A Paladins Life in FFXI

Painting the Town /RDM

2006-12-12T11:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah thats right, leveling enhancing through spamming the bar spells got boring. Well, i wouldnt say that it got boring. More like unproductive. It seems that leveling enhancing magic skills behave very similar to leveling crafts.

There is a sweet spot, and an almost dead spot. To further the parallel, when you first start leveling a craft you seem to just trip over skillups. +.2's +.3's Spill out of your synths. It doesnt matter what day, what moon, nothing matters skillups just come rolling in faster than a fat chick can get to a KFC. But once you hit level 50 things slow down quite a bit.

I would say the same difference in the quantity and quality of skillups in enhancing @170 would be the same as the difference in quality and quantity of skillups of a level 50 craft. The +.4's and +.5's are nonexistant. And the pittly +.1's and +.2's are few and far between.

So once i got Enhancing to level 175. And began to put on some gear to experiment with the combo when i got a tell from Donavan. The self proclaimed inventor of PLD/RDM that doesnt have his enhancing skill capped off. Hehehe, I love this guy. Hes so arogant and cocky it endearing to me. Since he made some jokes about my stealing the whole PLD/RDM idea from him, I though I'd take the opretunity to ask him to show me some of the ropes realy quick.

15 minutes and some macro's later we were off. I went in a DD/Tank hybrid, he went complete defense. Both of us went out Sword and Shield. The only main difference, besides my ethereal and gear choices, was that he had his enhancing up towards 186 ish while i was about 10 levels lower. We duoed for a little while, and the experience left me with nothing but respect for the job combination.

Infact, it left me wondering just how powerful the combo could actualy be. I saw him solo DC tigers with complete ease. Those son of a guns tear through shadows with a vengance. But, they just cannot stand up to a PLD's raw defensive prowess enhanced through Phalanx and Stoneskin. It realy was impressive. He didnt even have to cure once. The total damage he recieved barely warranted a Cure III. And the MP he consumed... He could've done 3 tigers in a row without resting or using Chivalry.

To put that in perspective for you guys... I'm no slouch. I can get Utsusemi: Ichi back up, even on those fast ass tigers; hell, i bet i could even hold a seminar on how to do it. But they fly through the shadows so fast that at most i would be able to get through one tiger. And I would be so spent that I would need a complete rest before trying another.

After the breif exposition, we decided to go /NIN and head out to EXP. He found a bard willing to party with us, and the burn party was on! Sure, it got a slow start as the Nin did not have the mamool ja staging point but that was soon fixed. I guided him there as Donavan found us a 6th member, a War.

All in all it was an enjoyable Burn party, PLD PLD WAR NIN RDM BRD. I made about 30k in close to 3 hours. And most chains were only ruined by a lack of mobs, or the RDM missing the fact that a Scoffin gave itself an evasion boost. The especialy fun fact was that Donavan and i were both holding our own against the WAR and the NIN. My all time high on Vorpal Blade was a 846, while Donavan hit a massive 930 Vorpal Blade.

Before you make fun of me about the whole WS thing, keep in mind that i was going Justice/Joy while Donavan was going Company/Joy. Donavan has a pretty decent WS settup, i have no WS settup. I was shocked realy. His outlook on PLD DD gear is a polar opposite of mine, yet he realy was holding his own. DoT wise i bet i cranked out more as i had two multi hit weapons and at least some haste, not to mention 4 sword merits, and Meat working on my side.

Never the less i cashed in my 3 merit points. and got te reply "Your Sword Skill modification has rizen to level 5!" Very cool. Now i am only 80k limit points from capping of Sword Skill entirely.

The next day i figured it was time to start solo training on /RDM. The first thing i did was get a spider down to 25% and drop my Stoneskin to see just how much i would get hit for on average. I was shocked to see some 0's mixed in with 13-30 damage per hit. I knew i was in love lol..

Also, you would be suprised how often enfeebles actualy stick. Even when it is only a sub job. I thought there wouldnt be a snowballs chance in hell of it landing. Truth be told, at times it would take a few casts, but i can get them to stick eventualy. Especialy the MND based ones. I dont know why, but i have a much harder time landing the INT based ones. I thought MND or INT only effected the quality of enfeebles, not the chances of them landing. Never-the-less i was even dispelling trolls in besieged by the third cast. And thats not bad in my book.

I immidiately went and got some +enhancing gear to round out the differance between what Donavan used in his demonstration. I bought an enhancing torque, and dug out my Gallant Breeches. Which gives me a total of +12 to my enhancing skills. Yeah, i cheated. hehehe. I also bought a Rapier Belt. You know, the belt with a latent effect of +5 Sword Skill that just happens to activate with, you guessed it, a RDM sub. So for a paltry amount of gill i was able to jack my enhancing skill up to 187 and my sword skill up to 291.

All of it was cheep too. I think it all ran a total of 20k. Probably because nobody uses the stuff. I kind of like making items nobody uses... useful. It adds to the whole originality of it all.

I quickly grew tired of Spiders, although i farmed enough silk to pay for the items i just purchased assuming they are still 3-4k each, And headed out to those tigers the next day.

Spiders were EP while these tigers are DC. It doesnt seem like alot of a difference... but the increased level combined with a tigers enhanced speed/double attack proce rate/ and paralyze make them much more difficult than a silly spider by design. I buffed completely, rested to full MP. Made absolutely sure not to get a link. Then pulled.

AND

They were a joke.

No kidding lol, I am completely impressed with the job combination in every way. Once you get a feal for how long Stoneskin lasts your in buisness. By the end of the night i had figured out how to clear out the clearing i was at of all tigers. All of them!

This simply would not be possible on /NIN. No way no how. Not oly that but i can do this in the gear i leveled PLD to use, Heavy Metal Plate sets! What more could i ask for. I know i can do DC tigers, DC marloro's would be quite a different matter though. Those things were barely soloable on PLD/NIN just like the tigers. The main difference is that they hit like trucks. I wouldnt doubt if 2 hits could take out my Stone skin. Then again, I was in my DD gear at that moment. Perhaps /RDM would stand a chance against those.

I think I will stick to Tigers/Spiders until my enhancing skill hits a natural 180. Then i might look towards finding a suitable T mob to look at. Thats a while from now though.

On a side note, nearly every chocobo digging area has market has officialy crashed. There is so little money in chocobo digging now it isnt funny. I swear if i didnt have my crafts to refine some of the things i dig up... there would be no point to it. Making some items worth 3-5k more than the base ingredients dug up, is realy coming in handy.

But, I haven't farmed since i started leveling my shiney new RDM subjob. And funds are starting to get well below my safety zone. Hell, i have even begun getting to HNM pop areas without using a single oil or powder. So, far I figured out that i can train the entire Kuftal tunnel, and the next area on the way to ASPI. LMAO, It was too easy actualy. Only got hit 3X in Kuftal, and 2X in the next area.

Good to know.

Well, have fun guys. bbl

RDM 37 and NIN 37!!!

2006-12-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

I finaly hit RDM 37! I made a party and rolled on into the crawlers nest and leveled it that final level. Dont worry i didnt just ditch them i replaced myself with a corsair and all were happy.

The hunt for Phalanx still rolls on. True to form, two more cheep ones sold while i was at school. While, only one was still up for auction... guess for how much. Thats right, later that night another sold for 50k. :/ wonderful. No matter, i still need to skill up enhancing to even put it to any good use at all.

I sure am happy im out of the leveling scene though. Now i have more time for HNM again. I actualy missed hanging around with the LS for that. I'm realy starting to feal at home in BBQ now. And that makes me feel good. Up till now i have felt a little like an outsider in the LS.

But we camped fafnir again, as per usual. But lost claim to TK. The next day Niddy popped and TK got that as well. On the bright side at least it popped yellow for me this time, for a fraction of a second. I simply got beat to the claim. Thats better than usual for me. Perhaps it had to do with only 89 or so people being in the Aery. Usualy its far more. Its a good thing only N. legs dropped, i think.

One thing i saw was that TK beat Nidhogg with only 10 people and a spike flail. :/ I dont like that. For some reason I want the HNM with the best, and therefore most sought after, drops in the game to be rougher on 10 people than what it was. Especialy when it only pops every 4-7 days. Call me crazy.

But on to the big news!!!! Seraphpdh finaly leveled his Ninja Subjob! XD another PLD/NIN is born hahaha. Now if only i can convince him to level /RDM for solo goodness. He was so... not liking leveling that sub that i cant bear to tell him to level it. It took him ages to do it lol. But now its done. He never has to touch it again. CONGRADULATIONS!

While Seraphpdh gets used to Utsunemi: Ni I will be leveling my enhancing skill. I already started doing that. I moved to Art Arhun, just outside the MH. Because, well noone hangs out there. Who ever goes to that spot is either warp taruing away or back alleying there way closer to the main exit of the city.

I jacked my enhancing skill up from 132 to 151 in the matter of a couple hours. Yeah, its going to take me a while to do it. But /RDM is nothing without capped enhancing skill. I though i might have been able to get by without capping it, but yesterday before i logged on to try it out, I checked the alla forums only to find that there was a post from a Paladin/Red Mage with 133 Enhancing skill that was a bit underwhelmed. EP's were laughable and didnt even break his stoneskin while phalanx was up. But he was having difficulty with DC's.

Oddly enough, the difficulty he described verses DC was the same difficulty i had with DC's. It was a close fight. But to his, and my, encouragement many pld/rdm posted to let him know just how important enhancing skill is. And that things are sooooo much easier with that capped off. So, before i even give it a whirl I'm leveling my enhancing.

I do have a couple questions though. Perhaps a someone who plays more of a mage role than i do would know the answer. I know that there is a commonly used equation for how much "HP" Stoneskin has and an equation for how much damage is prevented through the use of Phalanx. But, I dont know what the equations are. Does anyone know? It would be appreciated.

RDM 36?!

2006-12-05T14:51:00.000-05:00

I realy dont know how i got this far lmao. It seems the key to leveling a subjob is simply not dieing. I have been spending alot of time in Garlaig Citadel, leveling as of late. The only problem is that RMT are there too.

Swarms of RMT. There has been 2-3 camps of them in that place for almost 2 weeks. Some "leveling" at the entrance and others leveling at the first gate. I say "leveling" because that group near the entrance is realy bad. I was there for about 4 hours and one of there members Deleveled 7 times. Yes, thats right, we kept count.

Delevel
Level
Delevel
Level
Delevel
Level
Delevel
Level
Delevel
Level
Delevel
Level
Delevel
My party disbanded.

It was realy funny actualy. The only complaint i had was the complete disregard they had for other parties in the area. Literaly fighting with your bats imbedded in our bad is not nice at all. Sure, nothing bad can come of it. In terms of AoE damage, or something, but its just plain rude.

In an attempt to give them a lesson in respecting other parties, i actualy cure bombed there tank with blaze spikes up. Yeah, it takes alot for me to do something like that. But, these guys realy deserved it. Come to find out, as soon as I try something like this, they nerfed the whole blaze spikes trick.

When did they nerf that? If anything it amounted to a minor annoyance. A little /slap your being an ass type of a thing if you will. But i degress.

At about 33 i went to level in Purgonorgo Isle. Yeah, I actualy convinced an exp to head out there. All it took to convince them was 20 RMT clogging the arteries of Garlaige Citadel haha. I must say, Purgonorgo Isle is a great spot to EXP 31-34. Much better than Garlaige Citadel, in every way.

The enemies were closer to our level, so they went down much faster. No possible agro, only links to worry about. Much more space, so you can spread out more. No people, for good or bad only people on a mission are seen in that place so all of the mobs are yours. You can kill anything there, but Mandies and Birds are prefered. Chain 5 is easy.

The single draw back to Purgonorgo Isle is the travel time. You need to make sure your party is going to be around for 2-3 hours for it to be realy fun there. But, if you want a good time and good exp yet hate the experience of the first couple levels in Garlaige Citadel, i highly recommend Purgonorgo Isle.

If you dont know where it is, all you need is CoP installed. You head out to Bibiki Bay and take the manaclipper to your final destination. Just one thing you need to note. The mana clipper goes to 3 destinations. So, make sure that your on the right ship.

I reached level 36 RDM in Garlaige Citadel last night. I am glad its almost over, i need to get this done so i can work on capping my enhancing skills. Then practice the workings of PLD/RDM. Its the first step in the proccess.

I have all of my spells, with the exception of two, Bio II and Phalanx. Bio II doesnt bother me too much, it will be useful in level capped PvP but thats about it. And it wasnt on the AH when i checked or id have it. What does bother me is Phalanx. There is almost always one up on the AH. But when i am sleeping/working/at school or whatever one or two sell at 5-8k. Yet when i log on there is one left at an obsurdly over exagerated price. The last one sold at 50k. thats 10X the regular price. Of course i didn't buy it. Some realy realy impatient person bought it.

I just hope thats not going to be the running trend with phalanx, as i will need it in about a month. I have yet to get RDM37, let alone cap off enhancing skill. So, i have time to get it at a decent price still.

With RL the way it is, I havent been able to enjoy endgame with BBQ as of late. It seems when im on Kings are done. I have "skipped" out on a couple events. But when i say a couple, i mean literaly a couple. not alot. Its just that i have been realy bogged down lately.

Sure, i spent 6 hours online yesterday. But i shouldnt have. I realy realy realy shouldnt have... I am realy paying for it now lol. I shouldve done some RL things, but nooo i had to play! stupid stupid...

Well thats what i have been up to. It isnt much but hey, RL is buisy atm.

What is it about Kahzam...?

2006-11-28T15:35:00.000-05:00

I hit level 29 on my RDM sub job last night. I actualy soloed straight to level 25. Well, there were a few impromptue duo levels mixed in to what i call solo.

But at level 25 i decided to try Kahzam. I was so bored of worms. 10 levels of soloing worms was starting to make me a bit stir crazy! But to go off on a tangent, i already see what people mean when they say how good RDM is at soloing. Its a beast! Flame Spikes, En- Spells, Regen, and mabey an enfeeble was all i needed to blow through 2-3 worms at 40-75 exp a peice before i had to recast (not rest mind you) I would get a nice 400 exp before i would have to do that.

Competition for worms, and the worms themselves, got old once i went off to try the same at Qufim. There were 2 parties exping on worms at the time. Thats 2 too many hehehe.

Once i got to Kahzam i threw up my party flag. Hell, im a mage! i should get good invites right? hehe, not necisarily. It took an hour and a half to get an exp party. Its a "good" thing my professors decided to give me HW/Tests to do over the holidays.... I guess.

I was kind of anxious to see how well my enfeebles would stick on EXP party quality enemies. I even grabed a somewhat underwhelming +20 MP in gear and some 99 stack ginger cookies, but mostly i was in solo gear. You know the +evasion +agil stuff that works nice on EP and DC enemies. Yet in an EXP they dont help at all! Yeah, that stuff.

At first i was backup healing/enfeebling. It was fun paralyzing, blinding, and slowing down a foe till it screamed. And after i built some confidence i was meleeing with the others. I was actualy in on the SC with a THF in party, and MBing my own SC's. That was fun as well.

But, i must say... after level 27 it already got old to me. Now it just feals like a grind. Yay, i paralyzed another mob... yay i blinded another mob. Woooohoooo lol. I supose its not any funner once RDM hits 41 either. Having people constantly ask for refresh. And it you get snippy about it they just kick you. I am glad I am only going to 37.

I started to feal the same way about WAR, NIN, and BLU when i was leveling those in Kahzam. I dont know why. That place just saps the fun right out of jobs for me. Like a giant leech!

Perhaps it is because by level 27 you expect more our of a job. Sure its just the begining of the road. However, I get impatient about this sort of thing. Maybey its that i see the goal and its relatively close, yet still a foreboading amount of exp away. Maybey its because I have already religated it to a subjob in my mind.

Its most likely a combination of all three of those issues. On the bright side i remember fealing the exact same way with NIN. And i love to sub that now. I suspect ill find equal enjoyment in /RDM.

After all, I cant tell you how many pld's out there have told me /RDM was made for PLD. And how its the only way to solo. And i am inclined to agree from what i see while soloing w/o phalanx and stoneskin yet. I shall see.

At the very least itll be damn fun to walk into besieged and piss off some mnk or blu lol.

Leveling RDM Solo

2006-11-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

I'm used to it ;)

Just hit 17RDM/8RNG last night. Why /RNG you ask? Well the answer is simple, im soloing worms in Korrokola Tunnel for a whopping 200 exp a pop! Its realy easy actualy. All im doing is Bio/Poisoning them till they are about 25% HP then Sharpshotting them to death. Besides, whats the use of /WHM or /BLM if chances are your just going to be rasped anyway, thereby preventing you from resting MP.

Each kill probably takes about 6-7 minutes. Which is bad by full party standards, but for solo.. I like it. Now that I leveled a little bit i figure the kills will come quicker because of the skill cap raise to my archery. Truth be told, The kills have been comeing much faster.

I must be doing pretty well, because i see level 20's going in with PL's to level. While I was there soloing them since level 15. Honestly, its not like its difficult work soloing worms. Two +racc rings, some suishi, capped Dark and Enfeebling skill makes life much easier in that way.

I am a bit happy that I went all this way Solo so far. I am even happier that the worms still give 200 exp a kill. So i can get quite a few levels where in Korrokola Tunnel before i need to move on.

I say Solo, but i did have one JP party. I was the only NA in it though some spoke perfect english. I got this party in the dunes, and waited around for 40 minutes before a WHM surfaced. Then we could barely kill T mobs. So, the entire party moved to Korrokola Tunnel in hopes of better exp. *read: to die, and die alot.*

It took me about 5 hours to get 2k exp and level 15 in that party. And, that was with a PL. O.o I honestly think that the only reason i leveled through that party is because i survived it! lol. We had no SC, We had a WHM/DRK as main heal, We had a DRK/WHM who fealt the best use of his MP was Protectera. It was interesting to say the least.

After that experience i said to myself, just freaking solo. At the very least solo past the dunes. So here i am, soloing in Korrokola Tunnel.

I did have a NIN to keep me company though. For about an hour. We just couldnt out run Stonega. Not only that but we werent far enough apart and were Stonegaing each other. ; ; horrible. The odd thing is that as soon as he left i was back to soloing, and was dodging almost every spell again XD. Its strange how that happened.

Not long after that I dinged 17RDM XD.

Hey, if anyone wants to duo worms (that knows how lmao) in Korrokola Tunnel I'd love the company. It gets kind of lonely in there just watching gillsellers farm the crap out of Morion Worms.

XD cyal round!

RDM exploits!

2006-11-17T17:33:00.000-05:00

So, as i mentioned before i am leveling my RDM sub. Ive read evnough about it to perk my curiosity enough to try it out on my PLD. However, first i need to level it.

Thats ok, leveling a new sub is kind of exciting. And fun. Luckily i didnt have to level a sub for my new sub. I can only compare it to how fun i find it to level new crafts (pre 50). Leveling is so much easier. Its also less of a grind because i am still figuring out how the job works.

Levels 1-6 were pretty normal. I saw very little difference between RDM/BLM and PLD/WHM. Pretty much all you use is your sword and sheild because everything just dies far to fast to warrant any enfeebles.

At level 7 i moved further into East Sarutabaruta as to keep up with a minimum of 40 exp per kill. Things start to become a bit more interesting at this point. Its no longer kill/cure. Now blind and paralyse are realy pulling their weight. For having an gimp sword (have a Xiphos instead of a Spara) i am still killing things in about 4 hits. AND earning 40-100 exp while doing it. XD fun fun

One thing is definately true, mage food is crap at this level. DD food is the way to go ;) I am using Meat Cheifkabobs and even though it brings -2 INT the +5 STR and +Attack% is worth its weight in gold.

So here i am Slaughtering bees/crawlers. I'm in no rush with this sub. Hell, ill probably just solo it to 37. Well, until i find a better way to suppliment my chocobo digging returns. Its fun though.

I must say i thoroughly enjoy watching a monk yagudo paralysed 3X and miss me 6X because of only 2 enfeebles while i just ping away at its HP bar with a silly xiphos lmao.

I am almost level 9 RDM/BLM now. Not bad for about 4 hours total of leveling, even if i do say so myself. just 28 more levels to go before i need to work on capping off enhancing magic skill. ;)

Fun times ahead, at least it will be interesting to see PLD/RDM in action first hand. Now i just gotta figure out how to get those new ice spike gloves they released and buy a ice spike sheild. O.o Hows a PLD/RDM with those sound to you? lol

No Money Mo Problems

2006-11-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

Since this fatigue system kicked in, with chocobo digging, i have been fealing the pintch. My usual haunts have been killed off. SE realy screwed the pooch on their alteration to Chocobo digging. They dramaticaly increased the drop rates of items, while implementing a @15 stack rule before you cannot get any more items. I just cant make enough gill in them to justify going out there anymore. To those who dont dig, and therefore dont understand what i am talking about, here is my synopsis of what happened.

The @15 stack of greens Is a rediculously small amount of greens to use. You can blow through 15 stacks of greens in less than one chocobo trip once you have a 0 wait time between digs. I used to be able to go on 6-7 trips, loaded with greens, and dig up a storm. Not anymore. Now i have to try to find an area that isnt dug out, and make gill in one trip worth of greens. I used to average about 300k per day chocobo digging. Now, i average 50-70k a day. :/

The increased drop rates... You know sometimes i yearn for the old days of chocobo digging. At first you would say, "Increased drop rates! yes!", however let me show you what increased drop rates have played a factor in doing to chocobo digging. Dark Steel Ingots went from 30k down to 13k. Adaman Ores went from 70k down to 8k. Orcalcium Ores dropped from 250k down to 90k. Gold Beastcoins Dropped from 20k down to 5.5k. Mythril Beastcoins dropped from 4k to less than 1k. Petrified Logs dropped from 25k down to 3k. And my personal Favorite, Philosophers Stones dropped from 150k to 20k...

I waited this long to join on the SE hating band wagon for a reason. I was hoping that the newer chocobo abilities would help "dig new items unique to chocobo digging"; and that Discernment would oh, "improve Digging results". Both are Quotes from SE. Both are completely misleading, as per usual.

First, let me discuiss the Chocobo Abilities known as Bore and Burrow. Both of these abilites are suposed to add new items into the area's you dig in. I'll use Alteph as an example. These are the drops in Alteph with a rental.

East Alteph
Pebble Very Common
Bone Chip Very Common
Giant Femur Very Common
Zinc Ore Common
Silver Ore Common
Wyvern Scales Uncommon
Mythril Ore Rare
Platinum Ore Very Rare
Philosopher's Stone Very Rare

West Alteph
Pebble Very Common
Bone Chip Very Common
Giant Femur Very Common
Zinc Ore Common
Iron Ore Common
Coral Fragment Uncommon
Darksteel Ore Rare
Gold Ore Very Rare
Philosopher's Stone Very Rare

As any HEMLer can see choco digging works just like Logging, Mining, and Harvesting. Every time you dig you have a chance to dig up one of these items. Some items are more common than others. Imagine Mining, Logging, Harvesting with a Fatigue that runs out in about 30 minutes and trying to come out with a "very rare" item. Then you know what its like choco diging. Nowadays an A20 digger can come out of the altephs with 1-2 philosopher stones, 2-4 Gold Ores, @7 Coral chips, @4 Wyvern Scales guaranteed before fatigue, on a Rental.

But, for those of us that sunk 3 months into a Chocobo, IF you even managed to learn a digging ability, you now have access to new items in the treasure pool. It would be awesome if not for the fact that these wonderful new items did not consits of Grain Seeds, Wildgrass, and other items which are not worth the price of a choco green itself.

Gee thanks SE. In effect you added Special abilities which actualy decreases the amount of gill earned/green bought. Now A20 diggers come out of Alteph with considerably less money items that people actualy want. About half as much gill/green is made in the Altephs with a fully upgraded Chocobo vs. a Rental.

So, I still havent been able to buy my second Snipers Ring. With LS events I often spend the whole amount i dug the night before. So, at the moment Chocobo diggin barely covers my daily expences. Until i figure out a way to get more out of it... I will need to find a way to supplement the gill i make from it. After 50k a day is tough to run on, even for a PLD. Hell, Shiehi cost more than that sometimes, then tack on food, oils, powders, warp cudgels... the crap piles up.

Dont get me wrong Choco digging still makes money. Just not nearly as much as it did. My all time high on a digging trip was 835k in 10 stacks of greens. With how the prices have dropped i will never reach that again, not until something has changed.

So, until i figure something out, i have been soloing on RDM. It seems just as effective as /NIN if not better for soloing. At a drastic cut in price. I figure i use 6-7 Shehei per 50 exp gain (solo)So i have taken that up. Ive been soloing outside Windy for a while last night. Got to level 6 off of bees/rabits lol. And out of those 6 levels i am still working on my first stack of honey O.o Oh yeah, i Must finish that stack of honey!

I must say that capped parry/Shield makes me very happy. Combine that with some meat cheif kabobs that i had lying around and i am a bee killing machine. Dispite having a wax sword and a Shield w/o anything else for gear lol.

Sword and Sheild FTW!

It is a little nerve wracking waiting for poison to wear off though. Especialy when my HP is in Whitegate O.o/

All in all im still having fun! I hope you guys are too.

What makes me upset? (as PLD)

2006-11-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

Everyone needs to rant once in a while. Heres mine.

FFXI is an adventure, meriting should be the same. For PLD, it is this way. Frankly, burn parties get old for me very fast. Its nothing but kill kill kill. Theres not alot of fun in it, as it is. Dont get me wrong, on some days a burn is really fun. Most times everyone just makes it feal like a grind.

I'm almost to the point where i can say screw the burn parties. They do nothing but make me feal like a peice of crap they are dragging on the carpet floor. There are very few people out there open minded enough to accept a PLD in their exp's at 75; dispite the fact that we do rather well in the situation.

Duoing on PLD, and seeing what can be done is fun. You can get exp that others are just jealous of, you can easily move locations (not having to diliberate between 6 people), you get to know your partner (and actualy... gasp... talk during an exp session)

Bah! i wanted to avoid a list, but... well... here's a list:

1) exp/merit advice from other jobs. Now, i am not talking about the constructive types of advice. You know, the advice that ends up in a discuission. They can end up in changing my mind, or not changing my mind. These conversations, about equipment and game mechanics, are often very enlightening and help people to learn how to play the game better.

On the other hand, I hate when i am posting on a PLD blog about Exp tactics that a PLD can use to help them reach 75/merit faster... and someone comes on and simply writes, "Be a Warrior." This is a close ended comment, and just one of many many examples of this particular issue. I dont know if these people are just trying to be helpful, OR if they are just trying to detract from the general purpose of the topic, OR just taking the opertunity to make a joke... a very old, very played out joke.

Stop this... Its not welcome... it does not add to the conversation in any way, shape, or form. Yes, Warrior does find it easier to get into a burn party. Hell, even a warrior that gets out DoTed by PLD's, and yes they are everywhere, find it easier to get into a burn party than PLD. We all know this. It is 100% true. You arent adding anything to the conversation. Its just one of those things... you dont have anything good to say, then dont say anything at all.

2) People that think PLD is gimp. LMAO this is rediculous. I am convinced that PLD's make up the biggest portion of this group of people. They are the guys that leveled PLD to 75, or close to it, and switched to main Warrior or something. For some reason they think PLD is missing something.

Could there be improvements to the job? Of course there can be. There can be improvements made to every job. It would be silly to say otherwise. But unfortunately, PLD and former PLD are becoming even more Emotional than Dark Knights. There are new threads popping up all the time about how PLD can be improved.

And what is it that these Genius's decide is needed to improve the job? Well, often times it is something like Light Spikes... or Holy II... Or a +Enmity job trait... OR even enlight. PLD holds hate fine as /war or /nin. And light spikes or holy II?!? Give me a break.

Those threads only do one thing. Perpetuate the myth that PLD is in some way broken. It is not! Get it through your skull right here right now. PLD is fine! Your brilliant idea of giving PLD light spikes will NOT make the job better.

3) Job Balance (micro). There are people out there that actualy want a PLD to do equal damage to a Warrior. Listen. Closely. You are not a Warrior. You are a Paladin. The very nature of PLD means that you give up Offencive Potential in favor of your Defencive Prowess.

Can you out DD a crappy war? Yes, congradulations. I realy think its a sad case of events when a PLD out deals a Warrior. Not in a pretentious, overly nerdy kind of way. But simply in a job balance sort of way. A defencive character, a tank, should not be able to out do a more offencive character. One that was suposed to be more offencive by design of both jobs should well... be more offencive. Yet WAR's get out DDed by PLDs all the time. All you need is a semi decent PLD, and a just hit 75 2 months ago WAR.

On this issues saving grace, a pimped war will out due a pimped PLD any day of the week. I love that. It is the way it should work. And i hope that does not change. It is the way it should be. And i hope you will stop bitching about this. I also hope that other jobs will stop rubbing it in a PLD's face. We dont rub our tanking prowess in your face when you intentionaly take agro, thereby entering our world of expertice. So dont rub it in ours when we put on DD gear.

4) Equipment Balance. A PLD can tank (when geared for it), a PLD can put up respectable damage (when geared for it), but a PLD cannot do both at the same time. The gear required for each is completely different. This is veiwed as a weak point to many players (most of them sunday PLD's that became Nin's). Listen, the fact that you can do both but not at the same time is wonderful. This fact wreaks of EQUIPMENT BALANCE.

If you could DD and tank at the same time... what would be the reason for the plethora of other jobs in the game out side of SC's? Hell many Nin already thing that Nin is the only melee job. These guys only have repsect for WAR and MNK. Both of which have tools to help tank/DD at the same time. PLD's cant do that. This is a good thing.

5) Job Balance (macro). Nin was not a tank job when designed. We forced that square peg into its round hole. It is not SE's fault. SE did not say that they wanted to make a job to share the tanking roles of PLD when they made Ninja. Infact, WAR, MNK, and SAM were all suposed to be tanks as well... Just not as good of a tank as a PLD.

Stop saying SE messed up. SE did not mess up. Ninja is fine as it is. It needs nothing else, the job is perfect.

6) the almighty Nin... OMG STOP COMPLAINING! ok this is rediculous. the number one complaint PLD have against NIN is that they take 0 damage. 0 damage? Nin do not take 0 damage. Stop, look at a ninja tank, watch closely, OMG CURE FAST!@*& The fact of the matter is that once those shaddows drop a nin will fall faster than a drunk prom date.

Remember, Nin is the square peg... and tanking is a round hole.

Dont forget that PLD/NIN rules! Realy. You get your way and nerf Utsi... then you completely destroy one of PLD's best tanking strategies, not to mention one of the more popular exp stategies around. So STFU!

Ok, im done. cyal round!

the good and the bad

2006-11-07T15:42:00.000-05:00

Well, its no secret how hard it is to find an endgame exp party to recap experience losses and gain a few merit points as Paladin. Its tough on us. Public perception is not something you can change by yourself. It needs a movement bigger than the sum of its parts to amount to any significant change when it comes to those sorts of things.

So, i basicaly have givin up on assymbling 6 people to grab exp. Its such a pain nowadays. More and more people simply say PLD/NIN?! lollmaowftnothanks.

But thats fine. They can keep there 10+an hour exp parties, i dont care anymore. There are much more enjoyable ways to gain exp out in the new areas than having to beg to be in an exp party; only to have your other party members make you feal gimp by focusing on the 300-400 less damage per mob you bring rather than what you add to the party in other respects.

There are better ways.

There must be better ways.

I have found a Better way.

I grabbed up 2 other PLD friends. Seraphpdh, and Donavan. And we went out to trio some Imps in the Mire. The party line up was:

Willriker: PLD75/NIN37 Company Sword/Joyeuse
Seraphpdh: PLD75/NIN24 Drainslaif/Joyeuse
Donavan: PLD74/NIN37 Company Sword/Joyeuse

As you can see, we had no refresher, one person didnt have the upgrade to dual wield let alone Ni, we had no main heal. All we had was 3 PLD/NIN and sanction refresh.

We rocked house. I cant tell you how easy the kills were. There is no doubt in my mind that we can chain 6+ on imps in the Mire. We all watched each others backs, and just slaughtered every imp we could find. There was a ton of competition though. By a ton i mean a TON. I have never see so many exp parties in the Mire before. It was insain. There was about 5-7 parties in the Mire including us.

So we obviously had to wander around in search of imps. Infact we spend well more than the time looking for imps than we did killing imps, and still came out at 5k/h. Now thats nice. 5k/h is what many people complain about as exp from a normal party. But let me put this 5k/h into perspective for you.

People complain about 5k/h with 6 people in the party. We were making 5k/h with 3 people, 3 PLD.

People complain about 5k/h when they have no competition (at 75). We were pulling down 5k/h with 5-6 other parties camped on top of each other.

With how much down time we had searching for enemies, i have absolutely no doubt in my mind that we could pull down 8k/h if there was only 2-3 parties in the area. No doubt what so ever. Absolutely positive.

That is a hell of alot better than i had even dreamed. And it was fun to boot!

Suuuure we had to wander and outclaim our imps from other exp parties. But, if 3 PLD are chewing up all your imps to the point where you need to complain about it.... you have bigger problems than the PLD party.

And i finaly made it to level 4 sword skill enhancement. Which put me in an ecelent mood, im pretty much half way to maxing out my second merit catagory. The first one maxed would be my Shield Skill.

So, here comes Sunday. The Schedule was packed. Gods > KirinX2 > Limbus > Cerberus > King Behemoth > Apsi. It was going to be a long day. Little did i know how long a day it would be.

I was late to log on, but when i did BBQ was in sky, and about to start Kirin. Well, they were waiting for RMT to finish with their Kirin. Then we were to TP-burn Kirin down.

The plan was simple. Kill Kirin before he had a chance to spawn a mini. We hammered him down to 50% HP in 54 seconds. When Kirin decided to summon Bakkyo. O.o Bakkyo!?

As soon as i realized that noone was dealing with bakkyo, i provoked and ran. I knew that Bakkyo was faster than me. But, something needed to be done, before he ate our Melee. I was simply hoping to buy us time to kill Kirin. And once i went down, our other tanks followed suit. But on every trip back to Kirin, Bakkyo would tear appart another couple melee.

Eventualy all 4 summons were out, and we whiped with Kirin at 24%. All in all id say it was impressive. It took a hole lot of sack pulling, and help from Ringthree's LS with some sack pulling.

But we recovered from that mess. I have never seen how you recover from a Kirin with all 4 summons out at the same time before, and it was very interesting. It will definately be something ill keep stored upstairs.

Since the Kirin took so long we decided to prospone Limbus until Monday. And focus on HNM for the duration of Sunday.

First on the List was Cerberus. But that turned into a Mess. Almost as big of a fiasco as Kirin. We kept bringing it down to 20% and our stunners would mess up. After about 1 hour and a half of whiping to Cerberus, we made our way to Apsi and KB.

I was sent to KB, part of the holding team. While the other group went to Apsi. Because Aspi had a much larger chance at popping than KB. But woulnd you know it, KB popped right behind me, as per usual. i swear i have NEVER seen KB spawn infront of me EVER. TK, got the KB i believe.

So we the KB party rushed towards Aspi. Half way there it's NQ popped.

Dejected, we went back to Cerberus; and whiped to him another 2 times before calling it a night.

All Told:
A Super long Kirin
Awesome time whiping at Cerberus
Wonderful Claiming job at Aspi and KB (by other LS's)
More Fantastic Whiping at Cerberus
11k exp lost total
60k gill flushed down the tubes in meds and foods

So, the next day I convince Namicat to come with me and Duo some Imps. For a bit. I ended up getting with in 500exp of capped exp again, before we made a very noob mistake and pulled diferent Imps. lol.

Namicat: PLD75/NIN37 Dual Company Swords? (i forget but i do know he had crimson gear on and was constantly being intimidated.)

But the whipe was ok by us. It realy helped the exp buffers (net). And i convinced another person that dual PLD's is actualy pretty impressive.

Honestly, we were just trying to grab my additional 500 exp then head out to fafhog. We had already JUST missed the first window. We just HPed and made haste to the Aery.

After waiting till the last window, and having 1:3 people in the aery... we didnt claim. And Fafnir dropped a Ridell. ; ; Oh well. There will be another. Just a little dissapointing losing out on so many claims in a row.

On the bright side, We did the limbus that Monday. And i now have 9/12 points needed for my first peice of Homam. Honestly, Id love any peice i can get my grubby mitts on. But if id have to choose id want the head hands or legs before the feet or body.

The ranks of BBQ are starting to buldge. And I am getting the fealing that recuiting may be closed or at the very least tightly restricted soon. I just hope i can get Slickdarula into the LS before that happens.

She wants to finish getting her 7th job to 75 (BLM) so she wouldnt have to worry about exping during LS events. Which i think is admirable at the very least. But she was level 69 last i checked and needs to get her butt in gear to get in!

i hope she makes it, i miss havin her in the LS shes such a good player. Hell, I realy dont think i couldve made it through CoP without her.

Slickdarula Rulz All! There i said it! lmao i hope your happy Slick

Not much

2006-10-24T16:19:00.000-04:00

Ima try to make this fast. im at work. And fealing kind of bad that I havent posted in a long while. Kind Of. ;)

Well not much has happened as of late.

i reached level 3 in sword merits. Thats nice, its taking much longer to get to level 8 sword than i had thought. But itll be worth it. I already had a 4 hit swing that landed as all criticals (justice/joy while eating meat in the thickets).

I completed Shadows of the Departed. Now i am on the Apacolypse Nigh quest. I have it scheduled for Sunday after my LS is finished with limbus. I know Hiaku needs the fight, Grim and Xeroblast are also at this stage in the CoP and RoZ. So thats 4 people right there. I realy realy want to have RoZ and CoP 100% complete in missions. And get my Ethearel Earring in the proccess. Both good for tanking and soloing XD itll be fun.

My Chocobo hit Above Average Discernment, dont know if i mentioned that before, But fell Love Sick for 6 days. I have been spamming him with A Worrysome Chocobo story... still hasnt learned bore or what ever it is yet. I've spent 7 days doing absolutely nothing but basic care and that chocobo story. He just wont learn it. Ill try to get my discernment up higher before i try that again. Ill try to get the Youthful Chocobo story as well.

I ran into AV as well, well... more like he ran into me. Several times... like a truck. A truck on a hit and run... with 8k exp stuck to its wheel well.

Lets see. What else.

I helped farm sea pop items, that was fun. Easy merit points/organs for my justice sword. Its a good thing i got them too. I was in a party for 3.5 hours, which we made 40k+ exp at the cost of 7 stacks of vitrue stones. lmao! Thats alot! But i tell ya, im hooked on the virtue justice sword now. Itll be hard to convince me to go any other route. Especialy once i get my Homam body and Brutal Earring.

