Cool thoughts

Warrior gets the nod

2006-04-14T23:44:00.000-04:00

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

I had planned to get an XBOX and play Oblivion for a while during the time I spent looking for groups(lfg) to party with. My WAR/THF is clearly the slowest of my characters to get invites now. But he isn't gimp by any means. I have his Royal Chainmail and Darksteel Claymore +1 all in tow. I have a stack of Bream Sushi in reserve as well and I am saving the Sole Sushi +1 that Inverno gave me to use with my WAR in a party since it will help him the most.

I sent a lot of pictures to my mailbox and lost a lot of them probably because I sent them too fast. It's frustrating to lose so much hard work in so short a time.

I need to find some time to get my BLM leveled up to 70 so that I have no more excuse to put off my Maat fight with THF. I am so lackadaisical sometimes. If LB4 wasn't so easy, I probably would still be level 65.

I have worked recently to get my Leviathan avatar quest opened. I really want to get him done and get Fenrir out of the way. I was lucky to hear from Shanisasha that the Yagudo Necklaces quest in Windy Woods is solely for the purpose of Norg fame, which is where the Leviathan quest is opened. I spent 2 full days almost buying up Yag Necklaces and farming in Giddeus. With luck, tonight someone will be doing Leviathan.

I have several stories to tell about my recent missions in COP which are many and I used to have a lot of pictures all set to go, but I lost them. I will have to find them somehow from my trash bin and resucitate them for use again.

Blogger is also messed up for my other computer, so now I am required to do my updates at the desk instead of in my room. It's all for the best though since it is much easier to type at the desk than with a cordless keyboard.

Norton Antivirus sucks. Don't ever buy it. I had McAfee Antivirus and thought well maybe cuz Norton is more well known they would be less "update-demanding" than McAfee. I was wrong.

The most ANNOYING thing in the world is working well with your party and getting ready to ship off and get a quest done and suddenly BAM, a pop-up from your very own Antivirus software has kicked you out of full screen mode and kicked you out of the game. I eventually learned how to bypass this with McAfee but with Norton I haven't got it yet. What's worse is that this new virus has come onto my new computer and started messing with the font. Since I haven't been on any porn sites or musicmatch BS raggedy websites that started up yesterday, I know that Norton themselves must be "insisting" that I update my Virus Protection for a nice fat fee.

Promyvion OH!

2006-04-12T00:07:00.000-04:00

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

Today was the magic day. I tried to get Promyvion-Mea done with my pals but lost the first time. We went with me as a SMN, Taria as a WAR and Nomadic as another WAR and everyone else was pickup. We had SMN WHM WAR WAR BLM WAR. The last WAR was Nomadic who I helped with winning the thing but we spent a lot of time farming animas and getting everyone some animas to throw at the thing to affect it.

People that don't farm animas to get Promyvion-Mea done don't wanna win it that badly and you really are gonna need the secret weapon out there to offset the boss's favorite word... CHEESE! Ya that's right it's CHEESE!

The boss doesn't care if you have been nice to people in your linkshell, he doesn't care if you show up everyday to talk and joke with your linkshell mates, he wouldn't give a rat's ass to hear you say /hello, he wants you dead and he's gonna use AOE Carousel 2 to 3 times in row and do 150 dmg, each time, at level 30, to all of you, even though you are able to may hit for 120 from a weaponskill. That's Cheese.

Animas are anti-cheese. Depending on the anima you can stop the boss from moving, stop it from using AOE effects, and even stop it from using special attacks. It's in your best interest to farm. If you lose the Promy, the best thing you can do is quit. go farm for an hour and prepare to get up there again and be there 2 hours later, it will probably take you that long to get those things all done.

Anyway getting back to the point, we WON the Promyvion finally. I got Taria and Daftorious their access to Lufaise Meadows and we did it all due to Shanisasha who was a BIG help and wonderful through and through.

Usually I add a sidecrack at this point but nah. Blogger is having problems prob due to a virus I am having with the date. See you next time.

Streetlamp in Bibiki Bay

2006-04-09T00:17:00.000-04:00

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

I have recently spent a lot of time leveling my BLM relative to my THF and feel that perhaps it is best to make my BLM my main after it hits 70. On the other hand, the linkshell already has a lot of 75 BLMs and could probably use a 75 THF more. Tough call. I am gonna have to put off spending too much on BLM for the time being. I really want to get my Penitent's Rope and Black Cloak too, but it's not necessary. I do a pretty good job with just your basic AF gear.

This picture is of the Catoblepas camp in Bibiki Bay at dusk. It kind of looks like a streetlamp is lighting the way huh?

Summoner gags himself

2006-03-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-28T19:07:00.000-05:00

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?

2006-03-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-16T16:59:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-13T09:40:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-06T12:19:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-04T23:44:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-02T15:18:00.000-05:00

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.

Promyvion-Mea Ooo

2006-02-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

BLM:60 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:69

This is a picture of us right before going in to fight the Delver. He was very difficult to beat but with the right animas used, we took him. It really was worth the trouble to farm animas for like 3 hrs and having a SMN use their 2hr was very helpful also. I would just not even go without a SMN and at least 4 Psychoanimas and 1 Hysteroanima.

The map quest for the Tavnasian Safehold was very easy to get too. I got help from Shanisasha with that and it was cake. I still have one more cutscene to get to be ready for my minotaur fight.

I might go open my AF Gloves quest for my WHM. Not that I really want to get the gloves but because I have a Nest Coffer key and I might as well use it wisely rather than toss it. The coffer gives a WHM their AF pants which can be worn at 56.

Unfortunately, my WHM is only at 54.

A Good Night

2006-02-20T16:38:00.000-05:00

BLM:59 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:69

This is an old picture of me when I used to fish at Knight's Well. There isn't a fishing gear hat out there so choosing you hat when you fish kind of says something about you to all of your fellow fisher people. I chose my THF AF hat since it's very distinctive.

I haven't fished here in an eon and I really liked doing it too. I find that I can talk on the linkshell like crazy while just scooping up fish by the stacks. I also find that I run out of insect paste rather quickly if I don't load up on it to the nth degree.

I finally finished my Promyvion-Mea quest last night. We had farmed items for anima on Saturday night. We planned to accumulate enough items to get anima for the fight and then go through. I took my BLM/THF to farm since my BLM could d2 ppl and my /THF would give us more drops. Then we got aggro and died from a link and I was forced to use my 2hr which left us without a 2hr to use from my SMN. Well at that point they wanted to quit and do it last night and I told them I had plans for last night with a girl so they said whatever and they called it a night.

Last night my plans with a girl didn't work out so I got home after going out at around 2am or so and lo and behold they were just about to go back in and try again. So I switch to my SMN gear and we start farming for a little while and then we go in.

We were lucky. No aggro at all the whole way and even at the tight spot where we had to aggro a Weeper to get thru, the leader just aggroed and jetted for the exit and I sicked Carbuncle on him and noone was even damaged hardly at all.

At that point we discussed strategy. The Psychoanima is used to keep the NM from using normal attacks and we had four of them so we set up and order to use them. The Hysteroanima stops the mob from using his ws so I advised them to use it after 50% hp and they agreed. I went in as SMN and first thing I did was cast Ice Armor on everybody because I knew from my experience that every paralyzed attack was gonna amt to a whole lot less dmg. Then I cancelled Shiva and brought in Ramuh and used his Thunderspark and sicked him on the NM. Then a little while later, all the while using Melon Juices, I cancelled Ramuh and brought in Shiva to use her 2hr but that's when the NM got crazy and he killed off Shiva. So I summoned Titan with only 86mp to spare and I knew I might not get to use the 2hr so I immediately used Astral Flow but I was too far away. I was clear back with the mages and for my commands to take effect I have to be close to the monster. So I run up to the monster and use Astral Flow and then search for my Blood Pact label but then I got hit by a Carousel and I was running low on mp so I forget everything and stand still and just use my 2hr so that it doesn't get cancelled and sure enough it hits for 426 dmg. I know that I am gonna be able to use it again or even 2 more times so I run to the back, pop another Melon Juice, and hope the party stays alive long enough for me to hit it again. I cancel Titan since he was using up MP and rest, but just as I was nearing the 10 second mark for recast, my party finished off the mob.

I was truly speechless. I didn't even think it possible and as I walked around in Lufaise Meadows, I forgot all about the girl I was supposed to meet. I was in heaven.

Ya think?!!

Black Mage gear on sale!

2006-02-17T11:28:00.000-05:00

BLM:59 WHM:54 Summoner: 30 WAR:56 THF:69

Well I am about to say goodbye to this gear. At 60 I am going to get to use my Wizard's Petasos hat and will be using that with my old Black Cotehardie which I just stopped using for my THF. I really like the way he looks in this setup though, very Shantotto-like I think, heh. I need to figure out what pants would go good though. I already have the AF hands and feet which I think are good til 75 imo but what pants to use? Hmmm. I am thinking of using Silk slacks at 62 since they are white and I think I am just gonna use the White Pants with my Black Cote until then, but who knows, it may look like crap.

I like my BLM to look good since I know that really your use of spells is what makes a difference in a party, so I don't fret too much about extra MP or Evasion stuff really. It's nice sometimes to have a BLM over-nuke the mob and have the mob come over and try to whack a Taru BLM who has his evasion maxed. I know that many other people prob don't have their evasion capped as BLM but since my main job is THF, I usually get hit 1 out of 3 times on DC mobs. This mainly cuz I use Drone Earrings and cuz my AF feet gear(Wizard's Sabots) add even more AGI, plus Tarutarus have high AGI naturally, which makes them good as THFs btw.

Against IT creatures it's very important to have high Elemental and Enfeebling skill if you want your spells to stick but since usually you have an RDM there refreshing you and casting enfeebles you might not need to worry about that part. I have noticed that what really makes the difference in a party is damage. You gotta be able to stick the BIG DMG spells so that you don't waste your time and MP in a party. To do that you are going to HAVE to have the MUST-HAVE-it AF Gloves(Wizard's Gloves). They give elemental skill +15. I believe this skill allows your spells to do more damage although the ability to stick the spells is also affected by this too. I usually toggle with /equip macros the Dark Staff(which allows you to rest for +10mp per tick) and the Ice Staff(which gives a +10 elemental skill bonus). I have noticed often that when my spells get resisted, it's because of my doofusness of forgeting to switch back to the Ice Staff after resting.

If you are an RDM and are reading this and ever get the urge to cast Frost Rasp Drown on the mob because you think you are being thorough, please don't. RDMs may have high elemental skill perhaps compared to other jobs but to try to stick an elemental spell on a mob when a BLM is present is just dumb. It's like me trying to cast enfeebs when a RDM is present. It's just redundant and stupid. I was partying the other day and what I normally do before I switch to my Ice Staff is cast a Blind spell since it is a Dark Skill based spell and my Dark Staff makes sticking those more effective. I sometimes will get off a Stun too just to be skill up Dark skill but I have found that this REALLY pisses the mob off and if you are a THF trying to get SATA off, this really probably pisses YOU off. lol So, I have stopped doing Stun at the start. Anyways to continue, after that I will switch to Ice Staff then and either cast Frost to give the melees a chance to build TP and then switch to Burn when it runs out, or I will straight out cast Burn and then Choke if the skillchain is almost ready to go or we are fighting easier mobs and the fights are not lasting very long.

