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!

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.

Hurray for Odin~

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.

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!

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. >:

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!)

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. @_@;

Black Cloak infused with Love~

So after hitting level 68, Lissy decided to congratulate Moggie by giving him her very own Black Cloak that she has been using since forever! Truly, I am touched and just having this thing on me makes me feel like my power level is over 9000! @_@;

After freaking out and falling in love with Lissy's Black Cloak, I decided to head out to Sea and nuke some fishies.... then realized that I still havent' figured out the trick to it and I'm still getting really low XP per hour. Maybe I need to level /RDM and use that!

Anyways, I know a few posts ago I did a bit of a thing with /BRD and all that stuff. I decided to screw doing that and actually do Campaign battles. As I'm pretty sure the trend is following on other servers where it's mainly beastmen controlled. Now, I heard some weird ass crap from players as to how to "resolve" this issue on the player side. Kinda ranks along the thing I heard about Besieged and donating Imp. Bronze Pieces to the NPC that gives the Turban (yes, this is false, yes, you are retarded for believing in it).

I'd like to start off the theme of today's post as.... Cautionary Tales of Campaign.

@_@;

Honestly, Campaign isn't really a bad thing. Sure, it causes your Xbox/PS2 to crash from time to time but when you... ya know... actually get on a decent PC, it isn't so bad. You see a lot of crazy stuff in Campaign though. I mean, yes you can kinda just glance at it and be like "eh, that's a bug, whatever" at some of the things ya know? But, here's something that just totally shocked the crap outta me. Given the fact that I'm writing this at 3 in the morning, I might be wonky but... don't you guys find this to be sorta strange?

o_o;

There's just something about that turret... Something... wrong...

So anyways, ignoring that there's a huge pecker from that bird turret, went on to tackle down the baddies.

I got into the habit of casting Stoneskin constantly. I think Lissy said something along the lines of "I'm gonna kill you if you don't put Stoneskin up" or something.... I dunno, I don't like dying in either case so... Stoneskin up! I can't believe how many times this thing saved me from damage. At the beginning I had really low Enhancing and MND so really, it was almost pointless to put stoneskin up. Now I have to teach myself to do it constantly.

FOX...... DIE!!!!!!!!!! ..... THINK AGAIN.

That gimped SAM made us lose the battle. :( Not even Ares Galka Dancer PLD Man can save us.

Meet defeat by GOLDEN EAGLE.

This... doesn't look like a Belfry at all.

So, a got myself about.... 6k total exp from doing a ton of Campaign today... Hmm...

Getting BLM to 75 will be one long trip. @_@;

... There was nothing cautionary about this post at all!

FFXI reference in FInal Fantasy Tactics A2

... What? You think I'm gonna tell you? -.-

I'll tell you this much though, it is near the beginning of the game.

Anyways, to all you Final Fantasy fans out there, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is out for the DS in the NA regions. Go pick it up nau.

... This is gonna cut into my BLM leveling time.

My Weapon Skill Accuracy...

... leaves more to be desired. ;_;

Either this is a rant or a plea to figure out what's wrong with my gear. Well, as many of you should know (I hope), SAM weapon skills are mostly one-hitters, especially the YGK group. Unlike many other WS that other classes use a lot, such as Rampage, Guillotine, Dancing Edge and so on, I get struck with the whole "missed" messages when I do my WS. But it doesn't just happen a few times, this happens like.... all the time. I'm sitting thinking "Okay, I have almost the same gear as all of these other SAMs, I have my Sea Gorgets, I have 8/8 GKT merits... what gives?"

Really, I'm pretty sure it is just the fact that with one hit considered, I'll get that bolded message a lot more than say a WAR doing Rampage, mainly because you'll notice your misses in your TP return and no one is gonna point out your WS damage sucked unless you missed a signficant amount of damage. Pretty much, not sure if it is me but missing Tachi: Koki on Proto-Omega 4 times in a row (which btw, we believe that it made Omega's Heart dropped) is a bit of a.. weak chuckle at that point.

4 Kokis... :(

Anyways, it seems that a few people have taken notice of all the singers in Bastok [S]. With this, they decided to make a game of making my life a little bit harder by grabbing campaign mobs and throwing them at us. Not that I can't just relocate myself but it is right next to the Campaign NPC. I guess I have no reason to complain, I am, after all, getting XP by just hitting a few macros over and over again... Kinda like an actual XP party... Ironic!

I haven't fought a single monster as a BLM67 and it will probably remain that way for awhile. Consider it a bit shameful but at this point I just want to get my BLM to 75 to do things with Lissy as soon as I can. It also doesn't help that the beta for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix just came out (Yes, that's the whole freakin name of the game) and I plan to play it during the off periods of me playing FFXI and blogging. In any case, my goal is to hit 75 before July.... and I have about 5 days left... things don't look swell for the Taru.

