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When I ran across this today, I really started to get the urge for some soloing mayhem:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A4z5Z5nBdM

I do have a legit copy of Fraps that I really should use some time…  I have only a few limited scraps of video for Thoreau and, unfortunately, the only one I ever bothered to post was just a quick test while bored:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSa-TN6RsUU

So, figuring that since I had recently switch alliance from Windy [S] to Sand d’Oria [S] for some  Splitting Heirs action, I decided to break out my PLD gear and work on my last two rank-ups and get me some Allied Notes for an Iron Ram Hauberk (was sitting on around 70k after getting the Hose and Greaves).

Was quite enjoyable getting back into the Paladin groove for a bit and re-working my macros between battles.  The most notable fight had to be my last one for the evening yesterday.  After the complete lagfests for the past week, including a 120+ person fight in Xarc where we still were unable to take down any NMs, I was surprised at how empty The Eldieme Necropolis was on Sunday. A veritable ghost town (>.>)…

For the majority of the run, Tram and I were the only two there vs. the Clan Longtooth Pillagers.  After a while a 61RDM and then a 62DNC showed.  Then some others would trickle in over the course of the battle. I basically had to run around trying to see where any mobs were until they would race up and then swarm me.  Occasionally, I was able to pick out one mob from the herd and run him to the side of a room to whittle him down.  Fighting in the hallways was unsafe as after a few minutes some mobs would cruise past stopping only long enough to stomp me.

For one fight, Tram was able to avoid getting aggro from Battlemaster Vatgit while he thoroughly destroyed me.  Unfortunately, Tram still had the Orc we were fighting to contend with and was weakened. Tram would Repose him in the SE  corner of the room and then run across to the NE corner to Stoneskin/Blink/Cure.  He was able to keep it up until I became unweak, but I was knocked back to the ground by another Oracish drive-by.  So Tram kept it up for the entire time it took me to unweaken for the second time.  Towards the end it was starting to resist Repose and I would start flashing the mob whenever I could just to try and have a chance to take it off him once ready.  Once I was ready for action again, it was not too hard to keep it away from Tram while he tried to rest back some MP (it did run over to slap him a few times).  The whole time, there were two or three people fighting their own prey on the other side of the room, only to come and join us when the mob was almost dead, luckily Tram was able to get up enough MP for Holy so they could not nab the killshot.

After a rest to full, we went to the Western room to find Vatgit and his friends engaged with Febrenard C Brunnaut.  About three more people showed and with letting the NPC tank we were able to get him down to about 4% when the battle ended.  4.5K XP for Thor and almost 3K for Tram not too bad.  That is when the real fun began.

It seems that no one else had joined the Thor-Tram union and opening the chest was up to me. I had the hardest time trying to get back to the Union chests with the doors closing.  I would think I had things set and open Levi gate only to run back to the door and have it still closed.   When re-sneaking to get past a group of skeles, I miss timed on my canceling and did not notice that Monomi: Ichi had no effect.  I found out pretty quick when I aggroed.  So, I slapped on my fast pants and figured I would try to outrun them a bit.  I turned to Tram’s screen to make sure I could leave him in a safe place for a few and when I looked back at Thor I had landed my noob-ness in the basement.   Invincible->Rampart->Run like the wind to find a safe place to die.  Unfortunately, the mass of Sleep and Stuns that came at me did not allow me to go far.

So, I let the carcass lie while Tram started to find his way.  Mistakes #2 and #3 were just about the same.  Sight aggro from a bomb while opening another gate… Repose takes care of that!  then sneak and run to the door only to blood-aggro the hound >.< so I slept him too.  Then, the @#$@# door was closed again.  I just could NOT win.  So Tram eats dirt and reraises.  Time was up and the chests were gone.

I think I really would have been disappointed had we actually KO’d Vatgit.

A useful utility to help determine how to fit the runes you want for a maze: http://fluxrider.com/projects/ffxi-mmm/index.html

You can run it from the web page itself or, as I did, grab the jar file and run it from your desktop.

I had been postponing the number choosing since I could not come up with a decent plan or method to the decision, and when I logged in on the last day to just go /random… I had mis-judged the time and JST midnight hit right as the Bonanza Moogle came into view.

Overall totals

• 1x Rank 3 (Barre) -  Star Sapphire
• 2x Rank 4 (Korara & Raamohntaane) -  B. Hides
• 8x Rank 5

I spent an evening soloing from 50 to 51 in Behemoth’s Dominion just to get back into the Samurai groove and ended up getting my Gothic Sabatons to match the Gauntlets that I nabbed over in Xarc last week.  Had my party flag up the entire time, but of course the low 50s have always my least favorite levels due to their awkwardness.  And post-ToAU, the invites get really slim until 54.

