The Demon of Dreams has fallen!

Friday night was a very long and eventful night. We finally got to start our ZM static I organized with members of TheBrotherhood to help them get Sky. Our static currently has myself as PLD, Raiderx (SAM), Alianne (SMN), Falk (WHM), Kraksa (BRD), and Carste (BLM). But Kraksa wasn't able to get on that night, and seeing as our friend Josudes needed ZM4 we invited him along.

Our pt headed to Temple of Uggalepih while I headed to Kazham with Josudes to help him finish his cutscenes for ZM1-4. Only problem is that I am the game's worst navigator for Yuhtunga Jungle... and well... I kinda led us to a few dead ends before we finally made it out ^^;

Getting back to the others of course wasn't a problem, because I remember the path without looking at the map. When we finally got to the others, we headed to Den of Rancor and lit our lanterns and then headed to the BCNM. Though I had told everyone to bring extra items and what not, we didn't end up having to really need anything because we completely owned the BCNM. I think it took only a couple of minutes before it was all over. After that, we decided to do the ZM5 stone monument fights in Behemoth's Dominion, The Sanctuary of Zhi'tah, Cape Terrigan and Ifrit's Cauldron. We managed to get to each very quickly and again murdered the NMs.

Over the weekend, I led the promy static i've been organizing with my LS. We did Promyvion-Mea this weekend, and though we were quite delayed (by 1.5hrs) because the static members were still farming their anima, it was a success. I didn't actually participate in the BCNM this round because Raiderx had decided to keep his account active and asked to join as he was 0/3 on the promies so I gave him my blink tank spot and led the group as a very gimp equipped WHM. (I was far too lazy to mule over my gear ^^;)

Now all thats left is Promyvion-Holla which we'll be doing next Saturday morning. After that, i'm going to be taking a break from leading the promyvion statics because after doing them for about 2-3 months I am really feeling the urge to do something else in the morning (who knows, maybe even sleep in! lol)

After this Xean's RL friend Anderoc invited us to go farm the gigas in Delfkutt's tower as he had a pop item for the Pallas Bracelets which he was going to give to me if they dropped. This was going to be our second run at trying to get these, because the first time we had tried farming them I think we went 0/4.

Well in the end we went 0/1 on Pallas and 0/1 on Alkyoneus. We decided to farm a little longer but within a short time, the entire floor was filled with RMT. Xean of course, started telling them off in say which was pretty funny... telling them to get a real job. We were claiming for the most part, but eventually we grew tired of all the RMT that started logging in and going after the place holders that we just gave up and decided to try again another time.


I really wish that SE could come up with some brilliant way to rid the game of RMT. Its bad enough that they have some pretty bad game design that makes players put in insane amounts of time to get anything in this game, but the fact that SE doesn't seem to really do anything about the RMT makes it worse. RMT takes over the NMs the legit players want to camp to make profit or camp to use the gear that drops... RMT controls and undercuts regular farmable items that legit players try to obtain to make a little gil, and in the end, this game just gets harder to play. Its not all that hard to know who is RMT and who isn't, yet SE has to apparently do a series of investigations before they can prove who is RMT and then ban the accounts... which only come back a few weeks later. Stupid SE -_-

After that, Littledipper who's a new member of our LS logged in and a bunch of us went to help him get G1 done. It was pretty fun, the 3 NMs in Xarcabard were killed very quickly... but then that could be expected when you have a lvl 75 MNK (Xean), 2x lvl 75 SAM (Raiderx and Spalko) and a bunch of extra mages and plds with a range of lvls. I know that people say its not the same now that high lvls can go and complete your missions and quests for you where as when the game first came out, you needed alliances to do these... but even still, doing it with our LS is still a blast. I think our DDs had fun trying to see who was going to tank the NMs.


When we were done with this, me and Xean tried to seek on our WHM and NIN. We're still at lvl 65, and didn't manage to get a party that night. We did get invites from a few players, but of course these people just wanted to nab us because once you have a healer and tank, all you need is a refresher and you're set. Only problem was that there wasn't a refresher around, and we didn't want to wait in an incomplete party waiting on one to appear and missing the chance of getting an invite as replacements.

We eventually gave up seeking and were getting ready to logoff when Carste asked me to give him a hand with the avatar prime fights so that he could finish getting his whispers and be able to fight Fenrir. So I geared up as RDM/NIN and we headed off to go do Shiva first, with the help of my personal WHM Xean who gave us a lift to the protocrystals.

After we obliverated Shiva, we went after Titan. And of course...on the way to Titan I made us take a wrong turn so we had to escape and re-enter Quicksands. <_<;


Titan was also really easy, but I definitely had to be more focused because he hit really fast and I wasn't evading as often as I had expected, which meant I had to keep recasting shadows. But eventually he went down. I was going to get Carste his Ifrit that night, but I still had the whisper of flames on me so I had to turn it in first... and because SE enjoys making us put more time into the game, that meant I would have to wait 24hrs before I could get another turning fork to fight Ifrit, which I did the next day and got for Carste.

Sunday started off with the LS helping out Shaolina on her PLD AF3 fight with 2 orc NMs in Davoi. We cleared out the area and got her to pop the NMs. I soloed the RNG on my RDM/NIN while Sirivalin tanked the PLD orc and everyone helped him take it down. The start of the battle was a little rough because I had originally targeted Siri's Orc, and Shaolina had voked mine so I had to nuke a bit to get hate for mine. After about 10 minutes though, both orcs were nothing more than a pile of dust.


Then I was invited to go Diabolos for a friend of Aserati's. Seeing as I needed the demon avatar (only one I didn't have) I agreed. I was asked to come as RDM/DRK to stun, which was going to be the first time I acted as a stunner so I was a little nervous. One interesting thing I found out is that when i'm RDM/DRK, my MP is --> 666 o.O;;



When we got to the BCNM, our WAR had d/ced so Lokelani, Sirivalin and myself decided to go trio Diabolos for laughs. We went in, buffed and I just started stunning while keeping everyone refreshed and dispelling as needed. We managed to get him down to about 97% before he got us with his Nightmare move which puts a very strong bio on everyone and sleeps them (and the sleep can't be negated with poison) When we finally awoke, I was getting low on MP so I did convert, but I guess the Bio I had must of been stronger than I had thought because with 19 MP, I ended up dying before I could cure myself (which was tied into my convert macro). It wasn't too long until Sirivalin died, and then Lokelani soloed him for all of 2 seconds lol.



Finally after waiting about an hour, we were ready to fight him for real. Our setup was WHM, WHM, BLM, RDM/DRK, PLD, WAR. We were prepared to use our 2hrs, but we were going to wait a while. Our first attempt failed with Diabolos at about 60%. I wasn't able to stop his Nightmare in time, and he just ended up annihilating us.