Yes, there is a huge lack of screenshots as of late and it mainly has to do with the fact that I'm too busy doing a lot of things at once that I don't have time to think about hitting the screenshot button. It sucks but I realize that maybe talking about what I have accomplished in game isn't really that much of a... thing people might be interested in unless it had a lot of spice. And really, the past few weeks were great, they were nice but they're not anything I could write a story about without repeating a legacy that has already been told. I hope that I have more stories to talk about soon, lately it has been fairly dry... though I sorta guess I have one now?

Nah not really.

On a side note: Chinchilla got Homam Body.

She was having a seizure on vent.

Grats Chin. :3

Well, at the very least, I have a KS99 on Thursday and hopefully something good comes out of it. I kinda need a little bit of extra gil in my pockets considering that I still haven't really caught up on my BLM spells or equipment. See, this whole Campaign thing is making me too lazy! ;_;

Oh btw. Xbox Gamertag: MogKnight Prime. If you want to do some rounds of Street Fighter, hit me up~

Welcome to the Second Half

I knew that eventually BLM soloing is gonna hit a wall where I'm going to stop getting massive and fast streams of XP and it will continue to be a total grind. Unfortunately, I think I really spoiled the crap out of myself with the whole Gobbie Pet thing. Regardless, I also think the way that I'm forced to solo right now is helping me be able to play BLM the "correct" way. Instead of one-shotting pets, I'm actually having to deal with mobs that I need to kite around and properly spacing myself. It makes BLM more entertaining to level (at least for me) but at the same time, it is really slow. The Enterpriser Camps are usually taken and killing stuff in Sea, while fun, is also a long process with what little MP and options I have. One of the options I'm lacking is /RDM, even though I do have it at the level I have gravity... but I lose Stoneskin/Blink unless I level it up more. I'm probably going to take a break from level BLM until I get RDM to 37. For the mean time though... remember that post I made? It works like a charm but EVERYONE is doing it! @_@;

It's kinda scary how there's a huge wall of BRDs and /BRDs just casting songs again and again...

ZNMs, ZNMs, and hell... more ZNMs! There are just so many of them to kill and so many reattempts required just to get whatever item you need. Granted that there are a few nice items in the earlier tiers but a lot of them are pretty.... "lol." Now, now... "Moggie, the fact that they added this is very nice and it's better than them not introducing it at all." Okay, well that's true, the fact that they added this into the update did make the update a pretty big one and there's always going to be "useless fodder." One thing I did notice with this update is that some of the higher end items (Hachiryu for example) are not EX. This is a good thing I think. RMT would be hard pressed to get these items as well so I don't see it being a bad thing.

Earning Zeni is not as hard or even as stupid as people make it. Just take a camera with you and take pictures of random mobs that you do (Sea/Sky/KSNM/Limbus/etc/etc). Aim to take it at low HP. For example, tossing up a few shots at Omega at low HP can net you around 80 Zeni a shot. If you can take 10 shots (without a problem), that's close to your first tier 1 pop and you can still submit more over 10 shots if you wait an in-game day. Tier 1 mobs are pretty easy to do with just a small gathering of people so it isn't really a hard thing to do, just need some planning around. Also, for whatever reason, FFXIclopedia has people listing "subtle" hints about the mob being a lot harder than it sounds. Some do things that will HURT bad but otherwise, you're fine as long as you play smart.

Oh and for the last time: Barfira (or Fire Resistance period) doesn't do jack crap for Mijin Gakure.

Campaign Battles and Earning XP

Okay, time to shed a little light on this and simplify this a bit for peeps.

The idea here is: Gravy Train

1. Do the minimal amount of effort.
2. Maximizing your XP gain from Campaign.
3. Gives you something to do while you LFG or if desired solo spots are taken.

Here's the Wiki Page that lays out caps and calculations.

Now, before you do any of this, it's a lot better (not to mention smarter and funner) to just go out in Campaign and beat the crap out of things while spamming your own things and stuff IF you have the appropriate job/level for that. As for the rest, using this method should help you gain as much XP as anyone else in the field but it will take a bit of shuffling around.

To do this, you need the following:

1. A timer to see how many minutes you have your tags on
2. BRD to a level so that you can cast at least 15 buffing songs within a span of 2-3 minutes (Etudes are handy). Alternatively, you can sub WHM or RDM for Bar spells but it won't net out as much XP as BRD songs.

And what you do is:

1. Figure out what rank you are
2. BRD songs cap at 300 when you cast 15 songs. Figure out how many minutes it would take to reach that cap.
3. Do other actions that will fill in remainder for that minute.
4. Submit your tag once it reaches that minute.

ex.

Lets say you have Steelknight Emblem. That's 80xp per minute.

(XP per Minute) x (minutes) = (your target XP cap that is slightly over the BRD song cap)
80xp x 4 minutes = 320xp

BRD Song cap is 300 after casting 15 songs

(target XP) - (BRD Song Cap) = (Remainder XP)
320xp - 300xp = 20xp

You need to perform some action to make up for that 20 XP. By convenience, one self Enhancing Spell does the trick.

So, for a BLM/BRD at 65 with Steelknight Emblem, you can do the following...

