Benny on Valefor server

...haunting vespers... prayers from the dead...

2009-01-12T22:24:40Z

Well, since it's a long maintenance today I figured I ought to organize the screenshots I have from the last month or so and update this deal here. In more or less chronological order...

The new Stronghold NMs (SNMs) are a pretty interesting gimmick. Each stronghold has 8 NMs that drop a 100% RA/EX with a couple loot drops each. Some of the loot is actually not bad, and if you collect all 8 RA/EX from a zone, you can trade them in for key items that open a 30min BC fight against a beastman king and 4 helpers, with some drops including a couple nice pieces for SAM and RNG.

The fun part of this is that La Vaule is absolutely perfect for BSTs to own the place. There's plenty of DC fish and 3 EM-T tigers gathered in a southern patch of the river. Now, not every NM is created equal, and a couple of them are really really tough fights for 3 or so BSTs (the DRG mob in particular but also the DRK can be a real pain with his dread spikes and his shoulder slam for 1500+). Also some of them are really interesting to pull. But by and large you can really clean up with BST here. Me and some friends completed about 3 and a half pop sets, but never really got around to the BC as of yet.

Each equip drop from the NMs is about 10% chance, so a double drop like this is rather rare. Sadly both of these are garbage.

This drop however got me a cool 300k on the AH, which really helped bolster my shrinking funds. The Eye is one of the easiest NMs to solo, because his main gimmick is spamming gaze Charm, which obviously is not much of a problem for BST. This tiara is really sexy too, with 3 hMP and -7 enmity, but annoyingly BLM can't wear it (though RDM can, which is why it sells so well).

A couple good friends have been leveling SMN lately, and one of them had secured Shikigami ToD, and since he was in need of a tank for the mob, I came out on my lolNIN which is my most recently completed job. My gear for it is decent, but lacking in white boxes for some of the enmity pieces, which hurts kind of badly since I have -4 enmity merits. Uh, also I suck at using Utsusemi. But I managed to tank well enough for us to win at least... we got two robes in two days and that was that!

Also helping one of the SMNs get his Evoker Ring items, we were running up to Ramuh, and on the way I popped Ellyllon. I had been 0/8 on getting the helm to drop while leveling my NPC in the area over a number of days, but of course with Ash around it's a 100% drop (lol).

And of course now that my NPC is level 60, I had to look around for a new place to level her up. I've been passing the time lately on the gigas that drop Alky pops (lv66-69 I think), which is really decent gil, like 150 a pop, and of course, the chance of Alky's which I really need.

Of course I've killed Alky like 5 times and Pallas like 8 or 10, and nothing has ever dropped except one Pallas when Rhine's THF was there, which he won. The real problem with this spot though, is that it's almost always full. It only takes two people to completely clear both floors of gigas if they're decent.

Me, Rektify, and Fodder have been hammering away at this interesting event ever since they released it. Now that some very decent pieces of gear are known to drop here, more and more people have been hounding us to join. Would have been nice to have this kind of interest when we were starting...

The crafting voucher 04 is Arch's baby. We haven't seen any skill ups yet but the party synthesis that you can and should perform inside the maze is really fun to watch. This maze gives the most base marbles (35) but takes a lot longer than a lv1 synced 01 run. It has the added advantage of being really interesting though. Furthermore it sounds like the Gnole Crown is supposed to drop from here, and though I've seen no evidence, if it's true this could become a very popular run.

The more popular voucher is 07, Liquidation, wherein you fight a single strong NM. These fights can get insanely tough, with a mob that hits PLDs for 400+ damage, casts ga3 and paralyze 2, and takes 0 damage from almost all melee hits, for example. Finding a tank willing to fight these mobs who can stand toe to toe with them is always the hardest part... Well, the hardest part except actually getting an item to drop. We did finally get Ermine's Tail, pictured above, but that was an accident because I meant to do an entirely different maze =.=. Whoops.

I've finally got around to doing this event. I've been luckier than normal, actually, because I already have a very nice piece completed, and a 35 drop for another nice piece. To wit,

You can see me barely beating Defiant's strong lot on the Marduk legs above... Talk about lucky. Of more interest is that we have 2 separate drops in the pool (2 coin purses). Those were from the 2nd and 3rd of 3 NM pops from that 4F rampart. When it rains, it pours?

I'm working a sort of 2-front war on Salvage to try to make up lost time over the past year I coulda been doing this. I go 3 times a week with Lexa's group which is relatively new to the Salvage game, and then other days I sometimes come in as a helper in a couple other groups run by friends of mine. It's particularly nice because I only ever get to play BRD in Lexa's group, while the other groups almost always want me on SAM. SAM is an extremely strong DD, and can really speed up kills especially when the mobs are pretty weak:

The pieces I'm really looking for from this event are Usukane Sune-ate, Morrigan Slops, Marduk Dastanas, and Marduk Shalwar, I would say. The hand, legs, and feet items are really quite affordable. If I were rich I'd be interested in a Morrigan Robe, but as it is, there's just no chance of it happening.

After quite a lot of talking back and forth about what we want to do as an LS, and moving the shell to social status and opening up members to apply to HNM LSes, we've made something of a resurgence in the HNM scene, claiming a Khimaira and some other interesting mobs:

We got two nice claims on this guy. I hardly need to say that we were 0/2 on Gaiters. I did win a Noritsune Kote though. I actually use them too.

In four kills so far, the final one was our first helm drop, though we got one V claw before that. Grats to Aelfinn, who lotted over ten times more than yours truly (80 ftfw). Hoping we have a lot more of these in the future :). It's a fun little zerg. I even got to try my hand at holding it on NIN the other day. If you keep him at around 15'-17' and don't let him get to near or too far, he's cake to kite. There's also lots of cacti to get his huge model caught up on. Without gravity though it might have been a more interesting task, though I'm pretty sure I could still do it.

Me, Snuggle, and Joeboo having a little meeting about Black Mage-y things on the sands while waiting for Dyna-Valk. It's a BLM thing.... you wouldn't understand.

Ingredients:
2 Polearm SAMs
1 RDM
1 PT buff job
1 "tank"?
1 Piercing DD level 54-55
an open colibri camp
Recipe:
Sync to 54-55 and pull colibri vigorously. Then thoroughly drain the colibri of all excess experience points. Add outside healing as needed to taste. Serves 19-20k/hr.

Look, it's Zebra Zachary. I've seen over a half dozen NMs from 3F and 4F ramparts, but not a single one yet from 1F OR 2F. Salvage is so random, really.

Welp, that's all I've got for now!

... lyssna och lar // missa inte chansen...

2008-12-04T18:05:32Z

Posting from my laptop in the remote mountains of NW Washington state... Yea, you can bet I don't get cell reception here. It's a miracle there's internet here. And yet I'm here of my own free will, at least until we move into our new apartment this weekend in Everett (slightly less remote).

Yea, I finally took the dive and left sunny Florida for rainy Seattle area. I really like everything about the area, and I'm still working for Colonial Bank remotely at least for a few months, so that's been really great. Moving was (is) a major pain in the ass, and moving 3000 miles is moreso... but after shedding all unnecessary items, shipping 340 pounds of books, shipping 100 pounds of clothes and game systems, I'm about ready to rebuild. New desk, chair, and bookshelves are the first step... well, as long as I have internet and food and a place to sleep, I can get by. In that order.

So I've been using my laptop while my PC is stowed away safely. Honestly this is the first time I've really been wholeheartedly glad I bought it. It's a superb machine, by which I mean it's fucking HUGE, and it runs everything great, except for FFXI ..... D'OH. Yea. I think it has to do with the drivers, but sadly combinations of laziness and cluelessness have gotten in the way of me doing anything about it. I get about a 1-2 second lag even in the best of situations (ranging up to being frozen in place in Campaign with lots of NPCs around) and as I can attest to from trying to duo Fenrir on my NIN with a friend's WHM, 1-2 second lag can easily lead to defeat in tough situations. Needless to say I've been avoiding Einherjar and other events like the plague, and even in a party situation I try to play jobs that don't have complex timing like BRD and SAM.

Still, there's been a lot we've got done before I moved and a little after also. Probably the biggest news is that I finally have Captain status. The last round of assaults was interesting and really I learned a lot from them, which is a rare experience when you've been playing a game for like 5 years. I took BLM into the Hydra fight for DD, thinking we'd get extra stuns and healing on top of good damage. Well. Even Arien's superb play on NIN/DRK couldn't do anything once my CE from damage dealt reached cap and every action would get me drawn in... so what I learned was the difference between a DD that has to stop everything once they have hate (BLM) and a DD that can tank for a respectable amount of time (SAM/NIN which I took when we won). I also learned that people don't respect SAM/NIN enough. My reaction when I thought of it was to dismiss it too... but you still put out a LOT of damage with merits and the interaction between Utsusemi and Third Eye makes it extremely easy to keep shadows up even with constant attacks.

So we lost one time to Hydra (lack of damage), went 1/1 on the Khim, Vampyr, Cerb... Then I was gone for what sounded like a nasty series of Dvergr losses. We came really really close to biting it on Dvergr when I was back too but made it with a lot of 2hrs and some big time luck at points. I really thought the called weapons were going to be more of a pain than they were, but they were actually worthless, and the big boss guy is the real threat. In actuality he only has one thing you really need to be careful of, but it is murder. If he decides to do his AoE curse+para move and follow it up with -ga3, you're fucked 8 ways from sunday. Dream Shroud isn't going to save your ass from that. Well, we came away with the "W" so I was pretty happy, but it was sure an ugly fight.

I've been trying to round out my NIN equip but I'm pretty happy with how it is now and I'm not sweating my last bits. I shelled out cash from Limbus and Dynamis runs to get my Fire Bomblet, and a lot of stuff carried over from my SAM, so it wasn't all that bad. I would still like Scouter's Rope and Hachiryu Sune-ate for my evasion gear, as well as I guess an evasion earring. For TP, Haub+1 as usual is missing... Dusk is NQ and Swift is not Speed or Velo but that's obviously nitpicking at this point. Once I have Katana and Subtle Blow merits and DRK37 for sub I'll be satisfied with the State of the Ninja. Even with -4 enmity merits, I reckon I have enough gear for it that I could tank pretty well if I needed to.

I haven't started a new static yet, but my roommate has been getting into FF a bit lately and I am taking my DRK up with him sort of casually. We're at about 23-24 now. What I really really want to do though is level my SCH. After seeing Coice play that job in a variety of situations I really fell in love with it even more. SE did an amazing bit of work making SCH into a unique jack of all trades, and for my money, I'm not sure even RDM can compare to it in terms of how complex it is to play SCH to the limit of its abilities. Their ability to cast some of their most useful spells depends on managing Grimoire recast and Strategem charges (can't use dispel with Addendum:White up after all).

I also started going with a Salvage static, although I could only attend a few runs before moving put a halt to that for me for a couple weeks. One thing that is very clear to me is that, much like Nyzul, Salvage is something that must be learned and improved on through experience and practice. I'm confident that if we can maintain the core of our group and slog through the early runs that are going to be difficult, we can get to a point where we're tearing through runs on autopilot. I personally felt way out of my element and reflecting back I can see a lot of ways I could have done better (even on a job as flat as BRD). I hope we can get to that point! There's a hell of a lot of good salvage gear to be had.

So in my situation with lag and such, one thing I've been doing a lot of is leveling with my NPC, Yufafa. She's lv51 now and she does a great job as healer. I've been having a lot of fun with it, which might be apparent if I reveal that I went from 0/44,000 XP on NIN to capped XP just by killing EPs with her at 35 XP a pop. I have bought the first two time extensions for her, and locked her Blue Ribbon and Noble's Tunic in place. I'm considering Shinobi Hakama for her pants, so I'm killing crawlers lately, which is nice in that I'm piling up silk threads. Between NIN and BST I should be able to get her max XP/kill all the way to 70, so that's pretty nice too.

