Thursday, August 5, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Lord I was born a ramblin' man...
I have GOT to start keeping up with this…
Well, it’s been a month so obviously things are happening. As mentioned in my last post I was taking the bard to 80; well I got there eventually. In point of fact, the bard is currently only trotted out for specific events (dynamis and this Saturday I’ll be using in an SK Abyssea alliance) now as I’ve been working on beast. Of course it will be used to recap its own XP and that will give me an excuse to unlock my Nyzul bard dagger and to work on my trial weapons. I think I might have to bard/beast to do that tho’, my bard is squishy.
Now on to the beasty… I’ve been leveling beast and unlocking my Nyzul axe for most of this last month. I did have quite a few weapon skill points from soloing in that time. My Primal Rend unlocked as soon as I hit Nyzul floor 90, maybe 85 as I wasn’t actually watching. Regardless, think I had about 900+ points on it.
So I needed a new project and I finally decided to work on my trial weapons. I picked up a level 75 axe, a level 75 dagger and a level 80 dagger, and I’ll be needing 1 more 75 and 80 dagger. I’m debating a staff for the healing, but I really don’t heal much on my bard so probably not. I actually don’t anticipate any issues with all of the daggers; when I melee on bard I bard/dancer or /ninja and I dual-wield daggers, and my next to jobs to level 80 are thief and then dancer, both of which primarily dual-wield daggers. That means I’ll be needing about 500,000 XP at levels that can use trial weapons or Nyzul weapons, not to mention however much I need recapping bard and/or meriting. Actually, the beast axes will be more of a problem as my focus is on the job levels more than the weapons, so I’m not sure how much time will be spent on beast once I hit 80.
We had a LS payout from my dynamis group. I can’t say how much I got, but coupled with what I had it was enough to get me gobbiebag 10 (I had 9) as well as some of the food I need. I’ve actually been able to keep my money somewhat up due to the low price of materials for some of the new jugs (especially since I farm almost all of them) and all that time soloing beast. A bit about the new jugs, they are largely AWESOME! I have used them leveling, farming and even in Abyssea where they hit so hard and effectively that good tanks cannot hold hate and big damage dealers don’t keep hate long enough to take much damage. Couple that with my pet taking a great deal more damage (it varies from jug to jug but all have several thousand HP) to take down, VERY low cost per jug, and at least 1 good special per pet (although the new mandy is borderline on the good special) and beast is one of the best jobs in the game in any party. Naturally, we don’t get partys…
Abyssea is all about controlling “light”, actually a status effect given due to HOW a kill is made that allows you to aim for certain rewards (notably time extensions for the area). People believe (currently still only a theory) that pets screw up the light you are aiming at; actually, if a pet does kill it simply counts as a melee kill unless they use a special, however of the new specials (at least on the jugs I’ve been using) the only one that would count as something else is Leaf Dagger from the mandy and I don’t use that anyway. Regardless, once again beast (and dragoon, summoner and puppetmaster for that matter) are getting no love even though we are quite possibly more effective than the jobs that are getting the love. I hope SE fixes this in the next go around before it gets ingrained; after all, it took 4+ years for people to realize that beast doesn’t hurt party XP (the pet just counts as 1 more member), and if this is allowed to continue for too long it will take just as long to debunk.
Now Abyssea has been mentioned a few times, well that’s because I’ve only done it a few times. It’s a strange way to play, and I have strange jobs to do so. Bard I might just have to retire as I did from merits and for the same reason; I’m being asked to do more than the other jobs, no one is doing anything to keep me alive and all I hear is bitching about speed if I take a few seconds to try to see that I don’t eat dirt because the chain might fall off. Now I love pulling, always have… it’s challenging, easy to screw up and not something everyone can do. I seem to be pretty good at it too. Both bard and beast are excellent pullers, albeit by different methods, and I’m very good at both (soloing will do that to you), but in abyssea you need some cooperation from the party too. My bard sleeps have been totally ineffective against the enemies where I went bard (bees, pixies, frogs and mandys) and the other sleepers weren’t sleeping to get stuff off my back. My beast has not been able to charm any mob in any area of Abyssea yet either, although that is not that much of an issue due to the strength of the new jugs. I still need people to take the hate off me and/or the pet if you want me to keep pulling. Enough about that.
I alluded to the exorbitant price of stuff a couple paragraphs ago. With everyone leveling and/or meriting so much the auction house just isn’t getting replenished the way it should and what consumables there are get gobbled up immediately, with inflation running rampant on almost everything. I’ve started to get back into the crafting part of the game (i.e. I try to XP off things that drop items I can use to level my crafts). I got to 59 cooking when I restarted beast making a bunch of pet food zeta- that meant a day farming coeurl meat in Onozco where I also soloed an assault jerkin. I’ve been killing a lot of scorpions for shells to take care of my bonecraft- in the last 2 weeks I’ve gone from 54.1 to 58.9- but my attempt to do demon arrowheads was stymied by the abysmal drop rate of demon horns without a thief along. My brief attempt at gnats didn’t go very well as pandemic nip allowed them to chew my pets up in short order; I’ll need to find an area with ample pets before I try again or else a different clothcraft recipe to 57-60. As far as black and goldsmithing, that is a matter of finding the right recipes, hopefully ones that use each other as sub-crafts. Leatherworking is just waiting for me to get the other crafts up, as I have 150k guild points stored, all key items done and for the most part leather materials are easy to farm. Fishing is waiting on the invention of the 36 hour day. Consumable shortage is just going to remain a problem for the foreseeable future.
I do need to get to work on the ToAU, WoTG and Abyssea mission lines soon, not sure when that will be happening. I’ve put so much on hold working on my character’s power and such that I tend to neglect progress through the various storylines. Hell, once I get the 80 jobs out of the way I need to jump back on my subs to accommodate the eventual 99 level cap!
Dynamis is getting to be a problem. Yes the fights are easier and more survivable and we’re getting better at revising our strategies to accommodate that fact. Now the problem is attendance and timing. Our start time is 7p.m. my time, and attendance is 6:30. We have been consistently entering at 7:30 or later for the last few weeks with a lot of people not showing until after we enter, if at all. We even have people having other people log their characters in to get wins or drops on nights when they are scheduled to be there and haven’t requested time off! I’m sorry for being pissed about this, but if you can’t be bothered to do the work what right do you even HAVE to a reward?! We need to get a handle on this, but luckily it’s not my place.
