I haven't been playing a ton in the past couple of months, but when I have it's still been pretty fun. Brian, Camille and myself recently started making runs at Apollyon NW and it's been fun as all hell. Profitable, too.
It started when I tried a couple of solo runs this summer, shortly after the drop in price from 30k to 15k for the soap required to enter. I knew that there had been some BLM's to solo the entire zone but as yet I've never heard of anyone accomplishing that on SCH, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I didn't get close either of the first two runs, though to my credit the first run I killed each of the wyverns on Floor 4 (ABC's x2 guaranteed, and those mobs are paper) and still managed to make it to floor 5 (where I died to the first behemoth and let myself time out).
Once Brian got a hold of Ashke's account - Ashke is one of the best-geared BLM's on the server - he decided he wanted to do some Apollyon runs with me, and to both of our surprise Camille - that's Miori, Brian's RL wife - who hadn't played the game in over a year - says she wouldn't mind joining up as well. She has BLM75 as well, and so with Ashke's BLM, my SCH, and Miori's BLM, we've been trio'ing up Apollyon NW runs for the past couple of months now.
This is a surprisingly effective means of making gil, as it turns out. ABC's are still selling for ~10k each in Rolanmart, and a good run nets us 15 ABC's each. Our standard run is to clear floors 1-3 ASAP, ascending as soon as we get a vortex on each floor, and then clearing floor's 4 and 5. That means killing the Faffy on floor 4 and the KB on floor 5, both of which are tricky fights with only 3.
We've got faffy pretty much down to a science: I will open with a grav, get a couple of helixes off, and then do a standard Gank with Alacrity Tier-4 nukes and popping my two-hour. In short order I can usually get him down to 50-55% at which point I become the grav-nuke-bind bitch and command Brian and Camille to unleash the hounds. Their combined mp pools take it down the rest of the way, and we hit the restore chest if we have any troubles.
Our past two runs have been our first two full clears, ironic since in both runs we've been absolutely screwed on vortex pops - last night's run it hit on the 3rd mob on floor 1, the 4th mob on floor 2, and the fourth mob on floor 3 - and yet we still managed a win, killing faffy as well. Our KB strat is getting better and better.
In the early days against KB with us, we tried a hate-bouncing strat involving tier3-4 nukes where you'd launch a nuke against KB with the expectation of running away and kiting until someone else grabbed hate. This can be done but it's difficult, and all too often you'll get hate before your nuke lands (thanks to decaying VE) and get stomped. Timing can also be tough unless you are patient to wait for meteor casts, which can in turn get dangerous.
Our new strategy, which I came up with myself, is more of an extention of the solo strategy where you DOT it to death. In my best solo run, about two months ago, I actually got KB down to 2% using nothing other than helixes and bio2. MP conservation was the real issue and if I'd been a little smarter about stratagem usage I'd have had the win easily.
In our new strategy I pull and do a couple of laps with helixes to grab a few hundred points worth of hate, then Brian puts shock, choke, and burn up while Camille keeps bio2 on. I try to do a helix per lap, whether or not it's worn, as that's my best means of keeping hate. Usually every helix is done with Alacrity+Parsimony, for half-cost, half cast time. I can't keep up stratagem charges indefinitely with burning two per cast, but I can make the 4 charges last about 10 minutes, after which point I can easily 2hr to get all of them back and get a minute of free usage. With parsimony every cast mp is not an issue, as I can gain it back with Sublimation faster than I'm using it.
Once hate is established pretty well Brian and Camille nuke with low tier nukes - usually Thunder or Blizzard 2 - when they're not DoTing, to speed things up, although occasionally one of the two of them will snag hate and make things interesting (however usually it's not so much hate that they don't lose it after taking a few hundred damage, and I get its attention back).
Using this strategy we can bring him down in around 25 minutes, which is pretty impressive, I think. We can probably drop that by a couple of minutes if we had to, as Brian and Camille can easily take the final 10-15% off by popping an elemental seal burst2 at the end.
The ABC's add up for sure, too. Making 120-130k twice a week certainly adds up; for the first time in a long time I'm up above 3M.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Merit update
One more quick note to throw in: in July, I posted a tally of a total of 179 spent merit points, which is pretty respectable. Since then I have added the following notches in my belt:
Enmity Down: from 3/4 to 4/4 (4 merits)
Enfeebling Magic: from 6/8 to 8/8 (8 merits)
Minuet Effect: from 0/5 to 4/5 (10 merits)
For those paying attention, this means that A) apart from useless combat skill merits, my SCH is fully, 100% merited (until Sept at least), with 8/8 MP, 5/5 INT, 4/4 Enmity Down, 8/8 Elemental Magic, and 8/8 Enfeebling Magic, and B) having spent 22 more merits on top of the 179 I'd previously spent, I've now surpassed the 200 merit mark and am sitting comfortably on 201.
For those keeping track, that means that I have earned over 2 MILLION MERIT POINTS!
(holy shit is that a lot of dead birds)
I should note that these numbers are nothing extraordinary for a good endgame player, as most will have their generic shit maxed out and have even more merits sunk into category 2 stuff. Still, that's a lot of fucking dead birds.
By the Sept update I should be situated nicely in Wisconsin and playing regularly, meaning that after I blow my initial 10 on whatever's useful, the following 20 that I'll want to spend right away should come relatively quickly (assuming the optimal SCH merit path will be to cap out two categories at 5/5, as is usually the case).
Here's hoping the SCH merits won't be totally lame.
Enmity Down: from 3/4 to 4/4 (4 merits)
Enfeebling Magic: from 6/8 to 8/8 (8 merits)
Minuet Effect: from 0/5 to 4/5 (10 merits)
For those paying attention, this means that A) apart from useless combat skill merits, my SCH is fully, 100% merited (until Sept at least), with 8/8 MP, 5/5 INT, 4/4 Enmity Down, 8/8 Elemental Magic, and 8/8 Enfeebling Magic, and B) having spent 22 more merits on top of the 179 I'd previously spent, I've now surpassed the 200 merit mark and am sitting comfortably on 201.
For those keeping track, that means that I have earned over 2 MILLION MERIT POINTS!
(holy shit is that a lot of dead birds)
I should note that these numbers are nothing extraordinary for a good endgame player, as most will have their generic shit maxed out and have even more merits sunk into category 2 stuff. Still, that's a lot of fucking dead birds.
By the Sept update I should be situated nicely in Wisconsin and playing regularly, meaning that after I blow my initial 10 on whatever's useful, the following 20 that I'll want to spend right away should come relatively quickly (assuming the optimal SCH merit path will be to cap out two categories at 5/5, as is usually the case).
Here's hoping the SCH merits won't be totally lame.
Up diggity date
So it appears to be time for what's rapidly becoming a once-a-month update on my goings-on in Vana'diel. I've been lax about documenting my progress for a few reasons, first of which being that for most of last month I wasn't playing much: I was focusing back on Poker; and this month I've been focusing on my move. I'm moving from Kansas to Wisconsin in under a week, and will be renting a room from my friend Brian, Andraana in game. He and I have been close friends for maybe 6 years, been playing FFXI together since its NA release (I credit the game with our keeping in touch after I moved to Texas), and with my career change bringing added flexibility I see no need to remain in an area of the country that I hate and where I know nobody.
As for what I've been up to in-game, the one event I've been unfailingly attending has been Einherjar, including four Odin kills, the most of any linkshell on Asura. This built me up enough ampoules to get me a shiny new ring:
That was cool enough, and I had to update my macros.
Then my dedicated participation in Nyzul Isle assaults finally paid dividends and I gained some fancy new footwear:
Seriously the best nuking piece both for my SCH and my BLM. Additional INT, added mAcc, and even hMP as well. I had to update my macros quite a bit.
Not long after, Remedy ended its long boycott of Dark Ixion fighting in order to claim and kill its first My Little Pony. We got its cloak and dagger, and amazingly I was the only person to send in a tell, earning me a fancy new body piece:
This sacrifices 1 INT from my normal nuking set on SCH but the +5 mAcc is more than a sufficient trade-off. I won't put up quite the gratuitous numbers on puddings that I used to (although I'm considering creating a special puddings-only macro set that just maximizes INT). This is also *by far* my best piece for light magic enfeebles (+3 MND and +5mAcc over my old set).
Unfortunately I also spent a shitload of remedy points on it, putting me way way down on the list for my #1 coveted item, the Novio Earring, but I was already way down on that list.
Hilariously enough, I mused for a while that the Ixion Cloak would likely be my best body piece in Thou-Shalt-Land-Elegy spots, and indeed it was for a time being. Then, on our most recent Odin kill, which happened to be last night, a Hadean Abjuration: Body was one of the dorps. Surprisingly, everyone on the list for it was absent, and so it went to auction. It's a 100 point item, and the bidding started at 5 and progressed at intervals of 5 until 30. I was like, ffs, it's not going to go that low, so I popped it to 50. Someone else bid 55, and I went to 60, and he decided to let me have it.
So, 70k (lol omg cheap!) worth of synth materials later and I have a shiny new BRD piece!
I *believe* this is only the 3rd Shadow Coat on the server, and that all three are in our linkshell (Artaxerxes and Xave being #1 and #2). Only one other linkshell has killed Odin on Asura (SpawnMoreOverlords, a conglomeration of mostly SuperMarioLand people with some outsiders); they have 3 kills and I don't believe they've ever gotten an H. Body to drop.
The only downside of this point spending spree is that I'm now way the fuck back to Tier 8, with only 131 points. The only item that I currently badly want that will cost remedy points, though, is the aforementioned Novio, which is a long ways away in any case. Asuraka got the last one, and he doesn't even have BLM or SCH, lol, though his obvious motive for nabbing it is to sell it and help fund his relic, which he inches ever more closely towards.
I'm now left pondering what to do with my Manteel. I've had it for a very long time now, and it has a certain sentimental value, but with them selling for 4.xM, it's hard to justify holding onto it when its CHR boost is something I'm never really going to use. The -12% song casting time is still sexy as hell, though.
Nevertheless my SCH is definitely pimped out now, just in time for the Sept update which promises Tier 1 merits. I'm currently 9/10, and the last 6000 merit points shouldn't be hard to get. Being able to pop one merit group immediately up to level 4 should hopefully fast-track my SCH pimpage. After that (assuming the correct path will be level 5 in two groups, worst-cast), it's only 20 more merits until my SCH is back to being fully pimped out.
On my list of items remaining to complete SCH pimpage:
1) Novio Earring, for pimping MAB.
2) Either Ixion Cape or Gleeman's Cape, +1 INT over my Prism.
3) Morgana's Choker, to tweak my MaxMP set by pumping me up an add'l 20MP.
4) Goliard Cuffs, sacrificing 1MAB from my Vicious Mufflers for 4mAcc
5) Prudence Torque, my best max damage neck piece when my UggaPendant latent isn't active.
6) Full set of elemental grips (currently I only have LoLEarth)
7 My last 3 remaining obis (Wind, Fire, Water)
8) Morgana's Cotehardie, despite the -8mAcc should be my best body for puddings
9) Goliard Trews, for -Enm while healing
10) Goliard Saio, my best MaxMP body piece as well as Conserve MP and -Enm for healing
11) Avocat Pigaches, a 20% drop from ZNM Iriz Ima (which I can solo), +Enf skill on boots.
12) Relaxing Earring, for hMP.
13) Loquacious Earring, for my MAxMP set, and for Fast Cast cures.
What's best about this list is that everything out of the top 5 is pretty nitpicky, and that #2-#4 are givens, just a matter of amassing ampoules and doing Nyzul.
I'm also looking at the possibility of amassing a -enmity set, given a renewed appreciation of the importance of -enmity gear when functioning as a healer (particularly when we don't have Cure V) which in turn is a result of a lot of the good work done by Kaeko and Ashira in determining the exact mechanics of enmity in FFXI.
As for what I've been up to in-game, the one event I've been unfailingly attending has been Einherjar, including four Odin kills, the most of any linkshell on Asura. This built me up enough ampoules to get me a shiny new ring:
That was cool enough, and I had to update my macros.
Then my dedicated participation in Nyzul Isle assaults finally paid dividends and I gained some fancy new footwear:
Seriously the best nuking piece both for my SCH and my BLM. Additional INT, added mAcc, and even hMP as well. I had to update my macros quite a bit.
Not long after, Remedy ended its long boycott of Dark Ixion fighting in order to claim and kill its first My Little Pony. We got its cloak and dagger, and amazingly I was the only person to send in a tell, earning me a fancy new body piece:
This sacrifices 1 INT from my normal nuking set on SCH but the +5 mAcc is more than a sufficient trade-off. I won't put up quite the gratuitous numbers on puddings that I used to (although I'm considering creating a special puddings-only macro set that just maximizes INT). This is also *by far* my best piece for light magic enfeebles (+3 MND and +5mAcc over my old set).
Unfortunately I also spent a shitload of remedy points on it, putting me way way down on the list for my #1 coveted item, the Novio Earring, but I was already way down on that list.
