Week in Review

Howdy peoples!

Last week was full of stuff going on, so I apologize for not updating earlier. So, time for a recap of a few things that happened. I'll try to keep it somewhat short. >.>

Dynamis - Bastok

Before we went in, we found about 15 RMTs running back and forth from the Mog House to another taru who just sat there and received trades. It was pretty obvious that they were RMT due to the name structure they all used. We tested it out by sitting some of our members on top of the "bank" and waiting. Sure enough, they tried to trade to us, again and again. It was pretty amusing. Eventually, a GM was called about it and we got a visit mid-dynamis. Everyone started freaking out when he/she appeared just as we were about to time-nuke some stones. Oh, on a related note, I ended up getting Duelist's Gloves and a Valor Coronet. W00t! My first RDM afv2!

You have no idea how scared people were when this GM showed up. xD

We put the Die in "Die-namis"

Limbus

It was Ultima time and we /pwned it again. That fight takes awhile though since we try to feed as little TP as possible. Jeffil actually survived Citadel Buster at point blank range. Last time I tried that, it didn't work out so well. Damn paper-thin mage armor. Pretty decent drops too. Cerebrum and Leg parts dropped, which is always nice. I didn't get any this time, but one day. ^^

CoP Revisited

A couple of ls mates were almost done with CoP, so since we had cancelled Bahamut v2, we got a party and headed to get 8-2 through 8-4 done. I was amazed at the 8-3 fight. Not a single death through the whole fight. Even though Abydos (WHM) ran in and aggroed the pots before Ameyna (PLD) could reach them. I thought we were going to fail, but we turned the fight around and won. Then we took on Promathia. We failed the first time, but got up and whipped his godly ass the second round. Of course, we all blame Aby for the first fail since he forgot to cast Reraise prior to starting the fight. haha, we still have <3 for you!! ^^



Dance Dance Revolution!

Not sure if I mentioned anything, but I started working on Dancer again. Figure it's time to get that up to speed so I can solo with SAM through campaign since invites are a bit slow for me. If you haven't already tried the job, go do it. DNC is full of win. Granted, you don't weaponskill as often since you need TP to do anything other than swing your weapon. Still, the job is just insanely fun. Not needing to rely on MP is such a relief, and at 25 you get a TP based Curaga ability. Not bad for only 40 tp. Not to mention, you get a frilly dress and a flower for AF. You know you want one.



Oh yeah. Hey Paul, remember that comment you made about the treasure chests in Buburimu? Well, I tried a few more times and actually got that Pestle. Can't say it's super awesome, but it's a hell of a lot better than the Ash Pole I was using. xD Maybe now I'll level Scholar more and get my groovy cap.

This is for a friend

I'll add an actual update later, but this one is for Kiri. She's obsessed with Taru, and this picture was too good to pass up.

We were in Dynamis-San D'Oria last night, doing our thing and getting some AF. Unfortunately, one of our Taru BLMs was left alone too long and died. So a couple of other Taru came to "console" her. Below is the result.

Taru death in Dynamis = Taru Sex Train

Yay!

You know, normally I come on here and bitch about a lot of stuff. I still will, but I'll do that in a moment. Something weird happened during our last Nyzul Isle run.

We climbed from 55-70 the other day, and not a single argument took place. I couldn't believe it. Normally, someone in our static isn't able to show up, and if they do, then we end up having some disagreement in the execution of the strategy. Sometimes it's a minor disagreement but, other times, it's enough to give me a serious headache. This run was different. Everything about it was so far from what we usually did, and it was freakin' awesome. Some people even forgot to switch jobs between floor runs, and we still had a great time. Hands down, it was the best 15 floors of this maze yet.

Oh, he got us last time, but we /pwned his tail (pun intented) here.

Other than that, it was the usual routine. Did another Hagun run, but it didn't go so well. We made the mistake of splitting in two groups and before you know it, we had all three smaller antlions and the main one on us at once. Thank goodness we don't lose exp in those.

Oh! I got another level in Samurai, but also worked on RNG and NIN a bit more. I'm not a huge fan of the /NIN deal, but it does have some uses. Davik and I went to Buburimu Penninsula to get those jobs up a few levels. You know those treasure caskets you find out there? My advice; don't bother. I don't know what it is about those in Buburimu, but I found a damned Antidote in almost 90% of the ones I opened. Would be great if we actually got poisoned by the enemies there.

Now to see what trouble I can get into today. I know we have Dynamis, but no clue which zone. Hell, I don't even know which AFv2 piece I want to lot on today. /sigh

Congratulations! You just got your 50th useless Antidote! >.>

The dance fever is spreading!