-benny

...no one ever had much nice to say...

2008-10-02T17:00:01Z

Just a quickie posted from work. I have lots of screenshots at home to remind me of the stuff I'll forget. Sadly I never remember to take SS until after the mobs we're fighting are dead, so it's just a lot of chat logs lol. Anyways here's a recap of where I am now from my previous to-do list:

TO DO LIST (not necessarily in order of priority):
Camp VE for hairpin for DNC & NIN -- Bought the non-EX, gonna use it on NIN til 70.
Level DNC to 37 (Emp band + Anni ring) -- Paused at 35 because I hate it and got all the JAs at 35. Leveling with random XP scrolls.
Camp Oz NM for 3% Haste feet for NIN -- Done! 1/1. Wow.
Farm Despot (duo with Spit/Ehon/anyone who needs byakko) -- Got Byakko's Haidate 1/1. Wow.
Farm Ulli (duo with Spit/Ehon/anyone who needs byakko) -- As above.
Farm new Fomor Codex (duo with Zeri) -- Ended up like 1/6 or 1/7 I think? Got Swift Belt.
Farm sea organs for Shadow Gorget (make group for Yovras) -- Got Shadow Gorget through shout group. Need Breeze soon for Jin...
Run antlion ENM every 5 days (trio with tank+healer friends) -- Got Hagun like 1/5 I think. Now to help all my SAM friends get theirs :)
Camp KV for Ace's Helm (hold duo BRD+NIN? or solo SAM/NIN?) -- The only thing more boring than camping this guy would probably be holding him for 5 hours. I do think it would be a nice upgrade, but I know I can get Askar head in time and I don't see myself putting in the effort Ace's would take for the relatively minimal difference...
Work on ZNM (Cerb line) (Grips, Oracle legs & body, Hachiryu legs) -- Need a few NMs still, got enough zeni. Really just haven't had the time, hope we make time in LS schedule soon for this.
Camp Fowling Earring NM in Wajaom (find 1-2 friends to help?) -- Killed it a couple times with no drop. Not really sweating it.
Farm Alky triggers and kill (duo with Ash) -- A few of us are looking at doing this soon :) I see it being boring but more fun with a group.
Finish TAU Missions (static) -- Done! Got my Balrahn ring which is awesome in Nyzul and assaults.
Clear all Assaults for Captain (@35) (with Nyzul group?) -- @17 now I think. Slowed down a little bit due to a hyperactive LS schedule lately.
Kill TAU Beastmen kings (LS event!) -- Medusa down, two more to go!
Leech Salvage clears? (@3) -- Nooooo progress at all. There's been a few Salvage groups that might have offered to take me but the problem is fitting into their schedules.
Start attending Ein religiously (if Lulu will ever ever ever respond to me /cry) -- I've been going but my ampoule count is still fairly low atm. I'm holding onto them for now even though alexandrite is the limiting factor in Mythic weapons now, because I suspect they'll change that requirement further.
Farm $$$ for Flame Rings, Haub+1, Hachi Kote, Wyvern Helm (until D head) -- Got Flame Ring, got Wyvern Helm, don't need Hachi Kote, still need Haub+1 but that won't happen any time soon unless someone quits and leaves me like 10 million gil, lol.

So basically almost all the stuff I had listed is either done or has good progress. I'll be making a new one including NIN stuff soon (63 and rising) which will be probably even longer. Yikes.

-benny

...so full of wonder and despair...

2008-09-06T13:45:18Z

FFXI has been keeping me very busy lately. For instance, I got some stuff...

I definitely never imagined myself getting a Rajas Ring, ever, but when I considered it logically against Tamas, it was just the obvious choice. I never realized when I was only playing mage jobs how huge sTP+5 could be. If not for that, there's no way on earth I would have given up Tamas.
I never imagined myself getting a Swift Belt either but that's more considering the drop rate and what a pain in the ass it is to get ppl to help. I suppose it's ironic in a way that we got about 4 belts just a few days before the update with Level Sync in it, but hey, who's complaining?

And I didn't get a lot of things I tried for a long time to get...

What do those three NMs have in common?? Aside from killing me, and not dropping anything? Yeeees they all supposedly have katanas in their loot tables. HA.

Also there's this fun shot... only claim I've ever had on it (Stun is fucking win if you're not lagged at a camp)... thank god Redd was there because we barely killed it before rage. If I had this to do over again I guess I'd sub RDM for Dispel, because the crab shell and def moves are a beating.

Now that Swift has finally come in for me, I don't see myself wasting sleep trying to camp this against 40 other people. I still probably will spend some KS on Wyrm but I imagine I'd sell a Speed Belt to fund a variety of other useful items.

As an LS, I'd say that Ultima gets really stuck on one way of doing things, and has a really hard time letting go. We'd never had Ninjas tank HNMs before Fiko, Ddsavage, and freak joined, and now that two of them have left the shell we once again don't really tank anything with NIN... another example of this mindset is that until about a week ago, we had never really "TP burn"ed any NMs. We're still greasing up the wheels, so to speak, but we've done alright so far.

Bahamut in particular, has put out 3 staff and 1 mask in 3 kills, along with a shit ton of syn mats.

I'm 3 NM fights away from a Cerberus ZNM pop. I love this path, because Ob is a blast to fight, and the dichotomy of how scary he can be with Magic Mortar enabled, and what a pussycat he is locked in Sharpshot frame, is amusing to me. How easy is Ob in ranger frame?

On the XP side of things, our static has undergone some rough patches, with people missing runs and people dropping off to play a certain OTHER MMO.... /sigh. Still, we're going forward full steam. I did my best to get a decent action shot, but I'm not very good at this yet, lol.

Halffpint is kindly filling in on BRD, not a normal static member. After a number of stops and starts, our current jobs are Benny NIN, Hakusaku COR, Modoja MNK, Pixiehawk RDM, and Zeri BRD. Unfortunately our valiant THF (Spit) has to be away for a month for RL reasons and so we're in need of a 6th at least until he gets back. Can't stop... won't stop... 75 or bust~

...in heated breath of life at the dawning day...

2008-07-23T03:53:41Z

Been writing this off and on for over two days now... haha.
So I have a real melee job at 75 now...
The way I'm approaching merits is sTP > GK > cheap Med merits > first 3 overwhelm > 1 in blade bash > finish overwhelm > finish med > finish blade bash. I have a loooong way to go, but at least with this I can 6-hit with Askar body and Hachiman feet:

I haven't used it much yet, partly due to lacking some key equip pieces, and partly because of job type-casting (mostly the former, I hope), but here's some nice WS hits from when the PT where I became lv75:

Both of those are with double attack process, of course, but no merits at all and kind of subpar gear. My current gear off the top of my head is....
TP:
Hagun
Pole Strap
Lightning Bow +1 (I doubt I'll replace this unless I level another melee job)
Walawala Turban (should be Ace's if I can get it, or Askar)
Chiv Chain (should be PCC if I can get extra sTP somewhere, and also if I had the money for it, or Justice Torque if I change my lotting priority to SAM)
Spike Earring (I guess it should be Merman's? or maybe Fowling because I'm forced to use Askar for 6-hit)
Brutal Earring
Askar Korazin
Dusk Gloves
Blood Ring
Woodsman Ring
Amemet+1
Potent Belt (should be swift)
RK Breeches, yuck (should be Byakko Haidate)
Hachiman Sune-ate

WS:
Wyvern Helm
Chiv Chain
Spike Earring (should be Triumph)
Brutal Earring
Askar Korazin
Pallas Bracelets (should be Alky's)
Flame Ring
Flame Ring
Amemet+1
Warwolf Belt
RK Breeches, yuck (should be Hachiryu or at least Shura)
Marine M Boots

so honestly I'm feeling pretty OK about it.... once I get Haidate and Swift I think I'll be on par gear-wise with most end-game SAMs.

We haven't been doing a terrible lot lately. Events keep getting low turnout despite ample sign-ups. Maybe we can just blame the Dark Knight for the recent streak of unfaithfulness, but it's pretty annoying to have 12 people sitting around waiting for the other 6 to show and then giving up 1-2 hrs later.
One thing we never miss though is Einherjar, mostly because people who miss it get left the fuck behind. We did this two weeks ago and we've got another lined up for Thursday:

On the T1 run right after that I passed 15k ampoules for the first time and decided to start with this (of the 5 or so items I want):

Getting DNC sub leveled has been pissing me off. I need it, I'm close, DNC33 now, but it's so boring, and I dislike playing it. I don't even care about DNC37 anymore, just give me Drain Samba2 and Healing Waltz and I'm happy. I'll probably blow my last anni ring charge on this. I did get a few levels the easy way: with garret's lowbie SAM and healing slave

And I got a few merits in a couple semi-pickup PTs... new longest chain by a small amount:

But best of all, I've got a new static in the mix, though it's having some troubles finding a tank who will show up and actually XP with us... meet my SCH, bravely crafting juice and leveling up while the big strong melees do the hard work of killing things:

SCH is up to 23 now and I can already tell I'm going to enjoy it. Levels to look out for:
25 - conserve MP, and the fast cast strategems
30 - addendum black giving access to sleep, access 2 second strategem charge as well as timer lowered to 2 minutes.
32 - Dispel muthafugga, hell yea
40 - En-spell-ga, should be boner-popping with MNK and THF in my static. Also, Erasega, Sleepga, and Bindga become available.
Those are the short term things I'm looking forward to. I keep thinking about everything SCH can do whenever I'm playing BLM and I just can't wait to actually try it all out.

...だけど少し汚れて　それを消すためにさらに汚して...

2008-07-04T16:31:58Z

Warning, big images that I haven't cropped at all due to laziness.

LS Dynamis started up again and we got off to a bang clearing Bastok with 24... I was declaring SAM and BLM and here's what happened. BLM dropped early, I lost like a bitch of course.... BLM drops again off the BLM NM (lol) and I lost again, so only 2 ppl left lotting BLM. Then SAM drops, I lot in and the one other SAM lotter beats me. So at this point I'm like, well, all my luck for the night is totally gone. Then SAM drops *again*. I'm the only lotter so I'm winning (with something terrible like 100 of course) and not two fucking minutes later BLM drops AGAIN. The last BLM lotter other than myself lots a 7. Wow. I passed SAM and lotted BLM and here you have it:

I couldn't believe it.... I'm sure I won't see SAM again for like a year, but it was worth it. I was hitting 1500+ Thunder IVs in Ein the next night with em.
Right after Dynamis, Sozo and Haku and I were gonna try our hand at antlion ENM. However a certain NIN warped after just talking to the NPC instead of trading the stones in, and so Haku and I had our hands a little bit full...

