Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Campaign: The Legit Way

... Because we know song spamming is gonna get squashed!

Some people don't like to campaign, a bunch of good reasons why. Frankly, if I was playing this on my 360, I'd probably cry because I think the chances of it freezing up would be pretty high. I haven't tried it on my 360 yet so who knows!

Anyways, to kinda add on to my previous post about Campaign (link), having a basic understanding of what you can do to squeeze off as many XP caps as you can to add on to your healing/damage XP gain is key to getting 4-figures.

As a melee, this is horribly easy. Just run out there with your weapon and beat the crap out of things. Just try to treat it as a merit/TP burn party, toss out any self enhancements JA/Magic that you have (just note the exceptions) and pretty much, unless you're a few levels low or you get knocked down too many times, you'll most likely keep up with the cap.

As for a mage job... they have it hard. The majority of their XP is from emptying out a resource that they do not have unlimited amounts of. Pretty much, your MP is being converted into XP. Lets face it, unless you're a decently geared RDM or WHM, you're most likely not going to melee for crap.

That's a quick overview, lets get into details!

First, Sigil. There's really no reason to not have it. It gives you Signet bonuses along with Sanction effects along with the ability to stack up Regen/Refresh/Food Duration all at the same time. This will help you a lot during resting periods where you want to get your HP/MP back up. This is especially true for melee since there many be some situations where a cure just might not come to your aid.

The key to getting XP is keeping yourself alive by yourself. It may sound like a selfish thing but consider that when things get really busy and your HP meter isn't exactly apparent to other people, relying on a random cure from people during the times where you need it most isn't exactly smart thinking. As a mage though, feel free to cure yourself and others, it's XP. Pretty sure people that do campaign regularly is going to be on the look out for those with low HP just to get some XP out of it. It's a mutual benefit: They get XP from curing you, you stay alive longer to milk in more XP.

Plan out your Campaign. Don't just grab a tag and do random stuff, have a plan of attack for how you can milk the most XP. Lets have a look at what I have for BLM:

1. Immedately when a campaign battle starts, get a tag.
2. Cast Stoneskin/Blink/6 Barspells. Cast Reraise if needed. (Covers my 8 self enhancing)
3. Look around for anyone that needs a cure.
4. Rest until an attack wave shows up.
5. If unruly mob of players gang up on Boss in the wave, debuff/drain/aspir only.
6. If unruly mob of players gang up on underlings, nuke accordingly and melee at the same time. Try for a killshot.
7. If death is a definite, die in a place where you can be safe to raise.
8. Repeat 3-7.

It's a pretty solid plan, usually nets me a good chunk of XP. To into specifics about my plan though:

1. Getting a tag immedately when a battle starts is a good thing due to the XP time cap (which differs based on your rank.
2. Self enhancing caps at 8 repetitions, a total of 150 XP.
3. You need to cure 5000 HP to hit cap. That's about 25 Cure 3s or so based on your gear.
4. Having MP = important... that goes without saying.
5. Bosses suck as they can potentially one shot you. Try to keep your distance and keep your hate to a minimum. Resists count towards your debuff, you need to do 20 of them.
6. This is where the majority of your damage will come into play. Remember to keep yourself alive.

Now of course, if you're on a melee job (like my SAM), the only real planning you have to do is simply keeping yourself alive out in the battlefield and having a good weapon on your side. Just go out there and beat the crap out of things.

Some points of interest~

- While I'm not so sure about the Bastok/Sandy side, the Yagudo's Divine Pilgrims are basically free nukes. All they are sent to do is go in and erect either a turret, a belfry or bomb the fort. They don't attack at all so just throw out your big nukes without worry about hate.

- Did I ever mention that Stoneskin is the greatest spell ever made? Use it. It might not save vs Bosses but it'll save you against certain AoE attacks for a bit.

- Getting new tags, on the same line as song/spell spamming, can actually pretty good to reset your caps on certain XP things. Try doing it while you're waiting for the next wave of mobs.

- Almost everything can be aspired. Use that to your advantage.

- If you have a Love Halberd and you're main SAM... :3

- Bosses are usually bad news to engage first. Try to plain out avoid them if you can and just target the weaker ones. If you have a strong NPC force though, you can go nuts sometimes.

