DRG nearly complete, lack of DNC, Limbus over

Let's see... been over a week since my last post, so... here's a brief update:

Dragoon

DRG73 now, just 2 more levels, or about 77k exp left to go till 75. I'll probably get a buffer before switching to merit mode, though this time around, I'll probably stop at 10-15k instead of my normal 25k buffer.

DRG/SAM at 70+ is a lot more fun with the ability to switch between Hasso and Seigan. In last night's party, I was intentionally WSing early and using Third Eye to try to avoid damage as much as I could and rarely used Super Jump. I'm guessing that this is what the job really is like at 75, plus the occasional Angon for big fights. I'm generally liking it as there are enough "buttons to push", though tactically wise, it's pretty brainless... Either do as much damage as possible with appropriate job abilities and jumps, or survive and jump out of the way.

I've considered taking DRG out to events... 73 is almost there... but truthfully, the main reason I don't want to yet is that... my gear right now looks super-ugly xD At least at 75 I'll get some better armor to use... too bad it's all 75-only!

Big thanks to everyone who replied to my DRG gear post, whether through the comments or privately with /tells... so, based on talking to everyone, I've picked up the following

Weapon: Thal is good, try for a Fey Lance for something cheaper that would match Thal's performance. Would need to setup a group to do this... anyone wanna try for more fey weapons?

WS gear/Str: Bring in as much STR as possible for this. Ruby Ring (Str+4) for 45k is reasonable. Flame Ring for 700k is not xD. Pick up a Millefleurs sachet for another Str+1, macro in Warwolf Belt, etc. Grab some Hecatomb gear. Grab some sea gorgets x.x

WS-gear/accuracy: Weap points out that Penta and other multi-hit WS would benefit more from accuracy gear depending on the situation. Definitely something that needs some experimentation. May want to swap in the Potent Belt instead for Penta

Healing Breath: I haven't done any soloing since the 30s, so these macros desperately need updating... Teia and Weap both point out that the effectiveness of Healing Breath depend on Wyvern HP, as well as my HP. I knew about the trigger HP levels for myself, but I had not considered macroing in +HP gear to get to that level artifically. I didn't even know that how much healed depended on the Wyvern's HP level either. Once I hit 75, I'll have to play with these macros and start experimenting.

Lack of Dancer

Not sure if anyone's noticed, but I haven't been on Dancer for the last few weeks... mainly out of laziness since for most events, people prefer that I come on PLD or SCH, so I don't bother changing jobs too much. The other main reason is that DNC really excels in low-man events or small groups, neither of which I've done much of lately.

The other sad part about DNC is that I think I've figured out what happened to Roundel Earrings. The last Roundel Earring sold on the Hades AH was at the end of September. Prior to this it was selling at a decent rate, about 2-3 sold every month, then suddenly it stopped completely. My guess is that SE succeeded in banning enough of the RMT that the ones that previous did importing of the Roundel Earring from other servers to sell at a higher price were all banned, preventing this from being brought in.

And... since Hades sucks at campaign (can't blame us... even I don't do campaign anymore since it's so boring), there's no chance of us getting the earring natively since the campaign op that drops it is never available. Soooo... chances are close to nil that I'd get a Roundel Earring unless I somehow managed to convince someone from another server to transfer one over... somehow...

Which means I can probably take my gil and spend it elsewhere... Hecatomb stuff is expensive, so... maybe there ~.~

Limbus Over

Last Saturday was the last meeting for Shinjiku, the Limbus LS that... I don't know who founded, but it was my first "endgame" event ever. I had just reached sea on my "not quite 75" BLU as my first job when I joined in to take a look and get a Brutal Earring. Well, 1 1/2 years later, full homam and seeing at least 5, maybe 6 full homam sets completed, as well as numerous other people getting random pieces, the LS finally disbanded.

Pity really... we had the low-man Omega down to an art... 2x tanks, 1x RDM/DRK, 1x healer, 1x BRD, 3x BLM and maybe 1 random melee damager was enough to take Omega down consistently. Any extra people beyond that would simply ensure that we could kill it without taking any deaths.

Sad part is that it died rather suddenly. I was hoping to have some of the newcomers take over the basic farming portion, with the old-timers popping in to help with hard zones and for Omega. It only takes 5 people to effectively farm the chips necessary from all the zones. Fuuji had already gone on the "semi-retired" state for a while, Vanh was taking a break from FFXI for his house stuff, and we were able to farm the chips until recently. What suddenly changed was in November, we had two members take "take a month off" -- aka "quit". We knew about that, and it wasn't too big of a deal since we had enough people and mules to carry on. What ended up killing things was that two other regular members suddenly disappeared without warning and stopped logging into FFXI. Down to 3 regular members and two semi-regular, there was no way to continue. After trying for 2 straight weeks, we called it and decided to disband amiably (for the most part... though one of the newer members was "pissed at saving points").

So, that makes for the 2nd FFXI event that I used to do that has been successfully shut down. Nyzul was the first, though we do have the option of starting that up again if people are interested. Still, getting more free time back is always good! Especially since I'm heavy into other non-FFXI games now xD

For other events I'm semi-running... I doubt ZNMs will go away anytime soon! That's still going strong, and unfortunately drop rates are low enough that we'll be plugging away at that for a long time before people start to be satisfied. And... that's it! Everything else I go to is run pretty much by Rooks :)