Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers

(- Isaac Newton)

Bhaflau Remnants
Party 1: Cole (main MNK), Khrone (MNK), Erm (BRD), Ofe (WHM), Rob (SAM), Kuni (RDM)
Party 2: GH (THF), Liquidblue (WAR)
Enter Time: Mon 1/4/2010 ~10:50PM EST
Goal: Boss Run
Game plan: same as before with a few minor tweaks here and there
Result: really lucky on cell drops; Boss killed with about 6 minutes to spare; Ares 25 Head went to Erm; Morrigan 25 Body went to GH; Usu 15 Hands went to Khrone
New Title: Comet Charioteer
Notes:
- I had Arhat's Gi +1, Arhat's Jinpachi, Patronus Ring which all helped with dmg control.
- I focused a lot more on keeping shadows up, which made the healer's job a lot easier.
- Killing all 10 gears helped a ton.
- Having that extra DD (and us focusing a lot more on skill chains) helped a lot with killing gears and other mobs quicker.


In other news: Did 4 more Golden Salvage runs with LB and Cole. I'm starting to feel more comfortable using my SMN now, but still need to get it leveled past 62 so i can finally start wearing my AFv2. lol

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Chuck Norris Belt - Part II

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

Fafnir
DaFunk
2 mil
I is happier

'nuff said.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Time for toys and time for gear

Bhaflau Remnants
Party 1: Cole (main MNK), Khrone (MNK), Erm (BRD), Ofe (WHM), Rob (SAM), Kuni (RDM)Party 2: GH (THF)
Not in attendance: Liquidblue
Enter Time: Tue 12/22/2009 11:03PM EST
Goal: Boss Run

1st Floor:
West path. Kill Bifrons and move to the next room... after getting to the central room and clearing it, send someone to the porter while everyone else backtracks to kill more mobs for necessary cell drops. Cell drops were pretty much in our favor tonight throughout the entire run.

2nd Floor:
Killed all 4 flans quickly, not caring whether spikes were up or not. Took the NW path. Again, killed almost everything.

3rd Floor:
Rings/Earrings and Ranged cells weren't dropping for us tonight, but all other equipment cells were, so we were happy. Lots of STR and VIT. A few INT and MND. Not much else stat-wise.

4th Floor:
Got up here 55 minutes into the run. (5 minutes faster than last time.)
Killing gears went a lot smoother tonight too, probably because we had more equipment unlocked, but also because we made sure we DoT-ed all gears ASAP and tried to make sure we SCed as much as possible too. Aggroed 1 gear, but killed all of the other 9. So, the boss's Homing Missile was still going to reset hate, but we tried to be prepared for that.

5th Floor:
Had about 20 or 25 minutes left in the run by the time we ported up.
Made sure to pop HP and MP boost items before coming up to the 5th floor. Entered the boss room. {Boost}ed. Buffed. {Chi Blast}ed and the fight was on. This time the MNKs did a much better job at keeping shadows up. Around 60% the BRD 2houred. (Ofe said he was getting 12 MP per tick at one point. awesomeness.) Around 45% (?) the main MNK 2houred, reset timers, then 2houred again. Around 30% the 2nd MNK (me) 2houred. Ran into a bit of badluck though by this point. The boss fired-off a Homing Missile RIGHT before the SAM got in a crit hit, so it kind of locked in hate onto him for a bit and started following him around the room. I lost a lot of my 2hour just trying to chase the thing down. By the time my 2hour wore, I was pretty much dead and and a minute or two later we had run out of time. He only got off 2 (maybe 3?) Homing Missiles.

Final Notes / Lessons Learned:
Readjusting when everyone 2hours worked out really well. Next time we might want to hold off on 2houring a little bit more, but all-in-all we think we did a lot better than previous boss fights.


Next week we will not have Salvage, due to the holidays. Will start up again on January 4th.
We'll try to focus on getting some Assaults done instead this coming Mon and Tues night.

