Hot Fuzz.

Random Picture of the Day: Sodako and I standing around the Dunes, looking as cool as ever.

I watched Hot Fuzz while playing some FFXI. Not as funny as I found Shawn of the Dead to be, but pretty entertaining nonetheless. I farmed and did some crafting Monday evening, in an effort to fatten my wallet a little. I've not spent much time on gilmaking since being back to the game, so various expenses have left me with less than I like to carry on a regular basis.

The rest of this week will likely be meat-and-potatoes, so to speak. Nothing flashy or new planned, but I'll likely work more on Charybdis, leveling, and some continued gil production. Ideally, we'll get Charybdis for Valion and have that ToD to judge the next spawning and possibly get him again. As we'll probably come to find, other players camped in Sea Serpent Grotto to acquire time-of-death will then show up for the subsequent pop. Thus it'll renew the cycle again, and that's annoying.

I've still got MNK35 to work on, with the gear I need up until 40. A couple equipment adjustments will have it ready to take to 50 for Artifact quests. Dark Knight is at 38 and needs to get to 40 (for now) in order to be used in a Promathia Mission soon. I've got gear for that as well. My WAR still rests at 52, close to leveling, and is essentially set for quite some time gear-wise. My only stipulation with Warrior is that the new 2-handed weapon update practically mandates that I catch up on Great Axe skill and use that instead of regular Axe. That'll need to be handled.

My Bard is at 67 and shouldn't be too painful to cap out to 75. Beastmaster, on the other hand, is at 21 and isn't as simple a task. On the bright side, the EXP penalty we used to incur by having a charmed pet is gone, so it should be considerably quicker. In addition, Sodako is at 19 on BST and a duo works great with this job.

I mentioned Promathia, which is something I pick at occasionally. I'm not one to care a lot about Sea access in particular, but getting some missions done will make me happy. For Zilart, I'm on the 12th mission and that happens to be the only battle keeping me out of Sky. This will be remedied soon. For Treasures of Aht Urghan, there are roughly 50 missions and only a handful are actual battles that require a full party. I'll enjoy getting some of those done, eventually getting a silly new crown to wear and a quality ring as well.

Moar Squid Hunting.

Saturday evening, Dyce approached me with his desire to obtain a Phantom Fleuret.

This is for his Corsair, and would be a cool weapon for the Ranged Accuracy & Ranged Attack. The source of this weapon is, you guessed it: a big squid NM. This particular one spawns on the boat that sails from Aht Urghan Whitegate to Nashmau. Its name is Proteus, and it is not terribly friendly. It hits fast, it hits hard, and it doesn't take very well to being trifled with.

My first encounter with Proteus was with Dungeonwhipper about a year ago. We were taking the boat together, and happened to be the only two on the ride at the time. She headed up to the deck, and opened up the door. Instantly, Proteus aggros and smacks her. I, being a Paladin, Provoke it thinking we're gonna have to kill it. Proteus promptly laid us both out before I even saw what its name was. I looked over at her, sitting on the couch, and she was of course enjoying the situation. I sighed and waited until we hit shore and was raised by a friendly passerby.

This time, it was different. We had many helpers along for the ride, and a murderous intent.

After killing Proteus, which for the record didn't drop the sword, we spent the next hour or so traveling back and forth on the boat, hoping to see it again. We didn't for quite some time, but did manage a few laughs.


For some reason, and I'm not sure if it's always been this way or it is simply a current glitch, the boat does not load correctly. The cutscene showing us arriving doesn't occur as it probably is designed to, and thus you can run from the dock out into the designated area for the boat whilst it approaches the port. The result: a bunch of goofballs running out onto what appears to be the surface of the water.


We eventually lost a couple of members to the late hour. Sodako arrived on THF to assist with his Treasure Hunter 2 Job Trait. I feel a little badly, however, because when the NM finally did pop the second time, it wasn't such an easy fight. Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, we got stomped. Hard. It was a little amusing, but it was just a not-so-great end to the evening. Oh well... You win some, you lose some. Until next time~

Bawwwwwww!

I needed a title; leave me alone. This entry is all about random stuff I have done recently, so here goes.

My brother (Anacalius) and I climbed Delkfutt's Tower for his rank 3-3 mission. It was dull, but he did manage to die trying to take a screenshot of me killing the NM giant. Then, the door came down like a guillotine and comedy was born:

Cali gets transported around a lot by my special magics. We've had to redo some of the more tedious, yet very easy tasks for a low-level character, so here's a couple shots of that happening. No good reason, mind you.


I finally had the guts to try out a Dynamis run with my lolSatellite connection. I feared the worst, having already had Besieged show me how bad lag could be. I hoped I could at least participate. Luckily for me, Dynamis-Windurst went off without a hitch, despite having very few people attend (barely over one alliance worth). I now only need Dynamis-Jeuno completion to gain access to the Outland areas of Dynamis.