Other than that i have been choco digging. A lot. Its rather nice now. There is very little competition anymore. And i make anywhere from 100k-260k in about 30 minutes in the Alteph's. Its too bad my chocobo, and endgame ls activities, suck every cent of it away from me...

I still need to buy myself another Sniper's. The +5 Acc is deffinately noticable. With 2 more upgrades to my sword skill, and another snipers i am willing to bet that i can toss the O-Hat asside for a Turban. Or better yet, a Homam head peice.

To be fair, i also sunk gill into level 30 Ranger gear. Which, by the way, is far cheeper than it used to be. I only spent the gill on that gear to be able to Get past the Shadows of the departed quest easily. And its a good thing i did too. People wouldve died if i didnt one shot strays on level 3 of the promies. haha

Im kind of hooked into the whole merit party thing. Itll be realy nice to see how much damage a PLD can realy do. Every party im in people love my presence. I often get complements like, "Damn man, you do better than most war's. And you cure too!" and "thank god for Paladins" and "I keep thinking your a war, i have to voke off you". Yes, i got all three of those comments in just one exp, the last one i was in.

Cover saved the Mnk's life. Flash > Cure IV saved everyones life (especialy the bards). The RDM couldnt keep up with MP so there were times i main healed. I cant tell you how many thank you's i got from that RDM in /tell.

I would be psyched... if it wasnt for the fact that they were extremely timid about inviting me. I get the fealing the only reason i came was because the party had friends in it. XD {/hurray} for friends and helping me get level 3 sword skill modification!

Exactly Why a PLD DD is Diferant than Others?

2006-10-13T14:30:00.000-04:00

Ringthree, i love you. But, you are somewhat wrong in your perception as well. Paladin is a rare bird, it does not DD like other jobs. Nor should it, it is Paladin after all. It is not a Monk, Warr, or Ninja. That being said, the better Paladins have already out DDed Warriors, Ninjas, and Monks. Sadly it takes alot of effort to acquire the tools for them to do so. So these Paladins are very rare, and not the norm.

There is a difference between all jobs, in terms of exactly how they deal damage. To disregard this would be a mistake.

Lets talk about the "kings" of damage first.

Monks: DoT, relies mainly on landing as many semi strong hits. Semi strong WS's suppliment this damage.

Warriors: A jack of all trades depending on the weapons he decides to use. With a Gaxe they do a hell of alot of damage per hit, and can land very impresive WS's but it is too slow for many war's liking. Mainly because they cannot TP fast enough to WS on every enemy, causeing missed chains. A Ridell/Joyeuse WAR will focus on sword skill items and accuracy to make their hits land (in attempt to make up for the B something rank in Sword they posess suishi becomes a staple), These hits arent as strong as their axes/gaxes (per hit) but the number of hits makes up for this. They end up TPing about as fast as a monk. On Axes they enjoy a middle ground.

Ninjas: Dual weild level IV is realy the only enhancement that ninja has to melee damage. As a result they can attack incredibly fast; they can reach upto about a 65% delay reduction from haste gear and dual wield enhancements. They have somewhat weaker hits, and the TP gained per hit is less, but the atack speed makes up for this. Their primary WS (Blade: Jin) can break 1K damage, at times. They must sub warrior to keep up on the damage of Monks and Wars more damageing, higher TP gaining weapons.

Paladin is a different animal by default. They wont deal as much damage per hit as a Monk or Warrior and they wont attack as fast as a Ninja or Monk. Again, this does not mean that a Paladin cannot keep up. To the contrary, they can do so and quite well. But lets be real here, you are not going to out due a Warrior, Monk, or Ninja at their own game. It simply wont happen. A new perspective on dealing damage is required to put up DoT on the boards which is on par with these jobs.

The true power of a Paladin DD results from his Swords. Heh, no suprise there. When you compare a sword to an axe you will see that it will gain TP slightly slower, and do slightly less damage. Company sword would be the only exception to this, it is rated at a higher damage than any other single handed weapon. But dual wielding Company swords makes for very slow attacks, gathering enough TP to WS every mob becomes an issue. It is a great sword, but there are better swords for a Paladin to exp with.

It is widely known on PLD forums that Justice/Joyeuse is the best DoT combination than any other a Paladin can come up with. Lets examine why, as it is fundimental to why a Paladin does damage differently than any other job. Both have low delay. Both are multi hit weapons. Both have respectable but low damage ratings. They will not do as much damage per hit as weapons used by other jobs. They do not gain as much TP per hit as other jobs. Yet it is still the highest DoT combination a Paladin can put together.

The single most important reason for this is that they are both Multi-Hit weapons. Multi-Hit weapons in which he has an A+ ranking, and can pull together enough accuracy which will allow him to eat meats.

Paladin does not see its best damage in WS's, nor does he see his best damage in Normal Hits. A Paladin sees his best damage result from multiple hits during one attack round. To this effect a Paladin has a few peices which add additional attacks per attack round, Justice Sword, Joyeuse, Brutal Earring, Homam Body.

To gain more hits per attack round a Paladin will equip something like a Brutal earring. Joyeuse may not activate during double attack, but Justice Sword does. With the addition of a Brutal earring a Paladin can get up to 5 attacks in one combat round. (thats up to 25% TP per attack round, max) Granted thats only 5% trigger rate but it all adds up with other equipment.

To further enhance the attacks per round a Paladin will equip Homam body which enhances triple attack by about 5%. This, and brutal, will allow the Paladin to reach up to 6 attacks per round. (thats upto 30% TP per attack round, max) Sure its only a 5% trigger rate but it all adds up with other equipment.

To reduce the time between attacks, A Paladin will also go for Haste gear. Homam, is the goal for all Paladins in the know. This gear is not only to increase our accuracy, but also to provide the haste necisary to get about the same number of attack rounds in as other competant DD players.

The closest correlary to this style of damage is a ridell/joy war. But the thing that sets a PLD DD apart from a Ridell/Joy war is that Justice Sword triggers durring Double, and i believe Triple, Attack. Ridell and Joyeuse do not. Justice can also trigger during a WS, if your DAMN lucky a brtual tiggered as well.

Another thing that separates a Justice/Joyeuse PLD from a Ridell/Joyeuse WAR is the relative ease in which you can aquire Justice Sword vs. the increadibly difficult task of getting a ridell. Once you have Sea, Justice is a 100% drop. Joyeuse is a 100% drop as well. In fact, if your in a Sea LS itll be pretty hard to not get a Justice Sword in a reasonable amount of time.

Sadly this requires effort, alot of effort. Justice Sword, Joyeuse, Brutal, Homam Body... they dont grow on trees. And it takes time to assymble such equipment, in addition to the other Haste/Acc gear needed to eat meat.

In the end it is worth the effort, in every way. You end up with a little more damage than most jobs (DoT not Spike). Not only that but you will keep up with the vast majority of Wars, Mnks, Nins. Don't get me wrong, the best will put you in place, but youll keep up with the regular people. Not only that but you will add somethings to the party that no other damage dealing member can, namely Flash, Cure, Cover, Rampart, Invincible.

Think of a PLD DD in a burn exp as more of a body gaurd when the shit hits the fan as aposed to fully fledged tank, or even a god all mighty omgwtfbbq DD.

The good ol' PLD DD Converstation.

2006-10-06T12:35:00.000-04:00

This is a quote from Ringthree's Blog (which i just added to my link list)

"Now, I wanted to talk about how PLD's can easily operate in end-game burn parties and the barriers to that happening. The first issue is the equipment set up of the PLD's for burn parties. /NIN is mandatory, for dual wield and shadows, and a Suppanomimi is perfect for this. Even if you dont have uber gear, definitely start with a Company Sword and a Joyeuse (or a Justice Sword). If you can't get your hands on one of those nice off-hand weapons then just find an Espadon and use that.

Now I have noticed that after 75 levels of getting their heads bashed in, PLD's have lost the ability to understand that 90%+ accuracy is what you are aiming for and that 60% is not good, indeed it is crappy. So lets look at the TP build for a PLD.

TP Gear:
Head: Optical Hat or Walhara
Turban.Neck: Chivalrous Chain (Merman's is a fine alternative)
Earring: Brutal Earring/Suppanomimi (Alternatives include Assualt, Fowling, Coral)
Body: HaubergeonHands: A ton of options including Dusk, Homam for the high end, but also Tarasque for not that much and the Barbarian Mitts as a free alternative.
Rings: Sniper's, Jaeger, Venerer's. You need more accuracy than you think, especially if you are going to eat meat, which you will do with your A+ Sword Skill.
Back: Amemet (plenty of better, more expensive alternatives).
Waist: Life Belt, Swift Belt, Potent Belt.Legs: Again, Dusk and Homam are high end, but Royal Knight's Breeches are just fine for this slot. Feet: A ton of good, but hard to get stuff like Dusk, Homam, and Amir. Alternatives include Rutter Sabatons (free but slow is icky) and even Tiger gear.

WS Gear:
Head: Sipahi Turban, Optical Hat, Hecatomb.
Neck: Chivalrous Chain (Spike Necklace as the alternative)
Earrings: +STR Earrings if you want to pay for them, but its not necessary.
Body: Haubergeon, Hecatomb.Hands: Sipahi Dastanas, Gigas Bracelets, Hecatomb.
Rings: STR Rings.Back: Amemet (and higher alternatives).
Waist: Warwolf Belt, Potent Belt.Legs: AF2 is actually the best here, but Royal Knight's Breeches are just fine.
Feet: Hecatomb and Rutter Sabatons stand out as the best, Heroic Boots are ok too.Now with that gear you will be on par with other DD's of that level, like Ninja's.

Now PLD's this is what you have to remember. On a TP build you want +attack, +accuracy and +haste, you do not want +STR. That is only for WS's. Its a waste of a slot. And I dont want to hear about how getting DD gear is expensive. You have it really pretty easy all the way through all of your levels, and can even wear your AF all the way to 75. The only thing that is moderately expensive is the Adaman gear and I know that it is not that great, so its not much of an excuse. If you are not willing to spend the money like everyone else then you will be able to burn like everyone else.

Things going for PLD's in a burn party:
1. A good weaponskill. +Crit hit chance on a multihit Weaponskill? That is what all DD's wish for. Vorpal Blade is actually about the same as Blade: Jin and with a higher base DMG weapon, with STR being the only modifier.
2. The ability to take a few hits and actually help out other people in the party. An occassional Flash, Cure and most importantly a Cover can keep the chain going.
3. STR is the second highest natural skill of PLD's. They are going to do good damage.

Things going against PLD's in a burn party:
1. Elitest perspections of the roles of people in the game. These people are stupid and haven't even thought of people outside of WAR, NIN, MNK in a burn party. In my own personal opinion, PLD would be the next in line for this kind of party. They will do as much damage as a NIN if they are properly equiped, and they serve the same exact function as the NIN in the burn party.
2. The stubborn nature of most PLD's. They dont want to spend the money to get the gear to be a good burn party member. They fear running out of MP. They dont like burn parties. Whatever, if you want to stop deleveling, get over it. If you want more MP, get the Sanction Refresh, get a Parade Gorget, or just get over not having MP, you dont need it as much as you think you do.

Yes, that is right, there is nothing going against PLDs being used in burn parties besides people's perspections of the roles of PLDs in xp parties.PLD's have an A+ in Sword and with a Suppanomimi, they are likely able to use meat full time in burn parties and have very high accuracy if they use a TP build instead of a WS build to gain TP (which I see all the time, orz)."

~Ringthree

Wow, that real was an excellent post about the capabilities of a PLD DD. It did an excellent job of showing many Paladins where they go wrong in their gear settups. However, it lacked one thing. A Paladin must eat meat, i agree, but to do so he needs some divercity in gear choices.

I must say, be weary of anyone that says that one set of TP gear is good enough for any situation you will be in. Truth be told, you will need about 1 1/2 of a set of TP gear. While his post does sound quite authoritive, you must keep in mind that he is not a Paladin. There are subtle nueances involved with gearing for optimal DoT that a Paladin experiences.

With your A+ rating in Sword (+merits) you will find that on enemies like Trolls or anything in the Mire... you simply will not need to cram on as much Accuracy to reach a point where you have a 90%+ hit rate. When this occurs you should pump on more haste, Att, STR gear. Because they will add more DoT than an additional 5 Acc in gear (provided you are in the mid 90% hit rate)

-In the Mire, you will find that, Haste and Attack/STR gear will add more DoT to your settup. This is with eating meat! The fact of the matter is that in the Mire you will not need more than +30 Acc to reach a 90%+ hit rate. Go ahead test it for your self. This area is where you realy shine as most enemies are weak to your sword damage.

-On Trolls, you will find yourself in the same situation. It will not take an enormous amount of Accuracy gear to reach a 90%+ hit rate. In fact, i found myself swapping in +STR and + Attack equipment, And still hit almost every hit. Misses being very very rare. Definately 90%+ would be a conservative estimate. However, These enemies are not weak to your sword damage. Infact, their defence is incredibly high. Again you will need to alter your TP setup to adjust for their low evasion, high defence.

-In the Thickets, Mamools, you will have the most difficulty. Especialy since you will surely become addicted to meat. You will have troubles hitting these enemies consistantly. A Mamool has incredibly high Evasion. You will need to swap out your +Attack gear you grew to love in the Mire and on Trolls in favor of +Accuracy. A metric ton of +Accuracy. Some say 50+ Accuracy in gear for Mamools. This is a good 20-25 more Accuracy in gear than you would have to equip for other areas.

This is why i say you will need 1 1/2 sets of TP Gear. You will need a Base line set. Gear equaly good in a +Accuracy or a +Attack build. But you also need to be able to adjust your gear depending on what you are fighting.

To Start You're Build:

You need to come up with not one, not two, but 2 1/2 gear sets total. A TP set that can reach 50+ accuracy yet still be modified to reach 400 attack (base).

This does not happen over night. Your whole carrier you have been after the polar opposite setup of DD's. You must realise that it will take quite a bit of effort to exp effectively enough for DD to invite you.

Start off with gear that is equaly effective in any environment. There arent very many peices like this. Certain peices like a Haubergeon stand out right away, so grab what you think will be good in both situations. Once you have a semi decent set of TP gear (one without any flexability) you will need to use +Acc food and +Att food. Which you eat will be dictated by where you will exp.

Above all else do not forget. Your gear is not great, it is barely ok at this point. You need more. After a few times eating meat you will come to be addicted to the numbers it puts out. But in your baseline, NQ, UNSPECIALISED GEAR you will find accuracy to be so shitty at times, that you cannot pump out decent DoT.

Once you have a standard set. You MUST begin to specialise it for certain zones. All other DD do this, you are no exception.

Ringthree does make mention of alot of the specialised gear a Paladin would want to gain in his post. Things like Snipers, the Turban, Homam, Fortified Torque, and i can go on but won't.

In General, you want to be able to alter your setup so that you accomplish a two goals:

1) Be able to alter so you can reach @400 attack base before food/berserk/or anything
2) Be able to alter so you can reach @50+ Accuracy (no Sushi allowed)

1) & 2) are mutually exclusive situations. You will find it impossible to reach +400 attack base and have +50 Accuracy in gear alone. You will find that this equates to about 1 1/2 sets of gear. Please note that even in your +attack setup you MUST have a minimum of +25 to 30 Accuracy in gear.

The end goal is that you will be able to specialise your TP setup to your environment with out sacrificing meat for suishi. To reach this goal you must recognise that different areas/enemies demand slight/major variations to your TP setup. You must have access to the gear necisary to be prepared.

It takes work to be a decent PLD DD. Alot of work, so much that if PLD is your only level 75 job... you will have issues at the begining. You need to learn what DD's spent 75 levels learning ovenight. Not only that but get the gear. Take your time, and do it right or dont do it at all.

WS gear is an entirely different world. That can wait for aother day XD cya round!

O.o Podcasts?!

2006-10-04T14:55:00.000-04:00

Hehe, i have stumbled apon 2 FFXI Podcasts.

They are run by groups of players which are on the verdge of getting into endgame. Most are level 65-75 players. So the information in it tends not to be 100% acurate all the time, but they are fun things to listen to never the less.

...especialy when you are bored at work lol!

I included them into my links section to the right, each link is routed through a proxy server for those of you worried about privacy, or just trying to get around work/school blocks on your brousing.

;) enjoy

As for in game, alot of the things i have been trying to sell, have finaly done so! And with the procedes i picked up a Snipers Ring and an Assault Earring. Now i can jack myself up to +44 Accuracy in gear alone.

The general fealing i get is that i will need about 50+ accuracy in gear in order to switch to eating Meat, and get myself off the Suishi Band wagon even when fighting Mamools. I am still going to save my Att/Str gear for the fights which i just dont need that much +accuracy though.

I am positive i wont need that much accuracy when fighting in the Mire, but if i am fighting Mamooks... yeah i will need all i can get ;)

Sonday i will be buying another gill packet. Once i do, i will be immidiately buying another Snipers before the Christmas Gill Buyers jack up the prices on everything again... If they manage to do so.

As for my chocobo, he finished what will be his last Digging for Treasure Care Plan for a while. His affection has dropped too low for my liking. That and once it dropped below a certain point, he stopped digging up items.

So i have him on Listening to music until i can work his affection back up to a respectable level.

Other than that i dont have much to report ;)

Cya Round! I hope you enjoy those podcasts lol, if you find any others let me know. Id love to add them to the links section for everyone else who reads this XD.

I Have The Power!!

2006-10-03T13:45:00.000-04:00

;) God Bless He-Man for that one!

On Sunday, I recieved Justice Sword. And now I am rocking the Justice Sword/Joyeuse combination when I find myself trying to exp.

For those that dont know, believe it or not a TON of people dont know Justice Sword even exists, the Stats for Justice Sword are as follows:

Justice Sword (Rare/Exe)
Level: 73 Damage: 34 Delay: 236
STR +7
Virtue Stone Equiped: Occasionaly Attacks Twice

If you PLD's out there get this sword, and feal a wierd tingle screaming up your spine when you first equip it, dont panic! It's perfectly natural, thats what it feals like to have your DoT go through the roof! Realy, this sword is just that hot.

Fights that took me about 3 minutes with my trusty Company Sword/Joyuese only take me 1 minute 30 seconds-2 minutes with Justice/Joyeuse. Yeah, im seeing about a 30-40% increase in output XD.

Hell, i got so ballzy i even took out an EP Fomor Beastmaster, and his pet at the same time! I used to avoid this duo with my old swords. Its very very impressive.

Dont get me wrong, im not going to give up my Company Sword just yet. I am going to see how it goes with the Virtue Stones first. But, so far im completely satisfied. In one stack of virtue stones, i can farm up 2 more organs. And get exp while im at it! Very cool!

Yesterday i soloed/duoed 10k exp XD A whole merit! Well, it was actualy more than 10k exp Due to an R1 i had to take earlier that day. The exp wasnt all that great per hour, but it was definately a noticable improvement.

I am just glad that people need items from sea, namely organs for obi's and gorgets. I always like helping out in sea, mainly because i get exp there while farming for other people.

Ooops, i went on a tangent of sorts! Its time to get back to my plans for my new sword combination.

Before i go to an exp, I want more +accuracy items. Namely, Snipers X2, and an Assault Earring. That will put me up at about +48 to +49 ish Accuracy from gear, with some +STR and or +Attack items to plug in when I simply don't need that much Acc. I am hoping that that much Acc will allow me to eat meat food.

Damn, XD. With any luck ill be able to grab a Fortified Torque sooner than later. Assuming one Skill level = .9 Accuracy... Someone told me that. Then i should be able to swap out the O-Hat for a Turban (5% Haste) for even more DoT mayhem.

I am so happy lol, my setup is near what i have always wanted it to be in DD terms.

If my stuff on AH sells, I should be very close to all three items (Snipers X2 and an Assault) if i buy a Gill packed from the BBQ coffers.

Its too bad that due to inflation, they had to up the point cost of 1 mill to 30 points. It used to be something like 20 points. Never the less, It will be worth the points to be able to exp again AND feal proud of my performance while doing so.

You would be suprised at how many tells i get about having both swords equiped. Some even insist on coming out to see the combination in action. Johndoe was the first though lol. Hell even the "Good" DD jobs aprove, although they tend to just /examine /yes me.

As for the merit point i got, guess where it went XD. Take a second, another, yeah i sunk it into sword lol!

To swerve off topic as drasticaly as possible, my Chocobos Discernment went up yet another tick this weekend. He is now rated at "Average"!!!! XD That put me in a realy realy good mood lol.

As for his performance in the chocobo digging scene... It has been quite lax. Well ill rephrase. It started off awesome! I had 3 days in a row where i would dig up record amounts of Darksteel Ores. Im talking about 6-7 ores (Three Days in a Row) where my previous record was 5 (In a Blue Moon). Now i am lucky to get 2-3 ores a trip.

This decrease in Ore output has been puzzling me. The zone is definately not dug out. And its been the same zone that i have been digging in. I kept the zone the same to gage how much of an impact there is to actualy digging up items with a chocobo focused on Discernment.

For a while now, the amount of Darksteel i have dug up, has been increasing as my Discernment has been increasing.

But i can only wonder on why i am experiencing a sudden drop in ore output. One thing i have noticed is that my chocobo (which i have kept on Digging for Treasure) has not turned up any items once his afection towards me has dropped below a certain point.

Perhaps this has an impact on digging out in the field as well. I have takin my chocobo off of its regimine of digging for treasure. I have him doing much less stressful activities that improve mental stats.

I am trying to get his affection towards me back up to somewhere close to parent status. Maybey, this will help both the careplan and my results in the feild.

I have also been trying to get him to learn an ability. But haven't suceded so far. The chocoboy tells me that Discernment is absolutely necisary to learn an ability. So im lucky in that Discernment is also the stat i am focusing on for digging.

But i havent recieved the "Your chocobo should be responcive to anything you give it" animation for sometime now. Perhaps that is also affected be your chocobos affection to you as well.

At anyrate, these questions will be answered as I increase my chocobo's affection towards me again.

Oh! and Rayven XD thankyou for the offer, what day is good for you to go out for the savage blade quest, its starting to become almost too funny that i have all this pimp stuff but dont have savage blade yet lol.

Broke Again!

2006-09-28T16:11:00.000-04:00

I bought my first peice of my haste gear. Dusk Gloves!!

Its 3% haste 20 HP and some melee buffs. All in all, a pretty sweet peice of gear for my /nin setup. If cast timer fractions are rounded down, my flash and ichi recasts are reduced by 2 seconds each to 43 seconds, and my Ni recast is rounded down 1 second to 29 seconds.

I must say that i realy dont notice the difference while playing. But this is a game of inches, and with some more gear it will become noticable.

However, this peice ran me 4.3 million gil. I now have 80k in liquid assets, but over @30 mill in gear. Its a good thing that I own 100% of the stock in my Character, so People cant perform a hostile take over like in a stock market lol. Id be a prime target right now O.o

Before i bought this i went out with Seraphpdh and a DRK friend of his to pick up 3 Parade Gorgets. Its the latest rage in gear choices for PLD and DRK's alike. I love it.

Dahaps and i went out to get some more Buffer EXP in Sea with them. We were able to Chain 4 Grahm's and Flowers with little problems at all. Well, aside from the ocasional AoE or goof on utsi recasts. We were getting 70-130 exp a kill each. But only stayed for about an hour and a half.

Once we started to work out our rythem we never had to rest though. I think we may try harder ones another day.... maybey lol. If we can get a 3rd to come with us it will be very tempting.

But anyway, i am broke now. I dont like being this low on funds at all, but i saw the prices of some key gears begining to rebound. So, i jumped on my Gloves while i could. But now i need to farm.

And farm alot.

To that end i brought my new Chocobo to N.Gusta, in an attemp to grab some DS Ores. They arent worth making into ingots at the moment, but they should sell fast. And thats the most important part.

Up till today my all time high on DS ores was 5 in one trip. But with my new Chocobo, being "A Bit Deficient" Discernment, I dug up 7 ores. O.o a new all time high! I also walked away with 4 Mythril Beast Coins.

All told about 115k in stuff.

Its not often you can say that you more than doubled your Gil. Lol, it made me feal quite a bit better. Once i sell this ill have about 190k. Which still isnt very good for me. I prefer to have at least 1 Mill lying around.

Ill have to see how many DS ores i get on average with my chocobo before his Discernment goes up another tick. It will be interesting to see the difference in how many i can dig up per upgrade to Discernment.

It recently came to my attention that after X days you will be forced to involentarily retire your Chocobo. That means i have a limited time to try and teach it an ability/level stats. I hope i can get it up another tick at least before it reaches that point.

Regardless, i will not be raising another chocobo untl the October Version Update. They made mention that when that update comes around they will be shortening the amount of effort it will take to increase a chocobo's stats.

:/ This tells me that it is currently impossible to level a stat to 100%... Otherwise, they wouldn't need to lessen the amount of effort. Well, i put this much effort in it so, I'll see just how far i can get his Discernment before i must retire him.

Who knows, i may be able to make more gill of him as it levels. Thats my hope.

Things i have noticed so far:

1-A raised Chocobo still Fatigues after 100 digs.
2-You Cant raise 1 physical stat AND 1 mental stat, but you can raise 2 physical or 2 mental stats.
3-A raised Chocobo with Poor STR is considerably slower than a rental.
4-A Raised Chocobo with Poor ENDU lasts 16 minutes.
5-A Raised Chocobo with "A Bit Deficeint" Discernment has yet to dig up anything out of the ordinary, but quantity seems better.
6-Noone has made a post where they have actualy taught their chocobo a story yet.

#1 sucks... I feal realy bad for the lower level guys. It will take them YEARS to reach A10. As it is it will take me about a year myself to clear the stacks needed to go from A20-A10.

#2 This is a shame. I would love to increase Endurance and Discernment at the same time. Some thing in the back of my mind wonders if Endurance will effect how many digs you can get in before fatigue. Maybey, just Maybey the Endurance stat is not only for ride length time. But i cant tell without raising another chocobo or taking a hit to my current chocobo's Discernment...

#3 & #4 Intrigues me. It tells me that the stats you pump into a chocobo while you raise him, effect his performance outside of chocobo racing/careplans. STR will effect his speed considerably, ENDU will effect his riding time considerably. This lead me to believe that Discernment will indeed have a considerable effect on my Chocobo digging. Very encouraging. Its a shame that i dont think its possible to reach 100% in a stat yet.

#5 Is another thing that has been disapointing me. SE made mention that Raised Chocobos would be able to dig up items that cannot be dug up in any other way. As of yet, i have not recieved anything special. Not one thing out of the ordinary out side of a new time high of 7 DS ores in one trip.

#6 Is another thing that has ircked me. The Chocobo Stables persone made mention of the fact that Discernment is required to teach a Chocobo an ability. The last i checked my chocobo has the highest discernment of any chocobo out there. Well at least noone has made mention that theirs was higher. Perhaps You need to learn an ability to get at these special items.

I read through a post and found something interesting. It was a list of all the Stories and all of the Abilities. It seems that there are a couple abilities that may involve digging.

One ability is called Burrow, and the "conventional guessing" is that it is learned from the Worrisome Chocobo Story.

The other ability that intrigues me is Bore, and the "conventional guessing" is that it is learned from the Youthful Chocobo Story. However, i would think it was from the curious Chocobo Story.

There is only one way to find out ;)

One thing is for sure though, they both sound like they are an ability which will act similar to the dig command. This leads me to think they may be the means to access the special items hidden in the fields of Vana'Deil.

Well, time to get back to work before my boss walks by ;) cya round!

Awesome-O 2000!

2006-09-25T16:23:00.000-04:00

Some realy cool things have happened to me as of late.

1) My chocobo grew to adult, I focused on Discernment. And got it to upgrade 2X. It is not "A Bit Deficiant" (sp?) It is a basic yellow, but i still like it.

I have had it Digging for treasure lately, trying to get it to level the discernment even higher. So far its netted 400g per day. Its not much but im still happy.

Being an adult, I was able to quest my chocowhistle. I have it, but havent been able to test out how good it is at chocobo digging yet. A friend of mine (Dahaps) has though. He is an A10 digger, but his chocos discernment is still poor.

He reports that he was able to dig like the old days. and was getting a ton of drops, but the fatigue timer is not changed. He still fatigues at 100 items. I was kind of hoping the fatigue limit would be increased... but it does sound like its a definate improvement. It leaves him after 16 minutes.

They made mention, in the past update, that the chocobos would be able to dig up special items. But he hasnt gotten anything different yet. I am hoping my choco will have better luck. XD

2) HNM. XD i have been having fun on the HNM scene as well. I had a rematch with both Nidhogg and Cerberus (bbq's nemesis).

I flew through 7 tacos on Nidhogg, due to his special dispel... But yeah, it was worth it. We got Lillath her M.Body abjuration. And i am starting to get a decent reputation in the linkshell.

The next Fafnir, BBQ decided to give me Agisglamner (sp?)!!!! I looooove this head peice. Its awesome. Defence, HP, and +7 emnity O.o This thing will realy help me. Especialy on Cerberus.

XD and now for Cerberus! I got another shot at tanking Cerberus last week. I realy realy love this fight. And with my new helmet, i was packing +30 Emnity in my /nin build. I still have no haste gear, so i decided to pack on the Enmity to try and compensate for that while i save for some haste stuff.

I must say, +30 Enmity is realy awesome. Even though i had no haste gear i was able to command most of the tanking time over a Ninja. I am quite impressed with the hate gathering capabilities of PLD/NIN.

Elpriximo and i tanked Cerberus all the way down to 15% and survived 2 GoH's before Cerberus Cheep Shotted me. lol. It slammed me with 2 tripple attacks, paralyse, and threw fire at me all back to back to back. There was no saving me from that when i was down to 1000 HP when he did it.

Vagus came in to releive me, and they took it down. XD we killed our Very First Cerberus! And i was very happy. We got all the drops too! Dahaps recieved the G.Sword.

3) Savage Blade, I have removed the latent from my trial weapon. But im still waiting on/trying to gather people for the fight.

4) soloed alot of exp lol. I need to find better mobs to solo on my PLD. It doesnt matter how long i have my flag up, i simply dont get invites. Thats fine, but its taking forever to merit on lesser colibri's.

ill tell you what though. It makes me better as a tank, you know... the whole i cant die very much thing is a huge motivator lmao!

Lesser colibri's arent dishing out as much exp as i would like, with sanction i can gain about 40-50 per kill. Its simply not enough. Not enough to make any progress, just enough to hold steady and not lose progress.

But as PLD/NIN i can kill virtualy non-stop w/o sanction refresh. I realy am trying to conserve my Sanction points for a Turban. But at 4 ToAU points per kill... 20 gold peices is quite a way away lol.

5) Parade Gorget! THEY FINALY RELEASED THE RECIPY!!! Now this is just awesome for me lol. For those who dont know the stats on this thing:

Parade Gorget:
DRK or PLD
Level 50
Def: 5 MP:10 Latent: adds refresh effect

The recipy for the pop item is on every major PLD forum already, go check it out lol. I have camped it last night... i got claim 1X and accidentaly drank 1, i only have 1 drink left. and the drop rate is something like 40%ish.

This would help me alot, who knows i may be able to reliably kill DC's for exp. Anyone know of a DC around the new areas, which does not have slow or double attack? It would help me alot lol.

Its not a huuuuuge item. But in something like a /nin tank setup or /nin solo settup i will be using it often.

Camping this thing was fun, especialy if you have 3 people there. Its nice having so many freinds around, i was able to get/share the ToD. Its a huge benifit to be in the loop like that.

6) i realy havent farmed a whole lot though. I realy need to get on that. I am about 200k from my dusk gloves. Itll be my first haste item, and one that would fit perfectly into my /nin scheme. Both for tanking and for DDing.

The only other 2 hand peices i have are Koenig and Tarasque. You know what? i think ill check the price on the tarasque. maybey ill be able to sell that and buy its all around better replacement.

I ended up grabing 1 million from the linkshell coffer, id rather save my points. But thats ok. Need the gear lol.

7) I had another Limbus run on Sunday. XD we did 2 temenos runs. We sent 11 on one run, and lik 12 on another. We got the win on both, and recieved a whoping 5 coins each!

Not only that but i am now something like 4/12 points away from a homam peice. Its rough on me, you only get 1 point per limbus run. And i can only attend the sunday runs.

So its going to be very slow to get a full set. But luckily i have a peice that has a clear priority. Homam Legs. As mentioned before, i can buy haste in my hands. and my legs are one of the realy weak points in my setup. I mean its either Adaman or Crimson or AF. I realy em trying to get away from the AF though. And a leg peice thats great gor /nin tanking and DDing in one, would rule!

8) Donnie and Riotouscrow are both on their way back to ffxi. That is also a very cool development. For many reasons that i dont realy want to state here.

There is something huge im forgetting... damn.. i hate when this happens...braaaaain farrt!!

Well, thats what i have been up to cya round! lol.

More fun, not Enough Farming?

2006-09-14T12:49:00.000-04:00

I had the chance to have a rematch with Nidhogg a couple nights back! This has to be the funnest thing to happen in a long while. This time i made sure not to make the same mistake i made the last time around.

In Furiousx, the only Nidhogg we got... I was keeping the hate line as high as possible. I figured that with another Paladin there, doing the same thing, we would keep it under control. But half way through the fight people had an issue, because for most of that time i was pretty much mongering hate.

So, i let up. And went more for a shared hate strat. Just when i did that, something happened and the wrong person got hate. We had a Flail, the alliance whiped.

This time, I just kept hate up as high as possible the whole time. And despite a wing spam (5-6 wings nearly in a row) BBQ had little problems taking it down.

The wing spam did decimate the our alliance though. We had to sleep it, until weakness wore off. And i took 2 R1's while trying to recover, because it woke up and winged us again just before it was slept.

I'm not realy complaining though, I'd do it again in a heart beat, but i am finding that i cant keep up with the exp loss i am getting on HNM. As Paladin... unless i make my own parties, i get 0 invites. It has been about 3 weeks since i have actualy had an exp party. And I am starting to feal the crunch. Its not bad yet, I mean i am only 5k from capped exp. But i realy need to cap it off before it becomes an issue.

Mind you, its only 5k from capped due to a whole lot of soloing. Soloing at 50 exp per kill gets old fast, but hey, at least all the seals are mine lol.

Who knows maybey ill even get a merit or two. Itll be nice to plug into HP. I dont have any HP merits.

Lets see what else have i done in the end game scene...

There was Sea gods! lol, i had my first run at a Sea god over the weekend. We chased down the Jailer of Justice, you know, the guy that drops the Justice Sword.

I love that sword lol. It would be awesome to have. I'm thinking that Joyuese out damages Company. And Justice out damages Joyuese (due to how often the double attack procs). So, it would realy help my DoT.

And i find that the organs/chips you need for the Virtue stones required to use the Justice Sword aren't hard to get either. Combine that with the fact that a Hume PLD realy doesn't have anything decent to put into the ranged slots, which aids in dealing damage. Seraphpdh filled me in that Elvan PLD have a rse type of thing to put there but humes RSE ranged thing isnt made to help in the damage out put.

Ooops, i went off on a gear tangent lol. sorry.

Well despite having both tanks charmed at the same time, BBQ won the fight against the Jailer of Justice. The only drop was the Justice Sword. It went to another player. I dont think he/she realy wanted it.

But thats ok, this was my first Sea God run. Hell, i didnt even know where to pop JoJ. Not to mention that, due to rl commitments(sp?), I cant make it to farm on the Sea runs. That and i barely had enough points at the time to get the sword. But it didnt drop some item they were looking for, so they began to farm chips again. I helped on that as well, but at 11:12 chips i was running late, i had to get to the book store before it closed for college books.

I have been working to show that i am BBQ 100% lately. Now that i am done with CoP (well not quite im 3 fights away from having RoZ and CoP finished) i can and have made it to every LS event which does not conflict with RL issues. I think im fitting in good lol.

On Taimat, which we claimed, I am still on the Add party. I cant realy complain with that either. 1) its safer, less potential exp loss. 2) it is 100% needed to ensure a succesful fight. 3) I dont have all the gear required to tank taimat, there are other LS tanks much better equiped to handle him.

That being said i still died lol. But it was an... unusual occurance that killed me. A BBQ member was charmed, attacking me. A Corse was attacking me. And the BST lost claim on his pet while afk, and it was attacking me as well. it was 3:1 lol, and it didnt take long for me to die.

But this time i got an R3!

Also, i helped some more people get past 8.1 (it was realy fast and barely requires mention)

Oh! and i also had my first shot at Proto-Omega. Well, kind of... my cable went out AS i was entering the fight. gah! But at least its another point towards some nice FREE haste gear. Homam, wonderful stuff. Especialy for a PLD. Most of it has Haste, All of it has HP bonuses, All of it has accuracy bonuses.

Homam= is just awesome for PLD/NIN no matter what you do lol.

My chocobo also grew up, it is an adolecent now. Not only that but i got 2 of his stats to increase! thats right, not one but 2! I must be doing something right, because noone else i know is having the same results. Both Discernment and Receptivity increased from Poor to Substandard. Awesome, just what i wanted ;)

I am starting to feal the crunch of this depression though. my expenses are begining to out weigh my gains. I recently got Mary's Horn, and put it up for auction... the price crashed from 1 mill down to 300k in about a week. My DS ingots, another prime money maker for me, have been decreasing by 1k under what i undercut by... every time i put them up to auction.

So to make progress on PLD i need 2 things.

1) a god damn exp party lol
2) cut expenses, increase money gained.

If this means in need to undercut every single thing again... so be it. I have no problem being selfish in that regard, hell everyone else is. And, ill go broke if i dont.

Gear Talk: a Little Strategy Session

2006-09-08T12:50:00.001-04:00

Hmmm, i think ill jot down the gear in my arsenal today! I'm doing this to help me list formulate some new priorities, as alot of things on my list are already taken care of.

I going to try to keep it rather short, and stick to things i actualy use in end game, which odly enough i love XD. Oh hell, ill put the gear i use for my DD/NIN setup as well.

