Show & Tell - COR edition

Whee... been a while since the last show & tell. Probably because there wasn't really much of anything to show!

Anyway, here are some semi-fun screenshots of things that came up recently.

First up, the anniversary/adventure appreciation thing came through this year. Here are my latest stats:

Hmm... I'm starting to think parties are hazardous for my health, given my KO-Party ratio.

Now for some fun shots on Corsair! Here's my record damage so far for a Slug Shot!

Not too shabby! Of course, this is totally cheating! Against Chigoes in Salvage... I can rarely break 3k, while Zyn was throwing out 6K WS's xD

No, I'm not doing Salvage... I just went along with Kelhor's group for fun. Salvage actually looks like a pretty fun event to do, but the reward drop rate, the cost of upgrading and the hassle of maintenance was too much for me to bother with it as an actual event. Still, it is fun to do for fun!

(wonder if anyone will notice what is wrong with this screenshot)

And... more COR fun stuff!

5/5 on COR relic. I don't have the accessory yet, but at the very least, the visible pieces are all complete! That makes my 4th completed relic set, the other 3 being BLU, SCH & DNC. The last pieces of PLD & DRG still elude me :(

Finally, one last COR accessory:

Adulation turns into the Novio Earring, which has Magic Attack Bonus +7. That should go nicely with my Quick Draw and Leaden Salute damage. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but overall I have a fairly decent nuking set on COR. I really should find some time and go try it out. Leaden Salute is already more consistent for high damage compared to Slug Shot, so this should push it even higher. Part of the problem is that I don't really have a decent gun on COR yet. I'm still working on unlocking my Coffinmaker xD

and that completes my Jailer of Love collection! I picked up the other pieces in one fell swoop last October in my HQ Lootwhoring week.

(and yes, I know most BLMs would kill for a Novio... I still feel kinda weird for having one and not being a BLM. At least I have BLU & SCH which also benefit from this!)

That's it for this round of show & tell!

COR 75, update stuff, FFXIII progress

Whee... finished Corsair in a crazy party on Friday night. I started to get worried about the upcoming server merge, specifically that exp parties would be a bloody pain since there would be 2x the amount of people competing for the same number of good exp spots. Soooooo... I went seeking on COR and got a varied number of parties.

While my last party to push to 75 was a level sync party to 57, we had both Lesser Colibri camps open to us by the leypoint. We managed to hit 20k/hour without any exp bands doing infinite chains with Corsair's Roll up. 3 hours of this was enough to push me from 73 to 75 :)



This exp party also marked my highest pull chain so far... Previously I could only manage 20ish chains on DNC simply due to having to time the pull correctly. Since I can't sleep on DNC, I have to pull late enough that the party would kill the mob before I get killed, and early enough for the mob to reach camp in time. Pulling on COR is a little different... My gun is a lot slower compared to the throwing weapon on DNC, but I can pull as long as I have Quickdraw charges ready since I can sleep the next mob at camp. It really becomes just a matter of managing the Quickdraw charges.

Well, COR is done now... and I've unlocked the main merit abilities: Fold, Snake Eye and Loaded Deck. I actually use Random Deal quite a lot on COR, mainly to get Phantom Roll up faster so that the first round of buffs go up quicker, though sometimes I also use it to try to get Quickdraw ready earlier. Ghiren also helped me unlock Leaden Salute for COR already, so now I just need to skill up the last few points of Marksmanship before I can get the WSNM quest.

Update Stuff
Server merge is complete, and looks like I'm still Ascule... so I've changed the blog title back from the temporary "Ascoo's Adventures" that I had up for a while xD Not sure how many people actually noticed.

