Level 7 Blood Elf Warlock

Got to level 7, and picked up my little Imp pet along the way! He doesn't seem happy to see me again, but he's always grouchy when I send him to go kill things... or to die as it may be since I do have a tendency to find death easily!

Let's see.... only two deaths so far! That's really good for me! One was me jumping from a high tower thinking I could dive into the water... Weird. I thought that I was safe since I was diving into water, but... maybe the river was too shallow? xD Second was when I tried to help a blood elf hunter that was being ganged up on by a group of skeletons... whoops! I got their attention instead! Killed one of them, but the other 4 beat me up!

Still, that's a much better average than I had before ^^;

Tonight, aiming for level 10 so that I can get my Voidwalker pet. Also, once we get to around 15-20 or so, it'll be time for us to group up. Kurai has a Paladin going, and Zurar might pick up a Priest. Ghiren's power is out right now, but once he gets on his 10-day trial, he'll probably be going for some sort of Warrior.

And... no intro post is complete with some sort of picture!

Let's see... some basic UI enhancements were added:

- Quest Helper

- Titan Panel

- Cartographer

- Diamond Threat

These go a long way in figuring out where to go for quests, and how close I am to pulling aggro from my pet when I'm going all out nuking!

Finally... a note on college courses! If you go to UC Berkeley, you probably wanna register for this: http://kotaku.com/5141355/competitive-starcraft-gets-uc-berkeley-class

College credit for StarCraft! Geez... I wonder if someone could do something similar for MMOs.

PS: For those of you who want to join us, we're currently on Hyjal, but we will be transferring servers to Winterhoof tomorrow night as soon as they start the free transfers! If you have a new character to make, make it over at Winterhoof!

TV/Anime – Winter 2009

So, one REALLY nice part about no longer being that “into” FFXI is that instead of feeling the urge logging in and doing stuff, I’m instead staying out of game and doing other stuff! Don’t get me wrong, half the time I’m still around my computer, I’m just not logged in. IM me on AIM if you see me online! I might be there :P

Let’s see… what’s been going on. TV wise, quite a few shows have started back up! I’m up-to-date on Battlestar Galactica, LOST, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, and American Dad. I still need to catch up on a few episodes of The Office. Knight Rider I think has finished their run with last week’s episode, and I’ll be surprised if that series continues. I’m still not certain if I want to continue watching the Terminator TV series… it doesn’t hold my attention enough to look forward to the next episode, and I’m quite a few episodes behind. Heroes should be starting up soon too… wow, it’s Feb already?

Anime wise, it’s Winter 2009! That means new season, new series and lots of figuring out what to watch! Let’s see what’s on my “must download” list

Gundam 00 S2 – Midway through this latest Gundam series. It really started last season, and while the storyline is average for a Gundam series, the action is decent and the characters pretty emo, so I’ll continue watching this xD

Tytania – Midway through this season too. It’s a slow-moving space opera with lots of politics, power play and… sipping tea while commanding large fleets of ships! Not for those who like action, but I do like the motivations behind the characters here… no one-dimensional emo characters here!

Maria-sama ga Miteru (Marimite) 4th Season – Drama/life events at an ordinary girls high school. This is such a cute series, ordinary schoolgirls going through life with their problems. Nothing fantastic, no fanservice, with snippets of life that remind me of my own high school days. That it’s in the 4th season means that it’s a popular series, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to convince anyone to watch it!

Maria+holic – Starts off looking like a copycat of Marimite that quickly turns… weird. A lesbian girl transfers to an all-girls school searching for the girl of her dreams and finds the perfect girl… or does she?

Akikan – Title means “Empty Can”. This is a totally bizarre series that features soda cans that turn into girls, and an epic fight to the death between aluminum and steel cans! Lots of fanservice too >.>

Sora o Kakeru Shoujo (The Girl who leapt through Space) – If the previous series wasn’t weird enough, this series is even weirder… as far as I can tell, it’s about a girl who is running away from arranged marriage and gets… kidnapped by a travelling deserted space colony  with an insane computer along with her robot/pet/companion thingie which goes on some sort of crazy journey that terrorizes other human colonies

Rideback – Back to more down-to-earth series… kinda. So far, Rideback is about a ballerina that has her dream as a dancer destroyed and discovers a new love in riding and racing motorcycle-robots. There seems to be some military/rebellion backstory developing as well, but right now it’s all about character development. Well worth watching!

Wow… I’m actually watching a surprising amount of stuff when I put it down like this! About 5 1/2 hours of TV per week, and that’s actually just a careful selection of the stuff out there. Plus I have a large backlog… Kannagi, White Album, plus many others, not to mention games such as Valkyria Chronicles, LittleBigPlanet and more!

Mmmm… I’ll be busy for quite a while! So what have you been up to?

You know what, fuck FFXI

From: http://znms.blogspot.com/2008/12/znm-run-december-29-2008.html

4x Stupid Running Rat that makes melees get dizzy
- Beast Slayer to Katas (guest), Venge, Varg

Last night, after Limbus, Liquidblue asked for help with do a MMM run for Koggelmander, the other good weapon from this event. I volunteered since I do like helping helping people, and LB is a decent person. Chopxsticks came as well.

So, we win the NM easily, Koggelmander drops and without question, we all passed it to LB. Now I ask about if there was another Koggelmander maze set up and if there was any more swords that people needed, and if not, if they would mind doing a run so I could have a chance.

