Mediocre Mage

Tanking: in which I poke things I shouldn't

2011-10-03T23:23:00.005-04:00

So here's a thing.

Tonight my linkshell event got canceled, leaving me at loose ends for the night.

Now being the whimsical and somewhat haphazard Red Mage that I am, I figured tonight would be a perfect opportunity to attempt to copy someone else's success. I headed out to Abyssea Attohwa and began climbing Parradamo Tor.

Parradamo Tor is a particularly obnoxious mountain with ledges two feet wide and obstacles littered all across the path to the summit. I've only climbed it twice before and heartily detest it. Seriously, it's one of the more obnoxious level designs in FFXI, which is saying something.

When I finally dragged myself up to the top of the mountain I could see Yaanei drifting along in the distance. I quickly buffed myself and crossed the plateau in search of Yaanei. After some running back and forth I managed to locate the aberration.

As I fought, I found it interesting that this creature which is essentially a second zone boss was susceptible to all of the standard enfeebles. These days most NMs are immune to a bunch if not all of our enfeebling magic. Being able to use my enfeebling magic unhindered makes just about any fight go a lot smoother.

The beginning of the fight was fairly simple. Yaanei swings a little faster than most big monsters, but it's not enough to make shadows useless. The only concerning threat is the tier IV AoE spells he casts, but with Addle and their native cast time you should have plenty of time to switch into a MDT(magic damage taken -%) set even if you aren't able to run out of range. I found my nukes were either getting horribly resisted or that Yaanei is packing some mad magic defenses. My tier IV nukes weren't even breaking 1,000 damage and my nuking set isn't exactly terrible. So this was looking to be a long and drawn out fight.

As I was shaving off the first quarter of Yaanei's health I almost tripped over something low to the ground and a tad beligerent. There was a Tarutaru Black Mage who had scaled the mountain as well and we was offering to assist me. Somewhat disheartened by my uninspiring damage output and the ticking clock, I agreed to accept his offer. For the most part my play didn't change. I had built up a ton of hate and Yaanei was very intent on trying to clobber me and didn't care too much about the Tarutaru that was dropping stuns and additional nukes. Kill speed had gone up considerably, though it was still a slow and arduous process to be sure. At some point the Tarutaru asked for me to pass him party lead. Turns out he had two friends on the way to help as well.

When the White Mage and Warrior Tarutarus finally arrived, a curious thing happened. I found myself receiving Hastes and -na spells for the nasty status effects Yaanei was now doling out. It seemed that no one really wanted to pry the beast's attention away from me so I was going to be allowed to tank. No one actually said it, but there's an old saying that still holds true: "Actions speak louder than words", and the party's actions spoke volumes. I'm sure both the Black Mage and the Warrior could have taken hate if they'd cared to, but with our rag-tag band I was best suited to holding the monster's attention while simultaneously Not Dying. It was fun, it was amazing, it was something I thought I'd never get to do after the update that nerfed all of Red Mage's enmity tools. But hey, if I can cap hate early and not fall over it's all good, right?

As the Caturae was on its last legs, they asked me to slow down on killing it as they were still trying to proc red for the atma. An odd request given our slow and steady approach thus far, but ok. I slowed nuking almost to a halt. Spellcasting became slower as I mainly cycled shadows and tried to recall which spells in my arsenal still gave me cumulative enmity, because I knew the shadows were slowly eroding my hold on hate. I knew enspells gave some CE, and renewing enfeebles seemed to provide enough volatile enmity to hold out long enough to proc red. Afterwards, at about 10% health, Yaanei decided to get really mean and began unleashing nasty AoEs that inflicted horrible status effects like terror and also swatted some of the Tarutarus after hate reset. There were enough targets that we were able to survive while the monster induldged a serious case of ADD. Eventually I regained hate and was able to hold Yaanei as the rest of the party tore down the last few shreds of its HP.

We won. I got a spiffy new cape. Congratulations and fireworks were had by all.

And people say Red Mage tanking is dead...Ha!

Soloing.

Celebrating our victory.

This is what happens when my linkshell is waiting on people to get to Voidwatch.

I've been having an absolute blast in Nyzul Isle lately.

Ah bunny punching, it never gets old.

Look Pimpin'

2011-08-24T18:44:00.002-04:00

Oh this has been a long time coming. I can finally wear my pimp hat in my idle set again and it goes well with my new pimp coat. Life is good and I am stylish once again.

Oh Hello Endgame

2011-08-16T11:29:00.002-04:00

Spending a month floating through empty social linkshells has been less than fulfilling. Oh let's not mince words, it was terrible. Without a core group of people to run with you're left trying to accomplish everything either through pickup groups filled with incompetent people, or you end up soloing a lot.

Not being a social butterfly I chose the latter.

As a Red Mage there's a fairly large portion of the game you can realistically get through on your own. However, that doesn't mean it's always fun to go it alone.

That's why I jumped at the opportunity to apply to my first real endgame shell, Ouch.

My only experience with endgame thus far has been with a terrible dynamis shell and the ocassional event with a nice social shell that no longer exists. I figured it would be nice to finally experience events while running with some folks who actually know what they're doing.

So far it's worked out pretty well. The folks themselves seem pretty laid back, the rules are straight forward, fair and pretty sensible. Everyone seems to be competent at the jobs they bring to events, and there are plenty of events throughout the week to keep me busy. It's a sharp contrast to what things have been like in the past when there was never a clear plan for each night and events were pulled together on a whim rather than a schedule people could plan around. I'm really enjoying it.

It's still an endgame shell though, so unless it's event time it's fairly empty. But while it is about events and getting stuff done, it goes about it with an air of business casual rather than a suit and tie operation. Folks chatter enough that I don't feel like a nameless cog in a giant machine, although on reflection that might be because they gave me a nickname the first night I joined the shell.

Since the whole game is currently still revolving around Abyssea that's what a lot of the stuff we do is, but there's a good mix of other stuff in there as well. Every Monday we do Voidwatch, and I have to say it's probably one of the more enjoyable events I've participated in so far. The rewards are pretty lackluster and the drop rates are terrible, but the event itself is something I find a lot of fun. Tackling huge monsters with as many people as we can wrangle up in a night appeals to me. Unlike Abyssea it isn't everyone but the tank and the White Mage sitting around until procs are taken care of, instead it feels like an actual fight with a threatening foe. Sure you can't have the DDs feeding the NM TP the whole time, but it always feels like there's something for everyone to contribute to the fight.

I don't think I'm alone in this either. Last night we were short a few hands, but it wasn't because people didn't want to come. Quite the contrary we had a number of members who were disheartened that they couldn't make it to the event due to personal schedules and whatnot. Voidwatch is fun.

An endgame shell is never going to be a replacement for a good social shell, but right now I'm pretty content to enjoy what they have to offer.

Ouch.

I need to get out of Abyssea more often. The rest of the world is so beautiful.

Generic update

2011-07-11T13:45:00.003-04:00

My brain is all melty so it's generic rambling today.

It's been a month since I updated last. Mostly it's because I've been trying to keep busy.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time working on Dragoon. It's quite a fun job and offers a stark contrast to Red Mage. It took me some time but I finally got it to cap. Looking back I feel a tad silly for buying top of the line gear for it on the way up rather than just slumming it since it always got stuck in some god-awful sync. Then again, it's a lot of fun to do roughly 40% of a party's damage, and the thought of my wyvern outdamaging people is both hilarious and depressing at the same time.

I feel like leveling Dragoon has opened a few doors to me. Before all I had to offer at events or pickup groups was Red Mage. What with the metagame being the way it is, Red Mage doesn't bring much to the table unless there aren't other options available. Sad but true. Now I can at least offer up the other half of the job spectrum (Magic vs Stabbing) so things are a tad more flexible now. Unfortunately I still feel like my Dragoon is woefully unprepared for prime-time. I've done what I can to start gearing it properly, but it's still miles behind my Red Mage. Just means I have more shinies to chase I suppose.

Mmmm...

How to put it.

The Linkshell I came to Valefor to join has since broken. The leader burned out and I can't really blame him. The guy worked weird hours and was putting in a lot of effort running the shell and trying to keep it accessible for everyone. Just too much stress I suppose. It's a shame, because I think it was honestly the best shell I've been in.

So when he stepped down from being the leader the shell split and people went in different directions. Some folks built a new shell designed for continuing to support new players while other folks drifted off into another social shell that was a bit more geared toward veteran players. I ended up following the folks to the social shell. It didn't have quite the same feel, but at least it had some friendly faces...I guess.

Something about it just didn't feel right. The atmosphere was a tad less friendly and jovial. The leader, who had done some events with the DiV shell previously, was a lot more talkative in their own shell.

How do I put this?

She was a bit cold, and sometimes her sarcasm bordered on just being mean to other shell members. The other night a few of us voiced some concerns. She did not take well to being told to stop repeatedly abusing a specific shell member. People got told off in an extremely aggressive and hurtful manner.

You want to run your shell that way? Fine.
I want nothing to do with a leader who thinks it's funny to pick on people and just generally be a raging bitch. It's such a shame too, I liked some of the other folks in the shell, but I just can't be happy in a situation where the management is like that.

So now I return to my eternal quest to find a good linkshell. Until then, I'll be aimlessly floating through Vanadiel.

Relocating

2011-06-21T23:44:00.005-04:00

So a little over two weeks ago I decided to switch servers. The good folks over at Dreams in Vanadiel have been egging me on to make the jump for a while now and the way things were going on Quetzalcoatl it just seemed like a good time to do it.

In many ways I find myself realizing that yes, I was quite unhappy in my old linkshell. Sure I knew the folks in there and we all got along fairly well, but it was always so empty and devoid of activity. We could barely ever accomplish anything in that shell. Don't get me wrong, they're good people, but they weren't terribly skilled and there weren't many of us to begin with so a lot of the time I had to fend for myself to get anywhere and that gets old after a while. Also the LS leader was a tad clingy in ways that made me uncomfortable, though I was always too polite to let him know.

But now I've moved to Valefor. It's a very different culture I think. After spending a few years on one server you become familiar with its quirks and the personalities on it. I think I prefer those of my old server, but the bigger and better linkshell I'm with now more than makes up for it. No longer must I sit in my mog house thinking: darn, I wish I could get together enough friendly faces to go do event X. Now people are dragging me off to go do events or I can just ask and find a handful of people actually interested in doing the event, rather than realizing the only other people in the shell are afk bazaaring again.

I feel like I've accomplished more in the two weeks since I've landed here than in the past several months on Quetz. It's a good feeling.

However, there's always the flipside. While I'm getting more accomplished, I don't quite feel settled in. There's still a bit of that social awkwardness that comes from being the new guy. It will pass in time.

I'd always wondered what it was that possessed people to pick up and leave an entire server full of familiar faces behind, but it doesn't seem so odd now that I've done it. I guess it's just one of those things that's part of the FFXI experience.

One thing that I'm really hating about Valefor: the fish market.

It's so flooded and over-saturated that I haven't even bothered to go fishing once since I've moved here. It makes me sad because I really do enjoy fishing, but it just isn't worth it in this market.

I've been spending some time moonlighting as a mercenary. I like my boss.

Just some fun shots I took in Ro'Maeve

I've been spending more time in Abyssea lately, for better or worse I'm not sure yet.

I cannot tell you just how tempted I was to pick that option.

I've rebooted project Level Dragoon.

Living dangerously as a Red Mage.

I've said it before and I'll say it until the day the servers shut down, the attention to detail in this game is absolutely incredible.

Failure is a good thing

2011-05-22T18:21:00.011-04:00

The more you fail, the more opportunities you have to improve yourself. It is only when a player refuses to learn from their mistakes that we ought to ruthlessly and shamelessly make fun of them.

Today I had a wonderful failure in Abyssea, Vunkerl Inlet to be precise.

One of our Linkshell members had expressed interest in obtaining a Pluviale during today's scheduled romp through Abyssea. Due to some attendance issues the event was postponed a bit.

Being the reckless Red Mage that I am, I figured I would make use of the down time to scout out the Notorious Monster that dropped the frilly prize we'd be after. Turns out we'd be fighting a hulking behemoth made up of scrap metal and spare garbage cans.

I found the beast wandering around when I got there and decided I may as well poke it and see how hard it hits. The verdict: not as bad as I feared, but still enough that I'm not keen to stay within punching distance. Quickly I turned on my heel and ran, trying to dodge some tigers along the way. Sadly they were far more alert than I gave them credit for and one of them followed me out of the valley, joining the Executioner's quest to pound me flat. The tag-teaming worked and I found myself face down in the dirt.

After dusting myself off and resting up I realized I needed a new approach, or at least a different escape route. There's another valley to the south that proved to be much more suited to my task, even if it meant dragging the Ironclad Executioner on top of all those Bastion combatants. It was fairly empty, but had plenty of rocks and trees to put between me and the overgrown dumpster. I tried kiting to the end of the valley and back to the initial spawn area, and that worked for a while but ultimately it ended up being a little too risky. The spawn area isn't really suited to kiting and a number of times I ended up within punching range over there. Eventually that proved to be my undoing as I got caught in a stun-lock and was beaten into a fine paste while a Tarutaru watched on the sidelines cheering me on.

This time around I had managed to wear down the beast's hp to well under 50% so one more try wasn't so unrealistic. However, before continuing I decided to take some time off. If you tackle NMs too fast and too often you end up burning yourself out. Sometimes it's good to just take a break and reflect on what you've learned. In this case, I'd learned that the goal of soloing the NM was well within sight and that the southern valley had proven to be a safer location for pulling it off. In particular, there is one tree at the end of the valley that works well as a pivot point, letting you slingshot yourself back north while the NM crawls around after you (instead of making a bee line straight for you). It's not a lot, but it slows him down enough that you can put a little distance between you. On the northen end of the valley, there's a couple of rock formations that can provide a similar reaction, although they seemed to be less reliable.

It's not just during downtime that you learn though. During my next attempt I began to pick up on other things that were important, such as how dropping a tier IV nuke always seemed to leave me open to swatting due to the slow cast time. Actually a lot of spells were long enough that I had to time it just so, or I'd end up getting swiped at. Luckily the wonderfulness that is /SCH offers a solution: Alacrity and Celerity. When your primary concern is keeping yourself out of harm's way, mp efficiency becomes secondary to getting your spells off fast enough to let you get back to running. When stratagems are down your options tend to shift a bit. Instead of dropping high tier nukes you drop lower tier nukes. With buffs you end up having to just pull far enough ahead of the mob that you can hopefully finish casting before it catches up with you. Poison II and Bio II cast fast enough that you don't really need to waste stratagems on them.

