Monday, May 11, 2009

Gonna Fly this Boat to Al'Taieu Somehow...

And by "somehow," I mean Chuck Norris style Dragon Kicking a Samurai in the mouth. Then after we get there, we're going to Break and Enter the ancient palace, disposing of the security mobs, and work up to the throne room where we will save the world from certain destruction.

An adventure worthy of James Bond, no?

Now I just need to get myself a martini, and seduce the Mega Boss's secretary...

But before that, I shall tell the tale of a pwn'ing that took place on an airship west of the Quon continent, and the payback that occurred 2 hours later. 1st attempt at Tenzen failed. It was my fault. I deployed Pam outside of AOE range, but despite -20enm, she took hate, which moved Tenzen within reach of those blasted taru children. We had him to about 20%, and then he used his uber SC to eject everyone.

Having burnt our 2hr's and failed 2 different Wild Card attempts to restore them, and having used Icarus Wings, we decided to take a 2hr break and try again. It went much smoother. PUP is capable of a large amount of spike damage, I scored 1500 from my WS's, and about 1500 from my nukes too. Having taken 3 hours for this mission, we elected to call it a week.

I am now coming to terms with the fact that between our SMN's Predator Claws, DRK's Guillotine, and our WAR's King's Justice, I just don't get to have any hate whatsoever. If you need evidence of this, look no further than the 8-1/2 run from this week. With +25ENM and all my hate tools, I got nothing after the aforementioned oblivion that was forced upon the mobs.

I'm starting to notice now, a stark difference between CoP and ToAU. CoP bosses can typically be done well with a burn party, with obvious exceptions. ToAU boss battles seem to be more like a marathon.

The rest of the week was spent in campaign and doing Mamool Ja T2 assault. Managed to pick up 2 Hi-Potion tanks and hopefully 2/3 of needed exp to get a new medal.

I've also started reconsidering my PLD. I've made it no secret that I don't exactly enjoy the job, it seems rather futile at endgame unless I'm /NIN with tons of +Haste and +ENM gear. Still, I've been reexamining my PLD gear looking more at function. When it comes to CoP and EXP parties, all the +ENM in the world doesn't seem to help much with the spike damage flying around. But 0/6 in AU42 and 0/1 on ACP11 is forcing me to consider that I should probably focus on a gear set that loads up on Vit/Def/HP, another set for MDef and resistances, and another set with Haste/ENM.

Frankly, when it comes to tanking mobs in AU42, I'm getting the shit kicked out of me by the gears, and in CoP, +ENM only helps in longer battles. My hybrid Haste/ENM and Vit/Def/HP build doesn't seem to be working well for either.

Further, ACP11 has made me consider mdmg gear, which consists of Coral Earringx2 at the moment. If I were to invest in a couple of cheap rings, and a hefty amount of Allied Notes (200k), I could increase my resistances by +15 each, and increase my Magic Damage Taken to -18%. Could that get me my mirke? Going on ACP11 on PUP hasn't been easy, and my PLD isn't geared well enough to risk everyone else's time on that climb.

Maybe RDM will go on hold until these gear setups are obtained and tested fully, give it a few weeks of campaigning and farming. That's where I am now, see you guys next week.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

And There... It... Went!

Yep. There go the last three weeks! Since then, most of us paid our taxes, realized what horrible, terrible things we're doing to the Earth, had a nice cup of tea, and had a large fluffy rodent break into our houses and leave small, round, brown chocolates.

If you happen to remember where exactly I was in the game 3 weeks ago, you get a bonus point! Because I sure don't. Huh? Oh. No I don't exactly know what you're going to do with that bonus point. It's kind of like having a spy satellite over Switzerland, not very useful.

There are a few things I remember. Lots of close calls. ACP11 was the biggest heart-break. I just start shouting in WG. End up forming a party of: PLD PUP(me) SMN SMN BRD BLM. All of these people were pro's at their job. Most of them were decked out in some kind of combination of Abjuration, Relic, Salvage, or Nyzul armors. PLD tanked beautifully. BLM didn't miss a single Stun against -ga's. My Spiritreaver automaton continuously 1-shot nuked clones. The SMN's did their thing great too. It went perfectly, for 90% of the battle. Damn crystal uses Seed of Judgement twice within 10sec. Total wipe. Sooo close.

