Static Party and Party Static

On logging in I gave Dancer a flag up, but at 10 past 11, I knew it was too late. I was thinking of PLing someone and had PMed Fhox about helping him and Starfire. This soon turned into a shell chat request for a party. We quickly inventoried the available levels and settled on a Dunes party in the 17-20 range.

I was the designated driver for Fhox, Star and Isa and had to make my way to Bastok the hard way not wanting to use Ibwam to get to Jeuno. I chocoed through Jugner and Battalia instead. It was at least 12 before we actually landed on the beach.

Fhox-MNK, Isabiel-WAR, Starfirex-WHM (returning Brigader), Yalto-RDM, Aleu-WAR (with Yalto), and me, as PLD. It took us forever to get going and XP sucked. The first pull resulted in near-death and the use of my and Star’s 2-hours. We kept tweaking the formula and worked out a sane voke strategy with me as sole tank.

Fhox also asked me to explain skillchains to our newer Warriors, which I tried and hopefully succeeded. There was much macro tweaking going on at least.

On a later pull, I died heroically just prior to the mob, keeping the rest alive. While weakened and waiting for Fhox to switch out to raise, we chatted strategy until someone (Isa? Aleu?) said something about Star doing something unpleasant. I couldn’t see her with the chat window up so I hid windows only to find her sitting on my dead head… I joked I’d forget to voke off her the next time she pulls hate ^^

As it turns out, I was probably the XP-gimper since I was too early into 17. I had thought I was close to dinging but that must’ve been another of my 17 jobs. Also, we were having trouble pulling good mobs – they were either too easy or too hard, with way too much red HP and little MP.

We tried to make it to 1:30 am (my interview notwithstanding) but gave up when we were wiped trying to put down a stubborn Pug and the Gob Digger that aggroed in. I volunteered to HP and raise, with Yalto and Aleu opting to HP and log out.

Oh, I got another Fhox compliment – while setting up the party Fhox teased me about something. I joked that the only reason I hadn’t let myself get recruited by other shells is that I like him. He PMed that he liked me too and that I knew that. I replied that this was the reason I was willing to stay up too late with them.

He also said that RDB had the one and only WHM {Amateur} – which I took as a compliment, adding that we needed to call Ripley’s about Fhox’s positivity.

Despite the XP and death problems, I was glad to hang out. I hope we do get a static going soon!