Well, that may have been a nice break for you, but definitely not for me. But on with the show. Don't know really where to start so I will just start with the biggest thing first. I got a Black Belt. More like, Omoi got me a Black Belt. The conditions for which are actually quite hilarious at times, but mostly just cool. She worked with some friend in BBQ to get the items, mostly nefariously and with great subterfuge. LOL I must say I didn't even know about it most of the time, and she could have done it almost without my knowledge if Versus people hadn't spied her in some HNM camps with me and wondered what she was doing. She got the first two items without my knowledge basically. She got the Behemoth Tongue helping BBQ kill a King Behemoth and the Wyrm Beard from Nidhogg that again she assisted BBQ to kill. A large portion of the BBQ members where really great about helping her to get the items for me, and I really appreciate what they did. You can tell how much Omoi is liked in general when you can see the general acceptance of her just about anywhere, even in a competitive place like an HNM camp. The final item is the funniest part though, the Adamantoise Egg. For this Omoi camped it herself, but as no one wants to kill poor Adamantoise, it popped and no one was there to kill it, so she called out Samuraisoldier, Potpressure and Eternalpain and they all killed it together. Apparently, on the initial pull there was a comedy of errors, but in the end they killed it and it dropped the egg! Incredibly luckily. :) With all this done, I was able to get my Black Belt! Before that though, I would like state my great appreciation for everyone that helped: Omoikitte obviously, for being super-awesome in general, and in this case for going beyond reason and sanity to do something incredibly nice for me; Samuraisoldier, Potpressure and Eternalpain for helping Omoi and keeping this under wraps for so long; Zelgades for helping Omoi in general, and putting himself out quite a bit to assist her, and for doing a great job solo tanking Nidhogg for a while there; Vagus and the rest of the BBQ LS that let me lot on the pieces, I really do appreciate it especially considering it was a favor to Omoi to even let her get me in to lot the items (even though I wasn't there for half the pieces, LOL). To everyone that helped and assisted in anyway I really appreciate it! With my three items and very little time before I left for my trip for work, I headed over to the Tenshodo to do some item trading and some world traveling. 
I talked to the requisite people and traded the requisite items and then when I was trading the last item to the door I managed to some how kill all of the USB ports on my computer... o.o; I ended up having to restart in the middle of the CS, fearing that I had lost the item. :( But in the end after I got back on after a hard restart of my computer every thing was fine, the CS ended and I traded my Brown Belt for a spiffy new Black Belt! 
I am so pleased, hehehe! I punch things super hard and super fast now! I am giddy just thinking about it right now. I must have thanked everyone that helped especially Zelgades and Omoi at least a 1000 times! I could go on and on... but on with the show.
So, what is the first thing that a person gets a Black Belt does? Level WHM of course! 
I actually am finally starting to like WHM, but the problem I had for the longest time is that it is not engaging enough, and I would find my mind wandering, so I ended up acting like a RDM half the time. LOL The only problem is that after about level 27 none of my enfeebles would land on anything, and that sucked until I got Erase which at least let me do something while I was waiting for someone to take more damage. The march to 37 got pretty slow at the end, but I did get it. 
Now, the reason for picking up WHM again? Well, there is that promise to level RDM, but for now, the real reason is to level SCH, which I just unlocked and got to level 8. 
Omoi, Izman and I got to level a little bit together... it wasn't pretty. 
Subligars were flying, back handing sheep, moogle hats galore. All I can say is that I had pants on for the entirety, and this is what Izman had to say: 
Anyway... LOL Now for some wrap up and some weirdness. First, I wanted to show the picture of Ninjafox's new Skadi feet. 
Next, right before I left for my trip, a couple of us did a little bit of exploring in the new zones, and I found this interest shot in Grauberg. 
The Crag of Dem can be seen in the distance, and the interesting thing is that there is a blocked path there. Perhaps we will get Konstacht Highlands in the past? Who knows, but I knew there were reports of being able to see the Crags in the new zones, but I didn't know there was a blocked path between them. Third, a game glitch or have the Enkidu even invaded the skys under Tu'Lia? The Enkidu conspiracy begins! 
Finally, I got a shot of the most elusive NM in the entire game, only witnessed once and I have the only screenshot of it ever taken! We tried to take it down up it wiped us in an instant! Fear the mighty Buttersheep! 
See you tomorrow.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Omoi saves! The rest of you take 8d10 damage.
Friday, December 21, 2007
This is what (Omoi and) I have been doing all this time. :)
Omoi and I have been working on this for about two weeks now! I am going to post it on the BGwiki when I get home tonight! :)
I hope that everyone finds it helpful, it was fun to do even if I drove Omoi crazy! :)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Salvage piece #2
Finally got our second win on LBC. ^.^/ The fight went very well even considering we got at least 3 different Homing Missiles while tanking not counting the others that may have gotten off while the mages were kiting. LOL But the nice thing was this this was the first time we got a win after a Homing Missile. LBC was still trying to be insane though, it used 3 TP moves back-to-back. This isn't your normal below 25% TP spam. This is 3 TP moves done without any delay in between, not even one single attack. Actually, as it turned out it wasn't so bad because as it gets that low it can hit for more than the AoE moves. I felt that I was doing a much better job of tanking in general, and Smoosh did a great job with tanking on his first LBC tanking ever. Eternalpain was absolutely awesome, providing something like the last 10% of the mobs damage and provided a ton of support throughout the fight. Skur and Omoi did a great job as always on healing and keeping Smoosh and I up even after the second and third Homing Missiles where everything went crazy. Crimson and Ninjafox were kept incredibly busy but even with a lack of MND cells, they were still landing debuffs with regularity, and paralyze was kicking its ass for most of the fight. Ailee amazingly didn't want to kill anyone after the run, so it had to go well. ^.^/ LOL She was great, dealing with a thousand and one things at the same time, even if she claims that BRD is an easy job. Akanea as usual was a large part of our damage just from SATA'ed WS's and helped to recover from those Homing Missiles, while Hellz did the same in a smaller way but helped out a ton with Angon making everyone else that much more effective. But finally, I wanna say Iz really saved the day, he was awesome at back up tanking, one time saving Skur while he was kiting and three times quickly collecting LBC so that Smoosh and I could get hate back quickly. We had a ton of time, and by the time we got everything pooled and ready to leave we didn't even see the 10 minute warning. I am thinking that next time we do this we will rush through the first couple of floors then try to do the 10 Archaic Gear and if we get the Dormant Rampart to spawn we will do that also, depending on time.