15 Etudes + 1 Blaze Spikes = 320 xp

All within a span of 4 minutes. Submit your tag the moment it hits 4 minutes for 320xp. Considering the chat time and dialog boxes and stuff, you can earn about ~4500xp an hour. Really not bad for the effort placed in it.

Maybe I can simplify this post a bit more... but that's why there's an edit function! :D

It's not about "if," it's about "when."

Something I still have to learn and remember in FFXI, or even live in general.

Anyways, post update has been pretty tame lately. While there is still a huge surge of players hunting down Ixion, Sandworm, ZNMs and the like, I have been doing my usual thing.

Not to drag my real life into the mix again but lately things have been going pretty rough and I'm overly stressing about things. I'm hoping this week will subside that, especially since I no longer have to worry about classes and so on bugging me for awhile. I actually have about 5 blog posts in draft that I have yet to complete, mainly because I haven't been motivated to finish them. Hopefully I can drive myself to tackle them once I'm out of this "phase" that I'm in.

But for right now, how about a progress post? :3

Black Mage has been going pretty well now. I'm sitting at level 64 and while I would want to keep leveling today... I figure I'll take a break and just sleep at a normal time. I'm pretty sure Liseth is dead worried about me and not maintaining a proper sleep schedule. On that note, Lissy did say she would help me by leeching off of her once I hit level 70... though she did continue to say that I would have to "kiss her ass" if I were to just sit there and do nothing... I guess I'm gonna have to nuke stuffs~ Not that I don't mind, it is in the job description anyways! I will need to level up my RDM soon enough. Would benefit me greatly for soloing situations.

Samurai has still been a pretty long journey. Equipment that is needed for it is still very far from grasp and it all becomes a waiting game. I guess one thing I can work on is a Damage Reduction/ohshi~ set to help me when Seigan/Shadows are down. Thanks to Lissy and the DRF Salvage group, we manage to snag me up the rest of my Usukane Feet parts. It is not without a struggle however, as weird things have happened and weird complications occurred. I'm very happy to have received this, even though I did not appear to be. It was mainly because after so many retarded frustrations that happened that I was just "glad" it was over. What's done is done and time to move on really. I don't see myself getting the rest of the Usukane set for awhile, I don't think I should be aiming that high this soon anyways.

Paladin and Warrior has been in hiatus for awhile. I can't do much with Paladin until I can get more gear for it and Warrior has been waiting on a new build for awhile. It's fine though, I still can pull these two jobs whenever I need them and still do a great job.

Bard on the other hand... That took a major hit as I have resold my equipment to keep my other jobs floating.

I've yet to do the rest of my WotG cutscenes. I'll work on them later.

Lissy has changed to Windurst and is pushing me to finish Windurst up to Rank 10. I'm gonna be working on the last few parts of 8-2 tomorrow before Dynamis I think.

Nothing else other than that I suppose. Hopefully I'll get BLM to 75 before July, would be very nice to go into Independence Day with with some awesome nukes. ;3

Xbox Live Achievements Explained

Trust me, there are quite a bit of people out there that still give a damn about Xbox Live's Gamerscore thing. While I really don't care too much about it, any extra bit helps and it makes me feel good inside~

Anyways, there were 250 points added with this update. To sum it all up for you, here's all the achievements and how you earn them.

Note: When you complete something from this list, you will need to talk to a BRD Title Changer to unlock these achievements on your gamertag. You don't have to earn the requirements on your Xbox 360 but you must unlock them with the BRD on the Xbox itself as the option will only appear for Xbox users.

(Insert Job) Lv. 75 - 30g each job
Have the job at level 75.

(Insert Nation) Rank 10 - 30g each nation
Get your nation Rank to 10

Synthesis Skill 100 - 50g
Get a tradeskill to 100, this counts fishing as well. You can only get this one for one skill.

Relic Weapon - 40g
... Yeah. You need a Final Stage Relic to get this achievement. However, it is unknown if a Nyzul Relic counts.

(Insert Expansion) complete - 40g each
Oddly enough, even though I'm on Dawn for CoP, I still don't have credit for it... odd.
Zilart I got credit with Dawn.
Aht Urhgan I got credit with Eternal Mercenary.

Breaker of the Chains - 30g
Complete Apocalypse Nigh and get the title "Breaker of the Chains"

Apollyon Ravager - 20g
Temenos Liberator - 20g
Beat Proto-Omega and Proto-Ultima in their respective Limbuses and earn their titles.

Top Assault/Merc Rank - 30g
Get Captain Rank for Assaults

Dynamis - Tavanazia/Xarcabard Interloper - 30g each
Complete both Dynamis and earn their titles.

Chocobo Whistle - 5g
Get a chocobo whistle from raising your own chocobo

VCS Registration Card - 5g
Retire a chocobo that is in adult stage

Extra Job - 5g
Unlock an extra/advanced job (anything besides WAR/MNK/WHM/BLM/THF/RDM)

Support Job - 5g
Get a subjob, you noob

Pure White Feather - 5g
Go to the past at least once

Ballista License - 5g
Get a Ballista License by talking to your nation's Conflict Director...

