1st full ZNM run xD

So, after 7 weeks of school, I was finally able to meet in time for a full ZNM run... well, mostly full as I had to take a short break for dinner xD

Let's see... first impressions... wow, talk about a grind. I haven't done long events like this in ages... not since the CoP missions or the ZMs where we were trying to get as many missions done as possible in one afternoon. 4 hours straight of moving from mob to mob, killing mobs really saps strength. I'm impressed with how Varg & Aqqy can do their Monday FFXI marathons, or do their Sunday Salvage/Einhjar/Ashu/Nyzul runs week after week x.x

What else... I came as BLU/WHM for this run, mainly because we were doing Cheese Hoarder and chasing after that silly rat only to have a bomb blow up in my face isn't my idea of fun... That, and running after Armed Gears the last time I came for that really made me dizzy xD Still, I came mostly as support, using Magic Fruit, Diamondhide and all the normal WHM spells. I guess I'm really not a DD-type person... I like to keep everyone alive and let someone else go beat up the mob! Next week, I'll probably come as DNC for a pure support-healing role, though I really want to get my SAM sub up to try using that instead of /NIN.

Finally... Zeni... Boy these pop items take a lot of zeni. I had 17k+ zeni on Sunday, and now I'm down to 11k from picking up various pop items. Just a rough guess, looking at the pop cycle, it takes 22k zeni (assuming you get it at the lowest price) to obtain a tier 4 pop item (1k for the various tier 1's, 2k for the various tier 2's, etc.) I can see why it would be necessary to get a lot of people to farm zeni... being able to pop these items takes a lot of zeni, and hence time.

In the best case scenario, you can get almost 100 zeni per plate. With the NPC only taking 10 plates per hour, it'll take 22 hours of handing in plates in order for one person to obtain enough zeni to pop a tier 4. Of course, you can do other things in between, but that's still a long time!

Worst part... many jobs can't even farm zeni by themselves easily. In order to get the most amount of zeni per plate turned in, you need a high level mob (T or VT) beat up down to nearly 0% Of all the jobs, I think BLM, BLU & RDM are the three jobs which can do this relatively safely. Sleep is a necessary component, and the ability to do enough damage, or have enough stamina to beat down the mob. Other jobs would have to team up to beat up a mob, or be satisfied with less zeni by beating up a weaker mob. It may be necessary to get people together to do "zeni farming" parties where we go out and spam photos on various mobs... We did that once with a Marid. (poor thing was kept alive for almost an hour!)

Personally, I prefer farming Imps myself... easy to beat down (for a BLU), easy to sleep, easy to get to, and at 98 zeni each, best return on the time spent. Heck, I solo merit on them when I'm in the mood! If you see that it's on Imps, LET ME KNOW and we'll go out and take photos! One reason why I have such a high zeni count is that I would go out, spend 15 minutes taking photos, then go afk in Whitegate for the next two hours, only coming back to turn plates in while watching a movie! This way I get "something" done in game while having fun doing something else xD I'm usually doing this on Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday nights, so if you need zeni, give me a buzz!

Meanwhile... where did I put that Great Katana? Time to go back to Qufim ; ;