Response from Katas:
- "Best BLU sword in the game... we're definitely charging gil for it!"
- "It takes over 1500 marbles to get this setup..."
- "..."

No, I'm not a fucking idiot. I run MMM to. I came to help, and I've helped you before as an acquaintance. I ask for a little favor and this is the response. No, I'm not paying you however much millions of gil you want for a favor.

So, at this point, fuck FFXI. I started playing for friends in the first place, and that's now the only reason I'll keep playing. I'm selling all the gear and spells I picked up for jobs I was considering leveling as I won't be leveling them anymore. No more random acts of kindness to strangers or acquaintances. If I don't know you directly, I'm not touching you with a 10-ft pole. I'll come to events only for, and as Dancer, or if the event benefits or is a favor for my friends. I've been screwed, or seen my friends being screwed too many times to remember the last time I've had actual fun in a while.

If you need help with anything, you can find me on AIM if I'm around a computer.

See you in another life! (NOT a goodbye, but IS a LOST reference!)

Varg, Dakana, and everyone else caught in this most fucked up (yes, the f-word. I swear too and I think I’ve only done so twice in public in FFXI so far) example of horrible customer service and not taking responsibility for bugs in your own product, my most sincere condolences.

In my opinion, this incident was badly handled and gives us an idea of how SE treats their customers. What bugs me the most about this is the fact that they essentially threw away years of people’s work, as well as adversely affected not just the people being banned, but also the people who have no relation in what is essentially a DEFECT in their own product. Instead of fixing the bug and taking reasonable actions to correct the problem, they decide to actually punish their paying customers, treating them like criminals. An example of a reasonable action to correct the situation could be to remove gains or items obtained from the exploit. They have the logs, they have the details, they can do so.

Instead, we have this situation where years of friendship and cooperation are simply tossed out the window. The people who aren’t directly affected are indirectly affected. Some friends who used to go exploring new areas, trying out new content with me are now gone. People who I could call for help are no longer there, making it harder for me to do things, and of course, just to even talk to people means that I’ll have to use other venues instead of FFXI.

To me, this means that in the future, if SE decides that a certain behavior or action is not “good player behavior”, or they find a bug in their own code that needs to be fixed, they can go through and punish people retroactively instead of fixing the situation. This means that if you used Windower at any time, or in the past, MPKed someone before the “MPK patch”, or for that matter, defeated AV using Kraken Club DRKs, you’ll be subject to banning at the whim of SE no matter if you did this years ago, or just recently. SE is sending a message that they are the ones in charge, and that they do not care for you as a customer, only that you not only obey their rules, but also be responsible for mistakes that THEY make. I think this is a huge mistake on SE’s part and has done much to shake mine, and many people’s confidence in the company. I found this post on the Pet Food Alpha website that does a very good job of explaining what SE has done to undermine our confidence. The lack of consistency is a direct attack to human emotion. Commitment & consistency are two things that all human cultures hold dear. Breaking either one of these leads to a sense of betrayal and essentially leads people to lose their trust in the other party.

With this move, they not only removed our friends, but also their most loyal customers who were pushing the limits of their game. I’m certain that every person who was banned played the game more than most of us and experimented with, and experienced more content.

Changes to the blog

Given SE’s attitude towards their customers, I no longer think that the company deserves loyalty. As such, instead of this being a FFXI blog like I had originally started, I’m changing it to be a MMO-centric blog. Instead of just “adventures through Vana’diel”, it is now “Musings about virtual universes and my adventures through MMOs”. Yes, this means I will be looking a lot more seriously at new MMOs as they come out and will be experimenting with them to see what’s interesting. For those in AP, you probably know that I was convinced by Aquelia to try out WoW a few months ago. I tried it for a while, and found that it was not for me at that time, but that does not mean that there will not be another game I jump to.

Before FFXI, I played Asheron’s Call, Anarchy Online, and beta tested Eve Online, Tabula Rasa and even World of Warcraft. Looking forward, we have quite a few MMOs coming down the line, some of which I have friends already asking me to check out and join in. High on my list are:

- Star Wars: The Old Republic – A BioWare MMORPG set in a sci-fi universe that just HAPPENS to be one of the most famous stories on the planet? I’ve been totally looking forward to this! Plus I know a certain FFXI player who is totally looking to start this as soon as it is released… she still plays Star Wars: Galaxies!

- Aion: The Tower of Eternity – An incredibly pretty Korean MMO that is rated as one of the most anticipated of 2009. I love the graphics and the concept. I’m just worried that it is a grind fest like a certain Japanese MMO that we’ve all played

- Stargate: Worlds – Ok, so I have a weakness for sci-fi settings more than fantasy. I never watched that many Stargate shows, but I’m familiar with the basic concept and this MMO does look interesting to me. Applied already for the beta, waiting to see if I get in.

I’ve also been keeping a close eye on other MMOs as they have been released to see if they can hold my attention. Age of Conan was one that I was closely monitoring until I realized that they really didn’t have any content outside of the starting areas. Warhammer Online is another, but I’m still not convinced that it’s more than a “WoW Clone”. That, and I don’t like the cartoony graphics :)

Meanwhile, I’m fairly certain that one of the above 3 new MMOs will be able to catch my attention. When that time comes, I look forward seeing those who have left us, as well as people I can drag along with me in another new life! Yes, I will be actively pulling people along with me now when I explore other universes instead of just going to check them out by myself. My loyalty to SE & FFXI has been demolished by this incident.

