SeraphPDH: Paladin Man!

Operation: Flying Brick

2011-08-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't had many blog updates in the past few months (and neither has anyone else), but I can honestly say it hasn't been from a lack of playing FFXI. My linkshell has been busy the past few months finishing up Empyrean armor sets, and more interestingly, finishing up level 85 and 90 Empyrean weapons. Awhile back in January I started working on my Almace and Ochain. I decided I wanted to get serious about Ochain first, and completed it almost exclusively with linkshell assistance. Once that was done, I took a little break from the hardcore grind, but soon enough I kept working on my Almace.

When I first started the sword trials, I was convinced that I would only be able to complete the Walk of Echos sword, since farming Empyrean weapon items was quite a task, and progress was slow. To top it off, who wants to make a Paladin/Red Mage/Blue Mage a better damage dealer when you can have a serious job be a better damage dealer? My linkshell apparently, and they even helped me camp against an army of Ninjas to get it too. :)

I have had about 3 months to play around with the level 90 Ochain, and it is very impressive. It has an uncapped block rate, as opposed to every other shield in the game which has a hard ceiling of 65% block rate. It seems to block for about 60% damage reduction, not taking into account Paladin traits or gear enhancing those traits. In addition, with Shield Mastery III, I get back 5 TP per shield block, and blocking so often makes most spells I cast never get interrupted. I was very impressed.

As for Almace, I only have the level 85 version for now, but I am still able to put up impressive numbers compared to any other damage option for Paladin. 'Chant dy Cygne' is a 3 hit weaponskill with a 60% DEX modifier that has a critical chance that varies with TP. In comparison, Vorpal Blade is a 4 hit weaponskill with a 20% STR modifier that also has a chance to critical that varies with TP. In addition, I am now using a base 57 damage weapon instead of a base 35 damage weapon (Joyeuse) and both have a delay of 224. My weaponskills are now usually in the 2000-4000 range in Abyssea depending on what I am fighting, instead of the old 500-1500 damage Vorpal Blades with my Joyeuse. The Aftermath from the weaponskill almost makes up for the loss of 'double attack' from Joyeuse too. I haven't done any serious tests outside Abyssea yet, but I assume the ratio will be similiar.

So, with that said, Emperyeans have been a substantial improvement over existing gear. My next goal is to finish up Ararith's Emperyean Polearm so that she can join in the fun too. :)

Sometimes you make your own fun.

2011-02-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

It's been quite some time since I made a post here, and I can honestly say it hasn't been from a lack of playing. I have been doing Abyssea at least three days a week and within my Abyssea group have completed many +1 and +2 Empyrean Armor pieces for PLD, RDM, and BLU. Of special importance to me is that I have completed my full 5/5 of the +2 PLD Empyrean Armor thanks to the help of my group. Things are going so well and drops are so plentiful that I have even started working on some other +1 armor pieces on the side for other jobs I expect to be leveling in the near future.

In addition, most of my group including myself have cleared all of the bosses in Abyssea and have access to Primeval Brews now at a price of 200,000 cruor instead of the usual 2,000,000 price. Given that many of us have cruor to spare, this becomes important at the end of the post...

With our success with pimping our members out with Empyrean Armor, the natural progression of this has been to start getting members Empyrean Weapons. One of our members already has a level 85 (and soon to be level 90) weapon, and others of us, myself included, are following in their footsteps. I currently have my primary focus on the Ochain Empyrean Shield. It is a shield that puts even the Aegis to shame, and that isn't something to snuff at. Complete information can be located here: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ochain_%2890%29

I had originally considered going for the Empyrean Sword Almace first (and this would be my next goal once I complete the shield), but being a Paladin at heart, I couldn't pass up the chance to work towards this beauty. What isn't stated in the shields stats is that it is a Size 6 shield (Aegis being a Size 5 shield, and all other shields being size 1-4). It has a reported block rate of ~90% even on high level NMs and seems to have a very impressive level of damage reduction per block. This would be one of the best upgrades possible for Paladin in that it would greatly increase survivability and in addition grant an almost limitless MP pool against almost all enemies. My progress is slow but steady, and I have added it to my stats found to the right of my blog posts. I will be trying to keep it updated.

With that said, I come back to the title of my little update. Being that many of us have quite impressive armor and weapons and access to 200,000 Brews, sometimes it just so happens that we take a break from the serious business that is Abyssea group item farming and have a little fun. Yes, we might have been doing it very wrong as they say in this specific occasion, but damn if I didn't laugh the entire time doing it. Let's see if you can figure out what is wrong here...

Dark Ring +1

2010-08-20T22:18:00.001-07:00

So, to make a long story short, I take back everything bad I ever said about augments or Abyssea...

We actually managed to get a few nice Dark Rings, but I think the next best one was PDT-4% and MDT-3%. I think I have used up all of my lotting luck for a long, long time. O_O

Fishing 100.0

2010-05-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

I started fishing a few months after I started playing FFXI to earn gil for armor in my early levels (we are talking back when I was leveling WAR to 37 as a sub for PLD, and I specifically remember saving up gil to buy the chain armor set at level 24). I remember getting fishing to about fishing 35 before taking a long break from serious fishing for about 4 years. I had found better ways of making money, and the old fishing system (before the one implemented now) was very boring for me.

A little over a year ago, I started up fishing again due to being bored and broke. My goal was reaching fishing 100 and getting my Ebisu, which is the closest I ever thought I would ever get to a Relic in the game. Well, things didn't seem to happen in the order I expected, but I am not going to complain:

As shown, I finished up skilling on Cave Cherax because I didn't want to start fishing Liks or Gugs until I had capped skill. Most fishers I've talked to said that fishing skillups after 90 were really slow, and for 90-94 that was true for me. However, I fell into some sort of skillup vortex at level 95 and got those last 5 levels in under 4 days, so I will just consider myself lucky and not question it...

Since then, I took a crack at fishing Liks, and with the two fishing rings with charges, it isn't a problem. At this point, I will probably take a break from fishing for now and keep working on my subjobs for the level cap increase coming in June. I will make another post after the patch with what I think about the levle cap increase and the new add-on.

Indomitable Spirit

2010-02-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

I don't think much more needs to be said...

Ebisu Fishing Rod mine!

Special thanks to Cdgreg and Upbeat for supplying me. Final tally was 1/387 for Gugs, and 1/68 for Liks. Not too bad, since the approximate average for the quest is a 0.5% droprate on the two items you need (Which makes the average number of required fish about 400 total).

So long, and thanks for all the fish...

Moglification: Fishing

2010-01-13T19:18:00.001-08:00

Lately I have taken up fishing. I am currently somewhere around 91.3 fishing, and about 0/400 for Ebisu fish. Fishing has been quite slow, but today I was able to check a big item off of my 'To Do' List:

I have also managed to get both Fishing Rings from MMM (Seagull Ring and Heron Ring). I currently have my Tabula hosted in Lower Jeuno, but if people have questions about Fishing MMM, feel free to ask me.

Until next time...

They Fought The Law, And The Law Won.

2009-01-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

If you have not heard by now, there was a huge Salvage/Nyzul/Sandworm glitch awhile back that allowed people to increase the normal droprate of items. Until now, many people thought they got away with using this bug to get free item drops, but apparently SE has not taken kindly to the situation, and issued mass bannings. The players on Odin have kept it pretty quiet who was banned and who wasn't.

My character, who has never even entered Salvage, is perfectly fine, ~~and noone I know personally on Odin was affected by this series of bannings (that I know about anyway)~~. I do feel bad for some of the people who recieved the banstick, but honestly this just makes me feel better about my groups shitty Nyzul Isle drop rate. That however, is another story...

Edit: Turns out I do know a few people who got banned. Not sure if they are temp or not, but I'll be nice and keep it quiet for now. :-/

Seraph the Red Mage!?!

2009-01-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

The hell you say!?! Yeah, I've sort of put Paladin on the back burner and taken a shot at leveling Red Mage, to be the more complete player I guess. It's been moderately fun so far, and I have gotten to level 50 with capped skills, and full AF in storage waiting to now be worn. Not too terrible of a situation to be in.

There isn't much to talk about, the job revolves around refreshing the MP users, casting haste on everyone who wants it, debuffing the monster when necessary, and healing when able. Oh, and the routine ten minute converts, to try to compensate for my terrible Elvaan MP situation. -_-

Anyway, Ararith and I got to joking about being able to Ballista once my RDM was 75, and the topic of how I would go about winning came up. I suggested I could just kite her with DoT and movement speed, like any good RDM should.

I'll post a more detailed discussion about my thoughts on RDM once I get to 60 and can take my elemental staves and AF for a test drive. Right now, I do feel sort of like just a refresh whore, and with only decent gear, my enfeebles don't always stick, and that makes me a sad panda. More details when I get to it!...

Updates: Comming Soonish!

2008-06-15T11:40:00.001-07:00

I have been very busy lately, but I have about nine months worth of stuff to talk about. Most notable accomplishments have been:

- Homam 5/5
- PLD AF+1 Set 5/5
- RDM Subjob 37
- Adventuring Fellow Level 66
- Almost finished with PLD merits.
- Exploring WotG content, and working on remaxing my Campaign Rank.

I'll get into the mess details once I have time to put together a real post. Just wanted to let people know I am still around, but haven't really had the time to put together a really good post.

Just Wait Till We Get Our {{Homam}} On You! ™ v2.0

2007-10-14T19:01:00.001-07:00

Does lightning ever strike the same place twice? Well, maybe not exactly, but these drops pretty much kick just as much ass as last week:

Having the Homam Body in my possession puts me at 4/5 for my Homam collection now. All that remains is the feet, and I believe I am first on that list. Probably going to do a few Ultimas since we have been so Omega heavy lately, but lets hope once we do Omega again that the feet drop, so I don't have to keep living the lie that is Amir Boots. >.>;;;;

Just Wait Till We Get Our {{Homam}} On You! ™

2007-10-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I have managed to get my hands on some worthwhile PLD item, and after my little drama scene on BG, I didn't think anything exciting would happen again for at least a few weeks. As it turns out, Ararith was off with Tuufless a little while ago trying to leech a DRG or BRD AF item from Apollyon and managed to get the Magenta Chip from the zone (Those crazy BLMs don't have any use for it apparently). For some reason, hearing this seems to have made my Limbus leaders switch gears from 'Ultima' mode, to 'Omega' mode. We decided to put together a run to do Omega, and not only did Ararith get two more of the chips she needed for a full Omega set, but this scene welcomed us when Omega went down and we opened the chest:

After all was said and done, we have three more happy members, and another 5/5 Homam set. I can't complain. ^^

Assuming all goes well on Tuesday, we will have another Omega set we will use on Saturday. That impresses me, since at least half of this set came on accident, and was assembled in just over a week. No complaints from me about it though...

As far as the points standings are now, I am first for both Homam Feet and Homam Body with literally noone even close to me points wise. I'm hoping feet drop Saturday, since the Body is mostly for show, and just a slight DD upgrade since I can't tank in it, and it has no haste. I must say though, it feels good to finally be 3/5 Homam after waiting for a drop for many months now. Future updates as they become available. (^.^)v

Professional Appropriation (and Restoration)

2007-10-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, look what ffxiclopedia stole from me!!!

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/index.php?title=Ravin_Raven

Take a look at my previous post. I gave BG permission to use my images, and then ffxiclopedia burgles them without asking at all. Pricks. Tell you what, why dont they upload this instead?

{{Wikia.}} {{My Ass.}} {{You can kiss it.}}

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After the Fact Edit: Wikia ended up pulling down the image from their page, but I'll leave my rant post here for historical reference. In case you were wondering, the image in question was a cropped portion of the original version of this:

Pretty much just had the part with Ravin Raven and Ararith cropped out. There was alot of drama on BG, but I am hoping some decent 'content borrowing' practices come from all this. Also, my ass is sexual content. Viewer Discression is advised.

Ravin Raven...

2007-10-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

So, the good people over at Blue Gartr had a new pet project going on. Locating the last unlocated NM in the ToAU areas...

