Glammy been a busy boy lately. I’ve been doing a lot of leveling, a lot of shopping, some missions, trials and even farming! Or to put it another way “you’ve been slacking off on your fucking blog!!!” True.
Red mage has gotten a lot of work, but it is not finished. I’ve been leveling through a multitude of means actually. I got a couple of Power levels, I have trio’d in a level-sync on East Ronafure birds (actually level appropriate), I did a conventional party sync on beetles in West Altep, I solo’d a bunch of FoV pages-mostly in Behemoth’s Dominion- for a little XP, I ran around floor 9 of Delfkutt’s speed killing giants for XP and gil, I’ve even been a level 43 key bitch in an Abyssea party (where chests were not dropping particularily well). I made it to a whopping level 44. Keep an eye out for me if you see anything around that level, I really DO want to finish it off.
About the Abyssea pt, I came to the conclusion that I am the weak point in my social and dynamis shells; not from lack of skill, but lack of power. I went to Abyssea hoping to just get through red mage but the party was low-man and so our XP left a lot to be desired. With few chests dropping about all I really did is keep refresh on my party and some weak curing. Had I brought one of my level 80s might I have contributed more? Not sure, but I can’t try if I won’t use them. Consequentally…
I got an offer from an LS mate who wanted to work on some assaults. I need progress too, so I broke out my beast and my brand new Superior Private rank and joined them. Don, Woo, KT (from our defunct Nyzul group) and myself worked on several assaults. After that was done, as I didn’t see a new group I could do anything with I decided to do some ToAU missions and a couple quests that have been hanging for awhile (3 years or so?). Solo’d 9 missions and 2 quests (including getting my Caedarva Mire map finally). Got a tell from Usul wanting to do something. We tried to just pound out some treants, and it was easy until we got Emergent elm but Duo we weren’t QUITE enough to finish him off. So I was introduced to the Campaign-style battles in Abyssea. The XP is just ridiculous it is so fast. I’ll definitely be returning, but I stayed long enough to get the merit I needed and the beast and bard armor bits obtainable through resistance points. I had purchased the bard piece that you get from cruor already, but ran out without enough to buy the beast piece as well. Went to Jeuno and unlocked my 81 cap, so I’m free to level now.
Woke up Sunday and decided to get ready for bard leveling, bought 5 songs for about 300k, so I’m poor again. Well, I’m already on beast, might as well farm and work my trial weapons. Headed to Pso’xja to kill lizards, but that was a bad idea, poorly laid out for cycling and slow repops so I left when lightsday ended without a lot of progress. Then I went to Davoi to at least work my level 80 weapon skill axe. Took about 200 off when Don and Woo logged on and we decided to continue ToAU content. Did the mission I stopped at, 10 fomor in 5 man waves, went pretty smoothly. Then we switched to assaults. 1st one went quite well, Sagelord elimination. Ran into a bit of trouble however on Troll Refugees with links, and had to bail after several deaths.
At this point we are coming up on Lightsday again and I ask if they want to work on trial weapons with me. Wouldn’t you know it? Don needs lizards on Firesday, I need on light. So we go to the Den of Rancor, MUCH better place for cycling lizards. In our approximately 3 hours there I manage to finish my Lizard trial AND my WS trial, and Don finishes his lizard trial as well. So I go and get my new trials, not as compatible for working with Don, but maybe I should check with Woo…? I don’t know because I’ve switched to bard since it is needed more often and I can generally solo on the beast.
We’ve done a couple Dynamis since I last wrote, last week getting our long-awaited win in the Dunes (yay!) getting Tavnazia access for MOST of our newer people. The answer seemed to be just a couple more bodies-which we got-courtesy of Peenut, our resident brit cheese fiend. That last little bit of damage goes a long way. Unfortunately, we didn’t have those extra bodies for Monday’s Xarcaband for-the-win attempt. We did ok… a bit sloppy early and it cost a bit of time, but with the power we have we are able to recover THAT fairly easily. However, Dynamis Lord is a different kettle of fish. He has to be taken down FAST or he just spams AoE 1 or 2 shotting everything around. In the time where he just stands there we took off about 70% of his HP, after that the death began, but even dying we took off maybe 10% more. I think 2 more level 85 DD or nukers and we would have had zone, and to be honest we WERE light on nukers. The rule used to be for a real chance to win you wanted 5 black mages, but I think with the cap increase 3 85’s could get it done, our 2 did fairly well on time nukes, but they often ended up dead because they couldn’t take out ALL of the group. We are working on revising our strats, but we are heavily dependent on who decides to show up on any given night.
