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.

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

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

The Call of Duty

So I have a whole long post here, damn blogspot won't let me post it all at once. It's late for me, I'm going to split it into appropriate parts tomorrow. Check back then.

When It Rains, It Pours

Booyah! It was a big week for me in Vana' diel! Check out all those mission advancements! AU22, Corporal, Brass Wings of Service, and Floor 5 on Nyzul! Looks like I've set myself up for some serious progress each week. Here's hoping I can keep a solid pace.

Now that I'm restarting my drive through the storylines, I've started to look more at the rings and such offered at the end of each. For the life of me I don't know which to pick. When it comes to PUP, my accuracy isn't exactly stellar, so Rajas may actually hurt me. Besides, Sattva would be sexy on my PLD, which ends up helping more than anything when it comes to missions. Ulthalam's Ring seems like a better choice for my melee build, but at the same time, I can buy an Accuracy ring from the AH any day (and I did, sold Venerer and bought Ecphoria this week, sick of camping NM's after Shaman's Cloak), and Balrahn's Ring has that Magic Accuracy +4, which could go well for spells as PUP/SCH. Besides, where else are you going to find Magic Accuracy for the ring slot?

Speaking of Magic Accuracy, I've got 100k Allied Notes now! Which means Cobra Trews and Cobra Crackows! But I haven't bought 'em yet. I have the Allied Notes needed to get promoted to the Mythril Wings of Service, so I plan on waiting until Tuesday so I can join the Cobra Unit, buy the items, then return to the good ol' Iron Rams and I'm only down to a Holyknight Emblem. This week will see me attempt solo'ing Wamouracampa Princes in Mount Zhayolm for the first time since I went on this +Magic binge, so I will report on my soon-to-be plentiful merit points in my next installment. If it goes as well as I hope, I can't let myself get side-tracked so much that I forget to do some kind of mission this week.

Which brings me to my progress report. As stated, I will soon be receiving the Mythril Wings in Campaign, but earlier this week I also got my promotion to Corporal in the mercenary company. I can't wait to become Captain so I don't have to pay that damn 200 ISP fee per runic use! The assault points would be welcome too. After receiving my PUP relic pants, I cashed in the AP that I was saving for Pahluwan Seraweels for items to sell. Which followed shortly by interest in leveling COR after I get PUP solidified. Yay me. Spend a couple months worth of AP in an effort to save me crafting time and then I think to level a job which would certainly need those AP items.

Anyways, I have yet to mention AU22, which went very smoothly with a pick-up party in Whitegate. PUP PLD RDM BRD BLM. Unbeknownst to me, the BLM was originally a WAR in the party, so I geared up PUP/SCH/Soother thinking that we'd need a little more healing power. We had a little too much healing. I could have broken Pamama down and brought out the BLM puppet, but we wouldn't want to have shown up the BLM AND Shan- err Karababa in one fight now would we? In retrospect I should have, but the mission is done, no need to reexamine the mission too much.

Oh! I finally got a Nyzul party that won! What do you know? I get a party that talks and jokes around while we get ready, we head out, the party leader provides solid orders and we work together. Win! It got close tho. The NM on the last floor was the target. With 3 minutes to go he hit us with Sleepga II. WAR (I think it was the WAR) goes down, SAM 2hr's. The RDM and I finally wake up. I drop Pamama off, put on those handy Hermes' Sandals (^_^) and make it to the rune with about 30 seconds to spare, just as the NM goes down and the WAR gets raised. The best part? IT COUNTS! It was a F1-5 run! That's exactly what I needed! 95 More levels and Hello Runic Key. Then I may just then begin working on that Brave Blade that's catching dust in my Mog Safe.

This week I hope to finish off Fine-Tuning and Automaton Melee Skill, while getting either AU29 or CP4-3 finished. I kind of feel like if I could just get ZM16, CP, and Apocalypse Nigh finished, then I'll have a huge weight off of my shoulders. I may focus on CP from now on and try to snag a ZM16 run if I see one in Whitegate. Well see what happens. Tune in next week, same PUP time, same PUP channel.

Addendum

Guess what? Good ol' sarcastic Alvaros is back! Yes it apparently took just that long to get back to normal.

It's called courtesy people. I am not here to say that I am better than you. I'm saying precisely the opposite: we are all equal. That being said, don't waste my time. I do not waste your time. I had a particular BLM in an assault party last night, who wanted to do Leujaoam T1 but didn't have the runic.