I'd like your guys Opinions XD

Sword:

Company Sword
Macuahuitl +1
Joyeuse

Staffs:

Earth Staff
Dark Staff

Shield:

Koenig Shield

Ranged:

Rosenbogen

Head:

Koenig Schaller
Adaman Barbuta
Optical Hat

Neck:

Fortified Chain
Shield Torque
Iron Musketeer's Gorget
Royal Gaurd's Collar

Earrings:

Cassie Earring
Knights Earring
Pigeon Earring
Coral Earring
Minuet Earring

Body:

Adaman Cuirass
Gallant Surcoat
Haubergeon

Hands:

Koenig Handschuhs
Tarasque Mitts

Rings:

Sattva Ring
Bomb Queen Ring
Hercules Ring
Jelly Ring
Ruby Ring
Ruby Ring

Back:

Gigant Mantle
Amemet Mantle
High Breath Mantle

Waiste:

Warwolf Belt
Life Belt
Ocean Sash

Legs:

Crimson Cuisses
Royal Knight's Breeches

Feet:

Gallant Leggings
Hume M. Boots

well thats all my gear i actualy wear at 75 PLD on both my /war and /nin subs. Both in DD and tanking.

War Sub Tanking:

Well, i see 2 realy week spots in my setup for /war tanking.

1) I realy dont have any elemental resist gear

2) And while Crimson Cuisses are great for HP, i dont have anything other than AF legs to fill that slot when i dont need the +10 HP the Crimson provides over the AF. The AF does add 2 more Emnity over the Crimson Cuisses though.

:/ looks like i will be back to wearing my AF legs when straight tanking on /war... I was hoping to get away from most my AF by now, but looks like i need ro research other options.

But at least my gear for /war tanking is pretty nice. Not spectacular but somewhat versatile.

Nin Sub Tanking:

One thing is abundantly clear... I have no Haste gear. None, Zero, Ziltch. I think i am going to make Haste gear a priority now. Ill have to save for some Dusk Gloves and get more into Limbus for Homam Cosciales. Its going to be rough but some HP and a total of 6% haste should be worth it. The hands and legs are my weak spot in my /nin tanking scheme anyway.

I feal most limited with my gear choices for /nin. Granted this sub is relatively new to me, but its got its merits, and some Haste gear should go a long way for me.

Nin Sub DD:

Currently i have an Accuracy/Attack build. But i dont have enough Accuracy to aviod eating Suishi for the majority of the time. I have tested out Meat. And I love the numbers that meat puts up, but even though i dont parse my results i can see a sudden drop in my Accuracy versus Beastmen. So I want to try and Switch to an Accuracy/Haste Build.

So, i intend on swapping out my +STR rings for Accuracy Rings. Most likely will go for Dual Snipers over Woodsman's. The -defence on the Snipers seem more palletable to me when compared to the -evasion on the Woodsmans, because i will be employing shadows.

I will also try to trade in the Coral Earring for an Assault Earring. It has about the same effect but adds some Accuracy. With these additions, i will have about +50 Accuracy (well just under), in Equipment. I hope that will be enough to switch over to meat lol.

I need haste gear for my /nin tanking settup. I figure the very same gear I intend to pick up for my /nin tanking setup will be just as usefull in my /nin DD setup as well.

New Priorities:

Dusk Gloves
Homam Cosciales
Snipers Ring
Snipers Ring
Assault Earring

What do you guys think?

On a side note, people are starting to get upset about me putting in applications for people at BBQ. Mainly because im a relatively new member and due to my CoP static i was unable to make it to many events... and my attendacne has been crap because of it.

I alsways thought that it couldnt hurt to put the application in. Hell, they could always denie the application. But, I can see where they are coming from, they want BBQ to be exclusive. So, I wont be putting any more applications in for a while. Sorry guys, i tried to help you out.

Its a shame too, so many good players were in FuriousX. But they are right, the more people we have adds more points into the system, which drops wont take out. hehe, that was another point they made.

:/ sorry

The Longest Post Ever!

2006-09-07T13:50:00.000-04:00

Prepare yourself, go grab a coffee, have your cigarette.. Cause i have been very very buisy!

Well, lets start off with Sunday. My CoP static usualy meets on Sundays. This includes Forty ;). And I was sure not to leave him behind this time lol. But that would require Gathering the static up, and going back through 8.1-8.3.

The static usualy meets at @8pm east on Sundays. This wasnt nearly enough time to get through 8.1-8.3 so that the rest of the members would be able to make progress as well.

My solution was to grab even more people that need 8.1-8.3 lol. That and to start at 12:00 (noon). And my static members would join us (since they were mostly on the pots BC) as they logged on.

Since 2/5 members of the static had already beaten the pots BC we needed to find 3 more members that needed the fight as well. Obviously this was not a problem ;) most statics break once they reach 8.1.

And this allowed me to help some very good friends of mine through this. Braveheart, and Seraphpdh.

By the time were suposed to meet, only forty and i were there. Since Forty was the only person who needed 8.1 completed, we went out and cashed in a few favors lol. Luckily, Fishura was not very far behind us, he was to log on just before we were to head out. We ended up having 6 people there to take on 8.1 for Forty.

8.1 is quite short, and no real worry.

8.2 followed right after. At this time Braveheart logged on ;) And he had 2 freinds that wanted to tag along for 8.2 as well. It was perfect timing realy lol. And as it worked out we had a great setup for 8.3 with his friends.

Since Seraphpdh and Fishura were there, our map dudes from last week, we rocketed through 8.2 and 8.3.

So all of us had our lights, and 2 brands needed to do the pots BC. Very cool lol. Not only that but everyone was on as well. All 5 members of our static.

But back to the pots BC. This was my first time i actualy got to fight this without being plagued by DC's. Our Line up was:

MNK
PLD
RDM
BLM
BLM
BST

After going over the strat i put together, we set up our SC and went to work.

SUCCESS!!

And Now for Promethia!! This time i was sure to not let the Static get split up. lol, not again. All 5 members of the static plus a BLM was to go in first.

We decided to treat the first form of Promethia like a normal fight.... which was a huge mistake. I went down fast, i mean within the first 3 minutes. And i only recovered about 10 minute later. Had to use 4 RR2 charges from my gorget, and take a R1 durring that fight. Hell most the time i was kiting Weakend. We shouldve just let Prische Tank the fight. She is realy realy hardcore lol.

But im pretty sure that i was able to kite with /war at just the right times, for just the right duration of time to get Prische back up to full HP. I realy wasnt happy with my performance... to be brutaly honest. It was very poor. But kiting is something i realy dont have much experience in. I mean at all. Not unless you count running to a zone line ;)

That and I am pretty sure the rumors are right about this fight. Sometimes Promethia spams AoE (which he did for us) and sometimes he just wont.

On any note, he hits for about 200 damage per normal hit!

Kiting on PLD or just letting Prische tank is preferable.

Somewhere in the second form, Forty went down as well. Hell, everyone had to RR during that fight lol. I only mentioned Forty because he accidentaly HPed instead of RR.

Can you imagine that? Traveling all the way through chapter 8 in one night only to accidentaly HP on Promethia????

ahahahahahah Now thats funny!

No matter, the whole static vowed to get through this by Labor Day! And i had a second group almost ready to go! lol (I Love it When a Plan Comes Together)

Despite being 5/6 on Promethia, with everyone weakend. We won!!

And after calling another blm down as a replacement, we got a total of 10 people though chapter 8 and past Promethia!!

I still love that, 10 people lol.

The second group had a much easier time with Promethia than we did. Seraphpdh was in that party as Paladin, so i cannot realy tell what went on during that fight. But im told that there was much much less AoE issues the second time around.

Yes, all of that happened on Sunday lol.

Lets move on to Monday.

Monday I gathered all my CS's up to and including my Ring! Which Ring did i choose? Sattva!

As a career Paladin, this is the ring i want. No question. I dont have an attatchment to any other job than Paladin. They just dont feal right. I dont feal as attached to the fight, not as active as when i am Paladin. So, thats why i went for the Sattva lol

For those of you who dont know what Sattva is, i dont blame you there arent many of them around, the stats are:

HP 15-30
VIT 1-5
AGI 1-5
Emnity +3

its pretty much the best PLD ring in the game (outside defending ring), and i am extremely happy with my choice.

It was realy a no brainer for me. But for Seraphpdh it was a real struggle. He simply couldnt make up his mind, lol it was realy comical in many ways. But he eventualy settled on Sattva as well.

Moving on to Tuesday:

lol, today i finished up all of the CS's required for ZM17 and the Bahamut fight. That way i am 100% prepared for it when the occasion arrises. Yet another good thing XD

not much else happened that day lol

Wedndsday:

Well, despite being 4.5k away from capped exp (due to Sunday) I didnt want to exp. The semester starts today. And i wanted to end the Summer Vacation on a high note!

That and I was getting tired of being made fun of for not having Savage Blade yet lol. So, i decided to get some points on the trial sword while camping Charby.

While doing so, Fishura was kind enough to come by lol. Its nice having company during this camping. That and he wanted to unlock a latent on a katana as well.

Not long after that Octa came by on BRD. XD thankyou Octa.

While camping away, Fishura's and Vapors application was accepted into BBQplatinum. It was a bit rocky getting yet another 2 RDM main players into the linkshell. But lets just say they got lucky, and are now in their trial period. And i am very happy! lol.

While camping charby some thing very...interesting happend to me. Something i never thought would do lol. I gave some Gillies a raise when they died to a link. Well it wasnt a selfless act of kindness, i hear the Gillies around Charby will help with the fight. So it pays to be nice to them.

Sure enough, after i gave them a raise, they offered their assistance on the Charby NM. I didnt even have to ask XD.

Fast forward 6 more hours, not a single other camper came by. Not one. I was starting to get worried, i mean i could be camping in the middle of a no pop time.

But one pop later, there he was. Charbdylis!!

I sent a tell out to those friendly gillies, and they came running. A NIN and a WHM. I must say, the NIN was quite good. However the WHM suuuuuuuuucked

Not once did the whm haste the 2 nins there. The cures were way way too late. he just... sucked lol. And we whiped 2X before i sent the call out for the calvary.

I try not to bother LS's for things. Its just not my style. I prefer to be resourseful, without bothering to many people. That and i wasnt sure if i would get the crappy, "I'll come only if i can Lot" remark. But with that whm, there was no way we would beat charby.

I was shocked, within minutes 6 BBQ members were there. 2 nin, a brd, a whm, a blm, a rdm. I was on the ouside of it all, tossing a cure here and there.

Sure enough they just owned charby. lol. i mean completely owned him!

And they all passed on the Joyeuse! God im loving this LS more and more every day!

Now i can sell the extra Company sword i have in my DD setup and put it towards a Snipers. Ill get a second snipers while im at it ;)

I think i can finaly switch to eating meat with that setup. and the only thing im missing for my /nin DD and Tank setup will be a few peices of haste gear.

AWESOME!!

lol, congradulations to all that made it through that post ;)

{Connection Lost} O.o

2006-08-31T14:56:00.000-04:00

Gathered my CoP static last night. We had 4 members, and wanted to get CoP 8.3 done.

CoP 8.3 entails traveling up the towers of each race to get an inner light that was stolen from us. Each race has to travel up a different tower to get this light.

Once you have the light you need to aquire 2 brands. A Brand of Dawn and a Brand of Twilight. These are on the second level of the garden. And as of yet it requires a sac pull in order to get to the second level.

After that there is a BC known as The Pots BC. In this fight you need to kill 2 BLM Pots, and 2 RDM Pots.

Our line up was:
PLD
PLD
DRK
RDM
WHM

The first 2 parts of this mission are realy easy... especialy with a RDM to sleep everything and anything along the way, and escape to get back out. But we were obviously not set up for any kind of a BC.

Luckily, not more that 2 minutes after i logged on, Jokerr sent me a tell. It seems that his party has only 4 members as well. And he wanted to know if i would be willing to have our static go through the fight 2X.

Their line up was:
BLM
BLM
BRD
NIN

As luck would have it, my static was idealy set up to help their static and Vise Versa. After a quick conferance we agreed.

But we stll needed to get our lights and brands... which ment they would be waiting around for us to finish the prerequisites.

I asked Jokerr if that was alright, and he was fine with it. So we rushed through the lights and the brands.

By the time we got to the BC, we noticed a fight was going on inside, the noises were unmistakable. Jokerr and his friends had grown impatient and wanted the BC completed. They went ahead to do the BC not more than 5 minutes before we got there.

I was rather proud of my static's members. They kept all of their anger in our private LS chat, and did not allow themselves to voice their anger in any way that they would notice.

And after about 5 minutes, Jokerr agreed to have his static join us. But it was rather obvious that he was not thrilled about going back in. I am thinking that he realy did not want to do it. Mainly because he spoke in very short sentences which exuded... how can i say it...

Well lets just say that he never formaly agreed to get us through the BC, once he was done with it. He did before, but not after. They only way i knew that he was going to help us was when he typed, in one word, "{Disband}" in /say.

in /party i said, ok everyone disband the party and let him run the show. Just get through this.

The first party went in, Slickdarula, Kos, and Seraphpdh joined their group. And won the BC!

niiiice. 3 members down, 2 to go.

It was now Fishura and my turn to get through the BC.

I must say he runs a very silent party. No joking around at all. Hell no typing at all. It must have all been in LS chat, and/or /tell.

We werent informed of there plan. All we got for info was the WS and "attack what i attack".

We entered the BC, and just after we did, one of their BLM's disconnected to never come back. And we died when the 2nd pot was at 50%. Just after this loss the second BLM home pointed and logged off for the night.

Now we were left right back where we started!

we sent out a few maydays, and Grim came to our rescue. A few more messages and Brizzy came to our rescue. BLMX2 Alright!

We enter the BC, grim needed the CS... so we died, and got back out. to try again.

We enter the BC, and completely own the first pot. We got the second pot down to 10% HP and it made a run for the Pedistal to recharge its HP.

Thats when it happend, My Television went out!? OMG no... R0... My house completely lost cable!

{Connection Lost}

I sat there literaly for 19 minutes playing minesweeper just praying that for the cable to return before my party left.

When it came back on they were just about to warp away lol. Nice!

We went down to TP. And then the Television goes out again! .... R0... This time it was not going to return.

And as far as i know, Fishura did not complete the BC yet. Talk about a major let down.

On the bright side, Sunday, we will be pushing Braveheart and Forty up to CoP 8.3. I will hopefully get my first real shot at this BC at that time. I just need to make sure to get Bravheart and Forty up to 8.3 fast enough.

If we can, well have:
BST
MNK
PLD
RDM

All who need the BC done. If we can grab 2 BLM again. we will be in very very good shape for this fight. And Slickdarula would not have to go in and hemorage exp to get us through.

So, i guess its kind of good that it happened in the way it did. (as long as I can get Forty and Braveheart up to CoP 8.3 on Sunday)

CoP 8.2 + Some Drama + Baby Choco = O.o im tired lol!

2006-08-29T15:31:00.000-04:00

This mission was sooooo easy. realy. it is.

Our line up was WHM, PLD, PLD, DRK, RDM. Slickdarula, Seraphpdh, me, Kos, and Fishura rescectively.

I was completely lost. lol. I just patiently followed Seraphpdh and Fishura, who had the map printouts. Other than that we just ran right through it, agroing everything possible lol. If if could be agroed... we agroed it ;)

On the bright side we made about 4k experience points while doing this mission. Which is awesome, because now im back up to maximum exp again. I also tanked almost everything. and was rewarded with +.4 parry skillups. Not bad!

I'm still laughing a bit at how often we agroed mobs lol. It almost got to the point where we started saying, ah screw it. just kill the bish hehehe.

We realy need to work on that ;)

But all of the escourts are done! Now the static has its eyes set on completing 8.3. This entails climbing each tower, grabbing a inner light that was taken from us. Then going out and getting a Brand of Dawn along with the Brand of Twilight. They are also key items. Therefore we each need them.

After that, we need to complete the pots BC. This is the only fight that worries me. Promethius seems to be a push over. But these stupid pots are the only things that are standing in our way. I might be making too much out of it. But the fact that most parties build into theres strategies a "planned whipe"...

I wouldnt be worried too much, if it wasnt for the fact that our line up will more than likely be a PLD, PLD, DRK, WHM, RDM, and hopefully a BLM. After quite a bit of though on the matter, i am leaning towards going as PLD/NIN in my DD settup (as aposed to tanking gear).

Seraphpdh's nin sub is not high enough to get Dual Weild II, and i seem to have slightly better DD equipment. He does have the joy toy though... and i do not. Regardless, we will be bringing 2 Paladin into this fight, and that will limit the highly damaging 2 hours that we would normal have with us.

But, i think its written in stone now. We will have to make it work.

The plan is to get all of that done on Wednsday. Then on Sunday, we will be all ready to take out Promethius. on Monday we will all have our CoP rings. Well, thats the plan anyway ;)

Oh! i finaly recieved a message from Forty. It was waiting for me when i logged on last night. Basicaly he apologised for not being on for the last 8 days. and said that he was going to be on tuesday and wedsnday.

It would be nice if the other static members would push him through 8.1 and 8.2 tonight. But i dont see that happening. I should have mentioned that before i logged off.. but i just realised it now. Oh well.

Well get our rings then push Forty through as well. I realy wish time wasnt an issue for us... then we couldve waited for things to settle down on his end to make progress.

On, another sad note. My chocobo has been sleeping all day. I guess i completely tuckered him out the day before lol. But now he is realy hungry. I cant feed him because he is sleeping. All i can do is watch over him, So thats what i did.

Hopefully he'll be awake again soon. But he will more than likely be asleep until tomarrow or the next day.

Oh, but Duke Bonbon and i ran into Blood once again on one of our walks. Nothing realy came of it. But it was nice to see that there are special things that you get to see when you interact with your chocobaby.

Well, cyall round XD

The Cool Chocobo on the Block

2006-08-28T18:17:00.000-04:00

XD i like everyone else, have been raising a chocobo in my spare time. I bought my egg from a NPC in Jueno a while back. (the day of the release)

And have been paying close attention to it ever since. I am raising it in my home town of bastok.

It took 4 days, just like everyone else, for it to hatch. And OMG! its the cutest thing EVAR! hahha

I immidiately had to take it for a walk. After our walk, i named him Duke Bonbon!
//em shakes fist at Strawberry for choosing such a similar name!

But on the second day my poor little Duke Bonbon fell "slightly ill"! And i was off to find a Tocopekko Grass to help him. After all, this was an emergency! .... he looked so sad ; ;

But i simply could not find one anywhere. After a bit of research i found that the recipy involved in making the chocobo paste requires 2 tocopekko paste. hmmm the wheels started to turn. I fed him a paste and let him rest for the remainder of the day.

By the next day he was his usual chipper self! And it was time for a walk. A couple short ones.

While out adventuring Duke Bonbon and i ran into the Chocobo Handler and his baby chocobo. O.o He said hi. lol but thats not all that happened. oh no! Definately not all. The Handler wanted to see how my Duke Bonbon would get along with Blood (his baby choco).

A second after ward we get the familiar level up song lol! Congratulations Duke, Has made a friend!

I guess my choco is the cool kid on the block lol!

YOU HEAR THAT STRAWBERRY?!?! MY CHOCO IS BETTER!

its the truth too!

I cant wait to get back to Duke Bonbon ;) I am going to have almost too much fun with this.

On a side note, Forty hasnt logged on for 8 days now... and the previous week he was only on for 1 day. This is realy holding our static back. I vowed to be on or beat the Promethius fight before Labor day. But if he doesnt log on soon we wont be able to do it in time.

I for one must be get my ring before School starts. Because my gaming time realy gets pushed back :(

On Sunday, he was a no call no show... again. That made me realy sad. Mainly cause he told me he is always on on sundays. And as such we had the whole static just hanging around waiting to do CoP 8.1

I eventualy said screw it, we need to make progress if we are to have our rings by labor day. And we finished the Mission without him.

IF he logs on tonight we will repeat 8.1... if not, we will move on to 8.2. I feal kind of bad leaving another friend behind... but he has missed the last 6/7 events. Its not like we meet up every day either. When I invited him to the static, i made sure that he could make it during certain days. He simply hasnt been able to do that.

But we are very close in finishing CoP. In fact, we are 3 missions and some CS's away from having our CoP rings. O.o

Dont get me wrong, if he had even so much as returned one of the 5+ messages i sent him, i wouldnt even be posting about this. But realy, he didnt even so much as log on for 2 minutes and send me a message. :/

BTW, CoP 8.1 was easy, almost too easy lol. I mean, i was scared at first. But we had PLD, PLD, BLM, RDM, DRK, WHM. I simply kept argo off the mages while Seraphpdh main tanked each (one at a time). The 3 fights went down without a hitch.

All of the mobs have their 2 hours. And i ended up taking 100 Fists to the face! The mages began to panic, SLEEP, SLEEP, STOP, LET ME SLEEP! Then someone said look at the damage lol. i was taking 100 Fists for 0-5 damage per hit!

Yes thats right 0-5 ahahahah!

Only meds id suggest bringing would be echo drops. Especialy if you plan on doing 8.2 in the same trip. Seraphpdh and i faced one pot in side there... had to use 3 echos lol. each!

Well wish me luck! tonight i do 8.2 no matter what!

Nothing much here, move on!

2006-08-25T17:50:00.000-04:00

For real, nothing much goin on in my end of the world last night. I was only able to game for an hour....

But it was a very disapointing hour.

For one thing, Furiousx which became Domination, my old sky LS has died for the second time. It's sad realy. ;(

I realy enjoyed my times there a whole lot. But I saw the writing on the wall when Tenbears quit. I guess the members that remained in the LS, including the new members, werent showing up to events.

And if your Sky LS isn't churning out items for people... its just a social LS.

:/ realy makes me a bit sad to see it fall again.

I found this out from Fishura, a member of my CoP static. He was a member of both Furiousx and Domination. He sent me a tell, when i logged on asking me if i would be willing to sponcer him into BBQplatinum.

Of course i said i would. He has the 3 people needed to send his application in already. I know for a fact that he has Sea Access. He is a tremendously active FFXI member. And he is truely a pleasure to be around. I have little to no doubt that he would fit in quite nicely into BBQ.

oh! btw Fishi, I still haven't seen your application posted in the BBQ forums. You mentioned you had a friend posting it. Just letting you know that it isn't up.

In fact, i can honestly say that the entire static is full of wonderful people. Each and everyone, Slickdarula, Forty, Fishura, and Kos, I would be willing to place an application for each and every one of you.

Everyone of them has shown that they are extremely competant players. Infact, if even one of them was not as good, we would not be in Sea now. This much is a fact ;)

Even when we failed on a mission they have all shown themselves willing to just dust themselves off, take a R1 if needed, and just push on without complaining even once. That is realy hard to find nowadays.

They all love to joke around and just talk, and many of them make their endgame LS their main LS.

Damn, i realy need to get to asking people if recruiting is open. It would be wonderful to be in the same LS with them again XD. And i highly doubt any of them would pass up a chance to be in BBQplatinum.

Ah, screw it. If you guys/gal read this just talk to me in game ok? Ill put in your application my self. And see how it goes.

It would be a huge loss to BBQ to not accept people like you. Especialy if you ended up going into a competing LS like Unsent or Resurection.

I realy dont see many problems, the worst that could happen is they say that we arent recruiting at the moment. And i dont think you guys are the type of people who would have made enemies in the game either ;)

Oh... and since the last major update... i havent dug up a single elemental ore ; ;

Sea Monsters!

2006-08-24T12:18:00.000-04:00

So, I gathered the static as planned for 8.1 on Monday night.... Forty couldnt show. He is in the airforce and therefore does not get out unless his boss lets him out. He, technichaly, can be made to work well over a 8 hour day. And he has pretty much no say in the matter. So i cant realy fault him for that.

Then I rescheduled the Statics event for Wednsday Night... Forty couldnt show. This was particulaly embarasing because i had 3 friends show up, that need the mission done as well. But oh well, thats the way things go hehe.

And now i am rescheduling the event yet again for Sunday Night. But this time i plan on 8.1 AND 8.2 so that we can make up for the lost time. Luckily, I know that Forty will be able to make it on Sunday. Its his major gaming day, and he usualy doesnt even log off, he tends to pull an all nighter.

I'm giving serious thought to releasing my Cell Phone number to him. I've known the guy for about 4 years now, and since he obviously cannot log onto ffxi while at work to let us know that he will be late, well i can only hope that he would be able to call.

The only hitch in the plan would be that a member likes to log off at 11:00 pm east so that she can make it to work in the morning. But, we will see. Personaly i dont see the 2 missions lasting more than 3-4 hours, as long as we dont stand around. So that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Never the less, i made a rule. It doesnt matter how many freinds we have there, we can have a full alliance, if even one static member is not there nothing will get done without them. I think its a good rule. We are a group after all. And shit happens, i realy dont want to leave anyone behind... like Vladamir... Who i think is still on the Snoll Tzar fight btw.

Also a close online friend of mine realy wants to join our static for the duration of the trip through CoP. I would love to have him come with us. The only problem is that he is a Paladin as well. While this fact does not bother me in the slightest for Promethius, it does worry me a bit for the Pots BC.

Some people call the Pots BC very easy, and some have a realy rough time with it. I feal that, like everything else, your group needs to be set up for the pots BC. That is if you want an easy trip through. And as of now, with uncapped missions, we do not have a BLM in the party to sleep the Pots...

Now AoE Sleep vs 4 Teir 3-aga spamming pots does not sound good lol. And if he were to come with us for this fight... there would be no room for a BLM. meaning, no AoE sleep...

Of course this doesnt mean that we MUST have a BLM. I wonder if we would be able to have Seraphpdh or me kite the remaining 3 around while we polish off individual pots. I am going to have to research this a bit, as long as they dont have bind or gravity, i dont see a huge problem.

I need to think about it some more. More than likely ill leave it up to the static as a whole to decide. He is a great Paladin. lol, For some reason i get the fealing that he looks up to me as a Paladin. I dont know why, I honestly see him as more than equal to me. He realy is one of the better Paladins on the server.

Oh! My Paladin guide is almost done being formated for the wikipedia! Im so excited, the freaking thing came out to like 49 pages. It has graphs and charts and everything. Everyone thats read it was thoroughly impressed with it. Once its done being formated ill post the link to the right ;)

In the mean time, I need to clean out some of the links on the right. As it turns out Mith's Diary is actualy run by a gill selling hacker. And his account got deleted because of it! So hes out. And a couple of other blogs of people who quit updating will go as well. Just some minor clean up.

Well, wish me luck!

I'm in Sea!

2006-08-23T10:04:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a trip so far! To make a long story short, my static and I have reached CoP Mission 8.1! It has been an exciting, and extremely fast trip for us thus far. I mean, we have gone from the very start of the 3 paths to Sea Access in about 3-4 weeks.

Well, to be precise, we had to back track to Promivion-Vashel for a couple of our static members first. So, we actualy went from before the 3 paths to Sea access in 3-4 weeks. wow!

Where i last left off in the blog we had beaten the Airship in a very proud 1:1 fight. But alot has gone on from then to now. After the airship, we faced the 3 Nightmares. For anyone who has yet to do these NM... relax. They are complete wusses!

Realy though, these NM are duoable lol. And our static just blowed through them in about an hour. The longest part of these fights would be the travel time. And along the way you pass many many NM spawn points.

Our static members have a habit of taking slight detours while enroute to a mission location just to check on NM pop locations. Without being asked, and i must say that even though it drags out the mission just a little longer, and I love it. It realy makes the CoP missions even more enjoyable.

On the way to the 3 NM, I ran into Padfoot. A sheep NM which i hear drops an Astral Ring. Sadly it didnt drop, but it was fun never the less.

And after the 3 NM, while gathering the cutscenes for the Tenzen fight, we ran into Upryi. Its a Red Bat that spawns near the gate to Rivern Site B-01, and can drop the Vampire Earring! It decided to drop the Vampire Mask and Cloak instead. But was fun never the less, as we had to pull it at night. As you can imagine this Vampire Bat is much tougher at night. And we had to kite it around the Miserial Coast forever until i could suit up in actual tanking gear lol.

But after all of that, and the cutscenes, we decided to tackle Tenzen in the same night! The determination of the people in my static made me so proud XD. It was the sole reason i invited the people i did, and also the sole reason why it took so long to gather the 5 members i had.

There are too many people in Vana'Deil, and RL for that mattter, that say they want to get something done. They will swear up and down that they want it done. But when it comes to crunch time they wont show up, or they will bitch about everything because they dont want to be there. They just want crap handed to them.

I'm sorry for that little tangent, those type of people realy get to me. And its taken a while but i can pretty much pick those people out of the crowd. My advise to anyone making a static is that, do not hesitate to leave these people behind. Well, if you actualy want to get shit in FFXI done... you will kind of have to. They do nothing but hold people back, and destroy statics.

And on the way to Tenzen, in the Highlands i ran into Bendigeit Vran!! Realy if hes up... you cant miss him. I mean, seeing a Fomor typ mob in the Highlands is well... you just need to /check it out hehehe. Now this i got the drop for! Man was i happy, i got the drop as well! A Rogetsurin. Which will come in pretty damn handy when i decide to pick up BLU again.

But back on point, Tenzen is a little bish! Realy though. He was soooo much easier than Snoll! Especialy for a bunch of level 75's. Oh, and if your coming as Paladin, You can main heal yourself during this fight just like Snoll! And since you can main heal yourself, you can bring 5 damaging jobs to just whoop up on Tenzen.

Having 5 members damaging Tenzen at one time, is probably what helped us beat the hell out of him so fast.

We did have one death though, a good friend of mine (Forty)... Mainly it was my fault. I had a brain fart that fight. I thought i hit Invincible for it, but evidently i didnt. And the lack of the hate from that ability... He was knocked out! On the bright side, as monk, he realy realy slaughtered Tenzen. And it wasnt until the end of his 100 fists when i lost hate.

And so now we are on CoP 8.1! Not only that but it is Scheduled for tonight at about 7-8pm east. I have 3 friends coming with us, Slickdarlua has some friends coming as well. And i think i might be able to bring another CoP static with me. Thats alot of people and im sure they will all own these mobs lol.

With any luck, since i know where the spawn points are now we may be able to fumble through CoP 8.2 as well. That will put us a mere 2 missions away form completeing CoP, and getting our rings XD.

I can wait!

Oh, out side of CoP. I also decided to merit a bit. I have unlocked Chivalry! And man is that ability nice. A dark and i were Chain 5ing T's in Sea and very rarely had to rest. This was mainly thanks to autorefresh and Chivalry. But it hasnt realy saved me from death yet. Fealty on the other hand... that has saved me from death on numerous occasions. ; ; its sad how much people just write that ability off.

That, and i also started to raise a Chocobo. Ill be sure to keep you posted on that.

Lets see... Oh! I also got Bounding Boots! Wow, what an active week!

d(O.o)b

Airship 1:1 !!!!11!!1!!one!!11!

2006-08-18T10:56:00.000-04:00

heh, yeah this Paladin joined the Airship 1:1 club. Well to be fair we had a dry run, but that was just to see some CS's without a rush and get a general feal for the fight before we actualy tried. ;)

I must say, even though i went one for one on this fight... I can definately see why so many people have issues with it. It is an incredibly long fight. And alot of things can go wrong very very fast. You'de be doing absolutelty fine one minute and within 3 seconds everything can go terribly bad for all involved.

That being said, This fight is not impossible. even with a PLD tank!

This is one hell of an endurance fight, it took us 36 minutes and change to beat. That combined with the fact that these guys are definately pretty hard core... It was sure to be a rough ride.

For example: O/U would hit faster than your Gluttony Sword and hit for about 100-200 damage per hit, and those are just its normal attacks! Now imagine tanking that for about 25 minutes straight.

For this reason i decided to bring 2 tank jobs in the group. In fact, i brought the same party makeup to Promyvion-Vashel as well. It is in my opinion an incredibly versatile and redundant party setup. It doesnt matter who dies, there is someone that can step up and take thier place. Sure they wont be as great as the member that went down, but they can hold their own. I would say that this was the sole reason we beat the Airship fight 1:1.

Our Line up was:

PLD/WAR
NIN/WAR
DRK/NIN
BLM/WHM
WHM/BLM
BRD/WHM

Roles in party:

PLD/WAR: Mamets and Ultima, back up Ninja when he/she is in trouble, Flash, Cure
NIN/WAR: Mamets and Omega, back up the Paladin when he/she is in trouble, Ni enfeebles
DRK/NIN: Closes SC, Various Drain Spells, Main Melee Damage, Stun
BLM/WHM: Cure, Damage Spells, Blind, Chainspell Ultima, Stun
WHM/BLM: Cure, Barthundra, Flash
BRD/WHM: Evasion Songs, Ballad Songs, Cure, In Charge of using ALL CCB POLYMERS.

My Gear:

Sword: Gluttony
Shield: Spartan Hopolon (sp), R.K. Shield (+2 STR +1 Mind one)
Ranged: Happy Egg
Head: Emperor's Hairpin
Neck: RR Gorget/Fortified Chain
Earring 1/2: Melody Earrings (+5 Evasion Skill)
Body: Scorpian Harness
Hands: Gallant
Ring 1: Mermaids ring (+2 Emnity)
Ring 2: A Vit ring
Back: Nomads Mantle +1, High Breath Mantle
Waist: Warrior's Belt +1
Legs: Gallant
Feet: Gallant

All told, i had about +15 Evasion Skill, +23 Evasion, +21 Shield Skill, +5 Parry Skill (Mixed in those talley's is +2 Evasion from a merit, +2 Parry from a Merit, and +8 Shield from Max Sheild Merits)

Medications/Food/Usable items:

Spartan Hopolon: A Phalanx that shaves 17 damage off each hit for 3 min
High Breath Mantle
RR Gorget
Tavansia Tacos
CCB Polymer
Yagudo Drinks: X4
Muslims: X12
Hi Potion +3: X22
Remedy's: X12

Prefight Preparations:

Rather than deal with an order for the CCB Polymers, we decided to place the Bard as the sole user of the CCB's since he was going to be running around the whole fight. Everyone put their CCB's up in Bazaar for 1 gill.

The Game Plan:

Go in get CS's. Leave.

Go in, fully Buff. (RR gorgets and Spartan Sheild Included)

A tank Body Agro's all the Mamets. It doesnt matter which tank does this. Both will do fine. As For me the Mamets were cake. With my evasion i rarely got hit. And when i did, my defence and Phalanx shaved down the damage per hit to 7-15 damage (outside critical hits). In short, the Mamets were complete wusses. But be sure to pull the BLM off the body agroer when you can they are the only thing that can hurt you.

Both the BLM and the WHM Cure the body agroer until you toss about 2 of them off the Airship. Then the BLM can help speed up the kills.

Realy the Mamets are a joke. You wont need any meds for this part of the fight. But for arguements sake here are the Positions we took during the fight.

_________________________________
................................................
................................................
.C..M.......................................C.
......NM..........A...............M.P.......
......MM..............................D......
.................................................
................................................
................................................
.C..........................................C.
.__WB ___________S_______________.

C = Cannon
S= Start Spot
N= Ninja
A= Bard
P = Paladin
D= Dark Knight
W= White Mage
B = Black Mage
M= Mamet (sp)

In the example listed above, The Ninja Body Agroed. But realy, it does not matter who body agroes. Paladin/Ninja both work great!

Onto Omega Weapon!

Omega Weapon realy is Blind as a bat. Well, not he isnt lol. The fact of the matter is that you will still need double evasion songs, blind, slow, paralyse to effeciently take him down. To save time on the enfeebles we had the NIN use Paralyse and Slow, while the BLM blinded him. The bard was too buisy with CCB's, Curing, and songs on us to worry bout debuffing, but im sure he got a few in as well.

Omega is the longest part of this fight, Hands down. Due to how long we planed on taking to kill Omega we decided to have out Ninja Main tank it. Honestly, Ninja completely destroys Omega. That being said, he would've been dead fast if i wasnt there to Flash, Cure, Cover. Plus he would lose hate every Skill Chain. So, I saved Flash to well, buy time to save the Mage staff when i could. Other wise i would save it and voke to help with Utsi recasts.

As i said before, having 2 tanks may make for slower kills. But, it also makes for a much wider skill set in the party and therefore much safer missions.

The Key to Omega is to land your SC's. He has Enstun, which does proc often (especialy without barthundra up), a nasty Paralyse, and an aoe petrify move. So landing your SC's may sound easy at first... it isn't.

Another thing to know about omega, is that he will start the fight (apon body agro) with a TP move. Which move he uses is random (from what i hear). We got the missles, and therefor started the fight with 50% or less HP all around in the party. ick!

As for CCB's, we had 6. But decided to use only 2 on Omega. We figured that if we got past Omega, then we can still use 4 on Ultima. And man did that plan work out great! We used a CCB Polymer at 35% and at 15% Omega. These things are a god send ;)

Our Positions on Omega were:

_____________________________________
.....................................................
.C.................................................C.
.....................................................
.....................................................
.....................................................
.....................................................
.....................................................
......N....................A.........................
.C..O..........................................B.C.
.__DP_____________S_____________W___.

I used the same nomenclature as above, this time O=Omega of course.

I wish i could say i Aced Omega, but at the end (and i mean when he was at like 1%) i got Pile Pitched, and then some sort of spike effect took me out. To that end i must ephasis that if you die, die inbetween the starting location and the very first row of cannons. Other wise you will agro everything upon RR.

They finished him off with a nuke, once the resist magic sheild was gone. and we progress to Ultima!

Now i mentioned how Omega was great for Nin Tanks, Ultima is great for Paladin tanks. There is no question in my mind about this. My group was at about 75% effectiveness with me weakend. But to save time they went in to fight Ultima while i was still weakend.

So i ran and hid by the mages till unweakend. Then rejoined the fight. And began to pull hate off our Ninja. Just before i could get it off him, he went down (i dont know to what... i think it was a double slow move that couldnt be esared in time). And now it was his turn to go rest by the mages ;)

THIS is why i brought 2 tanks. Literaly, it saved the day in every way possible! And we eventualy pulled through for the win.

Our positioning was the same as in the Omega fight.

The only difference was that we used a CCB Polymer at 75% 50% 25% and 10% Ultima. ;) We were going to be damned if we didnt win this lol.

At 10% our BLM cut loose Manafont and destroyed Ultima! Very Very nice XD. Well i hope this Helps someone out. Its very hard to write about this fight without saying "this is how i did it". Oh! and btw dont forget the remedies! hehe, they saved both tanks on multiple occasions this fight alone hehehe.

And no, you dont need to come packing all kinds of firepower for this fight. You could also go for the long haul with 2 tanks ftw!

Stupid Formating Errors >< SNOLL DEAD!!

2006-08-08T16:48:00.000-04:00

Another Stolen Pic ;)

Snoll Tzar Is Dead!!! And with it the 3 Paths are now complete XD. For those Paladins Searching out information on this thing; please let me help you out. Not gonna bore you with information about Mistmelts, or Time on the fight, Rather Ill give you some information that is a little harder to find about how you MAY want to approach this fight.

