Catharsis

There was a scene in Clerks called Catharsis, that involved a convience store food fight. Cathartic indeed.

This blog entry is going to be cathartic in much the same way.

RMT.

Actually not even RMT, because as much as I hate the RMT, they wouldn't exist if not for the lazy. The lazy exist at all levels of the game, its not just new players that buy gil to support themselves because "farming is boring." It infects the most "elite" players also. The perfect proof can be found in the answer to this question: How do endgame LS's do so many Kirins and Byakkos yet are never camping in Sky? And the simple answer is that they buy their gems from RMT. Not all of them do this, and a few will camp NM's in sky, but a good deal of the gems come from RMT. If their wasn't a market for it, the RMT wouldn't be camping Sky. People say that changing the gems in Sky to Rare/Ex wouldn't do anything to RMT, but it would for this very same reason.

Everyone has their own happy little plausible deniablity. My friend quit the game, gave me millions. I grow elemental ores. This gem fell in my lap, like mana from heaven. And just like so much else in this game, the actions of the lazy, oh sorry, I mean "elite" players, have consequences for everyone else. This effect is much more profound for those that only do Sky, an action that is now laughed at by those same "elite" players. We are the ones that have to deal with "elite" laziness and greed. We are the ones that have to watch Ulli get hacked over and over.

There are always excuses, there are always denials, there are always return allegations. "Everyone buys gear off the AH from RMT." Its time for a lesson in culpability. This is the difference between not knowing where the item is coming from, and purchasing an item directly from Satan himself. All the excuse, denials, and finger pointing doesn't fix the fact that you just bought an Ulli stone from "Rmtgemsrus" in Batilla Downs.

And sure, its easy for the "elite" players to say they just don't care, because in reality, they don't. Sadly, its a reflection of society as a whole. A lack of responsibility for anything. Oops, I dinged that other car in the parking lot, they won't notice if I just leave. Oops, I fudged a little of our accounts so that I can buy a golden umbrella stand (true story). Oops, we invaded Iraq and made the risk of terrorism far worse than we could ever imagine (this ain't political kiddie's the Bush Administration are the ones that said this). FULL TILT RANT.

STOP BUYING GEMS FROM RMT YOU LAZY FUCKS.

*cough*

Ahhh, catharsis. I am feeling much better now. :)

Now whats next. Ahh, the weekend. Well I had more RL obligations this weekend, so as usual I didn't accomplish everything I wanted. Freaking RL, its the doom of all gamers.

Anyway, Friday night Omoi and I got a pretty bad xp party in Bibiki Bay, but at least I got a little further into 71 (maybe 10k more). But more importantly, I finally removed the latent from my Tachi of Trials. Now you might say using a Trial weapon is gimp in an xp party, but sadly it is just as good as my Kazaradichi, except it has a latent of +20 HP, instead of a worthless +2 Chr. The damage and delay are exactly the same.

Saturday morning Omoi, Charlet and I headed to Norg to activate the last part of the Tachi: Kasha quest. Then we headed out to Kuftal Tunnel, where we beat up Kettenkaefer. Charlet spent more time tanking the beetle than I did on my Ninja. I didn't mind much, LOL. Headed back to Norg to finish off the quest and finally received Tachi: Kasha. I should have taken some screenshot of the beetle or getting Kasha, or anything else in that sequence but its was early and I was tired.

We headed back to Whitegate then went out to the Woodlands to test out my new fancy (and flowery) weaponskill.

Here is a supersweat action shot:

And another of me chopping up a poor defenseless bee (Ailee is calling PETA on me right now):


Here is my second Tachi: Kasha ever. It had to be a Double Attack/Crit or something, because it is just ridiculous:


After this Omoi and I headed out to level NPC's. It was pretty easy going now that I have switched Zenji over to healer type. Before I did that he liked to get himself killed all the time. I actually got him to stay out for the full time for the first time ever LOL. Yeah, I dont call him much but I want to do it more often. It is pretty fun leveling him. Apparently he is level 32 now, but I have never noticed him getting a level.

Sunday was up and down. Sky sucked. Grabbed Faust on the way down to Ulli, camped Ulli for 5 hours, watched the RMT claim Ulli again. And thus you are left with the rant at the top of this post. *deep breath* I am not going to delve back into it, but I hate RMT and hate some "elite" players.

After sky we had a Swift Belt run planned. Now, I have had my Fomor Codex for months, much in the same way that I had my Airtank just sitting around for a long time. I actually had it in storage, and pop items that I put in storage are usually there for a long time ^.^ We gathered up a big group of Versus people, then headed out to the Sacrarium. We headed out to the Hume Fomor NM, Balor, first:
We were able to rip through him pretty quick, but he didn't drop his belt for Borin. Sorry Borin. >.<

Next we headed back through the Maze to fight the evil cat NM, Caithleann. Since Iceblazek was the only kitty with us, he got to pop it. Now, I wish I had gotten a screenshot of this too, but likely it would have just been a mess, because once Caithleann two houred it just liked to spam stoneskin and blink. We couldn't do any damage for pretty much the whole of its two hour. Ice was lucky though because his kitty dropped the Swift Belt for him! Next was onto the Taru room. Eji was supposed to go next but he didn't have enough hate built up to pop it yet, so we went onto the Elvaan room.

This was Kalgar's turn to pop the NM, Luaith. Now the Elvaan NM is supposed to be really tough because it Double Attacks and Triple Attacks constantly, but we had four NINs with us so this wasn't really an issue at all. Luaith went down pretty quickly: But it did not drop the Swift Belt for Kalgar either. >.<

We then headed back around to Balor to try for Vespasian. Another smooth fight and another drop! Vesp got his Swift Belt, and is currently quite pleased with the amount of haste he can stack on his WHM. This had set up quite an interesting pattern of a drop happening on every other NM. And this meant that Eji was next, but interestingly he did not have enough hate to pop the NM LOL. Not saying that he was lying but it was VERY convienent LOL. So I just said I would go next to get the bad luck out of the way. So we took down Luaith without much of an issue. Not really hoping for much (eh, I am superstitious just like everyone else), but low and behold:
Here it is equiped on my level 50 capped SAM:

After my drop we tried one more for Lucella, but we didn't get a drop. It was getting late and Omoi was really tired, so we left and decided that we were going to try again next week.

After that, I decided that I wanted to get some more xp on my Sam. I have been sitting on 71 for about a week now, and I have been trying to level it but haven't been very lucky with parties. So I picked up a BRD, a couple of NINs, a WAR and a WHM. Now, I have xped with one of the NINs a couple of times now, Catalystic, and it seems like every time he is in a party for more than an hour, he DC's and doesn't come back. Its happened 3 time so far, so I wasn't surprised when it happened again, but I managed to find a replacement no problem. Our BRD was a little crazy, as he kept pulling these: I got about 20k xp in the party, leaving me only about 10k TNL. And the real question of whether I need to get a Hagun is looming larger and larger. I think I am just going to bite the bullet and get it, even though there are other things that I need like getting my D. Head made, and saving for end-game WAR axes.

Oh and finally, it was a mistranslation. >.< Here is SE's official word on how empathy works now:

[Job Trait: Empathy]
Players who have acquired the Empathy job trait will be able to copy the Stoneskin effect to their wyvern when using the job ability Spirit Link.

Oh wow, thanks, what a bonus! You are making it work the way it should have worked to begin with! We are so lucky.

Everything else is the same as already announced. Oh beautiful day! What a DRG buff! orz