Project Armageddon complete!(For now)

So after 5 months of grinding, finally.....

Lv 99 Armageddon complete!

Because I don't plan to do Afterglow for now(No gil for it...no really!), so this gun is considered completed atm.

I have to admit, I originally planned to finish it in 3.5 months, then it start to drag....and drag....and drag....in the end it dragged 1.5 month longer.

But still feel nice to finally finished this semi long project.....not as long as Mythic, but still cost about 190M regardless.

This weapon is certainly one of the rarest lv 99 choice(excluding staff/club etc that's not even really a "weapon"), so far I've only seen 2 players on my server has it. And the reason why it's rare is because out of all weapons, Armageddon has smallest gain on the way to 99.

A lv 99 Ukon, currently the most popular lv 99 empy, has 156 base dmg. A lv 90 Ukon has 131 base dmg. That's 25 base dmg increase from 90 to 99. A lv 99 Masa has 132 base dmg, and lv 90 has 114 base dmg, thus 18 base dmg increase.

A lv 90 Arma has 64 base dmg, and lv 99 has 76 base dmg, thus it's only 12 base dmg increase. It has 582 delay, Ukon has 482 delay, so Arma has 100 more delay than Ukon, but base dmg increase is only less than half of it. Those weapon with smaller base dmg increase, such as Twashtar, has 7 base dmg increase from 90 to 99, but also literally hits 3 times faster.

Couple with the fact that Corsair is still 2nd least popular job this year, it's not very surprising that despite this weapon is one of the most job changing empy weapon, it's only more popular than club/staff/polearm/bow/scythe/axe(all those are generally subpar empy except bow) to 99. Based on the 11th census, it's even less popular than Cala D;

But regardless, this weapon is still, no doubt, best gun COR can use in this game in most situations. To a point that I gave up my long term dream of Death Penalty to 99 this. In VW Arma win over DP in every way, due to the fact that I WS 2.5 times faster than QD. DP only pull ahead when QD/WS ratio getting close to 1:1, which is outside of VW. But Arma also has 10 extra racc, that more or less offset the difference in events such as legion when racc is an issue.

It is possible that Arma got outparsed by DP in situations when QD/WS ratio close to 1:1. But regardless, I'm still quite happy to make the choice to 99 this weapon first, considering it's way more versatile than DP and cheaper too.
Maybe, maybe one day I will continue to finish DP. But atm, I want to take a break from farming all those damn gil.

Calm before the storm?

According to BG thread here:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/109245-Neo-Nyzul-Isle-(CAUTION-GMs-have-been-banning-for-flee-tools)/page128

Apparently one of the Nyzul vid posted on youtube made some players on JP official forum went /rage(I tried to avoid generalization here, considering there are also NA players rage against 3rd pt tool in Nyzul). That vid on youtube showed a group of players cleared Nyzul F100, with .dat swap and windower.

Then plenty of players on JP official forum /rage against it, demanding SE to take action against cheaters in Nyzul, especially the players in that Youtube vid. Thus there's a possibility that Salvage ban hammer nightmare will come back again, if SE really decide to do it.

Just to state my POV regarding 3rd pt tool/.dat swap. Personally I think using those are, regardless what reason for any player to use, are against the ToS and it's fact, and players have pretty much 0 excuse if its banned because of it. Terribly designed UI and macro doesn't make it legit, order lamp doesn't make it legit, random number generator doesn't make it legit etc. I have no intention to act as a justice freak to lecture anyone been using it, just that any consequence and risks come after using it is the user itself has to bear.

Further more, based on the SE's history, anyone in same pt as 3rd pt tool users/cheaters also deserves a ban according to SE's standard. So SE banned entire salvage alliance when they duplicate drops, not just the player lotted drops or alliance lead. SE also banned entire pt of flee hackers in Nyzul too, even if one player in pt doesn't flee, entire pt will be banned.

That is also understandable standard, since if you pt with cheaters, even if you're not cheating, you're still getting the benefit.(Although IMO, in the case of Salvage, it's just SE's lazy way to solve the problem)

However, what I care about is, whether it will be fair to execute ban hammer or not.

