Sticker collecting

So Genkai 3 happened last night.

I think I'm slowly getting over my aversion to accepting help on these things. While going on suicidal runs is fun and all, it's rarely successful and when the quest is hard enough it's still a tad suicidal even with a group. So yes, the Linkshell helped again and I lost count of how many times one of them died over the course of the night.

We started with the Orcish headquarters and managed to somehow build a massive aggro train on our way to the Wall of Banishing. Aforementioned member of the LS built the train and took it right to the wall and then died, at which point most of the orcs vanished. Unfortunately there were enough still there that our deceased Red Mage could not safely be raised, so our Summoner ended up sending out Leviathan to distract the orcs while I used Chainspell to raise him. Once Freguer was back on his feet he opened the wall and we all made a mad dash for the zone-line. Once we made it inside the rest of the trek to retrieve the Orcish Crest was relatively uneventful.

Our next stop was Beadeaux, Quadav HQ. I definitely learned a lot while we were there. For instance, I had not realized you can avoid the curse from those infernal machines by voluntarily silencing yourself using another nearby device. This reinforces my suspicion that I need to spend more time exploring the world than I have been lately. Other interesting thing, Moxxy showed me that Leviathan can cure status ailments, which we used to freely remove silence after bypassing the horrid devices. While I do a lot of homework on RDMing, I'm really quite clueless when it comes to some jobs, like Summoner. There so much I don't know about how they work, it's actually a little embarrassing.

Anyway, once we made it into the room with the Crest, we immediately caught aggro and ran away to clear the way. Upon re-entering we caught aggro again and realized a Notorious Monster was blocking our path. We decided our best course of action would be to stomp on the Ruby Quadav and simply remove it. It took a while but didn't pose much trouble. Once that was taken care of we ventured further in and caught sight of the crest, whereupon I caught aggro and was beaten into a fine paste. Turns out there were more true-hearing turtles in there, including another Ruby Quadav. Moxxy and Freguer cleared out some Quadav on the side of the room so I could safely reraise.

Then there came a shout: "Doc, up now!"

Figuring Freg had a better sense of aggro ranges I reraised. Then he pulled the most amazing trick I have ever seen. He timed his casting so that right as I revived, I had Sneak. There was no window for aggro at all. Easily the most incredible bit of spellwork I have seen in a long time, possibly ever.

Unfortunately, in my haste to retreat from possible AoE range I slipped and fell over a ledge, meaning I had to circle back around through the labyrinth again. Once I got back the NMs seem to have cleared out so I nabbed the crest and we boogied on out quick-like.

The Yagudo HQ portion of the quest was significantly less entertaining. We pretty much waltzed in and grabbed the Crest without encountering any resistance. It made me paranoid that maybe we'd picked up a fake Crest or something, but Maat couldn't tell the difference so it doesn't really matter.

Stylish Elegance at its finest.

Staff chucking?

Life is good in Vana'diel.

After getting my pimp hat and hitting level 60 I spent some time in Crawler's Nest finally learning the basics of soloing without using my sword. It's a very different sensation than I'm used to and it seems a whole lot slower than just pulling out my sword and beating a mob to death. On the other hand I was badly in need of some magical skillups and with some shiny few Fast Cast on my hat it seemed like a good idea.

The basic theory behind spell slinging soloing is to nuke a whole lot and keep the mob from getting close enough to chew on my face. Between Sleep, Sleep II, Gravity and Bind this can be done fairly easily provided you can get your spells to land without too many resists. Unfortunately relying on Sleep means I can't speed up kills using Poison or Bio, and the kills are already long enough to start wearing on my patience. Sure it's safer, but it doesn't silence the little voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me I'd be getting better exp by sword-chucking.

I think the thing that throws me the most about this whole kiting/sleep-nuking method is the awkwardness that comes from running away to keep your distance from the monster. Dodging aggro might be an refined art, but I'm starting to suspect picking an appropriate battleground is just as important. Being unable to see in 360 degrees, I'm either losing sight of the mob I'm trying to kill, or I'm running blind straight into walls, rocks, shrubbery and disgruntled goblins. Usually I'll opt to keep an eye out for goblins, but that makes it hard to tell how far away the pursuing mob is and with the camera rotation being slow as it is, this either necessitates guesswork or stopping long enough to turn around and discover that yes indeed the mob was close enough to begin preparing an adventurer sandwich.