Our drops even completed a set! Ninjafox turned in his pieces last night for his Skadi's Jambeaux after we got a set of Freyr's Ledelsens from LBC last night, 
so he will be able to pick them up today. He gt his Freya's Ledelsens just recently from Archaic Chariot and I have no idea where he got the 15 feet but we have never even done Dekka so it wasn't with us. Crlmsonking got the Ea's dastanas so all she will need is a good drop on Archaic Chariot also to get the two hardest parts for her hands. 
15's are so easy to get that I don't even consider them in planning until after we get the 25 and 35 for the set. Can't wait for Saturday for our next run! :)
As I mentioned above, LBC was broken again last night, but it isn't just LBC, its many different mobs. I used to think that it was just Impossible to Gauge mobs, but this just happened this weekend. 
Yeah, there are no other actions between those two TP moves, and they happen back to back. This is not normal, and most of the time I think that people don't notice it, or think nothing of it but when you are instantly killed by two Firespit's you notice it pretty quick. There is something really messed up in the game mechanics, and I can't believe they haven't noticed it yet. One of these days it's going to happen at a big mob and in a place where other people can witness it, and there will be an outcry. This is all before you consider the absolute ridiculousness of Despot right now. You can't even tank it right now, you have to bind, gravity and nuke.
In other news we did two Early Bird Catches the Wyrm KK99's yesterday. It was our first run as an LS and we pretty much destroyed it. :) I was surprised with how easy it was actually. We chain-stunned it once it started flying but I don't even know if we needed to do that as we were able to do the requisite damage to bring it down in time. I don't see why we need to even two hour it next time. We may need another healer but the amount of damage we did in such a small amount of time was well more than enough. And we didn't even get off a skillchain either time we did the fight, Hellz missed on the first one (LOL) and Glacian got Terrorized mid-way through his two-hour skillchain. Anyway, we didn't get much at all in the way of decent drops. >.< I think the best drop that we got was an Unsho. We didn't even get any of the good crafting drops. Kinda hurts the incentive to do KS99 when there are fewer and fewer good decent drops in the pool. Anyway, in classic Versus style while everyone is up and happy, I am dead on the ground. 
Now, those pictures I should have had earlier but didn't put up! First is Sam's lust-worthy Askar Korazin. 
Second is our double leg drop from the last Omega. Raikoh and Smoosh, congrats on your new PLD pants! LOL 
Third, our first Jailer of Hope, which dropped nothing of importance. LOL 
I think I will be able to talk about the project I have been working on tomorrow, lets see how much I get done and how it looks before I post about it.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
New Stuff.
I was right about Mr. A. Nothing. Not a single thing. Truly pathetic that someone could do that then not stand up for it. Ringthree 1, Mr. A 0.
Anyway, things have been going well recently. Well, except for in Salvage, where my group is having a rather difficult time in defeating LBC. We have done it once, but for one reason or another we have been unable to beat it again. It's getting pretty frustrating. The last loss was because we didn't really have enough healing. Every time we get it to about it 30% or less and then it uses a Homing Missile and a mage or two ends up dead and we don't have enough healing to finish up the fight. Seeing LBC at ~15% and timing out several times is just getting frustrating. The good news is that we have radically improved the amount of time it takes us to get through the rest of the Remnant so we have the time to kill the 10 gears to nerf LBC, but since the very first run we killed all 10, we haven't been able to repeat it. The good thing though is that I think everyone understands the importance of killing the gears fast now. Tonight's run should be better, I think we will easily be able to take down all 10 gears AND LBC. No hate reset = assured win, especially if we can get two WHM to go.
Last night Samuraisoldier got an Askar Korazin! That thing is damn nice, I must say. With full Store TP merits, you can get a 6 hit set up with just Rajas Ring, Brutal Earring and Chiv. Chain on TP build. Then you can use anything for WS's. With this you can maintain 20% haste throughout TP build. The only problem I would have with this is that you are giving up 14~15 Accuracy from the Haub (or in my case +17~18 Accuracy from the Haub +1) which may be problematic depending on the situation. If I ever get an Askar Korazin, I would probably finally give up my Katana merits for Great Katana merits for two reasons. First, I would need the extra accuracy from the merits to make up for some of that which is lost from the Askar Korazin. Second, I don't need the Katana merits really, LOL. They are very nice for when I use NIN on Colibri, but I don't do that very often anymore. I usually go as SAM or MNK for those parties. Everywhere else I use Sushi on my NIN for XP or use meat in other places where accuracy isn't in demand.
If I have the calculations correct, you will need 47 Store TP during TP build to be able to not use the Askar Korazin during WS's. Now the problem with this scenario is what happens when I finally get a Justice Torque? This knocks down the Store TP during TP build to 46, which means that for WS's you will have to use something more than the normal Rajas Ring and Brutal Earring. So that may mean giving up the Rutter Sabatons for Hachiman Sune-ate for WS's. At least until I get Usukane Sune-ate. I love to dream don't I? LOL Usukane Sune-ate are total sex and man I want a set of those.
I am working on something neat right now, but I don't want to disclose it before I get it done, but in the next couple of days you should have something new and pretty sweet seen here.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Anonymous said...
LOL, Well, I have my first truly negative comment left on the blog. Shall we discuss? Lets. This was left yesterday, by our aforementioned friend Mr. Anonymous:
you do not need Bahamut 1 to do Ouryu you fucking retards.Now the first half of this incredibly succinct and illuminating comment does provide some semi-useful information. I, in fact, did not know the minor detail that Bahamut version 1 was not required before doing the Ouryu fight. Does this mean that we, as an LS, did not need to do Bahamut version 1 for the members of my LS? Hardly. It is still required for two future events, Apocalypse Nigh and for Bahamut version 2. Thus, the need to do Bahamut version 1 for the LS would have still existed if I had known this fact ahead of time or not. I have no problem admitting that Mr. A is correct in his assertion that Bahamut 1 was not required to do the Ouryu fight, no matter how completely irrelevant and useless his comment may have been. It is always nice to gather new information because it may be helpful in the future for planning events. So, Mr. A, thank you very much for that. But Mr. A, your vision (along with your grammar skills) appears to be incredibly limited, almost to the point of being blind. Bahamut v.1 may not be necessary to do Ouryu, but I ask you Mr. A, what are we doing Ouryu for if it is not to move onto Bahamut v. 2? Are we to believe that you think our goal should be to collect Tutelary's and DRK JSE materials? Is there a distinct reason that we should not do Bahamut v. 1 first? I know that you can do Bahamut v. 1 right before Bahamut v. 2, but Mr. A, is there a reason that you are so adamant about providing your information? Is there a reason that we should not do the Bahamut v. 1 first? Of course there is not, but I am sure that if Mr. A's level of intelligence can be equated with his grammar skills that this thought is well beyond their mental capacity.
