An overly cautious but good night (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

Went from 21 to 22. Learned (the very overdue) Cursed Sphere.

I had grand plans: I was going to XP on flies tonight, and I knew just where to do it. The Dunes? No way, Jose! I was going to hit my old stomping grounds: Merp Mountains! I was going to head up near the Sanctuary zoneline where there are only flies, coeurls, and saplings! Nothing aggro, right? Wrong. Stupidly I listened when a clueless guy said coeurls in that zone don't aggro. Totally my own fault, this person never knows anything, not even the most basic stuff in the game. I rode my chocobo to my favorite farming grounds and got off... and POW! Coeurl to the face! T+ and me with no XP buffer! Slept it and raced for the zoneline, cursing this guy under my breath all the way.

For most of the rest of the night I was way too cautious, and it killed my XP/hour numbers. I spent most of the night XPing with my NPC, even though nothing was over T+. I used to kill T+s by blinking at them! It took me about three hours to get 4.5K XP. That's about as bad as my usual random parties. Oh well. Tomorrow night I'll get my feet back under me and return to true soloing. (Oh but how nice it is to have a NPC there who will toss a C3 onto you whenever your HP gets low! What a wonderful safety net!)

Missing spells
1-20 range: Claw Cyclone (tigers). They're still a bit too tough for me to solo. Another couple levels and I'll try again.
21-30 range: Poison Breath (22) and Grand Slam (30). Undead hounds my level are so hard to come by! I had intended to grab some in the Mountains tonight, but coeurls aggroing ended that idea. (Hounds spawn in with coeurls for some reason.) I might grab a party to see if I can easily get Grand Slam that way.
31-40 range: Everything, 10 spells. Some will take a lot of effort to find (pot, hexeyes).

I'm trying not to look too far ahead spell-wise because it's easy to get stressed out/worried. The mob families get worse the higher level you go. Uragnites at 42? Doomed at 44? Bugard at 46? Hippogryph at 48? I highly doubt I'll be able to solo those things... 50s get even worse (WYVERN family?!) 60s is mostly ToA stuff, and 70s is 70% Sea mobs (go to hell, S-E) other than three (buffalo, ram, and manticore).

Comments

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Go to Gusgen Mines. :) The Bandersnatch is level 21-24 there. It wanders the side halls of the beginning area. No need to go behind doors.

If you choose to wait a bit, Mauthe Doogs are behind the first set of doors and are levels 28-32.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Woo, thanks! I thought there had been undead dogs in that first area, but when I went skull-hunting for Gura I didn't see any (just the Mauthes further in). I'll either go back to the Canyon or poke there when I try again!

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

For the wyverns, I'd guess that the only way to get them that early is to go with a group to one of the Rivernes, probably during a scale-hunt or something.

I'm also guessing that like most things, you can solo fine when you're low-level but as you get higher, you're supposed to join groups for things.

I'd be happy to help you get spells as you get higher.

[kelen.livejournal.com]

You have to go to the sides, and not straight in. So you get to the first area with some skellies, and go either right or left, not straight. There aren't a whole lot of them, but there ARE dogs in there no matter what time of day. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yay! Cool!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Rivernes are the only places I could figure out that would be "reasonable" -- plus hippos are there, too.

I suspect/worry you'll need to group to get a lot of these, too. :/ Thanks for the offer, I'll probably take you up on it! :)