The merger did screw up a few things... like... the shell color for ZeniBailout ~.~ I thought I had the right color, but it ended up coming up with too much blue in it... It looks like the old Xwinds shell color now... I'm debating tossing it and remaking, but right now the linkshell vendors are completely sold out of linkshells. Maybe this baby-blue color would be okay... Xwinds is not being recreated, so the color wouldn't clash xD

Meanwhile, I've been going through the discussions and findings from the new content added from the update... Here are my early conclusions:

New Avatars:

• New Alexander & Odin summon quests are going to be annoying. The Alexander quest has one part that needs you to mine 3 things from Mount Zhayolm. Lots of people mine there for the chance at Khroma Ore, so... I guess this means a ton of pain for those who want to do this quest. The Odin quest requires you to farm a Rare/Ex item from Shades, and even then, there is a chance that your item won't be accepted
• The SMN rewards themselves aren't that good either unless you're a SMN main since they can't be used at low level. I don't know about the effectiveness, though if you are a SMN main, you'll be going after them anyway
• However, the other rewards are really good... Odin has an Aesir Torque which gives +7 to elemental and dark magic skill, which is equal to the elemental torque, and it gives +10 on darksdays. He also has an Aesir Ear Pendant that gives Attack +7 & "Conserve TP +3" and a mantle that give Attack +8 & Double Attack. Alexander has an earring that has -1% physical damage, a mantle that has -2% magical damage, and  a torque that has healing & enhancing magic

Voidwalker NMs (aka Abyssea NMs):

• Easy to start... 1k gil to a NPC in Ru'Lude Gardens to get a "Clear Abyssite" key item to start, which is a ton better compared to the annoying ZNM startup
• 5 different paths, 4 tiers each, with the 4th tier being the same for each path
• Easy to do... all you need to do is go to a zone and /heal with the key item and you'll get a pointer to head towards the NM. Once you /heal close enough to it, it'll pop and you can fight.
• However, annoying to farm since you have to kill the tier 1 & 2 NMs a random number of times before you can pop the Tier 3 NM.
• These mobs have annoying effects... like mute, moves to strip & encumber you so that you're naked and can't put gear on, -40/tick poison that can't be removed and more
• Tier 3 & 4 NMs are a pain, requiring an alliance or more of people to tackle
• The mobs themselves drop some nice gear, including an ammo item with HP+30, the rings with +dex & +accuracy, haste
• The T3 mobs drop stuff that is necessary for the "Trials of the Magian" weapon quest
• Would require another "event day" to tackle, kinda like ZNMs... Go out with groups of 3-4 to farm T1 & 2s to get your crystal upgraded to be able to pop the T3, then gather an alliance and go beat it up
• Overall... I think this may be the new event that... well... gets people somewhat excited about. I'm already finding a few items that I want from this, including the new Choreia Earring that has "Increases Step Accuracy". The interesting part is that the mob that drops this is a pixie-type dancer NM, which might make it the first Dancer mob in the game :O

Trial of the Magians

• This is the new "enhanced weapons" questline that you can take. The good news is that at least the weapons themselves are free, and you can start multiple weapons at the same time. For people with relic or mythic weapons, they can also upgrade their weapons, though the requirements are *really* steep
• Requirements for upgrading even the basic weapons can be pretty steep... from "kill 100 aquan type mobs" to "kill 300 lizard type mobs during rainy weather" or "kill Argus 10 times". It also seems like if you want the very best "occasionally attacks twice" augment, you have to do VNMs and get 10 drops from the T3 VNM... 
• There is a "solo" path available for people who just want to kill mobs, and don't want to compete for NMs or do any of the VNM stuff. You end up with a slightly inferior weapon, but you still get some of the good stuff
• However... this seems to be designed to be a complete timesink ~.~ killing 100 of a single mob, even an Easy Prey mob... I don't know... doesn't sound like fun to me. Much less doing the VNM climb multiple times to get the drops for the nice augmented forms.

Maybe I've just been burnt too much on the Synergy armors... part of me wants to do this for a nice double attacking dagger for DNC... another part of me is wondering what the point is, especially considering that this is obviously some sort of beta-test for the features of FFXIV

Overall... I have mixed feeling about this whole update. On one hand, the content looks interesting... on the other hand, it looks like yet another multi-month, if not YEAR grind to get some marginally interesting gear. VNMs would require yet another event to be added to the schedule, which means that something has to give. With the level cap raise coming up, I'm not even sure I want to keep bothering.

FFXIII progress

I'm in chapter 11 of FFXIII... which as some of you may know, is the "wide open exploration" part of the game after 10 chapters of straight line corridors.