On a personal note…

For those who have been checking my blog on a regular basis, you may have noticed that I had locked the blog on Monday and did not unlock it until yesterday. I had been feeling down about FFXI for quite some time now and the shutting down of my blog was an expression of the feeling. If you look through my archives, you might see that since the last major FFXI update, my entries have all been about failures and frustrations with the game. Nyzul, Limbus, ZNMs and MMMs have been nothing but frustrating to me due to failures, lack of people, or simply horrible luck and bad drop rates. I ended up unlocking the blog yesterday to express my feelings, and I think with this update, this blog will be less FFXI-centric and more general.

Karou said that my little vacation out to Texas might cheer me up a little, but I don’t think it helped much. Now, I’m a little nostalgic for old days with my old friends when we used to hit anime conventions, cosplay and playing lots of games together back in the day. One of my friends was considering returning to FFXI, and I mentioned the Return to Vana’diel campaign, but I didn’t really push the issue. Part of me wanted to show my friend the new content that had been added… ToAU, WotG and actually going through CoP with her, but another part of me did not want to subject her to the frustrations of the game since she never actually did any “endgame” content before.

Going forward, I’ll still trudge along in FFXI. I still do want to experiment more with Dancer, finish the relic set and push the limits of the Dancer job. However, my enthusiasm for the game has definitely waned. Scholar is probably my last 75 job as I can’t see myself spending more effort in a game that I’m hesitant to trust will not ban me for no fault of my own. You’ll probably also see me less on my Scholar or Blue Mage job since I have the most fun on Dancer. Plus… I don’t want to give certain tarutaru the chance for more… perverted shots >.>

Meanwhile… for those of you no longer with us, see y’all in another life!

Enforced cutting back + SE’s horrible CRM

Go on a little vacation and come back to things semi-falling apart. Let’s see… what happened during and after my 4 day <away>.

- Einherjar has been cancelled due to low attendance

- Epic failure in ZNMs (so I hear)

- Limbus looking like it’ll fail soon due to low attendance

Einherjar – I’m actually upset at this being cancelled… I have a lot of fun during this short, but intense event. The rewards aren’t the greatest, but at least there are rewards. I have a feeling that the main reason attendance started to drop was that people had obtained the rewards they wanted and weren’t interested in the challenge of progressing further. Personally, I picked up my Delta Earring, but I was hoping to be able to pick up an Animator +1. I guess this means I won’t be leveling PUP anymore

Limbus – Even after moving Wednesday’s start time earlier, our attendance is still too low to actually enter and win a zone. I’m guessing Wednesday runs will be cancelled from now on and we’ll only go Saturdays. Unfortunately, I also predict that this will leads to the few remaining members to jump ship to other shells that can go more than once a week in order to get things faster. In order to save this Limbus shell, we need another 3-4 dedicated people who will show up on a regular basis, and we need them to join the shell within the next 2-3 weeks or else we’ll probably disband.

ZNMs – This is going to be rough. We’ve gone through a down period before when we lost to Tier IVs before, but going through this again is going to be bad for morale and might cause some people to give up on the event. I really hope this isn’t the case, but we probably need to do a little more recruiting to fill in the last few spots, as well as get people who do come to pay full attention to the fights.

So, looks like I’m cutting back no matter what! Sundays are now virtually free, with only Nyzul Isle as a possible evening event. Wednesday evenings should be free too since I can’t attend Dynamis due to school. Leaves a little more time for Moblin Maze Mongers.

Oh, and big thanks to Kurai for gathering people for MMM. After being shot down so completely last week, I’ve lost hope in asking people to help out in doing an event that has no obvious reward for themselves. The only two weapons in MMM that are any good are the BLU & DNC ones, at least from what I’ve seen. It’s been nearly impossible to put together a group to do it, much less to static to get the weapons. The good news is that I’ve finally got my maze to the point where I can pop the Ermine’s Tail NM, and Kurai’s maze should have the same configuration as of tonight, so all we need is some luck to get the drop.

SE’s horrible Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Not going to say too much about the recent banning. Just the following from a business perspective

1. Insufficient QA on a product is the company’s fault
2. You do not punish your customers for bugs in your product
3. You do not treat your paying customers like criminals

The reason behind the bannings was due to a poorly designed product that was not sufficiently tested. You may take steps to correct the bug, possibly contact the people involved to further rectify the defect (such as asking them to give up their ill-gotten, similar to the early release of the “snowman” event back in 2007), but you do NOT punish your paying customers.

Any other company doing this for their product would receive a huge backlash. Let’s say Apple disables your iPhone for jailbreaking it, or disables your iTunes account and renders your music all unplayable because you installed Linux on your iPod. Or the police confiscates your phone just because you happen to witness a crime committed by them. That sort of behavior leads to backlash and in the real world, riots. If I were to run my business like this, firing customers for defects in my product, I’d be out of business in no time.

Instead, a well-run company would instead have a good ongoing relationship with their customers. If testing were to miss an issue, they should have a good enough relationship with their customers that they will be informed of the defect in a timely manner and be able to fix this. Apparently this was NOT the case since according to SE, they had investigated over a year’s worth of logs for this issue.

My response to this notice

Even though I never even heard of this exploit until after it was fixed, I think that this behavior from SE actually affects everyone in the game, not just the people involved because it sets a precedent on how SE can, and will behave.

