Working on Jeuno quests

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:67

This is Port Jeuno at night. Wanna join me for a walk? It's spooky sometimes the graphics encountered in the game sometimes. This is an example of me stoppin and goin "dang that looks neat."

Last night I played with a group in the Den of Rancor. I know, I said I wasn't going to go there but this party was pretty good and they kept me on until 67 which is when I started to really improve my ability in the party. Then as they gave me more crap about my inability to hit often ( I told you before we even came here that ! ), I started to get flak from the NIN tank. He started to NOT line up for SATA right in the center across from the MNK. The skillchain we were using was Howling Fist > Dancing Edge for Distortion. The neat thing about Howling Fist is that the MNKs graphic shows you which way you should be facing to be opposite of him. Well that tank was never centered. One time I just typed 499 just to see if he was even paying attention to the SATA damage. He was one of those that didn't use autolock on the mob and kept switching from his Scorpion Harness to some other armor before the skillchain went off. After a while I felt like taking off his Scorpion Harness and pissin on it. He was all over the place.

Anyways later on we all got quiet and things really started to improve. We partied til like 7am and got like 22k in exp with the group. It was really great.

Today I got to get back the rest of the exp til 68, or I think I might work on the Sleepga II quest and take it easy for a while. I was really tired last night. I had just drove in from town and wanted to party just a little bit, not for like the whole night.

When I hit the bed I crashed like a log.

Begin Sleepga II quest

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

I saw this guy while doing the chocobo quest from San d'Oria to Bastok, so since I have my one horn from the Tremor Ram I figured I would finally get my other horn from this guy and finish that one quest.

Well instead he dropped a Lanolin Cube. Interestingly enough, that cube part of what is needed to get my Sleepga II spell quest done. So I went to the appropriate NPC and, with the opportune help of some ls buddies got the first part of the quest done.

Now what is left is for me to take an Ahriman Lens and spend a day in the Maze of Shakrami.

Rai don ranna !!!

BCNM 40: One BLM, ftw!

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

This group fared much better. We won it every time except for once when our time ran out. I felt bad for the guy that didn't get anything so I sent him 20k. We were only 2 Flesh Eaters away from clearing it too so the out of time message caught us completely by surprise. Needless to say, I timed the next one myself and from then on we cleared the BCNM in less and less time.

We had a RDM WHM, me the BLM, and 3 Rangers. This worked out great I think but it was slow at first cuz it was some people's first time and as usual I blundered in and cast the first Sleepga without Sneak which caused some alarm but I was ok... thanks guys.

At first I thought, "Why bring a stupid RDM? Since he can't Refresh someone must be doin him a favor." Well that's until the first time I saw him use Convert. Nuff said.

A secret that I learned with this group is that the monster always warps you away facing away from the camp so after he warps you if you just run backwards you get to safety. Kudos to Aake for a organizing a really good group. They were all raring to go again today but I have to go out of town for two days and take my cousin to his uncle.

The drops were pretty good too. We got Erase 3 times out of the 5 times that we won. Of course, I didn't get one cuz I'm le' fooness unlucky. We did /random to determine the order and instead of being fifth, this time I turned out to be first.

Based on the last group's results, I know why some people don't ever want to go first on these events... it's because we are likely to lose the first and second maybe til people get all comfortable with each other and the pattern of events. This was not the case this time, I slept mobs with Sleepga with the occasional timely Choke spell if the mobs interrupted me with Stonega and saved as much mp as I could for the last few at which point I Manafont'd and started chaining Blizzaga and Aeroga til it was done. I suggested to the others that they use their 2hr on their BCNM and sure enough we saw a lot of Eagle Eye Shots take down the NM to make our life a bit easier. In addition, I brought 5 Melon Juices and 2 Yagudo drinks which I consumed entirely during my run only.

Now I just gotta wait til my stuff sells and hopefully I will have enough from the sale to buy Erase. {Can I have it?}

Obtained: BCNM 40

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

This was my first attempt at the A Worm's Turn BCNM(Burning Circle Notorious Monster). The monster in this BCNM was called Flayer Flanz. He is a major worm that has a bunch of underling Flesh Eater worms scattered all around him. From what I hear, he is usually not very difficult to kill with the right plan. This was my first time doing it though and would you believe it, I didn't have my Sleepga spell bought yet. I still did a good job of backing up the WHM with healing since it was very hard to Cure sometimes.

