Salvage Static #5?

I don't want to jinx things, but I think I might finally have a salvage static that will actually make it past a month!


There are only two types of statics i've experienced that always seem to break whenever you get them started: CoP Missions & Salvage. I did manage to complete CoP over a year ago, but have yet to make any real progress in Salvage, which is due to every static I have ever been involved in, breaking. Either people disappear without a word, or RL schedules change and people can no longer attend.

But, i've finally found a static with 5 other people and so far it seems like everyone is planning on sticking around. The only downside to the static is that 2/3 runs, are at the break of dawn on Saturday and Sunday. Goodbye sleeping in! Just going to to keep my fingers crossed that this static works out.

I'm managed to free up more of my time now, which might not have been the greatest idea because I now find myself sitting in my moghouse more than I ever have.

I made a really hard decision to finally leave my Limbus shell. I'd been in the LS since day one, and we'd been running for over a year. In that time, we'd had a lot of members come and go, and aside from maybe a handful of people, most members couldn't be depended on to show up consistently which made our progress slow down quite a bit. Runs were being cancelled, and eventually the need to recruit became a priority.

It was then when things started to go sour. I had proposed a couple of ideas and requests to amend the lotting rules, because the system we had, didn't really fit things as well as it had originally when the LS first started. Very few of the original members were still in the LS, and while the idea behind the lotting system had been to fairly distribute gear to every member over time, you can't exactly do that when the majority of the starting members have left. New members had joined, and were being placed in the same tier as veteran members that had a year worth of attendance.

Eventually trying to point out the flaws in the lotting system, soon had a select few members making all kinds of accusations as to the type of player that I was.

The only point I ever tried to have understood was that the LS was a point system, which therefore meant that the effort and time put into the LS was being tracked. As with all endgame shells, a point system is designed to prioritize the people that are putting in more to the shell. I mean it doesn't make sense for someone to work 20hrs at a job and get paid $100, and for another person to work 2 hrs and also get paid $100, right?

In the end, not much was done to make the rules change because the majority of the members were not in favor of having any changes. And it was this majority, that while understandable, just couldn't commit as much time. There's nothing wrong with being unable to participate as much as "Joe", but it shouldn't be expected that because of your situation, you get the same opportunity to progress as quickly.

For a few reasons though, I couldn't just quit. The original leader has specifically asked me on a few occasions to help lead, and I had been promoted to an officer before he left the game. So I wanted to do my part and help the LS become better, to see it progress. I had also received a lot from the LS, and so I wanted to return that help to the members and see them also progress and receive the gear they were after.

But as the runs went by, it was obvious a few people disliked me and had fixated on their conclusions as to "who" I was as a person. Drama started finding its way into the LS, to the point where I eventually didn't feel comfortable expressing my opinion about anything because I felt like the moment I did, I would be accused of things that were untrue.

Finally, I just came to a point where I questioned "who" I was in fact helping. With the exception of a few, I felt treated unfairly, I felt judged unfairly, and I just didn't feel that I should be giving my time to people that wanted to take every opportunity to take things I would say out of context, to try and prove their conclusions that I was such a bad person - obviously out to take advantage of everyone in the LS.

So, I told leadership that I would be leaving and made a goodbye post to the LS. If the majority of the LS disliked me, then it would be better that I left after all, right?

It was difficult to do, because felt like I owed the members and the LS more... but overall, I believe it was probably the best decision to make.

At this point I think i'll be taking a break from Limbus unless something comes up. I've been considering helping my social LS get a "casual limbus" group going down the road, seeing as quite a few members have just gotten access or will shortly. But we'll see.

And speaking of casual events... SoTW had a good run a couple of weekends ago. We did a Tinnin x3 night, which resulted in 2 Enkidu Caps, 1 Enkidu Subligar, 1 pair of Hachiryu Sune-Ate (which sold for 3.2mil and was split to all members) and a lotta death!

Well, actually not really. We only had one run that I recall having more than one death, which was due to a short 30 seconds where Tinnin decided to say hello to our nukers. Overall though, the fights went well and only lasted about 30-40 minutes each. I'm really hoping that we have more interest among our members to participate, because for the Tier 3 and 4's we usually have to bring in outside help. Maybe i'll have to figure out a more convenient time to try and accomodate people's schedules ><

And now for some quick updates~

I finally got SMN to 75! And no, I am not getting a Maat's cap! I refuse to touch NIN or BST. NIN just seems like the type of job that would stress me out to do really well, because I know you have to be attentive. BST, just has too many negatives for me. You don't get party invites, and unless you're lucky enough to find someone else that wants to duo with you, the xp/hr is painful. At least for someone like me who has spent the majority of their "xping" sessions getting 20k/hr.

And speaking of that, i'm just about finished meritting SMN already, lol. I managed to get 5/5 Physical Avatar Attack, and am currently 4/5 with Magical Avatar Attack. I figure for the kind of events i'll be asked to do on SMN, the ACC won't be too big of an issue. And if I do resist, or miss... oh well, wait another minute and try again! >_>

I helped out again with some more CoP missions. Helped our the other static in our LS get to the top of Promyvion-Vazhl. I actually had some fun with this because I got to bring out my lvl 50 gear for SAM - yay soboro! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!


Also helped Vepion, Lyea and Fieryblizzard kill Diabolos. On our way out to the fight, Biast had popped and this turned out to be an interesting fight.

My plan had originally been to kite Biast on SMN, but Lyea ended up provoking and holding hate. somehow things got a little messy, and because not everyone had been in zone at the start, I ended up taking a death. This led to another group in the zone taking claim, but after a couple of minutes they also died to lolBiast.


Thankfully though, reinforcements came and we got claim and the kill. Oh, and the drop! Soulstar found himself the new owner of a shiny new helmet.

And now that Vepion and Fieryblizzard had killed Diabolos, they were able to participate in our dynamis shell RoR's first Dynamis-Buburimu. We got the win, which seemed pretty easy and managed to pickup about 5-7 items that you don't usually see in dynamis zones. There was one dragon though that ended up giving us a real hard time. He spammed through all the 2hrs of all the available jobs in the game (minus the new ones) and kept spamming a lot of AoEs that wiped our alliance a couple of times. But, our reliable PLD Ketsurui was able to keep up with the kiting and we did manage to kill it in the end. Now we're looking at trying to do more Dreamland zones, but because we only run once a week, its difficult to decide how often because it takes away from our usual zones.


