Alchemist

Crafting

On a whim I decided to grab some giant bird feathers after choco racing. There was only enough for 3 synths (at the price I was willing to pay). Not expecting much I sat down to synth them on ice day with moon at about half. My first synth I got a 0.1 skill up. I was so darn excited. Next synth nothing. Then I was rushing through the last synth so I could go mule equipment to someone in the LS and I saw the above. Estatic! The icarus wing hell is now over! In celebration I put my last wing up for 1 gil to give someone a cheap wing. It sold for 8K (going price is 10-12K). Don't worry, the wing prices after me jumped back up.


Not exactly sure my route from now. All that push for the GP and 6 levels of icarus wing hell has left me a bit drained. I think my next route will be the panacea (yay for 13-15K philosopher stones) [cap 98] which will then be used to make platinum nuggets x9 [cap 96]. But it will be slow going since philosopher stones can't be farmed and only got through BCNMs. I figured the fireworks [cap 97] was too ridiculous esp with a rainbow thread in the recipe plus artifical lenses and glass fiber and won't sell for much. I think with the nuggets I might come out break even, small loss, or even small profit depending how much I get the stone for and how much the platinum leaf sells for. After that cantrella to 99 (depending on the availability of fresh orc liver) and pro-ether/sun water to 100. Sun water doesn't sell much, but at an insane profit. Pro-ether is more of a small loss/break even venture. One day I'll be 100+3 (100+6 with advanced support).

Chocobo

I managed to get GhostWhisper's STR to Firstclass and END to Outstanding. Tonight is day 64 where care plans cease to mean much. I've been choco racing like a mad fiend and spending lots of gil to get this choco's stats up (I messed up a few times while raising). Not sure if I should pour gil into getting his discernment up to a decent level. Even if his STR and END outclass the "super chocobos" in the races I still can't seem to beat them, even using a speed apple. It's so discouraging sometimes.

I'm thinking of trying chocobo digging out sometime. If anything to relieve my frustration with crafting at times. I still want to try clamming out as well. I might raise another chocobo, but this time going for the MIND stats. I'd like it to be red so I suppose I must search for a red male and female chocobo, preferably with one of the digging abilities.

Hero Among Heroes

GhostWhisper

After 180K worth of Chocolixers, GhostWhisper finally managed to learn Canter. The difficulty with Canter is you can't learn the story until you reach the adult stage. My mistake was doing the choco whistle quest. I think until you find the hankerchief, you only get those CS and don't get the random chance to meet Brutus. I had to learn a different story first on my long walks. Then the game wouldn't let me meet Brutus for a while. I was anxious to learn the canter story because I wanted to shift my chocobo plans to physical attributes, instead of focusing on discernment (wanted high discernment to learn the abilities).



So now GhostWhisper will be delivery packages and getting Vomp Carrots. Hopefully he turns out to be a moderately fast Chocobo. Not sure if I will raise another one. Have quite a bit of ways to go.

Bastok Missions

After waiting for people to catch up on missions, then to see them zoom past me and complete them all without asking me along, I finally started back up on Bastok Missions. Avinateri (PLD/WAR), Forbiddenhate (MNK/NIN), Ashur (RDM/BLM), Akiracobalt (WHM/SMN), Volander (BLM/RDM), and Ashke (WHM/BLM) made up the main crew. Ashur and Ashke had finished the bastok missions and had come along to help. We started from mission 7-2 and had planned on basically getting rank 8 at least.

It was quite an interesting storyline. You got to learn more about the Galka race and their unique rebirthing. Zeid, the DRK, plays a large role in the storyline.



Our 7-2 battle went very smoothly. I guess there is something to say about being level 75. The main thing that held me up was needing to find 6 other Bastokers to do this with, which sometimes proved difficult. Mission 8-1 and 8-2 proceeded very well.

Our main snag was on mission 9-1. I had recruited Dukenukem and Kael to help out (both BLMs) as we had to defeat the miraculous multiplying slimes. Dwyana (WHM) came along as well. I sneak popped it and Ashur slept it and we brought it back to camp. We actually managed to kill the slimes with only one death (poor Kael). On our way to get the ??? to finish the mission Volander managed to lose his sneak in 5 seconds and continued to run into the skeletons. Of course he dies and can't complete the mission. So we rest him to full and send him out to pop the ??? to do it all over again. Wouldn't you know it, his sneak manages to somehow wear again right after he hits the ??? so he proceeds to die, and so does Ashur.