The NM likes to periodically warp someone right to the center of the mess of Flesh Eaters and if they are not all slept then they all physically attack you. This turned out to cause a lot of deaths in our group. We lost the first 3 times doing it and won it the 4th time I think. I was scheduled to go 5th but everyone had to leave and I was left with none. I was pretty tired myself though. We had 3 BLMs for this one and 2 RNG and a WHM. The first time we wiped and the next two times we ran out of time.

Nevertheless, I got some good knowledge on doing this particular one and I think I am going to run a BCNM 40 soon by myself.

The other two BLMs both had Sleepga and were doing one side and the other so with the overkill of Sleepga there, I can't figure out why we lost so much. Especially when the next group, mentioned in my next journal, did so well.

Bastok is in first!

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

Can you beat it? Bastok has been in first place for 3 weeks running now. This is really useful for when my BLM uses his Tactician Magician's Gear that gives him uber stats if he is partying in a region that is inside country of origin. I feel bad now though whenever I level my other jobs like WHM and BLM cuz I know the ls needs me to get to 70 asap.

It's difficult sometimes doing a lot of things for others. I like to help others like with their AF and stuff, esp if I am in a good mood, but I get frustrated sometimes when some things seem out of reach.

I remember the first time I quit the game. I was so mad at the friggin Quadav cuz it seemed so impossible to kill them as a level 8 BLM. Oh it was easy enough to kill some of them. But you had to wait SO long to find the right one and after you did, if you got the teeniest bit frustrated, like me, you died. Well then I quit the game for like 2 weeks. Later I quit the game for like almost 3 months and came back.

I guess sometimes to keep a good things going you just gotta take a break from it to keep it interesting.

Aust the Alchemist

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

This is me helping one of my ls mates farm Ahriman Lenses in Beaucedine Glacier. He is from the NobodyzAngel ls. I haven't been on that ls in a while and it's kinda weird seeing ppl from that ls everywhere cuz that is a MUCH larger ls than DivineXtasy. I am probably gonna pop in there sometime this week and say hey to them all. ^^

I have to get my level up high enough soon because the DVX ls is going to start doing these major party activities that sound like I need to get my guy in there, but my THF needs to be level 70+ to be effective I guess. My next goals seem to be to get enough money to get my Blue Cotehardie or Harpe. I see Fernanda in the shell a lot and it is comforting to see a fellow THF that fishes. She used to be a much higher level than me and now we are the same.

Merry Christmas everybody! Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ^^

Fishing in West Ronfaure

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

I like fishing sometimes but I wish I could get up the level to get on the ferry and fish decently. This is a picture of when I was leveling Fishing in West Ronfaure. It's pretty fun to fish for Moat Carp but the skillups have stopped and I have to find a different place to fish now for skillup. I have thought of moving to the Cheval River in East Ronfaure maybe and fish Cheval Salmon there. I also thought of maybe fishing for Quus in Windurst. I actually tried that for a while but I was catching too many Bastore Sardines and the skillups were NOT forthcoming.

I can afford to buy really good rods too since I guess people make them. I don't want to try for Lu Shang's Rod because that would take WAY too much time that I could be camping a NM for my Peacock Charm or getting my Promys done. Plus I think the DVX ls is going to start doing more involved partying with their high level characters and if my character isn't high enough then I probably won't be helping.

I like leveling my WHM cuz it's so much fun thinking of what to cast next and getting into a rhythm of casting the same spells that are useful. With my THF, it is a lot more tiring to do pulls and to get SATA done right and to get off the skillchain at a decent time, but it's still a lot of fun.

White Mage is coming up

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:66

I have begun to level my WHM again. Yes, without Erase. Today some people asked me to party cuz I was just sitting there checking on prices and actually waiting for some Promyvion action to come my way since I need all three of the Promys. I was like no cuz I wanted to leave and go do other stuff and then I decided to go ahead and party. So we have a drag of a time waiting. We wait because we don't have a tank. Man that is just what happened to me yesterday. I was looking for a tank for a full hour at least before deciding to disband the party while still in Jeuno.

