Airship dizziness and a rant

Since I got COR to level 20, it's now time to address my last two jobs that are below that magic dunes avoiding number. Namely BRD and BST. So I start with the prep-work necessary to get BRD ready for action. Let me state that getting a bard ready for action takes much longer than most other jobs. Mainly due to the skilling up you need to do to get the singing/instrument skills capped. I tend to cap these BEFORE going partying (unlike most of the rest of the dunes that are totally clueless as to why this would be a good idea).

I also needed to get all 3 of the next scrolls I'd need since I intend to level to 20. Might as well get them ahead of time. After the conquest update, and a little research, I learn that I basically have to hit a vendor in every major city from where I am. I decide to do it without changing jobs. The result is I spend most of the day as a BRD/COR going from city to city by airship and waiting on the darn airship to arrive (although sometimes the scenery was mighty fine).

Scenery

In the good news side of things, I've managed to skill-up singing to it's max. I made good progress on Stringed and wind instrument skills. I made some Poison Katars, both for sale and for the guild, thereby getting the max points for the day. And I've bought Mary's Horn and acquired some bard food. So I'm now ready to rock and roll down to the dunes.

Skilling up bard skills

Of course it's at this point that the call goes out for some Assault and what not. I get ready and no one else is quite prepared so I take the opportunity to book it to Rabao and get the last tunning fork.

Ready for any Avatar run

I'm now ready for any avatar battle that needs an RDM to help out. At this point I take a break for dinner (went out and had some great pasta with a friend). And when I come back since no one else is still quite ready, I decide to go on a pick up Assault.

Rant Time

For the love of all that's holy, people, if you're an RDM, LEARN YOUR F---EN ELEMENTAL ENFEEBLING ORDER. We lost twice with what should have been a no brain-er operation.

The standard doctrine is as follows: Get party with 2 Dark Magic mages (RDM or BLM) and 2 DD's. Monks are preferred in the DD slot but anyone should do if they do decent damage. Everyone casts Invisible at the start. Get by the first bomb. All 4 of you kill the first wall. This should take 5 minutes. At this point the party re-invisibles and splits up. One of the RDM/BLM or BLM/??? heads on up to the northern wall, while the rest of the party goes for the 3 walls that are in a row. The guy at the northern wall should finish his soloing of the northern wall before the rest of the party gets through the 3 walls they are assigned. Mainly because DoT ownz this mission. You'll notice: one guy solo's a wall while 3 guys go through 3 walls. Once the guy on the Northern wall finishes his wall he books it back to the room where the Rune will spawn to end the mission. When the last wall falls, he pops the chest (optional if there's enough time remaining) and nails the rune. Sounds equitable right? Especially since both teams have good DoT mages? Right? I will even diagram the assault for the short of attention (click on it to blow it up):

Da Plan

Not how it worked out for these two runs. Both had their problems. None of which were due to the RDM/BLM assigned to the northern wall (myself). No, no, the OTHER RDM/BLM does not seem to have learned the magic aggro range of the bomb family of mobs. He manages to pick up a bomb aggro at least once on BOTH runs!!!

Now my soloing of the Northern wall was a work of art. I manage to get it done in about 15-17 minutes from the start of the missions. You will note that this is ample time to take a leisurely stroll back to the rune room. But thanks to aggro boy in the first run I know we're behind the curve so I hurry it to the party after my wall goes down only to find them STILL killing the 2nd wall at the 10 minute mark. So I help out with that wall and enquire if someone should be sent back to the rune room. We eventually dispatch the other RDM to that room. I go totally berserk at the end including a chainspell nuke. The 3 of us manage to get the last wall done in time. But aggro boy manages to be late to the rune. Loss.

We're pissed but we figure that we were so close, if we manage to avoid aggro we should be fine for the next run. You'd think so too. The run starts off promisingly enough. The MNK has been replaced by a SAM but that should have minimal impact on the overall run. We get thru the first wall and immediately learn that aggro boy hasn't learned his lesson. He manages to aggro the bomb on the OTHER side of the entrance wall this time. Lucky that this one can be safely slept and ignored since he'll be far enough away by the time it wakes that it'll loose aggro along the way. So minimal time was actually lost this way. But more indication that dude is not the sharpest pencil in the pocket.

