Trial-Size Trial by Fire

These guides are a recollection of my level 20 cap avatar fights, presented in the order I cleared them in. Since I will be using a similar format for each guide, you might wish to read one and skip the others to avoid similar content.

History
Round 1 - Titan. I quickly learned "Astral Flow" dropped my MP to ZERO upon use and lost the fight after failing to resummon Carbuncle in time.

Round 2 - Ramuh. Although I brought and used Yagudo Drinks this time around, I still was not recovering MP fast enough and failed to resummon Carbuncle yet again. As such, I decided to synthesize some Ethers on Secret mule before my next attempt.

Round 3 - Shiva. Everything was going well until Shiva used "Diamond Dust" just after I had resummoned Carbuncle. Since I took a hit prior to "Diamond Dust," Shiva managed to one-shot me using her special ability.

Round 4 - Ifrit. Bewildered, I vowed for vengeance and tackled my fourth avatar. After working out my previous flaws, I finally managed to win a fight. This battle greatly boosted my morale and would become the basis for all future victories.

Preparation
I suggest the following for each avatar fight:

• 1 to 2 Yagudo Drinks
• 2 to 3 Ethers
• 5 to 10 Hi-Potions (Hi-Potion Tanks might save you gil)
• Level 10 NIN subjob
• 1 Boiled Crab or Fish Mithkabob
• 2 Hermit Wands
• a pair of Carbuncle Mitts (if these are difficult to obtain, add more Yagudo Drinks)
• At least 200 HP (250-300 HP would be ideal)
• Around 250 MP (add more Drinks if not)

Although you might not use everything above, you should still come prepared nonetheless.
 
General Information

• You will need a certain amount of fame to start this quest.
• You can repeat this quest after JP midnight.
• You can teleport to the battlefield directly by trading a Mini Tuning Fork to the non-Tarutaru NPC.

Battle Information

1. Avoid fighting avatars on their strong days. You might wish to avoid fighting on Darksday as well because Carbuncle is weakest on that day (however, I did not notice a huge difference).
2. If you win the fight, you will be given a scroll of Instant Warp to return home with.
3. You do not lose any exp upon death, so Home Point if you fall in battle. You do not want to be ejected into a high-level area with no way home.
4. Avatars have a very, very long agro range. Summon Carbuncle well in advance to avoid premature agro. 
5. Avatars can use "Blood Pacts" and cast tier II spells. They will usually unleash the former upon agro.
6. Avatars using "Astral Flow" deal approximately 184 damage per use on their non-strong days. With 220 HP, I had a decent chance at surviving these deadly abilities.
7. Avatars average 10 to 15 damage per melee attack, and each swing can inflict the avatar's respective "En-spell" effect for 20 to 30 damage.
8. Do not expect Carbuncle to deal more than 10 damage per hit. Given the enemy avatar has around 500-600 HP, most of your damage will likely come from spamming "Astral Flow."
9. Let Carbuncle chip away at your foe's HP until it is around 75%. Once Carbuncle begins the fight, you should retreat a safe distance and prepare to summon Carbuncle again. Rinse and repeat.
10. Once your enemy is around 75% HP, use a Yagudo Drink, and hit "Astral Flow" with a fresh Carbuncle. Make sure to stand close to Carbuncle during this time because enemy avatars tend to come for you immediately after. A non-resisted "Searing Light" deals around 210 damage, but at this point, you will need to chug Ethers to resummon Carbuncle.
11. Resummon Carbuncle, and stall your foe until you can use "Astral Flow" twice more.
12. If Carbuncle dies from your opponent's "Astral Flow" ability and you happen to be critically injured, chug Hi-Potions like no tomorrow. Try to resummon Carbuncle afterward, but be warned that it will take some time for Carbuncle to reestablish enmity.

Avatar-specific Information














Special Moves: "Punch," "Fire II," "Burning Strike," and "Inferno" (Astral Flow ability).
 
