A good day.

Definitely a good day. Some days you get some things accomplished and some days you don't and then some days are like yesterday. Everything lines up perfectly and falls into place in front of you. Nothing can go wrong and nothing does go wrong. I need more days like this, LOL.

There was an evil in Vana'diel. I have actually defeated this evil individually, but I have never faced this evil in its full force. This evil is intimidating and daunting, and some would argue that it is not possible to beat this threat without 18 BLM's >.<.

That evil is the evil within the races of Vana'diel.

That evil is in the apathetic hearts of Mithra.
That evil is in the cowardly hearts of Tarutaru.
That evil is in the envious hearts of Humes.
That evil is in the arrogent hearts of Elvaan.
That evil is in the rageful hearts of Galka.
And they stand together as a force to destroy all of Vana'diel.

If you hadn't guessed by now this post is going to have alot of pictures. ^.^

Versus did the Divine Might fight last night. Now this fight is hard, confusing and complicated. Five different mobs, each with 2 different jobs and each able to use their respective 2 hours. I wont go over the specific strategy for this fight, but lets just say that Taru has to die really fast or everyone is going to die horribly. Ailee even came to do this fight with us, which was really nice, and she even came as RDM which is a very rare sight anymore.

Everyone gathered together at the entrance to prepare. We had too many people for one fight so we were going to have to do it multiple times. We had something like to 8 Ark Pentaspheres, because we expected to lose this fight a couple of times before we got it right.

We went in and faced our greatest foes, the evil reflection of ourselves.
As I have said, the Tarutaru has to die fast before it breakgas everyone and starts warping around. Sadly, I have no pictures of the Taru's unfortunate demise because that punk died so fast everytime we went to fight it that I couldn't even get a screenshot of it. The Mithra was the next that had to die and that was my responsibility. The Mithra has HORRIBLE accuracy, it literally would hit once out of about every four swings. Even better, all of my ninjutsu landed. Blind, Slow, Paralyze, it was almost a joke how easy it was to tank the Mithra. Even better than that, it didn't have a multi-hit weaponskill besides Rampage which I believe it used once in the three fights. It tended to charm a random BLM when it two houred. It was funny watching a little Taru running around wacking at a members of the alliance.

After the Mithra went down, its pet was next, on the first run it was the Mandy which is supposed to cause some trouble, but I think the worst it did was bindga everyone one time before the 3 BLM's in the party absolutely destroyed it. The other two times we got the tiger, which was so easy that I dont even know why I took this screenshot of it, LOL
After the Mithra's pet, it was onto the Galka. It was surprising because the Galka seemed to have a higher defense than even the Elvaan. It didn't do many jumps which was very nice because they have a really strong AOE Stun. In fact, all of the Stuns that the AA's used were really strong, sometime like 5-6 seconds each. But by this time we had all of the melee and BLM's on the Galka and he went down pretty quickly.
The wyvern was next, and although one time it was killed before the Galka, it never posed any real problem. It was much the same as the ones in the Thickets, it was a chain extender and TP build mob.
Next came the Hume, who was a real pain in the ass. Not that we really had much of a problem with him, but we had to take a Mijin Gakure which although usually not being enough to kill me, it was usually enough to kill the tank at the time. Then it would turn to me and do one of its TP moves, strip my shadows, then do things that are considered sexual offenses in 48 states. But it died just like the rest.

Finally, it was onto the Elvaan. The Elvaan loved to spam Spirits Within, which went through shadows and was almost always a one shot. We pretended for a while that we could straight up tank it but it ended up being kited usually because anyone that stood close enough got one shotted. The Elvaan took a while but it went down and we had our victory.

The apathy of the Mithra was overcome.
The cowardace of the Tarutaru was defeated.
The envy of the Humes was vanquished.
The arrogance of the Elvaan was rebuked.
The rage of the Galka was conquered.
And we emerged victorious three times out of three tries.
Here is our best result. Yep, we used a standard party set up and beat it in ten minutes. Our longest attempt took 15 minutes, which was actually our third attempt.

