Blue mage in Salvage

Yes, this post is about Salvage, a long forgotten event in this game that is now lol in many ppl's mind.


Ever since I got Salvage access about one year ago, I've been trying get into Salvage parties. Whenever I see /shout in WG, I often sent /tell and ask if I can join. Then when I was asked what jobs I have, I replied BLU and COR, and I often got ignored after I told them my jobs. It is until much later I finally realized only MNK THF BRD WHM RDM or maybe random 2h DD are allowed to do Salvage, every other job is meh. And it is until much later I finally able to get into some groups, on COR, as "a substitute of BRD". Since everyone and their mother told me Blue mage is a NO NO for Salvage.

I've been educated that way, that Blue mage is a NO NO for Salvage ever since I asked ppl in Escaflowne if I can join their Salvage static. And ppl never ask me to come BLU for Salvage. It's always, always COR. Although sometimes I have my doubt, that if BLU is really THAT bad for Salvage. Most ppl complain that BLU needs too many cells to fully unlock it's power, however the only cell that BLU really need and other 2h frontline jobs don't need is just MP cell really. Everything else, magic, STR, weapons and SJ are needed for other 2h melee job as well. I've been thinking about draging ppl and do my own Salvage run and use BLU to see if it works, until yesterday the leader of my Salvage static asked me to come BLU instead of usual COR, I finally get a chance to try BLU in Salvage.

So what's my opinion for BLU doing Salvage? I'd say BLU is hugely underrated for Salvage. Maybe it's not that good before lv 80 update, but now it's certainly underrated badly. No, it probably won't replace other melee jobs like MNK or THF, but its far from a NO NO job, and it has it's own unique strength(and weakness) when comparing with other 2h melee DDs.

I'd say compare with lv 75 era, 3 updates made Salvage friendlier for BLU than ever. First is new job trait Double attack and Dual wield, and quite possibly new magian weapons that's good for melee. Before BLU gets magic, SJ and MP cell, BLU is able to deal at least acceptable melee DoT dmg because of both job traits. Secondly, RDM now has Refresh II, and BLU now has new low MP cost spell Delta Thrust. MP is less an issue, even without MP cell, the small MP pool is still enough to spam spells constantly.

To summarize the strength of BLU I've found in Salvage:
1. Can deal good enough dmg without JA cell.
2. Able to deal both blunt/piercing dmg, for extra dmg when fighting against mobs weak against those.
3. Has access to self defensive spell such as Occultation before SJ unlocked.
4. Other usual BLU strength, such as stun lock, flash, several buff/debuff spells, won't get raped by attack down or amnesia etc.

Of course there's something I'm not all that happy about BLU in Salvage:
1. Dmg output is still a bit disappointed compare with other ppl I usually do Salvage with.... although I'm kinda compare my mediocre geared BLU with Spharai MNK or Fudo SAM. I guess I got spoiled by Abyssea's crazy dmg output too.
2. TP feed on Chariot...Although this can kinda be avoided by not spamming multi-hit like no tomorrow, and focus on more debuff spells or stun.

Hmmm sounds like the weakness aren't that much of a big deal no?

Note that since our Salvage run went much smoother when I come BLU instead of COR(kills much faster), the leader told me to come BLU from now on. Odin/Ultima fight and Salvage is probably the only event I still use COR for, now there's one less event I can use this job XD. Since Untima drops now kinda lol, the only event I found COR still useful is probably Odin, because Dynabus do Odin with RNG pt and RNGs in the pt often ask for Snapshot roll. I spent at least 20 min yesterday QQing to Tav about how useless my main job is(pretty much every friend of mine consider I'm a COR main, so be it). Tav also QQ for a bit about he never get to use DRK because he has WHM, hell DRK is not even as bad as COR. Then I edited my WL on MILA website and put some gears that benefits my BLU a bit closer to the top, since I have a feeling that I'll have to rely on my BLU to get stuff done in this game for very long time until I lv another more useful job, so I can't let it gimp. My WL for Abyssea events is usually full of COR gears, now I kinda put gears that benefits both jobs (such as Atheling Mantle and Epona's ring) closer to the top.


