Another week and Another Job to Level

I had planed on doing this update tomorrow after trying to get a few more things done this evening but with the holidays and things coming up I might not get the chance.

Lets see this week in review.. what did I do again? There was that dyan thinga-ma-bob were we went to windy and got like crap drops. No idea on the final currency count but we did get at least 1 100 bill. Also don't remember what AF dropped. Damn im not sure I was paying attention at all in dyna.

We done some light sky trig farming and got most every trig again. I really hope we switch up to doing sea again soon. Soo much we need from there as an LS plus its been awhile. I also need to get on finishing a WS gorget. Not sure which to do as I have need for DRK drg and Finally..


SAM!! Yup, after all this time I finally got to leveling the job. It sits at 47 right now and I should make 50 I would think if I can get any kind of decent xp party in the next 2 days. Its been costly already with me dropping about a mil on it already but its been a lot of fun to play too. Just 3 more levels till I get to break out my Soboro and of course I already have pole arm leveled from DRG so I'm pretty much set till 75. A few more big purchases to make on the job, mostly str gear and a Hagun, but that's a bit away and hopefully ENM's start being nice to me soon. That or the manteels we get from B2 start selling again. I also have built up a few more seals to go do some KSNM and BSNM again so lets hope that pans out.

That said it may be a few weeks before another update. We basically have two weeks of free events because of the holiday's and I'll log in far less anyways with all the commitments I need to make. I would like to try and squeeze in the ASA final mission and of course keep leveling SAM up.

Where my SAM gear at???

Its been one of those weeks that I know I did a lot of stuff but nothing really sticks out. Did the usual ENM's and whatnot with no drops. Did a few B2's again with nothing worth noting dropping again. We have done a good bit of sky lately but last night was to be the last for a good while. Did 3 kirins yesterday and got 2 Osode, Nbody, and a D body. Most the other gods we did just dropped free lot crap. And I think that about covers this past weeks events.

Well almost anyways. MPTB has decided to do Dynamis once a week now. This is going to be mostly a money grab for some people with just a few actually needing any relic. We are dividing all profits up between members so at least everyone gets something for going. We went with 21 people and walked away with around 100k each. I still get bored somewhat with dynamis but doing it with my LS won't be so bad. Plus I really could use some Relic for my DRG I guess. The northlands pieces seem nice anyways for it.

Beyond that I merited Angon on my DRG to at least have it for events in the rare case they need me on the job. I also got enough money to probably level SAm up to at least 50 now. However, there has been almost no gear on the AH for me to buy. Just on standby waiting for OKotes to pop up and a decent weapon. Would like to start this soon as I been waiting forever to level the job. Keeping my fingers crossed and hitting refresh on FFXIAH.com.

Lots of Merits

Finally finished up my INT merits. You know it wasn't as bad to do as I thought it would be. I been putting off meriting attributes for a long time since they are so costly but once I set my mind to just get it done, it didn't seem so bad. I believe in total now I have spent around 323 merit points. Sadly though I have a long way to go. DRG I haven't even touched yet and both PLD and DRk still have a decent ways to go still. All told I really need another 158 just to be done with the jobs I have at 75. At least I have DRG now to merit with. It's my go to job for merits now as people seem to fall all over themselves to get DRG in bird parties. This is fine with me though I'd rather DD then have to go dress up RDM to get merit points.

As far as other stuff goes I did pick up a few trinkets from sky. I got some N:hands and A:head. The head is nice as I can use it to replace some other gear in my sorc ring latent set. Should actually save me some gil too and free up an inventory slot to boot.

Other than that we did do some more fay weapon fights. I got a slightly better lance and im just going to stick with that for now. Pro tip for those doing this. We had 2 DRG's in the party rotating Angon on the boss (Grauberg fight) and it was waaaaay easier than any other time I've done it. We won in less than 15 minutes while other groups I went with that had some pimped out relic weapon thf and adaberk drks nearly timed out. Meanwhile right after my group got done owning this fight 3 times in a row another group came and wiped back to back times. I got a good laugh anyways.

Only other thing I can think of that I did was some ENM's. Doing brothers on Tuesday's with diz now and we got crap items. Thursday's we still do sheep and once again got crap. That's the breaks. We do still have as an LS 4 more evokers to pop which we are going to do some of tonight along with a few B2 fights. Hope bahamut gives up his scythe tonight id like to play around with it a bit and I believe I'm next up on the drop list too.

Sorc Ring Finally

Been a few weeks since an update but what do you expect with the holdiays and being away a bunch. I've missed some events and i've made it to some events.

Did some more B2 runs but got utter crap. ENM's have yeilded zero good drops. Salvage has still not dropped my legs causing me to become so frustrated with the event i'm just not going to do it for a long time. SO yea pretty typical stuff for FFXI, lots of wasted time.

I did get a few things done though. DRG hit 75 probably the day after my last post a few weeks ago. I did manage to get Drakesbane weapon and then the quest done and unlocked. I got in a few fay weapon fights but nothing to steller as far as augments go. Got a thal-1 right now with 3 dmg and 2 Dex. I've merited a good amount and now have 4/5 int merits done and need just 5 more merit points to finish it out.

Also, the other thing I had been working on was getting a sorc ring and then a set of gear to trigger the latent. Managed to finally do that and i'm more or less broke. I got about 100k on me and another 500k tied up on the AH so i can get by for a bit but need to make some gil. I did go out and Nuke a pudding to see what damage I could do. Got 2330 on Freeze 2 and that was before my last couple of INT merits. Since it doesn't look like i'm going to finish my Morrigans set now the only thing left for me to do on BLM is get that last INT merit, try and find people to assualt for some yigit feet, and then a Novio. Funny thing is i'll probably get a Novio before i get the yigit since noone does assualt much anymore excpet for salvage points and they all do RvB.

Weekly Update 11-13-2009

The New mini expansion, A Shantotto Ascension, came out this week. I've done a bit of the missions but haven't really made an effort to push through and finish them up. For one very few people seem to care about it and are actually doing it. With the last 2 mini expansions there were shouts for groups and missions all the time. This one though you see little interest in people wanting to get it done. I don't blame them. If you have some bad luck in crafting the first fetch quest is down right frustrating to complete. There are a few people in the shell that are going to do it though so once we all have some time I suppose I'll get it done.

With that said events on Monday were called off with low attendance from people not getting the download done. We did squeeze in one Cloud Evoker and are going to do the others along with B2 on this coming Monday. Tuesday's was also a no go for events with people still away. This time probably due to Modern Warfare 2 being released.

Wednesday saw things back on track. Did a limbus zone and then salvage afterwards. Limbus was just a chip farming day so nothing much there to say. Salvage we did ZR and took out 2 frogs and the mega. Frogs dropped nothing again. Mega we got too very late in the run and managed to kill it right as time expired. Got 2 drops we needed but no time to lot so they were lost.

Thursday we did some light sky farming as we needed just a few trigs. Afterwards we went and did B1 for a few LS members that still needed it.

DRG leveling been moving along. Keeva brought me to a LS merit party for me to leach some xp. Between that and some decent xp parties I now sit at 74 and only need 16k to hit 75. I'll probably finish that up today but then I have a lot of other things I need to get started on. First I need to do the Fay Lance fight so I actually have a weapon to use at 75. Then I need to make some purchases from the AH. Basically I been saving up for a Sorc ring and some latent triggering gear for it. I'm about 2/3 of the way there so if I take a few days to work on that I can knock it off the list. Then I'll need even more gil to finally get my SAM leveling underway. So a lot of ENM/KSNM/BSNM is what I would like to do next week.