Hopefully it'll only be a few more Campaign battles until I can rank up. After I rank up this time, I can go purchase a Patronus Ring. (Physical Dmg Taken -2% might help out a bit on this boss fight.)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Listen buddy you're not going anywhere

(from The Big Boss)

Bhaflau Remnants
Party 1: Cole (main MNK), Khrone (MNK), Erm (BRD), Ofe (WHM), Rob (SCH?), Kuni (RDM)
Party 2: GH (THF)
Not in attendance: Liquidblue
Enter Time: Mon 12/21/2009 ~11:15PM EST
Goal: Boss Run

1st Floor:
Took our time and prety much cleared out the entire West path (as well as the central areas). We went through and killed all Bifrons (bombs) first, then cleared the final/central room, then backtracked killing more mobs until we got cells that we wanted/needed.

2nd Floor:
Killed all 4 flans quickly, not caring whether spikes were up or not. Pretty sure we ended up taking the NW path (may have been SW though). Again, killed almost everything.

3rd Floor:
Hell, I can't rememeber. Killed lots. Still didn't get the gear drops we were hoping for. (ie. hardly any Feet/Legs dropped for us, but we got tons of Rings/Earrings and Ranged...)

4th Floor:
Gears. Simply put, we F-ed up. We just weren't taking them down quickly enough. 1st one warped out. 2nd one warped out. 3rd we killed. 4th warped out and we just said "screw it" and went on to the boss.

5th Floor:
Everything seemed to go well for a while. MNKs were taking their time, focusing on just keeping shadows up, but as usual, the damn thing kept wiping my shadows with AoE moves AS SOON as I would get them up. Add to the fact that my legs were still locked (therefore no Haidate and therefore less Haste) my timers kinda sucked ass. Boss was hitting us for 400s - 500s. I died at one point, but RRed and got back in there. When Cole went down, the boss started firing off homing missiles and we just declared it a loss.

Final Note:
Things for us MNKs to remember for future runs: we should get as much DMG- gear as possible. (see full list at home, but it was basically Arhat's Body (+1), maybe Head (+1) too... Patronous Ring, Jelly Ring, nyzul feet??...) Might even want to eat a Tav Taco for this boss.
Also want to make sure the RDM had Phalanx II cast on us to reduce the amount of dmg as much as possible.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Let me tell you why I suck

SSR run this past Monday night... but I couldn't go because I lacked the Assault Points. :-(

A few of us went on an Excavation Duty run right before Salvage was scheduled. I thought we were doing great, but didn't fully realize the amount time it takes to get all the way back to the starting point. We were running back to the Rune of Release and were probably about 15 seconds away from getting there... when time ran out. :-P

So, I screwed myself over because I didn't plan on failing an assault right before we went into Salvage. oh wells. At least the group had a good run.

1st floor NM and both 3rd floor NMs were taken out. Unfortunately no good drops, but at least the group got to them and took them out. (yeah, this is me still trying to think positive) :-)

Lesson Learned: make sure I have enough Assault Points at LEAST the day before a run so that I don't miss out again, just in case we fail the assault run right before Salvage.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Don't Suck

"... And if you feel yourself starting to suck, suck less."

Silver Sea Remnants
Set up: Khrone (MNK, main assist), Cole (MNK), Erm (BRD), Ofe (WHM), Toon (RDM), Rob (SAM), Uke (SAM), LB (BLU), GH (THF)
Not in attendance: Kuni
Enter Time: 11/30/2009 10:44PM EST

1st Floor: success
Same run as usual, barrelled-through down the West path, cleared 2 rooms on the way, easily took out the 6 Fomors and jumped straight into fighting the NM. I tried to push through as quickly as possible, quickly moving onto the next room as soon as the previous mob went down. I gotta remember to keep doing that, rather than what I've kinda been doing in the past, which was kill, then run around checking chests or lotting/passing cells, etc... When time is critical, we can worry about lotting cells while already engaged on the next mob, or even while just auto-running down a hallway. I'm getting better though. (at least that's my opinion. lol)

2nd Floor: bypass
Took the SW route this time. Not sure why, but it seemed to confuse some people a bit. There really is no difference in taking portal #3 up (SW) or portal #4 up (SE). Killed just a couple mobs while GH ran to the portal.

