Return to Chains of Promathia.

Lately i've been finding myself unmotivated to do much in FFXI, which is probably due to a combination of some in-game drama and also due to some other stuff i've been dealing with in my RL recently. It might also be that i'm coming to that point where there isn't a lot that I can pursue in the game, unless I wanted to leave my social LS and devote my life to HNM.

Yea, no thanks!

So I guess its a good thing that two groups have recently started doing CoP missions in my social LS, because now I have something to enjoy and login to do.


The first group that started up, is being led by Athoz. He organized an Ouryu run just last week.



I was asked to come on BLM, and we ended up going with the "Nuke + Sleep" method. It is less of a challenge, but I have no complaints considering the time investment can sometimes be frustrating if you have failure in the end.

So the group consisted of myself (BLM), Sabene (BLM), Athoz (WAR), RMTFalk (WHM), Sethidus (PLD) and Xean (BRD). We went in, started off with a timed nuke and then alternated the sleeps. Ouryu took to the skies about 3 times, but Athoz and Sethidus (and I think Falk) were pretty quick to toss some mistmelts at him, making him come back down. The fight went pretty smoothly, with very minimal damage from AoEs that got through in between the sleeping, and we got ourselves a quick win.


A few other people have decided to join the static and it looks like this group will probably get their CoP rings in 2-3 months. I just hope they don't suffer the all too common "I need to go on an indefinite break" from someone and then have the static halt or break in the end. I swear that seems to be the curse for anyone who tries to do a static for CoP missions... it happens 99% of the time.

The other group is being led by Vepion, who is now racing to get up to the Diabolos fight, so that he can participate in our Dynamis Buburimu run planned at the end of this month.

And while I do enjoy the missions and the fights... I'm always reminded why I stopped organizing CoP runs, especially the prommies.

People. Do. Not. Plan. Ahead.

Usually there will be one or two people that will read up on the missions, find out what items and meds are needed, but the rest... just go planning to "wing it". And as to be expected, when you don't read up on things or bring what's needed, you're more likely to fail.

Which is what happened during our first promyvion-mea attempt.


Our setup had 3 SMN, 1 WHM, 1 PLD and I think 1 BLU. Not everyone had brought a full set of animas (hystero, pyscho, lolterror) and while I have known these fights to be possible without, "first timers" are not likely to be among those that can pull that off.

A few things went wrong with our first run, the first being that no pyscho or hystero were used (at least I don't recall seeing any), the second being that no ES + Paralyze was used at the start even though I had suggested this, the WHM pulled hate with Cure III's right at the start which led the mob to come towards the mages, and from there everything was a mess. I believe someone also used a Terroranima too, which really wasn't a good idea with the SMNs needing the mob to be still so we could pull off our Astral Flow. Needless to say, I was a little grumpy after that failed run.

So the plan was to try again the next day. I hadn't been able to sleep much that night and had woken up extremely early so I decided to go ahead and farm the recollections and turn them into anima for the group. I was pretty sure that most of them would rely on the AH, and didn't want to risk not having any anima on sale before the run.

About 4 hrs later, I had 6 pyschoanima and 6 hysteroanima all sent to the static members via delivery box!

Only 2 of the people that had been with us the day before, didn't show up.

Ha. Ha. ha... ha..... oye.

Anyways, Vepion managed to get some replacements, including someone else in our LS that also needed the promies so we just changed things around and went with a new setup: SMNx3, WAR/NINx2, WHM.

This time, we had everyone use both a hystero and pyscho anima at the start of the fight and after the Astral Flows went off, the mob was dead. We decided to wait 2hrs and go after Promyvion-Holla next, so that we could try and get at least 2/3 done for that day. And with everyone doing what they did the run previously, we had ourselves another win.

Unfortunately though we had run out of time and had to schedule the last promyvion the next day, which again went just as well.

