One of the many changes that is supposed to be in the update scheduled for tomorrow is an "adjustment" to the Limbus entrance fee, which has been 50,000 gil since it was introduced. People have been complaining about this for quite awhile, but especially recently, since you've actually got to work pretty hard to make gil in today's economy. It's never really been a big issue for me, since Grym and I were misers for so very long, but I have been feeling the impact of a negative cash flow.

Last week marked my 40th Limbus run - I've spent 2,000,000 gil in entrance fees. That seems like a lot of gil, but look at all the goodies I've got for that money: 144 ancient beastcoins, 3 white rivets, and 2 chunks of snowy cermet. These I've used to get some pretty nifty pieces of gear: a Boxer's Mantle (75 ABCs), upgraded AF feet (20 ABCs, white rivet, and snowy cermet), and upgraded AF pants (20 ABCs, white rivet, and snowy cermet). And I have 29 ABCs that will be going towards a Brutal Earring as soon as I have 75 of them.

The Boxer's Mantle is unique, and gives me +10 to 2 of my important combat skills: Shield and Parry. It also boosts evasion and guard skills, but PLDs evade like a brick, and have no guard skill, but it would be useful for other jobs. I use it pretty much all the time I'm straight tanking now, and use High Breath Mantles when I need more enmity.

The upgraded boots are the best boots in the game for a shield-tanking PLD. Period.

The upgraded pants were a bit of a stretch perhaps, but they are better than what I had. I do hope to replace them with better ones in the coming months, but in the meantime, I like them.

So I've got 3 pieces of gear that add to my collection of stuff to help me be a better tank, and I think they're worth more than the gil I've spent to get them.

Best of all though, I've had a lot of fun in Limbus. I wish we had enough people to fight Proto-Omega and Proto-Ultima regularly, and start getting people decked out in Homam and Nashira gear, but perhaps with the TU people we've been helping work through the CoP missions and the "adjusted" fees, we'll start getting better turnouts for our Limbus runs.

I only have one accomplishment to show from this weekend, but it was so worth it! Finally, after turning in countless sardines, Seri finally got level 7 Windurst fame. I wasn’t going to mess with raising my fame for a while, as it was a major pain to get Windy/Sandy/Bastok to 4 so I could get [...]

Skittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskittyskitty

I bet you can't guess what I got yesterday in Pokemon from Veloxe.

In further random Pokemon info, Veloxe decided to use the Eevee I gave him to make an army of all Eevee evolutions. After he finished, he found a fatal flaw in his plan.

No Eevee evolution can learn Fly.

He set out to change this, realizing that Farfetch'd, who can learn Fly, is in the same breeding group as Eevee.

Edit-Hey Vel, I just read up on Pokemon breeding. =o The egg will only learn HMs that the father knows, and only if it can learn it itself. =o So no flying Eevee. You're just going to have to wait for Gusteon.

Also, I learned a new phrase last night that involves breeding groups. "Hot Skitty on Wailord action." Apparently Skitty, a 2 ft tall, 24.3 lb. cat, can breed with a 47 foot 7 inch, 877.4 lb. Wailord, a whale.

Scary.

Anyways, nothing much happened this weekend really. We did ZM16 on Saturday night, both groups went 1/2 on it.

Sunday, ENM was cancelled due to lack of people, Limbus was NE Apollyon, only because SE was taken. We did alright, but I missed a time chest early on. I also got everyone killed trying to rush the time chests on the second floor, aggroing everything in the process.

Did Swift Belts later that night. That's boring. I did get a RNG/COR subligar out of it though, good for when I finally do level my COR. Around the 6th or 7th swift belt, we really started to question if they made it a 100% drop. The next mob proved that it wasn't. We didn't get any more swift belts that night. Oh well.

I am actually the founder of an FFXI group on facebook, the largest one incidently (1110 or so members today), and an RMT group just tried to advertise on it. I was kind of amused, obviously deleted the message and banned the person, but I was somewhat impressed that the group is big enough to attract that kind of attention.

Oh well. As far as FFXI goes, working on getting money for Blessed gear, already bought the boots but that is absolutely nothing impressive. Need sleep.

Claimed a VE for a friend tonight, no dorp :’( But it was an epic claim. I’ll try to tell the story tomorrow if I’m conscious after my 3 hour power nap before work 0/2 on Mysticmaker. 2/4 on claims for the night (the 2 claims I missed both dropped earring). [...]

Merits merits merits. My whoreness is spreading more and I’m getting as many merits as i can, as long with some buffer I always need, it’s always useful! I got another five-ish points and could unlock Protectra V and other things. If I keep meriting like that, I hope to reach a good point soon. Besides [...]

A gathering at night for tea.

Did KS30 BC, Double Dragonian for a Subduer. Out of 6 runs, we got 3 dissectors and 3 heart snatchers. orz

We had a few deaths in our first 3 runs. But zero deaths on our last 3 when we got used to it.

PT Setup: PLD/NIN, MNK/NIN, DRK/THF, RDM/WHM, BLM/RDM, SMN/WHM.