I think that’s enough of this for now, I’ll try to be better at posting here.
Well, it’s been a month so obviously things are happening. As mentioned in my last post I was taking the bard to 80; well I got there eventually. In point of fact, the bard is currently only trotted out for specific events (dynamis and this Saturday I’ll be using in an SK Abyssea alliance) now as I’ve been working on beast. Of course it will be used to recap its own XP and that will give me an excuse to unlock my Nyzul bard dagger and to work on my trial weapons. I think I might have to bard/beast to do that tho’, my bard is squishy.
Now on to the beasty… I’ve been leveling beast and unlocking my Nyzul axe for most of this last month. I did have quite a few weapon skill points from soloing in that time. My Primal Rend unlocked as soon as I hit Nyzul floor 90, maybe 85 as I wasn’t actually watching. Regardless, think I had about 900+ points on it.
So I needed a new project and I finally decided to work on my trial weapons. I picked up a level 75 axe, a level 75 dagger and a level 80 dagger, and I’ll be needing 1 more 75 and 80 dagger. I’m debating a staff for the healing, but I really don’t heal much on my bard so probably not. I actually don’t anticipate any issues with all of the daggers; when I melee on bard I bard/dancer or /ninja and I dual-wield daggers, and my next to jobs to level 80 are thief and then dancer, both of which primarily dual-wield daggers. That means I’ll be needing about 500,000 XP at levels that can use trial weapons or Nyzul weapons, not to mention however much I need recapping bard and/or meriting. Actually, the beast axes will be more of a problem as my focus is on the job levels more than the weapons, so I’m not sure how much time will be spent on beast once I hit 80.
We had a LS payout from my dynamis group. I can’t say how much I got, but coupled with what I had it was enough to get me gobbiebag 10 (I had 9) as well as some of the food I need. I’ve actually been able to keep my money somewhat up due to the low price of materials for some of the new jugs (especially since I farm almost all of them) and all that time soloing beast. A bit about the new jugs, they are largely AWESOME! I have used them leveling, farming and even in Abyssea where they hit so hard and effectively that good tanks cannot hold hate and big damage dealers don’t keep hate long enough to take much damage. Couple that with my pet taking a great deal more damage (it varies from jug to jug but all have several thousand HP) to take down, VERY low cost per jug, and at least 1 good special per pet (although the new mandy is borderline on the good special) and beast is one of the best jobs in the game in any party. Naturally, we don’t get partys…
Abyssea is all about controlling “light”, actually a status effect given due to HOW a kill is made that allows you to aim for certain rewards (notably time extensions for the area). People believe (currently still only a theory) that pets screw up the light you are aiming at; actually, if a pet does kill it simply counts as a melee kill unless they use a special, however of the new specials (at least on the jugs I’ve been using) the only one that would count as something else is Leaf Dagger from the mandy and I don’t use that anyway. Regardless, once again beast (and dragoon, summoner and puppetmaster for that matter) are getting no love even though we are quite possibly more effective than the jobs that are getting the love. I hope SE fixes this in the next go around before it gets ingrained; after all, it took 4+ years for people to realize that beast doesn’t hurt party XP (the pet just counts as 1 more member), and if this is allowed to continue for too long it will take just as long to debunk.
Now Abyssea has been mentioned a few times, well that’s because I’ve only done it a few times. It’s a strange way to play, and I have strange jobs to do so. Bard I might just have to retire as I did from merits and for the same reason; I’m being asked to do more than the other jobs, no one is doing anything to keep me alive and all I hear is bitching about speed if I take a few seconds to try to see that I don’t eat dirt because the chain might fall off. Now I love pulling, always have… it’s challenging, easy to screw up and not something everyone can do. I seem to be pretty good at it too. Both bard and beast are excellent pullers, albeit by different methods, and I’m very good at both (soloing will do that to you), but in abyssea you need some cooperation from the party too. My bard sleeps have been totally ineffective against the enemies where I went bard (bees, pixies, frogs and mandys) and the other sleepers weren’t sleeping to get stuff off my back. My beast has not been able to charm any mob in any area of Abyssea yet either, although that is not that much of an issue due to the strength of the new jugs. I still need people to take the hate off me and/or the pet if you want me to keep pulling. Enough about that.
I alluded to the exorbitant price of stuff a couple paragraphs ago. With everyone leveling and/or meriting so much the auction house just isn’t getting replenished the way it should and what consumables there are get gobbled up immediately, with inflation running rampant on almost everything. I’ve started to get back into the crafting part of the game (i.e. I try to XP off things that drop items I can use to level my crafts). I got to 59 cooking when I restarted beast making a bunch of pet food zeta- that meant a day farming coeurl meat in Onozco where I also soloed an assault jerkin. I’ve been killing a lot of scorpions for shells to take care of my bonecraft- in the last 2 weeks I’ve gone from 54.1 to 58.9- but my attempt to do demon arrowheads was stymied by the abysmal drop rate of demon horns without a thief along. My brief attempt at gnats didn’t go very well as pandemic nip allowed them to chew my pets up in short order; I’ll need to find an area with ample pets before I try again or else a different clothcraft recipe to 57-60. As far as black and goldsmithing, that is a matter of finding the right recipes, hopefully ones that use each other as sub-crafts. Leatherworking is just waiting for me to get the other crafts up, as I have 150k guild points stored, all key items done and for the most part leather materials are easy to farm. Fishing is waiting on the invention of the 36 hour day. Consumable shortage is just going to remain a problem for the foreseeable future.
I do need to get to work on the ToAU, WoTG and Abyssea mission lines soon, not sure when that will be happening. I’ve put so much on hold working on my character’s power and such that I tend to neglect progress through the various storylines. Hell, once I get the 80 jobs out of the way I need to jump back on my subs to accommodate the eventual 99 level cap!
Dynamis is getting to be a problem. Yes the fights are easier and more survivable and we’re getting better at revising our strategies to accommodate that fact. Now the problem is attendance and timing. Our start time is 7p.m. my time, and attendance is 6:30. We have been consistently entering at 7:30 or later for the last few weeks with a lot of people not showing until after we enter, if at all. We even have people having other people log their characters in to get wins or drops on nights when they are scheduled to be there and haven’t requested time off! I’m sorry for being pissed about this, but if you can’t be bothered to do the work what right do you even HAVE to a reward?! We need to get a handle on this, but luckily it’s not my place.