We bounced hate for the first couple of pops and then used Chainspell and Manafont for the last two pops. We clocked in at about 13 minutes for the kill even though we got lucky and had zero decoys pop (wow) but a few of those were at the start trying to figure out why only two of us had come in the BC >.>. Got a bit of a break with forager+galateia for a pretty nice gil split. I really recommend this ENM to anyone with a bit of time and a couple friends who also have time.
Then the other night I was in a merit PT with Sozo, Coice, Furax and a couple randoms when Nekio calls out Sandworm sitting up. We rushed like hell out although I don't believe there was any competition. We got pulled into the King Arthro BC which was very fun. SC+MB is always enjoyable, though I went BRD just because I was already on it at the time. No velo belt, but we did have a pretty happy PLD:

Erm, yea. I'm SAM74 now. No pictures, because I'm not very proud of what I have at the moment. Should be 75 sometime tomorrow afternoon. I've gotten most of the easy stuff to get now, and I have enough cash to buy both my 2nd Flame Ring and the two Hachiman pieces I'll need for 6-hit when I get 75. The pieces I'm most concerned with in the immediate future are Byakko's Haidate, Swift Belt, and Ace's Helm. Spit and I farmed up two Despot stones (narrowly avoiding MPK for the second one) and we got one Diorite (in like 30k XP worth of statues). We'll be going out for the second Diorite soon and then maybe work on backup sets of pops. I really need to set aside some time to farm a Codex up, it's just pretty boring solo. And speaking of boring, and Ace's, I'm working on getting ToD for that damn scorp as I type this up. If I can get those three pieces of gear, I'll feel pretty content for a long time. The real improvements at that point would be stuff like Justice Torque, Forager's Mantle, Alky's, Usukane feet, Toreador Rings, Haub+1.... either annoying as hell to get or just really expensive for marginal upgrades.
Of course the other side to SAM progress at 75 is the massive amount of merits needed for it. The SAM merits are so good they're almost like required to be a halfway decent SAM. Med timer -30s, GK skill +16, frontside WS damage +19%, sTP+10, the underestimated Blade Bash... there's a lot of work to be done. My first goal is to get sTP up to 6-hit level then look at GK skill, then probably the first three Overwhelms before capping Meditate, and finally finishing off Overwhelm and Blade Bash. Shikikoyo just does not impress me much and I doubt that I'll get even a point in it. I'll probably try and find at least one night a week to merit for a few hours until I can get some progress made on these.

I think I've developed a taste for XP. I've got a tentative static set up to continue weekend XP sessions into the future. The line-up so far is PLD MNK THF COR BRD SCH. Should be interesting, I'm hoping COR and SCH can put in some back-line damage when needed to compensate for maybe a slightly underpowered front-line. With two party buff jobs, the lack of Haste doesn't worry me so much, but we'll have to see how it goes.

by the way

2008-06-24T08:26:07Z

Less than an hour after I made my last post....

I can't thank Aelfinn enough, who tanked all five of the runs we had on this ENM for me, and all the people who came to help with healing magic. It's so easy to get to and win at that I can't see us stopping now though.

-benny

...give me a reason...

2008-06-24T00:14:42Z

Quick post from our Saturday XP excursion to Sea Puks. I was amazed that no merit PTs tried to ruin our day there. The XP was "all right", I think the difficulty in pulling the mobs between the mamools and skoffins was what did it in... both me and Haku died at least once pulling. Here are two parses from that party:
Soboro parse

This is with Soboro while I was still 71, mostly. Then I leveled to 72 and switched to Tomoe, and the result was this:
Tomoe parse

You can see the difference the piercing bonus makes. Also keep in mind for these parses, Haku was not only pulling 90% of the time but also couldn't WS early in the fights due to pulling hate (you can see his WS numbers are crazy).
This is with Sassafras on DRG/NIN, me on SAM/NIN, Haku on RNG/NIN, Pix on DRG/WHM, Eti PLD/WAR, and Spit RDM/WHM. NIN sub was a move to counter Puk aoe, worked pretty good, I still ended up tanking a lot (lol) but using hasso fulltime felt kind of nice. No thinking involved lol. I definitely can't wait for WAR sub again though. I'm about 7k into 72, no Hagun yet, but I do have Love Halberd for any piercing mobs at 73 and up.

-benny

...play my little part in something big...

2008-06-20T15:09:06Z

Just for a little insight into why I'm so freakishly busy in game these days... this is entirely aside from helping friends with things they need and also aside from normal LS activities (which can be pretty time intensive depending on HNM timers and how active the sacks feel):

TO DO LIST (not necessarily in order of priority):
Camp VE for hairpin for DNC & NIN
Level DNC to 37 (Emp band + Anni ring)
Camp Oz NM for 3% Haste feet for NIN
Farm Despot (duo with Spit/Ehon/anyone who needs byakko)
Farm Ulli (duo with Spit/Ehon/anyone who needs byakko)
Farm new Fomor Codex (duo with Zeri)
Farm sea organs for Shadow Gorget (make group for Yovras)
Run antlion ENM every 5 days (trio with tank+healer friends)
Camp KV for Ace's Helm (hold duo BRD+NIN? or solo SAM/NIN?)
Work on ZNM (Cerb line) (Grips, Oracle legs & body, Hachiryu legs)
Camp Fowling Earring NM in Wajaom (find 1-2 friends to help?)
Farm Alky triggers and kill (duo with Ash)
Finish TAU Missions (static)
Clear all Assaults for Captain (@35) (with Nyzul group?)
Kill TAU Beastmen kings (LS event!)
Leech Salvage clears? (@3)
Start attending Ein religiously (if Lulu will ever ever ever respond to me /cry)
Farm $$$ for Flame Rings, Haub+1, Hachi Kote, Wyvern Helm (until D head)

Just a quick post! Hopefully this will also help me keep myself on track if I keep an eye on this list.

-benny

...everything is yours to lose...

2008-06-12T07:40:09Z

Cliff notes: SAM is 69, DNC (for sub use) is 23 (I need to camp emp hairpin, want it for NIN too which I may level next), we killed the first and at this time only two Dark Ixions on Valefor (0/2 on the actually good drop, the cape), new zeni NM system is fun and made of win, I need to cap Troubadour badly, and I'm not having any luck yet on Hagun.

We spent our 60s going from Colibri to Puks to stronger Colibri to Eruca (fun times, really) to Imps (the worst, by far), and now we're all 68-69 as of last PT. I'm still killing parses with GK (tried using spear on Imps with that fancy 12.5% damage bonus, but it wasn't happening at my level and my skill due to too many Penta hits missing). I don't understand why so many people seem to spit on the idea of eating sushi. Well I kind of understand. If sushi is pegging your acc at the 95% cap, then there's some waste going on. But having less that like high 80s in acc (I want to say 90s) really seems like a serious issue. My feeling on meat is, maybe once I have GK+16 in merits....
Obligatory screenshots... these aren't my best numbers I managed on Penta or YG(K) so far, but they're the best ones I remembered to get shots of:

Couse was the weapon, this was probably around lv64.

Double attack, I know this looks weak, but keep in mind this is with Soboro on IT mobs :).

Items that I need to start working on soon but may have to postpone due to too much shit to do include: Blood Ring, Alky Bracelets, Shadow Gorget, and of course the elusive Hagun (many thanks to Aelfinn, Zeri, Eticket, Blueshawk, Sharain, and anyone I'm forgetting for 3 charity runs so far, 0/3 on anything worth more than Urushi).

I'm not going to go into detail about Ixion so much, because there are some really good places to get that info already. We've killed both pops so far on Valefor, with 2 dagger, 1 cape, and 2 run shoes for WAR&co to show for it. The fight would be rather routine and unremarkable except for a couple things. One, his unpredictable behavior. Sometimes he'll just turn and mow over any mage in a 30 ft line of him. It's easy to say in retrospect that you can just dodge out of the way but that's not so easy to realize when you are in panic-new-HNM-mode. Two, he has some serious serious damage potential when he goes into "berserk" mode. He seems to go back and forth between some powered up mode, maybe with some horn animation in there somewhere. We had one instance today where we lost both our tanks at once to back-to-back Wraths for 600+ each.
Camping and killing this new mob was a real blast though. The pop and pull system is super interesting and a creative way to combat botting. Now the assholes have to be assholes in person.
We got:

and obligatory NES graphics:

I think we might have had 50 spectators or so, most of whom seemed to be dying a WHOLE LOT.

I've got a lot more to talk about including the new ZNMs, the addition of the initial relic weapon quests, and my DNC/BST adventures (this is mostly a lot of dying and lv down). Sadly it is 3:30 in the fkin AM and I need sleep. Poke me and I'll come back and update, hehe.

-benny

don't you worry what the bitter hearts... are gonna say...

2008-05-13T19:47:10Z

The usual as far as NMs go - a couple Fafnir, a few V2 Bahamut... maint coming up soon so we'll see a mass timer reset. We did have one interesting Fafnir where we claimed all the flies as well, and some slow sleeping on the part of BLM who shall remain unnamed led to self-MPK via Spike Flail (hahaha). Well, this kind of shit happens sometimes. Particularly if you're a shell that claims without the use of botting tools.

My SAM is currently 63, and uses the following gear for TP:
Soboro/Couse
Pole Strap
Lightning Bow +1
Voyager Sallet
Chiv Chain
Spike Earring x2
Haub
O Kote
Jaeger (cheapass alert beepbeepbeep)
Woodsman
Amemet +1
Potent Belt/Life Belt (usually Life on polearm)
RK Breeches
Leaping Boots (if I had infinity money I would buy 3% haste feet; I may camp but I despise camping against ppl)

When I'm using polearm I stick to the same gear for Penta - missing penta hits is a big problem for me using meat (I could use cheap sushi instead, that might be worth a try). When I'm using GK I swap in STR rings and Pallas hands for WS (really really need RSE2 boots).
For reference, I have a few things that are relevant to SAM75 - Brutal, B Kote, O hat/Turban, Love Halberd, Warwolf.

In my FFXI reference text file, these are my notes on SAM gear that I need to acquire, both EX and buyable.

SAM gear needed

Ace's Helm (KV)
Byakko's Haidate (Byakko)
Usukane Sune-ate (SLAVage)
Shura Haidate (200-250k cursed) (Byakko)
Snow Gorget (Yuki,Gekko) (sea organs; yovra x1)
Shadow Gorget (Kasha,Penta,Impulse Drive) (sea organs; yovra x2)
Justice Torque (JoJ)
Sukesada (Shii)
Swift Belt (fomor NMs)
($)Haubergeon +1 (3M) (+1STR +1DEX +2atk +2acc)
($)Hagun (1.9M)
($)Merman's Earring (Fowling Earring??) (190k/70k) (+1atk/+3acc+1STR)
($)Triumph Earring (550-600k) (+2STR)
($)Flame Ring x2 (390-400k x2) (+2STR/+1STR)
($)Ecphoria Ring (95-100k) (+1sTP)
($)Alkyoneus Bracelets (590-600k) (+2STR)
($)Marine M Boots (340-350k) (+3STR)

Break it down!

Ace's
Obviously a necessary piece for any SAM worth his salt. Don't laugh, but we've never actually killed KV. We attempted it a grand total of I think 2 times when it was first released, but I think our stunners failed or something. We're not very experienced in zerging things actually (we still kill both Bahamut and Kirin in old-fashioned ways, although Bahamut is kind of preferable that way because we do many orbs at once). Regardless I think the main reason we haven't killed this guy is lack of motivation to camp. I intend to change that. I don't have confidence to hold it solo on BLM/RDM or BLM/NIN but I'm sure I can find a NIN to camp with my BRD and hold him all day.

Byakko pants
My plan for this is pretty easy, just find a friend who needs them too and duo the pop items. BST solo on Despot is a fun fight but it's also a good way to get your shit stolen, much easier and safer to just duo. I don't think Ulli will pose much of an issue to BLM+BLM or BLM+RDM, though I've never tried it. I know at least two good friends who need this item too so I'm sure we can work something out.

Usukane feet
We're still hardcore into Nyzul, even more so since the new relic weapons were announced. We've climbed Eti's disc to 35, so maybe 2 more weeks will take us to the top unless we get boned like flayer boss>all>frog boss>all>5 qiqirns in huge floor. Sometimes Nyzul just wins, though I am re-evaluating my strategy as BLM in climbing floors thanks to that time-out. Regardless we're still stuck to Nyzul for probably another couple months at least. Once that's done I'll have the freedom to put together a hand-picked Salvage group and start kicking ass. This is one of the more forward-looking pieces.

Shura pants
See Byakko pants, rinse and repeat. I could probably get these off LS Byakko pops too I bet.