- Cure NPCs. They have so much HP that a Cure 3 will usually only heal 2%.

Truth be told: Campaigning on BLM (or close to any Mage job really) sucks. You can be trying to do everything to your power to get as much XP as you can but you'll never really reach the cap. However, if you really want to go campaign on your BLM, it can be fun but the XP will be substandard and you're often better off soloing stuff in Sea. To be honest though, to have something like this as just simple clean fun... it's a nice thing to do when you just don't want to really think and just let it all roll. You also don't lose XP when you die and screw up so maybe the overall XP gain isn't so bad for soloing. Either way, it gives me an excuse to bust out my DS and wait between Campaign fights!

Maybe I'll come back and reorganize this post a bit... For now, just rough typed out info. See you next fight!

Monday, July 28, 2008

The BLM Journal: Mentality

I decided to start a new series of posts that I will call "The BLM Journal." It simply acts as my output and "thinking" pad for my trials as a new BLM75 (which I recently got :3 Thank you Lissy for helping me with the final set of XP).

For the most part, I'll be posting probably a lot of things people will either say "duh" or "Isn't that common knowledge?" While that's true, there are some things that I really don't have much of a direct answer to (/RDM vs /WHM) and some things that I think I need to touch on a bit more so I can be more efficient on the job. Like I said before, I'm really passionate about my SAM job and I would like to do the same for my BLM job as well. So, lets start with the basics.

Mentality - Doing whatever you can in your ability to not become a liability

One of the main reasons why I avoided BLM for so long is that I think the job can be pretty demanding at times. You basically have an ability to a large amount of damage and it relies on you to maintain that balance of damage and hate control. Not only that but you have access to probably one of the most powerful spells in the game: Stun. There are a lot of responsibilities of a BLM that frankly, after fighting a few Tiamats and a few other things, it's a lot of pressure being placed on just one single BLM. Of course you would use BLMs bunched up and in a huge group but even then your survivability will be heavily reliant on your ability to do so.

BLM is also probably one of the jobs where while you can be lazy as all hell, it can end up screwing you over in the end. For one moment where you're not really paying attention, that could be the end of you and your XP buffer. At least as a melee job, you can take a few hits. As a BLM, you're most likely not gonna have Stoneskin or Blink or whateve rup when such a situation hits when your mind wanders off and BOOM, you're down to half HP because you threw out a Thunder 4 without paying attention. That is another thing I feel about BLM though: Sometimes you might end up doing a lot of nothing because you're waiting for that hate to stabilize before you throw out your nuke. I feel that my understanding (dispite playing PLD prior to this) of hate is a bit minimal at best. I can't really "feel" my tanks hate all that much and I feel this is because I didn't party for the majority of my BLM career, most of it was solo XP. I suppose I will improve on this as time goes on when I play BLM more often.

Sometimes I feel that people level BLM and not really care for it too much. I'm guessing it is mostly due to the fact that they leveled BLM first then leveled a melee job and found that to be more fascinating. It isn't relally the other way around for me though, I still love SAM to all hell and I am enjoying every single moment as a BLM. I'm actually doing Campaign right now as my SAM but I really want to get on my BLM to nuke stuff... I just need SAM buffer though. Even as a SAM or a BLM or whatever, I find it odd that people would level a job, play that job often but do the bare minimum. Now, I have BRD leveled and I really don't care too much for the job, so often I just don't play it. If some LS want me in as a BRD, I'll refuse. If one doesn't care much for something, they will do a bad job for it. Unfortunately, BRD doesn't require much from the player to do what people expect them to do, at least in the end game environment. For all they care, you can be naked and it won't matter to them because you can still do Double Ballad. BLM, ont he other hand, requires a lot off of the player to maintain good damage and survivability, which irks me because people don't really try too much in this department, at least from past linkshells that I've been in.

