On the Cusp

So last night I did something really stupid. I had a party go through the night and into morning. I don't mean until 1am, I mean the morning. Crazy ass BLMs partied from 1am till 6:30am. I pulled in about 24k xp and broke into 71. It was a great party, and after a few miscommunications and deaths we really hit our stride. I would pull a Spartoi with Fire Threndoy and then sleep it. Then 5 BLMs would cast Firaga III and Firaga II or Fire III to finisih it off. XP was very good, 180-250 at chain #5.

This afternoon we tried 6-4 again... this time I went as RDM/BLM and we did much much better. Getting through the Mammets befoe the 10:00 mark. Unfortunetly our NIN went down when Ultima hit 39% so we wiped quickly and waited our 7 minutes. After weakened wore we finished off Omega but ended up using 3 CCB's for him. We only had 5 and as we pulled Ultima with 16 minutes left it became obvious we weren't going to be able to control him as much as we wanted to. We wiped with 90 seconds remaining, used all polymers and 2 hours, and all of our reraises. We got it to 20%. We know what went wrong, we just have to keep our tanks up the whole run.

So I'm in the secret room in King Ranperrre's Tomb waiting for my MNK party to get here. It's 2:46am and I haven't even started yet. I want 15k xp so I can hit 72BRD for the night. I need serious personal help...

Sleep is for the weak... and camping is for the crazy

For a very long time now I have gone without something that every RDM or BLM should always have. A Moldavite Earring. I've never been good at camping, and before the patch the only way for me to claim was to cast Dia. Then came the claiming patch where you had to wait nearly 3 seconds to cast magic on a target to claim it. So basically I had to change my strategy if I ever was to claim anything. Recently I was in a capped BCNM with a old friend of mine and he looked at my earrings and said, "What's with the gimp ass earrings Goro." I laughed it off but knew it was really time to get this item. Now the hard part begin... claiming.

Starting with Masen (Pigeon Blood Ruby) I began subbing WAR for Provoke. Now it's way under-subbed so whenever I do it I do /anon. So Thursday afternoon there was maintenance (which I found out when I tried logging in at 12:30pm) so I decided to try and grab this guy ASAP. Unfortunately I logged off in Upper Jeuno with my bazaar, so at 1:05pm I rushed out to the Labyrinth of Onzozo. I arrived at 1:12pm, and found a flurry of people there. I waited, and waited and waited. Talking to Vagus I came to the realization that when the servers came up, Mysticmaker Profblix was up. He was probably taken down in 30 seconds and the person didn't stick around. Most of us campers did not know this, but when he spawned at 3:20pm it was obvious that this was most likely his 2nd spawn already.

There were at least 14 people there, and I did not get the claim. A DRG did... and after he quickly disposed of it he did his /cry emote to let us know that there was no drop. I know this feeling. I was 0/1 and it's quite annoying to get the claim and not the drop. At least I had his ToD which was 3:29pm, meaning he'd pop between 5:30pm-6:00pm. I had sky to do that night, so I left... vowing to come back later. Little did I know how determined I would be after sky.

In sky all we camped was Ulli, and we did it from 5:00pm until 11:00pm. At 11:12pm Ulli pops and up there was LimitBreak, Envy, RoyalKnights, and my current LS Furiousx. Somehow our PLD got the pull in a sea of people, and we took Ulli down easily. We called it a night because Gods are Saturday and we are doing all four of them 2-3x. I spent an hour or so looking for a Curtana and farming Fire Clusters for easy XP. I eventually warped myself out of sky around 1:15am.

I headed out to LoO determined not to leave without an earring. I didn't think I would actually do what I did. I showed up at 1:30am to find the place empty. I was quite excited at the notion of camping against no one, but after 90 minutes of being on edge I realized that it was because I missed Profblix by 5 minutes... He spawns at 3:30am, and I lose claim. Same DRG as before, same quick kill, same /cry emote. Sucks for him he's been here for at least 14 hours. The next spawn was at 5:30-6:00am, so I decided (like an idiot) to stay up watching TV until then.