Bastok - Invincible Shield - Metalworks - G-8
San d'Oria - Excenmille - Northern San d'Oria - D-9
Windurst - Mhabi Molkot - Heavens Tower, next to the reception desk

... Then go see your two opposing nations leaders...

Bastok - Karst - Metalworks - J-8
San d'Oria - King Destin - Chateau d'Oraguille - I-9
Windurst - Star Sibyl - Heavens Tower, talk to Kupipi at the reception desk

Imperial Army I.D. Tag - 5g
Simply get one Tag for Assaults, you don't have to be in possession of the item when you talk to the BRD Title Changer NPC

Boarding Permit - 5g
Get the permit to allow yourself access to Aht Urhgan

Airship Pass for Kazham - 5g
Get the Airship pass to Kazham

Airship Pass - 5g
Buy it or get Rank 5 to get the Airship pass

Chocobo License - 5g
Get a chocobo at level 20 by doing the quest in Upper Jeuno

Guild Membership - 5g
Level a craft to at least Novice level (28+) and join the guild

Artifact Quests - 5g
Unsure if you need to complete just a single AF quest or complete a set to get a Paragon Title. Its one of the two!

Destined Fellow - 5g
Get an NPC Fellow by starting the chain quest with Luto in Upper Jeuno

Star Breaker - 5g
Cloud Breaker - 5g
Sky Breaker - 5g
Summit Breaker - 5g
Horizon Breaker - 5g
Complete the Genkais: Note that the Genkai 5 must have been completed with a job that fights Maat.

Official Soul Reflector - 5g
Make a Soul Reflector for Pankration.

Unknown stuff: a 20g, 30g, and 40g
One can assume that they are the following:
Get highest medal in Campaign. (Unattainable at this time)
Complete WotG . (Unattainable at this time)
Get a Nyzul Relic Weapon. (Unattainable? at this time)

:3 Good fookin luck in getting all of this done...

I'm gonna miss you...

While everyone is going nuts about the update and trying to get all the nifty stuff (and trying new toys), I'm basically taking the stance of "Let the other people figure it out, abuse the empty exp spots."

And that's what Moggie did.

The patch today was, like most other patches, a long and painful download session. Granted, it was to be expected but this felt more painful than any previous patch... well, except that one patch that lasted 24+ hours. But anyways, we had some lulz on the Vent server in the mean time and me and Lissy played some Chess on MSN. I had her on the runs but then it ended in a draw. ;_;

Back into the game, the Auto-Sort option would be pretty all right to use (especially if I play on my 360) except for the fact that it does what it does: It auto-sorts. Now, those who use Windower might be using a Plugin called LightLuggage. It has some nice functions such as Auto-Stacking and selective Lotting/Passing. Now, most use it just for the stacking and that's good and all, the nice thing is that it doesn't attempt to sort your items out, it just stacks it. Auto-Sort in FFXI, however, sorts it all out and it can get kinda confusing when you expect some items to appear at the end of your list (Salvage Cells, equipment checking from Mog House, etc). Its a bit of an annoyance and something to get used to but overall, its nice for what it does.

The new NM system (which I believe the term is ZNMs? Zeni NMs or something) is pretty interesting considering the fact that they're pulling out their Pokemon-ish minigame out to fuel this thing. I think its creative though... lets just say, popularity of this will cause this system to be hard to take advantage of until it dies down.

Me, Lissy, Chinchilla and a few other DRF people did Salvage today. After a weird accident which made us lose our NIN tank, I had to take the helm as SAM/NIN Taru Tank (This would not be the first time). We manage to finish Chin's Skadi's Feet and I was amazed we made it up there with so little time remaining. I think we gave the cat a reason to dance around in the Sun today (which btw, it has been growing increasingly warm if you have not noticed).

I got on my BLM for a bit, soloed from 60 to half way through 61. Nothing really exciting but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of running right before cast goes off.

There will be another maintenance tomorrow, most likely to try to fix Sneak Attack. Though, I decided to have a little bit of fun with it on SAM/THF.

All I have to say is...

I'm gonna miss this bug.

More random Post-Patch stuff and BLM soloing insanity later!

Vana'diel 2004 to Vana'diel now

Well, as we all know, the June 08 update to FFXI will occur in about... 7 hours as of this writing? I'm personally psyched for it and I can't wait to see what will be revealed in the update notes. With so many new things, I think this patch will be very huge (~110 MB if I recall) and I think we will be seeing some big changes and additions to FFXI, probably bigger than the WotG Patch.

But anyways, before we get into the update (which btw, I will make a blog post outlining the update along with putting my thoughts in it), I would like to take a few steps back into 6 years ago and talk a bit about how the game has progressed. Yeah, there are things in this new update that should have been fixed a long time ago... but I personally think that change is change, it happened and we should be happy it did, no matter how late it was introduced in the game because as far as I know, according to Back to the Future 2, we should be getting Hoverboards and a product called Pepsi Perfect... maybe with all the awesome sweetness and none of the diabetes.

