Fun with Fhox

November 28-29, 2007

Despite having all the expansions now I haven’t been doing any leveling on WHM yet. I think I need to figure out Aht Urghan before I try partying in its regions. I have been popping OP supply runs as they come up and looking into the CoP and ToAU mission series.

I’ve also been working on leveling Dancer some more. I think I’m going to spend time researching AU and leveling DCR in parties for a week or so before trying to move WHM to 60.

Wednesday night, Fhox got on around 9:30 and invited me farming in Davoi. I figured why not. Maybe I should have figured some more… Being rusty on WHM as a defensive/support player versus the DD I’ve been wallowing in meant I made some boneheaded moves. Davoi is crawling with mid and high level orcs. Some of them were TW or EP and we fought or ignored those. But Gladiators and Footsoldiers were another matter. As were the Veteran and Warchief Fhox was after.

My first death came when I got aggroed resting by a Footsoldier I thought was way around the bend. Either he moved when I wasn’t looking or another one found us. In any event the first one brought two friends and my attempts to Banishga II and Earth Crush left me very dead. I also used Benediction prematurely making it unavailable when we really needed it.

I did have RR up and I had already asked Fhox if I could take a break, so I stayed down and tended to Ape who wasn’t feeling well. Her shoulder was really hurting to the point she couldn’t move her arm and was covered in pain-sweat. I left about 25 minutes later thinking she was in bed, but that wouldn’t last.

Coming back to Fhox, I raised and we carried on, eventually finding the Warchief near the western bridge. We buffed up and Fhox pulled some of the surrounding lower orcs to prevent later links. We cleared the Veteran and thought the coast was clear for the chief and so Fhox brought him to me on the bridge and we started. Fhox had asked me to stay back-line until 25% was left on the orcs we had been clearing but I started in on the Chief immediately assuming it was our last pull.

Not hitting him once I went back-line again and kept buffs up and Fhox hasted. While healing, I attracted the attention of a Davoi Wasp which wasn’t really hurting me but kept me from resting. In hindsight I should have started in on him to clear the way and to build TP. But I didn’t. I swear my tactical grasp of FFXI fighting sucks sometimes.

Not long after that started a nearby Gladiator joined the melee and I tried to keep him slept with Repose. That worked far better than my Silence attempts on the chief meaning Fhox had to take that chore in addition to meleeing.

We were making steady but slow progress on the Chief when I suddenly started taking rapid damage. I died at about the same time I figured out the cause: A Footsoldier joined us from the opposite side of the bridge which we weren’t watching. About this time Fhox tries to Escape and gets interrupted the first time. I die then, much to our mutual frustration. He gets the Escape off the second time and says he’s coming back for me. I told him not to worry and that I would RR and warp. It took a few minutes but I made it back to Jeuno safely.

Now, it’s 11:30 and I decide to call it a night. We make plans to seek more orc revenge as soon as we can and I log out.

Upon shutting down, and watching a little Robot Chicken, I head to bed only to find Ape on the couch crying in pain. We try to get some sleep but it’s a rough night…

. . .

Thursday meant the discovery Ape had dislocated her already-dorked-up shoulder. She was able to get an appointment that afternoon with plans to reset it Friday. So we watched a great Survivor and then with the help of Mr. Codeine, I put her to bed and went to the living room.

Tonight was very quiet, with only Lust and Chucho on. Lust doesn’t say much but is a leveling machine. Chucho needed some fishing help for a quest and I eventually settled on just buying him the fish.

I spent most of the time leveling DCR and working on a job-specific macro bar. I almost dinged 7 and escaped death narrowly twice. I can’t wait to get her up high enough to party and see the effects of all those steps on the party and mobs.

I have also been able to farm and sell Test Answers again. I don’t know if the market is legitimately back or if the GSers just opened new accounts or what, but I’m glad for the money. I think I might have screwed up with the Cesti plan. I spent about 30k on two and will soon need neither. I hope I can get at least 20k back.

The good news is it looks I was wrong about Dancing expenses. All her steps, sambas, waltzes and jigs are TP moves. I still need to fork out for armor and weapons but hope I can find stuff that will work well enough on DCR, NIN and WAR, and maybe PLD.

I really want to get some of this subjob stuff settled so I can get back to WHM. I really hate being out in the world not being able to help other players in any way. I don’t think Dancer and Ninja have any non-party assistance available to them, and /WHM doesn’t make sense.

Oh well. I plan on playing hard tonight and possibly taking WHM out again if I can get help reaching AU. I wouldn’t mind working on AF coffer hunts either. I also want to take a crack at fixing up my WHMblm and RDMblm palettes. I’m missing a few items on WHM for lack of room and some of that is due to RDM stuff and useless BLM spells.