Skill of playing FFXI

Last night I went for a brief merit party at the Mamool Ja Staging Points with Jurgos, Supermday, Styles and two others. Thanks to this merit party, I was able to get my 7th HP upgrade, and 3 more merits towards my final HP upgrade. Just two more merit points left to before I complete HP merits and I move on to focus on something else... maybe more job-specific merits, or maybe a Strength upgrade.

This was also the first real exp party I've had since I equipped my DRG at 75 so I was curious to see if I could hold up against other DDs, or if my lack of focus on DD jobs would deem me unacceptable for this sort of role. I hope I did decently, but lacking any sort of parser, I can't really tell xD Still, after poking squishy mobs with a pointy stick for an hour or so, my mind started to wander and I started thinking about what it took to be skillful at playing FFXI, and hence, came up with the idea for this blog post.

So... think about the major job types and what it takes to be considered "skilled" at each role...

DDs - SAM, DRK, DRG, WAR, RNG, BLM, etc.

At the end of the day, the goal of a DD is to do a ton of damage without getting killed. Intelligent use of the various job abilities to enhance damage, as well as to mitigate damage you take are a part of playing a good DD, but at the end of the day, what makes the difference between a good DD and an excellent DD will be gear and merits.

Basics are pretty simple... accuracy, attack, eating appropriate food and putting together gear sets for TPing and WSing. Throw in some expensive gear, and tons of merits into crit hits, strength and weapon skill and you'll get a good DD. During the actual fight, there really isn't that much you can do except use your JAs when appropriate, and WS when you hit 100% TP.

So... to be a good player in a DD role, seems to me that the main judgement in performance is in gear and merits. The hard work of being a DD is done outside of the actual job, where you prepare your gear and various macros to maximize damage done.

Healers - WHM, RDM, SCH, DNC, BLU & /WHM jobs (BRD/WHM, COR/WHM, even BLM/WHM)

Preventing people from dying, as well as removing status effects are the main jobs of the healers. This makes the main thing that healers need is situational awareness and reaction speed. A healer who is too slow to cure someone might result in that person's death. Leaving a status effect on for too long might result in the loss of damage, or the person's death.

The best healers are those that anticipate the need to cure someone and time their spells to go off at exactly the right time, leaving as little time as possible for the target to be in danger. I think the best example of this is the Tier IV ZNM mob Tinnin. In a perfectly executed Tinnin, you'll see healers casting Cursna even before the TP move Nerve Gas goes off, timing Cursna to land right after the curse effect hits the tanks. The best healer/tank combinations can even follow it up with the tank curing him/herself right after cursna, reducing the time that the tank is vulnerable to 1-2 seconds.

For healers, reaction speed is key, with the best being those who can anticipate the need to react.

Enfeeblers - RDM, WHM, BLM, BRD, DNC, COR, BLU, etc.

Similar to the DDs, enfeeblers are those that go up against the targeted mob. Hence, equipment plays a large part in the effectiveness of an enfeebler's role. After all, if you can't land that Paralyze, or that Lullaby, you can't do your job.

However, another aspect of the role is situational awareness. Enfeeblers also have to be aware when their spells wear off from the mob, or if a mob has removed it and to reapply it as necessary. Similarly, jobs who can Dispel need to know if a mob has an enhancement that can be removed, and remove it as necessary.

So... for enfeeblers, equipment and awareness are what separate good from average.

Enhancers - RDM, BRD, COR, WHM, SCH, etc.

The main job of an enhancer is to keep the enhancement up on everyone... that is, songs, rolls, haste, even appropriate weather. The best enhancers are those who can keep the enhancements up full-time without requiring prompting.

The very best would be those who re-apply enhancements as soon as they wear, or refresh them just before they wear. Being good at this would involve... well... mostly having awareness of time and getting into the rhythm of keeping buffs up.

Tanks - PLD, NIN, SAM?

This is a little strange for me... whenever I tank, I found that the problem I face is that of resource management. I want to hoard my hate tools so that I use what is appropriate for the situation. Knowing when to use Sentinel, or Chivalry to restore MP are part of looking at the situation and figuring out what to do. When tanking on SAM/WAR, sometimes I'd hold back a WS until the beginning of the next mob in order to establish hate early on, or I'd use Meditate to get an extra WS in to get more hate.

Of course, the other part of tanking is that gear does play a part... The right gear to reduce damage taken, or to have enough haste to keep shadows up full time.

Finally, tanks do need situational awareness in large events such as Dynamis or Einherjar. A good tank will be grabbing mobs as they come in, and will know who to heal in order to get hate on the mobs and what spells or job abilities to use at what time.

So... gear, resource management and awareness are critical for tanks.

In summary...

Well... at what point are you actually playing FFXI, and at what point are you letting the game play itself? How much of ones performance is dependent on you, and how much is reliant on what you have?

Maybe that's what attracts me to certain jobs over others...

Exp or merit (or slack)

Process of laziness elimination has pretty much narrowed down my choices of jobs...

What was considered (of the jobs I am somewhat interested in):

BRD

- Happy Barding would require lots of minor little quests... like the Opo-opo crown, camping the Minstrel's Coat NM. Yes, I know I can probably skip them all, but I'd at least want to get them, right? Kinda like the Parade Gorget for PLD... but with more and stuff, so... /lazy

WHM

- Since the last update I've been wanting to do less as on SCH since WHM does the job a lot better with Solace & Esuna. They have really eliminated the need for SCH except in the case where you aren't sure if you need a nuker or healer, or if you really can't find a WHM. Solace's Stoneskin effect is much more useful compared to the appliable Stoneskin from Accession-Stoneskin.