Look at me run!!

Ahhhh yes. Sweet wlegs goodness. Been a long time since I got really excited over a drop but this one was certainly something I've been wanting for a long time. A big thank you to MPTB for being such a great LS.


SO I missed a lot of events this weeks. Einherjar was cancelled since Jye was a no show, Salvage I was actually pretty sick that night so just logged and got some sleep. Did managed some light Sea farming, no torques to report though. Of course there was sky and other than kirin we took out 2 Suzy, a Seriyu, a Genbu, as well as getting some more trigs.

Got to go on the ENM run last night for the first time in a while. Nothing dropped for us though. Also killed xol again but just a hat from him.

Trying to level DRG still. I swear parties are either feast or famine; there is no in-between. Got one that did a pitiful 5k an hour, then the next was doing 15k. Both were around level 60 ish. the 5k an hour the party leader was a smn and tried to play it as a DD and buffer. It just didn't work. Not saying it couldn't have but this smn was just not good. Other party members were BRD WHM turtlePLD(lol) DRG(me) DRK. So basically just 2 people doing any real damage and fights took forever. However I have managed to get to 70 now and about halfway to 71. Today is a free day so unless I decide to do some ENM/KS/BS fights I plan to spend most of it xping. Would love to hit 72 but of course that depends on how much feasting I get today.

Back from a RL break

SO I been out of commission for a while with the arrival of my new Baby. So of course nothing much has happened for me to BLOG about in Ffxi. However, I am now back to a more regular schedule so the updates can begin again.


About the only thing I have been able to do the last few weeks is get on and grab some xp here and there on DRG. Mostly done through FOV and some Campaign but also on rare occasions I had enough time to party. That said I got it to 65 and then this week I got a few parties and I now sit at 67. I'm excited to finish it up but also know that once it is 75 its going to be more or less regulated to a Merit job. That's fine with me as its hard to get merits anymore with drk and no one invites PLD even though mine is really well set up for merit parties. Hope to hit 69 today but that just depends on how long it takes to find a good party.

Not much else to post yet although I did get to go to Einherjar, ZNM, Salvage, and sky this week. Nothing to stellar to report although I did get a N body from Kirin I need to upgrade. Not doing that yet as I really would like to get a sorc ring for my BLM.

I got nothing else so maybe I'll post a bunch of pics when I get home later. I got folders full of stuff.

Week ended 9-6

Monday - Eniherjar and once again we got slime mobs. Just not a good one to have with low numbers. Oh well life goes on.

Tuesday - Did Dyna Windy. 17 people and we still once the zone. Did three r pumps fights and then spent the rest of the evening doign some Soboro pops. Trigs were bening a pain and not dropping so only got 3 in but the one win we got was on my trig as i wrote about earlier.

Wednesday - Still off b/c of RL.

Thursday - SKY farming. Had about 12 people show up to try for dio again but we have horrid luck with that lately. Did enm after and got absolute crap drops from all groups.

Friday - Salvage canclled again. Free day.

Other - So goal was to be 60 DRG and this time i fell just short stoppping at 59 last week. I might have hit 60 except for a really bad party on thursday that i should have left and went solo instead. I do need to finish up my AF though so this week xping going to take a backseat. I'd be surprised if i got to even 62 this week. Not much else to say. other than xping drg i been kind of bored lately. Events been really slow and things in RL just been popping up so not much else to say really.

SAM on the Horizon?

Special BLOG update.

Here recently I have been going with a format of making one post a week and just reviewing whets been going on for the prior week. I'm going to continue doing so but today just thought id post about something I been trying to do for ages. That's is getting a Soboro and leveling my SAM.

I've wanted to level sam forever. I even mentioned on this blog way back in February of 2007 how I been wanting to level it but I had a desire to go all out with it. Now, 2.5 years later, it's still an expensive job and gets that way early. Okotes right off the bat still putting me on hold, however, Tuesday I managed to get me a Soboro after all this time. The urge to Level SAM now is truly great but alas im sticking to waiting for the okotes.

Also, i'd like to finish DRG up to 75 before I start a new job. So for now, the plan is to hit 75 drg, farm up some gil, and then SAM all the way. I honestly can't wait till I get to dive into it.

Week Ending 8-30-2009

Monday - Einherjar with just 18 people. Got to boss but just ran out of time onhim. If we had about 2 more melee we could have won this run I think.

Tuesday - Sea day. Did a Ix MNK and got a cape drop. All the main lotters were out so it went free lot. And what do you know I got a good lot in and now have a merciful cape. We also went and tried to pop Ix Drg but after 2.5 hours and him not showing we called it a night. Also did Dyna bastok. Wanted some blm pants but others with more points had it set to main lot. Not to mention it didn't drop anyways...

Wednesday - Didn't log in b/c of RL.

Thursday - Was suppose to do Soboro Ohat and R. Pumps but was like noone logged in at the time. Did ENM runs later and got crap drops.

Friday - Dyna up first. Did bastok again but this time only 12 of us showed. Still though it went rather smooth and i think its easier in some aspects with less people. 18 would have been better but 12 was OK. BLM pants dropped and this time i was only one on them. So yay for me more nuke power on ice/thunder days. Can hit around 2200 on puddings if fully buffed and burn is on with some AM2. But thats just messing around anyways.

Other - All about drg in the free time. Goal was to hit 50 and I got to 54. Had to start doing AF and got the legs done which is a good solo piece for healing breath. Got coffer done for gloves just need dark spark fight. Also got coffer key for feet just need to go back and open now. This week i'm planning to hit 60 which is only 6 levels but the xp of course is pretty high for level. Also would like to finish up the AF which will take away a good chunk of my xp time.

Week ending 8/23/2009

Monday - Free day. Did lots of random stuff.

Tuesday - Did Dyna Jueno with a new ls I plan on sticking with. I've been kind of going to random Dyna LS here and there but most the times didn't work or they were just too new and had too much to learn. This new one runs at good times for me and they have some decent vets so I plan on hanging with them for a while. Afterwards did 2 Grations and about 7 swift belt pops. Grats to those who won.

Wednesday - Limbus up first. Did an appolyon. Easy win and puts us 1 chip away from an omega. Salvage followed and we did SSR. 1st floor NM finally dropped for us but once again my legs from second floor was a no show.

Thursday - Was suppose to finish up more swift belts but my power went out for like 3 hours. Think they managed to get another 7 done. Did get logged back in for the ENM. Nothing good dropped and the day felt like a waste to me...

Friday - Salvage was called off again because kings time had rolled around so half the guys couldn't go. Spent more time leveling instead.

Other - So been working on drg and last week my goal was to try and hit 37. Well I thought that might be a bit of a stretch with all the things I had going on and by Friday I was just 35. But with salvage called off and nothing to do I went after xp pretty hard. Hit 41 that night. Logged in for a short time on Saturday and got to 42 and did my AF weapon. So this week I'm setting my goal to hit 50. That's once again a bit of a stretch but I think I can get at least 1 level a day(M-F) so 47 should be easy. Get a few decent parties and 50 is possible.