Did a little NM camping too. Xean was out camping Novv the Whitehearted which was quite a surprise to me, because he's not a fan of NM camping. I went out to give him a hand, and within an hour, Novv popped for us. Xean went 1/1 for the Minstrel's Coat, which was really nice seeing as I had remembered another player going 1/7 on this. Guess it's just my luck that sucks with NM drops now, lol.


And lastly, had another go at the ACP fight. Athoz setup another run, and our setups seemed perfect. We had PLD/RDM, RDM/DRK, SMNx2, WHM and our 6th changed between MNK and BLM. The dmg from me and Soulstar on SMN seemed to be doing fine, because we got the crystal down to 50% in less than half the time allowed.


But, our first run had a mix of bad luck and some inexperience. Our PLD Darce, had gotten charmed a couple of times, which eventually made our RDM/DRK get drawn in, eventually killing him. With no sleeps or stuns available, it didn't take long for the rest of us to wipe.

The second run had less charms, and we did get the crystal down to about 4-5% if I remember correctly... but, once we lost our PLD and RDM, it was a sure loss.

I felt really bad for Athoz and Zaross, among the people needing the fight, they are the ones that have attempted it the most and never seen a win. And thanks to the greatness that is SE, they have to climb the tower EVERY time they want to try again. I can only imagine they're about fetup and ready to just forget about the body piece you can get at the end... but, I think we'l have another run planned hopefully in the week ahead. This time i'm gonna go all out and grab some extra meds.

Which thanks to a very lucky run of KSNM30 - Royal Ramble, won't be a problem at all! I finally got a chance to try this KSNM, and now I can't wait to organize a couple of runs with my LS. It is an easy enough fight (though you do need your kiters to be focused) and has a better profit than Copycat. Why hello thar mr. 100%-drop-O.Ingot! I managed to get myself a d.Ingot as well, which was nice because I plan to keep my O.Ingot to do the next gobbie bag quest... provided I can find myself a leathercrafter 81+!

Return to Chains of Promathia.

Lately i've been finding myself unmotivated to do much in FFXI, which is probably due to a combination of some in-game drama and also due to some other stuff i've been dealing with in my RL recently. It might also be that i'm coming to that point where there isn't a lot that I can pursue in the game, unless I wanted to leave my social LS and devote my life to HNM.

Yea, no thanks!

So I guess its a good thing that two groups have recently started doing CoP missions in my social LS, because now I have something to enjoy and login to do.


The first group that started up, is being led by Athoz. He organized an Ouryu run just last week.



I was asked to come on BLM, and we ended up going with the "Nuke + Sleep" method. It is less of a challenge, but I have no complaints considering the time investment can sometimes be frustrating if you have failure in the end.

So the group consisted of myself (BLM), Sabene (BLM), Athoz (WAR), RMTFalk (WHM), Sethidus (PLD) and Xean (BRD). We went in, started off with a timed nuke and then alternated the sleeps. Ouryu took to the skies about 3 times, but Athoz and Sethidus (and I think Falk) were pretty quick to toss some mistmelts at him, making him come back down. The fight went pretty smoothly, with very minimal damage from AoEs that got through in between the sleeping, and we got ourselves a quick win.


A few other people have decided to join the static and it looks like this group will probably get their CoP rings in 2-3 months. I just hope they don't suffer the all too common "I need to go on an indefinite break" from someone and then have the static halt or break in the end. I swear that seems to be the curse for anyone who tries to do a static for CoP missions... it happens 99% of the time.

The other group is being led by Vepion, who is now racing to get up to the Diabolos fight, so that he can participate in our Dynamis Buburimu run planned at the end of this month.

And while I do enjoy the missions and the fights... I'm always reminded why I stopped organizing CoP runs, especially the prommies.

People. Do. Not. Plan. Ahead.

Usually there will be one or two people that will read up on the missions, find out what items and meds are needed, but the rest... just go planning to "wing it". And as to be expected, when you don't read up on things or bring what's needed, you're more likely to fail.

Which is what happened during our first promyvion-mea attempt.


Our setup had 3 SMN, 1 WHM, 1 PLD and I think 1 BLU. Not everyone had brought a full set of animas (hystero, pyscho, lolterror) and while I have known these fights to be possible without, "first timers" are not likely to be among those that can pull that off.

A few things went wrong with our first run, the first being that no pyscho or hystero were used (at least I don't recall seeing any), the second being that no ES + Paralyze was used at the start even though I had suggested this, the WHM pulled hate with Cure III's right at the start which led the mob to come towards the mages, and from there everything was a mess. I believe someone also used a Terroranima too, which really wasn't a good idea with the SMNs needing the mob to be still so we could pull off our Astral Flow. Needless to say, I was a little grumpy after that failed run.

So the plan was to try again the next day. I hadn't been able to sleep much that night and had woken up extremely early so I decided to go ahead and farm the recollections and turn them into anima for the group. I was pretty sure that most of them would rely on the AH, and didn't want to risk not having any anima on sale before the run.

About 4 hrs later, I had 6 pyschoanima and 6 hysteroanima all sent to the static members via delivery box!

Only 2 of the people that had been with us the day before, didn't show up.

Ha. Ha. ha... ha..... oye.

Anyways, Vepion managed to get some replacements, including someone else in our LS that also needed the promies so we just changed things around and went with a new setup: SMNx3, WAR/NINx2, WHM.

This time, we had everyone use both a hystero and pyscho anima at the start of the fight and after the Astral Flows went off, the mob was dead. We decided to wait 2hrs and go after Promyvion-Holla next, so that we could try and get at least 2/3 done for that day. And with everyone doing what they did the run previously, we had ourselves another win.

Unfortunately though we had run out of time and had to schedule the last promyvion the next day, which again went just as well.

