7 years... The Black Belt at last!

For anyone that doesn't know, the original "Xean" started playing 7 years ago. He had gotten his MNK to lvl 50, but decided to call it quits with FFXI. The game at that time, was very new (just released on PC) and just didn't hold enough interest for him.

A little more than a year later, he met me and told me about the game. I had always wanted to play the game being an FF fan, but didn't know anything about MMO's at that time and so I never bothered to try it out. But having a friend (we weren't married quite yet, lol) who already knew the ropes and could help me out, was enough to convince me to buy the game and start my character Zerayla. And so I convinced him to return to the game and play with me.

To make things easy, he had offered to take up WHM and let me pick a DD class. I picked MNK!

We got to around lvl 40, but as we had progressed I started to get very irritated with the horrible tanks we had encountered in our parties. None seemed to understand the concept of "provoke" and keeping the healer alive. And there wasn't a whole lot that I could do back in that day, unless I wanted to drain Xean's WHM of all his MP.

So I decided to take up PLD and gave up MNK. But not before I had already started the Brown Belt quest... see, I had intended to take my MNK up all the way and so me and Xean had begun the Purple Belt quest, and Brown Belt quest on Zerayla. I even remember the night when Xean had actually stayed up until 4am or so the morning we were camping Morbolger to get the quest item for me. I was actually sick that night, and had passed out. But thanks to Xean, I had gotten that item as well as the other two and obtained the Brown Belt on Zerayla.

But when PLD became my "new love", we both forgot all about the quests, and Zerayla's MNK. I ended up lvling PLD to 75, followed by RDM, WHM, SAM, DRG, BLM, WAR, SMN, COR and then eventually MNK again.

Xean did actually take up his MNK and get it to 75 with my RDM, but because we had already quested the Brown Belt on Zerayla, I just gave the item to him to use. There had always been plans to get him a Black Belt, but back then it was near to impossible unless you belonged to a very good endgame shell or if you wanted to pay an arm and a leg for the quest items. So getting the elusive Black Belt kinda just became a goal that was... well, just "there". As time went by, I was eventually able to get one of the 3 items needed. An acquaintance had invited me to his endgame linkshell's KS99 run where they were selling off the Wyrm Beards and I was able to purchase the item for 700k. And from then on, I devoted maybe 2 attempts to get the Adamantoise Egg from the HNM but always gave up in the end because the competition especially with botters, was too frustrating. I even went as far as making a deal with an endgame shell to buy the item once, only to be told after staying up late at night and camping it with the LS for hours, that they had decided last minute to give the drop to one of their members.

By this time, Xean had become my alt character. I stayed at 1/3 for the Black Belt items for probably a good year, until recently...

Thanks to some awesome LS friends (Athoz, Anderoc, Carste, Janko, Hesper, Onedarkflame, Vepion and Buckeyespud) we recently had a very successful KS99 turtle run and came out with a total of 4 Adamantoise Eggs! Athoz, Onedarkflame, Carste, Hesper and myself had put in a lot of work the weeks before, to "beef up" our BLMs and we killed the turtle "mana style". Was quite fun :)

And just before this, a few months ago... I had managed to get the Behemoth Tongue from the other KS99 thanks to Timwakefield, Vepion, Carste and Onedarkflame. (There may have been someone else i'm missing..)

So I was now 3/3 on the black belt items! I was estatic to finally have been able to complete a goal that originally had been Xean's, and had now become something I was determined to complete.

But this is where the funny part comes in. That night, after getting the last item... Xean (he plays on and off sometimes with me, and had actually played during the KS99 turtle run) went to go "claim his prize" and trade in the items. Only to discover.... he had never quested the Brown Belt on his character! And you can't quest the Black Belt, until you have quested the Brown Belt!

So after finally accepting this.. (we both checked the quest logs multiple times, checking each zone in case wiki had written the info down wrong) I decided that I would go after Deadly Dodo, Nue and Morbolger the next day. I started with the most annoying one - Morbolger. He has a 21-24 hr repop and I wanted to get that done and over with. The problem was, that I had to go out for the day and so I decided just to park Xean in the zone and hopefully get a ToD.

When I got home, there was a RDM in zone and my chat log didn't show that the NM had been killed. So I waited around, keeping myself busy with a few things and about an hour or two later, he popped! And lucky for me, that RDM had gone AFK so the drop was mine!

