Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to everyone out there in FFXI blogger land. Admittedly I haven't been updating very regularly. Real life has been crazy. I recently bought a new house and have been moving in and working hard. I mainly log in to FFXI to do Dynamis, Limbus, and garden. Real life will be slowing down in a bit, so you might see more of this tarutaru!

Oh and I have to update my jobs on the side. I managed to get THF to 75. Yes, my second job ever in FFXI (RDM was first, then THF, then WHM for those of you who haven't been paying attention) is now 75. That puts me at 6 jobs at 75 and likely to stay that way for a while. I don't have the urge for Maat's cap (although Eckardt is crazy and aiming for it). THF is fun, nice and relaxing. I did most of it through campaign though, so still getting used to TA and SA and such forth. Need a haste set going (yes yes I need a swift belt).

Dynamis

So what is a Verrick blog without Dynamis? Nothing!

Yesterday, we did Dynamis Jeuno. I've nicknamed it Dynamis-Jeuno: Operation Overkill because we had a crap ton of people. Vlacatocc wanted to clear the zone. But some of those pulls were like 40 mobs at once. Needless to say I died multiple times, about 3K loss. Did I ever mention I HATE Dynamis-Jeuno?



I managed to snag some RDM legs. This puts me at 3/5 (hand, leg, feet) for RDM, 3/5 (body, leg, feet) for BLM, 3/5 (head, leg, feet) for RNG. I'm not even thinking about going for THF. At the rate I accumulate points though it will probably be another 3 years before I see a RDM or BLM hat. So better get back that buffer! (And I'll probably stick to being WHM at Dyna, hehehe).

We seem to have a lot of Galka in DynaLounge! It's scary.



Crafting

I decided to make a push on Wist to get cooking up there. It was languishing at 86 for the longest time. I thought, hey might as well get 2 crafts in the 90s (although they are only Alchemy and Cooking, the easiest crafts by far to level). I haven't been motivated to craft much, since I don't spend much gil and don't have to work to make much gil. Been slowly replenishing my gil back after I bought a Blau for my THF.



Randomness

As I was muling around, I randomly get a tell from Winzip asking me if I could help him. He must not be used to people agreeing because when I said ok (after he told me what it was) he was very surprised. I think he was Japanese, but he had a good grasp of English (some odd syntax only). He assured me that as a 75 BLM I could kill the NM leeches for the NIN job quest with ease (2 or 3 AoE he said). So I trucked down to the tunnel. Sleepga. Thundaga III ... and ...



Season's Greetings

Just thought I'd end this post with some holiday cheer. Pastor is one of the fune people that I do Dynamis with. He has his own LiveJournal blog (which he needs to update too!). In fact, Pastor was the one that charged me with updating my blog. So here's for you Pastor!



In other good news, I randomly got a phone text from Arizod. He has a new phone finally! We lost touch after a while when Aznmahavailo irritated me to heck. Then Arizod and Gheldhart left the shores of FFXI. I'm imploring the galka to come back! And his little tarutaru fiend ... I mean friend.

Happy Holidays, Season Greetings, and all that Jazz. See you in 2009!

The Hiatus Update

I haven't really been gone from FFXI. Just been really busy with real life and not updating the blog as much as I used to. A lot of things have happened in the meantime so here is a chance to recap it. I haven't been as faithful taking pictures so bear with me. Been under pressure from Kaerwyn to update.

ToAU Missions

At the last writing I was on Gessho, proceeding merrily along with the Imperial people. Well, we actually managed to bludgeon our way through the rest of the fights. The BLU mage fight with the gears actually went pretty well. We were a little unprepared the first time we fought and gears came on in a rush and several of us died. I actually went as a RDM. However, we were able to regroup and actually complete it. Then we decided to try our hand at Alexander. That evil BLU hurt us a lot on our run throughs. So we decided to try again the week after.