So now that we have the promies out of the way, we just need to do a couple more missions. The only thing that I forsee being an issue is that this group isn't "full". 2/4 ppl are helping, and we have to always look for 2 other helpers. I just hope that we can keep LS members only for this static because getting random help usually results in finding people that have no clue what they're supposed to do, and don't show any indication that they're willing to actually be useful. They just join, hoping they'll get in on a free ride through the missions ~_~

And now for a little breakdown of the other stuff i've been up to:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Yep, i'm gearing up my Samurai again. Quite a few ppl in my LS have been lvling the job, and i've been having that feeling of nostalgia everytime I see them play it. And one day, I happened to come across a Hagun that was about 200k cheaper than the current price. I mentioned it aloud, not thinking much other than the fact that it was a good deal, when Xean asked me if I wanted to buy it. I told him the truth, that I did, which was then followed by him trading me the gil I needed to get it.

(We play this game as a team, so we always work together to get gear we need and follow the saying "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours". So far, this has made progress in the game for both of us much easier and quicker, go go teamwork! Besides, that's how it should be done.)

So a few days later, I decided to also pick myself up some Hachiman Kote +1. I had done a LS merit pty just the day before, and had a blast with my WS spamming, which sealed my decision to regear my SAM and use it again.

My plan now is not to retire DRG, but rather to use DRG for birds and my SAM for almost everything else. I still want to pick myself up a hauby +1, but i'll wait a bit and farm up the majority of that if I can rather than spend what I have saved.

WoG Progress at last!

Though short lived, I did finally make some progress on my WoG missions. I convinced Xean to do the missions with me, so we spent some time getting him caught up.

When we were finally able to continue together, we made a group with Lyea and Janko and did the dragon fight in La Vaule.


But first... we had to go through a number of cutscenes.


For the most part these were ok, but sometimes the scenes were a little "lol". I"m still confused as to whether the character Caitsith is supposed to be evil or good. o.O

The bird of doom...

Seems like there's a lot of "going back to the good old days". And what fun would there be, if we didn't pay a visit to our old friend Kreutzet?


Well Athoz finally asked for some help with this guy (about time, that guy is always helping out people but never makes any requests to get help himself) and while I wasn't able to make one of the windows, I did manage to help out on the following window. We had another group there camping at the time, but Kawanomu was able to outclaim them on his BLU.

Though the fight went well, we didn't manage to get the dagger. I think this makes Athoz 0/2 on him now. And because of work, he wasn't able to keep up with the window so looks like we'll be taking a break from this bird for a while. Hopefully we can go 1/3 on the next attempt. And hopefully I won't shudder everytime I see the wind icon pop up in my window now whenever i'm playing. ~_~

Stupid bird never pops in the 3hr window.

Inventory space = decorate your moghouse?

Sure does! Though strange, I do enjoy decorating my mog house and after commissioning Carste to make me some furniture pieces, I decided to "spice it up" a little.

Mog Bonanza!!!

When I heard that this event was coming out, I told myself I wouldn't buy any marbles. Last year, I had spent about 80k, buying 10 marbles on my main character and 7 mules and all I won were xp scrolls.

But, I gave in. My reasoning is that i'm playing this game for fun, so I might as well take a shot at "some fun" and see if I win something. Its not like this is real life, so i'm not spending "money" when it can be used for something better.

And i'm happy that I went with that choice, because I ended up getting myself 2 Rank 4 prizes. I went with the most valuable item at the time, Behemoth's Hide. I then happened to see someone shouting to buy these in WG shortly after, so I sold them right away. Seems like it was a good decision too because later in the day, that same guy was offering to buy them 40k cheaper than what he paid for mine.

Plus, I got myself my Fafnir Statue. I would of liked to have won all 3 statues on my main character, but oh well. One is good enough.

I hate NMs.

So lets see. The last time I actually pursued an NM, was back when I tried to get a pair of these:

Unfortunately, after spending an entire day in Castle Oztroja running around in circles for hours, getting a couple of claims (I think I lost one or two) and never getting the drop, I decided I would never go after an NM for myself because I couldn't stand wasting hours for a chance at getting something.

However, a time finally came when I would have to suck it up and go back on this decision. ~_~

Summoner 70!!!!!!