Honesty, I never understand SE's standard regarding 3rd pt tool/cheating. Nor some BG POV about "If you're not using windower/spellcast etc, you're gimping yourself".

The point of ToS is to create a fair playing environment, so everyone has same advantage/disadvantage.
As a player who never use any 3rd pt tool, I have to admit I'm often in a disadvantage in this game. I swap gears slower, parse lower(although I'm not the one parsing), has higher chance to die in an event, claim NM slower, I can't skill up craft or magic when I go to bed, and I fucking shoot my QD bullet twice in my life when other CORs never shoot it and ended up having to farm Akvan often. So basically, according to BG standard, I'm "gimping myself", and just happened to have worse performance in this game because of no windower/spellcast. This also caused myself to hate Nyzulv2 event as a whole, probably hate it as much as Abyssea, after all who'd love an event that I'm suffering more disadvantage compare with other players?
And at this point of game, I'm not going to expect SE, nor ask SE to ban those 3rd pt tool users also. Even if players posted youtube vid clearly showing they using 3rd pt tool/.dat swap, they're still not gonna ban the players.

So that means, if they're going to keep the "3rd pt tool/.dat swap is ok" standard, and keep Afania in disadvantage in this game, that's fine, but the standard has to be consistent and shouldn't be mass banning Nyzul pt also.

If SE plan to mass banning Nyzul pt with .dat swap due to against ToS, causing 1/3 NA players on this server to disappear, then the entire standard should apply to everything. Ban players spamming same magic spell in Abby Paradox for 4hrs, ban players who openly admitted on the forum or chat that they used spellcast, and ban every account posted on Youtube and showed that they used windower. And ban entire HNM pt/alliance if one person bot/ASE on 1 pop NM/VNM.

But the real question is, can/will SE do that?

Based on the past history, SE doesn't seemed have enough man power to ban illegal players accurately, and often rely on auto-jail thing(and often caught innocent players in between). Salvage item dupe ban, gardening ban, Nyzul flee ban can easily be executed with an auto-jail script or some sort(that's why innocent players got caught with Gardening ban). However, Nyzul .dat swap ban is much, much harder to execute accurately, unless they have a way to detect client side .dat swap.

If they don't have a way, then they can only rely on chat log, and I'm 100% sure this won't be a fair execution to rely on chat log, as too many room for error to use chat log as evidence.

Players using chat log to indicated numbers of the lamp can argue that it's just their own communication code to make things faster to type. And players who uses skype/vent can escape ban hammer with .dat swap, making this method unfair. Thus I highly doubt chat log will be the standard of ban hammer, nor SE willing to use more resource/hire more ppl to ban those players(if you need to filter all the chat log to ban ppl, you need to hire more ppl to do so, that's more money spend). Of course they can if they really, really want to, although I'd doubt they'd use the resource on wrong area overall w.

Another easier way, and faster to execute without hiring more ppl, is to write an auto-jail script that bans any pt that beats lamp order on 1st try without failing. Although personally I've 1/1 on order lamp before without .dat swap, so this method will surely ban innocents also. Or they can write the script and ban pt that 1/1 on order lamp twice, since 1/1 on order lamp twice has a much, much lower chance to happen without .dat swap. But then more problem occurred, that pt with 1 order lamp floor will escape the ban, unless they adds all run up per player(instead of only counting one pt/run)

Of course, still room for banning the innocents, but SE probably wouldn't care.

Based on this blog post: http://kanican.livejournal.com/39517.html, and several other player experience, SE never care about being fair regarding banning ppl. What's written in that post is totally accurate assessment:

As the ToS clearly states, you can be banned "for any reason, or no reason," at any time.

As I stated months earlier, throw online morality out the window. You are not in real life with laws to protect you from being potentially screwed over by what you perceive to be unfair. The ToS is not capatable with law because in life, the law is written to protect its citizens - the ToS is written to protect SE, not you. Debating what is fair or unfair makes for an interesting forum debate, but ultimately, it just doesn't matter in the world of Vana'diel.

TL;DR Version:
As hard as it may be, don't take this game or your characters too seriously. I promise you - the guys that really own your account don't.

