Nyzul - Lamps & progress

Good progress so far on Nyzul Isle. Up to floor 15 right now, and we tried one stab at floors 16-20, but we got hung up on an ordered lamp floor and barely ran out of time. We had 3 minutes going into the boss floor with virtually no MP, but we still took off a good chunk of the tortoise's HP before we ran out of time.

Good news is that we're getting much better at flooring up with minimal hassle. The first 2 floors only took us about 10 minutes, and about 10 minutes was spent on the lamp floor. The 4th "killall" floor we drew was a tough one as it also included a Darak >.> I'm pretty confident we can get through 16-20 easily this Thursday and continue climbing.

Lamp Strategy
There is still some confusion over lamp floors... Not too surprising as they are confusing, and even I'm not quite ontop of this yet! Here's a little info to help us out.

There are three types of lamp floors. You won't know what kind of lamp floor this is until we find the first lamp and touch it.
1. Activate all lamps at the same time - Easy... Just split up, find a lamp and stay there. There are between 3-5 lamps. Once we have people on the lamps, I'll call a time and we'll activate them. The person who does not have a lamp should either help with aggro, or go back to the rune and prepare to get us up
2. All must activate one lamp - Even easier. Everyone must go to one lamp and touch it. This means everyone has to move out. First person to activate the lamp should go back to the run and bring us up
3. Lamps must be activated in a specific order. More details below

For specific order lamps, here is some information on the behavior of the lamps
(Mostly taken from http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=79;mid=119498020713612950;num=14;page=1)
- The lamps will not light up until all of the lamps on that floor have been activated. So, if we've hit all the lamps that we've found and they do not light up, that means that there is another lamp we're missing
- Once we have activates the lamps in any order, they will all light up for 10 seconds. After the 10 seconds, the ones that are in the right order will continue to stay lit. The ones in the wrong order will fade and turn off.
- If a lamp is in the right position in the sequence and is still "lit", when we start doing other sequences, you still have to "activate" the lamp even though the light is still on. We need to hit all the lamps in the right sequence for it to work.

So, if we get a lamp floor, this is the sequence of what will happen for an ordered lamp scenario:
- Fan out and search for lamps. This is a fully-independent floor and everyone is on your own to avoid aggro. Keep in mind which mobs are sneak and which are invis. If you can sleep (me, Utty & Kurai), take a more dangerous lamp. If you see someone who has aggro and has to fight, go help and kill the mob ASAP. We may take out some mobs near some of the earlier lamps when we're still grouped together
- Whoever finds the first lamp should touch it and immediately say what kind of lamp it is. If it is an ordered lamp scenario, activate it at once
- Other people will continue to search for lamps, activating them as they find it and staying by their lamp. Make sure to say something in party chat (i.e.: "Found a lamp... one more S of me")
- As soon as we find all the lamps on the floor, they should light up since we've been activating them as we find them. At this point, we need to determine the order
- To figure out the order:
- Wait 10 seconds after the lamps activate. Some lamps should go out. If yours goes out, call out "off" in party chat
- I will call out an order to reactivate the lamps.
- Once you activate your lamp, do "/" in party chat so the next person knows to go
- Once everyone goes, the lamps will light up, if they are not already. We have to wait 10 seconds, then SOME lamps will go off
- If your lamp goes off, immediately say so in party. People with lamps that remain on should also call out that their lamp is "on" as soon as they see that someone else's lamp is off
- I will call out another order immediately. We repeat until we get the right sequence.

The logic puzzle behind the lamp activation order is actually fairly simple. Lamps that are lit up in the correct place in the sequence will stay lit. Lamps that are not right will turn off 10 seconds after the sequence of activations has been completed. This means that if your lamp stays on after the sequence completes, you will always be in the same position.
Example scenario:
- After me, Kurai, Zurar & Ghiren find and activate 4 lamps, the lamps actually light up.
- At this point, Utaru & Ashle should be heading back to the runs to prepare to release
- 10 seconds later, one, or all of the lamps will go off. If your lamp turns off, say so
- I'll call out an order... "K, Z, G, Asc"
- Everyone activates their lamp in order and use "/" in party chat to indicate that they have done so
- The lamps that are off will light up... Wait 10 seconds, then some lamps will go off again
- Let's say Zurar & Ghiren's lamps go off. In party chat, it will be:
Ghiren> Off
Zurar> Off
Kurai & Asc> On
- I'll call out another order... "K, G, Z, Asc"
- Same thing, and this time since we swapped the only two lamps that turned off after the sequence, it will activate the rune and we're done.

Critically important: 3 messages need to be said in party chat:
1. Use "/" to say when you have activated your lamp. This will let the next person know they can activate their own
2. After the 10 seconds is up, if your lamp turns off, make sure to say so in party chat ("off" or "lamp off")
3. After you see someone saying "off", if your lamp stays on, say "on" or "still on" to help figure the order out ASAP.

I think that's it for lamps... that's the last puzzle for climbing that we have confusion on. I'm pretty confident that we can get to floor 100 now that we're getting used to Nyzul :)


Boss Floors & Farming
Sunday nights are our farming nights. Hopefully we'll just need to pick up 1 person who has a tag available and wants to get something. Thanks Marduke & Fuuji for coming along the last run.

How late our tags refresh on Sunday actually depends on how early we start our 2nd run on Thursday. We can pick up a new tag at the same time that we pick up our 2nd tag on Thursday. Hence, if we start at 10:00pm and pick our 2nd tag up at 10:40pm, we won't be able to do a 2nd run on Sunday until 10:40pm.

Kinda makes it hard to farm if we're running that late :) As such, try to be on time, or even early for runs so we can get through and let people sleep!

As for farming, weapons drop pretty much randomly from NMs. As for armor, think about which pieces you'd really like to get and we'll concentrate on those floors. Right now we can only farm the feet piece since we only have access to level 20, but in a couple of weeks if not by this week, we'll probably have access to level 40 armor. Let me know which pieces you'd like and we'll concentrate on the appropriate floors :)

The armor sets are:
- Askar Korazin Set (Heavy melee)
- Goliard Saio Set (Mages)
- Denali Jacket Set (Light melee)
Floor 20: Feet / Floor 40: Legs / Floor 60: Hands / Floor 80: Body / Floor 100: Head