Sorry guys, I am at home, dying from a cold. Actually, I am feeling better today finally, and I should be at work tomorrow with a new blog entry for everyone :)
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Out of town.
Going out of town today, so not much to offer. Finished my last Omega with ShutUpandDance last night. It is a good LS, but a little 1337 for me. They have a very good ability to handle most any fight, but sometimes they lack the ability to adapt. I think they will be a really good LS if they just kinda go with the flow instead of just trying to throw BLM's at everything. I don't want it to seem like SUaD was a bad LS. Far from it, they were very good, some of the best players on the server that is for sure, but I will be glad to be doing things with friends in Versus.
After Limbus, we did a little xping, almost got a merit but not quite. The last couple of parties have just been thrown together for fun, and not so much a massive focus on getting max xp/hour. I think once I get back from this weekend, I will find a day and spend a couple of hours dedicated to getting some merit points.
Well, I am off for the weekend. Sure this entry sucks, but what is a man to do? LOL
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Real life cutting into play time again >.<
LOL, I went out with some friends last night, and as evidenced by my utter enjoyment of our fiasco of an xp party in the Mire, I think one would be able to deduce that I was not in a fully sober state. In fact, quite the opposite. :) This Mire party was fun because we just ran around grabbing the first thing we saw, and here is a new observation I made at the time about the Mire (which is basically also true for any overcamped areas): If there are too man people for you to get mobs to maintain a high chain then a BRD is basically worthless because they will only help you kill faster which will only depopulate the area more quickly, which will only increase your chance of a large gap between kills breaking your chain. Last night we went as Nin, Nin, War, War (some uber JP WAR with Ridill and E. Body), Rdm, Whm. This party was actually a lot more stable because we didn't have to worry about constantly running out of MP, and the mages could help pull also because they didn't have to worry about being the only healer. I see this as another one of those cases where people see their 1337 friends doing something then they attempt to do it in an inferior manner. Basically, if you don't have the mobs, then a BRD is irrelevent. So think about where you are going and who is there before you go. Well, we just basically reeked havoc in the Mire for a while, and I managed to recap my xp but didn't get very much further to another merit which sucked. But we will probably go again tonight, and hopefully I can get a merit or two.
Since I don't have anything in-game from yesterday, I will go into some more ToAU rumors, speculation and other information. First, I found this on a forum yesterday. 
This was posted by the guy that broke the game by mass dc'ing whole zones of people, and got his very own emergency update, and didn't even get banned because he told the GM's how he did it. Well, there you have your 6th Assault mission NPC. This is kind of crazy that he can get these things to appear. Anyway, my guess is that we might be getting this in the next update, along with 8-11 of the Assault ranks. I am still only Rank 3, and close to Rank 4.
Apparently someone else is claiming that all of the bosses have been reached for Salvage, but I am still a little doubtful of this as I haven't seen any screenshots of the Zhaylom boss. They have mentioned that you have to kill all of the mobs on the second to last floor to reach the last floor. It seems reasonable and if I see a screenshot soon, I will completely buy it. Speaking of which I am itching to get another chance at the Bhaflau boss, I am pretty sure that we will get the win next time.
My head is killing me and I have been working on this for too long, so this is what you get today. :P
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Secrets of Aht Urhgan
I wanted to collect all of the unreleased areas, rumors, inactive points, storyline loose ends and everything else in one place, because I spend all day trying to find out information for this stuff and its spread out all over the place.
Unreleased areas:
Islands off of Wajaom Woodlands and Mount Zhaylom: These are the islands that are connected by the mysterious stones in the area. There is also a stone on the Hediva Island by the Khimaria camp. Can't find the thread of the person that originally posted this for the life of me.
Hazhalm Testing Grounds: Enormous underground area connected to Caedarva Mire outside of Nashmau. More information in the thread I can't find.
Final Assault area in Nyzul Island: Pretty big Assault area, again pictures in the thread I can't find.
Chocobo racetrack: Will be released in the coming update.
The Pit: Pet vs Pet. No idea how long until they release this.
Storyline loose ends:
Glory Crown: Obviously will be resolved later in the storyline.
ToAU end-game area: Unreleased information but confirmed in a recent interview.
Salvage: Still unknown how to reach 1-2 of the bosses and many of the drops and NM spawn conditions are unclear.\
Assault ranks to 10: Assuming that the ranks will be like those in nations, and it goes to ten, will the rewards get better?
ToAU missions: Ending soon? Or much longer than we expected? It seems that there will at least be a representative from Bastok soon enough, but where does it go from there?
Rumors:
There is a war on the eastern front of Aht Urhgan: Is this the Far East nation that Tenzen hails from? Is there some nation in between? Is the war going well or poorly.
Odin: The dark rider? Yes? No?