Their own announcement says that we should submit a GM call if we discover any problems with the game system. From this incident, we also know that any incidents that may occur, SE reserves the right to go back to over a year’s worth of activity logs once they decide that that something is against their Terms of Service. What this means to you is:

1. Any activity that is questionable could get you into trouble 12 months down the road
2. You should question GMs if you engage in anything considered questionable
3. If you do not, you can be banned without warning

There are many gameplay mechanics that I think are fairly questionable and may be considered “exploiting gameplay mechanics”. For example: Powerleveling, using a level 1 character to farm marbles in MMM, dropping your hourglass in dynamis when pulling the boss, logging out during a long NM battle to reset hate, having an outside party clear out pops from a NM battle while the main alliance attacks the NM, zoning popped mobs during a battle instead of fighting them, supertanking, spamming repeatable quests for fame. All of these exploit the gameplay system in one way or another. I’m pretty sure SE did not intend for people to enter the Divine Might BC and have one person supertank all the enemies while the alliance picked them off one at a time. You might be allowed to do so right now, but maybe in 12 months, when a developer discovers what has been going on, your earring reward may result in you being banned.

My recommendation is to follow the letter of the law. You should make sure that the tactic that you are using is permitted by their terms in order to prevent problems months down the line. According to their own notice, you can do this by submitting a GM call.

So, if you decide to continue playing FFXI, better get in line and start asking questions!

1+ year – Looking back, looking forward

As you can see in my profile information, I’ve been around for just over a year. I still remember what prompted me to take up FFXI again… a video game site had a “Final Fantasy Retrospective” special that covered every single Final Fantasy game. It started covering FFXI, then as it went on through the expansions, I became curious about Blue Mage and wanted to try it out. At the time, I had also just finished a big international vacation and was bored, plus I had beta tested Tabula Rasa and wanted to get into something actually working and interesting.

15 months later and let’s see… 3 level 75 jobs, completed the CoP, ToAU and Zilart storylines. It seems that in the last year I’ve completed more than some people who started the game at launch have done! Currently engaged in a bunch of endgame activities that make doing anything else difficult due to conflicts in schedule, and having fun with a job that most people barely understand, much less fully appreciate.

 

(DNC/SAM – Saber Dance up)

Along the way, I’ve made many friends, picked up lots of nice gear from various places and events… Homam, AF+1, relic, ZNM, Nyzul, armor pieces and lots more fun things like Soboro, Voyager Sallet, Swift Belt and more. Part of me is a little scared to look at my /playtime ^^;

Looking forward

So… now what? What’s in store for the future? Well… just off the top of my head:

- More WotG storyline! I wanna see how this ends… I’m caught up in terms of the main mission story, but there are lots of other stories that I’d like to do… I want to catch up on the Windy storyline, and start the Bastok one

- Original storylines: I’m part of the way through the Bastok storyline, so I’d like to finish that and check out the Sandy story

- Quest storylines: I heard that the ToAU generals each have their own unique questline that is very well done… I’d like to find some time to go through those

- Actually finish some of these armor sets. I’d like to match sometime!  I still don’t have a full set of any one set of armor that I’m trying for… 3/5 on Enkidu, 2/5 on Denali, 2/5 on Homam, 1/5 on Dancer relic, 2/5 on Blue Mage relic. Even Cobra Cap set is 4/5 because the body piece is still not released ^^; The set I really, really want to complete though, is the Dancer relic set.

- Completely merit and gear out Dancer. 20 merits left to go before I finish category 2, after which I’ll probably look at attributes and HP. For attributes, Dex seems to be the obvious one since that helps both BLU & DNC, but I’m not sure what else… Str? For HP/MP… I’m leaning towards starting with some HP merits just to be able to survive a little better when I try tanking. Gear wise… that’ll take a while… relic armor, Enkidu & Denali, plus I need to start doing MMM regularly to get the 2nd best Dancer dagger!

What else… job wise, I don’t really feel like leveling another job at this time, probably a little burnt out from the SCH blitz I did. Right now I have 3, basically hybrid jobs that can take on a number of roles… DD(BLU), healing(DNC & SCH), nuking (BLU & SCH), tanking (DNC). I have a few jobs partially leveled that I might eventually want to take up a little higher, but I’m in no rush… other jobs I’m kinda interested in are: PUP7, COR5, BST11, BRD16, SAM37, RDM37, and… BLM18(only to sub) so if you’re putting together a lowbie party and want someone, give me a buzz.

Off-topic – Looking forward

Off-topic, as in not FFXI, but looking forward I’m thinking of taking a nice long 1-2 week vacation, possibly out of the country somewhere. It’s been a while since I had a real vacation and this summer would be a good time to actually do something since I’ll be done with school. However, I’m at a loss of ideas for where to go, sooooo… I’m asking you all for suggestions :) Any ideas of places to go? Maybe places that you’ve visited, or like to visit?

My last big vacation was to Europe, specifically France & England. Before that I spent 2 weeks exploring Kyoto & Tokyo in Japan. This time, I’ll probably be travelling alone for once for more flexibility and freedom instead of coordinating with family or friends.

Any suggestions? Post in the comments!

