Level grinding, broke, and MP gear

Lots to report about. Need to catch up again on whats been going on the last week and a half. First on the weekend of the 15-16 I had intended to just farm and level PLD. Well I did level PLD some and got to level 66 finally but didn't get any farming done. Party was pretty good again, another JP party cause they love me or something, and got to 5k out of 27.5k into the level.

After that i merited RDM some and on saturday spent most my time in sea with Janaka and PB. We did another limbus run, zero coins again had to take a zone we didnt like since others were taken. So yet another 30k down but oh well i still love limbus, its a great time for me. After we got done with the run we stayed in sea and farmed up some organs so me and Jan could get some sea obi's. Got everything but 1 tissue so i more or less done. I can probably just get the tissue on wednesday when i go for another run with my sea LS.

Speaking of the sea LS, we went and killed Ix Mnk on Wednesday. Went down easy but we got absolutely nothing. Of course we did just pop with 1 organ and not three since we had so few there and was many people's, me included, first time. After that we just farmed some more pop items to be ready for the next time.

Now that catches me up to this past weekend. Saturday I spent most the day leveling PLD. Man did I have some bad parties. First we got a RDM that was awful. She said she had a 5 month lay off so she was rusty. I could understand that, I was in the same boat recently. But her bad play went beyond rust, it was like she had NEVER played RDM. Had no idea RDM had Raise, didnt keep sneak up when getting to camp, almost never kept refresh on the PLD tank, and other things that she should have known. Being slow is one thing, but not even knowing to do these things is simply a whole new set of warning bells. I'd bet it was a bought character. Anyways 4 deaths later the leader was fed up with her, and I was at negative xp after an hour down 2k with xp ring on, kicked her and got a replacement. New RDM gets there and we start crusing along. Got to 15k total and then some people had to leave.

So after that party broke I went back to seeking. I must have been really wanting the headache. This party gets a smn to main heal which is fine normally. Except we hit another homerun with grabbing a worthless party member. I wont get into all the details but we end up letting her go, after I die 2 more times(yes 6 total deaths), and got Helio from my LS to replace her. Things went much better but i had to leave after about another hour due to some real life stuff. So i am now at 20k out of 27.5k for my level. SO if you take away those 6 deaths i would have leveled up. Oh well, thats the breaks sometimes.

I made one new purchase on my PLD. I bought a hercules ring to add another 3 enmity. Doing this, and being very low on gil, i went and sold 2 of my defensive rings for PLD. Those being an unyielding ring and a verve ring. They sold pretty fast and i had a little bit of gil from my mules. Well being me it started to burn a hole in my pocket and so I finally did something I had been debating anyways. I bought the last 11 ancient beastcoins for my Loq. earring. It cost me about 150k but all in all thats cheap in comparison to what something of equal value cost. NOw with the earring I hit 1k mp without any food.


Not bad at all. Now its time to upgrade my tabard and get rid of that blue cotehardie for my body peice. It has too much -hp on it to get my convert up much higher. So I need another 30 anc. beastcoins and then I think im done with everything I want to purchase for my mp set except maybe a hedgehog bomb sometime way off in the future. Everything else would by drop items off of HNMs and Gods.

So having done that, and having zero gil just about leaving PLD off limits, I went and merited on RDM some. Got a good party and with the merit points I already had saved up I upgraded my ICE accuracy twice to get to level 2. I still have 1 and a half merit points so almost to another upgrade for it as well.

That's it for now. I really need to get some gil and i'll probably level PLD up to 67 soon as I can actually afford some food for it...

More MIdweek Fun

Interesting day yesterday. So I mentioned I had joined a new, small, Sea LS. Had a total of about 16 people for our first farming and tier 1 jailor run. Got some HQ organs for some future pops and then used one of the pop sets they had farmed up for JoFo.

The fight is pretty straight forward and basic. Pop the Jalior and he has two pets. When the pets are alive he reflects all damage back. Since he doesn’t take much damage at all from melee weapons you basically just kite him around while taking out his friends. By the time we actually got to the fight we only had one tank as the others had to log. Still was really easy.

