BLM nighttime

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Nighttime for my BLM. There are new spells to get for him and, if I get a new AM spell for him, it will be Freeze II.

He is done killing Diabolos the old easy way due to the new updates and that means no Fenrir stone either. Square Enix(SE) has rigged the BLMs ability so that if several spells are cast on notorious monsters(NM), the monsters will begin to resist spells. Previously I thought this meant an end to Manaburn but it doesn't mean that really.

I got my Insomnia Earring and it goes along great with the rest of my BLM gear. I still don't have my Moldy though. Hmmm. I'm starting to think maybe I should really have it by now. I don't miss it though. Anytime I feel I am lacking in skill I just have to party with another job and check out the BLM on duty and realize how inferior a lot of BLMs are. They take damage a lot; are frequently out of MP; and "can you count on them to save chain 5?" Pfft! You might as well ask the RDM to nuke. The little MAB plus 5 ain't saving a lot of BLMs abilities in a party too often. That's why I laugh to myself so often when people start to make fun of others. It's usually them that are the stupid ones. You see it's easy to go to the forums and check out what everybody is saying about gear and stuff but put you, Mr. PLD who reads BLM forums, in a situation where you gotta save the exp chain and you are gonna be saying, "The monsters are too tough to chain cuz our BLM has a Moldy".

/laugh

I have been leveling SMN lately and sadly, that means my focus on BLMing is going to wane. Every time I change a job I forget all sorts of stuff like Stun and Drain and Elemental Seal etc. One time I was doing a ZM mission with Uchipu and she actually had to ask me what happened to my MB. Well you can guess what happened. I was in the middle of a Cure spell. That was one time she was all about BLMs NOT curing. It kind of sucks to have to play more than one job.

I had a good time with Assault on Monday with Kirbyprime. He put together a good group to get get the Excavation Duty and the Leujoem Cleansing quests done. We didn't succeed at Excavation Duty but we did win the second one. We had only 5 people though. I need to get my Mamool Ja Staging Point done.

I am finally finished the dull but visually pleasing game Condemned: Criminal Origins. It is VERY pretty to look at but is very slow and tedious. It's perhaps TOO much like real detective work. But on the bright side now I can read the manual for it that I wasted my money on and it is probably sure to put me to sleep.

SMN thoughts

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Summoner is resting easy for now. I printed out the quest for getting the Kukulcan's Staff since I can use it now. That is the Artifact Weapon for SMN. It should be relatively easy for me to obtain now that I have a maxed out BLM. There is also the Himmel Stock that I could use though and that adds GOBS of MP to my magic pool but I don't think I will need MP that much. I do expect to need some of the AF gear for SMN though I haven't looked up the items specifically. I am so misshapen with my jobs now. I need to level my WHM but don't wanna do that. I need to level my THF but don't wanna do that. My BLM better get cracking with Maxing out exp in manaburn while it is still possible to Manaburn.

Meh. I will put it off for a while I guess. I kind of feel like taking up fishing again, but you can't play another game while fishing unfortunately.

Dynamis momanis hyanis

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Doing quests is much easier now at 75 since I don't aggro stuff at all hardly. Plus, with WHM sub, at 72 my BLM got the city Teleport spells to help me with traveling and stuff.

Well Dynamis-Bastok went well for me I guess. I didn't die more than twice but we had a much smaller group and not enough healers. We needed to clear them out quicker is what the leader said and so we just stopped short and ran out of time. The game is very laggy during Dynamis. I find myself having trouble using the /assist function well. Often I found myself wanting to use F8 to target the nearest mob, but the DRGs in the pt always screw that up. I always end up targeting their dragon. SE should fix this. Why would anyone want to target a DRGs dragon?

I really need to get my Sleepga II scroll. I only need two parties of 70+ for that. Hmm, I keep thinking maybe the whole Dynamis group would maybe help me kill that NM real quick. Yeah right.

I talked to Shanisasha in the ls yesterday and she sed that there is a Dynamis that is done on Wednesday. I would like to attend that one also but I don't know if you can since it is a 72 hour waiting period before re-entry. That one was for Dynamis-Jeuno.

