I think I have my merits figured out.

While at work today, I was really bored and started to look into what merits I should be working towards. I finally decided on the merits I will be focusing on, and wrote up the list which I figured i'd post here in case I forget and need to check ^^;

=Red Mage=

Currently have:

• Obtained Dia III
• Obtained Bio III
• Obtained Phalanx II
• Obtained Paralyze II[/list]

Need to get:

• Upgrade Dia III x1 (3pts)
• Upgrade Bio III x1(3pts)
• Upgrade Ice Magic Accuracy x5 (15pts)
• Upgrade Wind Magic Accuracy x3 (6pts)
• Upgrade Earth Magic Accuracy x2 (3pts)

I'm not going to bother learning Slow II or Blind II, because I don't really use these spells very often. I decided to upgrade both Dia III and Bio III because without upgrading them, the spells only last 30 seconds and because of the MP cost, its not worth it unless I can get them to last a minute. As for the Magic Accuracy, I can only apply a maximum of 5 upgrades to one spell, and so I figured since Paralyze is my most used enfeeble that i'd upgrade it all the way. And because I feel that having Wind (Gravity & Silence) as well as Earth (Slow) Magic merited, I went with a split but gave Wind one extra point just because there are two spells I use.

=Paladin=

Currently have:

• Obtained Chivalry

Need to get:

• Obtain Guardian (3pts)
• Upgrade Sentinel x5 (15pts)
• Upgrade Shield Bash x5 (15pts)
• Upgrade Chivalry x2 (9pts)
• Upgrade Guardian x2 (9pts)

With PLD, I'm only going to focus on having Chivalry (convert TP > MP) and Guardian (reduces emnity loss during Sentinel) because the upgrades offer very little improvement, so I might as well select 2 abilities and max them out. And the same applies to Sentinel and Shield Bash, might as well reduce the time for 2 abilities all the way, instead of only seeing a 10 second difference on "all" abilities. I chose Sentinel because its the most useful ability as PLD blocking a nice amount of dmg and Shield Bash because its a really effective stun ability and hate move.

=HP/MP=

Currently have:

• 2 MP Upgrades

Need to get:

• Upgrade MP x 6 (27pts)

Being Elvaan, I lack MP period, and while I am PLD and many PLDs merit HP, I don't see myself doing Kirin much or anything else that requires "mega HP". Also, as PLD having a bigger MP pool is very helpful for BCNMs, Missions and xp parties.

=Attributes=

Currently have:

• 1 Upgrade to VIT (which I plan to remove)

Need to get:

• Upgrade INT x5 (36pts)

Originally I wanted to beef up my PLD, but seeing as my VIT is already pretty good especially with gear, and seeing as I play on RDM much more often I decided to merit the one stat I lack as RDM = INT.

=Combat Skills=

Currently have:

• 6 Upgrades to Sword

Need to get:

• Upgrade to Sword Skill x2 (6pts)

I use sword as PLD and RDM, its the best weapon for both jobs so might as well merit it to full.

=Defensive Skills=

Currently have:

• 4/4 Upgrades for Shield Skill

Need to get: N/A

=Others=

Currently have:

• 2 Upgrades to Enmity +

Need to get:

• Upgrade Spell Interruption Rate x2 (7pts)

I wanted to add another 2 Emnity +, however I feel that the Spell Interruption Rate would benefit both my PLD and RDM so I decided to apply the last two upgrades from this category to that.

So, the total amount of merits I need to get? 157!!!

(Thanks to Xean for giving me advice on what should be meritted)

Goodbye Koenig!

Lets start with the bad news. My sky LS finally broke, which now makes this the third sky linkshell i've joined that broke within 1-3 weeks of me joining. At least I was actually able to obtain something this time though, which i'm really glad for: Genbu's Shield. That thing has definitely saved my butt more than a few times when i've soloed on RDM.

I'm relieved that I no longer have to spend 2 nights "off" from helping out my LS with events and spending time with Xean, but at the same time i'm a bit annoyed that I wasn't able to obtain my koenig gear (hands and head piece). I'm happy that I no longer have to endure the bad leadership that existed in CrimsonSky, because honestly that was one thing that drove me nuts everytime I went up there. The fact that the leaders (except for one) would hardly ever reply to questions asked in LS, or when you would send them /tells they'd pretend they were AFK and not respond even though it was obvious they weren't. And it was just aggravating not seeing any friendliness come out of the leadership from that LS, there was definitely a lack of respect. A leader should never swear or type in all caps lock to their members, because that's speaking down to them. Speak down to a person, and you'll never gain their respect. So while i'm thrilled that I no longer have to put up with all the crap and I can now spend more time helping my social/event ls... I still wish I had at least been able to obtain the Koenig gear I was after. Chances are, I won't be able to see this stuff for a loooong time because of all the current linkshells out there, none can accomadate my schedule.

Ok, so now for the very long update ~ My weekend!


During the week, Xean and I had finally hit lvl 72 on our WHM and NIN. He was pretty psyched because he now had even more haste gear, which he wanted to test out right away. Before logging out we decided to kill a few manticores in Altepa Desert, hoping to get a few manticore hairs which I used to craft. (I'm in the process of raising my clothcraft on Zerayla, which is now at lvl 28) Yeah... Xean really likes his haste gear >=O


On Saturday, it was "CoP" from 10am - 10:30pm. Yup, about 12 hrs of pure CoP missions and cutscenes. I managed to finish 5.3 - Three Paths and get all the way up to 6.4 before the end of the night. So far the story is a little unclear to me, which is probably mainly due to me not paying attention to the first chapters....


Anyways, we started off by heading to do the Snoll BCNM fight in Bearclaw Pinnacle. Sirivalin had been nice enough to buy the cluster cores which you trade to an orc on the way, which then gives you a Shu'Meyo Salt which is a rare/ex item used on the actual NM to prolong the fight. If you don't have these items, its virtually impossible to win unless you can unload a massive amount of damage within 30 seconds because the NM does a move which will "blow" your party outside the BCNM if you don't kill him fast enough... so with these items, we were able to have a few time extensions.