Alexander: Salvage? Nyzul? Avatar? Both Odin and Alexander are very sketchy at this point, but both have been either implicitly or explicitly mentioned at some point in the storyline.
Astral Candesence: What are they? What do they do? Why do we care?
I am going to try to update this post at least once a week with any new rumors or information or theories I might hear.
Note to self...
On days that there is an update or the servers are down, I better write a lot more than I did yesterday. Apparently it was not appreciated by the locals that they did not have a nice long post to read to while away the time until the servers were back up. So from now on I will be sure to do that. :) In a further disappointment for the readers I was only on for a very short while yesterday because a friend came over to try to figure out what was wrong with my computer. It doesn't appear that anything is wrong, which doesn't really help me figure out what is wrong. Conundrum indeed.
Anyway, since there was a server reset, we tried to do a quick NM or two but no real luck with that. Maybe again today, because the 21-24 cycles will be up. Some pop immediately after server reset, and some wait for the 21-24 window, and I don't know which are which. Anyway, we did run into this anomaly: 
It was claimed just as it was despawning. LOL So we fought an invisible Antlion for a bit.
So, like I said, I don't really have much because I just wasn't on for very long at all yesterday. So instead I will do some speculation on more Aht Urhgan mysteries, if I have time.
Sorry Rob. :(
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
At least I tried...
I sat on my WHM for about and hour to an hour and a half yesterday, just trying to get a party, but apparently my skills at magery proceed me. orz What a waste of time, I should have just made a party, but even I get bored with making parties all the time and I just want someone else to do it. Anyway, after a while I just gave up, and went to help Hellz to kill his NM's for CoP while the rest of Versus went to Limbus. Omoi and I promised to help out our old Limbus LS with Ultima and Omega before joining up with Versus, Elfaria is in charge of Limbus until then so its in capable hands. Anyway, while Versus was doing a Temenos run, Omoi and I were fighting Ultima. 
This fight is actually really easy until the last 20%, when you just have to run in and out of the room over and over slowly whittling it down in the time you have between Citadel Busters. The first of which I got to eat last night, it seems that it doesn't exactly go after the person at the top of the hate list, which is kind of weird but its actually better if it just takes our a random person that a tank I suppose.
Anyway, after Limbus, Illius got on and we finished up the NM's for Hellz and Illius, then headed to Sealion's Den for one last fight before Sea. It was pretty easy as always, and after a pretty quick pounding Tenzen sheathed his blade and Hellz and Illius had made it to Sea. 
After that I pretty much went to bed. My computer is having major issues, and I think the hard drive might be dying. I need to look into it, quick. Anyway, it was pretty much a short day and I am glad to basically be done helping people with CoP.
Now, onto my Merit set up that I am considering.
HP: 4
MP: 4 (@2)
STR: 5
Katana: 8 (@0)
Archery: 4 (@0)
Magic Skills: LOL
Critical hit rate: 4
Enemy crtical hit rate: 4 (@0)
That is pretty much it for the general categories. Since I play a bunch of different jobs I will probably avoid doing any more job specific merits until these are completed. The one exception might be Overwhelm, which would be beneficial to splitting up SA and TA because I can see myself going as SAM/THF to Limbus quite a bit.
There is a maintenance today so I don't know if I will even be on if it is extended and such, so if I don't have any pictures for tomorrow, you will know why.
Monday, February 19, 2007
I see dead Garudas...
I have a ton to talk about today. This weekend was busy and really productive, but also included some failures from which we learned quite a bit. First, lets go over the dings. Now, I should be leveling my WHM, and Omoi will be the first to tell you that I have been slacking in this department, but I leveled some of my other jobs because I was a bit run down on leveling everything under the sun to 37. I will pick up on leveling WHM again today and this week, and I will hopefully have WHM, PLD and BLM to 37 relatively quickly. So I leveled my RNG again, and got it to level 66 ^.^ 
The parties weren't too spectacular but they were decent and one of them was with Biblo, Ice and Aable, which went very well even though Biblo ate a one-shot fire breath from the Eruca a couple of times, but he is a trooper like always so he got right back up and kept fighting. There are no real new accomplishments on RNG until at least level 70, so it is kind of a bog right now, I can't wait to get to do Mire parties because mobs will die really fast at that point, weak Imp's and Flies weak to piercing, sweet! My gear on RNG has been pretty stagnant, I did upgrade my rings and I am thinking about moving up to something better in the ear slot. Genin and Vision earrings would be great, but I am being stingy about gil right now. Once I get to level 70, I will completely reevaluate my gear. One last thing I will say about RNG is that even though I do not have an Eurytos' Bow, I think I am going to stick with Archery for three reasons, 1) I already have a bunch of good STR and AGI gear, 2) I like the TP build and base damage on Archery better than Marksmanship, 3) I can use Archery for both RNG and SAM/RNG. With that being said I will be going over what I want to merit and a definite path I will be taking in a future post.
