This is my rant on my attempt to get Rank 10, and why I'm still rank 9, and just venting my frustration at a couple of ppl who abandoned us.
In the last couple of weeks, the bastok members of my LS have made a push to get Rank 9 (4 of us), and so we decided to get Rank 10.
We set a time, recruit others who need it (a lot of the ppl that did the previous Rank missions with us), couple of guys change their work schedule, etc, etc.
We decide to start at 8:30pm, we don't get to Gustav Tunnel until 10pm (I actually thought 90 mins to get an alliance of 60-75 together was pretty good)
If you're above lvl60, you should know a few things.
1) Alliances take time to set up, plan on it, do NOT leave ppl behind
2) Higher level Rank missions aren't a walk in a park, there is a good chance you can die, and something can always go wrong. Don't panic if that happens
3) you can't complete these missions in a matter of minutes. If you join a group doing it, plan on spending quite a while doing it, and plan on changing your plans if you've made some already.
4) For Christ sakes, stick together, again, do NOT leave ppl behind.
Anyways......
You have to fight some Jellies that multiply for 9-1, and to make it harder, you have skellies on both sides of your camp area.
We get agro from skellies mid-fight, and things go wrong in a hurry, 10 ppl die, and one of the higher level RDMs warps out because he had 3HP (if you have 100mp for warp, you have plenty to cure yourself) we kill the skellies, the jellies are sleeping, raise the dead, rest, everyone is unweakened (RDM still hasn't made his way back by this time) We kill the jellies.
/hurray, everyone gets the items, we escape out, finish the mission, and everyone gets started on 9-2
9-2 is a 6 person BCNM fight in Zvahl Castle Bailey (where you fight Shadow Lord)
Half the alliance arrives at the castle, and proceeds to the throne room, leaving the other half behind. Just so happens that the ppl in the throne room know the way, the rest don't, so we're left to wander around, get buttloads of agro, and basically waste a lot of time. Had everyone waited, this would have gone smoothly, but that would have required patience, and at this point, I form the theory that as your level goes up, your patience goes down.
So we FINALLY get there. Our alliance only has 2 PLDs and 1 BLM, so we know some ppl are going to have to go twice, everyone is ok with this.
1st pt goes in and dies. They regroup, try again, and win. 2nd pt goes in and wins. after they come out, we realize one of the PLDs has left (someone said the pld was up for 27 hour, but we see they are still logged in after we were done)
so the PLD and BLM will now have to do this multiple times.
3rd group goes in, dies, they regroup, die again, and PLD says he is leaving. BLM doesn't want to go again. Someone offers 100k, they stay for one more fight (there are still 6 ppl that need it, and only 3 of those ppl are in the group that are going in) One of the guys realizes he isn't going to get a shot and leaves.
The pt wins, only 2 of us left that need it, we ask if they'll stay, they say no, and leave. It's 4am, no chance of finding a replacement PLD or BLM
So 8 hours later, 40k in oils/powders, and I get left behind.
VERY frustrating.
A huge thanks go to the guys that stayed around even though they didn't have to, and a big FU to those that left
If anyone needs me, I'll be flinging my RS4 around the race tracks in GT4