In case I was being too subtle, /SCH is really what makes the whole operation work, but not just because of the stratagems.

No, what makes /SCH work so damn well is Sandstorm and Desert Boots.

For those of us who aren't fortunate enough to have spent years in a Sky linkshell getting Crimson Cuisses, /SCH offers the unparalleled boon of increased movement speed at a very affordable price. It's not as noticeable as the boost given by bard songs or the super Kupowers, but it's enough that you can realistically outrun the NM without applying Gravity. You just need a long enough corridor in which to do it.

So yes, on my third attempt I managed to take what I'd learned along the way and annoy the iron giant to death. Failure is a good thing kids, it's how we learn to kick more ass.

If You Want to Rock and Roll

2011-05-15T23:07:00.004-04:00

It's taken me nearly two years but I've finally reached the level cap.

This morning I got up with the intention of heading out to Attohwa Chasm in Abyssea to see about finding myself some stylish new shoes. On a whim I joined a shout for an exp alliance there and figured I could use it to do some of the legwork before I started up a farming session solo. Before I knew it four hours had passed and I was suddenly sitting at level 90 with a full exp buffer. I had also managed to get the footwear I set out to acquire. All was well in the world.

Level caps are a funny thing. You spend a lot of time grinding to reach them, but even after you get there you'll still have plenty of things to chase after. The closer I've come to the level cap the more I've come to realize that there's no shame in racing toward it as fast as possible. In the game everyone's always going to be at different places in terms of game progression, whether it be by level, by gear or simply varying interest in content. The level cap offers an equalized playing field for folks. It's where you can stop playing "catch up" and start playing the game with the rest of the population. Without that stopping point there's no way to really get everyone together. Before you hit the cap you're likely to be relying on help from people higher level than you, but you can't really repay the favor by helping them with their content because you're too low level. Once everyone hits the level cap you can all help each other, which is part of FFXI's core even if it's been muddled as the years roll by.

I wish I'd figured this all out sooner. I remember discussing this all with one of my shellmates many months ago when he finally caved and zoomed to the cap. He told me how much better the game became once you stopped goofing around in zones like Dangruf Wadi and actually got to the level cap. He was right, but it still took me a while to get around to finally doing it.

Some of my reluctance was based on my desire to see if I could pull off some of the amazing feats others had done with all the level 75 content over the years. There isn't a Red Mage out there who hasn't heard of some of the crazy solos that were possible. We all think at some point or other, "Hey, I'd like to try pulling that off". But at some point I realized I would be better off just getting myself up to speed with the current game than trying to live in the bygone era. I am a little disappointed that now all my solos of old content can just be chalked up to level advantage, but overall it's gonna be more fun this way.

Now I just wish I could get some of the lowbies in our shell to make the jump so we can all hang out and do stuff together.

It's all about style.

Sky is pretty

2011-05-02T19:30:00.005-04:00

So I got access to Sky last week. It's been a fun set of missions to get there, barring the completely arbitrary "you need multiple people" switches in the Quicksand Caves. Other than that, it's been a lot of fun. There's no level caps on any of the fights, but even so I had a lot of fun with one of them which I was almost certain I'd need help with: Return to Delkfutt's Tower.

It took me two tries, but Bind/Nuking did the job just fine as a level 80 RDM/SCH. I'm still not sure if that should feel like a big accomplishment, but it did. During the first attempt he seemed to be breaking out of Bind rather quickly and finally got close enough to wallop me with Light Blade, which pretty much ended the fight. Second go around went smoother, although I'm not sure why. Fewer resists maybe? Dispelga was kind of obnoxious but I'm OCD enough about getting all my buffs up before battle that I was able to shrug off most of the ones that got dispelled. All in all it was a very fun battle and it felt good to not have to rely on bothering other people to take time out of their schedule to help me progress.

Soloing babble aside, the visuals from the Zilart expansion are utterly entrancing. I simply love the architecture and the cutscenes are very well done. Finally getting to Sky itself was pretty fantastic. There's all sorts of cool stuff up there. Unfortunately there's also tons of magic aggro and it's easy to get lost. It's looking to be a love/hate relationship, but it's one I look forward to.

A musty old temple.

Where did these headstones come from?

Shiny.

This is oddly reminiscent of Midgar.

Definitely one of the more serene places in the game.

The Bastokers are here to kick some ass.

I thought this was a really cool effect.

Sky.

I've also been working on Chains of Promathia. I hate this mountain so much, but it makes for good screenshots.

I found the ugliest hat in the game. Do I get a prize?

Dear Black Mages

2011-04-28T23:39:00.003-04:00

Stop opening with Sleepga II.

It's like wearing a neon flashing sign that says "I am terrible at my job."

Why can't I have nice Dynamis runs?

Soloing in a Broom Closet

2011-04-24T16:16:00.003-04:00

While it's not exactly a noteworthy accomplishment to solo a level 70 Notorious Monster when you're level 80, today's adventure feels noteworthy all the same.

I've been meaning to get to Sky and I've started the legwork on the missions. Today I've been going around to the Cermet headstones and collecting fragments. But enough with the exposition.

I wandered into Cape Terrigan and tackled Axesarion the Wanderer. He's a Shadow and takes reduced damage from magic, so my nukes weren't exactly melting his face. The tricky thing though, was that he's located at the end of a tunnel that's constantly patrolled by goblins, meaning I couldn't exactly kite him over long distances. In fact I couldn't really kite him more than a few feet. The room was incredibly tiny and the goblins were all breathing down my neck the whole fight, but I somehow managed to keep enough distance between me and the NM that he couldn't swing at me while bound.

This is sort of the problem I've always had with the concept of kiting NMs, there's always an entire zone full of aggro waiting to ruin your attempt if the NM doesn't. Today I started learning some basics of how to get around this. You really don't need much space at all if there's a clear spot that doesn't have aggro. Just enough space that the monster can't swing at you. It kind of blew my mind when I realized what can be done with just a broom closet of aggro free space.

It got pretty hairy when I got caught with Convert down.

That room is so tiny.

Dear Mages...

2011-04-18T09:05:00.002-04:00

Cast Haste.

I'm tired of being the only competent mage in Abyssea pickup parties. Don't make me Haste the entire alliance by myself, stop slacking.

Even Quadavs know how to cast Haste. Why don't you?

Abyssea's effect on low level pickup parties

2011-03-31T09:29:00.004-04:00

I have now seen the aftermath of Abyssea firsthand and it isn't pretty.

Tonight one of the newer players in our linkshell basically said that the lack of low level parties caused by Abyssea was discouraging him from logging in.

Sure we've all had nights where we sit around with our flag up and no invites, but I think it's reaching the point where there are enough people forgoing low level parties that it's actively driving players away from the game.

A little too easy

2011-03-29T11:11:00.011-04:00

Well it's nice that the servers are back online again. I was beginning to go crazy from the lack of FFXI in my diet and had to find something else to fill the void. But now we're back so it's all good, right?

Wrong!

I've been dodging this whole Abyssea thing for a while but now that I'm past Maat I figured it was time to venture into that mystical place everyone's been raving about for the last few months. So after some time with my flag up I landed myself an Abyssea party.

My first impressions were not good. Actually seeing a whole alliance exping together shattered more than a few dreams. There was little to no organization that I could discern. People were constantly pulling in multiple mobs, but no one bothered sleeping anything. There didn't seem to be a designated /assist, it was more just a free for all of Damage Dealers with some Healers tacked on for good measure. I honestly had no idea what was going on and felt largely superfluous to the whole operation. Things were dying too fast to bother with enfeebles other than the occasional Dia, no one was coordinating Haste cycles, Cures were already thoroughly provided for. It left me wondering why I'd been invited in the first place.

Another issue I had was that with a group that large there wasn't much in the way of chatting. That's something I liked about the six man parties, you could usually get one where folks were laid back enough to shoot the breeze so everyone had a good time regardless of how the exp was. In Abyssea....not so much. It was pretty much just maul, maul, maul, oh have to replace someone, maul, maul, maul. That's no way to meet people.

The exp flow's pretty silly. I went from 72 to 75 + capped buffer in under two hours. I can see the appeal for folks looking to race another job to the level cap, but that kind of leveling speed really just took all the satisfaction out of finally hitting 75. You know, one of my big goals for the game...now it's totally not an accomplishment. I feel dirty for taking that party now.

My Little Pony: better than Abyssea.

The oddest of findings

2011-03-05T02:12:00.005-05:00

There's something I've been noticing lately. I've recently added the following line to my search comments while seeking for a party:

{Support Job} : {Scholar}

Ever since I added that, I've started getting invited to Japanese exp parties more often. I can't be certain but I think there may be a correlation. It weirds me out a little but I don't mind since they bring me Paladins and usually make for more relaxed parties. You've got to love a tank that will cure itself for you.

The Bunnies are coming...

Idling in a Red Cap

2011-02-22T11:59:00.004-05:00

With Maat knocked out of the picture I'm starting to feel like I'm at loose ends.

Back when I first got into this game I had very simple and realistic goals for myself.

Complete my Arfifact armor
Beat up Maat
Reach level 75

With the advent of Abyssea and the recent patch to exp, the last of my original goals will be met in short order, leaving me in need of a new set of accomplishments to strive for. What sort I haven't decided yet.

The obvious choice would be to find myself a complete set of relic armor, or to be more precise: pimp hat 2.0. But then, that's just another list of gear to get and while satisfying, it isn't really what I want my main focus for the game to be. To go through the game with nothing but the intent to get more shinies seems like a good way to burn yourself out.

My previous list of stuff to do was more about the journey to the top, but now that I'm getting up here I find myself losing perspective. When I was a small and inexperienced Red Mage I used to be all about the running around to dumb places to exp and couldn't understand why folks wouldn't want to sync down. But now that I'm all the way up here at level 70 I'm starting to understand. There's an definite appeal to keeping all of your abilities and spells, because they're a lot of fun to use. The higher you go the more you can do with the job and the more fun it gets. On the other side of the coin is a gradual erosion of that mystical sense of adventure you had when you first joined the game. No longer do I run headlong into Dangruf Wadi to smack bunnies and evade goblins for the thrill of it. Instead I find myself sitting in exp parties wanting to strangle my various party members for being horribly inept.

Somewhere in that journey something changed in me, and it's not a change I like. My fear is that if I continue playing primarily for the acquisition of shinies that it will only cause that change to fester until it turns me into a very bitter player.

He really is just an old man

2011-02-21T18:53:00.004-05:00

For years and years it has been commonly accepted that Red Mages have the toughest time fighting a certain snarky old man in Jeuno. I've heard from just about everyone I've talked to how this guy is the biggest badest fighter around and how he'll turn you inside out at the drop of a hat.

Well tonight I threw my own pimp hat in the ring against this trouncer of intrepid travelers and there's something I need to set straight once and for all.

The Maat fight for Red Mage is not difficult.

Yeah, you heard me.

The only people Maat is going to break in half are those folks who are utterly unsuited for the job. You know the kind, the ones who like to pull out their wand and beat on gobbies during a party. The ones who are better off leveling a less complex job.

It really irks me how there's been this aura of fear cultivated for this one specific fight and it has totally failed to deliver. I was really looking forward to having Maat wipe the floor with me and force me to rethink my strategies. You know, something to challenge me to be a better Red Mage. Instead, I got a mewling kitten of an opponent who did not teach me anything.

The fight itself was really quite simple.

Once I got in the arena I regained my Composure and proceeded to apply most of my normal buffs. Then, mindful of the importance of recast timers in a fight like this, I dropped Composure and ran in to find Maat casting some buffs of his own. Well we certainly couldn't have any of that, so I hit him with Sleep and proceeded to strip him of all his buffs. It took a fair chunk of mp, so afterwards I dropped Sleep II over top of the original sleep and grabbed a few ticks of mp for myself.

Brimming with mp, it was now time to knuckle down and start smacking the elderly around. Maat didn't take kindly to Gravity the first time around, but it hardly mattered. If you drop an Aero III from far enough back then he won't even make it through Blink before you've slept him again. Scoot back, nuke again, Sleep II and grab mp, repeat.

Heck, even when the old man let loose a Chainspell it didn't matter, he slept right through that too. When I readied my own Chainspell he called for a time out after the first nuke. It was quite sad really.

This guy has been built up as some sort of monster in the guise of a little old man and it just isn't the case. I'm sorry, but this was not a challenging fight.

The silver lining to all this was learning about Maat's past. The fact that he was a fisherman, and therefore absolutely crazy, makes everything fit into place for me somehow.

Still searching for a worthy adversary.

Things I have learned from Dynamis

2011-02-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

1. A disproportionate number of mages are incompetent

It's very discouraging to be a Red Mage helping with Sleeping large hordes of mobs only to see one of the Black Mages open with Sleepga II, thoroughly preventing us from keeping the horde in check. We are not going to be able to maul everything in 90 seconds. You're just making it harder to stagger the influx of assailants, so cut it out.

Another horrendous choice I saw made: White Mages not using Sublimation when we're encountering mobs that are continually sleeping the whole alliance. Yes that Refresh II is appealing, but you know what's more appealing? Being able to wake up the alliance so we don't risk a wipe and lose more time.

My own failures in all this boil down to not being on the ball enough. I've done a shamefully poor job of keeping up Refresh and Haste cycles with people running all over the place while simultaneously trying to make sure everything is slept. I feel some of this could be alleviated if the alliance was a little more coordinated, but I also know that I need to step up my own game, or maybe just mess with my chat filters some more.

2. Communication is the most important thing ever

Our shell leader insists on using Vent when doing Dynamis. I was reluctant at first, but I'm warming up to the idea. The problem however, is that this leads to there being almost no communication in-game. This coupled with the fact that the vast majority of the shell is not on Vent means that the whole thing is very poorly coordinated, which leads to all sorts of frustrations. We really need to take some time before the next run to just sit down and make sure everyone is at least listening in on Vent even if they don't own a mic. It would make it easier to issue instructions and keep everyone on the same page rather than having half the alliance left in the dark for most of the run.

3. Not everyone is suited to lead a Linkshell

Without going into too much detail, our shell leader had IRL issues last night that forced him to abandon the run early, and those issues are likely to do so again. If your situation outside the game is such that you cannot consistently be there during the event, then maybe you shouldn't be leading a shell. I'll stick with the shell for now, but last night raised a number of red flags for me.

