So, yesterday, after I told Treu about our little bird camp from the night before, he was a wee-bit ticked-off because he actually declined the party invite that I ended up taking. Ok, "wee-bit" is a severe understatement. He was PISSED. But I'm sure he's over it now because he went to that same camp last night and made some incredible progress as well. I guess he's back up to where he should be in his grand plan for acquiring Maat's Cap y the end of the calendar year (or early January).
I actually didn't do a whole lot game-wise last night because Heroes and Prison Break have started up again and I'd rather not be letting my character die because my eyes are glued to the tv for a full hour and not paying attention ot the battle at hand. I also had a ton of other stuff to start taking care of, but I did get a little game time in.
I basically just got in a few more campaign battles, but man, a couple of those battles were pretty exciting. (and no, i'm not being sarcastic for once.) So a bunch of my MNK gear was packed away in storage and I didn't feel like running all the way back to Bastok to pick it up and then run back out to Windy [S], so I just dealt with what gear I could get out of my mog house and locker. I used my O Kote rather than my Cobra Unit Mittens. Happy Egg rather than my Smart Grenade. Nomad's Mantle rather than Amemet Mantle +1. Aikido Koshita rather than Vendor's Slops... and at one point this all seemed to make a HUGE difference, although I still haven't figured out why. Basically, I was taking on 2 Yagudo and there was a RDM that was just standing off to the side helping me out. (The Yags were Templars I think... I have a screenshot of some of the log so I'll post it up here when I get home after work.) The cool part was just seeing me fighting off both of these Yags with a swiftness. It almost looked as if I had Hundred Fists activated because my fists and feet kept flying pretty much non-stop for about 90 seconds (ot at least that's what it seemed like). I was countering EVERYthing they were dishing out to me. The log was just showing "Khrone hits....", "Khrone scores a critical hit...", "Khrone counters...", "1 of Khrones Shadows disappears...". I think they only got in maybe 2 or 3 hits in the whole spree. I was so giddy I almost peed my pants. ^^
I know the RDM was healing me and casting Haste, but I honestly can't remember (and/or didn't see) what else he was doing, but it seemed to make a HUGE difference. (I'm sure the "Counter +2" from the Aikido Koshita helped a bunch too, but I've just never seen it work THAT well before.)
The other battle that was pretty fun was also in West Sarutabaruta [S] where we had a platoon of Salvemixers and a platoon of Faeries join us. (A platoon of Casters were there too, but whateva.) Having 2 full sets of healers made this battle a joke. I immediately jumped in and started attacking, without waiting to make sure others were following me (yeah, typically that means instant-death in campaign battles) and then I'd make sure I kept standing near the faeries. The entire battle, I rarely even had to put my shadows up because I would constantly get bombarded by Cure V's... frequently them resulting in "Khrone recovers 0 HP". ^^ Faeries and Salvemixers rule!
I'm starting to get the hang of the campaign battle limitations. I make sure to keep a close eye on my parser and when I reach the max amount of damage, I head back to the arbiter, get evaluated, get tags again, and jump back into the fray! It's turning out to be a lot nicer now that I know the limits and know that I can get more than just 2k xp for an hour-long campaign battle. By the end of the night, I had enough to spend 3 merit points on another Merit for Crit Hits, which takes that up to 3 now. Woo Hoo! That'll help out on some of my other jobs that I'm leveling, as well as on my WAR actually when I'm going on my promy runs. (If I ever get back to that.) :-p
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wow. Let's do that again!
Puppets at the Information Center: [singing] / Welcome to Duloc / Such a perfect town / Here we have some rules / Let us lay them down / Don't make waves / Stay in line / And we'll get along fine / Duloc is a perfect place / Please keep off of the grass / Shine your shoes / Wipe your... FACE. / Duloc is, Duloc is / Duloc is a perfect... place.
So, last night Ara got invited to a level 37 party out in East Ronfaure [S] and kept harpin on and on about how he got a level after only like 15 minutes, so I decided to see if I could get in on a piece of that action. And what do you know, they said SURE! ^^ We were just killing colibri (and the occassional ladybug) but we were cruisin along at an average of around 13.5k xp per hour. So nice. Oh, so nice.
I went WAR/THF (how fortuitous that I had JUST leveled my THF up to 19 not even a couple hours before!) and got to toy around with Sneak Attack and Weapon Skilling. Kinda fun actually... although it would have been better if my Great Axe was actually skilled up. lol I think I started the evening at around only 65 but ended up around 95. (which is still not capped for a level 40 WAR, but whateva.) I was keeping up with the damage that the WAR/NINs were putting out (and actually slightly more, but barely noticable). The only one really doing more damage than me was our DRK who was just slaughtering everything in his path. There were times when he and I would do a skill chain and the bird would be dead practically before Ara could run away from the party to go find the next bird to pull!
My WAR started off only 54xp into level 37 but I ended up at halfway through 40. And I think I was only out there for and hour and a half or two hours. We definitely gotta remember that place in the future!
