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.