Identity Crisis

Recently I just found out Yunii, one of my friend who posted many DNC solo vid, is actually not DNC main. This surprised me a lot, considering I'm facing Identity Crisis in my FFXI life.

I asked her what's her opinion about "main" job. Is it your favorite job? Or is it the job you played the most? Or is it your best geared job. And her answer is favorite job=main job, although she plays DNC a lot, made a lot of solo vid, and has better gear on DNC, she still considered herself a BLM main because BLM is her favorite job.

I guess this actually cleared up confusion for a bit, your "best geared" job doesn't necessary having to be the same as "your favorite" job. I defined myself a "career COR" due to the fact that I spent 95% of my play time gearing it and doing research....and I still do.(Just +2ed relic legs and feet recently, working on Snake eye augment atm) But if you ask me which job is my "favorite" and get into the most in terms of role-playing aspect, I'm most likely going to answer BLU. In fact I still play BLU 95% of time, although 95% of time are spent to gear COR....atm the only BLU only gear I actively working on is just lv 85 Almace, but I'm working on Arma 95, Death Penalty, all COR Relic+2 augments on the same time.

Pretty ironic huh?

By Yunii's definition, I should be BLU main, I guess I should just go with that. Despite I know that I will never be elite on both jobs, due to one reason.


Once upon a time a player named Crazyvic in SE forum defined "Career elite player" as follows:

There "Career players" This players have 7 years using a job, trying pimp in gear and skills their job. They Read, math and parse real events for a great perfomance improvement.

There people very well informed, people spend several hours reading how gear a new job, building macros, doing several maths and parsing his new job.

In my personal exp any player informed can master "All jobs he want" No matter what. If this person have time for gear that in the right way, and do all the necesary yes a new job can be mastered.

Even if everyone can master anyjob and be a pimp expert player, always will be a diference vs a True Love and career person using a job.

The Career player will expend 95% their time pimping 1 job, will give these job 240 Spaces and will keep practicing and training for be the number one using his favorite job this is what make the diference vs a "Good informed player" vs a elite Career people.

A good informed player Cant give 240 espaces for only 1 job
A good informed player cant spend 95% of their time pimping a job
A good informed player dont have 7 years using a job 95% of time.


This persons are "ELITE Career players" The diference is notable when you see this persons play. Not is like see a Pimp Twastar thief or see a informed player, is another feeling more deep is lke see a ELITE CApitan player on the battlefields, this people on their jobs really will surprise everyone.

In conclusion everyone can "master" anyjob with efforts and knowedge but a few people will really be a Elite Outstanding player.

A elite player will outparse the 95% The playerbase with "Their favorite jobs No matter if this jobs are inferior jobs", this person will be always 79/80 and with a lot of gear varations in mog house, this kind of players are totaly elite masters in their jobs. Yes even a uKovansara warrior will fear this kind of players if you take they in "Light mode in the parses you will end raped for a big margin"

So i respect this kind of players because they use their jobs in a way exceptional even for see their true potential you need as minimiun be a master in the job they use just for UNDERSTAND whats going in there.

Not is only do maths in a imaginary paralel universe
Not is only parse like a idiot and ask the devil for help for a win a parse
Not is only read and set a Tp set and ws set there a LOT of more things necesary for be a Elite player.

If that's his definition of Elite(I agree with him too), I probably fit No.1 and partially fits No.2, but not No.3. I certainly spent 95% of time gear and do research for COR.....I don't think I use 240 inventory spaces for it(or else I won't be able to job change anymore q.q), but at this point of time I have nearly 20 sets of gear for this job, 1 set for each semi-useful WS, 4 sets for very useful WS(WF I mean). Some sets like MDT- and evasion shares with BLU, so I just use it on both jobs.(That's why I insist not to lv a heavy melee job.....can't share same items to save inv), and still aiming to tweaking it.

However no matter how I look at it, I don't play it 95% of time, probably not even 15% of time...........ok I admit I played it a lot more after VW became popular and I got it to 99 so I can get more chances to join VW /shout. But do I like to do VW on COR? I'm not really a big fan of VW WF spammage on this job(if spamming WS is what I like to play with I'd lv SAM ages ago)

I guess I'll probably never truly be good at my jobs. Since I believe your job only response to how much you love it and how much you play it. Spending 95% of time to grind gear won't make it elite, augment/merit everything for it won't make it elite too. You have to be truly into it, and love it, and play it a lot + create new value to the job to make it elite.

I tried to be the best COR I possibly can in every aspect, tried to grind best gears, tried to create new value for it, but then I realized I will never be the best no matter what...it has nothing to do with capping gears, it only has something to do with how much you play it and how much you get into it.

I enjoy watching Yunii/Draylo/Mischief's solo vid, it shows how much they love their jobs, despite not having the best gears. Ager didn't had best gear on BLU(in fact his offhand sword is doing wrong), but they're all associated with their "main" job and very good at it(ok, I know in Yunii's case is different, she said likes BLM better, but she is certainly one of the best DNC player I've met).

I'm hardly associated as COR main in FFXI. If someone knows that I'm doing Mythic, the first thing they asked is if I'm doing Tizona......no in fact they don't even bother to ask, they just automatically assume I'm doing Tizona.....Only Hotkarl guessed right so far, although that's because he thinks Tizona sucked and not worth doing.


1.5 years ago when I started this blog, I did an introduction post:
http://an-empty-vessel.blogspot.com/2010/06/empty-vessel.html

And funny thing is now that I looked back at it, nothing changed. Deep in my mind, I''m still an empty-vessel.

I guess that's just me, I can't be a true elite career of anything in FFXI. The job I played the most I don't bother spend time to grind any above average gear(still don't have Toci/Almace here ._....not even all spells) for it and won't bother to spend time to read/do research to improve it's performance. The job I tried to be the best and spend most of my time to grind gear/research for it, I can't really truly be into it.

I will continue to spend 95% of time to grind gear for COR, due to the reason that an Immortal has a dream of brighter future, and wants to pursue it, wants to change her fate, despite fact that I know my fate will never be changed...(If you read the Mythic suggestion I posted on SE forum, I'm completely suggesting SE to make Mythic COR into BLU LOL)

I guess I'm just myself, different from career elite ppl who only focus and dedicated to one job, different from bandwagon players who lv jobs for utility and only aim for gearing it decently. I don't lv bandwagon jobs for utility(and I hate bandwagon mentality with a passion), but I will probably never associated as "x job pro", and even if I finish Mythic one day, I doubt this will change.

I guess time to accept the fact that I'm not, and can't really be COR main, even after Mythic and Arma 95 done.

But I will do it regardless, everyone has a dream, no?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaking of which, I noticed no one has any info about new lv 97 avenger's roll yet since no one care about any roll besides Regain+save TP........time to do some testings for it.......

First Nidhogg

First time getting a chance to fight Nidhogg, since my friend got a pop.

I have to admit I never get a chance to experience HNM scene, until SE change the pop condition. This is my first HQ ground king fight(I bought my w head from KB so didn't get to participate the fight), I'd say it's very easy at lv 99, kinda hard to imagine the epicness back in the day.

Getting the HNM to do Spike Flail used to be /kick from what I've heard, now it just absorb shadows....



Either way, BB item and ebody dropped.




Ebody GOTGOTGOTGOTGOTGOTGOT! =D

I have to admit, 2 years ago I'd never imagine I can get this one day. I have so many 75 era epic gear on me that I wish I can travel back in time to enjoy the feeling of afking in WG ._.


I'll probably just get a NQ though, can't afford HQ ;;

Now my WAR just needs Tiger Pants+another decent GA that's not from AH to look epic(in my mind) .___.

Holiday

After a few days of lv 99 update, I logged on to XI and found XI actually pretty fun to play with this update. At least not as bad as previous update, since I have a lot more time to play during the holiday, time to catch up some progress while I semi-quit.

I found VW a lot more enjoyable now, unless it's some NM no one wants to kill. One reason is because many old VW dies so fast and pt cap light so fast, that it's not so taxing to spam multiple ones. Second reason is because I need merit.........a lot of merits for new WSs. And VW is just a very good way to cap merits.

Dynamis is also a lot more fun, the fact that it has higher drop rate on forgotten items from DC mobs and you need 20k EXP with that gear equipped kinda encourage players get out of bubu comfort zone and BST solo mentality. Now you need to compromise for certain setup if you want augment, can't no longer solo every EP mob on BST ;)

Although my only complaint is relic+2 and it's augment is kinda lame, so kinda hard to find ppl wanting to do it ;(

Other wise I'm happy with this dyna, I feel like it's going back to old dyna again, crowd control(DC mobs can be very dangerous if mega link), group play, variety of pt setup(since you'd have to play sub-optimal jobs if you want to augment) etc.

I also started lving COR again......since it's useful for VW especially that evil flan in bubu, and "some ppl" always complains that I don't play it and wasting other's effort etc - -, not to mention there are many new stuff I wanna play/test with on this job. I guess time to lv it to 99.

Although I have to admit, I haven't job change, and haven't play this job for MONTHS, and totally suck to the ball while playing now ;( I realized my old macros are nearly unuseable with many new gears I have and must do a new one, and I'm unaware of the tools of my disposal many times. Now I have to force myself to play it for every event including dyna(Alex probably gonna rage) to practice it ;( In fact I probably played it worse than majority of population now lol.

Mannn, playing any job other than BLU feel so weird now, I feel like playing other ppl's character ;(

Anyways.

So what are the new things I wanna test? New WSs, VW with atmacite and so on. Plus relic+2 augments.

One thing about relic +2 augment that's interesting is, one of the relic +2 actually augments Fold and allows it to erase 2 rolls, which is obviously situationally useful if you happened to roll 2 bad rolls and want to get rid of them both, and it's chance is also depending on the amount of Fold merit you have, since I only have 1 Fold merit, that means the chance of Fold erase 2 bad rolls gonna be low.