Aside from that, this weekend was fairly productive. Treu was outta town again so I got to borrow his laptop to use Screamin as my own personal PL for a couple days. Got my DNC up to 21, THF up to 19 and SCH up to 11 (mainly just so I could get rid of some low-level mage gear). Sold a ton more stuff in the AH. Bought a few more bahuts to contain all this extra crap I'm accumulating while leveling. (can't sell this stuff fast enough!) Finally went and completed WotG Mission 2 (for Windy, you have to kill this War Lynx NM which has a move that instantly takes you down to 5% hp... so it took me like 5 tries to beat this thing, but I eventually solo-ed it) and began Wotg Mission 3 (Cait Sith). Now that I'm on Cait Sith, I can start going after a couple items needed for my next Gobbie Bag quest too! And aside from all of that, of course I did a bunch of Campaign Battles and ranked-up again to Emblem of the Steel Knight $$$.
All-in-all, a VERY successful past few days. I even completed one of my long-term goals by finally getting WAR up to 40. (Which means I probably will never be leveling WAR again.)
I doubt I'll get much done this week because I have too much to do to get ready to go out of town this weekend for a wedding in Boston, but we'll see. I've already started looking into getting my next gobbiebag and also doing Bastok Mission 6-1. I'll probably do a few more Campaign Battles so I can level up again Wednesday or Thursday night. Maybe I'll even try to hit up that same camp again with my 37 NIN with Ara again and try to get Treu to come out to see what this camp is like.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
You know when I'm down to my socks, it's time for business, that's why they call them business socks
Well, looking back on my daily logs (every night I log off of FFXI, I keep track of what I accomplished in a google document) it looks like since my last post I have just done a LOT of campaigning. It started off as mainly just to see what they changed to "make it easier to retain your campaign rank", but then it turned into more exploration of Campaign Battles and Campaign Ops.
I completed my first Campaign Op and realized that if I just activate those (Aegis Scream and Smokescreen) while going into a Campaign Battle, it's just an extra little bonus of XP and Allied Notes... so why NOT always do that, right? And, as I just noticed this past Sunday, it's best to do a bunch of them right away on Sunday afternoon while all of them have 5 stars, cuz there's even more of a bonus in there too.
Rankwise, I got back my Copper Emblem of Service and even progressed to Iron Emblem of Service. I'm starting to creep up on 50k Allied Notes so hopefully by the time I get a high enough rank to purchase the Wings level gear (in something like 12 days), I can finally get the Cobra Unit Subligar and have a slightly better leg piece than what I currently have. I guess in some cases, I might want to keep the Vendor's Slops and just macro them in (ie. Chi Bast) but for the most part, these subligar will be better for my MNK.
With all of the XP I've gained in the past so far, I've even added another merit to my Critical Hits. ^^
I've even spent a little time on several other jobs, mainly trying to get some future subjobs out of the way (and also while I can speed through some levels while Treu is out of town and I get to use Screamin as a PL) ^^. THF 13, WHM 20, SCH 8, DNC 16... I'm gettin there. My main goal this past weekend was to get my WHM outta the dunes because it was impossible to find a pt since everyone Level Sync's and PLs their way through. (and if I WAS lucky enough to find a pt for my WHM, it sucked ass and just ended up wasting a charge on my xp-ring.) /cry
oh wellz. Near-future plans: will probably do a little more campaign tonight because I can't stay up late tonight (have to be somewhere by 8am tomorrow). The rest of the week I might just hang around Whitegate looking for people to go on a Carby Mitts run, or to go do my other 2 promies, or go do some assaults, or go kill some avatars, or... well, or whatever. Maybe even look around for another LS to join so I can find a static to get me through my PMs to get me Sea access.
Friday, September 12, 2008
"Eureka" is Greek for "This bath is too hot"
Wow. Almost a full month since my last update... and not really all that much to show for it. ; ;
I slowed down a bit because I was watching as much of the Olympics as possible. Much time was spent just random skilling-up and questing and selling items in the auction house and ... you get the idea.
I went out and got all of my Tuning Fork Key Items to start going after the Prime Avatar fights. So far, I still only have beaten Titan and Garuda (with Treu's help, of course). We got the smack-down layed upon us when we went after Shiva and then... I guess we got sidetracked and just never we back after any other avatars.
After that, I made a bunch of progress on my Summoner, going from 11 up to 23. Even went after a couple NMs for some low-level mage gear. (Hermit's Wand and Pilgrim's Wand) Tried camping Quu Domi again for the Haste-feet and after about 6 or 7 hours, and 3 successful claims... still nada. (This brings my total kills on this guy up to about 10 or so by now and still nothing. Even the other people that manage to get the claim still haven't had any luck either. Are these feet a myth?!? Prolly not. Just sucky drop-rate.)
