Absolute madness.

Well, I've been busy with work for the past few days, but things are beggining to let up, so I thought I'd log on for a bit when this caught my eye: the announcement of the Mog Bonanza.

They'd mentioned something about this previously, but I'd written it off as an insane idea and never expected SE to follow through. It seems that they did. It's going to be a lottery, where players (level 5 and up, so plenty of opportunity for RMT to level a horde of mules in time for the event) can buy up to 10 'marbles' each, which cost 1k and you need to choose 5 numbers for each one, and duplicates are possible. Now, you can win prizes that get more awesome the more numbers you match up to the winning number, from 1 to all five. Prizes are ranked as such:

Rank 1 prize list
100 million gil (what the shit?!)


Dalmatica +1 / Blood Scale Mail
Kaiser Cuirass / Armada Hauberk
Hecatomb Harness +1 / Shura Togi +1
Ares's Cuirass / Skadi's Cuirie
Usukane Haramaki / Marduk's Jubbah
Morrigan's Robe / Valkyrie's Breastplate
Valkyrie's Coat / Ridill
Kraken Club / Hofud
Futsuno Mitama / Valkyrie's Fork

Rank2
10 million gil / Black Belt
Homam Corazza / Nashira Manteel
Melee Crown / Sorcerer's Petas
Duelist's Chapeau / Abyss Burgeonet
Saotome Kabuto / Wyrm Armet
Summoner's Horn / Warrior's Lorica
Valor Surcoat / Scout's Jerkin
Cleric's Mitts / Assassin's Armlets
Monster Gloves / Koga Tekko
Bard's Cannions / Velocious Belt

Rank3
1 million gil / Melee Cyclas
Cleric's Briault / Sorcerer's Coat
Duelist's Tabard / Abyss Cuirass
Bard's Jstcorp / Saotome Domaru
Koga Chainmail / Wyrm Mail
Summoner's Horn / Warrior's Lorica
Assassin's Armlets / Valor Breeches
Monster Gaiters / Scout's Socks
Homam Cosciales / Nashira Seraweels
Hauteclaire / Seveneyes

Rank 4
100,000 gil / Damascus Ingot
Khroma Ore / Damascene Cloth
Behemoth Hide / Moldavite Earring
Rain Hat / Empress Hairpin
Bounding Boots / Matron's Knife

Rank 5
Miratete's Memoirs (lol)

Had this surfaced on April 1st, it would have been a pretty epic April fools' joke, I still find Rank 1 pretty hard to believe (and Rank 2 is pretty wtfsexy as well), in spite of how unlikely winning it is going to be. Now, implications of this: as already noted, there's the large chance of a vast number of RMT accounts participating (although they may not survive the usual monthly round of bannings, I don't think they're stupid enough to use fishbots for the lottery) also, it's almost guaranteed that a total idiot is going to win something big and cause me to rage and suffocate them with my 30 pages of Miratete's Memoirs. Sadly, with the level of deflation there is now, the gil rewards pretty much outshine Rank 1 and 2 items (with the exception of maybe Odin drops, but they probably have better alternatives.


Anyway, now that's destroyed any potential intrest in my shenanigans I'll get to it. It's mercifully short anyway since I've not been on much.


Messing around waiting for sky to start, I managed to get a few weapon skill points on my Dissector, another level in shield (180) and another parrying (127) and two in club (202) in about 10 minutes, whereas my last trip to the Boyahda Tree and an hour long skillup session got me literally nothing...

Also, Dynamis-San d'Oria. 18 pieces of AF dropped, one of which was RDM feet but that went to some third-rate RDM so meh. It's insane how contested RDM AF is, so it looks like I'll be waiting a long time before I get any. So anyway, 1 RDM, 2 PLD, 1 BRD, 6 WAR, 2 MNK, 1 NIN, 3 DRG, 1 BST and 2 RNG. Quite a lot went to autosort (see: DRG and WAR) but still a decent haul nonetheless. 360 odd coins and 3 100-pieces. Yay.