Now, lets focus on the second half of Mr. A's comment; and I even have to use "comment" loosely because that string of words barely fits the term. "you fucking retards" is not a very nice thing to say. Honestly, if Mr. A had just left the piece of informational material about the requirements for the Ouryu fight I would have happily accepted it and might even have been able to use it beneficially. But, I sense a tiny bit of anger in Mr. A's comment. This anger could come from any place really. Perhaps they are a disgruntled former member of Versus? The plural nature of "retards" suggests this might be the case, but again the elementary verbal skill displayed in the comment does not give me a lot of faith in any kind of grammatical interpretation. It could be a reader of any of the forums that I generally post on, where in many cases, bluster and herd mentality is favored over thought and reasoning. I definitely do not want to group and tag all of the posters in the forums with this idea, but those that are capable of having a decent discussion will do so, and those that can not end up leaving comments like Mr. A's. It is never the intelligent posters on those forums that cause problems, but rather those that cling to the intelligent posters that they admire and take their points as gospel without independent thought or really any understanding of the arguments being made. I enjoy forums because in many cases I can engage others in the constructive practice of evaluating differing views, strategies or gear selection. Also, it could be anyone that I have personally angered or wronged over the years. Even though I have done very little to intentionally harm anyone in this game, I know there are some people will dislike me for whatever reason that they have fabricated for themselves to justify their anger and divert their attention from the issues that are their true concerns. I suppose I tend to be a lightning rod for this anger, and I accept this fact just as I accept other inevitabilities that I do not like in a world that I do not have control over, even if I wish it would not be that way. Finally, it could just be a blog stalker that truly thinks that not knowing the irrelevant factoid about the requirements of the CoP Wyrm BCNMs makes me and whoever else they choose to dislike that associates with me "fucking morons."
My quick psychoanalysis? Mr. A is likely not the kind of person that makes discoveries such as the requisites for these fights on their own. Generally, people like that take actions to provide the information because they are the kind of people that will take the lead to find the information first. So, likely, this person is just a person that tends to glean from others what they can, but their own inferiority issues forces them to then use that information to make them feel superior over others. Often times this kind of person will even claim that they were the first to something or find some bit of information, when they know that they are not, just to further prop up their own lagging self-worth. This kind of person will tend to let others do the hard work for them while being greedy and selfish about the rewards they incur, and then claim the work of others as their own. They are likely to be rather boastful and full of bluster but in the end very needy for attention, all the while fearful of the repercussions of their actions when others are not around to validate them. Also, it is more than likely that Mr. A has a small penis, but hey, Freud said that, not me.
My analysis could be completely wrong, but it was fun to engage in a bit of conjecture.
So, to you Mr. A, I leave you with three thoughts.
1. If you are going to leave moronic comments, I would suggest that you at least make them relevant and insightful, or at the very least, use punctuation and grammar above the skill level of an 8 year-old.
2. It's probably not a good idea to leave moronic comments in a place where you have little to no rejoinder. You are only setting yourself up for a fall, as I get to spend a whole blog entry making you look like an utter douche bag with a small penis.
3. I may or may not be correct about your penis size, but if you make moronic comments and don't sign your name, then I am positive that you are a gigantic fucking pussy.
Perhaps next time you decide to post the diarrhea that spews from your mouth you could at very least make it poignant. Hell, yesterday I was complaining about game mechanics, and even the mentally retarded would have latched onto that to leave an obnoxious comment. "Fail Moar," "Learn to play," or a plain old "You suck because you can't beat LBC so you are blaming the game," would have been a much better criticism than pointing out the most incredibly irrelevant point of the entire post.
I am now eagerly awaiting the wonderful responses from Mr. A which will likely include nit picks about how I have some typographical errors in my post or that I must be gay because I am obsessed with talking about their penis. Perhaps a tirade in which they proclaim their encyclopedic knowledge of the game, how they have soloed every HNM in the game and how I must suck because I have not done the same. Or maybe we will see nothing at all because this is a place were they have no friends to validate themselves.
What we will probably not see is Mr. A apologizing for leaving the moronic comment, admitting that their comment was so irrelevant as to define inane, or signing their name.
In the end though, I have to thank you Mr. A because I was on the game for less than 10 minutes last night and I was going to have just about nothing good to post today. Without you, this post wouldn't have been half as exciting. Thanks! ^.^/
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Salvage hates me, and DO NOT USE SOMEPAGE.COM
SOMEPAGE.COM HAS A TROJAN SET TO AUTOLOAD ON ITS FRONT PAGE! DO NOT USE SOMEPAGE.COM. You should be OK if you do not use Internet Explorer, but just in case. You should do an extensive virus scan to see if you have been infected.
Wanted to get out their first. Somepage.com has a trojan set to auto-download if you view the site on IE 6 or 7. It uses a Real Player exploit. For more information go to this thread on the Blue Gartr forum, and to help fix any problem that you may have already go to this thread also on the Blue Gartr Forum.
Ok, with that out of the way, I have to say that there is something very wrong with the game right now. It is inconsistent and I have no idea how to replicate it but some mobs that con as Impossible to Gauge are having issues with damage and TP use. I had previously witnessed this in Limbus on the birds floor in Apollyon and with Seiryu and Despot. The higher damage is tough but you can deal with that, but last night we have seen what others have seen on Long-Bowed Chariot. It was using TP moves far more often than it should AND it was using them back-to-back. Last night we had three WHM, 2 RDM and a BRD and they still couldn't keep up with the amount of damage that the Long-Bowed Chariot was doing. We ended up wiping at 13% with this. There were several times when I had several seconds left on both Ichi and Ni just because it was using the TP moves so quickly. This had never happened to us before but others have reported it, and they reported it before our run on Sunday which had a normal LBC. So, this problem is not consistent and it is not predictable. :( Salvage hates me.
Versus also did a large Bahamut v.1 run last night and We made the naked run out to Bahamut's island and luckily got a wyvern's scale on our first kill. 
Completing Bahamut will let everyone be able to do Apocalypse Nigh and more importantly get access to the Ouryu fight. We are sitting on two Cloud Evokers right now, but those really wont last that long. So as an LS we are going to need to start spamming ENM's for those Cloud Evokers. 