Only slight problem we had was the only real way to damage him was through magic. SO with only one BLM there and 2 rdm it was basically us three doing most the nuking. The other RDM didn’t seem to be nuking that much either but was more assisting with healing and keeping the tank up. I was doing this too until I realized people were just standing there and trying to figure out how to damage the guy. I threw out a bliz III and did 500ish damage and figured I should focus on nuking or else this would take forever. SO after maybe 10 minutes of nuking from me and the BLM he went down and only death was the blm died once after getting a bit too much hate from nuking.

No torque drop but did get the normal stuff.


After that, and seeing how few PLD’s the LS had, I dusted of my PLD gear and went and bought a sword to level it up again. Had a few things sell on the AH and got enough to buy a Macuahuitl +1. Nice enmity sword and something I can get away with in parties rather than dropping the gil on a Espadon +1. Damage difference is really just from WS since the Espadon is slower and at 70 I’ll be going with a company sword anyways so it’s only a miner inconvenience for me. Still need to get a shield torque and buy a herc ring for 66, then I’m fine till about 70. That will cost me about 80k. Also need a new shield at 69 that will set me back about 130k, or I can by the new level 58 wivre shield if it’s ever available but that will cost twice as much…ugh.

Anyways I bought the sword, put up my flag, and actually got a party pretty fast. I got about 12k in 2 hours so not horrendous. I’m at 15/26k so I should be able to ding 66 this weekend. Going to concentrate on farming and leveling PLD for the foreseeable future. Having another job 70+ will be nice and of course I can always use the gil. Also need to stop being lazy and go finish my PLD AF as that is useful for real tanking rather than the DD tanking I do in xp Parties. And of course still try and do some limbus.

Going to Sea?

Very busy weekend for me.

So last post I was still working on getting my staff grip. After a few more merit parties I was finally able to get the IS points needed to make the purchase. Yay, another 20 mp to throw on the pile. So my full casting gear MP (with food) is currently at 825, and my convert mp is now at 1046. Man that sure is a long way from when I first hit 75; I struggled to get 900 then.

On the limbus coin/more mp item front I went on a limbus Duo run with PB. We tried the elemental one and they are very resistant to nukes, did about 1/3-1/2 normal damage. Kill time was slow for us and we picked the chest that had the mystic avatar and got completely owned. This was lack of experience and I had never read up on this one at all. So I dropped 30k and got… zero coins. Oh well at least it looks like we may duo some more soon so that’s a definite good sign on the limbus front. If we do that I should be able to get my Loq. Earring in a matter of just a few weeks.

Also, after all the meriting I was able to get the last upgrade for Convert. Time to work on Ice accuracy now.


I logged in late in the evening on Saturday which is odd for me right now. Soon as I did I saw a shout from an old friend that was in my very first LS. He was starting up a SEA LS and was looking for members. So I sent him a tell and told him I’d come on their Wednesday runs and he gladly accepted me. This is of course something unexpected for me but with the time working out I think it will be very enjoyable for me. My first real experience with HNM’s I guess you could say. Hoping to get an Altruistic cape for my RDM as well as a Justice Sword and Fortitude torque for my PLD and RDM to use. We will probably do Tier 1’s for a while as we are just starting out but at least I’ll have a shot at the cape somewhat soon I would think. On another note they may be starting up a limbus group as well and if they do I may join if I can’t do any duos with people in Spirit Link or maybe I can get some of them to join the Limbus group. Who knows at this point it’s still pretty early.

On the gil problems I’m having I finally decided to go out and farm some things. Still a little unsure of what to farm nowadays as my old money makers are just not up to power anymore. I used to be able to get about 100-130k an hour. Today that same stuff might net me 30k. I tried out some new things and did decent I guess, got maybe 50k an hour and that seems good with how bad the economy is. Problem is that things are slower selling than my old stuff, but I can wait for the gil to come in as long as its steady.

Had just a few hours left to play after farming and went and leveled Sam trying to get to 34 so I can sell my katana. Got to level 33 and only 3k away from 34 so not too bad. One more session, probably next Saturday, should do it. Then its back to waiting for OKotes so I may be done for a while.


Last bit of news was somewhat surprising. It seems that Pus and Zeit are leaving my old Dyna shell after a difference of opinion on how some things are being handled. I had mentioned in an earlier post I was thinking about starting my Own Dyna Shell so here is even more motivation. Still haven’t decided yet but it’s certainly still on my mind.

