More Moogles...

Thanks to Sabene, Athoz, Vepion and Zeo, myself and Xean were able to complete the latest mini-expansion "A Moogle Kupo d'Etat".


Myself, Vepion and Xean had made a static to get the expansion done and get ourselves the new augmented head piece. Along the way, we had to recruit some LS help in order to do a fight in Quicksand Caves. Thanks to Zeo, Sabene and Athoz, we were able to complete this very easily. After having done the fight, we started to make plans to do the final missions which included another challenging fight in Castle Zhvahl Bailey's.


Sabene and Athoz had asked if they could join in the static and get caught up, so that we could all do the last fight together. We had no problem, and so they worked on getting their missions done that following week. That weekend, Anderoc, RMTFalk, Darce and myself helped Athoz and Sabene get the quicksand caves fight done, so that they would finally be ready for the last fight with the rest of us.

This time around the fight didn't go quite as smoothly, but we still got the win. I was only disappointed that I never got to use my SAM 2hr because I ended up dying about halfway through the fight. ><

The next day, we headed to Castle Zhvahl Bailey's for the last fight against Riko and his evil matrix minion moogles.


Our first attempt started off pretty good, but due to some bad luck with getting off the sleepga/horde lullaby when it was needed, we ended up wiping.

Determined to get our head pieces, we ran back to Beaucedine Glacier to redo the mini moogle games needed to get the key item to redo the fight.


As for our 2nd try, we made sure to have everyone ready for the sleepga/horde and that seemed to do the trick. When we got to the last part of the fight and had Athoz and Xean zerg Riko, I knew we were going to have a sure win because of how fast Riko's HP was going down.

After the win, we all made our way to Jeuno and immediately picked up our new gear.


I'm still a little unsure if I made the right augments, but so far i'm quite please with the choices I made:

• STR+4 & Weaponskill Accuracy +15
• DEX+4 & Critical Damage +2%

I went with these choices with my DRG in mind. I knew that the STR+4 and WS Acc+15 was a definite, but the second option is where I was a little unsure. I had done a little reading, and also asked for some advice and was told that the augment that added +2 WS DMG, would be roughly around 20 more dmg on my WSs. Then the other option was getting ACC+10 & ATK+5, which while looked very good, I felt wouldn't add as much.

So far i've been able to have a couple of merit parties, and I do notice that my "average" has increased and is more consistent now. I haven't seen much of a difference in what I call my "high" WSs, but then again I have yet to have both a BRD and a COR in my pty. I suppose I'll just keep what I have now, and wait until some poor and bored "Joe" goes and spends hours testing the various combinations to find out which augments would of been best for a DRG WS piece, and until then i'll stay content with what I have.

Other than that, I gave Fields of Valor "Elite Training" a try. I managed to pickup an extra Warwolf Belt through a KSNM30 Royal Ramble that had been setup through QCDN (really good group too) and thought i'd see what kind of augment I could get.


One would assume that with all the people bragging about getting really good augments, you too would get something decent.

+15 Light Resist.

. . .


Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

Seeing as the fight was pretty easy, and a few LS members were interested in trying out the sky FoV, I decided to try again with an extra Hierarch belt I had.

-1 STR, DEX+1, VIT-1.

Ugh....

So with that kind of luck, I think i'll put the augmenting thing on the back burner for now. I do enjoy going up to sky and killing pots with Vep's PUP, Xean's MNK and Darce's PLD though... so we'll see.

I think the next few things i'll work on are getting my crafts up again, and finally getting my cooking the +3 skill I never finished. I'm also hoping to get Tahla to lvl again with Xean's alternate character Magisterial. We both need to get rank 5 for our characters, so maybe we'll get that done this week.

I'm kinda looking forward to getting Tahla's BRD to 75. The last couple of days, Xean has let me play his BRD (I wanted the BRDing experience and he didn't mind getting the extra merits) and while I know I'll need a lot more practice... I feel pretty capable at merit pulling now. And, I actually really like it. o.O

Maybe thats just because I haven't had to take the job to 75? Well, guess i'll find out how I like it if I can get Tahla to 75. Only question now is... do I want to invest the time/gil into getting /nin to 37? I had only planned to play the job for LS events, and usually /whm is needed for those. But... I might just want to play her BRD in future merit ptys. Gah, decisions ><

(Nice little screenshot of Valkurm I took while getting RNG to 37 through many, many... many level sync ptys!)