CP6-4. 1/6. 4 Runs one week. The first three we didn't get past Omega, and the 4th, we just weren't ready for Ultima. Second run, we actually got Omega to 1%, we wiped. Our guest WHM popped up, and instead of Raise the RDM or the PLD, decided to cast Holy. To jog your memory, <20% HP, Omega uses a Magic Shield move, making him 100% invulnerable to Magic Spells. WHM wasn't invited back the next week for 2 more attempts.

The next week, first run went smoothly, got Ultima to 13% with 3min to spare and we wiped. Last ditch effort and the SMN's Astral Flow doesn't work for some reason, and we time out. >.< The last attempt, however, went beautifully. One wipe. Only ended up using 2 CCB on Omega, used 4 on Ultima. Solid timing of Stun and Bash moves with Omega and Ultima in low HP% helped to prevent TP moves between CCB's.

Now, onto the CoP 7-4 NM's. Cryptoberry in Carpenter's Landing went down smoothly after one failed attempt where I wasn't able to outrun Mijin Gakure, but 2nd run went off without a hitch. Sea Monk in Bibiki Bay went smoothly until I was Hundred Fisted with 9% to go. Just couldn't keep up with the damage taken, despite all my Eva gear and merits. Bugard in Misareaux Coast went OK. Although wiki let me down: apparently his special TP move erases TP. Bad thing for PUP/DNC. 1st attempt left me face up with 12% remaining. The last 2 NM's I got help from a BST friend, it went nicely after that.

The biggest winner these past few weeks?
Puppetmasters!
If you thought that watching BST take down Haku was full of hax, then you haven't seen PUP burn party pwn Diabolos in the Avatar battle (not mission). PUPx5: 4 Reavers and 1 Soother. We cut the record from 17min to 9min and never once got hit. Definitely going to be doing this again, and frequently at that.

The biggest loser in these past few weeks?
My Wallet!
That's right, I got hit right where it hurts. Taxes aside, somehow I managed to burn through over 200k worth of RR earrings, Tavnazian Tacos, Persikos au Lait, Hi-Potion Tanks, etc., etc., etc. for CoP 6-4 alone. Now? I can't even afford bolt heads to synth my way out of this. Maybe I'll lobby my congressman to bailout the PUP industry. On the bright side, I am out of the long tunnel that are the capped fights for CoP. I'm also done with stuff like animas and CCB's for battles too. Nothing left to buy but the regular stuff I keep in MH anyways!

OK. There's the last few weeks in a nutshell. For those of you keeping score at home, I'm down to 10 more battles until all major storylines are complete, and I can get back to the quiet life of an adventurer. I've been working a little on BLM in down time. When I've knocked out a couple more storylines, I'll start leveling RDM before I work on endgame events for all that armor I didn't need to beat the stories >.<

OK I'm becoming bitter. I'm going to bed before I get myself in trouble. Stay tuned, maybe I'll increase my post rate to something a little more frequent than 1 post per month :P

Monday, April 6, 2009

A Night Full of Missions is like...

... hosting a kegger: you have to spend the whole next day trying to figure out what the hell happened to all that stuff you had in your house >.<

I may not remember what happened to a full stack of silent oils, a hi-potion tank, and my mythril platemail set, but I know one thing: most of 5-3 is toast! ... I think. Didn't sleep much after the party and before I had to get up for work, so I'm a little hazy today. I remember nearly escaping death after a throat stab in Pso'Xja. I got 1-shot by a snowball. And I totally tanked 3 mithra at one time...

Don't worry! PLD's always use protection!