Prime Time

You ever have something that you've been trying to do for months, only to stop short of the goal? That's how I felt about one of my quests, "Waking the Beast." I'm sure all you Summoners know about this one. For the rest, it's a quest where the Summoners of Vana'diel have to battle Carbuncle and every other avatar with the exceptions of Fenrir and Diabolos (thankfully, or it would be a near impossible battle to win). Anyway, I explained earlier about the length of time it takes to setup on of these runs. To sum it up...way too damn long.

However, yesterday was different. It still took awhile for the setup, but it was different because we didn't go to fight avatars for key items. This time, we went straight to Full Moon Fountain. The final fight was at hand.



The fight itself isn't incredibly hard in theory but, near the end, it gets a bit crazy. At the start, it's basically one SMN party against Carbuncle (Carby) Prime. Once his health drops 25%, he vanishes and summons one of the other prime avatars. A second SMN party defeats it, and Carby reappears. This repeats until the final moments of the fight. By the time Carby makes his last appearance, we are fighting him and 4 of his clones. What makes this hard is that each clone uses Astral Flow every 60 seconds. If you've ever been inside Full Moon Fountain, you know that it's not a very large area. The chances of being caught in an astral attack are pretty high, and it's a near guarantee that if you're hit...you'll die.

We failed the first two attempts. So close to the end on both. The third attempt was met with overwhelming success. I'm not sure how many Summoners on my server have actually finished this battle, but I know it's not a high number. For many, this is the ultimate battle that a Summoner can face, and the reward is a very prestigious one. Unfortunately, you don't get the awesome weapon of doom as a reward, but what you do get is recognition for accomplishing what is arguably one of the toughest NM fights around.




Now with that behind me, we can move on to the rest of night. We did another Einherjar run, and instead of undead dogs, we had undead skeletons. >.> I hate fighting undead. The battles take too blasted long, and Sleepga is mostly useless. Still, we ran through them and got to the Mega Boss. We've actually fought this one before. Looks like a big buffalo. We ran out of time with less than 2% remaining. That sucks.

For our final event, we went back to Beadeaux [S] for more SNM fun. Looks like we aren't doing the actual SCNM for awhile. Think we're just going after pop sets and then we'll do a few runs of the final fight. I can't wait till we go into Castle Oztroja [S]. Failnaught {Yes, please}.

Oh! We did another Brothers run today. Guess what I got? Yeah, more lumber. This ENM is starting to annoy me.

Fun times in Aht Urghan

Assaults!!

These are pretty neat. Today we did some of the Lance Corporal missions, just to make certain that everyone had them. For the most part, it wasn't too fancy. We go in, blow stuff up, and leave the enemy in disarry. That's the standard practice from the ones I've done thus far. However, we got to do one today that was actually rather fun. We got to play dress up. Think I'm kidding? Look for yourself:


Yeah, as I said. We played dress up. The mission was to infiltrate the Mamool Ja Savagelands and steal some supplies. If we got caught, we were thrown into a cell block of sorts. Now this is the only part of the whole assignment that struck me as odd. Once inside the cell, there's a vat of liquid you can drink. Doing so causes you to look just like one of the Mamool Ja. I'm guessing they aren't very smart. Wouldn't it make sense to have that kind of stuff hidden away somewhere, and not in the same room that you lock your prisoners in? I guess logical thought doesn't always hold true in some situations. Regardless, I enjoyed it. Just hope my armor doesn't smell like lizard hide now.

After that, I took a short break from the Empire and headed off to Valkurm and Qufim. That's right...Ranger time!! I've been a bit nervous about partying, so I'm mainly soloing my levels unless I'm with my linkshell mates. So, I'm up to level 27 now and am finally starting to wear gear for more slots than just the body and legs. Oh, let me sum up what I think of this job so far. It's incredibly fun; you just have no idea how good it feels to know that you're sending a bolt or arrow right in the brain of some creature. It's a good thing I'm not violent in reality.

Anyway, the assortment of weapons to choose from is awesome. You seriously never get bored. My one and only gripe with this class is ammunition. Not how much you use or spend on it, but how you track it. There's no heads up display or counter anywhere for how many arrows you have left. I've died so many times because I go to fire a bolt and then get this lovely message:

"You do not have an appropriate ranged weapon equipped," which more or less translates to this if you're soloing:

At least he kept me company until I got a raise.

Moving forward...Miliani asked if I wanted to do some meriting. Anyone that knows me should realize that me and meriting just don't mix. I'd like to do it more often, but I always feel that the groups will go beyond what I'm able to handle. Eh, I figured since I had already died 5 times as a RNG today, what else could happen? So I finished my Field Manual quest and headed out. The setup was MNK, MNK, BRD x 2, RDM, and whatever Liltifa was. I didn't check.