In other words, if you pt with other 3rd pt tool user, and SE decide to ban you, suck it up. If you don't want to use spellcast/windower, and play this game worse than everyone else+shoots QD bullet, suck it up too. Nothing is fair, and SE doesn't care whether it's fair or not.


Also, one word of advice.

Don't listen to/trust  BG POV ever. It's nice to get strat for new event, or ask for gear advice on BG. But when it comes to BG POV, it got really dangerous, due to those kind of POV worships succeed, and obsessed with succeed, that any means can be used to achieve the goal in most efficient/successful way, and this kind of POV is dangerous, in game and irl.

When Nyzul was out, plenty of player been suggesting using flee hack because "SE won't ban player for using it", so flee hack players flee hacks all day, beats F100 with ease, show off on BG then started to suggest players to flee hack because it's safe and SE won't bother banning them, until SE perma banned some player for fleeing.

Then BG POV suggested players to .dat swap and fillmode or else "you will never clear F100 ever", and "it's undetectable on client side". The fact is, if SE really want to, an auto-jail script targeting pt that 1/1 on order lamp can easily caught .dat swappers.

And honestly, it's this kind of "breaking ToS is ok because you will not get caught" POV that sometimes ruined many player's account, and slowly pushing players into more risk due to peer pressure. It's like entire class cheats, and tells those who doesn't cheat should cheat too because they won't get caught, or else those who doesn't cheat will have inferior grade in class.

And "SE can't afford ban hammer at this point of time or else the game will be dead" is also a risky argument, it's just an assumption. If they want to, they will still ban player regardless that will cut playerbase by 1/3 or not.

Either way, whether ban hammer would come or not, is pretty interesting to see. Personally I'm done with this game if it comes so I can enjoy RL more, and somehow I'm half expecting it, so I can quit FFXI, enjoy RL and see ppl's reaction when they're banned wwwwww. This game will suffer way more population lose than salvage ban anyways, if they auto-ban players that 1/1 on order lamp that is.

A mirror

Sometimes when I play FFXI, I can't help but find it funny, that FFXI showed true side of myself, maybe.

Sometimes it wasn't until "something" happened in FFXI, that I realized my own weakness. Although I have no idea why.

I agree, I don't particularly good, or like to deal with human relationships. I understand the importance of it for anyone want to be successful, as doing anything irl or in this game is all about connections.

Thus I often try to please other, but in reality, actually hold a grudge....and when I hold a grudge against another person, I'm not going to show it by saying "you're a retard" right in his face. So in the end I ended up being the one getting hurt the most.

There are plenty of players I've met in XI, with all sorts of different way to deal with connections. I know ppl that's nice and often ^^ for everything, and good at hiding their attitude under a sweet and happy mask, or ppl that is extremely rude for everything. The ones who will get most friends however, is the type of player that's sincere and modest. However, it doesn't seem to have much connection to how successful a player is.

The way I'm doing things, is probably different from a lot of other ppl. Other ppl often just /blist or straight ignore, or ask "what's your problem with me". But that's not type of person I am, I often suppress it, for many reasons, but probably mainly because I hate emotional reactions. However, I also easily hold a grudge for other ppl's rude attitude. And a lot of times their attitude may not be THAT rude, just that I'm extremely sensitive towards rude attitude.

So eventually it fires back, and when it did, it hits hard.

Not that I like others to please me/kiss my ass, just like how I hate to kiss other's ass/please others(although I do it often). Any attitude that tried to please me/rude/not trusting, will make me feel extremely uncomfortable.

So there's one person, that his attitude I don't particularly like, but he is quite a good player. I've been trying to get him into legion group, and he does showed interest. But his attitude, probably deserves a straight /blist from me.

