Chains of Promathia: Complete!

After more than 2 years of playing, I have finally been able to mark one other "to do" off my list. I've finally been able to complete the Chains of Promathia missions! For a lot of people, completing CoP isn't the biggest accomplishment in this game, especially considering that the expansion is a couple of years old if I remember correctly... but for some, like myself... being able to find a group of people that are able to commit themselves to doing the missions with you is a huge obstacle of its own.

I remember when I first started the missions, the Promyvions I was able to get a group of random people needing them. Some of the names that I remember from the original static we had were Dowzer and Tonicfly. It was so long ago that really the only thing I do remember is that on our first promyvion, our party had gotten aggro on the last floor and we didn't have reraise at the time, so we had to HP and start all over again. Dowzer had already completed these, but had offered to help us and had been really nice about waiting. And with everyone's help, me and Xean went 1/1 on all the promyvions.

For a while, we didn't go any further with our missions but instead created a weekly LS CoP Promyvion static, where we would have our LS members sign up and we would create a party to get them their promyvions done. We did these for several months, maybe 5... but eventually me and Xean had to take a break because with all the muling for the gear, and sometimes having to find last minute replacements because some people didn't show up, became too much of a headache. I'm sure now that i'm done with the missions and have had a really long break I might set this up again, but so far our members all seem to be beyond the promyvions >_<

Anyways, a while later one of our LS leaders Sirivalin had decided to make a static within our LS to obtain Sea access. Unfortunately me and Xean didn't sign up in time, so there weren't any open positions for us. However, a while later two of their static members (Suko and Susuki) had decided to take a break from the game (wish they'd come back, miss those two tarus ; ;) which gave me and Xean the opportunity to join in. So Sirivalin, Alianne, Kiersten, and Evanai (Lokelani) helped me and Xean catch up in the missions and for a good couple of months, we would meet up every saturday and progress in CoP.


Along the way there were a few breaks, which everyone was really good about. We all were understanding that RL priorities come first, and so we took a relaxed and slow approach with the missions completing them whenever all 6 of us could meet up.

Soon though, our great static was about to become like most CoP statics... broken. Sirivalin and Evanai had been a couple for about a year (maybe more) and due to some differences, that changed right after we had finished mission 8.0 and received our Sea Access. Because of their breakup, Sirivalin didn't feel the desire to play the game anymore and decided to quit FFXI to pursue other things and also take care of some other things in RL.

When this happened, the 5 of us decided we would continue and that we'd get a friend of ours Anderoc to help with the remainder of the missions. But things never seemed to fall into place, there was some drama that took place in the LS and things just fell apart... one of our members left the LS, and another continued on their own with the missions. It was only Alianne, Xean and myself left and finding 3 people to help with the missions was just too much of a hassle at the time.

So finally, 2 weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine Gimli who had previously offered to help out with CoP missions (he was only 2 missions ahead of us). I then posted on QCDN hoping to get some more people, and had Evanai request to join up again. So all I needed to do was ask Anderoc, and then everything was a go again. Our plan was to work for 2 consecutive Saturday evenings on the last of the missions, and finally complete CoP.

For once, things didn't go as planned but instead of going badly, they went great. We managed to go from 8.1 - End all in one night. We all met up, and started killing the Aerns on mission 8.2 which I managed to actually prolong because I had forgotten to get one of the cutscenes after killing the NMs, which meant we had to backtrack and fight again >_<

Lucky for me, no one was upset and we killed them easily anyways. We then progressed with 8.2 which we also lucked out on, because there was an alliance of about 10 people also doing the mission where we would have to navigate the Palace of HuXzoi and lead an NPC through. Then we would have to climb these towers inside that corresponded to the races within our group in order to get a key item for the upcoming BCNM. Because we had joined up with the alliance, we were able to get this done pretty fast and efficiently killing mostly everything that aggroed or was in our path. I can't imagine how difficult it would have been to do this mission with only 6 people, but I know it would of taken FOREVER.

Finally when we were ready to do the BCNM for 8.3, I took a chance and asked the other group if we could borrow their BLM because according to all the information online, the fight required an Elemental Seal + Sleepga 2 because we would be fightin 4 Magic pots (BLM and RDM types). Bran, their BLM was more than happy to help us out but we had to wait for their group to go first (And Anderoc offered to sit out for the fight because he had already completed the missions). Their first attempt was a failure, and before they could give it a second try another party out of no where ran up and entered without even trying to make some kind of order of which party could enter first, based on who had been there longer. So after that party failed, we let their group try a second time which again they didn't win. So their group said that we could have a chance to try, but again before we had a chance to enter the BCNM the 3rd group that had already "budged" the first time did it again leaving us to wait outside until they were done. I think we waited about 1.45 hrs before we were finally able to enter the BCNM -_-

So when we zoned in, we did our usual buffs and had everyone take out the two BLM pots first before we would intentionally wipe. After we reraised, we took out the last two RDM pots and got ourselves our win! Considering that the other two parties hadn't been able to win the BCNM with their setup, we were really relieved at getting the 1/1 win. So we decided to stay up for the rest of the night and complete the last BCNM.