Unfortunately though, our first attempt failed and we were removed from the BCNM. Because we had used our 2hrs, we decided that we would continue on with some of the other parts of 5.3 and come back later. We finished some more cutscenes we had in Jeuno, and then headed up to Delfkutt's Tower to fight a weak NM and get some more cutscenes. By the time we were finished, we were able to head back out and try the snoll BCNM again. This time Lokelani bought the cluster cores for us which was really nice of her. When we got to the BCNM, we were all ready and thought for sure we'd win, but sadly at the very end when Sirivalin had been casting some of his ancient magic, he wasn't able to use his salt item and we were kicked from the battle. This time we had gotten the snoll down to about 2%, so it was a bit frustrating. Thankfully though, everyone kept a good attitude and we decided to complete some of Tenzen's path in the meantime.

This was actually quite an entertaining point in the day. We had to go through Pso'Xja, and at one point because the camera had rotated I ended up getting myself and Xean lost. About 10 minutes later we were finally able to catch up with everyone but when we got to the area where we had to get a cutscene, poor Alianne had gotten aggro while trying to cast sneak because there was lots of magic aggro around. And because Alianne had died in an area with magic aggro, this made it virtually impossible to raise him, but Lokelani still gave it a go because we didn't have much of a choice.


While Lokelani was raising Alianne, myself and Xean had been in cutscene nearby and as soon as I got out, I ended up also getting aggro because I wasn't very far from the mobs that had gone after Lokelani and Sirivalin. But, Kiersten saved the day because he was able to raise me from the top floor, because I had died on the elevator. It was kinda funny the way I died, it looked like I was some kind of sacrifice, lol. But anyways we managed to get everyone up with tractor, and we escaped and headed back to try the snoll BCNM.





Third time is a charm, is how the saying goes and that was definitely how it was for us. It was actually really close though, because Xean had died and the chat log had shown the snoll using his move that would remove us from the BCNM, but luckily Alianne got off another astral flow just in time and we killed it. We were all really happy to have that fight done and over with, because frankly it was getting a little expensive. I think i'm gonna have to make some food for Sirivalin and Lokelani for having bought us the cluster cores all those times. x_x

And to finish off 5.3, we had to go to the mine shaft through Newton Movapolas for a very easy BCNM. I actually enjoyed this one, because there was a lot for me to do. We had Kiersten kite about 6 goblins, while Xean would pull one and the rest of us would kill them one by one. The fight went pretty smooth, and the only death had been Lokelani's but she had been able to reraise during the battle and I helped heal near the end.

We had planned to do the airship fight, which I believe is 6.4 but Kiersten had to logoff because it was close to 2am for him. So Xean, Alianne and myself went ahead and did the cutscenes in between to be ready for the fight on our next static meeting. Hopefully we'll finally have sea by the end of our next session.


Oh, and we also managed to get Xean's rare/ex katana from the KSNM30: Operation Desert Storm. We did a total of 12 runs with Xean, Carste, Akichu, Alianne, Spalko and myself. I got to go as RDM/NIN which was a lot of fun, and even though I wasn't able to kill as fast I was able to take care of myself and help enfeeble here and there. By the end, we had 3 V. Claws, 3 O.Ingots and 1 Serket Ring which should give us each about 450k or more.


I also managed to get my SMN to lvl 19. I have to say the party was pretty good, but the one leading it was a bit of an arse. He kept talking to us all as if we were new to the game, and didn't know the most basic of things. It began to get annoying, especially when he had to tell me how to get from whitegate to jeuno, using the pay warp tarutaru. -_-

And the best part of the entire weekend, was the farming session me and Xean did. We headed to Castle Oztroja and began killing coffer mobs. After about 2hrs I suggested we go kill the NM in the G3 area where you obtain the crest. This of course led to us going to the very top of the area where we fought a few more NMs, one of which was a SMN. The SMN of course got to use his 2hr on us, which we weren't expecting because his air elemental had been slept and we didn't think he would be able to summon an actual avatar (why hello thar Leviathan!). After killing the NMs at the top, we decided to take pics feeling as if we had taken over the Yagudo domain >=]

And last thing to note, I finally visited that island where you can do clamming. I had never taken the ferry there, but one of our CoP cutscenes led us to the island and I was really impressed with the scenary and had to take a pic which Xean poked fun at me for. Yes I have an addiction with taking screenshots <_<

Anyways, this place reminds me of the town where Yuna and Waka are from, in FFX. I always loved that little area, the music was fun and relaxing.

Another item checked off my list of things to do!

Well on Friday night I finally got to do my Bomb Queen Run and get my Bomb Queen Ring for my PLD.

My sky ls had planned to do a run on Friday night, and at first when I logged in it didn't seem that we had enough members. But after confirming with my friend Anderoc, I was told that it was possible to kill the Bomb Queen NM with as few as 6 people. So with 10 people who showed up for the event, I thought we'd have it beat no problem.

Boy was I wrong. Everything was going ok at first, though progress was pretty slow. We had divided into two parties: One party would tank/kill the Bomb Queen and another party would take the spawns that popped off her and kill them. Unfortunately it was this part of the plan that didn't seem to work too well because our "spawn" pt wasn't able to kill the mobs fast enough, and they continued to do self-destruct which ultimately led to their death, which then led to everyone else's death.

I was a little frustrated at first because I had used my pop items for this, and we had wiped. But thankfully one of the ls members had an extra set and sold it to me for 20k. We then called in favors and asked a few friends to come give a hand. I was joined by Xean, Anderoc and Alianne's SMN which proved to be the solution to the mini-bombs that would spawn because all the SMNs had to do was take them outside and let them self-destruct on the avatars.

So after about a 10 minute battle, I had a new ring for my PLD. I don't plan on using it for xp parties or anything else really, because i've never found myself to need the extra HP. I might use it if I ever get called to help tank on a god, but other than that it'll just stay in my moghouse for the time being.... One more item to check off my "to do" list!