With all of this in consideration, I have to think about the following few points when playing BLM:

- Maximizing my survivability
- Maximizing my damage/hate threshold
- Maximizing my ability to throw out spells fast
- Get the most out of my resting set
- Being able to make all of my spells as efficient as possible
- Making sure my skill stays fresh and improves over time

A little too hardcore? Well, maybe... There are also things to consider that will probably hurt me a bit since I have melee jobs leveled:

- No Tamas (Not a huge deal, just lose -enmity)
- No INT merits (Gonna hurt for maximizing BLM)
- No shared equipment (SAM and BLM basically have no equipment they can share other than certain haste items)
- No MP merits (HP will probably help me more here though)

Well, I still have a long way to go on my BLM and hopefully I'll have a "satisfiable" BLM soon. Gearing it up will be nice but I'm more concerned about my ability to play the job, as that will ultimately determine how successful I am at the job.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Valkyrie's Breastplate



Congratulations on your Valkyrie's Breastplate, Dionicio! :3

Monday, July 21, 2008

Hurray for Odin~

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I'm a leet einherjars~

Yesterday was a pretty pumped up day for DownRightFierce. Unfortunately for me, I barely got any sleep the previous night so any sort of positive energy that came around just simply flew by me. Regardless, a few fancy things have happened yesterday!

First off, we missed a chance at Cerberus due to this random JP LS that showed up. Frankly though, I was entertained. Not so much that they were doing bad (they were struggling) but it seemed like a pretty small group that never really fought Cerberus all that much before, or even any real HNMs because I've never seen them anywhere at any time. So, being able to get together and fight something that they seem to not have a lot of experience on kinda made me smile a bit, not to mention taking it down at a pretty good rate.

Anyways, for all intents and purposes, lets call that a bad start to the day. I attempted to go to sleep only to be awaken one hour by Lissy. After having my face stuffed in my pillow going "Oh god, don't tell me he's up..." I got out of bed and lo' and behold, Tiamat is up and claimed by us. With my BLM barely at 73, they asked me to come on it to handle adds. Never having to deal with anything serious with BLM before, I was kinda initimidated and really, it felt like my first few days of playing PLD at end game all over again. Fortunately, I retained a clear head and picked up what I need to do within a matter of seconds... which, now that I think about it, wasn't so hard in the first place!

I gotta say though: Skilling up on Tiamat is the only way to go.

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Only real thing I found myself doing during this entire fight was:

1. Handle Elementals and Bifrons (not Corses, while I can outrun them, the initial pull might eat me alive!)
2. Nuke Tiamat with Thunder stuffs while he's in the air. Because my stuff ends up being resisted a lot, I usually go with the one-shot critical hit-or-miss Burst routine.
3. Talking about how uber I am... though that's probably my sleep deprivation that's doing that.

Tiamat ended up dropping a wyrm horn... wryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Someone shouted out Manaburn in the LS chat and... for whatever reason, I decided to take it even though I need sleep BAD at this point. I got about 20k xp before I had to throw in the towel. I took a "nap" and had Lissy wake me up about an hour prior to fighting Odin. This time, I would be taking PLD to kite adds.

Odin is not hard. It isn't the most easiest thing in the world but it isn't ridiculously hard like the usual Tier 3 or heck, even Tier 1. I wasn't really disappointed though, it's freakin Odin! It's the guy that was in all your old Final Fantasy memories and he goes in with his fancy-pants Zentetsuken and one shots people! The fight ended up being relatively easy but also pretty short (30 minutes). We got E. Body, H. Hands, M. Legs, and P. Body. No Odin exlusive items though...

Other than that... got 2 more Assault wins off of my chest and got some fishing done with some LS mates... oh and a Sand Charm so I can finally start that Inside the Belly quest. Maybe someday I'll tackle the legendary Ebisu Rod... or maybe not.

On a complete side note: FFIV is out on the DS this week for NA. Git it!

Friday, July 18, 2008

My BLM vs My SAM: The Epic Battle for Supremacy

Sitting here, soloing on my BLM (currently at 72, yay), I was thinking about how I would apply my BLM to my end game LS (DownRightFierce). As we all as well know: BLMs are uber that it kinda dominates a lot of circles in end game...

But... Well, lets have a look:

Sky: I'd most likely be SAM without a single doubt.
Dynamis: I'd most likely be SAM without a doubt.
Sea: Might be BLM but might be SAM the majority of the time (heck, even end up being SAM for JoL might be better off for me at this point, unless they need someone in adds)
ZNMs: Based on what the mob is... but lower tiers will most likely be SAM.
Einherjar: I'd most likely be SAM without a doubt.
Variety of HNMs: I'd most likely be BLM.