Lets look at the original JP release (btw all this info can be found on FFXI Wiki), which very very few of us have played on. May 16th 2002 I believe. Back then, it was 50 cap, only 6 jobs can be used and all the beastmen were Orcs... I dunno why they would do such a thing, sounds more like a JP beta. But yeah, no crafting or airships or chocobos to get your butt around. The AH wasn't even introduced yet. In fact, in the beginning the AH could sell 8 of your items instead of 7... Probably some sort of server load thing, I can only imagine. As time went on, we started to see the development of the Synth system, a solidified battle system, and of course new monsters and gear.

Zilart came out on April 15th 2003 and the game was still JP exclusive. Did you know that Delkfutt's Tower was added in the Zilart expansion? :3 We got 4 new jobs, 3 required the expansion: SAM/DRG/NIN/SMN. Existing jobs got some new abilities too and RDM was actually buffed up a little when they got Refresh a patch prior to Zilart. Nomad Moogles existed but you had to pay to use them.... how much? I have no clue. Thank god you don't have to pay jack now.

Then came NA PC release. October 21st 2003. I remember when no one showed up to my programming class in college because FFXI was out. There are a lot of people that remember this day and heck, a few of those people are still playing FFXI even to this day. I, myself, did not join until PS2 release. Dynamis was eventually introduced and the cap stuck at 75. Then, around March 23rd 2004, the NA PS2 release came and Mogknight was created shortly after.

Ah... now I have a common ground to talk about...

I remember when I was such a little Taru, a BLM running around, nuking stuff and getting lost. At the time, the Easter Event was out and that's how I made some gil for myself. Eventually April hit and a new patch came out, which would be the first time I would see changes in the world of FFXI. Ballista came out, /recast was introduced, and all I really cared about at the time was /hurray and /toss, the only real things I benefited from the patch really at the time. Oh and the AH change where you can pick one item from an incomplete stack to sell.

Merits, some changes to TP gain and so on... then Sept 14th, 2004, CoP came out and the Europeans finally got a taste of Final Fantasy XI, for the PC only though. I remember I was just a BRD and the whole Etude change was nifty at best. This was also where NIN took a hit and instead of negating all hits with one shadow, it was possible for NIN to be stripped of all of their shadows. By the way... Promies were pretty hard and taxes on the AH weren't so bad... until they made it based on Seller Price.

At this time, I was a Taru with a sword and shield, which was nice because Shield was... gimped a bit. Fishing was also redone from hitting a single button to actually fighting the fish. People still think fishing was slow but back then, even if you botted, it would take SO LONG to skill up compared to now.

I remember the first huge "OMG I LUV SE" change involving NMs. Archer's Ring, Leaping Boots, Emperror Hairpin, and Peacock Charm were moved to BCNMs and Rare/EX versions now drop off of the previously existing mobs. We also got NPCs and that was awesome. We also got the MPK change where mobs would despawn if unaggroed and the amazing DRG 2hr change.

All this was nice... but it would be a year and a half later until we saw a new expansion... and this expansion changed the face of FFXI to whole different level.

April 18th 2006 would mark the first time an FF would see a release on the Xbox 360 console and also would be the first time EU users got to play FFXI on a console as the PS2 HDD never came out in Europe.

I'm going to stop at this point because I feel that this is where most of the players have "started" their own story in the huge book of Vana'diel tales. This is really just a brief talk about how FFXI has kinda grown in the... system side of things.

Looking back at this game back then and now, I feel old... I really do. So do many other people I assume. Thinking back, no one would have ever thought of "Burn" type parties. End game was strictly for the "elitists," whatever that meant back then. The busy cities of Bastok, Windurst, San d'Oria and Jeuno. The ever frustrating Genkai 1 quest and the AFs. The huge line of fisherpeople or fisher bots, most who were actual legit players actually looking for gil. The Rusty Caps that made great money....

*sigh*

Now, for the obligatory picture montage... Lets get some sort of music going, hmm?

Where it all began.



The Original Tarus of Terror



I like first person view



My first Party!



Mogkvlt.



Typo was always the Ladies Man



Synthing was the in thing!



My first NM! And man, the game doesn't look at all different.



I even got the drop yo! And I also collect stacks of popotos... why? Heck if I know.



Moggie was also in...



... and out of relationships.



Life was peaceful...



Life was a struggle...



Life will surprise you... (lol... I knew this guy this long?)



Life will bring you friendship...



Life will bring you through many trials of hardships...



But a few things are certain...



You will meet a lot of people...



What they do will influence you...



You will make great friends and allies... (and no Lissy, we never got married :P)



And many weird things will go wrong...



But...



The world of Vana'diel grows.




From past...



... to present...



And...




Well... I guess the future?

I think you hit her pretty hard there Mog.

