Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Darkness named. And its name is Feiwong.

Posted by Ringthree at 10:40 AM

Guess who is back? Our favorite idiot. Gil buyer extrodinare. Casino rip off artist. Cassie Earring obsession embodied in the form of shouted annoyance. Yep, Feiwong is back. Here is the funny story, and perhaps is an illustration of the distance that this dude will go to get attention from people. I had just gotten back from another Swift Belt run (which I will go into in a bit) and was about to head to Sea to check out Skur's LS fighting Faith, when I see people shouting about someone that was trying to buy a Cassie Earring. My first thought of course is that it is Feiwong back again, with a new character, which is was. Blazes appears to be his name this time, dont know if its a purchased character or its a whole new character. So after making this quick determination, I laugh about how its Feiwong back again, then head to Sea. I get to Sea a bit late and Skur's LS had already beaten Faith, so I headed out to Onzozo to help Kitty get his friend Vai an Assault Jerkin. As we are killing Toroma's I get this wonderful tell: Of course I contacted my friendly neighborhood GM, and I didn't hear from the new Feiwong after that, but my guess is that he is going to be banned faster than last time because he hasn't even been back for a week and he already has a warning against his account.

The subtle use of metaphor in Feiwong's insult bring a tear to the eye. The prose, the tenor, the style. It is truely breathtaking.

XD

After that had been dealt with we killed Toroma's, preventing the RMT's from getting mobs which warmed the cockles of my heart, until we got Ose. We had been messing around so Kitty and I had two different gobs at the same time while Vai had a Toroma and Ose. :) So we killed all the adds, and killed Ose pretty quick and got Vai his Assault Jerkin. I got the Ose Whisker because no one else wanted it. I remember when they were 100k a pop. Now they are 30k. Again, more RMT ruining the game, because idiots like Feiwong buy gil like they are drinking water. I will web-stab anyone that I learn buys gil, I just need Vesp to get on that invention, and I would stab the RMT too. Right in the face.

Now back to the Swift Belt run. It went well. Very, very well. 5 Codexes, 5 Swift Belts. It was really sweet. We got everyone a belt that had brought a Codex, no disappointments, no having to immidiately plan a run to keep everyone happy. LOL We just decided to /random for who was going to go first and pop the hume and mithra because they are easier fights. Az, Venus, Izman, Eternalpain then Eji all got their Swift Belts. It was a really good day and Azy's TH2 was working in over drive.
While we were in the Sacrarium, we also tried to do the mission there for those that needed it. I forgot my keys (I always forget them >.<) so we decided it would just be easier to kill Keremet again to get the key, and we would get the other keys from the Fomors because we needed to build up Fomor hate to pop the Swift Belt NM's. So we headed to the back room of Sacrarium and killed off all the trash skeletons that lined the hallway to Keremet's room. We quickly killed off Keremet, but I got charmed and started beating up on Venussama, hehehe. Then she got charmed too, and we both got put to sleep, while Izman and Glacian finished it off. We then got the first CS for those that needed it, but didn't have time to get the mission done, and couldn't find the right room to pop the ghost NM.

Now, I would like to say that I am trying to progress in the Aht Urhgan missions with some speed and the new Assault Missions on the Ashu Talif have some really good drops, so over the weekend I managed to sneak in some time to get the first BCNM done. We headed out to the boat where the BCNM is and got a kinda weird cutscene with a spooky mithra. This lends more and more creadence to the idea that the end-game area in the new areas will be more oriented toward the undead or at least to Fomors. Fomors are undead but dont have the negative melee effects that bones do, so I could see this being the way that things are done.

Well, after we get ready to fight Gessho shows up to save the day. Gessho is kind of interesting because he doesn't seem to have a large role in the storyline yet, but I can see him getting to be more and more important as the storyline advances, it just seems like it is the way that SE tends to do storyline development. And then again we may never see him again. LOL After the CS we went into the BCNM, it was Omoi, Illy, Dia, Ceal and I. We probably didn't even need that many people, we just had the RDM kite the mobs (after and unsuccesful sleepga) around the ship while we killed off the Fomors. After the first set was dead, the second set of five popped. This time we just had the Ceal kite the Fomors while we killed the Captain. It was funny because the Captain only tried to use Vulcan Shot one time, and Gessho stunned him with some drop kick move. LOL The NPC AI is so much better than it used to be, almost too good.

After we beat the Captian, this COR in really cool AF showed up: I didn't get exactly what the motivation was at this point, I mean understand the Corsair's conflict with the empire but it seems that things are running a bit deeper than just international conflict. I mean you dont get zones of nasty fomors if you dont have a really good reason to be sticking around into the afterlife. Well after this easy as pie mission was done, we got another great CS with Gessho and the Qirin's in Nashmau. Poor little birdy, he doesn't like to be plucked. LOL.

Well thats it for today, I hope you all have good days and you dont have to see Feiwong. That dude is a douchebag.

2 comments

Monday, October 23, 2006

The drool factor.

Posted by Ringthree at 1:11 PM

First, happy belated birthday Ailee.

Second, sorry this is late I have been busy at work.

Third, the drool factor. Everytime we look at a piece of gear we want we have a drool factor. And in this update there are several items that have a very high drool factor. If you are not so keen on gear, this is probably the time to scroll down. LOL Now, I have been obsessing over SAM/RNG as of late so some of my drooling may be biased toward that, even though I really need to get working on my /RNG (I hate being out of town on weekends >.<).

So lets look and see what we have so far.

Kyudogi
* Ranged Accuracy +7
* Ranged Attack +7
* Evasion +7
* Enhances Resist Blind Effect
* Magic Damage Taken -2%

This has a very high initial drool factor, but it subsides after consideration of the application. Now this item is SAM equipable but the problem is that now that I have my Soboro, I will likely not be spamming arrows to try to build TP. I will just use the Soboro to get TP then fire off slugshots, and if that is the case then the +8 Weaponskill Accuracy and the +8 STR on the Hachiman Domaru is going to be better. This body piece would be better if I was going to have to shoot arrows from a distance, like against Faust or other NM's. Outside of that I suppose that it would be better for Barrage, but that is only an occasional ability. Also considering that it requires a Cerebrus Leather and a rare item from on of the new assaults, the price tag is very high. So at this point I will give it a 2 drools out of 5.

Next on the list of droolies for me is the:

Barbarossa's Moufles
* Ranged Accuracy +7
* Ranged Attack +7

Now less are some hands that I can drool over for my SAM. The Hachiman Kote have no additional WS Acc on them like most of the Hachiman pieces, and only have +4 STR, which is nothing to shake a stick at but is not as impressive as the +7 Ranged Accuracy and Ranged Attack. The Ranged Accuracy will be necessary to help make up for the C+ skill that SAM's have in Archery, and the Ranged Attack is generally considered to be a better modifier for Sidewinder considering its very low STR modifier. So I will definitely be giving these a 3 drools out of 5.