Snow gorget/Shadow gorget
Farming the trash mobs for organs is just time consuming, although at least I can get aerns off PHs for helpful NMs like DRG or DRK. The 3 yovras will be annoying but I'm sure I can put a group of LS ppls together and 3-4man them. Or just "aggro" some yovras on the way to limbus (hehehe).
Among the listed pieces, one of the easiest to get, and needed earliest.

Justice Torque
Is a goddamned legend. Only two of our members ever had one and one of them quit sooooo I'll have a long line of SAM and DRK to beat down to get this item. Of all the items listed, this is the only one I don't think I could get with a few months of hard work. I do NOT own a PCC however, and I've blown all my BS going 0/some number on it, so it's Chiv Chain or bust for a while.

Sukesada
I'm starting to feel the limits of Soboro, a bit. I do think I could use Soboro til 75 but the small WS numbers are starting to give me some kind of inferiority complex after tossing 7-800 Pentas. Anyways, free stuff is free. Several people have offered to help me camp and I will gladly take them up on it.

Swift Belt
I need one bad. I have a codex and I'm 0/1 so far on drop. We need to set up a schedule to farm these in my XP static, I think a lot of us need one. We just need to find someone with THF50 (haha).

Haub+1
A really important upgrade but also the most expensive one. My current funds are roughly 400k and I currently have no real income. ENMs have been my main source in the past, because a 3-way Blau split goes a long way if you just buy consumables. But now I'm feeling a need to do some actual farming to supplement this. I'm still considering options, because I really need something that I can stand (I have a terribly low tolerance for repetitive farming). Crafting might be the answer but my only options for now are Alchemy 97+0 or Cooking 95+0 (ha). I've also seriously considered farming prime avatars, but I'm not sure what the time to gil return is like compared to traditional farming. I think 50k/day would be a great target for me to start out.

Hagun
The most important upgrade of everything listed. I was very surprised when I was ranting about this to my Nyzul group and several offered to help on the ENM. Wow. Maybe Friday I can see who's around - it would save a lot of farming time if we dropped this for my SAM. If I can trade participation in Hedgehog Bomb ENMs, Forager ENMs, etc for this drop, it would be a blessing.

Merman's/Fowling
Merman's for GK, Fowling for Polearm opposite Brutal of course. These are relatively cheap but then the bonus is relatively small too. Also I kind of want to kill the NM for Fowling. I tried it duo on BST with a NIN friend of mine once, and it was quite difficult (we lost eventually, but I think it can be done).

Triumph earring
Thanks to the advent of Brutal I only need one. If I get a Fowling which I'm sure I will, this will be the least return for most gil, meaning it's the last purchase upgrade priority. I could save money if I give up Abyssal for Bushi (GK skill is hot) but I'm not willing to abandon the 5 Dark skill on my most-used and most-loved job (+RDM when I get that up).

Flame Rings
I don't own a Rajas or any other EX STR ring so I need two of these. A worthy upgrade, but relatively low on my list to buy.

Ecphoria Ring
I need to camp this NM soon! I don't know if we'll do imps with our PT setup but if we do I want to be prepared.

Alky's
I was recommended to kill the NM. I wonder if I can get a friend with TH4 out to help. Seems like a pain.... I hear drop rate is kinda low too. I don't even know if BST/NIN can kill it. If I have to buy I don't mind that so much either; it's worth the money.

Marine M Boots
I need to buy these like last week. A strict upgrade from Leaping and I would use them even in TP til Fuma's probably. However the price is almost all my gil right now so I'm waiting to find a favorable price on AH. I think I'll have them soon.

As you can tell I'm having a lot of fun with SAM. I think the thing that makes melee so much more fun is that you can never tell what might happen - you might bust 3 double attacks on penta and do like 2k damage. You might crit 5 times in a row. There's no romance in BLM damage - if I nuke the same mob with the same gear, barring resists/weather/day, I will get the same exact number every damn time. Why no magic crit? Why? Something to liven up the mage jobs in play would be a godsend. RDM is amazingly strong but getting XP on it is surpassingly boring.

...rust and the rain endure...

2008-04-18T14:48:23Z

Well I keep forgetting to update this at home ad infinitum (home is where the screenshots are...) so maybe if I at least get something written from work I can add the pics when I get home. It's been a couple busy months so I'm sure I'll forget a lot of stuff, but we'll see how it goes.

Nyzul

As usual! We've done OK on floor100, got 2 Goliard and 2 Askar so far. We also had a bit of a blunder in that we accidentally wiped Cujo's disc with a simultaneous Blade Jin and Pred Claws from like 14% Hydra. Whoops. I've been warping out at 25% since then just to be safe. Fortunately for me, that same Hydra dropped my Goliard hat (first one Sass won). So now our only 100 disc at the moment is mine, which means my token count has started to drop precipitously, but we've started climbing again on Eticket's disc so it should work out. The sooner we can get done in Nyzul, the sooner I can start Salvage...

NMs

We've done alright on this front as well. Wizayojidrybusinesssomething or whatever they are now seems to have maxed on Algols because they're not camping Cerb for 24 hours in a row anymore, so we've gotten a few claims lately, couple swords for people who needed them. Tiamat and Khim are still kind of under lockdown although when I get my laptop in (soon) I'll see about getting a mule at Tiamat at least in the evening EST hours. We got a few Fafnir, maybe a Nid or two, Ridill>Joanna, etc. Oh, and most excitingly a few of us got together and killed Sandwurm so now I have a spiffy title too. Wheeee. He was an interesting fight, really, with kinda brutal TP moves. Thankfully BLM was pretty good on him.

Einherjar

We finally started doing this a bit, and a bunch of us have all wing 1 cleared, although we've been doing each one twice for people who miss them which is pretty time consuming. We'll be moving to wing 2 soon. The encounters are pretty interesting and I understand they get kind of hard in wing 3 so I'm looking forward to that. Between people showing up an hour late, etc, I never could have imagined a half hour instance would take so long to run.

Leveling

Slow as usual as I try to gather equipment, merits, etc. SAM hit 55 in static, lots of better equip now (including Soboro which we ended up going 7/9 on in a marathon NM session one night). Can't wait for 60 and Yukikaze. RDM and BLU are both 51 now, elem staves YAY. My enfeebling merits are at 6/8 so RDM is ok for now. I finished up the RDM AF I need too, but there's still two pieces for BLU and one for SAM I need. I've merited a little bit, got Troubadour, still hoping to finish up INT and enfeebling in the near future though. It's hard to find a good chunk of time to really throw myself into a nice long merit PT. As for SCH, I haven't touched it in a while, and I kind of feel like I want to at least finish up one of the ones I'm working on first.

Random

Nothing much interesting. I need to use my BS, need to use my KS, need to merit more, need to XP more, need to craft more, need to get BRD AF+1 items, etc etc. My inventory is doing a lot better since I dropped a ton of old and unnecessary stuff (including my AF+1 BLM hat, being outdated by Goliard for hMP and AF2 for nuking). Oh, also, I did a couple Dynamis and got BRD AF2 hat which is awesome of course. Still no BLM pants yet, but we'll see. Doing dynamis is still really hard for me just in terms of committing to 3.5hrs of being in an enclosed space with many, many morons. It's hard to express how much rage I have when I see some WAR skilling club or some SAM wielding the trial spear or some shit like that. Oh also I lose a shitton of XP because I always go BLM, so that doesn't help either.

I went to Sakuracon for the second year in a row and had an amazing time. Got to stay with good friends, eat good food, see a lot of anime, and met yet another LS member as well as seeing Fodder again which was fun. Flying from Orlando to Seattle and back was kind of a beating though.

I'm currently reading some light novel series such as Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (anime coming this year sometime), Toradora, uhhhm Omoi ha Itsumo Senkou Hanabi... I made a big purchase recently at my fave online JP bookstore, bk1. I haven't been buying manga so much lately because 1, there's not many series going on that I have that much interest in, 2, I can usually find fan groups translating a lot of the popular stuff, and 3, I have a lot more luck with random manga series when I'm in a brick and mortar store (it's amazing how much good stuff you can find just by picking up the books and looking for good artwork). Whenever there are whole series I want (like Conan, which I'm still looking for) I try to check out Ebay or other auction/discount places, because that stuff is fkin expensive retail.

Anyways, that's about all with me these days. I'll try to remember to up some screenshots when I get home^^.

-benny

...and emptiness of the heart...

2008-02-26T13:01:58Z

Nyzul

Redd was nice enough to accompany us to Nyzul in Arien's place a week or so ago even though we basically told him he could not lot Askar (a decision which I do NOT agree with - maybe it's because I'm partial to Redd but I think LS replacements ought to have equal lotting rights...). We got Eti's Askar body on the first run and lost the second to Breakga spam from frogs (we were also pulling faster than normal due to a slow start on that run). I might start singing Capriccio on frog floors, seriously. Now own up, how many of you had to go look up Capriccio?! haha. We use it on the Jailer of Faith fight although I understand a lot of LS have their WHM leave alliance so they don't get hit by spells. Next run after that we climb Cujo's disc and had a really easy time getting all the way to:

We would have run our first floor 100s yesterday, but Cujo has been really sick lately. Soon, very soon.

Loot

Unbelievably, I have two items to post about here. Unless we somehow start giving Dalmaticas to secondary jobs, or start camping Tiamat for 48 hours straight in shifts like Wiz, I don't think I can actually get anything else through LS events lol.

We had four Bahamut v2 pops a while back but a large number of ppl who signed up did not in fact SHOW up, so we had some interminable waiting that resulted in only 2 orbs being used on the Thursday we did the event. Still, we got some decent drops. No staves and only one Mask (->Chame) but a lot of syn mats. Enough cashmere for more than 2 Manteels, in fact. Spit as BRD main got the first, and Varda and I lot battle'd it out for the 2nd but she won. Now, there were 2 threads (2/3 of a manteel) over that just from those 2 orbs. After a long and complicated back and forth which I won't go into here, I somehow ended up getting a full Manteel out of this (we had 2 threads banked from some previous events, you see).

I've said it to him half a dozen times but I would like to say thanks to Tarja, who not only very graciously put his own Manteel on the backburner to allow me to get one, but even synthed it for me. I can't imagine a lot of people would be as kind as that.

The second loot item was even more unexpected, and it's another BRD body. After some money from a Blau Dolch sale came in (the day after we sold I saw SIX on AH, thank god we got rid of it), I finally had the money to get an item I've been considering for a long time: Vermillion Cloak. I'd been eying it on the AH and trying to snag one for 800k but not having much luck. My BRD has been needing an Auto-Refresh piece badly for LS events and Nyzul where I use /WHM a lot, and both my BLU and RDM are going to be at a level where they can use it soon too. However, as I was bitching and moaning in party chat about not being able to buy cheap, my good friend Magos fortunately suggested that I ask the sacks if we have any cloths that I could receive to help make one. We bank a lot of this stuff, you see, for LS member use. It just hadn't occured to me to simply ask, lol. Imagine my surprise when they came back to me and said there was an ENTIRE CLOAK that we had made but no one had needed it. So I was able to get a V Cloak for future events on my BRD, and save 900k which I'm currently turning over in my mind. The only thing I can even think of that I want to buy is HQ BRD JSE gloves. I'm still only halfway there though and they're rare as all hell besides. The only other consideration is some rare piece of gear for my jobs I'm leveling, but I figure I'll worry about those when they get 75 heh.

Random pics that fit in here:

We did a round of Copycat BCs. It was my first time and it was a very fun fight! Sadly Aqua's prediction of my profit was optimistic as Adaman ingot price plunged, but I still got OK money from this.

