Where the fuck am I?

Seriously... I don't know where I am. :(

Ok, I may have been in that part of the zone like one time before... but I seriously have never seen this shit before...

I am so fucking lost.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Heavens_tower.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Heavens_tower.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 178px;" /></a><br />Seriously... I don't know where I am. :(<br /><br />Ok, I may have been in that part of the zone like one time before... but I seriously have never seen this shit before...<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/H_tower2.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/H_tower2.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 158px;" /></a><br />I am so fucking lost.

Individualized Ninjafox Love.

Thank you so much NF! WOOT!

Thank you so much NF! WOOT!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/NF_Love.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/NF_Love.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 486px; height: 318px;" /></a>

Grand New Plan.

Work opened late. Maybe tomorrow with something more, in the meantime, sleep well knowing I am going to be a BLM that can use a staff after tonight! :)

Work opened late. Maybe tomorrow with something more, in the meantime, sleep well knowing I am going to be a BLM that can use a staff after tonight! :)

Now hiring.

Just wanted to make a quick advertisement for Versus today. Through some attrition, school, other activities, we find that we could use a bit of a replenishing of the Versus membership. So if you are looking for a good LS, that does everything but Kings then Versus is for you. We need smart and dedicated players more than anything else. Job selection is less of a requirement than the ability to be a consistent member and be able to listen and follow instructions. If you can do those two things, we can deal with whatever job or jobs you have access to. Lately, we have been getting a lot of applications, then those people just flake out or don't really want to do end-game. So if you want gear, and can play well with others then Versus is the place for you.

Send Omoikitte or I a tell in game if you are interested. :)

This post is now going to be the completion of two different posts that I didn't finish, so lets get those started.

Most of the people that I play with are about as smart about this game as I believe that I am.

Izman knows tanking, and is also a far better BLM than me. LOL

Omoi knows support, and is very good at holding people together without being a douche.

Kallo knows... how to punish people with the love of his TH.

Iceblazek knows how to be paranoid and love magic accuracy.

Ninjafox knows how to not pick a job that he wants to play for more than 5 minutes.

But in the end, Celestria knows how to do things very well, and very much better than most people that I know.

Lets take an example Celestria's comments about how to gear and pick AF+1 items.

Is that a bat signal or did somebody ask about BLM artifact armor?

Head: full morrigan > demon helm +1 > AF+1 > AF, it's very much worth the quest effort. Demon helm +1 has no -enmity so we generally don't use that on HNM, but it's a tiny damage boost when soloing.
Body: AF+1 > AF for enfeebling magic. If you don't get this piece and die because of sleep resists, you deserved it. :)
Hands: AF+1 > AF for HNM. You should wear AF hands for exp until 73ish and they make a huge difference in resists.
Legs: AF for dark magic. I upgraded these, but I'm a BLM freak.
Feet: They serve one purpose, and that is to let you store the set.

If you're getting BLM merits on BLM, upgrade skill+potency by what's cheapest at the time. I'd recomment you grab a few friends who need COR merits and mess up some birds with a melee party though. :)

--Cele

Now, it's not that she has some knowledge that no one else has access to or anything, but she does have the knowledge at the tips of her finger tips and she is very good at closing things down to just the information that is needed. If you have read this blog for more than 5 minutes you will notice this is a problem that I have as I can be a bit long winded.

But as for equipment information, I now have some guidance with what is important and where I should focus. The thing that sucks right now for me is the fact that I am always busy this time of year. So I can't level as much as I want to. I find time every now and then, but it's not as much as I would hope. So BLM may take until the Spring to complete.

I have a headache and I am heading home. I had hoped for more. :(

Just wanted to make a quick advertisement for Versus today. Through some attrition, school, other activities, we find that we could use a bit of a replenishing of the Versus membership. So if you are looking for a good LS, that does everything but Kings then Versus is for you. We need smart and dedicated players more than anything else. Job selection is less of a requirement than the ability to be a consistent member and be able to listen and follow instructions. If you can do those two things, we can deal with whatever job or jobs you have access to. Lately, we have been getting a lot of applications, then those people just flake out or don't really want to do end-game. So if you want gear, and can play well with others then Versus is the place for you.<br /><br />Send Omoikitte or I a tell in game if you are interested. :) <br /><br />This post is now going to be the completion of two different posts that I didn't finish, so lets get those started.<br /><br />Most of the people that I play with are about as smart about this game as I believe that I am.<br /><br />Izman knows tanking, and is also a far better BLM than me. LOL <br /><br />Omoi knows support, and is very good at holding people together without being a douche.<br /><br />Kallo knows... how to punish people with the love of his TH.<br /><br />Iceblazek knows how to be paranoid and love magic accuracy. <br /><br />Ninjafox knows how to not pick a job that he wants to play for more than 5 minutes.<br /><br />But in the end, Celestria knows how to do things very well, and very much better than most people that I know.<br /><br />Lets take an example Celestria's comments about how to gear and pick AF+1 items. <blockquote>Is that a bat signal or did somebody ask about BLM artifact armor?<br /><br />Head: full morrigan > demon helm +1 > AF+1 > AF, it's very much worth the quest effort. Demon helm +1 has no -enmity so we generally don't use that on HNM, but it's a tiny damage boost when soloing.<br />Body: AF+1 > AF for enfeebling magic. If you don't get this piece and die because of sleep resists, you deserved it. :)<br />Hands: AF+1 > AF for HNM. You should wear AF hands for exp until 73ish and they make a huge difference in resists.<br />Legs: AF for dark magic. I upgraded these, but I'm a BLM freak.<br />Feet: They serve one purpose, and that is to let you store the set.<br /><br />If you're getting BLM merits on BLM, upgrade skill+potency by what's cheapest at the time. I'd recomment you grab a few friends who need COR merits and mess up some birds with a melee party though. :)<br /><br />--Cele</blockquote><br /><br />Now, it's not that she has some knowledge that no one else has access to or anything, but she does have the knowledge at the tips of her finger tips and she is very good at closing things down to just the information that is needed. If you have read this blog for more than 5 minutes you will notice this is a problem that I have as I can be a bit long winded. <br /><br />But as for equipment information, I now have some guidance with what is important and where I should focus. The thing that sucks right now for me is the fact that I am always busy this time of year. So I can't level as much as I want to. I find time every now and then, but it's not as much as I would hope. So BLM may take until the Spring to complete. <br /><br />I have a headache and I am heading home. I had hoped for more. :(

Hubris is a mother fucker.

Not really trying to get down on anyone that duped and got banned.

Just want to get down on anyone that duped, got banned, when they previously said they were so fucking scary smart for duping and are now whining that it is SE's fault that they fucking did it.

To those people.

DIE

IN

A

MOTHER

FUCKING

FIRE.

To the people that duped, got banned, admitted it and are accepting the consequences.

You had balls, and you put them on the table, they may have been chopped off, but you at least took it like a man and I respect that.

I pass no judgment on duping itself, that is for each person to decide, but I do pass judgment based on how you acted about the duping situation.

That is where you separate the angsty teenagers from the people with real fortitude.

Not really trying to get down on anyone that duped and got banned.<br /><br />Just want to get down on anyone that duped, got banned, when they previously said they were so fucking scary smart for duping and are now whining that it is SE's fault that they fucking did it. <br /><br />To those people.<br /><br />DIE <br /><br />IN <br /><br />A<br /><br />MOTHER<br /><br />FUCKING<br /><br />FIRE.<br /><br />To the people that duped, got banned, admitted it and are accepting the consequences. <br /><br />You had balls, and you put them on the table, they may have been chopped off, but you at least took it like a man and I respect that. <br /><br />I pass no judgment on duping itself, that is for each person to decide, but I do pass judgment based on how you acted about the duping situation. <br /><br />That is where you separate the angsty teenagers from the people with real fortitude.

Woman... the ficklest creature.

When men are tired, they are just tired. Reactions slow, eyelids droop and attentiveness wains.

When women are tired, they get cranky. Cranky like the Rancor monster from Star Wars. They will pick you up in their tiny little hands and bite your head off for a snack.

Fear women at times such as these. Women at all other times are generally docile beasts, easily swayed with trinkets and gilt. But woe be unto those that trifle with women when they are extended past their bedtimes.

And now, to my beloved reader, I must bid you a fond, if sorrowful, good-bye, because as soon as a couple of my female readers click on this link I will be summarily destroyed by the pure mental power of the anger and disgust of those female readers.