Now to drool over these:

Barbarossa's Zerehs
* Strength +4
* Vitality +4
* Haste +3%

At first, I thought to myself "Self, you already have Koga Hakama, and this is only +3% haste, so these aren't that great except for the +4 STR." Then myself slapped myself and said "Dumbass self, you have other jobs besides NIN." These can be worn by a wide array of jobs, like my WAR eventually, but also my SAM and my DRG. The STR is far more than what I can get on my SAM AF and the haste is nice too when stacked with Hasso. The same for my DRG, though not as much, as the Barrone legs are quite nice. All things considered I will give them 4 drools out of five considering the difficulty in trying to get Byakko's Haidate.

And the drool train rolls onto:

Sniper's Collar
* Ranged Accuracy +6
* Ranged Attack +5
* Enmity -1
* Subtle Blow +1

Right now I am staring down a Merman's Gorget for my neckpiece, which does not please me all that greatly. I am not that interested in getting Spectacles as the prices is pretty high for a neckpiece that I will only be using for one job considering the fact that I have a Chivalrous Chain already. Now the Sniper's Collar would be very nice until I can get my sea gorgets (which I really need to stop putting off). It would also be nice in those cases where I will need to be attacking from a distance. Being that I dont have my sea gorgets yet, the drool factor is about 3 out of 5, but will drop when I finally get my gorgets.

Ahh, now I can clean up the drool.

Now, I dont have any pictures from this weekend, I got home late last night and I just went to bed, so they will be put up tomorrow. I did do some neat stuff, but it will have to wait until I get the pictures uploaded.

Back to work for now, hopefully all this stuff I have to do with be done by tomorrow.

0 comments

Friday, October 20, 2006

Strangeness afoot.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:46 AM

I think there is alot more content in this update than I knew about. I am hearing interesting stories about the cutscenes after the Black Coffin BC, which I have yet to do. I have heard that it is not very hard, so I just need to round up some people to do it. Alot of that new equipment, like the Barbarosa gear, is supposed to be available through the new BCNM on the Black Coffin that is suppose to be like an Assault that is supposed to be openned after getting through some of the new missions. Thats alot of "supposed to" in one sentenace. I really need to get on top of alot of this new stuff. SE looks like they dont have any real interest in fixing Ulli anytime soon, if not at all, so they are introducing some gear to replace it. Looks like you have to be in an LS that is willing to buy gems from RMT to actually get Byakko's Haidate anymore. Giving up and letting the RMT control sections of the game is going to be horrible for the game over all. SE needs to stop hiding its head in the sand and change their rules to prevent RMT behavior. I was recently sacrastically questioned by a GM if they thought they should "profile" players and ban them because of that, and I responded that it was EXACTLY what they need to do. Oops, sorry another RMT rant.

Anyway, back to the strangeness, it seems that the current set of missions for Aht Urhgan is a little more light-hearted than the very intense CoP storyline, but it does have a nice sense of foreboding also. I am wondering if the new end-game area will have more undead in it because that seems to be the direction that SE is heading with the storyline. Then again you couldn't really anticipate the kind of mobs that would appear in Lumoria when you first arrived.

And then there is this picture that I stole from Nivaud which it appears he stole from someone else: WTF Mate?

I did some more Assaults last night, I am very close to getting my Superior Private promotion. I should be able to get it after one more set of Assaults runs. I have yet to do any level 2 Assaults so that should make getting to Lance Corporal and beyond that much easier, because I will have two tiers to draw on to get the points necessary for the next promotion. In addition I am building a nice amount of Assault points for the items in these zones. I have been doing alot of the Leujaoam Sanctum tier 1 assault because some of the people that have been going with dont have very many of the staging points, to which I remind them that the expansion came out in April, and Ailee was bitching about me not having my staging points in May.

I probably should start helping people to get to Sea again, I have been kinda delaying because Reikoyi has been out of town and will be out of town until the end of the month. I am still torn on the issue because I dont want to hold people back, but I dont want to have to do the runs twice. Speaking of which, it looks like Versus has a good plan to get back to doing Sea events quite soon, and it is with someone that a trust as being capable and knowledgable with what to do in Sea. I think it is going to work out, and I hope that the scheduling can be worked out pretty quick. I would really like to start doing Sea again.

I have something for you to ponder... Oh, how you love the subligar, dont you? <3 That is my new Corsair, I wanted to get it started even though my RNG is not high enough to sub yet. I really should be leveling RNG first, but if I level COR I can share gear for a while which will be really nice. ^.^ Ok, ok, I will finish off RNG first. At least I can solo on my RNG for a while, or have Omoi powerlevel me while I wait for a party. Partying in the first part of the jungles is annoying, you have to have people almost the same exact level or you wont be able to kill anything or you will have horrible xp.

I did manage to get three rolls for my COR so far, Corsair's Roll, Ninja Roll and Hunter's Roll. With Hunter's Roll and Ninja Roll I can solo pretty effectively on DC's in the Highlands while I am waiting for a party, but I think that parties will come pretty often when I have my Chaos Roll. But of course that will be after I level my RNG. >.<

Yesterday, I had to go to Sky as NIN for the first time. Omoi said that I should go as that, even though I would much prefer to go as DRG. It was basically the only time that I was able to use DRG anymore. Maybe its time to put DRG into semi-retirement, I dont know, I am really hesistant to do that, as I have a really nice set up for my DRG now, and I have wanted to test out /SAM in sky. We will see how things go I suppose. Here, I am right after tanking Genbu, which was my second ever god fight on NIN in sky, the first being Kirin o.O;

I have a bunch of things to do today, so I think this is the end of today's entry, but I really really want to talk about some of the new gear that is in the update and more about how to get to the new Assault area, where some of the Barbarossa's is supposed to be available. Maybe a weekend update? That would be nice.

I do have some added commentaries that I have made on the DRG forums about subbing SAM. Alot of people have been poo-pooing SAM as a sub after testing it with one WS or in one party without a parser. Fundamentally they are ignoreing the fact that you CAN'T SUB WAR IN A BURN PARTY. >.< Its NIN or now SAM, SAM > NIN, therefore SAM is the best. Here is what I posted on KI:

Ultimately here is the problem. If you are subbing war in a burn party, you are gimping the party. You have next to no damage mitigation, and you are going to be an MP sink.

If you sub sam, you have damage mitigation and are not as much of an MP sink, thus not gimping the party. You also are not gimping yourself as much as subbing nin.

If you sub nin, you have alot of damage mitigation are no more an MP sink, than anyone else, but you gimping your own damage badly.

The discussion of which is better war or sam is largely irrelevent because if you are going to a burn party as war sub you have much bigger issues than trying to maximize e-peen numbers.

Even if you were to compare war and sam straight up, you would see that sam is pretty damn impressive.

For TP build:
Haste + Store TP + Zanshin + Meditate + 10 Acc + 10 Str > Double Attack + Berserk

For WS:
10 Acc + 10 Str + Not dying > Double Attack + Berserk

But remember this is not a discussion of war vs. sam in a burn party, if you are using war as a sub in a burn party you are probably gimping everyones xp by wasting mp.