After all that though, I woke up today weakened in the back of an empty cave in Uleguerand Range. I made sure to wear my Ice Trousers before logging off to be on the safe side. Though I forgot to take my Gallant Leggings off beforehand >.>

ANYHOW

I severely underestimated the amount of legwork involved with Tenzen's Path. There was nothing terribly challenging about the battles, but the running around sucked. Next we did Ulmia's Path. I think someone had those mithra declawed. I ran in, Sleepga goes off without a hitch, Provoke one, Flash another, while WAR provoked the third. They went down one by one. Then we hit the northlands. BLM had a bit of a problem missing the hole, took aggro and died twice. He was nice enough to HP to save the trouble of a rescue operation amidst true sight mobs and elementals. Once we got into the Snoll battle, we unloaded on him.
Inferno
Chainspell Fire 2
Flare
Souleater + Last Resort + SATA + Guillotine
Warcry + Berserk + Mighty Strikes + Aggressor + Raging Rush.
I was pretty useless lol. I think I got off one Flash before eating Hiemal Storm. I got up, Provoke, Sentinel, Shield Bash... and no hate.

At this point a lot of us were pooped, BLM had to log, I needed sleep before work, so we elected to save Louverance for next week.

Never got to try WotG 10, friend never responded to /tell >.>

Attempted AU42, 0/6. Supertank strategy failed >.< Will try this week if not doing CoP, elect to sleep BLU and solo a gear this time.

ZM16: 1/2. That's right! ZM = DONE! Party was: PLD DRK SAM RDM BLM PUP. I pulled Pamama out to start first attempt, and he got 1-shotted by phase shift. Second attempt I saved Pamama until after Exoplates went down, activated, overdrived, and nuked away. First attempt we also had a problem with deaths during exoplates. Also, in 2nd form, damn boss kept moving out of our BLM's casting range. 10% left when we failed >.<

All in all, this week had rocky preparation, but everyone was cool and professional when it counted, even if it didn't work out. That makes me optimistic for coming weeks. At this rate, we will be done CoP by Memorial Day! At which point, I'm gonna get myself a beer and a burger and chill for a moment before starting the path for Apocalypse Nigh. Nothing but madness for the next few weeks!

And here... we... go!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Speed Up!

I know this is a FFXI blog, but driving this week has been so bad that I have to bring a little of Earth into the blog.

I am an EMT and I work with an ambulance for a living, and obviously, drive frequently in it. But we've been over this before people, THE FAST LANE IS NOT FOR GOING 5 OVER! If you're too scared of getting a ticket, get the hell out of the left lane and into one of the 3 other lanes to the right side of the road so the rest of us can get on our way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an aggressive driver, but there are unwritten rules of the road that ought to be followed. There are no written rules about standing in a line but people follow them anyways right? Going even near the speed limit in the left lane of a 4 lane highway is likely to cause an accident, so use the rest of the road!

Back to our little escape from the world shall we? This week took me into the depths of Garlaige Citadel (S) for The Haze of Glory quest for WotG story. CS's are soooo long, but at least entertaining. After an initial solo attempt ended in 2 dead puppets after linking the orcs around the seige machine, I thought it best to gather some other pupp-- err... people to help!

Without much effort shouting in WG I ended up with a decently balanced party: PUP/SCH/Reaver, WHM SAM WAR and PLD. Getting to the back of the battlefield map wasn't as easy as it was solo, and we had to deal with a number of orcs in the way. Now, I've been playing this game for over four years, but it didn't take nearly that long for me to figure out that YOU KILL BLM MOBS FIRST! The thought of taking 2 Thundaga III's may sound appealing to some other lunatic, but not this lunatic! Suprisingly enough, Pamama managed to survive the whole battle, despite tanking a couple of stubborn orcs who were lucky enough to survive Blizzard IV with 2-3 Ice Maneuvers.

Once we made it to the back, the melee's proved enough to manage the linking orcs while Pamama and I sat back dropping nukes. The seige machine was properly zerged with the aid of solid nukes courtesy of my alter ego. This week I plan on taking down the Jugner Treant NM so I can get myself into the battle of Jeuno and get another flag!

