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HQ Adventure = Death+1 :D
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Beanie 's profile
Handlename
POL Handlenamegbeans
e-mailgbeans@pol.com
Homepagehttp://www.centragarden.net
CommentHydrabo (L80) and Tunafish (L80) (Windurst), Aisierra (L70) (Bastok), Ammoboxes (L80) (San d'Oria) are my assistants.

Maps: 79 || Nyzul: 100 || Cobra Rank: Medal of Altana § § § § || Maat's Cap (lol): 5/15 || Highest Fish Ranking: 18th Place || Synergy 35.2; Feed Fewell 5, Furnace Thwacking 2

QUESTS -- Windurst: 83 || San d'Oria: 67 || Bastok: 82 || Jeuno: 90 || Other: 51 || Outlands: 43 || Aht Urhgan: 52 || Crystal Era: 56 || Abyssea: 2
SCENARIOS -- A Crystalline Prophecy: Fin || A Moogle Kupo d'Etat: Fin || A Shantotto Ascension: Fin
CRAFTING KEY ITEMS -- Lumberjack, Chainworking, Sheeting, Gold Purification, Clockmaking, Trituration, Concoction, Iatrochemistry, Anima Synthesis, Patissier, Synergy Crucible, Frog Fishing
CRAFTING ITEMS -- Shaded Spectacles, Caduceus, Alchemy Apron, Portafurnace, Waders, Seagull Ring, Pelican Ring, Heron Ring, Fishing Smock
WEAPON SKILLS -- Asuran Fists, Retribution, Black Halo, Detonator, Empyreal Arrow, Evisceration, Decimation, Blade: Ku, Tachi: Kasha, Impulse Drive
MYTHIC WEAPON SKILLS -- Ascetic's Fury, Tachi: Rana, Blade: Kamu, Trueflight

Merit Points (469):
HP/MP -- Max MP OOOOOOOO
ATTRIBUTES -- STR OOOOO
COMBAT SKILLS -- Hand-to-Hand OOOOOOOO || Marksmanship OOOO || Katana OOOO || Evasion OOOO
MAGIC SKILLS -- Enfeebling OOOOOOOO
OTHER -- Critical Hit Rate Up OOOO || Enemy Critical Hit Rate Down OOOO
MONK -- Counter Rate OOOOO || Kick Attack Rate OOOOO || Mantra O || Formless Strikes O || Invigorate OOO || Penance OOOOO
RANGER -- Unlimited Shot OOOOO || Rapid Shot Rate OOOOO || Flashy Shot O || Snapshot OOOOO || Recycle OOOO
NINJA -- Subtle Blow OOOOO || Ninja Tool Expertise OOO
WHITE MAGE -- Cure Cast Time OOOOO || Barspell OOOOO || Devotion OOOOO || Protectra V O || Shellra V OOOO
SAMURAI -- Store TP OOOOO || Meditate OOOOO || Shikikoyo OOOOO || Blade Bash O || Overwhelm OOOO

Adventuring Companions:
* Sasavi -- Neglected Wyvern
* Raka Maimhov, lv.70 Soothing Healer, Katana -- Max Active Time OOO, Fashion Advice O
* Petra, Valoredge, Stormwaker -- Puppet that has more parts than ACE Hardware
* BestArcher, F, Chocobo adult -- Yellow feathers. Strength: First-Class, Endurance: First-Class, Knows Burrow and Treasure Finder :3
* NimbleArcher, F, Chocobo adult -- Black feathers. Strength: First-Class, Endurance: Outstanding, Recp: Average, Disc: Average, Knows Canter and Gallop
Diary Index
Beanie's diary (20 articles)

10/04/29 23:36(open)10/04/29 23:48(1463)
Dem, Klai, and Cyd helped Yosa, Nif, Tharp, and me with Sandy and Bastok WotG missions this evening. Thank you! Inventory -2 with the last two Retrace staves in my locker now >.>; I also lost two inventory to the SAM funishings from the current event. I mean, I *needed* a kabuto and swords in my Mog House. I'm pretty sure about this o.o;

Other than that I'm still kicking and screaming at FFXIII (mostly screaming... running out of unique profanities to melt the paint off the walls in the room with...) At the moment I've got about 80 hours on my save file. I'm 82% done with Marks and prolly 1/3 to 1/2 of those are 5-star (though I'm not really worried about that Achievement.) All of my characters have their 3 main roles maxed and I've been working on secondary roles.

The latest stumbling block is Mark 51 (the last one of Titan's Trials). I almost had it 4 times before that God-awful Doom ate me. It's incredibly frustrating to lose repeatedly... Not to the boss you're fighting, but to a lousy game mechanic. (Thus my running out of ways to vent that frustration verbally...) So I'm taking a step back. Deep breath. I still have a few other Marks I can go after and maybe take another run at Mr. 51 later. My current target is the giant Cactrot. Even if you have not\ intention of fighting/winning this Mark, you should start it up just to see the Cactrot's entrance. I'll admit that it made me chuckle >.>;
Name
10/04/25 00:17(open)10/04/25 00:35(1462)
Howitzer went to Bastok today. I played Nif's WHM shadow since we were a bit under-manned. We still did well, got the win, and I think it was 15 drops? And minimal death >.>b

I've been chewing on the idea of upgrading my RNG earrings some lately, but not quite sure what direction I should move in (or if I just want to change for the sake of changing, what I have is probably fine...)

Current: Triumph Earring (STR+2), Fenrir Earring (Ratt+10 @ night)

I've been kicking around replacing the Fenrir with either another Triumph or a Novia (Eva+7, ENM-7) since my RNG is a hate stealing whore. My RNG set up already has some ENM- built into it (around ~10), which isn't very much. I'm not sure -7 would be enough bang for the buck to justify the price / slot.

I'm not really fond of the Rare/EX ring/earring sets, but I finally saw a pair that might change my mind. Wilhelm's Earring / Altdorf's Earring has Ratt+1, Racc+1, AGI+8. The biggest hang up for me is that Wilhelm's Earring has a drop rate under 5%, which will eventually piss me off :x I'm not sure I need more reasons to be frustrated or angry right now >.>;

On paper it looks like a nice upgrade, though there are other spots I could pick up more AGI for less frustration >.>; I could get Haryuchi Sune-Ate that have AGI+10 on them (+5 over my current WS piece). And the Sune-Ate are going for under 3mil on this server. That's not a trivial amount of gil, but not outside my reach either >.>; And that doesn't really answer the ear slot question...

If I wanted to be cheap and put in more STR I could pull the Feyuh's Earring out of storage. That has STR+1, VIT+2.

What I really want is a Ratt+20 earring without any strings attached :E There's the JSE enchanted earring (that I've never gotten to drop even after doing the ENM for it a lot x.x ) and the Campaign only one >.> SE is such a tease, I tell ya...
Pisces > There's a 15% cure potency staff via the Magian's quest :| I want the cure potency, but the time you have to dedicate to actually get it greatly annoys me. I'm better off getting SCH to a subable level (it's 17 right now, I think). (10/04/26 11:45)
Beanie > I've looked at the staff. And I do agree that /SCH is the best thing since sliced bread. Did you see there's a Cure Potency +2% neckpiece too? 3mil on Quezzy lolz. I wouldn't pay over 1mil (and even that's a bit much) for only 2% :x (10/04/26 15:22)
Pisces > O.o!! +2% cure potency on a neckpiece? Nope, didn't see that. I've been lazy on gear; figured I have enough as it is... :o Cure Potency +2% with -2 enmity! 1 million on Bahamut. Unfortunately, I don't have that much gil... (10/04/26 22:57)
Demandred > I wish I knew enough to help you on your gearing decision. x.x As for hate pulling, I would also have to ask whether that is enough -enmity to really help you enough to justify it. For me it would come down to whether that would really be noticeable in reducing your enmity; when level synching my monk, it felt like I had to stack heavily to get any use out of it. Just my two cents, but you are more experienced than me on this. :) (10/04/27 22:41)
Beanie > I've been chewing on that very question, Dem, ever since SE pulled the rug out from under lowering the ENM on ranged attacks. In theory Camouflage gives -25 ENM, but you couldn't prove it by me. It'd be easier if SE just fixed the ENM already... (10/04/29 23:35)
Nimbex > I have been using Camouflage before Barrage or barrage shots, but wasn't quite clear on how it works (most of my knowledge is based on your writing). But I figure it can't hurt and it's not like I'm otherwise using camouflage in my EXP party. (10/05/03 12:19)
Name
10/04/24 01:36(open)10/04/24 01:46(1461)
The good thing about working at a print shop is that when I need something reproduced it's easy to do. In this case, I wanted some of the charts from the FFXIII strategy guide enlarged (wtf@what must be 2pt on at least one of those charts >.> ). But more importantly I wanted copies of the charts so my cats would stop sitting on my book. I fully realize that cats have an instinctual *need* to sit on whatever book, magazine, or bill you're trying to pay, but I had to special order this book and the game shop only got like two of them in period :| I'd feel better if there wasn't a catbutt in the middle of it.

So I copied the charts I wanted and bound them up with a comb bind so I can lay them flat or fold them over. I've been happily highlighting items I have (so I can get Treasure Hound in this game at least. It still irks me that I missed it in LO....) and noting down my status on Marks. I did a few Mark tonight with a bit more purpose now that there isn't a catbutt in the middle of what I'm trying to read. I still haven't unlocked Chocobos yet, but that's okay. I figure walking is good for me since I'll need asstons of CP before this is over =.=
Kuaci > You work in print?!?! Do you guys do letterpress? (10/05/03 10:26)
Name
10/04/23 05:54(open)10/04/23 06:42(1460)
I haven't managed much of this lately, but I did a few things in FFXI over the last few nights >.>; Tuesday was Dynamis - Windurst. It was a pretty nice run :o Nif finished his WAR AF2 set :D Dem got WHM and Klai got THF iirc. There was a lot of AF2 to go around. It's always thrilling to see that.

On Thursday, Klai, Dem, Cyd, and Tharp, helped Yosa, Nif, and me clear Songbirds in a Snowstorm. I'm grateful. I know the three of us really want to be fully cleared on WotG, but it can be hard to find enough people to stay caught up on the national quest lines ^^; Especially when we had so many friends quit during the merge ._.

ENDGAME FFXIII DISCUSSION! NO OUTRIGHT SPOILERS, BUT LOTS OF OPINION ABOUT THE ENDGAME.

In other news, I finished FFXIII. I can say quite honestly and with reading all of the in-game cliff notes that I have no freaking clue how we got to that ending point beyond "Oops, we wrote ourselves into a corner." Sorry if that spoils, but it becomes kinda obvious around Chapter 10 that all is not well with the plot >.>;

And I see why Chapter 13 vexed Nif (which is really hard to do btw.) The difficulty of the final dungeon ramped up sharply. Even with my fully developed characters I had to hit Retry a fair number of times due to outright cheap shots. Nif doesn't power level / obsess over 100% completes like my brain does, so the dungeon was harder for him.

