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

Dear Hades; What the fuck?

Current campaign status is probably the best since it was introduced. It bewilders me to see everyone making an effort with campaign just before we get merged with Cerberus, so we get a day or two to farm Chuchu mantles/witch sashes before the server is shut down. Smart move guys. (Chances are since all areas are doing much better than normal it may actually be related to the new campaign ranks in the update, so people are trying to get their old medals back)

In any case, I've done some stuff

KIRIN ZERGAN

Not sure if this is actually any good for damage (and I know it's not good compared to what WAR can do) but this is my first WS over 1k on Kirin.


SCHOLAR LEVELAN

Finally a good low level party ._.! Powerlevel + BRD + merit-style pulling = happyface. I was only there as a syncee, otherwise they'd be better off with another DD job.

In between not getting party invites and grinding FoV solo (this is painful as SCH), I've been following a BLM solo guide on beastman pets. It's ok exp, but still kinda slow and you have to focus the whole time if you don't want to die. In adition, getting to camps is a pain, plus avoiding aggo/links can be tricky. Since getting 25 and utsusemi/sneak/invis it's gotten much easier. That said, mobs always seem to move into the worst possible places at the worst times in order to stop your chains, or just outright kill you because they felt like you weren't dying enough today.


It's incredibly frustrating and tends to drive me insane talking to the monsters, which is why I don't like soloing pets all that much.

WoTG quests, Scholar and Ballista

Relatively eventful weekend for me outside of the usual event stuff. Started playing catch-up on WoTG quests (since it's the only thing I can do solo) namely The Price of Valor, which requires you to kill some random BLM orc.


You just need to kite him around the lake you pop him by, although there are some sound-aggressive mobs (and one HP aggro ghost at night) around the lake, it's a big enough area to avoid them and even if they do aggro you can just keep running until you lose them. Alternatively, you can just cast sneak and plough straight through them if they are being obnoxious with positioning. Which reminds me, aggressive mobs seem to follow me EVERYWHERE even before they've detected me, they ALWAYS move into the worst possible place, or just fucking run straight at me from across a zone. Game hates me.

Anyway, the orc took me two attempts because he has a fairly potent en-curse that I didn't think much of at first, so wasn't very careful to avoid melee hits. After it did inevitably curse me, I remembered curse reduces movement speed, which didn't go down too well because I had to stop and use a holy water while he broke my stoneskin with melee attacks before I could run away. So when I get curse off, he decides to hit me with an -aga 3 as I'm stood right next to him and can't outrun it. Annoyingly, it only just did enough damage to kill me (thanks to the -50% HP from curse), so if I'd spent 100~200k more on my MDT set I'd have survived. Figures.

SCHOLARAWR
I quested an all jobs lvl 1 great axe because it looks silly on other jobs. I mainly used staff for actual fights. Soloing is painfully slow.


I've since realised I might be better off trying to follow a BLM solo guide rather than grinding like a melee. But I got a party later, and naturally got thrown into the main healing role cause Scholar has cures so must be good.

Actually, that's false. SCH doesn't have cures. It has cure. And that's it until level 17. People joke about RDM casting one spell (refresh) over and over in a fight well, this LITERALLY was casting cure 1 repeatedly over and over until the mob was dead. It was agonising.


Even more so when goblins used bomb toss, and I'm the only healer. I suggested the leader get another job for support when we started, so I didn't have 5 useless front line jobs to heal (NOBODY had a dancer support job, despite it being the only useful DD sub at this level). So, we got a DRG/PLD to help cure. I find that in low-level parties, it's better for your sanity if you just roll with it. If you repeatedly wipe and lose exp, then sure, make an excuse and go, but 90% of the time your party will be just plain bad so there's no point in getting worked up over it. Even if your backline support is a character that can cast a 20HP cure 1 twice before running out of MP. Level 15-17 in two hours is abysmal, even back in the day before level sync and fields of valor. But hey, at least I have cure 2 now.

Ballista!
Or Diorama-Abjhalalalis Ghelsba (however it's spelt) as it is better known. Nem organised a pretty big Diorama get-together for his LS anniversary, as with previous years. And it's freakin' fun.


I actually prefer chaotic big games to 1 vs 1 crap, probably because as RDM there are few (if any) jobs that can stand a fair chance against you solo, and I love those great moments chasing people around a corner, only to find 8 or more of their buddies waiting for you, or letting a small group of DDs whack away at you with phalanx and ice spikes on, and then take them all down one by one, or stall half their team whilst yours gathers or takes out a squishier target than you. RDM is stupidly overpowered in much of ballista, and I love it. Especially when you drop invisible behind a group of 2-3 people, and they start to run because there's no point even trying to fight.

wat

Finished MNK 35-37, all six starter jobs 37+ done!


The PL had better gear than my main job.


I downloaded a new /sit DAT. Turns out /sit isn't the only thing it changes.


The idle motion isn't too bad, and the vanilla idle stance has gone all buggy and you 'twitch' when looking at stuff at a certain angle. Need to find it without the resting stance though.




