BST Slow-lo

Last night started out kind of slow.  When I logged on, I saw that Slayne was online (he's usually at work) and doin' stuff in Abyssea - Altepa.  Turns out he and Skadan were duoing Shaula for DRG/THF body seals. Well, it was really just Slayne doin' the BST solo thing.

I asked if he wanted me to come out on BLM and try to stagger, and if I did, would he be able to keep hate on his pet.  Well, he thought he could keep hate (except for the hate reset move that the NM has), so I headed out there.

I chose to go with Atma of the Apocalypse over Beyond simply because I wasn't worried about doing max damage, just being able be alive long/often enough so that I can get the staggers.

I expected to die a few times, but who really cares about exp anyways?  It is so easy to come by that as long as you're at/near cap, it shouldn't ever be a problem.  What I didn't expect was how long it would take for the mob to be killed.  I think our fastest kill was ~40 minutes.  I tried to nuke when I wasn't weakened, but that only helped to take off 5 or 6 % before I was eating dirt again and waiting for 5 minutes for weakness to wear off.  It took so long it was almost painful :(

Slayne found a duo that was killing Dragua for fangs so we teamed up with them so he could lot the axe if it dropped.  Turns out that they didn't need any of the wieldance coins/cards that the NM dropped, so we stuck around to help stagger/gather pop items.  While I stayed up way too late, I was able to collect 6 coins that I could use to upgrade either the WHM or DNC hands.  The result is my very first piece of empyrean +2 armor!



(Nice piece for Exenterator, Evisceration, and the 100% TP return on Reverse Flourish!)

By the time we were done, Slayne had 15 wieldance cards.  I wish I would have lotted a few of those, too.  While I don't have any jobs leveled that can make use of cards for +2 armor, I already do have the NIN hands +1'd.  It would have been awesome to be able to ding into +2 when I finally decide to level NIN.

Slayne eventually got his axe, and we were also able to get the red stagger for the atma, too (not sure if/when I'll ever use it).

Oh, and btw, Dragua is kind of a pain to get yellow stagger on if you don't have some sort of fast cast.  They wanted me BLM/WHM so that I could stona their WHM if they got hit by Terra Wing.  Dragua casts often, and seems to almost always follow up a spell with a TP move.  Sometimes, the quickened spellcasting from AoA was the only reason I was able to stagger. 

Each time I encounter a new NM, I'm amazed at how easy they really can be to kill.  Maybe I'll make an effort to tackle some of those 'tougher' NMs that have been keeping me from finishing my +1 armors!