I was in a party yesterday and an RDM was casting Frost Rasp Drown at the start of every fight, and though he was saving me a lot of time since I didn't have to cast those spells, my Burn was never ready for my MB cuz Burn can't be cast in concert with those spells. I thought I was gonna choke him!

BLMing is like the BEST job. Every party should have a BLM cuz it just makes everyone happy to see the fireworks go off close the end of a fight. Even when I'm just a THF running around doing my candy-poke Shark Bite ws to mob, I gotta go WOW when I see a slam-dunk Firaga III Magic Burst(MB) blast the mob for like a thousand dmg. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so close to the mob so I could get a better view.

I can already wear my Black Cote at 59 but I think I am just gonna save it until I reach 60 and then sell off this entire gear. Not once have I partied in a zone that was under Bastokian control to where the bonuses of the +1 actually helped me. Still, I like the way it looks.

ON a final note, I was partying as BLM the other day with people who didn't want to do a skillchain. Is it just me or does every other BLM reading this also want to immediately D2 ALL OF THEIR BUTTS TO THEIR HP?

BLMing it

2006-02-09T14:07:00.000-05:00

BLM:58 WHM:54 Summoner: 29 WAR:56 THF:68

(Don't set this picture to wallpaper and stare at it or else you will start having dreams of being with a taru.)

I had a fun time with BLM again yesterday. I got it to 58. It's been awhile since I have been wanting to level and esp with Emagyen gone from the ls my mood has been rather meh lately.

Such a waste of a Shaman's Cloak. :P

Anyways, I also got my skill up last night in a skill-up party and really had a good time. Eventually they all left but I hung around til the very end helping em since there were only like 4 people left. We were doing 200+ skill-up and getting WS points. Me, I was just leveling my Archery and Marksmanship. I gotta agree with Nomadic that he probably wouldn't have gotten a lot of skill up points at level 179 which he sed is where his staff skill is for his PLD. I noticed a marked increase in skill ups when I got to 197 or so which verified his statement sort of.

Now I just gotta ask myself one more question, if my wife asked me to quit the game because she wasn't happy with it, would I quit FFXI ??

HELLYA!

Summoner Thoughts

2006-02-08T14:18:00.000-05:00

BLM:57 WHM:54 Summoner: 29 WAR:56 THF:68

Well it's been a long time since I was a level 1 SMN. This is me trying out my Ice Spirit for the first time. I am surprised how easy being a SMN is but it is also very involved as well. You have the ability to deal a lot of damage through Blood Pacts and through regular fighting with your avatar, but it's also very easy to use up almost ALL of your MP in one battle.

I think people wonder sometimes why I am just sitting there even though they continue to fight. For one, noone asked ME if it was ok to pull. Second, if I am out of MP that's all I can do is rest up until I have MP again. If I see the fight is going well without me, or that the mob is VT or something I will just skip the battle altogether. This way I have full or close to full MP for the next one.

I wish I would have gotten my Garuda Dagger though. I don't even feel like playing THF anymore till I get it. Besides, being SMN has been a lot of fun. I almost have enough Conquest Points to get my Presidential Hairpin. It allows "Regen" in areas outside of Bastokian control and has more DEF(@18) than my Empress Hairpin which has 0. The best part is that the switch in equipment will come as I switch from my Empress Hairpin to that during the pull. I will lose +10 Evasion though during the pull but since we are always fighting ITs and they always hit me anyways, I probably won't miss it.

I have been thinking a lot about the SMN job as a sub and for WHM I think it works out great. I use ZERO nuke spells as WHM and usually just stick to my variety of Regen, Haste, and Cure spells. At level 50 the WHM/SMN gets Auto-Refresh as an ability, so that's another reason to sub SMN. For BLM though it's not so useful. I often find myself backing up the WHM with Regen or a couple of cures and I think it is the BLMs duty to watch out for the WHM if his MP gets too low.

I have enough Beastman's Seals to do another "A Worm's Turn" BCNM. Hmmm, I wonder if I should sub SMN as a BLM? :D

Some of her thoughts

2006-02-01T03:38:00.000-05:00

BLM:57 WHM:54 Summoner: 24 WAR:56 THF:68

Oops, I meant to say Summoner Thoughts. Hmm, wonder where my mind is?

I have decided to stop leveling my Summoner for now I guess since I don't want to have to upgrade his equipment again. I need to keep on trying for my avatar fights but after my first encounter with Miss-one-hit-wonder-that-hits-for 568-dmg Shiva (OMG I said all there is to day about her) I have decided to put that off for a while.

I probably will level SMN up to like level 26 though so that I can spend some time in Kazham leveling the ole NPC Jajuju who hasn't seen daylight since I started leveling SMN about 2 weeks ago.

I am excited to have finally reached level 24 though because now I get to use Shining Ruby. I think this is perhaps the SMN's best secret weapon because even though you may not think stackable Protect, which upgrades everyones armor and doesn't get worn out til it expires is that big of a deal, I do. I would put this up there with Paralyze in effectiveness.

I mean, why wouldn't you want to take a chuck of dmg out of EVERY hit the monster makes?

Anyone know a good one word text-message to send to a girl?

Help from Net

2006-01-30T11:32:00.000-05:00

BLM:57 WHM:54 Summoner: 22 WAR:56 THF:68

I got help from Net the other day getting my second horn for my Purple Belt quest. He called out that he had sighted Lumbering Lambert and I told him that I could be right there with my WHM. So he got off his chocobo and luckily he was in his MNK 75 character and told me to hurry and he would keep the Ram engaged "until he pisses me off" he said.

So I went and I got the drop and then Teleport-Holla us back to crag so he could grab another chocobo. It was great fun sort of. I used Haste and Regen II on him as expected and the mob keeled over soon after. I was finally rid of that Rampaging Horn that I had from killing the Tremor Ram about a year ago.

After I finished the quest, I went to see how much the Purple Belt sells for and it was at 40k. 40k! That quest is next to impossible to finish because you have to wait for TWO NMs to pop and it's not like they are poppin every 10 min or so. I JACKED up the price to 80k and sure enough it sold about 2 days later. With the time I spent holding on to that other horn I should have charged more!

Anyways, I checked my title and it said Purple Belt. Hmmm. THF + Purple Belt = Bleah

Hohito's new title: Wandering Minstrel

Thinking about avatars

2006-01-29T10:46:00.000-05:00

BLM:57 WHM:54 Summoner: 22 WAR:56 THF:68

Here comes the bad news. i gotta do my LEVEL 20 avater fights. I am probably gonna put this off as much as I can until I am thinking of nothing else. I want to just be able to skip it but I think part of the Summoner experience is getting through these avatar fights.

I have learned something else that was ingenious about SE and what they did to Summoner. They included a skill that you have to work on in between parties. I sat there for at least 6 hours the other day and raised my Summoning skill from 28 to 51 by just Summoning avatars. I was thinking that perhaps this was a waste of time since someone told me that all it did was increase my spell interruption ability, but no, I have noticed that my avatar now hits far more often during fights and does decent damage with their spells.

Whew, I was about to sell my Energy Rings too which give +6 MP but nah. I can see now that they are better than the Knowledge Rings that give +4 INT. It's lucky I went to the job forums too and learned a little bit about the job from the experts. They say that INT has NO bearing on whether your avatar's Blood Pact(BP) will get reisisted.

Dunes Day

2006-01-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

BLM:57 WHM:54 Summoner: 20 WAR:56 THF:68

This was my last day out in the Dunes . It's so nostalgic to be out there again after not having been there for so long. But this time I had NO fear of the gobs. I never got aggroed once. Oh strike that. I was pulling with my SMN once and had this one gob going this way and the other one coming towards me so I used Dia to pull since it's fast and quick and sure enough the other gob does a 360 and links with the other one. That was so wrong.

I got this one comment from a guy that said that a mage shouldn't pull but to honest, esp with what I learned from exping solo, if you are gonna pull non-stop on low exp mobs, the SMN is ideal cuz he can keep his avatar over there dealing dmg while he goes and casts Dia and brings back the next mob in the set. Who'da THUNK it?

I am surprised sometimes when people come to the Dunes and don't expect to die. I KNOW I am gonna die when people are playing this game for the first time and are learning to pull and Nuke and whatnot. I expect to have to cure the WHM for over-curing and to heal many fighters cuz the mOB is bouncing around like a top.

It is important to note also that if you have done your supply quest to the Valkurm Dunes when your country has control of it, that you will be able to Outpost Warp home once you hit level 20. I was so relieved to hear that and sure enough it worked like a charm and saved me the long hike back home.

Anyway for the most part I enjoyed my stint out here. I got plenty of levels and met many people that are soon gonna party with me in Qufim Island to help me get to 25.

I gotta say though, I'm glad to be done with Valkurm Dunes.

Valkurm Dunes... never gets old

2006-01-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

BLM:57 WHM:54 Summoner: 12 WAR:56 THF:68

I finally did get my drop for the Empress Hairpin. After the pin didn't drop using my WHM, and after a couple of cracks from the whip of Miss Emagyen, I decided to come out here and do this the right way. So, I spent 6 hours camping this guy and sure enough after I got the claim, I got the drop. Yay. I was very excited to get this drop since it is so useful for use in a party.

Melli was leveling Summoner the other day and talking on the ls. She was on level 6 and sounded lonely. Her husband is Mav and he was taking a break from playing this and was playing WOW. If you don't know what that is, good. So she offered to party with me and I decided that it was quite possible to catch up to her and to party with her. Well I think I went overboard cuz I hit level 10 in one day on my own.

I started to level Summoner. I really enjoyed it too. I already had 2 avatars from fights that I had opened after I hit level 65 with my THF. I had Shiva and Titan. I bought the Ice Spirit and the Earth Spirit straight away because I thought I would have to wait til level 20 to use my avatars but nope I was able to use them right away. It was very fast leveling cuz I would just pop out my avatar start chaining mobs til the MP went away, plop, rinse, repeat. It was like I was on a rampage sometimes. I always got no more than 40 exp or so but I got boatloads of crystals and seals. I actually made money from plain ole leveling. I would try to level on bees and bats as much as possible so that Wind crystals would drop and vultures and gobs so that Fire crystals would drop.

I got 40 Beastman's Seals! I started out with 18 so as you can tell I have gotten a bunch in the last two days of leveling. Yep, TWO days.