Fields of Valor and how low level Jobs are made easy

You know us FFXI players are quick to complain when SE does something wrong or just doesn't address the issues we have. You can go to any message board and it won't take you a minute to find someone complaining about job x still not receiving an update, the latest expansion failing to deliver, ground kings being botted, or any of a numerous amount of recurring problems we have. However, right now I'd like to talk about one thing SE seems to have gotten almost perfect, even if it did come years late.

Fields of Valor. Yup I love this and anyone who has used it for any amount of time I'm sure will agree. When it first came out I'll admit I didn't think much of it. It was something mostly for lower levels and I really only used in when farming despot up in sky to get a little bonus xp. But one day I was bored and decided to level up a new job.

WOW. Not sure what else to say because leveling low level jobs is night and day different from how it used to be. They absolutely fly by now and its not just because you get a little bonus xp once an hour. The 1 per tic refresh and regen are just phenomenal. 1-20 I pretty much just used regen and laid waste to EP and dc mobs. The added xp you now get from ep to dc is also a huge boon but the regen meant zero downtime. That's something that generally didn't start to happen until around the 40's when you could have RDM and BRD's for refresh to keep the mages going.

Levels 10 -20 now are probably the most dramatic difference. Used to be you would want to pull your hair out waiting for hours on end to get a party invite and take you away from some god awful and slow solo xp. You'd get a party and, well, it was the dunes it sucked 9 out of 10 times. Now you can solo it in a matter of a few hours. If the low levels had been this way all along, FFXI would probably have been a much bigger success than it is with many more players sticking around.

Found a suggested path to take for those wanting to do FOV to level their jobs up solo.

15-20 Crag zone
20-30 Dunes
30-39 Qufim
39-44 East Altepa Spiders at Korrolka zoneline
44-49 Yuhtunga Jungle Outpost 10x Monkeys
49-53 West Altepa Spiders+Ants at Rabao zoneline
53-63 East Altepa Outpost Gobs+Manticore
63-66 West Altepa Beetles+Cactaur at Rev. Rock

Week ending 8-16-2009

SO last week things started getting back to Normal.

Monday - Einherjar was the same as its been for a while. Lowish turnout with around 24 showing. These would be so easy to do if people would just show up!. Frustrated but that's just how it is.

Tuesday - Did some ZNM's. Completed a Tier4 set and knocked out some more T1's an 2's. Probably going to get at least one more T4 set before we pop it. I did manage to snag me a muse shield with 7 mnd on it. Been wanting one of these for a mnd set up as with it I can get close to +70 mnd in around 314 skill set I have for Para2 and Slow2.

Wednesday - First up was Limbus. Did one appolyon and one temenos. Easy wins and not much to speak of. Was hoping I could get an upgrade item for either BLM or DRK but oh well. Salvage was that night and did some BR ramparts. No NM pops once again so got nada.

Thursday - Sky day. Did 3 Genbu, 1 Suzy, 2 BB, 2 Water, and 1 SC. Not bad. Got just crap drops off of the gods though. I managed to walk away with some free lotted w feet. One day I'll uncurse for a fire resist build I suppose.

Friday - Events got cancelled so just spent it doing random crap.

Other - Mainly just leveling DRG now in my down time between events. Its sitting at 28 now and I should hit 37 I hope this week given enough time to level it. Low level xp is now way better than it used to be with the advent of FOV and taking advantage of the buffs you can get from it. DRG/MAGE at low levels with refresh is just about unkillable fighting anything up to T. Fast kills to and bonus xp from FOV and the levels seem to fly by.

Back to updating

Haven't been able to write an update in a while because of some real life issues. That's behind me now so time to try and catch up.

Events have been off and on with Keeva having some real life issues of his own. Mostly work related and him being unable to log in. Still we managed to do some light sky and sea stuff but nothing amazing to report about. Einherjar been the same but recently we have done a lot of recruiting and have I think 6 new people that are going to be coming which should really help us out. Salvage has been salvage and nothing has dropped.

I merited my BLM a ton and am pretty much done with it now. Id like to get a Sorc ring and some relic pants but neither of those really on the horizon anytime soon. Be nice to have though as I think I could break 2.4k on puddings which would be funny to see.

With BLM being done I started to get bored so it was time to pick a new job to level. As always I want to do SAM but just don't have the funds right now to do it right. SO while waiting for some gil to come in I went and unlocked DRG. Started leveling it and its at 11 right now. I think I want it to 75 just to have another job done and because I have Homan I can use on it. Guess I'll keep on leveling for now and see how it goes.

Weekly Update 7/9 - 7/15

Late in posting this but since i typed it up I'm going to post it anyways.

Thursday - Did some more ZNM's. Mostly T1's but did a few T2's and T3's. Of note we got 2 more naglerings and 2 Tomoes. Should be ready to pop a t4 soon. Next time we do ZNM's we probably will focus on T3's and finishing up some T4 pop sets.

Friday - Salvage up first. To BR and farmed some ramparts. Zero NM pops so Zero drops once again. Afterwards we did an evokers pop. Killed the dragon with no issues. This coming Friday we will be doing B2 so I'm looking forward to that.

Monday - Eiherjar day again. Had about 5 people missing. Still frustrated. Afterwards we went to the last 2 hours of Sandworm window and we managed to get claim on it. I believe the was the first time anyone in the LS but me had fought it. After getting it into position and getting people out there we went to work. A bit sloppy but most were having to learn on the fly. Got Doovoid and off to fight KA we went. Or at least the rest of the gys there did. I had to log as it was way too late. So soon as we warped I was done for the evening. Hope we do it again soon.

Tuesday - Did some lite sea raiding. Killed a JoFortitude and a JoFaith. No torque drops again but I believe this gives us 2 pops for JoL. We also farmed up some HQ aern organs to pop an Ix Mnk but some other group went and popped it so we called it a night.

Wednesday - Limbus up first. farmed some temenos zones. Nothing I needed from here just need appolyon upgrade items. Easy wins for the LS. Salvage afterwards went rather well. Did AR and got 3 35's. Morrigan, Ares, and usu. A really good night of drops.

Other. Just a few days left until the update hits. Need to focus on getting allied notes. Managed to get back up to 37k after being down to around 20k. The plan is to be at 100k by update time but I'm not sure I can make that as I keep doing other stuff. Merited a good bit on Monday and spent another 7 Merits on BLM. Ice potency is maxed and Thunder is at 2. I have 1 merit point saved so just need 11 more and I'll be done with BLM for now. Still need to cap off t2 merits but I'll do that in time.

The Monday merit party I spent half of that time playing around with my PLD. Got to whip out the Joy/Justice combo with my 18% haste set up. With bard and RDm haste man it was just too funny watching me swing none stop. I think I could actually hold hate for a decent amount in an average Merit party if I tried.

Where is your mind at?

Time for a good mini rant about RDM's. I know I'm overly critical of other RDM's and so take this all with a grain of salt. However, why do you RDM's out there insist on casting in full Skill gear and ignoring the importance on MND. I just cant stand it. Not to mention you race to beat my casting a spell to get your no mnd and therefore weak slow or para on a MOB? Please stop. I don't care if someone beats me to the punch but damn make the spell worth something. Your 100 MND slow does not impress me and your weak ass para's are a waste.