Ninja does not have Utsusemi.

NINJA DOES NOT HAVE UTSUSEMI

NINJA DOES NOT HAVE UTSUSEMI

NINJA DOES NOT HAVE UTSUSEMI



DOES NOT HAVE UTSUSEM-HNNGGGHhh

But still, I went from 28~32 in that party, so I won't go on about it. Also, BLUE MAGE DOES NOT KNOW WILD CARROT. I'll be working on that before the last 4 1/2 levels of BLU.

Speaking of gimps...


I'm tired of seeing clueless melee RDMs in Campaign. I've seen a couple of good ones, but by the whole they are such a depressing sight. As some kind of unwritten law, they all sub NIN, despite nearly everything spamming AoE attacks and Dual-wield swords, which just plain sucks. Although there are the two exceptions of Martial Anelace/Joyeuse or Joyeuse/Justice sword combos, and even then dagger/joyeuse might still be better damage. Granted, these all involve a Joyeuse, which not everyone has (had mine long enough to take it for granted, for shame) but in light of this, I always used low delay dagger/dagger combos when /nin, which allows for faster en-spell damage over sword/sword, and allows the use of Evisceration. But it's not just the weapon choices, it's full-timing bad gear choices (but that isn't a big deal if they aren't the kind of people who care for RDM melee, but they do come across as those that believe they should always be engaged because they are super-fighter mage+1!) and the fact that they debuff nothing, and rarely bother healing other people around them or even tank loose mobs for a bit so there's less things beating on the NPCs...sigh.

But anyway...

Obtained this!


Learnt this!


And am currently in the middle of the Sergeant Major quest, which involves a lot of waiting one game day (50mins~1hour, I forget) between each part, regardless if you suceed or fail (also fails have to be repeated) so it will take me a while.

Partying and...partying.

I meant to do some Assaults this week, but found no time to do it and ended up riding along on 4/4 tags. Irritatingly enough, I'm seeing alot of shouts for Leujaoam Cleansing, specifically asking for a RDM - naturally only when I'm otherwise engaged. A shame, because I'd like points for that area.

I got an invite on RDM (woo). Seeing it was from a BLM, I think "Ok, no super-awesome TP-burn megaexp, but a manaburn is still good for a bit of a change" so I accept. The next guy he invites has fairly low MP, which I thought was odd - but then again maybe it's a bard or corsair. I check his job - a paladin. "Oh my, maybe he's going to change jobs?" Next was a thief, and then a warrior, and hi2u 2005 pt.


I concluded that the guy was either a sadist trying to torture us with a slow party, or he just hadn't played for a while and assumed that was still the done thing. We did get a bard though, poor thing.

I stuck with it for old times' sake, and really shouldn't have. It felt pretty much the same as any other merit party, just with less exp to be had. Probably the desired state of nostalgia would have been achieved if we went to fight something in Ro'Maeve or Bibiki Bay, but we instead went to Mamool Ja staging point. Also, needed moar organised skillchains and magic bursts... if I remember, Mistral Axe and Shark Bite could have made a Light skillchain. The paladin wutted me slightly when I saw him using his RSE II over AF boots, not an optimal choice in my opinion, but not completely thoughtless. Besides, he did a good enough job.
After a couple of hours of brushing the dizzying height of 8k/hour, I get sleepy and head off to bed.


Better parties were to be found on BLU the following day. Better parties with better screenshots (shame I forgot /names).


Looking very cool using Burst Affinity to magic burst Bomb Toss, resulting in the same amount of damage, for more MP than if I'd just used Bludgeon.

Party was nice though, much better than what I've put up with before now. Our PUP was tanking for most of it, until we invited a Paladin a while later, but I was really impressed with it, the Automaton was debuffing, healing its master and nuking a bit too, not to mention the pair of the skillchaining frequently (although it did require the master using the hideously weak One Inch Punch weapon skill).