Honestly, I'm just kinda sitting here going "wtf am I gonna use my BLM for?" It's fine though, I really just leveled this to do small-man things with Lissy and whoever else, also the fact that I enjoyed every moment on BLM... minus the "trying to find a place to level and trying to nuke something I can take" ordeal.

Will I take BLM as serious as my SAM? Honestly, I can afford to. The only thing that I would be doing that would be gimping myself (if you even want to call it gimping, I don't even know at this point) would be not being able to merit INT because I have STR merits. Other than that, Elemental and Enfeeb can go 8/8 and I have enough equipment space to hold all the gear. Really, if I truly felt like it, I can have a really powerful BLM to go with my really powerful SAM... which, oddly enough, I can have a really powerful MNK too all at the same time without gimping a single one of them.

I think I have decided my final 3 jobs that will be my best/main jobs: SAM/BLM/MNK.

This is, of course, not to say I won't level other jobs though, but...

WAR: I have leveled to 75 but SAM has kinda replaced it. Haven't had much application for it anywhere over SAM really.

THF: I have no interest in. I think it is a great job that can do a ton of damage and can farm stuff and survive on its own really well... But, I don't think it suits me too much. That and THF tends to have a bunch of exclusive equipment to the job.

WHM: Most likely not going to happen because I have an aggressive playstyle and this could hurt me while playing WHM.

RDM: I could very well level this job too but after seeing a ton of RDMs emoing about the RDM AF2 Hat... I'll pass!

PLD: It is still in hiatus until the time calls forth where my PLD is needed again. For right now though, it will rest until then.

DRK: A job I once have considered leveling but I eventually chose not to. Mainly because I would find nothing to do with this and it feels like I'd be doing nothing with it except pull it out and slash a few things.

BST: No.

BRD: Doesn't exist.

RNG: I has no munnies, though I will get it to 37 someday.

NIN: I has no munnies but I did consider it at some point... but I already got one tanking job, don't need another.

DRG: 37 someday, but not 75.

SMN: No.

BLU: Eh.

COR: Maybe someday.

PUP: Honestly, maybe I will level this to 75... just to wear Usukane on it.

DNC: 37 at the most, I don't see me soloing anything with it at 75.

SCH: Maybe... maybe not.

Oh, and Maat's Cap is something I'm probably never gonna consider... probably for a good reason that I wish to keep to myself. >:

Monday, July 14, 2008

Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 O_O;

Just announced by Wada in the Microsoft E3 Press Conference: Final Fantasy XIII is indeed coming out on Xbox 360.

Source? Well.... You'll see it all around in a few minutes, I'm sure.

E3

If you're a hardcore gamer like me, you're probably paying attention to E3, where most of the new stuff gets announced for the consumers (like you and me!).

While it felt like it was a pretty bad/boring weekend (well, it was the whole week for me last week), at least this week should be entertaining for all the PS3/360/Wii owners out there.

And yes, I know this is another short post. Still recovering. ;_;

Saturday, July 12, 2008

This can't be good...

Well, I was gonna type up more blog posts but apparently my left hand gave out. I'm thinking it is carpal tunnel related so I'm going to give it a rest and let it recover before I do anything involving typing. Might even need to take a break from FFXI until this recovers.

Thankfully there are a lot of TV shows I've missed so I can just catch up with them to keep myself entertained. I wonder what I should watch...

Anyways, I really really hope this is not permanent. I typed this blog post with one hand. ; ;

Oh yeah, I added a Twitter feed to the right. Was going to use it as an HNM notice thing for LS members but I think I'll just use it for personal stuff.

See you guys later and don't be like me and end up with CTS!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Moggie's BLM Shopping List

Everything bolded is stuff I need to buy

For Nuking:

Range: Sweet Thingy
Head: AF1
Neck: Elemental
Ear: Mold/Morion
Body: Wesket (Need to buy)
Hands: AF1
Rings: INT+5 Rings?
Cape: Gleeman (Almost have enough Einherjar points)
Belt: P Rope
Legs: Errant (for now, will get Mahatma once money stabilizes)
Feet: Cobra Crackows

For Enfeebling (Black Magic Side):

Range: Sweet Thingy
Head: Iqqira Tiara
Neck: Spider Torque
Ear: Morion/Morion (Probably something better here)
Body: AF1 (something better?)
Hands: Errant (something better?)
Rings: INT+5 Rings?
Cape: Gleeman (Almost have enough Einherjar points)
Belt: P Rope
Legs: Igqira Lappas
Feet: ??? (All I have is Mannequin Pumps, not sure what to put here otherwise)

For Enfeebling (White Magic Side):

Nothing because I don't know if it's worth it... or if anything can be better except putting MND in certain places.