The second job I was able to level was my WAR, which I finally got to level 55, and then to level 56. 
At 55, I got the marque WS of WAR, and yes, I am sorry to say but the reason that I am leveling WAR is because I already have the gear and it is basically an "XP get" job. I am the kind of WAR that main job WAR's hate, its not my first job and I am not taking it as seriously as some other jobs. Sometimes even people like me need to embrace my own inner e-peen, and thus learning Rampage was the pinnacle of this e-peenery. 
Getting my WAR to 56 has saved me a ton of space because I was able to mule about a million different really crappy pieces over to Ringone. I now have all of my WAR gear to around 75 basically. I do still need a Maneater and a Woodville's Axe but I already have a Byakko's Axe, and I am quite satisfied with that. Since I am not going to merit Axe or Sword, I will be sticking with Axe/Axe set up at 75. I am quite comfortable with the damage I am doing with Rampage as this is what I got on one of my first Rampages after getting the WS: 
In an attempt to come full circle on my own e-peenry, I would like to say that if SE changed the TP modifier on Penta-Thrust from damage to change of critical hit then DRG would be much more viable end-game for, at very least, merit parties. It's a very obvious change, but I doubt SE will notice it.
Now, about 1k of experience before I got to 56 on my WAR, Kirameki hit the cap for level 55, because she has not gotten G2 done yet, so the next day, we were off to kill some Boreal beasts in Xarcabard. 
When we arrived I realized that I only had 15 shehei left and no blind tools, and with the only support being a level 55 BRD, this was going to be a little bit more difficult than I was originally thinking, but we marched out to the Hound first. 
Now e-peen shots of damage on the hound are like e-peen masterbation, because it has like zero defense and vitality, so the numbers were irrelevent, and truthfully this was one of the harder Boreal mobs we fought because of Methane Breath, that combined with not much more healing than Paeons to heal it was a bit dicey, but we pulled through. Another short run across Xarcabard and we were at the Coeurl. 
This was the easiest monster for G2. It liked to cast Burst which wasted much of its time and only took one shadow. Not much else to say there, so we were quickly off to the Tiger. 
The Tiger was a bit tough too, because I ran out of shihei about half way through the fight. So I was blood tanking with out much support for a while, but we managed even with any two hours. :) It was fun duoing all of the G2 mobs for Kirameki, and then we were off back to Jeuno to set Kirameki's new level cap to 60. ^.^/ Congratulations!
Now, that the dings and leveling accomplishments are covered on to the events of the weekend. First was a horribly failed Dynamis-Valkurm, which isn't as bad as it sounds because they were testing if you could beat the boss without having to beat the NM's to disable the Boss's special abilities. Oh, by the way, you can't. Exhibit A: 
No drops, kind of a waste of borrowed gil, but whatever, it was a test, and at least we wont try it again.
Salvage, on the other hand was much better even though we were unable to get the win either. The run was rather smooth even though we did die more often than normal. We went for the win, but even with that we managed to get two different drops. 
I got these because I am the only person that could lot that had the Usukane set as their first priority in hands, because Gordor has his set for Morrigan hands. We also got the Enyo's leggings 
Now, we still have only got the level 15 drops so far which is a bit annoying as we have not been able to get any of the NM's to pop in either of the areas we have been to, it is a little annoying but gear this good I can expect it to be pretty difficult to get. Now, we were going for the win this time and started off by trying to straight tank it, but for a couple of reasons this wasn't going so well at all. Mostly because the tanks didn't really have much time to get started and we don't have many THF or /THF to set hate with. I think we would be ok with straight tanking if we gave the tanks at least a minute or two to straight up build hate, but with our current situation we are going with something that I believe will work even better. We are going to bounce hate back and forth between two NIN's. Kind of like kiting but a little more efficient. Basically,we will have two NIN's on the opposite sides of the room making small circles around the polls on the non-working teleporters in the room. Then we will treat it like Kirin, skillchains and magic bursts, and RNG's. I think we can pretty easily get the win doing this, as we basically switched to this very shortly after the fight started because hate was all over the place. After we did this in about 5 minutes we had it down pretty far with just a few people putting damage on the boss. Once we start going for the win with this as the original goal we will be much better off, because there will be less work for one WHM to do at once. We should also consider taking two WHM next time I think, because we are definitely a little low on healing. I think that we should be able to get the win on the next run with this new strategy.
Speaking of Salvage, I saw this on Arrow yesterday. 
If you don't know who Arrow is then you probably live in a box or something. Lets just say that he has 2-3 relic weapons and a ton of upgraded AF2 +1, etc, etc, etc. I find it interesting that the Ares body is one of the easiest Salvage items when it is also one of the best.
