Strangeone's Remoran Life, an FFXI blog

Boo

2010-08-17T09:39:00.002-05:00

I'm alive! Remora no longer is. But I am. Admittedly it's more for preparation for FFXIV than anything else and to see if I can keep the name. We'll see.

Meanwhile, note to self: never ever ever give away all your gil when you go inactive in the future....

and Macroes? O... M... G... Don't ask.

A sad time

2008-02-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

Well as you can see, I didn't really make it back. A few things contributed to this. The first of course was discovering EvE online. The game has it's faults but it's strengths are beating FFXI into the ground for me.
Basically the single server (45000 people on an average Sunday), much better crafting (well industrial) system, Integrated voice chat, No inventory limitations, more robust economy etc.. finally won out. That and I ended up in a leadership position of an entire alliance in EvE. This seriously cut into my available time for any other MMO. I'm afraid that I just don't have time for FFXI any more. Sad in a way, I never made it to 75. Came damn close but the grind of getting supporting sub-jobs up to 37 killed me in the end. I'll probably make one last appearance and turn off the account.
This will probably be my last post in Strangeone's Remoran life. I'll be retiring him and his account tonight. I'll probably give away all my gil to one of my acquaintances who's still playing.

This is Strangeone bidding you all farewell and thanks for the memories.

Wow I've been away a long time

2007-08-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

Well this is definitely longer than the last time I was away from FFXI. In the good news department though, I've signed the lease on a new apartment so the inability to schedule gaming time should go away. The biggest problem I currently have with FFXI is that one can't play in windowed mode, and with my dual screen setup, this is getting really tiring. I'll probably be getting back to FFXI shortly but probably wont' be playing extensively till the game is window-able.

Apparently this should happen sometime in November when we get the wings of the goddess expansion. Time will tell.

The biggest difference between last time I got burnt out and this time has been my experience with EvE-online. I've played WoW and I've played CoH, and FFXI creams both of these with ease. Even with it's clunky interface. But EvE has been a very different experience. It has a much more evolved economy. It also is a technical tour-de-force in that the entire world plays on a single server to the tune of 30,000+ players on at any one time during the weekend. This is the equivalent to putting the entire FFXI player base down to only 3 or 4 servers. The developers are also more open about the technology they use and at least invite comment on it. Admitedly the geography of FFXI wasn't designed with these population densities in mind, but with all the expansions constantly increasing the acreage of the game, but the server populations not scaling with this, the FFXI servers are starting to feel a little empty.

Having explored these other worlds I think I'll be making further comments and comparisons in the future, as I get my ideas together.

RL is annoying

2007-05-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

And I've been unable to get on in the last 3 days due to real life commitments...

Da harvest is in

2007-05-27T09:40:00.000-05:00

I got on late and only had enough time to harvest things. Then Saturday I couldn't get on at all some times RL sucks.

Just a bit of gardening and soloing some Gigases

2007-05-25T10:15:00.000-05:00

Again a week night that didn't have a lot of time... Hopefully this weekend will be better for that. At any rate, I got all that gardening done (I'll edit a picture in when I get home). The crop should be ready tonight. I also got back to Jeuno after some soloing of Gigases at the top of Delkfutt's.
I've still got that pop item so a trip back soon is definitely in the offing.

So I got all those socks back up on the AH, and put some of those sardine balls up too. Oh, if you're wondering where those came from, they came from the fishing while waiting for a party in the jungle.

Catch you in Vana'diel tonight.

Ouch Poor Thundar

2007-05-24T08:59:00.001-05:00

Thundar (ls member and great galka of doom) had his account hacked a few days ago. Serious bummer. On Tuesday I went and helped a bit with some nm camping at the top of Delkfutt's tower. As I pointed out to him they can't steal his levels now that he's changed the password. At this point the suspision is falling squarely on Chell and Suzee. Lord knows if it's true. But he did track down the name of the mule that's selling his stuff.

As I pointed out to him: "They can steal your stuff but they can't steal your mojo". Hopefully he'll keep playing although getting the expensive equipment stolen is soul destroying, it's not as bad as starting over. Those levels, skills and other development can't be stolen from him. And as much time as he's spent acquiring the expensive stuff, he probably spend more time developing the character.

In other news I got the earth crystals fed to the wild grass Tuesday night.

I just did gardening and a bit of wandering around the top of Delkfutt's Tower since I didn't have lot of time last night. I still have a pop item for Palas.

Just a bit of gardening

2007-05-22T12:49:00.000-05:00

I got on quite late. So unfortunatly I only had enough time to do the gardening thing then some traveling so I'll be ready for the next WHM party. Tonight I should be feeding the wildgrass.

Oooo, a good party!

2007-05-21T12:25:00.000-05:00

Well it was bound to happen, I finally got a good party in the jungle. Managed to get to level 25 with em so only 12 more levels of hell to go. Also made sure the 40 wildgrass were growing that I planted yesterday. All budded. I also discovered that I'll be needing earth crystals for vomp so it's going to be pretty cheap to get it setup for Heather.

I must say, the new screen (I've got a 22" wide screen as well as my old 19") is "da sex" to play on.

The party after we move to the outpost

Too bad we didn't get more time, but I did manage to get back to windy and get another return ring.

Bleach! the jungle

2007-05-20T12:52:00.001-05:00

Well once again a slooooow day in the jungle - no parties at all, did get some fishing done.

Bad night in the jungle

2007-05-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

Well, that was possibly one of the worst parties I've ever been in as far as longevity goes. We did 2 fights with the full party (after an hour of waiting around trying to form it and with the original leader gone). Then 1 fight with 5 people and someone else bailed after that. So about 2 hours of wasted time all told and for what? 3 fights....

It sucked.

I logged in Khazam. I'll have to see if I get lucky and get a better party tonight.

Prep for next session

2007-05-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

Well I wasn't on for long last night so I simply changed jobs back to WHM and got my carcase over to Khazam so that next time I'm on I can simply go LFG right off the bat. I also put some stuff up for sale on the AH while I was at it.

Tower Time

2007-05-15T18:55:00.000-05:00

I didn't have a lot of time last night. So I logged on and went to help Heather immediately. We met at Delkfuts tower and went to the top, killed Procyon for his key, went to the basement and did the ambassador thing. Quick, painless, smooooooothly. The way I like it.

Back after the wedding

2007-05-14T10:49:00.000-05:00

And I made it back on after the wedding in Toronto. I managed to get a good party in the jungle (after a few amusing false starts and some Smithy agro). We got some seriously good exp and it was a fine party. I needed to go get my Anniversary Ring though so I bowed out when the first other person bowed out as well.

Fame, Thundar and Madness (under Thundar's control while he's away) were partying in Quicksand caves and having mass fun with WAR. They seem to have established a static for leveling their WAR jobs.

I then proceeded to make my way to Windurst and do various things while there. Put the seals in storage, move some event items to the event item storage dude, Did 4 chocobo races (2 wins, a 2nd and a 4th place) etc... While I was there Heather logged on and we managed to get together and get our 100day item. So we both have a vana'diel timepiece now.

Getting the timepiece

While she was in windy I noticed that she was level 28mnk/war but still only rank 2. She mentioned that she was in the middle of working on sandy mission 2-3. I said that while she was here she might as well get it done. So we got a party together: Ember, Liana, Zacharia, Heather and myself then proceeded to the Dais. It was a most excelent fight. We got within 1 second of the current record. Not bad for only having 5 people.

Killing the Seeker

Unfortunately no picture of the dragon. When it started to chew on the black mage (Ember) I had to start paying attention to keeping people alive rather than taking petty pictures.

Quick AH stuff

2007-05-01T06:10:00.000-05:00

Didn't have a lot of time, due mainly to tax night. So got on, said hi and did the old AH thing. That was about it.

Back to WHM grinding

2007-04-29T14:18:00.000-05:00

I'm on for the 2nd day in a row. Go me. This time I decided to go work on my WHM job for a bit. I did the usual AH manipulations then got an invite as I was re-equipping in my mog house.

The first part of the party

So off we went to Delkfuts and much partying was had as well as dinging of WHM23. Pretty good party over all. Ninja tank. Then after the Ninja had to leave we 5 man'ed it for a bit while waiting for the paladin to show up. Once she did it was off to the interior of the tower.

The 2nd half of the party.

Unfortunately there was a PL'ed party that was hogging the goblins so we ended up going after giants. Soon after that I ended up logging for the evening.

2007-04-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

Quick visit and Some ENM action

Well I was back again a few weeks ago (didn't comment on it at the time). Basically I've decided to clean up my mules in a fairly major way. So a lot of the stuff that was on my materials mule is going for sale at cut rate prices for the next little bit. I also continued by doing a bit of harvesting and some chocobo racing

Amber Storm in the lead

Then last night I was on again and the call went out for some healing support for the ENM (Empty Notorious Monster) run. So once I finished getting my up on the ah it was off to Movalpolos.

The ENM party

The farming for the key item went very fast. I also ran into Avesta on the way to the battleground. He is a notable and renowned tarutaru RDM. Also ended up having to chainspell raise on the way there thanks to some brilliant moves on the part of Saiz (BLM) and Hov (NIN). Lucky the fight went much smoother than the trip there. Good job all round but the mob only dropped a Cassia Lumber destined for a Primate Staff. Ah well, such is life.

2007-03-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

Got back on

Well I made it back in Vana'diel yesterday. Spent a lot of time up at the top of Delkfuts. Went to help Thundar and Devious try to get the drop that allows for the poping of Palas. No luck there. But it sure was nice to be back.

2007-03-19T09:59:00.000-05:00

A wee bit of a burn out

Well I haven't been on in over a week. So it's official, not only am I over burdened with school work, I'm also suffering from a bit of an FFXI burn out. WHM grinding will do that to you. Fear not I will be back soon. I'm not going to disappear.

2007-03-10T20:20:00.000-05:00

Been a while

Well I only got on for two short periods over the last week. In the first case it was right after the update so I progressed the missions till the next fight. Currently stuck there. The next time I came on I had connection problems so I simply abandoned the evening as a loss.

2007-03-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

Moving forward

Still working on that compiler in the real world, didn't get a lot of time but did manage to get within 1.3k of WHM22.

2007-02-25T07:58:00.000-05:00

Guide cap and WHM21

Two days to report. The first is getting my guide cap for the gold world pass associated with Heather. It's been 40 days. Apart from that not much happened that day.

Sprout and guide

The next day I did manage to get on and head to Qufim. Man that was fast getting a party. The party was pretty good we went straight to crabs and managed to get a level.

2007-02-23T08:57:00.000-05:00

Blink

I was not on very long last night. Just enough to get my Locker extended into July. Turn in the rest to the Walahra turban guy. Mess with the AH. Craft an Imperial Cermet ingot for Devious and get to Jeuno, ready for Qufim.

2007-02-22T01:07:00.000-05:00

And yep all jobs 20+

Humm, I'm finally getting the hang of this BST thing. I hit 20 tonight. Bringing the extra Hi-pots was a smart thing to do. I then spent the rest of the evening getting my WHM gear together because I'll be doing WHM till 37.

2007-02-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

BST20 or bust!

I finally got back to working on my BST. I need to get it to 20 to officially be done with the dunes. And I also need it to start leveling WHM with a clear conscience. I'm currently pounding on gobs in Buburimu.

2007-02-20T06:07:00.000-05:00

Ronfaure outpost!

Well I missed a few days. Real life being what it is. But what do I see when I get back? Windy has control of Ronfaure!!!. So I immediately drop everything and haul ass, hell bent for leather, to get the Supply quest done. OMG! I've finally got Ronfaure! Only took me 3 years...

Some rare NPCs

Didn't get much else accomplished but I did switch out the gear so I'm poised to go level BST for the next little bit. Currently waiting in the stables for a ride out to Buburimu.

2007-02-15T07:35:00.000-05:00

Darn, forgot the re-raise

Yep, I died. I forgot the re-raise at one point where I was doing an intentional get killed in a re-raise-able spot type of move. Oh well. Obviously still no map.

I then got some AH stuff handled and went off to the Safehold in preparation for more aqueduct fun this evening.

2007-02-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

Stuck in the storage rooms

Well, I'm currently camping the ??? for the map to Phomiuna Aqueduct. Did 3 log ons and searches. No luck so far.