But before you got to that dungeon... The one before it where you chose which chest you wanted and lost the other... I think that was a shining example of the developer's disdain for the players. I can understand a choice like that if you're choosing between two awesome items. In this case you're most definitely not :x The choice is like 13k gil or 6 sorta useful synth items. Why have to choose? Neither is going to shift the balance of the game. If it was to prove that a dinosaur > glass floor, um, no shit :D

I sidetracked, but back to that last dungeon, OMG was it long =.= I think Draxyle had a fair point in saying that FFVIII's dungeon was longer. Thinking on it, it probably was. It definitely was more interesting by far, considering the number of mini-bosses and puzzles it contained (nevermind, Omega Weapon >.>; ) I've been spoiled by Lost Odyssey. I played through that right before FFXIII and it's final encounter was the boss going to a location and saying "Here I am. Come and get me." If you wanted an end dungeon, there was a longish puzzle-filled-boss-at-end optional dungeon. Or you could go straight to the final throwdown. I liked that, but LO was also made by a bunch of former SE employees who left >.>; If you haven't played LO, you should :o

As for the final map of the last dungeon. Having the mini-bosses standing around as regular enemies was a lovely touch. I must admit that up to that point, it was the only time I've made use of the Invis-sol item >.>; It didn't help on the mini-bosses except to give me a pre-emptive strike, but it got me by that row of Templars that kept destroying my face :( I want to note that the one thing I *won't* gripe about is the fight with the Immortal. It was a hard fight, no doubt, but the items it guarded were worth the effort and at least it fought clean >.>b

As for the bosses themselves. That was another exercise in cheap. The first warm up boss was just a rematch so I took it down in 5 minutes with 5 stars. I had his number by now >:3 Second boss I was mostly cool with until it started up with the Russian Roulette with Death thing. Seriously, a 1 in 3 chance of nailing the character that *can't* die or it's game over. The only thing you can do about it is to up your Death resistance and cross your fingers that your lead isn't hit. There's no strategy to that. No skill. It's just dumb luck and fights that boil down to that piss me off :x The third fight brought back everyone's favorite Doom counter. I've already pointed out what a desperation move using that has been in this game. I'd say this was the only exception to the "OMG, must kill player" mentality since you weren't actually pressed for time if you were persistent on filling the Chain Gauge. You could kill the boss in a single Stagger if you pressed hard enough.

I began the post-game show and wasted a good hour or two just wandering around collecting soccer ball chest that I hadn't collected earlier. Then I started working on Marks again in no special order, just whatever thingy I tripped over I did. Bad method >.>; I'd accidentally accepted a rank A mark that nearly chewed my face off. (I say accidentally since I can't really read the TV when I lay in bed, so it's a surprise to see where I end up!) Anyhow, Mark 52 chewing on my face. I had Fang and Hope doing the turtle+healer thing while Lightning chipped away at it. Had it at like 98% health and 103% Chain (lolz) when the Chain suddenly filled >.>b I have her equipped with an item that randomly filled the Chain Gauge and it proc'ed. I changed to Relentless Assault and zerged the mofo down >:E That was definitely luck since I'd gone after a Mark I shouldn't have >.>; I was more careful to avoid A's after that.

With my continued wandering I earned enough CP to max each Role. That wasn't too bad. Maxing each character? That might suck :x I also stumbled over all of the D rank Marks and got the Achievement for killing them. That's cool since I really was wandering back and forth aimlessly >.>;

On a non-FF note. For those 360 users out there who want easy Achievements for your gamer score. You can get 80 points by downloading the Game Room and messing around with setting it up. Nif and I amused ourselves for about an hour this afternoon just seeing how many Achievements you could cheeseball without spending any money >.>b (We found 7 :x )
Name
10/04/18 22:37(open)10/04/19 00:22(1459)
My biggest gripe with TWEWY is that it feels like it was made by someone with a severe case of ADD. And I've prolly just insulted the ADD folks out there >.>; I believe the base game has good ideas and merits. It just has too much *other stuff* glued on there randomly and then tossed out to the gaming public. For example:

* Two unique characters, one on each screen and controllable, battling in tandem.
Interesting idea, poorly executed. If there was a TWEWY2 that would be the first thing I jettisoned :x

* Controlling battle with touch screen commands.
I'll admit that I hate gimmicks and this was a pretty obvious one :x On the other hand, it does have some merits, but it was poorly executed. 300 pins, are you kidding me? You can get through the game with, like, 10 >_>; If the idea was narrowed in scope and refined I'd be able to get behind it. Drop pin commands that flat out didn't work (like circling) and stick with ones that worked fabulously (tap, slash, press).

* Adjustable difficulty.
This is one idea I wish had worked out better than it did. I liked being able to choose between Easy / Normal / Hard / Ultazomg on the fly. I was amused by the idea of self-capping your levels, but all that really did was lower your base HP. So the game was still silly easy on Ultrazomg with my level turned down low. If there was a TWEWY2 I'd hope this comes back with a bit more fine turning. Also: Not getting the beastary entry for an enemy unless you got that difficulty level's drop was crap. Do you realize the anguish this put my completionish-self through?

* Food.
I liked how food adjusted your stats, but it's prolly what broke the adjustable difficulty :x

* Pins earning EXP while the DS was turned off.
I totally dig that. I don't dig the DS in roaming mode. Alien encounters be damned (since there prolly isn't another DS within 5 miles of me)... Do you realize the problems leaving it on overnight created? I have a pair of thieving cats .-. DS. Wall charger. All of it. Under the bed 'cause I hadn't left it in a drawer...

Believe it or not, that's my short critique of TWEWY. I could go on for pages once I get started :D

Back to FF11/FF13. I'd just like to say that Doom is bullshit. In both games. In 11 it's BS 'cause of Cursna / Holy Water failing. Do you realize how angry mages would be if Echo Drops failed at the rate Holy Water does? SE would get so much hate mail it'd be fixed by now... In 13 it's BS 'cause of how it's used in that game. As an "OMG, we can't think of how to make a real battle challenging so we'll just kill you instead."

Why yes, I am on the last boss of Chapter 11, so you can guess why I'm peeved. Good game design this is not...

EDIT: Beat the Chapter 11 boss using Yosa's advice. Deprotect. Deshell. Go for the throat with Relentless Assault until you're bleeding. Combat Clinic it off. Repeat >.> I still think Doom is dumb in 13 :x And 11...
Sivara > I'm with you on Doom as well! Holy crap, I screeched with rage at that. I was beating that first Doom counter boss at a good, steady pace using a mildly defensive strategy. I was WINNING, and then he threw out the Doom counter. I felt like SE was punishing me for using a defensive strategy. Clearly, they wanted to funnel you into one strategy only, instead of letting you play the way you wanted to. (10/04/19 09:11)
Cydori > " Clearly, they wanted to funnel you into one strategy only, instead of letting you play the way you wanted to." <- I see the FF11 Absolute Virtue team has been allowed to do game design again. That is a shame. (10/04/19 09:38)
Nimbex > One significant difference between the FF11 and FF13 "only one way to do it" is that FF11 actually has SE removing options after people invent them. "Let's try wall of justice" -> SE nerfs. (Admittedly, WoJ is fairly exploity). "Let's try kraken zerg" -> SE nerfs. (Come on. That, at least, they should have thought of sooner and nerfed it before AV was even added to the game.) Modus Veritas -> SE nerfs. (And that was even before anyone had pulled it off.) In FF13, they designed the game. They shipped it. And we played it. It's totally reasonable, IMO, to have some bosses with only one solution. Usually puzzles in RPGs are non-combat, but there's no reason a combat can't be a fair bit of a puzzle. Sure, in many RPGs, you can break a combat puzzle just by overlevelling. I recall that some people killed Ruby (Emerald?) Weapon in FF7 by using Uderwater materia. Others just zerged in the 10m time limit. Not all bosses need the perl motto, TMTOWTDI, to apply. I haven't played enough FF13 yet to say whether puzzle combats suck, but chapter 4's was definitely half puzzle, half fight, total frustration. I finally got past it last night, since I couldn't go to Einherjar. (10/04/19 09:51)
Cydori > Absolute Virtue has always struck me as something like a kid in a playground who gets mad that all the other kids are coming up with new rules and not playing it right. Complete with whiny little kid voice. (10/04/19 09:56)
Nimbex > And on the TWEWY front, I really did like all of these things you speak of. I think the dual screen combat was clever, unique, and great for the brain. TWEWY is a game you could put someone in front of who's never played it, and their head would spin. My head spun quite a bit early on, and it got better as I got used to it. After a while, I was ready to keep Auto-Top-Screen-Play off full time. I'm not a completionist, but I can certainly respect that pain. I loved the massive list of pin choices. I certainly skipped many of the styles of pins (e.g., I wasn't about to yell into my mic on the train), but I still levelled them up by one of the methods I had available. The touch controls were great, though I can't play the game until I put another screen protector on. I trashed my first DS's screen with the stylus. I really enjoyed TWEWY, and liked that it truly broke new ground in the action RPG genre. It had been a while since I'd played an RPG that I would use the word "innovative" for. TWEWY qualifies. (10/04/19 09:57)
Fait > I found the use of Doom in FFXIII to be a nice little extra challenge on some of the fights. It's so easy to just sit there and faff your way through the boss fights if you take a full defensive strat, so I think forcing you to actually try and complete the battles within a time limit is a good idea. I have to say I was never bothered with Doom from the Chp.11 boss, but it did make the Eidolon fights hugely annoying, and actually caused me to die a few times. Personally I liked that. (10/04/19 15:03)
Sivara > I didn't mind it in the Eidolon fights and I thought it made them a good challenge. The story explanation for it was good too. (10/04/20 10:19)
Beanie > Nim, did you ever read the tutorials or manual (all the way) for TWEWY. They apologize / encourage you to "stick with it" in both. Any game that has to do that (multiple times even!) has a known design flaw IMO :x Then again, I've been harkening a lot lately for games that you could just stick in and play. Prolly why I've been having a love affair with the LEGO games. I'm not a simpleton, but a *game* doesn't have to be overly complex to entertain. When you can successfully dodge huge parts of game mechanics and still be successful, your game is too complex. In TWEWY that would be ~290 some odd pins (did I mention I finished the game without using a single healing pin once?) in FF13: It would be the entire weapon synth mechanic with summons being a close second place (though summons always get the short end of the stick in every FF minus 11...) (10/04/20 14:56)
Kireila > Gosh, why would anyone ever want to read the manual of TWEWY? It's just chock full of spoilers. And yes, a game doesn't need to be overly complext to be entertaining, but TWEWY is just an example of a game that has options for different types of players to enjoy. Don't have fast reflexes? Use the dragging pins. Can't use both screens at once? Set your top screen to auto. Don't really play for long periods of time? Let your pins get PP by turning off the system. It really is just a game that caters to all different types of players and doesn't aim to be exclusive to a particular demographic as such. Also, games have ingame tutorials these days, which means you don't need to look through the manual, which is great in TWEWY's case because the manual is full of spoilers-- that is really my only criticism of the game, which really has nothing to do with the game itself. (10/04/20 15:16)
Nimbex > Oh, yeah, I tell everyone "whatever you do, DO NOT READ THE MANUAL" for TWEWY. I'm rather annoyed about that one. It's up there with "do not watch the unaired Dollhouse Pilot before watching the series." So, I think I did read the whole manual for TWEWY, but I'm not certain. Oh, here's something on the common featuers of TWEWY and FF13: rewards for good play. I think it's a cool mechanic and well done in both games--you kill faster, or with less damage, and you get better rewards. If you don't do them well, you can grind more, so it's not a big deal. In Riviera, though, the better you did, the better you could do, which was an annoying bit of positive feedback. But now I'm too far astray. In any event, my point is that I agree that TWEWY gives you multiple choices on how to advance your character or how to fight battles, and I feel that it does it well. (10/04/20 15:24)
Name
10/04/18 03:28(open)10/04/18 03:55(1458)
I haven't done much in FFXI lately, mostly due to my birthday running over events ^^; I missed Dynamis today 'cause of that >.>