As with most things, I suspect more practice will make this easier as time goes on.

If nothing else I'll eventually develop nervous ticks for when all the spell timers are ready.

We've been doing some Avatar runs lately.

I've taken to stealing all the killshots.

Tony Stark's got nothing on me

It really is just that awesome.

The game has become that much more enjoyable at level 60.

Pimp Suit: Complete

It's been a busy weekend, but by far the best thing that's happened is the acquisition of the supremely stylish Warlock's Chapeau. This has been a long time coming as the pinnacle of spiffy hats is one of my long term goals for this game.

The problem I face now that I have it, is that I cannot yet equip it. Back to the exp grind I suppose.

That aside, the acquiring of the hat was more pleasant than a few of my other adventures involving higher level folk. The Guardian Statue in particular felt like a brutal battle. He's spawned in a rather small room in Garlaige Citadel and is rather large. The monster then proceeds to use spinning attacks that clobber everyone in the room for a few hundred points of damage and ripped through my Stoneskin relatively easily. I was glad to have my Linkshell there to support me tonight.

All in all I'd say this weekend marks a turning point in my FFXI career. Things are finally starting to pick up the pace and take off into something even more enjoyable than before. It's like the Red Mage AF suit has granted me rocket propulsion powers akin to that of Ironman. Now I just need someone to photoshop that image together...

I am sick of your goddamn pinball machine

When you bring a PL to a party, figure out whether you want the mob wailing on the PL or a tank. I am sick of having to chase the mob back and forth between the party and the PL.

Tonight it got so bad that I was very close to losing it and just tanking on Dragoon until I got myself booted. Very tempted, but then it was Linkshell party so I didn't want to be a complete dick to everyone there. Just to some of the people there.

I want to party with these guys next time. They seem liked they've got their act together.

I am a Spacetime Mage!

Exciting times are upon us!

By which I mean I spent the weekend collecting some spiffy RDM Artifact armor.

I blame my linkshell for this entirely. One of the other members was complaining about how I mismatch my gear and threatened to purchase the whole Crow Jupon set for me just so I'd have something that matched. Jokingly I retorted that we could do that or I could get off my ass and actually finish hunting down the rest of my AF. Well wouldn't you know it, he decided that we both needed to drop everything we were doing and go find it right then and there.

If you've been following along at home you probably know so far I only have two pieces of Artifact Armor so far. They generally require some dungeon crawling and this was no exception. First I needed to find my RDM Pants. I've been meaning to get them if for no other reason than to be able to find an excuse to say "I guess it's time to put on my RDM pants".

We headed East to Garlaige Citadel and promptly fell down some holes in the floor.

Turns out that was part of the plan since I needed some coffer keys and they could be farmed down there. Farming was rather uneventful, but one thing that I did notice and confused the hell out of me was the presence of Lightning elementals down there. That just doesn't make any sense. There's no weather indoors, much less in a basement. Yeah, explain that one to me again.

After finding a key we made our escape back to the entrance and borrowed a few players to open the Banishing Gate. At that point I was told to sit in the corner while my friend found the coffer.

I don't like that. I don't like it at all. This is a great opportunity for high risks adventure with a worthwhile prize at the end, but instead it seems to keep getting turned into just another item to check off the To-Do List. *grumble grumble I'm a purist grumble grumble*

Turns out the coffer was behind another gate which was best accessed by romping through the past. On our way there we bumped into a rather impudent Mandragora and decided to give it a good thrashing. That'll teach the vegetation to get uppity with us adventurers.

Once we got through the Maw and back to the present we descended once more into the Citadel to find the coffer conveniently waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. Quickly I swiped the sweet threads and we hightailed it out of there. Complete and total success.

The second half of our odyssey took us to Castle Oztroja. I'm not sure I like Castle Oztroja. It's very confusing to navigate and I tend to get lost rather easily even with a map so I probably wouldn't have even found my way through if not for my friend who has spent time there. Also I tend to pull the wrong levers and land us in punji traps.

