Version update!

Not in March, but early April. No major details yet but at least we know they're planning it.



It is our pleasure to announce that the next FINAL FANTASY XI version update has been scheduled for early April. Development is currently in progress for a whole host of items, including the following:
- Thrilling new episodes of nation quests for Wings of the Goddess.
- Battle-related adjustments and additions.
- Large-scale expansion of the Moblin Maze Mongers and Fields of Valor systems.

Details will appear right here on Topics as they become available, so stay tuned!

New WOTG quests for juicy storyline stuff is no surprise since they've gone quest-mission-quest-mission-etc with the updates so far.

FoV and MMM expansion is cool, but I've not got into either since they've been introduced so unless this results in a peak of interest from people, I'm unlikely to experience it. Judging by the picture there's going to be more lulzy items (hamur) to go along with the eyepatch and pointy shoes from MMM.

It seems they've dedicated a picture (the three tarus) to announcing that they are going to make the crappy event gear storable at last. Why they don't make this possible as soon as it's introduced is beyond me.

Then the usual "Battle-related adjustments and additions" to provoke interest and wild speculation - a trap I won't fall into. Not this time SE.


PS. HOLD THE FUCK UP.


ADVENTURING FELLOWS IN MMM? FUCK YEAH (is this new or already possible? I never tried ._.)

2 Nyzul floor 80 runs, first dropped Goliard, second Askar. I won the lot against 2 others with a 700-something. Good times.


Doesn't look right with P. legs or dusk feet, or turban for that matter :(
(andIcan'tgetatrue6-hitwithoutrajasorfoodoraurumbodybutwhatevermanscrewyou)

I'm still working on gears, farmed enough Zeni so need a free weekend to kill it on. This weekend I have revision for mid terms planned, and the weekend after I'm hopfully going home to see friends/family/cat. So could be a while yet. Also joined a Limbus shell, so I can hopefully start working on my bottom half.

Death Blossom and Drakesbane

Drakesbane to follow :Q

...



As promised.

It's such a great looking WS, even Old Goobbue agrees!




I made about 35k while unlocking the latent from coffers and random drops, which is pretty sweet, although coffers have become incredibly annoying after the last patch.


They now have a chance to just depop if you've opened one recently, which seems fair enough but considering they have used a very loose definition of 'recently' in programming this, it seems that the game doesn't want you to open the same coffer twice in any area, ever. In the above picture, the last time I'd opened a coffer there was some 8 days ago at least. Fortunately this stupid rule doesn't apply if you're after AF or maps, but it sucks for me because Boyahda keys drop to me like candy, so I'll never get to use them. In the end I went 1/3 on sucesses, then got a second key and went 1/2 with that. So there is at least some chance to succeed even if you opened one less than an hour ago, coupled with the faster respawns on the coffers it doesn't hurt too much, just has you running around alot more.

WHAARGARBL MARIDS

I went out to play with my Wyrm Armet today, and was not disappointed. And that picture lies, the shits hit much harder than that (~200 without cocoon, 300+ crits) but kinda slow, so it's not too bad.

I had a bit of trouble when he started shitting Chigoes at me (and my lolImpulse Drive missed the bug), which interrupted a healing breath trigger and the next round of attacks got me to 130 HP, so I had to use Super Jump and let my wyvern tank until I was fixed. After that, I made sure to save jumps for the bugs. It was easy once he'd finished poping them all though.

While on the topic of Marids, I did Iriz Ima again, but failed to get a nice screenshot of me with his skanky corpse before it depoped. 3000 zeni and it's Gears again! But I might try to do Gigiroon/Ima again for the seal item, just so I can tempt fate to drop my boots on the next kill, thus wasting my time farming the second pop (which would actually take less time than to kill the damn things).

Alternatively I could stop dicking around and get a Limbus LS which I will have to at some points anyway for homamamams (and AF+1) (and Nashira) (and another agonising 12~18 month wait to get enough points for said items) (sigh).

To end on a less whiney note, here's the latest addition to my dumb/amusing names folder;

This one falling under the catagory of 'dumb'. Unless there's some incredibly witty irony about naming your mule as such, it's wasted on me anyhow.


Ok, it's an actual character (because who would waste time leveling their stupidly-named mule and getting them rank 5?). Dumb name is a safe bet.

Wats dis?

It's not a Duelist's Chapeau, but still sexy :D

Bomb Queen Ring?

I thought so too.


It's an unusual fight in that it gets easier the more melee you throw at it. Bomb Queen doesn't do any TP moves, just casts spells (more melee can interrupt easier) and summons babies (which die with 1~2 weaponskills).

Easy fight! Definately no drama over pop sets and stuff where we had to leave because we were late for sky and the person concerned stood there for 30 mins doing nothing!

Running a fine line between D: and :D

Autosorted 4 seconds before we were kicked out of the zone <3 (it might be less to do with luck though, since most people probably passed it along with the coins before we finished, but still awesome) Had me grinning like an idiot the rest of the night :D

I was debating lotting because it is a nice penta/jump piece, but I still needed to keep my points up to stay 2nd for D. Chapeau, as well as being able to lot DRG hat if it drops first (Xarc next run as well) and accessories are 5 points, which would have set me back a fair bit.

That wasn't the only incredible bit of luck that run, we killed the boss with 2 seconds left on the clock (having wiped earlier to some city mobs that were sac pulled badly).

So that run could have easily gone wrong and been really lame, but instead managed to be the most awesome dynamis run for months (for me at least). And only 2 hours long too!


Afterwards, I went to help with the CoP Ouryu fight. Last time I did it, I was on my laptop and got meh screenshots. I'm sure I had a very mundane screenshot of me resting and a barely discernable Ouryu in the background. I'll go look...
*rummage*

...found it!


SNES graphics gogogo!

Ouryu 2009 ed.:

RDM/WAR tank! Kept hate the whole time, although we were sleep/nuking so all I needed to do was eat damage after each timed Freeze from 3 BLMs until they could sleep it again. Worked better than any other tank would have actually, mainly because he spammed aga nukes every time he woke (only did 90~100 damage to me without stoneskin) and I had more hate spells available, more MP/magic defense than a PLD would have, plus I could stoneskin/blink while it was asleep.

Me and Juli did a fire in the sky ENM afterwards for shits and giggles, which got us a free 2.5k exp, along with the 1.5k for Ouryu recapping my buffer after Dynamis, and getting a free merit to boot! A good day all things considered.

Super cute tarutaru fun adventure excitement!

Is just one way of trying to make a weeks worth of skillups sound exciting.



Skillups seem to have slowed down (and mobs are getting harder, so I need to spend time buffing myself), so to combat the tedium I changed into sexy Elvaan mode while I tickled spiders to death with my cheap arrows.



I called Savul towards the end and did a few skillchains with him before I left, so I have about 250 points on my Vorpal Sword, I'll have Death Blossom ready as soon as I hit floor 100 in Nyzul. Speaking of which, I got up to floor 85 (three runs today, one of which failed on floor 90 and the other failed on floor 86), floor 80 didn't put out askar for me but I'm going to carry on to 100 before spamming it (or goli feet).

RDM skills now look like this:

Archery caps at 210, Parrying 200, Throwing/Shield 189. Not long to go~


Other misc bits from this week...

I met Serket.



eh's a pretty cool guy, dropped a ring and doesn't able to hit anything. His accuracy was pretty bad, even vs. drg evasion (gogo 2 evasion merits?). Was easy to tank when I pulled hate, even when super jump was down - bindga spam is the only thing that makes it tricky. Them nubs I was with wiped to a bat train while I was on the way, lucky there was no competition! They went 2/2 on the ring apparantly. Lucky shits.


Discovered a chocobo chick hanging out in the windy stables. Serves no purpose other than to look cute, but I wonder when they ninja'd it in.


Got Dis:


And dis:

(After farming Bomb Queen pops, hopefully will be doing that soon) Savul got one-shotted by the first Bomb that self-destructed. What a noob.


Aaaand did some Ballista so we could have enough points to do Diorama. Getting 6 people to show up for a ballista, even if you let them log out/leave/afk after entering is probably the biggest challenge the game has to offer.


RDM is awesome, especially when it's the only mage (only mnks on the other team). Strangely enough, Sheepsong landed every time with a lv. 30 BLU sub. I think the only time I died was when I let them kill me (took buffs off then converted).

Knead Knead

Woooohooooo!


And soon after;


I'll get the next five floors from a body run (might wait for one where I can lot askar). Then 880 WS points for Death Blossom/Drakesbane!

A jack of all trades.

I decided to make a genuine effort towards getting my skills capped on RDM, having abandoned the cause a couple of years ago from getting worn out on Shield and Parry.

I worked on Throwing and Archery for a change.


Altepa desert was my playground for this session, lots of RNG mobs (antican and goblin) to have ranged duels with. Dhalmels were also good because they can self-heal with TP, so one mob would last forever thanks to the horribly low damage on my Lamiabane (which is amazing, since it's the only returning weapon that RDM can use bar Aureole) it saved me ALOT of darts at least.


Archery was a little more fun, considering I could actually use my TP on Ranged WS (was subbing RNG) and mobs would actually die, so I could enjoy a few free drops. I only had two stacks of arrows, and these ran out surprisingly fast so I went back to throwing.

Over 2 separate 1-hour skilling sessions, I got about 30 levels on throwing (112 now) and 17 on archery (97).


Arriving back in Whitegate after the second of the afforementioned skillup sessions, I see a shout for the Nyzul floor that I was on (46~).

Three runs, all wins made me very :)

Although I was asked to start one of the runs because the leader didn't have enough tokens, which cost me 1100 tokens for the 56~60 run. I had no idea you had to pay to start runs, haha. Makes Nyzul even more lame, considering you'll have to go back and farm tokens if you get unlucky.


So 1760 WS points to Drakesbane and Death Blossom. Still a little too high to be worth taking the time to break it, but definately looking better than the 3000+ I was on at floor 46. Floor 80 doesn't seem too bad (880 points) so I might start trying to break it when I hit there.