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.

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