Dancer Tanking FAIL and Scholar FAIL -- ZNMs

So far, Dancer tanking has been somewhat limited to being the main target of a ton of mobs (campaign, einherjar or dynamis) where Fan Dance + Waltz spam keeps me alive easily, or brief tanking experiences in ZNMs. My first attempt with Tyger ended with a fast death as I wasn’t seriously thinking about it. 2nd attempt with Nosferatu ended with me being charmed, and 3rd attempt with Gotoh end with me being… one shot –.-;

Fan Dance & Utsusemi work great against physical attacks and single-target magical attacks. Tier III-aga spells usually aren’t a problem since a single Curing Waltz IV brings me back up to 8-900 HP instantly. The problem in this case was Firespit, that hit me for 1.3k damage. I had no Protect, Shell, or Barfira, so I’m guessing that’s full strength. I only have 1.1k HP –.-

So, to survive something like that… I’d need HP merits and HP gear. I’m not certain if Shell or Barfira would have helped much, but increasing resistance to avoid one-shots like this is the reason why i go DNC/WHM (or /RDM) when I go to solo avatar battles.

Getting and maintaining hate is also a problem if I don’t have anyone to heal. Having THF & /THF SATA off me helps a lot of course, but possibly what would be better is to have me just be together with the main tanks. That way I can heal them for hate as well as get the usual buffs from mages.

So… now I’m wondering if I should keep trying to actively tank, or should I just let it happen naturally as a consequence of spamming cures. As much as I’d like to try to see what Dancer can do, I’d rather not be a burden on other people…

Scholar FAIL

A few minor annoyances during the last ZNM fight last night… getting left behind during the escape from Mamook which meant I was wasting my time going through the Mamool Ja Staging Point… getting hit by R0 right when I was sneaking around Bugards which lead to my death… and barely arriving at the fight right as the frog was popped without a chance to buff my party up.

And of course, for the 3rd time in a row, I switch out of Light Arts/Addendum: White at exactly the wrong time to Dark Arts to nuke. I figured that since the alliance was at full health and fully buffed, and the frog was nearly dead, I could switch over and nuke a little. Next thing: Breakga + –aga III spell. Having no stratagems left and stuck in Dark Arts, there wasn’t much I thought of doing at that point and I just… well, sat there dumbfounded for a few seconds.

Looking back, I realize now that I could have used Tabula Rasa to break out of the deadlock, Stona’ed the whole alliance and cured everyone back up instead of resulting in the partial wipe that we had. I guess speeding SCH to 75 in 3 weeks, and all these level-sync/powerleveled parties didn’t really help in teaching the job in panic situations…

That or I’m a sucky Scholar.

In other news, looks like I freelotted the Toad Mittens that this frog NM dropped. My first Scholar piece of endgame armor that provides magical attack. Interestingly, it’s also usable by BLU. I’ve adjusted my SCH macros to swap these gloves in. Perhaps I should swap my BLU nuking set too.

1st week update -- Trying to squeeze time out

First week of 2009 and I'm already feeling a little swamped. First off, a few little updates about what's been going on.

Scholar 7....3?!

Yes, Scholar has been going backwards and I've permanently deleveled to 73 now. This was the result of quite a few deaths... death by Armed Gears from pulling hate much too easily healing other parties, failed attempt at Limbus as SCH74 and me screwing up on SCH in Nyzul. I really do suck at SCH for endgame events.

In an exp party, it's no problem... I get into a cycle of buffing, enfeebling, then switching to nuke a little before I switch back to light arts. If I'm nuking, it's no problem either as I can focus on one thing, but switching between the two turns out to be confusing and painful, resulting in many deaths. Previous week's Dynamis I couldn't really balance the nuking/healing role and default to mainly healing. During Limbus, crowd control while also trying to keep people healed up without pulling hate became too confusing, especially since I was /WHM and being out of Addendum: Black meant that I couldn't sleep mobs.

I think I'm trying too much to play SCH like a RDM, switching between arts and getting caught up in the timers. As a RDM, I'd be able to enfeeble, heal, dispel, regen, nuke all in the space of a few seconds. For a SCH, this takes a little more planning and timing. For my first (and hopefully only) Nyzul run as SCH, we reached Cerberus with over 15 minutes left. This was only a floor 80 one too, and I had max MP going in. I ended up screwing up by being caught in Dark Arts/Addendum: Black while trying to Dispel Cerby when his AoE paralyze caught me. Attempting to switch out ended with the arts switching and Addendum: White being locked out for 3 minutes, during which Cerby basically decimated the entire party >.<

Scholar is definitely taking a back seat to both Dancer and Blue Mage. I'll take Scholar out if we need some magical damage, or if it's a kited fight since I hate getting dizzy running around chasing something! Healing/Tanking can be done better on Dancer, and most other things handled on BLU.

Schedule changes + Trying to open some time

A few small short-term schedule changes:

- Nyzul: Ashle's computer is broken for at least the next 2-3 weeks... Let's start Nyzul at around 7:30-8pm PST on both Thursday & Sundays

- Out between 1/16-1/19: I'm out of town, so that means I'll be missing... 2x exp sessions, 1x Dynamis, 1x Einherjar, 1x Nyzul and 1x ZNM session. I might pop in to say hi, but I probably won't play much ^^;

Meanwhile, I'm trying to open some time up in my schedule to do some MMM. Unfortunately, the other people who also want to do MMM have just as packed a schedule as I do. Frodo, Varg & Kurai are all interested, plus I think Teia & Zurar? Right now, only Tuesdays are open for me... but Fro & Varg have Salvage. I'm going to propose that we try to crank through runs after Salvage on Tuesdays, and after Salvage/Nyzul on Thursdays. If we start early enough, we can do some mazes. Otherwise, it's going to be a lot of ad-hoc grabbing people to go do it... I wonder if Fro has run his mules to Jeuno yet.