On the CoP front, no 5-3 to report, just another 5-2 run that was promised before. Stupid Impalement. We won, but I don't like cheap shots like that move. Note to future PLD in that mission: save Hi-Potions for the long-legged boss! The food-eating NM went down first and went down like a drunken prom date thanks to Freezex2 from our BLM's. Truth be told I haven't worked with nukers much, but it was nice having a couple seconds to spare between the Freeze volley hitting and the 2nd NM coming back from the Terroanima I hit him with. Then came Mr. Cheapshot Impalement. It was going so nicely until then. A Hysteroanima must've been slow, since I was hit by Impalement right as the 3rd NM attacked. No biggie, we won. Diamond Dust + Freezex2 + Meikyo Shuishi = Dead NM.

Coming up this week will finally be 5-3, but since I'm already prepped for it, I'm going to spend the week on WotG and maybe finally getting ZM16 done. It's a lofty goal, but I'm going to give it a shot Saturday night, which means I probably shouldn't get off of work and make myself a rum & coke. But sacrifices have to be made people!

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Times They Are A-Changin'

I'd say that I'm breaking from my usual format, but since that's usually a baseless rant, not much is really going to change. I had originally intended to make this a brief post telling of the adventures in Promyvion-Vahzl on Sunday, but as I type this, a good friend of mine on the game is telling me that he's leaving the game for good. For those of you who don't know, when I started this character I also started my own LS when I had the money. My recently departed friend was one of the first members of that LS. He was always willing to help where needed, and was the only other pet job in that starting group. I've got to be the one to show the pet pride from now on! He says he's going to send his Wyvern to a farm out in the country where it can run around...

Gee that sounds nice! ^_^

Times like this make me wonder what I'm going to be doing after I finish my missions. God knows after four years I'm finishing these damn storylines! Afterwards though, am I going to end up in an endgame shell getting all the nice gear that I didn't need to do these missions? Will I stop caring and just level up 15 jobs at once? Will Pamama be left to collect dust on the shell of my MH? Will Oprah's moogle finally admit to his fish problem and check himself into rehab? The answer to these questions... right now:
No
Yes
No
No

Getting back on track, CP5-2 was really disappointing. Two weeks of preparation, a full squad of people who needed the mission, with a nice party setup: PLD WAR SAM DRK RDM SMN. I know what you're thinking, "Ouch, how many times did they wipe?" Truthbetold, not once. I rarely use the term "absolute pwnage" but it applies well here. We climbed without a single death. The floors left us plenty of room to run and everyone stuck together. As it turns out, the status-stealing NM doesn't absorb enchantments from items, which left me with High Breath Mantle, Enfire, and Ice Spikes to tank in.

In the BC fight, we elected to fight the status-stealer first to allow the use of buffs for the other two. For those of you who know me, and know how carried away I get, it shouldn't be any surprise to you that as the 3rd Boss was nearing critical health, I had a sudden thought, "Oh! I could've used my Taco and Protect III a long time ago!" Yay me. I emptied a hi-pot tank for this battle, and it paid off well. Not once did I have to even consider Invincible, nor was I stuck with a dozen Hi-Potions in my inventory at the end of the fight. Aside from the WAR stealing hate with an obscene WS, (I have filters up so I didn't see the damage, just a large portion of the Boss's HP Bar disappear) we had no deaths. When it came to anima orders, my NM died too quickly that I didn't even need to use my hysteroanima, let alone touch the 2nd set that I put in my mailbox weeks ago.

Aside from CP5-2, I reobtained my Brass Wings in campaign, and I've reached floor 9 in Nyzul Isle. Ooo! There's a good story there. We luck out all the way through floor 8. No problems. 1 Enemy Leader, 1 Lamp floor, 1 Floor Clearing. We had to take out the Leader on the 8th floor. Which actually went OK. We had to deal with a soulflayer but it went down without too much of a struggle. It's the Bio effect that wiped out 3/4 of the melee. (RDM/BLM and PUP/SCH healer, no Erase >.<) We wipe out the 9th floor with a little struggle because the melee were weakened. With 5 minutes to spare after resting someone hits "Go Up" instead of "Quit" on the rune.

That's good news.

Objective: Eliminate Specified Enemies.

Just outside the corner of the rune room is a chariot that cons Impossible to Gauge. Can we actually do this?! Melee rushes in. I deploy Pam nearby and stand @ the rune. Chariot goes down with 15 seconds left. Rune doesn't unlock... It was a family floor! >.< So close to floor 10!

