Thursday, October 30, 2008

Dancer is like Halloween Candy.

So, without my prior knowledge Omoi, Ninjafox and I all leveled DNC yesterday. I think this is because all three of us want to use it for Campaign and for solo/low-man stuff. Omoi got a bunch of levels on her DNC, while Ninjfox and I teamed up for some late night leveling but only got a couple of levels a piece. Dancer is fun to play in small groups for a little while but afterward I am left a little empty, quite like Halloween candy. I want to do it while I am doing it, but I am left without a compelling interest to continue it after I have swapped to another job, I just feel like its too much to switch back. LOL Dancer is like empty calories.

Anyway, I think the rest of this post is going to be dedicated to helping out Iceyb with a question that he has about Dancing Edge. Now, I will preface this as always by saying that I am not perfect on these calculations, so keep that in mind. Essentially, Iceblazek asked me if he had too much DEX on his Dancing Edge and should instead be focusing more on STR. I gave him some general advise, but I am going to do some of the calculations to help him out.

First, lets look at the modifiers for Dancing Edge. For all TP levels the damage modifier is 1.1875 for the first hit, and then like all WS it 1.0 for the rest of the hits. Then the stat modifiers are DEX 30% and CHR 40%, so lets haul out our WS damage formula!

Damage = WD * PDIF = (( D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP) * PDIF
And no I am not going to explain Weapon Damage or pDIF again, I have already done that once and it took me days and I think part of my soul is dead now because of it. ; ; Anyway, we just need a part of the equation really, because it is the meat of the matter.

The three main points are the D, fSTR and WSC. The D is just the damage listed on the weapon. The fSTR is... a long list of things, but to quickly boil it down, you get 1 more fSTR every 4 STR that you add. I am going to suggest that you could almost think of this as a 25% modifier, even though that is not true. It is a function that is rounded down, until you get to the next whole number, and it is also based on STR versus VIT of the mob, but if you think of it as one in four STR giving you an increase in fSTR then it is easier to make the comparison, even if it is not helpful for finding raw damage. WSC is the part of the calculation that considers the effect of the other mods, it is reduced by a level correction, but you probably only need to know the correction for 75, which is .83.

So for Dancing Edge if you want to compare STR to say DEX, you would say that STR you get .25 of each STR versus .30 of DEX multiplied by .83 or .249 which is very close to the damage you would get from STR.

Ah ha! It's not that simple though, because STR adds to attack, and DEX adds to accuracy, etc. AND! I could be wrong about all these estimates and I will update this tomorrow to get a better idea of the situation, and to help Iceyb! :)

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Winding down.

The benefit of doing the Campaign Ops in the beastman strongholds is definitely dying off a little bit. We got a Cuchulain's Belt last week and the price on that is already dropping. This week we only got one Witch's Sash so far so that isn't very much gil, but it is at least a little bit more for another Imperial Wootz Ingot. I can't really decide if I want to buy them now or if I want to wait to see if they come back down a little bit. My fingers are crossed that they might drop down to about 800k after this next weekend, there are now another bunch of Ingots on the AH so hopefully they will drop. I am going to be busy for the next couple of weeks again, so my farming and leathercraft is going to slow down. :( I really can't get my mind off of getting my ingots for more than a couple of days at a time. I am getting closer, but it still seems so far away.

I have done a few other things recently, like I did a little campaign and I saw the new Siege Weapons running around all over the place. At first I thought all three of them looked like the Orc one, and that there weren't any differences between the different the races. The Orcish Turret was the first one that I ran into and the way it looked just confirmed my belief. That was until I saw the Quadav Turret which was completely different. The Yagudo one is also different, but I don't have a screen shot of it. :( They are really good looking models and they are freaking huge too. I got some decent campaigns in my very sparse free time when I was not farming and skilling up on leathercrafting. It was a fun break, and I also got to level my DNC to 18 yesterday which was another nice little break, but I don't see it lasting for long until I get my Usukane Harimaki completed.

Finally, I wanted to congratulate Omoi for completing her Marduk's Tiara. Very sexy, and a great piece for her BRD. :) Yay!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

As of last night...