- Still... leveling WHM would mean that I'd have to go do those Recall scroll quests x.x /lazy

RDM

- As much as I like RDM, I don't think I'd be able to gear it up to my satisfaction. For one, the relic hat is such a rare drop, and I'm sure a huge line ahead of me that I doubt I'd see it in a reasonable time.

BST

- I always found BST to be a funny job... running around and being chased by the mobs that you try to make friends with. Unfortunately, I'm horrible at this job and tend to die more often with 3 mobs running after me, soooo... it would not be a good choice to level, even though I really like the idea behind it xD

PUP

- I've always thought that PUP was the most complicated job to play in FFXI, even more so compared to BLU. Not only do you have to consider your own equipment, but also how you gear up and use your automation, as well as how to make it do the correct things. A properly configured BLU can go from being a physical DD to a main healer, magical DD or enfeebler with a few changes in spells and subjob. A properly equipped PUP can go from physical damage to healer, magical damage or even ranged damage without even changing subs. I've only ever seen one good PUP on the field before, and I haven't seen a single good PUP in at least the last... 9 months or so. I always have a lot of fun with Serenade whenever I do lowbie jobs (since I go /PUP for levels 1-10 whenever I can)

- That said, I'm not sure I want to learn everything on a complicated, but ultimately not accepted job. Thing is, there may be some good PUPs among my friends even now, but I wouldn't even know that they have the job leveled up since they never get to bring it to events. PUP suffers from the hybrid curse... It doesn't fit squarely into a defined role, so people can't use it for one of the primary roles of DD/tank/healer/buffer

So... after all that consideration, I think I'll most likely be lazy on COR. I don't *think* there are any special quested or NM dropped equipment that COR requires, and even the COR die are obtainable through NPC purchase, so I don't have to wait for scrolls to show up on the AH. Exp will be almost completely through linkshell parties, so I wouldn't be spending too much on bullets, or for that matter, feel like I'm throwing gil away on lousy parties. I wonder how far I could get away with just using X-mas gear on COR :o

Even then, I guess I'd end up spending between 1-1.5M gil on bullets/die/cards to level COR up, plus a little bit of gear here and there. I have the full Denali set already, and some Enkidu pieces do help towards gearing up a ranged attacker. Main thing I lack would be accessories for ranged attacks. For /WHM, my SCH gear would suffice.

COR would be useful not just as a buffer, but also for filling in the "ranged attacker" role that is sometimes used for things like Odin, certain ZNMs, JoL and even the ACP final battle. It would open up some options for other people to fill the roles I usually play (PLD or SCH in most cases for these battles) so we can mix things around.

Alternatively, I could just go merit instead of taking up a 6th job... Talint is looking at us weirdly for thinking about leveling another job since FFXI has already been given a death warrant... Tempting to slack... we'll have to see.

Other News

Dynamis fun

- Had a really fun, if small glacier run on Saturday... I think we were at... 15 people? We still demolished things easily, and it was the first Dynamis in recent memory where I went on PLD and didn't die. Somehow I also made out like a bandit, picking up the DRG body, WHM body on freelot and even a Wootz Ore. Picking up the WHM body was one of the big reasons why I took a close look at leveling WHM.

More DRG stuff

- Got a Flame Gorget for Drakesbane thanks to Rooks, Heloise and Zurar. Took about... 3 hours total of organ farming, a bit with Helo & Rooks to take out a UFO, about an hour soloing squid, and another 2 hours of shark organ farming

- Not sure about the effects of the gorget yet. I've hit 1.6k against Lesser Colibri, but due to Drakesbane's nature on critical hits, I'm not sure if that's due to the Gorget, or just luck... needs more experimentation

- For DD DRG, I think the only things I need now are more Hecatomb gear for WS (or Aurum body for WS) and that's it... DRG solo could use the relic hat to complete the Healing Breath set. DRG was a lot easier to gear up compared to my other jobs :o

ASA frustration

- 3rd failure on ASA so far... Not much I can do about it... really just need healers to be more on the ball with when to heal. Fuuji had me concentrating on DDing on BLU on the most recent run since having 2.4k of MP to burn through means that I can put out a ton of damage in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, that also means that I'm #1 on the hate list, and Utsusemi doesn't do much good when the Shantottos are spamming AoE spells and multi-hit WS. I've never been able to use up more than 1/3 of my MP pool before I get killed

- Not sure what else can be done on ASA to improve things. Jobs are kinda limited due to the fact that I'm pretty sure we need a WHM, and that one of the other healers does not have any other useful jobs for this. Maybe it's time to find some SMNs to do this. I'm getting to the point that I can almost find all the hexes without even bringing up a map ~.~

Post-game depression

- Finished Dragon Age on Saturday. I really like this game and the character interactions, especially when you see how things can change based on your decisions, and definitely the humor in how your companions interact

- Unfortunately, whenever I finish a long game like this, I tend to get sad as it feels like I'm losing a friend... I'm half tempted to start up a new Dragon Age game playing a different class/background, or buying the extra DLC. Still... Mass Effect 2 comes out in the end of Jan... maybe I should play through ME1 again...