Which leads me into last night and my temper melt-down (directed at me, so no worries people). I need money and some crafting materials and I also need to work the bard to 85, so I decide to combine all that farming as bard/dancer while working on my 80 trial dagger and my Nyzul dagger-note the order I listed there. I went to Onozco to work on torama , but it is VERY difficult without a 2nd, preferably with paralyna, to farm coeurl meat for pet food zeta (I’m almost out). Unfortunately, an 85 summoner was there farming so my 80 bard really didn’t stand a chance. I moved to Davoi to harass Orcs since at least they drop cash. Well, I was getting off about 3 WS/orc, 4 on the monks taking a nice bite out of my 80 trial dagger. What about my Nyzul dagger you may ask? I know I did… well if you remember the order listed above you’ve probably figured it out already; yes, it’s been in my off-hand. I’ve probably wasted 450 WS points-200 more than I need to unlock-using the thing in my off-hand. I reequipped my weapons in the proper hands and finished off the approximately 60 Viper Bites needed to finish my 80 trial. Went to Jeuno and triggered the next trial, dumped some inventory and I’ll be back at it tonight, most likely a bunny hunt in Ulegeurand Range, 300 AoE Weapon Skills, that doesn’t sound like a pain in the ass at all…
Talk at you soon I hope ;)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Over under sideways down...
SE updates, poorly managed, super-congested and just plain past capacity. It took me an hour to get a connection to the server to download the update that wouldn’t “bump” me. Yes, that was just to connect. The download took a bit over 9 hours, and I have a hi-speed cable business connection at my house. I think that SE just hires like 3 people to work a telegraph to load people up with the updates. I mean really? You just took half your servers off-line a couple months ago. Retask them and daisy-chain to the servers that are left to accommodate the load from the update. SE even had the nerve to post (after the fact) that there was a problem logging in to get the update, but that it was all good now. Yes, after 98% of your player base has made their download one WOULD expect that the update would be easier to get for those still needing. Jack-asses…
As mentioned in my last post, it is my intention to finish red mage to 49 before doing beast or bard to 85, that still holds true. Thursday I soloed the remainder of the way to 30, but mostly I spent my time reading up on the new content as the information became available (there is still a lot to get posted). I really didn’t accomplish much.
Friday was Dynamis, we ended up in Bastok getting a needed win for a member. I also got a repeated invite to GreatBigSea, another social LS that one of my Dynamis buddies is in and this time I accepted it. SK has been hard to get things happening in lately because there really haven’t been that many on so despite my loyalty to SK I have to accommodate MY to-do list too, and more bodies make that easier to do. For example, finding a party to level my red mage with, Abyssea (on a more regular basis), missions and the like; I know my friend is one of the more accomplished players you will encounter. Just don’t get between her and a pile of cheese…
In any event, as has become usual lately very few of us showed up on time. There actually are penalties for tardiness and no-shows but we haven’t been keeping things up to date on the eligibility board so noone is aware they have BEEN penalized. Maybe leaders are handling that stuff privately, I just don’t know. Well, despite it only being 2 days after update we had several people already at level 85. As you might imagine, the run got much easier. Good thing, since we fucked up the timed nuke and could have all died easy. We ended up getting win fairly easy. Wasn’t a great night for the LS in terms of NEEDED relic, think 11 pieces dropped and 9 got floored.
Started my Saturday on bard. SK had an Abyssea run planned but it was in a zone I haven’t done before. I decided to go in early that morning to get my time capped and to get all the confluxes. Luckily, it doesn’t take much time to get the cruor for maps and the like so I’m able to use the map (in comparison with the map on wiki) to get around and get all confluxes. Had some close shaves running past the agro mobs and their respective NMs but I have both skill andthat day luck and managed to avoid getting any agro. Did have one very tense moment though at the last turning to the last conflux as a group was fighting the boss NM right in the bottleneck I needed to sneak through. I wasn’t part of their group in any way but the boss was able to do an AoE attack that damn near killed me (about 1200 of my 1305 HP went up in smoke). Didn’t realize Abyssea was like the old days where AoE could affect anyone so I took absolutely no precautions there. I wonder… if I had just dropped in a finale or requiem, could I have gotten my win?
Saturday-despite my words above-I managed to get a duo with my bud Chrispy with a power level at level 19 on my red mage. Well, we both picked up 3 levels (think Chrispy was almost 3) before we had to split for Abyssea. I thought this was either an XP run or a crest farming run (needed item for the 81 limit break quest is 5 kindred quests) but I was wrong. We were actually farming “azure abyssite of celerity” which are a bit weird. The idea is to get more time in abyssea by getting stones quicker. There are other boost items too. In any event, only the person who pulls the item is eligible to get it (presumably if the puller dies in the fight the 2nd and so on person is eligible but I’m not sure). Well even the tougher mobs are only a 7% drop rate. Still, in I think 150 minutes or so we got the item for 7 of us? We’re going back for the few who missed it soon and no doubt for the people who couldn’t be bothered to come unless there was something in it for them.
Sunday I started out clearing out a bunch of inventory (mostly level 25-ish gear as I was now level 33 and in full RSE [race-specific equipment] or other level 30-ish stuff). After that it was time to go shopping and raiding mules. I sent all the gear and spells I’m going to need until 49 that I had from my mules and then ran around buying the rest, took about 75 minutes since I had to go to Selbina and Jeuno. After my running, I switched back to red mage and managed to get a party. That took me to 35 on my red mage. I was told the whereabouts of the Warhorse Hoofprint and that's been dangling for some time so I finally went and got it; I'm now a "Superior Private". I logged to watch some football at that point (Go Pack!) and didn’t come back for hours. When I did, I found that I’d finally uncapped sword and so I need now to XP off EM to 35. I had no luck however, so I think I’m going to have to do Toughs with my NPC once I get the chance. However, soloing took too long so I logged leading me to…
Monday, Dynamis day, and a pile of no-shows, again! We had 12, that’s it. Well, that killed off any real chance at a Dynamis zone so we ended up in Abyssea, doing the same key item I did Saturday, but with more level 85’s in the mix. Only 11 of us ended up going, and 4 of us had the item, we just went to help. I think we picked up 4 or 5 of them in the time I was there. I started out as escort for the newer people who didn’t have the fluxes necessary to warp closer to camp since it was fresh in my mind from doing it on Saturday morning. Poor Creaper, it was his very 1st time in Abyssea so he wasn’t able to do much of anything before he ran out of time. I did manage to get the last of my crests for 81 limit break, and 2 of the 3 merits I need (I already have 1, so 1 more will do it). I finally called it a night as I was starving. Tonight should be back to the red mage…
As mentioned in my last post, it is my intention to finish red mage to 49 before doing beast or bard to 85, that still holds true. Thursday I soloed the remainder of the way to 30, but mostly I spent my time reading up on the new content as the information became available (there is still a lot to get posted). I really didn’t accomplish much.
Friday was Dynamis, we ended up in Bastok getting a needed win for a member. I also got a repeated invite to GreatBigSea, another social LS that one of my Dynamis buddies is in and this time I accepted it. SK has been hard to get things happening in lately because there really haven’t been that many on so despite my loyalty to SK I have to accommodate MY to-do list too, and more bodies make that easier to do. For example, finding a party to level my red mage with, Abyssea (on a more regular basis), missions and the like; I know my friend is one of the more accomplished players you will encounter. Just don’t get between her and a pile of cheese…
In any event, as has become usual lately very few of us showed up on time. There actually are penalties for tardiness and no-shows but we haven’t been keeping things up to date on the eligibility board so noone is aware they have BEEN penalized. Maybe leaders are handling that stuff privately, I just don’t know. Well, despite it only being 2 days after update we had several people already at level 85. As you might imagine, the run got much easier. Good thing, since we fucked up the timed nuke and could have all died easy. We ended up getting win fairly easy. Wasn’t a great night for the LS in terms of NEEDED relic, think 11 pieces dropped and 9 got floored.