Well, I was going to be nice to Kallo. I wasn't going to rub it in, because I know that he has missed getting his first Salvage piece completed just because he has missed a run here or there, and this is especially true with what has happened on Sunday's run where we actually got a lot of things that we needed to get out of the way. There are a couple of Salvage related issues that are very specific to the groups that I go with that I wanted to bring up, but first lets start with Kallo.

1. I hate you, Kallo.
2. I wasn't going to gloat about my awesome new Skadi 35 feet that I have for a job that I rarely use and for a job that I only plan on leveling much later and for a job that is your main and currently only job at 75.
3. Maybe you should think about making old jokes on your blog, asshat.

*cough*

I feel much better now! Sure, he gets the funny zinger, but I get the super hot Skadi feet for running around in! If you wanted to use a political analogy he is Obama with all his funny comments and popular support, and I am McCain with all my bitterness and being a have to Kallo's have not. And in the end I am totally the winner!!!

Wait...

FUCK!

Anyway, the other point I wanted to talk about was the status of free lots for Salvage. Basically, I cribbed my lotting notes from Celestria completely when it comes to Salvage. My old system worked for a little while, but was very drop dependent and often caused us to do the same runs over and over. So after basically not only copying everything in the runs from Celestria, I also adopted her lotting system. Basically, everyone gets two priority pieces and they help to focus what runs we do and when we do them, and then anything else that drops is free lot (for job and level). There are times that I will make a decision on a free lot item if there is a specific long time member that obviously deserves the item over someone else that does not use another job very often. I think that I have done that maybe one time. Sometimes, I think I have a good idea of how "fair" I should be about who gets what jobs, but then again maybe I don't. I could do it on strictly on attendance, but then all of the older member's likely will get a bunch of things that could go to new members for jobs they use more often. No one in Celestria's or my groups are very greedy at all, but even then the lure of a free 35 is very nice. Believe me, I just got Skadi 35 feet free lot and I was hoping no one else was going to lot against me. :) I think that free lotting non-priority drops is probably the best way to be the most fair to everyone. Sometimes free lots don't turn out for everyone, but sometimes to they do.

In this game, the most difficult thing for someone that is running an LS honestly is to find the best way to distribute gear fairly. This is especially true of low-man events like Salvage where some of the members can be transient at times out of no fault of their own. So, I think I will stick with free-lotting non-priority items, even more than I have in the past. I just think it is the right thing to do.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The great turn around.

I don't know what happened really. All I used to want to do is level new jobs, get Rare/Ex gear, and merit. Things that rarely required money. I did struggle to come up with new gil to even pay for things like Limbus or food, but it was a nice time. Then I got my Usukane 35 mask, then shortly after I got my Usukane 35 body, and I really wanted to get those completed. So I shifted my priorities, times when I normally would XP or sadly, assist other people, I have started spending on farming. Now farming may not be the most efficient way to build up gil, but it is very useful for leveling leathercrafting which is like the only craft that you can actually level reasonably well and to a very high level while farming. I do have this to say about farming to skill-up leathercrafting: do not be afraid of level gaps, especially ones before level 60. I was able to bridge a 12 level gap with synth support, and while I did break quite a bit the skill-ups came fast enough to not really matter. And even if you do break but you don't use the hide you are skilling off of then you can just synth again for another chance at a skill up. I even did this above level 60 and though it did take a little longer it still was not unreasonable compared to the cost of making a gap item just for skill ups. Luckily above 71 I can avoid major gaps until about 85, then it is rough to 100 but not much I can do to avoid that. Anyway, I have been making decent money as of late, and for the first time in probably two or three years I have over a million gil on my person! The problem is that over the last week Imperial Wootz Ingots shot up 200k to 1 million gil a piece. Well, at least I have one Ingot on me now, but really I don't think that the price of Imperial Wootz Ingots is sustainable at 1 million because there were a ton of the ingots up for several days at that price and they are all dropping off the AH now without being purchased. So, I am going to hang onto my gil for now, and hope they come back down at least a little bit. Part of my gil influx came just yesterday from doing a couple of Plucking Wings BC fights. The fight from what I understand is easier than the Sandy version, though the extra spawns are close enough to link no matter how far away you pull the main NM. The extra spawns are very weak though, and can be killed in two SAM WS's. The NM just basically spams spells that are always AoE, and during it's two hour it will spam AoE AM spells. LOL They aren't that strong though and as long as you are at max HP you will always be able to take them without dying. On our first run we managed to get a Roundel Earring, which we are currently trying to sell, and I got some other junk which I sold to get me over the 1 mil gil mark! Woot! If that sells, I might be able to get two Ingots, and then I have almost enough to get another ingot on the mule that I sell all of my crafting and farming stuff. So that is three ingots right there, and then I have the gil that Ailee has on her, which she is letting me use, but I know she would prefer to have me use that gil to make more gil rather than just spending it, but I don't know if I have the patience or the attentiveness to actually make gil with clothcrafting. Anyway, even if I don't try to use Ailee's gil to make gil and just use it to buy more ingots I would be able to get three more and that puts me at a total of 6! Half way there!