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24327&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

So, I chipped in on the discussion, since supposedy this item was involved...

So, reading through the thread, some info was discovered (read the thread if you want the details) and after a few hours of work look what I found:

...and apparently it can drop things...

Makes a good case for the Birdman Cape to drop here... Ah well, better luck next week. ^^

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Also, pics for my personal use:

Jailer of Procrastination

2007-09-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since I last posted. I haven't had a ton of time to play ingame, but I have managed to get a few things accomplished. I finished the ToAU missions. (Picked the mage ring because the melee one just isn't good enough to warrant losing Autorefresh in Assault type areas). I also managed to get my hands on the RDM Relic Gloves, and a Moldy Earring recently. Yes, yes... I have become semi-serious recently about my claims of leveling RDM. I'll address that in a future post though...

I also was able to watch Ararith finish her CoP missions through to CoP 8-2. You know what that means... Hot Limbus Action. It was fun getting to watch and listen to her do the fights leading up to the Omega/Ultima fight, and Tenzen. Her semi-static did pretty good (Diabolos through The Three Paths in a little under 2 weeks), but I ultimately feel it will breakup now that people have Sea access. Certain members of her static were unsatisified with their progress (as fast as it may have been) and deserted the group before the O/U fight. Luckly, we have friends in high places and my Sky shell is all too happy to get another person or two Sea access for farming there. They made short work of the fights with the additional manpower, and that's that. She has told me she already has the Rajas Ring bookmarked, and I can't blame her. A Tamas Ring is all but useless on BRD, and who wouldn't want a Rajas for DRG after the 2 handed weapon update?

On a closing note, more details about the new expansion are comming out. Rumors of the new potential Avatar Atomos, and pictures of one of the new jobs (Looks to be a dancer type class, what it gets officially called is anyones guess) are starting to surface. I'm not too worried about it at the moment, since we have 2 months until the expansion comes out. You could say I've been chilling out waiting for forthcomming details...

I'll try to make a more detailed post soon, most likely with details describing my RDM plans, and expansion information. I just recieved my new widescreen laptop, so between fighting with Vista, an 8000 series GeForce graphics card, and DirectX10, it's been an uphill battle. FFXI runs on it (Amazingly), but the framerate kinda dies with more than a few people onscreen. I'll have to try to mess around with the registry and my graphics drivers a little more to polish things up. Details as they become available...

Questing the Holy Grail...

2007-07-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their Grail. That one thing, that one item, that one event that eludes them. Keeps itself just out of grasp, seems impossible to get. Well, I have one in FFXI. For what I've caculated to be just over two years, I have been trying to get the Crimson Cuisses. What is the Crimson Cuisses you ask? Well, sit down and let me tell you a little story.

There are a handfull of items in FFXI that increase movement speed. I don't mean haste which causes faster attacks and recasts, but actual movement speed. Like, get my ass from point A to point B quicker than before. The Striders Boots, Herald's Gaiters, and Ninja Artifact Boots (At Night), and some Salvage armor piece I can't recall at the moment all increase movement speed. There is, however, one single pieces of cursed god armor that also does this, the Crimson Cuisses. It is a piece of leg armor made using an abjuration drop off of Kirin. The main special quality of this piece of armor is of course, its the only movement increasing piece of armor that Paladin can use. X-D

Anyway, now that my little backstory is over, back to the present. Long story short, in all three endgame sky shells I have been in, either I was never high enough on the points list to get the drop off Kirin, or when I was first for the drop it never dropped. My streak of no drop Kirins where I was first in line stands at a whopping fifteen. So, when I heard we were doing another double Kirin this Friday, I figured I would get another double 'no drop' like we did two weeks ago. For the first time in a long time, I was wrong...

Over two years! Man, I just didn't know what to say. 'Thy suffering hast been rewarded' indeed. I am still kinda amazed by it. I guess I will have to find a new Grail eventually...

Though, it's been awhile since our LS last got a pair, so everyone was pretty pumped. I even got another PLD to tag along for a nice fashion shot after I got the legs...

Thinking that the weekend couldn't get any more fun after hours of running around in my new fast pants, I finally managed to get enough Ancient Beastcoins for my Brutal Earring. I should still be twenty-two short, but a buddy in my LS gave me the rest of his since he is quitting at the end of the month. Ruheibenbai, you will be missed, take care man. In his honor, I am naming the earring "Ruh's Brutal." Five percent of my swings will now be because of him. :3

Oh well, a mixed blessing of sorts I guess. I am looking forward to the new dungeon event thing during Summerfest this year. Also, Ararith is going to make me go scooping again this week so we can make her a signed Goldfish Bowl. /shudder... (o.o);;;;;;;;;;

Silent Reflections

2007-06-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile. My last post was made in anger, and haste. I had seriously wondered about quiting either dynamis, or the game entirely. Between time issues, and getting upset about events ingame, it was starting to wear on my nerves. ( See the Tuufless post which sums up my feelings in this department well: http://tuufless.blogspot.com/2007/06/disgruntled-taru.html )

But, I thought about it, and I always felt I took more good from the game than bad. So I kept chugging along. A lot has happened since my last post. I have gotten my Homam Hat, Valor Gauntlets +1, Loquacious earring, Hrotti, and Aegishjalmr (Fafnir was good to me on Memorial Day). I've also finished all the current ToA missions, beaten Bahamut v1, capped Great Sword at 250, gotten Parrying 208, capped Enhancing Magic at 210, and helped with various events and missions.

I've been a busy bee I guess. There are some issues which have been annoying me lately. Dynamis runs never seem to be the ones I want to do, a few people in my Sky LS have been causing issues, wouldn't mind being higher on the Limbus item lists. You know, the usual things. People bitching, me bitching back, them getting offended. Good Stuff. ^^

I know Goroaki always regretted complaining in his blog, since it burned alot of bridges for him. I generally don't like to specify names, but on this one occasion, because the event that I have never laughed harder at (or been more pissed off at), I'll break my rule:

I realize not everyone in the Res endgame LS is a badguy. I realize Hex and a few of his leaders cause most of the shit. People follow their leaders, and don't want to rock the boat, or be left out. Let's be honest though, there is no reason to screw a different shell just for kicks. They had MPKd our alliance on the Jailor of Justice by DoTing the tanks when they were charmed (effectively slowly wiping the alliance) just to try to steal claim. They stole it, but ended up wiping due to its special moves and adds in about 15 seconds. (Which really, really, really made my day.)

Needless to say, I butt humped Hex for a good 10 minutes and made some sarcastic comments while the alliance got back on its feet (See picture above). I am usually one of the first people to complain about childish antics, but you know what? He deserves anything he gets, so I wasn't too heartbroken over any embarasment or hard feelings. He is an ass to people, he can deal with it.

My advice to the rest of the Res people: get him to clean up his act. You guys get a reputation for being assholes that never seems to go away. Refusal to help or participte with Res members in any way because of the endgame idiocy is a strong stigma. Don't be those guys. Tell the people causing trouble to shut the fuck up, and be real leaders. I'll leave it at that.

To be honest though, most of my nights have been doing endgame shit. Dynamis on Saturday, Limbus on Tuesday and Saturday, Sea/Sky Monday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday. I haven't been able to really merit or anything. Kinda bothers me; people always want a PLD to tank shit for them, but ask for an EXP invite and that love dies really fast.

I was going to make some comments about the new endgame event Einherjar, but a post on KI sums it up pretty well ( http://www.killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=155446&d=150 ):

Bjond wrote:

IMHO, you were more lucky than smart. Which spawns you get and how many you get seems to overshadow strategy on Einherjar. That's a real shame, because I hate events where it's more luck than strategy.

There seem to be two basic "strategies" for Einherjar: bring a lot of bards, bring a lot of blms. No one really does anything special. BRDs sleep. BLMs stun and nuke. This is an oversimplication, but it's what things seem to boil down to at present. If your shell has enough with those jobs available, you can do well. If you don't, your chance of just dying is near certain.

If you're lucky, you get a low critter count, multiple critter types (thus all don't come at once), and a manageable boss. If you're not, you get 24 of a single hard-to-sleep critter along with the Marid boss. Waaaaay too much variance there on difficulty, imho. You could keep sacrificing 180k and mules to get a good chamber, but that's hardly what I'd call "viable strategy". It's more like a "clever exploit for a poor design."

Nail on the head, I don't need to say anything more. People in my shell want to keep at it, and I will assist them, but I can only throw myself at the wall so many times before looking for a way around it. I've been mocked for claiming its too hard or rather claiming the variance of difficulty is too severe. Some people like asinine challenges, and that is just what this ends up being sometimes. Bad mob selection? Bad boss? Not enough BRDs? Not enough mages? You lose, good show chap, now make sure to use more lube next time... I am sure we can eventually brute force our way through it where we win more than lose, but that doesn't equate to less disappointment. Yeah, we were like the first (one of the first? I really can't be sure) groups to clear it on Odin, but the drops were shitty. I'm just hoping there is a catch, or a trick I just don't see yet. Something to redeem this lackluster 30 minute clusterfuck.

...alright, I'm getting upset again. I'll tone it down. In the future, I'll try to post more and have some more pictures. Other blogs have seemed to die off, and that kinda bothered me. There used to be a ton of awesome blogs, but most people have stopped updating. I figure at least I can keep contributing on some small scale for the Odin players. Until then, toodles.~

Minus fifty points.

2007-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Busy tanking Dynamis-Xarcabard NMs, SMN AF drops, 5 minutes goes by, forget to pass...

-50 points. So, I got to pay to go into dynamis to lose about a month's worth of points.

Fuck this game.

Debating quiting or at least taking a break for dynamis. Losing more or less a months worth of time, effort, and money to a simple mistake really makes you stop caring about helping others.

Omega Supreme

2007-02-06T21:02:00.000-08:00

So, Limbus has taken the spot as my favorite endgame activity. Not to slam Dynamis (4 hours long), or Sky (goddamn RMT), or HMN Kings (I don't bot, I don't claim), but they are getting boring as of late. Limbus still seems fun to me though. It's relatively short, interesting, and usually faster paced. The 50K a trip pricetag was starting to wear on my wallet, but I think it's finally paid off...

We were going to do an Ultima run on Saturday. I am not really fond of Ultima since it likes to rock my socks (I went through an entire RR gorget last time). Fortunately, the people needed to pull off an Ultima didnt really show up (and those that did mostly didn't want to do Ultima), but we had enough people for an Omega run...

Which brings me to the Omega situation. Our record with Omega has been pretty decent. We have gone 3/4 on the runs I have gone to, and the loss was pretty much due to us trying to kill Omega once with too few people, and not having a backup tank. I've assist tanked a few times, this being the second time with Lordlotuskiller's NIN/DRK build. With a run under my belt, this run went much smoother than the last one we had.

We killed Omega, poped the chest, and out fell the pieces for Homan Hands and Head. As it turned out, I was tied for first on points for the Homam Hands lot, and wouldnt you know it, they dropped along with the hat... ^^

I had one of the absolutely _worst_ lots of my FFXI career though. I was so pissed, since I have wanted these hands since they were put in the game, and this was the first time I had ever seen them drop. As it turns out though, luck was on my side. I am generally liked in my shell, and the other two potantial people lotting were not especially interested in this piece, they were more interested in saving points to be able to compete on future Homam leg lots. So, my lot went unchallenged:

Congrats to Jodah for his winning freelot on the Homam headpiece. ^^v After a quick run to Mhura, I was in possession of possibly the best tanking hands in the game. They are unbeatable for PLD/NIN tanking, and damn good for PLD/WAR tanking too.

They blow my Valor Gauntlets out of the water with the sole exception of the Shield Bash Enhancement. I can definately deal with losing 2 DEF and 5 VIT for 2HP, 20MP, 4 ACC, 3% haste, and the envious looks of many fellow adventurers. >.> I still have the Relic hands in my inventory, but they might end up in my Mog House very soon, as its been days and I haven't even put them on.

Oh well, maybe in a few months I can add a new piece of Homam to my collection... ^.^v

Mixed Blessings

2007-02-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

You know, maybe I am finally getting some respect in this game for a change...

