And a dash of Besieged

Harvested the growing veggy/ice on my earthen pot mule. Didn't record it. Mainly because that particular recipe is well known in it's results.

Tonight's gameplan was interrupted by a passing question. "Are these drops I've gotten of the monsters worth anything: Bat wings and crystals?". My "brand spanking new newbie" radar went off. Long story short, the first half of the evening was spent typing like a madman. Introducing Halcyonn to the AH showing him the spell vendor, teaching him to attack at the same time as cast spells. All good things for a newbie to learn. Then took care of my chocobo. Although she's restless from the lonely hart thing, her endurance is now up to "impressive".

Then came dinner and besieged. Excelent besieged for me. Went solo as I intended to skillup sword. I realize the besieged purists out there will decry a red mage going solo in besieged as that deprives a party in some alliance of their refresh/cure whore, but since they dont' want to see a red mage skillup, tough beans, pay the price. Good news on that front: I finaly hit 240 sword. I also got 1080exp so that makes up for the idiot death trying to help Get a few AF's ago. This means that I can start the WSNM quest for Savage Blade next time.

And a much better night in the dunes

My what a difference a day makes. Started out by fishing in Selbina while waiting for dinner IRL. Not too bad, although I really do need to look up what my next target area should be. I'm also going to have to figure out what to do with all these bastore sardines...

Then Scab indicated he's on his way to exp at 17 in the dunes. So I chill some more and wait for him. Then I get a nice little party going. Cheeky the PL of course. Do the standard progression gobs to pugils. Got 420 exp with the ring off of one of the gobs at one point. I think we all went o.O on that one. It was also rather amusing to kill things fast enough that we drove another party off of the Whitebone beach. Got my 2 levels, so I'm down to 18 levels left in the dunes.

After it was all over, I ended up recruiting a newbie who had managed to get killed by the Valkrum Emperor. She didn't have a clue what it was :), thought it was a normal fly. She's a WHM who was in our party from about the half way point. Helped her out a bit then went off to zzzz land. Notice the contrast between yesterday and today: 2 levels instead of one.

Weird night in the dunes

Got the production line working again, so warp clubs being produced. Got my shield from windy. Went to the dunes. Man were the parties sucking last night. Got invited to one where it basically self destructed on the first pull. The tank decided to fight pugil at the same time as we had one incoming from the puller. Brilliant move. 2 dead and the rest zoned into Gustav. Soon after the leader has to go (we knew this would be happening as he had warned us he needed to go). So while waiting for a raise for the two dead bodies, he transfers lead to the loudmouth of the group. Said loudmouth can't get a party going for the life of him and disbands at the first opportunity.

I'm left shaking my head on the beach. So I gather up Comar and head to the safe gob camp with the intention of getting a party going. When we get there he points out that he only has 650 exp left to go. At which time I decide it's time to show him how to duo in the sands. First I check if he's got his NPC. Doh! mule, not enough levels to get an NPC. Oh well not a problem, more exp for him. So I summon Yawawa and the three of us go down to town on T crabs in Whitebone. 6 fights or so later, ping he gets his level and we part ways.

So I go back to waiting. Then I go over to do some fishing. Then Getdatmoney decides to PL me. The parties are sucking so bad, I decide this might be a better deal. So we head to J-6 and party hardy. I manage to get chain #1 and #2 on a regular basis soloing. I thing we manage to piss off the party that's EXPing there but hey they don't own the mobs. Eventual I ding. Get a bit more exp and log for the night in Selbina. Not bad all said. But damn those dune parties can suck sometimes.

And down goes RNG

As you can see I concentrated on getting RNG to 20 today. Did it as well. Once again the power of ranged weapons is evident to me.

And Getdatmoney gets his last piece of PLD AF

It was a pretty good day. I managed to get a level of RNG in the dunes. Then I responded to a call for help from Get and a bunch of us went off and did the old kill the two NM's thing. Some observations: 1) my chocobo at better than average physical stats is just a weeeee tad slower than a rental chocobo, not a lot. 2) One-eye is straight up solo-able by a competent RDM/BLM at level 73. So any party/alliance with at least 1 RDM 72+ should have no problem what so ever with this quest. Provided of course they adhere to the golden rule of partying with an erstwhile occupied RDM: Don't pull what ever the RDM is fighting of the RDM until you're good and ready to handle it.