White Mage has also increased from 11 to 14. Oh, and btw, I hate playing White Mage and I hate the Dunes and I especially hate playing White Mage in the Dunes. I don't even want to think about the amount of hours I've put into partying (and lfp) in the Dunes for my WHM. And I've only gone up 3 levels. (and believe it or not, some of those parties actually had PLs too.) /sigh
So, after being bored trying to level WHM for my SMN, I decided to get back into Campaign now that they have supposedly fixed the requirements for maintaining your rank. So far I've gotten around 6k xp. Even decided to do my first Campaign Op. (Aegis Scream I) Wow. I kinda wish I knew about this a while ago. A few of these Campaign Ops are strictly for Attacking or Defending in Campaign Battles. It's basically just an extra bonus you can get on top of what you get from the Battle. Gotta remember to do this as much as possible now.
Also tried a couple {Level Sync} parties. The first one was with my WHM13 in the Dunes; the rest of the pt consisted of a 75, a 70, a 45, a 40 and another 13. Simply put: it sucked. Our tank was the 70 WAR/NIN... but he didn't realize that being /NIN at that low didn't allow him to use shadows, so I'd have to rest for a minute or two after every 3 or 4 mobs. (Yeah, I was the only healer. No PL. And all of their high level gear apparently sucked after level syncing down to 13.) The other time was with Treu. I took my SMN 21 out with his MNK 39. We were cruisin along nicely in Korroloka Tunnel on Worms, buit as soon as our xp rings wore and we went up a level or two, the xp trailed off practically to nothing. ; ; Oh well. At least this will probably be a good place to come with my SAM 20 in a couple days, either with Hybrid or with True again.
True and I have had a couple discussions on how {Level Sync} isn't really as good as everyone had anticipated. It kinda sucks if you're jumping down large amounts of levels because your gear does NOT stay very proportional. (Brown Belt taken down to level 20 gives you.... a MUCH worse waist piece than Purple Belt. Less STR and no haste. wtf?) Hopefully people will start to realize this and not be so retarded when putting level 75 parties together in the friggin Dunes. Idiots.
No gamin tonight or the rest of this weekend. Have a bachelor party out in Boston to hit up so I won't be online til Sunday night. Unfortunately, HellsBells is doing Dynamis Windurst Sunday night at 8pm... and my flight doesn't even land until around 10:30pm. /cry Maybe I'll try to catch an earlier flight so I can make it home in time to get my Windy clear (and watch the Browns Steelers game). I don't think they're doing another Windy run for at least a month or two, so I REALLY want to be there for this.
oh wellz.
Go Browns!
Go Buckeyes!
I slowed down a bit because I was watching as much of the Olympics as possible. Much time was spent just random skilling-up and questing and selling items in the auction house and ... you get the idea.
I went out and got all of my Tuning Fork Key Items to start going after the Prime Avatar fights. So far, I still only have beaten Titan and Garuda (with Treu's help, of course). We got the smack-down layed upon us when we went after Shiva and then... I guess we got sidetracked and just never we back after any other avatars.
After that, I made a bunch of progress on my Summoner, going from 11 up to 23. Even went after a couple NMs for some low-level mage gear. (Hermit's Wand and Pilgrim's Wand) Tried camping Quu Domi again for the Haste-feet and after about 6 or 7 hours, and 3 successful claims... still nada. (This brings my total kills on this guy up to about 10 or so by now and still nothing. Even the other people that manage to get the claim still haven't had any luck either. Are these feet a myth?!? Prolly not. Just sucky drop-rate.)
White Mage has also increased from 11 to 14. Oh, and btw, I hate playing White Mage and I hate the Dunes and I especially hate playing White Mage in the Dunes. I don't even want to think about the amount of hours I've put into partying (and lfp) in the Dunes for my WHM. And I've only gone up 3 levels. (and believe it or not, some of those parties actually had PLs too.) /sigh
So, after being bored trying to level WHM for my SMN, I decided to get back into Campaign now that they have supposedly fixed the requirements for maintaining your rank. So far I've gotten around 6k xp. Even decided to do my first Campaign Op. (Aegis Scream I) Wow. I kinda wish I knew about this a while ago. A few of these Campaign Ops are strictly for Attacking or Defending in Campaign Battles. It's basically just an extra bonus you can get on top of what you get from the Battle. Gotta remember to do this as much as possible now.
Also tried a couple {Level Sync} parties. The first one was with my WHM13 in the Dunes; the rest of the pt consisted of a 75, a 70, a 45, a 40 and another 13. Simply put: it sucked. Our tank was the 70 WAR/NIN... but he didn't realize that being /NIN at that low didn't allow him to use shadows, so I'd have to rest for a minute or two after every 3 or 4 mobs. (Yeah, I was the only healer. No PL. And all of their high level gear apparently sucked after level syncing down to 13.) The other time was with Treu. I took my SMN 21 out with his MNK 39. We were cruisin along nicely in Korroloka Tunnel on Worms, buit as soon as our xp rings wore and we went up a level or two, the xp trailed off practically to nothing. ; ; Oh well. At least this will probably be a good place to come with my SAM 20 in a couple days, either with Hybrid or with True again.