This party was great. I had never been in a BRD x 2 merit before and only heard rumors. My only regret was that we didn't have the Colibri camp. That would have been so awesome. I think we meritied for about 1.5 hours; I'm not really sure. Either way, I got 3 merits, so now I'm at 5 and have to decide what to spend them on. Probably more BLM stuff. It's time to evolve from gimpin' to pimpin'.

In search of...

An update, perhaps? Yeah, I know I got behind. I kept going to sleep late and never posted what was happening. So, a brief review:

May 11: The Real Nyzul Nightmare

I'm going to be brief. It was bad. We failed 2/3 attempts, so we only climbed 5 floors instead of 15. The first fail was due to an enemy being engaged before the the full party arrived and the mages were wiped without reraise. Simple mistake, but frustrating nonetheless. Damned custards. Then we climbed to the last floor and failed on lamps. You could tell people were hot. Hell, I know I was, but it happens. Finally, we had a successful run. I was glad but, I was so irritated and whatnot that I just didn't have any motivation do anything, so I signed off for the night. Simply had a feeling that it would be best.

May 12: "Die and a Miss" - Qufim

At least this was fun. I'll give it that. I still need this and Dynamis-Buburimu cleared before I'm able to enter Tavnazia. Not sure what drops there, as I'm too lazy to look it up. I just want to know if there's more storyline to get. I so love a good story, or even a semi-cheesy one. Depends on the mood. On topic though, we gather the group and head out. We had a really good run in there. No deaths, got a couple of AF pieces, and things were going well. We got to the Mega Boss and he just had to ruin our streak.

Seriously, the moment he made it to the group...Giga Slam. I think almost half of the alliance wiped on that single attack. All I saw was "wtf???" scroll in the chat log. One guy died so fast that he wasn't able to get a single weaponskill off. Bagel, our PLD, really held her own. By the end of the ordeal, it was down to just the two of us. My only saving grace was distance, which proved moot after Bagel was down. I think he picked up a piece of Delkfut's Tower and threw at me. It wasn't pretty.

Next time though, that bastard is going down.

May 13th, Fun at last

I don't have pictures from the other two days, so sorry for that. However, I did take a couple of shots yesterday. Yay!!

First, we had Limbus. As usual, we were warned not to aggro anything. So I aggroed an Om'Phaubo. What can I say...aggro is fun. Working up the courage to aggro an Om'Yovra. Maybe that will be Sunday's goal. It's just a jellyfish, after all. We did an Apollyon run, where certain floors had different attack resistances. I had just woke up though, so I was half-asleep for the majority of the run. >.> Several upgrade items, including some gold studs for DNC. I thought about lotting them, since I had the other item, but I passed and just deleted the other upgrade pieces I had in storage when we got back.

Got a quick nap, and then our next event: Einherjar!!!

Yes! Now this is an event I can get behind. This is the single reason I enjoy being a Black Mage in endgame. I don't know why; I just feel more useful here than anywhere else. I got there way too early though; I think I was excited. So after falling asleep at Nashmau, I headed off to the testing grounds. I ended up playing gate guard at the entrance and just killed those imps and mini-roaches to keep the area clear and help out if ls mates caught aggro. Getting caught off guard by those can be nasty for anyone. We didn't win this time; we had to fight a Marlboro who kept stealing everyone's buffs. We knocked off about 85% or more of its health, so it was a good effort on everyone's part. Failure or not, I am so glad we're doing this event again.



Before the end of the night, we decided to take a shot at Jade Sepulcher again. You know I won't pass this up. Fun, fast, and a guaranteed 12k. I'm all in. Oddly enough, the first person got the drop again, and everyone else got Chocobo eggs. Makes you wonder about the ancestry of Chocobos, considering we fought a Puk. Whatever. The important part is that I didn't get an ore again. So I'll be sure to go at the next attempt. Glutton for punishment...yeah, that's me.

What? Like you don't /dance4 when you get bored. >.>

Bossing Around

Wasn't really expecting today to be an eventful day. It is Sunday, after all. Did a little partying with SAM, but unfortunately didn't get a level. Still at 65, but loving some Tachi: Gekko. Figured out how to make some skillchains, so that made me a little proud. Yeah, yeah; I can just look on Wiki. Things tend to stick in my head if I just figure things out instead of reading a guide. I'm backwards, I know.

Anyway, just as my party ends, I get a tell from Davik asking if he wants to continue our little tradition. Which, of course, is the Brothers ENM. I'm all about getting some gil, so it's only natural that I say yes. Plus it was a chance to see Jormy. Who can pass that up? So off we go, but Epic wasn't online at the time. Next week though, I'm sure.


