-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.