Think of DoT from doing more WS over time, and stop thinking about the single WS e-peen number.

I am definitely going to get a parser on this one. The idea of subbing WAR in a burn party when you have no other damage mitigation is down right stupid.

3 comments

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Rectification.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:31 AM

And so I am back, and will be updating every day again.

I dont have very many pretty pictures today, but there are alot of things I want to talk about so I will get to them.

First, in response to Willriker. Ultimately, I believe that we both agree that PLD DD's are very underappreciated, but I still believe that he over states its uniqueness. Several things that Will points out that are very true, like having an A+ weapon, do put PLD in a unique situation for considering what equipment to use. So there are specific questions that PLD's have to answer while creating a DD set-up. But this is true of any DD job. DRK's have to ask themselves, how do I DD without killing myself. DRG's have to ask, how do I DD with a horribly limited equipment supply.

I just want PLD's to understand that they have the ability to be in burn parties with everyone else, and that they shouldn't build TP in STR rings. If I can convince people of that then I will be a very happy person.

Second, started leveling Corsair. Its kind of interesting actually, but I have only gotten to level 11 and my marksmanship is only 5 right now. >.< I dont even have the chance to use a gun until level 15. It's going to be pretty gimpy. Also the gear for Corsair is a little weird, its like you get crappy left over ranger gear until about level 70, then their is a bunch of nice new gear. I have Hunter's Roll, and once I get Dark Knight's Roll I will be so uber. LOL I think I will like the job alot more once I get to 15 and can start shooting things.

Speaking of shooting things...

Third, it sounds like RNG has been de-nerfed quite a bit. Of course some RNG's have been complaining that they were not back to how they were when they were horribly broken. I am desperately hoping that it will reviving SAM/RNG, and make my COR all nice and fuzzy. I have the gear for my SAM/RNG already, so I just need to level RNG so its not gimp.

Fourth, SAM, oh glourious SAM! I didn't even get a chance to try it out yesterday, but from all accounts its pretty uber. +10 Str, +10% Haste, +10 Accuracy. Its some kind of Kirin's Peacock Osodaite. And the new defensive stance is just plain sexy too. I will do some tests with it today hopefully, we will see how things pan out.

Fifth, there is a ton of new equipment to drool over too, and I will be going over alot of that tomorrow.

Not much going on today, as I got home yesterday, but I will be posting on KI today then organizing my thoughts with some more pictures for a decent entry tomorrow.

0 comments

Monday, October 16, 2006

Borin + Assault = Death

Posted by Ringthree at 8:31 AM

Actually, really it should be Borin + Anything = Death. Found a little bit of time to get some Assaults done. We did the level 1 Mamool Ja Traing Grounds, which is pretty easy if you can get the mobs to do the correct WS moves and make sure they miss. We did fine, but when Borin is along, you know what is going to happen. We did manage to get Borin to Level 2 assaults and Azeryus to Level 3 assaults, and both Omoi and I are close to getting level 3 assaults also.

Its funny really when the new assault equipment came out I wasn't really impressed because I just gave it a quick precursory view. Later on I went back and looked how good it was in certain slots, and realized that SE actually put alot of thought into it. The pieces are generally designed to fill in slots that have been weak for certain jobs, and with stats that one might not expect from those slots. Attack in slots generally associated with accuracy, ranged accuracy and attack for jobs other than RNG, and special abilities that can't be found elsewhere. So I will be ramping up the amount of Assaults that I will be doing now.

Also, I managed to level my RNG for another 5k xp or so and got this.
Only 11 more levels, orz.

More later if I can.

0 comments

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Saturday Detention.

Posted by Ringthree at 6:30 AM

I missed Thursday so I guess I will write a bonus blog entry for the weekend. Like I said I have been busy but I have been able to get on for a while here and there, plus I have some things to talk about left over from Thursday. So where to start... hmmm. Well lets see, Willriker has replied to my comments about PLD DD's, and I want to write an elaborate response, but dont have enough time right now, so that I will have to be held off at least until next week. Lets just say that again I agree with his conclusions, but not how he arrives at those conclusions, they are an observation of uniqueness of being a PLD, but ignores that every DD job is unique in some manner. Again, more detailed analysis of this later and an acknowledgement to Will that I highly enjoy this discussion and I am glad that he is willing to engage.

Today's treaties is on the lazy of players. My favorite complaint by players is how difficult SE makes it to get something do some of the things in the game. Begs the question doesn't it. Either secretly we are all masochists, or some people actually find these activities enjoyable. Sometimes the challenge is the best part of the game. There are those that forget just how fun it is to do some of the things in the game, and when they forget this they become disappointed, disappointment leads to anger, anger leads to the dark side. May this is why I sometimes feel the need to force choke stupid people through the internet LOL. More importantly going to the dark side includes, gil buying, working with RMT and hacking. Just because people feel they have the inalienable right to gear and "fun" (which translated to the simple-minded is gear) justifies the worst in people. This doesn't apply to everyone of course, but sadly its usually the worst people that take the worst actions. People that act like dickheads tend to actually be dickheads.

Yet usually with the laziness of people there is opportunity for other people to take advantage of that laziness. And here is my example from yesterday. Omoi, Bg and I wanted to get some xp, Illy was going to go to but had to leave to do something else, so we picked up a WAR, MNK and a BRD. The only problem was that *gasp* the Astral Candescence was taken by the trolls, which of course meant that we would not be able to warp to the staging points. But that the same would be true for everyone else. We decided to head to the Thickets, because there was next to no one in the zone. But this would require running through the Woodlands then Mamook, which of course, some people in the party complained about, but we went anyway. We did have a little bit of fun with one of the NM's around the Archiac Mirrors around the entrance. Apparently, if you attack the Archiac Mirrors from a different level the NM's are still going to come and try to kick your ass. And even worse, if you get Devout Radol Ja to less than 3% he will Benediction for 57K HP. And then you will cry and zone him.

Well, we did eventually make it to the thickets and it was a sight to behold. Every single mob in the area was up. Every single one. We were the only ones there. It was indeed the land of milk and honey. We made something close to 27K XP in a little under an hour and a half. No one else came to XP in the area for the entire time that we were there. This was our highest chain: That is 4 merits now for me, which I think I will be putting into Overwhelm for my Samurai, but I am going to sit on them for a little bit.

Speaking of which, I did mention before that I had picked up a cursed kabuto last week, but I still hadn't gotten it uncursed. So it was time for me to do the WHM dance with the priest in San d'Oria (yeah, that sounded like a bad made for TV movie, "Mommy, Alphollon C Meriard was touching me in my subligar area"). Yeah, that does look a little creepy. PLD's have that effect all the time... and that means that PLD's are a little creepy too. That explains alot. LOL

Anyway, this is how the kabuto fits into my NIN WS gear:

Finally our words of wisdom today are brought to us by Azy, proving that MNK's really do have to do more than just engage and punch things in the face.

