ITS THAT TIME AGAIN

I got selected for the FFXIV beta.


Fuck yeah! Well, I got selected for the alpha test, which will be followed by a closed beta and later an open beta, but apparantly I can take part in all of them~

Never really expected to be picked (unless they've picked 90% of people who applied, I'm not sure). Now I'll just have to find time to actually play it in between work and all this new XI junk being thrown at us.

Also, in other news, Gyroscopic Gears put out for mee <3


My iron-clad thighs are very happy :3

fo rreal?

I thought this was pretty good, considering how little my first nuke did and the fact I was weakened (although it may only be double-weakness that effects nukes). Oracle's drink as buffs. Next SSR I wanna try that with chainspell!

Anyways, after salvage I tab around and target some NM I've never seen before through a wall. Lawz and I investigate (keep in mind we had both just unweakened, so low HP). Turns out it aggros low HP from a mile away and depops after it loses hate, and there was a group gathering there to fight it.






I felt bad afterwards for the other people in the group, but the guy mouthing off came across as pretty dense and unpleasant, so I couldn't care less about him. Also it turns out it was Lawz's mother that killed him, but Lawz is a loser anyway for not having a buffer on brd!


! rock (graphical glitch? I don't know)
Managed to scrape together another 450 tabs from Fields of Valor to waste on another STR-1 bow. I can't wait.

35 drops? In mah salvage?

It's more likely than you think.


Cheyne won the lot for it, and he now only needs the 15 to complete his usukane set! Not exactly an accomplishment of our static, but at least we contributed. We probably wouldn't have managed the turtle without him in any case, since that was the first time I've ever done it and Lawz is the only other one who knows what to do.

And today I realised why I was lagging so much on that run, I had shadows turned up to full :\

No, you can't has forgs

Zhayolm is a complete shit. We were supposed to do 5f/6f, but after being gyped out of cells again (we got 2 rings and 2 ranged after clearing 2f NE, so could only dupe one and therefore unable to unlock 3 people for 5fN) we ended up doing the boss.


Now I'm 2/3 on ares legs and morri feet, both needing the 35 :\

We could have tried for 6f, even without 5fN, but that would mean going south on 3f and killing 5fS (drops nothing) just to pop 6f which I feel is a waste of a run by itself, if we were faster we should be able to manage 6f+boss I guess, but our setup isn't great for this zone. In future, we might port up SE on 1f so we get hands (and TH4) before killing NE room, which I think is a waste because clearing NE first is always the best option because it can drop more useful cells, and I'd rather have everyone with back/waist/rings/earrings/ranged instead of just hands. Whether it was just bad luck, or we just didn't have TH on all the lizards (I wasn't paying attention) I can't tell, but this zone is not being kind to us, and we've done about 3 or 4 consecutive runs here so it's about time we went elsewhere for other people's stuff.


In other news, Flam came back to play over the holidays and we both went to dyna for shits and giggles. As it was dynamis, the shits and giggles ran out pretty fast, although spamming 2hours on Jeuno gobbies (dice move thingy can reset them) was entertaining for a while.


It was actually the first time I ever did dynamis as non-RDM, and now I have no idea why people always wanted to get off RDM in favour of DD jobs, because it's just as repetitive, and harder to ninja-afk when meleeing. 3am finish killed me, I don't know how I put up with that regularly.

Forgs

Our first attempt at 6f went as planned, which is a nice relief even if we got the usual 0 drops.



I learnt a whole bunch of stuff as well!
-2f Madame does contribute towards poping 6f, so you don't need to bother with timed 4f pops.
-Pop conditions are more trouble than the NMs themselves
-Lack of WHM is costing us time on 1f/2f thanks to petrify, but Juli is the only one with THF or WHM leveled, so we're kinda stuck

We finished 6f with about 22 minutes left, if they hadn't put the stupid chariot + gears on 6f we could have gone and killed the zone boss as well :\

Oh well, not bad for a first go.

Copycat.

It may come as a surprise, but I've not done anything noteworthy lately. The best I've managed is to stalk similar looking mithra in whitegate and dress the same as them.




Waiting for Salvage, I noticed my shadow looks like a wierd sorta alien spaceship when light is coming from overhead. It provided a few moments of amusement for me. Speaking of Salvage, we're having to cancel runs because we keep getting only 5/6 for runs ;|.


I forgot, I did do something after all; I've used up all my beastman seals on Up In Arms. Obviously no clubs dropped else I'd have said something, but at least there's some small consolation in getting 40~60k per run. Our last run we managed it in 4:23 as a duo, when the previous record (3:57) was set by a group of 3. With INT potions and better level capped gear (not that I care enough to buy any) it should be easy to beat 4 mins as a duo.

3/3

Pickup salvage run. It only took 15 months <3

If only I'd got the cloths back then when it was cheap...

Also 4/4 on chariot titles. \o/

What is this.

It's not a shellbuster, I can tell you that much. And that it's on a DRK. I don't even know why I bother when I see stuff like this.


Here's an illustration of RDM abuse; probably the biggest recast list I've made from normal party duties


When buffing just one party is not enough. I think I'm the only person with RDM leveled attending limbus at the moment (other rdm is MIA). At least there's no competition for AF+1 bits. Speaking of which...


+1'd my 2nd RDM hat, next will be body > legs > done.
DRG +1 legs will be my new TP legs (and it completes my healing breath set) until homam. I can't store my AF now however, but I plan on HQing the feet (jumps) and head (healing breath, spirit link) then putting the useless bits (body, hands) in storage.

