Redmage AF armor, how tough?

[Snafu-SI]

I'm a lvl 56 rdm/30blm I'm having trouble getting some of my armor.

I only have my af boots on me right now, I've had problems finding poeple willing to go hunt for teh key in Eldime Necropolis for the coffer for my af gloves. I coudln't really gauge how tough the skellies were in there cuase we had a lvl 65ish drk helping us at the time, we all died anyway when some of the skellies popped on us, like 6 of them. :sweat:

Just wondering what kind of party should I be lookign at to bring in there for the hunt? full party of lvl 55's? or could 3 lvl 60's do it?

Also in Garlaige for my af leggings, how high of a lvl party should I be looking for to assemble to go in there as well?

and of course, the same question goes for my af body armor, and hat. Although I have a pretty good idea of how hard the hat is. :sweat:

People are always saying, "get your LS to help you". Sure they would, but none of them are high enough lvl to help. They couldn't really help if they tried.

I guess I will continue to just spam Jeuno again to see if anybody is willing to help. It's just making me feel bad when I see other lvl 56 rdm's, and they have all thier updated af armor already. Makes me think I'll never get all my af armor. :T
That and I'm not much of a spammer for help, but I don't really have much choice. :T

[Gman]

That sucks man... that's why its nice to stay at the same level as the rest of your LS.

I'm in the opposite situation, I'm the lowest member of my linkshell with the highest being 71. I'm sure I'll have no problem getting help for my AF's but now I'm wondering where I'll be if something happens with my LS

As for your problem, is there anyone you level with on a semi regular basis who you could ask? Maybe offer to help them with their AF if they need it?

Good luck!

[Snafu-SI]

I have found a lvl 60ish theif that said they would help.

A few weeks ago, this Theif sent me a tell from bastok while I was like in Jueno asking me if I could help them out with a AF thing for theives in Dangruf Wadi. I knew how hard it is to get people to help so I knew how she felt.

I decided to trek out there and help out. No real benefit to me except, I just wanted to help.

After it was done, she told me that if I ever needed help with some of my AF armor, to let her know.

So that's 1 person I know will help. But again, not enough to take on those skellies in Necropolis. There are a few people I've gotten to chat with in the last few weeks to see if they could, or would be willing to spare some time to help me out. I hope that they can.

The truth is, if I can't get any help, I honestly don't ever see myself with my af armor.

As soon as I mention the words COFFER, and NECROPOLIS, people run away. :sweat: :sweat:

[riceburner4540]

a well balanced party of 55-56 can kill the skeletons there and in garlaige and get decent exp while doing so. bring a monk ^_^. when i did this, it took about 2 hours i think for 5 keys. we swapped out some people after a couple keys dropped. if you want to do it really easily though, a party of 60s can rock the skels, more so if one of them is a monk.

[Chucklez_1]

I pretty much got my coffer keys on all those and got all AF armour except for my gloves (waiting for my LS friend to get the coffer so we can do it together) and AF hat (which will be done in 2 days).

IMO, oztroja and eldieme was the worst...long story but I think it's got to do w/ moon phases. I've noticed that coffer keys drop more frequently near full moon and worst when it's not.

Oztroja: must have a lvl 57 group. My ex-spt was all lvl 57-8ish when we did Oztroja. On full moon, I got my key in under 1 hr (?). Then we spent another two nights to get my friend's keys since full moon was over.

Garliage: If you don't have a ranger, monk, or blm in your pt...your pt should consist of 6 56+ (since skellies only take 50% of non-whacking damage). If you only have a ranger, the ranger should be lvl 55. If you got lots of monk or lots of blm (or both in pt) then a full pt of lvl 54-55 should be ok. Near full moon, we got 2 keys in under 2 hours.

Eldieme: I HATE THIS ONE!!! We tried to do this w/ a 6 lvl 54 pts and we couldn't last at all. My silence was blocked too many times and they take forever to kill...may I add yellow life aggroes skellies from miles away? Many deaths. We went back at lvl 58-60 and it was a looot easier. Also we went to a location that was the safest since there were only like 3-4 skellies (of which 2 walks around our area) and spriggans was on the other side which we could kill when we're waiting for respawn. We pretty much got 2 keys in under one hour (excluding the 2 hrs we spent the day before) just right before we did Garliage on that same day (so it was near full moon too)


IMO, if you're only lvl 56 and doing eldieme, it's best to have 2 party alliance.

Best time to find key hunting parties is at NA prime time and Saturdays.

[Snafu-SI]

I hate spamming for help, but I've been left little choice, it's Friday night, I've spammed Low Jueno for about an hour for coffer key hunt in Necropolis, so far, I've been completely ignored.