Hilariously enough, I mused for a while that the Ixion Cloak would likely be my best body piece in Thou-Shalt-Land-Elegy spots, and indeed it was for a time being. Then, on our most recent Odin kill, which happened to be last night, a Hadean Abjuration: Body was one of the dorps. Surprisingly, everyone on the list for it was absent, and so it went to auction. It's a 100 point item, and the bidding started at 5 and progressed at intervals of 5 until 30. I was like, ffs, it's not going to go that low, so I popped it to 50. Someone else bid 55, and I went to 60, and he decided to let me have it.
So, 70k (lol omg cheap!) worth of synth materials later and I have a shiny new BRD piece!
I *believe* this is only the 3rd Shadow Coat on the server, and that all three are in our linkshell (Artaxerxes and Xave being #1 and #2). Only one other linkshell has killed Odin on Asura (SpawnMoreOverlords, a conglomeration of mostly SuperMarioLand people with some outsiders); they have 3 kills and I don't believe they've ever gotten an H. Body to drop.
The only downside of this point spending spree is that I'm now way the fuck back to Tier 8, with only 131 points. The only item that I currently badly want that will cost remedy points, though, is the aforementioned Novio, which is a long ways away in any case. Asuraka got the last one, and he doesn't even have BLM or SCH, lol, though his obvious motive for nabbing it is to sell it and help fund his relic, which he inches ever more closely towards.
I'm now left pondering what to do with my Manteel. I've had it for a very long time now, and it has a certain sentimental value, but with them selling for 4.xM, it's hard to justify holding onto it when its CHR boost is something I'm never really going to use. The -12% song casting time is still sexy as hell, though.
Nevertheless my SCH is definitely pimped out now, just in time for the Sept update which promises Tier 1 merits. I'm currently 9/10, and the last 6000 merit points shouldn't be hard to get. Being able to pop one merit group immediately up to level 4 should hopefully fast-track my SCH pimpage. After that (assuming the correct path will be level 5 in two groups, worst-cast), it's only 20 more merits until my SCH is back to being fully pimped out.
On my list of items remaining to complete SCH pimpage:
1) Novio Earring, for pimping MAB.
2) Either Ixion Cape or Gleeman's Cape, +1 INT over my Prism.
3) Morgana's Choker, to tweak my MaxMP set by pumping me up an add'l 20MP.
4) Goliard Cuffs, sacrificing 1MAB from my Vicious Mufflers for 4mAcc
5) Prudence Torque, my best max damage neck piece when my UggaPendant latent isn't active.
6) Full set of elemental grips (currently I only have LoLEarth)
7 My last 3 remaining obis (Wind, Fire, Water)
8) Morgana's Cotehardie, despite the -8mAcc should be my best body for puddings
9) Goliard Trews, for -Enm while healing
10) Goliard Saio, my best MaxMP body piece as well as Conserve MP and -Enm for healing
11) Avocat Pigaches, a 20% drop from ZNM Iriz Ima (which I can solo), +Enf skill on boots.
12) Relaxing Earring, for hMP.
13) Loquacious Earring, for my MAxMP set, and for Fast Cast cures.
What's best about this list is that everything out of the top 5 is pretty nitpicky, and that #2-#4 are givens, just a matter of amassing ampoules and doing Nyzul.
I'm also looking at the possibility of amassing a -enmity set, given a renewed appreciation of the importance of -enmity gear when functioning as a healer (particularly when we don't have Cure V) which in turn is a result of a lot of the good work done by Kaeko and Ashira in determining the exact mechanics of enmity in FFXI.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Out of the fold
Spent a week in colorado that was basically sans-FFXI, and have been focusing more on some other things, logging in pretty much for LS Einherjar and not much else. I have gotten some merits recently, including a chain 228 party on the Nyzul Isle mamool camp last night, which I think was actually the first party I've broken 100 with on that camp. Two bards, a good RDM, relic DRK, ridill WAR, and good RNG. Keeping chain at that camp has less to do with max damage, though, and more to do with pacing, as if you kill too quickly you'll run out of repops.
The new expwatch windower plugin is pretty killer. Tracks your merit points, which has been needed for a long time, and has all sorts of new features. Our party ran at 21k/hr for most of the night, and that was without the Astral Candescence, meaning we were missing the 10% xp bonus.
Capped my MP merits at 8/8, and am 5 merits away from capping my enfeebling magic. My full merit picture now looks like:
Misc:
MP: 8/8 (30 merits)
INT: 5/5 (36 merits)
Enmity Decrease: 3/4 (6 merits)
Critical Hit Rate: 4/4 (10 merits)
(82)
Magic Skill:
Elemental Magic: 8/8 (27 merits)
Enfeebling Magic: 6/8 (15 merits)
(42)
Black Mage Specific:
Ice Magic Potency: 5/5 (15 merits)
Lightning Magic Potency: 5/5 (15 merits)
Freeze II: 1/5 (3 merits)
Burst II: 1/5 (3 merits)
(36)
Bard Specific:
Lullaby Recast: 1/5 (1 merit)
Nightingale: 1/5 (3 merits)
Troubadour: 1/5 (3 merits)
Foe Sirvente: 1/5 (3 merits)
Adventurer's Dirge: 1/5 (3 merits)
(13)
Dark Knight Specific:
Dark Seal: 1/3 (3 merits)
Muted Soul: 1/3 (3 merits)
(6)
Total: 179 merits.
Priorities for future merits:
Finishing Enfeebling Magic (6)
Finishing Enmity Down (4)
Minuet Effect to 5/5 (15)
Madrigal Effect to 5/5 (15) (unspend 1 point in lullaby recast)
Burst II to 4/5 (14)
Freeze II to 4/5 (14)
Flood II to 1/5 (3)
Tornado II to 1/5 (3)
Nightingale to 4/5 (14)
Troubadour to 4/5 (14)
That's 104 merits to spend, pretty sick. Only maybe the first 40 are really high priority, though, and any more will likely be superceded by SCH merits.
The new expwatch windower plugin is pretty killer. Tracks your merit points, which has been needed for a long time, and has all sorts of new features. Our party ran at 21k/hr for most of the night, and that was without the Astral Candescence, meaning we were missing the 10% xp bonus.
Capped my MP merits at 8/8, and am 5 merits away from capping my enfeebling magic. My full merit picture now looks like:
Misc:
MP: 8/8 (30 merits)
INT: 5/5 (36 merits)
Enmity Decrease: 3/4 (6 merits)
Critical Hit Rate: 4/4 (10 merits)
(82)
Magic Skill:
Elemental Magic: 8/8 (27 merits)
Enfeebling Magic: 6/8 (15 merits)
(42)
Black Mage Specific:
Ice Magic Potency: 5/5 (15 merits)
Lightning Magic Potency: 5/5 (15 merits)
Freeze II: 1/5 (3 merits)
Burst II: 1/5 (3 merits)
(36)
Bard Specific:
Lullaby Recast: 1/5 (1 merit)
Nightingale: 1/5 (3 merits)
Troubadour: 1/5 (3 merits)
Foe Sirvente: 1/5 (3 merits)
Adventurer's Dirge: 1/5 (3 merits)
(13)
Dark Knight Specific:
Dark Seal: 1/3 (3 merits)
Muted Soul: 1/3 (3 merits)
(6)
Total: 179 merits.
Priorities for future merits:
Finishing Enfeebling Magic (6)
Finishing Enmity Down (4)
Minuet Effect to 5/5 (15)
Madrigal Effect to 5/5 (15) (unspend 1 point in lullaby recast)
Burst II to 4/5 (14)
Freeze II to 4/5 (14)
Flood II to 1/5 (3)
Tornado II to 1/5 (3)
Nightingale to 4/5 (14)
Troubadour to 4/5 (14)
That's 104 merits to spend, pretty sick. Only maybe the first 40 are really high priority, though, and any more will likely be superceded by SCH merits.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Item wishlist
Items that I want for SCH from the latest update:
Ixion Cape. Drop from Dark Ixion. INT +5, MND +5, CR +5, HP -> MP 20, Enmity -2. Like an upgraded Prism Cape, which is just +4 to the same stats and no mp bump or enmity loss. Screw that stupid Gleeman's Cape and its negative MP.
Numerist Pumps. Drop from Lil' Apkallu, a Tier 1 ZNM. Elemental Magic Skill +4, hMP +4?. Wonderful M.Acc piece for SCH, the only foot piece that I'm aware of that gives a bump to elemental magic skill.. Plus a good hMP piece, although some rumors have had it only at +3 instead of +4.
Avocat Pigaches. Drop from Iriz Ima, a Tier 2 ZNM. Enfeebling Magic Skill +3, Enmity -3, hMP +3. No-brainer for enfeebling magic swap-in. SCH is hurting when it comes to that kind of gear.
Solitaire Cape. Drop from Verdelet, a Tier 2 ZNM. MAB +2. I'm pretty sure this will bump up damage by more than +4 or +5 INT on my Tier IV nukes.
Insect Ring. Drop from Chigre, a Tier 1 ZNM. MAcc +2. I'm not sure if this will do more for M.Acc than a +5 INT ring. Would still swap it in on Light Enfeebles.
Crapaud Earring. Unknown acquisition. MAB +2. Nice earring for until I get my Novio.
Morgana's Cotehardie. Unknown acquisition. MAB +8, MAcc -8, Enmity -3, MP+25. Not 100% sold on it as -8 MAcc seems like a lot to give up, but maybe a good piece to use on puddings only. The only good MAB body piece for SCH currently.
The next two pieces would be nice if I could acquire them together:
Antares (Club). Unknown Acquisition. MAB +10, MAcc+10. Not enough to overcome the advantage of elemental staves by itself, but...
Avalon Shield. Dropped from King Arthro (in the past via sandworm-teleport). MAB +5.
Wise Strap. Unknown Acquisition. Magic Critical Hit Rate +3%. Magic Critical Hit Rate? WTF is that?? I do want to find out, though ^^.
And the big mofos:
Alkalurops. Unknown Acquisition. INT +10, MND +10, CHR +10, MAcc +20. Gorgeous staff for BRD, and for HNM fights on BLM or SCH.
Dorje. Unknown Acquisition. MAB +25, MP+20. The ultimate staff for pure nuking powah!
Ixion Cape. Drop from Dark Ixion. INT +5, MND +5, CR +5, HP -> MP 20, Enmity -2. Like an upgraded Prism Cape, which is just +4 to the same stats and no mp bump or enmity loss. Screw that stupid Gleeman's Cape and its negative MP.
Numerist Pumps. Drop from Lil' Apkallu, a Tier 1 ZNM. Elemental Magic Skill +4, hMP +4?. Wonderful M.Acc piece for SCH, the only foot piece that I'm aware of that gives a bump to elemental magic skill.. Plus a good hMP piece, although some rumors have had it only at +3 instead of +4.
Avocat Pigaches. Drop from Iriz Ima, a Tier 2 ZNM. Enfeebling Magic Skill +3, Enmity -3, hMP +3. No-brainer for enfeebling magic swap-in. SCH is hurting when it comes to that kind of gear.
Solitaire Cape. Drop from Verdelet, a Tier 2 ZNM. MAB +2. I'm pretty sure this will bump up damage by more than +4 or +5 INT on my Tier IV nukes.
Insect Ring. Drop from Chigre, a Tier 1 ZNM. MAcc +2. I'm not sure if this will do more for M.Acc than a +5 INT ring. Would still swap it in on Light Enfeebles.
Crapaud Earring. Unknown acquisition. MAB +2. Nice earring for until I get my Novio.
Morgana's Cotehardie. Unknown acquisition. MAB +8, MAcc -8, Enmity -3, MP+25. Not 100% sold on it as -8 MAcc seems like a lot to give up, but maybe a good piece to use on puddings only. The only good MAB body piece for SCH currently.
The next two pieces would be nice if I could acquire them together:
Antares (Club). Unknown Acquisition. MAB +10, MAcc+10. Not enough to overcome the advantage of elemental staves by itself, but...
Avalon Shield. Dropped from King Arthro (in the past via sandworm-teleport). MAB +5.
Wise Strap. Unknown Acquisition. Magic Critical Hit Rate +3%. Magic Critical Hit Rate? WTF is that?? I do want to find out, though ^^.
And the big mofos:
Alkalurops. Unknown Acquisition. INT +10, MND +10, CHR +10, MAcc +20. Gorgeous staff for BRD, and for HNM fights on BLM or SCH.
Dorje. Unknown Acquisition. MAB +25, MP+20. The ultimate staff for pure nuking powah!
Monday, June 9, 2008
June update
More of the same of what's expected in this June update, which I'm downloading now: new missions, new tweaks to systems that very few people care about, crutches to new players who haven't already leveled 20 jobs through Valkurm and get to benefit from the nomad moogles they're installing, and the fruits of what appears to be a meeting in which SE decided that Einherjar was just a little too hardcore.
Category 2 merits received a tweak, meaning the bird camps will be raw battlezones for the foreseeable future, although frankly I don't see what I'm going to be spending there as I had yet to cap cat2 for any of my jobs. I'm almost 100% SCH over BLM these days, and irked beyond belief that I will apparently have to wait (at least) another 3 months before getting them. At least give us Cat.1, dammit! I could totally see a reasonable list of merits:
Helix Potency: +2 MAB per level, ala BLM cat.1. Insta-pump to level 5.
Sublimation Recast: 1 second off the timer per level. 25 second recast instead of 30 would increase efficiency pretty considerably.