Today we went to Garlaige Citadel and partied against some Beetles. They were pretty good exp and got me my level but they are really not good for level 52s. They were made up of mostly of 52s. Later I decided to disband because some people left but then I changed my mind and wanted to party again and made my own party. This party was good but we had no puller so I asked the Bard to pull. We partied against the Over Weapons and everything was going pretty good until we aggroed an extra Weapon somehow. Surprisingly, those weapons don't link.

Here SUB, come here SUB

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:66

I use my Dark Staff with my THF/BLM so that I can save time when healing but today I decided to go ahead with the dagger and take out the NPC in Rabao. I figured I would skip using the staff and just hunt Desert Spiders for exp. It went fine but after a while we ran out of monsters and had to start hiking up and down the desert looking for more mobs. It seems a lot of people like to use Rabao to level their NPCs cuz I saw a lot of em out there. I was hoping to finish with the NPC and then go fish in Rabao but then I got a party invite from a THF to go exp in Bibiki Bay. I used warp and left my NPC standing there in the middle of the desert. I hope she is all right.

We had a good time today in Bibiki Bay. Surprisingly we still get good exp from birds and gobs and I have to tell you that I don't mind stealing the occassional Gold Beastcoin from those gobs either. :)

We still have a tough time with the Catoblepas though. It is especially hard for me being as short as I am in the game, to line up Sneak Attack and Trick Attack on them because they are so tall. They have a boatload of hit points too.

We started out doing ok with skillchains since the leader was a good guy and asked me which skillchain I wanted. Since he had his Scythe out, I remembered that I had difficulty with Tiduss finding a skillchain so I went with Guillotine > Shadowstitch for Fragmentation. It was not a bad skillchain and the guys were doin pretty good at holding it together. Later though, I realized only too late that, though I got my sushi and arrows from the Mog House, I forgot to change my sub from BLM to WAR. Oh the shame!

After a party member left though, the tank said that he was going to be afk for 5min so I sed cool I would warp to Jeuno and change my sub. Sure enough it was fine. I get back and then we have a good time partying. I changed up the skillchain though after a while. Birds were weak to ice and I was hitting them with runner-up Shadowstitch ws. So I look up a good skillchain in my handy dandy Aden's skillchain printout that I got from Mysterytour and come to find out Shark Bite > Cross Reaper is Distortion. So we start doing that and the BLM is like, " That works better for me!". Well it does for me too since now I was doin 600 dmg compared to the 300 before.

Eventually the BLM had to go and the leader too and so I said that I would leave also. People prob didn't like me too much there cuz of the mess ups with the sub and the couple of links I got. But we had non-stop chain 5s most of the time and at least I got 10k in exp from the group.

Good idea, Bishop should go...

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:66

I like the movie Aliens 2. To me a better movie that is as watchable today as it was then, has not been made. Aliens is a classic. This has nothing to do with this picture. This picture is of a sunrise on an airship in first-person mode. Neither does the rest of what I am about to write, have anything to do with this picture.

If I had 3 things I would tell every White Mage about what is important to know about being a WHM it would be the following:

Cure with the lowest cure possible
This is not something new. It takes more effort to throw low level cures more often but the bonus is saved MP. Using Regen spells on the tank is part of this strategy. A White Mage that lets Regen expire for a long time just labeled himself Red Mage. That's what you ought to say to yourself when you realize that it expired a long time ago. You Red Mage! Red Mage are not main healers and though they have special something else abilities, they were not meant to Heal as well as White Mages. So without using Regen you might as well take off you AF gear and start thowing spells naked cuz yooz sukash. No worse, yooz sukash more than if yooz wuz a Red Mage.

