Game has been pretty relaxing.

I think i'm finally reaching that phase where I can play FFXI and not feel stressed out because of the progress I need to make on my character. I have less in game commitments now, and due to work picking up I can't really do a lot during the day that would require my focus (I take customer support calls during the day) so i'm pretty much free to relax and just do whatever I want solo in the daytime.

Lately i've been working on my crafts bit by bit. I got my Smithing to 18, Goldsmithing to 9 and I plan on taking these up slowly. It'll be a while until I can get all my crafts to 60, but at least at this rate i'm not going to see a huge dent in my funds. For the most part i'll farm what I can, and limit myself to spending only a certain amount of gil for any synthing up session I plan.

As for meriting, I did a week of that trying to get my BLM finished. Of course there ended up being more work than I had thought, because SE recently had an update that increased the merits available in "Group 2". I haven't had any opportunity to use my BLM in any of my endgame events (go figure, and here I thought all endgame shells wanted BLMs) so i've been a little disappointed. I want to get more experience with the stun orders, and general knowledge about how to use the job on endgame monsters but so far with my luck, I don't really see that happening. I've been tempted just to stop putting merits into my BLM and focus on the other jobs I play more frequently but i'm more than 70% done so i'll probably just finish it up. Then I'll probably finish up with my WHM considering that's the job i'm always asked to come for most events as. (Curse WHM!)

Speaking of merits, the other week a few LS members got together to lvl up/merit on Trolls. These aren't the greatest xp/hr, but we had a blast. I got to bring my SAM and went a little crazy at times. I love seeing the mob's HP go down in chunks when I use my weaponskills, and I also enjoy keeping up my shadows/third eye when I take hate.

We managed to get Darce to 74 on his PLD and Onedarkflame to 74 on his WHM. Hopefully we'll be able to finish up again when people aren't so busy. I think with it being summer, people are on less often so it hasn't been easy setting up LS merit/xp parties recently... still, its fun not having to deal with pickup parties. You really can't guarantee a fun experience with those ><

(Lol@Zeo's dead corpse being danced on!)

I've also been on a little NM spree this month. First it was Ose... who refused to give up his Assault Jerkin for Standpoint. Finally though, the one night I wasn't around (haha, I must be unlucky now) some LS members went out to help him and they got the drop.

During one of the camping sessions though, we ran into Lord of Onzozo. Some BST had either gotten aggro or had tried to solo him and failed miserably, and ended up bringing the kraken over to us befoer dying. We managed to kill him, but we didn't see any drop. Oh well, I got to tank him for a little bit on my RDM until Carste came in and stole the fun ; ;


We also had some fun with Roc again. Last year, we had tried to get the Dryad Staff for one of our members, Falk. I think we had gone 0/5 before we had to put him on hold due to the window being at inconvenient times for most of the members of our LS. But a few weeks ago, Falk went out and got himself the ToD and we had a few camping sessions. We went 1/3 this time around, which was a relief. Its not fun waiting around for 3hrs doing nothing @_@. I'd like to get the staff one day for my WHM, but I don't think I have the motivation to keep up with a ToD for more than one round... so I guess Light Staff will have to do!


Onedarkflame also gave me a hand a couple of times with Valkurm Emperor. I wasn't really feeling the need to get myself the hairpin, but out of the blue he offered to help me camp it on my character Kaelyth so I accepted. One session we had Darce come out to help with the claim, and both times we camped the NM (i'm currently 0/2) Standpoint was on the verge of outpost warping only to read that we had gotten claim and were killing it in LS. Oh well, i'm sure i'll go after him again when i'm bored but for now i'm not dying without it.


Onto Kaelyth, i've gotten his MNK to 37 thanks to my LS static! We party every wednesday night and while its been a little slow sometimes its still relaxing. I think we'll pick up the pace soon, me and Onedarkflame will be getting some nice melee gear to dish out some better dmg.

(No this is not the usual gear setup I use for Kaelyth. I changed the .dat for my subligar to those shorts, and for laughs I fought one mob naked to annoy everyone in party because they of course had to look at my naked character in their screen, haha)

I'm definitely going to have to do some major farming though. I want to gear up Kaelyth so that I don't have to constantly send over Zerayla's melee gear. I know that's kind of a retarded idea, but it also gives me something to do.

Oh, and my limbus shell has finally tried Ultima. We have gone 0/2 so far, and managed to get him down to 15-18% before wiping. Of course once you wipe, its very hard to get the alliance backup and ready to fight before Ultima has regened back to 100%. The citadel buster is the one move that gets us every time, and so far we're discussing some changes to make from our strategy. Hopefully we'll have another run today and if we do, I hope that we finally get to take him out. Not many members in our shell are wanting the Nashira gear badly, except a couple. But we're fine with that, because these are mage only members that show up for every run and are more than deserving of having a shot at some nice gear. I'd like a couple of pieces myself, but I think i'd benefit more from the Homam (which we've had not problems with, Omega is much easier).