2007-02-12T07:40:00.000-05:00

Aqueducts

The evening started off with a request from Thundar for some exploration of the Phomiuna Aqueducts. So off we went for some various farming. I brought along my Bronze key just in case it would be useful.

We will not talk about the farming. 2 of the 3 NM's were up which put a serious crimp in our farming ability (farming arround an NM = risky).

Reraise Gorget for the win! I had to use it twice: once for the party, once to get in position to camp the map mini quest.

I'm currently stuck in a corner of one of the library rooms wating for a ??? with a map to pop. Fun.

2007-02-11T10:02:00.000-05:00

Zilart Done!

Wow, I actually got to finish off the Zilart story line in one go. I had been stuck on the mission just after getting sky for the longest of times. But luckily there was a Divine Might alliance forming for the last thee days. I had indicated that if I was online at the time I'd go, but no promises. Got lucky and I ended up online at the appropriate time. So I got changed and off to Divine Might I go.

Once I got to sky it was pretty much a go as we had all 18 people there. Myself and 2 other race off to make sure we have the actual Divine Might quest started. We're actually trying to finish off the Ark Angels mission from the Zilart storyline. That mission involves killing all 5 Ark Angels. One at a time. But if you start a quest known as Divine Might, this allows an alliance to kill all 5 Ark Angels in one fight.

Once we get there, I find out I'm the only RDM going on this. Well that makes my contribution to the fight kind of linchpin like. Sure enough the first fight does not go smoothly. I'm in charge of trying to keep two kiter's alive while gravity-ing two mobs. Basically the kiter's and I do a hash of it and get killed early in the fight which means we only kill 1 of the AA and wipe.

First run: Not so good

So once we get kicked from the first fight, we re-hash our strategy. This time the BST is going to kite one of the mobs with Courier Carrie. And the mob kill order has changed from TT->MR->GK->HM->EV to TT->GK->MR->HM->EV. The only NIN in the party and myself are given the task of kiting the Elvan for basically the entire fight. We do this perfectly. We could have kept going but the leader decided to allow a wipe with everyone in a place where we could raise ourselves without immediately resuming the fight. Since we had enough time left.

We're actually doing great!

Once we re-raise and get everyone up and alive again, The final fight was obviously a shoe in. We had no problem (well I died again, but hey, Chainspell -> debuff -> Nuke gets a lot of hate) killing the Elvan Ark Angel. Once we were all patched up again it was off to the point you start Divine Might to get our earrings. I chose Suppanomimi for when I actually un-gimp my NIN sub-job.

After this part of the alliance stayed together to go get the last fight of the Zilart mission done. So off we all trooped to Norg to progress the missions. And back again to Sky.

The teleporter to sky is the coolest teleporter in the game

So we zone into The Shrine of Ru'Avitau to get our next cut-scene. And Lion offers to go on a date with us. I still think she's got one of the coolest outfits in the game.

Mmmmmm Lion!

The next part was full of pain and suffering as we tried to get everyone to the Celestial Nexus. Getting lost and a lot of death. That's what actually took the most time of the entire session. Once we finally all got there we knew that some of us would have to go a minimum of 2 times. We actually went 3 times for the first win and never went a 2nd time due to mass death (again) and it being way too late.

The cut-scene for the actual fight is one of the coolest for it's lighting effects.

Cool lighting

We also get to kill off the punk ass Zilart.

Evil 10000 year old punk

The first fight went badly since I didn't know what I was supposed to do to keep the detectors out of the way. So the first loss was basically mine.

The second run through was also a wipe but this time I kept the detectors out of the fight for the whole time. The problem that time was the tank not keeping hate. This is not as evident as it may sound since you're supposed to be killing exoplates but you need to provoke the main character to keep him from killing the mages.

The third run was smooth. I kept em off so well (using an alternating sleep 2 method to keep them out of sequence with each other) that I was almost full MP by the time of the start of the fight against the 2nd form. Refreshes all round with some judicious healing permitted us an easy win (once we knew what we were doing).

Unfortunately wining meant we got sent to the hall of the gods again. Which implied a trip back to the Celestial Nexus to once again get to the fight for the people who still had to do it. By the time we got there (with attendant death) too many people had left and we were without enough people to do the fight. I feel sorry for the two who didn't get it (out of the 5 who were left) but them's the breaks, as they say.

All in all a very successful evening.

2007-02-10T10:34:00.001-05:00

Slow crawl up BST

Wednesday night was short, only enough time to do some inventory and AH shuffling.

Thursday was much better. I spent the early part of it doing the old mule shuffle getting ready to work with BST. Then spent the greater part of the evening in a party that went from the dunes to Qufim as people leveled. BST went from 17 to 19 in that stint.

Friday, real life shortened my stint. I did manage to finish setting up the macros for BST and getting 900 odd exp. So not a total loss.

2007-02-07T00:50:00.000-05:00

Clothcraft and Assault

The evening was short. Mainly because I got in so late from university. Anyways, I managed to get Clothcraft 55.3 or so from doing some Hunter's Cotton synths. So one more point closer to cap.

After that I did a single assault run with Eoware, Rydir and Devious. We got a little unlucky with those boys being such damage magnets. Rydir died because he hid out of my LOS at one point. But other wise the run went well. 14k points now in Mamool Ja assault points, with Rydir trying to get Amir boots only at 9k points I should get my Yigits before he gets his Amir.

2007-02-06T07:21:00.000-05:00

More Assaults

Pretty easy night. I just did a bit of pre work for some crafting as well as 3 Assault runs. We went with Rydir this time. We seem to have this down to a science. All 3 runs were horribly smooth. I've already described Preemptive Strike so no need to get into the details.

2007-02-04T23:21:00.000-05:00

Darkness Named

Friday was a bit of a loss, got some crafting done (thanks for the red moko Devious) but still only got 3 Trader's instead of Baron's so 0/7 for now on that synth.

Saturday I had an evening out so no Vanadiel for me.

Sunday, I got on early. While trying to decide what to do, got a bit of synthing done then decided to join a PM3-5 mission in the making. This one took forever to get off the ground. Mainly because of Jato. That was one ditsy Mithra.

We ended up waiting while she did 3-3 and 3-4 and the legwork for 3-5 (Pso'Xja pass). And waiting. And waiting....

Eventually we helped her farm the chip and we were finally underway.

Getting to Diabolos

The actual fight went pretty smoothly. I ended up chain nuking towards the end as we were running out of MP. It worked and we got the kill. I can now AH in Tavnazia and also have access to the 2nd Riverine route.

Only took 6 bleeding hours.

2007-02-02T01:08:00.000-05:00

Crafting (ouch!) and Assault

Well I started the evening where yesterday left off: Crafting and muling. I got the stuff to try to make my Baron's Chapeau (I had enough for 4 synths). Unfortunately I now have 4 Signed Trader's Chapeaus to dispose of... My, that was expensive.

Then we went on 2 Assault runs. Party was Devious, Thundar, Rydir and myself. The first run was horribly smooth. The second one was aggro city. No great ??? items but 1800 more assault points for me, I now have 10k at the Mamool Ja Staging point (half way to Yigit Hand piece).

2007-02-01T00:50:00.000-05:00

Crafting and Assault

Well did a bunch of crafting tonight. Mainly cleanup of my stack holder's stuff to be honest. Also got .8 clothcrafting skillups (there goes 3 stacks of silk cloth).

Then we did 2 runs of Assault. Once again Preemptive Strike. This time it was Thundar, Rydir, Devious and I. Rydir died in 2nd run unfortunately. But we did get another Spectacles.

2007-01-31T00:17:00.000-05:00

Harvesting

It was actually more: Muling, harvesting, muling, synthing. Pretty much in that order.

Not much else.

2007-01-30T09:08:00.000-05:00

Help with the ghost fight, Harvesting

I started the evening off helping Colacub out with his mission in Aht Urghan. He was currently on the "obtain the coin for the black coffin" fight. Someone else needed the coin but they missed out because they forgot to touch the ??? after the fight.

Poor Autumnal messed up her turn in of her Sapara of Trials, so she has to get a new sword and break the latent again. Not fun.

Got some harvesting done.

2007-01-29T01:34:00.000-05:00

Harvest, Assault and Savage Blade

Saturday

I started the day late. Since people were busy doing things I continued doing some harvesting. Then I got the call for a single Assault run. This was one of the smoothest assault runs I've ever been on. Devious, Thundar and Vexen (or something like that), needed a new RDM. Their previous DD bailed before the last run and Vexen went to change from DD to RDM. Only 1 aggro and we got the mission done withing 20 minutes. Most excelent.

Also the ??? Necklace that dropped turned out to be a Spectacles. This is currently going for 400k on the AH but since I've always wanted one, I decided to buy out the rest of the people. So I gave 100k to each of the other 3 and I now have my Spectacles.

Spectacles

Very happy with my evening (short though it was), I logged for the evening.

Sunday

We had talked about doing a Savage Blade run today. But it was late when I got on, and Autumnal (who also needs it) was not on at all. Cane also hasn't broken his latent on his Sapara. So I figured we wouldn't actually go on any run.

However the run itself involves the Altepa Gate. This is a little more tricky as it involves clicking 4 column scattered over inaccessible places in Western Altepa Desert. Then running to a specific gate and getting through it before it closes. Neither Devious nor Thundar knew the exact route, so I printed the instructions out and we set of to "reconnoiter" the route. We then proceed to wander about the desert and the associated Quicksand Caves. Homing in on the various columns we need to examine. Since we were only 3, we did it in the following order: Emerald, Sapphire, Topaz and finally Ruby. During the run around we actually managed to go through the eye of a tornado. Very funky. Topaz and Ruby were already clicked by someone else and we ran to the gate and got thru the gate. A quick zig zag later and we were in the room with the ??? for savage blade.

Heading for the eye

Well we're here. And we know we're good. So Thundar tells Devious to start pulling mobs in the room. Sure enough we clear out the room post haste. The mobs being only DC means they went down like ten pins to the Monk/Bard/Red Mage trio (poor poor Atticans). I then popped Girtablulu, the Scorpion NM for Savage Blade. This was obviously a longer fight. With me laying on the full layers of debuffs and Devious alternating between double marching Thundar and double ballade-ing me. With me hasting and healing Thundar. Soon enough the NM fell. I got my Annals of Truth key item and it was off to San D'Oria for my weapons skill.

After the usual airship waits, I made it to the Chateaux and got my Weapon Skill.

Savage Blade is now Mine. I now have all the main weapons skills a red mage can get (I think, I'll need to check club).

Savage Blade

After that I headed off to bed. Well satisfied with my weekend.

2007-01-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

Synthing the harvest, Lightning clusters

Well, I got a lot of stuff synthed, then ran out of crystals. So it was off to Delkfuts. Delkfuts was annoyingly weather less, so I wasn't on a lot yesterday.

2007-01-26T06:33:00.000-05:00

Well THAT was annoying...

I got on and got a request to help out with mission ZM4 because I had an unlit lantern. So I told people I'd meet them in Den of Rancor since I had to go get it at windy. My first clue that this was a little disorganized was when I get to the paintbrush room and people are surprised that I'm there. It's not like I hadn't mentioned where I was along the way, but somehow they managed to be surprised anyways.

So I lead the way to the lighting point to find an gil farming party clearing the room around the altar. How convenient. It's at this point I find out that I'm the only one with a lantern.......

Strangeone>> You're shitting me...

Needless to say I was less than pleased at this development. All my previous runs of this had been with people courteous enough to make sure there were at least 4 lanterns in the party/alliance so that it was much faster to do. So I dragged everyone down there to the torch area with instructions to keep the area clear. The red mage in the main party managed to get mass aggro and get killed. I managed to get manageable aggro and didn't. Then it was off doing laps ass fast as tarully possible. Bleeding inconsiderate blighter.

Then after the run, while I'm getting organized Dev and Thundar do some Assault runs with Eoware. So at least I managed to get some farming in before tucking in for the night. I did manage to get another stack of Red Moko amongst other things.

2007-01-25T12:01:00.000-05:00

Not a lot - except helping Devious

Humm, lots a homework. I didn't get a lot of time over the last two days to do much. I think it was mainly shuffling of Inventory and some crafting day before yesterday, with a time out to help devious with something... I know he asked, I know I helped... Just can't for the life of me remember what we did... Ping!, ah yes, The antlion for CoP missions 3-3. Tore him a new one.

