Just a couple of new year's updates:

• 1) I posted 2007s Sam's Video Game Awards. Read it to see what I thought was the best (and worst :-) video games of 2007. You may be surprised what I say about FFXI's latest expansion, Wings of the Goddess... Especially when you realize how much I'm actually enjoying it :-)
• 2) I officially closed ClanAM FFXI today. I said back in Sept 2007 that this was coming, but today I made it official.

Anyway... more updates coming. I've been playing a lot of FFXI during my vacation. I've really gotten addicted to Campaign Battles, and several of us have been wrapping up CoP (finally).

Started out camping Taisaijin again with Janoric. Within 20 minutes of the expected pop some asshole BST showed up and started charming the Taisais. What a waste...

I've been doing a lot of Campaign Battles lately. They are easily the coolest part of the Wings of the Goddess expansion thus far. However, I had to do a lot of experimentation to figure out how to do them just right. I had some bad deaths at the hand of nasty Orc mages in Batallia before I realized that I shouldn't fight there. It also took me a bit before I realized I shouldn't fight the leaders (like Vaa Oozo the Redolent and Muu Buxu the Elusive) without significant help. Even with help, it's very easy to wipe on a leader.

I eventually got the hang of Campaign Battles and now I do them quite a bit. At the time of this writing I've earned over 50k EXP/limit-points from Campaign Battles alone. I can earn an average of 4k per hour in them, with peaks as high as 6k. I know that doesn't sound like much compared to ToAU parties, but considering there's little downtime and no LFP it rocks.

Meanwhile, we've been exploring the WoTG areas. Trix, Xill and I headed to Sandy of the past and encountered Biddybugs which aggro. Who'da thunk a ladybug would aggro?

Soon, we decided it was high time to wrap up CoP. It's been, what? Nearly three years now since the expansion first was released? Since we were effectively two battles away from the end, we resolved ourselves to push through them.

So we headed out to the Garden of Ru'Hmet and up the elevator where we took on and fought the Ix’zdeis, which are nasty pots that attack all at once. Two of the four pots are BLMs and love to spam AoE spells so my NIN was next to useless. Instead, I came as a MNK and pounded them. We had to beat the battle three times to get everyone through it. Afterwards we headed back down the elevator to Empyreal Paradox where the final battle was.

Now, let me tell you something about the battle against Promathia...

In this battle, you have the aid of two NPCs from earlier cutscenes: Prishe (the extremely old woman who has the body of a child, and who pedophiles find hot) and Selh'teus (the emo kid who basically starts the CoP storyline). Prishe is a very capable MNK/WHM combination that has impressive curative abilities and can Hundred Fist. Emo boy has some semi-damaging moves but is relatively weak when it comes to defense, which means he can be killed by a stiff breeze. Due to his weak defense, moderate attacks, and general emo attitude, it's safe to think of him as a dark knight :-)

As for Promathia, he comes in two forms. Promathia's first form is kind of a pushover. You just run in and fight him as you would any other mob. His second form, on the other hand, is significantly more difficult. Everything he does is AoE, and some attacks (*cough* Meteor *cough*) are incredibly evil. Additionally, he alternates between magic and physical immunity throughout the battle.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, you can cure and raise Prishe (if she dies), but if emo boy goes down, all is lost.

Yes, that's right, the weakest link in the entire battle is ultimately the biggest determinative with regards to victory.

At the end of the day, there's lots of strategies for fighting Promathia. But the one that we were able to win multiple times with was where we let Prishe supertank the second form down to between 75-85% life, and then we alternatively fought/tank Promathia ourselves and kited him when he cast massive spells or during his invincible phases. It was difficult, and we lost easily half a dozen attempts before we finally won, but we did eventually win (and win twice, to get everyone past him).

After our victory against Promathia, we had to run around the various corners of the world to finish the mission. This included heading to Bibiki Bay as well as viewing the destroyed remnants of Tavnazia. But, finally, after nearly three years, we had CoP completed. Hurrah!

We then wrapped things up by going out and helping Xill defeat a Chaos Elemental NM for his Artifact Armor.