Synergy

I'm not into crafting. I'm not into augments particularily. I'm not into camping particular monsters for a small chance at getting claim/kill/drop. I'm not into gathering a group of people to take part in an activity that will soley benefit myself. Synergy is certainly a good choice of name for this system because it combines all of the above into one abhorrent monster of an activity.

It is with pleasure that we announce the arrival of the version update featuring the exciting new Synergy and Evolith systems. Get together with your craftiest friends to create heretofore unseen items and put the perfect finishing touches on your arms and armor, old and new alike!

Want to learn more? Peruse the details here.

Pros
- Exploding is funny
- There is a mithra in the preview pictures
- Thwack furnace (THIS IS HOW WE FIX PROBLEM IN RUSSIAN SPACE STATION!)

Cons
- Think about crafting, but the only materials you can synth with are exclusive NM drops
- Need friends (with skill in appropriate craft?) to help synth stuff
- No idea what gear you can actually synth yet, unlikely to be anything useful
- Augments likely to be lackluster and not worth the effort involved
- Going to Bastok sucks unless you have a home point there
- Claim usage of a synergy furnace. Idiotic idea, and you can't get a private furnace until you get level 5 synergy skill AND complete a quest.

Mumor 2: Moar mithra!

As it's my 200th entry, here's some nice artwork to celebrate:



SE is back to recycling events it seems, but adding mithra to them is never a bad thing ;o


Not much has gone on in the world of me, I've not even got any crappy augments to show off because I've not got one in days. Also not been online much because I'm lousy like that.

I did get up to the first BC fight for MKD, so I need to look for a group to attempt that. The prerequisite for it was the same as ACP's 'collect afterglows' missions except longer and more annoying (what a surprise). At least they made good use of the map markers for the first time since the adventurer cupon quest:


Why they never bothered using these for any other fetch ??? quests in the game is beyond me, perhaps they forgot (or, more likely, they want people to suffer and scour entire zones to find them by themselves).

*shakes fist*

Move over, boyahda tree?

Found a much better spot for skillups/latent breaks - upper delkfutts!


Mostly EP~DC mobs, but they aren't hard if you're on a half decent self-sufficient job (NIN, PLD/DNC, RDM, DRG/mage, etc). Plus you get a chance at doing Pallas or Alky for free bracelets! Pallas is a little harder, at least for DRG because he keeps calling a pet which does about the same damage and can interrupt you. Alky hits a little harder (and does mighty strikes) but is no problem for drg.

The downsides to this place are magic aggro around the middle, and there's nothing around Even Match level (unless you skillup on Alky) so you won't be able to cap skills here. Also bracelets have a low drop rate, and Pallas's aren't really worth very much anyway, not to mention you need the NM pop item to drop first from normal gigas. I'm probably only fond of the camp because Alky dropped for us, so that's 400k each as long as the price doesn't crash :x

Also, a crap ton of socks dropped, so I kept them for desynthing into wool thread, which can be quite profitable (<3 satchel)

...well, that is if you don't break 90% of your synths.


This is why I rage quit crafting. Desynths are often a nice way to make money back, but you fail a crapload more when your crafting skill goes above the skill cap for the desynth, which makes perfect sense. 7 fails in a row, and then only one NQ success should not be something that occurs on a recipe that is 20 levels below your current skill.

Augment attempts have been kicking me in the teeth since I got that free p.rope as well:


I don't know why they even allow some of this junk to exist. Surely they can at least tell when an item will be 100% useless?


Fishing on the other hand, has been kind to me. I've been going through 1~2 stacks of bait when I go to Jeuno for ACP keys if I have time, and before Limbus because I'm poor and need it to pay for my airship ticket. I got level 4~5 in one sitting!

The version update 'teaser' got my hopes up for fishing adjustments, but it's just a buff for the Ebisu rod, which is already the best rod available and extremely difficult to obtain anyway (think Lu Shangs +1). Also lolbells and some crappy JP equivalent of the cheese sandwich (I bet it will have more useful effects than the cheese sandwich, because SE are like that). This is looking to be the biggest let-down of a version update ever, unless they announce something insane on Monday. Don't hold your breath.

Bought account you say? What makes you think that?

Call it intuition.


