I'm Baaaack!

Just a short note. I officially relogged in after about an 11 month absence. And lo and behold who do I run into as I zone into Bastok Mines? Zephiris! (on her mule that is). Since no one was in LiberiFatali at the time, Zephiris invited me into Shibby. Saw some familiar faces again. Eckardt, however, ran right past me without a wave (he claims it's because I'm too short and the computer didn't draw me in). I also said hi again to Fullen, Hypnotizd, Demesis, and Blaire. Not sure who else is playing, but looking forward to seeing.

Also I heard about some of the updates. Synergy!?!? Gardeners banned and then reinstated (I wonder if I would have been banned if I was actively playing at the time). Not too many job updates, although the ranger ones are fun (now I don't have to do velocity shot every dang 5 minutes, still need an auto attack cause my fingers get sore).

I was telling Eckardt that I didn't have a Blau for my THF. Then I reread my earlier posts and realized, I actually do have one. My bank account is still relatively healthy. I think I have about 7-8 mil on all my different characters. Going to work on finally getting Alchemy to 100 on Brin, I'm somewhere at 99.x. Then getting goldsmithing to 60 (at 58) on Verrick.

It was funny. I couldn't remember how to get to places. How to even lot on treasure. Or how to start a party. It's amazing what you forget. Well I'm sure I'll have fun again. Also heard about FFXIV.

Favorite Sigs

Just was waxing nostalgic talking about signature making in my LS Imperium. Haven't done one in a while, but was looking through my old ones and finding the ones that I liked the best. I have trouble making good ones for myself.



I really liked the sig I made for Tonyo. It just seemed to capture the duality of PLD and BLM.



Even though he eventually failed as a LS leader and overall "good guy" Lorddocster was a friend for a long time in FFXI. How he ended is quite sad to me. He asked the LS to update his sig for him. Enedin and I had a little sig making war to see who would win.



Hewison's signature was simple in design, but it looked so peaceful and calm. I was fooling around with layering and opacity and thought it came out really nice. I was almost tempted to erase Hewi's character and replace it with mine!



Dukenukem is a great friend in the game. He recently returned along with Kavita. I found this really nice smoky night picture and thought that it would go well with Fenrir. I was happy I found a pose for his PLD.



This is one I made for Duke and Kavita. Both of them are really nice people. And they have some adorable little girls. This was around the cherry blossom time so I was inspired by FFXI's ingame motifs.



Demesis was one of my favorite people in the game. He was part of my second CoP static. Hypnotizd, myself, and Demesis trio'd our way to most of our Yigit sets. When we were almost done, Demesis abruptly disappeared from the game. I don't know where he is. Never got to say goodbye.



Didn't really know Dalkar all that well. I think he was a transfer from Shiva. I just like this sig a lot. It's monochromatic, but just appeals to me. I've never been able to recreate that background.



This one is one of my favorite ones. Simple and clean. This was right after Boktai got his YY robe finally.



Arizod is my favorite galka in the game. Vlacatocc is a close second. Arizod and Gheldhart may be returning to the game in the near future. I'm excited. Arizod and I used to duo our lower level characters. Now with level sync it will be even easier! Get back in the game, damnitaru!



This is my other NIN sig. I think it turned out rather well. I had to do some quick freezing in Altana view to get the characters. I really like Zetuei's kneeled pose.



For myself, I think I like this sig the best. I was caught up in the magic of CoP and was BRD through a lot of it. I felt a resonance with Ulima! I just like how the colors flow through.

I'll post some more about my recent adventures soon!

Epic Battle for the Ages!

Caution: long post

Now, it has become a rarity for me to blog very often, usually once every few months, but reader's your in for a surprise! Nary a month has passed an another picture fest from me. What prompted this? Epicness!

I managed to get to CS in terms of assault Rank. It's kind of sad though. I've only done 10/50 assaults. Yes, I was spamming the same ones over and over to get my Yigit Set. I'm doing a few new ones with Godswrath and Jukoss. So hopefully it will be better soon. We managed to get to Nyzul Floor 75. Sometimes frustrating because members don't show up or don't have enough tags. I kind of want to do Salvage, but can't seem to find a group with good times for me.



Dynamis

We have this JP Linkshell that somehow has decided to form and take all the northland zones about an hour or 2 before we go in. It gets so frustrating. So instead of Xarc, we moved to Dynamis-Qufim. It actually went pretty smoothly. Had a little hiccup on MegaBoss, but the pull went clean and the battle wasn't too bad. We had a ton of WHMs, though. I probably should have come as BRD (since it turns out I was in a party with 4 BLMs and another WHM; but it was fun with Bardon!). Unfortunately I have to go into the hospital to see patients before Dyna run so I don't always have the luxury of knowing what job to show up as. Here is the obligatory picture of my death in Dynamis.



On a funnier note. I finally managed to be first in line to get my coin from Pastor. And he graced me with a Bastok coin! The bastid!

Gil

I had manged to sink my funds on my bank to about 2.9 million after buying a Blau for my THF. So it took me about 2 months of gardening, crafting, and some farming to get my bank back into a healthier state. I usually get up to a million on Verrick and then shift 800K to my Bank so I don't spend it all. Luckily I don' t need much gil every week. Just 30K for limbus and sometimes for Dynamis. Yes, yes, I need to buy a hedgehog bomb, but sue me. I'm a cheapskate.