So I'll talk about something else! I'm still in Chapter 11 in FF13. I'm currently in the tower-thing. So far so good. My characters are sitting well in their Crystal-thingy advancement and I picked up some nice accessories. Fang's STR is over 1000. Hope's MAG is over 1000. Lightning is my mediocre character with STR and MAG ~800. I'm still just trying to get through this game. I stopped enjoying it a long while ago ^^; But I have a (silly?) thing I try to do with games so I can mentally justify how much I spend on them... I try to get $1 spent:1 hour of gameplay out of them. So I'd need another, oh, 15 hours in FF13 to break even. I know that I easily have that much time left to play, but I'm not enjoying it :x It's prolly part of why I spend so much time digging through the discount bins. If I dislike a game I'm only out $10~15 and that amount of my life D:

Though, I can only think of one other game that I've played in the current generation that I didn't like... And that was The World Ends With You :x Yay, SE, you get a special prize for drawing my ire twice in the same gaming generation >.> Across two platforms even!

Thinking back on it.. ah.. SE would get a special lifetime achievement award for the number of games I've disliked. FF13, FF9, FF2, which is it's own special brand of hate. TWEWY. Parasite Eve 2. The entire God-forsake SaGa Frontier series. And do keep in mind that as a rule I finish the games I bitch loudest about. Another reason to finish 13. It'd be unfair of me to be so vocal without giving these games a thorough opportunity to redeem themselves.

Again, to be fair, SE does publish a lot of games and there are bound to be turkeys in there >.>; I even have a special place in my heart for some of the o.O; titles from the last couple PS generations (Threads of Fate, Brave Fencer Musashi, Ehrgeiz and Drakengard come to mind.) Though I buy an awful lot of Altus titles too and have a much lower head:desk ratio >.>;

I've rambled off topic. Nif dug up a FF13 survey that SE is running right now. You could amuse yourselves for a few minutes filling it out: http://member.square-enix.com/na/blog/2010/04/final-fantasy-xiii-customer-su.php

If that doesn't tickle your pickle, Zero Punctuation reviewed FF13. I'd say it's clever except the review is just an echo chamber of my thoughts on the game (at least I wasn't the only one?) http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1569-Final-Fantasy-XIII
Sivara > While I adored TWEWY (and can see why others may not like it), I'm totally with you on FFXIII. It was a bit enjoyable at times (the gorgeous scenery in Ch. 11) but I was left feeling a bit letdown in the end. There were a lot of little interaction inconveniences too, like not being able to save Paradigm configurations after swapping characters -- that pissed me off a lot and it's EASY to program that feature in! SE was rather sloppy in most aspects of the game except for the visuals. Now, I'm off to take that survey and enjoy some ZP. Thank you for posting the links! :D (10/04/18 12:49)
Beanie > The loss of Paradigms is infuriating. I've felt like keeping a notebook handy so I can note down what I had so I can fix it. (10/04/18 23:10)
Nimbex > Of course, I can't do that survey from work, as I don't have my token with me most of the time. @.@ (10/04/19 10:25)
Name
10/04/15 05:42(open)10/04/15 11:59(1457)
Howitzer went to Sandy on Tuesday. For one reason or another we were short-handed. One of the bigger holes, IMO, was Nif being gone due to studying, so I WHMed and tried to fill his shoes. Taru has mighty big feet, I have to say >.>; I'm maybe 80% the WHM he is and I lack his patience for shenanigans. At least Nif's spot is a good place to be. Folks are co-operative and don't run away from Cures or buffs >.>b So it's mostly me juggling with MP management and fumbling with my own inability to remember Solace > Sacrifice > Misery > Esuna.

On Wednesday I Besieged, then Tharp and I helped Ronin with his PUP AF3. That was harder than it should've been. The boss had this unfortunate fascination with Shield Bash and the lack of Nif was keenly felt. We wiped on the first attempt and I homepointed to run back over to the Cove and Raise Ronin and Tharp. We job switched a little and got it on the second try >.>b It really isn't a hard AF3, just didn't have the right pieces in place the first time.

Since I'm obsessive about my XP bars being capped I went to Campaign to make up for that homepoint. I tried Xarc_S for the first time. Let me say, that dragon hovering over the outpost-in spot is BS >.>; I thought they said they fixed that, but I guess not. I wasn't eaten, but I was nervous the entire time watching the dragon hovering within sight of where we were Campaigning. For the Campaign itself, I think Xarc_S is where the nice people ended up. I had people Curing me, buffing me, not MPKing me >.> (It's a small point, but worth noting.) I got 1900xp from a single Orc wave, which surprised me. I'd Campaign out there more often, but I'm kind of afraid of the Dahak unit that I saw rumbling by me when Nif and I were out there this weekend flagging WotG missions.

Xarc_S wasn't enough to repair the XP bar damage, so I went out to Glacier_S next and ended up staying longer than I needed. Three Campaigns in a row happened and I went to bed before the third one was over. That patched up the bite nicely and now I'm halfway to another merit. It wasn't really my intention, but at this rate I might have Enfeebling capped before 80 rolls around. (That wouldn't hurt my feelings.)

I just got to Chapter 11 in FFXIII. I'm going to call The Archylte Steppe The Veldt. It's exactly as I always imagined The Veldt would be like from FFVI (only with a smaller variety of mobs, of course.) But just how grand in scale it is with rampant amounts of wildlife bounding around... Gau would be proud. So obviously I'm not very far into Chapter 11 yet. I've poked my nose into The Abyssal Maw and started grinding CP. I might do that until I'm no longer amused, then continue on with the story.
Sivara > You should definitely spend some time in The Steppe and surrounding areas on Gran Pulse doing missions and whatnot. I ended up having to backtrack and do missions there because apparently the game expects you to. The fights ahead are kinda tough. (10/04/15 09:48)
Beanie > I know you can only go so far once you first get there and that the bulk is expected after you finish the game. I did a couple and ran around and nicked some treasure soccer balls from under monsters. I didn't touch the one that was between the legs of this huge dinosaur looking thing o_o I figure I'll come back for that one. (10/04/15 11:57)
Fait > I would recommend at least getting Chocobos unlocked before finishing the game. They give you access to a few extra areas, which can net you some useful accessories/upgrade items. (10/04/19 15:06)
Name
10/04/13 01:31(open)10/04/13 02:04(1456)
I haven't updated lately 'cause it irks me when I don't have anything fun to write about. This aclimating to Quezzy isn't going well and it's not my own bad attitude (sadly). Today I was MPKed by a JP player 3 times in Campaign. A few nights ago a pair of JP players followed me around the Canal and killed / trained / zoned any mob I showed the remotest interest in >.>; I'm just attracting the a-holes of Quezzy to me like a magnet .-.

That's not to say that everything has gone poorly since being removed from the comfort of a stable server. (Anyone else notice the number of time Quezzy has had server recoveries since we've been moved?) Anyhow, Jeni and I started / finished farming MMM for Seagull and Heron rings. It only took us about ~40 runs, which is remarkable considering the supposed low drop rate on Seagull ring. We didn't get any Pirate / Brig charts, but we think we figured out why. A theory is floating that the Rune 094 "Lost and Found" replaces chart drops with a rare Rune. The thing is... We got Fisherman (one of the supposed 094 only Runes) when using a maze that had no Lost and Found on it >.>; So Wiki information is suspect. BG too since we've been mashing those two sources together. Not sure if we're going to arse ourselves to do the fishing MMM anymore now that we've gotten what we wanted. So we might not explore more to satiate our curiosity on these points.

Other recent Fishing accomplishments... I got my Apron. Tharp, Roon, Cyd, and Nif helped me turn it into a Smock. That was a lot harder than, say, turning my Alchemy Apron into a Smock would've been. The Fishing Smock has crazy high Water on it and that's what kept tripping us up, but we got it done. Thanks guys :D Unlike the other Smocks, the Fishing one actually has a non-Synergy benefit >.> It gives Fishing Skill+1.

A new Fish Ranking started and it's another freaking Legendary Fish -.- This is getting ridiculous... With my mighty Fishing 69+5+Adv Support+Rings I was able to hook the fish and fight it down to 20% health before I ran out of time. For crying out loud, this is vexing .-. I want to participate!

Speaking of fixable things... There's a weird Widescan bug in Glacier_S. When the Savage Hounds Condottie (from Sandy) are stationed there they don't appear on Widescan >.>; It's just a blank gap in the list. Even better, if you put a track on one of them it lists all of them across the log with *Bartholomaus* (y'know of the Bastok forces) as the commander at the end of the list >.> Leonoyne (the Savage Hounds actual commander) does show up on the Widescan list... At the top of the list of allied forces >.o; It's just kind of mind breaking.. especially since Widescanning Glacier_S isn't a joy to begin with >.> There's so many mobs there that it doesn't load fast (and Campaign related mobs are at the bottom right above NPCs).

I've poked at Odin. He was surprisingly weaksauce compared to the mini-hell Diabolos put players through before they figured out they could melee-burn him >.>; I've got Alex flagged and reflagged Odin. I wouldn't mind hitting Odin up a few more times. He's got some nice stuff. Alex's stuff, not quite as remarkable >.>;

And like everyone else, I've been playing FFXIII. That hasn't left me much to say that's very good either :x Um... The music reminds me of Noir? D: I need to finish it so I can go back to LEGO Indiana Jones with a clear conscience. (That's asking for a lot considering my satisfaction level of $60 FFXIII + $30 Book vs. $8 LEGO Indy that came with Kung Fu Panda >.> )
Pisces > ... Wow, did you report those JP players to a GM? I know it probably won't do much, but if enough people complain, maybe something will happen? :/ I poked at FFXIII once. Gonna write something up before poking it again, but those first 2 hours are not very impressive. I suppose the graphics are good, but I honestly can't tell because I'm playing on a regular CRT tv, lol. (10/04/14 11:05)
Beanie > Didn't report them. The stalker ones in Canal was at 4am so I figured I'd get a JP GM and be screwed either way. The Campaign MPKer was at 4pm, but NA GM service has been down. I could prolly hope my call got routed to an EU GM and they'd arse themselves to care, but I kinda doubt it. || My TV isn't that great either. Sometimes I take my 360 for a walk and hook it up to a bigger CRT, which only improves things minimally. The problem with FFXIII is that once you get over the eye-candy, the game itself just isn't much fun :| On the other hand, a bazooka in LEGO Indy never gets old... (10/04/14 13:51)
Name
10/03/05 23:26(open)10/03/06 11:29(1455)
I haven't posted in a while. I went on vacation to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I had an absolute blast, but it was so tiring. I think I did too much x3; When I got back home it was to a variety of problems that had cropped up and it's taken a week to smack the weeds back down. Then SE does this big zomg announcement of changes to FFXI that I'm still chewing on. I'll post what I think, though I reserve the right to change my mind after we learn more details.