After all three runs were done, I headed over to the Shrine to pick up my reward. Of course I picked the Suppanomimi. It is the obvious choice for a NIN and also my future WAR. I did have a twinge of guilt for not getting the Bushinomimi for my SAM, which it is probably better for, but then realized that freaking 5% haste on weapon delay in the ear slot makes that other stuff a joke in comparison.
After the DM fight, Charlet wanted to get some xp and Ailee wanted to burn on her PLD/NIN to test out her new Suppanomimi, so we grabbed Omoi, Gordor and Bgalvin and headed out to fight some Trolls in Mount Zhaylom. The trip to get to the trolls used to be really easy. Out of the Halvung Staging Point, sneak and invis, through the Gates of Halvung, past the Wamoura Princes and on to fight the trolls. That was until the put the full grown Wamoura into the game. So, you now have to sneak past these true sight monsters, and some of us are better at sneaking than others. *coughAileecough* These guys are beast. They will rip you to shreads if you are not ready. Hell, they will rip you to shreads even if you are ready. That is the before picture, this is the after picture. Ouchies.

And now we know who keeps aggroing the Diabolos NPC's in Dynamis-Tavnazia. Yeah, I am going to get punched for that one. LOL (Hi, Ailee ^.^)

We beat up some Trolls for a while until I was able to see this nice little scene. I got level 72 on my SAM. Its really nice to progress on my SAM, the faster I can get the 75 the better, as I want to be able to get more end-game useage out of my SAM. Now, the question of the Hagun... I will get to that in a minute.

Before that though, Thazienne requested Omoi and my presence in the Altepa Desert right after our party. I suspected that it was to fight the Tungi mob, but I wasn't sure. Lucky for me I was right! (I was actually not exactly sure that is why we were going. I thought it might also be to help Thaz with the Pendragon Axe mob which he has been trying to get for a while. I wasn't even sure the spawn was for me, LOL, I thought that Kitty had his Tungi already). We headed into the QSC and although Thaz has been having major internet issues as of late we were able to pop Tribunus VII-I. This mob is pretty easy and I actually got my best Tachi: Kasha ever (which I thought I screenshoted but couldn't find it when I was uploading the pictures), even though this mob was something like an EP to me and I had 300 TP. It was like 1200+ with my still gimp Kaz. Now Tribunus can be a real pain about dropping the Tungi, but not on a day like yesterday. The Tungi was mine. I now have the standard issue axes for my WAR from the early 60's until 71. Now to just get my WAR to a level that I can use the Fransisca and Tungi.

Now, I wanted to say I have great friends. Thaz for searching for and finding the Antican Tag to pop the Tungi NM. That was just an incredible act of kindness especially considering his severe internet issues. I was so happy, and Kitty does this kind of thing for people ALL THE TIME. He may be the greatest, most kind, supportive and generous player I have ever met. He is a great player and a great human being.

In the same breath, I should mention that Glacian is also a great guy! He is letting me borrow his Hagun! That is fantastic! I will be using it until at least I get to 73 when I can use my Ushikirimaru or until I can afford to get a Hagun or at very least I find one on the AH. I am afraid the price is going to go up on them because there hasn't been one on the AH for days now. Anyway, this is how it looked on me. \^.^/
And that was my damn good day. I dont know what else could have happened to make it any better. I was pleased to say the least.

Now, I wanted to mention something about game mechanics (like this post wasn't long enough). I have been trying to convience people for a while that you can skill up on a missed swing for a weapon or more importantly you can skill up parrying without a parry proc'ing. Now I have the proof. In this shot I get Overthrow missing me and the Troll just plain hitting me, but at no point does a Parry proc. And yes, I have "Attacks you evade" unfiltered (I have to for my NIN) so if it did proc you would see it here. So for those that doubted me, you really can skill up on failed procs. It just doesn't happen very often.

Tomorrow I want to talk about how PLD/NIN fits well into end-game burn parties, and yes I am being serious. Time to break that little elitest shell just a little bit more.

I am also thinking about changing the format for my pictures in the blog. More cropped shots and making them easier to download. Tell me what you think.