Modus Veritas Recast: 1 minute off the timer per level. Would be nice for soloers (seriously, Modus Veritas is the shiznit when soloing) but non-essential.
Klimaform Effect: +1 MAC effect of Klimaform per level. Probably an insta-pump to level 5 if it's there.
Klimaform Recast: 10 seconds off timer per level. Would be useful at Timmy/Khimiara but not essential.
Stratagem Timer: 1 second off charge timer per level. Would be nice to have at 55 seconds instead of 1 min but would only put points into it if the other categories totally sucked.
Others have speculated as to the possibility of an increased Sublimation effect, or additional stratagem charges, but that would utterly break the game. Sublimation lvl 5 @ 8mp/tick? Please. That'd be like infinite chain while soloing buffalos.
Category two I suspect will follow the lead of COR and have new stratagems and JA's:
Amnesty (Light Arts)/Impunity (Dark Arts): Stratagems. Enmity Generated by the next spell is reduced by 50% (+3% per add'l level).
Sagacity (Light Arts)/Perspicacity (Dark Arts): Stratagems. Magic Accuracy of the next spell is increased.
Cloudseeding (15 minute recast JA): Next "Storm" spell provides double rather than single weather. (-30 second recast per level)
Alembic (15 minute recast JA): Sublimation effect is enhanced (+1mp/tick). Active until Sublimation: Active effect is lost. (-30 second recast per level)
In the meantime, I'm pondering the ridiculousness of the update I'm downloading, not necessarily its content, but in the method of its distribution, it being a massive FTP server that gets absolutely spammed once every three months and lies completely dormant the rest of the time. Thus it's taking me 3 hours to download 100 megs, something I can normally do in under 10 minutes. Hey. Fuckers. It's called a torrent.
Category 2 merits received a tweak, meaning the bird camps will be raw battlezones for the foreseeable future, although frankly I don't see what I'm going to be spending there as I had yet to cap cat2 for any of my jobs. I'm almost 100% SCH over BLM these days, and irked beyond belief that I will apparently have to wait (at least) another 3 months before getting them. At least give us Cat.1, dammit! I could totally see a reasonable list of merits:
Helix Potency: +2 MAB per level, ala BLM cat.1. Insta-pump to level 5.
Sublimation Recast: 1 second off the timer per level. 25 second recast instead of 30 would increase efficiency pretty considerably.
Modus Veritas Recast: 1 minute off the timer per level. Would be nice for soloers (seriously, Modus Veritas is the shiznit when soloing) but non-essential.
Klimaform Effect: +1 MAC effect of Klimaform per level. Probably an insta-pump to level 5 if it's there.
Klimaform Recast: 10 seconds off timer per level. Would be useful at Timmy/Khimiara but not essential.
Stratagem Timer: 1 second off charge timer per level. Would be nice to have at 55 seconds instead of 1 min but would only put points into it if the other categories totally sucked.
Others have speculated as to the possibility of an increased Sublimation effect, or additional stratagem charges, but that would utterly break the game. Sublimation lvl 5 @ 8mp/tick? Please. That'd be like infinite chain while soloing buffalos.
Category two I suspect will follow the lead of COR and have new stratagems and JA's:
Amnesty (Light Arts)/Impunity (Dark Arts): Stratagems. Enmity Generated by the next spell is reduced by 50% (+3% per add'l level).
Sagacity (Light Arts)/Perspicacity (Dark Arts): Stratagems. Magic Accuracy of the next spell is increased.
Cloudseeding (15 minute recast JA): Next "Storm" spell provides double rather than single weather. (-30 second recast per level)
Alembic (15 minute recast JA): Sublimation effect is enhanced (+1mp/tick). Active until Sublimation: Active effect is lost. (-30 second recast per level)
In the meantime, I'm pondering the ridiculousness of the update I'm downloading, not necessarily its content, but in the method of its distribution, it being a massive FTP server that gets absolutely spammed once every three months and lies completely dormant the rest of the time. Thus it's taking me 3 hours to download 100 megs, something I can normally do in under 10 minutes. Hey. Fuckers. It's called a torrent.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
OYeah. 75.
SCH75. About a week ago, I just stopped blogging. I have to say:
The alacrity of my accession was but a manifestation of my parsimony of tolerance for noobs; the ebullience of non-contributing players were booted with celerity. As an addendum, far be it from those to claim that my focus on xp left me in penury for other activities. My progress has left me in rapture.
The alacrity of my accession was but a manifestation of my parsimony of tolerance for noobs; the ebullience of non-contributing players were booted with celerity. As an addendum, far be it from those to claim that my focus on xp left me in penury for other activities. My progress has left me in rapture.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Didn't even hafta use my AK...
...I gotta say, it was a good day.
Got in an imp party as main healer and stormed all the way from SCH68 to SCH70. Not the greatest of all parties but steady xp for many hours. That's close to 70k, and with my fourth stratagem charge I feel like 75 is just around the corner. Hopefully I start getting invites to actual burn parties. Additionally, my soloing efficiency should be stepped up pretty significantly. I think 75 will come in burn parties, though.
Then I hopped onto the poker tables and made $800, woot :)
I gotta say, it was a good day.
Got in an imp party as main healer and stormed all the way from SCH68 to SCH70. Not the greatest of all parties but steady xp for many hours. That's close to 70k, and with my fourth stratagem charge I feel like 75 is just around the corner. Hopefully I start getting invites to actual burn parties. Additionally, my soloing efficiency should be stepped up pretty significantly. I think 75 will come in burn parties, though.
Then I hopped onto the poker tables and made $800, woot :)
I gotta say, it was a good day.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
God the 60's suck
Hit SCH67 today, after spending most of the day LFP and getting in and out of some shitty xp parties. The late 60's are godawful for xp, too high to get good xp from bibiki bay or Mount Zhayolm, too low to brave the imps in the mire. The good news is that I should start to be able to get into burn parties on the high end mobs before too long. Getting into manaburns isn't out of the question either, on the waumora princes in Zhayolm. Once I hit 70, 75 should come damn quick.
Also, I've gotten in on a couple more Tiamat kills, and I'm only 23 Remedy REPS points from meeting the qualification for full membership. I'm fitting in well there, I think, and shouldn't have too much of a problem for full membership.
Also, I've gotten in on a couple more Tiamat kills, and I'm only 23 Remedy REPS points from meeting the qualification for full membership. I'm fitting in well there, I think, and shouldn't have too much of a problem for full membership.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Remedy pearl and SCH64
After applying to Remedy I was granted a pearl and have been pretty active over the past few days, helping them out at several camps including a Tiamat that we killed this morning and that we probably wouldn't have had I not shown up. It popped at something like 6:30 this morning and we had quite a few people show up, thanks to a network of people who (literally) text and call each other when a wyrm pops, and they were able to fight it down to 20% or so. Unfortunately there were only like 6 people there, 5 of whom were dual boxing, and something like 3 of them had to go, leaving only 8 people or so to hold it. Tiamat regenned back to 28% or so by 9:00, when I woke up and hopped on, to the immediate tune of "get to Tiamat ASAP". I complied, and hopped onto Miori as well. Once we showed up we started damaging again, and a couple of others showed up as well. We took him back down with no real incidents and I felt pretty good about that.
Much better than the Limbus incident Tuesday night, where a group of four of us (three BLMs and a RDM) tried to short-man a KB limbus and wound up running out of time with KB at something like 4%. I think one of the regulars might not be too impressed with me at the moment, which may affect my eventual voting, but there's a lot of time left in my trial so I just have to keep showing up to events and making a contribution.
At the same time, I also need to level SCH, and I've managed to crank it from 61 to 64 in the past week, mostly in the past couple of days. Today I waited about 3 hours for an invite, and eventually got one, a true meleeburn party, but one where one of the NINs wasn't pulling his weight (he was hurting greatly for want of accuracy gear) and the THF, while doing well at damaging, was nevertheless completely retarded and kept TAing the WAR, who then kept having his TP get eaten. I was main healing, and since we were fighting birds I couldn't really nuke much, although I wasn't using much MP at all. Still, the party appreciated the AOE stoneskins I was throwing on and the fact that I didn't let anyone die.
Next time I'm in a meleeburn, particularly one with four people all dual wielding and with shadows, I'm definitely subbing RDM instead of WHM so I can throw on an AOE en-element spell, which I think would have bumped our damage output (and thus xp output) by something like 20%. I lose stoneskin when I do that, and thus lose the ability to rest with Sublimation active, but MP wasn't really an issue so it's a fair enough trade-off.
Plus, now that I'm 64, when I need to I can cast Dispel directly off my RDM sub, and keep Addendum: White up in spots where I need to Erase (or alternately, sub WHM and cast Erase right off my sub without having to pop Addendum: White).
I'm still very much enjoying SCH at the moment and very much appreciative of the powers of the job and the way that it seems constructed with interesting little carrots at vearious levels that keeps the job flowing and dynamic.
Its biggest pain, I think, will be the lack of endgame gear. I think I'm going to go with something like the following:
Body: AF body for Dark Arts (+15 Elemental, enfeebling, dark magic skill), Errant Houppeland for hMP and light arts.
Legs: Mahatma Slops. +8 INT, +8 MND can't really be beat, and the -enmity never hurt.
Hands: Probably stick with my current mix of Wood Gloves and AF gloves for dark and light arts, respectively. Neither sets the world on fire. Eventually want to replace the Wood Gloves with Yigit Gages, for +5 INT and +2 MAB.
Feet: Right now it's 100% Wood Gloves. Yigit Feet give another +3 INT and +2 MAB, though, so that's definitely better.
Head: AF Head for +4 INT and the enhanced sublimation effect. Throw on an Errant Hat for cures, but make sure to throw the AF head back on aftercast.
Earrings: Current set, Moldavite and Morion (eventually to be replaced with a +1).
Rings: Current set, Tamas and Genius Ring (to be replaced with a Snow Ring)
Waist: Penitent's rope, obis.
Back: Prism Cape.
Weapon: Current full HQ elemental staves
Strap: Bugard Leather +1 for the INT.
Ammo: Phantom Tathlum.
Looking at that, there's not much of anything I need to purchase (except for the stuff I already need to buy for BLM), though I will have to get cracking on some Assaults.
Much better than the Limbus incident Tuesday night, where a group of four of us (three BLMs and a RDM) tried to short-man a KB limbus and wound up running out of time with KB at something like 4%. I think one of the regulars might not be too impressed with me at the moment, which may affect my eventual voting, but there's a lot of time left in my trial so I just have to keep showing up to events and making a contribution.
At the same time, I also need to level SCH, and I've managed to crank it from 61 to 64 in the past week, mostly in the past couple of days. Today I waited about 3 hours for an invite, and eventually got one, a true meleeburn party, but one where one of the NINs wasn't pulling his weight (he was hurting greatly for want of accuracy gear) and the THF, while doing well at damaging, was nevertheless completely retarded and kept TAing the WAR, who then kept having his TP get eaten. I was main healing, and since we were fighting birds I couldn't really nuke much, although I wasn't using much MP at all. Still, the party appreciated the AOE stoneskins I was throwing on and the fact that I didn't let anyone die.
Next time I'm in a meleeburn, particularly one with four people all dual wielding and with shadows, I'm definitely subbing RDM instead of WHM so I can throw on an AOE en-element spell, which I think would have bumped our damage output (and thus xp output) by something like 20%. I lose stoneskin when I do that, and thus lose the ability to rest with Sublimation active, but MP wasn't really an issue so it's a fair enough trade-off.
Plus, now that I'm 64, when I need to I can cast Dispel directly off my RDM sub, and keep Addendum: White up in spots where I need to Erase (or alternately, sub WHM and cast Erase right off my sub without having to pop Addendum: White).
I'm still very much enjoying SCH at the moment and very much appreciative of the powers of the job and the way that it seems constructed with interesting little carrots at vearious levels that keeps the job flowing and dynamic.
Its biggest pain, I think, will be the lack of endgame gear. I think I'm going to go with something like the following:
Body: AF body for Dark Arts (+15 Elemental, enfeebling, dark magic skill), Errant Houppeland for hMP and light arts.
Legs: Mahatma Slops. +8 INT, +8 MND can't really be beat, and the -enmity never hurt.
Hands: Probably stick with my current mix of Wood Gloves and AF gloves for dark and light arts, respectively. Neither sets the world on fire. Eventually want to replace the Wood Gloves with Yigit Gages, for +5 INT and +2 MAB.
Feet: Right now it's 100% Wood Gloves. Yigit Feet give another +3 INT and +2 MAB, though, so that's definitely better.
Head: AF Head for +4 INT and the enhanced sublimation effect. Throw on an Errant Hat for cures, but make sure to throw the AF head back on aftercast.
Earrings: Current set, Moldavite and Morion (eventually to be replaced with a +1).
Rings: Current set, Tamas and Genius Ring (to be replaced with a Snow Ring)
Waist: Penitent's rope, obis.
Back: Prism Cape.
Weapon: Current full HQ elemental staves
Strap: Bugard Leather +1 for the INT.
Ammo: Phantom Tathlum.
Looking at that, there's not much of anything I need to purchase (except for the stuff I already need to buy for BLM), though I will have to get cracking on some Assaults.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
SCH61!
