Summoner gags himself

BLM:68 WHM:54 Summoner: 31 WAR:56 THF:70

I leveled with Uchipu recently as THF and I got this shot of her in her "hoodie".

Why would I subject myself to a Promyvion-Mea mission again? Well, if Taria hadn't stood up and sed Hohito let's do your ZM5 Notorious Monsters so you will be ready to go with us to do ZM6, I probably would not have volunteered to help. But as it stands I now have learned SO much about this particular Promy that I want to help EVERY SINGLE person in the linkshell, that I have known for a while, get this stupid thing done.

More importantly, I MUST get these people through this horrible experience, through to victory.

We went the first time with some Animas in hand. Shanisasha helped a great deal by knowing the way and taking us through the steps and making sure we always moved with FULL mp. We got to the boss fight with almost no trouble. The fight itself was a different story. I was WHM that time and we almost made it, but at a critical moment in the game I needed to cast Benediction and had just used Divine Seal and didn't want to waste that so I casted a Cure spell and then the thing killed me without me getting to use my 2HR. It was almost dead too. This was a very close battle and we only had 5 animas.

The second time, Shani didn't want to come again and she was SMN and since I have a SMN I took mine. But I haven't leveled SMN in 3 months and am really very out of practice. I have been enjoying BLM lately and even using WHM was something that took getting used to. We farmed animas for a long while and it was really kind of peaceful farming in there and killing mobs even without a WHM. Easy fights. 5 of us, each got 2 animas each and when I sent a shout for a WHM I put the message in there that we had 10 animas to use. I got 3 /tells just like that in the next 3 minutes, but I answered the first one and it was a JP person. Unaffected, I invited her and told the others politely that we were full.

I felt good but earlier that day me and Taria had a bit of a discussion about lending gil. Many courtesies in life are in fact opportunites that can be exploited for straight profit. Lending gil is one. One of the WARs had leveled THF as a sub but we all knew that having a NIN sub would be far more useful in the Promy fight, so she conviced him to level NIN to 15. Then he told her that he didn't have the gil for Utsusemi: Ichi which was selling for 600k and that there was no way that he would be able to complete the quest that afternoon. Well then Taria sends a tell in the ls asking for contributions to help him get the scroll. I gave my comment that I didn't approve of asking for gil but was happy after she was able to buy the scroll and get him his Blinks for Promy. I felt bad later that I had disagreed with her but it wasn't like I was mad.

Anyway, after all this effort on her part, including farming and leveling her NIN and using Hi potions and throwin all her Animas at the thing. We lost the Promy.

There were 3 WARs Thimien Llessur and Taria. They even set up a voking order which I thought would have been great if I was WHM but I was SMN. Daftorious was the RNG. His wide scan ability really made getting to the Memory Receptacles easy. Plus, he was usually able to one-shot the Strays which I thought was VERY efficient. All sed and done we did a great job of getting to the boss.

This time, as we did the last time, we planned to just run through the third level and follow Shani's advice and sick Carby on the one monster that prob would get in our way that was large, and just high-tail it to the zone. It worked like a charm. Everyone that does this Promy should fight to the memory receptacles but just haul butt when it comes to getting to the boss zone. That level is just too packed with monsters to allow you to fight even a single monster in peace.

The boss fight made me nervous though. I knew that I hadn't learned Shani's method of getting off 3 Astral Flow BPs in one fight. I also didn't have a macro designed for it yet. I also figured that they would need me to not use up all my MP too soon so that the BPs would have enough MP to go off when needed. We start the fight and everything is going well. The mob is stable and the WARs aren't taking too much damage. I cast Paralyze and Dia but suddenly it occurs to me that summoning the avatar too soon may get the avatar killed so I decide to just cure for a while. Then something happens to one of the melee and the WHM draws aggro, I am thinking of summoning the avatar at this point but instead I start to cure and backup the WHM. I continue to cure using Cure Is so as not to draw the monster to me since I needed my MP for the BP. Then BAM, we lose Thimien. I continue to cure. I keep the WARs alive but it seems that we aren't going to win the fight this time and I start to wonder, since I used my Reraise earring, if maybe I should save my 2hr for the next fight. I hesitate, but then Taria dies and Llessur dies. I am sure that we arent gonna make it with 1 rng and 2 mages trying to kill the Delver that still has 50% of its HP left. So I tell them that we should die and just try to kill it next time but then Taria asks if I had used my 2 hr and suddenly I feel guilty for not having already used it. They had used their reraise earring and raise but were running around weakened trying to dmg it, hoping that their SMN would blast it soon. But there was noone left to take hits. Soon they go down, I use my 2 hr but in the middle of struggling to get the command off, I die. I hadn't used my animas, hadn't used my 2hr even once and had almost a full MP bar showing, making me look probably like the King of Fools at a fag party.

