Odin2

Recently I had to move back to TW, that means I no longer play in NA timezone. (Not like PST timezone is any good, since majority of players are EST and often went to bed when I log on)

I was worried that I can't get anyone to play with, since the time I log on, other english speaking players I know of would be working. So there's only Middle east players(if they get home early), SG players(I only know 2 on my server now, Escaflowne LS was dead for a very long time), and AU players left. 

This is probably one of the worst timezone unless you speak JP, which I don't. You have to compete with 1000000x JP BSTs in dyna, on top of not be able to join any /shout because JPs don't play with outsiders. EU and middle east players don't get many ppl to play with, but at least they get empty dyna  :(

Oh and if you try to /shout, you won't get any reply either because JPs don't join auto-translated /shouts.

Luckily I got into a JPLS. I wasn't expecting JP community to accept an outsider, since I barely speak JP at all. I have to rely on auto translation, and auto translation are one of the worst way to communicate. I don't use windower, that means I can't google translate phrases then copy and paste. All I can rely on, is my shit grammar I learned in Japanese 9 and 10 classes I took when I was in high school, my ability to read Kanji, and my ability to guess the meaning using basic grammar, combination of Kanji and Katakana(a lot of words they used, you can probably guess the meaning if you know Katakana and read them in English)

To make things easier, I told them that I'm from TW so "please use more Kanji". For JPs Kanji seems to be more formal way of writing, so you'd see more Kanji on Newspaper or PJ /shout. But in /l or /p chat they rarely use it unless it's job name or specific terms.

I was a bit hesitated to let them know where I'm from, because I heard TW players used to had bad reputation among JP communities. On top of Japan currently have pretty bad relationship with China and Taiwan due to political issues. Hey, maybe they'll kick me if they know I'm from TW!

But their reaction was quite surprising

You probably don't need translations to see that they love TW very much lol.

Then entire LS spent next 5 min discussing what I was saying in English, how Taiwan sent earthquake aid a few years ago to help Japan.

Before I move out of Canada, if I tell anyone in FFXI that I'm from Canada, their reaction was often like "lol Canada", unless they're also from Canada. (If they're from Canada, they go "Canada is awesome!" like I do. Because, well, only Canadians love Canada :))

If I told those JPs that I'm from Canada, for them I'm just "another Gaijin" from a country nobody  gives a damn about. Now that I told them I'm from TW, so my status just upgraded from "Just another Gaijin" to "A Gaijin from TW", so yay?

So one day I logged on and found them doing Odin2.(P.S they usually aren't big enough for Odin2 and probably don't have lots of experience with it) Since I wanted Odin2 clear for ages, too lazy to make a group for it, and other NA groups big enough to kill Odin2 won't let me in and leech kill, I decided to go.

I've tried Odin2 twice before this fight and both fight failed. Most of the groups uses traditional HNM fight style, PLD tank the boss, ranged DD such as relic RNG deal dmg without pulling hate. It's one of the few endgame event that's not DD zerga.

I haven't play COR in endgame for months, so it's an exciting opportunity, to test my current skill and newly improved macro/play style XD.

Odin2 IMO, it's not an easy NM for DD COR. Other endgame situations I more or less found a way to deal dmg on COR by altering pt setup and change DD style. Odin2, as long as the pt killing it in old HNM style, there's no way out.

The reason is pretty simple, if you deal dmg you pull hate XD.

Odin2 has high MDB, thus WF dmg isn't good on it. If you use buffed last stand, you will pull hate and die. In fact, last time when I did Odin2 with HA I pulled hate on WF, despite WF dmg isn't good. Due to lack of survive-ability on this job, if I pull hate I die XD

Unless the pt do Odin2 with a DD tank, I really don't see a solution for this. I guess this fight is just relic RNG's playground :(

But that doesn't mean I'll just go in then roll and afk! Time to take out my enmity- set! Since last stand pulls hate, the ideal way to DD is probably WF spam, and just deal with low dmg WF.

I changed my merit to Enmity-, hoping to survive longer to deal more dmg, thanks to new Sigyn hands, it's now possible to hit enmity- 50 with merit. Oh, and don't forget PDT- set in case I do pull hate, although I know that PDT- set usually doesn't save me D;

I choose to /RDM so I can get WF increase and some survive-ability with SS/blink.

As gathering time comes close, more and more ppl started to pop, ended up having 30+ ppl.

Honestly, I haven't been to any NALS this big for a very long time. HA never have enough for Odin2, Cleanupcrew I highly doubt they can gather 30+. Profit2 isn't big enough either. Currently out of all the LS I have, Cynosure is the biggest and even Cynosure rarely have that many ppl, let alone Cyno isn't event LS.

This brought back some old memory, when Odin fight was a big thing and we did Ein as a LS of 30 ppl. In fact even my 1st Odin clear we didn't have 30+.

I was in RNG pt, although it's actually 2 anni RNG 2 Yoichi SAM BRD COR. Pt lead asked for hunter+chaos. Personally I think it's better for RNGs to get regain Chaos and only yoichi SAMs get hunter chaos due to several reasons, but since I can't speak JP nor have a good argument to support my reasoning, I did chaos/hunters for 4 relic ranged DDs and saved some headache.

You may think 34 ppl is an easy win when ppl on BG claimed to win with 2 pts. But in fact it's not, it was still a mess when multiple adds popped XD

I realized enmity- WF set isn't all that needed on Odin after all because WF dmg is really bad even with wizards and max dmg set. I only pulled hate from Odin once entire fight, and that's after my pt mostly dead and not a lot of DDs left.

I got careless, used full dmg set on an add, did a 3k WF on a valkyrie and that made her mad, so I died after 1 TP move+2~3 swings.

Lesson learned, must have some form of enmity- or /NIN when WF on adds, those adds took full WF dmg unlike Odin.

Speaking of survive-ability, /RDM isn't very good either. SS/blink takes too long to cast, if I want to keep them up I need to refresh myself to have mp too. If I want to cast them when I pull hate I need aquaveil also, that's massive amount of dmg lose to cast everything. /NIN is probably easier if survive-ability is an issue.

But at least I survived longer than RNGs. Anni RNGs died pretty early. Main reason why I believe regain is superior to hunter. Anni RNGs shouldn't have acc issue, but regain roll lowers TP dmg overall, that means less hate generation from TP phrase.

I'm really not used to HNM style fight like this, time to get used to it again and find a way to deal as much dmg as possible(oh god I'm such a DD whore recently, where's my mage/support COR spirit again?)


Anyways, Epic Einherjar title obtained!