Catching up

So I haven’t posted in about 2 weeks. Lots of things have happened but I just haven’t had the time to write an update. SO first things first. There was an update done that increased the damage done by two-handed weapons to bring them more in line with what the dual wielders in game were getting. I was thinking “Yay” because I was leveling up SAM a bit anyways and any boost is nice right?

Well SE did more than just bump the damage by a little. They made two-handed weapons extremely powerful and while I must say it was fun leveling SAM, it also made us a bit too strong I think. I leveled up to 32 before I stopped since literally there was no way for me not to tank on SAM now since I pulled so much hate through damage. It was nice at first but now I can’t even use berserk from subbing war since I just obliterate mobs and no tank can reasonably be expected to maintain hate off a well equipped 2 hander, which face it any level 32 job can be with not much gil. I might still get to 34 before taking an extended GIL break since I do have my GK for 34 and can sell back the one I’m using now for a bit of GIL and another inventory slot. After that though I’m either camping for OKotes or saving a ton of Gil and farming like mad.

PLD I’ve put on hold for just a bit. I need some gear upgrades for this too and well I don’t have the gil for that either. I need to get a new sword, a shield torque, upgrade my shield, and I need some new rings as well. When I do that it’s pretty much good until 70 and that would be a nice place to stop for a while to get the last bit of gear to take it to 75. Another reason I’ve put it on hold is because of the weapon changes and the melees going crazy and not even trying to watch their hate levels while having fun with the new upgrades. SE has announced that there was a problem in the calculations, which anyone could plainly see, and will fix this on the 10th so I’ll hopefully be ready to give things a go by then provided I can get the funding.

I’ve been meriting a ton on RDM. Convert is now at 4/5 upgrades and I have 2 merits in the bank needing just three more to cap out convert. After that it’s on to Ice accuracy and MY RDM specific stuff is more or less done. One reason I have been meriting so much is because its more or less free for me to do. Mage MP food is cheap and I earn the gil back just of the basic crystal drops so it cost me nothing and I can even make 1~2k. Yea not much but at least I don’t lose money.

Also, I have been working on refining my convert setup. I’ve been at 1k plus mp for a while now but I’m trying to get it even higher and I’d like to get my normal casting gear higher as the mp difference in casting gear to convert gear is pretty large at 206 mp. That’s a lot to try and burn off so as not to waste it. The things to do this however are not cheap.

For the first part to increase overall convert MP I got a dirt cheap lamia mantle. It’s 24 mp and cost a lousy 4k. This gives me 15 more than my current back piece and is great for merit parties and max MP. Next, in the last update SE introduced grips for two-handers and a few are mage types. The staff grip gives 20 mp, which I can keep on full time, as well as -3 enmity which I guess never hurts. This does cost 20K IS points though so I need to xp to get the points. I’m at 19k now so one more session should do it.

The next phase, getting higher mp in my normal gear, is where the expenses come in. Before my break we had been doing limbus runs and I was saving coins to get a Loquacious earring. I was at 59/75 coins before my connection crapped out. When I came back the limbus runs had stopped I have no reasonable way to get coins other than buying them. They're going for about 14 k each so I need to spend about 224k to get the earring. Yuck… I did see I guy shouting he was selling 5 for 12k and reluctantly decided to buy them. I didn’t really have the Gil to spare but figured I could at least sell them back at 14k if I was in dire straights for cash. So I am at 64/75 and if I find more for 12k need to spend another 132k for my earring. I am hopeful, however, that once my schedule changes in October I can do some Limbus Runs again or at the very least get someone to Duo some areas with me. Either way, I need to Farm up some Gil.

The other purchase also requires limbus coins, ugh. If I’m going to get that, the tabard +1, then I’ll certainly want to have a group or Duo for limbus to lighten up the GIL situation. So all in all with those 4 pieces I should increase my overall mp up 59 and my standard setup will increase 84 points leaving just 181 mp from convert to burn off. And on a “hey that’s neat” note I can get 1k mp without food and have zero sky/hnm gear and I still have 3 more mp merits I could get.