No good drops. A couple of swords and that damned Cassia Lumber again. It taunts me. The treasure pool says "Hey, we were going to put that 1 mil Hedgehog Bomb here, but we figured the lumber would be less of a burden for you." So considerate.

We take a break and then decide to just duo for awhile. Right when I sign on, I catch a shout for a Swift Belt run. w00t! I needed one of those, so it was a no brainer to jump on the opportunity. We get geared up and head to the Sacrarium. After a couple of mishaps in the beginning, we get things underway. Then, our SAM dc's and never returns. Our WHM goes treasure hunting while waiting for the SAM, and our THF aggros two Fomors and gets killed. Fortunately, I was there as an RDM and was able to keep things going until the WHM returned. Our SAM never came back, so we ended up disbanding. This is when I should have realized it would be better for me to sign off and just clean my kitchen. At least I didn't waste my codex.

We leave there, and I take another break. Upon my return this time, I figure I'll go party. One thing about partying as SAM; it's an awesome job. Very fun and exciting. As such, EVERYONE wants to be a SAM. So there are 10,000 Samurai on my server, and our population is 10,001.

With no luck on the party search, I see some chatter in the shell about a Nyzul run for the Askar Korazin. Yet another thing I'd like. I had an extra tag, so why not? While waiting for the group to gather, I figure I'll go dink around with Campaign Battles. Each zone I went to had this awesome result. The battle ended the second I got my tags. I was overjoyed, really.

Who needs campaign battles when you have a loyal following of mutant onions?

Finally, we depart for Nyzul Isle. Last time, this run went horribly wrong. Today; however, the power of teamwork was on our side. We made it to Khimmy with exactly 10 minutes to spare, instead of the 4:30 from last time. So it was a much smoother battle. Deaths still happened, but we had a successful run. No Askar, but Davik did score a Goliard Saio. Go Davik! I got a Windslicer, so Tachi: Rana shall soon be mine.

We decided to keep the momentum going and hit another NM for some loot. Time to climb that mountain! If you aren't familiar with the hidden meaning, I'm referring to Parradamo Tor, the wonderful mountain that everyone loves to climb. Look it up on YouTube. You'll love it. After getting the key item, we head to Boneyard Gully and chase after the Antlion ENM. We made fairly quick work of it; even skipping the baby antlions in the process. Didn't find a Hagun, but Miliani got herself a Forager's Mantle. ^^ There was some other item in there, but I think it worth a whopping 2k. Same as that damned lumber. It's a conspiracy; I just know it.


For the last boss of the night, we ran to the Jade Sepulcher to do the Shadows of the Mind ISNM. I always liked this fight because I think it's the shortest one of every xNM out there. We got two or three Khroma ores; my memory's a bit hazy because it's 2:42 am and I need to be awake in 2 hours. Oh, I wasn't one of the lucky winners. I got a puk wing and some putty. I bet if I dipped the putty in tar and waited for it dry, I could probably pass it off as some Khroma Ore. I'll have to look into that.

Anway, sleep calls, and I must answer. Night everyone. More silly blogging tomorrow.

SCNM Part 2

Just a quick update on the progress. We went back to the stronghold, owned the other 5 SNMs guarding the letterboxes, and now we're all set to do the SCNM battle. Most of the SNMs weren't that hard this time, but we had a big problem with links. I think that's because we were just out to have fun last time, so we killed everything we saw. Now, we run around with sneak (boooring) and keep getting aggro when sneak wears in a bad spot. Either way, we still won.

Oh! Groovy items dropped! Well, one of the items was groovy. We trashed the katana for Ninja cause no one wanted it. I ended up getting the Demagogue's Sash. Not a half bad piece of gear. I doubt that it will replace my elemental obis on the appropriate day but, for any other day, you can't go wrong with the stats it provides (especially during campaign!):


That's it for now. I'm going to see if I can get some levels on Samurai. Wish me luck!!

3rd Time's a Charm

After the troubles of last Thursday and Friday, I figure that today just has to be better. While checking my inventory, I find that a lvl 65 exp scroll found its way into my inventory from Dynamis last night. Yes!! I could get a small buffer and not be terrified to encounter any enemies until I get a party invite. I change jobs and step outside of my Mog House, tightly clutching my 34 exp that separates me from a nasty and embarrasing level down to 64. Granted, I'm still in Whitegate and I shouldn't die from anything, but stranger things have happened. Using the scroll, I look at my screen with glee as I anticipate a nice reward.

Jacinda gains 57 experience points.

I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was.

