Introducing Liabelle!

Liabelle and I go back a long way. I began summoning her around the same time I started BST, and we literally leveled up together ever since. Liabelle is currently capped as a lvl 65 Soothing Healer, and thanks to my arduous efforts, she now sports a pair of level 7, Bastokan leggings and a level 10, Beastmen harness and subligar.















As a special treat, I decided to bring my companions to the Eldieme Necropolis to film a short feature, but I had to wait for the ladies to apply their makeup first. Since Liabelle wears a sultry outfit for all occasions, I decided to forgo buying her a new outfit, and we were ready to film once the girls finished applying their makeup. For anyone else who happens to desire Beastmen armor on their NPC, kill EP+ enemies in regions with Beastmen control (the influence of the region does not matter).















Team Khaki hopes everyone enjoys this short feature on "Snarl," the new BST ability that allows one to transfer his enmity onto his jug pet. Unfortunately, I used a free video converter, so the clip is only 70 percent of the original length. Nonetheless, I hope this video gives a glimpse as to what Team Khaki is like in real-time!

Ischemia X

Divine Might - Round II














It is a bleak time for Ischemia. My LS had just merged with a smaller LS only for them to pick up and leave, dissatisfied, a few days later. For this event, we ended up short on members, so we decided to use pick-up members to fill the gaps. Overall, there was a brutal number of deaths this time around, so there was much celebrating when we cleared the mission on our fourth attempt. Unfortunately, I did not get a front-line picture for this event; from what I could tell, the runs were a bloodbath until the alliance used their 2hrs.

Pop NM: Alastor Antlion




























Possibly the only event that LSs love BSTs to accompany them with. For this event, BSTs are used to control the roaming Antlions while the main alliance deals with the pop NM. To my disappointment, the BST detachment was not allowed to melee the pop NM itself -- we were only there to prevent links and stall the lesser NMs. Even more disappointing, I could not find any T Antlions to use "Familiar" on, so I think someone was hunting the Ambusher Antlion NM during our event.

Dynamis - San d'Oria




























This event was supposed to be a Dynamis - Bastok run, but for some reason, we ended up doing Dynamis - San d'Oria instead. Upon arriving in San d'Oria, we discovered another LS that was just about to enter; however, our leader charged inside to lock them out instead.

Surprisingly, there was not any BST AF this time around, but we did see three Montiont Silverpieces drop throughout the run, giving the LS bank a huge boost in gil. We will be doing another round of city Dynamis runs before heading out to the Northlands, so bear with me people!



Notes:
a) HNM stands for "Honorary Notorious Monster" as far as I am concerned. There seems to be other definitions as to what the "H" stands for, such as "High-level" or "Huge," but there is not any clear definition at this time.

The Hunt for Lars

Today, Snippy battles evil Leech villains for Lifedrinker Lars (LDL) components. Like all superheroes, she is always outnumbered but not overpowered! Snippy's claws scythed through these Leeches for their Fiend Blood.















In Pso'Xja, there are numerous treasure chests that will spring to life and attack should you get too close or try to open them. These fake chests are called Mimics, and they have more bite than any wandering Crab would like to bump into. Snippy and I started to take a few head-on, but after suffering from repeated AoE "Poison" exposure, I decided to back out and let Snippy do most of the work.















After disposing of the Mimic above, I rushed to collect my prize inside the real treasure chest and extracted a shiny gem as a result. Unfortunately, a Sphene is only worth about 1k gil, so I tossed it shortly after.








The bottleneck for producing LDLs is the Lizard Blood component. These precious vials can only be farmed off Diremites. but only two Diremites, with a fifteen minute re-pop timer each, are available in the uncapped Pso'Xja portion. By the time I was done farming Diremites, I ended up with ten Gray Chips, so I went on an insane hunt to gather ten more Carmine and Cyan Chips as well.
















Each set of chips (one Gray, Carmine, and Cyan) grants a CCB Polymer Pump when exchanged with the NPC Cid in Bastok. These pumps sell for around 40 to 50k gil on my server, but due to the low frequency of people trying to win the associated CoP mission, there is always a good bunch of them on sale. I guess it will take a while before all ten of mine sell; good old economics.







A close-up of the pump itself. If only these things worked on bosses such as Proto-Ultima and Proto-Omega.
















After collecting almost four stacks of Beast, Bird, Fiend, and Lizard Blood, along with the corresponding amount of Leech Saliva, I was set to synthesize some LDLs! Unfortunately, my Cooking skill was 50 levels under the optimum level, so I asked a dear friend to synthesize them instead. He managed to create 38 LDLs out of ~46 synths, so that is not a bad deal considering his skill was not at the ideal level either. Stay tuned for a possible meripo parse!



Notes:
a) Mimics are fake treasure chests designed to surprise and trap their victims.

Khaki Recommends Firefox

I decided to check my blog via Internet Explorer today, and there seems a large mess of hyphens in my profile box. It should look something more like:

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Text Goes Here

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Luckily, the rest of my blog does not seem to be affected much, so I recommend Mozilla Firefox for your all your browsing needs!

Korriland

After reaching level 75 BST, I have been increasingly concerned on how to maintain a good exp buffer for LS events. Sadly, there seems to be a lack of good meriting camps for BSTs in general, so I have been researching ways to improve my soloing performance.















At Korriland, I can probably average 2.5k exp/hour on BST/NIN and 1.5 to 2k exp/hour on BST/WHM. These rates depend on the amount of competition at the camp, but by switching to BST/NIN, I am generally able to deal more damage and reduce my overall downtime between kills. With my new melee equipment, I tend to pull hate off my pets more often, but this also tends to remove the need for pet swaps altogether. Of course, the trade-off is that I will be placing myself in more danger as well.















For anyone else who wishes to try BST/NIN at Korriland, it is quite important to turn around after you have pulled hate unless you feel you can keep your shadows going or unless you can defeat your foe shortly after. In addition, you might also wish to bring Echo Drops and/or Remedies to counter "Blank Gaze" and "Antiphase." I usually let status effects wear off on their own, but you never know when a critical situation might arise.















Another thing you will need to keep in mind is hate control. By performing "Rampage" early on, I can pull hate off my Korrigan when needed and save it from death if necessary. After that, I can kite a Goobbue around in circles until my pet reestablishes hate. Generally, I will wait for my shadow timers to reset before pulling a fresh Goobbue, but if you really want to reduce incoming damage, consider using an Earth Staff or Skadi's Jambeaux for just that.