Red (Ribbon) Mage.

My White Mage's static has been running on Sundays mainly, with sporadic sessions if/when the opportunity presents itself. We had a good one this past week, camping in Aydeewa on Defoliator mobs. I invited Manders, who I have had on my Friend List ever since some merit parties a few months ago during which I found Manders to be a quality, experienced player across quite a few jobs.

We ended up with the static WHM | THF | NIN alongside Manders on RNG, a BLM, and a RDM. Seemed like a more "traditional" setup to me, what with half the party being mages. I can't remember the last time I was in a party with all three mage jobs in it. Anyway, the party went quite smoothly, perhaps most notably due to the Red Mage's quick finger placed on the Dispel trigger. We ran a good few hours at least, and when the mages got ready to head out for the night, we took a break.



As we often like to do, we went our separate ways, to get food/drink/etc. and see how we feel about another run. When I got back to the keyboard, I was pleased to find that the guys were still up for more. Manders was still around and still seeking for more. The second time we headed out we coincidentally got Aerroenu to come with, using her Red Mage. She had just happened to log in and heard us talking in LS chat about another run, I suppose. I had a blast partying with Aerro, or "Ribbons" as I like to call her. She kept saying she was rusty but she did great and kept me entertained so it was more than worth the invitation. Much love, Ribbons!


The static rests at 62/63, with me being just shy of leveling. I might catch a Besieged or two in order to catch up to the guys, but so far so good. I'm enjoying White Mage a fair bit, actually. Not my favorite job but due to the skill of the always-reliable Galbatorix it's a more relaxing experience than some people may have with such a responsibility.

As far as my own skill goes, I tend to do pretty well whether we have Refresh or not, with the one being obviously more efficient than the other. We don't see death often, if at all, clearly due to Galb being absolutely the best Ninja I've ever played with. Haste my Ninja, toss Regen around liberally, and watch the EXP roll in.

Finally today, I'll post a pic of my brother's character, who is now in a static with his Warrior. He was pretty proud of himself upon reaching 40 and getting some of the cooler-looking heavy armor:


Until next time~

Visual Aid: October.

Red October is drawing to a close, and it's been a fun month. This entry is all about the pictures.

This first pic is a chat log the other day, in which the linkies realize they've been playing Final Fantasy too long for their own good:

This is a group of those crazy Tarutarus, up to no good I'm sure.

Here is an interesting shot of Cali and the clear, blue sky.

Always obey safety regulations when operating a Crossbow:

My Thief got hit a total of twice (by TP moves only) doing Cali's Dragoon flag quest:

Killing Quadavs in Dynamis-Bastok:

Then being overwhelmed in Dynamis-Bastok:

Galbatorix (RDM), Valion (SAM), Enyae (THF), Sodako (WHM), Nivi (BLU), and me (PLD) meriting:

Anatomy of a Darkness Skillchain:

My new Club Weapon Skill, True Strike:

First Einherjar run with Revelations:

Don't go into the light, kupo!

Revelations.

Endgame is upon me. I never planned to be involved in endgame, actually. In fact, I'm still not as interested as my friends seem to be, nor as interested as they expect me to be. Regardless, over the course of my FFXI career I have done pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want. I've not been concerned with specific organized events. Slowly, that is starting to change.

The first endgame event I participated in was of course Dynamis. I joined SpiritsofEvolution and have been on maybe ten runs so far. I like Dynamis a lot, despite not having received many desired Relic drops thus far. I am hoping for a Jeuno run soon so that I can access the Outland Dynamis areas. When Sicfreak came back to FFXI recently, I recruited him for SoE as well. And as of now, I have roped Sodako into following suit.

As for Sic, it was a simple case of him asking which shell I was in, and me asking my leader if I could drag Sic along. Soda, on the other hand, seemed either not-that-interested or not-that-interested-yet. I talked to him about my Dynamis-Bastok run that I was on while he was offline doing homework or some such. Simply put: I need my White Mage.

Disclaimer: I intend no disrespect toward any SoE members, nor am I saying anyone is a poor player or does not know his/her job.

I'll even use vague and general statements to prove my point. On some runs there are times in which some mages don't seem to be paying attention, or are AFK, or have other jobs leveled and therefore were not enthused to attend Dynamis as WHM. The end result is a tank (that'd be me) getting slapped too much without curing. What I need is a WHM who is keeping a Regen on me most of the time and is paying attention during situations such as

"The Vanguard Militant uses Hundred Fists."