Kiabrightblade bought some equipment to reduce physical damage. Our static was actually 7 people so we had to stagger a bit. Kia (PLD), Makina (DRG), Zarovich (BST), Kaerwyn (WHM), Thayos (RDM) and myself (BLM) went in first. It took us some strategizing but basically we manaburned the BLUs 1st form. Then TP burned the 2nd form. Then killed as fast as we could on the 3rd form. Most of the Eyes on Mes were stunned and the few that got through, Kia survived with his new Equipment and the healing of Kaerwyn. The interlude was a joke. Alexander was a fun battle. Bright sparkling lights descending on the PLD and him being terrorized. His mega move flattened us, but we recovered and went to do battle. At the last few seconds I managed to beat him down with a blizzard 3 (after manafronting for some AMII). We actually won with 9 seconds left.

It took us a few weeks to do the fight for Zephiris (DRG). This time we won with a minute to spare. We would have been faster, but as luck would have it, when Thayos Chainspelled and I Manafronted, Alexander decided to be immune to magical damage. It was frustrating and comical at the same time.

Dynamis

I've continued on trooping with OceanidsDyna. I managed to snag 2 RDM pieces, but the cleric's briault continues to elude me. *grumble*. Triple *grumble*. We did manage to beat all the dreamworld CoP so now I have access to Tavnazia.



We're going to try and actually kill the DL in the next few weeks. I get to come as BLM then switch to BRD for the final fight. I still want my full WHM set. And after 2 years, I'm still without my briault or mitts. *sad face*

Limbus

I have some sad news regarding Limbus. Limbus is one of my favorite things to do in FFXI. It's short, fun, and some decent gear (although Nashira is lacking compared to Homan). I, however, had to leave my Limbus shell. The leader of the shell constantly aggravated me. He was continually late because he had to cycle through his DB. We left later and later, sometimes waiting over an hour. He would never respond to things in the LS. He would blatantly disregard basic strategy. In addition he caused he aggravation when we were leveling in our static. He left without warning, wouldn't show up, and basically showed disdain. In addition, he lotted on all the AF (yes he has a Maat's Cap) even for jobs he swore he hated thus depriving people of valuable AF material for jobs they used. I basically had to leave to keep my sanity. I miss the rest of the people in the shell and wish them the best.

I was randomly farming things in Zitah when I struck up a conversation with a friend of mine, MadKatter. She found out I was limbus shellless and mentioned to me that she was about to go on a run. She asked them if I could join and viola I have a new limbus shell DeepSea. I actually like it a lot. We leave on time generally. We have been splitting up Apollyon zones so we do bosses faster and get more coins (e.g. 5-9 a run). Proto-Omega and Proto-Ultima went down flawlessly.

Legion



The social shells of SageWanderers and Imperial joined together to form Legion. Basically we're sort of lax popped NM, CoP shell. We got together and farmed pop items for Gration and for the Uggy Pendant. My first time ever fighting for the Uggy Pendant and it was a ton of fun. I actually on the lot on the single pendant we won (we went 1/3 on drops). We had some fun taking pictures.

Ranger



I managed to level up my RNG to about 74 in the PLD, RDM, RNG semi-static before I lost my patience with Aznmahavailo. I actually manged to ding 75 through a series of campaigning and mini LS events. Currently I'm working on capping the XP through Campaign and the Worm Assault to get my Yigit Pants (the last part of the Yigit Set I need). I love playing RNG, but I sometimes wince when I think of the gil I'm spending. I finally get to use my Kirin's Osode for a good purpose.

Crafting



After many many months and years I got Brin's Alchemy to 99. I went on a little crafting spree and managed to make another million or so from Alchemy profits. Since I didn't win in the Mog Bonanza I'll have to be content with that. Thinking of getting into crafting again.

Statistics



Overall

I'm still enjoying myself in FFXI. I'll eventually work on my COR again. Maybe SCH. Maybe even DRG. I'm inspired by the DRGs in my LS, seems like a fun overall job. I have to get my butt going on the WotG missions. Some sad things have been left behind, new friends and opportunities have arisen. FFXI lives on!

Sidewinder: Or How to Die Faster than an Overnuking Taru BLM

Ranger

Up to this point I had been having fun with Ranger. Something about shooting things to death appealed. One thing that was lackluster was the weaponskill. They were not all that impressive. With each increasing static, however, I inched toward that miraculous level 55 RNG where I could learn Sidewinder and Slug Shot.