Tactics Slots

Been playing a lot of Dragon Age: Origins lately... Mainly I want to finish that so that I can lend it to a coworker, but the plot and character interactions of the game are pretty fun. Ahh... soon I'll have to choose between Alister and Lelianaa... decisions decisions...

One of the features I like the most about DA:O is the "Tactics Slots". Basically, simple programs for your party members to follow. It's basically the same feature as in Final Fantasy XII, or in Mass Effect where you can set actions for your party members to follow when in combat, like when to heal, when to attack, and what spells to cast. Manual control is also possible, like I don't want to cast a huge Blizzard spell unless I have the area under control.

Still... sometimes I wish I could just set tactics for my other party members in FFXI and have them obey... sample tactics:

PLD

1. Self HP less than 75% -- Cure IV

2. Flash [t]

3. Sentinel [me]

4. Rampart [me]

5. Reprisal [me]

BLM

1. Stoneskin [me]

2. Blink [me]

3. Self HP less than 50% -- Drain

4. [target] has MP -- Aspir

5. Self HP > 50% -- Blizzard IV [t]

6. Self HP > 50% -- Thunder IV [t]

DD

1. Attack [t]

2. TP more than 100% -- Weaponskill

BRD

1. Cast March/Minet

2. Cast Ballad

3. If ally HP less than 50% -- Cure III

Healer

1. If ally HP less than 70% -- Cure V

2. If ally enfeebled - Appropriate -na spells

3. If ally HP less than 90% -- Regen

4. If [target] has AoE -- Stay at long range

5. Cast Stoneskin

6. Cast Protectra & Shellra

Then again, isn't that what we do whenever we start up a group event? We assume that other players have their tactic slots set up correctly based on their past experience, and that they can execute their tactics appropriately. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case and we have to adjust their tactics on the fly as we discover holes, or simply a lack of available slots. Every person/player is configured slightly differently and may need adjustment to fit in with what the leader of an event might require... or might not have enough "slots" available to use as they become overwhelmed with what they need to do.

Unfortunately, unlike Dragon Age, we can't take control of them and manually take over for a few commands before letting the program resume.

Dragoon - Further Impressions

I think I'm getting to the point where I'm comfortable with using DRG in most situations. A couple of things happened in the past few days to give me more "on the job" training on DRG.

DRG/mage

Had a little crash course on DRG/WHM fighting Roc. Kurai found him wandering around and got me & Radack over... I think Lumiere did fairly well for healing, and I learnt that Horde Lullaby is a pain when your main healer is a Wyvern that can only be woken up once every 3 minutes. Made some decent progress here, but DRGs really do not make for a good tank since our Jump abilities are designed to shed hate.

Besieged was a better test as DRG/BLU. With Giant's Drink, Lumiere's healing capabilities skyrockets as the HP trigger level is a lot easier to reach, and Lumiere heals for a lot more. I think she surprised Fuuji with how she was basically spamming Cure IV on me (and him) while I ended up tanking the mob. Interestingly enough, I think DRG/BLU is actually a better Besieged job compared to PLD, my former favorite. The only issue is keeping Lumiere alive so that I don't lose my main healer... If I were to do more DRG soloing, I'd probably fully merit Spirit Link.

DRG/SAM

Got bored of DRG/SAM quickly in mass group events like Dynamis. Once I figured out my gear swap macros, the only thing to do was just WS and stuff... I think I want a little more practice on being main assist, but beyond that, I have more fun on PLD.

However, during the ASA fight at Full Moon Fountain. After a bad start and losing both main healers at basically the beginning of the fight, the only thing that kept the DDs going was our sheer remaining HP and Fuuji doing his best with Cure III on BLM. Unfortunately, /SAM means that I can't trigger Healing Breath in any way, but there are still a few tricks that a DRG can use.

Lumiere & I were getting low on HP when I decided to try a risky Spirit Link -> Spirit Surge trick to get my HP up to high enough to survive an avatar's 2-hr. I was looking at our HP bars and figured that Lumiere would be dead from the next 2-hr, and my HP would be too low to survive the next Fomor's 2-hour. Spirit Link followed by Spirit Surge gave Lumiere enough HP that I ended up with a net gain of HP, back to nearly full, and gave me back my Jumps and enough TP to pull off yet another WS. Getting Super Jump back at exactly the right time let me avoid one more Astral Flow, so that kept me & Talint in the game long enough for us to do enough damage to kill the remaining Fomors.

DRG was definitely the right choice for a DD for me... Being able to adjust hate as I see fit, tank if necessary, and the flexibility to be configured as a healer all fit nicely with the way I like to play :)

"FFXIV will 'rival' WoW!" -- SE drone

Wow... I love this article:

http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-xiv-will-rival-world-of-warcraft-158081.phtml

SE drone says that Final Fantasy XIV will pull World of Warcraft from its throne, though it will be "tough" to do so.

I love the logic here:

FFXIV will rival WoW because it is a sequel...

Wait... I thought each Final Fantasy game is supposed to be a completely different world/universe with it's own story? Also, didn't they say that FFXIV is not a sequel back in June? I guess the similarity in races and art isn't just coincidental.

Nobody has ever had a successful MMO and a successful sequel to that MMO...

