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?

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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).