Work was too much for me on Friday and I had to go to a friends after work so no time to work on this. Sorry about that but real life comes first.
Now, lets talk about Dancer. 
The first question is why is that little girl doing in an area that I am, as a 75 NIN, very careful roaming around because of the nasty things in old Jugner. 
LOL Anyway, Dancer... It rocks, and at 15 I am having no problem soloing Tough mobs in the Dunes. I actually got to 16 pretty quickly in a pick-up NIN, SCH, DNC group. I have spent a bunch of money getting better gear for Dancer, but it looks like its just a bunch of stuff that I will be hanging onto for a while and with DNC being new a couple of items that shouldn't be that expensive have turned but in price a little bit like the Battle Gloves. I like using Hand-to-Hand for now, but I am really eager to switch over to Daggers because I think they will it faster, and honestly, its not really about killing faster on DNC its about hitting more often because of the Drain procs. Curing Waltz is pretty amazing, incredibly cheap Cure II, and its party targetable, also the neat thing about it is that even though the animation for it is quite long, the cure goes off as soon as the animation starts and I can still attack during the animation. So even though it looks like I am just spaming Curing Waltz I am still hitting and doing damage. I just need 4 more levels then I get the first debuff and I get to test it out. 
I have been looking over gear for Dancer and I think that some people may be missing the point of the Dancer. People are already looking at WS gear and the such, but I will be looking for all Accuracy gear, as hitting for any amount of damage is fine, because you are just looking to get to the next bit of TP to be able to spend it. And my second priority will be a full CHR set, because it looks like the calculations for Curing Waltz is something like Cure but not exactly, and I don't know if it is capped like Cure is capped. So far the formula looks something like this (CasterCHR + TargetVIT)/X+Y = Cure power. CasterCHR and TargetVIT are pretty obvious, respectively the Dancers CHR stat and the target of the waltz's VIT. X is a divisor that is applied differently to each of the Curing Waltzes. Y is a static number that is the basis for the Cure. If this is the case then Dancers actually have a greater ability to affect their Cures through direct stat changes than say a RDM or WHM. After that I will of course make a WS gear set but in reality as of right now, it looks like the end-game gear for DNC will be some combo of Dusk, Denali and Pahluwan. Haste will definitely be nice when they are made available, but until then I think the way to go will definitely be accuracy. And I will be the first to say this, but Haste may not be as good as I think most people think it will be for DNC. Now, don't get me wrong because depending on your accuracy you may not need all the accuracy from a full accuracy set, but in the end Haste will effect less of what is important to a DNC than Accuracy will. Now, I am going to go ahead and assume that all DNC's will be using Sushi, this is because hitting hard is pretty useless for DNC when they are using their TP for other things than damage. If this Accuracy from Sushi is enough for them to gain TP fast enough for them to do what they need to do then its no problem to add more haste for accuracy, but it begs the question of why you need more haste to get more TP when you are already getting TP fast enough. Since, you are not trying to get to the next WS, but instead just trying to get TP fast enough to spend it on a debuff or something like that then you are at best looking for a balance between Accuracy and Haste. Sure, shadow recast is something to consider, but honestly thats about it because everything else that is important to DNC is a job ability so Haste will have no effect on it. It also depends on your situation and what you are doing. DNC will be of very limited effect in places that have Amnesia like the Mire and could have problem in a place like Bird camps if the mobs there are constantly stealing their food. In a place like the latter situation it may be important to have a large amount of accuracy gear. On HNM's and the like though, it will almost definitely be the most important to forgo haste and pretty much everything else for Accuracy. Another interesting note is that DNC will need to us Eye Drops in much the same way that mages use Echo Drops. :) Anyway, I will come up with an end-game list of gear that I will be using when I get there, just to give everyone an idea of what I am looking at.
There is your wall of text on Dancer. And PB I beat you to the punch! Ring dancing in a subligar! WOOT! And here is a picture of the incredibly cute PB as Dancer! 
Since these are older pictures from Friday, I just figured I should mention this shot of us killing the Arrapago NM Psycheflayer. Man, that thing is just annoying, but with some decent healing we didn't have too much trouble with it. 
We have Limbus tonight, then Assaults afterward. I am actually planning on getting Limbus started on time tonight, and may just do one full run instead of a split run just to make sure that this happens. Anyway, it should be a good run, and we will almost have another full Ultima set (which we would have if some other group didn't run up and take our zone without saying anything at all to us as we were about to go in).
Friday, November 30, 2007
I will not be blackmailed! (Monday Update)
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Doldrums.
This is going to be short. There is nothing to report. SE fixed a bunch of things that were messed up with the last update and expansion. Ho hum. I leveled Dancer to 8. Yes, I was only on long enough to get two levels on Dancer, but at least I got to level with Pb because I got home so late. Pb has decided to switch to Dancer though so that was a little bit of a waste for him. Iz, if you are reading this we are going to probably level again after Limbus tonight and I am level 8 now, so you need to get on so that we can level together. :) I didn't even switch out of my level 1 gear yet, I am sure that Dancer gets Lizard or whatever so I will pick that up today. Just Sky and Limbus today, looking like doing another split run. We are going to finish Hellz's Omega set and start on a new Ultima set or finish Elf's Ultima set. That will give us at least two boss runs for when Omoi gets back, if we don't do an Omega on Tuesday.
I guess I can talk about that for a little while. Omoi runs Versus really well, but when she is away and Hellz, Izman and I have to run the LS, we do things a little differently and I know that it would drive Omoi crazy. LOL Omoi has a good set of rules for how we do things. She generally doesn't announce what day to day things we will do for Sky or Limbus, and this is because if people know what we do they will start cherry-picking events, and it also keeps some spontaneity in events. I on the other hand don't mind telling people what we are going to do, but again I don't often have the full burden on my shoulders for considering the entire LS. Even when Omoi is gone I share leadership with Hellz and Izman and in Sky with Akanea. I much prefer my position as lieutenant over being leader, I have more freedom in general but I still get to make input when needed.
I am probably going to leave this open for a while so that I can come up with more things to add but I am not promising anything. :)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Situation normal: no fucking drops.