First attempt at Greater Colibri solo went well. I got chain 4, then linked these like a boss just after cocoon wore and couldn't keep up healing long enough to kill the first one because it spammed feather tickle >:|
Jump recasts came up a couple of seconds before I died, and they would have been enough to kill the damn thing.


Also this just poped on POL:

Job Adjustments and Additions Part I (03/07/2009)


NIN adjustments zomg.

Yonin looks sexy for NIN/DRK tanking, Innin less useful since you usually want a NIN taking hate when they're in a DD-situation (exp, merits, limbus etc). So neither help NIN when you want a DD tank, which is probably the job's most common use.

My NIN is 40 :3 only thing I ever used it for was farming a fomor codex. If only I got haidate back when I did sky, I might have leveled the job fully D:
Knew I'd regret not getting them, mithra NIN is sexy as hell as well :(

Mijin buff is good, but it's still a meh 2-hour even if not weakened after. Will be interesting to see what Nagi-Mijin does now (100% HP after will not suffice).

Also Part 1, so another job coming up! BLM? SMN? PUP?! Possibly new avatar inc.

Silly kupo hats

Next mini-expansion to come with the update it seems.

The rewards are going to be similar to ACP, but in the form of hats this time. I guess we're going to have more potentially decent augmented items from the missions along the way as well.

I don't like the hats. Well, the MNK/COR/PUP/whatever hat (medium armour) looks decent, and they all look like they'll match with the respective body piece from ACP. But I don't like the look of the mage one or the heavy melee one (which looks especially silly).


Looking at the list of augments, I could get a lukewarm replacement for w. turban, or a pretty zomg Drakesbane piece (since I don't/won't have n.head) or a 6MND/cure potency hat for RDM. Probably won't go for the RDM option, because I do have limited inventory, and RDM gear is pushing that limit often, not to mention when I'm in need of more skill/accuracy on debuffs, the first thing to swap out is the head, since that's the biggest skill gain for the least amount of MND lost.

If the store TP option came with haste or accuracy instead of evasion, I might have made use of that in a TP build, but it would be pretty weak compared to most 6-hit options. So it looks like I'm going towards a drakesbane piece (but that hat is ugly as sin :( ). My options are:

1) STR+4 WSacc +15 / DEX+4 crit damage+2%
2) STR+4 WSacc +15 / AGI+4 ws damage+2%
3) STR+4 WSacc +15 / acc +10 att +5

I'm lacking a lot of DEX in my drakesbane build, which is why the DEX+4 was attractive, and a bonus to crits is nice on top of that.
Option 2 is the least convincing, AGI being useless for my WS, and even on a 1k damage WS, the 2% extra will add 20 damage. Do not want.
3 looks really nice, even though it seems like a broken amount of accuracy (25) on one piece of gear, it might even be changed before they release the expansion. Acc+10 and att+5 makes my Pahluwan hat redundant for DRG, and both augments together will completely destroy wyvern helm as a WS option (-1 STR, +25acc, +5att in comparison). 3) is the winner here I think, as long as they don't nerf the augments in the near future.

Do you even know what you're getting yourself into?

I ran into someone who has just started the game (can't imagine why anyone would bother at this point in the game, especially with XIV on the horizon). I introduced him to the tutorial NPC, who should keep him busy and explain stuff like the Auction House etc so I don't have to.


The main reason I wanted to help, apart from having nothing better to do, was so I could actually use the mentor icon legitimately for once.

I had to look up the tutorial NPC on the wiki since I'd never used it, but they give you some nice stuff like free food, a reraise earring, exp ring, free exp and some gil for completing quests. I told him about the wiki, which is probably the single most useful thing anyone can tell you starting out, but he said he was on xbox and presumably had no PC access(thus no keyboard, and my own experiences of typing with the xbox controller are not positive ones). Realistically, I don't see him lasting long, especially starting as BLM. But as long as he's enjoying himself more power to him.

I did let him know BLM was rough to start out on, but his response was something along the lines of "but I liek to cast teh spells!" which is cute, but swinging teh axe is a more popular approach to leveling these days, but I'll leave it to someone else to crush his hopes and dreams. I told him to get a keyboard too, since I think the game would be plain unenjoyable without being able to interact with others properly.

