BRD 75 and Bonus! Experinece Points

I managed to finally get BRD to 75. Most of the experience came from campaign battles and campaign ops. I did get one PT in the lower bird camp when I was ~73 and they wanted me to sub COR (which I have @ 7) for corsair's roll and the slight XP bonus, which I think was retarded. The PT didn't last too long, but I got a few XP. Another PT I got after I dinged 74 was in the middle camp and it was my first opportunity to pull in a bird meripo. I think we got to chain 50 something before we had to stop because two people had to go to some ls event. The healer in this PT was a RDM/SCH named Tehonn who used sublimation instead of refresh. At the start of the party, he cured me a couple of times even though I would immediately drop back down into yellow HP due to my latent gear swap macros. He was in the process of casting Regen II on me when I told him not to regen me or cure me past 1k hp. So, he didn't cure me for the rest of the night, until I was down to less than 200 hp ><. I left that PT at 20k to 75.

The next night, I thought I'd get that xp very quickly and a bit of a buffer. I ended up taking a PT sync'd to 60 against colibri. Things were going very well until the PLD had to leave suddenly, and the DRG leader d/c'd with me just 8k to 75. It took more than an hour to reassemble the PT, change camps, and then get back to fighting. I still didn't manage to ding, since other ppl had to leave and I was tired of the slow xp and lack of mobs to kill. I ended up leaving that PT after more than 3 hours, gaining only 14k xp.

Before I logged off, I did a couple of campaign battles and managed to finish the last of my level and dinged 75! It was nice to put my goliard gear and W.Turban back on. It also allowed me to fine-tune my latent macros so that I can hit my latent in just 4 macros instead of 7.

When I logged on again, I was just 928 into 75 BRD, so I didn't want to actually use it for anything; not until I got a proper buffer. Shiji asked if I wanted to help him camp Voluptuous Vivian, so I geared up RDM and headed out there. He went THF, Lun went BRD and we actually saw the NM pop after just 35 minutes of camping (give or take, it was after the 4th or 5th PG, I think). Our first attempt didn't go too well. Spider agg and silence/para/etc overwhelmed us pretty quickly. We managed to get up safely. Shiji changed to NIN/DNC and we tried again. This time, we got her down to, like, 1% (no joke) before we wiped. After a bad breath went off (and we had spider agg) I noticed that I had used my last echo drop and we all died. We were able to recover and Lun ran back to town for more meds.

The third time, instead of Lun and I zoning the spider adds, I just kept one slept for the duration of the fight. I think the fight took 20 minutes or so. Shiji managed to get VV to the mouth of the tunnel, leading towards Dragon's Aery so he was safe from most of the agg in her room, we just had a single spider to deal with in the tunnel. Of course we didn't get the drop, but we got cool Vivisector titles!

While Shiji and I were killing PHs, we noticed that the kupowers went away. I happened to be online the following morning ~10hrs later, so I decided to go mog tablet hunting. I went WHM/RNG (for widescan, since the tablets show up on widescan) and just teleported to each of the telepoints to widescan for a tablet. I also climed paradomo Tor to get a miasma filter, in case we ever happen to do another ENM. While I was climbing, I noticed a new coeurl NM that was up (drops the Layqa Seraweels: enfeebling magic +2) so I killed that for no drop. It is a timed pop, 1.5-2 hrs, so I would resume my tablet hunting until the 1.5 hrs were up, then I'd run back and kill the NM again.

When I actually saw that a tablet was discovered, I went on full-tilt tablet hunting and happened to find one in the northern part of Pashow Marshlands (NW of the outpost)! I checked in with the moogle in Ru'Lude Gardens and got a Kupofried's ring and an adaman ingot for my trouble.

That night, I got a meripo invite and we hit the mamool ja in the top floor of the bird camp. We got to chain 30-something before one of the SAMs died and a WAR had to leave. By the time his rep arrived, the lower camp had cleared out so we went down there. I used one charge of my emperor band against the mamool ja. I used 1 charge of the Kupofried's ring before we started on the birds. It was crazy seeing consistent chains for 518 xp! Toward the end of the night, I started getting some severe lag which was causing my casting to get interrupted, so we lost the chain at 120-something. I pulled for a bit longer (into chain 50-something) before I was tired and left the PT. I started the night @928/44,000. When I had finished, I was capped on XP and had also finished off 1 merit, and completed a 2nd. In total, I got just over 60k xp in 2.5 hours or so. CRAZY XP!

I also managed to get the Layqa Seraweels from the NM in Attohwa Chasm for a little boost to my Enfeebling Magic set (I can get 345 skill in max gear).

Since it was a full moon, I talked Vay and Braego into doing Up In Arms, but didn't get a drop. Going RDM, RDM. BLM made this BC super easy. When vay has enough seals, we'll go back and try again. After, Vay and I tried to duo the Puppet In Peril BC for ToAU mission 29. The first 70% of the NMs life goes very smoothly. Once we get it to 30%, however, things tend to fall apart. I think we'll try again once we tweak some macros and both have our 2hrs (I used mine on the last UIA run).