I mentioned in my last post that I actually had managed to get Shikigami Weapon right before maintenance, in an epic 8 minute fight with some LS members that were able to run out to Ro'Maeve at the last minute and help me and Xean kill this. We didn't get the drop that time. We logged in after maintenance hoping that we'd see the NM again, but wikipedia turned out to be right. It doesn't spawn until 21hrs AFTER maintenance (and even also has a chance to spawn 30 minutes earlier than when its window should be up)

So the next morning, Xean, Athoz, Sabene, Falk, Darce and Standpoint came to help me (Vepion and Lyea had also made their way out on the previous day). As I should have expected, there were a number of groups in zone also trying to get this, and unfortunately we didn't end up getting claim.

Knowing that if I kept up with the ToDs, i'd eventually get another shot, I made myself wake up at 5am the next morning for the next window. It was really difficult too because I had gone to sleep after 1am that same morning due to Dynamis ><

So I woke up, logged in, and invited my crew that had generously given their time to help me out (poor Xean and Darce also had so little sleep due to also being in my Dynamis shell) and we waited. Lucky for me, there was only one other group in zone so the chances were a little better this time around.

And finally, my efforts were paid off! Our little RMTFalk who had gone WHM/RNG managed to get claim on Shikigami, and near died waiting for Darce to voke it off him. I think he went down to 51HP before I saw his HP go up as I raced to where he was to help with the fight. And from there, it was a piece of cake. We had two THFs (this time Xean had brought his THF), a WHM, a BRD, a WAR and myself on RDM. And as soon as the mob's health went to 0 and I saw that little treasure chest icon above the party information I held my breath as I checked the treasure pool hoping that the NM couldn't drop any crystals or other crap and that I would see the Ying Yang Robe.

I guess I could of paid attention to the party chat in those seconds to see all the congratulations being shouted to know that I had gotten the drop, but I was too focused on trying not to get my hopes up as I opened the treasure pool, that I didn't read the chat log at all. And there it was... my YYR!

I was pretty estatic because this meant that I was 1/2, and that I wouldn't have to invest any extra time on this NM (at least for myself - i'll probably end up helping 2 other LS members that are currently lvling SMN get this in the future) or ask for extra help! Of course though, later in the day I realized that it was going to be more than a week before i'd be able to see the item on my character because:

1)I was only lvl 70 and the YYR is a lvl 71 piece
2)I was going to be out all day this coming Sunday, which is when my static would be meeting up next

Oh well! I guess I can always try and motivate myself to do some campaign this week and get it to 71. But then again, I don't really like campaign all that much and last time I tried playing SMN for a little experience points in campaign, it really killed my brain @_@ I like the concept of the SMN class, especially because its always been one of my favorite jobs in other FF games... but, playing the job in FFXI hasn't really been something I enjoy. Lately i've had some really smooth parties where I haven't felt like i'm gimping my static too much because i'm not a super DD, nor am I a BRD... and lets not even get started on how slow I am with being a healer... my gawd is it frustrating going from RDM with fastcast or WHM with merits and haste gear, to a reaaaaaaaaaaaaally slow SMN!

Needless to say I can't wait to get this job to 75 and be able to bring it to events where it'll make much better use. SMN just is not a great job for merits or experience point parties! But, if I can do some SMN burns with avatar fights, or even CoP fights to help LS members... it'll be worth the 75 levels of pain I have endured getting it there! XD

And so now I go to camp Charybdis #1000897654.


Well, thats an exaggeration obviously. But I spent all yesterday helping camp him for Darce's PLD after we killed Shikigami. Apparently we had missed one of his ToDs because we were there all day. Eventually I had to leave for Salvage, and when that was done, Darce's group was still in SSG. I was so tired from the lack of sleep that I just took a nap and by the time it was late into the night, they had already gotten the kill. And now I'm staring at two Devil Manta's... Just waiting for the window to open for what will likely be another grueling wait for Charybdis to actually spawn. I just hope there isn't too much CC, thats the one thing that kills me when I camp an NM.

