We did Tyger for ZNMs last night. Pretty close to the setup that we did the last week, but with a few little job changes. Dexie was RNG, Teia subbed NIN, and I came DNC instead of BLU.
Yup! Instead of bring a heavy DD job capable of healing, dispelling, enfeebling and more, I brought out my little dance shoes, subbing NIN to try some experiments. The problem with BLU on this fight is... mostly my preferences. I'm not really big on the whole DD side of things, so going in to do damage and running back out again isn't my thing. That's one reason why I'm normally BLU/WHM or BLU/SCH, because I like the flexibility of Blue Mage. Those who go to Nyzul with me know how I adjust BLU for the job, handling everything from sleeping, pulling, debuffing and even spike damage. For Tyger, however, the flexibility of BLU is mostly wasted since everyone has a pretty much defined role. Last week I went BLU/WHM to heal. This week I decided to change things up a bit with Fuuji's consent.
Initial thoughts
My initial thought on bringing DNC was pretty simple. I figured that since the problem we had last week was that the healers were building up too much hate that I'd use Steps to help speed the kill along. More damage = faster fight, right?
I went DNC/NIN for this fight to absorb AoE attacks, even though I normally prefer /SAM. Accuracy was okay with my accuracy gear, but it still wasn't the perfect "land every step" that I wanted. Nothing that a bit of sushi couldn't fix, of course :D
Besides Utsusemi, I also kept Fan Dance up full time in order to reduce any damage taken. Since Fan Dance's effectiveness is based on how many hits I've taken instead of duration, keeping it up and refreshing it whenever the timer runs down is a pretty good strategy even if I wasn't the person being targetted. TP gain isn't a problem thanks to No Foot Rise & Reverse Flourish merits, and I figured that I'd be able to contribute a good bit to healing too.
1st Tyger & sudden backup tank
The first Tyger pop was going fairly well at first. I had a little problem keeping track of which Step was up next as I was trying to get both Box Step & Stutter step up to level 5. Steps only last about a minute on the mob and each type of step needs to be constantly refreshed. It's easy to miss a step if I'm busy doing something else like getting Utsusemi back up or healing people. That said, I did manage to get Stutter Step up to level 5 a few times and keep it there for a while, but later Varg pointed out that we didn't have as many BLMs to do much damage. I guess I should have taken a closer look at the roster first. ^^;
Tyger has a few really annoying moves for a Dancer. First, there's Tenebrous Mist that resets TP. This isn't a problem when he uses it once as I can simply use Reverse Flourish and be back on healing, but when he does it back-to-back, it can take another 30 seconds before I'm ready to heal again. Fulmination is annoying due to paralyze since that could cripple all my Waltzes until it is removed, and all the AoE damage moves are very annoying due to their side effects such as terror or stun.
That said, Fan Dance actually does help in the AoE attacks. Since some of the attacks are physical, it really helps when shadows are down. In fact, one of my deaths was because I had forgotten to put Fan Dance up before moving in >.>
Partway through the fight, Wuwu went down and Connie went down not too long after. Tyger was walking towards the mages when I used Animated Flourish. I was surprised that it actually worked and Tyger turned towards me since Animated Flourish is actually really weak for hate generation, maybe about a half strength Provoke. I'm not sure if having Fan Dance up made a significant difference either, since Fan Dance is supposed to "increase enmity". I guess that made me backup tank suddenly, and I wasn't really ready for it ^^;
Went okay for a while, with me trying to use Waltzes to heal damage. Since a Dancer's main hate tool is curing, I'd have to try to get my Waltzes in before the WHMs in the party could heal me, or else there'd be more risk of losing hate. One thing I screwed up on was that I would try to recast shadows using Utsusemi: Ichi when Ni was down. Tyger attacks too fast for this, and my attempts would end up being interrupted when I should have been attacking and Stepping for TP instead. I finally died when I made the wrong decision of trying to cast Utsusemi when I was low on health instead of simply curing myself back up again using Curing Waltz.
So... lessons learnt from this: Dancer does generate a large amount of hate, enough to actually grab it from tanks. Curing Waltz is our main hate tool, which requires us, or someone to take some damage. Keeping HP up is more important than Utsusemi. Rely more on Fan Dance to keep the damage down. Also, use mainly Utsusemi: Ni unless I can time shadow cancelling properly, which is something I don't have much practice at yet.
2nd Tyger - Front-line healer
The second Tyger went a lot better than the first. No tanks went down, and people were logging to clear hate as appropriate. A few things happened that were interesting though...
Just over halfway through the fight, I started trading hate with both tanks. That is, if either tank was hit, Tyger would switch attention to me and start taking my shadows down, or actually hitting me instead of just catching me in AoE moves. Now when a healer gets hate, what would normally happen is that the mob would end up moving away from the tanks towards the squishy mages, which could possibly result in a wipe. However, as a front-line healer, Tyger would just start attacking me instead since I'm right there next to both tanks. With Utsusemi and Fan Dance, two tools that regular healer-mages do not normally have, I can easily tank the mob until the regular tanks can put their shadows back up and work to try to get hate back. Instant, uninterruptable curing also makes staying alive and maintaining hate that much easier.
(It was a little funny when Tyger used Toubillion on me and knocked me back that Fuuji thought that a mage had taken hate :) I guess i wasn't standing in the right position to prevent from being thrown back?)
Wu is right though. If I'm at the front-line and holding hate, that means I'm one of the tanks and I shouldn't be afraid of pulling & holding hate and taking a few hits!
Further Dancer tank testing
What does this mean? Can a Dancer main tank? I'm not certain yet... I've noticed a few things from all this time experimenting with Dancer:
- It takes a long time to build up a solid amount of hate. PLDs, NIN and even RDM have lots of different tools to build hate. Flash, Provoke, Ninjitsu, or the RDM spamming of enfeebles are lots of ways to build up a lot of hate in a short amount of time. Dancers rely on healing to generate hate, and that means that someone needs to take a lot of damage for me to heal up.
- On the other hand, once we get our hate built up, it's really hard to get rid of it. For Tyger, our mages have to log out in order to reset hate. In Einherjar and Dynamis, if we have a large pull, I'll eventually end up pulling hate from the later mobs simply due to healing my party. Rooks says that's why I get a THF in my party for Einherjar!
- Evasion doesn't work against level 80+ NMs >.> I should have just stuck to using Haste or Accuracy gear against Tyger. In campaign, I can easily handle 5 mobs at the same time using evasion gear + Fan Dance, but evasion simply doesn't work against Tyger.
So, I think the best tanking situation for a Dancer would be a backup tank. We're up there on the front-line healing anyway. A mistake by a main tank would mean taking over until the tank is brought back up. Once our hate levels get high enough, we can take a few hits easily and co-tank to take pressure off the main tank. Main tanking would be tricky due to the small number of tools a Dancer has to generate initial hate. Perhaps if a few people would use Trick Attack on the Dancer, it might work. Further testing is definitely required.
