I did not know when old man Komaru, cheerful Sukiyuki, mischievous Chili, or the mage twins Papaya and Pitaya would return. It could be any day. It could be never. I wanted my tank jobs to remain close to their level in case they should ever return. Before fishing, I spent a lot of time as a White Mage, and reached level 36. But pick-up groups can be extremely annoying. And while I found White Mage to be more fun than I expected, I did not think the mage route was the one for me. I missed the thrill of direct combat, swinging a weapon at my foes and watching them fall before my prowess! /blush I guess my Mithra instincts are coming out.
So I did not want to deal with pick-up parties, and wanted to fight enemies directly, and I already leveled White Mage to near the support-job cap. It seemed that Beastmaster was the way to go. I researched the job and it seemed like an interesting change of pace. Now, I am a level 30 Beastmaster, and I think it may be useful to record a log of my adventures from now on. Each time I return to civilization, I shall leave a copy with my Moogle. If I should perish in some Altana-forsaken land, hopefully my allies will find my journal and it will give a clue as to my whereabouts.
Qufim Island. Level 30. Defeats = 1
I actually spent a long time in Qufim before starting this journal, grinding from level 27 to my newly acquired level 30. It is actually a nice place for Beastmaster soloing at those levels, especially level 28. Nighttime is dangerous with the ghouls that come out at night, but also offer more reward, since the ghouls are additional prey for your pets. At 26-27, I mostly did crabs vs. worms. Crabs pwn crabs, so this was good experience. At 28, almost everything has a Decent Challenge – Tough aura, so you basically fight anything with anything. Level 29 is more of the same, except you should focus more on the giants and pugils and the occasional weapon. Weapons can be nasty though, because some of them cast white mage spells like Blink and Cure 3.
Anyway, at level 30 too many things become Easy Prey – Decent Challenge, so I was just about to leave this place for greener pastures. Literally. Qufim is a nice place to level, but it’s really cold! Worse, I was starting to change into my Savage gear (Mithra RSE). Savage gear has great stats and looks good too, but it doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind showing a little skin, but I’d rather do it in a place that isn’t 40 degrees below freezing.
But before I left, I just had to try something crazy. I remembered when I first did the Beastmaster quest, there was a huge Kraken guarding the necessary flower. Well, I decided to charm that Kraken and use it to destroy everything in sight. You know, just for fun! I ran over to the cliffs where it spawns, and buffed up, making a special note to hit my Reraise Earring. I expected Charm to fail at least once, so best to prepare for the worst. Sadly, some of my information was out of date. When other Beastmasters that I read about tried this, there were no Goblin Bounty Hunters roaming the shores. Now, there were. I should have remembered them from doing the quest before. But I guess I forgot because they were not much of a threat to my White Mage, who could cast Invisible. Well, I couldn’t cast Invisible as a Beastmaster. And worse, the goblins were stronger than I thought, ranging from Tough to Incredibly Tough! Luckily the ones I had to get past were only Tough. But there were only Decent Challenge pets nearby. /sigh I started throwing Decent Challenge pugils at the goblins, and of course they were quickly torn to shreds. I think goblin bounty hunters are particularly strong for their level. Anyway, I eventually defeat the two goblins near the cliff and rest up, praying to recover before they respawned. And they respawn fast too! I made it just in time.
I ran down the slope to the Kraken, careful not to get to close lest it hear me. It was totally Incredibly Tough of course. I quickly put on my Hope Rings, Noble’s Ribbon, and Bird Whistle, uttered a quick prayer, mentally formed an escape route in my mind, took a deep breath, and let loose the Charm. The seconds it took the little pink hearts to reach the Kraken were the longest of my life. But it worked! On the first try, the Kraken was mine to command. I was so shocked that I didn’t have to flee that I fumbled for a moment before remembering to use my 2-Hour, Familiar. Luckily I used Familiar in time, and now I could use the Kraken for the next half-hour! (If I had not, it would have broken charm in seconds and eaten me for sure.)