True and I have had a couple discussions on how {Level Sync} isn't really as good as everyone had anticipated. It kinda sucks if you're jumping down large amounts of levels because your gear does NOT stay very proportional. (Brown Belt taken down to level 20 gives you.... a MUCH worse waist piece than Purple Belt. Less STR and no haste. wtf?) Hopefully people will start to realize this and not be so retarded when putting level 75 parties together in the friggin Dunes. Idiots.
No gamin tonight or the rest of this weekend. Have a bachelor party out in Boston to hit up so I won't be online til Sunday night. Unfortunately, HellsBells is doing Dynamis Windurst Sunday night at 8pm... and my flight doesn't even land until around 10:30pm. /cry Maybe I'll try to catch an earlier flight so I can make it home in time to get my Windy clear (and watch the Browns Steelers game). I don't think they're doing another Windy run for at least a month or two, so I REALLY want to be there for this.
oh wellz.
Go Browns!
Go Buckeyes!
Monday, August 18, 2008
The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Not too much happening, other than me finally getting used to mage jobs.
I've been having a little fun with SMN and Carby. Spending bunches of time on trying to figure out how I want to set up my macros. Treu thinks I'm wasting my time cuz I won't need to really worry about macros for resting gear-swaps, elemental siphons, etc... for at least a couple months, but I'd rather just try to figure it all out ahead of time so I don't have to constantly re-learn my macros as I level higher and higher.
I also got a little more xp on my WHM and BLM this weekend and had a little noob party while trying to figure out the jobs. It seemed to me that having my BLM as a melee still helped out greatly at that low of a level (still hanging around Gustaberg and the Highlands) but once I get into the Dunes, I'll probably just have to stand back spell-casting. (le sigh. sounds boring to me, but we'll see how it goes.)
So, what was actually accomplished over the past 2 or 3 days? SMN 11. WHM 11. BLM 11. (Hence the most-excellent, and most-appropriate, title to this entry.)
Well, I mainly just wanted a little more experience with mage jobs before I started partying out in the Dunes so now I'm gonna just get back to focusing on my SMN. Well, unless Hybrid is back online and wants to get back to duoing with his MNK 20 and my SAM 20. For tonight, I'm just going to head out and camp the NM to get me a Pilgrim's Wand. Figured that would help out greatly while leveling, so I might as well go camp that NOW to make leveling quicker/easier.
And yes, it seems as though meriting my MNK has been put on hold for a while. /cry oh well. Our little group probably isn't going to be doing any Salvage runs or anything major for quite a while anyways while Treu and Hybrid make their race for Maat's Cap. This gives me a good 4 or 5 months to level these 2 jobs, merit a bunch and start crankin out those Assaults. Hmmm. Maybe I should start setting out a schedule for I don't focus too much on 1 of my tasks. (Mondays, Sundays = SMN; Tuesdays, Saturdays = SAM; Wednesdays, Fridays = Assaults; any other time I have = MNK merits) ... We'll see how that works out. It'll probably change, but at least I can start thinking about this and trying to get statics together to make the process run more smoothly.
I've been having a little fun with SMN and Carby. Spending bunches of time on trying to figure out how I want to set up my macros. Treu thinks I'm wasting my time cuz I won't need to really worry about macros for resting gear-swaps, elemental siphons, etc... for at least a couple months, but I'd rather just try to figure it all out ahead of time so I don't have to constantly re-learn my macros as I level higher and higher.
I also got a little more xp on my WHM and BLM this weekend and had a little noob party while trying to figure out the jobs. It seemed to me that having my BLM as a melee still helped out greatly at that low of a level (still hanging around Gustaberg and the Highlands) but once I get into the Dunes, I'll probably just have to stand back spell-casting. (le sigh. sounds boring to me, but we'll see how it goes.)
So, what was actually accomplished over the past 2 or 3 days? SMN 11. WHM 11. BLM 11. (Hence the most-excellent, and most-appropriate, title to this entry.)
Well, I mainly just wanted a little more experience with mage jobs before I started partying out in the Dunes so now I'm gonna just get back to focusing on my SMN. Well, unless Hybrid is back online and wants to get back to duoing with his MNK 20 and my SAM 20. For tonight, I'm just going to head out and camp the NM to get me a Pilgrim's Wand. Figured that would help out greatly while leveling, so I might as well go camp that NOW to make leveling quicker/easier.
And yes, it seems as though meriting my MNK has been put on hold for a while. /cry oh well. Our little group probably isn't going to be doing any Salvage runs or anything major for quite a while anyways while Treu and Hybrid make their race for Maat's Cap. This gives me a good 4 or 5 months to level these 2 jobs, merit a bunch and start crankin out those Assaults. Hmmm. Maybe I should start setting out a schedule for I don't focus too much on 1 of my tasks. (Mondays, Sundays = SMN; Tuesdays, Saturdays = SAM; Wednesdays, Fridays = Assaults; any other time I have = MNK merits) ... We'll see how that works out. It'll probably change, but at least I can start thinking about this and trying to get statics together to make the process run more smoothly.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!