BLM kites while the other 5 attack the WAR dragon. Goes down easily. Only irritating thing is Chaos Blade, which gives strong curse effect. Sometimes reduces my HP from 1400 -> 700, sometimes down to 300. BRD dragon is a little harder but still defeatable.

After this, helped an LS friend with Soboro Sukehiro NM. We didn't have a lot of people. About 8.

PT Setup: PLD RDM BLU BLM BLM THF MNK SMN.

First run, tank(me!) fell at 3~5% but we managed to kill it because our SMN used astral flow. We got the drop. Second and third run we wiped. If we had 2~3 more mages, I'm sure we would be fine.

Levelled NIN with my weekly static PT. Got it to 50! I still suck at utsusemi timing. :(
Friends tell me to cast Ichi when my Ni has 1 shadow left, and when I do this, there's somehow a high chance I evade/parry the attack rendering my Ichi cast useless.

While working on my project, I decided to seek on DRK just for fun. Since I'm coding on my second computer and FFXI is running on my first one. Surprisingly, I got an invite. Unfortunately, it was 12am.

The PLD sucked. He would go AFK without saying anything. Provokes slowly. But seem to play better when we pull one of those huge wyverns (forgot the name) outside Mamool Ja Staging Point.

I think it ended at 4am with me being very very sleepy.

And with a few more besieged battles, I now have 8 merits ready to be spent after SE increases the combat skill maximum with the upcoming June update. I intend to increase Scythe from 4 to 8, and then shield from 0 to 4.

Until then...

Cute, yah?

Coming to a livejournal near you...

Very soon.

Friday: All thanks to Cheshire’s super fast Chi Blast claiming ability. I seriously showed up to the Torama area about 5 min before he popped. Don’t have to camp this sucker again til Falc needs one for his DRG… Saturday: I had a weird feeling it was going to drop last night, go figure. Spent [...]

so in preparation for the merit update again, we setup a party and headed out. one thing different, i went as rdm! it had been awhile since i had gone rdm to a merit party, was kind of interested to see what i can do.

we got to about chain 25, before a mob was missed being slept and i died. kinda killed the chain... we started back over and we went nonstop to 220 before we pretty much called it quits since rhad had died, and we both had to go soon due to XP capping / tired. rhad was having some bad luck anyways :P






[omg its puk city.]









[ last chain ]



[capped and ready for update :D]

An accomplishment not many can say they've done :P

Doing bosses that hardly many can do, feels like a long long time ago, when the 3 Wyrms got introduced, and only certain LS's could take them down. After a big feat, they had won vs the wyrm, and got their item. Being in this game for a loooooooong time, having one of the first "NA" dalms and 5/5 zenith, alot of "first NA" accomplishments, this one by far surpases anything else I've felt about this game.

Probably because everyone has to be on the ball for these, or it just doesn't work, if anyone is slacking or not doing their job, it's just a fail fest. I get asked so many times on AIM / PMs how to do X or Y in salvage, people doing the same setup as ours, but because a few members aren't taking it very serious (even something small like not bringing silent oils or reraise can hinder the run), losing morale because they're not killing everything, etc. I'm happy everyone we take understands the whole "35 = everything, 25 = wows, 15 = lulz" when it comes to gears.

 Today was Silver Sea remnants + bhaflau,  yet another super speedy bhaflau boss kill, and yet another Freya's Shoes + Ea's Dastanas. No phobos mask to finish jibbles peice :|

Anyway, after that we decided we want to go to Silver Sea remnants and kill that boss, so we can go 4/4 pre patch, before salvage is made easier next patch, and so began our run! We had an idea on what to do with Long Arm Chariot, since we took him to 55% with 6 ppl.

To start, we got extremely unlucky cell wise, at the end, me and wottles had no magic unlocked, so we were walking hi potion tanks, but that's ok :P No QQ'ing over cells because we understand sometimes this just happens ;p I wanted wottles to get magic at least for BLM dmg, but oh wells.

Anyway, cells were retarded, but we managed to get the boss dead with about 8 mins to spare. If we got a few more magic to start with, we'd have done this boss with well over 20mins to spare, lol.
We decided to change one of our MNKs for a RNG, for shadowbind, but it didn't really prove to be very useful, I mean we'll still be bringing him on his rng in the future for this zone so long as he wishes, but he'll be there for dmg more than shadowbind. He was able to offer unique things like attack down on his arrows while the mages maintain Dia.

At the end, down went Long Armed Chariot, and so completes our small group on clearing all 4 salvage bosses. He dropped Bodb's Cuffs and Ea's Brais, I lotted 600 on Bodb's Cuffs, sols lotted 597, wottles 545, the others passed, omg it's fate! kekeke. These look decent for BLU aswell as BLM when fully upgraded. I told vistani to lot on the Ea's brais, because he's got the lvl35 peice from Gate Widow, and tomorrow we're going for Zhayolm frog so he can complete them (yay for Zhay 15s being found :D ).