I'll be surprised if he gets past 30 days.


Stuff I did that I didn't really mention because I was too excited about my new hat:


ACP augment spam! Only two items from the Fei'Yin quest pictured above (I got two other beak necklaces with useless junk on), other than those I've got a bunch of gil items, the worst being a potion+1 and the best being a gold ingot (18k). I'm hoping for a decent acc+6 mantle, or something like a free penitent's rope.


Standing around in whitegate! Here's some naked Galka antics.


MMM stuff! Soloing is difficult, so bring friends! More marbles for me, but miles away from getting a spade/hat.


Helping kill crabs-inside-worms. I had to stun stuff. RDM Aspir actually works better on this guy than it does on most Dyna-Xarc demons.

Also, new Wings of the Goddess missions in the coming update.


Who knew.

Campaign about to become worthwhile!

Campaign Gets Reinforcements! (15/06/2009)


Brave warriors of the Allied Forces of Altana, heed these words! New battlefields and new orders await you with the coming of the new version update. Your mission will not be easy, but rest assured that you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

If you would take up arms for the cause, you may read on for your briefing.

Icelands areas? New ranks? New bodies? Yeah, yeah, saw this coming.

But they are going to add something interesting:

Great riches await triumphant Unions, including but not limited to the ancient currencies obtainable in Dynamis, a wide assortment of synthesis materials, and the spoils of vanquished Beastman Confederate captains. Such rewards will be distributed via Union treasure caskets after the conclusion of each battle.

Hopefully the stuff from Beastman bosses are interesting bits of gear, but I predict alot of Campaign-triggered latents :\

Ancient currency is cool, but I won't be looking for any by the time this comes out and it obviously won't be provided in vast quantities so city dynamis isn't going to be rendered completely obsolete. Synthesis materials? More star sapphires please, then maybe I can afford the HQ rings/earrings sometime in the next decade.

Incoming Version update!

Next Version Update Scheduled for Late July! (08/06/2009)


We're pleased to inform you that the upcoming version update is on track for a late July release! The development and quality assurance teams are hard at work cooking up a whole slew of exciting new content that will feature the continuation of the Wings of the Goddess missions, new areas in past Vana'diel, job adjustments, additions and refinements for Campaign and Moblin Maze Mongers, and much, much more.

Details on all the new features will be released here in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes glued to this space!

Campaign bodies finally! Chances are they won't be very good... I was interested in the Windurst mage body for a time, because looking at the rest of the set it would be similar to Goliard (HP/MP, conserve MP) but now I have Goli body, it's unlikely the WoTG one will be better.

New missions are bleh, because nobody is doing them and I've not done the latest set of quests because I've been busy enough. I don't do MMM or Campaign, and job adjustments aren't going to be as epic as the WHM ones they just did (BLM's turn maybe?). Not excited.

Anywho...


/poke


/poke


Promote!

End of the world is nigh.

Maintenance. In JP prime time, and not EU prime time for the first time ever.

Holy crap, you can tell the end of FFXI is coming.

...I wonder if this will finally fix the area-wide lag in Whitegate?

GG Siren.

Siren World's Undefeated Besieged Record Eclipses 2000 Mark!
(04/06/2009)


Ever since the introduction of Besieged to Vana'diel approximately three years ago, Siren has emerged as the only world to maintain an immaculate, undefeated record. And as of May 27th 2009, this record has reached an amazing 2000 consecutive victories!

We would like to offer our heartiest congratulations to all the denizens of Siren World, and wish good fortune to those in all worlds who do their part in the frenetic defense of the Imperial Capital, Al Zahbi.

I've not commented on the POL news stuff for a while, but this is quite impressive, especially that they went that long when a two week period on Hades without losing the Astral Candescence is considered a 'good stretch'.

Misc stuff:

People carpet :o


Seems we can't do dreamlands with less than 30.


Cool damage bro. This was on Bhaflau remn. 4f gears, I thought it was good since I normally average around 1~1.2k. Had double minuets and angon for it (coeurl subs as food), so no surprise here.

We linked a couple of gears, and the pickup guy didn't know to kill them fast so 1 warped while fighting, so we got about 7/10 overall. Still managed to kill the boss and complete some Usu legs!