Got 2.5 more levels or so today, almost 50k xp. This took about 5 hours, first with a mediocre party that camped the crawlers in Aydeewa Subterranne, then with a much better party camping the same. The first party only lasted an hour: the NIN dc'd and didn't come back, and there were no other tanks seeking, so we disbanded. Got an invite almost immedately after from a group of friends that included a COR, PLD, WAR, and SAM. They grabbed me with the idea of my healing, but a Besieged was finishing and we reasoned that a RDM might pop after it did. Indeed that was the case, and our party started with level 59 x5 and level 57 x1 (the rdm). We proceeded not to miss a single chain 5, and taking only one break in the next four hours.
Everyone in the party was on the ball, although the DD's were a little annoying in that they were being given plenty of opportunities to finish impromptu skillchains and were failing. I broke 700 on an Aero3 MB (windsday, windstorm, ebullience) and impressed the hell out of the party with the fact that I was constantly nuking (along with throwing Regen2 on the PLD) and never ran out of mp. With Sublimation, a COR, and my new pimp hat (bonus to sublimation effect), along with popping Parsimony on all my big nukes, my SCH simply never had to wait to cast what it wanted. It rules :)
Everyone in the party was on the ball, although the DD's were a little annoying in that they were being given plenty of opportunities to finish impromptu skillchains and were failing. I broke 700 on an Aero3 MB (windsday, windstorm, ebullience) and impressed the hell out of the party with the fact that I was constantly nuking (along with throwing Regen2 on the PLD) and never ran out of mp. With Sublimation, a COR, and my new pimp hat (bonus to sublimation effect), along with popping Parsimony on all my big nukes, my SCH simply never had to wait to cast what it wanted. It rules :)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
SCH59 and LOLDrama
Managed two levels today, cranked out on lesser birds, functioning mostly as a main healer but often using much of my mp on nuking, at least when the parties were going well. Mid-morning I got an amusing invite:
>>Me {Experience Points} {Party} {Do you need it?} DD ^^
Me>> {Yes, Please}
>>Me Can you pull with magic?
Me>> {Um...} Technically I can but i wouldn't be able to rest mp...
>>Me Can't you get sanction w/refresh?
Me>> I can and always do, but that's just 1mp/tick, not exactly a replacement for resting
>>Me We have WHM x2, you won't need to heal.
Me>> ...
(um wtf? whm x2?)
Needless to say, that invite fell through and eventually I got an invite to a better party which rocked the colibris for about an hour and 12kxp, getting me my first ding. Unfortunately another pt camped on top of us, lame on multiple levels as there are a *ton* of camps in that zone, but no way were we dislodging. Unfortunately our nin had connection troubles, and in trying to out pull the other pt we pulled two birds while the SAM was on an unannounced afk and got our nin killed. That pretty much killed our pt.
I spent about 15 minutes while I was lfp explaining to the pt why they were dicks for camping on top of us, noting in particular that the thf that was leading the group was too high level for the area (60, dinged 61 while I was standing there) and had completely gimp gear, including a fungus hat (lol) and a level 14 str ring (double lol). I had a partial success as one person from that pt sent me a tell saying he knew I was right, but that he needed the xp. Good to have at least one soul saved, if only partially.
In any case, I got a 2nd invite, and a party that got good xp for a while, until the NIN has something mysteriously "come up" just as he dinged. Sigh. There were no tanks seeking, but rather than break we decided to go with an atypical setup with no real tank, and it worked surprisingly well. The party stayed together for several hours and I finally managed to ding 59.
Now I suppose I need to get off my ass and go do the BC fight for my AF head, as that's an important piece of gear: mp, +4 INT, and an enhanced Sublimation effect. Can't go wrong w/that!
Then, after I'm done partying, I get a tell from Tomodachi to meet in front of the Whitegate MH. He hands me a pearlsack for "LolOrophinn", a shell made by Kayos, a former member (and co-founder) of Tribe who split with their shellholder, Orophinn, after a long and serious bout of personal drama. So I hung out with some of Asura's finest as Oro had a GM called on Kayos, briefly sent him to GM jail, and had to break the shell. It was remade under a different name. And so now I have a social shell ^^, built out of hatred for Orophinn, who really is a monumental douche.
>>Me {Experience Points} {Party} {Do you need it?} DD ^^
Me>> {Yes, Please}
>>Me Can you pull with magic?
Me>> {Um...} Technically I can but i wouldn't be able to rest mp...
>>Me Can't you get sanction w/refresh?
Me>> I can and always do, but that's just 1mp/tick, not exactly a replacement for resting
>>Me We have WHM x2, you won't need to heal.
Me>> ...
(um wtf? whm x2?)
Needless to say, that invite fell through and eventually I got an invite to a better party which rocked the colibris for about an hour and 12kxp, getting me my first ding. Unfortunately another pt camped on top of us, lame on multiple levels as there are a *ton* of camps in that zone, but no way were we dislodging. Unfortunately our nin had connection troubles, and in trying to out pull the other pt we pulled two birds while the SAM was on an unannounced afk and got our nin killed. That pretty much killed our pt.
I spent about 15 minutes while I was lfp explaining to the pt why they were dicks for camping on top of us, noting in particular that the thf that was leading the group was too high level for the area (60, dinged 61 while I was standing there) and had completely gimp gear, including a fungus hat (lol) and a level 14 str ring (double lol). I had a partial success as one person from that pt sent me a tell saying he knew I was right, but that he needed the xp. Good to have at least one soul saved, if only partially.
In any case, I got a 2nd invite, and a party that got good xp for a while, until the NIN has something mysteriously "come up" just as he dinged. Sigh. There were no tanks seeking, but rather than break we decided to go with an atypical setup with no real tank, and it worked surprisingly well. The party stayed together for several hours and I finally managed to ding 59.
Now I suppose I need to get off my ass and go do the BC fight for my AF head, as that's an important piece of gear: mp, +4 INT, and an enhanced Sublimation effect. Can't go wrong w/that!
Then, after I'm done partying, I get a tell from Tomodachi to meet in front of the Whitegate MH. He hands me a pearlsack for "LolOrophinn", a shell made by Kayos, a former member (and co-founder) of Tribe who split with their shellholder, Orophinn, after a long and serious bout of personal drama. So I hung out with some of Asura's finest as Oro had a GM called on Kayos, briefly sent him to GM jail, and had to break the shell. It was remade under a different name. And so now I have a social shell ^^, built out of hatred for Orophinn, who really is a monumental douche.
Monday, April 14, 2008
LOL
As I said a few days ago, skill makes for an incredible difference when it comes to the functionality of an xp party. It's amazing how much it matters when the party acts in unison, quickly doing what it is they need to do, and not missing anything crucial. Just a few cracks make a huge difference.
The party from the screenshot was in The Boyahda Tree, often a garden of eden for xp when you have a camp to yourself and a magic heavy party with a decent skillchain. Our party was PLD, THF, WAR, RDM, BLM, and your humble SCH, who was subbed WHM and asked to function as the main healer.
The PLD was good, and the party had a setup where the WAR would first voke and the THF would open up with a SATA+Viper Bite to staple hate on the PLD, who would then flash, voke, and generally hold hate for the rest of the fight. The PLD was good, and it was a good idea, but the party was like it was in slow motion and would usually take something like 10 seconds for the WAR to voke and the THF to set up his WS. During that time I couldn't nuke or do anything hateful so as to draw hate and screw up the SATA, and so I pretty much needed to throw a Regen on during that time and then sit around scratching my nuts. Once the WS landed I would generally throw an AOE Stoneskin to help out the PLD, and then swap to Dark Arts and throw a Drain, Aspir, and a Thunder II.
Eventually we managed to set up a skillchain between the PLD and WAR, just a simple Liquefaction that we had three potential Fire 2's to burst with. I think we all three actually managed to hit our magic bursts once, and the mob dropped like a rock, expectedly. Problem was, I was the only one reliably hitting my MB's, as the BLM was fucking around with the elemental AOE's (shock, burn, etc) at the expense of doing his big damage, not a good thing. After tossing out a few nukes (with the MB included), I'd swap back to Light Arts and cure for the rest of the fight, although a few times I would have to swap BACK to dark arts to get those final nukes in if the BLM ran out of mp and the mob was still not down.
The RDM in the party was just terrible. Maybe a 50% chance of catching a dispel, and horrible at keeping up with Refresh (absolutely inexcusable as there were only 4 of us to keep refreshed). He also couldn't MB for shit, and wasn't doing any enfeebling. All in all a total fucking waste of a party member. We'd have been much better off with a WHM and letting me nuke full time with the BLM.
I'm pretty sure I was the leading DD in the party, and I was the goddamn main healer.
Still, I dinged 57, so that counts for something. Sabine was chatting with me saying that he and a friend are taking COR and NIN up together, which would be just awesome getting me to nuke. Get that with a BRD and two DD's, double march for the NIN with AOE stoneskin, and I can main heal and nuke like mad, pulling in a ridiculous 10mp/tick (2-3 from the COR, 3 from the BRD, 3 from my Sublimation w/AF head, 1 from sanction, another 1 if I get a vermy cloak). It would be *HARD* for me to run out of mp with that, lol.
Hell yeah
RDM37 baby. I has another subjob!
This has to be record time for me in terms of time from the early dunes levels to full subjob. Having nearly unlimited access to Miori to PL me (and omg is a PL with a BLM75 oh so sexy when unwanted aggro happens) certainly speeded the process up, as did the fact that I pretty much did nothing but level RDM for the past week+. I sold all my RDM only gear on the AH. If there was a command to burn it in ceremonial effigy, I probably would have.
Of course, my gear for RDM was absolute crap, but I was pretty much shameless in my PL pimpage.
And so I sent my application in to Remedy and am waiting to hear back. They're technically only recruiting SCH and COR at the moment, but exceptions tend to be made for RL friends, and I have a ton of endgame experience to lean on. I don't think my making it in should be a problem, and I'm anxious to get back to endgame ^^.
This has to be record time for me in terms of time from the early dunes levels to full subjob. Having nearly unlimited access to Miori to PL me (and omg is a PL with a BLM75 oh so sexy when unwanted aggro happens) certainly speeded the process up, as did the fact that I pretty much did nothing but level RDM for the past week+. I sold all my RDM only gear on the AH. If there was a command to burn it in ceremonial effigy, I probably would have.
Of course, my gear for RDM was absolute crap, but I was pretty much shameless in my PL pimpage.
And so I sent my application in to Remedy and am waiting to hear back. They're technically only recruiting SCH and COR at the moment, but exceptions tend to be made for RL friends, and I have a ton of endgame experience to lean on. I don't think my making it in should be a problem, and I'm anxious to get back to endgame ^^.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
What a difference
Yesterday I languished for hours in Qufim Island with total newbie parties and managed to get two levels in something like 4 hours. Painful as hell, even with my powerlevel courtesy of Miori's character and two monitors hooked up to my laptop. Today didn't start out much better, with a semi-noob party in Qufim that managed to eke my way up to 24, but when I found an opening and ditched for Yuhtunga, things started flowing to the tune of 6.5k/hour. That's crazy good xp for the newbie levels, and before I knew which way was up I had slammed out eight levels and dinged RDM30 (before finally deciding I needed to play at least a little poker tonight).
Fighting mandys can be hit or miss. They're pretty soft, but their AOE sleep can often slow a pt down, even one with a good PL. Not this pt, for most of its length at least. We had a crazy good Japanese DNC and with me on the PL, had our routine down pat. The mandy would bust out dream flower and the PL would immediately heal the DNC, at which point the DNC would immediately fire out his Curaga waltz. Clockwork. It didn't even come close to slowing us down. Our puller, a THF, was way on top of his game as well, chain pulling like a pro. No surprise everyone in the party, with only like 1-2 exceptions throughout the night, was rank 7+.
It seems silly and noobish to be raving about things that really should be expected in any party and that I'm crazy not to want all the time. But it goes to show that even with ideal job distribution, skill counts for most of what goes on in the game, whether it be a newbie xp party (which requires only minimal skill) or a highly coordinated endgame HNM fight. Skill means more than even gear.
Although my platinum nuggets are finally selling and I can start the laborious and expensive process of putting the final ungimping touches on my BLM as I get my RDM sub the rest of the way up to 37. As far as I can tell I still need:
Snow Ring. Cost: 400k. I went for my Tamas Ring after completing my final CoP cutscenes so at least I only need one, but there's no excuse for me to be missint out on that +1 INT.
Prism Cape. Cost: 470k. I'm still on my Black Cape +1, a level 32 item. That's some shameful shit right there. But it's +3 INT, and seriously, I'm plunking down a good chunk of change just to bump that by one.
Morion Earring +1. Cost: 460k. Another +1 INT. The other really shameful piece I'm carrying is my regular Morion Earring. I'm good with my Moldavite's, and eventually want a DM earring to take its place (and down the road, a Novio), but for now a Morion +1 will do.
Uggalepih Pendant. Cost: 430k. I'm good with my elemental torque most of the time, but the +8 MAB from the pendant (latented when your MP after cast takes you below 50%, something I can easily work into my Spellcast xml) is simply invaluable.