Yesterday was more of the same followed by helping Devious get his rank 8-2 mission done.

2007-01-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

Two days woth of harvesting and assaults

Well Sunday I basically did nothing but harvest for all of it. I no longer need to bring a stack, I got about 60-70 items harvested for the cost of a single sycle. I'd love to know what harvesting rank I am, but I'm getting prety up there. Anyways need to concentrate on getting cotton and red moko for the barrons set I'm making.

Monday, didn't have a lot of time, basicaly, logged on and was immediately sucked into Preemptive Strike x 3. All went relatively well. The first was the smoothest with Brolly. Then the next two with Eoware were agro city. Lucky Dev and I are prety good RDM and BRD team. Kept everything under control and the DD's alive. I now have over 5k Mamool Ja assault points.

2007-01-21T02:35:00.000-05:00

Latent of my Sapara of Trials

What started off as a slow evening ended up pretty good. I started by going for some harvesting. Barely started that when I got a call to come help Thundar get his SAM weapon skill NM. This ended up being Thundar, Bradley, Autumnal, Devious, Lone and myself. Poor nm never stood a chance.

Then Autumnal and I got her Kuftal Map from a key that dropped while we were bored waiting for the party to assemble. That done with we got to work on some weapons skills. Autumnal and I trading off on the Fusion SC. Eventually she had to leave and I managed to break my latent with a few more SC with Devious. At one point it was the most over powered skill chain/skill up party you've ever seen.

We also discussed getting Devious to use up some of his seals. He needs Utsusemi Ni and he's sitting on over 1000 seals. Translation: we need to do some Worms Turn. Lots of em.

2007-01-20T22:13:00.000-05:00

Aborted Promivion run, Assault

Well I tried and failed to organize some Promivion runs for those who needed it. Mainly because they didn't show. Such is life. I did manage to get a whole set of anima and a backup set of recollections. I also bought an entire set of Shade Armor +1 for when I run more Promivions.

I did end up doing 3 Assault runs with Thundar and Devious and someone named Vion. So 3 wins in Preemptive Strike (Mamool Ja Staging Point - PFC). I also managed to get prepared for the serious amount of harvesting I'm going to need to do soon.

2007-01-19T00:45:00.000-05:00

Out of the dunes forever

well I did it, I managed to get out of the dunes. BRD20. Done. Now the only job I have left bellow 20 is BST, but I can do those 3 levels in Tharongi and Buburimu. As stated before.

After the obligatory jig. I went and moved oodles of stuff around so that my level 40 stuff is accessible, and my level 30 stuff was on me. Once that was done I did a bit of farming with Jelley. We got some Recollections. If all goes well, this weekend should see some Promivion action.

2007-01-18T00:47:00.000-05:00

I can almost taste it

As you can see, I'm putting a push on getting through the dunes. I'm almost there 2k more exp on BRD and there's only BST left (which I can do in Tharongi and Buburimu). Not much to report except the party was once again slower than molasses in spring.

2007-01-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

And another dunes party for 100 posts

This is my 100'th entry in this blog. To celebrate it I did.... another dunes party. At least this one went faster. Mainly because I was pulling. Ah well, BRD19 at least. I should just need 1 more party and that will be it for my BRD for now. I'll just have BST left to get to 20 and it's Jig time.

2007-01-16T13:27:00.000-05:00

The horror, the horror

Yep, you guessed it another sucky dunes party. When the BRD/COR is pulling hate you know there's problems. When the puller insists on asking for a confirmation that it's safe to pull when the party has full MP, you know there's problems. When there are 2 white mages, a red mage and a bard in the party and the puller STILL waits to pull, you know there's a problem.

3 hours, 2.5k, 1 level. That's less than 1k an hour. It was like pulling teeth without anesthetic.

Blech, excuse me while I go wash the taste from my mouth...

2007-01-15T06:39:00.000-05:00

Airship dizziness and a rant

Since I got COR to level 20, it's now time to address my last two jobs that are below that magic dunes avoiding number. Namely BRD and BST. So I start with the prep-work necessary to get BRD ready for action. Let me state that getting a bard ready for action takes much longer than most other jobs. Mainly due to the skilling up you need to do to get the singing/instrument skills capped. I tend to cap these BEFORE going partying (unlike most of the rest of the dunes that are totally clueless as to why this would be a good idea).

I also needed to get all 3 of the next scrolls I'd need since I intend to level to 20. Might as well get them ahead of time. After the conquest update, and a little research, I learn that I basically have to hit a vendor in every major city from where I am. I decide to do it without changing jobs. The result is I spend most of the day as a BRD/COR going from city to city by airship and waiting on the darn airship to arrive (although sometimes the scenery was mighty fine).

Scenery

In the good news side of things, I've managed to skill-up singing to it's max. I made good progress on Stringed and wind instrument skills. I made some Poison Katars, both for sale and for the guild, thereby getting the max points for the day. And I've bought Mary's Horn and acquired some bard food. So I'm now ready to rock and roll down to the dunes.

Skilling up bard skills

Of course it's at this point that the call goes out for some Assault and what not. I get ready and no one else is quite prepared so I take the opportunity to book it to Rabao and get the last tunning fork.

Ready for any Avatar run

I'm now ready for any avatar battle that needs an RDM to help out. At this point I take a break for dinner (went out and had some great pasta with a friend). And when I come back since no one else is still quite ready, I decide to go on a pick up Assault.

Rant Time

For the love of all that's holy, people, if you're an RDM, LEARN YOUR F---EN ELEMENTAL ENFEEBLING ORDER. We lost twice with what should have been a no brain-er operation.

The standard doctrine is as follows: Get party with 2 Dark Magic mages (RDM or BLM) and 2 DD's. Monks are preferred in the DD slot but anyone should do if they do decent damage. Everyone casts Invisible at the start. Get by the first bomb. All 4 of you kill the first wall. This should take 5 minutes. At this point the party re-invisibles and splits up. One of the RDM/BLM or BLM/??? heads on up to the northern wall, while the rest of the party goes for the 3 walls that are in a row. The guy at the northern wall should finish his soloing of the northern wall before the rest of the party gets through the 3 walls they are assigned. Mainly because DoT ownz this mission. You'll notice: one guy solo's a wall while 3 guys go through 3 walls. Once the guy on the Northern wall finishes his wall he books it back to the room where the Rune will spawn to end the mission. When the last wall falls, he pops the chest (optional if there's enough time remaining) and nails the rune. Sounds equitable right? Especially since both teams have good DoT mages? Right? I will even diagram the assault for the short of attention (click on it to blow it up):

Da Plan

Not how it worked out for these two runs. Both had their problems. None of which were due to the RDM/BLM assigned to the northern wall (myself). No, no, the OTHER RDM/BLM does not seem to have learned the magic aggro range of the bomb family of mobs. He manages to pick up a bomb aggro at least once on BOTH runs!!!

Now my soloing of the Northern wall was a work of art. I manage to get it done in about 15-17 minutes from the start of the missions. You will note that this is ample time to take a leisurely stroll back to the rune room. But thanks to aggro boy in the first run I know we're behind the curve so I hurry it to the party after my wall goes down only to find them STILL killing the 2nd wall at the 10 minute mark. So I help out with that wall and enquire if someone should be sent back to the rune room. We eventually dispatch the other RDM to that room. I go totally berserk at the end including a chainspell nuke. The 3 of us manage to get the last wall done in time. But aggro boy manages to be late to the rune. Loss.

We're pissed but we figure that we were so close, if we manage to avoid aggro we should be fine for the next run. You'd think so too. The run starts off promisingly enough. The MNK has been replaced by a SAM but that should have minimal impact on the overall run. We get thru the first wall and immediately learn that aggro boy hasn't learned his lesson. He manages to aggro the bomb on the OTHER side of the entrance wall this time. Lucky that this one can be safely slept and ignored since he'll be far enough away by the time it wakes that it'll loose aggro along the way. So minimal time was actually lost this way. But more indication that dude is not the sharpest pencil in the pocket.

So I get my wall finished and am on my way past the three bombs in the big room when the SAM D/C's I start my way back up to the 3 walls area when he gets re-invited. I figure ok, minimal time lost, SAM still has his 2 hour. Things should be OK so I reverse course once again and head to the rune room. Once I'm in position I learn exactly where they are in the wall progressions. 10 minute warning and they are still on wall #2. This is not a happy happy sign. They soon manage to get to wall number #3 and the last wall we need to kill (the walls are named: entrance, northern, #1, #2 and #3). And we were down to like 1/5 hp of the last wall when we ran out of time. Loss.

At this point The leader disbands the party in frustration. I don't blame him and I'm pretty pissed myself as I upheld my part of the run, flawlessly both times. My leg got done with oodles and strudels of time to spare. The 3 other players would normally also have had plenty of time...

So I inquire of the leader if he had noticed any problems with the other RDM. He says that he assumed we would all know our jobs so wasn't paying attention. Side digression to all potential leaders: Never assume, it makes an ass of you and me. So I politely inquire of the RDM in question as to what sub he was using. He informs me quite full of pride that he went /BLM so as to cast the enfeebles: Shock->Rasp->Burn... And I know for a fact he wasn't melee-ing either.

At this point I wished GM Dave was real.

If you are not an RDM or a BLM or have never played the game, you can be forgiven for not realizing why the above sent me ballistic. In this game magic is proportioned amongst 8 different aspects. Six of these aspects are considered elemental aspects. The other two are Light and Darkness. Now each these 6 elemental is considered strong against the next element in order. So that Fire is strong to Ice is strong to Wind is strong to Earth is strong to Lightning is strong to Water is strong to Fire. In a circle. Where this comes into importance is with elemental enfeebles. These are spells that have dual effects. They affect some stat of the target they are cast on and do some damage over the duration of the spell. Hence their classification as DoT (Damage over Time) spells. Well one of the rules is that an elemental enfeeble can't co-exist with an other enfeeble that is of directly stronger or weaker than itself. The most recent one causes the other to erase itself. Don't take my word for it, go experiment with it.

Experiment:
Control results: Find a mob that will last long enough but won't endanger you. Cast Burn->Choke->Shock on it. Notice that after a certain amount of time they all 3 drop off the mob in the order you cast them. The system notifies you when they go down off the mob. Very nice.
Actual test: Now on the next mob (or the same one if it'll last long enough), cast Burn->Rasp->Shock. Notice all 3 stick fine. Now wait for the wear-off messages. Notate the ones that wear off.
Results: Notice there are only 2 messages.... Figure it out.

The thing is that by level 60 EVERY RED MAGE ON VANA D'IEL SHOULD KNOW THIS!!!

*pant* *pant* *pant*

This guy was about 3/5'ths as effective as he could have been. He was casting 2/3 of the elemental enfeebles he should have been, and wasn't adding the melee DoT he could have been adding with a good sword/dagger (not much compared to the DoT damage I know but it would have helped, it's not like the walls hit back or have TP moves they can use). At this point I suspect his melee skill of being severely sub-capped. The thing is in this fight he's supposed to be providing about 50% of the offense against the 3 walls he's been assigned. No wonder they seemed major gimped.

God I hate idiot RDMs....

Rant off

Anyways after that I went on 2 other runs of Ilrusi Atoll with Thundar and Devious and those at least got me some points. Not to mention unlocked the PFC quest. Also during these two runs I managed to pull some rabbits out of my hat when Thundar ran into trouble. Including two raises. and multiple fish aggro control on the second run. But at least we got the win. Unfortunately there were no imp wings on the AH when I checked so I logged for the day. I'll get the quest finished tomorrow.

2007-01-14T08:08:00.000-05:00

COR, Subanna/Heather

I started the day off with a quick session where I had to death warp and book it to windy walls. The main reason for all this hurry was to get Subanna a world pass so that she might get back in the game. Having decided to re-start from scratch that is. So I managed to get a Gold world pass as I was aware that this was going to be a brand new account. Don't bother trying the number, it's been used as you'll see later.

Gold world pass

Later on it was back to the dunes and I managed to get to 20. Like pulling teeth but it's now done. Nothing special to report. Just your usual dunes party.