1 comments

Friday, October 13, 2006

A shocking realization.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:14 AM

Sorry I wasn’t around yesterday, I will be sporadic in my entries for the next couple of days.

An observation/realization:

I have pretty good gear. Yes, that’s the realization. I’m obsessed with gear if you hadn’t forgotten. Its not god-like. I don’t have a Ridill or a Yin-Yang Robe, but I do have some pretty decent gear, some stuff that is hard to get, some that is expensive, some of it is borrowed… and some of it is blue…

Now, this isn’t one of those obsess over gear posts though, this is more of a reflection of how I got to where I am now, and a look at where I am going. When I first started this game, I was reluctant. I was concerned with the amount of time I would spend because I had heard of my friends that had been sucked into Everquest, and with my addictive personality I was afraid that would be me. Man, I should have embraced it. This game is perfect for my addictive personality, and it’s not like I wouldn’t have obsessed over something else during the time that I have played, debate, cars, whatever. At least with the game I would be doing something I enjoyed, rather than wasting weekend after weekend adjudicating novice debaters on how not to murder the English language. Not wasting hundreds and thousands of dollars to make up fractions of seconds on the course.

I guess that’s my personal justification for the huge amount of time that I dump into the game. LOL

Anyway, after I realized that I loved the game, and the game loved me, I rapid advanced in level as a Dragoon. I did this because of my general impatience with waiting for parties. I must have been very lucky because I got to about level 30 before I had any real wait for a party, but one fateful day I was not invited for over 30 minutes and things were never the same again. I would come home from work and just look for people seeking a party, I wouldn’t even care to wait for a moment to put up my flag. And it was all down hill from there.

I think for me the game would have been more fulfilling if I had just dived in headfirst, instead of being reluctant about my goals. I was even reluctant about joining a sky LS. Why? I don’t know, I wish I had just embraced my enjoyment, rather than avoiding the fun. Ah well, there is no turning back time, even in Vana’diel.

Game play update later today I hope :)

0 comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Re-taking umbrage.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:32 AM

So, apparently I have had two detracters to my suggestions about PLD's DDing. The first was a concern was presented by Ailee about the cost-benefit balance of such an investment, to which I can not dispute. Elitist pricks aren't going to invite PLD DD's to "burnz" parties no matter how well set up they are, but my discussion was definitely more abstract than that. Luckily, I have found someone that is willing to engage in the discussion on its merits, and to some of my points Willriker has taken umbrage. To his umbrage, I will re-take umbrage, and a discussion we will have on his detractions.

Lets get to it.

Willriker point 1: Paladin's must eat meat.
Ringthree response 1: Sure, but so do all DD's. The kind of balancing you are talking about is very subtle, and it is something all DD's do depending on where they are going to xp. Mire, Zhaylom, Thickets. All require subtle differences in equipment to maximize damage potential. You are a not a unique snowflake. As much as we want to eat meat in the Thickets its probably going to be better to start with Sushi then move up to Meat as you round out your gear selection.

Willriker point 2: You need a wide variety of gear.
Ringthree response 2: Sure, but so do all DD's. XD Yes, exactly like I said above, you are right on this, but here is the point that is missed by almost all of the PLDs that I have talked to about setting up DD equipment. DO NOT USE STRENGTH GEAR ON TP BUILDS. Use attack. ATTACK. STR gear is worthless on a TP build for a couple of reasons. One, it is just gimp Attack gear. Two, it does not raise your damage cap by almost anything on your standard melee hit. Three, and probably the most important, it is wasting an important equipment slot, usually much better used for accuracy or attack. If you are at 90%+ accuracy, then start shifting gear around to get to a better balance.

Willriker point 3: I am not a paladin.
Ringthree response 3: LOL Ummm... LOL. LOLOLOL. Sorry Will but there is nothing about being a PLD that gives you a unique perspective on being a DD. I have three DD jobs leveled (/wave Ailee). If I wanted to tank Bahamut I would defer to your opinion on the matter, but for DDing, the differences in jobs is based mostly on the weapon type, WS and equipment selection. These factors are so much more important than job selection for setting up a DD. Weapon type for paladin is similiar to War and Ninja, dual-wielding, main-hand high damage, off-hand low delay/multi-hit weapon if available. Vorpal Blade, multihit critical hit WS like Blade: Jin and Rampage. Equipment selection is pretty much right in between NIN and WAR. So again, you are not a unique snowflake, go with what works for NIN and WAR because you have to capability to act like them in "burnz" parties.

The rest of what Willriker says is incredibly insightful, especially the calculations he provides for what level of attack you should have before you start considering what food to eat. Very, very good job Will, I appreciate the input from a PLD. /bow His point about having a set and a half of gear to be ready to use meat over sushi is very insightful not only for PLD's but for DD's in general.

The umbrage has been broughten. *snips*

And Ungur strikes back. Since we had ToD on Ungur we headed back out to collect out second Ungurang last night. It was supposed to go quickly, it was so supposed to be easy, we were supposed be able to go and do Assaults right afterward. Yeah, that went right out the window.

As an interlude, I tried helped my buddy Zenji to level last night. Lets just say he didn't make it too far with all of the AoE's from the mobs in that area, but I did finally get to see him level up. The really funny thing is that I never even noticed when he got level 31. XD

Borin, Azy, Omoi and I pulled him and things were going really well. That is until we had back to back Radiant Breaths or Fang Rushes or whatever. Ungur was not pleased with us last night, and Omoi ended up home pointing something like 4 times to come back because her Reraise kept getting dispelled. So Borin, Azy and I got to enjoy the finer points for sand eating in Gustav tunnel.

We needed reinforcements because we could get him down to 3% or so but he kept wiping us. So we called in Skam to help on his COR. Apparently this was all that we really needed to take him down, because even though we struggled a bit we did finally manage to get me one of these:
I lotted something like 244 on it, and I thought it was Borin's for sure. Until he lotted a 190 something. Wow, he really does have bad lots. But he does have Haidate and Osode so he doesn't have much to complain about, LOL. I do owe him an Ungurang and a Swift Belt now.

That took forever and I went to bed pretty much right after that.

And now for your Borin comedy corner: Apparently, Omoi likes to make the baby Jesus cry. Mean, mean Omoi.

0 comments

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Apparently the dollar is weak against the dubloon too.

Posted by Ringthree at 12:36 PM

Ice the economist conducted the survey. Here is the result: XD /dies.

0 comments

If you listen very closely, you can hear my IQ slipping away one point at a time.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:18 AM

There are some people that are stupid but they hide it well. Its actually pretty easy to do. It doesn't take much to figure how to do something by Rote memorization, avoiding past failures, trying not to repeat them. But there are some that are proud of their stupidity. They treat it like a pet of some kind. Grooming it, feeding it, nuturing it. And it grows and flourishes, spreading the stupidity to those around it like some kind of mental ebola. These people need to be registered with the CDC or some such organization, for they are the vectors of this plight. Patient zero of the disease we call stupidity.

