To Power-level or not…?
Tough question. Like a lot of players, I have jobs that I am not interested in, but need as sub-jobs. I could find a PL and level fast, but at what cost?
I’m not talking about paying one of those services that bury us with almost incomprehensible tells in game, I’m speaking of legitimate players just helping out a bud. Now it’s very rare that one of those guys is going to want anything from you, maybe some return help down the road but certainly no fees or anything. However, XP is just one of the things you need to build in this game. What else? Here’s a list…
1. Skill with the job! This is a biggie… if you don’t practice with the job combo someday you may join a party and people will be depending on you to know something—and you won’t. People are going to be hurt by bad play. It may take a bit for them to figure out who the guilty player is, and MOST players won’t tell you it’s you in the interest of not breaking up the party. For most people, the only way to get that almost instinctive reaction is repetition and a PL keeps that from happening as much.
2. Resists/underpowered spells and such. I’ve mentioned this before, keeping skills up is hard enough in general, and a PL has you exercising skills less and less. I’ve been playing the game for 7 years now I think and my parry and shield skills are maybe half-way to cap. Certain skills have gained in utility over the years as SE has added content. For example, divine magic for white mages; in my experience very few whm’s were popping banish on undead and that was about the only use divine had (flash is not a whm priority), but now we have repose, a light-based sleep to help us bard-types out as we used to be the only other significant light-based sleep out there. Obviously I’ll be using this in a couple levels when I get it, but in the mean-time I’m building one hell of a skill gap.
3. Accuracy/attack power. Yep, that repetition thing again. You gain skills by whacking stuff. For a healer job a PL is good in this category; if we don’t have to heal, we can whack stuff instead. But melee-types and rangers need to skill-up multiple weapons usually (samurai need bow, great katana and pole-arm usually, warrior needs half an armoury, etc.) With fewer kills you get fewer whacks so fewer skills etc.
4. Treasure. Leveling usually costs money for food, gear and other such stuff. The drops you do get while in XP partys off-set SOME of that. Well, if you kill less stuff you get less stuff. I off-set some of that loss by not using food when I have a PL. However, the stuff would still be nice as I am working on my crafting as the opportunity arises.
Now, the current leveling method used by most seems to be level 1st, skill later. I hate that tho’ because I never have the time for a skill-up. Having solo’d the way up on beast I got very used to always having my offensive skills and my evasion capped, but with my pet usually holding hate my defensive skills have suffered. With bard I was in parties almost all the time so my melee skills suffered. String is generally frowned on due to the range so it tended to lag behind on skill but a couple runs in Dynamis spamming Horde Lullaby sorted that right out. I took advantage of the fortifications in Campaign to fix my bard’s melee skills until they took that option away. I’ll just have to do some of my farming as bard/dancer to keep melee up to snuff.
I haven’t really answered the question on taking a PL when it’s available. My personal feeling is this… I don’t ask for them. I don’t turn them down either. Any gaps in my play I try to fill via farming and to a lesser extent via using the skill on another job (ex. skill dagger via leveling thief). All hail King Wishy-washy!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The thing that should never be…
As I mentioned in last post, I’m now 80 on both beast (my main job) and bard (my “works well with others” job). The intention was to work on the thief as you may recall. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the heist… SE announced the next version update for early September and the level cap is going with it (we don’t know how much, but I’m guessing 90). So, it’s time to break out the subjobs again. Those I have to get to 49-50 are white mage (currently 44), ninja (40), red mage (25) and a special case, dancer (40, but it will follow thief as my next job to cap).
I’m doing white mage 1st as I sub it in Dynamis and a lot of missions. I will break to do dancer as it is my primary beast sub. Then back to ninja as I need it to sub when pulling on bard. Finally, red mage which was always a good bard sub and the only other job that can consistently recharge people’s MP. I think bard/red mage is going to replace bard/white mage because it gives another sleep option, MP refresh, another dispel and a few other goodies, especially fast cast and convert. The minuses are I lose reraise (but that’s just my XP that gets hurt so why would anyone else care) and my feeble elf MP will be even feebler. Look for me to enspell and melee just to piss people off if they get too demanding.
I think I’ll need to break in the middle there to work on my funds as all those red mage spells are going to get expensive. I have most of the ninja spells already. I’m also going to need to do some BCNM for my phalanx scroll. I’ve got the seals, but finding the beasts to help might be a problem, at least beasts I know. We’ll talk about that as I get around to it.
Leveling the white mage is harder than it used to be. We already lost out to red mage after 41 because of refresh. Now with everyone in end game I need people to sync down to get a party. White mage can solo (slowly), a bit better with a decent NPC. As mentioned before however my NPC was not built along tanking lines, but healing—now healing is my job. It’s definitely kind of makeshift.