On any fight where the RDM is handling a mob that is EM or lower in threat equivalence, unless you know the RDM is incompetent, he is in no danger. Most situations like this we're fighting in melee straight up in order to conserve mp. This means we know the fight is going to last long enough that we can't spend mp like a drunken sailor. I had to convert twice in this fight. Once after the first mob was killed and they came over to fight my mob. Once after the main fight when all the pops came crashing back down on us. In both cases I ended up having to go into mp conservation mode big time 2 minutes before convert. The rules for mp conservation mode: Stoneskin, Refresh, Phalanx are all that matters. If you have 80-100 mp you may, may, cast a single refresh on someone else, so long as refresh isn't about to drop and so long as stoneskin is lasting decently long. Never go below 40 mp, phalanx is more important than stoneskin.

Also in a mob scene if there is multiple bogies and the RDM is spamming AOE weapon skills, there's a reason for it. Mainly he's trying to conserve mp while getting the mobs to attack him. Don't go harrying off after the mobs attacking him. A red mage is not a white mage or a black mage. We don't need to have stuff pulled off of us quite as much as those jobs do. If the mobs are EP to DC we actually make paladins look squishy.

And Scab gets to Sky

Not a lot done on the personal front, but I did manage to help Scab get ZM6 to ZM12 last night. Finally got to see my bird, Above average in both physical stats, need to feed her still. Got the last stack of anima synthed.

ZZZZZZ

Man fell asleep on my way to Bastok. Damn airships. So obviously didn't get much done. However did anyone notice that little post on the main FFXI site? 11500 bans. Wow. Comments?

Darn demons

Well got on to do some AH and various mule shuffling, then went to Castle Zhav and tried to help out Getdatmoney with his AF. Managed to get killed by some demons... Had to cut it short because of bed, but I did manage to get my NPC to level 51. Woot.

Not much.

Didn't get on for long, just long enough to synth the ice anima for the next club production run and do some ah stuff.

And a bit of forward progress on the sword skill front.

I decided I needed a little break from the Doooooonz scene. So I decided t'was time to look into this 'get the damn sword skill capped' thing. So after carreful selection of my melee loadout, I headed on up to the 2nd floor of The Boyhada Tree. Hello Mr. Steelcrab. Well the EM's weren't too bad, and I can survive the T's if I'm rested, 5 fights and I'm up to 237.3~5 or there abouts. Not bad. I'm also gaining Archery, Dark, Shield and Parry skills.

So the end result is that these bozos are straight up melee-able by a level 73 rdm with nothing in the way of 1337 gear except possibly my crimson booties. [side note: my definition of 1337 gear is anything that costs 2mil or above].

I was also getting 100-130 exp a fight. Hummm, maybe I should pop my empress while I'm at it. [Side note: the flies are definitly non-aggro, I'd forgotten this, and any thing else seems to be sound aggro only].

So although I didn't get a lot of killing done, I should be able to cap my sword skill in 15-20 more fights. I think I'll stay here for a few days.

Wow, 6 levels in 2 days

Thanks to Thundar for the PL on Friday night. Got WAR to 20, got DRK to 20. That last party was great. A mix of Japanese bilingual and English. Worked really well, we all knew our jobs and even when there was pull competition, having 2 pullers that knew how to coordinate was great.

*satisfied sigh*

Been a while.

Sorry, I've been sick lately, nothing serious (Gastro.... no you don't want the details). So I didn't get on much. Over the last few days, I've had a harvest of Veggy/Ice/Earthen x10 (details later), gone from SMN18 to SMN20, SAM18 to SAM20, got my Alchemist's Apron, helped Getdatmoney(unsuccessful Garlaige Coffer) and Blooddragon (successful LB1 papyrus run - all of 3 fights).
I officialy have 400 levels now. Go me! I'm suspecting I'll be working on melee's next, only 10 more jobs to get to 20.