So now that we have the promies out of the way, we just need to do a couple more missions. The only thing that I forsee being an issue is that this group isn't "full". 2/4 ppl are helping, and we have to always look for 2 other helpers. I just hope that we can keep LS members only for this static because getting random help usually results in finding people that have no clue what they're supposed to do, and don't show any indication that they're willing to actually be useful. They just join, hoping they'll get in on a free ride through the missions ~_~

And now for a little breakdown of the other stuff i've been up to:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Yep, i'm gearing up my Samurai again. Quite a few ppl in my LS have been lvling the job, and i've been having that feeling of nostalgia everytime I see them play it. And one day, I happened to come across a Hagun that was about 200k cheaper than the current price. I mentioned it aloud, not thinking much other than the fact that it was a good deal, when Xean asked me if I wanted to buy it. I told him the truth, that I did, which was then followed by him trading me the gil I needed to get it.

(We play this game as a team, so we always work together to get gear we need and follow the saying "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours". So far, this has made progress in the game for both of us much easier and quicker, go go teamwork! Besides, that's how it should be done.)

So a few days later, I decided to also pick myself up some Hachiman Kote +1. I had done a LS merit pty just the day before, and had a blast with my WS spamming, which sealed my decision to regear my SAM and use it again.

My plan now is not to retire DRG, but rather to use DRG for birds and my SAM for almost everything else. I still want to pick myself up a hauby +1, but i'll wait a bit and farm up the majority of that if I can rather than spend what I have saved.

WoG Progress at last!

Though short lived, I did finally make some progress on my WoG missions. I convinced Xean to do the missions with me, so we spent some time getting him caught up.

When we were finally able to continue together, we made a group with Lyea and Janko and did the dragon fight in La Vaule.


But first... we had to go through a number of cutscenes.


For the most part these were ok, but sometimes the scenes were a little "lol". I"m still confused as to whether the character Caitsith is supposed to be evil or good. o.O

The bird of doom...

Seems like there's a lot of "going back to the good old days". And what fun would there be, if we didn't pay a visit to our old friend Kreutzet?


Well Athoz finally asked for some help with this guy (about time, that guy is always helping out people but never makes any requests to get help himself) and while I wasn't able to make one of the windows, I did manage to help out on the following window. We had another group there camping at the time, but Kawanomu was able to outclaim them on his BLU.

Though the fight went well, we didn't manage to get the dagger. I think this makes Athoz 0/2 on him now. And because of work, he wasn't able to keep up with the window so looks like we'll be taking a break from this bird for a while. Hopefully we can go 1/3 on the next attempt. And hopefully I won't shudder everytime I see the wind icon pop up in my window now whenever i'm playing. ~_~

Stupid bird never pops in the 3hr window.

Inventory space = decorate your moghouse?

Sure does! Though strange, I do enjoy decorating my mog house and after commissioning Carste to make me some furniture pieces, I decided to "spice it up" a little.

Mog Bonanza!!!

When I heard that this event was coming out, I told myself I wouldn't buy any marbles. Last year, I had spent about 80k, buying 10 marbles on my main character and 7 mules and all I won were xp scrolls.

But, I gave in. My reasoning is that i'm playing this game for fun, so I might as well take a shot at "some fun" and see if I win something. Its not like this is real life, so i'm not spending "money" when it can be used for something better.

And i'm happy that I went with that choice, because I ended up getting myself 2 Rank 4 prizes. I went with the most valuable item at the time, Behemoth's Hide. I then happened to see someone shouting to buy these in WG shortly after, so I sold them right away. Seems like it was a good decision too because later in the day, that same guy was offering to buy them 40k cheaper than what he paid for mine.

Plus, I got myself my Fafnir Statue. I would of liked to have won all 3 statues on my main character, but oh well. One is good enough.

I hate NMs.

So lets see. The last time I actually pursued an NM, was back when I tried to get a pair of these:

Unfortunately, after spending an entire day in Castle Oztroja running around in circles for hours, getting a couple of claims (I think I lost one or two) and never getting the drop, I decided I would never go after an NM for myself because I couldn't stand wasting hours for a chance at getting something.

However, a time finally came when I would have to suck it up and go back on this decision. ~_~

Summoner 70!!!!!!

I mentioned in my last post that I actually had managed to get Shikigami Weapon right before maintenance, in an epic 8 minute fight with some LS members that were able to run out to Ro'Maeve at the last minute and help me and Xean kill this. We didn't get the drop that time. We logged in after maintenance hoping that we'd see the NM again, but wikipedia turned out to be right. It doesn't spawn until 21hrs AFTER maintenance (and even also has a chance to spawn 30 minutes earlier than when its window should be up)

So the next morning, Xean, Athoz, Sabene, Falk, Darce and Standpoint came to help me (Vepion and Lyea had also made their way out on the previous day). As I should have expected, there were a number of groups in zone also trying to get this, and unfortunately we didn't end up getting claim.

Knowing that if I kept up with the ToDs, i'd eventually get another shot, I made myself wake up at 5am the next morning for the next window. It was really difficult too because I had gone to sleep after 1am that same morning due to Dynamis ><

So I woke up, logged in, and invited my crew that had generously given their time to help me out (poor Xean and Darce also had so little sleep due to also being in my Dynamis shell) and we waited. Lucky for me, there was only one other group in zone so the chances were a little better this time around.

And finally, my efforts were paid off! Our little RMTFalk who had gone WHM/RNG managed to get claim on Shikigami, and near died waiting for Darce to voke it off him. I think he went down to 51HP before I saw his HP go up as I raced to where he was to help with the fight. And from there, it was a piece of cake. We had two THFs (this time Xean had brought his THF), a WHM, a BRD, a WAR and myself on RDM. And as soon as the mob's health went to 0 and I saw that little treasure chest icon above the party information I held my breath as I checked the treasure pool hoping that the NM couldn't drop any crystals or other crap and that I would see the Ying Yang Robe.

I guess I could of paid attention to the party chat in those seconds to see all the congratulations being shouted to know that I had gotten the drop, but I was too focused on trying not to get my hopes up as I opened the treasure pool, that I didn't read the chat log at all. And there it was... my YYR!

