Facing the past.

After a long break, I had to steel up and face the music having gone AWOL for over a month. The Federation's army isn't too forgiving.


It was interesting to see that I was asked to confirm my 'decision' to hand over my medal twice, despite not being given any other option.
So, I went on a campaign binge to make up for it, even though my next evaluation would not be for another five days.

Battles seemed significantly difficult since the last update, partly becuase Allied NPCs are much weaker now, with the Beastmen and co. NPCs being the same as before. Normal mobs were hitting harder than I remember as well, but that could be down to the fact I was /drk instead of my usual /pld and lacking any defense food. I also encountered a new NPC I'd not seen before;


See just ran around (after I had already been weakened by a wave of her normal lackeys) and demolished every allied NPC present in seconds by spamming Staff weaponskills. It was bordering on comically tragic. As the only player in the zone, I just left and went elsewhere.

I had 7 Op credits to get through, so I did a few supply/sabotage ones for variety instead of the usual 'Defend/Attack some place' Ops that I spam.


Being engulfed in a horrible explosion; just another day's nuiscance for the modern-day adventurer. Yes, Windurst has lost control of Sarutabaruta to the Yagudo. They even attacked the city itself not long ago, which is a HUGE pain when you're trying to begin/finish Ops.

It seems Square-Enix's imagination burnt out after ToAU, since the higher tiers of Campaign Ops are identical to the lower ones, just with -slightly- longer delays before completing the objectives. A pity, but I guess I shouldn't judge everything with the same standard as Assault missions.

Other things that have happened recently;

Gear!

Was quested, and then mailed over to my MNK again (before SE realises it's glitched) to save me having to get a Tiphia Sting (which was around 150~200k if I recall correctly).
I hoped the quest would be a little more exciting since the guy mentions how awesome he is at cannoning things when you flag the quest, but not a single beast was cannoned in the cutscenes, nor was a single cannon fired. Very disappointed.

Speaking of WoTG quests, I started Bastok's branch of story quests and just got to a part requiring me to get hold of a Gnole claw. If my previous experiences fighting Gnoles were anything to go by (I ended up calling it a draw and running away from a Decent Challenge one because I couldn't make the damn thing die, getting it to 1% and seeing it spam heal back to 60%+ was disheartening to say the least), I'll be buying the claw from the Auction House (I hear the drop is pretty rare too).

I'm going to do Sandy last, I don't really like them much. I did the first few to obtain the gems required for the Gobbiebag quests, but they seem too light-hearted and not befiting the nation's character at all. Plus doing all that running around for for baby Excenmille (Was it? I forget) makes me feel like I'm in the SOB (warning: old reference XD) all over again.

Uhm... I appear to have deviated slightly, as we were;

Grief!

Dynamis-Windurst was rather messy...drops were PLD, RNG, THF, RNG...brd?....err, I forgot most of it. Still made the boss though.

Gustaberg!


I just thought it was a nice picture...

Gargantuan fiends!


Nobody was about to kill the Sandworm I found hanging around the outpost in Batallia Downs, although it doesn't appear to have any drops at all, it does give a title for killing it and I do like titles. I didn't fancy a go at him solo, so I gave him a wide berth and went on my way.

...and BLU.

21 now, was still soloing. Birds in Buburimu are now mostly DC to me, so no more exp chains there. I'll have to find another camp to solo in while waiting for invites.