The last major thing that we did yesterday was finally get Hellzfury and Illius through the Airship fight. This fight just gets easier and easier the more that I do it. Our set up was NIN, DRG/SAM, RNG, WHM, RDM, BLM, and basically this is the best kind of set up I can come up with if you are going to go with a regular party. Two NIN's is much too little damage, and risks running out of time. I was a little concerned about the Mammets which was actually the hardest par of the fight because Gordor (who came as NIN) had to basically hold three Mammets while one was Shadowbound and while Hellz (DRG) and I (RNG) tried to quickly kill another. It got really close a couple of times, with just having to pull hate off of the mages and different people having Mammets on them at different times, but ultimately we prevailed even though I thought I was going to die on two different occasions. Onto Omega, it was a normal Omega fight, got it to 34% before the first wipe. Then cleaned it up pretty quickly after the restart. Ultima was actually pretty easy, and we got it down to 3% before the semi-inevitable wipe, because Eternalpain was able to get off a Flare right before he died. At one point something kind of neat happened, where Omoi and Illius were basically kiting Ultima back and forth with Gordor and it helped to actually slow down its damage, just because they had to heal Gordor a bunch. In the end we got back up after it was at like 3% and I used an Icarus Wing, Sidewinder >> EES >> done. 
And now Illius and Hellzfury basically have Sea, they were running around doing some CS's and were going to try to get the NM's done before Tenzen, then we are going to do Tenzen tonight so they can go to Limbus with Versus.
Speaking of Versus, if you hadn't guessed by now, it has reformed. We have basically reformed to a group of 18 people to do Salvage, Limbus, Sea, Sky and a bunch of other things, basically everything we want to do. We are starting our full schedule this week. This is what I was alluding to in previous posts in that I believe that almost everything in the game can be done with 18 competent people. Salvage, Limbus, Sea, Sky, everything. Kirin might be tough, and so might the higher level Sea gods, but it is our goal to do everything with 18 people. To test SE's assertion that everything in the game has been defeated with 18 people. Maybe we can do it, maybe we can't but it is our goal to try. We haven't created a full roster yet, as we have a few slots left to fill, but we are finally requiring that people have Sea and Sky and ToAU missions complete, so that we don't have to do that anymore. LOL Hellz and Illius should be the last time doing a lot of CoP missions unless I am asked to help for others. :)
Friday, February 16, 2007
Pictures from Christmas past.
And here we are with some pictures finally. I actually don't have any pictures from yesterday, because it was just a bad xp party, Limbus with just some coins, then helping Hellz with Tenzen's Path, which was just a continuation from the previous night's "helping Hellz with Tenzen's path" which ended up just being "helping Hellz with Tenzen's path to wipe to three magic detecting mobs." At least last night the run was very smooth, we had previously tried to do it with WAR, WAR, MNK, THF, WHM, but a bad Snoll explosion and some other mishaps caused some mobs to respawn when we were fighting a Gargoyle, aggro, mass death, etc. As you can see, Hellz was not too pleased, so much so that his Snoll head exploded. It was a mess... Snoll brains everywhere, but of course Izman survived.
More pictures from the day before, Ailee's surcoat. It looks fantastic, and it is quite a statement of her dedication to the Obsidian dynamis LS. She has already gone on over 80 runs, and had to spend so many points to get this highly sort after item. So in two weeks her PLD went from pretty good to excellent. A Shadow Mantle and a Valor Surcoat are nothing to scoff at. It must have been the week of the Valor surcoat because Bg got his also. :) Now we just need a RDM hat, Gawayne has been waiting forever for his, and he, of all people, really deserves it.
Now here is the shot of me getting to 65 on my RNG. I would really like to get it to 75 at a much faster pace. Ailee's BRD is now 64 and Ice is now 64 on his THF, while Biblo is at 62 on his WAR. This would be an excellent party to start building, and hopefully we can get together to get to 75 pretty quickly. I would also like to grow into some of the end-game gear that I have waiting for me to clear up some of the space in my mog house. But I think I am getting repetitive on this point, I always have lot of jobs I need to level. :) Thats the way I like to play the game. So enough of the whining about that.
Here are the last three shots, and they are all from Salvage. The first is of the Gent that we killed at the end of one hallway on Zhaylom Remnants. We probably went too far down this hallway but we were still exploring.
Here is the Madame we fought, it was just a socket NM, but we probably should use this mob better because we need to move much more quickly through the first floor to get to the boss or the NM's that actually drop Salvage gear.
Finally here is the Archaic Rampart that we fought and defeated with 3 seconds left and weren't able to get the card for the NM. Guh, this stupid blogger hates anything that could be construed as a html command, so I just lost another part of my post because I made a squinty eyed face. How freaking stupid. This new blogger is super lame. Something went here about how we need to set some goals for Salvage and that we have most of our exploration out of the way. And that the Ares's Cuirass is actually pretty easy to get once we start killing LBC, which I believe should be our main goal right now. But that is just me.
