Adjustments

My feverish desire to complete a Guttler still persists, yet I seem to have overestimated just how much I can make per day via Fishing. Since I would like to now start making money through other crafts, I have decided to fish only during New/Full Moon periods given the poor bite rate during other times.

Now as a BST, I am used to adjusting my strategies when things do not work out, so I will be tweaking my plans and hoping for the better. I have several options that I could explore: they are:

1. Invest gil into Alchemy and raise it to level 100.
2. Level my Fishing mules further to help my main character.
3. Search for a more profitable Fishing hole.
4. Start the Ebisu Fishing Rod quest.

The decision was difficult, but I settled for Option 1 as a short-term solution. As such, I am currently preparing Secret mule to craft once again. I hit a roadblock at level 18 Alchemy because the suggested recipe was Silent Oils, and I did not have enough money to purchase the requisite Slime Oils. However, I was determined to save gil at all costs, so I decided to farm my own Slime Oils (and Beehive Chips) rather than purchasing them from the AH.















For those of you who are not familiar with Alchemy, Silent Oils are a relatively annoying recipe -- requiring two lumps of Beeswax and one vial of Slime Oil per synthesis. To get Beeswax, you will need to synthesize either three Beehive Chips or two Pephredo Hive Chips together; the latter yielding more Beeswax per synthesis. Although I tried to farm Beehive Chips initially, I found myself competing against many others in Giddeus and decided to use the alternative recipe.

The biggest drawback to using Pephredo Hive Chips is that you will need to farm lvl 60 Bees for otherwise uncommon drops. Nonetheless, using my knowledge of previous BST camps, I traveled to the I-8/J-8 camp in the Wajaom Woodlands and sent Red Kissers against Worker and Soldier Pephredos. After several grueling hours on BST/THF, I obtained seven stacks of Pephredo Hive Chips for my mule.















It does not end there however, I still needed Slime Oils to make Silent Oils. Many guides recommend hunting for Slime Oils in the Korroloka Tunnel (where there are around 20 Slimes available), but since everyone knows Korroloka is a good spot, I decided to avoid heavy competition. Instead, I turned to researching alternative sites for Slime Oils, and the next best choice was the Maze of Shakhrami. The Slimes were relatively far apart from one another, and the drop rates were not great...















But after approximately twelve hours of farming, I came up with seven stacks of Slime Oils! For those of you who were paying attention, you probably realized that I needed a 2:1 ratio of Beeswax to Slime Oil, not 1:1. So what happened? To be honest, I was very tired while farming the Slime Oils, and when I counted the ingredients the next morning, I exclaimed, "[s]illy Khaki, tricks are for kids!" I ended up buying the remaining ingredients (the irony) to bring Secret mule close to level 24 Alchemy, but the moral of this story is that one should leave Slime Oil farming to level 75 THFs.



















Here is a map for anyone who wishes to follow in my footsteps. Please note that the Slime NM, Ichorous Ire, is spawned by touching the Fossil Rock at F-8. Other than that, I think the map is relatively self-explanatory, but leave a comment if you have any questions.