Started out by heading out with Unst to a place where BLMs can solo some VT-IT mobs for EXP. I mainly wanted to get some free EXP and see this happen. Unfortunately, killing the mobs was harder than Unst had expected, and he died... hardcore.... Twice... Once on the way there even...

Afterwards I decided to try a Besieged since the last update introduced some new NMs there. It wasn't long before I met Gurfurlur the Menacing, new Troll HNM. This sucker was a mean, nasty son of a bitch. We fought him all night, and into the next day. Sucker had an amazing amount of HP and easily took 100-200 melees around 2 hours to kill. Most magic wound up healing him, and the melees did between 1 and 20 points of damage, so the battle was long and slow. But we still managed to beat him and protect the Astral Candescence.

I then headed out to yet another kack ass party in the woodlands around Al Zahbi. On my way there, I encountered someone killing Zoraal Ja's Pkuucha, yet another new NM introduced in the last patch. The party itself was rocking, and I managed to gain 2 levels as a NIN.

When this party ended, I heading to Mea do to my NPC Promy quest. Then I was off to camp Kirata an NM in Beadicine that drops some knuckles I want. I successfully camped and killed him four times before some chump came in and aggressively competed with me for the kill. By this time some friends were gathering together for a Dark Spark fight in nearby Xarcabard, and I was in no mood to compete with this punk, so I left.

On my way to the Castle for the Dark Spark fight, I met a Shadow Dragon. He then popped his HNM buddy, but I didn't have any friends to help me kill so we left him unclaimed. Dark Spark is a joke for a 75MNK, and we dispatched him rather quickly.

One final thing we had to do for our CoP 5-3 Louverance's Path mission was obtain a key from Moblins and Goblins deep inside Newton Movalpolis. So I headed out with DL, Cyc, and our NPCs to farm the keys. Liabelle dinged 58 (finally), and everyone got keys.

I then went and had a party as a NIN in Bibikiy Bay. I must say, I enjoyed Bibiki Bay much more when I first came through as a MNK. Bibiki Bay is full of nasty Gobs that are nearly impossible to tank without some VERY good support (stunners, enfeeblers who watch when mine don't stick, etc), and support was the one thing I was lacking. I had a BLM who over nuked and pulled hate during SATA, a WHM that didn't keep me hasted and waited until I was less than 40% and being "Goblin Rushed" before curing me, and a THF that would take off time between battles to load his dishwasher. In 3 hours we gained less than 4k EXP, and it sucked ass. Gah! If I never go back to Bibiki Bay again it'll be too soon!

Wrapped up by having my first Choco ride in the new areas, and went with Cyc, Avax, and Unst to go manaburn some mobs in Aydeewa Subterrane. There I did actually level up, and in a fraction of the time of my previous party.

Started out by being a part of the first ever Medusa spawn on Phoenix. Wound up being charmed and one-hit killing a few mages. That felt kind of good :-)

Afterwards, I continued my CoP storyline by visiting a certain Manor in San d'Oria. Unfortunately, our static wasn't ready to continue with the next CoP mission, so we went and did some Assaults instead.

I then got on a Ninja AF kick, and decided it was high time to wrap up my AF quests. So I started by farming my Ifrit and Kuftal Coffer Keys with my NPC (amazed that I was able to solo farm so efficiently now) and then headed out to Xarcabard to fight Dark Spark. Enroute I, shocklingly, got aggro from a Demon Pawn. Granted... I did rest near him.

Dark Spark himself, was a pushover. I knew he would be, it's just that, considering the grief he causes you the first time you encounter him, it's very nice to proclaim how easy he is the next time. So I killed Dark Spark, solo, and got my NIN AF gloves.

My final NIN AF item was the body armor. This involved killing some NMs in Yhoator Jungle.

Now, these NMs are rough. Three Sahagins, all easily around level 70, with the jobs MNK, WHM and BRD. Nasty, nasty shit.

Anyway, there used to be a trick where you could spawn the three... zone them... and let a SMN pull one aside while the others despawn. With three reduced to one, you could easily duo the last one. So I headed out with Avatarx and his big friends to do just that. 75MNK, 75SMN, easy as pie, right?

Wrong.

Since the MPK patch a while back, these sorts of tactics for NM battles no longer work. As a result, they didn't despawn, and we had to fight all three. Ouch. We still managed to win, but it took around an hour and a half, and it was some of the most hectic and crazy shit I've ever done. So crazy in fact that I only snapped one picture the hole time... this one of Kappa Akuso, the nasty MNK.

How we ultimately did it was I would continously zone and rezone the two that Avatarx wasn't fighting. Basically, I'd keep the unclaimed ones occupied while Avatarx's summons slowly killed off the other. Eventually, he managed to kill the WHM, but had to rest a bit, during which time I kept zoning them. I actually got down to less than 100 HP (from 1800HP) more than once while zoning the MNK and the BRD.

After the WHM, Avatarx took the BRD and killed him. This left the MNK which we duoed. Even with the two of us, the MNK was horrible. He used his two hour which destroyed two summons and nearly killed me.

Once we killed my NMs, we headed to Fei'Yin for Avatarx's final RDM AF item. There we spawned and fought Miser Murphy. We actually fought him twice since Xilldon also needed it. We then wrapped up the RDM AF quest by killing a Guardian Statue in Garliage, fighting twice for Xill and Avax.

I then went to Rabao to complete my NIN AF, and stood there as a Paragon of Ninja Excellence. You know, I must say, full NIN AF is pretty bad-ass looking, especially compared to how goofy most AF looks.

Later, I went out with Cyc and Trix to do my weekly EXP page static I've started. While there, we farmed some feathers from Hippogryphs for Trix's mission out there.

Rounded out the experience by earning more merit points as a MNK and being a part of the first ever Besieged loss on Phoenix. Yay!