Papyrus Paper

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:60

I was helping Sydnee get her Papyrus Paper and feeling pretty good about it I might add. I heard her shout in Jeuno and decided to go with her and help her and her group for a while. Then she added me to the group and saw that it ws just her doing the quest. Well I thought for a minute and decided to send a shout to Jeuno since I didn't want to help only one person with Paper when I knew many people needed it. I got one other person to come and as soon as we are ready to Teleport-Vahzl the two ppl that needed it tell me they don't have the crystal. So we set off to Sandy and trek thru Ranguemont Pass and get them their crystal. It ws good fun and we did finally get one Papyrus Paper to drop just as I was going to bed.

Now if only the friggin stupid, stupid, stupid, Elshi-!@#$-ing Marble would drop!

Bibiki Bay

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:60

This was a great place to party. As you can see we have the PLD and DRK standing in their positions with me having just finished SATA. You can always tell if it's a great place to party from the exp points of the mob. The max exp for one mob by itself if 200. So if after the first fight you get something like 150 - 175, you're doin great. If it's 98 or 100 or so, it's still a good place to party but you gotta do the chains well to maximize the bonus exp. This place had good exp. The vultures were giving about 150 or so exp and the gobs were also giving comparable exp points.

It was however very tough to level here for some reason. I forgot the setup we had but I think we had WHM RDM and SMN. Well somehow the gobs did us in. One time, when the PLD died I looked back at the log and the gob did TWO bomb tosses back to back. That's harsh! Well after a while we had to quit because of the time spent and the large amt of downtime. I don't know if maybe we could have done better or what went wrong really.

OH! Now I remember! We had TWO whms and SMN. So we were trying desperately to try this skillchain and that to try to make a light chain that the two WHMs could MB with Holy but we never found one that THF and DRK could do. We even tried to use the PLD to skillchain: Red Lotus Blade > Cyclone > Fusion.

Ok, you can stop laughing now. Anyways it didn't work out. If we had found a way to get a light sc then the gobs would've been weak to light and we would've been sitting pretty but we didn't. The only way a THF can make a light sc is with a MNK, WAR, RNG, and of course a SAM. A SAM can sc with anybody anything. Those guys are neat.

On a different note, Yay! I finally rounded up enough money from crystals and mob drops and whatnot to buy my next GSD. It's a Darksteel Claymore +1! You wanna see a picture? Of course you do, lol.

Ulegearand Range [Huh?]

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:60

This was a great party experience. I am on my way to the campsite here and I have to tell you it ws very easy experience points here. We must have gone thru at least 14k exp in one night. All campsites should be like this. We were pulling raptors and having no difficulty with the pulls at all.

Yesterday however, in this new party, I was the puller of what I thought would be a great party in Monastic Cavern and it went south quickly. First of all I didn't have someone giving me Sneak. I guess I could have used oil but I consider using Silent Oil in a party kind of like, charging for Warp 2! You gotta go HMM?!

Well I tell them to invis me and then they(BLM mainly) tell me to Hide so I hide so it wears and then I aggro like 5 orcs conning DC to me. I zone and luckily they miss the crap out of me with my high evasion. Still, that set the tone for a bad experience in a party. I almost died. I generally don't mind dying, esp if I am saving the party from a bad link or something like that, but to die because somebody didn't give you Invisible, makes you wanna bring back the bacon and his daddy!

I usually do a good job with pulling and as a THF in general. As I did with the party in the picture, chain 4s with no problem and a chain 5 once just to show them we could. I have learned to watch the WHM and RDM mp(magic points) bar, make sure the PLD has at least 130 or so mp and to watch my SATA timer so that I don't blow too much time and spoil the exp chain.

Normally, my normal setup is to explain how I pull, hit the SATA(Sneak Attack/Trick Attack) macro, and hit my Ranged Accuracy macro to switch in my Ranged Accuracy rings, then shoot the mob and hopefully skill up, then run back and hit my DEX rings macro. Then I wait for the first voker to voke and then the tank lines up behind the mob and I SATA. Well the DRK was someone that I had partied with before so he did his job fine, but this time I forgot to SATA before the pull. This was bad. When I forget to SATA I have to delay the tank from voking a long while before I realize that either it wore off or that I didn't hit it before the pull.