When bored, as usual, I head out to kill things. My Adventuring Fellow, Liabelle, is level 64. This happens to be one level off the cap for NPCs and so I've been working her a bit in effort to cap her off. At the same time, skilling a little Great Sword. This particular outing I was solo and didn't enjoy it for very long, but I did take pics.


Lastly, BCNM. Fmtwo, Sodako, and I decided to burn up a few Beastmen's Seals and run Royal Jelly. We managed a little money, including the formerly-awesome, currently-decent drop of an Archer's Ring. Here's a shot of us waiting for Soda to come back from AFK to teleport us:

(Joy)Toys for (Grownup) Tots.

Charybdis is an annoying NM and I barely believe it exists! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, NM trouble again. This time it's not really for me, at least not yet.

First, a little background: Charybdis is a giant squid, as you can see. It's an NM that can pop roughly every eight hours, and has stupidly long spawn window (read: it wastes your time). Just getting to see this NM is annoying enough for someone like me, but then there's the fact that it takes a few people to claim it due to competition. Next, you get to deal with the small detail of making Charybdis die. Now, some jobs can solo it if played well. However, this thing hits quickly and is generally done with a few high-level characters.

Cast of characters involved, mainly:
Fmtwo: Monk
Valion: Paladin, Samurai, or Corsair
Me: Bard, for this particular project (Elegy to slow the NM's attacks, Haste and Evasion songs for buffs)
Then we get whomever is around at the time, including Sodako, Xaquel, Nivi, Iferion, etc.

Why go through all this? Here's why: the Joyeuse.

Affectionately dubbed as the "Joytoy" by the player base, this sword is among the coolest in the game. The "occasionally attacks twice" occurs approximately 45% of the time by best estimates. The DMG rating is respectable, though not markedly high. The delay is pretty short, making it both a quick repeater and an amazing offhand weapon when subbing Ninja for Dual Wield. It is usable by my PLD, BRD, and DRG, as well as two more jobs I have 50+ (WAR and RDM). One more nifty little bonus point is that the Joytoy does piercing-type damage, which is nice for many popularly-camped targets at higher levels.

Fmtwo has a Joyeuse as of a week or so ago. Valion is next up, and in theory we'll manage one for me as well. So far, we've spent a few evenings down in the Sea Serpent Grotto working on Charybdis. It's been painstaking, and so far I haven't even seen the NM. We're relatively determined though. All in due time...

Samurai Shield.

As the days go by, I'm getting a little more into FFXI. Sodako and I have had some conversations regarding where I might be headed game-wise (ever the plotting duo, we are). It's been mostly positive, with the exception being my possibly-discouraging views on endgame. I'll save the details of that particular topic for now, but in essence, I'm having a hard time caring about anything other than Dynamis where endgame is concerned.

The static (Galb-Ninja, Soda-Thief, and Drac-WHM) ran on Sunday, and went quite well. Certainly better than our last outing. To start, we brought along a Corsair & Thief combo who were friends, and added in a Japanese Blue Mage to round it out. Despite my general feeling that two Thieves isn't that great a plan, it worked well. They used their SATA back and forth and we were killing with an efficiency everyone hopes for with each party. No one left the party or even went AFK for quite some time, but when the BLU had to head out to work, we temporarily disbanded and took a break. Upon resuming, we invited a Monk, a Samurai, and ... something else. All I remember is that the Samurai sucked and made Sodako pretty angry. By the end of the day, we did somewhere in the neighborhood of 37K EXP and all three of us hit 60. I started out barely into 58 and ended dinging 60 as seen here:
That was my fifth job 60+ and my 700th level. As noted by Soda: "Which is more disturbing: that it was your 700th level or that you're so aware of it?" Hmm...

My next party was with an old friend named Dyce. He's a very cool guy, and probably one of the more silly and humorous fellas I know. Dyce leveled Paladin first, and has been the recipient of quite a bit of Draco scolding. He's not a bad player by any means. Dyce is simply the kind of guy who doesn't particularly care about status quo or what others think of him, and is more than willing to try crazy things. Over the years, Dyce and I have had some crazy parties, one of the more notable being a "PLD burn." Yes, that's a party full of Paladins. And you know what? It worked.



Thus, when Dyce started Corsair, he has dragged me along on more than a few occasions. Currently, he's in range of my Bard and incidentally, Sodako's Samurai. On Tuesday we decided to make a go of it. Dyce couldn't find a "real" tank, but he did invite two Warriors. One of these Warriors was Darkwolf, who is also an acquaintance of mine. Dyce-COR, Drac-BRD, Dark-WAR, Soda-SAM, Japanese WAR, Japanese WHM. For the sake of props alone, Jinryu was a quality WHM. Now comes the interesting part.