Only other "unscheduled" time I have right now is Saturday afternoons. >.> I'm probably going to cut back soon... possibly on one or more of the following:

- Reduce exping as a commitment since that currently occurs both on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. Ghiren has expressed interest in finishing his WHM (level 68 I think?) and might be able to fill in for me once I finish SCH?

- Drop an event... right now, high on the list are Einherjar or Limbus. However, I do enjoy Einherjar since it's one of the few times I can go crazy on Dancer with Soul Voice+Double March+Haste Samba+Saber Dance! Limbus seems like it may end up being dropped by default since attendance hasn't picked up since the holidays have ended. We need another 3-4 solid people we can rely on to continue doing this event, and the only people who do not already have commitments are dragging their feet getting to sea.

- Cut Nyzul back to just one day a week... I know I said this before, but I always end up just grabbing people on Sunday when I'm bored... doesn't feel right to let those tags sit there unused >.< Plus, the sooner we finish getting everyone armor, the sooner we can cancel Nyzul completely.

Other-time wise... for the next 10 weeks, I'll be missing Wednesday Dynamis simply cos I won't make it home in time (again) and I'll run late for ZNMs, though I should still make it to pop sites before most people since for some reason, I'm usually dressed and ready to go compared to other people.

Oh yeah, another new poll up :P

Schedule - Q1'09

New year, new quarter, new schedule! This post is mostly for me so that I can see what I have going on...

Monday: School@night, followed by ZNMs until sleepy time

Tuesday: NO SCHEDULE! Wow... for once...

Wednesday: School@night, followed by Limbus between 9:45pm - midnight. Won't be able to make Dynamis this quarter due to school

Thursday: Open until 9:45pm PST, then it's Nyzul until almost midnight

Friday: NO SCHEDULE! Well.. kinda... there's that exp thing that we have going on. Basically everyone who wants to exp, speak up and we'll put something together that works. Gather time is in theory, 7:30pm but we'll see how that continues on.

Saturday: No plans for the day -- Nominally working on my 2nd job... Night: Dynamis & Limbus from 6:00pm - midnight >.>

Sunday: Static Exp party from noon-4:30pm, then Einherjar. Nyzul from 8:00pm ~ 9:30pm.

Mmm... still looks really busy, and I want to slide in some MMM in between things. Looking at the schedule, realistically it would probably be... Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sunday nights before or after events, and possibly Saturday during the day if I happen to be around. Possibility of doing it Wednesday before Limbus too since I'll have a couple of hours after school that I need to unwind before Limbus.

Holiday Update + MMM spamage

This is going to be a big post since I haven't been blogging much over the holidays, but I've been doing a looooooooooot of things :)

Scholar 74!

I think it was the week before Christmas that Vanh said to go get Scholar 75... After I had pushed Scholar past level 40, the job became even more fun and broken than before with Accession. The Monday before Christmas, Zurar Kurai & I went to do the final SCH AF fight (with a little trouble from Zu DCing right as the fight started, but that's a story for another time). That pretty much started my crazy attempt to get SCH 75 before the normal "work/school" schedule started up again. I knew that once the holidays were over, I'd pretty much abandon leveling up since I'd be too busy with RL stuff, or FFXI events to even change jobs into SCH.

Luckily, SCH gets invited to parties at a very good rate. A few of my objectives for the holidays was to 1. Catch up on TV/movies/anime and 2. Catch up on various OTHER games I've neglected. Well, I was barely able to completely #1 since I'd get 15 minutes into a show when I'd get an invite on SCH. Contrast that to other jobs like Dancer or Thief where I was able to finish playing Mass Effect while seeking xD

After Sunday's normal "static level-sync" party with Vanh, Fuuji and the usual crew (normally Zurar & Kurai), I was able to get to level 74. Just 40k left until level 75, which is either 1-2 decent parties, or one good merit party. I'll probably get my usual 20k buffer and leave SCH as that. The good news is that my Elemental, Enfeebling and Dark magic skills are actually almost capped, just 4-5 below cap right now thanks to a few well-timed Besieges. So, unlike other mages (many new RDMs out there), I'm actually able to Sleep, Enfeeble and nuke effectively. The Sunday static still needs a healer, especially as they go through the 60s and near 75. I'll continue coming as SCH (unless they'd rather have me on DNC) both to get some more merits, and to get some skillups in Enhancing & Healing magic. By the exp chart, There's about 500k worth of experience between level 56-75. I still need 21 more merits to finish Dancer merits, and I'll probably want some extra merits to work on other things, such as attributes, HP/MP or possibly Scholar or Blue Mage specific merits.

Scholar@75(ish)

So, what's interesting from leveling Scholar was that even before I finished the job I was asked to come as SCH73 to two events so far, Dynamis and Limbus. This was surprising since 1. the job wasn't finished, 2. my SCH isn't geared to be good at anything at all, and 3. I haven't finished learning or experimenting with it yet. I still don't know a Scholar's limits and capabilities and I'm not quite comfortable taking it out yet.

Dynamis: This was a low-man Dynamis-Sandy... we started with barely 19 people and we were going for the win. As far as I counted, we had 2x WHM and 2x SCH for this zone and I was coming to basically mainly heal, which was "ok" for a SCH, but I really felt that I could have done better on DNC. A few times I had run out of MP and many times Wuwu came close to dying, especially when he became the /assist when people started to fall. On DNC, healing would never have been a problem. I'm almost never without TP in Dynamis, and unlike a mage healer job, I pretty much have unlimited stamina for healing people. Dancer really excels in low-man situations, and a low-man Dynamis would have been one of them.