I do like PUP on the whole, but I'm not particularily interested in leveling it myself, for a start it seems pretty complex with all the different elemental manoevers and attachments and frames and heads and whatnot. Secondly, if I was to level it, I'd want to play the job at its best and appreciate all the versatility it has, which means craploads of attachments to buy and mess around with. Thirdly, I just plain don't like the clown-suit AF, and finally Automatons are creepy:


Snip-snip-snip...

Pros for the job is that it's rare and interesting, and that pet /emotes are cool, but DRG has pet emotes and has more sexy.

Cuddles.

Apologies in advance, but fraps decided it wasn't gonna take any screenshots when I told it to so I'll have to make do with oldpics.

Dynamis-Beaucedine didn't happen. I was looking forward to it, since it's the only clear I need to get Xarcabard access, but some other LS showed up without scheduling a run and we decided to move so not to make a fuss. Instead, everyone went off to do Dynamis-Xarcabard and I went off to bed. Ah well, there'll be a next time.

I flagged up on RDM for the first time in months, only to not get an invite for over an hour and gave up.


I like this picture. If only the rat's foot hadn't been eaten by the stairs.

Cuddles, my long serving and loyal mule, hasn't had much mention yet, but that's mainly because he's a mule and I don't play him much. A shame, because I dumped a crapload of gil and effort into him because I fancied the idea of having a Galka Monk at my disposal. Anyway, progress is slow (as is with anything I do, apparantly) and over the course of a couple of years leveling him off and on, I've got him to 58. Just got him his AF body (Temple Cyclas) which, as with most MNK AF has its uses, but only as a macro piece for job abilities (Chakra, in this case).
He used to look pretty damn cool in his gear, but the 50's have played a toll on his good looks

Pretty nice...


Absolute mess.



I'm currently getting him his Runic Portals all done, and then sort out access to all the past areas. After I've got all that done, off to 75 with him! He's got a pair of Destroyers waiting for him in his safe, and hopefully I can get him a few bits of gear from sky (mainly Byakko's haidate and a Shura Togi - the latter which will cost me about 800k as well). My only gripe with his current gear is that he's lacking a Peacock Charm, but I hardly think it's THAT bad if I use a Chivalrous Chain in its place.

I hope to sort out a decent evasion/haste set up for him as well, to try some tanking or soloing on MNK, but I'm not sure how much of a good idea this is since I don't know how often he'll be getting used, even after 75.

Achievement of the weekend?

...well, not really as this happened on Monday. But honestly, it was a pretty dull weekend.

Let's see....

Just something I've not seen before in Campaign, I would have thought it was pretty cool if Zhayolm Remenants hadn't taught me to hate frogs. Wait, what was that? Topless Elvaan female did you say? It gets dull spamming the same supply Ops over and over, so I remedy that by changing race for each run!

Despite using all of my credits on tier 3 Ops, it still wasn't enough for a promotion, so I decided to head out to do 'one quick battle' which ended up taking a damn hour to complete with next to no NPC support (most of Windy's forces were gathering in Sarutabaruta for some undisclosed reason - I suspected a picnic of sorts). Shadowhand and co. showed up, so it was my first time actually fighting her. It was not pleasant.


I'm just glad I didn't bother gearing up for a melee sub, because /whm's Reraise was the only reason I didn't spend the whole fight on my face.
The NM itself regularily uses Sleepga II, which always seemed to be directed at the mages rather than the frontline people there, and also uses tier 3 -aga nukes. I didn't get much of a chance to debuff her due to being asleep, but I couldn't land Silence (no surprise) or Paralyze (again, lawl) I believe Slow stuck though.
Didn't spam Retribution as much as she did when I saw her fighting some NPC's a while back, but we didn't really get her below 50% HP.

After wiping to her and unweakening, I spent the rest of the fight being chased around by a variety of mobs, including Yagudo, Gnats, Fomors and some flying eye NM thingy. I got 3k limit points for my troubles and...


One more promotion, and I won't feel compelled to bother with this silly Campaign stuff for a good while.

Qufim and leveling.

Nothing much exciting has happened recently, but I've been making a bit more progress with BLU.