...shit..................

Merry Christmas to all...

2006-12-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

"I tanked Dynamis Lord, and Lived! ...and then died later to a fucking eye."

2006-12-15T11:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted, lets get the big stuff out of the way...

So, ExplorerII decided to take a run at the Dynamis Lord again. As far as I know, their previous attempt ( before I joined the shell) ended with a wipe at ~20%. So, being more than a year later, a rematch was in order. The details are boring, but in summary three members got their Necrosythe item thingies for their stage three relic weapons from the dragons on the way to DL. A nice bonus if you ask me. I ended up solo tanking DL *gulp* and did fine. I only needed to live for about 10 seconds thanks to the insane RDM/DRK chainspell stunlock. Invincible kept me alive and DL distracted, and the rest of the alliance did the rest. Not a bad run for only 40 people, and a Shadow mantle droped as well. I didn't get it, but there is always next time... ^^

In other news, my choco-raising effort have finally payed off. I mated my now retired yellow female chocobo RadiantPlume to a friends dark blue (purple?) chocobo with interesting results...

So, apparently, mating a yellow female with a purple male chocobo gives you a red chocobo. OK THEN! Anyway, my new chocobo is a red male named ShadowFlare. I took him in the Strength/Endurance path, so once he grew up, he ended up with a bigger tail and larger feet than normal, thanks to that choco update awhile back. Needless to say, I've been told once I max his stats, many friends want a red chococard, my poor chocobo is going to be a sexual dynamo! ^^

In leveling news, I finally got NIN37! I must say, I really can't stand low level leveling anymore. There is just too huge a pool of idiocy, and not enough decent players to counter it. Not to mention that RMT is releveling after the last wave of bannings. I don't know how these morons get to 75 so quickly, after seeing how bad they do at level 35. It was nice, because the people I was partying with were able to wait until I hit 37 before disbanding. I didn't even get to try out my new scroll, and just as well. I was sick of NIN at that point.

I also was able to finally trade in some of my Limbus items for a pair of Gallant Leggings +1. It's nice to see artifact armor in a white box, and the +12 shield skill isn't anything to laugh at either.

Finally, sometimes I think the game hates me only to discover it has pity upon me occasionally. I have been trying forever and a day to get a Resentment Cape. It's just a decent level 40 cape with +2 Enmity on it, and a -5% magic damage taken effect outside nations control. Nothing insane to be sure, but it's R/EX and drops from yet another 21 hour repop mob (see Intruder Earring.) Anyway, I went with Akanea to go kill the Death From Above NM for the low delay dagger he wanted, and wouldn't you know it on the way back to the outpost I see the NM that drops the cape. It definately wasn't there when I came through not 10 minutes earlier. With the three people on hand we destroyed the mob, and the cape actually dropped. Everyone else passed, and I became the proud owner of a new Resentment Cape. ^^

On monday, the new update comes out. I am curious exactly how the announced PLD changes will be, and I'll keep you posted to all the other game changes as well...

Divine Might

2006-11-28T12:57:00.000-08:00

It's been while since my last post. With the holidays starting up and the ladyfriend home on break, I don't have all the free time I'm used to.

Anyway, onwards to buisness...

There was alot of DRAMA in one of my more recent Dynamis Windurst runs. We were running really short on time, and had to make a few sacrifice pulls. Essentially, all of the THFs in the alliance were sac pulling the special NMs and I was pinpointing them, bringing them back to the group, and then running off with another THF to make another pull. Things worked out nicely though and we got the clear.

With all our pullers down though, we tried some "safe" pulls that almost ended up wiping the alliance. I went down on one of the middle mobs in the group, and not 30 seconds later, what happens?

So, I'll be honest. I know the Valor Leggings aren't that great, but I seem to be the _only_ dynamis PLD that doesn't have them, and that bothers me. So they dropped, I was dead, and kinda freaked out. I got a raise, but the problem was i was smack in the middle of the action, so I was killed by AoE before I could even lot. Four Raise 1s later I finally get out of batlte range, and win the freelot. (I was late to getting there and missed reserving it.)

So, between that and a 100 Byne Bill I got in Bastok, Dynamis has been fairly nice to me lately. I'm still saving points for the Valor pants, but I am also tempted to blow some points on more 100 bills, since I need some gil.

I'm also still leveling NIN, and I managed to get NIN30 the other day. Only 7 more levels! I used most of my 100 money to get NIN gear and finally buy Utsusemi:Ni. I still really can't get into the whole shadows thing, I think PLD is just too burned into my head... More developments as they unfold.

As the title of this little post suggests I have dabbled in the BC known to many in the FFXI endgame world. My previous attempt with L7 ended tragically, since I had to skip out in the winning run to make dynamis. I tried doing it a second time with a pickup group, but despite the good planning, the execution wasnt there, and we ended up running out of time (and burning my Ark Pentasphere.) It wasn't a good sign when the first run was ruined because someone entered before the item was traded AGAIN. Seriously people. You must be able to read to play this game, listen to the group leaders. K THX BYE.

So, a friend from my dynamis shell (and a rival sky shell, but thats cool) heard about my DM plight. They wanted to plan 2 runs, but really needed a tank, since they had no PLDs available. I said I would love to, and we did 2 DM runs. The planning was good, people listened this time, and we went 2/2. Yay!

After thinking about it for awhile, I did decide to get the Suppanomimi. Just look at it, it screams PLD/NIN, and besides, I already have a ton of Shield Skill gear. Now I am kinda looking forwards to finishing up the ZM missions, since it's a prereq for the Ethereal Earring quest. Big thanks to all those guys who helped out with the runs, and congrats to all the new DM earring holders. v(^.^)

Right after our DM runs, Erat invited me to do the latest ToAU mission battle, since they had 4 DDs, a WHM, and no tank. The mission went smoothly, and it was quite humerous, especially during the actual fight...

Thats actual NPC text during the battle. Totally awesome if you ask me, it is the little touches like these that make the new missions kinda fun. I even got a little e-peen boost in one of the cutscenes after the battle...

I don't know if the text is the same for everyone, reguardless of job, but that is awesome text for a Paladin. /blush The missions ended fairly well, and left you with a cliffhanger scene with the ghost pirate captain Luzaf standing in front of what can only be described as a painting of Odin Vs. Alexander... If CoP tells me anything, its that those wall paintings always predict the future...

Strange Things Are Happening...

2006-11-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

So, for the most part it has been a boring few weeks. However, there have been a few humerous events happening in sky:

In my defense, Aurelius got another key not 10 minutes later, so I don't feel bad in the slightest. Also, I got my first sky kill:

The irony was that we were undermaned at the pop, I had just got there, Faust was at 1% and I decided "Why not?" BOOM HOLY HEADSHOT.

Also, there was some weird stuff going on in Dynamis Xarcabard...

That is the _first_ time I have ever seen the RDM drop for us, ever since I joined my Dynamis LS. That's easily well over a year, and then poof, 2 drop within 15 minutes from each other. The complete run went 100, THF, PLD, SAM, WAR, RDM, RDM. Pretty much the best Xarc run ever... \(^_^)/

"Go on and increase in valor for this is the path to immortality."

2006-10-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Nothing like a little quote from The Inferno to brighten your day. What does this have to do with anything? I'll get there in a minute...

So, things have been kinda slow lately, not a whole lot going on. I went on my second sky gods run with LuckySevens (L7) on Friday, but it turned into more of a farming run than a god run, since we were missing some people who needed items. We ended up fighting what is now my third Genbu with them. Genbu is by far my favorite sky NM. I know most people make fun of him, or hate him, but he is just a "Tig ol' Burtle" and I laugh wnenever I fight him (her?). Anyway, the loot drops and wouldn't you know the W. Feet Abj. drops and it happens to be in freelot status since noone reserved it...

Now, the cool thing about freelotting in L7 is that the items are actually free. I got an item I have wanted for some time now, absolutely free in terms of sky points. I was very happy. Now, I know these aren't the best feet ever, but they present a nice alternative when staff tanking, or kiting. Besides that, they look kinda cool and will hopefully someday compliment my pair of Crimson Legs. >.>

Now, just when I thought a weekend couldn't get any better (I mean come on, free item!), ExplorerII was doing a Dynamis-Xarcabard run on Saturday. I have been after the Paladin Relic Body Armor for a long time now, and for two reasons I have been unable to attain one. First, for a long time in Explorer due to my schedule and the timing of runs, I didn't have Xarcabard access. Secondly, there are something like 6 people who wanted the body ahead of me. When I started active lots there were 3 people ahead of me. So, I was 4th in line for an item that never seems to drop. Three coats have dropped since then, and I was currently the point leader for the Valor Surcoat (but I assumed since my luck sucks it would never drop now). Now, there are certain NMs in this zone (one per job pre ToAU jobs) that have a pretty decent chance to drop their respective relic. The Paladin NM never seems to drop because it Invincibles, and it gets "Magic Killed." That destroys the droprate on items. Some people don't agree with me on this, but I tend to find that it is the trend. Anyway, the only Valor Surcoats I have ever seen have dropped off this NM. Today's run went like usual, no AF dropped off the NMs (except the DRK relic helm which Aurelius was not online to lot...so it got trashed...again...). I figured the run was going to be the usual BST, DRK, and DRG relic dropping marathon it usually is. I ended up dying from a weird pull consisting of alot of casting BLM mobs, and before I can reraise what do I see? A gosh darn fricken Valor Surcoat. Immediately everyone knew the drop was going to me, and people started to panic since I and a few other people were down, and unable to lot/pass. Thank heavens for Reraise Gorgets, I was back up, and lotting...

I couldn't believe it! (Except for the crappy lot in true Seraph style, that I can believe...) After a few minutes of alliance recovery, everyone passed and the coat was mine. I can finally sent the Adaman Body to my Mog House where it belongs.

Afterwards I went running around in my new gear, I think it looks pretty spiffy. It feels good to be one piece closer to 5/5 relic armor. All I need now are the Valor Breeches and Valor Leggings. The pants are going to be tougher since I am second in line, but the feet should be no problem, assuming they finally drop. (^.^)v

Oh I love a {Parade Gorget}!

2006-09-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

So, there was this long standing mystery in the FFXI world since about Summer 2005. The question was how to get a Parade Gorget. Few knew about this rare item, and even fewer knew how to get it (a handfull of JP players on Ifrit.) The debate on how to get it raged on for over a year, until finally the news broke...

An interview with a SE representative finally produces enough clues to allow for the crafting of Goblin Drinks, the supposed pop item for the supposed NM Goblin Wolfman which supposedly dropped the Parade Gorget. Turns out they were right...

Needless to say, the recipe was cooking 80 cap, and since im cooking 102, I ran off to make a stack of them or so to get myself a gorget. I spent sime time farming ingredients, and managed to make 11 drinks. While in the Sea Serpent Grotto farming an ingredient for the drinks, I managed to grab myself a pair of Frog Trousers from a NM there. They aren't great, but they have a cool name so I figured I would keep them incase I ever level a Mage job.

After spending 2 nights in Oldton, I finally managed to get a Parade Gorget for myself, Aurelius, Theora, and Willriker. Congrats to everyone. I'm glad this mystery is finally solved... ^.^

Now, the latent on the Parade Gorget is a little funny as far as auto-refresh goes. It offers 1mp/tick as the standard auto-refresh, but it is triggered by having more than 85% of your "naked HP" plus the amount of HP given by visible armor (armor that redraws your character as you swap it.) So, say you had 1000hp naked, and 100hp added from visible equipment. The latent effect kicks in at 950hp/1100hp. This is a unique latent effect, and nice in that I don't have to be half dead to get more auto-refresh. With this and the Herc ring, I get 2mp a tick except roughly when I'm between 50% HP and 75% HP. That's pretty darn cool...

In other news, I finally dropped 2.5M to get a Gigant Mantle...

This is one of the last pieces of buyable tanking gear I need. With it, and my other +HP gear, I can get over 1650hp without food and merits. I think thats pretty solid for right now, considering most PLDs don't even have over 1500 even with good gear.