From Easiest to Hardest bosses :



Battleclad Chariot: Hardly any repositioning required, no hate reset, nothing, people can stand in perfect range for the entire fight, and it'll be clockwork. No problems debuffing this dude as RDM. You'll need a decent amount of ppl to absorb Discoid, he seems to have higher defence than the others, he took a tad more to kill than the others, about the same as LBC.






Armored Chariot : Very easy and straightforward fight. Once again, no hate reset nor repositioning needed, his special attack is absorbable by utsesimi <_<. Decent to debuff, I had a staff on this one, so it might be different if I didn't have a staff. Heavily effected by Blind, his special move "Mortal Revolution" is in fact a physical move (which is why utsu absorbs, 2-3 shadows) and I theorize that it can double/triple attack when this rampart starts doing so too. Anyway, quite easy, no panic = simple fight, and due to how simple he is, he only drops 1 item at a time.





Long-Armed Chariot : This dude is also a chump, did the same ol same ol MNK tanking, and during Brainjack, we kited him and the charmed people, very straightforward, mages will actually gain MP while kiting (refresh/ballad) the charmed melees, so nobody is ever low on MP in this fight. In fact we did this one with less healers than usual (since me / wottles got no magic) so next time I may aswell come BST, unlock hands/opacus/ranged , and I can contribute fine while still managing the group, will just have to keep sending my pet to fight the mob.



And finally, the hardest one...




Long-Bowed Chariot : zomg, the hardest? Surely you jest! Yes yes yes, Long Bowed chariot is the hardest boss of all to fight, boss wise not zone wise. This boss is the only one who's special move can do a 180 on the group. Homing Missiles is an AOE throat stab around the target, resetting hate. He seems to be higher level than the others, the others are easy to debuff while this dude is a cunt at times. If you can kill this and your group isn't retarded, you can kill any other boss.



That's for the actual boss fights, gearing up on the way up to them is a whole different case ;) Anyway, I'm really happy to have accomplished this goal of 4x Boss kills pre patch, was amazingly fun the whole way through, now we got that out of our system, we proved we can upgrade any peice we choose now (well aside from 35 zhayolm frogs, we're still experimenting on how to pop them).

RL: Discovered a cool British TV show. Hex! Watched the first 6 or so eps today, have the rest(?) on Tivo. Very cool! And so very unlike US TV! Girls making out! Liberal use of 'fuck' and 'shit' (and oddly only bleeped out in some eps).

FFXI: I forgot just how fun DRKing is! We camped and fought some NM tonight (I think it's supposed to be a secret, so no name or screenshots even though I took some!). Three of us (NIN, WHM, me/DRK), and it gave us ~160 XP, so it was big! And man, it was fun to go (almost) all out on DRK! I even Drain II+Souleater+Blood Weaponed! (Too bad it did an AOE knockback/stun TP move and I lost half the time on that. c.c )

Unfortunately the NM didn't drop what we were after (which apparently has never been gotten on this server yet, and only once on two other servers), but man was that a fun fight! I'm supposed to be in bed about now, but I'm bouncing all over the place!

We were talking about BRD on LS, and I mentioned how I really still don't like the job much. I can't name one time I've really and seriously had fun on BRD, but every time I go out on DRK to a big/serious fight I love it! I love being not just able to stun, but good at it! (Nevermind that the NM's moves were too fast to stun tonight. *cough*) And I love having so many tools to DD with!

And, oddly, I really really really love the idea of dying to do a lot of damage (even though mean ol' Dani didn't let me die! <3 ). That's odd because dying on-game is something I avoid if at all possible (before Besieged was added into the game, I had just over 100 deaths for 2 years of playing), but to do it 'in the line of duty' makes it not just okay, but a good thing!

*bouncie* Yay DRK!

I'm well aware that I haven't written anything for just over a month now. It's not that I've completely ceased playing, I haven't. However, my time spent online has taken a drastic cut. Gone are the free-wheeling days where I could log in everyday and burn a good chunk of time in Vana'diel.

My current occupation only gives me some 36 hours a week to do my own things, and with this change of environment, said free hours have grown to be very precious.

Which begs the question, just what has Tuuf been doing in-game, anyway? To be honest, I'm not sure myself. Nothing substantial, nothing that I feel worthy enough to write a blog post about. I've just been slowly chipping away at working on my Black Mage, picking up the occasional merit point here and there, and I've since funneled the proceeds from my Noble's Tunic into a Mahatma Slops and Prism Cape.

In terms of purchasable BLM gear, I just need to pick up HQ versions of the various pieces, and get myself a Sorcerer's Ring, although without access to any Zenith gear, the Ring doesn't look mighty tasty at the moment.

But anyway, I digress.

I was doing my usual rounds of people's blogs, when I came across this entry, entitled "On CoP" by Frohike.