At 5:39am there's 6 people there, it pops, I claim! I had 300% TP and Vorpal Bladed him 3x and Blink'd his Freeze (Fast Cast) but all I got was Burst. Lame... I decided to grab a nap and set my alarm for 7:40am. At 7:40am I awoke and logged in only to find myself and that same DRG, (whom I am sure was AFK at this point) and a MNK. I changed my macro to /ja "Provoke" {st} because it was much faster to simply select a target and press a button rather than target something and press the macro menu button and then X Button. The 75MNK in full AF2 beat me with Chi Blast and Hundred Fists it... more lame. He gives a /cheer emote and puts the earring on. At this point the DRG player is either asleep or has shot himself, but my only competition was 1 person. I again set my alarm for 10:10am, and took a nap.

I awoke at 10:00am and quickly logged in. No one was here! I cleared all the Gobs and knew that I was 2 minutes from the window and the only pop in the next 16 mins would be the NM! I waited about 3 minutes and then a THF/NIN shows up. He was /anon but had on a piece of THF AF on and was also dual-wielding. Right away that told me that I was the only one with voke, and I knew the ToD, this THF wasn't here at 8:00am with myself and the MNK. It pops, I claim it (not my best claim for Profblix but I got it done) and I used the same tactic. Eureka! I saw the last item saying I gained a moldavite earring.

I was stupid excited, and incredibly tired. I had slept about 3 and a half hours last night and spent way too much time focusing on pressing a button the second Mysticmaker Profblix spawned on my screen. Now I have my Moldavite's and my Diabolo's Earring (only really good in dark weather), so I will be needing my Locquacious Earring soon. I refuse to buy the coins though, I am 2 fights from Sea and Limbus can be farmed. Until then, I can use my Moldy, and not until now did I realize the hardship that can come with getting this stupid earring.

I still despise NMs as well as camping, especially when I see Vagus and company camp Kraken Club only to lose it to RMTs...

Mixed Emotions

Alot has happened since last update. Got past Snoll (THANK GOD) and caught up to Airship. Went 0/7 (mostly tests) 2 nights ago and then ended up kicking the BLM cause was a pain in the ass. We picked up a WAR and went is NIN, WAR, RNG, WHM, SMN, BRD. 1st time we kinda screwed up on Mammets, but 2nd time we passed Mammets and then wiped on Omega at 12%. We reraised and Astral Flowed him because time was running out. When we finally cleared Omega we had used 3/6 CCB Polymers and 3/6 Two Hours, (Benediction included). We started the 3rd fight weakend and weren't able to engage Ultima until we were down to 7 minutes. Well 7 mins later and 2 CCB's later we got it to 19%.

With everyone's 2 hr's gone and starting to think how much those CCB's costs us (300k a pop) we called it a night and decided to retry Friday. We totally had it. We can kill Ultima and Omega... we just can't waste 7-8 minutes weakened. So that sort of bummed me out.

Then I start desynthing because I'm thinking to myself... "I spent 70k GPs on these stupid Smithy's Mitts, might as well use them" so I head off to an area and find an item from an NPC that sells for 517g. That's 6,204g for 12 of them. The NQ desynthed result is valued at 40k a stack and the HQ result is valued at 100k a stack. With 1 HQ synth I've just paid for the entire stack of items I bought from the NPC. That made me quite happy. It's always nice to find these little gems in the game that you can "exploit" to make some gil without having to stand in one place for 3 hours and spam a command just so you have a chance to claim. Anyways I need to make some gil (who doesn't). I'm not poor but if I'm going to have to spend another 500k on meds and CCB for this Friday's fight, I'd rather earn it than have to spend it.

69BRD - 21k/32k

Well after 3 in-game days of desynthing I raised the price of the item from 517g each to 2500g each and eventually emptied the NPC of the item.... Still got 3+ stacks of NQ items and 2 stacks of HQ items which is about 300k. I also learned I can make Steel Ingots cheap. They are 10k a piece. 4xBomb Ash (2300g) + 4xIron Sand (1868g) = 1xSteel Ingot (10k). Thats a 6k profit on every synth which is a 72k profit on every stack.

I really despise NM's...

(omg I published the blog and this is a huge entry... bonus points if you finish it all)

So I got BRD to 68 and finally got around to synthing my Manteel. So far I'm 3/5 with only the hands feet and the head left. One of the ingredients of the Sha'ir Turban is a gem called Pigeon Blood Ruby. It drops off 2 NMs, one 72 hr spawn thats a level 70 (no thanks) and one level 39 leech in Sea Serpent Grotto that spawns every 2-4 hours. Thank you I'll take door #2 please.