Now that reminded me long time ago about my argument on LS forum about Fold 1/5 v.s 4/5 or even 5/5.

One of the player on SE forum pointed out that Random Deal with Loaded Deck merit will always reset the JA with shorter recast time. His/her strategic use for it is COR/THF double flee when moving from places to places for missions, COR/THF used both Fold and Flee, then use random deal will always reset Flee since it's on shorter recast timer. Although I don't see it that useful due to /THF have no sneak/invis etc. However I do see the potential in this, that means Fold 1/5 merit, besides you can get super long lasting rolls with Winning Streak, you can also get long recast Fold, which allows you to reset almost any JA with Random Deal as long as Fold is waiting for recast.

That means offensive JAs like Triple shot, Meditate, Sekkanoki, they can all be resetted easily as long as Fold is used.

Hmmmmmmmm

Double Sekkanoki in VW, doesn't sound bad huh? With new temp item that gives 0 enmity, Fold a roll, 300 TP up, Sekkanoki, (can't use QD here or else it'd reset QD instead)WF WF Darkness, eat wing, Random deal, Sekknoki WF WF, that's 12k dmg right off the bat without even using single QD/2hr/meditate(yes you can repeat the whole process again after using meditate and 2hr)

After 2 Sekkanoki darkness, QD WF QD WF meditate WF 2hr repeat ;Q


But that's so hard to do without 3rd pt tool - -


Well of course the trade off is it'd get hard to reset 2 rolls during certain situations. However I did a short and quick test, Random Deal does reset SAM abilities after Fold is used, the only problem is if I just used QD or PR, it will reset those instead, so gonna be very careful when using it since I don't use 3rd pt tool....................

Also I wonder if that makes Random deal recast worth meritting for VW since you'd get free Sek or Meditate.....assuming your QD acc isn't an issue of course.

Great! Too much COR talk in this post, I guess Project Almace delay even more now(Haven't kill Bri for decades)

EDIT: Actually resetting Sek instead of QD may not be as good if 1000 DDs on NM ruining the SC.....probably another thing need to take care of.

Project Maat cap............

I decided to drop project Maat cap for a while. Not giving up completely since I still want maat cap atma, but just not gonna put it as a priority atm.

One of the biggest reason for me to do maat cap is for slug shot build, now that Last Stand replaces Slug shot there are very little incentive for me to get one, besides Jeuno warp.

Between playing XIV, working on Almace/Arma 95/Death Penalty, there are very little time for me to go lv other jobs that I mostly don't really enjoy to play as. I haven't even lv second job 95+ ;<. Maybe after at least one of the above weapon done then I can start working on Maat cap again.

Current population

After SE implemented search function, I did a quick search for the world population on my server in XIV.

On a nice Saturday night, about 500ish population on my server. And that's 2 days after update.

I doubt this server can even reach over 1k+ ppl. Probably about 400~700 depending on the day/time I believe.

When this game just released, it had about 1800 ppl, they it started dropping, until SE took away the world population display.

FFXI on my server was about 1.6k on weekdays, 2k+ on weekends. It's not as much as May when server just merged, and I already felt it's incredibly hard to find ppl in XI to do stuff.

Let alone servers with 500 ppl. After Jan when they start billing, the population will drop even more.

Version update

Well, I'm not talking about recent update of FFXI actually. I'm talking about FFXIV. Since both games had major version update on Dec 14 and Dec 15.

Tbh, I'm extremely disappointed with last FFXI update, that I feel zero intention to log in anymore. Building a Mythic had been my only driving force to play XI for a while, and now it's getting weaker and weaker, mostly because I realized that I will never finish unless SE changed something, and even if I finish it will remain as a subpar weapon that I should have just spend the gil and effort on lv 95 Arma/Almace instead. The fact that there's nothing new except a few more + stats piece of gear introduced and a few more VW which I don't even have access to, makes me utterly disappointed.

I decided to focus on FFXIV while hoping SE to fix FFXI, somehow.....

FFXIV just got an update earlier today, I logged on and did a bit of leve to play with a bit of new system.

Basically, this game is now very, very different from how it used to be with new ability system. To a point that I almost have no idea how to play anymore since I need to relearn everything again.

The new system is a mix of old FFXIV and FFXI, but keep the best of both worlds. Now a class gets to use all it's ability without needing to set it. However you can still set some of the other abilities from other classes. It certainly gave freedom to choose your own play style while utilizing the abilities of other classes, but still keep your main class relevant.

I also played a bit with the combo system, seems like the upgrade version of SC in FFXI. Some of the Pugilist moves requires certain position, although I was soloing leve, but I was still busy doing combo and adjusting positions(adjust positions works while solo, this was surprising), this makes combat extremely fun even without teammates.

Although power-level(leech pt) for lving a class is pretty popular nowadays, I'd still recommend all the leechers go do some leve/EXP pt just to learn how new system works.

I do lost some of the old abilities I used to spam a lot though, shock spikes(one of the best solo spell) is gone, so does many other useful abilities. Some of their level requirement is a lot higher than it used to be, so they're no longer accessible. Also some of the guild marks moves are gone, I missed it, but I guess things just changed for the better.

However the new system is also a lot less redundant. There used to be a lot of tier 1&2 abilities/spells, now it's only one tier. I guess having multiple tier of offensive move just isn't necessary in any way.

Pugilist now has the ability to turn on the offensive mode and defensive mode, both mode sacrifices MP to keep it activate, but with MP recover moves and JA, it's still possible to recover MP mid-battle. IMO it's pretty well designed, has a lot more strategy while fighting the mobs, and MP has more use for a melee job instead of just using it for casting magic.

I also noticed my evasion on Pugilist seems to be a bit higher ._., I have no idea why. But that's a good thing, Pugilist is supposed to be an evasion job anyways.

Anyways, between using combo, adjusting positions, and picking right JAs to use, the new changes makes battle extremely fun to play with. I had fun playing with Pugilist, which is something I never imagine I'd enjoy in FFXI on MNK.

I also attempted a bit more storyline and headed to Mor Dhona. I tried to get there very long time ago, but died on the way with high lv mobs. Now that I know the way to avoid it(still have no choco so have to walk atm), I finally stopped being lazy and headed there for the storyline.

My first time been to Mor Dhona!




I know it's a bit late, but getting to this last zone in this game before SE redo all the maps had been one of my goal. Now I guess goal accomplished.


I have to say so far the changes of FFXIV are looking good. It still haven't provide some of the unforgettable memory FFXI once gave me. But I personally doubt those unforgettable moment in XI can be replaced due to the nature of XIV. However at this point of time, XIV sure is looking more, way more promising than XI.


I admit, I was a bit pissed SE just let XI rot.

What else I can say? SE is willing to change XIV entirely to save it, but unwilling to change anything in XI. Made some new WS that looks promising and game changing, then nerfed everything that's even close to empy. Added a lot of new armors, and 95% of them are either sidegrade, or 1% of upgrade like this stat +1, that stat+2 etc. New Nyzul isn't up, lack of heavy metal plate supply problem isn't solved, just a few more level and few more VWNM, come on.

Ok a few more dynamis upgrade....sidegrade I mean, COME ON.

You made Abyssea 1 year ago that changed how XI works entirely and somewhat revived the game, why can't you do it now? That you have to rely on old recycled stuff and handing out relic(Mythic possibly next)to keep this game alive?

I guess until majority of players in XI quit, SE will never realized they need to put as much effort in XI to save this dying game as well. Then there's really no point to spend THAT much amount of time on a weapon if that's the fate of XI.

It is utterly disappointed and in fact insulting for any long time XI players that's been supporting this game for so long, ppl support your game, and that's what we get.

SW:KOTOR is coming out a in a couple more days. And GW2 is next, which I've been waiting for a very long time. Let's see if those games will make SE wake up and do something to save it.

Aiming for Lv50

I haven't play XIV for months, and since I got bored of XI I may as well continue in XIV. I noticed that it's a lot faster to lv in XIV nowadays, that most players has multiple lv 50 jobs. Leve, the main focus of this game seems to be a dead event that no one cares when EXP is so slow and guild marks may be useless next update. And Behest....tbh I haven't done behest for ages, and kinda miss the time that whenever timer's up there are a bunch of ppl rushing to battle warden for behest. My first time with behest was a blast and pretty addictive, but after a while this event seems to be dead as well.

The current trend of leveling seems to be PL....I'd rather call leech though, since it works pretty much the same as Abyssea leech pt in XI, high lv player kill the mobs while low lv player watch and get EXP. New EXP chain system also made EXP pt pretty fun, since the pace of the battle is a lot faster than XI.

I guess time to aim for getting my first job to lv 50.

There are still a lot for me to do in XIV. Get first job to lv 50, do the chocobo quest and so on. Let's see if I can finish those in 1~2 weeks.

Losing interest

I realized that I have come to a point that this game no longer really interest me....I guess unless next update they can come up with something interesting I will just stay semi-inactive.

One of the reason is because I was busy with rl and haven't log on much, and it's way more interesting than playing this game. Second reason is because for the past couple weeks when I log on I literally do nothing except farm gil in dyna.

And what's farm gil in dyna like? Kill 5 TEs, spam proc JAs over and over for 1hour+.

It's one of the most boring event ever exist in FFXI, seriously.

When a game is reduced to nothing except log on, enter dyna, spam proc for 2hr...........yes, there's a sense of emptiness. I'd ended up asking myself wtf I was doing, when I could use this time to play other more interesting games, or log off and do more work.

I used to get into FFXI very much, when there were much to explore, now it's pretty dead.