Dynanonymous

2011-02-06T03:00:00.001-05:00

Some folks from my social LS roped me into joining a Dynamis run tonight. Let me transcribe part of the thought process:

Oh this is neat.

Wait, why is there no map? Oh god this is going to be terrible.

No, we're all moving in a group that's good.

Wait, these groupings make no sense. Why are you moving up there?

Oh god why are all the party members moving in different directions? I'll never be in range now.

Oh hey, some orcs...OH DEAR GOD WHERE HAS MY FACE GONE!?

Tonight was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. Thankfully everyone managed to keep their pants on through the many many many wipes that were had over the course of the evening.

If I had to give a brief description of Dynamis I'd say it consisted of battling a large army in small chunks while slowly making your way through a city.

The whole run felt very disorganized from start to finish. We got off to a rocky start when our first pull consisted of the puller bringing back a boatload of statues, each of which proceeded to spawn approximately eight thousand orcs apiece. We were very very dead very very quickly. After everyone got back on their feet and re-buffed we tried again, with similar results but we were at least making some progress in reducing the number of orcs in San d'Oria. By our third go round we managed to not wipe. I wouldn't say we'd settled into a good rhythm, but we managed to not die horribly and that was progress for us.

The arrangement of who went where in the alliance didn't make a lot of sense to me. I think in my own party there were at least three mages, a puller and something that pretended to be a tank, all of whom went in different directions making it damn near impossible to organize them into a cohesive unit that kept itself within casting distance for me to support. I have no idea what was going on in the other parties, no one bothered to really stop and explain who was in charge of what.

Ok that's not entirely true, the alliance leader kept yelling at the four Red Mages to cast Sleepga.

Would you like to see what those Red Mages looked like?

90 RDM/WHM

90 RDM/SCH

66 RDM/SCH

Yeah...about casting Sleepga, and it totally not happening.

That definitely lead to a few wipes. Manifestation + Sleep II from a single RDM doesn't cut it. There was a Summoner helping though, so we managed to not Die Horribly all the time.

Overall I just would have liked to see more organization to the whole thing. My friend kept trying to apologize throughout the whole thing because it was such a terribly executed run, but he really didn't need to. I could definitely see how Dynamis could be a fun thing to do if it was with a group working like a well-oiled machine, rather than a crowbar stuck in a block of cement like this run was. But even more importantly, this run let me get into Dynamis to see what it was like without having to hold any real responsibility, which is how I've wanted to get my feet wet in Dynamis since I first heard about it.

At this point it's very difficult for me to say if I'll enjoy it. If runs continue to be painfully slow, inefficient and filled with stupid leadership choices like tonight's was, then I'll probably stick it out for a piece of gear or two before making my escape. However, I'd much prefer to see the shell get itself smoothed out and have some proper runs, because I think I could get into it if it was done right.

My biggest concern right now is actually the leadership. I think I'm still holding a grudge against the LS leader because of that Summoner burn I helped him with that took two hours and kept me from my delicious dinner. That's like a cardinal sin with me. You don't keep me from my food. It ends badly for everyone.

The rumblings of my stomach aside, this guy just hasn't really laid out a clear system for how the shell is going to be run, or how gear is distributed. Maybe I missed the memo, but the shell's pretty young and I can't get him to tell me how the LS bank is going to work. He's said we can access the gil in it, but has been vague about how. At this point I think I'm going to press the issue and if possible abuse the existence of the bank to pay for some of the stuff on my shopping list along with my consumables until some concrete rules are laid out.

Likewise I'd like some gear acquisition protocol. Is this crap freelot for everything, or are we gonna have a points system? Or worse, is it going to be a "because I said so" rule of distribution?

None of this has been established yet as far as I can tell, which raised a ton of red flags for me tonight. I'll probably end up being the problem child of the shell and bother them about it constantly until they put something together. Or at least that's the plan.

My first Dynamis. I think it went well.

Did you know they put Tarutarus in treasure chests? If anyone has the Bastok one I'll trade you my San d'Oria one.

Shadowlord's home turf. I'm so glad no one managed to spoil the cutscenes for the rank 6 mission. It was so awesome.

A sense of impending doom.

Krakens off the port bow!

2011-01-27T23:03:00.006-05:00

Tonight I spent some time reaffirming my suspicions that soloing isn't always easy.

I've been sitting on a sizeable stockpile of Beastmen's Seals for quite some time now but I never bother to actually round up people for BCNM fights to actually spend them on.

Tonight I decided to fix that somewhat and took it upon myself to try soloing Up in Arms.

This seemed like the logical choice for me. I had heard that a Red Mage could solo the fight earlier in the week. I've also become considerably averse to syncing down past level 51 if I don't have to or if it isn't for friends, so a level 60 fight was right up my alley. Lastly, this fight was against a lone Sea Monk, which was the logical progression of what I'd been fighting recently.

See, I've spent the last week or two hanging out in the Sea Serpent Grotto soloing Sea Monks in the room Charybdis spawns in, keeping tabs on the NM for the rest of my shell so we can all get Joyeuse.

So a fight against the type of mob I've been practicing on seemed like a good choice.

I proceeded to do my homework on the fight and learned that the Sea Monk would gradually build up a resistance to Sleep spells, so I would have to modify my usual tactics somewhat and use Bind and Gravity more heavily than I had been. Also there was a time limit. Some nasty special moves as well.

So I spent my evening gearing up and heading over to Waughroon Shrine. I got into the arena and buffed up. The fight went pretty much how I expected it would, Gravity sticking and nuking down the long hallway and then throwing Bind in the end rooms to hold the monster in place while I doubled back into the hallway again. It was actually pretty easy once I got into the Rhythm of it, basically using Bind where I would have used Sleep before and saving the Sleep spells for times when I needed to recover some mp by resting. There were a few iffy moments where Stoneskin went down and I had some tentacles reaching into places they shouldn't, but overall it went pretty smooth. Sailing along nicely I had wittled the monstrosity down to about 2/5 of his health left, maybe a little less, but then something awful happened.

The time limit was up.

I felt foolish. There had been little to no danger of me actually dying. Instead I lost simply because I hadn't been nuking fast enough. What a frustrating turn of events.

I'm hesitant to try again right away because the problem seems to be more than just slipping up. This is more along the lines of forcing myself to unlearn bad habits I've picked up soloing in a dark, damp cave.

Or maybe I should have just used chainspell to nuke at the start of the fight and kited the rest of it.

Port Bastok is Beautiful.

All your fish are belong to us

2011-01-12T21:28:00.003-05:00

You see this? This is a goddamn milestone. I'm putting it here so I'll remember when it happened.

G4 is brilliant

2011-01-09T02:04:00.003-05:00

No not that awful TV network.

I am of course talking about the fourth limit break quest.

It emphasizes what I continue to love about this game: its attention to detail and world-building.

Maat gives you four clues and tasks you with finding four corresponding people scattered throughout the world. This must have been desk-gnawingly frustrating for people back when the game was in its infancy before wiki documented everything. But even so, it illustrates a point which Maat articulates better than I:

"Remember, adventuring is not all about battles and monsters, but about the people you meet along the way."

I feel this is something many adventurers need to reacquaint themselves with, and even a few folks on the design team.

Holiday festivities were particularly elegant in Bastok.

Sticker collecting

2010-12-29T11:51:00.007-05:00

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?

2010-12-17T11:03:00.007-05:00

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

2010-12-04T20:57:00.001-05:00

It really is just that awesome.

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

Pimp Suit: Complete

2010-11-27T22:54:00.005-05:00

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

2010-11-25T00:49:00.004-05:00

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!

2010-11-21T17:26:00.008-05:00

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

2010-11-14T00:52:00.003-05:00

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

2010-11-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

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!

2010-10-15T21:00:00.001-04:00

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

2010-10-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

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

2010-09-26T22:00:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-16T19:47:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-05T17:40:00.010-04:00

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

2010-08-30T23:24:00.005-04:00

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...

2010-08-23T23:05:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-16T20:00:00.000-04:00

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:

Black Magic
Default
White Magic
Gear/Job Abilities
Miscellaneous
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

2010-08-05T22:33:00.001-04:00

I'm so badass that I craft standing up.

I Am Building a House of Fish

2010-08-03T00:57:00.004-04:00

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.

Pebbles

2010-08-01T03:27:00.003-04:00

I figured out what the litmus test for for finding a good Linkshell is.

If your linkshell organizes a party to Purgonorgo Isle and the primary concern is lotting on Pebbles then you have found a good Linkshell.

God damn was tonight fun.

On the way over.

Expect more coherent postings when it isn't 4 in the morning.

Out of Gil 2: The Quest for more Gobbie Bags

2010-07-30T10:00:00.001-04:00

Well it's happened again. I've run out of money.

On the bright side I now have 65 inventory slots, so it was totally worth it.

I guess now would be a good time to review how my last gil-making scheme has been going.

The goal was to get into gardening in order to avoid having to constantly farm every day to cover expenses. So far it has been working out. I found out some seeds can be harvested in just three days, so I was all over that like a cat on catnip. After spending a few months fiddling with growing elemental ores over the course of 3-4 weeks only to have the results be rock salt instead, this was a huge improvement for me. No more month long waits and disappointment, just a small steady stream of crops.

I may as well let you all know what exactly I used, no point in keeping it secret.

The secret formula is this: 1 pot + 1 bag of grain seeds + 1 fire crystal +3 days of waiting = lots of TaruTaru Rice.

Or if the random number generator feels fickle, you'll get a handful of ice crystals or a red rock.

It's not big money, but it's enough to get by on day-to-day expenses.

Funny story though; When I first got into the market, TaruTaru Rice was selling like mad and for 15k per stack. Holy money making agriculture Batman, I thought to myself, this is where I need to be. Well after a few weeks something in the market shifted and the price dropped to 10k. Alright, still reasonably profitable and the 15k was probably just a brief spike in price and this is the market stabilizing itself.

Well maybe not.

See, the price on my server hasn't stopped falling. From what I can tell we have about 7 stacks of rice on the Auction House for every one stack that gets sold. The market is in free-fall. Stacks are going for 4k and still dropping.

It's actually been pretty amazing to watch. At this point I just want to see how far it will fall before everyone bails on it entirely. I'll still be there though, since it hasn't hit the point where selling stacks of seeds is more profitable than growing them yet.

In the meantime, I'm still running low on gil though so it's probably time to go farm something. So much for not having to farm again, huh?

Who is driving these chocobos?

Genkai 2

2010-07-28T23:58:00.004-04:00

*sigh*

"Underwhelming" is the only description that springs to mind.

Tonight my Linkshell took it upon themselves to run me through my second Limit Break quest. This one involved defeating some Notorious Monsters in the frozen northlands of Xarcabard.

I had wandered up to one earlier in the week just to see how hard it hits and it floored me in less than a minute. It wouldn't even be worth attempting to solo, unlike Dark Spark where I could see a glimmer of hope poking up just beyond the horizon.

Stomping on them with three higher level players helping just didn't bring me any satisfaction. It made the whole ordeal trivial, a chore, a minor inconvenience. I knew this was going to happen too. Hell I didn't even have to properly research the NMs, we just wandered up there and slaughtered them.

This was not an adventure.

I really need to make a point of exploring the Shadowreign era. It turns up cool stuff like this.

Warrior is the Batman of FFXI

2010-07-27T00:05:00.002-04:00

It's true.

Worse yet I think Warrior is starting to grow on me, especially since I've started taking it to Linkshell parties.

I just spent the night in Spore Hollow and had a blast. We were syncing to 25 and our puller was clinically insane. At any given time we had two to four Funguar on top of us, and no one to sleep them so it was up to me and the Ninja to make sure they didn't eat the mages. I'm not sure the Ninja was up to the task when synced so low, but I sure as hell was. Firing arrows as two Funguars come in and provoking the third as our puller cackled maniacally, leaving the Ninja to hold the first one as the rest of the party wailed on it.

You know what gets a monster's attention better than insulting its mother?

Hitting it in the head with a gigantic axe.

At any given time I could wander up to a mob that wasn't eating the ninja, wallop it in the face and it would decide I was tastier. I'm not sure it quite counts as tanking, but I was eating enough cures that it kept me on my toes and I couldn't use Provoke carelessly. Heck, half the time I was switching to target a new mob just to make sure I kept hate until the rest of the party could start wailing on one of the held mobs.

I'm pretty sure we were making less than 5,000 experience per hour, but damned if it wasn't fun.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go soak my head and put my head between my knees until the desire to abandon Red Mage and level Warrior goes away.

The new expansion is producing fashion disasters like this. I am displeased.

Some guy was shouting for mission 2-3, the one where you fight the dragon, tonight. I managed to rope most of the Linkshell into helping with the fight. Afterwards we adopted him and had an awesome party in Jugner Forest.

Dark Spark: Round 2...FIGHT!

2010-07-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

I've learned two things from my fights with Dark Spark:

Blood tanking is horribly inefficient

I might not be cut out for soloing

The other week I decided to do a dry run against Dark Spark as a level 55 RDM/BLU and hit the dirt so fast it wasn't even worth writing home about.

After spending some time lollygagging about on Warrior, Samurai and hunting the odd Notorious Monster, I decided it might be time to make another go at it.

The basic strategy was to bank on Cocoon, Phalanx and Stoneskin providing enough damage mitigation for me to simply outlast Dark Spark. Sadly this was not to be.

Dark Spark delighted in tearing through my Stoneskin with remarkable speed and once that was down, even my formidable defenses weren't enough to keep him from devouring my face. I held out longer than I expected though. I think I managed to knock off a good 20-25% of his health before I died.

As I said before, blood tanking just wasn't efficient. I burned through my MP way too fast. Even if I had been a bit more calm during the whole thing I would have simply run out of MP at some point and that would be the end of it. I can certainly see how using Utsusemi shadows would be a lot more efficient, but I just don't have the gil for it and there's a few other things that bug me about it, like the prospect of having to manually turn off shadows when recasting Utsusemi:Ichi. I'm fairly certain that alone would be enough to get me panicking and screwing up everything else. While I'm used to killing things really slowly on Red Mage, NMs seem to be on a different scale altogether. Usually I'm fine with killing things so slowly because they hardly ever manage to land a hit. Dark Spark was pretty much the other end of the spectrum, and that adds a lot of stress to the ordeal.

So my Linkshell found out what I was doing and decided to come out and help me kick Dark Spark's ass properly. Afterwards we had some fun just goofing off and beating up demons. All too soon it was time to return to Jeuno.