Except... this game isn't really good at that... you get dumped out into a wide open field, with mobs that can easily one-shot you. If you take on the optional side-quests, you'll find that they are basically simple NM hunts that have you spending hours running through... long linear corridors... fighting lots of mobs, many of which can one-shot your party if you don't shift paradigms at exactly the right time. The side quests are stupidly boring, and the amount of exp(CP) you have to grind to get your new level stuff is... well... it makes meriting in FFXI look attractive.

I've put in about 5 hours in this "open" area so far. If not for Kuraikaze telling me about the Blitz -> Ruinga trick that basically stun-locks most mobs, I would have given up on XIII in frustration hours ago. After nearly 30 hours of hitting auto-battle, they expect us to actually use the ability and technique menus?! As it is now, I'm merely very frustrated with this game.  Especially the last Eldion fight which really is... stupid with the trick that you have to use to win -.-

Right now, I'd give FFXIII a 3/10 overall. 9/10 for story, graphics and characters, 1/10 for gameplay(or lack thereof). Highly, HIGHLY recommend that if you have not yet purchased FFXIII that you simply go to Youtube and search for "Final Fantasy 13 cutscenes" and watch them there. Alternatively, simply watch the FFXIII movie here: http://finalfantasy13ultima.com/ (Japanese with english subtitles. English dub coming!)

New outfit, need ideas for pants

Whee... another completed AF outfit! Arrr!

COR60 now, though barely... the usual exp group just hasn't been getting together at all recently, making it hard to get any levels. I guess I could go seek again (and have once) and get some skillups, but... well, it's not quite as fun, and pick up parties take too long to get started and disband much too soon :(

Anyway, different topic!

I just remembered that I never picked up my ASA pants after finishing that fight so many weeks ago... and... I still have no idea what to get for them. Any suggestions for any of my jobs? :o

BLU deflecting!

COR 55 now. This job is moving a lot faster then I expected, helped along mainly from the "noobs" desire to quickly hit level 75 and some really crazy pulling from both Aqqy & me in the East Ronfare [S] camp.

I'm really starting to enjoy COR past level 40 due to the Quick Draw ability. The ability to quickly shoot off two sleeps instantly, and being able to do it while running is quite cool xD It makes it really easy to sleep a mob back from a pull since I can use it without needing to stand still, and the sleep takes place as soon as I hit my Light Shot macro so I can easily position the mob exactly where I want it.

The big thing I don't like about COR is... actually, the cards necessary for Quick Draw. To use Quick Draw, the elemental cards are necessary. This means that up to 8 different cards are needed to use all the various shots, and up to 16 if I want to carry the card cases as well. Right now, I'm only carrying Light Cards (sleep), Dark Cards (Dispel) and Ice cards for experimenting with. I figured that I'd experiment with Ice shot for damage. I'm still wondering if it's necessary to get all 8 elemental cards, or if I could get away with just carrying one or two damaging ones... any comments on this? Other CORs?

Due to the nature of our PL'ed parties, I haven't had the need to do 4 rolls in a party yet... At this rate, I might end up avoiding it entirely since at 75, I don't think I'll be in many situations on COR that require giving two different sets of rolls. Which is... well, a pity since I'd definitely like to experience that and figure it out. Last night I had quite a bit of fun being the sole puller for a East Ronfare [S] party, pulling down about 14k/hour and staging mobs for the party to go after. I guess that's what a merit party on COR feels like!

Meanwhile... since COR is over 50, I've gone through and completed the AF quests with lots of help from Rooks & Fuuji! Big thanks to Rooks for helping me get through the doors needing the Lamia Fang key... annoying that there are so many "JP midnight" or "once a conquest update" things in the AF quest.

Corsair AF3

The "AF3" or "hat" quest for Cosair is a lot of fun... first off, one of the NPCs is...

... evil BRD Ascy! At least, that's what I hope I would have looked like if I had chosen Bard xD And this is the evil version as she's the villain! See! Good thing I'm a do-good pirate!