I can't say I have really wanted to party lately. I am getting into playing on my XBOX 360. I bought Condemned: Criminal Origins game and am trying that out. I like it. I have to say it's much more fun playing right away than having to wait for an invite. It's a very dark game though. You spend the entire time with your flashlight on looking for things in what are very intricate environments. It's good practice for wannabe detectives. It's VERY tedious. You also gotta like to hit things with a pipe. The enemies are crazed people that carry pipes. You get like any guns you find with bullets but there is no ammo in the game so whatever ammo is in the weapon is all ya got. Most of the time you gotta pick which pipe you fancy best and bust heads with that. I bought the book for it but that was a waste. I should have waited til I finished it. This game I will probably not play again anyway so finding every last hidden thing isn't too important to me.

I sold all my stuff in Jeuno so I guess it's time to farm again. I wonder if they are gonna send me my money for Monday via Delivery Box. I wonder if I will even get any money.

Bastok is the city.

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Dynami-Bastok is tonight. I wonder if I will be ready for the multiple-death city event. Who knows. I know that I will be taking the cash option though cuz I have little use for the tonban thingy. I might want to lot on the Assassin's Vest though. Hmmm.

Found it!

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Gonna try real hard to make it to Dynamis-Bastok this Monday. I had problems last Monday and I gave my excuses to the leader but he didn't respond. I hope I am still welcome. I probably am, but I will try to be early this time. Where are my stickies?

I like SMN but I think I really need to be building the parties. I always end up with really weird parties that last either 5 minutes before everyone disbands or really good parties with a PLer. I don't think people know just where to put a SMN. I personally don't like to make the parties cuz I am too busy playing Oblivion on my other screen while lfg to do that.

I wanna say something else but nah. I am gonna cease talking about negative things.

Who's hungry?

I am Peter Pan

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:40 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

As the passing of the sun, so comes the new air, as does an exhalation. Spent time is just that, time that is gone. Whether you spent it well or not, is not for you to decide now, only that your memory of it was sweet.

But I will struggle to find a new light. Keeping quiet works in JP parties really well so that's what I will do in the new ls... try to ignore crassness.

I won't send little messages to my friends either. I have yet to send people /tells in the linkshell. Using /tell is like saying that what I have to say is not for everyone's ears. That is what is typical among thieves, or pirates, to use notes and symbols and codes. Some would call these spy tools. It's really pathetic. Spies are also known as two-faced people btw. I can tell by a brash of silence in the linkshell that people are just typing away like crazy. I wonder if they actually snivel while they type!

In other news, I got SMN to 40. I enjoy using SMN quite a bit. People wonder what the hell I am doing sometimes but I think I help out a great deal.

Booted

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:38 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Well I got booted by the danged filter device thing again. And it happened of all days on a Monday. The power switched off for just a moment and then I lost my internet. I figured it was just temporary so I waited a little while but it wasn't overheated at all. The powerloss had affected my router also so I had to reset that and I didn't realize that until too late.

At 8pm I finally get online and find everyone right in the middle of doing Dynamis-Jeuno. Drat! Well I could have felt guilty but I shouldn't since it wasn't my fault.

I felt guilty.

I logged off and just continued to play Oblivion. Nice name for a game heh. Whenever I want to get away from it all I just go back to Oblivion, lol.

I like to stay seeking in Crawler's Nest so I don't have to go back and forth from Jeuno. I am just gonna take it easy for a while til I get nice and settled in on the new linkshell. I am feeling a lot less stressed lately I have to say.

Ramblings of an Ex-CEO

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:38 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

I have been running around lately getting cutscenes for the Aht Urgan missions. They are interesting but are lengthy. Still, it's probably a good idea to get all the cutscenes done so that I am ready when they start to include the new missions in upcoming updates that involve A REWARD, lol.

Thinking about what to do today, I believe I have to level my SMN a bit more. I still have to get one more Staging Point, Mamool Ja I believe, but I am not in the mood to do that. I am still at a loss of words at the start of the new linkshell. I wonder what purpose this serves. I wonder what role I have in it. I am just going to have to maintain my presence low key until I get used to it. Mithrandel and Emagyen are not in this new linkshell.

Uchipu's husband is now a member. This I applaud because it's my belief that a couple is the best kind of leader to have. It's hard to disrespect a leader when their significant other is sitting right there. This is part of what went wrong with Mith and Ema, cuz Ema likes spell it out for you if you do something wrong, but Mith doesn't take kindly to the word "female dog" spoken to his wife. If it were up to me, I wouldn't allow talk like that anyhow. It serves no purpose and is NOT effective communication. In fact, insults signal a breakdown of any useful information exchange. So if there is nothing useful to be said then all you are doing to fighting each other, which can all be done in /tells.