Also, more Fan Dance merits. I might end up going 5/5 on this one instead of splitting some merits with Saber Dance if further testing proves to be positive! Maybe the next Omega, or ZNM run!
Finally: If you're leveling Dancer... be sure to unlock the three meritable abilities as soon as you hit 75! They really, really change how the job can be played!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Week of fail continues!
The "Week of Fail" continues into the 2nd week with even more FAIL!
Let's see... what do we have...
- Limbus: Super-low attendence, plus no luck getting time extensions mean a really short Wednesday Limbus farming session
- ZNMs: 2x wipe to one Tyger! Even with Mort's best efforts to zombie a mob we previously took down with ease, we still manage to wipe to it twice and lose yet another Tier IV pop set
- Nyzul: 0/4 for armor drops! Floors 2x60, 2x100. Based on the statistics on Wiki, there is a 7.65% chance that we'll get 0 drops for doing all four of these floors. Maybe it's time to take Ashle and get him "fixed"... if you know what I mean ;) On the good news, I'm 17/20 for Nyzul weapons, and we're now completing these floors in record time, reaching the boss floor with 16-20 minutes left on the clock, and exiting with over 11 minutes left.
- Dynamis: Well... not a COMPLETE fail since I got BLU AF2 body (yay! though seems like I'm the last BLU to get it), but I still haven't seen a single DNC drop at all. Meanwhile, I'm surprised to see quite a few Dancers around Jeuno with a few pieces.
Strange... I'm seeing a lot more 75 Dancers around. While before I'd rarely see any at all, now there are a lot more running around with Chocobo Jig, campaigning, etc. Did the Category 2 Merits really change the job so much that people play them now?
More thoughts on Dancer Category 2 merits
Couple of things seem interesting:
Saber Dance:
For Saber Dance, it seems more efficient to *not* perform any steps, Waltzes etc. when I first activate this job ability. Since the Double Attack rate is highest when it is first active, it seems best to do any steps, waltzes, etc. at first, then use it and let TP build up. WSing with Saber Dance up also affects WS damage, and of course, TP return.
Saber Dance's effectiveness is based on time decay, so the most bang for the buck is during the first minute or two. After which it's still effective, but I'd be more inclined to turn it off in order to do some Waltzes. I'm probably going to merit another minute off of this.
Fan Dance:
Fan Dance is definitely different. Effectiveness is based on the number of hits, so... if I anticipate tanking, or taking a lot of damage by AoEs, I could possibly activate this before engaging so that the recast timer would come up earlier. Of course, meriting this timer down further would help a lot too.
Between the two new "dances", Fan Dance seems like it would benefit the most from having the recast timer down. This would mean another few hits of reduced damage earlier and more often, leading to less damage to heal. Having Saber Dance recharge sooner just means a little bit more damage. Fun, but not critical in an emergency.
No Foot Rise, Reverse Flourish Merits:
Having No Foot Rise and Reverse Flourish Merits is changing how I use Reverse Flourish. Merits into RF mean that for ANY RF, I'll get an extra 12% TP return. This means that even with 1 Finishing Move, I'll get 10+12 = 22% return. It really doesn't matter how many Finishing Moves I have now. As soon as my RF timer up, I should just use it for the highest TP return due to that 12% bonus.
Let's see... what do we have...
- Limbus: Super-low attendence, plus no luck getting time extensions mean a really short Wednesday Limbus farming session
- ZNMs: 2x wipe to one Tyger! Even with Mort's best efforts to zombie a mob we previously took down with ease, we still manage to wipe to it twice and lose yet another Tier IV pop set
- Nyzul: 0/4 for armor drops! Floors 2x60, 2x100. Based on the statistics on Wiki, there is a 7.65% chance that we'll get 0 drops for doing all four of these floors. Maybe it's time to take Ashle and get him "fixed"... if you know what I mean ;) On the good news, I'm 17/20 for Nyzul weapons, and we're now completing these floors in record time, reaching the boss floor with 16-20 minutes left on the clock, and exiting with over 11 minutes left.
- Dynamis: Well... not a COMPLETE fail since I got BLU AF2 body (yay! though seems like I'm the last BLU to get it), but I still haven't seen a single DNC drop at all. Meanwhile, I'm surprised to see quite a few Dancers around Jeuno with a few pieces.
Strange... I'm seeing a lot more 75 Dancers around. While before I'd rarely see any at all, now there are a lot more running around with Chocobo Jig, campaigning, etc. Did the Category 2 Merits really change the job so much that people play them now?
More thoughts on Dancer Category 2 merits
Couple of things seem interesting:
Saber Dance:
For Saber Dance, it seems more efficient to *not* perform any steps, Waltzes etc. when I first activate this job ability. Since the Double Attack rate is highest when it is first active, it seems best to do any steps, waltzes, etc. at first, then use it and let TP build up. WSing with Saber Dance up also affects WS damage, and of course, TP return.
Saber Dance's effectiveness is based on time decay, so the most bang for the buck is during the first minute or two. After which it's still effective, but I'd be more inclined to turn it off in order to do some Waltzes. I'm probably going to merit another minute off of this.
Fan Dance:
Fan Dance is definitely different. Effectiveness is based on the number of hits, so... if I anticipate tanking, or taking a lot of damage by AoEs, I could possibly activate this before engaging so that the recast timer would come up earlier. Of course, meriting this timer down further would help a lot too.
Between the two new "dances", Fan Dance seems like it would benefit the most from having the recast timer down. This would mean another few hits of reduced damage earlier and more often, leading to less damage to heal. Having Saber Dance recharge sooner just means a little bit more damage. Fun, but not critical in an emergency.
No Foot Rise, Reverse Flourish Merits:
Having No Foot Rise and Reverse Flourish Merits is changing how I use Reverse Flourish. Merits into RF mean that for ANY RF, I'll get an extra 12% TP return. This means that even with 1 Finishing Move, I'll get 10+12 = 22% return. It really doesn't matter how many Finishing Moves I have now. As soon as my RF timer up, I should just use it for the highest TP return due to that 12% bonus.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fan Dance vs. 1000 Needles!
Utty pulled me out to help Tayles to fight a Cactuar NM, Saotender Enamorado.
Turns out this NM likes to spam 1000 Needles! After the first one, I threw up Fan Dance and went into pure healing mode to keep everyone alive. As a result, I got some solid numbers on what Fan Dance does.
3 people, so regular damage is 333 without modification
With Fan Dance up, this did: 33, 66, 99, 133, 166, 233, then 266 onwards until the end of the fight.
So, Fan Dance damage reduction is: 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 30%, then 20% on until it either wears, or the effect is cancelled. The mob got one regular hit in on me between the 166 & 233 1000 needles, so i'm guessing that's the 40% hit.