While finding some pants in the Citadel was a relatively quick outing, finding a good shirt takes considerably more time. I blame Windurst personally.

We ended up teaming up with some Japanese players who were demolishing everything in the same area we were(which was conveniently close to the coffer oddly enough). My friend was convinced that by the end of the night they were making fun of us, but darned if I could tell. They let me have the key once it finally dropped and that's really all I could ask for in that situation.

Once again I grabbed the stylish clothing while my friend fended off a small nest of enemies, waiting for me to Escape us.

Upon our return to the surface I put on all my Red Mage AF armor. I've seen plenty of people running around in it and I know all the stats already, but damn if it isn't a thousand times sexier once it's equipped. I mean really, you can't look at that and tell me it isn't the most stylish set of armor in the game:

Sexy sexy Red Mage outfit.

I am a Spacetime Mage!

Moldy old NM

Tonight my Linkshell helped me camp Mysticmaker Profblix and we went 1/1 on Moldavite earring. They're kind of awesome like that. Now stick with me, there's more to this than "Oh look at my gear". Seriously if I wanted to put gear on exhibition I'd just ramble about my fishing goggles.

Anyway...

What I'm really concerned with tonight is just how completely and totally screwed I would have been trying to tackle this Notorious Monster on my own. The entire room was full of Cockatrices that were quite happy to aggro me and stomp around the room in patterns that would make it difficult to hide from them if I wanted to grab the goblin. Now there are reports of folks soloing this guy at about my level and I cannot for the life of me figure out how they would do this. There's simply so much aggro at that level range that it seems improbable at best.

This is something about the whole soloing NM thing that I've never understood. How do you deal with kiting stuff when you have a whole room full of aggro to deal with on top of the Notorious Monster? It seems impractical to sleep all the mobs that would aggro you along the way. Likewise I can't figure out how some folks manage to dodge all that aggro. There must be some trick to it or these people who can do it have a downright terrifying mastery of the terrain and mob movement patterns. Thinking about this too much gives me that sinking feeling that I'm just not cut out to be a Red Mage that solos stuff. I have mixed feelings about that. I'd like to be that competent, but at the same time I'm fairly sure what it entails is not something I would find enjoyable.

Bah, less thinking and more drooling over shiny new earring.

I really should get around to finishing my AF. Maybe I'll start that project again.

We tried fighting Vouivre for fun during a skillup party.

Rocket Chocobos away!

You're not allowed to use the Auction House anymore

I know I'm about eight years late to the beating of this dead horse, but people need to learn how to use the Auction House without being complete idiots.

I found a completely untapped market for something which was averaging less than one sale each day and was consistently absent from the Auction House. Over the course of a week I slowly managed to creep the price up a few thousand gil by putting one stack on sale each day. This is of course the cue for some idiot to come along when I was taking a break from supplying the item and set the price right back to where it was before I started.

Why would you do this? These things were flying off the AH as soon as they were listed. People were willing to pay the premium to get them. There was no competition when you listed your items that week. Why on earth would you choose to lower the price? It's not like you needed to drive others out of the market because they were muscling in on your market and making your sales slow.

So yeah, after a week or so away from the market I return and find some idiot has decided that lowering prices is a good thing when you have zero competition for your product.

There's enough demand and speed of sales that this person isn't going to affect my profits, but damn. If the demand and lack of supply accommodates higher prices then why would you consciously choose to not take advantage of that?




I need to go fishing in Purgonorgo Isle sometime. The scenery is just so vivid there.

I'm Rolling in Gil!

And it smells like fish.

Seriously, I never had so much gil before I started fishing. Back when I was still farming, crafting and gardening I hardly ever had over 100k on hand. That sort of gil only happened when I saved up for a while to purchase something. Now though, now it's different. Now I've got a small fortune on hand and I don't even know what to do with it all.

Ok some of that wealth still comes from crafting and gardening, but the addition of fishing has finally given me some spending money. Heck I even have enough to pimp out my Dragoon as I level, and that's just a side project. To be honest I haven't really been leveling Red Mage much lately so my gear expenses have been pretty minimal, but it still doesn't change the overwhelming sense of liberation that comes with having several hundred thousand gil on hand at any given time. It has lead to more than a few impulse purchases from bazaars, which eventually convinced me to split the gil between myself and my mule.