I’ve been concentrating on FoV as the missions give me an XP bonus and you can do 1-2 per hour. To get any speed out of it I can’t let the mobs past EM to me so skill-ups suffer a bit. Another player is a great help, while NPCs use abilities other players generally use theirs intelligently. With my crap MP I’m forced to wear gear that helps with that, leaving me squishier than I really like to be when I get hate.
I did get lucky with a duo and a power level over the weekend. Made it to 43 without much trouble and got some nice skill-ups in the process. Last night I did a besieged for the first time in ages (XP was ok, skill-ups sucked), then got the ubiquitous birds party in East Ron. Again, skill sucked but I did get 44. Looking forward to trying out Regen 2 going forward.
Monday we had to cancel Dynamis. For the most part only the vets showed up. We probably could have low-manned a zone and farmed but we mostly don’t need anything, we generally do Dynamis to help other people, hang out with friends, build our points for gear we may eventually want and good karma. So giving away perfectly good XP seemed stupid and we cancelled for the night. I was supposed to look for leveling help after I finished supper, but I got a call from a friend and spent hours talking to her instead.
That does it for now folks, more later…
I’m doing white mage 1st as I sub it in Dynamis and a lot of missions. I will break to do dancer as it is my primary beast sub. Then back to ninja as I need it to sub when pulling on bard. Finally, red mage which was always a good bard sub and the only other job that can consistently recharge people’s MP. I think bard/red mage is going to replace bard/white mage because it gives another sleep option, MP refresh, another dispel and a few other goodies, especially fast cast and convert. The minuses are I lose reraise (but that’s just my XP that gets hurt so why would anyone else care) and my feeble elf MP will be even feebler. Look for me to enspell and melee just to piss people off if they get too demanding.
I think I’ll need to break in the middle there to work on my funds as all those red mage spells are going to get expensive. I have most of the ninja spells already. I’m also going to need to do some BCNM for my phalanx scroll. I’ve got the seals, but finding the beasts to help might be a problem, at least beasts I know. We’ll talk about that as I get around to it.
Leveling the white mage is harder than it used to be. We already lost out to red mage after 41 because of refresh. Now with everyone in end game I need people to sync down to get a party. White mage can solo (slowly), a bit better with a decent NPC. As mentioned before however my NPC was not built along tanking lines, but healing—now healing is my job. It’s definitely kind of makeshift.
I’ve been concentrating on FoV as the missions give me an XP bonus and you can do 1-2 per hour. To get any speed out of it I can’t let the mobs past EM to me so skill-ups suffer a bit. Another player is a great help, while NPCs use abilities other players generally use theirs intelligently. With my crap MP I’m forced to wear gear that helps with that, leaving me squishier than I really like to be when I get hate.
I did get lucky with a duo and a power level over the weekend. Made it to 43 without much trouble and got some nice skill-ups in the process. Last night I did a besieged for the first time in ages (XP was ok, skill-ups sucked), then got the ubiquitous birds party in East Ron. Again, skill sucked but I did get 44. Looking forward to trying out Regen 2 going forward.
Monday we had to cancel Dynamis. For the most part only the vets showed up. We probably could have low-manned a zone and farmed but we mostly don’t need anything, we generally do Dynamis to help other people, hang out with friends, build our points for gear we may eventually want and good karma. So giving away perfectly good XP seemed stupid and we cancelled for the night. I was supposed to look for leveling help after I finished supper, but I got a call from a friend and spent hours talking to her instead.
That does it for now folks, more later…
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Streak
Just a quicky post, a longer post will follow.
Finally got bst to 80, the current cap. I've put bst on hold, excepting specific missions, just as bard is.
SE just posted that the next version update and level cap increase will be early September, although they didn't say to what level. My money would be on increasing to 90. Naturally, the subjobs need to be finished. Currently working whitemage to 49-50 1st. Expect to go ninja, then dancer next, and lastly red mage (yes, red) as I believe the expectation will be to have both types of refresh on my bard. The fast cast can't hurt either.
So if you see me seeking...
Finally got bst to 80, the current cap. I've put bst on hold, excepting specific missions, just as bard is.
SE just posted that the next version update and level cap increase will be early September, although they didn't say to what level. My money would be on increasing to 90. Naturally, the subjobs need to be finished. Currently working whitemage to 49-50 1st. Expect to go ninja, then dancer next, and lastly red mage (yes, red) as I believe the expectation will be to have both types of refresh on my bard. The fast cast can't hurt either.
So if you see me seeking...
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wasting time...