As for Bahamut, the fight was kind of weird. The tanks pulled it to the side so that it would decrease the risk of a errant Mega Flare, but it was a sloping side, and I think that it caused a weird problem where Bahamut was able to use its flail move without there being anyone behind it. After a while, and a few positioning adjustments, we had everything under control. Our tanks did a great job in the fight, and didn't even die to Giga Flare. I went as the back up tank and even got to do a little bit of melee DD, but I did take a Mega Flare while meleeing and got taken out of the fight, LOL. 
Great job as the back up tank, but it didn't matter because neither Yukenado or Raikoh really had much of a problem at all with damage even with the Flares. So we should be looking at an Ouryu fight soon, and I might be looking for Earth Resist gear. LOL
I wanted to toss in a few of the screenshots from Ultima the other day that I forgot to upload before. First, we had a weird thing happen at the end of the fight. We were fighting it in our normal place, with mages up on the ledge and the tanks and melee on the small ramp. This is the place that we killed it (actually Jess killed it with a Drain LOL) but it jumped to the center of the room and died exactly on top of where the chest spawns. 
I thought that was a bit strange. The second thing about Ultima is the rewards! And here is the screenshot of Raikoh and Crlmsonking in their fancy new incredibly red pants! 
And for today you get the extra bonus of some of Elfie's french humor, and apparently my new job under his tutelage. 
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Safety or speed.
So, we did a Proto-Ultima last night which was a solid success. Two Nashira legs for Crlmsonking and Raikoh. I was thinking about it and I believe that we have a decidedly different strategy than I believe most people have for this and most other fights. Versus, in general, tends to focus on safety in fights rather than speed. Proto-Ultima is a perfect example. When you fight Proto-Ultima you are given 60 minutes to do the fight, which is apparently just enough time to kill it with fully stacked DoT's. LOL So I see no real reason to rush through this fight. Last night we used a set up that we are very comfortable with, and that uses the huge amount of time we have available to our advantage. We have four tanks, 3 PLD/NIN and 1 NIN/DRK. The PLD/NIN's obviously do the heavy lifting, while the NIN/DRK is an extra stun until they are needed to tank. We have 2 or 3 WHM, 2 or 3 BLM and SMN, a couple of melee DD, a BRD or 2, then as many RDM/DRK as we can cram into the alliance. Stuns make this fight incredibly more bearable as Proto-Ultima uses its nasty TP moves very quickly so they are hard to stun, but even a late stun can help with recovery. Mostly, though, the extra stuns are very helpful for stunning Dissipation. Dissipation is a lucky stun at best, it goes off so quickly that even if a RDM/DRK is paying perfect attention they are not going to be able to stun it. So instead we just have everyone stun right as Proto-Ultima gets to the HP mark when it will use Dissipation. Even when you are doing this and having 5 or 6 stuns land it can still get Dissipation off because it is so fast, but we were able to stun 3 of the 4 Dissipations last night. This saves on MP in a myriad of ways, including healing for the tanks when they are Terrorized and the rebuffs that have to be reapplied to the tanks after the full Dispel. In general, we only keep the BLMs in a stun order then have everyone else just free stun as needed. This is because most everyone else that has Stun also has another role in the fight; the RDMs need to do a plethora of other standard RDM things, and the NIN/DRK may be called in for tanking which will mess with the stun order.
Now, I know many people would say that we don't need that many tanks or that many stuns and if we had more damage we could finish the fight more quickly reducing the risk of running low on MP. But I believe this is more of an excuse for the impatient rather than a good strategy, as MP with that many healers and refreshers is never really a concern. We definitely have a longer fight. Considering the normal 5 minutes of last minute comments and prep right before engaging it takes us about 30-35 minutes to go from 100% to 0%. Considering that the last 19% involves a lot of running around and with Physical and Mana Shield can vary the kill time by a large margin, I would say that this is a pretty decent clip through most of the fight. We do get small lags right before the time when Dissipation is set to go off because people are getting ready to stun, but outside of that the damage we inflict is consistent and constant. So why rush really? Our goal is to survive the worst part of the fight without having to deal with major problems, and if major problems happen, to adapt and move on quickly. The speed kill for Proto-Ultima often leaves people without a resort once the Citadel Buster phase is entered. With 4 tanks the only real risk of something bad happening is the errant Armor Buster on an overzealous mage. Even then it is something that is easily handled while recovering. As long as everyone does their job well there is no real risk in this fight at all, and in fact I would say that it is even easier than Proto-Omega.
The reason that I mention is that I tend to see the idea that speed for killing things is better than safety, and this is antithetical for me to the goals of most everything I do in the game. This does not mean that speed is unimportant, of course, but that it needs to be balanced with being able to actually win the fights that we do. If speed gets people killed and increases the chance of a loss then it is not the best course of action. It can also work against other important values. For example, TP burning Kirin, when done correctly, can be both fast and safe, but this requires a lot of support and preparation. The problem is when speed overcomes safety as a concern. When we have TP burned Kirin, we have had people ready to pull the minis immediately and deal with them fast enough that they do not become a concern for the killing alliance. I have seen this done wrong several times, and my conclusion is that if people become more concerned with the speed of doing the event, instead of actually killing the mob, then mistakes can happen. This is outside of the fact that events like these tend to be pretty exclusionary to people and that is again against the reasons that we do events. It's not just for the gear, but more so that everyone can enjoy themselves while doing the events. Events, to me, are not just a means to an ends, but more about enjoying the journey.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Getting from here to there.
It really is all about how you get there. Now, I have two completely disparate thoughts that follow the same line of thought. The first is bad. Recently there has been a RDM in Sky that has been soloing Despot mobs... all day, like 24/7. I can't for the life of me remember their name now, but I think that either they are cheating. They managed to get from Despot to Zipacna last night and have Zipacna at 30% by the time that Versus got from Despot to Zipacna. So either they are RMT or they are someone that has deemed their actions OK because it serves them best. I am going with RMT for now, but I have noticed an increasing trend in the way RMT is done now. And I have also noticed a shift in NA-style RMT to JP-style RMT. Let me explain this, because its not just conjecture on my part, I have discussed this with several people about the styles of RMT. NA players, in general, just buy gil, and whether they are ashamed of it or not, I think they do it for plausible deniability. A lot of what SE has done to combat RMT has worked against the NA-sytle RMT, in that they have killed off the farmers and high-end RMTs. But now we are seeing the JP-style RMT flourish. These are the RMT that are hired to spawn and/or fight NM's for gear that a person wants. It appears that they don't really even farm for the spawn gems anymore, instead they just fight the mobs for the potential drops. Apparently, there is little shame involved in this on the JP side, while there would be for NAs. You can see this in the solitary people that solo Despot and Zipacna all day for the gems without a LS pearl on, or the people that sit AFK in parties with the RMT at Kreutzet. NA and JP, either one, both, they all piss me off. It's a cheaters way to get from here to there.