These days most of my gil is being saved up for purchasing Moat Carp as I sprint towards a Lu Shang's fishing rod.

My linkshell is convinced I've gone crazy.

It's been lots of fun though. For a while I was hanging out in Jugner fishing in the lake for skillups and Moat Carp, but somehow that didn't seem terribly productive after a while. I eventually decided to venture out into the world in search of new fishing holes. Somehow I ended up on the ferry fishing for Nebimonites. My research told me they would be profitable and initially this was correct. Unfortunately the market is completely and utterly flooded.

Between bouts of ferry fishing I took up residence in Ronfaure fishing up Moat Carp. It helped that there was another person in my linkshell gunning for Lu Shang's as we started keeping track of how many Moat Carp we had. I think they got sidetracked, or maybe spooked after they saw my descent into madness. Either way I haven't heard their count in a while. It's kind of disheartening because I rather enjoyed having someone in the linkshell with whom I could talk about fishing and swap tactics and fishing spots with.

So back in the world of ferry fishing I was getting tired of running through crayfish paste and having to let so many fish go free when I used a shrimp lure. You know what's great about fishing? Fish that are 40 levels above my skill level are totally possible to catch. After some experimentation I gave up on crayfish paste and switched over to a shrimp lure exclusively for ferry fishing. The Noble Ladies I'm bringing in sometimes snap the line on my Halcyon rod, but it's so rare and they sell for so much that I don't really care except when they decide to chew through my backup lure. Then I get cranky because it interrupts my fishing.

Somewhat off topic, but I recently got myself a security token. Along with it, came a snazzy mog satchel. My immediate reaction to it was "Hell yes, a bag for holding all my fish". I'm not crazy for thinking that am I?

Anyway back on the ferry life is good and after a few weeks I finally reached the point where fishing Nebimonites would no longer give me skillups. While I'm ok with just fishing for gil, skillups on the money fish tend to feel like an extra reward. Sure there's Noble Ladies still, but I felt the need for a change in scenery.

I wandered around and found a few good fishing spots to just chill out. The one that sticks in my mind is the little pond in Rolanberry Fields. I swear it's better than the pond in Ronfaure for fishing up Moat Carp. It's also a lot more peaceful and I don't have to deal with other folks reeling in all my fish. After a few nights there I needed to move on.

Eventually I ended up in Rabao, a town I haven't spent much time in. The hike's a bit inconvenient but it's worth it I feel. They've got a good supply of Moat Carp along with a fish that pulls in a bit of gil. Yup, the Sandfish market is totally untapped right now. They'll provide good skillups for a long while and good money to boot. They're a little thrashy and the Moat Carps there seem feistier than the ones elsewhere but overall it's still very good fishing.

My time there has taught me something quite useful. Just because something isn't in stock on the Auction House and hasn't been selling daily doesn't mean there isn't huge demand for it. Since I started fishing in Rabao I've pretty much cornered the market on Sandfish on my server. But wait, it gets better. The other night I received a /tell from someone who was interested in buying from me directly and at a premium as well. We've worked out what feels like a good arrangement. It does make me wonder though. Did everyone else who was supplying Sandfish have this happen to them and that's why the supply on the Auction House is so dry?

I know I promised a real update, but that's pretty much what I've been up to. Sure I've taken my Dragoon out for a spin or two, but I've spent most of my time fishing and being content to chatter with my linkshell at the same time. I guess it's just hard to make exciting blogging when you're happy instead of getting all riled up about something.

Oh, I guess I should comment on FFXIV since everyone's all flustered about that. Hmm, I'll put this as succinctly as possible.
I wanted to like it, but I couldn't even enjoy fishing.

*wanders off to go fishing*


Fishing: It's more dangerous than you think.

Gone Fishing

One of these days I'll have a proper update for you folks.

Right now I've got my fishing goggles on and that doesn't make for the most interesting reading unless you guys want to hear me ramble on about fish all day and how I've completely lost my mind doing the quest for Lu Shang's fishing rod.