A great BLM completed the first Morrigan Robe in our LS. He'd been saving ingots for a long time, and I can't think of many BLM who are more deserving of such a great piece of gear. This really really makes me want to do Salvage even more than I already wanted to which was a lot. It feels like you need such a narrow band of jobs for it though, which is depressing.

Random Events

Some good luck in random stuff I've been organizing for lowbie gear... but mostly bad luck.

I actually had nothing to do with organizing this, but I have been helping out for over a week and I was glad when it finally dropped to me (in a very surprising manner):

So Eti was right, they will auto, how scary. We've gotten maybe 10 Sallets over the past week and a half or so, which is not bad really though people still need more I think. It's very good on my SAM and BLU (BLU STR setup is kind of a beast now, all my Mandibular Bites are 180+ even without TP and I can SC into Mand. Bite for easy 300+ with 150+ Induration).

I've heard horror stories about this one. If it takes me 17 tries I don't think I'll ever have one >.> we went 0/5 on this particular run. Zeri and I have farmed up new pops, though I need to take an hr or two and go build my Fomor hate again.

This drop rate was supposed to be better though! We did 5 runs pretty late after some HNM windows but only one dropped! (->Chame I think) This I actually need pretty badly because I'm only 7k to 50 on my SAM. Hopefully we can go again for this soon. The fights themselves were fairly enjoyable, though JGP missing EVERY SINGLE STUN was making me want to strangle him through the internet. Thankfully our melees were much better and used Leg Sweep and Flat Blade to pretty good advantage, but he still exploded several times on us, though we never were in any real trouble. I maybe will come BLM to the next one though (lol).

Lowbie Jobs

SAM has reached 49 in the static, which is really having some tough times as the mobs are getting tougher and we're still feeding them TP like madmen. I'm wondering if we might not do better at lv50 to swap my BLU and Zeri's RDM in (gaining enfeebles, Refresh for the PLD, TWO people with Dispel, and 8-second Stun) but Zeri very reasonably does not want her DNC to get lost in the mix. I'm just not sure how long we can keep our pace up. I'm sure Colibri at 55 will breath life back into us briefly just because Colibri are stupidly weak, but even relatively harmless mobs like beetles have been giving us a pretty rough go of it. Well, I'll keep pitching my BLU+RDM idea which I think is good, but I definitely understand Zeri's concern for her DNC, although the DNC flood in the XP market might be dying down a little now.

My RDM reached 44 in an XP PT with Lexa's BRD the other night. I'm still enjoying it but Refresh cycles mean I can't lose concentration for even a minute. Imagine when I get Haste at 48, lol. At least I still nuke for more than the BLMs (when we cast the same spell, Blizz2 is cheating :P). Lexa was kind enough to put Water Thren on for me and my Water2 did very very consistent and good damage. I've all but given up on some of the gear I wanted for this job (like Mannequin Pumps) but what I have is really not bad. What I do need to do is merit soon so I can finish out Enfeebling which is currently sitting at 4/8. However my Lullaby recast merits (2/5) and Sword merits (3/8) also need a lot of attention. Yes, I have a lot of meriting to do soon^^.

Sorry for the huuuuuge post, signing off now as it's time to shower and head to work anyway. Hehe.

-benny

...see what kind of tombstone i might have...

2008-02-12T06:16:29Z

Just a quick post to mention that we are still 100% (now 6/6) on floor 80 drops, and we floored Hydra about as easily as the rest of the NMs (tho he only used phys shield once, mercifully). Let's see a little photo op of our last six Nyzul runs:

I learned tonight that my Elegy luck is not predictable. We drew Cerb > Cerb > Hydra. I landed Elegy 2nd cast on first Cerb, and was unable to stick it on either of the next two. The second Cerb was *remarkably* tougher with no Elegy (Arien's Hojo also failed to stick). I'm determined to figure out how to raise my rate of Elegy success on these NMs. First thing to try is the magic accuracy drink. After that I'll just have to see what I can do in terms of more wind/singing skill.

As for drops tonight, Askar>Arien, Denali>Zeri(for future DNC) and me (uh probably to be dropped eventually - I don't see myself using it even when I get BLU75, and no plans at all to take RNG to 75).

By the by Disgaea 3 arrived and it's reeeeally nice, so I'm probably gonna be MIA til Thursday or so when we're running Baha2 (first time in a looong while).

-benny

...took a fall from a windy height...

2008-02-11T17:24:22Z

BLU

Hit 50 over the weekend while trying to build up necessary hate for Swift Belt. So Frightful Roar is online for me, I can begin AF questing, and I'm the same level now to be able to seek with Zeri's RDM. BLU and RDM make an amazing combo, so I'm really looking forward to that. My sword merits are 3/8 at the moment so I need to get working on those. The other big hurdle (aside from swift belt which I need badly) is definitely V Cloak for lv59. I don't have near enough money for one, so... time to bust out KS and get cracking on ENM too. Maybe selling my Astrals would make a little headway too.

SAM

Hit 44 in static over the weekend. I'm getting far better at using Seigan now, and /WAR is the order of the day. I usually am able to handle any hate I pull pretty well. The sad thing though is that my lv40 GK (which cost me quite a bit of money) is the only realistic weapon until lv50 (It's better than the lv42 RA/EX one, Mikazuki+1 at 44 is very rare, and Odenta at 48 comes from that BC50 no one ever does). I'm probably going to look into Luisant Haubert for 45-58 range. Actually the entire Luisant set is nice, but each piece is such a small upgrade from my current gear that I can't imagine getting it all. I'm going to have to try to organize Soboro either this week or next week, and I am a bit nervous about getting enough help for it, but I imagine lots of ppl in the LS might need one. Overall though this is the job that I'm least concerned about in terms of gear I need, really. (Putting aside the idea of Ace's Helm for now...).

As for the job itself I'm really enjoying it. Needless to say I'm dying for 49 (Tachi Jinpu) and 50 (Soboro, Double Attack), even though I hear that Jinpu is weaker than Enpi most of the time (/sniffle).

RDM

Hit 39 in a super random party with Fod's DNC Sunday night. Zeri got her NIN to 39 as well. My gear is kind of laughable at this point, although I do have +25MND, there's more available, maybe as much as +6 or so. Also I think I need to seriously consider Zeri's suggestion of MP gear. Converting 650HP into 350MP just seems like a huge waste. Even if I just had a max MP gear swap for convert, I could use the max MP to heal myself, refresh someone, haste someone (no need of stat boosts) before swapping back to my stat gear for an enfeeble or something. The depressing thing about max MP is that once you've used some of your MP it's not really doing anything for you. This is a large part of why I value hMP so highly; what really matters is how fast you can recover your MP in the long run. Of course, RDM has so little time to rest and such low Clear Mind that they are almost 100% dependent on Refresh and Convert to keep them going (this is another job that will need V Cloak very badly). It's really the quintessential MP management job.

In fact, looking deeper at RDM... Refresh costs 40MP and returns 120 MP over the course of a couple minutes. In other words, Refresh alone will support refreshing two other people in your PT - a number that is probably average or maybe a bit low depending on the PT setup. What this also means is that if you're refreshing yourself and two other people, there's no help from Refresh on your mana for heals, haste and other buffs, and enfeebles. All the MP for that has to come from somewhere else. Convert gives maybe 450-500 every ten minutes but you can work through that and out the other end really fast. What I'm getting at is a good hMP setup will be necessary for my RDM as well. Fortunately as I level into my BLM gear I already have pretty much all of it. The unfortunate thing is that most of it is rather high level. At 40 it's Pilgrim's Wand(+2), Qiqirn Sash+1(+3), Baron's Slops(+1), and oh wait that's it. Obviously better than nothing but it really makes me consider wiz cookies for food at least until lv51. Throw in that RDM's Clear Mind (I think) worse even than what BLU can get, and it's altogether a depressing situation. At 75 better gear and Convert merits (not to mention full MP merits 65+) give some more leeway but that is a long way off :).

Nyzul

Our first 3 runs on floor 80 Saturday, and what should we see but 3/3 drops @.@. No Askar, sadly, but yours truly won the first Goliard Saio (just like I did with the feet, and legs =.= I'm sure Sass and Zeri suspect me of haxing). I immediately put it in my gear setups for Stun, Drain, Aspir, and Lullaby. Haste 4% is a noticeable recast reduction on these spells, and I can't wait to get Swift Belt for this setup as well. The HP, MP, Conserve MP, and -enmity all make this piece very uniquely suited to healing magic as well for non-WHMs.

Cujo and Arien each won Denali and since they're both leveling DNC I'm sure they're glad to have something usable endgame for that job.

So far in 5 or 6 TAU boss floors we've only had Khim and Cerb. I keep reading about what a pain Hydra is, so it will be interesting to see if we have trouble on it. I've grown more healing magic conscious on BRD, and I've had great success landing Elegy on the NMs with stacked CHR Etudes, so I think I'm really getting better overall at helping with these fights. We haven't really had any close calls on them even when we got Job Abilities sealed on Khim one time. I don't recall if I've mentioned this but we use a NIN THF DRG WHM BRD SMN setup on TAU bosses (as opposed to NIN THF DRG BRD BLM WHM on climbing or Zilart bosses), so our SMN could not BP with JAs sealed... haha.

I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the head pieces and the weapons. If the March update has the Nyzul relic update included then it will probably only beat us by a small time span if at all. The nasty part is that Cujo and I will each only be able to lot half the time on floor 100, but we started this all those months ago with the acceptance of that fact in mind. It's not so bad for me since I only really need Goliard head and the BLM staff for now, but Cujo could make good use of almost half the weapons there and at least 2/3 the armor. Once I get my loot I need I can start using my disc more often to help him out though, so that works out ok.

If I remember, I have a few pictures to add to my post when I get home^^.

-benny

...start again // it's a beautiful morning...

2008-02-08T07:14:46Z

Been doing a few things recently... enough to keep busy :).

Cooking

Took my taru from 90 to 93.9 without any trouble at all, just waiting for Sandy to come back into 1st or 2nd place so I can buy maple sugar easily again, then I'll push to 95. At 95 I'd be T1 sole sushi and T2 melon pie, so I think I'd be happy with that for a long time. Incidentally (shhhhh) I've been making a lot of profit from my skill up synth. Ask my what it is in game if you're curious.

One of the things about me and crafting is that I have a weird desire to farm ingredients if I can kill two birds with one stone doing it. Thus when I started this push I emptied out my BLM inv as much as possible and cleared an XP ring charge like so:

This kind of solo is really enjoyable now and then because it's so easy and there's no pressure or anything.

Nyzul

What else? We've climbed my disc to 60 and Cujo's to 75. I know Cuj has been working on mapping our schedule for the next couple of weeks and I expect it contains copious body farming and maybe climbing me to 80 as well. I'm sure we'll all get the stuff we're after before too long so really I'm just having a blast with it. I definitely think we're getting better "at" Nyzul. However we still do lose occasionally. Usually it's freak accidents involving spellcasting mobs either nailing 1-2 ppl with a high tier ga spell, or nailing all the ppl in the vicinity with Sleepga 2. However we've just begun farming TAU floors and I expect the boss fights to get noticeably harder and longer. We'll have to see.

In the months we've been doing Nyzul, the only NM drops that have materialized so far (that I can recall) are Bounding Boots>Zeri, Sable Cuisses>Cujo, and Magic Slacks or whatever they're called that went to Arien to sell for cash. We had a ton of time left on this last floor despite having White Magic sealed (thank god for imps... so fkin easy) so we raped Ungur and got a Wooden Piece of Shit Bow in return.

BLM Equip

Tonight I got 50% closer to my goal for BLM equip as far as HNM drops go.