First and foremost to us dear Midgardites? Midgardians? The People of Midgard. It's the end of the world as we know it /lame. I can't say I'm surprised. Population management has always been tricky with Midgard and if I was SE I'd've probably merged us with another world even sooner just to eliminate a perpetual problem child. Nif and I will both lose our names, so please don't /tell or harass Nif or Beanie once we hit Quezzy. Nif hasn't figured out what he's changing to yet. Best I've been able to check, there's no Beans or Bean on Quezzy, so I'm going to aim for one of those. There's the hassle of reforming LSs, of course, but look on the bright side. It lets the sackholder do some spring cleaning and make a fresh tally of exactly who has pearls out there. It also won't be as hard as the first time FI and CTY were established, which was back before we had Ease of Exploration / Outposts (remember getting those and Midgard sucked?) / being big enough to Teleport / or in FI's case, before any of us even had a Chocobo >.>; There's always a silver lining :D!

As for the next biggest change IMO, the level cap to 99. I have a lot of thoughts on this that I keep mulling over :/ On one hand I was honestly expecting it a helluva lot sooner. Like after CoP for the level 80 raise. At this late date it comes off as extremely belated and almost insulting to our accomplishments as players. I know I'm not the only one who feels discouraged knowing that I now have 5 jobs that are 75% of the way to cap and 2 more I was really looking forward to having capped, but the rug was pulled out from under them. I also know some folks who have quit the game over this. I don't blame them. I'm feeling discouraged too...

Another emotion is to just knuckle down and take it one bite at a time. It's not going to be 75 -> 99 I'm sure. We'll go in steps. So just take it in 5s. That's more manageable. But more immediately, I need to fix some subjobs. Just set my goals to getting SCH, THF, and RDM to 49/50 for now and the rest will fall into place.

How many Kraken DRKs are cheering that they can now go to at least 80? How many are kicking themselves over gear they passed / tossed 'cause they were going to be stuck at 72 "forever"? I'd be either thrilled or angry if I was them...

As for merits, I have no proof to back this up so it's wild Bean speculation, but if I was SE I'd make a 2 tier merit system. Retain current merits at 75 and then add Merit II for 99s. At least, I hope they do something like this since I enjoy merits much more than leveling :/ Shorter TNL.

I've always felt that "They can't raise the level 'cause of merits" was a false argument. Since merits are retroactive already nothing about them prevents raising the cap except a decision on when the Limit Breaker Key Item comes into play. (Thus why I think it'll be kept at 75 since it's already there, but it's just guessing on my part.)

The best argument against cap raising, IMO, was how SE had buttressed the game against lvl75 in terms of gear and hard caps. I think the gear will be the biggest issue now. I don't think SE will remove the hard caps on certain things like Haste, but I *do* hope they will create more gear combinations for reaching those hard caps. For example, MNK can only hit the gear Haste cap if you have a Black Belt. What if SE added some Haste gloves so that you can still hit that 25% without the Belt? It may piss off BB MNKs, and BB is still nice, but it would give that one aspect of the job to more people. If I was SE that's the direction I would take equipment in the 76 - 99 levels in. I'm not sure I would make anything like Osode+1 with +15 to all stats, but more workable combinations...

Another thing I'd do if I was SE is lock off certain JA / spells to main job only. I know they've never done it before, but the person who writes the code also writes the rules >.>; Specifically I'm thinking things like most of RDM :x Convert, Refresh, and Haste are top on the list. I wouldn't give away Yonin or Innin either (well maybe Innin, that one wouldn't hurt my feelings >.>; ) The WHM Afflatus I'd also lock off. Stuff that's really job defining or too powerful to be a subjob spell. (I would, however, let /RNG keep Velocity Shot for COR if they wanted it. I'd also give COR Recycle, but that's just me...)

For things I think SE should give jobs naturally at higher levels (or make it a merit II ability...)

* COR - Recycle, FFS and/or a Card re-deal type job trait
* WHM - Pixie Raise (Raise III with full HP, but deathsick). I'd also give a Raise V - Raise w/o deathsick, Raise VI - Raise w/o deathsick+HP heal, and Raise VII - Raise w/o deathsick+HP heal+no XP loss and make that a 99 spell. I'd level WHM to 99 for a piece of that.
* RDM - Some Clear Mind and a Refresh II or Refreshga or something to put them toe-to-toe with a SMN with Avatar's Favor.
* MNK - AoE Chakra or !Revive. Anything else, SE, and you can keep it. I still hurt myself laughing at Footwork :/
* NIN - Jubaku: Ni and Monomi: Ni. Screw the Utsusemi: San cocktease. Don't want or need it, but Jubaku: Ni is in the game already and I will start Whitegate riots on Quezzy if we don't get it.

I'll throw a fit if SE carries through with their idea of giving other jobs Sekkanoki. As a SAM, SE keeps jerking us around like a yo-yo and it's been pissing me off for years >.< If other jobs get Sekkanoki I want something extra spiffy for SAM that can better define us (since self-WS doesn't when you look at DNC, BLU, how many job can 2-step level-3 WS if they have both WSNM and Nyzul WS...) /headdesk

I'm glad that PUP is getting A H2H. It's about damn time, but I will smack the next person who tells me that this is a MNK killer. PUP != MNK. Hell it's not even comparing an apple to an orange. It's more like a banana to an orange. In a nutshell, PUP doesn't have MNK's speed. PUP is (rightfully IMO) getting closer to H2H skill, but they're still missing Martial Arts and a fuckton of Haste equipment... Never mind attack and STR gear. MNK obviously lacks the support that an Automaton has to offer. End of story. They're not even remotely close to being the same job, so stop making stupid comparisons. It just makes the person arguing it look like an idiot :/

Anyhow! Two new Avatars. I'm actually jazzed about this since Alexander has always been my favorite summon in FF games. So yeah, I'd like to get me a piece of that.

CoP having it's level capped removed upsets me as well, but I've often felt that SE has resigned itself to nerfing the crap out of their best/most equalizing work to compensate for those who are sad that they can't solo it LIKE EVERY OTHER MISSION LINE IN THE ENTIRE GAME. Sorry. It slipped. But seriously, aren't we big enough players to have something that we *can't* solo? I mean, I'm not going out and soloing Alexander at 75, but minus the last 2 TAU missions I've short manned (or solo'ed) every single one of them. The same could be said for WotG. With only a couple exceptions, going in a full party of 6 was more a social exercise than a necessity. Zilart can easily be duo'ed minus the very last mission that was originally added to the game when the level cap was 70. Most national missions are the same way nowadays.

I just don't see why this is necessary except to appease those who want to dance on CoP's corpse and sing "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead". Once upon a time, finishing missions actually *meant* something. It was an achievement. A sign of your accomplishment and skill as a player. Nowadays if it takes longer than a weekend to complete players call for it to be nerfed. That aggravates me. And it's not like there wasn't a system in place to assure CoP would get easier with time. Bwah? Merits... Think about it: A newly minted just got it up for Promy NIN30 is not the same critter as someone who has gotten a job to 75 and dumped some merits into Evasion Skill. When we started it was harder 'cause merits had come out at the same time and none of us had any yet. Nowadays they grow on trees, never mind that it's easier (cheaper) to get meds, gear is more diverse and plentiful, plus, with the passage of time, you'd figure that the player's actual skill would improve as well. That last one isn't assured, of course, but most people I know do improve over time. I know I sure have.

What I'm saying is stop crapping in CoP's Wheaties. Unless SE does something to CRANK UP the mission difficulty, don't bother asking me to help on missions. I don't want my beautiful memories of challenge to be soiled by this outrage. The spiteful part of me hope that SE sticks Proto-Omega in for U/O in 6.4. Have fun soloing that :D Though I also like Nif's idea of SE lifting the caps so they can change CoP into level 99 zones >.> I'd laugh my ass off, but it's not a bad idea if you don't have the time/resources to make *new* zones with zomg mobs in them.

Speaking of missions... WotG is finally going to be finished in September. While I'm looking forward to it I can't help feeling like it's about damn time. It's not that the story has been bad or overly drawn out... The problem is one with prequels... You already know how the story ends so get to it already :x I'm especially feeling this way about the Windurst story while, at the same time, being completely thrilled by it. The next part in Castle Oz should be wild :D

3 new Scenarios. I don't really blame SE for going this route for creating new content. If the cow moos... I would be happy if we got to see like the Mithra homeland before they close down Vana'diel. But I should prolly stop hoping for that D:

I'm not really sure I'm thrilled about another batch of new NMs. I'm mostly saying this since I got my tail munched a number of times (and on a variety of jobs) by unexpected encounters the last time they did it... Also making the drop rates better than 10~15% wouldn't hurt my feelings either. I tried camping some of them and gave up on all of 'em, though I might go back and try again at some point... If I get around to it.