So there comes the decision, get him in, deal with it, for the benefit of entire group(Afania's correct choice), straight say "no" in his face, to revenge(Afania's incorrect choice). Or setup a trap, to make him look bad in front of everyone and made him lose face, and still get him in(Afania's "want to" choice)

Of course the only correct choice ever exist is No.1 for me. I suppress personal emotion/preference for the sake of being successful due to how obsessed I'm with being successful. Whenever I make ally for legion, I sometimes got mad at Ganu when he invited ppl: I try to fill up the spot with players best suited for certain spot and priority is based on performance, while Ganu invited ppl in LS then adjust the pt based on ppl's job. 99% of playerbase do things in Ganu's way, since ppl tend to play MMO with friends/for fun, while I "use" every player like a chess piece, that every player in that spot has to perform properly, and will toss/sacrifice any chess piece to ensure victory. Value result over individual. Whoever plays long enough with me probably already know it, Tavera often call me "Robot" because I'm cold as ice. Zeig once said I will probably kick him out of Provenance watcher ally until he finishes Rag. Sziha once said I only want to get things done my way.

Of course, not everyone is happy with it, I swear I heard unhappy noise after some ppl left Nyzul V2 static. But under the name of "for the benefit of whole group", suppressing personal emotion/preference always wins.

So following such formula, the correct choice will be No.1. I go kiss that player's ass despite I don't like his rude attitude, we got a good player for higher win rate. There's no way I'd say no in front of face even if I want to.

But then I realized, I've been lying long enough.

Lying to myself, especially.

I know plenty of players that's good at kissing other's ass/pleasing other player just to gain an advantage, so why can't I do the same.

Maybe, maybe sometimes I need to be fucking honest about how I feel for fucking just once.

I guess, this world just isn't fair for average ppl. Bad ass ppl that's good at something, gets to be rude and bad ass, and still have everyone pleasing him/kissing his ass just because he's good. While we average commoners have to please our boss, please bad ass ppl, wears a smiling mask to everyone to survive in this world and be successful, then come back and rant on blog like a whiny little girl.

Fuck. This. World.

Fight for accuracy

After some experience in legion, I'm facing a difficult problem.....my racc sucked after 2nd wave, my triple shot missed 3 shots in a roll, my last stand missed twice in a roll until I put up hunters. If it's old gimpfania I'd probably just straight ignore and gimp it up, but now that I decided to act like a good kid since I have a pimp gun now ;) time to solve racc issue.

Fighting for accuracy is always, between getting as much dmg as possible and still able to hit. So it's a choice between sacrificing one or another.

First 2 things to look at, is food and SJ. Sushi v.s Pot-Au-Feu, /RNG v.s /SAM.

Honestly, ability to darkness SC is too good in Hall of An, thus hard to give up. In other hall Sek/Meditate means extra WS also, still too hard to give up. Seigan+Third eye isn't as useful as expected, but better than nothing. /RNG gives extra 22 racc, more or less helps, while Hasso is extra 7 STR.

22 racc v.s 7 STR+meditate+sekka+STPII(less relevant due to I don't have x-hit, maybe time to work on it for legion once I'm more comfortable with racc)+third eye......

Going to keep /SAM for now.

As for food, probably pot-au-Feu too.

Rolls: Chaos+Hunters probably, I honestly can't cap racc without hunters. Sacrificed regain buff slot, but probably not as relevant when all NMs are zerg fight.

Can also ask for prelude if BRD is around.

TP set: There are a couple of slot that can get a bit higher racc.

Head: AF3+2--->Palnatoke's cape.  Spend 1 extra inv for +1 racc on head slot. Looks like very minor increase. Put it on low priority list....not to mention P.cape is 800k on my server....

Body: AF3+2----->Gunman gambison. This is probably biggest improvement, although another inv-1, but Gunman gambison has total of 20 racc plus 17.5 rattk. That's 6 extra racc in body slot. The only problem is this item is never on AH, and also drops from legion.

Back: Libeccio. Nothing to change, been using this one already.

Legs: Mirador. Again, already have this, nothing to change.

Hands: AF3+2, nothing to change.

Waist: Relic belt, nothing to change.

Feet: Praeda----->T.abj feet. Since I don't have abj, and don't have -1, I can't do anything about this slot also.

Ring: Merman/bellona----->Hadjuk x2. That's 14 more accuracy, and probably the best/easiest upgrade for TP set.

It seems easiest way to fix TP set is Hadjuk x2, until Gunman gambison ever pop on AH.