I have made it to level 12 and am on my way out here btw. I can't wait to get into a party again since I am eager to try out my Stone II and Blizzard II MBs with my avatars. I actually got invited to party out here as level 10 but no way was I gonna hike it out here and party-poopy when I was so rolling in the seals and exp on my own.

I feel bad for Melli though cuz she is leveling but with no avatars. I wanna help here get fame in Sandy and at least get Shiva since the ICE MB, as I have sed before, is the most common one in parties. But, it is a LOT of fame needed to get the quest opened.

My BLM likes Frozen Fish

2006-01-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:57 White Mage:53 Warrior:56 Thief:68

Yesterday, I had a good time leveling with my BLM, I got into a party with another BLM and, with some help from the party, I showed them the art of the Double Freeze MB = ALL DEAD. The setup was BLM BLM BRD NIN SAM THF. We were partying in Cape Terrigan against the Crabs and Fish and Raptors there. Later the BRD was replaced with WHM and we lost the SAM and got a WAR but even so we were still able to do Chain 4s using a different skillchain. It was a very good time but eventually we had to go. I got lucky enough to get immediately invited to another party but only after I had started my own party and had sent an invite. I had a BRD already and was about to get another BLM from my ls to party with us but we disbanded to join their group and they invited us but then didn't invite the BLM and had already gotten a RDM, so I sed forget it. I was sort of tired anyway from partying earlier.

Well that's when I guess my mood turned cuz now I felt like partying and I wasn't gonna wait so I started a party with a me as WHM then I got a NIN SAM THF, and then I was able to invite a BLM who actually sent me a /tell asking if he could party which was cool. This is where it got hairy though cuz we needed a refresher and I couldn't find one.

I did have a DRG waiting to party but do you think I should have taken him over waiting for a BRD or RDM? I dunno. I took the DRG and called myself lucky to have a full group. So we set out for Garlaige Citadel and started to camp weapons. Well in hindsight, I must have been tired from quitting the previous party cuz I didn't catch that the BLM had subbed SMN and I didn't catch that the SAM had subbed RNG. I didn't need any specialty DDs though, what I needed was a backup healer. I also needed a skillchain partner for THF. Well the DRG filled that role nicely but noone told him he was first voker so getting the party organized was sloppy from the getgo. That was later on. Right after we got to camp though the brazen BLM decided to go Carby-pull a weapon before any of us were set and we got our hiney's pasted straight away without me going over the strategy or nothing. This also without Reraise up. So I do the responsible thing as leader and homepoint and choco it back to the dungeon to Raise them.

It was my fault mainly I guess for not being meticulous in my instructions, but that BLM just threw all my plans into the waste bucket. He was like but-this and but-that. I mean if he was so smart (or she cuz it was a female character but real females arent so stupid), why couldn't he see that I needed a backup healer?

The SAM/RNG, bless his heart, decided that he would pull along with the THF. Both of them along with the NIN were having big problems with the DRG who wouldn't first voke. They would just stand there and call him names and stuff and the DRG would just run around like he was JP. I'm sure they were just trying to get him to do his part in the party I guess.

Well both of them pulling wasn't a problem until the two of them pulled 2 beetles and bat all at the same time at which point we almost died but our BLM used Escape. Then out of the blue the NIN decided he wanted to leave. I mean I was like "Why would you wanna leave this GREAT party?"

Later on I talked to my ls about it and Kirbyprime advised me that Over Weapons were RDM monsters that had a full set of buffs that they used and in hindsight I probably should have kept them silenced, but I was so thrown into the fighting and healing that I couldn't enjoy what I was doing.

I threw out an Erase spell every so often just for laughs. The bats did Area of Effect(AOE) Attack Down which reminded me that many such enfeebles are AOE which makes me think hey that Erase spell may not be so special after all. I mean who can afford to throw out 3 Erase spells in between Healing and Hasteing the party? For the most part, I didn't get to use Erase.

WHM power is going up

2006-01-18T14:22:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:53 Warrior:56 Thief:68

Although I really enjoy pulling and playing THF and doing stuff to manage aggro, I enjoy playing WHM more I think. I really like to be in charge. When soloing, I use Flash to get the attention of mobs. At first, it was because it was a Divine Skill spell and using it gets my Divine skill up. Back when I had less gil, I purposely didn't buy those spells because I didn't use them. But Flash was cheap so I got it and started using it for that purpose. Now, I use it because it is very fast. I also have learned to use consistenly whenever we use a NIN as tank since a PLD would be using Flash himself already.

Other spells weren't as cheap however. I recently got my WHM fully caught up in spells and the cost was on the order of 130k. That was all for spells from an NPC. I probably will still get the occassional poke about "where's your Light Staff?" to which I would reply " Why haven't you leveled your BOW?!!!"

This is a picture of me camping in Valkurm Dunes. I took a partial day off Sunday so that I could work on ZMs but it wudn't happenin. I decided instead of getting a party I would come camp the Valkurm Emperor (VE) for the Empress Hairpin. I had camped him before so I already knew the spot that I had to wait and more or less when he would re-spawn so I went a plopped my butt out there and waited. I figured hey if people get the ZMs going, I can just warp to Jeuno in a poof.

Well, I didn't get any ZMs done and I think I am gonna have trouble with getting them done now that so many people have done them.

Oh well, I did actually get the Valkurm Emperor to spawn and I was lucky enough to get the claim too! but as WHM I didn't get the drop. I probably should have subbed THF... ya think ?!!!

Fighter's AF feet, complete

2006-01-17T15:07:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:53 Warrior:56 Thief:68

This is Mufferino. He is in our ls DivineXtasy. He is sort of high-strung. As you can maybe tell from his equipment he is a level 75 MNK and 75 BLM so that puts him on par with Uchipu, the leader of our linkshell. Well don't ask me why but people always wanna bring down a leader somehow. I think I am rather outspoken about what I know and honest about what I don't know, which I think is how people should be. I don't mind saying I don't know, since there is so much that I DO know. What I don't like to hear is other people bringin people down. If you brag, hey you got cause to brag cuz otherwise we would be callin JOO a FOO, but if you say "Hmmph, he thinks he's all that" then it's YOU that's sittin with your tail between your legs yappin like you aint been fed lately. When I see people with great stuff and hear them brag I try to ask about the experience and learn from what they are sayin.

Anyway, that being said I like the guy. Yesterday he offered to help me with my AF feet for my WAR so it was cool. We head off to Palborough Mines to fight the NM that guards the eggs there. It was kind of long but since I had done my BCNMs there and since I had a printout of the quest made, I had already on several occassions figured out where the boss was and had set up a marker on my map.

The battle was sort of a breeze. The printout said that you should take a party of 50s there so Mufferino went as his MNK 75 and I went as a BLM 56 so that I could WARP 2 him and heal him and stuff. It went as planned to. He subbed NIN I think and I cast my usual Paralyze and Choke variety and then after he was halfway down, started to pound him with Thunder spells including Burst. He died with no problem and I got my Mottled Quadav Egg without a hitch.

It's unfortunate I didn't have more of my BLM spells cuz I recently started to buy up all the spells I was missin for my BLM and my WHM since I am now sure that I will be able to make back the money easy enough with the economy being the way it is.

That's what is great about an economy where people pay more for things but the NPC items stay the same price, you can afford to buy more stuff now. I mean in the old days paying for Holy at 30k was considered stupid at least by me since it costs a whole lot of MP to use and most of the time you were healing anyways. Besides, having Divine Skill up is kind of hard when you spam cures the whole time. But now, getting 30k is only 3 stacks of bat wings away which makes it not at all hard to save up for.

This is a pic of me without my Iron Musketeer's Sabatons, which are white, and with my Fighter's Calligae feet on. The Fighter's Calligae add more DEF, +3 AGI, and increases the ablity of "Double Attack" which co-incidentally and actually more by choice is what they say in the forums the +1 INT of my Fighter's Mask does too. Fortunately or unfortunately the two items add +2 to Enmity so that makes a NINs job slightly harder when partying with me but hey, at least the WHM isn't so succeptible to attacks after my OH so subtle PROVOKE! Hah!

My Warrior's AF feet

2006-01-15T20:53:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:53 Warrior:56 Thief:68

This is the picture of when I opened the quest to get my AF feet. It was in the Bastok Mines and as you can tell, this is what they call the "residential district".

About two days ago, I found a couple of people doing the run into Castle Oztroja for the Parasite Skin that is required to get the Warrior's AF feet quest done. This part is sort of difficult but we got two extra people that must have been part of the dude's ls cuz it was just too convenient to get a 60 PLD and 68 WHM to help from a shout.

Anyway we get there and it takes a while to get through the maze. I realized also from getting my THF coffer for AF pants that, if I got left behind, I would not be able to open the doors since I can't reach the handles, but there was no hitch. As a matter of fact, the 2 items dropped from the first 2 leeches I pulled so it ws a quick stay there after we got there.

It was weird though cuz the other guy(the leader that needed the skin) took out his NPC and started partying with him and so I decided to take out my NPC and party with her and for a while there I was non-stop pullin mobs and leeches and we were takin em out with style. It's kind of therapeutic to have all your hits and all your ranged attacks hit consistently and to have your weaponskill do full dmg even though it is against Decent Challenge monsters.

Anyway, I still have to kill the Notorious Monster(NM) in Palborough Mines to complete the first half of my WARs AF feet quest. Should be no problem for the ls I am in to get some help to get that done.

Btw, I finally got my dream item. I am so SO psyched! Uh-uh, can't tell ya yet what it is. ^^

Promyvion Mea woes

2006-01-12T05:06:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:53 Warrior:56 Thief:68

This was one of my many attempts at Promathia quests. This was the entrance to Promyvion-Dem. On this day we beat the boss on the very first try. On a different day, we were able to beat the Promyvion-Holla quest.

However, Promyvion-Mea was a very different story. In my other ls Nobodyzangel, I had my first attempt at Promyvion-Mea with some people from the ls. I got their help setting up the quest and at least getting my feet wet with Promyvion. The way to the goal seemed like no problem as long as we followed the commands of the leader, and since I was totally oblivious to any knowledge of the specifics of the quest, I made sure I followed orders. Sure enough we make it to the boss,

That's where the fun ended though. We had a 12 person alliance working and we drew lots or something to see who would go first. We changed up members so that both parties had a fighting chance but the guy who led us there didn't think we could do it since we didn't have animas. Well I still am not sure what animas are, but the other party lost and didn't try it again. We lost 3 times I think that day and finally gave up. That boss seemed impossible.

The next time I went was last Saturday with a group from the ls DivineXtasy which was led by Mav. Well on the way there after the third Memory Receptacle, we got multiple aggroes and had to Escape. Then we complain a little in the ls and we get some help from two other members to come. It was going well again and it looked like we were going to make it but there is this one tight area that offered us a very little chance of running by it without aggro. More than that though, those monsters are faster than us. Every single time we got aggro it wasn't cuz we timed it wrong or something, those monsters can catch you from behind and did. Well, we got aggro again and some people died but we still had a WHM alive and as she was raising us we got aggro again and the whole party wiped. This was very distressing to our whole group. We quit after that.

