Elfie is your huckleberry.

The day of unsucking has finally come. Today we have pictures, a good theme, a topic of conversation, and an update from SE. Ok, lets start with things that I have missed by not uploading pictures. Omoi has been the big winner, getting both Wyrm Mail and Homam Gambieras for her DRG. We actually had to delay the Omega run because Omoi tried to sneak by without lotting on anything, and normally our rules say if you miss your chance to put your hand up to lot then you can't lot, but no one was going to take Omoi's crap on this one and we stopped and made her at least pick one item to lot on, she picked the feet and thankfully they dropped. :) This left a rather scary scenario in which Hellz and Omoi are becoming more and more alike in their gear selection... That's going to give me nightmares for some time, thats for sure. Now, Pb has been doing some Nyzul Isle for a little while and he also got some nice gear from it, the Golliard Clogs to be specific, which I believe are supposed to be very nice RDM feet. Even more impressive is the fact that Aable got a Velocious Belt from King Arthro which is the best haste belt outside of a Black Belt, which he also has, so congrats to Aable.
In more recent accomplishments, I did get my WHM to 26, which, for me at least, is very impressive. A little diatribe/rant here for a moment, and maybe a bit of a lesson for those that are new to the game, or even those that have recent purchased accounts (and yes, I obviously had one of those in my party the other night), don't waste other people's time. I have been playing this game for a long time new, but I do not presume to know more than everyone else, nor do I presume that other people can do things differently than I can do with equal efficacy. That is something that can be debated between people with more experience and larger ego's than mine. What I can not stand is the delay that many people have and how they do not respect the time of other people, standing around and debating the merits of a 24-25 to go to Yhoator Jungle over Yuhtunga just seems like an infinite waste of time. Not pulling when your WHM has 200 MP instead of 300. Standing around and doing nothing for no reason at all. These are the things that will kill me, many, many little mental deaths. It will not be an asteroid that ends the human race, nor global warming, nor any other catastrophe. It will be the delay and ho-humming of the small minds that will slowly burn the world into a cinder. So, for the love of god, just pull. We can work out the details later.

Salvage has been a bit rough lately, but I consulted a friend Blaize because his group has been decently successful in getting some Salvage items as to his strategy for Arrapago and honestly it was pretty much dead on to what we did in our first couple of runs. Man, I tend to over think things, so we went back to basics. MNK, MNK, DRG, THF, WHM, RDM, BRD. It went swimmingly, best run that we have had yet. The only NM that we didn't get in Arrapago was the first Treasure Hunter, because it is a pain in the ass. Well, we also didn't get the two on the sixth floor, but honestly it was our first run where we actually got to the 6th floor. No drops still, of course, but if we can do runs like this all the time then it is just an inevitability. Here was the real kicker about this run, it was just plain easier. We took the first floor more slowly and limited down what we needed but didn't move on until we had them, that left us very well equipped for all of the NM, and at no point did I really feel rushed. We even cleared a lot of the fifth floor so that we could try to get a Max MP cell for Ninjafox. Our Archaic Chariot fights have, in the past, taken a long time and have strained our MP resources, this time it took 2-3 minutes and we were never in trouble even when my shadows were down while I was trying to pop my Fanatics Drink and starting Hundred Fists LOL. It was a complete turn around from our previous runs, and the funny thing was that I think the Chariot used maybe four TP moves total the whole time. Two MNKs on this thing is just a joke and everyone was on their game. Last night wasn't just progress, it was a reinvigoration in this little group that does Salvage.

Now for the daily silliness before I get into some of the deeper subjects I want to talk about. First is when blue turns red. I thought that was just weird, obviously just a glitch but the coloration was interesting and worthy of a screenshot. Second was Elfaria throwing down, and Samuarisoldier taking up the challenge. I am afraid we may never see poor Sam again. ;_;

Ok, the first of the last two things. How LS's operate, how they are created, sustain themselves and how they collapse. As I have discovered there are two kinds of LS's and these types are determined by the leadership of the LS. One kind is led by one person that is starting the LS to just get the gear that they want, and when they get the gear the reason for the existence of the LS is called into question. At this point one of two things will happen, either the LS will collapse or it will be taken over by another person that is there to get the gear they want or it is taken over by the other kind of leader, which leads us to the other kind of LS. The other kind of LS has a leader that just basically runs the LS for other people. They don't honestly have a need for gear that other people need, they just enjoy helping their friends get gear more than they like getting their own gear. I should note that this does not make them necessarily good people, there are bad people that can like seeing their friends gets gear, and there could be good people that want to use an LS to just get gear for themselves. This is not about the judgment of character, this is about how LS's operate. Now the first kind of LS, the one that is run by people that just want to get their own gear and are gathering people to get it are inherently unstable. They do not have a sound basis for extending into perpetuity, instead they move from one leadership to crisis to the next as the leader that gets their gear either loses interest in their LS or they move on to another LS where they can get even more gear or just settle down and be part of someone else's LS. The second kind of LS is much more stable because the leadership does not have constant turn over and doesn't have the risk of collapsing because someone loses interest after they get their gear. Most big and old-school LS's are of this nature now, even if they were not in the past, at least on my server. I have seen LS's come and go, but this is generally true of the successful LS's.

The final item for today is the new info from SE about Dancer. This isn't the same format that they have used for the last expansion but rather in the format of their "history" pieces. I actually like this and it fits well into the theme of the expansion. So here is SE's information:

Maiden of the Battlefield

'Tis the beatin' of the heart what lays the foundation. Ye embrace it with yer whole body, and then e'er so gently start tappin' out the steps. Yer blood gets t'bubblin' an' ye can hear it percolatin' about in there. An' then ye might stick a twirlin' turn and send it rushin' t'all yer extremities. Shimmies straight up the spine and sends a shudder clean through ye, it does. After that, then she's mine an' no mistakin'. Haven't the faintest where I be or how I got there, I just am. An' everyone around fuels me, each of 'em offerin' up their own music--a symphony o' souls. An' that's yer rhythm. Ye cannot help but dance.