Last night I finally made it. We decided to head toward the squishy and fast repopping birds in ToAU (yay for piercing damage bonus). Our core static of Badray, Lorddocster, Eckardt and myself were joined by Edmund and Cromax. Now Cromax I knew from our Dynamis days so it was fun. So the party of WHM (Badray), SMN (Lorddocster), Eckardt (NIN), Verrick (RNG), Cromax(RNG), and Edmund (BRD) headed out our merry ways. I couldn't seem to land acid bolts on the pink birds and the holy bolt added effect was quite meh. But we were steam rolling along with poor Eckardt trying to keep hate off the 2 RNGs. It all ended when Cromax and I learned Sidewinder and Slug Shot!



Now what was a little irritating was the birds somehow continually ate my food. So on top of struggling with taru's poor STR stat (I think I was at base 41 and Cromax was base 54) I had to be without food for a bit. That being said Cromax was hitting harder than me most of the night. He parsed about 40% of the damage and I did about 38%. But with minuet on us, plus Fenrir buffs, murdering the birds were totally fun. The most fun I had was Sidewinder, followed by Barrage, then another Sidewinder. Of course that earned me enimity fast and I did die 2x last night. But it was so much fun!

I did bow in deference to Cromax's lovely WS numbers though. Here's my best and here is his (which incidently closed Reverberation SC for 600 extra damage, curse him!).

Crafting

I spent a mini-fortune on Philosopher stones. And managed to craft my way to 98 alchemy. I have platinum nuggets to sell but someone keeps undercutting the prices. Earlier last month it was 28K a stack, now it's being down to 18K a stack which makes this a pretty nasty loss synth instead of a slight profit synth. I'm not too happy about that. SO there went about 800K of my gil.


I HATE undercutters.

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.

Craftaholic and Zombie Goblins

Crafting

I've managed to snag myself the Alchemy Furniture: Emeralda! So now I'm 92.8 +3 officially. I got Kavita to make me some consoles with 6 lightning energy and 4 storage spaces to activate the mog enhancement: Alchemy Skill. I can change to water energy if I need to for alchemy based water synthed. I'm so estatic. Just 3 more alchemy tools and I'll have everything. Probably doing Iatrochemistry first.



I get nervous when people ask me to synth expensive things. Case in point the Hakutaku Eye clusters. Ever since I crit broke the first one I ever tried I've been shy about it. Two LS members need it synthed so I got them to come on lights day. Luckily I was successful both times. I'm glad they had faith in me.



Dynamis

We did dynamis-jeuno without our illustrious leader Vlacatocc since his computer is busted. So us old foggies joined up to take lead. Not a single DD wanted to call, so I got assigned as a WHM/NIN to do the calling. The BLMs lead and our sole NIN pulled. Our sole PLD voked the statues. We eventually won. But the MegaBoss came with a train of mobs so we wiped after killing the boss. The mobs glitched on the stairs however, so we had a hard time raising. SO we decided to call the GM. This is what I saw next.



Someone managed to call the GM and he came, invisible, and insta-killed all the mobs. I didn't realize what had happened and turned around seeing dead mobs. It was so odd. The weirdest one was the zombie BST NM. He was killed, but kept jumping up and summoning a slime. This slime would disappear in a few secs but it got caught in a sleepga or 2 so we had to nuke it a couple times to kill it.



I ended up with the BRD slippers. No currency, which sucked. I did manage to finally cap my club skills while calling though ^^

Notorious Monster

I met my old nemesis the Dune Widow while trying to get mythril beast coins. I claimed her but didn't get the drop. Later the day I was running through the area again and she popped after I killed a few spiders. This time I got the drop! I promptly put the torque up on the AH for a slightly inflated price of 300K. And it sold. Life was sweet.



Note: Fully updated sidebar now, I think.

