Hey, that's not a Red Mage

So I'd like to tell you all a tale.

Red Mage is a versatile job to be sure, but a lot of that versatility can be derived from its subjob. Back when I was a young and naive adventurer I suffered from the delusion that I could choose one subjob and get away with using it for all situations. My friend and I spent some time trying to figure out which subjob would be best for our Red Mage and Monk duo. He felt I ought to try Paladin to enhance my defensive capabilities. I wasn't too keen on the idea, something about it just didn't really appeal. What I did find appealing was Blue Mage. Blue Magic has always fascinated me in every final fantasy game I've encountered it, although especially so in FFVII in the form of the Enemy Skill materia. Yeah, I actually played that when it came out on PC back in the day unlike all you whippersnappers who just fawn over Sephiroth, but I'm getting off subject here. Anyway, we both agreed that Blue Mage was definitely worth looking into. Unfortunately, as we began our adventure it was a very distant goal.

With no immediate access to Blue Mage it ended up being put on the back burner. Instead both my friend and I ended up leveling Thief independently. We were young and financially in ruins. Farming stacks of beehive chips and honey was awesome money for us and increased drop rates were very appealing. So for a while I was running around as RDM/THF because it was the only job I had sufficiently leveled to serve as a subjob. It worked well enough when we were duoing things, and soloing later when my friend went on hiatus. Once I started joining EXP parties however, it started to get funny looks. I specifically remember one party in Qufim Island during which someone asked me why I was subbing Thief. I told them it was that or come with a level 1 subjob and they stopped hassling me. That party was a learning experience however. After about a half hour I came to the conclusion that I wasn't pulling my weight. These folks needed someone who was properly equipped to handle this situation, and so I told them. I wasn't pulling my weight, they needed someone who would, I left the party.

Consulting the infinite fathomless void of the internet and the FFXI community I discovered that there were some standard subjob options that both worked and wouldn't end with people giving me funny looks all the time. The first of these was Black Mage. Black Mage was very appealing to me because it signified a more offensive role in the party and promised to offer the Elemental debuffs which fueled the whole "turn the enemy into a pile of gibbering status ailments" theme I do so enjoy. Black Mage was a fun job to level. It involved lots of mayhem and destruction, but at the same time allowed me to develop a stronger understanding of the enmity system. There's only so much you can nuke before the mob decides it wants to eat you, and knowing where that line is can be very important. Despite the perpetuated myth that Black Mages don't get invited to parties anymore, I managed to bring my Black Mage all the way up to 40 almost entirely on party invites. Some of them were to mana burn parties, but Sleep-nuking just wasn't my cup of tea. My biggest dissapointment in taking up Black Mage was that no one would ever give me a Skill Chain on which to practice Magic Bursting. This frustrated me no end, because I had a lot of fun Skill Chaining and Magic Bursting while duoing with this one Corsair I knew while playing Red Mage. All in all though it was a fun job to level. My most interesting party was definitely one in Qufim which ended up with me becoming in charge of healing at one point. This was subsequently followed by our puller bringing back a large angry fish intent on eating everyone. I couldn't keep up and quickly emptied my MP pool. This resulted in me turning on Mana Font for unlimited MP. I'm still not convinced that spending it all on Cures instead of nuking and getting eaten was all that bad. As a Red Mage I think I've developed a nervous tick about low HP bars that overrides everyting else regardless of what job I'm on.

For a time running around as RDM/BLM fulfilled my needs. However, somewhere along the way I realized I was going to be getting invited as the sole healer, no back up. This meant that leveling White Mage was quickly becoming a necessity. I had no desire to level White Mage. None whatsoever. This can be easily summarized with a single phrase: Status cures. I knew damn well going in that having to watch for status cures on top of everything else I was already responsible for was going to drive me insane, and I was right. The ones that don't show up in the log are the worst. Somehow I managed to get through it and drag White Mage to level 37. There are a few things I really enjoyed about White Mage though, specifically the party-wide buffs. Bar spells, Curagas and Benediction were all particularly useful in my experience. The whole experience convinced me that White Mage should still be the healer of choice in all situations, but no healer should ever have to operate without a backup healer. Ideally a party would have a White Mage with a Red Mage to support them. Alas, I've not been so lucky. More often than not I'll end up as RDM/WHM and have to put up with little to no support these days. People treat RDM as having an infinite MP pool, but that's a post for another day.