The last thought is to point out that while *CoP* caps are being lifted, there are still plenty of lvl75 capped events out there... like Assaults :x Potentially Dynamis too though that hasn't been clarified yet. Lots or BCs and KSs and ANNMs have caps on them whether you realize it or not. Pretty much anything that is a special fight or battlefield could still remain capped. Plus some zones like Dragon's Aery are capped too. That's actually giving me hope that SE isn't gutting the challenge out of FFXI (what few and far between instances of it that there are nowadays...)
Cealia > you could try beany too. or nify. (10/03/06 00:38)
Beanie > Nif hasn't liked my suggestions of Niflet or Niffy :x (10/03/06 00:41)
Negata > You're aware that the level cap thing for CoP is zones only, and not battlefields, right? Personally, I'm for anything that'll encourage people to come back and help those of us who can't get CoP done because no one wants to do them again. Also, delicious Dobsonfly. (10/03/06 04:25)
Sivara > Ahh, I was looking forward to the next edition of Beanie's Soapbox! :D Y'know, giving PUP the A H2H it deserves is like BST having A in Axe (with WAR having A-, I think?). Can BSTs be as heavy in DD as WARs? Not quite. They lack the gear and the basic stats are inferior to WAR's. But they can be formidable and hold their own with their pets. As for level caps and JAs, isn't Call Wyvern already shut off to /DRG? So SE has done it before. /RDM is still going to get Convert though, according to the pics on the official site, but speculation is that subbed Convert will only be at half-strength so that RDMs won't be cheated. (10/03/06 09:28)
Beanie > Negata: Half of CoP's challenge is *from* the zones. That's what made it unique. Some bosses like Diabolos is no challenge to get to their field. But removing the cap from Aquaducts and Sac removes the challenge of those missions / other quests and NMs that are there. I know Nif / Nyiri / I are damn proud that we can trio-farm Tres. Now it can be soloed? Thanks for devaluing another accomplishment SE. Same for learning how to do Swift Belts with the resources at hand and without big hairy piles of problems. We'll still get to hear sob stories of "I soloed SB last night and I'm 0/20" or whatever, I'm sure 9.9; (Though a skilled / crazy BST can already duo those...) I still hope they ramp up the difficulty on *all* of it. I'm so tired of people saying it's so hard and then going in for the first time and winning. No, hard is when it takes you *19 times* to win a BC (what U/O took my group the first time since we did it when it first came out before SE started stabbing CoP in the back.) If people haven't done it yet, unless the character was made less than a year ago, they're probably not going to get it done for one trumped up excuse or another (and yes, I am throwing rocks.. I've offered multiple times to carry certain folks through this and they won't even make the time to be carried.) Stop whining and compelling SE to nerf one of the few challenging expansions they've made! Lord knows they've done nothing since that comes even remotely close... (10/03/06 11:18)
Beanie > Sivara: You have a point about Call Wyvern (then again I still confuse it for their 2hr at times x.x; ) And even half strength would be too strong IMO. If it gives back more than what Sublimation can give... Sublimation on /SCH should really be the high water mark for MP bombing JAs IMO. I'm honestly more concerned about Haste and SCH. Haste, IMO, is one of the biggest things keeping SCH from being a stand out WHM Mk II (though WHM has other / better spells to fill it's niche and SCH has to blow a lot of Strategems to get itself into a position to match a WHM). Doesn't mean folks won't try to shove the job into that hole if the door was opened just a bit wider (since it happens already). Then you could get my SCH != WHM rant :D (10/03/06 11:26)
Cydori > Well maybe you'd remember that Call Wyvern is no longer the 2hr if you played DRG more, eh? ^_~ (10/03/06 15:00)
Pisces > ... I'm most upset with the level cap being raised. I'm not sure if I really want to play anymore. All the other changes... I don't care. But the level cap one... ~_~ I think I really hate that change. (10/03/07 13:08)
Demandred > AOE chakra does sound nice - there has been many a time where I wanted to chakra others. I don't think we need something to equal Avatar's Favor: I'm seldom called out on SMN (xp or otherwise) so I don't think the RDM population has been horribly hit by this bonus. If there is a refresh-ga, I can probably say "good-bye" to the chance of getting invites to even manaburn parties. :( To be honest, Avatar's Favor is the only thing I've seen where SE has tried giving SMN a place in a party (yeah, a bit bitter on that). I too am hoping for two tiers of merits, where you can still add merit points at 75 if you wish, and then "unlock" higher merits at 99, I think that would be nicely balanced. My two cents: I like "Niflet." :D (10/03/07 13:38)
Nimbex > Do you have a preference on a name change or not? I've already had one request for "don't change my name", so I figure I won't do it except *by* request. (10/04/12 14:13)
Name
10/02/03 00:40(open)10/02/03 00:58(1454)
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I've cooled my jets a little bit. The highlight for Monday was helping Yosaroon with his DRG AF2. Yes, Roon is working on becoming grape-flavored. When you're ready for AF3, let me know o.o I need something to do b'sides gluing myself to the 360 o.o

On Tuesday, Howitzer went to Valkrum. I was on NIN. I <3 Valkrum and I <3 NIN, but I'm rarely satisfied with how I do in Valkrum as a NIN :/ I think it's because I feel butt-hurt when each and every boss ignores my existance. If they aren't doing that, they're ignoring the fact that I have shadows and killing me dead >.> Yes, I'm looking at you Fairy Ring. Though I lived a lot longer on Fairy Ring than I was expecting. Half of that was because Nif was camping me. The other half was because it ignored me and went to kill the mages instead -.-

My filters broke epicly (again). Every time I think that they can't break in a worse way than last time, they do. Tonight I could see everything happening in the other alliance, but my alliance was filtering properly. I fiddled with it some more and damage started to be filtered, but so were my shadows... It's pretty damn hard to play NIN when you're not even getting your shadow messages >:/

Hippogryphs go on my NIN angst list too >.>; Kept dispelling my Yonin, so I gave up using it. Though, b'sides that, they weren't really rocking my socks. Nif was wondering how that was so... When holding a Hippo I try to keep an eye on where the fighting it taking place and make sure my back is to it (so I won't get Terrorized). Choke Breath is a conal front attack that can be blinked with 1-2 shadows. So I kept shadows up (just recast when I saw the attack and figured it hit me) and I tried to make sure I wasn't near the front end of the currently targeted Hippo. Hippos can flip around a lot, but I'm usually successful at avoiding the Silence/Paralyze/Terror if I'm extra mindful of where I'm standing. Nif started standing near me by the end of the Hippo group and he was like ">.> I can't believe this is working..." Of course, if I'm the one tanking the Hippos rather than holding them the above paragraph goes out the window D:

Anyhow, it was a good Valk run. Got the win. Got a lot of AF2. Nif got a Warrior Stone :3b

Now, if you'll excuse me, Lost Odyssey is calling me again >.>b
Name
10/02/01 00:51(open)10/02/02 00:17(1453)
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I had an extremely weird and busy weekend where "extremely" just doesn't quite cover it. On Friday we had a pretty good XP session :o Lots of levels to go around. Roon got to DRG51, so we need to do his AF quests o.ob. Tharp got RDM38 on accident, but that's okay, Tharp, RDM is good for you. Val finished his SCH sub and I got PLD69. Tharp, Val, and I leveled on the same mob in fact, haha. I can't wait for 70. I want my Joytoy bad D:

Saturday is where things started getting weird and busy. In the morning I fished for a bit and got Fishing 65. That was an unexpected surprise. We can see which happens first: Getting Fishing 68 or another 60k GP for my Apron (right now I'm betting on the 60k GP.)

Howitzer went to Qufim <3 I like Qufim. It has a nice mix of AF and Accessories (if they feel like dropping) and I get to RNG :D! The only downside is that my filters broke again and that's *EVEN WORSE* on RNG than on NIN. How? Not only could I see every attack, miss, lost shadow, or resisted spell for every person in the blasted zone... I *couldn't* keep up with my own attacks and that's actually important on RNG. If I can't see my own attacks (it scrolls by too fast) I don't know if my Acid Bolt proc'ed (since I have effects turned off so my computer doesn't die)... And I can't catch those nifty messages telling me if my positioning was off or not :( So I spent the entire run trying to glue myself to Aku or Zene (who were also on RNG) and pretended that my Acid Bolts proc'ed the first time I fired. Though I think half of the "Defense Down" messages I caught were actually Zene's bolts :/

So, I was getting a pretty massive headache from this information overload. I was also getting /tell spammed, which is nothing new or unwelcome if people don't mind if I go quiet sometimes. (It's harder to keep up on RNG since I have to keep hitting the button to shoot >.>;a ) Anyhow, the reason I mention it is because one of those /tells was a friend who came back to the game fairly recently and I hadn't seen in forever. He wanted me to come help him with a mission after Dyn. What mission? Shantotto. Oh... I really wanted to go with Nif and Yosa and Jeni and such D: Though I also have a really hard time telling people no when they ask for help >.o It's a weakness. I talked to Nif about it and kinda brushed it off, but he was persistent. How persistent? He kept asking me for 4 hours ^^; Ah, okay, I give D: Nif said he wouldn't punt me. Thank you ._. And there's no restriction on repeating... So at least I could scout the fight for our own efforts >.>a

He needed the fight in Fullmoon Fountain. We grabbed Zene since his party needed another RDM. I also learned something I didn't know o_o Only the person starting the battle needs all of the Saps (and Hexes on the next mission.) Each person needs 1 Sap to enter, but you'll all get full advantage if the starter has them all. Huh. Anyhow, I was surprised at how easy Battaru Royale was. I think Wiki played it up a bit too much D: We're gonna stomp all over it, guys >:3

So then we parted ways and I decided to get the crappy "collect 16 Hexes" quest done. I went on MNK/NIN, picked up Reraise at the book, brought Raka with me. If anything jumped me while I was poking shiny spots, it was dead >:E I called Raka when killing Temple Guardian and :O she got a bunny hat! OMG, I hadn't even thought of that, but it *really* tickles me x3 She's so cute in it :o

I entered DoR and tripped over Draxyle. WTF? What are you doing down here, Drax? He was gonna log in the Den for Sunday's Hakutaku run. Oh, good idea :o So I ran off to collect more shiny spots and tripped over a coffer. I asked Drax if he had a map and he said he didn't o.o Well then, we should fix that! I think I alarmed Drax when I jumped a Tonberry NIN and started taking its lunch money. He said I was crazy. Maybe, but I have *a lot* of practice running away from Throat Stab and I've killed most of the NMs in Rancor at least once o.o So they don't scare me :E We got his key, map, and then I dropped him off back where I tripped over him so he could log :3b

After I got the 16 Hexes I made my way to Whitegate to take the ship to Nashmau to turn in a coin for Pirates. I was on the ship waiting for it to launch when Morlock poked me and asked if I was busy. Nah, not with anything that couldn't wait. Could I come help out with Bastok 9.1? Sure :o I warped off the ship and headed over to Gustav. Ren and Naya were there too :D And two people whom I think were picked up randomly. I knew one of them once upon a time, but it's been years. So the 6 of us killed the slime in a very nicely controlled manner :o Well done.

Then one of the randoms laughingly suggest I help them with Bastok 9.2. Oh, okay, if you need me :o So I ran to the Throne Room while they got CS and such. The Bastok fight is the easiest of the nation fights IMO, and we stomped all over it. Congrats on Rank 10, guys ^^b

I slept in on Sunday since we ended up not having Pirates and I'd adventured too much on Saturday. When I got on I did the usual Sunday stuff: Fishing turn in, blow through my Campaign Ops while demand is high (got COR37 from that), had it pointed out to me that Windurst held Ronfa o.o; Yeah, I ran out and got me a piece of that.

Then the big event for the day (that I took no pictures of 'cause I suck): Hakutaku :D Klaital and Demandred put a lot of work into organizing this and herding all the cats, and it went off smoothly because of it >.>b Your hats were well-earned guys :3 Everyone did a great job of covering their role. Well, I kinda fumbled around during the first two pops until I decided that I just shouldn't WS without SATA on it. I was getting in trouble for trying to do too much >.o; Once I settled in I don't think anyone even came close to dying to Hakutaku. Though, we did have 1 add mid-fight that Sivara and Aku (both on BST) stomped all over, so it worked out o.ob We did 6 hats, so congrats go to Dem, Klai, Vaud, Eli, Kis, and Seyl.

So, guess what? Before Hakutaku started the same friend from yesterday that was poking me for help on Shantotto started poking again. I told him I had Assault after Hakutaku, but then I cancelled Assault 'cause Nif was sick :< Hope you feel better, Nif ._. I idled and tried to get some Lost Odyssey played since I'd been too busy to get much in on Saturday.

