In an XP party with WW, we finished a 5 star leve with 2 seconds to spare. The whole thing was crazy and desperate, but we succeeded, and somehow managed to tie with another experience I've had in this game.

A year an a half ago, back when the game was reletively new, back before SE fixed everything, back when you could have a party of 15 people in a behest, I experienced something similar.

I was a 27 Pug, finally high enough to attempt some leves in the Nanawa Mines, and I was in a full party with simmilarly leveled guys from my LS. Because we had a full party, we decided, stupidly, to attempt a 5 star leve. This leve involved finding and killing 5 giant antling things scattered around the mines, and keep in mind that there was no map-marker to identify them at the time, so we had to hunt them down the hard way.

The first one was reletively close to the Aetherite, so we were encouredged. Until the thing aggro'd and attacked. Most of us were slautered right away, and our esteemed leader said "F*** this!" and tried to run back to the aetherite to reduce the level. Back then, enemies didn't have their territories, they followed you to Mor Dhona and back until you or they died, and they didn't de-aggro just because you died and returned. Leader made it to the aetherite as most of us were reviving, but was killed by a quickly following Antling, an Antling which immedietely saw additional prey and leapt to the feast.

Back then, Weakness was a 50% reduction in all stats, and it stacked. double weakness, triple weakness, if you were killed with any stack of weakness on you, another one was placed on you when you returned. Needless to say, we were F***ed because we simply couldn't revive and activate the Aetherite fast enough to reduce the level before dying again. THis lasted for a good 15 minutes, until finally we coordinated enough to have everyone revive at the same time, and run like the wind, whoever survived drawing the antling away so others could do the job right.

Finally we managed to reduce the level, but when you're stuck with 5% stats and health for 3 minutes, even a 1 star antling was able to slaughter us. One of us was able to hide long enough to recover from the weakness and finally started working to take out the Antling while the rest of us followed suit.

with all of 5 minutes to spare, we were finally ready to resume searching hell and high water for the rest, so we scattered until one was found and each worked to help bring these arachnid bastards down.

As a 27 pug, I wasn't sure I could solo a single one of these R30 things, but I found myself alone against one at the very enterance to the cave, daylight spilling over us. My one was the last one, and It was a measure of desperation to even survive against it while doing damage until a couple others finally showed up at the last moment and the thing died. As the timer counted down to 5, 4, 3, 2, it finally dissapeared and the victory aetherite appeared.

This one with WW was just the two of us, and as a 44 LNC and a 45 GLA, we tried a 5 star again. It was a Necrogolis leve over in Halatia. Between my tanking and WW's support, we were able to handle ourselves pretty well. Most of the beams of light generated these 3 Pteroc monsters which, while not all that hard, had high enough HP and def that it took a long time to take them down, and naturally we encountered them 6 times. Finally, on the very last search-spot inside the nearby mountain, the last necrogolis page was found and the real enemy appeared, 3 zombie lancers.



Just before I activated it, my game glitched in a weard but not unheard-of way. To me it seemed that WW was sitting atop an invisible Chocobo (see my picture in the albums), and was stuck there, so I didn't have his support as the zombies made short work of me. I returned and came back, but the zombies were stationed at the enterance to the mountain, between me and a now dead WW who seemed to refuze to return at all, even when I was killed a second time and showing up with Brink of Death active. I had reduced the difficulty to 4 stars at that point, but even then BoD is not something to be trifled with, so I led the zombied on a merry chase around the lake ala 3 stooges style while waiting for my weakness to dissapear as well as trying to raise WW on a passaround. He gets up and we both run outside to try and escape/deaggro the things long enough to recover and fight back. With no MP, 2 of them finally returned, but one persisted and I decided to fight it, recently de-weakened and barely alive anyway from the few hits I did take during the chase. WW tried to support, but a mob of normal antlings situated just outside that mountain aggroed to him and he ran away to preserve while I continued my desperate struggle to survive against and possibly beat the zombie, including one of his parners who had also re-aggro'd and joined the fight.

I take down one, then I start on the other with 2 minutes to spare while WW seemed to be running to Ul'Dah and back it seems to escape the antlings. With 45 seconds to spare, I take down the other lancer and rush towards the last one, desperately crying for help as it didn't seem possible for me to kill it in the little time remaining. with 20 seconds to go, WW, who was sitting on the ground just outside trying to recover MP finally showed up and lent his spear to the fight, and the zombie finally died, the counter once again ticking from 5, 4, 3, 2, until it dissapeared and the victory aetherite appeared.

If I wasn't so close to 50, I think I might be leved out for awhile.

Needless to say, tough it was cut by the skin of my teeth in shameless hollywood style on more than one occasion, I have yet to fail a battle leve.

I just wish I wasn't so hyped up on adrenalin so that I'd remember to take more screenshots.

Good read, felt like I was there with you and ww. Thumbs up to the two of you.