The last time I did this I went with some JP people that were organizing this in the morning. I went as BLM and surely enough one or two of them spoke some English. Well we had not a very hard time getting to the third receptacle but we did have some tough times with aggro. We had to Escape once. Well then we go back in and the one party member that stayed there on the third level seemed to be fine since he had full hp but it turned out he was asleep. So we Escape again, our leader heads off to Lower Jeuno to pick up one other party member and then we lose our WHM cuz it was late so then I switch to WHM and I send a /shout for a BLM and we get a WAR and we are off to try again.

Things went well right up to that tight area on the fourth floor where I told them we died and everyone got quiet. I was honestly looking at the area and thinking that there was no way to get past all those large monsters. But then one guy sed to make a run for it and then another and pretty soon we were all just booking it to the zone and barely made it, it was kind of funny.

Then we fought the boss, named The Delver. He had an ominous presence to me. I knew he was going to do his Carousel AOE attack and that as WHM I would he hard pressed to keep my melee alive but I shook that off. I wasn't going to relay my fear as WHM to my troops, I shut my mouth drank my Melon Juice and ate my Roast Mushroom and we began combat.

The Delver is a large spaceship looking saucer thing with long legs; it's similar to the Tripod creature that was in the movie War of the Worlds. From the mages standpoint, the thing towers over the melees. It was doing a good bit of damage but I had the healing well in hand. That is, until it did its Impalement ws which does around 500 damage to one character. No problem, I start to cast Cures and the BLM helps with that a bit. Pretty soon we have healing back under control. Then it does it's Carousel move which hits for like 300 damage in an area of effect. Well it didn't affect us mages at all. At this time the creature was like at 30% hit points and it looked like we had a good chance of winning. But the move resets hate and after curing the melees a bit too much I guess, the monster came over to the mages. It hit us once and the WARs were able to Provoke it back, but just then it did another Carousel, which put all of us in the yellow cuz now it was close to the mages. Well little by little with my Cures I kept the WARs alive while they continued to struggle with Provoking it off of us and then the thing did it's Carousel move another time. WHAM! It knocked me and the BLM up against the entrance in a move so ridiculously cheap that I think I would rather try my hand at killing 3 Red Elites from HALO rather than go thru that cheesy set of events again.

Well not only that but since it was just us six, we realized that after we were taken from the battlefield that noone could raise us. We had no other option but to home point. After all we went through we got only one crack at the boss and now had to restart the quest from the beginning to get another crack at the boss. Well we quit. I should have taken a Reraise Earring with me and later I priced it and was worth 60k which is not so much but it would have been a waste to use it since I have no earthly idea how anyone can beat that boss.

Using a 12 person alliance for this is a very good idea not only because you are gonna need the extra party members if you get aggro, but because you need someone to raise you at the entrance to the boss if your party is wiped out.

I learned several things that day, but mostly I learned what CHEESE was.

A bright new day

2006-01-10T17:48:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:68

Going to Kazham is something I recently became more accustomed to when using my NPC, Jajuju. I first started out with her in Qufim Island and took out the giantsand bats there. Slowly but surely she leveled up to 32 or so but then since I was gonna kill Goblin Smithys for their Silver Beastcoins and kill Ivory Lizards for my Elshimo Marble and for lizard skins, I decided to take her out in Yuhtunga Jungle.

From my previous journals yall could see that I took her out near Rabao also but I think that place is too barren of mobs and honestly it is perhaps too dangerous for my NPC so I have decided to stick to taking her out near Kazham.

Well yesterday I'm off doing my usual run with my NPC and lo and behold the lizard dropped my accursed Slab of Elshimo Marble. Today I finally finished the quest and used the scroll of Teleport-Yhoat for my WHM. Yay, WHM power! More importantly, I was able to sell off a Spirit Torque from my BCNM run and I bought my Erase spell! Yay, Hohito has had a good couple of days.

Thulsa, where are you? You are the wellspring from which I flow!

Well, my latest demon is the Promyvion-Mea quest. More on that later. But let me just say this, daily attempts: 3 so far and with all good people from both ls as well as pick-up parties, all with no success.

Ahriman Lenses are hard to come by

2006-01-08T19:33:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:68

I had little success in farming an Ahriman Lens from the Floating Eyes in Xarcabard so I decide to hike it out to Beaucedine Glacier and try to farm from those eyes since they are of a lower level. I still didn't get any and I had a tough time of it too. Well I will just have to do what I have learned to do with SKILL throughout my life, I will put it off.

We tried to do the Promyvion-Mea today with a group of people from the ls DivineXtsy and I thought we were going to make it without a hitch but it was not meant to be I guess. We got aggroed and then a link after that and then we died. Then we tried it again and we died again. We didn't even get to fight the boss but that would have been a tough fight.

The last time I tried to get this done we went with people from the Nobodyzangel ls and they had a tough time of it too. The boss, named Delver I think, uses an Area of Effect(AOE) move that literally puts the warriors on their hiney(I like that word, spelling?).

Also, yesterday I did another BCNM 40 and got to watch a whole lot of people get good drops and me I got zilcho. But that's ok, if I sell my Nemesis Earring for good gil I will be happy. I wish I could get my Sleepga II though so I could sell it and get my dream item. /cheer

Wanna know what it is? Uh-uh :P

Valkurm Dunes, I knew him Horatio

2006-01-05T13:23:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:68

I passed the Plump on my way out here the other day from Mhaura. She has been diligently leveling her BLM in Valkurm Dunes without a sub and for that I have to give her some credit; "Stick it out, Kiddo" !

I was here yesterday as well. After I got my level to 68 yesterday in Bibiki Bay, our BLM disconnected and never came back. Well, we didn't have a WHM either so I was stuck like chuck to walk my holy hiney back to Mhaura across the whole region. Of course I could have used my Instant Warp scroll but nah, I had a Puffball on me and I was determined to make it to my old friend Rycharde and deliver goods as promised! He was really overjoyed, and I got it on video too, lessee where did I put that?

Here is the news from the weird

2006-01-05T12:55:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:52 Warrior:56 Thief:68

This was our run into the Toramarail Canal to get me and Uchipu's AF3 done. It was difficult to set up since I had not planned on it and it turned out to be something that was added to the end of our quest to help Garybaker with his WSNM( Weaponskill Notorious Monster) which he had to kill to get his Savage Blade ws.

For the most part it was sort of simple. We were supposed to click on the ??? and let the NM despawn and then have the other person that needed the quest click the ??? and then have the group fight it only after the last person in the series did it, so that the whole group would have to fight the NM only once. Well I didn't get clear instructions so I went in clicked the ??? while my Sneak was up and then it aggroed the BLM that was in the back who thought that I knew I was supposed to wait for it to despawn.

Ho hum. Noone died. Though the NM was very resistant to the spells I was casting on it, even with my INT+ and Elemental Skill bonus from my AF Gloves and Ice Staff, he did succumb to physical attacks from the PLD.

I am the Paragon of Black Mage Excellence now. And I really would like to start leveling the ole BLM, but I have to get my THF up to 70 so that I can relax and work on fishing for a while and maybe take up a craft, nevermind fighting Maat.

I already know that I have no chance against him unless I get several items first like the Thief's Kote gauntlets among other things. Survival will be key so subbing WHM is my plan for beating Maat for now.

Lower Jueno, that is, Downtown Shiva

2006-01-03T15:10:00.000-05:00

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

Lower Jueno, this is the center of attraction for the game. In it you can check on one of many items you have up for auction. You put things up for auction so that you can make money you see. The goal is to sell items for a profit. Then you use this profit to pay for chocobos, buy arrows, buy food, or even buy medicines. And though many people look down upon people that raise prices when they know they have a high demand item, anyone educated knows that it's simply a result of perceived demand.

The more you want something that someone else has and they know it, the more they charge you even for the time you spend wanting it or for the knowledge of how to get it.

This used to allow pool players a huge advantage of sorts because no matter how skilled you became and how practiced you were, if you were denied certain "secrets" of the game, you would forever find yourself losing to someone with some plain old wisdom, someone perhaps not even that smart.

This is how it is in FFXI. Without a common reference to go to, like Allackhazam for example, we would have no resource. We would be left without a huge mass of community information that allows people to go there and at least see what items do, nevermind looking up information on quests and ZM and Promathia that give you the "wisdom" of how to get those items. So at least on that level we all have the same ability to look up information for what we want to know.

But the community feeling ends there. We are all competitors vying for that stingy gil dollar. We want noone to show up to the AH with the same goods we are trying to sell. And if it so happens that the last one was sold 5 minutes ago for 1k more than the previous one and 15 of them sold today, it's just normal to expect someone like me to JACK it up another 5k, cuz I ain't the poor people with their broke back horses sittin around, I gotta USE that money for the greater good of society which includes making me smug with happiness.

Well, I guess it's no wonder prices are goin up. But think of it this way, if you sell your stack of Bat Wings for 10k, instead of the 3k they used to sell for, at least NOW you can afford to take the Chocobo at the Crag of Mea for a change.

Working on Jeuno quests

2005-12-29T14:45:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-28T22:58:00.000-05:00

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!

2005-12-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

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!

2005-12-26T03:36:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-25T00:38:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-23T23:50:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-12-20T17:39:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-20T15:39:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-12-17T02:20:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

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!

2005-12-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-12T01:47:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-06T15:29:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-05T17:56:00.000-05:00

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?

2005-12-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-04T00:19:00.000-05:00

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?

2005-12-03T00:32:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-03T00:07:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-02T03:03:00.000-05:00

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!!

Black Mage does a Promy

2005-11-22T18:37:00.000-05:00

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

I dusted off the ole BLM two days ago when I used him to try to do the Promyvion-Mea quest for Chains of Promathia. We had a decent time getting to the end but once we got there the Mega Boss was close to impossible to beat. We had a WAR WAR THF SMN WHM and me, the BLM, in our party and we still had a tough time keeping the tank alive after the monster did its Area of Effect(AOE) attack on us. We all died 3 times.

Yesterday just as I was waking up I got an invite to party as BLM so I decided to go ahead with it since I wanted to get back some of the exp poins that I had lost last night doing the Promy. It was just me and the PLD at first and it was not going well while we were lfg but eventually he asked me to take leader. By that time we had BLM BLM PLD DRK so the last two we needed were a DD and a WHM. But when I finally got a hold of a WHM, who was JP slightly, she sed she and a BLM were a set so I sed OK to the offer since we were going to King Ranperre's Tomb(KRT) and didn't need a dispeller. So we go with 3 BLMs a WHM a DRK and a PLD. We had a good time of it too. Didn't mess up on the way to the Armet Beetle camp. And we exp'd for a good while doing just fine with me doin Ancient Magic(AM) every so often cuz I could afford to. Unfortunately, one of the BLMs fell asleep. I got a nice picture of all of us poking her... it was a group poke, lol. The party there was still fun though just not so palatable since one of the members was asleep. So when we got a replacement, which luckily for us was a BRD who could dispel, we decided it was time to move the camp to Cape Terrigan.

