Monday, April 16, 2007

Merit Cannon Parties... a whole different experience.

So Friday was to be the first static day for a Zilart Mission static i've organized to help some of my LS members get their sky access. Unfortunately though, two of our members didn't show due to RL issues and so rather than do the mission a second time, I gave the members the night off and we decided to reschedule for next Friday.

With only a little time left in the night, I asked Xean to come with me and camp Bloodthirster Madkix which drops a the rare/ex axe Archa d'Amas (sp?) which I can use at lvl 68 on my WAR. I got there before Xean, and decided to start killing some of the gobs as well as the place holder which was a Goblin Mercenary. Finally Xean joined up with me, and we began waiting for the next set of gobs to spawn... however we had another group come. Go figure, everytime we go to camp something we always end up getting counter campers.

Well anyways, after about 40 minutes our NM popped and we got claim. I was on my RDM/NIN dual wielding, and we got him down to 10%... however, at one point my stoneskin ended up wearing RIGHT as I had used my Utsusemi: Ni, and so I quickly tried to cast Ichi but the goblin was having a little fit and interrupted me. (Why is it when you need to evade, you never do?) Unfortunately my Phalanx had also worn shortly before my stoneskin, and so I really didn't have anything to keep me from his hits, and in a matter of seconds I was down, eating the dirt. Xean unfortunately hadn't brought his /nin, so he wasn't able to last much longer and the other party ended up getting claim and killing it.



I was pretty ticked off, because they had a healer and could of raised me and I'm sure I could of chainspelled and killed the thing, but people in this game are always looking out for themselves and I guess because of luck with two very needed spells wearing, which resulted in my death.... it was only fair that they could take the claim. Just kinda irked me that we had done most of the work and one stupid thing took it all away. But that's ok, because later in the week me and Xean went to camp him again and we were lucky to have him pop within 2hrs, and this time I decided to bring a shield to keep my stoneskin up a little longer which ended up making the difference because we took him down pretty easy. No drop though, but at least we were able to duo him with no trouble. I can't wait until Xean gets his NIN to 75, I really want to go after some more difficult NMs and duo them with him on my RDM!

So Saturday morning, I led my LS promyvion static. This time we went to do Promyvion-Dem, and I think I broke our record to gettting to the spire, because I swear it only took us maybe 20 minutes to get to the 4th floor. It was kinda funny though, because on the 4th floor I told everyone to keep running if we got aggro, and the one who got aggro in the end... was me! LOL! But its ok, I lead them 3/4 of the way to the spire before I ended up dying, and because they had kept their distance I was the only death which was fine with me.

When we got in, I gave the strat to our new members. Everyone was prepped and we kicked ass! As long as you have a certain setup, and anima its a guaranteed win which I like because though I enjoy seeing friends progress in the game, this is one event that requires a bit of preparation (muling over my capped gear, waking up early on the weekend etc) and the less I have to do a particular run, the better. This time, Carste ended up getting his Lufaise Access... and after 2 more runs, we should have another 2-3 members have theirs.

So after the promy, me and Xean geared up on our WHM and NIN to get some xp.

. . .

Now one would THINK, that a duo with a healer and tank would get a party pretty easy. Nope... there was not ONE refresher online within 6hrs, and we didn't get a party for what seemed like forever. Well actually I shouldn't say that, we did get one invite but the party would of consisted of 2 WHMs, and though that can work to replace a refresher, at least a refresher can assist with enfeebles and if its a RDM, they can nuke a bit. So me and Xean declined that party invite and waited for something better.

Finally though, Terminataru who's a tarutaru RDM in our LS said his party had just finished, and that he'd like to join up with us. So we invited over Alianne on his THF, and found another 2 DDs and went to Bhaflau Thickets to kill some birds... the birds Xean just adores :3 (sarcasm)
We didn't get any thing worth bragging about xp-wise, but at least everyone gained a lvl and now me and Xean are sitting at lvl 62. Still a few more lvls to go -_-;

Later that night, I ended up logging onto my mule Taeyo who was in San d'Oria. I was headed over to the AH when I suddenly saw Xean, with two of our LS members who had recently made 2 mithra mules: Inari -> Ameratsu, Lokelani -> Evanai.

