.

So anyways, approx 70 levels of Axe to go, though I imagine the last 20 or so of those will have to be gotten in XP parties anyways. Getting there~

~Dema