/sigh. I needed one of those biohazard suits last night.

I have noticed that this stupidity spreads everywhere and to every facet of life, even the games we play. In this case, it is the cliquish nature of people. Some treat FFXI as if it were some kind of virtual high school, with our own jocks, nerds and fuck all stupid little groups. But since the lesser of us are unable to differentiate on physcial appearance or class rank in a digital world, they classify on gear and job selection. This is the correlary to the conversation I had with Draconum. A fine juxtapositioning of the best and brightest reasons to play, and the most base and low-brow. I am not naive, I understand that certain aspects of this game require some jobs, healers, tanks, support, melee. But I am also not naive to the fact that some beleive that only certain jobs can fill those roles. And some of those people still live in 2004, as if SE had just fixed the problem of multi-hit weaponskills.

It is so very small minded to assign value to a player based upon their current job, as this game was instilled with the essence of job fluidity. The "loldrg" you are mocking today could also be the BLM you need for your end-game LS. The "zomg gimp you dont have HQz" RNG you are mocking today could also be the Adaberk WAR you will need for your burn party next week. Using gear and job selection as a means to feed your digital ego, your e-peen, is just a pathetic as it was in high school. Sadly, there is no graduatation to a wider existance that rebalances the world of Vana'diel. There is only dissatisfaction with end-game, a lack of self-realization of how to have fun, regret at time invested, followed by resentment for that time now considered lost, finished ultimately by eBay where the small minded go when the believe that they are "owed" by the forces of the universe (ie. SE) to be reimbursed for that time. Here is a little shocker for the small-minded. There is no eBay at the end of your life, a shallow existance will still be unfulfilled. There is no receipt that which you can deliver to the great HR department in the sky.

I enjoyed that rant more than any other so far. Would you like to see what spurred it on? I know you would. Thats right, you only have opinions, and your opinions suck. The funny thing about people these days is that they believe that the ability to form an opinion some how leads credence to that opinion. That idea provides me so much entertainment.

On to life in Vana'diel. We started out with Borin, Azy, Omoi and I running around in Altepa hold the AF NM for some RMT NIN's. It was a lot of fun, we ran it around the whole zone, and in general annoyed the RMT's. I love it when RMT's pretend to be normal players until you call them RMT. Then they call you "pig" or some other insult, when any normal players would have denied being an RMT. The RMT are getting a little better at hiding it, but are still pretty damn obvious. And I still completely hate them.

After our fun with the RMT, we headed out to camp Ungur, and he popped after the first set of placeholders (and a whole lot of Omoi induced death). I didn't get a screenshot of Ungur. Yeah, I completely boned that one. But I did get a shot of Azeryus with her new Ungurang. Yeah for Azy! \(^.^)/ We also tried to get Amikiri to pop but no luck there. Besides, I was getting tired and I really wanted to get started on my RNG.

So I geared up my ranger as best I could, as there isn't really much available at level 24 besides Lizard gear. I was going to solo worms on Qufim Island with Omoi, but as we were killing a Weapon (which did not drop a Kaiser Sword -.-;) I got an invite in Kazham, so we headed down there. I got a decent amount of xp from that, but I was so tired that I could only stay for a little while, not to mention it was impossible to pull considering the fact that there were something like 3 parties of RMT bastards botting away and stealing all of the mobs.
I did stay long enough to get to 25 on my RNG. I wish I could have stayed longer but I was about to pass out and it was already really late. Well, getting a level is always an accomplishment so it was nice to have that done.
As a complete sidenote, I wanted to mention that I think Borin is one of the funniest people I have met in the game, he says some of the most hilarious stuff, and the banter that he has with Omoi is comedy club quality. And then sometimes, he just says things that makes me laugh so hard that I am crying. Like this: You can pair this with an Omoi comment from last night, that I am still trying to figure out. It reminds me of a Lewis Black joke where he overheard someone say "If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college." Yeah, don't think about that too long, you might die. The universe operates on simple knowledges and truths. Trying to figure out why you might need an onion to make a hotdog may rend a gaping hole in that simple universe, unleashing demonic entities from the void.

0 comments

Monday, October 09, 2006

This game makes no sense, but it still makes me laugh.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:05 AM

Yeah, well that was a weird weekend. I dont even know where to start. Well, actually I do. What the hell is up with drops in this game. It makes no freaking sense at all. You could be fighting a 90% drop rate mob with 17 TH4 Thieves and go 0/5, and then you could solo Xarcabard and get every single NM drop. Its baffling at time. Fuck baffling, its freaking stupid at times. Proof in evidence, this weekend. A nice little trip back to Riverne Site #B01. To meet my little friend the Unstable Cluster to get my dream weapon, the Ridill of Samurai's, the Soboro sukehiro. This drop should be easy. The pop items drop in front of the freaking spawn point. It's just a bomb, stun the self-destruct, and you are fine. Yeah, right.

So Omoi see's a shout for the Soboro in Whitegate. I dont even really pay attention to shouts anymore, as its almost always a freaking disaster. But Omoi knew I was dying to get this great katana, so she mentioned it to me. I bet right now that she wishes she didn't. XD The group was shouting for one last member for the run, to which I hastily responded that I would would like to go and that Omoi would be coming with me. Borin also offered to go because he was bored and didn't really have anything to do. So the three of us headed to Misearux Coast and allianced the five other people that were there for the NM. Yes, thats right. Five. 5. The number after four and before six. It was at this moment that Omoi laughed and said that they are going to learn how horrible this mob really is.

Now, this mob, the Unstable Cluster, is a bomb cluster mob. The only problem is that it has permanent Blaze Spikes, and oh it happens to triple attack on every attack. Yeah, so much for Ninja tanking it. It also has a ton of HP. And the nice little group that I went with planned on having a WAR tank it. Yeah... So I started calling in friends to help. Izman, as paladin, the best tank for this mob by far. Vesp, as Blue Mage, 10 second stuns that land with more accuracy that Stun spells seemed to be. Hellz came with them, then Ice came later and finally Azy came to help as THF, which as it turned out my have been a blessing from God.

We actually didn't have that much of a problem with the mobs, an occasional missed stun lead to a wipe, but its to be expected from a mob that will spam Self-Destruct three times in a row even with successful stuns. Now, let me tell you why I mention the strangness of drops in this game. Let me tell you about the first nine, NINE, yes freaking NINE pops that we beat without getting a freaking drop. At 15 minutes per spawn you can start to get an idea of just how long this was taking. We needed some help, and we ended up getting it.