:)

I kid. :)

Oh, god I am so dead.

Anyway, while Omoi plots my doom, and I am sure that the other women that I play with like Celestria will also want to participate, I am fleeing the country and moving to Canada assuming the new identity of Jacques Ringtrois...

Let's talk about my WHM shall we? We shall. Honestly, right now, my WHM is decently geared, but well under-skilled. My healing isn't capped, my enhancing isn't capped, my divine isn't capped. The only thing that is capped is my enfeebling because I cast Dia II more than anything else. :) I should probably work on that, but I never have any time, and the time I do have I am doing other things. I really need to force myself to do it, maybe make it part of another one of my lists! Well, I wanted to talk about WHM gear and macro sets, but first I want to talk about some potential good gear that is available for WHM and looking forward to BLM from Einherjar. I have points building up from Einherjar, and I want to use them soon, because in a couple of weeks I am going to have enough to get two different pieces. An interesting side note on my feelings about Einherjar gear, at first I thought the gear was pretty crappy overall. There were a few pieces that were definite improvements, but in the end most of them were basically HQ versions of things that were already available. They were worthless because without having the ability to get points without completely clearing a zone the cost to reward ratio was very low for these items. Now that this has been reversed and the items are now relatively easy to come by because you will always get points from Einherjar the situation has changed. In many case the bonuses are worth the investment, and they are "free" items compared to getting something off of the AH. Yes, they are still marginal upgrades but that margin is definitive over the old items that were used previously.

I am definitely considering a Morgana Choker because it basically kicks the crap out of all other WHM neck pieces of any level. It has a bunch more MP than my crappy NQ beak necklace and it has some additional MND which is always nice and could be useful for RDM in the future, but I don't know what else RDM has for the neck besides enfeebling torque, so I may be wrong there. In any case, I can't go wrong with this item for my WHM even if it isn't that useful for my other jobs.

The second piece that I am considering is getting a Gleeman's Cape for my BLM which is on the fast track to super stardom in Versus. (Iceblazek search detector here) It is not the best BLM cape available, because there are other options like the Ixion Cape (expensive) or the Merciful Cape (rare), but it fulfills my normal requirements for non-main job gear. It is cheap and easy to get! The INT on it is equal to the highest of all other available pieces even though it does have the negative MP on it.

The third piece that I want and it is probably on the same level as the Morgana's Choker, is the Omega Ring. Iceblazek (another check) demands that I get this before ever even considering any of the other options, though he did balk when I mentioned the stats on the Morgana's Choker because he thought it's stats were much more poor than they were in reality, but he did not back off of the desire for me to get the Omega Ring. The Omega ring has a couple of very good qualities, the stats are decent but lower than other potential ring options. The thing that puts it over is the 3 extra Magic Accuracy which makes it stronger when it comes to skill and resists than those other ring options. Now, I don't really have any other jobs that can use the Omega Ring but other jobs I am considering leveling like RDM, SCH and BRD can all use it and can all benefit equally from it. So I am probably going to get this first, or second... LOL If I get enough points for both items before I get to 75 on BLM which is like a 99% probability, then I will get both at the same time. The only problem is that work is fucking with my ability to go to Einherjar, but then again it is fucking with my ability to level BLM.

Iz just hit 50 on BLM, so now he can Freeze one-shot stuff. Iceblazek can come with us too. I would really like to hit 50 soon so that I can Freeze stuff too! ;_; LOL. I think I just need to pick up Freeze for now, even though I am still missing Poison II and Stonaga II. I can see a use for Poison II later, but for now it's as useless as tits on a boar.

At some point I wandered away from my goal of talking about my WHM gear, but it appears that I have mentally meandered back to the subject, so lets discuss.

First, my healing set up as I expect it to be for the short term.

Main: Light Staff
Sub: Staff Strap
Ammo: Phantom Tathlum (Don't have that yet but will get it to use with BLM too)
Head: Walahra Turban
Neck: Morgana's Choker
Earring 1: Antivenom Earring
Earring 2: Loquacious Earring
Body: Noble's Tunic
Hands: Blessed Mitts
Ring 1: Serket Ring
Ring 2: Ether Ring
Back: Blue Cape
Waist: Hierarch Belt
Legs: Blessed Trousers
Feet: Rostrum Pumps

And that's it for today, I will go over my other WHM gear sets tomorrow.

And to Omoi, Iceblazek, Izman, Celestria, Kallo, and anyone else that is reading, I love you all! :)

When men are tired, they are just tired. Reactions slow, eyelids droop and attentiveness wains. <br /><br />When women are tired, they get cranky. Cranky like the Rancor monster from Star Wars. They will pick you up in their tiny little hands and bite your head off for a snack.<br /><br />Fear women at times such as these. Women at all other times are generally docile beasts, easily swayed with trinkets and gilt. But woe be unto those that trifle with women when they are extended past their bedtimes. <br /><br />And now, to my beloved reader, I must bid you a fond, if sorrowful, good-bye, because as soon as a couple of my female readers click on this link I will be summarily destroyed by the pure mental power of the anger and disgust of those female readers. <br /><br />:) <br /><br />I kid. :) <br /><br />Oh, god I am so dead. <br /><br />Anyway, while Omoi plots my doom, and I am sure that the other women that I play with like Celestria will also want to participate, I am fleeing the country and moving to Canada assuming the new identity of Jacques Ringtrois...<br /><br />Let's talk about my WHM shall we? We shall. Honestly, right now, my WHM is decently geared, but well under-skilled. My healing isn't capped, my enhancing isn't capped, my divine isn't capped. The only thing that is capped is my enfeebling because I cast Dia II more than anything else. :) I should probably work on that, but I never have any time, and the time I do have I am doing other things. I really need to force myself to do it, maybe make it part of another one of my lists! Well, I wanted to talk about WHM gear and macro sets, but first I want to talk about some potential good gear that is available for WHM and looking forward to BLM from Einherjar. I have points building up from Einherjar, and I want to use them soon, because in a couple of weeks I am going to have enough to get two different pieces. An interesting side note on my feelings about Einherjar gear, at first I thought the gear was pretty crappy overall. There were a few pieces that were definite improvements, but in the end most of them were basically HQ versions of things that were already available. They were worthless because without having the ability to get points without completely clearing a zone the cost to reward ratio was very low for these items. Now that this has been reversed and the items are now relatively easy to come by because you will always get points from Einherjar the situation has changed. In many case the bonuses are worth the investment, and they are "free" items compared to getting something off of the AH. Yes, they are still marginal upgrades but that margin is definitive over the old items that were used previously. <br /><br />I am definitely considering a Morgana Choker because it basically kicks the crap out of all other WHM neck pieces of any level. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wiki.bluegartrls.com/images/4/4b/Morgana%27s_Choker_description.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://wiki.bluegartrls.com/images/4/4b/Morgana%27s_Choker_description.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 366px; height: 88px;" /></a> It has a bunch more MP than my crappy NQ beak necklace and it has some additional MND which is always nice and could be useful for RDM in the future, but I don't know what else RDM has for the neck besides enfeebling torque, so I may be wrong there. In any case, I can't go wrong with this item for my WHM even if it isn't that useful for my other jobs.<br /><br />The second piece that I am considering is getting a Gleeman's Cape for my BLM which is on the fast track to super stardom in Versus. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/ffxi/images/0/0f/GleemansCape.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/ffxi/images/0/0f/GleemansCape.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 366px; height: 88px;" /></a> (Iceblazek search detector here) It is not the best BLM cape available, because there are other options like the Ixion Cape (expensive) or the Merciful Cape (rare), but it fulfills my normal requirements for non-main job gear. It is cheap and easy to get! The INT on it is equal to the highest of all other available pieces even though it does have the negative MP on it. <br /><br />The third piece that I want and it is probably on the same level as the Morgana's Choker, is the Omega Ring. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wiki.bluegartrls.com/images/8/8e/Omega_Ring_description.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://wiki.bluegartrls.com/images/8/8e/Omega_Ring_description.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 366px; height: 72px;" /></a> Iceblazek (another check) demands that I get this before ever even considering any of the other options, though he did balk when I mentioned the stats on the Morgana's Choker because he thought it's stats were much more poor than they were in reality, but he did not back off of the desire for me to get the Omega Ring. The Omega ring has a couple of very good qualities, the stats are decent but lower than other potential ring options. The thing that puts it over is the 3 extra Magic Accuracy which makes it stronger when it comes to skill and resists than those other ring options. Now, I don't really have any other jobs that can use the Omega Ring but other jobs I am considering leveling like RDM, SCH and BRD can all use it and can all benefit equally from it. So I am probably going to get this first, or second... LOL If I get enough points for both items before I get to 75 on BLM which is like a 99% probability, then I will get both at the same time. The only problem is that work is fucking with my ability to go to Einherjar, but then again it is fucking with my ability to level BLM. <br /><br />Iz just hit 50 on BLM, so now he can Freeze one-shot stuff. Iceblazek can come with us too. I would really like to hit 50 soon so that I can Freeze stuff too! ;_; LOL. I think I just need to pick up Freeze for now, even though I am still missing Poison II and Stonaga II. I can see a use for Poison II later, but for now it's as useless as tits on a boar.<br /><br />At some point I wandered away from my goal of talking about my WHM gear, but it appears that I have mentally meandered back to the subject, so lets discuss. <br /><br />First, my healing set up as I expect it to be for the short term. <br /><br />Main: Light Staff<br />Sub: Staff Strap<br />Ammo: Phantom Tathlum (Don't have that yet but will get it to use with BLM too)<br />Head: Walahra Turban<br />Neck: Morgana's Choker<br />Earring 1: Antivenom Earring<br />Earring 2: Loquacious Earring<br />Body: Noble's Tunic<br />Hands: Blessed Mitts<br />Ring 1: Serket Ring<br />Ring 2: Ether Ring<br />Back: Blue Cape<br />Waist: Hierarch Belt<br />Legs: Blessed Trousers<br />Feet: Rostrum Pumps<br /><br />And that's it for today, I will go over my other WHM gear sets tomorrow. <br /><br />And to Omoi, Iceblazek, Izman, Celestria, Kallo, and anyone else that is reading, I love you all! :)

