“Love is like a poisonous mushroom — you don’t know if it is the real thing until it is too late.”

–Bill Balance

Agaricus mushrooms were introduced in Final Fantasy XI’s Wings Of The Goddess update.  They are an unremarkable drop in and of theselves.  However, if you’re (A) a Paladin, that (B) knows a high level (94+) cook, and (C) can farm up the ingredients, you can get (E) Rabbit Pies.

I have A-C covered.  I just need to  (D) make the time time to farm.

What’s the big deal over Rabbit Pies?  Rabbit Pies are the best Paladin food — ever.  They raise Attack by 25%, Defense by 25%, plus give Strength and Vitality bonuses.  This food generates enmity through damage, and keeps it from ablating.

<rantmode: on>
Online sources says the Brasscaps in Grauberg have a 8.3% drop.  I think that’s a bit optimistic.

Last night, I marched into Grauberg as PLD/thf, and proceeded to off 52 Brasscaps — which should have given me 4-ish Agaricus.

I got exactly 4′ish less than that.

The night before I spent about the same amount of time doing the same thing, to get one.

So, hours and hours of mindless, soul destroying repetition to get one freeking mushroom.

I understand wanting to keep things rare’ish, but when an item is required in 4 recipes, and possibly needed to complete 2 quests — making it have a lower drop rate than the Bounding Boots off Leaping Lizzy is just f’ing retarded.

Clearly someone at SE likes to mess with players and probably thought this was amusing. I hope they develop a pair of kidney stones.

In the mean time I need to kick my own ass for falling for this trap.

</rantmode: off>

I want the entire Iron Ram Sallet armor set, for my Paladin.  The trick to getting it is that you have to accumulate Allied Notes — which can only be acquired in the past.  Besides doing experience points parties in the past with Sigil on, the only way to get Allied Notes is to participate in Campaign battles and operations.

With work so busy and intruding into my game time, I was presented with a perfect opportunity.  I’ve been doing nothing but Campaign battles and operations with my Paladin to raise up the Allied Notes to afford the starer piece I want (the Iron Ram Sallet itself ).  As of now, I’m on the cusp of earning the head piece (only 2K notes to go), and I’ve taken my Paladin from level 67 to 68 (29,000 experience points).

This has also given me time to experiment a bit with subjobs while doing Campaign Battles.

Warrior, the standard subjob for Paladin, is useful for the STR and VIT boosts, as well as having very useful Job Abilities and Traits for upping damage (which earn you more experience and allied notes).  The downside to /war is that it really is a party support subjob, and doesn’t significantly give the solo Paladin any boost in survivability.

Ninja, as a subjob to Paladin is almost worthless in Campaign.  I know it works in some end game applications, and merit parties.  In campaign there are so many AOE attacks from the various monsters that Shadows go down way to fast.  Dual wield is okay, but if you happen to take hate, having a shield is more valuable.  All in all, /nin gives the solo Paladin in Campaign little of value.

Thief is interesting.  Sneak Attack is fun for the damage, and Trick Attack allows you to put the hate you’d get from a critical hit on somemone else (and absolutely no one expects this from a Paladin).   Thief also provides a boost to DEX, AGI, and evasion — not enough to be really noticable, but I suspect it makes a difference.   Finally /flee provides you the ability to get out of a sticky situation if need be.  Overall /thf provides more survival tools than /nin, but gets edged out by /war in ability to produce damage (which in Campaign is essential).

The last job I tested with was Dancer.  Dancer as a subjob versus Warrior is almost a wash in stats, save for STR.  Dancer’s Drain Samba and Curing Waltzes are also ideal in making Paladin one of the ultimate survival job in Campaign.  Dancers curative abilities combined with Paladin’s normal curing abilities and damage mitigation allowed me to tank the non-notorious monsters in Campaign for an extended amount of time.   However /dnc also gives you access “Animated Flourish” which is a lot like Warriors Provoke.  For Campaign, this ends up being useful because you also receive experience and notes for damage taken.  For me, /dnc was the hands-down winner for the solo Paladin.