... About 8 hours after his first poke I was being poked some more. This time he wanted me to help him get a mule behind the Sacrifical Chamber door so that when he got enough folks gathered he could just open the door. Ah, okay. Well, this mule kept dying. So could I come out on WHM and Raise him? Ah... okay. I didn't grab all of my WHM gear (like I left AF/AF2/Yigit behind). Just grabbed what was in my safe, which is usually good enough for rescue missions y'know? There was another group heading to Rancor 'cause I kept running across them o.o; Yay. I didn't have to gnaw Temple Guardian to death on WHM. (I definitely can do it, but it takes me a little while >.>; )

We collected his mule and then went to light some lanterns he had already farmed. His mule died again while lighting the lanterns ^^; Then he wanted his mule to follow me and for me to keep the mule S/I (which is challenging when the caster doesn't get the wear off messages.) Somehow I didn't get any aggro while doing this. I followed him to almost where the map changes to Hakutaku's map when I asked him again if we were going the right way? The Sacrificial Chamber is on the other side of the map and down D: Oh yeah... So we turned around and headed back.

On the way down we passed the other group again... The other group containing Naya and Ren :o! Hey guys! So I started chatting Naya up and asked if they had any lit lanterns. We only had 2 and were planning on making 2 trip, but if they had some, we could get in and yay, we're done :o Deposit the mule and then go back to Lost Odyssey.

Well then, I mentioned that I knew a couple people in the other party and they had lanterns for getting into the Chamber. Then my friend was like "Ask them if they have any room D:?" Oh, okay o.o So I chatted up Naya some more and their group was full, but Ren and Naya were happy to repeat to help us. I reported this and he was like "Ask 'em if we could beg their SMN to repeat D:?" Oh, okay o.o As it turns out, I'm not the only person who rarely says no o.o The other party was very gracious and willing to repeat the fight. My friend had a SMN friend of his coming to meet us who also needed the fight. So we borrowed 3 of the other group's SMNs (including Naya) and added in our WHM, SAM, and SMN. The mule was forgotten at the door x3

Anyhow, interesting fight. Definitely SMN biased, but I can see winning with other strategies too. We wiped mid-fight (which many people have concluded was intended given that you get a no-sickness Reraise automatically when entering.) And I kept having problems 'cause I haven't really *played* WHM in so long that I couldn't find macros / remember how Misery worked / had rewritten some macros since the fight require judicious use of Curaga III/IV. I'm surprised I didn't cause us to fail for as much as I was flailing around -.- Sorry. Usually I'm not so frazzled, but that was the reason I didn't want to WHM AN :/ I was (rightfully) afraid I'd give a crappy performance from being rusty.

Anyhow, the SMNs looked like they were having a ball x3 Everyone was so nice and hyper o.o Seriously hyper. Is that an Avatar Favor from Garuda now D:? Thank you for staying up since I know Naya and one of the other SMN had planned on going to bed after their own fight.

So end result: My friend who recently came back is really happy. I'd be happy to never WHM the last Shantotto fight again, but it's prolly the best slot for me, so I need to become unrusty D: I picked up the ugly light melee pants and augmented them for my RNG. I've always known I wanted Barrage+1, but waffled a lot on the other augment. Finally decided on Ratt+7. I can use them while TP building and then swap to my Zereh for WS. If I need Racc I can either wear my Scout shorts or the Dusk legs that Nif says I don't wear often enough D:
Nayami > Guess it was a good thing that Kat wanted to change the augments on her pants. :D Wouldn't have ran into you guys otherwise! The final fight is fun. I think this is my 5th time doing it and yea, we had a wipe almost every single time. Seems to depend on how evil she feels like being. D: I HAVE heard of people doing it without any SMNs, Garuda-squad just appears to be the easy method. Hahaha, we're always this hyper. xD ... I guess it's just even worse when we're all on SMNs since we become the pretty SMN squad (tm). D: Should you ever need help to re-do this fight for Nif and co., feel free to poke me. :3 Grats on your new shiny pants! (10/02/01 08:20)
Klaital > Thanks so much for helping me get that ohat run going, Beanie! In retrospect, I'm *so* much happier that the run was smooth, and that we had fun. The fact that I got a nice hat? Icing on the cake :3 (10/02/01 13:24)
Beanie > ^^ You guys did the work, I just knew where to dig up a few more warm bodies :3b And a successful Ohat run does give a glow of accomplishment. It's a lot of work to organize one. (10/02/01 16:11)
Klaital > You know where to dig up the best bodies :3 (10/02/01 18:48)
Name
10/01/29 09:33(open)10/03/06 01:15(1452)
stuff
When logging in this morning to check Fishing turn in, POL has a new screen that informs you that FFXI is rated T. Uh... okay. After 7 years if I hadn't figured that out... This didn't really annoy me until I logged in and before even the Mogbonanza numbers scrolled by I had a gilseller tell. SE, if you have time to make cute little "Rated T" screens couldn't you devote, oh, 2 minutes towards blocking all free accounts from sending /tells? Seriously, for as much time as SE has spent dragging their feet on implimenting real solutions they could've implimented real solutions. Protip: Word / Phrase filters only work for about 1 day (or 20 minutes if the gilseller is determined).

The Fishing turn in was a fish I'd stockpiled while doing another turn in. That was a bright spot, just had to mule and grab it.

I won a Shadow Lord statue. I'm pleased that it didn't break my Moghancement: Experience (one of my recent furnishings must have that on it since my grasp of that Moghancement was fragile before I started adding a Jeuno Tree and such.) I must admit that I'm a tad disappointed that the Shadow Lord is shorter than all of my racing trophies and plaques. He's so tall in battle that.. y'know.. it just seems humiliating to him ._.;

The Fish Ranking posted results the other day. A whole 5 people entered. That's actually more than I was expecting. It'll be 12 days before the next contest is posted (right around the time I leave on vacation :D /sigh). So I'm starting the day with wanting to punt SE for being dumb... Prolly not a good start >.>a
Nayami > ... oh, so I wasn't hallucinating then. I saw this "Rated T" screen earlier today and thought I was seeing things. c_c That's such a random thing to add. (10/01/29 17:43)
Beanie > I'm pretty sure someone at SE decided there just weren't enough clicks involved to get logged in... It's what... 4 now if you use the "shortcut". (10/01/29 22:21)
Beanie > I miscounted. It's 5... and more like 8 if you count the clicks between opening POL and actually logging into Vana'diel. Is it any wonder I prefer console games...? (10/01/30 09:47)
Cydori > Startled the heck out of me, too. I was all, "I didn't think hallucination was a side effect of the meds." It seems particularly useless since isn't there *another* disclaimer somewhere about how the online interactions can't be rated by the ESRB? (10/01/30 15:42)
tradenren > hpllQqmho (10/03/15 03:00)
nasofdownn > hpllQqmho (10/03/15 03:00)
nasofdownn > hpllQqmho (10/03/15 03:01)
nasofdownn > hpllQqmho (10/03/15 03:01)
name > xapBkyKbkvqf (10/03/15 16:08)
name > xapBkyKbkvqf (10/03/15 16:09)
sibmentglitnu > xGmsxxVb (10/03/26 08:37)
reulanlicum > nkAjmSisIwvtzp (10/04/01 05:34)
reulanlicum > nkAjmSisIwvtzp (10/04/01 05:34)
uanhydoconmu > nkAjmSisIwvtzp (10/04/01 05:34)
ericrupkerp > gbZtPpkt (10/04/06 01:32)
coupcavace > gbZtPpkt (10/04/06 01:32)
enbotpoiven > pOwomgbdwoJenyr (10/04/07 05:00)
enbotpoiven > pOwomgbdwoJenyr (10/04/07 05:01)
naemighder > mfkjjvboDxJf (10/04/09 01:28)
seoskelamal > mfkjjvboDxJf (10/04/09 01:28)
downceadica > zuArNzgi (10/04/09 05:26)
sticbekadi > zuArNzgi (10/04/09 05:27)
alendidirso > OFaewqvx (10/04/11 18:34)
ladetinorleo > OFaewqvx (10/04/11 18:34)
gantjavireg > myaeoqKwxamsyFxOvFj (10/04/13 21:47)
gantjavireg > myaeoqKwxamsyFxOvFj (10/04/13 21:48)
correinemac > AuVdndfyrkCs (10/05/15 22:57)
neckdesrela > bxnnmYArwlhesjqoVxK (10/05/31 17:47)
tumegelmy > bxnnmYArwlhesjqoVxK (10/05/31 17:47)
genessfens > gaCtpqxur (10/07/07 22:39)
genessfens > gaCtpqxur (10/07/07 22:39)
pharmacolosa > hyWkwKbxMndojb (10/07/23 16:45)
Name
10/01/27 03:13(open)10/01/27 15:03(1451)
stuff
Some may call me crazy, but IMO Howitzer had one of its better Tav runs tonight. We wiped at the end and missed the last time keeper, but up to that point it was going swimmingly.

We got the Bugard, Antlion, and Worm done pretty quickly. When farming afterwards it was controlled killing with only 1 real o shi- moment (when the Pugils linked and 8 came splashing in. Pugils are kinda mean D: ) What I'm getting at is that Northy's pull pacing was excellent. Until the wipe at the end, neither Resh nor I died. Likewise, with the same disclaimer, our only WHM death was Nif when he Benedictioned during the Pugil mess. It's a good sign when your tanks and WHM aren't falling often, which Tav tends to do >.o; It wasn't quite as clean on the RDM and DD side of things, but I'm trying to be positive here >.>b

We got a nice quantity of loot too. Um... PUP, DNC, 2x BST, NIN, SCH and 2 -1 leg pieces. Not bad at all o.ob

Fishing turn ins continue. Today was Yellow Globe, which was blissfully easy since I could use a Sabiki Rig to catch them. (Finally a fish I could catch in multiples when they wanted 3 stacks of them!) Yesterday's turn in was laughable. Newts from Carptenter's Landing... 1200GP... For 94 Newts... That don't stack. Hmm... Yeah, that was a skip...
Northstar > I tend to be very careful in Tav.. I kicked myself hard when I saw the fish buffet coming in on everyone though.. =x_x= (10/01/27 13:18)
Beanie > I really do think it was one of our better runs. It would've been nice to get all the time keepers, but in terms of death and lost time we've definitely made improvements :3b (10/01/27 15:02)
Name
10/01/24 23:24(open)10/01/24 23:47(1450)
stuff
Sunday ended up being a surprisingly busy day o.o It started out normal enough. I did my 7 Campaign Ops (and got COR36) and my fishing turn in. Then it was mentioned in /l that Trolls were Prepping, so decided to head that way. Resh also mentioned wanting to break his latent for Atonement. Well okay :o We can break mobs outside of town while waiting for the Trolls to come lumbering up. Nif came with us and it was going swimmingly until right when the Trolls arrived and Resh noticed that, um, he didn't have the Atonement quest started ^^; Doh! So he went to Jeuno and the rest of us went to Besieged.

We ended up with a full party of folks. The Besieged went well and I was behaving myself, but then I died to a 5026dmg Overthrow. Then the Besieged ended immediately and my Reraise had worn (Reraise usually wears a minute or two before Besieged ends if you put it up right at the start, if you hadn't noticed >.> ) So yeah, I didn't get any XP 'cause SE hasn't bothered to fix that even though we know they can do it [stares at Campaign]. No matter, I didn't really need the XP. I'd mostly gone to be social.

After that Resh, Nif, Yosa, and I went to break Resh's latent again ^^; That was incredibly easy since Resh is Floor 100 and I have my share TP JA down to 5 minutes. Lots of TP to go around >.>b Grats Resh!

