Mage's Ballad II

[Bilinear]

I was wondering where this spell is obtained, as I'm not sure I will have 80K gil to buy the spell from the auction house when I reach 55 (I'm level 53, a little under half way in, should hit 55 tomorrow), and I've only 31k gil. So, I'm wondering where this spell is obtained: BCNM battle? Treasure Coffer? NM spawn? I'd really like to know, thanks.

[Bilinear]

well...

decided to do my own research after asking the question and found it out on my own. stumbled upon it in the bilingual site for FFXI, this page:

http://davidbowie.dyndns.tv/eriwilde...gics/song.html

Treasure Coffer in Castle Zvahl. So, I looked up the maps for that too.

http://www.speakeasy.org/~sticks/ffx...hl_Bailes.html

And, with that I found the level of the mobs that drop the coffer key :
Ahriman
Arch Demon
Doom Demon
Blood Demon
Abyssal Demon

and looked up their level on this site:
http://www.ffcompendium.com/~Skylark/ff11/ff11.htm

apparantly they are around 63-65. the ideal level for a mob your group should hunt is approximately 8 levels above you, and, at level 55 that is about perfect, so maybe convince a group to hunt there, and a key will spawn while you are hunting, and you can get ballad II at same time. I hope i can do that myself, anyways...

[Malachite]

I'm in a similar situation and have noticed a few annoying things about obtaining this song.

1) It seems like most PTs would rather hunt in Kuftal, Quicksand caves or Crawler's nest. Dragging a PT to the castle can be a pain.

2) Our AF gloves come from the same coffer as the song. This means that if you accepted the AF gloves quest you're going to have to obtain a key, find a coffer and have your PT fight the NM that appears from the coffer. THEN you have to go and get another key, find another coffer and hope it has your song. Warriors, thieves & paladins also get a piece of their AF from the Zvahl coffer so you'll have some competition.

3) Luckily on my server it's only 50k not 80k like yours....but I can think of many things i'd rather spend 50k on that would help me out a lot. Obtaining this cash can be just as annoying as getting two or more coffers though. :sweat:

[bside]

as u become close to that lvl, getting 80k won't be that difficult. the song is worth 80k, so i'd say u just buy it, without the hassle of having to get a key at Zvahl, which could take u as long as u can get 80k in different ways, including the time needed to find a coffer.

btw, opening a coffer for AF does NOT spawn any NM's. u can just get the AF's or gloves right off of the coffer without having to fight anything.

[Malachite]

It seems I slightly misread Eriwilde's info. The NM doesn't spawn from the coffer but you still obtain the "Old Arm Guard" from the Zvahl coffer for the bard version of the Bolghertz armguard quest. Coincedentially, Zvahl is also where you fight the NM Dark spark for the armguard quest.

So, you don't have to worry about fighting the NM after your first coffer. But if you don't want to buy ballad 2 and have already accepted this quest, it seems you will still have to obtain 2 coffer keys. That is unless the armguard isn't a guaranteed item like the rest of the AF from coffers. I haven't done that part of the AF yet. :sweat:

[bside]

when u meet the requirements for the AF's, it has a highest priority in detemining the contents of corresponding coffers. that means, if u've been offered a Bolghertz quest, and u r brd, u get armguard when u open a coffer in Zvahl. (keep in mind that Mage's Ballad II is NOT a guaranteed item to be obtained out of a coffer, even when u've got armguard already.)

the same goes for the coffers in expansion areas; for instance, when u r offered a Bolghertz quest for sam, u r to open a coffer in Kuftal to obtain the armguard. however, coffer there also has a map for the same area. but because u've met the AF requirements, and it has a highest priority, when u open it, u'll get an armguard. the next time, u'll get a map.

btw, one thing i don't know is when opeing a coffer is required for AF quests, aside from the Bolghertz quest and those AF's u get directly from the coffers, in theory, 2 AF requirements could conflict. an example will be pld's AF-3 quest requires to open a coffer in Zvahl, but u can also meet the requirements of brd's Bolghertz quest at the same time, as long as u've done this one as a pld already, or haven't been offered yet. and neither requires u to be main pld nor brd at the time u open a coffer. just a thought...