Next to Herald Gaiters this is about the best thing that could have happened to my BLM. After over a year of getting spanked in lots for Novio (and randomly taking breaks from FF exactly when we were farming JoL hardcore), I feel pretty vindicated in winning this by essentially sack decision. We used to handle Kirin Osode that way and it's kind of a nice way to work rare items if you have leaders who can handle it and can be impartial. I'm really psyched about it and I'm looking forward to comparing some before and after numbers. Unlike most FFXI equip, the effect of this piece is so large that I'm pretty sure it will be apparent immediately.

I might post a bit about my leveling plans tomorrow but I'm too tired tonight;;.

-benny

...and now i understand the supernova scene...

2008-02-07T07:43:51Z

Anyone who knows my BLM style probably knows I love hMP like crazy. With a good setup it's possible to more than double the normal hMP rate. My current hMP gear is:

Pluto's Staff (+10)
Wzd. Petasos+1 (+1)
Grandiose Chain (+2)
Relaxing Earring (+2)
Boroka Earring (+1)
Errant Hpl. (+5)
Genie Gages (+1)
Invigorating Cape (+1)
Qiqirn Sash+1 (+3)
Baron Slops (+1)
Goliard Clogs (+3)
= +30 total

The actual ideal setup for BLM has the following changes:
Wzd. Petasos+1 (+1) --> Goliard Chapeau (+2)
Grandiose Chain (+2) --> Phi Necklace (+3)
Errant Hpl.(+5) --> Mahatma Hpl (+6)
Baron Slops(+1) --> Yigit Serawheels (+2)
rings 1&2 --> Star Ring (+1)

With my current funds, Mahatma body is completely out of the question, and even if I had the money there's a lot better things to get with it.

The Goliard Chapeau is one big goal of mine for our current Nyzul static. I'm sure I'll have one in the fullness of time.

Yigit Serawheels are definitely the easiest of the upgrades to get. The only catch is I only have one free tag a week due
to Nyzul. I need to start working on those assaults soon though.

Phi Necklace is very interesting. Coincidentally the APs from the assault that can drop this are for Leujaom, perfect for getting Yigit pants! Also interesting to note are that the assault can be trio'd theoretically (NIN BLU RDM have done it, though I have none of those jobs yet). Finally, this assault can also drop a neat ring with STR+5 and Salvage:Counter+2. Can you imagine how good that might be for a MNK who tanks Salvage? The perfect bait to lure someone to run this assault with me. However I'm not at the CS rank yet. I think I'm one shy, maybe two.

The Star Rings are a whole other beast besides. The quest to get Star Sapphires (only way currently, I believe) probably takes a full group or close to it. It can be repeated once a day but the drop rate is apparently abysmal. Even if one did drop, any reasonable group would surely want to sell it for lootz.

Just a little aside, this is some of the random crap I think about while browsing through ffxi wiki. I'm pretty sure I can make 3 of these 6 separate upgrades happen, but Star Rings or HQ Errant bodies are basically a pipe dream.

-benny

...every soul in the room keeping time with their hands...

2008-01-24T13:03:55Z

**Warning: the following post contains a decent amount of math and a lot of stuff only the most dedicated BLM could possibly care about**

Let's talk BLM damage!

The page we're going to use for reference is this one. I want to go through step by step and talk about what each one means, as well as what I personally have so far been able to find/verify/get data on.

1: Calculation of D. The V values for each spell have been independently verified by a number of people and I have no reason to doubt them (and they've been giving me good results so far as well). Same for the M values - let me just note that it's interesting that tier IV and AM2 have intrinsically higher marginal increase for each time you increase INT. Of course, AM2 still has a high enough MP cost to be usually inefficient compared to options like tier III.
Now, the most interesting part here is the calculation of dINT. My initial expectation here was that a lot of higher NMs would have huge INT values and make this into a penalty (which would make adding INT very strong). However, in the lone example I can give so far this is not the case. Distinctly so! Proto-Ultima gave me some good numbers to work with and I can say with confidence this mob has only 69 INT - surely on par with most BLMs, before we wear equipment, but much less than after we wear nuking gear.
The other interesting thing I can say about dINT is that for all mobs of reasonable level, you will NOT be able to reach the inflection point that makes adding INT half as effective. I tested on some EP spiders that I calculated had either 56 or 57 INT depending on level, and I stacked INT up to 125 for a difference of 68-69, and all the calculations indicated the formula D = V + (dINT * M). Putting this together with the Proto-Ultima example, I think we can safely say that this will always be the right formula to use, on any mob we care about.

2: This is a simple calculation. I think we all knew that if we must attack multiple targets, -ga spells are pretty efficient in that situation. It's pretty interesting that the division caps at 10 mobs.

3: This is very very useful information for anyone who (like me) didn't know the fractions that can split damage. I had always felt like it was 1/2, 1/4, and 1/10, but that just goes to show the dangers of "feeling like" data is a certain way.

4: Simple calculation. I should hope that most serious BLMs have 1.15 here for every calculation.

5: Something interesting to note here is that double weather is more than twice as potent as single weather, and apparently it has been tested that double weather can only proc either 0.25 or 0 (there's no chance of 0.1 mod from double weather, as might be expected).

6: All my testing has been with no MB, so I have little to say here, except that I rarely use my AF2 gloves on HNM even with MB, because losing 15 Elem Skill is pretty rough and especially with 3INT on my AF1+1 it's hard to justify gaining the small 0.05 boost here for potentially losing 50%, 75%, etc damage to a resist.

7: This is the other really important section to know about when working with HNMs. Most HNMs defend themselves against magic not with high INT, but with ridiculously high MDB values. If you reason from that fact that MAB is relatively quite good on these HNM, then you were 100% right.
BLM70+ have natural MAB of 1.32 from Magic Attack Bonus IV trait, and if you've capped Thunder and Ice potency, those spells have an additional 0.1 MAB mod. Considering common gear such as Moldavite (+0.05), weskit (+0.06), and A hands (+0.05), common numbers here are 1.58 with A hands or 1.53 with AF1 hands. Now, for perspective, others have measured the MDB of Tiamat to be 2.0, Jormungand to be 2.24, and I personally calculate Proto-Ultima's to be a staggering 3.09. I definitely would have thought Tiamat's was a little higher, so I'd like to test this myself some day. Using these numbers it's easy to calculate the change in damage that you can achieve by trading off one piece of gear for another.

8: This is relatively rare in mobs, and seems to be very strongly tied to mob type (that is to say, random monsters won't have this). Much more interesting is the player side of it, and the reduction that we can achieve with various effects, equip, etc. Note that due to the manner of calculation this might actually be interchangeable with MDB, I need to crunch some more numbers.

I intend to keep gathering data on other mobs of interest, so expect more on this in the future.

-benny

...and the cross is someone she has not met...not yet...

2008-01-23T13:07:12Z

We've been doing our usual run of activities, meaning a lot of Limbus, a smattering of sky and sea, and random fun stuff thrown in now and again. Last Thursday we got together about 18 ppl + a couple extra tanks who spent the whole time sitting beside the fight watching as we killed Jormun in our smoothest run ever. No deaths other than a couple overzealous BLMs^^.

Everyone who attended now has the title, so that alone made it worth it.

Nyzul has been continuing, but our 40 farming has been pretty sad. Our lone 60 run so far got Cujo his Askar hands over Eti and Arien lotting, and Monday night we went 1/4 on 40s for Sass's Goliard pants (though we lost one run to the THF Qiqirn who ran away into 3 puks and Bloodtear Baldurf, haha).

Currently my disc is on 50, and Cujo's on 60. I believe the plan now is roughly, get me to 55 and Cuj to 75, then start farming 60s and 80s a bit before climbing some more. It seems we got lucky to have Khimaira on 60 and the others are notably tougher so I guess we're gonna need to start grabbing meds at the start of TAU boss runs. Body boost is an obvious choice and lots of items would help melee damage big time.

The SAM static is moving slowly but surely. I'm up to 32, and I think I'll get parties to get me to 34 before next meeting since Eti is PLD34 already. That will help me DD a bit better and get me to O Kote which Redd has very kindly lent me and which I need to really start farming the NM for badly.

I've also finally discovered the joy of meriting on BRD. On Saturday I got very close to XP cap and saw my first XP chain higher than 11-14 (from puddings :P):

I had a rest on Sunday and early Monday as we had a game day here that Brock and I hosted and then we entertained Brandon overnight and took him home Monday morning. Then later on Monday I was able to make two merit PTs, first a short one on bird camp mamool ja and then a monster PT with BRD COR WHM SAM NIN MNK where we had middle tier birds to ourselves and did this:

Then Redd got slept for about 30s and chain broke, we took a short break and did this after getting back:

All told, 65000 or so XP. With this binge I got Enfeebling to 4/8, and Sword to 2/8. Much more to come hopefully!

Last night we took down Ultima and got Nashira head for Onorok and pants for Hakusaku, and I can't think of a more deserving person^^. Haku and I have been doing a lot of random stuff together, including my first tests into measuring the INT and MDB values of enemies - but that's a whole other post that I intend to make soon, and a lot of interesting info it will have, I think, for all serious BLMs out there.

Running late for work, later!

-benny

...just wait a little while // with your pleasant smile...

2008-01-01T16:43:54Z

Well, my time has been split lately between FFXI and Vanguard, not really evenly either, but I've also been doing a ton of other stuff... Brandon was over for the weekend and we hit up a LOT of Rock Band. In fact with me on lead guitar, Brandon on bass and Brock on drums we were able to pass 260,000 fans (the max you can reach if any instrument is played on Medium) by doing Expert/Hard/Hard. Brock's skill on the drums has really taken off and he can play almost anything on Hard and more and more on Expert too. We still have a shitton to unlock though, starting with the 4-song set to get sound guys that we failed once before.

We also watched a couple more episodes of Planet Earth, which is amazing of course. I 100% recommend to get this in some HD format if you're considering it. It's truly astonishing. On live TV we've been following college and pro football closely as well. I was pissed that the Pats completed their 16-0 but they deserved it, I have to give them that. The FSU-Kentucky game was a pretty tense game at some points, very fun football to watch. Today are some more college games I've been anticipating and this weekend the NFL playoffs start - good times.

As for FF, as usual I'm mostly doing Nyzul. Last night we had 2 runs on my disc, and we won both 36-40, putting my disc on the same floor as Cujo's. We're planning to farm 40 more for Askar, though I'm chomping at the bit to climb and reach the weapons, but I can't complain when last night I got these:

We went 2/2, Goliard both times, and me and Zeri both won it. The fun part of this is, on our second run, our Ninja extraordinaire Arien DC'd on floor 37 (I believe) in the middle of an "all" floor. Now, our usual operating setup is NIN THF DRG BLM BRD WHM. So, ok, we can kill these DC mobs with Cujo THF tanking. A few mobs later, Sass on BRD DC's also....!

Well the long and short of it is, we proceeded to clear a quick ITG tiger floor, then a 5-lamp order floor (thank GOD not same time) with only 4 ppl, got to floor 40 (still with 4 ppl), and started to fight Adamantoise with THF DRG WHM BLM. We were getting beat on because we had no way to keep hate on the THF, when who should pop up but ARIEN! Lucky! We ended up killing with a few minutes to spare. What a rush.

Perhaps bigger news is that we claimed and killed KB shortly before Nyzul. What a fun fight, it's been a long time. However, things have changed a bit apparently^^; It used to be, people stole from RMT and Churchill stole from anyone on his hate list, but now it seems that there's a linkshell full of assholes ready to steal from anybody. It went white briefly and like 15 ppl stunned it. Thank god we got it right back. We killed in proper order with 2 Meteors and 0 death. He stunned me once and gave me a scare but no Meteor^^. Drops were OK, 2 hides, SC, W head. I'm holding the non-EX drops for now but I don't even know who was there at pop so yeah. I guess the sacks will tell me what to do with em.