Forest Rope. Cost: 370k. One less INT than my Penitent's Rope but +60mp. Maybe I sell my Penitent's, maybe not. I can always work my Penitent's back into my mp maximization in Spellcast, but that's a lot of work for just the +1 INT.
On legs, I just bought Mahatma Slops, which are much less ghetto than my old Druid's Slops, which are now for sale on the AH. I'm also fine on hands (Zenith Mitts/AF1 for high magic resist mobs) and feet (zenith pumps for MP, AF2 for normal usage), body (Weskit, Errant for resting). My Demon Helm +1 is still one of the best headpieces for BLM (+6 INT), although I wouldn't mind a Faerie Hairpin for my Max MP set (right now I'm using my Walahra Turban). For MP gear, I could also use a Blue Cape +1 (20MP, 300k) or an Errant Cape (30MP, 1.5M), but that's low priority.
For rare/ex gear, my primary focus is my obi set; I'm 2 aern organs away from my dark obi and definitely want to get an ice obi right away as well. The ice obi should come very fast, with 7 Xzomit organs (a 100% drop from the big squids) and 3 Phuabo organs (which drop prodigiously from sharks, sometimes 2 at a time). A far cry from the 3 Hpedme organs (which the goldfish are very stingy about) needed for my Rairin or the absolutely painful 7 Aern organs needed for my upcoming Dark obi. Still, dark is probably the most important, due to dynamis (although I could see myself going 8/8 what with getting SCH up). I probably want to get a Relaxing Earring as well, to swap in with MP Resting.
All in all a good day. Once I get RDM up to 37 I can apply to Remedy and hopefully get my ass back into endgame with a real plan.
Fighting mandys can be hit or miss. They're pretty soft, but their AOE sleep can often slow a pt down, even one with a good PL. Not this pt, for most of its length at least. We had a crazy good Japanese DNC and with me on the PL, had our routine down pat. The mandy would bust out dream flower and the PL would immediately heal the DNC, at which point the DNC would immediately fire out his Curaga waltz. Clockwork. It didn't even come close to slowing us down. Our puller, a THF, was way on top of his game as well, chain pulling like a pro. No surprise everyone in the party, with only like 1-2 exceptions throughout the night, was rank 7+.
It seems silly and noobish to be raving about things that really should be expected in any party and that I'm crazy not to want all the time. But it goes to show that even with ideal job distribution, skill counts for most of what goes on in the game, whether it be a newbie xp party (which requires only minimal skill) or a highly coordinated endgame HNM fight. Skill means more than even gear.
Although my platinum nuggets are finally selling and I can start the laborious and expensive process of putting the final ungimping touches on my BLM as I get my RDM sub the rest of the way up to 37. As far as I can tell I still need:
Snow Ring. Cost: 400k. I went for my Tamas Ring after completing my final CoP cutscenes so at least I only need one, but there's no excuse for me to be missint out on that +1 INT.
Prism Cape. Cost: 470k. I'm still on my Black Cape +1, a level 32 item. That's some shameful shit right there. But it's +3 INT, and seriously, I'm plunking down a good chunk of change just to bump that by one.
Morion Earring +1. Cost: 460k. Another +1 INT. The other really shameful piece I'm carrying is my regular Morion Earring. I'm good with my Moldavite's, and eventually want a DM earring to take its place (and down the road, a Novio), but for now a Morion +1 will do.
Uggalepih Pendant. Cost: 430k. I'm good with my elemental torque most of the time, but the +8 MAB from the pendant (latented when your MP after cast takes you below 50%, something I can easily work into my Spellcast xml) is simply invaluable.
Forest Rope. Cost: 370k. One less INT than my Penitent's Rope but +60mp. Maybe I sell my Penitent's, maybe not. I can always work my Penitent's back into my mp maximization in Spellcast, but that's a lot of work for just the +1 INT.
On legs, I just bought Mahatma Slops, which are much less ghetto than my old Druid's Slops, which are now for sale on the AH. I'm also fine on hands (Zenith Mitts/AF1 for high magic resist mobs) and feet (zenith pumps for MP, AF2 for normal usage), body (Weskit, Errant for resting). My Demon Helm +1 is still one of the best headpieces for BLM (+6 INT), although I wouldn't mind a Faerie Hairpin for my Max MP set (right now I'm using my Walahra Turban). For MP gear, I could also use a Blue Cape +1 (20MP, 300k) or an Errant Cape (30MP, 1.5M), but that's low priority.
For rare/ex gear, my primary focus is my obi set; I'm 2 aern organs away from my dark obi and definitely want to get an ice obi right away as well. The ice obi should come very fast, with 7 Xzomit organs (a 100% drop from the big squids) and 3 Phuabo organs (which drop prodigiously from sharks, sometimes 2 at a time). A far cry from the 3 Hpedme organs (which the goldfish are very stingy about) needed for my Rairin or the absolutely painful 7 Aern organs needed for my upcoming Dark obi. Still, dark is probably the most important, due to dynamis (although I could see myself going 8/8 what with getting SCH up). I probably want to get a Relaxing Earring as well, to swap in with MP Resting.
All in all a good day. Once I get RDM up to 37 I can apply to Remedy and hopefully get my ass back into endgame with a real plan.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Can I get a woot woot?
8-4 is COMPLETE ... well, at least the fight of it is, I have to wait until JP Midnight (10AM tomorrow) before I can start the roughly 80,000 cutscenes required for the mission to truly be over, and so I can get my ring!
I think I'm going to go with a Tamas ring, even though the Rajas is demonstrably superior, I don't think I'm going to be spending all that much time on DRK any time soon. As I'm desperately trying to ungimp my BLM, the +5 INT +30 MP is still a very nice bonus.
Once I get RDM up to 37 (15 more levels) it'll be time to apply to Remedy.
I think I'm going to go with a Tamas ring, even though the Rajas is demonstrably superior, I don't think I'm going to be spending all that much time on DRK any time soon. As I'm desperately trying to ungimp my BLM, the +5 INT +30 MP is still a very nice bonus.
Once I get RDM up to 37 (15 more levels) it'll be time to apply to Remedy.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
What's that? 8-2? Owned?
The same group that I did 8-1 with yesterday gathered together for 8-2 today. Actually, we had a nice sized alliance of 10 people, making the mission easy as could be.
I was actually kind of proud of myself as I managed to take charge and guide us through the mission. It's long, basically the escort quest from hell, and took us close to three hours to complete, but everyone got all the necessary sidetracks for the map and we had exactly one death, not bad at all.
The same group is getting together for 8-3 tomorrow, which might be a much more difficult fight. We'll see ^^
I was actually kind of proud of myself as I managed to take charge and guide us through the mission. It's long, basically the escort quest from hell, and took us close to three hours to complete, but everyone got all the necessary sidetracks for the map and we had exactly one death, not bad at all.
The same group is getting together for 8-3 tomorrow, which might be a much more difficult fight. We'll see ^^
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
8-1 complete and through the dunes
Went from RDM16 to RDM20 today, thanks to a dunes party that for most of its length had no fewer than three powerlevelers, including my dual-boxed Miori. I only left because I dinged 20 and was gimping xp, and though I'm sure that the others would have wanted me to stay (since by then Mio was the only PL left) the xp had gotten very slow.
I was actually making what I thought was going to be a very brief stop at whitegate to sell off a little gear when I saw someone shouting for 8-1. I joined up, knowing that 8-1 was not at all difficult for a pickup party, to see that I was in a French party with a great setup, three BLMs including myself. Contrary to the usual stereotypes, these guys were nice, accomodating, not the least bit stuck up, and spoke good English, though I conversed with them in French as much as I could as {I can speak a little}. They complimented me on that and we got along great.
With me still dual-boxing Miori, we dusted the NM's with no problem and I am now the proud owner of a Tavnazian Ring. Woot.
That same group was going to do 8-2 tomorrow, and invited me along. {Yes, Please!}
On a down note, though, from my harvest (which was last fucking week!) I have had exactly three stacks of platinum nuggets, sell, and have been undercut yet again. When I harvested they were going for 27k a stack. I was undercut to 25k, which stuck, and had to repost at 25k. Now some asshole has cut it down to 23k. If it stays that low, that's going to cost me a couple 100k of profits from my latest harvest, which in terms of volume was one of my best ever. I'm approaching my second crystal feeding and frankly need to unload these suckers, but it's not looking great so far.
I was actually making what I thought was going to be a very brief stop at whitegate to sell off a little gear when I saw someone shouting for 8-1. I joined up, knowing that 8-1 was not at all difficult for a pickup party, to see that I was in a French party with a great setup, three BLMs including myself. Contrary to the usual stereotypes, these guys were nice, accomodating, not the least bit stuck up, and spoke good English, though I conversed with them in French as much as I could as {I can speak a little}. They complimented me on that and we got along great.
With me still dual-boxing Miori, we dusted the NM's with no problem and I am now the proud owner of a Tavnazian Ring. Woot.
That same group was going to do 8-2 tomorrow, and invited me along. {Yes, Please!}
On a down note, though, from my harvest (which was last fucking week!) I have had exactly three stacks of platinum nuggets, sell, and have been undercut yet again. When I harvested they were going for 27k a stack. I was undercut to 25k, which stuck, and had to repost at 25k. Now some asshole has cut it down to 23k. If it stays that low, that's going to cost me a couple 100k of profits from my latest harvest, which in terms of volume was one of my best ever. I'm approaching my second crystal feeding and frankly need to unload these suckers, but it's not looking great so far.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Sea, and back home
I had my first failure of a CoP BCNM fight since 2-5, but I'm still not really counting it, because it wasn't a failure due to a lack of planning or skill, but rather a member that fell asleep at an inopportune moment. I noticed someone shouting for 7-4, the Tenzen fight, in Whitegate, and decided to join up. The party leader was a RNG, and he had already recruited a DRK, as well as a NIN. I got Brian to jump in and help out, on WHM.
Things did not look to be very good initially, as the DRK and I shared the following words as we shouted for a sixth member.
DRK: Shout for a DD. We have a BRD and a WHM.
Me: Actually, shout for a DD, BRD, or WHM.
DRK: No, we need another DD!
Me: I can come as BRD or DRK. Andra can come as WHM or BRD. Between the two of us we have any two of the three slots covered. So we can shout for any job.
DRK: Just shout for a DD...
And so on. Eventually we did get another DD, a WAR, and trudged up to Tavnazia. After going over our strategy, we entered the BC only to see that we were 5/6. The WAR never entered. We shouted at him for about five minutes, but got no response, and so we decided to try a dry run with just the five of us and no 2hrs. Surprisingly, we got him as low as 40%, and I'm pretty sure that had we blown 2hrs we'd have killed him with 5/6. We wiped, and waited for like ten minutes outside the BC until the WAR finally woke up again. We entered with him, blew our 2hrs, and proceeded to leave Tenzen wondering what we'd done to his asshole ^^. Just under a four minute fight.
So, now I have sea, and have actually managed to collect my first obi (thunder). I certainly plan on getting 8/8 obis as SCH will be my next job to 75. I can solo farm any organ I want on BLM, and Brian gave me access to Camille's account (Camille hasn't been playing recently) for me to use whenever he's not needing it for an event. Duoing makes the organ farming go much faster, and I'm not terribly far from a dark obi as well (can you say Dynamis?)
My other goal for the time being is getting RDM up to 37, as having BLM at 75 without a RDM sub is crazy gimped (although, I must say, I think SCH is a worthwhile replacement for it). It has languished at level 11 for forever, but wielding Miori as a PL I hopped into the Dunes today and cranked it up to 16 over the course of a few hours and a very mediocre party, saved only by the fact that we had a PL.
RDM is basically useless in the early levels, but I figure I can make up for that by brute PL force.
Things did not look to be very good initially, as the DRK and I shared the following words as we shouted for a sixth member.
DRK: Shout for a DD. We have a BRD and a WHM.
Me: Actually, shout for a DD, BRD, or WHM.
DRK: No, we need another DD!
Me: I can come as BRD or DRK. Andra can come as WHM or BRD. Between the two of us we have any two of the three slots covered. So we can shout for any job.
DRK: Just shout for a DD...
And so on. Eventually we did get another DD, a WAR, and trudged up to Tavnazia. After going over our strategy, we entered the BC only to see that we were 5/6. The WAR never entered. We shouted at him for about five minutes, but got no response, and so we decided to try a dry run with just the five of us and no 2hrs. Surprisingly, we got him as low as 40%, and I'm pretty sure that had we blown 2hrs we'd have killed him with 5/6. We wiped, and waited for like ten minutes outside the BC until the WAR finally woke up again. We entered with him, blew our 2hrs, and proceeded to leave Tenzen wondering what we'd done to his asshole ^^. Just under a four minute fight.
So, now I have sea, and have actually managed to collect my first obi (thunder). I certainly plan on getting 8/8 obis as SCH will be my next job to 75. I can solo farm any organ I want on BLM, and Brian gave me access to Camille's account (Camille hasn't been playing recently) for me to use whenever he's not needing it for an event. Duoing makes the organ farming go much faster, and I'm not terribly far from a dark obi as well (can you say Dynamis?)