I think Banishing your girlfriend counts as domestic abuse... Am I a bad person? ;_;

We did take a nice nap together though~

btw

If I haven't congratulated her yet, I'm doing it right now! Congrats Hunny~

Oh and now here's an Evil Dead Mog

Mog to the Future!

After getting BLM to 75 and having that as a great option to do some stuff with (oh and not to mention being a perma BLM in the LS because Lissy is evil), I'm thinking about what other jobs I want to level to 75. Really, at this point I should probably try to go for Maat's Cap but first I want to get the jobs I would enjoy out of the way and just grind the other jobs to 66 later.

Here are some ideas and thoughts for what jobs I would want to level next:

Monk: The Punching (and soon to be Kicking) Fiend!

I figure that I have most of my MNK gear already due to SAM. Another thing is that I have a D. Body Abj sitting in my Mog House and really all I would need is the 900k or so to buy the cursed body. I kinda would place MNK in the same Category as WAR in terms of play style. You pretty much sit there, buff up when your JAs are up, WS when appropriate, use any other abilities whenever. Really, after playing SAM and BLM, I really do feel like playing another sit back job where the majority of the time you'd be sitting there not having to think so much about partitioning your TP so much. It also would be nice for Salvage and maybe even some farming. I'd give this a go... but then I gotta worry about the Belts... Also with the new update to MNK, I would really like to see how this job ends up.

Red Mage: Pimp.

Honestly, I always wanted to level RDM but I just can't be arsed to buy new equipment for it. The problem is that RDM equipment is neither Mage stuff (Seers) or typical melee stuff. I could just go until I hit AF like a gimp... it really doesn't matter though, everyone would want me for my curing, hasting, and refreshing. Debuffing would sorta be a problem for me due to the lack of MND as a Taru but maybe it'll all work out if I equip for it.

I honestly always admired Liseth (Well, I love her too but that's besides the point) and her ability to solo many things in this game. While I don't have access to Gaiters (for now), I do have W. Legs and I would like to do the same things she does and what many other RDMs do. My only real problem is that AF would be a pain in the ass for me and trying to keep up with all the buffing and debuffing that goes on. I can probably do it but I dunno how long I can keep it up...

Dark Knight: "Go Suck on a Moogle"

I took a heavy interest in DRK even prior to SAM. The only real reason why I never continued leveling it is that I went back to playing SAM one day and... Well anyways. I like hitting hard, I like big numbers and I like their abilities of being able to draw HP to deal damage and even having additional buffs to those moments. Plus, I can pick from a huge sword and a scythe and can even make a Zerg build of sorts since I have most of my Homam. I think its an option that I'd like to explore but it isn't really high on my priority list.

Blue Mage: You'll be like Quistis... just not hot.

People have always been telling me that I should level a mage job (at least long before I started BLM). At the time, I drew a lot of interest in this when ToAU came out. However, I chose to not level it due to the fact that the job was still new, it has high potential but I wanted to see everything ironed out before I take it up and become disappointed. Even now, I don't see that many BLU, I still think it is a powerful job but not really a job that I can see myself enjoying all too much at the time. It was still MP reliant and I thought it would be like playing other types of MMOs where it would just be spell/ability spamming. Now, I still feel the same way... but now I feel like playing some Korean MMO. What way to do it other than play BLU? The job also gets stronger as updates occur with new mobs but I have yet to see anything really significant.

Puppetmaster: Oh... I know what you're gonna say...

Despite the ridicule it gets, out of all the pet based jobs in the game (DRG I wouldn't count in this category), PUP seems to be the most fun because it has the ability to be almost as potent as another party member, probably even more so, who knows. It is also very nice because you as the PUP really don't need to concentrate too much on your own gear to function correctly. Can you do the job naked? Probably, I dunno... it really looks like you can or even be close to naked.

That's really it for now. Who knows, I might even pick a job that's not not on this list. I still think FFXI can be enjoyed so much as you unlock more jobs into the higher levels. It gives you another perception of things and opens up more windows of opportunities, even if you play a job that is undesired by End Game LSes. The hard part is leveling up with the idiot people... But that's just something you'll learn to deal with in life.

I'm a Repetitive Taru... really, I am!

Now for an actual, somewhat lengthy post!

Again, I keep forgetting to abuse my screenshot button, I really should map it on my controller or something.

But anyways~

SE and the Random Doings.

There's quite a bit of FFXI related news that has been tossed around, most of which I'm kinda late on the delivery of. The more important ones include the fact that Somepage, a huge database of FFXI related material, has malicious code somehow implanted into their website. I would advise (especially at this point because I don't even think they update their stuff as of late) to not even go to that website any more. This is kinda the second time that it has happened and I can probably say it is the more common websites to get quick item details and has a really powerful search function. However, as I have said, it is the second time that they had malicious code on their website and for the most part, it is probably nailing a lot of people.

I could go on and on about web security and how to protect yourself from such hazards but... let me give you some names of some programs to use to help yourself.