Our second attempt we were able to get him down to 40%, but again with the Nightmare move we ended up getting owned. I blame my stun not being fast enough on my keyboard, because you have to hit the keys a few times before they work but no matter what, my stun wasn't there when it needed to be and we wiped again. I would of been fine this time, because I knew where I had gone wrong but our WAR who had been the last survivor decided to use her 2hr when Diabolos was at 40%.... and she only had 200hp, and the rest of the pt was dead. She wasted the 2hr, which meant that we would have to wait another 2hrs before it would be available again.

In the end, we decided to give it one more shot. Only this time Aserati decided to replace himself with another BLM so that we wouldn't have 2 WHM. This round we managed to get Diabolos down to 2% before we wiped. I was so ticked, because I'm sure that I could of nuked that last 2% too. I had chainspelled when I got low on MP and was going to stun him like crazy but right after I used chainspell, he used Nightmare -_-.

So after that wipe, Siri and Lokelani decided to go xp. Our party decided to have me change to PLD and I invited Alianne along as WHM. The pt then asked a friend RDM/DRK to come fill my previous spot, and this time... WE WON! It got really close too because at the very end, the 2 BLMs took hate and I couldn't get it back as I had already used my 2hr earlier in the battle which wore and Diabolos was about to kill them but someone got in the final nuke and the demon went down!







So now I am a lvl 14 SMN with all the avatars and an evoker's ring! I'm hoping to start lvling my SMN this week or on the weekend, because i'd like to use it as a subjob on my WHM... and plus it would be nice to get SMN to 75 one day seeing as when Xean first told me about the game, I told him SMN was going to be my job =P

Endgame...

One of the downsides to playing FFXI is that in order to upgrade the equipment for your character, you have to participate in endgame events such as "Dynamis, Sky, Sea, Limbus and HNM Camping". Most of these events are pretty enjoyable, but the commitments one has to make in order to participate in these events, can be very demanding and stressful.

Ever since I got my PLD to 75, I wanted to be able to get the full Valor Artifact Armor set, which is only available through Dynamis. I have also been interested in upgrading my Gallant armor set to the +1 version, which can only be done by doing Limbus. Unfortunately right now, I don't yet have access to Sea which is needed in order to do Limbus. And then there is the Koenig armor set, and in order to get this you need to get abjuration items that drop from the gods in Sky, as well as HNMs (Land Kings) found throughout Vana'diel.

Right now, I am a leader for a dynamis LS called SpiftasticAdventures. We currently do one run a week, so our progress is much slower than most established Dynamis LSs. I've been participating since November, and though i've had a few opportunities to lot on 100 coins and Valor Coronets, my luck has always gotten the best of me and I never ended up winning. We also had a pretty rough start at first, because we had problems establishing a permanent roster so getting drops period was a rarity within our LS until early this year. (And a note, why is it that people sign up and commit to a dynamis LS, show up for one run, and are never heard of again? Don't you people have the decency to say you're no longer interested? -_-)

(Archmage, Raesylil, Spalko, Jazz, Moonyoung, Selph, myself, Feirion -- SpiftasticAdventures Dynamis LS)

The good thing about my dynamis LS is that the people in it are extremely friendly and pretty goofy. We all work really hard to do better every run, and even if we make a mistake the leaders are never harsh. We don't talk down to our members, but instead we encourage them and try to help them learn to do better the next time. We're all very supportive of each other and I think because of the friendships, we have really good communication which will pull us through as we progress.


And if you've read my previous blogs, i've recently joined a sky LS called CrimsonSky. There are a couple of people so far that have been friendly, but for the most part I feel very unwelcome because most of the time when I login and say {Hello!}{Linkshell}, I might get one "Hi" back. And while being focused during events is really important for success, you still need a little bit of a warm atmosphere and unfortunately so far, I find this is lacking in my sky LS. I just keep hoping it'll get better as people get to know each other, because the LS is fairly new.


At the moment, i've been able to participate on 2 god runs and 1 farming run with CrimsonSky. The way that our LS works, is that you gain 1 point per hour you put into farming. When it comes time to kill the gods, if there is an item that you want and it drops, if you have a minimum of 20 pts, then you will be on the list of people that will get to lot the item. The leaders decide who gets to lot it first, and I believe that they go with the person who has the most points first with the goal of eventually having everyone obtain what they're seeking in Sky.







So as of right now, I participate on Monday and Thursday nights regardless of whether its farming or killing gods. The LS runs on Sundays, but seeing as I am very attached to my social/event LS TheBrotherhood I asked to be able to come 2/3 nights which as far as I know, was acceptable. I would love the opportunity to earn more points to get my gear faster, but weekends happen to be the busiest for TheBrotherhood in terms of our lower lvl members getting help with missions and quests, and plus i'm also invovled in a CoP static with some of the members and depending on availability, we sometimes do our missions on Sunday.


It seems that if I put a lot of time into Dynamis and into Sky, i'll eventually get the gear i'm wanting to upgrade to... but as my lover Xean would say, "puk endgame, its hella boring". I think he would probably enjoy killing gods, but I know that the work you have to pour out in order to do the "fun things" is too much so thats why he often plays something else or helps LS members when i'm doing endgame because he has no desire to get involved in endgame.

I often wish that I could find an endgame LS that did events based on occasion, so that the members could still have the majority of their time to do what they want in the game but to date most linkshells want you there fulltime. Me and Xean often talked about one day having enough high lvls in our LS TheBrotherhood and doing events based on member's needs, but right now we don't really have a roster for that so I guess we just have to wait and see.

Its just too bad that the only way to get anything nice in this game, requires commitments that players often aren't able to give, or don't want to give because it takes them away from the other things to enjoy in this game. I'm glad that i've been able to find a Sky LS that doesn't need me there 24/7, because I can't imagine abandoning my friends when I know that helping them out is a lot more fun than farming mobs up in Sky. Who doesn't like getting owned by Miser Murphy? Who doesn't like going after Ash Dragon and dying 10 times because his aggro range is insanely large (Poor, poor.... poor.... Suko... little tarutaru must of lost at least 10k experience that night, haha) Ok, well its not always fun dying..... but it is fun doing these kinds of events with my friends, because we always laugh in the end and that's what keeps me playing this game ^^

Just some lvling and weekend events.

Thursday I had Sky, but when I logged in I still had about an hour before I was needed so I decided to try farm some tree cuttings off the goobue in The Sanctuary of Zhi'Tah. The night before I had been doing a bit of farming before I logged out, and even managed to see Keeper of Halidom spawn which I quickly claimed... no drop though ; ;

(Keeper of Halidom never stood a chance against ME! Haha!)

(Scenic pic I took of The Sanctuary of Zhi'tah. Not only does it have the best music in the game in my opinion, but its also the best looking zone)

When I finally got up to Sky, I was told that I needed to enter Ve'Lugannon Palace from "2.2". Of course I had no clue what this meant considering I had only been in Sky on a few occasions (Divine Might and 1 Kirin Fight I was guided to) so I gave a guess that it referred to the "island" and the entrance on the island.

