:A Malboro By Any Other Name Would Smell As Bad:
After previously dealing with the pain of Lebros's Brittle Rocks, Periqua's Army of Crabs and Toads, and Ilrusi's Fun loving Lamia #13, it was a bit of a challenge to enjoy getting beaten on by lizards day in and day out.
Mamool Staging Point Imperial Agent Rescue has to be the worst of the assaults that I have had the priveledge of participating in thus far. Granted we have done actually very few of the 20 missions that we are able to attempt as a Lance Corporal. But its safe to say that this is probably the worst of the bunch. I know there are several others that you basically have to use the logout method to win. The PSP Mamool mission however, can only be completed easy if you cheat.... err hack. Which we didn't do. Thus it took us a few more times than we would have liked to get it done.
We did this mission probably 30-35 times in order to get our 20k AP. We went as NIN, RDM, BRD, BLM; NIN RDM WHM; NIN RDM BLM MNK BRD; but it wasn't until we decided to say the hell with the NIN altogether that we were successful most of the time. Granted, I do believe that somewhere down the line in one of the updates, they ninja nerfed the mission to make it a bit easier. Our final setup was MNK/WAR, SAM/WAR, RDM/WHM, BRD/WHM. We modified this every now and then when we could bring along other friends as well. With the update the Mission was lowered from 1k points with a team of 4 to 990. However, with 5 it was brought from 750 to 880pts. Which made it much nicer and infinitely easier to win. Basic strategy was to have OJ (our Monk) put on every piece of Defense gear he owned including the Suzaku's Sune-ate and their +50 fire resistance (which makes a hell of a lot of difference.) He would tank with defender up and just feed the lizard's TP and we'd pray. Our samurai just served to give a tad bit of TP to the mobs while being our "Quick Kill" person when the lame lizards would miss the gate with their staves or axes. In the end we won most, lost a few due to simply bad luck.
The three of us mages picked up a piece of gear that does in fact rival Zenith Mitts in terms of damage on normal mobs. Orangejake's extensive testing while soloing/duoing/trioing over the past few days have shown a mere 2-4DMG difference in using Yigit Gages vs Zenith Mitts. For a taru Black Mage, I will just say that giving up 2-4 DMG for a bit more HP and a bit less on the resist scale is a very nice trade off. For my Red Mage, they are the ultimate. Yes I know that I could get 1 more MND or 1 more INT with the HQ Devotee's or Mahatma gloves. Yet, someone tell me why a person with 4 jobs and a limited cash flow and inventory would even consider not using these? I do enjoy hitting Blizzard III for almost 700 damage on pudding with fairly decent consistancy. Our Samurai picked up the Amir Boots. Perhaps the only really good piece of Amir armor for any job. Adaman Sollerrets be damned!
After spending a couple of days camping the Almightly Apakullu during my free time. (Read, riding the boat while I worked for hours on end.) I never did see him, but lucky for me I didn't really have to. Since the Jet Seraweels that I was told that lame penquin dropped (he really drops Sanguin Sword) actually drop from Jaded Jody. Let me just say this about Jody. She is a real pain. Oh and on Ramuh, she is camped quite a bit these days. We managed to get her the first time we headed out there. We had no clue what to expect and thought a Nin and a Whm could duo easily. Well, we were right, we could have duo'd her, if we had thought ahead a little. We did kill her that day, but were unlucky and got a typical COP NM drops.... ie nothing, not even an earth crystal. We went back several times after that first time. We watched a well respected HNMls get completely owned by her with her Regen and Bad Breath. We got her down to a science with 3 and our samurai friend came a few times as /thf to help with TH and made it a bit easier with some tricked ws. The trick to her is simple, eliminate her high regen during the day, and keep shadows up as much as possible. She does in fact double attack a decent amount and swings fairly fast without slow or elegy. Yet, having Slow II and Elegy on her makes her a bit easier. In fact, with Blind/Slow2/Elegy on and an evasion build she is a puppy dog. Without at least Slow or Elegy and with her Regen going, its not gonna be fun though. Plus, if you get hit with Vampiric Root/Lash she absorbs ALL your buffs save for your food. A Hasted, Protect IV'd, Mamboed, Marched, Jody, is not a fun NM to be dealing with either mind you. On the subject of food though . . .
No sushi here... She isn't that evasive. I did miss a few times, but with Snipers and SH my accuracy was still in the high 80's without sushi.
Oh and finally after doing NW Apollyon twice a week for a couple of months now, we finally picked up a Magenta Chip. We had started to kill the wyrm a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I was fairly scared that the BLM Nerf was going to effect out success at killing him. Yet, the advent of AMII negates all that entirely. We have had a little more issues with him because of his seemingly increasing resistance to Gravity. He still goes down in under 15 minutes with 3 BLM nuking him and under 20 with 2. We were more excited about finally defeating KB though. I know alot of other BLM duo/trio+'s have killed him, but for some reason we just never had the time to do so. I wasn't able to get a decent screenshot as he fell to the ground on the opposite side of the crater from me. Yet, we did it with a few death's and only one Meteor landed (on me none the less and I survived too.) I wish we had the time and firepower to defeat the turtle as well. I just don't see us being able to touch him. The final chest gave us not 1, not 2, but 3 pieces of AF material. Unfortunately, of the choices, it dropped 2 that we already have and need the Temenos pieces (Which I really don't know when we will go back there to try and get it.) Yet, it did garner me my Cardinal Cloth to upgrade my Red Mage AF. I guess I am going to upgrade the hat. The likelyhood of me getting a better head piece than the AF+1 hat is almost nil. I do see myself having some issues though. I will have to keep alot of space free so I can get AF out for the tabard though. Granted I don't need tabard except on Fafnir in Limbus atm. It may even be more space efficient to upgrade the tabard instead of the hat, but I am really unsure. Any opinions? I mean I have Dalmy and Yigit and Errant that I use regularly.
I truly do love the outfit. Its wonderful that SE realized their ignorance in making the Yigit set. Its too bad that the Jet wouldn't complete the refresh effect though. Well, there are alot of dissapointing things about the Set armor, but I do enjoy the looks of all three of them. I know alot of people don't care for the Yigit body, but I do think its nice.