After re-equipping for bard and doing a bit of crafting for Autumnal I thought that I had logged for the evening. But no, I get a message on MSN indicating that Subanna created her char and was back in the game. So in I go to go give her a pearl. She's now called Heather.

Introducing Heather

So now in 40 days we should be able to get the funky hats. This time I managed to log for the night.

2007-01-13T06:22:00.000-05:00

Forks, AF, COR

I started off determined to get all the forks so I would be ready to go on any avatar run that needed help. This of course involved a lot of running around. I did manage to check which item was the Alchemy item of the day, get my chocobo whistle re-filled and got the moon bauble as well. It's only now, as I'm writing this, that I realize I'm still missing the Rabao fork. Ah well, next opportunity I'll get it done.

Jelley then indicated she was going to go with a WHM that wanted to try to solo her AF NM. Now this is a little nuts. The NM in question is renowned for spam-ing magic and Dimensional Death, a particularly vicious job ability. Not to say it can't be done but it's tricky as hell. -Ga spells striping shadows, DD messing with your HP. A certain amount of luck is needed.

Jelley indicated she was having no luck getting anyone else to take her up on the NM fight. So she was considering taking the guy up on it just in case he might be able to pull it off. It was at this point I had finished going for the forks (well except Rabao, but I had forgotten that one). So I decided that a little extra RDM back up was called for. Good thing I did. The other WHM in question was actually pretty good and was giving a good demonstration of what a combat load out WHM/NIN is capable of. But then a few -ga spells in a row, an Aspir and some nasty DDs and things were not looking so good any more. I started out by simply slapping a Refresh on the boy, then plowing in. Even with the two of us it was a tough fight. Especially at the end when the mob was spam-ing DDs. The WHM died to one too many DDs at the very end of the fight and I was down to 3hp with a Firaga III on the way when I managed to kill it. Close bleeding fight. So Jelley only has the CN coffer key AF left to get.

Then I switched jobs to COR/BRD and it was off to the dunes. Typical semi dis-functional dunes party that did manage to get some decent exp. Got all the way to 19 on this run, just half a level to go to 20.

2007-01-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

Helping out with AF

Well this evening was one of helping out with the AF needs of the LS. Well mainly Jelley since she's the only one currently cruising through the AF stages. We went to Beadeaux and pretty much died on the first pull. RDM are resilient but not when we get behind the MP curve against 3 quadav near the dome zone. So Jelley re-raises and things go much smoother from that point on. Krolm eventually reaches us. We get the key and then take a break.

Once Devious frees himself up from Besieged, we head off to Castle Zvahl Baileys. There Jelley, Krolm, Devious and I take care of Dark Spark (poor guy never really had a chance). And once I got to Aht Urghan, that was it for me for the night. Colds suck.

2007-01-11T03:36:00.000-05:00

Capping Cooking

Early in the day, I do a bit of AH shuffling. While this is happening, I manage to find the NPC that plays back the missions you're been on. I immediately instruct him to play back various missions so I can get some good screen shots:

Naja is sooooo vain

The King of Hearts goes Yoda on a poor puppet

Level Up

Comparing notes with Gessho

Ouch that's gotta hurt

Later in the evening, it was time for my 3 point plan. Namely Get to 60 Cooking while waiting for Thundar and Isyan to free themselves up from the Tenzen fight. Do some Assault runs. And help Jelley progress her AF.

About to start another Assault run

That's pretty much the way things went. With just a quick side track to go raise Madness (and give him some yag potions to get rid of them). Skilled up on Yaggudo Drinks so my Cooking is now capped at 60, the 3rd of my crafting skills to cap out. Did 3 Ilrusi Atoll runs (Still no PFC). Got the Tavnazian Bell off of the first mob (Jelley has horse shoes).

2007-01-10T02:07:00.001-05:00

Besieged and some crafting

Earlier in the day I managed to get some muling done. I've decided to empty out my mules of various items in order to free up some space. We'll see how it goes.

Then I started the evening off with little idea to do and less time (because of the late hour I got on). So I finally decided to get some cooking skill-ups. After 4 stacks of dark crystals I managed tot get to 57, so only 3 more levels to go till I cap it at 60

Before I could get going on the next 4 stacks Besieged started. This was great on many fronts, but mainly on the get some dagger skill-ups and the get me some IS levels. One of these days I'll be in a party for these things, but not till my combat skills cap.

That was it for the night.

2007-01-09T09:50:00.000-05:00

AH and Muling

Short night. Only on for a few minutes. So moved stuff arround the mules and put stuff up on the AH. That's it.

2007-01-08T11:37:00.000-05:00

Blink Blink

Well strip me naked, color me purple and make me dance on Parliament Hill. Microsoft came out with something cool. A Final Fantasy Desktop Theme. Check it out.

2007-01-08T05:48:00.000-05:00

Assault, Salvage, Key farming

I started the evening off with the acquisition of the Fire and Water tunning forks. That way when there are any avatar runs I'll be ready. Then it was off to an assault run. After a bit of confusion due to Scab thinking that Assault took all the points from a particular Assault area instead of just 2k points from a particular area. We went on the Leujaoam Cleansing assault mission.

Start of the Leujaoam Cleansing run

This started out well enough and we were ripping along but people got over confidant and an attack in the last room went ahead without checking for adds (they got too far ahead of me and the bards). We could have won after the first 3 deaths but then people got a little over anxious resulting in more deaths. Even with a chain raise for that we were already too far behind the 8 ball. We failed on the before last worm finally. Moral of the story: Don't get ahead of your sleepers. Make sure they are in position BEFORE you start pounding.

After that it was time for another Salvage run. I think this will become our usual Sunday night fare. My social LS is slowly morphing into a Social/Assault/Salvage LS. This can be good or bad. Good because we DO need more people. Bad depending on the type of people. We'll see in the long run how people fit in.

So After making sure I had all the right items, it was off to Bhaflau Remnants. I took the usual Bhaflau Thickets to Alzadaal Undersea Ruins route. Note to self: get the damn map to this place. Once at the entrance point to the salvage run, I waited while I made my portion of the hi potions. Note to self: next time take a picture of the thing above the door.

The door to Bhaflau Remnant

We were off to our usual start. There were a bunch of no-shows so we were once again reduced to a farming run. We went West at the start this time. Please note that this has the consequence of blocking off a portion of the Remnants. We've come to the conclusion that going east is good when you have a mage heavy party, but going west is good when it's a melee heavy party. This is mainly due to the mobs available.

The usual start - naked

The usual progression thanks to Isyan's leadership is Biffrons till 3-4 weapons unlocked and some HP/MP-> Wamouracamps for a bit of armor -> Wamouras (flying type) for some magic/job abilities -> wipe the floor. Mind you at about the half way point it started going a little more roughly. Namely Thundar accidentally used his firefly. This is a bad idea as it boots you from the run. Lesson learned. We also lost Bonoandedge for a while to his dinner. During this period, we managed to learn that a RDM with his spells HP/MP and a weapon make the absolute best tank in terms of not needing to be healed. Phalanx totally owns the first floor. This has the implications that one of the first orders of business is for any salvage run to unlock their RDM's magic as soon as feasible as we make the perfect link handler/healer for once the hi-potions are gone. The first floor is also weak enough that the melee/tanks need to wean themselves of the desire for utsusemis. They do not need these on the first floor once a WHM or RDM has his magic back. Sure the casting needs to be unlocked by the 2nd floor but not on the first. Casters need to be a priority over any utsusemi. Magic is just 10 times more flexible than shadows.

Once most of the equipment has been unlocked

The run ended without very many drops or NM's encountered. This was our 3rd run as a team and the post run hash session was much more animated than the first two. The main complaint Devious and Scab had was felling useless for a farming run with a small party. Loath as I am to leave any ls member out from activities, they do have a point that if they aren't feeling like they will contribute, it's not fun for them. It was pretty much agreed that till we get more people and necessitate 2 bards for a run, they might be better off alternating weeks and save their assault points. We're at the point were we need to do a bit more research and start putting together a plan of attack with the objective of getting to the gears and stuff. We're starting to get our feet under us in there, but there are things to improve: We need to use the people that are not un-gimped early in the run as scouts. We need to improve the point at which we decide to move on. we definitely need to unlock some stats by the 2nd floor.

Note to Devious and Scab: you may still both get drafted if we're short on personnel for a full 6 person run. But such is life in a small linkshell. Oh and everyone feel free to use the comments section here to continue any post run hashing.

After that it was off to the Crawler's Nest for me to help with Jelley's AF key farming. We only got a bit of farming done (I forgot my /THF) before we needed to log for the night. But I've discovered why Jelley keeps complaining about her soloing ability: She doesn't have Drain/Aspir like she should at this level and she has no soloing armor set. This is one of those situations where the blazing speed with which she is leveling is having it's consequences. This game is set up to really limit your options if you don't pay attention to gear and character development.

Key farming in the CN

One of the reasons I go on these farming runs is that it allows me to work on my Sapara of trials. I still plan on unlocking Savage Blade before resuming leveling. Not that I wouldn't help out even if this wasn't the case, but it's always nice to have a 2nd reason to go.

2007-01-07T01:31:00.000-05:00

Dunes and AF

Well today was a Dunes day... Yep, got myself in my COR/BRD wear and headed to the evil place itself. First party was good with a PL, got my level. Took a break, then 2nd party sucked (only got half a level). Even with Jelley PL'ing me at the end. Some times it just is sooooo slow.

Killing things for the coffer key

Once that was over with, it was time to go help Jelley with her next piece of AF, so off to the Citadel and some key mob killing. Devious joined up part way through, and we got the key. Then there was a bit of a wait while Isyan came along to make 4 so we could get through the gates. Even this was no problem, and we managed to get the coffer near the zone out. Jelley now has her AF head piece.

Jelley with AF hat

Went to bed at that point.

2007-01-06T07:57:00.000-05:00

Quests and ODS

I started off the day with the idea of doing some quests. But first I needed to move stuff around my mules. As I'm wandering from mog house to auction house, I get a tell from a player called Jinxed. I soon find out that /nameless to protect the guilty/ is back in the game. His previous character got sold. So unfortunately he has to start from scratch. I give him a pearl and all is well.

Then I run into one of the types of people who play online games who really do need to go see a psychotherapist. Luve is a 75MNK/37NIN Tarutaru either likes messing with people or is whacked in the head. I don't know about you but anyone who declares their love for you after meeting your char for all of 2 minutes is a little emotionally unstable. Especially when they complain that their previous bf lied to them about many things. Followed by very weak attempts at emo manipulation. Shades of Cinnamonlips no thank you.

After that very weird episode, I decided to do the new years event. After talking with Devious, I proceeded to do the event. He was quite right the watercolor you get is by far one of the best furnishings you could get. As far as looks anyways.

This new year's event furnishing

I logged soon after that, but came back on later that same evening. This time it was to find out that an ODS run was being organized. This is a KS30 BCNM at the Waughroom Shrine in Palborough Mines. It involves a fight against 6 scorpions. Hence it's name: Operation Desert Swarm. Eventually we got it underway. There are two main ways to do this BCNM. The first involves mana burning the mobs. The second involves people soloing the mobs in areas away from each other so as to no get any AOE damage from other scorpions. A little shaky on the first run, but otherwise fine. 5 runs, only 1 death no losses. Scab got the Katana that dropped on my run. Otherwise it was so so drops up until the last run when Yasmine got some fine drops like the V-Claw and stuff.

As a side note. It's not a good idea to go AFK with Thundar and Scab in the area. (I'll upload a short clip once I can find some editing software to cut it down to size).

I logged soon after that it being very late.

2007-01-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

Fluffy!!!

Started the evening out where yesterday left off. In search of the new staging point. One white teleporter and a bit of a zig zag later the runic portal was found. Two of em actually. There's some really funky stuff in the windows down there.

Funky stuff down in the Subterrane

Then it was off to join Thundar and Isyan for 3 Assault runs. These were no problem as they were the one at the Atoll. So I now have plenty of points for the next Salvage run.