The second part of getting from here to there is completely different, but it is a discussion of a journey, this time the rough road. We have gotten pretty good at fighting Long-Bowed Chariot now, the problem that we have had on two potential win runs is Homing Missile. Honestly, this is my fault because I should have planned ahead, but last night we got LBC to 10% and would have easily beaten it if it wasn't for a late Homing Missile. So, to get from here to there, I am instilling one simple rule for myself. When planning the run, we need a back up tank. Its that easy. Preferably a PLD or NIN, but anyone with Provoke or a quick hate-get and enough defense to live long enough for Rygar and I to get hate back can handle it. It was just upsetting watching a great run and the potential for completing up to two different Salvage pieces flushed away because I didn't plan ahead. I have to say that Rygar and I are very good a moving when needed, and the mages are awesome at getting us unbound very quickly, but sometimes its just inevitable. We also didn't get any STR cells last night. Not a single one the entire run. LOL Well, it wasn't that bad but its upsetting because we could have killed it faster. So we are learning how to get from here to there, and we are doing it right.
Outside of today's theme we have some neat goings on for me. I have finally, after two years of doing Sky, won a lot on Neptunal Abj. Hands. LOL We had a really good Byakko's with N. Hands, Byakko's Haidate and a Behemoth Hide, and then a second decent one with D. Legs and another Behemoth Hide. We have finally seen a decent turn around on Haidate drops, which is good because people have been waiting a while for it. LOL We have another Byakko set and if we get at least one more Despot this week we will be able to do another two Byakko's on Sunday. Also, I was able to get a set of Faith Baghnakhs from Sea last week, which I believe I mentioned but I didn't have the screenshot for it. 
And finally, don't die around Taru's... they do bad things to your face. :(
Friday, December 07, 2007
Borin picking up his brother finally helped us.
If Borin hadn't gone to pick up his brother we would have wasted a Salvage run. LOL Just as Borin got back and started running out to Bhaflau Remnants we got the system message. Now that sucked because it had been a really good day before that. LOL I have no macros right now because I switched back to my desktop which I love! So, I was running around in Sea when I got home with random assortments of gear so that I could survive a hit or two from Faith on my SAM while still being able to hit it. It didn't go so well. LOL Oh well, it is nice that we have changed our schedule to better integrate Sea. I am looking forward to it! :)
Anyway, I got to make a few more macro sets, and I have to say that I really like the huge number of macro sets that we get now. I used to have to switch around a bunch of macro button just so that I could adjust to certain subs. Now, I can have 10 separate macro sets just for my SAM! :) And I need them. I have made 6 already, 2 each for WAR, THF and NIN sub. One for Soboro and one for Hagun for each sub job. This makes things so much easier for me, as I only have to flip to a different macro set instead of swapping around macro buttons and I have been able to perfectly customize my TP build and WS macro sets for each situations and even for the different foods that I am eating. It makes setting up macros fun.
Now, as for the expansion as it sits right now, I really haven't done much of the content, and I think that is because I haven't really found it that compelling as of right now, but I have also been very busy so I have only gotten to do a few things. I think that I will be able to put some more time into the expansion in the coming weeks. But even looking at other comments about the expansion it appears that Campaign was the main focus of the new areas, with little outside of that. To me that is nice for some people, but if I want XP I can get it in a party. I was just shocked at the few new rewards for people in the new expansion. Where is the new sweet gear? LOL Oh well, I will be waiting for the next update to see if it has anything more in-depth or of more challenge.
Well, this weekend should be some more Salvage and if we are lucky we might be looking at a few more completed Salvage pieces. :)
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Grasshopper. (I'm beginning to see a trend here.) (Laziness Part Duex)
Two skipped posts in a week is bad news. :(
Lets get to business. Yesterday's pictures were interesting one's but nothing like the ones that I posted today, so lets get those out of the way quickly. First, I got to 16 on Dancer, 
which really isn't much of an accomplishment and I also mentioned it before. My next major accomplishment will level 20 where I will get my first "Steps" move and I will be able to switch my sub to NIN and use two daggers for TP gain. Ultimately, I believe the faster swings and higher skill from the daggers will better facilitate TP build, and sure the shadows are nice, but if I don't have good ways to spend my TP then it may not be worth much if I am doing less damage. Well, I will have to test it out when I finally get there. Hopefully I will be able to level it a bit more over the weekend. Interestingly enough, while I was soloing up to 15 in Konschtat Highlands I did see something I had never seen before, but SE had mentioned that was there if you look for it. 
Grasshoppers! I know its a bit lame but honestly, they are pretty neat when you do see them in game. I saw them in the morning hopping between a couple groups of tall grass.
Bah, again with the incomplete entries, I will right some more when I get to my next office. :(
Ok, so no chance last night, so just going to pick it up from today as if nothing happened. :)
Anyway, on to Salvage. We had a pretty decent run, though there was some mistakes, like when I linked three gears and MPKed half of the people on the run. :) Anyway, we added in the third floor QQTH for the first time in a long while and we were well rewarded. 
Thats the first Macha's coat that we have gotten. The lots on it were very poor, LOL but in the end Achikasama ended up with a nice new level 35 coat. It was at Ninjafox's insistence that we do this and really it didn't take much longer than just killing the few extra mobs we were going to kill anyway. We are now pretty much always taking the South route on the third floor, which is good and bad. It is good because if we need them there is more magic to be had on that route in general, and because the Psycheflayer NM is on that route which will be dropping Eternalpain's Macha's Crown. The real problem is that on the South route the chests that the mobs drop tend to have fewer good items like Barbarian's and Fanatic's Drinks. Those two drinks alone basically let us rip through the Archaic Chariot with a limited amount of time left. Without them, it probably takes 3-4 minutes to kill the Archaic Chariot, with them it probably takes just over a minute, if not less. That being said the South route is also a bit easier, because the Archaic Ramparts don't spawn mobs like Goobbues and Mandies and I believe that the south Ramparts don't aggro (but I could be wrong on this). The problem with this is that the Goobbues and Mandies drop very nice stat cells (STR and CHR) which are needed for boss runs. It's a very weird balance. Anyway, because of my bad pull we didn't have enough time to try the Psycheflayer, which kind of defeated the purpose of heading to that side. >.< So we just killed the QQTH then moved up because we could always just get more subjob cells on the next floor. Now, I think I still over farm the fifth floor and I definitely need to adjust my strategy for 5th North versus 5th South. 5th North there is a need to clear out pretty much all of the gears and ramparts because when the second rampart spawn the Goobbue we have found it easier to kite it because it either generally is hard to sleep or it just plain resists it.