Don't ever ask me to wait for you because you don't have your runics together.

What's that? You work 2 jobs full-time to support your dear old granny while you take classes? That's wonderful. But grow up. I can guarantee that you are not the only person on this game who has a number of RL responsibilities.

I have RL responsibilities too, and common courtesy dictates that you do everything within reasonable effort to not waste other people's time, because it is just as valuable as yours. Something as simple as running to Azouph Isle Staging Point (arguably the easiest of all runics to acquire), should be done on your own time, so you don't waste others' time.

When I tell you to sod off because you are not fully prepared because you are too busy, don't get mad at me. Especially by the time you've got a LV70 job, you know what the timeline of the game is. You know it takes days to get a single lvl, and weeks and months to get sometimes a single mission completed. At earlier levels, this game is very easy to pick up and put down. If you want to play in the big leagues, you had better be ready to play by big league rules.

Don't ever get mad at me because I know how valuable time is. I do the proper preparation to ensure that I don't waste my time or others' time. I don't want to screw over other people. If you don't want to do proper preparation on your time, then go play WoW with the rest of the 12 year olds.

The Lighter Side of Things

It has been said that the best stories only happen when things go wrong. That will be why this will be a shorter post than usual. Everything has been going pretty well this week FF-wise. I capped out Automaton Magic and unlocked Blizzard IV. As far as maxing out my PUP merits, I only need 58 more points for Automaton Melee, Fine-Tuning, Optimization, H2H, and Evasion. Funny thing. All these merits of which I speak, happened from campaign, not exp parties. All of a sudden I don't have anything to complain about! (You may also be thinking to yourself, "Hmmm, it is Februrary 15, what could have possibly happened in the past day or so that could've mellowed me out? >,>) And, once I get this last 28k AN that I'll need for Cobra mage gear, I'll be able to hit the wamoura camps in Zhayolm as PUP/SCH/REAVER and not have to worry about LFP for a party for decent exp.

Now that my quest for good solo exp on PUP is almost over, I'm starting to wonder why the hell I got started down this path in the first place! It's been weeks since I've done any kind of mission! I've been ignoring my assault ranks, Nyzul, and my other storyline missions. What's wrong with me! If I don't get these done then there's no point in all the merits I stand to earn. Should I go for the missions now for completion? Or should I bulk my PUP up nice and big to be invited as PLD to missions? -,- In either case I have failed to finish what I have started, so I ought to get back on track ASAP, regardless of direction, if I have any hope to complete the storylines.

From now on there will be a new segment of this blog, to report on my mission progress. Just for reference I should state my mission status right here:
Rank 10 - San d'Oria
ZM16- The Celestial Nexus
CP4-3 - The Secrets of Worship
AU22 - Shield of Diplomacy
WG07 - Purple, The New Black
Mercenary Rank - Lance Corporal
Campaign Operations - Holyknight Emblem
From this point forth, there will be some kind of advancement in at least one of these categories for each post I make, barring any real life obligations. So here I go! Next week there will be tales of triumph to be told of my amazing progression thru Vana' Diel! Or there will be tales of vain shouts in Whitegate.

Me, Pamama, and I

Teamwork: when people work collaboratively towards a common goal as distinct from other ways that individuals can work within a group.

How is this so hard? When it comes to FFXI, oddly enough, it is the people who solo (BST, PUP, etc.) who make the best teammates. Maybe it's the inherent notion that as pet jobs, we must rely on someone else, so we must pay attention. Assault this week took me to the Mamool Ja Training Grounds, just doing a series of Preemptive Strike missions for points farming. This is a pretty straight forward mission, just run around and kill mamools. In this case, only the RDM and myself have done the mission before, which is no big deal considering we've got a SAM and MNK to tear through mamools. Crossing one of the bridges, we take agg from a puk below, just as I happened to have pulled a mamool. No big deal. SAM and I come over and start attacking and:

RDM starts casting Sleep II on the Puk Executioner.

Now this is usually enough to get people to disengage if they're already attacking, or to even think twice about engaging. Not this MNK. He was content just pounding away at this puk. Everyone else be damned he was gonna do it. So after 3 different messages, he finally turns to the mamool as it was dying. RDM sleeps the puk. This was not that difficult of a situation. Common sense demands that you kill the more dangerous thing first. Why do I rant about such a simple situation? Because little things like this are proof of larger things. This very same MNK is also a RNG who happens to be responsible for wiping my dyna shell on multiple occasions. Pick your allies wisely!