In Vanguard, Brock and Brandon have been playing as well, so we're having a lot of fun. My BRD is 34, a good 4-5 levels higher than them, so I'm working on my Cleric for a while. BRD is an offensive fighter in VG with a touch of crowd control and party support. It's very interesting... Here's my XP bar and my two weapons I'm dualling, they are pretty badass:

And my cleric with his weapon which is pretty good DPS for a lv14 character... Cleric is a healer than can wear heavy armor, making them one of the more amazing solo straight fighters in the game. I can kill some crazy stuff relative to my level^^

Plans for now include more CLR and BRD leveling in VG; possibly leveling SAM23 in a set PT in FF; hopefully some merit PTs on BRD at some point... and of course Rock Band anytime we have guests over :). Send me a tell if you've got a guy in VG and maybe we can go kill some bad guys somewhere :).

-benny

...the threat of your love in the headlights...

2007-12-26T16:44:42Z

Pretty pictures and plenty of thoughts on the job, skills, merits, gear, etc to come when I get home, but I wanted to get the post out that as of about 7AM EST today I'm now Bard 75 in addition to my Black Mage and Beastmaster^^. I look forward to many productive merit PTs with ridiculously tricked out melees from my LS. Hehehe.

Pulling for merit parties is fun, but our chain never got past 6 or 7 once two other PTs showed up at the same camp:

That gave me access to my Goliard feet, which was nice, and means I can lot BRD AF finally in Dynamis, which I fear I may have to start attending again. For about a year I was really really into it but it got so repetitive, and took up so much time, and basically was a huge XP sink for my BLM that I really just kind of gave it up after a while. But some of the best pieces for BRD are in Dynamis, especially the hat and the pants.

Speaking of items!

After much farming and some truly humbling generosity by Redd I got my final two gobbie bags done. This will truly help my BLM, and there are a number of items I intend to actively work on for BLM now, not to mention that I intend to carry my fire and dark obis again which have been in my mog house for months now. The two bottom items in the picture I owe entirely to Zeri, who got me the Nereid Ring for Christmas(!) and soloed Ilrusi assaults for me over and over again to help me get my Storm Fife.

Since my secret santa got me a stack of demon horns for christmas (as well as toad oil - wtf? lol) I was able to get Faye to synth 12 tries at Crumhorns to try for HQ. WELL. He +2'd THREE of them and +1'd another one or two. Wow. I traded +2s to Varda and Spit for their +1s and now I have a lot of slow-selling Crumhorn+1s to sell. The only instruments I'm still pondering are the Hymnus and Virelai instruments. I know I want the latter, but the HQ seems hard to come by, a bit. The former I'm not entirely sure I even want... I'll probably get it... but it means I need to make a Hymnus macro and then remember where it is lol.

Since I'm already running late for work I'll cut it off here for now but I still have a lot to talk about on BRD play and BRD merits. I've already dropped 3 merits to get my first -2sec on Lullaby recast. Wheee.

-benny

...coffee black and egg white...

2007-12-16T16:57:42Z

More Nyzul notes!

First of all, for the benefit of my own Nyzul group as well as anyone else who might need more info on the lamp floors, I'll explain the three types of floors in detail.

- Single lamp -

There is only one lamp, and as soon as you hit it, you get a message that your code has been certified. You get the clear as soon as everyone has hit this one lamp.

- Same time -

There are three to five lamps (usually five). When you touch it (even before activating it), it gives you a message that the other lamps must be hit at the same time. You get the clear when they are all activated within a very short time of each other. Easiest is to get everyone in position and have one person call the game time.

- Order -

There are three to five lamps (usually five). When you touch it (even before activating it), it gives you a message that the lamps must be activated in a specific order. You get the clear when the lamps are activated in a pre-determined order. When you activate a lamp, it WILL NOT light until ALL the lamps have been hit. When they all have been hit, ALL the lamps will light up briefly. Then the ones that were not hit in order will turn off. Ones that were hit in order will stay on, but you have to keep trying until you get them all in the right order to clear.

Proper strategy to find the right order:
This is only important for one person to be able to do, since they can instruct others. Let's say your PT members are A B C D and E. Pick an arbitrary order first, I usually do alphabetical cuz it's easy to remember:

A > B > C > D > E

Now suppose that B is correct, but no others are. Fix B in the order, and rotate all the others by one position (left or right doesn't matter):

C > B > D > E > A

Now maybe this time both B and C are correct. Once again, fix those in place and rotate the three remaining (must be the same direction as first time tho):

C > B > E > A > D

Now say B, C, and D correct. Rotate the last two one more time:

C > B > A > E > D

This MUST be correct. Basically keep anyone who is still lit in the same spot, and move the rest by one each time. This method is the fastest and most sure way to pass order lamp floors.

In actual news, we're flush with Nyzul feet - I'm hoping soon we can start farming deeper gear. We got our first Denali last night and Cujo won them, and Eticket has Askar boots now too.

Let's see, other events we did recently are KS99 Wyrm x7 (no Speed Belt or Jugg, sadly), and Ouryu x2 last night which was rather more painful than it had to be. I guess we were short on people and invited an outside BRD, but she didn't know the fight and came /RDM, ouchie. Well fortunately our BLMs are smart enough to toss their own Curagas and not just stand and die lol. Anyways we got decent drops, a D cloth plus the usual stuff. If we're lucky maybe we can make a little money off it.

In BRD news I'm still working hard on it. I'm seeking on BRD70 as I write this up and me, Hakusaku (DNC69), and Spit (MNK70) in various combinations have been XPing constantly the past week. I'm looking forward to being a little more diverse in the jobs I can realistically bring to HNM (BST lol) and also in being able to merit better than 10k/hr lol. I wouldn't say there's a *ton* of merits I have left to do but I could comfortably drop 50 or so into important stuff like INT, wind skill, sword (for BLU), and Lull recast.

Other than that just been doing Limbus and in my spare time catching up on anime, The Office, playing a little Rock Band and Agarest Senki, and re-reading the Wheel of Time series. Fun times :).

-benny

...a toast to you, your whisper, your smile....

2007-12-08T16:37:58Z

I've been meaning to do a thorough write up of merits for a long time. This will be a hodgepodge of my personal opinion, my actual choices for merits so far, and hopefully some actual relevant insight. For reference you should know I have BLM and BST 75, and BRD 65 which I plan to take to 75. The Merit Point Cost format of n_1 > n_2 > ... > n_k=n_k should be taken to mean that all increases after the k-th increase cost n_k.

HP/MP

Cost: 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5=5

Total:8 Per category:8

HP - Adjust your maximum HP by 10 points.
MP - Adjust your maximum MP by 10 points.

My personal allotment:
MP - 8/8

Analysis:
This category is particularly amazing for people with a lot of jobs, because the effect is relevant universally. If you have a lot of mage jobs, there's really no excuse for not maxing MP category, although Taru might prefer to hit HP. It used to be kind of a joke to merit HP I think, but personally I think that's a totally valid way to go, especially if you play a tank job often. In the overall scheme of merits, this is one of the first that ought to get attention.

Attributes

Cost: 3 > 6 > 9=9

Total:5 Per category:5

STR - Adjust your STR by 1 point.
DEX - Adjust your DEX by 1 point.
VIT - Adjust your VIT by 1 point.
AGI - Adjust your AGI by 1 point.
INT - Adjust your INT by 1 point.
MND - Adjust your MND by 1 point.
CHR - Adjust your CHR by 1 point.

My personal allotment:
INT - 1/5

Analysis:
Obviously this category is very strong, and very expensive. What surprises me the most about this category, is that all anyone ever wants to merit is STR! What the hell?! For one, INT is amazing for BLM, for another, CHR is amazing for BST and BRD. And yet everyone is nuts for STR. Well, there's no denying that +5 STR is huge for melee, so if you're a dedicated melee feel free, but consider the other options too. In fact I'm thinking very hard about maybe doing 3 into INT and 2 into CHR.

Combat Skills

Cost: 1 > 2 > 3=3

Total:20 Per category:8(offensive)or 4(defensive)

Hand-to-Hand Skill - Adjust your hand-to-hand skill by 2 points.
Dagger Skill - Adjust your dagger skill by 2 points.
Sword Skill - Adjust your sword skill by 2 points.
Great Sword Skill - Adjust your great sword skill by 2 points.
Axe Skill - Adjust your axe skill by 2 points.
Great Axe Skill - Adjust your great axe skill by 2 points.
Scythe Skill - Adjust your scythe skill by 2 points.
Polearm Skill - Adjust your polearm skill by 2 points.
Katana Skill - Adjust your katana skill by 2 points.
Great Katana Skill - Adjust your great katana skill by 2 points.
Club Skill - Adjust your club skill by 2 points.
Staff Skill - Adjust your staff skill by 2 points.
Archery Skill - Adjust your archery skill by 2 points.
Marksmanship Skill - Adjust your marksmanship skill by 2 points.
Throwing Skill - Adjust your throwing skill by 2 points.
Guarding Skill - Adjust your guarding skill by 2 points.
Evasion Skill - Adjust your evasion skill by 2 points.
Shield Skill - Adjust your shield skill by 2 points.
Parrying Skill - Adjust your parrying skill by 2 points.

My personal allotment:
Sword Skill - 1/8
Axe Skill - 0/8
Evasion Skill - 0/4

Analysis:
This category is pretty amazing if you have a favored melee job that you use often. The defensive skills are quite strong, and many people merit evasion or parrying for NIN, and shield for PLD. As far as the offensive skills go, just match it to your job. WAR probably has the toughest time here; I imagine a lot of them are dropping axe merits and working on great axe these days. Of course, if you have a Ridill you're probably wanting to merit sword. My personal sword merit plans are for my BLU (currently 49 - thank you BST E rank sword skill). I'm not set on the rest and if a different melee job strikes me (most likely SAM) I'd certainly merit with that job in mind.

Magic Skills

Cost: 1 > 2 > 3=3

Total:16 Per category:8

Divine Magic Skill - Adjust your divine magic skill by 2 points.
Healing Magic Skill - Adjust your healing magic skill by 2 points.
Enhancing Magic Skill - Adjust your enhancing magic skill by 2 points.
Enfeebling Magic Skill - Adjust your enfeebling magic skill by 2 points.
Elemental Magic Skill - Adjust your elemental magic skill by 2 points.
Dark Magic Skill - Adjust your dark magic skill by 2 points.
Summoning Magic Skill - Adjust your summoning magic skill by 2 points.
Ninjutsu Skill - Adjust your ninjutsu skill by 2 points.
Singing Skill - Adjust your singing skill by 2 points.
String Instrument Skill - Adjust your string instrument skill by 2 points.
Wind Instrument Skill - Adjust your wind instrument skill by 2 points.
Blue Magic Skill - Adjust your blue magic skill by 2 points.

My personal allotment:
Elemental Magic Skill - 8/8
Wind Instrument Skill - 0/8

Analysis:
I can pretty confidently say this is the single most important category for any mage who wants to fight HNMs or do other endgame activities. Almost every one of these skills is very useful to the right job, and even with 16 points to spread around, most players will find themselves making sacrifices. As with combat skills, try to match your points here to the jobs you use most often - RDM to Enfeebling, BRD to Wind, BLM to Elemental, BLU to Blue Magic. Ninjutsu skill used to be rather important when Hojo was a first class enfeeble, but the advent of Slow II makes it a bit obsolete, though definitely not useless. If I didn't have any other job but BLM I would probably go all in on Dark Magic as well as Elemental... but it's a really close call with Enfeebling. Incidentally the inclusion of Repose in the most recent updates make Divine Skill no longer a laughing matter! This is definitely the most overworked category of merits, and most mages could comfortably raise 40 merit levels here and still have more work to do, meaning it's all the more important to choose wisely.