After the eighth spawn Azy and Ramuss showed up, and it was the day that I feel in love with TH. Now the ninth spawn still didn't drop anything, but it was sometime around this point that the moon phase switched over to New. Everything was in our favor to finally see one of these: So now we were at least 1/10 and there was some hope that the 3 other people that came to get a Soboro would get theirs. So we waited our 15 minutes and spawned it again. This one was incredibly easy, only tried to Self-destruct once, and we got the stun off. And then it was time for lots... and yours truely won! Finally, I had the Soboro, which I have tried so many times, unsuccessfully, to get. But we still needed to get 2 more for the people that were there. And on the next two mobs we got two drops. 4/4! Again! Now we were cooking with fire. Now Ramuss had shown up to help us, and he wanted to try to get one too. I mean at this point we were playing Push Your Luck, and popped the last Unstable Cluster. And Ramuss had his Soboro too. Thats right we went 0/9 then 5/5. You can say it was TH2, you can say that it is the moon phase. I say its because the Unstable Cluster is an attention whore. The first drop came win I took the first screenshot, I had forgotten on the first nine spawns ._.; but on the first one that I took a screenshot, it started its dropping spree. Who is the TH now?

As with all events that involved Borin, Borin died. Multiple times. And I laughed. At him. Multiple times. And now with the advent of modern technology, you can laugh at Borin too. And just in case that wasn't enough for you, here is some more. Notice the sky? Yes, this was a different time that we won and Borin was the only one to die. <3 Borin Long Time. f(o.o)f

And with my Soboro, I look totally bad ass. The Soboro is like sex-honey-ice cream, yeah its that good.

On Saturday I got a little distracted. Omoi noticed that there was a nice JP Dragoon shouting for help with his AF Helm. The fight is a little tough, especially for level 60, and its hard to get people together to get it done. So we volunteered to help him out. There was a little bit of confusion for the JP DRG on when he should pop the NM's but eventually we got him to spawn the shadows. We made pretty short work of the mobs and our JP DRG friend got his helm.

After this Omoi had been bugging me to open the new jobs from the expansion. We already had PUP openned and I wanted to get COR open because I think its going to be one of the next jobs that I take to 75 which should be pretty easy, about equal to BRD in buff ability, but not as good of a puller. I had done most of the COR quest just by randomly talking to NPC's and checking different ??? around places. LOL So we caught Omoi up then headed to Talacca Cove to finish up the quest. The first thing we did was discover the the forgotten Hexagun that was lost there, then headed to finish up the quest.
At some point in here I leveled my SAM some more. I really want to get it to 75 to get my merit abilities for it, I got about 10k in a rather short party that didn't really have a tank at all. I was SAM/WAR and I was the only one with a provoke. That made things interesting at times, but we were in the Mire and its pretty hard to die in there if you are paying attention.

Omoi and I also finished up the ToAU missions to the BCNM, which I think a bunch of people are on. The fight isn't supposed to be hard, so it should be pretty easy to gets some people together to get it done. In fact, none of the ToAU missions have been very hard so far. I hope that they make this new area much more gilseller proof. Speaking of which, there are gilsellers in Sea again. Which freaking sucks because its really easy to beat the BCNM's to get to Sea if you just POS hack all around the area's. At this point its just freaking wishful thinking that SE will do anything about them. I had a GM ask me recently if they were just supposed to "profile" players and them ban them on only that. And I told that freaking naive GM that is exactly what they need to be doing. This isn't a freaking democracy, there are no rights in this world besides the ones that SE provides and can revoke at any time! So don't give me crap excuses like the get due process, there is no due process in this freaking digital world. We all play at the pleasure of freaking SE. The idea that they can't ban people without proof is so fucking stupid it makes me want to scream.

If I ever find out anyone buys gil that I know, I am going to use Vesp's new invention and stab them in the face through the internet.

Wow... that was a tangent.

Back to the missions, LOL. Omoi and I headed out to talk to a Qiqirn in Nashmau. Omoi is in love with these things, and this one was just hilarious with how well animate it was. Here is the obligatory picture of that silly Qiqirn. We needed to get some Jody's Acid for the Qiqirn, which we had picked up before hand from the Morloboro mobs before we headed there. Then onto the fun.

We then headed to the graveyard outside of Nashmau, were we talked to the grave of Jazaraat. Now, you have to click this thing one time for the CS, then another time to get the NM to spawn. I had been running around as SAM at the time, which probably wasn't the best idea to begin with, but Omoi kinda made things a bit worse when she spawned Jazaraat before we were ready. Before: After:
So we died LOL, and I headed back to change to NIN to take this thing on. After that it was pretty easy. Very duoable for anyone with Ni. Jazaraat missed alot once he was debuffed. So Omoi and I headed back to Naja to get yelled at some more and we are now ready for the ghost ship BCNM. Omoi and I also started the BLU quest but we didn't get a chance to finish it before Sky.

We then had Kirin, it wasn't that great, a rough run and only a D. Body, S. Cloth and K. Pole. Maybe this is what jinxed it:
UGH!

After that I got an xp party so I could try to get to 73 on my SAM. Everything was packed so we went to fight some more trolls. Trolls are pretty easy xp, and not very deadly, but its not a quick as other places, but if the Mire and the Thickets are overcrowded it is still good enough. It also lets some jobs not have to sub NIN. I was subbing WAR on my SAM, but I was only 72 so I wasn't too worried about it. I did pull hate a couple of times, because with the Soboro I can WS like four times on a troll if I have meditate up. I haven't really even used the Hagun that Glacian let me borrow in an xp party yet, because I just love how much the Soboro just lets me spam WS's. We stuck around a little longer than it took me to finally get to 73. On our last mob of the night we got this: Congratulations to everyone. LOL

It was a pretty busy weekend, and now that I have COR open and have my Soboro, I desperately need to level my RNG to 37. It should only take a day or two because I can just get Omoi to PL me on worms while I am looking for a party. I am really looking forward to it, another job I can obsess over gear for. Coming soon, gear for my level 24 RNG! Just kidding, DONT YOU CLOSE THAT BROWSER!

Now, for the most important things that happened to me this weekend. The absolute silliness. The first is a observation of the most obvious sorts. Eternalpain is a PLD and BLM by trade but is also an aspiring BLU. He seems to have the same predilictions to spell choice as he has with his BLM. Maybe Cocoon will keep him survive a little longer than he does on his BLM.

Some people that play this game are pure as the driven snow, and some just claim to be. I think that Borin proves that the lady doth protest too much.
And let us not forget our friend Borin, for which hardness is a measure of earthen qualities.
And there you have my weekend with some of the weirdest people in Vana'diel.

Where are my fucking O's Kote...

0 comments

Friday, October 06, 2006

Sorry, 100k is STILL not a lot of gil.

Posted by Ringthree at 9:50 AM

Ugh. I have a horrible kink in my neck so this is taking longer than normal.