Another thing, for those of you who consider yourselves the DD type. Most of you know that it is common sense to not WS right after the tank fire off Provoke. Doing so requires that the PLD has to burn Cover, Sentinel, etc. unnecessarily. If your working with a NIN tank, well, nice working with you. Hate management separates good players from bad ones. I recall a certain haku run that CircusFreaks did for a BLM and a RNG. BSTx4, PUPx1 plus the aforementioned BLM and RNG. Obviously these two had no idea had to do their jobs without a PLD or WHM around to save their sorry asses. The only mage we had was Pamama, who was there mostly to help the BST's when they needed multiple attempts to Charm. I don't remember exactly how many, but that BLM and RNG died multiple times in the two fights we did. Completely oblivious, and inevitably useless since they spent more time on the ground wasting our MP than they did actually helping.

I blame burn parties. Anytime something like /NIN or /SAM becomes uber powerful in an exp party, all sense among parties goes to Hell. DD's stop paying attention to the rest of the party, and fire WS's off whenever they can, regardless of whether or not the mage or tank can save them. Then when the exp starts to suffer because the mage has to rest, they blame everything under the sun except for their own stupidity. SE: bring back the days of balanced exp parties with a strategy. Make the SAM work with the BLM.

The Nature of the Job

I'd like to start off my blog with a discussion of the psychology of my favorite job, the Puppetmaster. It's a widely misunderstood job, but nonetheless fascinating. Other jobs in Vana'Diel arguably have certain character traits that one might find with the player. One who plays as a Paladin or White Mage may have some tendency to help others, or the Dark Knight who may have a tendency to cut away at himse- err, others. Yet, Puppetmaster has no defined role; it slides between healing, melee DD, magic DD, and solo'ing with tremendous ease compared to other jobs. No other job is capable of providing such versatility.

The device of this versatility is, of course, the Automaton. A Warrior, Ranger, White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage all in one. A few simple adjustments turns it from a Ranger averaging over 1,000 damage per WS to a White Mage Cure V machine. Unlike the other pet jobs, the Puppetmaster's drawback is his dependency on his Automaton. A Summoner with the proper sub is capable of main healing easily without their summons. Dragoons and Beastmasters are solid DD before their pets are calculated. Puppetmasters lack the melee skill to hold their own as DD's without their Automaton, and they lack the amount of MP to constantly be tossing Cures. The Automaton holds the strength of the Puppetmaster, and therefore no other job in the game places so much of its attention, emotion, and faith in an entity that it not himself.

Actually, it is not even enough to say that the Automaton "is not himself," because it is important to remember that the Automaton is inevitably a blank slate. It is neither alive nor dead. The Puppetmaster makes the Automaton as useful or as useless as he wants, depending on how much of his attention, emotion, and faith he rests in it. In such a way the Automaton is destined to take on the traits of its master. The question now is, if the Puppetmaster, in order to be most effective, invests the entirety of his attention, emotion, and faith into his Automaton, then what left is there of the master? Having invested everything he can (which is arguably enough for only one entity), what is left? With so much invested in the Automaton, and so little left for the master, where does the Master begin and the Automaton end?

This is what is curious, the fact that Puppetmasters have that extra, external filter through which to act. Essentially, it could be said that it is not important how exactly the Puppetmaster himself acts, but it is how his Automaton acts which is important. I believe that the line between entities can be drawn with responsibility. Once the Puppetmaster cedes resonsibility for his actions to the whims of the Automaton, he is lost somewhere inside the faceless, skinny-armed machine.

To draw an analogy, Harvey Dent (Two-Face) relies on his coin to make decisions about whether or not people should die. He doesn't see that he is the one flipping the coin or pulling the trigger, let alone being the person who actually deicdes to give the coin this kind of decision-making power. In an effort to achieve the true power of the Automaton, the Puppetmaster himself could become fused with the "soul" of the Automaton, if you will. The Puppetmaster can more easily become blind to the importance of his own decisions and instead place responsibility in an outside source much easier than an other job. The dependency on the Automaton is the source of this vulnerability. To those who would walk the stringless path I end with this: master yourself. Know what thoughts you are predisposed to having; know what actions you are predisposed to doing; know what feelings you are predisposed to feeling, so that you may achieve the true power of the Puppetmaster without paying for it with your self.