How long has it been? A few months now I've been trying to get these gloves? While many would say I wasted my time fooling around leveling Blue Mage and even attempting this solo, I think I'm better off for it. I've learned a bit about gearing for melee combat, I've learned the fear and stress associated with trying to solo a monster that you have no chance against, and I've also found what could very well be my favorite subjob for Red Mage. For me this entire ordeal has been an absolute success.

Dark Spark:1
DrJones: 0

The cavalry arrives.

Stlyish gloves!

Warrior Revelations

2010-07-18T03:06:00.006-04:00

1. Playing Warrior in a party puts me in a very aggressive mindset.

2. Face tanking proper is all sorts of awesome fun.

3. Linkshell parties are awesome.

Tonight was some of the most fun I've had in a while. My old Linkshell reformed itself this week and tonight we went out to do some exp partying. There were four of us, so we had a few slots taken up by interlopers but it was still a lot of fun.

It got especially interesting when the Dancer and I both came to the conclusion that our incompetent White Mage needed to die. I had to beg this guy for Regens in a jungle party...that's pretty damn sad. The idiot was just cure-bombing, which screwed with efficiency and on occasion, hate management. The proper course of action was of course to see if we could get away with killing him once a drive-by PL showed up and attached itself to our party. Goblin tossing a bomb at you? Run towards the idiot mage.

Yeah, as two guys who play mages as their main jobs we had so much contempt for this guy. Spamming Cure III is not how you main-heal a party, ok? Jebus...

So yes, there was all sorts of wonderful face-tanking tonight. Often with two mobs showing up to camp when we only wanted one. Juggling between Berserk, Neutral, and Defender modes was an interesting exercise in judgement. Most of the night was spent in Neutral, with Defender going up mainly when goblins showed up. My face was very delicious.

After all is said and done, I think I managed to gain about 8,000 exp over the course of five hours. I died a lot and it was a romping good time.

Mandy in a box!

This was common sight tonight. I lost count of how many dirt naps I took.

I also spent some time running around in the the Promyvion zones this week. They're so beautiful and eerie.

Front line melee...

2010-07-13T12:00:00.001-04:00

I just got out of a party and I'm damn near frothing at the mouth with rage.

Let me back up a minute before I injure myself with all this concentrated hatred.

Last week my friend and I were working on unlocking Samurai and we damn near had it but had to logout before the NPC finished smithing our swords. Figuring it'd be a fun class to tag team with my friend I decided to get off my ass and level a subjob for it, namely Warrior. This is all part of my back-burner plan to level Dragoon some day.

After bouncing past the Dunes levels I spent some time skilling up in the Dunes(oh irony, you slay me). After some time with my flag up I get a party invite to the oddest of places. Rolanberry Fields in the past. Well I haven't been there before so I venture out and it takes freaking forever without chocobos or teleporty goodness or even maps. After burning through a full stack of powders and oils getting to camp I find the party. The setup makes more sense once I learn there's someone Power Leveling the party, but that's irrelevant.

The point being that this was my first party as a Damage Dealer(DD).

After two hours...I have complete and utter contempt for all DDs. It's the fucking lazy man's job, no two ways about it. The difference between playing a front line melee and playing a mage job is like night and day.

The DD does this:

Hit things with pointed sticks
Use one, maybe two Job Abilities
Execute a Weaponskill
Repeat

I swear to god, that's all that's required of them and they get a pat on the head and a cookie.

Whereas on Red Mage I get to take care of all this and more:

Keep everyone alive
Cure status ailments
Dispel enemy buffs
Keep folks Refreshed
Keep folks Hasted
Apply Enfeebling magic
Renew Enfeebling magic
Sleep links
Try not to draw hate
Nuke
Manage MP while accomplishing all of the above

This is absolutely bananas!

For the entire party on Warrior I was able to play with a PS2 controller in hand.

I can't get away with that on Red Mage. No, on Red Mage I'm hammering macros so frantically I need the keyboard just to jump through 5 macro pages in a timely manner. Don't even get me started on how I have to take in the scope of the battle and give the party the kick in the ass it needs when it comes time to retreat; Setting down the controller and picking up the keyboard to type a message takes way too damn long.

This...this just makes me angry. I don't have the proper words to convey it, just a boiling sensation of rage that the majority of the party workload is getting dumped on the mage. I suspect whatever's left is given to the tank, because the role of Damage Dealer requires no accountability whatsoever.

This...

...turns into this mess.

Shooting bunnies with axes.

The Notorious Monster Addiction

2010-07-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

Hi, I'm Cid and I camp Notorious Monsters even though I know better.

Nothing significant mind you, but there is something very appealing about finding and killing a monster that doesn't show up every five minutes. It's even more appealing when you start adding cool treasure to the equation, althogh I'm not convinced that's the sole appeal of the activity.

In many cases it's an excuse to check out new areas I don't usually pass through.

On some level I suspect it operates on the same principle as gambling. Often even finding the monster in and of itself feels like an accomplishment, and then the drop rates are the same thing all over again. Yes, it can be frustrating, but it can also be really rewarding as long as the drop rate isn't too abusive. Once the drop rate gets too abusive I run the risk of repeating the Rambler's Gaiters incident. Trust me, it isn't pretty.

There are some inherent flaws in the system, but I don't think the drop rates or long respawn times are the big ones. The real problem is that most of the treasure isn't level appropriate. Notorious Monsters are robust enemies that will trounce you if you're not a sufficiently high level. But once you reach that high level, the gear they provide is most likely outdated. This is a problem. In order to take down a NM at the level where you would be using the gear, you need to drag multiple friends out to help you fight the critter. Given how frequently these mobs show up and their atrocious drop rates, this means you either can't have nice things or you have to make your friends miserable in order to get nice things. I know FFXI is all about the teamwork and what-not, but this is just silly.

Despite all this, I've spent a good bit of time camping things. There's just this wonderful sense of satisfaction (or is it vengeance?) that comes from slicing up the monster and finally seeing that shiny trinket fall out of their entrails.

If nothing else it's been something to pass the time while I try to figure out what to do next in game. Also the prospect of having stupid good gear when taking up a second job is very appealing. Oh Dragoon, someday I'll actually level you and it will be awesome.

After 18 kills it's just not worth it when I can buy the belt on the Auction House for cheap.

This one might be worthwhile if I can figure out the timing and placement a little better.

I accidentally killed this one back in the day without realizing it was a Notorious Monster.

You know what else is appealing about camping Notorious Monsters? Being able to do stuff like this while waiting. Nothing like taking on a pack of orcs single-handedly.

On Summoner Burns

2010-07-11T23:36:00.004-04:00

Being the sync for Astral Flow burns is boring as hell.

I was leveling Warrior in Gustaberg today and got an invite to one. Let me tell you, standing around twiddling your thumbs for over an hour as folks do the pull is not fun. The exp was great, I guess, but I still have to go skill up now so it's not like I skipped the grind. Jumping into a party is out of the question until I grind up my skills to the point where I can hit things again.

Yeah, not doing that again. A total waste of my time.

None of that...ever again.

Back to partying for a night

2010-07-05T23:00:00.000-04:00

Gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear!

Ok, now that I have that out of my system I can move on to discussing something someone might actually care to read.

I've been having a pretty dry spell as far as parties are concerned. When you're trying to be at the top of your game on the first job you level, you tend to take a lot of time off to get everything just the way you want it before carrying on. Sure I could zoom to 75 if I whored myself out and did a bunch of bird parties naked, but where's the satisfaction in that? So yeah, side projects of leveling sub jobs and getting awesome gear has kept me away from the party scene for a few months.

Tonight I wanted to hit 55 so I could start picking up some gear for my Dark Spark fight. A bit of an exp buffer would be nice too so I can make multiple suicide runs at this thing. So rather than waste time soloing I decided to flag up since I was fairly close and even if the party was horrible I could still get the exp I needed.

Well off to East Altepa Desert I went. I arrived at the outpost to find a frantic scuffle between the party and a goblin. Someone threw me a party invite and we were off like a rocket powered bobsled! I think it was about four goblins before I got enough of a breather to take a look and see who was playing what job combinations. This may be petty, but it really pisses me off to have to come into a party and have absolutely no adjustment period at all. I'm going to be joining your party but you can't be bothered giving me two minutes to look over everyone and sort out which mage is in charge of what? Oh well, at least we didn't wipe.

We had a Summoner, and a dancer, a Paladin, a Ninja, and a Monk. Weird setup but I'm not complaining, it seemed to be working. I must have blinked because the Tarutaru Summoner up and vanished at some point. Now here comes the crazy part: They brought me a White Mage!

I know, I couldn't believe it either. It was like a dream come true. Truth be told I much prefer to play back-up healer instead of main healer. It means I don't have to deal with status ailments and can be a little bit more focused on handling shit hitting the fan rather than the endless whack-a-mole that is the HP bar.

Things got even weirder when I received a /tell from the White Mage. Apparently I am a "damn good RDM". At the time I got this I was just standing around picking my nose as the party was doing its thing and the goblin was curled on the ground twitching feebly, so I couldn't tell if they were being sarcastic or not. Nope, turns out they meant it. I had done the unthinkable and actually bothered to toss them a Refresh.

0_0

>_<

O_O

For real guys? Are the rest of the Red Mages on my server so inept that they can't figure out how to Refresh the wondrous gift that is another healer in the party? I'm sorry, I'm not that good of a Red Mage but if I'm setting the high mark then I need to make a point of pimp slapping some pretenders to the title of Red Mage.

Gah, it makes me so angry!

There were so many things wrong with this party:

The lack of adjustment period
The Paladin cockblocking my Refresh with his tab-Refresh
3 people running off to tackle a new mob while while the healers remained stationary
The Dancer learning that one of his Weapon Skills hits everything in an area leading to a partial wipe
I forgot to change subs and came /BLU

However, by far the worst part of tonight was the misconception that I am somehow a talented and accomplished Red Mage. This means there are some truly horrendous Red Mages running around out there and that makes me shiver in fear.

Here we are...before things went haywire.

That's how I like to start my mornings

2010-07-04T11:36:00.003-04:00

Camping Notorious Monsters I have no business camping.

Aggroing four angry Quadavs when I was trying to pull just the one.

Managing to let Refresh drop when I was down to 22 MP.

Somehow managing to outlast three angry turtles before one lands a lucky critical hit and swats me to the floor.

Ah, adventure...smells a lot like dirt.

Aesthetics are important

2010-07-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

Screenshot Spectacular, the second

Recently a few of my friends have been bugging me to try out Dungeons and Dragons Online with them. Now I'm pretty deeply entrenched in FFXI at this point, but I'm not opposed to branching out and expanding my horizons a little. Besides, slicing up goblins with friends is usually pretty hard to mess up.

Dungeons and Dragons isn't really new to me either. I'm one of those guys who ran through the Baldur's Gate series and then proceeded to spend a whole Summer raiding his local library for all the 3rd edition rule books and supplements he could find. So what the hell, I thought, I'll give it a try.

While I was waiting for the client to download and install itself I decided to take a look at the game trailer on the website. Boy was that ever a mistake.

The world I saw in the trailers was the standard fantasy setting, yes, but it was also brightly colored and gaudy. It was not the kind of world I associate with a good D&D campaign. In the back of my head there was a little voice screaming: "World of Warcraft clone". Usually I try to ignore this voice but the similarities in the color schemes were a bit too similar. The whole palette was over the top. Garish cartoon colors and architecture littered the video.

This is not what I want from a game. When I want a D&D game I'm there for immersion. I'm there to get sucked into the world, not be constantly reminded that I'm playing a game. When you litter your environment with sharply contrasting colors, it's very jarring and prevents me from losing myself in the game.

FFXI has done a phenomenal job of avoiding this and also providing the correct balance of realistic color scheme with a dash of fantasy. Combined with the insane attention to detail it makes for a world that feels very much alive. The crazy fantasy zones aren't so pervasive in the world that they intrude upon the perception of the game as a fully realized world.

Thankfully the game wasn't able to install itself on my PC on account of a missing .dll file for DirectX, so I was able to scamper away without having to bother with D&D:O anymore. I'll stick with FFXI's world sprinkled with a bit of fantasy rather than a fantasy sprinkled with a bit of world, thanks.

It may be a slow week in terms of gaming progress in Vana'diel but that hasn't stopped me from finding some good photo opportunities.

I think this was somewhere in Ghelsba Outpost. I spent some time there hunting down some Blue Magic as well as a nifty spear to put in storage for that rainy day when I decide to level Dragoon.

Valkurm Dunes: for all the horrors of leveling there, I just don't mind hanging out there on my own time.

I want to raise Notorious Monsters instead of a chocobo next time.

My friend doesn't believe me when I tell him there are small children in Gusgen Mines. Even when they're right in front of him.

I really like the lighting effects of the lamps at night. Could it be better? Yes, but it still looks cool.

This is something of a running joke. My friend gave me lots of grief when we were starting out because his monk had better Mind(MND) than my Red Mage. Then he got an MP pool and got even more uppity. Now I Refresh him for giggles.

Arguing over who gets to steer the ship on our way to Mhaura. I have no sense of direction but he has no maps.

Don't let that passive face fool you.

Bunny Punching. Seriously, this is one of the highlights of the game for me: punching bunnies full of electricity. There may or may not be a song about this later.

Drogaroga's Spine has always been an impressive land mark.

Tahrongi Canyon has beautiful skies at dusk.

Man those are some stylish pants.

Does anyone know of a way to get better resolution screenshots that doesn't involve breaking the EULA? I'm rather discouraged with the built-in screen capture and how it degrades the quality of the pictures.

...And I'm out of gil again

2010-06-29T23:35:00.004-04:00

That's not hyperbole. Tonight I signed off with a grand total of zero gil. I'm just that talented.

This seems to be how all of my gil-making schemes go. Get a great idea for making tons of gil without the headache of abusive 4 to 6 hour farming sessions just to pull in a pittance. Great idea requires some investment capital to get it under way. I throw all my gil at the startup investment.

???

Profit?

My current gil-making scheme involves gardening.

There is surprisingly little reliable information about it, given just how well documented the entire rest of the game is. Hell, there are still people who swear by the 'run around your mog 3 times on a quarter moon during water's day between 12:00 and 14:00 if you want X result instead of Y' kind of mumo-jumbo. It seems the FFXI community has managed to breed that superstition out of crafters, but since gardeners are a secretive bunch they've been left to develop on their own.

