Saturday, June 19, 2004

 

Korroloka Tunnel, Land of Opportunity

Not too long ago I talked about wanting to find "new" places to level my character in Final Fantasy XI. This week, thanks to my friend Hugo, I got try a thoroughly excellent alternative to the Valkurm Dunes. It's a dungeon called Korroloka Tunnel.

The tunnel has got to be one of the best-kept secrets in the game. It is literally just a couple minutes from Bastok Mines. To get there, go into the Zeruhn Mines and talk to the NPC at the gate. He will warn you that the Korroloka Tunnel has been closed for a hundred years because it's so dangerous. Don't believe him. Once you pass through the gate, you will cross a bridge over an underground river. Keep running for another 20 seconds and you will cross into Korroloka.

The best comparison for Korroloka is the Maze of Shakrami. Lots of tunnels filled with bats and worms. Unlike the Maze, though, Korroloka utterly lacks aggressive monsters in its upper reaches. The bats do not aggro! Even better, there are no goblins whatsoever. Korroloka is also bigger than the Maze, and there are about twice as many worms.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, the giant worms are ideal monsters to fight. They don't move, so you can fight them from a distance fairly safely. They do cast spells, but you can prevent them from doing so fairly easily. So while they're usually rated as "incredibly tough," they're actually pretty easy if you use the right tactics. A party can get 200 XP from most fights, which is the maximum before "chaining bonuses."

Overall, the tunnel looks really promising for leveling from 13th level on up to 20th and maybe higher. We haven't tried fighting the huge spiders deeper down, but I suspect you could hunt them to level up to 25th level. Hugo and I started as a duo of 15th/16th levels, and found great success. After two sessions, I got my white mage up to 18th.

Each time, it was only a two-minute run back to the Auction House, where you can sell the stacks and stacks of ores and earth crystals and flint stones the worms drop. By comparison, it takes about 15 minutes to run from the Maze of Shakrami to Windurst.

Why don't more people level up in Korroloka? The first time you're playing through your teen levels, you're looking to finish the subjob quest. That means you have to really be in the Valkurm Dunes. So it makes sense to go to Valkurm the first time around. When you're leveling your subjob or advanced jobs, though, you don't need subjob items any more. But people return to Valkurm because it's familiar, and it's "fast." Well, I'll tell you--Korroloka will get you XP even faster, because the travel time is so short and the place is so safe. Give it a shot--you won't regret it!

Jefferson 10:05 AM

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