So, as last reported I finally started my trial weapons. For those who don’t know I’m not going to spell the whole thing out, but a trial is to beat a certain number of whatever under certain conditions i.e. my last trial was 50 Evil Weapons under Fire, Wind, Thunder or Light weather. Now there are both level 75 and level 80 trials, presumably there will be more as the cap increases. Personally, I would make it a continuation of the 75 trial so that it keeps pace with your rising level instead of being something you finish just to put it away forever, but that’s just me. Oh, what is it you ask? A customized, augmented weapon with bonuses you choose to work for.
Not sure why I even started a 75 axe, I’ll be 80 shortly on beast and none of the other jobs I’m currently planning to level actually use axe, it’s different with the daggers, as both the thief and dancer I’m leveling use daggers. Whatever, I’m currently off-handing my 75 axe on my 79 bst/dnc.
1st trial was 50 crabs under any weather condition, did Vunkerl Inlet (s) and it was easy, just spent a fair amount of time waiting for weather, but it’s fairly active there so it took 2 days. I actually could have managed it in 1, but I started late in the day. The 2nd however was a bitch, the afore-mentioned evil weapons. The only truly quick way to do it is to level-sync to a qufim level and do weapons there as the weather cooperates frequently. Finding such a sync-especially as a beastmaster-is hard. So I tried Ro’Maeve but no joy; weather was infrequent, the wrong type half the time and the few occasions when there was weather the roving bands of Japanese players (judging by the bogus claims of not speaking English, most Japanese having at least a rough command of it) claiming and killing everything made progress all but impossible. I think I managed 6 there, total.
The Shrine of Ru’Avitau, not a place many go to hang out (especially with sky gear being outclassed by much of the newer, easier to obtain pieces for the most part) seemed to be the answer, and for the most part it was. Decorative Weapons give XP and skill-ups, according to wiki all the weather types occur there (all I ever saw was wind tho’), and with no competition there were plenty available. That being said, they are all EM to T+ to me, meaning that kills are slow (relatively speaking) and I can’t survive links without luck, expensive consumables or help. So Sunday I was in there for the 3rd day in a row and I got killed on a link.
I decided to go back to Ro’Maeve and kill there as (for once) the place wasn’t neck deep in Japanese parties, and what should appear on my Wide Scan but Shikigami Weapon. I know this NM drops THE uber robe for summoner so I holler for anyone in SK who wants it to come out. No one was responding, other than to ask what it was. Now this is a rare pop and a hard item to get so I keep asking. Finally, Woochekitty (who already has one) comes to join me thinking that I need it (maybe someday, but not now). While waiting for it to show up I learn that a 79 beast/dancer with a coeurl pet and a 70 NPC set to soothing healer is not soloing this thing without a lot of luck (read I died). Woo raises me, we fight it together, death. Don finally joins us-FYI other people were trying to kill, they did no better than Woo and I. We finally trio it (without the NPC and using a bunny as pet) and got the drop which went to Don (my smn in level 7 and staying that way for the foreseeable future). TOD was 1:28 pm CDT btw…
As usual, once they come out to help me they stay, helping with my trial weapon. We go back to the Shrine and go to town. I went in with 38 left to kill. By the time they left (after a few hours) I was down to needing 5, so TYVM you two. Well I stuck around hoping the weather would pop before I had to head to Nyzul, but no joy. I ended up going back to Ro’Maeve this morning and finishing up (got lucky to find weather as I zoned in).
Nyzul was interesting. We only had 3 tags so we finished off 90-100 for a member of the static who wasn’t there Thursday when the rest of us got it. The floors were actually pretty easy, good thing since we had a noob subbing. Tide got his great katana too and someone got werebuster. We tried again on 95-100 to get Tigerelf the monk weapon our time issues cost him on Thursday but now the floors were not so kind. We ran into the lamp from hell floor and naturally I found the bad lamp. Ordered lamp floor and my lamp has Wounded Wourfel, Simurgh, an NM I can’t remember, a bhoot and an archaic rampart sitting on it on floor 99. I already know we are screwed but I try anyway… send in the bunny, pop a whirl claws to get hate on him, hit the lamp and run for it. No luck and I die too close to use RR considering all the blood agro in that pile. Well we hit the rest of the lamps in hope that we got lucky 1st try and raise on boss floor, but naturally we didn’t and we really don’t have the bodies to make another try at it. We exited.