How ironic, someone in Cynosure just started some drama yesterday and got kicked because he insisted all jobs has it's place when I said some jobs are easily replaceable with better options for better result. Pretty much most of the events I do in this game works better if I use BLU instead of COR, so I may as well just stay on BLU fulltime from now on. So far I'm happy with full timing BLU because I can get almost every thing I want to do in this game with only this job, on the same time not getting stuck on it and have some freedom to play other job when I feel like it. For someone who only has 2 jobs 75+ (probably not a lot of ppl only has 2 jobs 75+ these days, even worse, one of my job is rarely used), this is one job that can fit into most pt setup, most events and situations and still get the job done. Not the best option sometimes(for example, BLU/WHM main healing can never heal as good as WHM or even SCH), but it works, and works well.

So....what's after abyssea?

Me and Tavera had a discussion about what SE is going to bring us in future updates of FFXI.

I admit I never try really all that hard on getting all atma/abyssite, or grind certain gear/merit certain way just for abyssea. Since I believe in the future SE is going to release even more area/endgame content that's outside of abyssea. The world of unlimited MP, RR atma and crit-hit rule them all is gonna over some days. However, Tav has different opinion, he said after all the player enjoyed big number WS, unlimited MP, invincible brew power, easy gears and good EXP who would go back to old days when WS dmg gimp again and mage runs out of MP often. He believes that SE is going to keep the way it is even in the future.

Last Monday I finally got Rani clear thanks to those who brewed. I'd have to say the process of beating Rani is pretty lame, first we all try to proc !!!, which is very easy with the abyssite you got after killing Shinryu. After we proc !!! Ager popped his brew, lost his brew because of para, go got another one and start soloing Rani to 50%, then 2 other member popped another brew and killed it, I pretty much just stand there and leech for clear. Brew so cheap now that it doesn't even has it's value, and NMs so easy with brew that making a pt with certain setup doesn't have any value besides !!! proc. Now Shinryu and 20k magical WS is new to us, so we're all excited about big WS numbers. How about 3 months later? 1 year later? 3 year later? When we're all sick of brew on every hard NM and solo everything with 20k WS/nuke every 3 sec? Big WS number with atma/brew is epic first time, but eventually we're gonna get sick of it, someday. Therefore I still believe making anymore abyssea zones in the future isn't a good idea.

I mentioned Ager failed to kill Rani with brew on BLU, that's because he used wrong spells. I'm not a math person and not really familiar with WS/physical blue magic formula. Apparently Physical blue magic has very lame dmg(like 2.8~4k) when you brewed and magical does way better dmg(like 12~28k). This also applied to WSs. Magical WS can deal way higher dmg when brewed, crit-hit dmg WS is a bit lower, and none magical/crit-hit WS dmg is very lame. So if you're a BLU and used brew, cast magical spells and use magical WS.

And since I saw a brewed 33k Wildfire WS screenshot somewhere on Shinryu so I assume Wildfire COR or RNG probably does best dmg besides Chain Spell RDM. Wildfire is already the strongest magical WS, and brew just makes it godly.


Oh and btw, Merry Christmas.

Shinryu spam and broken Abyssea

The LS I do Abyssea event with, MILA, recently cleared Raja. Therefore most members now has Shinryu access. I missed their Rani clear on Sunday, and also missed Raja clear on Monday due to dead internet, therefore no Shinryu for me for a while I guess. However, seeing how they farm Shinryu makes me wonder if Abyssea is really broken.

Basically, after they got Shinryu access, they invited a WAR(I think? that's what I've heard so far...anyways most jobs can solo Shinryu so it doesn't matter) and use the brew for Shinryu fight, got the clear, then farm 200k curor, enter Shinryu BC, use brew, got clear and drops, repeat. They're able to farm 200k curor in about 2hr with just 3 ppl, one puller and 2 ppl AoE killing everything. So basically every 2hr of farming you can enter the BC solo and guarantee win. No special pt setup/stragety needed(except blue proc maybe?), I wonder what's the point to make such BC? When everything about winning this BC is spending 2hr farming 200k cruor.

