The Circle of Time - BRD AF3  

This quest is a lot easier than the description makes it sound. The first section is easily soloable, and at the level you'd need to be in order to do this quest in the first place leaves you with no excuse not to. I went with 8 members: three 50-60 bards, a 70ish white mage, a 70ish paladin, a 70ish thief, a 55 dark night, and a 70ish ranger. Getting to the room with the warlord is easy as long as you don't get aggro (which is easily avoidable with invis or a high level). Once you get there, the warlord isn't easy, but he's not exactly hard either. Once he's down, we rested up to full health and one of the bards popped Bugaboo. We slaughtered him like an ant; the battle was no more than 20 seconds long.

This task sounds a lot more daunting than it actually is, I suppose. Story goes, a good friend of mine is planning to quit, because FFXI just hasn't been very kind to him of late. One especially big kicker is that in 11 attempts to do his bard AF3, none were successful (rather in gathering or executing, i assume most were just trying to get people together). So, as a farewell gift, me and another friend decided we would attempt to get a group together, right then and there, to get this damn AF3 done. Hellbent on revenge against an NM that is causing us to lose a friend, a 72 Paladin(myself), a 75 samurai, and a 62 bard head into Davoi. To be honest, I was expecting to wipe, but have one last kick with a good friend in the process. We camped by the zone back into davoi near I-8, took out all the orcs one by one, and eventually moved into the throne room and took on the orcish warlord, who, despite what i was expecting, really isn't that tough. We rest to full, pop a poison potion each, bard 2hrs and hits me with ballad x2, and spawns the NM. Bugaboo wasn't doing a lot of damage per hit, but he did it very fast, which kind of caught me off-guard. Kept cures up and stayed alive as long as possible, and Samurai wiped it out with a Meikyo Shisui Light chain -- i don't think i even built 100 tp by the time he finished it up.
Reading about this af, it sounds like you'd need a huge group prepared for a crazy fight, so, make sure you read the posts under it(which, incidentally, you're doing -.-). Could probably do this very safely with a competent, balanced party of about 6, but that's not to say an unorthodox trio can't take it on.

After you bury the ring, you have to wait till Japanese midnight before it is able to be recovered.

Battle was incredibly easy. Duoed MNK75/NIN and RDM75/BLM. Not Dispellable. Casts Sleepga2 at start.

Just did with

75 THF
75 RNG
51 RDM
51 BRD <- me

Thf solod Warlord, and we destroyed Bugaboo. The NM did kill the rdm for some reason though... It was pretty funny.

/point Tlen /laugh.

There are actually 2 Orcish Warlords that spawn in Monastic Cavern. You want to go to I-8 to find the Altar to force Bugaboo to spawn. You do not want to go to the Orchish Warlord that hangs out with the Orcish Hexspinner. That is the wrong location.

Remember, like most 1 RL day waits, it resets overnight with the JP clock. I buried mine at 1 AM EST and got it out at 10 AM EST.

I just did this, so here's my account.

We had me (I went as 70 RDM, to be safe, and yes, you can do this with another job) and the samurai train all the coffer mobs to the zone, while the others killed whatever remained, and the True Sight NM there.

Before the train returned, we spawned the ghost, and demolished it. Of course, we had an alliance of 16, 12 of which were lvl 70-75, mostly 75, though. Complete overkill. Then we went to do Windy 8-1 by storming the shack, and got our butts kicked by Blizzga III and Firage III. -.-;; But it's still a good way to get people to help you, is look for windy rank 8 people. ^^

Did this tonight. Had an alliance. First we did my af3, then we got 2 keys and then we did pld af 3x, as well as get testimonies.

A high level killed the warlord before we went in. We did lose some people and had to raise because they got aggro when invis wore off before we got there.

Believe it or not after about an hour of fighting to get keys outside, we came back in to fight the warlord because someone needed an item he drops (some testimony). He went down without much of a struggle. I think its because we had fighting down pat by then (in an alliance)

Yes, we had two blms - casting fire. I cast fire threandy and ice carol. As well as the other kool songs we have.

