Slowing down.

I have nothing quite as epic to post this time around (really, how can you get much more epic than Omega/Ultima anyway on a regular basis), but it has still been a productive month.

I have been lvling SCH (slowly) and am sitting at 67 at the moment. While in Xarcabard doing some Fields of Valor with Thayos, I got a strange cutscene with Prof. Schultz in it, inviting me to bring him a testimony to finally prove my worth to him. Once I get 70+, I will farm one of them and fight him, just for completion's sake. It will not get me anything special, it does not even count towards a Maat's Cap, but I pursue story more than gear, so I will need to finish this final fight to prove to myself that I am a scholar worth my AF.

I have also been running through a few new assaults. I am happy to try out a few new ones, getting my static past the first two tiers that I feel I have spammed far too many times. We tried our first Superior Private missions today. Our first run went really well considering it was just two DDs and two WHMs. We got down to the last three trolls in Lebros Cavern. We went back to Whitegate and shouted for two more to join, and completed it with around eight minutes remaining. Piece of cake.

Even more noteworthy, I finally achieved a full 2o,ooo points in Leujaoam Sanctum. I picked up my Yigit Seraweels just a few days ago. Of course I was happy (I salivate over anything that contains MP+ while healing), so I took a shot of myself right outside the Imperial Palace wearing them. They look odd after getting so used to the Noble's/Blessed combo I am usually in, but I still love the look of them. And the hMP! =D

We also did the impossible (or at least improbable) a second time this week. Imperium stepped up one more time to face Omega and Ultima in the skies above Sealion's Den and Lufaise Meadows. Once again, we triumphed over them, though this time was a lot closer than the previous run. We began wiping so very close to the end of the battle. At the very end, everyone had died and was reraised except myself and one melee, when Ultima turned its attention towards me. I targetted it, saw it had only 01% life left, and began a desperate cast. I never finished. Ultima hit me the moment Verrick came to his feet and chainspelled it. Verrick's nuke landed the moment Ultima's hit did, so we died together. The funny thing was, I never feel to my feet. My HP was 0, my bar was depleted, yet I stayed on my feet for that short lag time between killing the boss and when the cutscene begins. Comedy.

I did another Dynamis run with TeamSuicide. This one went a lot better. I was able to follow people easier and it was less an all out zerg then the past one. I managed to snag a Cleric's Cap on my second run. Plus getting the win is good as well. Perhaps Dynamis is not as bad as I thought (I was also not the only WHM this time around either). After only two Dyna runs and an Einherjar, I can say I like the LS. They are not what I expected an endgame shell to be at all.

Recent Events

Perhaps I have been in Vana'diel too much, or maybe I was just more efficient, but it seems as if I have completed a lot more this month than I have in awhile. I would like to lean toward the latter for ego purposes.

On the CoP front, Imperium blew through both Sacrarium and Promyvion-Vahzl with ease. The only problems for the night stemmed from me looking at maps and autorunning into tauruses' (is that plural for taurus? They almost seem like moose, with the plural and singular meaning the same...). I find it humorous that the Sacrarium, a holy chapel, uses the same textures as Phomiuna Aqueducts. So much for a library of learning, I cannot stop thinking of it as a sewer now. The fight against the ghosts in a library full of fomors was fun and chaotic though.

Just a short week later, we climbed to find the heart of the emptyness, Promyvion-Vahzl. We faced down the three NM monsters we had beaten seperately, now joined together in one fight. I have always loved treking through the strange realms or Promyvion, but I believe several others were quite glad we were free of the final one.



Also, pink is the new awesome:



I got a random invite into a party looking to do Windurst 9-2 mission, the fight in Full Moon Fountain. I was quite excited and went into it expecting an epic conflict, but was surprised at how easy and smoothly the fight went. I have heard horror stories about the NPC getting himself aggrod and killed quickly, but we finished off both bosses with him at 100% health. Gogo galka PLD Ishkur!



In yet ANOTHER mission related win, I teamed up with Makina and Zephiris to complete the current end of the Wings of the Godess missions. It involved a dragon fight in La Vaule [S] that was quite tricky the first time, but easy the second time around. It was fitting that the moment the dragon began using its breath attacks on us, rain started pouring from the sky. The somber sky seemed to match the setting and destruction the demon squads had brought out that fight. We got a first peek at Atmos, and some more twists and surprises in the resulting cutscenes.




I had my first chance to attend a Dynamis run, with TeamSuicide, and was the only WHM in the alliance. I was not terribly impressed with the whole experience. It seemed very laggy, and a lot of time was spent standing around tossing a cure or two while everyone else got to do all the fighting. Seemed more like run-around-and-kill-everything event than a planned advance. Still, it was nice to see my first Dyna area, even if it was Bastok. Nothing really dropped our run either, though. I snapped a quick picture of the sole time I grabbed aggro for a moment, just a little before the Mega Boss came out.



I finally got my SCH to lvl 60, and wanted to complete the final AF for it (in this case, the hat). There is a sense of accomplishment for me, everytime I get a piece of AF. It is an affirmation of the class you are playing. It is something you need to earn, not just buy on the AH. The fight for the SCH flathat was ridiculously easy by final AF piece standards, so we went in a liiiiittle bit overpowered. I never even got a chance to screencap anything before the boss exploded. This series of CSes showed me beyond a doubt, that scholars are a strange bunch.



The final little bit is just a random moment captured in LSchat that made me laugh and was worthy of quoting, so here is something that is NOT about how much I accomplished this month.