- Firefox
- NoScript Plugin for Firefox
- PeerGuardian 2 (btw: a bit of tweeking is required to get FFXI working on it as it blocks SE's website)
- Sygate Personal Firewall
- AVG
- Firefox

Anyways, Nomad Moogles being added in Mhaura/Selbina, more Fellow stuff, Campaign NPCs that heal you, and Outpost Warps get saved~

Would be nice if we could like... store Pre-25 Equipment Sets... but that's just me.

Paladin vs Paladin: Who Can You Hate More?

One thing I've been really frustrated about is trying to keep up with a PLD in my linkshell. The guy just holds hate so spectacularly that I can't figure out a way to keep up with him. Now, tanking usually involves the tank trying to keep their hate to cap and trying to outhate the rest of the DDs/Support/what have you. I think I'm at a point where I can get there but I'm probably doing something really wrong with my playstyle and having a hard time achieving such an effect. Granted, the PLD I mentioned has a lot better gear than I do but I feel that while enmity can do so much for me, I don't think I'm using it to its fullest potential, and that is what really irks me because then I know I'm not doing my job right. I also don't think it is a matter of "knowing" what to do, its executing it effectively, and that's skill right there. I figure that its something I have to fully devote my time to. As I keep playing, I should get better... but eventually, like in everything that people do, they hit a "wall" that they need to get around. I think that's where I'm at right now, I'm at that "wall," that limitation that blocks you in your mind.

The Wanderer: Taru Samurai Spirits

I got something pretty nifty the other day, despite all my PLD troubles. We did our first Jailer of Justice fight and we managed to get a Torque Drop on the first kill~

I manage to win the lot on the Justice Torque, which helps my SAM quite a bit with my TP Build. We also did a Jailer of Prudence which also dropped a torque and another Justice that didn't drop a torque. Needless to say, we were very lucky and I think most of it was due to the addition to Chinchilla to our LS. Great THF, probably a great RDM too but never got her to bring it. X3

My Samurai has been the focus of my attention for a bit, at least until I'm "ready" to take on PLD again. It is one of those "emptying your cup" situations where I want to take my mind off of it then go back with a new fresh view. But anyways, I decided to try to follow Xanthe's advice (minus the Not Tarutaru part) and try to get my hands on things that I'm able to at the moment. Currently, I'm messing around with KV... that's all I can really say about the subject. Lets just say I'm losing a lot of sleep over this NM. Ace's Helm would be very nice on my SAM as it would be 3 great things combined into one robo-cop helm. I can't refuse such an item! :3

I still need to farm my Flame Gorget items... been pretty lazy with that, especially when I'm trying to redo some of my merits. I finally hit 8/8 GKT and I've been wanting to parse my SAM for awhile without Acc Songs/Rolls.

I also been trying to work on a Damage Reduction Set for SAM again since I'm finding myself doing Salvage a bit more. Maybe in a few more weeks...

My First Mage Job: Black Mage

Managed to hit level 58 a few days ago. However, I am somewhat less motivated to level the job. The main reason is because I think 50 spoiled really bad because I can one shot Goblin Pet mobs assuming I don't resist. It had a huge negative affect to me in the sense that...

1. My enfeeb skill isn't increasing.
2. My dark skill isn't increasing.
3. I'm not learning how to be an "effective" soloer for later mobs.
4. Soloing in general isn't helping me be better at being a party person.

Needless to say, I'm gonna "fun" readjusting myself to be an effective BLM later on. By the way: I hate buying spells.


By the way: you can get some pretty decent XP out of Campaign if you know what you're doing. More on this in a later post.

Mog of Windurst: Warrior Within

I honestly have not touched this job in awhile and maybe its because of the whole DW to 2h shift that I have yet to fully transition myself to. WAR compared to SAM just feels so dry with 2h because I can't really play aggressive as much as I would want to. That's the problem I think, I try to treat GA WAR too much like SAM. I will probably need to read up on more things on WAR and look into other applications for it. As for right now, I'm trying to get the IS to get the Perdu Thingy and going to probably concentrate on getting GAxe merits up while demeriting my Sword/Axe Merits, which are now obsolete to me as I rarely use my DW build now.

On another note though: Rabbit Pies I heard were pretty good for tanking and DDing.

DownRightFierce: Tiamat Burgers for $4.59

We bagged our first Tiamat and... well, it dropped something but it wasn't anything uber. We've been doing really well with Sea/Sky/random HNMs/Dynamis/Einherjar.

Sea I've mentioned already~ Sky was a funny situation though! Someone apparently by accident typed /help instead of /heal (btw: he plays on the 360 so no plugins to prevent it)... which never made sense to me but ok. Anyways, they CFH Seiryu (which is no biggie) and it took us awhile to recover, it was a bit of a mess since it was really unexpected. He didn't drop any of the stuff I wanted... so meh! Screw that dragon! Next time!