The hat fight for the COR AF is a BC fight on the Ashu Talif against a galka BLU, and a hume WAR. Most strategies call for kiting one of the two mobs around while ganging up on the other, but I wanted to have some fun with it and decided to go 1-on-1 with the BLU. Rooks went up against the WAR on PLD/NIN and we had Fuuji backing us up. This went really well, with the galka BLU Gowam and me going against each other, using Azure Lore one after the other (with a crazy high Hysteric Barrage & Frenetic Rip from me) and it looked like an easy win until... well, the traitorous hume WAR ganged up on me ~.~ I guess the empire is full of traitorous dogs!

(see! No fair ganging up on me! We're supposed to do this to you!)

This resulted in a... double KO when me and the other BLU took each other out at the same time xD But unlike them, we had Fuuji around to raise, so nyaa :P

Rooks had no problem teaching the hume WAR a lesson, so it was an easy win! A little risker compared to the "standard" strategy, but I think overall more fun. Aaaaand... after the backstabbing from the empire, this lead to the curious scene of an Immortal swearing her allegiance to the Corsairs!

Which leads to the pretty funny cutscene which has a BLU standing on the sides of the people Immortals are supposed to capture xD

Unfortunately, there wasn't any funny dialog about my BLU job while doing the AF quests. When I first unlocked COR, there was a little humor when they point out that I'm an immortal and shouldn't be trusted because I was on BLU xD

Bright red PLDs

In other news, I've finally got my Ebon Armet crafted, and after slaughtering about a dozen pixies, I got some of their blood to dye it red. End result: Bright red PLDs!

and... hopefully that's the last of the Synergy stuff I'm doing for a while :)

Synergy stuff

Fuuji & I have been hunting some of the new NMs for Synergy "Aptants". These are the new NMs added... erm... I think last November which drop special rare/ex items that are used to turn the crafted "ebon/ebuir/furia" general-job armor into job-specific armor.

This armor is interesting because you can customize it using evoliths, and more importantly, change the color of the armor to better match your other gear. The gear itself is decent, but generally nothing game-breaking and there is almost always better gear to be had somewhere else. Still, Fuuji has gone and obtained the full MNK set, and in our camping of the NMs, I've picked up some of the Aptants for the DNC/THF set and we've both been getting the Aptants for the PLD set.

We finally got our Ebon Breastplates crafted yesterday morning thanks to Greysnake, so we took our Aptants and had them modified for PLD use.

Here's the base Ebon Breastplate:

The finished PLD version is called the Ebon Haubert adds shoulder pads, changes some of the upper arm details, and shifts the location of the hip guards. Overall, it looks very much like a WoW armor piece. Here's me and Fuuji:

I think these are also some of the few pieces of armor that actually cover the neck... which does make sense for an armor with a lot of protection :o

Now we're working on customizing the armor... Currently, we're working on getting dyes to change the color from black to red. I want to see how Fuuji's armor comes out first before dying mine. The black & red look isn't too bad, and my PLD kiting gear is almost entirely black and gold, so it actually matches this armor quite nicely. I'm not sure if the shade of red the fuira armor uses would match homam.

As for Evolith... well, that's where this system generally falls apart since there hasn't really been any significant evoliths discovered yet. Currently, the only evolith that looks interesting for this piece might be the "Divine Magic -recast" one, which is a pain to get as it comes either from a heavily camped NM, or a low-level random-pop 24-hour respawn NM. Currently, I do have a "Divine Magic +Accuracy" evolith, but I don't think that it's worth etching into the armor since... well... Flash is mainly cast for the enmity, and it's rarely resisted!

The "synergy" process itself actually seems like it's pretty fun! Like a mini-game instead of just throwing materials together to craft... I might look into it and try doing more food crafting with synergy if I get some free time xD

Other news

Not too much in other news... COR38 now, mostly leveled up with noob parties with the "new-returnees". Also mostly as COR/BRD... I need to start taking /RNG out now. It's fully geared up now that I'm above level 35, and from even a few experiments with shooting as COR/BRD, I think I will end up doing quite a bit of damage :o

Final bit of other news... AV decided to go on a rampage last Tuesday so...