Not much redux

Well, just got on, noticed a fairly empty ls, and no one online I knew really (sigh). Decided to just take care of chocobo (also didn't tire her too much so if I leave her alone for a few days she'll be ok). Changed jobs the chocobo'ed to Selbina in order to log there. I'll work on SMN when I log in next time.

Lotta happening stuff.

Friday:

Well first we have the harvest:

Harvest item	Brass	Ceramic	Prorcelain	Earthen
Yellow Rock	1	1		1,1,1
Lightning Crystals	6,3,7		4,4,6,5,4	4
Little Worm	6,9,11,10,11	10,10,11,10,9	12	6,12,7,12,6,9
Vomp Carrots	6	5,10,9,8	11,11,5,4

Also took care of the chocobo, GP, and AH but nothing otherwise special.

Saturday:

Well lot happening this time. Got on, got a lot of mule stuff done, got to Bastok, took care of Chocobo. That went well. Did the old GP thing, and GOT MY ALCHEMIST's APRON!!! Woot!

Then went and helped Getdatmoney with his AF. Poor boy is having major problems (poped the coffer in Garlaige Citadel as a WHM -.-; he was anon or I would have noticed... Also Gomek is back in the game, gave him a pearl.

All in all a busy day.

Note to self: Mhaura is not Khazam

First found got all the mule's gardening done. That was prety straight forward, probably harvesting tonight.

Then found out what the item of the day was. Hummmm ok, need 5 silence baghnakhs. Shouldn't be a problem right? Humm need to head to Mhaura (which somehow got translated to Khazam in my tired head). No problem, take care of the chocobo, warp to jeuno, put some warp cudgels on the ah, head over to windy via outpost system, get some mercury and silence potions crafted at the fishing guild on the way (got to get that dark anima crafted as well as the baghnakhs so might as well kill two birds with one stone), outpost to Elshimo Lowlands, chocobo to Khazam, grab the brass baghnakhs, warp to Jeuno, grab the necessary animal glue sitting in my locker, craft while waiting for the airship to bastok. Finish by turning in the baghnakhs for GP.

Slightly long but sound plan right? Slight problem, I finaly un-dislexia'd myself when I couldn't find the brass baghnakhs in Khazam.... Doh!

So slight change in route, warp back to jeuno, airship to windy, grab the animal glue (and some spare crystals) on the way to the stables, chocobo to Mhaura (got it right this time). Grab six baghnakhs (one spare), warp to jeuno and we're back on track. I craft the baghnakhs (2 x HQ, 4 x NQ) craft all the malevollent memories into dark anima (one blow up, but I'll be able to craft the remaining mat once I grab a single malevolent memory from a mule). Finished off crafting the mercury/silence potions. Took the airlift to Bastok and turned in the GP items Only have 8.2k GP to go for apron.

And off to bed.

ZZZZZZZ.

Got my gardens feed with earth crystals (aiming for Vomp). Got the AH stuff moved arround, Chocobo fed and watered. Unfortunatly the GP item would have cost way too much to make so skipped it for today.

Then I went to bed and to sleep.

Apparently I was snoring like a freight train.......

Yellow!

And my new Chocobo is yellow. No GP item. Put stuff up on AH. That's it

When the eyesight starts to go, it's time to step back...

Once again weird ass night. Started off well enough. Was doing the AH thing in jeuno when I get a /tell asking for help with GK2. So I figure no problem, so long as at least one more person is present it should be no problem. Beefcake (I think) gets together a shaky team (not me, the NIN) made up of 3 mid 50's and 3 70+ (NIN, BST and RDM) with myself in the RDM slot. Run is mostly without incident except the poor BST died on the last mob. (was a little slow in casting cure after the refresh). Only death on entire run.

Went and took care of Choco and GP item. Got full GP for the day, only 12.3k left to go for my apron.

Then I went to help out Getdatmoney farm a key but ran into a weird optical problem where I could no longer focus on the point directly in my focus zone. Started sparkling out. Decided I had been staring at a screen too long and logged and went to rest my eyes. Weird and worrying.