Testing 1-2-3

Testing out a new trick to see if I can use this to post new blog posts when I am not at work.

Testing out a new trick to see if I can use this to post new blog posts when I am not at work.

Surprise! Buttsex!

Ok, so a couple of things I wanted to go over in the short time I have today.

First of all, we saw a Macha's Coat for the first time in a long time, I would guess almost a year. And in the competition of incredibly low lots, Blaize barely beat out Ninjafox for the coat. Macha's Coat is the really rare drop for us in Arrapago, and I have only seen 4 total over all of the time I have done Salvage. It knocks one more item that we need off of our list. I think if we could just see Ares legs and Skadi legs drop we could focus on some other things that have had lower priority because of those two items. Hiryo's Usukane feet come to mind as something that has been neglected but there are many other items we need.

It's funny, whenever I am up and about or working I can come up with great ideas to put in my blog but when I actually sit down to type up my blog it all evaporates. Right now we are in the twisting ether of the space between the last update, which was rather meh overall in my opinion, and the beginning to the next update notes for the March update. A bit of a lull really, because if there was something new and neat for me to do in the last update I would be talking about that probably. There was the MMM event, but honestly, it is really conjested and I don't have the time to invest in it right now to get the pieces needed to make it worthwhile for now. The next goal we have after Salvage is Nyzul Isle or at least getting some of the weapons and moving our disks up so we can get some of the WS's we still need. Speaking of that, it has given me a bit of an idea of what I should do for the rest of the post, make a list of things that I have skipped over that I feel I need to complete but won't really do if I don't write them down to remember them.

Imcomplete AF sets: I haven't focused on finishing several of my AF sets recently because the items weren't really worth picking up and wasting the time on them for now. I figure that I may as well pick up some pieces that I don't have yet so that I can either upgrade them so they are useful or so that I can complete some sets and store them. Right now I don't think I have much of a storage issue really, but I might have it once my BLM advances. As of now I have DRG, WAR and RNG are all stored, while WHM and WHM are incomplete, and for NIN and SAM I have tossed the pieces that are not worth keeping or upgrading. I guess I should include BLM in this because I will have to start looking to do them soon. I think I am going to get the complete BLM set though because most of the gear is at least situationally useful and because it will let me check the gear when I don't need it. I will reconsider if keeping around non-upgraded pieces is worthwhile after I have some experience with them, but my initial anaylsis looks promising for each piece except one. I will probably look over them later in this post if I have time.

Incomplete Merits: I have mentioned this in passing before but I am going to list them out as a reminder to myself and a motivation to get into a couple of good quick and hopefully off the beaten path XP parties. Now, I am not one of the people that claim that they make 40k an hour at bird camp with three relic DD's, two relic BRDs, a COR and two outside dual-boxed healers, taking both upper and lower camps at the same time and that anything less is a personal insult because it wastes every possible second that could be used instead to make money for my twelth relic for a job that I have specifically not even unlocked so that I can post pictures of my job switch screen and the relic. This situation may have occured at some point across all the servers, but in the real world of our non-real world this never happens. And Odin must be the hyper-real-world of our non-real world becuase you are lucky if you can hold a bird camp for more than 15 minutes before you have a completely befuddling array of jobs and gear, level-synced down to 73 pulling the random one or two birds just often enough to prevent you from getting to chain 20. Wow... where did that come from? LOL Anyway, merits I still need!

SAM: This is easy, I just need 2 more steps in Blade Bash to finish it off then I am done with SAM until they decide to give us something more to work on. Now, I understand the criticism that comes from giving up everything for Blade Bash, but I definitely think it is worth it. For the events that I use SAM on, I find the need for Shikikoyo from very minimal to non-existant. I use SAM for open world events where access for other jobs to my TP is not really necessary, or in Dynamis or Einherjar, where the event is either too long or too short to really matter. Besides, fuck it, it's my fucking TP anyway, go get your own!

RNG: Wow, a lot of work is needed here! I already have 8 Great Katana and 8 Hand-to-hand merits and that isn't going to change unless someone knocks me our and takes me to some kind of communist reeduction camp run by scantly-cladded mithra RDM where I am brain-washed into believing that RDM's really are deulists and need sword skill to unleash their massively dominating melee skill instead of doing their FUCKING JOB. But, ah ha, I have already created a living will in such a case where Omoi and Iz have promised to specifically remove my brain and penis and reverse their locations in a Frankensteinian transformation resulting in a obsession to only play DRK, forever doomed to piss WHM's off by not clicking off Soul Eater and missing SATA. This is also called Jess syndrome! XD I KID! (Oh god, he is going to kill me!) And you know what? It would still be better than NOT KNOWING HOW TO FUCKING PLAY RDM! Wow... anyway, yes, going with 4 Archery merits to start off, the 5 into Snapshot because it is pretty much one of the only ways to decrease Ranged Attack delay, and then 5 into Rapid Shot but after that things start to get pretty marginal for RNG.

WHM: My WHM has been relatively neglected since I got it to 75. I need to start by capping off Cure cast speed. Sadly, it only has 2 merits in it right now which I perceive as pretty gimp. After that I am going to focus on Barspell strength because we do a couple of fights where that might be helpful. Finally, I am going to do Shellra to 5, and then leave my WHM there because there is no dire need to take any of the other merits further. Once I am done with those merits, I am going to start storing up for BLM or start working on BLM if it is already 75.

BLM: Pretty easy. 5 Ice potency, 5 Thunday potency, 5 Freeze 2, 5 Burst 2. Around this time I will also do my Elemental and Enfeebling skill merits. I don't really know the order that I should do those in, but I am thinking the skill merits should be first if I am still not 75 on BLM yet but I think I will be. *shrug*

Other jobs: Either not played enough to warrant merits until I am stacked up on everything else or the merits aren't good enough to even warrant the waste of merits on them.

Incomplete Gear: I know that I say that I have completed a lot of sets of gear, but in reality there are still lots of pieces that I can get, from the expensive to the near unattainable. Now that I have completed my Usukane set, I am mostly looking at luxury items, or many finishing some of the really expensive gear I have for other jobs. I have the pieces to make both Ares's and Marduk's bodies, but no real incentive to do so right now. I have been looking at Hermes' Sandals, but I have to wonder how much use I will get out of them right now. Sure they will be good for Salvage, but will they be any good for anything else? I don't know. That leaves me with a Toreador's Ring for my MNK, and that's about it for my melee jobs. Honestly, I like the Ulthalam's Ring and it's stats are very good for Salvage and it actually gets a whole lot of work there so a second Toreador's Ring is probably not worth the cost right now. I certainly need to start thinking about buying HQ staves and other end-game BLM gear right now.

