Sticker collecting

So Genkai 3 happened last night.

I think I'm slowly getting over my aversion to accepting help on these things. While going on suicidal runs is fun and all, it's rarely successful and when the quest is hard enough it's still a tad suicidal even with a group. So yes, the Linkshell helped again and I lost count of how many times one of them died over the course of the night.

We started with the Orcish headquarters and managed to somehow build a massive aggro train on our way to the Wall of Banishing. Aforementioned member of the LS built the train and took it right to the wall and then died, at which point most of the orcs vanished. Unfortunately there were enough still there that our deceased Red Mage could not safely be raised, so our Summoner ended up sending out Leviathan to distract the orcs while I used Chainspell to raise him. Once Freguer was back on his feet he opened the wall and we all made a mad dash for the zone-line. Once we made it inside the rest of the trek to retrieve the Orcish Crest was relatively uneventful.

Our next stop was Beadeaux, Quadav HQ. I definitely learned a lot while we were there. For instance, I had not realized you can avoid the curse from those infernal machines by voluntarily silencing yourself using another nearby device. This reinforces my suspicion that I need to spend more time exploring the world than I have been lately. Other interesting thing, Moxxy showed me that Leviathan can cure status ailments, which we used to freely remove silence after bypassing the horrid devices. While I do a lot of homework on RDMing, I'm really quite clueless when it comes to some jobs, like Summoner. There so much I don't know about how they work, it's actually a little embarrassing.

Anyway, once we made it into the room with the Crest, we immediately caught aggro and ran away to clear the way. Upon re-entering we caught aggro again and realized a Notorious Monster was blocking our path. We decided our best course of action would be to stomp on the Ruby Quadav and simply remove it. It took a while but didn't pose much trouble. Once that was taken care of we ventured further in and caught sight of the crest, whereupon I caught aggro and was beaten into a fine paste. Turns out there were more true-hearing turtles in there, including another Ruby Quadav. Moxxy and Freguer cleared out some Quadav on the side of the room so I could safely reraise.

Then there came a shout: "Doc, up now!"

Figuring Freg had a better sense of aggro ranges I reraised. Then he pulled the most amazing trick I have ever seen. He timed his casting so that right as I revived, I had Sneak. There was no window for aggro at all. Easily the most incredible bit of spellwork I have seen in a long time, possibly ever.

Unfortunately, in my haste to retreat from possible AoE range I slipped and fell over a ledge, meaning I had to circle back around through the labyrinth again. Once I got back the NMs seem to have cleared out so I nabbed the crest and we boogied on out quick-like.

The Yagudo HQ portion of the quest was significantly less entertaining. We pretty much waltzed in and grabbed the Crest without encountering any resistance. It made me paranoid that maybe we'd picked up a fake Crest or something, but Maat couldn't tell the difference so it doesn't really matter.

Stylish Elegance at its finest.

Staff chucking?

Life is good in Vana'diel.

After getting my pimp hat and hitting level 60 I spent some time in Crawler's Nest finally learning the basics of soloing without using my sword. It's a very different sensation than I'm used to and it seems a whole lot slower than just pulling out my sword and beating a mob to death. On the other hand I was badly in need of some magical skillups and with some shiny few Fast Cast on my hat it seemed like a good idea.

The basic theory behind spell slinging soloing is to nuke a whole lot and keep the mob from getting close enough to chew on my face. Between Sleep, Sleep II, Gravity and Bind this can be done fairly easily provided you can get your spells to land without too many resists. Unfortunately relying on Sleep means I can't speed up kills using Poison or Bio, and the kills are already long enough to start wearing on my patience. Sure it's safer, but it doesn't silence the little voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me I'd be getting better exp by sword-chucking.

I think the thing that throws me the most about this whole kiting/sleep-nuking method is the awkwardness that comes from running away to keep your distance from the monster. Dodging aggro might be an refined art, but I'm starting to suspect picking an appropriate battleground is just as important. Being unable to see in 360 degrees, I'm either losing sight of the mob I'm trying to kill, or I'm running blind straight into walls, rocks, shrubbery and disgruntled goblins. Usually I'll opt to keep an eye out for goblins, but that makes it hard to tell how far away the pursuing mob is and with the camera rotation being slow as it is, this either necessitates guesswork or stopping long enough to turn around and discover that yes indeed the mob was close enough to begin preparing an adventurer sandwich.

As with most things, I suspect more practice will make this easier as time goes on.

If nothing else I'll eventually develop nervous ticks for when all the spell timers are ready.

We've been doing some Avatar runs lately.

I've taken to stealing all the killshots.

Tony Stark's got nothing on me

It really is just that awesome.

The game has become that much more enjoyable at level 60.