It was a disgrace. I was disgusted.

Llessur disbanded without a word. Daftorious wondered in ls how the mob could kill us with 10 animas and a SMN 2hr used and I had to expain. Taria was speechless but soon logged out after. Thimien was kind, but of course thought that this Promy was the worst part of the game ever made. The JP Whm was the only one left in party with me and Thim and she asked if we were going again and I explained "/no". She was fine but I'm sure she was dissapointed as well. She had even used 2 animas during the fight that I didn't know she had

I had to go crawl under a Weeper and bloodport home. Uchipu came on and I wanted to spill my guts to her and beg her to help us, but it was just, just, .. it was time to log and go get a beer.

I spent a good deal of time planning on how we would get the thing done next time, but I wonder how long it will take for these wounds to heal.

Missions Impossible

BLM:68 WHM:54 Summoner: 32 WAR:56 THF:70

Missions are very hard to organize. VERY HARD. People are gonna die; people have to be from a certain nation and be on a certain mission and they always better be ready to spend 3 hours at least getting to the end.

I spent a lot of time yesterday doin the Chains of Promathia(COP) Mission 2-3. This is the one that has the minotaur boss near the end of the fight. It was weird that we won the way we did but hey I don't care how ugly the method, I can now continue to the next mission. I will write more about that later. People sometimes abbreviate COP missions as PM so if you see PM or COP, it means the same thing. Completing PM missions eventually gives you access to SEA. It's an area that is bought and paid for with the COP expansion.

Today, I spent working on killing Notorious Monsters(NM) in Ifrit's Cauldron. It was a long journey and most people agree that this is the toughest of the NMs to complete for this mission. This NM is for the Zilart Mission(ZM) 5. After you complete it you can go on to ZM6 and ZM7 and on until you get past ZM13, which is when you will get SKY access. I don't know what that is yet but it's probably a whole new area that was made available when the Zilart expansion came out.

The Bastok Missions are similar in that they give you access to better and better equipment through the use of Conquest Points(CP). If you are wonderin what all those crystals are that are dropping from monsters and don't know why sometimes there are NONE, it's because you forgot to get signet. If you don't get signet, you forego having crystals drop and this keeps your kills from mattering in the regional update. This also keeps you from earning any CP and this means you can't buy the items offered by your nation through the signet guy.

Some of these items are very useful. In fact some sell for more than 100k each, so not clicking signet at the start of any party is like well... it's LIKE OMGa!

Buildin a party soon?

BLM:67 WHM:54 Summoner: 32 WAR:56 THF:70

Building parties takes a lot of patience and drive. Sometimes I find people's lack of faith in waiting for appropriate party members disturbing.

In building a partyI use these basic rules for party setup: One tank, one healer, one puller and the rest DDs. This is for partys before 41. After 41, if you don't have a Bard or an RDM in there, you are gonna be hurting the exp bonus, and frankly you will see many Rank 10 ppl just plain not wanna pt and find something else to do. Bards and Red Mages help the party by providing MP regeneration, which allows the toll on mp to be less and pulling to go faster. A smart WHM will usually give the puller the option of pulling when he's at like 130 or so. And with a backup healer you can use the mp of the backup as a buffer when deciding when to pull. OK, getting off the subject here.

For the tank, you need to have his or her level be the highest. That armor is going up against the monsters hits and if it is higher level armor, along with higher level VIT from the tank having a higher level, you will be doing the party a huge favor by starting with just that simple little fact.