Fighting a really hard to enfeeble MOB? Ok fine through on more skill gear that's fine. But your average crap in Limbus, Dyna, ZNM, pop farming, hell most Einherjar even, whatever it is start using your MND stuff or just don't bother casting. I can't tell you how much this ticks me off. Ok End of rant for the day.

Weekly Update 7-2 Through 7-8

Thursday through Sunday was still free week and Holiday's going on so I didn't do much nor did I log in much.

Monday - EInherjar. 24 people this time which is enough to win a zone but it depends on the mobs and bosses you get. We did not get something favorable so another loss. Beginning to make me mad really. I want to get to Odin and to bigger and better fights but we are just bogged sown with low numbers. Got another 1200ish ampoules I think. Brought me over 15k so I went and got a Gleemans cape for +5 int to use on my BLM. Other items are probably more useful for different jobs but my BLM has the least amount of good gear so I thought id splurge on it.

Tuesday - Sky Day. Killed 2 Byako and 2 Kirin. Got 2x haidate and 2x Osode so not a bad day. Really hope some wlegs start to drop soon. The list is getting really long now.

Wednesday - Farmed for chips in Limbus. Easy wins and we have another omega set ready to go. Salvage we went and did SSR again and once again no Morrigans legs dropped. I'll be honest. A year without a drop has gotten me depressed and wondering if I should even bother going anymore just to get a lousy 2 more INT and MND.

Other - Still meriting BLM. Monday I was able to upgrade Ice potency to level 4. I also bought a Ugly pendant so all told I can break 2k with Freeze 2 on puddings now with the right day or weather. Need 5 more merits to finish ice and 14 more to finish Lightning. Once that's done its time to start another job I think.
I also need to jump over to campaign to get more Allied notes as well as catch up on my WOTG missions/quests. Me and Keeva went and Duoed mission 9 I believe it is, "Purple is the New Black". Hopefully we can knock a few more out this week and try to be nearly caught up for when the update hits.
Did manage to make the ENM runs on Thursday and we got 2 Haguns to drop. All split should net me another 370k which will offset the pendant cost. I have the Key item to do another Brothers so I should probably go do that again if I can pull myself away from BLM meriting.

6-25 through 7-1

Thursday - Did some sky Triggers and popped a few Gods.I think we did 2 suzy and 2 seiryu. I know we ended up getting 3 A.legs and one of them ended up coming to me. Another 25 mp for me I suppose when I decide to uncurse them. Doing Kirins our next sky day. During our ENM run we got a hagun to drop so after the3 split and selling to LS member for a discount I should net about 175k from that.

Friday - Salvage day. Did AR and got shut out on drops. I had to have done more than just salvage on Friday but hell if I can remember what it was. Probably just messed around and did campaign.

Monday - Einherjar time again. Attendance is down to 22 and that's just not going to cut it. We get to the boss fine but just not enough time and firepower to push through. 1,440 more ampoules bringing my total to 14,660. Next week ima get the +5int Cape...i think. Still not sure.

Tuesday - Umm hell what did I do? Events cancelled for free week but I had to have done something right? Oh well maybe it will come to me later. *Edit* Now I remember. I did Dyna Sandy with some people. How the hell I could forget that is beyond me. This was the LS's( a random shout group I decided to run with) first run and we won the zone easy enough. Lots of first timers there but they should be fine. I probably will keep going once a week but I do hate how boring Dyna is so nothing is guaranteed.

Wednesday - Finally broke down and did some WOTG missions/quests. The story wasn't half bad and I was really far behind so needed to do some catching up. No though I am at a point that needs 6 man BCNM to go further so I'll need to look for help.

Other - Did a few BCNM and got nothing. ISNM got nothing. Did some KSNM 30's, Royal Ramble, for some guaranteed gil. Merited on my DRK Monday to get points to spend on BLM. Got two more potency upgrades in ICE. Sitting on about 1.5 merits from some lite meriting yesterday. I think its about time to decide what I want to do next. I need to either level a craft or another job so I have somethign to do in my free time between events. Right now I am leaning towards either Fishing or finally doing Sam. Sam though, as has always been my issue, I want to do all out with good gear and have fun with it. My measly 800k not really enough to get that started but we shall see.

6/18 through 6/24

Thursday - The LS went on its first ZNM run. We did a Iriz Ima that was kind enough to give full drops. I got the avocat pigaches and the sword went freelot. Did I think 2 chigre one of which dropped that nice +5 acc ring. Did one of that Mamool (forget the name) and he dropped a naglering which I won in a freelot. Also did the colibri but it didn't give us anything that I can recall. ZNM's are going to be brought into the regular rotation now and this should be a fun event for us.

Friday - Salvage we did SSR. Got a 35 marduk piece and some actual needed drops form the boss this time. Didn't do much the rest of the day.

Monday - Did some zeni pic taking as well as xp BLM since the pic of the day was Flans. Einherjar that night with a near win just timed out on the boss. Total ampoules up to just over 13k. new item should be mine in about 2 weeks.

Tuesday - This was a KSNM day. Did 10 of the 99KS behemoth. Got 1 tongue (grats aki on your new belt!), 2 kreigsbiel, and then some hides and the rest crap. I didn't have an orb as I didn't have enough seals and also I'd rather save them for a Royal Ramble run.

Wednesday - First up was Limbus. We did Ultima again today. I was to co-tank again today with diz but we get there and he forgot the soap. So I solo tanked it. Went fine too. Managed to live until 20 percent (right before CB phase) until I died to an unfortunate stun move and had shadows down. LS persevered with out a tank and got it to 15% at which point I unweakend. Went back to tanking and lived through my CB's. Ultima died and we got 2 more leg drops. Grats to aki (damn you greedy taru!) and rainweaver. Salvage was that night. Did SSR and once again we got no morrigan leg drops. It's really getting out of hand on those. We did get another ares legs 35 though. So at least it wasn't a total waste.

Other- DING 75 BLM! Worked pretty hard to hit 75 before the KSNM 99's we went to on Tuesday. Managed to just barley make it and had about a 1.5k buffer. So I got to join our army of blm (had 10 there) and blow stuff up. Died a few times and thanks to getting R3 from rain I stayed 75 and ended the night with a buffer of around 300. Xp'd a bit yesterday to move buffer up to 4.5k and I'll be meriting blm a ton. Already unlocked Freeze2, Burst2, and have 1 each in Ice and thunder potency.

6-11 through 6-17

Thursdays - Sky trig farming. Nothing much to say. We went, we killed, we got the trigs. Did ENM after. Got a mantle drop which after splitting came to only about 30k

Friday - Salvage run was same old crap. No NM's dropped anything. Did a Cloud evoker and we somehow managed to time out. I don't like how the LS does this fight but I've Mentioned it before. However, the way they do it will work just need a couple more BLM's and we will be fine.

Monday - Einherjar. Man we need more people. Just not enough firepower and healing to do this on any consistent basis. Another loss, although it wasn't that bad. Got another 1040 Ampoules taking me up to about 11k.

Tuesday - Lets see we did 8-1 and 8-2 for ZBN as well as a JoT. That was pretty much the whole time since I swear 8-2 is stupid long to do and of course the fight with JoT took some time as well. We still have a lot of pops for other Jailors ready to go so next week we probably going to hit those up. Having ZBN with full sea now though is a great help as he has WHM and we sorely need those.