Basically, starts at 90% reduction, then goes down by 10% every hit until it stops at 20% reduction and stays there!
Turns out this NM likes to spam 1000 Needles! After the first one, I threw up Fan Dance and went into pure healing mode to keep everyone alive. As a result, I got some solid numbers on what Fan Dance does.
3 people, so regular damage is 333 without modification
With Fan Dance up, this did: 33, 66, 99, 133, 166, 233, then 266 onwards until the end of the fight.
So, Fan Dance damage reduction is: 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 30%, then 20% on until it either wears, or the effect is cancelled. The mob got one regular hit in on me between the 166 & 233 1000 needles, so i'm guessing that's the 40% hit.
Basically, starts at 90% reduction, then goes down by 10% every hit until it stops at 20% reduction and stays there!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Dancer - 3rd Impressions
More playing around with Dancer...
Fan Dance may be more useful than I initially figured. Besides being a "save my butt" ability, it did let me tank 2-3 Yag SAM campaign mobs at the same time. In Einherjar, Fluid Spread nearly killed everyone from the many slimes, but Fan Dance kept my damage down to be managable. Even with the effect decaying by the number of hits it "absorbs", it was still good to keep up as a survival tool.
Saber Dance is also pretty good. With Saber Dance and Drain Samba III, I could basically go all out on a single campaign mob, WSing whenever possible and the double attack + Drain would easily keep me alive.
So... now I'm debating how to spread my merits out. Still doing 3/5 on NFR... but I might end up doing 3/5 for both Fan & Saber Dance. Closed Position is definitely a solo-type merit... +evasion & +accuracy while face-to-face... It'll have it's uses, but I'm still not sure if I should put one merit into that, or bump either Fan or Saber Dance's recast down another 30 seconds.
Gearring up Dancer
With these new merits unlocked, I'm starting to experiment a little more with other Dancer possibilities besides main healing. Saber Dance usually means I'm spamming WS's, so I've been investigating how to maximize Dancing Edge damage with Toku's help. Need to change a bunch of macros around to get this to work, but hopefully it'll be worth it.
Fan Dance opens up quite a few new possibilities... low-manning, or soloing mobs that I previously couldn't... initial testing (via aggro) has already shown that I can solo an EM Gnole now, while pre-update, we'd be locked into an endless dance as we'd both use TP moves to heal up to max. To further adjust this, I'm going to finish gearing up on evasion gear. I've already purchased an Evasion Torque and Velocity Earring... need to get a Boxer's Mantle with Ancient Beastcoins, and get lucky on some Denali drops in Nyzul. >.>
Besides the boxer's mantle and Denali gear, the main things I still need on DNC are:
- Enkidu's Leggings
- Etoile Tights
- Etoile Tiara
- Etoile Casaque
Week of FAIL
Seems that last week was a complete week of failure. From wipes on stuff that we normally handle without a problem, to complete crap in drops, the whole of last week since the update should basically not have happened. In fact, we're further behind now than we were during the update due to lost pop sets, lost exp, and lost time. Not a single event I'd consider "successful", and that's getting really, really frustrating.
About the only thing I'm still finding "fun" is either doing the WotG missions, or playing around with Dancer... Unfortunately, SE in their infinite wisdom decided to make WotG missions impossible to get a group to do since you need people in YOUR nation to do quests to advance to the actual missions, and the actual missions have nice little annoyances where you have to spend hours farming EX items.
That leaves Dancer as the only thing I'm currently finding fun.
So... for at least the next few weeks, I'm going Dancer exclusively for events unless someone can give me an absolute good reason why I should be on Blue Mage. Right now, the only event where I'm using BLU to the fullest capabilities would be Nyzul Isle. Everything else I'm either a DD spammer, or Curebot, neither of which really does the job's flexibility justice. Dancer can fulfill both of those roles, and I think it's time to do some serious experimentation on the job!
Fan Dance may be more useful than I initially figured. Besides being a "save my butt" ability, it did let me tank 2-3 Yag SAM campaign mobs at the same time. In Einherjar, Fluid Spread nearly killed everyone from the many slimes, but Fan Dance kept my damage down to be managable. Even with the effect decaying by the number of hits it "absorbs", it was still good to keep up as a survival tool.
Saber Dance is also pretty good. With Saber Dance and Drain Samba III, I could basically go all out on a single campaign mob, WSing whenever possible and the double attack + Drain would easily keep me alive.
So... now I'm debating how to spread my merits out. Still doing 3/5 on NFR... but I might end up doing 3/5 for both Fan & Saber Dance. Closed Position is definitely a solo-type merit... +evasion & +accuracy while face-to-face... It'll have it's uses, but I'm still not sure if I should put one merit into that, or bump either Fan or Saber Dance's recast down another 30 seconds.
Gearring up Dancer
With these new merits unlocked, I'm starting to experiment a little more with other Dancer possibilities besides main healing. Saber Dance usually means I'm spamming WS's, so I've been investigating how to maximize Dancing Edge damage with Toku's help. Need to change a bunch of macros around to get this to work, but hopefully it'll be worth it.
Fan Dance opens up quite a few new possibilities... low-manning, or soloing mobs that I previously couldn't... initial testing (via aggro) has already shown that I can solo an EM Gnole now, while pre-update, we'd be locked into an endless dance as we'd both use TP moves to heal up to max. To further adjust this, I'm going to finish gearing up on evasion gear. I've already purchased an Evasion Torque and Velocity Earring... need to get a Boxer's Mantle with Ancient Beastcoins, and get lucky on some Denali drops in Nyzul. >.>
Besides the boxer's mantle and Denali gear, the main things I still need on DNC are:
- Enkidu's Leggings
- Etoile Tights
- Etoile Tiara
- Etoile Casaque
Week of FAIL
Seems that last week was a complete week of failure. From wipes on stuff that we normally handle without a problem, to complete crap in drops, the whole of last week since the update should basically not have happened. In fact, we're further behind now than we were during the update due to lost pop sets, lost exp, and lost time. Not a single event I'd consider "successful", and that's getting really, really frustrating.
About the only thing I'm still finding "fun" is either doing the WotG missions, or playing around with Dancer... Unfortunately, SE in their infinite wisdom decided to make WotG missions impossible to get a group to do since you need people in YOUR nation to do quests to advance to the actual missions, and the actual missions have nice little annoyances where you have to spend hours farming EX items.
That leaves Dancer as the only thing I'm currently finding fun.