The only other things I can even consider buying for "tanking" are a Vermy Cloak, a Cassie Earring, and maybe a pair of Hades Earrings+1. These items are all way overpriced, so I am not too worried about it. There are some DD items I am looking into as well, namely some rings, earrings, and a back piece. These can also wait for now, since I am almost out of gil at the moment. Hopefully once I get another 10M gil or so, I can get every piece of gear my PLD could ever wear, and that would make me a happy panda! (^.^)/

Busy, Busy, Busy...

2006-09-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I can sum up most of the events of the past several weeks as follows:

To explain a little more deeply:

- I managed to complete the series of CoP missions up to and through CoP 8-4. I was thinking about getting a Rajas Ring, but decided to go for the Sattva Ring instead, being a PLD at heart and all... ^-^

- Dynamis Bastok decided to not suck for once, and I won a free lot on the Valor Coronet drop. As it happens, a second one dropped going to the person lotting against me, so I don't feel so bad about winning the first lot.

- I did some prep for a Divine Might run getting my Ark Pentasphere which is needed to initiate a run. Unfortunately, we wiped on the first run and I had to leave for Dynamis, afterwhich the second run went flawlessly. >.< Maybe I'll get my ZM earring next time.... :-/

- Needing a break from endgame, I decided to camp the VE in the dunes hoping for a drop. I ended up going 0/11 and almost decided to call it quits. However, the members of TrueRune almost as a joke one evening decided to camp VE since we were all bored. VE spawned, I spotted it, and Akanea got the claim. We waited about five minutes waiting for our LS THF Saoirse to show up with TH2, and after she SATA'd it in the butt, it dropped the pin! The LS decided since I had been camping it the longest, I got to claim the item, on the condition I would finally level NIN to 37+. As a side note, I have gotten it to 23 so far... ^_^

- I have wanted my very own Walahra turban for quite some time now. I figured it would be a nice item to have for my future PLD/NIN build, having MP+30, HP+30, and haste+5% on it. Imperial Gold Coins were down to 30K each one night, so I blew 10K ISP and bought the other 10 coins, and after something like 350+ NPC trades, I had my very own {feather tickle} {hat}!

- As a last little note, two pairs of Valor Gauntlets dropped on our last Dynamis Sandy run. The funny part though, was they were from back to back mobs. Kinda weird, to be honest. I already have my own, so the first pair was free lotted, and the second fed the trashcan. Oh well, I still got a kick out of it. I just need Valor Breeches, Valor Surcoats, and Vallor Leggings to drop like that... ^_^

So, I have been busy IRL lately. I am moving into a new house, so my playing time has been severly limited. Most days all I have time for is to log in to check my chocobo and do dynamis runs when they come along. As it turns out, my chocobo is a female named RadiantPlume, and she is yellow. I am trying to set her build to be fast, focusing on Strength and Endurance. I figure, maybe i can breed her to a male black chocobo and get a fast black chocobo later down the line...

So, with not a ton of time to play, I am thinking I might start making leveling NIN my fulltime priority until i get it to around 40. That way, I have a nice new sub for my PLD main, and also can use NIN to do some BCNMs... I'll keep you posted. (^.^)v

Warrior of the Crystal

2006-09-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

So, I've been a little busy lately. First thing first, I decided to merit after getting to level 75. After getting about an 18K exp buffer I switched to merit mode, and plowed away at about 35K exp. My first action once reaching my mog house was to unlock the Chivalry job ability. What Chivalry does is act like a sort of twisted version of Convert, in that your TP is changed into MP. The ratio is about 1: ~1.4 in that if you have say 200tp, you would lose all TP and gain 280mp. I have only used it a handful of times but I must say sometimes getting a full MP bar back is much more useful than one weaponskill, especially when tanking since the move has a huge hatespike, somewhere near Invincible if you have 300tp.

Recently, my dynamis shell Explorer has decided to dive into the CoP versions of Dynamis. Now, most shells only do the "original five dynamis zones", but with the promise of the relic accessories and AF2+1 armor, I guess the shell leaders couldn't resist. Unlike the standard zones, these ones have an additional prereq. for you to fufill, you must have defeated Diabolos in the CoP storyline. (Not the Diabolos battle to summon him, just the level 40 cap one.) That is in addition to the standard level 65 requirement.

Now, we have never done one of these zones before, and there is a twist. You start the run with no subjobs. That's right, I get to enter as a glorious PLD75 / WAR00. However, there are ???s spread throughout the zone, and once someone touches the correct one, everyone's subjobs come back, making the run alot easier. Our beta CoP dynamis run was Dynamis-Buburimu. The idea is to kill some of the NMs that are running around in order to disable certain moves and 2-hour abilities of the Mega-Boss. Assuming you do nothing, and go straight for the boss, he will have access to every 2-hour in the game, and in addition a few more nasty moves that he will spam. We were able to take out some key moves (like Benediction) and defeat the boss getting the clear!

Now, this zone is weird in that farming comes only after you defeat the boss. New "Nightmare mobs" (as seen above) spawn that can drop the items new to these zones. We farmed for awhile getting some money drops, the BRD Relic Cape, and WAR AF-1 gloves. Decent drops for our first run, but what I found funny was I got the first drop in the new CoP zones in the Explorer shell. Go me!

Now, I have had torn feelings about CoP as of late. I always promised I would not abandon my TrueRune CoP static, but alot of things have changed lately. One of our mages Tumble has pretty much gone AWOL as of late, and my Co-Strat man Tuufless has retired from FFXI. In addition, our SMN / SAM Chummy was away due to home/school issues, and wasn't supposed to return until sometime in September. My fears were that it would be near impossible to beat CoP at this point due to us being short 2-3 people, and me losing half of our strategy team. It doesn't help that information about CoP becomes less and less available the further you go, obviously caused by the fact that fewer and fewer people get that far in the missions.

Now, it was at this point I was approached by my PLD75 buddy Willriker. He knew that I had wanted to complete CoP 8-1 solely to get the Tavnazian Ring so I could get a new warp item. He invited Akanea, Saoirse, and myself to tag along when his static did it so we could get the rings as well. Now, doing this mission doesn't put you too far ahead of anyone else, its just killing 9 mobs and clicking a few doors. Things went bad when one of Will's static people didn't show, and they decided to cancel.

Now, Will explained that they only had 5 people in their static, and were looking for a 6th member. He seemed somewhat upset, because with his 5th member's mysterious absence, and lacking a 6th person, this placed them with a group of 4, and that made doing pretty much anything impossible, especially by their September 4th deadline. Now, I am a loyal dude, but I saw 2 opportunities here: I could help out a friend in a different static, and I could see how they did things, in the hope of gaining some experience for my TrueRune static saving us a great deal of time, exp, and frustration. After talking it over with Akanea, I decided to go ahead with Will's static for the hell of it (while still being a part of the original static, I mean, I like these guys ^^), since they were running out of time, and to be honest curiosity had gotten the better of me.

To be brief, we started CoP 8-1 with a PLD, PLD, RDM, WHM, DRK combo (with some assistance from a BLM for 8-1 to sleep links). Mission 8-1 went without a hitch, and I am convinced a group of 4 people could pull it off, assuming you had a tank, and a BLM for sleep. Once finished, we proceeded to get our Tavnazian Rings and enter the main castle area of Sea called the "Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi", continuing with mission 8-2.

Mission 8-2 is essentially following a very mazelike path consisting of 2 levels with 5 wings each, trying to escort verious NPCs around to open doors for you. Most things agro all levels, when they are in certain phases (usually in their "I'm not wrapped up in a small ball" phase.) It took us awhile, especially since we got lost for the first hour, but after taking a few minutes with a seperate marked map, I was able to make sense of things, and became the new map person. After finishing 8-2 and getting a CS, you are granted access into the center of the tower in a zone called the "Garden of Ru'Hmet" This marks the beginning of CoP 8-3.

Now, CoP 8-3 is essentially very similiar to 8-2, but the one major exception is there is a BC fight at the end. Now, the mission starts by requiring you to climb up to 5 towers depending on what races make up your group. If you are all tarutaru you would only need to climb one certain tower. If you were all Elvaan and Galka, you would have to climb 2 certain towers, etc. Now, we happened to have 5 people, and 2 Elvaan, 1 Tarutatu, 1 Hume, and 1 Mithra. Damn, that means we get to climb 4/5 towers. However, with me at the helm (in a sense since I had the map), it didn't take long since we used the "Sleep and Run" approach. After getting everyone their key items at the top of the towers, we proceeded to have to take an elevator up, and the only way (until you finish the mission) is to run past 4 pots that are almost impossible to run past without tripping the door shut. We decided to run to the door, die, wait until the pots reset (reopening the door), and reraise running quickly through. Once to the elevator, we were able to go up to floor 2 (the basement was not available.......hmmm...) and proceeded to run around getting 2 more key items needed to access floor 3. This went without a single hitch, and before you knew it, we were up to the third floor, where the BC fight would take place.

Now, Willriker had realized we probably stood a Snoll Czar's chance in hell with just the 5 of us, so he had talked to another group and they agreed to help us by splitting up and going as 2 runs making up 2 good parties with what each group had. Some people would go once, some would go twice. Now, I ended up going into the first group which was made up of PLD, NIN, DRK, WHM, BLM, BLM. The idea of the fight is you have to fight 4 pot mosters at the same time. Sleeping them at the start and taking them down one by one was the way to go. The NIN Jokerr (a friend in my dynamis LS) said he would main tank, and that I should DD. Luckily, I had brought along my DD setup including my O. Hat, Haub, and Joyeuse.

We entered, buffed, and Jokerr ran in, got hate, gathered the pots, and the BLMs slept them. We engaged the first pot, and took it down quickly. The second pot went down almost as quickly, but without a RDM, the mages started running out of MP. I used Chivalry and keep things going to where we started killing the third pot. Now, something happened where Jokerr died and I ended up main tanking towards the end of pot #3. Now, pot number 4 woke up, and since I had already Invincibled and used a 300tp Chivalry, I was prime target. Now, in a panic I switched back to my Terra's Staff and did the only thing I could do, kite the thing like no tomorrow. As I was able, I switched back into my tanking gear, and gave the mages time to raise Jokerr and regain MP. It was a nasty kiting situation, since the room was small, and the pot was a quick flying thing. Most of this time I was kiting with under 300hp, but the WHMs cures, my cures, and my Hi-potions from Will kept me alive long enough for the BLMs to nuke it slowly to death. Victory, and a cool CS followed!

Now, things never go this smootly in FFXI, and of course we hit a snag. The second group was plagued with player disconnects, and never got the clear even after three tries. Now, initially I was really upset about this, but it presents an interesting possibility. Now, the original problem was we had two PLDs that eneded the BC, but now since I have the clear, only Will needs to go in. If they can get 2 BLMs to finish the BC with them, they can get the clear on Sunday and everything will be fine. With all the initial 8-3 stuff out of the way getting to the BC takes all of 10 minutes now.

After waiting awhile for the people with connection problems to return, we decided to call it quits. I went and got all the CSs I needed to get to the last CoP mission 8-4. I was even brave enough to enter the final fight just to see what it was like, and it really is the coolest looking fight in the game. I used a warp cudgel to escape before I was in any danger, but it was cool to see anyway. With any luck, I can wrap this all up Sunday and start figuring out how to get TrueRune through all of this as well. (^.^)v

Paladin. Seventy. Five.

2006-08-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

So, I made the final push to finally get Paladin to the almighty seventy-five!

It feels good to finally be an "endgame" paladin. I quit the night with a small 2K buffer, and I know that I will have to get a much bigger buffer than that...

I'm also thinking about what to merit first on paladin, and I think it might be a good idea to take NIN from 18 to 37 to compliment my DD setup. The Joyeuse seems to severly boost TP gain and damage, but I'd like to see it in action with a Company Sword. At a quick glance, it seems like I need about 100 merits to get all the things I want, should take awhile o get all of that. XD

One other awesome thing to report is the chocobo update is here!