Now I know most people complain about everything that goes on in parties in low level areas, mostly because of incompetant/lazy people that really don't bother equipping/playing properly, leaving others to take up the slack (with "It's only my sub job" being a favourite excuse) so parties tend to suck. Now, this isn't always the case, but recently it has been so I've been soloing. In the intrests of fairness, I'll still give most parties a chance but there is a limit to my tolerance. Powerlevelers increase this margin, because I'm selfish and have lots of other stuff I want to get done. :)
I should take this oppotunity to say that I believe powerleveling nublets with no clue how to play their (or any) job just makes high levels nublets with no clue how to play their job, but on the other hand, I'm not naive enough to think that they'll stop sucking after a few slow parties learning it the hard way. So in short, I won't ever ask for, or expect a PL but I won't refuse one either.

Sadly, I've had poor parties back to back from 23 onwards (a level gap of 21~23 in Qufim actually makes it impossible for a party to work well; unless the 23's can handle the higher level mobs (Pugils) without much input from the lower level members) which tempts me to just forget grouping and solo to 37, even more tempting considering that BLU can solo pets as effectively as BLM.

23~24, I duo'd worms with my NPC, I didn't have Utsusemi yet and they weren't as weak as pets so I fancied the extra safety margin.
24~26 was again fine, solo this time due to Utsusemi making life easier. I spent most of my time around the pond, which made for good chains when I had it to myself - usually 3 worms with one MP pool. Some worms dropped to Even Match at 26, so won't be able to fight them for much longer.


I figured I'd have a go at some Gigas to see if I could get Body Slam before I left. As it turns out, a Tough giant is not as easy as a Tough worm - I struggled with the first, and then the second (a warrior) started double attacking like crazy and I ended up at my Home Point.

I'm at the right level for getting a group in the jungles around Kazham, which typically is a good experience for me so I might be able to get a half decent group there. I can't be sure, it's been a while since I visited at this level.

Redemption.

I earnt back my Iron Emblem, so ten or so more days and I'll be done with the available Campaign medals and won't have to bother wasting my time in Campaign battles and instead get a real merit party. I'm definately going to ditch my three levels of Paralyze II for Phalanx II, just I need motivation (and some spare time) to actually go and do it.

Dynamis-Bastok almost provided that motivation, with two pairs of Duelist's Gloves dropping (which give +15 Enhancing Magic skill, great for Phalanx and the like) and I was actually so tired that I didn't notice that either had dropped until people had already been given permission to lot on them...ugh.


Was the only thing that dropped when I was fully awake, and so the only thing I have a screenshot of. We cleared the entire zone with a good while to spare again, and the novelty had worn off by then, so I just went to bed.


Did a gods run in sky, starting with Kirin;


Which was a little dicy, since we had 2 kiters, who weren't both fully equipped to last the whole fight. Fortunately, we only lost one to Stonega IV, which was soon followed by Astral Flow, which could have been disasterous had the second kiter not survived it. First time he's not dropped an Osode for a while, just N. Body and a Shining cloth.

Did a round of normal gods after, which I like to take pictures of, especially flying Suzy or Seiryu.



I later got swapped out of the alliance for another RDM who hadn't been in yet, which is fine and all but I always get swapped out before Seiryu which is the only one I really care about being in the party for, just because I love to see Paralyze on for Hundred fists.
Speaking of which, despite Seiryu being weak to Ice, I always have a horrible stick rate with my paralyzes, despite having a fully merited Tier II spell, with 5/5 Ice accuracy merits, full enfeebling, a High Quality Staff, all my enfeebling skill gear with Mind everywhere else and it still consistantly resists. Bind, on the other hand, sticks alot more regularily (unfortunately for me, we just have a Paladin use Invincible for Seiryu so I get no glory from binding it). These experiences of Paralyze II are what is convincing me to get rid of the spell, especially when I try Paralyze I immediately after and it lands...


Sigh...

Dyna-Dunes.

