They couldn't kill some end game mob in less then 3 hours? That just means they suck. If something can't be killed in a few hours in FFXI then that means you shouldn't be fighting it, cause you don't know how to kill it.

Really this is nothing new, there have been plenty of mobs in the game that took hours to beat, the only difference here is this isn't something like Absolute Virtue who you can't damage and who will kill you before you reach that insane amount of time invested mark.

I like the longer battles in the game against the stronger enemies because it feels epic when it takes you an hour to down a dragon, or 2 hours to take down a god beast. But seriously if your spending 18 hours on a single mob and his HP doesn't get dented, then your doing something wrong and continually wailing on it won't change the matter.