Well I pretty much got that part right, but I didn't have the direction right for where I thought "Island #2" would be, because instead of heading in a counterclock direction to get to the right island, I headed clockwise and ended up on the wrong one. But it was alright, because one of the LS members was kind enough to exit and come get me. I think I have a better hang of how the maps work now, so I should be able to navigate a little easier next time.

Anyways, we were farming some golem statues for a good two hours, and I noticed that the xp wasn't so bad so I changed back to "experience points" from my merits considering I had a few deaths on my RDM and me being the paranoid person that I am, wanted to make sure I had a good buffer. Turns out that farming these guys can also be a little bit profitable, as they drop Golem Shards and Mythril Ores which I can give to Xean to use to craft with, so it wasn't too bad. But eventually after hearing that one of the NMs were up in another zone, we were all in a rush to beat the RMT to it. While zoning into one of the areas, I also ended up getting another cutscene with Lion which I assume means I might of completed another ZM o.o;





Most of us made it to the spot where "Mother Globe" was, but a few had gotten lost and stuck behind a gate. We would of sent someone down to get them and waited for everyone, but the RMT were gathering and the leaders decided to take chances and claim it. We were doing good for the most part, but unfortunately there were many of us that were new (myself included) and we weren't on top of everything that we should have been and eventually we all ended up wiping. I was fine with the death, but the rest of the LS was quite upset because RMT had gotten the claim and killed it. Plus a good majority of the LS were upset just because they don't seem to understand that when you're starting something new, there's a learning process and many of us were still in that phase. I felt bad for the leaders, because they had to give a little speeches to try and restore the confidence in some people that were doubting the LS, and I know from experience that it can be stressful trying to counter the negative feelings people will hold when something bad goes wrong, and having them believe in teamwork and trying better next time.

Then Friday night came, and I was suppose to finally start the Zilart Mission - Sky static I started with my LS for the members that need Sky. Everyone was logging in, and things seemed promising until our BLM Carste had a change in his plans and was going to have company that he had to attend to that night. Seeing as we didn't want to leave him on his own to complete the mission with trying his luck in Jeuno shouts, and because we didn't want to do the mission a second time (ZM4) we decided to reschedule for next Friday which I'm keeping my fingers crossed will actually happen.

So for the rest of the night, me and Xean headed out to help Maharo and Shaoulin get their carbuncle mitts in Temple of Uggalepih. We at first thought they had their offering which is an item needed to trade to a ??? to spawn the tonberry NM that drops Carbuncle Mitts, but I guess we hadn't paid close attention to the chat in LS and they actually needed the trade item.

So for the rest of the night, our group just farmed the tonberries near the spawn location while Myrrh went back and forth to the various ??? locations to try and get an offering. The offering respawn time is suppose to have 2hrs, but we were there for about 3-4hrs before Myrrh finally got it, which was RIGHT as we were about to disband because it was midnight or later for most of us. When Myrrh finally made it to the rest of us, we spawned the tonberry and in the end I pretty much just stood there swinging my sword while the tonberry beat up Xean because he used his hundred fists, lol. It was a success, and even though poor Maharo had suffered a lot of AoE deaths from the statues we killed waiting, I think we all had some fun.

When I logged in Saturday morning to get ready for Promyvion-Mea, I had a feeling that someone might not show up and that I should check our LS forum to see if anyone had posted they were going to be absent. Turns out my feeling was right, because poor Enlenne was feeling sick and wasn't going to be logging in. I decided to call off the run and reschedule because I would rather do the runs only as often as necessary.

So instead, I went and helped Spalko farm Jody's Acid from malboros for his ToAU mission. Xean came along and helped and we got the drop on the first kill. We started discussing what we were going to do next, but because I had lent my RDM gear to my friend Josudes who was going to go and try Maat, there was little I could do at the time until I had my gear back. By the time we agreed to do a BCNM run "Under Observation", I had to logout to go and do some groceries.

When I got back though, we decided to finish up the ToAU mission for Spalko and we headed out to Caedarva Mire to go fight the fomor (Interesting fact: I seem to keep spelling that word as "f o r m o r" and not as "fomor". I have no idea why o.o;) Alianne came out to give us a hand, and though I was suppose to be tanking on my RDM my dmg just wasn't enough and Spalko and Xean ended up tanking most of the fight... but we won, and had no deaths!

(Yep, that's Xean taking hate with his Hexa Strike -_-;)

After completing the ToAU mission, a bunch of TheBrotherhood headed out to fight the NM for the rutter sabatons. Spalko and Lokelani both had the item needed to trade, and after 2 smooth battles both ended up getting their drops. So we were 2/2 with the drops, which I would say is a decent rate.

(Akichu tanking on NIN, Xean on MNK, Spalko on SAM, me and Lilstitch on RDM and Alianne & Lokelani on WHM)

Then for the rest of the night me and Xean decided to lvl our WHM and NIN which we got to lvl 64. We were in a mostly japanese party which turned out to be really great. For some reason in the past, everytime we were with japanese players they always seemed to be worse than the stereotypical NA player... so unlike a lot of people, when we hear we're going to be invited to a mostly JP party our response is "meh, so what?" where as the rest of the world seems to be "OMG!!! JP PLAYERS ARE SOO SKILLED AND AWESOME! THEY ARE LEET!!". Yeah, just a tad overated I say.

But this party we had that went from 8pm - 2am was really good and got us our lvl. We actually ended up staying up later than intended because of some LS issues that we had to resolve, but guess in the end it was good because it left us with about 8k to our next lvl!

Then Sunday I logged in late because I had decided to be lazy and sit on my couch eating brunch and watching "The Holiday" while Xean was at church. When I did finally login, I got an invite on my RDM to a party which I had initially thought was going to be a manaburn. Boy was I wrong.

First, we really lacked some "real" DD because our party setup was RDM, BLM, PLD, SMN, SMN, RNG. Second, our PLD obviously didn't know the difference between "sky tanking gear" and "xp tanking gear". She was entirely equipped in HP+ gear, which gives her no benefit because the mobs we were fighting weren't going to do hundred fists or give her a one hit kill. And of course, her HP+ gear led to our mages getting hate easier than usual which meant more healing. And to top it off, the party leader had us set camp outside Nyzul in Bhaflau Thickets to kill Mamool..... and I had told him before, that because there are only like 7 mamool there, it could only really support one camp and chances are, there would be a camp there.... and I was right.