OMFG!!!!1!1!!11
Seriously, beyond a shadow of a doubt: AMAZING {Dynamis - Jeuno} run with HellsBells tonight. My initial worries about this LS have most-definitely been tossed out the proverbial window and I am certain I will be sticking around with them for a while as my Dynamis LS. (And yay! Another city clear! Just Windy left!)
The entire run had 37 - 41 members at any given time. Pretty much the whole run went smoothly, except for 1 wipe which was apparently triggered by a person or two going afk for a bit in the wrong area. No biggie. I've come to expect at LEAST 1 death upon every Dynamis entry. lol Hmmm. We got the full 3 hour time extension within about an hour and a quarter I think (if that means anything to how smoothly we were going through mobs). Itaevin and Liquidblue were our two PLD tanks again, and this time it really seemed like they knew what they were doing. (Who knows, maybe they were just both drunk/high on Sunday's run. Heh, or maybe I was.) Hermod, main puller, awesome job; don't think he screwed up even once. Retsujo was our secondary assist and had no troubles jumping right into the role the one and only time he was asked to. Bah, wish I could remember more names, but lots of people were performing well and with great efficiency. (look at me, the consultant, trying to analyze everything)
Drops. ... Drops? ... What drops? HERE'S what drops (in order): SAM, WHM, BLM, MNK, WHM, 100, WAR, RDM, BRD, DRG, SAM, NIN, BRD, NIN, RNG, BLM, THF, THF, SAM. The last SAM ended up going unclaimed cuz ppl were waiting for it to freedrop, but the mob was only killed like 30 seconds before we were booted. (ohwellz! lost a bunch of currency too cuz ppl didn't pass on it.) And the 2 THF pieces right before that actually dropped from consecutive mobs. I'm pretty sure 3 of the various AF pieces went to 1 person too. So, 18 total AFv2 pieces and a 100 currency piece dropped to us in a single run. IN A SINGLE RUN! The last time I went on a Jeuno run, we had 2 SAM feet drop. AND THAT WAS IT for the entire run! (Do I sound too exicited over this?)
Holy hell, I'm practically pissing myself I'm so pleased with these people! (like the alliteration there?)
Too bad we didn't get multiple MNK pieces. ; ; When we started the run, I thought I was 2nd in line for MNK Hands, but when they actually dropped, they ended up going to another person that was still ahead of me, so I was actually 3rd in line (and there was still another guy, Assasin, that was behind me wanting them too). But alas, MNK only dropped once tonight, not the necessary 3 or 4.
aight. enough of that. :) The past couple days haven't been very eventful, but still successful.
I did a couple more Campaign Battles but still wasn't good enough to even keep my rank, so I kinda gave up on Campaign for now, until they fix whatever it is that they broke with the last major update. I was reading a few blogs and forums where people are speculating that your rank-ups are strictly based on xp gained in Campaign Battles and Campaign Ops, but I think it's pretty clear that there has got to be more to it than that. So, the main theory going around is that it only takes 5k xp to gain a rank in Ribbons and 10k xp to gain a rank in Stars. If this was the case, then for Emblems, it should be 15k or maybe 20k to gain a rank. This is probably NOT the case because Treu was using his and Screamin's character in something like 15 Campaign Battles and still didn't have enough to even KEEP their Emblem status. (which is what's happening to me right now too. /sigh )
I keep trying to think of what else could be added into this calculation (assuming this IS the case). Do your "acquired rank points (from xp)" get reset every Sunday? If so, that would just be... retarded. That would mean, on Saturday you would probably have enough to rank up, but if you wait til Sunday, "OOPS! TOO BAD! You can't even keep your current rank now!" Once you reach Emblem, do they expect you to start doing Battles AND Ops? Maybe you don't get as many "rank points" when you are in parties when in Battles? Maybe the "rank point cost" increases for every person that already has that rank. (or something kinda like the whole ZNM Zeni-cost system.) Maybe a death resets your "rank points" back to 0? Maybe you have to start doing Battles in other cities' zones?? Who the hell knows! I'm getting a headache just trying to think of all the complexities that it could be... even when it's probably something just as simple as: you need to do 2 Campaign Battles in every zone your nation owns and 2 in a single zone owned by another nation and that's it!
