Hanging up my Kabuto.

After some thinking, i've decided to retire one of my favorite melee jobs. Samurai.

As much as i've loved this job, there are just too many benefits to gain if I retire it. The first is that I can sell quite a few expensive pieces of gear and make some gil, which I can then put into my COR.

After playing this game for 4 yrs, I figure its about time I play a job and go all out without being stingy on the gear/food that I buy for it, while getting it to 75. People have fun in this game, in their own ways. Mine is doing the best that I can in a party, and being the most efficient. So, one of the first things I plan to do in order to enjoy my COR is to use the funds i'll make to get myself a few nice pieces, such as the Mercurial Kris. Zeo actually offered to lend me his, which was really generous, but if i'm not mistaken, I could keep the dagger up to 75, and even use it in merit parties. So, makes more sense for to have my own and that way I don't have to constantly hassle Zeo to send me his to borrow when I play on COR.

I'm also planning to put some funds towards helping Xean get his Black Belt. I haven't told him though he'll find out sooner or later (probably when he decides to read this blog entry) I know that since getting back to the game, he's really been enjoying his MNK and one piece he's always wanted to get was the black belt. I recently put up a "WTB" on QCDN in hopes to find a shell that is willing to make a deal and sell the quest items from KSNM99's, and even offered up my own that i've been saving since last year. I really hope an endgame shell contacts me soon, this is one of those things i've always wanted to do for Xean ever since before he quit the game.

The other bonus to retiring SAM is... INVENTORY SPACE! Having 8 jobs at lvl 75, with another 2 on the way is definitely a very time consuming burden. I have every single quest/extension possible to have the most inventory space, and I still have to send myself random items like food, tools through the delivery box just so that I can have space on hand. Not having at least 10 open spots, drives me nuts! I need that room for when I take pictures for zeni, and for farming or crafting. And when I don't have the room (which has been the case recently) I have to spend so much time sending myself gear and other items, just so that I can have more room. Oh, and did I mention I still have a mule with at least 80 pieces of low lvl gear? >_>

Yes yes... I know...

So by retiring SAM, i'll now be able to bring my DRG which I strangely feel bad saying... I enjoy more than my SAM. Its pretty well geared (still working on getting a few pieces, but that's another story) and though it didn't parse up to my SAM, I just found myself enjoying it more. I plan to use it mostly for colibri merit ptys, and if ever I need to do other mobs where DRG doesnt' fair so well, I do have my WAR. My WAR has never seemed to do so well, but most of my gear is rare/ex so its not really hard to gear it decently. I'll just need to get a pair of Askar hands through Nyzul and should be ready to go!

Oh, and i'll be able to get rid of my merits for Great Katana, and put new ones into Polearm! See... I have something like 713 merits so far? I've meritted EVERY "outside job" category, and the only place I can now put merits into... is my MNK. Which, I don't think i'll touch because I sold my K.Osode and gave my Brown Belt to Xean. So it'd be one pretty gimp MNK. <_<

Onto other things!

Thanks to my dynamis shell RidersOfRohan, I am now 5/5 on WAR relic! I believe i've managed to get all these pieces through free lot too.

I'm almost 5/5 on WHM and BLM too now. I wonder how much gear I would have gotten if I had been in a shell that ran twice a week @_@

All I can say is that having TH4 has worked wonders with our shell. We have 3 THFs that have this now, and we're finally able to get people more AF. We even got lucky and finally got another Valor Surcoat (about damn time Ketsurui!)

Aside from some occasional partying with Vepion to help him get his PUP to 75, me and Xean have been mostly xping on our BRD and COR. We're just about at the stage where he'll be doing the pulling. We just hit 37 today, and I can't wait to go to East Ronfaure [S] to have our first "merit type" party. I'll definitely have to invite LS members to this pty, it'll be a blast.

In order to keep up though with dmg, i've had to do some skilling up with my markmanship. The one downside to lvl syncing. Its not too bad though, i'm just glad that Xean can also benefit from skilling up his BRD skills so that he can keep me company. I just have to get used to the fact that he can endure grinds now, and actually finds some enjoyment in this game. Its been hard adjusting, because once upon a time there was very little he could stand about FFXI @_@

We've also spent some time helping out one of the new additions to our LS - Lyea. We helped her out with the rank mission 2.3 - aka "Pulverize the Dragon".

I swear i've done this fight at least 40 times now, and it never gets old! Usually I end up going MNK and 2hring, but this time I got to bring out my DRG (yay!)

Now just to wait until Lyea makes her way to lvl 50, so that we can do all the Genkai quests! Those are loads of fun =)

And the last thing to note, is another successful night of "Casual Saturday Night ZNMs". Actually, I completely forgot to mention but our LS took on Tinnin the weekend before last. Unfortunately we weren't able to do a "LS only" setup because... well, we just didn't have enough people available that night, but we did have some friends come out to help fill up the alliance.

Myself and Anderoc were the two PLD/NINs. I was pretty pumped and eager to finally tank something as /nin that would really test my ability to keep hate without provoke. I suppose because of the attack rate for Tinnin, i'd also be testing my ability to keep up shadows but... the challenge was cut short when we encountered a glitch.

After we got Tinnin down to about 80% (I think?) suddenly he seemed "frozen" and stopped attacking. We just wailed on him and took him down, with absolutely zero retaliation. The fun was cut short, and I guess because we had such an easy time with a Tier IV ZNM that was suppose to be a challenge, we got unlucky with the drops.

Not one piece of gear dropped. I felt pretty bad, considering this was Janko's pop and he had been working on it for the last couple of months. He's been wanting the Enkidu Subligar for his PUP which is now on its way to hitting lvl 75.

One good thing out of the fight though, is that I got the Tinnin Fang. This makes me 2/3 of the ZNM items needed in one of the quests for my mythic sword! And on that note, the only other areas i've progressed in my mythic weapon upgrade is accumulating more Alexandrite (thanks to Xean who always grabs any when he sees them cheap) and accumulating more ampoules from Einhejar. Still a long ways to go with this goal... lol... >_>;

But yea, as I was saying! Another good night with ZNMs. We started off with fighting Vulpangue, which umm... ended with about 80% of our alliance dead after the first minute. Thankfully though, we did manage to kill the steroid puk. We even managed to get the drop that Soulstar had been wanting, the SMN head piece. But, sadly he zoned before waiting for it to drop and it ended up falling to his wife, Drimergirl ><

The night did get better though, we went after Chigre next. We had to wait for another group to do a few pops, and the funny part is that they had quite a few more people than our alliance... and we managed to kill our one pop waaaaaaaaaay faster. Go go SoTW!!

I was able to pick myself up a Blood Ring from that fight, and Vepion got himself the Insect Ring, so full drops all around thanks to Carste's TH4! He must be enjoying the break from his BLM, I hear he's lost something like 20k in the last week due to other in-game events, lol.

Then we went after Verdelet.

And yes, for those in my LS that read this...

I KNOW YOU CAN MELEE VERD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...

......

Leave me alone!

We fought him twice, and while he did drop the cape item, we didn't get the shield. Guess we'll have to pop him again next week XD