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.