What's worse is that I had my Ranged Accuracy rings on during the entire fight. Since it was the first fight I thought that these mobs were just too tough for me since I was level 60 and the party was 60-62. Well I planned to use Bream Sushi as soon as the fight was over since I may have gone with Meat Miths if I gained tp as fast as the drk. But the BLM was a donkey. TP calls, wth comments... he was riding me and soon I found out why, he has a 64 THF of his own. He was languishing over his missed nukes from sc even though somebody over there kept pulling the mob away from the tank which, as I have said before, makes a THF wanna go "lend" a BLM his dagger. >.<

In the end the BLM said he had to go and gave everyone Warp2s. I would have been happy to stay but it was 6am.

In retrospect, I think he would have been fine had we done the Burst chain that he wanted to do. We also would have done much better if ppl would have given me some Sneak and treated me like part of the team from the getgo.

Level cap completed!

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:60

Too cool for school! I got help from Cruniac to go get my LB3 out of the way with Albertao and got a bunch of stuff done! First, I heard that Dutchess, a BLM, didn't have her LB weapon and without that I knew that she wouldn't be getting any of her other gear. Selfishly though, I knew that if she had her weapon, that she would be prove useful in rounding up some help from the ls for my BLM AF hands, which I NEED. Since I already got my AF weapon, I knew that it would be a simple matter to get her her drop. What I didn't expect was that she was level 60 and tagged along to help us with our stuff. Too cool!

The first part of the quest was in Davoi and suddenly I thought, hey I just left there the other day having failed at killing the NMs for my AF weapon for WAR so this would be an great opportunity to get that piece of the puzzle too!

Excellent! A warrior, Heatmiza, comes from the ls to help us with the LB3 quest since he and Dutchess had just finished doing theirs, and as it turns out, he needs his AF weapon too! Well you couldn't dream up a better scenario. Everyone was getting something out of this party and we were all too happy for words I expect.

We got me my WAR AF weapon. Heatmiza, although he just tagged along, got his WAR AF weapon. Dutchess got her AF weapon. Albertao and me both got LB3 accomplished. This was a great night but I left at about 5am and had to work at 12noon. It was a rough day.

Preparing for the worst

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:60

I like to kill Giants in an effort to try to get a rare drop of Northern Fur from them. Unfortunately, I have to SATA on them to do a decent amt of damage so I often have this view of them.

A not-so-pleasant view I might add, lol.

Northern Fur doesn't sell for much but if I check around in other AHs and wait around awhile I can find good prices on them where they are scarce.

When I get really bored I just go right into Delkfutt's Tower and start farming giants and bats and gobs and usually have no competition in there while farming. It does get sort of boring though and, if I get a party invite, I am like 20 minutes from Jeuno in there.

I am trying to figure out which direction to head now. Do I level BLM, or finish LB3 and keep leveling THF? The BLM has good gear but he's missing some spells which would cost me a bunch of money but at least I don't have to buy sushi for him. However I hate doing LB quests and this time I really do have to do it on my own. Bah!

I still got like 5k to go before I hit the cap with my THF. I think I might just keep leveling him some more for the hell of it. I got a bunch of extra sushi anyways. I got Tuna Sushi thinking that the plus to CHR would give my Dancing Edge ws a big plus in dmg but, the truth is, I might as well would have kept buying meat. I got gobs of DEX gear already, plus a life belt. I wasted like 30k on food I didn't really need, especially now that I am close to the level cap.

I guess I better just level WAR a bit since he uses the same food.

Well-dressed Thief

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:60

Here I am in my new Black Cotehardie at the zone to Cape Terrigan. I enjoy the hell out of partying now and am getting a lot more invites than I used to. I enjoy pulling mobs and have become more patient with parties and their first voke methods. I'm sorry but don't you guys think I look sharp in this gear? Ha!