But our leader assured me we would get more than chain#3, so I went regardless not wanting to seem too picky which I've found i've become since being on my RDM and having the opportunity to get into some great cannon parties. After about 3 kills, we were waiting on repops and I knew then that the xp was going to be really slow.... and again, I was right. Within 1 hr, we had only gained maaaaaybe 3k xp total, and considering we were in a ToAU area with sanction, we really should of been getting double that. So after an hour, I got myself a replacement and took another break until Xean got home.

Wanting to get another lvl in before the end of the weekend, we decided to seek again on WHM and NIN and ended up getting a semi-decent party. The thf was a little slow on pulls, and our WAR wasn't doing any decent damage but we seemed to be doing ok getting chain #5 so we continued. About an hour later, half the party said they had to go and it was decided the party would disband which sucked because me and Xean were within 2k from lvling -_-

So we had our seeks up for a little longer and eventually decided to go farm some moblins to get moblin thread. Lately we've been looking into things to farm that will have a decent drop rate, and sell for something decent but unfortunately Xean's curse of having TH-100 always seems to affect our farming sessions. We had farmed a few nights ago on some Buffalo out in Uleguerand Range and only managed to get 2 pieces within an hour and a half I believe.

I'm sure our farming session on moblins might of been a little better if we had stayed longer, but I had started getting sick earlier that night and about 30 minutes later, Xean pretty much told me I needed to get some sleep and rest up (I love that he's concerned like that... he's great at taking care of me when i'm sick ; ;) so we logged for the night.

Oh, and one thing I forgot is that earlier on friday night, our friend Anderoc had invited me and Xean to go and pop the NM Pallas in Delfkutt's tower as he had the pop item and wanted me to get the bracelets as he already had them. So we went up there, and popped Pallas which was a quick win... but no drop. Because we all had a bit of time left, we decided to try and get another pop item for Pallas by killing the giants around the area. I think in total we went 0/3 on Pallas, and even managed to pop the other NM on the highest lvl but we didn't get the drop on those bracelets either.

Giving Sky Another Shot.

On Monday, I logged in to get ready to go on a Fenrir run that Myrrh, one of my LS members had organized to get his purple puppy. I had already done the battle 2 previous times, both wins so I already had my puppy as well as Fenrir's Stone (one day I might use this in Sky on my PLD) so the next item I was going to select as my reward, would be the Ancient's Key which would allow me to get my Evoker's Ring as I had already turned in whispers for the other avatars to get their rare/ex items.

When we went in, we had a RDM, BRD, NIN, WHM, BLU and BLM. We did our buffs inside, and went and pulled Fenrir but within seconds our NIN got one shotted by Eclipse Bite so the rest of us ran to the entrance to exit before he could eat the rest of us for dessert!

Our second time around, Fenrir again did a move though I don't recall which, that really took down our NIN's health but luckily Myrrh was on top of things and got him healed up right away. I continued tossing out enfeebles and refreshes, and when he got to low health I then let out a few nukes and soon victory was ours.

After this, I waited for Xean to login and we tried to find out a good place where we could farm. Lately his jobs have been a bit demanding on us gilwise, and we've pretty much spent what we had saved up from selling a few good items like a brown belt I quested and a soil ring. Seeing as I have WAR i'm taking to 75, and he has NIN, we figured we would need to put some time into farming and so we decided to give the birds in Miseraux Coast a try, as they drop Giant Bird Plumes which currently go for 60k a stack.


It was pretty relaxing the whole night, we took out our NPCs and killed the birds which had a 5 minute respawn time. Xean's treasure hunter seemed to be working pretty decently, because in about 2hrs we had one stack of Giant Bird Feathers, and about 4 Giant Bird Plumes. It wasn't as profitable as we had hoped, but at least the environment was nice to look at and there weren't many people around. We'll probably look at farming something else next time, but at least we got something done that night.

Here are a couple of shots of the scenary. I can never get over how beautiful it is especially when the sun is out. Night time can also get really nice, especially near the waterfalls which I have an obsession for screenshotting everytime I visit ^^;




So as the title of this post implies, i've finally decided to give Sky another try. There is a lot of sky gear i'm eager to obtain for both my RDM and my PLD, but in order to get any of this you need a LS to work with. All my past experiences in joining Sky Linkshells, has always been less than desired. The first one I joined was called CaelestisST and though there was some really great people in it, there was always rumors about the leader using the linkshell's money to go give to his online girlfriend (who has dated so many people in this game i'm surprised her reputation is still good) and also at the time, TheBrotherhood was still expanding and I felt I was needed more by my own LS.



The one event I did try to attend for CST, was a Kirin fight and this was probably my worst Sky experience. First I learned that playing as PLD in sky, is very costly. You have to buy a ton load of food, and you have to have Reraise Gorgets which go for about 90k usually. This wouldn't be so bad, but as PLD you die quite a few times, and when I did my Kirin fight I died about 8 times, and ended up deleveling too. At the time, we only had 1 WHM and I guess they needed to conserve MP so I had to accept Raise 1 everytime I died kiting Kirin because being new, I had no clue I was expected to bring a reraise item. When that fight was over, the leader pretty much announced that he was quitting the game and was going to pass over leadership to someone that I didn't quite know, and wasnt' interested in following at the time. And so for quite a few months, Sky just remained a place I had access to, but never ventured into.

Eventually after waiting a while, I applied for another LS called Element. They seemed to have very knowledgeable players and their schedule would allow me to attend Sky events once or twice a week which was perfect, because this would let me still give the majority of my time to TheBrotherhood. However, I was pretty unlucky when I got accepted because they broke a week later and I didn't even get the chance to do any events with them.

So at that point, I had given up on finding a LS that would allow me to participate up to twice a week, until last week when Maddambooboo made a post on QCDN about a new LS called CrimsonSky. This LS had a 3 day schedule, and I figured i'd talk with the leader and find out the possibility of me participating 2/3 nights. I explained that I was the leader of a social/event LS and that I wanted to still devote my time to them, but that I wanted to be able to participate in some endgame events on the side.

In the end, I was told that I was accepted and that they understood my situation which would be fine. So yesterday, the LS had decided to do a Gods run as they had farmed up quite a lot of pop items in the last two weeks. Usually they run on Mondays and Thursdays, but as an exception they asked for people to come out on Tuesday.

Eager to prove my commitment, I headed up there as soon as I got home. We waited around for about an hour until everyone had showed up, and we went over some of the basics of how our first god, Genbu would be fought. Then the leader Jumanji went over the drops that would be available, and asked to find out who wanted to lot on what. At the time, I was unsure that I should mention anything because I was new, so I waited thinking someone with more participation than myself would be entitled to lot on the drops (Genbu's Shield and Martial Abujuration: Hands) But to my surprise, no one in the LS at that time needed or could use Genbu's Sheild, so I sent a /tell to Jumanji and was given the opportunity to lot on the shield.