I might be speaking from ignorance here, but from my limited experience all this day, moon cycle stuff is total superstition. Nothing more and nothing less. It didn't affect drop rates or crafting results, I see no reason why it would affect gardening.

You know what I do believe in?

Pots, Crystals, Seeds and the almighty Random Number Generator gods. Anything else is players experiencing a coincidence and subsequently convincing themselves of a correlation that doesn't exist. SE adores their RNGs in all other aspects of the game (drop rates, hit rate and crafting success capping at less than 100%), why should gardening be any different.

Sort of got off track there, sorry. It's just really frustrating to deal with a bunch of superstitious nonsense thrown in with the lack of documentation when trying to research something.

Now where was I? Ah yes, I have no gil. I have no gil because I threw all of it into purchasing new flowerpots.

This had damn well better work.

Melee RDM at Level 55: a Headache

2010-06-28T15:30:00.001-04:00

Today's post is about gear choices. If that's not your cup of tea just scroll down to the pretty pictures at the bottom.

Well I've finished up leveling Blue Mage for the time being and it's time to start getting ready for my fight with Dark Spark. This means I'll be needing to overhaul my sword and shield gear so that I can have a chance at actually winning the fight.

For the most part I've been neglecting my melee gear because it's not welcome in parties and what I had was always "good enough" for soloing on my own time. However I'm pretty sure this fight's going to be a bit more demanding so it's time to start the painful process of figuring out what I need to update. Unfortunately it looks like I need to overhaul just about everything, as my current melee setup is pretty sad:

Sword: Knight's Sword
Shield: Hard Shield
Head: Crow Beret
Neck: Black Silk Neckerchief
Earring: Morion Earring x2
Body: Brigandine Armor
Hands: Guerilla Gloves
Ring: Knowledge Rings and Saintly Rings...+INT/+MND respectively
Back: Red Cape +1
Belt: Mercenary Captain's Belt
Legs: Magic Cuisses
Feet: Warlock's Boots or Rambler's Gaiters

The good news is that just about any upgrade I make should considerably improve my performance so I won't have to worry so much about minuscule increases in performance or sidegrades. When you're at rock bottom the only place to go is up.

On the other hand, I'm relatively inexperienced when it comes to gearing for melee so I'm a bit lost as to how to prioritize stats. Oh and then we throw evasion into the equation and it all becomes a mess. Is that few points of evasion enough to help me survive longer or do I forgo it to make with the pointed sticks that make the enemies fall down faster?

Preliminary research has revealed a lot of options...and a lot of stuff that's simply out of reach for now.

Headgear options
Valkyrie's Mask
Walkure Mask
Shock Mask
Precision Bandana

Personally I'm leaning towards the Shock Mask just for the balance it offers. Valkyrie's Mask would be nice, but it'll break the bank for me.

Body options
Jaridah Peti

There's only the one option for me here but I gotta say, it looks pretty good.

Hands
Battle Gloves
Combat Mittens +1
Combat Caster's Mitts
Jaridah Bazubands

I have no idea what to pick here to be honest. They all look like decent options so I might just go with whatever is cheapest.

Pants
Republic Subligar
War Hose

My fashion sense won't let me pick up the subligar when there are such stylish pants to be had.

Neck
Tiger Stole

I don't know of anything else to put in here.

Waist
Swordbelt
Life Belt
Headlong Belt

These are all good. I guess this one will depend on what the rest of my setup looks like. I am decidedly undecided.

Earring
Beetle Earring +1
Tortoise Earring +1

It appears I'll be taking a hit to evasion regardless of how I gear here.

Ring
Assailant's Ring
Venerer Ring
Woodsman Ring
Ecphoria Ring

Ecphoria Ring looks like a good bet, and I guess I'll pick up one of the others as well as gil permits.

Back
Jaguar Mantle
Bellicose Mantle

Again I'd opt for the defensiveness that Jaguar Mantle offers. Maybe I'm over-thinking this whole thing.

Wait, no I'm not.

Swords
Wise Wizard's Anelace
Royal Guard's Fleuret

They're both stylish and offer awesome stats. I don't know what to pick. I want both of them.

There's clearly enough there to give me a huge boost in performance, but it's all so foreign that I'm struggling with the indecision.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to just start picking up gear for each slot and sort out the min/maxing later. It can only improve my performance so it's not like I can go wrong, right?

Yeah, I'm definitely overthinking this.

San d'Orian sunsets just aren't as nice as Bastok's.

It's the subtlety of the atmosphere that really brings this game to life for me. This isn't a cartoon, it's a living, breathing world.

Worst Design Choice

2010-06-26T12:43:00.002-04:00

There's been a lot of new stuff that came with the update. Some of it good, some of it bad and some of it easily ignorable.

However, I think I've managed to pin down the worst design choice of the entire update:

They put a Cavernous Maw right at the zone line for Konschtat Highlands!

I'm sorry, but this is worse than any mechanics tinkering or quest line nonsense. This utterly kills the aesthetic appeal of the game. This thing looks like a big ugly monster and you stick right at the spot where new adventurers from Bastok are going to zone in? What were you thinking? This is a gateway to endgame content, the least you could do is hide it out of the way like you did with the original Maws so players have to go out of their way to get to it. To me this screams "We are ignoring the possibility of new players", not to mention it utterly ruins the immersive atmosphere that I've come to love in this game.

I know the game is fairly old at this point, but there's no excuse for these shenanigans.

Obligatory Update Entry

2010-06-22T00:59:00.004-04:00

So Red Mage tanking got axed today.

I'm pretty pissed about it. I was nowhere near being able to even attempt it, but it was always something I was looking forward to eventually trying.

Now I can't have that to look forward to.

Weekend Wipe

2010-06-21T09:00:00.001-04:00

That Blue Mage thing is still happening, but I'd like to steer the blog away from focusing on that for a while.

One of my friend's has been getting back into the game lately, so I've been spending some time giving him a hand with some of the nation missions. The most recent one we tackled took us to the Gusgen Mines where he had to fight a Pugil. I came along on Red Mage as backup so he didn't have much to worry about, aside from his sporadic connection. We've been perplexed by this phenomenon in which his connection takes a nose dive around the same time every night before stabilizing an hour later. The weirdest part is that it seems to just boot him off FFXI, because he doesn't get kicked off his XBox Live thingy. We're pretty much stumped at the moment, but at least it beats the satellite internet connection he had at his old place.

The other big thing to overcome when making a return to the game is making gil. I did what I could to spot my friend some gil to get him back on his feet, but the need for income is a constant problem for all of us. However, a few coincidences coincided to make it clear what my course of action ought to be.

Many moons ago I had spent a lot of time running around in Rolanberry with a Corsair while searching for my Rambler's Gaiters. At the time we had devised a scheme to see if there were any money making schemes we could tag-team. We had decided to attempt a Burning Circle Notorious Monster(BCNM) fight. In preparation I had saved up and spent 30 Beastman Seals to acquire the requisite Sky Orb. Unfortunately before we had a chance to make the attempt the fight, the Corsair vanished. I still haven't heard from him since.

The other half of the equation is that my friend just recently reached level 30, the level this particular BCNM fight is capped at.

So what the hell, I thought. This thing's been collecting dust for months and we could both use the gil so why not make an attempt? The original plan was to attempt to duo Creeping Doom, but I decided to see if anyone in my Linkshell was interested. My old pal Mohan decided to tag along. Awesome, the more punching power the better.

We all met up in Giddeus, two Monks and a Red Mage. After discussing some strategy we entered the arena.

Oh my god was I unprepared. I'd done my homework on this fight and figured subbing White Mage to help deal with paralysis would be a good idea. What I hadn't counted on was just how durable the crawler was with the ability to spam Cure III on itself. I ended up wasting a lot of MP trying to silence the darn thing. Even with level appropriate gear for the fight, it just wasn't going to happen. Maybe I should have subbed Black Mage for Elemental Seal after all.

However, I feel that my choice of sub-job wasn't really the issue here. I felt really rusty and flustered during this fight. I had planned to join in the melee after dropping the initial enfeebles, but when the time came I ended up fumbling with my gear a bit while trying to make sure my friends were on their feet and not paralyzed. Between that and trying to land Silence I wasn't really as quick on my feet as I needed to be. The chatlog flew by me and I wasn't even watching for enfeebles wearing. It was just a shameful performance on my part. Because of my indecisiveness I also managed to completely ignore the need to rest for mp. I placed too much faith in my Yagudo drinks. We lasted a good while, but the constant Cure III spam from the monster outlasted us. One by one we all hit the dirt.

Nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

I'm not so sure. My friends didn't seem to think too much of it, but the more I turn the scenario over in my head, the more convinced I am that this loss lies squarely on my shoulders. I wasn't on high alert, I didn't read the situation and adapt to it the way I needed to. Worst of all, I panicked and froze up often enough to disrupt the flow of things and eventually that got us killed.

Makes me wonder if I'm really cut out for this Red Mage business.

The "Fun Pile" after our wipe. Good effort guys, we'll have to try again sometime.

I picked up some cool shades from a Bazaar and I've taken to wearing them everywhere.

Carpenter's Landing makes for an interesting and photogenic environment.

Screenshot Spectacular, the First

2010-06-14T08:00:00.002-04:00

Oy, what a slow week it's been. Low level solo adventuring is rewarding in its own right, but sometimes it just doesn't make for good blogging. No one really wants to hear about how I spent all week hanging out in Buburimu Peninsula beating up bunnies and trying for hours on end to learn some Blue Magic.

Unless of course I spice it up with a bunch of screenshots and other unrelated goodies, which is why I'm pleased to announce the first chronic Screenshot Spectacular. Today we'll be mixing in an unprecedented number of screenshots to go along with our tale of adventure.

As many of you know, I've recently taken to leveling Blue Mage. It's been a slow but relatively painless process. During the lower levels I can't imagine how a player would manage to join exp parties and keep his spell list up to date at the same time. You simply gain levels before you even have time to learn your spells.

Anyway, this week's menu of delicious Blue Magic took me to the Konschtat Highlands to hunt down some woolly critters. Now I know sheep can be noisy, but I wouldn't think to refer to their bleating as anything resembling a song. But hey, a Light-based sleep spell is a darn handy thing to have, so off into the highlands I trekked. The sheep had all gathered near a collection of windmills for my convenience. After a time I found a sheep that was decidedly more of a stray than the others:

I've become even more reckless as a Blue Mage than I ever was as a Red Mage. I think it's the faster damage output that does it.

Sadly Stray Mary didn't have a soul for me to dine on.

Later in the week my hunt took me East, to the Horutoto Ruins just outside of Windurst. Whilst trying to hunt down some Cardians I was savagely ambushed by a lurking Goblin.

Being stabbed in the face for nearly 200 damage per hit tends to be detrimental to your health.

I later found out that the Cardians were in a different section of the ruins. Regardless, after taking such a beating I opted to explore Tahrongi Canyon searching for Dhalmels instead.

Even taking the high ground you can't look a Dhalmel in the eye.

An odd thing happened while hunting Dhalmels. A bunch of high level players were running around one-shotting the behemoths I was trying to track down. They left enough of them alive that I could still hunt, but it baffles me. What could they possibly want from a bunch of low level Dhalmels that don't have any spectacular loot? The only thing I can think of is that new Trial of the Magey-thingies, but I haven't been following that too closely so it might not even be that. Luckily it didn't take too terribly long to learn Healing Breeze.

Taking a break, I helped my friend reach level 30 on his Monk so he can start unlocking advanced jobs.

He decided to unlock Dark Knight. For those of you following along at home, this means he has to undertake a quest that involves slaying 100 enemies with a very slow and blunt Greatsword. Since my Scholar was of a similar level I decided to tag along and give him a hand with it. We ended up having me beat the mob within an inch of its life, at which point my friend would finish it off as I ran off to start on the next mob. Up on Vomp Hill we had a few close run-ins. Worms and sheep and goblins, oh my! It was actually a lot of fun, figuring out how to manage the hate levels and pace ourselves so we could fend off an extra critter or two. Last I heard he was still up on that hill swinging his sword.

I was running some errands one day and on my way to Jeuno I came across a terrifying sight.

Holy crap! A dragon in Rolanberry!

It was eating all the adventurers and there was nothing I could do. If dragons normally wander through Rolanberry, then I guess that might explain why we no longer have Rolanmart.

In other news, people have taken to keeping pet Tremor Rams at the Dem crystal.

I gotta say, that's a really terrifying thing to zone in to. I still have a deep-seated fear of Tremor Ram, which is why you might have noticed I'm trying to get away in the above shot.

Ah, another week in glorious Bastok. Onward to adventure!

munch munch...delicious souls

2010-06-08T09:00:00.002-04:00

Some nights it all just falls into place perfectly.

So lately I've been slowly working my way up the ladder as a Blue Mage. It's been a lot of fun so far. I get to wield a sword and chuck spells all day long, complete with really nifty animations. Seriously, I will never get tired of the hand gestures that go along with Blue Magic. There's also the fun of skilling up a whole new branch of magic along the way, so that's been rewarding as well.

The only down side so far has been the need to farm spells, and that hasn't really been much of an issue once I acquired my first spell. It's a chore sure, but it's one I can enjoy. Having to hunt down spells means hunting down specific enemies, which means exploring all kinds of areas. Ok, ok, there's always the option of standing around in Gustaberg tickling a Quadav with unarmed attacks until he gives you Head Butt, but why would you do that when you can go explore Palborough Mines or the Turtle HQ? So yes, farming for Blue Magic has been a bit of an adventure.

The whole mechanic seems tailored towards solo play. EXP parties tend to hunt in very specific locations and only attack certain kinds of enemies, so you can't rely on them to learn your spells. Also you can't always count on the enemy to use the spell you want if you tear through it too fast. This means you either end up poking the sickly bunny with a stick until he kicks you in the face and you kill him, or you find a bigger bunny with sharp pointy teeth who'll give you a run for your money and last long enough to use a few monster moves on you.

What you don't do is go pick a fight with the biggest, baddest, meanest mob in the zone.

Unless of course you're me.

Tonight I was romping through Giddeus punching Yagudos out left and right in the hopes that one of them would teach me Feather Storm. Sadly they weren't terribly keen on using it. So I wandered around for a while until I came across a rather large and intimidating Yagudo named: Juu Duzu the Whirlwind.

By now you all should know what happens when I encounter a critter that has a name. That's right, I ran headfirst into the big fluffy oaf and began slicing him up. With a notoriously large health bar, I decided now would be a very good time to make use of Azure Lore. This was followed by a great many Head Butts and Foot Kicks. It's really amazing how much damage a Blue Mage can pump out in a short period of time if they completely empty their MP pool.