You are going to have to hold hate off your freinds. That is and always has been your job. Nothing new there ;). To that end, you will have to gear up specificaly towards Hate control for this fight.

Gear: Emnity, Emnity, Emnity, Vitality and Phalanx XD

Full AF

Gluttony Sword

Spartan Shield

Dodge Earings

Mermaids Earring

A Good Vit Ring

Warriors Belt +1

High Breath Mantle

Iron Mustketeer's Gorget

Happy Egg

There are a couple things to note with my setup. I have a couple things that you might want to switch in/out depending on your style of play.

The first of which would be the Spartan Sheild. This thing... I went in with this sheild mainly because this thing attacks very fast. After seeing its attack speed the first time around, i thought it would be best for a slightly smaller sheild. As it would activate more often. Furthermore, This shield will provide you with Phalanx. This Phalanx will last for 3 minutes, and will shave 17 damage off every hit you take. I also used this shield for the Loverance Path BC (Bugbear fight) and was just amazed with it.

With this Shield i was able to main heal myself the entire fight!!! (Snoll Tzar Fight) This will open up a spot for your party to add a DD, instead of a healer. I main healed in it, with Hume MP, So can you!

Second is the Gluttony Sword, I supose you could go for the Grudge Sword in this fight. But i wanted the additional Vitality. This thing realy does hit you for good numbers.

Food and Consumables:

Alot of Paladin's will tell you to go for the Tavansia Tacos in this fight. I decided to go for Dorado Sushi instead. The Sushi will help with your accuracy, so that you can put up SOME numbers. But I realy decided to use it because of the Emnity boost it provides (+3 Emnity)

High Breath Mantle- This thing will give you +5 emnity. Frankly, its a must for Paladains leveling in this Range. And it lasts for 30 minutes (or till you take off the mantle). Furthermore, it has like 50 charges on it. So it will last you a long long time ;)

Phalanx Shield- God i wish i had this at 55 Pld. Those Spiders in Boyoda Tree suuucked lol. on a serious note, This thing knocks off 17 damage per hit you take. And on a successful sheild block you add that damage mitigation onto the Phalanx effect and at this level you have a level 2 shield block rate with a level 3 shield damage mitigation. Not bad at all. Keep this for your Airship fight (when super tanking the Mamets). Just don't take off the Shield, the effect will dissapear.

Reraise Gorget- You will fail, and its a hell of a lot better than taking yet another R1

Icarus Wing- I was involved with the first Skill Chain to go off. You should bring one too. Note: the medication effect lasts for 2 hours (Paladins rarely use these, thats why i mentioned it).

My Party Settup:

RDM/BLM

SMN/BLM

MNK/WAR

DRK/NIN

PLD/WAR (me)

Thats right, 3 mages, 2 DD, and a Tank. Looks like a standard Exp Party here. This can by no means be construed as a Manaburn.

Note: no healers! None! Zero! You Can And Should Main Heal Yourself! It's going to be about a 45-75 second fight. And youll be invincible for 30 seconds of that. Which means that (since i had a SMN and Spartan Shield) you actualy have to survive for 15-45 seconds with Stoneskin/Phalanx/Arial Armor/Defender/Sentinel/ and full MP.

It can be done, and with all the +emnity your packing just trying to survive will provide you with enough hate to keep this thing glued to you.

What I did: Im not going to Bore you with what the melee/mages did, they know there jobs, lets just focus on Paladin here ;).

Buff with everything you have. This includes Defender but not Sentinel. Remember, your main healing here. You have 5 other people to dish out the pain. 9000/5 = 1800 damage per person. Now with 2 hours and TP wings AND a Magic Burst I'd hope those people can do 1800 damage each to Snoll Tzar... something is seriously wrong.

Charge in to meet Snoll Tzar. There is something i should mention about this. Positioning is very important. Snoll will rush to you upon body agro, but you must Provoke (while on the run) and drag him back to the center of the BC. He has a nasty AoE that can take all yout mage staff out/make convert pointless. So keep him away from your mages and have them spread out. One more thing, do not let Snoll Tzar Face the mages, he has a massive Cone AoE that will also hurt em very badly.

You should have him in the center of the BC, Facing away from the mages, and provoked all without stopping your running until your in position.

Massive Hate Time. Now, once its in position slam Invincible, and Flash. Use a JA while your at it, Sheild bash now (since its in range) will work nicely, but i decided to go with Red Lotus Blade since i was the member to open the fusion Skill Chain. On a side note, Have your melee/mages hold on there 2 hours until they see you go Invincible. This will help to insure they dont pull hate off you while you are using your Salt.

Salt!! Yes, you can get off a Salt while Invincible. There is no skill in actualy getting this Salt off. There is only one thing you need to worry about. While using the Salt, you will be completely incopacitated for 15 seconds. That is why i included the "Massive Hate Time" line. Your Mages/Melee will be going absolutely nuts. They will be doing every single thing in there power to kill Snoll Tzar. Make absolutely sure you have enough Hate (without blowing all your tools, save one JA) to last the 15 seconds.

Now you get to Survive! Not long after you use your salt your invincible will wear off. But remember you used your Provoke while charging Snoll, It is back now, Use it XD. As soon as Invicible wears off use Sentinal, and spam your top 2 Cure spells. You will immidiately notice that you are fighting a losing battle. You wont have the MP to last very long. But thats ok! Remember you arent fighting a 30 minute BCNM. Your fighting a 45-75 second BCNM. And of that 45-75 seconds you only need to work on surviving for 15-35 seconds!

Emergency Plan!! If you messed up, or you die. Snolls first target will more than likely be your mages. Please, prepare for this before hand. Remember how I mentioned to have your Melee/Mages hold there 2 hours until you go Invincible? During that time have them Gravity/Bio Snoll Tzar. And then spread out!

This will let your mages know exactly who Snoll is after, and reduce his speed. The man with the hate Kites, the rest continue to pummel Snoll Tzar. If you panic during this time, you will lose. If a mage goes down, you will lose.

Note: Gravity lands like a ton of bricks on Snoll.

If you don't panic, and the man with agro (still has Stonekin and AA from the smn at start) Kites him around. You can still salvage the fight.

Well, thats the Snoll Fight from a Paladins Perspective XD. I hope you enjoy the fight as much as i did, that was a rush and a half XD. And you'll be able to say that you held off 9000 damage in 45 seconds ;)

Snoll, Bugbears, Sky, Taimat, and a FAN?! O.o

2006-08-04T14:05:00.000-04:00

What a buisy 2 days!

First off let me talk about my first encounter with Snoll Tzar XD. Long story Short... we Failed lol.

We did not fail due to a lack of fire power. We did not Fail due to a time out. We failed because of a minor flaw in our strategy. Of which i can only blame myself.

We had RDM, RDM, MNK, DRK, PLD, SMN in our party. We also had 2 salts. The plan was rather simple. I run in, voke, Red Lotus Blade. The Monk would finish off the fusion SC. Then i would invincible and use my salt. Meanwhile the SMN would MB ifrit, and the 2 RDM would dia > chainspell their fire spells from the start. Once i was done using my salt, the Smn would be done MBing, and could use his salt. After that we hack slash and burn.

The problem we had was that I lost hate. I was in the middle of using my salt when this happened. And Snoll Tsar either use his AoE or a cone Aoe while facing the mages. Either way it was not good, as 2 members died, and the rest were very close to death. And the SMN died before he could get his salt off.

On the bright side, dispite that, we got Snoll Tzar to about 10-15%.

I figure we just alter our strategy a little bit on the next run and we will be fiine. Things i intend to alter are:

1) Lure Snoll Tzar further out (away from the mages)
2) Use invincible before RBL. Then Flash.
3) Then use my salt. and hopefully get a cure in before invincible wears off.
4) at that point i just blow evert hate tool i have. and just TRY to live.
5) have RDM wait to chainspell until they see me go invincible.

Yeah, that should do the trick.

After Snoll Tzar we found ourselve medicated (and without 2 hours). So we quickly found a Corsair freind to give us back our 2 hours. And i was counting my blessings that I had everyone Complete the Loverance CS's. Because we barely had enough time to go and get through that.

Once there, we prepared to Kill 5 unsleepable enemies. XD Fun! We came as WHM, BLM, MNK, RDM, PLD, DRK. The plan was simple. I would charge in to body agro everything. The RDM would kite around the big one. The DRK, would Kite around the BLM. The MNK and BLM would kill the WHM. Leaving me 2 enemies to straight tank (with body agro only).

Once we entered the BC we realised that we couldnt tell which ones were the WHM and BLM jobs. Well it took getting dangerously close to agro, but i figures out which was the whm and what i THOUGHT was the blm. hehe turns out i was wrong about the blm.

Never the less the plan worked perfectly. Once the Monk and the BLM were done the raced off to help our DRK friend. While i tanked the blm and another one, and the RDM kited the Big one. The only bad thing that happens was someone decided to cast a spell on my mobs. This is a problem that i hope we do not encounter during the airship fight. As not i actualy had to work to keep hate off my whm. And on 2 enemies this was fun lol.

The Monk (Forty) and the BLM(i Forget, he was one of our friends) and the DRK polished ott their mob and picked off mine one by one. Once all the little goblins were knocked out, we rested up a bit, to replenish MP and some HP, and then whooped up on the big one! I was warned about him by other Paladins. They told me hit hits hard, but i must say that he is just one big wuss.

That was all we could manage to do on Wednsday. Now onto Thursday! lol

I log on, to find everyone starting to gather at Sky. O.o this would be my first chance to head up to Sky with BBQ. Even though it was just for farming, i was not to be left out. Besides points arent that bad a thing to get ;).

We Camped and killed Ulli, SC, and in the process i gained 2 points (i think) along with recapping my exp/gained 1k more Limit points.

We were about to kill Olla, when the call that Taimat was up came roaring through the linkshell. We immediatly, gathered, and warp II /tele-mea'd. ( I needed the Warp II becasue i wanted to gather supplies).

By the time i got there we had the Alliance almost set up. Our PLD's, senior to me in BBQ anyway, were to tank the Wyrm. While i made sure they stayed safe from any and all links. Hell, it was my first Tiamat! And i was happy just to stand there and see how BBQ did their thing (so i dont fuck it up on them) let alone actualy help out a bit.

My brother was watching my during the fight, and asked why i wasnt tanking Taimat, and was relegated to dealing with the BS mobs around me. ;) i guess that i dont realy need to say that he is a bit younger than i am. All i could say was that, yes there is more glory in being gnawed on by a Dragon. But they wouldnt last long if i wasnt pulling this links away before they caused an issue. hehehe He still doesnt understand.

And i got to help BBQ put another Taimat under its belt ;) Fun Fun!

Lastly but Certainly not least, i got a tell from a fan of my blog the other day XD. This is the second time its happened thus far, and made me very very happy. His name started with a P. Forgive me but i cant pronounce the rest of it, let alone commit it to memory lol. Any way, i was talking to him for a while, was about to log off but he seemed like a nice guy. Despite being in Resurection hehehe.

After that conversation i am starting to see how many people use things like Vent and Teamspeak. I MAY go out and get my self a Mic/Headphones. Might lol.

One down!

2006-08-02T12:05:00.000-04:00

:/ well... I had that little CoP static meeting last night while i was hunting the Cutscenes for Loverance's Path. And it was pretty much decided that we could not take Vladamir with us...

I am not happy about that. I promised to get him through CoP with us. But, that was before his boss changed his schedule.

Again, one side of me knows it was that smart move. The other part of me is sad because i had to break a promise...

But i can definatly see where the rest of the static is coming from on the issue. Sunday, Monday, and Wednsday that we normaly meet is netting alot of progress. And alot more time to recoup progress after possible losses.

With vladamir in the group our main days for CoP missions would be reduced down to Wednsday, with the quick fights relegated to Sunday or Monday only. I mean things that would only take about an hour to do.

That and while having a ninja during the Airship fight would have been sweet, for the rest of CoP a ninja simply isnt going to be as usefull to us considering we already have a Paladin in the party.

Never the less, every event so far we have been a 5 man Static. Its one less person to worry about showing up to events. And, having the 6th slot open leaves us with alot of versatility on possible strategies we can use.

By this time there are people scattered through out CoP. And it doesnt sound like it will be hard to get a 6th person of any job. This is especialy true when you realise how nice the people in my group are. We have a lot of friends around Odin willing to help out on a fight or two.

For the group itself, it was the smart decision, but i still feal bad about Vladamir...

Mythran Trackers!!

2006-08-01T17:44:00.000-04:00

The Static and i logged off just after we completed the last dungeon in Tenzen's Path. So, we did not have a chance to talk to Cid, or get any of the other cutscenes before we would beet again.

It took us quite a while to get all of the Cutscenes out of the way, but we did it XD. One thing is for sure, we want everyone to be upto date with the Cut Scenes before we meet for missions from now on. These Cutscenes took longer to gather than most other missions thus far.

But this time it was unavoidable. So, all were fine with it.

Then we moved onto the Mythran Trackers BC with our 5 man party. The line up was BLM, PLD, SMN, DRK, RDM, and we had a friend (Sileighty) come down as another Summoner to round out the party.

Our strategy was rather simple, it was the same strategy that got me through the Ouryu fight. I was to charge in, Invincible. And our 2 SMN (Sileighty and Slickdarula) were to let loose Astral Flow. Then our BLM (Forty) was going to elemental Sleepga the remaining enemies, while i regained hate. Then the next volley of Astral Flows were to go off.

Its such a simple plan realy XD. I love it. The only problem with the plan is that there are a total of 5 enemies to Astral Flow. And i had to try to get them all packed together before the first volley.

We whiped. hahahaha

Mainly because Sileighty had forgotten that he had already used his 2 hour.... So we HPed to Whitegate. And were trying to figure out what to do while our 2 hours recharged, when Slickdarula suggested asking a Corsair to hook us up!

O.o

Forty has Corsair unlocked AND we were not going to use his 2 hour in the fight! It was too good to be true.

By Gods grace, it worked too. w00t!!! We were back at the BC in no time hehehe.

//side note. I tried to see if Fealty will work against the Poison Flowers in Attowha Chasm. It doesn't. I still got poisoned. That is the first time I have ever been enfeebled with Fealty on. So i guess it is not a 100% resistance. Though i must say, I have yet to be enfeebled by an enemy. I am not sure you can compare and enemy to one of those poison flowers. One is an environmental thing, the other is an adversary.

This time we rocked the BC. The 2nd astral flow took out both pets and one of the trackers. Fishura (our rdm) had chainspell nuked one of the enemies which remained. (just like i asked him to in /tell just as an insurance measure) But not before the two could SC me to the ground.

Only one enemy was left though. My 2 SMN, DRK, BLM, and RDM were still up and running. Even if they were having MP issues. And they managed to whipe the last 15% of health off the last Mythra with little problems other than some slight chaos.

It wasnt the cleanest run. But only i died. (on the winning run) And we are past the first BC in Ulmia's Path!

Now it is time for Snoll Tzar. I am thinking of bringing our 5 many static as RDM RDM BLM PLD DRK. Or we may go as RDM RDM MNK PLD DRK. Either way we have 2 salts (possibly 3) and need a 6th.

That brings me to Vladamir. He is a long time friend of mine. And has been stuck on Snoll Tzar. After that he will be done with the 3 paths. I have been buying him time, as much time as possible to level BLM to 60 (or even 58) before i we got to this fight.

Sadly he hasnt, his BLM is level 51. And it has been 51 for about 2-3 weeks now... Not only that but he hasnt been able to make it to even one event. Despite being part of the static.

I cannot realy blame him though. He just got a new boss at his work. And the days he used to have off (when i first made the static AND recruited member that would fit in those days) have changed... Stupid boss thinks those days are better to have Vladamir around.

So, i am torn. The analytical side of me says that: 1) his schedule conflicts with events 2) he only has Ninja leveled. So, I cant take him with us. The human side of me doesnt want to leave him behind...

What i pan on doing is gathering what members are on when i log into FFXI tonight and talking to them about this. I will make it into a group decision, not an individual decision. Mainly because... well it effects the Group.

Either way, we have the Mighty Snoll Tzar to contend with Wednsday. We have the materials, we have the jobs (minus one member). We are ready. And with a little bit of luck, we are going to beat Snoll Tzar.

Dont worry I will keep you posted ;)

Merits, HNM, and CoP Oh My!!

2006-07-31T15:01:00.000-04:00

I have been realy buisy in game. And got alot of things done lately XD. I have:

1) been actualy meriting
2) unlocked Fealty
3) Faced Cerberus
4) got my CoP static into action.

Lets start from the begining. I have been meriting, in my DD /NIN setup. I am so proud of my performance in it. I am far better than I wouldve thought hehehe. In fact, i out damage most Ninja. Granted they attack faster, but i do about 20% more per hit than most Ninja do.

I must be doing a good job because i am constantly asking the other DD's if there is anything i could do better to help the exp flow. And i havent gotten one bad critique. I average 11-13k per hour in exp, with a setup of BRD, RDM, 3DD, and PLD/nin. And am glad that people dont throw a hissy fit because i am in the party.

My current merits include:

Level 4 Shield Skill Modification
Level 1 Parry Skill Modification
Level 1 Exasion Skill Modification
Level 1 Fealty

I must say that Fealty is absolutely BLOWING my mind. I knew Chivalry was going to be great. And i know 95% of paladins will unlock that first. But, seeing as how Fealty is intriguing as well i dedcided to unlock that first. And read up about Chivalry on the forums.

When they say Fealty has a Powerful Resist to Enfeebles they arent kidding lol. It doesnt matter it the enfeeble is the result of a weapon, TP move, or magic nothing will stick to you. Your like teflon for a whole minute. To date i have yet to be enfeebled even once, while i had Fealty up, and it has already saved my life more than twice.

hehe, i was helping some friends farm the silk they needed for their BLU AF (while waiting for my static members to log on). When one decided to Thundaga III. This slaughtered half the alliance that was with me, and what was left was in seriously bad shape. I hit my fealty macro mid-thundaga III, since i was at full HP.

Right after the thundaga III, we got slammed with an aoe BIO III. I laughed so hard as my other members started to fall like flies to -20 or -30 per tick bio. But i hit my 2 hour a and cured back up. A couple RR later and he was toast! Now that was just fun as hell, thankyou SE.

I also got a chance to go face to face with this bad mamma jamma, Cerberus! We didnt have the best turn out for him, and i was not in the main tank party. But i was in the alliance. It was pretty damn fun. But we realy couldve used alot more DD there. My main task was to try to help heal others. Mainly because i was told to come /nin... so no provoke, and i did not have a refresh/ballad in my party. So i could not cure people enough to grab hate.

But man this was a fun fight never the less. and i learned 3 things about cerberus.

1) you dont want him to turn, so kiting is out.
2) He is a beast type mob, and Koenig sheild alone will intimidate him
3) Fealty is equaly effective on HNM as it is to TW mobs.

Infact, when one fealty was active i resisted his Paralyse 2X. Thats phenominal!!

Now i just need to grab Chivalry, and i can move onto HP merits XD.

As for the title of this post, I have got my CoP static into motion. It has taken a while, and i needed to get this moving before my members decided to go elsewhere.

The first step was to get the 2 members that were on Promyvion-Vashel through the trip up and the BC itself. I have this Mission down to a science! I bring PLD, NIN, (RDM or BRD), (WHM or SMN), and any DD.

The plan is always simple. I backup tank for the nin, the Melee DD 2 hours on Mea (first mob). I handle all the adds until the preceding enemy is toast. I Tank the last enemy (Holla). and mage staff 2 hours to finish him off. No anemas are needed what so ever! But we did farm anemas, just as an insurance policy if you will.

Long story Short, there were no unplanned deaths on the way up. I say unplanned because there is one part (on level 2) that i prefer to sack pull for reduced down time and less general hassle (quicker too).

AND we set the Time Record on the BC to an impressive 15 minutes. It was the smoothest CoP 5.2 run on record XD. Hell our whm never even went below 400 MP. I must say, when you really want to get a job done, having a Ninja and a Paladin in the same party almost makes it a guaranteed win.

Now we have Slickdarula and Fishura caught up to the majority of the Static. We are all on 5.3 The Three paths now, and i am happy that i am actualy seeing a Plot line again. The only member of the static ahead of the majority is Vladamir. And we are catching up to him realy fast. All he need in 5.3 is Snoll. And to that end he has been leveling BLM. It sure will be nice to have him in the party for Snoll.

Next on the list for the Static was Tenzen's Path. God damn that is a long path. Everything about it is long, even the Cutscenes hehehe. We set out on this mission sunday night and ended it on Monday Morning O.o I certainly hope that doesnt become a recurring issue. Thats exhausting lol.

Once again we triumped though. And that makes me very happy. There was only one death on the way, and it realy was due to a silly mistake.

I am happy that we are getting closer to 60 cap missions. I would like nothing more than to sell off that 50 cap gear. But i will hold off on that until we trounce Snoll Tzar.

The only problem is that we need to make it through the Mythran Trackers first. I must say that i do not fear the trackers. I plan on defeating them the same way i defeated Ouyru. invincible, Massive AoE burn, Elemental Sleep, Massive AoE burn. I figure 2 SMN and a BLM are just made to own this BC. And i have a SMN friend that owes me a favor ;)

Thats what we plan to do tonight! Wish me luck! (oh we plan on farming for Snoll items as well.)

PLD Merits

2006-07-28T10:55:00.000-04:00

Ok! Time for me to chyme in on how i feal about the New Merited Abilites for the Paladin. First off, I must apologise for not posting for a few days. I was holding back my opinions on the Paladins New Abilities/Traits until i could fully appreciate their impact on my favorite job. But I feal i am ready to give an Objective opinion on them.

Many Players say that the Jobs which gained the most out of the added abilities are the Theif, Darknight, and Red Mage. However, it took me a little while of thinking about the merits themselfs before i could conclude that Paladin should actualy be added to that list as well.

I know what your thinking, well what your thinking if you pay attention to forums, "Paladin only got one ability that is worth getting, and that is Chivalry." I would say that no, you are wrong. Every single ability in the update has a very nice impact on the Paladin Job.

Without Further ado, Let me introduce to you the new abilities a Paladin can merit (upon reaching level 75):

Fealty
Ability
Target: SelfGrants a powerful resistance to enfeebling magic. Extra Merits: Shorten recast time by 2 minutes 30 seconds.
20 min.

Chivalry
Ability
Target: SelfConverts TP to MP. Extra Merits: Shorten recast time by 2 minutes 30 seconds.
20 min.
Extra Chivalry Info: This Job Ability converts 1TP to around 1.3 to 1.5 MP (it seems to vary slightly). It also has been reported to increase hate considerably when used.

Iron Will
Job Trait
Adds a spell interruption down effect to Rampart. Extra Merits: Increase effect by 19 percent.

Guardian
Job Trait
Reduces enmity loss while using Sentinel. Extra Merits: Increase effect by 19 percent.

Lets take this one at a time; I will attempt to fully discuiss each of these traits/abilities. But first let me mention one thing, every ability that esential to the Paladin Job is gained on the journey to 75. This is the same for every other job as well. Not one of these abilities will make or break you in an experience point party or an HNM scene. This is the same for every job in the game. These abilities are just the icing on the cake, and in the case of Paladin are excellent additions to the job.

Fealty- This is actualy quite a nice ability. Infact, i believe it to be the single most under rated ability that Paladins have gained. This will grant you a High Resestance to enfeebles. Not only that, but this will last for a whole minute at the first updrade!

pros- It does not take long to become familiarise yourself with what to expect from certain enemies. I mean, there are certain things you just dont want to happen... ei Bind on Kirin, and Silence/defence downs and many other things like terrorise and pertification or even paralyse. Each and every one of these enfeebles has cause every single Paladin to die on multiple occasions. The only trick to this is knowing when to use it. But even this isnt all that tricky. There comes times when Sieryu is giving you more trouble than it should, MP is running low on your mages, and you just have a fealing that your hate is not as solid as you would like it to be. Or your kiting Kirin, and your at 50% health. At these times if your silenced/bound/paralysed it means a sure death... And that is the time to use this ability. Sure it might be wasted, But think of this as more of an insurance policy against disaster.

cons- The down side is that it has a 20 minute recast timer(it can be merited down to 15 min) and it does not generate all too much Hate.

Recomendations- Only sink one upgrade into this. Just having it is enough to help you out. The reduced timer simply isnt worth having as most fights dont even last 15 minutes. Not only that but it has been shown that further upgrades do not increase the effectiveness of Chivalry. So there is no reason to assume further upgrades will increas the effectiveness of Fealty either.

Chivalry- Now this is possibly the most famous of the merited abilities. It exchanges your TP for MP at a ratio of something like (1 TP) : (1.3-1.5MP) and starts out as a 20 minute timer (it can be merited down to 15 minute recast.

Pros- The effect of Chivalry is instantaneous. It is rumored that the use of Chivalry also adds a considerable amount of Hate. Not only that but it makes using a staff for individual fights pretty much useless now. All of these effects are excellent. But lets delve into the actual usefulness of this ability for a second.

This ability has a couple of strategic uses, The first and most obvious is that it allows you to refresh your MP supply. Remember, if you have no MP... you wont be keeping hate for much longer. But at BEST it has a 15 minute recast. So for 90% of your fights this will only be used once. For shorter fights You can actualy TP up, Blow all your MP in one glorious Hate spike and use this to get your MP back.

The second part of this ability is where its true power lies. Many Paladins are pissed off that they did not get a provoke like ability. Some say that having a Provoke like ability would severly over power the Paladin job. I would argue that this ability is 10X more potent than provoke, if used to make a massive spike of hate (at what turns out to be no loss of MP and being nearly invincible in the process due to CONSTANT Cure III and Cure IV spamage.)

This one ability alone will come to be veiwed as more important that even Dark Knights TP-Drain!

cons- well there are 3 cons to this ability.

1) when you use this ability you lose all of your TP, so no WS are available. This may be ok in an exp party... but more times than not, it wont.

2) If you dont know what your doing, you can spike hate so high that noone can get the enemy off of you; hate almost as high as invincible. Depending on the enemy this can be a bad thing actualy.

3) It will NOT free you from the need of Refresh.

Recomendations- Get it first. It will help with both survivability and Hate (depending on how you use it). However, you might not want to fully upgrade this. There is a hidden goodie that would be far more benifitial to fully merit. Just having this will be enough, especialy because more upgrades will not have a greater effect on the ability itself. Sure, you can merit it down to a 15 minute recast. But i would argue that a fight which will last 15 minutes.... will more than likely last more than 20 minutes. ei. Fafnir and Kirin will both last more than 20 minutes; while Faust and Seiryu will both last less than 15 minutes. So whats the point in the reduced timer, concidering there is no added effect.

Iron Will- Beleive it or not this ability is not as bad as it sounds. It adds a spell interuption rate down effect to Rampart.

pros- It is a PASSIVE JOB TRAIT, which means you dont have to activate Iron Will itself, rather it is tied to Rampart. It is used automaticaly when Rampart is in effect. Not only that but they key, most important part of this ability is that Rampart is AOE. Which means that the entire tank party/exp party gets this effect.

It remains to be seen how this will effect a mage who is paralysed be lets say Cerberus, but one thing is for damn sure, if you have a nin buddy who is having troubles getting that Utsinemi back up and running, this will help him as well. Something to note about this ability is that it helps 5 OTHER people out. Therefore has a chance to be more useful than anyone else gives it credit for.

Some have actualy told me that, "I won't merit this trait, because it will only last for 30 seconds." I say... your entire agruement is not right.

1) Ramparts recast is 5 minutes and lasts 30 seconds. Therefore, during the time it takes to use Chivalry 1 time (and have it recharge)... You got to use Rampart 4X!!! The math is simply rampartX4 = 2 minutes worth of effect.

2) You can merit Rampart down in recast time. Thereby further enhancing this duration.

cons- "How useful is -Spell interuption anyway? Lets face it, no mages wear the stuff with -spell interuption." I'm one of those lucky few Paladins that actualy experimented with things like Knightly earring and other -interuption items. I must say that it most definately has an effect on getting off a sloppy cure, and saving yourself the time it takes to recast it. And that was only with something like 6% interuption rate down.

Gaurdian- This ability reduces the rate at which hate decays!!! Huh!? Wait a minute... It took me about 3 days of thinking about this, in action, before i realised just how... BROKEN this ability actualy is. Please give me a chance to explain, you've been with me this far lol.

pros-

1) this is a PASSIVE TRAIT and also impoves as you merit it. (Something Fealty and Chivalry dont do)

2) Not only that but it is linked to Sentinel. This is perfect. Sentinel ONLY EFFECTS YOU it is not AoE. Your mages wont get this effect, and niether will the Nin sitting next to you ;) .

3) Being linked to Sentinel, you get to abuse this every 5 minutes. (can merit sentinal down to 3 minutes i believe) That's 4-6 uses per every Chivalry for a total of 2-3 minutes of reduced hate decay. O.o

4) Level 2 upgrade INCREASES this effect by 19% wow

Lets look at how this ability is used. Flash -> Provoke -> Cure III or Cure IV -> Sentinel (with Guardian). Now for 30 Seconds the hate you generated from this routine remains relatively constant. Then, after 30 seconds what happens? Stack on another Provoke-> Cure III or IV -> Flash. Did you actualy see what jsut happened? Did you just notice how BROKEN that shit is?

If you didn't Think about Hate... Think about how much Hate you just made in the first part. Then think about that much hate being relatively constant. Now think about that hate Spiking up even further upward with the second routine! Now your starting to get how AMAZING this ability is.

Ok, lets take this to an extreme and work Chivalry into thr mix. Lets chose something that will actualy damage you... like Seiryu. Flash -> Provoke -> Cure IV -> defender -> Cure IV -> Cure III -> Sentinal (with Guardian) -> Cure IV -> Chivalry (now you have full MP). NOT ONLY THAT, But you also have a HUGE amount of hate that remains static for 30 seconds!!! After that 30 seconds, you stack on another provoke, and another Cure IV and another Flash. Sweet lord!!

Fully merited and used correctly this is quite possibly the single most important thing we got. I mean any job can spike hate. But this just solidified Paladin as the masters of Hate.

cons- Lasts for 30 seconds, and has a 5 minute recast (unless sentinal is merited), so you must use this often and wisely... other wize you are not using it to its fullest and most glorious potential. I know you can all hold hate off a BLM casting a Flare or Freeze. But with this ability it is EXTREMELY possible to hold hate from a BLM that just Freeze -> Flare back to back.

Recomendations- This ability is more awe inspiring (in a hidden way) than all of the other abilities. I mean its not as flashy as lets say Chivalry. In fact, when most see you use sentinal they wont even know your using Guardian. Not only that but it gets better with merits!! I highly advise maxing this one out.

In short my recomendations are:

Fealty: 1 upgrade
Chivalry: 1 upgrade
Iron Will: 1 upgrade (some may prefer putting this upgare into Chivalry)
Guardian: 3 Upgrades (max this out)

SE gave us what is possibly the best SET of upgrades of any Job. Stop your complaining, because you are wrong. SE gave you a Horse, and you had a blind dentist check its teeth!

DD Paladin and Meat

2006-07-24T11:29:00.001-04:00

It wont take long, reading my blog, before you realise that i am trying to turn the Paladin job upside down to become a pretty decent DD. To this effect i increased my accuracy, attack, and strength. That much seams obvious. But its the interplay between how much you stack of each staticstic that will make or break your reputation as a DD. Its my hope that this post will help other Paladins to enjoy a damage output compareable to the average Warrior.

I am also trying to compile this information without putting merits into my sword skill. Undoubtedly it would be much easier with sword merits, but im hoping to shed some light on how it can be done with a Paladin who has only just reached level 73-75 and hasnt had the opertunity to get merits. Also, i would like to inform some Paladins on how the job performs without any offencive merits what so ever. Especialy if you decide to go for completely defencive combat skills.

One thing to note, however, is that using Ninja as a subjob will help you emensly. If geared properly for a fight, i can and have pulled hate off a warrior with just damage. Admitedly, this does not happen often, but it does happen. And if you decide to help out an utsi recast with a flash, or cure a member that is having trouble recasting Utsi... you will more than likely have hate. A ninja sub will help you to become the solution to the problem, rather than part of the problem. Since you will already have troubles getting invites, there is no need to hinder other peoples veiw of you. Please, become part of the solution, and not part of the problem.

Most merit parties now-a-days are burn type parties. In fact, it has become increasingly difficult to find members who would actualy join an experience point party. The problem here is that you will never get an invite to one. Well, you will never get an invite to one until you make freinds who do them regularly. Even if you already have friends that do these, and you manage to get into one, your performance in the party will determine if you actualy are welcome back.

One way to help you get more invites is to become knowledgeable about the main camps that parties usualy head out to for burn parties. I will discuiss these different camps in just a second, I will give you an idea of what to expect there as well.. The one most melee's enjoy the most would be the area just outside the Mamool Ja Staging Point. Another would be Caedeva Mire, and the last popular spot would be King Rampere's Tomb (even though this one is hardly ever used anymore due to thetravel time involved).

First let me discuss the Mamool Ja Staging point. In this area you will be fighting Sea Puks and Mamools (beastmen). You will find that the Sea Puks are quite easy to hit with one Minuet and about 30 Accuracy added through equipment. Not only that, but you will also do your highest damage Voporal blades to Puks. When fighting these you will find it helpful to add more attack and strength equipment to your arsenal. Do simple things like swap out the Life Belt for your Warwolf Belt, and take off the Woodmans Ring for a ruby ring. The Bigger pains of this zone, which yeild about 200-300% more exp than the puks are the Mamool's (Beastmen). These enemies are much different for a Paladin. First off let me state that these guys are much more difficult to actualy hit. Not only that but their Defence is also much higher. And as such you want no less than 40 Accuracy added through equipment. This Plus Minuet will help you hit almost all of the Beastmen in that area quite reliably. The only one that will give you difficulty, in actualy connecting, would be the Mamool Ja Lurkers. But to be fair even the true melee bitch about these. Attaining + 40 accuracy is difficult but not impossible. And it is highly advised for this zone. Any less and you will feal gimpy.

The next most popular spot is Ceadera Mire. This is located just outside the Alzouph Staging point (i believe). If you dont have the equipment necisary to attain +40 accuracy or more (you will need more) this is the place you will want to go. Things are so much more... squishier here. Almost everything you will be fighting flys. And as such, your swords will more than likely get a Damage multiplier greater than 1. (meaning free damage the is inherent to the sword vs. lets say an axe.) You can get by here with 20-24 accuracy added through equipment, and the rest in attack and strength increases. Even then you will notice that you will miss. So please take that accuracy range as a minimum required. The only pain in this area would be the Imp's. But even then, if your party is set up correctly, and you brought at least 2-3 stacks of echo drops, you and the melee will keep chains on them w/o weapon skills. This area is highly advised for you Paladins who are only just starting to look into a DD role.

Sorry, not going to say much about KRT, other than having a staff capped would be your best source of damage here.

Here are some General notes:

---With suishi i found that i hardly ever missed. At the time i would have about 24-30 accuracy added through equipment. And that was nice in terms of TP, and our main weapon skill, Voporal Blade. But the damage, from your normal hits, is lack luster. However, it will take alot of accuracy gear to make up for suishi on your vorporal blades. As missing even one hit will have a definate impact on your Voporal blades which will not be made up for with + STR equipment.

---With Attack food, i use the 3 hour food called Yellow Curry, you will notice that you do almost double the damage that you did on sushi. However your accuracy goes straight to shit. +30 Acc just wont cut it anymore, especialy on Mamools. Your going to need +45 accuracy on them, Minimum! I must say that i have about +45 accuracy (just equip dont count songs) and the hit rate i experience still allows me to voporal once per fight, even though i tend to miss a hit on the Voporal Blade (which hurts you WS output alot mind you).

So, i do not advise you to go anything but suishi unless you have built up your DD settup to a point where you can macro in about +45-50 accuracy (just counting equipment) when your fighting beastmen.

--- With attack food, I found that (per hit) i would do more damage than a Warrior, Monk, or Ninja. But that is not to say that i would out damage them. Monks and Ninjas attack much faster than we do. Monks, Ninja's, and Warrior's also weapon skill for about 2-2.5 times more damage than we do. (of course, i dont swap out equipment for weapon skills, i dont have the equipment for that just yet) Not only that but i am also fealing the hurt to my accuracy that eating attack food enherently brings to your character. So, a Warrior eating Sushi will still outdue a Paladin eating Attack food. I will reexamine this comment once i get my accuracy from equipment up past +50.

---The IDEAL party setup. Now that you have an idea of how much accuracy and attack you need, you still need to know about the ideal settup. Since you will more than likely be making your own burn parties due to a lack of invites (there are alot of crappy Paladins out there trying to DD and hurting your reputation) You WILL have to make your own parties. This is a list, in order of priority.

Bard - the burn party will not work without a bard. I have tried, and while yes you will get above chain 5, you wont get higher than lets say chain 20)

Healer - I prefer RDM for this role, as he/she can toss a refresh on me. And i can keep ample MP to flash the enemy off the bard, back up cure, and cure to pull hate if need be.

3 DD - Idealy you would want 3 warrior or 3 monk or any mix between the 2 jobs. But, sometimes thats not the case do to lack of people LFP. You can still get by with any job that has a ninja sub, and is not using a 2 handed weapon. well provided that person has at least an B+ to A- ranking in the weapon they are using.

On a side note: I have 5 merits stored for this update, hoping Pld gets Enrage or some other masive hate tool lol. XD

--A Quote of something that made me Chuckle

"Ever wonder what life, in Vana'Deil, would be like without mages? Everyone would Sub NIN because they would be afraid of taking damage. Noone would Skill Chain because there would be no blm to MB, instead they would just spam. .... Oh Wait.... "

DD Paladin and Meat

2006-07-24T11:29:00.000-04:00

Still Experimenting

2006-07-20T15:54:00.001-04:00

I have given a lot of thought to meriting Paladin over the last week or so. My reward for this has been capped exp and shield to its 3rd merit upgrade. Thats +2 levels per upgrade added onto the cap of the skill XD. A grand total of +6 Shield levels gained on Paladin without the need of gear! Now thats cool shit! XD I can realy get used to that.

In addition to reaching level 3 shield modification i am only 20,000 experience points from a maximum merited shield skill!

While reaching this point i have made a couple additions to my DD skill setup. I Bought myself a Woodsman Ring and I bought back my Life belt. I gained a total of +15 accuracy with that. And my total Accuracy bonus from equipment is +39. My only issue with this is that i am sacrificing about 9 strength from adding accuracy in these slots. As such i switched to Attack food (Yellow Curry). Just to see how much of a difference it would make to my damage output.