My other goal for the time being is getting RDM up to 37, as having BLM at 75 without a RDM sub is crazy gimped (although, I must say, I think SCH is a worthwhile replacement for it). It has languished at level 11 for forever, but wielding Miori as a PL I hopped into the Dunes today and cranked it up to 16 over the course of a few hours and a very mediocre party, saved only by the fact that we had a PL.
RDM is basically useless in the early levels, but I figure I can make up for that by brute PL force.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
omgwtf CoP
In what must be some kind of record, I have officially gone from CoP mission 5-3 to CoP mission 7 in the space of less than 12 hours.
It started this afternoon when Brian and I were looking for something to do. His kids had calmed down, and I wasn't getting any invites on SCH, so he asks if I wanted a merit party. I bleahed, as we've been doing a lot of that recently (I've pumped about 9 merits into Enfeebling Magic in the past week or so). I thought we should do some assaults. He countered with the suggestion that we finally get me through the Tenzen path of 5-3, something I've been procrastinating on for, oh, the past year or so.
Funny story there, actually. When CoP came out I did the Promyvions right away, but languished for months on 2-5, after several pickup parties failed miserably on it. Finally I did 2-5 with Precedence, my old LS, and went on a tear from there to getting 2/3 of 5-3 done (and all of the really hard parts). But we never did 5-3's Tenzen path, the annoying long trek through Pso'Xja, and it just kind of slipped my priorities for many months as I leveled BLM to 75 and focused on camping kings and doing events with Prec.
So he starts shouting for a party and immediately gets a hit, from a full party no less, that was planning on running through it just then but could use extra help. We hop in, me on SCH, him on BRD, and after a rocky start, pound right through it.
It turned out that I didn't have 5-3 quite complete after that, and had to finish up some of Louverance's path in Movapolis. Thankfully I had my gold key and didn't have to do any fighting. I finish up 5-3 (finally) and start running around doing the missions to take me to 6-4. Thats' just cutscenes, with a couple of fights that are duoable (for which I requisitioned Brian's help).
By then it was past ten and Camille had gone to bed. Brian was still up, and I see a guy shouting for 6-4. What the hell. I point out that I'm interesting, at which point he basically gives me the grunt work of shouting in Whitegate for a party. I get a friend, Sabine (formerly Braden) to help out on MNK, and find a random MNK that has a NIN friend. With Brian on WHM, myself on BRD, and the original party starter on BLM, we have a passable group, and head to Tavnazia to make it happen.
Now, I'm intimidated a bit by the airship fight, having heard it described in terms that never use the word "easy". Erecia's guide called it "hands down, the most difficult mission in the game." I heard horror stories of people going 0-15, of it breaking up statics, even killing linkshells. It's supposed to be tough, althouth S/E did kind of nerf it down.
We owned it. It's on a 60 minute timer (formerly 45, as per the nerfing) and we destroyed it in 26. My role was mind-numingly easy (three sets of buffs on the mages, tank, and DD, backup heal), and everyone knew their shit. The NIN tank was quite good, and Sabine knows MNK quite well. No deaths, one close call. Easy peasey.
What's sick is that ever since 2-5 I've had a perfect record on CoP missions, including a 1/1 on the Snoll fight, pre nerf, that had the people that were 0-20 cursing my name (rdm, rdm, rdm, blm, sam, rng rules!)
After the fight, Brian went immediately to bed, but I stayed up to do a few cutscenes. I'm now on 7-3, and have no fights until 7-5, the Tenzen fight. After that one, Sabine says he'll static with me through 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, and 8-4. Sounds good to me ^^
But, I don't feel like any more cutscenes tonight, as it's time for bed.
It started this afternoon when Brian and I were looking for something to do. His kids had calmed down, and I wasn't getting any invites on SCH, so he asks if I wanted a merit party. I bleahed, as we've been doing a lot of that recently (I've pumped about 9 merits into Enfeebling Magic in the past week or so). I thought we should do some assaults. He countered with the suggestion that we finally get me through the Tenzen path of 5-3, something I've been procrastinating on for, oh, the past year or so.
Funny story there, actually. When CoP came out I did the Promyvions right away, but languished for months on 2-5, after several pickup parties failed miserably on it. Finally I did 2-5 with Precedence, my old LS, and went on a tear from there to getting 2/3 of 5-3 done (and all of the really hard parts). But we never did 5-3's Tenzen path, the annoying long trek through Pso'Xja, and it just kind of slipped my priorities for many months as I leveled BLM to 75 and focused on camping kings and doing events with Prec.
So he starts shouting for a party and immediately gets a hit, from a full party no less, that was planning on running through it just then but could use extra help. We hop in, me on SCH, him on BRD, and after a rocky start, pound right through it.
It turned out that I didn't have 5-3 quite complete after that, and had to finish up some of Louverance's path in Movapolis. Thankfully I had my gold key and didn't have to do any fighting. I finish up 5-3 (finally) and start running around doing the missions to take me to 6-4. Thats' just cutscenes, with a couple of fights that are duoable (for which I requisitioned Brian's help).
By then it was past ten and Camille had gone to bed. Brian was still up, and I see a guy shouting for 6-4. What the hell. I point out that I'm interesting, at which point he basically gives me the grunt work of shouting in Whitegate for a party. I get a friend, Sabine (formerly Braden) to help out on MNK, and find a random MNK that has a NIN friend. With Brian on WHM, myself on BRD, and the original party starter on BLM, we have a passable group, and head to Tavnazia to make it happen.
Now, I'm intimidated a bit by the airship fight, having heard it described in terms that never use the word "easy". Erecia's guide called it "hands down, the most difficult mission in the game." I heard horror stories of people going 0-15, of it breaking up statics, even killing linkshells. It's supposed to be tough, althouth S/E did kind of nerf it down.
We owned it. It's on a 60 minute timer (formerly 45, as per the nerfing) and we destroyed it in 26. My role was mind-numingly easy (three sets of buffs on the mages, tank, and DD, backup heal), and everyone knew their shit. The NIN tank was quite good, and Sabine knows MNK quite well. No deaths, one close call. Easy peasey.
What's sick is that ever since 2-5 I've had a perfect record on CoP missions, including a 1/1 on the Snoll fight, pre nerf, that had the people that were 0-20 cursing my name (rdm, rdm, rdm, blm, sam, rng rules!)
After the fight, Brian went immediately to bed, but I stayed up to do a few cutscenes. I'm now on 7-3, and have no fights until 7-5, the Tenzen fight. After that one, Sabine says he'll static with me through 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, and 8-4. Sounds good to me ^^
But, I don't feel like any more cutscenes tonight, as it's time for bed.
Friday, March 28, 2008
So, I'm an idiot
I head up to visit friends Brian and Camille for a couple of weeks, and lo and behold, what do I manage to do but forget the AC adapter for my fucking laptop. As my laptop is a monster (an Alienware Aurora m9700) that requires a beastly 19V 150W load of juice, Brian's iGo couldn't handle it, and I was stuck with no computer.
The good news is I have managed to get SCH all the way up to 48, not far all all from 50 and my sexy 3rd stratagem charge (more importantly, a new stratagem charge every 1:20). I ordered a new power cable and am again up and running.
I've been reading on some of the forums about some of the mage jobs bitching about ... well, pretty much just Scholar's existence. I think this is somewhat shortsighted and kind of pathetic, and this is coming from a BLM75. BLM's have had a monopoly on nuking jobs for the entirety of FFXI's history and I think there's just a little bit of bitterness that SCH is invading on "their turf."
Never mind that every melee damage dealer's job has invaded upon every other melee damage dealer's job since the start of the game, with the same sort of differences that exist between SCH and BLM, WHM, SMN, and RDM. DRKs specialize in spike damage with weapon skills, souleater, and have limited magic. SAMs crank out a high volume of WS's. WARs deliver steady damage with harsh WS's and have access to good gear. THFs deal spike damage, have ridiculous evasion, and manage hate better than any other job in the game. DRGs rely on a wyvern and have hate-reduction abilities, as well as surprising healing ability with a WHM sub. MNKs fill a similar role to WARs with a vastly different gear set and interesting abilities led by Chi Blast, and its specialized role as MNK/WHM in big long fights.
So, in the same sense that SCH invades the turf of BLMs in that they are capable of nuking, have access to Tier IV elemental magic, and have several bonuses that BLMs don't get, there should be no reason for BLMs to feel threatened.
The main complaint has been that a few BLMs calculated out that SCHs are more mp-efficient in their nuking, which quickly gets translated into "are better at nuking". This is true so long as the SCH is not being resisted. The problem with this theory is, however, several-fold:
1) It only really applies to mobs that don't have super-high magic resistance. BLM still gets access to much more +elemental magic gear and have a higher base skill. Thus they are less likely to get those critical 50% (or higher) resists on tough-to-nuke mobs like Kirin.
2) It assumes, really, that the SCH is using all his Stratagems on Parsimony 100% of the time. Having a 1/2 mp big nuke once per minute is indeed very powerful, but in practice, a SCH has to be in a specialized all-nuking-all-the-time role for that to be feasible. SCHs are often going to be asked to keep a weather effect up on the party, which means all their stratagem charges are being blown between Accession (the Light Arts AOE Stratagem, for the weather effect spells) and Addendum: Black, to give them access to the Tier IV nukes. In fact, if the SCH wants to cast any white magic spells at all, he must either eat a 10% mp cost for the spell, longer cast time, and low skill in the spell being cast, or swap to Light Arts and blow a charge coming back to Addendum: Black. Whereas a BLM can cast all their WHM spells (assuming WHM sub) without any penalty.
3) MP efficiency is not the be-all-end-all of nuking capability. BLMs are still the unrivaled kings of spike nuking damage, and in many fights, that is much more useful than whether or not you might run out of mp.
4) Access to -agas without having to blow a stratagem charge for them is very useful in a lot of situations: Dynamis being the key example. A SCH will never be seen as more useful than a BLM for Dynamis, though they might make wonderful healers due to their ability to target people even outside their party with cure spells and status removal spells with Accession.
So, much like the dynamic that exists between the various melee damage dealing jobs, I look forward to SCH taking a little chunk out of BLM's nuking monopoly. That being said, I think pretty surely that the early reports of the demise of the BLM have been sorely exaggerated.
The good news is I have managed to get SCH all the way up to 48, not far all all from 50 and my sexy 3rd stratagem charge (more importantly, a new stratagem charge every 1:20). I ordered a new power cable and am again up and running.
I've been reading on some of the forums about some of the mage jobs bitching about ... well, pretty much just Scholar's existence. I think this is somewhat shortsighted and kind of pathetic, and this is coming from a BLM75. BLM's have had a monopoly on nuking jobs for the entirety of FFXI's history and I think there's just a little bit of bitterness that SCH is invading on "their turf."
Never mind that every melee damage dealer's job has invaded upon every other melee damage dealer's job since the start of the game, with the same sort of differences that exist between SCH and BLM, WHM, SMN, and RDM. DRKs specialize in spike damage with weapon skills, souleater, and have limited magic. SAMs crank out a high volume of WS's. WARs deliver steady damage with harsh WS's and have access to good gear. THFs deal spike damage, have ridiculous evasion, and manage hate better than any other job in the game. DRGs rely on a wyvern and have hate-reduction abilities, as well as surprising healing ability with a WHM sub. MNKs fill a similar role to WARs with a vastly different gear set and interesting abilities led by Chi Blast, and its specialized role as MNK/WHM in big long fights.
So, in the same sense that SCH invades the turf of BLMs in that they are capable of nuking, have access to Tier IV elemental magic, and have several bonuses that BLMs don't get, there should be no reason for BLMs to feel threatened.
The main complaint has been that a few BLMs calculated out that SCHs are more mp-efficient in their nuking, which quickly gets translated into "are better at nuking". This is true so long as the SCH is not being resisted. The problem with this theory is, however, several-fold:
1) It only really applies to mobs that don't have super-high magic resistance. BLM still gets access to much more +elemental magic gear and have a higher base skill. Thus they are less likely to get those critical 50% (or higher) resists on tough-to-nuke mobs like Kirin.
2) It assumes, really, that the SCH is using all his Stratagems on Parsimony 100% of the time. Having a 1/2 mp big nuke once per minute is indeed very powerful, but in practice, a SCH has to be in a specialized all-nuking-all-the-time role for that to be feasible. SCHs are often going to be asked to keep a weather effect up on the party, which means all their stratagem charges are being blown between Accession (the Light Arts AOE Stratagem, for the weather effect spells) and Addendum: Black, to give them access to the Tier IV nukes. In fact, if the SCH wants to cast any white magic spells at all, he must either eat a 10% mp cost for the spell, longer cast time, and low skill in the spell being cast, or swap to Light Arts and blow a charge coming back to Addendum: Black. Whereas a BLM can cast all their WHM spells (assuming WHM sub) without any penalty.
3) MP efficiency is not the be-all-end-all of nuking capability. BLMs are still the unrivaled kings of spike nuking damage, and in many fights, that is much more useful than whether or not you might run out of mp.
4) Access to -agas without having to blow a stratagem charge for them is very useful in a lot of situations: Dynamis being the key example. A SCH will never be seen as more useful than a BLM for Dynamis, though they might make wonderful healers due to their ability to target people even outside their party with cure spells and status removal spells with Accession.
