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!

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!

Finally, Freakin' Finally!!!

The picture should say it all ... except it should read 8/12/06 to 9/27/08. Was too excited and rushing to get this posted!

Dynamis

I started Dynamis with LoHDyna, an offshoot of my social shell LordsofHydra. It was rough in the beginning. We had no clue what we were doing and had many, many wipes. But the group got better and stronger. And we kept on going. Pretty soon we were an established shell doing Northlands and some CoP.

Then the shell broke for various reasons. Mainly the LS leader, Lorddocster, running away to Kujata to join ... Demo. Along with the LS bank. And his cronies of Fade (now Byte) and Fallyn. I still have not forgiven him for that piece of idiocy. Nor did he ever seem contrite about it.

So most of the old shell moved to OceanidsDyna, an offshoot of the endgame shell Oceanids. Unfortunately due to my playtime I could only make Saturday runs. For a long time we were in the cities to help new people get the wins. Then we did runs to win the Northlands. Then we killed the Dynamis Lord. And spent a whole ton of time in CoP Dyna. Along the way, the dynamis shell broke away from Oceands to become DynaLounge.

I had frankly despaired of ever getting my full WHM AFv2 (not couting relic belt). I could only make Saturdays and could not drum up the points to stay at the top of the list. I had received only RDM feet and hands for a year of being in the shell. With us doing CoP dyna I was getting more and more discouraged. Especially after Hypnotizd who started doing Dynamis a while after me got his full WHM AFv2, BST AFv2, and most recently BLM AFv2 Hat before me. I was feeling discouraged and frustrated.

With the new dynamis entrance fees and drop rate we were able to do some more Northlands. In Xarx 2 weeks ago I managed to snag the cleric's mitts that Kavita had outlotted me for way back in LoHDyna. Last week we did the glacier. I was up for RDM Body and RNG feet, but had to pass in order to keep my spot on the WHM list. Needless to say, the briault did not drop. My last chance was this weekend, because after we were going to be doing a lot of Xarx and cities to get new people the win.

Bardon (who also started Dynamis after me, but is able to attend both runs doing the week, and got his full AFv2 a while go) kept on trying to encourage me. He predicted it'd fall this run. Wooooodum (who leads the shell and was an old friend and member of LoHDyna) tried to buck up my spirits. Eckardt (who incidentally has full NIN AFv2 from a while ago) also predicted a drop. I wasn't too convinced, seeing as I had not seen the drop in over 2 years of dynamis (the one time it dropped it went to Acreana since I was unable to make that one run in LoHDyna).

But lo and behold, the damn thing FINALLY, FREAKIN' FINALLY dropped! And as a consolation prize, RNG feet dropped again and I got to lot it. So, after over 2 long years of Dynamis I finally have the coat the inspired me to start it all! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Incidentally ... we managed to snag 18 AF this run and three 100 bills. Damn never had it this good.

RDM - ENEDIN for 15 points
BST - FULLEN free lot
PLD - FULLEN for 15 points
BLM - ACREANA for 15 points
WAR - ELBRYAN free lot
THF - BOI for 15 points
WHM - VERRICK for 15 points
BLU - BOKTAI for 15 points
RNG - VERRICK for 15 points
PUP - VLACATOCC for 15 points
PLD - KIRCE for 15 points
MNK - OLHADO for 15 points
BLU - GUIVOND for 15 points
PLD - ETAF for 15 points
PUP - GUIVOND for 15 points
WAR - ECKARDT free lot
DRK - ETAF free lot
WHM - OLHADO for 15 points

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!

Shadows of an Ultima Dynamis-Windurst in the Path of Darkness

Dynamis-Windurst

Last week Saturday OceanidsDyna chose to do Dynamis-Windurst. Our regular puller Vlacatocc was unable to make it. Instead Zalia got to pull. They didn't do too badly, but we had several wipes due to uncontrolled linkages. We killed the MB but it died in the last 30 secs so we didn't get the official win. This time with Vlacatocc pulling we managed to kill the MB with 30 minutes to spare and farm afterwards. No BLM or RDM. In my time with the shell no RDM AF has dropped (I can only attend Sats though). Meanwhile Hypnotizd (from my LS AlwaysFUNE) managed to get a cleric's briault (I've been lusting after this one for a while) in his Dyna :-(

