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