Don't be afraid of this nm, just be prepared.
We had:
1 rng
3 drks
3 pld
2 whm
2 blm
1 brd
1 smn
and I can't remember what else was in there.

Hours and hours of finding keys after I got my fight done, and then the pld af. Now that's a hard fight cause it spawns TWO nm's. A pld and a ranger.

I have to go back to Sandy now to complete it, but I'm very happy that was done.


We had a mix level - mostly level 50's with some 60's and 2 70's in there.

*I died while helping with key
*Pld died while helping to get key and running to warlord 2nd time.
*whm died while we were getting key
*rng died when invis wore off near warlord first time
*drk died when someone hit the nm pld too soon. (he deleved back to 69 - was he ever pissed)
*War died when helping with key

So casualites yes, but we did so much that compared to that, it was not so terrible.

Uhh.. maybe because you have to kill this guy to wear a level 58 piece of AF. Sure, if you want to wait 5 levels before going after this it might be a cakewalk. ><

Bring at least two BLMs to fight Bugaboo! We had an alliance of 13 with 56-61 lvl character (mostly 58-60), but no nuking power due to the fact our BLM DCed and didnt come back. We even had someone to lead the Orcish Warlord away (DO NOT FIGHT HIM!) so Bugaboo was the priority. Its HP drain ruined us and we really missed the nuking on it. Without multiple BLM its hopeless, for us the fight was not possible as it took so long the Warlord made his way back and we escaped with Bugaboo sporting full hp even though we had him down to half at one point. This is not an easy fight like some have said. Four hours wasted on a few tries and need to get an alliance together once more. Least I know what I am looking for now. ^^

Ok, I just finished this, and it was heck. I'd like to help out some bards who will be doing this piece in the future.
First, you have to get to davoi and enter through H-11, I believe. Find the only area in I-8; This is where you need to go. Hopefully, as you should have a total of 11 others allianced 58+, you have enough invis to go around. This is a pain. There's a horde of orcs between you and the altar, and everyone has to slip by.
We entered the Altar room. Here there was a Notorious Monster (Orc Warlord, who sees through invis so BE CAREFUL) and a Dread. We went in as far as possible, 2houred on the Warlord while I took care of sleeping the other fiend. We took a couple casualties, one being me, but beat it. Neearly 6 minutes later, I spawned the bugaboo, and we killed it with much more ease than the Warlord. Return to san.
I guess all I have to say is that if you're going out on this mission, make sure you have your invis plan down, it's important.

yeaaaaaaaaah there's more to it than that so I'll rephrase a bit.

You get the ring from the ghost of a bard during AF2. When you come back to talk to Mertarie he'll say you should take it to an antique collector, namely Imasuke near the entrance to Qufim. He says he can't read it and that you should bury it in Perinnial Snow, I-10 and VERY obvious on the map lol, bury it there and you have to wait a real life day I think(I buried it and more or less forgot about it). After you dig the ring up, you take it back to Imasuke, he tells you the language is old San D'orian and that you should find someone that can read it. That would be Chavalto in Chateau d'Oraguille. He sends you to MONASTIC CAVERN which is a zone within Davoi. From there head on to I-8 but be careful the Orcish Warlord spawns in the same room as the alter and he sees through invis. Your alliance will have to be ready for this, and to clear out a lot of orcs around the area. You will need sneak as well, I think they're raku to 70s, but I'm not entirely sure. After you clear the alter room, one bard(if you're doing many) has to examine the alter, ghost pops aggro'd on him, and there you go, Bugaboo pops. Right off the bat it cast Ice Spikes that was actually hard to dispel. It took three dispel tries total from the three of us with dispel to do it. We did it with a two pt alliance, with lots of 60+s and was pretty easy. A 62ish war died, that was all. I hope this helps more than the description above ><

Kuraiholy
Ragnarok