I have pretty much neglected a lot of other things that we have been doing lately and after a drought in Salvage we have finally gotten a few more drops that helped to complete some of the items that people have been waiting on for a long time. Lets start with Illius because it really was his week, last week. First, after waiting something like 6 months Illius got his Duelist Chapeau. That, of course, is not Salvage related but it is still pretty important for him and it's definitely something I wanted to congratulate him about, but for the Salvage related item, Illius finally got his Skadi's Jambeaux! Now he can be all speedy in Salvage when he comes on THF! :) It is his first completed piece, and he beat Kallo to them (thank God!). In further Skadi news, Ninjfox got enough of those Orichalcum Ingots to finish up his Skadi's Visor! That puts Ninjafox at three completed Skadi pieces and with only the body and legs left to complete. And for the finale, the body which has eluded both of our Salvage groups (Celestria's and mine) for quite a long time now has finally reared its ugly head, and not just once but twice! The Peryton finally popped and drop the Skadi 35 body which we had never even seen before! The first one went to Blaize who had it on priority in both of our groups, and has been waiting on it for more than a year. He has now completed his Skadi set, which is awesome and he is only the second person to complete a Salvage set across our two groups. Congratulations Blaize, and Ninjafox and Illius! It was a Skadi week all the way around!

You might think this post has been rather positive and upbeat, but I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I am still my normal angry, bitter self and here is some proof.

This fucktard posted this last week about my post ranting about RMT.

Anonymous Dain said...

"King of the Douches. Might as well fucking pop your collar, get a tribal tattoo and officially change your name to Chad."

Rip off B&B much?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fad6eZTDikA

That statement is about as original as your post.


OH MY GOD! YOU TOTALLY CAUGHT ME!

God damn you are a dumb ass. Of course I got it from that, that is why it is fucking funny you moron. It's not a fucking rip off, it's a god damn homage, and its something that was directed to me by Izman and I thought it was hilarious so I included it because it was funny, and because Izman would get the in-joke about that line.

Dain, do everyone a favor, stop pissing in the gene pool and blow your fucking brains out. Please? Come on... do it for America!

Love,
ring

PS. Yes, I do know that pissing in the gene pool is not an original comment, and was even the name of a Henry Rollin's book of prose, which was probably published before you were fucking born kid.

PPS. It's not a good idea to try to insult a guy on his own blog, you are always going to lose, because it is my fucking blog, and I always get the last fucking word, moron.

*Huggles* for everyone else that commented on that post, people like Cel and Q really got me thinking about the whole situation and helped me come to my more soft line conclusion. In the end, Cel said it best when she said, that even though a fool and their gil are soon parted (yes, Dain, that one isn't original either, idiot) there are limits to how far they will go. And I think that really is the most important part. As long as people remember that limits are good, everyone will be better off. :)

Monday, October 20, 2008

Reconsidered.

So, I may have my opinions as does everyone, but I sometimes wonder if people think about their opinions. I know that I do, and I do it quite a bit. I am the first person to say that I am wrong when I reconsider things. I have no concerns for consistency over intellectual honesty, in other words I have no problem changing my mind and admitting it. And I have changed my mind on something and I have changed it pretty quickly. I don't think it's so bad that people make money off of people that buy gil. I think the problem is that my pragmatism was being overwhelmed by my sense of morality and general anger at the state of the economy. I was finding gremlins where ever I looked and that is not a good state of mind to be in. Let me say that I still think it is a bad idea, and I do think that people could do a better job of policing themselves. The problem is that it is hard to make money in this game, and I don't think at this point it is necessary for me to deride people that are just trying to get by. Basically, I was taking a vow of poverty, but doing it unintentionally, and I don't want to wish that onto any of my friends ever. Also, I was tilting at windmills. I have absolutely no control over other people buying gil, so why worry so much about it? I probably won't ever be in a position to make gil on people like that to begin with, but I have friends that can do it. Why should I be yelling at them, instead of just yelling at the people that are buying the gil? That's right, I shouldn't.