Not a bad camp really but what was bad was the journey there. We waited a while at the zone to Kuftal Tunnel for the Bard to come. However, while waiting, the BLM and his girl the WHM(the set) decided to leave. so I set out to find a replacement for them as well. After a while I got a WHM and THF to replace them and we were set to go.

Well we had some political problems with who thought what and where we should party, so the THF had to go. It's always a hassle being leader sometimes. Especially when you are the BLM that has to give people a Warp 2 home. I direct everyone to the beach at Cape Terrigan and Sneak everyone then the THF, Rank 10, starts to have second doubts about whether we should go there cuz some of the members levels are low, I know what it's like to be in party, have great gear, and start missing the mobs like you got your fishing gear on or something. So, in an effort to show some respect, I tell them that we will stop and do Robber Crabs in Kuftal Tunnel at the zone for a while till the party gets tuned. Well, then he starts asking for Warp 2 since "it was clear we had no idea what we were doing". Well I didn't give it to him. I told him he would have to party for 5 min and then I would do it. I wanted to show him that Robber Crabs weren't going to excessively gimp the exp but he just kept harping "Warp2 plz" over and over and got himself a replacement and when it was clear I wasn't going to immediately do it, he went and got aggro and killed himself on some Robbers. What a jerk!

Soon, his replacement arrives and just then, when we get ready to party, it's about 7pm and then it's time to go play darts. Well it was Tuesday! So basically I got a really nice group together, worked hard with several members, all so THEY could party for a while. Oh well.

I got some good practice in with my BLM while I was in KRT and made good use of my AF gear too. It's great! I did Ancient Magic(AM) and the mob didn't even budge. It was too cool sometimes. Plus I made good use of my Dark Staff that cost me so much gil.

It wasn't a lot of experience points, but I had a good time.

Bah!

2005-11-21T22:02:00.000-05:00

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

It was dead dull boring day today. I went to Crawler's Nest as WAR/BLM in an effort to skill up my WAR's GAX and AXE and STF skills and I really tested out my abilities to sub BLM. I started by casting Ice Spikes, since the crawlers are weak to ice. Then I tried casting Bind Bio and Poison among others. I did this because on my hike out there I tested using spells on mobs to see which would work best. On easy mobs the Bind Bio Poison then Choke strategy was working really well. Once inside though I found that the crawlers just brushed aside my low level Bind. So instead I casted Ice Spikes Blind then Rasp. This worked out best I think since it maximized my ability to evade hits in between me casting Drain to up my hit points.

Overall, it worked out ok I guess. I got my AXE skill up from 60 to 95 and moved my GAX skill from 85 to 95. I hate being so far behind in skill though!! Where in the hell am I gonna get a cool 100 points of skill and for two weapons?!!

Later I tried bringing a Nest Beetle to the entrance so that I could skill up. It worked out for a while cuz when it was almost dead I would just zone and rest outside and when I came back he was at full HP again. I got him on purpose because he didn't aggro others so most people just passed it while on their way. But then one time a party just walked in and hacked it up. I can't blame them I guess since they probably didn't know that it was a non-aggro mob. It was kind of disheartening though because I had to pull it from clear out at the Nest Beetle camp which was quite a ways away. I wasn't about to pull back another one. Sometimes though, it was really pounding the hits on me though and I found myself close to dying several times. Skill ups were working though true enough but as the .3s turned into .1s in the end I just felt light years away from having my weapons up to par. I was not gonna be getting any more skillups unless I fought harder mobs and the harder mobs were gonna kill me. Bah!

The rest of the day was a waste. I walked back to Jueno changed to THF and went out to farm what I needed to finish a stack of Silk Threads which I got from killing the Worker Crawlers I killed before doing the Nest Beetle, but man that took friggin forever!! That last Silk Thread must have taken me a full half hour for it to drop!! I just got disgusted. Bah!

Later I put my flag up and lfg but I really wasn't in the mood to party and didn't get an invite anyway. Bah!

Plus, I got reminded of Uchipu's Escort Quest tonight so in anticipation for the quest I take the airship over to Bastok to open it and "Smack!" I didn't have enough fame. So all afternoon I am hanging around the house not going out cuz I wanted to be sure I was here for the quest and now I am not able to go. Baahhhhhh!!

This day was crap.

Begin PUSH to 70

2005-11-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

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

It's never too bad a day in Kazham. I am about to embark I guess on my free trip to 70 now that LB4 is done and I have my title "Cloud Breaker". I have to make sure I keep stock of enough arrows and bolts so that I can keep them both on par. I still need a little skill up on my Marksmanship to be up to speed. I bought special bolts specifically so that I could skill up on that but doing Steelshells in Boyhada is still too high up for me at skill 200+. I need something around skill 150+ to effectively skill that up. My archery is working fine in parties now though. I skill up only a little bit but I do hit the mob about 1 in 5 times. Still, it's not enough to waste money on Demon Arrows though. Those sell for about 18k and cause the "Attack Down" effect that the spell Bio is famous for. Again, it's too expensive. Regular Beetle Arrows sell for 1k sometimes and I don't really need the damage as much as I need the +5 Ranged Accuracy on them to keep my skill ups goin. I have my fundage all the way back up to 200k and am wondering about Erase since doin solo missions now with THF/WHM at 64/32 would allow me to use Erase. Yep, still wondering, lol. The price has gone back up a bit to 600k which is not a bit it's a FRIGGIN 100k more gil that I don't HAVE!
Well, I guess it's KSNM time. I got 30! ^^

Our queen

2005-11-20T00:04:00.000-05:00

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

Here is a picture of our queen Uchipu saying hey to Cornholio before our jump to Xarcabard. She really does remind me of a queen sometimes when I look at her and all of her exotic clothing that I know barely anything about. We need to get her a little something that she wears everytime she party's in the ls. A little something that says "Hell yeah DivineExtasy baby!" um uh , what is it called? Can I have it? Oh yeah, a Relic Weapon... the staff. ^^

BLM AF Feet

2005-11-19T23:33:00.000-05:00

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

Can you believe the luck? I am doing a skillup party and it's not going very well since it's four people and one of em wants to do Helm Beetles and the rest of us are just fine happy with Soldier Crawlers. For the most part we all got along but fantastically, and lucky for me since I didn't need to skill up on Helm Beetles, we try skillup on a Water Elemental. Well we kill it and I am so happy that we did it that I become completely complacent with whatever they wanna skill up on. I know, selfish me.

Anyway, after that I needed to take that "Bag of Seeds", which is what the elemental drops, over to the Chumimi and open the next part of the quest which is to kill Demon Chancellors for the Whine Cellar Key. Well once again I am saved by my linkshell. One of them, Chaostormentor, is doing a Coffer Key party in Castle Zvahl Bailey and it occurs to me that I can go as THF, help them with the drops, and hopefully get MY key to drop in the process. Well it does and thankfully enough I stay and one of the PLD shows me the way to the "Ore Door" and I get my Wizard's Sabots with ease.

I told him I would stay for a while and help him with his key but Immediately after that I told him I had to go and then I felt bad about it. I was really tired and it was like 5am. I hope to pay him back someday. His name is Porterz.

I gave a try to Ballista yesterday and took my WHM out there since I had Seer's Gear and it was a 30 cap Ballista. It was fun for the most part. At first I noticed that I was the only WHM and also noticed they weren't paying me much attention so I went about my business and supported my fellow Bastokers, and we won the first match! Then I set out to become, what I became, namely White Meat! Those guys were eyeing for me the entire time the second match and I died several times even with full buffs up. It wasn't pretty. They won the second and the third match and won the tourney. It was still so much fun though that I immediately signed up for the next one which was level 40 Bastok vs. Windy.

This match was much different since now I had access to Haste and a few more buffs and more equipment, but I still just ended up supporting. There were many more deaths in this tourney and it was choc full of ppl. The first Ballista was 4 vs 4, this one was like 10 vs 10. It was much larger but also more difficult. Still It was great fun, even if it was obvious to everyone else that it was my first time.

By the way, how do you toss a Petra in a Rook?

Darksteel Claymore +1

2005-11-15T18:39:00.000-05:00

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

Ah yes, here it is, what you have all been waiting for; its a picture of my nice new Darksteel Claymore +1! It's a beauty and believe it or not people that think I suck cuz I don't have Axe leveled have gotta hand it to me when the mob comes away from a NIN from plain old hacking away at the mob. Heh, that's dealing some damage! Just think what's gonna happen now that I can wear my new Fighter's Mask (AF) which includes not only booyah! armor, but also enmity +1! Ninjas beware!

Artifact Gloves

2005-11-15T17:58:00.000-05:00

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

This a picture of me waiting for Uchipu and Cornholio and Chaithai to come to Xarcabard to help me kill Dark Spark. This was been the luckiest two days yet in the game. I have never been more happy than when I finally had my BLM gloves. I thought when I originally got the THF gloves, which Uchipu and Net helped me get, that I had forfeited my right to have the gloves for my BLM character which would have been a huge mistake cuz there are many things that give +3 DEX in gloves but nothing offered BLMs gives them the +15 to Elemental Magic that the gloves do.

However, I found out while exploring Garlaige Citadel that I had very little skill as a BLM now using my new computer. All the spells were out of order and I require the order to be just so so that I can page down effectively from the list of all my spells. When I first started out I used macros but as I got too many spells to count, I decided to continue using the spell list which allowed me to cast lets say "Fire" then "Fire II" then I would wait on my "Fire" spell to cast that again as I watched the timer count down. There's no use in using other spells when the monster is in fact weak to fire. What do you need a kick in the head? The MOb is WEAK to fire then YOU hit it with FIRE, duh! On the other hand, A BLM like me with his nice new AF feet and Tactician Magician's gear going through his spell list while a MNK takes half the hp of the coffer mob down and walks over and pokes you and goes back to fighting is my definition of " YOU SUCK", lol. He didn't really do that tho.

I did my Gobbiebag 3 and 4 quests today so I have max inventory space on my guy now but my Erase scroll is gonna have to wait. Sad too cuz I priced them and they are back down to 500k, and there are 14 of em which means I would have had enough money soon if I hadn't spent a 200k of it today. Oh well. At least I can farm for longer now... oh joy!

Upper Jeuno at night.