So, to get back on topic, a few Battles done. One even got me 2,030 Experience Points and 1,016 Allied Notes. I'm pretty sure that's the best I've ever done. I typically only get around 1/2 to 2/3's of that amount. Oh, and I spent some merit points on getting my H2H combat skill to level 3. :)
I ran into Tekumel last night. We were talkin for a bit and he was explaining how he was kinda bummed-out and not playing much lately cuz he doesn't think he's really making any progress in-game. I'm pretty much on the same page cuz I've been having horrible luck finding merit parties lately... which is one of the reasons I'm more than happy to start leveling a couple other jobs. (I'm also leveling other jobs just to be able to level them with Treu and Hybrid while I have the chance, before they both get their Maat's Caps.) So me and Tek were about to go merit when some other LS ppl say they're goin on an Assault run. Woo Hoo! I join them, which becomes my first Assault! Of course, I broadcast my newb-ness by showing up at the staging point without my orders. :-p I thought all you needed was a tag, and you get the orders AT the staging point. Apparently you get them in the same office that you get the tags. We did Periqia - Seagull Grounded which consists of taking an NPC through some tunnels/rooms and killing a few random mobs. (a total of 12 mobs from what I recall.) I don't know, to me it seemed so easy, but maybe that was just because the guy taking care of the NPC really knew what he was doing. (Does 1155 Assault Points sound right for this one? Or is it higher than normal just cuz it's the first time I did that particular run?) Whateva. I enjoyed it. And it got me ever so slightly closer to being able to do Salvage and also getting Pahluwan and Denali gear. :)
In closing, I just want to mention the name of an NM we saw (or thought we saw) in Dynamis tonight: Dicklix Stickytoes. That is all. And goodnight.
Seriously, beyond a shadow of a doubt: AMAZING {Dynamis - Jeuno} run with HellsBells tonight. My initial worries about this LS have most-definitely been tossed out the proverbial window and I am certain I will be sticking around with them for a while as my Dynamis LS. (And yay! Another city clear! Just Windy left!)
The entire run had 37 - 41 members at any given time. Pretty much the whole run went smoothly, except for 1 wipe which was apparently triggered by a person or two going afk for a bit in the wrong area. No biggie. I've come to expect at LEAST 1 death upon every Dynamis entry. lol Hmmm. We got the full 3 hour time extension within about an hour and a quarter I think (if that means anything to how smoothly we were going through mobs). Itaevin and Liquidblue were our two PLD tanks again, and this time it really seemed like they knew what they were doing. (Who knows, maybe they were just both drunk/high on Sunday's run. Heh, or maybe I was.) Hermod, main puller, awesome job; don't think he screwed up even once. Retsujo was our secondary assist and had no troubles jumping right into the role the one and only time he was asked to. Bah, wish I could remember more names, but lots of people were performing well and with great efficiency. (look at me, the consultant, trying to analyze everything)
Drops. ... Drops? ... What drops? HERE'S what drops (in order): SAM, WHM, BLM, MNK, WHM, 100, WAR, RDM, BRD, DRG, SAM, NIN, BRD, NIN, RNG, BLM, THF, THF, SAM. The last SAM ended up going unclaimed cuz ppl were waiting for it to freedrop, but the mob was only killed like 30 seconds before we were booted. (ohwellz! lost a bunch of currency too cuz ppl didn't pass on it.) And the 2 THF pieces right before that actually dropped from consecutive mobs. I'm pretty sure 3 of the various AF pieces went to 1 person too. So, 18 total AFv2 pieces and a 100 currency piece dropped to us in a single run. IN A SINGLE RUN! The last time I went on a Jeuno run, we had 2 SAM feet drop. AND THAT WAS IT for the entire run! (Do I sound too exicited over this?)
Holy hell, I'm practically pissing myself I'm so pleased with these people! (like the alliteration there?)
Too bad we didn't get multiple MNK pieces. ; ; When we started the run, I thought I was 2nd in line for MNK Hands, but when they actually dropped, they ended up going to another person that was still ahead of me, so I was actually 3rd in line (and there was still another guy, Assasin, that was behind me wanting them too). But alas, MNK only dropped once tonight, not the necessary 3 or 4.
aight. enough of that. :) The past couple days haven't been very eventful, but still successful.
I did a couple more Campaign Battles but still wasn't good enough to even keep my rank, so I kinda gave up on Campaign for now, until they fix whatever it is that they broke with the last major update. I was reading a few blogs and forums where people are speculating that your rank-ups are strictly based on xp gained in Campaign Battles and Campaign Ops, but I think it's pretty clear that there has got to be more to it than that. So, the main theory going around is that it only takes 5k xp to gain a rank in Ribbons and 10k xp to gain a rank in Stars. If this was the case, then for Emblems, it should be 15k or maybe 20k to gain a rank. This is probably NOT the case because Treu was using his and Screamin's character in something like 15 Campaign Battles and still didn't have enough to even KEEP their Emblem status. (which is what's happening to me right now too. /sigh )
I keep trying to think of what else could be added into this calculation (assuming this IS the case). Do your "acquired rank points (from xp)" get reset every Sunday? If so, that would just be... retarded. That would mean, on Saturday you would probably have enough to rank up, but if you wait til Sunday, "OOPS! TOO BAD! You can't even keep your current rank now!" Once you reach Emblem, do they expect you to start doing Battles AND Ops? Maybe you don't get as many "rank points" when you are in parties when in Battles? Maybe the "rank point cost" increases for every person that already has that rank. (or something kinda like the whole ZNM Zeni-cost system.) Maybe a death resets your "rank points" back to 0? Maybe you have to start doing Battles in other cities' zones?? Who the hell knows! I'm getting a headache just trying to think of all the complexities that it could be... even when it's probably something just as simple as: you need to do 2 Campaign Battles in every zone your nation owns and 2 in a single zone owned by another nation and that's it!