"I'll never waste my money on FoV augments!" He went a bit apeshit at one point and nearly killed me (red HP) thanks to a combination of double attack spam and 400 damage TP move. If I hadn't bothered with improving my healing breath trigger I probably would have died!



Will try RDM next time, might be safer and it doesn't have much HP, so it will probably die to 2 MP pools. (Also, I found death by counter from MKD hat rather amusing)

wat.

Hopefully just a one-off and there's not aliens inside my game.

New shoes, BV2 and finishing MNK

I say new shoes, all I did was pick up my DRG af+1 from the NPC I left them with for two weeks. But it's a healthy addition to my Jump set, which I will get around to posting with the rest of my gear soon, since I'm fairly satisfied with what I've got now.




MNK from 32~35 from a mix of soloing/FoV/Garlaige party. Wasn't too bad, but I want it done so I can spend my time doing something productive instead of satisfying my OCD-esque compulsions (next: deleveling whm and nin to 37 so they match my other jobs).


My turn to CS-stun Bahamut. Not hard, but I'm always worried about screwing up and asploding the alliance.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

So by now everyone has relised the add-on scenarios are pretty bad. Like "WTF why have I even payed for this" bad. It appears SE have realised this as well, but instead of actually changing the content from bad > good (the logical solution) they instead tease us with powerful quest rewards (see earlier rage post) and now random convenience items!


Why it has a 40 hour recharge, I don't know. Apparantly you can abuse convenience. Now having scanned over the list of areas you can use it in, I see it has little use in gathering people for endgame activities, although it could be useful if people have spare characters to park them in certain areas (say, Uleguerand Range / Attohwa Chasm for easy-access ENMs).

I could say at the very least it prevents idiot party members getting lost in the jungles, for example, but chances are you don't want to be partying with the kind of people that get lost in the jungles.

So anyway, I leveled MNK a bit.

Blessed Radience nom nomnom. 15~21 still works pretty nicely at Buburimu outpost. I intend to do parties from 21~37 now I can get some decent gear going.

I also noticed an odd thing with Counter:


I'm 99% sure that the counter skillup came from the WS, and it's already known that counter can proc on WS, but I don't think I ever saw a 'miss' message before (this is speaking from 60 levels of MNK experience on my mule, obviously kaya hasn't done much punching).

Jorb #3

I still can't decide what to level...but I've thought of enough reasons not to level pretty much every other job.



I want something I can equip well, but I don't want to take up more events. I don't know if BLM would be worth leveling without any relic gear, same goes for SCH because they both get some good pieces. I've considered BLU but that's not great for leveling (although can solo BST pets decently) and it only has niche uses at 75. I wanted to try BST, but leveling that would just be for the sake of leveling, I won't pretend it has much use at 75.

I could do BRD quite happily, but I already have RDM to fill the slot of underappreicated support job. THF? No TH4, which doesn't bother me but it will bother everyone else.

Sighhhh


Maybe I'll resume leveling stuff to 37, at least I don't have to worry about gear and endgame applications then ;D

Hundred fists + drain samba = ?

Yuck. I think it's because drain samba is based on weapon delay, as longer delay weapons drain more, shorter delay drains less so not to give an advantage to single-handed weapons (god forbid should someone be using anything other than a GKT to melee with these days).

This was leveling MNK to 15, just after I'd done RNG. I'm using 15 as a stepping stone towards 20 so I can get some decent gear for my jobs for the 15~20 stretch and re-use it on multiple jobs instead of leveling each one individually to 37 gimping it all the way. It's also useful (leveling multiple jobs at the same time, that is) because I can keep good camps in mind and go back to re-use them before I forget. Once I hit Qufim levels I'll start flaging up again. I still have COR, PUP, BRD, DNC SMN and SCH at level 10 so alot more work yet. Once they're all 20, I'll start taking them individually to 37, starting with the more useable/fun ones and take it slowly from there.




I ran out of arrows on RNG and had to grind my way from 14~15 by meleeing.


MNK. Turns out these birds link. Fields of Valor regen + drain samba (DNC is a zomg sub at these levels for most jobs) + DC~EM mobs is a great combo. If there was only a room full of EM mobs for me to solo...ohwait. MMM may have applications here. Sadly it lacks FoV, and caskets/kupowers.

Augmented junk.


I kept the Racc. +8 one for skilling on RDM. Still no capes. Had a nasty run of mythril ingots recently.


I also discovered what happens when you try to collect the afterglows again before JP midnight has passed. They still haven't done something about the annoying kupowers message. It should only be shown when you log in, or if you type /kupo or something to cut down on that annoying spam. At the very least remove it from city areas and especially mog houses.

And finally...new shoes!


<3 <3 Now if Temenos would put out DRG I could get AF+1 legs which would be amazing because a) They would tide me over until homam legs for TP, and b) It's the last piece I need to complete the best attainable Healing Breath setup.