Then I got lucky. There was a shout for a Fenrir fight. They were looking for a BLM and a RDM. I immediately indicated my willingness to join the fight. We gathered over at the tower in east Sarutabaruta. Then it was off to full moon fountain. The fight itself was surprisingly easy (except the 2h, that was tricky). No one died, although Trix the tank admitted to luck as she parried a hit while she had only 33 hp and no shadows. Towards the end of the fight I had to take over healing duties, but not for long as Trix decided to end the fight with a Mijin Gakure.

Long and sort of it is, I can now summon Fenrir:

Fluffy!

2007-01-04T06:16:00.000-05:00

2nd Salvage Run

I started off the evening by putting some warp cudgels up on the ah. Prices are nice and high at the moment. The main reason is that Windy has been out of first place for 2 weeks in a row and it's the middle of the week. If windy stays out of first place for another week, expect to see 50k a cudgel soon.

Then things go busy in the linkshell. We didn't have much time before the salvage run so we booked it it Ilrusi Atoll to get the extra points needed. Only Devious and I needed the points. So Devious went to the chest spawn spot and I became Thundar's battery for the run. As usual, things went very smoothly and we got the points and the Remnant permits necessary for our salvage run.

Gathered for the Salvage run

So off we went to Bhaflau Thickets and the northern most entrance to Aydeewa Subterrane. I still don't have the new new staging point, but I'm going to have to learn how this works. Once all gathered and in a party: Thundar, Devious, Scab, Isyan, Autumnal and myself started up the Run proper. We were our usual gimp selves at the start of the run

Gimp party

Parts of this run went smother, parts not so smooth. I really need to make sure I have a Salvage kit out ready to go for the next time. I ended up dieing twice. First time due to in-attention of the melee segment of the party, 2nd time due to casting cure IV while weakened and getting one shotted. We got unlucky with weapon drops this time. Getting weapons first is very critical. We also need to get better at doing more of the first floor. We definitely need to get smoother at the start of the run. We also need to get better at getting the calling out of who should get what. It would be good if someone tracked the important cell drops. that way less time is wasted after a particular drop.

Partially Un-gimped

I didn't feel like I was up to par this run. Partly because I started the evening with a brand new cold. Yuck. We did manage to get Thundar a pants drop. Our first salvage item that leads to one of the new sets. The BST/RNG/THF/??? Pants (norn set???) dropped from one of the 3rd floor ranger mobs. Thundar won the lot vs Isyan, the rest of us didn't have the right jobs. We'll have to do more.

I logged in the subterrane and will have to get the new staging point next time.

2007-01-03T08:02:00.000-05:00

BLU 20

In the dunes again when I logged on. I must be a glutton for punishment. The evening started off pretty good. Had to bail out of a sucking party to go have dinner. When I got back had a party with Colacub that went OK. I managed to get to level 19 with that party. But it eventually fell apart. Typical Dunes action. I had another abortive party. Finally got re-formed and Colacub was randomly in this party as well. This went much more smoothly as Thundar came over to PL for a bit. We managed to get both of us to 20 in very short order. Thanks Thundar!

Then it was off to the assault run. We took Excavation duty this time. This one is fun for a RDM since you are usually sent off to solo one of the out of the way walls. Again this was no problem, although they main party did miss-count and ended up finishing mine off after they miss-counted and thought mine was the last. Nope they only did 2 in the time it took me to get to 25% on the one I was doing. I would have soloed it if they had gone on to the next one like they should have. Ah well. All was good in the end since we won that run.

Almost ready for the Assault run

Oh, I also got the latest gil from my warp cudgel sales. Going to have to make another batch today at some point.

2007-01-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

The dunes...

I logged on just outside Selbina. So dunes it was. Ok party. We started off with me tanking but the PLD took offence, so I said I'd backup tank. That worked much better (not so much for me but to keep the peace in the party). Was a pretty smooth party all round. Except for some leechers the puller pulled in. The one I was tanking we killed, the one Quaigonjinn was tanking... not so good, (darn thing Cure III'ed 2 times):

Ah, Dunes sand, tasty!

In the end though I got my level and a buffer. So I'm now a level 18 BLU. I also managed to get Cursed Sphere. The fly move I needed to get. So over all a pretty good session, though short. I was feeling meh-ish. So I went back to the gate near Selbina and logged there once again.

2007-01-01T00:33:00.000-05:00

Naja is broken

Well I did the last mission available currently in the Aht Urghan story line. It was most excellent. This is basically where some more plot exposition happens and Shantotto gave me my marching orders. She did manage to break Naja though. That'll teach Naja to mess with such an experienced operator as Dr. Shantotto.

Broken Naja

She unfortunately still has my crown. Lucky me though, I got 5 Imperial gold coins and immediately went and upgraded my mog locker. I can now store up to 70 items in my mog locker.

The rest of my linkshell was either away at new years eve parties or doing stuff on their own. I decided to go try and level BLU a bit. This involved getting to Bastok and switching jobs. I got my equipment switched around and then headed in the general direction of the marshes. The flies were a little to tough so I headed to Valkurm. There I called up Yawawa my NPC Fellow and although things went well at the start, it quickly deteriorated. I ended up running for the La Theine zone.

Yawawa and I in the dunes

I decided that getting further spells might be a way to go. So it was off to Gelshba and the orcs. First up was trying to get Bomb Blast from the orcish war machines. This turned out to be no problem as I got it on the 2nd one. In the following picture you will note the normal blue mage technique of waiting for the mob to build up TP by wailing away at one's self until they make the right move. This is a slow painful process (literally):

Ouch

Then of course the monster with my next move was nearby so it was off to some Cheiropteras in the tunnel system and up on the plateau. Interesting discovery: Bats are not linking. As you can see I am well withing the sound distance of the non-engaged Cheiroptera, but it is not linking into my existing fight.

Humm Shouldn't this be linking???

After 3 of them, I managed to learn Blood Drain so it was off to Valk once again. Where I immediately got into trouble and died right in front of the gates to Selbina. Brilliant way to show my skillz...

After the raise, I waited around a while for a party, but nothing happend (except I spotted the rare red chocobo). I ended up logging for the evening there in hopes that things would look up the next evening.

A Red Chocobo in the dunes

Have a Happy New Year everyone!!!

2006-12-31T00:57:00.000-05:00

More Aht Urghan

I started the evening off with a check of the Alchemy Guild to see what the guild item was. Turns out it was a Cutlass. Since this has a 46 Smithing sub, it was a no go for me for now.

While I was preparing to go to Aht Urghan, I got a random /tell. Turns out someone named Crave wanted to join my LS after noticing on Alla that I was recruiting. Turns out is a level 75 PLD on the Quetzalcoatl server. Just that he got tired of the lack of end game activity for PLD and his friends have been leaving. So he wanted to try out a new server. We'll see how he works out.

After getting Crave his pearl it was off to the Empire. Pretty quickly it was time to get together the essentials. In the case of a Salvage run, this means getting the following in preparation: 1 stack of Echo Drops, 1 stack of Silent Oils, 1 stack of Prism Powders, and as many hi-potions as you have saved up/purchased as practicable. For mages/support jobs, you'll be putting them up on your bazaar for 1 gil a piece so the DD/Tanks can grab em quickly (don't put em up till you're actually IN the Salvage run though).

For this trial run we decided to go as a single party. No intention of getting to the boss. Just go and get experience and don't wipe. On that front, it was a successful run. We managed to get plenty of kills and although we had a few deaths (mainly at the last fight), we never wiped. My advice is that anyone wanting to try salvage out should get their feet wet in single party runs. They are less confusing than full alliance runs and allow you to learn the lay of the land. Strangely enough we had maps for the new areas.

As you know, you start off the run totally gimped. No weapons, no armor, no job abilities, no sub-job, stats at -30, HP and MP at 1/2 normal. We did our run in Bhaflau Remnants. The party consisted of the usual suspects: Thundar(MNK), Isyan(BLU), Scab(BRD), Devious(BRD) and myself(RDM), with a random pickup for the actual run: Darkblade(RDM) (I think - I really do need to get better at snapping pictures during the action). Thundar went as MNK of course. A good progression for a single party seems to be: Get 2 weapons, get some armor (2-3 kills worth), get max HP on fighters, get some magic on a healer. Then go and back fill the rest of the party till everyone is un-gimped

Thundar is feeling the breeze

Bifrons: weapons
Wamouracamps: armor
Trolls: various
Flying wamouras: magic and job abilities
Flan: magic

Now we were taking it pretty easy on this first run for most of us. Isyan had a few runs under his belt. Darkblade had 1 run, the rest of us this was our first run.

My advice for any mage: bring a melee load out and cap your melee skills. Yes your there for magic. But your magic is probably going to be unlocked much later in the run than you would wish. Your weapons will probably be unlocked before your magic. Equip accordingly. This will not be as good as a party made up of a mix of 4 MNK/WAR/PUP and support (which should just burn through things and get a great head start on the whole thing). But initial speed is important. And the initial mobs are weak enough that you'll be getting decent damage even as a mage. As a red mage I was getting in about 50-60% of the damage of the monk. Remember till he unlocks his JA a DD doesn't have the nice damage spike so it's pure DOT. Yes mages damage things slower than a pure DD but it's better than nothing. The whole thing about the first stage is speed killing. So every little bit helps.

After the run, we decided to go help Scab with his Windy 7-1 mission. The hardest thing about this was the trek out to the canal. 4 Hinge Oils and assorted bats up, 4 Hinge Oils and assorted bats down.

Then we decided to go to the Navukgo Execution Chamber and get the Shield of Diplomacy mission done (Although Diplomacy may not be Shantotto's forte). Well we managed to find the perfect way to keep Shantotto alive and in the fight the whole time. Sic Thundar on the Khimaira 13 he manged to do enough damage to keep hate from AMII spam-ing Shantotto. I had originally been assigned the job of keeping her alive while the rest of the party kept Thundar alive. a quarter of the way into the fight I notice that my assigned role is totally moot. Spam AMII all she want Shantotto couldn't rip hate off of Thundar. So I slip into party healing mode and simply keep an eye on Shantotto just in case. By the end of it the entire party was almost at full health. The Khimaira didn't even breath in her direction. Probably one of the easiest mission fights we've had in a while. The black coffin fight was tougher.

Shantotto and a King Cardian

She may call herself Karababa but do not be decieved, she's Dr. Shantotto at her psychotic best. Man, Shantotto is da shiznitz. Anyone who can piss Naja off that effectively is all right in my books.

I then logged for the night.

2006-12-30T10:56:00.000-05:00

Hehehehehehe...

Oh my god... There's nothing like Dr. Shantotto to stir up the mix. She is the incarnation of Chaos. She is proof positive that messing with windurstian ministers is not something for the faint at heart. Man! I love that psychopathic black mage. Poor Gessho still gets no respect. A quite honorable and upright Yagudo he may be. But Shantotto is a windurstian minister who's usual hair trigger reaction is to nuke first and sift through the ashes latter (man I've got to see if I can find the event re-play so I can record Gessho getting zapped). For some reason whenever I'm around her, I always end up fried and on the floor (luckily in a cut scene so no exp loss).

Comparing notes with Gessho

Oh and Naja still has my crown...

Blinking Thief

Needless to say I spent most of last evening getting my Aht Urghan missions progressed. I managed to do:

Passing Glory
Sweets for the Soul
Teahouse Tumult
Finders Keepers

And I'm now on:

Shield of Diplomacy

That took up most of the evening.

2006-12-28T22:44:00.000-05:00

Long day but good day

Started out the day early. I decided to skillup cooking. I managed to get from 51 to 56 so only 4 more points to go and I will cap cooking at 60. Needless to say this took quite a while. While this was going on my warp cudgels final sold so I needed to do another batch. Typical mid week warp cudgel market. managed to sell 3 for 40k a piece.

Took a break then got back for the evening assault runs. We got 3 done. Two times the Ilrusi Atoll in parties of 3. This consisted mainly of running around following Thundar and keeping refresh on him. This is because the main tactic here is using Carbuncle to take care of the mimic while we move on to the next chest.

Ready for the mimics

Once the Leujaoam Sanctum one. This time with more firepower (literally since Thundar came in as RNG for this one). I've now been successful with 3 separate assaults. 2 more different ones or 7-8 more of the ones I've one and I'll be able to get to PFC.

Zoning into an assault

Then while the others went and got their coins for the Black Coffin mission, I headed directly there to wait for em. Eventually they got there. Devious had the mandatory death along the way.

