A Moogle Kupo d'Etat

Now that I've finished this mini-expansion, I'm going give a start-to-finish review of it in comparison with it's predecessor, A Crystalline Prophecy. I wasn't in any sort of hurry to finish this add-on scenario due to the horrible taste ACP left in my mouth. I've bitched before about level-capped stuff. Even if level capped things are done right, they suck. SE's implementation of level sync (and with it, the level-adjusted gear) has made level-capped stuff mildly bearable to me, but it's still stupid.

Missions and Story

The story arc itself plays out rather similar to ACP. After the first cutscene, you're sent out on a fetch quest to find items your moogle can use to repair your leaky roof. Who knew a roof leak could be repaired with a turtle...scale?, orc armor and yagudo caulk.

SE appeared to have learned a bit of a lesson on this mission though. Unlike ACP, there were actually multiple locations someone could go to get the items they needed and the drop rate wasn't anywhere near as horrendous. I was rather happy to find this out. I'm sure when it initially came out, all of the places were still over-crowded, but if the drop rates were actually improved (meaning...I just didn't get lucky with mine), then people generally got in, got out, and got on with life. Which is how any fetch quest should be.

Turning in the requested items got a couple of cutscenes and...another fetch quest. At least they utilized every mining, logging and harvesting point in the zilart areas instead of confining it to one or two zones. It wasn't too bad as long as you didn't get caught up in the initial hoopla about it, but it still wasn't exactly my idea of fun. After mining up a sturdy metal strip, logging some rugged tree bark, and harvesting a savory lamb roast(especially since I'm in the practice of burying my food...), we've now successfully repaired someone ELSE's mog house and we've apparently trapped our moogle in some sort of a Shantoto curse cube.

Thank god. I beat the expansion! I got rid of my Moogle!

Damn thing just spinning around all fkn day not doing anything at all other than trying to look cute, sound squeaky and blurbing out "PS2 limitations" when I bitch about the lack of space in my mog house. Fuck off moogle.

No really, I thought about just dropping the entire story right there. That alone was worth $10 to me.

Then I zoned back into my Mog House and found my moogle still spinning joyfully...Damn.

So now we're sent to find out how to uncurse our idiotic, white, fat bag with wings. Shantotto is the one we're sent to. She'll obviously fix our problem for gil, but she needs some sort of a starfruit that's apparently hoarded by Cardians...

This next part was really the only part that got close to thoroughly annoying me. Mauling Cardians (or anything) is fun, especially cause of the noises they make when they die, but mauling Cardians for key items that apparently have a rather horrendous drop rate AND will screw up your ability to dish damage if you don't have the right one is just ridiculous. On top of that, wtf is so important about this stupid fruit that the Cardians are guarding it in this manner. I spent about an hour killing Cardians with Oldive and a BRD friend of his who's name I can't remember near the ??? spawn. This fight is similar to the first fight in ACP. Click the ???, kill everything that spawns. Only problem is...instead of 3-4 waves of mandragora, you're going to have 5-20 Cardians beating down on you depending on how much time you decided to spend farming the key items. They're susceptible to sleepga and all, but they're surprisingly accurate and hit harder than one might suspect. It wasn't too much of an issue for a DRK, a DRG and a BRD to take 'em down, but...yeah...spending an hour farming this stuff up and then killing this was making me think SE didn't learn anything after all.

Fruit in hand, back to Shantotto we go. She removes her curse on the mog house and as a result, we finally meet the primary antagonist in this whole scenario. The verbally challenged, Toto Kupeliaure. If it's one thing SE has always been great at, it's their ability to play on words. This is very apparent in their ability to tell stories, but like Sammy Sosa, when it comes to do anything important outside of their main skillset, their ability to verbalize things properly just goes down the shitter.

Apparently Toto has sent the Godfather Moogle on a "cruise" to Tavnazia and has taken over the Rent-A-Room empire. He also expects us to pay back "rent". Since our Moogle is apparently out of pocket, we're sent to dig up his buried life-savings via Chocobo.

Brief recap: SE has now managed to incorporate Logging, Harvesting, Mining and Chocobo Digging into the missions. I'm betting we're going to see something Fishing-related and Clamming-related for the last of these mini-expansions. They've also likely made you spend around 8-10k gil by this point too.