Having successfully taken both of the basic subjobs up as high as I needed them I returned to adventuring proper as a Red Mage. However, lately I've hit a bit of a wall while soloing. White Mage and Black Mage just don't offer much utility when exchanging blows with monsters face-to-face. The go-to subjob for Red Mage soloing is Ninja, but that's a more financially draining option than I can afford at the moment. There is however another option. And so we have come full circle. My initial instinct on which subjob to choose appears to nicely fit my current playstyle.

That's right children, I'm leveling Blue Mage!

It was slow going at first, but once I got the first spell everything picked up. Most importantly: I now have Foot Kick. I think the real appeal of it at the moment is the really cool casting animation Blue Magic has.

Hopefully by the time I'm done leveling this I'll be able to make a solid attempt at Dark Spark. I'm banking on Coccoon being more awesome than it is. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Our hero set out, intent on devouring the souls of all the monsters in Gustaberg before breakfast.

After a few grueling levels, the first soul was eaten. All subsequent courses went down with considerable ease.

Oh, I also unlocked Scholar. The more I learn about Bastok the more I love being a Bastokan.

Scholar also subscribes to the "hit things with sticks" school of combat. Ash Club +1 has quickly become my low level weapon of choice.

Red Mage Gloves! Part Deux

Last weekend consisted of more dungeon crawling in the Necropolis, surprise surprise. After the previous fiasco it was a half-hearted effort at best. For a while I simply wandered around aimlessly killing the same mobs I had before. Knowing that the monsters I really needed to take down were a much greater challenge I was content to just aquire some skill-ups at the beginning of my quest.

However, as one might expect, killing the same set of undead hounds over and over for hours on end eventually begins to lose its charm. Also the skill-ups were becoming less frequent. Well, why not have a go at those big bad Spriggans I thought to myself. Surely they can't be that bad. Oh yes, yes they can be. I haven't been knocked around like that since I tangled with the Exorays way back when. I'd say it took about 10 hits to take me down, and I only lasted that long because of Blink and Stoneskin. I tried to use Chainspell to warp myself out in time, but I wasn't quick enough to pull it off. Another classic dirtnap for the intrepid adventurer.

A few more attempts didn't really improve my situation any. There wasn't much point to continuing to try going toe-to-toe with these undead monstrosities. I wasn't even able to stay alive long enough to raise my skills all that much. Better to scale it back a bit and maybe return later. So it was off to battle more undead. Deciding to step it up a notch I went after some of the ghosts haunting the Necropolis. Man, it's been too long since I've practiced keeping things silenced. Spell casting undead can really rough you up if you let them. I'll be honest though, getting punched in the face by a ghost was only marginally better.

So I fell back into the routine of wandering through the halls of the dead city and ridding it of the lesser undead. This time however I was not alone. There were other adventurers passing through, a few of them on a quest I myself had undertaken not too long ago. A young Paladin had a friend helping him defeat Liches for that crotchety old man in Jeuno. We passed each other a few times in the halls before the veteran adventurer spoke up and inquired as to what brought me here. I told him, and he confirmed my suspicions about what he and his friend were here for. We agreed to help each other that night. I would help slay some Liches and he would in turn help me take down some Spriggans so that I might find a key to unlock the coffer containing my gloves.

Clearing out the Liches didn't take too long, and neither did making our way into the basement and defeating some additional undead for a key. Glancing around the vetern, Kenzaki, spied a coffer. We raced over to it and he held off a swarm of undead while I hastily unlocked the old box. With the gloves safely stored in my bag, I rejoined the fight. Once the room was cleared we all departed back to Jeuno.