One thing though, I can't explain then why other people were given Sackholder status. A sackholder is a leader. You can expect that a sackholder is someone that the ls leader "trusts". Well, by taking away my "status" and giving others said status, I can only assume I am LESS respected by the leader. Similarly, Ema and Mith were treated the same way. Even Kirbyprime is no longer a sackholder.

It's a noble sentiment to have a ls with only members and one ls leader that promises to never kick anybody, and indeed this is what Fernanda and Inverno were hoping for right before they left. I thought that is what Uchipu meant to do when she announced the new ls. Then she said Cornnholio would be a sackholder. That I could not understand? Why have any sackholders in the new ls? To start a new ls and make some other people leaders and try to keep the old leaders as members with a diminished status and tell them it's "new", well that's just a staid remark. You have basically just covered up what you really did. You kicked the old leaders and kept the members. This, after the old leaders made the linkshell nice and fat with communication and knowledge and participation. People don't join a major ls to do stuff on a regular basis, they join it for the same reason that people go to a bar. They want to relax and talk and shoot a game of pool maybe. They wanna go where they will be "recognized" as a regular. A good leader makes it "attractive" to put the pearl on. A good leader doesn't have to show up to events all of the time and talk to everyone and remain calm in the face of insults, but it helps. And that's what I did.

The new linkshell is basically... Fernanda Hohito Emagyen Kirbyprime Cornnholio and Uchipu's old linkshell but it's "new". I just don't see the reason for it.

Where is Ema? Where is Fernanda? These thoughts are gonna keep buggin me as I look at all the people that joined our "Band of the Hawk" and wonder at their faces if they are still happy with all different leaders who didn't help build the group to where it is.

One thing though, if it was my choice to have the ls the way it is or have Uchipu leave and have the whole thing go to crap, I would rather have it the way it is. I realize the stress on Uchipu must have been fearsome with events tolling some of our leaders as it did. I can only imagine now with Monday nights all but gone and many such events not even taking place anymore how it must seem to have a ls of people all gathered together but not really doing anything. A lot of really powerful people I might add. These are not your newbies, all of these members are nobles in their own right. The ones that have been here more than a year deserve to have a sackholder "status" just for staying with the ls imo. As a matter of fact everytime I looked at Net's name and saw his pearl next to it, it just bugged me. Durnik too. People shouldn't have to bitch and moan to keep their status.

I was doing my best to get people their Promy Missions during the week but Ski took over that role. He is really quite dilligent. What Skibum didn't do, is to do it with charisma. People don't listen to you when you start your sentences "We NEED to do this.." and "You BETTER have that..." People are choosing to participate. They want to have fun and if it doesn't sound like a good time, they ain't even gonna log in to the game. I had planned to do regular BCNM 40s with some of the group but Uchipu quickly put Cornnholio in charge of that and then interest in it diminished. At my best, I was undermined. I still feel Uchipu is a great leader but I know that there are two kinds of people, the doers and the thinkers. The thinkers usually appear to be lazy. So it must seem to her that I was lazy, but I did go to just about every Monday Night event, I tried to show up to Assault on a regular basis, I spoke up every time someone had a random question that I could answer.

It's wonderful to have an event where everyone knows what is going on and gets it done it record time; they are expected to act like they are the leader, by reading up on what the mission is and having maps and getting key items all in a row, what usually happens is that these people don't show up. That's what leaders are supposed to do is get everyone parsed so that they can be taken at value and put up next to ppl like them that need a major item and map or whatever.

Remember when you were a Dungeon Master? As a DM you were supposed to do ALL the work so that the players, bless their simple minds, would have fun doing whatever podunk thing like pick up a rock and throw it at the Jubilex for 0 dmg. That doesn't make the players stupid it makes them the ones that get to have fun by doing the simple stuff.

Ok I'm rambling now so meh, till next time.

Time for Orc!