Tornado II for the kill xD

Corsair status, musings

Yes, I decided on COR as my "support-type" job. Yes, I know it isn't as good as BRD at support-type roles, and in fact, I'll be naming all the reasons why in a bit. However, it does have some more interesting possibilities and game mechanics that caught my curiosity. There are also other, more tangible reasons behind choosing COR.

But first... status update!

Corsair status, impressions & prep

COR18 at this time after playing with the AlphaPrime "noobs" in the dunes. It's actually been a long time since I've been in the dunes since we normally do our 10-19 exping in the maze/tunnel these days. It was a nice change from the usual beating up of worms, and it was nice to be outdoors as it meant that we could do some FoV for tabs. I still have a really low amount of tabs, but it's enough to warp home once in a while.

I've been using COR/BRD for these levels, mainly from a lack of having anything decent to sub at this time. /RNG doesn't come in until at least level 20 when the accuracy bonus kicks in, and I may not even sub it then since I do have my Marksmanship skilled up to at least 37 from leveling RNG. Leveling RNG also taught me a lot about the ranged attack mechanic of FFXI... How far to stand, how much enmity Barrage & Sharpshot creates (a lot!), and even how useful Widescan can be. I also figured out how much of a pain it is for a RNG to pull for exp parties, between the high level of damage that is given up, to the long delay on bows and the risk of pulling the mob away when you actually go to pull.

And since I usually do not like to change between the jobs I'm leveling, I finished my RNG sub last night. Archery & Marksmanship are capped, so I do not really need to shoot on COR except for fun for a while.

Still, my initial impressions on COR are:

• The "gambling" mini-game with Phantom Roll is quite amusing and does require some thought on when you roll, when to "Double-Up" and how potent the effect is when on a lucky number or on 11. I also have a better idea of why people choose to use two attack buffs rather than Corsair's Roll. The difference in a party's performance and exp/hour is actually quite significant when using both Hunters & Chaos roll
• Shooting stuff at the moment just isn't worth it. Between a lack of ranged accuracy gear, not having the appropriate bonus, and the low damage on tin bullets, it's really not worth shooting stuff just yet. Maybe once I exceed 20 and start getting some +racc gear
• The 1 minute recast on Phantom Roll makes it difficult to experiment with various roll combinations since it takes (subjectively) forever to be able to change the combinations. It took me a while to satisfy my curiosity on Corsair/Hunter vs. Hunter/Chaos combinations
• Similarly, I can see the recast on Phantom Roll being an issue in the future when there needs to be a mix of mage/DD rolls. Basically, about half the time, the COR will end up with non-optimal rolls... either a DD-COR with Evoker/Scholar's roll, or a support-COR with DD rolls. I think meriting the Phantom Roll recast would be a high priority

Well, now all my COR subs are done, so it's time to start exping COR in earnest. Unfortunately, I'm also the lowest in my exp static, which consists mainly of Fuuji & Zurar x2, with pickups of Ghiren, Teia or Karou. There's also an issue with having too many people since a party is only 6 people, and we can't accommodate everyone all of the time. Basically, it's first come, first served. I also feel a little guilty since everyone else is going to be in the 30s-50s while I haven't even broken 20 yet. Maybe I can catch up a little with the "noobs" so that I won't end up causing everyone to have gimp skill :(

Speaking of which... strangely, last week a bunch of AP people decided to come back o.o Varga & Dakanna are back now with new characters, and Varga put on a ton of weight, going from taru-sized to a giant galka o.o Aquelia and Conceptx also decided to pop on as well, making AP surprisingly busy. Ironically, this also pushed the COR count from 1 (Fuuji) to now a total of 4 (Fuuji & Con at 75, me and Aquelia leveling it) which turns things upside down. Used to be that we had more Bards (Zurar & Calabolg) so having another COR would have been a good balance xD

The curse of the hybrid job

I always like hybrid jobs because of the flexibility that they tend to have, and the possibilities of doing different things. The only non-hybrid job I have is PLD, and even that job changes a lot based on the subjob. PLD/NIN plays completely differently from PLD/RDM and is used in different roles. (and yes, I consider DRG/mage to be a hybrid... one I really should use more often)