By the time we finished it was nearly time for Assaults / Nyzul. Our plan was to do Better Than One (the fight versus the Cerby clone) and then Nyzul with leftover tags. We lost on our first attempt at Cerby, but we got it to 25%HP, which is great for a first attempt IMO. On our second attempt we just rocked it >.>b Yosa and Northy had the Stunning under control. No Gates of Hades for you! Resh and I did really well with balancing / bouncing hate on Cerby with our SAM/NINs. Drax did great as our BRD and floating from place to place for songs. The fire elementals were the final Howl and he rounded them right up and took them for a jog while we zerged the last 25%HP off :3b And Nif kept us upright and Hasted o.ob I should also mention that he lasted a surprising amount of time WHM tanking Cerby on the first attempt before we wiped. You shouldn't do stuff like that, Nif. It's bad for my heart D:

We got to Floor 9 of Nyzul before tagging out :/ Floors 1 - 40 are the hardest and Floor 9 proved why >.o We got 5 Psycheflayers that had our number D: Especially when we ended up with 2 of them at once, a Bull Bugard, and a Raptor >.o; Really, we should be happy that we left Nyzul on our own terms with tagging out rather than as a pile on the ground, but still... Regardless, we're one Assault closer to Captain's rank and Nyzul will come with time and persistence >.>b
Name
10/01/20 23:04(open)10/01/20 23:50(1449)
Howitzer went to Bubu on Tuesday. It ended up being the second craziest Bubu run I've ever been on (nothing can top the run where the Mega Boss cycled through its 2hrs 3 times before we defeated it...) Anyhow, it started off great. The ??? was at the spot I checked so we got our subjobs back almost immediately. From there, things went weird. Our back-up PLD entered the zone as /NIN, which doesn't work for us D: So he had to exit and change his sub. We defeated Stollenwurm and Aitvaras per usual. Then Drax and Kismar went off to get the Quadav WHM NM while I located Tarasca to bring it in after the WHM NM.

That's where things got weird. Let me refer you to this map: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/File:Bub1.jpg Tarasca has a large roaming area, but he goes in a circle around that mountain range. He'll pass through Goblin and Orc areas. Dragons will link with other Dragons. And Beastmen will link with Dragons. Tarasca walked right on top of the unpopped Beastmen stones so it's your best bet to grab him when he's in the mountain pass area.

Okay, so I found him in the pass and he was going counter-clockwise towards Goblins. No problem, they were still getting in position for the WHM pull. I followed it as it went through Goblins, then Tarasca turned around and came back through Goblins going clockwise. They were almost done killing the WHM so I was ready to grab it the moment it got out of aggro range of the Goblins. It turned around counter-clockwise again without leaving Goblins and started back up the path toward Orcs. WTF o.O; I thought this NM only did circles, but obviously I'm wrong. So I carefully follow it past Goblins and Orcs.

Meanwhile we're losing time, so Drax ran over and grabbed Barong since Tarasca wasn't near the pass. The alliance worked on Barong and I'm in position to follow Tarasca counter-clockwise through the pass. It got to the edge of Orcs and turned around *again* to go clockwise x.x I followed it through Orcs back down to Goblins. By that time we're running out of time, so Resh and Kismar came to me to see if there's any way we can get the NM pulled. It got down to the edge of Goblins and turned around *again* going back through the Goblin area. At that point we decided a sac pull was needed. So I chased after it to do the sac, grabbed it, dragged it through Goblins and once I was clear of Goblins Resh Flashed and Invincibled to get it back to camp.

... Somehow the Goblins didn't link. Not a one of them. There's no reason they shouldn't have since it was standing literally on top of them, but they didn't.

Okay, the Mega Boss was next. Only it was doing the same weird-ass doubling back on top of Beastmen statues that Tarasca was. We only had like 15 minutes left so Kismar did a sac and the Goblins popped this time. Got it mostly back to camp but two Goblins came with it (one of them the BST NM). People thumped the Mega Boss as hard as they could, but I don't think we got more than 20%HP off before we wiped.

We got up and had 10 minutes left. That'd realistically give us 5 to kill the Mega Boss. We recovered as quickly as we could and Kismar went and got the Mega Boss again. Well, remember how this boss works with it's 2hr. It cycles through every job in order (minus TAU and WotG jobs). Where did we start the order? Soul Voice. Okay, that means we realistically only had Soul Voice, Eagle Eye Shot, and Meikyo Shisui before Mijin Gakure happened and we'd wipe again. We're hammering and get the 3 minute warning. Soul Voice... Eagle Eye Shot... Meikyo Shisui... I wince and then Mijin Gakure. Most (if not all) of our tanks and melee fell over dead in a mass of 4000dmg explosive goodness. However, that didn't hit our mages since they were above it, so they continued the fight.

The Mega Boss only had like 15-20%HP left. Those of us who had Reraise got back up again, but we were under yet another gun. After Mijin Gakure is Call Wyvern. After Call Wyvern is Astral Flow with a very unfriendly puppy. We hammered with everything we had. Call Wyvern happened and I held my breath. We got the 30 second warning. Astral Flow would hit us at any moment. And then the impossible happened...

Styron defeats the Apocalyptic Beast. Time extended by 60 minutes.

I just about wet myself. Talk about claiming victory from the jaws of defeat x.x;

After catching our breath we headed over to the Rarabs. I was our puller and the Rarabs were even meaner than usual. I'd have a clean pull with just *1* bunny and the moment I hit it 5 more would come out of a hole in the ground and swarm us. It was like the Bunnyocalypse. Lightning doesn't strike twice, right? Ha, wrong, that happened to me again on the second pull x.x; So by the time I was ready for a third I was certain there weren't enough bunnies left to do that to me a *third* time. Yeah, I saw them hiding right at the last moment >.> Damn things were hiding behind the outpost and coming out to kill us in packs. It was very disheartening as a puller D:

So, after doing the impossible we decided we'd try that Orc statue by the outpost since we'd been curious what was in it. Haha, curiosity killed the cat >.> That statue has like 4 (maybe 5) statues, a BLM NM, a DRG NM, a SMN, BST, and NIN, and about 5 other generic mobs. The only upside to this mess is that we got a nice amount of AF2 from it.

We decided to skip Cockatrices (there's be no challenge in me managing to link all of *those*) and Dhalmels to go after Ravens. For no discernible reason I rock socks at pulling Ravens >.>; I didn't link a single one and only got exactly what I wanted when pulling them. Go figure.

On Wednesday I cranked down the adventure notch some by only help with Apocalypse Nigh >.> No pressure. No biggie. Des needed it and Cyd, Yosa, Tharp, Dano, and I were going to help. Then I got talking to Jeni and he mentioned that he needed it. Why the heck didn't you say so sooner O.O? So we did some shuffling and Tharp sat out so Jeni could take his DD spot.

We might've over-prepared by just a little bit >.>; We were off of the record by 11 seconds, which we totally would've had if we hadn't stood there for like 30 seconds just psyching ourselves up for it. We smashed the little boss into the ground with Yosa Chainspell + Stunning it while Des kited the big boss. Then we went after the big boss. That one was a bit meaner 'cause it did triple Great Wheels a couple times, but Dano had our backs and I don't think anyone used their 2hrs except Yosa and Dano o.o; The amount of damage we smashed the fight with was overwhelming :D Congrats Des and Jeni!

Other than that... I finally got some Fishing skill ups today to get Fishing 64. Man that was a long time in coming -.-

I 100% completed LEGO Batman, so I'm playing Lost Odyssey now. It reminds me of FFVIII a lot (which isn't a bad thing since I'm a big fan of FFVIII). Next up after LO will be either Blue Dragon, LEGO Indiana Jones, or Kung-Fu Panda (I can play that game without having to defend my manhood since I lack manhood to begin with >.>; )
Name
10/01/17 23:57(open)10/01/18 00:20(1448)
stuff
Howitzer went to Sandy on Saturday. It was kind of a rough run, but that was no one's fault. We had 19 people and the zone kept screwing our poor puller over :( Anything that could link in the most remote way did, even stuff I've never seen link before o.oa It was kind of jaw dropping actually. I felt really bad for our puller :( Despite every pull being a clump instead of a steady stream of mobs, we did pretty well on the loot end. I think Tharp was our big winner for the day. He got SCH Hands (to go 5/5), BLU (to go 4/5), and NIN pants autolotted to him ^^; NIN's a really fun job, Tharp, you should try it >.>/ Other winners included Nif (WAR), Demandred (MNK), and a lot more that I'm forgetting, sorry D: I was back-up tank x.x

Oh God, speaking of *that*. My filters completely broke in Dynamis. I was seeing *EVERYTHING*. My log was just flying by with damage / evade / special actions... but what got me the most was that I could see everyone's shadows. Do you realize how hard it is to tank and count your own shadows when you can also see the shadow loss for Klaital, Demandred, and Kismar? None of whom were in my alliance, I might add. My head was ready to explode about 20 minutes into the run from information overload. I probably used twice as much Shihei as necessary since I was recasting Utsusemi every time I thought something might've taken a shadow 'cause I couldn't tell in a reasonable amount of time :/ I tried toggling the filters, relogging, etc. to fix it. It was still broken this morning, but I fiddled with it a lot more and it finally straightened itself out this afternoon. But man, what a horrible time to have filters go bonkers, especially that *badly*. I always expect them to break some, but usually they hold up well enough so that I only see my own shadows :/

Anyhow, Sunday was pretty laid back. I got my Fishing Waders >.>b Yay, I can look like even more of a goob while fishing :D!

In the afternoon Nif and I helped Cyd, Zen, and Tharp do Shantotto in Chains. Man, talk about a mission that makes me love SAM as a damage dealer, and it's not because of the damage numbers. SAM can do Archery, Slashing, Piercing, and Blunt with a Club in a pinch for that mission. Not many jobs this side of WAR are truly that diverse in melee damage type and *good* at it. Both my MNK and RNG could only realistically cover 2 of the damage types. But, um, yeah >.> We breezed through the mission. Nif and I got Bomb Keys from the Goblin since we repeated (and started the Key thing up beforehand). I got a HiEther+1 (at least it wasn't a HiPotion, that's what I usually get...) And Nif got some crappy head armor that he NPCed for 6k. Nif was definitely the winner there.

In the evening, Resh, Nif, Yosa, Tharp, and I hung out and did Campaign. Well, Nif didn't do Campaign, but the rest of us did. Just camped Windy S and beat down anything that came through the gate. I got a merit and change. Resh did nice things for his PLD buffer, so mission accomplished o.ob Between Campaigns I did Ops and got COR35. I'm gunning (har har) for 37 for now. I tried to buy my last die while in Nashmau, but it was Qiqirn holiday (I know it's Tenshodo, but wtf, seriously...) =.=
Morlock > I am curious about the filter thing, my filter set exploded some time on friday for no appearant reason. Didn't really get mine sorted out until sunday during a campaign battle . . . (10/01/18 06:13)
Beanie > As far as I know I was the only person in Dynamis who had that happen to them, but it really put a kink in my tail. I've heard of others having their filters randomly explode for no discernable reason. I'm just glad they seem to be fixed now x.x (10/01/18 13:58)
Name
10/01/14 01:50(open)10/01/14 02:03(1447)
A new Fishing Rank contest started today. I've been looking forward to it after the whole Ryuga Titan thing >.> Having to wait 4+ weeks for another opportunity to participate was depressing. Especially when there were *19* entries total.