Man, I can really ramble if I feel the need to talk about something. Anyway, we also were able to down the Archaic Chariot on the fifth floor, netting us only our second piece from the most giving mob in the zone. 
We have more Qiqirn drops than we have Archaic Chariot drops at this point. The Freya Ledelsens went to Ninjafox. After the Chariot we went back around and killed the Qiqirn Astrologer on that floor just before time ran out. Sadly, no drop.
So congratulations are in order for Achi 
and NF
on getting the hardest part of their new gear!
Finally, I wanted to mention that I finally got my desktop up and running again. The game runs so much better now, and I can't believe how much better my graphics are. If I had remembered them being this good I would have gotten my desktop fixed a long time ago. LOL
Friday, November 30, 2007
I will not be blackmailed! (Monday Update)
Work was too much for me on Friday and I had to go to a friends after work so no time to work on this. Sorry about that but real life comes first.
Now, lets talk about Dancer. 
The first question is why is that little girl doing in an area that I am, as a 75 NIN, very careful roaming around because of the nasty things in old Jugner. 
LOL Anyway, Dancer... It rocks, and at 15 I am having no problem soloing Tough mobs in the Dunes. I actually got to 16 pretty quickly in a pick-up NIN, SCH, DNC group. I have spent a bunch of money getting better gear for Dancer, but it looks like its just a bunch of stuff that I will be hanging onto for a while and with DNC being new a couple of items that shouldn't be that expensive have turned but in price a little bit like the Battle Gloves. I like using Hand-to-Hand for now, but I am really eager to switch over to Daggers because I think they will it faster, and honestly, its not really about killing faster on DNC its about hitting more often because of the Drain procs. Curing Waltz is pretty amazing, incredibly cheap Cure II, and its party targetable, also the neat thing about it is that even though the animation for it is quite long, the cure goes off as soon as the animation starts and I can still attack during the animation. So even though it looks like I am just spaming Curing Waltz I am still hitting and doing damage. I just need 4 more levels then I get the first debuff and I get to test it out. 
I have been looking over gear for Dancer and I think that some people may be missing the point of the Dancer. People are already looking at WS gear and the such, but I will be looking for all Accuracy gear, as hitting for any amount of damage is fine, because you are just looking to get to the next bit of TP to be able to spend it. And my second priority will be a full CHR set, because it looks like the calculations for Curing Waltz is something like Cure but not exactly, and I don't know if it is capped like Cure is capped. So far the formula looks something like this (CasterCHR + TargetVIT)/X+Y = Cure power. CasterCHR and TargetVIT are pretty obvious, respectively the Dancers CHR stat and the target of the waltz's VIT. X is a divisor that is applied differently to each of the Curing Waltzes. Y is a static number that is the basis for the Cure. If this is the case then Dancers actually have a greater ability to affect their Cures through direct stat changes than say a RDM or WHM. After that I will of course make a WS gear set but in reality as of right now, it looks like the end-game gear for DNC will be some combo of Dusk, Denali and Pahluwan. Haste will definitely be nice when they are made available, but until then I think the way to go will definitely be accuracy. And I will be the first to say this, but Haste may not be as good as I think most people think it will be for DNC. Now, don't get me wrong because depending on your accuracy you may not need all the accuracy from a full accuracy set, but in the end Haste will effect less of what is important to a DNC than Accuracy will. Now, I am going to go ahead and assume that all DNC's will be using Sushi, this is because hitting hard is pretty useless for DNC when they are using their TP for other things than damage. If this Accuracy from Sushi is enough for them to gain TP fast enough for them to do what they need to do then its no problem to add more haste for accuracy, but it begs the question of why you need more haste to get more TP when you are already getting TP fast enough. Since, you are not trying to get to the next WS, but instead just trying to get TP fast enough to spend it on a debuff or something like that then you are at best looking for a balance between Accuracy and Haste. Sure, shadow recast is something to consider, but honestly thats about it because everything else that is important to DNC is a job ability so Haste will have no effect on it. It also depends on your situation and what you are doing. DNC will be of very limited effect in places that have Amnesia like the Mire and could have problem in a place like Bird camps if the mobs there are constantly stealing their food. In a place like the latter situation it may be important to have a large amount of accuracy gear. On HNM's and the like though, it will almost definitely be the most important to forgo haste and pretty much everything else for Accuracy. Another interesting note is that DNC will need to us Eye Drops in much the same way that mages use Echo Drops. :) Anyway, I will come up with an end-game list of gear that I will be using when I get there, just to give everyone an idea of what I am looking at.
There is your wall of text on Dancer. And PB I beat you to the punch! Ring dancing in a subligar! WOOT! And here is a picture of the incredibly cute PB as Dancer! 
Since these are older pictures from Friday, I just figured I should mention this shot of us killing the Arrapago NM Psycheflayer. Man, that thing is just annoying, but with some decent healing we didn't have too much trouble with it. 
We have Limbus tonight, then Assaults afterward. I am actually planning on getting Limbus started on time tonight, and may just do one full run instead of a split run just to make sure that this happens. Anyway, it should be a good run, and we will almost have another full Ultima set (which we would have if some other group didn't run up and take our zone without saying anything at all to us as we were about to go in).
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Doldrums.
This is going to be short. There is nothing to report. SE fixed a bunch of things that were messed up with the last update and expansion. Ho hum. I leveled Dancer to 8. Yes, I was only on long enough to get two levels on Dancer, but at least I got to level with Pb because I got home so late. Pb has decided to switch to Dancer though so that was a little bit of a waste for him. Iz, if you are reading this we are going to probably level again after Limbus tonight and I am level 8 now, so you need to get on so that we can level together. :) I didn't even switch out of my level 1 gear yet, I am sure that Dancer gets Lizard or whatever so I will pick that up today. Just Sky and Limbus today, looking like doing another split run. We are going to finish Hellz's Omega set and start on a new Ultima set or finish Elf's Ultima set. That will give us at least two boss runs for when Omoi gets back, if we don't do an Omega on Tuesday.