Salvage was pretty much perfect last night, we quickly adapted to the drops that we got. In fact, we had pretty bad drops on the first floor, and we didn't even get our second tank a magic cell in the whole run. But, we dealt with it well. We did 2nd QQA, 4th QQTH, Psycheflayer, 5th QQA and Archaic Chariot. Of course nothing at all dropped, and the worst part was that Sholo, who came on THF, DC'ed at the end of the 4th floor and never came back, so we didn't have any TH at all for the QQA or the Archaic Chariot. The Archaic Chariot with Hundred Fists, Barbarian's Drink and Fanatics Drink is an absolute joke, we destroyed it in about 2 minutes. I was hitting for 90-100 per punch without STR unlocked, my Fanatics Drink never even wore off. We definitely had an improvement over our last two runs, and this may have been the best Arrapago run that we have had. The great thing is that we could have improved it even further. Some of the adjustments that we have made so far include accepting that people aren't going to get weapons or magic and just dealing with it. This means that on the first floor we only get the tanks and two or three DD's there weapons, and get the mages there magic, then move on. If we get tanks their magic that is nice but not necessary, on the second, third and fourth floor there are more opportunities to get magic or we just suck it up. This is a definitive change from just farming two wings and then moving up, and it let us move up much more quickly than we ever have before. We had so much time that we were able to move up to the 6th floor and almost clear it before we timed out. I am going to spend this time differently the next time, much to the happiness of our mages I think. If we adjust our cell distribution slightly and give the second subjob and abilities to a RDM/BLM we can ES Gravity the QQTH on the third floor for another shot at a Macha's Coat. This will of course depend on cell drops and the alliance composition, but I think its a good goal. I have a plan on how to do this quick and efficiently so we will give it a try on the next Arrapago full run.
Salvage was nice, but Sky was a little frustrating. There were several people that I think thought it would be OK to skip it because Omoi was out of town. :/ Outside of that, it was a decent day. We got a Despot and got some decent gear that people wanted it. Hopefully Thursday will have a normal turnout because if we get another Despot we will be doing a couple of Byakko's, I think.
As for Dancer, I have a Dance! Drain Samba in fact, and the effect is exactly as I described yesterday, so higher evasion mobs are a bit annoying, but the effect does seem to vary based upon damage done and some variation between the mob and the dancer. On weaker mobs I found that I was getting a larger percent of the damage done returned, while harder mobs would return less. And yes, this was on hits that were of the same damage, so its definitely not just a straight amount returned to the player that hits the mob. I have heard that the HP from the mob is not really drained because it does not take HP from the mob but more just increases the players HP. I will have to test it out to confirm this one way or the other. I will probably spend quite a while leveling Dancer today, hopefully getting into the teens relatively quickly. I don't get my next dance until 15 but it is essentially a Cure II that only costs 20TP. Apparently, you can solo T mobs exceedingly well once you have this ability. Last night, Pb and I duoed for a whole on Scholar and Dancer and it was a blast, especially once I got Drain Samba. Sadly, I am going to XP tonight and he is going to Dynamis. (I am going to start going to Dynamis again relatively soon because my time is starting to free up, but with meetings after work on every Wednesday and being out of town most Sundays its hard to be able to go. Omoi is also out of town right now, so I can't even be late for LS events on Sunday because she is not there to run them.) Hopefully, my loverboy Izman will be back from out of town tonight and we can level some. SAM will definitely help to speed things up, but until I get Curing Waltz we will still need to rest alot. Should be relatively quick I hope.
Again, you are without pictures, that could be good or bad for me, because one of them was of me in full Bronze gear including the beret and subligar dancing my heart out. o.o; Not a pretty picture and Pb found it very entertaining. Well, maybe a few level up pictures for you tomorrow!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
A late ending, an early start.
I got up this morning to actually make breakfast before work which I haven't done in years, but because I did this I forgot to upload my pics from yesterday. >.< It wasn't too exciting so nothing much was missed.
For Limbus we did a nice split run, sent two parties to do the Apollyon King's run, and my six man party did the one with the stupid freaking birds. I hate those birds, but shockingly and for the first time ever, I did not die on the birds floor! Raikoh did though, hehehe. Both groups runs were successful, and puts Hellz at one chip away from having a complete Omega set, so Thursday will probably end up completing that set and then we will start working on a new set immediately after since we already have a full Ultima set on Elfaria. Things went very well and we ending up splitting 106 coins between 16 people which was a very nice divide. It will be nice to have Omoi back though, things just run smooth when she is around, even if not having her around means that we can do split runs and other more daring things that she usually doesn't approve of, hehehe. Omoi also has the interest and success of Versus at heart, though, and even if she might be more conservative than I, she has been and continues to be incredibly successful and always pointing Versus in the right direction. Omoi is able to bring everyone together without yelling and screaming (she relies much more on her dry British sarcasm ^.~), leading by example, rather than by dictate. If we do manage to get 2-3 Omega sets in the time that Omoi is gone, maybe we will get to use one. Hehehe. I think it is kind of silly that you can easily do split runs for Apollyon and it takes less chips to do Omega, when Temenos usually takes more people and you need six chips and for the second tier you can not do split runs with the first tier, for obvious reason.
After Limbus which already started late we did some decent Assaults to build up some points and get some clears. Pb got a couple more closer to what he needed to get a full complete and rank 8, while Rygar got all the Periqia points that he needed for whatever puffy purple Pahluwan gear that he needed. I got some nice spendable points for Salvage, which we will be doing tonight. I am not positive on the run we will do, but honestly I have been frustrated by the last two Arrapago runs so we may go and do that to work on focusing and getting things done more quickly. I think we may actually need less cells on the first floor than we have been gathering, and we can definitely pull the first floor way more efficiently. Definitely going to limit the first floor in what cells we need because outside of weapons and HP there are better and more reliable places to get them further up not to mention there are mobs to get weapons and HP on the way up anyway. I think we will do our normal route on the first and second floor then on the third floor we will go West instead of East, so that we can get to the Soulflayer NM that drops Eternalpain's crown, then move on after that. I definitely want to be a lot more quick but also a lot more careful. I have definitely become more lax about making sure I have proper meds for each run, so I am going to fix that tonight. Preparation can make a huge amount of time difference for Arrapago, and I don't want to be timing out on Archaic Chariot again.
This post has really flowed like a river, from one subject to another, but the next subject is definitely a jump, and a spring, and a DANCE! Hehehe. I opened Dancer finally last night. I have to say I definitely have not spent as much time as I wish I could have in the new zones. I will definitely be spending some time there on Wednesday and this weekend, but for tonight after Salvage I will be gearing up myself as a super-sexy dancer, and wacking some bees, hopefully with Izman. I would like to maybe get up to 8 at least because that is what Izman's SAM is already at. From what I have been reading Dancer is a decent solo job and I can keep things up while I am waiting for a party, but also party invites aren't that bad either because it keeps healing down and the Haste Samba is apparently something like 40% weapon delay reduction without a loss of TP gain. This is just conjecture right now, but I know we will get more information soon enough. I also like the system that Dancer uses for Sambas, it works like this: The Dancer uses the Samba that they wish to use, giving them the buff for 2 minutes, during that 2 minutes if the Dancer lands a hit on the mob then they will give the mob a form of debuff. This debuff in turn allows all that players in party that hits the mob in the time the debuff is up to gain the effect of the debuff, e.g. drain, aspir or haste. The debuff only lasts about 10 or 20 seconds but is reapplied with every hit that the Dancer lands on the target mob. The concept is really neat and something completely new to FFXI. I can't wait to be able to use the dances. :)
Anyway, that is about it for today, sorry I am lacking pictures, but it happens sometimes. Hopefully more on Dancer tomorrow.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Registration woes.