Dynamis-Valkurm, not full of newbie Beastmen parties as one might expect. My first time doing a dreamland run and only 36(?) or so people are actually allowed into these zones. Since Aristocrats is pretty big, I showed up early to ensure myself a space.

From the sounds of things, they hadn't had much success in this area before and every Red Mage was asked to sub /DRK. Another thing I forgot about these areas was that after entry, all members' subjobs are locked until you can kill a bunch of flies. Our Thieves were sent off alone to pull (although I was sent to assist and accompany one of them to Valkurm Emperor's usual spawn area) immediately after entry. I was very worried being asked to do something this important on my first run, but it went very smoothly and there were hardly any mobs around for me to aggro, I was expecting worse (I had the feeling we were given the easy fly to pull).

No time was wasted, and we went straight from NM to NM to kill them in order to weaken the Mega Boss (a Morbol). I can't remember exactly what we fought, but I recall a Mushroom thingy that we sent a pair of RDM/DRK's to Chainspell Stun because it had been troublesome on previous runs. There was a goobbue at some point too, but I don't think he required stun-locking.
Eventually we got back to the boss, which we kept three RDM/DRKs (including myself) to set a stun order for, starting with me. I started stunning a little after the melee had engaged (whoops) because I was frantically trying to trade for a poison potion that apparantly was a requirement which we were told to have some 30 seconds before engaging...and I really didn't fancy getting slept after firing off Chainspell. Luckily, the boss hadn't done much damage before I started casting, and it was dead before my chainspell wore off (good thing, because my /wait macro didn't function properly so the second stunner wouldn't have been warned when to start).

We killed a whole load of sheep after, which resulted in me being slept by their AoE 80% of the time. Grr. Nice drops though:


Valor Cape went to Arcanis, Bard's Roundlet -1 to Dierdren and Deulist's Chapeau -1 to Eudys (was that spelt right...?). Ahem.


Leveling;


NotDRG. I was doing BLU again, progress on which is slow in spite of finding a nice place to solo (Gigas' Leeches in Qufim).
I really don't think sub would matter on these since they would die to three or four spells (Bludgeon tore them apart) but I subbed DRG anyway since fights were short and it provides an Attack boost and Jump at level 10. Pulling was risky, especially considering I had no ranged weapon so had to resort to Wild Oats, which wasn't as long ranged as I hoped, but it had to do.
I managed to forget my exp ring before heading out, so after a botched pull and a death (Sheep song is too slow to cast whilst being wailed on) after 2000 exp, I home-pointed and grabbed my ring before heading back out.


Chains were dependant on how easy the pull was, but this was the best I managed.

I hit Level 22, and pets started popping up as Decent challenge, so I'll have to find somewhere else if I intend to continue leveling off pets.


As it's becoming something of a BLU tradition, I got impatient and botched another pull, resulting in de-leveling.
I still decided to head back to Qufim once again, so I could at least win my level back and get my skill capped. Upon arriving, I recieved a party invite and decided to give it a go.


I was asked to sub White Mage as we only had a lone Red Mage as the healer, and I was to assist in keeping everyone alive. Not an easy task, since I only had Cure 1 and Healing Breeze until I hit level 22.
It was awful, and we were stuggling to kill crabs which barely netted us 80exp per kill. However, I stuck with it and got my level, and when the suspiciously RMT-esque characters left, our new members had a Power Leveler so exp became better than soloing at last. I also learned Metallic Body from the crabs, and Screwdriver from the Pugils we fought. All in all, a worthwhile experience.

Trip to the beach!

Xarp asked me if I wanted to help him fight Shen with his HNMLS, as I wasn't up to much and hadn't fought it before I decided to come along. Helps that Bibiki Bay is pretty too.


It was far from an epic battle, hardly lasting a minute, but it was nice to be the only Red Mage present for once so I didn't have to fight to land debuffs first. I got to do some clamming in between pops, but I broke my bucket and gave up, disheartened.

Afterwards, we went off to do sky, where I spent the whole time farming Diorites without a single drop. Bah.

Slept after. Woke up early.