So... I guess they are admitting that FFXI is a failure? I mean... if FFXI was a success, then by their logic, there is no way that FFXIV will be a success?

There has never been a company that has a continuously successful number one and two MMO...

I guess this means that FFXI MUST be killed off in order for FFXIV to be a success. That, or FFXIV is going to be a failure as long as FFXI is on the market.

Someone really need to go in and teach Yoichi Wada a lesson in basic business, as well as understanding their own customers ~.~ Remember, this is the same guy that says that console gaming is going to die, right during the time when I'm seeing more people buying consoles compared to any other time in history. I mean, I can see his logic that sometime in the future, it is possible that dedicated console hardware as we know it will no longer be sold and that the model will change, but who knows what will actually happen in the future?

As much as I like Final Fantasy games (that take forever to develop), part of me wants to watch them adopt the wrong technology early and fall flat on their face. Maybe if they are back on the verge of failure, they'll get someone without loose screws.

In-depth analysis - BRD & COR

Kind of a continuation of my post from a few days ago about the possibility of leveling a support job. Figure... maybe it's time for a more in-depth comparison between the two main contenders, BRD & COR.

Events

If you think about it, leveling a job is only a small portion of the time spent on the job. After getting to 75, many jobs change in role and nature. Once I hit PLD75, the way I played it, geared up for it and almost all my macros changed. SCH also changed significantly from regens & en-spells during exp to defensive buffer/nuker. I haven't experienced enough on DRG to really conclude if it has relaly changed, especially since I really want to experiment more with DRG/mage. DNC goes from a main healer to... well, a really weird evasive healer-buffer-enfeebler-DD hybrid that I still can't make much sense of, except that it feels much better to be DNC in smaller groups compared to larger ones.

So... thinking about what Bard & Corsair do at events... (Dynamis, ZNMs, Einherjar, etc.)

BRD

- Group light-based sleeper - Good in Dynamis/Einherjar, anything with lots of mobs. Crowd control basically. Horde Lullaby has a 24 second recast, with a 30 second base duration

- Used in all parties, critical in tank party, enjoyed by melees, though... not as critical to BLMs?

- Must-have for zergs due to 2-hr

- Light based dispel

So... general role for BRDs in events is as a crowd control, support/enhancing performance, and backup healer. Generally more to do in events with lots of mobs since crowd control is something that BRDs do well, but for single target mobs (like ZNMs), BRD is basically relegated to singing 2-4 songs, then doing backup healing.

COR

- Single-target, light-based sleeper - Can sleep up to 2 mobs at one time, but after that the recharge time is 1 minute per Quickdraw charge.

- Dark-based dispel

- Used in BLM parties, though... still usable in melee parties? Less use in a tank party since COR can't provide Haste

- 2-hr is more of a "last ditch cross your fingers" type of thing for events and not relied on

- Ranged Damage

General role for COR is support/enhancing performance, extra ranged damage and to an extent, backup healer if /WHM. For events with lots of mobs, COR really can't do much since the shots/sleeps are all single target. In all events, COR is basically get 2-4 rolls up, while shooting mobs at the same time unless you're doing COR/WHM.

Am I missing anything here? This is, of course, all from an observers perspective. To me, it seems like BRD is a lot more versatile compared to COR in events. And, of course, more necessary, while COR is a "nice to have". When comparing the two, I'd probably choose a BRD over a COR, unless we're doing a simple nuke-only party.

Exp/merits/having fun

Now what are these jobs like beyond the narrow view of events? Mmmm... well, again, this is from an observers perspective, so people with the jobs leveled will be able to give me a different perspective...

BRD

- Sing a few songs, then basically be a backup healer, helping to top off people or with some -na spells

- High level exp becomes a lot busier with /nin pulling and staging. Also useful for certain events like Limbus where you want to stage mobs for DDs to go after

- Can help fix situations with links due to lullaby

- Pianissimo means that positioning people to get the appropriate songs is no longer an issue

COR

- Roll a few die, then basically add to the damage. Has the option of going /WHM and being Bard-like

- Not as good for pulling due to the delay in guns, as well as recast time with Quick Draw for sleeping mobs

- Can sleep single mobs, not too good if more than 1 link due to the charge/timer issue with Quick Draw

- Still has to be concerned about party member placement. Timer on Phantom Roll also makes it difficult to re-apply rolls in case of a position mishap.

Overall... my impression that COR feels like a DD-support hybrid, while BRD is more of a mage-support hybrid. COR has the option of doing mage-support at the expense of DD, while BRD won't be able to do any DD, but is better at crowd control. Both jobs are good for merits, but BRD is a much better puller.

Other Considerations (Outfits, cost, inventory, people)

Now for some other considerations that are outside of the normal event/activity stuff.

BRD

- Ugly AF outfit, generally nothing special to look at, except at level 72 BRD can wear the very cute Sha'ir Manteel outfit

- Zu assures me that this was cheap to level, songs are generally reasonable on AH. Not too many expensive instruments to buy... though some nice pieces of gear such as the Minstrel's Ring is really expensive

- Has some gear that would need to be quested... Gaudy Harness and Opo-opo crown come to mind, though I guess I could just gimp it...