2005-11-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

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

My leveling stint has come to a halt I think. I need to get some things squared away first before I continue levleing my THF. I want the Peacock Charm. Nothing less than the impossible for this guy but hey, I got friends so we'll see. I also need to get those Creek Clomps or whatever cuz they rock more than my current Noct Gaiters +1. I gotta find a cheap way to get a line up on some Squid Sushi. I will even take up fishing if I can find someone that will trade me fish for a stack of Squid Sushi. I also need to get rid of a bunch of crap that's in my MH. I can't level THF knowing I won't be able to collect my stacks of crystals that I am accustomed to and to do that I need space. More on that experience probably in my next journal.

I am also longing to get my AF Hands and Feet for my BLM and my AF feet for my WAR but those guys even though I love em, have got a lot of spending to be done so that they have the kind of gear that a person playing them as their main would have. For the BLM I still have to buy 2 Sleep spells and some II spells and nevermind thinking I could afford AM spells. Both of the AF quests for his hands and feet were started by characters in Upper Jeuno, hence the picture which reminds me of my fave BLM losing my interest slightly even though he is a little more fun to play.

The WAR has his GAX skill at 80 but I am sure ppl gonna start wondering wth ! no Rampage?! Axe skill is at 5 now. Luckily my Archery with THF has really improved now that I use my Ranged Accuracy rings when I pull. I was even able to switch out my bow to my crossbow and Sleep an add the other day, twice. I felt like great at that point cuz ppl were probly like "HEY! The THF slept it! He can probably sleep all his own links." Well, no not yet but when I get crossbow leveled to my archery then yes. Sleep bolts sleep every time usu if you hit with em but sleep arrows are a waste of money, don't buy em they rarely sleep even if they hit. ARchery 186 Marcksmanship 155.

I gotta kill a Water Elemental in Crawler's Nest to get a leg up on my BLM AF feet quest so I have been studying how my BLM could maybe solo him. I dunno if sleep would work on a water elem but if I could sleep it repeatedly, I could maybe chain some burst spells in on him and do it solo. I dunno. Gotta skill up dark skill I know that.

Yuhtunga Jungle

2005-11-08T13:36:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:51 Warrior:56 Thief:63

I know, the last thing you guys wanted to see was a screenshot of THIS god-forsaken place. It has Fire Elementals, those godawful Smithys running around, and it's just teeming with Ivory Lizards that don't wanna give up the drop for my Teleport-Yhoat scroll.

Well I gotta say that the scenery looks really cool sometimes now. And when it starts raining, it looks positively majestic in there. Still, I am not happy that I don't have my Elshimo Marble, which drops from the Ivory Lizards. I am also not happy that the last time the Teleport-Yhoat scroll sold in San d'Oria it sold for 40k and I WASN'T smart enough to wrangle it in while it was cheap and more available.

Nevertheless, I gotta keep the focus. I have set my hp to Kazham now so that I can Warp there and check on AH prices in Windy, take a choco to the outpost and outpost warp home to Bastok, and then I can Teleport-Altep and hike it to Rabao and check AH prices in San d'Oria. Too neat huh?

Well try telling that the party leaders when they have to wait for me to take an airship to Jueno. Usually they don't wait but sometimes they will. When I get into a party this way though, it is a very good one by the time I get there.

I got into just such a one yesterday. It was not completely done when I got there but since the leader was patient enough to wait for me to get there, he was patient enough to get a good group together. The setup was WHM BLM BRD NIN MNK THF. And, even though I love hitting for 1376 dmg (it's my max) on the birds in Bibiki Bay, I don't like taking on the gobs there. My Black Cotehardie has nice elemental resistance to most things +3 but -30 resist to fire. This is bad against Goblin bombs. I died twice. I don't like dying. I don't mind losing exp too much but I DO mind losing money. I now use Squid Sushi exclusively since I am gonna treat THF as my main til 75. This esp since I don't need to buy another weapon for him. More on that later. Squid Sushi sells for 22k and that makes every death cost me 2k about in food. It takes about 10 gobs or so to get 2 Goblin whatevers from the Smithys that are gonna get me those 2k back. That's too much money lost and too much wasted effort. Having died twice, I was now 4k in the hole.

In the past I would switch off between using Bream Sushi and Meat Miths just to see which "value-conscious" food would give me the most benefit. Bream Sushi gives a bonus to DEX and VIT and Acc; and Meat Miths give bonus to STR and Attack; Squid Sushi gives the bonus to DEX and to AGI as well as Acc. Well I would settle for the first two because Meat Miths sell for 5k a stack and Bream Sushi was usu at about 15k a stack. Squid Sushi, though it was at 15k, is now pushing 22k a stack! I used to think no big deal if I miss out on a little AGI and save some money esp before I was level 60 when I was still using Viper Bite.

But recentlly on the THF forums in Allakhazam I found the multiplier used to calc the dmg on Dancing Edge and the AGI is a very significant part of the Trick Attack damage. As a matter of fact that being said, with the +7 AGI that the Lust Dagger adds to your stats, I don't think there is any other dagger that I am going to be using period. For a significant change to take place I would need to have DMG go from 20 to 25 and even at LVL70 daggers are giving about 23 or so as a stat. I might try the Harpe(DMG:28) and see but I know it will probably affect my Dancing Edge negatively because it doens't add a bonus to any stat.

I was thinking Garuda Dagger also maybe but nah. I am convinced that the Lust Dagger is the best weapon to use for Dancing Edge, period.

The Best Party EVER

2005-11-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:50 Warrior:56 Thief:62

This was the best party yet with my THF. We didn't even setup SATA always and more importantly, we used a NIN tank, but it was excellent. I expect that we did a chain 5 everytime and if we didn't, it didn't matter cuz we were RAKIN in the exp. This wuzza my second time in Ulegearand Range. A fantastic spot to party. Raptors are all over the place except on this slope so it's very easy to pull. In fact our monk pulled for us this time which made my job a lot easier. She ws great too. The NIN was a bit of an ass tho but still I can't complain when everything was so coming together for us {Do you know what Assassin is?} I would gain TP very fast with Haste on me and the MONK too and soon after that we would do the Howling Fist > Dancing Edge > Distortion > Bilzzaga II chain and it ws the BOMB. I would hit for consistent 700 damaage (sometimes 800) with about 300 dmg to Distortion, then the BLM would consistently hit MB for 700. Mobs were dying quick. I am not sure if they were as impressed with me as I was with them but at the end of the pt they thought I was the SHIZat!

I can't decide if I want to level some more or bring up my other jobs. Usually I like to level my other jobs soon after I find new camp spot so I can use the drops for gil. I did this with Beetle Jaws in Garlaige Citadel--I put 3 jobs through there and then sold 2 stacks of em for a total of about 50k or so.

New computer is the BOMB

2005-11-04T23:43:00.000-05:00

Black Mage:56 White Mage:50 Warrior:56 Thief:62

Yes I deleveled my WHM doing a danged BCNM 40 but I at least finally got my feet wet in a BCNM(ie. Burning Circle Notorious Monster). Erase didn't drop though and 2 people lost their seals when we lost the first 2 and then won the last 2. I was fourth so I won but the most valuable thng I got was a Black Pearl and a scroll of Ice Spikes. I immediately put the pearl up for sale at 30k and it sold in less than an hour. To compensate the two that didn't get anything for their seals I sent them each 10k. It''s not much but hey I couldn't have got my stuff without them so I felt it was fair. I might have sent more if I got like a major drop. The other guy that won his BCNM got a Survival Belt which I would have LOVED to have been able to use with my THF during pulls. It sells for 300k tho, and I aint spending that much for switch-in gear. It has a +5 Evasion ability.

I just upgraded my computer last week in an effort to reduce the lag I got playing THF and not getting SATA off quickly. I don't know why, but after a couple of hits from the monster, I usually end up at camp and hit my SATA macro and if I do that and I get a Cure III, I get frozen in place for a while and that, as I have said before, puts the WHM in danger cuz he's gonna have to cure the first-voker. I also wanted to be able to finally have bump mapping which I couldn't do with my old video card which was 128K but MX series NVidia. The computer I have now has 3.0 GHz processor speed, 1GB RAM and a 6800 series 256K video card from NVidia.

Well I am in heaven. Not only do I have no problem with SATA now even with full graphics and effects turned on, but just look at how beautiful the scenery looks. I sit there now amazed at the landscape sometimes. Even YUHTUNGA looks good. And you all know how much I like Yuhtunga Jungle.

I talked some more in Uchipu's ls called DivineXtasy. I hope I can manage to stay in there a long time. I have made a lot of friends in Nobodyzangel ls but I can tell that they don't relish my use of another ls. Still sometimes I just want a different set of ppl to speak to.

I have leveled up to 62 with my THF and I think I am gonna take it to 65 before I stop. I find it pleasant to be among really high level ppl like Net Uchi Ema and Mith and Corn and Kineal etc. and it drives me to want to get at least one of my characters to 75. I used to not care so much about maxing a character out since that would just be one less character I could level, but I dunno.

I have also recently wanted to get my Erase scroll even if I have to buy it and it occurred to me today that if I sell my Teleport-Yhoat and Teleport-Vahzl scrolls, that they would bring in about 450k and then since Erase is at 500k I could afford it but would lose my teleport ability to those areas. Still, I noticed recently that Erase is at least as effective as Dispel against some mobs and to be honest I would be ashamed to not be able to cast Erase as a White Mage.

White Mage is on hold.

Papyrus Paper

2005-10-29T23:37:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-26T21:52:00.000-04:00

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?]

2005-10-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

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!

2005-10-23T23:56:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-22T01:55:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-20T15:54:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-19T15:36:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-19T15:31:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-13T17:54:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-11T13:34:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-10T12:29:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-07T23:52:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-06T10:47:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-04T13:14:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-04T12:47:00.000-04:00

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!

Gimp is not pimp

2005-08-27T09:52:00.000-04:00

Black Mage:55 White Mage:51 Warrior:53 Thief:57

Hmm. I like leveling my WAR but the more I play as WAR/THF the more I want to play as WAR/WHM. I'm not kidding. But I find the only useful thing I can do in a party as WAR/WHM is mostly piss off people. I don't mind telling you that Divine Seal + Cure and Provoke are powerful tools for hate gathering, and, even though it kind of sounds foolish, I am a force to be reckoned with if I have Refresh cuz then I am the Cure spammer king then!

Unfortunately, my lack of experience in a party, and their lack of experience with my guy especially, causes me to lose hate on the mob often. This is much less of a problem with a NIN tank tho, and if me and him trade blinks, usually the MP used for healing is close to nothing. I was partying with JPs again the other day(aka. morning since I am EST) and after I am invited and asked if I had NIN sub and told them no, I was expecting full lines of text bashing my war/whmagedness, but surprisingly they bought it. A little later, I was pulling and doing a fine job of half-tanking but since I only have a Great Sword leveled I am sure there were mutterings of "foolish mortal!" going on by the JPs.

Still, cuz I love getting involved in the fighting, I have the most fun casting and meleeing and voking with my WAR/WHM... even if he is gimp.