I zoned into Whitegate the following day, and saw a shout for CoP 6-4 at 5/6 members. I joined. Now, I was greatful for finally getting a group for this mission as I'm edging ever closer to the completion of all the main storylines (and a Tamas ring) but my gratitude is tested at times, particularily when I'm greeted by a tank that looks like this;


Annonimity will be retained by victims of my e-rants, since nobody was really unpleasant, just generally underequipped and underinformed.

I don't always expect everyone to be in top-end gear for everything, especially if they're just helping on a mission, but this is really pushing it. We were aiming for a 'supertank' strategy which involves this ninja tanking all 4 or so mobs at once from the very start, which is why I was so irked when I looked at his gear. He could have at least had his AF hands, they're better than nothing.

So onto the mission itself; The first run was a failure. It was a pain, because my suggestion to do a dry run without items fell on deaf ears. We wasted one CCB polymer on that run (although we performed well on the first half of Omega, I must admit) as well as the White Mage's 2-hour ability, which was used at a perfect time against the Mammets (which was the horribly messy part of the run, since the 'supertank' wasn't super enough and took far too much damage and wasn't evading nearly enough). One of our members (despite having fought Mammets on various missions beforehand) did not understand that hitting a Mammet that has just used Transmogrification will heal them for a short period of time, so caused unnecessarily long fights.


Mammets: know how to fight them.

It annoyed me that people would regularily complain at the JP White Mage and blame him/her/it for any losses, which was entirely unfounded since the WHM was actually doing a good job (damn melees who can't appreciate good support when they get it), and put some to shame. Only one error was made by the mage, and that was only Erasing Chemical Bomb once, where it takes two to completely remove the Slow effect. Hardly worth crucifying someone over, and we even won on that run anyway.

The second run we went on was also a failure. This went even worse than the first, with us wiping to the Mammets this time. No Benediction to save us this time. Fortunately no 2-hour abilities were spent on this run.

Attempt #3 saw the MNK change to SAM and completely schooled the other SAM in doinitrite. This time, we won. I couldn't be any more glad either. I had noticed on Ultima and Omega that Paralyze had returned to it's former state of glory how I fondly remember it, but still at 75 cannot get it to function as I would like (I'm talking regular proc rates here). Anyway, we had just enough CCB polymers to use on the main bosses to keep TP moves off us, and I'm glad I didn't waste mine considering what I had to pay:


I severely regret not getting it for 25k when I saw it a while ago, but it was worth the cost regardless.

The final fight got very hectic towards the end with people dropping all over the place, reraising and getting straight back into the fray. Stuff like that is what makes wins feel so satisfying. If we had lost at that point though, it would have been a very different story...

So that was 6-4. I stayed around with some of the people from the fight and continued through chapter 7, to mission 7-5. This fight is (uncapped!) similar to the Snoll Tzar fight in that you need to deal as much damage as possible as fast as possible, and that if they get the wrong move off, you automatically lose. Ultimately, this resulted in failure, but was more down the jobs available than the players I'd say. We could have won however, if the PLD (badSAM from 6-4) could have kept hate and cured people.



Major errors circled for clarity. THF really isn't great at spike damage, so was a bad choice but I don't think he had any other 75 jobs available which would make me a hypocrite to whine about, so I shan't. My LS also claimed BST was a bad idea, but I felt it was a good idea for his pet to deal with the Boss' assistants - it would have ended alot sooner if they were interfering. PLD also, not a great DD but he only had that as his one level 75 job but as I said, he could have cured whilst I kept up Chainspell Stun to keep the Samurai alive. I also don't see how he couldn't keep hate in such a short fight. With Invincible, Sentinel, Flash, Provoke, Shield Bash and Cure IV's everywhere I find it hard to imagine anyone else could take hate from him in 30 seconds.

In the end, I split and went to do Salvage. At least I'm done with level caps on CoP and it will be easier to get help from people from now on. Hopefully I'll be seeing the end of CoP soon.

In other news, I finally got my Yigit Turban!