The first fight went pretty well, I think it only took us about 20 minutes. I was surprised that my enfeebles weren't landing and I think i've decided to try out the Wise RDM JSE set next time and see if maybe the magic accuracy will help. But other than that, I just stuck to my refreshing and hasting with an occasional elemental seal + Thunder III which did about 400 dmg (Yay! Go go Elvaan INT! lol)


When the fight was over, I was a little disappointed to see that Genbu's Shield hadn't dropped but I was still happy because the fight itself had been interesting to watch. Its definitely different from your typical xp party, at least for the PLDs and the DDs.

On our second Genbu pop, I pretty much did the same thing. Tried a few enfeebles, refreshed, healed, hasted and nuked when ES was available. Then when Genbu dropped, I saw the shield in the list of items! I was really excited, and lotted as soon as the command was given to lot. So now I can go solo stuff on my RDM, and use my Genbu's shield which should really help keep my stoneskin up longer!



As soon as we were done with our second Genbu pop, we headed over to go pop Suzaku, however due to an oversight we were missing one of the items needed to pop him. We decided at that point that those that could, would go farm for the rest of the night. But unfortunately with many people who had to log for the night, and after checking a few of the camps which we found were busy, we decided to call it quits.

So afterwards I geared up my PLD and headed to Jeuno to get ready for Dynamis. Unfortunately, we had quite a few of our main people unavailable for the run so we didn't do as well as we had planned. We had a wipe at the start which sometimes does happen with all the MNK mobs that spawn (gawd I hate tanking these). Then we had an miscalculation with one of the areas we had pulled, which was near the AH. I guess one of the mobs that was pulled, respawned all the mobs at our camp which caused another wipe which was something we couldn't get rescued from. Luckily though, we had a mule outside holding an hourglass and we all HPed and dealt with a 10 minute weakness status you get when re-entering dynamis.

When we were very close to the end, we noticed that there was these two little red dots which we had seen before on other Jeuno runs. I decided to take a pic because these are really crazy. I wonder if its a GM watching or something, or just a glitch with the graphics.



This run we were very close to getting the win, but because we had been limited with our time (7 minutes when we did the sac pull for the boss NM) and because of accidental aggro on my part which had been caused by lag, we didn't get it. But thankfully there were quite a few members that were trying to be positive about it, to keep the moral up. As long as we learn from our mistakes, and do better the next time we can only get better.

Merit Cannon Parties... a whole different experience.

So Friday was to be the first static day for a Zilart Mission static i've organized to help some of my LS members get their sky access. Unfortunately though, two of our members didn't show due to RL issues and so rather than do the mission a second time, I gave the members the night off and we decided to reschedule for next Friday.

With only a little time left in the night, I asked Xean to come with me and camp Bloodthirster Madkix which drops a the rare/ex axe Archa d'Amas (sp?) which I can use at lvl 68 on my WAR. I got there before Xean, and decided to start killing some of the gobs as well as the place holder which was a Goblin Mercenary. Finally Xean joined up with me, and we began waiting for the next set of gobs to spawn... however we had another group come. Go figure, everytime we go to camp something we always end up getting counter campers.

Well anyways, after about 40 minutes our NM popped and we got claim. I was on my RDM/NIN dual wielding, and we got him down to 10%... however, at one point my stoneskin ended up wearing RIGHT as I had used my Utsusemi: Ni, and so I quickly tried to cast Ichi but the goblin was having a little fit and interrupted me. (Why is it when you need to evade, you never do?) Unfortunately my Phalanx had also worn shortly before my stoneskin, and so I really didn't have anything to keep me from his hits, and in a matter of seconds I was down, eating the dirt. Xean unfortunately hadn't brought his /nin, so he wasn't able to last much longer and the other party ended up getting claim and killing it.



I was pretty ticked off, because they had a healer and could of raised me and I'm sure I could of chainspelled and killed the thing, but people in this game are always looking out for themselves and I guess because of luck with two very needed spells wearing, which resulted in my death.... it was only fair that they could take the claim. Just kinda irked me that we had done most of the work and one stupid thing took it all away. But that's ok, because later in the week me and Xean went to camp him again and we were lucky to have him pop within 2hrs, and this time I decided to bring a shield to keep my stoneskin up a little longer which ended up making the difference because we took him down pretty easy. No drop though, but at least we were able to duo him with no trouble. I can't wait until Xean gets his NIN to 75, I really want to go after some more difficult NMs and duo them with him on my RDM!

So Saturday morning, I led my LS promyvion static. This time we went to do Promyvion-Dem, and I think I broke our record to gettting to the spire, because I swear it only took us maybe 20 minutes to get to the 4th floor. It was kinda funny though, because on the 4th floor I told everyone to keep running if we got aggro, and the one who got aggro in the end... was me! LOL! But its ok, I lead them 3/4 of the way to the spire before I ended up dying, and because they had kept their distance I was the only death which was fine with me.

When we got in, I gave the strat to our new members. Everyone was prepped and we kicked ass! As long as you have a certain setup, and anima its a guaranteed win which I like because though I enjoy seeing friends progress in the game, this is one event that requires a bit of preparation (muling over my capped gear, waking up early on the weekend etc) and the less I have to do a particular run, the better. This time, Carste ended up getting his Lufaise Access... and after 2 more runs, we should have another 2-3 members have theirs.

So after the promy, me and Xean geared up on our WHM and NIN to get some xp.

. . .

Now one would THINK, that a duo with a healer and tank would get a party pretty easy. Nope... there was not ONE refresher online within 6hrs, and we didn't get a party for what seemed like forever. Well actually I shouldn't say that, we did get one invite but the party would of consisted of 2 WHMs, and though that can work to replace a refresher, at least a refresher can assist with enfeebles and if its a RDM, they can nuke a bit. So me and Xean declined that party invite and waited for something better.

Finally though, Terminataru who's a tarutaru RDM in our LS said his party had just finished, and that he'd like to join up with us. So we invited over Alianne on his THF, and found another 2 DDs and went to Bhaflau Thickets to kill some birds... the birds Xean just adores :3 (sarcasm)
We didn't get any thing worth bragging about xp-wise, but at least everyone gained a lvl and now me and Xean are sitting at lvl 62. Still a few more lvls to go -_-;

Later that night, I ended up logging onto my mule Taeyo who was in San d'Oria. I was headed over to the AH when I suddenly saw Xean, with two of our LS members who had recently made 2 mithra mules: Inari -> Ameratsu, Lokelani -> Evanai.

We decided to have a little fun with Xean, and chase him around South San d'Oria. And for those who don't know, he absolutely despises the mithra race (though never the actual players). So it was really funny because eventually we cornered him into one of the houses, and then emoted a bunch of random things. I even managed to get him to sit down with us all so that I could post it on our forum as a joke, and forever tease him about it (hehe, i'm sooo evil).

(Aww, how cute! Btw, i'm the whitehaired Mithra in his lap.... he's MINE!)