Haste the melees
Life is very easy in a party that can pull off two skillchains per mob. This happens if the melees, namely the skillchain duo are subjects of Haste. If your PLD is very good you should save yourself from hasting him and only haste the melees(again the two: any extra DD you might have, though they will want to be hasted so they can solo weaponskill and call themselves CONAN, is wasted if instead of two full skillchains and MBs you get 2 weaponskills.) BTW, casting more than 2 Haste spells and keeping them up on your members is just inefficient. I have tried casting on 3 and it is literally a nightmare keeping up with who may or may not have Haste. With two you will at least catch one of the messages and will know that the other person is the next one to get the spell. Besides Haste duty is best divided between WHM and RDM since the recaast timer is so lengthy. In the past I would only Haste the PLD since the melees, being the boneheads that they are, like to stay engaged to the mob despite the mob's new disposition towards them. To prevent that I stopped hasting the melees in pts. But as THF I have had a lot of exposure to parties that Haste and don't Haste and though I don't mind it that they not hasting me (since I don't like to hear " ok now SATA Hohito!") , I do see the usefulness of it and the lack of usefulness when it's not used. This is a very important part of partying and something that should be as spoken about between the WHM and RDM, as the skillchain is among melees or as is Enfeeble spell schedule of the BLM and RDM. But you gotta discuss such things or else you gotta blame yourself, cuz we all got a mouth, er, or a keyboard.

And third, keep Paralyze up
A very underrated spell is Paralyze. It only costs 5mp too. Sticking Paralyze is like telling the mob that he will now have to settle for 3 of his next 5 100hp damage attacks. That's 200 damage you just saved yourself from curing, and you got no enmity for it. More importantly, you don't have to feel stupid now that you know this and realize all the times that you were stupid. Slow has a big recast timer so I can't insist that you keep trying to stick it. Slow is Earth related too so some monsters resist that spell naturally. Paralyze is Ice related, and every good BLM, that is strugglin to buy only the spells he needs cuz he don't buy gil, knows that most of the mobs that parties exp on are weak to Ice. This means that usually Paralyze sticks. If it doesn't then you gotta throw out a Regen and try it again because it is HUGE, the additional benefit of keeping the monster paralyzed.

So in summary:
keep the monster paralyzed
keep the tank regen'd
keep your melees hasted(w RDM hasting tank possbly)

and you got yourself one kick ass White Mage.

Should he have Erase and Viruna and Raise II and such spells? Well sure, but that's more of a cost thing than a skill thing... these 3 spells are essential and cheap and using them effectively, make you a GREAT white mage, imo(in my opinion).

Sweet Rabao Moon

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:66

I spent time in the past two days in Rabao leveling fishing and trying out my NPC against the Antican Essedariuses. I know already that they are tough to beat solo but much easier now I figured than before when I leveled my Archery on them eons ago. I am also able to steal Mythril Beastcoins from them.

So instead of taking my NPC against the Smithys near Kazham I decided to give Rabao a try. Well the killing, though it was sort of more challenging and fun, went MUCH slower against them. It's true though that I was able to steal better beastcoins and undoubtedly get better exp for my NPC, but finding additional Anticans proved difficult. I worked on Desert Spiders some and they turned out to be good prey and sort of easy to kill, but no beastcoins.

One time, I decided to Trick Attack the NPC so that I could Sneak Attack the Antican with my Staff but it proved to be a fatal move to my NPC. I Trick Attacked and then she did her Weaponskill and then when I got off my Sneak Attack I saw that she was gone. So in an effort to improve her experience points rate, I probably cost her some experience.

I have been using Thief/Black Mage a lot since the BLM sub allows me to Warp to my Home Point. Warp is one of many spells that become useful when farming and leveling your NPC. In that vein I have become more used to using my Dark Staff in combat since it's easier to just use that and keep the weapon in hand for resting for MP. The main spells I use are Dark Magic spells since the staff has a hidden +% to dark magic skill. I use Drain to get HP back and use Blind because it only costs 5mp and is rarely resisted. It's a good strategy to use Dark Magic spells with the Dark Staff. It's a bad strategy to use all that against Anticans who have high resistance to Dark Magic. I use Ice Spikes. Like I have mentioned in my previous journal, I feel Ice Spikes is superior to both the other "spike" spells. Blaze Spikes does more damage. Shock Spikes has the Stun effect that interrupts a monster's spell or special attack. Even better than those, Ice Spikes has the ability to Paralyze. How great is that when you save yourself from having the monster hit you for a whole round and you get to attack again. I will discuss Paralyze more in another journal. My Rogue's Bonnet adds +5 INT also which helps my ability to cast BLM spells. I have heard that INT helps Double Attack and prob likely helps Triple Attack.