I guess I can talk about that for a little while. Omoi runs Versus really well, but when she is away and Hellz, Izman and I have to run the LS, we do things a little differently and I know that it would drive Omoi crazy. LOL Omoi has a good set of rules for how we do things. She generally doesn't announce what day to day things we will do for Sky or Limbus, and this is because if people know what we do they will start cherry-picking events, and it also keeps some spontaneity in events. I on the other hand don't mind telling people what we are going to do, but again I don't often have the full burden on my shoulders for considering the entire LS. Even when Omoi is gone I share leadership with Hellz and Izman and in Sky with Akanea. I much prefer my position as lieutenant over being leader, I have more freedom in general but I still get to make input when needed.
I am probably going to leave this open for a while so that I can come up with more things to add but I am not promising anything. :)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Situation normal: no fucking drops.
Salvage was pretty much perfect last night, we quickly adapted to the drops that we got. In fact, we had pretty bad drops on the first floor, and we didn't even get our second tank a magic cell in the whole run. But, we dealt with it well. We did 2nd QQA, 4th QQTH, Psycheflayer, 5th QQA and Archaic Chariot. Of course nothing at all dropped, and the worst part was that Sholo, who came on THF, DC'ed at the end of the 4th floor and never came back, so we didn't have any TH at all for the QQA or the Archaic Chariot. The Archaic Chariot with Hundred Fists, Barbarian's Drink and Fanatics Drink is an absolute joke, we destroyed it in about 2 minutes. I was hitting for 90-100 per punch without STR unlocked, my Fanatics Drink never even wore off. We definitely had an improvement over our last two runs, and this may have been the best Arrapago run that we have had. The great thing is that we could have improved it even further. Some of the adjustments that we have made so far include accepting that people aren't going to get weapons or magic and just dealing with it. This means that on the first floor we only get the tanks and two or three DD's there weapons, and get the mages there magic, then move on. If we get tanks their magic that is nice but not necessary, on the second, third and fourth floor there are more opportunities to get magic or we just suck it up. This is a definitive change from just farming two wings and then moving up, and it let us move up much more quickly than we ever have before. We had so much time that we were able to move up to the 6th floor and almost clear it before we timed out. I am going to spend this time differently the next time, much to the happiness of our mages I think. If we adjust our cell distribution slightly and give the second subjob and abilities to a RDM/BLM we can ES Gravity the QQTH on the third floor for another shot at a Macha's Coat. This will of course depend on cell drops and the alliance composition, but I think its a good goal. I have a plan on how to do this quick and efficiently so we will give it a try on the next Arrapago full run.
Salvage was nice, but Sky was a little frustrating. There were several people that I think thought it would be OK to skip it because Omoi was out of town. :/ Outside of that, it was a decent day. We got a Despot and got some decent gear that people wanted it. Hopefully Thursday will have a normal turnout because if we get another Despot we will be doing a couple of Byakko's, I think.
As for Dancer, I have a Dance! Drain Samba in fact, and the effect is exactly as I described yesterday, so higher evasion mobs are a bit annoying, but the effect does seem to vary based upon damage done and some variation between the mob and the dancer. On weaker mobs I found that I was getting a larger percent of the damage done returned, while harder mobs would return less. And yes, this was on hits that were of the same damage, so its definitely not just a straight amount returned to the player that hits the mob. I have heard that the HP from the mob is not really drained because it does not take HP from the mob but more just increases the players HP. I will have to test it out to confirm this one way or the other. I will probably spend quite a while leveling Dancer today, hopefully getting into the teens relatively quickly. I don't get my next dance until 15 but it is essentially a Cure II that only costs 20TP. Apparently, you can solo T mobs exceedingly well once you have this ability. Last night, Pb and I duoed for a whole on Scholar and Dancer and it was a blast, especially once I got Drain Samba. Sadly, I am going to XP tonight and he is going to Dynamis. (I am going to start going to Dynamis again relatively soon because my time is starting to free up, but with meetings after work on every Wednesday and being out of town most Sundays its hard to be able to go. Omoi is also out of town right now, so I can't even be late for LS events on Sunday because she is not there to run them.) Hopefully, my loverboy Izman will be back from out of town tonight and we can level some. SAM will definitely help to speed things up, but until I get Curing Waltz we will still need to rest alot. Should be relatively quick I hope.
Again, you are without pictures, that could be good or bad for me, because one of them was of me in full Bronze gear including the beret and subligar dancing my heart out. o.o; Not a pretty picture and Pb found it very entertaining. Well, maybe a few level up pictures for you tomorrow!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
A late ending, an early start.
I got up this morning to actually make breakfast before work which I haven't done in years, but because I did this I forgot to upload my pics from yesterday. >.< It wasn't too exciting so nothing much was missed.
For Limbus we did a nice split run, sent two parties to do the Apollyon King's run, and my six man party did the one with the stupid freaking birds. I hate those birds, but shockingly and for the first time ever, I did not die on the birds floor! Raikoh did though, hehehe. Both groups runs were successful, and puts Hellz at one chip away from having a complete Omega set, so Thursday will probably end up completing that set and then we will start working on a new set immediately after since we already have a full Ultima set on Elfaria. Things went very well and we ending up splitting 106 coins between 16 people which was a very nice divide. It will be nice to have Omoi back though, things just run smooth when she is around, even if not having her around means that we can do split runs and other more daring things that she usually doesn't approve of, hehehe. Omoi also has the interest and success of Versus at heart, though, and even if she might be more conservative than I, she has been and continues to be incredibly successful and always pointing Versus in the right direction. Omoi is able to bring everyone together without yelling and screaming (she relies much more on her dry British sarcasm ^.~), leading by example, rather than by dictate. If we do manage to get 2-3 Omega sets in the time that Omoi is gone, maybe we will get to use one. Hehehe. I think it is kind of silly that you can easily do split runs for Apollyon and it takes less chips to do Omega, when Temenos usually takes more people and you need six chips and for the second tier you can not do split runs with the first tier, for obvious reason.