I am currently completing the quest in Jeuno to get a free egg, and will start raising my chocobo tonight. I'm hoping for either a black or a blue one, though I think I could deal with red as well. I guess I'll find out in a few weeks. ^^

A Little Bundle of {Joyeuse}

2006-08-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

So, Dynamis Windy rolled around again. I was hoping against hope to possibly expand my Relic collection to include the PLD boots as well. However Windy is never kind to me, and produced not only zero PLD drops, but only autolotted two bills to me as well. Talk about insult to injury...

So, I figured the day was done. I was bored, it was my day off, I went to take a nap since I didn't want to deal with more disappointments in FFXI land. I returned to find Theora (75 RDM / 75 BST) was logged on. Now, Theo and I had just gone and destroyed my Staff WS mob, so I figured maybe she was interested in camping Charby. We both needed the sword, and in the event we actually got one, my craptastic lots almost ensured she would win it. She seemed bored, and agreed to head down. One RDM down, one NIN and BRD to go. Now, there might be a thousand NINs on the server, it seems I dont know many of them... It just so happens that the one LS NINs who usually isn't on all that much popped on. Pilfer didn't have alot to do at the time, so he came down. Now, we went down at about 7:00pm and discovered after the fact that the spawn window opened at 9:15pm. Great. Well, in the meantime we got our other LS RDM Hiroaki and LS BRD Shelden to start heading down. The time for the window rolled around and people seemed to start comming to check for a pop. Wouldn't you know it but one of the first pops in the window was Charby. o.o A few minutes later our crew got there, and we were ready to engage as RDM, RDM, NIN, BRD, PLD.

Wouldn't you know it though, the other placeholder spawned making a clean pull all but impossible. With the gilsellers in the area getting antsy, we decide to pull, me taking the add, and our NIN taking Charby. Just as I voke the add, the gilsellers voke Charby and engage. What the crap? It's a few NINs and a few WHMs, what do they need a Joyeuse for? Can they even take Charby? Well, it turns out they were just messing around, the NINs 2 houred making charby lose a good few points of life and go unclaimed again. Pilfer immediately claimed and went to work. After managing to solo the add with some ballad assistance, I went to work curing Pilfer and laying out the occasional flash. Things went pretty smooth for the first 50% health, but then another huge group showed up, and apparently were hoping we would wipe. The additional lag didnt help things, as Pilfer got to under 200 HP a few times. Top it all off, with Charby at 25% health, the other placeholder pops _again_ and is really close to the action. I rest up, take the add, and before I finish killing it Charby is down! Joyeuse (and a pearl) drop!

So, time to lot. I've had crappy luck with this lot in the past, and so has Theora. I decided to let Theo lot first, and this is how it went:

Whoa... I really didn't believe it, my crappy lotting had finally won me a lot in something that mattered! ...and by a whopping 17 bid point too! I was really happy, but felt kinda bummed for Theo. It should be alright though, since we know TrueRune can take Charby now, it's just a matter of getting people together for it. It's cool to see what your social LS can do sometimes, isn't it? I know I'll be down there many more times since about four more people in the LS want the sword...

Afterwards, Tuufless hearing my good news decided to head to the meadows and play with out pointy swords. It was nice taking some time to fool around with Tuuf, I can tell he definately doesn't want to leave just yet, but maybe the Tuuf will return someday in all his shortness glory...

We took the time to stop by Willriker's CoP Airship battle run. After a good dry run, they headed in and wiped the floor with the airship. Good job on the clear guys! (...with a PLD might I add...) Maybe our shattered groups can combine to go through the rest of CoP, who knows... Until then, I'm just going to enjoy my new toy (that matches my outfit too!)

Slow day at the office...

2006-08-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

So, I realized I haven't posted an update in about a month. Now, looking back I feel there really wasn't any event important enough by itself to make a post about, but group them together and I guess I have some tasty material. ^_^

Anyway, where to start? I need a nice picture or something. Oh, I know!

I actually decided to cowboy up this year during the summerfest event and get to goldfish scooping. I managed to get enough Goldfish Sets (240 points in fish, ugh) to make three bowls. I made two "Fighting Fish Tanks" (Right Bowl) and a single "Goldfish Bowl" (Left Tank). I gave one of the bettas to Ararith for helping me scoop goldfish one day. Getting Woodworking to 20 wasn't especially fun, but making 3 signed furnature pieces was worth it. They have made a pretty addition to my already cluttered Mog House.

In other news, I also (finally) got around to unlocking the Retribution staff weapon skill. I have had the latent broken for some months now, but could never get a party together to fight the NM needed. Theora in my LS offered to take her BST75 out there and solo it, and by george did it. I must say, it was quite an impressive feat, and many animals were harmed in the obtaining of this WS. Nice work Theo. ^^

A few weeks ago I managed to scrape together enough gil to finally buy a Hauby too. (Again, thanks Ararith ^^) It adds to my DD PLD setup I am working on, and hopefully will get to test out once i crack PLD75 and NIN 37.

I must say though, FFXI has been kinda slow. The new patch with the new missions was fun, but short. It did give me a reason to get all five runic portal teleports though. I'm still awaiting the chocobo raising update for something to do. Ever since my sky LS broke up, Ive been a tad bored ingame. Dynamis keeps me occupied, but it seems I can never manage to get a drop, or win the lot when things drop. XD With alot of people on vacation, it makes the game a tad boring, and losing Tuufless this week to the maelstrom of real life isn't exactly exciting either. :_: We will miss you tarutaru. /wave

Hopefully, in the comming weeks, I can get some money back together, and get my butt leveling to get some of those new merits. Should be fun, and I am about 16K tnl 75 too... Hmmm...

As Vana'diel Turns (Twenty-One Hours At A Time...)

2006-07-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

So, it's been awhile since I made a post. I started working a 'full-time part-time' job, and as such my FFXI time has been reduced drastically. The things we do to pay the bills...

To bring things up to speed, after getting sea access, I took a little break from FFXI. Comming back, after a few days, I decided I wanted to get a Joyeuse which is a sword that "occasionally attacks twice." Occasionally attacks once is more like it, it's like having super double attack without a /WAR subjob. I have spent many a night in the Sea Serpent Grotto, but alas I have turned up empty handed. However, two people I know have gotten their swords, so at least my time wasn't totally wasted in there. If you want to try to help me spawn Charby, give me a yell ingame, I would appreciate it. ^^

But that's not the BIG news! Oh no! Check this out:

That's right, my sky linkshell has taken a sudden liking to the Land King HNMs, Fafnir in particular. We were able to claim Fafnir back to back two nights in a row, and I had the honor of co-tanking (and for 5 minutes the second night, solo tanking) this formidable monster. Let me just say, it was a blast. Even at level 73, and without "optimal tanking gear" I was able to hold my own, and assist in two Fafnir kills. All that dropped both times were the Adaman Hands Abjs., but the battles were good training for the linkshell on how to battle a land god. I got the title "Fafnir Slayer" and was congratulated on a tanking job well done. ^^ Willriker also tells the tale (hehehe, tail...) here at: http://willrikerpaladin.blogspot.com/2006/07/fxunlimited-and-fafnir.html I'd like to say that honestly he is a formidable hate foe, but for the record, he has a crapload more gil than I do, and not to mention 2 extra levels on PLD... Reguardless, awesome job to the PLDs of FX.

During the meantime, I decided to take on another monster in FFXI that like Fafnir, had a 21 hour minimum repop timer. This time I was after this little breauty: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?fitem=9450

The Intruder Earring possesses some nice stats for an endgame Paladin: Defense, HP, Dex (kinda useless), and Agi (shield blocks). It drops off a mob named Centurio XII-I in East Altepa. The mob is a timed spawn, so no killing is necessary, but patience is. Believe me, getting a Time-of-Death on a non-famous mob that few camp (and those that do are not willing to give you the ToD) and not to mention it's not even a 100% drop. Jeepers Creepers indeed! Anyway, I was able to get an approximate ToD from a PLD I camped it with that was 2 days old, so using a little math, and approximation, I had a decent ToD guess. Within minutes of my girlfriend comming out with her 36WHM/01RNG setup to help me camp it, the NM poped, and noone was there but me to claim. Oddly enough, I saw pop before she caught it on widescan, but it's the thought that counts. ^^

The battle wasn't too bad, the NM is a Ranger type Antica mob, that does possess the Eagle Eye Shot 2 hour. However, with my awesome defense (a 300 EES is just too weak) and my NPC helper Romidiant there to assist cure me (level 62 Healer NPC), the battle was a joke, and amazingly the earring dropped first try. I've heard horror stories of people going 0/20 on this thing, which is the better part of a month camping a NM and never losing claim! Needless to say, I was very pleased with the drop. ^^

I also was able to recently convince my better half to tag along for an avatar fight, Titan specifically. She is usually not too keen comming to things as her 60+ Dragoon for fear of dying and losing precious experience, but I was able to get her to come anyway. The battle went smoothly, and she enjoyed it quite a bit, and didn't even panic when the mob 2-hour almost killed her. Good Job on your first real avatar babe! ^^

The One To Be Feared: Against All Odds

2006-06-10T18:50:00.000-07:00

Where to start, where to start? I guess my prelude for this past week can best be described by:

"Why, isn't that Bahamut, ruler of the skys? Why is he about to Megaflare me?" Yeah, been one of those crazy weeks...but we will get to that eventually.

Anyway, lets get started. After the events of my last post, I was looking into getting a few new pieces of gear. The first was my new Dainslaif sword hunted down with the good old folks at TrueRune:

It's a kickass sword, and the HP drain is kinda cool. Mostly though, and I'll admit this freely, I just wanted it for looks. ¬_¬ I mean, I know I'm not getting a Joyuse anytime soon, so this would do as my pretty (and yet still functional) endgame sword. I like it lots, and thank everyone at TR for running into Quicksand Caves to help me get it with that amazing 1/1 drop luck. ^^

Not a single day later, I discover my sky LS is doing Optical Hat runs. Now, as most melees know, the Optical hat is an awesome piece of hear gear:

Well, as luck would have it someone in the LS was selling the needed pop item for 1.4M gil. Now, having only a little over 1M on me at the time, this was a problem. However, I was able to barter down the price of the item to 1M + my General's Shield that I no longer need for anything, ever. I felt this was a good deal, and later that night, nearly broke I went into the Den of Rancor and won the lot on the very first hat. We did 10 runs total, and the funny part was there were more mages and tanks than actual melee people that wanted the hat, and the melees all went last from bad lots. Quite weird indeed...

The following day I did Dynamis-Bastok, and won the lot for the Paladin AF2 Crown, but nothing dropped. I ran up to sky afterwards to try to get my Martial Hands Abj drop, but yet again nothing. Kirin was the third strike, being this is the fourth time he hasn't dropped the W. Legs Abj for me....and I'm starting to get a little bitter.

Anyway, after the gods run on Saturday TR decided it was time to try the three part Airship fight. Before we go further, I am going to lay out a few details. This mission allows six people into a three phase fight that has a forty-five time limit. You are allowed to rest inbetween fights, but this subtracts from your time. You get to fight five of the mammets from an earlier CoP mission (God I hated those things...they hit way too fast...), and after that Omega Weapon (God you have too much HP...), and after that Ultima Weapon (God you hit too damn hard...) To say the least, it's essentially the HARDEST six man BCNM mission in the entire game. The level cap is set to 60, which helps a little bit, but thats all you have working for you besides being able to use an item called a 'CCB pump' to slow down the Weapons' TP spam for a short time.

I have been reading online forumns for about a year now about this fight. People say this fight is extremely hard. People say this fight is even harder on the tank. People say the fight is near impossible with a Paladin tank. People say that if a Paladin tanks it, the Earth Staff must be used at all times to ensure the tank lives for any duration.

Apparently I don't care what _THEY_ say...

So, knowing this full well, TrueRune decided to boldly try a 'dry run' on the Airship with some items, reraise, and all 2-hours. The setup was to be PLD/WAR, NIN/WAR, SAM/THF, WHM/SMN, BLM/WHM, and BRD/WHM, which is a fairly weird setup. When was the last time you saw a Paladin and a Ninja fighting side by side? We went in a few times and experimented with the Mammets seeing which strat worked the best. Between splitting up the mammets, having me tank them all with Sword/Shield, and having me use my Terra's Staff to tank all of them, I decided that "Super Paladin" tanking with the Terra's Staff was the way to go. Let the flashbacks of CoP 2-5 begin...