- Would share many pieces with SCH, at least MP wise. However, the +chr pieces and BRD-specific pieces would take up quite a few slots of inventory. If I decided to carry the appropriate instruments, that would really kill inventory space

- On the plus side, I do have the Assault Points necessary to buy the Yigit gear. However, I really don't like the way that set looks on humes D: It looks cute on taru though!

- Many people have BRD leveled. In AP alone, we have Zu & Cala. Vanh has it leveled if he decides to show up again. In Impact, there's tons more... Rooks, Weap, Cao, Helo, Py, Anna and probably more people than I remember xD

Funny thing about the Manteel is that waaaaaay back when I was finishing up DNC, Utaru was trying to convince me to go level BRD. I was really not interested until I saw a Bard in campaign in this outfit and I thought it looked really cute. However, once I found out how much it cost, that pretty much killed any thought I had on leveling BRD back then.

COR

- AF is a pirate outfit! I think that looks awesome :D

- Definitely expensive to level. COR die alone cost over 600k, and that's before bullets and cards. I'd guess in expendables alone, it's at least 1M gil

- Can't think of any COR-specific gear that would need to be quested... I guess I don't know enough about the job to name things off the top of my head. The AF quest however, would be expensive since it's a "buy the AF" type rather than coffers

- Would share some pieces with SCH due to the magical nature of Quick Draw shots. I also have the full Denali and Enkidu's harness sets, as well as a Coffinmaker, so that gives me a head start in collecting gear. Main thing I'd need would be some accessories for ranged attacks. Carrying the necessary card to use Quick Draw would take out a chunk of my inventory though xD

- Have enough IS to pick up Luzaf's ring... but that's not THAT much IS in the first place

- Not too many people have COR leveled up. Fuuji, Spengler, Marcux are the only three I can name, and Conceptx who has since retired. However, I can't remember the last time Fuuji or Spengler came as COR for anything... Marcux has been COR recently, and I think last time I saw Spengler on COR was when we were doing Nyzul, where I like to experiment with interesting setups.

My current impression is... while COR is more expensive to actually level to 75, the gear itself isn't too expensive. BRD has some expensive pieces near or at 75 which would wipe out my gil(though I could go with cheap/free alternative even though they are ugly), while COR has regular expenditures which would pile up. There are also a lot more people who have BRD leveled up so chances are that it's not as critical to have yet another BRD. On the other hand, COR isn't as critical to events, so how often would I actually come as COR to something?

Soooooooooo.... ya, still confused xD

Other stuffs

Randomish other thoughts/stuffs!

- I've had a chance to come as DRG to quite a few events now... ENMs, KSNMs, Einherjar, Dynamis, and even a part of sea. So far, my impressions of being a DD are... kinda... what I expected. It just isn't that much fun for me. I mean, I like being able to go out there and do a ton of damage (and I feel satisfied that I'm at least keeping up with most people), but I don't like my inability to really do much else except put out as much damage as possible without getting killed. During the KSNM runs on Saturday for Anna's Destroyers, I kept on looking at the HP bar and wanting to do something whenever I saw someone going into the red. In Dynamis, I quickly got bored once I validated that my WS gear was the right combination for hitting and doing damage. Thankfully Ohemgee had to go and I could be main assist, or else I would have been bored out of my mind for the rest of that run xD I'll probably still come to things on DRG, though it isn't my priority

- Had a chance to try out DRG/mage... in this case, it was DRG/RDM during some WS points in Kuftal tunnel. Of course, Kuftal isn't really a good test since most mobs are EP there, but Ghiren & I did have a small challenge when a Ghost decided to teach us a lesson since our HP was in the yellow. I think that was the first application I had on DRG/mage where Healing Breath from Lumiere was critical to our survival. Lumi did nicely, though I think I want more practice with this aspect of DRG. I think the top Healing Breath III was just over 600 HP healed with 300% TP and Deep Breathing. I'll have to go duoing with Teia sometime!

- Made SOME progress in the ASA mini-expansion. Ghiren & I decided to go tackle all 6 avatars for the ASA mini-battle, as well as some easy gil. Along the way, we also picked up the Synergy stones, though we can't use them until we unlock Synergy and get Synergy up to level 5... right now, those silly stones are sitting in my mog satchel ~.~

- The ASA mini-avatar battles were stupidly easy. They quickly became TP building for the real "trial by" battles. WHM & DNC meleeing finishes them in under a minute, so any real DD should take about 30 seconds. You can see SE's laziness here in creating content as they don't even bother with dialog, just a truncated version of the avatar fight ~.~ Oh well... at least we got 50k gil from doing them all, and another 60k from doing the real fights

- While wandering over Vana'diel, we came across a new ghost NM in Fei'Yin: Sluagh. Rooks was just talking about this on Saturday where he and Helo were duoing it to get the cloth to craft for the +1 enmity ammo item. I don't remember what jobs he was using, but Ghiren & I went at it as DNC/NIN & WHM/SCH. Easy fight since with my evasion setup, he barely hits me. If not for his Grave Reel move that strips Utusemi, I doubt he would have hit me at all. My Fan Dance merits came in handy as it reduced his melee attacks that did manage to land from 250-300ish to barely doing double-digits. Still, this fight did take a long time due to slow damage... I forgot about the properties of Banish, so it took a long time to get his HP down. A nearby THF offered us TH4, and helped us finish the fight faster by building TP on nearby bats, then coming in to SA. Too bad there wasn't any drop xD

- Also came across Aquarius last night... took him down easily, though it is annoying to keep hitting for single digits. At least I know enough now to eat some meat and use Box Step to counter his Scissor Guard. I got the axe, though it was halfway through the fight that I realized that COR couldn't use axes xD Oh well... another addition to my storage collection.