It was close but I emerged victorious on all fronts. I had defeated the Big Bird ninja and he had relinquished a pair of Light Soleas, which I immediately equipped. Most importantly however, the Yagudo had lost his soul. I ate it and learned Feather Storm.

I really enjoy being a soulless monster that sustains itself on the spiritual essence of others.

I have a penchant for sunset shots

My friend needed some help collecting subjob quest items for the journey to Whitegate so we got horribly lost in the Gusgen mines.

Hey, that's not a Red Mage

2010-05-31T09:00:00.001-04:00

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

2010-05-28T13:30:00.003-04:00

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

2010-05-24T01:00:00.001-04:00

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

2010-05-10T10:00:00.006-04:00

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:

Shouting for hours to get someone to help
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

2010-05-06T10:00:00.001-04:00

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

Power Leveling

2010-03-27T02:05:00.001-04:00

Alternate title: Random Acts of goodwill

Ah, my hands are gonna kill me in the morning but it was worth it.

I've never been a big fan of PLs. They always tend to throw me off whenever I show up to a party that has one, and as a mage it's horribly frustrating.

On the other hand, PLing can be a lot of fun.

For those of you who missed the memo: I now have carpal tunnel syndrome, so I've been holed up in Jeuno crafting for the last month.

Tonight's adventure took me out to the jungles. I was tired of crafting in my moghouse without any social interaction so I figured I'd pack up my stuff and go somewhere while crafting. I packed up a ton of bottled water, rock salt and some ice crystals and headed for the jungle.

On the way over I ran into a party on the airship. What the hell, I thought, I'll do my crafting near their camp and toss some Hastes on them in exchange for horribly clogging their chatlog. I'm not really sure why I decided to. Boredom, the loneliness of being inactive for a month and having all your old linkshells blown to hell by the server merge? Just something to do in order to kill time I guess.

Turns out there were two parties outside the gates of Kazham tonight. One was already there when the airship party showed up. The incumbents had a bard so I decided to throw my lot in with the airship folk. For the most part I just ended up keeping a haste cycle between crafting sessions, but eventually I ran out of materials and started maintaining Protect and Shell on them as well.

I imagine the party was horribly confused. Everyone asking who brought the PL and no one admitting to it or knowing where it came from.

At one point, one of the members of the other party /checked me. He got added to the Haste cycle, although to be honest I didn't do as good a job keeping him in it since I was focused on the airship party. For some reason I have it in my head that I adopted them. Shut up, it's two in the morning, I can ramble.

Later in the evening the tank of the incumbent party went down. I didn't even really think about it, but I reflexively typed in the command to raise him. No sense in letting folks have over half an hour of downtime from people running all over the world switching jobs to raise folks and...you know what I mean.

Eventually the airship party packed up and left. The first party was still there, so I decided to switch my focus to them. They seemed to be a little more openly appreciative, which I still find odd in general. I may be "helping", but more than that I feel like I'm meddling. Not everyone appreciates the presence of a PL and here I am barging into your party handing out Haste like it's candy. Is everyone really ok with that? Well I assume the front line is, but what about the mages? No one ever asks them if they're ok with it.

At one point they managed to bring back a Goblin in addition to their normal prey. For some reason they tried to give me credit for them surviving the attack. I deny it entirely. I've made a point of not curing at all tonight. Buffs are one thing, but when I'm playing the mage in a party with a PL I hate when they cure. It makes hate management damn near impossible and throws everythign out of whack, including the rest of the party's sanity. When you have a PL "we don't die" button, you tend to do stupid shit that stresses out your mages. If these guys were gonna die I would let them. Sure I'd raise them back right away but I wasn't gonna cock-block the healers they brought along, that'd just be mean.

I can't tell if I actually did good tonight or if I was just messing with stuff I shouldn't have. And then there was the Japanese party. Dear god, the JP folk confound me. They would not stop thanking me, bowing, kneeling, saluting, etc. It made me mildly uncomfortable. Once or twice is enough guys, you don't have to keep it up all night. I will keep Hasting you regardless.

This has been a rather surreal night.

So yeah, I'm not really back but I haven't canceled my subscription either. Hopefully a few more weeks and I'll be able to start wading back in, but I make no promises. Hands hurt...

I have no pretty picture for you tonight.

I'm so ashamed.

We're on hold

2010-03-08T13:04:00.002-05:00

Well, this sucks.
My hands have been hurting a lot so I went to the doctor to have it checked out. The diagnosis is that I have the beginnings of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is more or less what I suspected.

What this means, is that I've basically been unable to play while I wait for my hands to slowly heal(7 hours a day on the keyboard at work isn't really helping the situation).

I don't know when I'll be back, but I do intend to continue this blog when I return. It's definitely "when" and not "if". The day I have to permanently give up gaming in my leisure time is the day Hell freezes over and fire starts raining down from the sky.

See you space cowboy...

Wonder Party

2010-02-24T12:00:00.003-05:00

I apologize for the lack of updates lately. I've been out of commission due to the fact that my hands and fingers have been hurting like crazy since last Friday. All that manic magic macro mashing on Red Mage has left my marvelous manipulators in a maladjusted mode at the moment.

On a completely unrelated note, the next person who tells me using Windower's extended macros isn't cheating because "it's only an extra one to two keystrokes" is getting punched right in the baby-maker.

But you all didn't come here to listen to me drone on about the onset of Carpal Tunnel syndrome. No, you came here to listen to tales of adventure and excitement. Since I haven't any new tales, I shall have to revisit an old one. I've made mention of it before, but I once had a Wonder Party. It took place months ago, but it made such an impression that I did a short write-up of it that's been floating around so I figure I may as well post it:

Does having the best party ever count as an accomplishment? Of course it does.

I finally got back to leveling Red Mage and tonight's trip to 45 was quite satisfying. My friend showed up tonight after a month long hiatus and since we were both bored with no real goals for the night we decided to go leveling somewhere. We decide to head for Western Altepa Desert to fight some Beetles. Along the way I managed to stumble across an entire party full of people who know what the hell they're doing. I was utterly dumbfounded. Our party looked something like this:
Red Mage - Me. I do an ok job of things.

Monk - My friend, he punches things until they fall down. He's a very intimidating Taru.

Paladin - Tarus can't be Paladins, right? Wrong! Seriously some of the best hate generation I've seen. The mobs looked at me once, maybe twice, during the four hours we partied. He also managed to not bleed all over the carpet, which was impressive.

Thief - Why are the Galka Thieves always the best ones? He was a seasoned puller and probably the first thief I've run across who asked for a SATA setup. He also managed to not pull when my MP was empty, something not many accomplish.

Dark Knight - For all the crap people give Dark Knights, this guy just disproved all of it. I made damn sure to keep refresh on him, because he made it worthwhile. Such spell slinging never have I seen before from a Dark Knight. Hell, he was helping me sleep links and Bind stuff to help keep the party from wiping at one point. Who knew?

Dancer - Holy Bajesus, Dancer makes everything better. Why they aren't in demand the way Corsairs and Bards are for exp parties, I'll never know. Ours was a Japanese player, so communication was limited but he stuck around for the whole thing even when we had a few mishaps and downtime. So damn many steps and sambas, this guy was a maniac. My only regret is that I couldn't properly tell him how awesome he was, and instead had to make an attempt using the Auto-translator.

So we made our way to Western Altepa Desert and set up wiping out beetles. It's a bit hectic, what with links and repops sneaking up on us, but we're at the tail end of the level range so we're handling it just fine. I'm relying on converts to keep on my feet, but there's enough support that the few times I did run empty it didn't even come close to a wipe.

All too soon I leveled up and the exp started to dry up, so we took a short break to figure out what to do next. I would have been content to end the night there. It had already been a fantastic run, but I didn't know where to go next. Thankfully my party did. We broke sync and headed for the Quicksand Caves.

We made our way to one end of the zone and started pulling in some beetles. They were tougher and a bit more taxing on the mp pool, but otherwise fine.

Unfortunately we were stuck with the less than ideal camp, which meant there were some ants to clear out if we wanted to get to the rest of the beetles. Damn were those some challenging fights. Every time we had to pull one of those, it ended up with me burning convert and still having next to no mp by the end of the fight.

One of the ants almost did us in. Our thief pulled one when my mp was already a little weathered, and somehow everything went wrong. I think our Paladin ran out of mp or something because he was suddenly in the red and I was fumbling for convert so I could cure him. Then he was down. This was the "Oh shit" moment. I flipped on Chainspell and raised him only to see another Taru, our monk, bite the dust. At this point we all had the sense to both call for a retreat as well as the sense to act on it. Some of our party was still under the Gravity effect from one of the TP moves. I tossed out a Gravity on the ant while the party retreated. Covering our not so swift-footed thief, the Dark Knight and I both cast Bind on the ant which stuck long enough for our party to make it to the zone line.

Alas, our Taru monk lay dead inside. Shortly after he recovered our Thief let us know that he would have to leave us soon. After about 15 minutes and someone leveling up it was time for him to depart, unless someone else was close to a level up. Turns out I only had 75 exp to go, so we tore through one last Beetle, declared victory and all celebrated having experienced a pretty rad party.

I do hope I'll get to see some of those folks again. I really had a lot of fun tonight.

Looking back this is still the party experience I hope to recreate every time I join a party. Everyone was on the ball that night and there was just enough challenge to make it interesting without turning it into a headache. This party is the standard of excellence and fun that I will probably spend the rest of my FFXI career chasing after.

Mohan is still out there punching things and as far as I can tell he's still a top notch Monk. Nothing stays alive very long when he's around.

Mrvile, our Paladin, is still one of the best tanks I've run into. He puts a lot of Paladins to shame.

Spitbreak is still the only Thief I've encountered who does a good job of juddging mage mp while pulling and still managing to keep things at a good flow.

Rydak played the role of Dark Knight masterfully and it pains me to see how poorly everyone else peforms the job after seeing him work.

Haine will clog your chatlog with all of his Dancer moves, but I'll be damned if it doesn't make everything work out just right. I've seen a lot of Dancers since him, but only one other could match him.

This party truly was too awesome for a mere blog entry to do it justice. It was one of those things that comes along precisely once, but I'm going to keep chasing the idea of having it again.

Now if only my fingers would stop aching...

From Mediocre Mage

I need to get out of Gustaberg more often, but it's just so pretty.

Use your MP!

2010-02-18T13:00:00.001-05:00

Dark Knights frustrate me.

No, that's not entirely true. People who do a poor job of playing Dark Knight frustrate me.

The job has a lot to offer and I've seen a notable improvement in party performance when I get a Dark Knight who knows what he's doing. However, more often than not I'll get stuck with someone who refuses to tap into the full potential of the job. There's this nice juicey MP pool for them to draw on all night long and they won't even look at it.

I don't understand it at all. You've been given an awesome toolbox full of goodies, but all you want to do is hit auto-attack? For shame.

You wouldn't believe how often I've seen a Dark Knight sit there on a full MP pool who won't bother to Drain back some HP after they get hit. The option to sustain yourself is there, so why would you not make use of it? Why take the chance that your healer might run out of MP or not get to you in time before you wind up on the receiving end of a particularly nasty attack and bite the dust.

Let's not forget Stun. Stun is such an awesome tool to have at your disposal. Most Damage Dealers have little to offer in the way of supporting their party, but Dark Knights are blessed with the ability to do more than just kill the enemy. Is the Ninja tank having trouble putting Utsusemi shadows back up because he's taking a few too many blows to the face? Stun it to give him some breathing room so he can recast with ease. Is the mob about to perform a devasting move that's going to wipe out half of everyone's HP? You can stun that if you've got good timing. Just make an effort, that's all I'm asking. I don't expect Dark Knights to be single-handedly fixing everything that goes wrong on the front line, I just want to see them make an effort to use Stun when it can help the party.

What really gets under my skin, as a Red Mage, is watching those full MP pools. Fairly often I'll see that a Dark Knight has been making use of his spells, as evidenced by a less than full MP pool. Thinking that I've finally found one who will be making good use of his spells I cast Refresh on him, so as to slowly replenish his MP.

This is quickly followed by me beating my head against a wall repeatedly.

After applying Refresh, all spellcasting from the Dark Knight immediately halts. You were down ~50 MP so I thought I'd help you maintain your spellcasting and how do you reward me? By wasting my MP! If I give you Refresh it is because I expect you to continue continue casting spells. You're not doing me any favors by stockpiling MP and you're certainly not helping by letting me waste Refresh on you so you can watch it sit on your buff list while providing not benefit at full MP.

I try to help Dark Knights and it just screws with my own efficiency. To date, I've only met one Dark Knight who's made it worth my while to supply him with Refresh. He also happens to consider Red Mage as his main job, go figure.

I have no problem with Refreshing Dark Knights, I'd just like to see a little return on my investment is all. Is that really such a bad thing?

From Mediocre Mage

Ok, that was a lot of complaining, so here's a pretty picture to make up for it.

Can't talk, busy dying

2010-02-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

Red Mage has a reputation for being a rather stressful job. I can see how this would be. It was quite apparent last night. However I don't think it's the most stressful job in the game, not by a longshot.

The award for biggest headache goes to the role of Party Leader, no contest.

As the party leader you are responsible for everything. You have to make sure you are covering your own job's role, but you also have to make sure everyone else is on task. Additionally you get to be in charge of choosing a camp, locating it and making sure everyone gets there alive. This is no easy task, believe it or not. Once you get to camp there comes the serene bliss of having party members deciding to leave and, you guessed it, it's your responsibility to find a replacement for them. All of this while still covering your responsibilities as a normal party member.

Being the leader truly is a headache. I think a lot of it is the knowledge that if things go wrong, it's all your fault.

Puller pulling too fast? You should have told them to slow down.

Mages not casting appropriate spells? Your job to give them the kick in the ass they need.

Tank being lazy about using their job's abilities to keep hate? You need to step up and tell them how it's done.

Damage Dealers stealing hate from the tank? You need to tell them to knock it off.

Party wiping to everything in the zone? You were supposed to pick a camp that people could handle.

Party falling apart as members leave? Why weren't you finding replacemets to keep it going?

I don't know how you could possibly make being a party leader anymore of a headache.
Oh wait, yes I do. You do it while playing as a Red mage. You know, the job that's already supposed to be doing everything at once.

Boy was that a rough party the other night.