On the other hand, when it came time to nuke the bosses, I didn't have to just stand around idle and was actually able to do some nukes. Unfortunately, since my level, skill level, and gear were totally not prepared for nuking, I barely did any damage at all, even with helixes. Overall not very satisfying. If I'm coming to Dynamis as a healer, I'd rather come as DNC instead and do an overall much better job keeping people alive.

Limbus: Similar to Dynamis, we had a low-man run due to the low turnout from the holidays. Normally, this would have meant that Nain would be on RDM, and I'd be on either BLU or DNC to either back him up, or main heal. Nain wanted to try him on BRD and me on SCH instead, and this turned out to work fairly well.

A few advantages from this setup: We had 2x AoE sleepers (BRD + SCH Manifestation) instead of just one close-range AoE sleeper (BLU using melee-range spells) Instead of having to always heal up damage one person at a time, I could Stoneskin-ga people and use Regen-ga. Instead of Nain having to keep up a busy Refresh/Haste cycle, he could use March, then Ballads on me, so it was overall less stressful for Nain. Final advantage was that we would have Raise II in case of emergencies. Blew through the floors easily with no downtime. I even had MP to throw out a few nukes here and there.

Other SCH endgame: So... when I first started leveling SCH, I had a few things in mind... first was the cute AF! It's one of the jobs that I wanted to level mainly for the AF. Other jobs that fall into this category are... PLD(pretty), RNG(girl scout) & BST(stuffed animal) ^^; The other reasons was to take up a different back-line role for certain events.

For some events where I go as BLU/WHM (or BLU/SCH), I usually end up as a back-line job throwing out heals, casting Diamondhide or trying to use Breath spells as a magical attack. The reasons behind taking up a back-line BLU are normally to avoid feeding a mob too much TP (our big hitting spells can easily push a mob up to 100% TP in a few seconds), or for mobs that are taken down purely by magical damage. As Scholar, I can do the back-line job much better than coming as BLU. The SCH Stoneskin costs much less MP and can be repeated more often. Throw in Phalanx for even more damage mitigation. Switch to Dark Arts and a SCH can throw out more nukes, at a further range instead of having to be within AoE range of the mob like BLU or risk having the mob move out of position.

So, basically, any event where I have to "stand back" instead of being up there in front of the mob, I'll probably break out SCH. This is mainly Omega for Limbus, but may include certain ZNMs. (like Cheesehoarder, or that Gears one that keeps running around and makes me dizzy if I try to melee it) If healing is needed, I'd rather take Dancer out since Dancer has not only unlimited stamina for long fights, but can also switch over to become a tank in the event of pulling hate instead of having to constantly log out to get rid of hate. BLU would be used for cases where flexibility is needed (mainly Nyzul), or in the event that simple DD is all that is needed (unlikely since so many people prefer to DD than to heal).

What next? Well, SCH is my "mage/nuking" job for at least the foreseeable future. BLU is my DD job, and DNC is my tanking/healing job... I'm considering if my next job should be a "support" class, either BRD, COR or RDM. That would probably depend on how SCH is taken... if I'm asked to constantly come SCH where my DNC would do just as well, or a better job as a healer, then I'll probably *not* level one of those "4life" jobs.

Furthermore, I really need to gear up my SCH sometime. The gear I'm using right now is simply AF and my +MP gear from BLU and a couple of magical accuracy rings I had lying around. No Moldy earring, no int/mnd gear from the AH at all. The only Scholar-specific items I've bought (besides spells) are a Light Staff and Ice staff, so it may be a while before my SCH is fully geared up to handle nuking. Finally, I'm also still fully concentrated on Dancer as my main job, so I'm still much better at Dancer in terms of ability, merits and gear!

Meanwhile... I might go back to toying with PUP. A lot of my Dancer/Blue Mage gear can also be used on PUP, and with Fields of Valor, I think it might be fun to bring this pet job up through the levels solo!

Lots of lewt!

Let's see... I've gotten a lot of loot since the last big post. What do we have...

- Etoile's Toe shoes -- aka Dancer AF2 Feet from Dynamis Jeuno. Good accuracy piece and Dancing Edge WS piece

- Mirage.. erm... gloves -- BLU AF2 gloves from Dynamis San d'Oria. I was a little surprised when I actually got to lot on these, but... I guess we didn't have that many people with us that night ^^; These aren't really *that* useful for a BLU given that I have Enkidu's gloves as well as Homam gloves, but the +Dex, +Mnd & +evasion are nice... and of course, this brings me that much closer to finishing the AF2 set :)

- Enkidu's Leggings -- Excellent haste & attack piece. Goes on full time for both Dancer and Blue Mage for almost all situations. The only times I'd swap them out is if I need more accuracy, or if I'm going heavy on the nukes on BLU. This replaces my dusk feet. Thank you to Teia who agreed to swap my Vargie-signed boots for her normal ones. She now has a pair of signed Dusk feet, and I have a bit more gil ^^

- Askar Head -- Picked this up helping Fuuji's group with a floor 100 run. Since they all already had all the Nyzul head gear, any head gear that dropped would go to me... and this happened to drop ^^; Unfortunately, I don't have any jobs that can use it yet... I guess I should look into leveling SAM at some point. I didn't know that floor 100 used to be a 100% drop >.<

- Denali Kecks -- This is an interesting piece... For BLU, it adds Magical Accuracy & Attack. For DNC, it mainly adds the +3 evasion. They look like PJs, so chances are I won't be putting them on much, but this piece brings me that much closer to finishing my evasion setup on Dancer. The main thing I need now is just the Boxer's Mantle, and I'm only 10 Ancient Beastcoins away from finishing that. Also picked this up with Fuuji's group... they really seem to have more luck with drops than we do.