So we tractor them both back from the pool and raise and redo. This time Volander managed to keep his sneak up and pop the slimes. We managed to kill them again and he managed to get to the pool without his sneak wearing. I didn't want to take any chances and I escaped him from the pool while the others escaped from our fighting site.

So we decided to go for Rank 10! Thanks to Akiracobalt who remembered how to get to the Throne Room! We took on Zeid and his shadows. It was actually quite a quick fight. The storyline, however, was very interesting! The end CS was a bit touching as you got to hear the opinions of people about living and being from Bastok.



Quite excited actually. I have my nation flag and about 104K worth of CP to spend. I'll probably get an Aketon for my mule to he can run faster to the alchemy guild. I'm not sure if I want to change nations. I kind of want to see the storylines, but I don't want to lose all my OP warps. It took me forever to get some of them, although I would presume it'd be easier with Windurst or San d'Oria. Bastok is usually last, sometimes second place in conquest. And it took a while before we actually got control of some of the regions. We'll see!

Anna's More Idiotic Twin?

GhostWhisper

GhostWhisper has finally grown up! And he turned out to be a fine specimen of a black chocobo. He's at above average discernment and receptivity now. Have to go on a couple of long walks to learn the canter story and then teach it to him. Hopefully then I can get him to a moderately fast chocobo. I did get the hankerchief finally to get my chocobo whistle to call him to the field. But his str/endurance is poor, so I doubt I'll be riding him soon. Once I ride him though, expect that top picture of mine to change!



A person more idiotic than Anna?

See this and judge for yourself:

My friend Arizod had logged on in the middle of the night and got accepted into an experience party. I had been planning on getting some exp on elementals in sky when he was telling me about some deaths of the WHM. Curious, I trudged out to the Mire to watch.

Here's the kicker, the mire was empty except for their party and they could not get above a chain #5 if any. And here's the reason why. Party set up was MNK/NIN, MNK/WAR, SAM/WAR, NIN/WAR, WHM/?, and ... RDM/BRD. Aliesha was the RDM/BRD, in the mire, meleeing with full errant gear and MP rings with a lust dagger. She sat on 500 MP and did not haste anyone/buff anyone. The SAM had to pull as she was busy whiffing. When they had links she didn't sleep anything allowing the MNK and WHM to die. Not that the WHM was spectacular (they didn't haste anyone either nor remove silence) but at least they did cure. Half the time, Aliesha was resting away from the fight and essentially just leeching. When Arizod told me she was bragging how good she was, I had to laugh.

I ended up sort of PLing them ... as a BRD/WHM. Yes, I lullabied their links, cured, and removed statuses. It was totally pathetic. The SAM/WAR, MNK/WAR, RDM/BRD, and WHM were in the same LS. The MNK/NIN had enough of dying and replaced himself with a WAR/NIN (who appeared to be confused as to the party as well). Eventually Aliesha changed to RDM/WHM and stopped meleeing. But ... she rarely threw haste out and never did sleep anything. After Arizod and the WAR got a merit, they bailed. The other four stayed in the Mire.

Now I thought no one could compare with Anna in terms of sheer idiocy. But I think Aliesha might take the cake. And she brags she's skillful? And that she's on the way to Maat's cap. If you're on Garuda, I'd avoid her. She's useless. Could she have had a bad day? I suppose so. Could she have been fooling around with LS members? Yes, but when you invite someone outside the LS for an exp party, you do your job. And if you're going to melee, at least put on meleeing gear! Especially since she wasn't doing anything remotely magical.

Whitemage

After 2 long years I have finally managed to ... cap my healing skill! Now I have all blue numbers. Thanks to Hachi for needing LB2 and letting me get my skill up on the Boreal Tiger!

Proud Papa!

Chocobo

GhostWhisper has grown up to an adolescent.



Based on the tip colors I think he's going to turn out to be a black chocobo. I've been feeding him a green (he likes the sour ones) and a Z. Carrot to boost his discernment. He managed to learn gallop after 2 story tellings. I have to wait until he's an adult before I can get the canter story and teach it to him. After that he gets to go on a physical diet/exercise regiment of V. Carrots and package delivering. He's doing really well. So far he's only got sick once. Thanks to all the handy advice from Ashke, Eckardt, and Kavita! When GhostWhisper has to be retired, I might like a blue chocobo ... a discerning one.