Overall I am happy with my trek to Rabao but think I should keep leveling my NPC in Kazham for now.

When the tough get goin...

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:66

When the tough get going, please go ahead without me.

This is me doing Processionaires in Boyhada Tree. I was level 64 at the time and I remember thinking, "Why the hell am I missin so much?" Well I had another experience like that Thursday leveling in the Den of Rancor with my THF at 66. I start missing a lot and even though I was still able to get the sc off decently, my lack of hits, not to mention a lack of Haste, has convinced me that Den of Rancor is a NO GO for me until I get to level 67. I just maxed out my Archery in a skillup party for chrissakes and for what? Even with my +11 total Ranged Acc from rings I was still missin like 90% of the time with my expensive Ice Arrows. I got them instead of Scorpion Arrows(+5 Ranged Acc) because I figured I would more consistently hit the mob now with my skill maxed. As it turns out, the FFXI Atlas even says that you are supposed to go there at level 67.

{Whiff!} {No, thanks.}

Another day

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

There is a lot to get done usually in a day. Usually, you are going to want to spend time building a stock of stuff to sell in the Auction House. Then while it sells you are going to want to start and finish whatever quests you can while you wait for a party invite. Simple. But what if you are like me and you are easily distracted?

Well that is what it is like for me in Jeuno. I want to spend time doing my ZM and COP missions but I also want to keep saving for Erase. I had enough to buy it too but now I have spent the money on Moghouse upgrades and the "real" last two gobbiebag quests 5 & 6. This means that I am down to 200k even though I need 600k to get the spell. I guess I hope to get lucky in a BCNM but I am not gonna worry about it too much. My THF is my main concern.

I wish I knew how these people make millions but my guess is it just takes a lot of time to build your money-making ability. I have noticed recently that a LOT of people have their fishing skill up to my level or more. Mine is at skill 11. It's weird to fish with linkshell buddies cuz you find yourself having a good time talking and fishing and stuff but in the end you feel like you should have been leveling exp or killing a NM or just doing something more productive. I want to kill Centurio X-I.

{Shaman's Cloak}{Can I have it?}

Crossbones ahoy!

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

Here is a picture of the pirates bringing me my Sand Charm. They are so responsive to my needs! I am thinking of doing another set of Gobbie Bags since I am not gonna be buying Erase. Hmmm.

Fisherman Hohito

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

Well buckaroo ronzi banzai! Erase went up to 600k and that's that, I'm not getting Erase. If someone asks for Erase in a party, I'm gonna hit em up with a Poisona and tell them how they are gonna get Poisona'd every time I see that they need Erase! Bah!

Well it's time to level a craft. I have been reading Uchipu and Cornholio's Blogs and it seems that there is a part of the game that I am ignoring that was meant to be used to make money, and that is crafting. I guess I am gonna start fishing again.

I got my skill up to level 7 the first time I chose to do it and it took a REALLY long time. The other skills are level 0 so I decided to just skill this up more since I have already done a lot of fishing.

This is a picture of me on the Selbina ferry. It moves me sometimes that being alone on a ship with nothing going on can be so entertaining. Just looking at the waves and the water makes it feel so real. I wish I was a higher level in fishing so that I could catch skill up fish. This last time I took crayfish paste as a lure in an effort to catch some Greedies and level to 14 but they weren't biting and I broke my Glass Fiber Fishing Rod for my trouble.

The last time I was on the boat I got my Sand Charm which was need to finish a quest in Mhara for a map. I try to make it to Mhaura a lot if I happen to be in Selbina. I still need a puffball for Rycharde the NPC and dang it I forgot to get one the last time I was in town.

It's funny that fishing stores have hours of operation. It struck me as odd that the shop on the ship could close. I mean, who could sleep on a ship full of people that all they do is fish.

