Level 50 Duo, East Ronfaure (S)

Everyone in Bahamut's Dreadnought was off doing other shit last night, so it was just me and Almeth. I had a ton of shit to mule (still do, actually) and Almeth was finishing up some things as well, so we leisurely did our thing while we kicked around exactly where we wanted to go get a band in. There was Western Altepa Desert, fighting Beetles, and originally that seemed like a plan, but to be honest I wasn't really feeling the desert today. That's when I remembered that the Colibri's and Ladybugs running around in East Ronfaure (S) checked as DC to us, and as Almeth had a bunch of cut scenes to sit through and dumpy quests to do in Southern San d'Oria (S) anyways, we decided to give it a shot. I am so glad we did...although it wasn't easy (like anything ever is for Bahamut's Dreadnought lol), but we managed to do pretty well in my oh so humble opinion.

This is a Colibri. Say Hi, Mr. Colibri! Eat a dick, Mr. Colibri!

So Almeth and I run outside, buff up, sync ourselves, yadda yadda yadda. We fought a Colibri and quickly put it down. Almeth shoots another one, brings it over, and we start whacking at it. That's when I notice it do the strangest weapon skill: Snatch Morsel. Thinking to myself, "Now, what the fuck does that do??" I glance up and notice that my food is now gone. The food I just ate. Colibri can steal your damn food from you. What a prick! Well, it's good to know for future reference, I guess, so the rest of the night Almeth and I fought sans food.

"God, can you at least stay still while we kill you?! Shit!"

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Well, if they only steal food, big fucking deal...you don't need food to fight a DC...", and you're right, that wasn't an issue. However, we quickly learned after a few more of them that Colibri have another trick up their sleeve..."Feather something-or-other" (I can't remember the exact name lol). That ability was way more annoying, because what that does is steal all of your TP. Now when it landed on Almeth, it sucked, but it's not too big of a deal. For me, since I kinda use my TP for like everything I do, it's waaaaaay shitty. Luckily, TP gain on these things went pretty quickly, and my steps landed almost 100% of the time (Thanks to the Dancer's Bangles), so as long as I had 5 finishing moves stored up to "Reverse Flourish" with when they stole my TP, things we're ok. The Colibiri's hit a little hard without shadows, but with Almeth and I trading hate back and forth, it wasn't too much of an issue to shift hate around when one of us needed to get Utsusemi back up.

"Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly away home, You're House....OWWWW MY FUCKING EYE YOU BITCH!!!!! DIE!!!!!!!"

After we fought a Ladybug, we worked out a pretty good strategy, alternating between them and the Colibri depending on my TP and how many Finishing Moves I had saved up. Luckily, the Lady Bugs don't steal TP; they have an even better move they do that causes Amnesia. What does that do, you ask? Well, nothing too major, it only prevents you from doing any job abilities at all. Why does that suck? Because, again, everything I do is a job ability...so when they started dumping that shit on us I got to pretty much sit there and swing and wait for it to wear off. Luckily, it doesn't stick for too long, so it wasn't too much of an issue, and it doesn't prevent one from casting Utsusemi. Like I said, these things hit pretty hard, so if it would have, we probably wouldn't have been fucking with them too much. I found out later that fighting Ladybugs was actually a pretty good financial decision...

"Polly want a cracker? BURN, BITCH!!!"

At any rate, from that point on, things went on without a hitch. We killed with impunity, got tons of Colibri Beaks, Colibri Feathers, and a few Ladybug Wings as well. Since Almeth and I are all about the fucking drops, I did some quick research on ffxiah.com to see what we could expect to get for our haul tonight...Beaks are similar to Beetle Shells, going for about 400 a piece, Feathers about 1k a stack, so they're decent, but nothing to get too excited about. However, Ladybug Wings go for 8k a stack on the Jeuno A.H! I damn near soiled myself (I know, I say that a lot, but it's true). That wasn't even the best part...the Ladybug Wings actually can be turned in for a repeatable quest in Southern San d'Oria (S) at the rate of 3k for 4! After about an hour, I came out with 3, and Almeth with 4, and that was switching between Colibri and Ladybugs...in the future, I'm definitely going to focus on the Ladybugs, my Dancer AF is gonna cost me a fortune and I need to make some money like now.

Another happy discovery was concerning the Colibri. For shits and grins, Almeth decided to try his Hide-Sneak Attack-Trick Attack-Viper Bite action, and my mouth dropped when it landed for like 690 damage...meaning when we do fight the Colibri, as long as they don't steal his TP before hand, he's got a huge bomb to drop on them. That alone was enough to drop them to like 1/3 health, so powering through them was a breeze. Almeth tried the same strategy on the Ladybugs, but they must detect by sound, because the Hide would drop instantly...but that's not an issue at all. We got some links while we were fighting (based on the fact that the Colibri flew right through us while we were fighting their brethren, they must not link at all, but the Ladybugs sure do, and they're aggresive to boot) but it wasn't too much of an issue, and we managed to put them down without too much difficulty when they tried to gang up on us.

Almeth dings 51, and the crowd goes wild!

Soon after Almeth dinged, we called it an evening. It was actually a pretty good night, I got 53, and noticed that the exp to level to 54 jumped to like 10,400, so getting levels from here on out will probably take a few trips. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't ease the pain very much. Kamiku was on hand to let us know that 60+ is probably going to mean the end of our being able to really trio and 4-man efficiently, which sucks (I really prefer smaller parties, comprised of members of our own LS...there's too many noobs running around out there ^^) but if full parties are what it's gonna take to get 75 sometime this year, then full parties are what we're gonna have to do.

And so concludes the adventures of Bahamut's Dreadnought for another day. Amedelie and I have another Duo scheduled for tonight (Ranger/Dancer combo), and you better believe we're coming back here to get some ladybug wings tonight. I can't wait! ^^