Quickly, I ran back into my Mog House to avoid all the "LOL's" that were soon to come by those standing outside who witnessed my reward. Just as I was about to zone, I noticed a shout.

"{The Boyahda Tree} {Weapon Skill} points {Party} {Do you need it?}"

Oh hell yeah. Not only would this allow me to cap my katana, but it would also give me a couple of experience points in the process. So I send a tell to the leader and ask if a 65 Sam would be ok. She says sure, then asks, "You have Gekko?" Damn it. Sadly, I say no and that's the whole reason I want to go. After a pause, she says ok and I tell her that I'll level as fast as I can. I grab my Soboro and some sushi and make my way to the tree. She was a pld, and we also had not one, not even 2, but *3* rdm/nins. Can you say infinite refresh/haste? No? Neither could they.

I ran into a huge problem while there. The crabs kept using that defense bonus, and since I was already using a weak sword, I kept hitting for zero damage. Can't gain skill ups if you don't damage them. After another flurry of gear swaps that resulted in nothing, I asked for dispels. Fortunately, one of the rdms (you know who you are) was able to multitask well. With the defense bonus gone, we were back in business. After about an hour or so, my 24 levels of gimpness turned into an awesome Gekko weaponskill. I think I felt like an actual Samurai then.

Air Ryder, baby!!

Feeling accomplished, I head out to my next goal: Carbuncle Prime. I tried this with a group a few months ago, but ended up leaving right before getting the key item from Leviathan. So this time, we went to Levi first and prepared for battle.

Unfortunately, this preparation took awhile. A long while. Like a really damned long time. That's the downside of doing events with random people. You never know their schedule. I admire the organizer's dedication and patience. He had been looking for people and waiting for them to gather together since at least 7am. I arrived in Whitegate at 9:30, and we didn't actually fight Leviathan until around 1pm. You know what was most frustrating about it all? The fight lasted all of 8 minutes. Almost 6 hours of gathering time for an 8 minute fight. I mean, for all that gathering, you'd expect a truly epic and mindblowing battle, right? No, a few Astral Flows and a little patience resulted in a very smooth, yet short fight. Which I'm thankful for, but at the same time...man, if we could only gather faster.

This is the waiting room. You'll be here for a long time.

After that, we headed to Titan to get the eye for another Summoner. I'm 6/6, so it's just a matter of figuring out when we'll do the actual fight. Another problem with random people is that if you get all of the eyes and someone leaves, chances are that the fill-in won't have 6/6 and your alliance will have to go repeat another fight. Then another summoner leaves, and the process repeats. It gets old very fast. As I said, I admire the organizer's patience. I think when this is over, I'll do something nice for him. Not sure what yet. Maybe buy him some cookies.

Well, I'm off to handle some stuff in reality. Be back with an update on our SCNM later. ^^

I hate Colibri, and Colibri hate me

Friday was a decent day. Except for all the exp loss, but we'll touch on that later. Now that I'm a proud owner of Penta Thrust, it hasn't been so hard to get parties as a Samurai. Yeah I know, the staple move of the Dragoon is the reason Samurai's with polearms get parties from 55-65. Anyway...

The party started off well. We had a Paladin, two Rangers (!!), myself, a Red Mage, and a Dragoon. Considering our target, this seemed to be a pretty badass party. It was, except for the times when the Pld had this extra long delay on using Provoke. It's a learning experience, but still. Even I was having trouble. At my last party, I was hitting Penta Thrust for 600-900, but for some reason, I was having trouble breaking 400. Very frustrating. I kept switching gear in the party, trying to find a combination that would result in higher damage. No luck. I was stuck on "suck mode" and couldn't figure out what was going on.

Thankfully, the RNGs took up the slack, but that didn't make me feel any better. The party let me stay (Thank you!!), and I even managed to get a level before leaving. Whoo Hoo! 65 Samurai. I switched to my Soboro and then really got pissed. Tachi: Yukikaze for 200?? What the hell. Then it hit me. My katana skill was 24 levels behind. Damn you Level Sync!!

65 Samurai!! {All Right} Now to just get Tachi: Gekko >.<

After a couple of deaths in the party, it was finally time for us to disband. As I got ready to warp back, it dawned on me that my cudgel was in my mog house. Strike 1. I start running back with the DRG and we pass an Olden Treant who happens to catch sight of me. /sigh, Strike 2. Seigan and Third Eye only delayed the inevitable. By the way, the DRG kept running.

