[IfritnoItazura]

I don't like solo'ing much. Even on BST, I liked duo'ing much better--in fact, I once made a friend go duo'ing with my BST/WHM as WHM/BST. However, my main is RDM64, if I have anything that could be called a main, which is supposedly a great solo job in hands of a capable player. I'm no such player.

My RDM macros are not solo friendly--just about every spell switch weapon, and some switch in stuff with extremely low defense. My last sword upgrade was to Lv.55. I don't even own a dagger over Lv.34, unless you count Minstrel's Dagger. Heck, I type all my spells when I want to keep TP, since I've never bothered to organize my spell list.

* * *

Instead of leveling to RDM Lv.65 like I should, I spent most of the night just wandering about Tavnazian Safehold first, and then Misareaux Coast. In doing so, I accidentally spawned Bloody Coffin, a Lv.50 NM crab with very high resistance to physical and magical damages.

It was a long fight.

Started OK; sleep'ed it, buffed, then debuffed. Took a quick glance on Wiki and saw level "50-52", and decided to stright melee it. ("I'm 12-14 levels above; what can go wrong?")

Once I figured out it cast spells, I just silenced it. Its HP went down slowly; sword strikes were doing high single digits, enspells were around 4 per proc, and it was fairly resistant to Drain. However, it did seem doable, especially since Aspir worked ok.

Halfway through, it started to go hyper on me; must have gotten a haste through while I was busy with other stuff. Things became a bit hurried--it landed a Bio II, and I ran low on MP.

I bind it and gravitied it, then moved away for Convert. Rebuffed, redebuffed--then it all went downhill.

The bloody Bloody Coffin became resistent to silence, and paralyze started to wear off fast. Because I didn't want to lose TP, I was typing all the spells by hand (macros all have staves switches), and I had a hard time keeping up with all its nasty tricks and fast fading enfeebs. Worse, it was landing Paralyze and slipping Ice Spikes through, so I was paralyzed a lot. >_<;

When it had just about 3% of life left, I realized that my Protect and Shell have dropped, along with most of my buffs. Bio II was on me, and I have about 40% HP and dangerously low MP--with Refresh nearly gone. Quick check showed that Convert was nearly three min away. Ouch.

Popped up Protect II, then the Bio II on me and a crit hit ate away my poor Stoneskin. Tried to silence it, and it resisted. My HP was low, and going down fast--my time was running out.

Cure IV'ed myself, Gravity'ed it, Bio (I), and started to kite it. Refresh run out. Not enough MP to recast. Convert still over 2 min away. Not good. Not good at all.

Run away... but to where? (At least the Bio II on me worn off.) There's only so much room, since I've already moved past the exit from the coast area. Luckily, it kept stopping to cast spells (and not Bio II). It had just a sliver of life left, but I was down to 476 HP and 12 MP.

So, I ran toward it.

Started to cast a Poison on it... figured I'll take him to my grave, if I can.

It noticed that I'm in range, and started casting--Ice Spikes. I landed my Poison, and turned tail to run away again.

~10 seconds passed by...

"Bloody Coffin falls to the ground."

7 MP left.

I lived.

...

I took a moment to breath, then dumbly checked my convert timer again; still over a minute.

That, was not an easy fight for this RDM64...

[Icemage]

E P I C


Icemage

[BurningPanther]

z0mg, that had me on he edge of my seat.

[Celeal]

It must be very fun :D

I am wondering would chainspell help in this case ^^? Like chainspell and keep using spells like aspir, drain, silence, etc?

[IfritnoItazura]

Yes, it was fun--not something I'd care to repeat again (really, should stop clicking on random ???'s >_<; ), but it was very exciting, and a good change of pace from exp'ing. (Like, from normally frantic to actually desperate?)

As for Chainspell, I forgot about it. ._.

Well, in truth, I was thinking of Chainspell + Warp quite a few times during battle. However, by the time I actually decided to do it, I didn't have the 100 MP needed. >_>;

[tdh]

LMFAO @ "really, should stop clicking on random ???'s >_<;"

As far as macros go, do what I do when I'm out melee soloing. Put your Elemental Staves in your Bazaar at maxed price. This prevents them from being swapped in and losing your TP, and you don't have to create completely new macros for melee work. This has been really helpful for me in my mini-soloing that I do. (I rarely Melee anything higher than a DC Crab, and I don't often have occasion to solo a T or VT mob. I can, and have done it, it just takes forever. lol)

Either way, well done! That's RDMs do it. We just out live our prey. lol

[Raen]

Great read!
I'm not a rdm, but I've had plenty of those encounters... (which I don't survive). Hoping to read more! :'D

[raidenn]

Originally Posted by Raen

Great read!
I'm not a rdm, but I've had plenty of those encounters... (which I don't survive). Hoping to read more! :'D

/poke

[Sabaron]

Very nice. I was toying with the idea of gearing up to solo BC... I guess I'll wait a couple of levels.

[Armando]

Haha, very nice. I've gotten in trouble for clicking ???'s in Lufaise myself.

[Vyuru]

If you have the room I would recommend making a different set of macros for when you solo that don't include the gear swaps. This can take up alot of macro room though.

For instance I have a drg/war, drg/rdm, drg/brd, rdm/blm, solo rdm, war, sam, and misc macro sets. For jobs I rarely level like thief I just recreate my macros. Chews up alot of macro set room, but I like it better than recreating an entire macro list.

Nice fight and glad you survived

[tdh]

Originally Posted by Vyuru

If you have the room I would recommend making a different set of macros for when you solo that don't include the gear swaps. This can take up alot of macro room though.

For instance I have a drg/war, drg/rdm, drg/brd, rdm/blm, solo rdm, war, sam, and misc macro sets. For jobs I rarely level like thief I just recreate my macros. Chews up alot of macro set room, but I like it better than recreating an entire macro list.

Nice fight and glad you survived

I really wish they expanded the Macro system, because I use so many of them. I have 4 different sets for RDM, and if you take a glance at my sig you'll notice I level a lotta jobs. I even have 2 just for DRK. (One for Scythe & one for Great Sword.) If we could put more lines per macro, I could probably drop down to 2 or 2½ macro sets. (I have 3 Macros to max out my MP for Convert, 2 Macros to equip all my MND gear, and 2 more to equip all my INT gear.)

RDM being my main I do a TON of equip swaps, and it carried over into my other jobs. Macroing in STR for WS, so that requires a STR Macro that loads up all the STR and then an Acc macro that equips all my Acc gear for TP build. So that's 2 or more already used outta 20. So that leaves 18 for various Job Abilities, reports (TP, etc), weapon skills, and possibly spells. A lot of little things to maintain for a lotta jobs.

[Vyuru]

(I have 3 Macros to max out my MP for Convert, 2 Macros to equip all my MND gear, and 2 more to equip all my INT gear.)

And I thought I had alot of macros...

[Srxjo]

i have a macro set for buffing, a set for debuffing, a set for nuking and a set for solo

[Fynlar]

Using more than one macro for equipping MP/MND/INT sets isn't unnatural by the higher levels. 6 swaps just doesn't cut it if you're looking to maximize your efficiency >_>