Slow Dance Party on the Beach

Before logging on I had been reading up on LB3 and how likely it would be to solo at least the Quadav Crest. It seems very likely, actually, assuming I’m willing to death-warp after receiving the crest. So, I logged on and checked for my buddies – Fhox wasn’t on and Puma was trying his hand at the Maat fight for LB5! I cheered him on and flagged up on Dancer since I was still on that job.

I planned to shop for better gear and if no invite, switch back to WHM and head to Beadeaux. But before five minutes had passed, Spookyx asked me to party. I told him I’d be 10 minutes, that I was getting a better weapon.

I saw in Windy that the Kingdom Cesti, a level 15 item with Att+, Dmg+, Delay- and Acc +3 was open to Dancers but it would likely be 30-40k. The lightbulb eventually went off and I checked Jeuno, where several were up in the 15k range. So I had Ibwam teleport me to AU, and I started for the free warp Taru when the bulb flickered again – AU and Jeuno are linked. So I bought my new toy for 16k in AU and used an Instant Warp, then outposted to Valkurm.

I found Spookyx’s party soon after but Spookyx wanted me to rep *him*, so I had to wait for the leader to invite. Which didn’t happen because he didn’t know you can invite people flag or no flag… In any case, we worked it out, I joined up, and Onix (sp?) warned me this wasn’t a very good party. I said nothing, but on the very first pull Onix is killed and homepoints. He was quickly replaced by Akael, another WHM.

I’m not sure what was going on but a couple of problems surfaced immediately: Voking was off leading to too much hate on the WHM (who was having to over-cure because of…), there was too much downtime because of overlevel-pulling, and coordination was off. I know this is the Dunes, but damn… I did try to share some insights on White Maging with Akael but I don’t know if he was interested.

We toughed it out for about an hour working mostly with Damselflies, when Blaydzrain was killed by a Bogy that blood aggroed him. The rest of us run for Selbina to zone. I stopped and watched behind and didn’t see the Bogy so I turned around – I think he didn’t care about the rest of us because no one put any hate on him. I shouted for a Raise. However, there were only 2 Raise-capables in the zone tonight.

While waiting for the party to reassemble, I took on a T Snipper, but apparently con ratings apply to all players regardless of being in the area or not. I managed to get a voke as the other four were returning with only 18 HP left and apologized for the screw-up. Our leader then tried for Blaydz’s Raise and eventually, Blaydz gave in and homepointed.

This basically ended the party which was fine, being close to 12:30. I’d had enough and only gotten about 2k xp out of it.

My hit rate was pretty poor but a lot of these mobs checked IT to me so I guess I need more H2H skill or Acc+ boosts. Dancer still proved a capable healer because I managed to fill in the gaps on the many hard hits and AoE’s we took.
However, I’m not convinced these Cesti are any better than my last although I appreciate the Delay-. I might try some experiments on EM bunnies to see if there’s a clear difference in hit rate or damage output as would be expected by the raw stats.

As I was logging out, Puma gave me the bad news – he lost to Maat and was in Bedeaux himself farming another Testimony for Maat.

Once DNC hits 20, I have to shop for daggers or small swords to dual wield. I also have to think about a good set of level 20 armor. And I’ll have to level NIN some more to avoid gimping. I wonder if I’ll see Ferenan again. I want to make that deal right but I could really use the dough…