So... for at least the next few weeks, I'm going Dancer exclusively for events unless someone can give me an absolute good reason why I should be on Blue Mage. Right now, the only event where I'm using BLU to the fullest capabilities would be Nyzul Isle. Everything else I'm either a DD spammer, or Curebot, neither of which really does the job's flexibility justice. Dancer can fulfill both of those roles, and I think it's time to do some serious experimentation on the job!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Nyzul Isle - Farming & Climbing
Sorry about that messy transition to splitting the group. I thought I talked to everyone about climbing, but I guess I missed some people >.<
Anyway, the number of people who wanted to do Nyzul finally hit critical mass and I had to split the group or else end up juggling people back and forth. Nobody wants to sit out on the sidelines while waiting, and nobody wants to do 10k+ WS points, so time for you all to go climb!
Should be pretty straightforward... You've all done a bunch of climbs already from farming weapons, so you know what to expect. I think it's a good mix of jobs too.
Nanopy: WHM, main heal, Repose, Dark-Based Dispel with /SCH
Abhor: BLU, DD, light & dark sleeps, Light-based Dispel
Conceptx: PLD, tank whenever possible, backup heal, DD
Parn, Teia, Karou: DD, don't hold back, /NIN for Sneak, Invis & damage mitigation
Don't forget, don't climb without 6/6. If someone can't make it, Parn has level 20 that you can farm some armor at the very least. 5/6 can handle bosses almost as easily as 6/6.
You're your own group now, so you can adjust your schedule however you like!
Farming group: Back to the old members... 'usual schedule, probably 5/6 on Sunday farming so we'll avoid floor 100 on Sundays.
Anyway, the number of people who wanted to do Nyzul finally hit critical mass and I had to split the group or else end up juggling people back and forth. Nobody wants to sit out on the sidelines while waiting, and nobody wants to do 10k+ WS points, so time for you all to go climb!
Should be pretty straightforward... You've all done a bunch of climbs already from farming weapons, so you know what to expect. I think it's a good mix of jobs too.
Nanopy: WHM, main heal, Repose, Dark-Based Dispel with /SCH
Abhor: BLU, DD, light & dark sleeps, Light-based Dispel
Conceptx: PLD, tank whenever possible, backup heal, DD
Parn, Teia, Karou: DD, don't hold back, /NIN for Sneak, Invis & damage mitigation
Don't forget, don't climb without 6/6. If someone can't make it, Parn has level 20 that you can farm some armor at the very least. 5/6 can handle bosses almost as easily as 6/6.
You're your own group now, so you can adjust your schedule however you like!
Farming group: Back to the old members... 'usual schedule, probably 5/6 on Sunday farming so we'll avoid floor 100 on Sundays.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Dancer - Cat2 Merits - 2nd Impressions
Took Dancer out to Dynamis and Limbus last night. Tried out the new abilities... let's see...
Oh yeah, went as DNC/SAM for both events!
Dynamis
Dynamis-Jeuno this time around. in past Dynamis, I'd end up either spamming cures to keep the party alive and healthy, or occassionally I'd end up really bored my party would have people who kept out of harm's way and I couldn't do much other than WS whenever I got to 100% TP.
Last night's Dynamis was the former type. I could use Saber Dance once in a while, but the loss of Curing Waltz was too painful to keep it up all the time since people would be taking damage, and my party's WHM would often be low on MP. Plus I had Val in my party, so I really wanted to be able to throw him a cure if his shadows dropped from a pull.
Unfortunately, clicking Saber Dance off does not take effect immediately. It takes about 2-3 seconds after I click it off before Waltzes can be used again. Strangely, switching from Saber to Fan Dance is instantanous, and for emergency situations, I can go Saber->Fan->Cure instantly.
Fan Dance didn't get used much in Dynamis. The one wipe we had was an Astral Flow, and the one time I got the mob's attention, I took an Eagle Eye Shot that killed me before I could throw up the Dance xD
Limbus
Limbus was much more fun. Thank you Nain for covering healing duties even though you wanted to take it easy ^^; I basically had Saber Dance nearly full time, except for the Mandy floor so that I could wake people up. Add in Haste, March and full haste gear, I was swinging crazily fast, hitting 100% under 30 seconds nearly constantly. Add in Reverse Flourish, Mediate... basically spam WS's. Had a little WS competition with Chopxsticks on THF to see who could pump out more Dancing Edges over one mob. We ended up tied both at 3, but he said that he started at 90%+ TP, and I had a 4th WS ready to go when the mob died. Oh yeah, self-SCing Darkness is fun too, but like BLU self-SCing, it generally isn't worth bothering since chances are someone will get in the way :)
Fan Dance came in useful a couple of times too... when extra mobs aggroed or linked, my heals would end up gathering the linked mob's attention until Ashle provoked it. It also helped against slimes and their Fluid Spread move. Damage was cut significantly... Fluid Spread did 70 damage to me, and 770 on Vanh. I didn't have shadows since I was /SAM. Screwdriver hit me for under 200, while it hit Ashle once for 900. Definitely a good job ability for emergencies!
Campaign
Did one campaign after all the events last night just for fun... it was against Orcs in E. Ronfaure [S]. I guess I arrived after a wipe or something as there was lots of people around, all /healing and mobs were running around. I picked one up and started soloing as normal when a 2nd one showed up and linked. Throw up Fan Dance, kept building TP, and it was no problem tanking both mobs until people unweakened and decided to join the fun. Ashle decided that he wanted some exp too and grabbed my 2nd mob.
After finishing off the grunts, I tried going up against Posionhand... not a problem. Normal hits are reduced enough to be able to easily handle with Fan Dance up. Of course, getting hit means that I'll lose hate and the next melee on the hate list will quickly get his attention... and die... It wasn't until he used 100 fists that people started going down. I might have been able to handle it if I had thought about it and used Trance to keep my HP up, and Fan Dance to reduce damage while he used 100 fists, but I didn't think of it at the time.
Oh yeah, went as DNC/SAM for both events!
Dynamis
Dynamis-Jeuno this time around. in past Dynamis, I'd end up either spamming cures to keep the party alive and healthy, or occassionally I'd end up really bored my party would have people who kept out of harm's way and I couldn't do much other than WS whenever I got to 100% TP.
Last night's Dynamis was the former type. I could use Saber Dance once in a while, but the loss of Curing Waltz was too painful to keep it up all the time since people would be taking damage, and my party's WHM would often be low on MP. Plus I had Val in my party, so I really wanted to be able to throw him a cure if his shadows dropped from a pull.
Unfortunately, clicking Saber Dance off does not take effect immediately. It takes about 2-3 seconds after I click it off before Waltzes can be used again. Strangely, switching from Saber to Fan Dance is instantanous, and for emergency situations, I can go Saber->Fan->Cure instantly.