Next, make the pullers level also the highest. He is the one that is gonna be checking the con of the mobs and if, like me, he adds up the mobs in his head and sets them up ahead of time, he can save the really tough ones for chain 3 or 4 or even 5 as is convenient. If you get a podunk Thief at the lower levels trying to pull IT++ mobs that he doesn't know are actually IT ++++, you will be doing the party a huge disservice that will become quite possibly the puller's biggest blunder of his career, but actually it was yours.

The next guy that needs to be of a higher level is the BLM. He is your main source of damage. If he is gettnig resisted left and right, the loss in damage to the party is catastrophic compared to the damage lost to melees who may be missing more at the same level. A BLM getting his MB resisted is to a party what using a blunt sword in battle is to a fighter.

The rest is filling. Melees can be helped with Frost and Dia to allow them to hit more, esp if there is a Bard in the party, so whatever level for them is fine. Mages heal for almost the same total no matter what level they are so having a really low level WHM or RDM or BRD doesn't matter too much since they are mostly support jobs.

Finally, these are guidelines. If it's late and you can't find anybody, any level PLD will do and will probably be a better choice than say getting a high level SAM to tank. Actually, I was recently in a party with 2 BLMs and WHM and no RDM and we were still doin chain 4s and 5s pretty often, so it really does mostly depend on the people and on if you got party members that are having a good time.

Black Mage thoughts

BLM:67 WHM:54 Summoner: 32 WAR:56 THF:70

I have a new love for BLM now. But there are several big reasons that BLMs love their Ice Staves and Distortion. One, it adds Elemental Skill +10 bonus which makes a monster ability to resist your spells less. This only works however if you have the staff equipped. So if they are doing a Fragmentation skillchain and you are MBing with Thunder, you give up Elemental Skill by trading to a Thunder Staff, which will make your Thunder spells more effective but maybe not stick so much. So sticking to the Ice Staff is preferable.

Also, since the Ice Staff casts Blizzard spells more effectively, casting Aero spells with that staff are less effective. BASTWF is the elemental circle key that I use to remember the order. It sounds like "BASTok WtF". Blizzard Aero Stone Thunder Water Fire are the names. It's confusing when they say Lightning and Wind and then always say Fire for Fire. These are the names of the spells so I stick to remembering this representation of the circle.

Thirdly, you lose +4 INT when you switch to a Thunder Staff. It's a big hit to take in INT when you are fighting IT mobs and esp if you are at the low end of the party level which usually tends to be the case if the party is set up right. More on party setup in future journals. So if you plan on using ANY other staff with your MBs, it's almost stupid to not use Burn before you MB.

Well this is a problem cuz how many BLMs out there have seen TP 95% and started to cast Burn only to miss your MB with your big spell? Ya just as I thought, all of you. I can still catch the MB in time and MB with like a Blizzaga or something (because casting time is shorter) but man you just wasted casting a Burn that would have for sure doubled your damage from doing a pathetic Blizzaga. So usually I add a "call" to my Burn macro just to give them a heads up on HEY BLM OVER HERE WOULD LIKE TO MB WITH SOME GA III SPELLS [Can I have it?]

So, this is why you will see a BLM wince ( or /no emote ) when people call out a Detonation skillchain, because they gotta give up their Ice Staff to do their MBs effectively. If they do, I just pull out my Rose Wand+1(+6 INT) and use that with my Dark Staff instead.

In sum, a Distortion skillchain, on a mob that is weak to Ice, while equipped with your Ice Staff, equals Blizzaga II goodness that is really quite efficient on MP or Waterga III meanness if you happen to be on chain 4 and have been really responsible with saving enough MP for the BIG HIT on the final 2 or 3 mobs of the chain.

I have a story to tell about some people that were telling me that their skillchain was doing more damage than my MB because they had chosen a Detonation skillchain that used Spinning Slash, but I will save it since I gotta go to work.

