Lightningsday, 2/16/1034 (part 2)

Qufim Island. Levels 19 - 22. Defeats = 0

After a brief rest, Pitaya, Papaya, Chili, and I resumed our adventure. This time the plan was to go to Qufim Island. But first, we stopped at Jeuno to upgrade our equipment, get new spells, and replenish our supplies. I still had much of my old gear lying around from when I leveled White Mage. After some extensive coordination with my cohorts in the other major cities, I got a hold of that gear so that Pitaya and Papaya could borrow it as necessary. Then I remembered that I had some needed gear stored in my furniture in Windurst. Annoyed, I had to quickly switch to White Mage, Teleport-Mea, and ride a chocobo out to Windurst to get it. I Warped back, and we were finally ready to get underway.

Pitaya thoughtfully provided some silent oils so that our party could safely navigate the tunnel just outside of Jeuno. I declined because I already had some (I'm always prepared), but it was nice of him to offer. It was nighttime when we arrived and travel through the area would be very dangerous due to the undead. We decided to start with the Land Worms near the mouth of the tunnel. As we emerged from the tunnel, the first thing I noticed was a slain adventurer lying prone in the distance. I shivered, and not just from the cold. That was a bad sign.

A Worm popped out of the ground, and we charged forward to engage it. Pitaya cast Silence at it, Papaya prepared to cast her devastating magics, and Chili laid into the beast with precise kung-fu strikes! I drew my blade, charged at the worm, used Provoke, and... nothing happened! What the...!? I tried again. Still nothing. The worm was battering poor Chili around while I stood there momentarily stunned. I hit Shield Bash to stun the worm and try to get its attention, then cast some Cure spells on Chili for more agro. I could cast a lot of Cure spells... since when did I have this much MP...? Then I realized what had happened. I forgot to change my support job to Warrior!! I was fighting there as a Paladin/black mage, of all things. (/sigh) So much for always being prepared. It was a needlessly rough fight but we managed to defeat the worm. Blushing profusely, I excused myself to go back to my rent-a-room in Jeuno and change my support job back to Warrior.

I returned and we continued where we left off. Things went much smoother and we found that we could defeat the Worms even as a party of four, at level 19. Honestly, I was a little surprised that we were not having more trouble. Don't get me wrong, the fights would sometimes get pretty tough, and we were taking too much damage to get any really decent experience chains.
Still, things were going better than I anticipated. As day broke, we moved our camp over to a small pond in the center of the zone. Many Land Worms could be found there, along with some Clippers, and a few lower-level Goblin Bounty Hunters. Fortunately for us, there was not much competition at all. I only noticed a level 18 Tarutaru female Ninja being Powerleveled by a level 75 Hume male Black Mage. There were more than enough enemies for both of us, so our party started fighting worms around the lake as well. The Goblin Bounty Hunters made it a bit more difficult for our mages to rest, but they were not much of a threat. After a short time, we teamed up with the aforementioned Tarutaru Ninja and her powerleveling friend. As you might expect, things went much faster at that point. The Ninja was our "puller" so to speak (the worms don't actually move), running around finding the worms for us to slay. Unlike our previous pullers in Valkurm Dunes, this little ninja girl was appropriately bold, actively seeking out targets at almost a breakneck pace. I approved. As Jam-neesan used to say, "Pullers should be at least a little bit crazy." Of course, it helped to have a level 75 Black Mage watching our backs. The experience was flowing exceptionally fast, as we were regularly reaching chain #5s.

Soon we were all level 20 or higher and beginning to consider taking on some Clippers as well. Pitaya found another party member to fill up our party... I think it was another Black Mage. He left us briefly to go escort our new recruit to our campsite from Jeuno. But the loss of our white mage didn't stop our puller. It didn't even slow her down. We continued to fight Worms, slaying them as soon as they dared to pop out of the ground. We continued with worms for a while after Pitaya and the new guy arrived, and soon I hit level 21 (I think I was the highest level in the party). Soon after that, we started to take on the Clippers as well. While the crabs hit harder and had much higher defense, their offensive abilities were much worse than those of the worms. We had no real difficulty taking them on either. Soon, my friends were all level 21 and the Ninja was level 20. We moved our camp over to just outside Lower Delkfutt Tower.

We fought briefly outside the Tower, primarily taking on the Clippers. Unlike the lake, there was a lot of competition from various parties and a couple of soloing Beastmasters in the fields near the tower. I think of of the parties may have been RMT, but I didn't look too closely. Soon were were all level 21 and tried our luck against a Greater Pugil. While it was a tougher fight, we defeated it handily. Pitaya asked if we should move our camp, and after some minor communication trouble with our Ninja puller (Japanese), we moved our camp a short, narrow pass between the mountains to the east. There our party fought Pugils primarily, with the occasional Clipper thrown in. Up until this point, we were on cruise control for the most part. We, now were still were, but the fights were a little tougher. Greater Pugils have nasty, infamous little ability called Screwdriver, which could really put a hurt on anyone dumb enough to tank them. Yep, that would be me. Actually, at this camp I tried to manage my hate so that the Ninja's shadows could absorb some hits while she had them up, then I would take it back when her shadows were down. However, this is a tough strategy to pull off with two black mages in the party. Any nuke or heal that went off near the time when we would switch tanks would cause the Pugil to go straight for the mage. Eventually, I got tired of losing hate and tanked them much harder. My worst nightmare would have been losing hate only to see a Pugil one-shot a mage with a 300+ damage Screwdriver. I let the Ninja's shadows absorb the first few hits after her pull, then started tanking it normally. This seemed to work well. I guess when I get more experienced with tanking, I'll be better able to tell when I should blood tank, when the ninja should blink tank, and when we should bounce hate back and forth.

Random tactical tangent: I have been reading on the forums that the Skillchain is dead and no one doe them anymore. That may be true at higher levels, and if so that makes me a little sad. Nevertheless, in our party Chili and I did Fusion Skillchains (Red Lotus Blade + Combo) quite frequently. With two black mages and a white mage in our party, it seemed like an effective strategy. We would Fusion, one or both mages would Magic Burst with Fire, Pitaya would burst with Banish or Banishga (if safe), and even I burst with Banish a couple of times. I could have done more personal damage using Fast Blade every time I got the TP, and that extra damage would have given me more hate. But the extra damage from the Skillchain and double or triple Magic Burst seemed to be far more worthwhile to the party as a whole. (I might have to be careful in the future... I did notice that if the mob survived, Chili would have hate after the Skillchain.)

Anyway, there's not much else to tell about our party. After some time, were had been fighting for several days (Earth hours) straight, and I could tell exhaustion was starting to set in. Poor Papaya could barely keep her eyes open. Even our Ninja puller was starting to slow down a bit. Our party had reached level 23, and we helped our Ninja friend to hit level 23 as well. After that we called it a night and bade farewell to our new friends. The powerleveling Black Mage Warped out of Qufim. The Ninja ran off into the distance and exploded! When the smoke cleared, there was no trace of her in the area. A smoke bomb, maybe...? I shook my head and muttered something about crazy ninjas, and our party staggered back to Jeuno. A soft bed would we our reward for an adventure well done.