Anyway, we had a REALLY good mammet run, so we decided to go for it. We wiped twice to Omega, and got Ultima down to 4% before we just had nothing left. Saoirse tried to throw a last second Freeze at it, but because of 'double weakness' and Ultima Weapons resistance to magic, the nuke hit for 0, and we were all out of time.

Now, I WAS excited to do so well on the airship fight, since seeing we got that close while not really prepared was a really good sign. However, I was guilt tripped into doing the run instead of spending quality time with the Ladyfriend. She was not happy, and looking back I do regret my choice. (You bastages in TR really owe me for that...)

Almost one week later, after farming up 6 more CCB pumps, and buying up all the medicines I could hold, we decided to give it another shot. All the gruesome details can be found here: http://tuufless.blogspot.com/2006/06/truerune-in-sea.html Everything went just as Tuuf describes. It was an almost flawless run except for the fated "Chummy Death" (he ALWAYS dies when we are doing stuff... XD ) but besides that the run went perfectly. The Mammets decided to behave for the melees and destroy (but not kill) me instead. Omega took damage fast, and wasn't too violent. Ultima was fierce on me, but left almost everyone alone, and was clogged up from FIVE CCB pumps thrown at him. When all was said and done:

(And I got a nice shiny ring too:)

...But wow, Holy Crap! We had almost 12 whole minutes to spare! Who says you can't do the fight with a Paladin tank? I have set up a little mini-guide at the end of the post, take a look if you think you might be a bad enough dude to tank the Airship Mission as a Paladin.

Afterwards, we did some of the usual cross country running that CoP entails, and were ready for the Tenzen battle. Tenzen is nasty in the same way the Snoll Czar was in that there is a 'hidden' time limit to the battle. If Tenzen can complete his level 4 skillchain, everyone (probably) dies and are ejected from the battle. This seems unfair, but remember that the battle is uncapped, which means that the DDs can really let lose with the damage.

On our first run, there was some DD confusion and the mages were hit by some AoEs killing them a little early. I realized I needed to take Tenzen to the FAR side of the airship, out of the way of his little helpers (whom you can do nothing to stop...). Second time was the charm, and despite me not having my 2 hour, I was still able to keep solid hate, and we won. The DDs went so hardcore that I still had TP to use and the SAMs 2hours still wern't up when Tenzen gave up at 10% health.

After a few awesome CSs which explain a great deal of the plot that makes no sense until this point, I was rewarded with Sea access! I haven't checked out the place much, but it looks really cool and I'm told some awesome rewards like AF+1 can be obtained there. Congrations to everyone who got Sea access, and let's hope we can finish off CoP in the near future!

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A few tanking pointers on the airship fight as a Paladin:

GENERAL TIPS:

- Have everyone zone into Sealion's Den, view the initial BCNM cutscene, and leave the battle. This saves you about three minutes since the second time entering the battlefield without zoning will allow you to skip the CS.

- Everyone needs a CCB polymer pump. I don't care if you are broke, get one anyway. The same thing goes for other medicines. Get Yag drinks for people with MP, potions for everyone, I. Wings for melees, Vile Elixer NQ and HQs for everyone. Money isn't an option, because one person getting cheap can mean the difference betwen a win and a loss.

- Try to finish a section with everyone alive. You get full healed inbetween sections, but the dead stay dead, and the weakened stay weakened. This can be a huge time savor if done correctly.

- Bring a Whitemage. Seriously, the tank getting petrified is very bad, and Stona is the only cure, and only available to a whitemage at this level. Not to mention that Erase is awesome too, for all those Weapon status effects that get planted on the tank and DDs.

- As the tank, try to keep solid hate, but save some moves for the Weapons in the event that a hate reset move is used. Nothing sucks more than using Invincible only to have the mob turn and one-shot a mage.

- Have someone keep track of the time, so you know how much time remains in the fights.

- Stay calm. Remember, you don't have shadows, but you have cures, and more hate potential than a Ninja does. Medicines are your friend, and try to keep a Yag drink on you at all times assuming you don't have a Red Mage in the party.

- Defender up at all times. You need to worry about staying alive and keeping hate off the DDs, not doing damage yourself.

- Turn on some chat filters. Everyone is different, but I felt having less party clutter made my job easier and made the lag alot better.

- Being some Luck. If the Weapons really want to, they can destroy even the best tank in a second. Do your best, and don't get too upset if you don't win. You can always try again.

PALADIN TANK MAMMET TIPS:

- "Super Paladin" tanking 4/5 of the mammets in a corner opposite of the melees is the way to go. This reduces the ammount of colaterial damage caused from and magic AoE moves.

-Do NOT engage any of the mammets until the last one is left standing. This prevents agro from going to another party member while healing you. As long as you agro the mammets, and their name stays yellow, they will stick on you until someone vokes them off, or you die.

- I found the Earth Staff and full Paladin AF to be most effective in reducing mammet damage, and my shield and parry skills are both capped at this level too. However, I went Gluttony Sword with a Shield for the Weapons. I liked the additional damage they allowed, and honestly with capped shield it wasn't so bad.

- Make sure you don't die, and try to only use Yag Drinks, Sentinel, Cure, and Defender for this first stage. Remember, if you live through this stage you get a full cure after the cutscene.

PALADIN TANKING OMEGA TIPS:

- As the tank voke him and run him into the corner. Many of the Weapons moves are directional, and having you in the corner prevents others from getting hit.

- Have the DDs stay away from you, have them stay behind the Weapons.........behind.

- You have Cover, use it.

- Omega has alot of HP, but so do you. If you and your healer(s) are on the ball, you should be fine. He doesn't hit any harder than most EXP mobs, but his HP is just usually too much to allow him to go down in one round.

- Omega does have hate reset moves, so try to watch for them and compensate accordingly.

- If you get a status aliment on you, imform the mage(s) immediately. They might have missed the text, and no pride is lost for making sure everything goes smoothly in a fight like this.

- I suggest using a CCB pump at around 40%, and again at around 20%. Use your judgement, and set an order ahead of time. IF Omega is not hurting your tank much, save the pumps for Ultima.

- If (when) you wipe, make sure everyone wipes at the end of the ship you start on. Wait for Omega to walk back to his starting position, and reraise up, and rest. He doesn't regain HP, so you dont have to engage him again right away.

- Try to kill Omega with everyone alive and unweakened. This insures that everyone gets a full cure after the cutscene and you can start on Ultima immediately.

PALADIN TANKING ULTIMA TIPS:

- See all tips above about Omega.

- Ultima is the last part of this fight. Once he is almost dead, throw everything you have on him. Now would be an acceptable time for 2 hours, since there is nothing left to save them for.

- Ultima hits HARD, and OFTEN. Use meds as needed, cure whenever you can, and try to keep hate in the corner.

- Ultima has less HP than Omega does, so remember that this fight won't be as long as Omega's was, but by now time is probably running out.

- At about 50% health, Ultima will suddenly decide you need to die. Use CCBs according to his actions and watch for Pitch Pile, as it will take you to about 100 HP, and resets hate.

- Get DoT's on Ultima for the whole battle. This adds to the damage you do and might even make it easier for the melees (Dia2 anyone?).

- Remember to stay calm, use your items, use your job abilities, cast spells, and most importantly DON'T PANIC! You can win this, it's not impossible by any means.

What goes around...

2006-05-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

It had been kinda slow on the paladin front the last couple of weeks. I couldn't get a party for the life of me, and my decent ammount of gil I had stashed away was slowly decreasing. When asked by a fellow lower level Paladin on Wednesday for assistance getting her Gluttony Sword, I agreed, remembering the kindness that another Paladin had shown me (and by that I mean gave me one to borrow... >_>).

So, heading down into the Necropolis, seven of us gathered around the necessary spawn points and I chose the Skull of Lust, since it was one of the easier ones to get to. After killing all the skulls, I was rewarded with a new title of "Skullcrusher" and amazingly the Gluttony Sword dropped along with the Wrath Tabar axe. We decided to let our PLD friend off and just give her the sword, and the rest of us would split the axe for a nice 100K each.
It felt nice to help someone out for a change, but I was still kinda depressed about being forever stuck at Paladin72. A few days went by, and on Friday I had had enough and decided to try to go farm to kill the time, and possibly get some crappy experience points. As a joke I put my seek flag up since it had been of no help the past several days, and amazingly about 5 minutes later I get a party invite to Bibiki Bay. A few hours later I was just a shy 800 exp until 73 when the party dispanded. A Chocobo run from Sandy to Bastok, a few mobs, and a Crawler's Nest Escort quest later, I was Paladin 73! The long road to engame armor was over!

I danced around in my new Adaman armor for a little bit, and after deciding that the Adaman feet really do suck, I decided to go to bed. On Saturday I was abducted by my girlfriend, and went over to her house. Seeing as how I had just hit 73 it dawned on me that I could now lot on gear in sky. Asking politely, I was allowed to attend sky on the condition that a backrub was to be given at a later date. (Ironically, she wanted to do Beiseiged later that night, and forgot about her backrub... >.<).

Anyway, we had two new Paladins show up to sky, and being higher level than I was, they were told to tank above me. I still got some tanking in, tanking three of the seven fights of the day, and was lucky enough to get a Martial Hands Abj. drop! Once sky was over I ran to Sandy and traded in my recently purchased cursed armor and the piece of paper to recieve my Koenig Schaller:

I also tried to get my hands on the M. Hands Abj. drop, the W. Feet Abj drop, and the W. Legs Abj. drop, but alas none of them dropped. Still, I was very happy to finally have a piece of Sky gear.

A few days later, my dynamis shell finally decided to do a Dynamis-San d'Oria run that I could make. Now, not only did I need this last run to have all four initial cities cleared, but I also wanted the AF2 drop. As luck would have it, the very first drop was the Valor Gauntlets, the very item I had wanted for quite some time:

In addition, we got the clear, meaning I have now completed the first four dynamis cities. I can now head up to the Northlands for more fun (and death?)

All in all, it was a good week. Hopefully things will keep up like this, and before long I will have all the armor I want for PLD and can move on to my other ingame projects. (^.^)v

Adventurer Appreciation

2006-05-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

Looks like the moogles are up to it again. FFXI is currently experiencing the Adventurer Appreciation Campaign. Essentially, moogles appear in the starting cities, and based on your stats they give you a free gift. I decided to wait a few days and was rewarded with this little beauty:

It's a cute little addition to my Mog House, and I placed it with care over my Christmas Trees (which are out all year long dammit!) and it looks cute. Best part is, it didn't even mess up my Moghancement San d'Orian Conquest. /hurray

One of the other benefits of this event is that adventurers get to see their current hidden "stats". Apparently the moogles keep tabs on these often forgotten pieces of information. For those of you who are curious, my numbers came up as follows:

Just a quick thought though; I am a Paladin, and I Blood-Warp a great deal. Also, I have only reported six fools of FFXI in my career, which really shocked me. Maybe I am learning to deal with idiocy a little bit more than I give myself credit for.

Anyway, maybe I can muster up the patience to finally level to Paladin 73. Between Beseiged and Real Life responsibilities, I find my time available to play cut a little short. Who knew graduating from college and looking for a job could be so time consuming? (^.^)v

Walking the path...

2006-05-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

So, after a few weeks of exploring the new content in Al Zahbi, and finishing up my final exams, I decided to take Blue Mage out for a test drive before my Paladin leveling marathon. People said that BLU can be frustrating at times, trying to learn all those spells. They were right.

I took BLU to 13, and got all my spells through level 18. However, may I say there were a few trying times during that period. The highlights however, were Pollen, Metallic Body, and Healing Breeze. One apparently must be a master to learn the secret arts of the bee, crab, and dhalmel... and by master, I mean sit there for hours drunk screaming at my computer screen for the crab to use Metallic Body. I am told it was a very funny sight indeed.