Now, for the weekend, I am going to be doing a lot it looks like. Some Airship fights to help Illius and Hellzfury to get to Sea by Monday. On Monday, I will be going over some of the things that we hope to be expanding to do. Lets just say that attempting to play the game the way that it was intended may be a bit more difficult than it first appears, but for example the only area in the whole game where the developers intended more than an alliance to be able to defeat any monster (including, they claim, Absolute Virtue) is Dynamis. This is something that interests and intrigues me. And something I would like to test.
Also this weekend, I would like to get my RNG to at least low Mire xp levels, like 68-69. Once that happens, we can all hitch our wagons to our level 75 friends and leech some xp. I have the opposite opinion of most people when it comes to xp in general, luckily a lot of my friends agree. The prevailing opinion is that you need the more 1337 jobs and only a BRD before you start burning for XPz. This is ridiculous to me, because they would rather sit around for hours waiting for the perfect party rather than spending that time actually gaining xp. This is e-peenery at its worst. Most of my friends will xp with anyone at anytime, because some xp is better than sitting in Aht Urhgan for hours. It's very "nose dispite your face" to me.
I feel like I have more to say today, but I will leave it at this, and post more later if I come up with anything.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Damn it!
I had some good pictures from yesterday and the day before but I forgot to put them up before I left for work today. I didn't post yesterday because I was snowed in and my work was closed. :) Anyway, I did get my RNG to 65, and found out sadly that ranged accuracy SUCKS at this level. I also found out that NIN can't hold hate at all against a RNG at this level, and a PLD can. I can do more damage while having less MP wasted on me with a PLD. I know this is a blasphemy, but I don't know what else to say. NIN is a good tank situationally, but it is not as good as some people say. The horrible thing is that bad BRD's make this situation worse. I had two parties in the last two days and they are the perfect example of the stupidity of those that follow the trends of their friends without thinking for themselves. Party 1, PLD, RNG (me), DD, DD, BRD, WHM. Best party I have ever had on RNG, it was clean, and very easy to kill things very fast. Party 2, NIN, RNG, DD, DD, WHM, RDM. A normal party, it was the kind of party that you would have expected to have a PLD with, XP was slow, and not very good. This was because we had to stop to get MP so often because the NIN kept lowing hate to the DD's. This NIN was actually much better than most I have seen at this level. And this doesn't really get any better all the way through to end game burn parties. We just notice it less because everyone has Ni.
Now here is the real issue, SUBBING NIN IS GIMP. MNK's that sub NIN know that subbing NIN is gimp. Now, DRG's and DRK's can now sub SAM to make up for the gimpness of NIN, but MNK's can't. I recently had a party with a PLD/WAR in normal DEF/VIT/Enmity gear wear because they could hold hate people could sub WAR because they didn't fear losing XP. This is ultimately where people screw up. Yes, a NIN, WAR or MNK can support themselves in a burn party, and maybe make a little more xp, but if you a regular DD job or a MNK that doesn't like gimping themselve, then grab yourself a regular plain old PLD as your main tank and you can do more damage than the NIN and probably the WAR (sure there are exceptions but I have heard more than one claim that an uber geared MNK/WAR can out damage an uber gerared WAR/NIN). So, the problem is not so much with how the party operates, it is more about the laziness of people. BRD's especially. I am sorry, but there are VERY FEW good BRD's anymore, and the princess attitude is only getting worse. Here is well known fact, everyone has either RDM, BRD, NIN, WAR or BLM leveled to 75. So acting like a princess on your BRD isn't going to make friends with people when they are trying to get their other job to 75, because they will probably remember that later on. And you never know when you are going to dealing with other people again. And when you are a level 63 BRD and you turn down a party just because of PLD tank, then it not only shows that you are a princess, but that you are just plain stupid, but you will be doing less work with the PLD tank than you will with the NIN level 63 BURNZ party that you are hoping for, because the other jobs have to gimp themselves to prevent themselves from dying. A MNK that subs NIN at level 60 because a NIN will never hold hate is a sad state of affairs.
Now, this is going to bring me to the second prong of my full-on rant. 99% of NIN's these days have no freaking clue how to tank. NO FREAKING CLUE. DO NOT WEAR STR RINGS WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO TANK. For the love of god, people can't really be this stupid. You need enmity to keep hate on a NIN below AT LEAST 70. Wearing DD gear does not make you a tank, you will lose hate to everyone else that can do any amount of damage. Get a Mermaid Ring, get a Eris Earring, get Arhat's gear. Sure this can change depending on the party, but come on at least think. Do you see any other DD's wearing STR rings after Snipers/Woodsman are available? Why do you think STR rings give you more damage? Is NIN special? No, they aren't, they just are able to overlap shadows, but do less damage than the rest of the DD's. So they will lose hate if they don't try to keep it. That means casting debuffs, that means enmity gear, that means trying to care, and that means at least trying not to be stupid.
