Dusting off the hat

Had a good and productive weekend. Had a few good parties, got some questing done, and finally dusted off my RDM.

First off I started on leveling up PLD again. Fridays nights party was just odd to say the least. First off this party had a nin in it which is strange since that almost never happens with a PLD in the party. Second, there was no refresher in the party so my mp was constantly on the low side. And last, it actually went well. I was the main tank throughout the party but what we would do to save mp was about every 5th fight, the NIN would tank one while I just DD’d and recovered MP. The rest of the time the NIN was in full DD gear and was the main puller. Not the best xp per hour ever, but it certainly wasn’t terrible. I dinged 63 that night and got about half way into the level before logging.

Saturday I started looking for party as soon as I got on and almost immediately got an invite. The JP players really seem to like having PLD’s as main tanks at this level. In fact after we started the party we had 2 players who dc’d and never came back and unlike most JP parties that break up, they insisted I stay and found some replacements. After our 2 new members got there we went to work and the xp started rolling in. I got level 64 and good chunk into the level before we stopped. The SAM in the party had a Soboro and really makes me want to level up Sam right now and get it but I would at least like to get PLD up to the 70’s before that. The Sam was the first guy I had struggles to keep hate off of in a long time. I still maintained hate through out but had to often times grab it back from the SAM where as usually it is always glued on me. I’ll try to get to 66 next weekend, but at that point there are a few pricey items I’ll need to stop and get some gil for.

So Sunday I woke up and was determined that it was finally time to try RDM again. I still had to use the keyboard but since I have been at it for a few weeks now it is starting to become easier for me to use. So I geared up, put my flag up, and hoped for the best. It took about an Hour to get a party which I contribute to the fact I was in JP time and there were 7 RDM’s my level looking to party. After getting a party though I got a little apprehensive. First I was the only Healer and haster in the party. Even if this wasn’t my first party back this would have been tough to handle. Fortunately though, they decided to XP in the mire exclusively on imps and we had a NIN tank that was good about keeping shadows up. It was actually much easier than I would have thought and I had a pretty good rhythm going after awhile. It was a nice ice breaker party for me and I think I’ll continue to merit RDM at least one day a week now to get my timing back to what it was. I got 2 merits in the party and got my xp buffer back up to about 6k.

What I have decided to do as far as the buffer goes is to start out each party in xp mode and use my empress ring. Then after it’s used up switch over to merits. This should help me get a good mixture of both and sustain my death habits on RDM.

Almost forget to mention the bit about questing. On Saturday after I finished XPing on PLD I went and got enough fame done so I could flag Leviathan, Ifriti, and Ramuh avatar fights. Me and Zorb went and fought Ramuh on Sunday and got the win so now I just need to do the last 2 and I’ll have all the whispers to fight Fenrir. I didn’t turn in the Ramuh whisper to get the avatar simply because I want to be ready to fight Fenrir whenever the opportunity comes up. Not to mention I may want to try my hand at soloing him. Before I do that though, I would need to re buy my HQ Ice staff. Oh well that’s still a bit of time away.