Qufim Trials

So I had gotten BLM up to 19.

The next venue for leveling would be Qufim Island, to kill worms, clippers, and pugils. Woots.

I don't seem to have the best luck getting invites in Qufim. I don't know why. I have gotten 3 jobs through the area, compared to the 8 jobs I've finished the Dunes with. WHM, BLM, NIN, SMN, and RNG all sit at 20 or 21, waiting to get past the invite stage.

OK, SMN I haven't even tried to level there, as I'm waiting to get all my avatars. That might take a while. I do have Shiva though!

All the other jobs have sat at the mouth of Qufim long enough to let me get distracted and end up leveling something else.

This will be harder to do as time passes, since I only have 70 levels of jobs under 20. Sooner or later I'll just end up with every job needing to get through the area.

Anyhow, I'm trying to get BLM up to 25. That's my goal so I might then get RDM up to 50 with it as a sub.

My first day out was not so good. Me, 2 White Mages, a Red(I think), a Samurai and a Warrior. Could be OK, you might think. Except the War seemed to not understand Provoke. Because she used it twice. For the whole time I was in the party.

That's why I don't like powerleveling.

The Sam left in disgust, disconnecting unannounced. A paladin was supposedly going to come, but I don't know where from because I got sick of the whole thing before they showed.

Oh well. I got to 20 (barely). The next day was better.

Last night I got into a much better party. There was a war/nin, a smn, two white mages, a cor(!) and of course me.

We stormed around the icy lake, killing crabs and worms, and in what seemed like no time at all, I was 21. We headed over to the tower and did crabs and pugs and continued to smash everything.

There were regular skillchains. I got to burst on pretty much every mob. I was doing great.

Then it was late and i had to log off.

In the end, I had gone from 26 points into 20 to 1.2k from 22.

I'll get there soon.

Kjahl

What the hell is wrong with all you beastmasters???

Poor defenseless animals...

Jolly Green

I was out farming as THF/NIN. I didn't have any tools with me, since a) they cost a lot, and b) they take up a lot of backpack space. I got to the center of Pashhow Marshlands and started to look for Goobue to kill.

The tree cuttings dont drop often but they sell for a bunch, or at least they used to. The boyahda moss is a nice secondary drop, and there's always Carnivorous Crawlers who drop silk thread. And you can steal it off them too!

So, anyhow, there I am, in the middle of the marsh. I'm targetting whatever I can to try to find stuff to kill, and suddenly I see, highlighted in the corner of the screen: Rook.

Yay, all of a sudden I was in the middle of a ballista match! Farming amidst people trying to kill each other is pretty entertaining, especially since they can't touch me... or Jolly Green. He had popped right in front of me with about 30 other people around us, and I was the only person who could claim him!

/joy

So I smacked him up and down with a sneak attack and a Viper Bite... and he was done.

For some reason, I haven't seen anywhere near the number of NM's as I have since I started this blog.

I didn't get the best of his drops, the Shaman's Belt:

But I did get a tree cutting. Pretty much the equivalant of getting a silk thread off Spipi; not great, but at least I got something good.

On the map, we were here:

Here's some action shots!

He dies!

I'm not sure who to look for next...

Suggestions?

Green Choco

It seems like the colorful chocobos are becoming more widely spread. Here's a green one I saw while I was out leveling in the dunes.

I likes it.

Oh, it looks like NegativeLily is going to be yellow. Oh well, she'll still kick ass.

Kadohahahddo

Another member of The Knights of Nee, Kadohahahddo:

He reminds me of someone else though.

Jaw-Droppingly Bad

This is Maginot:

He has been, without a doubt, the most unprepared, underequipped, just pretty-all-around-bad player I think I have ever grouped with.

The party was BLM BLM BLM NIN NIN DRG. I was main healing easily with Cure as the NINs bounced hate back and forth pretty well. The old party leader had left, and we picked up a new level 18 Elvaan BLM, Maginot. Now, no-one died because of this guy, but he was simply pathetic.

He only cast Stone. Okay, one time he cast Bio, but other than that, just Stone. Did he have any other spells? I have no idea.

He would melee every mob. We were fighting Pugils and Gobs on the secret beach, so he was hitting for 0-6 damage. The 6 was a crit.

He had a Brass Ring on. Now I know people bring some basic equipment to the dunes, usually because they don't want to spend cash on equip they're going to use for a session or three... but a Brass Ring?!? I guess it makes the teensiest bit of sense since he was trying to melee everything. But what BLM actively tries to lower their MP?
The other ring he had was a San d'Orian Ring, not much better. He didnt cast Cure anyhow, so the Mind boost was totally wasted. Otherwise he had level 12 basic cloth set armour on.

No amount of coaxing would get him to a) cast other spells b) stop meleeing c) make him useful at all.

On the up side, once we booted him for a Monk, we had a great party and I got to level 19.

Daggerclaw Dracos

I posted earlier about going out to look for Daggerclaw Dracos and running into Waraxe Beak instead. Luckily I managed to stay on my chocobo the entire time he was nearby, and I logged there to go back the next day for more hunting.

If there's a less camped NM, I'd like to see it... Nobody was in the area for the hour or so I was there killing raptors. Like absolutely nobody. Ever.

I ran a pretty straightforward path, circling around the perimiter of the area, killing all the raptors I could find. NOne of that was a problem, although I was thinking somewhere in the back of my head that it would be pretty funny if Waraxe popped on me and ground me into paste.

What I didn't realise, however, was that the raptors Dracos lottery spawns from extend up into the valley that leads to the bowl I had been patrolling. I got turned around during one fight, and saw I was going up into the valley, and as I turned to go back, there was Daggerclaw!

Here's a map:

And here I am smacking him around:

I didn't get anything to drop, not a single thing. But if you're interested, he drops this:

or sometimes a raptor skin. Not for me though. I might go back and try this guy again, I'll have to see what those Sonic Knuckles are going for in the AH.