Last stand set:
This is probably the most pain in the ass one. My current set looks like this:

P.S, Ignore the Nguul in pic, it's not used when I /SAM.

WS gorget/belt stays. It seems that swapping out any of the Thaumas gear are quite a large AGI STR lose.

Math time(headache....my math sucked)

If I swap out one AGI rng to Hadjuk, I'm losing 7 AGI for 16 racc, thus 0.4375 AGI for 1 racc.

If I swap out Thaumas hands to Alruna, I'm losng 4 AGI  5 STR for 9 rattk 9 acc, thus  0.4444 AGI for 1 racc(not counting rattk and STR)

If I swap Thaumas head to AF3+2, I'm losing 9 AGI 11 STR 6 rattk for 16 racc, thus 0.5625 AGI for 1 racc.

Body: If I use AF3+2 instead, losing 10 STR 10 AGI for 14 more racc and 1 more rattk, thus 0.7 AGI for 1 racc.

Legs: If I use Mirador, losing 14 STR 14 AGI for 6 AGI 6 STR and 14 racc, thus 0.5714 AGI for 1 racc.

Seems only AGI rings and thaumas hands are worth swapping out.

Considering I already sold my Alruna, and don't want to spend 1.5M to buy it back, not to mention hand slot can be athos on correct day for even higher dmg, the most logical choice is ring and back slot. 1 AGI ring------>Hadjuk, back piece---->L.mantle, that way only lost 7 AGI 10 rattk and gained 26 racc, 0.269 AGI and 0.384 rattk for 1 racc, it's the least WS dmg lose I can come up with for highest racc gain. If still doesn't work, then need to sacrifice 2nd AGI ring for another racc ring....hopefully there are no need to walk to this step.

Rest all rely on hunters roll, and occasionally prelude.

Time to give a try next run, maybe.

Hall of An cleared!

After 2 weeks of trying, and 3 failed attempt(due to some small mistake here and there), Hall of An finally cleared!

Last Stand did pretty well, but won't work properly without hunter's roll/prelude.

Again, this event have very little room for error, ally hate/aggro in 2nd wave fucked the ally up almost every run. Almost fucked the last run too. Thankfully PLD managed to get it back up. Pt certainly rotate buffs much faster now, the only improvement to be made is aggro/ally hate and better acc/DD dmg for DDs.

After watching some JP vid in Hall of Mul, I've been seriously considering SCH/BLM x3 rotate stun instead of rely on SMN PD.

There are a couple of advantages of using SCH over SMN.

Embrava 100% of time, with heavy need on acc songs, it's near impossible to have room for marches, embrava full time helps a lot.

Doesn't need to rely on successful 2hr reset for PD.

3 SCH rotate stun should be able to stun the NM like chainspell, have stun up 100% of time, without relying on 2hr reset. A good WHM should also able to keep the DDs alive.

Considering how hard it is to find 5~7 SMNs, I'd say this strat worth a try.

Anyways, hopefully can clear Hall of Mul one day and get that damn snapshot feet!

Legion notes

So far it's been 2 weeks(2 runs) since I started legion with HouseAtreus LS.

I started leading after 2nd week, to deal with pt organization and shit. Dragging ppl that's good at certain spot, decide what buff to use, decide pt setup, call pt rotation and so on.

And I can't help but enter Afania whiny/rant mode:

"ZOMG LEGION IS HARD"


Even 1st starting 4 halls, I'd rate it as hard, or probably harder, than Einherjar T3 at 75.

And certainly one of the currently hardest event atm. I'd rate it harder than OdinII, just because OdinII you can bring more ppl to deal with that shitty amount of HP, while legion is limited with 18 ppl.

The thing is, with 18 ppl, the entire ally is like a 100 year old machine....hard to get it move the way I want. Any one person make a mistake, it often had pretty big impact on killing speed.

And due to limited amount of time and small zone, there are very little room for error.
Any fail pull, fail link, fail aggro, fail PD, fail Embrava, fail nuke or fail accuracy will result pt wipe, and may ended up time out.

But anyways, enough rant.