FFXIV also doesn't interest me a lot, although I tried, I even find myself a new LS in XIV, I'm still unable to get hooked into that game.

If I can finish Almace, maybe I can find something new and fun to play with. But I just don't have enough dedication to drag ppl for it, especially since Zeig no longer wants to build Almace.

Some of my friends I used to play with are gone too, and after assault static's done, I have zero group to do stuff with, nothing.

I guess it really has come to a point that I got bored with FFXI......I didn't know this day would come 1~2 years ago, but it's finally here.

Last Stand

According to some of the testings, new marksmanship WS Last Stand seems to be new best (physical) WS in terms of pure dmg. It's better than slug, and also better than WF on any NM with magic resist.

If this new WS is indeed that good, maybe need to alter tactics to play COR in VW again, since some RNG claimed he did 2.2k on Pil with this WS, WF from every COR I pt with is 1.2k~1.3k average, so COR using last stand should be a bit higher than 1.2k.


And one interesting idea that comes into mind is dropping vulcans and use Nguul(AGI+7/racc-5/rattk+10) and /WAR to spam this WS in VW. Since new merit WS are 100% AGI mod, and /WAR gives Fencer for extra 40% TP bonus(this WS is mod by TP as description says), it sounds like a solid combo to me if racc isn't an issue. Of course QD dmg gonna -15% due to dropping vulcans, but you can also get additional 10% by doing elements that matches the day of the week. So you can get close to the dmg somehow.

The result could be pretty interesting, another benefit is, by using a dagger COR gains a bit more dagger proc that can help the pt if it happened to be dagger proc, without needing to change weapon and reset TP.


And most important of all, it fulfills my desire to equip a melee weapon ._.


Also more testing suggested that new sword WS is decent....I mean better than CDC outside especially on higher def NMs. I can't wait to play with it.


Although the fact that new merit WS makes empy WS not so godly anymore(read: ppl who did WoE weapons pretty much just wasted their time completely), I admit I was still somewhat excited about new WS coming up. Mostly because I can finally have something new to play with. After I got WF I played/tested this WS everywhere, played a lot of COR, in the end realized I got nothing else to play/tested anymore about this job/WS, as it no longer offering anymore new value. With 3 more new WS coming I guess time to test them and play with them after getting them all. I especially can't wait to play with sword merit WS on COR in melee mode(again, loves meleeing more than vulcans etc).

New WSs

So, a bit of info about new WSs are out.

Everyone can only get 3 max if you max them out. I can use 4 new WSs.
Gun/dagger/sword/club


I'm certainly gonna get gun, I heard it's better than slug, and yes my COR needs a good WS that's upgrade from slug. So rest is deciding between club/sword/dagger.


I'm very temped to get dagger too, for my COR. Looks decent enough and you all know that I love melee CORs to play with a good melee WS.

I heard club WS is absolutely amazing. But BLU kinda lacking good club to to use atm, and I'm already doing Almace, in the end Almace CDC+ODD may still beat perdu wand BLU spamming club WS, may as well just skip it for the sword.

I haven't seen much testing about sword WS, it may ended up being a situational WS instead of pure raw power sword WS like CDC, and I may not need it as much after almace done, however it's a WS usable by COR, and since I love sword CORs more than Vulcan or even dagger COR maybe it's a good idea to unlock it so I can play with sword for a bit. I just hope it has some use and not completely suck.

And maybe I can finally un-retire my COR then >.> I think COR's nowadays are vulcan's only are one of the main reason that I don't enjoy the job anymore ><


So dagger/gun/sword I guess. Or dagger/gun/club if sword suck too much and forced me to drop the idea of sword COR.

Kinda lame that I may miss the club, since needing a strong WS for VW is the main reason why I started Almace, and club WS completely filled the gap if it works nicely on VWNM too.

Back to FFXIV....for a bit

I have't log into FFXIV for ages, not since I went back to XI. Since I only have enough time to play one game.

Recently I felt a bit burned out in XI so decided to go back to XIV for a bit. I haven't really played since last update.

Man, this game changes A LOT.



I realized I don't really know anything about XIV anymore.


So time to read some forums ;/

And of course, I'm most curious about up coming class/job system, so I decided to take a look......

Gladiator---->Paladin

Marauder---->Warrior

Pugilist------>Monk

Lancer---->Dragoon

Archer----------->Bard..............wut!?

I really don't understand FFXIV anymore. I mean, ppl complained about Conjurer--->WHM(instead of BLM), but it's still understandable since Conjurer gets Cures. But Archer---->Bard this is just totally not understandable.

According to the forum discussion:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/30993-ARC-should-not-be-a-Bard/

Bards in many MMORPG settings uses bow, therefore Archer---->Bard.

I feel this is the typical example of adding something new without planned before hand. For me it looks more like they want a Bard job, but they can't find any class that fits this job, so they have to do Archer--->Bard.

But really, a heavy DD class to a support role job, doesn't make any fking sense.

I guess in FFXIV Bard will be a more DD/buff hybrid class, like COR in FFXI, instead of weak sauce BRD in FFXI.

I don't know if FFXIV still plan to release Musketeer, but if they do it's probably not gonna be a DD/buff hybrid like in FFXI since Archer already taken that role.

I mentioned that I was interested in playing Bard in FFXIV long time ago, does that means I need to lv Archer now? ;( So sad. I don't like bow and arrow ;(

Been thinking

I'm kinda temped to apply for another LS after talking to one of their sacks. And that means leaving my current LS Cynosure and become a nearly full time member(besides DP event on weekends) of another LS. I've been in Axiom/Cynosure since a lv 25 noob, and besides a few core member/sacks I'm probably one of the oldest member that still stays in LS and still plays, many other none sack members that's as old as me pretty much either quit or left LS.






I finally understand why many hardcore players dislike Abyssea and love old style HNMLS more. Thanks to the lowman nature of Abyssea, ppl in one LS no longer work together to help each other achieve their goal. New ppl keep coming(and since Cynosure is a help new ppl LS, it's very natural to keep recruiting new ppl), old ppl leave because they can't make progress unless they leave, those who already own 10+ AF3+2 jobs plus multiple empys lives in Abyssea all day long with mule/close friends. The result is the entire LS ended up consisting two type of ppl, new ppl without one job 90, or with 90 jobs but no AF3+2/missions done etc, and couldn't get help to gear their jobs properly. Older ppl is either core member like sacks, or members with close friends(so they can still make progress without LS help, and doesn't need to help LS)

This make me wonder what's the point of LS at all if ppl don't do LS event together. A glorified chat channel? When Grom made this LS, the core value of the LS is to be a LS that's “Casual, with ambition”. That means although it's a causal LS, we still do LS events. Events that requires team work.

But when you can make progress with just close friends/mules, no one would want to do anymore group event that requires more than 6 ppl.

IMO, LS events is more than just doing things together and help each other to achieve their goals. It also provides a chance to play with other ppl(instead of your mule) and learn different play style to improve your job accordingly. Once I saw someone on other forums describes his experience in HNMLS, how ppl learn from each other and become better at their jobs. It's a friendly competition, but it's more than just getting gears and achieve goals, but also by watching others play you can learn new insight of the job too.

Back in the past there are a lot of ppl I learned from when I play with other ppl. I learned a lot about COR from ppl like Tigerfury and Rezeak, I learned a lot about BLU from Agerknux and Foxx, by watching ppl that's better than me I eventually learned the new possibility of my jobs.

That's why I still stay in LS, with ppl come and go in LS, there needs to be someone showing the rope to the newer ppl in LS, since most of the more dedicated members either do their own stuff, or leave LS when they need to make progress. If someone is needing help with an NM or cleave burn feet farm I'm often the first one to jump out and help if I'm free, or offered help on the forum if anyone needs any abby NM killed. But my motivation is more than just helping them, but more like to show other ppl how I play my jobs so hopefully it can inspire them some how. I'm not that type of person that will call someone gimp right away when I see ppl not playing properly. So I'd rather just do it in action and hopefully they learn a thing or two. When ppl asking for help to do cleave burn feet farm I offered help, but mostly just to show him how to CW faster without getting plenty of ppl to help so he can do it himself next time. I take my chance to pt with other newer BLU for Abyssea NMs often, just to show them how to DD on BLU properly(since most ppl just loves to spam QC on skeletons over and over and waste MP + never gear swap). I gave up my chance to leech a job in LS EXP pt and change to my lv 95 BLU just because I see some LS member(you probably know who I'm talking about if you're in LS) only doing 1.6k~3k Blade:Hi average on Altepa dolls......which is same average dmg as my vorpal blade on my average joe BLU. I job change to BLU and started vorpal spam, hopefully he'd realized that he is doing it wrong when he compare his numbers with other ppl(you're doing it very wrong if your Hi is as bad as vorpal). And even Zeig said nobody would care.

But really, if you don't care(when someone else actually change to another job while leeching to show you that you're doing it wrong), how'd you ever improve?


Yes, that's exactly what happened when you only play with close friends or mules, you never get a chance to play with different ppl besides the ppl you already know, you never get to see different styles of playing, and how different ppl solve their problems. You will spam that gimp Hi over and over and never realized it's gimp. Or become a BLU that spams Gob rush and QC over and over and never realized it's less MP efficient than spamming HS and delta thrust. I even post a bit of opinions and experience share on LS forum just give newer BLUs an idea how this job is like and how to do it properly, but yes, it seems no one would care. What do they care instead? Build an empy, or even Mythic. Fight PW, kill Kirin, before even having proper atmas and AF3+2s, plus not even know how to gear/play it right.

Being a causal player myself, I always believe a causal player can get something meaningful done too, and always try to encourage other ppl to do the same. But really, playing with a mule/close friend and refuse to learn and help others won't get you anywhere, even if you have 1338 empys.

And kinda a shame now that this game is so easy nowadays that even a player who doesn't bother to learn how to play/gear properly can still make legendary gears like relic/empy/mythic without LS help.


I guess that's why I liked VW a lot, I get to pt with more good players on this server from different LS, compare my performance with others, learn from other ppl by watching other ppl perform. Eventually I realized I need to make progress myself too. I was hoping other ppl in LS can be better at their job, then eventually inspire me and help me get better too, just like how Tigerfury inspired me on COR and I ended up came up with new ideas that he admires.....but ever since Agerknux and Tigerfury left the game I don't really know a lot of dedicated player who really loves their job and good enough to inspire me in something anymore.

Eventually I realized I need to walk out, if I want to get better at my own job(s). Since most of the older/more dedicated players in LS all left, or refuse to play with other LSmates, and I haven't play with anyone good at their jobs for ages except VW pt.

But if I leave, where should I go?






And yes, I usually don't turn on my elitist mode because I don't think I'm an elite tier player and really have no right to turn on elitist mode towards other ppl. I guess I changed, somehow.

Economy

I found more and more alex on sell ever since SE announce they're gonna increase the drop rate after update. Alex used to be 15~20k each, now 15k is considering too expensive and there are more and more alex costs less than 15k.

On the other hand heavy metal is getting harder and harder to find, and harder to find them for 100k too.

I found the price of currency also dropped a bit, with large amount of currency flooding to the market.

I wonder which item will be the easiest to make by next update? Empy's been easier to make than relic for nearly 1 year, then suddenly relic easier than empy. Mythic was near impossible months ago, suddenly all seems possible now with more alex on the market.


I wonder when will I ever finish ._.

More eva.............

According to the test server, it seems new spell Barbed Crescent offers additional -30 accuracy, and stack with auroral drape.


Did a bit of quick math, found out.............

If we're not counting stat(AGI) and gear difference, a BLU/DNC casting Auroral drape+Barbed Crescent+warm-up now has higher evasion than THF.

And the good news is Barbed Crescent lasts fairly long, so no need to spend such huge amount of time to keep recasting.


This makes me wonder if I just grinded all the evasion gear for nothing D;

With those spells, even in eva tank situations in Abby I can still go full DD, so evasion sets are pretty much pulling/holding mobs only ;(

Relic +2

Quickly looked at the relic +2 info floating around on the internet, it seems +2 relic isn't anything godly amazing....at least for my jobs.

Some of the pieces that's worth upgrading are:

BLU:

Body

防59 MP+28 STR+5 DEX+5 命中+15 攻+15 リフレシュ (STR+5 DEX+5 acc+15 attack+15 refresh)

Heavy strike.....I guess....less dmg than Toci and Alcde. harness+1 though. Or maybe CDC body when acc needed or something. But just so-so overall.

Hand:

防22 HP+17 MP+17 DEX+8 MND+8 回避+7 モクシャ+7 (DEX+8 MND+8 subtle blow+7 evasion +7)

Looks good for CDC, and evasion tank/solo setup.

Legs:

防40 HP+21 MP+21 STR+5 AGI+5 命中+7 魔法命中率+7 (STR+5 AGI+5 acc+7 macc+7)

Heavy strike........

Feet:

防21 MP+21 AGI+6 INT+6 MND+6 攻+7 青魔法スキル+3 (AGI+6 INT+6 MND+6 attack+7 blue magic skil+3)

B.typhoon.......

Head:
防31 HP+21 STR+5 VIT+5 青魔法スキル+7 与ブレス効果アップ (STR+5 VIT+5 blue magic skill+7 breath effect up)

Not worth mentioning........maybe good for new breath spell and that's it.



Nothing amazing for BLU tbh. Mostly just sidegrade/small upgrade stuff.

COR:

Head:
防31 HP+17 STR+6 飛攻+12 ファントムロール性能アップ2 (STR+6 rattk+12 enhance phantom roll+2)

This is interesting. I wonder what enhance phantom roll does, maybe now it can enhance the effect of pre lv 75 rolls 100% when right jobs are not in pt? Probably on No.1 list to upgrade first.

STR+6 rattk+12 is also the best slug shot piece if racc not needed.

Body:
防59 STR+5 AGI+5 命中+12 飛攻+12 ランダムディール効果アップ2 (STR+5 AGI+5 acc+12 rattk+12 random deal effect up2)

Another second tier enhance JA piece.

Legs:
防39 HP+31 STR+5 AGI+5 攻+9 飛命+5 飛攻+5 回避+9 (STR+5 AGI+5 attack+9 racc+5 rattk+5 evasion+9)

Side-grade.

Feet:
防21 HP+17 DEX+5 INT+5 命中+9 魔法攻撃力アップ+6 (DEX+5 INT+5 acc+9 mattk+6)

:o mattk on feet slot ;O

It doesn't beat AF3+2 feet for WF, but it's better for leaden salute I believe. Maybe also good to macro it in for second QD shot. (first shot in AF3+2 feet for dmg+20%, second shot macro in mattk+6 or something)

Enmity- set

So I did some of the enmity math for WF set in VW while in math mode(usually not a math person here anyways)


I did some search on FFXIAH.com and managed to come up with an enmity- set. Note that enmity- from gears capped at 50, so I only add enough enmity- gears to reach 50 cap, which is enmity- 50%. I'm not really sure if enmity- from merit can break enmity- from gears or not, since I can't seems to find the info anywhere again(?) So I just assume I'm too lazy to change the merit and it stays the same.



I also tried my best to find enmity- gears that doesn't take away a lot of MAB slot, and offers some AGI at least. Praeda set has STP and enmity-, so I put them on the list. Lenore's hairpin/Mirador's trousers has high AGI and lots of enmity-, so I put both of them in the set as well. Rest of the gears are just usual AGI and MAB in that slot, plus vulcan's staff etc. The goal is to reach -50 enmity while keeping as much MAB and AGI as possible.


And when I compare, I compare with high dmg set like this, which is the current set I have:




Note: One of my ring isn't stat+7 ring, it's only +6....I still have my doubt about INT-, and 1 AGI makes very small difference anyways, so I use AGI+6 ring instead. But 95% of ppl would use 2x stat+7 rings, so when I calculate the total AGI, I'd calculate stat+7 rings x2. Oh and btw, I don't have AGI+ grip, so I used STP one(Rose strap).

My lv 90 COR/SAM has 90 AGI total, a lv 95 COR/SAM may have higher or lower depending on the race/merit etc.....so I'll just use 90, the number wouldn't make a very big difference anyways.



According to wildfire dmg calculator, enmity- set losts about 500 WF dmg. I played with monster's INT at 80/100/120, only 100 dmg difference anyways. So I just use 80 INT.


The enmity- set has 134 AGI and 13 MAB total, should deal 1318 dmg on a monster with 80 INT before calculating monster's magic resist. Expected CE is about 1647 based on the enmity generating formula. WF has 25% enmity- if WS at 100 TP, so 1236 enmity generated after WF. With enmity- 50 from gear it generates 618 CE total.

CE cap at 10000, so I can do 17 WF before enmity reaches cap, resulting 22406 total dmg.

The high dmg set has 165 AGI total and 37 MAB, should deal 1834 dmg according to calculator, expected CE is about 2292, if WS at 100 TP it generates 1719 CE.

So 6 WF before reaching cap, 11004 dmg total.

Enmity- set deals twice as much total dmg as high dmg set if enmity is an issue. I believe it's probably a better WS set for ppl subbing SAM(since this SJ allows you to spam WS like no tomorrow). I haven't done the calculation when fighting mobs with higher magic resist and result WF dmg lower than 1k. But 1.2k~2k WF dmg is pretty average in VW, in that case enmity- set would probably win, unless mob almost die and you're zerging with fanatics.

I've been working on COR gears/atmacite upgrade for VW when I feel like playing it again, and been thinking about dropping snap shot precast set(which just doesn't seems to worth the inv in any way) to fit in MDT- set, but maybe I can drop MDT- set to fit an enmity- WS set too, and only switch to high dmg set when dmg is really needed like blitz zerg etc.

Or maybe drop melee haste set in VW to fit in both MDT- and enmity- set............melee set is only good at getting sword/dagger proc anyways, can just put acc gears in sack and take it out if needing to land a dagger WS or something.

Time for more gil grind I guess ;< ;< ;< Ever since I start playing FFXI again it seems like all I'm doing is farming gil and buying AH gears for x set and y set ;<



EDIT: Just realized that enmity- set I posted sucked......don't need to use Praeda set, and can use Cruedlis belt for both AGI and enmity-, with merits still can reach 50, but able to keep hand/feet slot for massive AGI.

Taking forever...........

Almace Progress: Helms 6/50, no skin, no NM killed yet.....If I push for a little maybe I can finish lv 80 during this Christmas holidays.


Armageddon 95 Progress: 11/1500 Heavy Metal Plates.....If I push for a little maybe I can finish lv 95 next Christmas holidays.


Death Penalty Alexandrite Progress: 3756/30000............If I push for a little maybe I can finish 30k alex during Christmas holidays in 2013..............



Those weapons just never finish, no?

Changing merits

Considering I'm sitting at 20/20 unused merits for ages, I've been thinking about changing merits for my jobs based on what I do......for example, change QC acc merit to 5/5 if I'm doing VWNM(especially Pil) on COR, and change back to PR focused merit when I'm rolling more in other events. Do more CA recast merit when I'm DD on BLU in easier game content, and change back to magic oriented merit for VW and such.....


Merits are so easy to come by nowadays that there's really no point to stay in same merit setup all the time when one setup is clearly more beneficial than another in certain situation.

Evasion

After playing a bit with evasion BLU, I decided to do some evasion math just to see the real rating of each evasion job....which mostly came from NIN v.s DNC debate long time ago.


It's basically the comparison between NIN DNC PUP BLU and THF, 5 of the top tier evasion jobs.

Note that I'm not 100% sure about whether evasion skill= evasion or not. Some say 1 evasion skill=0.5 evasion, some say 1 evasion skill=1 evasion, some say 1 evasion skill=0.9 evasion. Some say it depends on the amount of evasion you have. According to BG-wiki, 1 skill= 0.9 evasion when skill 200+, so I'll just use this formula.(Although I'm temped to use 1 skill=1 evasion, easier to calculate)

Also this is assuming everyone has same stat....I know every job doesn't, but your stats are depending on race, merits, jobs, what spells you set on BLU, and kinda difficult to measure. So I assume everyone has same amount of AGI to make it easier to math.

Also this is a naked comparison, so evasion from gear doesn't count as well. I also gonna do 2 version, one is no SJ another one is with SJ DNC(Only NIN and BLU gains evasion benefit from /DNC btw, THF PUP DNC doesn't). And assume no evasion merit is used.

Lets start from DNC:

DNC evasion skill is 376 at lv 95, which equal to 338.4 evasion, it can merit Closed position and that's evasion +15, and it has evasion bonus3 job trait which is +35. So total evasion= 338.4+15+35=388.4, I round it down to 388 to make it easier to calculate.

According to hit rate formula, Hit Rate = 75% + (Accuracy - Evasion)*0.5% + (Attacker's Level - Defender's Level)*2%. Assuming the mob you're fighting are same lv(to make it easier to calculate again), a lv 95 mob with 388 accuracy will have exact 75% hit rate on the DNC.

NIN's evasion skill is 389 which equal to 350 evasion, but doesn't have any native evasion bonus job trait, it has Kurayami which is acc-20. When fighting a mob with 388 accuracy: 75% + ((388-20)-350)x0.5%= 84%, the mob will have 84% hit rate on NIN.

You may think DNC wins over NIN, but I didn't calculate Yonin, since I can't find info about how much evasion bonus it got anywhere, the result may ended up being close to DNC. Also if NIN use DNC as SJ, it gains evasion bonusII, and ended up having 372 evasion, 368-372=-4, the mob will ended up having 73% hit rate on the NIN/DNC.

PUP's evasion skill is 370 which equal to 333 evasion, it has evasion bonus IV which is +48. So total evasion is 381.

75%+ (388-381)x0.5%= 78.5%


BLU's evasion skill is 340 which equals to 306 evasion. It can set evasion bonusI, which is +10. It also has access to auroral drape, which is acc-60 blind. It also has 2 evasion spells, one is feather barrier with evasion+20, but 30 sec down time with max recast time. Another is warm-up with evasion+10, but no down time.

BLU using feather barrier has 336 evasion total:
75%+ ((388-60)-336)x0.5%= 71%

BLU using warm-up has 326 evasion total:
75%+ ((388-60)-326)x0.5%= 74%

BLU subbing DNC(328 base evasion):

With feather barrier:
75%+ ((388-60)-348)x0.5%= 65%

With warm-up:
75%+ ((388-60)-338)x0.5%= 70%

As long as BLU is casting evasion + and acc- spells, it's actually a better evasion job than NIN and DNC.

Now compare with THF, the king of evasion jobs. THF has 396 evasion skills, which equal to 356 evasion, it also has evasion bonus job trait V, which is evasion+60. So the total evasion is 416

75%+ (388-416)x0.5%= 61%

I believe the result is THF > BLU/DNC > NIN/DNC > BLU > DNC > PUP > NIN unless I missed anything(unless Yonin actually boosts evasion a fk tone and give NIN 3%~8% more eva rate).

So yes, get your evasion set done all BLUs ._. It's an awesome set, seriously.

VW

IMO, VW is really an event to test of how to gear a job properly, and how much you care about the job.

Took me a lot of runs to find out my vorpal set and heavy strike set is completely garbage for VW, works in Abyssea but just not VW.

When HS is missing 70% of time, and vorpal is doing less than a joytoy PLD, then there's something wrong. After I re-examine my gear, I realized I'm missing a lot of items and need to readjust both sets completely for VW. Items like Loki shouldn't be used outside of abby when it's hard to crit, also need to buy Alcide+1 set for WS/HS. Acc is never enough for HS in VW, and how can I leave acc rings/back at home ;(

Gimp noob gearing wrong DDDD;



Anyways, the difference between gearing right and gearing wrong




Although 4.8k Ukko is pretty BS on Pil, but it's also more likely because he is gearing right. Since I haven't seen any other empyrean WS goes even close to that. Most of the empyrean/relic WS is just 1k~2k range.

I've been soloing a lot, so most of the gears I bought for BLU are solo friendly/defensive stuff, now need to focus on the DD aspect a bit more.

Interesting concept

So while I did VW, I saw one COR wearing enmity- set. Considering COR can reach 2 hit in VW and has retard WS spam rate and will face down after a few WS, this makes me wonder if enmity- build actually deal more damage than high damage build, if enmity- is enough to make you WS a few more time before capping hate.

And if it's possible to switch to high damage set during proc zerg and fanatics.

I guess time to do some enmity math research, including the amount of enmity generates when WS at 100 TP, and quite possible to change merit into enmity- merit too when I click that job change botton. Personally I have my doubt about sacrificing 500+ WS dmg for enmity- build, when this WS only did 1k~2k in VW from what I've seen. Unless this allow me to spam WS 3x more. But I haven't play COR in VW properly*(that means with regain/save TP atmacite fully upgrade and lv 95 for save TP roll) yet, so I'm not sure about how it feel like to 2 hit WF spam in VW and how fast I'd cap enmity. I'm pretty sure 2x WF will cap enmity in Abby instantly, but not sure about VW.

I just got my ex/rare QD bullets from Akvan, and bought pretty much every other AH gear I want except AGI belt(which is never oh AH). Save TP atmacite upgrade is progressing nicely as well, although still missing regain atmacite.

But time to lv it to 95 and play it properly I guess.....not just lol regain whore. Although I admit, I'm completely not on COR mode atm, can I even play it properly?

Why?

So I saw a Zilart T1 wyrm VW /shout.

Below are /tell mode:

Afania: I need clear
Leader: What job you have?
Afania: BLU
Leader: BLU is useless for this fight, this is a zerg fight, need Ukko WAR etc, come COR please.
Afania: ..........................



How the fk she knows that I have COR >.>


Afania: But its only lv 90, and it won't have top performance. It won't function properly in VW without save TP roll.
Leader: That's fine, you just need body +1 and regain us.




BS, anyone who've known me enough knows that I hate to gimp COR to an extreme point, and would rather not play it if it's not on top performance(top performance including knowing how to deal max damage in given situations, and this requires a lot of testing and research on the WS to use and timing of JA), and yet I'm forced to play my gimp COR for no reason. And roll regain then do nothing else is what I hate the most.

So I was forced to clicked that job change botton, for the first time in one month, I regear for another job. Another job I wasn't even sure how to play to deal damage properly in VW now.

In the end it turned out that this fight isn't zerg fight at all, it was a mess with bunch of empy melees dying, and I don't think lv 95 BLU isn't any inferior than lv 90 regain whore COR for this fight.

Sometimes it's just extremely hard to change the PoV of some ppl. "We just need COR for regain" "BLU is useless in VW" I have no idea where's this mindset's came from.

Next time I gonna tell them that I retired it and not playable in VW, until I finish regain and save TP atmacite upgrade, and lv it to lv 95 so I can equip new gears(already bought some AH gears ready), and be ready to deal most damage(yesterday's run I wasn't even sure how I can deal max dmg without preparation)

But regain whore, no thanks. Why ppl automatically knows that I have this job is something I never understand. And why ppl won't recognize my BLU is something I don't understand more. Just because I don't have an empy sword? Is my BLU really that bad? ;(

Practice practice more

As previously mentioned, since my new in-game goal is to solo Shinryu, I need practice.

Because one of the BLU in LS named Shadowmonkey needs a BLU JSE ammo, I decided to try to solo the Ironclad NM for him to get this item. Mostly just want to practice my solo skill for Shinryu and to see how durable BLU can be when blooding tanking shit. Since Shinryu and ironclad all shared same property: AoE melee attacks that's TP move, can't be eva/counter/shadow tanked, my goal was to see how well BLU can be to blood tank stuff.

Note that I asked Foxx afterward, apparently he've eva tanked that NM before at lv 85 on THF. So maybe* eva tank is doable. But since my goal is to test blood tank ability when solo, so I decided not to try eva tank and do blood tank instead.

This NM is probably very easy soloable at this lv now. So it's not really any worthwhile achievement as any well geared BLUs can do it. However since it's my first time really start challenge myself soloing stuff, I'd like to start from the easy NM first, to build some confidence ;<

The SJ I used is /SCH. I've been debating between /RDM or /SCH, but decided to try /SCH. Since BLU itself can set fast castI already and self cast phalanx(barrier tusk), and this NM doesn't cast magic. MDB II and fast cast II are still two of the biggest advantage of /RDM.

So whats the advantage of /SCH? Generally it's Light Arts + Celerity, this makes casting Stoneskin incredibly fast. Light arts is -10%, Celerity is -50%, with fast cast gear macro and fast cast1 job trait I can put up SS easily between each hit.....if I'm not stunned. Aquaveil from /SCH is also must have, again, life saver.
That taru RDM/BLU rely on fast casting stoneskin and cocoon a lot to blood tank Shinryu, and in order to cast/recast SS as fast as a RDM, /SCH and set fast cast job trait is pretty much a must have IMO.

/SCH also has regen II and conserve MP, all very useful for solo.

My atma choices is completely going defensive: RR/MM/Mounted champion, again, first time better play safe, although I'm pretty sure if I do it again I can drop MM for another DD atma like Apoc, since MM is completely not needed(had nearly 95% HP entire time). I also used taco, again, play safe thing, although using DD food should be fine for skilled players.

Besides basic BLU job trait like auto-refresh and DW, I also set fast cast and triple attack.

My strategy is pretty simple, solo it near a wall so I won't get knock back, TP in PDT- gear(although I don't really have a PDT- set.....), cast Harden shell whenever JA recast up, cast cocoon if it's not up. Cast barrier tusk, and cast SS whenever I can, then rely on Mounted champion and regenII to recover MP since I expect I will got stunned lot and hard to do anything, so the less need to cast healing spell the better.

I haven't finish PDT- set, so my PDT- set is only twilight torque, dark steal harness and denali hands(PDT-10% only) and shadow mantle, no PDT- sword either. My "casting stoneskin" set is also nothing special....Loq earring+w legs with fast cast augment, and Seigel sash, rest all haste gears.....maybe I need to start collecting more fast cast and stoneskin+ gears. I also used Isador(it's my strongest DD sword atm anyways, so I pretty much full time it) for another 5% fast cast.

I thought it would be ass easy, but it's actually more annoying than I expected.....Amnesia and stun after each hit, although it isn't anything deadly, it slows down my DD speed a lot and made recast buffs much harder. Later on I learned the pattern of it's attack tempo and with A.bust+head butt, it gots a bit easier after I learned the tempo of popping spells.

Apparently my "PDT-" set isn't qualified w.

I still took 100+ dmg very often, especially if harden shell isn't up, and SS barely last more than 2 hits, although sometimes it can get lower than 50 dmg. And it's not easy to keep barrier tusk up as well with all the stun and such. In the end I spent quite a lot of time healing myself and unable to bother with buffs anymore, let alone doing dmg. Maybe a bit more practice I can do this a bit faster.

I guess if I want to lower the dmg to 100- and SS last 3 hits, I really need to work on my PDT- set, and possibly other SS enhance gears as well.


Anyways, after a while, finally killed it.



Note that although Shadowmonkey was in pt, I've told him not to interfere. No healing me, nor touching the NM. He was just there to lot the ammo(he has to be in the pt for ammo to drop, since I already have one), so it was still solo, indeed.

I guess that's a small step to bigger goal, solo Shinryu, no?

Note that I thought about it afterwards,I think this can be done with any SJ if PDT- set is good. But I still like the result of /SCH quit a lot. I may actually try to use this SJ if I want to blood tank any VW in the future.

Next solo practice target: WoTG sandy/basty missions, Turul, Carabosse, Bri, Omega.....all those are confirmed soloable stuff, but again, need practice!

Waiting

Project Death Penalty:
Captain Rank 50/50 (Complete)
Runic Key (Complete)
Titles 8/8(Complete)
Balrahn's Eyepatch 100000/100000(Complete)
Wyrmseeker Areuhat 150000/150000(Complete)
Assault relog 50/50(Complete)
Alexandrite (3636/30,000)
T4 ZNM items (0/3)


Waiting for SE to increase the amount of alex drop so I can get that remaining 26k alex and finish this lonnnnnng quest.

New in game goal

New goal in FFXI: Solo Shinryu on BLU.

An advice to all BLUs

As previous post mentioned, I've been focusing playing BLU a lot and got a lot deep enjoyment out of it. I was intended to write a guide(again, not a guide from a pro, since I know quite a lot of BLU that's more knowledgeable than me on this server that I often ask gear advice from them), and if there's any advice I'd give for anyone playing BLU, or intend to lv it, I'd do one suggestion, that I believe it's very important for every BLUs, more important than grinding x gear set y weapon for this job.

Try to solo all the spells and all the mission BCs. Try to solo or lowman tanking stuff as much as possible. Don't drag 1000 ppl if you want to do get something done. Always try a couple of times to solo or lowman tanking an NM/mission BC before getting help.

The main reason being it's a good practice of pushing the job's potential and it's limit, when to use defensive spells to help you survive, how to conserve MP, when to cast stun or flash, when to start running away and kite, when to recast shadows, and which job trait to set will help you survive the most or kill faster, and how to deal with links or adds. IMO soloing or lowmanning stuff is the best way to learn a job's true potential, because when you're in a difficult situation, that's when BLUs shine, it shines in solo/lowman, when you get variety(more versatile than every other job in this game) of different tools to help you get out of this difficult task.


1. Always tell yourself "I can do etttttt" even if it seems impossible to do. Why? Because you can only do it if you believe you can do it. That's why I found that JP RDM/BLU Shinryu solo vid or Draylo's solo vid inspiring. You will never know whether you can do it or not until you tried, and try hard. I believe a good player of a job should be inspiring, and created new value of the job, by doing the impossibles. I found a lot of players like to ask for unnecessary help nowadays, before even trying without help. And often bring extra bodies just to be safe when they can totally do it with less. There's no way a BLU can learn how to play the job and pushing it's limit when you do it with a bunch of ppl. Any player loving their job enough will always tell themself "I can do ettttt" and try to push the potential of this job further.

Long time ago when I told Ager that there's no way BLU can out DD a MNK, he said "I swear I will do anything I can to prove that is wrong". I don't believe BLU can mathmetically out DD a MNK in abyssea ever, but I have to admit it is that kind of attitude that's been pushing his BLU's DD aspect potential, to a point that I will never get close.

If you don't believe you can do it, then you won't be able to do it, enough said.


2. Always not afraid of taking risks, but be prepared before taking the risks, or else it'd be reckless. Many ppl seems to unwilling to try anything unless they feel it's safe. Although it's nice and efficient to do it safe, but that also means you will never create new value of the job. Ppl only grow while dealing with hard tasks, this applies in both RL and FFXI. And don't be afraid of losing anything. EXP is ass easy to get if you die, losing a pop set or KI is no big deal if you can farm it again(unless that pop set or KI is ass BS hard to get like a relic weapon, most of the KI/pop set in this game atm aren't).

Remember, this is just an MMO, you got nothing to lose for trying.


3. Ask questions, and more questions. The moment you feel you know everything about the job, that's when you stopped at where you're at, there's no way you'd know everything, just like you'd never complete a piece of perfect art work. You should never feel that you know everything. Always try to find an answer after question asked. No one can tell you how to play the job, and it is a question you must ask yourself and find the answer yourself.

The reason why I'm writing this, is because a lot of player attitude was rather disappointing. When they're facing difficulties, the first thing is to ask for help and bring more bodies, even for obviously easy things to do like CoP BC fights or learning spell from Wamoura. I can understand where it's came from, since I was like that as well, never believe I can do it without help. And that's the main reason why my BLU sucked so much. According to my experience, some of the better players always willing to take risks and challenges, and always believe it's possible to do it unless it's unreasonably ridiculous.

IMO, the best and respectful players should be inspiring, by offering the new ideas and insights of the job, and create new value in it, not spending all days to farm gears(gear means nothing if you don't have the skill/knowledge to use it properly) and unwilling to try and learn.

And no, I didn't write this after I watched the vid, I've been thinking that way for very long time when I see new players post on the forum and ask for help for easy NM/BC/spell hunt before even try to solo, and seeing ppl still try to solo hard stuff like that RDM/BLU just confirmed my belief. He will never solo Shiryu if he got the mindset of "I MUST BREW SHINRYU, OR ELSE I CAN'T WIN"

Anyways, there's a couple more things I want to try on BLU and COR myself, but need to lv COR to 95 first ._.

Rethink

So recently I've finally started focusing on BLU a bit more and making it better, just so that I can do everything more efficiently.

I've been duoing Bri with Zeig for Almace trial, although it takes very long to collect 50 helms(mostly because getting KI takes forever between running back and forth, Bri itself was an easy kill). Also finished 25% MDT- set which is enough to reach cap with shell V, just missing shadow ring. My eva sword progress is going nicely(I can solo pull 13+ mobs in heroes zone now and still have 2k+ HP, something I previously couldn't do months ago). I certainly enjoy seeing my BLU's performance improve for everything I do in this game, a lot. And able to get something done that I previously can't makes my life a lot easier than it used to be.

I'd have to say, ever since I switch to BLU main(not really a real main, I still consider myself COR main at heart, just want to focus on BLU for a while), it changed my life in FFXI. FFXI is much more enjoyable than it used to be as I slowly pushing the potential of this job, and trying different job trait and gear sets to test the limit of this job. I found the possibility of doing something I previously couldn't do. Duoing Isgebind or Storms of fate BC is something I would never think of before, since it was a pain when I did it, now it's totally doable after some work.

Now I've been asking myself, is it still worth it to put all my resource into mythic building?

What's the point to build Mythic? This weapon hardly push the potential of COR any further besides a few situations, and more likely just an achievement now, and unlikely I will have much fun with it after it's done. The amount of time I spent on it I can just use it to pimp BLU and able try a lot more new stuff possible.

I always enjoy trying something myself or others never try before, to challenge myself. That's why I enjoy that RDM/BLU solo shinryu vid a lot, because it's challenging the impossible. And atm finishing the Mythic probably wouldn't give me much more enjoyment than say, learned and play with a new spell, and get more different gears for BLU etc.

I guess that's why my Mythic progress isn't progressing any further, between buying PDT/MDT/evasion sets for BLU and farming Almace, there's little time I can work on mythic, on top of not be able to get on everyday and only less than 2hrs a day of play time. Although I haven't been focusing on Mythic for very long time now, considering farming it doesn't give much more enjoyment than say, finishing the PDT- set for BLU.

Is Mythic really worth doing? A question to rethink.

JP bash

If you've been reading any FFXI NA forum for sometime, you will often see NAs talk shit about JP players, like they're poorly equipped and bad players and such.


After watching this amazing video, I'd have to say whoever says JPs are bad players are just ignorant fools. It's not just the fact that he soloed Shinryu on RDM, it's also the fact that he doesn't seems to use 3rd pt tool(not 100% sure, maybe he does) and gear swap to a point that I'd say it's godly, proves that this game can be played without windower.

http://nicoviewer.net/sm16003922

So,

stop bashing JPs.

-300k

Shows that I have zero knowledge about tanking(sorry Zeig ;<)

Been working on MDT- set recently for BLU, and after searching on FFXIAH.com this is the better set I come up with that's better than previous set as long as there's a mage to shell V.



Something like this should have 25% MDT- and capped with shell V, and Magic def. bonus +9(w. legs has MDB augment on it), and a small chance to take 0 dmg while it lands, and not omgwtf hard to get(doesn't require Dring). I also just recently realized(blu noob again) BLU can set magic def bonus job trait, so even with /NIN or /WAR there always +10 MDB. With Saline coat and Barrier tusk to reduce more magic dmg.

Still missing earrings/shadow ring/ammo in that set, so that's another 3.5M waiting to blow away ;<

Why I have -300k? Reason is obvious(besides buying Alexandrite etc), still have evasion set/PDT- set to blow money on ;(

I think I'm probably one of the best player at spending money in this game(=D =D =D), as most other players I know of seems to hold large amount of gil and never spend it(while Q.Qing about wanting relic/Dring/empy weapons and such)

But it is a good thing, if there are more players that likes to toss gil like me, it will cause inflation, as if inflation isn't bad enough atm already.

GoV

Tried a little bit of GoV since update to lv my DRG, noticed that you no longer need to go back to book after you finished a page.

By far one of the best update in FFXI IMO.

Lving in FFXI has been easier than ever.

Cruel reality

I had a bit more free time this weekend, so ended up playing FFXI all day, something I couldn't do in past 6 months...although soon I need to focus on RL again and enter semi-quite mode.

I got a lot done this weekend, got BLU to 95, learned new spells, got PW title finally, got some 3 cities VW clear by making a /shout pt, joined some higher tier VW /shout. Ppl on SE forums keep saying VW is not an event for everyone but I didn't believe, I believe it's an event that can be done for causal players such as myself. However after joining /shout for higher tier and organized cities clear run myself I finally understand why it's not for everyone, and what others means by Abyssea gears are just "basic gears".....AF3+2, empyrean weapons, fast lving and fast gears in Abyssea are just a way for players to be able to perform properly for real endgame coming up.

To sum up, I faced the cruel reality that my gear/experience/job spread isn't qualified for real EG event like VW(and to a lesser extend, old lv 75 lowmanable contents) anymore.

Due to the nature of VW, /shout for extra members are often required for majority of LS. And you never know who you'd get in /shout, and what jobs they have, so having wide spread of jobs are almost necessary for shouters to fill what the pt needs.

And just wide spread isn't enough, gear makes a big difference. And the gear that makes biggest difference is, err, you guessed it, empyrean weapons.

I joined a couple of Akvan and Pil /shout on BLU for QD bullet/Toci harness, mostly in pt as a magic proc whore. It's so hard for me to deal dmg on BLU while I reset proc spells since I can't cast anything. Problems like heavy strike(currently best spell on NM IMO) acc problem I should have enough acc gears to solve the problem(although still need Toci/Enki hands). But there isn't anything I can do if it's during spell cool down time and unable to cast anything when got proc. I need to do it like other DDs, pop wings and fanatic, run in, WS. And I need CDC to do that properly since vorpal is just not on par for a job that's already weak in terms of melee/WS dmg.

Of course I can just sit back and play like a proc whore that only proc but not doing dmg....in Abyssea it works. In VW it's just leeching in pt due to time limit and slightly higher def/eva from each NM. You can have only 1 or 2 ppl do dmg in Abyssea, but not in VW. You need a fk tones of dmg, every proc whore needs to do dmg. And it's hard to contribute unless you have a strong WS that pwns so you can run in with fanatic and TP/WS with everyone when proced. Same reason why jobs like COR won't function properly in higher tier VW, you can do regain, but you can't do dmg without WF(I've tried other none WF WS....it's terrible on 80% of VWNM). And you will run out of time easily that way.

I asked myself Almace or not a while ago, for one point of time I was almost certain I'd do WoE sword just because upgrading it to 90 and 95 requires too much money and I don't have that much money to upgrade them since I've been spending a lot of money on Mythic atm. Now I may ended up doing Almace and take it to lv 90 at least so it's not too shabby(95 is too unreasonable atm though, unless I don't do mythic anymore and grind dyna for 5 months for 200M)

My BLU seriously needs a lot of work considering I use it a lot for old lowman event most of the time(COR sucked in dyna/nyzul/ein/salvage so I rarely touch it), and getting Almace to enhance it's dmg and efficiency is way more important than doing lol Mythic(which is truely an obsession item that I don't see how it can enhance efficiency in old/new events) >.>

PDT-/MDT- set for VW, evasion set for lowman stuff, Almace for dmg.....a lot of work ;<

My COR is ok mostly as WF/regain whore for VW, just need to lv it to 95 for save TP rolls and some new lv 95 AH gears for WF(that expensive MAB head and AGI+9 hands mostly....more gil farm inc >.> <.<)+ex/rare QD bullet and it'd be ready for VW.

But it will probably be done a couple months later when I have more free time, by that time it's probably already lv 99....Meanwhile I need to see how lv 99 goes ._.

Ninja pop

First of all, I admit, yes I broke my promise, I couldn't stay away from FFXI for more than one month after I realized I still spent most of the time chating without FFXI. So I've been ninja popping in FFXI, if I wanna chat on MSN, may as well chat in FFXI.

I've been working on BLU gears recently, I ended up doing evasion set first instead of PDT-. At first I was skeptical about doing an evasion set and not sure if it's worth it, especially after Foxx told me he isn't interested in evasion set as it has no use in heroes zone. But after spending some money on gears I realized this is one gear set that changed my life a lot.... that I strongly recommend any serious BLUs to work on(and now I kinda regret I didn't start working on it earlier), unless you already have an eva solo job like NIN or DNC, but even if you have NIN DNC, BLU evasion set is still way too useful to skip it, my life changed with it, seriously.

So what advantage evasion set has? Basically it greatly increase your survive-ability for lower lv contents. Link/aggro shit in dyna? Macro in evasion set. Want to solo limbus? Evasion set. Need to cast ichi? Evasion set macro. Need to do CW burn? Having evasion set or not is the difference between pulling 5 mobs or 10+ mobs at once. This set greatly expand BLU's utility and make it a better tank/puller/holder/crowd controller, and certainly a must have for solo. It also offers possibility to use other SJ that's not NIN and still has decent survive-ability. I see more and more BLU with 2 eva sticks for a reason.

I tried to solo Audumbla on BLU/RDM and found this SJ worked very well for solo play. Fast cast II makes it easy to get blink spell up(including the puk one) Aquaveil can save life, obviously MAB II is good for Sanguine, and I assume convert can be useful in limbus/salvage for convert as well. It's actually not necessary to full time eva set while TPing(it lowers TP DPS anyways), I still TP in normal TP set while shadows/blind spells are up and only macro in evasion set while waiting for blink spell recast. Switch between both sets while appropriate is key to increase dmg output.

I still need to finish both evasion swords trial, and get Omega NM in Ule to drop it's torque, also need that AGI belt(should have get it long time ago for WF already) and new eva ammo. After that this set should be done and can move on to PDT- and MDT- set.

New FFXIV concept art

http://wdl.square-enix.com/ffxiv/download/en/FFXIV_2.0_Specs_EN.pdf

That Bard AF design makes me want to play Bard >.>

It seems that SE is going into ambitious mode for FFXIV to actually remake the whole game and rewrite whole game engine. And they also stated that in interview that they won't make FFXIV into another FFXI.

I hope they keep their promise about FFXIV as causal friendly at least.

Although I'm even more sad that they don't bother to put nearly as much effort in FFXI.


But charging monthly fee in the end of Nov is still a bit too soon IMO, should do it with PS3 release alone with new graphic engine.

Not sure if I can pay for 2 MMORPG at once, when I barely have time to play 1 ;<

Leves in 1.19

Finally got a bit of time to log on to FFXIV after 1.19 update. I've read SE forums about how gears and stats now makes a huge difference and how gimp your characters are compare with pre-1.19. So I was a bit worried that I can no longer solo leves until I upgrade/repair my gear.

So I started a new lv 30 leve in N.wells with gimped/unpaired gears, I admit my character's killing speed is much lower than it used to be, and it sure takes slightly longer time to finish one leve, but not to an unbearable point(not as bad as old FFXI that is). Just that I can no longer wear low lv gear and leave it unrepaired if I want max efficiency.

For some reason, I feel this change benefits crafters, GREATLY.

It also benefits ppl with longer play time now, since it takes longer for them to do 8 leve every reset and run out of stuff to do.

Although one leve now takes longer time to finish, it actually gives more EXP per kill now, so the over all gringing efficiency from solo leve haven't change much.

I guess I finally need to work on gil after this update as well, it may to play more and more important role after update, and it's getting harder to earn them unless I have a craft leveled high enough.

Another thing I noticed is that I have more MP than it used to be(cure spam on melee job coming back? ;o). Also since it takes longer to kill stuff now, TP efficient move like Haymaker II is pretty awesome(pretty fun to use it too, it works like counter except it's manual counter). It actually need more planning and effort if I want to solo leves efficiently now, rather then just smack and whack mindlessly and get it done in 5 min(pre-update there's no way I can increase the efficiency if I want to, since most of the time are spent on running around instead of killing stuff)

Still don't have time to do other stuff like chocobo quest and new Grand company leve though. Also haven't got time to play with Gladiator after update(again, heard horror stories about Gladiator can't kill a thing after update etc). But I guess my priority is to lv up a craft so I can stop being so gimp and rely on other ppl to repair gear so much.

Man so much to do in XIV lah D;
No time to play lah D;(typical Q.Q from me all the time in XI no?)

Some change

Changed the description of the blog...although it sounds a bit weird. Maybe should change the blog title too? w

Also deleted "Project Armageddon" since grinding 1500 heavy metal for a AGI+2 weapon(This job doesn't get much benefit from higher base dmg) for a job I rarely play doesn't seems to worth it. So it'll probably stop at lv 90 until SE finally realized how dumb it is to make empy hardcore to please 5%~10% of player base.

Will probably keep my heavy metal if I happen to get any after going back to FFXI, but not going to spend 200M+ buying them.

Difference

Been trying to download FFXIV patch 1.19 for 3 days, and it's taking forever. So I log on to FFXI to see how the game is now for a short time. Not a lot of ppl on, which surprised me.

If you read SE official forum, FFXIV community is generally very happy with this new patch, with plenty of game balance fix and an epic battle. While FFXI is community rage about long grind with very little content.

SE's evil plan to kill FFXI so FFXI player all goes to FFXIV huh?

If

If I really go back to FFXI after this semester, there's one thing I was extremely interested and wanted to try in FFXI, that's BLU tanking build.

Last year before lv 85 update, I've been planning to play with BLU tanking build already. But apparently it doesn't work in Abyssea too much, since Abyssea favors DD tank like NIN MNK etc to duo.

Because of the duoing friendly nature of Abyssea, it's near impossible for me to tank NMs in Abyssea and duo with another WHM when there are no other DDs, it's gonna take 1hr to kill the NM while MNK NIN kill in 5 min D;

The best bet of BLU tanking in Abyssea is really just DD tank like a NIN MNK with an Almace, which is still inferior to NIN MNK in terms of dmg output and just NIN MNK -1, and not really using this job's specialty.

Plus the fact that I don't have an Almace, making my dmg gimp as fk on anything higher lv when I duo stuff.

After this update BLU gets a bit more survive-ability tool such as DT- 15% spell, def+100% spell etc. Pair with old survive-ability spell it may be decent. It's probably still not going to have higher survive-ability than Ochain/Aegis PLD, but certainly higher than most other jobs. Ochain/Aegis PLD is hard to come by anyways.

I don't know that much about PLD, but I think BLU actually has more hate generating tool than PLD, which should be useful for anything that has physical shield sorts of ability that you can't really generate much enmity with dmg output.(Pretty funny that after Abyssea era, a lot of player has that kind of mindset that dealing dmg is the only way to generate enmity and only been thinking about dealing more dmg to generate enmity, and have no idea how to deal with mobs that can't deal dmg on.)

The SJ is probably /WAR or /NIN. /WAR is pure blood tank SJ with defender, better for enmity generation with provoke, and doesn't require much time to do defensive moves so more time to cast spell to generate enmity. And probably better than NIN on any NM that wipe shadows a lot.

/NIN is probably better on NMs with nasty en- effect. But casting shadows takes time, makes it a bit harder to generate enmity.

BLU tank certainly requires more refresh support than PLD to be able to generate enmity continuously, so RDM BRD is required in the pt for this setup to work.

I have a lot to work on for this tanking build, spell wise I need at least Harden shell and Barrier tusk. Gear wise need a PDT- set and MDT- set.

This is the PDT- set I want to aim for that doesn't involve hard to obtain stuff like D-ring:





Depending on how much PDT- I can get from dark ring, this set should be able to reach 50% PDT- cap, or at least close. Feet is either refresh feet or haste feet depending on the day. Sword is of course PDT- sword. Earring is Ethereal earring + Colossus's(I heard there's another earring with PDT- augment, too lazy to look atm, anyways PDT-, you got the idea) earring. Belt is new godly Flume belt. Legs is darksteel.....the best piece for leg slot is ASA legs with PDT- 4% and enmity+ augment. But I already augmented my ASA leg for my COR. I'm a bit tempted to change it, since I want to semi-retire the job and no point to keep it, but I know that someday someone will ask me to play it, and I will feel guilty for saying no after using everyone's resource on Empy/mythic, so better keep it for now XD. Impatiens is nice to have but not really needed considering how expensive it is.

I also need to redo Apoc Nigh fight for an Ethereal earring, I picked Hollow at 75 for my COR, since it was best racc earring. Now it's nothing but acc piece for Evi/Heavy strike, since it's subpar in terms of ranged attack.

Overall this set probably won't cost more than 1.5M if Impatiens not included. Still affordable for a broke ass like me, kinda.

MDT-



Buyable stuff, nothing special. Can't hit 50% cap though, unless I have D ring or sacrifice TP and use MDT- staff/grip. Ring can be dark ring with good augment too.

Connection

Long time ago before I met players like Zeig/Tavera, there is a very close friend of mine in FFXI. He left FFXI in 2010 at lv80 cap due to credit card problem, and never come back. I found him been playing FFXIV, I've been trying to get him back to XI, but I failed to convince him. I couldn't understand why, now I more or less understand now.

I go back to FFXIV(once again) after leaving FFXI. Mostly because FFXIV is a lot more fast paced than FFXI, when I have 30min~1hr of play time a day it's much more enjoyable to play FFXIV than FFXI.

Plus FFXIV dev team seems to work harder than FFXI dev team, since they can't offer anything except 1500 heavy metal grind. w

So far I've been playing it for 2 weeks, I'd say it's a fairly enjoyable game atm, in fact even more enjoyable than current FFXI. At least for someone with so little play time, FFXIV is more enjoyable. I go back to old RPG fun of exploring the world/class/story, instead of huge gear grind fest(that 1500 heavy metal is just one ridiculous example). And since I'm not all that connected to FFXIV and didn't spend that much time on it I can log off anytime and enjoy RL a lot more as well.

I admit FFXI experience is pretty irreplaceable..... CoP, old dunes pt, hard fights like 3 mini expansion at lv 75, this and that, all the old good memory they don't exist FFXIV yet. But I personally don't want CoP and old dunes pt and such experience second time in my life. It's unique for the first time and hard to forget, but spending that much amount of time in a video game for satisfaction is also something I'm too old to do.

I don't have much connection with ppl in FFXIV, mostly because you don't really need that much connection. When I played FFXI, by the time I got to lv 11 and made it to dunes I already had some ppl on friendlist, and been interacting with them. I still have 0 ppl on FL in FFXIV, and rarely play with any specific player, after 1 year of creating my char.

On the other hand I still often chat with Ager/Zeig/Tavera on MSN after I left FFXI. I still checked my FFXI LS forums, still post on Alla/FFXIAH/BG/SE site once a while. Even though I no longer play, FFXI is still connected with me, I guess it's more or less part of my life.

I doubt FFXIV will offer that kind of unique FFXI experience, and I don't want it to. FFXIV should remain as a more causal friendly game that can be played for fun, without much dedication. And I truly hope that won't change(seeing ppl whining about FFXIV being too easy on SE forums makes me wonder why they won't go play XI and grind that 1500 heavy metals to begin with)

I sometimes still miss XI while chating with ppl on MSN, but another part of me don't want to go back and grind that 1500 heavy metal+27k alex at all. I'd rather explore the world, read the story, spend 30 min to lv my class the log off and wait for leve reset atm, and that's something I can't get in XI unless they release a new full expansion.

I kinda want to go back to XI and try to build/play with tanking BLU, which is something I wanna play with for a while. But I know if I go back to XI the first thing I wanna do is probably 1500 heavy metal/27k alex grind fest. I still have a connection with XI, but doesn't mean I want to play it. Very weird huh?

Regardless, personally I think 2~3 more update and FFXIV may beat FFXI in terms of enjoyment(for me at least), unless XI can come up with anything more than VWNM 1500 heavy metal grind fest, or stuff like neo nyzul neo salvage neo ZNM.

Anyways a list of stuff I've got it done in past 2 weeks:

Finally joined a pt and finished R25 dungeon quest. Got an unbreakable knuckles for my pugilist, my first ex/rare drop in this game ._.

Got camp crimson bark and the aetheryte(forgot the name) near it. While playing MGS with lv 80+ mobs on the way......who the fk put lv 80+ or even lv 90+ mobs all over the place in this game, when lv cap is only 50. Who'd go fight those super high lv mobs while they drops nothing - - Are they even killable? - -

Tried to complete R34 main story quest by running to Mor Dhona from Camp Crimson, but died on the way. DAMN LV 80+ MOBS, DAMN THEM.

Started lving Gladiator, currently R16. Since I realized I enjoyed Gladiator way more than pugilist....of course, I never enjoy THF and MNK in XI, how is it possible to enjoy a THF MNK hybrid class. On the other hand I might enjoy PLD in XI ._.

Otherwise it's just between doing leve and log off while waiting for leve reset. While sometimes lv up craft.

I will probably still go back to FFXI in the end, connection is connection, and it is connections that's been keeping me playing FFXI. But deep inside my mind there's a voice telling me don't go back to XI ever. Just let the good memory of XI stay in my mind and enjoy RL and other games now.

Heavy metal

Although it's probably none of my business that I already took a break.....in fact even after I go back I probably won't be COR main anymore and shouldn't care about it until Almace 90(which only has 3% of chance happening), I still want to make comment on heavy metals ._.






Inc everyone all starting to make 5 mules for new T3 VWNM to farm that 1500 heavy metal.

Much faster to farm 1500 of them with a lot of mules.

The story of Final mule fantasy XI continues.