Generic update

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.

Wyverns on the brain

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

This weekend we slowly rolled up a big Dragoon Katamari.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buster poses for animal crackers.


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


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


The beginning of the Katamari.


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


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


We sang Kumbaya around the gobbie campfire.


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


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