I think that’s enough of this for now, I’ll try to be better at posting here.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
It’s not easy being green…
As you all know, I’m trying to level the bard to 80. Since Martial Master is also active, I thought it would be nice to work on my skills at the same time. Apparently, the rest of the server doesn’t agree…
Unfortunately, bard is not seen as a combatant job. In addition, the common leveling “wisdom” (read “idiocy”) is that you get XP now and skill-up after, a function of Campaign, level sync and the take-over of RMT power-leveling style of play. These do have their place, but when the chance is there to speed up your skill ups (and thus your effectiveness at your true level) why wouldn’t you take it? There is only 1 answer; because you’re a fucking idiot.
Now bard is not thought of well as a melee job, but /dancer or /ninja we certainly aren’t to be disregarded. Yes, there is always the argument that lower damage weapons only feed the enemy TP, but that doesn’t wash as partys frequently use thief as a DD who are “just feeding the mob TP” outside of their SATA WS, or ninja tanks (who also hit like a feather duster compared to other melee) and don’t have the spike damage of thief either. The point is, my bard can and does hit things. What I don’t do is function well solo, not being the most durable of jobs with the weak armor I can wear.
Unfortunately for me I am not allowed to melee in pick-up parties (actually, the way bard is used end-game I would also be too busy to even draw a weapon as the all-mighty chain [which doesn’t actually increase in XP given after 5] might break). This is one of the main reasons I avoid pick-up parties actually; people I’ve worked with before know that I know when and when not to fight, but strangers don’t.
So I’m seeking on my bard and the invites are slow in coming. Funny, generally not being /anon (without seeking) is enough to get me an invite on Dynamis nights within 5 minutes. I do eventually get an invite to a 75 level sync. 4 of us are 77, 1 is 76 and one is 75 so naturally we sync to the 75. It’s a 2 bard party and I am “lazy bard” which simply means I am not pulling. I actually run just as much because I am refreshing the red mage with ballad and buffing the melee with Minuet and Madrigal and back-up healing the whole bunch, as the pulling bard was doing the double march. Had there only been 1 bard (me) I would have been responsible for pulling, double march, double ballad and healing myself, all while having to listen to the rest of the party bitch every time the chain broke just because I thought I might need to renew shadows before the next pull while they can’t even be bothered to take the critters off my back in a timely manner. And people wonder why I won’t do merit parties…
The XP is ok, but not great. We get about 41k in 2.5 hours, and that’s with rings. Just to put my blood pressure through the roof the melees all take random AFK breaks to slow down the XP even further. Unfortunately, the red mage isn’t of my philosophy of not wasting healing on people who aren’t there, so we don’t get to let anyone die for it. Oh well, so much for educational opportunities. The party breaks up with everyone getting a level or multiple merit points EXCEPT me, I’m left 3.5k short. Grrr… I logged for the night in disgust.
Last night I try to log in but the maintainance is running long. By the time I’m allowed to log in it’s a bit late for a long XP party. In addition, not many are on to form a good XP party, and I refused the level 19 party that was available through my LS, wanting my skill-ups. I do one campaign battle (after wasting time and AN porting to 2 that finish as I arrive) and get 3.7k XP, thus getting level 78. I do some research, but I’m not really finding anywhere I can survive a solo skill-up as a bard/dancer, the only remote possibilities being over-crowded as it is. I try to solo in Meriphtaud Mountains (S) with my NPC, but SE has yet to allow them to level past 70, thus survivability is virtually nil, both for NPC and myself once she dies. So I only manage 3 kills before I’m on my own. In addition, Martial Master doesn’t apply in the past areas, so I only manage 1 skill-up (on parry). Just not my night. My usual cronies are not available (either not logging on or doing something else) so eventually I log again.
Maybe tonight I can get the bard dagger in Nyzul, the mythic weapon being augmentable via Trial of the Maigans. That might just get me a shot at the skill-ups I’ve been trying for. I’m pretty sure you can work off WS points while doing the trials too, so double-whammy. Beast would certainly be ok to get too, since I only need 2 more levels on bard to reach cap and then it’s the beast’s turn. I can always melee in dynamis for my skill-ups on bard, although people may look at me funny.
Unfortunately, bard is not seen as a combatant job. In addition, the common leveling “wisdom” (read “idiocy”) is that you get XP now and skill-up after, a function of Campaign, level sync and the take-over of RMT power-leveling style of play. These do have their place, but when the chance is there to speed up your skill ups (and thus your effectiveness at your true level) why wouldn’t you take it? There is only 1 answer; because you’re a fucking idiot.
Now bard is not thought of well as a melee job, but /dancer or /ninja we certainly aren’t to be disregarded. Yes, there is always the argument that lower damage weapons only feed the enemy TP, but that doesn’t wash as partys frequently use thief as a DD who are “just feeding the mob TP” outside of their SATA WS, or ninja tanks (who also hit like a feather duster compared to other melee) and don’t have the spike damage of thief either. The point is, my bard can and does hit things. What I don’t do is function well solo, not being the most durable of jobs with the weak armor I can wear.
Unfortunately for me I am not allowed to melee in pick-up parties (actually, the way bard is used end-game I would also be too busy to even draw a weapon as the all-mighty chain [which doesn’t actually increase in XP given after 5] might break). This is one of the main reasons I avoid pick-up parties actually; people I’ve worked with before know that I know when and when not to fight, but strangers don’t.
So I’m seeking on my bard and the invites are slow in coming. Funny, generally not being /anon (without seeking) is enough to get me an invite on Dynamis nights within 5 minutes. I do eventually get an invite to a 75 level sync. 4 of us are 77, 1 is 76 and one is 75 so naturally we sync to the 75. It’s a 2 bard party and I am “lazy bard” which simply means I am not pulling. I actually run just as much because I am refreshing the red mage with ballad and buffing the melee with Minuet and Madrigal and back-up healing the whole bunch, as the pulling bard was doing the double march. Had there only been 1 bard (me) I would have been responsible for pulling, double march, double ballad and healing myself, all while having to listen to the rest of the party bitch every time the chain broke just because I thought I might need to renew shadows before the next pull while they can’t even be bothered to take the critters off my back in a timely manner. And people wonder why I won’t do merit parties…
The XP is ok, but not great. We get about 41k in 2.5 hours, and that’s with rings. Just to put my blood pressure through the roof the melees all take random AFK breaks to slow down the XP even further. Unfortunately, the red mage isn’t of my philosophy of not wasting healing on people who aren’t there, so we don’t get to let anyone die for it. Oh well, so much for educational opportunities. The party breaks up with everyone getting a level or multiple merit points EXCEPT me, I’m left 3.5k short. Grrr… I logged for the night in disgust.