Sky was interesting yesterday, as I came as SAM. This was only the second day I have even come to Sky as anything but DRG. It also wasn't the best day in Sky history, so I probably wont be doing that again. LOL At least the drops were good. Here you can see my SAM taking on Suzaku:
After Sky I went with Az, Ice and Luce to get some xp on my SAM. At first the Mire was pretty full and there was a party that was hogging up to 5 mobs at once. I mean I dont mind the idea that the stronger parties can dominate a zone, but at least keep your mobs red, or someone might try to steal them, or even worse Dia them. But we were able to keep a normal xp rate until they left, and after that it was the land of milk and honey. We got a couple of chains into the 20's, which was pleasing. And I got about 20k on my Sam. I will probably be xping alot tonight, I would very much like to be a good chunk into 73 and be at least 74 by the end of the weekend and 75 next week so I can start meritting on my NIN again. I would like to get maxed out Overwhelm and Ikishoten, especially considering the coming changes for SAM and RNG.

Speaking of which, I have been lusting over finding one of these for the last couple of days: I am convincing myself that after the update we will be able to return to the SAM/RNG set ups that were gaining popularity right before the RNG nerf. The Shigeto Bow is not the highest damage bow available for SAMs but it is close. More important than the base damage, though, are the stats on the bow. SAMs only have a C+ in Archery, which means we have to stack up on alot of Ranged Accuracy, even if it means losing other stats that I would normally prefer. This is why the Shigeto Bow is so nice. The +15 Ranged Attack is very nice, but it is specifically designed for SAMs because of the SAM-only bonus of +7 Ranged Accuracy.

There is another item that I think will be a "must have" for subbing RNG on my SAM, a Soboro Sukehiro: This is the Ridill for SAMs. Well it isn't that strong, but it is still wonderful if you are using it with /RNG. TP building will be much easier and as the damage being done will come from Sidewinder and not normal weaponskills the lack of base damage is pretty irrelevent. This is the gear that I will be looking at for my SAM/RNG set up.

TP Build:
Weapon: Soboro Sukehiro
Ranged: Shigeto Bow
Ammo: Demon Arrows
Head: Optical Hat
Neck: Merman's Gorget (Maybe Spectacles or a Qiqirn Collar)
Earrings: Beater's Earring and Vision Earring
Body: Hachiman Domaru
Hands: Seiryu's Kote
Rings: Marksman's Ring and Sniper's Ring (There are better RA rings here but if I am using my Soboro to build TP then I need to hit with it to be able to gain TP faster. I am new to this those so maybe my accuracy will be high enough for it to not matter.)
Back: Amemet Mantle
Belt: Precise Belt or Royal Knight's Belt +2
Legs: Here I am a bit confused. I will probably start with Jaridah Salvars, as they are the only thing that is easily attainable. The Amir Dirs look very nice as do the Galliard Trousers, but all of those will require some work to get.
Feet: Jaridah Nails (maybe Fuma Sune-ate because of the Agi since I already have them)

WS Build:
Weapon: Soboro Sukehiro
Ranged: Shigeto Bow
Ammo: Demon Arrows
Head: Optical Hat
Neck: Merman's Gorget (Definitely want to get working on my organs for WS Gorgets)
Earrings: Beater's Earring and Vision Earring
Body: Hachiman Domaru
Hands: Seiryu's Kote
Rings: Coral Rings
Back: Amemet Mantle
Belt: Precise Belt or Royal Knight's Belt +2
Legs: Hachiman Haidate
Feet: Hachiman Sune-ate

I will be eating Squid Sushi for the Ranged Accuracy and the Agility. Alternatively I might just stick with Sole for the nice little bonus to STR. I will have to test these out after the update. I should interject at this point that I have kept all of my purchases to around 100-200k, which even in this depressed economy, still IS NOT THAT MUCH GIL.

Which leads us to the title of this thread. I was speaking to my friend Ailee yesterday about my gear selection for DD PLD's. She did not approve, as most of the PLD's I know, of the suggestion that they should have to macro in gear for TP Build and WS. This, I suggest, is the lunacy I mentioned in yesterday's entry to which PLD's have succumb. They believe that different sets of gear are for DD's, and a PLD should never have to subjugate themselves to such a disgrace. I will forgive this because of the brain rattling that most PLD's have received on the way to 75. But there is something I can not accept.

Yes, Ailee, 100k IS NOT THAT MUCH TO PAY FOR GOOD DD GEAR. XD In reality, the set ups I suggested yesterday are not that expensive if they are done at the cheap end. PLD's need experience points like everyone else, in fact they need it more than a regular player. They need to find a way to get that xp like everyone else. Complaining that you dont want to pay 100k for a piece of gear will fall on deaf ears. Don't be gimp, and people will want to xp with you instead of finding something else to do.

Also some of that gear is from Assaults, and speaking of that, I want to do more of them. I very much like the Amir gear, at first I thought it was mostly useless and now that I look back over it, it appears to be much better than I originally thought. Also the Pahluwan gear looks good for my future Corsair, which I will be unlocking tonight. So I am going to be uping the number of Assaults I am doing, maybe setting up a definite schedule for when I will be doing them. If anyone is interested in doing them send me a tell in game. I am going to open Corsair tonight, and then I need to focus on leveling my RNG for my SAM and future COR.

4 comments

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Apparently Dynamis translated into English means "Time to be a late, lazy dickhead."

Posted by Ringthree at 10:23 AM

What is the best way to predict what will not drop in Dynamis? Check what I have winning bid on. That will ensure that it will not drop. We did Bastok yesterday, and didn't get one AF drop until almost half way through. That is just ridiculous for Bastok. But not winning the lots may actually be good for me, but I will get to that after a nice little warm and fuzzy rant.

What is even more ridiculous than no drops in Bastok, is how some people in Obsidian think they can get away with always being late for runs, or bidding people up and sniping bids for absolutely no reason, or not paying attention at all during runs. Its upsetting to the point of digital violence. It is the worst when all of these things are rolled into one late, sniping, do-nothing package of stupidity. And we have several of these people now. Learn some respect people! Think of someone else besides yourself! I dont care if you are late or stupidity or a dick on your own time, but when it hurts other people then you are just plain rude.

Obsidian used to be THE NA Dynamis LS. Now its just another (although still very good) LS, because of its open door policy. This used to be good policy when the only people that were high enough to join were also dedicated enough to get to actually attain a level high enough to participate in Dynamis properly. But now, as the game has gotten older and the average level of the player base has rised, the amount of idiots has also rised in level almost by default. In response Obsidian has slowed its entries, but slowing its entries does nothing to sift out the stupid and the lazy. In fact, it just means that the stupid will have a proportionally larger impact on the LS. Many good suggestions have been made to fix this, for example, letting people into the LS automatically if they already have Outlands access, while limiting the number of entries for those that have no Dynamis experience. Another suggestion, of fighting the Dynamis Lord on every Xarcabard run, was well received too. But these things are just lost in the shuffle of a LS that has something like 20 leaders.

For the love of God, please stop the stupid!