Realizing how bad my Katana skill was, I decided to try my luck against a Lesser Colibri and get some skill ups. I mean, come on...I'm a 65 Samurai! Yeah...the Colibri reminded me that a 65 still gets hurt by Pecking Flurry. Strike 3, and I'm out. So, there I sat in Whitegate, afraid to go beyond my Mog House now that I'm 34 exp into 65. I could git hit by a pebble and Level Down. 5k exp loss. Completely wasted my exp band.

We had Dynamis-Beaucdine later that night. Lots of AF, and I died again. I swear, it just wasn't my day. Needless to say, I signed off as soon as it was done. The next day just had to be better.

Nyzul Nightmares

Fortune was on my side as I found myself with 4 Assault tags last Thursday. I love it when that happens. While in Whitegate, I heard a shout for a Floor 80 Nyzul Isle run, and Askar was available for lotting! O.O On our server, Askar is a very desirable item, so you don't see people willing to leave the body piece open for everyone to lot on. With a quick tell to the leader, I was accepted and we gathered. I forgot the setup, but we were geared up to whip some tail.

Soon as we got in, we were given the "All" objective. Usually, I like those because they're more fun. Unfortunately, the first enemy we encountered was Serket. Now as far as I remember, "All" excluded NMs but my group was determined to literally kill everything. We spent several minutes taking it down, but were victorious in the end. Climbed a few more floors and got another "All." Damn it. While going through the room, we ended up finding some Puddings. Usually not a big deal, except for when you have a melee heavy party and your mages are low on mp. A couple of deaths later and we cleared the floor. On to floor 80.

Yeah, this was fun. I was weakened and the DD decided to use body boosts. That's all well and good, but it doesn't do you any good to use the boost and then not get your HP fully restored. We had roughly 4:30 to beat Khimaira, so we got to it. Rushed in and unloaded on it.

Not exactly the result we were hoping for...

It was a fun attempt, at least. A little later, my Assault static signed on and we went to get some rank points. We ended up doing the Grass Conservation, where the bunnies need to be, well, dealt with. You all know how I love bunnies.

Poor Quigly though. He wasn't having a great day. Soon as we got in, he saw a group of them together, so he hit one with stun. I think he forgot that they linked. Before you know it, we had six of them on one side, and then more coming from behind. I don't remember if he was able to cast or not before they dropped him. However, we ended up with a new strategy instead of the standard deal of killing one at a time. There were only 4 of us, so we let Renatto (RNG) run out and have some solo fun. Quigly, Saren, and myself would gather them up and sleepga, then time nuke with blizzaga and thundaga. Gets a little hectic at times, but it was so much more fun that way. Oh! We got to see something quite amazing too. Quigly was double weakened and hit a bunny with Thunder IV for 0. Never saw that before.

I was playing golf with bunnie heads. FORE!!

Dragons, Turtles, and Death...oh my

Just your average day in Vana'diel...

Got myself another level in ranger, but then cut that short to go hang out with Davik and hunt down some Wyverns in Ifrit's Cauldron. That place confuses me to no end. I keep saying I'm going to get the map, but I usually go there to do an event, then never bother staying long enough to hunt down the coffer key. It's one of those things that will always be on my to-do list, but won't ever get done. I don't remember how many items we got, but I did get a chance to get some ws points towards Atonement. Hopefully it won't take me too long.

The breath from these things is a killer...literally.

Tripping the Light Fantastic

I just like that phrase. Next stop was off to Al'Taieu for a bit of fun in Limbus. While the event itself is usually nothing to write home about, the people I do this event with always make it fun. Probably because we're all on Vent and I get to hear the weirdest conversations. We've got one member who's unofficial nickname is Squirtle. Let your mind wander while you figure that one out. Our "Ultimate Paladin" unfortunately met ultimate death twice during the run, which gave Arc a chance to show how much he cared about his friend's predicament. In the end though, everything came out well. We laughed, danced, taught someone what running a train meant, and event walked away with 6 beastcoins for the run. Now I'm up to 21 again; almost time for a Boxer Mantle!

Dead body in Limbus = DDR dance pad.

SCNMs!!

To end the night on a strong note, the Epic Linkshell decided to work on tipping the scale of the Crystal War in favor of the Allied Forces by taking the fight straight to the Beastmen. That's right, we went into one of their strongholds and let them know that we were there to whip ass and take names (and hopefully get some awesome loot too, but don't tell anybody.)

All your loot are belong to us...

We had a small, two party alliance since it was pretty late and decided that we'd knock out three of the eight NM's needed to access the main fight for the stronghold we visited, Beadeaux [S]. First fight was with Blifnix Oilycheeks, a goblin who just loved to spam Bomb Toss and then leave a few mines behind to do extra damage. This was our fight attempt at any of the SCNM mini-bosses, but we surprisingly made it through the fight without a single death. We came pretty damn close though. Feeling brave, we moved on to the next one, Di'Zho Spongeshell.