After running all over Tahrongi Canyon (it's a random zone for everyone), I found my moogle's moldy, worm-eaten chest. Still not enough in there to cover the astronomical price tag Toto is asking for, so our moogle does what anyone else in debt would do...

...he goes to the Mafia.

Er...he sends me to visit the Mafia to take out a loan.

And on top of that, here's another 5-10k you're going to spend just to get to the area you need to go. This is where I have to start applauding SE's sick sense of accomplishment though. Haven't done the sahagin key quest? You just won yourself a grand tour of Sea Serpent Grotto.

Securing the "loan" from the resident moogle mafia loan shark, Riko Kupenreich, my moogle is overly joyed that he won't be evicted. The joy doesn't last too long as I apparently didn't read the fine print on the loan agreement. Three goblin henchmen decide to barge in and rain on our parade...also informing us that they've apparently moogle-napped my moogle's bride-to-be, Kupiruru.

Now it's on. Y'see...I thoroughly dislike my moogle and I do enjoy any misfortune that gets dumped on his fat fkn head, but you don't mess with anyone's woman. Especially if I haven't figure out how the hell they have sex.

Kupiruru is apparently being held in yet another minimially-used arena, the Chamber of Oracles. To get there though, you have to find 9 ???s that are scattered through out Quicksands caves. To a level 75 character, the vast majority of this area is safe to travel through without having to worry about aggro. Having a teleport-altep or an escape handy helps speed things up dramatically. That part I mentioned earlier about having to applaud SE? For this particular leg, if you don't have a map of the Quicksands Caves, guess what you're doing before you can even sniff the ???s out?

You're doing something you should have done a long time ago. Farming up coffer keys, finding the coffer and getting your map. This would be something I used to bitch about all the time when I was organizing events. I really hate it when people get lost. I really hate it more when people are online more than I am, don't bother to get their maps and get lost. In other words...

SPEND SOME FUCKING TIME GETTING YOUR FUCKING MAPS PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT ME TRYING TO ACT LIKE MISS TEEN SOUTH CAROLINA. THIS IS ME TELLING YOU THAT YOU PISS EVERYONE OFF WHO COMES PREPARED FOR VARIOUS EVENTS WHEN YOU WON'T BOTHER TO DO SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS GETTING A FUCKING MAP. SEEING THE WORDS "I'M LOST" WHEN WE'RE PRESSED FOR TIME IS JUST AS BAD AS HEARING THE WORDS "I'M PREGGERS" WHEN YOU'RE FUCKING STARVING AND ARE ALREADY FIVE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND-DOLLARS IN DEBT.

Can anyone else tell this is a serious pet peeve of mine?

(And this has nothing to do with Erimentha not having a map as we got to this point. She doesn't play anywhere near as much as I do even before Mr. and Mrs. Kaelis left FFXI a year ago.)

Once you get your key item, it's time for a throw-down. I went over this BC in this post. This mini-expansion is starting to get pretty good at this point. We've rescued Kupiruru, so now I can try to voyeur my moogle and try to figure out how they hunka-chunka. In mid-celebration, a invitation/apology comes along that wants us to put everything in the past to attend this fantastic new Moogle Festival in...Castle Zvahl Baileys...

/facepalm

See why I want to beat the shit out of my moogle?

Onto what I assumed would be every bit as bad as the Delkfutt crawl from ACP. Turns out it's far better than the Delkfutt crawl. It's not level capped, the games actually make you think for a few seconds and it doesn't take but maybe 20 minutes to do. Sure you get the grand tour of Xarc, Glacier, Castle Zvahl Bailey's and Castle Zvahl Keep, but since the BC is at the throne room anyway, you were going to have to follow the exact same path for the latter two anyway. Even the level 1 run from zone line to zone line isn't an issue as they actually provide a long lasting sneak/inviz/deodorize for you. You just simply need to be familiar with how to get to the Keep and you have more than enough time to get there.

Oh btw? You need do get the map of the northlands before you can do this. <3 SE.

After running through the mini-games, we find out that Riko Kupenreich was apparently behind the whole sceme to begin with and was using Toto as a pawn. On top of that, Riko has apparently tried to eat a crystal through the front of his stomach, the result of which has made him grow 10x his normal size.

Talk about indigestion.

Wait...he's...targetable...and I can draw my weapon...

The Final Battle! Kupocalpyse and Kupogedden Averted!

