Wednesday, June 23, 2010

C'mon baby, don't fear the reaper...

So I'm on last night trying to unlock 76, and I'm about to go out and solo it on beast (needing only 31 XP to cap XP) when Tigerelf from SK mentions he's in an LS party that's 5/6 72 level sync at Mamool. I had checked Unsocial out 1st but the only one on was Usul in regular Xarc, not where you want to XP at 75 you know? So I figure what the hell and decide to join the SK party. I decide to switch to bard tho’ as it works better in parties, they don’t have a healer, and a little voice in the back of my brain is saying 6 /dancer ain’t gonna get it done. Good idea.

From the start I have reasons for misgivings. Turns out our sync is actually AFK for the entire time he’s there getting XP on a free ride. I don’t mind that if I know that I’m carrying someone before I come out, but it seems rude not to mention it before I join, at least to me. Despite having 4 active guys /dancer Drain Samba isn’t up half the time, a major no-no unless you are XPing off undead. Guys actually die while I’m changing gear to bard melee gear (relic body). Yes, I know I’m /white mage and should have healed them but I was told when I came out that they were taking care of it and I could have come melee so I just wasn’t watching that close; and I’m not that good of a healer on /whm due to low MP and low spells at 75 since mobs can 1 hit for more than Cure III can recover. The samurai/dancer was pulling, ok, he DOES have the bow and all…

Shortly after I get there (maybe an hour?) the sync disconnects and we are now 75, but 5 manning. We had to 5-man entirely too much. When we got our 6th (Krazytrane) he pulled an NM and we wiped. Dorm refused to get up without a Raise III so we had to 5-man with him down, slowing our XP. We managed to get enough XP to more than cover the hit he would have taken from the Raise 1.5 Hymnus gives in the almost 60 minutes he stayed down, and had he been up he probably would have been enough to add 12-1500 XP through his damage output during that time. Whatever, I’m a big believer in taking whatever raise is available and getting more XP, you are earning 0 XP, gil, skill-ups or whatever you are after while you lie there waiting to save 8-1600 XP.

The tank leaves and we get a 2nd bard. Fine with me, 2 bard parties are usually fast. I end up taking over pulling when the samurai leaves and things go wrong. Someone else zoned a bunch of mamool and our party grabbed one that I hadn’t pulled so we had too many mobs, another wipe. I go back to WG to change to /ninja as I’m more comfortable that way when I’m pulling. Turns out the other bard had come /nin (I didn’t know since the taru had MP comparable to mine) so now we had no healer (I did mention our /dancer guys weren’t keeping drain up).

I suppose I should mention that the area was tremendously overcrowded and I was forced to pull Wyverns as the only prey available. We were there before all of them, so courtesy should have had the other groups moving out of our area but courtesy took a flying leap from the game years ago… I spent more time fighting for pulls than I care to.

In any event, I changed to /nin, and the other bard changes to /whm, pulling goes much faster and the XP finally starts to flow. So now Usul shows up with a couple friends of mine in tow that I KNOW are good players (my party was not playing reliably, unannounced AFK, no sambas, lack of consistency, etc.). Rather than moving deeper into the zone they decide to set up shop right on top of us and the other party I’ve been competing with for a couple of hours for mobs. Now we have 3 parties in an area that is strained to support 2. At this point the more charming side of my personality comes out. I am very civil usually, so lack of common courtesy infuriates me. When I’ve been putting up with it for 2.5 hours on top of dealing with a weak party I let it out, getting into a verbal shouting match with Usul (who you may remember from earlier posts is a bud).

Let’s put it this way, when I 1st came out my bard needed 7k XP to cap and another 7k to get the merit I need to unlock 76. In 2.5 hours I have 12k, that’s with using a charge on an emporer’s band and a charge from my anniversary ring. In this same area with a decent party I would have had about 35k (without XP rings) considering I had to compete with another pt for desireable enemies. I get invited to change groups and I’m tempted. However, my pt is all SK which is my social shell and I don’t want to create ill will there, and by the time I get the invite I only need 700 points to get that merit I need and I plan to log after. So I stay put, take care of business, unlock 76 and log out needing 1 XP to get my new level.

Hopefully, I can get together with Usul’s group tonite. If nothing else it’s got to be better for my blood pressure…

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