Wow... where did that come from. I mean, I knew I had to fill up this column without my own pictures, but I didn't expect that.
Anyway :)
Ok, lets see, did a Salvage. Zhaylom Remnants. Before the specifics about that I want to make a general comment about how we do Salvage. We are way to worried about gear, and we need to be much more selective and use the socket mobs much more effectively. You can be greedy with gear in Bhaflau, but Zhaylom is going to require that we are more careful about who gets what, and make sure that people get only what they need not what they want. Now, let me say this first, I am the worst offender about this, I beg for gear unlocks when I don't need them as much as others. LOL At least I can realize it now. Anyway, Zhaylom is actually pretty easy, just really long, but I think we are getting really efficient at things now, and as Versus fills out we will be able to get more done more quickly. In Zhaylom we rushed through with what I thought was speed but we had limited time once we got the the second floor. We did get to the Archaic Rampart on the third floor and kill it, and it dropped a card, but we were not able to pass before we got kicked. It was less than 10 seconds when we killed it, and people tried to pass or lot fast enough, but it just didn't fall in time. :( I think with a little forethought we should be able to get to the NM on the third floor, but I have no idea how people get to the end of this mission. I would like to see us go for another win on Bhaflau, since we have only tried once, and it went really poorly, just because things started off a little rough on the run. I think the next time we go we should have a much better time. :)
Ailee got her Valor Surcoat, or as she would type "Valour." LOL This was awesomeness stacked on top of sweet uberness. Bg and Ailee getting their Surcoat in two days! I was ecstatic! This is the screenshot I am most upset about not having available. >.< But I still couldn't resist posting about it because it was a great run apparently (I missed it sadly) PLD, THF, BLM and something else good but not RDM. I would also really like to see Gawayne finally get his RDM hat. :) Personally I think we need to do more outland runs in general, I know that we have to do starter cities to make money to pay for the runs, but I think we do too many of them, and people generally need outlands gear more than starter cities.
I think that is all I got, I will post the pictures when I get home, and I will post again if I think of anything else. :) Oh and Izman really is back.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
And still more...
Don't know what to make of this but I found this today. Don't know if its from SE or not, I would guess not based on the description on the map, but even if its fan work its still incredibly well done.
Dear reader,
Here at YANYFOK, the staff strives day after day to find new and exciting things for you to read. The staff being me, and the new and exciting things, are stolen ideas from other people and my insignificant dings! Now that we have gotten that out of the way, I want you to know that you can always e-mail me at tweiner1@gmu.edu if you want to you know, talk to me, yell at me, or do whatever, because then I will use these e-mail occasionally to create filler posts from when I am out of town or some other occasion has caused me to miss the game while not prohibiting me from making a blog post. Then you the reader will be the object of my scorn instead of the glorification of my RNG 64 screenshot! Think of it! You can do it, America! Do it for me! LOL
Anyway, I thought of that walking in today to work, and I really would like to get more e-mails or comments, because I will add them to the blog. And I did hit 64 on my RNG last night (finally). I have been leveling sub jobs like crazy and not really enjoying it. WHM is alot slower than DRK, and now it looks like I have to level PLD for NIN too. Can anyone give me some input on this? Is PLD sub any good for NIN? I have no idea when I will be able to level all these subjobs, leveling DRK almost consistantly took me a week or two, and I can't force my way through it on WHM like I did with DRK. I don't really want to spend all my time in the game leveling subjobs, as I haven't done anything but level subjobs for over a month now and it really sucks. Anyway, I need to start making a weaponskill macro for my RNG. The damage from Sidewinder is incredibly consistant and I think I can risk some ranged accuracy on Sidewinder for some more damage. I already have a Rajas Ring so that is a good start, maybe another STR ring, I don't know how giving up Ranged Attack will effect in comparison to gaining STR. Like if I started using a Spike Necklace or Chivalrous Chain over Ranger Necklace, would it increase or decrease damage? I mean STR is a rather small modifier for the damage on Sidewinder so I would think that Ranged Attack would be better, BUT the calculations for Ranged Attacks are different than those of regular melee attacks so it may be easier to get to the damage cap on Ranged Attack and then needing STR to bump up the damage. This may be the case because of the incredibly consistent amount of damage that I have been doing Sidewinder.
Anyway, there are a number of congratulations that need to be handed out. First of all, after over a year in Aelita, and shuffling through several leaders and changes, Bgalvin finally got his Valor Surcoat! 
He has been waiting for it for so long that I was beginning to believe that he doubted its existance. Now Ailee is next to get hers! She has so many points over the next person that wants it in Obsidian that its kinda crazy, but that person just keeps bidding all of their points as if they would have a shot at it. It really is quite a base thing to do, but whatever, its their points, but things like this come back around to bite you in the ass. Second, we have Vespasian who did get a Xarcabard item, an area that tends to be very greedy to Obsidian. Cleric's Mitts dropped for him, and I know he was quite pleased. 
