A chilly past - first look at northlands!
This will have a lot of screenshots, so I'll do the LJ cut thing to stop it messing up your browser and taking forever to load. I got to have a run around the new northlands [s] zones earlier, and took many SS while doing so!
You can enter the past northlands by the tunnel which connects the glacier to battalia downs, on the raised section. No special items or requirements were needed for this; there were no NPCs or anything baring my way. So, I assume the zones are open to people of all medal ranks and mission progression. There is a campaign battle NPC where the outpost would be in the present day, though no battles occured while I was there. Thanks to Maurac for letting me tag along with him!
Glacier [s] is initially filled with undead. They /checked as T to my 75 rdm; in fact, nothing in the whole zone checked weaker than EM, and that was a bst pet! Progressing further though, towards Xarcabard, more interesting enemies appeared, though there are always lots of Smilodon and Ahriman and Gigas, as might be expected.
These charming fellows have both flying and walking forms. I didn't see them swap between modes, but nor did I wait especially long; there were people fighting them though, and all the ones engaged in combat were on the ground, rather than flying. They can be enfeeb'd as normal, slept, gravity'd, and seemed to have no resistances to either magical or physical damage. I saw them use one TP move of note, an AoE Terror move - I think it was frontal conal.
There were loads of these near where the outpost is in present day glacier, around the small pond. They checked as VT, and yes, they are true-sight.
Members of NuDawn were kiting this new NM up and down one of the slopes - the one leading up to the outpost - and it seemed kinda simple for rdm/nins. Bind stuck OK (didn't see them use grav though), and nukes didn't land too badly at all. They said no items dropped, however. I wanted to get better SS, but failed ; ;
Note that near the zoneline to Xarca [s], there's lots of imps as well as Gargoyles, all checking T+. Viable merit camp? Doubt it, given that if mobs are gonna spam AoE terror, it could easily fuck you up. Also of note is that many gigas are scattered throughout the zone, some bsts with pets which checked EM to me, but I doubt any new blm camps will be found - they were too near other, aggroing mobs such as Ahriman or other gigas, or surrounded by mobs which would link with the pet (Smilodons). Admitedly, I didn't head towards Fei'Yin, so didn't explore too much.
Xarca [s] is just as nasty as you'd imagine. It starts off ok, but as you head towards the castle, it gets nasty. Really nasty. I've not seen anything like it since pre-nerf promy-vazhl floor 2 in terms of unavoidable aggro. Nothing checked weaker than VT to me, either. When I zoned in, a few mages were trying to low-man a Greater version of the NM I saw in glacier [s], though I didn't stick around to see how they fared, as it didn't look like it was going to plan.
These lovely things are blm type mobs, and I'm told they detect low HP, so I assume they're undead. But as the SS shows, they're not true sound or sight! Some wander the zone, but many congregate around the obsidian "mounds" which are littered throughout the zone.
Nothing special to say, just that the new red demons aren't NMs, nor are they true sight/sound, as I expected they might be.
I found these up the ramps. The presence of Lynx' surprised me. I didn't go near the Ugly range zoneline though, as my desire to go to the castle was too strong!
Nazgul! And just like UFOs in Sea, it will swoop down and attack people. The approach to the castle is insane, there are masses of demons and Taur mobs, plus the Nazgul NM pictured. I got maybe two-thirds of the way up before getting aggro, and then aggro'd another Taur while dealing with the first one. There was no safe place to log out, and certainly not enough room to safely kite, so we teleported out before further deaths occured (I didn't die, but Maur had before I got there).
Notice what's missing? I didn't find any Walrus mobs! Q_Q I'll go back tomorrow and hunt them down. I'll remember to bring a bucket with me, to try and lure them out :D
Other notable ffxi stuff:
th4 for Dooom! Also got sch hat on an uncontested free-lot. I love the potential of that job, and am very interested in it. I'm very close to believing that sch has almost made blm obsolete for many things; see kanican for the blm/sch comparisons which have made me think so highly of sch, and made me think that blm is in a lot of trouble.
almost there :3
Oh, and I made a ffxiwiki account, because the mnk maat page was exactly FUCK ALL help, and I wanted to try and correct some very bad advice on there.