The plan is simple. In places like the mire, where i didnt even need sushi to hit reliably i would add some STR in to my setup. But in places like mamool, i would add more accuracy into my setup.

I had planned to start off my little experiment in Mamool Ja. But i was stupid and forgot my attack food. I guess it was sushi for me, and a failed oppertunity to perform my experiment.

Later that night i recieved an invite from Ringthree, it seems that his friends went out to kill some dragons in Ifrits Cauldron and lost some exp. The ranges of the party members went from 62-75 lol! But i must say we were still able to get chain 10 in the Mire. And it was a prime time for me to gather some numbers so that i could see how i changed with Attack food (Yellow Curry).

I took off the +14 additional accuracy that i had just bought, in favor of the +9 strength that i was missing out on. This gave me +25 Accuracy from equipment total. My results were actualy quite nice. My regular damage per hit ranged from 80-135 damage per hit (dual company swords) with the occasional 185 Critical hit (thats like a 70-80% increase in damage per regular hit!). My Voporal blades Disapointed me though, they actualy did less damage than when i was using sushi. The damage from them swung quite irraticaly, i would do 200 damage on one voporal then turn around and do 780 damage on the next one. Now i dont have a windower, so i cant cun a parser on myself to see how much i was missing. The best i can give is a geustimate. I did notice a drop in how often i connected with the enemy though. Especialy on my vorporal blades. I think that i will add back in the Woodsman ring during my next test in the Mire, but keep the Warwolf belt on, when i try this again.

I am kind of sore that i was so stupid and forgot my food for mamool ja. Though i am told that i was holding my own by the warrior there (in /tell). Though for some reason we just couldnt break chain 15... Eventualy we would have to pull a lurker and that would kill the chain every single time. I get the fealing that the melee didnt realy care though. So i didnt make much of a deal out of it at all. Once again my MP pool came to good use. I helped out the bard when he returned with a flash and maybey a cure. I helped the RDM with a few cures when he was at 50% MP and we had no down time due to resting MP. We just werent pulling fast enough i guess. I have gone well beyond chain 20 at this area. But we just couldnt do it this time. Oh well. We had fun, and thats what counts.

BTW, nothing feels better than tossing a cover on a WAR/NIN when his shaddows are down and your flash was just used to get the pull off the Bard. Thats just 2 of many ways to show your Melee freinds that you are indeed an asset to any burn XD.

Later the next day, last night, i logged on to find that Hulkk was ready to give me a Pearl to BBQPlatinum. This made me so happy! You readers have no idea! I made my way to him, post haste, to get my pearl. XD

I guess i am on a "2 week trial period" where as long as i am not an ass/don't suck. I get to stay lol. I cant get any items during this time, but i CAN start to build points up. And i can still get the items that noone else wants, like aegisglammer (SP?). Its only "unwanted" because thier PLD's already have it lol.

The point system seems fair enough, but more important i actualy laughed in the linkshell. That is what its all about. But i had to log off for a while, as my GF was over and i wanted to spend time with her.

Later that night i logged back on to find my new LS at Behemoth, awaiting the spawn. I geared up as PLD/WAR and made my way on over. Sure enough, after a bit of waiting KB spawned!!! It poped too far away for me, and due to the crowd of people it poped on my screen claimed. In LS chat i hear I Got IT!!!

hahaha niiice! my first night in BBQ and we claim/slaughtered King Behemoth. Now it doesnt get much better than that right there. It didnt drop any martial gear. From what i hear it was pretty average drops realy. But no matter, i finaly got to see KB. Not only that but i got to see how KB is actualy killed. Thats the bonus.

Of course we will have to see how this Magic resistance update does to the current strategies on these kited fights. Either way, it was good to see the kite path. I mean if your going to kite something... you better know where to run to.

As for my mission for a Ocean Sash. Not one has sold yet. And i know that there are about 10 of them floating around. during the course of the week 7 of them have been returned to the sender. Which is a sign to me that it still has a while before the price stops crashing on it. So rather than save save save, then throw the monre away to depresiation... ill just wait on it XD.

All in all i had a fun time. Hope you do as well!

Its was fun :/

2006-07-17T15:07:00.000-04:00

Well, i log onto FFXI friday night to find noone in the link shell. Not one person talking at all. I gave my usual "Hi guys!" and heard a damned echo bouncing off its perverbial walls.

Then the LSmes arrives on my screen... FX is dead.

Hmmm, well this is not the way i wanted to log on lol. Definately not what i expected. This interests me in a few ways actualy. Number one i have no endgame LS anymore. That means no more kings, no more sky, no more CoP missions, no more...anything!

I decided to head off and use a couple of my tags for assault while i figured out what had happened. Obviously, noone wanted to talk about it. And therefore took a while to figure out exactly what happened.

Nearest i could come to actualy figuring all of what happened out was that Tenbears, still carrying(sp?) a grudge over what happened during the last Nidhog, was drunk. He got into an arguement with Eraphie, why... i dont know, and ended up kicking her out of the LS. And then began to curse at Anjia, his somewhat of an in LS gf.

Not long after this, he tried to join LB. He was turned down. And then deleted his character.

So like i said FX, one of the funnest places i have been in yet, has died. It is no more. Both Eraphie and Anjia have takin it apon themselves to try and rebuild new LS's. Which is interesting. As they are both trying to make their own linkshells. And thus are on a recruiting blitz for FX's old members.

FX had barely enough members as it was. I mean not all members show up to events. and we had just enough total members so that we could assymble some sort of working scenario. But if you split those members up... you simply wont have the members for that.

I cant realy say anything bad about Anjia or Eraphie. They both COULD have what it takes to lead a sky LS. Both have their good and bad points to their leadership style. But i dont think i am going to lend my sheild to their cause just yet.

To be honest, i am kind of enjoying not having a linkshell at the moment. It allows me a lot more... freedom. If i want to EXP, i EXP. If i want to assault, ill grab a couple people and assault. Missions are a bit more difficult to assymble but its not impossible. And i get to do all of this without fealing obligated to be at a certain sky/hnm event.

The freedom it quite nice. And the clear chat window is another plus. I get to do what i want when i want to!

The other day i went out to actualy EXP. This was fun stuff, i got into my/nin sub. Swapped my equipment. And quickly assymbled a burn party. I havent been able to exp for about 3 weeks now as I have been so occupied with linkshell events.

I must say that PLD/NIN in a burn party is very fun. I filled my role quite nicely, flashing off the puller, Support healing, and DD. I was averaging 55-70 per hit (dual wielding company swords) and about 450-825 in my voporals. Which isnt spectacular, but quite impresive. This was in the Mire. and we were averaging about 15k per hour in the exp department. And i reached new all time high of a Chain 42!!! We wouldve gotten higher too, but the whm agroed an elemental. and that killed our chain ; ;

My offencive performance slacked a bit when we moved towards the mamool staging point camps. I believe i need a bit more accuracy for this camp than i do for the mire. Which is actualy a valuable lesson for me. Since i could see my offencive numbers dropping i began to focus on helping the party in ways that the parser cant count. And as soon as i did we were back to getting chain 27's before the mobs would run out. Again, we wouldve gotten higher. But that zone is always heavily camped, and the mobs ran out for just long enough to lose chain.

So in short i made about 47k exp that day, well in about 5 hours. That includes heading back to Al Zahibi to refresh supplies, Sanction, AND REMAKE the party cause people had to go (just whm and i could stay lol). I was thoughouly impresed.

AND I GOT MY FIRST MERIT!!! Well to be precise, i got my first 4 merits ;) And as soon as i got back to Al Zahibi I increased my Shield Skill Level Modification to level 2! With each Shield skill modification i attain my Shield skill increases by 2 whole levels. Once maxed out, it will be +8 shield skill. Hell i occupy whole equipment slots for less sheild skill than that! I think ill max it out and see which peice of gear i can let go of. I am thinking ill echange one equipment slot (which is occupied with a +sheild skill item) for something else. Now that was fun XD. I now have a 280/276 shield skill w/o and gear on what-so-ever. Not only that but i capped out my exp again.

I figure it will run me about 47k more limit points to max out my sheild skill modification. Which isnt bad at all. Hell, if i can get a burn into the Mire thats one night of EXP (hopefully).

When i was in FX this wouldve taken me forever to do. I dont get to play as often as the kiddies on summer vacation. And the kings are right smack dab in the middle of my play time at the moment.

I realise i have spent much of thist post stating how nice it is to have some freedom in the game again. But i also realise that i dont want to be forgoten as a quality Paladin. So, I put my application into BBQplatinum. I have so many freinds there that i cant even name them all. I am virtualy a shoe in. Especialy since i wont be fighting for crimson cuisess with the other PLD. Combine that with BBQ running low on their supply of Paladin's and the fact that most of thier Paladins are already pimped out... now is a great time for me to toss my hat into the ring.

Hey, at least i dont have to worry about figuring out how to say good bye to FX ;) Though i will miss it there. It was great fun, right up and until the end. (Truth be told, i kind of knew Kings would destroy the LS after the second day)

Hey guys, Listen. If your a Paladin Main (and not a greedy asshole with drops/your time) you will still hear alot of "PLD sucks" remarks. BUT, you will always have a LS that wants you. A case in point i have 3 LS's that want me to join them at the moment. If PLD truely sucks... Answer why tha happens XD.

Cya round Vana'Diel!

Nidhog Is Ours!! Or is He?

2006-07-14T12:20:00.000-04:00

well, It hasnt been a good couple of days.

On wednsday, we had Kings. I must say that camping kings isnt all that bad for me. I know alot of people around Vana'Diel. And its very easy for me to strike up a conversation with people from every linkshell even Resurection, the resident asshole Sky/HNM linkshell of the odin server. You will see why they have this reputation when i get to Thursday evening. Dont worry, it will all be detailed.

But, we only claimed aspi on wednsday. Which is cool i guess, i mean it was another 2 adaman ores for the LS coffer. Not the best but hey we only sent like 3 people up to it. Mainly for the ToD.

After that, Octa asked me if i was interested in assymbling a bcnm 60 run. And i didnt have a problem with that, well other than the fact that it would cause me to be up 1-2 hours past my bed time.

And it realy wasnt all that hard to do, Assymble the party. I have beaten this Many times before, infact i was undefeated. So we all head up to Dismemberment Brigade. And after going through the strategy and tactics of the battle. We entered.

Lets just say that i am no longer undefeated on this BCNM. I know that the entire thing rests on the sleepers shoulders. About 80% of the difficulty of this match is making sure sleep sticks. If it doesnt your all done. Needless to say... it didnt stick. Our Bard couldnt keep the enemies asleep for more than 30 seconds. Which is an issue. Not to mention the fact that noone silenced the Black Mage like i had asked. It was a disaster.

The second time in we did much better. We got through the black mage, and our MP was nearly at 100%, dispite not having refresh. Which i must admit, i was much happier. We moved on to the dark knight (it was my call to move to him, as he can do some good damage but is also quicker to kill than most are). I figured that getting another big hitter of of the Bard would only help him survive long enough to get sleep off again. That and i had xichi (who came as Blue) to aid him in sleeping enemies.

But where it all unraveled is that the whm blew her MP on the bard. I mean all of it. I knew i wasnt that far behind if i didnt take action. so, i turned around and let hate slip to the MNK/nin in party. well i tried to anyway. I also asked (before the fight started) our thf/nin to SATA the Monk so that he could aid me in tanking and MP usage. Aparantly he didnt hear me. Oh well. Then the mobs woke up again and took Xichi out of the equation. I knew it was all done at this point due to the performance of the Bard on the battle before. Sure enough it was another loss.

I am now 36/38 on Dismemberment brigade. And i desided to call it off and reschedule before people lost too many seals. I am just glad that only me seals and the Brads seals were used up.

Lets Fast foward to Thursday night, at Fafnir. I log on, got out of work late, to find that fafnirs window was open. I immidiately made my way up. During my travels, i noticed something very very disturbing in the link shell. Both Tenbears and Eraphie were all kinds of pissed off. Mainly because they were fighting to get people to actualy leave an exp party/merit/assault/farming/whatever they were doing and join us at Fafnir.

Now you must under stant there has been 5 pops since the last Nidhogg... this was the 5th or 6th pop i am not sure. There is a rather good chance that he was going to pop today. If you expect LS members to show up to a king you want to kill, show up to the ones they want to kill. Its that easy. Its a fundamental mechanism to ensuring turnout in these fights. Perhaps it is the only mechanism besides attendance being a deciding factor in the drops.

Also, this is not a social LS. It has never been a social LS. Some have made it there social LS as well, but that was there decision not the leaders. This is an endgame linkshell. The leaders have made no mistake about its identity, it has ALWAYS been a HNM/SKY linkshell. If you are a member it means that you are interested in doing these types of activities. There is no, sorry im meriting at the moment. There is no, sorry im farming at the moment. The only possible excuse to not showing to events, assuming you are logged on, is that you are leveling something vital to your performance in the LS. ei, leveling white mage as a sub for your melee job. This should not be an issue what so ever. Yet it is an issue.

i see no confusion on the matter.

But Tenbears logged off, to cool down, because of it. And eraphie went afk, to cool down. One member got Kicked. And there still wasnt an alliance formed with the first window aproaching.

Never the less i still made my way up. And before long i was there. I went afk, for a cigarette and to charge my batteries. For some reason getting members for a party is extremely exhausting for me lately. And i was going to have to help build an alliance.

By the time i returned i found that the tank party was full, -minus a brd and a smn. We needed some more red mages and bards to polish out the rest of the alliance... wonderful. Now if they needed some mellee, some tanks, even blms and smns, i would be able to work some magic. Hell, BRD and RDM.... the rarest animals on FFXI. Everyone seems to have it, but noone likes to admit it due to linkshells always wanting that job.

Now, Tenbears comes back and finds us a couple bards to polish out the alliance. And we wait for the pop timers to role around.

2 hours later Nidhog pops, and we were more than ready! AND we got claim!! This is the very first nidhogg that our LS has claimed. And we have only beein inthe HNM scene for a little more than a week. Not bad at all XD.

But then the drama ensues(sp?)... Before we could get Nidhogg under control Members from Resurection starting causing issues. Their Paladins Cure IVed our Paladins and slapped on invincible. A clear attempt to steal the claim. They proceded to Kite nidhogg around with our linkshell getting it back. Nidhogg would run back and forth between the two but we Kept our Nidhogg and got it to a nice spot.

I must say that we were doing very well, much better than 90% of the other link shells on their first try. But Resurection would continue to hassle us throughout the fight. Cure IV after Cure IV was laced into every party member that didnt have /blockaid on or were just invited into the alliance. I am almost positive that most of our members had /blockaid on to stop this from happening. But then we got hit hard, and had to sleep Nidhogg for the 3rd or 4th time to get fresh members into the alliance.

Nidhogg was at @25% at this time.

This is when thing went all Screwed up. I invincibled just to releive the tensions in the Alliance and to buy plenty of time for our mages to get a sleep to land. We got our fresh members into the alliance and began to get to work again.

Right at this point Nidhogg Spike Flailed. We were toast not long after.

Were we MPKed or did we Screw up? Thats what the question becomes. We have had training on 2 Fafnirs before this. And we beat both without spike flail occuring. And we were doing quite well, getting Nidhogg to 20-25%. No issues (internal ones) were seen.

I was lead to believe that one of our mages Cure II, and grabbed hate but wasnt on a foot. And that we were the ones that caused the spike flail. Mind you, as a 75 Paladin (and with another 75 paladin in the party) i absolutely refuse to believe that i lost hate to a cure II. I mean thats pretty much impossible. Especialy when i Invincibled just before the sleep.

The only thing that i can think of would be that Resurection was Cure IVing again. But this time they were targeting the members who had just been invited to the Alliance. I mean all they need is one person to cure. Just one. And if they try, in theory they Could steal it and cause a whipe.

Upon further investigation i found that Sinya and Azeral were behind nidhogg doing just that. Or at least attempting to.

Personaly, i refuse to blame another LS for something that very well couldve been our fault. I mean i couldve lost hate to that Cure II... MAYBEY but only if that mage was DAMN close to the hate line.

After our Whipe, LimitBreak (another endgame shell) got the claim. I am just happy that Resurection didnt get it. These guys definately play dirty. Hell before they roled in to town, people would actualy /random to see who got the claim. That way other people could go do other things. But not anymore. They have broken that pact on more than one occasion.

Well after having people make fun of us, especialy our mages that would cast fire spells on a dragon O.o They were nice enough to raise our alliance. Most people about 95% of us said thankyou. Of course there is always the small minority that simply MUST say something in /say mode that would make the entire LS look like a bunch of rude assholes. Sigh, why cant people just say thankyou, and let it be left at that.

After this experience, i went and performed 2 assaults. I should be rather close to 50% of the way to teir 2 assaults XD. Of course i have the points in places that i simply dont need points in... No matter, they will add more rewards to assault, im sure of that. And when they do ill have some points in those zones.

And i am currently still saving for my Ocean Belt. I have 3 mill and the price has crashed from 5 mill to 3.9 mill. With 5 more floating around still up for sale. XD wish me luck.

Well, thats what has happened to me on the last two days. Hell, sometimes things just dont work out the way you planned.

HNM a Priority?

2006-07-12T08:52:00.000-04:00

So, i have a number of things on my plate atm. It might be easier just to make a list.

1) Ocean Sash
2) Tultary
3) HNM
4) SKY
5) Try to exp on Paladin (refresh lost exp)
6) CoP Static (Finaly full of quality people; starting soon)
7) Farm for gill

So, what did i do during the last 2 days? Well in short, nothing on this list hehehe. I did Camp HNM though. I was able to attend two Fafnir pops and one Adamantoise pop. Sadly all we claimed in the last two days was the Adamantoise. Actualy, the LS got 2 Adamantoise.

I supose this is fair though, i mean we did get two of the four Fafnirs since the last Nidhogg. And with Five or Six major HNM shells on our server... thats still more than average. So we can keep our heads high in that aspect.

I did do another assault versus undead the other night. Mainly in an attempt to get SOME of the exp lost during hnm/sky back. But my computer disconnected not long before the end of it... by the time i got back i was only able to make something like 550 exp back. Well at least its something.

Then, Xichi invited me to assault! I must say that i like assault. I have only been on one mission, but we did that one 3 times. And I made myself 3500 assault points XD. Sure its enough to buy something, but nothing very much better than i already have. There is a 3000 point ring in the vendor we went to. It has +3 STR +3 DEX. That is probably the only decent item in the Ilrusi vendor for me. And even then its only for DD stuff. And not a priority to me.

But the Ilrusi mission was fun. It goes by the name of Golden (something i forget the second part of the title). And the main goal of it is to locate the chest with an item in it, and get to the exit, before time runs out. It was realy fun! We had Xichi check out the chests to see if they were mimics. If it was a mimic, rather than fighting, we put Carbuncle on it and ran to the next chest lol. All in all it took about 10 minutes per run. 3 runs total.

Assault is quite intreguing to me actualy. When im bored i think i will paruse the vendors to see what they offer. There might be something decent for me somewhere. Well, i dont think they would forget to put items in for tank jobs to use. Everyone needs a tank, so there HAS to be something there.

On a side note, It seems that the Aegishead thingy is much rarer of a drop from Fafnir than i had previously imagined. But i still have my eyes on it. As it offeres both more HP and more emnity than my Adaman Head peice. It will be a definate improvement. That in combination with M.Head (once i get it) and Optical Hat ill be pretty much set no matter what face!

The only problem would be to kick enough ass until i get it.

Lets see what else happened... Oh yeah! i finaly found a 6th member for my CoP static. It is made up entirely of FXUnlimited members. And i must say, i am quite impressed with the versatility of the group as a whole. We have:

Sid : NIN WAR THF
Forty: THF BLM MNK
Willriker: PLD
Lithowa: WHM
Vladamir: THF, BLM(50 now and still working hard on it)
Slickdarula: RDM BRD SMN BLM DRK

That means we will have a total of 3 blm for burning through things we dont like. AND have the capability to Melee just about anything we encounter to oblivion quite easily. The ONLY thing that might hold my back would be Slickdarula. As she is on the Promivion Vashel BCNM fight. I know that 3:5 members dont mind doing that fight again to bring this member up to speed. 2:5 werent on at the time that i "recruited" her. I am currently awaiting their replies. If all is set, and they reply as so that i can have time to send out messages to all members, i plan on actualy finishing the 5.1 fight for slickdarula (with the static) on Sunday. Hopefully.

Then we can start on CoP 5.3 on Monday. So far due to availabilities it seems that the static will be able to play longer on Mondays. Ill have to keep this in mind so we can finish the longer missions on that day.

But I went through the work of assymbling the League now i am actualy starting to get my self geeked up about leading a party through CoP again. Believe me, its incredibly draining. Especialy, when you dont know the way. People look to you for answers... and frankly your just guessing. I got whiped out on doing that getting up to this point last time. But after a break from CoP i think im getting myself ready for it yet again.

FXUnlimited and Fafnir!

2006-07-10T11:46:00.000-04:00

I must say, that i like that Eraphie has come into the LS. Since she came in we have been doing HNM like feinds! And franly, to get the items you want from these things this is what you must do.

Not only has she motivated the LS into doing these but she has also been emerging as a leader within the LS. Mainly because she has been succesful at it. This is quite probably the best thing to happen to our LS. I am not talking about HNM's in general, rather i am talking about having another person emerge in a leadership position. One person, Tenbears, cannot take charge of this 24/7. They always get burned out. And when they do... everything falls apart. I must say that i hope Tenbears continues to let her run the HNM sceen her way. And not interject his opinion into the matter. Not unless he wants to run HNM as well as the general LS activities such as sky, and pop NM.

Although, Eraphie is quite abrasive. She speeks in very short sentences. This makes certain things she says... seem like an order rather than kind advice or just her opinion. That is probably the only problem i see. Some senior members dont like her because of this. But my take on it is that if it was not for Eraphie we would not be doing kings... period. And the LS would become a rather stagnant Sky only LS once more.

FuriousX, is a much more exciting place to be now. And members that felt like they HAD to move onto HNM, because sky offered nothing for them anymore, are returning to the LS. I find this enjoyable as well.

We have been in the HNM sceen for about 3-4 legitimate days now. And we already have two Fafnirs under our belt (back to back). Which is actualy quite impresive. I mean its not every day that a sky LS turns toward HNM and claims two of the same thing in a row, AND wins. Infact, that is almost unheard of.

That being said, I had my very first encounter with Fafnir the other night. And i would love to share it with you, as i believe the fight to be as fun as Faust.

The night started with FuriousX at Kirin. Once at Kirin, we changed the name of our link pearl to FXUnlimited, FU for short ;). We did this because we had alot of members that were members of other HNM LS's. And we dont want them to come in and steal the times that we worked for. Its actualy pretty standard practice. We did this and noticed that we only had like 20 members show up for Kirin, of which we had 0 SMN 1 MNK 1 WHM... Far from our ideal settup. And the time that wouldve been wasted sitting around waiting for people to meander up wouldve made us late for Fafnir.

So rather than risk blowing the items, we opted to just call kirin and head to Fafnir instead.

After scouting the other Paladins, i noticed that this time they were all in Sword & Shield settups, with a minor empasis on HP. I tell you its a good thing i was a boy scout, as i brought my pure HP settup and my S&S settup. I simply swapped out about 60 HP for some Sheild equipment. and i was ready to go.

And i waited. Wouldnt you know it Fafnir wouldnt spawn until its very last spawn time... I hate it when that happens lol.

Our LS had 35 people there, it was actualy a great turn out. Every major HNM linkshell was there as well. I especialy liked that. There was a good 90 people in the area. That meant that over 1/3rd of the people were FXUnlimited. XD But it also meant that i wouldnt be able to see half the people there... I guess the CPU cant handle that much.

When Fafnir Poped i simply didnt know, and Tenbears DCed JUST before it popped. Hehe he loged back on to see us stopping on fafnir. The only way i knew was that Forty was spamming his Chiblast macro on it. But even then it didnt spawn on my screen until forty was dead. Fafnir had another member for lunch before i could provoke and get things under control.

And man what a fight! All told it took 58 minutes and change to kill him. Yes we were that close to making him rage, hehe. But we still did it. and i must tell you i love sheild on Fafnir. I was able to take an attack for 200-300 and drop it down to 65 damage. Now that is nice shit. Even though i did die 2 times, i did have the majority of hate time. I love that. The only one to REALY pull hate off me would be Seraphpdh. Luckily he was nice enough to let everyone know he was doing it.

BTW i know you read this, you just wait till i have aegisglamer (sp) then i want to see you do that again :P.

We had to sleep Fafnir 2X during the fight. The first time was cause i died, and Zipinferno (our second PLD died as well.) I dont know what happened to him, but i got Terrorized at 50% health, and went down not long after. The second time i died was when we tried to sleep it again. The mages had no MP and everyone was in the red/yellow.

On the bright side i let loose a 839 damage Spirits Within durring the course of the fight. LOL, Fafnir did not like that one bit. Hell i even had to 2 hour just to survive the rucous he unleashed on me. Not long after dishing out some pain and just before i 2 houred i was at 8/1800 HP. XD

Now, that was almost too fun. And quite possibly the single best 2 hour usage i ever had. within 30 seconds i was back to 100% HP and ready to rock.

I know this bastard would hit me for 65-120 blocked with sheild and 200-300 without block. I wonder how much damage other Paladins/Jobs take.

I highly advise this fight, its truely fun. As for our drops we got an E Hands, a beard, and something silly. And a ton of experience. Our kill time will only get better, that much is certain. After all it cant get much worse than 58 minutes. However, i am rather proud of my LS and my performance. I mean, i was able to take 65-325 damage in a fight that lasted a whole hour and only died 2X. Once we some more experience, im sure well do it in 30 minutes. In that case i bet i wont die once, as everyone will get better at their roles.

This fight was messy though. But we will only get better. That much i am sure of. One thing is for sure, we need to figure out how to keep up the pace that we killed off the last 14% of Fafnir throughout the entire fight. Once we can do that, we will have our 30 minute kill ;)

What an Actual End Game Day is Like

2006-07-07T12:00:00.000-04:00

I awoke, In my mog house (Whitegate) to find a Letter nailed to my door with a dagger.

"You're late for Sky, AGAIN!!! Get your sorry ass up, and make your way to sky!
P.S. Return my dagger.

Someone you probably don't know"

Well, shit. I had better get my ass in gear. I like sky, but I have been late to many of the sky events lately. I should head directly to sky! No, I'm going to check my AH status first. hehehe And boy am i glad i did; three items actualy sold! Not realy big ticket items, but they sold! One of them being an NQ item i had painstakenly crafted the previous day, my Custom M boots, and a peice of HQ Chain mail i had also made. I was going to cheer, but all i said was, "I'll be at sky heading up now!"

I refreshed the auction house with a couple more NQ's and headed straight to my favorite warp Taru. After waiting, and waiting i realised something funny. He wasnt there.... he mustve been on vacation or something. "Stupid fun loving taru... Always on Vacation when i need him most." I said.

A split second later i was told that he had in fact been captured by the trolls! And he was probably, stashed in a cage awaiting a spit to be shoved in a very wrong place... Luckily, a band of adventurers were already on their way to rescue the poor bastard.

So i headed straight to his older brother in White Gate. Apparently, noone had told him that his brother had been captured yet... I sure as hell wasnt about to tell him though. He is far too... well, he's an ass! He hasnt talked to me ever since i started going to his little brother for a teleport. He took it personal, and cut off all ties with me. Stupid spiteful Tarus... They got minds like Marid's... They never forget.

This little prick just wouldn't give give me a teleport! Not without paying him first. So, much for being good freinds, i guess. What i found funny was that he didnt even ask about how his brother was. Oh well.

After a teleport, i was in good old jueno. And grabbed a chocobo to run to sky. Along the way i ran into Sgtjoe. A good freind of mine in FuriousX. And we had a small conversation on our way to the Sanctuary Zoneline.

//[Sgtjoe] /wave [Willriker]

//[Willriker] /wave

//[Sgtjoe] Lazy

//[Sgtjoe] Wave to ME

//[Willriker] Sorry, its been one of those days...

//[Stgjoe] Yeah, i hear you...

//[Stgjoe] You know im a 75 Nin?

//[Willriker] Of course, why do you ask?

//[Stgjoe] Well i never seem to play it, Everyone wants me as War. I am thinking that noone knows i am also a pretty good Ninja as well.

//[Willriker] War?! I thought you were a MNK

//[Sgtjoe] um no... /sigh

//[Willriker] sorry i always too took you for a monk kind of guy.

//[Sgtjoe] ...I'm not a monk

//[Willriker] i know LOL, i just couldnt resist the Pot Shot XD

//[Sgtjoe] {Bastard Sword}

Hehe, What? Not every joke can be ROFL, LMAO hilarious.

Not long after that i found myself in Ro'Meave. As per usualy i trained every damn thing in the zone to the Hall of gods. I love doing that. Thf need to flee, Ninja need to shadow, but i just run up, and let things "Try" to pound on me till i get there. Its one of the highlights of the entire trip to me. Just never seems to get old. Once i finaly get to sky, an interesting conversation starts in my linkshell.

//[Eraphie] Hi guys!

//[Linkshell] Hello new person

//[Eraphie] Tenbears has invited me into this linkshell to start HNM. You know Taimat, Kings, Jormungand and what not.

//[Willriker] O.o

//[Eraphie] Toefu, while you are waiting for a party invite, can you head to Behemoths Dominion and get his Time of Death please.

Wow, this chick wastes no time at all starting this stuff up lol. Thank god for that. We needed someone to come in and take charge of HNM. I mean Tenbears cant command EVERY detail. And I must say, so far i am impressed with Eraphie, she knows alot about the HNM scene. And we can become quite effective with the quality, new, but quality member base that we have with someone as knowlegible as Eraphie at the helm.

Never the less, I make my way to the rest of my linkshell, who were camping Ro'meave water. And despite my hike, i was there for 5 minutes before it dropped. niiice. Now we were on to Ulli... Ulli, i hate Ulli but we do need it to make a full set.

//[Willriker] Hey Tenbears, what do we need for 2 whole sets?

//[Tenbears] Worry about the first set first man.

//[Willriker] ... Hey Tenbears, what do we need for 2 whole sets?

//[Tenbears] UlliX2, Zip, SC, Faust, and MG

//[Willriker] thankyou

Interesting, We promptly dispatched a scout to Faust, a Scout to Zip, and a scout to MG. After an hour of camping Ulli, MG poped.

//[Scout] Quickly! Get to MG!

//[Tenbears] gather for escape now!

The rush began! Some people got lost, as per usual. And about 4 or 5 of us made it there to see another LS preparing to lauch an assault on MG (who has a 4 hour pop). We all knew what must be done. Death is a secondary concern when it comes to claiming, it is just the way it is. Our BLM began to rest, while Stuntmandan a Ninja and i rushed it for a claim.

Literaly, we warped in saw the other LS and immidiately went into action with 4 or 5 members, Yellow HP, and no MP. Suicide, Maybey but remember were good and back up was not far behind! Stuntmandan died, BUT he got the claim, and it was now time to kill the slaves while the nin tanked. I see another 3 members arrive, 2 Ninja and a Whit Mage. niiice.

The first Ninja goes down like a rock (Black mage did not have MP for thungaga) and another NIN Provoked MG and our last nin tried to get some of the slaves. Both went down FAST but the thundaga finaly went off, and the slaves were dead. Now came time to kill MG. and another Ninja teleported in to tank it, only to go down as well after the second slave poped. What was i doing during all of this? Pulling slaves and blowing my MP on the NIN's.

Current status, HP 57% MP 23% And forgot Food/earth staff at moghouse

What do i do? Rest? No! I provoke MG!!

//[Willriker] i gonna need cures

//30 seconds later

//[Willriker] im going to need cures!

Then they started arriveing. There is nothing like a bomb of cures bringing me from 98 HP back up to 1600 HP in a split second to renew your confidance. XD From then on out i was the main tank on MG. No ninja could think about taking hate off of me. I got hate like a vice on purpose. Hell, last thing i want is a mage dieng cause he let lose a cure IV at the start. Now that i had the tanking position, it was time to bring the ruccous on MG. I love seing the Ninjas all die, and a Paladin stepping up to take control, saving the day.

//[Genius] Faust is UP

//[Tenbears] Finish it Fast!

Once i finaly got MG under control, it was all over for him. Now we raised and gathered for another sprint to Faust. After a rather un eventful trip there i realised that i forgot my earth staff at my moghouse, and being the only paladin around that ment that i had to borrow one from a mage. I was in the trading menu when i saw

//Mage casts Stun on Faust.

O.o he was here!? I accept the earth staff, engage through a macro, and voke all within 2 seconds. And had control of it in another 2 seconds. Not one death, due to myself trying to get an earth staff. So it all worked out.

I love the Faust fight. He literaly tosses you around like a rag doll, and your job is to keep it under control! Its quite possibly the funnest fight in the game for me, mainly because of that fact. I mean every 2 seconds there is an AoE move where he sends you flying around the room. Your only hope is to get your back to the wall. On top of that, you need to keep hate and stay alive. Its a realy fun fight, one that i hope all Paladin get to do, at least once or twice.

After Faust was done we teled into Ulli spawn room. To find that it still had not popped yet. Wonderful! I scan the room to find Killasweet, the Paladin that beat me to Koenig Head last time it dropped, in another linkshell camping Ulli against us... Now it doesnt bother me that he beat me to Koenig Head all that much, even though it was in an immature and underhanded fashion. However, it does bother me that he beat me to it, and 2 weeks later is in another LS camping against me...

I brought it up, and needless to say he is not in FuriousX anymore. We have a strict one sky LS policy. Now that we are entering the HNM scene we have adopted a one HNM LS policy as well. No matter, he isnt all that good of a Paladin anyway. And he is one of those people that never shows up to ANYTHING unless there is something in it for himself... So it wasnt a big loss to the LS as a whole.

Ulli Popped behind me, as per usual. By the time i turned around it was already claimed... which sucks because i had seen Professional casting stun on Ulli... the provoke must have gotten off JUST before the spell resolved... No matter, the leader of the LS has made it known that there will be gods never the less. We just wont do bakkyo. I am thinking it will be a good test to see how many Ninjas show up since they wont have a shot at a Haidet.

//[Eraphie] Nidhog is about to pop.

//[Willriker] O.o sweet lord!

//[Tenbears] how long do we have?

//[Eraphie] about 20 minutes before his spawn window opens

//[Tenbears] ok, we wont be able to get there/organise before then so lets pop Olla then i want everyone at Nidhog

//[Linkshell] /cheer

Nice! talk about an action packed night! I got to save the day at MG, tank Faust, and possibly tank Nidhogg!! (Nidhogg drops Koenig Body by the way)

So, we were off to Olla. when we get a rather unexpected plea on the LS

//[Seraphpdh] Charbdylis!

//[Donavan] Charbdylis!

// it seems they took the night to pop charby, and now they need help XD

//[Tenbears] is it claimed?

//[Seraphpdh] No! come down hurry!

//[Donavan] Hurry!

In a flash Tenbears grabbed a bard and 2-3 others and headed to Charbdylis. And we were left to get Olla and then head to nidhogg.

Olla was no problem, as usual. and we were quickly all D2ed to grab gear and head to Nidhog! I grabbed my full HP/staff setup and my HP/Shield settup, refreshed my silence/invisi medicines, and made my way there.

Sadly, Nidhog poped on his first window. I still went anyway, infact everyone still went. Eraphie still wanted us all there to see exactly how it was done. You know pay attention to the spells people cast, location of party members, what types of attacks to be prepared for, what equipment people wear. Everything.

I learned a whole lot on that trip. And was still very satisfied with the results. After all it was my first time seeing Nidhog, let alone seeing veteran LS's in the HNM scene's strategies on beating him.

On a side note, it looks like i will need to tank in an earth staff until i can get my hands on a ridill. The only Paladin i saw there without an earth staff/HP settup had a ridill as well. I also saw that my HP settup should be more than adequate. i will just be even better with an Ocean Sash. I mean outside the guys in full Koenig, my setup was on par/if not better.

But i had to log. Ooof what a day, time to sleep in my moghouse. I swear i better not get a letter on my door again... Oh crap! i forgot to find the guy to give back the Dagger. heh oops

Still Selling..

2006-07-06T13:44:00.000-04:00

Sigh, well i got my Custom M boots to sell. But nothing else did... :/

So what did i do? I went out and crafted some more things attempting a teir 10 HQ. Now i have 6 more NQ items to try and sell to get my gill back lol. stupid, stupid, stupid. orz

However, i did do 2 beseiges. And finaly got to see the undead attack. Now that was some fun shit. I must say, the undead are easyier than the Savages. Well with exception of the Skeletons. All a skeleton needs to do is bloodweapon one time and itll drain live from like 18 people, putting its HP back up to almost full ><.

On the bright side i am getting better at not deing during besieged. On the undead i didnt die once, and even was able to raise a few friends i found dead. One thing is for sure though, i dont know how someone can get less than 700 exp/sanction points. I mean, outside of a disconnect, its pretty much impossible. A freind of mine cast one flare and he got 500 points. Andother leveled enfeebling magic the whole time with dia and got max points. I have never gotten less than 700 points even with deing 2X. Its kind of silly actualy.

During those beseiges i capped off my exp again. Not only that but i also learned that you do not get merit points during beseiged. which is just silly to me, but thats the way it is.

So in my down time i decided to hunt down more members for my in LS CoP static. So far i have Sid (WAR NIN THF), Forty (MNK BLM), Lithowa (WHM BLM40), Vladamir (NIN BLM45), and myself (Paladin). If i can get Vladamir and Lithowa to have their BLM to level 50 before we start, and work their way up to 60 as we static we will be in buisness. We will have a team which due to its makeup will be extremely versatile. We will be capable of burning our way through almost anything, and then switch to a more standard setup for those fights where burn simply will not work. All we need to be complete is a LS member with both BRD and RDM leveled. Dont get me wrong i would love to have either or, but having both a bard and a rdm will be just awesome, as one is better for some fights than the other. All in All, i am quite satisfied with our static thus far.

I knwo i know it is a short post, but hey until i sell more crap they wont be very long ones. Once i start putting stuff up for sale that actualy sell, ill start leveling again. I hate going out and actualy losing money while leveling. A peice of advice to recude the amount of farming time for you readers. Keep your AH full, and have a few items back up at all times. This way you can go out, level while your stuff sells. Come back, refresh what ever sold with your backup stuff, and go out to replace your backups. The AH makes you money and you dont even need to be there for it to do it. all you need to do is make SURE you keep it full at all times. Just make it a habit, its an easy one to slip into, and youll never go broke. That is, unless you just bought a Haubergeon after 59 levels of doing this XD.