Some of the tough fights in this game used to be an achievement after getting clear, because they require a good pt setup, organization and collaboration. From smaller fights such as Mission BCs such as CoP/mini-expansion, or Nyzul/Salvage, to bigger fights that requires a LS to work together, such as Einherjar T3/Odin. When I won those fights, it's that sense of achievement that makes this game fun. Now I wonder if beating Shinryu can call an archievement, when all you need is to spend 2hr help a friend who already cleared farm 200k curor, then ask him to solo the BC.

I'm pretty sure soon we'll see Twilight gear everywhere, unless SE change this in next update. Thanks to Primeval Brew, Twilight gear may actually be one of the easiest to obtain god-like gear so far. Stuff like Odin drops, Salvage boss drops, Kirin drops, Dynamis lord drops or even sea/limbus gears used to be rare because they take a effort to clear/obtain, not every LS can clear those fights. (P.S getting sea access used to be a pain, therefore sea/limbus gear can be a pain to obtain kinda), and that's why those old event gears used to be rare. Now everyone all farming 200k curor and spamming Shinryu, about time to see everyone running in Twilight ;) Even getting Shinryu access won't be that hard anymore, since more and more ppl will get 200k brew access and make Raja/Rani total joke.


5 gil betting SE is going to nerf this, either by making brew unusable in Shinryu BC, giving Shinryu some ability to dispel the brew effect, or making brew cost 1M instead of 200k.


Oh and btw, I joined one of the MILA curor farm pt, as a leecher to lv my subjob. THF 43--->45 SCH 40--->43 in 30 min. I bragged in Cynosure LS chat how fast I got EXP in abby, and Grommet replied "Abyssea is broken"

Abyssea is indeed broken.
With a pointless BC that all you do is farm an item and win. 200k cruor per run for a gear.
With a pointless way to lv low lv jobs when you don't get to PLAY the job. No, I love fast EXP, but I also want to play the job while lving it. And since it's very hard to make low lv pt sometimes I'm pretty much forced to leech my low lv jobs.

Broken, indeed.

Gulool Ja Ja title cleared!

After bombarding everyone I know with /tell and asked for help,
me and Tavera finally made a pt of 18 ppl, for Gulool Ja Ja title, the last beastmen title I need for Project DP. This is my first time trying to organize a large pt for an none-abby EXP event by myself, so it's a nice learning experience.

Note that I /shouted in Jeuno for a little bit, and only get the response "People still killing this NM?". Also when I asked ppl to help, after I explained that this title is for mythic, most of the reply I've got is "lol". I guess under the power of Abyssea and Empyrean, Mythic no longer has value in many ppl's mind :/

Anyways, there are ppl willing to help still. So there we go!


Reaching the NM area is actually easier than I expected. Maybe because our lv is higher now. Although death, aggroing still happened.



We all looked the same

Bebetaro knows this place extremly well, so I'm glad that we have someone that knows the way. XD


My setup was one tank pt, 4 kiters for adds and a DD pt including SMN and SAM who only run in for WS. In the end the DNC in kiter pt ended up able to kite 4 adds at once, I was one of the kiter, and ended up doing dmg instead since DNC can easily hold all adds. I guess lv90 power just pwn too much. I remember his AoE was a pain when I fought it at 75, and takes very long time to kill. At 90 his AoE isn't that bad, but still takes pretty long time to kill :x





When NM almost died it became slightly more annoying, a couple of death occured when it used Mijin Gakure. But overall it's much easier than it used to be(of course - -) I believe a pt of 6~8 ppl can clear if done right.



Anyways, a few more steps away until first quest done! Thanks to everyone that helped!
Now I need to sleep with Tavera to keep my promise DX

As you can see from SS, my Blue mage is pretty lol in terms of gear.
I talked to Tavera yesterday, and we had a discussion about why my gear always gimp compare with others XD
Tavera told me I wasted too much time grinding Empyrean and Mythic, when everyone else worked on more
useful gears such as AF3+1/+2. I guess he is right, time to work on my BLU a bit more, I've been neglecting it for a very long time already.

Gulool Ja Ja *Ready*

So I just farmed all 3 keys for the door that leads to Gulool Ja Ja, time to organize a fight and get the title for Project Death Peanalty.

