I've finally achieved COR75! This makes #9 among the jobs I have at 75.It didn't really take long for me to go from 70-75 with Xean's BRD. With our setup, all our parties were pretty much done merit style. I think we even managed to hit about 27k/hr in those last levels in one party.
And while my COR isn't the kind of DD that my DRG is, (or my "on-vacation SAM") it definitely doesn't lack in the dmg department. I owe a lot of thanks to that, to my friends and LS mates. In the last month they've helped me obtain a few pieces of gear which have really made a difference.
For starters, I had a successful "Experimental Lamia" run during one of our Saturday Night ZNM runs. I had tried to pop this ZNM for 2 weeks in a row, but there were never enough people available to attempt it. But finally, after going the extra mile to plan for it, my LS pulled through for me and after a fairly easy fight, I was rewarded with my Enkidu's Leggings. (Yay for Carste's TH4!)
Next up, I got myself a Light Gorget. Soulstar had just recently gotten sea access and had setup a "UFO Farming" run for people that were needing some sea gorgets. So Drimergirl, Zeo, Carste, Xean and Janko came to help, and after two nights worth of farming, we had managed to get all the UFO organs we needed to complete 1-2 gorgets each.
Then for the last bit of farming I needed to do, Xean came out on his THF and duo'ed with my RDM. I had to farm what seemed like a gazillian Aerns, which kept reraising making us double our efforts. But finally we did manage to get all the organs needed from the Aerns and the goldfish. I had lucked out from the previous UFO farming sessions and gotten my shark organs there, so that was one less thing to do.
And even though I probably won't see many events where i'll be able to bring my COR (just isn't as useful as the other jobs I can bring), I managed to unlock the two weapon skills: Leaden Salute & Detonator!
(NM that me and Xean duo'ed to unlock Detonator)Getting the weapon skill points was quite a pain for Detonator, because the highest weapon skill I had was Slug Shot which couldn't even do a level 3 skill chain. But thanks to Xean and Carste I was able to complete the points I needed and finally unlock it. Then it didn't take long for me to unlock Leaden Salute because I was now able to close light with Xean's Shark Bite!
Then, just as I lucked out with getting my PLD relic in Xarcabard and Beaucedine Glacier through Dynamis on our very first runs... I also found myself swimming in the same luck. This month RoR did both Beaucedine and Xarcabard, and having just gotten my COR to 75 meant that I was now able to lot the gear there. During the runs, the Commodore Tricorn and Frac dropped. And because no one had set the gear as their main lot, and the only other COR75 in our LS already had the pieces, I was automatically able to lot them! Getting these pieces so quickly and easily was a very nice experience though I have a sneaking suspicion this means i'm probably not going to be so lucky for a long time to come @_@
As for playing COR @75, i've really been enjoying it. Its really expensive if I want to try and keep up with the other DDs, but the point of playing this game is to have fun so I find a way to pretend I don't know the expenses i'm paying into just to play it for a couple of hours in a merit party. Plus, thanks to Xean's TH3 we've had some really good success in the last week farming together.
Aside from the big dent in my wallet this job can make, its quite a change from the two jobs i'm used to playing: healer or melee DD. I like that the job incorporates a little of both (though the healing isn't really so much healing, just buffing really)
So aside from getting in a lot of meriting this week, I've managed to get a few more pieces for my PLD. I quested the Mermaid's Ring for my PLD which gives me a little extra emnity. I have no idea why I never bothered to get one of these pieces during my PLD career, but I guess it's not important anymore! The quest was actually a little more excruciating than I had thought, especially with just TH1. I had to kill 4 different types of Sahagins for some rare/ex mermaid pieces. I managed to get one of an NM (100% drop rate) and the other took me a good 2-3 hrs. I then was able to duo-box Xean and use his THF for TH3 which allowed me to get the last 2 pieces I needed in about the same time. All that was left was to go around the jungle and find the chest, and voilà!
Edit: As of tonight, I now have my first piece of Denali gear! I had been invited out with some friends, and had arranged for Xean to play my character for me during my usual Friday Nyzul static. When I got back home, they were just finishing their 3rd run and fighting the boss for floor 40. A few minutes later, I was told that the Denali Legs had dropped, and even though I was technically main lotting Askar for that floor, the members in my static decided to pass the gear and let me have it for my COR. I really had a hard time knowing how to express my excitement and gratitude to my friends without seeming like a complete psycho.
It's actually funny when I think about my Nyzul static... I remember once upon a time ago, I despised the event and was pretty pessimistic about it (then again, i've become pessimistic about a lot of things in this game after playing for so long @_@) But after we had changed up the jobs people brought, and got a few merits, the runs became so smooth and I finally found myself enjoying them.
But anyways back to the more important point, I have some really really great friends in this game and thanks to their kindness, I now have yet another good piece of gear to spice up my COR just a bit!
I also spent a couple of days doing some campaign whenever there wasn't much time to do anything else.
I had to get about 25k allied notes to get my Iron Ram Dastanas to also add to my emnity set. It was really hard to actually make myself do campaign at first, but when I was within 10k suddenly it didn't seem like such a challenge. It just so happened that it gave me something to do while I stayed up late into the morning to keep Xean company because at the time he was waiting on Aspid (I think that's the name) to spawn.