Hodgepodge of Updates

Items

The mean old turtle named Genbu finally decided to grace us with a shield. So I have Genbu's shield to solo around with. That's about all that I wanted from sky. I suppose I could tip my hat toward the Zenith gear now, but I'm not really a fan of it. And the day that a BRD manages to swipe the other god gear...heheh.

Dynamis Windurst

What is odd about the dynamis linkshell is the sheer number of WHMs in the shell. Especially in the starting cities. For Dynamis Windurst we fielded at least 11 WHMs. I had been in my WHM gear and raced to Windurst (helped on PM 3-5 the night before). When I saw how many WHMs there were I offered to change to BLM. LS leader had different ideas though. He said any WHM that could come /NIN or /WAR and melee should do so. And so I did. I unfortunately forgot my Suppa in my MH. I bought sole sushi for the first time in my life. And just whacked mobs. I didn't do too badly. Regular hits for about 30-50, crits 80-100. Hexastrikes were about 200-500. We won't talk about my performance on the MegaBoss.

I did manage to have a lot of fun pretending to be a DD. And I also managed to snag a lot of club skill ups. It was more fun than pounding endlessly on crabs. I went from 246 to 255.3 at the end of the day. Just a few more skill ups to cap club. I wonder if I'll get to whack at dynamis mobs again someday.



Maps

Ifrit's Map has been a thorn in my side for a while. I managed to get a lot of other maps but this one would be a pain so I kept putting it off. Boktai managed to get me to Ifrit's, he as SMN and I as BRD. We took about an hour or so to get the key. And the coffer ... was just around the corner from where we were. It was so funny. And I was so happy!



Since I really don't have the urge to level on my RNG I figured I'd start feeding it exp scrolls. So I managed to cajole Lorddocster into helping me get some Giant Scales so I could do the Spice Gals quest (need a Rivenwort in Riverne site B). After getting 4 scales I went and found the Rivenwort.

I was talking about how easy the quest was to Arizod and Guankim and offered to guide them there if they wanted to. So we geared up as a WHM (me), NIN (Arizod), and BLM (Guankim). We decided to try for the Riverne site map as well which requires defeating 3 NM moblins (a BLM, RDM, and WHM). Immediately when you zone into their spawn area they start attacking. Unfortunately Guankim was first in (we wanted him to ES+Sleepga) and he died very fast. In the end we wiped. After raising everyone we were resting for weakness to wear off. Then someone zoned in and spawned the NMs again. Instead of running off to die somewhere safe, they instead run around the small island and end up coming right in front of us. Needless to say we were still weakened and the mobs killed us (go go MPK!).

So we reraised and then took the spatial displacement away. After getting back to full health we were determined to try it one more time. Arizod zoned first and I went right after to keep him alive. Guankim came in after and slept them all. We killed the BLM pretty quickly. We then went after the RDM. That damn thing is so annoying. It took us forever to kill the RDM and the WHM kept waking up and healing the RDM (I did some ES+ sleep and Guankim ended up ES+sleeping again too). After a long protracted battle we managed to beat the RDM and the WHM although it was a very close thing for a while. But we got the Riverne site map!



After that I went to the Sacrarium to do the Secrets, Oven Lost quest for another exp scroll. So now my RNG is halfway to 23. *sigh*

Crafting

Right now I've been focusing on Alchemy and letting my other crafts slowly level as I gather some materials. It's been icarus wing after icarus wing from level 87 to cap 93 (hopefully). The unfortunate thing is that each synth requires 6 giant bird feathers and 2 beeswax. For a while icarus wings dropped to 6K and the feathers were 12K a stack which is a loss since you have to figure in the beeswax. I had tried to farm giant bird feathers but at 1-2 an hour I gave up and took a loss. I decided to try harvesting pehedro hive chips (much better return on beeswax).