Stupid Auction House/Chocobo Digging Rant

2006-07-05T11:40:00.000-04:00

In my quest to sell off the gear that i simply have no use for anymore, i find myself completely locked down. I cant buy food and stuff to exp, meds for missions, or even Greens for Choco digging, not while my inventory is clogged.

I cant do anything. I need space, and i need gill. Both of these problems can be solved quite easily... Sell off things like my Tatami Shield, Hume M Boots (level 24 RSE i think), and other similar items.

The only problem is that all of the items i am trying to sell do not sell very fast. I mean the Tatami Shield price history tells me that one Tatami Sheild sells every 2 days. Sigh, this is why i hate selling gear lol. It ALWAYS takes forever!

I have had the same items up for sale for the past week and a half. Most of them i have had to repost because they were sent back. I have been undercut, and i have seen a complete lack of interest in 375k items (noone has bought one period). Both situations are equaly frustrating.

So i have been trying to pass my time in other ways. I have started to try recruiting members from Envy, (a sky LS whos leader abandoned them) but that hasnt met much success. I have been realy pushing sky. Hell not only does it help people to get gill/equipment but it also helps me to pass time until my Auction house sells/gives me points in the linkshell.

It may sound silly but i have sheets of recipies, for Smithing, printed out from some website (i forget which). And a while back, i went through and got prices for the recipies. You know just to see what i could craft for profit. Lets just say when i first did this, i decided not to focus on smithing. And focus on Chocobo digging in its stead. But recently the RMT have gotten back into chocobo digging... and it has become increasingly difficult to find a zone that isnt completely dug out/almost dug out. Since that avenue for gill is not nearly as good as what it was... i decided to see how the other ways i have developed for making gill have been fairing. So i updated my Blacksmithing price list.

I must say that i was impressed. In recent months i have seen alot more Ninja/Warrior/Monks out there. I can only imagine that this is because of the fantastic burn parties they have. (jokes on them if they leveled a whole nother job just for merits, after all i get 12k an hour... is an additional 3k an hour in merits worth leveling a whole nother job?) And the Prices for the weapons/armor for these jobs has seen a dramatic upswing since i last checked up on them. I mean Katana's have always been decent money, especialy if you know what your doing when gathering materials, but axes, great katanas, hth weapons, and even gear level 50 and below look like they will yeild significant profit. This makes me very very happy.

But one thing that does not make me happy is that SE has taken it upon themselves to "fix" Chocobo Digging. More specificaly, they want to adjust the drop rate of digable items into the areas.... Wonderful... Prices on everything will plummet... thanks again SE! They say they want to do this so that more people will go out and be able to enjoy chocobo digging. And with the added emphasis on it (chocobo raising) they dont want their consumers to get pissed off that they spent 2 months (or whatever) raising a Chocobo for digging, only to find out that they cant dig up shit! This is a shitty responce to this issue realy.

Chocobo digging is wonderful the way it is. I mean sure it gets over crowded, when that happens either you push the other diggers out of your zone, or you move yourself. There is an inherent equalibrium that is reached between the number of chocobo diggers and the drops an area can spit out. If your responce to having too many choco diggers is to increase the drop rate of items into an area... your barking up the wrong tree. You are ruining the single reason why people are out there in the first place... there is money in it. More supply = less money.

Even though i disagree with SE's repsonce to the chocobo digging issue throughincreasing the drop rate. I Do agree with SE's aproach of a "fatigue effect" on choco digging. Now THIS is more like how you should fix the issue of people not being able to profit on choco digging. It will pretty much take the gill sellers like tsunsun (sp) and what not, the banes of chocodigging, cry. I love making gillsellers cry. This is the kind of thing that i like to see from SE.

Now that i finished my rant on chocobo digging, i must let you guys know. If you plan on starting chocobo digging in the next uptdate... Good luck. I know of at LEAST a dozen people that have tried to get into it. Not one still does it. Well one does hehehe. It takes a long, long , long, long time before you make a profit. Let alone a decent profit. Not to mention enough of a profit to warrant doing it very often. It is emensly time draining. It was hard enough to level Chocobo digging when you didnt have the fatigue effect which looks to be similar to like fishing has. Now it will take you FAR FAR FAR longer.

It may seem like SE is helping you out, and you will be able to enjoy chocobo digging as well, but what they are actualy doing will:

1) dercease the gill you get due to an increased supply
2) make it even harder for you to level up chocobo diggin due to a fatigued choco

Not like it matters for me, i almost have it at level 9 digging XD (10 being the maximum). But i do feal bad for the new comers. Your not going to be impressed, despite all of the hype that will certainly be surrounding chocobo digging. All of the zones will still be dug out constantly, and now youll have fatigue to worry about.

Oh well, heres hoping that i can sell my shit... I hate when the Auction house grinds me to a hault :/

Good luck, and have fun!

Kicking EVEN More Ass

2006-07-03T11:19:00.000-04:00

Im not sure if it was even possible to do so, but i am. It all started at Seiryu. Now i LOVE tanking Seiryu, Love it Love it Love it.

I had won the lot on M.Head Abjuration, again. This is like the 6th time i won the lot. This time though i had 2 more Paladins in the LS who wanted the item as well, the newest one lotted his maximum points (59). The not so new Paladin, who bounces from linkshell to link shell both on his own will, and or getting kicked ended up lotting his maximum points as well (79). I was not to be beat... i have been after this damn item for months!! And everytime i worry about spending too many points the bastard dropped it. This wont be the case anymore, if i have the points the lot is MINE. So i bid 80 points. and won the lot. Not only that but i made it sure that i will do the same every time I am able to make it until i get the damn Abjuration.

When i first started tanking Gods, i was like... This is impossible... But even since getting my HP up past 1300 I have completely rocked him. The only thing that can possibly take me out is when he 2 hours (100 Fists, a Dragon using 100 fists... Things can go bad very fast). But, even then it only kills me if i didnt notice the 2 hour in time to 2 hour myself. He realy doesnt hit all that hard though, Id say on average and unblocked hit will do about 150-200 damage, with a 120-150 added effect. In total about 270-350 per hit. He has double attack, Paralyse, Silence, and a move which dispels buffs.

On the bright side 300 Shield skill is more than enough to break even/beat the damage reduction an Earth Staff provides. And ever since i acheived that, i have gone Sword and Sheild. MAN i love tanking in Sword and Shield versus Gods!! It just feals sooo much better than the crappy earth staff. Not only that but i get the stat bonuses on my sword and sheild to aid me in the task. (Its too bad i sold the maruchetti +1... the new sword with +4 emnity) LOL, i dont think SATA would rip hate off me in that) But like i said as soon as i get Ocean Sash and Tultary, that will be the first thing i buy back.

A Note to Paladins that havent been able to tank Seiryu, when you invincible the regular hit is 0, but the added effect still slips through unreduced. That is unless a ranger unlimited shot a wind on the bish.

We completely slaughtered Seiryu. It 2 houred, I 2 houred. and turned around till it could be shadow bound buy our senior RNG. During this we had our only death, it was my backup tank Donavan. Somehow i hand agro through like a vice and He got one shotted. LOL Sieryu's back was turned towards him and he got one shotted?! Oh well, he should be used to it from Dynamis. hehehe

In short we won Seiryu in record time! He popped and Died before my Shield bash could recharge. Needless to say, it gave me a big head for the entire night. And i promptly began to talk smack. ESPECIALY to the Ninjas in the LS. After that performance it was my right, after all it was damn impressive, even if i do say so myself.

Sadly the Abjuration did not drop... and we were off to genbu. Ninjas tank all other gods in Sky... I supose it is only a matter of time before our Paladins garner enough respect to tank more Gods. Time will tell. But our leader who came as his Ninja actualy said, "yeah well you should see my Bakkyo settup, its invincible!" hehehe

Well for the rest of the night my fellow Paladins Rubbed how FAST and smooth our Seiryu went into the Ninjas faces. fun stuff XD. One Genbu, and Suzaku we couldnt help but ask why they were taking so long on the kill. Yes lets face it, the tank DOES have a direct impact on how fast you can kill an enemy in many ways. Certain quips at there expence were just too funny, such as:

*yawn* when are they gonna manage to kill it?

Hurry up its about to 2 hour again!

Invincible, Do you need it?

and my personal favorite, OMG?! were you just one shotted?!

That last one came later in the night hehehe. Our last fight for the evening was Bakkyo. We had our Leader (the one with the "invincible" settup) and another Ninja (stickyfingerz) tank him. Not more than 30 seconds into the fight our leader gets one shotted, well to be fair it was a triple attack, a TP move, and a spell combo. This is something Bakkyo LOVES to do to you, and can easily take an unprepared person right out of the equation. But i couldnt help but laugh!

And i was not alone, all the Paladins and even some mages got in on it too. I simply could not help myself and said, "Quick get that guy with the invincible Bakkyo settup in there!" hahaha And he couldnt help but defend himself saying yeah but i forgot a peice of gear at my moghouse... I, I, I just HAD to say, "Skill > Gear." Perhaps it was takin too far, but hey I still think it was Damn funny. I'm just glad the leader can take a joke XD. But it had to be one of the funner times we have had in sky for a looong time.

Later, after sky, i set up a BCNM 60 run. We went for Dismemberment Brigade, the one i am 24:24 on, yes, undefeated. All members were LS Members, with the exception of our whm. And all dropps were pooled. To make a long ordeal short we each came away with 1.3+ million in gill from the venture. And my Undefeated streak is still maintained. Even though our nin ran out of Shehei, which in truth didnt matter. He was only the back up tank. Realy, i had him there just in case i got DCed in the middle of the fight, and as an SATA partner for our DRK.

On a side note, I may be level 75. But holding hate off SATA, last resort, weapon skill, AND the Ninja's Weapon skill, STILL puts a smile on my face lol.

And so, I am yet another million gill closer to attaining the Ocean Sash. (I tend to buy the most expencive stuff then get the less pricy shit after. Its a motivation thing. I hate spending 2 mill on an item then having to save 6 mill for another. Id much rather spend 6 mill, then save just 2 mill more).

In truth i cant wait for it, once i get it i will be at 1648 HP w/o food. 1823 with food. And Tultay will make 1853 with food. Hell, i have an elvan Paladin in my LS pissed off that i, as hume, have more HP AND MP than he does lol.

Cyal later, and have a Happy 4th of July (if you celebrate, of course)

The Arms Race

2006-06-30T11:14:00.000-04:00

Well, There is a new Paladin in town. Well in FuriousX anyway. He was in the Xbox 360 beta, and has somehow made to level 75 in record time. Not only that, but he also has almost as much HP as i do.

Now normaly, this doesnt bother me. But the fact that he is a Xbox player concerns me. I know that is is possible for an Xbox player to be level 75 by now, ESPECIALY if he was in the beta. But to have enough gill to also have as much HP as i do? Not to mention the fact that he thinks Adaman feet are superior to Gallant... I suspect something is fishy, i mean no Paladin that has gone from level 1-75 would think that adaman feet are better than gallant. (well maybey for a few weeks.. but once the new toy effect wears off they go back to gallant.)

So, i started asking around about this player. Well, i started to ask the Xbox players who were in the beta as well. As it turns out this Paladin was a REAL asshole in the beta. I mean, hed start events for missions, and ditch the party just before its completion, (usualy a major fight) which would completely screw his party. He would steal items from people. He was a Bigot(sp?) as well... But this Paladin does not rub me the same way. Infact, he seems kind of nice.

Next, i went to talk to Anjia (another senior member of furiousx). And she was talking to him about Paladin, why, i dont know. But she was. And as it turns out, the new Paladin didnt remember what CITY the Paladin quest starts in. Not only that, but he did not remember what CITY his AF Quests started in. Now i can understand not remembering the name of the NPC, hell there are some realy strange names in the game, and its not an important thing to remember. But im sorry, Not even remembering what CITY?!

I am very reluctant to say this, but I am pretty convinced that he bought his character. I mean put all the peices together!

1) The old player was an asshole who was only out for himself
2) This player doesnt act like the old one
3) Does not know what gear is better than other gear and is level 75
4) Does not know basic details about Paladin, ei the CITY you get the quest for the job and AF
5) I didnt mention this but he has NO rare/exe gear what so ever. Not even a jelly ring :/

Very weird, and it all leads me to one conclusion. He bought his character... And if he bought his character i can only presume that he bought the gill for his character as well.

Now the sad part is that he does have one thing going for him.. He has almost as much HP as i do. He came to sky farming last night in his HP setup. And had 1480 HP. Now granted i had more HP than him, and i wasnt whoring HP gears at the time. But i didnt have much HP gear, i was sporting a cool 1500 HP, Which was MORE than enough for sky farming. If i went and HP whored myself out id have @1770 HP with food. About 1600 without food.

Now since it is pretty obvious to me that this player buys gill, not obvious enough for him to be kicked from the LS or for me to mention his name, i cant be out done by a gill buyer! Its a pride thing.

This leads me to the title of this post, i am now in an arms race versus the gill buyer. A Virtual Cold War if you will.

My first step was the Cassie Earring. As a Pigeon Earring is about as weak of an HP piece i could get for that slot. Now when i HP whore i should have about 1800 HP. Next on my list will be Ocean sash, that will put me a 1850 HP. After that a Tultary Sword (sp) that will put me at 1880 HP. Then there is always the HP shield, which adds about 20 or so more HP. That will put me at a cool 1900 HP. Though i am leaning against the Shield, as ill need the emnity from the Koenig sheild. either way, just 2 HP merits and ill be at 1900 HP.

I dont care who you are, you are not going to complain about a Paladin/war/nin with 1900 HP kiting Kirin, King Behemoth, or tanking HNM for you. To get any more HP i will need to camp rare/exe gears like Bloodbead ring/earring... and Merit.

Total Price tag i need to complete the buyable HP gears i want is about 7-8 million. hmmm

This is going to be a bit difficult seeing as i am going to be setting up a CoP static sooner than later. and thats sure to soak up alot of my prime farming time. However i do have about 200 beastmen seals and about 70 kindred seals. This in combination with the LS placing a renewed emphasis on sky, well we shall see. but i have options to generate a rapid influx of gill. Hell its not like i need 70 million or something, i only need 7-8 mill more worth of gill. Its quite doable.

I mentioned the LS has placed a renewed emphasis on sky and we went up to sky last night, to farm. We need 2 items, Ulli and Zip. And we were unable to aquire either of them. We came close to getting ulli, we had the claim! The only BLM to show up that night got him with stun, but noone could provoke in time, he died and another LS stole the claim.

I use the word stole loosely here. There are communal rules we sky LS's have. even if another LS has a claim, you do not MPK for it, you do not cure bomb to steal it, and you wait until the LS with the claim fully whipes before claiming the NM for yourself. Now they did violate the third part of the rule, but hey, everything happened to fast that it was completely understandable. And was nothing to bitch about.

But, that was very bad, we need ulli very very badly. ulli and zip. So after talking to 3 other sack holders, and the LS in general, I pushed Limbus for Friday night out of the way in favor of another sky farming run on friday night. If they want to do limbus after sky thats up to them. But sky is far more important to the LS as a whole than limbus is. So i changed the LSmes.

Sadly i wont be able to make it to farm tonight, i dont realy game on friday or saturday nights. But i was sure to get another sack holder to take over the duty, just incase 10b wont be there... again.

Well, thats one hell of alot longer of a post than what i initialy thought it would be. goodbye and have fun!

Revenge!!

2006-06-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

Well i logged on last night to see what was going on. I need gill, but couldnt do any farming as i am still trying to sell off the NIN gear i had bought and a few other odds and ends to make room for that and meds for CoP missions. So Farming was out of the question. I could exp, but i realy wasnt up to it. Getting to 37 Ninja in about 2 weeks burned me out of making an exp party for a while.

So, i cant far and at the moment i realy didnt want to exp... what am i gonna do? Then i get a tell. From Ryth, an up and coming Black Mage in our Sky Linkshell. He made the level requirement to be in, but just needs the sky access. Has has worked his way up to ZM8 with the help of other members from the LS. But now need help for what is possibly the hardest fight in the ZM missions (until Divine Might, which is fun as hell and i highly advise everyone do Divine Might instead of the Arc Angels individualy). This was just what the doctor ordered!

Now i must tell you, on my first time against this guy i was a 69 Paladin who thought he was bad ass. And was completely owned on this fight. Completely. So i wanted revenge on this Light Blading Bastard! I am now level 75, have 300 sheild skill, and some abjuration! I swear, this bastard was going down XD.

It took a while to gather the party, and i am a little hurt that only 4/6 members of the party were from our LS. I guess they couldnt be bothered with a run up to the top of the tower. But i dergress, once everyone arived, it was a rather uneventful trip up. No agro, no getting lost nothing. It was kind of nice actualy.

Once there we got ready, i stacked my sheild skill and emnity ate my taco and was ready to go.

The fight actualy went rather nice, until the monk the was with us decided to grab agro when my hate tools were down. But a part of me thinks the Monk actualy wanted to try to upstage me... I was so involved with being a good ninja that i almost forgot my macro set for Paladin. hahaha! To be fair to me, i had recently switched it up. And adjusted my macro set to be more "user friendly". 20% of the way through the fight i knew what was up.

However, by the time i figured out what was up... our monk/wannabe tank got knocked out! hahaha good for him. Next time dont assuran fists at the start. I hope you liked that light blade to the face LOL. But now the enemy was mine! Oh man it feals good to laugh at what took him down for the count. I took everything he had. And i must say the curing involved was split about 50/50 between me and the whm.

Only one Light Blade was a problem for me, as it dropped my to 400 HP. I slapped on invincible, instantly! and whm and i cured me up in a fraction of a second. It was perfect. Outside of the wild man monk lol. I am still laughin a little bit inside at the amatuerish mistake he made. But i had my revenge on this guy! He could barely hit me XD and 300 sheild skill absolutely ruled! I blocked almost everything it tossed at me. sigh, sometimes its hard being this sexy.

Now that i had this good deed done, it was time to figure out what else i was to do with my evening. As things were my options are pretty limited. I examined my gear to look for week spots in my tanking settup. I found that the only glaring things i see that need to be changed would be that currently i have 2 pigeon earring(20 HP each) and a warwolf. I can do much better than this for my HP settup in the form of a Cassie Earring(50HP), and a Ocean Sash(45HP). With the 2 pigions i get +40 HP, with one pigeon one cassie and one Sash i will get +115HP. thats one hell of a difference! in combination with my other HP gear i should be in about the 1800-1900 HP range (with food).

So i think this is what i will work on while farming. Only problem is that i cannot far... my inventory is still clogged... But i have a wish list now!

1) Joytoy
2) Cassie Earring
3) Ocean Sash

Once i get the cassie i can sell off a Pigeon earing as well, XD cool.

I also decided that i realy dont need my tatami sheild anymore. I mean i like the activation rate/emnity that comes with Koenig much better. And since i have a Ninja subjob, i can sub in a weapon instead of shield for my DD settup. This in my opinion trumps the +5 STR on the sheild. So that was gonna go as well. Then my eye turned to the level 50 gear i have lying around. God i cant wait to sell that shit. It just sits there lol, begging me to finish the level 50 Capped missions in CoP 5-3 and the Bastok 5-1 for Narru.

So, yeah it is time for some house cleaning. Once that is done ill have about 5.6 mill on my person. and ill have some options. i can put that money towards CoP meds, or i can buy me a Cassie or i can buy me an Ocean Sash. Oh! the options!

Hey, guys any ideas on how difficult it is to get the Ocean sash instead of paying for it? I know the Cassie is just too much of a pain in the ass to get on my own. Id rather buy it than put up with that bullshit, but the Ocean sash on the other hand, that doesnt seem to bad to me. Then again i know next to nothing about it other than its +45 HP.

After dreaming of gear and taking yet another step closer to being able to thrust myself up past 2k HP ( a goal of mine, and its actualy quite difficult for a Hume to do because we lack the RSE with HUGE hit point gains that a taru or mythra has, or the natural HP of galka and elvan) I decided that the only thing left for me to do was to exp. Hell, it'll give me a chance to test how well my damage is with a ninja subjob. I went and bought another Company Sword, I am dualing them at the moment. swapped gear and proceded to make a burn party.

Now granted the IDEAL jobs werent on or wouldnt party with me. I asked a bard if he wanted to make a burn (i was anon by the way) and he wanted to know my job so i told him, and he turned me down. But i was able to make a party, 5 melee and one rdm for healing... I know... one rdm for healing and no bard!? Well, this was gonna be rough. but its the best i could muster. so we went out to Baflow Thickets(sp?) and proceded to exp. At one point we reached chain 13, which i guess was good, all things considering. If we didnt have to deal with the AOE of the flies im sure we would have been much better.

But at some point i actualy capped off my exp and started to work on my very first merit point ahaha! That made me quite happy. That is until i died. but i found something interesting about letting the game automaticaly exp for merits once you maxed your exp. once you die, and are no longer capped EXP, it will automaticaly switch you back to exp mode. this means you dont need to get a whole new party, or go back to mog house in order to cap of the exp again. Now that is nice! But sadly i had to go, luckily i found a bard to take my place for the party i made. i can definately say that i left that exp better than when i made it initialy. And i hope they are reaching over chain 50 XD.

As for my performance, while eating sushi, i would have enough TP to WS every fight, if not 2X a fight if i WS at the very start i might have been lucky enough to do that. I was doing about 50-70 damage per hit. I did not notice any misses, but nothing is 100%, so lets say i had 90% hit rate to be conservative on it. I noticed that i had solved my problem of having the occasional 100 vorpal blade. This is something that i realy payed attention to. The extra sword realy helped, the lowest vorpal i had was 400 something and the highest i had was 672. Every time i actualy looked at the TP return from vorporal i was getting max from it. And i was quite happy with my performance. Hell i was even ripping hate from the monk in the party with damage alone! no emnity gear! and i have no emnity merits yet! That made me happy too.

But i have other peoples damage filtered out for tanking purposes. and i dont bother changing my filters for burns. so i asked the Ninja how my numbers are compared to other members in /tell. The reason i asked the ninja is that people will invite a ninja over a paladin for no other reason than they do more damage than a paladin and dont need to be cured. I figure if i can match 70% of the average population of ninjas damage wise, or even excede them. while subbing ninja to minimise damage takin why shouldnt Paladin garner the same respect for burns? The Ninjas reply made me happy, as it turns out he was doing blade jins for 200-700. I was vorpaling for 400-600.

Now this nin was average, his gear wanst GREAT, but it didnt SUCK. and that was just the comparison i was looking for. I must say that i am happy with the results. But he still attacks faster than i do. I know that. He must be attacking faster than me. Haste gear, and dual wield enhancements due to dob level alone will do that. So now that my damage per hit is on par with an average Ninja, i need to find a way to up the ante just a little more. The only thin i can think of is to make up for some of the lacking speed with a joy toy. And make each hit i land strike even harder. To do that i want to experiment with some meat foods. It should be interesting to see just how much damage i can sqeek out of paladin XD

well, i dont know if you made it to the end of this post, if you did thankyou for reading!

Ninja Finito

2006-06-28T11:25:00.000-04:00

Well, as the title says, I have finished my ninja subjob. I must say that i am very happy that it is done. A level 37 Nin is suposed to be a very good thing for almost any melee job. For Paladin it is a little different. We dont realy have a change to make any use out of it until level 74-75. This is when we TRY to get into a burn party, since absolutely noone wants to exp in a normal one anymore. (well some do, but im talking about like 1:50 people) And once we get our HP up to about 1800-1900 we get to tank Wyrms. Having a Paladin/Ninja has become the prefered method of tanking these enemies for many linkshells. Even though Paladin/Warrior can do it, The ninja sub is said to make the ordeal much easier. But without further a do, let me breifly discuiss my experience getting Ninja to 37.

Some how, I leveled Ninja from level 27-37 in just 2 days. Dont ask me how, i cant realy explain it my self but i will try. I did land one exp party with a power leveler but that was only for one level (35-36), ill get to that later. Sometime in Kazham i decided that i needed another spell. At the moment i was casting 2 spells in the parties, Utsunemi: Ichi and Hojo: Ichi. And it didnt take long for me to find out that mages tend to cast slow on an enemy before i get the chance to. That and my slow would get resisted about 90% of the time. So i went off to grab Raiton: Ichi. This spell required cheep tools to make, it itself was cheep, AND it weakend an enemy to earth element spells and attacks. Hell, i couldnt ask for a better spell to get.

Secondly, i decided to make all of my own parties. There would no longer be a time where i did not have a Ninja as a buddy, or at least a Warrio/Ninja with plenty of Shehei. This also helped to speed up the exp conciderably. Hell, when my tank partner and i slept into a Utsunemi/Provoke rythem we were outdoing the RMT BLM burn next to us, by alot of exp, and no down time! All i needed was a Red Mage to main heal, 4 melee (maybey a blm) and a BRD or COR. and i was in buisness.

I would have the 4 melee set up 2 Skillchains, all with the same MB (for simplicities sake on the MBer). Then the rest was up to Me and my tank buddy to take no damage. Granted, this aproach would only work with experienced players. Ones capable of keeping 2 Skillchains going and not get confused in the mess of calls, AND pay attention to there own jobs as well. So, i made it a point to invite only rank 6 and above people. (If your reading this and planning on trying this out as well, please note, that having one bad member will result in a VERY VERY bad experience.)

With the 2 Ninja in party i had my tank buddy blind the mandies (and tank) while i weakend it to earth and cast slow on it. This did 3 things for us: 1) the essential debuffs were in place 2) helped to build hate 3) Saved MP on the Red Mage or Black Mage (no debuffs needed realy). If you time this right by the time the second round of the first tanks shadows are gone, i would be done debuffing as well and was free to provoke. Now it was my turn to go through 6 shadows, then the tanks ocilate hate every 3 shadows. It may sound a little weird to some people but it does work quite well.

By this time, the enemy should be at about 75% health, and your party should have enough TP to skillchain. Have the first Skillchain go off, and the Red mage MB it. Then the second Skillchain go off and have the redmage MB that as well. Now the enemy should be at 25% health. Just gather TP on the last 25%, rinse and repeat the process.

At the most the redmage may use 1-2 cures per fight. And you can get away with 2 pullers in this party. Especialy, in Yhoater jungle. By the end of that night i had reached @level 33.

The next night i went to Garlaige, i grabbed a similar party. But the members were not as good as before, don't get me wrong the were far from shitty players, they just werent as good. We hade some technical issues with the skillchain, due to strange weapon combinations. And, the puller would link every other pull. /sigh and Garlaige Citadel was PACKED.

I could see people complaining about it, but i didnt see how it could be helped. I mean, parties were literaly on top of each other all the way to the stairs! I have never, ever, ever, seen it that packed. Luckily, i remember how much of a pain Garlaige Citadel can be from my days in there as Paladin and Warrior. So i knew to get in, level a couple times, and get the hell out of there as fast as possible. So i had prepared a lil trick with my empress band so that i could use it 2X and saved the oppertunity to do that for this occasion. Hell 2k of free exp means instead of having to level 2 levels, ill only have to do 1.5 or so. d(O.o)b

Once i was done there i had an invite to a party in the crawlers nest. This is the party whith the PL. As it turns out, a member had leveled and was killing the exp for the party. And i was to be there replacement. Hey! People are leveling in the party... sounds like a good one to me! lol

Once i got there, it actualy turned out to be a nightmare... You see, the party leader did not even ask the member i was replacing that i was on the way. Hell, she didnt even ask the person if they would leave due to killing the exp... hell and rational player would understand and leave in search of another party. But he wasnt even asked. The party leader... just kicked him out... I swear if i wasnt in such a rush to get my level i wouldve just said Fuck you to the party leader my self. But i was 2 levels away from completing ninja, and they have a PL... My selfishness got the better of me, and i kept my spot.

Then the leader (she was a BLM) decided to go have dinner, and left us melee to hack away at enemies, with a PL to aid us, for 20 minutes.... 20 Minutes!? Now i can see runnin off putting something in the mic, playing, when its finished eat it, then play again. But thats just out right rude to the PL and us.

Not long after that i Disconnect, like every 4 hours, when i come back i find that the leader was looking for another member. But since i was back she invited me instead. and told me, "I'm Lucky, because she doesn't like people who make down time." WHAT? WHAT? lol, ok lil miss afk for 20 minutes!

Later in the party one of our mages needed to go, and told us that he needed to go in 1.5k exp, when he levels. This is what i hope most people do, you know, be polite enough to let the party let the party leader know when your about to leave. WITH plenty of time to find a replacement! I was happy. As it turns out, everyone around this leader was a nice person. Just no tthe leader. But she got a replacement. and when the mage that was about to level was within 500 exp from 37 (leveling it as a sub btw) the leader kicked him from the party! HUH!? WFT!? the dude is 500 exp from finishing his subjob and you just KICK HIM!? ... I couldnt blame the mage from being pissed the fuck off... The leaders reply was simply, "Its not nice to level and leave." I cant believe im helping this person get experience points.

Not long after this the leader actualy stated, "Not only am i the best leader ever! But, i like not having down time!" or something to that effect. /sigh this leader (a BLM)... couldnt even MB distortion. This was not due to the lack of spells... But the ineptness(sp) of the player... You see, she has been Power leveled by her BLM boyfreind/husband since level 1. And has never had to figure out how to make an MB... I shall rephrase because she can MB but she cant MB if you dont call each and every weaponskill. I am not talking about the standard {Ready to start the Skill Chain} 2 Seconds then proceding to SC... I am talking about insisting on each and every weapon skill being called...

Talk about a bad habit... now if you have two melee it realy isnt all that bad, but if your in an alliance... and people are all spitting out a /party macro for there manuvers... things get so messy that you actualy miss the important stuff. This BLM is insisting on it... me i prefer a chat log clean of all information but the MOST important. aka my damage taken/givin and special actions initiated by the enemy/others.

and if that BLM reads this, PLEASE fix your god damn chat filters!! the GAME tells you when im doin something! i dont need to mess up the chat log, making it so a trained monkey can play your job.

Needless to say, once i leveled to 37 i bailed out of there as soon as possible. But, didnt tell her i was gonna do that lol. Fuck her!

If you care to know the Name of said Black Mage, it is Eatable and is more than likely level 39 ish in crawlers by now. To befair, her justification for being such a cold hearted bitch was that she wanted to be level 38 asap so she could party with her boyfriend/husband/the PL guy. Was that justification for the way she acted? ill let you decide that one.

I made it to Kazham

2006-06-22T15:13:00.000-04:00

Well, i must say that these parties are becoming increasingly short lived. I dont THINK its my performance on Ninja that is the problem. In fact i actualy get many compliments on how i handle the job.

I went out and purchased Hojo: Ichi before heading down to Kazham. (glad i did too) For those of you unfamiliar with the Ninja spells, Hojo Ichi gives the effect of slow on an enemy. With a minor hate spike to boot! This is something i realy needed as a Ninja. It certainly helps to keep me right on that hate line, if not a step or two over it. And it realy help with my Utsusemi recast.

I went to the airship to head to kazham, and got an invite to a party. A blind invite... no tell associated with it. Now i consider myself a patient man, but blind invites realy shows a lack of class on the party leaders side of things. And if he doesnt think enough of me to actualy ask me for an invite... well lets just say i gave him a blind turn down to his blind invite. While waiting on the Airship i recieved yet another invite. XD this time it was for a Qufim party. The goal was Pugils, so i made my way to qufim, to hell with the 200 gil airship fee, i spend moe than that on shehei durring the first enemy...

I always liked Qufim anyway.

And this time it was no dissapointment. We got 5k in about an hour of party time. Very nice indeed. But that put me up to level 25... and what was yeilding 200 or 130 exp a single enemy ago, was now netting 100 to 65 exp. That was my que. It was off to kazham with me! And my party rightfully agreed. There is nothing worse than killing 5 other peoples exp, so i found my a replacement, and made my way to Kazham.

Well to be precise i refreshed my gear, bought that Hojo: Ichi, and THEN made my way to Kazham. And once there i waited, and waited, and waited. Every once in a while id check who was looking for a party at the time, and only found 2 other people. One of which was another tank. Wonderful. So i waited It looked like my best bet would be to wait for a ready made to have someone disband.

Sure enough thats what happened. I landed myself in a party with 4 level 26's!! and everyone was rank 6 or above. Niiiice. I was elated to be in a party like that for a change! We dispatched our first enemy and 3/4 of the level 26's desided to ding 27... SHIT! I had to leave one party cause i was gimping their exp, now i had found a party with 3 members gimping my exp... Sigh, i guess things could be worse... At least i have some exp coming in. hehe

800 experience point later another person dings 27 and they just decide to head out to the next jungle. Oh well, ive had such good luck so far... i was due for a let down. So i waited in the first jungle for an invite. Every once in a while checking to see ifi could make a party. But sadly, everyone Looking for a party spoke Japanese. And played the "ignore" game with me when i sent them the standard

So i waited. Eventualy a Japanese player invited me to his party. I think it had something to do with switching my language listed to JE (Japanese/English) as aposed to simply E (English), because he was very reluctant to invite any other english players to the party. He eventualy had to though, and i was happy cause i could now tell jokes in English, instead of masacring them in the auto translator. XD

And i must say the party went very well! By the time it ended i had dinged level 26! Meaning i nonly have 11 levels more to go! If i am lucky ill be in the next jungle by the end of tonight. If i am lucky.

But, i am starting to feal guilty for my lack of participation in the sky LS stuff... I mean, there have been multiple events... and i havent been able to make it to any of them :/ My inventory is so clogged with ninja tools and equipment its incredible... I mean in only have something like 2-3 open slots in it... so i sent a tell to the leader of the LS, apologising for my lack of participation. I also promised to be more active in the LS once this is subjob is leveled to 37. But, i didnt get any responce to my tell... I just hope it was lost in battle spam and he isnt being all emo with me.

But i swear, there is no way that i will not be prepared for the next time they bring the LS into another HNM fight. They realy made me feal like a gimp on the last/first Jormungand. Though i will say that, Paladin/Warriors have been tanking Jormungand for much longer than the idea of Paladin/Ninja as a viable option even arose.

I degress, if this is what they want me to do, i will do it. That easy. But i swear if they get all pissy over me trying my best to fill the role they want me to.... nvm that thought leads to bad places XD Lets just say adding more versatility to me as a tank will help us kill more shit than some Ohat on a DD that wont even draw his weapon on the HNM fight. Thats just my thinking on it.

I am actualy enjoying Ninja though. It is much more fun than i had ever thought it would be. So fun in fact that i think i will just go straight through to level 37 without a break. (inventory space demands that as well hehe)

On a side note i Forgot to bring my Lords Set out of storage to sell in Jeuno... yet again. >< oops

hehe, cyal again!

A Run in with Tuufless?!

2006-06-20T11:15:00.000-04:00

Well, it took me all of Sunday to do it, but i growned my way through the dunes. I must say that i had a blast there. The shear number of new people was refreshing. Suuuure, some people hate the dunes because they simply have no patience for the newer players. And i must say that this was starting to wear on me as well. But seeing as it seemed that 90% of the people there nowadays have no subjobs i was fine with it. Plus, it got me back in touch with the unique mixture of confusion and wonder that originaly hooked me to this game. I must say that for me, the dunes was, and usualy is, a great way to relieve myself of the elitest nature inherent within an end game linkshell.

That being said i am glad im out of there, and have a chance to move upward and onward to new things. But, first things first. I needed to change out of my newb disguise, and get into some decent gear! As always i chose the bone set. Damn, i love that set. Asteticaly, i think it combines just the right mix of savage and civilised that i find very very appealing. And the stats on it realy are decent! With the HQ version you get like +5 evasion along with decent defence. I don't think the +5 evasion had much of an effect seeing that i already have my evasion capped out. Maybey some DD equipment wouldve been a better choice. But really like i said before its one of the prettiest sets i have come across. So i wore it anyway. Besides, at level 20 who realy cares anyway lol. After all, this is just after the dunes. And the newness still hasn't wore off many players. So they wont know any better anyway. Not to mention most players dont use food anyway, yet. But i do, so that will help me keep pace with others in the damage department.

After grabing, my gear. And refreshing my Signet, Shehei, Meat Mythkabob supply i decided to head out to the Qu'fim Islands. Again, this is actualy one of my favorite areas. I actualy like its wasteland like appearance. Perhaps it has to do with the gear im in. Everything seems funner when you enjoy your gear settup lol.

As usual it was not long before i got my first invite for the evening. Tank jobs are like that XD. Of course i accepted, and checked out the party. We had a WHM, BRD, NIN, DRG, WAR, MNK. I was actualy a bit shocked because one of the members invited to the party was Arcia on her bard! Sure she is not in FuriousX anymore, but hey that doesnt bothe me much. Ill go with any familiar face.

No BLM, and that fealt a little refreshing. Hell, while im a Ninja i might as well get a chance to enjoy a NIN type of a party. I must say, this setup actualy tore up Qufim. Im talking about chain 4 for 300 exp! We did much better than i ever expected. And i rose from level 20 to level 21.

It didnt take long to find our 6th member to replace him. We found Vigilance, yet another FuriousX member. Vigilance is a BLM that due to freak coincidence i spent the entire latter half of the dunes with. And now he was in Qufim, and by coincidence here he was, in my party again! lol. I like Vigilance, but being a new blm he is a little too fast on the trigger with his -aga's. And got the privilage of tanking for some of the fight because of it lol. Our Exp per hour suffered slightly because of it, but he quickly got a feal for the hate line that i could produce and it was all good after that. But thats ok.

Not long after we got him in party a voke happy member died... And of course, the first person they blamed for it was me. Now i wasnt going to let that happen!

I may be a new Ninja, but i stack my provokes. I count my shadows. I realise that i can get off 6 shadows at the start of every fight. And, I watch my utsinemi timer. That incombination with my experience on Paladin i can get of ustunemi just about every time without being interupted. (It realy isnt that hard as long as you cast just before the enemy attacks, and have it timed so that he hits you when the spell is at about 25-30% or less. Its just like Cure 4.) And i also make time for TP reports, and Skillchaining. I am a good Ninja. And as such i made it clear that i am a good ninja, by pretty much repeating what i just said verbatum to the party. Except, i added one quip against our now raised comrade. something along the lines of, its not the inepmtness of the tank. Its that member constantly provoking that got him killed. And members agreed.

Not long after that he left the party. And for a second i felt realy bad. That is until i was informed that i wasnt the only one who felt that way about that player. You know i am fine with people playing anyway they want to. Hell, how else are we suposed to play our game and enjoy it. But if they messup and it starts to smear my good name as a tank i MUST say something about it.