[Patchinko]

The best tip I can give you about Eldieme is to try to get a smaller group with help from 65+ lvl friends. The larger your group, the easier you are going to get aggro when an AOE spell puts you all in yellow health and end up with a party wipe-out.

[Snafu-SI]

I will take that into consideration. Thankyou for the heads up.

[Snafu-SI]

Spent another 2 hours all over Jeuno spamming for help for my coffer key in Necropolis.

And again, nothing. Makes 3 weeks now.

Ended up takign a party for exp party, I wanted to do SOMETHING besides standing there and spam for help.

a lvl 67 Theif did offer, and asked how many people I had already gotten in my party for the hunt. Of COURSE, I had NOBODY in my party to help, so that didn't really go through.


I always wondered, if I have no one in my party when I build a party for coffer hunt, and people ONLY want to join if I've already put most of the party together. Then how am I ever going to build a party to hunt for a coffer key?

[AtraposBLM]

try adding:
<skill><up>OK
The coffer key dropping mobs are pretty much the best and easiest way to skill up to about 175ish weapon skill, so you'll generally get a bunch of 65ish drk's looking to skill up great sword, or a few warriors looking to skill up axe/great axe. You never know...you could even get a lv68 blm looking to get Spirit Taker.....<wink>

Anyways, I never really had trouble getting help. I called on friends I had helped before to form the core of the PT, and used shouts to pick up the rest. I also got lucky and got my key on the first 1-3 mobs we pulled...every time. I always stayed until the PTs broke, but it was a lot nicer staying there knowing my key was taken care of, so I didn't have to worry about trying to lot the key or something like that.

[Icemage]

There are three approaches that most players take to acquiring their first pieces of AF:

(1) Shout/spam for help. This is not a terribly effective way to get most AF pieces, as you are basically at the whim of people who are too bored to do anything else. Sometimes this works, most of the time it doesn't, and you run a VERY serious risk of ruining your reputation if you do this.

(2) Get higher level friends to help. If you know several high level players, you can call in a marker and get them to help you. Many players are not in this position, but there are a fair number of high level NA players these days, and it is possible you know at least a few. Your mileage may vary, depending on what sort of favors you do for other players (particularly higher level ones).

(3) Earn brownie points with other players by helping with their AF so that they owe you favors. This is the path I chose, and it is the most time-consuming, but more reliable than the above two. However, this is a major investment in time. I think I did at least 40+ AF hunts which were NOT for me before I finished my own AF. However, when it came time to get my last piece, the result was that I had a large number of people that I could count on to come help me.

Either way, acquiring your AF armor is a real test of player dedication.

Best of luck to you.


Icemage

[Snafu-SI]

I will consider all these tips into consideration and use them to help make parites for these hunts.

Tonight I was able to find a party to at least go to hunt the Coffer Key in Garlaige so I could get my AF leggins out of the way when the time came so. I just did a shout in Low Jeuno, it so happend that someobdy else was doing it also, and had 4 friends on his LS helping him do it, and saw that I needed helped and ask me to join in. Of course I took it, I was very grateful, name was Twisted who was teh one that helped me out.

His LS buddies were ranging from lvl 60-68, we had no theif, I subbed my theif I don't know if that helps with drops on EX. RARE. items, but I figure it couldnt hurt.

We only needed two keys, got both to drop in about 15 mins. So at least I'll have my af1-4 out of the way when I need to.

I was unable again to find any help for Eldieme necropolis. Apparently, somebody told me that I had just missed a crew of 12 allaince that was going in there hunting for the key. Another fellow rdm that I've known that has also huntning the coffer there was in that alliance, I asked if they had room for me, but he said they didn't respond when he asked if I could join their party.

I tried asking the alliance leaders if it was "OKAY" if I joined, I didn't want to intrude, and I know hunting the key is hard enough, let alone finding ANOTHER one. But I did at least ask to see if was okay. I was instead completely ignored, not a yes, not a no, not nothing.

If they would have said "no", I would have completely understood and said, "okay, no problem, goodluck to you and your allaiance". But I didn't get any feedback. I guess people just don't wanan deal with the crap in eldieme to have to find another key. I missed my chance go join them, I hope it isn't this hard to find some help to help me kill dark spark.

[Snafu-SI]

Some light and the end of this tunnel? A hopeful point, one night in Yhoator Jungle, a friend of mine was partying there, I decided to go pwr lvl their party, help them out.