What else happened this weekend? Oh, on Saturday me and Xean did more lvling on our WHM and NIN. We finally hit lvl 70. But I have to say our first party was a bit of a let down. I had accepted an invite from Stormcrow, a RDM tarutaru who I had partied with earlier in the week and had been disappointed with the lack of "support" he did. Well I was about to find out little had changed.

When we got to our camp, I noticed that he was wearing his "witch hat" and a "macahuitl +1". I figured he'd change when we started fighting. So much for "benefit of the doubt". After a few fights, I suggested he use his RDM AF hat because it would be more helpful to the party then a bit of extra MP, and then I also asked if he had his staffs because none of his enfeebles were landing. He had said he forgot them in his moghouse, so me and Xean tried to do more enfeebling to make up for his resists. But it soon dawned on me that he was doing only a fraction of the spells he should be casting.

I'm not one to be "elitist" but I found that his performance for being a lvl 70 was ridiculous. All he would cast was Gravity and Refresh. There was no Dia, Paralyze, Slow, Poison, Silence, Haste... NADA! Oh, and did I mention that when we got links the one to actually sleep them was me? THE WHM!!!! That I found just a little sad, considering that at lvl 70 a RDM should have the mob slept before a WHM can manually go into the menu to do Elemental Seal + Sleep.

After noticing how bad things were, I tried to tell him in a polite way that he should be casting more, and explained that at his lvl, these things should be known. He gave excuses about him having a bad keyboard, and eventually sent me a /tell saying that he should stay because he was just leeching xp because of how badly he played which sounded like a self pity trip if I ever saw one. So I responded and told him that instead of awknowledging that he was doing little to help the party, that he should step it up a notch and take some of the suggestions I had made. About 5 minutes later, he forced d/c.

But that gave us the chance to invite our ls friend Terminataru as RDM. And as soon as we started xping again, I noticed the increase in our xp and the smoothness of the battle. Terminataru was silencing imps, doing all the enfeebles and it made things a lot easier for us.

After that, I ended up joining up with Alianne and Ameriana to do the BCNM40 "Royal Jellies". I went as WAR/NIN, Alianne went as BLU/NIN and Ameriana was RDM. We did 3 rounds, and the only worthwhile item that dropped was utsusemi: Ni which Alianne lotted as he needed the scroll for his NIN. I ended up getting a lvl 40 staff for my SMN so that wasn't too bad, I was just glad that out of the 2 orbs that Alianne had used he at least got something useful.

Then later that night, Josudes asked me and Xean to help him skillup his sword. We headed to The Boyahda Tree and fought some Steelshells for a bit. I think he got a few lvls on his sword, where I got maybe one point on my dagger which is now sitting at 130 <_<;;

Then on Sunday morning I did some crazy meriting. I used my Anniversary Ring and Empress band, and ended up getting a total of 70k+ within about 3-4 hrs. Our merit pt got above chain#60 and each mob was giving about 180-200xp each. I decided to apply my merits to my RDM and got myself Dia III and Bio III.

After taking a break from the game, I logged in to do ToAU15: The Black Coffin with some LS members. Myself, Xean, Carste, Alianne, Spalko and Akichu went into the BCNM and had an easy victory. We all decided that we were going to meet up the following weekend and continue with the missions if possible. Hopefully this turns out to be a static as it would be nice to get these missions completed. I wish I had the pics from some of the cutscenes to show, but unfortunately I forgot these on my home computer so maybe i'll update another time and add them.

Then because Monday was a holiday for me, I got to spend it playing FFXI. I got invited to an all JP party with a PLD, and surprisingly we were able to get up to chain#8. The xp was a little slow, and eventually Sirivalin offered me a spot in a manaburn so after talking with the party leader and finding out we were going to disband soon, I headed off and got myself another few merit points and obtained Paralyze II.

And other than that, I managed to get my SMN to lvl 17, however that was an agonizing experience. I remember Valkurm Dunes being a pain in the butt, but after spending more than 2hrs there for 3k xp WITH my empress band, I pretty much promised myself to find a way to bribe Xean into PLing me to about lvl 20. I could always go solo the xp but i'm in a bit of a hurry to get SMN to at least 37 to use for my WHM so i'm going to try and take the quicker route first. The only consequence that i'll probably have by getting PLed another couple of lvls is that my SMN magic isn't capped yet and i'll have to find some time to work on that.

Well thats it for this update!

Love that Anniversary Ring.

In the last few days, all i've been up to mostly is lvling with Xean. On Wednesday, we put a party together and invited our friend Alianne who came on his SMN. We also ended up having a friend of mine from Dynamis come on his Galka WAR, Gimli.

At first our party wasn't really pulling in too much xp because as usual, Caedarva Mire was overcamped. When we had gotten there, things had been quiet enough that there was only a little bit of competition. But within about 15 minutes, I think 2 new parties had come and began camping near us. One of the parties was a merit roaming party which took nearly every imp we tried to get our hands on, so xp for the first hour was slow.

Eventually though we had our RDM replace himself with a BRD, and soon after another RDM joined and replaced one of our DDs. I thought it was a tad overdoing it with all the refresh and would of preferred another DD, but things weren't so bad and later in the night as parties left our xp/hr got much better. We actually gained a full lvl getting to 69 that night, though that was mostly due to the new Anniversary Ring that SE released which gives an extra 3k experience points per use. Its only too bad that the ring has only 10 charges and as far as we know, it can't be recharged.

I also managed to take my clothcraft on Zerayla to 22. I'm hoping to get her clothcraft up in the next few weeks as long as it doesn't make a big dent in my pocket. I want to be able to craft Xean his ninja tools for slow without having to log into my mule Tahla which is usually how I make them... its really inconvenient having to craft on my mule when I want to be seeking for parties >_<

And then last night, I had originally thought i'd be doing a sky ls event and earning some more points, but after sending some tells to one of the leaders and not getting a response, I assumed nothing was happening so I geared up on my SMN 16 and headed to the dunes. On the way, I got an invite which was short lived because the moment I zoned into Valkurm, the other SMN in the party had to leave and when I made it to camp, the leader said he was going to head to San d'Oria and a minute later the party was gone. I really wish if people decide to be leader for a party, that they would take the responsibility and be a good one.... this leader should have done a bit more to keep the party together.