Not only did it take me two extra days to actually get the PC version of the expansion, but it took me two more days to actually get it registered. So, I didn't get a whole lot of time to explore the new areas but from what I did see and the cutscenes that I have done, it looks amazing. The new zones look pretty much what I think the starter zones should have looked like when the game was first released. The are more vibrant, more filled and more difficult to get around. I know that some people have been complaining about it, but they are also some of the people that complain there is no end-game content in the first update of an expansion, and don't really have much in touch with reality on the issue. The beginning of an expansion for FFXI is about exploration and discovery, its about getting around on foot, without any assistance, and its about killing stuff just to kill it. Moments like these are rare, and idiots just can not appreciate them because they have stopped enjoying the game for the game, and are just worried about their ego's and what might happen in the next update to nerf them or produce a better set of gear that will make all of their "hard work" obsolete.
Anyway, from what I have seen, I like it a lot. It is so enjoyable and interesting, and I still need to open Dancer. Dancer by the way, after playing it previously, is definitely the job I am going with. Scholar is a completely mage based job and you know how I feel about that. I am going to open Dancer tonight after Limbus and Assault. 
I will probably also duo for a while with Izman on his SAM so he can finally use it as a sub for his WAR. I will start off by being either /WHM or /WAR haven't decided yet, then I will probably switch to /NIN as soon as I can dual-wield. I really like the TP system, and I think that most people are overestimating a bit the amount of time that people will be weaponskilling on Dancer. There are two problems that I can see, the first is that the steps which net finishing moves can very easily be stacked and can rack up a decent TP cost. Second, the Dancer doesn't have the SA and TA to make Dancing Edge worth any decent amount of damage. Daggers do next to no damage without SATA so I have very little doubt about Dancers taking up real DD position. The real concern that I have for them is that they are TP dependent which means hitting the mob, but I am wondering if /SAM and the TP rebuild Flourish will be able to allow a Dancer to do their job without actually hitting the mob, for situations where that is generally considered bad, like Salvage bosses. Anyway, I have a lot of gear that I feel would be good for Dancer to begin with, and it looks like the high end gear for Dancer is going to be the Pahluwan for now. I am sure that more gear will be coming, but if you look at thing for BLU, COR and PUP there is reason to be concerned. Although there is very good gear for these jobs, they come from Salvage and the problem with that is that Salvage is actually pretty difficult in general and getting gear can take some time, this is as opposed to something like Sky or Limbus where getting gear is considerably easier and faster. There is little progression in difficulty for getting the best gear for the new jobs compared to the older jobs from the older areas. Doesn't matter to me, because a dancer I will be!
Anyway, like I said, I got to experience a little bit of the new areas after a long wait because of registration difficulties, but many wondrous sights did I see (Ok, enough with the rhyming). I went through the Cavernous Maw in Battalia Downs with Izman and Elfaria, 
and witnessed some amazing cutscenes, close to being on par with CoP. I even ran into a rather interesting Regal Feline. 
I have to say the design for Cait-Sith is amazing, way better than almost any other character in the game, the body design appears completely unique and engaging, and I can't wait to see where all of this is going, sooner rather than later. We then spent some time wondering around happily killing and exploring, and I will spend more time there after tonights events.
I was quite busy this weekend but while I was waiting to be able to play the expansion I was able to get quite a lot of meriting done. Capping Counter (which was actually at 3 not 4) and picking up two levels of Invigorate. So I will just need one more level of Invigorate then the 3 levels of Penance and MNK will be done for job-specific merits. Then all I have to do is finish up SAM, which will be either level 5 Third Eye recast(which I am reconsidering) or probably level 5 Meditate recast. Then for tier two I already have my 3 Overwhelm, then I will get 1 Blade Bash because it is so much more effective than it used to be, 1 Shikikoyo just because people whine if you don't have it, then 1 in Ikishoten just because there really isn't a reason to get level 2 in Shikikoyo or Blade Bash.
On to other news that I have been wanting to get to for a while. Finally, our first piece of completed Salvage gear! Yay! Congratulation to Rygar on his Usukane Hizayoroi! 
They are super sex, and I can't wait to get myself a set!
After that I would like to mention this neat little hat I was able to pick up! I wonder where it comes from? A quest maybe? I don't know.
Finally, remember, love your Pixie's and they will love you right back. 
More to report on the expansion and the Dancer job tomorrow I hope! Have a good day! :)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Ouch Bro. (I am going to stabble people)
You are getting the "I'm only at work for a half day" version today. First, I fucked up. Yeah, we did another Arrapago run last night and because I was lax on time we timed out on the Archaic Chariot at like 3% which is patently ridiculous. It would have been a real problem if we had not gotten another Ares 35 body! 
I was kind of shocked, didn't even expect it, and it did a lot to make up for the fact that we some how ran out of time on the Archaic Chariot. Hellz got the Ares 35 body, but without a matching 25 to go with it, for now its just saving up for the Imperial Wootz ingots for him. 
Omoikitte had to go out of town for a little while so we will be focusing on farming for 35 in the short term then when she gets back we will be doing several boss runs in a row to complete some of the 35's we will have picked up.
We did get that Usukane 15 legs for Rygar, and apparently they decided to have some fun at my expense with it because I had immediately left town before I could see Rygar complete them or get a screenshot, in fact I still don't have a screenshot. >.< 
So this will have to do until Monday when I get back to work. Oh and as for the fun they had with me, apparently Rygar accidentally "dropped" the 15, and we were going to have to get them for him again. This is why I am going to stabble Sholo. :) (If you don't know what stabble means then you are missing out, but essentially, if you mispronounce Mamool Ja Stabler, you get something like stabbler (stab-bl-er) and if there is a stabbler, then you must be able to stabble right?) Anyway...
On to a bit of funniness before I head out. The first is directed at me, apparently Omoi isn't to keen on my stealth abilities compared to the Professor NPC. 
The second is directed toward Ninjafox and his boss's loose moral character. 
Thats it for this week, I am off until Monday. Since I didn't get to go over things from last week, I will be comparing what they talked about at the Fan Fest in comparison to what I observe in the game. See you then.
Uh huh...
Wait, only Ailee says uh huh like that...
ouch bro...
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Well, that was easier than I thought.
I thought for sure we weren't going to do well. We had a really large group for Bhaflau Remnants last night, but we didn't get any HP cells until the third floor and we only got 2 of them before time forced us to move on. On the fourth floor, we aggroed the first gear and it disappeared, the second one we killed, but then the third and fourth warped out on us while we were killing them. I definitely think I was rushing this too much, we didn't get everyone fully buffed and couldn't spam damage as fast as we needed. I have to admit that I was a bit worried about the boss at this point but we went up and did it anyway. And it went awesome, I was afraid we would be pressed for time, but that really wasn't an issue. I was basically right about just needing more mages, LOL because we had a ton this time. And the neat thing is that it never once used Homing Missile even completely unnerfed, our mages were really good on getting us unbound quick and Rygar was great at getting out of the way. I think it only used one TP move when it was lined up, and it was only a Discharge. :) Since, I was worried about time we just did Hundred Fists >> Revitalizer >> Hundred Fists. Stacked with a Soul Voiced March and Minuet Rygar and I were pounding it quick. Probably could have saved that Soul Voice for the last 30% or so instead of at the start, but this worked too. If we have two BRD's next time we will probably swap them mid-fight so we can Soul Voice at the beginning and the end. Either way, it was awesome to beat it and we even got good drops 
and a great title. 