Also, final credit to Wolf, for making me laugh on a day where I almost snapped and dropped my FusionRR pearl, such was my general foul mood and annoyance at everyone.
You can enter the past northlands by the tunnel which connects the glacier to battalia downs, on the raised section. No special items or requirements were needed for this; there were no NPCs or anything baring my way. So, I assume the zones are open to people of all medal ranks and mission progression. There is a campaign battle NPC where the outpost would be in the present day, though no battles occured while I was there. Thanks to Maurac for letting me tag along with him!
Glacier [s] is initially filled with undead. They /checked as T to my 75 rdm; in fact, nothing in the whole zone checked weaker than EM, and that was a bst pet! Progressing further though, towards Xarcabard, more interesting enemies appeared, though there are always lots of Smilodon and Ahriman and Gigas, as might be expected.
These charming fellows have both flying and walking forms. I didn't see them swap between modes, but nor did I wait especially long; there were people fighting them though, and all the ones engaged in combat were on the ground, rather than flying. They can be enfeeb'd as normal, slept, gravity'd, and seemed to have no resistances to either magical or physical damage. I saw them use one TP move of note, an AoE Terror move - I think it was frontal conal.
There were loads of these near where the outpost is in present day glacier, around the small pond. They checked as VT, and yes, they are true-sight.
Members of NuDawn were kiting this new NM up and down one of the slopes - the one leading up to the outpost - and it seemed kinda simple for rdm/nins. Bind stuck OK (didn't see them use grav though), and nukes didn't land too badly at all. They said no items dropped, however. I wanted to get better SS, but failed ; ;
Note that near the zoneline to Xarca [s], there's lots of imps as well as Gargoyles, all checking T+. Viable merit camp? Doubt it, given that if mobs are gonna spam AoE terror, it could easily fuck you up. Also of note is that many gigas are scattered throughout the zone, some bsts with pets which checked EM to me, but I doubt any new blm camps will be found - they were too near other, aggroing mobs such as Ahriman or other gigas, or surrounded by mobs which would link with the pet (Smilodons). Admitedly, I didn't head towards Fei'Yin, so didn't explore too much.
Xarca [s] is just as nasty as you'd imagine. It starts off ok, but as you head towards the castle, it gets nasty. Really nasty. I've not seen anything like it since pre-nerf promy-vazhl floor 2 in terms of unavoidable aggro. Nothing checked weaker than VT to me, either. When I zoned in, a few mages were trying to low-man a Greater version of the NM I saw in glacier [s], though I didn't stick around to see how they fared, as it didn't look like it was going to plan.
These lovely things are blm type mobs, and I'm told they detect low HP, so I assume they're undead. But as the SS shows, they're not true sound or sight! Some wander the zone, but many congregate around the obsidian "mounds" which are littered throughout the zone.
Nothing special to say, just that the new red demons aren't NMs, nor are they true sight/sound, as I expected they might be.
I found these up the ramps. The presence of Lynx' surprised me. I didn't go near the Ugly range zoneline though, as my desire to go to the castle was too strong!
Nazgul! And just like UFOs in Sea, it will swoop down and attack people. The approach to the castle is insane, there are masses of demons and Taur mobs, plus the Nazgul NM pictured. I got maybe two-thirds of the way up before getting aggro, and then aggro'd another Taur while dealing with the first one. There was no safe place to log out, and certainly not enough room to safely kite, so we teleported out before further deaths occured (I didn't die, but Maur had before I got there).
Notice what's missing? I didn't find any Walrus mobs! Q_Q I'll go back tomorrow and hunt them down. I'll remember to bring a bucket with me, to try and lure them out :D
Other notable ffxi stuff:
th4 for Dooom! Also got sch hat on an uncontested free-lot. I love the potential of that job, and am very interested in it. I'm very close to believing that sch has almost made blm obsolete for many things; see kanican for the blm/sch comparisons which have made me think so highly of sch, and made me think that blm is in a lot of trouble.
almost there :3
Oh, and I made a ffxiwiki account, because the mnk maat page was exactly FUCK ALL help, and I wanted to try and correct some very bad advice on there.
Also, final credit to Wolf, for making me laugh on a day where I almost snapped and dropped my FusionRR pearl, such was my general foul mood and annoyance at everyone.