No, I am not being sarcastic. I do wish that the gil buyers that buy Imperial Wootz ingots in groups of 12 driving up the price massively would die in a fire though. :)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Univerally good.

So, as you might have noticed dear reader, I am not always on my best behavior. What can I say? I have a tendency to tilt to the extreme and that sometimes garners some kind of support but usually just ends up alienating most everyone. I am perfectly fine with that, because although my opinions may not be universally accepted they are still universally true, and if people want to exist in utter wrongness, well that is their choice. Their bad choice. :) There I did it again. LOL Ok, so I am not always right, but I am at least always well intentioned unlike many people. I believe that I, unlike many people in this game and many people in the real world, can balance the needs of self with the needs of others, and more importantly I can view the world in a balance rather than some kind of evil state of nature where mothers eat their own young out of greed and sheer spite. The problem I have is that this high horse on which I ride can get to be pretty difficult to dismount without quite a big fall. But my problems are mine, and I would much rather be on a high horse than rolling around with swine.

These are the concerns of a know-it-all dork. I feel like I know a lot but what do I really know a lot about? FFXI? LOL The notion that this knowledge has some kind of intrinsic worth in any kind of society is delusional at best, and really that is what separates me from those that I hate so dearly. My self-delusion stops at the water's edge. I have many other but probably equally uninteresting things to alienate people in my real life. LOL The point is that I can point and laugh at myself and how intensely I take the game and other issues. It's the people that can't, and that get so upset that someone has a different opinion than themselves, that are the real source of conflict in the world. These people, (usually Republicans, LOL) are angry not because other people have opinions, but because those opinions disagree with theirs.

What is with this random diatribe? Well, because there are nice people in the world. People like Izman and Omoikitte, who never cause conflicts with other people, who are understanding and helpful to the end, and people who often cause people to get mad at them just because they are who they are... and it those people that resent people like Izman and Omoikitte that make me laugh. I have to wonder how people could become so base and small that they start to resent people because they do not devote their entire lives to helping them. How selfish and twisted do you have to become to blame someone else that helps consistently for not helping even more? There is a bitter end waiting people like that, and you may ask who could become like that? But in the end there are whole strings of people like that, people that refuse to take the lead or help themselves, but in their own self-resentment refocuses that frustration on the least logical but most obvious target. The worst part is the complete disconnect people like this experience, the fact that they can't even clue in on the fact that they are being resentful because of their personal justifications for their own feelings. It's pathetic really. :(

So to people like Izman and Omoikitte, people that stand out for being helpful, friendly and great people, I praise you. And for people like me? Well, you can yell at me instead. :)

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Where did the happiness go?

My blog lately has been a bit... what's a good word for it... let's see... bitter? Angry? A little off kilter? Maybe, maybe not. But hey, insanity gets the blog hits right?

So, in an attempt to get some of the love back into your fucking O's Kote, lets focus on the positive, and think of the bright side of life! Ok, so I am now looking at about 12 million in Imperial Wootz Ingots coming up, because the price has skyrocketed recently. Luckily at least part of this cost is going to be offset by the complete awesomeness that is Ailee! Woot! She has quit/super-long-term breaked, and has let me use her account for the gil on it and for crafting. She is a long time 100 Clothcrafter with a good amount of gil standing around collecting dust. Well, I say, collect dust to more and be free gil! FREE! FLY AWAY and bring me the sweet nectar of Imperial Wootz Ingots! The sad thing is that I don't know the clothcraft market, and I don't even know how to work it. The leathercraft market is much different and a decent profit can be made in semi-consumables, which is where I am making a good portion of my money right now. With clothcrafting, from what I heard from Ailee when she was talking to me about it, it is more like you need to craft a bunch of things and bank on the HQ's. She is now telling me that I can no longer complain about money because I can just use Ailee to make more money. :( This blog is going to get really short really quick if I can't do any complaining about money. LOL

Well, at least I have some place to start, probably have enough in gil to get at least 4 Imperial Wootz ingots, which is already a third of the way to get it completed. I will find out tonight how I am doing on gil. :)

Monday, October 06, 2008

A return to normalcy.