Exciting things I've been doing between limbus (pictured, above), dynamis and standing around in whitegate now include salvage (again)!

New salvage group will take some getting used to, but we managed to do LAC (silver sea boss) on the first try, which is something I hadn't beaten before and didn't expect to beat, so it's a good start. Now hopefully I'll see a Zhayolm run sometime in the next month instead of the usual SSR > SSR > Bhaflau> SSR > Arrapago > Arrapago > Arrapago > Arrapago > Bhaflau > SSR > SSR > etc. rotation that everyone on the server seems so fond of (I've even only seen one Zhayolm pickup group shouting, and even that was JP).

Bastok got Fauregandi

Yay. At least I have 1 northlands OP now.


Shame I got past 5-1 so won't be with Bastok much longer. From a quick glance I can solo up to Rank 9, until I need people to get through the doors in Quicksand Caves.

Soon I can be back in Windurst ~


Don't do this
Tav ring is sellable for 20 gil! Considering it's one of the most useful re-usable teleport items which can't be re-obtained I don't know why they even let you do this. I hate to think if there was some poor guy who used it thinking it was one charge ever, then NPC'd it after :x

Arrapago Remnants gave us something nice too:


I don't think it's that uncommon though, I've seen a load of Ares 35s' and not a single Morri 35 body ever. Still, a nice drop to see. Not pictured: also Morri feet 25 dropped from the boss, which I got. So I'm 2/3 on feet and legs and both pieces drop in the same zone! Unfortunately doing 6f madame and the boss in one run isn't easy and I don't think we can manage it, at least not yet. I've not even set foot in Zhayolm Remn. for a year or more, and since then they've apparantly nerfed frog chorus (charm AoE) duration, which is great because that really slowed runs down.


Me and some frens vs. JoF.

JoF won.
Kept killing our tank (MNK) with -aga > WS lameness. Was easy to kite with gravity when we waited for weakness after the first two deaths but it resisted way too much on the 3rd. More magic defense bonus gear for -agas, or more people (dedicated tanks and DDs) would help. But where's the fun in asking more people?


k I'm done. You can go now.

Comet charioteer

Salvage is on again! New group, and everyone knows their shit, moreso than me so I need to re-learn stuff that I forgot over the past year. I had to go on DRG when I'm only used to doing it on RDM but I still had a good idea of which cells were which.



First run was in Bhaflau, and we were aiming for the boss (Long-Bowed Chariot) which had me worried because I've never had a positive experience with him. We killed all 10 gears on the fourth floor without them warping, plus the chariot there so we didn't get owned by Homing Missile.


The boss fight was very smooth, I only had to spam Angon, jumps/meditate for tp and WS when it was safe, and we had plenty of time left so I didn't really need to be there. Although heavy damage is needed for the 4th floor gears to kill them before warping. I wasn't keeping track of time, but we might have even had enough time to do a rampart + boss.

Was a good finish to an otherwise crappy day, which I spent (trying) to merit and got ignored by good parties, invited by mediocre 72~75 parties, which was fairly fun because I was main healing on DRG/BLU but that takes alot of attention, especially fighting Mamools because by the time I can heal someone (50% HP), they can easily get one-shotted by some TP moves. So not really workable on Mamools unless your party uses +HP macros so you can heal them earlier.

But it's not really a surprise people skip DRGs for meriting (despite them having a main weapon that has +25% damage against merit birds) when you take a look at the 'average' dragoon you can find:


To be fair, that's not a bad jump setup, but rings/earrings are still very bad and...well, I wanted a party :(


My eyes. Tiger ring +1. Trail weapon. There are no words for this.

Two out of Three.

Paralyze II is now 2/3 (and falling, when I get more merits) to make way for Phalanx II. The latter being much more helpful for Salvage (particularily first floors, I'm hoping it might speed things up a little, although MP never really was an issue before). Naturally, during a Silver Seas run Paralyze actually starts paralyzing things that I cast it on, making me instantly regret deciding to get rid of it. After having watched Powderkeg Yanadahn be rendered immobile for a good few seconds by my spell, I complain and announce that I'm retiring RDM because Paralyze II apparantly operates in an absurd counter-logical fashion.
However it seems Yana, being a fellow RDM, felt pity for me and gave me some trousers to help make me feel better :D.


This puts me on 2/3 for Morrigan's Slops, which is all well and good, but we can't beat chariot bosses yet so it'll still be a while before I see them completed.

More Paralyze madness on some Gears NM;


It especially irritated me that this would happen when I was short of a back/waist cell as well. The gears weren't quite as sympathetic to my whinings so didn't bother dropping the legs we wanted from them. Due to the random nature of paralyze, I'll just write it off as bad luck, and Paralyze I would have performed just as adequately had I used that instead.


In other news, another Adventurer Appreciation campaign is on, which basically involves moogles being stationed around to give you some moderately interesting statistics about your character to compare with others. Also new Anniversary rings for all, which nobody can complain about.

Obligatory 'this is what the moogle says to me' picture:




This is what an anniversary ring does:


I'll be using mine on either getting DRG to a respectable level, or speed through it in Merit parties to cap Phalanx II merits ASAP. Also, the hour recast on it allows for Anniversary ring > Emperor Band > Anniversary ring goodness in merit parties.

Cuddles has got his second ring too, so MNK will take a healthy boost in EXP should I ever get a party on it. The Astral Candescence was recently stolen by the Undead Swarm, so few are going to be partying until the mystery superJP weekender team rescue it for us lazy westerners.