Terrifying Turtle Triumph!

So I've spent a fair while in Cape Terrigan farming Fields of Valor tabs in between playing Mass Effect 2 (a good game, will become a great game if I can get the extra DLC without having to pay more).

Anyway, I ran into Kvazz at one point and we decided to go do the Valley of Sorrows augment NM after duoing for a while. He brought a SAM friend along and we went and poked it a few times. Turns out the turtle is very fragile and exploded after three weaponskills. We came out with an INT+3 weskit (lucky taru >:|) and the rest was junk. After seeing how weak the turtle seemed to be, I thought I'd go challenge it myself the next day. I was worried about it having en-petrify or something similarly lame, but I went ahead and poped it anyway because I was sick of getting nothing from Sky. So the one I get was:

-Immune to sleep
-Immune to poison
-Absorbs Ice damage
-Takes 50% wind/fire damage
-Takes 5% Thunder/Earth/Water damage
-100% En-curse effect which halves HP/MP/Movement speed

I wasn't happy.


Somehow, I managed to win eventually by kiting with Bind/Gravity (not terribly easy without any terrain or much room for maneuver and killing it with bio/drain/Fire III. It's a good thing I was carrying holy waters, otherwise that curse would have been the death of me. In addition, I knew it could be dangerous so I opened with chainspell, only to discover the only nuke doing damage was fire and that was doing half damage, so I wasted my 2-hour figuring out which elements would do damage instead of spamming drain.

Of course, my efforts were rewarded with a bow that was actually no better than I would get in sky. I'll give it one more try, if that doesn't go well, I'll stick to sky.

Missions, Merciful cape, and more!

Everyone makes a big deal over Karaha-Baruha summoning Fenrir to save the day and whatnot, and while I'll admit it was a cool cutscene, I could have just summoned Fenrir on my level 10 SMN with no problem and saved everyone a big fuss.


So I've got my progress on the WotG Windurst quests up to date, and I've gone as far as I could solo with missions, and this time there wasn't too much hugely unecessary and tedious chores to get sidetracked with.


Lilisette takes her dates to some pretty grim locations.

Also, as the title of this post suggests, I've obtained a Merciful cape. Now this is the first time I've ever seen one drop, and since I've started sea I've had enough time to build up enough points to be first for it. But anyway, I've rolled out my Glamor Jupon once again so I can hit 301 enhancing skill (at the cost of 2 inventory spaces). I need to re-evaluate what I'm carrying around with me.

Pictures aren't uploading it seems, I'll try and edit it later.

A stroke (or two) of luck

Not sure if this was a mistake, or the guy doesn't know how to check the AH.


Either way, I sold it on a few hours later for 500k on the AH so that pays for the darksteel stuff I had crafted. I could have kept it as a (very nice) addition to my curing set, but there's a number of reasons why I sold it instead:
1) I like money more than I like curing people
2) My inventory has little room for extras as it is
3) I expect it to drop in price substantially over the next few months, it's still very new and it's a HQ-able synth which tends to mean the NQ ends up dirt cheap after a while (same thing should happen with the fjysggallaia torque thingy).

I finally got invited to do VNMs by a JP group (you know, those people that actually read search comments). It was glorious, and they are all my best friends ever for helping me out.



So that was more trouble than it was worth, but I'm glad it's done. I can now say with complete objectivity - fuck trail of the magians, it is a terrible system on par with synergy & evolith. Fucking UGH.


(In before trial of the magians additions where I can upgrade the same weapon further, and I only have to kill Fafnir/AV/myself 10 times each.)

How I maek money?

I've no idea how you're supposed to make money anymore. I went to Sea Serpent Grotto yesterday, because the fish guys there are supposed to drop coral fragments (which I want to try and craft some HQ coral gear) but I ended up with nothing but an inventory full of BRD songs after 90 mins. I tried a bit of fishing later, which got me level 10 and a Norg Shell which just about justified the trip but it's still lousy gil for the time spent down there.



I had someone attempt to craft me some darksteel mitts +1 as well, which has put me off getting anything HQ'd again instead of buying it from the AH.


Cost me over 280k in materials and a 50k tip I gave to the crafter, when I could have just bought them for 250k. On the plus side, I have about 200k in NQs leftover materials, assuming I can sell them for a reasonable price then the HQ cost me around 130k. Problem is it's going to be a looong time before I've got rid of all this crap.

So now I'm 1/16 on the hands, and 0/3 on the feet. I'm really not going to try and HQ the body because it's a 12k loss per NQ and -3% is good enough to spend and inventory space on.


Other fun things I did!


Took 1~2 hours to pop, I was very mad. 0/6? I'm not keeping track very well, but there's still the times where I've wasted hours camping the fuck and he's not popped.


Leveled BLU to 40, learnt Blank Gaze (Opo-Opos) and Uppercut (pictured). There's a couple more I need around this level, but most important (I think) would be MP drainkiss (leeches) because BLU sucks and needs something to help keep MP up.