Last night I try to log in but the maintainance is running long. By the time I’m allowed to log in it’s a bit late for a long XP party. In addition, not many are on to form a good XP party, and I refused the level 19 party that was available through my LS, wanting my skill-ups. I do one campaign battle (after wasting time and AN porting to 2 that finish as I arrive) and get 3.7k XP, thus getting level 78. I do some research, but I’m not really finding anywhere I can survive a solo skill-up as a bard/dancer, the only remote possibilities being over-crowded as it is. I try to solo in Meriphtaud Mountains (S) with my NPC, but SE has yet to allow them to level past 70, thus survivability is virtually nil, both for NPC and myself once she dies. So I only manage 3 kills before I’m on my own. In addition, Martial Master doesn’t apply in the past areas, so I only manage 1 skill-up (on parry). Just not my night. My usual cronies are not available (either not logging on or doing something else) so eventually I log again.
Maybe tonight I can get the bard dagger in Nyzul, the mythic weapon being augmentable via Trial of the Maigans. That might just get me a shot at the skill-ups I’ve been trying for. I’m pretty sure you can work off WS points while doing the trials too, so double-whammy. Beast would certainly be ok to get too, since I only need 2 more levels on bard to reach cap and then it’s the beast’s turn. I can always melee in dynamis for my skill-ups on bard, although people may look at me funny.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Happy days are here again...
...makes me feel like a corrupt New Orleans political candidate in the 1890's, where did I come up with thatsong?!!!
I’ve been having difficulties with leveling caused in part by my in-game finances and partly by not finding people I’m comfortable partying with. Firstly the finances… bard songs are not free, shehei are not free if I need to /ninja to pull, food is not free, even getting to and from battlefields costs some money and it does add up. I can craft shehei to save a little money (although not that much), but the materials are often hard to find; for the rest I’m at the mercy of the server economy. As to finding people I’m comfortable partying with, I’ve spent too much time solo to have a good group of party buddies to draw on. As I posted a couple ago, I’ve also dropped confidence in some of my social LS members (those that haven’t been with us that long). Granted, I’m not willing to be driven ragged as a bard unless it is for good friends and we are showing results, so I might not be the bard you want to party with.
That being said, things are changing some in game for me. 1st off, Dynamis has actually been kind to me of late. As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I finally got my bard pants (probably the best bard pants in the game to date, outside of situational changes) after over a year of waiting. Well Monday I got my thief gloves-we had 2 drop and the only person in-line ahead of me wasn’t there so I got them, despite my thief only being 61. I will be leveling thief as soon as bard and beast are 80, so I was legitimately in-line for them. This means that as the levels come I will have my full treasure hunter bonuses (and until then I can store the full set on the relic NPC).
Last night I got a late start on XPing. It’s the summer, and so everyone has this stupid idea that it’s nice out. I don’t agree; if I’m quite literally drenched in sweat, smell, and am dehydrated 90% of the time it is NOT nice out. In any event, I get volunteered for a lot of family stuff and it cuts into both my playing and my real life free time (I live alone so if the housework is gonna get done I’ll be the one doing it, I won’t be doing it if I’ve been volunteered elsewhere though). Whatever, suffice it to say my game time is being severely curtailed (about 12-15 hours less per week than normal).
SE has a feature in game called a “friend list” that needs a bit of work. I check it when I 1st log in to see if any of them are on and want to do something (success increasing greatly with people you know, trust and genuinely like), but that is usually it. If SE is looking for elements to improve play they might want to consider a notice that a friend has just logged in. Otherwise I don’t know until I see a post from them or I just trip over them.
So I thought I might farm scorp shells, but Xolotol decided to eat my face. So I decide to Campaign battle. Hard to find a battle, but I eventually land on one in Grauberg. Decent XP, but a lot of downtime between waves now with the level cap raise. So, while waiting for wave 2 I get a tell from Mousie (making me happy) asking me to come XP on my bard. Naturally, I finish my battle and head out (with a stop to change subs and regear). XP was good—not great—but I got about 30k, leaving me 12k short of level 77, which I hope to knock-out tonight!
I’ve been having difficulties with leveling caused in part by my in-game finances and partly by not finding people I’m comfortable partying with. Firstly the finances… bard songs are not free, shehei are not free if I need to /ninja to pull, food is not free, even getting to and from battlefields costs some money and it does add up. I can craft shehei to save a little money (although not that much), but the materials are often hard to find; for the rest I’m at the mercy of the server economy. As to finding people I’m comfortable partying with, I’ve spent too much time solo to have a good group of party buddies to draw on. As I posted a couple ago, I’ve also dropped confidence in some of my social LS members (those that haven’t been with us that long). Granted, I’m not willing to be driven ragged as a bard unless it is for good friends and we are showing results, so I might not be the bard you want to party with.
That being said, things are changing some in game for me. 1st off, Dynamis has actually been kind to me of late. As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I finally got my bard pants (probably the best bard pants in the game to date, outside of situational changes) after over a year of waiting. Well Monday I got my thief gloves-we had 2 drop and the only person in-line ahead of me wasn’t there so I got them, despite my thief only being 61. I will be leveling thief as soon as bard and beast are 80, so I was legitimately in-line for them. This means that as the levels come I will have my full treasure hunter bonuses (and until then I can store the full set on the relic NPC).
Last night I got a late start on XPing. It’s the summer, and so everyone has this stupid idea that it’s nice out. I don’t agree; if I’m quite literally drenched in sweat, smell, and am dehydrated 90% of the time it is NOT nice out. In any event, I get volunteered for a lot of family stuff and it cuts into both my playing and my real life free time (I live alone so if the housework is gonna get done I’ll be the one doing it, I won’t be doing it if I’ve been volunteered elsewhere though). Whatever, suffice it to say my game time is being severely curtailed (about 12-15 hours less per week than normal).
