Missions - Assault, Nyzul, Zilart

Phew... sorry for the lack of updates... Been a busy couple of weeks. As usual, my blogging only occurs when there is something else I should be doing, but don't really feel like doing, so I end up writing up a post instead! In today's case, I should really be studying for my Sales Management midterm that is coming up tomorrow evening ^^;;

Somehow, last week was almost entirely about missions! Let's see...

Assault
Got the rank-up quest for Sergeant Major... hopefully we can complete the Chief Sergeant assault missions this week. That means that maybe by this weekend, I'll finally have my Perdu Hanger! That would put my Dissector into retirement unless it's for a mission that needs an enhanced critical hit rate.

We're well on the way to working everyone up towards the Captain rank. So far, we've completed every single Assault mission along the way instead of farming any one mission. My only concern is Zurar, since he only comes for the Thursday assaults and has probably missed a few missions on his way up. Hopefully once we finish off with the final assaults, we'll be able to go back and fill in his holes so that he can get captain!

Nyzul Isle
We had an extra tag available last Thursday. Instead of simply farming a zone for points like we normally did, I dragged our usual assault team to go try one floor of Nyzul. This was both to get a feel of Nyzul Isle and to get the "clear" so that everyone would be qualified for Captain rank. Not everyone wants to move on to do Nyzul after we complete all the assaults.

We basically took our time doing Nyzul, looking around, poking the chests, killing even a NM. (Some Diremite NM that's normally found in Pso'Xja... didn't get the ??? item appraised to the right item). We had an "Eliminate specific enemies" mission, and the type of mob was a rat. It wasn't too hard, but most of us had missed the "Objective Achieved" message and more time was spent running around searching for the last, non-existant mob xD I think we finished the objective in only 10 minutes, including time running around, /poking the entrance chest, and killing the NM. Definitely not good enough to actually do Nyzul seriously, but at least it is a good experience.

Once we finish the regular Assault missions, I'd like to start leading a group to do Nyzul, mainly for the relic weapons xD It'll take some time to figure it out, but I think we have the right people. Just need to make sure we get the right jobs >.<

Zilart Missions
I've had a bazaar message that has been listing the missions I needed to complete (Bastok Rank missions, ZM16) and the Blue Magic spells I still need to get (the hardest 3 + Asuran Claws) for the last few months. Looks like that message paid off! I ran into someone while exping Dancer who commented that he was on the same ZM, needing only the last fight. Yesterday afternoon, while watching TV & campaigning, I got a /tell asking if I still needed the fight. Didn't take too long to change jobs, gear up and head to sky!

I did this fight a long time ago in another life and I remembered it as being hard... this time around, it seemed like a piece of cake! Ironically, we wiped the first time we did it because... well, we overdid it. The "plate" shield uses this massive AoE attack called "Phase Shift" at every 1/3 of the life. It does about 800 damage, but is absorbed by 2 shadows. During our first round, we went all out and it did "Phase Shift" virtually twice in a row, killing our PLD and DRK instantly and leaving the rest of us weakened. The 3rd Phase Shift was before we could get shadows up, and we were Easy Prey for a Sleepga + Blizzardga attack xD

2nd round went much better and we held back damage until we got people's health, and shadows back up. Broke the record without breaking a sweat! xD Now I'm done with ZMs... Need to kill Bahamut and maybe, eventually do Apocolypse Nigh >.<


Other stuff...
DNC 71 now. I picked up my Dagger of Trials, and I still need to break the latent. 100 self-SC for Fragmentation should do it. I just need to find time to go do it. Working towards 72, though I've been slowing down cos I really want to party with Varg, Aqqy, Fuuji and Nain this coming Friday instead of grabbing a party with strangers!

Meanwhile, I've started playing around with Magic Hammer on BLU... It does damage, restores MP, and it has a funny animation, so I'm hoping to use it more! I really should start working on different equipment sets for my BLU... Need to figure out the right equipment for the relevant slots to put together a couple of builds:
- Str build for spellcasting (regular spells, but especially for Sneak Attack Vertical Cleave)
- Mnd build for Magic Hammer
- HP build for breath spells
- Chr build for Eyes on Me
- Def build for Cannonball
I guess this is one of the big reasons why I liked the idea of maining Dancer... it's a lot simpler job compared to Blue Mage, and you only really need two sets of good equipment to be a fully effective Dancer. However, I'm anticipating that I'll probably be BLU for most of the events I'm currently doing... Limbus and Assaults, due to the versatility needed for both events, so I'll be looking into gearing BLU up again >.<