Dynamis, luckily for DRF this time, didn't involve me MPKing people as I was not the one pulling. However, we did manage to get a few nice drops from Sandy such as 2 PLDs and a BRD hat. There were some deadly pulls... I wasn't joking when I said the pulls from the Ronfaure gates were a pain in the ass. If someone can help me figure out how to pull them, it would be great. ;_;

The Einherjar alliance with PPN (or is it PNN? Its one of those two) has been going great and we've been getting about 30 some people each run. Maybe we might end up fighting Odin soon...!!! I would really enjoy doing such a thing as many people have not really done it... Yeah. Though, I still would like to see what changes they plan to do for Einherjar in the later updates. 1000/15000 until I get a Ritter's... I got some time.

By the way, we got a mention from Chinchilla about our LS in the Pet Food Alpha podcast. :3 I think I'm starstrucked or something for having her in the LS... or somethin. You can hear a short tidbit about us in Episode 102: Garrison of Pet Food Alpha. Hey, any publicity is good publicity... I think.

And finally, here's a Mog in a Box.

I'm a PLD... really, I am!

I think my priorities are a bit messed up in FFXI. Right now, I am balancing between 5 jobs: PLD/WAR/BRD/SAM/BLM. Every week I use each job at least twice and I gotta keep my gear up for them and I'm never going to be satisfied with what I have. I figured though that the same feeling is going to happen even if I have only one job so... yeah, a desire that can never be full.

Anyways, I've been looking at my PLD gear and I realized that I really should do something about it. I'm doing fine with what I have but I know deep down I can do better. So, lets have a look at what I have. <.<

When I tank as /NIN, I have on...

Main: Enmity Paddle +1
Sub: Koenig
Ammo: Shell
Head: Assjammer/Haste Turban
Neck: Harmonia/Parade/Shield
Ear: Pigeon/Ethereal
Body: AF1+1
Hands: Homam
Rings: BQR/Herc
Back: High Breath
Belt: Swift/Warwolf
Legs: Homam/WLegs
Feet: AF1+1/Askar

Honestly, I'm not sure how to really improve on this... the only idea is...

Shield: Wivre
Neck: Ritters (Or whatever the Einherjar thing is called)
Ear: Hades +1 (This is gonna hurt my wallet)
Body: Valor Surcoat
Back: Cerberus Mantle
Belt: Trance

Though I have wonder if this is all really worth it in the end. Another thing is what about alternate and gear swaps? I lack a fire resist/magic damage down build and people have told me that some PLDs use an HP Swap Set so they can get more HP slack to heal themselves with. Pretty much, I'm just a bit clueless as to where I should go with this. With some higher end PLDs in DRF, I usually end up not being able to keep up with them and somehow I feel its just more than just more enmity that is giving them that much of an advantage... Maybe I'm doing something wrong or maybe that is really it: more enmity.

I've also been messing around with a PLD DD set just for S&Gs and if I really don't need to tank all the time but I need to come PLD anyways.

Another question I have... is the Hauteclare worth it? I gotta keep thinking ahead here. :3

I h8 Jailer of Temperance

No, it isn't because he doesn't pop for me... its because every time I want to do something else in Sea like farm Ghrah M Chips or help out with a mission, Lissy always says "Hey, lets try to pop Temp" and it ends up popping.

Yeah...

I hate that damn flying sex toy. :(

This week in DRF was pretty productive:

We got a Taru Molestor.



I found a Kirin behind a thingy.



I even fell asleep on an Aern!

For the most part, we're going pretty healthy and I can only see many more awesome adventures going on... as long as I keep remembering to hit the screenshot button.

As for myself, I've been working on BLM AF for the longest time. After constantly seeing people in the Pso'Xja camp (and ruining my AM one shotting fun), I decided to stop leveling for a bit to work on the BLM AF. Now, let me tell you people, before you go out and get your gloves, please realize the following:

1. Once you activate the quest, you can be on another job to open the chest (You know this one).
2. If you are on another job that is currently able to get AF from the coffer you are trying to get gauntlets from, that job's AF will take priority over your gauntlets. (You probably didn't know this one).

The reason why I point this out is because... I spent 2 extra hours refarming a key because I forgot my PLD AF was still active (due to AF1+1 and needing to repeat my gear) and instead of getting the BLM Old Gauntlets... I got my Gallant Coronet back! NIFTY! >:

Keep that in mind :3

At least Dark Spark was easy to solo.

Prior to all this though, I decided to get a party with Lissy since she wanted to level DRK and my BLM was close to her level. Because it was a chance to be with Lissy, I couldn't refuse! ;3 However... the exp was sorta ass for me, even though the party was doing a very good job. It mainly had to do to the fact that I was fairly low leveled (52 and I think highest was 54). Nothing an Anniversary Ring can't fix though! By the way, I used up all my charges, what about you guys? <.<;

Livin' Large.

Oh, we also did Dynamis yesterday. They made me pull...

I hate my job.

Actually, despite the fact that everyone is dead in that picture, we pulled a win with 300 some currency and quite a bit of Wootz! :3 Not a bad run at all I'd say~

And finally... Box for a Mog Head.

Until next time~