The party is gathered a 2nd time

Then it was into the mission. The mission got done finally. The fight was nothing special this time. Darn mobs are horribly resistant to any form of sleep but it's all cool. I manage to keep alive while the boys kill the captain. Sleepga is great for grabbing hate even if you don't sleep the formor. This time it was a success. The Black Coffin sure is an ominous ship. Cool though.

The Black Coffin

The captain

We also get to see more of Gessho. He's the Yagudo NPC involved in the various missions in the expansion.

Gessho

Poor Gessho though, he gets no respect for being the coolest Yagudo around.

Poor Gessho gets no respect

Then it was off to do the BLU AF hat fight for Devious. Again, no big problem, although the soulflayer is one funky mob.

The usual suspects

Then it was a matter of progressing through the various missions as far as possible. Which means dealing with her spikiness. The following picture should explain why we call this mithra "Her Spikiness".

Her Spikiness

I'm now able to go on Salvage runs should I wish to. I also got my pass for my first salvage run. I also had to pick up so new gear to get thru the mission. I can now look like a real hippy.

Hippy Strangeone

In parting, my only comment is that her spikiness, Naja, is a total whack job.

Naja

2006-12-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

Len back in the day

While skilling up cooking, there was a comment that len's old gifs were no longer available on the internet. A hue and cry was raised that this injustice must be corrected. Without further adieu, I present Len and Carbuncle:

WARNING! the following images may disturb the young and impressionalble and overly emo, not to mention the older and bible thumping prudes. View at your own risk

Len and carbie

Len and carbie redux

Needless to say we were tired...

2006-12-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

Crafting followed by Avatar runs

I started off the day crafting quite a bit. I got to 80 alchemy. Worked on my cooking skill and got 51. Noticed a level 2 besieged was about to start. Just made it there in time to start the besieged. Went well, only got .1 dagger skillup but did get 400 exp/is.

For the few who turn in and don't know all the details of how FFXI works, the above statement will seem quite chuck full of jargon. It is, it is. Here's a little explanation on the content of the above paragraph:

Crafting is an activity that exists in most MMORPGs. This usually involves the combining of various in game items in order to produce a new desired in game item. See the post a few days ago about making warp clubs as an example. In FFXI's case the recipe's are fixed but the results can vary. Also in FFXI a synonym for crafting is Synthing. Since the act of crafting in FFXI is called Synthesis. So when people talk about synthing, synthesis and stuff like that they are referring to crafting.

Now crafting is usually divided up into various crafts. For example: woodworking or smithing. In the game every player character has a skill in these crafts. it starts at 0 and can go up to 100. However you can only have 40 points spread amongst all your crafts that are above 60 points. So you could have 2 crafts at 80 and the rest would have to be 60 or bellow (fishing is the exception it's allowed to go to 100 independent of the rest of the crafts).

Having established that there is a stat associated with a particular craft you would want to know about getting that stat up. In each craft there is a progression of synths that are successively more difficult. This is indicated by their "cap". The cap on a synth is the skill level you must match or be higher than in order not to get "skill-ups" doing that synth. The idea being that in order to progress a crafting skill, you must actually craft. You can only attempt to craft items who's caps are at most 10 points higher than your current skill. Each time you do so you are given a chance at getting fractions of a skill point.

This leads us to two different types of crafting activities: "Skill-up" crafting and "For Profit" crafting. You would normally only craft things you could make a profit crafting. Or because the item isn't available any other way. But in order to get to the specific synths that can result in lots of profit, you usually need to raise your crafting skill as far above that synth's cap as practicable. This raises the chances that you will 'HQ' the synth, thus getting an even more desirable item, or greater quantities of the item (depends on the specific synth). Since the raising of these stats is for the most part a permanent change, most people are willing to spend a bit of gill in order to raise their skill. So a lot of the crafting on the way to whatever level you're going for in a particular craft is done at a loss. also note that at levels 51 and 81 things get much harder to progress.

This same "stat" system is used to control weapon usage. Each weapon type in the game has an associated skill. Each job class can progress at different rates and to different values of these stats. In my case my dagger skill tops out at 240 at level 73 on my Red Mage (RDM) job. In the game parlance we say that RDM has a B skill level in Dagger. Looking this up in various published tables will allow us to find out that at level 73 the maximum value I could get for the Dagger stat when playing RDM is 240. I'm somewhere in the 237's as we speak. You'll notice I was happy to get a +0.1... You'll ask yourself: Why bother? the answer is that being able to hit things is calculated based upon a a relation between your calculated attach value and the monster's calculated defense value. You'll also note that we tend to fight monsters that are significantly higher in level than we are.

This means that to even HIT the damn mobs we go after we need all the stats we can get and usually equip special equipment to boost our chances to hit things. But maxing out your skill is a free way to increase your ability to hit things so you want to do it for the weapons you use most frequently. Now most damage dealer type jobs (DD) tend to get to their cap as part and parcel of their exp'ing activities. Not so with Red Mage. Those of us who pursue that calling tend to have to get our combat skills while pursuing other activities (Since those whinny DD's tend to get prissy if you actually fight as a Red Mage in an experience party).

Besieged is an activity that happens every so often where beastmen (a type of intelligent monster race) try to attack the district of Al Zahbi in Aht Urghan to gain possession of something called the Astral Candescence. Follow the links for detailed explanation of besieged. All that's important to understand is that as a level 73 character who has un-capped stats the most important thing for me is skilling up my combat skills during a besieged event. Once they get capped I'll worry about joining a party/alliance and actively try to win a besieged.

Later on I organized two avatar runs. They both went very well. Scab, Devious, Thundar, Isyan and I were the people involved. Both runs went well although Isyan did buy it during the fight with Garuda. It was wind day when we did that fight. I am once again awesomely impressed by the powers of bar- spells. When the avatar 2h's I usually don't even loose my stoneskin.

Once that was done with, we planned out some Assaults tGoing to visit Ms Garuda

Once that was done with, we planned out some Assaults tomorrow. Then I went and got my Moon Bauble. I'm only one fight away from getting Fluffy!

Moon Bauble

2006-12-27T03:57:00.000-05:00

Shuffle style evening

The mid winter break over with (a good time was had at the family's), it was time to get to work during this holiday season, while the free time is plentiful.

I got on wanting to get some avatars done. No go, everyone was too busy doing stuff already. We'll try to do that tomorrow. Mainly the entire time was spent doing the item shuffle and a bit of production crafting and AH'ing stuff. Got the GP points for the day (Poison Cesti x 5).

Decided to retire AmberStorm as there was no real progress on the stats front of any type. This will make place for another chocobo to be raised in the future. Going to try for a green bird by mating Amber with a green chocobo. But not for a while. We'll see how it goes. Weirdly enough got a 2nd plaque as well as the expected VCS card for AmberStorm. Don't know if they give a plaque for every chocobo, or if it's due to having raised both chocobos in different stables.

On my way to Windurst

2nd Chocobo Plaque

Ended up logging for the evening in windy after putting the latest plaque in the mog house.

2006-12-24T02:25:00.000-05:00

NPCs have limit breaks too

Started off the evening caring for my Chocobo. The dude who lost the chick's name starts with an A. Checked the Guild item. A water tank. I decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Then it was on to Jeuno.

My NPC dinged 51 a while back. And I had started the next quest related to NPCs. So I decided to go finish it off. A quick check in with Luto and it was off to Qufim. Killed a pretty easy Gigas NM. Then it was back to the various cut scenes and finishing off the quest. Yawawa is now clear to level to 60.

I decided to then go to The Boyahda Tree. On my way there I used 8 stacks of greens digging with the rental chocobo. The results were:

Chocobo Digging

The idea was to do two things at once: Skill Chain with Yawawa and get Yawawa some exp at her max rate. This went as planned but I didn't get max kills for her session since we're hitting mobs that last longer now. And she can stay out for more mobs than she used to.

Skillchaining with Yawawa

Then it was off to Caedarva Mire to get my coin for the next try at the Black Coffin mission.

That done I decided to try an Assault. Went with Isyan and two others I didn't know to do the PSC Assault at Azouph Staging Point in the Mire. We got to the last 3 mobs before running out of time. One more DD and we would have been fine. Oh well.

2006-12-23T13:15:00.000-05:00

Link to the new equipment requirements

SE has some new godlike equipment with this new update: Follow the linky.

2006-12-23T06:44:00.000-05:00

Events, DRG 20 and Thundar

There are two day's of things to relate. So here we go:

Friday

Friday was simply the day I completed the Event for this year's Starlight celebration. It started off by doing a lot of cheering at Treant.

Cheering the Twinkling Treant

But after lots of cheering, running around, going from city to city, giving kids gifts and fireworks and getting all the loot, I was able to say I got all the loot. A not for people doing this: Upstairs at the school in windy waters is a great place to unload a stack of fireworks as there is a high concentration of kids and you can unload in one spot.

Strangeone in HQ Dreamgiver wear

While doing this of course I had to snap shots of various bot fishers. Actually Buwake, I'm not so sure about. Usually a name like that is the sign of a mule. Someone has some 'splaining to do. Probably to a GM once they get reported.

Buwake? humm.... what if I change the w to a k?

RMT Bot clone

At least two more clones

Saturday

Saturday morning was spent doing the big materials craft. I am a purveyor of fine Warp Cudgels in this fine land of Vanadiel. Which means I craft warp clubs and sell them in bulk on the Jeuno/Aht Urghan AH. To do so I need to craft massive amounts of Oak Lumber (to make Oak Cudgels) and Ethereal Oak Lumber (to turn the cudgels into the warp variant). To save space I usually craft 6 stacks of each and stuff those on a mule. That usually lasts me about a month. Note: This means I buy 144 Oak Logs at a shot. When was the last time you saw 144 Oak Logs on sale on the AH? Right, I didn't think so. So the only two other options are: The woodworkers guild (usually slightly cheaper but in limited quantities) or the windy port duty free (slightly more expensive but in unlimited quantities). Windy it is.

Synthing away

Oak Logs cost 5751 gil a pop. Loosely translated this means I spend 828,144 gil on Oak Logs alone. The rest of the materials for a Warp Cudgel cost an order of magnitude less per cudgel mind you. Final cost per cudgel works out to 16-17k depending on how you got your anima and clusters. Now undercutters come out on the weekends. They usualy sell for about 20-22k Which is find for the pure volume market. I tend to sell more during the week and avoid the weekends. My minimum price is 25k a cudgel. This mean my minimum sales for a run this size are: 1,800,000 gil. For those interested the synths are:

Dark Anima x 1

Wind Anima x 1

Ice Anima x 1

Oak Log x 1

Wind Crystal for the synth

Gives Ethereal Oak Lumber

And for the Oak Lumber I use the Lumberjack synth:

Bundling Twine x 1

Oak Log x 3

Wind Crystal for the synth

Gives Oak Lumber

Then I took care of AmberStorm. Having done that I headed off to the dunes to try and complete my DRG job. Whoa Nelly! Newbie party. Slow as molasses. We spent more time getting people Sub-job drops than concentrating on getting experience. People came, got disgusted and left. No wonder newbies thing the dunes are hell. No one wants to help the newbies get their items for the sub-job quest. Bleeding crimps. So I spent 6 hours with the newbies and a) managed to get 2 guys 4 out of the 5 items they needed. b) no one died. So not too bad. Puller was a little slow mind you. But he was one of the newbies so that was to be expected. Oh well.

Newbies in the dunes, who'da thunk?

Then to wash the taste of the slow party from my mouth, I PL'ed Autumnal a bit (she had to deal with RL stuff after a few kills). So I went off to help Jelley. I though Autumnal logged while she was AFK, but no, I find out later she left her character in an unsafe are -.-; Evidently she has not been through the dunes often enough to realize that the corner she was in was not safe...

Autumnal WHMing in the dunes

Jelley was the trying to get her last teleport scroll. So I decided to help out. We met up in Xarcabard. Got her crystal so she can port to the right point once she gets the scroll. Then off to Fei'Yin with her abbreviated party. We get two keys in the first batch of shadows (there are like 6-8 pairs of two). Blink Blink, that was quick. And then the minute we start looking for the chest, she finds it! On the first spawn spot we look at. Had a Pat Morita moment of disgust there. Beginners Luck.