The duo were planning to head to Crawler's Nest next. Having been there before I decided to tag along and help out a bit longer. The trip was rather uneventful. We got in, found a hidey hole full of Exorays and one by one beat them into a fine paste until one finally surrendered some mold. I swear, Maat sends level 50 adventurers off to get him smoking supplies. Mold, ash, paper? He's clearly rolling something heavy.

After that it was time to wind down for the evening and we all went our separate ways. All in all not a bad evening, but I still can't shake the feeling that something was lost along the way. The thrill of adventure always seems to diminish for me when a seasoned veteran tags along to utterly decimate everything. It trivializes the experience. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the assistance, but it makes the victory bitterweet. Ah well, I still have to fight a Notorious Monster before I can fully restore the gloves so there's always more chance for adventure in that regard.




Huzzah! Gloves!

Skill-ups

You know, I really don't understand folks who complain about skill-ups. It's actually a rather ingenious bit of game design. As you go adventuring you get stronger. Normally this is covered simply by leveling up, but with FFXI's skill system we also get to increase our magical and martial prowess by simply engaging with a challenging foe. It tuns that old saying on its head, what doesn't kill you in this game won't necessarily make you stronger. However, that vicious bunny rabbit over there you've spent the last two hours attempting to take down has really helped to beef up your evasion and parrying skills, even if it did kick your ass more times than you'd care to admit.

The way the system is set up is perfect. Your skills rise to match the caliber of the opponents you face. This means you can slowly raise your skills while still advancing in level without any trouble, while those of us who define our adventure by how many deaths we can rack up in one day get a consolation prize of raising our skills at a much faster pace as a reward for our daring and foolishness. But you know what the best part is? Once you've gone through and raised your skills, you don't have to go do it again. The veterans of the game get the added convenience of not having to worry about skilling up all over again when they pick up a new job to level from the beginning. It works out beautifully. The people who are still dazzled by the spectacle are rewarded for their adventurous spirit while the grizzled veterans can blitz through a bit quicker so they can return to the endgame where they want to be.

Tales of this weekend's exploits will be up later. Here are some pictures to tide you over until then.

Looks like we're in Kansas now Shantotto.

A pixie in Gustaberg? I thought they had all died out years ago.

A case of the wrong key

It's been an interesting weekend. One with lots of indulgences to be sure.

After an exp party earlier this week I hit level 54. Now I'm sure all the Red Mages in the audience(and probably a few others) know what this means.

That's right, it's off to Eldieme Necropolis to hunt down some really stylish gloves!

Since I haven't found myself a new linkshell since the server merge my options for descending into this nest of undead are limited to:

1. Shouting for hours to get someone to help
2. Busting out my sword and shield for some soloing action

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear which route I took.

After checking some maps to see where some treasure coffers might appear I grabbed the Eldieme Necropolis key I've had sitting in my moghouse for months and headed to Batalia Downs. Once I got to the Necropolis I spent most of my time running in circles watching a whole bunch of coffers not appear.

To help kill time and prevent a psychotic breakdown I took out my frustration on the nearby wildlife, specifically Tomb Wolves. It was around this point that I began to realize this was a good place to solo, coffers or no. I figured the coffers weren't going anywhere so I took some time off to head back to Jeuno.

In Jeuno I took the time to update my equipment to something a bit more level appropriate. A new sword, some spells here and there, and some new archery equipment. Shush, the archery is an ongoing hobby because I cherish my delusional fantasies of shooting Maat in the face with a Sleep Arrow one day.

Armed to the teeth and ready to settle in for the long haul, I spent most of the weekend dungeon crawling. It was an exciting experience at times. Being able to go toe-to-toe with a tough opponent and come out on top is pretty rewarding, even without all those skillups.

Tonight I was rewarded for my efforts. As the evening was winding down and I was getting ready to sign off for the night, I found one. There it was, sitting behind the stone pillar. I hadn't even noticed it before engaging a nearby Bomb. The darn thing had just blended in. I was suddenly worried. Would it vanish before I defeated the Bomb? I ended up nuking a tad recklessly but it paid off, the coffer was still there as the monster hit the floor.