Last but not least, I’m hoping to do some ToAU missions. Marlow wants to set a group up and id love to be able to do it with the guys again. Me, bemi, and Zorb went and got up to mission 14 and hopefully we can get that knocked out soon. After that its all CS until about mission 22 so we can then start moving along and with what little I have read up on most the mission seem pretty easy. Not sure where Marlow and Janaka are at mission wise but hopefully we can catch up fast and get this expansion done.

Um so yea, that seems like a lot for one update.

Weekly Update 8/17 - 8/20

So Friday I xped on PLD some. The party was ok I guess but the xp just seemed to be coming in really slow. Every time I checked it seemed like I had barely gained 1k. Maybe I was just not into leveling PLD that night. Oh well. Party broke and I was about 8k away from 65.

Saturday I spent the majority of the day meriting RDM. I finally unlocked slow II after the party and then also started working on my convert timer. So I spent a total of 4 merits to get both of those at level 1. I also tried unsuccessfully to party on PLD. Just no parties for me that day.

Sunday I went and merited RDM again for just a bit. Got just one more merit in a short lived party. I also on a whim decided to join a random LS on a Dynamis Bastok run. Not sure why I did it but was fun none the less. The LS has a rather bad reputation but I wanted to go to see what other LS’s did in the zones to compare to some of my experiences from Alttab.

About 2 hours into the run I got DC’d and couldn’t get back on due to a power outage at my house. However, before that happened I have to say things really didn’t go bad at all. There where some warning signs as to why the LS probably struggled. First they had a lot of first time Dynamis people. I don’t think this is an every run problem but it’s possible they have a lot of turn over. Second, right before the run started the Leader asked if anyone had any pulling experience since they had issues with this. Now this is probably what hurt them most of all as they would have had bad links and pullers dying too often, and out of order killing. So I said yea I had pulled and would do it for them, lord knows I’ve pulled every zone tons of times. (The fact they let some new guy they didn’t know pull speaks volumes) And lastly their tactics are just a bit off on some things, this mostly would have cost them time but other things could be worse. I offered advice but no one really paid it much heed. Some things they will just need to see first hand.

With me pulling during my time there everything went pretty smooth. One new guy aggroed a bunch of crap and wiped us but we recovered nicely. When I dc’d they had made it halfway down to the alchemist guild in the ally and had 50 minutes on the clock so they where in good shape. No idea what happened after that but, unless they just messed things up badly, should have had no problems winning the zone. I think they go again on Wednesday but I have no idea if I am going to go or not.

After going on the run, and with the possibility of me having more playing time during the week starting in October, I may start up my own Dynamis LS. I have a ton of knowledge about the zones and while I wish I could rejoin Alttab I could never make their Saturday run. That’s still a bit of time away and not sure if I’m completely sold on the idea, but I may just do it.

Monday I started out leveling PLD. Had a good party (except the RDM didn’t do a great job of refreshing) but we didn’t last that long. Too many people had to leave for things so we called it off after about an hour and a half. I did manage to get to 65 though so I need to update some gear again. After that party me and Marlow went and did ENM 40. It was very easy but of course we got a crap 1k drop. I think we’re going to try again next Monday. Once that was done Pusarah had sent a tell and wanted to know if I wanted to merit so of course I said yes.

It was nice meriting with LS people again. The party had Pus, Keeva, Hemdall, and me with 2 others I didn’t know. We did trolls since all the other camps were overcrowded. Got 2 merit points done and called it a night. I updated Convert some more and its level 3 now and I have one merit point in the bank.

Well this was a long post. I really should stop rambling so much, It doesn’t help that my system at work is having issues giving me time to post.

Dusting off the hat

Had a good and productive weekend. Had a few good parties, got some questing done, and finally dusted off my RDM.

First off I started on leveling up PLD again. Fridays nights party was just odd to say the least. First off this party had a nin in it which is strange since that almost never happens with a PLD in the party. Second, there was no refresher in the party so my mp was constantly on the low side. And last, it actually went well. I was the main tank throughout the party but what we would do to save mp was about every 5th fight, the NIN would tank one while I just DD’d and recovered MP. The rest of the time the NIN was in full DD gear and was the main puller. Not the best xp per hour ever, but it certainly wasn’t terrible. I dinged 63 that night and got about half way into the level before logging.

