Fugly hat, get!

OK, so... updates.

Ding, Dragoon 72 (fwee, Dusk Gloves and 3 levels to go)
Ding, new social LS (the others are boring 3/4 of the time)
Fugly hat, get! (Optical Hat)

Nothing too exciting with the first two, really. The last one though... took fucking forever. Stumbled into a /shout group to get a few people their Ohats, offered to come as BLM, even though I have no buffer on BLM. Well, turns out I didn't really need it. What I needed most was about... Oh, 6 fucking hours to get 7 hats.

The initial group had 5 pops, and 7 people, we got down to Hakutaku's spawn area and cleared everything out, popped him and killed him in roughly 35 minutes. Not bad, considering how low we were on DDs (the heaviest physical DD we had was a BLU, but we had a SMN as well). Absolutely no problem at all. 2 pops in, the leader and a couple other people had to go for Salvage, but they swore up and down they would come back afterward to help everyone else get their hats. K. S'cool. Total time: 35 minutes each for 2 kills, 15 minute wait in between. 85 minutes total.

2 hours later (Which isn't counting in my 6 hours, btw) we gather everyone back together... except the NIN/DRK tank. Great. We go back down, and my parents call me to come pick them up. Goddamnit.

1 hour later (Still not counting this), I get home to see that more people dropped out, but we have people to replace them. Yay. I get told to wait at the paintbrush door for a BLU who's coming out to help out. No big deal. Total time: 15 minutes waiting. 100 minutes total (Could've done Salvage in this time).

We get going, kill the adds, pop Hakutaku again, kill him in 15 minutes (the first BLU had switched to WAR and we got another NIN/DRK tank), no deaths and went even smoother. Twice over. Fucking awesome. Total time: 10 minutes to kill the adds, 30 for Haku, 15 minute wait. 150 minutes total.

This is when the solo-healing RDM (We had two) decides to pass the fuck out. Apparently, he'd been drinking all night. Oh, and the NIN? DCs.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. /sarcasm. Zac gets a RDM from his new social (and my new social) to come down and help, and the PLD we had off-tanking gets a THF and DRG friend to come help. RDM shows up, no real problems, about 20 minutes of waiting. Not bad, considering that's only 5 minutes more than it takes for the damn ??? to repop. We decide to wait for the DRG and THF to show up, since the DRG does have his own paintbrush to open the door. Slight problem. He's Galka and too fucking stupid to know how to USE the paintbrush to open the goddamn door. No, seriously. We had to tell him how. Not only that, but after 20 minutes of him dicking around, he finally gave up and Zac and I had to fucking warp out to get them past the door. Total time: 65 minutes, including getting through the temple and Den with the Galka and THF. 215 minutes total.

We *finally* get back down to camp, the group clears the adds as we're on the way back down. This is my pop, by the way. I sit near the ???, waiting for the Galka to show up. Oh, yeah, he didn't want to stay with me, Zac and the THF. Apparently he also didn't know the way to Hakutaku. Insert taking wrong turns here, here, here and there. 15 minute delay. He finally gets to camp, I pop Haku and run back. Total time: 15 minutes waiting for dumbass. 230 minutes total, nearly 4 hours total, and we've only popped 4 Hakus out of 7.

The fight goes... bad. Really bad. As in the tank couldn't keep any sort of hate, even with the THF TA'ing him constantly. The SAM also didn't know how to control her hate and bit the dust twice. Insert clusterfuck of death and dismemberment (and lots of burning), considering the RDM thought she could enfeeble Hakutaku and therefore, ran out of MP about midway through the fight, after already using Convert. The two SMNs we had (Who will be the only two I mention by name in this post, thank you Zac and Burnsie!) ended up main healing AND DDing for about 50% of my pop. Given the circumstances, I'm surprised we kept going after this, but everyone was bound and determined to get everyone their hat. Total time: 50 minutes to kill my pop. 265 minutes total.

Insert resting up, party switching and general BSing here for 15 minutes while we wait for the ??? to repop. Start killing the adds about 10 minutes in, Burnsie gets ready to go pop, and does so. Fight goes INFINITELY smoother, with the SAME DAMN PEOPLE. What the fuck. Maybe the tank learned he needed to keep hate better? And the RDM didn't even try to enfeeb Haku this time, so my advice got through. Killed him in 25 minutes. Total time: 15 minute wait, 25 minute kill time. 305 minutes total.

Final pop, also happens to be Zac's. Insert BSing and distributing lootz to the people who came purely to help (I sometimes hate being so generous. I gave away a scroll of Flare knowing full well it goes for roughly 200k, though the RDM would have had a pop had the crafter not shattered it.) and giving the RDM a Vile Elixir +1 that dropped off Haku to use mid-fight if she needed it. Well, she did, but the fight still went extremely smooth. Everyone 2houred, since we knew it was the last damned pop. Insert celebration, thank yous, and D2s all around. Total time: Another 15 minute wait, 25 minute kill time. 345 minutes total.

345 minutes. 7 hats. That's 5 hours, 45 minutes. For something that should take MAYBE a half hour-45 minutes per round.

Ugh.

But, special thanks have to go to Burnsie, for all the work he/she did to keep the group together to get EVERYONE a hat.

I think we're one of the only groups to do that... ever. At least, a pickup group. :D