Screenshot Spectacular, the First

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

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

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.