Storms of Fate

After finally kicking the little twerp's face in ZM17 I heard about a possible Storms of Fate run. However, I was in an xp party at the time and couldn't go. Much to my delight it got postponed until Saturday. Right after Dynamis I got a tell asking if I wanted to go on a run. It took a while to get set up and I managed to see a lot of familiar faces from my past. Ultimatechidori and Sesshi (from LoHHNM/Valour), Kiobi (from GYS), Guivond (from RuinousOmen) were there and I got Ashur (AlwaysFUNE) and Zarovich (Imperial) invited too. I died to a cluster (wasn't paying attention when casting) but finally made it to the area. Once there we buffed up and hit it as hard and fast as we could. There were several deaths in a heart pounding battle, but we managed to win! Now I have to climb the promies and then I can FINALLY do AN!



Proto-Ultima

RuinousOmen finally finished up another Ultima set. This time around we had several new people from the crew that used to come. We missed Eldercid, Toxicity, Loren, and Dubajaba. The battle was intense and long. Several dissipitations went off which threw a kink into things. Our PLD/NINs died quite fast leaving Arizod and Vashstarwin (WARs) tanking for a bit. Nice to see WARs who were not afraid of vokes. Citadel Buster was irritating. It took a long time to wear him down (we need to hit harder during Citadel Buster and let the guy die instead of running at 30). But we managed to snag the win and the title. Belgarath got the feet and Hovaz got the head. For our three Ultimas we have received 4 Turbans...*sigh* a hand and a foot. Given that Ultima is so much harder than Omega I find it funny that our win percentage on Ultima is 100% and our win percentage on Omega is 87%.

ToAU/CoP





The Imperial ToAU static (Zarovich, Thayos, Kaerwyn, Zephiris, Makina, Kiabrightblade, and myself) managed to get to the Gessho fight. We tried to straight up tank him a few times with Kia but he ended up dying too fast. Luckily you don't lose XP in ToAU battle zones. Our 3rd try we decided to kite kill him ala Kirin. Zarovich charmed/kited Gessho as BST while Thayos enfeeb'd and took care of the clones. Our DRGs (Zephiris and Makina) and PLD (Kia) hit him when they could and Kaer and I healed. It wasn't the most elegant of fights, but we won! Gessho is a pain in the ass.



I'm actually enjoying the CS of ToAU, the story is getting to be interesting too. We have 2 more fights to finish the missions off! Hurrah!



I enjoy being in Imperial, especially since AlwaysFUNE tends to be a little slow at my prime times on the weekdays. On Saturday we did Promy-Mea for Zadine. 3 SMN, 1 PLD, 1 WHM, and 1 MNK raped Mea! I think I'm going to have some fun doing CoP for a third time ^^.

I also have fun and get to chat with Pikko in Imperial. I listened to her radioshow with Exodous today and it was entertaining. I find it funny that I know both Allakhazam admins from Garuda and they're both in the same LS. We were waving to Pikko's little boy who loves her character.



Registery

I managed to learn how to make FFXI beautiful by tweaking the background resolution. However, my computer can't run it. When I oversample it, I get 4 frames a second. I wish I knew what I needed to do to keep it like these pics ... I wonder if I have to get a new graphics card.





DATs

I found some really nice .dat files to switch up. I really like the Young Griffin armor from the Sandy Past. It's now my "Naked Taru" armor. I also found Nation Moogles! They have a Windy, Sandy, Basty, Jeuno, and ToAU one. I really liked the ToAU version. And I didn't realize, I have a mule (Stal) who is the same model as Pikko! BTW, if you're on Garuda and get a chance to know Pikko ask to see her MH. It's really nice.

Pretty in Black

Dynamis

Today was Valour's first Dynamis-Beaucedine run (the LoHDynamis Shell merged together with Valour the newly named LoHHNM shell). We had about 20 odd people show up which is not bad since we have to work on getting access for the rest of the members (hello city runs again).