Fan Dance didn't get used much in Dynamis. The one wipe we had was an Astral Flow, and the one time I got the mob's attention, I took an Eagle Eye Shot that killed me before I could throw up the Dance xD
Limbus
Limbus was much more fun. Thank you Nain for covering healing duties even though you wanted to take it easy ^^; I basically had Saber Dance nearly full time, except for the Mandy floor so that I could wake people up. Add in Haste, March and full haste gear, I was swinging crazily fast, hitting 100% under 30 seconds nearly constantly. Add in Reverse Flourish, Mediate... basically spam WS's. Had a little WS competition with Chopxsticks on THF to see who could pump out more Dancing Edges over one mob. We ended up tied both at 3, but he said that he started at 90%+ TP, and I had a 4th WS ready to go when the mob died. Oh yeah, self-SCing Darkness is fun too, but like BLU self-SCing, it generally isn't worth bothering since chances are someone will get in the way :)
Fan Dance came in useful a couple of times too... when extra mobs aggroed or linked, my heals would end up gathering the linked mob's attention until Ashle provoked it. It also helped against slimes and their Fluid Spread move. Damage was cut significantly... Fluid Spread did 70 damage to me, and 770 on Vanh. I didn't have shadows since I was /SAM. Screwdriver hit me for under 200, while it hit Ashle once for 900. Definitely a good job ability for emergencies!
Campaign
Did one campaign after all the events last night just for fun... it was against Orcs in E. Ronfaure [S]. I guess I arrived after a wipe or something as there was lots of people around, all /healing and mobs were running around. I picked one up and started soloing as normal when a 2nd one showed up and linked. Throw up Fan Dance, kept building TP, and it was no problem tanking both mobs until people unweakened and decided to join the fun. Ashle decided that he wanted some exp too and grabbed my 2nd mob.
After finishing off the grunts, I tried going up against Posionhand... not a problem. Normal hits are reduced enough to be able to easily handle with Fan Dance up. Of course, getting hit means that I'll lose hate and the next melee on the hate list will quickly get his attention... and die... It wasn't until he used 100 fists that people started going down. I might have been able to handle it if I had thought about it and used Trance to keep my HP up, and Fan Dance to reduce damage while he used 100 fists, but I didn't think of it at the time.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with these two job abilities! Saber Dance does have a potential to let Dancer do significantly more damage than normal. Fan Dance is good at saving a Dancer's hide
So, that's it! I need at least 9 more merits to get No Foot Rise leveled up... plus another 22 after that to finish Saber Dance and throw one upgrade into Closed Position... merit party anyone?Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Dancer - Category 2 Merits, 1st Impressions
Whee... first, early impressions on the new category 2 Dancer merits. After ZNMs last night, I went to campaign to try them out in a non-exp-loss situation and also went with Zurar to help Karou with that "Purple, the new Black" dragon killing mission to see how well they worked. Here are my early impressions.
Saber Dance
Double Attack seems to start off at 50% when the job ability is first activated. From 0% TP, it takes me about 30 seconds to get 100% TP with Saber Dance up in full haste gear! And that's still missing my leg piece since I still don't have anything yet for that. When it's first activated, it almost feels like having a Soul Voice Double March Bard effect on. I'd like to see what happens during next week's Einherjar when I actually do get SV March and put up Saber Dance.
DA seems to taper off gradually, getting full effect of about 50% for... I think a minute or more. Around 3 minutes, it's not as significant as it was before, but DA still happens even at the very end of the 5 minute timer. Together with a Brutal Earring, Saber Dance is a lot of fun! Plus you can use it with Haste Samba for swings! I need to do some experimentation with /WAR to see how much DA I can get. Self-skillchaining isn't even a question anymore... it's easy to do!
The 5 minute recast timer is a little painful as I'd be looking to when I can refresh the full effect again pretty often. This is definitely a good ability to put up when a fight is first starting to build TP ASAP, then keep up whenever I don't need to heal. I may end up meriting this timer down so I can put it up as frequently as possible. I need to do a few events to see how this changes my play habits on Dancer.
Fan Dance
Well, the good news is that the damage reduction is really significant at first... I was fighting Yagudo Samurai, and their hits went from 70-90, to... 9 when I first put up Fan Dance.
The bad news is that the +enmity isn't really noticable. I tried holding hate in two situations: Campaign with a bunch of DDs going all out on the mob I was tanking, and in the Dragon Mission fight. In both cases, it was harder to maintain hate compared to how I would normally do it. The problem was that by taking less damage, I have less HP to cure up, so I actually end up generating less hate compared to just straight tanking without the ability and curing myself in campaign. For the mission, I tried Fan Dance + Animated Flourish + some curing, but that wasn't enough to hold hate against a WSing SAM.
So, the big gain on Fan Dance is the damage reduction really. It'll make a good emergency ability to throw up if I get the attention of a mob when Third Eye or Utusemi is down. Definitely not going to bother putting any more merits into this.
No Foot Rise(NFR)
Of the 3 new abilities, this one was the one I had originally not thought much of, but I'm finding to be the most useful! Besides the most obvious benefit of being able to gain TP & Finishing Moves outside of battle, I'm finding that I'm using this to insert Flourishes, or add Finishing Moves during battle... A few ways I've used it already:
- Getting 1 Finishing Move, then starting a battle with Violent Flourish while people get situated
- Topping up 4 finishing moves to 5 so I don't waste a step when I want to self-skillchain
- Getting a Finishing Move so I can do an Animated Flourish to at least pull a mob off a mage desperately fleeing for life
NFR definitely has the most use of the 3 new job abilities. I'm going to merit this ASAP to level 3 as that seems to be the right balance. 5 would be overkill since I'd be stepping all the time anyway. 3 would let me pair NFR with one step to get to 5 FMs, or be able to have a full strength Animated Flourish or Building Flourish at any time.
Closed Position
The one category 2 that I don't have any merits in yet... seems straightforward, just make sure you're face to face with the mob for accuracy & evasion bonuses. Definitely useful for soloing since we have pretty good evasion to begin with, but in party or event situations? Probably not...
1. Chances are the mob is going to be turning all over the place... except when there's a tank, and...
2. If there's a tank, and there's a THF... chances are I don't want to be Trick Attacked!
So... it's going to be useful, but not *that* useful. I'll throw any leftover merits into this..
What to merit?
Now the big question on how to sort out my merits! So far, I have 3 merits in each of the abilities. Add two more to NFR, and I'll still have 5 Dancer Category 2 merits left to assign. I don't really see any point to upgrading Fan Dance. The +emity isn't enough to really be a tank, and it's more of a "for fun" ability.
With 5 cat2 merits left... At this time, I'm thinking I'll probably end up meriting Saber Dance down to 3 minutes so I can basically turn it off whenever I want and still have it back up in a reasonable time. The last cat2 merit I'll throw onto Closed Position for at least... some use. :)
Saber Dance
Double Attack seems to start off at 50% when the job ability is first activated. From 0% TP, it takes me about 30 seconds to get 100% TP with Saber Dance up in full haste gear! And that's still missing my leg piece since I still don't have anything yet for that. When it's first activated, it almost feels like having a Soul Voice Double March Bard effect on. I'd like to see what happens during next week's Einherjar when I actually do get SV March and put up Saber Dance.