Its one thing to go after an NM and not get the drop, but to spend all that time in one place, doing nothing but waiting for the NM to spawn, and then to lose the chance at the drop to another group! GAH! Guess the one bonus with Charbydis is that Joyeuse is 100% drop. I can't imagine how painful this would be if it wasn't. I can't wait to be done with NMs for a little bit after all this... i'm gonna spend some time meriting and doing some KSNMs or something. Need to get this whole NM camping thing out of my system ><

A slow couple of weeks.

The last couple of weeks have been a little bit on the slow side, but no complaint here. Having a bit of a break from scheduled events has been nice and allowed me to kinda "play around" doing nothing in particular. I think sometimes its a good thing to forget about all the goals you have in this game, otherwise you can easily get burnt out or find yourself filled with irritation and frustration because so often in this game, not everything works out as easily (or as quickly) as you'd like.

Sounds like i'm speaking from experience? Well, not exactly... but, might as well mention that the goal of helping Xean get his Black Belt has officially come to an end. I don't really want to say that we'll never pursue the BB items in the future, but Xean has decided to pass on going out of his way to get the BB items. I think the main reason is just because he doesn't really get all that much use out of his MNK, and because of a lot of the experiences we've had recently, this item has just become too much of a headache.

I won't go into too many details, but to sum it up: our server only has 2 HNM shells that are camping the HNMs that drop the BB items. Both have so far, proven to be unreliable, and un-cooperative. Me and Xean had decided that we'd put forth the effort to farm up the gil for the ridiculous prices the shells were asking for, because joining them and keeping up with the members that were able to play 24/7 and be at every single HNM window seemed impossible (especially with the time put into our social LS) So after making arrangements with one of the shells (the other still had members wanting to lot the BB items so they wouldn't sell) Xean waited close to 3hrs for Aspid to spawn one night. After the shell got claim, and killed it, he waited a few minutes to be invited so that he could trade the gil and lot the item.

Only a few minutes go by, and nothing. So, he sends a /tell to the leaders and asks when he'll be invited. The leader he spoke with, then informs him that they have a LS member that will be lotting the item, and so they won't be selling the drop.

Hours of wasted time, for nothing. -_-

So after that, I tried to rally together a LS camping session for adamantoise (drops one BB item, but its not 100%). The turn out seemed pretty good, but in the end, the desire to continue putting in the energy and effort to getting the BB items without an HNM shell, just wasn't there so we cancelled at the last minute. Maybe one day we'll have a go at the HNM (or even the KSNM99s) for fun, but for now this goal has been put in the closet.

So what is on the agenda now? Well... I'm hoping to setup some BCNM and KSNM runs soon, as i've accumulated quite a bunch. Other than that, I actually don't have too much else that I personally feel compelled to pursue in this game. I do plan to finish meriting my COR (only need 5 more limit points!) and hope to get my BLU and RNG up to 37 so that they can be used as subjobs. I also plan to get a few pieces of gear, here and there for my PLD and DRG through Salvage, Assault and Limbus. Most of this stuff will happen "eventually" and i'm not feeling too rushed.

I guess its worth mentioning that I am now trying Salvage again, and might get to see an Ares piece or two for my DRG & PLD. This time I think it'll be a lot smoother, mainly because the static consists of LS members only. Carste is the one leading this, and we have Xean on his MNK, Sethidus on BRD, Janko on BLU, Zeo on WAR, Carste on THF and myself on RDM. There are a few others interested that might end up joining us too down the road once they get access, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed that this static might actually see a few upgraded salvage pieces. I'm just not looking forward to revisiting the frogs. Omg..... I... hate...... frogs.


As for what i've been up to lately, well... I've been slowly working on getting some xp on my RNG. I'm bringing that up to 37 with Xean's SAM, and so far the duoing hasn't been as slow as I thought it would. That's probably thanks to the Fields of Valor that I never really got into.