(Yay for the annoying music played during the summer festival! Just glad I got myself the new yukata!)

Matrix Moogles??

Finally getting caught up with the newest expansion, A Moogle Kupo d'Etat.


A few people in my ls got this done just a couple days after the release, and as usual, I was dead against jumping into the missions at first. Whenever an expansion comes out, I always try to pretend like I have no clue it even exists. This is because the hype, is almost always overrated. I guess even on some level I see it as "following the crowd" which I really hate doing... so in the end, I usually wait to experience new content for FFXI when all the hype has died down a little.


And that time was also last week. I had mentioned to Vepion that I would join him in doing the missions, and that if he could get Xean to come onboard with us, I wouldn't mind starting. So of course that same day, he convinced Xean to commit to the static.

The next day we started off with the missions (with the exception of the first one you obtain when you zone into your moghouse) which led us to all the beastmen strongholds to farm some items. This didn't seem to take too long, and with a little bit of teleporting we were done pretty quick.

Then it was off to Jeuno for a cutscene, where we were introduced to SE's version of what I like to call, "The Matrix Moogle".


Seriously. Lol.

Story didn't really grab my attention too much, but it started to pickup a little later when suddenly the main moogle character was trapped in some kind of magical box. The cutscene was pretty interesting and creepy at the same time, with weird eyeballs and ghost looking things flying all around the room.

We were then sent off to Windurst where we had to ask Shantotto to help.


She sent us off to fight some cardians in Horutoto Ruins, which meant farming a couple of key items to make the "already easy" fight, even easier. Vepion came on DNC, I was on SAM and Xean came on WHM.


After we were able to free the little moogle, we then had to find some key items in Quicksand Caves. We picked up this mission a couple of nights later, because Vepion didn't have the map at the time which was a requirement to do the mission. So I helped him get the map one morning by farming up a coffer key for the zone.

When we were ready to continue with the mission, we then found out that Xean also needed the map for the area. So me and Xean zoned into one area and started farming, while Vepion farmed in another. Xean came out on his THF to add some TH3, and yet in the end, it was a mob that Vepion killed on his BRD that dropped the coffer key. Go figure, lol.


After we had collected all the key items, were were finally ready for the next fight. I was able to enlist the help of Athoz, Sabene and Zeo a few days later. The fight involved us killing Nanaa Mi'hgo (sp?) from Windurst, and a bunch of goblins. Fight was also relatively easy, more than I thought it would be. But i'm not going to complain, i'd much rather have an easy win than a failed attempt = loss of time.

Having finished the 2nd last fight in the missions, we set out to Beaucedine Glacier for some mini-games. These were a bit confusing at first, and took a little time to finally understand even with the wikipedia guide. Thankfully though both Xean and Vepion were able to understand what to do and explain it to me.

We wrapped up the last final mini-games in Castle Zvahl-Baileys, which were FAR easier and even a little fun, in comparision to the pre-requisite for the final ACP fight. Now all that's needed is the final fight, which i've already been able to try out as a Soulstar, Drimergirl, Chisei, Fizzywig and Janko needed an extra BLM for their fight. Hopefully we'll be able to do this last fight next week, and soon be sporting some new gear! I'm pretty sure i'll be going with the augments for the DD WS.

And for other updates... lets see...

Tahla is still lvl 22BRD. Need to get her up to 30 so that I can finally play with Xean's taru, Magisterial. Trying to work on some missions so that she can finally get her airship pass.

Did a bit of meriting, and just about done with the merits for my SMN. Gotta look into other things I can "unmerit" and "remerit" now...

Salvage is finally picking up. We've only managed to get one pair of Usukane feet in the ~15 runs we've done, but my static has decided to try out a few other zones to give a little bit of change now and then which I think was a good idea. Otherwise I think we'd all be going insane fighting so many friggin bees. I just dread the runs that we do when I have to revisit a certain green amphibian that gives me nightmares. ; ;

Limbus is really really great. We did an Omega with only 8 ppl last week, which really surprised me. In all my experience, i've never tried Omega with any less than 14 ppl, and on those runs we always relied on our 2hrs. This time around though, we didn't rely on 2hrs and got the win with a very small group. I'm really glad that i'm running this Limbus group now, i've finally found a group of people in the game that bring a lot of challenges that I haven't encountered very often. And thanks to that beardmage Carste, i've also had the opportunity to "trio" the Behemoth zone. I definitely sucked the first time around, but I feel that I got a good understanding of how to do that last floor and look forward to trying it again.