His words strike home to me. Admittedly, I do not know much about Frohike, being on a different server, so all I know comes from his blog and his comments. What I do know is that in his real life at least, he is happily married (at least, I certainly hope he is! :D) with a baby son to take care of. As he explains in his entry,

I'm faced with a choice when I stare at the Playonline screen: do I want to spend the 2.5 to 3 hours of free time that I have tonight playing an MMO? And "spending" that time is really what I do. It has a cost, consisting exactly of what I could be doing rather than carrying out a virtual life in Vana'diel.

In the brief span of time between my kids' bedtime and my own, I could read one of the slew of books I've deceived myself into thinking I actually have the time to read. I could watch a good film with an appreciation that can't really be achieved during the kids' waking hours. I could continue to hone my writing, or finish the odd number of poems I began years ago. I could have a meaningful, uninterrupted conversation with my wife. Hell, maybe I could play something other than FFXI for a change.

What I think some of the other adults playing FFXI don't understand is the impact of this trade-off. We can't just come home from work, put in a few hours, log out, and go do something else in RL. Those few hours are it for some of us.

What Frohike writes echos my current real life quite well. With not a lot of time to do my own things, the opportunity cost of logging in increases. At the risk of sounding /emo, my one (and a half) days that I have a week need to be divided amongst all my responsibilities, my family, my friends and relationships both online and offline.

But when you only have (okay, for practical purposes) one day a week, how do you spend it? The question that faces me each time I log in is, "what can I accomplish now?"

I fully sympathise with those struggling to maintain their packed RL schedules on top of FF. I know a common complaint about FF is its time-consuming nature, and that has become even more apparent to me lately with my limited time. Suffice to say, with the clock ticking, I'd rather not spend my time sitting in my Mog House looking for a group, or staring in front of an empty screen camping some NM. Thus, I've just been soloing, making little progressions here and there on my own.

Sadly, for the most part, these little progressions are just that- little. An ENM here, some solo there, farming organs or crafting materials, and that's it for the week.

Oftentimes, I find myself wondering what all this is for now. I only log in four days a month (if even that), and I've seen people level up and overtake me, and subsequently, outperform me because they are able to participate in endgame activities while I am not.

It's good that SE is moving away from massive timesinks like the original Dynamis areas onto something that's more friendly for those with tight schedules. But how much of FF's timesink nature is inherent within its basic idea that everything should be done in a group environment?

For now though, the news of increased merit capacities have got me interested in pursuing the two jobs I love the most thus far, BLM and RDM. The real question though is how much can I really hope to get done on my own, and should I just ditch everything and start anew with a different job instead, or even a different game?

/sigh

I managed to get all my stuff back to my parents house on Friday. It is honestly good to be back. I will miss the freedom and the partys. I’m only gonna be here until next year then I am joining the Corps. If it doesnt happen by then it will never happen. I cant [...]

Not much happening I’ve put some merits into Meditate and Zanshin. Got Ninja to 31. Rejoined BNC, they are my favorite linkshell and I really missed them. Trying to get 8.1 done in CoP, but I decided to wait for Ky so it might take a little time, but I dont mind~ Been hanging out on Skype and TS alot… [...]

today, i decided to get some more xp on sam. amazing.... i made it to 37 without ever being in an xp party. solo and duo'd 99% of the time, with a trio back at level 15 for a few hours.

i am very proud of accomplishing this, and look forward to getting even more levels.. i want to equip my sobo :D

Aboout 1 week since my last update. Sorry for the delay, to anyone who reads this. I was doing something very important, I'm sure. So excuse me for it. Hey, you know what? I might do more updates on a weekly basis, it all depends on what I do that week.

The June Update is nigh(the 5th), but that won't stop me from looking back on the previous details given from SE.

#1: Einherjar

Ah, the new end-game activity. SE has been nice really. They've practically gave new end-game content with every update. Sure that included a shitty HNM or two(Hydra) and maybe the Besieged NMs might not count as end-game content because their rewards don't work anywhere useful(please let them work in Assault/Salvage too!)... but it's there! Nyzul and Salvage are pretty cool places. I haven't gotten much of the chance to the try that second one. I probably won't put much an effort to either until I get full Pahluwan set.

Um... right... I'm getting offtopic here.

This seems cool, hopefully Calamity will be willing to play with it. Point system is awesome. Multi-levels with a final level on bottom is awesome. Though... it sounds it might not be instanced, that's not quite awesome.

The fact it REQUIRES a minimum of 6 makes me wonder. Maybe some of the floors(which in the .dats I think you can count to 9 or 11) will be doable by 6? Or maybe challenge will adjust to the number of people? Dynamis or Limbus doesn't require a minimum, so it's odd they'd start now. Maybe to prevent holding or something? Anyway, new content, yay!

#2: Merits

Stuff we knew was coming. The new Group II merits all seem pretty nice. Can't say much until they get into play or we see some numbers on them.

The category max increase in skills is very welcomed, especially to players with multiple jobs leveled 75(not me, yet!). Not a whole lot to comment on this but "awesome!"