Dynamis stuffs

To help plan future Dynamis runs... so... I'm mainly wanting the looks xD

But I also have a ton of relic pieces already, so... breakdown by job:

BLU

Completed, nothing here!

DNC

Completed relic, though I would like the -1 pieces... low priority so I wouldn't go out of the way for them. -1 pieces I still lack are:

- Body -1, hands -1, feet -1

SCH

Missing the hands and accessory

PLD

Missing body, legs & cape... AND feet... which I always forget

DRG

Only have hands, missing head, body, legs, feet & accessory

And... potentially a 6th job... we'll see >.>

Show & Tell

Whee… been a while since a show & tell post. Since Zu was saying that I’d be posting pics about this, may as well put them up sooner rather than later!

Last night, I took my new DRG75 up to part 1 of sea and was… well… mostly disappointed. I just wasn’t doing that much damage to the regular Aern mobs we were fighting in the palace… 200ish WS damage. I guess this is partly due to my slightly low polearm skill, which was 7 under cap when we started, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that bad. I guess this is part of the “new 75” job syndrome where I spend a few events tweaking my macros and gear choices until I figure out a combination that works for me. Sea mobs are pretty evasive, so I ended up with a new WS macro that pretty much stacks accuracy to get every single hit in, bringing my WS damage up to 500… Not that good… I’m still trying to figure out what the right balance should be for WS gear. Probably should look into getting sea gorgets for at least Drakesbane and Penta… UFO hunting time~

Last night also was my first merit party on DRG… I haven’t actually been in a merit party for a long time, not since I first finished DNC. I don’t remember the composition of the party, but I remember that I was main healing and pulling on DNC, which is pretty rough due to the delay on throwing weapons. I think I only managed to get up to chain 24 before the chain would break.

Well, this was a completely different beast. Party setup was 2x RNG, DRG, SAM, RDM & BRD. We had Fuuji & Ghiren on RNG/NIN, with Fuuji going from 74-75 for this party, Weaponx on SAM/WAR tanking and taking the bulk of the damage, Caoihme on RDM/WHM saving all of us, Zurar on BRD/NIN annoying the party on the middle floor by pulling some of their birds, and me on DRG/SAM, doing my best to keep up @.@

Let’s see… what was fun…

First big milestone was chain #100, which Fuuji dramatically got us to with an Eagle Eye shot

During the first 100 mobs or so, I was adjusting my gear and macros and experimenting with Drakesbane and Pentathrust… I’m still trying to figure out the right balance between accuracy gear, str gear and various other pieces for using weaponskills. Drakesbane’s damage appears to be really weird, with damage ranging from as low as 500 to 1100 even when I manage to get all 4 hits in, with an eyeballed average of 700-800 or so. I guess this has to do with the critical hit capability on Drakesbane. I have 4/4 crit merits, but since that is still random, the damage will vary from WS to WS. Penta was a little more consistent, doing around 800 if I get all 5 hits in, sometimes spiking at 1000 or so. Still, after so many levels of Penta, I really wanted to see a different WS. Besides Weap was using Penta and doing about twice my damage xD

I think this was about the highest Drakesbane I pulled off:

Only buffs were Hasso and one Minuet… Other had just wore before the WS. I’m guessing this was being lucky with a few critical hits, as well as double attack from my Brutal Earring and Pole Grip kicking in. Still have some tweaking to do on my gear macros I think, and I don’t even know what is normal damage for DRGs in merit parties… I guess I need to spend some time observing other DRGs.

Anyway, the party went on for about 3 hours before we decided to wrap things up. Big thanks to Caoihme who managed to keep us alive and keep up a Haste cycle.This also marks the record of the longest chain I’ve had yet x.x

In total, I got 6 1/2 merits in that party. I already had 2 merits before we started. I spent them on unlocking Deep Breathing, putting another upgrade into Angon to bring the duration to 45 seconds, and put one into Polearm. I’m debating whether I want to lower my sword merits (currently 7/8) and put some merits into Polearm. I’m also debating whether I want to put some extra merits into a mixture of Str & Dex. At the moment though, I’m more focused on putting up another Angon upgrade (5 merits) to bring the duration to 1 minute, and finishing off my last two HP upgrades (10 merits)

Now for the rest of show & tell! First up… largest number of relics I’ve seen inside a Dynamis treasure pool. Looks like this was on November 18th, Dynamis-Valkrum run:

And finally… I’m not entirely certain, but I think this NPC just insulted me ~.~ Click through for the full version. The blog design cuts it off.

And… that’s it for this post!

New year, new job? Support role job? + other musings

Zu's been making noise about wanting to level another job on his supermule Yasu recently... as well as finishing some jobs of his own. Fuuji has also been talking about finishing off WHM, so... it looks like it's highly possible that another exp series might start up next year xD Well, after a little break to take care of some business with Shantotto and stuff.

