Weekday Warrior

OK, so maybe I don’t hate Warrior quite as much. Or maybe this party was just a lot more fun. In any case, I logged in around 7, hoping to get done by 10pm and then hang with Ape until bedtime. I got an invite around 7:30 from Sprinzer(?) and accepted. Since I always use auto-trans when first joining a party, this prompted him to ask if I spoke English. I said, “Most days, yes ^^”

I made sure I had a pumpkin and arrows before outposting to the Dunes. We had some time to kill while we waited for our 6th and so we chatted a bit. Turns out Justice was a total initiate in the world of gaming. And many of these players besides our PLD were relatively new to FFXI. I did my best to be helpful and encouraging, pre-party and during. Which began when we got our Corsair, Fui.

We started out in the Oasis and after some confusion who would pull (I think our leader wanted Fui to), I stepped up and tried out my new pull with arrows macro. The Snipper I’d chosen was going down smoothly when I noticed Eternia (sp) fighting a Leech. I shouted to the party that, “THESE LINK! {Take care.}” It didn’t matter. Just as we took out the first one, a sympathetic leech joined in and we started dying. Some bystanders tried to help but would die as well. The PLD and I HPed and changed outfits to Raise. There were 5 deaths total, including ours. But fortunately, the rest of the night would go pretty well, with only one more death.

After maxing out the XP at the Oasis, we moved to the regular beach, and then to Secret Beach. By then, I’d really gotten the kinks out of my pull macro. And we got a PL too – Ronuma. XP got better off the pugs here and we had less competition for the mobs.

At one point, Ronuma asked us to stop voking to which I responded, “I’m trying to hold unless mob goes for mages”. His answer? Don’t voke then either and he’ll re-pull hate by curing the mage. I may have to steal that idea but I’m not convinced it would work if we were seriously over-reaching with our pulls. These pugs were pretty much level appropriate for our group. Something a few levels higher, as made possible by a PL, could likely wipe a weak / off-guard mage with a TP move.

Another interesting twist came when Aeries said he had to go get food IRL. After some back and forth, he apparently did leave, and our leader kicked him. I understood the reasoning, but didn’t agree. I’d rather let a good player leech a little XP rather than kick them and leave them defenseless. If the player was a known leecher or was otherwise not helpful, that’s different.

That said, the slot was still open when I grabbed a rep just after 10, a BLU17 called Hirana, IIRC. For a few pulls, I stayed in with him, and then eventually said my goodbyes.

Overall, this was a much more enjoyable Dunes party than most recent ones. Partly because things went well, and partly because I didn’t have to sole-tank. I split hate with our PLD and even without Ronuma PLing, it was all working well. Also, this was a much more *fun* group – our leader insisted we all have fun and not get too serious. My only retort there was to insist I wanted to do my job well (tanking) so everyone else could have fun. But other than that, I was in total agreement – we did really have fun!

I hit 18 but haven’t popped any PLD abilities yet, so I still can’t use those for extra hate control. I probably need to hit 20 for that. Also, I committed to help Aleu out with her Kazham airship pass items, so that’ll probably be my focus the next couple nights.

I may stick with WAR to 20 and see how /PLD affects it then and depending on my experience, will grind some more or switch back to NIN and PLD to get them over 20. Not being able to choco places sucks…