Finally got enough Fields of Valor tabs from leveling BLU to try another bow. No such luck. 0/17

Need this god damn level cap to go up already so I can have an excuse to spam FoV.


Cannot unsee.

Brb, soloing sea access.

So SE confirmed what I was looking forward to most from the next update: abolition of CoP level caps.



But that isn't the only change being made. They are removing the level caps on CoP battlefields, so it's now entirely possible that at the very least a few jobs will be able to solo right through past 6-4 (I'm looking at you, NIN and RDM). While this will undoubtebly upset some people, and will certainly cause people to start boasting about beating CoP 'when it was hard', it's great for people who don't have a strong circle of friends or haven't been playing that long and are finding it impossible to find help for these missions. I think it's a great move, even if it does take the challenge out of the fight (even though the biggest challenge about the un-nerfed fights was getting the right people to do it with).

Unfortunately they're also changing the level and monster distribution in the areas

The upcoming version update will see the lifting of level restrictions in Chains of Promathia areas. In light of the planned level cap increase, the level and distribution of enemies in certain Promathia areas will also be adjusted to pose a worthy challenge to players level 75 and beyond.

Which could either result in the addition of high-level exp camps in the far reaches of Riverne or Pso'xja, or at the same time some level 85+ enemies guarding the entrance to the newly uncapped CoP mission areas. Since I was looking forward to the idea of soloing my own Stoneskin gorget after the update, I fully expect SE to ruin my plans by distributing high-level promyvion monsters around the NMs that I want, which is to be expected following SE's first law in MMO development: 'fuck you, buddy'.

As for my activities, I'm not really logging in at the moment so I have less distractions as I procrastinate massively (by writing this, for example) before my final exam. But here's what I did since I last posted:


(Almost) caught up on WoTG missions, I'm on the last available trio of quests for each nation, each of which culminates in a fight of some sort before I can progress onto the final set of missions to truly be up to date, but Juli is on all the same quests as me so I at least know one person who is at the same point as me.


Bored myself to tears in hours and hours of Campaign to finally earn my medal rank back, so I could buy an Allied Ring. Still too low for Fiat Lux, but I don't know enough people to do it with anyway so it's not a big deal. Somehow I've lost 4 ranks since they released the final one, and the worst part is I don't need any exp for my 75's so there's really no advantage to doing campaign anymore.


Did some leveling of subs from 37~40 in East Ronfaure [S]. Never actually partied there before, but it's very easy exp (as to be expected). SAM and WAR now 40 (in the same evening!), even though they don't offer much over /37, and I never use /WAR anyway...but regardless WAR is fun as hell and is a beast of a job (pictured is my best WS at 38, with uncapped skill, and I did another for 500~ at 40 without Mighty Strikes).

Still need to do DRK/PLD/THF/BLU to 40 (not likely to see much use, so not essential) and BLM, but mage jobs are boring as hell and don't get invites, so I'm bound to be lumped with pet soloing again.

New Version Update Announcement! (14/05/2010)

We are pleased to announce that our development team is hard at work putting the finishing touches on the upcoming FINAL FANTASY XI version update, which is currently on track for a mid-June release.

This update promises to be a momentous one, with the first level cap increase in over six and a half years, and a veritable slew of new equipment and weapon skills to accompany it.

But that's not all! Adventurers across Vana'diel can look forward to experiencing the climactic conclusions of the popular Wings of the Goddess nation quest storylines, braving the eerie environs of the new Walk of Echoes area, taking up the gauntlet with new Trial of the Magians trials, and much more! With a host of job adjustments and other refinements on the way as well, this update is sure to offer something for players of all stripes.

As always, detailed previews will be forthcoming right here in the Topics section, so keep watching this space!

It's going to be another month before the update actually hits, but I have a long way to go to get caught up on Wings of the Goddess quests/missions. Not to mention I still need to get all my subjobs to 40 at least. Thankfully, I got SCH to 40 when burning through the last 6 charges on my Anniversary ring so I could get a new one (then used 2 more charges so I could hit 40 faster).


26 > 40 in 2 days is good for me. 26-30 was solo in Yhoator Jungle then Bibiki Bay, got a party for 30-33. Then solo again 33-35 at the Zi'Tah outpost, and a party to finish off 35-40. Accession GO! Also, I'd like to note how useless strategems are pre-30: very useless.


Managed to send some junk to my mule, except that isn't my mule anymore :\
Good thing it wasn't anything valuable

Adventurer Appreciation 2010

This popped up with little warning, and I have 6 charges left on my anniversary ring from last year :\

Anyways, here's the obligatory compilation of stats from previous years:

A whole lot less of everything this year, except I've managed to keep up my momentum on deaths.


We also got some fancy looking dinner jacket set, which has been given a place in my RDM idle set for the time being because it looks nice.

Now I'm going to have to start leveling SCH something fierce so I can use this anni ring up in time to get a new one.