So anyways, I went to the entrance to Selbina and tried raising my summoning magic skill which unfortunately isn't capped ^^;. After about 40 minutes of seeking, Xean logged on and said he'd be up for partying so I warped back to whitegate and geared up on my WHM.

We waited about 2hrs before we finally got an invite, and it took us about 40 minutes to get everyone to the camp because we chose to go through Nyzul to get to a remote island of Caedarva Mire where there would be no competition for Imps. The xp was pretty good, but unfortunately the party didn't get past 2hrs because our RDM had to leave and as usual, at these lvls there is never a replacement seeking for the refreshing role so we had to disband.

Next update i'm probably going to post some pics of the .dats i'm going to install for my WHM gear. I want to change it up a little... but it all depends on whether I can find anything good for Elvaan Females without making my character look trashy.

Missions, missions and more missions!

Lots to post in this update...

First, I was disappointed to find out that the Bomb Queen Ring run that my sky LS had planned to do friday night ended up being cancelled. I had made sure to be home before the run started, and headed out to Ifrit's Cauldron ready to help and also to hopefully trade my items to be able to get my ring... however only about 8 people were willing to come help which wasn't enough to do the event. So once again, had to put my pop items back in storage where they will wait until I can find a run that I can join.

Despite that let down, the night got better. Everyone showed for the ZM static I had organized to help a few LS members get access to Sky. We started with ZM6 which was an antican fight in Quicksand Caves. Our group consisted of myself (PLD), Xean (MNK), Carste (BLM), Alianne (SMN), Falk (WHM) and Raiderx (SAM). Like our ZM4 battle, this was a piece of cake.

When we were done, we headed to Delfkutt's Tower for the ZM8 BCNM. I had everyone save their 2hrs, because I didn't want to have any deaths and didn't want to waste time as we had a lot to do that night. We went in and I remember the chat log going by really fast that I couldn't see when Kam'lanaut used any of his special abilities that either did dispelga, silencega, slowga or his hate resetting ability. But luckily with everyone's 2hr, we didn't really need to pay attention because once those went off the battle was over. In a way it felt like we cheated because we kinda went all out, but I wasn't complaining because we were able to continue with the missions.

Me and Xean waited in Jeuno for about an hour and a bit while the rest of the group went about to do their cutscenes. When they were done, we headed back to Quicksand Caves for the final fight against a magic pot, which definitely wasn't anything to worry about.

Finally, me and Xean took everyone to the Hall of Gods and brought them through to Ru'Aun Gardens. We all took screenshots to remember the accomplishment. I have to say that I enjoyed doing the ZM a lot more than I thought I would, and having a group that listened very well to instructions and came prepared probably contributed to that. I think we all had fun throughout the mission and i'm looking forward to being able to do these again for other LS members when they're ready.

After showing everyone around a bit (had to explain to them to stay away from certain walls because there are dolls that hide within them and will aggro on sight) we decided to go kill a few golems for fun. We were enjoying ourselves getting a little bit of xp and we even managed to get a Diorite which I believe is the item needed to pop the NM Ulli. I got to lot on it and told the others that maybe one day when our LS has enough people with Sky, we can do the occasional god for fun because I know the majority of them have no intention of getting involved with endgame because of all the drama, and because of the kind of commitment that "sky" linkshells usually require. So hopefully down the road, we'll be able to do a little bit of sky when everyone is bored just for the heck of it.

(Hall of Gods)

(TheBrotherhood ZM Static#2: Carste, Xean, myself, Falk, Alianne and Raiderx)

On Saturday, my CoP static finally got started again after weeks of being put on hold. We started with farming "Gold Keys" in Newton Movapolos. This was going fine, though the drop rate was what one could expect when Xean's in your party <_<;;

Eventually when we each had a Gold Key, we headed to La Theine for a cutscene with Tenzen to start Tenzen's path. We had to then go to Pso'Xja and go through a maze where we would have to kill a Golem each time we wanted to open a door. This was kinda fun because each one became a little stronger to kill, and after going through the door we always had possible aggro which we'd have to deal with.

After, we headed to Port San d'Oria to start Ulmia's path so that we could get all of the lvl 50 cap missions done before moving on. We grabbed a few cutscenes which I didn't quite grasp. From what I understand, Ulmia has the ability to play a song that will awaken the gods, and Prishe seems to know the last and final verse of the song. I'm still a little confused with the storyline and how the song relates to "saving Vana'diel" (or maybe the song destroys it?) but I figure i'll understand more as I progress in the storyline.

To finish up the cutscenes for this we had to head to Windurst where we met a Mithra tracker who was after Prishe. In the end, Prishe went with the mithra because she had some plot she was scheming which I didn't understand. So off we went to go after Prishe and the Mithra tracker.

This of course led us to Attowa Chasm. Everytime I hear that name, I always shudder because of this Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil mountain I had to climb in the earlier CoP missions. But luckily we didn't have to go anywhere near that, so there was nothing to worry about. On our way to the BCNM area, we had a few Antlions aggro which ended up dropping HQ Antlion Jaws I had planned on farming in order to get an Antlion Trap synthesized... which I plan to use in order to fight an NM to get my Rostrum Pumps down the road. (Thanks guys for letting me lot those!)

(Attowa Chasm)

So when we finally got to the BCNM, we went over our plan for the fight. Kiersten was going to kite 2 of the Mithras while the rest of us fought one, and once ours was killed we would grab another off Kiersten. Unfortunately this didn't go so well, and I believe in the end it was my mistake because I had thought to help Kiersten by casting Gravity on one of the Mithras that he was kiting.

Yeah, not such a good idea because the DRG mithra came after me and began killing me and eventually the pets which the mithras had, began attacking Lokelani and we ended up wiping. So we raised, and tried to fight again but this time we asked Kiersten to tank the mobs instead of kite them, while we would focus on killing one. This was a good idea except for the fact that the 3 mithras will skillchain when they are near each other, and again our party ended up wiping to them. ; ;

With little time left to be able to do any other missions because Alianne and Kiersten had to go to bed soon, we decided to use our 2hrs. Alianne used Astral Flow which knocked out the pets and really damaged the mithra and in no time the battle was over. Though we didn't get to complete all of 5.3 like we had planned, we at least were able to finish with the lvl 50 capped events which meant I could free up some more inventory space!