Now to the meat of the posts!

Epic Awesomeness #1

I was just randomly crafting and chatting on the LS when Aeora asked if there were any BLMs that wanted to KSNM. I asked if they were willing to do CopyCat so I could try for a Destroyers. It took a while but the leader said ok. We had one BLM level 70 and Zephiris from the LS who also decided to come. Zephiris was new at the manaburning KSNM idea. So it was a little rough on the job training. We went through various orbs (Zeph got a V.Claw!) until mine. Actually managed to kill it fairly easily (given that fact that some BLMs didn't have two AMII spells). And I managed to snag an O.ingot (that the party leader promptly bought for 200K), a Philospher's stone, an adaman ingot and ...:



Now the reason I wanted a Destroyers was not for me. My MNKey is at level 14 and have no interest in playing it. But our MNK in the small shell, Zadine, hasn't been able to get a Destroyers. And he's always willing to drop stuff and help out. So this went to him! I was so estatic. Everyone else's orb was kinda meh in terms of drops. But we did manage to help someone else get a Destroyers (he was 0/14 before).

Epic Awesomeness #2

I was randomly crafting again. I was chatting with Kaerwyn over Yahoo! and also in the LS chat. Part of the CoP static were trying the airship. I have fond memories of that thing, and also frustrating memories. My first time through, I went 1/9. I think it was because we had too much of a back line (WHM, BRD, and RDM) and not enough Oomph in terms of the melee department. We managed to recruit a BLU for headbutt spam and that's how I got my first win. The 2nd time through I went with my other static with a WHM, RDM, RNG (me!), WAR, NIN, and BLM. I think it took us 5 tries (mainly because the mammets were evil and turned to BLMs like3/5 times and wiped us early).

Unfortunately several members had to leave after doing 4 dry runs. They asked me to come as RDM. Unfortuantely I didn't have a CCB pump so had to buy one off the AH, but Kaerwyn reimbursed me. We had 5 CCB pumps, a PLD/WAR, THF/NIN, MNK/NIN, DRG/NIN, WHM/SCH, and RDM/BLM. I thought I was on a time crunch to do Nyzul in an hour and a half (one member didn't show). So we went in for one dry run since the DRG (Zephiris) hadn't been in the other dry runs. It went kind of bad, BLM puppets, locking the one we were fighting in Hand Mode.

Time was running out so we decided to just do it for real. The plan (and I admit I was bossy and took over the run) was this. Kill Mamets quickly. Kaer focus solely on PLD, leave me the rest. For Omega we would use the Pump at 25% and then another one when it wore off. Zephiris to use her 2HR on Omega. For Ultima the plan was Pump at 40% (Zephiris), followed by Kaer after which Lordstorm would invincible and Zadine would hundred Fists. Miur to use his pump if needed.

Needless to say that didn't happen...

Mammets went down easily enough. We were in pretty good shape. Then came Omega. That thing is nasty. My heart was pounding through the battle. We were starting to have trouble at around the 35% mark so I had Zadine use his CCB pump. Unfortunately Omega killed our tank and then went around killing the mages. Lordstorm managed to reraise and go and die in the safe spot, along with Kaerwyn, Zadine, and myself. Miur and Zephiris died in aggro range. So we reraised. While I was healing, Zephiris reraised, aggro'd Omega and pulled him to me! MPK! (at least she didn't go kill the other 3, hehehe). Luckily I had put reraise back up.

So we regrouped. After we unweakened, the plan was this. Lordstorm would pull and CCB pump. Then Kill as fast as we could. I was going to have Zephiris 2HR, but she said she'd lose her wyvern. So in the end decided just to go all out and have Miur reraise and move out of AoE range. The plan worked perfectly! I was in a little trouble there at the end, because Omega didn't like my nuking him. But we managed to live and kill him!

So while we were waiting for Miur to unweakend we formulated strategy. We were going to have about 10 minutes or so for Ultima. Plan was to use CCB pump at 40%. Kill hard. Kaerwyn would use his pump when he saw Ultima readying a move. Then Lord and Zadine would Invincible and Hundred Fist and hopefully kill him fast. We walked out and saw our time left.



Plan went pretty well until ...



You can see how concerned I was. I forgot to put a period after Shit. Kaerwyn and I were just a fraction late in healing Lordstorm. I thought we were a gonner then.

Luckily Zephiris had managed to place a CCB pump on it! I had Lordstorm raise and while weakened he popped his invincible and Zadine popped his Hundred Fists. I popped Chainspell and started nuking. Next thing I see is Kaerwyn using his CCB pump when he saw Ultima begin a move. My heart was pounding in my ears. I looked at Ultima and right when Kaerwyn used his pump he was already at 9%! I had a mini heart attack when he was at 1% and I couldn't nuke anymore (yes I had MP I had just converted). I think it was lag because I saw this right after ...



So we managed to get that Bastid down in about 6 minutes! Much smoother than my other runs. Kaerwyn was shaking when he won! He tossed his hat off in elation! I gotta say this group was fun to work with and dedicated. So go Imperium! Took several pictures in the Meadows and I'll end the post with them! Congratulations team Imperium! Next week Airship for the remaining static (Makina, Kiabrightblade, and Disfunctional). And much luck on your road to sea!