I have decided to fish as THF/BLM so that I can warp home and so that I can hunt the odd bat that appears at night. By the same token, I have to fish as WHM/THF when in Selbina so that I can Teleport-Dem and choco there.

There's not really much money in fishing I'm expecting but I guess I need to wait til my skill gets high enough to fish those Noble Lady fish. Those sell for good cash.

I might just go ahead and get my 5k of exp I need to get 66.

Eye want my Erase

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

I am currently saving up everything I can to buy my Erase scroll. I can't shake the feeling that my WHM is getting left behind as my other jobs prosper. In that vein, I have used up my Conquest Points to sell stuff to make money to buy my scroll. So far I have 400k saved up but I think it will cost me about 500k. Thankfully the price has come down 100k so I gotta find some way to snatch up that scroll soon before it goes back up again and I end up getting an Executioner's Blade or something for my WAR.

This is a picture of my WHM. I have been using him a lot lately for various things. It's amazing how often I pull him out to do teleports and heal people and like use the sub. I am sure that I am going to sub WHM when I fight Maat but I am not sure if it will be werf it.

I tried to get on with a team of people all set to do 7-1 and 7-2 but when we got there, and after several people disbanded, one of the mages casted something and threw the whole thing away like trash. I died even. The last time I did this the same thing happened, someone casted Sneak or something and the bots and weapons both aggroed and then it was really too much for us to handle. I am really getting sick of dying for stupid stuff. I ask them to get more people and told them that I would wait for them at Ro'Mauve, but they were too disgusted. Bah! Next time they try to do it the same thing is gonna happen and they will never get the thing done. At least this time we had people that were wise to the situation.

People often don't see the good side of failure and what it bestows on you. It bestows you feel like a NOOB, sure, but I am reminded of an old lesson of someone that made a mistake and lost the company a million dollars said to his boss. "Why am I not fired?" He said. "Because if I just spent a million dollars training you, why would I hire someone new?"

I bought a stack of Silent Oils just for the occasion and it cost me 24k for it. That's a bunch of money for friggin Sneak! Now I am under the 400k mark again. I hope my IM Gauntlets sell soon so I can at least be close to the 500k mark.

Why do we fall?

The new Monday Nights w/Uchi

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

I spend a lot of time going between my two linkshells Nobodyzangel(NBA) and DivineXtsy(DVX). I like Nobodyzangel because I know a lot of ppl who are about to turn 70 and 75 which is good since I am about to get close to that level. However, I have been made a Duke of DivineXtsy and feel indebted to try to spend as much time as I can in that linkshell as party of their group. Invariably, I will become torn as to which one to belong to. I like NBA for the chatter and the many people that always wanna party and yell DING!. I like DVX cuz Uchipu is an outstanding leader. She is vigilant, dependable, and wise about just about every facet of the game I suspect. Sabrial is on during the weekends mostly and she is the leader of NBA but it's on the weekends that I want to spend time on DVX cuz that's when Uchi's pulling off one of her Grand Larceny projects like Carbuncle Mitts or Sleepga II NM or Uggalepih Pendants quests.

Here in the picture we are doing our Monday Night Escort Quest in Eldieme Necropolis. There are 3 of them that we do, each one opened in a different city. It's reminiscent of our old Monday Nights with Uchipu gathering that we used to have. The quest is a good quest to get done if you have enough fame cuz it awards a paper that you can use to earn experience depending on which job you are when you "use" it. Uchipu has decided to rotate them now so that we all get a chance to get exp. The fame required is very high though. I can only earn experience from one of the quests, but the last time, I just went and it turned out to be fun to kill stuff in a group and to bond with our fellows from the linkshell.

Tonight's another one of those nights so I am off to open the quest.

WTH is this?

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:64

Ya, that's what you'll be sayin if you attack one of these. We had a very good party in Bibiki Bay and were killing things left and right. We had the gobs covered, the birds covered, we even had the bunnies and the Goblin Animaliers covered. Well then someone gets the crazy idea that this thing, an EFT blah blah blah, would get owned by us. I ask the WHM if he's ok with it, he says sure. Me being the generous leader that I am, and of course being the puller, wait till MP is at full for everyone and then pull it.