Incomplete Missions: Unlike ToAU, I have fallen pretty far behind on my WoG missions, which is sad because I have heard that the missions are very good and interesting to watch. The problem much like ToAU is that there are mission battles, but they just aren't that difficult. They lack the epic pitched conflict that the CoP missions had. Also, at first, I didn't mind the mission and quest format for these missions, but after a while it just becomes repetitive and annoying because missions already have a lack of continuity because of the gaps between when they are released, then on top of that you get some discontinuity in doing all of the nation's quests at different times. So the storyline is even more difficult to follow than CoP even if it is very interesting. Now that my complaints are out of the way, I should note that I still want to get these done, because I am interested in where they are going in general, and I like to be more on the cutting edge of when the missions and their rewards rather than doing them after the rewards have been released then having to play catchup.

Incomplete BLM and other jobs: BLM has definitely picked up for me, and I am enjoying leveling it with Iz and whoever we pick up to go with us. We can generally overcamp and kill pets way higher than us, and the more people you have makes things safer without undercutting the XP. I hit 49 last night, but just barely. Next level I get to start using Freeze to one shot pets, and then after that I get staves and that, I believe, will increase the pace for both Izman and I. Also, at that point I will get to start questing AF and start farming up some of the stupid spells that I don't really need but should pick up anyway. Stonega II is one of those spells, and it drops off the same NM that drops the Shaman's Cloak, but honestly, we couldn't be bothered. We will level by it so quickly that it isn't going to matter very much at all.

For my other jobs, I was thinking about level my THF at some point, but meh, I am just not feeling it. I think I might level RDM, BRD or SCH next after BLM. I think I could handle RDM because I fucking understand how to play it and I don't want to fucking melee on any fucking mage jobs because SE created fucking melee jobs to fucking melee. Can you tell I am tired of all the fucktards that claim that they want to melee on mage jobs? Not only is it fucking stupid, but it is fucking useless. You do not fucking damage, you take a fuck ton of damage, and you don't pay attention to what you are fucking doing. Now don't get me wrong, I think that meleeing on a mage jobs is fucking stupid beyond words. I just wanted to be clear there. Maybe, MAYBE, 5 years ago people could complain about not being able to melee on a mage job because people were lucky to have one job at 75 and people didn't know better. But not today, because today you can get a job to 75 in a couple of weeks, and if you like to melee then do it fucking effectively rather that proving that you are a flaming moron and sucking so much that you ruining it for everyone else. Yeah, oh, it's your monthly fee and you will do what you want? Well, you are fucking up things for me and are screwing me out of my fucking monthly fee, so until I get fucking payment in full then stop being a fucking idiot and play your job correctly.

If you think that the previous rant makes me a douche, then you are the kind of person that I wish would die in a fucking fire every day of my life because you are the fucking kind of person that actually believe they really are smarter than everyone else around you and therefore you can ignore all advice given to you, ever. You are also probably a Scientologist and your parents probably forced you to join the local chapter of NAMBLA. So fuck off.

Other stuff: Kallo got this recently... ... and no one really cared. I was wondering around yesterday morning because I had the day off from work and I wandered by this guy... ... Freaky Friday on Monday.

You know... I think a rant post might be coming soon. Really, these fucking retarded melee mages make me want to punch babies... with fists dipped into glue then shards of glass and rusty nails... lit on fire... Blood Sport on crack style.