3rd Floor: failga and timeout
We warned people about aggroing mobs, but they either didn't know what aggro-ed what, or just flat-out didn't adhere to the warning. The plan was to bypass the South room and hit-up the NM in the East room. We needed to Sneak-up and just avoid aggroing the True-Sight/True-Sound Gears. Unfortunately 2 people got killed with a swiftness, and we never could really figure out why. (Sidenote: Treu actually thinks it may not have been anyone's fault. Apparently Sneak isn't 100% effective, so it may have just been a fluke that someone's Sneak just wasn't effective against one of the mobs.) So, while trying to raise them and getting other mobs out of the way, we ended up wiping entirely. Basically this is what killed out entire run. By the time we got up to the East room and were ready to start fighting, we only have about 15 or 20 minutes left. We still killed a few mobs and farmed up a couple gil items before timing-out.
Lesson learned: Don't just randomly attack mobs in hopes we can save someone quickly. at least in THAT room. We definitely need to set up a plan of attack so we don't keep sacrificing one person in order to raise another.

Final Note: I'm glad I wrote down the entry time on this run, because everyone else forgot to. :) Yay for my addendum note from my previous post!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Sum of a Whole Lot of Nothing

Last night we completed our 8th Salvage run with our group. (2x Bhaflau, 2x Arrapago, 2x Bhaflau, 2x Silver Sea. yeah, still haven't done Zhayolm yet, but we'll probably be getting to it the week after next.)

Let's start with the positives:
1. I've actually not really had any trouble (yet) in keeping up with my Assault Points in order to keep getting my Remnants Permits. (much thanks to Treu, Screamin and Lamia13)
2. I've gotten a lot more good experience on these runs and many "lessons learned" which I really need to start writing down.
3. almost all of us are on Vent and it's SO much easier to communicate with what's going on, who gets what cells, reminding people to lot/pass/pickup/trade/bazaar cells/items/whatever.
4. I've gotten a few more 15 pieces!!! (ok, there's not really anything special about that, I know. I'm trying to stay positive, damnit! lol)

The negatives:
1. Assault Points - I'm barely hanging on a thread. lol The majority of the nights we do runs, I ONLY have enough points for ONE Permit. (So I'm really thankful we are only doing runs twice a week.)
2. all of our "good experience" has primarily been coming in the form of "oh shit. we definitely gotta remember to NOT do THAT ever again" lol
3. not everyone is on Vent. {/cry} and sometimes things seem to be getting miscommunicated with what the gameplan is, who should be lotting what cells, etc...
4. we still haven't gotten a single 25 or 35 drop yet. ... and that's what REALLY makes me a saaaaaad paaaandaaaaaaa.

I'm not letting anything get me down though. Salvage is rough. I knew that when I was getting in to this. At least this is a HELL of a lot more interesting than just spamming {sky} for 10 months! :-D


So, time to breakdown last night's run of Silver Seas Remnants:
Set up: Khrone (MNK/NIN and main assist), Ofe (MNK/NIN), Cole (SAM/NIN), Greenie (THF/NIN), Kuni (RDM/WHM?), Erm (BRD/WHM), Rob (SCH/RDM?)
Not in attendance: Toon (internet connection was down all evening), LB (out of town for a funeral), Uke (out of town? work?)
NOTE: So, yes. I'm actually kinda happy we have 10 ppl in this group now, since it actually happened that 3 ppl couldn't make it, but we still have enough to do a run without having to {/shout} for some random person to join us.
Enter time: 11/24/2009 10:35pm EST