Started my Saturday on bard. SK had an Abyssea run planned but it was in a zone I haven’t done before. I decided to go in early that morning to get my time capped and to get all the confluxes. Luckily, it doesn’t take much time to get the cruor for maps and the like so I’m able to use the map (in comparison with the map on wiki) to get around and get all confluxes. Had some close shaves running past the agro mobs and their respective NMs but I have both skill andthat day luck and managed to avoid getting any agro. Did have one very tense moment though at the last turning to the last conflux as a group was fighting the boss NM right in the bottleneck I needed to sneak through. I wasn’t part of their group in any way but the boss was able to do an AoE attack that damn near killed me (about 1200 of my 1305 HP went up in smoke). Didn’t realize Abyssea was like the old days where AoE could affect anyone so I took absolutely no precautions there. I wonder… if I had just dropped in a finale or requiem, could I have gotten my win?
Saturday-despite my words above-I managed to get a duo with my bud Chrispy with a power level at level 19 on my red mage. Well, we both picked up 3 levels (think Chrispy was almost 3) before we had to split for Abyssea. I thought this was either an XP run or a crest farming run (needed item for the 81 limit break quest is 5 kindred quests) but I was wrong. We were actually farming “azure abyssite of celerity” which are a bit weird. The idea is to get more time in abyssea by getting stones quicker. There are other boost items too. In any event, only the person who pulls the item is eligible to get it (presumably if the puller dies in the fight the 2nd and so on person is eligible but I’m not sure). Well even the tougher mobs are only a 7% drop rate. Still, in I think 150 minutes or so we got the item for 7 of us? We’re going back for the few who missed it soon and no doubt for the people who couldn’t be bothered to come unless there was something in it for them.
Sunday I started out clearing out a bunch of inventory (mostly level 25-ish gear as I was now level 33 and in full RSE [race-specific equipment] or other level 30-ish stuff). After that it was time to go shopping and raiding mules. I sent all the gear and spells I’m going to need until 49 that I had from my mules and then ran around buying the rest, took about 75 minutes since I had to go to Selbina and Jeuno. After my running, I switched back to red mage and managed to get a party. That took me to 35 on my red mage. I was told the whereabouts of the Warhorse Hoofprint and that's been dangling for some time so I finally went and got it; I'm now a "Superior Private". I logged to watch some football at that point (Go Pack!) and didn’t come back for hours. When I did, I found that I’d finally uncapped sword and so I need now to XP off EM to 35. I had no luck however, so I think I’m going to have to do Toughs with my NPC once I get the chance. However, soloing took too long so I logged leading me to…
Monday, Dynamis day, and a pile of no-shows, again! We had 12, that’s it. Well, that killed off any real chance at a Dynamis zone so we ended up in Abyssea, doing the same key item I did Saturday, but with more level 85’s in the mix. Only 11 of us ended up going, and 4 of us had the item, we just went to help. I think we picked up 4 or 5 of them in the time I was there. I started out as escort for the newer people who didn’t have the fluxes necessary to warp closer to camp since it was fresh in my mind from doing it on Saturday morning. Poor Creaper, it was his very 1st time in Abyssea so he wasn’t able to do much of anything before he ran out of time. I did manage to get the last of my crests for 81 limit break, and 2 of the 3 merits I need (I already have 1, so 1 more will do it). I finally called it a night as I was starving. Tonight should be back to the red mage…
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
a-looey looway o-o we gotta go now
Confused? You should be…
When last we “spoke” I was leveling ninja. Leveling ninja was a bit like having a high colonic—painful and degrading but strangely cleansing when all was said and done for something that’s completely full of shit. Also a total pain in the ass when you get the final bill. Don’t tempt me, I can keep this up all week. Well, I’m done with all that crap, after flushing about 1,000 tools…
Started out by doing the quest for my AF weapons (ninja used to be the only people with dual-wield, consequently they were the only job with 2 AF weapons). Unlike my dancer AF, I could use a different job for the fight, so I solo’d the fight in about 2 minutes with my beast. Yes, ninja AF weapons suck, but since the whole job sucks I was damned if I was gonna spend any $$$ on it or any time I didn’t have to. They were free, that’s why I used them.