Yesterday, I partied with some JP people again and thankfully enough they took me to this new area in Uelegarand Range and we hunted Nivahl Raptors. It was great exp! The downside to the whole thing was that one of the party members was disbanded for dying. [/shocked]

Later that day I finally hit 60 and got my Dancing Edge weaponskill and boy ws I happy. I was doin 600 dmg again. But, I don't know enough about DE and wonder if maybe the Black Cotehardie is not as good as the Aketon. Oh well, not gonna worry about that.

With regard to food I got Tuna Sushi for high CHR, Bream Sushi for high DEX, and plain old Meat Miths for high STR. I am not sure which is the best for me but since I got all 3 stacks I get to choose which to use in the party.

Unfortunately, I used a lot of the money I got back from my GSD to buy food, so leveling my WAR is out of the question now since he has no weapon and I don't have the money to buy him one.

Thoughts about THF

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:59

My thoughts:

I gotta keep getting exp.

I gotta do LB3 soon.

I gotta get Hornetneedle even if it is no longer very good in parties.

I gotta save up for Floral Cotehardie.

I gotta stop seeing this girl and play the game more. (You think?)

I gotta get a plasma widescreen with DVI inputs and I need the new XBOX to do it with.

What do you call it when you need something completely inane, "We call that one, Moabdib".

Last day in Brigandine

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:59

This was my last day in Brigandine armor. I won't be missing it since I have had it since 45 on my THF and my WAR but now they both got better armor. For my THF I got him the Black Cotehardie and believe me it looks tight. I wish I could afford Floral Cotehardie, it would totally be worth it. It costs 2.5 million.

My car

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:58

This is a picture of my car. It was giving me problems that went something like this... wubba wubba wubba. It happened right after it got serviced and the first thing I thought was, those guys just can't make enough money that they gotta put a wrench in my engine to cause me some problems that will make them money. Well today I took it back and as it turns out, since I only bought the car last year, the previous owner hadn't rotated the tires regularly and when I took it in to be serviced, the rotation of the tires caused them to be out of round. So to fix it they just put it back the way it was and now it runs fine.

When looking for invites I sometimes get that feeling that people are avoiding my character because of their prejudice towards characters ahead of time. I am often relieved to get invites and hear everyone get along great and use their emotes like ^^ and :) cuz I know they are there to have a good time. That's what I want, a good time. I don't need 5k exp per hour, I don't want to hit chain5 or even MB with Freeze(although I DO enjoy the crap out of that). I want to see people do well at their jobs. I want them to be surprised by the link and still come out alive. I want to see the WHM cast Benediction ask the PLD for Cover and have the PLD use Invincible at the same time the MNK uses One Hundred Fists while the BLM Manafonts and heals the party til the mob is dead. That's excellent partying. That's thrilling. That chain 3 or chain 4 mob should have the whm so taxed that the BLM is wondering whether to heal or nuke and the THF is wondering whether he should voke it off the PLD or call for a SATAVB from a different pt member. The RDM should be checking his Convert timer and the WAR should be using Defender and trading vokes with the main tank. The danger is the goal.

Of course, half of the people reading this are probably like, "That's the last time I party with THAT guy!"

Valley of Sorrows

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:57

Here is me in my THF gear. I had a great time yesterday with my THF leveling in the Valley of Sorrows for the first time. I got an invite from Spyke and left Qufim as I was out there again just about to pull out my NPC and hunt giants.

We had so far a WHM PLD THF and DRK and were having trouble getting 2 more mages. They, the WHM and PLD, said this would be ideal but the problem, after 45min of waiting, was there weren't any. Well what did pop up was another WHM and while thinking about it, that WHM got invited to another party. So we continue waiting. Then, another WHM pops up. (Trust me this usually only happens in the movies) And then, a DRK pops also. Well we think it won't work but I start asking what we will be hunting in the Valley of Sorrows and they say Velociraptors. I ask if they have buffs and they say no but they have naturally high evasion. So it occurs to me that with no buffs and 2 DRKs with good accuracy we should be ok esp with an extra WHM. Then it occurs to the PLD that both WHMs make for keeping Haste on everybody so we invite them and we're off.