It worked out fairly well. Then I got an offer from Kattsu to help me farm bees and I ended up with about 5 stacks. For a bit over the weekend wings had jumped up to 15K and feathers were down to 9-10K a stack which was a nice 10K profit. Unfortunately some dork dropped the wings down to 12K and the feathers are now up to 16K a stack. *sigh* I had one very nice crafting run. In 6 synths I got a total of 0.5 skill ups. So now I'm sitting at 92.4 in Alchemy. And no feathers in sight on the AH with wings dropping. Ugh. I'm not looking foward to the next synths. Looks like it's either panacea and platinum nuggets or Papillion with rainbow thread as the ingredient. Then after that...I'm scared. And alchemy is the cheapest craft outside of Cooking. I have the gil to get me there I think, but I hate to use all my gil. Right now Jorn is sitting at 5.1 mil, Brin at 1.1 mil, Whit at 1 mil, Sarn at 1.1 mil, Wist at 490K, Verrick at 640K, Bron at 100K and some other little amounts on other mules.



There isn't much I want from the AH these days. I suppose I could buy stuff to make myself better, but meh. I just farm up the gil for Dynamis and Limbus lately and haven't really focused on making gil. It's funny, if you look Verrick up on FFXIAH.com, most of my sales were yag drinks or crystals. Yes, that's how I make my 100-150K a week. Sad ain't it?

A little bit of frivolity

I just had to sneak this in at the end of my post. We went after Omega again in Limbus and killed him pretty easily. We had to random for coins at the end. As usual I didn't get one (damn my rolling skills). But Gheldhart's roll was even worse than mine. I've never seen this personally so I had to put it in.

Return to FFXI

After that disastrous Limbus run I took a nice two and a half week break from FFXI. Read a bit in my free time including my favorite fantasy series, Heralds of Valdemar and The Belgariad. Didn't have the will to re-read The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Upon returning Arizod and Gheldhart urged me to return to Limbus. I took an additional week to think about it and accepted. I did apologize to the shell for losing my temper that night. We're supposed to try Omega again sometime soon. I did manage to scrape together enough coins to get a musical earring (cheer!). That actually helped me land elegy on some of the sky gods with better regularity than before which I am happy about. Next up is the loquacious earring (another 75 coins).

I actually participated in the Easter Event this year. Mainly because I wanted the glowing egg. I pulled my other egg lamps out of storage. I was too lazy to randomly get eggs so I cheated and bought eggs from bazaars (I found them to be 500-2000g range since I did it near the end of the event). I had to get the egg helm first and then managed to grab my jeweled egg. I like them so much that I've left them permanently in my mog house for now.



I've been fooling around with .dats as well. I found Fausley's .dats for hume male which I use on my mules for their "naked" gear. I found a nice black and red chocobo as you can see from above. And I found the Link Costumes (I use Red Link for the tarutaru RSE and the Green Link for my field gear). And best of all, I found the moogle hoodie (by Strawberrie) and the pants with Taru on the side (I forgot who made it). .dat switching is fun.

I finally decided to get myself a relaxing earring for an additional +2 hMP. I did not know what I was getting myself into. I spent hours soloing the flowers of death. All in all I got about 30-40K exp doing this. I had Dukenukem along sometimes as BLM and sometimes as SMN. He managed to MPK me a bit (hehe) but we had a good time doing it. The drop rate is horrible. But I finally managed to snag the earring!

I tried my hand at mining in Halvung and Mt. Zhalyom. Halvung is like Ifrit's Cauldron and to my chagrin I died a bit. Mostly carelessness (e.g. forgetting bombs aggro'd to magic). The mining was o.k. but since I can't take on the trolls solo it does leave many mining points out of reach. I think I prefer Mt. Zhalyom. I managed to dig up a gold ore (5K), a couple of troll armor (about 2K), moblin armor (desynth them), demon horn (4K), and some Aht Urghan brass (5K). I desynthed one moblin armor into a gold ingot (25K), and had enough brass to sell 3 separately and make one ingot (20K). So it was an ok haul. Harder than making Yagudo Drinks, but somewhat entertaining.

Heigh-Ho!

Ever since that infamous update I've had R0 in at least 2 places, Bastok Metalworks and Den of Rancor. Which meant that I lost my ability to Outpost Warp (damnit) and I couldn't participate in the Hakutaku series of fights that my LS was doing (it was to help others, I've had my O.Hat for a a while). But...as of yesterday...I didn't have any R0 in Metalworks! (Too lazy to try and check Den of Rancor). Thank goodness!

