Ding! Ding! And then, oh yeah, ding!

So my last post exposited the inherent lethargy in high-level experience-point gathering as a high level BLM. Color me corrected.

Last night involved more ripping shit up than I ever thought was possible.

So, it begins when I get home from work at aroune 7:30 am on Tuesday. I've got to be in for an 8 hour shift at 6:30am on Thursday so that means a quick and dirty transition. The plan, as usual, is to stay awake as long as I can manage. I watch the latest BSG and 24 on my DVR (BSG was better than it has been these past few weeks, though nowhere near where it was at in its heyday, 24 finally appeared to be picking things up again), before finally getting an invite at around 11:00. Unfortunately there was a scheduled maintenance at noon, and so we had just really gotten started when we broke, where I was about 10k tnl 73.

The maintenance was scheduled for 3 hours; I decided to sleep for it and slept 5. When I got up, I saw that sky farming had been postponed, so I went LFG again. This time I almost immediately got an invite, at around 6pm. I joined up and we immediately started killing stuff at the Flan camp in Mount Zhayolm.

And we started killing stuff with a vengeance. There's a nice routine you can get into where 5-6 BLM parties can get chain 11 on the Flans without too much difficult, and we just fell into that routine. After about 2 hours we were on a steady 10k/hr pace and I dinged 73 without much fanfare, as I'd expected. 73 is a big level for BLM, with Fire IV, Thundaga III, and finally being able to wear an Igqira Weskit. I figured I'd certainly keep going, as the party was good, and xp invites are fairly rare, though less so at 73 than they are at 72 due to an increased ability to make a difference in a pt with 75's. Before long I was leader, and things were just clicking, a nice, relaxed, chatty party that was made up of members that knew the role well.

I decided I like manaburns more than any other xp party setup. 10k/hr is less than you can make in a well-oiled TPburn, which can pull in 15-16k/hr in optimal conditions, with a camp site to yourself and every member on the top of his game with infinite chain, but conditions are rarely if ever optimal these days, with the top xp spots crowded beyond belief and incredible competition for pulls, and that party is VERY stressful on the only job I have to bring to that party, the BRD, who is responsible for pulling, sleeping, and keeping, usually, 4 songs at a minimum up on the right pt members. So while TPburns are capable of maybe 50% more xp than a manaburn as far as pure rate is concerned, in practice, they never last as long. Additionally, because a TPburn is utterly dependent on a couple of job types being there (BRD, at least one NIN, WHM or RDM) and as such, harder to find replacements for. With a Manaburn, all you need are BLMs, though having a RDM or BRD is acceptable.

So, we just kept killing and killing, and before I knew it, I was halfway to 74, having gained another 20k xp in the next couple of hours. What the hell, I thought, if the party was lasting that long, I was up all night anyway, may as well keep killing. I had long since been passed party lead, and replacements were easy to find as people left. So we just kept killing.

I dinged 74 at about 1 in the morning, having to warp back and cause a brief break as I had to refresh my Sanction and pick up my Blizzard IV scroll. I pick up my Thunder IV scroll too, just in case.

And we just kept on killing, and killing, and killing.

Come sunrise, I realized to some amazement that I was almost to 75. Well, I couldn't quit now! I wasn't even particularly tired and there were always reps for when people left, so I just kept on xping.

About 8 in the morning, i was almost at level when a blm left before finding a replacement. I check the list of blm's lfg in our level range and see a name that looks familiar. He gets the invite, and it doesn't occur to me until after he mentions it that this was the BLM that actually invited me into the pt to begin with, as his replacement since he was getting sleepy! He'd had a full night's sleep, woken up, and gone lfg again. He couldn't believe that I'd been up all night, grinding away. It was quite the surreal moment.

Inevitably and somewhat anticlimacticly, the ding finally arrives. I get the requisite congratulations, use my scroll of Thunder IV, and we go right on with our experience.

When all was said and done and by noon I was too sleepy to continue, I had gained 3 levels (unheard of for one session at high levels), 1.5 merit points, and a 20k buffer, for over 120k in the same party.

Insanity.