Ok, so a couple of things I wanted to go over in the short time I have today.<br /><br />First of all, we saw a Macha's Coat for the first time in a long time, I would guess almost a year. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Macha_coat.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Macha_coat.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 141px; height: 400px;" /></a> And in the competition of incredibly low lots, Blaize barely beat out Ninjafox for the coat. Macha's Coat is the really rare drop for us in Arrapago, and I have only seen 4 total over all of the time I have done Salvage. It knocks one more item that we need off of our list. I think if we could just see Ares legs and Skadi legs drop we could focus on some other things that have had lower priority because of those two items. Hiryo's Usukane feet come to mind as something that has been neglected but there are many other items we need. <br /><br />It's funny, whenever I am up and about or working I can come up with great ideas to put in my blog but when I actually sit down to type up my blog it all evaporates. Right now we are in the twisting ether of the space between the last update, which was rather meh overall in my opinion, and the beginning to the next update notes for the March update. A bit of a lull really, because if there was something new and neat for me to do in the last update I would be talking about that probably. There was the MMM event, but honestly, it is really conjested and I don't have the time to invest in it right now to get the pieces needed to make it worthwhile for now. The next goal we have after Salvage is Nyzul Isle or at least getting some of the weapons and moving our disks up so we can get some of the WS's we still need. Speaking of that, it has given me a bit of an idea of what I should do for the rest of the post, make a list of things that I have skipped over that I feel I need to complete but won't really do if I don't write them down to remember them.<br /><br />Imcomplete AF sets: I haven't focused on finishing several of my AF sets recently because the items weren't really worth picking up and wasting the time on them for now. I figure that I may as well pick up some pieces that I don't have yet so that I can either upgrade them so they are useful or so that I can complete some sets and store them. Right now I don't think I have much of a storage issue really, but I might have it once my BLM advances. As of now I have DRG, WAR and RNG are all stored, while WHM and WHM are incomplete, and for NIN and SAM I have tossed the pieces that are not worth keeping or upgrading. I guess I should include BLM in this because I will have to start looking to do them soon. I think I am going to get the complete BLM set though because most of the gear is at least situationally useful and because it will let me check the gear when I don't need it. I will reconsider if keeping around non-upgraded pieces is worthwhile after I have some experience with them, but my initial anaylsis looks promising for each piece except one. I will probably look over them later in this post if I have time.<br /><br />Incomplete Merits: I have mentioned this in passing before but I am going to list them out as a reminder to myself and a motivation to get into a couple of good quick and hopefully off the beaten path XP parties. Now, I am not one of the people that claim that they make 40k an hour at bird camp with three relic DD's, two relic BRDs, a COR and two outside dual-boxed healers, taking both upper and lower camps at the same time and that anything less is a personal insult because it wastes every possible second that could be used instead to make money for my twelth relic for a job that I have specifically not even unlocked so that I can post pictures of my job switch screen and the relic. This situation may have occured at some point across all the servers, but in the real world of our non-real world this never happens. And Odin must be the hyper-real-world of our non-real world becuase you are lucky if you can hold a bird camp for more than 15 minutes before you have a completely befuddling array of jobs and gear, level-synced down to 73 pulling the random one or two birds just often enough to prevent you from getting to chain 20. Wow... where did that come from? LOL Anyway, merits I still need! <br /><br />SAM: This is easy, I just need 2 more steps in Blade Bash to finish it off then I am done with SAM until they decide to give us something more to work on. Now, I understand the criticism that comes from giving up everything for Blade Bash, but I definitely think it is worth it. For the events that I use SAM on, I find the need for Shikikoyo from very minimal to non-existant. I use SAM for open world events where access for other jobs to my TP is not really necessary, or in Dynamis or Einherjar, where the event is either too long or too short to really matter. Besides, fuck it, it's my fucking TP anyway, go get your own!<br /><br />RNG: Wow, a lot of work is needed here! I already have 8 Great Katana and 8 Hand-to-hand merits and that isn't going to change unless someone knocks me our and takes me to some kind of communist reeduction camp run by scantly-cladded mithra RDM where I am brain-washed into believing that RDM's really are deulists and need sword skill to unleash their massively dominating melee skill instead of doing their FUCKING JOB. But, ah ha, I have already created a living will in such a case where Omoi and Iz have promised to specifically remove my brain and penis and reverse their locations in a Frankensteinian transformation resulting in a obsession to only play DRK, forever doomed to piss WHM's off by not clicking off Soul Eater and missing SATA. This is also called Jess syndrome! XD I KID! (Oh god, he is going to kill me!) And you know what? It would still be better than NOT KNOWING HOW TO FUCKING PLAY RDM! Wow... anyway, yes, going with 4 Archery merits to start off, the 5 into Snapshot because it is pretty much one of the only ways to decrease Ranged Attack delay, and then 5 into Rapid Shot but after that things start to get pretty marginal for RNG.<br /><br />WHM: My WHM has been relatively neglected since I got it to 75. I need to start by capping off Cure cast speed. Sadly, it only has 2 merits in it right now which I perceive as pretty gimp. After that I am going to focus on Barspell strength because we do a couple of fights where that might be helpful. Finally, I am going to do Shellra to 5, and then leave my WHM there because there is no dire need to take any of the other merits further. Once I am done with those merits, I am going to start storing up for BLM or start working on BLM if it is already 75. <br /><br />BLM: Pretty easy. 5 Ice potency, 5 Thunday potency, 5 Freeze 2, 5 Burst 2. Around this time I will also do my Elemental and Enfeebling skill merits. I don't really know the order that I should do those in, but I am thinking the skill merits should be first if I am still not 75 on BLM yet but I think I will be. *shrug*<br /><br />Other jobs: Either not played enough to warrant merits until I am stacked up on everything else or the merits aren't good enough to even warrant the waste of merits on them.<br /><br />Incomplete Gear: I know that I say that I have completed a lot of sets of gear, but in reality there are still lots of pieces that I can get, from the expensive to the near unattainable. Now that I have completed my Usukane set, I am mostly looking at luxury items, or many finishing some of the really expensive gear I have for other jobs. I have the pieces to make both Ares's and Marduk's bodies, but no real incentive to do so right now. I have been looking at Hermes' Sandals, but I have to wonder how much use I will get out of them right now. Sure they will be good for Salvage, but will they be any good for anything else? I don't know. That leaves me with a Toreador's Ring for my MNK, and that's about it for my melee jobs. Honestly, I like the Ulthalam's Ring and it's stats are very good for Salvage and it actually gets a whole lot of work there so a second Toreador's Ring is probably not worth the cost right now. I certainly need to start thinking about buying HQ staves and other end-game BLM gear right now.<br /><br />Incomplete Missions: Unlike ToAU, I have fallen pretty far behind on my WoG missions, which is sad because I have heard that the missions are very good and interesting to watch. The problem much like ToAU is that there are mission battles, but they just aren't that difficult. They lack the epic pitched conflict that the CoP missions had. Also, at first, I didn't mind the mission and quest format for these missions, but after a while it just becomes repetitive and annoying because missions already have a lack of continuity because of the gaps between when they are released, then on top of that you get some discontinuity in doing all of the nation's quests at different times. So the storyline is even more difficult to follow than CoP even if it is very interesting. Now that my complaints are out of the way, I should note that I still want to get these done, because I am interested in where they are going in general, and I like to be more on the cutting edge of when the missions and their rewards rather than doing them after the rewards have been released then having to play catchup. <br /><br />Incomplete BLM and other jobs: BLM has definitely picked up for me, and I am enjoying leveling it with Iz and whoever we pick up to go with us. We can generally overcamp and kill pets way higher than us, and the more people you have makes things safer without undercutting the XP. I hit 49 last night, but just barely. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/BLM_49.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/BLM_49.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 307px;" /></a> Next level I get to start using Freeze to one shot pets, and then after that I get staves and that, I believe, will increase the pace for both Izman and I. Also, at that point I will get to start questing AF and start farming up some of the stupid spells that I don't really need but should pick up anyway. Stonega II is one of those spells, and it drops off the same NM that drops the Shaman's Cloak, but honestly, we couldn't be bothered. We will level by it so quickly that it isn't going to matter very much at all. <br /><br />For my other jobs, I was thinking about level my THF at some point, but meh, I am just not feeling it. I think I might level RDM, BRD or SCH next after BLM. I think I could handle RDM because I fucking understand how to play it and I don't want to fucking melee on any fucking mage jobs because SE created fucking melee jobs to fucking melee. Can you tell I am tired of all the fucktards that claim that they want to melee on mage jobs? Not only is it fucking stupid, but it is fucking useless. You do not fucking damage, you take a fuck ton of damage, and you don't pay attention to what you are fucking doing. Now don't get me wrong, I think that meleeing on a mage jobs is fucking stupid beyond words. I just wanted to be clear there. Maybe, MAYBE, 5 years ago people could complain about not being able to melee on a mage job because people were lucky to have one job at 75 and people didn't know better. But not today, because today you can get a job to 75 in a couple of weeks, and if you like to melee then do it fucking effectively rather that proving that you are a flaming moron and sucking so much that you ruining it for everyone else. Yeah, oh, it's your monthly fee and you will do what you want? Well, you are fucking up things for me and are screwing me out of my fucking monthly fee, so until I get fucking payment in full then stop being a fucking idiot and play your job correctly. <br /><br />If you think that the previous rant makes me a douche, then you are the kind of person that I wish would die in a fucking fire every day of my life because you are the fucking kind of person that actually believe they really are smarter than everyone else around you and therefore you can ignore all advice given to you, ever. You are also probably a Scientologist and your parents probably forced you to join the local chapter of NAMBLA. So fuck off. <br /><br />Other stuff: Kallo got this recently... <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Skadi_head.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Skadi_head.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 141px; height: 400px;" /></a>... and no one really cared. I was wondering around yesterday morning because I had the day off from work and I wandered by this guy... <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Ring_double.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Ring_double.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 373px;" /></a> ... Freaky Friday on Monday.<br /><br />You know... I think a rant post might be coming soon. Really, these fucking retarded melee mages make me want to punch babies... with fists dipped into glue then shards of glass and rusty nails... lit on fire... Blood Sport on crack style.

Resolved: Make more lists.

I tend to play FFXI in the moment. I pick some gear that I want and I do that event until I get it. I don't really worry about gear for jobs that I am leveling because they will be 75 soon enough. In fact, I never buy HQ or e-peen gear for a job that I am leveling because it just doesn't matter. The reason that it doesn't matter is not because I don't care, it's because the difference in stats is tiny, and therefor doesn't justify their purchase. End-game gear is the only place I believe that money should be spent in quantity, any other time you are just renting gear on the AH and you hardly ever make a profit on that. Anyway, bit of a tangent there, but the point is that I don't really look ahead outside of knowing the gear that I want, so I hardly ever think about my plans more than a week or so into the future, and I never really think about resolutions for the game.

So as a twist I am going to do it this year, I may even add them to the side of my blog so that I can keep track of them. So, let's get started.

1. Level BLM to 75, gear it well, learn how to play it well and figure out how to use spellcast to be optimal at the job.

This one should be relatively easy if a little bit expensive. I just got level 46 last night and Iz and I have been getting about a level each time we get to XP. I think it will be a month or two but I hope to have BLM to 75 by the time of the next update. So the leveling shouldn't be much of a problem, but gearing may be a little more complicated. It will be a little bit expensive too. I haven't even looked too much further than my AF, which I know is relatively decent compared to some other AF, say like WAR. :) I will have to get all the staves that I am still missing, and I should probably get HQ staves for at least the important elements like, I think, Thunder, Ice and I heard Dark is important too. Learning how to play it is going better than the last time I talked about BLM, but I still can't use the menu to save more life, of more importantly, to save Iz's life. I had hoped that I wouldn't be as macro dependent on BLM, but it doesn't look like that is going to be the case. I don't think it is a bad thing, and it may actually get easier to do at end game because the spell casting time is longer giving me more time to select the next spell. I don't think I will move away from macros though, because it's hard to unlearn using macros as I have for years. I think spellcast might be helpful for this and it might be a hindrance because I am used to using a controller and I think it is more keyboard friendly. Well, we will see.

2. Finish merits on all of my useful jobs.

I still haven't finished Samurai yet, I need at least two more merits into Blade Bash to top it off, but that is all for Samurai. Monk is already done, and Ninja isn't getting anything new because it is nothing more than a tank job now. Ranger on the other hand needs a whole lot of merits, including Archery merits, all my Tier 1 merits and a load of Tier 2 merits. After that I will probably focus on meriting my BLM, but that is still a while off yet. I guess I could start Elemental Magic skill and then Enfeebling Magic skill, but that is a while off. I still need to do my WHM merits too, almost forgot that.

3. Start working on Nyzul, and limit down Salvage somewhat.

I love Salvage, but right now I go 5 times a week, and that takes a lot of time and precludes Nyzul Isle for the most part, even though we have given it a bit of a stab from time to time. Omoi and Iz both need gear from Nyzul, namely Askar head, and I wouldn't mind picking up a few Goliard pieces. We also need level 100 disks and a whole lot more weapons to get the WS for our main DD jobs. Doing Nyzul is pretty easy compared to Salvage and is more luck based when it comes to the mobs you face even if Salvage is far more luck based when it comes to getting the drops that we need. Either way, I still like Salvage very much, and Nyzul is pretty fun, but I wouldn't mind something new sprouting up as something fun to do with Iz and Omoi.