1st Floor: success
Charge in, fists-a-blazing, heading down the West route. Just cleared one of the side-rooms on the way to the NM room, to pick up some random cells. Ended up grabbing one more mob from another room too cuz cells drops were kinda lame.
Our THF stayed in the West hallway while the rest of the group went to camp on the South end of the room. THF aggroed the mobs and runs back in the direction we came from while the rest of us grab the 2 MNK Fomors (from now on, referred to as "Fornicators" cuz Greenie keeps calling them "Formers" lol). By the time the 2 MNKs were down, the rest of the Fomors had deaggroed and come back to the big room. We then start picking them off 1 at a time. Once all 6 Fomors were dead, we regroup back in the West entrance to the big room, buff up, and then kill the NM (Hammerblow Majanun).
It all ran smoothly this time (as well as last time), so this will definitely be our strategy from now on. Unfortunately, we still didn't get the Usu 35 Head drop.

2nd Floor: wipe, but lessons learned
Immediately ran to the SE path towards Powderkeg Yanadahn NM (always drops Usu 15 Legs, sometimes Morri 35 Legs).
Lesson learned #1: While we knew that these Fomors have a wide low-HP aggro range, it was still wider than we had anticipated. We fought in the hallway in the East entrance to the room, but we still accidentally aggroed more than we could handle. From now on, we need to fight further away from the room in the hallway where it turns North.
Lesson learned #2: These Fomors and Imps (Devilets) do NOT deaggro like they did on the previous floor, so do NOT try to outrun them. They also move back towards their starting locations VERY slowly so if we know we will wipe, try to die closer to the room so they can get out of the way faster so we can raise and continue.
We ended up just getting a few more out of the way then zoning up.

3rd Floor: skipped NM
Circle-around south-west-north-east towards porter #2. Sneak and stick to the wall to bypass the mobs in the South room altogether.
Our THF aggroes everything in the East room and kites back towards where we came from. The only remaining mob in the room will be a stationary Rampart. We killed it in order to open the door to porter #2. Several mobs had returned to the room before we killed the rampart, but we were still successful in killing it and warping up.
We skipped Gyroscopic Gears NM because none of the members present needed anything that it dropped.

4th Floor: failga, lesson learned, strategy still not 100% sure about
Wiki lied to us stating "Archaic Rampart x4 (stationary in the rectangular room)". After the run, I corrected the Wiki entry to state "Archaic Rampart x4 (stationary in the rectangular room, until aggroed)"
Our plan was similar to other floors: have our THF aggro everything in the room and kite it all out and far away from us, while the rest of the group lays the smackdown on the ramparts in the corners. When the ramparts started following him, we panicked a little bit. We managed to grab one or two and were fighting one down in the main room. The other mobs started coming back and I tried running into a corner of the room, bringing the rampart with me... but he decided to draw me back towards him into the middle of the room, where my ass was quickly handed to me by 3 gears.
Our future plan was discussed after we wiped and decided we didn't have enough time to kill all 4 ramparts and the NM: THF will aggro everything in the room and continue to kite everything towards the exit porter, while DDs will try to voke/chiblast/grab-however-we-possibly-can the 4 ramparts and kite them up towards the entrance room (where we came in). Once we get the ramparts up to the entrance, start picking them off one at a time, making sure not to let any of the others run away back to the big room.
This plan sounds reasonable, but we still may run into a few problems with this: (1) all DDs need to make sure we have some form of voke capability (2) we need to worry about the 6 gears that wander the 4th floor hallways and hope we don't run into them on our way back up towards the entrance (3) once at the entrance, hopfully we will just be able to Sleep the other ramparts while focusing on fighting one of them.


We briefly discussed possibly doing Zhayolm Remnants next week, but we decided that since we seem to now have the hang of SSR, we should probably stick to it for next week.

I honestly don't care what zones we do, because we're gonna be doing them ALL a LOT over the next year or two or whatever. I'm game for anything... until we start getting 35s, and then we should try to focus on completing those pieces.


Happy Blackout Wednesday everyone!