A Brighter Day

With the frustrations of yesterday’s disaster of a party and the personal stresses of recent events fresh in my mind, I logged in tonight early. I was able to flag up on BLM close to 8pm, just as the latest Deal or No Deal Million-Dollar Mission began.

I didn’t have to wait long – I took a quick break from BLM to run a teleport and then tele myself to Windy to sell off some of the crystals I’d been hoarding. But I was soon back on BLM and got an invite from Sentinal. He asked me to meet the group in Jeuno and that Altepa was our destination.

Turns out this would be a fantastic party. 3+ hours with no deaths and no reps. And next to no breaks in the pulling action. We were working initially with Sand Beetles and by the end of the party had moved up to a blend of beetles and Dhalmels.

As luck would have it, we were very level-tight. I believe 5 of us were 31 and within 1k xp of each other. The other was only 2-3k off. When the dings came they came in rapid succession and I think every one of us gained 3 levels. At least I did, going from 31 to 34 with a 540 xp buffer. I believe we ran close to 5k an hour which to me is a great rate, especially in the mid-game.

There was almost no drama and only 2 links that we dealt with easily. Other than that, the only drama for me was taking a short break at about 11 to sit with Ape for a bit (wink wink). After that quick(ie) break it was back to the grind. I was afraid I’d find a mess when I got back but nope – the killing machine that was Sentinal’s party had not stopped at all in my absence.

That isn’t necessarily a good thing…

In any case, I was getting a lot of skillups for Elemental Magic and a few for Dark. Elemental is basically capped but Dark is still underleveled at about 75% of its cap. I was able to get a lot of work done on my macros at least.

And in much happier wardrobe news I can finally ditch the Black Tunic! Full RSE FTW! Chucho even came on LS chat towards the end and offered to lend me his BLM gear which apparently consists of Seer’s items. I’m very partial to my RSE but I told him I’d give it a look-see.

As for BLM tactics, the last few parties have not spent time on skillchains so I can’t work on magic bursts. I know that’s going to get ever more important, as is knowing what elements to use on what mobs on which days. I need to look into my Enfeebs a little more to find if there are better matches based on mob or day.

/sigh - I have a lot to learn about BLM!
(P.S. – the Deal contestant took the offer of $440k but had the mil in her case. She started with 50% odds and made it as high as 67% but couldn’t close the *ahem* deal.