#3: New Items / Reward exchange

We also knew this was coming, well the reward part. It's pretty cool since a lot of people want that Suppi for their dual wielding frenzy builds. It doesn't effect me much, because, as a BLM because Abyssal and Tamas are the right choice for me. I don't know if I'll exchange Tamas for Rajas for PUP... I MIGHT, but still unsure, maybe it suits me better than a Sniper's Ring or whatever. Apoc Nigh earring... I hope this stays around for awhile, because when I do pick that, I could see myself regretting it. (I want Static Earring for teh MBs ;/)

The new sets look nice. From their design, people have been guessing that they are upgrade of Adaman and Errant. If SE does do something like that, good because crafters need A LOT more love from this expansion. CoP had crafters included in a lot of things and ToAU seems to exclude them from a lot by adding a lot of rare/ex armor sets, only really calling them in for HNM materials(Cerberus Claw, Khamaira's balls, whatever). If they do update Adaman/Errant... they might also do something for Rasetsu and War sets(and maybe Ogre too) since they are in the same range... I guess Gavial should be included in there, but they already added Hydra mail.


Btw, It's been roughly one month since I started blog. Happy Anniversary Me. I ROCK!


Now for in-game stuff:


Omega

Another shot at Omega, and we did a lot better(with less!... I think). Very clean, got to farm some Pods even. Too bad no BLM dropped on those! Would of love to complete my next piece of AF+1. Anyway, here are some photos. Congrats to Denk and Mrvile on their Homam Head. I know Denk loves being pointy.










Sky / Dynamis / Sea

I didn't grab much photos of these, so I'm just going to mass it into one group to list drops:

First off, we did an awesome sky run and picked up a ton of pop items. Yet, Scruyvxed(or whatever) the crybaby still complained it was the worst sky run ever when he got killed at a Suzaku from a Chainspell Flare or something. I heard he quit or something though... over Molborgler I think. Whatever, hate that dude.

What did suck about that run though was watching the RMT kill Byakko. They do it with a lot of effectiveness... two NIN tanks, SAM, and a THF... and an army of BLM. They even do SCs(and yet we don't! blarg) and do whopping MBs that take like 20-40% of it's health.

Some dude named Reonlee was buying from them as we watched. If anyone knows this dude, and wants a picture of him being there as proof, I'll provide it if asked. To hell with people who buy from RMT! Bad enough they spam so much in Whitegate.

No one in the LS wanted to spam spells on them with me to lag them out for a free Byakko ;/. /sigh...

We gave up on Byakko, since they seemed intent on popping it all night... and went for Suzaku. He dropped a D. Cloth, that was nice.

In Dynamis Xarcabard we got a BST hands(went Kuronori, which completes his set of 5/5 Monster) and Monte piece and in Dynamis Jeuno we got WAR hands which also went to Kuronori, and RNG hat/SAM feet which went freelot(both to Morpho)...and another Monte piece. Shame we don't try upgrade a Relic Shield or something!

I didn't get any pictures of our Sea run, which pisses me off. We did three Faith runs. No Torque dropped and they went... uh... smoothly once we got the hang of things. Kiters could probably use some work on Faith. They were getting hit with spells they shouldn't have, but I think it was their first time doing him, so I can't blame them.

Bunch of losers...

Two Real-Life friends started playing the game this week. Bleedingwulf and Sixyten/Ulquiorra. We made a LS named HuecoMundo. As you can tell, very Bleach based. Since all three of us like the anime/manga Bleach, I think it was just about the only thing we could agree on, how geeky.


(Might not be able to see it, but that's Bleedingwulf back there).


Warrior

I was able to get Warrior to level 27, where from then on, I'll be taking it slow. I rather focus on RDM for a bit now.

I did a level in Delkfutt Tower(on goblins/gigas) pulling like crazy.

Then I decided to do a cool unused camp, in Korroloka Tunnel, the exit that leads into Western Altepa Desert(not Eastern). It has around 4 crabs right there and a little to the right has a room with a dangerous, but not unavoidable scorpion with three more crabs, and passed them 2-3 more crabs in a hallway. A lot of monsters and no competition. Even better with a powerleveler, due to being able to dispose of the Scoprion for easier pulls passed the room and well, yeah, bigger chains. I did two parties here, the second one had a BRD, which  was a lot of fun. Sometimes I'd get him to do Double Minuet. That combined with my kabob and Berserk led to some sick attacks/WSes.

I'd say the level range is 24-27. Better to make a level 25 party and stay here for awhile. Might even be able to do all 23ish with a Powerleveler.




Limbus

Currently working on getting a set for Ultima! So here's a pic for Floor 1 Temenos:



Lyneya... rolled a 0. Blarg, totally SS worthy.




Misc.

So, anyway, did this one quest which was pretty cool:


We also made an old-fashion merit party on Trolls, was pretty fun. I was main-healing while throwing out Paralyze and a couple MBs, whenever. Damn, do I miss my Jupiter's Staff.

Here are some pictures, thanks for the invites Calamity members:





Lawl at meleeing BRD! and the BLMs! Could this party be any more gimp?!?!?!

