Darksday, 7/20/1035

Western Altepa Desert. Level 48. Defeats = 0
Labyrinth of Onzozo. Level 48. Defeats = 1
Crawlers' Nest. Level 48. Defeats = 0
Gustav Tunnel. Level 48. Defeats = 1

Goddess, I hate level 48! It took several unsuccessful attempts to find a decent place to level. Actually, I am still looking for a good place. I ended up just grinding it out in Gustav Tunnel after traveling the whole world for a better place.

My first location was way out in Western Altepa Desert. I tried leveling in the desert once before, but I didn't like how far apart the enemies were. Not much changed this time around. I headed out to Revelation Rock in the middle of the zone. The first thing I noticed were several Incredibly Tough Antica roaming around. Okaaaay, so this place might be more dangerous than I was led to believe. I then noticed Very Tough Cactuars and Incredibly Tough Scorpions also patrolling the perimeter of the rock. They were far enough apart that I could avoid agro, but the place made me nervous. As I got closer to the rock, I noticed several little valleys along its sides. In each of those, I would find two or three Decent Challenge - Tough Desert Beetles. This was pretty convenient, because in each valley I would find a pet and prey. Theoretically, I could just run around the rock over and over again killing beetles with beetles. And that is exactly what I did for about 1/3 of level 48. It was slow. Really slow. Beetles have to be amongst the worst pets in the world. While not as actively dangerous to use as Bees, beetles have high defense and evasion, but really low attack. Each fight would take forever. Worse, for the first time in a long time, I would regularly take hate from my pet when it would go on a missing streak or just hit like a pansy for a while. Even worse than that, one fight lasted so long that my Charm on an Even Match beetle actually broke mid-fight! Not being a very patient Mithra, I soon got fed up and left for new areas, hoping for a faster ride. As it turns out, I probably just should have stayed.

A big problem with level 48 is that the camps I know of are pretty far from my base of operations, Jeuno. For a while, I Searched zones like Gustav Tunnel and Labyrinth of Onzozo only to find Beastmasters in my level range already there. Onzozo was particularly bad because often high level farmers would kill everything in the area, making the long trip there completely pointless. Today however, I got "lucky" and found Onzozo relatively free. I made the long Chocobo ride out there and arrived to see my camp was open. At this point the goblins were a little low, so I tried to go for the Cockatrices instead. The first cockatrice I saw was Very Tough, but I had a lot of Labyrinth Leech pets to throw at it. The fight was way harder than I thought it would be. I sent pet after pet only to see the beast rip them to shreds. Finally, I got the cockatrice down to about 15% health, so I sent a fresh pet and decided to help melee it down. Big mistake. Early in the fight it used Baleful Gaze on the leech, essentially leaving me petless. Then it double attacked me mercilessly while I desperately used Call Beast to get a Crab Familiar. I used my new ability, Snarl, to allow the Crab to get the cockatrice's attention. Things looked like they were going well again, and soon I joined the frey again, hoping to finish the beast off. I had to be at less than 10% health now. My crab was getting hit hard, but between the two of us we would be able to kill it. Or so I thought. I didn't want to take hate again, so I was waiting on the Snarl timer, ready to use it as soon as it was ready. Just as I was about to hit it, the cockatrice turned on me and used Baleful Gaze! I was petrified and helpless to stop the slaughter that hen ensued. The best crushed my pet, then turned on me, beating me to a lifeless pulp. A shameful defeat.

Of course, I had no Reraise, so I had to home point all the way back to Jeuno. (/cry) I swore off Onzozo from then on. I then took a short trip to Crawlers' Nest hoping to fight some Soldier Crawlers in the basement. That hope was quickly dashed as I saw several small parties fighting down there, and a few farmers to boot. With no prey to fight there, I had to abandon that place as well. Right about now I was thinking that maybe the Desert wasn't so bad afterall. Frustrated, I took a last ditch ride to my last successful location, Gustav Tunnel.

Fortunately, I found the area free. Unfortunately, there were a lot of Decent Challenge enemies around, and only a few Toughs. I then decided to try something a little more dangerous. I went after the Goblin's Leech pets of the Goblin Shepherds in the basement. This was incredibly dangerous, because if the goblin caught me it would make short work of me. Heck, even the Goblin's Leechs were Very Tough - Incredibly Tough. While pet mobs are weaker than normal and tend to have much lower health, their attacks are still pretty nasty. Each Leech could break 100 damage pet hit on me with ease. After a very near defeat in my first fight, I decided that melee with the goblins' pets was just not worth it. I would instead just send my own pets after them until they were dead. Each Goblin's Leech usually only took two of my own to defeat it. Even better, they would regularly give 200 experience points per kill (300 with ring). However, there was bad news as well. Each goblin pet was really hard to pull. Sometimes, they were nearly impossible to pull. You have to be careful of the Goblin Alchemists and Goblin Mercenarys in the area, as well as the Robber Crabs. Agro from any of these would mean a fast demise. All this danger meant that although I would get good experience from each leech, the fights were so far apart that the overall experience was still pretty slow. Soon, I started to counteract this by fighting some weaker stuff on the top floor while waiting for the goblin pets to move into a more favorable position below.

Things were going well for a while, but it did not last. One time I got a little impatient and wandered a little further below in an attempt to get to a goblin pet. I used a prism powder to get past a Goblin Mercenary. As I approached the pet, walked near a Robber Crab and I thought: "Hmmm I wonder if those crabs agro?" Just then of course, it attacked me and broke my invisibility. Justs as I was about to send my Labyrinth Leech pet it, the Mercenary I passed on the way down saw me and joined the battle. Three hits later I was defeated. Creatures in the basement hit me for upwards of 200 damage per hit! After eating dirt for a few moments, I use my Reraise and carefully made my way back to the relative safety of the tunnel. No more going deep into the tunnels for me.

After I recovered, I went back to business as usual. Soon though, a level 75 tarutaru Ninja/Thief showed up and started killing the goblins. I guess he was a farmer, or maybe was skilling up or something. I was hoping he would leave the Goblin Shepherds so I could still level off their pets, but no such luck. While even he could not kill the goblins super fast, his farming or whatever still disrupted my camp there. For a while I could fight the pets while he fought the goblins, but eventually the area became clear of goblins. I had to abandon the area and go back to the first floor. There, I just decided to grind out the rest of the level killing almost everything is sight, Decent Challenge or not. Well, I avoided the Labyrinth Lizards most of the time because of their nasty Baleful Gaze and tendency to link, but I killed everything else. My favorite prey were the goblins and the Makara. The Empress Band made the speed of this experience grind at least tolerable. And it was ridiculously safe. Eventually, I reached level 49 with a buffer.

Hopefully 49 will be a little better, but early reports are not promising. (/sigh)