What happened to the good old days of having one job? xD

So... I'm also considering the possibilities... I'm at 5 jobs now, and at the limits of what my mog locker can handle for fast gear changes. Adding a 6th job would mean that I'd have to do some significant reshuffling of how I store my junk, and probably mean tossing out a bunch of coffer/chest keys xD Should I do a 6th? A part of me wants to do it to round off the roles in the game... I have 2x healer (SCH & DNC, 3x if you count BLU), 2x DD (BLU & DRG), 2x nukers (BLU & SCH), tank (PLD, and a lesser extend DNC). I currently do not have any jobs to take on the support or ranged attack roles, unless you count DNC for support and BLU for Ranged with Cannonball. Another part of me wants to go finish off some merits as per my last blog post... and a final part is looking at the next year and wondering if I'll be playing Star Wars or another game by this time next year... Star Trek Online's preorders are starting up soon :o

I haven't actually decided if I'm going to take on a 6th job or just stick to meriting. For meriting, I have a ton of merits I could potentially do, but if I take a closer look, I really don't want to do THAT many, just a few... 10 to finish HP, 3 to unlock Deep Breathing, and another 9 to upgrade Angon to 1 minute. The others would be in the "nice to have" category, but wouldn't really change how effective I was, or how I'd play my jobs.

Sooo... *if* I were to take on a 6th job... what would I pick? Well, here's my thought process...

Corsair

Support role that shoots... capable of sleeping, dispelling, regenerating MP, increasing attack, accuracy and stuff. Pretty much the highest contender due to:

Pros:

- Is a hybrid class... supports and does damage

- Ranged attacker, so that fills a 2nd role as well and would round things up nicely for me

- AF looks cool :D

- Already have the Coffinmaker gun in storage from KSNMs a long time ago. Also have the rank and IS for Luzaf's Ring

Cons:

- Expensive... just the rolls alone cost over 600k, not counting cost for bullets, as well as gear for ranged accuracy/attack which I currently do not have

- Would have to unlock and level RNG as a subjob

- Role seems limited for events... COR/WHM and in the BLM party? Anything else?

Bard

The job that everyone thinks of when talking about support. Good at crowd control, enhancing the party and pretty much critical for events and zergs.

Pros:

- Ready to go, have subs already. BRD16 at this time. Much of the gear overlaps with SCH, which currently pretty much has no overlapping gear with my other jobs

- Have enough assault points for Yigit gear

Cons:

- Common job, interestingly enough... Zu just finished it and I don't really want to compete with him for gear! Doing that on DRG already is bad enough!

- Afraid of the brd4life syndrome

Red Mage

The other job that seemingly everyone has leveled up, and a must-have for things due to the strength of the enfeebles, as well as the ever popular Refresh & Haste

Pros:

- I actually enjoyed RDM... It's one of the "broken" flexible jobs in my opinion... most of my SCH gear would work on RDM too

Cons:

- Highly popular, lots of RDMs out there already, lots of competition for gear

- Done it once before... not quite sure I want to repeat myself

- Afraid of the rdm4life syndrome

- Would have to unlock and level DRK, as well as finish BLM sub D:

So, if I were to decide to level a job next... right now, I'd be leaning towards COR mainly for the "AF looks cool" factor compared to BRD xD Still, like the DD post post from a few months ago, I figure I'd open this up for comments in case I missed any important factors :) Remember... last time I nearly took SAM up as my DD job xD

Other musings

Small bit on other random thoughts and musings...

- Seems to be some interest in restarting Nyzul Isle. Zu wants to get some Goliard gear for Yasu, I want some more Askar gear (legs mainly) and Helo & Rooks wanted to come have some fun. Spengler & Ghiren might also be interested as well. Nyzul is still one of my favorite activities in FFXI... the need for tight coordination, the rush of a well-coordinated team, and the satisfaction of pulling off a near-loss always gets me excited. This is also one of the few events where I think BLU actually shines with the ability to adjust between heavy DD, sleeping, healing(especially on no White Magic floors), supporting, and the critical light-based dispelling on Soulflayers and stunning for Dahaks. It's also the only time I bring out BLU/SCH, so I look forward to starting this up again. Due to finals and the holidays, Zu says we'll consider this after the new year break xD

- Next up: the Shantotto expansion. I've been pretty much ignoring this, figuring on avoiding the rush... then finishing DRG became a priority and I had almost forgotten about this xD After we finish Zu's BRD & Fuu's RNG to 75, we'll probably switch our exp time to work on this expansion. I know that Spengler is interested as well, as well as Ghiren, and they're both ahead of us... I still need to go poke some silly avatars! Probably going to schedule this in the next week or so.

- Been reading up on Evolith and Synergy... not liking what I'm seeing... this seems even more complicated than MMM, with the need to go out and hunt NMs and a new weird crafting system that has their own points, spending gil for... erm... weird synergy currency. I talked to the NPC in Metalworks to start the quest to unlock the Synergy crafting skill and immediately got sent on a fetch quest with expensive AH item -- the Brass tank. Gee... now I wish I didn't AH the one I got from ISNMs on Sunday xD. Doesn't seem to have any interesting reward at this time, so I have a feeling that this will probably be something like Chocobo Racing and MMM which will have few people enjoying the event, and have lots and lots of updates and developer time wasted on enhancing it. I could even see them creating a new WotG endgame event that requires you to go get Evolith stuff and use Synergy points to get pop items for NMs like... erm... Pankration and ZNMs so that their dev time isn't just wasted. :P

- I've also noticed that I've been on PLD a lot recently :o And... in some events, the only PLD ^^;; Back when I leveled PLD, I did wonder if something like that would happen since PLDs are a known quantity, while my other jobs are all hybrids that aren't as well understood, or for that matter, suited for dedicated roles. Interestingly enough, this also came at a time when I'm starting to be bored of playing SCH, so it was a most welcome change. I'm also flattered that I'm trusted to solo tank events since in most events, losing the tank usually results in a wipe, if not a complete failure in the event.