I was pretty estatic because this meant that I was 1/2, and that I wouldn't have to invest any extra time on this NM (at least for myself - i'll probably end up helping 2 other LS members that are currently lvling SMN get this in the future) or ask for extra help! Of course though, later in the day I realized that it was going to be more than a week before i'd be able to see the item on my character because:

1)I was only lvl 70 and the YYR is a lvl 71 piece
2)I was going to be out all day this coming Sunday, which is when my static would be meeting up next

Oh well! I guess I can always try and motivate myself to do some campaign this week and get it to 71. But then again, I don't really like campaign all that much and last time I tried playing SMN for a little experience points in campaign, it really killed my brain @_@ I like the concept of the SMN class, especially because its always been one of my favorite jobs in other FF games... but, playing the job in FFXI hasn't really been something I enjoy. Lately i've had some really smooth parties where I haven't felt like i'm gimping my static too much because i'm not a super DD, nor am I a BRD... and lets not even get started on how slow I am with being a healer... my gawd is it frustrating going from RDM with fastcast or WHM with merits and haste gear, to a reaaaaaaaaaaaaally slow SMN!

Needless to say I can't wait to get this job to 75 and be able to bring it to events where it'll make much better use. SMN just is not a great job for merits or experience point parties! But, if I can do some SMN burns with avatar fights, or even CoP fights to help LS members... it'll be worth the 75 levels of pain I have endured getting it there! XD

And so now I go to camp Charybdis #1000897654.


Well, thats an exaggeration obviously. But I spent all yesterday helping camp him for Darce's PLD after we killed Shikigami. Apparently we had missed one of his ToDs because we were there all day. Eventually I had to leave for Salvage, and when that was done, Darce's group was still in SSG. I was so tired from the lack of sleep that I just took a nap and by the time it was late into the night, they had already gotten the kill. And now I'm staring at two Devil Manta's... Just waiting for the window to open for what will likely be another grueling wait for Charybdis to actually spawn. I just hope there isn't too much CC, thats the one thing that kills me when I camp an NM.

Its one thing to go after an NM and not get the drop, but to spend all that time in one place, doing nothing but waiting for the NM to spawn, and then to lose the chance at the drop to another group! GAH! Guess the one bonus with Charbydis is that Joyeuse is 100% drop. I can't imagine how painful this would be if it wasn't. I can't wait to be done with NMs for a little bit after all this... i'm gonna spend some time meriting and doing some KSNMs or something. Need to get this whole NM camping thing out of my system ><

A slow couple of weeks.

The last couple of weeks have been a little bit on the slow side, but no complaint here. Having a bit of a break from scheduled events has been nice and allowed me to kinda "play around" doing nothing in particular. I think sometimes its a good thing to forget about all the goals you have in this game, otherwise you can easily get burnt out or find yourself filled with irritation and frustration because so often in this game, not everything works out as easily (or as quickly) as you'd like.

Sounds like i'm speaking from experience? Well, not exactly... but, might as well mention that the goal of helping Xean get his Black Belt has officially come to an end. I don't really want to say that we'll never pursue the BB items in the future, but Xean has decided to pass on going out of his way to get the BB items. I think the main reason is just because he doesn't really get all that much use out of his MNK, and because of a lot of the experiences we've had recently, this item has just become too much of a headache.

I won't go into too many details, but to sum it up: our server only has 2 HNM shells that are camping the HNMs that drop the BB items. Both have so far, proven to be unreliable, and un-cooperative. Me and Xean had decided that we'd put forth the effort to farm up the gil for the ridiculous prices the shells were asking for, because joining them and keeping up with the members that were able to play 24/7 and be at every single HNM window seemed impossible (especially with the time put into our social LS) So after making arrangements with one of the shells (the other still had members wanting to lot the BB items so they wouldn't sell) Xean waited close to 3hrs for Aspid to spawn one night. After the shell got claim, and killed it, he waited a few minutes to be invited so that he could trade the gil and lot the item.

Only a few minutes go by, and nothing. So, he sends a /tell to the leaders and asks when he'll be invited. The leader he spoke with, then informs him that they have a LS member that will be lotting the item, and so they won't be selling the drop.

Hours of wasted time, for nothing. -_-

So after that, I tried to rally together a LS camping session for adamantoise (drops one BB item, but its not 100%). The turn out seemed pretty good, but in the end, the desire to continue putting in the energy and effort to getting the BB items without an HNM shell, just wasn't there so we cancelled at the last minute. Maybe one day we'll have a go at the HNM (or even the KSNM99s) for fun, but for now this goal has been put in the closet.

So what is on the agenda now? Well... I'm hoping to setup some BCNM and KSNM runs soon, as i've accumulated quite a bunch. Other than that, I actually don't have too much else that I personally feel compelled to pursue in this game. I do plan to finish meriting my COR (only need 5 more limit points!) and hope to get my BLU and RNG up to 37 so that they can be used as subjobs. I also plan to get a few pieces of gear, here and there for my PLD and DRG through Salvage, Assault and Limbus. Most of this stuff will happen "eventually" and i'm not feeling too rushed.

I guess its worth mentioning that I am now trying Salvage again, and might get to see an Ares piece or two for my DRG & PLD. This time I think it'll be a lot smoother, mainly because the static consists of LS members only. Carste is the one leading this, and we have Xean on his MNK, Sethidus on BRD, Janko on BLU, Zeo on WAR, Carste on THF and myself on RDM. There are a few others interested that might end up joining us too down the road once they get access, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed that this static might actually see a few upgraded salvage pieces. I'm just not looking forward to revisiting the frogs. Omg..... I... hate...... frogs.


As for what i've been up to lately, well... I've been slowly working on getting some xp on my RNG. I'm bringing that up to 37 with Xean's SAM, and so far the duoing hasn't been as slow as I thought it would. That's probably thanks to the Fields of Valor that I never really got into.


Once we get to 37, Xean plans to take SAM all the way to 75. I can't really see myself leveling something else to 75 right now, so i'll probably just sync myself to him and bring whatever job his party ends up needing. He's not overly eager about getting to 75, but i'm hoping to change that because I remember having a blast when I lvled SAM. I just hope that I don't find myself getting nostalgic about playing SAM because I pretty much retired mine. Turns out my DRG was a better DD on birds, and if I end up getting some Askar/Aurum/Ares pieces, i'm sure I might even outparse what my SAM used to be capable of against non-bird mobs. (loldrg)

(A random ToAU mission that Carste asked me and Xean to help with so that he could get his mule access to Salvage to fill in as a 6th)

Our resident RMT tarutaru Sjoidjgo (aka Falk) also presented us with a nice little challenge: Hakutaku versus SoTW with 6.5 members!