I get there around 7:00pm and there's a Japanese 60RDM/30NIN there... wonderful. Within 10 minutes a MNK/WAR from her LS shows up. Great, 2 vs. 1 I love having the odds stacked against me. So I get the ToD and find out it's a 12 minute spawn for the place holders and there's only two of em. So lots of boring downtime. I get 4 spawns in and spend about an hour down there and I get a /tell from a BRD friend that a MNK party is starting up. I got on her last night because she got inot a MNK party and forgot to ask me. This time she remembered so I figured what the hell. I swapped to /WHM and did a little monkey business in King Ranperre's Tomb. Got about 10k in Limit points but the BRD DC'd and we warped out after 20 minutes of waiting. I got to Sandy and activatedmy 4th modifier for Enfeebling Magic, (yay) and Outpost Warped back to Elshimo Lowlands and into the Sea Serpent Grotto.

Those two were still there which lead me to believe that they hadn't gotten the drop. That would really suck because it was now 10:30pm and they had been there since before I got there (7:00pm) and the spawn time is 2-4.5 hours. I had switched to /WAR because voke is much better to claim and within 15 minutes and no pop the did a T T and started to leave. The RDM/NIN was named Onpuu and was saying {No Money!} and they left. I was all alone and felt very confident of claiming. Well a few hours went by and at midnight I logged off real quick to check the Jeuno AH.

I logged in as Tyrhanny (my real life ex-girlfriends character) and suddenly there was a Pigeon Blood Ruby in stock! How strange. I tried bidding on it thinking I'd buy this one and sell the one I camp when I switched but I couldn't buy it. I had 258k on Tyrhanny and even though all 10 sales in the Price History were 250k, it wouldn't sell. How ironic too that Onpuu and Zecross were both in the price history... no money my ass. I did a /search and both were in Castle Oztroja (farming of course). So I came to the deduction that they claimed the NM Masan and were waiting for a 2nd one, but figured why compete, and they left to farm something else.

So here I sit... I have created a spreadsheet and taken down the ToD of each PH I clear, after they're both dead I do whatever for 11 minutes and then look to voke the useless PH every 13 mins. It's 1:54am right now and I'm pretty determined to get it at this point. Even if the suspect farmers got it between 8-10pm that means even at it's latest spawn it should pop before 2am which is fast approaching. I find it funny also that I just got a Carbuncle's Ruby of a Royal Leech place holder. It took me almost a week to get that ruby in Bibiki Bay, yet in a few hours I get it and I had to toss it. Irony.

Moving on from my leech displeasure... yesterday I hit 68 and realized it was time to ditch this Monster Signa. It looks cool, carries a bit of a status symbol (I camped mine didn't buy it) and has alot of CHR (+8) but the VIT (-5) is just annoying and there's better things available to me at 68. So me and my 75SAM friend head out to Labyrinth of Onzozo to try and pop the NM named Soulstealer Skullnix. A goblin THF that drops a Tonberry-like knife called a Kard. A Kard has CHR+5 and is quite fast and strong. It's no Blau Dolch but it's DMG: 22 Delay: 190. When I combine the Elegant Shield (CHR+1) I can get 6CHR with no lost VIT. Fair enough trade off. With my Opo-Opo Crown I'm a 68BRD with 110 CHR so I may be overdoing it a tad. Anyways without getting off on a tangent I camped him 2 days, 1st day no drop. He was a bit tricky with a SAM tank and he has a nasty Triple Attack every 2-4 swings. I pulled in a WHM and BLM and we all took him down and the Kard dropped. I was very happy. Ose was up before we started the fight but someone killed him during. I felt bad, the taru WHM wanted his Ass Jerkin.

I moved over to Mysticmaker Profblix and there was a BST camping him... Eventually 2 others showed up (both in the same LS) and the 4 of us sat there for about an hour. I started spamming Dia and sure enough it popped. I had Dia interrupted 2x (the patch that made it impossible to claim with magic now) and they still hadn't claimed him. By the 3rd attempt I claimed! It sounds so stupid but my heart was actually racing. I took him down easy and all he dropped was a Thunder IV. I warped back happy and upset. I got my Kard and that's what I went to LoO for in the first place. Upon checking the AH I saw that Thunder IV was 100k! All right! At least I made some gil out of it.

But I still despise NM's nonetheless...