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:38 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Doing Dynamis takes a lot of patience and synchronicity. We got lucky I think to have our entire group all put into one party of BLMs. Normally the one THF pulled for the entire alliance a set of mobs. Oddly, as I watched him, he would shoot one mob and then it would turn into like four, and then we would have to sleep them. Well, not surprisingly, I felt a real need to have my Sleepga II spell, but more than that, I felt a real need to get my Enfeebling skill up. The RDM was expert at sleeping but when he got resisted, and it was a lot, we ended up having to cure him a great deal. Of course sometimes he died, and then soon did the rest of us. You could say that in our little party of 5 BLMs and the RDM, he was like the tank, if he died, the rest of us soon followed.

We didn't do so bad either. We made it all the way to Wyvernpoacher Redreaper or something like that and we had him down to like 9% hp. But he uses a special charm ability that is very tough on a bunch of mages. Why a bunch of mages? Because after he charms all of the tanks, the number two spot on the hate list is us BLMs. This, along with the charmed tanks taking their free swings, doesn't allow us to survive very long.

This is probably the reason for having so many people there cuz with less people, he just would not get damaged at all. We are getting better though. They told me if we had killed that one NM then one more NM would have popped and if we beat that then we would have won it! I believe them too. They seem young but really seem to know what their doing.

Money was a problem in some ways because I was told to put the job on the items that I wanted to lot in my search comment. Well I put BLM and THF. Well then they clarified that I could only lot one job, which I thought was fair, but then I looked up the drops for Dynamis-San d'Oria and there were NO drops for BLM or THF in that one. Well taking that into account I should have been paid cash but I didn't have cash in my search comment. I would have earned like 300k.

Oh well, I guess that's how you learn.

Bishop should go

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:38 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Summoner is positively a fantasticly fun time. I really am enjoying it. I recommend using it esp with a RDM as a main healer. A SMN with a BRD only will be hard-pressed in Crawler's Nest to get by. Oh and you NEED a RDM to cast Dispel if you are gonna go after Crawlers.

I went back to the linkshell tonight and found Mr. Rikadyn was a sackholder. Ironic since he was full-faced asking me to boot him out of the linkshell not two months ago. But times change. This time I will make more use of people's help perhaps. It was a pleasure to see Shani back in the ls tho and Rew and Phantoma are nice too. I will try to stay out of people's way mostly but if I get the chance, I am gonna HAVE to try out some expletives on Mr. Rika just to "check him out".

After a while though, I just switched off to my Dynamis pearl. Noone sits on it but the leader and his girlfriend and a few others. I like the quiet. The old ls seemed so tired to me today. It's odd. I think that maybe it's perhaps MY energy that is becoming less and less. Maybe it's age? w/e

Leveling at 36 is a far cry from leveling at 75 let me tell ya. I have people who are asking the most basic of things at this level like whether of not to use TP macros and whether the tank should pull or sometimes even asking the tank to be part of the skillchain. It takes some getting used to since at 75 you can say anything and people will be like "ok sure". One time we were partying with 6 BLMs and one of them gets the idea of subbing BRD and lo and behold, it was a GREAT idea. It was then that I thought, hey I can get my BLM/SMN!

Great idea, Bishop should go!

Adventuring with SMN

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:36 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

I like the new Aht Urgan area. It has a very distinctive architecture and some cool features like the Runic Portal and the ability to pull out your avatar in the city. What I don't like about it is the music. It's nice at first but after a while it gets annoying. I just turn it down. Come to think of it, I used to think Jeuno's music was annoying so in truth I will probably get used to it.

I caught up my missions in Aht Urgan all the way to mission 6 where I have to visit the palace in Ru'Lude Gardens. It's not a lot of adventure and thankfully it doesn't involve a lot of monster killing. It is quite a bit to do tho and I find it fun to travel to get cutscenes! It's like a complete waste of time but so is looking for people to kill Nunyunuwi. Don't know who that is? Well, imagine I asked you if you would like to kill him? You would be like, "Can we next week?"

Guys, I would save you the pain of having to figure out that when a girl tells you "Can we next week?" that that's a hint. Me in my absent-mindedness actually thought she was too busy to go out with me THIS week. I know you guys would rather get back to FFXI stuff so let's skip it.

In other news, hardy har har, I got Diabolos. Finally. Small wonder I wanna level SMN now since I am packing a wallop of options for him. I need to make a quick list of options available so that I can pull out a summons at a moments notice for just the right ability. I am already out of macros.

