High level problems

BLM:75 WHM:57 SMN:41 THF:71 WAR:56 RNG:36

This is another day at the ole Mount Zhayolm camp getting merits. I kind of like getting merits and recently spent one merit on my Ice-related spells. It was nice to see the damage go up. My next upgrade in that abiliity will cost me 2 merits and now I only have one merit left so I gotta go back out and do a merit party soon. I also have to get that Freeze II spell, but that costs 3 merits. It might be a while I guess.

I have begun to level WHM again and THF. WHM is a great deal of fun and I had forgotton how spastic I could be in casting spells in a party. If I am really crazy I can get all sorts of stuff done. It really is very engrossing. I take my WHM/SMN. Unlike BLM/SMN, I get no resistance whatsoever from parties for having my /SMN sub. And I think it is a great boon to have Aerial Armor available to you. It lasts a very long time so using it once and having it on til the end of chain 5, or longer, is not uncommon. I use Crow Gaiters. This is perhaps the single most useful piece of equipment I have. It adds enmity -4. With BLM I used my Healer's Earring with /WHM to give me enmity -1 and I really could tell the difference. Well, enmity -4 is HUGE. Together with my usual pattern of casting of low level Cure spells, I am able to throw out even Curaga II sometimes and still not catch aggro. But when I do, I can count on my 3 shadows from Garuda to eat that stuff up. It's funny talking like I know what I am doing as WHM again but I was a real goofball when I started back up again. I would be casting Regen and curing like a fool and not even using Erase or Na spells. Now, I totally don't even look away from the chat log and health bars. I guess that's the real test of a good WHM. :)

I leveled THF again too. I am afraid to say this but guys, THF/RNG gets TP faster. I was THF/RNG in a party and was using my usual Squid Sushi as support, and I was keeping up with the MNK in TP. That never used to happen. Later on however, we got a link and we lost some people and I remembered that as /WAR I would be able to voke off the second mob and kite it using Flee for a while so I told them that I would change back to /WAR. I was starting to get TP slower also and I thought meh, I am letting down the party again with my crazy ideas.

Well then the reality of THF/RNG hit me. While some people became unweakened and we changed a member, I went and got my /WAR. I started getting TP very slowly and I realized that my food just ran out. So I used my food and then, even with Haste, the MNK would hit 100% while I was at 75%. Over and over again this happened. It was just true. THF/RNG gets tp faster and that's what you use your melees for in a pt. For links, I plan to use Sleep Bolts and and emergency equip macro. Sleep Bolts get the job done if you can hit the mob, and my Marksmanship and Archery, at 71, are close to max.

Yesterday, I was in a TP burn party and we were just going full-tilt ws after ws and I was able to TA + Dancing Edge and than SA + Shark Bite like mad and, using Flee + Sharpshot + Barrage, now that I know how to use it(thanks Ema), I was able to hit the mob for like 107 and then hit him again and then hit him once more as the tank voked, and I would earn bonus TP from that.

I don't wanna get rid of my Lust Dagger however. It's better than the Garuda Dagger I am afraid to say, and I expect upgrading to whatever higher damage dagger will definitely have it's impact on my ability to smack the mob during the pull.

Since I'm broke though, I guess I don't have to worry too much about the "problems" of upgrading my dagger, lol.

A nickname in the hand...

BLM:75 WHM:55 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Here he is. The man that started it all. The creator of the Hoho. Yep, he called me that one time and explained what it was to Daftorious and where he got it from and now that's just the nickname ppl that don't like me or that know and wanna poke me use to say hi. It's an insult of course. But it isn't my real name so how can he demean my character and be insulting me. That's like someone kicking your dog I guess. It's not illegal really but it still irks ya.