After getting to 13 BLU, I can make the following observations: BLU is really overpowered at these lower levels. I don't know about, say, 60+, but i think they could dominate the dunes with ease. However, I really didn't feel like going BACK to the dunes, as I would probably rather solo or duo right to level 20. Maybe Tuufless will want to start a baby static or something.

With that out of the way, I have decided to make the final push of 25K exp to Paladin 73. As you can see, I have alot of equipment waiting for me...

With 2 days until my next little Dynamis adventure, hopefully I can finally pull off Paladin 73 and break into the endgame armor...

To be honest though, tanking endgame has really changed over the last few levels. With DDs putting out insane numbers, it has become more of a hate game than a damage reduction game. With that in mind, I have had a nice chance to keep leveling my Shield skill, and with the recent shield adjustments it seems to be just as good of damage reduction as my Terra's Staff (almost feel like I wasted 2M now...)

Honestly, on a whole I find myself getting bored in parties now (and bored while LFP forever, these burn parties are killing me...) When I go 3 hours without losing hate once, and the SATA that is getting placed on me is moved to another DD, and even they cant keep hate........boring. I mean, to be honest, I was reading a book in my last party, since it was such easy tanking. I guess I would rather have easy leveling than hard leveling though. Here is hoping for 73 sometime soon...

"...But I don't WANT to be a pirate!"

2006-04-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

...and so, the day of deliverence is upon us:

Treasures of Aht Urhgan is officially online, and yes, that is my own personal copy.

Details of the expansion update (there are a lot of them...) can be found here:

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/update/ff11us/2006041883vPh1/detail.html

I picked up my copy the day after is "officially" hit the store shelves. Took about forty-five minutes to install and update. After that, I got to fire it up and start the initial quest to get to the new expansion "near east" areas.

The initial ToAU quest if fairly straight forward, you need to bring a Tenshido NPC either a specific coffer key, a testimony (a la Maat fight), or a set of subjob quest items. I went with the route of the Quicksands Coffer Key, since it's a common drop, and I can solo the Ants as a PLD72. This amazingly is also the first time I had played since they "fixed" the Paladin job. Paladins now recieve Auto-Refresh at level 35, and the "Shield Mastery" Trait at level 25. Essentially, this causes shield blocks to give the PLD around 4-5 TP instead of the usual 2 TP. Not a huge boost, but nice anyway. Auto-Refresh has proven to be awesome, and now I know why Summoners love it. In addition to the PLD changes, there were some shield changes in general. Shields now block more often, and block more damage per block. Paladins, Red Mages, Blue Mages, and Beastmasters of the world rejoice! Needless to say, I was pleased with this expansion before I even set foot in the new areas.

One coffer key later, and a 15 minute boat ride later from Mhura, I was in the Aht Urhgan Whitegate zone, essentially half of the new city. To be honest, this city finally presents a real rival to Jeuno. The Tavnazian Safehold was cute, but is put to shame by Al Zahbi (the official capital of the new empire). The entire area has a arabic feel to it, instead of the overused asian theme all too common to FFXI recently. Once inside the city, I spent about two hours looking around. My first thought after this was to explore outside, and I quickly discovered that even the easiest monsters were a challenge to defeat even as a PLD72. Clearly, endgame players just got some hot new zones. They look beautiful and are filled with cool (and dangerous) mobs.

After seeing the sights, I decided to try to unlock the new jobs. It took me a little exploring, and a quick quest to grab a map, but after two evenings of running around I unlocked Blue Mage, Corsair, and Puppetmaster. To put it simply, Blue Mages learn enemy skills, Puppetmasters are like Beastmasters but with a new modifiable pet, and Corsairs are a combination of Rangers and Bards with a huge luck factor involved. Honestly, Blue Mage is the only one that really spikes my interest. People seem to be complaining that learning enemy skills (blue magic) is too hard and time consuming, but I think the process would be fun and involved. It seems like a serious possibility for a second job to 75 for me (after Paladin of course).

The Missions and quests so far in the expansion are quite good. I am currently done with all of the current missions (there are eight so far) and I am really looking forward to doing more. A friendly face also makes himself known in the new plotline:

I won't spoil everything, but let's just say you have probably seen him before...

The new quests are also fun. I have probably spent a good 250K in sneak oils and prism powders, but I think it's worth it for the new items and adventure. I currently have some eastern currency, a teleport ring to transport me to the woods outside the new city (similiar to the Tavnazian Ring: one teleport each twenty hours), and a:

Quite a nice Paladin item from levels 60-70, and it is just one of many new awesome items waiting to be had...

However, all this questing using oils and powders just makes it all the more urgent for me to get RDM to 37 so I can go out adventuring as a PLD/RDM and have Inviz. and Sneak spells at my disposal, instead of having to pop items when I want to go anywhere new. Realistically, my new prioroties are PLD73, BLM10, WHM20, RDM37, and even BLU75?. We shall see how long my resolve to follow the path of the mage lasts though, since I generally don't like being a mage, I am more of a melee/knight kinda guy.

To sum it all up quickly, Treasures of Aht Urhgan is definately worth the $32.09 I spent on it. This is just the first of three huge content updates, and I feel as if I am already getting my money's worth. Three new jobs, eight new missions, Assult, new zones, new monsters, new city, and the list goes on and on.

It seems as if there is a very good blend of new (red) and old (blue) in this update, missions and all. (If you don't get the item references, pick up the expansion and complete the San d'Oria line of missions...) I just hope that even after the "new toy" factor wears off of the expansion for most people, the content still stays enjoyable to everyone...

Bombs Away: Look Out Below!

2006-04-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

So, to make a long story short, let's take a quick look at two images that describe my last week:

Ah yes, for those of you that don't understand, let's review.

I had a very long week. After our two failed attempts at the Snoll Czar on Wednesday (I was too pissed off and tired to write up a post, see http://tuufless.blogspot.com/2006/04/snoll-tzar-3-true-rune-0-fume.html for details. ^^) I warped to Jeuno and logged out immediately, both frustrated and tired, knowing I was going to be spending more hours driving on Thursday home, then I was going to be getting in sleep. I managed to drive home with few problems. As a little note, I rented a small car to drive home, not owning my own car and all. When i get there the only car they DO have was a brand new Silverado pickup truck. O_o

It isn't exactly fuel efficient, but it was no extra charge, and a beauty to drive. It was like buying a new truck (it had 160 miles on it) without dropping $30,000. Anyway, I digress...

So, I was gone for most of Thursday and all of Friday. I got back to school early Saturday morning, and promptly fell asleep. Waking up about an hour before Dynamis-Bastok was about to start, I log in and run to Bastok. I find out that another linkshell was going to go inside before us, so it was decided to do Dynamis-Jeuno instead. I was cool with that, I still needed clears in Dynamis-Jeuno, and Dynamis-Sandy.

After a quick shower, we began the run. I'll just say it once, I got totally shafted with drops. I got two currency drops, which total a little less than 100K. I almost lost money on the run, and it only hurts because the drops were SO FRICKEN GOOD, that apparently my luck wasn't working today. However, we got the clear this time, as seen above in the second picture, so now I only need to clear Dynamis-Sandy and I'm good for all the starting cities.

My bad luck continued when I discovered that while gone, TrueRune had decided to do a Snoll Czar run again that night, and I had already told my Sky LS FuriousX that I would be in sky to kill gods. With the two gods I needed drops from still not defeated, I had to put TR on hold for a few hours while I slaved away curing in sky. Luckly, they were busy farming clusters for the fight, and Tumble was still puting the finishing EXP on his 59 BLM, so that bought me some time.

Let me briefly describe my sky experience. I was three minutes late to bidding on the drop i need to make my Koening Helm, so the bid went to someone else for 20 points, and got locked in for ALL the fights, and of course it dropped. I decided to be nice on Genbu and only lot the Martial Hands drop, not the W feet drop. Two turtles, two W feet drops. No drops for Seraph. /cry However, I am now left with over 90 points, and with Kirin today, that W legs drop is looking PRETTY DAMN GOOD right now, with me sitting on level 72. The stats as seen from http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/ are as follows:

Movement Speed +12%. Better Defense than my AF. HP and MP +25. And half of the resistances +20. These things are a tanks dream legs. The last one went to a PLD with a trump bid of 100, so I think I stand a chance of winning the bidding with 90+. With 2 Kirin fights, there is a good chance of them dropping too...

So, sky gets out, and I am really tired. For the last hour, I have had the worst........lets just say I had eaten some leftovers from the trip and had what I now believe to be some mild food poisoning. Aparently, food doesnt keep well for 7 hours in a warm truck...

Tuufless was getting progress reports from me about my sky progress, and the combination of my aweful luck, and my raging stomach made me a little cranky. I agreed to go, but under protest we should wait until Firesday. Tired. Pissed. Stomach hurts. What could one more crappy Snoll Czar run add to the pile, huh?

So, there were a few differences this time. We decided to try out a little PLD, SAM, SMN, BLM, BLM, BLM action. Tuufless covers the details very well here: http://tuufless.blogspot.com/2006/04/snoll-tzar-defeated.html

So, we start as usual, except this time I had to Protect 3 and Shell 3 myself, since we had no WHM or RDM available. I go to rest, put on my dark staff, rest to full, get up and use my Icarus Wing.....before switching out my Dark Staff. @#&$*!!! I can already tell things aren't going well.

As a little personal tanking note, this time I changed my build from a Defense tank to a HP + Enmity tank. With three BLMs, hate was a little more of an issue, especially with Tuufless and his maxed out stats competing with me for hate control. Also, the bomb hits hard, so defense seemed to be doing no good, so I put in +HP instead of +VIT. I knew I was going to recieve almost no healing so I was essentially relying entirely on Flash, Shield Bash, and Invinvible to save me. ...and.....it did! O_O The BLMs worked wonderfully, everything seemed to go exactly as planned, all three salts were used in order, with perfect timing. The bomb got stuck in its 'melting phase' and never even made it to its last form, the one before it blows up. I estimate we had a good 25 seconds more before the fight would have ended. I tried to finish it off with a Holy nuke, but i went off too soon, and Saoirse (one of our BLMs) got the kill blow. Congratulations!

As a little side note, the only person who died was Tuufless, but not during the fight. The DoT Frost he had on killed him outside the BC while we were in shock of winning. Seeing this, and my current HP, I quickly warped to Jeuno to run into my Mog House, not remembering that Chummy had Erase once outside the BCNM's level 60 restriction. I got erased during my warp animation. Oh well, it gave me a little chuckle...

So, feeling better, and having a few seconds after warping out to take some RL medicine, I felt a little better, my sprits were up, so I decided to do the Snoll Czar followup cutscenes, and do all the legwork preping for the Airship fight. Yes, the so called "hardest BCNM in the game". I have some reservations about this fight, since I hear its REALLY hard with a PLD tank, but with Akanea almost at NIN 60, perhaps we can dual tank it? It's a possiblilty for sure. We will have plenty of time to plan, since we need to farm up some CCB Polymers to use against the Weapons. Ultima and Omega, here we come...

"And So I Have Fallen..."

2006-03-30T20:59:00.000-08:00

It all began at level 55. As a mid-level Paladin I set out with complete strangers to defeat the Shadowlord in what I thought was a mission to bring peace to the land. I later learned this was not the case, but reguardless, I was successful:

The once mighty Raogrimm had finally been released from his hate, and was able to find himself yet again. It should have all ended there. With forgiveness found, his soul should have found peace.

It did not.

Our paths crossed once again, 10 levels later. Upon reaching 65 Paladin one of my first acts was to travel to the frozen northlands, the cursed realm of Xarcabard. This was at one point the location of the stronghold of the enemy, of the Shadowlord. It seems things do not change.

I found his soul wandering, barely able to hold on. His time was short, he was only able to relay a simple message:

His soul had become trapped in Dynamis, a shadow realm which echoed our very own. Once a potential safehold from evil, it had been corrupted by the darkness, by the very soul of the Shadowlord himself. Raogrimm was no longer at peace, his darkness still ate away at him in the other realm.

He still needed to make peace with those whom betrayed him...not just his lost love.