Puts my full MND-potency build another step toward completion (not to mention I'm at around +40~50 MND on accuracy-geared debuffs), now only requiring two painfully expensive earrings, and a ring/shield upgrade. I could finish it completely if I could get a Peacock Charm to sell. I'm sure that there's something better to be spending that much money on, but I really enjoy a sense of completion with stuff, especially with RDM as my only lv. 75 job (Dragoon is still 10...sigh).

Facing the past.

After a long break, I had to steel up and face the music having gone AWOL for over a month. The Federation's army isn't too forgiving.


It was interesting to see that I was asked to confirm my 'decision' to hand over my medal twice, despite not being given any other option.
So, I went on a campaign binge to make up for it, even though my next evaluation would not be for another five days.

Battles seemed significantly difficult since the last update, partly becuase Allied NPCs are much weaker now, with the Beastmen and co. NPCs being the same as before. Normal mobs were hitting harder than I remember as well, but that could be down to the fact I was /drk instead of my usual /pld and lacking any defense food. I also encountered a new NPC I'd not seen before;


See just ran around (after I had already been weakened by a wave of her normal lackeys) and demolished every allied NPC present in seconds by spamming Staff weaponskills. It was bordering on comically tragic. As the only player in the zone, I just left and went elsewhere.

I had 7 Op credits to get through, so I did a few supply/sabotage ones for variety instead of the usual 'Defend/Attack some place' Ops that I spam.


Being engulfed in a horrible explosion; just another day's nuiscance for the modern-day adventurer. Yes, Windurst has lost control of Sarutabaruta to the Yagudo. They even attacked the city itself not long ago, which is a HUGE pain when you're trying to begin/finish Ops.

It seems Square-Enix's imagination burnt out after ToAU, since the higher tiers of Campaign Ops are identical to the lower ones, just with -slightly- longer delays before completing the objectives. A pity, but I guess I shouldn't judge everything with the same standard as Assault missions.

Other things that have happened recently;

Gear!

Was quested, and then mailed over to my MNK again (before SE realises it's glitched) to save me having to get a Tiphia Sting (which was around 150~200k if I recall correctly).
I hoped the quest would be a little more exciting since the guy mentions how awesome he is at cannoning things when you flag the quest, but not a single beast was cannoned in the cutscenes, nor was a single cannon fired. Very disappointed.

Speaking of WoTG quests, I started Bastok's branch of story quests and just got to a part requiring me to get hold of a Gnole claw. If my previous experiences fighting Gnoles were anything to go by (I ended up calling it a draw and running away from a Decent Challenge one because I couldn't make the damn thing die, getting it to 1% and seeing it spam heal back to 60%+ was disheartening to say the least), I'll be buying the claw from the Auction House (I hear the drop is pretty rare too).

I'm going to do Sandy last, I don't really like them much. I did the first few to obtain the gems required for the Gobbiebag quests, but they seem too light-hearted and not befiting the nation's character at all. Plus doing all that running around for for baby Excenmille (Was it? I forget) makes me feel like I'm in the SOB (warning: old reference XD) all over again.

Uhm... I appear to have deviated slightly, as we were;

Grief!

Dynamis-Windurst was rather messy...drops were PLD, RNG, THF, RNG...brd?....err, I forgot most of it. Still made the boss though.

Gustaberg!


I just thought it was a nice picture...

Gargantuan fiends!


Nobody was about to kill the Sandworm I found hanging around the outpost in Batallia Downs, although it doesn't appear to have any drops at all, it does give a title for killing it and I do like titles. I didn't fancy a go at him solo, so I gave him a wide berth and went on my way.

...and BLU.

21 now, was still soloing. Birds in Buburimu are now mostly DC to me, so no more exp chains there. I'll have to find another camp to solo in while waiting for invites.

Kirin and Colin.

Gods again. Did one of each, I think. We finally got rid of some guy who was buying unwanted abjurations off us when D. Head dropped for him. Yay. I forget where all the other drops go, because I just pass and then switch off and go back to staring blankly at my screen with an inane smile on my face. I had a hot chocolate at some point, which was great.