Yesterday I was partying in a party where the BRD had to leave and so we were left partying with 5 for like all afternoon. It ws great fun but was also very slow exp. The good news was that I wasn't slowing the party down any more by changing up the things I was trying in the party as WHM. We had WHM PLD BLM SAM DRK. We were still able to pull off a skillchain and eventually we got the rhythm down to where the PLD would cure himself to get a ton of hate and THEN I would start curing him , which would allow me to get a ton of stuff setup for the party until then like Slow Paralyze Shining Ruby and Barwatera. We were fighting Robber crabs in Kuftal Tunnel. We didn't have Dispel though so the fights took a very long time. Eventually we did find an RDM and started to make a killing in exp points. Better than that though, the slow exp was great practice for what I am going to do in a party from now on as a pattern which was something I lost long ago that last time I played WHM which before this week was prob like 6 months ago if not more.

Whew, finally, a new day

BLM:75 WHM:55 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

I have been thinking of the linkshell lately and it really is not so bad since I have begun to lay low. I have a lot less energy in general lately anyway. I have begun to level my WHM at least to 56 so I can use my Raise II if I feel like it. I probably won't feel like it often.

I was just about to start my own party as a WHM/SMN and I get an invite from a level 52 guy even though Im level 55. He is a NIN. I tell him whoa you are 52, he says it's ok but I tell him No thanks. I felt weird turning down a pt invite but I realized that for my WHM I better make the parties. Soon after that though after looking through a list of people to invite, I get another [Invite to party]. I am so lazy that I say ok why not. Well, he was a DRK and had another DRK and a SAM. I am thinking to myself, well one of em is gotta be main DD. (I would rather have a BLM or RNG but w/e) Usually in these cases I will Haste only the tank and the main DD. If we have a PLD I may try just Hasting the main DD and then if manageable, esp after I get a pattern of healing, I will Haste the two melee instead to help with the skillchain. If we have a RDM, he can help with Haste. He said he had an RDM on the way so it sounded like it would work.

But all my aspirations went to squat after that. He invited a WAR/NIN. I advised him that he could tank if he had his af and he did and he said ok to that but then the leader said he couldn't wait for Beseiged to be over for RDM and he invited a MNK(Monk). That makes the party content a WHM(me), WAR(Warrior), DRK(Dark Knight), DRK, SAM(Samurai), MNK.

Most of you are like "ew!" about now. It gets worse.

He asks me to pick a camp since I am Rank 10 and I suggest Uleguerand Range. I had printouts of that area from Campsitarus.com and had just used Teleport-Vahzl and Sneak and Invis to go scout the region and it was perfect for my party that I was gonna build that I let someone else make for me. I hate that. I make all the preparations and never follow through. Story of my life.

But he says nah let's just go to The Boyhada Tree and kill spiders. Can someone say "sickle slash"? Heh, knew you could...

And the nightmare begins...

One guy accidentally jumps off his chocobo in the middle of Meriphataud Mountains and has to warp back and start over. We get to camp and someone hastily pulls the spider over and the spider proceeds to sickle slash the WAR to death. I was busy with Haste and Regen and Paralyze and was used to using Cure II with Regen to keep the tank going. I lost the healing battle. I raise him and tell him we are gonna get his exp back and that I could focus much more on only healing. So we start and this time it begins to go good. The spider likes to throw out aoe slow so that makes my life more easy since Haste on the tank is not so important now if I can just throw out an Erase on the tank for the same effect. The real problem is healing for Sickle Slash. Paralyze works really well and it is sticking very easy on these mobs, esp with the MND+4 Roast Mushrooms that I used. But throwing out any extra spells is close to impossible with the tanks hp going south like they were. He was using an Empress Hairpin. I told him he should not use it but he insisted. There are some major reasons for not using it though. Your most Armor-intensive equipment is your Cuirass and your Helmet. I tested this for my WAR when I was using my WAR/WHM when I wanted him to tank. I wanted to have the most armor possible and still have my other equipment enhance my attributes even if they were of much lower level. Your helmet is not something you wanna give up as a tank for some DEX and evasion bonus.