So, much like the dynamic that exists between the various melee damage dealing jobs, I look forward to SCH taking a little chunk out of BLM's nuking monopoly. That being said, I think pretty surely that the early reports of the demise of the BLM have been sorely exaggerated.
Monday, March 17, 2008
How to grind like a pro
So, here's how one goes from level 37 to level 43 in the course of a single day:
I spent about 40 minuts LFP as SCH37, with FFXI minimized and several poker windows open in the foreground (thank goodness for the /tell detector windower plugin). Finally getting an invite, the party was a standard Crawler's Nest beetle party, level range of 39-41, that looked as follows:
SCH/WHM <--- Me, main healing
BRD/WHM <--- Good player, member of Tribe (a top endgame LS)
BLM/WHM <--- Party leader
WAR/THF <--- Good damage dealer, part time tank as a result
WAR/NIN <--- Passable tank, good damage dealer
MNK/WAR <--- Damage dealer
By far, I'm learning, the sexiest thing about SCH is the fact that we get Regen II at level 37 (WHM's don't get it until 44). By far the biggest flaw in most main healer's games is an underuse of Regen spells. Unless a party member is in potential danger of dying, there's no reason to spam them with the highest level cure spells. Regen II costs 36 mp, heals 12/tick for about 240 total hp gained, and generates basically no enmity. Compare that with Cure III, which costs 46mp, heals ~190hp, and generates enmity equal to its damage healed (same as, say, a 190hp weapon skill).
Anyway, between the main tank's shadows, Ballad + Sublimation, liberal usage of Regen II and aggressive use of Drain and Aspir, MP was never an issue and we were able to chain pull the beetles for a consistent Chain 5. Our only limiting factor was mob availability.
All the while the BRD was mentioning that we should really be at the Altepa outpost, fighting goblins. I didn't disagree, and between us, when we had a party member (one of the WARs) ding 41, we persuaded the group to move. We gathered together at Altepa and began chain pulling gobs like crazy. It was there that I dinged 40 and gained my oh-so-sexy AOE Stratagem. The BLM left and replaced himself with a BLU, giving the BRD party lead, the WAR/THF left, replacing himself with a SAM, and the WAR/NIN left, replacing himself with a JP PLD that really knew his business. Wonderful with Shield Bash and Flat Blade for stunning gobbiebombs.
Our PLD was a bit higher in level, and when he dinged 42 the xp from gobbies dried up a bit, so we decided to make another move over to the Western Altepa Desert beetles. There was a party there, but there are 2 good campsites there, so we took the second. Before we know it, xp is flowing like crazy again and we get quite a few dings.
The BRD left there, replacing himself with a DNC (and giving me pt lead), the SAM replaced himself with another SAM, and the BLU replaced himself with a RDM. We also had a bit of a dramabomb when the PLD had to go, and a 44 PLD showed up to replace him. 44 was a bit high for us, but I was prepared to let him in anyway, but when our PLD left, his replacement was just standing there with his LFP marker set. I invited him several times, to no result, while the party is just standing around wondering wtf is going on.
Eventually we notice there's a 43 PLD LFP and after 10 minutes of waiting or so, I go ahead and invite him. He's most of the way out to the desert when finally, the 44 PLD announces "I'm back!". We're all, um, wtf, where were you, he said I went AFK. I break the news that we already repped him because he was AFK with no explanation and he left. On his way out he sent me a few tells basically telling me "shame on you." I respond with, "Dude, you don't show up as a replacement and go afk for 10 minutes without saying a damn word. All it would have taken was a quick 'hey guys, gotta afk for 10min or so, sorry'." I have no regrets on repping him, though, which is no doubt helped out by the fact that his replacement PLD was very good and of a level more appropriate for our party.
Our replacement PLD dings 44 about the same time I ding 42, and most of the party is 43. By this time we're PLD, DNC, SAM, MNK, RDM, SCH and the exp has dried up substantially. We decide to move to Quicksand caves, but find the camp site occupied (I for one was not exactly heartbroken; I *hate* QSC), so instead I persuade the party to head out to Yhoator Jungle, the camp at the eastern Ifrit's Cauldron zone, to fight the gobbies there. That's like my favorite camp site in the game, probably because basically nobody has ever heard of it. Only one other person in my party even knew you could get exp at our level in Yhoator, and none had actually exp'd out there. I think I've now exp'd out there with 3 of my 4 jobs that have gotten to that level.
(Side-note: my second-favorite camp site in the game is Purgonogo Isle as the perfect remedy to late Yhoator Jungle / early East Altepa. Fighting the mandies there is an awesome alternative to the other common camps available at that level).
The party flowed smoothly from there and within an hour or so we'd gained some 7k xp. However, by then it was 4 in the morning and we had like three people that had to leave at the same time (including myself), so we decided to disband, to everyone's disappointment.
This still doesn't match the binge that saw me go from BLM72-BLM75 in a single night, though it gets special marks for being a party that survived no fewer than four separate campsites. Not many parties survive that many transitions. Was a hell of a night.
Final Party Distribution
BLM --> BLU --> RDM
WAR --> PLD --> PLD
WAR --> SAM --> SAM
BRD --> DNC --> DNC
MNK --> MNK
SCH!
I spent about 40 minuts LFP as SCH37, with FFXI minimized and several poker windows open in the foreground (thank goodness for the /tell detector windower plugin). Finally getting an invite, the party was a standard Crawler's Nest beetle party, level range of 39-41, that looked as follows:
SCH/WHM <--- Me, main healing
BRD/WHM <--- Good player, member of Tribe (a top endgame LS)
BLM/WHM <--- Party leader
WAR/THF <--- Good damage dealer, part time tank as a result
WAR/NIN <--- Passable tank, good damage dealer
MNK/WAR <--- Damage dealer
By far, I'm learning, the sexiest thing about SCH is the fact that we get Regen II at level 37 (WHM's don't get it until 44). By far the biggest flaw in most main healer's games is an underuse of Regen spells. Unless a party member is in potential danger of dying, there's no reason to spam them with the highest level cure spells. Regen II costs 36 mp, heals 12/tick for about 240 total hp gained, and generates basically no enmity. Compare that with Cure III, which costs 46mp, heals ~190hp, and generates enmity equal to its damage healed (same as, say, a 190hp weapon skill).
Anyway, between the main tank's shadows, Ballad + Sublimation, liberal usage of Regen II and aggressive use of Drain and Aspir, MP was never an issue and we were able to chain pull the beetles for a consistent Chain 5. Our only limiting factor was mob availability.
All the while the BRD was mentioning that we should really be at the Altepa outpost, fighting goblins. I didn't disagree, and between us, when we had a party member (one of the WARs) ding 41, we persuaded the group to move. We gathered together at Altepa and began chain pulling gobs like crazy. It was there that I dinged 40 and gained my oh-so-sexy AOE Stratagem. The BLM left and replaced himself with a BLU, giving the BRD party lead, the WAR/THF left, replacing himself with a SAM, and the WAR/NIN left, replacing himself with a JP PLD that really knew his business. Wonderful with Shield Bash and Flat Blade for stunning gobbiebombs.
Our PLD was a bit higher in level, and when he dinged 42 the xp from gobbies dried up a bit, so we decided to make another move over to the Western Altepa Desert beetles. There was a party there, but there are 2 good campsites there, so we took the second. Before we know it, xp is flowing like crazy again and we get quite a few dings.
The BRD left there, replacing himself with a DNC (and giving me pt lead), the SAM replaced himself with another SAM, and the BLU replaced himself with a RDM. We also had a bit of a dramabomb when the PLD had to go, and a 44 PLD showed up to replace him. 44 was a bit high for us, but I was prepared to let him in anyway, but when our PLD left, his replacement was just standing there with his LFP marker set. I invited him several times, to no result, while the party is just standing around wondering wtf is going on.
Eventually we notice there's a 43 PLD LFP and after 10 minutes of waiting or so, I go ahead and invite him. He's most of the way out to the desert when finally, the 44 PLD announces "I'm back!". We're all, um, wtf, where were you, he said I went AFK. I break the news that we already repped him because he was AFK with no explanation and he left. On his way out he sent me a few tells basically telling me "shame on you." I respond with, "Dude, you don't show up as a replacement and go afk for 10 minutes without saying a damn word. All it would have taken was a quick 'hey guys, gotta afk for 10min or so, sorry'." I have no regrets on repping him, though, which is no doubt helped out by the fact that his replacement PLD was very good and of a level more appropriate for our party.
Our replacement PLD dings 44 about the same time I ding 42, and most of the party is 43. By this time we're PLD, DNC, SAM, MNK, RDM, SCH and the exp has dried up substantially. We decide to move to Quicksand caves, but find the camp site occupied (I for one was not exactly heartbroken; I *hate* QSC), so instead I persuade the party to head out to Yhoator Jungle, the camp at the eastern Ifrit's Cauldron zone, to fight the gobbies there. That's like my favorite camp site in the game, probably because basically nobody has ever heard of it. Only one other person in my party even knew you could get exp at our level in Yhoator, and none had actually exp'd out there. I think I've now exp'd out there with 3 of my 4 jobs that have gotten to that level.
(Side-note: my second-favorite camp site in the game is Purgonogo Isle as the perfect remedy to late Yhoator Jungle / early East Altepa. Fighting the mandies there is an awesome alternative to the other common camps available at that level).
The party flowed smoothly from there and within an hour or so we'd gained some 7k xp. However, by then it was 4 in the morning and we had like three people that had to leave at the same time (including myself), so we decided to disband, to everyone's disappointment.
This still doesn't match the binge that saw me go from BLM72-BLM75 in a single night, though it gets special marks for being a party that survived no fewer than four separate campsites. Not many parties survive that many transitions. Was a hell of a night.
Final Party Distribution
BLM --> BLU --> RDM
WAR --> PLD --> PLD
WAR --> SAM --> SAM
BRD --> DNC --> DNC
MNK --> MNK
SCH!
Well, that's a few levels
So, what did I just say about how I can expect at least 1 level per day thru level 40?
How bout six, count'em, SIX levels in one friggin party? Nary a PL to be found, too. Just straight up sexiness.
I am officially loving SCH. Now that I've got my AOE Stratagem my abilities have really opened up. AOE Regen2 is basically sex on a stick. And the ability to give my party AOE sneak/invis is made of win.
I actually have to go pick up my storm spells from the appropriate npc. Didn't think I'd get to that point today, let alone the level where I'd get to use two of them. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
d-d-ding!
Three more levels today/tonight. Got into a nice Garliage party of BLU, DNC, DRK, MNK, WHM, SCH. I finally got around to making a Windower macro set for SCH, as, with the Addendum stratagems, the job practically begs for macro rearrangement depending on which art is active. I keep a baseline of spells (nukes and cures) on the ctrl+# row, and have the ctrl+alt+# row dynamically changing between the black magic spells that are active under Addendum: Dark (Dispel, Sleep, Sleep2, the tier IV nukes - hey, I'm thinking ahead) and those active under Addendum: Light (the esuna spells). The alt+# row handles abilities and stratagems (I also dynamically change the stratagems based on what art is active).
I can officially say that Sublimation is pretty pimp. What it does is give you a status effect that eats your hp at 2 hp/tick until 25% of your max hp is gone. Once that's done, it enters a "charged" state whereupon you can then reactivate the ability at any time in the next 2 hours to instantaneously recover as much mp as you had hp tick away. So if your max hp is 600, it will tick down 150hp, and then stop, fully charged. When you activate it again, you gain 150mp instantaneously.
Also, the Scholar AF head piece significantly enhances the effect, bumping it to a 3hp tick (so it will charge much faster) and increasing the amount of mp gained by 50%.
The only downside is that it's incompatible with Refresh effects (from the RDM spell or food) while both charging and charged. But if you don't have a RDM in your party it makes for a great self-refresh.
I'm still not 100% convinced of its endgame applicability, but I think the ability to keep a weather effect up on an entire party indefinitely should prove most useful in BLM parties, and combined with the Tier IV nukes, it should do just fine, if not quite having the blasty power of a BLM, at least being in the same ballpark.
I can officially say that Sublimation is pretty pimp. What it does is give you a status effect that eats your hp at 2 hp/tick until 25% of your max hp is gone. Once that's done, it enters a "charged" state whereupon you can then reactivate the ability at any time in the next 2 hours to instantaneously recover as much mp as you had hp tick away. So if your max hp is 600, it will tick down 150hp, and then stop, fully charged. When you activate it again, you gain 150mp instantaneously.
Also, the Scholar AF head piece significantly enhances the effect, bumping it to a 3hp tick (so it will charge much faster) and increasing the amount of mp gained by 50%.
The only downside is that it's incompatible with Refresh effects (from the RDM spell or food) while both charging and charged. But if you don't have a RDM in your party it makes for a great self-refresh.
I'm still not 100% convinced of its endgame applicability, but I think the ability to keep a weather effect up on an entire party indefinitely should prove most useful in BLM parties, and combined with the Tier IV nukes, it should do just fine, if not quite having the blasty power of a BLM, at least being in the same ballpark.
Altepa: owned
Finished off the rest of 32 last night and went ahead and got 33 and halfway to 34. Very nice Altepa party, NIN, PUP, DNC, THF, SMN, SCH. Although NIN starts to become a very questionable tank in the mid-30's (until they hit 37 and get Utsusemi: Ni), we had a pretty good one, and with a THF stapling hate back and forth between him and the DNC, everything went pretty smoothly with no deaths and only one close call.