Although I did do a bit of ninja/dancer solo, about 90% of my time was spent in East Ronafure (S) tanking synced birds parties. Apparently I missed something the last time I read the Terms of Service; the only permissible places to level in a party are the dunes or against birds, I’ll have to read them again, whatever. There were several times when they actually synced below 37. Advice to any ninja invited to one of those parties: think VERY carefully before accepting. Having only 1 Utsusemi spell means you’ll be doing most of your tanking without shadows and ninja are almost as bad as black mage taking hits without shadows. Not to mention problems holding hate since ninja mostly hit like a pillow fight. Personally, I was spamming ninja spells for all I was worth, fuck the red mage enfeebling. I also got pretty voke-happy.
It took awhile (roughly 18 hours all told), but I finally finished off LEVELING ninja. Now I needed to deal with my 9 level skill gap. I went /anon at this point to keep down the rudely irate “requests” to come tank more birds parties. This is a very important thing to do if you need to do something other than XP if you’re on a needed job (tank, maybe healer) unless you like being harassed by people desperate for a tank. Seriously, what part of “sorry, I’m done” is so hard to understand? I looked into it carefully and decided my best bet was to go to Misreaux Coast and kill molboro and flytraps (which cap at tough to me at 49) with my NPC set to tank. Martial master was up, so I had that going for me too. It took about 25 kills to get me to caps on ninjitsu and katana, so hopefully I’m done with this job forever now.
This left me with 1 more important sub-job to level, red mage. I checked my spell list and luckily I had almost all the spells I would need already between my 49 white and 25 black mages plus a few scrolls I’ve managed to pick up through the years and pitched on to mules or my other characters. Still needed were Bio II, a couple bar spells, water II and phalanx. All but phalanx are fairly reasonable, but phalanx is currently going for 300k on my server. That’s bullshit! I have 1650 seals and I refuse to spend that kind of $$$ on 1 scroll. The problem is getting a group together to do the BCNM (Royal Jelly, highest drop % of the BCNMs that have it according to wiki) even if it is only a 3-man event. I looked (in LS and friend list only as pick-up groups are kinda hit-or-miss) for about 3 hours the 1st time, then I logged. Came back on about 5 hours later and was able to get a group together for 5 cracks at it. Won all 5, set the record every attempt but no luck on phalanx. Incidentally, 2 beast/dancer and 1 ranger/ninja rock on that BCNM.
The next day I get lucky as 2 guys are looking to do it when I get on. This doesn’t go quite as well. We wiped on the 1st attempt, and I think it was because I had autotarget on since one of the guys is /assisting me (apparently the zone is too dark for him to target). The job mix was different too. I was still beast, but my partners are pup/healer now and the damage was simply not as fast in coming from us. The other runs we won, but I think the queen jelly formed on every run and no records on any of the wins. Phalanx finally dropped on the 4th (and final) run. This is where shit got weird. We had lotted/passed with no difficulty on any of the other runs. For some reason that didn’t work this run; I lotted, Samonosuke passed but Darthstoner said he was unable to lot since I already had everything (about 20 seconds after he said that I got the system messages saying that all had dropped to me). In the total 8 other runs, as well as the probably 40 other times I have done BCNMs this has never happened that someone was not “allowed” to lot. I even confirmed that quartermaster was off (although if it weren’t then treasure drops would have been affected on all the other runs too, wouldn’t they? The back-door implication that I was cheating in some way bothers me.
As you may have guessed, I’ve been trying to level red mage since I got ninja finished. We started with another gear reshuffle to get rid of ninja stuff and replace it with level 25-ish mage gear. So, after about an hour I’m done shuffling shit and decide to solo FoV pages while I seek. I got good at the pages. All my skills are currently capped for red mage, so there is no need to fight EM and up, just kill and XP fast. Red mage/ninja may be a good soloer, but it is not a FAST soloer, at least at 25 it isn’t.
