Quests: Automaton Assault (Mine Shaft #2716 ENM)

Demin wanted another shot at a Waetoto's Earring Friday night, so we headed off to Mine Shaft #2716 for another attempt at Automaton Assualt. This time Kiki joined in as her PLD instead of her inept RDM. We had Demin NIN/WAR, Midget RNG/NIN, Anastasia BLM/RDM, Kiki PLD/WAR, and Ijin (Demin dual-boxing, so not a full participant) WHM/BLM.

This time we took on the Hume first, to get rid of the pesky BLM. Ana stunned all but one of the spells I believe, and it went down quickly.

Next up was the Elvaan. This was a bit tougher to kill, and Kiki ended up tanking a bit on this automaton, since she was dumping some big Cures around.

The Mithra, weak to ranged attacks, dropped fast under Midget's onslaught, and finally, one big spell from Ana very nearly did in the Galka. Kiki used cover a tiny bit early, but no harm done, and we won! We even set the record for the week, so that was fun.

We each got 1200 exp, and 3000 gil, but unfortunately for Demin, we got a Morukaka Earring, which is +35HP. Everyone agreed that this was more useful for Kiki's PLD than anyone else, so Kiki is now the proud owner of a rare/ex, level 55 earring that gives her 35 HP. Considering that a bloodbead earring that gives just 25 HP goes for a few million (I should really check the price again some time), this is a pretty nice item to get for a career PLD.

We'll try again soon and hopefully we'll get that Waetoto's Earring for Demin!

Quests: Valkurm Dunes Garrison

Friday night, a bunch of ClanBEB people decided to try out the level 30-capped Garrison at the Valkurm Dunes. Splinte, Itera, and Daden had farmed for Galka Fang Sacks in the Ordelles, and we gathered together at the Outpost in the Dunes.

We had Splinte WAR/THF, Itera MNK/WAR, Ryken MNK/WAR, Lalandra BLM/WHM, Atrayu WHM/BLM, Diasuke PLD/WAR, Daden WAR/NIN, and Kiki WAR/MNK. Daden wasn't there for our first run.

The first run didn't go very well. A fang sack was traded to the Outpost Guard, a bunch of Traders appeared (I think there were as many as we had people in our alliance, but you know, I never thought to count them). Then the waves of Goblins started. We had little strategy beyond "voke the goblins off the Traders". We made it through the first three waves, and even got two pairs of Mannequin Feet, but the fourth wave demolished us. A passing WHM handed out Raises, and we discussed our failure as we waited for our weakness to wear off.

For the second run, Lalandra and Diasuke grabbed one of the Goblin Leechers for each wave, and dragged it as far as they could and kept it alive and asleep until we'd killed the rest of that wave, rested for HP and MP, and then we killed Lala and Dia's goblin. The next wave would spawn, and we repeated the process. Before the final wave, Atrayu also healed all the Traders to full. We were successful, and got more mannequin feet, I think some legs, a Dragon Chronicle page, a Military Pole and a Military Axe.

The third run wasn't quite as smooth, but we still won, getting more feet, legs, another Dragon Chronicle page, a Military Pick and a Military Gun. It was quite a lot of fun, and Kiki finally has a start on getting her very own Mannequin, as she won the lot on a pair of feet. We split stuff up based on lot, but when the Pick goes for 650K and the Pole for 10K, I'm not sure that is the best way to do it. I think people should get the mannequin parts if they're building a mannequin, and everything else should be sold and split evenly amongst the participants.

I'm sure we will start doing these a bit more regularly as well. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Leveling: Another interesting evening for the LLS (61-62)

Diasuke had the flu Sunday night and couldn't make it for the LLS, so we searched around for a healer and got a RDM60/BLM30 to agree to go out for some experience points. We didn't really know where to go, but fighting Trapogans in Bibiki Bay seemed like a good idea. We got a Teleport-Mea from Ijin, hopped on chocobo, and headed to Bibiki Bay.

Before we had left Jeuno, we checked the area, and there was one other party our level in Bibiki. However, there was another party there by the time we got there. We decided to give it a try, and camped in a dead-end canyon. We killed the bird there, and it went quite well. Next, we tried a Goblin Fascinator. Goblins aren't a good idea without a WHM, or a RDM/WHM at least. Poor Elboron had to work terribly hard to help with curaga and barfira and removing what status effects he could. We managed pretty well, and, with our empress bands, got 396 for the chain #1.

Next we decided to try a Tartarus Eft. Somepage said they're 77-79, which would be much too high for us (birds are 72-74 I think), but they checked as IT low evasion, high defense for both the THFs, so we figured we'd give it a shot. It wasn't our best idea. I swapped in my earth staff at some point, but it didn't help an awful lot. Just about when I was ready to hit invincible, the eft did a double attack and down I went. Itera was next, then the RDM, then Elbo, then the two THFs. Ijin headed out to hand out R3s, but our RDM homepointed and disbanded before Ijin arrived.

After resting up, we tried to convince Elbryan to join us for a few hours with his RDM60, but a friend talked him into going to a movie instead. So Corbun came out as a RDM54 and we headed back to where we'd been fighting in Attohwa Chasm last week. We actually chose a slightly different camp, which was much better for lining up for the THFs, but did have antlions and lizards spawning on top of us. Our fighting went pretty smoothly. Some of the lizards and flies weren't worth a lot of EXP, but they went fast.

I bought some Carbonara to try (14K for a single, which lasts 30 minutes). It doesn't have +DEF like my usual Tavnazian Tacos, but it did give me about 150 HP, and extra attack power. I'm not sure it's the best food for me yet, especially not if it's 110-120K a stack. If Qiara got noodle kneading, I think we could make it for a lot less. Kiki will have to make the Buffalo Jerky though, as Qiara might HQ it into Bison Jerky, which wouldn't work.

At one point, we had an Antlion spawn on us as we were fighting another one. I swear it spawned inside the one we were fighting. I think most of us didn't notice it until I was pretty well beat down. I used Invincible, got back up into good health, we killed the first and moved on to the second. A bit scary, but no harm done.

Towards the end of the night, Corbun wanted to focus on raising his Elemental Skill, so he left the healing to me and Elbo. This wouldn't be bad at times, but an Antlion started really tearing me apart, and kept getting double attacks in, and I just couldn't get a cure off. Elboron had no MP and Kiki's HP was under 20 when Corbun finally decided he might need to help Cure Kiki. /sigh

Then on our last fight, we got a linked lizard, and after the first was dead, my provoke and flash and shield bash weren't up, so I just attacked it. It headed straight for Elboron who'd be keeping it asleep, and I was moving around to cover him when Corbun converted and hit Elboron with a big Cure, grabbing the lizard's attention. Since he only had about 50 HP after the convert, he went down in one hit. Not a great way to end the night, but it was time to quit.

Everyone but Yobun got a level. Elboron BRD61, Itera MNK62, Grym THF62, Kiki PLD62, and Corbun RDM55. We probably fought for just over 2 hours total, gaining around 9.5K with the deaths. Not bad, considering. Itera death warped earlier in the day, and also got an R2 on our wipe. Between that, plus us using empress bands and all the EXP we picked up on the easy preys on Saturday, we're getting caught up to him. I got to put on my new Creek Mitts at 62. The extra 65 HP is nice, as is the extra strength.

Missions: Saintly Invitation (Windurst Mission 6-2)

We had quite a few people in ClanBEB who needed to do Saintly Invitation, Windurst's Mission 6-2. Some people had already got Rank 10 in other nations, while others of us were on our first path through the Missions. I organized for us to do this Saturday night, meeting at 9PM in Windurst. We were two people short of two balanced parties, and asked Yobun to tank for one party with his PLD73, and Anastasia was the BLM72 sleeper for that party as well. Emith should have done this with us, but real life interfered, and we'll have to do it with him some other time.

It took the usual hour to get everyone ready and we headed off to Balga's Dais to face the crack Yagudo fighting squad. The higher level group went first. Yobun PLD73, Ana BLM72, Midget RNG73, Izan DRG70, Diasuke SMN70, and Muirnin THF63. They made short work of the four Yagudos, killing them in the order WHM, SMN, SAM, and NIN. Our parties were allied, so we could see the party chat as well as the HP bars of that team, and they hardly took any damage, and finished really quickly.

Next up was our team, with Kiki PLD61, Grym THF61, Elboron BRD60, Ryrra MNK63, Wendell WHM63, and Aksukia as RDM7X. We took them on in the same order, and didn't have any real trouble, but it did take us longer, and we took a lot more damage than the first team. Aksukia and Elboron were both on sleep duty. After the WHM Yagudo used Benediction, Ryrra used Hundred Fists and it was down in no time. Next up was the SMN, which manage to use Astral Flow and we were hit with a powerful Tidal Wave. We all took nearly 600 points of damage, but we all survived and Wendell either used Divine Seal/Curaga or Benediction at that point (I wasn't sure and threw on Invincible to get hate back). The SMN was dispatched and we moved on to the SAM. He fell soon after, and the NIN used on us, but it was less than 400 damage per person, and we quickly defeated him as well.

The Yagudo in charge of the contest told us to head to Castle Oztroja to report our victory. I believe we cleared the field in just over 11 minutes. Nowhere near a record, but it was really a lot of fun. Everyone did a great job.

A lot of people had to run off to Dynamis runs, but my whole party was ready to head to Castle Oztroja to complete the mission. Anastasia came along with us to help. First we had to kill Yagudo Flagellants in the upper level to try to get a Judgement Key to open a door to reach the Yagudo we needed to report to. Every time I've been on a coffer key hunts, I've seen a lot of these keys drop, but of course when we needed one, it just didn't seem to want to drop. People were getting tired, but I told them it should be very quick, so they all stuck it out. We finally got a key, and Ana got the door open for us to go into the area for G3. We didn't get the passwords for the trap door on the way up, but after countless entries of the possible words, I got all three correct and down we dropped.