So I get my wall finished and am on my way past the three bombs in the big room when the SAM D/C's I start my way back up to the 3 walls area when he gets re-invited. I figure ok, minimal time lost, SAM still has his 2 hour. Things should be OK so I reverse course once again and head to the rune room. Once I'm in position I learn exactly where they are in the wall progressions. 10 minute warning and they are still on wall #2. This is not a happy happy sign. They soon manage to get to wall number #3 and the last wall we need to kill (the walls are named: entrance, northern, #1, #2 and #3). And we were down to like 1/5 hp of the last wall when we ran out of time. Loss.

At this point The leader disbands the party in frustration. I don't blame him and I'm pretty pissed myself as I upheld my part of the run, flawlessly both times. My leg got done with oodles and strudels of time to spare. The 3 other players would normally also have had plenty of time...

So I inquire of the leader if he had noticed any problems with the other RDM. He says that he assumed we would all know our jobs so wasn't paying attention. Side digression to all potential leaders: Never assume, it makes an ass of you and me. So I politely inquire of the RDM in question as to what sub he was using. He informs me quite full of pride that he went /BLM so as to cast the enfeebles: Shock->Rasp->Burn... And I know for a fact he wasn't melee-ing either.

At this point I wished GM Dave was real.

If you are not an RDM or a BLM or have never played the game, you can be forgiven for not realizing why the above sent me ballistic. In this game magic is proportioned amongst 8 different aspects. Six of these aspects are considered elemental aspects. The other two are Light and Darkness. Now each these 6 elemental is considered strong against the next element in order. So that Fire is strong to Ice is strong to Wind is strong to Earth is strong to Lightning is strong to Water is strong to Fire. In a circle. Where this comes into importance is with elemental enfeebles. These are spells that have dual effects. They affect some stat of the target they are cast on and do some damage over the duration of the spell. Hence their classification as DoT (Damage over Time) spells. Well one of the rules is that an elemental enfeeble can't co-exist with an other enfeeble that is of directly stronger or weaker than itself. The most recent one causes the other to erase itself. Don't take my word for it, go experiment with it.

Experiment:
Control results: Find a mob that will last long enough but won't endanger you. Cast Burn->Choke->Shock on it. Notice that after a certain amount of time they all 3 drop off the mob in the order you cast them. The system notifies you when they go down off the mob. Very nice.
Actual test: Now on the next mob (or the same one if it'll last long enough), cast Burn->Rasp->Shock. Notice all 3 stick fine. Now wait for the wear-off messages. Notate the ones that wear off.
Results: Notice there are only 2 messages.... Figure it out.

The thing is that by level 60 EVERY RED MAGE ON VANA D'IEL SHOULD KNOW THIS!!!

*pant* *pant* *pant*

This guy was about 3/5'ths as effective as he could have been. He was casting 2/3 of the elemental enfeebles he should have been, and wasn't adding the melee DoT he could have been adding with a good sword/dagger (not much compared to the DoT damage I know but it would have helped, it's not like the walls hit back or have TP moves they can use). At this point I suspect his melee skill of being severely sub-capped. The thing is in this fight he's supposed to be providing about 50% of the offense against the 3 walls he's been assigned. No wonder they seemed major gimped.

God I hate idiot RDMs....

Rant off

Anyways after that I went on 2 other runs of Ilrusi Atoll with Thundar and Devious and those at least got me some points. Not to mention unlocked the PFC quest. Also during these two runs I managed to pull some rabbits out of my hat when Thundar ran into trouble. Including two raises. and multiple fish aggro control on the second run. But at least we got the win. Unfortunately there were no imp wings on the AH when I checked so I logged for the day. I'll get the quest finished tomorrow.