He didn't listen. But he seemed to be having a good time with it and I was able to keep him alive from then on. Except for once when they pulled 3 spiders. I told them I have carby to pull but only after they had already made the blunder.

The guy who made the party said that he had to work in an hour and everyone wanted to stay and continue this "mess" but I was not willing to stay too much longer. I told them I would tele them when the leader left and they all eventually sed ok. I decided it was a good night for karaoke, even though I don't go out on Mondays.

If you are ever in The Boyhada Tree and think about getting replacements, think like 30 min ahead of time. It takes a long time to get there.

Where's Emagyen?

BLM:75 WHM:55 SMN:41 THF:70 WAR:56 RNG:36

Ema is mean. Ema is smart. Ema is missing from this linkshell. If we had Ema back you can rest assured people would be far less antagonistic while she was around. Plus, given a choice, would you rather have Ema flying off the handle with insults or some foreign fatbelly and his chum?

Yeah we were missing Ema this weekend. She would have solved our problems much much more politely...

Ya think?!

Deluxe Package

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

I spent yesterday doing not much of anything in Qufim Island. I decided to go kill some bats. So I come across a NM weapon there and ask ls if anyone wants to help kill. Cornnholio says "Meh I'm bored, I will come." Good deal. But at that point someone else got the pull and so I noticed in chat that Corn had bought back a lot of his mage gear including a weskit which as we all know(isn't everyone a BLM?) is tumbling in price lately.

So I decided to put his efforts to good use and I ask him to help me farm items for the Uggalepih Pendant. A previous entry deals with the items needed and like many things, the more people you get interested in some item or quest or whatever, the more help you can count on showing up to kill the NM for it. So we head out and have a good time in Pso'Xja killing Tonberry Stalkers for the Magnolia Lumber there. We get two.

I ask him if he wants to try to get item number two, the White Steel. That item drops in the Temple of Uggalepih. It drops from Tonberry Stabbers. He says cool but he is going to go afk. So I go take a shower and come back and meet up with him at the outpost in Elshimo Uplands. I overhear Corn talking in the ls and it sounds like one guy is thinking of coming out and getting his BLU ability from a mob there. Then the guy's boyfriend offers to come help him since he is online anyway and says he owns Ireland, I mean the Temple of Uggalepih, so Corn says cool, come on down.

Well it was fun but this guy is REALLY high-strung, this boyfriend. He doesn't stop and though the printout I have of where the Stabbers are located gives positions, it doesn't give which map you are on. So it takes a while. Finally we find the map we are supposed to be on and Corn goes one way while Mr. boyfriend goes the other and makes it out. So in the temple Corn gets aggro and almost dies but casts Escape and gets out. Fine. Then he decides to quit but I say we go get him and this guy, let's call him Gringo, says forget him. It's bad enough to get left behind by someone who is supposed to help him but then he berates him for catching aggro,(even Uchipu catches aggro), gives him a nickname he didn't ask for (corny), and refuses to help even tho it's obvious that he should help.

No problem.

We stay in a party. I tell Corn to just use invis and while company gets in and out of my house and while I eat lunch, Corn makes it to the area. This entire time Corn makes no ill-statement to Gringo and it seems like things have settled down after the "aggro-incident". Well then, in ls chat, it sounds like there is going to be a ZM going on soon and Kirbyprime is rather intent on getting things organized so he asks when we should be done. Corn gives the details and blurts out that we need White Steel. Gringo is a little miffed by that. You are holding up our (curseword) event for a (curseword) 80k item. "I will give you the cash!"

I was would have been happier for a Fist Sandwich. (He would have been too.) At this point, it is rather obvious to me that the badgering is going to continue.

Well that was the end of that. Corn says here you go, gives me the cash and scoots off to go help his ls buds. About another hour passed before everyone actually got together btw. Good news is they won.

Yay.