*edit - killed Masen at 2:26am which would have been 4.5 hrs from the time the 2 suspicious farmers up and left... (what coincidence??)

65BRD and only 7 more levels to go

Last night I started off in a party in The Boyahda Tree... which is always a bit of a pain. Damselflies have a nasty ass AOE and Crawlers slow party members and put up shell. Top top it off we had a taru PLD and a RNG. I have nothing against either of these jobs, but it meant I'd have to land Ballad on the PLD and give the RNG his Hunter's Prelude. Each fight I was singing 9 songs which got tedious real fast. To top it off, we spent 2 hours there and got about 4k xp. When they said they were tired I jumped on it and left. I went to sleep as 64BRD with 4k/24k into the leve.

Today I attempted the new Valentine's Day event, you get a reraise wand that cannot be cast on you (um... yay.) and a few other sundries. I read up on it and it's quite confusing and as of right now (well the NA's don't know for sure yet) people don't know the 100% way to the HQ Charm Wand +1. It's just as bad but has a different amount of charges and delay. So I found this chick, we followed the instructions, and we got our wand. I feel bad if this girl runs around with her wand equipped not know how many people may or may not dislike me. But we tried the next game day and got a whopping Chocopass. We decided to try another city and headed to Bastok. There we did it a 3rd time and were offered signature crystals and more chcopasses. Well this was 2 hrs in the making so I threw in the towel and said I'd try it again after the weekend when people had figured the 100% way to get HQ wand. Here's a screenshot of the very manly weapon.

So I have some early dinner and get a blind invite into an xp party. I only accept because a few people were Rank 10 and the names sounded familar. That was at 4:30pm. Well the party broke at 12:30am and byt that time I was 7k inside of 65BRD. I am now only 7 levels from Sha'ir and I need 10M more to be able to craft each individual piece. So I ended up all in all getting about 30k or so in 8 hours. Average xp but I didn't die and got 6 Beastman Seals and 1 Kindred Seal. At the end of the fight Viviflare sent me a tell and let me know that he was doing KS30 and I figured what the hell. I had my Themis Orb (KS99) so I went the BLM route and there was only four of them so if I got a D. Ingot then at least I'd get more than I would if we had a full party. Well, total crap dropped.

HQ Scorpion Shell (3k)

Anubis Knife (1k... the last one sold for 1g)

Heart Snatcher (already had one so /toss)

Malboro Fiber (59k)

Trainer's Gloves (2k)

Wyvern Scales (15k)

Really crap drops. Nothing says FFXI than a month's worth of seals netting 80k in gil.

*ding* 50NPC

Ever since SE introduced the Adventuring Fellow quest I have really enjoyed leveling up my NPC. Maybe they made it for the kids who don't have a lot of friends but for whatever reason they made it, I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Early on I learned how to get armor that you wanted by leveling in certain areas. As seen below I was able to get Zoldof into a Scorpion Harness. Well I thought I locked it in and when I changed to Bastoker areas for the Shinobi pants... I lost it. So my goal has been trying to get him into Shiobi pants, then lock it in and get the SH back. Over the past 3 weeks I have leveled Zoldof up enough to get him up to 50, not incredibly high, but seeing as I was afk for 2 months after I had just created him... still admirable (to me at least) that I've taken him this far.

I've done every single quest there is availale (short of 1 which requires the NPC be at level 56) and I have gotten him to weapon # 5 out of 7. I also have him on his 6th piece of headgear and 2 lockable pieces of armor (max is 3 as of yet). He's coming along, and last night I burned through 4 charges of my tactic pearl in Xarcabard. That region is under Bastoker control and fighting the easy Gigas is what got him the SH when I was fighting with him to get his SH. Well here is my quandry:

He's lost his mind.

Over the past two weeks I have leveled nowhere except Bastok areas. He keeps cycling through his Chainmail, Raptor gear, and Sollerets. Right now he is wearing his locked in Sallet (I have yet to find a piece of headgear I actually like, the Sallet is the highest level right now) a Shade Harness, Tekko gloves (not Shinobi Tekko), Raptor Trousers, and Sollerets. He looks absolutely horrid and all I want to do is get him Shinobi Hakama and lock that in. In theory, that is the next body piece after Raptor Trousers. I pray to god he doesn't do anything stupid (again) and show up next in Chain Hose...