It was totally not working at first cuz the DRK would first voke and the PLD would line up but as usual I would have to pass them and line up behind the PLD. So then I told them my theory of putting the Drk in front of the PLD and it started to come together. One time I blew it though cuz I forgot to SATA before the pull and I ran up behind the PLD and no SATA and boy was that a mess. No exp chain and everybody starts thinking that it won't work.

But then it DID start to work and we got chain 2s and then chain 3s and pretty much perfected our party and got about 3k in exp I think. Not bad, and I totally had fun visiting the new area.

One time I pulled past a Peryton but it aggroed me and I died. It was going fine until another party arrived and started pulling the same mobs as us. We ran low on mobs so I had to go past the Peryton. I don't know if we could have taken on the Peryton but the other party that was there did and survived so I can't see that we would have done that much worse. It's ok though they totally felt bad about it but even for our last fight, using our 2hrs, they didn't want to try.

Ah well. I hope my Greatsword sells before someone buys the other GSD I need for my WAR. I am not going to level him for a while and will concentrate on THF til 60 I think. I probably should level my BLM up to my THFs level but I dunno.

Royal Knight's Gear

Black Mage:55 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:57

I got my Royal Knight's Gauntlets and my Royal Knight's Chainmail and boy lemme tellya they weren't cheap. The gauntlets were 90k and the armor was 170k, but they were still rather cheap compared to other times they were sold in the AH.

I was trying to get on yesterday and the game was down for maintenance. I spent the time writing up some blogs and finally left to go do some stuff with a girl. She just called me in a man's voice too btw. Hah, too bad for him. See, when I can't get online all hell breaks loose!

Anyways, I got to working on my items that I got from my long stint in King Ranperre's Tomb(KRT). I got 4 stacks of wind crystals and almost 2 stacks of bat wings. So first thing I did was go out to Qufim in the cave and hunt some Bats. I could have gone with my thief to have TH2, but with WAR/THF which is the guy i am using now, I still get to have TH1. While out there, I saw a ls friend of mine Lobita raising her marksmanship skill so I let her have the bats and left. I still was able to complete my stack and put it in AH and log out. Right before I logged she made a comment about raising her marksmanship skill in the linkshell and then I told her about how I leveled my skill.

I was so tempted to go skill up in Boyhada Tree yesterday but it was late and I know I would have stayed up til like 5am. I really need to level by Great Axe skill. Of course, then I would have to save up for an extra EXceLLENT Executioner's Blade! ^^

I got a /tell about my WAR/THF asking if I had WAR/NIN leveled. What an Ass! How stupid is that? I guess maybe he wanted me to tank, so on second thought its no problem I guess. People are so antsy. If you really wanted it to work I could tank as WAR/THF but people just wanna get easy exp and not learn. I have good armor now but really would need to get my Fighter's Mask to secure enmity well. The AF feet would help with that too.

I was able to finally open my BLM gloves quest after talking to the right person to open the AF feet quest for BLM. That's great news! That means I can get the AF gloves for BLM which are good gear til 75.

I was so lucky to get Dark Spark help last time. Net and Uchipu soloed him for me. But first, I have to get the coffer key from Garlaige Citadel, and I think getting to a chest to open it may be a problem I hear. lol

Happy Hohito Day

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:55 Thief:57

Ah, me! ~with you I'm not shy... to show the way I feel, cuz you are the madness... and I am steel.~

Notice that I leveled up my BLM and WAR up to where I want them. Yesterday I finally got my Dark Staff and went right out and got an invite and did anyone notice my Dark Staff and say "nice staff", nah. It cost me 135k which was quite a bargain from 200k it was last month when I couldn't afford it. It left me high and dry though, I got 15k now. I partied as BLM for a while but then our SAM had to go and he got replaced by a THF.

