Assault Static News

[Nerces]

This is just for The Little Assault Static That Could (Areya, Ariamo, Dragonmstknight, Ikethegreat, Nerces, Zerila). I was asked to make a list of the things we discussed last week so that the members could keep track of everything. Frequent visitors of the site from those listed should encourage the others to read this as soon as possible. So here it is:

1) KSNM runs

More specifically, we'll be doing runs of Royal Ramble. The Orichalcum Ingot which is apparently a 100% drop is one of the items for the new pair of Gobbiebag quests. And at the same time, Coffinmaker has been on Dragonmstknight's list for a while and Areya has shown interest in Gondo-Shizunori. Because we'll be doing at least 6 runs ideally the KSNM runs are going to be held Tuesday nights (in general) because of the fewer Assault runs.

2) A Crystalline Prophecy

Everything up to the mission Those Who Lurk in Shadows (II) can and should be soloed. The next mission, Those Who Lurk in Shadows (III) is a battlefield mission and is obviously going to be our first as a group. I said this last week but please please please do the mission to get the Mark of Seed (which would be Those Who Lurk in Shadows (II)) before Thursday night. I'd much rather have only one thing to worry about and go straight to Qu'Bia Arena once we get to Fei'Yin rather than run around looking for the Seed Afterglows. Let's aim to do this battlefield on Thursday (4/23).

Note: Because of the nature of the rewards for doing the fights and battlefields of this expansion you might want to consider helping others if you are able, not only to provide advice to the group when the time comes but also to increase your chances of getting a piece of equipment with worthwhile augments.

3) Wings of the Goddess Quests

We came to the consensus last week that we would be doing the San d'Oria line of quests as a group in order to keep up with the mission progression requirements. I want to pick up on the quest In a Haze of Glory, which is a battlefield quest in Garlaige Citadel (S). Please be either right before this quest (having completed Perils of the Griffon) or on the actual quest itself (having received a Number Eight Shelter Key key item). We'll continue on to the rest of the quests which were added in the most recent update. We can work on these either Tuesdays or Thursdays depending on how the 2 previous items on our list go.

Note: Most of us are still interested in going through the Bastok and Windurst line of quests as well. We already did Fire in the Hole last week. I want to finish up the Bastok quests with Honor Under Fire before we shift over to A Feast for Gnats and pick up the Windurst quests.

I will update this topic periodically as necessary.

[Zerila]

I'm ready to go for ACP. I also completed Perils of the Griffon, though I didn't head to Garliage afterward.
The only thing I'm concerned with is how late this will run us, doing all of this in addition to Assaults. If it gets to be too late, I might have to give up on one or the other (don't WANT to, but I need my sleep. Also, I get yelled at for coming to bed too late...  )

I know we have a long way to go in Nyzul, still. But maybe we could convert Thursdays to half-farming, half Nyzul (Farming for those of us doing Salvage, say 2 farming, 3 Nyzul) and then do the rest on Tuesdays? Though, Aria has Limbus on Tuesdays til fairly late...

Maybe we could skip our farming run on Tuesday for a bit, just do 2 farming/3 Nyzul on Thursdays, until we get all the stuff we need out of KSNMs, and then do missions on Tuesdays.

Once we get done with all the missions, we can go back to our regularly scheduled Assault stuff. Though, I will be brutally honest, it's starting to wear on me 

Switching things up is very welcome, and has been a long time coming.

[Nerces]

You silly (Beastmaster) (master). Giving me less than 24 hours' notice isn't going to help me accommodate you, y'know. That's why I asked several times on Thursday if anyone had any concerns/suggestions/etc . And what would you have done if I never posted this? Anyway, since you love the forums so much I'll be more than happy to address your concerns here. It's nice to have a larger text limit for someone wordy like me!

The only thing I'm concerned with is how late this will run us, doing all of this in addition to Assaults. If it gets to be too late, I might have to give up on one or the other (don't WANT to, but I need my sleep. Also, I get yelled at for coming to bed too late...  )

As always, if you can't stay after the usual runs just say so and we can call it an early night. I don't believe anyone's ever been forced or said that they've felt forced to stay later than they wanted to, and we are not about to change. As a last resort, we can always arrange to do the non-Assault events another day and time. But I would rather keep the number of days when I make your lives miserable to a minimum. On the other hand, I don't want to cram 3-4 things into one night and go until 2am Eastern or anything like that.

I know we have a long way to go in Nyzul, still. But maybe we could convert Thursdays to half-farming, half Nyzul (Farming for those of us doing Salvage, say 2 farming, 3 Nyzul) and then do the rest on Tuesdays? Though, Aria has Limbus on Tuesdays til fairly late...

Maybe we could skip our farming run on Tuesday for a bit, just do 2 farming/3 Nyzul on Thursdays, until we get all the stuff we need out of KSNMs, and then do missions on Tuesdays.