[Dancer Laila Brilioth, following a seminal performance on Jeuno's Artisan Bridge in the year 884]

And so it was that in former times that dancers became truly sought after as battleworthy allies. Word soon spread of their inspiring ability to allay the troubled hearts of soldiers made uneasy by the trials and tribulations of the frontline, and of their prowess as heroines in their own right, staking their lives on the field of battle alongside the bravest of warriors. In this manner they came to garner immense favor and respect from all ranks in the great armies of Altana--such was the station of the dancer.
Their supple frames adorned in magnificent garments, dancing in plain view on the battlefield, boldly defying downpour after downpour of beastman arrow, the dancers bestowed countless of Altana's legions with both courage and resolve, earning them the title "maidens of the battlefield." Juxtaposed to this was their infamy among their enemies as "maidens of death," feared for their mastery of an unknown and foreign art.
The origins of the esoteric tradition known as the Kriegstanz are revealed below.

Revelry in Totentanz

Come now, and dance with these bones!
Spin and turn, in life and in death!
Pauper, sage, even the nobleman knows,
They are all, in the end, of life bereft!
Savor now, doomed fool, and make merry this night!
Come now, and dance with these bones!
Sing and croon, in life and in death!
Old hag, young beauty, even the sweet child knows,
In time, a bleached skull, is all will be left!
Savor now, doomed fool, and make merry this night!

[a verse from the ancient "Bastokan Song of the Damned"]


This verse rose to prominence in dark days as the republic was ravaged by the Bastokan Blight.
On top of the already horrific and growing number of victims, unsubstantiated rumors and utter despair spread rampant through all quarters of the city. It was in this climate of social turmoil that the Bastokan Song of the Damned was taken up by the masses. Using magic to animate the remains of the deceased, throngs of the hopeless and grieving would choke the streets in processions of living and dead, booming in chorus as they danced the Totentanz in a form of morbid catharsis.

Despite the government's initial efforts to quarantine those infected by the blight, the frenzied nightly gatherings were at first reluctantly tolerated. This changed however, as the growing popularity of the Totentanz carried it to the frontlines of battle, where the crazed enthusiasm generated by the now ritualistic dancing led no small number of soldiers to neglect their posts. This being an unacceptable state of affairs in wartime, a series of prohibitions was promptly issued with unforeseen results...
An air of insurgency and rebellion swept the people, as dancing crowds began to take to the streets even with the sun still high in the sky. President Wilhelm was left with no recourse but to declare a state of emergency and mobilize the republic's main garrison of Galkan troops against the citizenry to suppress the escalating chaos. It is indeed a sad page in Bastokan history.

It so happened that in those days, mountainfolk from the hinterlands of the Gustaberg region would sometimes travel to Bastok to peddle medicinal herbs. The quelling of the near-maniacal outbreaks of saturnalia would find its form in the native dancers of these tribes. With no hesitation despite the apparent dangers of contagion to themselves, they would roam the city streets and visit barracks, displaying the aggressive yet graceful steps of their people's traditional dance, the Kriegstanz, with a timeless elegance. The majestic rhythms pounded out by these confident women and their motions, full of life, captivated observers instantaneously. And it was not long before the morose Totentanz rituals faded away as quickly as they had come. Some years later, the significant role the dancers played in the defeat of the deadly epidemic which claimed so many Bastokan lives was commemorated by the president in a now famous speech: "Though none can deny the scientific strides made by our great alchemists in curing this foul plague, praise is due also to those fearless masters of dance who came to us in our most dire hour. For it was their impassioned artistry that delivered us from the tyranny of this most lethal of epidemics, and the terror which had fast gripped our very hearts." And so it was that the dancers came to be credited with ending the Bastokan Blight.

In wake of its success and popularity during the blight, the Kriegstanz became a well-established school of dance, the study of which was such a grueling task that finding successors to carry on the tradition became quite a chore in its own right. It is not without some hint of irony that the second coming of the dancers would require a tragedy on the scale of the Crystal War--with the very fate of Bastok in the balance--to bring it about.

Knowing Kriegstanz

One would be remiss to relegate the arts of
dance and combat to separate fields. A
masterful dance can be the most lethal of
weapons; a skillful fight, the most elegant
of dances. Alas, there does exist one point
of departure between the two. Whereas
martial beauty is a byproduct of precise
execution, the techniques of dance are a
thing of beauty in and of themselves. The
whole corpus of the Kriegstanz, though no
doubt applicable to combat,primarily, and
perpetually, seeks beauty.

[an excerpt from the dogmatic "Kriegstanzian Musings," composed by Annika Brilioth]


From that point on the Kriegstanz continued to evolve even further, incorporating unique steps developed in varying regions into new types of dance, yielding the Schwerttanz and Gauklertanz, among others. Dancing was found to not only encourage and instill morale in the practitioner's companions, but the most instinctual of dancers were found to be able to achieve an almost trancelike state, imbuing themselves with transcendental powers that could weaken their enemies with the sublime suggestiveness of their movements.

Held in high regard as both first-class entertainers and as accomplished martial artists, the dancers are driven by an insatiable passion for their art. Entirely devoid of timidity on both the stage and the battlefield, dance requires the most absolute resolve. Only one who has honed these traits and devoted their very life to the beauty and perfection of the art itself is worthy of being deemed "Dancer."

Thats it for today, enjoy and I will see you tomorrow. :)