Once we get to 37, Xean plans to take SAM all the way to 75. I can't really see myself leveling something else to 75 right now, so i'll probably just sync myself to him and bring whatever job his party ends up needing. He's not overly eager about getting to 75, but i'm hoping to change that because I remember having a blast when I lvled SAM. I just hope that I don't find myself getting nostalgic about playing SAM because I pretty much retired mine. Turns out my DRG was a better DD on birds, and if I end up getting some Askar/Aurum/Ares pieces, i'm sure I might even outparse what my SAM used to be capable of against non-bird mobs. (loldrg)

(A random ToAU mission that Carste asked me and Xean to help with so that he could get his mule access to Salvage to fill in as a 6th)

Our resident RMT tarutaru Sjoidjgo (aka Falk) also presented us with a nice little challenge: Hakutaku versus SoTW with 6.5 members!

He and Sethidus were needing an Ohat, and so he rounded up some LS members (Xean, Carste, Sethidus, Athoz, a duo-boxed Ketsuchi and myself) for the fight. During the first fight, we had one death but that was only because our healer (Falk) was duo-boxing and I had taken the risk to cast an enfeeble not knowing he had switched characters for a few seconds. But the rest of the fights went great. I guess we don't really need to organize and plan Hakutaku fights anymore, seeing as they can easily be done with a party of 6.

And speaking of Falk, I just happen to have a fun screenshot from a couple of weeks ago, highlighting the results of a tarutaru NIN tanking fire breathing crawlers!


Actually, Falk does really well on NIN. The static I have with him on my SMN, has been going surprisingly well every week. I usually have had aweful experiences with having SMNs in pty, and had concluded that they're pretty much a waste of space... but, thanks to Sabene's refresh, Xean's ballads, sanction refresh AND my auto-refresh trait... I'm enjoying being able to keep up 3 "buff" BPs on the party and being able to cast at least one offensive BP every fight. I know my place in the static could easily be replaced by something else to make things better, but with the setup we've had, I haven't felt as much of a gimp to the party as I used to a while back.

And now that i've gotten lvl 70 on SMN, its now time to go after a certain item that brings a laugh to me everytime I hear someone mention it.

Yep, the good old YYR (Ying Yang Robe).

I was actually unsure how i'd get the ToD for Shikigami because i'm not the kind of person that can just "sit in game and do nothing" for hours. But the day after I hit lvl 70, there was maintenance!

I logged in 2hrs before maintenance started, and decided to go park my character in Ro'Maeve. I went RDM/RNG, and decided to scan just for the heck of it until SE kicked us from the server. About 10 minutes before that was supposed to happen, I suddenly see Shikigami Weapon appear on my widescan. So I started freaking in LS and was able to round up some friends (Athoz, Sabene, Lyea and Xean) to come help. It was a pretty crazy fight, we were all nuking and meleeing it to death trying to kill it before maintenance started and finished with maybe 2-4 minutes to spare. Sadly though, we didn't get the drop.


So after maintenance, I logged in to see if the NM would spawn. As wikipedia mentioned it would, it never did. So I had to wait until today to try it again when the window opened. Only this time there were about 3 groups also camping it, and someone else got claim. ~_~

Now to try again tomorrow. I know that I can duo this guy easy with Xean's NIN, but if there's more people counter camping... i'll need all the claiming help possible.

And then when I finally get my YYR, i'll most likely still be camping this guy because 2 other LS members are looking to get SMN to 75. Fun fun fun.... at least its only a 15 minute window! Unlike a stupid, annoying, irritating, despised chicken called Kreutzet! *shudders*

Lastly, I had an opportunity to tank Omega the other week.

I was asked to come PLD/NIN, and though I had some doubts at my ability, I was told that I did pretty well. I know that I was a little bit rusty at first, but I eventually got the hang of things after a few minutes of kiting I was able to get a somewhat fluid method where i'd alternate curing with Xean who as on his WHM. Worked out really nice being able to communicate with him so that I could take care of my curing when needed for hate. And at the end of that run, we had ourselves another Homam Body to give to one of our members.