Xean then decided he would camp the next NM Nue, while I did some stuff on Zerayla. It took him the rest of the night to get the drop, because he went about 1/3. And thankfully he kept spawning 1-2hrs after every death.

The next morning, I went out to kill Deadly Dodo. I had to AFK for 30 minutes, and when I came back there was a NIN in the zone asking to team up for the kill for his Magian Trial. I had been told by my friend Anderoc that when he had camped this guy, no one would team up with him because they also wanted the drop. So I was really happy to find out that the NIN wasn't interested in it. And about 5 minutes after coming back, he spawned and dropped!

So off I went, to go get the Brown Belt quest finished on Xean...

But... things can't be that easy when it comes to my husband's character. His luck, and everything else associated to that, is just terrible in this game.

Xean hadn't quested the purple belt either! (He had just bought it originally when he took MNK to 50)

So again, I had to go out and kill some more NMs! I couldn't believe this. It was like a slap in the face from SE! The one thing that Xean had wanted for so long in this game, and we were being kept from getting it!

So off to La Theine I went, to go kill the rams. And I believe that my luck here also made a visit because apparently Lumbering Lambert is another Magian Trial NM and often camped. But I had no competition, and while Lumbering Lambert did not spawn for me, I did get Bloodtear Baldurf within 30 minutes. I actually almost died to him too, because I had gone out on THF/RNG and never bothered to grab any real gear, and the NM's 2hr (Mighty Strikes) was taking 150-200 dmg a hit. I ended up killing him with about 109HP left, so it was a close call.

Next I went to Konshtat and lo and behold, Rampaging Ram was already up! So I got the other item needed without any hassle, and was finally able to claim the long awaited Black Belt!

It feels sooo nice to have Xean's MNK feel almost "complete". I really only have to upgrade his MNK AF3 Hands and feet to the +2 versions, and then work on his Empyrial hand-to-hand weapon. And i'm not at all in a rush to do these things, now that I feel i've been able to get the most difficult MNK gear out of the way.

What was once Xean's goal when he first started playing MNK, became my goal as well and to see it finally finished is really nice feeling. I kinda feel like I beat FFXI in a way, lol.

And while Zerayla is my main character, she still has quite a few things that will take a lot of time to get done. I'm also always at odds as to which job I feel is her "main". My first job that I really loved, was PLD. But playing that job the way it used to be played, was short lived. In the years that i've played this game, PLD has really changed and I don't feel that i've ever really been able to play it that well with how its evolved. And especially now, there just doesn't seem to be any place for the job at all unless you're doing old content.

Then there's my RDM which I really really enjoy playing. This is probably the one job that I had invested the most time into playing efficiently, gearing it very well and being very detailed about my macros. But like PLD, there's just no place for this job anymore in Abyssea. Perhaps if SE gives RDM the cure V spell down the road it'll be useful again, in which case i'm most definitely going to full time this job. But for now, i'm just collecting gear as it sits in the closet.

And finally there's my DRG. I remember being very into my SAM, but as soon as I had gotten my DRG to "merit level" I quickly changed my favorite DD. I still enjoy SAM, but I enjoy my almost 1-hit-kill-Drakesbane a little more. And this right now seems to be the job that i'm putting the most focus into gearing. It's my hobby job, so I don't get to play it much (again, DRG isn't really desired as a DD for Abyssea) but I like the idea of getting it to be geared "better than average". Which is why i'm working on my Rhongomiant, even though I keep hearing that it's a waste. But the way I see it, if i'm the only one working on DRG, I have no competition! And in those very very rare instances when DRG is needed, I won't have to bring a mage job because your typical DD doesn't have a mage job leveled, and therefore I always get asked to swap because I do!

So yea, there is the epic story of Xean getting his Black Belt. And the added bonus is that this has given some renewed interest in playing FFXI, for the real Xean. Having him play occasionally is a nice change. Not having to duo-box so often, and just being able to duo things with him again makes the experience of playing this game better. And maybe with the updates coming up, there will be some better additions to make this game more enticing. Makes me just wonder why SE couldn't have made the good updates earlier!

Oh well. Now to find something else to do as I wait for this 11 hr maintenance to be over. Hopefully we can finish up Odf's 2nd to last Masamune trial tonight if they actually open the servers on time.