SE has FINALLY announced that there will in fact be another update. >.< (Right about here, the stupid new easier to use Blogger software ate part of my post. I was trying to avoid switching, because I heard stuff like this was happening, but today they required the switch to be able to log into the blogger. Its fucking useless.) I was going to say something about there being Chocobo Racing and that I don't really have any interest in it because I don't bred Chocobos and knowing my luck they would all end up horribly retarded, then there was this cute little picture below of a retarded Chocobo, but you know what? Blogger killed my enthusiasm for it, they just killed the love.
And yes, this was stolen, outright, from VGCats, but it was just so apropos. What can I say? LOL Thats it for today, see you tomorrow.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Something to report finally.
I got home a little earlier than I thought I would have last night, so I decided to go to Dynamis-Windurst even though I didn't sign up for it. I went as NIN, either though I think NIN isn't very effective in Dynamis, for three reasons. One, I asked first and Gawayne said that having NIN would be nice if things need to be kited. Two, because in the starter cities the mobs are so much easier and I generally use food in Dynamis (unlike a lot of people) I don't mind taking NIN, even though I do better damage with SAM. Finally, Windurst is a hard win and sometimes tanks can go down in bad pulls, and its nice to have a back up there, to continue and prevent a wipe. Luckily, this didn't happen yesterday, the run was smooth except for one extremely huge pull, and I was sleepga'ed through most of it. Windurst really isn't that hard when you have more people, but we mostly have it up against other CoP runs so we don't get very many people at all for the runs. We got a ton of AF, topped by 4 BLM hands. There were two RNG hands and the second set went to me. :) 
I wasn't even signed up for the run, and I get some pretty decent AF2 :). It wont really matter once I get to 74-75 when I will be using Seiryu's Kote and AF+1, since their stats are profoundly better, but for a couple of levels it will be better than most everything that I already have.
Oops this was sitting here while I was talking, sorry, picking it up again. :)
Not much else to add, Dynamis usually sucks up alot of my night, and my wireless internet just sucks and is driving me crazy. So I just went to bed after trying to get a party on my WHM. But I did get to see this cool shot. Illius just got Blade: Ten on NIN, now you may have seen taru's doing this before but I rarely have, and it is pretty damn bad ass! 
BACKFLIP! 
And now for a little context for this shot. Elfie was having some problems getting a party on their DRK, so we decided to help out. Yeah, a lot of us helped out. Apparently, all you need to rule the world is RMT minions. 
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Nothing much to report.
Yesterday was kinda blah. Did nothing really constructive, I xped with some people to help EP get to 75 again on PLD, and I just recapped xp in that party, didn't even get a merit. Not a good day over all, my internet connection kept blinking out. I am using wireless now and it sucks. It blinks out a lot, and it just isn't as reliable as my wired connection. I don't know how people use this stuff. There isn't even much to report on the FFXI scene in general, no new information from SE about the next update. And its been a while since the last update. I thought we would have heard something by now. Updates are usually every other month and we have almost always gotten one in February and still no peep out of SE. I don't know what else to fill this space with... so, I will just pop back every now and then today with some updates or something.
Update 1: Still nothing, I have been surfing around for some more information on anything, nothing new at all. LOL Its just a total blah day. Don't know what else to say. Currently talking to Bgalvin about how to best set up a NIN/DRK. Probably need a lot less MP than I originally though for the job, which is nice.
Update 2: Hmmm... I heard Izman is going to be back today. That would be great. :) Kinda missed him, because he is one of the only people that never really gets upset with anyone and is hilarious always. Wow... that sounded a little too affectionate... maybe I can get him to sign my yearbook.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Snoll Tzar again.
Well, Illius and Hellzfury now have the Snoll Tzar done. Ranger is pretty devastating in that fight. I did 2790ish damage, and still didn't get to use my EES. I have a thought on these fights, and why people don't like going back to do them. In truth, after you do them the first time they are really hard, you have to go a couple of times and it costs a bunch of gil. But truthfully, once you understand the mechanics of the fight, it actually gets to be pretty easy. But that is not how people think, they think, "hey I have done this really hard fight, now everyone else should have to do this really hard fight without help," even though they probably got help for the fight also. It's a little sad, but it the way some people are. I like to help because the more people that get to Sea the more people we get that can do Sea activities, like Limbus.
Well, I leveled my WHM again :). 