Wednesday - Limbus we did Kings zone. You know the LS sometimes is really good at things and sometimes we are just middle of the road. I don't know if people just don't care or what but our limbus runs are always more trouble than they should be. We won of course but man I was getting a little pissed off with how the run went. Anyway after was salvage and we did frog zone. Got 2 35 drops, marduck body and head. Hope we do SSR again soon so I can see my legs not drop again.

Other. - Ding BLM to 73. Need to just finish this and move on to making gil to pimp it out. SE announced game updates for late July. Part of this will be releasing the long awaited Campaign bodies. I had used up most of my stockpile of allied notes so I started hitting campaign again to rebuild. For some reason I think the bodies are going to be really good and I may end up needing to buy all three which will be very costly. Also my RDM buffer had got down to around 27k so doing campaign has helped rebuild my xp there as well. Did 2ENM, 2 ISNM, a ANNM and didn't get crap other than the mantle I spoke of earlier. So yea still need some money and that's going to be my main focus soon.

Lots to get to so I'm going to just dive in.

Sky

Did a Seiryu and a Kirin last week. Had 2 Kirin's planned but another LS was there and took forever to kill their 2 pops. Seiryu gave us his Kote and w.hands which went to Lyeia and Rain respectively. Kirin gave us an Osode (Baskim) and a D.Body (Garrix). Grats to all the winners. Starting this week Sky will just be once a day as we now are moving into doing more Sea.

Sea

So we had our first Sea Jailor run today as an LS. We had several old pop sets to use which is why we went straight to killing Jailors. Took down Faith, Fortitude, and Justice. Justice even blessed us with his torque. Grats bong on your new shiny neck piece. Managed to snag myself the Justice sword that I been wanting for ages. Yay for duel wielding multi hit swords. Want to go merit on PLD just to see how I do. We also fought a Hope but that went wrong somehow that I'm not even sure. Well, we did have 1 of only 2 whm's there DC as well as 1 or 2 melee so I think we just ran out of power once it got down a bit. Oh well.

Limbus

So we did Ultima this week. I got to tank along with Ryoru. First 80% was pretty smooth, Ryoru died a couple times but I tanked fine solo while he was recovering. The last 20% though we need to work on as an LS. People need to pay a bit more attention to CB and who has hate. Had a near wipe as the guy with hate one time ran close to the alliance. However, after many tense moments with only a handful of people unweak (I died 2 times to stupid stuff not even CB) we managed to pull it together and get the win. Got legs (grats Jye!) and I think the other was head (Mitzury). Doing again next week so it should go much smoother I would think.

Einjerhar

Did same zone as last time. Got shit mobs and had a pretty low turnout if you ask me. Going to start recruiting for the shell I believe so we can get these done more efficiently. Got some more points and hopefully just a few weeks and I can get an ampoule item.

Salvage

Nothing much for Fridays run to say. Yesterday we did a BR run and once again no rampart NM popped. Killed the mega and got the 25 to complete Bongs usu legs as well as skadi feet I believe that went to Jaera maybe? I'll check later.

Other

Didn't really xp BLM this past week. Its still 72. Gardening I actually got some ores this time. ENM I didn't do and my ISNM run I went with random people that honestly sucked so bad that after 3 runs (with a lose in there wtf!!) we had a guy leave and we called it off. Still got my orders to pop with too so hopefully knock that out today. Also, we did B1 about a week and a half ago so Monday a few of us climbed the Promy's to get our silvers. Tuesday went and did Apoc Nigh and now just need to grab my earring if I can just pick on I want. None are really all that great but happy to finally be done with those missions.

Updates now 3% faster

Not sure if I will start doing weekly updates again (haven't done that since 2006!) but there is so much going on in game I thought I would post again to help keep track of everything.

Sky

Been killing gods the last few runs. We had a lot of pops to burn through and we probably did at least 2 of each since the last update. Got one pair of kitty pants to drop so that was good. Nothing else too amazing really and I'm still probably far down the line to getting some w. legs. Nothing else in sky I really care for although I would like some zenith gear just to use for blm sorc ring latent and maybe one piece for RDM verts. So maybe just the legs really and I'm good to go.

Einherjar

Starting to do this once a week. Did a wing 2 one this past Monday that I can't remember. Had a horrendous start and timed out though. Oh well. Still, I got about 10k ampoules so hopefully soon I can buy some of that stuff. I really want the Morgan's choker, the ritter Gorget, and both capes that give +5 int and mnd. So that's 75k ampoules to get in total. Going to be awhile.

Limbus

Did another omega this week. Easy win again and we got some great drops. Hands Feet and Body fell to us and as luck would have it I was the only main feet lot that made it this week so now I am finally 5/5 on Homam. The feet are very nice with lots of MP/HP, 3% haste, and 6 accuracy. I now have 18% haste gear to use on PLD and DRK which is very good. Next week we doing an Ultima and of course I love that fight. However, apparently MPTB has not had much success doing this fight. Not sure why as the LS is very good and kills most everything we do with no issue, many being harder than Ultima. Probably just a startegy issue and I can help with that since I've won this numerous times. I will be tanking it too so if that's been an issue at least now they have someone who has done it before and has gear for citadel buster. Other than CB and stunning dissipation the fight is pretty straight forward, I need to talk to them and see what the problem is.

Salvage

No new 35's dropped that I can recall. Did manage to finish of some pieces for Tengalen and Blaine. Grats to them. Going to be hitting up MB's a lot over the next few weeks as we have about 9 sets that just need the 25 from boss fight. Not much else to say really except did another SSR and once again no morrigan legs drop.

Other

So blm is up to 72 now. Finally get to put on some different gear and wear my old errant stuff. Hope to hit 75 soon but I been a little hesitant to level as I still need to buy some things for my blm that will set me back a huge amount of gil that I just don't have atm. Going to start doing ISNM once a week as well as ANNM and ENM. Gardening is week2 right now so no harvest to speak of. And last but not least Bongripper finally got his Maat's cap after many long hours of xping. Grats to the little galka.

Just like old Times

Well been back to levi for just over a week now. Man am I happy to be home again. MPTB has sure grown a lot since I left and now the Shell is booming with events and stuff to do. We have a ton of great players in the shell and we dabble in just about everything. The shell I been looking for the past few months was back on Levi all along. I wish they would have expanded sooner and maybe I would have foregone that whole Phoenix thing. At the time though I was just salvage and I needed more than that.

SKY

So lets see we got a ton of trigs farmed up. Went and killed 3 Suzy's and 3 Genbu's. Got a couple of A Hands from the turtle so grats to the lucky mages. Next week we have 3-4 each of Byakko and Kirin to do so I'm hoping for great drops so I can move up the lotting list fast. Man I really want my crimson pants now. Past time I got me a pair.

Limbus

We only go one day a week which I'm not thrilled about but we do split runs each time so at least we get 2 chips a week. last week we farmed zones and then yesterday we did an Omega. Easy win but got only head gear. Grats to those that got it (Blaine and Garrix I think). I think the piece is shitty myself but they seemed happy to have it so I'm happy for them. Still have another Omega set and then 2 ultimas to burn. Kind of want to do ultima next since I really like that fight even though there is no gear I want from it.

