Finally.

Well, it finally happened. We killed Byakko, the Haidate dropped, and I didn't DC. LOL The fight was great, and I think it was Izman's first time tanking Byakko, let alone any god as PLD/NIN and he rocked! Really, it was one of those fights were everything worked out. As I understand it, the gods can spawn at different levels, and maybe this one was a really low level one, but it just seemed much easier than even the Suzaku we did right before... the Suzaku that killed me with two Firaga III's right before its two hour ended. Ah well, Akanea stepped in and kicked ass for the rest of the Suzaku fight with Izman. Speaking of Izman, he finally got his E. Feet from the same Byakko! And he even called it, said he got a feeling about it, and knew they were both going to drop. A nice pic of him right after he got them made! Pretty good day for Izman and I, I must say. Here are some stat pics of us in our new gear. First, the best NIN pants in the game: And some of the best feet gear for WAR in the game: A quite pleasing day, especially considering that Byakko has been really giving with everything except for Haidate and E. Feet for us.

Speaking of sky, we actually had to spend some time camping Faust, its getting a little ridiculous. Basically, we stationed someone at Faust for a while and did something else, farming for Diorite and getting Zip, but after a while when nothing was up we actually moved down to Faust's room to have to claim him.

Honestly, its actually probably easier to kill Faust in the room and here is an explanation on how to do it. Its pretty easy to avoid aggro even if there is a Aura Butler in the hall because the walls block out the magic aggro radius. As you can see in the picture above, Izman is standing backed into the corner opposite the monolith in Faust's room, and the mages are generally grouped by Omoikitte, where their magic detection area is blocked out by the wall in that area. So we have a Aura Butler in the hall very close to everyone and no still no potential for aggro. I was subbing DRK at the time and Ashhhhh, our resident BLU, and I were standing opposite Omoikitte to avoid aggro on our side. This situation is only slightly difficult for BLU which have limited range on some of their ranged magic attacks, which is sad as Ashhhhh was doing a good bit of damage on Faust as it was. Doing Faust in this manner avoids complicated issues such as the pull; dealing with the yellow door; and honestly I do not like how we position mages on the teleporter in the yellow door room. That is because if they pull hate it almost guarantees that its going to smack everyone, rather than just a few people that are much further away. This reduces total damage taken in the event of lost hate and increases the amount of time the tank has to get hate back before it can hit someone else. This is only really important for cases when a NIN has to tank Faust, because Izman, as usual, is a champ and Faust never turns away from him.

Its sad that we have to camp Faust in its room now, but not as bad as waiting on Ullikummi; no place holders, and he is going to pop much more often. Sadly, we will probably have to do the same thing for MG, but at least we can wait and farm water while we are waiting on MG to pop. Again, its because of the RMT, but its better than it was before. There are also a million and one new Sky LS's running around, but really we haven't had much trouble with claims as of late, the only wrinkle being that RMT are more spread out now.

Just wanted to toss in this really cool picture, that Elf mentioned before we fought Suzaku. Elf said it was scenes like this that just make FFXI better than anything and make us love it so much. WoW doesn't have scenes like this. It was a perfect day in Sky, Suzaku and Byakko, perfect drops, perfect scene, no aggro on the way to Byakko, and I didn't have to use my AK. :)

We have kind of formed a small group to do Nyzul Isle and we headed out to do that after Sky. We have five steady members of Izman, Omoikitte, Eternalpain, Lilkathy and I and we have been rotating in a sixth of support/DD. Now, Nyzul Isle is very interesting and very random, and it definitely takes one or two runs to get your feet under you so you know what is going on. I am going to assume that you, the reader, knows what is going on in Nyzul generally, but I will go into some more detail here. Essentially, there are two different kinds of objectives. Kill certain mobs, and light lamps. First, killing mobs. This breaks down into a couple of different sub-groupings but essentially, for whatever objective you have you will have to kill one, multiple or all, of the normal monsters that check as Impossible to Gauge. You will not have to kill any named NM or Archaic Machinery, so you will want to avoid them unless you want to go for the drop of the NM. This can include enemy leaders like our friend here: There is an exception to this, and this you may have to kill specified Archaic Chariots called Racing Chariots, which was our only roadblock to getting to level 6, as we had three of them piled up in one place and couldn't get a good pull on level 5.

The second kind of level is lighting lamps, essentially three different kinds. One, everyone light one lamp. Two, everyone light their own lamp. Three, everyone light their own lamp in order. This last one is really hard and we have gotten it just once, but failed because of it. Lamp floors are definitely more challenging than regular floors.

Here are my initial suggestions for doing Nyzul Isle. First, bring sneak and invis items, this can include just the spells but be wary of magic aggro like always. This is especially important for levels where you just have to kill one normal mob that checks Impossible to Gauge, as avoiding other fights is much more worthwhile. Second, bring a wide variety of gear. Some mobs are really weak and easily dispatched, some are tougher, and some require tanking gear for NIN. So some are just TP burned, and some need skillchains to kill quickly. Being ready for a wide variety of situations is best. Third, have one person that leads everyone, and one person that scouts and pulls, we did this to start and Aable reinforced it when he mentioned it, but it makes for getting around easier and getting to the mobs you need faster. Fourth, when you are instructed to avoid Archaic Gear(s) I would do so at your leisure, and not worry about it too much. They are easy to sleep and very weak at the lower levels, so if you are instructed to not kill them, then just sleep them and move on to the objective. If you are instructed to not be detected, just pull them with ranged attack or a job ability so they do not port away, then make quick work of them. This avoids the problems of getting a detriment from killing or being detected.

We almost made it to level 6 last night, which would have been our first save point, but couldn't get the pull right on those Racing Chariots. Well, after only three runs we are feeling good about this and hopefully we will soon be at level 20, ready to kill our first for the new Nyzul drops.

After Nyzul, Hellzfury, Izman, Thaz, Omoi and I went to Sea to farm for more M Ghrah chips and let me tell you, TH3 makes a huge amount of difference here because we got something like 8 M Ghrah chips in an hour. Which gives us three stacks of chips for more Fortitudes, we were also trying to get some HQ Euvhi organs to drop but didn't see a one the entire time we were there. Ah well, we already have 1 or 2 of those so far, but more would be nice, because outside of Ix'Aerns Jailer of Faith is our next major goal. Good night overall, and I still haven't spent my merits, I really need to get on that.