Ok, this guy is cheap. Not only does he spam that blasted Wrath of Gh'Dha for huge AoE damage, but it also has the ability to absorb magic or melee every 20-30 seconds. This wouldn't have been much of a problem if we had more magic damage at our disposal, but all we had was Ninjutsu, an RDM, and myself as a SMN. The fight took us awhile, and not without a few deaths from that damned AoE, but we wore him down and proceeded to move on to our last fight of the night, Ra'Dha Scarscute.

Funny thing about this fight. First, he only uses Head Butt. No other regular attack. It's like a Blue Mage's dream match. Battle of the stuns. That's all this blasted turtle did. Divila, our WHM said the last fight was much more interesting. I think Ra'Dha heard that, and didn't like it much. Next thing we knew, it used Mighty Strikes and started spamming it's real TP move, Skull Smash. One of our SAMs was doing his thing and then found himself on the ground after taking a 1k+ hit to the head. Then Ra did it to our PLD. Down she went. Suddenly the party chat had a bunch of "o.O" and "wow!" lines going through as we realized that this guy meant business. No sweat though. One of our Ninja's had hate and with a bit of haste and constant shadow spam, he held hate and allowed us to finish the NM for good.



All in all, I think the whole SCNM battle is going to be a really fun way to improve the situations with campaign battles. Kind of beats the monotony of standing in one area fighting the same waves of enemies over and over. Not to mention, there's the chance of getting some sweet loot. (Unfortunately, we didn't get any this time, but there are 5 more NMs that we're just dying to tear into. ^^)

Oh, one last thing. My little claim to fame. I unlocked Death Blossom!! Go me!

Flower Power, fool!

A Ramming Good Time!

First off, I have a headache. D:

Couldn't really focus on much, so I just dinked around a bit more with Ranger. Got to 13 at least, but be damned if I could only find 2 quivers of blind bolts. The job is starting to get too addicting, but I think I've finally found a way to hold off for a bit. I'm now in the "doomz" level range, and I really just don't like Valkurm Dunes anymore. Maybe I'll solo to 20 and skip the whole ordeal.

Moving on...

Usually, we do Dynamis on Tuesday and Friday, but we decided to shake things up a little bit and pay a visit to our favorite ram in Lufaise Meadows:

Cue the Benny Hill theme now

As you can see, Amaltheia was happy to see us too. This is a relatively easy fight; nothing really all that complex. Especially for us BLMs. Fairly simple strategy really:

1. Follow ram
2. Cast AM2 and curse as it gets resisted cause you forgot Elemental Seal
3. Use Elemental Seal
4. Recast and dance with joy at your damage
5. Waste MP until Elemental Seal is up again.

Magic Burst! Amaltheia takes 36 damage. >.>

Of course, you don't get resisted *all* the time, but it does happen. Usually right when you cast a nice high damage spell. You'll do 1k+ on one spell, then 90 on the next. Love those resists. Maybe I just need more merits.

We did this for 3 or 4 runs. I don't remember exactly. We only had a couple of bruised bodies, which can be attributed to that ridiculous HP down move followed by a Holy or Banishga III. Man I want that spell. Oh! During the run, we had a little follower come see what we were doing and we ended up +1 to our LS roster. {/welcome} Domie! ^^

Ranger Danger

Last night was pretty fun. I made it online in plenty of time to join my Nyzul Isle static, and we climbed floors 46-50. The goal was to hit 55 since one of our members only had 2 tags. Unfortunately, we ran out of time on floor 50 the first time when we had to do lamps. Eh, such is life. There's always pick up groups!!

Anyway, after the run, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I was getting a bit tired and didn't feel like looking for a party. So after talking to Kiri, I figured I'd go dink around with Ranger for a bit. You know, just to see if I'd enjoy the job. I didn't even bother getting armor. Just a lvl 1 crossbow and some bolts. Off to Sarutabaruta I go!

There was just something gratifying about the sound of a crossbow bolt striking your enemy and dropping them with one shot. Combine that with the soothing sound of the music from East Sarutabaruta and you've got hours of fun and relaxation while laying waste to that blasted bunny population. In case you're wondering, I have a deep hatred of FFXI bunnies from my soloing time as a BLM at Bibiki Bay. I make it a point to kill any I see as a way of releasing pent up rage from my experience.

I'm in your bushes, killing your bunnies.

So, while I've got to get ready for work now, I look forward to when I get to sign on again. Look out bunnies, cause Jaci's coming for ya. (I should really focus on SAM, but this feels waaaay too good right now.)