Due to the nature of Dynamis, tanking is a whole 'nother beast than in an EXP or merit party. In a nutshell, each target gets far less attention than normal. There simply isn't enough time nor enough hate tools for a PLD (that's me) to go all-out. Often, it's one Provoke, and one other hate tool during the fight if the target doesn't get blitzed by my party fast enough. I happen to find Dynamis tanking to be enthralling, despite it going against a good PLD's "normal" sensibilities. There generally isn't a lot of self-healing time, either.

Furthermore, I find Haste to be of decent importance in Dynamis. I would not normally ask for nor expect Haste cast on me during a regular party. I'm lucky in the sense that I've either had my girlfriend's RDM or Sodako's WHM hitting me with Haste throughout much of my higher levels as PLD. With as many targets as Dynamis has, I need to keep up the pace. This causes me to use Provoke and Flash a lot, therefore making Haste (for Flash recast time) more important than Refresh (since Flash is 25 MP and much of that is Auto Refreshed by the time I recast).

I don't always have trouble with White Mages, and there are quite a few good ones in SoE. That said, having Sodako as my "personal" WHM in my party will make my Dynamis tanking exponentially more comfortable, reliable, and effective.

In earlier entries, I have mentioned my new Einherjar LS. It is called Revelations and looks to be quite promising. The leader, Gaea, seems to be a very cool individual and thinks similarly to how I would in her position. We discussed my (our, including the linkies) inexperience with Einherjar. We went over how our approach will be, with one notable detail for me: She wants to recruit people who already know each other, as is the case with Sodako, Galbatorix, and myself. We will have the 'Navi boys and me in the same party working together, due to the fact that Einherjar is focused on a short time limit and therefore strong teamwork. This should work out quite well, because our LS raids include lots of multi-target crowd control, which is the format of Einherjar as well.

The rewards from Einherjar are myriad as well as largely still unconfirmed or unknown as yet. Ein is fairly new to the game so far, so information is still being gathered. This coupled with the 30min time limit has intrigued me. There are confirmed "old" abjurations, meaning the drops that were previously available in other areas. Also, there are entirely new abjuration sets, one of which is for WAR/PLD/DRK and are both incredibly handsome and conspicuously powerful.

Then there's Odin. Not the server on which I play, but the battle. Odin happens to be the end boss of all Einherjar from my understanding. It would be a great accomplishment to defeat Odin, but this gets even better. Odin's armor, the Valhalla Helm and Valhalla Breastplate, and his weapon of choice, the Valkyrie's Fork, are indeed obtainable. The armor would be great for my PLD as its utility is tanking. The Fork is quite simply the most impressive Polearm in FFXI. I want all three of these pieces, and I intend to acquire them.

You hear that, Odin? Draco is coming for you.




Sodako has joined Versus, an LS which does a multitude of endgame events. I recommended Versus to him because the people who run the LS are friends of mine and do things, in my opinion, differently than most. Salvage, Sky, Assault... they do it all, and having enough people I know in a tight-knit group (seems the main members are all buddies) would be something I can definitely appreciate. We might just see me in Versus before long. I've been invited since quite a long time ago, but I made it clear I wanted to feel like I was ready (and have the time).

Yes, endgame is upon me, at last. Why am I opening my previously locked doors to endgame? Simple: I have backup. These events are of minimal interest to me for bragging rights or equipment drops alone. TheSolonavi members the reason I login and to enter a new realm with them is everything to my FFXI career.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a new plateau to reach.

Beastiality: Totally My Thing.

Fmtwo, being a close friend of mine for quite some time now, has always been a source of information, gear ideas, and much more. FM happens to enjoy the Beastmaster job quite a bit. He's in the upper levels as of this writing, and he has leveled it on and off for years. I myself have always seen BST as a promising job, but never found the time or made the time to work on it.

Recently, FM has taken to pointing out how cool and powerful BST can be. He has been the kind of player who impresses me no matter what job he's on, and this case is no different. Every time I go anywhere with his Beastmaster, I get the inkling to play the job. The recent version update which removed the EXP penalty from having a charmed pet has been a huge factor for many people I'm sure. This past week, the final straw broke the proverbial camel's back. FM used his BST to assist me in skilling up, and during the few days we've run around, he has proven just how versatile and nigh-invincible a Beastmaster is. This, friends, has caused a groundswell.