He and Sethidus were needing an Ohat, and so he rounded up some LS members (Xean, Carste, Sethidus, Athoz, a duo-boxed Ketsuchi and myself) for the fight. During the first fight, we had one death but that was only because our healer (Falk) was duo-boxing and I had taken the risk to cast an enfeeble not knowing he had switched characters for a few seconds. But the rest of the fights went great. I guess we don't really need to organize and plan Hakutaku fights anymore, seeing as they can easily be done with a party of 6.

And speaking of Falk, I just happen to have a fun screenshot from a couple of weeks ago, highlighting the results of a tarutaru NIN tanking fire breathing crawlers!


Actually, Falk does really well on NIN. The static I have with him on my SMN, has been going surprisingly well every week. I usually have had aweful experiences with having SMNs in pty, and had concluded that they're pretty much a waste of space... but, thanks to Sabene's refresh, Xean's ballads, sanction refresh AND my auto-refresh trait... I'm enjoying being able to keep up 3 "buff" BPs on the party and being able to cast at least one offensive BP every fight. I know my place in the static could easily be replaced by something else to make things better, but with the setup we've had, I haven't felt as much of a gimp to the party as I used to a while back.

And now that i've gotten lvl 70 on SMN, its now time to go after a certain item that brings a laugh to me everytime I hear someone mention it.

Yep, the good old YYR (Ying Yang Robe).

I was actually unsure how i'd get the ToD for Shikigami because i'm not the kind of person that can just "sit in game and do nothing" for hours. But the day after I hit lvl 70, there was maintenance!

I logged in 2hrs before maintenance started, and decided to go park my character in Ro'Maeve. I went RDM/RNG, and decided to scan just for the heck of it until SE kicked us from the server. About 10 minutes before that was supposed to happen, I suddenly see Shikigami Weapon appear on my widescan. So I started freaking in LS and was able to round up some friends (Athoz, Sabene, Lyea and Xean) to come help. It was a pretty crazy fight, we were all nuking and meleeing it to death trying to kill it before maintenance started and finished with maybe 2-4 minutes to spare. Sadly though, we didn't get the drop.


So after maintenance, I logged in to see if the NM would spawn. As wikipedia mentioned it would, it never did. So I had to wait until today to try it again when the window opened. Only this time there were about 3 groups also camping it, and someone else got claim. ~_~

Now to try again tomorrow. I know that I can duo this guy easy with Xean's NIN, but if there's more people counter camping... i'll need all the claiming help possible.

And then when I finally get my YYR, i'll most likely still be camping this guy because 2 other LS members are looking to get SMN to 75. Fun fun fun.... at least its only a 15 minute window! Unlike a stupid, annoying, irritating, despised chicken called Kreutzet! *shudders*

Lastly, I had an opportunity to tank Omega the other week.

I was asked to come PLD/NIN, and though I had some doubts at my ability, I was told that I did pretty well. I know that I was a little bit rusty at first, but I eventually got the hang of things after a few minutes of kiting I was able to get a somewhat fluid method where i'd alternate curing with Xean who as on his WHM. Worked out really nice being able to communicate with him so that I could take care of my curing when needed for hate. And at the end of that run, we had ourselves another Homam Body to give to one of our members.

Plunderer of the Seas.

This update is a little overdo (and extremely long!), but...

I've finally achieved COR75! This makes #9 among the jobs I have at 75.

It didn't really take long for me to go from 70-75 with Xean's BRD. With our setup, all our parties were pretty much done merit style. I think we even managed to hit about 27k/hr in those last levels in one party.

And while my COR isn't the kind of DD that my DRG is, (or my "on-vacation SAM") it definitely doesn't lack in the dmg department. I owe a lot of thanks to that, to my friends and LS mates. In the last month they've helped me obtain a few pieces of gear which have really made a difference.

For starters, I had a successful "Experimental Lamia" run during one of our Saturday Night ZNM runs. I had tried to pop this ZNM for 2 weeks in a row, but there were never enough people available to attempt it. But finally, after going the extra mile to plan for it, my LS pulled through for me and after a fairly easy fight, I was rewarded with my Enkidu's Leggings. (Yay for Carste's TH4!)

Next up, I got myself a Light Gorget. Soulstar had just recently gotten sea access and had setup a "UFO Farming" run for people that were needing some sea gorgets. So Drimergirl, Zeo, Carste, Xean and Janko came to help, and after two nights worth of farming, we had managed to get all the UFO organs we needed to complete 1-2 gorgets each.

Then for the last bit of farming I needed to do, Xean came out on his THF and duo'ed with my RDM. I had to farm what seemed like a gazillian Aerns, which kept reraising making us double our efforts. But finally we did manage to get all the organs needed from the Aerns and the goldfish. I had lucked out from the previous UFO farming sessions and gotten my shark organs there, so that was one less thing to do.


And even though I probably won't see many events where i'll be able to bring my COR (just isn't as useful as the other jobs I can bring), I managed to unlock the two weapon skills: Leaden Salute & Detonator!

(NM that me and Xean duo'ed to unlock Detonator)

Getting the weapon skill points was quite a pain for Detonator, because the highest weapon skill I had was Slug Shot which couldn't even do a level 3 skill chain. But thanks to Xean and Carste I was able to complete the points I needed and finally unlock it. Then it didn't take long for me to unlock Leaden Salute because I was now able to close light with Xean's Shark Bite!


Then, just as I lucked out with getting my PLD relic in Xarcabard and Beaucedine Glacier through Dynamis on our very first runs... I also found myself swimming in the same luck. This month RoR did both Beaucedine and Xarcabard, and having just gotten my COR to 75 meant that I was now able to lot the gear there. During the runs, the Commodore Tricorn and Frac dropped. And because no one had set the gear as their main lot, and the only other COR75 in our LS already had the pieces, I was automatically able to lot them! Getting these pieces so quickly and easily was a very nice experience though I have a sneaking suspicion this means i'm probably not going to be so lucky for a long time to come @_@

As for playing COR @75, i've really been enjoying it. Its really expensive if I want to try and keep up with the other DDs, but the point of playing this game is to have fun so I find a way to pretend I don't know the expenses i'm paying into just to play it for a couple of hours in a merit party. Plus, thanks to Xean's TH3 we've had some really good success in the last week farming together.

