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.