The last fight, was a lot of fun. We had a friend Cix come and help out, who gave us some helpful information about the fight seeing as he had already finished CoP. Before we entered though... I HAD to take some pictures! Xean really thinks i'm crazy with my photo taking obsession..... but.... I can't help it! I like looking back on these and remembering things like this.

I also managed to take a few cutscene shots as we entered the BCNM where we would have to fight Promathia in two forms. The first one was relatively easy, took a bit of figuring out for me personally though because at first glance the BCNM looks smaller than it really is. We had Gimli kite Promathia as the rest of us helped take him down while keeping Sel'theus and Prishe alive, who also helped us during the fight. The second form seemed to be even easier, because I remember only getting in two nukes and on my third go, everything froze and I sat there going through the chat log afraid that we had somehow wiped when really we had won, lol. Poor Cix though, he had died at the last second right as Promathia did, so he never got his 2000 xp bonus >_<


After the fight we gave our congrats to everyone and said good night, for me and Xean it was 2am, but for most of the others it was 4am int he morning x_x

And the next day me and Xean went to complete the MANY cutscenes which more or less just told you what happened to all the characters involved in the story. Then there was a final cutscene which I really enjoyed, that you get in Lufaise Meadows. There's a song with vocals playing, and during the entire cutscene you can't see any LS chat at all, so I guess its equivalent to an FMV. There were some nice scenes which I of course took pics of ^^


So finally I went and got myself a Rajas Ring. The day before I had been 100% sure I was going to get the Tamas ring for my RDM and WHM, but after doing some more thinking I figured that the Tamas Ring could be replaced by macroing in other rings, where as the Rajas couldn't. There wasn't really anything similar to the Rajas ring and seeing as my WAR and SAM are nearing 75, I figured it would better for me to pick up the Rajas instead. And so far, i'm loving it!

Well that's pretty much it for this update. The whole experience had some fun moments, and some annoying moments... I remember our Airship fight was the longest, we had used our 2hrs and because we went 1/3, that mission alone took an entire day because we had to wait for our 2hrs to be available. I'm really glad to finally have this done, but the only thing I dislike is that because the missions were so drawn out, and never happened consecutively I really have zero clue as to what the storyline was about. I know bits and pieces but I really don't understand it. Guess i'm going to have to go online and see if anyone has written down the story -_-

And decided to leave you with a few scenic pics I took which I really like. If I have time, I might do something with the full size versions in photoshop.

The Way of the Samurai

Well I finally finished questing all my SAM AF, so I guess now the only thing left is to get the job to 75. Questing the AF was probably the most annoying thing i've experienced in this game so far.... well actually, there's probably worse but still. Getting my AF3 done was the longest out of all the quests. When I completed my AF2 mission, I had to wait a full day (until JP midnight) in order to flag the AF3 mission. Then, when I flagged that mission I had to do a lot of running around... to and from Norg. Finally when I was ready to do the actual fight, I managed to luck out and have a few LS members give me a hand. I usually plan things like this ahead of time, because I hate asking "at the spur of the moment" but my friend Anderoc also needed to redo the quest (I think he had upgraded his AF and wanted to be able to store the NQ set) so I asked in LS half expecting everyone to be busy... but I lucked out and had Arimis, Sabene, Alianne and Clarisse come help.

But that wasn't the end.... nope, after I was finished with the fight, I had to go back to Norg, trade an item (SE loves finding ways to get us to spend our gil in game -_-) and then wait ANOTHER 24 hrs before I would get my AF. Ugh.

Well once I was done getting all my AF, I set out on my little mission to lvl as much as possible. Only that didn't really happen the way I had hoped. I had a lot of commitments in the evenings that prevented me from being able to seek during the peak NA hours.... and a lot of the time I would have to do some errands in RL so with what time I did have left to seek for party, I usually just spent it with my flag up, sitting in my moghouse.