So, to get back on topic, a few Battles done. One even got me 2,030 Experience Points and 1,016 Allied Notes. I'm pretty sure that's the best I've ever done. I typically only get around 1/2 to 2/3's of that amount. Oh, and I spent some merit points on getting my H2H combat skill to level 3. :)
I ran into Tekumel last night. We were talkin for a bit and he was explaining how he was kinda bummed-out and not playing much lately cuz he doesn't think he's really making any progress in-game. I'm pretty much on the same page cuz I've been having horrible luck finding merit parties lately... which is one of the reasons I'm more than happy to start leveling a couple other jobs. (I'm also leveling other jobs just to be able to level them with Treu and Hybrid while I have the chance, before they both get their Maat's Caps.) So me and Tek were about to go merit when some other LS ppl say they're goin on an Assault run. Woo Hoo! I join them, which becomes my first Assault! Of course, I broadcast my newb-ness by showing up at the staging point without my orders. :-p I thought all you needed was a tag, and you get the orders AT the staging point. Apparently you get them in the same office that you get the tags. We did Periqia - Seagull Grounded which consists of taking an NPC through some tunnels/rooms and killing a few random mobs. (a total of 12 mobs from what I recall.) I don't know, to me it seemed so easy, but maybe that was just because the guy taking care of the NPC really knew what he was doing. (Does 1155 Assault Points sound right for this one? Or is it higher than normal just cuz it's the first time I did that particular run?) Whateva. I enjoyed it. And it got me ever so slightly closer to being able to do Salvage and also getting Pahluwan and Denali gear. :)
In closing, I just want to mention the name of an NM we saw (or thought we saw) in Dynamis tonight: Dicklix Stickytoes. That is all. And goodnight.
Monday, August 11, 2008
What kinda hotel is this?
Just completed my first Dynamis (Bastok) run with the new LS: HellsBells.
Simply put: this experience was different from AstrumNovae's Dynamis runs. I actually thought that AN had their shit together better.
We broke the glass and went in. Total of 29 people when we first entered. They start pulling the first set of statues and THEN realize that we haven't determined who's going to be the main assist, secondary assist, tertiary assist.... Not only that, we don't even have any PLDs. So there's a little confusion and a little discussion while mobs keep coming and noone knows which ones to attack. So they tell us who the main assist is. Then a few minutes later, they name the secondary. Then a few minutes later they name the third. Then a fourth. I swear, I think there were 5 different ppl we were assisting, so up until the last 45 minutes, I wasn't even using assist macros, I was just typing in the name of whoever was blasting out "/assist me" and using "spacebar - up arrow" to assist on subsequent mobs.
There were other problems I saw too, like the main assists sometimes were saying "/assist me" and yet they weren't attacking anything so noone's macros were doing anything and we all stood around while other ppl got attacked and time was wasted. Mobs weren't being promptly slept. There didn't seem to be an actual order to the way mobs were being killed either. (I was always told that NINs should be saved for last, and yet there were a couple times where we were attacking NINs before even going after BSTs.)
I don't know. A lot of it just seemed like a big clusterfuck at times, and yet... I can't deny the results: we kicked ass. Went in at 8:00pm, came out at 11:30pm. Had plenty of time to beat the boss and do a bunch of farming. Didn't even wipe.. well, if you don't count the last 3 minutes before the timer ran out. lol) The drops? RDM, BLM, SAM, PLD, DRG, 4 wootz ores (practically all right in a row. it was freaky.), MNK (also freaky because like a minute before some says "wow, we haven't had a MNK piece drop yet"), another SAM, and another DRG.
I have no idea how we did so well with drops and AN always had such shitty luck with it. Just like in AN, we only had 1 THF, so it's not like TH really had that much of an affect on drop rates. Maybe it's just the sheer number of people we had? We had around 30 ppl the whole time tonight, whereas in AN we would typically have around 20. Then again, maybe it's just the number of mobs we killed or the rate we killed at? We were flying thru mobs so quickly that sometimes I didn't even have a chance to get a hit in.
I can't remember the full team setup, but I know we had 6 BLMs, 2 WHMs, 2 RDMs, 3 SMNs, 2 MNKs, 2 PLDs (when we realized we had no PLDs, 2 ppl left, switched jobs and came back in. not sure how they did that though; i thought once you left you couldn't come back in for 3 more days.)... hmm... 1 THF... and I think that's about all I remember checking.