(Wonder what kind of show Xean's getting here ^_~)

(Me and Ameratsu ganging up on Xean and beating him up!)

Then Sunday morning, I decided to try and get a few merits and apply my last merit to my sword skill (now 6/6). Within 30 minutes of having my seek up, I got an invite from Akichu who pops into our LS from time to time, really sweet player and very good at the jobs she plays. She told me I was going to be main healer, and that we would be doing a cannon merit party. I've been in merit parties before, but never a true cannon merit party so this was going to be new to me.

And boy was I surprised at the speed at which things went. She was pulling non-stop, and I was healing, hasting and enfeebling like crazy. I think we got something like 12k within an hour, and I found the whole experience really fun because I was constantly casting and having to keep track of where my MP was going to make sure that I wouldn't cause the party to have any downtime. We only partied for about 2hrs, before some people had to leave and the party decided to disband. But before the party ended, I had one interesting run in with an NM in Mamook. I forget the name, but we decided to TP burn and 2hr it.



Lol, good idea in theory but we were definitely not capable of taking it down. This guy had one mean AI... first he casted Aeroga III which I wasn't able to silence (I doubt this guy can be silenced) and then he did Sleepga II which I unfortunately got caught in. Then he casted another tier III -ga spell, which killed I think 1-2 members and from there all hell broke loose, because we also had a wvyern aggro and tear me up. ; ;

It was fun though, you gotta have a few deaths every once in a while to make things interesting ^^

After that merit party, I got into another which I didn't particularly enjoy. I didn't mind that the experience was good (I even got past chain #60 which was a new record for me) but the fact that I really felt unadequate at doing my duties as healer because of MP issues, really bothered me. First, the melee in the party were being huge MP sponges. From what I understand, a cannon party is suppose to work by having the party members spread out the hate and share it, so that they DON'T become MP sponges... but this party didn't quite have that. The second issue, is that our BRD was spending more time pulling instead of keeping me refreshed with Ballad I and Ballad II. This would of been fine... but if they wanted me to keep up with the healing, hasting and enfeebling I was going to need to either rest or get an extra refresh.

I got another 2 merits from this setup, for a total of 40k that morning which was enough to get me what I wanted... but the second merit party wasn't the most enjoyable experience.

When Xean finally got home, we decided to get some ToAU missions done. First we needed to head to Nashmau and talk to this little rat NPC who for some strange reason, though I was a ghost o.O;;;



Then we had to head to Bhaflau Thickets and fight some malboro for a rare/ex drop called Jody's Acid (or something similar to that). Me and Xean headed out as RDM/NIN and WHM/NIN and killed them with ease, and got the drop on our first kill. But I also needed one, so we had to kill another 6-8 before the second item dropped. Then we headed back to talk to mr. rat, and he then told us to go to a grave site in Caedarva Mire where we would end up fighting a Formor NM.



Alianne joined up with us as WHM, and the fight was pretty fun and intense. There were a few times where my health had dropped pretty low because stoneskin + Ni would wear at the same time, and of course he would interrupt my Ichi casting. But thankfully Xean was also pulling in the damage with his Hexa Strike, and took hate from time to time which gave me the chance to get my shadows back up. After about 10 minutes of fighting, we won and went for another cutscene with Ms. Najaa aka tempermental kitty with a club.

And that pretty much sums up the update for the weekend. Tonight I have a Fenrir run, and i'm going to be doing sky farming with a new LS that I just joined that i'll be attending twice a week.

Zerayla the Warrior is back again!

After months of having my WAR gear gather dust while sitting on my mannequin in my storage, I finally got to take it out and level up my WAR. Xean had been wanting to get his THF a little higher, so that he could contribute more to our farming sessions with his treasure hunter II, and seeing as in the last few months we haven't really had a chance to farm our funds have been getting a little low. Of course it doesn't help that I kinda went on a shopping spree and picked myself up a few upgrades for my RDM >_>;

Anyways, we got setup and began seeking. We were both lvl 58, and about 15 minutes into seeking I got a party invite. We headed out to Wajaom Woodlands and began fighting colibri, which I learned are a melee's worst enemy. Xean had told me that I should buy some squid sushi because the mobs eat your food with a move called "Snatch Morsel", so at least if they were going to be eating my food I wouldn't be losing out on too much, gil-wise.

After losing about half my stack, I decided to gimp the party a little bit and just not eat food altogether. Though we had Xean on his THF helping with the hate control on our NIN, my rampage would sometimes hit too hard and the NIN had a hard time getting hate back before i'd lose my food. I guess I could of waited to finish off the mob with my weaponskill, but I don't believe my ACC was that much worse without food because we were still getting chain 6's.



We ended up getting well over 16k in that session, and both me and Xean hit lvl 69. I finally got to equip my haubergeon as well as my ugly purple sipaphi turban, which I had changed to "not head gear" dat. I am not going to spend hours staring at the ugly thing while lvling on my WAR >_<

Then yesterday, I spent helping out Kraksa with his Opo-opo crown items. We headed up to Ifrit's Cauldron to go fight Hurricane Wyverns for the Wyvern Skull, but unfortunately we were a little delayed because I had thought I knew the way.... when really I didn't. But that's ok, after taking a few scenic routes, we eventually found the wyverns! And, we even found the NM Vouivre that I was very tempted to solo on my RDM/NIN, but because Kraksa had little time to be online I had to pass on it.

(I'll get you one day Vouivre!!!)

We were eventually joined up by with Alianne, who came to give us a hand which was really helpful. The mobs I believe are around lvl 80 (or a little lower) and they hit pretty fast. I could of soloed them but because I hadn't brougth my shield, my stoneskin wasn't lasting very long and sometimes I couldn't get my shadows up fast enough before taking a hit. About 2hrs later, just as Kraksa had decided that we would only fight a few mobs before he had to logout, we were on what was to be our "last" wyvern. Sure enough, the skull dropped! So now Kraksa has all his opo-opo crown items, and he'll be turning them in to get his crown.

After we finished up with that, me and Xean decided to give Alianne a hand learning a few BLU spells. The first one was Wild Carrot which Alianne learned after about the 5th or 6th mob. Then we headed to Ranguemont Pass and started killing the Tasai for Death Ray. I think we only spent about an hour there before it was learned.

With not a lot of time left to seek for party, I decided to take the ship to Mhaura to Selbina in hopes of killing the Crossbones on the ship for a Sand Charm, which is a rare/ex item used to get the map to Bostinaux Oubliette. It took me my second trip to get the item, but of course I had to head back to Mhaura.

And aside from that, in between helping members in the last couple of days me and Xean went to go and try to get me a Tungi Axe dropped from an NM Tribunis VII-1. In order to make this NM spawn, you need to go to a few different places in Quicksand caves and find a ???, and when you click on this you can get an antican tag, which you then trade to another ??? which spawns the NM.