You may recall above I said you might want to /anon “and maybe healer” if you don’t want to be pestered? The “maybe” is in there because between the 1.5 days I spent 9 hours seeking before I got my 1st party. Yes, I am on red mage, and yes, I had turned /anon off. I think the reason I got invite is because I had just called up NPC with my tactical earring. Of course the invite comes just in time to completely waste the charge. However, the party was excellent. I had only partied once in the past with one of them, Midniter, but the mix was right. We had a dancer, a scholar, a paladin, a warrior (who ended up pulling since the dancer forgot her throwing weapon), a beastmaster (later replaced by a dragoon after he left) and yours truly on red mage. We were a level 22 sync in qufim and got the sync to 25 without a single non-tank death (and that was on a 291 screwdriver). In fact, we had so much surplus healing (with 4 of us having curing ability) that about all I did was enfeeble prey. After we moved to jungle (which is when the beast left and the dragoon joined us) we had a couple of hiccups, both resulting in the puller’s death. Luckily, the dragoon must have been leveling another job since she ran back to town and came back to raise 3 the puller. When she got back, I took over pulling until the warrior lost weakness). Poor guy, smithy agro is an ugly thing, especially at level 25. Well, unfortunately it was the last day of the holiday weekend and it was getting kinda late. We got the sync to level 26 and then we broke the party. Happily, I’m almost level 30 on red mage and expect I’ll be moving right along.
The cap increase and the next Abyssea expansion come out tomorrow and that might take awhile to download, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to finish red mage. I’ve decided however that I will finish it before I work beast and bard to 85. I’m so close to finishing my primary subjobs that I don’t want to leave this hanging out there on my to-do list if you get my meaning.
When last we “spoke” I was leveling ninja. Leveling ninja was a bit like having a high colonic—painful and degrading but strangely cleansing when all was said and done for something that’s completely full of shit. Also a total pain in the ass when you get the final bill. Don’t tempt me, I can keep this up all week. Well, I’m done with all that crap, after flushing about 1,000 tools…
Started out by doing the quest for my AF weapons (ninja used to be the only people with dual-wield, consequently they were the only job with 2 AF weapons). Unlike my dancer AF, I could use a different job for the fight, so I solo’d the fight in about 2 minutes with my beast. Yes, ninja AF weapons suck, but since the whole job sucks I was damned if I was gonna spend any $$$ on it or any time I didn’t have to. They were free, that’s why I used them.
Although I did do a bit of ninja/dancer solo, about 90% of my time was spent in East Ronafure (S) tanking synced birds parties. Apparently I missed something the last time I read the Terms of Service; the only permissible places to level in a party are the dunes or against birds, I’ll have to read them again, whatever. There were several times when they actually synced below 37. Advice to any ninja invited to one of those parties: think VERY carefully before accepting. Having only 1 Utsusemi spell means you’ll be doing most of your tanking without shadows and ninja are almost as bad as black mage taking hits without shadows. Not to mention problems holding hate since ninja mostly hit like a pillow fight. Personally, I was spamming ninja spells for all I was worth, fuck the red mage enfeebling. I also got pretty voke-happy.
It took awhile (roughly 18 hours all told), but I finally finished off LEVELING ninja. Now I needed to deal with my 9 level skill gap. I went /anon at this point to keep down the rudely irate “requests” to come tank more birds parties. This is a very important thing to do if you need to do something other than XP if you’re on a needed job (tank, maybe healer) unless you like being harassed by people desperate for a tank. Seriously, what part of “sorry, I’m done” is so hard to understand? I looked into it carefully and decided my best bet was to go to Misreaux Coast and kill molboro and flytraps (which cap at tough to me at 49) with my NPC set to tank. Martial master was up, so I had that going for me too. It took about 25 kills to get me to caps on ninjitsu and katana, so hopefully I’m done with this job forever now.
