Cure? What is that?

I never thought it would happen to me, but it finally has. I've been burnt out of playing the role of healer, specifically on my WHM. For the past few months, all my event linkshells have needed me to come as WHM. I've rarely had the chance to play on my PLD or my RDM, which is really unfortunate considering that i've managed to merit out my RDM by a lot.

I remember when I first started the game, and me and Xean were just creating TheBrotherhood our social LS, I would go out to West Ronfaure and look for new players and PL them a little and help them out. I'd invite them into our LS, and from there help teach them the ropes of the game. Sadly though, as time went by it became very rare to actually find "new" players. Most of the lvl 1-10 players in West Ronfaure were often mules or just veteran players lvling a new job. There wasn't really much help I could provide other than PLing, and so I eventually stopped looking for new recruits to our shell this way.

But the point of this story is that I reaaaaaally liked having my WHM at lvl 30 at that time. I liked healing, and keeping people alive and helping them that way. I sometimes would go out and help PL linkshell members if they had a bad party setup and needed a little backup healing. I honestly WANTED to get my WHM to 75, so that I would be more helpful to my LS members.

But ever since I started joining endgame and having people always request my WHM, i've found that i've started cringing whenever I hear "Pls bring WHM". I really don't like sitting in the back and just tossing out hastes and cures. I don't mind when we fight gods and other mobs that require me to be quick with other spells (erase, bar spells etc) but for the most part, I would much rather be in on the action, doing something TO the mob rather than just keeping my pt members alive. Plus I really miss the battle music, in a lot of the zones where I end up, there's never any music... stupid SE -_-

So yeah, i'm really hoping that once I finish with my 2 DD jobs: SAM & WAR, that maybe my event shells will allow me to bring something other than WHM. The only downside to all this is that I can't rely on my RR3, and often endgame events get expensive for melees because of the meds you have to bring >_<. Oh well, if I can at least take a small break i'll be happy.

So speaking of my DD jobs, i've managed to get WAR to 72. I was hoping that i'd have it at 75 before I fly down to spend christmas with Xean (next thursday) but because of the US holiday this week (thanksgiving) most of my static is going to be away and busy so we won't be lvling this thursday or saturday. And then next thursday, well i'm flying out. But hopefully i'll have it at 75 in the two weeks that follow, our static generally gets one lvl per session.

And for my SAM, well thats been a bit of a challenge to get invites on. I'm adequately geared, but I just never seem to be seeking when others around my lvl range are. And considering that most people just merit these days, usually there's maybe only 1-2 parties lvling anyways so waiting to be invited as a replacement isn't the most reliable way to get a party invite. Oh well, my SAM is almost at 64 and i'm sure i'll get it to 75 eventually. I definitely have found SAM to be more enjoyable to play than my WAR, mainly because there's more to do on the job. I like keeping busy.

As for regular updates, I finished getting 8/8 on my enfeebling for my RDM. I was going to get 8/8 for elemental magic, but because of how long it takes I decided to put that on the backburner for a while and work on my WHM merits. Started working on my Cure Recast time, and now i'm down to the last upgrade for that.

Unfortunately my crafting has kinda been slow. I started to pick up clothcraft a few weeks back, but because of the cost of gear upgrades me and Xean have needed (got him his Blau Dolch recently with the gil we had been saving up for the last couple of months on my mule) I've decided i'd wait for a bit. I really do want to get all my crafts to 60 one day, but I know the cost to put into that will add up. Usually i'm pretty good with cutting down the cost by a lot though, because I try to farm up my ingredients when i'm crafting. I really can't put more than 50k into crafting without seeing it come back. And though i'm sure I could make some gil crafting lower lvl items, I often find that farming will get me more gil per hr than crafting would. There's a lot of time you have to put into crafting for gil >_<

Other than that, I decided to quit my Sea linkshell Prowess. There were some good players in the LS, and I was mainly there to help my friend get some gear but the shell itself has been deteriorating. 2 of our last JoL's were completely wasted because we had two people call for help during the fights. I was never able to stay until the end because I have limbus (and for some reason people take over an hour to gather together even though the start time is always listed in the ls msg -_-) I think that the moral of the LS really dropped, because our last session we didn't even have 12 people show up. I really can't see the LS continueing, its only a matter of time before it breaks with so many people leaving and I think I would rather be doing something else more productive and enjoyable. I told my friend of course that if they ever need me for something really big, that he can always call on me and i'll help out. But I just don't want to put in the time for an event that i'm not having fun with. Sea seems more like a headache to progress in, than any other endgame event i've tried. Maybe it was just the LS, the people in the LS... i'm not sure but for now Sea won't be one of my focuses.
On a good note though, I got to play PLD on Kirin with KeitaroAeon. They were a little short on PLDs and asked me to come up and tank, which was fun... except that Suzaku seems to really enjoy one shotting me. Whether i'm fighting him as a mini, or as a god I always seem to get killed by the stupid bird (and no, i'm not wearing Bomb Queen Ring). But its all good, as long as we get through the fight in the end I'm not too worried about my deaths. Plus when I was kiting Kirin on our last run, I think I had the longest "kite" time and stayed alive, hehe. I think that time Xean had come as WHM (lol) and thats probably the reason why. He's always on top of things and keeping me healed.