(I just loved this shot of me, I thought it was a really neat pose. Wish I could take more pics like this)

Well the first time I went looking for the ???, I found it within 15 minutes and me and Xean headed out to go kill the NM. It was a pretty fun fight, very easy because I was /nin, but unfortunately the Tungi didn't drop. I got a butt load of other ores though so it wasn't too bad, maybe made about a 20k profit.

Because the respawn time of the ??? for the antican is 2hrs, me and Xean couldn't fight the NM right away so we had headed out to party on our WAR and THF. When that party was over, we headed back to Quicksand caves to get my antican tag. Easier said than done.... we were there for 2hrs, looking for it (someone must have gotten it just before us)

(Me and Xean having one of those "aww moments". He can be really sweet when he wants to be ^^)

Finally Xean managed to find the ??? and we headed back to the spawn location. Again, the fight was a blast and went by really quickly. And this time, Xean's TH II seemed to work because I got the drop!!! I had heard some people going 1/11 on this, so I was really happy that I was only 1/2. Now I just need to gain one more level before I can try it out! And then 3 more levels until I can use my Francisca which has been sitting in storage since last year <_<

Tarutaru girls aren't so sweet and nice!

When I logged in yesterday, I had planned to do a little crafting because I had a few hours before I was going to be needed to help with some quests. But shortly after checking my delivery box, I received a /tell from Anderoc who needed help on his PLD AF3 fight. I guess he had tossed his body piece at one point, and wanted to quest it again so that he could store his PLD AF set (SE should really make it so you can store any piece, and not the whole set at once)

Anyways, I headed off to Davoi on my RDM/BLM because he had said he was going to need me to sleep one of the 2 NM orcs. At first I had a feeling that the orcs couldn't be slept, because out of all the times I had done this quest not once had I remembered any of our BLM or RDM sleeping the orcs... but I didn't say anything, because I figured he probably knew more than I did.

When I got there, he explained that the plan would be for me to sleep the RNG type orc, and we would kill the PLD type first. So as soon as he spawned the mobs, I let lose Elemental seal + Sleep II.

I was getting ready to hit my melee gear macro (was gonna use my new Joyeuse ^^) when all of a sudden I see my stoneskin wear off an I see the orc wide awake. So I immediately cast Sleep, but no go. I then get ready to cast sleep II again thinking I must be having some serious bad luck but before I could do anything he was hacking away at me and because I hadn't bothered to buff myself up entirely before the fight, I pretty much died after about 30 seconds.

Anderoc quickly zoned the two orcs, and came back to raise me. We waited a bit, while he tried to see if he could get a little help because it was obvious at that point that the orcs couldn't be slept. But I guess endgame linkshells are never really there for you when you need them, because he couldn't get anyone to help him (And this is where I secretly laugh because while I may not have godly gear, I sure as hell have great friends in my linkshell who would of come right away to lend a hand ^^). Eventually after about 15-20 minutes his friend Alexxia who had been in party but in Whitegate, came back from AFK (she had to leave and have dinner, so Anderoc figured me and him would of been able to duo the mobs) and made her way out to help.

The new plan: I solo the RNG and Anderoc solos the PLD, while Allexxia keeps us alive. This actually worked pretty well, though my stoneskin wasn't lasting very long and I needed quite a few heals. I was tossing out enfeebles, refreshes and keeping enthunder on myself while I slowly beat down the RNG. I managed to get about 3 Spirits Within @ 300% TP which did I believe just over 500 damage. This is what I ended up using to finish off the RNG with. And as soon as my orc was dead, I went to help Anderoc with his.




The fight probably lasted a good 15 minutes or more, and while we had been beating them down we had orcs nearby spawn and aggro so of course me and Allexxia were sleeping them one by one, and having to re-sleep them as they woke. I think we had close to 6-7 orcs that had linked and aggroed by the end, but as soon as the PLD NM was killed we quickly finished off the easy prey orcs around us.

Shortly after the PLD AF3, Terminataru logged in and myself and other LS members met up in whitegate to give him some help with his RDM AF3 fights. While we were waiting to see if Alianne's wife Lilstitch could login to help, Spalko handed out tarutaru rice cakes which were an event item from the festival doll event.



Shaoulin, who was on his other character Karihkinz at the time used another event item and turned into a hare, and the rest of us who were in tarutaru girl costumes surrounded him! We were gonna show him that tarutaru girls aren't so sweet and nice all the time!

After a few laughs, we headed out to Fei'yin to go fight Miser Murphy. When we got there we all got tp ready to weaponskill, and then engaged the evil haunt. All went smoothly though I do remember Spalko getting hit a few times and taking some hefty damage. I even decided to toss my 2hr in, and hit off a few blizzard IIIs, though if I remember looking back at the chat log I think they were all resisted and only did something like 53 damage X_X



Next up, Terminataru headed to San d'Oria to flag the next part of his quest, and the rest of us met up in Garlaige Citadel where Chpal, another RDM from our LS joined up with us. We went past the first banishing gate and killed a few skeletons in the room, and then popped the golem type NM.


He took a bit longer to kill because of course he had pretty high defense but we eventually killed him, and Terminataru got the last key item to go get his RDM hat!!

When we were done with this, I headed to West Ronfaure where I was going to wait for Xean to login and PL his BRD to lvl 10. Along the way, I found Carste one of our LS members who was lvling his SMN and offered to PL him until Xean got online. We headed to La Theine and he got to lvl 12 before I had to meet up with Xean.



And for the rest of the night, I PLed Xean and got his BRD from 8 - 10. Hopefully i'll find some time to PL him to 14 so he can party with my SMN, and then we can get those jobs to at least 37, though we definitely plan on taking them to 75 in the future. Gah, I have way too many jobs i'm working on right now, gotta try to learn to do one at a time, lol.

Joyeuse MINE! 2 yrs later...

Well quite a few updates. First is that I was able to get my DRK to 37. On Thursday when I got home from work, I put my seek up and waited for a very long time on an invite, but of course none ever came my way. Finally when Xean got home, he offered to PL me so we headed to Garlaige Citadel and began killing some bats, but it was taking a very long time for me to kill them by myself. Eventually we decided it might be better if we tried some lower lvl mobs, and so we headed out to Yuhtunga Jungle where I went to go kill the fish outside Sea Serpent Grotto. After my first kill, I got an invite... go figure, lol.

So off I went to Garlaige and partied for just over an hour. I managed to get from 34-35 in that party, but of course my goal had been to get 37 to finish with the job and make it available as a sub on my RDM. So Xean and myself headed back to Yuhtunga and I began killing again...