4. Get leathercraft to 100 and make some decent money.

Making money has always been tough for me, I just don't like to spend the time on it. My leathercraft is now 71, and I am moving into a relatively easy range to level and make money. Either way, I think I will be able to get to 100 by next year, but the question really becomes "Am I going to do anything with it?"

5. Start my new grand project.

If I get the help that I need, this will happen sooner rather than later. Hopefully everyone will think it is as epic as I hope it will be.

I think that is enough for today. I might add a few more on Monday, but I am not sure how much I want to promise myself. And really none of these are too hard to complete anyway, I would get them done in the course of playing anyway. Maybe I should come up with something that would be more difficult to complete? I can't really come up with much that I am not doing now that I really want to do. There are a few things here or there that I want to get but nothing that makes me drool or keeps me up at night because I don't have it.

Maybe, I should start really working on a relic...

:)

Nah.

I tend to play FFXI in the moment. I pick some gear that I want and I do that event until I get it. I don't really worry about gear for jobs that I am leveling because they will be 75 soon enough. In fact, I never buy HQ or e-peen gear for a job that I am leveling because it just doesn't matter. The reason that it doesn't matter is not because I don't care, it's because the difference in stats is tiny, and therefor doesn't justify their purchase. End-game gear is the only place I believe that money should be spent in quantity, any other time you are just renting gear on the AH and you hardly ever make a profit on that. Anyway, bit of a tangent there, but the point is that I don't really look ahead outside of knowing the gear that I want, so I hardly ever think about my plans more than a week or so into the future, and I never really think about resolutions for the game. <br /><br />So as a twist I am going to do it this year, I may even add them to the side of my blog so that I can keep track of them. So, let's get started. <br /><br />1. Level BLM to 75, gear it well, learn how to play it well and figure out how to use spellcast to be optimal at the job. <br /><br />This one should be relatively easy if a little bit expensive. I just got level 46 last night and Iz and I have been getting about a level each time we get to XP. I think it will be a month or two but I hope to have BLM to 75 by the time of the next update. So the leveling shouldn't be much of a problem, but gearing may be a little more complicated. It will be a little bit expensive too. I haven't even looked too much further than my AF, which I know is relatively decent compared to some other AF, say like WAR. :) I will have to get all the staves that I am still missing, and I should probably get HQ staves for at least the important elements like, I think, Thunder, Ice and I heard Dark is important too. Learning how to play it is going better than the last time I talked about BLM, but I still can't use the menu to save more life, of more importantly, to save Iz's life. I had hoped that I wouldn't be as macro dependent on BLM, but it doesn't look like that is going to be the case. I don't think it is a bad thing, and it may actually get easier to do at end game because the spell casting time is longer giving me more time to select the next spell. I don't think I will move away from macros though, because it's hard to unlearn using macros as I have for years. I think spellcast might be helpful for this and it might be a hindrance because I am used to using a controller and I think it is more keyboard friendly. Well, we will see. <br /><br />2. Finish merits on all of my useful jobs.<br /><br />I still haven't finished Samurai yet, I need at least two more merits into Blade Bash to top it off, but that is all for Samurai. Monk is already done, and Ninja isn't getting anything new because it is nothing more than a tank job now. Ranger on the other hand needs a whole lot of merits, including Archery merits, all my Tier 1 merits and a load of Tier 2 merits. After that I will probably focus on meriting my BLM, but that is still a while off yet. I guess I could start Elemental Magic skill and then Enfeebling Magic skill, but that is a while off. I still need to do my WHM merits too, almost forgot that.<br /><br />3. Start working on Nyzul, and limit down Salvage somewhat. <br /><br />I love Salvage, but right now I go 5 times a week, and that takes a lot of time and precludes Nyzul Isle for the most part, even though we have given it a bit of a stab from time to time. Omoi and Iz both need gear from Nyzul, namely Askar head, and I wouldn't mind picking up a few Goliard pieces. We also need level 100 disks and a whole lot more weapons to get the WS for our main DD jobs. Doing Nyzul is pretty easy compared to Salvage and is more luck based when it comes to the mobs you face even if Salvage is far more luck based when it comes to getting the drops that we need. Either way, I still like Salvage very much, and Nyzul is pretty fun, but I wouldn't mind something new sprouting up as something fun to do with Iz and Omoi.<br /><br />4. Get leathercraft to 100 and make some decent money. <br /><br />Making money has always been tough for me, I just don't like to spend the time on it. My leathercraft is now 71, and I am moving into a relatively easy range to level and make money. Either way, I think I will be able to get to 100 by next year, but the question really becomes "Am I going to do anything with it?" <br /><br />5. Start my new grand project. <br /><br />If I get the help that I need, this will happen sooner rather than later. Hopefully everyone will think it is as epic as I hope it will be. <br /><br />I think that is enough for today. I might add a few more on Monday, but I am not sure how much I want to promise myself. And really none of these are too hard to complete anyway, I would get them done in the course of playing anyway. Maybe I should come up with something that would be more difficult to complete? I can't really come up with much that I am not doing now that I really want to do. There are a few things here or there that I want to get but nothing that makes me drool or keeps me up at night because I don't have it. <br /><br />Maybe, I should start really working on a relic... <br /><br />:) <br /><br />Nah.

Work + OTC + Good post = Nothing.

Sorry, working on a good post and the RNG OTC right now. Add in the fact that I have a lot of work right now and that means you get nothing until tomorrow. :(

Sorry, working on a good post and the RNG OTC right now. Add in the fact that I have a lot of work right now and that means you get nothing until tomorrow. :(

What the fuck am I doing?

My BLM is now 44, and if I remember correctly is getting pretty close to 45. The most amazing thing is how easy it is to do, and just how much fun. A note here though, it is very fun if you do it with a friend or two or three. I don't see how anyone would want to do this solo, and I don't see how people don't have fun doing this with a friend or two. I guess this just reflects my lack of understanding about a lot of the "young adults" that play this game. How can they do things that are so boring by themselves? What is the point? If you wanted to solo level a job there are many other games you could play and have much more fun. Hell, you could just play the other eleven Final Fantasty games off-line. This leads me to the question I have for a lot of people. This isn't just about soloers always, because sometimes it's nice to go and do something by yourself, and sometimes people just don't want to do what you are doing, but in the end the number of people that solo things and struggle with it is pretty large, so I have to ask...

Do you have any fucking friends?

I don't know if it's greed, lack of friends, inability to be a social creature, or just being a colossal douchebag, but some people seem unable to play well with others. I have a wide set of feelings for people like this ranging from pity to just wishing they would die in a fire. The point is I don't understand how people in this game can't maintain any friends long enough to have them help out with something you want to solo or want to level a job with you.

Anyway, back to the point at hand, I have been leveling BLM and it has been quite fun even though it was, for a long time, a job that I had been dreading leveling. I have to blame the fun mostly on Iz. He has been the one picking the camps, telling me what gear and food to use, and even what spells to cast and when. LOL I am not really on top of these things. Most of the things I do in the game are reactionary. Attack until TP, then WS. Shadows down, put them back up. Someone is losing HP, cure them. BLM is a little different, you need to decide if you can get a spell in, what do you do if you get a resist, how much MP do I have, what is the most efficient spell to cast. My next goal is to level my RDM to sub job level, which up until now is a personal joke, because I always thought I should level RDM but I never did because I just die all the time when I try to do it. It is so annoying. :/ But I will struggle through because I think we are coming up to levels where we are going to need it.

I never thought I would be in this place, leveling BLM. I never ever thought I would actually be liking it. :)

Oh, one last thing before I go for the day! I think I am ready to take up a new "On the Cheap" post, but I will do it based on your votes! Tell me what job you think I should do next of the jobs that I already have at 75. Leave your responses in the comment, with an explanation as to why that job deserves it. Bonus credit given to humorous reasoning!