So what's the fish this time? Tricorn.

Haven't heard of it? Here's why:

* Level 100
* Requires Frog Fishing to get it to bite (as far as I've found it's the *only* fish that requires it. Actual *frogs* like Copper Frog are just tickled pink to bite Shell Bugs in Bastok Mines.)
* Can only be caught during the ferry ride in Phanauet Channel (which is 7-8 minutes long.)
** More specifically, it can only be caught during the 2-3 minutes that the ferry is going through the area called Newtpool (the NPC on the ferry announces this.)
*** In other words this amphibian can only be caught for 5-6 minutes out of every game day.
**** Is known to be a rampant line breaker if it bites at all >.>

So... I'll spend the next 4+ weeks continuing to skill up fishing (which isn't going terribly well either... I'm fishing, just not getting skills ups... at all -.- ) And hope that NEXT MONTH the fish might be something within my ability to catch.

I'm not a fan of Menowapi, but at times like this I think he had a point with FuSE...
Nimbex > Sounds like it would be easier to turn in a Corsair's Tricorne; perhaps they'd accept that? (10/01/14 09:52)
Beanie > The fish description mentions a Tricorn hat and getting one of those would undoubtedly be easier, but I don't think they'll accept it :( (10/01/14 11:54)
Nimbex > Maybe if you glued some fins onto the hat? Alchemy? Hey, maybe even Synergy! (10/01/15 08:43)
Beanie > I like how you think :o Just placing anywhere in the top 20 would make me happy, who cares of it's a fake fish... Except a guild-working Mithra might be able to tell the difference... Hrm... (10/01/15 18:06)
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10/01/13 11:11(open)10/01/13 20:18(1446)
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I haven't updated lately. I blame LEGO Batman and a burning desire to destroy LEGO Robin >.>; Anyhow......

Howitzer went to Jeuno last night. I went on RNG/SAM :D I haven't shot at things in a while, so it was fun :D Though it's always a cat and mouse game with avoiding killing myself. This time, however, I can blame it on Cyd. Yes, you Cyd. See, it took me about an hour (and my filters breaking since I normally can't see the other alliance) to realize what was happening. I try to wait until a mob has a good 20-25%HP knocked off before I do anything hate-whorish like Barrage or Slug Shot. So I'd wait for a chunk of HP to fall off and then figure hate is glued on *someone* and then Slug Shot. Then the Goblin would come over and whack me in the head. Hrm, while I must admit that it made my ego feel good, my self-preservation plan was failing. That's when the log filters broke and I saw the sequence...

* Cydori uses Penta Thrust
[Goblin takes zomg damage]
* Beanie readies Slug Shot
* Cydori uses Super Jump
* Hein uses Super Climb
* Beanie uses Slug Shot
[Goblin plays whack-a-Bean]

Dammit, Cyd, you were supposed to be my meatshield! Stop being a good DRG >:|!Once I figured out to watch for Penta Thrust and *not* Slug Shot immediately afterwards I did a lot better on not getting whacked >.>a <3 I can be taught!

The other thing I was trying to do (mostly because I had /SAM) was to not hit Sharpshot + Barrage while I had hate on a mob. Meaning, I'd hit both JA's before I engaged and then wait for the HP threashhold before using them. I was trying this for two reasons, well three. First is that with /SAM, a Barrage is a gauranteed TP fill up. Second, no Shadows >.>; Third, because if I did my usual Acid Bolt, then hit the JAs, then did Barrage I'd be flattened x.x; It seemed to be working better for me, though I dislike my opening action to be a Barrage, but having the added 'voke's worth of hate on the mob doesn't help me x.x If I can avoid it... With /SAM I lean heavier on Meditate anyways since it's a shorter recast and won't kill me >.>;

Hate issues aside, I was pleased with my damage. Pre-Mega Boss mobs I was breaking 1k Slug Shots pretty consistently. A few times I did 1200dmg + either Transfixion or Reverberation for another 400-500dmg. Yeah, that makes the ego feel good D: Post-Mega Boss my Slug Shots were ratcheted down to between 700-800dmg. I'm also happy that I've broken the "Die, Bean, Die" curse that was on the stack of Yellow Curry Buns I've been eating. Honestly, every time I've eaten one of those lately I've been flattened (I went through several of them on Sunday >.o; )

On Saturday Howitzer went to Bastok. That was exciting for me :o I pulled the entire zone :D And I didn't wipe us :D! It was my first time doing the zone from start to finish. I've done the first hour or so before. Drax was very helpful with his advice. He helped me keep track of how many mobs were still at camp so I could better judge when to bring another group in. When Northy arrived she did the Mega Boss pull and showed me how to do the first pull Post-Mega Boss, so it was a great learning experience ^^b

Resh had asked me why I do pulling on MNK/NIN when I have NIN available to pull with. It's nothing bad against NIN, but I had MNK already in my bag. I can push my MNK's Evasion Skill up to 289 (still not as high as a THF nor as high as I could go on NIN if I tried, but not bad either). There's also the point that I have Hermes' Sandals. It's true NIN boots are 25% movement+ vs. 12% movement+, but the NIN boots don't work half the time >.>; I dig the constant running away faster than I'm being chased that MNK offers me. Of course, that wouldn't work in Xarc where the Kindred have movement+ themselves, but in a City it works swimmingly o.ob

In fact, the movement+ might've been messing with my pulls some >.> Though Bastok also tends to be a kinda weird / glitchy zone... I kept losing aggro on my pulls when they were long :x But I'd rather bring in a smaller group and have to run back for the rest than bring in a dozen, right? :D I was very proud of myself for pulling the first DRK NM without it linking to anything else (not the Mega Boss trigger, but the one overseeing the mines entrance area). I was so sure if I tagged it I'd bring a zillion mobs with me x.x; I had no idea how the dominos of that area would fall once I starts plucking them out, but it came apart much neater than I would've hoped.

I've been working on my Fishing turn in. I've come to the conclusion that Fishing is the slowest guild to build GP in, seriously. It may not require expensive (in terms of gil) items, but time intensive? Hell yes. And for minor rewards too. It's rare (at least as a Craftsman) to have a turn in that breaks 3000GP. I wish I was making that up, but I'm not. Check out my last three turn ins (and this is completely typical):

Giant Catfish 2880GP / 10 for max
Greedie 1520GP / 64 for max
Crayfish 1280GP / 43 for max <-- This one wasn't too bad 'cause the guild sells them for 30g/each if you catch the price at low demand

Yeah, it makes me want to headdesk. I have a newfound respect for Fishers with all their guild items / key items 'cause it would've been like pulling teeth >.o; Keep in mind that most of these aren't sold from the guild and you can't find them on the AH, so most days you can't even shortcut the turn in. The Greedie turn in yesterday took me over 3 hours to do. The only upshot was that I caught enough Zafmlug Bass at the same time that when it comes up I'll have that turn in done. (Zafmlug Bass are 2480GP / 27 max.)

The thing that gets my goad (and yesterday was a perfect example), between the Greedies and the Bass I'd caught 100 fish, which already put me well into fatigue for the day. Assume I had some crazy idea to go skill up fishing, I wouldn't be able to get a whole lot done before fatigue came into full effect and I'd be done for the day :/ Other crafts definitely aren't like that... Do your turn in, but good luck skilling on the same day :D

I have pictures of Nimbextaru menacing a nice Rarab. I'll try to remember to update this post when I get home so the world can see what Nimbex is really like when left alone with a bunny D:

Picture 1: Nimbex grabbing the Rarab by the tail.
Picture 2: Nimbex preparing to Sneak Attack the Rarab.
Picture 3: Nimbex going for the throat :(

The poor Rarab!
Cydori > Sorry about that. ^^; I was also experimenting with /SAM last night since it's a relatively new option for me, so I'm not quite as good with the hate limits as I am when I was /WAR. And yeah, a couple of times I jumped and then noticed the mob run off to whack somebody. I'll try to work on my hate balancing as well so I don't have to jump it off quite as often. (10/01/13 13:34)
Guppy > Nimbex should hug his rarab and squeeze him and name him George! (10/01/13 14:51)
Beanie > The fact that you jump instead of die puts you *leagues* ahead of several DRG I used to know in former Dynamis LS. /SAM is fun, you'll get used to it :3b (10/01/13 20:25)
Cydori > My self-preservation instincts tend to kick in really fast when I've actually got the mob's attention. ;p (10/01/14 09:48)
Nimbex > What a nice rarab! (10/01/14 09:51)
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10/01/02 19:10(open)10/01/02 19:20(1445)
A new year means a new list of goals! I had a rather mixed bag of results last year. I didn't come close to meeting my XP goals, but I shattered the quest and other ones o.oa Oh well! Let's try this again :D

EXP Goals
* Get some job to 75 (I have several candidates with BLM as the front runner!)
* Finish getting all jobs to 37/40 (Only 5 jobs left.)
* Break 500 merits (Getting another job to 75 would give me someplace useful to spend them...)

Crafting Goals
* Fishing Waders
* Fishing Apron
* Fishing Key Items
* Alchemy 100!
** Waffle endlessly over if I want the Furnishings or not
* Fishing 100!
** More waffling on Furnishings, wish we had more wall space >.>;
* Ebisu! HAHAHAHAHA
* Synergy 60

Other Goals
* Nyzul 100 & Captain's Rank
* The 4 WSNM I'm missing
* The Mythic WS I'm missing
* Finish Shantotto
* Keep up / finish the WotG storyline
* Cap Shield skill
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09/12/28 00:06(open)09/12/28 00:24(1444)
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I was looking forward to changing my guild contract to Fishing. There are some absolutely beautiful fishing spots that I don't get out to very often 'cause I have little need of the fish there. P. Isle out in Bibiki and Witchfire Glen in Grauberg come to mind, especially the Glen. Fishing there at night is amazing with all of the pools glowing.

...

Well, today's turn in cured me of *that* >.>; It was Zebra Eel. Haven't heard of them? That's 'cause they can only be caught in *one* pool that's at the bottom of Den of Rancor. My picture doesn't do it justice, but I was hugging the wall and the corner of the pool pretty hard when I needed to recast Sneak. The Den Scorpions check as VT. The Tormentors are IT. I kept shadows up, teleport ring equipped, and ready to bolt if anything so much as looked at me funny. (Truth be told, I have a sneaking suspecion that the corner I was huddled in might be safe without Sneak, but considering the mobs involved I wasn't going to test it >.>; )

Other than that I got COR32, did a little Campaign with Jahn in Windy S, and helped with the Archlich fight >.>b

I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas, so if you see me in game and I'm not moving, I'm probably fiddling with that D: That's what I spent most of the day doing when I wasn't watching football or sleeping >.>a If anyone wants my gamertag, poke me in game. I have my old one from my Xbox posted on other sites, but it no longer works...
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