Gone Fishing.

Wyverns on the brain

When I'm not constantly fishing, there's something about the folks in my linkshell I've noticed. Nearly all of us have Red Mage leveled. In our off time we also all seem to enjoy playing Dragoon. It's like some sort of mass conspiracy. Even the people who don't have Red Mage leveled enjoy Dragoon. I think there's maybe one guy in the whole shell who hasn't jumped on the Stabbing Things in the Face bandwagon with us.

This weekend we slowly rolled up a big Dragoon Katamari.

Two of the folks in our shell had recently unlocked it and were leveling it up from level 1. I tagged along with them and took Carbuncle for a walk. We got to level ten before calling it a night.

The next day we started up again and I pulled out my own Dragoon to join them. So there we were, three level 10 Dragoons ruffing up bunnies in Ronfaure and La Theine Plateau when another member gets on and wants to know what's going on today. We told him of our Dragoon Bunny Stabbing Squad that was going down and he decided to join our merry band.

Before long we had decimated the local wildlife. There was little hope of repopulation.

Turns out another shell member wanted to join in, bringing our total to five Dragoons and we headed out to the Dunes.

It's difficult to describe the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with having 9 other helpers when you go impaling things with a sharp stick. So much jumping and gnawing on faces, it's just magical.

By the time I had to leave to fix dinner we had eradicated all of the lizards and put a large dent in the goblin population. When I got back, two more folks had joined turning it into a full 6 person party composed entirely of Dragoons. Sadly we didn't have enough people to build a full 18 Dragoon alliance so I opted to go back to fishing rather than tank everyone's exp for the night by adding a seventh Dragoon.

Dragoon is a job I've been meaning to level for a long time now(see hints dropped in this blog). Now that I've actually started it, I must say it is everything I had hoped for. It provides a relatively simple alternative to pick up when I get burned out on Red Mage-ing it up and need a relaxing night of killing things. So far it looks like the majority of the complexity of the job will actually be coming from its subjob. This is good, because it means I can have a good level of control over how hectic the job becomes. While I could sub a mage job and get more survivability and utility out of it, I'd just as soon stick with /SAM or /WAR. If I wanted the stress of a spellbook I'd hop back on Red Mage, yeah?

Wyvern helper, a pointed stick and some jumps. I'm really enjoying this.

Buster poses for animal crackers.


Two firsts: Test driving Dragoon in Sarutabaruta at level 1 and my new NPC Liabelle. She hits things and they fall down, I can't really ask for more.


Getting people up to speed while walking Carby. He often took on foes all by himself while we worked on another.


The beginning of the Katamari.


Freg joins us while Gretta and Tryp try to drag me away from the fishing hole.


The Dunes didn't know what hit it, but it was blue and wielded lots of pikes.


We sang Kumbaya around the gobbie campfire.


If you fish long enough, stuff like this happens. Suddenly the world around you starts to break down and you realize that there is no boat.


But it's ok, because you achieve enlightenment and get superpowers, like the ability to breathe underwater.

I felt like sharing

I stumbled across this today and thought it deserved mention.

http://www.jesterball.com/ffxi/

It's good stuff. I promise.

A weekend is a terrible thing to waste

Screenshot Spectacular: I Can't Remember The Number

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a terrible thing kids. You know how a three day weekend usually gets you all excited because it means three days of uninterrupted adventuring? Yeah, this weekend that turned into three days of not playing so my hands can have some time to heal before work starts again.

So instead of venturing forth it's time to slow down and have a screenshot recap of where I've been wandering off to without any adult supervision.

We had some new members joining the Linkshell recently. Here they are being initiated and taking an oath about punching bunnies, or maybe that's just how I like to remember it.

I spent a lot of time taking pictures of all the fireworks this summer. There's something about it that just makes me feel really settled into the world.

I can't help it guys, I just really like the way some random shots come out. This one is from Port Bastok.

We decided to take the Tarus for a walk and also to kill a Notorious Monster for some Artifact Armor in the Citadel.

Our Linkshell had a night of BCNM runs. Much fun was had by all. Loot...not so much, but it was a lot of fun trying to keep track of eight monsters at once and keep them all pinned down.