Notes: Nothing really special about this avatar. Just follow the guide, and you should be fine. Did not see "Burning Strike," but the other avatars seem to have four abilities total.

The Other Pet Job

Recently, I have been leveling SMN in order to solo the Pirate's Chart quest, and together with the Brigand's chart quest, these quests allow fishermen a chance to earn the rings required for an Ebisu Fishing Rod. Moreover, the Penguin Ring allows one to tire fish more quickly while the Albatross Ring allows more time to reel fish in. So what does any of this have to do with SMN?















It turns out that both rings require one to fish under the level 20 cap, and although the Penguin Ring quest can be soloed, it would be impossible to obtain an Albatross Ring solo without having SMN leveled.















As such, I set out to level my SMN immediately. Although SMNs have similar qualities to BSTs, I found leveling SMN to be quite different from my early BST days. First of all, avatars do not hold hate very well, at least from levels 1 through 20. Secondly, I learned the hard way that "Astral Flow" drops MP to zero upon use and instantly caused my avatar to disappear without some form of "Refresh." Finally, a SMN cannot log out while he has an avatar out, so battles are usually fought to the death.















On the bright side, I discovered that avatars automatically defend their masters should they come under attack, but conversely, avatars will not defend themselves if they too are assailed in turn. Instead, an avatar will retreat to his master, possibly with monsters in tow, once it has defeated the original assailant.

Nonetheless, I still enjoy a good challenge, so I decided to make use of old BST camps to get my SMN through the first twenty levels. Once I realized that Fenrir made a decent tank, I decided to level in the Maze of Shakhrami after some really slow Valkurm Dunes parties. As mentioned previously, I am also leveling SMN to attempt the trial-sized battles that are not recommended by most SMNs; however, I never say no to a quest.

Full Moon Fountain Fun

Following Decu's advice, I have been visiting Campaign slightly more than usual now that I am without an endgame LS. Most of the time, I only campaign to upgrade my Medals or repair exp buffers, but Campaign also serves as a break from funding my Guttler. Frankly, anything outside Fishing or Alchemy is a break nowadays.















Usually, Snippy and I can stand our ground, but sometimes, I have to summon Snippy twice before we can slay a Campaign mob. Since I am sure all the niches of Campaign have been long been discovered, Campaign usually leaves me quite bored after an hour or two. I decided to head back to Aht Urghan Whitegate after one such hour and noticed a Fenrir Prime run being shouted; I immediately asked whether I could join as a BST.















The group decided to take me, and this time around, I was going after summoning privileges. As luck would have it, we had a solid team consisting of four SMNs, a RDM, and myself on BST. Unfortunately, Uriko forgot to get the key item beforehand, so the rest of us ended up playing "Crab, Ghost, Beetle" for half an hour in the Full Moon Fountain.















Once again, I was too excited and occupied to take good pictures; Fenrir Prime is very deadly against his melee opponents. For any BSTs attempting to melee Fenrir Prime, use "Snarl" as early as possible. The SMNs did not keep Fenrir off me for long, and I ended up dying because I had high enmity while Snippy was incapacitated. However, the group still won nevertheless.















With Fenrir, Diabolos, a pair of Carbuncle Mitts, and an Evoker's Ring at my disposal, I have decided to take some time off to level SMN with my new pets. Originally, I was supposed to level RDM to 37 for Alchemy ingredients, but I decided to take my SMN to level 20 instead (I also wanted to do some trial-sized avatar runs in the future).















So after finishing with Fenrir Prime, I decided to head to Windurst from inside the Toraimarai Canal to save myself a Warp Cudgel charge. I bumped into what would soon be two very lucky SMNs; Nathanrob and his pal Guffer were dead on the floor and surrounded by Undead. Since I was in a jolly good mood, I decided to help clear the way so they could "Reraise" safely.