Salvage

YAY salvage!! Back to my old groups again and going 2 times a week. Course nothing dropped for anyone so not much to say really. Still wanting the morrigans pants next and hope to get lucky with those sometime in the next few months...

Other

Lets see mostly just been leveling BLM. Its up to 70 now and just 6k away from 71. We have a free day today so maybe I can get a lot done on it. Once it hits 75 then i'm going to be merriting a ton. Still have lots of merit upgrades I need to do for both PLD and DRK and now with blm there is really a lot I need to get started on. I need to start making gil again as I been just floating by with what I had saved up. Down to a measly 300k at the moment and I have some serious upgraded I want to make for my BLM in the future. Gardening has been horrendous for me lately. haven't gotten an ore in about 2 months!! Probably going to do a few Royal Ramble KSNM for a guaranteed 280k. Got enough for a few runs so then I can have some breathing room on gil. I'd like to start doing ENM again and I may even do those solo rather than duo just to brush up and my RDM some more. I been kind of lazy with it and don't want my timing to fade away.

Time to go Home

My time on Phoenix is coming to an end either Today or tomorrow depending on when SE starts the 90 day clock. So I thought I would reflect on my time here.

So I transferred for almost the sole reason of getting to fight HNM's. Well that didn't really happen. I spend a total of 5 days in an HNM shell before their childish antics got to me. Turns out this LS actually broke a few weeks ago so my leaving was probably just the start of their defections. A few people were leaving for another server and even asked me to come join them. I was mildly surprised at this since I barely knew them and they had asked me about 2 months after I left the shell. I refused of course not wanting to possibly revisit the same mess even if those that had asked were among the better members and whom I did trust. In the end I killed a total of I think 6 HNM's. Still that was knew to me and since I may never get to fight them again I found it a worthwhile endeavor.

After that first 5 days I've kind of wondered from shell to shell trying to find a place that fits. I never really succeeded with that. Skill range and experience were all over the place form one shell to the other. Much more so than I would have thought. Some shells I was the most pimped out member they had and some had several well geared players. I was an integral member of a few shells and even given a Sac to a few of them. In fact i'm actually a officer in an endgame shell right now that I head up salvage runs for. Problem with this shell is they are so far behind where I want to be. I've done some of these things so much its hard to have to wait for others to get up to speed. Like doing a salvage run a not hitting all the NM's I want cause people don't understand some things or aren't engaging fast enough things of that nature. I need a more advanced shell to keep me going but those are sometimes harder to come by or just have odd schedules that didn't work for me.

As for the server I have nothing too bad to say really. I think the HNM scene is ripe for a take over if some major shell were to transfer here. Whitegate shouting is no worse or better as far as spam is concerned. I have noticed phoenix has a ton of /shout for LS's as compared to what I am use to seeing. However, there is very little shouting for things like assault. I see a hell of a lot of Matt's caps here but very little in the way of salvage gear, possibly a result of banned accounts(salvage dupe) buying high job accounts and moving them here. There is no well respected top shell here like what you would see on Leviathan. On levi the dominant shell is radiance, but for the most part no one really hates them. They are well like and respected by the vast majority of players. Others may be jealous of their success but no real malice towards them. On Phoenix though most the BIG endgame shells all have their share of hatred thrown their way.

In the end though I think this move showed me something very valuable. It showed me that if it wasn't for the friends I have made playing this game, I wouldn't have played nearly this long. There just isn't as much substance to what you can do without friends to do it with. FFXI, for all the events and things you can do, is really rather bland and monotonous. Too many repeated events and doing the same things over and over should bore us all to death. But instead the adventures and many misadventures we have is where the true fun is had. The triumphs of our friends after long suffering brings us all a bit of happiness. I need my old LS mates back for this. SO I leave for Leviathan to go back to the game I left behind.

Daily Double

Could it be? The first ever 2 for 1 posting day? YES!!!

Ok the last post went rather long talking about Linkshells and whatnot so didn't want to add the things i had been doing to make it overly long. So now you get my game happenings update.

Limbus shell went and killed an Omega. Really easy win and for drops we got Head and Hands. Since i'll be leaving soon and dont have many points i have almost no chance to lot the Homam feet if/when they drop. However, I still need to upgrade my DRK AF so thats really what I keep going on runs for. Oh and some ABC to either sell or use for upgrades.

Sky shell did a few Suzy's and we got some Byako's planed for next week. Since we keep canceling runs though its been frustrating. For whatever reason however, the LS leader has taken a liking to me and plans on getting me an early drop. Doesn't matter to me either way since i'm going off to Leviathan. I think he just wants to reward me because i kept showing up while others have been inconsistant even though im farily new to shell (4 weeks).

Oh and one more thing. I started leveling BLM again. I seem to do this in spurts and this week has been one of those times. Currently I'm level 64 and would like to shoot for 66 by the end of the day Friday. I managed to actually get an invite to a traditional party. We level synced to 52 and went to crawlers nest. Wow that was odd going back there again. The party even set up some skill chains for me to burst on. I started messing around and threw out a Freeze when one mob had hit 40ish % to kill it off. One member suggested i do a freeze burst after seeing the damage. I hadn't seen one of those done in about 4 years but i remebered how it went and explained to the party that I was the one who started the whole thing off. Anyways we did it and fun was had by all. I topped out in damage at around 1210. Good Stuff. Mostly I just solo pets for xp and I actually enjoy it a fair bit.

/shout Linkshells

Just noticed I had been managing to squeeze out two posts a month on the BLOG and since this is the last day of April, I'll go ahead and make an update.

So I made the decision to move back to Leviathan. Actually I made this decision about the same time I dropped out of Haze. I haven't posted about wanting to move back on the remote chance someone actually reads this BLOG and it kept me out of some event shells while waiting on my time in Phoenix. Now though I'm Down to just 20 more days and regardless I can tough that out.

So what have I been doing in Phoenix these last few weeks? Well for one I picked up an odd hobby of joining lots of /shout Linkshells. Seriously I have about 7 LS's I'm in at the moment. These range from a EU shell, to sky shells, to ZNM shells, and some social shells. One thing I've noticed about all of these is that they struggle to keep membership up. For instance in the last 3 weeks every sky run but one has been cancelled due to poor showing. So the LS's go back to shouting and then of course they lose a few members who are mad the runs have been cancelled and the cycle perpetuates.

Another thing I've found fascinating is the people in these shells. They are small in member number but all seem to have a core group of 3-4 good friends. Also, they generally have 1-2 really well geared and really good characters. I'm talking a Relic weapon holder, some Maat's cap's, and some adaberk's. Things of that nature. If I had to hazard a guess these shells were either made by really good long time players who wanted to strike out and lead their own LS, or they bought their characters. I've seen both and of course its fairly easy to tell for someone who has played a while.

The guy with a relic who leads the EU shell I'm in, and who I do Limbus with, is legit. He knows his stuff and you can tell he is well liked and respected from the shells members. They also do events very smoothly and so its easy to get along with them. In my ZNM shell though its far different. This shell has 2 characters with Maat's cap. We go out to kill some Armed Gears. Now if you've ever done this ZNM you know you need to cast spells based on what enspell the mob has up. You want to cast the magic that is strong against its current en. These guys had no Clue what the elemental circle/order was. Not only did the Maat's cap guys not know, but the other mages didn't either. I had to tell them a few times and have them make a macro to call out the current spell element to cast.