I do have to say though, the fight is really fun even with a lot of death. I really hated having to be WHM all the time, but that was always because i'd be put in situations where I wasn't really required to challenge myself at being fast and efficient with healing... but with fights like Ultima, i've gotta be on my feet most of the time and be ready to cast whatever is needed instantly. I like the excitment :)

As for sky, well... I was promoted to officer which I thought would give me the chance to finally help the shell progress more. But sadly, I haven't really felt like i've been given any kind of power or resources to do this. I honestly don't feel like a leader right now, and dont' know if i'm on the same page as the rest of the leadership. I want to organize and update everything on our forum, but I have no ability to do this yet. I want to see our shell become more efficient with our time, and our strategies so that we can do things better. We're pretty successful as a shell, but at times I think the attitude of some members isn't exactly "lets do our best".

I actually had an interesting conversation with one member during our last run where I had to explain why it mattered that more than one person was overwriting the hastes on our tanks. I had noticed that we had 4 WHMs and 1 RDM all casting haste on the same two tanks, which to me was a huge waste in MP. So before the next god we fought, I asked if we could assign one mage to cover the hasting and was given a reply of "It doesn't really matter if they're over-hasted".

Really bugs me sometimes when there are players that just don't care to do better than what they can. I'm by no means a pro at this game, but when it comes to being efficient I am always trying to find ways to improve myself.

So we'll see how things progress. I don't like giving up, but I also don't want to be the only person who wants to be a little more strict on things (waiting around for 30-50 minutes for gods isn't acceptable, a huge waste of time) and organized then I know that the frustration will get to me. And i'm not really playing this game to feel frustrated, i'm playing it to get some enjoyment out of my free time.


The one endgame event that I really have not had any stress dealing with lately is my dynamis shell. We've grown like crazy over the last couple of months, I think our roster is missing 2 more people before we'll have to stop recruitment altogether. The best part, is after next month we'll finally be done getting all our members Xarcabard access.... and then the fun really begins because we'll hopefully get to farm Northlands more often and see more members go 5/5 with their relic gear.


I feel bad sometimes for friends that I hear describe their opinion of Dynamis, because its always so negative. I think the reason why I enjoy the event so much is because I only do it once a week (twice a week might be too much) and because the majority of our shell has a great attitude during the runs. If there's any mistakes, we're more likely to laugh about it. Plus now that we have more members getting on Ventrilo, it makes the runs more bearable especially during the last hour when most people want to head to bed. Nothing keeps you awake more than the coconut song! hahaha... (ls joke)

Oh yes, and before I forget... we had a pretty fun subligar run on Saturday. We got 4/5 of the subligars we needed, and probably would have tried for the 5th but Darce had to take off. The run was fun because we only had 7 people and we were able to take down the party of fomors that included the RDM, PLD, SAM. I'm sure it can be done easily for some, but in my last experiences with that particular fomor party it always ended in mass death. Nothing like a good successful "panty raid".


I kinda hope that summer ends soon... need to get more people to 75 so that we can do more LS events. I think my social will be trying a Shen run soon too if we can get a schedule to fit with everyone. That'll be fun, and something else we can add to our LS's accomplishments ^^

Another successful Ohat Run.

A few weeks ago, some of the members my social LS SpiritOfTheWolf mentioned that they'd like to farm some hakutaku eyes, because they wanted to eventually get themselves an Ohat. So a few nights a week, a bunch of us would head out and help them farm the eyes. Eventually we had farmed all the eyes (and surprisingly we had much better luck this time than when we farmed them for the Ohat run we did last year) and our very own Alchemist Timwakefield went to work and crafted up some Hakutaku Eye Clusters, the pop item for the NM.

He ended up breaking his first two synths, but Tim being... well Tim, just went into his moghouse and gave two of our members already crafted Hakutaku Eye Clusters he had saved (and probably would have sold down the road) to replace the synths that failed. You can always count on that guy to be selfless when it comes to playing this game...

So anyways, after we had everything ready, we set a date and time and had a good majority of our LS come out to help kill the NM on the following weekend. We had Drimergirl, Elden, Nanekyune, Alianne, Timwakefield, Zeo, Sabene, Soulstar, Soluslupis, Hillbilly and Carste come out to lend a hand with the fight.


Again it was a small group, but thankfully we never really have to be worried with numbers because everyone works as a team, and pretty much knows what they're suppose to do. Our fights went really smooth, I think we only had 2 deaths in total and we ended up getting 5/5 Ohats again. Grats to Timwakefield, Drimergirl, Soulstar, Soluslupis and Hillbilly on their new fugly hats!


I also got promoted to officer in my sky LS KeitaroAeon. A member in our shell nominated me, and I figured seeing as there are some people that I know have worked their butts off in that shell, i'd rather try and help make it a more successful shell than give up due to the frustrations that many of us have been dealing with lately. Plus, I just want to see things a bit more organized and i'm hoping i'll get a chance to do that. If there's one thing that drives me nuts, its organization! I can't stand sitting around for an hour or more doing absolutely nothing ><

The only thing that I feel bad about is that before the promotion, I spoke with the leader and asked if I could take one of the sky farming nights off, because some LS friends of mine had started a new LS lvling static and invited me to play on my secondary character Kaelyth. I haven't been able to do many LS statics lately, and I didn't want to pass up this chance to spend a few hours with some close friends. I mean after all, that is the purpose of this game right? To play with friends and enjoy your time online?

Anyways, I was given the "ok" and the leader was really understanding. But then a week later I was asked to be an officer, so I didn't feel too great because if I were to be an officer, i'd want to be present as often as possible. In the end though, after talking with the leader I decided to still take the position and just told myself that i'd have to put in more effort on the 2/3 sky sessions I would be attending to help and make sure it progresses. So I just hope I don't disappoint myself or the other members in the shell ; ;

One update I forgot to mention... Gimli finally returned to the game full time! He's a really good friend of mine, and one of the very first members of our dynamis shell, RidersOfRohan. He's been with us since the beginning, when we started out as SpiftasticAdventures and was always there to make the runs feel like something "fun" rather than a job where you're just working towards getting gear. Big galka with a big heart is what I like to refer to him as! (He helped out my CoP static at the end so that we could complete the missions, and stuck with us until they were finished)

And of course, as usual he found a way to make us laugh... by mpk'ing all of us!

Its all good though, I think the mass sacrifices we had that night gave us some good gear. I believe we had 3 100c drop and a few AF pieces people needed.

I think its because of members like him that our shell has lasted as long as it has. I'm glad that we have a good group of people that can laugh when we wipe. Makes things more enjoyable.


Oh and speaking of dynamis.... PROOF THAT GMs WATCH US! I know some people have seen these red dots in Jeuno before!!!! I finally got a screenshot:


What else... Oh, yeah. Nightshadexl got himself a pair of Carbuncle Mitts last week. He asked Timwakefield, Soulstar and myself to come help (I might be missing one person o.O) with killing Crimson-Toothed Pawberry NM. The best part was when we had to open the door in Ugaleppih Temple, which we didn't have a key for. I insisted that it couldn't be opened otherwise, and of course Tim had to go and prove me wrong... damn galka! But that worked to our advantage, because we didn't have to waste time farming a key!


Squishy (Standpoint) also decided to bring his DRG out of retirement... which of course meant.... TIME TO KILL OSE! We have many... many..... maaaany "fond" memories of camping this kitty. (I swear each member in our LS has a specific NM that we just despise because of our luck camping it) I think we had over 12 kills last year when we were trying to get Squishy his assault jerkin, but of course we never got the drop. I think thats part of the reason he had decided to retire it.. after all, when you hear a bunch of people bragging about going 1/1 it can get pretty annoying.

So a bunch of us headed out to help him camp Ose again the other night...and after 6hrs of killing the Toramas... Ose FINALLY decided to make an appearance.


However, as usual... we were able to prove how yet again, the drop rate apparently doesn't always apply to certain players. Another Ose Whisker and Coeurl Meat for us, but no Assault Jerkin. I'm pretty sure that Squishy was about ready to stab someone with his polearm at that point.


We decided to go camp Mysticmaker Profblix after the pop for Elden. Conveniently, the NM spawned within 5 minutes of us getting to his area. Only the moldavite earring didn't drop, which is what Elden was hoping to get. So Elden, Standpoint and myself decided to stay up a little more and wait for another spawn. I think it was about 5am for them, and 2am for me when the gob spawned again. This time we got the drop though, so at least the night wasn't an entire waste x_x


Speaking of Squishy's DRG, he was able to solo Sewer Syrup for a good while. We went to help Darce get the Jelly Ring, and in between killing the placeholders me and Darce had to AFK for a short time. Well, thats when Sewer Syrup decided to spawn and aggro us. So Squishy was soloing it for a bit until we finally came back. And they say DRGs aren't useful!


And aside from trying to get in the occasional merit when I can on Zerayla, i've been working on Kaelyth. As I mentioned above, i'm now doing a 1 day a week LS Static.


I'm trying to get his MNK to 75 so that I can merit on him, but also figured that in my spare time I would lvl his WAR.


I also think i'm going to try and farm like crazy for the next two weeks to see if I can get another Peacock Charm. I would like to try out lvling a character to 75, having the best options available for once. We'll see how that goes though, farming can wear on you after a few hours ><

Aaaand last, I finally got my brother to start playing. He made a character called Atrehyu, and so far seems to be doing really good. He's already had his share of loldunes parties and i've tried to give him all the "dont's" and "do's" in the game. Me and a few LS members got him his rank 5 recently, so that he could have easier access between the cities to do fame quests and farm in different areas. Its good to see that he's already farming on his own so that he can get better gear, I think thats one thing that makes new players quit so easily in this game (unless they're fine with lizard armor up to lvl 50, lol). The game is a big time sink ><


Well, off to lvl in Kazham!