A Bug's World

BLM:65 WHM:54 Summoner: 32 WAR:56 THF:70

I have leveled before with BLM and usually have no problem with people that give me a little jab now and again about equipment but this last time I got asked if I had the Morion Earring or the Moldavite Earring and it bugged me. Sure I should have all the upper-echelon gear that people that have taken other jobs to 70 should have but I spent most of my money on my main job THF. In the past I have often not even had the spells they wanted to use like Escape once and Sleep and Thundaga because spells cost money and if I can avoid using them then I don't need to spend the money. But now I HAVE bought most all the spells and am lucky to have the gear I have so I don't need some snot-nosed-I-wonder-if-he-knows-what-a-Moldy-is punk askin me about gear. I should have asked him if he knew where The Lake was.

So you're thinking to yourself, that wouldn't bother Hohito would it? He is a man. He is a very short man. He is a Taru Vundr-Uber-King of the-Sheiste Man. Well it did. I still MB'd just as good as the other BLM there albeit I didn't fling the mp load like some may have liked but hey we didn't have an RDM. The setup was BLM BLM WHM NIN RNG THF.

We were doing fine really but then the guy with the mouth, (you guessed it, the WHM) decides to comment on my macros and finds them annoying. Well you might as well tell someone that you wish their head was smaller cuz then their face would look better. >.<>

Later the THF pulls a Goblin's Rarab and then it links with one of those other bunnies and then he doesn't notice it and pulls the Goblin before we were done with the rarab. Soon after that the Bunny takes out the WHM and proceeds to take out the rest of the party. I start to heal but when I sleep the rabbit and the THF stays engaged to it, I decided it's time to haul butt to the zone. I tried to Stun and take the Gob with me but the rabbit hit me twice and I was in the red and I knew, even though I had a ton of MP, that I wouldn't survive if I did any curing, even to myself.

The other BLM, who was busy healing, gives me a call to help him heal but I know, if he isn't zoning, he is done for. I tell them I will come back and raise the WHM but that didn't get them to stop fighting. I make it to the zone and heal myself and start to put buffers up and tell them that I will Stun and pull of mobs as they show up but by then there were like 4 Bunnies all linked up and looking like a friggin Bunny Army, coming after me. Only one guy made it past and after I hit the zone, I was in the yellow again. Later on I raise the whm and she RB2s some of the members and then one guy decides to wait for RB3 from his ls, but by the time all the people the WHM had raised had becomed unweakened and fully healed, he was still sittin there dead waitin for his RB3. The party then disbanded, BLM, upset, said he was gonna D2 everybody but was nice about it. When I went afk for a bit and came back, the party had disbanded and I was sitting in Jeuno.

So now that the party went to hell, probably because I didn't save them all, I wonder whether I should get the Moldavite Earring?

Bastokian view

BLM:65 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:70

Well I have finally leveled my THF to 70. I feel the need to immediately go take Jajuju out and go steal some beastcoins and stuff and farm but I spent most of last week watching my Fire Crystals NOT sell. They started at 7k, which I thought the price would go up to 8k and now they are at 4k. All the while they were dropping in price, I was repricing them, and in all honesty I prob spent more on AH fees than I am getting back now that I am selling them at retail( the price in price history).

I also finally got my BLM to 65 so now I have options to go as either a BLM or THF to Dynamis. Woot! What is Dynamis? Hmmmf, I dunno. Well I know you can get rich there and stuff and it really does excite me somewhat but I will just put that off also.

What does concern me is getting my ZM missions done. I got help from Cornnholio and Uchipu in getting ZM4 done. I almost have finished ZM5 also but I need to do just a little research so that I can have printouts ready for when I send a shout for help.

I put my cursed noble's bed in my MH last week Saturday and I spent all week also going back to Bastok checking to see if he would give me the message for the additinal slots and he said nothing until Sunday this week. My recommendation, put the bed in like on Friday or something cuz even though his message happens after the Conquest update Sunday, I think there is a time that it has to be in the house also.

I haven't turned in my Completion Certificate for our Escort Quest that we did last week and wouldn't you know it, it's Monday again.

Curses!

