Eald'narche Goes Down

Igby's got some company. Ahem.



We had a PLD, a NIN, a BLM, a SMN, a SAM, and then there was myself, a WHM. No one was /NIN, though the SMN provided us with Garuda's Aerial Armor and Titan's Stoneskin-like ability at the start of the fight. We finished in 13 minutes and 6 seconds on January 29, sometime after 9pm Eastern, after four or five failed attempts (they did two without me, so it'd be closer to six or seven, if you count strategy runs, lol).

The strategy that finally worked (it was Rikarii's idea, BTW) was for me and the NIN to keep the detector-type mobs (referred to heretowith as "the balls") busy while the PLD main-healed herself and the SAM. The BLM and SMN did damage to the Exoplates then ran away to avoid the big damage moves. I think there was some Stunning whenever possible involved, too... I'm not sure because the NIN and I were all the way on the other side of the battlefield.

I can't say enough that parties must take advantage of the large battlefield when fighting the kid! It helped immensely for us not to just be pounding away at the kid and the balls in about the same area, lol. It was chaos before and the mages were often caught in the big damage moves despite efforts to keep the kid away from the mages.

We made it work to our advantage that the balls seem particularly attracted to mages: I stood the farthest away and the balls would occasionally come over to me; at that point, the NIN would Provoke whatever ball came over to me and I'd recast Blink/Stoneskin as needed. It also worked to our advantage that this strategy left me with a lot of MP for the next half, although I did occasionally go over to heal the SAM or PLD if his or her HP was particularly low. For the most part, however, our Mithra PLD was able to main heal them as needed.

Oh, and the SMN threw a Cure III on me when my HP got into the yellow-almost-orange, too. I probably could've done it myself, but it didn't occur to me, as it's been drilled into me through countless experience points parties that one shouldn't heal oneself, lest one engender even more hate than one already has. XD

Anyway, the first time we tried the strategy, we thought we were going to win, and we got really close, so some of us, including me, 2-houred. We were going to try it again in two hours but we figured, "Meh, might as well give it another try; the strategy is sound and the NIN hasn't 2-houred." XD Anyway, that's what worked for us. Awesomely. Funny part is, I didn't even have to use the new Erase and Stona (for the second form) macros I'd made!

Ah well. The important thing is that we won! We won! Now, about that Divine Might... XD

The List Of Awesome:
Littlebit - Our awesome Galka NIN who proved for me that NIN can tank at high lvls
Rikarii - The Mithra PLD who could main heal AND tank!
Quizard - The male Tarutaru of crazy-high SMN damage and back-up healer
Desudro - Master male Hume BLM of very high damage levels and reader of the Wiki (lol)
Laurient - The male Elvaan SAM of much damage
Althaia - The Mithra WHM: Haster, status ailment-remover, and Healer who kept a few HP bars up at key moments. XD Honestly, compared to the rest of these people, I don't feel that awesome, but I guess that's the curse of the WHM (a.k.a. "She who does little damage" lol).

Defeating Maat for the First Time

Alth Aaiaa, Level 70 White Mage and Maat Champion.

So I'm 1/1 on my very first Maat fight and thank goodness, too, because you know I've got a fragile ego, lol, and I might not have handled defeat in a very lady-like way. ;)

Clear time: 6 min, 37 sec. I broke the clear time record for Shattering Stars (WHM)! And you know what that means, right? I'm the most daring and swift WHM to fight Maat since.......... the records were reset... and they do that every Sunday, right? Lol. But I don't care, breaking a record is still breaking a record in my book. Which is to say, it's still awesome sauce.

He resisted Repose twice (because I didn't bother to cap my Divine Magic skill... which was 208 without equips and 230 with), but I was able to keep him from killing me. Lucky for me, he's an old man and runs like one! With all the running I had him doing, he couldn't cast spells like Banishga II at me. ;) Repose stuck three times and he was mid-nap when I was running back towards the start area and everything sudddenly stopped. I thought maybe I'd ran too far away or something but, thankfully, it all stopped because I'd won. Wow. :D

I didn't even have to use any of the medicine I'd brought or the Tav. Taco I bought (okay, so I forgot to, sue me, lol), nor Benediction (I feel a little cheap as a White Mage for not using it during my Maat fight, lol, but it was over before I knew it!). I did equip a Phalanx Ring that I won from something, though, a Divine Torque I bought, and a Noble's Tunic I borrowed. :) I'm ever-grateful for Repose because, if I hadn't had it, I would've had to learn how to tank. Eww.

As it were, the only skills I needed were healing, resting, relieving status ailments, running away, and not panicking -- well, not TOTALLY panicking -- as I was getting beat on down to half my life. All things that White Mages are very good at, if I do say so myself, haha.

This has been a long time coming. Maat asked me to recall when I first became an adventurer and I remembered back to being a little lvl 1 White Mage, scurrying around Windurst and cracking wise with my best friend (at the time) Ellsie the Tarutaru Warrior (well, as I recall, she was a warrior, and a fierce little one at that). I called her Ellsie-Wellsie or Elly and she's primarily the reason I can't call Eleadora "Elly." She retired to a fishing boat.

But I'm going off on a tangent here. See, I started playing in December of 2003 (or that's what I thought until I looked at my billing information... turns out it was early January of 2004, lol, and I must've gotten FFXI for Christmas). In any case, NA PC release, which was the first release outside of Japan, was October 2003. So, the point is, I was a newb when everyone was a newb.

And it was grand. Sure, we sent the economy into a tailspin (same as when the PS2ers came, the European players, the XBoxers, etc...), but we always had plenty of people for EXP groups.

And group we did. We grouped in Tahrongi Canyon, in Bubumuri Peninsula, in Valkurm, and skipped on over to Jugner Forest. After we were all of sufficient level (18-20), my EXP group and I made the arduous journey to Jeuno through Batallia Downs. I had no idea what they were talking about, what this Jeuno was, or what laid ahead for me in my future.

Looking back, I can see that coming to Jeuno was the end of an age... an age of innocence. But it was an amazing journey to get there.

And I've experienced many amazing things since in Vana'diel. I'm sure I'll look back on defeating Maat as yet another milestone as I prepare for the world of Endgame.

Thanks to:
1. Deathfog for coming with me to skill-up in The Boyahda Tree right before the fight and for lending me that Noble's Tunic for the fight. :) Deathfog also utterly destroyed his Maat right after mine, so congratulations to him.
2. Korlic for coming with me to get my White Mage Testimony in Gustav Tunnel last month.
3. Braxus for believing in me, offering to be my male cheerleader, offering to give me a ton of stuff to help me and also help me in any way he could.
4. Evvy for giving me that tip about watching Maat WHM fights on YouTube. I decided to fight him on Lightsday because of it.
5. All my LSmates, all my friends, and everyone who ever helped me get EXP for my white mage job, lol. Guess that would include my "Hume Helper" Jesimae. ;)