Oh, and lastly I was able to get my RNG to 29 thanks to some LS members that did a level sync with me over the weekend. The first party I had was with an all Japanese group and PL, and we just swept through the Qufim lvls. Then when we disbanded, I headed over to Kazham with some friends and was able to get 2k to lvl 30. Can't wait to get the last 8 lvls so that I can finally mule back all my gear. Zerayla has so much crap in her delivery box right now ><

Been a while since i've posted some "scenic screenshots" and seeing as I promised to do a wallpaper for a retired player on QCDN (he requested one after having seen some wallpapers I made a few months ago) I took a few screenies recently to work with, and figured i'd share them. Enjoy~

Helping out some friends.

Last week I did about a 10hr session of nothing but Zilart Missions. Some friends in my LS had setup a static to go from ZM4-Sky, and needed some help. I decided to take that opportunity to help one of my friends, Onedarkflame also get access to sky seeing as he has never been able to commit to any previous statics that were setup in the LS due to his playing schedule. Having access to his account, I just had to login and play as his character through all the missions which wasn't too bad.

The static consisted of myself playing as Onedarkflame (WHM), Vepion (BRD), Hyprixon (BLM), Athoz (MNK), Lailie (DRG) and the usual dependable Zeo (WAR) who came along to help.

Originally our plan was to do the missions in 2 days, but thanks to both Zeo and Hyprixon putting in a little extra(who were both on very very off time zones - UK and Asia), we were able to push through all the missions in one go. I don't know how they did it really, but I think everyone was happy at the end.

Going through all the missions again wasn't as bad as I thought i'd be, but then again everyone in the static was well prepared and followed instructions well. I think the only time I found myself a little frustrated was when we were doing the ZM8 fight in the Stellar Fulcrum, and I found out that Onedarkflame didn't have the key to Delfkutt's Tower which meant that I had to run him all the way up to the top.

All the fights were a breeze. In fact, they were a lot easier than I last remembered them being... which is probably due to the changes FFXI has had over the years. New gear + merits have pretty much made players more powerful I suppose.

I won't go into too much more detail, but rather i'll just post the screenshots I took throughout the missions.

(ZM5 Fight @ Sanctuary of Zhi'Tah)

(ZM8 Cutscene)

(ZM8 Cutscene - EVIL TARU!!!!!)

(Stellar Fulcrum)


(ZM8 Fight)

(Kam'lanautwhatever is DEFEATED!)



(ZM12 Fight)


(Dawn Maiden)


(Final Cutscene - Access to Sky!)

It was definitely a looooooooooooooooooong day, and I remember being pretty brain dead in the night. But it was worth seeing some friends finally have their sky access.

The reaction I got out of Onedarkflame was pretty hilarious. He had no idea that I had planned to get him Sky access, and so when I had completed the last mission for him, I logged him out, in Sky. That night when he logged in, he was pretty surprised not knowing where he was. Now he won't have to deal with the "Sorry, you don't have access" when asking to help out people in Sky.

Better yet, looks like we'll be trying out a few sky gods in the near future as a few ls members have expressed an interest. Zeo even has a pop set for I think Suzaku which I look forward to taking down with SpiritOfTheWolf.

I don't really see any "serious" sky farming happening, but the odd occasion when a member wants to farm pop items, or just pop a God, I think we'll be able to do this. We've had success with Byakko already (lucky RMTFalk got his haidate 1/1) and i'm pretty sure we'll be successful with anything else we try. Best part is that there's no need for ls members to join a sky shell and put hours upon hours into earning a piece of gear. The chances are much less doing sky gods as a "casual" thing, but once chance is better than none! And a chance to do a challenging fight with close friends, is enough to hold my interest! Well, to be more exact... a chance to bring out my PLD is enough to get me excited. <_<