Well, that's all the exciting news for this week, next week I hope to write of clearing 3/3 of CP5-3, but that's optimistic given the running involved. Here's hoping!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Back on Track

My posts should be back on track now. Not to speak for the CoP static though. Apparently 7 days isn't enough time for certain people to acquire anima for 5-2. Needless to say, but we didn't run this week. For that update, stay tuned for next week. CoP aside, it's been a nice week, with a nice surprise to end it. As previously recorded in my Recap post earlier this week, I managed to complete AU35 with a little difficulty, although poor Pamama caught the worst of Mijin Gakure.

Earlier today, for the hell of it, I decided to take a swing at WG08 with a couple of people. I had my storyline advancement completed for the week but what the hell. Well, remember the 2-3 Dragon for rank missions? This dragon could've probably been beaten by an eyelash of the Airhman that is in the mission. I really felt bad wasting a charge on my Blaze Hose for this mission. Final cutscene actually lasted longer than the battle.

WTF is it with the cutscene's in WotG? Couldn't SE have just spread them out like in AU? Way too long for the lack of information given. In AU missions you're at least trying to figure out who is who, and who they're working for. WG isn't nearly as hard to follow, despite the complications of time travel. The only question in the story is, WTF is that cat up to? This only reaffirms my Pro-Dog position. Not to offend you mithras out there, mind you.

Oh! Almost forgot, got another floor in Nyzul, still haven't made it to 10 yet though. Slow and steady right? ;;>.>

Overall, I did not have alot of game time this week, but it was very productive when I was on. 2 Missions down and 1 Nyzul floor. I finally took some time to relax on the game too. A couple good friends of mine came back to the game, and apparently decided to join the "I quit and scrapped my Char, but now I'm back and have to re-do EVERYTHING" Club, of which I am a high ranking member. We have hats! >.> Ahem. Anyways... I spent the evening tossing them a few cure's out in Buburimu out of the goodness of my heart.

>.>

OK I really went to scare one of them with Pamama since she's apparently freaked out by Automatons. But who the hell actually think that it's the thought that counts?

<,<

OK Fine but who actually believes that?

Fine! I don't have to stand here and take your judgement! Whateva! Whateva! I Do Wha I Want! See you bitches next week!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Previously, on Multiple Personalities...

It's been a good while since my last substantial post. My hours at work have doubled, and I got sick for a couple days, but I've still been busy in Vana' Diel! A little recap:

CP4-3 Completed with pickup party. RDM and MNK had a bit of a problem following orders but we completed without any casualties.

AU29 Completed without a hitch. Although towards the end I used Invincible for the hell of it, and Gaheel Ja immediately did his switch hate thing ; ; Big thanks for our BLM though. He did not have Mamool Ja Staging Point, but ran out through Wajaom and Mamook while we were still gathering people, and we didn't have to wait at all ^^

CP4-3 Completed again with LS. We had to deal with Fomor hate this time, but things went well anyway. Took down Keremet without getting Charmed at all. I tanked with Ice Trousers and Blaze Hose.

AU35 Completed with a little struggle. Luckily Gessho didn't spawn a single clone. Our PLD (not me) came up big with Atonement to start and to finish the battle. I parked Pamama just out of range of his Sweep move, but apparently not quite out of range of Mijin Gakure >.>

I have obtained both Cobra Unit Crackows and Cobra Unit Trews... and have found out that Wamoura Princes have far higher Magic Defense than previously thought, even with capped puppet magic and all my Magic Accuracy and Magic Attack. I've made some kills, but so did the wamoura. I'm not going to give up on this yet, but I am going to make time for other things in the meantime.

As it turns out, several fellow CircusFreaks needed drops from Ob, so we went on a run. Stingy damn little robot. Our poor NIN took a Armor Piercer without shadows towards the end of the first fight. After that we had a good strategy. DoT until 70% HP, then we zerged him down. Aside from Ob Arms, I think we only got a Steam Jacket after 4 pops. I'll get that earring yet!