Limbus

We've fought Proto-Omega a total of 3 times. Ruinous Omen 2 Proto-Omega 1. The first time we went in with about 12 people and disaster. The second time went much smoother and we managed to get Homam parts for Eldercid and Dubajaba. The third time it went really well with only a few deaths. And this is what we saw when we opened the crate.



The melees were panting over Omega's Heart! Loren ended up winning the lot on the body piece. Kenne and Puretaru got the other parts. I think Aznmahavailo and Carolann are up for the next Omega pieces. Gheldhart and I are still waiting to do Ultima for our shot at armor.

Meanwhile we continue to do the regular zones with much better efficiency. Our first Apollyn NW, we skipped mini-Faf and barely managed to kill Kaiser Behemoth. Last night we took on mini-Faf (2nd time doing so). Notice how many mages (on the right foot) and how many melee (on the left foot). We managed to kill him and Kaiser Behemoth with a lot of time to spare. Damn we're getting better. The only zone we sometimes don't win is the Tremenos one with the enhanced mobs. We get screwed if we don't get an early time chest to pop.



I'm enjoying Limbus. It's one of the few times I get to play WHM. In fact, I finally got ShellraV. I managed to coerce Aznmahavailo to come farming in sea with me. Instead of 1-2 organs (or more frequently 0) in 3-4 hours, we got about 11-12 in about 1.5 hours. Damn TH3 seems to work at least for that! I got my dark obi. Now I need to work on organs and tissues for the light obi and the ice obi at least. If I got the BLM AFv2 pants, I might try for the other obis as well.

Notorious Monsters

The Sky LS is going well. I can't make it to most farming sessions, but I can make it to the gods themselves. Our last foray we did Byakko x 2 (only one pants dropped), Suzaku x 2, Seiryu x 1, and Genbu x 1 (damn turtle didn't drop my shield yet). Suzaku tends to give us the most headaches since we don't always have a RDM/DRK for chainspell stun. We end up shadowbinding but sometimes people disengage a little late or stay right next to the god while it's shadowbound and end up dying. Kirin is up for this Saturday. I hope we have enough people so it's not a super long fight again.

I managed to snag a Jelly Ring as well. Lorddocster was soloing with NPC as a NIN and Sewer Syrup popped. I left sky (where I was duoing with Eckardt on Enkidus) and got there fast. We were forbidden to help (Doc was taking on Sewer Syrup and a Mousse) because he wanted to see if he could solo it. And solo it he did, and I got my Jelly ring! Now if the shield drops I can have -15% damage reduction when I solo as WHM.

On a side note I like soloing in Sky on Elementals or Enkidus. I get useful things (crystals, mercury, mythril ore) to sell or use. The exp isn't too bad. And it's not crowded at all!



Signatures

I was asked to make a few more sigs for the LS. I can't come up with a good idea for one of my own. But I think these turned out ok. Not super fancy, but I never claimed to be a graphic artist. I leave that to Jowah ^^

Return of the Dreaded R0

So ... social LS decides to invade sky. Farming triggers and such. Killing the gods one by one until we kill Kirin. Hours in sky. *sigh* Anyways. On Saturday we attempted to do Divine Might. A couple of us had already finished. Our shell has quite a few new people to sky and 75 so we decided to try. It was not a pretty sight. Thing got miscommunicated, BLMs died left and right so we couldn't help nuke the AAs. The melee couldn't take them down fast enough. Needless to say we went 0/3. Now ... we go after Kirin. Of course after 3 DM, people are tired and decide to leave. So we have quite a few new people to sky/gods and some of the more experienced people had left. For support we have 2 RDM/DRKs and 2 WHM/SMNs. Ouch.



Actually the beginning didn't go too badly at all. We killed Suzaku, Byakko, and Seiryu without many problems. However, our kiting party (yes we don't have the fancy toys and jobs to kill Kirin super fast) died when Genbu popped. For some reason Genbu was not being cooperative and he took a bit to go down. So we had to raise the tanks and kite Kirin. That battle was super long. Another LS (one with Blayden in it, from our social shell, I think TrueVirtue) came in and helped a little with some raising.