If Assault Points for Salvage are a major concern, there are much simpler solutions to that. For example, some assaults like Golden Salvage and Counting Sheep can be 3-manned for 1000+ points per run without tags. We really shouldn't complicate something so simple that has worked so well for us. Switching the days we do Assaults and Nyzul because of planned absence is one thing, but that's about as much as I want to mix things up. If we have to give something up, it might be better just to take a break from Nyzul on Thursdays because 1) Thursday is just a longer day that we have to work with and 2) it gives people an opportunity to get more Assault Points for Salvage or whatever.

Once we get done with all the missions, we can go back to our regularly scheduled Assault stuff. Though, I will be brutally honest, it's starting to wear on me 

Since we are being brutally honest, my advice to you is that if you are not having fun doing Assaults or Nyzul or both then you need to stop and think about whether or not you want to keep doing them. I must admit, this is a little surprising coming from someone who has soloed his jobs to 75 for the most part.

[Zerila]

I don't want anyone to misunderstand my post (I wrote it when I was in a bit of a hurry... ). And I don't expect you to fix anything, especially on such short notice! I was just intending to raise my concerns. There's plenty of time to see how things work with our new objectives, and then adjust if needed. Sorry about that, didn't mean to come off as a big downer 

I love doing stuff with you guys! Doing Nyzul (as an example) sometimes drags on me a little, but the company makes it more than worth it, so that's really a very minor complaint. Besides, I have a feeling if we quit Nyzul, I'd end up missing it after a couple weeks. It was more a complaint about that being ALL we do, assaults and Nyzul. Like I said, I'm really glad to add more activities to the mix, it will make things much more exciting! 

But I am mostly concerned about how much time this will all take, adding all this other stuff in... we've adjusted the times in the past before, I know. Mostly because of my whining, I think. I didn't say anything when you brought this up, because I wanted to think about it before I posted anything.

If it does get to be too late, too often (and I can make the occasional exception, honestly, depending on what we're doing... just not twice a week every week...) I will let you know. Actually, what I may do is just say, "in a half hour or so, I'm going to want to start wrapping things up" kind of thing.

Going back to Nyzul, even though it's not really about the drops for me, when we were going 0/20 or whatever that ridiculous drop rate that was, it was really annoying. Since we've been getting a much better rate recently, I've been much happier with Nyzul.

I will go along with the rest of you on whatever you want to do, including KS/BSNMs, missions (including city missions, whatever) because I enjoy the company. If it gets to be too late, I'll mention it.

And yes, I love the forums
I wish we all used them more often

[Zerila]

Actually, now that I think of it... maybe we could ask for our very own section of this board, so we could post stuff and track stuff specific to our party. Like, who still needs what, suggestions for events, who is going to be out/late on a certain date, that kind of thing. Like, when I was sick last week, I could have just posted here instead of logging into the game to tell Aria. Or if someone wants to fight a certain NM.

Any chance we could get something like that set up?

[Nerces]

In spite of a minor "setback", namely Ikethegreat getting an Orethetoss to the face and eating dirt at Qu'Bia Arena, we completed Those Who Lurk in Shadows (III). The next non-cutscene mission is Banishing the Echo, which basically amounts to climbing Delkfutt's Tower under a level 30 cap.

We have three options for this:

1) All 6 of us get the level restriction and we have ourselves an interesting adventure. Insert "this is probably how it was meant to be done" and other pseudo-cliché stuff here. It'll be a chore, for sure, but I don't think it's anything that we can't handle as a group. Additionally, we can always recruit more people who are on the mission or something to bolster our numbers.

2) 1 or 2 of us can do this mission ahead of time for the Omnis Stone. When it's time for the rest of us to do the mission, anyone who has already gotten the Omnis Stone can stay uncapped and clear the way for the rest. This is obviously much safer, but it involves a some extra work on the part of the individual(s) who will do the climb ahead of time.

3) Everyone is on their own to get the Omnis Stone and be ready for the next mission. This is my least favorite option, but it's still an option if everyone is okay with it.

Also, since we did finished what I had planned to do on Thursday on Tuesday instead, we are left with a scheduling gap to fill for Thursday. Seeing as how Nyzul Isle takes a lot out of us sometimes, I want to suggest doing either the next A Crystalline Prophecy or In a Haze of Glory. Just think about this and we'll decide on the next course of action when we meet up the next time.

[Ryudei]

What manner of exclusive thread is THIS!?  I forbid it!!!!  Down with Nerces!!!!!!!

[Areya]

Quit being a troublemaker, Ryu!

[Elizabet]

Posting in it just because I CAN!!

[Nerces]

First of all, congratulations to the group for the victory yesterday. Choose your Augments well.

Next Tuesday after our usual Assaults we'll be doing KSNM runs (Royal Ramble) for some desired weapons and Orichalcum Ingots. Please read up on it and have a general familiarity with the battle itself and the typical strategies. Time and success will determine how many runs we will do (up to a maximum of 6) and whether or not we can do anything besides Assaults and KSNM.

Next Thursday after Nyzul Isle I'd like to get In a Haze of Glory out of the way. Again, please be either right before this quest (having completed Perils of the Griffon) or on the actual quest itself (having received a Number Eight Shelter Key). As before, time and success will determine what else we can do (if anything) after this.

[Keisu]

What time of night would you be doing these KSNM runs(est zone)?  I would love to get my destroyers if you had some drop that no one wanted, or a Gonzo if you got extras.