We had about 3 BLMs, 2 RDMs, 1 WHM, 2 BRDs, 1 SMN, and a decent amount of melees (which is better than the 13 WHMs we sometimes field in city runs). It was actually a relaxed and fun run although Landar (MNK) and Snajper (BLM) did die quite a bit. Not sure who won, but my gil would be on Landar.

Again, I prayed and hoped for my WHM body (the only body we had received in the last year of dynamis went to Acreana when Dragoces and I couldn't make one run). I'm 3/5 on WHM AFv2 (Kavita outlotted me on the gloves when they dropped in Xarc). Been wanting this relic body since I first started playing WHM, my first job. However, it was not to be. Instead I got to lot on this:

So I got my BLM body before my WHM body, so sad. When you compare this to the NQ Igqira Weskit (which I have) you sacrifice +6 MAB and +2 Conserve MP to get -2 enm, Refresh, and some MP. I think I have to rework my macros now to switch over to JSE in the middle of casting so I can keep the refresh bonus as long as possible. Of course I lose out on the -enm bonus. Maybe I'll use the coat more when I'm soloing or during hard NMs where I want every little bit of -enm I can get and I can sacrifice some damage potential and conserve MP potential for refresh. Not sure.



Red Mage

Since I don't get to see Guankim much anymore, I decided to try and level RDM on my own. Got into a party last night with Belanus and his cronies. I remember partying with them in Garlaige Citadel a long time ago on my BRD I think. At that time his friend Lep (something) was our tank and dc'd when his mother pulled out his xbox. Then the party had broken up because Belanus didn't want to party without his friend. I should have thought of that this time.

So we start off in the woodlands fighting pink birdies at level 53-54. At first he told me we had a WHM so I was estatic. When I joined it turned out he had a 51 BRD and I'd be main healing again. I couldn't land enfeebles with any great accuracy even with my HQ staves and Glamor Jupon. It was so depressing. Then all of a sudden, the WAR (Lep) starts to DC. Belanus (NIN) stops moving (no red dot yet) and the BLM Dcs. While I was frantically trying to cure the NIN I pull hate and end up dying. The RNG kills the bird with EES. Then I see the red dot appear as I'm laying dead. I was getting annoyed. THey come back on and he goes lol, playing at the same house.

So we continue on and then on the 3rd fight after that guess what? All 3 Dc again. This time the BRD and I eat it. The RNG manages to get onto a chocobo and lose hate. The 3 never back on. I was so annoyed. Then I get a tell as I'm waiting for beseiged asking if I want to party. I had been afk reading a book and took like 2 minutes to get to my comp. I say sure, and then Thedarklord goes, sorry party full. That was very annoying too. *sigh* RDM may turn out to be the bane of my existence in this game. And to think I had wanted it leveled up before BLM.

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.

Want to see the DL?

Dynamis

Remember how I said we'd do a dry run of Xarcabard next? Well it happened. Dynamis is an interesting storyline. We gathered at the trail markings fully prepared to die multiple times. Our LS leader(s) [Vlacatocc does so much prep work, I'm truly impressed] ran through some basic strategy. We've managed to win Beaucedine the last 2 times so we have some people with access to Xarcabard. We fielded 37 people (one of the WHMs left the shells since he can't make the times often enough) so we went in with 36 (or so we thought). Turns out one of our BLMs didn't have the Beaucedine win so we went in with 35. Gotta love the CS with the multiple warp in to defeat the Dynamis Lord.



We managed to snipe a few eyes with 7 BLMs without any aggro and took out 2 time extensions without problems. Then we went on to the 15 NM demons. The BLMs sniped the eyes from behind then we moved to the front. Legos and Timuljin (NINs) would kite 2 of the NM demons while the alliance fought the third. Acreana (WHM) went to keep the kiters alive. Our first trio of NMs our kiters went down and so did the WHM, but we managed to beat them without any alliance wipes. And you know what? We managed to beat all 15 NM demons without any wipes. We got much better at them by the final trio.