With this new task at hand, I got lucky and was able to join a great Dynamis Linkshell: "ExplorerII" with the hope of assisting in the completion of this mission. So far, I have cleared Dynamis-Windy, and Dynamis-Bastok. Sandy and Jeuno still escaped me, since they are usually done on Wednesdays, and I am not usually free on Wednesdays. I made an exception this once, with the hopes of clearing the zone. To clear the zone, you must defeat a "Mega Boss" monster, and click a ??? it leaves behind, essentially obtaining a piece of the Hydra Corps. gear left behind by the northern expadition where this all began.

Our run looked like the following:

What you see is what you get. We attempted to clear it despite the low turnout for the day. Just 18 people braved the madness of this zone, and we actually came very close to beating it. A lack of time and a messed up Mega Boss pull cost us the run, but I was still impressed with the effort of the team, being so shorthanded.

I played my usual role; one of two Paladins in the "Sleepga Party." This party has the job of handling adds, and links on pulls to the main alliance(s). PLDs voke the mobs to get their attention, and BLMs sleepga them to keep them at bay. The PLDs voke any new mobs, and try to keep hate on existing ones. The alliance then picks them off one at a time, to keep it all under control. Usually, my party consists of something like PLD, PLD, BLM, BLM, WHM, RDM. Being short on BLMs though, we subbed in a BRD for a BLM for increased mana recovery.

Now, in five of the six Dynamis zones (Excluding the new additional zones, I have no experience with those...yet...) there are Relic Armor drops for the jobs. It just so happens that Dynamis-Jeuno is the zone with nothing to offer Paladins in the relic armor department. I was strictly here for the clear, and the points. (...and the money drops, who can pass up the chance to make a usual 300K?) The Relic Shield drops here however, but we got no such drops, and I am not interested in the Relic weapons and shield at this point, strictly the armor.

I came out 400K ahead in my pocketbook, but due to a nasty death at the end, and me having to leave the computer before I could be raised, I ate a nasty -2400 exp loss. ...and no clear, the main reason I went. Ah well, it was still an experience, and I am glad I went.

As an additional note, the cool effect in the level 65 Dynamis unlocked CS made me look something like this:

See you in Upper Jeuno, I have some Dynamis currency to bazzar... (^.^)v

Ye Shall Be As Gods...

2006-03-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend my sky linkshell decided it was once again time to take on the gods. I have never done all the gods at in a row before (In fact, I have only done Kirin once before this whole thing...) so I was looking forward to a fun experience. We fought the four standard gods on Saturday and took on Kirin on Sunday. Our first fight was against the tiger god Byakko:

Getting to the fight was more challenging than the actual fight in my opinion. Apparently, there are still mages at this level that do not get the "magic" in "magic agro" and as such we had a few deaths. I decided to take one for the team so to speak, and use my 2 hour Invincible to clear the area and train all the mobs to the zone so people could be raised since the Raise spell will draw agro. The fight itself went smoothly, very few deaths and the standard assortment of drops. Unfortunately, there are no drops off this fight that I want, so I was there merely for points, and to backup cure. Ironically, that is what i pretty much do all the time in sky is assist cure the tanks, since I am by no means teh best tank, or even PLD in the shell. After this fight, we took on the dragon god Seiryu:

Now, this battle drops an item I am after. The Matrial Head Abj. drops from this mob, and is used to uncurse the Koeing Helm making it usuable. Amazingly, I was one of only 2 people who wanted the drop, and won lotting rights with a 25 point bid. The battle went very well for about 50% of the mobs lifebar. All of a sudden, I see /linkshell chat full of "Hundred Fists, Run Away!" This is one of the nasty god 2 hours, and can kill alot of people. Usually, we shadowbind the mob, and all is well. This time however, a new BLM decided to keep nuking, and the shadowbind was broken, allowing the dragon terror to literally wipe out all of our tanks...

...except me, who was safe at the time in the backup healing alliance. Faster than you can say 'MPK' I was kicked from the healing alliance and brought into the tanking alliance. Now, up until this point, I had little hate since all i was doing was dropping the occasional Cure III, and it was up to me to try to gain hate over all the DDs in the fight. I proceeded to go through every hate gathering move I had, and once i went to Invincible, it didn't go off. In a flash, I recalled that I had used it to save the alliance wipe before heading to our first fight. It happens that Provoke was up again, and this time I got the mobs attention. May I say, I don't think he liked me, and his 40% lifebar made me worry I wasn't going to live very long.

Now, consider the following; I am a level 71 Paladin / 35 Warrior. I have no God gear (yet), I am wearing full PLD AF. The only thing standing between me and this monster is my trusty Terra's Staff. With that in mind, I was able to solo tank Seiryu for the rest of the battle, only losing hate briefly once to a MNK going all out to kill him. Soon following, I was greeted with the following sight: My item didn't drop, but a few others did. I was given a pat on the back for saving the run, and the melees jokingly said, "I have never seen to many cures in my life!" It was the first time I had even tanked a god, and I lived. (^.^)v

Still a little shaken from the battle I gathered myself up and we moved on to mob #3, the turtle god Genbu:

I should really say god #3 and #4. We fought Genbu twice since we had the needed pop items. Now, Genbu drops TWO (2) items I want. The first and more important is the Martial hands Abj., used to uncurse the Koeing Hands. The second is the W. Feet Abj., that is used to uncurse the Crimson Feet. With the rule that you can only lot on one item per god, I decided to take the item I wanted more: the M. hands Abj. As it turns out, everyone that wants this item, has it, and I was able to bid 20, the minumum number of points for it, since I was the only one who wanted it. Both fights went smoothly, Genbu can be taken with as little as 6-7 people. Luck was not with me however, since my item didn't drop after either fight. The W. Feet Abj. did drop however, and went to one of the DRKs in the linkshell. After talking with a fellow PLD, I was told this should be the absolute last thing I get, since it isn't all that much better than my AF feet, so I didn't feel so bad about not lotting on it. After a quick regroup, we went on to fight the last battle of the day, the greater bird god Suzaku:

This fight is hard for a single reason, this bird likes to cast magic. Nasty magic. Flare, Firaga3, and so on... Now, being a fire based mob, we can prepare for it (Now is a good time to take off that Bomb Queen Ring...) and take the needed precautions. Again, as with many mobs, this mob doesn't possess any drops I desire, so I didn't bid on anything. After defeating the nasty bird with few complications, we called it a day. On Sunday, we went to tackle the god of the gods, Kirin:

Now, Kirin is a sort of special fight. Getting to him involves a 'trick' with one of the teleoprters in sky. When teleoprting to his room, you need only take a single teleporter, but you can ONLY teleport on a time ending with an even number. Times like 11:52, 11:54, 11:56, 11:58, etc. This can prive to be tricky, and many a sneak oil can be lost in the process. Last time I went to Kirin, I was 1/6 in successful attempts, this time I went 1/2. However, on the first attempt, my sneak oil wore at a very bad time, and I got agro. Luckly, Invincible saved me running to the zone, and I emerged with a scant 128 HP.

After getting to the battleground, we sat around waiting for everyone to be ready, and began the fight. Another 'special' part of this fight, is that he is able to summon all four of the gods you already defeated to pop him. They are at about 50% strength as their original forms, but when you are kiting Kirin, and fighting another god, things can go badly very fast. This isn't Kirin's two hour ability however, he can also get off a lightening fast Astral Flow, that usually kills anyone around him.

Even with all these problems, we still won the fight in just over 41 minutes, not bad by any standards. The drops were also very good for this fight.

Now, Kirin is one of the harder mobs in the game, and his drops reflect that. He has some of the best items for mages, tanks, and damage dealers alike. The one drop in particular that interests me, is the W. Legs Abj. This item is used to uncurse the Crimson Legs, which offer superior defence compared to even my AF legs, +25HP, +25MP, +20 to several resistances, and movement speed +12%. Few items offer so much, and in the legs slot no less. I was willing to bid as high as 60 for this item, even though the minimum bid is 20. However, another Paladin in the LS has a good 100+ points, and dashed my hopes of winning the lot with an impressive bid for 100. Now, as it so happens, the W legs Abj. dropped, and now I am potentially the next in line for this awesome item. >:D

After all the gods excitment, we decided to put together a quick Divine Might run. Now, for those of you who don't know, Divine Might is a quest in sky that replaces the ZM14 mission. You fight all of the Ark Angels at once with 18 people, instead of one at a time with 6 people. There are some awesome level 72 earring rewards for completing this BCNM, and I have my eye on this particular beauty:

This earring was designed with PLD in mind, and I wasn't about to pass up the chance for one. We managed to get 18 people together, and were going to take a crack at the BCNM. However, one of our members jumped the gun, and joined the wrong BCNM ( 'Ark Angels (2)' if you wanted to know...) and ended up locking out some of us from the fight, essentially forcing us to not do the battle.

I wasn't too upset, since I knew we had only a small chance at winning, but I wanted to try anyway. You live to fight another day Ark Angels...

The Chains That Bind Us...

2006-03-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

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

The Elvaan Perspective

2006-03-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

Reading the Blog kept by Tuufless: http://tuufless.blogspot.com/ I felt the need to try out the art for myself. While my writing and storytelling skills may not be up to par, it should be a nice counterpoint or at worst, a nice second perspective of the happenings of the TrueRune Linkshell and the FFXI Odin Server in general.

So, with all that out of the way, a little about myself. I am a Paladin/Warrior in the TrueRune Linkshell on the FFXI Odin Server. My current level as of this posting is PLD71/WAR37. A list of the events I hope to complete in the near future are in no particular order:

- Level PLD to 75.
- Level RDM to 37. (...and WHM & BLM to 18 to assist this task... -_- )
- Level NIN to 37.
- Finish buying my PLD gear. (Gigant Mantle & some HP earrings.)
- Get the Rare/Ex PLD gear ( Koeing Head & Hands, Crimson Legs & Feet, Joyuse.)
- Attain "Sea" Access and finish CoP missions. (...and bag one of those awesome rings...)
- Finish "Sky" missions after ZM14 and take a shot at completing "Divine Might".
- Level NPC from current level of 62 'Soothing Healer' to 65 'Soothing Healer'.
- Complete all Dynamis zones and gain all 5 pieces of Paladin Relic Armor.
- Buy the new FFXI: ToA Expansion (Goodbye $30) and explore the new content.
- Be a better tank than Ninjas everywhere!
- Start doing more BCNMs, and EMNs with the linkshell. (Yeah, that means you Tuuf!)

So, as a good blogger should, I guess I can gring you up to speed on the last...oh let's say 3 months of FFXI events as seen through my eyes (in no particular order):

- Attained Sandy Rank 9 & 10: Moghancement San. Conquest & Kingdom Aketon.
- Leveled Paladin to 60 - 71.
- Leveled Warrior from 35 - 37. (Can't have a gimped sub, now can we?)
- Assisted TrueRune's second Dragoon Ararith with her Rank 6 Mission Fight. <3
- Purchase of almost all Paladin endgame armor, thus completing my (not max HP) armor sets.
- Attained Bomb Queen Ring.
- Went on a LS trip to complete ZM4 - ZM13 and do a second set of runs for Hiroaki, the resident LS RDM.
- Unlocked the latent effects on my Sapara of Trials, and my Pole of Trials.
- Attained the final sword weaponskill "Savage Blade". (Still looking for a "Retribution" run...)
- Joined a Dynamis and Sky LS to hopefully gain endgame armor, and help others do the same.
- Cooked alot of food.
- Farmed four (4) Mermaid Rings before they bottomed out on the AH.
- Assisted Ararith (60 DRG) in getting her AF Body and Helmet, and buying her Scorpion Harness.
- Watched said Dragoon farm more Gausbit Grass than a Jeuno could even hold... (edit, edit, edit, edit...)
- Won the hearts and minds of countless fans. ¬_¬
- All that other stuff I am sure I forgot...

So, I think that brings us up to speed here. I intend to post my upcomming adventures as I have them. Until then...

...But seriously folks, I also made the blog to be able to respond to Tuuf's posts. ¬_¬