I've been working on my RSE set for RDM. Plan on being rather gimp(hey, it's suppose to be a quick leveling spree), using all RSE until AF, then all AF to 75. I still need to get my High Mana Wand made... it seems no one in the entire server has the Purification tool to make it, yet they exist on AH. Anyway, 2/5 on set, hope to finish it the next time Tarutaru Male window opens... maybe even grab a neat RSE throwing item! (not likely, stupid drop rate)

If you are reading this, (not likely), thank you Thaiden for saving my Warrior's Exp from doom, when a Goblin BST linked with his pet while I was soloing in Rolanberry with my NPC. I'm sorry to died in the process, but you are a hero! ect... ect..


Thanks for reading, I hate you all.

So last Sunday was a Dynamis-Qufim run, during which time someone asked "why do we even do this?" Well, we of course cannot get feet -1 anywhere else. :)

In any case, usually people like to feature their screenshots of the mobs of Nightmare Dhalmels in Dyna-Bubu. These may actually top them, because they're just ever so much more amusing, since unlike the Dhalmels, a large pull in these result in a wipe.

RAPTORS!!!! Hahahahahahahaha. :lol: As Masago said after this pull: "Holy Jurassic Park."

Furthermore, Wednesday I felt like poo. Skipped class to sleep, had a massive migraine and having to take care of the baby sister all day I wasn't really able to ever relax to hope it'd go away. So I skipped Dynamis as well, didn't think I'd wake up by then, or if I did if I could stand to look at a computer screen. So when I let them know I can't be there, I say "Be sure to tell whoever gets the Koga Tekko congratulations from me!" since it was a Xarca run, and you know that's just how my fate is when it comes to Dynamis!

And of course, they did indeed drop. LOL. It doesn't really matter because I'd have lost the lot had I been there anyway. :) Esp to who it went to... bleh. /shrug. Ah well, someday I suppose. It's not like I need them to like, be super NIN or anything, I'm pretty decently equipped (moreso than most of the people who keep beating me on lots for the Tekko (outside of AF+1, fucking Limbus never dropping upgrade items), and yes I know that's very snide of me. I just.. had to really deck out NIN if I wanted to be taken seriously as a possible tank for stuff in LS), they'd just be a nice bonus for nighttime and to finally get at least one piece of NIN AF. I even have SAM AF already now, wtf! ;D

Well, speaking of NIN equip, though, it's finally a tad bit better than before.... WOOHOO!

Finally, after like, 5 or 6 or 7 runs, I finally get a belt on my hate and my trigger that wasn't randomed off 'to be fair' to another Mithra (...). I originally was going to just go with a few outside friends, and asked if Kainsen wanted to come as well. Talked to Yuchi, because the JPs were in Salvage, to see how much time we had. She said, ask in LS if other people need or want to help. While I was trying to figure out what was going on and if we were still going (friends that were going to help were also in Salvage at the time), she popped in LS and mentioned it, and suddenly it became a mini LS event with seven of us while those in the separate Salvage shell finished their runs. So I told the others they were off the hook, suited up NIN (not that difficult, just mostly wore the stuff I'm using for SAM atm), and off we went. Started with the Mithra, then did the Galka for Nakamoon (who also got his belt). Did an Elvaan for one of the Hume belts (handy having more people there, can just trade out Codices and whatnot) which didn't drop, then... I guess three Hume total for two more belts. So in the end, Kainsen, Vadise, Nakamoon, and myself all finally got our belts. Had five total codices to start (Kain had an extra on his alt), and had to farm one. I got doomed by Mortal Ray once! But Vadise saved me with a Cursna! ;D Just was lagged all to hell so didn't really turn around in time.

Random fun KB screenie (was bad time for us, so we weren't camping, I just went to get ToD): Vagus got to go BST. :lol:

There is very little more amusing than seeing this huge massive earth-shaking King Behemoth running around... and this teeny squeaky little cactuar chasing him every step of the way. :D

We've also finally kinda slowly gotten back into being able to do Salvage, with schedules clearing up a bit and such. I went on one run with both Ash and Diomedes, in case of drops so I could lot on Ash; then the next I went on (they've gone on a couple others when I haven't been online) I just went on Diomedes because of lack of assault points (just picked up a Storm Fife for said Salvage, as did Kainsen and Payu... it's a really nice little bonus to have for the Ballad +1, esp as we start in Arrapago, where it's just the RDM using MP).

Nothing on drops though, besides the usual LV15 pieces and such. Still 0 drops ever on Chariot for us, which is really unusual compared to percentages other people seem to have been getting.

But strategy wise, nothing new or amazing. We were pretty lucky on cell drops in both runs, though there were like, little dry spells in each run that had us worried. :)

After Salvage one day... at least I think it was Salvage. Mmm, maybe it was a camp. That makes more sense. Anyway... Kainsen needed to learn Refueling for his BLU so asked if I'd help out. So we head out to Mount Zhayolm, and he brings Myst on BLM for Stun while he just sits there on Kain. Of course the first Self-Destruct he missed a Stun on due to... you know, "macro lag" or something. Uh huh! Right! ;D

The first few didn't even *use* the stupid move, so that was frustrating enough. We were even discussing going elsewhere, kind of, except I *really* didn't want to mule around for level cap gear.

