Epic Shit.

And sometimes there are moments that just turn things around.

Last night we had our normal Limbus runs then our normal Assault runs for Salvage points, but the last run we tried to do a Nyzul Isle run with 4 people, WAR, MNK, RDM, WHM and it went very well. Almost cleared it, but we had to spend a lot of time on a clear everything floor, and didn't have time to finish off the last floor. With the limited group that we tried to beat it with we did very well I think. All of us have limited exposure to Nyzul Isle but we all have a very good understanding of the concept. We were able to quickly break down the group to scout, while still keeping a track of each other to find out where we wanted to go. It bodes well for the future of Nyzul Isle, but that is still on the back burner for Salvage.

Nyzul is fun and quick, sometimes frustrating but in the end, you will get to the bosses and you can farm them for drops and you will get them in a relatively decent amount of time. I am not saying that it is easy, but that the reward to repetition ratio is decent compared to some things.

Salvage, now that is where epic shit happens. It is no surprise to anyone that reads this blog that I believe that Salvage is more challenging and ultimately more rewarding than Nyzul Isle. Yes, the drop rates suck, but I really get the feeling that the randomness of Salvage has more effect on increasing the challenge for good players than the randomness of Nyzul Isle. If something goes badly in Nyzul Isle, that is ok, just get another tag and go again. If something goes badly for Salvage, thats the day, and there goes 1500 AP.

Last night we had an epic Salvage run, at least I felt like it was epic. I know that people have done more than we have done while doing the same thing and more, but this was the first time that we have tried it and the run was pretty much a pick up run too. Our goal was to get the Usukane 15 feet for Blaize to complete his Sune-ate. This run is usually a throw away run because you have to get to the fourth floor in 30 minutes for the Poroggo Madame to spawn, and this usually precludes getting the requisite cells to do much of anything else. When we got ready to go, I was asked if we wanted to try to get some other Madames for gear and I said that I would really like to try to get Ares's Feet for Izman, and Blaize said that we were going to try to do it, but didn't know we would have time for it. It was already getting late and we needed to get ready to go soon, but it had just turned over to Lightningsday which meant that we weren't going to be able to stun Frog Chorus at all, so we were going to have to take even more time to suck up any charms that were used. But we were going to try it anyway, with the goal being to get the Usukane 15's and anything after was gravy. So Izman, Omoi, Celestria, Blaize, Tarai and I got ready for a run where we were completely unsure of what was going to happen before going in.

The first real challenge was having to spawn the Poroggo Madame on the second floor which was going to be necessary to get the sixth floor Madame to spawn. We got lucky though, because besides a Breakga it didn't use anything too bad and no charms, so we rushed through the second floor getting what we needed but we were still left with just 3:30 left before we had to make it to the fourth floor when we zoned up to the third floor. Omoi immidiately made a break for the North teleporter so that we could get to the fourth floor in time for the Poroggo Madame to appear, but we also needed to make sure that we got two more MP cells for full unlocks and to be able to cause the fifth floor frog to spawn. Luckily they came rather quickly, and but we still only had 10 seconds left on the clock when we finally ported up to the fourth floor, and that is where the real fun began.

The fourth floor frog was obnoxious, but no more than normal, but the lack of stuns made it so that we had to eat 3 different Frog Choruses, and Cel died while kiting and this one regened up to 50% before we were able to engage it again, but we killed it and got the 100% drops that we needed and Blaize had completed his Usukane Sune-ate. But before we could move on, we still had to obtain the stat cells to get the full unlocks to spawn the 5th floor frog. The FFXIwiki was a bit wrong on this, and I adjusted the BGwiki to properly reflect the reality of the situation, but basically we had to farm the floor twice to get the left over drops that we needed to get the full unlocks, but it was quick and since we only used 30 minutes already we had plenty of time. We zoned up and killed some gears for some Alexandrite and to clear more space for kiting, then we moved onto the stun-proof Madame, and abuse us she did. One time she even managed to regen to 100%. But with some work we managed to make it work, but alas no drops. We tried to clear a little further to help Blaize out with getting the warp but it didn't go as planned and we ended up wiping and zoning up with 5 people dead. But even with a full wipe we still had 5:30 to kill the last frog and a chance at some 35's, but it was going to be close. Everyone two-houred, and Iz with SV songs and Mighty Strikes was able to take 40% out of it in record time, then it was my turn to two-hour and immediately get turned into a frog. LOL But time was still ticking away, and we had to wait it out, luckily Soul Voice was still up when we changed back and we got a fresh set of songs, only to be frogged again. With only a little over 1 minute left, and desperately needing songs again, we changed back. A little Chi Blast to keep the TP down and a little luck with a Magic Hammer and a Providence Graviga we were kill the frog and get... nothing. LOL Still it was one of the most exciting, enjoyable and challenging Salvage runs that I had ever done. We did well, and worked very well together. Ah well, another run tonight.