Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Tsingtao]

RARGH!

New Summoning Magic and Quests

The thrilling climax to Chains of Promathia was finally reached in the July version update. Now delve deeper into the stories of prominent Chains of Promathia characters as you enjoy the new quests planned for release in December.

-New Summoning Magic

The quest to obtain an avatar long awaited by summoners will soon be available. The terrestrial avatar Diabolos made his first appearance in "Darkness Named," and now those able to defeat him at the height of his strength will learn to harness the power of dreams.

The Blood Pact abilities of Diabolos are quite unique when compared to those of other avatars. We have provided a list of Diabolos's abilities with brief explanations; however, we would like to allow summoners the chance to discover the full scope of these powers on their own.

-Diabolos's Blood Pact Abilities

Camisado: Deals physical damage.
Somnolence: Weighs target down.
Nightmare: Deals darkness elemental damage that puts all enemies within the area of effect to sleep and gradually reduces their HP.
Ultimate Terror: Decreases attributes of enemies within area of effect.
Noctoshield: Gives party members within area of effect the effect of "Phalanx."
Dream Shroud: Enhances magic attack and magic defense of party members within area of effect.
Nether Blast: Delivers a ranged attack that deals darkness elemental damage.
Ruinous Omen (Astral Flow): Required MP: Caster's level x2. Uses all MP and reduces the HP of enemies within area of effect by a random percentage.

-New Quest

A new quest that brings players up against the might of the Wyrmking Bahamut will be introduced. The ruler of all dragonkind has previously only appeared in Chains of Promathia mission event scenes, but in the upcoming version update, adventurers will come face to face with Bahamut on the field of battle.

*These quests can only be undertaken after progressing past a certain point in the Chains of Promathia story. Also, the key items and normal items required for the quests "Mama Mia" and "The Moonlit Path" will not be affected by the introduction of the avatar Diabolos.

In addition to those mentioned above, several more quests are scheduled for release in the upcoming version update, so be sure to check the Topics section regularly for the latest details!

Clicky

[Darwock]

This had better exist as a solo avatar battle! I can't wait to go a few rounds in the ring with another avatar! woohoo!

[Tsingtao]

I'm guessing this will be along the fenrir line of Avatars, I don't expect it to be an easy one to get hold of. Quite looking forward to it though, speaking of which I still need 5 of the original prime fights before my second run throught to get fenrir.

SMN levelling delayed further it looks like, not starting SMN till I have them all.

[Darwock]

/em resist the urge to slap Tsingtao for suggesting the solo avatar fights are easy :P

[Kerushi]

Cool tsing! ill be avaliable for th ZM runs on the days you have suggested and at the times you have suggested.

[Tsingtao]

Right having conferred with my diary it looks like Thursday night is the night for the first of the ZM5 runs (Wednesday ight I'm racing karts in Coventry). I'll set the LS message later if the servers are back on. Intention will be to gather together in Jeuno for a 20:00 start and go for Zi'Tah and one other. Second one will depend what time we beat the first. If we have plenty of time maybe cape terrigan otherwise Behemoths Dominion.

Going to save Ifrits Caultdron for a night all of its own probably next week. I know the path now but would like to go get a map of the area before hand if we can.

[Bayan]

I think Diabolos is going to be very hard to obtain. Obviously it will require reaching a point in the COP story, which i think few Rargh Members are at yet and also he will probably be harder than Fenrir.

[mosley]

this is where u guys hide hehe

[Kerushi]

thought you knew about this place mo mo mo mo mo mo mo moooooooooo-s-l-e-y

[Bayan]

Bahamut Down!
Diabolos GET!
Time to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

[talizker]

Bahamut Down!
Diabolos GET!
Time to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

O.o You don't hang arround dude! I thought I was doing well just downloading the update so I could play tonight

[C']

Yeah, congratulations and everything but I?ve got to say this is really disappointing to hear.

I was really hoping both of these would be incredibly difficult battles that would take people days, if not weeks to figure out and overcome.

Also, the lack of much new equipment (aside from relic+1 armour with minor boosts and an extra piece of JSE per job) makes this look like a pretty disappointing update overall.

I had a quick read over AK this morning and by all accounts the sky is falling in too with these ?anti-MPK? measures

[Darwock]

I had a quick read over AK this morning and by all accounts the sky is falling in too with these ?anti-MPK? measures

Care to elaborate on that? Did they implement something with this update to stop such things? (not sure what they could try, even if from what you say it sounds as though it's not working anyway)

[C']

It?s a bit hard to explain, so I would really recommend you read the update notes as it has a nice diagram which makes things clearer.

Essentially, monsters now have a ?home? radius. This is the part of the zone with which they would normally hang around in and wander. If you pull a monster outside of this radius and then zone, die or lose aggro by any other means, the monster will simply disappear after approximately 10 seconds (it will not aggro or link with anything during this time) then the exact same monster will repop back in it?s ?home? radius about a minute later.

In theory it sounds like a decent method of overcoming the MPK problem although at the same time rather crude. I appreciate this is a fantasy game but the idea of having monsters simply disappear for no reason is taking the suspension of disbelief idea a bit too far in my opinion.

However the problems are mostly stemming from the BST camp where in taking monsters away from their spawn area is a fundamental part of their solo abilities and from the sounds of it this has been severely hindered. Many BST are unhappy from the sound of it.

[Darwock]

Hmmm, I see the idea but would that work with situations like the Serket thing you witnessed? NM spawn points are surely not always going to be far away from the common or garden variety spawns. Although if you say they won't link outside of their home area then I guess it would be hard to make a lethal group of skellies.

I guess the days of huge trains of monsters decimating xp parties on their travels are over... which is a shame in a way - was always good for a bit of excitement.