Into the Steppes

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Yesterday was the last of my vacation days, and I attempted to get in as much play time as I could.  However the first priority of the day was putting together the sideboard table we picked up at IKEA when we were in Kansas City.  All in all we put it together “mostly” correct, with one piece getting turned the wrong way in the process and neither my wife or I figuring it out in time.  Everything still works mostly as intended but we were not able to attach the backstops to the drawers…  which in truth isn’t a big deal given that the cabinet is up against a wall and the drawers can’t really go out the wrong side.  Then on top of that we have been dealing with the pool some more.  We had been fighting one of the worst algae blooms I have seen in awhile, and finally the we suggested just draining it and starting from scratch.  We had not realized that we had essentially been running on the same water since we resurfaced the pool a half dozen years ago.  It was probably time to drain it and power wash it and start fresh, which before was always something we had done every few seasons.  It is shocking just how fast a pool can drain when you have two pumps working on it.

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As far as playing catch up, I did a lot of stuff yesterday.  The above screen is a shot from the second dungeon, and when Tam woke up he decided we should run it.  Earlier in the day I managed to run the first primal fight which is tied to the main story quest, and I happened to luck out there and catch Spiral and crew about to run it for some of the Syv members.  Later in the day I ran it again to get Ashgar through it, and this time I got what was explained to me as the more complicated job… but in truth it is the easy one.  There is this one phase where the off tank picks up orbs…  but other than that it is just pretending to be dps in deliverance stance.  I am assuming in Extreme mode there will be some sort of a tank swapping mechanic.  At some point I shifted into the mode of ignoring side quests and largely just barreling forward with the MSQ, and that has allowed me to gain some ground.  By the end of the night I had caught up to dungeon three and we made an attempt at running it.  I say attempt because on the final encounter we started being plagued by disconnects from various group members.  We went through a period of fifteen to twenty minutes of trying to get everyone online and stable…  only to wipe at 5% on an attempt because half of the party disconnected again.  My hope is tonight we can get in and run it while the servers are not screaming.

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So far Stormblood feels like a much better expansion than Heavensward was, in both story and zone variety.  Time will tell if that comparison holds up once we enter the “end game” content and see how long it takes for us to tire of it.  The other odd thing that is happening is that I am feeling like I want to finish off the Warrior so I can start in leveling the Samurai properly.  I really wish they had patched in Red Mage and Samurai ahead of the launch of the rest of the content allowing folks to have a bit to level them to at least 60 before starting the content legitimately.  Right now mine is sitting at 53 and other than some thoughts about doing a few beast tribe quests with him…  I think he is going to remain there stalled until I push the Warrior to 70.  We have so many tanks right now that the pressure to keep pushing so I can viably group with my friends is very much a thing.

1 thought on “Into the Steppes”

  1. ‘Twas good seeing you in Reunion last night.

    I too made it to Bardam’s Mettle last night, but it was right as all the mass disconnects started happening. I managed to run it this morning before work though — quite fun! The 2nd boss, especially is interesting. It’s literally 100% mechanics dodging. No fighting, no healing, just everyone has to dance. Nice change of pace.

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