*shakes head sadly*
At least I had the sense to not use my standard online handle in-game. It just makes you look like a fool. I've never really understood the desire to mimic the franchise while within the franchise itself. Just seems silly to me.

This is about par for the course when my friends and I go trioing.

Here we are waiting on a new person Lies had recruited to the game. I think we were waiting for the better part of four hours and they didn't show up. Finding new folks to adopt is difficult these days.

This is what happens when people from Windurst try to fish.
*ducks incoming shoes and vegetables*


Low level Linkshell party...Assemble! There was much fun rampaging through Korroloka Tunnel that night. It's always fun to take some friends and head out to non-standard locations. I'd take that over another generic round of Qufim and the Jungles any day.

Carbuncle is awesome. Summoners who know how to actually use him are also awesome. Go go radioactive squirrel crowd control!


Against my better judgement I wandered back to the Windurst side of the world and headed underground, where I found the Three Mage Gate. It's an intoxicating atmosphere.

Bored and restless, a few folks in the linkshell decided it would be a brilliant idea to trio an avatar fight. I think it went well.

Another victim...er, recruit to the Linkshell. We sent this one into the Oubliette.

Once again it's up to the Doctor to clean things up.


After the initiation adventures in the oubliette it was time for some good old fashioned bunny punching.

We went to Tavnazia for some CoP missions, but more importantly: Taru Bongos!

I also managed to lose some gil betting on sheep pit fights.

The closest thing we had to a group photo that night. I really must go back there some time and poke around the scenery.

In unrelated news, I'm now crafting Holy Water for pure profit. One step closer to financial independence.


This frightened me enough that I had to take a picture.

Lies is responsible for this project. We're experimenting with crawler go-karts.

The linkshell went around mugging people until they gave us slave NPCs. Now if I could just figure out how to get them to stick around longer...*schemes*

Wardrobe change courtesy of the Linkshell. This'll do 'til I get my Warlock's Tabard. Still not chucking my Baron's Saio though, that thing is stupid useful.

Of course there was fishing. How could there not be fishing? What there hasn't been lately, is a good haul of Moat Carp however. I'll need to work on that.

Until next time children, remember not to punt the Tarutarus in Jeuno, the guards don't like that much.

A mage through and through

I feel tonight marks my undeniable descent into madness.

I purchased my first HQ Elemental Staff.

There is no turning back now.

God help us all.

Aquilo's Staff. I guess I'm a career mage now.

So you thought removing the level caps on CoP was a good thing...

Well you were fucking wrong.

My linkshell did some CoP tonight.

We did the Mammet fight.

I didn't even get to finish watching the cutscene before they had cleared the battlefield.

Minotaur was similarly trivial.

This is not making things more accessible, this is blatantly removing content by making it trivially easy.

I'm so angry I don't even have a screenshot for you. God damn!

Scholar got me thinking again

This weekend I picked up Scholar again. My friend was going to bring a new person into the game and we had this elaborate plan to have a rad party starting as a level 1 White Mage, Samurai and Summoner. That fell through, so instead I ran around hitting things with a stick on Scholar.

Once I got to level 10 I decided it might be a good idea to actually put together a macro palette.

This is always a defining moment for mage jobs I've found. Putting together a functional macro palette and planning it so that you have room to expand is a bit of an art form. For Damage Dealing jobs it tends to be a little easier since you aren't weighed down with countless spells and abilities, and it can all fit into one line early on without any difficulty. Mage jobs on the other hand require a bit more finesse and planning.

Over the course of leveling a few different mage jobs I've found there's a routine evolution of macros I keep using.

Typically you start with just one line of macros. 20 slots is usually all you need for the very early levels so this works out well. This serves to build the foundation of your most commonly used spells. I generally split mine in half, CTRL for things that get cast on the party and ALT for offensive spells. Since there are a few select spells that you end up casting very frequently it's useful to have one macro line set up as what I internally term a "resting palette". It's the macro line I keep defaulting back to because it holds all the spells I need to cast at the drop of a hat. It always ends up being macro line 2.