The best part of it all is that Rygar now has the 25 and 35 for Usukane legs and we will be doing a Silver Seas Remnants tonight to get him the very easy to get 15 piece and we will have our first Salvage piece completed! Oh, the screenshots, oh the so sexy screenshots!
Here are some nice picks of the drops that Rygar and Eternalpain got from the run! 
Eternalpain got the Bodb's Crown, 
which means that our Arrapago runs are going to involve lots and lots of Soulflayers. :( Ah well, such is the price of success! :)
Now as I mentioned we will be doing Silver Seas tonight, my plan is to go East on the first floor and fight Hammerblow Majanun then up and to the Southwest to clear the room, open the door and get Rygar his 15 legs from Powderkeg Yanadahn. After that I think we are going to basically skip the third floor except for the Rampart to move up with a little sac pull action, then depending on time we will either try to spawn Citadel Chelonian or just go straight to the boss for to try to get Achi her Bodb's Cuffs and make her only one step away from a completed piece. When we were getting no drops from Salvage it made it pretty difficult to decide to go anywhere else because we didn't have anything to build on. Now that we have 3 35 pieces and 2 25 pieces we can now direct where we are going, and as we take those path's and we get more gear we can get then plan out farther. Honestly, I didn't think we would get this much success so quickly because of how awful the drop rates were for month's. But I think that my goal will be to try to complete the 35's and 25's we have now before focusing on new ones. Now, drops rates determine everything, so it is never going to be perfect, but our goals for now will be killing LBC and LAC and farming Arrapago. Since boss drops are probably more likely than 35's, we should be killing bosses more, but hey, I want to do it all! :)
Anyway, after that Iz wanted to unwind with a little Ballista action, so we headed to the Diorama, and killed each other for fun. Lets just say that Iz is pretty damn good one-on-one, but he can get overwhelmed pretty quick. I thought for sure that I would have had him this time on SAM but I had to two-hour to kill him solo. Also, Omoi would murder me if I failed to mention that she beat Iz in a one-on-one (even if it was under questionable circumstances ^.^). The most epic battle though was Pb and Potpressure, as they are both pretty good at Ballista and pretty well build for it too. Pb was RDM/DRK and Pot was WHM/NIN, and this was a great fight but the both said it would have been more competitive if Pb was subbing NIN. Pot did emerge the winner, and flaunted it. 
We all had fun and I went to bed right after. 
I wanted to toss something in here from our last Assault run, we actually got a decent appraisal (well, the other party did) and Skur ended up with a nice shiny new Phi Necklace. :) 
Well, this is my last blog entry until next Tuesday, but I will have some juicy info for you when I get back and we should have our first complete Salvage piece then too!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Losing XP.
Some days you gain XP, and some days you lose XP. Definitely lost XP last night. LOL And Monday isn't really that active of a day for me. Started with Limbus, we did a split run with the majority of people heading to Temenos, while I took a smaller group through NE Apollyon. We easily had the group to do this, but it can get a little rough especially on the first floor because the Mandies hit pretty darn hard and are monks so they hit fast and often. So, as we were finishing up the Mandies on the first floor, one of them manages to take down our tank that shall go unmentioned (*coughMirracough*) and he accidentally home points. Yes, thats twice in Limbus. I have never seen it happen before in any other zones, just in Limbus and just to tanks. LOL Anyway, that left us with MNK, DRG, WHM, RDM and BLM. We fared pretty well considering. But we were going to need some things to go our way, like getting the mobs to open the Vortex's early, alas, that wasn't going to happen. On the birds floor were Gigascream is the bane of my existance (I literally believe those fuckers actually time Gigascream for when I have shadows down, I have not once in all of our Limbus runs ever survived that fucking floor), we had to kill three of the big birds to get the Vortex to open, and when we went to grab the last time chest we had a miss timing on the Sleep and Bind that led to a wipe. >.< So we were even further pressed on time. The Dolls and Pots floor was easy and quick, but then we were screwed again when got to the Gigas and Opo-opo. No, of course the Ranged Immune didn't open the Vortex, and neither did the Magic Immune... it had to be the Melee immune one, which we just ran out of time on before we could kill it. Speaking of which, will someone explain to me what is happening in this screen shot? 
It misses me and I die? >.< I am guessing it missed the WS but I was killed by the additional effect AoE, but I mean what the hell? I don't register any damage, I am just dead. It didn't help that the next line of chat was Hellz killing it. >.< I had so many unfortunate problems yesterday. But some days are like that.
Assaults were fun, if a little unfulfilling. First, we had to get Hellz to complete a level 1 Assault, yes, the annoying but not altogether difficult Mamool Ja Imperial Agent Rescue. Hellz must be cursed though because we almost ran out of time on that one because we had to break down all of the doors to get to the agent. We did another filler Assault while Achi and Sholo were finishing up their Rank 10 quests then we tried the Susanoo Shuffle. 
It didn't go that well but we weren't that prepared, LOL. We only got it to about 80% before it started messing with everyone. We will be better prepared next time and shouldn't have any problem with it at all. It was more XP lost though and that was a bummer, and after I had recapped my MNK and NIN this weekend. >.<
Thats all there is to report as of today. There are some neat videos of the new moves for BLU, Scholar and Dancer floating around and if you guys want me to link them I will. But to finish up today on a lighter note, its probably pretty important to remember if you have gear before you try to equip it. 
I <3 Izman.
Monday, November 12, 2007
/emo
Meh, I had some really freaking good screenshots but I got up late and this stupid blog program hates my pictures, so I gave up on that and said fuck it and went to work. Which is where I sit right now, pictureless. It was a good weekend, though. But without pictures its a little hard to remember everything that happened... so lets see what we can do about pictures. Well, if you didn't remember to download them then you can just make them up I guess.
On Friday we did some more Assaults, in fact we finished up our last rank 9 Assaults, which included Wake the Puppet, which didn't go as well as planned. The instructions for that one failed to include the indication that you will have like 4-5 Wights on you if you just drag the Puppet back to the NPC, so with a little death for us but only one killed Automaton we cleared that one pretty well. Then we were on to Azure Ailments which was pretty easy, but required a lot of linking and that ended up getting me killed a lot. LOL Not so concerned about that really because I got an XP party the next morning to recap my XP and get a bunch of merits. Back to the Assault, we basically had to assist a Soulflayer to collect a bunch of status ailments, it was fun, and I even got a screenshot! ;) 
That wrapped up level 9 for us, and since we didn't want to start on a level 10 assault that night we went back and did Lebros Supplies. Lebros Supplies is now apparently nerfed by the way, as you only have to give the NPC's 7 units of food instead of 10. Even considering this it is still hard as hell, but we completed it. That means we will only have to do the rank 10 assaults, then fill in the gaps for those that missed it. Captain here I come.