Crafting

Haven't been doing much leveling per se. Just been dressing like Link instead.



Been mining in Oldton. Why you ask? I'm cheap. It kills me to spend 2.6-4K per synth at level 17 smithing buying iron ores to craft iron ingots. I guess I've been spoiled by Alchemy and Cooking (a lot of NPC buyable ingredients), Clothcrafting (relatively cheap base materials in the beginning buying from guild/airship vendors), and Leathercrafting (easily farmable hides). I'm still not sure how I leveled Goldsmithing to 33 on Brin (but he did dip under 1 million after that stretch, I think I lost about 100K when I did that, buying a lot of my ores).

Oldton was nice to me. Except for the frickin' goblin dice. I got so many of those and they are supposed to be a rare mine. Got a lot of zinc ores and a few iron ores. The Zinc went to my GS on Verrick so I'm slowly reaching cap. What makes Olton so nice is the amount of moblin gear I dig up. Turning them into brass ingots, cotton cloth, and Glass Fiber. If Verrick's crafts get high enough to desynth it'd be nice to do it in the field and not have to go back to unload. I did manage a HQ3 desynth on Brin and got a gold ingot. I dug up a platinum ore too. Those two funded my pickaxes.



Later I tried my hand at Yughott Grotto. Much better for iron ores! The only downside to mining is my pickaxes break a lot and I'm wearing the field gear. *sigh*

Limbus

Did Limbus again last night. Super fun and super coordinated. Got about 3 Ancient beastcoins for my efforts. Now I'm up to 11, just 64 to go. Gah.

Now this technically isn't Limbus but these guys are members/leaders of my Limbus shell. I've posted SS of Arizod, but Gheldhart hasn't been in many. So without further ado:



Aznmahavailo has a taru fetish. So he finally got his wish with the doll festival and became a taru for a brief moment in time!

I did a few more sigs:




Now I just have to come up with an idea of for my own signature and one for Gheldhart.

Redemption

Shikigami Weapon

Be careful what you brag about in your LS. A member of the social LS crowed about his brother got the YY robe NM and the drop after the party wiped. Of course he didn't know that some of us were there and loved how his brother just stood there watching us. Generally if someone claims an NM I try to help them out with cures, etc. whether it be the Dune Widow or the NM that drops the O.Kote.

Well we figured that not too many people would be able to figure out the pop time since it took over an hour for the weapon to die so we sadled up again. This time we had 3 tanks, Snakegod, Timuljin, and Poetsave (2 NIN and a PLD). Kniko (SMN), myself (WHM/SMN), and Vallis (BLM/RNG) provided support. Nojoke (THF/RNG) came for WS and TH hopefully. We split up into 3 groups, on on the West, one on the East, and one in the lower middle platform (where he spawned yesterday). There was another group that was waiting, about an hour before we got there. When the NM popped Snakegod claimed it. Everyone else used sneak this time and got there without aggro. One link from the area which was slept by Vallis and the weapon was toast (see how easy it can be). And this dropped:



Kniko was beside himself and stated that he was shaking. It's funny how many SMN devote their lives to this robe...before they hopefully get it.

ToAU

I had hoped to be on top of all the missions for ToAU since most of them are CSs anyways, but my little mini static for the missions missed out last Sunday. So with the update I'm behind one major battle then whatever comes this way. ToAU is definitely not as challenging as CoP, but the storyline is entertaining nonetheless. The Lady Puppeteer seems to be somewhat of an airhead and is she controlling the pupets or they her? Gotta love Shantotto no matter where you see her. And...I want my glory crown back. Naja stole it from me. There are wild speculations as to what the reward will be for completing these missions. I hope it's not a crown, I've had enough of the opo-crown on my head.





Craftaruing

So I've been on a crafting kick lately. I managed to get Adept status through making polyflan. I scrounged together enough materials to make it to 83 (cap). Since my friend Arizod was at level 28 alchemy I suggested he level to 30 on eye drops and then use the polyflan (which NPCs for about 114g a piece) to make polyflan paper (cap 36) and then NPC the results. The paper is used to make a few attachments and COR cards, but the cards use a light crystal (which are admittedly cheaper now) and a cluster of the particular element to make 33 cards (more if you HQ). Easier just to buy from the NPC vendors.