Just as everyone says, accuracy is very bad in legion, even with Madrigal, DRK still parsed 60% acc. BRD only has empy 90, so only 3 songs. Even if BRD has 4 songs+2x Madrigal, I highly doubt melees will cap acc unless they SV due to 2nd Madrigal sucked. The best solution for this is probably use hunters+chaos on COR. Will sacrifice DA roll, but DA roll is never potent enough to begin with, not to mention the amount of DA DDs already packed with nowadays. In fact an average number hunter's roll probably still not cap acc unless DDs do some acc swap to TP set.

DDs would probably need to parse and find out correct way to gear.

I'm still not used to /SAM or even DD outside of VW on COR. COR's damage output outside of VW is much, much lower with much slower TP speed, (Q.Q). Hopefully I can get back and get better at DDing in legion D; Now need to make new macro for /SAM JAs so I can pop right JAs faster.....Sek WF WF for 1st SC on turtle, reset Sek with random deal if all other JAs are up after popping Snake eye to force reset Sek. Then Meditate Fire shot fire shot after another WF to pull of 2nd SC. That's 3 SC without using 2hr on turtle and only need to gain total 300 TP to pull off, which shouldn't be that slow with triple shot.

I also need to change merit a bit due to how legion works(since my merit is currently for VW+Prov)

HP/MP: Going to cap out HP for now, the more HP I have, the more hit I can sustain.

I should just alter between HP/MP depending on what I do next anyways, since my merit is often capped. In dyna solo on BLU I gain more benefit from MP merit, but in VW/Legion or Abyssea HP is probably the way to go.

Group1: Nothing to change here, PR recast/QD recast is still the most optimal choice, especially with limited time, less PR recast means faster buffs.

Group2: Probably going to change to Snake eye 5/5 Winning streak 3/5 Fold 1/5 RD1/5.
Tbh, VW really changed the way how CORs roll, the fact that it's a pop NM, and there are rift to hold buffs, allow COR to pop much better rolls. There are many times I needed snake eye, but snake eye recast time not up and pt not popping anytime soon, I just lock my double-up status and wait until snake eye up again. It's certainly much easier to have a No.11 up and more time to bust and retry.

But in legion, there really isn't much time to aim for good numbers, and probably need to rely on snake eye 5/5 to get more chance for No.11. I'm totally spoiled in VW, and just want to live in VW ;<

Since I rebuff pt after every kill, may as well make the duration shorter(although it'd be the best if each buff can last for 2 NM to reduce the pt rotate time, which is something I need more time to experiment with)

Anyways, hopefully we can clear Hall of Mul one day....seems like a long way to go, and somewhat stressing to shoulder everything DX

Gobbiebag giveaway!

According to SE, this is probably last time SE gonna hand out items, and funny thing is, it really going to "hand out items" to your Dbox if you win XD

But anyways, below are my personal choice for the Gobbiebag reward.


I:
Death Penalty....if it's 1 year ago, I may not make up my mind to pick DP so I don't waste effort wasted on DP already, but at this point of time I just want to get it done and gtfo from gil farming hell.

Only 1 winner anyways, so unlikely to win.

II:
Well....Riftdross x60 >< Because I NEED MOAR DROSS TO FINISH ARMA.

I know it's a dumb choice, riftcinder or marrow x5 worth way more than dross. But again, at this point of time I just want to get Arma 99 done and gtfo.....don't want to deal with selling/checking bazaar, /shouting to buy etc.


III:
Both Khepri Jacket and T.saio are items I want, but prov just won't drop, and K.jacket has additional task of needing to find/synth a -1 for it. Technically K.Jacket is harder to obtain due to -1 synth assuming abj has same lame drop rate as T.saio, but T.saio has more use. So I picked T.saio it is.

IV:
Ark Saber.....

Once again, stupid choice, Scythe is way more useful than saber due to scythe red proc, but I hate Abyssea, would rather never go back to Abyssea, and most importantly, Saber looks 100000x cooler than scythe.

Coolness>usefulness, thus I picked Saber. After I picked it, I laughed so hard. Lol@ this game, lol@ doing it wrong/making wrong choices. As I always do, right?