For Dark Casting:

Range: Sweet Thingy
Head: AF1
Neck: Dark Torque (worth it/anything better?)
Ear: Morion/Morion (Probably something better here)
Body: ??? (All I can think of is Nashira Body)
Hands: Errant (something better?)
Rings: INT+5 Rings?
Cape: Gleeman (Almost have enough Einherjar points)
Belt: P Rope
Legs: Errant (for now, will get Mahatma once money stabilizes)
Feet: ??? (All I have is Mannequin Pumps, not sure what to put here otherwise)

For Resting: (While trying to avoid Yigit due to Salvage runs)

Range: Sweet Thingy
Head: No Clue (Maybe Yigit?)
Neck: Gradniose Chain (Maybe Phi Necklace if lucky someday)
Ear: Relaxing + Antivenom
Body: Errant (Probably gonna use AF1+1 Body when the chance occurs)
Hands: Nothing here really unless I want to try to get my hands on some Oracles
Rings: Nothing really matters here
Cape: Invigorating Cape Though man it looks ugly...
Belt: Qiqirn Sash
Legs: nothing here @_@
Feet: Avocat or Numerists

For Idle:

To be constructed... but a Cheviot Cape is tossed in somewhere!

Note that none of these include any special cases (Obi/Magic Burst/MAB+ Items under conditions... THOUGH I would like those too!)

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Yet another filler post

Various web projects, a huge MMORPG to play and I'm all out of Sunkist! ;_;

Anyways, I'm keeping this short and sweet because I need to get in bed...

BLM I got to 70 with some help from Lissy and Bobbyray. Campaign XP is really the only thing tiding me over. Rarely do I find a camp open on BLM for me to even solo so it really sucks on my end.

Still, the Usukane Head 25 piece is far from my grasp. It will require a bit of effort in my group to get to the boss in time to fight it as fast as possible. I'm so close to Usukane Head, I can taste it! I had to sell my Osode though to buy the Ingots. Truthfully, I think it was worth it because I rarely WS on Osode except when I'm on /THF. Many would say Osode is best for SAM to WS in general, I kinda don't see the difference but then again, I never really parsed it.... and then again, impulse got the best of me.

The motivation to level MNK is still there but I will not start until my BLM is properly merited. Yes, this will take me a LONG time to do but I figure I'm in no rush.

One more Tier 3 win for Einherjar for access to Odin... Can't wait.

Xarcabard sucks, where's my girlfriend's RDM AF2 Hat? :(

Minor Rant: I can't really see why someone would up go to you, being the most rudest person in the world, and inquire about your LS. I don't blist people except for the whole shouting RMT spam way back when... but still! Guy got my nerves... and I'm pretty sure he was just itchin for a quick item and then jet.

I've been playing Traumt Center 2 on the DS. Been playing with double stylus for XS ranks on hard... so far, having a hard time.

I had a few people poke me while I was doing my own thing, saying they're fans of my blog. :3 Thank yous~ I promise I'll write something more detailed later when I'm not swamped up with things!

Other than that.... I had a pretty okay 4th of July weekend in FFXI and in RL.

Oh and I've been watching Awesome Video Games over at YouTube. Check them out, might be worth watching inbetween HNM Windows. @_@;

Thursday, July 3, 2008

This is some crazy .hack shit right here

So I was doing Salvage and we totally forgot about how Discoid can cut people wide open when we don't have enough people in range. So I got tractored and my game froze... and... I tried logging back in to Mogknight... Couldn't get in, I restarted my compy just to reset my connection to the server. I came back, still couldn't log in after 5 minutes...

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o_o; 10 minutes later, I finally logged back in but the run was over. :(

Crazy .hack shit right there...

Wednesday, July 2, 2008