What a weekend!

[Gman]

Well, things are moving fairly fast for me lately, mostly because I have been focusing on RDM. I joined a new HNM linkshell, who kindly helped me get sky access last thursday, and i went from level 66 to almost 71 in less than 2 weeks with a static group who seems to always be missing their rdm, so they keep inviting me. Great for me though, since the group kicks ass, and we average over 5k/hour always, no matter where we fight.

I got a RDM testimony Friday night, and beat maat very easily on Saturday. It was almost too easy. Went on darksday with wind staff. Sleep went 3/3. He didnt get one hit on me... I felt sorry for him... poor old guy

Anyway, after a kick ass exp session last night where I went from 8400/39000 to 33000/39000 I am about to ding 71. My dagger is only at 208, so I will have to skill it to 230 to get the Eviceration quest. Anyone have any suggestions on where to skill for these levels? Also, for anyone who has done a WS quest (this will be my first) how do you work the latent off? How does it work?

Thanks

[Jei]

Congrats on your levelling and Maat ^^ I have to start thinking about Maat soon too, can you share more strategy you used?

I see skill up PTs everyday, for 200+ they go Sky and Kuftal.

Mystery tour got some guide for WS quest.
http://mysterytour.web.infoseek.co.j...st/005q-ws.htm
Pretty much you use enough WS/Skillchain on EP or above enemies that the latent effect is gone. Then you go kill a NM.

[Gman]

Thanks Jei ^^

I forgot Mysterytour had a guide for that. I cant access it now from work, but I'll check it when I get home.

As for Maat strategy, I used the one that most RDM use, nothing original, but I'll run by it for you so you know what happened with mine.

-I waited till I was 70 and had capped enfeeble magic, for best results with sleep (it capped very early into level).

-I also had a dark staff (very important) and a Wind Staff (to minimize Aero resists).

-Before entering the BCNM, I ate a Rolanberry pie for 50MP boost. I forget what my HP/MP stats were when I entered the BC, something like 750, 750.

-I used no potions/ethers, or medicines. Except 1 yagudo drink so I wouldnt have to cast refresh.

-Had a macro table set up for this fight, so all the spells i needed would be in one place, and necessary equipment swaps would be in the appropriate macros.

-Equipment was pretty good, had moldavite, moiron, phantum tathlum, INT rings, Master Casters bracelets, AF, etc.


Strategy:

Entered and ran in to see what he was casting. He was just finishing casting Stoneskin when I got there. I gambled that he had not cast blink before that, and threw a sleep 1. It landed. I casted dispel 3 times, first erased protect, 2nd erased stoneskin, 3rd had no effect. I casted sleep 2 and it landed on top of sleep 1. I then buffed up with stoneskin, blink, drank a yagudo drink, and debuffed maat with gravity (resisted), paralyze, and slow.

I casted one Aero 3 for full damage, then casted Sleep 2 again. I activated Chainspell, and nuked 2 more times with Aero 3 for full damage, then maat used chainspell. I casted Sleep 2 again and it stuck. At this point the only spells he cast were bind (stuck on me) and stone 2 (blink ate it). I converted (even though I had 150 mp left), casted 2 Cure IV, then nuked with Aero 3 2 more times, and he gave up. In a last ditch effort, he casted diaga which landed, but did no damage because of stoneskin. he never got within melee range.

Key to this fight was sleep sticking. Max enfeeble + darksday + dark staff = best chance. I think Wind Staff took care of Aero 3 doing full damage (which was about 383 I think).

The fight was very short, and very easy, although, a lot will depend on what maat does. I was probably pretty lucky too.

[Kilgraw]

Darksday seems to be the best idea since landing all your sleeps seems to be the most important thing in the fight.

Congrats on your victory.

[Jei]

maybe you can skill up with cofer key mobs too seeing they are still T to me at 64 : / maybe even match at 70 or decent?

thanks for sharing your strategy ^^ you made it sounds so easy. I heard Rdm was really hard to win maat, it kinda make me nervous.

I log on to my GF's toon to fight maat for her as BLM, and it was sooooo easy... -.- didn't take me more than a few minutes.

[Gman]

Originally posted by Kilgraw
Darksday seems to be the best idea since landing all your sleeps seems to be the most important thing in the fight.

Congrats on your victory.