DA seems to taper off gradually, getting full effect of about 50% for... I think a minute or more. Around 3 minutes, it's not as significant as it was before, but DA still happens even at the very end of the 5 minute timer. Together with a Brutal Earring, Saber Dance is a lot of fun! Plus you can use it with Haste Samba for swings! I need to do some experimentation with /WAR to see how much DA I can get. Self-skillchaining isn't even a question anymore... it's easy to do!
The 5 minute recast timer is a little painful as I'd be looking to when I can refresh the full effect again pretty often. This is definitely a good ability to put up when a fight is first starting to build TP ASAP, then keep up whenever I don't need to heal. I may end up meriting this timer down so I can put it up as frequently as possible. I need to do a few events to see how this changes my play habits on Dancer.
Fan Dance
Well, the good news is that the damage reduction is really significant at first... I was fighting Yagudo Samurai, and their hits went from 70-90, to... 9 when I first put up Fan Dance.
The bad news is that the +enmity isn't really noticable. I tried holding hate in two situations: Campaign with a bunch of DDs going all out on the mob I was tanking, and in the Dragon Mission fight. In both cases, it was harder to maintain hate compared to how I would normally do it. The problem was that by taking less damage, I have less HP to cure up, so I actually end up generating less hate compared to just straight tanking without the ability and curing myself in campaign. For the mission, I tried Fan Dance + Animated Flourish + some curing, but that wasn't enough to hold hate against a WSing SAM.
So, the big gain on Fan Dance is the damage reduction really. It'll make a good emergency ability to throw up if I get the attention of a mob when Third Eye or Utusemi is down. Definitely not going to bother putting any more merits into this.
No Foot Rise(NFR)
Of the 3 new abilities, this one was the one I had originally not thought much of, but I'm finding to be the most useful! Besides the most obvious benefit of being able to gain TP & Finishing Moves outside of battle, I'm finding that I'm using this to insert Flourishes, or add Finishing Moves during battle... A few ways I've used it already:
- Getting 1 Finishing Move, then starting a battle with Violent Flourish while people get situated
- Topping up 4 finishing moves to 5 so I don't waste a step when I want to self-skillchain
- Getting a Finishing Move so I can do an Animated Flourish to at least pull a mob off a mage desperately fleeing for life
NFR definitely has the most use of the 3 new job abilities. I'm going to merit this ASAP to level 3 as that seems to be the right balance. 5 would be overkill since I'd be stepping all the time anyway. 3 would let me pair NFR with one step to get to 5 FMs, or be able to have a full strength Animated Flourish or Building Flourish at any time.
Closed Position
The one category 2 that I don't have any merits in yet... seems straightforward, just make sure you're face to face with the mob for accuracy & evasion bonuses. Definitely useful for soloing since we have pretty good evasion to begin with, but in party or event situations? Probably not...
1. Chances are the mob is going to be turning all over the place... except when there's a tank, and...
2. If there's a tank, and there's a THF... chances are I don't want to be Trick Attacked!
So... it's going to be useful, but not *that* useful. I'll throw any leftover merits into this..
What to merit?
Now the big question on how to sort out my merits! So far, I have 3 merits in each of the abilities. Add two more to NFR, and I'll still have 5 Dancer Category 2 merits left to assign. I don't really see any point to upgrading Fan Dance. The +emity isn't enough to really be a tank, and it's more of a "for fun" ability.
With 5 cat2 merits left... At this time, I'm thinking I'll probably end up meriting Saber Dance down to 3 minutes so I can basically turn it off whenever I want and still have it back up in a reasonable time. The last cat2 merit I'll throw onto Closed Position for at least... some use. :)
So, that's... 4+5 for NFR, 4+5+5+5 for Saber Dancer, and 3 for Closed Position for a total of 31 merits, or 310,000 limit points. I currently have... 1... so, that's 30 more to go! Now I remember why I never merited Diffusion down >.>
Side note: So far, I don't think I've seen a single good guide to Dancer online at all. It seems that the people who wrote them all looked at Dancer on paper, but never actually played it seriously or experimented with it. Some choice quotes... "only useful for Steps with /THF", "Sit at 300% TP", "Only a B weapon with accuracy problems", "must sub ninja", "cannot main heal". The podcasts aren't any better either... Part of me doesn't mind because it means that I'm more unique, but another part of me is annoyed at them spreading blatantly wrong information >.>Monday, December 8, 2008
December Update - Dancer!
Big update today! Big news for Dancer with category 2 merits, AF2 & AF+1! Plus SE threw in a few more toys for Dancers in there :)
So, reading through update info, here's my first thoughts before trying anything.
Category 2 Merits
If category 1 wasn't hard enough to choose, this time around SE really did a number on Dancer. On the surface, it looks like every item is worth meriting. However, I realy do wonder what SE is thinking with these merits. From 1-74, Dancer is designed to be a front line healer, doing some damage while being able to do the majority of the healing. Suddenly, you get two meritable abilities that... focus Dancer into doing more damage, or even tanking?!
Anyway, quick look at the merits
Saber Dance
- High Double Attack Rate, but no Waltzes.
- Recast: 5 minutes, Duration: 5 minutes.
- Effect gradually decreases
- Additional merits shortern recast time by 30 seconds
At first glance, this appears to be the "let Dancers go merit" ability. Double Attack only applies to the Dancer, and this is not a Samba. However, I'm seeing this a little differently. DA = more TP, so putting this up at the beginning of a fight, or whenever you're low on TP should mean that a Dancer can build up a ton of TP really quickly. The duration is as long as the initial recast, and further merits are supposed to bring it down, so this is clearly a "click off" once you need to use Waltzes. I'm figuring this is SE's way to compensate for the maximum TP being 300%. With this, Dancers can get TP faster, and WS if they want to and be confident of getting TP back quickly.
Fan Dance
- Reduces physical damage, increases enmity, but no Sambas
- Same recast & duration again
- Effect gradually decreases with each hit taken
- Additional merits shortern recast time by 30 seconds
This is a really weird one... It's effectively saying that Dancers... are supposed to be tanks at endgame? The AF2 Hands also have +enmity on them, which is a change from the -enmity on AF. I'd have to experiment to see how much enmity increases, and how effective the damage reduction is. I already get enough hate with all my -enmity gear, so this makes this ability quite strange... Can it really be used to turn Dancer into a real tank? We get high enough evasion, have evasion gear, plus we have a form of Provoke... if necessary, we can sub NIN, and if we don't take hits with /NIN, does this mean that we'll be able to hold hate? Plus even if shadows go down, we do have decreased physical damage...
No Foot Rise
- Grants Finishing Moves for standing still!