Aside from the big dent in my wallet this job can make, its quite a change from the two jobs i'm used to playing: healer or melee DD. I like that the job incorporates a little of both (though the healing isn't really so much healing, just buffing really)

So aside from getting in a lot of meriting this week, I've managed to get a few more pieces for my PLD. I quested the Mermaid's Ring for my PLD which gives me a little extra emnity. I have no idea why I never bothered to get one of these pieces during my PLD career, but I guess it's not important anymore! The quest was actually a little more excruciating than I had thought, especially with just TH1. I had to kill 4 different types of Sahagins for some rare/ex mermaid pieces. I managed to get one of an NM (100% drop rate) and the other took me a good 2-3 hrs. I then was able to duo-box Xean and use his THF for TH3 which allowed me to get the last 2 pieces I needed in about the same time. All that was left was to go around the jungle and find the chest, and voilà!

Edit: As of tonight, I now have my first piece of Denali gear! I had been invited out with some friends, and had arranged for Xean to play my character for me during my usual Friday Nyzul static. When I got back home, they were just finishing their 3rd run and fighting the boss for floor 40. A few minutes later, I was told that the Denali Legs had dropped, and even though I was technically main lotting Askar for that floor, the members in my static decided to pass the gear and let me have it for my COR. I really had a hard time knowing how to express my excitement and gratitude to my friends without seeming like a complete psycho.

It's actually funny when I think about my Nyzul static... I remember once upon a time ago, I despised the event and was pretty pessimistic about it (then again, i've become pessimistic about a lot of things in this game after playing for so long @_@) But after we had changed up the jobs people brought, and got a few merits, the runs became so smooth and I finally found myself enjoying them.

But anyways back to the more important point, I have some really really great friends in this game and thanks to their kindness, I now have yet another good piece of gear to spice up my COR just a bit!

I also spent a couple of days doing some campaign whenever there wasn't much time to do anything else.

I had to get about 25k allied notes to get my Iron Ram Dastanas to also add to my emnity set. It was really hard to actually make myself do campaign at first, but when I was within 10k suddenly it didn't seem like such a challenge. It just so happened that it gave me something to do while I stayed up late into the morning to keep Xean company because at the time he was waiting on Aspid (I think that's the name) to spawn.

Speaking of that... Xean finally changed his mind and is going to go after the Black Belt items by purchasing them from an HNM shell. The one LS that we had both joined (though my status was really more of a tag-along if I have nothing else to do) had apparently merged with another and had quite a few people wanting to lot the BB items. The people that wanted these items, were also the kind that were in-game 24/7 and therefore able to accumulate points twice as fast as Xean (or myself). We both decided that at least for right now, the HNM thing wasn't really going to be for us. And so now our plan is to farm up a storm and buy the BB items.

Then hopefully if things work out, we'll be starting a new Salvage group through our LS (lead by the famous drunk-bearded-mage-who-thinks-he-is-chuck-norris aka Carste) and Xean will finally get to have some fun on MNK and i'll have another challenging event to play on my RDM. I might even get to bring my COR to the boss runs! O_O

I'm not looking forward to the runs we'll have to do with a few green amphibians that will remain unnamed, but i'm definitely willing to give this a go and hope for the best. It'd be really nice to see some people from our LS get an opportunity to obtain some of the best gear available in this game. And being able to say that our little social was able to succeed at yet another endgame event... well, that's just another thing to smile about.

And now to catch up on the other stuff i've been up to!

The CoP static in my LS finally reached chapter 8. I headed out to help them with the 3 fights up in Sea, which went a lot faster than I predicted. The fights were relatively easy with 2 RDMs (myself and Chisei) alternating the ES + Sleepga. We did get a little aggro here and there, but then again who doesn't when you're in Sea?


I wasn't able to help with the next mission because of my static for my SMN, but from what I heard Drimergirl, Soulstar, Standpoint and Timwakefield made some more progress. The plan now is to wrap up with the last two fights in the CoP missions in about 2 weeks and finally we'll have another bunch of LS members that have finally completed the CoP expansion! Then... its time to pester a few others to get their static setup. Eveeeeeeeeentually our entire LS will be done with CoP, and SEA WILL BE OURS! <_<

And on the topic of sea, Jailer of Faith can go dig himself a grave! Xean had tried to setup a JoF run a few weeks ago, but unfortunately he had some RL plans come up and we had to cancel at the last minute. So we scheduled for the following week, and struggled to find people that would be available and willing to help with the fight. During that week me and Xean farmed up a total of 7 pop items, just to make sure that we'd see at least one Faith Torque. I would end up getting the second if one dropped, and then we'd allow anyone else who participated to lot any after.

Sadly though, the fight didn't go well. Xean seemed to be tanking pretty well and the dmg looked good, we managed to get JoF down to about 60%. The problem though was that he spammed some move that kept giving the slow effect to Xean, as well as a petrify AoE move AND Stonega III. I was having a really hard time keeping up with casting Cure V > Erase > Haste > Stona > Repeat. I couldn't even find time to rest and had both Ballad and Refresh @_@


Eventually what made the fight turn for the worse was when Xean went really low on HP and I was in the process of casting erase on him, and unfortunately no other cures got cast after he took some massive dmg and then before I had a chance to get my own cure off, I watched his HP go to O. Then from there, JoF picked us all off one by one. Carste managed to kite him for a little bit, but we just didn't have enough time to try and recover. The most disappointing part of the evening was that immediately after that loss, the only other two healers had to leave which pretty much forced us to cancel the rest of the run. It was really frustrating and discouraging after having put so much work into setting up the run.

I'm really hoping that in the next month or two I can try and help Xean setup another run now that we'll have more ppl with access to this fight, but that also has been a challenge. I'm never sure if the people I ask really don't want to come, and I hate putting them in a position where they feel like they have to say yes out of obligation. Hopefully taking a break from this goal will be a nice breather and give me some time to get a better feel to know who really doesn't mind helping with the fight. Then the only other challenge is setting up a time that works conveniently for everyone. Stupid time zones ~_~

I also was able to help out the most recent addition to my little SAM army, Standpoint, with his Tashi: Kasha NM. I'm telling you, one day i'll have the entire LS with SAM75... and then, I will unretire it and lead them to many many fun parties filled with WHEEEEEEE's.