I am planning to organize an alliance for this fight this Friday night, see if I can find 18 ppl, and I will be /shouting in Jeuno/WG for a while. If you're on Ragnarok server and needs the title please let me know, thank you.

1 year ago I did this with Escaflowne, quite a pain in the ass he was, if I run into Serenlycheerful someday maybe I should ask him for some advice about this fight ._.

Ninja revived

Saw this on FFXIAH.





I used to want to lv NIN, but gave up because it's too expensive and not all that useful for events. Now it's one of the most powerful job you can have in this game ._. one of the top DD with RR atma, beast solo job and very good job in abby event for all sorts of !!! proc and tanking.

Once Naba told me only JP play NINs, now I see NIN everywhere, JP or none-JP alike. Just like how I see way more BLU now than it used to be in pre-abyssea era.

DNC and /DNC

I mentioned I was working on lving DNC to 90 as my third job before, then SE slap this job in the face by giving it long ass Curing Waltz V recast time. Curing is what I enjoy playing this job the most(DNC can totally outcure WHM at low lv btw, due to generating TP faster than generating MP at low lv), so I kinda gave up lving this job atm, especially grinding all the 99999 gear needed for this job gives me headache ._.


So I tried to play with COR/DNC for a bit, I'd say I like it. Haste Samba is very useful, and new Curing Waltz III is very useful for curing. Compare with /WHM the curing/remove status aliment ability is a bit weaker because all Waltz are in same category and Healing waltz can't remove everything, but it's good enough if the pt has enough healers I'd say. I'm actually interested in trying this sub for Salvage next time, it looks like a pretty good sub for Salvage(I tried /RNG and /RDM for salvage, but don't like it as much as /WHM). /DNC has access to most of the DNC main ability, so I may as well just play COR/DNC and pretend to be a fake DNC XD.

Note that /DNC gets DW job trait, with my newly augmented Crit dmg+6% dagger I actually want to try some new DD style, such as DW and focus on melee DPS for dmg and use Evisceration instead of Slug Shot with RR atma in abby, I admit seeing some insane big number Evisceration from DNC and THF makes me want to try that also, since my Slug shot dmg is getting pretty lame comparing with other crit-hit WS.

My friend Kingilya(finally found a RNG friend that can teach me how to play ranged attack jobs properly!) recently pointed out that I may be using wrong atma/gear for my WS set, since gun WS is different from Bow WS because it's easier to cap fSTR on gun. When doing WS, gun benefits less from adding more STR, so I should use AGI atma instead. Now that I got my 3rd lunar abyssite access, I finally have room to add an AGI atma, next time gonna see if there's any significant Slug Shot dmg increase.

More Dominion Ops and Augments

Today I joined a pt spamming Dominion Ops and fought Buffalo, each page gives 4.2k EXP, and after 1.5~2hr EXP capped at 640 per kill. Pretty quick way to EXP. I get my COR 85--->90 in 3hr. After the pt I ended up having 14k Dominion notes, so I tried my luck with augment items. Here are some augments I got that's not too lame:






Dagger: Looks pretty good for Evisceration with RR atma no? Especially COR can't use magian dagger, looks good for Evisceration build. Probably good for THF and DNC with RR atma also, although I'm not sure if magian dagger is better.

Gun: Hmmm D49 gun with AGI+3, not as good as magian guns or even new Suppressor gun but consider it's free and no work needed I'd say it's good. Now I get a acceptable gun to use so I can be lazy and take a break on Anarchy+2 so I can focus on making Death Penalty and Armageddon XD.

Ah btw, each weapon NPCd for almost 7k, so it's worth trying even though the chance of getting lame augment is pretty high. Good luck.

Dominion Ops

After 2 hrs of Dominion Ops spam I finally got my BLU to 90. Dominion Ops is truely good stuff, with a pt you can easily get 30k/hr EXP and farm TE no problem. Although not as much as Abby EXP pt, but you don't have to sit there /shout for 1hr for full alliance, and sit there for another 3hr for EXP to be good. You can leave anytime and easily find ppl to team up with. And you get Dominion notes for AF3 base armor and augment items. For those who has no time to join Abby EXP pt and do 5 hrs of lving, try Dominion Ops!