Unfortunately, the problem with hybrids is that they fall short compared to dedicated jobs, especially for large-scale events where you have enough space to bring dedicated jobs without needing the flexibility of a hybrid. Basically, any event that is larger than a party. Hybrids are great at low-man things when you need the flexibility. Corsair is an interesting hybrid... Its main draw is that it is a support-type job like Bard, but it has the capability of doing physical DD with bullets, or even magical DD with QuickDraw. Unfortunately, most people use COR to fill the role of a BRD, which it can't really fulfill perfectly.

Corsair limitations (at least, from my perspective)

• The big one is the recast time of Phantom Roll. The 1 minute recast time means that it takes time to put up all the necessary buffs, and it makes it impossible to do things like the Bard "Soul Voice" zerg setup
• This same recast also limited how fast a COR can react to a situation. To change the rolls on a party, it takes at least 2 minutes to completely replace 2 rolls. It's worse if you need to change 4 rolls. A BRD can just sing different songs immediately
• Corsair buffs are... well, random! It's all in the nature of the job... you can get a really good roll and get some crazy high buffs, or you could get unlucky. At least Bard songs are at least consistent, and can be boosted with Soul Voice
• One of the biggest buffs that you can get on BRD is 2x March for a ton of extra haste. If you've ever done a zerg on a DD, you'll know how effective this is and how much damage it puts out. COR lacks the haste capability, though the closest to this would be to throw in either the Double Attack roll, or the Store TP roll.
• Unfortunately, both of these rolls aren't exactly ideal. The Double Attack buff is fun, but it's unpredictable since you never know when you're going to attack twice. The Store TP roll, ironically, also affects predictability since the amount of Store TP added is random and changes the 2-hander "6-hit" or "5-hit" builds
• And of course, there's the usual lack of AoE sleep, unable to target specific rolls to specific people like a BRD can using Pianissimo

As far as I can tell, the only real buff that COR can give others that Bard can't would be the magical attack buff with Wizard's Roll. In most cases, a BRD would be a better dedicated support compared to a COR.

So, why choose COR?

Given that I know how much better BRD is compared to COR, it would seem that I'm being silly in leveling COR, right? Well... main reasons why I want to level COR are:

• It's a hybrid job -- This means that it has a more to do compared to regular jobs and can hold my curiosity. Reports on "QuickDraw soloing" definitely have my attention
• It gives me experience in two game mechanics -- I do not have any experience playing jobs that do AoE buffs, or with jobs that use Ranged Attacks. COR kills two birds with one stone
• This also gives me some flexibility in events where ranged attack is necessary. Right now, for certain events, I'm forced either into the PLD or SCH role and would like to give people the option to have fun tanking too
• Gear overlap -- I already have quite a bit of gear that I would end up using, including full Denali, Enkidu sets, as well as a Coffinmaker. This helps significantly with my inventory issues xD
• Most importantly: the AF looks sexy! At least, much better than the BRD one xD

Now, the silly part is... I'm pretty sure that even after I finish COR, I won't be taking it out to too many things... maybe the occasional merit party or event where ranged attack is needed. However, who really cares since I'll be having fun just leveling it xD

Maybe after COR is done I'll level something more "useful"... or... I'll follow the poll and level PUP :)

(oh, new poll on the right sidebar! Vote quickly! Poll ends Friday!)

Weird weekend

Well, this has certainly been a weird weekend... or at least, a weird Sunday. Lots of unusual things happened yesterday, most of which are good :o

MMM

After our usual Sunday afternoon ENM/ISNM runs (which we have down to virtually a science now), Fuuji managed to convince me to gather up some AP people to go /poke MMM again. I'm in the high double-digits for the drop for this event already, having soloed the weakened version of the NM more times than I want to remember, even back when Utaru was playing (expensive solo too since I need every bit of TP to WS it and use a lot of Echo Drops), to doing it many times in a single day with people copying my maze to go against it. Purushamriga is a pain to fight because it can one-shot most people with Stomp, has regular hits for 300-400, is highly accurate and can spam Healing Breeze for over 4000 HP per use. Soloing the weakened version on DNC/NIN is a very careful balance of counting shadows, using Fan Dance and using TP as much as possible to deal damage. Even then, luck plays a large part in the win since if he decides to use Healing Breeze, there's not much you can do to kill it.