Well that was quick. So I decide to head out to see Thundar in Aht Urghan and try to get my Black Coffin mission done.

At the Black Coffin Mission battlefield point.

Of course Thundar who's a bit rusty from being away from the game so long, ends up needing to go back for his coin.

Waiting on Thundar

We find out empirically that we need one more dd/tank or at least one more RDM. The three of us managed to get the captain below 50% health. Yes, we're a bit suicidal that way. It was a lot of fun mind you.

Black Coffin wipe

At that point I decided bed was a good idea, so back to my mog house I went.

2006-12-21T08:24:00.000-05:00

It feels like a lot of running around

Just like in the real world, xmas in vanadiel consists of a lot of running arround. While running arround I ran into some funky video glitches:

Weird video glitch or strange LS?

But mostly I did the xmas event. Here is the Dream Sock I got:

Dream Sock

So appart from that I managed to get ahold of the Dream Robe and the Dream Robe +1. Now all I need to do is get the Dream Hat +1 and the two items from the other towns.

I wasn't on for long but I did manage to get most of this done. I'll be checking my chocobo tomorow.

2006-12-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Test Answers, Gilfarmers and Xmas

Well the update seems to have gone smoothly. The usual suspects bitch about the changes. The rest of us rejoice. I started the evening in the highlands. Got together with Canesmule and tried to get a party going in valk. Unfortunatly the number of WHM in the dunes made this a no go. So I decided to go back to Bastok and decide what to do there. Took care of my Chocobo (got a flower from AmberStorm) . Then got toghether with Devious to do Camp Kweh. Funky. We found out that AmberStorm and WildFox would produce yellow chocobos in all likelyhood.

After taking care of the Chocobo, I subed PUP so I could check out the new paired emotes. It was excelent:

Loustic and Strangeone wave at you

Then it was off to help Jelley with her Test Answers. These were the usual horribly easy thing for me to get. I did manage to get a shot of the Sealed Portal opening. The guy waiting for someone to come by and open the portal got lucky.

Inner Horutoro Ruins Sealed Portal

The Wendigoes were nice this evening, I only got half way thru the first batch when the test answers dropped. Once we got them (for Jelley's quest) it was off to windy waters to set things up for the xmas event (and clean some things out of my mog house). Along the way I managed to spot some brand new fishing bot gilfarmers.

Try and tell me these aren't bots

I dare you

Then it was off to move the lanterns and my adventurer's certificate out of my mog house and into the event item storage guy. I also picked up what there was to pick up at the event moogle sales dude. Since I needed to get the windy tree for the event, I placed it in my MH (mog house). While I was at it I took pictures of my Chocobo Plaque and the Windurstian xmas tree.

Chocobo Plaque

Windy xmas tree

And I logged for the night.

2006-12-18T23:04:00.000-05:00

I'm doooooooomed, doomed I say

Well the evening started off fine. I did a bit of crafting, put some warp cudgels up on the AH. Got to Bastok (some fine scenery on the way there), and fed my chocobo. Didn't find anything about the Camp Kweh yet. But otherwise I was ready to go to the dunes.

Waiting for the airship, a Tarutaru point of view

Possibly the worst starting party ever. A single screen shot will do to describe it:

Head banging

Yes that is correct. It was so bad I was moved to create a bang your head against the wooden wreck in the dunes macro. Eventually it worked out and got some exp. But damn it was bad at the start.

We get our act together eventually

2006-12-17T23:23:00.000-05:00

Farming...

Once again it was a slow night. Went to Delkfuts and farmed pots and dolls. Managed to make 6 stacks of batteries. Then it was off to take care of the chocobo. Did so. Got ready to go to the dunes as a 17DRG, we'll see how it goes (want to try this Spark Spear thing).

2006-12-17T08:08:00.000-05:00

Quiet night of farming

I got home late, so didn't have much time to do anything. I simply re-setup the AH, and went out to Delkfut's to do a little farming. The pots and dolls are being stingy.

2006-12-16T13:02:00.000-05:00

My Mog House

While I was in Windurst yesterday, I decided to get some pictures of various things in my Mog House. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but although I'm not really at the endgame stage, I am fairly high level and I've been crafting for an age. This means that although I don't have all the cool (read: expensive) end game gear, I'm reasonably well off for a level 73 Red Mage. However I'm a crafter Red Mage. This means that I try to squeeze the maximum storage out of my characters that I can. Which leads me to my mog house: It contains as much reasonable high capacity storage items as I could stuff in it. So as to maximize the storage limit while maintaining a decent sized main safe.

The implications for this, as any high level will tell you, means I have all the mannequins that I can stuff in my Mog House. One of these days I'll complete the quest that allows me to pose them as well. So without further adieu, here are most of the contents of my mog house:

Male Tarutaru Mannequin in Beach wear

Female Tarutaru Mannequin in my level 72 RSE set

Galka Mannequin in my Ogre set

Mithra Mannequin in my HQ Cuir set

Female Hume Mannequin in my Worker's set

Male Hume Mannequin in my fully signed Angler's set

Female Elvan Mannequin with some odds and ends
Male Elvan Mannequin with my mostly Rider's set (still need pants)

Now the most recent Halloween's items were some fairly cool lanterns. I picked them all up. here they are:

My lantern collection

My rank 10 penant

My fishies!

And that's a quick tour of my mog house. There's also a painting, a chocobo plaque and 6 treasure chests. The treasure chests can be seen behind the Tarutarus and the Mithra.

2006-12-16T06:31:00.000-05:00

Royal Jelly BCNM

The evening starts off with the usual mule shuffle. Lot to move around this time. I also decide to synth some batteries for use in those electric polearms that Dragoons can use. This is because I decided to level Dragoon as my next job to get out of the dunes. After much shuffling, the deed was done, but I'm going to have to get to Delkfuts and farm some pot and doll shards. This is because the price for them on the AH is ridiculous under the current deflationary environment. Added bonus I manage to get some Scorpion Arrowheads synthed so I'll be able to make some scorpion arrows soon. My reserves of Scorpion Arrows are out.

While this was going on the call goes out over the LS for a BCNM40 run. Krolm wants to run the Royal Jelly BCNM in the Waughroon Shrine. So I head over to windy to get my level 40 gear out of the MH and get ready to go as a RDM/NIN. As part of my ongoing "show them my armor sets" campaign, here is my HQ Cuir Armor set:

Strangeone in Cuir Armor

BCNM stands for Burning Circle Notorious Monster. These are basically triggered boss fights. You get enough Beastman Seals trade em for a specific orb, get a party together, wander over to the burning circle, trade the orb to the circle (only one or two parties can go at a time - there are usually 2 copies of the battle field available - but technically it's not instanced - a 3rd party won't be able to go till one of the first two finish) and do the fight. They are nice in that you can't get disturbed by anyone else during the fight itself. Also they tend to have some really good loot in the armored crates should you win the battle. The usual accepted routine is for everyone in your party to go get an orb. Then you all trundle on out to the BC. And you do run after run till all the orbs are used. The person who's orb is used gets the loot for a particular fight. The first one is always a little tense if it's a new party doing this for the first time. You never know the quality of your party till you actually do the fight.

So we all gather in Jeuno and take the Airship to Bastok. This is because we're all going /NIN in order to limit the damage we will take. So we can't use the "escape" trick we would use to get to Palborough Mines. So after the usual stroll through the mines, we end up at the burning circle. This is a 3 man BCNM so there are only 3 of us. This is a fight against a bunch of slimes that are slowly gravitating towards the center of the room (7 I think or maybe 8, I'll have to count em next time). If they get to the center they merge in to a much tougher monster. So the idea is to kill em all fast enough so this doesn't happen. Oh and I've got to keep the boys alive through out all of this. The party consists of Krolm, Sadon and myself.

The party at the Burning Circle

We roll a random number to see who gets to go first. Traditionally the middle of the order is the safest place to be in these multi run BCNMs. Unless it's a repeat party, the first fight is a bit of an unknown. You never know if your party is going to gel or not (read die horrible deaths if not). The end of the order is chancy on the bigger parties since you might have people that need to split before you get to your turn. That happened on my last BCNM run, which is why I had an orb in my Mog House storage. So our order is Krolm, myself and finally Sadon.

The first run goes well. The last two Princess Jellies manage to merge into the Queen Jelly but by then she's almost dead so no biggie. I do go through enough mp to need to convert at the 5th Jelly or so. I also manage to do enough hits to WS twice in the fight. This pattern will hold for the next 2 fights as well except we won't see the Queen Jelly again.

Pounding away on a Princess Jelly

At the end of the fight that was started with my orb, I managed to get:

Himmel Stock
Mana Ring
Mithril Beastcoin
Steel Sheet
Slime Oil x 2

Actually the big drops from this BCNM are Scroll of Erase, Scroll of Utsusemi: Ni and the Archer's Ring. And no one got the big drops. One trick we did to is for all those who are not opening the chest to immediately exit the battlefield once the fight is over so we don't all have to do the walk around to get back to the BC.

Me and my Armory Crate

After the last fight, Sadon left so fast he forgot to let his stuff drop into his inventory. Doh! Lucky it wasn't any of the big drops.

Victorious after the last fight

Then it was off to windy to put away the level 40 togs and stuff. Once that done I finally went to Jeuno and picked up my egg from the Upper Jeuno stables. Looks like a pretty standard egg. I'm going to hatch it later and see. If it's not special I'll see about trying for an HQ egg again. Devious seems to have gotten one.

AmberStorm-WildFox egg

And that was it for the evening.

2006-12-15T09:49:00.000-05:00

A chocobo, a lich and a tour

The evening started off by doing the old "take care of your chocobo" routine. This was the last day AmberStorm was on the Carry Packages care plan. From tomorow on in she will be on the simply on basic care with the idea that I want to see how high the basic plan can raise her other two stats without affecting her First-class physical stats. We'll also see if we can get more stories. And if she can learn some skills.

Once the care and feed and water was done, it was off to Jeuno to start the honeymoon between AmberStorm and Devious's First-class stats male chocobo WildFox.

Once I got there though I spotted a suspicious group of characters. I suspect these are RMT that are burning their way up the levels currently doing the chocobo license quest. Beginner armor on the mages, all Tarutaru mages, no pearl, all anon; yep looks like RMT to me:

Then I did the actual honeymoon thing:

Today should see an egg in jeuno for me (man these chocobo's work fast). Devious got an egg type that was the same description as one of the ISNM eggs so we both hold out high hopes for the pairing.

Then a quick help with Magnus C. Lich in Eldiem Necropolis so Scab could do his Blue Ribbon quest. Not a horribly hard fight for the usual trio. Good lord if ever we get a tank and 2 DD's or 3 DD's at the high 70's in this ls we're going to rock and roll.

On my way back to Jeuno, Autumnal mentioned that the price of Erase scrolls was horribly low. I managed to get a scroll of Erase for 90k...

Yep we're in the middle of a major depression. If Utsusemi: Ni comes down that low I'll be in heaven. I ran into Jelley working on her Cornette quest.

Va-va-va-voum:

Then I wandered on over to the Maze of Shakrami. Jelley eventually met up and I gave her Strangeone's patented tour of the Maze. It covers all the Treasure Chest's spawn spots as well as all the major points of interest. Then back to Jeuno and logged for the evening.

2006-12-14T05:18:00.000-05:00

First-class

I am pleased to report my chocobo AmberStorm finally reached First-class stats in here physical statistics today. Took her 55 days. Woot! Here's the screen shot:
After taking care of AmberStorm, I headed up to Jueno in order to put some warp cudgels on the AH. Yep the price has re-stabilized at 25k. Yesterday was a bit of an anomaly. Then it was off to the CN since Scab is working on 99 Cooking. Therefore he needs Royal Jelly. Therefore he must kill as many Awd Goggies as possible. Here is our usual Awd Goggie party:

And yes that is 2 bards and a red mage with a summoner. I can hear the screams of despair coming from Aht Urgan from here.

Amusing thing towards the end of this farming: We killed one of the Awds just as the squirl was casting something.

Capten! The radio-active squirrel, he canna take it any more!:

We then futzed around trying to check out how fast first rate chocobos are. After that we split up. Scab to go craft. Myself to go get some Chococards (F) to trade with Devious and Spishak.