After Limbus which already started late we did some decent Assaults to build up some points and get some clears. Pb got a couple more closer to what he needed to get a full complete and rank 8, while Rygar got all the Periqia points that he needed for whatever puffy purple Pahluwan gear that he needed. I got some nice spendable points for Salvage, which we will be doing tonight. I am not positive on the run we will do, but honestly I have been frustrated by the last two Arrapago runs so we may go and do that to work on focusing and getting things done more quickly. I think we may actually need less cells on the first floor than we have been gathering, and we can definitely pull the first floor way more efficiently. Definitely going to limit the first floor in what cells we need because outside of weapons and HP there are better and more reliable places to get them further up not to mention there are mobs to get weapons and HP on the way up anyway. I think we will do our normal route on the first and second floor then on the third floor we will go West instead of East, so that we can get to the Soulflayer NM that drops Eternalpain's crown, then move on after that. I definitely want to be a lot more quick but also a lot more careful. I have definitely become more lax about making sure I have proper meds for each run, so I am going to fix that tonight. Preparation can make a huge amount of time difference for Arrapago, and I don't want to be timing out on Archaic Chariot again.
This post has really flowed like a river, from one subject to another, but the next subject is definitely a jump, and a spring, and a DANCE! Hehehe. I opened Dancer finally last night. I have to say I definitely have not spent as much time as I wish I could have in the new zones. I will definitely be spending some time there on Wednesday and this weekend, but for tonight after Salvage I will be gearing up myself as a super-sexy dancer, and wacking some bees, hopefully with Izman. I would like to maybe get up to 8 at least because that is what Izman's SAM is already at. From what I have been reading Dancer is a decent solo job and I can keep things up while I am waiting for a party, but also party invites aren't that bad either because it keeps healing down and the Haste Samba is apparently something like 40% weapon delay reduction without a loss of TP gain. This is just conjecture right now, but I know we will get more information soon enough. I also like the system that Dancer uses for Sambas, it works like this: The Dancer uses the Samba that they wish to use, giving them the buff for 2 minutes, during that 2 minutes if the Dancer lands a hit on the mob then they will give the mob a form of debuff. This debuff in turn allows all that players in party that hits the mob in the time the debuff is up to gain the effect of the debuff, e.g. drain, aspir or haste. The debuff only lasts about 10 or 20 seconds but is reapplied with every hit that the Dancer lands on the target mob. The concept is really neat and something completely new to FFXI. I can't wait to be able to use the dances. :)
Anyway, that is about it for today, sorry I am lacking pictures, but it happens sometimes. Hopefully more on Dancer tomorrow.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Registration woes.
Not only did it take me two extra days to actually get the PC version of the expansion, but it took me two more days to actually get it registered. So, I didn't get a whole lot of time to explore the new areas but from what I did see and the cutscenes that I have done, it looks amazing. The new zones look pretty much what I think the starter zones should have looked like when the game was first released. The are more vibrant, more filled and more difficult to get around. I know that some people have been complaining about it, but they are also some of the people that complain there is no end-game content in the first update of an expansion, and don't really have much in touch with reality on the issue. The beginning of an expansion for FFXI is about exploration and discovery, its about getting around on foot, without any assistance, and its about killing stuff just to kill it. Moments like these are rare, and idiots just can not appreciate them because they have stopped enjoying the game for the game, and are just worried about their ego's and what might happen in the next update to nerf them or produce a better set of gear that will make all of their "hard work" obsolete.
Anyway, from what I have seen, I like it a lot. It is so enjoyable and interesting, and I still need to open Dancer. Dancer by the way, after playing it previously, is definitely the job I am going with. Scholar is a completely mage based job and you know how I feel about that. I am going to open Dancer tonight after Limbus and Assault. 
I will probably also duo for a while with Izman on his SAM so he can finally use it as a sub for his WAR. I will start off by being either /WHM or /WAR haven't decided yet, then I will probably switch to /NIN as soon as I can dual-wield. I really like the TP system, and I think that most people are overestimating a bit the amount of time that people will be weaponskilling on Dancer. There are two problems that I can see, the first is that the steps which net finishing moves can very easily be stacked and can rack up a decent TP cost. Second, the Dancer doesn't have the SA and TA to make Dancing Edge worth any decent amount of damage. Daggers do next to no damage without SATA so I have very little doubt about Dancers taking up real DD position. The real concern that I have for them is that they are TP dependent which means hitting the mob, but I am wondering if /SAM and the TP rebuild Flourish will be able to allow a Dancer to do their job without actually hitting the mob, for situations where that is generally considered bad, like Salvage bosses. Anyway, I have a lot of gear that I feel would be good for Dancer to begin with, and it looks like the high end gear for Dancer is going to be the Pahluwan for now. I am sure that more gear will be coming, but if you look at thing for BLU, COR and PUP there is reason to be concerned. Although there is very good gear for these jobs, they come from Salvage and the problem with that is that Salvage is actually pretty difficult in general and getting gear can take some time, this is as opposed to something like Sky or Limbus where getting gear is considerably easier and faster. There is little progression in difficulty for getting the best gear for the new jobs compared to the older jobs from the older areas. Doesn't matter to me, because a dancer I will be!
Anyway, like I said, I got to experience a little bit of the new areas after a long wait because of registration difficulties, but many wondrous sights did I see (Ok, enough with the rhyming). I went through the Cavernous Maw in Battalia Downs with Izman and Elfaria, 
and witnessed some amazing cutscenes, close to being on par with CoP. I even ran into a rather interesting Regal Feline. 
I have to say the design for Cait-Sith is amazing, way better than almost any other character in the game, the body design appears completely unique and engaging, and I can't wait to see where all of this is going, sooner rather than later. We then spent some time wondering around happily killing and exploring, and I will spend more time there after tonights events.
I was quite busy this weekend but while I was waiting to be able to play the expansion I was able to get quite a lot of meriting done. Capping Counter (which was actually at 3 not 4) and picking up two levels of Invigorate. So I will just need one more level of Invigorate then the 3 levels of Penance and MNK will be done for job-specific merits. Then all I have to do is finish up SAM, which will be either level 5 Third Eye recast(which I am reconsidering) or probably level 5 Meditate recast. Then for tier two I already have my 3 Overwhelm, then I will get 1 Blade Bash because it is so much more effective than it used to be, 1 Shikikoyo just because people whine if you don't have it, then 1 in Ikishoten just because there really isn't a reason to get level 2 in Shikikoyo or Blade Bash.
On to other news that I have been wanting to get to for a while. Finally, our first piece of completed Salvage gear! Yay! Congratulation to Rygar on his Usukane Hizayoroi! 
They are super sex, and I can't wait to get myself a set!
After that I would like to mention this neat little hat I was able to pick up! I wonder where it comes from? A quest maybe? I don't know.
Finally, remember, love your Pixie's and they will love you right back. 
More to report on the expansion and the Dancer job tomorrow I hope! Have a good day! :)
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