Captain rank obtained

After months of work, finally.....






So I guess that's one small step closer towards finishing DP.

But the coolest part of getting to Captain is I can finally use runic portal for free, no need to wait for ages for boat when going to Einherjar. I guess I don't have to worry about my IS(which is getting lower and lower after merit pt dead) for a while.

RDM and new update

RDM used to be one of the best healer after getting Convert and Refresh because of the amount of MP they can use. @75, they're the best healer in Nyzul, any EXP pt 41+, pink bird merit pt and such. WHM is supposed to be THE healing class in FFXI, but only in a few situations they're more useful than RDM for as a healer/support role in pt.

So I guess that's why SE is slowly making what RDM is supposed to be, debuff/buff class instead of healing class, and let jobs like WHM to focus on healing. I know a lot of RDMs are QQing about not getting Cure V in this update, but I like the way SE changes RDM back to what it's for.

Tbh, I think RDM used to be a broken mage class in this game, lasts longer than WHM as a healer, have access to beast debuff spells, best solo class and decent tank. Guess that's why SE is nerfing RDM in everyway and only keeping the debuff/buff part.

2 of the most broken classes(SAM as DD, RDM as mage) didn't get much new stuff recently, guess that's how SE balance jobs ._.






Ok, since the name of this blog is Life of a pirate, and the title of this post mentioned new update, so inevitably I'll mention new COR stuff >:D

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Triple Shot (COR Lv.87 Ability Delay: 3 min. Effect Duration: 90 sec.)
Occasionally uses three units of ammunition to deal extra damage.
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Ok I admit I want Bounty Shot from RNG more than Triple Shot ._.
So I can finally /THF and feel like a real pirate.....

But RNG already got Double shot, so I guess they can't have 2 JAs that's similar....
SE should give RNG Triple shot since they're meant to be DD and ammo cheaper,
and gives COR Double shot......

Or maybe Triple shot proc rate is lower than Double shot and such.


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Tactician's Roll (COR Lv.86)
Grants a Regain effect to party members within area of effect. Lucky Number: 5. Unlucky Number: 8.

Allies' Roll (COR Lv.89)
Enhances skillchain damage and skillchain accuracy for party members within area of effect. Lucky Number: 3. Unlucky Number: 10.

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Unless the atma in third add-on gives crazy dmg to skill chain, I doubt Allies' roll is going to be useful. Hmmm maybe useful for SAM zerging, then quickly switch to another DD roll when their SC is over??? Or maybe SE is going to add some mob that's immune to all dmg except SC dmg?

Still don't see much use of this roll unless third add-on change the way we play this game again.

Regain roll....Some say it's useful in abby to proc !!!, to help DDs gain TP especially while walking and such. However, unless Regain really gives a lot of TP/tic, I doubt it's going to be more efficient than coming another DD capable of using more different type of WS and weapons. VV atma should be enough for Regain purpose IMO. Now the current best DD atma favors melee DoT dmg instead of WS, so this probably won't beat other DD rolls for DDing. However, if SE gives some crazy WS atma like WS dmg x3 atma, this may be a very good DD roll. It all depends on what atma we can get in next add-on.

But now I know while my pt is walking, I'll have 2 rolls to give instead of 1. Movement speed+ and Regain! I'm pretty glad that I finally got a chance redo ASA last boss last week and got PR recast -5 pants, totally in love with my 49 sec PR recast timer atm, so I can give 2 rolls more quickly in such situations.....Hmmm maybe I should drop my QD acc merit to 0 and get PR recast to 45 sec.



Hmmm the title is "RDM and new update" but I ended up talking about COR more than RDM DX
I guess I'm probably the biggest victim of COR dying after the abyssea update DX
Yesterday I got bored and did some job search, there were like 89+ RDM(still the most played job) online, jobs like BST(used to be the least played class) BLU DNC all had 40~50+ ppl, even PUP has like 20+ ppl. COR? only 3. Only 3 CORs in the entire world DX I also noticed Kizunas secretly removed COR on their recruiting job list D;


Let's see if new Regain roll and Triple shot can save this job or not.