Other

Cost: 1 > 2 > 3 > 4

Total:8 Per category:4

Enmity Increase - Increase your enmity 1 point.
Enmity Decrease - Decrease your enmity 1 point.
Critical Hit Rate - Adjust your critical hit rate by 1 percent.
Enemy Critical Hit Rate - Adjust enemies' critical hit rate by 1 percent.
Spell Interruption Rate - Adjust your spell interruption rate by 2 percent.

My personal allotment:
Enmity Decrease - 4/4
Critical Hit Rate - 4/4

Analysis:
My allotment here might come as a surprise to some people who know me. Frankly speaking, I don't think much of the spell interruption rate merits. A total of 8% interruption down means less than 1 in 12 times you will not be interrupted. But if I'm on BLM and in that much danger, I'd rather just hit Manafont and then get interrupted 0% of the time. Aside from that, critical hit rate merits are amazing for melee DoT, especially when you consider the potential for critical hits in WS (if you're not /THF). As for enmity merits, I feel very strongly that far too many people pass up these useful merits when they should take advantage of them. It is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE to play NIN with -4 enmity merits, or to play BLM with +4 enmity merits. I for one can vouch that I still take hate from my pet plenty often on BST even just with normal axe DoT. What enmity merits do for you is make your most important tasks easier. If you come to HNMs 50% of the time NIN and 50% BLM then you have an excuse, but for most people that's not even remotely the case. If you're coming as RDM, say, 90% of the time, for the love of god merit enmity down. Combined with other useful equip like Novia and Errant gear, the effect can be potent.

This is getting pretty enormous, so I'll look at job specific merits some other time. Plainly put, most jobs have absolutely no difficulty in picking their job merits - most jobs have a collection of sad stuff, with maybe one or two standouts. The notable exception is RDM, and to a lesser extent, WHM and BLU.

In closing, our Nyzul group has begun a second disc to march up the dungeon levels, which we now do once a week to complement the farming runs we reduced to once a week on level 20. We've gotten two more Goliard since my last post, for Sassafras and Zeri (yay!!). Our count now, including one Goliard we lost to time out, is 2 Askar, 4 Goliard, 0 Denali. Interesting ne? I believe the other group in Ultima that was doing Nyzul had 2 Askar and 0 of the others. Not that I'm complaining, the other two are much more widely applicable than the rather BLU-specific Denali boots.

-benny

...speak my name now...

2007-11-07T06:04:44Z

Well, I haven't been playing a whole lot of FF lately, but I've been getting some things done :).

- Nyzul Isle -

We won all four of our runs on Monday. Only one dropped, and look what popped out!

I had a 901 to beat Sass's 8XX... talk about lucky. Must be payback from losing Gaiters to her :P. That boosts my hMP setup by a hefty two, putting me at +30hMP from gear (it's my fond dream that we'll eventually be able to merit it). Pieces of hMP gear I have yet to get are: Yigit pants, Goliard head, and the new hMP rings that are worth like 4M or something.

So the tally for our Nyzul group so far is 2 Askar to Cujo and Arien and 1 Goliard to me (plus 1 that got lost to time out). Ideally we'd like to see I think a couple more Askar and a couple more Goliard, maybe one Denali. With luck maybe we can move forward in a couple months.

- BRD -

Halfway to level 65... Wind Torque purchased and waiting. I haven't been working on this much lately, but I think I can get back into it and finish it eventually. Duo with Zeri is still awesome XP at the bats in Newton Moval, but once we finish those I think we're going to have to strike new ground. Qiqirn RNG duo would really only work with another BLM I think (being normal mobs they naturally have a lot more HP than pets). I have a pretty good idea though - just look for higher level BSTs. I know there are BST Mamools... lizard pet might be a little scary but we won't know if we don't try.

- Macros -

I was sick as a dog this morning, so I spent some time finally working over my macros. Six lines per macro really limited a lot of things I could do, so I've been wanting to create windower style macros for a while now. I stuck with the same basic setup I've been using (meaning that I still swap obis and Uggy pendant manually... for elemental magic it's no problem at all because of the long casting time where I can't do anything but wait anyway). The benefit shows in the details though. I can now include more gear in my standing macro (I'm now in the market for a Cheviot/Umbra cape) and in my dark magic macros (also in the market for a Dark Torque). I haven't really been inclined yet to make BST charm/melee swap scripts but I'll get to it some time soon. BRD is simple enough that I can't imagine needing more than 6 lines in a macro.

The scripts I'm using currently are named BLM_darkmagic, BLM_elemskill, BLM_hMP, BLM_int_enfeeble, BLM_MAB, BLM_MB, BLM_mnd_enfeeble, BLM_mnd_gear, and BLM_standing. I think they speak for themselves about the use. The only thing I'm still thinking about is separating the MB gear into MAB vs elemskill, but if I'm MBing on an HNM I generally just use my elemskill set anyway.

- Money -

I AM BROKE AS HELL. I have a ridiculous buildup of seals though. If anyone wants to do BC40s or KS BCs please let me know! I'm also in the market to do some ENMs.

- Ouryu -

Since I've been doing a lot of Guitar Hero, Burnout, and other 360 games lately, I've mostly been on for Nyzul. But I also have been on for a few other things - we had a signup for Ouryu which I hadn't done in a while, so it seemed like good fun. We had 3 pops and they all went pretty smooth, one NIN/DRK death from water elem but we handled it easily. Got a behe hide, dingot, the katana which is pretty rare, of course the DRK JSE mats, and of course 3 Baha2 pops. Those we'll be doing pretty soon too, which should be fun.

- Anime/manga/light novel -

Got a pretty big order in from my online japanese bookstore of choice, bk1. Most of the books were the eleven light novels in the Rental Magica series which is currently being animated (found that out tonight actually). I've finished the first one and I have to say it's a pretty good story so far. I'm getting the hang of a lot more kanji lately and I'm trying to use my reference books more (instead of skimming over parts, which I do sometimes). The rest of the books were mostly continuations of series I'm reading like Hayate no Gotoku, Lagoon Engine, Nagasarete Airantou, and so on. Probably that will be my last book purchase until AnimeBoston and SakuraCon in late March, where I plan to splurge on a ton of books and DVDs (of course!).

I'm thinking of trying to put in more FF time if I can figure out a way to avoid getting stress headaches over it.... sigh. It's hard to justify it to myself sometimes, which is why I tend to run to console games and such. Well, if you think about it, it's kind of stupid to play a GAME if you're not enjoying it, right? So I never feel bad about dropping FFXI for periods of time, but I do wish that it was easier to enjoy it like a normal game (lol). Hopefully I'll see everyone around ingame^^.

-benny

...lost in a riddle that saturday night...

2007-10-16T23:36:13Z

Ever since Brock and I jointly got a 42" plasma TV and a Xbox360 this past weekend, I've been using almost all my free time playing Eternal Sonata (Trusty Bell ~ Chopin's Dream) instead of FFXI. It's a truly beautiful game with interesting and strategic gameplay that would really shine if only there was a little more variety in the random encounters. In a given area you might face 2, maybe 3 max different encounter layouts. It's a damn shame but the game is still amazing.

So the only thing I've been doing in game is Nyzul. Nyzul is pretty fun but it's REALLY annoying when you get so close and then can't complete by a matter of 30 seconds. If you have a less than ideal setup, it really gets punished badly. Our groups has done two runs from floor 16, first one we timed out with Behe at 2%, 2nd we killed and Goliard dropped (I'd stomp a kitten for +3hMP boots, sigh) but we had 2 ppl dead with RR down and less than 30 seconds left. Our setup is NIN THF(a must) DRG SMN BLM BRD... So healing gets to be an issue sometimes... and damage too, sometimes. Well... hopefully we'll get into the rhythm of it. Maybe if our BRD got Storm Fife and I finished TAU missions to get that ring, we'd be in a better position.

At any rate, I thought I'd share what we've come up with regarding the floor clear conditions - keep in mind that this is all for floors 20 and less, so far.

Free floor.

I've only seen it once in maybe 30-40 Nyzul floors. Obviously this is the best one to get, so just be happy when you get it and don't expect to see it too much.

Eliminate specified enemy.

Realistically, this is the one you want to get as much as possible. The mob you have to kill will be an ITG that is NOT the Rampart and also NOT a normal Vanadiel NM. They are no harder than the normal mobs you'll encounter in Nyzul (DC-ish), despite the ITG con. Often you'll be able to pass these floors in a matter of a minute or so.

Eliminate enemy leader.

Similar to above, but harder. You'll be looking for an ITG mob with a special name, different from the normal mobs (e.g., Vanilla Custard instead of Ebony Pudding). It's a relatively nice clear condition to get, but this ITG mob is much harder than the normal mobs on the floor, with usually lots of HP, so be sure everyone is fighting the thing. This is also the condition that shows up on floors 20X, which have lower HP versions of HNMs on them.

Eliminate specified enemies.

Similar to the singular version, except there will be a whole family of ITG enemies (maybe 3-6). They are still very weak, with the notable exception of Chariots, which are unsleepable and do a lot of AoE damage. Be sure to fight Chariots one at a time and focus on HP and Paralyna and Erase. This is a pretty decent condition to get, most of the time.

Eliminate all enemies.

Now we're starting to get to the not-so-pleasant conditions. On the one hand, this is a relatively straightforward condition - just kill whatever you see. Gears do NOT count if they're part of a sub-condition (which as far as I can tell is the only time they show up) (btw I only have this information secondhand). Ramparts DO count, as we learned. I'm not certain if Vanadiel NMs count or not, but I would guess they do. Even though the condition is clear and even a Nyzul newbie can understand what to do, this is usually a bad condition because it can take a long time to find and kill all the mobs on the floor. Worse still, if you get separated and are trying to hurry the kills, it becomes easy to take a stupid death or even wipe, which needless to say slows the group down hugely. I recommend sticking together with the tank, but have two people pulling mobs and scouting, which seems so far to be the best compromise between safety and speed.

Activate all lamps.

In my most recent runs, we've only had this two times. Both times the message distinctly said "activate all lamps" and both times the goal was to activate them all at more or less the same time. I'm aware that the same message used to be used for three separate goals - activate the lamps in a specific order, everyone activate a single lamp, and the one I described above. Possibly they have modified the messages or even eliminated the other two types? I need more data. This is often the most time consuming clear condition for a number of reasons. I understand that the number of lamps can vary but both times we had it recently there were exactly five lamps, so don't find like three or so and assume you're good to go. I need more data but I'm entertaining the possibility that there will always be five.

Basically my feeling is that once we get more used to this we'll probably succeed every run. Until then it's a little frustrating, but worth it. I'm dying to know what the level 100 weapons will be able to do eventually :).

-benny

Benny on Valefor server

...haunting vespers... prayers from the dead...

... lyssna och lar // missa inte chansen...

...no one ever had much nice to say...

...so full of wonder and despair...

...in heated breath of life at the dawning day...

...だけど少し汚れて それを消すためにさらに汚して...

by the way

...give me a reason...

...play my little part in something big...

...everything is yours to lose...

don't you worry what the bitter hearts... are gonna say...

...rust and the rain endure...

...and emptiness of the heart...

...see what kind of tombstone i might have...

...took a fall from a windy height...

...start again // it's a beautiful morning...

...and now i understand the supernova scene...

...every soul in the room keeping time with their hands...

...and the cross is someone she has not met...not yet...

...just wait a little while // with your pleasant smile...

...the threat of your love in the headlights...

...coffee black and egg white...

...a toast to you, your whisper, your smile....

...speak my name now...

...lost in a riddle that saturday night...

...だけど少し汚れて　それを消すためにさらに汚して...