Also while in the vein of asking for the love of God, if you are going to come to Dynamis as NIN, then you should, you know, maybe be expected to, oh I dont know, TANK. This is what we have come to in this game, people that play tanking jobs not wanting to tank. I spent more time tanking as DRG/NIN last night than our secondary tank. And yep, you guessed it, it was the same guy that is consistantly late and loves to bid snipe.

Back to the run. It was actually good that I did not win any of my bids, because I believe that it would have put me back into second place on Koga Chainmail, and the second place person is that same, always late, bid sniping, non-tanking NIN. So screw him, even if it means that I can't get other gear, I dont care.

At least someone made out pretty well. Vesp got his Melee Gaiters, even though there was some confusion before the run on the high bid. They were the first piece to drop. Vesp wanted these very badly because he actually has a countertank set up unlike many other MNKs. He was rather happy to get them.

DRK dropped next, which Borin had 4 points on and didn't really want, but he lost the lot against someone else that bid 4 points. But luck was against Borin on this day, and we managed to get another set to drop, which he had to lot on because he bid for them.
After that, THF and RDM dropped. The person that got the THF piece would not shut up about it, constantly talking about it until one or two people started joking them about it and how it is not a very good piece, but this person was too blindly self-centered to even notice they were the butt of the joke. Some of the people in Obsidian anymore... /sigh.

Now, dont get me wrong, Obsidian is still a very, very good Dynamis LS, but the bad apples are making this so annoying for the good players that its almost not worth it anymore. The leaders need to make some changes so that stupid people start listening to them rather than having the run of the LS.

*Deep breaths, deep breaths*

Ahhh, much better.

I actually left Dynamis after the boss (we are allowed to do that, and its generally what happens after most city runs), but I found out that more than the normal amount of people stayed and I wish I had. Oh well, nothing I could do after I had already dropped my glass. So I headed back to Whitegate and started going over the AH looking for things of interest. Still no Hagun on the AH. >.< I then started looking at Cursed Kabuto, but I didn't really want to spend the gil on it yet. So I bid something that I thought would be way too low. Yeah, not low enough. Oops. And it dropped me below a million gil, which I hate to be below. But the Damascus Ingot that dropped from our Morgenstern run had sold and Omoi gave me my cut which got me back over a million gil. I should also have some more money in the Versus bank.

It was already getting pretty late so Omoi and I decided to go get some WS points out of the way on her Morgenstern (instead of farming for Water Clusters, barely got out of that one ^.^) then head to bed. So we went to WS point burn central, Kuftal Tunnel, and fought some crabs with our NPC's. Here is my NPC buddy: Lets just say that I am not the nicest buddy to my NPC, as he has only once been out for the entire time that I have called him. And tonight would not be any different. So we happily went about about fighting crabs for WS points:
A wonderfully happy scene until a mean dragon decided to run around and freaking EAT MY FACE. Bye Zenji! I will see you next time when I get you murdered or something like that.

Now, I wanted to talk about how PLD's can easily operate in end-game burn parties and the barriers to that happening. The first issue is the equipment set up of the PLD's for burn parties. /NIN is mandatory, for dual wield and shadows, and a Suppanomimi is perfect for this. Even if you dont have uber gear, definitely start with a Company Sword and a Joyeuse (or a Justice Sword). If you can't get your hands on one of those nice off-hand weapons then just find an Espadon and use that. Now I have noticed that after 75 levels of getting their heads bashed in, PLD's have lost the ability to understand that 90%+ accuracy is what you are aiming for and that 60% is not good, indeed it is crappy. So lets look at the TP build for a PLD.

Head: Optical Hat or Walhara Turban.
Neck: Chivalrous Chain (Merman's is a fine alternative)
Earring: Brutal Earring/Suppanomimi (Alternatives include Assualt, Fowling, Coral)
Body: Haubergeon
Hands: A ton of options including Dusk, Homam for the high end, but also Tarasque for not that much and the Barbarian Mitts as a free alternative.
Rings: Sniper's, Jaeger, Venerer's. You need more accuracy than you think, especially if you are going to eat meat, which you will do with your A+ Sword Skill.
Back: Amemet (plenty of better, more expensive alternatives).
Waist: Life Belt, Swift Belt, Potent Belt.
Legs: Again, Dusk and Homam are high end, but Royal Knight's Breeches are just fine for this slot.
Feet: A ton of good, but hard to get stuff like Dusk, Homam, and Amir. Alternatives include Rutter Sabatons (free but slow is icky) and even Tiger gear.

WS Gear:
Head: Sipahi Turban, Optical Hat, Hecatomb.
Neck: Chivalrous Chain (Spike Necklace as the alternative)
Earrings: +STR Earrings if you want to pay for them, but its not necessary.
Body: Haubergeon, Hecatomb.
Hands: Sipahi Dastanas, Gigas Bracelets, Hecatomb.
Rings: STR Rings.
Back: Amemet (and higher alternatives).
Waist: Warwolf Belt, Potent Belt.
Legs: AF2 is actually the best here, but Royal Knight's Breeches are just fine.
Feet: Hecatomb and Rutter Sabatons stand out as the best, Heroic Boots are ok too.

Now with that gear you will be on par with other DD's of that level, like Ninja's.

Now PLD's this is what you have to remember. On a TP build you want +attack, +accuracy and +haste, you do not want +STR. That is only for WS's. Its a waste of a slot. And I dont want to hear about how getting DD gear is expensive. You have it really pretty easy all the way through all of your levels, and can even wear your AF all the way to 75. The only thing that is moderately expensive is the Adaman gear and I know that it is not that great, so its not much of an excuse. If you are not willing to spend the money like everyone else then you will be able to burn like everyone else.

Things going for PLD's in a burn party:
1. A good weaponskill. +Crit hit chance on a multihit Weaponskill? That is what all DD's wish for. Vorpal Blade is actually about the same as Blade: Jin and with a higher base DMG weapon, with STR being the only modifier.
2. The ability to take a few hits and actually help out other people in the party. An occassional Flash, Cure and most importantly a Cover can keep the chain going.
3. STR is the second highest natural skill of PLD's. They are going to do good damage.

Things going against PLD's in a burn party:
1. Elitest perspections of the roles of people in the game. These people are stupid and haven't even thought of people outside of WAR, NIN, MNK in a burn party. In my own personal opinion, PLD would be the next in line for this kind of party. They will do as much damage as a NIN if they are properly equiped, and they serve the same exact function as the NIN in the burn party.
2. The stubborn nature of most PLD's. They dont want to spend the money to get the gear to be a good burn party member. They fear running out of MP. They dont like burn parties. Whatever, if you want to stop deleveling, get over it. If you want more MP, get the Sanction Refresh, get a Parade Gorget, or just get over not having MP, you dont need it as much as you think you do.

Yes, that is right, there is nothing going against PLDs being used in burn parties besides people's perspections of the roles of PLDs in xp parties.

PLD's have an A+ in Sword and with a Suppanomimi, they are likely able to use meat full time in burn parties and have very high accuracy if they use a TP build instead of a WS build to gain TP (which I see all the time, orz).

0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)