I figured the worst that could happen is that we would use up our 2-hour abilities. Well this thing was VERY high evasion. We had all of our 2 healers MP used up by the time we got to 50% of the monsters HP bar. So slowly the party went to zip, the tank went, then the SAM went then the BARD I think, and then the others. I was the last one to go since I couldn't pull hate off anyone else and eventually I died too. The monster only had like 5% HP but as a THF with food I still was hitting only one out of 3 shots.

In the end, I hit my FLEE macro and ran around and did something close to nothing really fast which had my party rofl. I mean, where was I gonna run to in Bibiki Bay?

Fighter's Mask

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

Yes it is. It's time to not mess with me cuz I got my Fighter's Mask and my Great Sword and I as my WAR have been lookin about as pimped out as I ever have. I think often of the many things I have left to do with WAR but since he is pretty good in his current gear, I try not to bring him out too often unless there is like a skill up party or something. He still has to get his AF feet.

His Archery is maxed tho so if I do bring him out and he starts to pull, I am going to use my Crossbow since it is just slightly below max at his level. His Axe and Gax skills still need serious work though but I am not in a hurry really.

I was partying with Tiduss from my Nobodyzangel ls and saw her using her GSD ws Spinning Slash for like 1k damage! Too cool. Man, I can't wait til I get to like 67 with my WAR which is probably when I will get it. That reminds me that I need to get some Skillchain charts from somewhere. I still have to use my funky old Brady Guide to look up skillchains and most of the higher level ones aren't in there.

The other day I was leading a party with my THF with Tiduss as my DRK and I had to tell her to use friggin po dunk Power Slash so the BLM could MB with a high level spell on Distortion. She wasn't happy. I couldn't find a decent skillchain and we spent at least 30 minutes screwin around trying to find one. Ughhh! I was so embarassed to be leader. At the time we were in Boyhada Tree killing Processionaires. Tiduss wasn't helping though. Before I invited her I asked her to sub-WAR and she says "Aww I do more dmg as DRK/THF with SATA." Well, um, first-voke [Can I have it?].

So, I let her go(btw,I'm not mean), and she tried to first voke using spells and it was just a mess for a while. Stun doesn't turn the mob so even though Tiduss has hate, it is still and not facing her, so as soon as the spell wears off, in like 3 seconds, it turns again to face her, which makes SATA for me impossible to pull of in a timely manner. Then the NIN just straight up starts to first voke without letting her use her spells to voke. Then the BLM starts straight up nukin like he's playing cards or something. Even the WHM ceases to Haste me like she was doing earlier. The whole party seems to fall apart and it probably has something to do with me. I start to blame Tiduss but know that if I would have had a skillchain chart right at the beginning we wouldn't have wallowing around in the mud for so long.

Well that's when I start to get creative on when to skillchain. I ask her to start doing it at start and it started(O.o) working great cuz getting the NIN to second voke was like talking to a wall. Then I told BLM to hold off on nukin till sc. He said that that was too long since we were basically starting the sc from scratch. I told him that I wasn't SATAing tho and eventually he agreed. He was like a rare-breed Rank 10. He listened and that helped out a WHOLE lot. The strategy was working. NIN would engage the mob and actually kept hate while me and the DRK quickly got our TP up to 100% which was easy cuz we were both using food. Then the DRK would start the skillchain with SATA Power Slash for 400 then I would hit mob with SATA Dancing Edge for 700, and then the BLM would MB with Blizzard III for another 700 and the RDM would MB with Blizzard II for 300 dmg. A ton of damage! The mob was almost dead at that point and BLM was free to finish it off all he wanted with the stack of hate I planted on the NIN. We were doin chain 4s and mobs were dying in like 2 minutes or less. We were on our way to 5 or 6k exp per hour. It was glorious. It was SO coming together.

Then I asked the WHM to Haste. Nuff said, end of party... harsh.

Vrtra was impressed... YA ThiNk?