This left me with 1 more important sub-job to level, red mage. I checked my spell list and luckily I had almost all the spells I would need already between my 49 white and 25 black mages plus a few scrolls I’ve managed to pick up through the years and pitched on to mules or my other characters. Still needed were Bio II, a couple bar spells, water II and phalanx. All but phalanx are fairly reasonable, but phalanx is currently going for 300k on my server. That’s bullshit! I have 1650 seals and I refuse to spend that kind of $$$ on 1 scroll. The problem is getting a group together to do the BCNM (Royal Jelly, highest drop % of the BCNMs that have it according to wiki) even if it is only a 3-man event. I looked (in LS and friend list only as pick-up groups are kinda hit-or-miss) for about 3 hours the 1st time, then I logged. Came back on about 5 hours later and was able to get a group together for 5 cracks at it. Won all 5, set the record every attempt but no luck on phalanx. Incidentally, 2 beast/dancer and 1 ranger/ninja rock on that BCNM.
The next day I get lucky as 2 guys are looking to do it when I get on. This doesn’t go quite as well. We wiped on the 1st attempt, and I think it was because I had autotarget on since one of the guys is /assisting me (apparently the zone is too dark for him to target). The job mix was different too. I was still beast, but my partners are pup/healer now and the damage was simply not as fast in coming from us. The other runs we won, but I think the queen jelly formed on every run and no records on any of the wins. Phalanx finally dropped on the 4th (and final) run. This is where shit got weird. We had lotted/passed with no difficulty on any of the other runs. For some reason that didn’t work this run; I lotted, Samonosuke passed but Darthstoner said he was unable to lot since I already had everything (about 20 seconds after he said that I got the system messages saying that all had dropped to me). In the total 8 other runs, as well as the probably 40 other times I have done BCNMs this has never happened that someone was not “allowed” to lot. I even confirmed that quartermaster was off (although if it weren’t then treasure drops would have been affected on all the other runs too, wouldn’t they? The back-door implication that I was cheating in some way bothers me.
As you may have guessed, I’ve been trying to level red mage since I got ninja finished. We started with another gear reshuffle to get rid of ninja stuff and replace it with level 25-ish mage gear. So, after about an hour I’m done shuffling shit and decide to solo FoV pages while I seek. I got good at the pages. All my skills are currently capped for red mage, so there is no need to fight EM and up, just kill and XP fast. Red mage/ninja may be a good soloer, but it is not a FAST soloer, at least at 25 it isn’t.
You may recall above I said you might want to /anon “and maybe healer” if you don’t want to be pestered? The “maybe” is in there because between the 1.5 days I spent 9 hours seeking before I got my 1st party. Yes, I am on red mage, and yes, I had turned /anon off. I think the reason I got invite is because I had just called up NPC with my tactical earring. Of course the invite comes just in time to completely waste the charge. However, the party was excellent. I had only partied once in the past with one of them, Midniter, but the mix was right. We had a dancer, a scholar, a paladin, a warrior (who ended up pulling since the dancer forgot her throwing weapon), a beastmaster (later replaced by a dragoon after he left) and yours truly on red mage. We were a level 22 sync in qufim and got the sync to 25 without a single non-tank death (and that was on a 291 screwdriver). In fact, we had so much surplus healing (with 4 of us having curing ability) that about all I did was enfeeble prey. After we moved to jungle (which is when the beast left and the dragoon joined us) we had a couple of hiccups, both resulting in the puller’s death. Luckily, the dragoon must have been leveling another job since she ran back to town and came back to raise 3 the puller. When she got back, I took over pulling until the warrior lost weakness). Poor guy, smithy agro is an ugly thing, especially at level 25. Well, unfortunately it was the last day of the holiday weekend and it was getting kinda late. We got the sync to level 26 and then we broke the party. Happily, I’m almost level 30 on red mage and expect I’ll be moving right along.
The cap increase and the next Abyssea expansion come out tomorrow and that might take awhile to download, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to finish red mage. I’ve decided however that I will finish it before I work beast and bard to 85. I’m so close to finishing my primary subjobs that I don’t want to leave this hanging out there on my to-do list if you get my meaning.
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