Level 33 Party, Bibiki Bay

Tonight was an interesting night for me. We all pretty much decided that we were going to level something tonight, but I ended up dusting off a job I haven't touched in almost 2 years: Monk. Monk was the job I started with when I started playing Final Fantasy back in February of '06, mainly because of the simplicity of the job; with Monk, all you really do is punch shit. I leveled it to 33, and ended up putting it on the shelf. There were a lot of reasons; the economy was hyper inflated back then and key Monk gear pieces were a fortune, starting over with new members when they started playing (Reflaa), etc. At any rate, I hadn't touched Monk in years, so it was an experience playing with it again.

Left to Right: Almeth (THF/NIN), Amedelie (DNC/NIN), Xxnumbertwoxx (MNK/WAR)

We were a little slow getting started (and I just realized I never got my Purple Belt beforehand...way to fuck that up, Deuce!), but we secured the services of our friendly neighborhood telewhore yet again and made our way out to Bibiki Bay. As I was the low man this time out, everyone synced to me at level 33, we buffed up, I got my macros sorted out (it'd been so long I didn't even have a Monk Macro palette anymore, and had to completely rebuild it), and we got started killing shit. It was a little rough at first, I was a little rusty with the job to begin with, and I must have blocked out how much damage Monk actually takes when they are getting pummeled by a Mob. You have a ton of Hit Points, which is great...but every blow seems to land for 80 damage. There were a few scary moments in the beginning where I thought I was going to bite it; as we had just started Amedelie didn't have the TP built up to cure me yet. After that I played the job a lot more cautiously, and we began to make some good progress.

Soon to be a Rabbit Hide in our inventory...

After Almeth did a little research into skillchain possibilities with Monk and Thief, we all formulated a pretty good strategy. Basically, Almeth would pull the mob, and he would tank it for a moment, letting it eat his shadows, Amedelie would Animated Flourish, pulling hate and shadow tanking as well. By this point, Almeth and I usually had a weapon skill ready, so I would Provoke, cast Dodge to increase my evasion while I had hate, Almeth would SATA-Viper Bite for huge damage and I would close the skillchain with Back Hand Blow for 150 damage or so. With the 100 or so damage skillchain on top of that, finishing the mob off was a pretty easy matter. Everything in the zone was EM-VT, so we could pretty much pull anything we wanted...so we mixed it up between Ravens, Rabbits, and Dhalmels.

Amedelie does her impersonation of the element Boron. The rabbit is not impressed...

So, the night wore on, we killed a bunch of shit, got all of us a level and had some fun. To close out the evening, Amedelie suggested a trip to Purgonorgo Isle to scope it out for future parties. Getting to Purgonorgo Isle is done by taking a boat ride on the Mana Clipper from Bibiki Bay out there. I'd been out there once before, but it'd been years, so I was keen to check the place out. At any rate, we killed a few Ravens on the dock while we waited for the boat, and we boarded when it arrived.

On any terrestrial boat, while you're travelling over the ocean, there's a chance mobs are going to spawn. Almost immediately after we started off, two Clot's spawned. These mobs are in the same family as the NM that killed Almeth yesterday while questing for his R.S.E., so once again we were fighting a blob of goo.

Who's hungry for a nice, juicy knuckle sandwich? Plenty to go around!

The first Clot we fought checked as Decent Challenge to Almeth, so he shot it and pulled it on over. Slime's (the proper name for their family) take shit damage from melee attacks, which is all we had, so it was a bitch to put down, but not too terrible. There was another one running around, and Almeth accidently shot it, trying to cancel...but it was too late. The second one checked as Tough to Amedelie so we knew we had a tough fight ahead of us. We all furiously beat on it, but Amedelie's shadows eventually dropped, and because of the beating she was taking she had to spend more and more TP curing herself...forming a vicious cycle as Amedelie hovered near death with me frantically trying to provoke it off of her, getting it for a moment, before Amedelie had to cure me, pulling hate, and so on. I used my two hour in an attempt to grab hate, spamming provoke...but in the end it didn't matter. Amedelie had actually been getting away from it when it decided to be a royal dickhead and use an AOE on us. Amedelie, who probably had 50 hit points, quickly went down, and with no one left to cure me, I dropped pretty soon after. Almeth was luckily at full health at this point, and as the mob was actually close to death, he was able to finish it off, saving us from the embarassment of a total wipe. The boat arrived, and the crew was at least good enough to hurl our corpses out onto the dock before taking off again on another happy trip to Purgonogo Isle.

I realize people probably die on the boat from time to time, but is everyone really just gonna stand here and let us rot on the dock? What the hell kind of place is this?!

After Almeth said a little prayer for us, we looked around and realized that we were back in Bibiki Bay. Wondering what the fuck had happened there, the realization finally dawned on us...we took the wrong fucking boat. Apparently there's a second Mana Clipper that just takes people on a tour of the area and then brings them back here. Why? What the fuck is the purpose of that? A tour of what?! Angry sea monsters and death?!! How many people actually knowingly choose the boat that goes nowhere for 20 minutes?! If I hadn't already been dead, I would have killed someone. Instead, I Home Pointed...at least I saved my Instant Warp scroll.

Almeth, having survived, agreed to stay behind and run reconnaisance for us, taking the right boat this time and arriving at Purgonorgo Isle unscathed. He checked the mobs and according to our estimation (the whole point was that we would all go out there to see what they checked at to me at level 33, but me eating it dicked that up) the mobs would be ok for us at that level, so we're gonna go give it a shot, maybe tomorrow. Almeth had some issues himself out there, while he was running around scoping the area out, he accidently aggrod a Clot oozing around out on the beach. He Flee'd away, thought he lost it...nope, didn't lose it. Luckily, he was able to use his Two-Hour, Perfect Dodge, and use his warp scroll.

Yeah! Eat a dick, you gooey bitch!! Ha Ha!!!!

That pretty much brings the evening to a close. We said our goodbyes, congratulated Almeth on not eating a death tonight, and with high hopes made our plans for tomorrow...

Maybe I'd better pick up a Reraise scroll before we go out...