Well, that's this week's post... If you have any comments/feedback/random thoughts, please post in the comments :)

Merits

Alright, so another job is ALMOST done... what next? Well, for starters, I think I need to get some merits and starts unlocking some stuff.

First thing's first... what are the "must-have" meritable things for Dragoon? I usually spend a few merits here and there to get the critical merit job abilities or traits as soon as I hit 75... For example, on BLU I unlocked Diffusion, on SCH it was Stormsurge, on PLD it was Chivalry and Fealty. DNC has the distinction of being the only job where I've gone all out and completed my job specific merits there...

So... what is necessary for DRG? And in what ratios? What are people's opinion on this?

Currently, I'm thinking:

Group IIs:

- Angon - At least 1 to unlock, possibly 3 upgrades total to bring it to a duration of 1 minute. Is this enough? or do people usually go 5/5 on this?

- Empathy - 1 to unlock. I can use Spirit Link multiple times to get other effects on my Wyvern. I'd put in maybe a 2nd upgrade to in theory, get Protect & Shell on Lumiere

- Deep Breathing - This looks like an interesting ability for soloing at least... but I'm not sure what other applications it may have... I barely notice Lumiere's extra breath damage as is... one to unlock?

Group I:

- Jump recast seems to be a no brainer here... more jumps = more damge & TP. I'm thinking this, and high jump merits would be most effective for DRG Tier 1?

So... I'm estimating a bare minimum of 6 merits to start with DRG to unlock Angon and Empathy, with another 9 merits to get Angon up to a reasonable duration... after which there's a ton more merits that need to be done at a more leisurely pace xD The "low priority" merits would take another... 49+ merits if I were to do them all...

As for other merits:

General

- HP merits - 2 upgrades left (10 merits)

- Sword Skill - 1 upgrade left (3 merits)

- Considering maxing either "Spell Interruption Rate" or "Enemy Critical hit Rate" - (10 merits)

- Attributes? Not sure if i want to do more on this... they are expensive x.x I'm also not sure if I'd want to do Dex or Str merits here.

- Magic skills - Might want to do some Elemental Magic skill increases... not sure if it's worth it for SCH

Blue Mage

Nice part about waiting a little before doing too many merits is that I can determine what my playstyle would be... most BLUs max out Assimilation, which I was on the path towards. Now I'm thinking of:

Group 1

- Chain Affinity Recast - Max this out. More CA = more damage, especially when combined with Enchainment merits (14 merits)

Group 2

- Max Enchainment - 15 merits for a 50 TP Bonus. I tend to simply do Chain Affinity -> Spell whenever possible, not necessarily with a pure self-skillchain. Enchainment would also give the TP bonus even when I did a self-SC since my TP at that time would be 0.

- Reduce Diffusion by another 2 upgrades (9 merits). This would bring Diffusion down to 15 minutes, which would make it usable twice in a Nyzul situation... alternatively, I could just stuff them into Assimilation

Scholar

Group 1

- Ironically, if I had merits to burn, I'd probably spend them on maxing Grimoire Recast and Helix Magic Accuracy/Attack. I do like switching between modes, and I have sadly, often been in situations where I switched too hastily between modes and had to wait a timer out x.x

- MV merits really aren't worth it unless you're stacking it... and the way I use Sublimation as a cheap, more effective Refresh, I don't benefit much from Max Sublimation

Group 2

- Max out Stormsurge to get the full +7 attribute benefit (19 merits)

- Unlock: Enlightenment - For those annoying times I need to use Erase while in Dark Arts or something similar... I'm not too sure if it needs anything more than that though. This situation does come up, but not THAT often

- Two each into Tranquility and Focalization. I have a general feel when the next AoE Stoneskin will generate too much hate, but I still do it anyway... Tranquaility might help with that... Focalization would help in the few times where I have to nuke something really, really large o.o;

Paladin

Paladin is the one job that would benefit the most from merits. It also, ironically, has the merits that I can't quite figure out....

Group 1:

- Sentinel recast - Max this out. Sentinel is awesome (15 merits)

- Then... I don't know what to do here. Holy Circle, Cover Length are unnecessary... Shield Bash might be tempting, but there are some mobs you just don't shield bash... sleeping mobs, or mobs that develop a resistance to stun. Not sure about Rampart recast either... I tend to throw Rampart up as an afterthought to sentinel

Group 2:

- With Fealty and Chivalry unlocked already, I'm not sure what else to put here... I tend to use Chivalry as a "last resort" type thing, so if I need to watch the recast on that we're already in trouble. Fealty is something I still haven't mastered the use of, and I think I've only effectively used twice in a tanking situation. Iron Will seems interesting, until you consider how short Rampart lasts, which leaves Guardian for the reduced enmity loss while using Sentinel... that kinda confuses me, since with Sentinel up, you're not taking that much damage and hence, there is less enmity loss in the first place?