Two days to cover.

Saturday:

Humm weird mix of stuff. Got that final level of skillup to summoning so I'm now capped for level 18. Then I had possibly the most disfunctional party in the dunes ever. Should be used as a poster child for why you don't let newbies be PL'ed. The level of suicidal noobness displayed was astonishing. On the flip side, when the dunes didn't work out, I headed off to bastok and did the usual mix of GP crafting and Chocobo care.

Once that was done however I decided to go help Scab and Devious in their camping endevours. On my way there, however they got the mob but not the drop. Once in the area I found out they were headed to Pso'Xja for a Cryptonberry drop. Once there I do believe I covered myself with RDM glory. I managed to keep 2 suicidal bards alive. Not as easy as it would seem at first glance. In the first un-capped tower, we made it to the bottom but scab agroed the mimic as well as the mob I'd aggroed upstairs before the drop as well as the mob that was in the room itself. Fun Fun ensued. And with the appropriate use of Chainspell Escape, we made it out of there with no deaths and Scab at 20hp.

Also in the next tower, my good buddies manage to get locked in a room with 2 guardians while I was locked outside, and a calm Escape from near the door and everything was fine again. So back we go. A few mobs later and k-ching, we get the drop for Devious. The nice thing is that they were both 70 and I was 73, so not a great big difference in level but I had absolutely no problem keeping hate and totaly outdamaging them. I looooooove my Mensur Epee. Yes, yes, I do. Sure they were just bards you say, but a BRD's damage is just about on par with a RDM's damage when properly equiped. I was seriously outclassing them damage wise. It's nice to be the non-squishy in the goup for once.

Sunday.
Well this day was a total bust for any interaction with other people. Gardening, GP, Chocobo and some light Chocobo digging were the extent of it.

-.-; more skillups than you want to think about.

Yep skillup city, went from 45 summoning to 56 summoning... That's it.

Yep, prep work.

Once again, not a lot of time on. Plus I had ffxii wating for when I logged of. So I logged on, got my choco taken care of (now Str and End are both substandard). Went and got full GP. Then I took a chocobo out to valk. Digging along the way. Not much in the way of digging results but I guess progress towards the next level was made.

I'll be ready for some partying tonight.

A Lot of housekeeping.

Well after the previous night's adventures, I found myself in the wonderful and lively town of Norg. With nothing to do. So I decided to get back to Jeuno and get some housekeeping tasks done. Warped back. Noticed that the warp club market is currently flat. As well, I was able to get one stack short of a full anima production run. I'm only missing a last stack of Malevolent Memories. I'm surprised with the lack of Malevolents that the price hasn't climbed on those. Lethargy in the marketplace I assume.

My LS is currently prety dead. I think I'll just let it rest for a while till I have more time to invest in building it back up (when I move out of the parent's home specificaly).

I managed to get all the loose items moved arround. So the harvest got moved, the black rocks got synthed. Moved the materials for a dozen Warp Cudgels back to Strangeone. The part of the harvest I'm not keeping is now up on the mule's AHs. I'm going to need to look into crafting the gems into rings and earings soon.

Got back to bastok, checked my chocobo (Yay, got substandard endurance). Got full GP for the day (eye drops). Switched back to SMN and logged as SMN. I probably won't be able to work on exp tonight (being a late night and FFXII being out). But we'll see. I indend to plant the next crop on the weekend.

Crafting results from yesterday and helping friends.

Harvested the following:

Harvest item	Brass	Earthen	Prorcelain	Ceramic
Black Rock	1,1		1	1
Light Crystals	4,3	2	3,4,4,4	4,4,4,4
La Theine Cabbage	10	4,5,6,6	4,4,3	4,6
Parasite Worms	2	2,3	2
Azouph Greens	12	9		11
Gysahl Greens	11,9,11	11,8	12
Sharug Greens				12,11

I got together with Scab, Thundar, Madness and Devious to help Scab get an NM, Unfortunatly the gil farmers got it. Such is life.