Now, like I said, I got some decent XP over the weekend. I recapped my NIN and finally capped SAM, I got enough merits for Store TP level 5 and almost have enough for Counter level 5. Then I scheduled a nice Bhaflau Remnants Salvage run that went swimmingly, first thing was that the Mad Bomber was up on the side we chose. 
So we gathered up so gear and cells and killed it pretty quick, and into the Rampart we went. Kind of like through the looking glass, but not really at all. LOL We got three Gate Widow spawns and on the very first one we got a Macha's Cuffs drop which went to Achikasama. :) The other two didn't drop anything though. :( So next we headed up to the second floor where we fought the four Flans and got the Rampart there to spawn and again we went in to try to get some drops. 
All we got were Hunting Wasps, not a single Skirmish Phedro. Oh well, we will try again on another day. We tried to get the third floor Rampart to pop but couldn't kill the triple gears close enough together. I have a better plan for doing this next time, but it is annoying holding gears because the AoE everyone and knock them around and they are very hard if not impossible to sleep. Ah well, another 35 from a different set to work on. I can't really remember what else I did on Saturday, I think it was some farming and other busy work.
On Sunday we had double Kirin, and the first one we absolutely decimated. After the mini's were spawned we made a slight change and moved a BRD over to the DD party to help out and we killed it incredibly fast, but its drops sucked. >.< Only ingots and a Kirin's Pole. At least the second one put out a little better, but was a little more messy. We got two more ingots, an Osode which went to Solidsnake our sole JP member who has been in the LS for a LONG time but since his times are so different from ours doesn't get to lot as much as he should, then also a D. Body that went to Hellz. Congrats to them both. We have so many D. Bodies and Osodes its getting ridiculous, N. Bodies are even catching up, but we have seen like 1 W. Legs in the last 20 Kirin's >.< Izman is still waiting on them and the horrible thing is that he is not just cock-blocking the rest of the LS on them, but he is also cock-blocking himself, because he wants a N. Body and an Osode too. Oh the pains of being popular! LOL.
After sky, we did another Bhalflau Remnants run to try to get the win. 
Sadly we failed at 15% but the nice part was that we had a sub-optimal set up, MNK, MNK, MNK, WAR, DRG, WHM, RDM, BRD, BLM, COR. The BLM had to end up healing a lot so we lost damage there. Most people who don't have access to Gjallarhorn BRD's suggest 2 WHM and 2 RDM for this fight just because the amount of healing and paralyna's that are required. I was really pleased that we were able to get this far with the limited healing that we had. We did get to nerf Homing Missile which was awesome, and made me wish that it would use it more, because it was a simple AoE that didn't steal shadows. Honestly, if we had ONE MORE mage, WHM or RDM we would have won no problem. Ah well, tomorrow night we will win and if we get lucky we might have our first completed Salvage piece by the end of the week.
So, that was my weekend in a nutshell. I will be gone from Thursday to Monday, and if you are smart you might be able to deduce why. I will try to update the blog while I am away, but my laptops screen is dead, and I don't have a digital camera. Ah well. I hope you enjoyed the blog today, see you tomorrow.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
What about yesterday?
Forget about yesterday. 1 merit, one decent party, one crappy party. I knew that I was going to forget about uploading the picture of this... the story is almost unbelievable. I mean 2004-party unbelievable. I invite this WAR named Deo to our party. Now, his gear was pretty meh overall, the kind of WAR that wears starter city relic as town gear to show how cool he is, but all I need him to do is swing some axes. He has a Woodville's and a Juggernaut so I figure can't be that bad. Well, it can. We go to Mamook because everything is overcrowded as is, and as I have mentioned I really like xping in Mamook. Well, to demonstrate the lack of capability of this person, they used Sushi. No problem I think to myself, there are Lurkers here and with dual Axes, sushi isn't that bad. Well, it was because even with dual Axes, our friend Deo was not able to get a weaponskill off until the second Lurker that we fought. So, I think he had quickly figured out that dual Axes may not be the way to go so he switched over to Great Axe. Not bad I think, increase his accuracy, it's an A+ weapon... it's an Amood. Yes, the mediocre Great Axe that occasionally attacks twice in First Quarter Moon. It wasn't first quarter moon... anyway that didn't matter because the Amood was soon replaced by daggers. Yes, daggers. At this point I had quite enough, so I told Deo to use Axes, Great or otherwise or I was going to kick him and we would all regroup and just start over because we were already out in Mamook. Now, dear reader, am I an elitist? Maybe, maybe not, but there are certain things that very few people can stand for and this is one of them. Izman was in the party with use and he indicated his displeasure by stating that we were not in a skill-up party but actually trying to generate some XP. To which our noble WAR declared, "Did you see that! I just used Evisceration! I am not skilling up!" And at that very moment I felt an urge welling up deep within my soul to bash my head repeatedly against my desk until nothing was left but a bloody unrecognizable stump. Being the polite person that I am, I quietly indicated that a shift should be made in Deo's offensive tactics, or he might find himself alone, without transportation, in the middle of deepest Mamook.
Deo, a real American hero, doing WAR his own way since, November 7th, 2007.
Anyway, I did build back up some of my XP buffer on SAM, its at 30k right now, and I got another merit. Three more for the last level of Store TP, then back to Counter merits for my Monk.
Now, here is something important that I need to know, and something I have been mulling over for a while. This may sound dumb, but hey, just think about it for a second. I am thinking about not doing Meditate recast timer down, and doing Third Eye recast timer down instead. Here is the reasoning, I am awful about using Meditate whenever it is up. I know I should use it whenever it is up and when I use it, I am pretty effective at using it as it builds but since I mostly use Soboro in XP, there are times when a good portion of the TP gained from Meditate is wasted. The Third Eye recast down would have two effects, the first is that many times I am usually without my Third Eye for the last ten seconds or so of the recast. I see :07 seconds left quite a bit, my thought was that seeing :02 seconds would be much more effective for, oh, I don't know, not getting punched in the face. It would also let me overlap Third Eye. I still have other merits to get but I have been thinking about it. Sometimes, I feel very derivative because I glean good ideas from other people, but some have mentioned that SAM tanking for the Chariots in Salvage is effective. Lots of damage, very little TP gain by the boss. I might think about that some day, and for that the Third Eye timer might be effective, but for now we are going to stick with MNK tanking.
I am quite proud of myself for finally limiting down the jobs that I am going to use on a day-to-day basis. Before I did this I found my mind wandering between different needs and wants, and in what order I should be doing my merits. Looking back I have probably wasted a lot of merits, but hey, most of them were earned with friends and I have had quite a good time getting them.