SE has a feature in game called a “friend list” that needs a bit of work. I check it when I 1st log in to see if any of them are on and want to do something (success increasing greatly with people you know, trust and genuinely like), but that is usually it. If SE is looking for elements to improve play they might want to consider a notice that a friend has just logged in. Otherwise I don’t know until I see a post from them or I just trip over them.
So I thought I might farm scorp shells, but Xolotol decided to eat my face. So I decide to Campaign battle. Hard to find a battle, but I eventually land on one in Grauberg. Decent XP, but a lot of downtime between waves now with the level cap raise. So, while waiting for wave 2 I get a tell from Mousie (making me happy) asking me to come XP on my bard. Naturally, I finish my battle and head out (with a stop to change subs and regear). XP was good—not great—but I got about 30k, leaving me 12k short of level 77, which I hope to knock-out tonight!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Good day Sunshine...
Much has happened my faithful few fans in the weeks since my last post, but I just have been unable to find the time to put things into words. After all, playing the game is supposed to be more fun than writing about playing it… Still, you deserve to get your dose of dish so here we go.
Dynamis has been… interesting of late. Most important, a pair of bard pants is mine! Absolutely butt-ugly but the stat boosts are awesome. This of course means we have done a Dynamis Xarc (farming run, without a shitload of luck a win is out of the question with our current line-up only). I am now 5/5 on beast and bard and the only relic I still need is thief hands (also from Xarc), which are one of the most sought after items in the game due to their bonus to treasure hunter. I’m way down on that list and my thief is still my alternate lot until I get it to 65, I think. Checking with the Dynamis LS on the rules there.
The biggest thing is that they finally got around to announcing the update that was done on Monday, including the size of the 1st level cap increase, level 80 this go round. This defined the minimum I needed to finish leveling my subs to be ready for it. My leveling of white mage had already gotten me to 41 so I could put it off a bit. I worked dancer 1st, then ninja to 40. I didn’t worry about keeping my skills up as I leveled as I usually would because while they 1st announced the size of the increase they left the date unfilled for a few days. Limited inventory space confined me to 1 lower job at a time and I just powered through as best I could, 8 days as best I can recall working around Dynamis days and such.
Outside of leveling the subs to 40 minimum I went back to taking white mage to 42, with the eventual goal of 49-50. SE is raising the level cap to 99 eventually, so all subs will need to get to 49 eventually anyway, and white mage is my primary bard sub. I may want to do red mage soon though as at 82 bard that would leave me with 2 forms of refresh and another fast cast, weakened raise and reraise options though, hmm…
Started into a static group doing Nyzul climb, a form of assault that gives some good weapons and armor (if you are lucky). Not sure if the weapons will remain viable to the new levels, although they can be augmented as a trial weapon and they are one of the current 2 Uber weapons (mythic, the other being relic) that SE planned. Let’s just say some are more uber than others…
My biggest problem is money (why should the game be any different than real life, eh?). I don’t even have enough to cover the 3 bard songs I get with the current increase, and there is no gil in the areas most parties level so going forward this is going to be a problem methinks. If I get lucky, I can party with Mousie because she is cool with farming with me, but she has limits to her playing time so she is not often available. Of course I can always drag my beast out to farm/level, but that takes me away from the bard that benefits my Dynamis LS… Life will be so much easier when I can get back to working my thief. I do have plenty of stuff I can craft or fish or make supplies with if I take the time away from leveling, but I want to hit 80 ASAP so I am as useful as possible.
Dynamis has been… interesting of late. Most important, a pair of bard pants is mine! Absolutely butt-ugly but the stat boosts are awesome. This of course means we have done a Dynamis Xarc (farming run, without a shitload of luck a win is out of the question with our current line-up only). I am now 5/5 on beast and bard and the only relic I still need is thief hands (also from Xarc), which are one of the most sought after items in the game due to their bonus to treasure hunter. I’m way down on that list and my thief is still my alternate lot until I get it to 65, I think. Checking with the Dynamis LS on the rules there.
The biggest thing is that they finally got around to announcing the update that was done on Monday, including the size of the 1st level cap increase, level 80 this go round. This defined the minimum I needed to finish leveling my subs to be ready for it. My leveling of white mage had already gotten me to 41 so I could put it off a bit. I worked dancer 1st, then ninja to 40. I didn’t worry about keeping my skills up as I leveled as I usually would because while they 1st announced the size of the increase they left the date unfilled for a few days. Limited inventory space confined me to 1 lower job at a time and I just powered through as best I could, 8 days as best I can recall working around Dynamis days and such.
Outside of leveling the subs to 40 minimum I went back to taking white mage to 42, with the eventual goal of 49-50. SE is raising the level cap to 99 eventually, so all subs will need to get to 49 eventually anyway, and white mage is my primary bard sub. I may want to do red mage soon though as at 82 bard that would leave me with 2 forms of refresh and another fast cast, weakened raise and reraise options though, hmm…
Started into a static group doing Nyzul climb, a form of assault that gives some good weapons and armor (if you are lucky). Not sure if the weapons will remain viable to the new levels, although they can be augmented as a trial weapon and they are one of the current 2 Uber weapons (mythic, the other being relic) that SE planned. Let’s just say some are more uber than others…
My biggest problem is money (why should the game be any different than real life, eh?). I don’t even have enough to cover the 3 bard songs I get with the current increase, and there is no gil in the areas most parties level so going forward this is going to be a problem methinks. If I get lucky, I can party with Mousie because she is cool with farming with me, but she has limits to her playing time so she is not often available. Of course I can always drag my beast out to farm/level, but that takes me away from the bard that benefits my Dynamis LS… Life will be so much easier when I can get back to working my thief. I do have plenty of stuff I can craft or fish or make supplies with if I take the time away from leveling, but I want to hit 80 ASAP so I am as useful as possible.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
C'mon baby, don't fear the reaper...