Spishak was having a bit of a tough evening. Blue Mage can be a little tough thanks to the way they learn spells. While we were running around like mad men, Scab managed to get his cooking to 99.5. Soon my Linkshell will have a level 100 crafter! Woot!

Here's Spishak getting his Chocobo Honeymoon thingy:

And on my way back to Windurst to go get mine out of my storage, I fell asleep while waiting for the airship -.-; Classic.

2006-12-12T22:14:00.000-05:00

And another job out of the dunes

I got on this evening with the intention of finishing up some muling, crafting and getting back to the dunes. The first thing I do is mass amounts of mule shuffling and putting stuff up on AH. Strangely the Warp Cudgel market is still a little depressed. 22-23k currently, put some ice clusters and 2 Warp Cudgels up for 25k a cudgel. I'm surprised the price is so depressed with windy being out of first place. Someone must have been sitting on a reserve. We'll see if it doesn't shoot back up during the rest of the week.

Then it was off to Bastok to take care of the chocobo. All right! got Endurance to First-Class. Pretty soon I'll be able to breed her and put her on basic care plan to work on her int and possibly special moves. We'll see.

Here's a picture of AmberStorm sleeping:

And here's a picture of her in the Bastok Stables:

She was restless so it was off to the races:

Here is her winning the race:

And a victory "kweh!" :

After taking care of AmberStorm, it was time to head for the dunes. As I mentioned, I would start taking screen shots of my various armors.

Here's a Tarutaru without any armor:

And with my level 17 HQ Lizard Armor Set:

I then headed toward the Dunes. I only had one level to go, so I hoped it wouldn't be awful. But luck shone upon me and Autumnal offered to PL me.

Here's autumnal on her black chocobo:

And since RDM doesn't get Red Lotus Blade, I took the opportunity to capture one of the many Red Lotus Blades that ensued.

Red Lotus Blade:

And a picture of Autumnal as she power leveled me around J-7:

Eventually I dinged PLD20 and got another job out of the dunes. Woot! So I choco'ed back to Bastok and logged there.

2006-12-11T22:06:00.000-05:00

A night of farming

As I logged on this evening, I needed to decide what to do. I realized that I needed to go farm some wind clusters. I also don't really need to go check out my chocobo since she should still be sleeping away. Therefore it's off to Maze of Shakrami I go. Once there the idea is to farm 5 general things:

Air Elementals (for the Wind Clusters)
Carnivorous Crawlers (for the Silk Thread)
Goblin Leechers (trying to track the scroll drops)
Goblin Muggers (to pop the Leechers)
Goblin Gamblers (to pop the Leechers)

The idea is to kill the 4 elemental spawns in the first half of the maze when the weather is up. Two upstairs and two downstairs. And kill them fast enough that you should get all 4 unless it's a really short period of weather. I've noticed three durations of weather in my years of farming these elementals. Enough for 2 kills, enough to get all 4 and enough for 2 entire rounds of 4 kills (i.e. they re-pop during the same weather). In between weathers I amuse myself killing crawlers. Mainly because the threads are so expensive and they take up little place. The gobs are to help track the types of scrolls Leechers drop. I mention this a while ago that I'd like to track them. While I'm at it, since I'm /THF, I might as well steal a few beastman coins.

For the few who will check here without actually playing the game, here's an air elemental:
And here's an elemental after it's been crispified by a Fire III spell:
Here's a Carnivorous Crawler. They tend to die real fast, this one managed to last long enough to get a good shot:
For the heck of it, while killing the elementals and goblins I decided to get the rest of the sword weaponskills recorded, like I did Burning Blade a few days ago. So without further adieu here are:

Fast Blade:
Flat Blade:
Shining Blade:
Circle Blade:
And Spirit's Within:
And the total take for the evening:

22 x Wind Clusters
4 x Silk Threads
2 x Scrolls of Sneak
2 x Silver Beastcoins
1 x Poison Flour

That's it for me, catch you tomorrow.

Oh!, almost forgot, managed to craft a Power Bow for Cane. Quest item for the mog house expansion for one of his mules I suppose. Sent it to Cane, he'll figure out who it goes to.

2006-12-11T08:34:00.000-05:00

Promy Run

Two days events to relate.

Saturday

Not much to relate on saturday. It was prety much house keeping. The chocobo got fed. The alchemists guild got checked. The AH stuff got rotated. Setup notification on the LS community about the planned Promy Holla run on Sunday.

Then I was off to Castle Zvahl. I needed to get some Dark Clusters for the push to 50 Cooking. Managed to remember to get a screen shot or two. Here's a pic of me in front of the main castle entrance.

Unfortunatly, when I got there, it was ice day, so the only elementals to be found were Ice Elementals. Here's a pic of me weapon skilling Burning Blade on one.

At that point, I logged for the evening.

Sunday

Sunday starts off with me still in Castle Zvahl. But as I exit with the intention of getting to windy to change jobs in prep for the promy run, the weather changes. So back in the castle I go, snag two elementals, and head towards the oupost teleport person. I grab another one on the way:

After much muling I finaly am changed to THF/NIN and am equiped for the promy run. We get together mostly on time. Do a bit of farming for some Recollection drops (I didn't need em but 3 others did). I did manage to get the Teal Memmosphere. Then the ones who needed anima were off to Ru'Lude Gardens to exchange their Recollections for anima. Here's a pic of Scab and Devious as we wait for everyone to get back from the anima exchange.

The final party consisted of Jelley, Hummer, Krolm, Scab, Devious and myself. What ensued was one of the smoothest promy runs I have ever witnessed. Zero problems on the way up. The final sprint was me leading the way after intentionaly aggro-ing an empty and training some nasties with Perfect Dodge and Flee. Apparently only Scab got a minor bit of agro at the end and even then his shadows took the hit. The boss fight itself went alsmost as smoothly. Took the usual 5 minute (Bio) (Break) just before the fight. Made sure there was an anima usage order. In we went. Buffed and when ready, charged the mob. Towards the end unfortunatly after Devious EES's the WAR's couldnt' grab agro back as they were sleeped and the WHM was a little too far for a cure. But he re-raised himself and there were no further complications to the fight. It would have been a perfect run appart from his death. Ah well, maybee next time.

After all that, it was the usual mule suffle to put away the stuff, get the extra Recollections converted to anima. Checked the chocobo (sleeping). Finish skilling up Cooking to 50 and pass the test for Journeyman and get the Alchemy Guild item for the day done.

All in all a prety good day.

2006-12-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

Prety easy friday night

Took care of the chocobo. Did a bit of crafting, got Cooking to 47. Then we decided to get Jelley her rank 3. Woot talk about the poor dragon. Massive overkill. Ah Lion.... :)

Also we'll try to organize a promy run on Holla on Sunday, we'll see how that goes.

2006-12-08T10:09:00.000-05:00

Short evening.

Got on, checked my chocobo AmberStorm. She's now outstanding in both strenght and endurance. Did a little test to check her speed, and she's just about the same speed as a rental now or very slightly slower. Hard to say.

That and did a bit of materials trading with Devious. I should be able to do a clothcrafting synth run soon.

2006-12-06T23:35:00.000-05:00

An evening of farming

Well since yesterday night's farming of the new areas did not lead to Royal Jelly, we decided to repair to the Crawler's Nest in order to farm the wasps there. No luck with the wasps (drop is probably about as common as the bee larvae and we know how common that is). But we switched tactics to do the Rolanberry progression. Here is our farming team:

Things went swimmingly although I did notice a new effect on the ceiling of the CN:

First time for everything I guess. Also took care of the chocobo.

2006-12-06T09:33:00.000-05:00

Yay! some progress on the Sapara of Trials

After a vicious headache, I managed to get on. Found out the scroll we were looking for the evening before has been taken care of. So off to Bastok to take care of the Chocobo. Two status problems... Wounded and Spoiled. Took appropriate action for both, Also found out that my Chocobo is now Outstanding in Endurance. Go AmberStorm!

Got cooking up to 46 using Pickled Herrings. Scab also had a great night on the crafting front. But he now needs Royal Jelly. So we tried farming the new bees in the Aht Urghan area. Excelent SC'ing but no jelly. We'll try CN tomorow.

2006-12-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

Easy going evening

Well I decided to take it easy last night. So I trundle off to Bastok and do the usual (Chocobo - still Impressive/Impressive/Poor/Poor, GP - Mythril based item bleh!) Then when Jelley complains about the price of Invisible Scrolls, Devious, Scab and myslef decide to go on a Goblin Leecher killing spree. Lots of Scrolls of Paralyze, Barsleep, Sneak (and one other that I forget atm), but still no Scroll of Invisible.

Based on the results that Devious or Scab was getting in what ever zone they were in (Beaudaux I think- namelly multiple Scrolls of Reraise). I'm begining to suspect that the Leechers drop a whole pack of different scrolls. They seem to be prototypical Red Mages in their scroll collection. But what I'm realy beginning to suspect is that the zone/region/map you're in determines what combination of scrolls a particular Leecher can drop. It could also be determined by the level of the Leecher, we don't know. But the repeat drops being different in different areas could be indicative of something.

I suspect I'm going to want to try and investigate this a little more deeply as a pet project. Start systematicaly hunting down Leechers and recording the drops as a RDM/THF... I may also start recording pop paterns and locations. We'll see.

2006-12-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

Much more relaxing

Ahhhhh, nice to have a day to get the regular stuff done after two days of mad exp'ing. Got to do the inventory shuffle, Got Cooking to 44, exp'ed in the dunes, managed to get to 19PLD. *blink* *blink*... Ok, it's interesting when you consider getting two levels in the dunes to be "relaxing".

Well progress towards getting out of the dunes proceeds at pace. The massive jump in THF is not bad, only 7 more levels till I can put that job away at 37.

2006-12-03T05:35:00.000-05:00

Not quite so Epic but still

Well managed to get a bit of crafting done before getting sucked into the fight again. Finished off the jungle and did a bit of Bibiki Bay. Once again mass partying with Scab and Co. We didn't get 6 levels this time. Mainly because the party wasn't quite as up to snuff as the previous day's one. I think I was pulling fast enough, mostly. It was just that the quality of filler players wasn't up to yesterday's standards, so the chains suffered. This time there were only 3 of us from the LS: Scab, Devious and myself, with Cheeky (Scab) as PL.

We got 4 levels this time before I had to call it quits. I was getting tired there. Good times though. That makes 10 levels in 2 day for THF, only 7 more to go till I don't need to level that one. Going to have to re-visit the weapons for that one though. And armor. And gear.

I think over the next few days I'll start posting pics of my armor sets. Some are rather funky. As well as pics of the various ls members.

2006-12-02T08:42:00.000-05:00

Epic party in Qufim

Well that went blindingly fast... Blink... Blink... Ok, started the evening off doing some crafting. Nothing massive, just synth the cotton, put stuff up on the ah, cut up the sardines. The usual what. Then Scab finally comes on and decides it's time to make a mostly LS party 20-ish in Qufim. Well the only think I'm ready for on the spot is THF, so I gear up and head on out.

Initially we were roving, with Cheeky as PL. But when we hit camp, I'm designated puller (surprise surprise). Soon after we start we get a 6th, who I think almost bailed on us (smart guy he stuck around). What followed was fairly epic. We were hitting chain 5 metronomically, we hit chain 6, we got 4.4 levels in 3 hours. Then we switched to Kazham and we got another two in 2 hours (much more competition for mobs there). There was a half hour break between Qufim and Kazham. We seriously rocked. So thanks to Devious, Scab, Snowflake, Taka, Cane and of course Cheeky (lol also Scab on a 2nd comp) for a most radical Qufim /Kazham party.

Also I got Devious to re-join the LS, welcome back Dev :)

The picture above and to the right is of Scaby, our leader/power leveler. Hehehehe.

2006-12-01T08:50:00.000-05:00

Started the quest for Savage Blade

Not much tonight, moved some stuff arround. Started the quest for Savage blade. Went to Delkfuts, killed 2 NMs (no good drops). Going to need to get to my chocobo and give her some tender loving care tomorow.

2006-11-30T09:21:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-11-29T03:51:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-11-28T08:11:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-11-26T23:16:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-11-26T08:02:00.000-05:00

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.