Adamantoise, how I hate you.

I finally kicked myself in the butt and decided to put some real effort into finishing Xean's Black Belt. I've really enjoyed playing MNK in Abyssea, and even though I don't usually get to put 100% focus on playing it as i'm often duoboxing, its still fun. I think playing the job reminds me of playing my PLD, because MNK is now a tanking class in Abyssea. It plays differently obviously, and I have no where near as many options for holding hate, but being the main one to hold the opponent has a strange appeal for me.

So anyways, Xean is now 2/3 on the BB items. All I have left to get, is the Adamantoise Egg which gives me two options:

1. KS99

2. HNM

I didn't have 99 Kindred Seals on either of my characters, so I started by farming some on Xean who was ~70 seals. One minor 2hr session resulted in maybe 4 seals. I had gone out to help Vepion with one of his Magian trials, and we killed Peistes for a while. This wasn't too bad, and being able to help a friend was a nice bonus.

The next day, I went out to Vunkerl and decided to kill some crabs. I thought that this would be my best option, because they're pretty easy to kill, and quite plentiful.

But I think my ability to endure insane grinds (ex: Farming Quadav Chestplates for 8hrs daily) has kinda disappeared because I kept finding myself getting bored and distracted. After spending the entire morning with probably no more than 3 or 4 seals, I decided I needed to change things up. That's when I realized that I could go out and get the TOD for Adamantoise which I had been putting off, AND farm seals in the meantime!

So by the late evening, I was out in Cape Terrigan with no clue when the turtle might pop and began my farming. Shortly after zoning in, an old LS member (Kawanomu) sent me a /t and asked if I was camping the turtle. I told him that I was, and then he explained that he was after the title for killing Adamantoise in order to get access to an atma for Abyssea. So we teamed up and he helped me out with his THF and eventually by the end of the night, I got the seals needed to get a Themis orb on Xean. But by that point, we had determined that the turtle had already popped sometime in the morning, and we both logged off for the night.

The next morning, I logged in to see a number of people online. Mostly Kaizen people. I was feeling a little annoyed because I only had a short time to be online due to some errands/appointments I had to do in RL, but luckily Adamantoise spawned 20 minutes before I had to leave. So I finally had the ToD.

So the next morning, I logged in and again was going to be pressured for time because I had some stuff to do in RL. I had some friends come out to help (Athoz, Onedarkflame, and Kawanomu) but we didn't manage to get the claim. Kaizen did, and with their 6-8 ppl they took the turtle down. I couldn't help but feel very irritated because these guys as far as I knew, did KS99s all the time and easily had the man-power. Why did they have to camp the NM?!

And because we didn't get claim that round, it meant I was going to have to wake up in the am the next day. And I mean the bright and early AM. But whatever, I finally had the ToD and I didn't want to lose it and have to camp the turtle all over again. (Thank you SE for making so many of the old content a big waste of player's time!)

Later that night, I logged in and me and Onedarkflame decided to go to Abyssea-Misareaux and work a little on his Masamune as well as Xean's MNK AF3+2 legs. Anderoc joined up with us to proc red, and we started off by getting the key items from Cep-Kamuy because Heqet was being camped heavily (as usual). Anderoc actually had a pop set for Cirein ready, and offered it to us if we'd help him farm another set afterwards. So we managed to complete 2 pop sets and got Onedarkflame 4 lanterns for his Masamune and 3 balance jewels for Xean's MNK legs. When we thought we were done, Onedarkflame decided to check on Heqet as that was the only KI needed to complete a few more pop sets. Apparently he was up, and no one was camping him anymore so we jumped on the opportunity to kill him.

We managed to get another KI to complete a pop set on both Onedarkflame and Buckeyespud, as well as get Anderoc another so that he could replace the one he had used for us. Quite a successful night i'd say.

And so getting back to Adamantoise... this morning I woke up, and I knew because of how early it was, I was unlikely to have any help. Fighting Adamantoise wasn't really a concern for me, but claiming him was. There was about 3 other people out there camping him, including the one mithra from Kaizen that had claimed him yesterday... so I felt pretty pessimistic about it all.

But to my surprise, Hesper had logged in and offered to help on his BLM, and about 2hrs into the window, Anderoc also logged in to give a hand. Anderoc actually logged in about 10 minutes before the next window was about to open and had to gear up. This left just me and Hesper to get claim, which had me worried because I don't ever seem to be quick enough to cycle through targets to claim.

But again... I surprised myself and CHI BLAST GO! Xean got claim and immediately I sent a /t to Anderoc to let him know. So as Xean was punching away, Hesper took care of an add or two and Anderoc started to make his way over. But his game froze when he tried to talk to the outpost NPC, and he had to reboot. Because I didn't want to risk killing the turtle without any treasure hunter, I held Adamantoise until Anderoc arrived. He managed to get TH8 on it, but no egg dropped.

And now the next window is even earlier! I can live with this, but the problem now is that i'm pretty sure Aspid is going to spawn next pop. And though I know HNMs are easier now because of the level cap, I don't think i'll be able to duobox him. I know can easily count on my small group of friends to help, but because its a weekday, they'll all be prepping for work, or at work. So... that doesn't leave me with much as far as options go.

I'm undecided now if I want to bother waking up so early in the morning, just to get the ToD. I'll probably decide later after i've had a chance to catch up on the sleep I missed this morning, lol.

In the meantime, I need to do a little more reading into the turtle KS99. Athoz had been wanting to do it, but I was pretty reluctant because the only time I ever attempted this, we failed miserably. And even though the level cap has been raised, I don't like risking time/items on an event that hasn't previously had success. I want to make sure that before I use the only orb I have (which could also yield no adamantoise egg) a good setup and a decent chance at winning. It took way too long to farm 30 KS.

I really dislike how difficult getting this dumb turtle egg is being. I'm tempted to start asking friends if I can buy orbs. Heck, if there was an HNM shell still camping Aspid i'd even buy the item from them. I just want to get this belt already! Why does it have to be such a pain!!! GAH!

Maybe some Abyssea tonight will take a little bit of the frustration away.

I think I hate Adamantoise as much as I hate Kreutzet.