A Momentous Event

This evening I had one of those things that’s never ever supposed to happen in FFXI, simply because the statistical probability of it is 0.0001%

Let me explain.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent much of my time LFG on Dancer. I was at 4000xp to level 51, and since I have all my Artefact Armour waiting for me to put on, I really wanted to get to 52 so I could equip the first piece, the Dancer's Bangles (gloves), which are rather spiffy.

The whole afternoon went by, during which time I soloed all of that 4000xp, and then another 600xp on top of it, making sure I got to level 51, but not exactly quickly. Doing several more searches, I finally concluded that a party at that level just wasn’t going to happen that day, so I went back to the mog house and twiddled my thumbs for a couple of minutes trying to think what else I could do.

I’d been soloing the ladybugs in East Ronfaure [S] so I was actually in South Sandy [S]. I remembered that, soloing as DNC around lv.20, the worms and other critters in East Ron [S] had been pretty good, and since I’d been chatting to an old LS member about /SAM for DRK earlier in the evening, I figured I’d solo a few hundred xp on SAM.

Geared up in some shoddy put-together stuff (lv.20 headband, lv.13 power gi, scratty gloves off the AH etc etc) and headed out with /DNC to East Ron [S] to kill stuff. Almost as soon as I’m out there, I get an invite to a party from a guy in Jeuno.

I decide I have nothing to lose. After all, it’s Qufim Island. I hate Qufim Island most of the time, but there’s sometimes an odd party which does well. If I could just get a couple of levels to 23, I could use the Great Katana I’ve had sitting in the mog locker for about a year. That’s be quite cool.

So we meet up in Qufim and begin a roaming party. We quickly learn that our Bard, Clodus, is dual-boxing his high level RDM along for the ride. So we have a lv.75 PL. We also have the BRD himself, which always makes stuff fun. As well as a DRK, a NIN, and some other bits & pieces.

Basically, with the RDM taking care of any Banshee spawns, we ran laps round the lake for a couple of hours and absolutely raked in the XP. We started off at 21 mostly, and by the time the XP really dropped, we were all 24 or close to it. We decided to take it inside the tower.

Lower Delkfutt’s Tower is a place that some love, some hate. I’ve had some atrocious parties down here, but this party continued a-pace. We continued to level, but by the time some of us were nearing 25 and everyone was 24, we decided that perhaps Kazham would be a better base of operations. After all, the Mandragora in Yuhtunga Jungle are squishy and much better XP than scraggly goblins and giants in the Tower.

We then discovered that our tarutaru WHM hadn’t got Kazham keys. D’oh! He was a good WHM, so we wanted to keep him, even though we had our PLer, so I wracked my brains and knowledge of camp websites to find a viable alternate solution. Around this time our DRK had to go, and was replaced by her husband, a RNG. Another party member, who may have been a WAR or a BST (not sure) also had to go, so we replaced him with a JP DRK tarutaru (who was cute!).

The camp: a roaming party in Batallia Downs was the plan, killing tigers, orcs, and goblins. While everyone was gathering, the RNG disconnected. Waiting 5 minutes and he didn’t appear. Waited 10 minutes and replaced him with a JP THF. As far as I know, he didn’t come back on in at least the 30 minutes I kept checking for him, so it’s his loss.

So, we rode out to the barrows in Battalia Downs and started running around tearing stuff up. The mobs were a mix of Toughs – Incredibly Toughs, but the chains started coming. Then we realised that our WHM was being a little TOO slow. He’d been in Jeuno checking stuff while we rode out, and he hadn’t reappeared. Then he disappeared altogether.

So we’d rode all the way out here because he was the one that hadn’t got the Kazham pass, and then he dc-ed/disbanded. /sigh

Taking this initiative, we replaced him with a RDM, and sadly our BRD and PL had to go as well, so we replaced him with a DNC and moved to Kazham.

What happened next is a bit of a blur. You see, when I’m in a good party that seems enthusiastic, I don’t do a lot except kill stuff. Usually I’m the puller, and I’m a pretty decent judge of what a party can handle. Even with a RDM main healer and a DNC as backup, this party was the works.

We blew through Yuhtunga Jungle like a hurricane of steel. I have no idea what happened to the Samurai class from how I remember it, but it’s suddenly become a huge powerhouse of crits and massive weaponskills. I was really impressed. Our NIN tank was quite happy to let me take the beats too. Which was fine, cos I took less damage per hit than him.

We all hit 25 easily. And then we hit 26. And about an hour later we hit 27. And we started thinking “what the hell, let’s go to Yhoat while we’re all enthusiastic!” So we did. We went to Yhoater Jungle and started on the Mandies there. They were MUCH tougher, and at 26-27 they were fairly tough to kill. Thanks to Dancer’s “Quick Step” to lower their evasion, they were hittable, and they’re not exactly possessed of a lot of hit points. So we chained them slowly. Most we managed was a chain #3 at 27, but then we started hitting 28 and suddenly they got a lot easier. We were getting chain #4s for 280xp.

Sadly around now we had to start shifting party members around as people had to go to bed, etc etc. But the core of the team – the NIN, the RDM, myself the SAM, and the taru DRK carried on.

29 came and went, then 30, and before anyone really knew just what the hell had happened, most of us were sat at about 1000xp into level 31 before finally the RDM needed to go and we couldn’t find a main healer to replace him.

I don’t actually have a clue how long I was in that party. Nor does time really matter for events like these. Needless to say, that was one of the absolute best, most epic parties I’ve been in for however long I’ve played FFXI for now.

I expected to get to level 23. TWENTY THREE. And came away at level 31. That’s TEN levels in one party. That’s the entirety of the jungles out the way. I got the chance to play with Meditate some (it’s great fun!) and now I can sub DNC properly and go solo a few things. Not like I’ll run out of TP as a SAM. Only need to get it to 37 at the moment, though I’ve had a lot of fun with it so some day I might follow Saik’s lead and level it up a bit higher.

Before Saik buggered off on holiday, he set me a challenge. I believe it was to get DNC to 45. Sitting at DNC51 with full AF in the mog safe, and an extra 10 levels further on SAM than I was when he went away, I *think* I can safely say I met that challenge. And pwned it. Or something >_>

~Dema