Sodako and I have been tossing the BST idea around for months. Way back in the day, Encino and I were going to duo with the job but never did manage to care enough to start. I have had my BST @ 21 for a short while now, and it was on the back burner. Soda and I took to the Jugner Forest and got it started.

We found that the job is actually quite easy and relaxing when done as a competent duo. We work together so often anyway that having a teamwork-based situation is great. We spent this first session getting our bearings and making macros. Getting the hang of this job will be a nice addition to the repertoire.

The airships and boats continue to be entertaining with glitchy loading. Here's San d'Oria's airship half-loaded, with me standing on water letting the ship fly in and then through me to land at the dock. Weirdness.


Did I mention Beastmaster is awesome?

Sky, Sic, and Skill.

I'd like to start out this entry with some death. Thus I share these lovely pics of Soda's SAM with my BRD. Can you guess who got killed trying to make up for the lack of skill from our Paladin? (And then got sat on for great justice...)


Moving on... The procrastination had gone on long enough. It was finally time to get me access to Sky. Fmtwo, Valion, Iferion, Xaquel, Sodako, and I headed to Quicksand Caves to find the tucked-away NM spawn location. Along the way, we killed a few Sabotenders (read: walking cactus things) which drop a Rare/Exclusive quest item I needed. Sure enough, we got the drop on the fourth or fifth kill. I lotted on it, but never received it. The reason? Auto-Run. I had my character on autopilot while I typed, and had no idea I was heading right into a zone line. Thus, since everyone else passed on the item, we lost it. Not a huge deal, but it irritated me.

The NM was a Magic Jug. It barely had the chance to do anything with the amount of raw damage we threw at it. I pulled a decent (at best) Impulse Drive (which is a gimpy WS by the way) to open Darkness for Iferion. As is usually the case, once Iferion uses a Weapon Skill, Iferion is the tank. In fact, with the rapid and liberal Stun use by this NM, I don't think Ifer was able to take another action the rest of the battle. FM and Val did Light afterward, and it was all but over. I didn't take a screenshot of the fight because it was too brief, quite frankly.

After leaving Q-Caves, I headed off to get my cut-scenes and finally see Sky. It takes a while to hike all the way there, but I made it. To be honest, I didn't particularly find it impressive. I snapped a pic or two of me running around exploring.


Some good news this weekend was the return of a long-time friend of mine/ours, Sicfreak. I met Sic in a Linkshell I associated with after my return from a six-month break I took in '04-'05. He's been one of TheSolonavi's most entertaining and helpful personalities ever since. Like many of the 'Navi, Sic levels pretty much every job and is skilled in each. Right away, he got back to the XP grind. Great to once again see Sic after work each evening.


On the skillup front, I had the chance and assistance to use my 52 Warrior to work on Great Axe. We chased around a bunch of crabs & lizards in Kuftal Tunnel after our stint in Garlaige Citadel. I ended up with my G.Axe being high enough to use effectively in EXP parties, so I was happy. Then I changed jobs to Paladin to work on Club. It was about 142 and I took it to 168 before we called it a night.
No comment.

Does Not Belong.

I went chip farming in Pso'Xja with a couple linkies, Enyae and Jiaye (whom I refer to as WilyKat and WilyKit, respectively). It should be noted that I have a particular affinity for real-life couples who play games together. Having had that myself in more than one situation, I think it's awesome.

We got Jia's chip on the first mob or two, and took maybe another ten minutes to get mine. Now I'm ready to enter the Promathia mission in which I will be encountering Diabolos. Should be entertaining.


A little surprise was waiting for me in the middle of Southern San d'Oria the other day, as well. Apparently the zone didn't load properly, so I saw this:

Clicking on the Moogle gave me the speech text from the Mog House, but the menu/options of a Nomad Moogle. I chuckled a bit at this, just because it stands out amongst the scenery I've come to know so well over the years.


Back down in Sea Serpent Grotto, and after many more hours waiting for a pop, long after the spawn window once again, I can be sure of one fact: Charybdis does not exist.


Lastly, this week I have decided to attempt to go on some Einherjar runs. I honestly don't know much about this event, but Paladins were in demand. I was told it's a minimal commitment per week, which is necessary for me right now. Also, it seems I can get some PLD and DRG abjurations for nice gear, possibly along with money-making options. More details will follow as I learn and experience Einherjar.

Until next time~

I Am Poison Crazy Lush.

This is a tribute to a mule - a storage character - a slave.

Why? Because I'm a loving master.



Galkas are funny.