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.