All-in-all: I liked the old LS; I like the new LS. Since the old one is gone, I should stop comparing and get on with my life. Clearly these guys are successful in what they do, so I'm not gonna bitch. It's just gonna take me a little while to get used to the new peoples' personalities and get used to the way they do things. I'm glad Tekumel convinced me to join. (Just kinda wish I listened to him a couple months ago; I wouldn't have spent all that time building up LS points and not getting to spend them on anything. lol)
Hmm... what else... other stuff I've done since my last entry:
- few more Campaign Battles, but still not enough to even keep my current rank :-p
- did a bunch more leveling: WAR (37 FINALLY), SAM (20), DNC (13) and SMN (9)
- oh, and I applied to HellsBells. lol (I prolly shoulda mentioned that at the beginning of this post)
- Treu has his character back. Ced's back too. As far as I know, the rest of the others that got hacked are still waiting, but I'm guessing they'll be up-and-running before the end of this week.
And that's about it! The near future will probably be just leveling some of these lower level jobs to try to keep them up with Treu and Hybrid while they go for their Maat's caps. Treu already has all of his jobs at 30+ so I really gotta get movin on some of these.
Simply put: this experience was different from AstrumNovae's Dynamis runs. I actually thought that AN had their shit together better.
We broke the glass and went in. Total of 29 people when we first entered. They start pulling the first set of statues and THEN realize that we haven't determined who's going to be the main assist, secondary assist, tertiary assist.... Not only that, we don't even have any PLDs. So there's a little confusion and a little discussion while mobs keep coming and noone knows which ones to attack. So they tell us who the main assist is. Then a few minutes later, they name the secondary. Then a few minutes later they name the third. Then a fourth. I swear, I think there were 5 different ppl we were assisting, so up until the last 45 minutes, I wasn't even using assist macros, I was just typing in the name of whoever was blasting out "/assist me" and using "spacebar - up arrow" to assist on subsequent mobs.
There were other problems I saw too, like the main assists sometimes were saying "/assist me" and yet they weren't attacking anything so noone's macros were doing anything and we all stood around while other ppl got attacked and time was wasted. Mobs weren't being promptly slept. There didn't seem to be an actual order to the way mobs were being killed either. (I was always told that NINs should be saved for last, and yet there were a couple times where we were attacking NINs before even going after BSTs.)
I don't know. A lot of it just seemed like a big clusterfuck at times, and yet... I can't deny the results: we kicked ass. Went in at 8:00pm, came out at 11:30pm. Had plenty of time to beat the boss and do a bunch of farming. Didn't even wipe.. well, if you don't count the last 3 minutes before the timer ran out. lol) The drops? RDM, BLM, SAM, PLD, DRG, 4 wootz ores (practically all right in a row. it was freaky.), MNK (also freaky because like a minute before some says "wow, we haven't had a MNK piece drop yet"), another SAM, and another DRG.
I have no idea how we did so well with drops and AN always had such shitty luck with it. Just like in AN, we only had 1 THF, so it's not like TH really had that much of an affect on drop rates. Maybe it's just the sheer number of people we had? We had around 30 ppl the whole time tonight, whereas in AN we would typically have around 20. Then again, maybe it's just the number of mobs we killed or the rate we killed at? We were flying thru mobs so quickly that sometimes I didn't even have a chance to get a hit in.
I can't remember the full team setup, but I know we had 6 BLMs, 2 WHMs, 2 RDMs, 3 SMNs, 2 MNKs, 2 PLDs (when we realized we had no PLDs, 2 ppl left, switched jobs and came back in. not sure how they did that though; i thought once you left you couldn't come back in for 3 more days.)... hmm... 1 THF... and I think that's about all I remember checking.
All-in-all: I liked the old LS; I like the new LS. Since the old one is gone, I should stop comparing and get on with my life. Clearly these guys are successful in what they do, so I'm not gonna bitch. It's just gonna take me a little while to get used to the new peoples' personalities and get used to the way they do things. I'm glad Tekumel convinced me to join. (Just kinda wish I listened to him a couple months ago; I wouldn't have spent all that time building up LS points and not getting to spend them on anything. lol)
Hmm... what else... other stuff I've done since my last entry:
- few more Campaign Battles, but still not enough to even keep my current rank :-p
- did a bunch more leveling: WAR (37 FINALLY), SAM (20), DNC (13) and SMN (9)
- oh, and I applied to HellsBells. lol (I prolly shoulda mentioned that at the beginning of this post)
- Treu has his character back. Ced's back too. As far as I know, the rest of the others that got hacked are still waiting, but I'm guessing they'll be up-and-running before the end of this week.
And that's about it! The near future will probably be just leveling some of these lower level jobs to try to keep them up with Treu and Hybrid while they go for their Maat's caps. Treu already has all of his jobs at 30+ so I really gotta get movin on some of these.
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