Then we hit a spot with about 6 eyes in a row. The plan was for the BLMs to snipe them without drawing hate (this means all 7 BLMs needed to hit the eyes at the same time to kill them instantly, spawning the demons but no hate on any BLM). Managed to kill 2 eyes without problems. I lagged seriously on the 3rd eye and my macro didn't fire. Another BLM was a fraction late and that loosed an eye and about 9 kindred demons on the alliance. Back in the beginning of the shell that would have spelled wipe for sure. But you know what? Our RDMs were spot on with sleeps, the callers and DDs moved quickly to kill demons, and the BLMs helped out with sleepga II and nukes. And we managed to kill them all with just a few deaths (and everyone was so on the ball that I reraised in the middle of all that and didn't die). Unfortunately we couldn't snipe the other 3 eyes since they ahd spawned their NMs already so we took on another train of demons and killed them all. We were pretty high on our success at that point. A few members who had beaten the dynamis lord (like 2) and a few that had done Xarcabard before (but never seen the DL) were impressed.

We went to take on the Vanguard Dragons next. BLMs on the cliffs and the DDs below with Legos bringing each dragon. Those dragons were ridiculously weak to magic. So the BLMs had a field day just spamming nukes and killing them before they reached us on the cliffs. And before we knew it, all the Vanguard Dragons were down. We moved our way to Ying and Yang, the twin dragons that needed to be killed pretty quickly after each other otherwise the twin will summon the dead dragon back to full health. The alliance stayed away and the BLMs and BRDs went to Thundaga III them. I think we might have had a resist or two somewhere in there, but we managed to take Ying down in the first volley of nukes. Yang we had some problems as he raped the BLMs but the alliance helped out and the remaining BLMs nuked him as well and got him down.



Then this big puppy spawned (we had 20 minutes left on the run).



Now here was our situation. Thirty four people (one of the BLMs dc'd) who never thought we'd make it to the Dynamis Lord. We had figured we'd die multiple times getting used to the zone and probably wipe to one of the demon NM trios. But what the heck we decided to try to take him on. No one had icarus wings, opo necklaces, sleeping potions, etc. It was super fun. We managed to get chainspell stun for about 2 minutes but in the end he and his pet dragons (Ying and Yang reincarnated) raped us. We got DL to 80%. Not bad for a first run at Xarcabard with a smallish amount of people. And a great deal of fun too! We just need to optimize our damage and get more people to have access. Congratulations to Lorddocster (Duelist Chapeau), Timuljin (Koga Tekko), and Dukenukem (Valor Surcoat).

Limbus

Did Temenos W tower with 12 people with Ruinous Omen. I love Limbus a lot. We did the animal tower.



Can you say unlucky? We got a single time chest in the whole tower. We managed to get up to the slime floor before we ran out of time. But it was super fun and a great group to go with. I managed to snag a coiled yarn for BRD AF+1. Tons of samurai pieces dropped (but no SAM in the LS). I got 4 ancient beastcoins (total of 40 dropped, would have been more if we got some time chests). From what I understand this is the most random of towers in terms of completing since it's dependant on how many time chests you get to randomly pop.

Craftaruing

Managed to get Verrick to 56 in Alchemy. I went with Arizod's advice and hunted Lightning elementals where Behemoth spawns. Since Lightning weather is often up in Qufim areas this was a nice place. I went as WHM/BLM, but I think I can farm elementals much better as a BLM since spells do reiciculous amount of damage to elementals. Got about 10 clusters and meant to hunt scorpion claws to make venom dust to get to 60. The plan is to turn the venom dust to venom potions (On Brin, although Brin is past the cap for this one) and to turn those into Venom Bolt heads (cap of 76 so Brin will get skill ups). Then do X-potions for however many reishi mushrooms I have (Guankim gave me some a while back). Was initially going to do bloody boltheads to 81 but beastman blood is a lot. Might do polyflan instead if I can get enough chimera blood.

Mapaholic

A couple of big accomplishments (but I forgot to take screenshots; I was too happy when it happened). My social LS wants to fool around in sky a bit to try and get items from the gods. Now I don't really have a huge urge for god gear, but I'm willing to go with them. Needless to say it's easy to get lost up there. We managed to do our business (more about it later) and I got a Ru'Ann Garden's key out of it. I had a key to the Palace in sky for ages but had never got around to finding it. I went searching for the coffer for the palace, but died when I wasn't paying attention to a nasty detector (I was BRD). Later that day I decided to give it another whirl and went as BLM/WHM. I managed to find the Ru'Ann coffer key fairly quickly which I was happy about. Then I went to look for the coffer for the palace. I figured I might as well look for the ??? for Curtana at the same time. OF course when I decide to do that I find the coffer in the 2nd place guarded by a weapon. So I elemental sleepII the weapon, grab my coffer, and escape out of there. Mission accomplished!