That is, until Xean spotted the NM Meew The Turtlerider. Xean didn't want to waste time killing it, but I had really wanted to have the opportunity to take down an NM I had never fought. I should of listened to Xean because he told me we shouldn't.... but my stubborness ruled out and because Xean always has my happiness in mind, we started attacking the NM and his little group of sahagins. We thought it was going to be a piece of cake, but the NM was barely taking any damage, and after we got it down to about 60% it used benediction -_-


So in the end, because it was taking forever to kill we just zoned him and headed back to get my lvl. It was going pretty smoothly, and near the end of the night we even had a little monkey friend come out to watch! ^^


Sadly though, I was burnt out and couldn't stay awake too much longer (it was close to 2am) so we headed off to bed. We resumed the next morning and I finally hit lvl 37. I had honestly thought that DRK was going to be my next DD job to 75, but for some reason playing it from 29-37 I really couldn't find any enjoyment and so I sent back all my DD gear, and sold any DRK only gear and put the job into retirement.

Afterwards, me and Xean decided to head to Castle Ostroja to go kill the NM Yaa Haqa The Profane which drops a Frost Robe that Xean needed to complete his subligar quest (Ranparee Harness) for his THF. We headed up to the room where the switch is, and killed the two place holders. We sat and waited for repops, and to our surprise the NM spawned right away which was really nice because we always seem to have the most aweful luck when it comes to getting a lottery spawn NM to pop. We didn't end up getting a Gaia Doublet which I believe drops from the NM, but the Frost Robe did drop.



I had to go out for a bit after this, but when I got back me and Xean decided we would try and camp Charybdis in Sea Serpent Grotto. I had decided that this was going to be the weekend I would devote to getting my Joyeuse... after 2 years of waiting.

So we headed down there, and I had every intention of soloing him (though in the end its a good thing I didn't, because I have no merits on my RDM and from what I heard, he may have easily pwned me if I made one wrong move). Me and Xean sat there with about 10 other people, waiting for the place holders to pop. Eventually our friend Josudes joined up with us and helped us keep an eye out for the NM.

I think we were there for about 2-3hrs, when finally the NM popped. Unfortunately we didn't get claim, but at least we had the new ToD. Only downside is it was late at night, and eventually we would have to get some sleep. Seeing as the window was going to open in 8hrs, we went right to bed and I set my alarm to be up the next morning at 6am, and left a few msgs to friends to see if anyone could give a hand.


I was really lucky, because I had quite a turnout when I logged on. Two LS members Kraksa (BRD) and Alianne (WHM) were ready to camp with us, and two friends Arezael and Anderoc (both NIN) came out to help tank it. I was really happy because not only did I have enough help now, but there were no counter campers!

However.... I wasn't about to have it made THAT easy for me. We killed placeholders for about 7hrs after the "window" had opened for Charybdis to pop. SEVEN FRIGGIN HOURS!!!!! I honestly feared that the help I had would have to leave before he'd even pop.... but 60 Devil Mantas and numerous Sahagins later (including an NM that dropped a rare/ex DRG spear) Chary finally decided to pay me a visit!!!!

I was so happy when I finally saw him pop, but about a second later I was filled with guilt because after Arezael had voked it he went down in seconds. I'm not sure if he had been one shotted or if I had been too excited to see that within those first few seconds his health was going down, but the next thing I knew he was dead beside me.

Thankfully we had 2 WHM75s with us, so he got a R3 and Anderoc continued to tank. I enfeebled as often as possible, Kraksa kept our songs up and Alianne and Xean took care of the healing. Then when Chary's health got down to about 20%, I went and chainspelled him with Blizzard III and nuked his ass. (I did just under 600 per cast, not bad for a RDM)





And now I get to sport this beautiful Joyeuse around on both my PLD and RDM!!!
(BIG THANKS to Alianne, Kraksa, Arezael, Anderoc and Xean for getting me this.... this is one of the goals I had in the game, and you've helped me accomplish it ^^)

Later that night, Josudes asked if we could do a BCNM with him. We decided to do Royal Jelly, which me and Xean had done with success in the past. He was going to come as NIN, i'd come as WAR/NIN and Josudes would be RDM. We were all set, two orbs ready and eager to make a little gil....

Well... that is until we entered and I was standing there half naked. For some messed up reason, I didn't really pay attention to my gear that I had muled over for my WAR, and the majority of it including the weapons were lvl 40+ gear, where as this BCNM was a lvl 40 cap. So we had to leave, which meant that we had wasted an orb. I felt really bad because I'm always good at being prepared for events, and for whatever reason I wasn't smart enough to look at my gear and realize it was lvl 40+.

So I went to Bastok, grabbed a GreatAxe and the rest of my lvl 40 cap gear, and we went in again. Me and Xean were doing really good timewise. I don't know if he was doing a lot of damage on his NIN, but I know that my GA didn't miss once the entire fight and I was just hacking those jellies to death, especially with my sturmwind which had been the reason Xean had suggested I bring GA instead of axes. I think two jelly almost got close, but me and Xean killed them quickly and prevented them from turning into the "Princess Jelly" which could of done some nasty damage. In the end, we had a smooth run but as Xean's luck always follows him, we had nothing decent for drops so I let Josudes lot on the items and promised to donate an orb on a future run for having wasted his.



On Sunday, I woke up and one of our LS members Mightynewt had requested help on his PLD testimony. So I went out to Beadeaux with a bunch of other LS members and we started killing Darksteel Quadav. We were farming for just over 3hrs when finally a test dropped.

By that time, Xean had come home and so we decided to go merit with Alianne, Spalko and Shaoulin who was playing on his other character Karihkinz. I couldn't find a tank at the time, so I switched to PLD and invited a JP RDM.

Overall the party was great, I was able to add a total of 2 more merits to my sword skill over the weekend (I had found time to merit with Alianne the day before as well) and we were probably pulling close to 10k/hr getting consistent chain 6's on Colibri. The only problem I found, is that because the pulls were so quick I didn't always have my job abilities available when I needed them, and because the mages were doing their job a little too well, I wasn't really able to heal much. Eventually I told them to take it a little easy on the healing, so that I could pull out some Cure IVs and keep hate against the melee that were just spamming their weaponskills which definitely helped... but of course, I think it made them feel like they were leeching xp because they usually had more than 500mp and some fights would even have full. But it was good, by the end I wasn't feeling so rusty tanking anymore.

And then to finish the night, Xean went to unlock BRD and I went to go PL him in West Ronfaure. I need to get my SMN to 37 to sub on my WHM, and because SMN had always been the first job I wanted to take to 75 when I first started this game (but due to the difficulty of obtaining the avatars without knowing any high lvls decided to put on hold) and so I decided that SMN would be the next job i'd take to 75 after my WHM and my WAR.


But because of all the difficulty i'd heard with other SMNs in our linkshell having a hard time getting a party, I asked Xean if he would mind taking his BRD to lvl with me to help get invites easier, which he agreed to. So for the rest of the night, he stabbed bunnies and sheep while I stood around in my wedding dress healing him. ^^