Lord of the Hunt

After acquiring my new Jelly Ring, Masani called for help fighting a NM in the Sea Serpent Grotto, so I decided to go help her out. Unfortunately, Novv the Whitehearted got the best of me the first time around: I released a pet too early and linked a bunch of Novv's Sahagin friends. They turned me into mincemeat soon after.

Given my BST nature, I could never let a NM win that easily, so after Masani revived me, I recklessly used "Charm" on a nearby Robber Crab and attacked Novv despite being weakened. After a few minutes of fighting, it was clear that my pet would fall, so I told Masani we would engage the NM, even though I was still weakened, once my pet died. Given Novv's "Hydro Shot" move, enmity bounced between Masani and me a bit, but once I could summon CC, "Snarl" took care of the rest. Unfortunately, Novv did not drop a Minstrel's Coat in the end, but with my new found experience on this NM, I am positive I could solo Novv despite my earlier failure.








Afterward, I decided to hunt Centurio XII-I, for an Intruder's Earring, to take advantage of a server maintenance that occurred the day before. Although I arrived on the scene twenty one hours after the maintenance period, I did not manage to claim the NM, and to make matters worse, I botched calculating the respawn time for the next day and wasted five hours then for nothing. Despite my error, I did manage to catch the Dune Widow NM on Widescan as a consolation prize.















So after calculating the earliest respawn time for the day after, I decided to arrive early to stay on top of my competition, but I was shocked when the NM spawned earlier than I thought it could. Unfortunately, I failed to get the claim again; it seems that Centurio XII-I can spawn as early as twenty hours after its previous death. However, my persistence paid off the next day when I finally managed to claim the NM, against four other players, and I was even lucky enough to get the earring.















As such, I definitely recommend using BST/THF for any dicey NM drops. Using /THF allows a BST to quickly "Flee" towards a NM that has just spawned and minimize the average number of kills needed for a particular item. That is all for today folks; merry Christmas Eve!