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May 29, 2010

Assault makes everything better

Yesterday, we decided to waste an hour or so in Dynamis-Valkurm. I say waste because we were going to farm the zone and didn't kill the Mega Boss. As a result, we didn't get maximum time. Just throws me off a bit at the notion of going to farm a timed zone and not get as much time as possible for farming. Whatever, I'm just thankful that we didn't have to go to Windurst.

As you all know, Dynamis is boring. There's just no way around it. The only time it is remotely entertaining is when you are a tank or if trouble breaks loose. Aside from the action, or lack thereof, the music adds to the boredom. Xarcabard being the only exception, but even that music isn't really much better. It just happens to be different, so that makes it slightly better than the depressing chant dynamis zones are known for.

So I had an idea. Well, my original idea was to mpk everyone. (I tease, but that would've made things interesting.) Instead, I decided to change the music. What I listen to on a normal basis is usually either very relaxing or some type of techno-trance, depending on the mood. Neither of those really fit the dynamis "slay everything that moves" scheme. So what does?

THIS:


Hell yeah. Take that boring ass dynamis zone and turn it into a full-on Assault! Things got even better when Allistor made a mistake during the pull and we had 6 manticores come after us. We didn't stay in the zone for long, and the drops were extra sucky (Nin and Sam belts), but the music was awesome and I didn't get sleepy like I normally do.

Everything ended and I finally went to sleep because I didn't know what else to do at the time. This morning, I took a trip to the sandbox. Just out of curiosity, I played the same tune while slaughtering bunnies and chasing lizards. True enough, the sandbox became an action-packed zone of awesomeness.

Maybe this is a sign that I need to do more assaults, but that music sure as hell does make everything better.

May 25, 2010

Realigning the Focus

I've been doing some thinking, yet again.

Remember awhile back when I was talking about being typecast in particular roles and losing the enjoyment of said role as time goes on? I still believe in that thought process, but with a few exceptions. I've also come to realize that while it may be annoying as hell, my hesitation to change a few things isn't doing any good either.

I find that I get bored with jobs rather quickly. Well, bored is a strong word. I enjoy every job I've leveled or I wouldn't have done it. Even White Mage. It's more a matter of frustration when I start to feel that I am not as useful in a particular role. To counter that feeling, I level something different. I don't remember what jobs I had at the time when I first brought this up, but I know it wasn't many. I think I had just recently leveled Paladin. Well, a lot has changed since then.


Currently, I have twelve jobs at 75. At first glance, you'd think that's a great thing right? That's what I initially thought, but not so much now. The reason being is that a job doesn't become immediately useful once you reach the level cap. I knew this from the start, but I always thought that if nothing else, I'd be able to help out in some way. Even if just a small amount.

The problem was that when I leveled a job, I wanted to use it. I was in the mindset of leveling to meet an immediate need without taking into consideration the things required for that job to be truly helpful. You know, have the job available and when you know you're going to be using it, then you work on really bringing out the full potential. I see that now as backwards thinking. Regardless, I now have several classes that are dire need of gear upgrades and merits.

I don't know about you, but twelve jobs has been a very costly thing for me, both in time and gil. While many of them can share gear to an extent, once you really involved with any particular job, there are several pieces that just don't work as well as multi-use items. So what do I do about it? After a lot of thinking and hesitation, I figure the best thing to do is follow Cal's advice and just focus on a few jobs and leave the rest as "toy classes." Now it's a matter of deciding which classes to turn my attention to.

Out of all my available classes, I find myself primarily on 3 for any given endgame event. Samurai, Red Mage, and Paladin. In truth, out of those 3, I'm more of an RDM than anything else. I could go the super extreme route of retiring everything except RDM, but that wouldn't be a wise move at all.

I think the next step will be to sell off my non-ex gear for the other jobs so I'll have both gil to buy better gear and the space to store it. I admit that I don't really want to do this, but my original plan of being helpful doesn't really seem to be helping at all. Maybe this will make things a bit easier. Not to mention, it's a lot less stressful to only worry about 3 jobs as opposed to 12.

May 18, 2010

The Sound of Music

Actually, this has nothing to do with music, but it does deal with sound. More specifically, the sound of voices.

I suppose you could say that a voice is similar to music. It can be the most wonderful thing you've heard, or equally annoying. I'm sure no one here is new to Ventrillo. For awhile, I was. I started using it when I was in a Nyzul static. Of course, I never bothered to speak; I simply listened.

Then I left it alone and never bothered again. Until recently. SoV uses Vent quite a bit, and every now and then I sign on and lurk in the channel. Just like with Epic, I rarely say anything in LS chat. You wouldn't peg me for the silent type, especially since I ramble on forever on this blog and while at work.

Moving on. Last night, for whatever reason, I decided to hang out in the SoV channel while most of them went on to do other things. The more that I just sat there and listened to them talk about non-game topics, the more...personal things became. I don't mean personal as far as conversational content, but the overall feeling while I was there. It was relaxing to say the least. I didn't feel odd like I normally do. I still never said anything, but in my room, I was laughing and smiling along with the rest of them.

Well, surprisingly enough, Epic turned on their vent channel tonight as well. So, since I had a good time in SoV's channel, why not try this one? Besides, I've "known" Epic longer, so it should be a fairly simple ordeal. It was as if I never knew them before. This was a great thing, because any impressions that I may have had before were completely cleared. Really, it felt pretty awesome. I was more inclined to chat in the LS, and even made a few jokes. Of course, one joke was about Jesus and chain letters while we were doing an SCNM fight. I guess the NM didn't like the joke, and I found myself on the ground. Quadav take religion seriously, it seems.

Right now, I'm listening to same streaming game music over vent with the LS. It's fairly understood amongst us gamers that we have some similarities. Yet, when you are able to move beyond the keyboard and actually hear the person you spend so many gaming hours with, it's amazing at just how similar we really are.

I might even buy a microphone.

EDIT:

We did the Buried God SCNM tonight, and let's all say HELL YEAH! I got my groovy ranger hat! No sense repeating a post already made, so click that link for the details on EP's blog. Damn, it is the ugliest piece of gear besides the goliard saio. Still, I'm damn glad I got it. Improving my jobs, one piece at a time. ^_^




Weekend Warrior

Despite the fact that I was sick all weekend, I did manage to get a few things done. Or rather, I participated in a few things. Some of it was fun, while others were pretty frustrating. I'm always frustrated though, so it's nothing new. Anyway, read on:

A Painful Day in the Past

Last week was a pretty awesome week for Cerberus. We actually took over all of the northland zones and unlocked the Fiat Lux BCNM! I think we may have unlocked it once before, but that's not important right now. Naturally, shouts were heard all over the place. So I went to the past to get the campaign operation, but realized my rank wasn't high enough. Off to the battlefield I go.



Contrary to the picture above, I did really well in campaign. Xarcabard [S] is just a pain in the ass place for a campaign battle. I usually go as SAM/DNC or RDM/BLM when I want some good exp, but it looks like DNC/NIN is a solid choice now too. Having Pyrrhic Kleos helps a lot as well. So a few fights in and I was at the highest rank. Most people already had the DD needed, and were searching for a bard. Just so happens I'm a bard, and somehow a few people knew this. I got an invite during a dagger trial and gladly accepted.

I rethought my happiness along the way.

First, taking the Manaclipper in Bibiki Bay sucks. Seriously. I had just arrived to camp an NM when I got my invite. The NPC said 14 minutes for the next boat. I figured that would give me some time to kill a few placeholders and maybe spawn the NM. I set aside 10 minutes to do this and then I'd run back to the dock. Ten minutes later, I reach the dock, only to find that the boat the NPC was talking about was the wrong one. In the meantime, one of the group members tries to take the boat on the other side to reach me, but that one just goes in a circle. While he was on his way, I went back to the NM so we didn't miss each other on boats. That was a mistake, because I didn't realize his route was in a circle until the boat coming to my side had already passed. The end result of this was an hour wasted until I finally go to them. I'm surprised they waited, to be honest. Still, I'm thankful.

Now we get to the fun part: the trip to the throne room. After we all arrive in the castle, I start buffing myself in case I get aggro. They asked for me to go as /whm, and I didn't have any oils / powders on me. So what do I do? Cast sneak of course. Four seconds later, sneak starts wearing. I take a few steps back and recast. Magic aggro. I ran back to the zoneline and lost aggro, but lost the group as well. A few minutes later, I catch up. We get to the maze area with all the doors and whatnot, but someone gets aggro in a bad place. Some ran, some fought. We killed our initial aggro, but then a domino effect of aggro took place and we ended up wiping.



One of the guys was in a really bad spot when he died and had to homepoint. Turns out this was a good thing, because he also had forgot to get a new campaign tag while waiting for me. The rest of us regroup and move forward, while one member stays behind to assist the other when he came back. Once we made it to the BC, I got all of the rules explained to me. Thankfully, I wasn't there to be the sacrificial lamb. I die enough without trying; getting me to kill myself intentionally would be problematic.

We managed to do two runs before my LS event, but both ended in failure. We got really damned close on the second run, but the Shadow Lord decided to spam the HP down move and his shadow clones. We didn't have enough stunning power to handle that, and we lost again. I queued the mission so I can go again, but so far I haven't had any luck with a group.



Operation Pixie Freedom!

It's been a long time coming, but it looks like OPF was a great success! Read this post if you don't know / remember what I'm talking about. Every now and then, I still visit Witchfire Glen and drop off a pixie if I'm ever in possession of one, and it looks like many others have done the same. Pixies are in the present! Maybe this isn't news to anyone other than me, but can it. I'm happy.

I haven't seen them in many areas, but the fact that even one is in present time is a cause for celebration. Keep those pixies alive and free!




More Mercury!

I think I said more than enough the Trial of the Magians in my previous post, but here are some pictures to go with it. It's a good thing I managed to run into a few helpful / courteous people while going through this. At least I'm not the only one in this mess of a quest.

My evil dancer impression while waiting for the Nocuous Weapon to spawn.

I got some Lv38 drg greaves from this. A shame I'm already 75.

Really, there was no point having Karyn. Even at 70, she barely hit them.



Guilty Kindness?



A picture is worth 1000 words. I don't have the picture that I really want to show (passing of an item), but I can at least explain the situation. Before I get started, let it be known that I think the end result was extremely selfless and kind. However, due to the circumstances surrounding the act, I think it would've been difficult to choose any other path.

As you can see, we were doing KS99. I think this was the third run of the night. We were on a winning streak and I think we may have just let ourselves get comfortable and relaxed. Dizz started getting hammered and his HP was low. Unfortunately, there was a fatal delay in healing and even though we semi-recovered, we ultimately lost. Koroki, the orb holder, was less than pleased and everyone felt bad. To end the night on a better feeling than this, we did a final run and made sure everyone had their act together.

When the run was over, the chest contained some pretty decent drops. Of particular interest was a Wyrm Beard. This orb holder, Negaa, didn't have a use for the beard at the moment, so it was decided to let our Monks cast lots on it. Just so happens that Koro was a 75 MNK and needed the item. One of our newest members, Fahzewn, is also a 75 MNK. After it was declared that neither had the beard, they both prepared to lot. Fahz went first with a whopping 900+.

Now here's the situation. It was suggested that it would be a kind motion to allow Koroki to have the beard since his run was...well, ruined. I can understand this to a point but, at the same time, the holder of that beard was to be decided via /random. From that point forward, the only thing that should have mattered was who had the highest number. Instead, it seemed as if the entire shell went silent. Staring at the treasure pool while waiting for Fahz's decision. No pressure, right?

Fahz is a nice guy. He's been really nice since I met him on Hades. Even though he was given an option to keep the item, I don't see him choosing any other option. Such a choice is made even harder when everyone is waiting for you to make a decision and the clock is ticking. I think in such a case, everyone else should have just left the area and let those two decide what will happen. Or, since it was the entire LS that failed to finish the run, that we should all pitch in to do something for Koro to help recoup his loss. Fahz did a great thing in passing the item, and I'm sure that kindness will be returned many times over.

Anyway, there are other things I did, but I didn't take many screenshots. Now I have to get back to the game, as I'm sure people think I'm ignoring them since I'm not answering their tells.

May 15, 2010

Trial of the Magians: I did it for the mercury

In an earlier post, I made mention of the Trial of the Magians and how I probably wouldn't be participating in it. Well, I changed my mind, but not for the reason you might think.

Imagine the following conversation...

Moogle: Hi!! Want a cool weapon?
You: Sure
Moogle: Awesome! It's pretty simple. I just need you to do a few things.
You: Naturally. What's the catch?
Moogle: First, pick one of these plain weapons from a crate.
You: Ok, now what?
Moogle: I know it's a crappy weapon and it would take forever to kill anything, but
Moogle: using it to do these few tasks will magnify its power exponentially!
You: Sweet. So what's the task?
Moogle: Oh, it's nothing big. I need you to find a few Notorious Monster and beat
Moogle: them down with this weapon. No worries, the NMs aren't hard for someone
Moogle: like you. Ok, now I need you to fight these guys more than once, just so you
Moogle: get the feel of the weapon. Let's see. How about the Nocuous Weapon first.
You: Sure. Wait. Isn't that like a level 20 monster?
Moogle: Yeah, something like that. See, no problem for you, right?
You: I guess.

You kill the Nocuous Weapon and return to the Moogle...

You: Ok, it's done.
Moogle: Oh, you must have forgotten. I need you to fight it three times.
You: Why three? Is something different supposed to happen?
Moogle: No, but you need to get used to this new weapon. Two more times please.
You: *sigh* Fine.

You camp this NM for a bit longer, killing the placeholders who reward you with nothing because you're too high level and you can't change to a low level job because your weapon is 75 and no one wants to sync to you for several hours just so you get some exp. Finally, the deed is done.

You: Ok, I fought it three times.
Moogle: Outstanding! Let me upgrade that for you. Here goes!

A flash of light blinds you as your weapon is transformed.

Moogle: Whew. Ok, here's your new weapon. ^_^
You: ...
Moogle: It's rather awesome, no?
You: You added some attack to it. I went through all that for this?
Moogle: Oh no, that's just the first stage. You can do a lot more to this weapon!
Moogle: I have a whole list of NMs to fight, items to get, and enemies to slay!
Moogle: Are you ready?

You walk away, disgusted.

**********************

An exaggeration? Not really. I realize that SE is fast running out of fresh ideas; the level cap increase is a good sign that they are digging deep to find something to keep people busy. Same thing goes for FoV augments and the Fey quests. Surely we couldn't have something as simple as deciding which augments we want and then fight an appropriately difficult monster to attain them. Instead, it becomes a time sink due to the fact that the augments are 100% random.

Now we have the magian trials; a task of endurance that requires a ridiculous amount of NM camping, monster killing, and trophy collection. Perhaps it's just me, but does it not annoy anyone else even slightly that you have to be level 75 to camp a level 17 NM? Wouldn't it make sense if these trials were level appropriate? As an example, if we have to camp Black Triple Stars, then let the trial be available to those people in the 25-30 range.

Let's talk about damage. I can't speak on every weapon because I'm certainly not crazy enough to do them all. However, I'll talk about mine. The Athame OAT (occ. attacks twice) dagger. I'm currently on trial 11 and have to kill Hippogryphs. What bothers me about this is my dagger started out as this:



Which then became this:



and is currently this:



With each trial, the enemies I fight are stronger and stronger, so why in the hell is my damage rating getting weaker?? Thankfully, I offhand a stronger weapon, as I'm sure most do. Still, this seems just a tad silly.

Moving beyond the "kill 10,000 enemies which have no bearing on your weapon augments" task, let's get to the really difficult part. The final stage usually requires anothre 1500 various enemy kills, or multiple VNM trophies.

What the hell SE? Did you think about this at all? TEN freaking VNMs? Unless you can solo these, which isn't possible for some, it's going to take a long ass time until you get this amount of items. Especially considering the way VNMs work. You might have to fight 10 or 20 other VNMs before you can fight the one you actually want to fight. So you have to repeat that entire process lord knows how many times. I just don't get it.

Considering my opinion of it, you might wonder why I would choose to subject myself to this torture? Well, as the title suggests...it wasn't for the weapon per se. I'm not in a VNM shell and there's no way in hell to solo Urd / Skuld, and Verthandi is even worse. However, what I am is an Alchemist. Yep, remember when I started leveling that? Well, I went on a spending spree and bought out the Auction House on scorpion claws awhile back. I bought so many that I actually ran out of gil.

Now that I'm level 62, I'm required to make some Venom Potions, which happens to require mercury as a primary ingredient. I could go buy some, but at the time...I was out of gil. Well, I had 20k, but that won't help much. Realizing that a good place to farm mercury would be in Ro'Maeve or Ru'Aun Gardens against pots and other arcana, it dawned on me: One of the weapon trials requires fighting a lot of arcana. Jackpot.

Why not? Kill two birds with one stone, and eventually give me a reason to stop using a Joyuese on jobs with a low sword rating. It all made perfect sense....then.

Hindsight is 20/20 and, after starting this trial, I realized what I did was pretty fucking stupid. I could've just spent a dollar to get a new content ID, transfer all that damned Venom Dust I made out of my delivery box, and get to the money that was waiting for me from all my auction sales. Then I could just buy the damn mercury and be done.

While I do believe this Magian deal is pretty silly, I have to admit being more silly for actually doing it. Especially considering the reason I started it. So the next time you undertake a difficult task for a stupid reason and someone asks you why you did...just say:


"I did it for the mercury."

2 for 1 Milestone!

First, I'm sick. I'm currently camping some stupid NM that no one ever gave half a damn about until the Trial of the Magians came along. I'm currently 2/3 and then I'll be able to go kill 30,000 pointless enemies. At least I'm guaranteed to get a merit out of it.

In other news, I just noticed that I hit the 100th post on this blog! Go me! I don't know what the hell I've managed to talk about all this time, but it's taken me at least 100 blog posts to do it. I'm pretty impressed with that. I'm sure you are too.

But there is something even more special than 100 posts. This month, Revelations of Insanity had it's 1st anniversary! What started out as something to pass the time has slowly grown into a full-on bitchfest of a blog and you've been with me for every rant. Thanks for that.

So here's to another year of lord knows what, and I hope that you all are here with me next year. Considering the amount of things coming our way in the next few months, I'm more than certain that I'll have at least another 100 things to rant about.

May 11, 2010

SCNM, Sky, and 74!

We went back to have more SCNM fun a couple of days ago, and this was a much better run than the last few that I can remember. Surprisingly, we had less people than before. We got through every NM in the area with only major mess up, and managed to build up an entire set for another boss fight. Perhaps we'll go today, but I'm really not certain.

I don't know what was different about this run. Although I had to go as PLD/freakinNin, I enjoyed this trip more than most. Maybe it was the near wipe at Observant Zekko, or the fact that I didn't die when fighting Ra'Dha Scarscute and that damn Dark Knight Quadav. It was just an overall enjoyable night. I can only hope that if we go, that damn RNG helm drops and I'm able to get it. That would be quite sexy, even if that hat itself is fairly ugly.



This was a previous run. Links plus a DRK NM who absorbs damage = not fun.

Miliani's attempt at an MPK was quite successful. ^^

Probably more successful than she wanted...

Pitchy pudding says hi.

EP and I dual tanked the remaining NMs for the rest of the night. ^_^

Last night was a date with Gods for SoV, and that was pretty groovy. I'm guessing Dizzmal decided to teach me a lesson by having me go as PLD/WAR since I don't personally like shadow tanking. Of course, Dierdren had me change from SAM when I was 5 seconds away from the crag. Twenty minutes later, I was ready to go. I swear I need more inventory space.

Anyway, while I'm personally more comfortable overall with /WAR tanking, I can see the merits of /NIN. Especially given the method SoV uses with every DD as /THF. This allows the DDs to control shifts in hate moreso than the tanks, at least from what I saw. Granted, I would provoke just after I saw most of the DDs on my side SATA me, then let the other half do their thing at the other end. Dizz managed to nearly MPK us at Suzaku because he wanted to be greedy and try for one more Atonement when Suzy chainspelled. Good recovery by everyone and it was a nice way to let go of any tension for the rest of the fights.




He wasn't the only one with a silly moment though. During the fight with Seiryu, he warned me about which abilities to hold and when to use them. Well, right when Hundred Fists went off, I got caught up in macro gearswap lag and hit Sentinel too late. No I didn't die, but I didn't pull enough hate in time to save Tidis. Poor guy dropped almost instantly. I'm afraid that death might give SoV one more reason to make Tidis come as RDM to events more instead of PLD. Cause you know, Tidis loves RDM.

I know I was an MP sponge, but the group did an excellent job of keeping me and everyone else alive. The overall drops seemed decent, but I think just about anything with the R/EX tag is decent, so what do I know. So yes, PLD/NIN is useful. I still don't like it.

I have more pictures of the event, but I'm at work and didn't mail them before I left.

If payouts were on the 1st of the month, this would be an official SoV Welfare line.


Now then, about that 74...

I decided to take another shot at Odin. I've done the fight 4 times so far, and only lost once due to some bad luck and some poor casting choices on my end. We were going to do a six member Summoner Burn this time. The last time I used this method with Epic (the person, not the LS), we blew through this with extreme ease. So, naturally, I was confident that we'd be able to do this again.

All I kept saying was I wish Epic was here...

I can understand being nervous when it's your first time going against Odin. You don't know what to expect, and he looks pretty intimidating. However, when every statement you make is countered with a "what if," the nervousness becomes flat-out annoying. You're 75 people; you should have a basic grasp of what to do in a bad situation. There are only so many "what if" occurrences that require a unique response to any given situation. The majority are a combination of common sense and experience. Needless to say, we wiped. Hello 74.

I should start bringing more reraise items to events.

Afterwards, we all said we'd try again. Thankfully, I happened to have another Talisman on me after helping Keyoku farm his earlier. Luck was on my side when I went to get it checked by the Qiqirn, so I got my items and then waited for everyone else to get ready. During this time, I learned a few things about my group.

The one thing that stuck out most was a SMN who mentioned they were astral burned. I do have my opinions on the burning method, but after reading umpteen forums threads about people defending it, I do try not to /rage at anyone who has taken a job all the way to 75 by spending couple of hours in the tunnel.

However...

When you know that you're about to do an event against something like Odin and every member is a key piece to the strategy, don't you think it would be nice to at least get your skills beyond level 12? Now some people will say that SMN magic skill is essentially worthless, but I beg to differ.

Of course our fail wasn't blamed on that. No no, it couldn't have been that. Instead, it was because no one was kiting the Odin Images. Despite the fact that I've done this several times with no kiter, that had to be the reason we failed. So this time, our underleveled SMN changed to RDM and attempted kited the images. Death still ensued, but we managed to pull out a win. One quick trip to the sandbox and it was back to 75 for me. I think this would be a perfect time to get in on some tunnel action and get a nice exp buffer so I don't delevel anymore. >.>

May 5, 2010

Some Old; Some New

As I said earlier, it's been a busy week. Between leveling Dancer, dying with Epic, and killing dragons with SoV, I'm surprised that I've been getting enough sleep to go to work each morning. I'll do a recap of what's been going on, and it probably won't be in the correct order. Deal with it.

Sandbox Fun

For those of who either don't know or simply forgot, I refer to Cape Terrigan as the sandbox. Or, as Aneviaul calls it... Valkurm Dunes+1. As much as I don't like to solo, I find this place somewhat relaxing. Well, it was relaxing pre-merge. Now, trying to find a Beach Bunny is almost as difficult as claiming NMs. I won't be surprised if I start seeing people bot-claim regular enemies just to finish FoV pages as time goes on.


Little known secret: You can farm avatars from treasure caskets in Cape Terrigan.

The sandbox is the only place where it's required to get links when pulling.


Back to the Past

Epic's decided to start doing the SCNM battles again, which is kind of cool. Right now, we're in turtle land and we just did a few runs of The Buried God. Hopefully, we can go to Windurst and do that one. I'd love to get a hold of a Failnaught for some SAM/RNG Sidewinder spamming fun. For now though, I just have to hope that I can get Zha'Go's Barbut for Corsair and Ranger.

In the meantime, I've been asked to come to the pre-fights and tank as PLD/NIN. Honestly, I can't stand /nin when I'm a Paladin. I'm want to stand toe-to-toe and do some real battle, not worry about counting shadows and crap like that. Leave that shadow counting shit to the Ninjas.

See, THIS is what I'm talking about. Fighting head to head, lady to turtle. Fun stuff.


This is what happens when I count shadows and lose focus on the fight.

Reduce EXP Loss for the win. I certainly need it.


Random Limbus?

I have to admit that I like the look of the Temenos areas more than Apollyon, but that's because Appolyon and Promyvion have a dull look about them which puts me sleep. If we do Ultima, and I can get enough coins in time, I might have a shot at some Homam legs for Dragoon. That would really be awesome. Still, as fast paced as Limbus is, man do I miss Einherjar.



Beseiged!

This and campaign have to be the two best things to come out of the server merge. We have finally taken over ALL of the zones to unlock the Shadowlord BCNM, AND we have not lost a single Beseiged. Of course, two back to back fights are going on as I type this. Chances are that we'll lose the candy before I get back to the game. I'll think positive though and let you know how that turns out.

In an amazing turn of events, I did not die once! Well, for all 11 minutes that I was there.

Sky Dragons

SoV did Oury Cometh last week, and it was the first time I did the fight outside of CoP. Since all was doing was haste and healing, I really can't give an impression on how it was. One thing I will say, is that it's a long ass fight. Good lord. Either it has a lot of HP or lot of resistance. We also had to wait and only attack it in the air. Since we had to sleep it on the ground, we couldn't put the awesome Dia spell to good use. Still, it was a nice change of pace, and it gets us ready for some Bahamut V2 action! Cloth for a Sha'ir Manteel? I'm definitely interested.

In other news with SoV, we are still kicking ass in Sky. Dizzmal has made mention about putting on the "douche hat," but I think we're at a point where we no longer need to wear it. The LS made their point, and are being respected in Sky. On top of that, Dizz has shown consideration to other groups in there when they want to fight NMs as well. So that's a good thing, because I really don't like confrontation.




Caldar was going nuts in sky, and forced me to keep Phalanx II on him or he'd keep dying.


A Date with the Doctor

Bey and her husband, Frice, needed some help getting caught up on the ToAU expansion. After a few runs in the sandbox, Keyoku and I geared up and went to help out. It had been a long time since I did this fight, but it's the one against some experimental Khimaira and Shantotto basically wipes the floor with its hide. Since there was really no point in worry about DD, I whipped out my pedobear gear and kept the party alive. Mostly. We had a lot of fun, and I can't wait for them to get to the final fight. That music is just the best fight theme ever made.



Anyway, there's more to post, but it's almost a new game day and I've got some DNC exp to solo before Limbus. Someone should make a party and invite me. ; ;

May 4, 2010

How to run a Linkshell

I'm in a rut, once again.

I've been in Vana'diel for nearly two years now. I've done my unfortunate share of bouncing from a few shells. Most were social, but there were a couple of event shells that I was a part of. The ones that I left were due to me being gone for a month at one time, and another due to some drama. Not wanting to develop a bad reputation of shell hopping, I found one and have been sticking with that for quite some time.

However, the longer I play, the more things start to bother me. Maybe it's me, so I'm going to ask for your opinion here. Does your LS have a goal? If so, does your LS have a plan, and do you know it? Now, before you answer, this entire post is moot if you have a single-event LS. For the most part, I don't see any real difficulty in planning out something like that. This is for multi-event shells only.

We have a habit of not sticking to a particular event for an extended duration. I am both thankful and annoyed by this. I'm thankful because I get exposed to various things, but then I am frustrated because it's hard to plan out how to upgrade yourself when you don't know what event you're going into. Our Dynamis has gone from twice a week to only Fridays. I'm not a huge fan of the four-hour deathfest that is Dynamis, but it's the only place to get AFv2 and I'm not rich enough to buy gear from other shells. Considering that drop rates are already shitty, cutting that percentage in half doesn't really help matters.

We used to have a fairly set schedule of events. Between Limbus, Dynamis, Einherjar, and whatever extra event we did, my week was pretty full. I was always busy, and knew what to look forward to. I could look at those events and figure out what gear I wanted for whichever job and go from there. It's not the same now. We stopped doing Einherjar after reaching the third tier (which frustrates the hell out of me). We've been doing Apollyon for awhile without a single Omega fight, and are currently doing Temenos. Finally, we've started bouncing back and forth between SCNMs and ZNMs. Well not really. We collected Zeni for a day or so and haven't actually fought a ZNM. Tonight, we're supposed to do one of the SCNM boss fights, but I'm not certain I even want to look at items to lot because I have no clue how long we'll be doing this event. On the other hand, I could just be a "loot whore" and try to take everything I can use simply because of that.

I just wish we had a plan, or that I knew what it is. If we're going to shift events around all the time, then say so. Give some reassurance that we're going back to certain events, and say when. Holding upgrade items or being afraid to lot AF because you don't know if you're ever going to finish the set or get the other upgrade item is very stressful. I ended up joining SoV because my LS just stopped doing sky and showed no interest in going back. Sure enough, it was decided to go back to Sky not long after I was in SoV. This ended up putting me in a bad spot, and had to choose between shells. Thankfully, I was able to come up with a solution since SoV has one run during Epic's "off days." That stress turned out to be a non-issue later, because Epic stopped going to sky not longer after we started again. I was nearly about to leave SoV, and it would've been for absolutely nothing. See my frustration here?

Some people tell me to just leave. That sounds simple in theory, but there are reasons that I stay. First and foremost, I like them. I won't stay somewhere that I don't enjoy being, and I do like the people in the LS. Davik, Epic, Milliani, EP, Squishie, and a few others. Hell, even Brim and his overuse of the " -.- " expression. Another reason is that I don't want to start over. It takes a long ass time to get points and move up in the queue for gear. At the same time, starting over with SoV proved to be a great thing. In the few months of being with them, I've picked up W.hands, Genbu's Shield, and freaking Byakko's Haidate. That's with only being able to make it to half of the events. Can you say hell yeah?

I'm sure I can keep going on and on and on, but I want to sign on and do more leveling before this event. I'd like to get Dancer to 75 and get a new Mythic ws to play around with. Man, those weaponskills are just so pretty. I might even level PUP for Stringing Pummel.

New Attitude

I've been deciding what to do about my blog lately. Not in the sense of no longer writing; that would just be stupid. Instead, it's more about what to write, the layout, and the title. I find that many days, I force myself not to blog because it's usually just something that I feel like bitching about. Granted, that's most of what I do anyway, but I do exercise some restraint about how much griping I actually do.

Then again, why hold back? It's my blog after all, and if I want to gripe and bitch about something, then I should do it. I guess I don't want to alienate people from reading this if all I do is complain. I do talk about other things, and sometimes I even talk about stuff that makes me all warm and fuzzy. Not hot and bothered, but warm and fuzzy. There is a difference.

The current title, Revelations of Insanity, was thought of when I realized the craziness surrounding my experiences in Vana'diel. Not to mention, it probably also shows that I am personally crazy for noticing this stuff in the first place. After a brief internal shouting battle over events of the past few days, I think I might just change the title to something a bit more fitting, and blending in with the current iverb nomenclature:

iBitch

Catchy, no?

Now for the layout. If someone, i.e. Dizzmal, would get back to me about my graphics request from 5 years ago, I might finally have a custom header to go with a blog design in my head. Of course, I could register at BG and ask them for help too. I just don't like the attitude of the people there. Maybe someone at FFXIAH.com could help as well. I don't know; I just like bugging Dizz about it more.

Anyway, I've got some other stuff to blog about. It's been a pretty interesting week.