At this point I am looking through the AH and can't find the item so I ask and they tell me to look in Batallia Downs. I didn't find it there either. w/e

I had to leave last night though cuz I wanted to visit my brother-in-law's band who was playing at the bar and visit my brother and his new gf who were gonna make an appearance. So that's the last I heard of Corn yesterday. I was in good spirits. I hadn't been doin much with the ls lately cuz I have been trying to figure my life out really. I can't just keep playing FFXI with no gf. Not healthy. But I can't workout and do things at night if I constantly attend ls activities, which I like to do.

Conundrum.

Well today problem solved! Corn was in a pt last night with the Gringo who was badgering him in the afternoon and after much hooplah he kicked him from the pt and later after more badgering kicked him from the ls.

Now I know Cornnholio from the ls. He has a wife, several kids, a house and job and lots to do that keep him active. It's very easy to take one of these runts too seriously and this time he did. He was completely upbeat about it and knew he would have to face Uchipu and thought he made the right decision. I tried to keep an even face about it and from my experience I knew Mr Gringo was having WAYY too much fun at "Corny's" expense and that if it had been Uchipu directly taking the heat, he would have gotten the "deluxe package" boot including blist and mention in the blog.

But, I knew what Uchipu would do. I am not gonna mention it here cuz that just gives Mr. Gringo something to brag about. I am not even gonna name him.

I hope this passes like everything else but, at least this time, I'm not gonna work myself up in a knot over it.

Party time with BLM

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

I got invited by Dealba to party in a normal party setup. I was BLM/SMN but after examining the group, I saw that he had himself and a WHM/SMN for healers. He had subbed BLM but I still thought that I would have been more efficient with /SMN. Nevertheless, I didn't want to undermine his party and face some possible adversity from fools so I subbed WHM.

We took chocobos. It was strange getting out there because the Astral Candy was not in residence. We were forced to go to the Mamool Ja area and hike it to the Bhaflau Thickets were we fought Sea Puks and Philosphers and Blusterers I think. We took a camp next to the zone but stayed just shy of it so that mobs could pop on both sides of us. It was a good camp. We started doing pretty good exp for a while but then suddenly our WHM was forced to leave lickety split. Well it was then that I realized it was lucky that I subbed WHM cuz we continued to party with 5 until we got us another WHM. I didn't have to do too much since Dealba was healing and we were using a NIN.

Our WHM finally arrived and though he was 75, he seemed to like to let the tanks HP drop real low. I am not a fan of Slow and Banish and other offensive whatnot antics so that the WHM can cast Cure V and get us all to go "ah". I backed him up once and he just cast his Cure V on top of my Cure III and I got irritated. I don't like to heal as BLM and esp not if we have a WHM. It's just a waste of MP that I already don't have enough of. I would use up my MP on all Thundaga III MBs if I had enough mp. Switching from that to Thunder IV is usu like a 300 difference in damage. As BLM I am the main damage dealer. I don't like to cure but I don't mind going defensive with a Divine Seal + Curaga if we are in trouble. I DO mind going defensive on every other mob!

Later on, the WHM lets the NINs hp drop to orange for like the Nth time and I ignore it this time since I just finished my MB and was planning to, guess what... ya nuke it to zero. Instead, as it turns out the Philosopher(BLM type Mamool Ja) had cast Sleepga and WHM was asleep. Well we all got upset at that but it happened just like that fast and we wouldn't have had a problem if WHM kept the tank healed well.

The tank died.

We started pointing fingers and I made my apologies after checking the log to see what happened. We had trouble another time and some ppl died when this time the BLM type Sleepga'd us and we weren't able to cast Silence on it in time. Still another time we lost the tank when the BLM type cast Poisonga, which wipes out shadows, and then cast Thundaga III and then did a special move immediately after that. It was done right at the start of battle. I had to focus out of my usual Frost > Stun > Drain pattern and find out why everyone was in the red and found that I had used Stun right after the BLM had cast Poisonga.