Some parties were great, while others were just horrendous. I remember one party I had, the leader didn't even know what mobs we were suppose to be fighting and kept insisting that we fight crawlers in Aydeewa which were at least 3 lvls above our own. I would tell the leader this, but he didn't listen and it took 2 fights (both taking 7 minutes each) before the party and leader agreed that perhaps the mobs were too high for us -_-

But I did finally manage to get lvl 60 yesterday which I was really happy about. As soon as I hit lvl 59 the day before, I noticed that my dmg was MUCH better than it had been before. My weaponskills could go as high as 700-800, and on average did about 300. My hits alone were better than before, making me quite happy to be DD for once. I reaaaaally can't wait until I have both SAM and WAR at 75, i'd much rather play on these jobs for events than WHM. I never get to go as RDM (which is a pity considering thats where all my merits are) and so maybe if I have a DD available I can start playing that instead.

As for what else i've been up to recently, I decided to help out some LS members get sky again. We've set up a static, and managed to get ZM4 and ZM5 completed in one night. The fights were very easy, and as usual we had some good laughs. I much prefer doing missions and quests with my ls members than with pick up groups, you don't have to worry about people getting lost, getting aggro and then dying. It does happen from time to time, but very rarely. We'll be completing the rest of the missions until they get sky this coming Sunday, which i'm looking forward to. Being apart of this is always fun, because this is one of the "steps" you have to take in the game to progress into endgame and I just really enjoy being there to help along the way.


I also helped out Alianne with his BLU spells recently. He needed a bunch from high lvl mobs in ToAU areas, so we had to get together some other LS members. Carste, Arimis, Sabene and Shaoulin came along to help. For the most part, the spells were learnt pretty quick but we did have a couple that took more work. Some of the mobs required that you damage their weapon/tusk which could ONLY be done by hitting them with a critical hit. Only after that had been done, would the mob use their tp spell that Alianne needed to learn. Why does SE make things so annoying? -_-


As for my endgame activities, i've been doing pretty well recently. My limbus shell has won every zone we've done so far, and within 2 consecutive runs I picked up both PLD AF+1 items, so I went ahead and trading those in the other night so that I can obtain Gallant Surcoat +1. The downside is that i'm only left with 20 Ancient Beastcoins now, so I have to do a lot more in order to get my Loquacious Earring ; ; Oh well, i'll get it eventually, lol.

And last week in Sky I was asked to come as PLD. I got to tank a couple of gods, and NMs which was pretty fun. I've been a bit hesitant to come as PLD because I don't carry any HP gear (I really don't believe in HP gear unless its for Spirits Within) and I haven't actually been able to obtain any of the Koenig or other sky gear for PLD yet, so I never felt "equipped enough". But after tanking Genbu (which I ended up getting KO'ed at) I did manage to get the M. Hands abjuration so that wasn't too bad. Guess I had to make a sacrifice in order to get something from the big ugly turtle, lol.


And I think the funnest NM to tank was Suzaku. He did end up one shotting me and the other PLD, so we had a THF kite him around a bit and right as my unweakened status wore, I was able to get hate back on the bird and we finished him off. We didn't get many gear drops from him, but I believe we did get 3 gil items! All in all, it was a fun night and now all I can hope for is that I might get asked to come as PLD more often, because I am sooooooooo sick of WHM >_<
Oh yeah, and as for Dynamis RidersOfRohan is doing exceptionally well. We've recruited more BLMs and they are definitely the ammo of our LS, lol. I'm glad that we have committed people in the LS now, because we're doing great during our runs and now its only a matter of time before we get our Windurst win and look at heading to Northlands. I'm just glad my "ugh Dynamis" phase is over and that i'm enjoying the event again. Our last run had a few laughs, we had pulled the NM and because we hadn't done San d'Oria in a long time, some of the melee forgot that they weren't suppose to engage the NM and so many of us were charmed. As you can see below, there's the group of us chasing each other. I was the only one who got slept in time, lol. I think we had 5 AF drop from this last run and one Montiont Silverpiece which I won the lot on (lol there's a first for everything).


And last, I figured i'd post a couple of pics that I took during a Beseiged event. I had just zoned in to the city from an xp party that disbanded, when I saw these little frogs hopping around. So of course, out went my Soboro and off I went to slaughter them all. Of course I barely hit them because of my lvl, but it was still fun. I was just lucky I didn't get turned into a frog, I'm pretty sure a few other people did.


Oops, almost forgot... my sky LS did a KS99 run 2 weeks ago. We did the Wyrm KSNM99, which was really fun.... except for the massive deaths.... <_<


Apparently you need a couple of BLMs, and well, apparently we didn't have enough ; ;. We managed to get the wyrm down to 15% but while he was in flight, he had decimated most of our alliance on both attempts that we did. Our second attempt was better, we managed to get him to land after being in flight but I guess people stopped "trying" thinking that the battle had been won at that point, and that cost us the win because he managed to wipe us all again. It was definitely a good practice, but a loss for the two people who had used orbs ; ;