Emboldened by my luck in Sky, I decided to go after the Den of Rancor and the Oldton Movalopalos (sp?) maps since I had their keys rotting in my MH. The Den of Rancor wasn't that much fun. I ran all over that place without finding the coffer. So I had to exit to the jungle (and hopefully it was in the other pop place since I forgot my clubs to fight the Temple Guardian and was lucky that some people wer efighting it already the first time). Went in the other way to the Den of Rancor and behold found it surrounded by Opos. Waited for them to move away and got my map! Oldton was nice since I don't aggro anything there and I found the ma pin the 5th spot I checked. I love having maps!

Notorious Monsters

On our way to skill up/break latent weapons we came accross Aquarius. We had a WAR who was interested in the Franchescia so we went and beat up on it. First time I ever fought it. The only other time I saw it was when I leveled in the Tree with a static and our puller accidentally pulled it instead of a regular crab. Congratulations to Totalkaos on his new weapon.



As I mentioned before my social LS went up to sky. Now most of us are relatively new to sky (I've done a few farming sessions and god battles, but just a few). We made it to the Ulli camp without problems but after 2 or 3 hours of being there and him not popping we decided to try and life our morale with a forced pop. We went to fight Aura Pots to get a Ro'Maeve water. That took us forever. We had some people leave in frustration/boredom/late night. But we finally got the damn water to drop and got our pop item. I can see why people buy pop items especially when some NMs pop every 3-12 hours or so. Sky just isn't worth it, but I suppose if the social LS wants it, I'll go with them. At least I'm learning how to navigate through sky and with my maps it will be eaiser to compare to my printed maps. I did get about 3 stacks of light crystals which is a good thing ^^.

I managed to break my Dagger of Trials doing level 2 skill chains over the course of a few days which was nice. The WSNM fight for Evisceration is pretty easy.

Also helped Blueeyedbeauty get Black Halo (along with Fullen and Dukenukem). That NM fight was just as easy as I remembered.

Dynamis

We decided to try Buburimu again. Our first run we wiped to a dragon and wiped to multiple links. So it wasn't a success. This time we were better prepared. Killed the voidsong dragon without too much difficulty. Killed a few NMs (but wiped on a bad link of 4 statues). We regrouped and killed the NM, but ran out of time to kill a lot of dragons. So we fought the megaboss with him having quite a bit of tricks left (including heavy stomp, manafront, and bodyslam). Needless to say it was bad. But we got him down to 60%. So that was pretty good. Just need to get a feel for the place and how to pull the mobs faster and without links so we can get enough of the bad moves away from the megaboss.



Doing a dry run of Xacabard next.

Craftaruing

Smithing can be expensive. Decided to do a bit of leveling on Verrick. Buying Iron Ores for 600-800g a piece sucks. That's about 2400 to 3200 a synth. I can't sell them back because Iron ingots are used for like the next 10-15 level of synths. I might have to resort to mining to reduce costs. Got Smithing to 17.8 on Verrick before I called it a day on Smithing to get my 9K back on BLM.

Before the update I decided to go farm some sleepshrooms to get Verrick's Alchemy up to 56 and hopefully finish him to 60 on Venom Dust (caps at 61). Killed exorays in CN and got 4 stacks of shrooms. Plunking down about 500g per poison flour and about 132 g per chamomille per synth it came out to about 650 g per synth which isn't bad. What was frustrating was a string of breaks and a string of no skill ups. Managed to synth about 4 stacks of sleeping potions which are going for about 18K on the AH right now. That isn't a bad amount of profit I suppose but nothing staggering. I ended up buying a stack of shrooms for 5K hoping to cap out my alchemy but it didn't happen. So I'm stuck at 55.3 in alchemy. I forgot how horrible the skill ups can be in the 50s.

I don't think I'll be leveling a job much in the forseeable future. Crafting has taken hold again!