Hey guise! Want soem Osodes?

I went to camp Cargo Crab Colin after, as he drops a fancy sword I like the look of for leveling BLU:


So I crossed Altepa Desert, entered Korroloka tunnel and stumbled into this after taking a wrong turn:


I was feeling a little unusual after crossing the desert, figured it must have been dehydration. NM didn't drop anything besides 1.2k and a spider web (which I later sold for 2k! :O).

Eventually made my way to Colin's camp, and wasn't happy to see a single placeholder on a 12 minute respawn, plus some BLU camping it as well. Courtious cat that I am, I left the camp to him as he was there first and logged off. I came and went the next day, depending on what I had to do and whether the BLU was still about or not. Eventually settled to camping and doing work while waiting on repops. One pop, and he dropped nothing. I was disappointed to see he looked the same as a normal crab (maybe a bit bigger?), when I was hoping he'd look more like Courier Carrie. Shame.


Carried on with some work, came back later and tabbing in and out for placeholder spawns. Tabbed back on one occasion to find some RDM fighting the NM (must have just come along seconds after it popped). I asked if he was just fighting for the hell of it and wasn't after the drop which fortunately, he wasn't. I asked him to invite me in case it dropped. Good thing he didn't kill it too quickly.


So, it pays to stay calm and be polite when someone pounces the NM you've been camping for hours, as I doubt he would have been so kind if I erupted in a fountain of OMGWTFBBQMYNM.


However, the trip did not go without some (further) disappointment as I discovered the "enhanced spikes" effect from my Duelist's Tights only work when they are equipped while you're being hit (I initially thought that you only needed them to be equipped while you cast).


A shame, but the piece still isn't totally redundant thanks to the extra Elemental magic skill. Maybe it is now for blood tanking stuff since it's defence is significantly lower than other options (Crimson Cuisses) unless the boost in spikes makes a massive increase in Ice Spikes' paralyze proc rate, and even then sacrificing 10~20 DEF isn't the end of the world on Even Match mobs.

Also, I just got my first party invite on RDM with my flag down for a long while, only days after musing to my linkshell how I've gotten more out-of-the-blue invites on my MNK mule recently. I've not mentioned my MNK yet, I'll add him to my pile of filler entries.

Back in action.

Hurrah! I'm back and playing again, paying as little attention as possible to the amount of work I'm facing over the next four weeks. Damn me.

/breaklinkshell
Got kicked from my sky shell, because we were changing who held the Linkshell (since the original leader had long since quit, and sack holders had been running the shell for a while).



I would have preferred it to be yellow or orange, but we can't always get what we want.
Short run, just popped Despot (on the first kill!) and gave 'ole Kirin a run about afterwards. Apparantly we still have an abundance of Kirin pop sets.


Nice drops though.

We were going to stay for another, but another LS showed up, and we let them have a go and finished early. So off I went to level BLU some more.



I started off in Buburimu Peninsula, enjoying little success and eventually being defeated by some Tough bird, so I decided to trek through Tahrongi Canyon and have a look at the mobs in the Maze of Shakhrami.

Worms in there were much easier than the birds in Buburimu at level 19, although worms are squishy they do have some potentially nasty TP moves (MP drain, Full-force blow). Got much faster exp there, even after my exp bonus ring wore and soon hit level 20.



Exp took a nosedive at that point, with a few worms spawning as Decent Challenge so I couldn't get exp chains from them. Since my NPC hit his limit and left, I decided to use my Return Ring (which enjoyed a rare moment of usefulness) to warp back to the outpost in Buburimu to have another shot at the birds there for a level buffer and to cap my blue magic skill.

With an extra level under my belt, the birds were not as much as a problem as they were before and I called Savul-Kivul out again for another 30 mins (<3 Tactics Pearl) before calling it a day. Next time I level BLU, I will probably look for a party in Qufim as solo exp is starting to slow down now. But first I'll need to learn me some spells again (._.) oh well.