Finally, we got a few that did, with no luck. Just kept at it, and then and on that same Cluster he learned Refueling. How nifty, eh? :D

And.... lastly!

Auronku is determined to make my COR pass my SAM, and maybe even my RDM. Dammit! Had a pretty good party run much of that day, with a break in between for events and whatnot. The PT itself was decent.. THF was a little meh, and we did better once we got a PLD tank, Neko wasn't stuck tanking for 3/4 of fights... or 7/8 maybe is a better estimate. ;) Had had a 2nd RDM who unexpectedly departed when the one PLD left, so we'd gotten another PLD who was only about 4k to level and said, ok, when he levels we go (I was about 3.7k to level myself at the time). And just went with five. Swapped out Fighter's Roll (which, btw, YAY FIGHTER'S ROLL (LV49 :)) for Corsair's, and got us our levels, and off we went. :)

And how cute am I in Shikaree, amirite?

I really do like COR, it's a lot of fun. And that particular party, I had a pretty lucky night on rolls. I had a short run of a bunch of sixes in a row, but I didn't hit many unluckies, and had a good number of luckies and 11s, especially when needed (like Evoker/Healing with links, etc).

And of course, long party, and... good thing I'd bought an extra stack of bullets, because I ran out again. Was like the third or so to last mob. So... OBLIGATORY CYCLONE SCREENSHOT GO!

WHM75 | BLM75 | SMN75 | NIN75 | BRD75 | RDM64 | SAM52 | COR50 | WAR40 | THF38 | DRK37

Look very closely at that picture. The belt is a tilt belt, and the rings are empress and anniversary. The scythe is some random level 65 scythe, didn't pay attention to what it was. We D2'd the gimp after a few fights and invited a SAM.

Partying with my WHM static now, that bit was about 10 minutes ago. Fun times. Also, gonna get 70 tonight, so I may update with some ding screenies, since its something to be proud of now, kinda.



Just a random picture from when we got Nood's MNK AF something or other, probably 3. He got owned by some yagudo by the switch door, so he had to deal with me, sitting on his head for a while until Sorj was lame and raised him.

Lastly, a couple days back I saw Laqa, one of the few people retarded enough to make it onto my shitlist (list of people I keep who've earned some degree of hate, but are too funny (stupid) to make it to the blacklist), who I wrote a bit about a long time ago, when I encountered the moron in valkurm. (S)he was shouting in whitegate, effectively offering 1k to anyone who praised him/her for reaching 75 NIN. Previously I admittedly wasn't sure how much of a douche Laqa was, but they've clearly proven that they are among the best. They deserve an award for this degree of douchebaggery, perhaps a swift kick between the legs would lower their ego sufficiently.

After about a month, I finally made it to level 47 today! I’ve been doing other things, like trying to get interested in crafting….leveling other jobs….playing Final Fantasy XII, so I haven’t paid as much attention to leveling WHM as I usually do. At this rate, I’ll be level 75 by next Christmas, lol. It took [...]

need to remember to take more screenshots.

ps. fuck you Poroggo Madame

So... two more Byakko's and no more Haidate, but at least the entire LS has the kitty's axe now... Everyone wants Haidate of course, and you would think with how many we have spawned as of late we would have gotten more than three, and one of those going to the completely wrong person because of pure random luck. 3/20~ thats just no good. Any other god I am happy to get crafting materials from to line my pockets, but not on Byakko or Kirin... its just kinda blah. We work hard for our items and they will come. Still have another Byakko set waiting, but of the two we did yesterday, we got an E. Feet and an N. Hands, which is good I suppose but not what we need the most. Ah well, we will do more, and next time I am going to call it, just for Izman.

After Sky was Limbus and a nice pretty screenshot of Scarlet Odoshi would be right here if I had downloaded them. >.< But it did drop, actually two dropped, one for me and one for Glacian. Glacian actually passed the first one for me because he is just plain nice, even though he is persuing a full set of SAM AF+1. So new I can finally get my Myochin Kote +1 and sell off my Hachiman hands. +7 STR and +7 DEX, woot! I wonder if I could make a DEX build on SAM for crits? Osode, Haidate, Myochin Kote +1. LOL Almost definitely not worth it because I wouldn't be swinging enough for it to matter. We won another Temenos West run, which started off kind of crappy, first floor was just Bene and Time, then second floor was nothing but a Mandy sleepga fest, so we just skipped it. But on the third floor, it was Items and Time, then after skipping the Slimes on the fourth floor, the fifth floor gave us Items, Time and Bene, which was a nice little treat. Limbus is fun and quick, we have a very good balance for our runs now, but are for some reason always lacking a RDM. LOL Well, after Limbus we helped Bubbly get ZM4 and part of ZM5 done, which was fun. Probably will get him Sky when he gets back from his trip this weekend.