I have to admit. This battle is fun. Unlike ACP, a lot of combinations of jobs can take it out. Some combinations have an easier time than others obviously, but the fact that you aren't limited to zerg parties or parties built around ranged damage like the ACP fight was welcome indeed. In addition, this whole fight is absolutely nuts. This is the sort of imagination that I love from SE. The fight isn't overly difficult as long as you know specific things to look for, but for anyone doing this for the first time (especially if it's the first time for the entire party), expect to lose. There's nothing in the form of a write up that can really prepare you for the shenanigans that go on in here. A quick run down of what you're generally going to need will be:

- 2 nukers. This is for when Riko is running around throwing bombs at people. A pair of BLMs or a pair of SCHs work great here, but you can also use RDMs or even a pair of DDs. The reason you'll want the mages though has to do with Stoneskin and Drain as it's simply the most efficient way for the rest of the party to stay off the hate list until a little later in the fight.

- 2 mostly strong DDs. Any combination will work, but having Meditate or at least a way to build TP quickly is rather necessary. This can be achieved by being SAM (which most prefer) or by subbing SAM. Being able to avoid most of the normal melee attacks from the henchmen will be very helpful too.

- A main healer and a Sleeper/backup healer/kiter. Main healer is for the melee. When Riko pops out his henchmen, they use a lot of mildly damaging TP moves along with casting T4 and -ga 3 nukes. The Sleeper/backup healer/kiter is a rather obvious job choice (RDM), but a BLM or SCH would work as well. For your main healer, WHM, RDM or SCH will work fine, though most will prefer WHM/SCH for this role due to it's mp conservation.

It took us two attempts to beat this. We lost the first time with Lect(RDM), Kay(WHM), Kaelis(BLU), Eri(BLM), Brizzy(BLM) and myself on DRG. As always, the first attempt is a learning experience if you lose, mostly lucky if you win. We made one critical mistake that had been hinted at, but never actually pointed out in any of the BG or Wiki strats that I read. That mistake was positioning in regards to Riko re-entering the battle for his next phases.

You see, once he hits 50%, he pops out 5 henchmen, then retreats to a corner you can't reach him and gets Cure V spammed on him by a couple other henchmen. Each volley of Cure V seems to give him 5% HP or so back. The critical part of this is that your nukers HAVE to be in between your melee (who are likely clearing off the henchmen) and Riko. The reason for this is you really only want 2-3 of your party members on the hate list after he gets to 100%. His Crystalline Flare move draws in anyone on the hate list, hits them for about 400-800 damage and stuns them for 10+ seconds.

During the first attempt, I was aggro'd by Riko at the start of his second phase. Kay trying to heal me obviously put her on the hate list. The BLMs trying to get him off put them both on the hate list and since Lect was trying to keep them alive, he was on the hate list as well. This made Crystalline Flare especially painful and we ended up wiping in some rather bad positions.

Now aside from the positioning issue, we had a couple other minor issues to work out. The combination of BLU/NIN and DRG/SAM was strong, but limited by Kaelis' MP pool in terms of damage output, espcially when things get out of hand like they did due to our positioning. On top of that, Erimentha is level 72 and the nuke damage difference, merits aside, between Brizzy and Eri was rather large. This isn't to say it can't be won with a 72BLM in the fold, there are just other things that have to be set up. For this BC's purposes, Eri being 73 gets her access to some of the better nuking equipment (BLM JSE) and she's not all that far from it. I suspect that gap will be closed quite a bit once she hits 73 and the gap will be rather minimal if/when she hits 75 before doing this BC again.

The second attempt saw us go in with Yoteo (SAM), Kay (WHM), Lect (RDM), Kaelis(BLM), Brizzy (BLM), and myself on DRG again. We made a point of stressing the following keys this time around:

- Positioning. BLMs needed to be ready to nab Riko as soon as he regen'd to 100%.

- Secondary sleeps. The first attempt had us only utilizing Lect for sleeps on henchmen. Having one of the BLMs toss out a Sleepga II shortly after the initial sleepga landed helped out tremendously.

- "Holding" Riko. Understanding that while being knocked around is indeed frustrating, it's not all that hard to actually hold Riko off to one side of the arena. We didn't pick up on this until the third phase, but having Lect basically kite/hold Riko allowed our BLMs the opportunity to recover all their MP for that final push. There was really no imminent danger of death while this was going on.