Now are these shells bad? No not at all. We in fact won all of our ZNM fights and my sky shells do very well when we actually go to things. Are they slightly less efficient at doing things. Absolutely. There's stronger potential to mess things up and low member attendance really hampers their overall progression. Most of the people have been really nice and they all seem to want to get better. The thing that strikes me though is these are the type of people you may meet in RL who really want to do great things and be better but are waiting on something. What they are waiting on I can't say. But this lack of urgency and initiative is what ultimately holds them back.

Add-on Expansion Fails to deliver?

So the update hit. Never did get around to posting those update notes from SE. Oh well, maybe next time. Any ways they released the new Add on "A Crystalline Prophecy". This was essentially a very small expansion scenario that would take at most 5 hours to do if you had no competition for pops.

I'll admit to being extremely disappointed in how little actually came with this expansion. A few CS, 2 new battles, and then some running around was all it entailed. The battles themselves were a bit meh too. The first few people through to the BC's went in unprepared and didn't have a solid strategy and got just beat down. So of course people started saying they were hard and that you needed x job and do y to win. Really though if you understood the battles they were pathetically weak in my opinion.

Now I'm sure a few of you just got pissed off reading that. Too bad, its true. Seriously the 1st BC if you just have everyone concentrate on the yag when you go in and keep buffs up so the teleporting THF don't one shot you, its pretty hard to lose. I won this fight about 4-5 times in a row with various job and party set ups. The mobs are weak and even though there are 4 of them they just aren't strong enough to overwhelm you so just ignore the adds and work on one mob at a time. No kiting, no nothing required. Just have competent healers and a tank who will grab a mob off of said healer should they need it. With everyone doing 1 mob at a time, said mob falls fast and then it just gets easier as you go.

The last fight. Man how this fight can be easy as long as you know how to handle it. Tanks, get a freaking Magic damage setup. I tanked this as PLD and never dropped below 900 HP the whole time. Just go in , grab hate, burn every ability, then just keep running as it draws you in. Sub RDM and spam sleep, bind, dispel, blind when you get the chance during ga spells or his seed moves. Range attackers stay at distance and plug away while you have one member grabbing and taking care of the clones. Have one stunner for GA spells and you set. Won in 18 minutes, zero deaths, and was not even a challenge at any point. You can also just zerg this but a BRD is near a must as I went with a group that was too slow in killing and eventually lost due to way too many clones up.

All that said, I do love the new Body piece I got for my PLD. With this it means I really have no use for Dyna anymore since I have no purpose in getting a Valor surcoat now. My PLD is actually very well off now. Not much else I want for it other than Homam Feet and well that's about it unless I wanted to HQ some things. I don't feel like an idiot either walking around having a Hauteclaire and using AF1 body. To be honest many times I felt embarrassed having it and just didn't wear it around town.

March 20 2009

Time for a BLOG update.

So im pretty well setteled into my new shell here on phoenix. Been doing everything they have to offer such as Dynamis, Limbus, Sky, SEA, and a few odds and end events that they do. Still trying to find an Einharjer LS. I've asked around and talked to a few people but no good leads yet. Most shells are either Full or the ones that aren't seem very disorganized or go at bad days/times for me.

Nothing new as far as gear goes to report. Been trying to do Nyzul 80 runs with some poeple in the shell but they haven't been cosistant on setting up runs so I may break off from them and just go when I can to shout groups. My DRK really needs the askar body so I can fix my store TP build I need for my Perdu. It's annoying as hell having 99 TP instead of 100.

My DRK though is tareing it up in Merit party's. Most partys I cant keep hasso up cause I end up out pacing the other DD's too much and they aren't taking hate away from me often enough. Last Night though i had a great merit party with some Pimped out DD's and hate was more spread around allowing more Hasso useage and we clocked in a solid 21k per hour at MJSP south camp, not bad for that spot. Had BRD and COR so got some nice WS output with several above 1.4k and think I topped out at 1.55k. Got 7 merits banked right now that i need to spend.

Been trying to cap out my DRK job merits and i'll need in total 74 merit points to do that. I plan on having 5/5 Desperate Blows, 5/5 Diabolic Eye, 5/5 LR Effect, and 5/5 LR Recast. RIght now I am at 0/5, 2/5, 4/5, 1/5 respectively. However I still have those 7 merits to spend so that will change slightly today when I get on.

As far as other stuff. Gardening I had a crap harvest, ENM I haven't gotten a chance to do again but I should today. Had a few fail attempts at 80 Nyzul with pickups. So yea not really good news there. Oh well until next time.

Also i believe i am going to start posting the POL update notices and then make a first impression comment on those. Might be funny to see what actually happens as opposed to what players think will happen.

Life on Phoenix

Phoenix had been interesting to say the least. So I moved here to join up with an HNM shell. The shell was decent and had some nice people in it but there was also a protion of players whos morales were just too low for me. The Called for help on another LS's Kirin and then proceded to try and steal it. I left the shell imediately after this incident. Thats just not what i am about. Lasted 4 whole days before that and maneged to kill a few HNM's at least but still its not worth it if thats how they are going to act.

I proceded to be without a shell for about 4-5 days. It was very boring and relaxing at the same time. Did a lot of meriting on DRK and i know have 8 scythe merits, 3 Last resort Effect, and 1 diabolic eye. Also had a ton of IS so bought me a Perdu Scythe. Overall im pretty pleased with my drk. Looking to get an askar body, finish up merits, and upgrade some AF to +1 and i'll be done with it i think.

So after my 5 days with no shell i finally got into one called Armada. They do sky sea limbus dynamis all on a regular basis and seem to be pretty good at those events. They have a couple of outside Einharjer shells that im looking into as well and that should be a nice new event for me. Would love to get an Ebody from there one day.

The shell itself has some good players in it. They have an apoc DRK and just yesterday a PLD finished his Aegis. The thing that has been most intersting and surprising is how much they want me to come PLD to events. They seen my RDM and I got a lot of "Holy SHIT!!" comments but they have a ton of RDM's in shell and while I may be better, they apparently have a stronger need in most events for a good tank.

This has been pretty fun for me as I came from shells on Leviathan that had really strong tanks and I never got to use mine much. So already they have me main/co-tanking Jailors, Dynamis NM's, Ying/Yang, and possibly I might have to on an AV attempt we got comming up today. I havent told them how little experience I actually have tanking but I must be doing a good job as I seem to be like #3/4 on the depth chart with the shell boasting several 75 PLD's. I Need to really work on PLD gear though as it could use help in certain areas. First and foremost though I need a HP UP/DOWN set to use for cure hate.

As far as things I got planed they go something like this. Golliard Body, Askar Body, ENM, more Gardening, and finish meriting DRK. Need to really start building my gil back up as I have been lazy and gotten down to like 300k. Bleh.

Time for a change

Had to make a very hard to decision a few days ago. I been really itching to get into some serious HNM. I been holding out waiting for a spot to open in a prominent LS on leviathan. Talked to the members and the LS leader and they are all fine with me joining up eventually, just they have to many people in the shell right now. I can understand that. No need to clog up waiting lines and its not like they need more people anyways. So I had been just biding my time and waiting.

Things change though and after a lot of thought I have decided to join a HNMls on Phoenix. This by no means was an easy thing for me to decided to do. But at this point in both game and real life the time was right. So starting today I'll be on a new server with all new people, linkshell, and events.