- I think it's a 3 minute recast...
- Each additional merit increases the number of Finishing Moves granted
Initial thought was... gain TP without doing anything, basically a Mediate for Dancers. After thinking about it some more, I realized that this actually can be much more powerful! Most Dancers... well, ok, GOOD Dancers would typically use Reverse Flourish every two steps. This is the most efficient as it does not waste any Finishing Moves, and it lets you use Reverse Flourish every time the timer is up. However, this means that you won't be using Finishing Moves for your other Flourishes... Violent Flourish, Animated Flourish, etc. No Foot Rise *should* allow a Dancer branch out a little more without having to worry about running out of TP!
Closed Position
- Accuracy & Evasion bonus being face-to-face with the enemy
This seems to be the solo merit ability. We have high evasion, good accuracy, so this really pushes it up. Fully merited, it's basically a Scorpion Harness +1. As for group events... well, most of the time mobs are spinning around, or you can't always be at the front... so it's of limited use.
So... what does this mean for merits? At the very least, I'm going to unlock Saber Dance, Fan Dance and No Foot Rise. I'll probably put at least 2 merits into NFR since 2 Finishing Moves are required to use most Flourishes including Wild Flourish & Animated Flourish. After that, I'm not sure... It would have to depend on whether the recast timers on the two Dances are reasonable as is, or if I feel they need to be merited down further. It's possible I'll end up fully meriting Closed Position or NFR
Dancer AF+1
Dancer AF is already a macro piece for the "enhances effectiveness/duration". Unless the +1 version actually increases this effectiveness, there isn't really a reason to upgrade any piece. Even the body +1 has the same "Waltz potency +10%" as the regular AF. The only piece that may be of interest is the Dancer's Tights +1, which gives Accuracy+5 and could replace Cobra Unit Subligar's Accuracy+4.
Dancer AF2
Dancer AF2 is... incredible >.< Almost every piece is useful or significantly better than any alternative piece of equipment. I'll list the key characteristics and why they're important
Etoile Cape: Accuracy +5, Evasion +5, Chr+5, Dex+5
- No other cape has as high accuracy, evasion, or chr or dex bonuses!
Etoile Tiara: Waltz Potency +5%
- Together with the regular AF body, that's +15% total!
Etoile Shoes: Increases Step Accuracy, Accuracy +3
- Additional macro piece to land steps. Combine this with the AF hands for even more step accuracy!
Etoile Tights: Increase Jig duration, Haste+3%
- Hopefully Jig duration stacks with AF Boots. This is also the only other leg piece that has Haste on it! Maybe I don't have to do Ashu Talif after all
Etoile Casaque: Accuracy +10, Attack+12, Dex+4, Enhances Violent Flourish Effect
- Soooooooo... Scorpion Harness++? Added stun effectiveness is good too!
Etoile Bangles: Evasion+5, Attack+5, Enmity+2
- This is the only piece I'm scratching my head over... Evasion+5 and Enmity+2 would be good for use during Fan Dance I guess?
Overall, this is muuuuuuuuch better than any other equipment for Dancer. I waaaaant~
So, reading through update info, here's my first thoughts before trying anything.
Category 2 Merits
If category 1 wasn't hard enough to choose, this time around SE really did a number on Dancer. On the surface, it looks like every item is worth meriting. However, I realy do wonder what SE is thinking with these merits. From 1-74, Dancer is designed to be a front line healer, doing some damage while being able to do the majority of the healing. Suddenly, you get two meritable abilities that... focus Dancer into doing more damage, or even tanking?!
Anyway, quick look at the merits
Saber Dance
- High Double Attack Rate, but no Waltzes.
- Recast: 5 minutes, Duration: 5 minutes.
- Effect gradually decreases
- Additional merits shortern recast time by 30 seconds
At first glance, this appears to be the "let Dancers go merit" ability. Double Attack only applies to the Dancer, and this is not a Samba. However, I'm seeing this a little differently. DA = more TP, so putting this up at the beginning of a fight, or whenever you're low on TP should mean that a Dancer can build up a ton of TP really quickly. The duration is as long as the initial recast, and further merits are supposed to bring it down, so this is clearly a "click off" once you need to use Waltzes. I'm figuring this is SE's way to compensate for the maximum TP being 300%. With this, Dancers can get TP faster, and WS if they want to and be confident of getting TP back quickly.
Fan Dance
- Reduces physical damage, increases enmity, but no Sambas
- Same recast & duration again
- Effect gradually decreases with each hit taken
- Additional merits shortern recast time by 30 seconds
This is a really weird one... It's effectively saying that Dancers... are supposed to be tanks at endgame? The AF2 Hands also have +enmity on them, which is a change from the -enmity on AF. I'd have to experiment to see how much enmity increases, and how effective the damage reduction is. I already get enough hate with all my -enmity gear, so this makes this ability quite strange... Can it really be used to turn Dancer into a real tank? We get high enough evasion, have evasion gear, plus we have a form of Provoke... if necessary, we can sub NIN, and if we don't take hits with /NIN, does this mean that we'll be able to hold hate? Plus even if shadows go down, we do have decreased physical damage...
No Foot Rise
- Grants Finishing Moves for standing still!
- I think it's a 3 minute recast...
- Each additional merit increases the number of Finishing Moves granted
Initial thought was... gain TP without doing anything, basically a Mediate for Dancers. After thinking about it some more, I realized that this actually can be much more powerful! Most Dancers... well, ok, GOOD Dancers would typically use Reverse Flourish every two steps. This is the most efficient as it does not waste any Finishing Moves, and it lets you use Reverse Flourish every time the timer is up. However, this means that you won't be using Finishing Moves for your other Flourishes... Violent Flourish, Animated Flourish, etc. No Foot Rise *should* allow a Dancer branch out a little more without having to worry about running out of TP!
Closed Position
- Accuracy & Evasion bonus being face-to-face with the enemy
This seems to be the solo merit ability. We have high evasion, good accuracy, so this really pushes it up. Fully merited, it's basically a Scorpion Harness +1. As for group events... well, most of the time mobs are spinning around, or you can't always be at the front... so it's of limited use.
So... what does this mean for merits? At the very least, I'm going to unlock Saber Dance, Fan Dance and No Foot Rise. I'll probably put at least 2 merits into NFR since 2 Finishing Moves are required to use most Flourishes including Wild Flourish & Animated Flourish. After that, I'm not sure... It would have to depend on whether the recast timers on the two Dances are reasonable as is, or if I feel they need to be merited down further. It's possible I'll end up fully meriting Closed Position or NFR
Dancer AF+1
Dancer AF is already a macro piece for the "enhances effectiveness/duration". Unless the +1 version actually increases this effectiveness, there isn't really a reason to upgrade any piece. Even the body +1 has the same "Waltz potency +10%" as the regular AF. The only piece that may be of interest is the Dancer's Tights +1, which gives Accuracy+5 and could replace Cobra Unit Subligar's Accuracy+4.