So since my next synth required a ram leather I went on a ram hunting spree.



I also bought Ram skin from the AH for 800-1000 a piece. I managed to get Whit up to 35 even on leathercrafting (which makes it a full 3 times leveling from 0-35 in leathercraft on 3 different characters). I had figured I needed about 3 stacks per synth level so I managed to scrape together 12 stacks of ram leather. The other ingredient was Holy Water so I bought up a ton of light crystals to synth. Now since making the holy water would not give me any skill ups I offered to have Arizod synth them for me. So I pushed him to get to 40 on potions, then to 43 on vitriol. He pushed to 44 on Acid boltheads (he was close enough to cap on Alchemy to get skill ups from breaks, but his smithing was way too low, level 5, to actually synth any boltheads). Then I set him to work making holy water for me (I provided the materials, much like Aznmahavailo did for me). I had synthed up about 5 stacks previously so we were both in the alchemy guild synthing.

Now the conditions last night could not have been better. It was New Moon and Lights/darksday so perfect for both of us (since we were doing light based synths). I managed to craft up to 85 on lightsday then waited for darksday (while buying more materials for Arizod to synth). On Darskday I managed to get to 87 (cap!) with about 3 stacks of ram leather left over. I gave Arizod the extra holy water to synth into holy bolt heads (caps at 53) and gave him some suggestions on the path to 60. I synthed him up a firesword (after he bought the iron sword) for his guild test item and he managed to get to level 51 alchemy. He is a veteran cook so Alchemy to 60 will help him HQ snoll stuff. I couldn't resist a pic of us in our aprons.



Retribution

Prior to this I went to help out on Retribution for Aznmahavailo and Gheldhart. I was somewhat offended by the PLD's remark when we got to Ifrit's Cauldron basically telling me to put RR3 up. I had it up from before we tele'd. As if I don't know my own job. I was a bit short already because I had to wait for Azn and Gheldhart to get ready (and I was itching to do synths to prep for the lightsday I saw coming up). We get to the place but instead of clearing the aggro mobs, Azn pulled the NM. So I notice Gheldhart's life going down and see a bat attacking him. And neither Azn nor the PLD were voking. Talk about not knowing your job (Azn was main tank on the NM, so I can excuse him, the PLD was just whacking thigns). I had to tell the PLD to voke before Gheldhart died. Another bat aggrod and we were all almost out of MP. So I had to benediction to keep us alive. I didn't see the PLD use invincible at all. So I get whacked and they just barely manage to get hate off of me. Eventually we kill all the NM and all the links. They get their annals of truth and I warp out to get ready for my crafting session (see above section).

Limbus

I can't say enough good things about Limbus. I totally enjoy it. Ruinous Omen is a nice shell. And with members who have done it before it is easy to transition into it. On our last run I managed to snag my 2nd BRD upgrade item. I had planned on trying for a musical earring first (75 Ancient Beastcoins) but once I got my BRD items I could not resist this:



So I borrowed 2 coins from Arizod and bought a manticore leather off the AH. As luck would have it, the run was on a Saturday so I managed to get my Choral Cuffs +1 the next day (after conquest tally). +10 Singing Skill, +7 CHR! Now I want to upgrade the pants for +8 Wind Skill. Unfortunately upgrading your AF to AF+1 uses up the item so I was no longer able to store my BRD AF. So what's a taru to do? He goes requesting it.

After paying 10K to erase my memories, I went to beat up Tros for my AF1 weapon to start it all over again.