My BLM is now 44, and if I remember correctly is getting pretty close to 45. The most amazing thing is how easy it is to do, and just how much fun. A note here though, it is very fun if you do it with a friend or two or three. I don't see how anyone would want to do this solo, and I don't see how people don't have fun doing this with a friend or two. I guess this just reflects my lack of understanding about a lot of the "young adults" that play this game. How can they do things that are so boring by themselves? What is the point? If you wanted to solo level a job there are many other games you could play and have much more fun. Hell, you could just play the other eleven Final Fantasty games off-line. This leads me to the question I have for a lot of people. This isn't just about soloers always, because sometimes it's nice to go and do something by yourself, and sometimes people just don't want to do what you are doing, but in the end the number of people that solo things <span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> struggle with it is pretty large, so I have to ask...<br /><br />Do you have any fucking friends? <br /><br />I don't know if it's greed, lack of friends, inability to be a social creature, or just being a colossal douchebag, but some people seem unable to play well with others. I have a wide set of feelings for people like this ranging from pity to just wishing they would die in a fire. The point is I don't understand how people in this game can't maintain any friends long enough to have them help out with something you want to solo or want to level a job with you. <br /><br />Anyway, back to the point at hand, I have been leveling BLM and it has been quite fun even though it was, for a long time, a job that I had been dreading leveling. I have to blame the fun mostly on Iz. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/BLM_CapeT.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/BLM_CapeT.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 205px;" /></a> He has been the one picking the camps, telling me what gear and food to use, and even what spells to cast and when. LOL I am not really on top of these things. Most of the things I do in the game are reactionary. Attack until TP, then WS. Shadows down, put them back up. Someone is losing HP, cure them. BLM is a little different, you need to decide if you can get a spell in, what do you do if you get a resist, how much MP do I have, what is the most efficient spell to cast. My next goal is to level my RDM to sub job level, which up until now is a personal joke, because I always thought I should level RDM but I never did because I just die all the time when I try to do it. It is so annoying. :/ But I will struggle through because I think we are coming up to levels where we are going to need it. <br /><br />I never thought I would be in this place, leveling BLM. I never ever thought I would actually be liking it. :)<br /><br />Oh, one last thing before I go for the day! I think I am ready to take up a new "On the Cheap" post, but I will do it based on your votes! Tell me what job you think I should do next of the jobs that I already have at 75. Leave your responses in the comment, with an explanation as to why that job deserves it. Bonus credit given to humorous reasoning!

Pizza and Cheesesteak.

I wanted to mention something since the update, but have kind of forgotten about it since then, but it needs to be mentioned because I think it is pretty important and can be rather game changing for some melee. The really sad thing is that I am reminded of it by Kallo and his rather inane babbling with Aniero... I know, I'm sorry. I haven't even listened to it yet, but he did mention it in the description from the newest episode. I don't think I will mention it by name because well I think that they should let Iz and I take over an episode if they want any advertisement here. :) If I am going to be a grumpy old man, then I might as well embrace it.

Anyway, I am going to present to you something you have already probably know about, but something I think I could delve into the specifics of to maybe provide some light on it's best usage. Marinara Pizza is a new (relatively) 3-hour food, and all MNK, NIN, THF, dual-wield WAR and BLU might want to look into. I started this yesterday, and I actually listened to Kallo's show and turns out that he didn't know anything about Marinara Pizza and used it for the first time yesterday so... I don't have to worry about Kallo being onto of DD trends that is for sure. LOL Anyway, onto the pizza.

* HP +20
* Attack +20% (Cap: 50 @ 250 Base Attack)
* Accuracy +10% (Cap: 40+) Verification Needed
* Undead Killer

I supposed the non-melee might wonder why this is so good, but it is the only food that has both an accuracy and attack in percentage increases and in a good portion also. Now, of course this has no STR on it, or anything stats of important and the Attack is rather limited for end-game foods, but you have to consider the increase in damage that occurs from such a large increase in accuracy. Many end-game dual-wielders need a boost in accuracy to make up for the changes that have been made to two-handers, but Sushi is very one-dimensional and it is also usually overkill. Many dual-wielders have opted just to use meat and use more accuracy and deal with the trade off in other areas, but this means that there is a gap in their accuracy and where they should be to maximize their accuracy (the cap). The Marinara Pizza isn't just a little bit of Attack and a little bit of Accuracy, it is quite a bit. In fact, it is kind of like having 2/3 of the attack of a Coeurl Sub and 2/3 of the accuracy of Sole Sushi. Now, I should again mention it doesn't have the stats of those other two food items, but with the benefit of more attack and the ability to hit the accuracy cap for most decently equipped dual-wielders, there is a good chance that the boost for dual-wielders will be a net benefit over the benefits that two-handers get out of their food. I am not saying that dual-wielders will sudden start overtaking two-handers in damage, but rather that the percentage improvement in damage from the pizza for a dual-wielder could be more than the percentage improvement in damage for a two-hander from a meat dish. The reason is that the improvement in damage from attack food for a dual-wielder is still limited by their accuracy, while a good two-hander is already getting close to the accuracy cap so they get more of a benefit out of the meat. Marinara Pizza splits the difference for dual-wielders, less attack, but more connected hits to let them take advantage of each hit. And this is just for melee damage, dual-wielders generally rely on multi-hit WS's where the Marinara Pizza provides a better boost than Sushi or Meat.

More on this tomorrow.

I wanted to mention something since the update, but have kind of forgotten about it since then, but it needs to be mentioned because I think it is pretty important and can be rather game changing for some melee. The really sad thing is that I am reminded of it by Kallo and his rather inane babbling with Aniero... I know, I'm sorry. I haven't even listened to it yet, but he did mention it in the description from the newest episode. I don't think I will mention it by name because well I think that they should let Iz and I take over an episode if they want any advertisement here. :) If I am going to be a grumpy old man, then I might as well embrace it. <br /><br />Anyway, I am going to present to you something you have already probably know about, but something I think I could delve into the specifics of to maybe provide some light on it's best usage. Marinara Pizza is a new (relatively) 3-hour food, and all MNK, NIN, THF, dual-wield WAR and BLU might want to look into. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/ffxi/images/0/0f/Marinara_Pizza.gif"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/ffxi/images/0/0f/Marinara_Pizza.gif" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 364px; height: 72px;" /></a> I started this yesterday, and I actually listened to Kallo's show and turns out that he didn't know anything about Marinara Pizza and used it for the first time yesterday so... I don't have to worry about Kallo being onto of DD trends that is for sure. LOL Anyway, onto the pizza. <blockquote> * HP +20<br /> * Attack +20% (Cap: 50 @ 250 Base Attack)<br /> * Accuracy +10% (Cap: 40+) Verification Needed<br /> * Undead Killer </blockquote> I supposed the non-melee might wonder why this is so good, but it is the only food that has both an accuracy and attack in percentage increases and in a good portion also. Now, of course this has no STR on it, or anything stats of important and the Attack is rather limited for end-game foods, but you have to consider the increase in damage that occurs from such a large increase in accuracy. Many end-game dual-wielders need a boost in accuracy to make up for the changes that have been made to two-handers, but Sushi is very one-dimensional and it is also usually overkill. Many dual-wielders have opted just to use meat and use more accuracy and deal with the trade off in other areas, but this means that there is a gap in their accuracy and where they should be to maximize their accuracy (the cap). The Marinara Pizza isn't just a little bit of Attack and a little bit of Accuracy, it is quite a bit. In fact, it is kind of like having 2/3 of the attack of a Coeurl Sub and 2/3 of the accuracy of Sole Sushi. Now, I should again mention it doesn't have the stats of those other two food items, but with the benefit of more attack and the ability to hit the accuracy cap for most decently equipped dual-wielders, there is a good chance that the boost for dual-wielders will be a net benefit over the benefits that two-handers get out of their food. I am not saying that dual-wielders will sudden start overtaking two-handers in damage, but rather that the percentage improvement in damage from the pizza for a dual-wielder could be more than the percentage improvement in damage for a two-hander from a meat dish. The reason is that the improvement in damage from attack food for a dual-wielder is still limited by their accuracy, while a good two-hander is already getting close to the accuracy cap so they get more of a benefit out of the meat. Marinara Pizza splits the difference for dual-wielders, less attack, but more connected hits to let them take advantage of each hit. And this is just for melee damage, dual-wielders generally rely on multi-hit WS's where the Marinara Pizza provides a better boost than Sushi or Meat.<br /><br />More on this tomorrow.

Back from the break.

I work for an university and in a round-about fashion that means I work for the state government and thus the federal government. This matters because it causes my work schedule to be wide open from just before Christmas to right after New Year's. I have the entire time off, and since I write this blog at work, you don't get to have the blog for like two weeks.