Dancer AF2
Dancer AF2 is... incredible >.< Almost every piece is useful or significantly better than any alternative piece of equipment. I'll list the key characteristics and why they're important
Etoile Cape: Accuracy +5, Evasion +5, Chr+5, Dex+5
- No other cape has as high accuracy, evasion, or chr or dex bonuses!
Etoile Tiara: Waltz Potency +5%
- Together with the regular AF body, that's +15% total!
Etoile Shoes: Increases Step Accuracy, Accuracy +3
- Additional macro piece to land steps. Combine this with the AF hands for even more step accuracy!
Etoile Tights: Increase Jig duration, Haste+3%
- Hopefully Jig duration stacks with AF Boots. This is also the only other leg piece that has Haste on it! Maybe I don't have to do Ashu Talif after all
Etoile Casaque: Accuracy +10, Attack+12, Dex+4, Enhances Violent Flourish Effect
- Soooooooo... Scorpion Harness++? Added stun effectiveness is good too!
Etoile Bangles: Evasion+5, Attack+5, Enmity+2
- This is the only piece I'm scratching my head over... Evasion+5 and Enmity+2 would be good for use during Fan Dance I guess?
Overall, this is muuuuuuuuch better than any other equipment for Dancer. I waaaaant~
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Nyzul Isle - Splitting the group
As of right now, we have a pretty large group of people who do Nyzul together...
With a Runic Key (floor 100)
- Ascule (BLU/SCH)
- Ghiren (Lots)
- Zurar (SAM/NIN or /DNC)
- Ashle (THF/NIN or NIN/WAR)
- Kuraikaze (SCH/RDM who is back into FFXI after a month break)
(Utaru - retired... doesn't come atm)
Without a Runic Key (and at floor 0)
- Teia (DRG/RDM)
- Nanopy (WHM/SCH)
- Conceptx (PLD/WAR)
- Karou (SAM or WAR/NIN)
And... Zurar says that he would like to climb his alt Yasunami up as well. She's not 75 yet, but he says that he's going to blitz her up to 75 during this holiday season. Would be coming as SCH/RDM
So, we have a total of 9(or 10) people who want to do Nyzul, half of which need to climb to 100. The good news is that we can acutally do Nyzul with 5 and still win, though it is a little tight if we get a bad boss. The bad news (at least for me) is that coordinating 9-10 people while being fair to everyone quite a headache.
To try to fix this... I'm proposing the following:
1. Continue farming with our existing group until Yasunami is of a level to actually do Nyzul. This means farming for the next month or so until Yasunami hits at least level 65-66 and can be useful. Farming group would be: Ascule, Zurar, Ghiren, Teia, Ashle and Nanopy, with Kurai & Nanopy swapping spots whenever we do a floor which either of them already has the armor. i.e.: Floor 80 Kurai will come along since Nanopy already has the Goliard Body.
- Karou will fill in for whoever can't make a run... so on Sundays, Karou will come since Ashle can't make it most of the time. If you can't make it, let me know on AIM/POL messaging so I can let people know.
2. Once Yasunami levels up enough, split into two groups. The original static will continue farming with 5, while a new climbing static will start going from floor 0 with Nanopy, Teia, Conceptx, Karou, and Yasunami.
- Party is a little weak on the DD side and could use a 6th person. I'll see if I can slide in a 6th person for you. Yasu should also nuke on Dark Arts whenever possible to speed up kills.
- For "no white magic" floors, Teia can heal with Healing Breath using Poison as a trigger spell. Alternatively, Conceptx can come PLD/DNC and use Waltzes once he gets the sub leveled up
- This also means that Zu probably will end up doing a lot of Nyzul back-to-back, or change the days which this climbing static goes.
Anyway, farming schedule wise, will be Thurs & Sun. 3 runs on Thursday@9:45pm PST, 4 runs on Sunday@8:30pm PST. Be sure to pick up a 4th tag sometime between Sunday night and Wednesday night. I normally pick mine up right after ZNMs on Monday.
Any comments/issues? Feedback much desired...
With a Runic Key (floor 100)
- Ascule (BLU/SCH)
- Ghiren (Lots)
- Zurar (SAM/NIN or /DNC)
- Ashle (THF/NIN or NIN/WAR)
- Kuraikaze (SCH/RDM who is back into FFXI after a month break)
(Utaru - retired... doesn't come atm)
Without a Runic Key (and at floor 0)
- Teia (DRG/RDM)
- Nanopy (WHM/SCH)
- Conceptx (PLD/WAR)
- Karou (SAM or WAR/NIN)
And... Zurar says that he would like to climb his alt Yasunami up as well. She's not 75 yet, but he says that he's going to blitz her up to 75 during this holiday season. Would be coming as SCH/RDM
So, we have a total of 9(or 10) people who want to do Nyzul, half of which need to climb to 100. The good news is that we can acutally do Nyzul with 5 and still win, though it is a little tight if we get a bad boss. The bad news (at least for me) is that coordinating 9-10 people while being fair to everyone quite a headache.
To try to fix this... I'm proposing the following:
1. Continue farming with our existing group until Yasunami is of a level to actually do Nyzul. This means farming for the next month or so until Yasunami hits at least level 65-66 and can be useful. Farming group would be: Ascule, Zurar, Ghiren, Teia, Ashle and Nanopy, with Kurai & Nanopy swapping spots whenever we do a floor which either of them already has the armor. i.e.: Floor 80 Kurai will come along since Nanopy already has the Goliard Body.
- Karou will fill in for whoever can't make a run... so on Sundays, Karou will come since Ashle can't make it most of the time. If you can't make it, let me know on AIM/POL messaging so I can let people know.
2. Once Yasunami levels up enough, split into two groups. The original static will continue farming with 5, while a new climbing static will start going from floor 0 with Nanopy, Teia, Conceptx, Karou, and Yasunami.
- Party is a little weak on the DD side and could use a 6th person. I'll see if I can slide in a 6th person for you. Yasu should also nuke on Dark Arts whenever possible to speed up kills.
- For "no white magic" floors, Teia can heal with Healing Breath using Poison as a trigger spell. Alternatively, Conceptx can come PLD/DNC and use Waltzes once he gets the sub leveled up
- This also means that Zu probably will end up doing a lot of Nyzul back-to-back, or change the days which this climbing static goes.
Anyway, farming schedule wise, will be Thurs & Sun. 3 runs on Thursday@9:45pm PST, 4 runs on Sunday@8:30pm PST. Be sure to pick up a 4th tag sometime between Sunday night and Wednesday night. I normally pick mine up right after ZNMs on Monday.
Any comments/issues? Feedback much desired...
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