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.

Long time coming

Only a week short of 8 months waiting for the Apollyon drop. I got the second half of my DRG materials in the same run, but I can only upgrade one AF per week, so RDM body then DRG head and I'm done with the essential AF upgrades.


Bow augment of the week. Any day now...

I've been trying to find people to join to kill Farruca Fly. Never thought it would be so freaking impossible to find anyone doing T2 VNMs that would at least let me leech kills, but eh such is life.




Seems I missed the bus that all the competant people doing magian weapons took. So if I happen to find anyone doing the VNMs they are almost always complete morons.

1/6 so far, and far too many hours wasted to get that. Why is everything simple end up so difficult for me? :(


I broke my game as well, only recently noticed that Mithra don't close their eyes anymore when resting (everyone else I asked reported them closed). It could be because I changed my .dats to get rid of the goofy vanilla idle stance.

WTF (Windurstian Teen Force)

Oh, you.

...I finally found some people to do the WOTG mission I was stuck on, and since then have been speeding through them to the next set of nation quests, which I'm in the middle of doing (not checked if I can do them solo though).



Some of these quests I REALLY despise, not because of the story or difficulty or anything, but because some of them are fucking tedious, for example, Beneath the Mask goes something like this:

> Talk to guy in Bastok
> Go to Beadeaux
> Warp back to own nation, warp to Gustaberg and walk to Bastok again
> Go to the Eldieme Necropolis, talk to guy
> Said guy has forgotten some seal, you need to obtain some items to make a new one.
> Trip to Whitegate/Jeuno auction house to obtain said items
> Go to Vunkerl inlet to make seal from items
> Go back to the useless fuckwit in the Eldieme Necropolis
> Return to Bastok again
> Go to Beaucedine Glacier
> Wonder where the last hour of your life went

Another fun example is the Windurst quest I'm on, which is supposed to be a battlefield fight. Except it would be too straightforward to have me go to X zone and press Y button to initiate the fight. No, I've got to go to king's room of each beastman stronhold in the present to get three key items before I can do the fight. I'd be fine with them drawing out shit for the sake of it just to make you go and use old areas, it's cool to go there once in a while, but I have other shit to do and I only live so long, do I really have to keep doing this shit for every quest?


Am not impressed.

One good thing came out of these quests though; I encountered a JP group doing Shoggoth and they let me tag along


I got 4 kills over 1 and a half hours at most. Is good.

Later, I saw someone shouting for it, so I joined against my better judgement as they'd been shouting for a good 30 min with no success and they were failing to correctly spell VNM.


By some miracle we managed 2 kills over the space of 4/5 hours when I finally went to bed at 1am :\
(I must admit though, the 2nd kill was mainly done by 3 BSTs, and it was relatively painless)


So 6 Farruca Fly Kills to go and I'm done with this ordeal.

MND BOW?!

Fuck you. Fuck you very much.

Pixies? In MY canyon?

It's more likely than you think


I don't know, so don't ask.

Now for the COOL SHIT I GOT:


1/1 FUCK YEAH


WHOA AWESOME (Had the ampoules for ages, need a Gleeman's cape now so I can sell prism)


I just can't get enough of these sweet augments (0/15ish now)



Aaand Juli helped me kill the WSNM for this, not had chance to try it yet :|

Okay so

I've been busy the past week, and went home over the weekend so no play for me. Even now that I actually log in, I've ended up spending my time afking in Whitegate again. Could be a sign for me to quit...or you know, get a LS/some friends.

Anyways, on a lighter but infinately more mundane note, I finally managed to break my Pole of Trails while doing FoV.


Petrify gets me every time; had to sit and watch my wyvern kill the fucker from 33% and it nearly killed me first.

I paid a visit to the Retribution WSNM, and it turns out he is popped in a fucking terrible area, with linking sight/magic/sound aggro mobs all around and nowhere really safe to kite while soloing on RDM, so I didn't bother poping it. It would probably be do-able straight tanking in a corner somewhere, but I didn't have haste crap on me for utsusemi timers, nor did I feel like going to the trouble of getting it into a 'safe' area only to have a bunch of bombs and bats wander in and gank me when I get the NM to 50%.


I also had a look at some pre-built MMM mazes, in hopes that I'd find a setup for the Mamool Ja earring NM that I want.


I saw one that looked like it had the right runes, but it also had 19 (Weakness) and 20 (Paeon) which make the mob inside weaker and (I think) lower item drop rates, or remove them completely. I only heard that as a rumour and can't really find anything on wiki to support it, but it would fit with the whole "Fuck you" design of the game, not to mention if people were capable of creating the right rune setup they would sooner keep the maze design to themselves and sell you the drops instead of sharing them for free.

As the screenshot above suggests, yes I went inside, and it was the right NM. I ran him around a little, found he attacks incredibly slow (like "I can cast stoneskin between your attacks" slow) with Slow II on, and didn't really hit too hard (150~ish and 230~ crits with -25% PDT). The question is now, should I bother trying to fight this if it won't drop, or just try and buy the earring for 1.2mil. The answer may seem a little obvious (free vs not free) but I have that whole no friends thing working against me, and do wonder what kind of setup I'd need to beat it with.

So, I heard you liek bonanzas?

It's been a while. I've been super with work and shit over the holidays so I didn't get much time to play/write stuff here.

So anyway, yet another mog bonanza just got announced, which is still some time away and nobody will win it, so it's not worth worrying about (until they announce the numbers, then I can complain about getting yet another statue for my mule).

So yeah, I'm on Cerb now and unsurprisingly there are a fair few more people here:

Not that this has helped me in any way, still not seen any shouts for missions that I'm on and more people only means more competition for FoV mobs (ugh), NMs, etc. I'll try putting together some groups when I have more time after I get my dissertation in.

Mainly I've being doing my most hated activity of camping NMs for the horribly time consuming Trial of the Magians quests, which requires me to kill a fuckton of trash NMs nobody cares about SEVERAL TIMES EACH (fucking hate that part, there's no reason for it other than to waste time), then kill a couple of new NMs that you can't kill solo, and your job is not even ideal for, so nobody wants to help you with it. Hopefully we can get together some sort of loljob alliance of DRG and PUP that need the kill so we can do it, otherwise I'm SOL.



The only thing this has going for it is that you can at least team up with whoever needs the quest and everyone gets credit for the kill, so thankfully the 4k+ people on this server aren't all potential enemies.



I saw some other neat stuff too, like the way frogs pop:


Gets kinda old though when you've been waiting on the NM to pop for three hours after the window opens (single placeholder lottery pops, fuck yes).


So far, I've had to kill:
Spendlix Spindlethumb x3
Herbage Hunter x3
Kirata x3
Intulo x4
Ramponneau x4
Keeper of Halidom x4

And finally, I have the last two to go until I get my DMG:99 polearm (relic-1!):
Shoggoth x6
Farruca Fly x6

Fuck knows how I'm going to finish this pair.

As for events, Lawz left the server so Salvage is in a 'wut' stage at the moment, I've not been on much either due to work but I expect it to go downhill unless we find a good WHM/BRD and or MNK replacement (preferably all three :|). Plus I don't want to lead runs and my memory isn't great at the best of times so keeping track of what cells people have/need is not going to work out, unless everyone actually takes care of things themselves, but I can hardly ask everyone to learn everything about salvage so I don't have to tell them what to do. In any case, going 2 times a week is not enough to get familiar with everything or get practiced enough to not suck, not to mention the issue of drops, I really don't have more time to dedicate to it either so all I can say is MEH D:

I got some cool shit from Limbus at least:


And I probably dropped about 10 places in the waiting list for nashi legs because of it, but this is worth the sexy.



And, I broke my previous Drakesbane-vs-Kirin record!



In between that, I've got the usual no drop (or even pop) from Timeworn Warrior, which I'm somewhere around 0/5 at now (and at least 3 occasions where I gave up camping because he didn't pop for over an hour...).

In addition, more failed MND bow augments:


And Lamian Kamans are 20k normally on Cerb, so that just got twice as expensive as it was.

Finally, it seems like some lovely people have taken over La Vaule [S]:


Sadly I don't really have the friends or contacts to start spamming Splitting Heirs for chuchu mantles, so no gil/gear for me!

Ok, I'm done dumping.