As for Sunday, I woke up and put my seek up on my RDM, hoping to get a merit party. Within about 40 minutes, I finally got an invite to a cannon party. Though I don't like main healing, I was really happy with this party because the DDs knew how to share the hate and keep their shadows up, which meant minimal healing. We actually did really well, getting about 30k within 2-3hrs. I'm sure we could of gotten far more had the JP party in our area not been sharing our mobs, but I couldn't complain because I managed to get my buffer xp on RDM again and get a merit point in. Of course, after this I realized I wasn't done meriting my sword like I had thought. So now I have a lot more meriting to do than I thought ; ;

When I was done with my merit pt, I got ready to help Inari with her mission 5.1 and 5.2. I geared up as PLD and went with her, Carste, Raiderx, Aserati and Shaoulin to Fei'yin where we did the BCNM lvl 50 fight. We had decided to use our 2hrs for this, which turns out was a good idea because at the end of the battle we were all in yellow HP. If only Xean had been around to come on his MNK, that fight would of been over in no time >_<

So next we headed to Castle Z to go fight the Shadowlord. I kind of wish I had been able to try soloing him on my RDM, because I had heard that a friend of mine had and was interested to know if I was fast enough with my casting to take on the challenge. But anyways, this fight too was really easy.

(Entrance to Shadowlord's Throne Room)

(Aserati, Inari, Shaoulin, myself and Carste - Mission 5.2)


After re-organizing my inventory and waiting for Xean to get home, we headed out to Windurst to help Alianne get Fenrir. We had Carste, Akichu and a friend of Aki's come for the fight. This went better than the last 2 fights I had fought where our NIN had gotten one shotted, and the only time things got ugly was when Fenrir used his 2hr because we didn't manage to get Dark Carol up in time... but with our group, that wasn't a problem because everyone knew what to do.




And last, me and Xean decided to spend the night lvling. We formed a party, and headed to Caedarva Mire but in the time it took us to get there, another party or two had shown up and it was really hard getting any claims. Eventually we decided to head to Mount Z and fight some crawlers, which was definitely a smart move because we were chaining and with our xp bands we were getting 200-35oxp per fight. The only downside, is that our RDM eventually had to leave when I was 2k tnl (and I think Xean was 7k tnl). *sigh*

After the party had ended, me and Xean decided to help our friends Kelga and Reiyn get Eviceration. We headed to Gustav Tunnel and while me and Reiyn waited for the guys to show up, I thought I should voke one of the skeletons near the ??? we had to touch for the NM, so that we could clear out the area.



Yeah, bad move again. These mobs checked Tough and with my lolpld dmg, I ended up dying. Kelga and Reiyn had tried helping but they too ended up wiping along with Xean. Xean decided to HP and grab his WHM, and came back to R3 us all. While we waited for weakness to wear, Sirivalin had logged in and asked if anyone needed help, so we invited him over. In no time, he was out and gave us a hand with his BLM and we got Reiyn her Evisceration weaponskill ^^


And last last thing! I finally got myself a pair of wings!!! I have been looking everywhere for a "wing" .dat for my elvaan character, but the only ones I can find give my entire character a red glow and the wings are so big and bulky it just doesn't look nice. While I had been in San d'Oria I had spoken to the event moogle and he gave me a gift - "Angel Wing" firecracker which ended up giving me a nice little pair of wings!

I think it looks a little strange with me in my black PLD armor, but at the same time I think it looks interesting. I'm not quite sure if it makes me a dark PLD that turned into an angel, or if it makes me an angel that turned dark o.O

In-between update~

I was going through my screenshots folder when I realized I had some really nice Dynamis pics from my windurst run this last tuesday, and thought i'd make a post so that I could show them off =P

So here are a few pics from Dynamis. In case you're wondering, my black armor is actually a .dat change that I downloaded. I didn't like the look of the adaman armor, and was able to finally find something a .dat that had been based off the Arch Angel Elvaan from Divine Might, so thats what I ended up changing it to. It would be nice if I could one day have full Valor, but as I mentioned in my post before this... i'm still 0/4 on PLD drops since SpiftasticAdventures started in November. Everytime a piece drops, I always end up losing the lot.



Then I have this shot here I took of Xean when we were lvling up in Mount Z. I have to admit that though i'm not fond of NIN tanks, having gone from lvl 42-67 with his NIN has really changed my opinion about the job. There is very minimal healing because Xean holds his hate very well and keeps his shadows up all the time. Its only if the mob does a double attack followed by a special right away that I have to toss out a cure. So while sometimes i'm just sitting in the back waiting to haste one of the melees and being bored out of my mind, at least with him tanking and a good party setup we get to see better xp/hr.


And last night instead of farming up in sky, CrimsonSky wanted to help get some of the newer members their sky access as currently they are recruiting people that do not have sky. I was fine with that, because its fun to do those missions and plus I was getting points for helping out. I'm now at "0" points, because on my first run with them I had gotten a Genbu's Sheild which meant that I technically had to use "20 points" to bid on the item but seeing as I had just joined, I had no points. Feels a little better to be out of the "negative" on my points ^^;

Anyways, here are some pics from ZM5. This was the NM fight at the stone monument in The Sanctuary of Zhi'tah. I think I preferred tanking this guy as opposed to enfeebling and nuking.

Ok so i'm an impulsive buyer.

Recently a good friend and valuable LS member, Pasquale announced that he was going to be quitting FFXI for good. He has been playing for a couple of years, and had quit and come back a few times but this time around he had said it "was for real".

Its always a little sad to see good people leave the game, but I guess everyone comes to that point eventually when the game just doesn't give them the enjoyment they're looking for and then there really is no point to playing... because after all, games are meant to be enjoyed in your free time.