But the break is over now, and it sucks. I much prefer the world of not doing anything from waking up to going to bed. But work demands and the blog demands.

Lets start with a little bit of an update. If you look to the right side of the screen, you will notice that some of the levels of the jobs have changed a bit. Dancer is now of legitimate sub-job level, Red Mage is now, like 2 levels higher than it was before, but still no where close to sub-job level. I have a few new merits. But I think the most significant is the level of my Black Mage. This is a job that I swore off long ago, but after a short discussion with Iz about what job we were going to level next, Iz and I decided that we were going to level BLM together. That discussion was kind of short, and basically went something like:

Iz: I'm gonna level BLM.
Ring: Cool, I am going to tag along.

Hopefully Omoi will join us too at some point, because we are all level 40 now or at least around that point. Level sync makes this incredibly more bearable because you don't have to worry about the other person racing ahead and leaving you behind. Normally, I am the one that does the racing ahead, but right now it will probably be Iz that is racing ahead, because he is already ahead of me and because well, he is definitely more dedicated to it than I am! :) Right now we are both subbing NIN, but when it comes time we will probably switch to /RDM or /WHM unlike some BLM. XD <3 I will be chronicling the leveling of BLM because it is a completely new experience for me. I got the DD jobs down, I know at what level I need to make gear changes, I know at what level I get new WS and new abilities. For BLM though, I really have no idea when new spells are available, I have no idea when I should change gear. I am a complete embarrassment to decent BLM everywhere. Here is a good example. While pulling mobs to camp for Iz and I, my first thought is to cast the next offensive spell and then get shadows back up. Iz's first thought is to Sleep the mob then Aspir it. This is what you should be doing if you are a good BLM, and that is why I am not doing it. LOL

We started off level synced to 37 for my BLM, and headed to Eastern Altepa Desert to kill Spider pets of the Goblin Trader's there. It went pretty well, but even solo the XP was kind of dying off by level 39. From there we shifted over to Elementals summoned by Tonberry Harriers in the Temple of Uggalepih where we have been getting excellent XP and a couple of levels already. And where I started learning that Sleep was a much better option than trying to cast while being hit or trying to put up shadows. The pulls are a little more difficult because the Elementals immidiately cast and this can leave them stationary when the Harrier might amble over and aggro itself. Luckily the camp we use is right near a zone line and we have had to us it quite often. It seems to me the total newbie that the elementals can spawn a little faster than BST pets, but I could be totally wrong there. I don't know what the next camp we are going to try out next, but duo the elementals aren't giving capped XP anymore but it is still very good XP. If I was going to solo or be in a party with BLM I doubt I would like it this much. Iz and I are having fun and I am seeing how bad I can fuck things up and let Iz get me out of it! LOL

In other news, I got DNC to 37 so I can use it for Campaign now. It was a long slog and I didn't enjoy it very much. Did a lot of FoV with it, and then in about 2 days with Omoi mostly I got the last 5 or so levels. Dancer is one of those jobs that I wouldn't mind having at 75, but wouldn't want to level it to get there. :( It's just not a fun as it looks to begin with, and it is not the kind of healing that you do with WHM. The debuffs are generally not that strong at 37 and it seems like I either have no TP or 300 TP all the time. Meh, I just wanted it for low-man stuff and for Campaign.

The last major thing of note for me is that I finally picked up my Ethereal Earring which pretty much rounds out my MNK in it's current state. I am not really worried about getting just a few more accuracy out of my ring slots for millions of gil, or getting equally expensive and equally marginally improvements out of HQ WS gear. The Ethereal Earring is also a decent pick up for my NIN because it is lacking from not having a Suppanomimi anymore.

Finally, I would like to offer you an advertisement for LTaco's new Sushi and Boobies steak house and strip club! What happens in Taco's Sushi and Boobies stays in Taco's Sushi and Boobies!

I work for an university and in a round-about fashion that means I work for the state government and thus the federal government. This matters because it causes my work schedule to be wide open from just before Christmas to right after New Year's. I have the entire time off, and since I write this blog at work, you don't get to have the blog for like two weeks. <br /><br />But the break is over now, and it sucks. I much prefer the world of not doing anything from waking up to going to bed. But work demands and the blog demands. <br /><br />Lets start with a little bit of an update. If you look to the right side of the screen, you will notice that some of the levels of the jobs have changed a bit. Dancer is now of legitimate sub-job level, Red Mage is now, like 2 levels higher than it was before, but still no where close to sub-job level. I have a few new merits. But I think the most significant is the level of my Black Mage. This is a job that I swore off long ago, but after a short discussion with Iz about what job we were going to level next, Iz and I decided that we were going to level BLM together. That discussion was kind of short, and basically went something like: <br /><br />Iz: I'm gonna level BLM.<br />Ring: Cool, I am going to tag along.<br /><br />Hopefully Omoi will join us too at some point, because we are all level 40 now or at least around that point. Level sync makes this incredibly more bearable because you don't have to worry about the other person racing ahead and leaving you behind. Normally, I am the one that does the racing ahead, but right now it will probably be Iz that is racing ahead, because he is already ahead of me and because well, he is definitely more dedicated to it than I am! :) Right now we are both subbing NIN, but when it comes time we will probably switch to /RDM or /WHM unlike some BLM. XD <3 I will be chronicling the leveling of BLM because it is a completely new experience for me. I got the DD jobs down, I know at what level I need to make gear changes, I know at what level I get new WS and new abilities. For BLM though, I really have no idea when new spells are available, I have no idea when I should change gear. I am a complete embarrassment to decent BLM everywhere. Here is a good example. While pulling mobs to camp for Iz and I, my first thought is to cast the next offensive spell and then get shadows back up. Iz's first thought is to Sleep the mob then Aspir it. This is what you should be doing if you are a good BLM, and that is why I am not doing it. LOL <br /><br />We started off level synced to 37 for my BLM, and headed to Eastern Altepa Desert to kill Spider pets of the Goblin Trader's there. It went pretty well, but even solo the XP was kind of dying off by level 39. From there we shifted over to Elementals summoned by Tonberry Harriers in the Temple of Uggalepih where we have been getting excellent XP and a couple of levels already. And where I started learning that Sleep was a much better option than trying to cast while being hit or trying to put up shadows. The pulls are a little more difficult because the Elementals immidiately cast and this can leave them stationary when the Harrier might amble over and aggro itself. Luckily the camp we use is right near a zone line and we have had to us it quite often. It seems to me the total newbie that the elementals can spawn a little faster than BST pets, but I could be totally wrong there. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Ring_Iz_BLM.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Ring_Iz_BLM.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 320px;" /></a> I don't know what the next camp we are going to try out next, but duo the elementals aren't giving capped XP anymore but it is still very good XP. If I was going to solo or be in a party with BLM I doubt I would like it this much. Iz and I are having fun and I am seeing how bad I can fuck things up and let Iz get me out of it! LOL <br /><br />In other news, I got DNC to 37 so I can use it for Campaign now. It was a long slog and I didn't enjoy it very much. Did a lot of FoV with it, and then in about 2 days with Omoi mostly I got the last 5 or so levels. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/DNC_37.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/DNC_37.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 332px; height: 400px;" /></a> Dancer is one of those jobs that I wouldn't mind having at 75, but wouldn't want to level it to get there. :( It's just not a fun as it looks to begin with, and it is not the kind of healing that you do with WHM. The debuffs are generally not that strong at 37 and it seems like I either have no TP or 300 TP all the time. Meh, I just wanted it for low-man stuff and for Campaign. <br /><br />The last major thing of note for me is that I finally picked up my Ethereal Earring which pretty much rounds out my MNK in it's current state. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Ethereal_earring.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Ethereal_earring.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 244px;" /></a> I am not really worried about getting just a few more accuracy out of my ring slots for millions of gil, or getting equally expensive and equally marginally improvements out of HQ WS gear. The Ethereal Earring is also a decent pick up for my NIN because it is lacking from not having a Suppanomimi anymore. <br /><br />Finally, I would like to offer you an advertisement for LTaco's new Sushi and Boobies steak house and strip club! <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Sushi_boobies.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff151/ringthreetheicp/Sushi_boobies.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 223px;" /></a> What happens in Taco's Sushi and Boobies stays in Taco's Sushi and Boobies!