I came back as my WAR/THF since we had two THFs and no first voker but they were like , awwww don't go, but they were both THF/NIN and couldn't first voke. How useless is that? They were doing SATAVB for like 600 dmg each, which is excellent damage btw, and one of em tells the PLD, "You're gonna have to work hard, ok?" (lol) So I open my big mouth and tell them how to pull to the wall and let the mob beat up the THF til the other SATAs the PLD but they got frustrated. I almost started pulling mobs myself but that would have really pissed them off. Still, as BLM/WHM 56 I have Stoneskin and Blink and as Taru I have good AGI, plus the damage I would have dealt to secure the pull would have been solid. But alas, they got irritated just hearing me speak so I got irritated that they weren't listening so I left and came back as a first voker, a WAR/THF. Then some people left but there were many PLDs seeking and the WHM was a rare one that wanted to just keep on going and going. So he gave me leader. I had another party all raring to go and we actually did just as good as we were doing with my BLM except instead of PLD THF SAM WHM RDM BLM(me) we had PLD SAM THF WAR(me) WHM SMN. That SMN was the last to come but boy was he the right choice. They were thinking RDM but we really didn't need it with that SMN buffing us with Hastega like he was.

There is a lot of downtime when you have to get replacements for King Ranperre's Tomb. Not to mention, it's expensive too. Chocobos yesterday at the Crag of Holla were 2800 the first time and 3000 the second time when I came back. OOF! Hit me in the gut!

Nonetheless, I leveled both the BLM (like 8k)and my WAR (got like 6k) and got the WAR to wear his new armor too. (Want another picture of me in the armor? ok sure!) Plus, he got to wear the Republican Army Mantle and use the Lightning Bow +1 at level 55 which was a nice boost for him in DEX.

I kind of feel like leveling WHM for a while but I still need Erase. I almost have enough to get it too. It is selling for 600k so if I sell everything I have for gil then I could learn the spell, and then, I could stick the useless scroll up my butt.

Hmm, let me think about it. Nah.

Iron Musketeer's last day

Black Mage:55 White Mage:51 Warrior:54 Thief:57


This is what I used to look like in my Iron Musketeers gear but now it's a done deal. I have sold it off to get money for my next piece of body armor.

Here in this picture, I am skilling up Great Axe with a linkshell pal of mine Angelsoul who was a NIN/WAR. I went as a WAR/WHM which came in really handy for both of us in this situation. I was surprised as to how much fun I had just skilling up. More on that later.

Anyways, no more IM gear. I have sold off the IM Cuirass and Armet. There is no turning back now. And incidentally, I was able to buy the Royal Knight's Chainmail! Yay. Only 170k. Boo. But oh well at least it will look killer on me. Too bad Im still level 54 and need to be 55 to wear it. What won't be so killer is when I have to tell everyone, that I don't have Rampage(Axe weaponskill) cuz I never leveled my axe skill. Even my AF Weapon, the Razor Axe, would at least give me the opportunity to skill up a bit but I was unsuccessful in getting that quest done. Oh well.

At least I am sure now that I can gain TP with the best of em. In Kuftal I was out TPing the THF even, but this was before he started eating sushi, heh. More importantly, at 55 I can use my Lightning Bow +1(DEX+3) and Army's Mantle(DEX+2) to boost my accuracy quite a ways. In fact, I may invest in some Meat Miths just to see, if I don't really need the boost, I can switch to dealing more damage with higher STR, as long as I have TP once a fight for the skillchain(sc).

I helped this guy with a quest this week and he has agreed to help me with my AF fight. I was doing some farming for bats and such in Rolanberry and he sends me a /tell that he needs help with a quest. Since when I tried to get help in Davoi with my AF weapon and just needed 2 people to fight for about 3min and go and they wouldn't, I decided to help him. It didn't take too long after we found the spot where he needed to fight. I hope I can find him online when I try to do the quest. He says he has a 67 BLM named Dragonsmight.

I just love my Greatsword, btw. Too bad its time to trade it in and the new one costs like an extra 100k.

I was able to skill up my Great Axe quite a bit. Though it needs to be at 166 like my GSD, it is only up to 86. Skilling up was a load of fun and with the NIN/WAR there we were able to get about 30 exp per mob. Not bad. We got bunches of skill ups and exp and had a good time. The only downside? It was like 5am before we realized we probably should quit. A THF in our linkshell came by and skilled up his Hand-to-Hand also that day. His name is Aust.

I am still quite a ways from having the GAX skill totally leveled however and it will take a LOT to catch it up I think. What is my Axe skill? Zippo!