Alas, the leveling process dictates that you will eventually amass more spells than can fit on a single macro line. So we must expand if we want to be able to sling spells without losing time fiddling with a menu or mispelling spells manually in the command line. This takes us into the realm of more specialized and comprehensive macro lines. Two new lines to be precise.

Above the resting macro in line 1, I tend to put all my miscellaneous Black Magic. Normally this consists of 6 nukes and various other goodies that expand upon what could not fit in the ALT section of the resting macro line. The CTRL/ALT split isn't as important here beyond keeping the 6 nukes in a row on the same section. I'm just a tad OCD about that, but the rest gets filled with Sleeps, Drain, Aspir and whatever else I could conceivably need. It's also a haven for any Black Magic related job abilities when there's extra slots not taken by spells.

Beneath the resting macro we have our White Magic on line 3. This has our full set of cures, because while typically you'll alternate between two tiers in a party it's still worth being able to call up any of them at any given time. Here's where the barspells and status-curing spells go as well. Not much to say about it really, it holds the White Magic that doesn't fit in our resting macro line.

"But wait," you cry, "where are all the equipment swapping macros?"

Do not fear dear reader, they have not been forgotten. Macro line 4 houses macros for various gear-stances, like INT and MND builds or your hMP(healing MP) set. While I imagine this can get quite crowded for some folks, I haven't hit a level of gear saturation that makes this section overloaded just yet. There are still plenty of free slots and I've taken to filling some of them with job abilities simply for convenience. Once I hit gear saturation though, the whole macro system I've built up to this point is going to dissolve anyway, so I try not to think about it too much.

Macro line 5 has ended up being a wild-card section. It holds things that aren't used that often or aren't exactly critical but still need a macro, like Sneak and Invisible.

So, to summarize:

1. Black Magic
2. Default
3. White Magic
4. Gear/Job Abilities
5. Miscellaneous
6. Fishing

Yes, this was a boring post for most of you but I needed to get this out of my head.

Fireworks over Bastok.

This shot amuses me for some reason. I think it's the Tarutaru.

I really am just that awesome

I'm so badass that I craft standing up.

I Am Building a House of Fish

I have no idea how this happened.

The last time I tried fishing was last Summer back when I first joined the game and was looking for a way to make gil. Back then it was frustrating as hell. I hated it. Rods breaking constantly, lines snapping, running out of bait without catching anything. It was utterly unappealing.

But for some reason I picked it up again and it has taken hold of me by the teeth and dragged me into its lair. I can only assume a club over the head and an unpleasant night are in store for me, but for now it's not so bad.

Something tells me it's the fact that this time around I started with a Halcyon Rod, which tends to not break on everything with gills or oxidation on it. The other thing that's made this bearable is that I recently made my first mule, so I now have somewhere to put this mountain of fish.

Even with all that going for me, it still doesn't make sense to me why I got drawn back in. The gil so far hasn't been worthwhile, as farming and gardening still pay better and more consistently. It's like some bizarro craft where the crystal and synthesis requirements are all warped and inverted. Instead of melting everything down into profitable slag, I'm forever expanding my inventory with NPC fodder.

There's this fantastic myth that's been perpetuated for years that Moat Carp are some sort of awesome reliable income for new players. I'm calling bullshit on that right now. The Auction House has been flooded with Moat Carp and we haven't seen a sale in days. At the rate any new fisherman can land them, the supply quickly outstrips the demand leaving many high and dry. You're better off spending your time farming something like beehive chips that rush out the door as soon as they hit the AH, never lingering more than a day unless you've been trying to jack up the price.

So fishing hasn't exactly been a gold mine. In fact I dare say I've sunk more money into it than I've made back at this point and if I keep losing lures that may not even change.

It makes no sense, but I completely and totally enjoy it.

Seriously.

You think I'm joking, but I've done nothing in the last two days except fish. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if I hit the 200 fish per day limit tonight with all the fishing I did. It's nuts!

Now I have a mountain of fish sitting on a mule that is going to take forever to sell. Or I might just go with my friend's suggestion and start making workbenches out of the fish.

I'm rather fond of my mule. Major bonus points for those of you who got the reference without looking it up.