The March update was very good to SCH, giving them Addendum: White and Addendum: Black, giving them access to a bevy of spells they didn't get before. Additionally, the change made to the Strategem recharge time makes all the difference in the world. For a 75 SCH, being able to store up to 4 Strategem charges, when each one took 4 minutes to build up, was pretty much worthless. With it now taking 4 minutes to build up to your full complement, that means a 75 SCH is getting a fresh charge every minute.
Even at 30, with a Strategem complement of 2, this makes a big difference, as getting a fresh charge every 2 minutes instead of 4 vastly increases my output. It also has all sorts of potential applications for endgame. I'd imagine that most SCH's will be focusing on nuking/support from within BLM parties at endgame, with Addendum: Black up pretty much all the time (to have access to the Tier IV nukes, making them comparable to a BLM in nuking ability, minus the pimp gear that BLM's get). But, every two minutes, swapping over to Light Arts, popping off Accession/Thunderstorm (or whatever element is primarily being used to nuke), giving the whole party the relevant weather effect, and popping back to Black Arts/Addendum: Black. As two minutes happens to be the duration and recast time for the "Storm" spells, a good SCH should be able to maintain nearly perpetual weather for his party at 70+. That's huge.
Additionally, the SCH artifact pieces are pretty pimp; they give +73mp total, I think, and with the two pieces that enhance Light Arts and Dark Arts, you get a total of +15 skill on *every* magic skill type. Then there's the piece that enhances Sublimation, which might prove to be a very useful self-Refresh. I can't wait to play around with it in a couple of levels.
The March update was very good to SCH, giving them Addendum: White and Addendum: Black, giving them access to a bevy of spells they didn't get before. Additionally, the change made to the Strategem recharge time makes all the difference in the world. For a 75 SCH, being able to store up to 4 Strategem charges, when each one took 4 minutes to build up, was pretty much worthless. With it now taking 4 minutes to build up to your full complement, that means a 75 SCH is getting a fresh charge every minute.
Even at 30, with a Strategem complement of 2, this makes a big difference, as getting a fresh charge every 2 minutes instead of 4 vastly increases my output. It also has all sorts of potential applications for endgame. I'd imagine that most SCH's will be focusing on nuking/support from within BLM parties at endgame, with Addendum: Black up pretty much all the time (to have access to the Tier IV nukes, making them comparable to a BLM in nuking ability, minus the pimp gear that BLM's get). But, every two minutes, swapping over to Light Arts, popping off Accession/Thunderstorm (or whatever element is primarily being used to nuke), giving the whole party the relevant weather effect, and popping back to Black Arts/Addendum: Black. As two minutes happens to be the duration and recast time for the "Storm" spells, a good SCH should be able to maintain nearly perpetual weather for his party at 70+. That's huge.
Additionally, the SCH artifact pieces are pretty pimp; they give +73mp total, I think, and with the two pieces that enhance Light Arts and Dark Arts, you get a total of +15 skill on *every* magic skill type. Then there's the piece that enhances Sublimation, which might prove to be a very useful self-Refresh. I can't wait to play around with it in a couple of levels.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
One more level
Only a few hundred xp from 32 as well. Nice Altepa party last night. 32 is a good level for SCH, with good new gear (Solid Wand and Black Cape +1) and access to Dispel, now with the March update.The levels are coming a bit slower now, but they're still coming, and at least a level per party is still within the realm of possibility until about 40 or so.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Still truckin' on SCH
On to the second jungle tonight, with a pair of successful parties. Ding 30!
Interesting party setup today. NIN, DRK, BRD, DNC, DNC, SCH. With both DNC's subbed NIN, they and the NIN were taking turns sharing hate, and what little healing that was necessary was handled by the DNC's. I almost never cured as SCH, and got to do what I do best, nuke like a mofo. Those elemental magic merits are just awesome for SCH. We were taking down 200 base xp mobs fast enough to get chain 3-4, which is damn good for a lowbie pt.
In other news, the nuggets from my harvest are selling like friggin hotcakes, and their price has jumped up to 30k/stack. In fact they're pretty much already sold. I haven't replanted yet, but not enough cuttings have stayed up on the AH. I may have to buy in piecemeal, which I hate doing, but may be necessary. After the ~440k for replanting is gone, I should still be north of 1M on Magi, and will definitely be buying at least one more HQ staff, which will bring me to 6/8. Maybe one more harvest and I can start thinking about sinking some of that hard-earned $$ into goldsmithing.
Interesting party setup today. NIN, DRK, BRD, DNC, DNC, SCH. With both DNC's subbed NIN, they and the NIN were taking turns sharing hate, and what little healing that was necessary was handled by the DNC's. I almost never cured as SCH, and got to do what I do best, nuke like a mofo. Those elemental magic merits are just awesome for SCH. We were taking down 200 base xp mobs fast enough to get chain 3-4, which is damn good for a lowbie pt.
In other news, the nuggets from my harvest are selling like friggin hotcakes, and their price has jumped up to 30k/stack. In fact they're pretty much already sold. I haven't replanted yet, but not enough cuttings have stayed up on the AH. I may have to buy in piecemeal, which I hate doing, but may be necessary. After the ~440k for replanting is gone, I should still be north of 1M on Magi, and will definitely be buying at least one more HQ staff, which will bring me to 6/8. Maybe one more harvest and I can start thinking about sinking some of that hard-earned $$ into goldsmithing.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
One more job through Qufim
What was it that I said about Qufim being able to go either way? I managed to get into a very nice party with a PL during non-peak hours, and literally within a couple of hours found myself at level 25. Being able to grind out 10k/hr at the low levels means those suckers just fly right by. Not nearly as impressive an achievement as the night where I dinged BLM75 (where I dinged 73, 74, and 75 all in the same damn party), but definitely up there among my top 5 xp binges of all time.
Just for fun, I rode out to Kazham and was able to ding SCH26 before the party broke and it didn't look like there'd be much to replace it with.
The only problem with this binging on xp is keeping my damn gear up to date. I'd forgotten how expensive some of this low-level shit can really be.
I'm still unsure as to whether I'm going to take SCH to 37 only or take it up all the way. I can definitely see its uses as a subjob for my BLM, but I don't think it will be particularly useful in endgame activities. Its jack-of-all-trades status is of limited usefulness when you're always in a large group with every specialty covered, and its use as pure support seems quite limited. There are a couple of jobs that I still need to get to 37 (RDM being most critical among them by far) but really, my primary priority should be un-gimping my gear and getting sea. That should allow me to get into Remedy, and that should give me quite a bit more to do at endgame.
Just for fun, I rode out to Kazham and was able to ding SCH26 before the party broke and it didn't look like there'd be much to replace it with.
The only problem with this binging on xp is keeping my damn gear up to date. I'd forgotten how expensive some of this low-level shit can really be.
I'm still unsure as to whether I'm going to take SCH to 37 only or take it up all the way. I can definitely see its uses as a subjob for my BLM, but I don't think it will be particularly useful in endgame activities. Its jack-of-all-trades status is of limited usefulness when you're always in a large group with every specialty covered, and its use as pure support seems quite limited. There are a couple of jobs that I still need to get to 37 (RDM being most critical among them by far) but really, my primary priority should be un-gimping my gear and getting sea. That should allow me to get into Remedy, and that should give me quite a bit more to do at endgame.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Harvest
Also, my latest harvest came through today. 511 nuggets total, a little over 42 stacks. A nice 1.1M gross, maybe 800k net. My last harvest still hasn't completely sold, though, as I was a bit lazy.
One more job through Valkurm
Three hard-earned levels of SCH today and tonight, 2 separate sessions. Valkurm levels are always so painful, and Qufim is never much better, although the good news is that SCH shouldn't hurt for invites. They're almost as good a nuker as BLMs, and much better healers. Qufim can really go either way; I've had jobs take weeks to crank through 20-25 trying most every night, and I've had jobs make it through in 1-2 sessions. Crossing fingers.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Coming back slow
Since coming back I haven't had that strong of a motivation to play, as I've been killing a lot of time with Rock Band and Civ IV. At the same time, I've kept my gardening active and should have an additional harvest ready tomorrow. That's good news, as my last harvest is only just beginning to sell. One of my goals for March is to finish CoP at least to the point of having Sea access, and then likely apply to Eminence, a prominent linkshell on the server where I have some friends, both IRL and online.
Less time spent on poker recently is giving me a bit more time to play, and I'm hoping to get SCH up to a respectable level in the coming weeks, at least pushing it through the Dunes and Qufim, hopefully getting through the Kazham levels as well. I'm out to the Dunes even as I write this. Hopefully I can find a party that doesn't suck.
Less time spent on poker recently is giving me a bit more time to play, and I'm hoping to get SCH up to a respectable level in the coming weeks, at least pushing it through the Dunes and Qufim, hopefully getting through the Kazham levels as well. I'm out to the Dunes even as I write this. Hopefully I can find a party that doesn't suck.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Harvest Day
Harvest day today. My army of 12 mules, in addition to Magi, delivered to me a grand total of 450 platinum nuggets, for 37.5 stacks. At the going rate of 28k a stack, that should net me just over 1M gross, not too shabby for a 330k investment in the tree cuttings and an additional ~70k in crystals. Still a somewhat disappointing harvest. However, I'm pretty sure I broke my individual mule harvest record, with one of my Windurst mules gathering a disgusting 75 nuggets, just over 6 stacks.
I usually hope to cover my crystal expenses and AH fees by selling off the dark crystal byproducts, and I should more than clear that this time around, although I really have no idea how many crystals I harvested this go-around. I'd been getting lazy in selling them off in previous harvests, and they were really getting to where they were crowding my inventories. Luckily they sell like hotcakes.
Hopefully the load sells quickly as once I replant, I'm going to be close to broke.
In other good news, I recently found a Mary's Horn on one of my mules that I thought I had sold off. I recently bought a new horn as an adjunct to my Nursemaid's harp, as for merit parties on birds in particular, Mary's Horn is more accurate and thus more useful. I thought I stashed my old one but apparently I placed it on one of my mules. It sells for about 180k, so that's quite meaningful.
With the profits from this harvest I hope I can complete my collection of HQ elemental staves. After that, to be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to put it into. Maybe goldsmithing; the Gold Hell levels aren't quite as daunting as they once might have seemed, with gold ingots only running about 20k a pop (was a time they ran 100k). Apart from my HQ staves, there isn't a whole hell of a lot of non-rare-ex gear I feel I need.
I usually hope to cover my crystal expenses and AH fees by selling off the dark crystal byproducts, and I should more than clear that this time around, although I really have no idea how many crystals I harvested this go-around. I'd been getting lazy in selling them off in previous harvests, and they were really getting to where they were crowding my inventories. Luckily they sell like hotcakes.
Hopefully the load sells quickly as once I replant, I'm going to be close to broke.
In other good news, I recently found a Mary's Horn on one of my mules that I thought I had sold off. I recently bought a new horn as an adjunct to my Nursemaid's harp, as for merit parties on birds in particular, Mary's Horn is more accurate and thus more useful. I thought I stashed my old one but apparently I placed it on one of my mules. It sells for about 180k, so that's quite meaningful.
With the profits from this harvest I hope I can complete my collection of HQ elemental staves. After that, to be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to put it into. Maybe goldsmithing; the Gold Hell levels aren't quite as daunting as they once might have seemed, with gold ingots only running about 20k a pop (was a time they ran 100k). Apart from my HQ staves, there isn't a whole hell of a lot of non-rare-ex gear I feel I need.
New blog
So, I've started a blog to cover my adventures in that many-years-old MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI, where I spend a far greater percentage of my time than is reproductively recommended. The rationale is that my other blog, Max EV, is something of a serious blog describing my travails as I attempt to make my living (in RL) as an online poker player, and I didn't want to clutter that content up with unrelated fluff. However, I still feel a need to muse on my adventures in Vana'diel from time to time, and so I felt the need to create a space for that.
A bit about my character:
Name: Magicide
Server: Asura
Jobs: 75 DRK, 75 BRD, 75 BLM
Subjobs: WAR, THF, NIN, WHM
Linkshell: Formely of Precedence, currently none
Craft: Goldsmithing 70
Currently leveling: SCH 17
Having just come back from a 6 month break it feels good to be back in the game. FFXI has lasted so long for me because it existed as a nice means for me to interact with some real-life friends after moving halfway across the country, and it's helped me keep in touch with several of them after having started back up with it.
So, here's to keeping up with the happenings in Vana'diel!
A bit about my character:
Name: Magicide
Server: Asura
Jobs: 75 DRK, 75 BRD, 75 BLM
Subjobs: WAR, THF, NIN, WHM
Linkshell: Formely of Precedence, currently none
Craft: Goldsmithing 70
Currently leveling: SCH 17
Having just come back from a 6 month break it feels good to be back in the game. FFXI has lasted so long for me because it existed as a nice means for me to interact with some real-life friends after moving halfway across the country, and it's helped me keep in touch with several of them after having started back up with it.
So, here's to keeping up with the happenings in Vana'diel!
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