Easy, but...I learn something. If I want to replace the item and complete the mission I have to dump my Paper knife. So I trudge to Bastok to throw my Paper Knife away and have to go all the way back to the pond. At least I didn't have to fight him again. Then I start AF2 quest and then open the hands quest. I had forgotten that the stupid thing was in Castle Zhavl Baileys...*sigh*. Aurridaur and Nojoke came with me to try and get a key. Unfortunately we weren't able to and they both had to leave. I decided to stick around a bit and managed to get a key on my third kill after they left. This is so much easier with Ni (I can even take the eyes without too much trouble). Then I went on the coffer hunt (luckily you can open this coffer without being the right job since it is a key item). I found the coffer surrounded by eyes. I waited until they were not facing it and opened the coffer, but forgot that opening the coffer now also cancels sneak. So I died and becuase of some too rapid button pushing I canceled my RR and had to HP. Grrr.

So I girded my loins to take out Dark Spark as WHM/NIN. First time trying it solo and it was a success. So I managed to get my choral cuffs back and stored my BRD AF. If I get the pants I have to go coffer hunting in The Evil Quadav place...*sigh*.



FFXI Update

There are a lot of new things with this update. Ulli is supposed to be a pop NM now. So is the THF's knife. Have to see how this works out.

One thing I am totally disappointed in is the no loss of exp from CoP battlegrounds. Granted they made CoP easier (from what I undestand) when they introduced some items to assist in the battles. But not losing exp? I guess they're trying to entice people to help others out without the threat of losing exp and their precious merits. But come on, that is a little too ridiculous. Where is the challenge anymore?

Craftaholic

Most of the time crafting is an appendage to an update. Well this time around I get a big crafting headline and a smaller section devoted to a turtle.

For some reason the crafting bug has hit me again. Whether it's to pay for Dynamis and Limbus 2 x a week (about 140-150K a week) or whether I just want to subject myself to agony, I'm not sure. I stubbornly managed to get Verrick up to 60 in Alchemy on Scorpion Claws x 2 + Lightning Crystal --> Venom Dust. Then I faithfully made all those dusts into Venom potions (Lightning crystal + mercury + venom dust) on Brin. Mercury itself takes lightning crystals. So I plunked myself in my lightning crystal spot as a BLM, took up a good book, and farmed me up about 40 stacks of clusters. Aznmahavalio had graciously taken me up to level 70 on Anima synthesis for free (I donated a few mercury stacks). Arizod helped me farm up scorpion claws (I can kill the scorps in CN, but with a big Galka NIN/WAR by your side, they die a lot faster). I managed to make a ton of Venom boltheads to get to level 75.8. I took the Reishi mushrooms I had stored away and got one more level off of x-potions. Used a stack of beastman blood I had been hoarding to make some bloody bolt heads. I did try farming the blood, but found out it was totally worthless to do (didn't get a single blood in over an hour).

So I decided to make Polyflan. Unforunately you need Chimera blood (drops off of puks) and flan meat (off of flans). I kicked myself for all the times I NPC'd the blood (from parties in the thickets) and the flan meat (from manaburns). SO I resorted to asking LS people and buying off the AH (blood 7K a stack, meat 2-3K a stack) which is super cheap for a synth at this stage of the game. And guess what it takes lightning crystals...lol. Managed to get to 77.3 with tons left to synth up (caps at 83). After this I plan to do holy leather to 87 so I've been farming rams as THF/RNG. But the biggest news is:



I finally have a crafting apron! Thank you to Kavita and Nojoke for synthing me weapons to turn into GP items since my smithing is far too low. Now Cooking I have the level for the apron, just not the GP. For Cloth and Leather I have over 100K GP, but not the requisite levels. I finally do feel like a craftsperson!



Genbu

My social LS has made forays into Sky. We've killed some of the pop triggers and managed to get triggers to kill Genbu x 2. About 16 of us trekked up there, including 2 newish WHMs to sky (one 75, the other was 68). We managed to get the abjurations for zenith mitts x 2 (one to Snuggle, the other to Kniko), the abjuration to Koenig hands (to Snakegod) and a Genbu's shield (to Enedin). The fight wasn't too bad, but Genbu kept one shotting the NINs. Still I managed to scape through on BRD without any deaths. Not sure if I really want to keep doing it. There is nothing I really want from sky, nor would I be high on the priority list for anything. I suppose if I ever got COR up high enough, crimson finger gauntlets would be useful. *shrug*



Still very excited about the apron!