So I'm on last night trying to unlock 76, and I'm about to go out and solo it on beast (needing only 31 XP to cap XP) when Tigerelf from SK mentions he's in an LS party that's 5/6 72 level sync at Mamool. I had checked Unsocial out 1st but the only one on was Usul in regular Xarc, not where you want to XP at 75 you know? So I figure what the hell and decide to join the SK party. I decide to switch to bard tho’ as it works better in parties, they don’t have a healer, and a little voice in the back of my brain is saying 6 /dancer ain’t gonna get it done. Good idea.
From the start I have reasons for misgivings. Turns out our sync is actually AFK for the entire time he’s there getting XP on a free ride. I don’t mind that if I know that I’m carrying someone before I come out, but it seems rude not to mention it before I join, at least to me. Despite having 4 active guys /dancer Drain Samba isn’t up half the time, a major no-no unless you are XPing off undead. Guys actually die while I’m changing gear to bard melee gear (relic body). Yes, I know I’m /white mage and should have healed them but I was told when I came out that they were taking care of it and I could have come melee so I just wasn’t watching that close; and I’m not that good of a healer on /whm due to low MP and low spells at 75 since mobs can 1 hit for more than Cure III can recover. The samurai/dancer was pulling, ok, he DOES have the bow and all…
Shortly after I get there (maybe an hour?) the sync disconnects and we are now 75, but 5 manning. We had to 5-man entirely too much. When we got our 6th (Krazytrane) he pulled an NM and we wiped. Dorm refused to get up without a Raise III so we had to 5-man with him down, slowing our XP. We managed to get enough XP to more than cover the hit he would have taken from the Raise 1.5 Hymnus gives in the almost 60 minutes he stayed down, and had he been up he probably would have been enough to add 12-1500 XP through his damage output during that time. Whatever, I’m a big believer in taking whatever raise is available and getting more XP, you are earning 0 XP, gil, skill-ups or whatever you are after while you lie there waiting to save 8-1600 XP.
The tank leaves and we get a 2nd bard. Fine with me, 2 bard parties are usually fast. I end up taking over pulling when the samurai leaves and things go wrong. Someone else zoned a bunch of mamool and our party grabbed one that I hadn’t pulled so we had too many mobs, another wipe. I go back to WG to change to /ninja as I’m more comfortable that way when I’m pulling. Turns out the other bard had come /nin (I didn’t know since the taru had MP comparable to mine) so now we had no healer (I did mention our /dancer guys weren’t keeping drain up).
I suppose I should mention that the area was tremendously overcrowded and I was forced to pull Wyverns as the only prey available. We were there before all of them, so courtesy should have had the other groups moving out of our area but courtesy took a flying leap from the game years ago… I spent more time fighting for pulls than I care to.
In any event, I changed to /nin, and the other bard changes to /whm, pulling goes much faster and the XP finally starts to flow. So now Usul shows up with a couple friends of mine in tow that I KNOW are good players (my party was not playing reliably, unannounced AFK, no sambas, lack of consistency, etc.). Rather than moving deeper into the zone they decide to set up shop right on top of us and the other party I’ve been competing with for a couple of hours for mobs. Now we have 3 parties in an area that is strained to support 2. At this point the more charming side of my personality comes out. I am very civil usually, so lack of common courtesy infuriates me. When I’ve been putting up with it for 2.5 hours on top of dealing with a weak party I let it out, getting into a verbal shouting match with Usul (who you may remember from earlier posts is a bud).
Let’s put it this way, when I 1st came out my bard needed 7k XP to cap and another 7k to get the merit I need to unlock 76. In 2.5 hours I have 12k, that’s with using a charge on an emporer’s band and a charge from my anniversary ring. In this same area with a decent party I would have had about 35k (without XP rings) considering I had to compete with another pt for desireable enemies. I get invited to change groups and I’m tempted. However, my pt is all SK which is my social shell and I don’t want to create ill will there, and by the time I get the invite I only need 700 points to get that merit I need and I plan to log after. So I stay put, take care of business, unlock 76 and log out needing 1 XP to get my new level.
Hopefully, I can get together with Usul’s group tonite. If nothing else it’s got to be better for my blood pressure…
From the start I have reasons for misgivings. Turns out our sync is actually AFK for the entire time he’s there getting XP on a free ride. I don’t mind that if I know that I’m carrying someone before I come out, but it seems rude not to mention it before I join, at least to me. Despite having 4 active guys /dancer Drain Samba isn’t up half the time, a major no-no unless you are XPing off undead. Guys actually die while I’m changing gear to bard melee gear (relic body). Yes, I know I’m /white mage and should have healed them but I was told when I came out that they were taking care of it and I could have come melee so I just wasn’t watching that close; and I’m not that good of a healer on /whm due to low MP and low spells at 75 since mobs can 1 hit for more than Cure III can recover. The samurai/dancer was pulling, ok, he DOES have the bow and all…
Shortly after I get there (maybe an hour?) the sync disconnects and we are now 75, but 5 manning. We had to 5-man entirely too much. When we got our 6th (Krazytrane) he pulled an NM and we wiped. Dorm refused to get up without a Raise III so we had to 5-man with him down, slowing our XP. We managed to get enough XP to more than cover the hit he would have taken from the Raise 1.5 Hymnus gives in the almost 60 minutes he stayed down, and had he been up he probably would have been enough to add 12-1500 XP through his damage output during that time. Whatever, I’m a big believer in taking whatever raise is available and getting more XP, you are earning 0 XP, gil, skill-ups or whatever you are after while you lie there waiting to save 8-1600 XP.
The tank leaves and we get a 2nd bard. Fine with me, 2 bard parties are usually fast. I end up taking over pulling when the samurai leaves and things go wrong. Someone else zoned a bunch of mamool and our party grabbed one that I hadn’t pulled so we had too many mobs, another wipe. I go back to WG to change to /ninja as I’m more comfortable that way when I’m pulling. Turns out the other bard had come /nin (I didn’t know since the taru had MP comparable to mine) so now we had no healer (I did mention our /dancer guys weren’t keeping drain up).
I suppose I should mention that the area was tremendously overcrowded and I was forced to pull Wyverns as the only prey available. We were there before all of them, so courtesy should have had the other groups moving out of our area but courtesy took a flying leap from the game years ago… I spent more time fighting for pulls than I care to.