This time, I took a look at the mazes that could be purchased by the goblin and found one combination that popped Purushamriga, but had more runes compared to mine and was very popular. Specifically, it had the Elemental Magic and Enfeebling Magic runes, which let the dhamel cast spells in addition to being a pain to kill. Took a small group of AP people, me on PLD/NIN, Fuuji on RDM/WHM, Teia on DRG/SAM and Yasu on SCH/RDM. Initially, it looked like we would not be able to kill it as Healing Breeze was keeping it at 100% HP for almost 10 minutes, then it used Berserk and managed to one-shot Teia xD Still, once it used Berserk, killing it wasn't too hard, especially when it stops to try to cast long spells like Flare.

First attempt dropped just some crafting runes, but the 2nd run FINALLY dropped it:

Whee... more evasion for DNC! Usable by DRG, COR, PLD and even PUP too, so it might have some amusing uses xD Compared to my Adder Jambiya, this is an additional +4 evasion, and higher damage and DOT. The minuses are that it does not have the HP+15, nor the evasion down effect, but the bigger problem is that it has a hidden "Beast Affinity" effect that means that plantoid-type mobs can possibly intimidate me. I'm not sure how often that has an effect, but it would make fighting mobs like Cactuars more dangerous.

Still, this is a very much wanted and welcome dagger! Big thank you to Fuuji for encouraging me to try again long after I'd given up, and thanks to Teia and Zu for helping with the fight! I'm currently debating whether I should sell my Adder Jambiya, or if I should keep it around for the... erm... occasions that I need my high evasion against plant-type enemies. I guess... that the specific scenario would be rare enough that it should not come up except against one specific cactus :o

Now I'm considering pushing my evasion build to an even higher level. In my full evasion setup, the only slots which I do not have any evasion gear in are the ring slots, so I'm considering picking up a pair of Wivre rings to get another +4 evasion(and +30 HP). This should push me up to an evasion level that can avoid 90% of Sabotender Corrido's attacks without using my Hydra Spats or relying on the nighttime evasion effect of Fenrir's stone.

Oh, and for those who might be interested in any of the MMM rewards... I'd say go look at the popular mazes that you can buy instead of trying to build your own. Chances are that someone else has already made the maze that pops the NM that you need to get your drop already so you can just buy it and use it. I'm holding onto my Ermine's Tail maze for now, and I might go back to try for a Koggelmander at some time in the future.

Odin

Sunday's Einherjar was an Odin run! This time, I asked to come as PLD instead of my usual support on SCH/RDM. Fuuji was the one who suggested this again xD I don't normally ask for specific jobs, though I had been wanting to fully tank Odin at some point. It's also been a while since I've tanked a serious fight, and Odin is about as serious as it gets considering that two tanks are holding down the fort for nearly 36 people! I think this was also the first time I've tanked with Fuuji as my partner. Previously, I've duo-tanked with many others, including Rooks, Weaponx, Talint, and even Wutangwarrior.

This is a PLD/NIN type fight, against a highly accurate boss that will definitely strip your shadows, and has lots of fun AOE moves that can give terror, curse, silence, as well as summon lots of fomors to come beat you up! With Fuuji and our support team, I'd say that this was a near-perfect tanking experience, trading off hate at perfect times when all shadows were down, keeping each other healed up, and even specific times when the alliance would hold off on doing damage so that mages could recover their MP.

I say "near-perfect" because of one little thing. At 10%, Odin can do a "death" move which kills anyone in range. The only way to avoid the move is to be out of range, or be in the /heal position. Of course, this is a little hard to do when you're being beat up, so the general idea is to disengage, use Invincible, then /heal and hope for the best. Well, we tried to do that, but... we were just a split second too late xD

I found it kind of funny that our macros came up next to each other, considering the battle spam xD Oh well... one second too late! The only drop of significance to me was the Hecatomb Cap abjuration. I considered spending points on it, but decided that if I were to get something from the Einherjar drops, I would want it to be something that only came from Odin like the Valkyrie's fork.