Now I'm definitely not an endgame BLM. I have no elemental magic merits, not all the fun nuking toys. I get resisted a lot on Kirin. But every time elemental Seal is up, Tornado II does about 1.1K damage and Aeroga III does about 800-900. So I get to kite him for a while. Our problem is our BLMs are not really focused on BLM. For most of us, it was a second or third job and our merits are in other places. Our MNK/WHM Chi Blasted about 1500 every time, and our 2 SMNs tossed out 500-800 damage consistently. Our two poor WHMs were running around trying to heal people and raise people. We died so much. Much different from our first Kirin fight where it went much smoother (I think it's because our whole tanking party died and it was super chaotic).



After much death, running around, reraising, etc. (I was running around weakened with my black cloak, healing the NIN kiter while the WHMs ran around raising people) we managed to down Kirin. And he dropped ... a shining cloth (all our WHMs have noble tunics already, most of us had them before we entered the shell, but the 2 new ones got it from cloths from our first Kirin and from Suzaku?Seiryu? I forget who drops one), Damascus Ingot, and 2 wind crystals. No pole, no leg abjuration, no body abjuration, no Osode ; ;

Blayden's shell asked if we could help to kill their summons, but they asked in say and I missed it until most of us were gone. But I decided to help out and asked if Lorddocster and Nojoke could stay. I'm not sure why they decided to pop Kirin when they were <20 people. But they did. When the summons started coming, the RDMs enfeebled but no BLMs were nuking. So I started to nuke gently against Byakko and Seiryu. Turns out their BLMs were AFK *sigh*. This ended up with the kiting party dead, most of us dead, and Kirin with Genbu and Suzaku out. It was a comical tractor raise, tractor raise, die, tractor raise for a long time. Hale died and reraised so many times, I felt bad. Amazingly we managed to kill Suzaku and Genbu while kiting Kirin. Then settled into the longest Kirin fight ever. So many deaths. And not even for my LS ; ;

In the end I was 16K down for the whole day. It was painful. So I decided to try and recoup my losses over the next few days, a few K here and there. Last night with Eckardt, I went to Mount Zhalyom duoing princes. Through the night we had several R0/time outs which were annoying. The worst was when I was about 900 tnl, the mob had a sliver of health and R0 for both of us. I log back in dead. I was so annoyed. So now I'm 1.5K to capping.

GhostWhisper

My chick hatched and I named him GhostWhisper. Assuming he'll be black, but you never know. I watched him dutifully as an egg over 100x and he hatched regarding me as his parent. I've been feeding him carrot paste and some greens (he likes the sour ones). I take him on daily chocobo walks and watch over him. He gets to listen to music. Hopefully I can get his discernment up so he can learn stories, then raise his physical attributes. Plans are to be able to ride him. You have to love the butt wiggle they do when they are happy to see you no? Just a few more days (currently day 14) before I see what the tips of his feathers are. Hopefully with a Black Chocobo Father and a Black Chocobo Mother he'll turn out to be a Black Chocobo. I was tempted to make his name from the different parts of his parents ... but the only acceptable one would have been ShadowFury. I did not like ShadowFirecracker (too long as well), QueenFury, or QueenFirecracker (too long as well I think).



Been trying to grow Z. Carrots and V. Carrots. Have had much more success with the Z. Carrots. Sometimes I hate gardening.



Tried Camp Kweh with Guankim's Chocobo. Cute CSs.

Zilart All Over Again

Zilart is going to be mashed in the middle of this post since it happened chronologically in the middle, so bear with me.

First I managed to snag a BLM testimony while helping someone complete LB3 and also hoping for a key so they could obtain their RDM AF. Now I have no illusions about getting a Maat cap (because that would mean I'd have to level a DDish job) but I hate to throw things away. So I decided, what the heck, let's just try the Old Man again. Went in without any preparation, just my normal BLM gear. Of course, it helps that I'm level 75, with a lot of +elemental magic skill, +int, +enfeebling skill, and merits. I did wait for Earthsday to pass so less chance of resist on Burst II. Walked up to him, Burst II followed by an ES + Sleep II. He managed to Manafront and cast Bio II on me before my Sleep II hit him. Then I followed up with a Freeze II. Results as below.