In any event, I changed to /nin, and the other bard changes to /whm, pulling goes much faster and the XP finally starts to flow. So now Usul shows up with a couple friends of mine in tow that I KNOW are good players (my party was not playing reliably, unannounced AFK, no sambas, lack of consistency, etc.). Rather than moving deeper into the zone they decide to set up shop right on top of us and the other party I’ve been competing with for a couple of hours for mobs. Now we have 3 parties in an area that is strained to support 2. At this point the more charming side of my personality comes out. I am very civil usually, so lack of common courtesy infuriates me. When I’ve been putting up with it for 2.5 hours on top of dealing with a weak party I let it out, getting into a verbal shouting match with Usul (who you may remember from earlier posts is a bud).
Let’s put it this way, when I 1st came out my bard needed 7k XP to cap and another 7k to get the merit I need to unlock 76. In 2.5 hours I have 12k, that’s with using a charge on an emporer’s band and a charge from my anniversary ring. In this same area with a decent party I would have had about 35k (without XP rings) considering I had to compete with another pt for desireable enemies. I get invited to change groups and I’m tempted. However, my pt is all SK which is my social shell and I don’t want to create ill will there, and by the time I get the invite I only need 700 points to get that merit I need and I plan to log after. So I stay put, take care of business, unlock 76 and log out needing 1 XP to get my new level.
Hopefully, I can get together with Usul’s group tonite. If nothing else it’s got to be better for my blood pressure…
Monday, June 7, 2010
I have become comfortably numb...
Sorry, been too long since my last post.
I've been leveling on several jobs as I work on the subs for the new level cap due sometime this month (at least the 1st stage). There's alot of speculation as to how this will be handled in game, but SE has been able to keep it pretty quiet so far, and not confirming anything that's been rumored, so most of what you are hearing is speculation.
I've gotten both black and red mage to 25 last week preperatory to leveling white mage. I guess this is a good time to talk about the mechanics of XPing. XP is gained whenever you kill an XP-elligible enemy (one that isn't "too weak to be worthwhile"). You can also get XP scrolls as rewards for specific quest or as drops in Dynamis Xarcaband or for participating in Beseiged and Campaign battles and certain quests/battlefields. You also lose XP if you die (in most areas outside certain battlefields). Gain sufficient XP and you gain a level, lose too much and goodbye level. Simple.
Now as most people know you can get XP solo or in groups. Technically, even solo is a party-a party of one-but you get the idea. As you've probably realized different jobs have different abilities; because of that their survival potential varies, meaning some jobs almost have to level in groups. As an example, my bard doesn't solo very well, but my beastmaster is probably the best solo job in the game. Conversely, my bard is one of the best party support jobs in the game, while my beastmaster can be slow to act in a fast-moving party because I have to get my pet on to the correct target before I join the fight as my pet does much more damage than my beastmaster.
Party invites have gotten heavily tainted by what goes on in end-game. Because killing Greater Colibri has become the way to level and merit and black mages are a liability against birds, they don't get party invites much anymore. Pretty stupid actualy, as against almost anything else in game black mage is the best single source of all-around damage there is. On the other hand, red mage gets invites all the time to be main healer/buffer because they are so good end-game, but before level 41 white mage is clearly superior as healer/buffer because they can make better use of their MP with AoE buffs, and they are still the best way of saving XP throughout the game due to their superior raises. But people get caught in the trap of conventional thinking...
In any event, I didn't get my 1st party invite on black mage until level 21. However, we cruised from 21-25 in 4 hours and would have gone quicker except for having a revolving door on party members. My red mage 1st sought a party at 20 and got one in 7 minutes, an invite to main heal in a 19 level sync. This party only really moved because we had a power level as I kept running out of MP. Elvaan rdm are only out-sucked by Galka rdm on the MP front. I was actually more effective in the party as a DD (and silencing worms while we did those), plus using barwatera (from my whm sub) and dia on crabs and pugils. Regardless, I eventually got both jobs to 25.
Now that I had my sub-jobs in place it was time to break my white mage back out. Now I haven't played whm main in about 2 years, but the red mage leveling has gotten me a little bit back in practice. Unfortunately, some time in the last 2 years I've become a party snob and so I hate pick-up parties. Maybe it's because for the most part I've only partied up for difficult things (ASA Final fight comes to mind) and so I don't really trust people I don't know. Whatever. What I do know is that this is going to hurt me leveling white mage, at least in terms of speed.
Before I start in on the white mage however we are supposed to do Dynamis on Friday. Ends up not happening. Although we had enough bodies to low-man a city, the job mix left something to be desired. We claimed blm shortage, but 3 blm is actually our usual. We claimed a DD shortage, but we had enough of that too. What we were actually short was healers, and those are very important, especially since heavy DD love to ignore hate control in Dynamis. It's actually a point of pride amongst some DD to be able to take hate from the tank or whatever, but the point of having a tank is that heavy DD don't take hits as well, meaning their healers have to pull massive ammounts of hate keeping these guys alive. Regardless, we had to cancel.
So we tried to do something else and help a guy with a CoP mission. Unfortunately, he had NOT progressed to where he thought he was, and had alot of prereqs to finish. By the time he was getting caught up people willing to help were logging due to the hour (the sun was coming up for Peenut) and it was just too late to realistically continue. So the fight was postponed to a time to be determined later.
I raided all of my mules for white mage spells that I already had and then I had to go shopping (like I had any $$$), so I taxed all my mules for a total of about 110k. Spells have eaten most of that, joy. So I go out and solo, starting against beastmen so I could get some $$$, working in Davoi and the basement of Delfkutts. But XP against DC and the like is slow and the tower at least is high traffic by duos working on their trial weapons or (I suspect) paid power levels, making my XPing damn near impossible. So Once I hit 38 I moved to East Altep (using my handy-dandy new Tele-Altep that has been sitting on a mule for 3 years) to do FoV on spiders.
Drop rates have been crappy, so no $ coming, but I manage to slowly improve my XP. Eventually Woochekitty comes out to join me, leveling her ninja with my whm. After some time Doncado also joins us, but he has to leave very shortly due to RL stuff. I call it a night shortly after that as I haven't been sleeping well lately and would like to catch up.
Sunday I finish up getting to level 40 on the whm, killing bats and leeches in SSG. I also farm up my scroll of Cura (saving myself about 6k tyvm); I had previously just NPC'd them as the drop rate is quite high and I had no immediate need of them. I'm actually going to have to do the same thing for flash down the road a bit as I'm told spamming Flash (and Repose) are the best ways of skilling up Divine magic. However, I've been playing alot and need to get a bunch of RL stuff done so I log shortly after.