Gil draining activities (Part 1)

Late last night, Fuuji went to poke the silly cactus one last time before he went to sleep. Strangely, this was the time it dropped:

This is the piece that turns an Ebon Harness into the THF/NIN/DNC usable piece, the Ebon Vest with Synergy. This is a surprisingly revealing "vest" piece that Fuuji found one person wearing in Lower Jeuno. I managed to find a pic on Google of the full set:

The fun part about this system is that you can actually customize it somewhat... to add specific effects using Evolith, and more importantly, change the color to either a red, or white version! The vest itself is... well, it's okay, Dex+6, Accuracy & Evasion +7, Critical Hit Rate +2%. I'll probably get it and change it to the DNC specific piece just to have a unique look, though it would clash with the rest of my gear unless I try to get the full set! That unfortunately means that I do need to unlock Synergy now xD

The Evolith customizations are... well, complicated. To get evolith, you have to use the Hunt Registries, then go out and kill specific NMs. Some are always up, others are popped NMs, and yet more others have different requirements. I think the evolith system is nowhere near fully explored, and there are probably other types of evolith that have yet to be discovered, or have not yet been added to the game since, well, face it, there are even fewer people doing Synergy/Evolith compared to MMM when that first launched. Who knows, there may be a hidden +Haste or +Accuracy evolith that nobody has found yet. For now though, I can't figure out any interesting evoliths that would be useful on the Ebon Vest to fit in one of my DNC gear sets (on DNC, I'm mainly interested in either haste, accuracy or evasion).

In fact, the only evolith I've picked up so far is:

Unfortunately, not very useful for me since I do not have NIN leveled up. I've tossed it, and the +2 version that I also got. Each different NM that you can hunt seems to have their own specific evoliths. The only randomness is in the amount it enhances.

On the other hand, the PLD version of this gear might have some interesting applications in PLD/RDM... I have the Aptant for that (as does Fuuji), so we need to get it crafted and see what we can do with it :)

Gil draining activities (Part 2) - RNG & COR

Looks like AP's regular exp activities have started back up again. I've decided to go the COR route for a few reasons... the main ones being that it is a rare job, and that it exposes me to two new aspects of FFXI: buffer/support job and ranged attacks. Plus, there are tons of Bards out there, even mule-bards xD

Buuut... I ran into one little complication as soon as I tried to prepare to level COR. The NPC that sells the various dice in Al Zabi was kidnapped xD I've been checking since Saturday, but so far he has not yet been rescued, so I can't even buy the most basic of my dice x.x I'm not sure if he'll even BE rescued really, but... well, worst case I'll have to get some friends together and go on a rescue mission if I can't find a secret stash of dice x.x

Meanwhile, I've been leveling RNG. May as well get that to level 37 for subbing. Since AP is pretty much full of mules, a lot of PLing goes on so the more damage we bring out, the faster our exp flows and a COR/RNG would be more useful compared to anything else. I'm finding a couple of things interesting and amusing about leveling RNG:

• I have no idea what good gear is xD I *think* I'm making the correct decision on bow/arrow & crossbow/bolts, but the rest of my gear is... well... pretty much non-existant
• Constantly having to hit the "Ranged Attack" macro is annoying. There should be a way to automate this >.>
• Inventory management is surprisingly painful. Between keeping both bow & arrow, as well as crossbow & bolts on me, I have to keep on unquivering stuff to keep shooting and making sure I have room. I think right now I'm at 10 slots free in total among all my storage thanks to the extra gear from RNG & COR sitting around

At this point, I want to get RNG up to 37 as soon as possible so that I can get rid of the archery/marksmanship gear. At least with COR, it's only one type of ranged attack xD I have a feeling I'm going to have to go through my storage options carefully and sell pretty much everything that isn't immediately useful (like some random weapons, or my Scorpion Harness set) to make room for this new job x.x