Turns out one of the party members in the group was a lvl 70ish different job, and was talking about I need to work on my AF. I told him of my plight and gave him my story, and he offered to help, said he would get some of his lvl 70ish buddies to help me out. Maybe in spite since I was kind enough to go around the jungle pwr lvling parties. Seemed like my good deeds had actually paid off. I've pwr lvled like 20 parties in my time, this is the first time somebody has offered help in return.

btw. Before anybody wonders why I don't ask any of my friends to help me with this,.... Yes, I do have lots of friends, but I'm the highest lvl of all of them, I'm 56 2500 tnl, and the next closet is 50, and the rest are below, so they coudln't help me if they tried.
I do know some acqaintences that are of my lvl or higher, but they are always already in a party, or just busy, or things just dont' fit right.

So hopefully, this person will help me out with my AF finally. Problem is, I haven't seen him online SINCE that night. :sweat: it's like he dissapeared, been about 5 days now. Name was Blackgamba I believe :sweat:
I'm patient, I guess I'll just wait and see what happens.
:sweat:

[riceburner4540]

(3) Earn brownie points with other players by helping with their AF so that they owe you favors. This is the path I chose, and it is the most time-consuming, but more reliable than the above two. However, this is a major investment in time. I think I did at least 40+ AF hunts which were NOT for me before I finished my own AF. However, when it came time to get my last piece, the result was that I had a large number of people that I could count on to come help me.

this is the path i chose. i've gotten all but my monastic cavern piece...everyone hates that place and i've tried for about 2 weeks now to no avail. i've lost the lots when i went there with an alliance and no key dropped when i went there with a small group. i hate this place, and its getting really hard to convince people to come with me.

[Snafu-SI]

UPDATE:

Well, I finally was able to put together a party to go into Eldieme Necropolis. Actually it was a alliance of 10 people, lvls ranging from lvl 55 to 67.

We're off, we find our spot on the hillbank near a torch, the lvl 67 rdm wants to pull, fine with me. :sweat: So far, so good, the fights were smooth, no surprises, the spriggans we pulled had that one special that really hite pretty hard, one of our blm's got greedy with a big nuke, and got aggro'd, the spriggan ran up to the blm, one hit, 916 points of dmg, blm=KO'd.

First KO that day, not the last, ther other blm got KO when a tomb mage popped at our camp, other than that, we had no normal KO's.

We did get some keys to drop, about 2 in 2 hours, my lot did not win, my first lot on the first key was a whopping 158, not even close. When the 2nd key come upon us, my lot was about 458, again, no winning lot for me again.

BTW, 7 of us needed the key, yes, that's a lot of keys, but SOME chance is better than no chance, and so far, I've had no chance in 5 weeks, so this was the best chance I've had so far.

THE MASSACRE:
The lvl 67 rdm pulled a Haunt, no big deal, a tombmage had linked to it on teh way back to camp, he had popped along the hallway, and skellies being the linking aggro mofo a$$hole$ they are of course come along. Also consdier that at this point, a very key member of our alliance had left, our lvl 67 drk, our biggest dmg dealer. But we had no real trouble, but not if they linked
We took care of teh haunt, no prob, the mage was doing his annoying AOE crap from away, we had gone to fight it. For some reason, I guess square thinks this is a good time to pop some more skellies into the picture. For some reason, they decided to pop 2 more of them. It's almost as if one links, he gets on the phone with his buddies skellies, "hey Tombmage, Tombwarrior, I gots me some fresh meat here! They dun fightin me and me haunt bud, since I'm too chicken $#iT ta fight dem dar ya'll come along ya hear? Yeeeeee! HAAAAW!!!"

the 2 more skellies popping at camp becuase 3 more, then 2 more from down the hall ran clear ACROSS the hall to link as well, which I thought was abotu teh biggest BS I've ever seen. Next thing I know, there's about 6 Tomb craps on us.

RESULT:
Dead, everybody died, lvl 55-67's all dead, the lvl 67 rdm was the last to die, being chased by 4 or 5 tomb craps. I myself died by a Thundaga?? From the tomb mage. I had my theif sub to help with drops, at leat I hoped it would, otherwise, I would have kept my blm sub and casted warp when I knew it was a loss.
Again, all dead, got 2 keys, which I am VERY happy for that SOMEBODy got the keys in that fooking crap dungeon. I wish it was me that got them but oh well, I'm glad to help somebody. :sweat:

Conclusion:

Remeber that Limp Bizkit song that use the F word XXX times??? That's what I'm saying right now. :mad:


OUTCOME:

Tomarrow, rather, later today, since I'ts 8:00 AM and I stayed up all night for this, another person I know hunting the coffer key has a lvl 75 ranger freind, and some other lvl 75's, with my lvl 70ish friends who I dont' even know will be on or not, are expected to help us out. I'm keeping my finger crossed. :sweat:

That is all, thankyou for reading