And... not sure if I mentioned these... I got both of these in the previous week before the holidays
- Mirage Jubah -- BLU AF2 body. The +accuracy and Refresh effect make this a full-time body piece. The only time I'd swap out to my AF+1 body would be if I *really* need the Blue Magic skill, which would mean I'm doing magical attacks

- Delta Earring -- The 15k Einherjar piece! FINALLY got it just before the holidays... Good thing too! This is a good piece for Dancer due to the +dex, +chr & -enmity. Since I usually /SAM, I don't always use my Suppanomi earring and this makes a really good replacement.

Phew... lots of loot there. Boxer's Mantle will probably come this week after another Limbus run. I still need a few pieces more to complete what I consider to be my "ideal dancer setup", most of which is the DNC AF2, but I just discovered another piece that I'll cover later... I still haven't figure out what I'd want/need for Scholar yet. So far, I've got Goliard armor on the list once we finish Kurai's set, and probably SCH AF2...

Speaking of Goliard and armor...

Nyzul Isle Issues

So in the past, we've been inviting some people to come along with us for Nyzul runs, normally when we've been 5/6 or occasionally, 4/6 people. While we'd like to help some of our friends, we've had a few cases of people grabbing items and... disappearing after getting gear, going away without even a thank you, or even worse, afking during Nyzul itself and risking losing the whole event, or losing other item drops. The purpose of a static is to make sure everyone knows what to do, and to get gear for everyone in the static, not to have people hop in, get gear and disappear.

Going forward, we'll be taking on a policy similar to other groups: Gear that nobody in the static needs can be lotted on by "guest" people who come along. Our static group is very friendly and won't lot on something that we "might use in the future". We don't even lot on gear that our secondary jobs can use if the job is retired.

So, if you'd like to tag along with our group with the hope of armor, please be aware of this restriction. This includes all notable gear. Currently, since we're still relatively early in the farming stages, the only piece of armor that isn't spoken for is Askar Body since all of our heavy melees already have it. We've almost finished one set of Goliard, so I'm expecting Goliard drops will soon become available too.

If you're interested in joining in on runs with the understanding that you'll only be able to lot if and only if nobody in the static needs the item, please let me know. Of course, we'll do our best to accommodate the chance of you getting an armor drop (i.e. scheduling a floor 80 for a chance at Askar body). We run at 8:00pm PST on Sundays (2-3 runs), and 9:45pm on Thursdays (3-4 runs). Sunday runs are when we'll most likely have 1 slot open for a guest. The more runs you come on, the higher on the list of invitees you'll be, and of course, as we complete our armor, the more other drops will be available.

Finally... if the above doesn't interest you, I'd just like to say that it is not *that* hard to find a group of 5 other people and climb Nyzul for yourself. I know at least 7-8 people who are still at the beginning and want to climb. The hardest part is the first few runs when you're still learning what things mean and figuring out how to best work as a group. If you stick together, you can climb through the levels very fast once you get over the initial learning curve. It took our group 5 weeks to get from floor 0-100 once the Nyzul weapons were released, and we even had a few farming runs too. We didn't start off perfect, and our first run failed at floor 1!

Moblin Maze Mongers -- Loot revealed!

So... after getting back to... ahem... "work", I was digging around a few forums and came across something interesting. Apparently some people have figured out the combinations of mazes to finally get MMM to give out some significant items! What caught my eye was this:

Ermine's Tail - DMG: 34 Delay: 194, Evasion +8, "Lizard Killer" effect, +7% crit rate vs. lizards

And... most importantly, this is usable by Dancers! Low delay, high damage and most importantly, a significant boost to evasion! This dagger is almost as good as the Azoth for Dancers. The only thing Azoth has over this is the +accuracy. Ermine's Tail actually does more damage due to the lower delay. This is the ideal off-hand weapon for a DNC/NIN, and possibly a main-hand dagger for situations where accuracy isn't as crucial, and evasion is needed. Plus from the picture, I'm guessing that it has a pretty Jambiya-type model instead of the Azoth's weird sickle-shape.

Sooooooooooo.... that means... I want one of these xD According to what I've seen, this has a chance of being in the Hoardbox for a specific configuration of maze, specifically:

007 Liquidation Team (100 Marbles) -- This is the "single NM" maze

004 Beast Rune (200 Marbles)

094 Lost & Found (500 Marbles)

Total of 800 marbles. The mob popped is a Dhalmel-type mob called Purushamirga. From our single try with Kurai vs. an elemental-type NM, these fights are fairly easy, but do require you to be on your toes. The level of the mob is based on the highest level in your party, so no cheating by bringing along a level 1 mule.

I'm currently at around 300-400 marbles, so as soon as I get enough, I'll be reconfiguring my maze to pop this mob exclusively. I'm pretty sure Kurai will be doing the same :)

Anyone wanna run some mazes?