BST Memories

I actually wrote this a longass time ago but I never posted it, but I figured it'd be a good post to get back into BST mode, I still laugh over this situation as it reminds me about how fun playing BST is.

Old Post (past):

So today I started levelling BST again, I haven't touched BST in a long time so I kind of forgot how to play it. When you're a BST all alone in a camp or secluded part of the zone as you often are you really need to be more attentive than you would in a normal XP situation. Cause when things go wrong, there's usually never anyone around to help, which means if you want to live, you need to be able to think and act fast. There's no whm behind you to throw out that emergency cure or that blm to sleep a link, or that war to voke something off you. As I was saying, I had forgotten how to play this job, so on with the story.

I scrambled through my mog safe, mog locker, and mule to grab whatever BST items I had left and discovered, to my delight, I hadn't sold most of the equip I used when I stopped playing the job. I filled in the remaining gaps by buying some Merc Captain's armor with my overabundance of conquest points in Windurst. I figured once I hit 40 I'll be redoing much of my armor anyway so I didn't spend much.. or any gil.. on BST for this level.

After browsing the BST forums on Alla to refresh my memory on the prime levelling locations, I settled on Yuhtunga Jungle. Seemed like a good choice.. at the time.

I had loosely read the directions on how to get to the camp and found it with little difficulty by use of Outpost Warp. It felt good, being in the wild, on my own, just me and native jungle inhabitants, I really missed this playstyle.

I then went back to the forum to make sure I was in the right camp and to read what the strategy was here. As I'm doing so, I hear the aggro noise that we've all come to know and love. Quickly going back to FFXI, I realize I parked my char at a crappy spot, and had a Very Tough Goblin Robber hitting me. Lovely.

So what came next, panic of course. My first instinct was to run, which I started to do. Though some point between noticing I was in yellow HP and figuring out which direction I was running I realized I was a BST and BSTs could Charm! There were two perfectly good Soldier Crawlers in front of me, which would've made great pets, only when I opened my macro set.. I was on my BLM set. /sigh.

So I'm running away, dodging further gob aggro, and fumbling through my macros to get to my BST set when I come to the open area by the outpost. I find the macro set and I'm able to Charm Bind the Gob that's chasing me to get alittle further ahead.

By the outpost the only Charmable pet around are Easy Prey Young Opo-opo's, which are resistant to charm might I add. I take the risk and Charm one figuring it's just Easy Prey and to my relief I now have an EP pet. I quickly send it to fight the gob chasing me and I have a moment of relief. A brief moment..

Thinking I'm home free I run what I think is a good distance away from the intense battle between my monkey pet and that gob to Cure myself up. Was it a good distance? Nah, so my cure II grabs hate and the goblin loses interest in my pet and starts running toward me again. Joy.

So I begin kiting it around the open area of the Outpost till my pet could regain hate, only as I was doing so.. I catch aggro from a Goblin Furrier in the area. My pet finally catches up with the Goblin Robber and they begin to fight again but now I'm stuck with the Furrier still on me. Thankfully it's only Easy Prey so I decide to engage it.

It didn't take long for the VT Robber to finish off my EP Opo-opo and I did notice this. Only managing to get the Furrier down to 75% I had to disengage to get another pet. Again the only thing in the area being Opo-opo's I go for another one. This time.. it fails.

So here I am with a Young Opo-opo, Goblin Furrier, and Goblin Robber all heading after me, at this point I'm thinking I'm pretty dead so I decide to make a run for it and see how far I get. I figured I'd head for Sea Serpent Grotto and to my surprise, I manage to drop down the correct hole and I'm down by the waterfall heading to SSG with a nice lead on all my enemies I managed to make.

I had 22 HP as I'm heading toward the waterfall, I'm pretty much home free though. Figuring I'd just avoid the Sahagins and all would be good. I was feeling pretty good right about now.

Then it happens:
The River Sahagin starts casting Dia II.

NO! 22 HP, knowing my death would come fast I stopped to cast cure II, only I didn't look at my MP and didn't have enough for a cure II. So I start casting cure I and by that time the Sahagin catches up to me and kills me.


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Looking back on this situation there are so many things I could've done differently had I remembered more about playing BST. Not going AFK in a spot where I'm likely to get aggro would've prevented that whole situation. Being prepared and having my macros ready would've ended it quicker as well. Remember all the abilities of the job I had available to me such as the stack of Jug Pets in my inventory which would've come in handy had I remembered that or properly using Tame to stop a mischarm which also could've helped. I could've used Reward too to make Opo-opo last longer to give myself more time. Also I was wearing a pair of powder boots at the time which would've given me Flee that I could have used as well. Even just using my chocobo whistle to scout the camp and not getting off my chocobo till I was ready to start could've done the trick too.

My survival instincts will come back to me, but I do feel like I'm learning how to be a BST all over again.

In current news, my BST is back in business, currently lvl 42, and I hope to be able to write about BST for a long time to come :)