We did a few WS points out in Vunker Inlet [S] and then geared up for the fight which was in Kuftal Tunnel. Xean came along to help, and I pretty much just tossed a few enfeebles and watched the two elvaan men annihilate the beetle. Fight wasn't even much of a challenge for a BLU75

and MNK75!

And last thing worth mentioning, I had another opportunity to bring out my PLD for a LS event! Drimergirl had asked for some help getting her Carbuncle Mitts for her up and coming SMN, so myself, Xean, Athoz and Vepion went to the temple of Uggalepih to give her a hand. I had farmed up the key she needed to get to the NM area, as well as the pop item so that really let us speed things up. As for the fight, I wish I could say I remembered it but to be honest the only thing I remember is hitting my provoke macro! Its surprising what once might have been a really difficult fight, can be so easy and quick! I remember having close to 2 parties when I had gone after my Carbuncle Mitts years ago.... and here we were, with less than a party and the whole thing probably lasted no longer than 5 minutes! Oh well, the important thing is that Drimergirl was estatic at the end.


So guess i'll end this post by expressing my current thoughts...

I need to do some testing on my DRG! I have been getting an urge to play my SAM again thanks to a few people in the LS that have been expressing how much fun they've had recently lvling the jobs. But I really don't think its a good idea to keep multiple heavy DDs geared and available when I have so many mage jobs. Even with the satchel, I am still struggling to maintain a "20 empty inventory" space. So my goal for the next little while, will be to see how I can better gear my DRG to bring it up to par on non-bird mobs so that the temptation of getting my SAM out of retirement won't be so strong. First on the list: Get my Pahluwan Legs!

Getting caught up in the moments.

Sometimes, that's exactly what we need to do when we play this game. "Get caught up in the moment".

Lately i've been noticing that a lot of people I know, have been feeling stressed out with the many goals they seek to accomplish in this game. I'm sure i've been feeling it myself at times. And the downside to this, is that we get so consumed with "having" to get something done that we easily forget to enjoy ourselves and the moments that we have which make this game worth playing in the first place.

So I think for this blog entry, i'm going to savor the moments i've had recently which have either made me laugh, or made me smile.

Lets start off with what I like to call, "getting cudly with the tarus".


That there is Xean and Falk (now called Sjoidjgo thanks to the RMT that hacked his account and the wonderful SE support who refused to let him change his name back). We were waiting to pop Iriz Ima, which our LS has done countless times...

The fight went very well, as always. All we had to do was bring out a few nukers, and voilà! GAME OVER for the poor elephant. Err, Marid.

Next up, a little bit of UFO farming.

Soulstar had just recently gotten his sea access, and wanted to farm up some UFO organs that he needed to quest his WS gorget. So a bunch of us headed up to Sea to give him a hand, and also to farm a few extras.


We had Xean and Zeo tanking, while Soulstar would jump in here and there for his treasure hunter. Drimergirl and myself were on healing/enfeebling duty, and of course we had our reliable Chuck Norris (aka Carste) nuking away on BLM. Carste took a couple of deaths (he has quite a nuking set) throughout the night, but other than that things went pretty smoothly and everyone who needed a UFO organ was able to get one.

Also, one thing which most people might find incredibly mind numbing - weapon unlocking.

My COR just hit 73 as of today, but yesterday I was able to get it to 72 which meant time to unlock my Coffinmaker i've had waiting in storage for months. I was really excited to finally be able to work on this and it available for future parties... until I found out that I couldn't make a level 3 skillchain. -_-

But... things worked out because I was able to drag Xean out on his MNK to help me out!


We worked on getting the 500 points I needed for what seemed like forever. And though things took a lot longer than I thought they would, I content just to spend time with him doing something together. Eventually he had to take a break which was fine, because I was able to solo the crabs in Vunker Inlet [S] just fine on COR (go go Ninja's Roll!) while he was away. Later in the night he came back and helped me finish up my last 40 points and I was ready to lvl again on COR!


Only we had to wait until the next day. Cuz you know, people need sleep. <_<

So this morning, we decided to try and setup a merit pty to get some fast xp. At first, things weren't looking too good for us because there was NO healer in sight and the only people in LS that had healing jobs were already busy.


Eventually though a RDM popped up and so I invited him right away. Then I grabbed a DRG, SAM and WAR (thanks Zeo!) to fill the rest of the party and we headed out to the Colibri camp which was empty.

I don't know exactly how much xp we managed to get, but the party we had was one of the best i'd had in a long time. Kills were easily under 5-10 seconds, and the majority of my slugshots were hitting. Xean seemed to be enjoying himself a lot because at the rate we were killing, we were definitely keeping him busy with pulls. We got up to about chain #126 and the only reason the chain ended is because we eventually had to replace Zeo and I had made the mistake of inviting the replacement before he was actually ready to engage the mobs and fight.

All I know is that I really can't wait to finally be able to do some LS merit parties with Xean's BRD. Called me biased, but he's damn good and i'm just keeping my fingers crossed he still has this new "ability" to endure long grinds in FFXI because I want LOTSA xp!


My only other challenge when we hit 75 will be to find someone willing to act as the healer. I love being on RDM, and I probably will end up going if I don't know the healer personally (most RDMs tend to be really lazy) but I really have been enjoying my COR and hope that i'll be able to bring that to some merit ptys. Or my lolDRG!

Last saturday was also a success for ZNMs. I hadn't been able to pop my Experimental Lamia for the last two weeks which really had me discouraged and pretty much ready to give up on even doing ZNMs for myself anymore, but my LS "saved the day" as the saying goes. I had a full alliance show up for my ZNM and even got the Enkidu's Leggings i'd been hoping for which I can now use on my COR. Now I just need to get the Aurum Cuisses and I think i'll be done with ZNM gear.

Then the plan is to start popping extra ZNMs that I know others need but don't have the time to really farm up the zeni. I just really have to remind myself to actually farm the zeni because like with campaign, that's one thing I always put off.

We also managed to kill Nuhn, Cheese Hoarder Gigiroon, Iriz Ima, Chigre and Dea that night which was no surprise. I was really glad that Drimergirl finally got her Blood Ring that night... she had popped Chigre the last two weeks but never managed to get her ring.