Sky and Limbus tonight, maybe squeeze in a Salvage depending on the time we have left. I think we are doing Kirin and Omega, should be a good day.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Part 2.
Yeah, so yesterday was a dick tease. More like I had a ton of work to do so I couldn't get back to what I wanted to do. To make up for it I got screenshots to add to the descriptions. :) But before all of that lets talk about our Ultima from last night. Now, I know that we were a little apprehensive about this fight last night because of what happened last time. Of course it was misplaced apprehension because their is no way that we were going to have a tank DC and a different tank Home Point after dying. LOL We got so unlucky on that run, there is no way that could happen again. And honestly for the first 80% of Ultima it is actually easier than Omega. 
Omega has huge AoE damage moves that can mess up everyone, it has hate resets, it has nasty AoE status ailments, and it has stupid Gunpods that can mess with your mages. Ultima has some strong moves but none of them will one-shot anyone that would be close to Ultima if they were at full HP. Our melee were very smart last night, they would attack until they got hit by an AoE that couldn't get stunned in time, then they would head back and rest or wait for a convenient cure, then get back in the game. This presents an interesting point about Ultima, it is incredibly easy to hold. As long as you have some cures and a stun you could probably DoT it to death from 100% to 20%, there was a time at about 30% when we just held it so that the melee could get some HP back and there was really very little trouble with that. This lets a lot of the mages get MP back too. We slowed down again before 20% to make sure we had MP for the last phase were Ultima does become harder than Omega, then on to the naturally messy finish. We were never really in trouble at any point, but it does get sloppy because people are being drawn in and tanks go down in one shot. We had Ultima down to 20% in about 25 minutes, so we took the last phase slow, ran for every Citadel Buster and just slowly whittled it down. And took it down we did. 
This fight may initially appear to be very intimidating doing it the first or second time, but in reality I think its much easier than Omega. Omega has less time, and tends to kill more people. Ultima on the other hand has a much longer time limit, and doesn't really kill people if they don't pull hate. In fact, before 20% only Raikoh and Jess died from doing too much damage. Ultima may appear to have a much longer list of TP moves, but you only HAVE to stun Antimatter, Equalizer and Armor Buster. You can try to stun Dissipation, and we actually did stun it twice, but its not really that much of a concern and if everyone is paying attention it doesn't effect people that much. Even Citadel Buster can be stunned, and we did stun that twice too, but again thats more like a run away and pray situation. We did incredibly well in the fight and we were handsomely rewarded. 
Right after the fight we all headed down to Mhaura to check out the new gear that everyone got. The heart went to Eternalpain who got the Nashira Manteel, the leg went to Pbdomenator for Nashira Seraweels, which are fantastic for his RDM and then the cerebrum went to Ashhhhh to net him a Nashira Turban. 
All were quite pleased with their new gear and I can't wait to get more for all of our mages!
After Ultima we had Assaults and they went very well, we tried to get Pb the last assault that he needed for his next rank up, but that run didn't go to well. We did get to do two more Rank 9 missions done for people, including Red v. Blue which is incredibly easy but nets you 1500 with 4 people (you can do it with three but if something goes wrong then there is no one to fall back on), and we also did Desperately Seeking Cephalopods which was a pain for one group and easy for the other. On my groups first run, we fished up three Krakens with no real tank, and they do 1000+ Cross Attacks which just blows. We also did Operation: Black Pearl which was surprisingly easy, the mobs are easy to kill except for the trolls, and it only takes 2-3 waves before the NM shows up for the win. That only leaves us with 2 more rank 9 missions to finish and Lebros Supplies, then onto the rank 10's.
Now with the daily routine out of the way least focus on gear obsession, shall we?
Ok, picking up from yesterday, I have started focusing on NIN, SAM and MNK more exclusively for two simple reasons. They are the jobs I am almost always on and they are the jobs for which I have the best gear.
Lets start with Ninja.
First, the TP gear.
Main: Perdu Blade
Sub: Hayabusa
Ranged: Bomb Core
Head: Walahra Turban
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Left Earring: Brutal Earring
Right Earring: Suppanomimi
Body: Ninja Chainmail
Hands: Koga Tekko/Dusk Gloves
Left Ring: Ulthalam's Ring
Right Ring: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Swift Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Fuma Sune-ate
Now, a few thoughts here. This is pretty much the lowest delay you can get without using daggers. I really like it, you can break the animation with a simple haste/march on with all the Dual Wield gear. It is a step down in damage and crits from the Senj, but I build TP incredibly fast and can WS very often. I do want to mention here that even with 8 Katana merits I only use Sushi with this set up (for XP at least). The simple reason is that this set up has very little accuracy and needs the support of Sushi. I am completely unwilling to give up haste or Dual Wield for more accuracy. I think that eating meat on Ninja (or at least trying to eat meat) is a waste of time. I would rather have haste and dual-wield and use better gear in other slots and just accept that I need the extra accuracy. For me, Ninja does better damage with the more WS's it does, so per swing damage is not as important as getting to the next WS. As for other gear choices, I obviously need to upgrade my Ninja Chainmail to the +1 version, but I need a Plaited Cord from Temenos and I haven't seen one of those in a while. I have other options in the back piece area, and this partially reverts back to the Cerberus Mantle isn't that good line of thought, but now that I am not going to worry that much about my RNG anymore I think that a Forager's Mantle may be worth investing some gil into, also a Charger's Mantle might be worth the coins for TP build because the extra strength isn't going to make that much difference for a dual-wielder, especially one using sushi. But the point is that I know that my back piece is gimp and now that I am focusing my main-use jobs down I can justify getting something better. It may take some time though because as you can see, I don't have much gil on my main and I blew a bunch from my mule on the Peacock Charm.
And now Ninja WS: 
Main: Perdu Blade
Sub: Hayabusa
Ranged: Bomb Core
Head: Shura Zunari Kabuto
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Left Earring: Brutal Earring
Right Earring: Minuet Earring
Body: Haubergeon +1
Hands: Koga Tekko/Ochiudo's Kote
Left Ring: Flame Ring
Right Ring: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Warwolf Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Rutter Sabatons
I am feel I am quite happy with my WS gear, with Sushi I get to have a lot of damage modifiers instead of piling on more accuracy and decreasing the damage of my Jins. Minuet Earring is almost as good as a Triumph because it has the same modifiers and the STR vs. DEX difference is 99% of the time not going to make a difference in fSTR. The Ochiudo's Kote for WS during the day kind of sucks, but again I need another Plaited Cord for that. I am not sure if I should do the Ninja Chainmail first or the Ninja Tekko. The Tekko have much better modifiers but will only be used half of the time, while the Chainmail has pretty bad modifiers but it will be used full time. The back piece problem exists here too, but I have covered that already.
For my Ninja, the only significant upgrades can come in the form of a Speed/Velocious Belt, outside of that everything else is marginal or within my capabilities.