After a little bit of a mistimed start, Brizzy and Kaelis managed to learn the trick to holding/kiting Riko around. It normally takes 3ish bombs before stoneskin breaks. Even when it does break, Drain is so powerful on him, that they can pretty much siphon off half their HP bar or more from Riko.

The henchmen still went down around the same pace as they did when Kaelis was on BLU and I was on DRG. The other thing I noticed was that I was getting a little lucky on the 2.5x multipliers from Gungnir. After the 75% mark, I crit hit Riko for 1982 damage. The same sort of number showed up on 2 of the henchmen too. Even one of my jumps cleared 2k. I don't know if I just didn't see it during the first attempt, but I was rather baffled at the sheer number of times the relic multiplier kicked in. There were at least 10 swings I saw on the henchmen alone where it kicked in.

Yot, in typical taru fashion, managed to get himself killed during the 2nd wave of Henchmen due to the fact he didn't assist me and went to his own target. The combination of Mog Shrapnel and Blizzaga III was enough to do him in while I was left standing with approx. 250HP left.

LOLTarutaruHP.

Once those 3 key points are realized and you get past all the theatrics involved from Riko and his henchmen throwing bombs, washtubs, gil and flower pots at you, this BC is not all that difficult. There is a lot going on, especially during the henchmen phase of the fight and even moreso if Riko re-enters before you are done with the henchmen. Nukes, Weapon Skills and crit hits seem to do double damage no matter what, so utilizing a skillchain (if feasible) is a good way to knock HUGE chunks of HP off Riko or his henchmen. A DRG and a SAM aren't the best in terms of setting up strong Light and Darkness skillchains, but even fragmentation was doing over 2k.

Bottom line about this BC though...it's crazy. It's accessible to many different party combination and above all, it's actually fun.

And I just need to mention...LOLGirlfriendforgettingtofinishherkeyitembeforeentering.

Overall Thoughts

I'm not sure where MKE was in terms of production when ACP was released, but I have to say...it certainly looks like SE learned some hard lessons from ACP. I found this expansion to be well worth the $10 I chucked out for it. While certain parts of it annoyed me, I'm not expecting perfection. If it leaves out the long, drawn out level capped crap, makes the items necessary to move forward accessible to even mass herds of players and makes the fights winnable with a wide array of job combinations, I'm going to be happy with it.

On top of all that, the story was surprising light-hearted and fun. I can poke fun at various parts of it that just simply didn't make sense (like why in the hell do all mog houses apparently have Flintstones-esque meat-on-bones hidden in their attic that only fall out when it's being fixed...), but compared to SE's typical expansion story lines that pretty much mean the end of the world if you don't succeed, this one was simply a fun story. I'm even more than happy to go redo some of the key item quests prior to the BCs as they aren't a huge time-sink and aren't "stupid-level-capped-require-you-to-click-a-target-in-the-middle-of-a-pack-of-monsters-you-could-obliterate-at-75-bullshit".

Fun, entertaining and well worth $10. SE seems to have redeemed themselves from the pile of processed compost they released with ACP. Hopefully this is an indication of things to come when A Shantotto Ascension comes down the pipe.

The Reward

As for what I chose...



I already knew I was going to get the STR+4/WS-Acc+15 option. I had mentioned before that I was a little torn between Eva+10/Store-TP+4 and Acc+10/Att+5. After giving it some thought, I decided that I wasn't going to be TP'ing in this hat, so Eva+10/Store-TP+4 was almost pointless for me. This piece basically become arguably the best head slot you can get for a WS set. There are those that will argue N.Head is better and I don't disagree, but if you're already capped or near capped on fSTR, this is a VERY close second to the N.Head in terms of overall attack. Dump in the additional accuracy and it's very likely this combination will likely out-parse the N.head altogether. Doesn't mean I don't want N.Head anymore though. I've got 4/5 of the N.pieces and I'm a completionist.

N.Head+1 will add: STR+12(+9 Att) and DEX+6(Acc+4ish).
C.Galea will add: STR+4(+3 Att), Attack+5, Acc+10, WS Acc+15.

When it comes down to it, there's basically a difference of 2 fSTR and 1 attack from a raw damage standpoint. The difference in accuracy is enormous though and impossible to ignore. This also replaces Ace's Helm for weapon skills entirely, but it's still one of, if not the best head piece for TP'ing with Askar hat a close second.