So we were on the hunt for our 6th member again. And this time we got Tuufless into the party! hehe, sorry Tuufless i beat you to blogging it, but at least you have photos! Its amazing how much a good puller effects a party. To be honest, i cant realy tell if the exp per hour went back up due to Vigilance getting a feal for the amount of hate i could dish out, of if the pulling was just better. But i degress. It was fun having Tuufless in party. and we were back up to chain 4's. Sadly the pull distance was too long, therefore chain 5 wasnt possible. But you cant lay the blame on that on the puller, by any means. Hiking all the way out and making it back in time, with that large of a distance inbetween the two, makes chain 5 nigh impossible. Though the MP and HP of the party was almost 100% at the end of every fight, so i am sure we could make the chain 5 if the pull distance was smaller. It wasnt long before i hit level 22 with tuufless on board.

And by the time, the party was over i was close to level 23! And Tuufless offered to head to Carpentors landing with me for EXP. I must say i was tempted. But it was getting close to bed time, it was a hike (there and back) and i was close to 23. with so little time left i really didnt want to go on a hike only to experiment on a new camp. So i stayed in Qufim. After all i knew i would get a party sooner than later. And not more than 5 seconds after mentioning that to Tuufless, sure enough i got another party invite!

This time it was with Bolmster, a Beastmaster and another FuriousX member lol. This new party was comprised of a WHM, PLD, NIN, NIN, BST, and a RDM (i think). But the fact of the matter is that we had no DD lol. All tanks! Now i must say that even though this settup was... unique. It still worked just fine. I am sad that the nins tanked over the Paladin though. But with no DD in the party... it had to be done. The fights just took that long to finish, that double nin tanking was the only way :/ And we did hit chain 3. We were just starting to fall into a rythem when the party broke up. Well at least i reached level 23 before it did!

That makes me very happy XD.

And that is what i have been upto, not very exciting, i know. But hey when is leveling a subjob very exciting to begin with? Heck, at least im realy realy working on getting it to 37 as fast as possible. Then ill be on to bigger and better things for a good long while.

On a side note, i have doubled the list of links i had to other FFXI blogs to the right! So when your board at work go ahead, check em out XD. I also routed the URL's through a proxy server. So anybody can check em out, hopefully by making an end run around and blocks your company has up. ENJOY!

Cyal around! and thanks for reading XD

My first party as a Ninja

2006-06-16T17:08:00.000-04:00

Well, last night i got out of work late. So by the time i got home, I was already late for sky. About 2 hours late. So i just decided that i would go to the dunes and see what i could do about leveling Ninja some more. I came packing too. Grabbed my meat mythkabobs, 7 stacks of Shehei, and the Katanas for when i level. All in all, i was expecting good things.

So i meander down to the Dunes as a level 12 Nin/6 War. And put up my flag. I knew it would not take long for me to get a party, tanks are always in demand here. And, a Ninja tank... some level 10 leader would kill someone to get me into a party. And sure enough, 2 minutes after i put my flag up i had 2 invites to parties with 5 members already in them; before i could answer the first invite i had another party leader ask me if i was available but he only had 2 members in his party.

But, i am not picky. I am not the type of player that when i get an invite, ask what jobs they have... what level gap... do they have subjobs... I dont like people like that, hell whenever i am making a party and i come across some player like this that asks more than one question i tell the person, "Sorry, you are too picky for my tastes. I dont feal that this party will be as enjoyable with you in it." (read: "Go Fuck Yourself") And leave it at that.

So i joined the first party to invite me. And sure enough, they were all nice people. It had a slow start, especialy since 50% of the party had no subjobs. But hey, i cant realy complain, this is the dunes after all. And i am only level 12, not level 20 or so. The party line up went something like War, War/thf, Thf/rdm, Nin/War, Rdm, Rdm/whm. Yes, the puller was the Thf... he would dia pull because he had no ranged weapon. Now, i do find this realy funny actualy. I mean.. Dia does help, its a spell so its a hell of alot better than a voke puller, hate wise. But waiting for the puller to let poison wear off, not ask for poisona, only to rest MP and then pull. lol, i was all but pulling my hair out while laughing at the same time.

Now dont get me wrong, I was there once too. Hell, i got Warrior up to 30 so i could unlock Paladin with Black mage as my subjob. Hehe, you may be laughin but i still swear that it was realy fun, and effective! The debuffs still stuck, most the time.. And that in combination with provoke! I was uber. LOL

This must have been this guys first time pulling for a party. Because, he would wait until we were at 100% to pull again. Now this was bad and i think that by the end of the party he was realizing that he could pull more freely. I love newbs. Not to be confused with N00bs, those i hate!

Well before long, i had gotten frustrated with the lack of a SC. I know, its a level 10-12 Dunes party... Nvm the SC, its prolly not possible anyway. Ho ho man, would you be wrong! We had 2 members with swords and one with a great axe. Now that tipped me off big time that SOMETHING could be made. sure enough i found a level one skillchain to suit out needs (Fast Blade -> Burning Blade). And not only that but they could make it a level 2 skill chain if the Warrior with the GAxe would Shield Break after that. I only had to tell these guys how to do this once, and when the first opertunity came along they went for it! to my dismay i saw a level 1 skill chain followed by a level 2 skill chain. To top it off, one of the RDM (Beverly from my sky LS) Magic Burst Banish FTW!

How shocking it that!!! I mean... a level 10-12 party doing something that SOME level 30 players STILL cant seem to make happen lol. So we pulled another enemy, that goes down to fast to reach 100 tp. And we pull another, oh crap! Our puller grabed an IT++ Bat!!! just as my first 6 shadows wore i called for them to SC... i had no idea if they had the TP for it, but i was at 150 TP so i suposed they did. Cause i was going down fast. My level 11 war (with the GAXE and no sub) provoked off me, i started to recast utsusemi: ichi, the other 2 guys let loose the first part of the SC and the Gaxed warrior with hate let loose the finishing part of the SC, and the rdm MBed again! I provoked it back, all was right with the world. I must say that, as players go... these guys were good. And they were fast learners too! Something you realy dont get to see in the dunes. Sadly however, the exp sucked. Mainly because of a mix of overcrowding and slow pulling. Somehow i did reach level 13 though.

At that time a rdm and our thf and someone else had to leave. As replacements we grabbed a level 11 BLM and a level 12 THF/rng and a MNK/war. Nice, i know i dont need to worry about the puller. I mean this is obviously not the first job hes leveled. But all i need to do was to teach the blm how to MB. I mean, first i had to teach him what an SC was, as he had never seen one before.

While waiting for the 2 new members to arive, i realised that our old SC was now all busted up due to the loss of our thf. So, i set up a reverberation SC between the MNK and myself. i also set up i think it was the teir 1 version of a fusion SC for the THF and the WAR. After i had, shown the blm what an SC was, i told him about magic bursts.

Right around this time, Narru shows up. (a level 66 Summoner and my brother) I was a bit startled, what was he doing here? Well as it turns out he came to bring me a suprise gift! Lol, a shell earring Hahahaha and a PL O.o

Now i am not one to use PL's, i think they breed bad players. Like Blm that dont know how to MB. But, im not gonna turn down a suprise PL. Especialy when its Narru, Especialy when the suprise PL not only made his way to the dunes in secret, but also bought a gift in secret, AND found me in secret. It was too nice of him to come down just to help me out.

But never the less i dont want to let this BLM to reach level 12 without ever knowing about Magic bursts. It would be a severe disjustice to every party after this one. I dont expect him to become an expert at it in one party. Not by any means. But to at least let him know that it is there, and make sure he can do it at least once or twice. Now that is Progress. And as long as people actualy learn something about there job, while having the fun that comes along with a PL. well that is all good in my book! Now if he got experience and ended up not knowing anything, well that just blows.

So i had Narru explain magic bursts to him. Seeing as it is more difficult to get off a MB with SMN than BLM. I'm sure he could the job done. And sure enough, as soon as the monk and myself actualy got the SC to work, BAM! A WATER MB!! And we all congratulated him on his very first magic burst! I am sorry to report that i use chat filters so i didnt even get the chance to see if the spell actualy MBed, let alone how much damage it did. But the BLM was shocked at his new found power.

LOL, i gotta say. I realy think people hate the dunes because they dont know how to have fun in the dunes. I personaly love the dunes. Its a place filled with first times. Everyone is constantly learning something new. And i just find it exciting, and frustrating at the same time. It is nice.

Not long after our party got the blm to MB, we were going to disband. But not before Narru got a chance to show the newb BLM how a REAL MB looks. lol We built our tp, then invited Narru. After a quick joke about him missin and the newb BLM not missing... we pulled an IT to start our SC. And WHACK 1500 damage with leviathan. Now i dont know much about spells but im pretty sure water snt one of the more damaging spells, after all i only see fire, ice, and lightning spells being cast. but im pretty sure 1500 damage is impressive, and so did our BLM.

Not to be out done i Magin Gukured (sp?) the first gob i saw for 145 lol. and just HPed to my dunes HP. and we all laughed.

Listen just cause some people hate something doesnt mean you have to. Try to have fun in all you do! and get the "unfun" stuff over as fast as possible XD.

Flying through a Subjob

2006-06-15T10:14:00.000-04:00

Well, i have not been able to game for more than 2 hours a day, for the last 2 days. Which makes leveling a subjob into an unessisarily long, adruous ordeal... I cant wait till im done training a ninja subjob. Mainly because it is not a job that i realy want to level. After all, once im done i just know i will feal like a Holy Warrior, decked out in the Heaviest of Plate Mails, Hidding in the shaddows like a Ninja... Though i must say that upon further reflection into this situation, the mear fact that Paladin can tank like a ninja, but i would argue better than a ninja, due to our emphasis on Defence/Vitality/HP is a testiment to how great the job actualy is.

I mean, i cannot tell you how many times i have seen a ninja get 2 shotted after their shaddows wore off and they screwed up the recast. However, i have never seen a Paladin/nin get 2 shotted after their shaddows wore. Hell, Paladin was made so that it didnt need to hide behind shadows. Sure, we dont have all the haste gear that a Ninja has, but this doesnt matter! The defence we bring to the table is more than enough to compensate for this. Not to mention that by level 75 you have had a TON of time to master casting Cure IV mid-battle. I cant see casting Ustusemi mid-fight to be much different. Yes, we only get 3 shadows on the Ni spell instead of 4 shaddows that a nin main gets. Big Whoop, if thats all Nin's have on Paladins that sub nin, who cares. While Subbing Nin, Paladin gets pretty much all of the MOST defining qualities of the Ninja, while sacrificing defender, provoke, warcry and double attack. And only 3 of those abilities are espesialy useful on the realy nasty stuff 1 (warcry) is only for a small hate spike.

The only issue i have with subbing Ninja, is an ideological one. It is my belief that Paladin was and is not suposed to hide behind shaddows. In my minds eye, a Paladin is not the type of job that aproaches a challenge with the mindset of, "hey, if it works who cares." They are bound by ritual and respect. Now, i realise that many people will read that and laugh at me... After all its just a video game, a fantasy video game. But i must say, that for 75 levels, I have never been let down. Paladin has filled this expectation in every way possible. Shiney armor, cool shields, and swords, hell we even have access to maces. Being the first to provoke, second in certain parties, I have charged in to meet many, many, many enemies head on. On their own terms, in their home lands, and won. This is what i fell in love with when i started playing Paladin. Paladin is the "Hero" job in FFXI. And only the most etitest players, who have a close minded mind set because they read somewhere in some guide that you must have a Ninja or something, are over joyed to see us enter the battle.

They do not strike from a distance either, aka almost no ranged weapons. We cant even throw pebbles! We walk right up to the most wicked of enemies, the scourges of vanadeil, and challenge them. I must say, Paladin is quite a romantic job. Almost everyone that actualy plays the job loves it. They may put it on the back burner for a while to level a different job, but they always say they look forward to leveling Paladin again.

However, I am constantly attempting to become a better Paladin. Ill try everything, new gear, new tactics, new enemies, new party setups. All to become a better Paladin in this game. One of the few variables that i have not played with yet is my subjob. I have noticed many Paladins either subjobing Ninja, or Warrior. If they sub anything else they go /anon lol. I must say that i dont know why i am so... attatched to my Warrior subjob. Perhaps it is 75 levels and 3 years, of playing Paladin/Warrior. Yeah thats more than likely the reason. As Paladin... there are very, very, very few times that i have not sub-jobed Warrior. You would think that i would be happy to get a chance to branch out, and try new subjobs. But im not... I simply am not bored of Paladin/Warrior. Thats just how much i love this job. After 75 levels and 3 years... im still not bored. Now Thats sayin something.

But, I have made it to level 12 ninja, and have unlocked the double weilding ability. Double wielding is one of the things i am realy after. This is for my DD settup, now while i only have level 1 Double Weilding i still decided to go test it out. I must say i was impressed. Once i equiped another weapon my solo exp per hour climbed noticably. Now for those of you who dont know, double weilding adds both of the wait times of your weapons together, and uses that as the new wait time. In the long hawl, you still get the same number of hits in as your single handed weapon. But in the shorter battles you will kill much faster. Like if it takes 4 attack rouns to kill an enemy with 1 weapon equiped. It will only take you 2 attack rounds (keep in mind the first attack round there realy isnt a wait time.) So you only actualw wait for your character to attack again. i dont know if i explained that very well. here are some numbers:

weapon 1 delay 276 + weapon 2 delay 276 = dual wield delay 552

to get 4 attacks in with dual weild, first attack is treated as imidiate because either your carging with weapons drawn or waiting for it to arrive with weapons drawn in most occasions.

therefore 2 immidiate attacks wait 552 delay to get another 2 attacks = 4 attacks in 552 delay.

if you had 1 weapon 4 attacks would take you 276*3 = 828 delay. (first attack considered immediate)

Thats not bad, as it provides a fairly nice surge in TP at the start of a fight that i am simply not used to with Paladin. So i am already encouraged that i am not wasting my time, in terms of leveling Ninja to sub for my DD setup.

And once i reached level 12 i decided to go and see if all that time trading in zinc ores to the bastok NPC while mining smithing up in levels payed off. It did!! God damn im glad that i got this much fame in norg. I was realy dreading having to level fame in a city for a damn subjob. lol, it was just about the last thing i wanted to do. But never the less all that was left to be done was to finish the quest. A quick run (read:getting lost for an hour and a half) later and i had my ustusemi scroll. Warped back to basktok, and bought one of the 2 level 13 katanas that i could buy. (only one was on ah at the time) I bought some Shihei for 10k a stack. Yeah yeah i can make em... but MAN i was tired. So i bought 5 stacks before the price started to go up. and then i stopped. I figure there will be another Katana and more shihei tommarrow.

well thats what i have been upto, cyal around!

Well, never thought I'd be doing this

2006-06-13T12:05:00.000-04:00

So, i had another chance to test out my DD setup with my PLD/WAR on Sunday. This time it was a burn type of a party. We had a mix of people from my LS, a NIN a WAR a WAR a BRD a RDM and myself. It took an abnormal amount of time to actualy start to exp.

As it turned out, a party member did not have the Mamool staging point. Mamool seems to be the favored place for burns to exp. It is always packed, hell some times you can see 3 parties chaining enemies so close together that you can actualy here the call macros, even though they are all in party chat. XD So after gathering our members 3 people set out to get him his Mamool staging point. Needless to say that took about 15-20 minutes.

Once we were all there, at Mamool, we found that despite our efforts to chain... we couldnt. We could not reach above chain 7 anyway. This wasnt due to a lack of damage being dealt, or an over use of MP. It was simply due to the number of parties in the area... Even though the enemies repop at 5 minutes from ToA and the place is littered with them, im talking about 10 enemies within sight range when the place is empty, there simply wasnt any enemies around. Thats how fast these parties kill. Its quite impressive. Yet it started to feal like every exp mob was like camping a NM. It wasnt long before we left that area in search for another camp.

After some discuision we decided to try out Halvung. Not many of us have actualy exped there yet, so at the very least it would prove to be an exciting venture. I was actualy very impressed with the area we exped in. It had the look of a once great city that is now takin over by Beastmen. And boy were there Beastmen. They were as big as a tarus house. They were everywhere. They camp in a wide variety, all player job types. And i have yet to see a highly distructive move, like bomb toss, from them. Not to mention that besides their unusualy high defence, they were suprizingly easy to kill. My only issue with that place is that the enemies were a little too far spaced apart. It made for long pulls... One could say that the Bard should have come in refreshed our songs and went right back out to pull again to save time on the pulls, but that didnt happen fast enough. And i realy dont think the bard was to be at fault. I think the location of our camp wasnt the best for chaining high numbers. If we were on the ground level im positive we wouldve got higher chains. Never the less we all had a fun time. And with EXP gains of 150 for every first enemy in the chain, we still had some fairly decent gains.

I am now 5.6k from capping off my experience points. That's one hell of a buffer! The next exp party i get i am sure that i will get my first merit point lol. I am realy realy looking foward to that. But that may have to be put on hold for a little while.

While i have this buffer i intend to put it to good use. You see this is the first time, since i have been level 75 that i am not in fear of deleveling. Not in the slightest. So, i have time to concentrate on Leveling a Ninja subjob. Yeah, i dont like doing it. But there simply isnt a better time to do it. Or at least there hasnt been yet. A 37 Ninja would be great for me. Not only would it satisfy that, "OMG Paladin cant do that without NIN sub." attitude other people have... but it will also compliment my DD setup. Yeah i have yet to get a Joyeuse, but hey Dual Weilding Company swords is nothing to laugh at till i do. Also, if i ever decide to take up ranger, warrior or Theif again, a leveled Ninja sub would be very very nice. I can bash Nin all day but i have to admit there are advantages to the job. And it compliments all melee jobs just as well as Warrior. Id be a fool not to level it. So i am... While i have this insain buffer.

I figure ill do nin, then refresh my buffer, then camp my Joyeuse in ernest. Hey, its a plan.

So on Monday night i set out to unlock Ninja, heh i had such a distain toward the job that i never even unlocked it. Hell, i will never say that Ninja is my main job... it is Paladin! But i am not aposed to making Ninja my subjob bitch, War needs a vacation anyway XD.

Not only did i unlock it but i also rocketed my Ninja subjob up to level 9 in about 3 hours. Yeah, Meat mythkabobs and actualy knowing what to level on realy realy helps getting me all the way up to level 12. then ill party after questing Utsi... Utsi..

Sigh, I hate how everyone insists that i Must hide behind shadows for a fight! Just because your a melee and cant take a hit does NOT mean that Paladin plays by the same rules. However, my opinion means nothing when weighed against 80% of the server.

So... Here i am leveling my Ninja subjob... God i feal... Not right in the head for some reason lol. I am just tryin to keep telling myself that leveling Ninja is a good thing till it sinks in. I still dont like it to be honest.

:/ the things i do for more tanking time...

DD Paladin in action!

2006-06-09T11:38:00.000-04:00

Before i get into that let me tell you about the sky run we had before that. I showed up late, as usual... What can i say, work sucks that way. But i showed up just as the LS went up to Ulli, well i think they were actualy camping it for about an hour before i got there. So we stood around, among 3 other LS's (including the Cowboys, a gill seller LS that has been plaguing sky for a little over a month now). After an hour of camping, Ulli popped! Heh, this was a much better time than on Tuesday. I was lsamming my macro by soneones carbunkle hijacked my provoke. Luckily Sid did not have such an issue, and got our claim! Very cool! We made short work of ulli, 20 people tend to do that. Then we went on to grab Mother Globe. With no idea on the pop time... all we knew was that we needed it for a complete set. So we went in mass to MG. And to my shock and dismay, it poped within 10 minutes of arrival! It was a realy clean kill, Not one death. SC's and MB's were used. It was a moment were i was proud to be in FuriousX. It isnt often i see us organised to the point where an alliance will SC and MB.

Now onto the realy fun party of the evening. I had my second Burn party ever last night. And this time i was able to test out my new DD gear. Equiped with 4 LS members and 2 freinds of the other party members i was sure that this was going to be a very enjoyable trip. As for party members, we had a Rdm/Whm, War/Nin, War/Nin, Rng/Nin, Pld/War(me), and a Brd/Whm. I figured it was a pretty solid setup. The brd would pull use attack songs and sleep links/pulls. The rdm would main heal and i would back him up. The wars, the rng and I would also DD the enemies into the ground. Mean while i would pull enemies off the bard as he would arrive, to lessen the amount of cures needed for him. Looks like i would have my hands full. But it was gonna be a fun time.

We went out to the Mamool Staging point for a camp. And apon arrival i was shocked to see how many dead bodies were everywhere. I swear, there must have been at least 10-15 dead people. At that point i was told that there is alot of MPKing that goes on in this area... wonderful! And i left my RR gorget at home lol. No matter, i am Paladin i can handle alot of punishment before hitting the ground, especialy from a VT ;)

I must admit the first half hour was very rocky. After all, this was only my second burn party. I realy wasnt too sure what to do... talk aout a whole new experience for me lol. I simply did not have enough experience in the style to even set up a macro set of what i would use. And I would make all kinds of noob mistakes like WS while blinded and what not lol. But i caught on fast, after the first half hour i realy steped up to the plate at that point. Sure i had to hit all my abilities manualy. This did slow me down quite a bit, but i was doing faaaar better than in my last party or even the start of this party. I figure, durring the first half hour we made about 3k exp. now thats not very good, i know that. But durring the following hour we made 10k exp. There was definately a noticable difference in how we worked together durring the latter 3/4 of the party. Also note that the rdm had an extended DC and the Brd died on a long pull, just outside sight range whitle we were fighting something else... both also hurt the exp per hour during the second half of the party length.

At about 45 minutes into the party the shit hit the fan... We were fighting a VT Puk and had an IT Mamool asleep, when another IT Mamool linked while the the previously asleep one woke up! Wonderful, we have a Puk, a NIN mamool, and a DRG mamool with pet in tow hammering away at us. But like i said, i am a Paladin. When the shit hits the fan, you should be happy to have me around. First things first, one of our War's had the agro of the two mamools while i had agro of the puk (for some reason lol). and the war was going down FAST. This simply had to be fixed. Luckily, i was already inbetween everyone else and the two mamools, so i quickly slapped cover on our war, and told him not to move. the War 2 houred on the Puk. XD sweet now i only have 2 to tank not 3. i provoke/flashed each of the mamools. And slapped on invincible. And it worked like a charm, by the time invincible wore off both of the mamools were asleep along with the pet, and the Puk was dead.

Noone died, everyone was cured up within a minute despite being in red hp. And we didnt even lose our chain. Now how cool is that?! Not only did we not lose the chain, but we went on to tack another 2 enemies onto it before we had to do a looong pull which lost the chain.

I never had to rest, the only person which needed rest would be the rdm, but even then it did not stop the exp cause i just took over healing while he was resting, and flashing just after the AoE so that the /nins could get shadows back up. Man, it is a hectic role being a Paladin in one of these parties! lol I realy do like it. But like i said earlier, i need to adjust to this style a little more, and im sure that by becomeing more used to this environment i can help to tack on another 2k to the exp per hour. The rest will come with developing a NIN sub once i get my Joyeuse.

Now, dont get me wrong. Even if i was used to this environment i am sure that i would not be in the top half of the parse for DoT. I simply wasnt doing as much damage as the others. But i do add many more tools do a standard burn party that they would not normaly have. Its a shame that most people do not bring into the equation the skill set a Paladin adds to this style of party, instead they focus on the fact that Paladin is not the best omg uber DD in the world. Not every burn party is a 20k per hour burn party. And a 10k per hour burn party is quite respectable, especialy when i just know i can get the Exp/per hour ratio higher with some tweeks.

During the entire party we had one death, the Brd died during a long pull... just outside of sight range :/ nothin noone could do. That and the rdm DCed for a good 6-10 minutes. Once all things are good to go, i truely believe we that party setup can get upwards of 15k an hour. Anyway, i am extremely happy with my DD setup. I just need another earring and a ranged weapon and the Pld/War setup will be complete.

DD stats i hit (not parsed just a CONSERVATIVE estimate):
Hit for 60-110 (it and t mobs explains the huge range)
Critical @150
Vorporal Blade 110-670 (heh like i said i learned a valuable lesson DONT WS WHILE BLINDED) lol, rofl

Remember, just because the popular belief is that a Pld is no good in a burn party does not mean it is true. yes we wont do as much damage and the merited people out there, but we do contribute quite a bit. That in combination with the skillset you add to the party, if adapted to and used through out your time in the party, will mean that you will be faaar from leeching. I mean just ask a rdm how much a flash just after an AoE help him out when he is main healing.

Just do me and all other Paladins a favor... If you dont have at least a 80-90% full DD settup... dont go out and ruin the name we are trying to build. Yes youll get some exp, but it will be more counter productive on the whole than good.

O.o Capped Shield Skill

2006-06-08T10:14:00.000-04:00

When i left off last i had a 3k buffer into my level of 75. And before i was to Work on Capping My Shield skill once more i needed a larger buffer. Cause Meltdown can be difficult to zone out of if you dont time it right. I mean you need to be basicaly standing ON the zone line and zone AS SOON as you see it to be successful. And with the hours of time it takes to Cap this skill... your gonna mess up.

Luckily, when i logged on Tuesday, my Sky LS was...well farming in sky. And since i need some exp i ran up there with the utmost speed. I made it up just in time to take out Zip, and then to camp Ulli. I gotta say, Ulli is always a bitch. We were up at Ulli for about 3 hours and STILL no pop. I know that doesnt seem long, but that day Ulli poped at 2 PM east. We were still camping it at 1 AM east and it still hasnt popped... And i had to logg off. But, i came out of the night with a 6k exp buffer. And i just knew that would be enough to Cap my Sheild forever.

The next day i headed Right back up to Sky and began to Tank the Dolls again. A rather uneventful 3 hours later and my i finaly got the 1.4 Shield levels i needed! My Shield is finaly Capped!!! Oh so cool!

This is huge for me. With my Sheild gear, Af1 boots, Sheild Torque, and Knights Earring, I now have a 298 Shield skill. That means i can finaly ditch the Earth Staff i have in favor of a S&S combination on Gods. Well, at least thats the Genereal consensus on Alla and KI forums. Which i think is rather reliable, considering ALOT of Paladins helped to form this general consensus.

In my sky LS i am the ONLY Paladin with Capped Shield skill, and i have the MOST HP as well. Not to mention that i am also the senior Paladin in the LS, so if that doesnt earn me a preference in Tanking enemies, i dont know what will. Perhaps Full Shield and HP Merits lol.

So now i am back to saving for more HP equipment. On my list would be to gatherenough Gill for a Cassie earring (which i ALWAYS wanted) and an Ocean belt. I figure with food and those 2 items ill be at 1800 HP in my full HP settup (with food). Damn, thats sexy.

But it will take me longer to save for those 2 items this time. While making my DD setup i forsook all else and persued it with a reckless abandon. But these 2 items, well i need an actual exp party more than i need those items. Especialy while my sky LS is still trying to figure out a working strategy against HNM like Jormunangd. I feal it will take many masacres till we figure it out. After all on our first run, we did get it to 20%. But i hear he quickly went out of control and they whiped. I dont realy know how it happend cause i had to log off for work. But i hear he spike flailed, and then we were all done.

Oh well, it happens. But thats strike one on the ninjas. Once they hit Strike 2 or 3, ill suggest the actualy use a Paladin/war tank party. You know one with an AA rotation and Stone skin rotation. Hell maybe even a Phalanx rotation.

But thanks to Jorm, we have ninjas hunting HP equipment. I joke because with all that HP they will start to look like a Paladin just not as sexy. lol Although i realy made one of em stop to think when i told him that something like Jorm can One Shot anybody if e critical hits ya. Hell i got hit for 1800 damage on the last run. (one shotted) Which isnt good for a Paladin. Being one shotted is no good... no good at all. It means you didnt even have a chance at surviving for a cure. Idealy, you want to make it so that you cant even be 2 shotted. aka give your mages plenty of time to cure.

But i now have another thing to cross off my list! My shield is done, outside of merits it is finished, complete, finito, fin, fine and all the other words you can use to decribe it. Now comes the difficult part. Convincing the Leader of the LS that a Capped S&S will actualy allow me to take less damage on Gods than my Staff would. I mean i cant blame him, he obviously doesnt know much about how a Paladin works. Hell im still learning new things about the job every day. How can i expect someone with a 75 NIN and a 75 Monk to understand a Paladin. Especialy when he hasn't even partied with one for experience in about 9 months or even more!

All he see's is that the staff is a guaranteed 20% damage reduction. Well actualy its something like .1999999 Damage reduction, but its close enough to call it 20% as listed on the staff. (get hit with a 10,000 needles and youll see you take 8007 damage and not 8000 damage.) So i cant realy blame him. I just need to prove him wrong. Not only does sheild prevent more damage than Staff (when at @300+) but it also allows me to gain the equipment stat bonuses from my sword and my sheild! It is a win win senario for me as a paladin with @300 shield skill.

Hell whats the worst that can happen... i die and he swaps in another Paladin to finish the fight. Although i must say... just like he spent 75 levels on monk learning how to do more damage than the next guy. I have spent 75 levels learning how to take less damage than the next guy. I dont tell him how to do his job, and he realy shouldnt tell me how to do mine. It'd be akin to a skillet telling a pot how to boil water.

I think i am just going to use S&S anyway lol. Especialy if someone has a way to figure out how much damage i take per hit versus how much a paladin with and earth staff takes per hit. Obviously there won't be a huge pool of samples to take an average of. So that wont be enough to difinatively prove to him without a shadow of a doubt that i am right. But it will make a statement, that some paladins know what they are talking about ;)

well cyall later!

The DD Paladin!!

2006-06-06T15:37:00.001-04:00

On a side note, I logged on to my game to notice my brother in LS chat. O.o Wait a minute... i thought he was kicked out of the LS, by that bastard spawn of satan Onigilly. I didnt care how he got back into the LS but i was sure glad to see him there. I am one step closer to actualy doin somethings with him. AkA letting him see me get ripped in two by Jormungand. Now i need to work on getting him into Rank 6. So that he has access to Dynamis and the Zilart Missions. The Zilart missions are what i am realy after. I want to get him into sky XD. But he has no level 50 gear. and is on 5-1... so i let him know about that and i hope that he will have the gear soon so i can get him through. 5-2, the Shadow Lord, can be soloed by a 75 SMN, so im pretty damn sure that wont be an issue to complete, at least not for a sky LS lol. I knew it was gonna be an interesting night.

I have finaly acheived a respectable DD settup for my Paladin. Man i REALY cant wait to go and see how it performs XD. As it turns out the money item i lotted on was waiting for me in my Delivery box, THANKYOU MOHIB, and i put it up for 7,990,000 gill. Sure i undercut by like 10k but when your talking about 8 million... 10k is worth the fast sale. And man did it sell fast lol. It sold within 3 Hours RL time. I promply went out and purchased my Haubergeon and Tatami Sheild from the auction house.

And this is my DD setup as it stands (for a long while):

Main :Company Sword
Off: Tatami Shield
Ranged: Lightning Bow
Head: Optical Hat
Neck: R.K. Collar
Earrings: Coral/Spike
Body: Haubergeon
Hands: Taraque mitts
Rings: Ruby Rings X2
Back: Amemet Mantle
Waiste: Life Belt/Warwolf Belt
Legs: Royal Knights Legs
Feet: Marine M Boots

All told it ran me about 15-16 million gill to assymble. And i am quite happy with it. But there is one item that i am more than willing to camp... Joyeuse. In fact, thats how i finished off my night. but i will get to that later in this post. I prefer to do this stuff in cronological order XD.

After i put my item on the AH i decided to turn to Capping off my sheild skill once and for all. This brought me up to sky, after all during the previous god run that i atteneded i could not help but notice how quickly i was getting sheild skillups there. It was absolutely incredible. As in 1 Shield level per 3 Pots incredible. Which if you remember how difficult the old school shield worked, absolutely knoccked my socks off.

So it didnt take much to convince myself to make my trek up to sky. Once there i found some T pots and draged them to the zone line one by one. once at the zone i engaged, unlocked my target, and sat back to let the sheild skills roll in again. Only zoning once my mp was gone. i also found out that my sheild bash not only does 33 damage to these guys, which is impressive in its own right, but it actualy stuns them too!! I was sooo excited, i mean Shield Bash hasnt actualy stuned anything for like 40 levels lol. Buuut, After about an hour all i had was one half of a parry level to show for it... No problem, there are plenty of other enemies in sky to skill off of.

I dint have to move very far to find my next sparing partner. I decided to spar with the Dolls up ther instead. I must say, they do hit harder than the pots, but i didnt have to worry about being gravitied, poisoned, drained, drowned, burned, or some other highly destructive damage spell like fire IV or Flare. And that was a huge relief. In fact there was only one move that i had to worry about, and that was meltdown. For those who dont know, its a Goblin bomb type of an attack in which it blows itself up and does some pretty nasty damage in the process. But hey, my SHield bash was having realy good success against the pots, and so was my flat blade. After all, im not going for a win here; I'm just after the skillups.

And MAN did i start to get the skillups. In the course of 4 enemies i was up to 274/276 sheild skill. And not even one meltdown in sight! This was very very nice. One pull later i found myself face to face with meltdown and all of its glorious power. i imidiately tossed a shield bash at it, and well lets just sat that sheild bash is not as successful against these as id hoped they would be. So i zoned out and away from him. Well at least i learned a lesson, Shield bash doesnt stop meltdown lol. Time to pull another one, i pulled it, and was able to gain .1 sheild skillup before this one decided to meltdown as well. Ah, but this time i have my 300% flat blade waiting for him! But i learned another valuable lesson, not even a 300% Flat blade is a reliable deterence to Meltdown!! Only this time, i was not so lucky and could not zone in time, and perished.

But Hey! I'm in Sky! If there is one place you would thing a white mage would be... its tele taxing or in Sky. And i was right, eventualy one did come along, and was kind enough to give me an R3. Since i was so close to the zone line, she would not get agro in the process. This prolly was the deciding factor lol. After thanking the kindly whm, she was on her way. And i was back to skilling my shield.

I pulled another doll, and not more than 30 seconds into the pull, guess what the doll did. Your right! another meltdown! and i was down again... This time i just sucked it up, after all i made 2 shield levels in an hour, and HPed back to Whitegate.

All told i am now at a 3k buffer before i lose my level. But thats ok! In my last post i noted a things to do list if you will, first was the DD setup, and second was an exp party! I am right on track. Capping off my Sheild skill is actualy number 3 on my list. All told, with my sheild skill buff items, i am at 296 Shield Skill. (AF feet, Sheild Torque, Knights Earring) I have the ability to get 2 more sheild levels, that will put me at 298 Sheild skill. And once i FINALY get my Koenig Head Peice ill have 303 Shield skill XD. With that much Shield skill (and no merits into sheild yet) i can say goodby to my Staff, i wont need it anymore for anyhing but kiting XD. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

But, there is now a more pressing matter for me to attend. The Joyeuse NM. You see a member of the LS Got Joyeuse earlier that day. And man did he earn it! Poor guy was camping it for 5 days!! And with my need to spend time with my girlfriend well... lets just say that i cant camp it for 5 days till i get the thing. And i have the ToD now! So off i went, i got there after getting lost for an hour... JUST in time for the window to open (heh, somehow i knew it was gonna take forever to get there). And I waited. A summoner was with me as competition, he was the only one there at the time, and just wanted the ToD. Well, i have the ToD and wasnt about to let him in on the pop time, so i just sat there... tryin to make it as boring for him as possible. And letting him kill the PH's lol. Yeah i know i can be an ass sometime, but were talking bout a NM here... im not about to have it pop on me while im killin a lousy PH.

An Hour goes by...

Another Hour goes by... and still no change in anything. That is until another party came by. 5 people... wonderful. as it turns out they are planning to camp this NM while removing the latents of there weapons on its PH's. Wonderful!...

Around this time i started to ralley my LS. And tried to get people excited about killing the NM. And 2 especialy good friends i hav emade on this LS, Seraph and Xichi had came down as soon as they were ready. Everyone else took a longer time to meander on down to us. In fact they finaly got there with 20 minute left in its "window". Mind you with the ToD i was given the end of its window was to be some time in the early early morning.

20 minutes go by, 24 minutes go by, 30 minutes go by, and no pop... We were now officialy out side the window and it still has not spawned. And the leader only blink tank we had, needed to log off. I must say that i am very glad that he came down. He is very nice, for doing so. In fact i dont think very many people wouldve showed up if he had not desided to come down.

10 more nimute passed, and most of the people were starting to get ancy ><. Well i cant realy blame them, i mean the window had officialy closed 30 minutes ago and there wasnt a leader around to encourage them to forge on ahead. But i convinced them to stick around for the next 2 pops and if the NM didn't show we would just leave... And sure enough the next 2 pops came around and no NM surfaced. Well that was that, i must say that i was tired as well, after all i had been up for almost 24 hours, and had to be AT work in 5 hours. So i logged off for the evening.

While parusing the Linkshells Forum i had found that the damn thing spawned 15 minutes after i had loged off to catch what little sleep i could get. Wonderful. But in large part it was an incredibly successful day!

Waiting... and Waiting... a bad weekend

2006-06-05T14:48:00.000-04:00

As i told you guys a while back, I had lotted on a money item from the LS coffer. I spent 200 points on the item, in the hopes that i could sell it this weekend and buy my Haubergeon, Tatami Shield, And my Ocean Belt. All told id say that would run me about 11 million gill. I have 3 million on me and should be able to get 8 million for the money item. Well i still havent gotten the item ; ; I won the item but still havent gotten it.

Well, as it turns out bidding on that Money item, in the LS coffer, was a huge mistake. I did not realise how much of an effect being the point leader, among the paladins, was. While being the point leader most of the Paladins in the LS just wouldnt even bother to show up. Its the good ol' well im not gonna get the item i want so screw you guys attitude.

But i did lot on the money item. And that dropped me down to 26 points. Now, usualy i am just not able to make the God runs that the LS makes, due to the fact that they are on Saturday nights; on Saturday nights i am out and about painting the town red with my girl freind. But this Saturday, i had a talk with her and was able to get on to attend the god run! Man was i elated! i quickly ran up to sky and waited for the rest of my LS to arrive. As they arrived, one by one, i noticed that 3 other Paladins showed up. 2 of them i have never seen at a farming event before, well to befair i should rephrase. 2 of them i rarely see up in sky farming pop items.

Now, to bring you upto date with my characters progression. There is only one item in sky that i need. M.Head, it is the abjuration needed to releive the curse placed on the Koenig Head Piece. And i have been eyeing it for the last 5 months, i just havent been able to attend.