How about a recap? Haven't had one of those in weeks now? And its a good move away from the bomb-throwing of my last and much commented upon entry. :) And by the way, for those that disagreed with me, have you ever thought to consider the fact that you logic can be used to defend and justify the absolutely worst and most gross violations of the game rules and general acceptability because it is the moral equivalent to throwing your hands up in the air and declaring surrender, while my position may condemn a few people that have earned their gil legitimately but doesn't require me to be bedfellows with account thieves and gil-buyers.

Anyway, on with the show.

Ok, lets start with some non-Salvage related stuff. I got some Rostrum Pumps for my WHM, which help to round out my end-game equipment. Even with them though, I feel like my WHM is woefully under prepared for end-game activities even though I have used it for them already. The problem is not in the equipment, it is in my skill levels and my lack of merits. The cure cast time merits are what I feel worst about, because they really seem to be very good for WHM. The point is that I have a long way to go, and I basically can never XP or anything but do events and farm anymore, at least until I get my Usukane Harimaki completed. At least I am doing well at that so far, and I am already about halfway to my first ingot, and I am skilling up my leathercrafting at the same time. ^.^

The next non-Salvage thing was that we did one of the new BC's in the Wings-era beastmen strongholds, in this case La Vaule. I have gone over this before and posted about some of the NM's, but this is the first time we did the BC's. The fight is not that bad, but it can be a bit tough because the boss can use a large damage AoE, and it has an "aura" that gives everyone around it Flash. The "aura" can come and go and it seems like the use of the AoE move leaves when it's "aura" goes away. The drops were pretty marginal outside of this: Iz's new ugly head! LOL It is very nice, and Iz didn't even mean to lot it because he wanted something else but before hand he missed the lot on it and had to pick to lot on the head, and he won it. LOL It is very, very good piece for most jobs. I don't know if I would use it on SAM, because I don't know if the 1 STR is more than the loss in accuracy from using the Shura Kabuto, but it is good for almost every other DD.

I might have mentioned that I need to farm up a bit of gil. LOL I am working on it and it is going well, but in my wanderings in Zi'Tah I found out that there is a rock formation that you can climb up on top of pretty easily and you can fall in between the rocks and get trapped. And then you need your friendly neighborhood GM to get you out. The part that I wish I had gotten a screen shot of was the comment they made about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and then their lament about the fact that they can not make decent jokes because of the strict policies that the GM's have to follow when dealing with players. The comment the GM made about the joke being bad was definitely much more enjoyable than the joke itself. Also, related to farming is the fact that after almost three year of kind of wanting it, I got a Gondo-Shizunori! I know, it's not the top Polearm, and not even the top Polearm for SAM, but I have wanted one for a long time. I don't know when I will be able to unlock it, but I hope it happens eventually. :)

Now, with the non-Salvage things out of the way, lets get down to business. First, thank you to Iz for helping me out with 4 O. Ingots to finish up my Usukane Somen! Thanks a ton Iz! But now everyone else needs O. Ingots including Omoi, Hiryo, Iz and Ninjafox. Omoi needs them now because she just got this: Nice froggie! We got that on one of our best Zhayolm runs we have ever done, killed both froggies and killed the boss with 10 minutes left. It was great! :) Salvage has been a little bit better lately but SSR still sucks. :(

To wrap up, I got to see Elfie a little bit last week and Elfie, being Elfie was able to give me a couple of nuggets for the blog!
I <3 Elfie!

Thursday, October 02, 2008

I can neither confirm or deny that statement.

I have been overwhelmed, but the bitching about the lack of posts has gotten to the point where I can't pass on making a new post.

Enough with excuses, on with the posts.