Anyways, while I had been in Dynamis last tuesday night (lost yet another lot on PLD gear... the feet which now makes me 0/4 on PLD drops in 6 months *sigh*) Pasquale had sent me a /tell to say goodbye. He mentioned to me that he would be sending me his Royal Cloak (HQ of Vermillion Cloak) and that he wanted this to be sold and split amongst LS members. He also sent a gift of 900k to me which was extremely generous and in the end gave me reason to make an impulsive buy which i'll explain next. I thanked him and told him I would follow through and sell the cloak and make sure to let the LS members know it had been his gift to them. And after that, he logged out of FFXI for the last time with a /tell saying that TheBrotherhood had been the best LS he'd been apart of. He'll be missed for sure :(

So, now with Pasquale's gift and my own gil I had been saving up and farming for the last month, I now had just over 1.5mil. I had wanted to get myself a Terra's Staff to help with both tanking in Dynamis as well as my enfeebles on Gods in Sky... however the price had gone up by 200k -_-.

So instead I decided to pour it all into a Vermillion Cloak. Yup. That ugly red hooded thing that gives you refresh! I figured it would be useful when i'm main healing for a cannon/merit pt on my RDM, resting on any mage job and also eveeeeeeeeeeeentually when I get my SMN up, I could use it then too.

Of course this now meant that I was broke and would need to put more energy into farming again because Xean has a bunch of NIN gear that I'd like to get him. But it was nice to be able to just impulsively spend a big chunk of gil, because in that instant "gil didn't matter". If only that second could of lasted forever! (Thanks a ton Pasquale ^^)

On to other important things.... Me and Xean finally got lvl 67 on our NIN and WHM last night. We were invited to a party on Mount Z, and at first the dmg output and xp we were gaining was pretty bad. Our RDM was 2 lvls higher than everyone else, which was probably the main reason though. But eventually one of our DDs and the RDM had to leave, and we invited 2 replacements. Our RDM replacement was our very own LS member Terminataru, which we've been randomly getting to party with every few lvls since lvl 50, when we first met him in Quicksand Caves and invited him to TBH, and our DD replacement was another MNK closer to our lvl.

As soon as the replacements were invited and we starting partying, the xp picked up quite a bit. But it was at that point that Xean had noticed he had been without Sanction for the first 2-3hrs we had been lvling! So he went and grabbed sanction and then after about another 3k xp he finally caught up and hit lvl 67.

So now I think i'm going to try and lvl my clothcraft up which is currently sitting at lvl 7. I plan to get all my crafts to 60, but I'm going to take them slowly to make profit where I can, and make sure not to dip into my savings. Maybe i'll have a little time to get a lvl or two before sky tonight... and speaking of that, lets see how that goes.

Decisions.

As many of you know, i've been going back and forth with the idea of giving up my desire to get some equipment only obtainable in Sky. The reason wasn't because I found Sky to be boring or draining, but because I found that the only LS that I was able to fit in with due to my schedule and priorities, wasn't meeting my expectations.

Being a leader of a social/event LS, as well as a co-leader for a Dynamis LS i'm very familiar with the responsibilities. I understand how important it is to make sure that all of the LS members feel welcome, and have their concerns addressed. I know its a lot of hard work, but I kinda enjoy being able to put hard work into something because of that feeling I get afterwards knowing that I accomplished something.


Obviously playing a video game isn't the greatest thing to look back on and feel accomplished about, but for the time being its one of the options I have to spend my free time with my boyfriend and work hard for something at the same time. Later in life i'll probably commit my time to doing something a little more important like helping save the planet, the soon to be extinct wildlife and families in third world countries but for the time being, organizing and leading linkshells and have them be successful is good enough for me.

Anyways, yesterday I had come to the decision that I was done with Sky. I had accepted that I wasn't going to see the gear I really wanted to earn, and told the leader that I would be resigning. Soon after, I got a tell from another leader who then for the next 20 minutes or so, tried to convince me to stay and reassured me that any concerns I had about the LS, would be dealt with by him if I went to him with my problems. Truth was, before then I had never talked to him about the problems I was having about the LS being disorganized and not paying attention to LS members in party and linkshell chat, and so I have to admit that I didn't try everything before giving up.

After realizing that, and seeing that at least there was on leader that cared enough to sit and talk about the problems and try to reassure a member that he could make things better, I decided I would give Sky one last chance.

And so I headed up, and waited a bit until everyone had gathered so that we could do some god fights starting with Genbu. That battle went pretty easy, I was even surprised to see my paralyze land successfully seeing as the last time I don't recall any of my enfeebles having landed. I really have to find some time to merit my RDM so that I can have a better success rate on my enfeebles, because I know that the gear I have is pretty good. (Ugh, why does this game rely on stats -_-)



After we killed Genbu, we headed over to do Byakko which meant navigating through the palace. On the way through, one of our WHMs ended up getting aggro from a weapon, and so one of the RDMs in our party thought to help by sleeping it which resulted in his death. After I tractored the RDM, our WHM started to raise him but then some nearby weapons aggroed to the magic and before I could get my sleep to land or escape, all 3 of us were dead. The WHM started giving crap to the other RDM for his actions, which I thought was wrong considering the intentions were good and to see someone be ready to help out another LS member even if that would mean they might die in the process, shows that he's not just looking out for himself. Though it was a mistake to try and help the WHM instead of letting him reraise, the thought behind it should of been appreciated and valued and unfortunately wasn't.

But before I could let the elitism and unappreciative attitude of the WHM get to me, the other leader who had convinced me to stay came around the corner with a BLM and both helped us get back up. He even ended up getting aggro and used flee to get the mobs away from us so that we could get to the rest of the alliance. So while there will always be some bad people you meet, there will always be some good people.

The Byakko fight was also pretty easy, but it did take longer. I had to do more curing but then again I had no problem because my enfeebles sucked, and unless I lucked out my nukes were always resisted so my only duty was really just refreshing and healing. We ended up getting good drops on both Gods, but this time around I didn't have enough points to really bid on anything which was fine by me, because the only item I wanted that night didn't drop (Aquarian Abjuration: Hands = Koenig Hands for PLD)



When I warped back to whitegate, I found out that Chpal, Terminataru and Littledipper were in Castle Oztroja farming the coffer key for Littledipper. I headed out on my RDM/NIN to give a hand, but on the way they ended up getting the drop. So when I got there, we searched for the coffer and then decided to take Littledipper past the door that requires a password so that he could get the Yagudo Crest for his Genkai Mission #3.