[Zerila]

We haven't actually done any runs yet. We're trying to squeak them in during our regular assault stuff, and we're also doing missions.
So far, we just haven't had time...

[Nerces]

Now that we are starting to dwindle down to our last extra-curricular activities (Royal Ramble, the last Crystal Era quests for Windurst), we should start thinking about what else we could be doing Tuesdays and Thursdays after our Assault/Nyzul runs. Some things that have been mentioned already include:

1) Chains of Promathia Missions:

As far as I know, Ike and Dragon are on The Secrets of Worship, which is Mission 4-3 in Sacrarium. The essentials here are that we need two Coral Crest Keys and a Sealion Crest Key. I have one Coral Crest Key already, so we would need to farm a second one (which isn't all that rare from what I remember). I would like to suggest doing this in tandem with subligar and/or Fomor Codex farming just for the possibility of getting something else useful for our efforts. After we get done with that we can reset our Fomor hate and then kill the corse NM for the Sealion Crest Key, then eventually the ghost NM. As long as the party doesn't aggro Fomors, the NMs aren't particularly difficult.

2) Rise of the Zilart Missions:

I'm positive we have some folks who still need to complete these missions. Some of us don't have sky access even, so it would be worthwhile getting these done. Rise of the Zilart missions aren't particularly difficult, especially leading up to access to Tu'Lia. I don't know what the mission progress is for those that haven't completed this expansion, so we will need to discuss that in the future. But remember that you need to be Rank 6 in at least one nation in order to be able to start Rise of the Zilart missions.

3) BCNMs, KSNMs, ENMs, ZNMs, ANNMs, etc:

More specifically, we can go and fight anything that doesn't not involve a random spawn chance. Triggered spawns (like Bloodlapper which we have fought previously) or once-a-conquest-period quests (like Requiem of Sin which we have not done) are included in here. Basically, I am talking about stuff where preparations can be made and/or the NM can be fought on our own terms. BCNMs and KSNMs are simple enough, ENMs will obviously require all 6 of us to be at or past a specific point in the Chains of Promathia missions, ZNMs will require playing Pokémon Snap around the world, and ANNMs require the accumulation of Allied Notes, and so on. I don't feel it is as appropriate or maybe even worthwhile to go and kill placeholders to spawn an NM, although I don't see a major problem if the whole group agrees on it and the NM is not regularly camped.

Feel free to bring up more ideas when the group meets the next time.

[Zerila]

Well, once we get done with Nyzul (HA!) we can do shorter farming runs instead, and have all sorts of extra time.  In addition to your suggestions, one thing I would like is to get everyone Rank 10 in every nation (if other people are interested). That will keep us busy, even though we can solo a lot of the earlier missions.

We can do stuff like runs to get Fenrir, we can do stuff like get some of us a swift belt /, things like that. Basically, each of us should come up with a wish list of stuff we want, that the 6 of us can handle (we have a pretty flexible group, after all) and we can just start knocking them out. Maybe we can do some low-man Limbus and things like that...

In before Ariamo says "Salvage!" 

[Nerces]

I was thinking specifically of stuff to do after Assaults and Nyzul rather than in the place of Assaults and Nyzul. Chances are if we stop one we are going to be doing the other on both days, especially if we stop doing Nyzul.

[Zerila]

I had a thought tonight about our Tuesday night runs. With Ariamo doing Limbus, we get started a bit late to do anything after Assaults, which is why I think we should try something like this:

While Ariamo is in Limbus, the rest of us grab an orb and a random 6th person out of the shell. We do the KS of our choice, and when Ariamo gets done, he grabs an orb and joins us. Hopefully, all the rest of us will have our runs done by that time, so we only need the time it takes to do one run with Ariamo. Then we go off and do our Assault runs.

The way I envision this working, we can get a full set of KS runs done (plus one for a linkshell member that's not in the static) and still have time for three runs of Golden Salvage or sheep or something.

What do you guys think? I know I wouldn't mind getting some cash from KS

[Ariamo]

Not too bad, but I'm taking a break from Limbus to do these KSNMs/missions/quests/whatever, but for some reason, we keep putting KSNMs off.

[ikethegreat]

1. KSNM runs sounds goooood! 

2. I would like to eventually get rank 10 (been sitting at 5 for 3-4 years now). 

3. To tell you the truth though, with ffxiv coming out soon, I'm not really that worried/motivated about finishing CoP or RotZ.  Unless there is nothing else for us to do.  I know most of you guys aren't looking forward to redoing some of those missions anyway. 

4. Work sucks.

[ikethegreat]

Hope we aren't done with ksnms yet.  I still have 5 more runs worth of KS to use up.  6 out of 12 ingots for my salvage head piece isn't bad.

[Zerila]

We were talking about that a little last night after you left, and I think the general consensus was that the occasional death in Royal Ramble is worth it for 270k+ per run. I'm definitely down for any number of runs you guys want to do, like I said, I still have enough for 42 more runs of that 

I think we're getting that one down, though. I'm pretty sure that, once we do a couple more runs, we'll be able to get through it with only the very rare death.