I kind of like it but I don't know how good I am, but I am starting to get into a pattern of how to heal. When to cast Cure and when to cast Cure II. Its very interesting, and there is much more to it than I realized. Like Bar-spells are very effective, and keep me much more active than I thought I would be as a healer. It is actually quite fun to play and I think I am getting into the grove. I thought I would be struggling with MP as Elvaan but with 2 MP merits and a borrowed Astral Ring I usually have more than 100 MP left at the end of a fight out of about a 200 MP pool. Its still slow going, but I at least enjoy it, unlike DRK. Sorry, Borin. LOL
I finally picked up my Pahluwan khazagand yesterday. I have to say this is probably the first (maybe second) item that I just like to wear, because it looks cool. :) The only other item that I can think of as town gear that I have is my N. Body, but thats is part e-peen and part good looking. The Pahluwan body just looks so intricate and elaborate. 
Basically, I picked it up because its probably the best non-Osode, non-Kyudogi body piece for RNG. LOL, I would really like to level RNG again, but WHM is a priority to 37 right now. Getting a job to 37 is a lot more work than I remember it being back in the day, and WHM you can't really get a PL for and just solo, because you can't really do any damage with your club, like you would on a DD job.
Last night, Pbdominator beat the Airship! ^.^ So after beating the Snoll Tzar (which he, Eternalpain and Gordor also helped with [thanks a ton guys!]) we went to fight some of the NM's he has to kill before the Tenzen fight. It was pretty fun, because we didn't really buff or anything we just kinda popped the mobs and let the chips fall where they may. The Kraken was easy, three times it Hundred Fist'ed, and it was more like Hundred Misses. The Tonberries were just as silly, luckily by accident we just kept the SMN mob to the end. After that I had to go to bed, but Pb and Gordor went on to beat the Bugard to finish off the NM's.
That was pretty much it for yesterday... oh yeah, I did Limbus ^.^/ a pretty simple run, 5 coins and the other half of my RNG set. I am going to upgrade the hands first I am sure, because the hands are pretty much the only non-useful regular AF piece but the AF+1 is pretty damn nice. 
Sunday, February 04, 2007
No where to start so I guess I just will.
Finally, most of my RL issues are out of the way, well, not tomorrow, where I will be gone again, but after that things will be back to normal.
So I have some pictures left over from when I was busy, but its been so long that I have kinda forgotten the order that they happened. So I guess I will start with Limbus. We were supposed to do Ultima but we skipped it again because we didn't have enough people (one person quit the LS and two more didn't show and are probably leaving, its ok because we had a couple of people lined up and ready to join), so we did another Omega instead. Easy fight, pods dropped coins, 3 chips and an RDM upgrade item, chest had brain and forelegs, for which Eternalpain and I received the items respectively. So we were off to Mhaura to trade our items to Wilhelm for our gear. :) 
The Homam Manopolas are very nice for my DRG, only one less ACC, but with the HP and Haste it easily makes up for the difference. 
They are probably a little better for THF, but I am not too concerned about the enmity as I already wear some on my DRG without much detriment. Here is the Homam head that EP got: 
Since the last post about what I have been doing we have done two more Salvages, one was pretty good, and we attempted to pop some NM's for which we didn't pop any. >.< We still haven't gotten a card to drop either. The first one we went up with the intention of farming some of the Archiac gear/s and a chariot. 
Still getting the same drops but nothing much new has dropped. On the second run we attempted to go for the boss but it just didn't start very well, we didn't have a MNK because Glacian wasn't on and Borin and I still don't have capped Hand-to-hand skill. It took forever to kill the first Bifrons, and we only got one weapon drop, then we had to slowly get more gear and stuff. For some reason this run was just much worse than our previous runs, having Glacian there would have helped a ton just to get through the first mobs fast to start with, and having Izman around for tanking to start would have helped a lot to but he is currently without internet. >.< We did eventually get to Low-Bowed Chariot but we didn't have much time at all and it was pretty damn tough. I don't know what we are doing next run, but this run was just pretty crappy from the start. >.< 
Outside of the Salvage and Limbus, I have been trying to get some more merits and I have finally gotten my DRK to 37. 
Thank god, it sucked. It sucked a lot. I am so glad to be done with that, and how I need to make a NIN/DRK set up. I would really like to hear suggestions on what I should wear when tanking as NIN/DRK. Mainly what to wear in the ear and finger slots. The rest I think I have a good grasp off. Anyway, I will post what I am wearing on NIN/DRK tomorrow. 
Speaking of which, I got level 2 MP merits, now. And actually they came in handy because I was leveling my WHM yesterday night. I want to know why its such a shock to see me leveling WHM? Huh? Tell me! >.< I got to 21 almost 22. I think I will probably level it again tonight, or merit. And I also have Limbus, which will either be Ultima or more chip farming. I am looking at getting a Loquacious Earring next, 
because it looks pretty good for NIN/DRK and that would compliment an Ethereal Earring, I think. 
Anyway, that is still a bit of a dream, still need to get the Snoll Fight for Hellz and Illius. >.< That is going to be my top priority.
And now for your enjoyment, even the JP know how to be funny. 
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