Goblin Hunters

2005-08-17T21:43:00.000-04:00

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

I made my way back to my secret spot killing Goblin Hunters and took my skill in Archery from 124 all the way to 151. This is the max for a Thief level 52, but seeings how I am now 57, I got more work to do. Not surprisingly, the skill ups at the spot are becoming more rare, but on a good note I now sometimes get a skill up from pulling in parties with my Lightning Bow +1 if the mob is Very Tough.

Unfortunately, I had the bad luck of meeting this one party at the zone that was trying to level up for exp at the area. I hit my mobs for skill up points and then zone, tho. My strategy, with Goblin Hunters(which are RNG type mobs), is to pull them with a Ranged Attack and get their HP down to about 75%. This is when they come over for melee. Well that used to pose no problem with lower level mobs since they would often miss me being Easy Prey and all. But, the Goblin Hunters are Decent Challenge at level 56, so this means when they come over to dagger-throw spunky-low-hp-Taru in high-Dex-low-Def gear, I take a beating quick! Fortunately, subbing WHM helped since I would cast Protect II, Blink, and Regen to help with hp while I zoned. But the REAL bonus came when I hit level 56, cuz at level 28, White Mages get Stoneskin! This has made my life MUCH easier. Now, I just cast Protect II, Stoneskin, and Barstonra and I am good until it wears, or until the mob gets low enuf HP to come over and melee. That's great cuz it takes a long time for me to have to zone, but when I do, any party at the zone now gets an extra useless low-hp-no-exp Gobbie to have to deal with. Well, in my career I have only heard these words one other time and can you guess what they were? I get a /tell, "MPK?"

I'm like "no.", but I also ain't moving to another spot since I would have to hike it all the way back to Kazham, FULL of arrows. Well, I try it for a while and think wth I can just exp tmw since the last time I was there there was nobody. So, I log off. It was prob around 2am. I log in at 12pm noon the next day, and lo and behold, they are still there! Well like it or not I start skillin, and pretty soon, being rather inventive if I may say so, they move their party over to the side and start waiting for my mob to gain its hp back and then use my mob to add to their exp. I usually took a beating from the mob anyways and had to heal and regain MP before I came out, so it worked to both our benefits in a way.

Later, I left that place and got lost a bit and found the Den of Rancor. In there I see this 65 party start to kill Tormentors and interestingly enough I find this nice spot to pop a squat and watch em. ^^ It was great fun to watch. I turned on chat log and watched their dmg, and since I have no high level characters like them, it was neat to see the Tachi: Gekku and SharkBite to Distortion skillchain work. Nomamesguey was the Thief, and he is in my linkshell and sometimes answers my questions about THF gear and whatnot, and since I get a lot of questions about why I haven't subbed NIN, I look up to him since he is a THF/WAR. I could change subs but that would just be a different job to me and one that I am not altogether used to.

One day someone's gonna ask me in a party, at level 65!, why I didn't sub NIN and I am gonna say, well if I was richer and more blue-eyed, I might have. >.<

ps. Hohito likes his eyes: Brown.

NoBodyzAngels(NBA)

2005-08-13T00:14:00.000-04:00

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

I am in this linkshell called Nobodyzangels. I joined it cuz of Kodiak but found many of my old friend's list guys already members of it. But to my surprise, Saeliin was there. Saeliin was in my linkshell EternalFamily which only had 5 people or so in it. It ws cool though cuz my friend Rod was the leader and I know him in real life. He is a bartender and works mostly on the weekends like me. He and his wife had decent level characters and helped me get my subjob quest done and my Carby ruby for SMN job. I got rank 5 with their help too. Anyway, I am prob 60% sure that Rod's wife got tired of the game and got Rod to give it up too. One time a guy refused to pay his wife for a teleport and Rod went crazy on the poor guy. He was even mentioning it at the bar. Well you never know who's wife you're pissin off I guess. ^^ Anyway Saeliin was in that linkshell and helped out a lot with stuff. He really does like to help people. I was happy to find out he was in this linkshell. We use our real names in tells now when we talk, lol.

Wednesday, Sabrial was back online after her trip to CA. She is a very diligent ls leader. Her husband is Dyntithius and he is less energetic but still pleasant to be around. As a present, he got her swimsuit quest done for her and got her the swimsuit and she was wearing it around. I think she was very happy with it. Well the ls was very quiet while she was gone but you can tell how many people she has helped when everyone goes SAB!!!!!!!! wb wb wb ^^ ^^ ^^. lol. First thing she decides to do is to help get Saeliin's coffer from the Temple of Uggalpeh for his SMNs AF. I was like, dang just like that, wow, so I decide to take my THF along since the TH2 will help with the drops. It was a long ride out there on chocos and I could tell by the many pauses Sabrial was taking that she was either overloaded with tells or she was tired from her trip and just got back. I really am amazed that she took time to help ole Sael, but I was also surprised how many people came along to help. Vondolyn was a high level RNG and ws helping. Sab is a 75 RDM. Klausen was there with his 58 MNK this time. I actually was able to skill up my Archery a bit while we started hitting up those mobs for the key.

Normally I would not have got up and went out to help just like that. I like to plan things and look forward to helping and prioritize what I am going to do. I had a printout of things I was going to do that night like get my AF2 pants and with enough time get the AF2 armor and skill up Archery and scour Western Altepa for the Goblin Hunters and shop for Silent Oil and Deodorizers and try to open the BLM hands quest since with Uchipu's help I got the BLM weapon done. But, I didn't do a damn thing, but go with Saeliin and the group to get his key. It took that long. I used THF/WHM so I could Invisible myself but I got put in charge of two others too.^^ Oh well, it was fun.

When I was about to log off, I found myself in the temple and, with no Instant Warp scroll, I was going to have to wind my way out of the temple and was gonna have to hike it to Kazham the whole way. Well by some miracle I exit the temple to this area in the jungle that I can just drop down and hop on over to the outpost. Neat. So I log off at the outpost and the next day I log back in and prepare to make the trek back. But then foolishly, I find some Goblin Bouncers and aggro one, then two, then I have four of em and I have no idea where I am going! Then, out of nowhere, the screen changes and I zone into Ifrit's Cauldron. I'm so lucky! Better yet, I find next to the Goblin Bouncers, Goblin Hunters! And right next to the zone!! Hah! Well needless to say I skilled up and used up all the arrows and all the bolts I had on me, about 4 stacks worth. Then I hiked it all the way to Kazham.

Funny, all that time killing lizzies paid off in a way cuz I used the markers on my map to guide me through Yhutunga Jungle. If I didn't go there all the time(trying to get my stupid, stupid, stupid, Elshi-fu#@!n-Marble), I might have been lost for days.

SATA, WHAM, Jajuju: {giggle}

2005-08-10T22:25:00.000-04:00

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

I have found my new NPC character to be most interesting to use. Her name is Jajuju. I got her with the help of a linkshell partner Cambre. She knew where to go and I used my high level WHM to help with healing since she was a WAR. Interestingly enough, I found other people to help that were already there at Eldieme Necropolis which is where you have to fight some skellies as part of the quest. One guy, Cyberwolf even helped us out and told us where to go next, which was to Davoi I think, near San D'Oria. After we get there we find out that we had forgotten to talk to the one guy in Port San D'Oria and then we had to hike it to Sandy and then back again and by then there was a line to enter the battle area. Poor Cambre had to leave and didn't get to do it. But we had enlisted this other PLD to come with us who also was trying to get it done without knowing it all. He and I handled the final battle just fine and came away with our NPCs to show for it. Cyberwolf, I think that's his name, told us the meeting point for her and then came out with us to try our NPCs out.

I decided to take her out for a spin but the other guy, the PLD, left, Cyberwolf changed to Valmont and helped me farm that day, but as probably many people do, I overestimated the NPCs, Jajuju's( I just call her Baby, lol) strength. She was quickly defeated. So me and Valmont went out and farmed a while and talked a bit. Had a good run of it. He was cool and let me have all of the drops among other things.

On a different day though, while looking for a group as I usually do in Qufim, I decided to pull her out and farm some bats. Easy enough. Then I decide hey if she is level 30 then she can take these Gigases too prob. Yep she did. THEN I decide hey wait, I can SATA her if I do it just right, and BAM! I was SATAing and she was voking and the mob was dying in about 5 hits or so. There were just not enough Giants for us to fully enjoy ourselves.

I am now planning to farm bats regularly in Qufim and will probably enjoy it a whole lot more with her around but I gotta cap my Marksmanship and Archery before I start with that. {Goblin Hunter} {Can I have it?}

Delkfutt's Tower Map

2005-08-09T18:44:00.000-04:00

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

This is the screenshot of when I finally got my Kaiser Sword to drop for my Delkfutt's Tower map. As you can see I was killing a bunch of Dancing Weapons using my Warrior/White Mage, which is not a bad character to choose for soloing I hear. Kind of somber picture though. I go to Qufim all of the time when I am bored to hunt bats and wait for invites which usually I get once every two days as a Thief/Warrior.

I had some time off of the game due to the 18hour maintenance and have found myself not so fond of the game anymore I guess. I liked doing my thing with Uchipu on Mondays but now we aren't doin those. I liked doin my poker nights on Sundays but they haven't called me to go so I ain't showing up then. I liked my Wednesdays with my other dart friends and Thursdays with my Karaoke buddies but that has all gone to hell.

Poetic sort of, like a title... the distant sun.

2005-08-09T18:39:00.000-04:00

3 guesses as to whose lovely thighs these are and where this picture is. Hint, it has to do with the THFs AF weapon. Oh dang, that gave it away.

Elshimo Marble

2005-08-08T17:17:00.000-04:00

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

You could argue that Papyrus Paper drops more often than this drop.

These are words that I am coming to find out are true. When I went with help looking for my Papyrus Paper, it took about 15 minutes to get the drop.

This drop, however, is proving to be exceedingly difficult. I went on another hunt for the Elshimo Marble the other day. It is dropped by the Ivory Lizards in Yuhtunga Jungle. This marble is needed for the Teleport-Yhoat scroll quest, which is needed for the Teleport-Vahzl scroll quest to open. After 15 lizzies though, I gave up on it again.

I shall return... to Kazham. (not Rabao, ty Uchipu). Oh and plus, I figured out finally how to save my JPGs so that I can use them here, so expect to see more pictures folks. Who wants to see a picture of my car?

Gobbiebag upgrade: /clap

2005-08-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

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

Well I spent all of yesterday, without a shower, but I finally got into a party that took me past the level 55 mark. I had a very expensive Lightning Bow +1 and Republican Mantle waiting for me. This added a +5 DEX bonus on top of the other DEX stuff I had so I was very happy. This means I can quit THF for a while and just use him for farming. I wanted to get rid of some gear since I was so full of stuff in my Mog House. I have 4 characters' worth of gear so I decided to stick it out with THF till I am able to equip my gear and then sell my old stuff.