The initial plan was to have the two Warriors bounce hate back and forth, which should work adequately. We were at Mamool Ja Staging Point, and our target was the dragonfly-like Puks (who absorb wind and have a few AoE attacks, including knocking everyone back 20ft). Puks generally die easier than a target such as Crabs or Crawlers who have high defense, but they are indeed quick and vicious. The two-WAR-tank approach worked decently to start, and we grabbed a couple thousand XP. Unfortunately, Dyce made a misstep and linked an extra Puk on a pull. He had to eat a death and get Raised, so this struck Soda and me with the idea of trying out an "alternative" idea.

Sodako and I, during the aforementioned endless plotting, have tossed around the idea of making a Samurai tank setup. It had essentially been left at being something he'd gear up once he's 75 and has some time/money to throw at it, then test it out. Well, as the saying goes, "There's no time like the present." When Dyce bit the bullet, Sodapop and I headed back to town to pick up some tank-oriented items. He grabbed his AF (which curiously has Enmity+ all over it) and I grabbed some of my PLD items with Vitality and such.

Now, to hear the story of how well this worked, you could come across conflicting reports. Soda seems to feel he did poorly. Darkwolf appeared to enjoy the idea, but that could be because he had a rare form of selective amnesia that prevented him from knowing how to use his innate Job Ability (Provoke). Neither of the two Japanese members complained nor did they appear frustrated. Dyce and I both had fun with the setup simply because it wasn't the status quo, it was a fun idea, and it was working essentially just as smoothly as a "normal" tanking job. I've partied at this camp with both Paladin and Ninja tanks, and I've had worse incidents with players of both jobs as opposed to the work my little kitty friend did here.


We came, we saw, we slaughtered. After a while we grew weary of partying and called it quits, but not before I made an obvious verbal jab at the lack of Provoke from anyone but the SAM. I leveled up to 67BRD, bringing me close enough be comfortable with Barding in merit parties with friends to get the rest of my XP.

It was another "Dyce and Draco" party, to be sure, but it was fun. If only it had been recorded on video, maybe the rest of the community would be more apt to try things that break the mold.

Great Swordplay.

In my effort to finish off Great Sword, I've been repetitively killing monsters ad nauseum with hopes of skillups. It's going quite well, and another good, hard run at it should put me at or near the exact level I want/need to be. Here are some pics of various GS Weapon Skills.

Hard Slash:

Freezebite:

Shockwave:

Crescent Moon:

Sickle Moon:

And just because I had never seen it before,
here's Sodako using Judgment:

The rest of the weekend should bring me some WHM leveling in static and whatever adventures we decide on for Saturday. Could be interesting; we'll see.

Let Red October Begin.

The beginning of October has been decent so far.

The guys and I have been working on skillups, of course:

We also made Thursday night an NM death-fest. Iaito had requested my help on his RDM AF3 quest, for his Warlock's Chapeau. There are two NMs for this quest, and they can apparently frighten some people. Sodako halfway-predicted that I would buy the farm in this fight. Seemed like maybe ol' Sodapop didn't think we'd pull it off. I however have done this quest many times and wasn't nervous. Dungeonwhipper, Galbatorix, and myself being the more recent instances of needing the hat. Thus, we set out to Fei'Yin. Miser Murphy is the ghost for this quest, and he got stomped by a crew of six of us. I didn't take screenshots of the fight, 'cause it didn't seem pic-worthy.

We then headed out to Garlaige Citadel for the golem NM. The golem is a TP-attack-crazy mob who essentially just spams his special moves over and over the whole fight. This lagged my display pretty badly but my skills still (luckily) were going off without trouble. No one hardly took damage until the end, if I recall correctly. I think Soda finally let loose a few Weapon Skills and pulled hate. After it was dead, it was time to (at long last) fight Soda's THF AF3 NM, which is a bomb.

The NM for the Thief boots was a pushover this time around. I've fought this one many times as well, and it was my turn to be overly cautious. I've seen it knock level 75 characters to the ground in short order. In the past, it always seemed like whomever went with me had a hard time with it. I was admittedly apprehensive about tanking this battle, which is why we hadn't attempted it yet. Sodako berated me at first, but he's also got the sense to know that if I won't go after it, there might be a reason. After we talked it over a couple weeks ago, he convinced me that I'd be able to tank it fine and it was placed on the agenda thusly. Since we were in the neighborhood Thursday night, we went for it.

It died, in yet another boring fight not worthy of a screenshot. This NM can hit quite hard, but incidentally I was either evading or parrying enough hits I barely had reason to cure myself for hate control. Finally, Sodako tasted victory, awarded his Rogue's Poulaines and was dubbed a Paragon of Thief Excellence. Truly, I don't know many truly good Thieves in FFXI so he is as deserving of the title as anyone.

Picture time!

This is what happens when you drag me out to Raise in the Undersea Ruins:
You get your pic posted. Sorry buddy.

Encino and I did manage to kill a few of these little brats in revenge:

There's a reason I call him "O Valiant One."

Besieged: Galbatorix once again on "Raise Draco" duty...

We tore up some crabs in the Booyah Tree, this one standing on a waterfall:

Encino is the best use of the Demon Helm, ever: