Behind all the epic gears

Takagi, one DRG in Tav's LS seems to admire one relic DRG on our server a lot, who has a lot of good gears such as relic polearm, AF3+2 5/5, Ares 5/5 etc. When I asked him why he pay so much attention he just replied he likes to see ppl in epic gears, what he didn't know is how those ppl got their epic gears.

Basically, if you see one leader of the LS has way better gear than other LS member, then 95% of the chance is because he lotted everything first, other LS member only get left overs. The DRG Tak admired a lot runs an EGLS, and in that LS leaders decide who lot which item when stuff drops, of course all the epic and rare stuff goes to leader and his friends, and regular members gets weaker drops. I have friends in that LS, and he often complains a lot about it, and that's how drama usually occurs, because there're no fair rules/clear point system, and LS leaders gets all the benefit.

Tav seems to believe making friend with LS leader is the quickest and easiest way to get epic gears, maybe he is right, he was a sack of one EGLS and friend of the LS leader. But somehow I didn't buy it, especially after his EGLS broke because of the drama itself. I can easily name many EGLS on this server without a fair and clear point system and lots of favoritism involved. Sadly most of them are NA/EU LS, lol. Now I kinda miss Escaflowne, and how they do events.

Of course, not all epicly geared players are greedy leaders, some really worked hard and deserved it. Some just has a more efficient group to do stuff with. But most of the EGLS I know either has a bad reputation because of favoritism, or broke because of favoritism.

Distributing gears is an art, if someone didn't get what they deserve after all the work, drama bound to occur. Greedy LS leaders won't have a good name, gears may be epic, but in the end players that's not greedy deserve more respect than those epicly geared greedy leaders. And that kind of LS won't have any good reputation. So now I learned to ignore all the afk players in jeuno/WG showing off their epic gears, who knows what's the story behind those gears. Ninja or greedy, who knows.

Sucked outside

Last Sat I did my first "Early Bird Catches the Wyrm" KS99 with MLIA for Sionnach's BB item on COR/RNG. Despite we're lv 90 doing this lv 75 event, we still wiped for the first 2 runs. It's pretty funny to see 10 well geared lv 90 players who pretty much beat every NM in abyssea still can't handle a lv 75 era BC. And I blame the atma power for spoiling us ._.

We're too used to unlimited MP in and DD tank in abyssea, and WHMs ended up running out of MP. I should take large responsibility as well, since I only gave Magus roll and DD roll for first two runs, and completely ignored Evokers. I haven't use Evokers roll and roll rotations for ages and pretty much stick with only 2 DD rolls in abyssea, and now my COR gets rusty and not all that used to timing/positioning for roll rotations.

Anyways, our run got better when Ager switched to PLD tank, COR and BRD started using Evokers/Ballad. And cg on Sionnach's new BB.

I have to say KS99 is a fairly nice experience, I finally feel my COR is relevant again in events. Buffs really make a difference, and ranged attack pew pew mode can handle the Wyrm in air mode, although I think some physical blue magic from my BLU can also hit flying enemies. I found my COR /ra actually hits pretty hard with new Triple shot and AF3+1 body to enhance Triple shot JA. Snapshot gears(4 enhance snapshot piece plus 1 snapshot+3 body piece) I collected in Abyssea also helped a lot. It should be even stronger once I finish /SAM and get a Loki for 5 hit.......um.....if getting a Loki is even possible .___.

Also, in abyssea I've been playing with COR/DNC spamming Evisceration recently. I have to say I'm falling in love with COR/DNC XD Evisceration is a very cheap and effective WS in abyssea with RR/VV, and extra 5% haste from haste samba makes a significant difference for overall pt dmg output. Curing/healing waltz is just icing on the cake. The only weakness of /DNC is melee TP feed and no shadows for protection, and this sub tend to pull hate a lot. I'd say as long as COR is fighting any melee-able mobs-NM or EXP mob that you can melee and won't die, /DNC is the best sub for overall dmg output. As long as my pt has other DDs, my pt seems to kill NMs faster if I come COR/DNC instead of BLU. Although BLU still kills EXP mob faster.

Also, since I mentioned COR pew pew mode, I have to complain a bit about COR bullets. I often accidentally shoot my Oberon bullets if I /ra, and due to low supply of Oberon this bullet is supposed to be QD only bullet. It usually won't matter if I can just resupply them. But they're literally never up on AH. Now my supply of Oberon is getting low, and have to use Steel bullets for QD as well if I /ra or else I may shoot all my Oberon and get no bullets to QD. And after a couple round of KS99 I found my steel bullet is also running low, and I can't find any on AH. This is just BS. Highest base dmg bullet COR can use is already 28 base dmg behind RNG's, and they're almost never on AH. The second highest base dmg bullet is also rarely on AH and it's like 35 base dmg lower than RNGs. Now now what should I use next to pew pew? Lv 61 Corsair's bullets? :( Why won't SE release some better and easier to obtain/synth ammo for COR if they just keep adding stats for /ra on AF3? SE wants COR go /ra, but no supply on ammo and base dmg just suck balls. /rage /rage /rage


Bahhh time to find some crafters to synth me some useable bullets :(

The death of Rolanmart

1 year ago when I just created my character, I traveled long way from Basty to Jeuno with another friend after I ding 20ish and needed a pt in Qufim. It was a long and dangerous journey, playing MGS with mobs alone the say, we had no sneak/invis w/e.
After I finally arrived at outside of Jeuno, all I saw was a bunch of ppl standing there afking. My friend explained to me that they bazaar stuff outside of Jeuno to avoid tax, this is how I first met Rolanmart, one tradition of FFXI.

Then browsing goods in Rolanmart became one of my entertainment in FFXI. It's a nice place to go when I log on and have nothing to do, but feel too tired to grind anything. They often sell some cool and rare stuff, and it's also fun to compare prices for different items. It's also a nice place to show off gears. We often see ppl wearing their pimpest gear set while afking and selling stuff. Of course ppl usually afk and show off their gears in WG at that time(now they show off their blue boxes 5/5 in Jeuno), but showing off in WG won't give any profit, while Rolanmart gives profit and a place to show off gears, very nice!

I visit Rolanmart even more often when I started my Project Death Penalty, just to see if there's any cheap alex for sell. And that's when Abyssea came out and Rolanmart started dying.

There used to be like 20 ppl selling stuff, including leaders of every EGLS. But the number decreased everyday, eventually reached zero. I stood outside of Jeuno, looking at empty Rolanmart, with no one showing off their gear, no one selling alex/ABC/currency/speed belt/hachiryu/Dusk+1 set and such. And now I admit I kinda miss the dead Rolanmart.

I don't know why ppl don't sell stuff at Rolanmart anymore. I guess ppl do more abyssea now and most of the items are ex/rare so nothing to sell really. But I guess that's just how this game changes, much like real life, old things disappear and now we miss it when it is really gone.

Shinryu, my turn + new year new goal (!?)

I /shout in Jeuno and made a pt, finally got my Raja (last title needed for Shinryu access) clear.
I got my clear with Tav brewing, only lol cape dropped. Well at least I got my 200k cruor access, incoming shinryu spam!

I only had 500k cruor when I got my access, so that means 2 brew.

I spent my first brew on date(?) with Tavera, since I already promised. That means this brew is basically a waste since no one else gonna be in the pt and proc blue.



Then I killed Shinryu on BLU spamming Sanguine blade. Ager told me his Sanguine can do 12k, mine only did 10k. I guess I'm gimp then! XD But still good enough to kill it. I probably need /RDM and get more MAB atma next time for Sanguine blade spam.

Next brew we got blue proc, I wanted to test wildfire-less COR brewing for a bit. Appearantly Leaden Salute is not as good as Sanguine for this fight. Dmg is only 6k~10k even with /RDM, dark staff and lucky number wizard's roll. Even worse, somehow it healed 20k+ if I WS at wrong time. I wasted one brew just because I healed it at least 60k HP after some failed WS.

Anyways.

Since now it's 2011, I guess I'll set up some new goal for this year as well. First goal will be play less FFXI and focus on RL more XD

I dropped almost all the events I have, only keeping Einherjar and maybe limbus sometimes. I told Ager that I will only attend Abyssea events with MLIA part time from now on. I dropped my Exodus pearl and planning to leave my Dynamis LS as well, not like I ever have time to do Dyna. I may quit my current Salvage static as well, since doing Salvage everyday just a bit too much. Ever since I started FFXI, I missed a lot of opportunity to explore my surroundings because of events everyday. Now it's time to do some other stuff I won't have time to do if I play FFXI like a second job.

So what I'm going to do? Time to find out!