Speaking of that... Xean finally changed his mind and is going to go after the Black Belt items by purchasing them from an HNM shell. The one LS that we had both joined (though my status was really more of a tag-along if I have nothing else to do) had apparently merged with another and had quite a few people wanting to lot the BB items. The people that wanted these items, were also the kind that were in-game 24/7 and therefore able to accumulate points twice as fast as Xean (or myself). We both decided that at least for right now, the HNM thing wasn't really going to be for us. And so now our plan is to farm up a storm and buy the BB items.
Then hopefully if things work out, we'll be starting a new Salvage group through our LS (lead by the famous drunk-bearded-mage-who-thinks-he-is-chuck-norris aka Carste) and Xean will finally get to have some fun on MNK and i'll have another challenging event to play on my RDM. I might even get to bring my COR to the boss runs! O_O
I'm not looking forward to the runs we'll have to do with a few green amphibians that will remain unnamed, but i'm definitely willing to give this a go and hope for the best. It'd be really nice to see some people from our LS get an opportunity to obtain some of the best gear available in this game. And being able to say that our little social was able to succeed at yet another endgame event... well, that's just another thing to smile about.
And now to catch up on the other stuff i've been up to!
The CoP static in my LS finally reached chapter 8. I headed out to help them with the 3 fights up in Sea, which went a lot faster than I predicted. The fights were relatively easy with 2 RDMs (myself and Chisei) alternating the ES + Sleepga. We did get a little aggro here and there, but then again who doesn't when you're in Sea?
I wasn't able to help with the next mission because of my static for my SMN, but from what I heard Drimergirl, Soulstar, Standpoint and Timwakefield made some more progress. The plan now is to wrap up with the last two fights in the CoP missions in about 2 weeks and finally we'll have another bunch of LS members that have finally completed the CoP expansion! Then... its time to pester a few others to get their static setup. Eveeeeeeeeentually our entire LS will be done with CoP, and SEA WILL BE OURS! <_<
And on the topic of sea, Jailer of Faith can go dig himself a grave! Xean had tried to setup a JoF run a few weeks ago, but unfortunately he had some RL plans come up and we had to cancel at the last minute. So we scheduled for the following week, and struggled to find people that would be available and willing to help with the fight. During that week me and Xean farmed up a total of 7 pop items, just to make sure that we'd see at least one Faith Torque. I would end up getting the second if one dropped, and then we'd allow anyone else who participated to lot any after.
Sadly though, the fight didn't go well. Xean seemed to be tanking pretty well and the dmg looked good, we managed to get JoF down to about 60%. The problem though was that he spammed some move that kept giving the slow effect to Xean, as well as a petrify AoE move AND Stonega III. I was having a really hard time keeping up with casting Cure V > Erase > Haste > Stona > Repeat. I couldn't even find time to rest and had both Ballad and Refresh @_@
Eventually what made the fight turn for the worse was when Xean went really low on HP and I was in the process of casting erase on him, and unfortunately no other cures got cast after he took some massive dmg and then before I had a chance to get my own cure off, I watched his HP go to O. Then from there, JoF picked us all off one by one. Carste managed to kite him for a little bit, but we just didn't have enough time to try and recover. The most disappointing part of the evening was that immediately after that loss, the only other two healers had to leave which pretty much forced us to cancel the rest of the run. It was really frustrating and discouraging after having put so much work into setting up the run.
I'm really hoping that in the next month or two I can try and help Xean setup another run now that we'll have more ppl with access to this fight, but that also has been a challenge. I'm never sure if the people I ask really don't want to come, and I hate putting them in a position where they feel like they have to say yes out of obligation. Hopefully taking a break from this goal will be a nice breather and give me some time to get a better feel to know who really doesn't mind helping with the fight. Then the only other challenge is setting up a time that works conveniently for everyone. Stupid time zones ~_~
I also was able to help out the most recent addition to my little SAM army, Standpoint, with his Tashi: Kasha NM. I'm telling you, one day i'll have the entire LS with SAM75... and then, I will unretire it and lead them to many many fun parties filled with WHEEEEEEE's.
We did a few WS points out in Vunker Inlet [S] and then geared up for the fight which was in Kuftal Tunnel. Xean came along to help, and I pretty much just tossed a few enfeebles and watched the two elvaan men annihilate the beetle. Fight wasn't even much of a challenge for a BLU75
and MNK75!
And last thing worth mentioning, I had another opportunity to bring out my PLD for a LS event! Drimergirl had asked for some help getting her Carbuncle Mitts for her up and coming SMN, so myself, Xean, Athoz and Vepion went to the temple of Uggalepih to give her a hand. I had farmed up the key she needed to get to the NM area, as well as the pop item so that really let us speed things up. As for the fight, I wish I could say I remembered it but to be honest the only thing I remember is hitting my provoke macro! Its surprising what once might have been a really difficult fight, can be so easy and quick! I remember having close to 2 parties when I had gone after my Carbuncle Mitts years ago.... and here we were, with less than a party and the whole thing probably lasted no longer than 5 minutes! Oh well, the important thing is that Drimergirl was estatic at the end.
So guess i'll end this post by expressing my current thoughts...
I need to do some testing on my DRG! I have been getting an urge to play my SAM again thanks to a few people in the LS that have been expressing how much fun they've had recently lvling the jobs. But I really don't think its a good idea to keep multiple heavy DDs geared and available when I have so many mage jobs. Even with the satchel, I am still struggling to maintain a "20 empty inventory" space. So my goal for the next little while, will be to see how I can better gear my DRG to bring it up to par on non-bird mobs so that the temptation of getting my SAM out of retirement won't be so strong. First on the list: Get my Pahluwan Legs!
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