One last piece of gear I had planned for SAM was some Shinimusha Haidate to try and get ready for a 7-hit build.  I actually have hit Bugbear Strongman a few times over the last few years, but have only seen the SAM pants drop three times; the very first time I was in the zone when it came out (splitting the proceeds with two other with me), a few weeks later (giving the pants to theSAM friend I was in pt with), and a pair while solo (after the price had completely tanked well below 100k).

When I did a price check on them, I was suprised that they were back up and selling for 170k-200k.  Of course, I should have predicted that from the bandwagon effect of the SAM buffs.  So… it was off to Oldton Movalpolos for me.  I spent two days killing EVERY POP (both spawns) and ended up with nothing except two pair of Aikido Koshita.  A whopping 14K gil for my efforts >.<  And a side-note, why the hell does SE hate MNK enough to make this NM drop near-useless +2 Counter pants for MNK and near-broken +6TP pants for SAM?  I mean really!  Those Koshita could have been +5 Counter!

Eventually, I gave in and just ponied up the gil to AH myself a pair.

I still have not been able to actually get an XP party yet.  Hit lvl 52 by Campaign and soloing in Riverne – Site B01 skilling up Polearm (reached 50DRG in a series of Level Sync parties, so had really fallen behind.  (I figure I really should prepare for the eventual endless Colibri camps to come).

One up-side of all the Campaign time was re-obtaining Brass Wings of Service ∮ for the 3rd or 4th time.  I am sitting on only about 150k Allied Notes, so still 30k away from getting the current Iron Ram Sallet Set items (not including the cost of the yet-to-be-released body piece).

Side Note: Even more proof of SE’s hatred for me… just compare the Iron Rams (San d’Oria) goodies to the gar-bage offerefor Cobra Unit (Windurst).

And Tram actually got to Golden Star ∮∮∮∮ at the same time (nice considering how little his White Magery nets him on XP and Allied Notes.

Add to all of that, a double Salvage run, my first ANM, a few assualts, and some friends helping me finish off my Nyzul disc from 90->100 and it definately made some good {funguar}.

• Tanked that #$%#$% bomb on  NIN (my first battles long-ago) and on PLD…
• Meleed it on MNK, NIN, and DRK…
• Main-healed as the only WHM in an alliance…
• Tried to see ‘can I blow up for more DMG than that mob’ on BLM…
• Inspired the troops with battle songs like Taillefer as BRD…
• Lost count of how many drops and kills ..

Finally! The Soboro Sukehiro is mine!

Took us a bit longer to gather enough folks for the run tonight, and just as the first few of us were entering Riverne, a system message came saying emergency maintenance in less than two hours.  >.<  We decided to see how many we could fit in before logging and turned out to only have time enough for two attempts.

As we assembled, I was growing worried about a lack of any healers showing in the party lists so I silently grabbed Tram and moved him into position near the entrance.  A WHM was located, but by the time we were about ready to start, he was AWOL.  Time to spring the Taru Backpack into action!

I lost the /random on the first fight which turns out to be a good thin since it was a wipe.  Had some confusion on stun order, which can usually be expected when doing a pickup group.  It did seem like a viable team, so we went for one more pop.

I slyly fooled SE by having Tram do my /random for the 2nd fight.  And he pulled out a 996 placing me on deck.

The fight went real nice for the first half, then started going FUBAR fast.  Since Tram was nearly out of MP, I did my typical Zerg-WHM act of a Suicide Benediction to give one last push to recover from a Self-Destruct that made it through.  After RR, I was able to toss out a few more cures which I think made a huge difference even though I could not quite get the Tank out of red HP.

When the mob hit about 7%, things were looking very Grim.  We had little possibilities of sleeping after blowing our ES to recover when the second party died, I was going to hit Dia just in case it got close enough for a posthumous kill.  When I saw a Meikyo Shisui go off with it at 4%, I knew we had it!  And, to continue the 100% drop rate we have seen the last few days (when not eating dirt), the Gkt hit the Treasure Pool.

I guess the benefit of leveling so many jobs is that I can leave one alone until I get the gear I really want for it before progressing.  Similar to when I left my SMN at 40 until I could nab a Dragon Staff or holding on THF until Striders… not an absolutely essential piece of equipment, but makes ‘The Grind’ more enjoyable.