Excited, I ran up the slope and decided to first extract revenge on the goblin bounty hunters that made this adventure more difficult than expected. Now, I know the goblins are necessary to deal with the rampant RMT plaguing our economy, but for now, the hunters were toast. I commanded the Kraken to attack and to my glee it smacked the hapless goblin around for nearly 100 damage per hit. For the first time in my Beastmater career I was able to fight alongside my pet with no worry of stealing hate. (Usually I outdamage my pet. I guess my gear is pretty good. Maybe I should stop eating attack food…)
We destroy those two goblins. Chain #1, but pitiful experience per kill since my pet was much stronger than me. With the Empress Band it was like 50-60 experience so far. I didn’t want to keep killing goblins, so I starting on the leeches next. Since we were killing so fast, I didn’t mind the low experience per kill. The leeches were Tough to me, probably 2 or 3 levels higher than 30. I quickly discovered that the Kraken had great offense, but kinda low defense. After about four fights – chain #3 by the way – I had to use Reward to heal up the Kraken. With the Kraken healed and me feeling pretty invincible, I made my first and last mistake in the area. I sent the Kraken against a leech, but another one was nearby, and of course they linked. Now, one of my major complaints with the Beastmaster job is that the pets are pretty disobedient. If I could force the Kraken to focus on one leech at a time we would have made it. Sadly, it would switch targets every time a leech attacked it. And to my surprise, leeches hit pretty hard in Qufim. And they have really good TP moves. TP Drainkiss kept the Kraken from using its devastating TP moves like Whirlwind. Drainkiss healed the leeches when they were low. Sand Breath blinded my poor Kraken, further complicating the situation. And they kept double-attacking like crazy too. To my utter shock and horror, my Kraken fell just as I hit Raging Axe in an attempt to finish the first leech. The leech did not die but had a sliver of health left. The second leech finally noticed I was there and they both beat the tar out of me. I finished the first leech, then turned to the second and was surprised to see it had over half its life left. I was fading fast so in desperation I hit Charm, but it failed. Double attack from the leech plus a critical hit, and I was eating snow before I knew what hit me. The victorious leech bounced away without a care in the world, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it had just crushed perhaps the strongest creature in Qufim.
I reraised, and went off to greener pastures. But in my mind, I vowed revenge.
Carpenter’s Landing. Level 30. Defeats = 1
Fresh off my humiliating defeat using the Kraken in Qufim, I decided to run off to a new area while the experience bonus from my Empress Band was still active. My research indicating the Korroloka Tunnel and Caprneter’s Landing might be good choices. I decided on Carpenter’s Landing, since I had been to Korroloka Tunnel in my mid-twenites.
I ran to Jeuno, and grabbed another Reraise Earring from the AH. /sigh 17k. Still, those 10 charges are the best cash I ever spend while soloing on Beastmaster. I immediately hop onto my trusty chocobo and hoof it to Carpenter’s Landing.
The first thing I notice is that nearly everything in the area has an aura of Decent Challenge – Tough compared to my own. Good. I run out of the tunnel toward the docks and see lots of different charmable critters, including pugils, tigers, funguars, beetles, and lots and lots of birdtraps. Remembering my Cycle of Life served my quite well in this area. Namely: Beasts > Lizards > Vermin > Plants > Beasts. So Vermin (like Beetles) eat Plants (like Funguar and Birdtraps). And Plants, umm, do something that defeats Beasts (like Tigers). I guess it is poison or something. In any event, I could use the Cycle of Life to my advantage, and that was a good thing.
At first, this place was pretty good. I started using beetles and funguar against the tigers since they were fast and tended to agro. Tigers are pretty nasty though, and kept spamming Roar which forced me to spend my MP on paralyzna. When most of the tigers were down, I started on the few beetles that were Even Match or stronger. I even reached Chain #3 once when a bomb spawned and I threw pets at it until it self-destructed.
Unfortunately, this area has some issues as well. The area is pretty small for an outdoor zone and there are lots of tigers that quickly roam around, which sometimes makes it hard to rest. Also, the tunnel leading to the Jugner Forest zone is infested with funguar which both agro and link, making escape very difficult if you get in trouble. Worse, my research failed to indicate that undead spawn in this zone at night, including Wights and Wendigo. I came very close to defeat when night fell and my life fell into the yellow, only to find myself eating an unexpected Aeroga from the wight that just spawned without warning. Luckily I was used to dealing with undead while in Qufim. I sent my pet after it, ran out of agro range, and used a timely Divine Seal + Cure 2 to get myself back in the game. Heh, I use Divine Seal as a Beastmaster more effectively than I ever did as a White Mage.
I stayed in this area for most of level 30, but the issues above made the progress pretty slow. It was particularly annoying in this small area when undead would spawn, bombs would spawn, tigers would be running around, elementals would spawn, and most of my beetle pets were only Decent Challenge or Easy Prey. Times like that were tough, since I had to dodge low-life agro, be careful of magic agro, watch out for Tough tigers running by, and yet fight alongside my pet to help it win the fight. So basically, this place is great if you have enough pets of decent level. But it is a challenge if several Tough agro prey spawn at once, but not many Decent Challenge –Even Match pets.