Onto my Samurai and the TP build to start. I should mention that I have two different sets for my Samurai because I use different gear for my Soboro and for my Hagun.
So, Soboro TP build: 
Main: Soboro Sukehiro
Sub: Axe Grip
Ranged: Tiphia Sting
Head: Walahra Turban
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Left Ear: Merman's Earring
Right Ear: Coral Earring
Body: Haubergeon +1
Hands: Dusk Gloves
Left Ring: Ulthalam's Ring
Right Ring: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Swift Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Hachiman Sune-ate
So, for Samurai I definitely have a lot more work to do than I do for my other two jobs. The awful Axe Grip has to go, I need to get a Claymore Grip for my Soboro build because the Sword Strap messes with my Store TP build and Pole Strap is useless with my Soboro and might actually decrease the number of potential attacks if the recently reported information about the activation of Occasionally Attacks 2-3 Times weapons is correct. This is the reason that I also can't use my Brutal Earring and have to use a crappy Coral Earring instead. When we finally get around to doing Apocalypse Nigh I will use the Ethereal Earring instead. As an exact opposite of my Ninja, I don't really need any extra accuracy for my Samurai because of the two-handed weapon change and thus I can use haste gear and not worry about using meat full time. Again potential upgrades are in the back slot which I have already discussed and in the feet but that is a lot more complicated. Right now, with this build, I have +46 Store TP (or I will have as soon as I get that last Store TP merit >.<, yes I am that gimp) which means that I can get to 100+TP in 6 swings (this also includes the TP from the WS which I will get to after this). I ignored a 6 hit build before now because I did not have the Store TP merits to justify it, and I was not focusing on any job in particular. Now that I am the first thing I am going to do is round out my Store TP merits, which leads me into my next comment about this. Right now because of my lack of Store TP merits I have to use this set up and I also have to use Carbonara because of the +6 Store TP that comes with that. Basically, +46 is the magic number for a 450 delay weapon, the neat thing that happens once I do get 5 Store TP merits is that I will be able to eat Carbonara and be able to use the Fuma Sune-ate for TP build instead of the crappy Hachiman Sune-ate.
Now for Soboro WS's:
Main: Soboro Sukehiro
Sub: Axe Grip
Ranged: Tiphia Sting
Head: Shura Zunari Kabuto
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Left Earring: Minuet Earring
Right Earring: Brutal Earring
Body: Kirin's Osode
Hands: Myochin Kote +1
Left Ring: Flame Ring
Right Ring: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Warwolf Belt
Legs: Shura Haidate
Feet: Hachiman Sune-ate
Back, yes, beaten that horse to death. Grips still apply too. For the ranged slot I could very much use an Olibanum Sachet for WS, which would be a lot better than a Tiphia Sting. As opposed to Ninja, a Triumph Earring would be an improvement over the Minuet because the extra Dex isn't doing anything besides adding 1 accuracy. I use the Kirin's Osode because it has +10 STR, +10 Attack and +10 Accuracy, which when compared to the Haubergeon +1 has a slight STR advantage for WS damage without that much of a hit to accuracy. The Myochin Kote +1 definitely don't have as much STR as some Gigas braeclets but they do have a good amount and also have more accuracy from the DEX instead of the loss in accuracy from the Gigas bracelets, and they were free. :) I am pleased with them as is. As I already mentioned, with this set up and full Store TP merits I have to use Hachiman Sune-ate during WS to get to 100 in 6 swings, but if I use Carbonara, I can use the Rutter Sabatons instead.
Now for some repetitiveness,
Hagun TP build: 
Main: Hagun
Sub: Axe Grip
Ranged: Tiphia Sting
Head: Walahra Turban
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Left Earring: Merman's Earring
Right Earring: Brutal Earring
Body: Haubergeon +1
Hands: Dusk Gloves
Left Ring: Ulthalam's Ring
Right Ring: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Swift Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Hachiman Sune-ate
Only basic difference is that I am using the Brutal Earring which allows me to adjust my WS set up which is right here: 
Main: Hagun
Sub: Axe Grip
Ranged: Tiphia Sting
Head: Shura Zunari Kabuto
Neck: Chivalrous Chain
Left Earring: Minuet Earring
Right Earring: Brutal Earring
Body: Kirin's Osode
Hands: Myochin Kote +1
Left Ring: Flame Ring
Right Ring: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Warwolf Belt
Legs: Shura Haidate
Feet: Rutter Sabatons
As I said the Hagun lets me use the Brutal Earring for TP build which gives me enough TP over the five hits of the TP phase to use Rutter Sabatons for the WS. A neat little bonus.
Finally my Monk.
TP set: 
Main: Destroyers
Ranged: Tiphia Sting
Head: Walahra Turban
Neck: Peacock Charm
Left Earring: Merman's Earring
Right Earring: Brutal Earring
Body: Shura Togi
Hands: Melee Gloves
Left Ring: Ulthalam's Ring
Right Ring: Sniper's Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Brown Belt
Legs: Byakko's Haidate
Feet: Dune Boots
This is a pretty good set up if I don't say so myself. I choose Melee Gloves over Ochiudo's Kote because the additional stats on the Melee Gloves are pretty sweet and its just a loss of 4 attack. The only obviously glaring problem is that I don't have a Black Belt, and also I don't have any Usukane. I am working on both, but not very close to either right now.
Finally my MNK WS gear: 
Main: Destroyers
Ranged: Tiphia Sting
Head: Optical Hat
Neck: Peacock Charm
Left Earring: Merman's Earring
Right Earring: Coral Earring
Body: Shura Togi
Hands: Ochiudo's Kote
Left Ring: Ulthalam's Ring
Right Ring: Sniper's Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle +1
Waist: Life Belt
Legs: Shura Haidate
Feet: Rasetsu sune-ate
A wise Monk named Aurik once said the modifiers for Asuran Fists is 50% Attack and 50% Accuracy. I totally believe this. The modifiers on Asuran Fists are completely worthless, so its better to make sure all 8 hits land and that they do damage. So, some people may not agree with my WS set up but I swear by it. Problems I have are that I don't have my Ethereal Earring yet, which will replace that Coral Earring, it will just be for looks because the have the same offensive stats. I might use the Ethereal Earring during TP build instead of the Merman's because honestly its only 1 attack difference while there is 5 more evasion with the Ethereal Earring. The other problem is that the Monk WS feet suck, I think I will eventually pick up the Pahluwan
Crackows for the +5 accuracy (+3 accuracy, +4 DEX) but I am going to wait until after the expansion to see if their is anything else interesting and what job I am going to level, so that I can pick up something else with my 20k AP.
Thats it for gear, I am pretty happy where I stand right now, but I do still need some work.
Before I go, I wanted to mention that Omoi got some Rostrum Pumps recently after years of helping other people to get them. :) Congratulations.
See you tomorrow!
Monday, November 05, 2007
The battle of the most horribly dorky jobs to level.