To my surprise there were several people in my social LS that did not have sky yet. They had just achieved level 75 and were interested in getting Sky as well as joining our frolic against the Sky Gods. So after being assured that they had all the CS done up to ZM4 we went farming unlit lanterns. Ashur (RDM/BLM), Demesis (WAR/NIN), Avinateri (PLD/WAR) and myself (WHM/NIN) went to various locations in the Temple of Ugglies and Den of Rancor to attempt getting these items. We were unsuccessful for about 2 hours. I managed to coax Dukenukem with this THF 45 to help us, and were unsuccessful for about another hour or so. Then I managed to corral Nojoke (THF 75 with TK) into coming (he had logged in the temple anyway camping pop item for TK). First Maledictor we fought, a latern dropped. The Second one we fought, a lantern dropped. Now Dukenukem had a lantern from before so all we needed was one more.



Disgusting isn't it? 3/3 Unlit Lanterns (when I did mine other people had the lantern already). So we saddled up to hit the BCNM. I changed to BLM/WHM for ES Sleepga II, Duke changed to PLD/NIN, and Kavita (WHM/BLM) consented to join us. I sent Ashur, Avinateri, and Demesis to Norg to do the Tonberry hate quest. Then all of use removed our hate (except Duke who never started the quest). I had made sure everyone had bought silent oils/prism powders and we traipsed out to Den of Rancor. Made it in one piece and entered the BCNM. Managed to defeat it with no problems (it is so much easier at level 75 than when I did it at level 60 WHM). Duke, Kavita, Ashur, and Avinateri had to log.

Demesis and I continued on because our LS leader had said if I got them through ZM5 he'd take them to sky. Nojoke came along because I planned to sacrifice him to the Ash Dragon and then raise him somewhere. Luckily I found a nice map online with the route (I still need a map of Ifrit's Cauldron) and we went through without too much of a problem. Demesis accidentally got Ice Crystals instead of Clusters so we had to patiently wait. The Ash Dragon was firmly against the far left wall so we managed without any aggro! We killed the NMs at Behemoth's Dominion, Ifrit's Cauldron, and Sanctuary of Zi'Tah. Celestial and Lorddocster took Demesis to the rest of the headstones (I needed food, sleep, and to craft sleeping potions for a LS person).

After Sky the next day (where we defeated Suzaku x 2 and Byakko x2 [finally one without a death and a leg dropping for a NIN]) I saw Demesis and Ashur nearing Ifrit's Cauldron (they had done all of the solo headstones for Ashur while we were skying). I dragooned Doc, Ashke, and Nojoke into going along without realizing that Ashur had shouted for a group in Aht Urghan Whitegate. I almost killed the DRK when he said he didn't have any more silent oils...grrrrr. Nonetheless we managed to do all the headstones again. Doc lead us to ZM6 and at that point Doc, Ashke, and NJ left our group.

So we had a PLD/WAR, DRK/WAR, WHM/SMN, RDM/BLM, WAR/NIN, and a BLM/WHM and vowed to get sky. ZM6 wasn't a problem at all. Unfortunately two of our members had thrown away their Delkfutt's Tower Key so they ran up the way. ZM8 was pretty easy with one death, the WAR, when Light Blade managed to go off. After all the requisite CSs we headed again to QSC. I suggested clearing out the worm so it wouldn't aggro us while we rested back for TP. Unfortunately someone popped the ancient vessel. The PLD ended up dying before we realized the vessel had popped so Demesis and the DRK took turns tanking. We managed to beat it and were off on our way to Sky. I took them through Ro'Maeve a couple of times for the CSs. Then I took them on a tour of sky.

Explained what aggro'd and how to use the Blue teleporters. I remember my first time there trying to figure out what people were telling me so I could get to Genbu and help out (at the time I hadn't done any sky gods and I was just guesting on shells because they wanted a BRD to help and friends had asked me). They were so excited. I had to rush to Limbus after.



I got bludgeoned into starting to raise a Chocobo. Ashke and Lorddocster both have black chocobos who have been groomed for speed and endurance. So I dutifully sent ShadowQueen (Ashke's Black Female) and FirecrackerFury (Doc's Black Male) on a Jeuno Date. My egg should be ready later tonight and then I have to figure out how to raise this chocobo. Probably going to use it mainly as a riding chocobo.



Hopefully I parent it well and it doesn't hate me ^^