I have one macro for pulling out Fenrir and another for his Crescent Fang. I have one for Garuda of course and her Aerial Armor. That armor lasts so long that I would recommend every SMN use it at the start of the Experience points chain. I use Carby and his Shining Ruby a lot. His abililty only lasts for little more than one battle though so you gotta do that one over and over which I don't mind doin. SMN skill is acquired by Summoning stuff not by letting it sit there in your bag of tricks so like Sneak Attack for my THF, I feel I am wasting some ability if I am not doing some sort of Blood Pact(BP) every time the Blood Pact timer is up.

Blood Pacts are the avatar's special abilities like Aerial Armor. For those that don't know, you can use BP's once every minute or so and they cost some MP but it's really not a lot usually. Like BLMs, a good SMN has to plan what he is going to do ahead of time. It's a thinking man's job. After you start doing it though there is no turning back or you are going to waste a LOT of time. Pulling out Shiva and then saying "oops no wait I think I will take out Garuda", will waste like a BUNCH of time in which you won't be able to cure, use a BP, or even pull up your pants when everyone else in the party starts to /poke you. You gotta plan.

Well, I am no expert yet by any means since I just started up again but I expect it will be fun to see how everyone screws up. Unlike BLM where all I do is watch the monsters HP bar till it gets to like half and then get up, wait for sc, and start nukin; as main healer I see it ALL. It will be a busy time healing too since I don't get Regen til like 40 or something.

Optimistically, I hope I can get the job up to my WHMs level and take them up together. A good routine and good party hunting skills will probably allow me to party non-stop for a long while from here on out.

Dynamis is on my mind too. I can't believe how much Experience Points(exp) I lost. If I am going to do Dynamis regularly, I am gonna have to do a regular Manaburn with my BLM every once in a while just to keep him at 75.

Here he is, Diabolos. More proof that what you thought could never happen, can happen.

Climbing the highest Mount

BLM:75 WHM:54 SMN:36 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Today I climbed the highest mountain. I finally hit level 75 in the game with my BLM. I found myself missing my BLM/SMN. Something that is very interesting in Manaburn is that most people will /RDM so that they can use Gravity. This allows them to become pullers and such and they still have access to some Cures I think. Well since I don't have a lot of /RDM at the moment, I am just gonna have to start showing up to those events with my /SMN. After all, Leviathan and Diabolos both have Gravity devices at their disposal. So which job do you think I pulled out next to level?

That's right, I chose Summoner. Not only am I gonna have a LONG stint in Crawler's Nest for the next like 10 levels, but I will do it /WHM and with Fenrir and Diabolos. Today was not my lucky day however. I got into a party with a WAR/NIN who was tanking but who didn't like it. We had a RDM WHM WAR DRK a BLM and me. Now in this setup you would think that I would serve the role of melee and would pull out my avatar to deal damage right? Well since I have found myself so often a main healer in the past, I think we overdid the healing quite a bit. The WHM was one of those Cure III once in a while types. Moreover, the RDM decided to melee and the WAR decided to skillchain since the RDM wasn't getting TP very fast. It was just one problem after another and I hate to say it but it probably had a lot to do with me. I kept wanting to heal but since today was my first day back, I was slow with the usual pattern of things that I would do. It slowly started coming back to me but we never really did get the chains rolling.

In other news, Dynamis got off to a great start. I only lost like 8000 exp and got absolutely nothing out of it, but the leader says that we did great for our first time out there. More on that later too. I still had fun and I understand a lot more of how the money works.

Linkshelless

BLM:74 WHM:54 SMN:36 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Well I logged in to find myself without a linkshell. So here I am in Korroloka Tunnel making the most of it. I decided to fill out my stack of wings and go explore a bit in the tunnel. I knew there were Gigas' here that drop the Gigas Socks so I thought I would farm them for a while. I looked on my map and found many places I had not been to before, so I made the most of the silence and creeped into the furthest niches of the place. Way in the back I found some Jammer Leeches. They were NMs too. I thought to myself wow what if these drop something cool. Well like the dullard that I am, I thought I would just forego looking up the mobs and crept up behind one of them. Then it aggroed. Well my friends, I don't know who you are in the world but in the game, if you are solo and you aggro something, you beez da food of a mofo. Luckily, I had subbed BLM and so I warped.

I started looking up stuff to do and decided to work on the Aht Urgan missions. More on that later.