Dancer - Ok, I totally dig the whole use TP for abilities thing. It just seems that this is so interesting. The status enhancements and enfeebles are innovative and complimentary. The tiered use of the abilities, to enhance others and the player themselves. It breaks the mold for how buffing jobs operate.
Scholar - I like the idea too, but its much more unclear on how they work. First, problem is that it uses MP. I am allergic. Second, I think that it will require leveling other jobs (that I should be leveling anyway) to be useful. The AF is much better than Dancer though.
So its interesting job in a dress versus MP job in cool AF.
There is no way I am going to win here.
So, things I should mention from everything I have gleaned from the available information so far.
70 Inventory slots. Awesomeness in a gobbie-bag. Definitely needed. Quest involved? Maybe, but I will do what it takes.
New macros sets. Pretty much useless. It looks like they just gave us more macro buttons. We don't need more sets, we don't need more buttons, we need more lines. :(
Campaign. Pretty much totally cool. I mean the list of possible activities is quite staggering, and they haven't even been very clear on everything that you can do.
There is more and I may go over other details as the emerge but honestly I think I covered the crux of the information that everyone wants to know about. The information is everywhere now, so I am not sure what else I could provide that you couldn't get with a simple click.
Now, I am going to do something I have done before, but I am going to do it differently. Last week I talked about how I am just embracing SAM, NIN and MNK as my main end-game jobs, this is for two reasons. One, they share a lot of gear so it is much easier on me for these to be my active jobs with the most readily available gear. Two, they are my best equipped jobs, so naturally I will want to use them more. In my rush to level many different jobs I was not doing a very good job of rounding them out and building them up. I was leaving gapping holes in equipment and especially merits. For example, my SAM did not have a six-hit build, my NIN didn't have an insane haste set up, one that was available to me. My MNK, well... my MNK just needs merits, I am pretty happy with it over all.
Part of my problem is that I am very opinionated, and I think this is also good for me, but the point is that I can tend to dig in on my opinion, and not be as adaptable as I can be. For example, I think (I still think I am generally right on this) that a High Breath Mantle, if you can use it without it being dispelled, is better than a Cerberus Mantle. Don't get me wrong, I now have both, so this is not a case of sour grapes, its just practical statistic differentiation for a NIN tank. For a PLD, I have accepted that they can switch different back pieces for different situations but the argument is much weaker for NIN tanks. Back from my tangent, my point is that I tend to pick something and stay with it until proven directly incorrect. There is room for flexibility in everything, and this is the moment in which I am going to be flexible and reevaluate how I can make NIN, SAM and MNK as close to perfect as I can get them.
So, I am going to go over what I think are my absolute best set ups for these key jobs, these are XP/DD set-ups. I feel there is a little less flexibility in these set ups compared to tanking, because with tanking if you don't die and you hold hate you are doing your job, so you can do what makes you comfortable. With DD set-ups there are much more definable perfect gear sets.
And this is where I leave you hanging until after lunch.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Attack of the Librarian!
Have no fear, your diligent blog-writing Librarian brings you the news even when he is away on the weekend for work!
I GIVE YOU SCHOLAR! (Rightiously stolen from Elmer on BG again!)
Fuck Dancer! I am playing real life now!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Cliched comment about finally getting a drop in Salvage goes here.
Ninjafox probably isn't pleased with himself for missing last nights run. LOL Well, after months of farming Arrapago to get some 35 drops to justify going to other zones to complete them it finally happened. We got something to drop, in fact we got another run of amazing drops. First floor we had everyone with a Incus cell before the end of the first two rooms of Qutrubs. Got all of our necessary ability and magic cells and then finished up farming for HP cells after that. We were on the second floor faster than we ever have before, and it only got better from there. We pulled the two Lamia on the second floor then quickly moved up to the Qiqirn Astrologer, only nasty thing that it did was a Sleepga and we quickly took it down, and finally something nice dropped. 
From there we quickly moved to the third floor were we skipped the QQTH because we didn't have the set up to deal with it, so we farmed the first half of the floor for INT cells and more HP cells, then warped up. We quickly took out the fourth floor QQTH and then pulled the gears that were in the way for Subjob cells, we tried to kill the Big Bhoot but failed, largely I believe because of our party set up, LOL which again I will explain later. We picked ourselves up afterward and headed up to the fifth floor, skipped both the Ramparts because we were low on time, luckily they were not true sound this time, and popped the Archaic Chariot. We got really good items from the chests that dropped on the way, so we decided to just pop everything we had and rape the Chariot. Rygar and I just Hundred Fisted to start, and Iz came in at the end to with a Steel Cyclone with every possible buff at the end to finish it off. God, I love Fanatics drinks. :) The Archaic Chariot went down in record time. 
We had like 5 minutes left at that point so we hurried back to the QQ Astrologer and killed it with moments to spare, no drop from that though, but I wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I have a few comments about Arrapago, and I think I know how we will put together a boss run for this zone. The first two floors will remain the same, and on the third floor we will kill more mobs to get more cells if they are needed. After that we will largely skip the fourth floor then clear out the fifth floor for needed cells, probably skipping the NM's for time. Clear the sixth floor then move up to the boss. This should leave enough time for the boss on the first run and we can add in more NM's as we get better at this run.
Now, I wanted to mentioned the set-up for this run. It's pretty funny actually. MNK, MNK, WAR, BLM, WHM, and Borin as a level 70 THF for TH. LOL Borin's TH rules all. We didn't have a dispel or refresh for the entire run, which definitely slowed us on the first floor with all the BLM mobs and their Ice Spikes, but we managed. As I said the reason we lost to the Big Bhoot was two-fold. First, it used Perdition very early but after a -ga spell was already stunned, so Stun wasn't up and we didn't have the TP yet for a Stun WS. This put Izman out of the fight quickly. Second it was just using a ton of -ga spells which stretched our very limited healing to the breaking point, especially with limited stuns and WS stuns when Ice Spikes were up. Still we almost put it down, which was impressive again without a refresh or dispel.
And who did the 35's go to? Omoi beat out Izman on the lot for the Deimos's cuirass. 
While Rygar beat me out for the lot on the Hikazu hakama. 
LOL So now we can finally start running Bhaflau for boss runs, I think this should be easy but I think we will need a few more people for the boss and also a BRD with a Storm Fife would be awesome for that run. Bhaflau is very easy to farm for cells, so that shouldn't be a problem.
After Salvage, a Besieged was about to begin so we headed over there. It was actually pretty fun because Omoi, Izman, Riakoh and I were like a mini-party. We always had Giant Drinks so no one died. Killed a ridiculously huge bomb while waiting for the boss to spawn. 
Then we all grouped up on the boss and got it down to 10% before the Besieged ended. >.< 
For your cuteness award today, its Coejus for being terribly cute! LOL 
No blog tomorrow, I will be out of town again. :(
#1 ~ Monk
#2 ~ Samurai
#3 ~ Ninja
#4 ~ Dragoon
Chaotic Pellucidity
Teabags and KY Jelly
The Bloggaru!