On to other things. Another POL update, pretty obvious something was still coming and since the update has been bumped back to Tuesday we will probably get another one on Monday. But lets take a peek at what is provided. In the upcoming version update, we plan to introduce a multitude of items and synthesis recipes that will open the door to new weapons and armor with graphics unlike anything you've ever seen before!
We will also be giving players another chance to obtain the rewards from selected quests and missions they have already completed.

New Items

Here is a selection of the new weapons and armor to be found in the next version update. How will these powerful items be obtained, and what wondrous properties will they possess...?

Existing Rewards

In answer to requests from many players, a number of rewards will once again become available. This change will be put into effect for selected quests and missions with multiple reward choices, such as Divine Might, Apocalypse Nigh, and the Chains of Promathia storyline.
We hope that players who have accidentally discarded a valuable item or those who wish to change their choice of reward will take full advantage of this opportunity! The new gear looks neat but is definitely just remodels of Errant and Adman gear, the weapons are a bit more curious though. The sword in the PLD's hand is a new design, and the polearm is definitely lifted from some kind of design similar to the Dark Rider's spear. Very interesting on that front. I definitely don't use my DRG very often, but it would still be nice to see the stats on it, and see if it can do something for DRGs. Again, more interesting information about the update and another update for which everyone is looking forward. Also the ability to re-quest the CoP and ZM items is nice to have, and you know it would be even better if they let us have two of them rings. LOL I would do CoP all over again to get a Sattva and Tamas Ring, especially the Sattva, but that is all pie in the Sky dreaming. LOL It is nice for those that made bad decisions and want to rectify them.

To wrap up, I wanted to talk about something I read of the translation of the discussion about the new expansion. Something, I found very intriguing. As for new features and content, Battle Director Matsui only confirmed "new magic will be added." Director Ogawa said they are planning more light and fun activities like Assault and Chocobo Racing. He avoided any discussion of hoping for new jobs, but said we should anticipate content that will have a huge influence on the game. Now, I want to dissect this for a moment. The only confirmation is that "new magic" will be added. Now, this could mean two things, but first a bit of analysis of the current situation. Essentially, the current spell list for most jobs is choked full. There are still options here and there, but honestly not much is missing from the current spell lists. So that leaves me wondering... why would they make a statement about new magic? Would new spells just randomly shoved into the list be considered ground-breaking enough to justify the statement about a new expansion? I think not. Tier III magic spells? Nah, we already know they can do that, and that is just rehashing something that they already have available. So where does that lead us? I see two options here, and they are two very interesting options. Either there will be a new job that uses magic... or they are going to raise the level cap. OK STOP SCREAMING! LOL A new job would be obvious, they did say "new magic" but it is a translation, and they could have meant new spells, but again that begs the question presented above. So, a new job using new magic, as they specifically did not answer the question about new jobs in the interview. But "new magic" could also be provided through new levels, and also not later in the quote that they say that which is coming in the expansion will be "content that will have a huge influence on the game." Does a new job really have a "huge influence on the game?" Again, I am doubtful. But raising the level cap would hugely influence the game. Many people object to this idea, but honestly, I think they are overlooking a few things. Lets look at the two main objections to raising the level cap. "Subjobs would break the game." O rly? I think not, SE has already dealt with this issue in the past, and that was a long time ago. For example, /SAM was already fixed, Meditate only gives 60 TP when it is a subjob, what if Convert gave only half the MP from the HP that was converted? Strong but definitely not game breaking considering the state a gimped convert would leave a mage job in. And people forget that it would help other subjobs to balance it... for example, do you think everyone would drop everything for a minimal about of MP return if when they sub BLM they could have Stun? Or have flash from subbing WHM. And people also don't consider the problems it may cause for other jobs, like having Ni level debuffs from subbing NIN? I think that Convert would be the least of SE's worries and I think they could deal with many of the problems if they had the time (oh say the year and a half will have put into WoG) to invest in the idea. The second main objection is that it makes merits useless... this objection is pretty silly, it only makes merits stronger. And you will also have to decide if you want to merit at 75 or if you want to wait to 80 (my assumed new level cap). Merits may have been the way to raise the level cap in 2005, but this is 2007 and the expansion will be 2008. In 2005 no PLD subbed NIN and no NIN subbed DRK, in 2007 the exact opposite it true.

Change is fun if you embrace it.

Weird, I editted this at work, but it didn't stick... anyway, Ailee pointed out that Stun and Flash are both 45 and I checked on Ninjutsu and the lowest debuff is 44, and even refresh is 41. So these issues do not seem to be a block to the feasibility of raising the level cap to 80.

In the upcoming version update, we plan to introduce a multitude of items and synthesis recipes that will open the door to new weapons and armor with graphics unlike anything you’ve ever seen before! We will also be giving players another chance to obtain the rewards from selected quests and missions they have already completed. New Items Here [...]

A some what quick update since it is currently 1:17 A.M. and I have to get up early to get ready for work. Yikes! At any rate, as you can tell from the images we have been leveling in Eastern Altepa Desert. Its been a really hard place when starting out, since the primary mob [...]