I think this would be a good time for a rant post because some of the same old issues that have come up in the past are coming up again, and I want to address them. I am fucking sick and tired of assholes that claim they are so fucking smart because they sell end-game gear to gil buyers and have tons of gil now and look down on other people that actually care about where their gil comes from. Fucking douche bags can die in a fucking fire. The newest reason for this is from the ability to kill AV for a couple of days before they nerfed KC DRKs on it. What kind of fucking people don't let their own freaking LS lot on AV drops and instead sells them for gil? I mean seriously, what the fuck. Why the fuck do these people play this game? Sure some people want the gil, but at what fucking point is this just a second job to get gil for yourself, and having no pride or ethics about responsibility to get gear for your LS. I have seen so pretty fucking atrocious situations, where LS leaders take what they want, then force the rest of the LS to pay for items that the leaders got for free. I don't know who is more of a toolbox, the person that is ass-raping their own LS, or the person getting ass-raped. I am not usually one to blame the victim, and to me assholes that take advantage of people usually make me want to drive to their houses and light their beds on fucking fire, but the victims in this case are doing it voluntarily, so they both can go fuck off for all I care.

Let me be completely fucking clear on this next point, I have said it before, but it only gets worse as time goes on. If you are selling AV drops or other drops like that for insane amounts of gil, then you are buying gil. I can't make it anymore clear than that. And I just love the fuckers that get their panties in a bunch about being called gil buyers when they get called out for that, but it's the fucking case. At least fucking accept it. A huge majority of that gil that people are using to pay these insane prices comes from the gear that the RMT sold off of the accounts they fucking stole from people. Taking that gil from those fucking gil buying assholes links you directly with stealing fucking accounts.

I fucking hate it, but most of all I fucking hate those people that take pride in the fucking situation. They think they are so scary smart because they think they understand "supply and demand". The problem is on two levels, first you aren't the first person to figure out something you could learn in Intro to Microeconomics, and second, it's not fucking supply and demand. The whole fucking market is distorted by people BUYING FUCKING GIL. It's the exact opposite of supply and demand, because those two words aren't the only factor in determining prices. It is completely distorted if they money just comes from something outside of the monetary system.

Now, you might ask, why do I care? You want to know why I care? Because it fucks me right in the ass too. If retarded people buy gil then use it to buy high-end gear, then that gil is spread into the economy, and fucks with the prices on everything. Even worse is that it doesn't just causes inflation on key items, but causes deflation on everything else, because the people that don't fucking buy gil or use gil from gil-buyers, have to work harder to get more gil to keep up, which causes more farming and more items to flood the market, pushing down fucking prices, and it ends up killing the income of people that don't feel like using gil from gil-buyers is a good fucking thing to do.

So, seriously, everyone can just fuck off about all their gil-buying, whether it happens directly or indirectly. You aren't fucking better, you are just a fucking cheater. And for the most part, people like that are attention whores too. They have so much fucking money that they have relics before the even level the fucking job to use it. But since they have their little butt-buddies running around building fucking birdhouses in the bungholes, they feel that they are somehow justified in being universal douchebags. These people can go hang out with the people that are proud they bot and both of them can fucking blow me to completion 7 times a day. Just because you managed to find other people that think that being a douchebag is a fucking sport doesn't mean you are fucking cool, it just means that you are the fucking King of the Douches. Might as well fucking pop your collar, get a tribal tattoo and officially change your name to Chad.

So, yeah, I am fucking bitter, I can't fucking get an Imperial Wootz Ingot let alone 12 because people buy fucking gil, and don't fucking care about conserving their fucking money when they can just buy more. I have to worry about my account getting stolen because fuckers won't stop buying gil, AND because people will charge them insane prices for shit they should be giving to their LS. There are too many fucking rare items in this game to fucking sell that shit off instead of giving it to deserving people in your own fucking LS.

I don't know if I feel better, and I know that the douchebags just love it when people get pissed about what they do because, well fuck, they are douchebags, but man, if you might have a bit of decency in your fucking heart, remember this is a fucking game, and not high school. And just because you were a fucking dork in high school doesn't mean you should act like the kids that use to make fun of you back then. Being proud that you cheated in a video game to get a ton of gil isn't going to make up for the fact that you couldn't even get a hand job from the ugly chick in your English class.

Well, now I do feel a little bit better, because the truth fucking hurts. :)

Back to happy regular Ring tomorrow. I have a good amount to update, but just wanted to have some fun today.