At first we thought we'd pull the mobs near the crest, and then I would take the NM Yagudo High Priest and solo it while Littledipper went to get his crest. However on pull ended up linking the NM, as well as another yagudo so that kinda didn't go according to plan. We did pull through though, while I was tanking the NM Littledipper was able to trade me some shihei and then after some nuking we had him dead. Then we finished off the other 2 yagudo that had linked and Chpal had been sleeping.

It was a lot more fun than I had expected it to be, and luckily we had no deaths though i'm sure even if we had, we'd still be laughing about it. It was a nice way to finish off the night.

Gained one lvl on WHM.

This weekend I barely played at all, so there isn't a whole lot to update. Friday I didn't play at all, because I was getting a new bed installed and didn't want to commit to anything in the game and then have to go AFK for who knows how long.

Then I woke up on Saturday to help do promyvion-holla, which was going to be my last promyvion i'd be doing for a while. I had decided I needed to take a break from leading promyvion statics because I had come to a point where I wasn't really enjoying all the baggage that comes with it. So often, people would be unprepared. Sometimes people would be late, other times people just wouldn't show up because of things beyond their control. And of course, there is always the annoying part of having to mule over all my gear which is a pain in the butt because it takes a full hour out of my gaming time for saturdays... So I had talked with those who had signed up for the statics, and asked if they thought they could continue without me because for the most part I was just leading them up there, and giving them a strategy that pretty much guaranteed a win. Luckily, they were no complaints and even a few members stepped up willing to lead future runs until i'm ready to get back into these again.

But in the end, we didn't end up doing a promy that morning because 3 members were MIA. I would of replaced them if needed, but that would mean duplicating the effort because eventually we'd have to do that promyvion a second time for those that weren't there. So in the end, those that did show decided to call it off and reschedule for next week, which Myrrh volunteered to organize (thank you Myrrh!~)

After that, me and Xean put our seeks up and within about 30 minutes we got an invite. It was the complete opposite to what happened to us the weekend before, because we had our seeks up for over 4hrs before we got an invite x_x

But anyways, we headed to Bhaflau thickets to kill crawlers and birds. We did pretty good, and were probably getting a good 7k/hr but with only about 2hrs into the party, 3 of the members had to leave so it was decided that we would disband. I was a little upset because I was only 2k tnl and the party had been doing very well. I'm sure if it had gone for another 2-3hrs I could of even gained another lvl.

So we went back to whitegate, put our seeks up. It was at that point that Kagemusha, a PLD tarutaru in our LS was saying how it was a shame that Xean was a NIN, because we were all at the same lvl and it would be pointless to have 2 tanks. But we talked a bit, and decided that we'd give it a try and just have Xean bring his DD gear and Kage would be the tank.

Surprisingly, Xean did really well as a DD. Well I guess its no surprise that he did well, but it was a surprise that a NIN at that lvl could outparse a DRK with a Kraken Club and some other good weapon (can't recall if it was a sword). This party was going pretty well, aside from the time Kage got one shotted by the fire breath attack the crawlers do. But then again, I remember once being one-shotted myself when I had tanked these on my PLD and I had over 1k HP so its really just random as to how much dmg it will do because I even had barfira up at all times.


But in the end, this pt was cut short because our RDM, d/ced. I'm under the impression he forced his disconnection, but then that would be because I have a bias against this prick. Back when I was a lvl 30 WAR, I had been camping Spook to make some gil and he came out on his lvl 75 THF I think, and brought a ton load of bats he had claimed and made link. He then proceeded to step on top of me to make sure the bats would interfere with me claiming. Everytime i'd move, he'd move right on top of me. I even remember trying to be nice and asking him to please remove himself, but of course being the ass that he was, he ignored me. I'm glad I didn't have to party any longer with that arrogant prick Ojsimp, but at the same time he was the reason we had to disband 30 minutes later because we couldn't find a refresher. ; ;


Finally when we were back in whitegate, I got an invite from a JP player. I had him invite Xean and soon we found ourselves in a pt with 3 THFs. I was a little hesitant, but when they confirmed we'd be fighting colibri which THFs can do piercing dmg to I figured i'd give it a go. And then we were joined by Kagemusha which I think made Xean a little happy because it would mean he didn't have to spend as many of his tools an he would be able to use his DD gear. The party was a little slower than our first, but we still did pretty good and me and Xean got our lvls. We're now NIN and WHM 66. Only 9 more lvls to go!

And other than that, we tried to do the KSNM30 Double Dragonian for Kelyon so he could get his destroyers. Our setup looked to be fine, but the WAR dragon ended up wiping our pt when we got him down to about 30%. Luckily though, we were all out of aggro range and Myrrh was able to raise all of us to try again... but that didn't go so well and again when we got him down to about the same %, he wiped us all. I blame the second part though on the fact that my Sleep II was resisted. I had used ES + Sleep II the first time which worked, but when the second DRG awoke, and I didn't have ES available and had to shoot out a regular Sleep II which only lasted about 10 seconds before he ate Myrrh and then me.


I think maybe if we had a BLM to help nuke, stun and also cover the second ES + Sleep II we would of won but our setup had been WHM, RDM, NIN, MNK, MNK, SAM. Because we had wiped, we just decided that maybe it would be best to try again later with a better setup.

Oh, and my tree saplings that I had planted finally were harvested.... but I was 0/10 with ice ores -_-

It wasn't that bad of a loss though, I had about 6 stacks of platinum leaves which sell for 20k each so I made a nice little profit considering I had farmed my tree cuttings and grew them into tree saplings. So while it is a little bit of profit, it just takes forever to see any. I still have 10 saplings on one of my other mules which should be able to be harvested this week. I hope I manage to get a few fire ores out of that batch, because the gear that Xean's been looking at for his NIN is gonna make us both broke very soon >_>;;

Sky Woes.