And to make this week an even bigger success, we got Xean, Vepion and Darce up to floor 81 in Nyzul. A goliard body dropped and Xean won that, which is a nice macro piece for his WHM. Hopefully we'll be able to get floor 100 in the next two weeks and then after that, we'll be spamming some assault to help Vepion get a Yigit Body for his BRD.

And though it was a sweet gesture to serenade to me and Xean, I think we might just have to persuade Vepion to get some singing lessons. Elvaan men don't exactly have that melodic voice.


Last things to note - I got myself a Hades Earring +1! OMG YES TWO WHOLE EMNITY!!!!! I still need to quest my Mermaid's Ring though to add to my emnity set.

My goal is to have so much emnity that the next time I get asked to tank something, NO ONE will take it away! ~_~

So that's all I can think to post about now.

Oh, but one last thing!







My DIRT.

*Stares nervously*

*Holds big jar of dirt close to her chest*

My PLD needs a little work it seems.

I've been doing some thinking lately, and realized that two things about my PLD.

The first, is that I miss playing the job. PLD was my first 75, and immediately after I got it there, I rushed my RDM to 75 so that I could play a job that would have a better invite rate for merits. And from there, I ended up leveling various other jobs so that I could be more useful to my friends and the linkshells I was apart of. Unfortunately though, the end result is that I would rarely have the opportunity to play my PLD because the other jobs I would get to 75 would have more use.

As much as i'd like to be "selfish" at times and bring what I want to whatever event i'm attending, I much prefer seeing "success". So ultimately that means that when i've participated in an event, and if I had another job that would benefit the group more, I would end up bringing that job. And to be honest, this was never really a problem for me. The only time I would find myself irritated with bringing a job I would rather not play, is when I saw other people who could also do the same, yet never offered up to bring a more useful job. Instead, i'd see them bringing "what they want to play" even if the job they chose, wouldn't benefit the group as much.

But anyways, I just haven't really been able to play my PLD much in the last 3-4yrs i've played this game and seeing some friends who now have the job at 75, friends who are just about to get it to 75, and even seeing friends take up an interest and start lvling the job has made me a little bit envious in a way. I'm getting that nostalgic feeling.

And the second thing i've realized, is that my PLD is rusty. My macros are out of date, I haven't really updated any of my gear in a while and well... everytime I have been asked to bring PLD i've always felt very insecure about my tanking ability. I've been able to get some practice as PLD/NIN in the last year, but even still I find it quite a challenge to keep hate without provoke and feel that I could really use a lot more practice tanking with this subjob. I don't like feeling incapable of doing something, especially when I know that FFXI isn't really all that challenging of a game in comparison to others.

So what does this all add up to? A rusty and hardly used paladin.

What do I plan to do about it? Well, first things first... I have a little bit of gear updating to do. Its gonna take a bit of work, especially because I would rather farm up some more gil rather than spend the savings i've been eating away at due to my COR. I'm planning on doing some BCNMs as well as KSNMs as much as I can with Xean and other LS members... so plans to farm seals is already on the way. The other thing i'm hoping to do to help with this, is meriting. Lotsa meriting. If I can get one of those awesome 20k/hr parties, i'm able to accumulate at least 2k worth of Imperial Standing which I can then trade in for 99 Imperial Bronze Pieces which I then put up on the AH for gil! This is probably my most preferred farming method, because I usually enjoy meriting (especially on birds! go go DRG!)

With a little farming, and some questing (and waiting around to for some miracle opportunity to get a rare/ex piece from either my HNM shell that i'm in "part time" or find an endgame shell willing to make a deal for the B.Mask) my long term plan is to obtain the following:

• Ritter Gorget (Einhejar)
• Mermaid Ring (Quest)
• Hades Earring or Hades Earring +1 (both AH)
• Cerberus Mantle (AH)
• Bahamut Mask (purchase from an endgame LS that isn't going to rip me off for a ridiculous price)
• Aegishjalmr (HNM LS - Fafnir)
• Homam Gambieras
• Iron Ram Dastanas
• Iron Ram Hose
  

So, i've got a bit of work ahead of me. The hardest pieces to obtain from that list will be the B.Mask or the Aegishjalmr. I think I will have a better chance at getting the Aegishjalmr with the HNM shell i'm in part-time now, but seeing as I won't be able to participate much, I probably won't really ever have lotting rights unless I luck out and no one else needs the item the day it drops. Of course the other thing I have to keep my fingers crossed for, is that my HNM shell actually gets the claim on Fafnir when I DO attend. So far our shell has been having some bad luck with this other HNM shell called Absolution which from the word of mouth, seems to have a lot of botters. And while I guess any HNM shell could have that, their shell has gotten a majority of claims which makes it quite suspicious. So yea...

I'm also considering investing in a magic defense setup. I would really like to try tanking the ACP final mission fight, where a PLD/RDM is used. I have no experience though tanking with /rdm, nor with the idea of gear swapping at the right time before a magic move is used against me to swap in my MDB gear. Still, its something i'm probably going to look into though not as diligently as getting my other PLD gear.

Ideally, if I do pursue an MDB set i'll need to get myself the following:

• Merman's Ring x2 (AH)
  
• Corral Earring or Merman's Earring x2 (AH)
  
• Lamia Mantle + 1 (AH)
• Resolute Belt (AH)
• Iron Ram Lance (AH)
• Lamia Kaman (AH)

The lists look like a lot of work, but I think that like with my Burtgang progress... as long as I take it slow and don't stress myself out about getting it all asap, it won't be so bad. One thing i've learned about this game is that you don't always get to have the "uber" gear immediately, and sometimes you won't ever be able to see it at all depending on what it is. Its not exactly meant for every player to have, otherwise the rarity and value would be meaningless. But, sometimes the window of opportunity opens when you're patient and you sometimes find yourself getting lucky. Keyword though: sometimes.

Hopefully once I start getting a few of these pieces, i'll run into some more opportunities where I can play my PLD again. And if not, well... guess its time for me to put together some events where I can play it, and finally make everyone else that has multiple jobs come as something else so that I can have a little more fun XD (Well, maaaaaaaaybe. Its really hard for me to ask people to play jobs I know they don't enjoy)