We decided to have a little fun with Xean, and chase him around South San d'Oria. And for those who don't know, he absolutely despises the mithra race (though never the actual players). So it was really funny because eventually we cornered him into one of the houses, and then emoted a bunch of random things. I even managed to get him to sit down with us all so that I could post it on our forum as a joke, and forever tease him about it (hehe, i'm sooo evil).


(Aww, how cute! Btw, i'm the whitehaired Mithra in his lap.... he's MINE!)
(Wonder what kind of show Xean's getting here ^_~)
(Me and Ameratsu ganging up on Xean and beating him up!)
Then Sunday morning, I decided to try and get a few merits and apply my last merit to my sword skill (now 6/6). Within 30 minutes of having my seek up, I got an invite from Akichu who pops into our LS from time to time, really sweet player and very good at the jobs she plays. She told me I was going to be main healer, and that we would be doing a cannon merit party. I've been in merit parties before, but never a true cannon merit party so this was going to be new to me.

And boy was I surprised at the speed at which things went. She was pulling non-stop, and I was healing, hasting and enfeebling like crazy. I think we got something like 12k within an hour, and I found the whole experience really fun because I was constantly casting and having to keep track of where my MP was going to make sure that I wouldn't cause the party to have any downtime. We only partied for about 2hrs, before some people had to leave and the party decided to disband. But before the party ended, I had one interesting run in with an NM in Mamook. I forget the name, but we decided to TP burn and 2hr it.



Lol, good idea in theory but we were definitely not capable of taking it down. This guy had one mean AI... first he casted Aeroga III which I wasn't able to silence (I doubt this guy can be silenced) and then he did Sleepga II which I unfortunately got caught in. Then he casted another tier III -ga spell, which killed I think 1-2 members and from there all hell broke loose, because we also had a wvyern aggro and tear me up. ; ;

It was fun though, you gotta have a few deaths every once in a while to make things interesting ^^

After that merit party, I got into another which I didn't particularly enjoy. I didn't mind that the experience was good (I even got past chain #60 which was a new record for me) but the fact that I really felt unadequate at doing my duties as healer because of MP issues, really bothered me. First, the melee in the party were being huge MP sponges. From what I understand, a cannon party is suppose to work by having the party members spread out the hate and share it, so that they DON'T become MP sponges... but this party didn't quite have that. The second issue, is that our BRD was spending more time pulling instead of keeping me refreshed with Ballad I and Ballad II. This would of been fine... but if they wanted me to keep up with the healing, hasting and enfeebling I was going to need to either rest or get an extra refresh.

I got another 2 merits from this setup, for a total of 40k that morning which was enough to get me what I wanted... but the second merit party wasn't the most enjoyable experience.

When Xean finally got home, we decided to get some ToAU missions done. First we needed to head to Nashmau and talk to this little rat NPC who for some strange reason, though I was a ghost o.O;;;



Then we had to head to Bhaflau Thickets and fight some malboro for a rare/ex drop called Jody's Acid (or something similar to that). Me and Xean headed out as RDM/NIN and WHM/NIN and killed them with ease, and got the drop on our first kill. But I also needed one, so we had to kill another 6-8 before the second item dropped. Then we headed back to talk to mr. rat, and he then told us to go to a grave site in Caedarva Mire where we would end up fighting a Formor NM.



Alianne joined up with us as WHM, and the fight was pretty fun and intense. There were a few times where my health had dropped pretty low because stoneskin + Ni would wear at the same time, and of course he would interrupt my Ichi casting. But thankfully Xean was also pulling in the damage with his Hexa Strike, and took hate from time to time which gave me the chance to get my shadows back up. After about 10 minutes of fighting, we won and went for another cutscene with Ms. Najaa aka tempermental kitty with a club.

And that pretty much sums up the update for the weekend. Tonight I have a Fenrir run, and i'm going to be doing sky farming with a new LS that I just joined that i'll be attending twice a week.

No comments: