The Chains That Bind Us...
In the fokelore of FFXI, there is a little passage concerning the Chains of Promathia. It states that the Chains of Promathia are a curse placed upon the enlightened races of the world that prevents them from reaching their full potential. These chains are Apathy, Rage, Cowardice, Envy, and Arrogance.
I'll tell you what though, after playing through about a good 2/3rds of CoP, this is a lie. The real Chains of Promathia are Lag, Schedule-Conflicts, Miscommunication, Gil-Loss, and Job-Specific-BCNMs.
"But Seraph," you say, "there are no job specific BCNMs in CoP, it's all a matter of skill and patience." "Well," I reply, "I used to believe that, but get to CoP Chapter 5 and that all starts to change."
I used to love CoP. The story, the battles, the challenge. I was glad that people couldn't really be babied through it like in the ZM missions. There comes a point though, that a challenge isn't fun anymore, especially when it starts destroying countless game hours. Now, mind you, the typical BCNM run in CoP takes at worst, maybe 2 hours. (Pretend that Promy-Vahzl. doesn't exist...) What is starting to kill me is the money loss. Now, I am an experienced crafter, but with the economies and the deflation trend that's happening, it's getting harder to make a good buck. Losing 500K a pop for a CoP fight isnt fun, and I have had a few of those...and making that money back takes time...
Now, as stated before, this wasn't a big deal before. Most early CoP battles can be won in one or two tries, with the party not too much worse for wear, but now, oh dearie me. I speak mainly at this point of every battle during and after CoP Mission 5. It's getting to the point where I really doubt the ability of my static to beat these missions. We are currently on the Snoll Czar, the bane of many a CoP static. Currently, we have a PLD, SAM, THF, WHM, SMN, RDM. Now, everyone says that we should ditch the THF and WHM (it's never going to happen, I don't ditch friends...) and go with more effective DDs, such as MNK, RDM, or BLM. Now, I can understand why people suggest this, it's a very hard fight. What annoys me, is that was it necessary for these fights to be SO hard? Hard to the point of, dare I say it, NOT FUN?! Now, this isn't even the worst, there are at least 4 more BCNMs I can think of that rival or exceed this level of challenge. Explain to me then, how is everyone supposed to enjoy this content, without having even MORE time devoted (i.e. multiple level 60+ jobs) to doing it? ...time...that many of us do not have...
This is where I look for some salvation from annoying BCNM events. Now, I am not one to quit, and I plan to continue with CoP, but I really feel the need for some new content. Thank goodness that the next expansion is right around the corner... I am hoping that the combined new content and revisions to Paladin (Possible Auto-refresh and Shield upgrades) will help spike my interest and love of the game.
So, with that all in mind, I was debating making a slightly more self-sustaining paladin build. For this task I was planning to level RedMage to 37, in the hopes of becoming a PLD/RDM for my new solo adventures. I figure more MP, Phalanx, Stoneskin, Sneak, Invis., and all the other RDM spells might be fun to have as a paladin. At worst, I get a nice subjob for Ballista, and other such conflict events.
But first hopefully, I can get all my RL work out of the way and get to Paladin73 for some purple armor action... (^.^)v
I'll tell you what though, after playing through about a good 2/3rds of CoP, this is a lie. The real Chains of Promathia are Lag, Schedule-Conflicts, Miscommunication, Gil-Loss, and Job-Specific-BCNMs.
"But Seraph," you say, "there are no job specific BCNMs in CoP, it's all a matter of skill and patience." "Well," I reply, "I used to believe that, but get to CoP Chapter 5 and that all starts to change."
I used to love CoP. The story, the battles, the challenge. I was glad that people couldn't really be babied through it like in the ZM missions. There comes a point though, that a challenge isn't fun anymore, especially when it starts destroying countless game hours. Now, mind you, the typical BCNM run in CoP takes at worst, maybe 2 hours. (Pretend that Promy-Vahzl. doesn't exist...) What is starting to kill me is the money loss. Now, I am an experienced crafter, but with the economies and the deflation trend that's happening, it's getting harder to make a good buck. Losing 500K a pop for a CoP fight isnt fun, and I have had a few of those...and making that money back takes time...
Now, as stated before, this wasn't a big deal before. Most early CoP battles can be won in one or two tries, with the party not too much worse for wear, but now, oh dearie me. I speak mainly at this point of every battle during and after CoP Mission 5. It's getting to the point where I really doubt the ability of my static to beat these missions. We are currently on the Snoll Czar, the bane of many a CoP static. Currently, we have a PLD, SAM, THF, WHM, SMN, RDM. Now, everyone says that we should ditch the THF and WHM (it's never going to happen, I don't ditch friends...) and go with more effective DDs, such as MNK, RDM, or BLM. Now, I can understand why people suggest this, it's a very hard fight. What annoys me, is that was it necessary for these fights to be SO hard? Hard to the point of, dare I say it, NOT FUN?! Now, this isn't even the worst, there are at least 4 more BCNMs I can think of that rival or exceed this level of challenge. Explain to me then, how is everyone supposed to enjoy this content, without having even MORE time devoted (i.e. multiple level 60+ jobs) to doing it? ...time...that many of us do not have...
This is where I look for some salvation from annoying BCNM events. Now, I am not one to quit, and I plan to continue with CoP, but I really feel the need for some new content. Thank goodness that the next expansion is right around the corner... I am hoping that the combined new content and revisions to Paladin (Possible Auto-refresh and Shield upgrades) will help spike my interest and love of the game.
So, with that all in mind, I was debating making a slightly more self-sustaining paladin build. For this task I was planning to level RedMage to 37, in the hopes of becoming a PLD/RDM for my new solo adventures. I figure more MP, Phalanx, Stoneskin, Sneak, Invis., and all the other RDM spells might be fun to have as a paladin. At worst, I get a nice subjob for Ballista, and other such conflict events.
But first hopefully, I can get all my RL work out of the way and get to Paladin73 for some purple armor action... (^.^)v
posted by SeraphPDH at 9:30 PM
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