I have done a few ISNMs but haven't gotten a drop. It's funny: I kinda levelled BRD so that I could do ISNMs more often, but each time I've gone, I've been WAR!

I finished up the weekend by heading up to sky to do some FoV and re-cap XP on RDM. I ended up capping XP and finishing off a 3rd merit point. Not sure how I'll spend it just yet.

Mog bonanza starts in two days. I think I'll buy 30 marbles and use the same strategy for picking numbers that I used earlier in the year (which helped me win 1.1mil in drops). If I am able to just break even, I'll be happy.

Posted Dec 22 2009, 12:12 PM

BRD Solo/Duo

I dinged 71 BRD over the weekend. I have only been in 1 real xp PT since I dinged 68, and that got me the 20k I needed to ding 70. The rest of the XP has come from campaign, FoV, or duoing w/ Shiji (which is laid-back and fun, too).

I have been working hard on Campaign to get my medals back. I lost my medal and my highest Wings rank after switching allegiance a couple of months ago. I think I'll focus on maxing my campaign rank and keeping it maxed. Since I started working on it again, I have become a lean, mean, campaign-machine! @70 I get to equip my O.Hat and Joyeuse, which helps my accuracy (not that I really need it). I also tried out /SCH, which is a great campaign subjob. It includes Reraise and a lot of JAs which are very helpful for racking up the XP/AN. If I'm solo in Campaign, I just spam JAs: pianissimo + Ballads, Penury + Cures, Sublimation. I miss having stoneskin, but I love the MP- conservation and recovery that I get from /SCH. When I ding 72, it'll get even better with Aspir and Regen II (although that may not be until 74). Also @ 72, I get to equip my dusk gear, which will finally give me some decent melee hands/feet.

I'd really like to get to 73 (and chocobo mazurka) by the end of this week. When I know I won't have a lot of time to play, I'll just stick w/ Campaign ops and campaign battles. If I know I'll have a good chunk of time to get a PT, I'll try to pre-charge my emperor's band.

I kinda got roped into organizing a Promy-Vahzl run on Saturday night. Mill and Rach both needed it, and Vay, Wack, Braego, and Shiji all volunteered at one point or another to help out, so I figured it would be easy to put a PT together. However, when it came time to actually gather, the only 'helper' who was available was Vay. We ended up starting 1.5 hrs after the gather time. We ended up getting CB to come along as our 6th. The climb went very well, with only 2 or 3 accidental aggs along the way.

We discussed a strategy when we finally got to the spire of Vahzl, and decided to go in and just do a dry-run w/o 2-hrs or animas. When the 2nd NM was killed, things were still going well, so we started using animas and ended up winning on our first try. I finished up all the CS and did all of the leg-work that I needed to do to prepare myself for the fights of 5-3 (Three Paths), which require a 5- or 6- man PT to complete.

Posted Dec 7 2009, 10:53 AM

Getting back into it

I had a couple of chances to do some stuff with friends as BRD. I went out to Miseraux Coast to assist Vay and Shiji with the NM Gration. I ended up dying 5 or so times, resulting in going from a 3.5k buffer into 68 to being 5k TNL. Then, I went out to Beadeaux_S to help Vay in his Solo (now a duo) attempt at Bres. We ended up failing twice, which resulted in 2 more deaths for me. By the time I finished, I was 8K to level 68. But, I had fun doing stuff on BRD.

I really felt weak, though, being at such a low level. For the Bres attempt, I feel like if I were 74 of 75, I could have been less of a liability. My songs grabbed a lot of hate which resulted in me getting hit, which resulted in Vay spending MP on me. I was trying to make things easier for him, but I think I made the fight more difficult. Although, I do believe he is in love with dual Marches, now.

During the attempts, Vay deleveled to 74, so we made our way out to Cape Terrigan to do some FoV. Mobs went down very very quickly. With his Joyeuse off-hand, Justice sword main-hand, his haste gear, the haste spell, and 2x March, he was practically non-stop swinging. It was SUPER fun to duo like that, although I felt like I was leeching. He seemed to really enjoy it, though. So, I think I would be able to convince him to head out there some more to do more FoV in the future.

I have also spent a considerable amount of time doing campaign battles. As a matter of fact, I have gotten the last 30k XP from campaign. Right now, I'm 5k to level 69, which isn't really significant. I'm really hoping to ding 70 with a buffer soon, so I can equip my Joyeuse

I am a little worried about dinging 72, though, because some of the gear that I should probably buy by that point is getting a little expensive. I won't be able to replace gear, either, so it's not like I'll be able to recover some of my gil, either.

Hopefully I can get in on a KS/BS/ENM soon and make a bit of bank to ease the passage through the last few levels.

I'm not sure how often I'll be doing things as BRD, but it will definitely be nice to have when it is finally at 75.

Posted Dec 3 2009, 12:52 PM