Last thing I can think to write about is that i've decided to get my SMN to lvl 40. A lot of our LS members in TBH are wanting to setup CoP statics, and i'd really like to help out when I can. I know that for some fights, SMN is a great job to have for the BCNMs so I managed to get together some LS members and we lvled in Crawler's Nest. I got my SMN to 38, so only 2 more lvls to go and then it'll be ready.

Busy, busy, busy.

For the last two weeks, i've been doing a lot in the game. So much that I haven't really allowed myself to do a lot else, like updating this blog. <_<

Well to start, TheBrotherhood finally got our last SMN Alianne his Ying Yang Robe. Alianne had gotten the ToD, and for once the spawn time for Shikigami happened to be at a decent time. (His window always seemed to open in the early AM for me and Xean -_-) So on a Saturday morning, our LS gathered out in Ro'Maeve and we camped the NM against a few other groups. Xean ended up getting the claim after Shaolina had spotted the NM on his widescan, and from there we all gathered to help him bring it down. And lucky for Alianne, because the YYR dropped on the first go.


Right after we killed Shiki, Zeo asked for some help on the weaponskill NM for GreatAxe, so those of us who were free went out into The Sanctuary of Zhi'tah and took down the tree. Was a very easy fight, not much of a challenge ; ;


For the rest of the week, me and Xean did a lot of various lvling on different jobs. He wanted to bring his DRK to 37 to use as a subjob on his NIN for sky events, so I helped PL him to 28. As usual, he sported his shiny subligar =P


After he hit lvl 28, I joined up with him on my THF and we took both jobs to 37 within a matter of 3 days. We had quite a bit of luck with our parties after Kazham, always seeming to gain a lvl at least within an hour if not less. And because of this, it freed up a lot of time for us to be able to merit.

Some merit pts we did with our LS members, and others were pickup parties. Though I managed to finally get Protect/Shell V for my WHM as well as devotion, getting those merits seemed tedious at times, especially the last merit pt that we had. We had a BRD who didn't want to pull, which was fine because our THF volunteered to do the job. But it only got worse from there.... our BRD wouldn't finale the mamools we were fighting, wouldn't really help with erasing, wouldn't sleep links (until the party was nearly wiped), wouldn't keep songs up (i'd say I had ballad maybe 60% of the time) and the list goes on. Sometimes I wonder how people manage to get to 75 and not be at least "decent" at what they're suppose to do -_-

And we have also pretty much started a LS static with our WAR and THF. Timwakefield is our PLD, Alianne is our BRD and depending on when available, we have Tiaybara as another THF, Shaoulin as RNG and Falk as WHM. These parties aren't always "super xp" but the atmosphere is pretty relaxing. Whenever there's a death, there's never any yelling or insults being shot back and forth, and its just nice to be able to party with other players that do their job well, and are also geared accordingly. So far we've maned to get our jobs to lvl 69, so hopefully before the end of November we'll be at 75.


I also managed to finally participate in a beseiged for the first time in months. I never seem to catch these, and though i'm not a fan of the event, I do like getting skillups, xp and some imperial standing. I actually enjoyed this last beseiged, mainly because all my enfeebles were landing.... well, that is until I met up with this guy:


At first I thought I might of accidentally changed one of my .dats but after checking, I found out that this guy is one of the NMs. I wasn't able to do a whole lot to him, though every once in a while one of my enfeebles stuck.

As for the endgame activities, I recently joined my friend's sea LS Prowess. I really don't find myself eager to get any of the gear I "could" earn, nor do I find sea all that appealing as far as the farming goes. I know its pretty much the same as Sky, but I just don't really find myself enjoying it a lot. For now i'll stick around and help when I can (lately i've had to leave early for limbus, and on the other farming day I have to do errands in RL) and hope that at least my friend can get a little closer to getting some of the gear he wants. I think i'm mostly attending for that reason, because I just don't feel as interested as I thought I would in earning anything.

Sky has been going really good. I managed to get my Rostrum pumps (thanks KA!!!) and the only item I now need for my PLD/RDM/WHM would be the W.Abjuration legs. Eventually i'll be working towards getting my SAM and WAR some gear, but being that I can't equip anything yet because they aren't even lvl 70+, i'm going to wait.

Then there's Limbus which has seemed to be really good to me lately. Together me and Xean saved up 75 coins to get him his brutal earring, and now he's going to help me get coins to upgrade my PLD feet, and also my loquacious earring. I also have the items to upgrade a RDM and SA AF, but these aren't yet priorities compared to the others ^^;

Last thing that is worth noting.... well actually one of the two last things.... Xean got his sirocco from Kreutzet. We had camped the NM late one night with some LS members, but he never popped. Then Xean got the ToD the next morning, and so the following night we had a bunch of LS members come help him kill the bird, and he went 1/1. Seems his luck has changed, because Carste went 1/6 on that stupid bird ; ;

And so onto the last thing.... me and a few other LS members killed Bune! This is a wyvern NM in Gustav Tunnel, I believe around lvl 80ish. Timwakefield and Carste were with us (we were there to do the another WS NM for Carste) and the first time we ended up wiping because we didn't exactly buff before the fight, but after raising we managed to kill him. Unfortunately no drop.