Thanks ^^

Originally posted by Jei
maybe you can skill up with cofer key mobs too seeing they are still T to me at 64 : / maybe even match at 70 or decent?

thanks for sharing your strategy ^^ you made it sounds so easy. I heard Rdm was really hard to win maat, it kinda make me nervous.

I log on to my GF's toon to fight maat for her as BLM, and it was sooooo easy... -.- didn't take me more than a few minutes.

Yes, I skilled up a few points killing Robber Crabs in Boyhada Tree (solo) but it was slow, and I wasnt getting many skillups. I think I need some Even-tough mobs so I can hit them, but they still give good skill. Most coffer mobs are either a pain to solo, or are too weak to skill on now. Flamingos in Ru'Ann Gardens were pretty good... maybe I can convince the LS to go there for a bit. Steelshells in Boyhada (lvl 73-76) might be ok too, but I may have trouble hitting them. Time to get optical hat ^^

Maat was very easy, but I've heard stories about him being very hard, so I have to think at least some of it was luck. I did everything flawlessly, but Maat didnt do anything to surprise me either, so he made it easy on me. If he ran up and did asuran fists after the first Aero, the fight would have been much different. Instead he cast bind ^^

I was very nervous entering the fight, and I was fully prepared to lose, and use the fight as a learning experience. I was almost disappointed (but happy at the same time) at how easy it was.

[amastacia]

My dagger is only at 208, so I will have to skill it to 230 to get the Eviceration quest. Anyone have any suggestions on where to skill for these levels? Also, for anyone who has done a WS quest (this will be my first) how do you work the latent off? How does it work?

I would recommend trying coffer key-dropping beastmen, which should get you easily to ~215 or so (they'll take you higher, but not quickly), then find a duo buddy and go whack on Steelshells in Boyahda Tree (a NIN or THF are great for this). Steelshells can cap any weapon to 75, and have all the usually crabby goodness.

As for the WS quests, I haven't done mine yet, but I've helped quite a few LS members do them, so I can share some insight.

You go talk to a specific NPC (easily looked up) to start the quest once your weapon skill level is above the magic number (230 dagger, 240 sword I believe). They will give you XXX of Trials (Dagger of Trials, Sapara of Trials for us), of which you can only hold one at a time.

To work off the latent effect, you must do WSs. The most painful way (which one of my poor PLD friends did) to do it is to simply solo 300 WSs.

The latent is based off "points" not off number of WSs done, so you need to keep general track of your point numbers. The caveat is that you must earn your points on EP or higher mobs, you receive no points for Too Weak mobs.

You get 1 point for doing a WS.

You get 2 points for closing a lv 1 SC (1 for WS + 1 for SC).

You get 3 for closing a lv 2 SC (1 for WS + 2 for SC).

You get 5 for closing a lv 3 SC (1 for WS + 4 for SC, but we cannot do lv 3 SCs without our quested WSs, so we're stuck doin' Distortion, orz).

Your best bet is to find a buddy who can open Distortion for you, and close with Viper Bite or Fast Blade, and do 100 Distortion SCs. Robber Crabs in Kuftal are great for this, they're low EP at 71, but still EP to 75, so anyone can go with you and still make the points count.

You will know your latent is off when you've either counted 300 points (the hard way), or the latent effect disappears. It will still be listed on the weapon, don't expect that text to disappear off the item description. However, the latent no longer functions once you've passed 300 points. The easiest way to check this is to peek at your elemental resists on the Equipment screen, and see if the elemental resist boosts from the Trials weapon is there or not.

Once the latent is off, you go back to the questgiver and give them their Trials weapon back, at which time you're given a key item and must go fight a NM. These can mostly be done with a solid XP party of 70-ish (4 people lv 72 knocked out the Blade: Ku WSNM with ease, it just takes skill and know-how to do it with that few). Having 2-3 parties makes them a breeze, so if you can get that many people together, I recommend it. It's total overkill, but that isn't a bad thing :p.

The WSNM for Dagger is really easy to get to, and fairly easy to kill. It's located downstairs in Gustav Tunnel. Remember where you might have XP'd in the middle-to-upper 50s off crabs and gobberlins? You take a right at the bottom of the ramp (not left, where Ungur, Amikiri, all the icky undead, high-level fishies, and wyverns are), follow past the usual camps until you see the undead there, and scoot into the first tunnel on your right.