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

This is an example of how not to impress someone you have seen around a lot and finally got a chance to party with. I bet she WAS impressed with my ability to eat Squid Sushi +1. {/muted} Plus I don't think my butt looks so bad from this angle. >.>

Home Sweet Home

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

Going back to Bastok is usually quite a pain because I have to take the airship from Jeuno to go there instead of warping. Sometimes though, I am able to outpost warp to Bastok Metalworks rather quickly so for that I am thankful.

The reasons for going to Bastok are usually one of the following:
> To turn in crystals for rank points
> To get another supply quest
> To buy some cornettes to level up fame in Windy
> To move Beastmen's Seals to the stack I have in storage
> To check AH prices of Sushi and Arrows since I never make it to Norg

This last time I decided it was time to farm again since I don't have a lot of time on the weekends to do anything more profound since I work the next day. I gotta tell ya the most pleasant feeling I have in the game is when I step outside of Bastok and hear that old familiar music from South Gustaberg. It's so melancholy, and so reminiscent of when I was leveling all my jobs at low levels, that I am just amazed. It is just beautiful scenery to me now, despite it being the stone-mountain-gray-cold-region of the game.

I love Bastok!

Sometimes I see that old badgirl from the Allah boards traipsing around in there and then I just gotta go over there and examine her. Heh! Too bad there isn't a /spank command! Hah, I know what she would say if she were reading this too... "Somebody's not getting any ARE they?! "

Shock Spikes

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

This is a picture of me finally buying my Shock Spikes scroll after I made a trip to Selbina. I figured since I had been subbing Black Mage for a long time and since it was a level 30 spell and I was using Ice Spikes so often, that it would be a good investment.

Not sure though, I think Ice Spikes is better because of the Paralyze effect it has. The Stun effect of Shock Spikes would work good against gobs except that it only stuns them after the gob does a physical attack which is NOT when they are casting a spell or throwing a bomb. So the most it does is skip a turn I guess, but it doesn't seem like it as much as when they are Paralyzed.

More on this later I guess when I have more experience using it.

Maps a daisy in Sandy

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:65

Well it's been a while since I pulled the old White Mage out to party and today I did it. I had just finished getting my THF to 65 yesterday and last night I got it halfway to 66 with this pretty good party. But today I am pokin around thinkin what I could do without a lot of trouble and suddenly someone sends a shout that they want their AF1 done. Well, I needed MY AF1 done. I got lucky cuz I was washing clothes and as usual when I got nothin lined up, I just sit in Lower Jeuno hoping the prices of Squid Sushi and Scorpion Arrows will drop. So when I got back from doin whatever I check the log to see if someone wants LB1 done or maybe a BCNM 40(which I need since I would really like to have Erase). So I go out and then get my AF1 done with hardly no problem. The hard part really was finding the NPC in Sandy. This is a picture of my WHM in San d' Oria. I was lookin for him for a while and I already knew that Eperdur wasn't the guy that gave the quest but luckily I talked to him and he finally gave me the Teleport-Vahzl quest. I can't wait to complete it! Then I found the guy I needed who was just to the right of Eperdur up some stairs. His name was Narcheral.

So I had a great time with WHM today. I even got invited to a party and we went to the Quicksand Caves. Since this is the last of my guys near level 51 I know that this probably was the last time I would be partying in the Quicksand Caves. I kind of wish I would have taken a picture now of that. Oh well.

What was even more exciting after I got done partying there, was that I tried to go to Bostanieux Obliuette to set up a place to camp for level 58. I did this cuz the FFXI Atlas that I have, said that it was a good place to party and I didn't feel like going to Valley of Sorrows with my WHM if I didn't want to. So I go there and I don't have the map. So I look it up and it says I need to get a Sand Charm from a Crossbones in the ship to Mhaura. Fine, because I actually have to go there to get my map for the Sanctuary of Zi'tah which I need badly. Well on my trip there I tackle some pirates and get my charm! How lucky is that! So I get there and get not 1 but 3 maps! The map I quested for, the map of The Sanctuary, and I find out that he also sells the map of Bibiki Bay which is like right where my BLM and WAR are headed to soon.

TOO COOL!!