Well today was another Valor-tense day, with 11 people online we went to Sky to use our 3 Suzaku-pop sets we had lying around.
With only 11 people and a few (including myself) hovering around level 72-73, we weren't getting our hopes too much…
but as positive as all Valormembers can be, we kept our chins up,
were determined to show the back of our teeth and eager to postpone the wipe as long as we could

First fight didn't go really smooth and around 82% my TankTubby (read buddy) bites the dust.
Not much later, I made a small mistake resulting in Suzaku one shotting me with triple attack 2 seconds later.
With Lego (War/nin), Tubby (Pld/nin) and me (Nin/War) all down in the recovery room, I really thought we lost the battle.
But NO, mages casted gravity, all non-tanks started to kite and managed to keep this going
until us 3 unweakened and were fully recovered to go in again.
Some Chaos/death moments later… we eventually managed to win the fight !!
And although this first fight was really hard, everyone was still superexcited and well motivated to do two more.

I must say, it's like we got the hang out of it somehow;
even more, besides the fact everone now knew what to do and to expect, 
you could really feel everyone was functioning as a part of a team of friends!
Needless to say that we also won the other two fights and they really weren't all too difficult,
just needed a little focus, which was definitely there at that time.

Everyone did a tremendous job, I am just so lucky and happy I can be part of it

Finally…

Congratulations to:
Asran: Hecatomb feet
Lestath: Adaman head, Suzaku's Sune-ate
Tubby: Suzaku's Sune-ate

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About 3 months ago I spent about a week in the "Temple of Uggalepih" getting this butterknife:
The droprate on it is terrible and it took me 23 tries to finally get the drop. Call me crazy, but these attempts really weren't that bad, since Beryl-footed Molberry is a forced NM pop and the item (tonb.rattler) is an easy item to get. The NM Tonberry is a joke. As Rdm/nin you can handle him solo while getting coffee.

I got this katana when I was around level 63, about the same moment that I could join my Valorfriends static. Hototogisu translates into Cuckoo, as in the bird. Since this is a song bird it makes sense that the latent effect is triggered by songs from a Bard. I had the luxury of having Arislan as bard in our static, so no need to tell you I practically off-handed this katana up until level 70. It has the lowest delay on any katana and the upped parry was really noticable.

A few weeks ago I found out this Birdie has a big sister katana:

After gathering some more information about this Kitsutsuki (meaning: "The Woodpecker") 
and hearing about its incredible swinging speed in combination with the Hototogisu, I went to check it out for myself in the Den of Rancor:

It's actually easy to get there. After you entered the Den through the Temple of Uggalepih using your Paintbrush of souls, it's about a 2 minutes run to the intersection on J-7/J-8, the place where you need to be. Just don't forget dneak and invisible to get there and be careful not to drop in the hole (Drop D on the map).

On the intersection you'll find two tonberry trailers and an annoying bat. The two tonberries and only these 2, are the Placeholders for Celeste-eyed Tonberry. You heard it right, instead of the Hototogisu force-pop, this NM is a 2+ hour lottery, which is worse, considering the awful droprate. The bat as well as the tonberries will repop exactly 16minutes after you killed them. They're are all "Easy prey" to a level 75, so they shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Celeste-eyed Tonberry is just like Beryl-footed Molberry a NINJA NM, with the difference that Celeste is far more difficult to solo. This Level 70 NM has all "ni"-spells (even Jubaku:ni), attacks at an incredible speed and will always Mijin Gakure on a certain moment of which the damage is very random but can oneshot you easily if you don't have barefire up. Furthermore it has of course all the other vile Tonberry moves like Vertical/horizontal slash, words of bane, Everyons grudge, sigh and not to forget throat stab.  

I found this NM a good challenge to handle solo as RDM/NIN, but after a while when Celeste just keeps being stubborn and refuses to drop this overrated woodpecker, it gets really frustrating.
The good news is that you hardly find any competition for this NM. A lot know about the Hototogisu, but this Kitsutsuki is apparently less known or people just don't find it worth camping; but then again, what item really is worth… anything.

Anyway after 2 merit points, 32 Kindred Seals, 41 Beastmen Seals, 2 stacks of golden beastcoins and 1 death, I managed to get this katana today. 
It was around my 25th kill, but I jumped high in the sky when I saw I got the drop; most gratifying !

And although some close friends of mine came down to accompany me in that dark place and to support me a little with TreasureHunter, I must say I eventually got the drop on my own, which leads be to believe again that (and I quote Knivezz), TH on these rare/ex items is probably "just a bunch of caca".

A Big thank you to Menelwa, Valgaras and Legolass to come down to the Den to keep me accompagnied !

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