Things got complicated when I accidentally agroed a trio of Impish Bats while fighting a Mindcraver. This resulted in another Bat Trio linking with the first, just after I had finished off the Skeleton. To make things even worse, Guffer had just "Reraised" and revived Nathanrob only for them both to be assailed,  via blood agro, by another Mindcraver. They ended up dead before I could send Snippy to tank the third mob.

Our situation improved after I managed to slay the first Bat Trio: I was down to two mobs and could easily handle that. Guffer had also managed to put "Reraise" on before dying, and he was now casting "Raise" on his companion again. Unfortunately, Nathan agroed a Fleshcraver located behind him (the irony), and I was already down to half HP (Snippy was almost dead) when I attempted to save the SMN again. In the end, I managed to slay all my foes (three Skeletons, two Bat Trios, and a Pugil), and everyone managed to recover.

Long story shorter, I found the coffer they were looking for and spent an extra two hours farming the key required to open it. It was a priceless moment when the SMNs finally opened the chest, for all of us even. 















I also managed to complete a rarely-attempted quest called "Catch It If You Can!" This quest requires one to obtain a special ailment available only from select dungeon monsters. Since Toraimarai Canal had one such monster (and the best associated reward), I decided to pay a visit to the Bloodsuckers and procure the ailment in question. The quest only appears in your log after you complete it, and apparently, the reward is a mere 1.5k gil. Oh well.

Q&A Grab Bag

Lately, I have had several questions regarding Snippy Cam and other miscellaneous things, so I have decided to answer everything in this post.

Q: Why does Snippy Cam get updated so slowly? I still see the same picture you used in your previous post.

A: In the past, slow updates were due to poor planning on my behalf. I did not want my image hosting site being clogged by old photos, so I deleted them just as soon as I could put a new picture up. Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell identical pictures apart from one another because Picasa Web Albums not only does not fix timestamps for my pictures but also throws them all into a giant folder for me to manually sort afterward.

Eventually, I decided to upload a picture to Snippy Cam first and then attach the word "PREVIEW" to every picture I planned to use in a post. Although I could now delete pictures easier, I ended up with another problem: in order to remove a picture from Snippy Cam, another must take its place. This proved annoying because there were times I had a new post but no preview to go with it. In the end, I decided to remove Snippy Cam altogether because it was a hassle to keep up with.

Q: Can you integrate a shoutbox into your blog?

A: Maybe. It depends on whether I could find a convenient space to put it and just how exploitable it could get; I do not need people spamming my shoutbox with cheap movie ticket deals, personals, and/or viagra ads. As such, I feel the use of word verification safeguards my blog the best from those who would defile it.

Q: I am still hungry. Can I have some more fish?

A: What?! You ate them all already? Wait a minute, Crabs cannot talk!

Nyzul Isle Raiders

It is April! Birds are chirping, Crabs are scuttling out of their ponds, and yikes, those final exams are fast approaching. My next few posts will likely be short and limited in number as I prepare to hit the books. Hopefully, I can use old news to tide everyone over until May.

So after teaming up with Ariane and her linkshell, Sparta, I decided to try my hand at her Nyzul Isle static PT. Unfortunately, most of our team (including myself) had never experienced a Nyzul investigation before, so it was definitely a new and challenging experience.















What are Nyzul Isle Investigations?
Nyzul Isle Assault missions differ from the normal Assault missions in the sense that dungeon layouts and objectives are chosen at random. Although you can find similar objectives between floors, each floor usually contains vastly different monsters for your group to encounter.

What are the objectives?
I do not know every objective, but the objectives can range from:

• Slay an enemy leader (this is a designated ToAU NM).
• Eliminate all enemies.
• Free floor!

Sometimes, there will be secondary objectives that give penalties if you fail to adhere to them.















To be honest, I believe the Spartans were a bit unprepared for this investigation: we only got to floor three in the end. Unnecessary agro led to status effects, such as Silence, that likely prevented us from reaching floor five. Nonetheless, I had some fun playing with NMs such as Frostmane and Carnero; boy, were they different from usual.