Shame RDM can't use the boots, so I can't sell my dusk shoes :(

I want to do a convert guide at some point, and continue with paralyze testing, but that's stupidly time consuming and I have other stuff to do in game, like use my assault tags. Not to mention the update is coming on the 21st so that'll have me busy for a while. I'm getting the kupo expansion soon as well, because the trailer makes it look a little more entertaining that ACP was. And the hats.

New job and yet moar missions

I left off at just getting rank 7. First changed race to Elvaan in keeping with the whole San d'Orian theme. Also sexy behind. Here's the stuff I did to progress:




Hit MNK orc in face until it died as RDM/BLU. Laughably weak.



Hit more orcs in face until they die. Again as RDM/BLU, again very easy.




Octopus guy who actually did some damage for the first time, I had to bind him during Hundred Fists.
Someone asked me to help them do ZM12 while I was there, that was a success with SAM/DNC, BLM/WHM and RDM/BLU. I just meleed while spamming cures until the pot died, because all I had was melee gear.


Next mission was kill this doll guy (or pair of, but you can sneak pop and pull one, like the rest of the open-world NM fights). Again not too rough, but I bound it for mighty strikes and had to save TP in case it used meltdown. It didn't.

So those bunch of fights netted me 60k and 80k for rank 8 and 9 respectively, currently half-done mission 9-1 which has me running to far away regions I still don't have the outposts for (Sandy failed to get anything useful this conquest cycle). Then I need to get through the Eldieme Necropolis to kill some birds before I can do the final BC. Almost done!


While I had to wait a real-life day between some missions, I decided to start leveling jobs to 37.


I started with BST because it didn't really need much fancy gear. I don't want to start on inventory-intensive jobs (SCH, RNG) until I've got my satchel space sorted, which is still going to be a long time yet at this rate :(

Also, I just managed to beat ACP 7, the Fei'Yin fight. I was supposed to kite the majority of the mobs while they picked them off. Hate was silly in the fight and I couldn't keep the mobs on me, despite spamming cures on whoever they were hitting. The WHM got silenced and ran out of echo drops, I lost Convert to Paralyze and everyone died. It wasn't pretty.

Second run was pretty much the same as far as hate goes, but we left the gobbie until last this time because he's a pain. We just spam cured everyone while mobs ran around beating on whoever they felt like. I got a crappy elixir from my key :\

Bad Etiquette (ROFLWAR and LOLDRG)

Thanks to some good fortune, some ok-ish parties and nice soloing opportunities, DRG has gone from 18~27 in a couple of days with less than five deaths, and not one de-level! (one being narrowly avoided by about 100exp) Having obtained Healing Breath II at level 20 (restoring 75~95 HP, depending on wyvern's TP), soloing became much easier, allowing for relatively easy chains on Even Match~Tough mobs (presumably thanks to the signet bonus, EM things are a pushover).

Buburimu!

As was the case with BLU, birds at the Buburimu outpost proved to be a winner for exp at 19~21 (18-19 was spent in Shakhrami, but the majority of worms there pop up as Decent Challenge at 19, so for future reference it's probably best to do worms at 16~18, then Birds at 19~21).


Qufim!

RMT are back in Qufim, I saw them still there earlier today and was surprised that I'd managed to actually out-level them...a sign that I'm playing too much perhaps?

In any case, I got a party there for a couple of levels and had the usual 'fighting over worms at the pond during the day / oh shit, it's night - every man for himself!' Qufim experience, which of course is a pain but there's little else that can be done about it (and I couldn't find a decent solo spot, and didn't fancy Gigas pets again).

I came back in a couple of levels to solo the worms, which turned out great, getting about 5k exp within 30 minutes although I did encounter another person there (fighting worms) who I wasn't sure if he had arrived before I had. Since he was /anon and had no search comment up, I decided fuck 'em and killed everything in a flash of awesomeness. He left without saying anything, and I ended up feeling bad about forcing him out :(
But really you're asking to be ousted if you don't but a search comment up since it's essentially your fault for allowing that person travel there expecting to see a free camp.

Yuhtunga Jungle! (and the ROFLWAR)


I met a geniune nublet in his prime - the tell-tale signs of the underleveled sub, greatsword on warrior attested to his overall inattentiveness and lack of contribution to the party. I did send him a friendly tell to provoke stuff and keep defender up (he did tank admirably for all of one fight - I suspect he felt he had satisfied me, and went back to whatever he was(n't) doing before. I can at least be thankful that he had a decent full set of armour (a rarity, even at this level) sadly that was all he had, as I was forced to /check him after he switched to polearm to see what the fuck he thought he was doing. His bazaar comment has to be one of my favourites to date.


Hey is that a polear-mhnGHHFGFHHouch

I was lucky enough to have made an excuse to leave before even joining the party (I got the invite when I only had an hour left, anyway) and went shortly after I leveled - by coincidence, I assure you. By that point, the Kazham entrance area was too highly contested and any longer there would have been a waste of time in any case. I used Spirit surge to end on a good note.


I friggen love that 2-hour. I'm not sure why the second jump did so much damage, I know it has a defence down additional effect while Spirit surge is active, but I don't think it's that drastic and I didn't think it would apply to the jump itself. Maybe a critical hit? I don't know.