Suspended No More!

{All Right!} I'm back in the game. After a weekend of sleepless nights, staring at forums, and watching movies, I can finally get back to some quality gameplay. Ah it feels good to be back.

Turns out the whole thing was due to my bank refusing to allow POL to charge my card after some fraudulent transactions (from another company) took place on my account. I guess my bank was being extra careful. Of course, that care ended up costing me an extra $10 to clear my POL account. >.>

Regardless, I'm back!!

Fail +3

Let's see...where to begin? Oh!

First fail of the day, Promyvion-Mea.

By all accounts, it's the easiest of the three promy areas, and can do it with very little effort. All you need is a decent setup, which we had a NIN, MNK, SAM, WHM, and SMN x 2. That party of made of win, right? Well...not quite. We lost to the Delver at roughly 7% or so. Yeah...7%. Very frustrating to be so close and lose.

What was more frustrating was the tactics employed. Everything was working fine, and it's HP was going down according to plan. Near the end though, we had used all of the animas and Delver started using that damned Carousel attack, which started dropping people one by one. Now here is what frustrated me. Why wait until you are nearly dead to activate your 2hr when you can already see a dire situation coming? I realize that most of the time, the 2hr is a last ditch effort, but if it's an ability that takes time to really matter, i.e. Astral Flow, Hundred Fists, etc...then don't wait until you've only got a couple of hits before you die. The moment your move starts generating hate, you'll get the enemy on you and get yourself killed before you can really get the most out of your ability.

We basically waited too late to really throw down, and lost the fight as a result. At least there was a Besieged going on, so I just hp'ed to Whitegate and got my 2hr back. No exp loss or 2hr wasted, but frustrating nonetheless.

Fail number 2: Brothers ENM.

Now this is a bit different from the last fail, because we didn't fail. We climbed Uleguerand Range without any problems, but did get some minor aggro and had to logout once. Basic stuff. We slid down the range and had a good ol' time. We were 3/3 for sliding down the slope that day (all of us made it first attempt), so no one had to get themselves killed and tractored up, which usually ends up being me. However, my mind was off in la la land on the way back to the Galka, cause like a fool, I just started running up the mountain again until I asked my friends how far ahead they were. Then they said "we're at the Galka..."

Son of a...I knew I had forgot something.

So back I went. Got my fan and off to the ENM we go. On the way there, I had to stop by Jormungand to take some pictures. Maybe he'll enjoy the company and let me sit next to him one day cause no one pays him any attention on my server. Anyway, we made it inside Bearclaw Pinnacle and got prepped for battle. The fight goes according to plan when our back up BLM, Booka' gets positioned to re-sleep the tauri once the first Sleepga wears off. The moment she gets ready to cast, the tauri wakes up and usues the doom move. >.< One blm down, despite Epic's frantic attempt to clear it with Cursna. Reraise saves the day!!

We drop the tauri and I head to the chest. To be sillly, I use my /salute emote on the chest with a little message of praise to Yevon. The chest opens and we find....a damned piece of Cassie Lumber. Hooray for a 2k item. /sigh

Final Fail:

So I've been leveling Samurai and having an awesome time with the job. Unfortunately, I'm one of those sams who care less about a polearm and more about the katana. When it was time to fight the Colibri, I didn't have Penta Thrust. Fail on my part, I guess. To make up for it, I bought a polearm and got to work. Skill up after skill up, and wasted a good stack of sushi for trying to hit level 50 enemies with a polearm skill of 0. After 2 days of skilling, I stumbled upon a JP duo in Kuftal Tunnel who graciously allowed me to join them. Surprisngly, they had polearm equipped NPCs who kept throwing penta thrust in my face while I kept spamming double thrust. Damn them. Finally, I get my weaponskill and I can hear the FF victory fanfare going off in my head. Hooray!!

Feeling a bit better since I got something good accomplished today, I log out and get ready for bed. But it couldn't be that simple, now could it? Nope, POL greeted me with this awesome little message: "POL-5434, The PlayOnline ID with this account has been suspended."

What the hell? I play on Xbox, never used a third party tool in my Vana'dielian (sp) life, and don't RMT. So why am I suspended? Of course, it's Saturday morning and Customer Service is closed, so I can't do a damn thing about it.

Great day, huh? I'd post the pictures I took, but like I said...my account's suspended. ; ;

w00t

Ok, so today I delve into the world of blogging. This will be my repository for all of my FFXI (Final Fantasy XI, for the uninformed) thoughts, musings, and vents. I'll do more fancy things with the layout and all that once I get an understanding of how this site works. So for now, welcome to my little slice of....well, I'm not sure yet. xD

- Jacinda