Quickly I clicked to open it, only to have it tell me I need a key to open it. Oh I suppose that would make sense. I'll just select it from my inventory and target the coffer with it. Huh, that's weird. Why isn't it working?

*examines key*

"Eldieme Chest Key"

Noooooooo!

Turns out I had the wrong key the whole time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go beat my head against a wall until I fall unconcious.

I'll be back with a Coffer Key next time you miserable heap of wood and iron.

{/Lurk} off

Alternate title: A Return to Adventure, Despite my Better Judgement

Well it was bound to happen eventually. No physical injury has ever kept me away from gaming and I wasn't about to let it start now.

That's right, DrJones is returning to Vanadiel, and not just to work over the Jeuno Auction House this time.

While I won't be returning in full capacity, I've managed to alter my computer setup substantially to the point where I can at least go on the occasional adventure now.

It's going to be an uphill battle, but last night I managed to participate in my first exp party in months. Fatigue set in fairly early on but at least it didn't feel like my hands were going to fall off.

But enough of my blathering, you all came to hear tales of adventure, excitement and complaining about the quirks of dealing with the rest of the playerbase.

Last night's party was a bit of an odd one to come back to, that's for sure. I'm not a huge fan of level sync, but I've had good parties in Altepa before so I was willing to take the invite. The party configuration sent up a few red flags right as I showed up. For starters we didn't really have a tank job. I've had frontline jobs try to tank in parties before and it isn't pretty. So yeah, no tank, but at least there was going to be another mage in the back with me so I wouldn't be healing alone. Our lineup went something like this:
Red Mage
Scholar
Thief
Samurai
Dragoon
Puppetmaster

I've had parties that are a lot worse than that. However the lack of a tank is always worrisome, so when I asked who was going to be tanking I was shocked to hear that the PUP would be. Puppetmasters confuse me greatly. It's not that I have anything against them, but I just never know what to expect from them. Are they in charge of dealing damage? Or perhaps healing? Oh, they're tanks, now it all makes sense. What!?

To his credit the PUP managed to not bleed all over the floor for the first half of the night. Maybe it was because he was letting his puppet take the hits, or we just had enough healing between his puppet, myself and the scholar. Whatever it was, it was working out well enough.

Speaking of scholars, there's something I need to put out in the open: Working with other mages frustrates me. There, I said it. It's not that I dislike having other mages in the party, it's just that most of the time there's a severe lack of coordination and we end up stepping on each other's toes and wasting mp. Last night was a particularly bad case of it.

It started with the Scholar deciding to use Sublimation instead of taking Refresh, but whatever I can roll with that. Then we started casting redundant enfeebles, which really irked me. I'm the Red Mage for crying out loud. Your enfeebles tend to either not stick, have a shorter duration, or are simply less potent than mine. Taking care of the full cycle of them really isn't an issue for me, it's what I signed up for. You can let me do my job and we'll all be better off for it. It got really bad when they started pulling with enfeebles and kept changing it up so I didn't know what the mob had on it when it arrived.

The other thing we kept overlapping was Regen. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I absolutely love Regen. It is a simply fantastic spell and I wish more healers would use it. That being said, when you have two mages in the party who love regen and one has a more potent variety of it, there tend to be redundant castings of it. I try to watch for it in the chat log and watch the hp bars to make sure I wasn't casting it on someone who already had it, but some slip ups are inevitable.

Now it may sound like I absolutely hate this Scholar I partied with, but honestly it wasn't as bad as I make it sound. They were pretty good at keeping things under control and it was a relatively relaxing night. Also they were friendlier than most party leaders I come across. The things I complain about are more conceptual than specific to any individual. Besides, it's hard to hate someone who loves casting Regen just as much as I do.

My next goal is to get my Warlock's Gloves, but that's a ways off. So until then stare at these pretty pictures.

Me hanging out in Altepa with an awesome Tarutaru Dancer.

From Mediocre Mage

Fireworks help pass the time on the long airship rides.

From Mediocre Mage

I've spent a lot of time just idling in the jungle lately. It just seems peaceful there.

From Mediocre Mage