I mentioned being in sky 3 days in a row. Well that’s because we cancelled Friday’s Dynamis run due to attendance issues. I’d rant about it here but it would just rile me up again and I already have to repaint my apartment since my cursing peeled the paint off the walls on Friday. If it happens again, I have to decide whether to try to work on trial weapon or just XP. My new trial is 100 anything on lightsday/weather, and weather is VERY rare, I’ve only seen it in qufim, once in batallia I think too and one other place I forget, plus Nyzul. So I’m guessing day may be my way to go…
Not sure why I even started a 75 axe, I’ll be 80 shortly on beast and none of the other jobs I’m currently planning to level actually use axe, it’s different with the daggers, as both the thief and dancer I’m leveling use daggers. Whatever, I’m currently off-handing my 75 axe on my 79 bst/dnc.
1st trial was 50 crabs under any weather condition, did Vunkerl Inlet (s) and it was easy, just spent a fair amount of time waiting for weather, but it’s fairly active there so it took 2 days. I actually could have managed it in 1, but I started late in the day. The 2nd however was a bitch, the afore-mentioned evil weapons. The only truly quick way to do it is to level-sync to a qufim level and do weapons there as the weather cooperates frequently. Finding such a sync-especially as a beastmaster-is hard. So I tried Ro’Maeve but no joy; weather was infrequent, the wrong type half the time and the few occasions when there was weather the roving bands of Japanese players (judging by the bogus claims of not speaking English, most Japanese having at least a rough command of it) claiming and killing everything made progress all but impossible. I think I managed 6 there, total.
The Shrine of Ru’Avitau, not a place many go to hang out (especially with sky gear being outclassed by much of the newer, easier to obtain pieces for the most part) seemed to be the answer, and for the most part it was. Decorative Weapons give XP and skill-ups, according to wiki all the weather types occur there (all I ever saw was wind tho’), and with no competition there were plenty available. That being said, they are all EM to T+ to me, meaning that kills are slow (relatively speaking) and I can’t survive links without luck, expensive consumables or help. So Sunday I was in there for the 3rd day in a row and I got killed on a link.
I decided to go back to Ro’Maeve and kill there as (for once) the place wasn’t neck deep in Japanese parties, and what should appear on my Wide Scan but Shikigami Weapon. I know this NM drops THE uber robe for summoner so I holler for anyone in SK who wants it to come out. No one was responding, other than to ask what it was. Now this is a rare pop and a hard item to get so I keep asking. Finally, Woochekitty (who already has one) comes to join me thinking that I need it (maybe someday, but not now). While waiting for it to show up I learn that a 79 beast/dancer with a coeurl pet and a 70 NPC set to soothing healer is not soloing this thing without a lot of luck (read I died). Woo raises me, we fight it together, death. Don finally joins us-FYI other people were trying to kill, they did no better than Woo and I. We finally trio it (without the NPC and using a bunny as pet) and got the drop which went to Don (my smn in level 7 and staying that way for the foreseeable future). TOD was 1:28 pm CDT btw…
As usual, once they come out to help me they stay, helping with my trial weapon. We go back to the Shrine and go to town. I went in with 38 left to kill. By the time they left (after a few hours) I was down to needing 5, so TYVM you two. Well I stuck around hoping the weather would pop before I had to head to Nyzul, but no joy. I ended up going back to Ro’Maeve this morning and finishing up (got lucky to find weather as I zoned in).
Nyzul was interesting. We only had 3 tags so we finished off 90-100 for a member of the static who wasn’t there Thursday when the rest of us got it. The floors were actually pretty easy, good thing since we had a noob subbing. Tide got his great katana too and someone got werebuster. We tried again on 95-100 to get Tigerelf the monk weapon our time issues cost him on Thursday but now the floors were not so kind. We ran into the lamp from hell floor and naturally I found the bad lamp. Ordered lamp floor and my lamp has Wounded Wourfel, Simurgh, an NM I can’t remember, a bhoot and an archaic rampart sitting on it on floor 99. I already know we are screwed but I try anyway… send in the bunny, pop a whirl claws to get hate on him, hit the lamp and run for it. No luck and I die too close to use RR considering all the blood agro in that pile. Well we hit the rest of the lamps in hope that we got lucky 1st try and raise on boss floor, but naturally we didn’t and we really don’t have the bodies to make another try at it. We exited.
I mentioned being in sky 3 days in a row. Well that’s because we cancelled Friday’s Dynamis run due to attendance issues. I’d rant about it here but it would just rile me up again and I already have to repaint my apartment since my cursing peeled the paint off the walls on Friday. If it happens again, I have to decide whether to try to work on trial weapon or just XP. My new trial is 100 anything on lightsday/weather, and weather is VERY rare, I’ve only seen it in qufim, once in batallia I think too and one other place I forget, plus Nyzul. So I’m guessing day may be my way to go…
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.
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