You camp there in the middle of the tunnel.

At the other end of the tunnel is a small round room with a depressed circle in the center, on the "balcony" along the right wall from where you enter is the ??? to spawn the WSNM Baronial Bat (a 1-bat model). There are two options for spawning him. One is to clear the undead, which is certainly doable. The other is to sneak the popper, and have a SMN or SMN sub pull him with sneak on to avoid aggro in the room.

You need to be careful of yellow-HP aggro from the undead in the area (I'm pretty sure they aggro even 75s so you either need to keep your HP in the white, or be careful where you camp so you don't pull aggro from either side). Other than that, it's an easy fight. Once you kill him re-sneak the popper, have them check the ??? again, and then return to the questgiver, and Eviseration is yours.

I haven't fought Girtabulu (the Scorpion WSNM for Savage Blade), but he's both much more difficult to get to, and much more difficult to fight. What I can tell you is that he's in Quicksand Caves. You need to activate all 4 gemstone columns (Ruby Column, Emerald Column, Sapphire Column, and Amber(?) Column) to open the door to the area where the WSNM is. This is difficult to do, since the door only stays open for a limited time once you hit all 4 column switches. The door can be opened from the inside, so you just need to make sure you have someone standing right there to get through and then re-open it as needed.

The neatest trick I've ever seen was someone snuck a mule out there and tucked him behind the door, so that he could be logged onto and open it for any future WSNM fights there. Really nice (and sneaky) of him.

Girtabulu himself is more difficult than Baronial Bat. 1-model bats have junky WSs, they're not really a danger. Scorpions, on the other hand, are fun. I highly recommend a NIN tank, it's stupidly easy for even a PLD75 to get one-shotted by his Death Scissors WS. I can't be more specific than that, since I haven't fought him personally, but many of my LS mates have, and what I know about him comes from them. Girtabulu takes a lot more preparation, more people, and more time than Baronial Bat, but with a good NIN, he's not that difficult to kill.

[Gman]

Holy! Thanks for the detailed info. Sure gives me an idea of what to expect.

Luckily my LS is pretty solid. 2 lvl 72 NIN, and everyone else is 70-75... I'm sure I can find a group of people to help. Also, a few people need to work off their latents too, so I can just team up with them.

Robber crabs to work off latents is great idea. They would probably miss the ninjas 50% of the time, saving them Shihei (they have uber gear) so we could do the 100 WS fairly painlessly.

I will want to do the Savage Blade quest as well, but by then I will be used to what I have to do.

Thanks again!

[Jei]

thanks as well. very informative.

[GASGUL]

Gman,

in regards to puching through a corprate firewall,

go here
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
or
http://world.altavista.com/
use this
"Translate a web page:"
convert the page from either Korean/Chinese/japanese>English

ohh and gratz

[Jei]

For a web-base translator I found Excite to produced the most legible outcome so far.

sentence/word translator
http://excite.co.jp/world/

website translator
http://excite.co.jp/world/english/web/

[GASGUL]

yeah, the intention isnt to actually translate anything, but to bypass corporate content firewalls/proxy's,

it allows you to atleast view the text content of anysite that would normally be flagged as a non work related site and hence blocked,

[Gman]

LOL, thanks for the suggestion Gasgul, but my work blocks out translators too... the stingy bastards

The google one kept encountering an "error" and the Altavista came up with the corporate proxy msg.

They dont let us do anything entertaining here... at least I somehow have access to this site (even though its blocked too)... my bookmark must take me through a back door or something..


EDIT: Forgot to mention, I skilled up dagger to cap last night in Monastic Cavern. Got it from 208-228 in several hours. At first it was just me and a lvl 75 PLD from my LS who was skilling staff, but when he left I joined another group who was there skilling and I got crazy skillups. So when I level up (less than 4k tnl) I can finish skilling dagger and get the quest. I saw Eviceration in action last night (the brd in the skillup pt was using it) and I wasnt too impressed, but then again, a BRD was using it, lol.

[Aliria]

Congrats on that big victory... Altho I dont know yet what Maat is supposed to be . but I sure cant wait to find out..

[Irinicus]

Where can a 71 BLM skill up staff when his level is 203 currently? Either solo or with a group.