Nyzul Isle 1 - 100: Looking Back

On January 24th 2009, the Ansible Nyzul static finally cleared floor 100. I'm not sure of the exact date we started, but it was some time in August 2008. This means we've been at it between 3 - 4 months, althought because this only represents 2 hours a week, it feels a lot less.

Doing Nyzul in a static has been a great deal of fun, especially as we had the benefit of a Vent server. Although we are on farming runs now, I think I'll miss that curious buzz of climbing another 5 floors and getting ever closer to floor 100.

It was Feike who originally suggested a Nyzul Isle static. At the time (July 2008), there were rumours that the new weapon skills were to be tied to the mythic weapons that were dropped there, and no-one wanted to miss out on those. (Except maybe the mages). Furthermore, at this time Nyzul was far harder. Floor progression was on saved on one runic disc at a time, and mythic weapons dropped only from the floor 100 boss. Just to add to your delight, your disc was wiped after beating floor 100, forcing you to start from the bottom again. (Top stuff there, thanks Development Team)

Our first few runs were actually under this system, but within a few weeks a major update gave us the Nyzul Isle we have now - entire party has floor history written to their disc; disc is retained even after floor 100 and mythic weapons can drop from any NM, not just floor bosses.

With hindsight, one of the interesting aspects of our Nyzul quest was that when we began, information was pretty thin on the ground. The Wiki entry was brief and less than half the size it is now, and while there was anecdoctal advice available, there were few (if any) formal 'guides' to beating Nyzul. This made starting out curiously fun. For the first few weeks, we actually had a forum thread called "Nyzul Isle Notes" where we tried to collect our experiences and draw useful conclusions.

Our opening experiences of Nyzul were brutal, to say the least. Our original team was NIN SAM DRK MNK RDM RDM - a decent set up that was somewhat hampered by the fact that both me and Soran were gimped (SAM 74 and NIN 70 iirc). Amazingly, we actually managed to clear 1 - 5 with this set up, but soon came unstuck trying to go 6 - 10. Indeed, the first 10 floors were our worst period on Nyzul by far. Nyzul Isle has no learning curve whatsoever - sure, the wandering NMs you encounter are somewhat tougher at higher floors, but beyond that you are as likely to take on an enemy leader Soulflayer on floor 1 as you are floor 99.

Lack of knowledge was often our downfall in the early days. Caraway Custard wiped us out (prompting a memorable cry from Soran of "We got our assess kicked by a dessert!") because at the time we had no idea that he was far harder than regualr Custard NMs. We were frustrated by Psycheflayers Ice Spikes and the fact we couldn't dispel them, until we realised that they are totally immune to darkness based spells. We had no idea that the random NM Dahak is a dragon spawned from Satan's gene pool. We ran into monsters we had never seen before, such as the Mothras. We had to deal with the fact Colibri aggro'd in Nyzul (A memorable exchange on Vent - Me: "What do colibri aggro to?" Chuck: "Pieces of broken crackers in your pocket.")

Practice and perserverance told in the end. The random nature of Nyzul means there's always a chance of getting a total cockblock floor (thanks to Soran for that phrase) but you can prepare for most opponents. We picked up little bits of useful knowledge along the way, such as the need to use poison poitions to avoid ultra potent sleepga spells (I think Lukiki coined the term 'comaga' after an Ebony Pudding slept us for an incredible 3 minutes) and the value of splitting into 2 seperate groups to clear 'Eliminate All Enemies' floors. Its funny to look at the huge, detailed Wiki entry now, as so much Nyzul info now seems like common knowledge. For example, I was told by an old Samurai buddy about the use of the "WS Barrage" against floor bosses, and felt I had been let into a trade secret at the time - but now it is right there on the wiki front page.

The initial 20 floors are the toughest of the whole lot in some ways. They represented less of a learning curve, and more of brutal razor edge of broken dreams. It took us from August until mid-November to clear them and beat the Floor 20 boss (Fafnir in our case). However, from that point on our progress became rapid - It took around 3 1/2 months to do 20 floors, but then 2 months to do the remaining 80. While there is always the chance of getting a nightmare floor (such as an eliminate specified enemies w/5 psycheflayers, avoid discovery by gears and suffering a pathos effect for choosing the wrong option on the 'go left or right' choice) in general I think we approach each run with a lot of confidence now. In particular, our last day was a great way to end our 1 - 100 run. We beat the Floor 100 (Khimira) boss first time, Rokh got a BLU sword and I unlocked Tachi: Rana. Then we did a Floor 80 run and got Lukiki a Goliard body piece. Good stuff all round!

Nyzul isn't perfect by any means - the drop rates of treasure are miserly, the appraised items are pathetic (out of all the ??? items we have had, we have had ONE appraise into anything worthwhile - a rare/ex BST axe called Lohar. The rest of the time, we get junk like Self Bow and Bronze Dagger). Nevertheless, I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. There's a real sense of achievement on making progress, clearing floors and getting the drops. The random floors and enemies keep things fresh and interesting - every run is different. It's also nice to have a FFXI event where there's no set "perfect party". Our regular floor runs have been mainly NIN SAM DRK MNK BST RDM, (changing BST for PLD/NIN on bosses) and it has worked like a dream. Indeed, having a balanced party is a distinct advantage - undead floors suit MNKs down the ground for example, bird floors would suit DRGs & RNGs, and so on. (And on one occasion we even ran into a NM crawler that was immune to everything except magic and h2h attacks).

The challenge of Nyzul has also encouraged me to get my XPing shoes on. I am the FFXI world's slowest player when it comes to levelling (I played for 5 years and my highest job was 67!), but the lure of getting merits to improve our Nyzul chances has me a lot more active. Equally my epic fishing efforts to get myself a Hagun were mainly motivated by wanting to maximise my WS Barrage on the Floor 20 bosses. Plus, it looks cool. ^_~ This motivation to 'do stuff' in FFXI is crucial I think, otherwise it is very easy to end up stuck in your mog house watching your moogle spin. (I know, it used to happen to me all the time!).

So now we approach our farming runs. I'm hoping this will be relatively quick and painless, but I have terrifying visions of us getting being screwed on drops 10,000 times over. The best we can manage is a subbed THF (which is better than no THF at all) but on the bright side, we've had 2 different floor 80 pieces drop so far. We also need a BST axe for Rokh, which incredibly hasn't dropped once in the 1 - 100 run. In some ways, that thrill of progress won't be there anymore, but I hope that it will be replaced by the glee at getting some groovy armour and being the envy of those who see us in the street. ^_^ And of course, if nothing else, there's always the fun of the conversations on Vent.

Also, Tachi: Rana is fun. It looks really groovy, and it allows for a beastly self-darkness skillchain. [Thanks to Demajen for making SCs with me on Colibri for about an hour (and getting killed in the process >.>) for helping me unlock this btw!] Entertaingly, using my standard Sekkanoki macro, which has a 4 second interval between WSes, doesn't give time for Rana to finish its animation, which means Gekko virtually glitches over the top and looks crazy! Still, I got a 1012 point Darkness SC on a Sea Puk earlier, so I can live with odd graphical quirks. ^_^

Until next time loyal readers, I invite you to take a gander at Lukiki's blog, which also discusses yesterday's Nyzul runs. ((> http://lukiki.livejournal.com/ <))

Keep smiling!