After the party disbanded, I was so happy in fact that I decided to buy up the stuff that would expand my Mog House. I bought the stuff and now am waiting for Moogle to get back. Evenmoreso, I decided to do the Gobbiebag quest and turn in those items. This will give me an extra 5 slots to use in my backpack. Well I make a list and check the Auction House in Bastok and write down the prices there. I warp to Jeuno and check the prices there but get a supply quest (in Bastok) to run to Elshimo Lowlands cuz I plan to check (edit: shb Kazham)Rabao AH for Windy prices. Well I go all the way to Rabao(shudb Kazham) and go out and plan to start whacking on some gobs cuz I love whacking on those gobs. It's like therapy. It also helps out parties there cuz I throw out a Protect 2 or Haste spell that helps them out for a little while. I clear out the threats and help out some people and warp to Jeuno after I do my supply quest, but wait, I forgot to check Windy prices. >.<

I buy up all the stuff for Gobbiebag 1 anyway and quit ckg AHs since I can see the prices of Jeuno and Bastok at least are comparable; but now I am out of money. Totally. I switch to WHM gear and start doin teleports. Well I only needed 20k, so I resolve to not stop doing teles till I get 20k for my second Gobbiebag. About 3 or 4 hours later, I think, I finally have enough. Not a lot of effort, but a lot of waiting. I slept well at least. I make less money but I would still rather farm monsters than do teles. I would even rather skill up my ranged attack skills.

Gobbiebag 3 cost? 255k. It's gonna be a while before I get that one done. At least I was able to open the quest.

THF Diffclties-- 1st voking

2005-07-28T16:25:00.000-04:00

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

Well I was kind of doing ok with BLM til 55 but then I had my Lv54 Rogue's Bonnet waiting in the MH that I got with Klausen and Flesh so I decided to level THF some more. I found invites to parties not as forthcoming with THF as I have come to expect. I wish I would have leveled my THF up to 57 sooner instead so that I could catch up to my old buddy Yccsama who is JP but who is a great first voker.

That is the crux of my problem and what I most dislike about parties now. I have to tell them what to do. I don't mind pulling and doing a whole lot of work to get SATA off right in the middle right on time with no dmg to the first voker but please do what I say!! Fyi, if I SATA off-center, I SATA for less damage, if I take too long to SATA, the first voker starts to get pounded and that puts the WHM in danger. First voker to most people means they voke. NO! That is the least of what I need. I need you to wait till the monster passes you and then to turn the mob so that it faces away from the mages. Then with SATA already loaded, and auto-lock on, I can line up right in the middle and run up and hit the mob almost with no delay right after the PLD is set close enuf to where I want him, that is in the center. Usually what I get though is: first voker vokes, I end up clear past the tank by the mages and now I have to get back and pass the voker, pass the mob, pass the pld to the spot where I have to line up and hit SATA asap. >.<

Well things are even harder in JP partys too. Yesterday I had this one guy, a Korean, as a whm, who quit after a first attempt because he wanted to find a party but after a while lfg came back and asked me to build a party. So I did. I got this excellent party, with a lot of work, WHM RDM NIN THF/NIN THF/WAR and DRG. I was going to first voke so that everything would work smoothly. Well we get there and the first thing we do is aggro bats. I did. I knew they aggroed but one of our pt, a rank 10 guy, just runs past one and I'm like wth. So I run and it aggroes and I die. Well as leader, that's perhaps the worst thing you can do. Well we regroup and try to make it to the other camp but now the whm won't move. I go to the other camp and wait for whm since he has Sneak and since I have told him in auto-translate sev times to /follow. Then another party member dies. Then we wait, and then a party member already at camp and close to another party aggroes a beetle(this was in King Ranpierre's Tomb) so I voke it off her and she warps to Jeuno. Well then I die(again, but what else could I do) and the beetle proceeds to start the slaughter of the party there that now thinks I MPK'd them. The perfect end to a perfect day. Everyone disbands.

Artifact Weapon

2005-07-06T11:01:00.000-04:00

Black Mage:50 White Mage:51 Warrior:51 Thief:52

I went to Famke's website and got the printouts done for the Thief AF gear. I got my Marauder's Knife with some little effort but was very proud of completing that quest. Luckily, I got invited by Kodiak to join this linkshell called Nobodysangels(NBA) and found myself very lucky to have help getting my AF gear almost accomplished. Thanks go out to Flesh and Klausen and Yoimaguy for helping. I really think that there is no way that I would have done this without them.

As expected, I find myself wanting to level my other jobs but don't want to have to start working on their AF stuff also. I am also running out of space in the Mog house. Hmm what to do.

Great party

2005-06-20T11:04:00.000-04:00

Black Mage:50 White Mage:50 Warrior:51 Thief:46

Well it has been a while since I have written anything so I thought I would add some of my recent experiences here. I was not able to get the RSE gear after all and since finding the Wonder Mitts for sale on AH was rare enough anyways and I found a set one day I decided to just buy the Mitts and forget the Clomps. The Noct Gaiters give +1 DEX anyway so I decided to take those instead of the clomps. Later on I started to really want to improve my equipment and the next two big things on the list were upgrading by two Balance Rings. But since I was lacking in the STR department I decided to buy one Puissance Ring and one Deft Ring and upgrade the Noct Gaiters to the ones that give DEX+2. I could still use my Federation Knife even now successfully but I found that Calveley's Dagger has +3 DEX and one more dmg, so even though it is only a smidgen better, it was dirt cheap so I bought it and am using it. I NEED the Hornet Needle but I have about as much chance of getting that as I did getting RSE gear by myself.

A great party setup for those that don't know which I only realized last night was a MNK MNK THF PLD RDM WHM party. We were at level 45 and were doing Soldiers Crawlers and Hornflies and were doing great. At one point the Rdm dc'd and while waiting for him to come back we chained 4 and got 260exp with 5 members! With those MNKs doing their Raging Fists and me doing SATA, we were eating mobs. The white mage pandora finally said ok only 3 more so just to show them we could I pulled a Hornfly, then a BLAZER BEETLE and we were fine. Then I pulled a MUSHUSSU scorp and we still kicked it's butt, at level 45! Then they said one more and then they used their two hour on the one more and got the exp chain on it. Man, that was a great party.

Monday Nights with Uchipu

2005-05-31T16:55:00.000-04:00

Black Mage:50 White Mage:50 Warrior:51 Thief:35

I have found using my Thief to be a great deal of fun when I get people that are patient in a party. I admit that I don't feel like an expert with THF yet and even after reading many posts from people about THF in the Job Forums, I don't feel that I do a lot for the party yet. I am much more oriented with Viper Bite SATA now than I was and I use the ws usually at the beginning of a fight for max dmg. The problem I find usually is that we need a backup voker for me to be able to "do my thing". Sometimes this means I gotta use a RNG or MNK as my "trick partner". But, if they don't voke the mob off the tank, it means I gotta wait til close to the end of the fight to do SATA a second time on them so that the mob can't retaliate too much.

Something also interesting about THF is that you get to tell how the party is doing with regards to damage over time. If the monster is dead before SATA is up then you know you are in a good group. SATA (Sneak Attack Trick Attack) comes up every minute.

I was unable to go last night with Uchipu to Windy to do her Monday run. I was looking forward to it all weekend and planned to be there. I even looked up the quest info. But alas, unforeseen circumstances botched my plans again.

Federation Knife

2005-05-24T11:09:00.000-04:00

News I can use, [Can I have it?]

I have been scoping out the best equipment to get for my Thief(THF) after I get rid of my Bone Harness +1 gear which gives an evasion bonus. I was going to switch out all of it for Beetle Harness +1 gear but, as it turns out, THFs aren't supposed to gain hate or aggro and as such, even with me pulling( pulling monsters back to the party ), I never got deep into trouble with my level 16 gear. I wore it all the way to level 30. Of course, I had other really good gear like the Compound Eye Circlet and Scentless Armlets which together with +2 Evasion from the gear gave me a total of +12 Evasion.

I plan on getting two pieces of my RSE(race specific gear). The Wonder Mitts and Wonder Clomps. These have proven to be very difficult to get however. I have ventured 3 times in an effort to get a key and all 3 times I didn't get a key and didn't even find a chest to say "OK, there it is for when I find the key." They give a total of +5 Strength(STR). I have already bought the Mercenary Captain's Doublet, Faceplate, and Hose which also add Dexterity(DEX) and STR bonuses.

I was gonna commit to buying a Federation Knife for 50K and thought man if only I could afford it. I went to all the towns to check the prices and in one town someone got away with spending 20K on one! But mostly, the prices were around 40 to 50k in all areas. One day I saw a new one added to the list of existing ones in the AH, so I sent a lowball bid for 30K, and I got it! Man, that was great! I even got it right when I was level 25 too. This dagger should be with me probably all the way to 50.

I was also eyeing the Republic Dagger because it was almost as fast as the Beestinger and Platoon Dagger I was using which were the BOMB! But that dagger was in the 60s price range yet I almost preferred that one to the one I had. Then I did the math and actually the Federation Knife does more dmg over time than the Republic Dagger.

I suppose I should feel like an uber-THF with my GREAT dagger but I still want my RSE. Funny huh. The more you have, the more you want.

2005-05-19T16:04:00.000-04:00

Place of divination

Divine this

2005-05-19T16:01:00.000-04:00

I was leveling up my divine skill as a WHM/BLM with a bunch of Banish spells used most appropriately on gobs venturing too close to Selbina. I found a lot of success in using those spells to "skill up" but as usual the points proved fleeting.

Going solo as a Thief in FFXI

2005-05-04T22:50:00.000-04:00

I was going to continue fighting birds in east South Gustarberg so that I could continue to fight vultures and get fire crystals but it got to be too slow waiting on more vultures to pop. I also was eager to get more pots of honey from the wasps I was fighting earlier so I decided to clean up, get my Maple Shield, sell the stack of crystals I had already acquired and head out all the way west to west South Gustaberg near the Dandruf Wadi.

It was a good decision. There were plenty of wasps there and the Goblin Thugs and Weavers were not so harsh that they could kill me although one of em did but that was just careless. I continued to get fire crystals from the gobs and wind crystals and pots of honey from the bees.

I am about to head back there now but am not eager to do it since it really is rather boring.

Soloing is for the birds

2005-05-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

There is not much to say here except that soloing is for the birds. As soon as I got my level 7 bow, I reallyl started to cut into some vultures. The vultures drop fire crystals which are worth good cash but I have noticed that this only happens near the western entrance to Bastok.

I have really got to get the extra 10 slots for my Mog House so that I can store more things and switch out equipment more often. Every time I level to new armor I have to wait until the old armor sells to play again. I guess this is the price you have to pay when you have 3 other high level characters.

I really am starting to miss my old character.

Hohito, the Warrior/White Mage, tags a Yagudo with his dagger... his dagger?