Wow. Saying good bye to people was far more emotional than I would have thought. I mean its just a game right? Well, after spending so many years and experiencing so many good times with my in game friends letting go was truly hard. I started letting my old spirit link LS know about the move on Tuesday and it was a rough day for me. Wednesday I posted in my current LS forums and informed them all of the move. They wished me well and understood the decision and after the initial emotions on Tuesday, yesterday I was just more resigned to the decision and wanted to enjoy my last day.

What an eventful last day it turned out to be! First I log in and go out to VOS to help bong and the ls camp turtle for BB items. It was eventually forced pop and even though the big lses turned out in full force we got the claim. Killed it, after getting some horrendous adds at the start, and had fun being out there with the guys.

Next my Nyzul shell wanted to do one last run since we had made it to floor 95 on Tuesday to push for 100 since this was my last day and end the static on a good note. Luck was with us and we got some easy floors and had 10 minutes to deal with Hydra on the final floor. Took it down and wouldn't you know it we get an Askar Helm to drop. We all lotted and in what must be a fluke I lotted a 943 to win. Turns out this last run would give me my one and only gear piece from all those runs.

After that ended I rushed off to help Janaka do the UO BCNM. Was really glad Janaka had logged in as he is probably my oldest acquaintance in game. I can remember meeting him for the first time back when I had just gotten to Khazam and my RDM was a wee little level 20ish noob. We did a lot over the years and while our play times haven't been aligned that well for the last while I still consider him a great friend. Anyways, on to the bcnm with him and Kuldin and we do 3 runs. Wouldn't you know it, a PCC drops! Now I could have just split this with them and gone on my merry way but this was Janaka after all and so I told them they could just have it and wished them well. Was just happy to be able to help them.

I ended it all with one last run of salvage. Nothing amazing here happened. We did 2 NM's which didn't drop for us and killed the mega which dropped stuff we didn't need. Still though it was my last event and got to spend time with Keeva and all the LS guys I been hanging with for the last year. All in all it was a good day.

I regret not getting to do one last limbus run with my limbus shell but nothing I could do about it. Limbus was and always has been one of my favorite things in game and I had a really great group of people I ran with. I'll miss all my friends on leviathan, it was great playing with you.

Now though I'm excited to enter this new phase of the game. The sadness of the last few days has turned into anticipation and I look forward to just diving head first into the HNMls. It may be the end of an era, but Malaketh lives on.

Job #3 at 75

So I hit 75 DRK last week (Thursday 2/5/2009) and man what a differance a level made for me. I went from gimp to a pretty nice well geared DD in an instant. I had been holding off on buying anything from 72-75 since I had all my Homam gear ready to use so I was shockingly bad in my opinion as a level 74 drk in my party I got. Soon as i dinged tho I went to pretty much competing for Top DD with another DRK in the party. My gear was slightly better but he had a lot more merits so i felt good about how I was doing.

Now I need to get to work on my ws set and then eventually a zerg setup. That will take a while but i'm in no rush since i'm still going to be RDM 90% of the time. The plan right now is to get AF+1 hands, head, and feet. Get an askar body, homam feet, and askar head and that should do it as far as I am concerned. I may upgrade some ares pieces as they go free lot and after my morrigans is all done but that stuff will just come way down the road.

It sure is nice though to change things up with DD and it is far more relaxing to play. Many mages say playing a DD job is easy and I know DD mains get kind of upset at this. I think it would be more accurate to say DD just has almost no stress involved unlike playing a mage/support job does. The reason for this I beleive is that DD jobs are played more proactive than reactive like a healer job is.

Events wise everything been going about the same. We are on floor 80 of nyzul and I believe tonight we are going to push to 90. Salvage has been going smooth and we are starting to do split runs on Wednesdays now. Been going pretty hard after my morrigans slops but the 35 NM is just being a real pain with the drop. Limbus we did another Ultima but I passed on drops wanting to stay in line for my last Homam piece. We have another Omega comming next week I think. Sky/Sea/ZNM been doing a lot of trigger farming so nothing much to report there.

Still around

Yea so its been several weeks since my last post. Just haven't felt like typing anything up really. Been a lot harder to find time as well as works has had a lot of stuff going on so my time has been limited. Anyways on to the post.

Its been so long I forget what I haven't posted about so I guess I'll just try and touch on anything major in the last few month's. First off in salvage I got all the drops for my cuffs and now have some nice Morrigans hands to go along with the body I had. I really like this piece with the MAB and of course the MACC on it as well. It eliminates a few hand gears I had and no real need I think to want to grab the Master caster bracelets, especially since I been this long without them already. I got 19 total MAB in gear right now, not that great but I can grab an ugly pendant and boost that up sometime down the line.

In limbus I'm sitting at 4/5 homam now lacking only the feet. This combined with my other gear gives me 15% haste equip on my PLD. In addition I picked up leveling DRK again and will be taking it to 75 as soon as possible. Can't wait to try out all the haste stuff on a big DD job. DRK is up to 70 now and rising as I try to get xp anyway I can on it at least a little every day.

My Nyzul group is cleared up to floor 55 now. Not bad, but I still have no luck getting any gear from here. I'm the only one without a single piece despite several attempts on boss floors just for me only to get other stuff and not Goliard. I don't care that much as I don't find the gear to be all that great compared to what I already have. Floor 54 brings the WS points I need to unlock the WS down to 2400. I got 1700ish on the pld sword and am just going to stop and let it unlock with a floor 60 clear. I'll work on RDM and DRK weapon after my DRK hits 75.

Lastly I joined up with a SKY/SEA/ZNM/KSNM LS run by the same people I do limbus with. Its a very good group and I have been getting a lot done. This puts me back on the map for getting some much needed and overdue gear. wlegs, justice sword, some zenith stuff, heca stuff for pld and drk, the list goes on of stuff I need. Nice to finally have a LS to do that with on a consistent basis. So far I got a genbu's shield (lol can't believe I never had one of these yet) and some heca feet. Many people in the ls have been in it a long time and have a lot of the gear already so the waiting list on things isn't too bad.

I think i'm beginning to burn out a bit on RDM. Well not so much RDM burn out just with the repetitive stuff I do. Like salvage as RDM several times a week is getting old. I think going as another job a few times to get a different experience would be nice. And of course I've sworn off Merit parties on RDM. Just can't handle the boredom. Refresh and haste bot is all the job seems to be anymore and that's just not fun. Let me do more things like I do in limbus and BCNM/KSNM and I'm all for jumping on my RDM and showing what I can do. For the most part though the job has grown stale and needs a change.

On the reverse side of things I am absolutely loving my DRK. Its like playing a whole new game really being a DD doing WS's and using various other skills in battle applications. I always wanted to level a DD for versatility and I am very happy I finally did. Hoping to hit 75 in the next few weeks bumming some merit parties form LS friends. I'll never be as pimp on DRK as I am on RDM from a gear standpoint since I have so much for RDM and many things for DRK are either down right expensive (KC) or very rare and need a HNM shell for (adaberk). However, I sure am having a lot more fun on it. Maybe when SE finally makes some changes to RDM I'll be able to dive into the job with renewed fervor, until then i'm going to be DRK and leveling other jobs to fill the void.