Anyways, as the title of this entry says... those who are patient, usually get rewarded. Well after about a year and half of doing Dynamis with my group RidersOfRohan, I finally managed to obtain 5/5 on my PLD Valor set! One of our DRGs, Ecator, also got his Xarcabard AF making him 5/5 as well. We got a few other pieces in Xarcabard and hopefully once we get the last of our newest members their wins, we can really focus on Northlands and start completing everyone's AF sets.
I've also been playing around with some more .dats recently. I downloaded a bunch and slowly started to replace a few. I really liked this version of the white tiger.
On top of getting my PLD AF finished, I also was able to wrap up Apocolypse Nigh with some friends from a social shell called KeitaroPrime who I know through the sky LS we're in called KeitaroAeon. We went 1/1 on our win, and I was able to get myself an Ethereal Earring which I can now add to my PLD setup.
Here's a few pics of the cutscenes before the actual fight...
So now the only missions I need to work on would be Wings of Goddess. I haven't really done a lot with this expansion, but then again there hasn't been a whole lot added. I've tried out campaign a bit, and while its a good way to get xp when you're seeking at higher lvls, I still can't get myself hooked to doing campaign all day. I was able to get Xean into it for a couple of nights, but the fact that you have to continue doing campaign in order to keep your "rank" is annoying. I think that once you obtain a certain rank, you should be able to keep it... but I guess this is another one of SE's ways of making sure the players continue playing so that they can continue making money -_-
One good thing about the expansion though, was a new NM added in the East Ronfaure [S] area called Skogs Fru. He drops a ring that right now is worth about 300k, which me and Xean tried farming for a couple of days. Unfortunately though we went 0/2, and the fact that there are quite a lot of campers discouraged us from sticking around. It really bites when you wait around for 1-2hrs for the NM to spawn, and then lose claim ><
While I haven't really been playing much for my own character progression this month, I have logged in for LS events and as usual, those have been a success. We did a Soboro Sukehiro run just last week, and went with 8 people which was less people than the last run I did, and we had far less deaths. We did have to sleep the NM usually at about 20% health in order to regain MP, but we never had a wipe and in the end I think we went 2/6 on the great katana. I think the highlight of that day was when Ferque was one shotted and after the battle Timwakefield decided to dance on his body.
Also managed to get 2 of our members their rank 10 for San d'Oria. This week me and Xean have been helping out Alianne and Sabene with their missions, and wrapped them up just today. The fights were all generally easy, and I don't remember having any deaths. I even got to bring out my SAM for most of the missions which was nice, because I always end up having to bring my RDM or WHM to most events ><
Ooooh, and look at this pic. This was from the mission 6.1 where you fight a Cactuar NM in Altepa. I can't remember exactly what move was pulled off to get this effect, but I liked that I timed it well to get this:
Me and Xean also helped Sabene get the avatar Fenrir earlier this month. A few LS members were wanting some of the rewards from the fight, and Sabene wanted to finish getting her avatars in order to start lvling her SMN job. We went 1/3 on the fight, which I think is mainly because we weren't dealing enough dmg at the start of the fight. In the end though, I suggested having our DDs dish out a little more and 2hr at the start, which got us the win.
As for sky stuff, I've been taking a break in the last couple of weeks so I haven't really been able to put a lot of focus in that area (been busy in RL going out with Xean while he's visiting). I'm working on earning enough pts to get a Kirin's Osode next, but at the moment there is quite a few people in the LS with more pts who are also after the item so it'll be a while before I get to try this out on my SAM. It also doesn't help that when we do actually fight Kirin, he's been dropping crap. I think recently we've just gotten gil drops and Kirin's Pole ><
The good thing is that we pretty much can guarantee a Kirin kill once a week, provided enough people show. For the last couple of months, we've been having a tp cannon setup when killing Kirin where everyone pretty much zerg him and use their 2hrs. As great as this is, I miss the old fashioned Kirin kill because it seems too easy and unsatisfying when Kirin dies in under 2 minutes. I actually like bringing my WHM and having to be on top of erasing our PLDs and curing them, or the odd occasion when I get to bring my PLD and kite him. Oh well, whatever makes things easier I guess.
As for Limbus, me and Xean finally saved up enough coins to get me a Brutal Earring. I really like that we both put our coins together and work towards getting one of us an item at a time. Next item we're saving up for will be the BRD earring (can't remember the name) because Xean plans to get his BRD to 75 after his vacation here. So right now we've got about another 50ish coins to save up for.
Oh, and speaking of Limbus goods... on our second Omega run (first run was a failure with a few wipes which led to us running out of time) we got the win AND both me and Xean won a piece of homam gear. I got the legs, and he got the feet for his THF. And just yesterday we did another Omega run and two other members in our shell got themselves a homam piece. Hopefully if we can continue to keep up our numbers, we can keep farming Omega sets and get more people some gear... its a costly fight with the sleeping potions and the 30k expense to enter the fight, but well worth it for the gear in my opinion.
Also recently, a friend of mine from my forum (my forum is actually a general public forum with a special section for our social LS attached) decided to join FFXI. Its nice to finally have someone who is "new" to the game, because teaching the basics is pretty fun. You get to explain to them the roles of different jobs in an experience party setup, how to avoid aggro and the different types of aggro... and of course... you get to help them with missions! I really enjoy the beginning missions you have to do (Kazham keys, rank missions etc) so whenever i've had a chance to login and not do any planned events, i've been helping out Idun. A few of our LS members have also stepped up and helped him out, showing him to the dunes, sending him some beginner gear and so far he seems to be liking the game. The worst thing that can happen is him getting frustrated with some of the annoying aspects of this game (making gil at early levels, getting party invites etc) so i'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the first few weeks will be enjoyable so that he sticks around and gets a job to lvl 75 to really start experiencing some of the better events in this game... like... KSNMs!
Which of course... I have recently discovered are the best way to make gil! Recently a few of us from TBH have kinda made a static and for two weeks in a row we've done Copycat runs which is a pretty interesting KSNM. Basically you fight an ahriman mob, who will charm a party member one by one and possibly use their 2hr. I think I enjoy this fight most because i'm kept pretty busy, sleeping the people that get charmed, waking them when it wears, refreshing everyone, curing everyone, hasting everyone and enfeebling the mob. Plus its just fun to see myself charmed and try to club Timwakefield to death with my staff. =P
Most of the people that are in this KSNM static we've kinda made, are also in my assault static which now runs twice a week. I'm really glad this got off the ground because i'm now at the assault rank: Sergeant. I think I have about 2 or 3 more ranks to go until I can purchase a Perdu Voulge (sp?) with my imperial standing, and i'm getting close to completing my Yigit set. Sometimes the assaults can be a bit draining because they're not really fun, and more of a grind but whenever we can we've been trying on new assaults to rank up faster which so far have been a success. I just dread the day we'll have to do one mission called Lebros Supplies which looks like a pain in the arse... you have to feed a ton load of NPCs (by going back and forth to another PC that will give you food, one piece at a time) all the while kiting/avoiding true sight crawlers. This one mission just seems like a headache and we keep putting it off because it looks like it would be really messy with none of us having tried it before. <_<
And last but not least, we're finally getting more of TBH members through their CoP missions. I've joined a static to help out, and so far all the missions have been a success. We just finished up mission 4.3 and after taking a week break we'll be continueing with 5.3. I'm really anxious to see some of the people in the static finally get their access to Sea. Though doing "Sea" for gear hasn't been something i've enjoyed, Limbus is definitely worth it and I hope that by getting more of our members through CoP more doors will open up to them. Plus they'll all get their shiny new rings!
Well thats it for now...
