Watersday, 6/13/1038

Sea Serpent Grotto. Level 52. Defeats = 0

Okay, I have been lying around in my Mog House long enough. I guess the Starlight Celebration holiday season always makes me a little lazy. It's been a fun vacation, but it was time to get back to work!

I was definitely getting bored with my constant trips into the Crawlers' Nest. Looking for a change of pace, I spoke to some other more experienced Beastmasters. Based on their suggestions, I made the long journey toward Sea Serpent Grotto. I got some other suggestions too, such as Quicksand Caves and Fei'Yin. Each location was quite a long trek from civilization. My plan was to try Sea Serpent Grotto first, then try the other places if it was no good.

In the past I was reluctant to adventure in Sea Serpent Grotto because I did not have a map; and acquiring the map is pretty tough at lower levels. However, now I was in my 50s, so I figured getting the map would be less of a hassle. For the most part, I was wrong. Sure killing the enemies that might have the Grotto Chest Key to the treasure chests in the area was easier, but they were still Easy Prey - Decent Challenge. They were just strong enough that my jug pets could not rip through them without downtime. Worse, I had to kill dozens upon dozens of the creatures in the area before I finally found a key. Then of course came the oh-so-fun search for the treasure chest. Some people might find stumbling around in a dark cave filled with monsters without a map an adventure. I thought it was just a tedious chore. Nevertheless, I eventually found the chest and got a beautiful map of Sea Serpent Grotto. It was worth it. Having a map always makes travel so much easier.

So after days of map searching, I was finally ready to start adventuring for experience points again. I made my way to southern part of the first map until I came upon a secret door. I knew from my previous research that it could be opened with a Mythril Beastcoin, and of course I had one on me. Once past the mythril door, I Sneaked past the aggressive Crabs and Sahagin in the area to a small room in the north. The alcove at the top of this room would be my camp, the Sahagin in the room my prey, and the Leeches bouncing around would be my pets. If you have read previous entries in my journal, you know that leeches one of my favorite pet families. They are very resilient and can often take on enemies of higher level without the need for a pet swap.

The Leeches in the area are called Sahagin Parasites. At level 52, they were Decent Challenge - Tough to me. Luckily, very few were Tough to me so I didn't have to spend a lot of time converting pets. The Sahagin in the area were all Even Match - Tough+. There were three types of Sahagin that would serve as my prey: Bog Sahagin, Marsh Sahagin, and Swamp Sahagin. I quickly found out that there were significant differences between each type. Bog Sahagin wielded polarms and appeared to be Dragoons. They even had a Jump-like attack called "Jumping Thrust". They were capable of a lot of damage. They were the only ones that could sometimes take down one of my pets or force me to do a pet swap. (But even then, only when I used a Decent Challenge pet against a Tough Bog Sahagin. Yes, leeches are that tough.) The Marsh Sahagin were my least favorite though. They were Monks, and thus had a lot of hit points and could take a lot of punishment. They had a very high Guard rating and would often Counter attacks from my pet or myself. They regularly took a long time to take down, but never really threatened to kill my mighty leech pets. The big danger when fighting them was the fight could easily go too long when using an Even Match pet, causing it to lose Charm mid-fight. Lastly, the Swamp Sahagins were my favorites. They were Bards and - no offense to my Bard friends - these were by far the easiest prey to take down. Sometimes they would use Horde Lullaby or Foe Requiem IV, which could be very inconvenient, but not really life threatening.

I also soon found out that Sahagin have incredibly annoying special abilities. Two abilities are especially bad. The first is Spinning Fin, which deals decent area damage and stuns. I also heard it strips Blink shadows and deals damage anyway. (I never used Blink here so I don't know for sure if this is true.) If you're unlucky like me, the Sahagin will spam this move often, causing you to take damage even when your pet solidly has hate. However, the second ability is far worse. It is called Hydro Shot, an ability that deals a fairly large good amount of water damage (around 150-200), knockback, and resets Enmity! Normally, Leeches are great tanks, and usually at this camp they tank like champs. But once the Sahagin uses Hydro Shot on your pet, its hate is reset to zero. And that means the mob turns directly on you! In these situations I was forced to turn around so I would stop attacking and take several hits while waiting for my pet to regain hate. It is extremely irritating when they use this attack several times in the same fight. Even these attacks had a silver lining though. First, my Evasion skill went up like crazy while I was there. For the first time in a looong time, it came close to reaching the cap. (Before I came to this camp it was a good 20 points behind at least.) Also, rarely, you might take hate from your pet just in time to get hit by Hydro Shot yourself. This only happened to me twice, but it was awesome when it happened. With my hate reset to zero, I could do almost anything I wanted for a brief time without getting hit. The Sahagin have two other abilities, Hydro Ball and Bubble Armor, but fortunately these are mostly useless and can be safely ignored.

Despite being weaker, using Decent Challenge Leech pets is usually the best option. Often these fights can last a long time - especially against Tough Marsh Sahagins - but if you use Decent Challenge pets you don't have to worry about losing Charm mid-fight. Also, most of the time the Decent Challenge leeches could stand toe to toe with Tough Sahagins without going down. I very rarely had to pet swap while here. As you know by now, leech TP moves are a mixed bag. Some are useful but danergous to use like Acid Mist or Sand Breath. Others are good like Regenration. Others still are decent like Drainkiss, Suction, or Brain Drain. TP drainkiss isn't terribly useful most of the time but might save you from a Hydro Shot. And of course, there is the completely useless MP Drainkiss. As usual be careful using Sic because the area is pretty cramped and you can easily get some adds if you're careless.

Pulling is pretty straightforward. The initial break is the most dangerous because the Sahagin link and like to hang out together. Just be patient and you will get a decent pull eventually. Once even one Sahagin is dead, the rest become much easier to pull. It is rarely problem, but you can Sneak pull if you need to get past some of the aggressive Rock Crabs that wander nearby.

The fights can be long, but once you get going it is possible to get some good chains. I reached chain #2-3 quite a few times. I suggest starting a potential chain with a Marsh Sahagin because they take so much longer to kill. Likewise, try to end a chain with Swamp Sahagin because they tend to go down faster.

Soon I reached level 53 and kept going until I had a good buffer. Still, I can't tell if I like this camp or hate it. Thanks to Hydro Shot and Spinning Fin, I got beat up at this camp far more than I am accustomed to. However, this was also strangely one of the safest camps I ever visited. I never came close to defeat, and I was there for a long time.

One last thing to mention: a Notorious Monster named Mouu the Waverider sometimes spawns here. In fact, it spawned about halfway through my adventure session. You can try him if you want, but my peers told me this NM is too tough to solo at level 52. Since I didn't feel like losing over 1000 hard-earned experience points I just left it alone. I occasionally shouted the location of the NM just in case one of the level 75s in the area wanted to kill it. You can just Sneak pull while the NM is up and go on about your business as usual. Just be careful because the NM is a Sahagin and will link with the Sahagin you pull if you let it get too close. Eventually a level 75 Mithra Thief came by and took down the Notorious Monster. I thanked her for getting the creature out of my hair. Us Mithra have got to stick together!