Oh and I was talkin with Durnik in ls chat after we went to go get exp with our NPCs in Labyrinth of Onzozo and suddenly some guys in the ls start saying f-ing this and f-that, and Durnik decides to take his filter off so that he can read what they are saying, so to stun them all I curse out Durnik with a nice big Caps F you. I hope he knew I was just playin. Heh. Durnik is a really cool member of the ls and usually runs the Monday Night Escort Quests when Uchipu isn't around. Fernanda and Inverno(they're married) are in charge of the escorts now.

Maat fight, [Can I have it?]

BuLeeM me, I love Ga

BLM:63 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:69

This is the area right before you go fight Ramuh. It's in The Boyhada Tree. We had an ok time of it and noone died as is usually the case if you have a full party of 65+ ppl.

Yesterday, I leveled the ole BLM in Bibiki Bay with some people late last night and though it was going good, I managed to embarass myself and die twice. The first time was when I decided to use Firaga II on a mob during their Light skillchain. I can't help it I love Firaga II but I quickly stopped using ga after that spell. The second time, we were about to chain 5 and I target the wrong monster and cast Frost on an EFT thing. Oh the shame of it all.

Otherwise it was not a bad party. We had a NIN tanking and a PLD/WHM and RDM curing which wasn't too bad coupled with me there. I would cast Frost and then they would chain up their sc and I would MB with either Fire after Fusion or with Thunder after the Light. I tried twice to get Burst to work with the Light sc but couldn't get it right, so I went back to MBing with dinky Thunder II and then to Fire III.

I love Ga. You should love Ga. OMGa, why don't ppl love Ga?

Ifrit, now you're playing w/ power

BLM:63 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:69

This is a picture of me getting together with a party to go take on Ifrit in his lair. I gotta say that Ifrit is definitely a step up in power from Shiva but isn't that the nature of Fire, strength?

Anyways, I haven't really put my mind to leveling SMN at all since I want to get my BLM to 65 and actually now that I just red about the hoodie, I think I want one of those too. I dunno. I did finally get to wear my Silk Slacks I bought a few days ago and they look pretty tight with the Black Cote, but not as tight as the Level 20 Black Slacks. And although pt members may snear at me taking a a10AC hit for good looks, too bad!

I just bought my Thunder Staff since it was only 20k and promptly added a macro to switch it in if I ever get into the habit of say "pounding some dhalmels with a Burst skillchain?" I works good but unlike my Ice Staff which helps my Frost and Burn and Choke hit more often, I gotta switch in the Thunder Staff after I cast these spells, and if I am doing a Burst skillchain, I got 3 staves to mess with then. Hey, whattadaya gonna do?

I prob need to upgrade my Lvl 14 Knowledge Rings maybe, but I dunno.

Burst-ing with flavor

BLM:63 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:69

I have been leveling BLM lately most specifically because I am being left in the dust by other BLMs most notably Uchipu and Emagyen. I don't mind it though since it gives me a lot in common with them. Plus I don't want to write about stuff that is uninteresting anyways. The life of a THF often pales in comparison to a mage.

Yesterday I was doing AM skillchains in a pt with some buddies and it was going good. We were doing chain 4 and 5s and maintaining a good run for our money. But in the end it got tiring since we had been at it for like 4 hours. You have to have a good setup to make the gathering good and we did. We had NIN Drk/thf SAM WHM BRD and me BLM. They usually wanted to do sc so DRK could SATA onto the NIN and that turned out pretty good. Then we replaced the NIN with a PLD and it got to be much more difficult for the SAM to voke it off of the PLD, so they tried to do it at start and that just turned out to be more difficult. I was tired already from partying earlier so figuring it out was beyond me and getting exp got slower and slower and finally we stopped late last night.

We did manage to get Hottoty his/her level and Daftorious was very pleased with the use of Ancient Magic. I advised him that it was cuz my AF Hat had such a high negative enmity (Enmity-4) that made it possible, then he showed me his boots for his SAM which had Enmity +3, which he said was how he was able to voke it off of me so often.

Bah, I'm tired. I just spent 2 hours sending myself new pictures and cleaning my mailbox and stuff so now, even though, I have a lot to write about, I think I will just save it.