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 ._.