Of special note are the blasted birdtraps that plague the area. In some ways they are good prey because they are usually Even Match – Tough, and they neither agro nor link. But they are very nasty to fight, with great TP moves like a very effective paralyze and area sleep which can kill you if you’re not careful. (That is, if it turns away from your pet to beat on you, and then puts your pet to sleep – if you don’t/can’t wake up your pet with Reward, the birdtrap might finish you off before your pet awakens on its own.) But most importantly, my research said not to charm birdtraps because they are very “charm-resistant”. I did not know what this meant until I screwed up and found myself with low-life agro from a wendigo and sight agro from a Tough tiger, all while my Decent Challenge pet was about to die fighting another hungry tiger. I started running around trying to save myself, desperately looking for a new pet. In retrospect, I should have just charmed one of the tigers chasing me. Sadly, I instead charmed a birdtrap in desperation. And it worked! On the first try! Proud of myself and thinking I got lucky with a charm-resistant mob, I used the birdtrap to help get things under control. Just when I thought I had things in hand, my Charm broke!! WTF?! Charm usually lasts a few minutes; this charm broke in less than a minute. I recharmed, got things under control, and charm broke again, this time seemingly even faster. And as I was running for my life for the zone, I knew then what they meant by “charm-resistant”. Don’t charm birdtraps! They break charm way earlier than you might expect.
So I was defeated. I hit my trusty reraise and notice I am still about 1k TNL. I check my job ability list and notice that Familiar is back up. With an evil grin I think, time for some revenge! I decide to go back to Qufim for some more Kraken fun.
I run over to the docks and get on the barge to North Landing and the zone to San d’Oria. Little did I know, barge ride is pretty long and boring. I spent most of the day (15 Earth minutes) riding the barge slowly up the river. The scenery is actually pretty nice, but I was in a hurry to get back to Jeuno. Worse, some elvaan geezer named Ineuteniace (why do elvaan like these unpronounceable names?) kept prattling on the whole ride about his daughter and grandson and fishing and other random stuff. Also, a word of warning to the traveler: just like on the Selbina - Mhaua ferry, monsters can spawn on the barge. A Decent Challenge slime and Easy Prey crab spawned on my ride (remember I’m level 30), so it’s not too bad, but might be a little risky to the low-level adventurer.
Qufim Island. Level 30. Defeats = 0
I make my way back to the Kraken area in Qufim. By this time I had been adventuring for several days straight (over 3 hours Earth time, excluding travel time) and I was pretty tired, but I was determined to reach level 31. Moreover, I was determined to wreak some havoc with the Kraken properly this time.
Oh yeah, I discovered something cool! Before I went, I realized my Empress Band was out of charges, so I went to recharge it and get a fresh Signet. And low-and-behold, it turns out I could use it again! I had just used the last charge only about 3 hours before. A guess recharging it resets the recast timer. That’s good to know. However, you can only recharge it once per conquest period (1 Earth week).
Anyway, I guess it was peak Japanese time because there were a lot more players in Qufim when I returned. I decided I would abort the mission if there were too many players in the area. I didn’t want to disrupt anyone else’s experience if I could help it. Afterall, this trip was purely for fun.
Luckily, the area near the Kraken was clear, so I tried again. Once again there were two Tough Goblin Bounty Hunters in the way. I took care of them the same way as last time, and made my way to the Kraken. I throw out a Charm, and it worked again on the first try! Who says Mithra have low Charisma?!? With a /cheer and a screenshot, I use Familiar and go to ballistic on all enemies in my way again. It was a blast! This time I was very careful to fight only one enemy at a time. But I was able to fight alongside my Kraken the whole time. I even managed to level my Scythe skill a little, since it had been falling behind. In fact, I made a note that Charm + Incredibly Tough + Familiar was a good way to level weapon skills that might be falling behind and decided to do it more often from now on.
Together, my Kraken buddy and I decimated the leeches, goblins, and banshees in the area. I only targeted things that were Tough or stronger, and we repeatedly hit chain #3 and chain #4. I think I could have easily hit Chains #5s, but I was little gun-shy after the last attempt and decided to play it safe by resting a bit when the Kraken got hurt. I went through about 8 pet food zetas during the half hour. Banshees, leeches, and goblin bombs can really put a hurt on even the Kraken. Next time I might smack around weaker enemies like wights and giants. The kills should be faster and I’ll use less pet food, but I won’t get the experience chains.
During that half-hour I gained about 2000 experience and hit level 31 with a nice buffer. 2 minutes before Familiar was to wear off I logged out and waited a while for the Kraken to vanish, then came back. I slipped into my Astral Panties…errr… I mean, my Savage Loincloth (DEF 12 VIT 1 MND 1 MP 32!), shivered in the Qufim cold, and made my way back to Jeuno. I wonder where to go next…
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