Well Monday wasn't the greatest night in Sky, I ended up losing about 4k total. When I got to Ru'Ann Gardens, I waited on my invite and said hello to my party members and also congratulated one on her lvls she'd gained since the last time I had seen her.... but I was given no response at all, even though I knew she was not AFK because she had invited me to the party a second before I congratulated her.

Also in LS, I had asked where we were suppose to meet up, and got no response. I haven't exactly been feeling welcome at all with this group, and everytime I go up hoping that people will be a little talkative, or that the atmosphere will be friendly i'm always disappointed.

But anyways, eventually someone else had asked where we were going to camp, which was to camp "Zip" so I met up with the others. I was actually quite proud of myself, I had completely remembered the way and didn't get lost!! Now its just a matter of memorizing where the other camps are <_<;;

So anyways, we were farming for a while when someone in the LS said that the Shikigami Weapon NM was up, that drops the YinYang Robe. So we rushed out to Ro'Maeve and waited about 10 minutes for the window to open, when finally it spawned. But the trick with this NM is you have to magic aggro it because otherwise its invisible (you can find it on widescan). Luckily we managed to get it and get claim before some others in the zone could and the item dropped which went to one of our LS members.

Then we headed back to Zip camp, but while we were on the way he spawned and another LS had gotten him so the leaders were rushing us to hurry. When we got there, the other party had wiped, and we took claim but the problem was that we didn't have a full party there yet, and so of course they wiped. When I got there, I was confused to what was happening seeing dead bodies everywhere, and so I started enfeebling and healing where I could but with only 3 of us left alive, we died soon after. Death #1.

As soon as I was given a R1, I was asked to chainspell and raise others so I did so, but Zip came back before I had time to buff myself and killed myself and the other mages raising. Death #2.

Again, I had to accept another R1. The only reason I was a little angry was because when Zip did manage to die, the mages would of had enough MP to give out R2 or R3 (I think WHMs forget that they have R2 because I never see them cast this when there are wipes) but instead they didn't, and so I was down to about 9k into my lvl. I really don't want to get more xp on my RDM because I want to focus on getting some more merits into my spells first.

So next we headed to Faust, but on the way a few of us fell behind. I was with a friend Xochi and a BLM, and when we used a teleporter and zoned to the new area the monsters didn't load fast enough for me and I went to go cast Sneak which led to my death. Unfortunately the rest of the alliance was determined to get to the NM before another LS could, so I had to wait for a Raise.

During their battle, I had mentioned in LS that myself and Xochi would need a Raise when they were done. As I figured they wouldn't get my msg while fighting, I waited until after they were done to ask again, to which I had no response. I then asked a second time, if they would be able to raise us because at this point we had about 18 minutes left on our timers.... still no response. Finally I addressed the leader of the LS directly, and asked him if he would pay attention which just got me a "?". I was frustrated at this point, because of the previous deaths and the lack of paying attention so I asked my question AGAIN and got no response... People continued chatting as if I didn't exist. Finally I said something along the lines of "Are you just going to continue ignoring me?" and then I got a spiel about how they had been busy and didn't see our chat, which I countered by saying that I had waited until the fight was over so there was no excuse to not see my numerous requests for a raise in between their discussion on what to camp next.

Finally a WHM and PLD came to raise me and Xochi, but just as I had gotten raised we got aggro and down I went again. Death #4. At this point I was ready to give up, because in my opinion a member should never feel ignored like I had been that night, and it should of been a priority to get any dead members raised but myself and Xochi were completely forgotten and ignored. But soon after, I got a /tell from the leader and he apologized and so I reconsidered and decided to help them continue camping Despot which unfortunately another LS ended up getting. At this point i'm not really impressed with the organization or leadership, but i'm hoping that after having expressed my concerns to the leader things will be different tonight when I go up. We'll see.

The next night me and Xean decided to go to Temple of Uggalepih to farm tonberry lanterns which I found out I could desynth into Glass Fiber, which I would use to make Invisible powders for profit. I think in 3hrs, we only got one lantern which Xean tried desynthin with his Alchemy 59ish.... and of course you can always count on his luck, because it failed and he lost the lantern!

So we continued farming, and eventually found the Guardian that opens the door to the room where you can use a paintbrush. We were killing him, but when he got low on health he used some explosive self-destructive move which resulted in Xean's death.... <_<


When we finished up, I headed to Dynamis which was one of the more enjoyable runs i'd had in a long time. We were really low on members because some endgame LSs have decided to add Dynamis to their events, and have been giving their members ultimadums telling them they would have to do "their" dynamis or be kicked. So our roster had decreased to about 21 members that night, but with the teamwork we put in, we managed to get the win and had about an hour of farming time. We got 3 WAR Feet, 2 BRD Hats, 2 NIN legs and 100c which was a really good drop rate compared to what we've had before.

And last night I decided to get some experience on my SMN now that I have everything I need and all the avatars. I headed out to La Theine with my seek up as a lvl 14 SMN, and began soloing rabbits and saplings for 20-40xp each. I managed to get half way into my lvl before getting an invite from a LS member Elden who wanted to party on his BLU. We headed to Valkurm Dunes to party at the Oasis which seemed like a good place, but our setup unfortunately wasn't so great. We had a THF14 (no sneak attack), a WAR with polearm (GreatAxe where? ; ;), a Galka RDM with about 66mp, a PLD, a BLU and myself. Our damage was pretty poor, and we were barely getting any xp so eventually we decided to head to the outpost to fight some gobs.

Things were going ok at first, but one bomb toss can ruin everything, which is what happened to our party. Elden and the other WAR ended up dying, and we waited for about 15 minutes shouting for a raise. Nothing.



Finally Elden HPed and had to come from Whitegate, which took about 30 minutes. Then a few of our party members said they had to leave in about 30 minutes, so we barely had any time to fight anything by the time we were ready again. I think I only managed to get 1.5k within 2hrs, which left me halfway into lvl 15. So when the party disbanded, I just headed back to La Theine and soloed the rest of my xp and hit lvl 16. Only 64 more lvls to go now <_<;;