Out of the other Paladins in sky for the run, One of them already had the Koenig head peice. So he wasnt an issue for me. Knowing i was hurting on points and chances to get this item, i was hoping to presuade the two remaining Paladins into allowing me to lot on the Abjuration. After all, the only way i could get this item was to apeal to them in a way where they would allow me to have it.

The first Paladin, Killasweet, realy wanted the item. And wouldnt allow me to have the item (he had 29 points, mainly cause he never shows up for anything) so i stopped asking... i figured it was a lost cause, and well he was right. He had more points than me, so he does have the first the opportunity to grab it. But a few moments later he sent me a reply, letting me know that he was going to allow me to lot on the item. O.o Sweet! One Paladin was kind enough to let me have the item, one more to go XD.

The second Paladin was not nearly as difficult on me. He was nice enough to allow me first shot at the item. But, he wanted to toy with me a little bit first lol. He was gonna let me had the item, but i feal that it wouldve takin all my points to do so. No matter.

By the time I finished talking to the second Paladin, i went to say thankyou yet again to Killasweet. Only to notice that he was no longer in sky... He was in jueno. Hmm, i thought as i saw this and instead of saying thankyou, i asked him why he went to jueno. His responce was, "well im not getting my item so im gonna do something else." Wow, nuff said about him.

So we went out to Bakkyo, and just as soon as we got there Mr.Killasweet sent me a tell letting me know he is coming back up to sky. I guess some people got upset that he left and were hassling him. So up he came. We made short work of Bakkyo, and moved onto Seiryu.

Seiryu is the enemy that drops the abjuration that i am after. So we get our TP, as usual, and get up to cast lots on the items we want, before the fight of course. Low and behold there is Killasweet, he made it! We get to lot on the abjuration, i lot 20. The second Paladin lotted 20 as well. Killasweet lotted 29. Wow, nuff said about him.

After the lots, after i tanked Seiryu and died to his hundred fists, and after he got his drop. I congradulated him. And he told me how he was just telling his party that he meant to press 20 but accedentaly lotted 29 (the maximum amount of points he has). Coincidence? I think not. After all if that was true he wouldve adjusted his lot to 20 in the open ls chat, not just talk to a few people about it in /tell.

3 hours later we were done with our sky run. and every god dropped amazing drops (but genbu) and we were done.

Oh, it is not over! not by a long shot! You see, i have been urdging my brother to get his SNM up to 65 so i can get him into the Sky LS. Cause even though i get frustrated with some of the members i am enjoying my time here. He finaly dings 65 and i worked on getting him a pearl. Once he arrived in Jueno, i asked Onigilly to give him a pearl, after all he was in Whitegate at the time and could easily get there. And he was the only one capable of doing so. No other link pearl owners were on/not afk. And he was nice enough to do so. I was all kinds of excited. After 3 years of playing i had finaly found a way to play at least some part of the game with him on a reliable bases. Hell even 10b was excited once he realized that my brother was the same person he partied with way back when, before they both had subjobs. So i began to introduce my brother to the LS.

You see what i just did? I just got Onigilly to give my brother a pearl and never mentioned him again... Well that infuriated Onigilly. and about 5 minutes after inviting my brother he broke his link pearl and kicked him out of his party in retribution for not saying "thankyou". Well Fuuuuuuck Yoooou Onigilly. Ill get someone else to invite him, you JP prick! Congratulations you used the pearlsack givin to you for the single purpose it was designed for. I mean shit, ive gotten people past Multiple missions and NM fights without getting a thankyou, you think i turned around and MPKed them? Asshole.

Then the next day, We had Kirin. We get up there only to discover that the Misfits had just started a Kirin Fight on there own. Lol, oh well. we just waited for them to finish and started our own run. 3 hours and 3 deaths later we were finished. And the one person i REALY wanted to get his drop, didnt... Sorry, Seraph youll get W.legs eventualy, just dont let Killasweet get it before you or ima get pissed! lol

Well that was my weekend. I hope you enjoyed it as much as i did. cyal later ;)

The Short Term Plan

2006-06-02T16:45:00.000-04:00

Well, after Jormungand, it has become obvious to me that i do not have the versatility to survive in a variety tanking support parties. So, leveling a ninja sub job has increased from being 0 on my things to do list to number 5. It would be number one on my things to do list, but i had already started the ball moving on the other 3 things, and if i dont focus... nothing will get done at all.

Hell if i am needed as /ninja then i will be there as /ninja... even if i feal that /war is far superior to it in every way except for solo work. Thats a huge comprimise for me. The sad fact of the matter is that people will make a tank party geared to support an ninja before they make one to support a paladin. you know what thats fiiine. its a bad idea for many enemies but its fine never the less.

Onto my things to do list!!!

1) Haubergoen and Tatami Sheild (unless my money item gets sniped on me they will both be mine shortly)

2) Buffer experience points party (8k buffer atm)

3) Finaly cap off sheild (ive been level 75 for a few weeks now, and i realy need to just grab some fast hitting VT enemy, bring it to a zone line... and let it wail on me till it is finaly capped. It will be a major acheivement... the capping of sheild as a 75 PLD *drool* On the bright side im not too far off! I actualy capped it when i was level 74 but since i dinged level 75 i havent had the opertunity to actualy tank in an exp party. so a few hours, more like 5 hours of work should make it so i never need to level it ever again. One things for sure ill miss seeing "Willriker's Shield Skill increased by .1 points.")

4) Joy Toy (i hear nothing but how good this is for PLD dd setups but another LS member is camping it atm sooo, ill wait a 4 or 5 days and give him a decent shot at it before i go about butting in)

5) Ninja Subjob (buying tatami, haubergeon, and other misclaneous stuff i should have 2.5 mill left, i just hope it doesnt cost me much more than that to level ninja to 37 and be done with it)

I tend to not put very much on mu things to do list. there is soooo many things that i need to get done that it would just stream on and on forever. So, i try to keep it short and sweet. I have found that little, possible to attain, goals yeild much better results in the fastest pace.

But thats my short term (things to do list)

now let me fill you in on what i have been doing since my last posting.

And other than scrounging up some gill, god chocobo digging has realy sucked lately, i went to sky. Our goal was simple, get Faust and get Ulli, this way the sky run, which im never able to attend, will procede as planned on Saturday.

What this intailed was sitting around at ulli for 2.5 hours until Faust poped. We left behind 2 scouts and hauled ass over to Faust. We let another PLD tank this time. thats fine with me, Faust is a fun fight and ill have another shot at him. But i sure did chuckle as another PLD lost hate and let the mages drop like flies until we won. Then we quickly hoped onto the yellow telepad and were at ulli again.

For what seemed like another 2.5 hours...

at that point i couldnt take it any longer, and had to go. After all i needed to make at least some gill before logging off for the evening.

But alas... everywhere was dug out yet again. Damn i hate when some jackass has the bright idea of posting about chocobo diggin on Alla... I guess they didnt realise that with the introduction of even 2-3 more diggers in the entire world (at the same time) and absolutely noone will be making any gill what so ever. Oh well, it will clear up and reach a stage of equalibrium yet again. I just need to make sure there is anough room for me in that equalibrium, and things will be happy once again.

Have a good one, and enjoy the weekend!!

Learning Lessons the Hard Way

2006-06-01T10:59:00.000-04:00

So, the begining of this post wont make much sence when compared with the title. I will get to that in a bit. First let me update you on what has happened to me since my last post.

Well, i was sittin there, chocobo diggin, passing time and trying to save for my Haubergeon. When i got a tell from a very old freind by the name of Lateralus. As it turns out, he had just turned RNG 70, and wanted help with ZM5.

Now many people distain ZM4 and ZM5 and simply wont help anyone with it no matter how nicely they ask for assistance. Personaly, i wouldnt touch ZM4 with a 10 foot pole cause no one attempting that has learned how important it is to avoid agro yet. But ZM5 is a different matter. ZM5 just takes alot of time to complete. And the fights are just barely too difficult to handle for an average party. That in combination with the fact that i like this guy i decided to go and help him out without a second thought.

First up, was the headstone in Behemoths dominion. All in all it was rather uneventful. With exception of the level 20 Ranger that was looking on with us. It turns out that someone in the group told him we were gonna go and kill Behemoth... lol I felt bad for him just standing there awaiting to see Behemoth especialy when he got agroed and died during our fight. After raising him, and finding out what kind of trick was played on him i made sure he got a D2 back to civilization.

Next, was the head stone past the tunnel in alteph... no not the head stone in alteph but the one past the tunnel. (forgive me i am having a brain fart and cant think of the name) After some people getting agro, a few deaths along the way (not me XD) we finaly made it to the head stone. This is one fight that i realy wanted to do, mainly because when i did it for myself i was told that i could not tank it as a paladin because Dimensional Death would just rock my house! Well this time i tanked it and i gotta tell you that dreaded Dimensional Death did not hit me for more than 100 damage... sigh sometimes i think people run to grab a ninja tank too quickly.

So, now my freind is officialy on ZM6!! and since i know people would readily help him, especialy not that he is past ZM4 and ZM5, I invited him into my sky LS. With the LS leaders permission of course. I also grabed the RDM in that party as well. And finished that night off with a smile.

Now, lets get to why i named this post what i did. Before getting too far into this i gotta warn ya... It may seem like i am bitching for a while. But, I am trying to get to a point on how I learned a very valuable lesson, one that i would like to share with all of Paladins that are new to the job/cocky. I loged onto FFXI to find my LS all grouped in Bibiki Bay. They were grabbing some sort of a poped NM in that area. But once they were finished, well almost finished, we sent a scout out to check on Jormungand. To our shock he was up! So the LS finished the last of their pop NM's, i Grabed my full sheild/ and my full HP settup (with earth staff) and some HP food.

Just to fill you in on some of my stats:
In my HP settup: I have 1750 HP and 273 Shield Skill
In my Shield settup: I have 1300HP and 293 Shield Skill
ill be the first to admit that these are not the best, but hey they are respectable.

Once i got there i must say that i was quite upset that they had another paladin in the main tanking party instead of me. after all he had 1224 HP and my base sheild skill was far lower than mine. The only reason they took him over me was the fact that he subbed ninja as per the LS leaders request... and i dont have a ninja leveled to sub. To be fair, the leader did ask me if i had a NIN sub before desiding to invite the other Paladin into the tank party. So, i did have the first shot at Jormungand over the lower level Paladin with less HP. But the leader decided i couldnt cut the mustard without a ninja sub job.

Now this pissed me off. I mean, I tried to keep as nice of a face up in public chat. But i was pissed off. Paladins have been tanking hardcore shit well before the idea of having the subjob ninja on a Paladin. So, why was i being sidelined for another Paladin simply because he had Utsi Ni. Have we become so dependant on Utsi that the art of Paladin tanking is lost? Has the endgame tanking envirionment become so degraded that if you dont have Utsi, you shouldnt even show up?

Or maybey the problem was not my subjob... maybey the problem was the setup of the tank party (no smns for AA/Stoneskin or the lack of a refresher in the healing alliance). Perhaps people simply dont know how to settup a tank party for a Paladin. Maybey they think that the tank party settup for a nin is interchangable with a tank settup for a Paladin. Well this fight has solidified the fact that this certainly does not work in my mind.

Because looking at the tank settup, i gotta tell you i did not see the tools i needed there. Straight tanking something like Jormungand is not easy on anyone. And for a Paladin/War to tank this you will need AA/stoneskin. There is no question. I am convinced that with the proper setup a PLD/WAR can indeed tank this enemy for a looong time, and keep hate at a level where the mages can realy pummel this thing. However, this is not the settup that i encountered when the tanks began to fall durring this fight.

I was last in line to enter the tank party, you couldve said that i was thought of as 3rd string during this fight cause i lacked utsi ni. But even then i still lasted long enough to allow for the other tanks to be unweakend and healed up (100% ready to go) before going down. And that is with a party settup not conducive to a paladin/war tank. On numerous occasions during the fight i would come in to fufil this role, and i must say. Each time i lasted until new tanks were ready to go.

Now that i am done tooting my own horn... let me tell you the things that i did not do well.,, and indeed there were plenty of things i did not do well. It may be better for me just to make a list.

1) I need more HP to make /war work in this situation. I was actualy hit for 1801 durring this fight (more HP than i actualy have in my HP settup). But to be fair that only happened once in almost 2 hours of being swapped in and out of the tank party.

2) I need to level a ninja subjob. Yeah i know, it sucks. But this is my rational, Paladin is a very versatile job. And in the right situation he can tank anything out there in /war, but the sorry fact of the matter is that more times than not, you will not be in this ideal situation. Therefore you must incorporate as much versatility into how you can tank an enemy as possible. People simply do not know how to settup a tank party to use paladins to there full potential anymore. And you must have the tools to adapt to the simes when you find yourself in a ninja tank party instead of a paladin tank party.

3) Once a party leader gets it into his head that, "this is the only way to do something". Or,"This is how everyone else does it" you had better just role with the punches and try your best to help him win his/her way. It is a lost cause to think that he/she will be willing to swap what they believe to be the best way, in order to incorporate you into the mix. So, if that means subbing ninja on your Paladin...well just suck it up and do it. youll get more tanking time, even if it isnt as fun.

4) when Jormugand is in the air, and you dont have hate directly just run away (out of its range of touch down) this will make it so the mages wont have to cure as many people, especialy since the move strikes through shadows.

5) Paladins do not have the best name in FFXI for tanking anymore. Its strange but true... It is not that it takes more effort to keep a paladin going, that much is almost negligable nowadays. Its just that the setup for a NIN is just much easier for a melee to put together. Since most of the jobs are melee, leaders of LS's tend to be melee as well. After all its almost imposible to organize an event to its fruition while you are buisy tanking. On the other hand, its much easier to organise people through out an event if your just sittin there charging a chi blast, meditating, of swinging your weapon. This directly impacts the hnm scene in an interesting way. Most melee can only solo with /nin. In fact (even mages use /nin for soloing) almost every player is familiar with how NIN works because of this. Paladin is a little more... foreign to them.

A Paladin does not play like a NIN. And therefore requires a setup that most players dont understand/ know about. So we see more nins and /nins at events. That being said when the NIN goes down, they will grab another nin or a paladin to replace him. And THIS is where we run into the issue. The Paladin tank is now thrusted into a NIN tank party and is expected to perform just as well as the nin did. Its realy not suprizing that they wont perform as well. After all you have a support group made for a completely different tanking style. After time, the Paladin in this situation has developed a reputation for being somewhat inferior to ninjas. I pose this to all readers, its not the Paladin Job, its the situation the Paladin job finds itself in. To ease the situation many paladins have started to sub ninja, to make use of the suport we have when invited. And that is what i intend to do as well. Anything for more tanking time.

6) The Paladin is like Batman. In his own right he is nothing. But with the proper tools for the situation he can easily come out on top. This translates into a LOT of equipment, a HP settup, a Shield settup, a kite settup, a DD settup, and now a /nin settup. this also translates into the support group he is in, as i discuissed above.

well, i certaily hope you made it through all of this. My encounter with Jormugand has changed my veiws on Paladin. and i hope you dont have to learn the same lesson i did the hard way. (PS i did not get to finish the fight, so i cant tell you how my LS did. i had to go to bed for work the next day)

Progress

2006-05-30T14:31:00.000-04:00

As mentioned before, i am still arranging the gear i want for a respectable DD settup. Im under no dilusion, and realise that a PLD will not realy get many invites for endgame exp/merit parties. But I sure am going to give it a try! Recently i have begun saving for a haubergeon. And that is coming along nicely.

But i have become side tracked as of late, to help people out. Lets just hope they remember me when it comes time to merit XD.

My side tracking started with the leader of my sky LS. He needed a coffer from Ifrits Cauldron for a peice of his NIN Artifact Armor... Some how he leveled all the way to 75 on NIN but negtlected his AF, never the less this was his last peice to get. And since i used to mine there quite a bit i decided to help him out. Little did i know it would take the entire night and the coffer would not be the only adventure awaiting my in the Cauldron. A couple hours later we had his key and were hunting for the coffer itself.

Thi Coffer isnt hard in that Ifrits Cauldron, despite its reputation, realy isn't a hard place to get around in. The part that sucks is that there are far too many spawn points in that place for the coffer and we just about gave up. But while we were there we decided to get 2 or 3 members past the Ifrits Cauldron part of ZM5.

So we waited some more, for them to arrive, and hunted this coffer again. But we could not find it anywhere. Eventualy the new members to our LS arived and we began to delve into the Cauldron once again. While on route to the Headstone we needed to examine we noticed the elusive coffer! The only problem was that it was down a one way path... needless to say he went, and i cant blame him especialy since he didnt know it was a one way trip.

Once we back tracked all the way back around to the begining of the Cauldron again, we went for try number 2 on our trek. This time we ran into Bisquitmage and his freinds! As it turns out, they were on the same mission as we were, well that we were helping with. And we decided to bring them along with us. Once we finaly made it to the head stone we made short work of the enemies and finished the quest. Not only did we complete this potion of the quest but we also recruited Bisquitmage and his freinds over to our sky LS. All in all it was a fun trip and I was happy to help.

Once I finished that I proceded to farm fill for my Haubergeon again and got myself up to 1.7 Million Gill before the nights end. It shouldve been higher.... but Lady Luck was not on my side, not at all.

The next day would prove to provide another tangent to slow me from my goal. Its name shall be called Kirin. LoL Kirin is a big fat juicy target for me... I simply must straight tank that bish before the end of my career. But as of yet, that will not happen. I have too much character building to do. My role this time up was to pull the links to the main alliance, hey if thats what im told to do... ill do it, though i much prefer the glory that comes with being the main tank. After the extended time spent setting up the aliance (which im used to by now) We began. I equiped all my HP gear, seeing as i only had to survive the trip back to the alliance, i even ate a Carbonara (just to see how high i could get my HP with food) and im currently at 1756 HP with food, which for a Hume is respectable but not great. And brought back the first Mini God to the main alliance making sure to call for help along the way.

Well i guess the main alliance did not get the memo that i was pulling the minis for them to deal with and thought i was actualy going to tank it... No Provokes, No Flashes, and worse of all... No Cures. I actualy survived about 45 seconds versus the mini without aid of any kind and without using my 2 hour. i was actualy quite impressed with my self, but needless to say i went down and then the main alliance moved in to take it out. On the next spawn, our other Paladin Seraphphd was tasked with the same role i had. Only problem is that i guess the main alliance did not get the memo that he was just pulling it back for them to deal with. And it wasnt long before he went down as well lol. I swear it was like deja vu. Other than that the mini Gods went down quite easily and we moved to Kirin.

Kirin also went rather smoothly. Our SMN's decided to go on vacation or something, so we ammassed our wrmy of Monks and Chi Blasted it to death. Sure it was a slow kill but it was a safe kill with a solid strategy for a win and almost no non-kiter/chiblast happy monk deaths. After this 3 hour battle we were rewarded with--------> An O ingot and a Wind Crystal...

Yes thats right, an O ingot and a wind crystal...

But hey it was fun never the less, and after that i went back to trying to save for my Haubergeon. Can someone tell me why everyone seems to have trouble saving up gill for a Haubergeon. I mean i have bought some pretty expencive peices before, certainly more expencive than a Haubergeon. But for some reason, i just cant seem to save gill for this Peice. I mean every time i go out to Choco digg lately i simply come up completely dry (barely covering the costs of my greens). Its the strangest thing ever. And after this Kirin incedent i was down 100k+ for my new stack of Carbonara. Heh, i only save that for the real fun fights.

So after an hour or two of breaking even, i headed off to bed.

The next day, after droping of GF, i loved onto FFXI to make a point to Chocobo up some gill till bed time. That is until, the leader of the LS started talking bout starting a bcnm 30 or something he wasnt real sure. I recomended him to screw bcnm 30 and go for bcnm 60, the Orc one near Sandy. After all i am undefeated at that bcnm, and the drops are pretty good. On average we get 1 Specticle, 2 Asaults, and some misclaneous stuff for our troubles. It didnt take much persuading to convince him to go there instead.

Hind sight being 20/20, i realy shouldnt have roped myself into that trip. I mean it was 11 pm by the time he decided to go, and since i knew the way and strategy... i had to go. i had to go for 6 trips. But you know what, even though i was slapping myself for getting into that perdicament i had the funnest time ever on that bcnm run. It must've been cause i was with all people i know, but dont really do much adventuring with, not to mention most of them were the most popular members of the LS. And i dont really fit into their click, so any chance i get to branch out ill take.

We went with NIN(LS leader), BRD(Gorokai), BLM, DRG, PLD (me), RDM. It was a little different setup than i was used to, but i must say it was incredible redundant. If any member went down, we had someone else that could step up and perform that role just fine. This also helped put my mind at ease, after all losing an undefeated status sucks.

To make a long story short, (im sure you dont wanna read about every run) we kicked ass and i am still undefeated. Not one person died, everything was perfect, outside of dia being on the monk in the first run, when he decided to 100 fists my sorry ass it was prefect. Even then that small thing was nothing that a gravity couldnt fix.

For loot, which was pooled, we have 1 Specticle, 2 Assault Earrings, 4 Flutes, 6 DS Ingots, 2 Dragvondil's, 6 Mythril Ingots and an assortment of other jewels/precious stones. All in all about 8 mill+, aka 1.4 Mill per person in 2 hours of work. Not bad in my book, and the drops should've been better!

I am looking foward to going again with in the LS, it was a fun trip, and im pretty sure everyone was glad they came.

So, including that bcnm run i figure im at 2.8-2.9 Million gill into my Haubergeon.

As for my Sky LS, things are shaping up nicely. The environment created by the newer players in the LS is so much better than the one created by the Jaded players of the past. I am rather excited. Although I realy need to pressure someone into putting up an auction for the LS, so members can spend their points on money items. I for one realy coulr use a venomous claw or a behemoth hide atm. That would get me a Haubergeon a Tatami sheild and have gill left over to make me feal not so poor.

well, so long till another day!

I love it when a plan comes together!

2006-05-25T08:31:00.000-04:00

/hurray for the A-Team.

Well i have been working on my master plan. to make a damn good DD burn setup for my Paladin, and to prove the world wrong. Sure itll take me gearing for all out DD, but hey if thats what i must do to replenish my exp lost/merit my Paladin then so be it.

I have made a post of my current DD setup in the past, yes i know it was kind of bootleg. But it is becoming better and better. Here is my current setup:

Sword: Company Sword
Shield: Koenig Shield ------> gonna need a Tatami Shield
Ranged: Rosenbogen ------> gonna need a Lightning Bow
Head: Optical Hat
Neck: Royal Knights Collar
L.Earring: Knights Earring --> gonna need another Coral or Spike Earring
R.Earring: Coral Earring
Body: Sipahi Jawson --------> saving for the Haubergeon as we speak
Hands: Taraque Mitts
L.Ring: Ruby Ring
R.Ring: Ruby Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle
Waist: Life Belt/Warwolf Belt
Legs: Royal Knights legs
Feet: Marine Male Boots

I especialy like the boots, as its my newest aquired item. Its great for both my DD setup and my HP/Kiting setup. But man they were a pain to get. After puchasing my cluster for the optical hat i was left with 100k in my pocket... So i sold off my Emperors Hairpin and my Leaping boots for a whopping 5 mill total. And proceded to camp the auction house for those boots. After 2 days of constantly checking for it (i wasnt about to use 60 bst seals a pop to grab these for free) i couldnt find a single one. And on the third day, while i was at work... 2 were put up on auction, 2 were sold from the auction, and the price rose from 4.1 mill to 5.1 mill in those 2 sales. Wonderfull.. So as i was about to head to bed i decided... what the hell ill check the AH just one more time for the day. Low and behold there they were, just sitting there screaming buy me now! Of course i did, and was able to get em for 4.6 mill. Not bad at all considering the last pair sold at 5 mill with rapid speed. Not only is it a great peice of gear, rivaling my AF1 boots for certain uses, but i realy feal that the price will go up.

I have also been farming for my Haubergeon in the interum. Hell, I'm not gonna wait for my sky LS to get its but into gear and grab some money items. And over the course of 3 days I am now at 1.6 mill just doing some things here and there. The last few days have been nice to me. I need a total of 4.8 mill to buy me a Haubergeon, 4.5 mill to buy me the Damaskas. I am leaning toward grabbing the damaskas and signing my own Haubergeon. LOL, always wanted one of those anyway.

But with trying to cram an HP settup(need one more item), Kiting settup(needs work), Sheild settup(only need one non-rare/exe item for this but its cheep), a DD settup, A level 50 settup (for CoP, god im glad im on 5.3 almost done with this level 50 stuff), and my AF into my mog house/safe is making things a bit cramped... so i sold my adaman feet and hands and legs. Hell i never use them anyway. If i want HP ill were my koenig. If i want DD ill wear my Tarasque Mitts, and if i want my emnity for kiting or whatever ill grab my AF hands. So as things go the adaman hands were useless to me.

As for the legs, i have Crimson Cuisses, and AF1 legs, and Royal Knights... who needs Adaman Cuisses when you have those three... ever!

And the feet, well i just bought those to complete the set, they were never more than a toy to me. so now that i need the space they are out as well. I cant think of a situation that AF1 boots or Marine M. Boots would not be superior for anyway.

Basicaly as better peices come along i am filtering out the Adaman. It was great as a comeing out of AF stage in my Paladins career, though. And i do have a lot of love for that set. But there will come a time where it simply isn't needed anymore.

As for my sky LS, i couldnt help but over hear the leader of my LS tell the younger Paladin's that leveling Paladin was a waste of time... Well, that pretty much sums many peoples opinions about Paladins right then and there. sure nins dont need alot of cures, but i've seen videos of Paladins tanking gods completely naked. A Nin couldnt dream of doing that. besides, the same person that just bashed the hopes of 3 players, may not like us very much. But i gotta tell you hes the very first person to bitch about not having us up in sky/gods. I dunno, maybey he is realy just a closet Paladin fan, but cant admit it to himself. Never the less i told those guys in open chat, " Dont listen to (leaders name), he only likes Paladin tanks for like 2 fights, but then complains about no Paladins making this their main LS. I mean hell i tanked my own O-hat with 9 other people there, but he still insists it is imposible." And for some reason i didnt see the leader post for at least a minute... infact i didnt see anyone post lol. I actualy thought i had been kicked. But a couple minutes later, told the younger Paladins to get to level 75 so he can put them in koenig and sit em infront of fafnir lol.

I have also come to notice that i am this highest level Paladin in the LS, well i shall rephrase i am the most active 75 Paladin in the LS now. i dont think xcrashx is a 75 paladin yet, but he was definately more active than i am. Though i havent seen him on the LS in some time now. You see, i have seen about 10 Paladins come and go from this LS over the 4 month period i have been in it. Sure they all start out strong and gung ho... but that seems to quickly fade away for most of them, and they dont come back. Dont get me wrong, about 80% stay as Paladin, just not with this linkshell.

I cant realy complain though, it makes for easy items for me. And with the way the LS tanks things, i have very little risk of deing on most events... mainly cause they make ninja's tank everything but Seiryu and Faust. Once again i can't complain, well i can but i refuse to. Surfice it to say that if you take the time, equip yourself to how your support will react to you, and use your head, Paladin has a nasty way of making the impossible happen every day on vanadeil.

And for all of you Paladins out there, Use Your Head and Equip Correctly for the Situation, and i promise you.. one day you will be the one making the impossible happen too. Dont let anyone tell you any different!

Over the Weekend

2006-05-22T12:13:00.000-04:00

I have decided to put my plan into action this weekend. And the first thing on the list was to finish getting all my Staging points, this way i would be able to tele-port anywhere a party would want me. The only 2 that i had remaining were the 2 inside of the Arrapago Reef(sp). I must say that this zone is especialy nice. I can see that they realy put alot of effort into making the zones in this expansion much more interesting than the mainland.

This land was full of undead, lizard ladies, ghosts, and flesh's. And the first trip through i got completely lost... mainly because i have no map XD. I like goin through unexplored areas without a map, while on a mission. It... adds an excitement that i like. Its kind of like entering a realy hard battle in some other games without saving first. It may be a stupid manuver, but it realy does make the game more exciting.

It took me about 2 hours to become somewhat familiar with this area, well enough to find where the first staging point was. It was just past a realy cramped room with stalagmite jutting up from the floor and straight into the ceiling. It was a good thing that i took my time venturing through this little room. Because, hidden inside, meandering inbetween these stalagmites were true sight imps! Now that i knew they were there i just used the pillar like things in the room to my advantage as i snuck past them and into the first staging point.

The second Staging point realy wasnt all that hard for me to get, well outside ot the key... it refused to pop for me. So, i found a level 30 whm that was ventureint to that area... it seems he was in search of completeing the corsair quest, and i was glad to help him. especialy since i saw the key i was after hanging out of his pocket!

Once inside i quickly lead him to his destination, and then went on to find my last staging point. This didnt take me nearly as long as the previous staging point because i was already somewhat familiar with the area. That and i heard you follow the same path to the second staging point as i did for the first one for half of the trip. all in all it only took me about 20 minuts to get to the spot.. not counting the time i spent hunting the key...

The next thing on my list was to get enough Imperial Standing to be able to use the warp points i have just gathered. This was easy enough, i mean i was already at 150 Imperial Standing from the previous Quest. So it only took like 10-12 EP enemies to get me enough points to be able to get to where ever a party wants to go. (parties can be hard for me to find, if i dont make them myself, so this will realy help me get to any place i actualy do get a party)

The next day, i loged on to find that my LS, FuriousX, was doin some HNM hunting, They were at Serket but its window was almost over :( So, i decided to visit the AH and talk to a few freinds.

By the time serket poped, and LS was beat to claim... despite having half the people there. We moved to Behemoth. He was in the middle of his window, and we headed right on over. After waiting for 2 hours... and having more than half the people there we didnt get claim either. But, on the bright side Tenbears, leader of the SKY/HNM ls i bleong to said that we need more Paladins like me in the LS. The compliment was nice until he added, "You know, the kind that will make this LS their main LS"...

Sigh, this day wasnt shaping up all to well. And Tenbears, leader of the LS was gonna go afk until we were scheduled to do Kirin later that evening. Well i wasnt about to just wait for him to return so i ask the LS if they wanted to set up a burn party for some exp in the interum. And many people were interested XD

I guess the leader of the LS over heard me askin the LS if we wanted to TP burn and decided he wasnt going to go afk after all, he wanted in. and proceded to make a party. while making a full party, i said i was interested in goin. after all i do have a decent DD setup. and was able to get to chain 21 without a rdm or a brd in my last burn. But, i was met with the reply, "Inviting a Paladin into a burn party goes against everything i beleive." Not cool... Not Cool at all. After telling him, "Take your Paladin hating ass and go straight to hell!" Which he seemed to just laugh off... I went on to see what i could do to fill my time. Tenbears duplicity, one moment he loves havin plds around... the next he cant be seen within 3 zones of one, is realy starting to get to me.

So, there i was... partyless. And frankly quite pissed off. When Fiftygil, an LS mate, asked if, "any tanked wanted an optical hat". WELL, this screamed to me... get in on this instead. And off i went, i bought a cluster for 1.5 mill and charged up to the Hakaktu (sp?) spawn site. With out knowing it i jumped into a party where they were doing 9 Optical Hats! Wonderful!

I was something like number 6 on the list, and i knew that there would be no way for me to make it to sky on time. The spawn time of 15 minutes alone was gonna make me late. Besides i just knew that it would take about an hour for everyone to get geared up, get to sky, and get all set up. So i decided to stay, but to relieve some of my guilt i sent the leader a tell lettin him know i was gonna be late, even though i didnt say why.

I must say the hakaktu(sp?) fight realy wasnt all that hard, we did it with 10 people. I expected it to be worse, but a War and i tanked it with little problem. And everyone got their Ohat before the party was done, well i cant say everyone... i shall explain lol

While in my Ohat party, one where my sky LS only held on friday so i couldnt get it that way, my sky LS proceded with Kirin. They almost whiped on the mini gods... they barely rebounded. and had all of the mini gods dead by the time i had my O-hat. And i just couldnt stay any more. i had to get up there and help. Personaly... Some people in the LS can lose all the exp in the world, but i care about most the people in the LS so i had to get up there. There were two people in my O hat party that still needed to fight, but i had to bail on them.

I warped to Aht Arhun only to find that it was completely locked down. Beseiged = yet another delay. After unleashing some righteous justice on the invading troll army i quickly ran to the warp taru and proceded to Kirin.

By the time i had gotten to Kirin all the mini gods were dead, and kirin was at about 90%. I know my role on kirin and began to cure the kiters. Not long into the fight id say Kirin was at about 50% someone with the hate of Kirin disbanded from main alliance and went to go take a shower... Wonderful! Kirin rampaged the entire LS until our hate level was less than that members. Once he went down, we reclaimed and finished Kirin off. For some reason we did not have any thiefs on at the time, not a single damn one and were there for rewarded with a D. body, and nothing else... not even crystals.

Thats ok, im gonna focus on the bright side of things. I have all my staging points, enough IP to get to and party location, and i have my O hat! next on my list is to sell my emporer hairpin and leaping boots to buy a pair of Hume M. Boots. Then bot my head and feet are drasticaly upgraded! Then i begin to farm enough for a haubergeon, while i wait for the LS to churn up a decent money item. once i get the hauby and boots my DD settup will be far above and beyond what many paladins bring to the table! ill just need the opertunities to show it.

Running around

2006-05-19T14:33:00.000-04:00

So, i am the type of person that likes to have options. Not only does it allow me to do what ever when ever, but it also does not hold others back when they are in my parties. To that effect i have begun to get my staging points. So far i have 3/5 of them. the 2 remaining are the ones that i need to take the boat to get to in the new areas.

So far i am impressed with the new areas. they are much bigger than i had expected them to be, and they are riddled with enemies of all sizes and types. And i am deffinately looking foward to expeing off of them. So far i have not come across anything IT though, i supose this is good and bad, but i am glad that nearly anywhere we go, there will be a nice exp camp waiting for us.

Also, i have found the NPC where i can get Saction from. I was realy realy suprised when i found out that you can get refresh and regen off of these guys! As a paladin who only recently got autorefresh, in the update, i am even more happy. Even in burn parties i do my best to help cure, hell in one burn party we didnt have a red mage or a bard and still managed to reach chain 21 with the smn and i healing the group. good thing i brought the dark staff on that trip hehe

The first thing on my list is to get the 2 remaining staging points. This is a must have for me. Next comes a little farming for a Haubergeon and M Boots. Both will be a huge addition to my current setup. Once i have those 2 items ill begin to cap off my exp. well depending on how long it takes me to raise the funds i may wait until i at least have the haubergeon.

As for my sky LS... i am begining to have my doubts about it. There havent been alot of people on it lately. Just the real hard core guys are left. Still its a firm foundation, and just needs more members. I think this will be a little tough to get done though. As if we are to rebuild it would involve grabbing people that don't have sky and staging those runs again. Then retraining people to get the job done... I am tempted to cash out my points and moving to BBQplatinum. i have alot of realy old school freinds in that LS, and i would love to rejoin them. i dunno...

Never the less i will have to cash out some points to afford the 8+ mill those 2 items mentioned above will run me. I figure ill get a venomous claw and then farm some gill a little bit in the interum. My DD settup must come before all else. after all it is what will feed me the exp i need to become a merited Paladin. cause what i would realy enjoy is to have a 300+ shield skill in an HP setup of at least 1600-1700 HP. Now that would rule.

In a RL note, i have finished my Paladin guide. All i need to do is to find a place to stash it, and ill provide a link to it for all that are interested. the freaking thing cranked out to be over 56 pages long! So it would be nice to have a place host it. so people could actualy take advantage of the lessons i have learned on my trip to 75.

oh well back to work!

Triumph!!!

2006-05-18T16:29:00.000-04:00

I have been playing since the NA release. So whats that like 3 years and 4 months now? And i have finaly dinged level 75! and am soooo happy over it. It took 2 hours in a burn party but i got it! another hour later and i had a 10k buffer XD. It felt the ground shudder beneath my feet, even it was quaking before how mighty i am now!

Sure i did it in a burn party, with the god aweful stench of utsinemi(sp?) smoke filling the air around me. But hey what ever works, i put up decent numbers on the board and even stole hate once in a while from the nin with my damage alone. hmm, crappy nin? sloppy nin? lazy nin? mighty paladin? your call! but i am going to lean towards the latter! hehe

It has been a long road up to this point, but i cant wait until i get my fair shot at caping my experience points off, then start getting merits! First on my list is Shield >HP > Sword. But no matter what shield is the first thing to cap off.

Sadly i need to get my staging points first though. This will be a challenge, but hey why else did i level whm to 25 anyway. the only hard part will be to find these staging points by my lonesome. since im pretty sure everyone that wants to merit in the new zones have all if not most of them.

I started with Caedimer mire or however you spell it. i know of that one since i exped there to get to level 75. even though that place is a maze i found my way without any problem (without a map). I may need a guide to find the others though... seeing as i have no maps that are quested.

I must say i love and hate those tele points at the same time. They make travel much much faster, and i dont even need a whm to get me from place to place, but they cost imperial standing points to use... sure i got some of these points off of getting my first staging points but i have no idea how to get more imperial standing points outside of getting the other staging points.

If anyone has any info id love to hear it. I will be over joyed if you can just get them by killing things for exp much like signet. However, i might just cry if i gotta specificaly quest these standing points...

on a brighter side my "DD settup" has been coming along quite nicely. I have made as much progress as i can though. Now i need to cash in some points for a venomous claw or something to sell for my haubergeon, yes i could make it... but the way the silly points for items work in my sky LS i might as wel get the venomous claw 175 points and 7.3 mill on the AH, as opposed to getting the damaskas for 125 points 4.3 mill on the AH.... i mean if i were to get the damaskas it would be like pissing away 1-1.5 mill with the way they have points setup. The only problem is that there are no venomous claws in the LS bank. And I get the fealing that the leader of the LS does not want to reduce the price of the damaskas to 100 points (which is what it would be if it were to be corrected for the market price of each item over the last month). But i degress, if this is what the prices are, a venomous claw it will be, and ill just sink the extra gill into my Hume M. Boots fund, after i get my Haubergeon.

Until then i will get more staging points, then get another exp burn, then start farming up gill to reach a M. Boots the good old fashioned way. After all I did spend alot of time puttin together ways to make gill for a reason right? I'm sure it wont date my long to get them both!

Until then ill farm some gill. get staging points and Merit as i upgrade my DD setup even more XD.

I havent mentioned it here but i have constructed a comprehensive Paladin guide, i just need to find a place to put it on the web, if anyone can help me out im stumpt.

cya round! fight hard, live long!