Earlier in the week my friend was having trouble getting invited to a party as a Monk so we decided to make an attempt over the weekend to team up and put together another wonder party. I haven't told you about the wonder party yet, I will at some point, just rest assured that it was awesome. So using my spiffy-keen google-fu powers I consulted Campsitarus to see where I might want to hold an exp party as a level 52 Red Mage. Kuftal Tunnel seemed to fit the bill so I started the long and tedious process of finding a tank.

There really aren't enough tanks on my server.

I ended up asking a Warrior if he'd be willing to tank. He said yes. I took this as a good sign, since I'd partied with him before when he was a paladin and he'd done a fine job then. So with the roles of tank and healer filled I decided to rope in my friend and some other hooligans to head out for Kuftal Tunnel.

Our lineup ended up looking something like this:
Red Mage - me
Monk - my friend
Warrior
Dark Knight
Dancer
Thief

It is becoming increasingly clear that I need to stop partying with non-paladin tanks if I want to have a relaxing evening. Our warrior did a fantastic job of keeping hate, but he was still a warrior. This meant he tended to bleed a lot. I think we would have been sunk without the Dancer there to help with the healing. I really can't get over how useful Dancers are. This one wasn't the best, but they still added a lot to the party. Namely they helped keep everyone alive while our Thief was pulling like a madman.

My friend informs me that the pulling was actually a pretty standard speed. I am dubious however. I never felt I had enough MP during this party and I blame the thief for pulling so fast that I couldn't find time to rest for MP. When you are in charge of debuffing at the beginning of the battle, buffing the party, healing and renewing debuffs midway through the battle you don't get a lot of time to sit down other than when the mob dies and the puller runs off to get a new one. I'm not made of MP. Convert is on a ten minute timer. Cut me some slack. I guess I just need to get better at managing my MP if this is going to be the norm, but damn.

See, this is where I as a party leader probably should have said something to our thief in order to keep my own stress at a manageable level. Unfortunately I had two things working against me.
1. He was Japanese and I don't speak Japanese.
2. I'm not enough of an asshole to pull off telling people how to do their job.
So instead of causing a fuss I just attributed my stress to my own ineptitude and the ever present need to improve my skills as a Red Mage.

Somewhere along the line our Dancer says something's come up and they have to leave in ten minutes. Have you ever tried finding a replacement for a party member while main healing on Red Mage? I find it doesn't work out very well. So we had to take some down time while I tried to find someone to replace our dancer. I figured a Summoner might work. I know a lot of summoners don't like the healing role, so I try to make a point of not having them as a main healer. Backup healing however, I have no problem sticking them in that role.

You want to know something funny? For all the complaining I hear about Summoners not getting party invites, a lot of them won't even take an invite to a normal party. Apparently it's all about the Astral Burn parties or it's not worth their time to even show up to a party where they won't be the main healer. No wonder they don't get to come to parties for their Summoner abilities, they're flat out refusing to. Luckily the Japanese Summoner community seems a little more receptive to the idea of actually participating in a traditional party. I figured I might as well give our Thief someone he could talk to.

At some point during the night my linkshell figured out that I was in Kuftal Tunnel leading a party. They inquired about what I was doing there, to which my response was something along the lines of "Can't talk, busy dying". It was a very stressful party even with the support of a backup healer.

Towards the end of the night our thief managed to bring back two crabs at once. While I did manage to keep one slept while the party worked on the the other, it was a huge MP drain for both the Summoner and myself. We were running on empty by the time the second crab went down. So of course the thief wanders off right away to pick up some more mobs. Heaven forbid we should ever be without something to kill, even if we don't have the mp to sustain the party. So of course shit begins to hit the fan when the mages don't have enough MP. Our tank went down due to a lack of MP available for cures and the Summoner followed soon after. Somehow the remaining front line jobs managed to hold their own long enough for me to get back enough MP to keep them alive long enough to kill the mob.

After raising folks we decided to do one last batch of mobs in order to get our Dark Knight leveled up since he was pretty close. After that we all parted ways.

This was easily one of the more stressful parties I've had in recent memory. Not only did I have to be responsible for everything in-game as a Red Mage, I had to be responsible for everything on the meta-game level as a Party Leader. I honestly don't think I did a good job. I was over-eager to get a party going and picked up a less than optimal tank and didn't have the sense to keep our Thief in line, which ultimately resulted in a few people dying.

I'm not cut out for this, I think I'll let other people be party leader for a while.

From Mediocre Mage

A goobbue ate my face once. True story.

Inventory -8, sweet!

2010-02-14T15:26:00.006-05:00

There comes a time in each Mage's life when they will need to acquire a few select pieces of gear that they will use for the remainder of their career. This gear happens to be available immediately after you break the first level cap. That's right kids, it's time for fun with elemental staves.

I've known these were coming for a long time. They're kind of hard to miss, since every mage in the game is lugging them around once they hit level 51. So for the past couple of months I've had an ongoing project of slowing picking them up when I see them at a good price in a bazaars or when someone decides to put a bunch on the auction house at dirt cheap prices. At 10k gil a piece, they're an absolute steal.

Think about that.

For the price of 24 pots of honey you can get a piece of equipment that you'll be using indefinitely. Ok, ok, there are high quality versions that go for absurd prices, but until you get mixed up in endgame you probably won't need those.

So yes, I've known these were coming and made sure to have them all waiting for me when I reached level 51. What I hadn't accounted for was how much I was going to stress over redoing my macros to incorporate them. It looks really straightforward at first. All you have to do is put the corresponding elemental staff into your spell macro so you'll cast fire spells with a fire staff, dark spells with a dark staff, etc. What they don't tell you is how much blinking for the equipment swap ruins your ability to target. Up to this point I had been using two basic INT and MND gearsets, switching prior to casting my spells. I didn't have any equipment that needed to be macroed in for a specific spell so I never realized until now how that blinking can throw off the target cursor. This wasn't a problem so much with my nukes, but with more critical things like Cures, it was pretty unsettling to have the cursor vanish right as you were trying to keep someone from dying. As a result I've shifted a lot of my macros' targeting types from < stpc > to < stal > . This means I have to get used to selecting people using the arrow keys, but at least I'll be able to target them as we all start blinking from frantic gear swapping.

The other macro issue that's been troubling me is the need to somehow maintain a macro set that will let me still swing my sword on my own time. Do I just use my new macro set with elemental staves and continually switch back to a sword and shield gearset after each spell? Do I add new lines to my current macro palette that are identical to what I have now except that they don't have the staves macroed in?

I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but for now I've decided to just maintain two macro palettes that are more or less carbon copies of each other, except that one leaves out the staves. I also included a macro to toggle between the two.

As a Red Mage these are the things that plague me. It's not about having the right gear, it's about knowing how to make proper use of the gear you have.

From Mediocre Mage

I kill Manticores in my spare time.

Genkai 1, or: An adventure in losing exp

2010-02-11T14:31:00.007-05:00

I've been having so many adventures lately that I haven't had time to sit down and record any of them. So I'm taking some time today to jot down what I can recall of them.

Genkai

After a particularly bad party in Crawler's Nest I finally hit level 50. For those of you following along at home this is the level where you stop being able to level up until you complete a specific quest to extend the level cap. It turns out there's this snarky old man in Jeuno who wants you to travel to three dungeons and pick up some items off some rather nasty monsters. It's a breeze if you can get a group of people to give you a hand, but if you try to do it on your own it becomes extremely difficult.

Being the stubborn mage that I am, I decided that I would attempt to complete this quest on my own before infringing on my friends' time. It also helped that I had about 4,000 extra exp I could afford to lose before I would actually de-level back to 49.

Without any further troublesome planning or strategy I set out for Crawler's Nest(I seem to end up here a lot lately). My prey was a large mushroom-like critter called an Exoray. I had seen a few during my last party in Crawler's Nest so I had a good idea of where to go to find some. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized just how densely populated the place was. In retrospect it was a miracle our puller had managed to bring in so few links. The monster density wouldn't have been as much of a problem, except for the fact that everything in the room was aggressive. The flies wanted to kill me, the crawler's wanted to eat me, the beetles wanted to run me over, the Scorpions wanted to impale me and the Exorays just wanted to give me a good old fashioned kick in the ass.

My first few trips in were mainly spent running and hiding while I searched for a good spot to set up camp. The mobs here were tough enough that I probably wouldn't be able to handle them more than one at a time, so I needed to find a place where I could pull one for a one-on-one fight. There weren't any such places to be had really. I died quite a few times figuring that out. Clearing the room out didn't work too well either, since Red Mages take forever to kill anything. I did eventually find an Exoray in a tunnel that was far enough away from the other Exoray in the tunnel that I felt I could make an attempt to fight it. Did you know mushrooms hit like tractor-trailers? I went down pretty fast, but not before getting a ton of skillups.

At this point I was becoming frustrated and decided to spend some time(and exp) getting some skillups before making another serious attempt. I figured maybe if I could get my evasion skill up some more I might be able to dodge often enough to keep myself alive long enough to defeat the Exoray. In short: I died a whole lot and got a bunch of skillups.

Round 2 went much better, although it was still a very difficult fight. The Exoray was kicking through my Stoneskin almost as soon as I was putting it up, so I ended up relying pretty heavily on Bio II and Poison II to deal most of the damage for that fight while I focused on trying to keep my buffs up. There was an amusing point towards the end of the battle where both me and the Exoray were paralyzed. Me from a move the Exoray had used, and the Exoray was paralyzed from Ice Spikes. I swear we sat there for a good 2 minutes each of us paralyzed and unable to do anything. The Exoray was getting low on hp and finally managed to knock my stoneskin off and was able to keep me from recasting it. With my hp quickly dropping, a moderate amount of mp left and the end in sight I decided to nuke my way to victory. I ended the battle with no stoneskin, ~11 hp and poison ticking. The item dropped and I've never been so happy to warp out of a dungeon before.

All in all, I'd say my expedition to Crawler's Nest was a smashing success.
I even learned an important lesson: disable Composure after you apply your buffs or the increased recast times could quite literally kill you.

The next dungeon on the agenda was The Eldieme Necropolis, where I would need to go Lich-hunting. I was all set to go get myself killed when a friend found out and decided to intervene before I lost anymore exp(I had already burned about 2,000 in Crawler's Nest). This actually turned out to be very good for two reasons:
1. I probably wouldn't have been able to defeat a Lich on my own.
2. Navigating through the Eldieme Necropolis requires multiple people to hit switches and open doors if you want to get to certain areas.

We had a few close calls, but with two people hunting down the undead, it was a relatively uneventful task. Honestly, it was kind of boring compared to what I went through in Crawler's Nest. There's just something about being able to die at any given moment that adds to the excitement and gives a certain sense of satisfaction when you emerge alive and victorious. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the assistance I receive from folks, but some days I wish I had a group of people to hang with that were all at the same point in their FFXI careers as I am. I guess I missed that boat by quite a few years, huh?

With two of three MacGuffins in hand, we set out to pick up the last one in Garlaige Citadel. We were kind of playing it by ear. Turns out the Citadel is even more obnoxious to navigate than the Necropolis. The bomb monster we needed to hunt down was behind a gate that required four people to open it. No one in my LS was free to come help at the time, but my friend managed to rope one person from his into helping us and so we headed out. When we got there we stumbled into another band of adventurers who were heading through the gate. Naturally we decided to team up and help each other out.

Once we got through the first gate we fought some magic pots and bombs through a few rooms. Somewhere along the way the item I needed dropped. The other people needed help opening a second gate to go deeper into the Citadel. Turns out they were searching for some treasure coffers for some spiffy artifact armor, so they were going to be there a while. We all agreed to stick with them and get them through the second gate. It was no burden to us, and we had already found what we came for so why not help them out? Along the way we encountered more magic pots and bombs.

I died a lot learning about magic aggro.

We saw the treasure hunters safely through the second gate and wished them well on their hunt. It was then time to call it a night and the rest of us headed back to Jeuno. I handed over the items to the snarky old man and he gave me a snarky response. I'm still working on coming up with a snappy retort, but I fear it may be too late at this point. At least the quest was done though, and I could get some sleep.

There are more adventures to tell of and I will post them in time, but for now enjoy the sunset over Lower Jeuno:

From Mediocre Mage

Tarutaru plan for world domination

2010-02-06T12:48:00.005-05:00

I think I've figured out why this game is able to keep drawing me in.
It's the wonderfully entertaining and immersive world history. I'm completely serious, there's something about this world that feels entirely genuine in a way that very few games have been able to do. While I can't quite tell what exactly it is that makes this world so compelling, it has done a damn fine job of it. The number of games I've played over the years that have been able to pull this off can probably be counted on one hand. FFXI is a slightly different flavor, but it's still up there.

Last night I went exploring and learned a lot about Vanadiel while completing the quest to get the map for Crawler's Nest. For instance: did you know that long ago the Tarutaru were planning to use their magic to conquer the world? Yeah, all those sweet innocent little faces are hiding a secret desire to enslave the world. I knew there was a reason I didn't trust them.

It was a lot of fun having an excuse to go exploring all night long. I actually ended up running into my friend right as he was logging in for the night. Turns out he needed to do the quest as well, so rather than leave him hanging we went back and got him all of the monuments I had done the night before. We pretty much spent the entire night running all over the world, on foot, on chocobo or simply having me teleport us around. Some of the scenery was truly spectacular, and I was glad to have someone to share it with.
All told the quest took five hours from start to finish and it probably would have taken even longer if we hadn't been helping each other out.

Adventure:

From Mediocre Mage

Our journey took us to the familiar shores of Gustaberg.

From Mediocre Mage

We spent a lot of time running through the Dunes back to Selbina to get more clay. Why the mayor couldn't just give us a bunch to start with I don't know.

From Mediocre Mage

Mohan contemplates erasing the evidence of the Tarutaru plan for world domination.

From Mediocre Mage

After finding the last monument we decided to celebrate with some fireworks before collapsing in our moghouses after a long night of exploration and adventure.

Responsibility {Run Away!}

2010-02-04T17:36:00.003-05:00

Last night my social Linkshell decided to put me in charge of planning and organizing events.

I have no idea how this happened.

It certainly wasn't by request and to be honest I'm not sure it's a wise decision. I'm not exactly a veteran player so there's a lot of stuff I still don't know. I do not have a lot of experience leading people either, which makes this whole thing rather awkward. Leadership positions are not something I seek out, instead they are things I reluctantly accept because someone needs to do it and some days you just get tired of waiting for everyone else to do it.