It was good fun though. I spent all afternoon partying old school, casting Frost at start and then using Stun usually after NINs first 3 shadows were used up and then casting Drain and Aspir with my Dark Staff still equipped to enhance the ability of those Dark based spells. I had to say I got a lot of skillups in Dark to boot. My Dark skill is nearing its max now. Too bad my Enfeeble skill is such crap. I try to Sleep II a mob, even with my Dark Staff equipped, and it still gets resisted. It usually works if I use Elemental Seal though.

I got two merit points that afternoon. I am tempted to get one more and get my Freeze II spell, but I also would like to up the damage on my Ice spells. As you all probably know by now, BLMs have a huge advantage if they are allowed to MB with Ice. It would be nice to MB for like ungodly dmg.

Sorcerer's Ring + Uggalepih Pendant + Ice ability merits - Huh?! OMGWTFmhc(mile high club)

Manaburn is not so bad

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

I spent some time last week partying with a Manaburn party in Mount Zhayolm. We had to 2 BLM/RDMs, 3 BLM/WHMs, and me as BLM/SMN. On the upside, I really think I added a lot to the group. At the end of every chain I would pull out Garuda and do an Aerial Armor BP(Blink-ga) on us. I could even use Whispering Wind(Curaga) as another option to help heal us. It healed for about 120 each so it was not nearly as effective as Divine Seal + Curaga II. You really do need to have some BLM/WHM in manaburn to help heal everybody.

It's funny though cuz most BLMs, even though they know they should help heal, don't like to heal I think. There was also some malcontent there. Obviously, in manaburn you are bound to get at least one person that gets irritated at the inclusion of a BLM/SMN. We could have done chain 11 like we usually do in manaburn, but some people were just itching to try out their AM II spells. We still did get chain 8 though and I had a good time with it. It must have seemed really daunting to have a BLM with 1100 MP next to eveyone else with like 900. I bet some people try out BLM/SMN soon too cuz of their experience with me. I would always have like 400 more MP than everyone else at chain 8 but I think that's mostly cuz I wasn't the one pulling.
Eventually, I started using my GA III spells just so my MP would get used up more.

I gotta say that those AM II spells are really neat to see. Fantastic even! But being a BLM at 75 with fancy new spells is like an old man with a new Corvette. It just doesn't seem to be useful for anything since you are like "done". Still, I am gonna line up at least one of those AM IIs over my way as soon as it's convenient.

In Manaburn, due to the simple design, it's possible to try many other subs as well. One time a guy used BLM/BRD and gave us all Mage's Ballad and I thought, hey cool. Once you get people working well together it really doesn't matter what you sub in manaburn. We still got chain 11 that time too, but I was BLM/WHM that time. Manaburn is neat that way cuz we all get to talking about spells and AM and quests and stuff(I still need Sleepga II) and you don't have to be so bored earning exp the same old fashioned way, plus people let you try whatever you want to try cuz the pattern is so simple, that it gets sort of boring.

Dynamis is something I no longer find interesting. I don't like the idea of spending time in manaburn just so I can die several times in Dynamis and get nothing. It's true that I haven't won it even once yet, earned no money, and got no AFII, so maybe there is something I am missing... like WHAT'S THE UPSIDE TO ALL THIS?!

Well I may try to get a manaburn going soon again. Even though I should be leveling my THF, I am enjoying BLM manaburns. After I cap out my EXP, I am going to start with limit points and see what that gets me. I got Flare with the intention of using it in a Light skillchain but I never really got to use it. My recommendation is for people to not buy AM magic unless you got a static party with a PLD. Why people don't automatically use a Light > Burst skillchain on dhalmels in BIbiki Bay is beyond me.

On a final note, I was partying with a Manaburn I think about 2 weeks ago, and I was level 74 and some of us had no Blizzard IV and one girl made a comment that we needed to get our Blizzard IV scrolls and "get with the program". Blizzard IV was selling for like 1.2 mil at the time.

So, I told her to blow me.

I don't understand why she warped out though? We were having such a healthy "self-help" discussion.