Monday is Dynamis again, this time Jeuno. We actually had a decent run although the lag is getting to be a considerable problem. We lost 2 players during the run to disconnects that simply never came back. Personally, I suspect SE of pulling servers for retasking or simply for sale. We ran pretty well until after the win, but then people got sloppy (as frequently happens), losing focus, not obeying commands, etc. I hadn't died at all until after the win, but after that I died 3 or 4 times in rapid succession. Not fun. Oh well, now you are up to date.
I've been leveling on several jobs as I work on the subs for the new level cap due sometime this month (at least the 1st stage). There's alot of speculation as to how this will be handled in game, but SE has been able to keep it pretty quiet so far, and not confirming anything that's been rumored, so most of what you are hearing is speculation.
I've gotten both black and red mage to 25 last week preperatory to leveling white mage. I guess this is a good time to talk about the mechanics of XPing. XP is gained whenever you kill an XP-elligible enemy (one that isn't "too weak to be worthwhile"). You can also get XP scrolls as rewards for specific quest or as drops in Dynamis Xarcaband or for participating in Beseiged and Campaign battles and certain quests/battlefields. You also lose XP if you die (in most areas outside certain battlefields). Gain sufficient XP and you gain a level, lose too much and goodbye level. Simple.
Now as most people know you can get XP solo or in groups. Technically, even solo is a party-a party of one-but you get the idea. As you've probably realized different jobs have different abilities; because of that their survival potential varies, meaning some jobs almost have to level in groups. As an example, my bard doesn't solo very well, but my beastmaster is probably the best solo job in the game. Conversely, my bard is one of the best party support jobs in the game, while my beastmaster can be slow to act in a fast-moving party because I have to get my pet on to the correct target before I join the fight as my pet does much more damage than my beastmaster.
Party invites have gotten heavily tainted by what goes on in end-game. Because killing Greater Colibri has become the way to level and merit and black mages are a liability against birds, they don't get party invites much anymore. Pretty stupid actualy, as against almost anything else in game black mage is the best single source of all-around damage there is. On the other hand, red mage gets invites all the time to be main healer/buffer because they are so good end-game, but before level 41 white mage is clearly superior as healer/buffer because they can make better use of their MP with AoE buffs, and they are still the best way of saving XP throughout the game due to their superior raises. But people get caught in the trap of conventional thinking...
In any event, I didn't get my 1st party invite on black mage until level 21. However, we cruised from 21-25 in 4 hours and would have gone quicker except for having a revolving door on party members. My red mage 1st sought a party at 20 and got one in 7 minutes, an invite to main heal in a 19 level sync. This party only really moved because we had a power level as I kept running out of MP. Elvaan rdm are only out-sucked by Galka rdm on the MP front. I was actually more effective in the party as a DD (and silencing worms while we did those), plus using barwatera (from my whm sub) and dia on crabs and pugils. Regardless, I eventually got both jobs to 25.
Now that I had my sub-jobs in place it was time to break my white mage back out. Now I haven't played whm main in about 2 years, but the red mage leveling has gotten me a little bit back in practice. Unfortunately, some time in the last 2 years I've become a party snob and so I hate pick-up parties. Maybe it's because for the most part I've only partied up for difficult things (ASA Final fight comes to mind) and so I don't really trust people I don't know. Whatever. What I do know is that this is going to hurt me leveling white mage, at least in terms of speed.
Before I start in on the white mage however we are supposed to do Dynamis on Friday. Ends up not happening. Although we had enough bodies to low-man a city, the job mix left something to be desired. We claimed blm shortage, but 3 blm is actually our usual. We claimed a DD shortage, but we had enough of that too. What we were actually short was healers, and those are very important, especially since heavy DD love to ignore hate control in Dynamis. It's actually a point of pride amongst some DD to be able to take hate from the tank or whatever, but the point of having a tank is that heavy DD don't take hits as well, meaning their healers have to pull massive ammounts of hate keeping these guys alive. Regardless, we had to cancel.
So we tried to do something else and help a guy with a CoP mission. Unfortunately, he had NOT progressed to where he thought he was, and had alot of prereqs to finish. By the time he was getting caught up people willing to help were logging due to the hour (the sun was coming up for Peenut) and it was just too late to realistically continue. So the fight was postponed to a time to be determined later.
I raided all of my mules for white mage spells that I already had and then I had to go shopping (like I had any $$$), so I taxed all my mules for a total of about 110k. Spells have eaten most of that, joy. So I go out and solo, starting against beastmen so I could get some $$$, working in Davoi and the basement of Delfkutts. But XP against DC and the like is slow and the tower at least is high traffic by duos working on their trial weapons or (I suspect) paid power levels, making my XPing damn near impossible. So Once I hit 38 I moved to East Altep (using my handy-dandy new Tele-Altep that has been sitting on a mule for 3 years) to do FoV on spiders.
Drop rates have been crappy, so no $ coming, but I manage to slowly improve my XP. Eventually Woochekitty comes out to join me, leveling her ninja with my whm. After some time Doncado also joins us, but he has to leave very shortly due to RL stuff. I call it a night shortly after that as I haven't been sleeping well lately and would like to catch up.
Sunday I finish up getting to level 40 on the whm, killing bats and leeches in SSG. I also farm up my scroll of Cura (saving myself about 6k tyvm); I had previously just NPC'd them as the drop rate is quite high and I had no immediate need of them. I'm actually going to have to do the same thing for flash down the road a bit as I'm told spamming Flash (and Repose) are the best ways of skilling up Divine magic. However, I've been playing alot and need to get a bunch of RL stuff done so I log shortly after.
Monday is Dynamis again, this time Jeuno. We actually had a decent run although the lag is getting to be a considerable problem. We lost 2 players during the run to disconnects that simply never came back. Personally, I suspect SE of pulling servers for retasking or simply for sale. We ran pretty well until after the win, but then people got sloppy (as frequently happens), losing focus, not obeying commands, etc. I hadn't died at all until after the win, but after that I died 3 or 4 times in rapid succession. Not fun. Oh well, now you are up to date.
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