Saturday I started looking for party as soon as I got on and almost immediately got an invite. The JP players really seem to like having PLD’s as main tanks at this level. In fact after we started the party we had 2 players who dc’d and never came back and unlike most JP parties that break up, they insisted I stay and found some replacements. After our 2 new members got there we went to work and the xp started rolling in. I got level 64 and good chunk into the level before we stopped. The SAM in the party had a Soboro and really makes me want to level up Sam right now and get it but I would at least like to get PLD up to the 70’s before that. The Sam was the first guy I had struggles to keep hate off of in a long time. I still maintained hate through out but had to often times grab it back from the SAM where as usually it is always glued on me. I’ll try to get to 66 next weekend, but at that point there are a few pricey items I’ll need to stop and get some gil for.

So Sunday I woke up and was determined that it was finally time to try RDM again. I still had to use the keyboard but since I have been at it for a few weeks now it is starting to become easier for me to use. So I geared up, put my flag up, and hoped for the best. It took about an Hour to get a party which I contribute to the fact I was in JP time and there were 7 RDM’s my level looking to party. After getting a party though I got a little apprehensive. First I was the only Healer and haster in the party. Even if this wasn’t my first party back this would have been tough to handle. Fortunately though, they decided to XP in the mire exclusively on imps and we had a NIN tank that was good about keeping shadows up. It was actually much easier than I would have thought and I had a pretty good rhythm going after awhile. It was a nice ice breaker party for me and I think I’ll continue to merit RDM at least one day a week now to get my timing back to what it was. I got 2 merits in the party and got my xp buffer back up to about 6k.

What I have decided to do as far as the buffer goes is to start out each party in xp mode and use my empress ring. Then after it’s used up switch over to merits. This should help me get a good mixture of both and sustain my death habits on RDM.

Almost forget to mention the bit about questing. On Saturday after I finished XPing on PLD I went and got enough fame done so I could flag Leviathan, Ifriti, and Ramuh avatar fights. Me and Zorb went and fought Ramuh on Sunday and got the win so now I just need to do the last 2 and I’ll have all the whispers to fight Fenrir. I didn’t turn in the Ramuh whisper to get the avatar simply because I want to be ready to fight Fenrir whenever the opportunity comes up. Not to mention I may want to try my hand at soloing him. Before I do that though, I would need to re buy my HQ Ice staff. Oh well that’s still a bit of time away.

LFP and Gil

SO anyways once again things didn';t go as planed but I never really expected them too. My plans are more of a guidline to help me stay focused on what it is I want to accomplish in game.

That said I didnt do ENM 40 once again but I did go on a ENM Brothers run with Marlow. Umm.. im still rusty... moving on. SO anyways I busted out PLD on Saturday and got to level 62 now with just needing another 7k to hit 63. Not bad at all. I also got my AF gloves finally thanks to Zorb and Janaka helping me to get the Coffer in the Necropolis. The gloves are ok and they do have 3 dex and 2 enmity on them. I might actully use these more than I thought since the dex makes up a bit for the Acc hit I would take by swithcing out of my current gloves. Probably only do this if I feel I need the extra enmity.

Sunday I really wanted to get my PLD to 63 but after looking for party for about an hour and a half I gave up on it for the day. I could have looked longer but the entire time there was a good 3-5 tanks constantly looking and I didn't want to waste my entire day. So I decided to level up my 19 Sam.

That went pretty well. I got to level 20 in the dunes in a pretty decent party, and then moved on to qufim. Ended the day at level 21 and need only about 180 xp to level up. I may even grab that solo before I go seeking again. NOw being in qufim reminded me that my thf is also 21 and at this low level i can grab gear to fit both my Sam and THF so I might go ahead and level them up together since i need thf at 37 anyways for a SAM subjob one day.

Gil is still an issue but hopefully i'll stop being lazy and hit more ENM's up or if I get really bored go farming i guess. Either way I need to do something before long as I have some bigger purchases comming up on PLD and of course SAM is expensive pretty early on.

As a note about this blog, you may have noticed I haven't posted any pictures since I have been back. Well, thats because I keep forgetting to take any. Meh, not much to show anyways, maybe i'll take some if I happen to get some good drops next weekend.