Chocobo riding

Black Mage:55 White Mage:51 Warrior:54 Thief:57

Yesterday, after leveling my warrior a bit in Kuftal Tunnel, I decide it's about time to get that warrior AF Weapon quest done. It all starts off normal enough. I go to Bastok, talk to Phara and chg to whm and warp to Jeuno and take the airship to San d'Oria.

Well, unfortunately, what I thought was Davoi ws in fact Ghlesba Outpost, so I ask my ls where Davoi is and Dyntithius helps me out with that. Well I must have spent forever and a day chocoboing from Sandy to East Ronfaure only to find out there is no exit to Jugner Forest there so I go back to West Ronfaure. I go all the way south to La Theine Plateau. Then it's all the way east to Jugner Forest. I find that nice spot where the monument is and realize it's the wrong way and finally I make it to the entrance to Davoi.

I am thinking this should be no problem for a level 57 THF/WHM in good gear. At first I see a Thunder Elemental and think I can take it on. But fact is I ws not damaging it enough and despite my ability to use the Energy Drain weaponskill to drain more mp, I still saw that I wasn't going to win. So I zone. Later I find the Hidden Flap and start to plan my strategy for killing the two Notorious Monsters. Unfortunately, since there are two NMs, I should have planned to bring some sleep bolts but didn't. As it turns out, I also should have brought a damage dealer cuz I didn't do near the damage necessary to kill them. I had one of them at 50% hp before I cut out. At least they were missing me a lot.

I asked for help from ls but noone was free. Later as got ready to try again I started killing single orcs for practice and that was working fine until I aggroed an extra, and then another extra and then a Thunder elemental so I decide to zone and man that's when I got lost in there. I go completely the wrong way and train a million orcs and then die in some part of Davoi that I have never even seen before. Man, what a wasted afternoon.

Kuftal Tunnel

Black Mage:55 White Mage:51 Warrior:54 Thief:57

This is a picture of our PLD, Kidria, with her helmet off. She can borrow my helmet any time she feels like it too btw, lol.

Kuftal Tunnel is a tough area to level. I tried taking a party with a level 52 PLD there before and it was frankly too tough for them. I have not been playing in a while so I was unfamiliar with what level we needed to be. Big waste of time mostly. But I did spend a lot of time with Dokomoko who is a WHM and he got me into a party yesterday that totally worked. I am lucky to meet good people. Sometimes I don't think I would get invited at all if it wasn't for the people that knew me when I tried to build a party.

I think I am starting to look old in Iron Musketeer's(IM) gear now. I am level 54 and that Royal Knight's Chainmail is starting to look pretty good. Plus, I just sold off my IM gloves for the Royal Knight's Mufflers so it will look pretty killer together. I am also planning to get my AF weapon done so that I can wear the mask and feet AF items with the gear. It will look great!

How long is too long

Black Mage:55 White Mage:51 Warrior:54 Thief:57

Here we see an example of someone that was away from keyboard(afk) for too long. How long do you think is too long? Well this guy thought 10 minutes was not so long. He was wrong. We were at the entrance to King Ranpierre's Tomb as you can tell by the picture and the rest of us were able to hop out of the dungeon. Orochimura wasn't. Vekien is in my ls and you can see him in the background. He wasn't pleased at all with this WAR's performance. Later the WAR was replaced by this other guy that was totally uber. He was doing Rampage for more dmg than I was with Viper Bite. I was playing a THF at the time. THFs are excellent to use against bats btw.

Yesterday, I got the chance to bite the dust one more time in Kuftal Tunnel. I was playing WAR/THF. We were all standing on that safe spot island at the bottom of the hill at location J-10, and as we were waiting for the next party member to come, the dragon(er Wyvern, thanks Kidria), pokes his head right over me. Well, then I die. Long day, not a lot of death, but at least this time I was near other people. We had a BRD casting dispel for us and I learned yesterday that they could do that. Useful when building parties too, cuz one time I thought I could just take 2 white mages to backup healing and let me tell you guys that this was a worthless party. Fantasyz, our female PLD, was like "I like you but I have to go." Please! I hear that enough in real life, lol!