Despite all my reservations about this, I'm actually going to make an honest effort to put together some stuff for my linkshell to do. The trick is going to be making sure it's stuff that everyone can enjoy, rather than a bunch of things I want to do. Luckily I think we're laid back enough that people will be willing to try out some stuff that's less about the rewards and more about having a good time.

I actually spent a few hours last night brainstorming to come up with some events we could do. The results got progressively sillier.

Burning Circle Notorious Monster runs
This one's pretty standard. Everyone picks up their pop items and heads off for some good old fashioned monster slaying.

Garrison
This could actually end up as a two part event.
To do Garrison you need to farm an item to activate it, and you can only hold one of these. This means that to do it multiple times we need everyone to bring their own pop item. Since we're all going to be bringing one, why not have everyone go farming together? It's tedious, but with a group it could be less so.
Garrison itself on the other hand can be a very hectic experience. The rewards aren't end game gear, so people don't do it as much but it's still a fun event if you can find people willing to do it. It would also be a good event for any players who are relatively new since Garrison is a pretty low level event.

Artifact quests
Everyone loves free gear that's specific to their job, but it isn't always easy to get it on your own. This is a universal hurdle that everyone attempts as they level their job. I can't think of any reason why we shouldn't be helping each other get our AF gear.

Limit Break quests
Everyone eventually needs to break the level cap and the quests are set up so that it's much easier to do it as a group. Any linkshell that refuses to help their members with something this essential should hang their heads in shame.

Chains of Promathia missions
We were doing some of these a few months back and they got put on hold for some reason. I'd like to start them up again and at least get everyone through the Promyvion zones. Especially Promyvion-Holla. I harbor a grudge for the Notorious Monster at the end of that one.

Map runs
You know, with so many maps in this game that need to be quested or discovered in chests while in the depths of dangerous dungeons it's a wonder people don't do this sort of thing more often. Seriously, how many players have wandered into a zone and kicked themselves because they don't have the map because the quest to get it is something they can't do on their own until they're a much higher level? It's silly. People should be able to get the maps for the zones they are going to be partying in.
We can fix this.

Eco-warrior runs
For those of you not familiar with this, Eco-warrior is a quest that requires approximately 18 adventurers and has a level cap of 20. These adventurers cannot recieve outside aid. They are then sent into dungeons designed to kill people twice their level to hunt down various monsters and are expected to somehow come out victorious. The rewards are negligible. The bragging rights would be legendary.

Notorious Monster camping
If someone needs an item from a NM we could spend a night helping them do it. Misery loves company and all that good stuff.

Adopt a player parties
The general idea would be to form most of a party from linkshell members and then pick up one or two random people to hang out with for the night. There are a lot of directions we could take something like this, but I figure at the very least it would be a way to meet new folks without the headache of a terrible pickup party. If we like the people we find, we can even add them to the linkshell. I think I need to explore this one more fully, there's a lot of potential here.

Roaming party
This would not be your typical experience party. Instead the goal would be to pick a zone and explore every inch of it, killing things along the way would just be something of a coincidental bonus. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there and it would be fun to experience it as a group rather than just stumbling across it all by yourself.

Alliance experience parties
It would be like a normal exp party, only with more people.
Practical? Absolutely not.
Fun? Possibly.
Memorable? Absolutely.

Crafting runs
Taking a night off to help someone farm crafting supplies, either for skillups or to make a specific item. I'm still convinced we should have some piece of equipment that we all wear in town that's been made by one of our members.

Scroll farming parties
Because we all either need gil, or need to fill up our spellbooks.

Whitegate Conga Line
Do I really need to explain why this would be awesome?

You lose some, you win some

2010-01-30T00:47:00.013-05:00

Usually in that order too.

This weekend's adventures were largely frustrating with a sprinkling of success.

I kicked things off with another attempt to get my Fencing Degen. As a level 49 Red Mage I figure I'm way past due for this thing seeing as how you can equip it at level 41. Unfortunately, to get my hands on it I first have to contend with Purpleflash Brukdok, a rather nasty Orc who enjoys chain-nuking me into the dirt. The last time I tangled with him I managed to wear him down to about 75% health before he decided it was time for me to go home. Needless to say, I was a bit wary about confronting this guy again, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and try until it works.

Or in my case you run like hell when all of his Orc buddies decide to join in the fun and warp back to town before they can shank you.

Only a minor setback really, but it got me thinking that maybe I was going about this the wrong way. At this point there were two ways to proceed.
1. Keep leveling until I could kill the Orc by virtue of being a much higher level
2. Level Ninja as a subjob and abuse the hell out of shadows.

Being stubborn I figured I'd do both. At level 50 I would gain access to Aspir which might help keep me on my feet longer during the fight by keeping my MP up. Since I didn't have Ninja unlocked yet I figured the best thing to do would be to put up my Looking-for-party flag while I started the quest to unlock it.

As some of our more educated readers know, the quest to unlock ninja took me to Korroloka Tunnel, which I can never spell without the tab auto-translation feature. The quest itself is pretty straightforward. The fun part comes when you unknowingly run into a newly introduced Notorious Monster that eats adventurers for breakfast. Yes, in Korroloka Tunnel I met Thoon. He looked a lot like all the other Gigas in the tunnel except that he had a name and therefore had to be attacked on principle. Apparently Thoon hits really hard and likes to invite friends. I swear, this guy was tougher than Purpleflash. I didn't even get a chance to solidify my defenses before I was face down in the dirt. Ah well, it's all part of being an adventurer.

Unfortunately adventurers tend to be very stupid creatures. No, I don't mean they go around attacking random monsters, I mean they're incapable of coordination beyond getting them to all attack the same monster. Yup, tonight's party was pretty horrible.

After getting thoroughly trounced by Thoon, I got an invitation to a party that was forming in the Quicksand Caves. I had partied there twice before with good results. In fact one of the best parties I've ever had ended up there, so the prospect of returning there was appealing. Once I made the trek out there I met with the rest of the party at the entrance to the caves. On the surface you would think this was gearing up to be a great party. We had a Paladin tanking and a Dancer to back me up on healing. What could possibly go wrong? The fact that there was a Beastmaster in the party should have been my first clue that this was going to suck. I have nothing against Beastmasters, but I don't understand how they fit into the party dynamic and so I'm always a little confused when I find myself with one. This particular one would contribute greatly to my distress. When we entered the dungeon I noticed there was a high level White Mage hanging out near us. I soon discovered that it was a second account belonging to the Beastmaster.

Someone had brought a White Mage to power level us in the Quicksand Caves. This was insulting. Not only was this offensive to me as the main healer, but it inspired a wrecklessness that quickly degraded the party's performance. Most notable was the Paladin who decided that the presence of a PL meant he didn't have to play his job correctly anymore. No curing, no flash, no job abilities, just auto-attack. Apparently the goal was to let the White Mage tank. So we have everyone flailing wildly, pulling without regard to MP levels, mob difficulty or anything else that might be important under normal circumstances. It left me feeling very disoriented and unable to get into a good rhythm. This party was chaos and it was painful. The exp was pretty crappy too, I barely made back the experience I had lost to Thoon.

The one good thing to come from this party was that I got to find another Dancer to add to my list. A good dancer can fix just about anything with the exception of a PL. Nothing can quite fix the level of stupid that brings out in people.

Needless to say I was thrilled when my friend sent me a /tell asking me if I was busy and if I wanted to take another go at Purpleflash. Luckily for me he party had all but broken down at that point and was hitting some downtime, so I excused myself and put as much distance between myself and that party as I could.

So we head to Davoi, a level 49 Red Mage and a level 60 Monk. This should go well so long as my friend doesn't get utterly blown apart by the Orc's magic, but hey he's got 11 levels on me so maybe he'll be more durable. So it turns out that the fundamental difference between Red Mage and Monk is that Monks punch holes through people, monsters, mountains, and possibly the time-space-continuum. We're still waiting for the test results on that last one, but the results for Orcs were pretty conclusive.

We then spent the next half hour searching for a storage hole to go with the key I'd found on the orc. Yeah, a hole in the ground and I need a key to get into it. I don't get it either but we found it pretty quickly considering how many different places it can show up. With my quest MacGuffin in hand I raced back to San d'Oria to collect my shiny new sword:

A big thank you to Mohan for helping me out tonight.

How did I get myself into this mess?

2010-01-28T21:59:00.002-05:00

For as long as I can remember I've had an MMORPG itch. For a long time I didn't have the means to get into subscription based games so my forays into the MMO scene were often brief and sporadic. The earliest one I can remember diving into was Runescape back when it was still in its infancy. It didn't last long, but it was fun for the few months I played it back when I was young and foolish. After remaining dormant for a few years I picked up Rubies of Eventide. What looked like a promising free MMO turned out to be unable to capture my attention once it was installed, and so I slumbered for a few years longer. During college I got that old urge to go adventuring once more. This time I found a private server hosting Ragnarok Online. I've never been one to fault a game for its graphics and the gameplay was solid enough to keep me around long enough to meet a few folks. Unfortunately the community wasn't strong enough to compete with the increasing workload, so I was dislodged yet again. I suppose I should probably make mention of the fact that I tried Guild Wars and that it was worse than all the free MMOs. That'll learn me, and so once again the urge to play MMOs went dormant for a time.

At this point you're probably wondering what all of this has to to do with FFXI. See, as much as I've been drawn to MMORPGs over the years, I've never really agreed with the subscription bussiness model. I was used to buying games that for $50 that I would play for literally at least 4 to 5 years. I just couldn't see the sense in paying over $100 for one year of gameplay. Final Fantasy XI managed to break me of my disdain for subscription based games.

It was the summer after graduating from college and I had a lot of free time on my hands and no truly pressing obligations, what better time to start diving back into MMOs? I went through a few titles that summer, but the ones that stood out were Dungeon Runner for being wondefully satirical but ultimately too shallow and Runes of Magic for being the clunkiest game I've had the displeasure of playing. Seriously, I spent a good two nights getting that thing downloaded, but once I got it installed I pitched it after about 20 minutes of very poor interface and game design. Alas it seemed that I would not be finding an MMORPG worth my time and would have to be content with whatever else I could scrounge up. I gave up my search and went back to my old fall back: a huge pile of console and PC games that I needed to get around to finishing.

Then a funny thing happened. One of my friends had been roping me into online gaming excursions for a while now, the most recent being a failed attempt to start turning a profit by drafting M:tG Online. About a week after I had given up hunting down a new MMO my friend came to me with another online gaming scheme. Only this time it involved a proper MMORPG, the kind that came complete with subscriptions and all that jazz. I was reluctant to touch anything of that nature but he managed to coax me into it since we could just try it out on trial accounts for two weeks and see how it went. I was wary, but agreed to give it a go. 2 weeks for free and then I could just cut myself off if it wasn't worthwhile right?

Not so much. I got sucked in hard and haven't been able to escape since.

While we wrestled with getting FFXI installed and trial accounts set up, my friend and I started doing some light homework on what jobs we would take up. We both debated the merits of rolling as Thief in order to play up the cowardly asshattery that we would invariably bring to the game in some form or another, but after a long and thoughtful deliberation my friend decided he'd rather just punch his way through the game and rolled Monk.

Class selection has always been a long and drawn out process for me. It takes me a while to overcome my indecisiveness, and with 20 jobs to choose from in this game there was quite a lot of choices to narrow down. My initial picks were Thief, Blue Mage or Red Mage. I had no real interest in playing a white mage, but with my friend rolling Monk I would need something to fill the gaps. Thief became less and less appealing as I continued to look at it and quickly following that was the realization that Blue Mage as awesome as it sounded, would not be available for quite a while. Even with this in mind I was still unsure of what to roll.

Then it hit me.
Why not go with the job that does everything but does it poorly?

Yeah, let's go with Red Mage and be a master of mediocrity.

At this point I was no longer taking job selection seriously and figured I might as well goof off and have some fun with my free 2 weeks of playtime. Red Mage has traditionally been a class that does a little bit of white magic, black magic and swordplay, but does all of them rather poorly. Since I couldn't really decide what I wanted to be, it made sense to simply choose "all of the above" and be done with it.

You want to know something really funny?
I have a knack for picking out absurdly powerful classes that take a lot of finesse to pull off correctly. I do this without realizing it or even trying.

Well needless to say my friend and I had fun with our two weeks.
Now I'm stuck on one of the most overpowered jobs in the game and I love it to death. I figure if I'm gonna keep at it I may as well make an effort to not suck.

I strive for mediocrity.
(Yes that includes the blog)

Mediocre Mage

Tanking: in which I poke things I shouldn't

Look Pimpin'

Oh Hello Endgame

Generic update

Relocating

Failure is a good thing

If You Want to Rock and Roll

Sky is pretty

Dear Black Mages

Soloing in a Broom Closet

Dear Mages...

Abyssea's effect on low level pickup parties

A little too easy

The oddest of findings

Idling in a Red Cap

He really is just an old man

Things I have learned from Dynamis

Dynanonymous

Krakens off the port bow!

All your fish are belong to us

G4 is brilliant

Sticker collecting

Staff chucking?

Tony Stark's got nothing on me

Pimp Suit: Complete

I am sick of your goddamn pinball machine

I am a Spacetime Mage!

Moldy old NM

You're not allowed to use the Auction House anymore

I'm Rolling in Gil!

Gone Fishing

Wyverns on the brain

I felt like sharing

A weekend is a terrible thing to waste

A mage through and through

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

Scholar got me thinking again

I really am just that awesome

I Am Building a House of Fish

Pebbles

Out of Gil 2: The Quest for more Gobbie Bags

Genkai 2

Warrior is the Batman of FFXI

Dark Spark: Round 2...FIGHT!

Warrior Revelations

Front line melee...

The Notorious Monster Addiction

On Summoner Burns

Back to partying for a night

That's how I like to start my mornings

Aesthetics are important

...And I'm out of gil again

Melee RDM at Level 55: a Headache

Worst Design Choice

Obligatory Update Entry

Weekend Wipe

Screenshot Spectacular, the First

*munch munch*...delicious souls

Hey, that's not a Red Mage

Red Mage Gloves! Part Deux

Skill-ups

A case of the wrong key

{/Lurk} off

Power Leveling

We're on hold

Wonder Party

Use your MP!

Can't talk, busy dying

Inventory -8, sweet!

Genkai 1, or: An adventure in losing exp

Tarutaru plan for world domination

Responsibility {Run Away!}

You lose some, you win some

How did I get myself into this mess?

munch munch...delicious souls