We all got invisible and headed for the brass door behind the ??? spot for G3. The High Priest was making life difficult for us, and finally noticed Ryrra at the door (he has true sight). Anastasia, the brave little taru that she is, grabbed his attention and dragged him away from the door. The rest of us all hurried over, I got the door open, and we ran through safely. Meanwhile, Anastasia warped back to her homepoint in Port Windurst, only to find herself facedown. ><

We talked to the Yagudo and got a key item and a necklace, and we all headed back to Windurst. Wendell gave Ana a Raise 2 before heading to Heaven's Tower. The Star Sybil was happy to see us, and told us we had atoned for our crimes, but that we shouldn't speak of what we had seen. And we're all now Rank 7 (and 40,000 gil richer). Hurray!

New title: Victor of the Balga Contest

General: Saturday Afternoon in Castle Zvahl

Saturday afternoon, our BRD60/THF61/PLD61 trio headed off to the not-as-scary-as-it-used-to-be Castle Zvahl, hoping to find a treasure chest for each of us for one of the song fragments we need for the Bastok quest, A Test of True Love. We brought out our NPCs and fought our way to all of the chest spawn spots. We found the first in Baileys, just after we were on the second part of the map. We made Elbo take that one, then decided to head to the Keep and fight things as we made our way to the different spawn points.

We had a fun time fighting all the easy prey beastmen as we made our way through Baileys and then the Keep, and we found a second chest in the Yagudo room in the Keep. Grym took that one, and we kept on with our search for a third. We had cleared out the Quadav room not too long before the next chest should have spawned, and decided to wait there for a few minutes, in case it would spawn there. Grym wanted to see how well double mambo would work and pulled a Quadav from another room, and a bunch of its friends followed. Then we had respawns in our room joining in the fray. It was chaotic, and I thought we were going to kill Elbo (he kept using horde lullaby on the horde), but luckily we made it through the rumble alive. And the quadavs scarcely touched Grym with the double mambo.

We then worked our way through the Keep chest spawns again, then back to Baileys. We checked every single spot except for one (on the first map by the south stairs) with no luck, and rather than fight our way over to that one, Grym used Tonko and ran over to check. Sure enough, there it was. Elboron cast invisible on Kiki and she ran off to open it. Yay! 1 song fragment down, 2 to go.

It was a fun afternoon, and we picked up over 2K exp while we were at it (also used our Empress Bands for a 50% boost). One of the golbins we fought dropped a gold ingot (120K), and we got a bunch of crystals, some Kindred and Beastmen Seals, and a variety of scrolls and other items. Kiki now has over 60 KS, so it's time to hire some BLMs for Desert Swarm once or twice.

Quests: Creeping Doom (Balga's Dais BCNM30)

For quite some time now, Grym and Kiki have had a plan to do Creeping Doom as a THF/NIN and WAR/NIN spamming sleep bolts into Bitoso (a Crawler), with Elboron as WHM or BRD for support and paralyna. So last week, Kiki made stacks and stacks of acid, holy, and sleep bolts, and got many many HQs in the process. This upset Grym, who was making beeswax and silent oils, and didn't get any HQs, though I believe she's even above the 51-tier for the beeswax.

These were cluttering up inventory all week, but this Friday night we finally tried it out. We were loaded to the gills with Ranged Accuracy and Agility Gear (Bowyer's Ring, Beetle Ring +1, dual wielding archers knives, full Noct +1 for Grym, Kampf gear for Kiki, Winged Pendant, Nomad's Mantle, Roast Pipira for food), and our marksmanship skill was capped for a level 30. Elboron opted to come as a WHM.

For our first run, Grym and Kiki mostly just shot sleep bolts, but we weren't doing a lot of damage (20-25ish unless it had put Cocoon on, then more like 10-14), and the crawler still got in a lot of Cure IIIs. I started using Holy Bolts, and saw that they were doing 43-55 base damage with another additional 15-25. Elboron kept us healthy and unparalyzed. Bloody bolts weren't returning much HP, so we stopped using those. We tried to keep its defense down with an occasional Acid Bolt as well. Elboron tried to keep it Slow, Paralyzed, and Silenced, but it was incredibly resistant to spells. We ended up timing out on the first run, but decided to try again, with Kiki just using Holy Bolts and Grym just using Sleep Bolts.

The second run was much better. We started out with Kiki lowering its defense with an Acid Bolt, and Grym sleep bolting it. From then on we alternated Holy and Sleep. We got the timing down pat, and the Crawler only got maybe two Cure IIIs in, the first at the very start when it didn't do it much good. My husband was watching my screen and as soon as Kiki's crossbow came up, he'd hit his macro to shoot a sleep bolt. Kiki's holy bolt would wake it up, and Grym's sleep bolt would put it right back to sleep, usually interrupting a Cure III. Yay! We cleared it in 11 minutes and 3 seconds, and got a Genin Earring (+4 AGI when /NIN), an elm log, a sheet of bast parchment, and a silk thread. Not an abundance of riches, but we sold the earring for 600K, so it wasn't bad.

We tried it again a third time, but luck was not on our side for this one. A few missed bolts, both from paralysis and just plain missing, pretty much guaranteed another failure. We got smacked around a lot more by the crawler because of this, and he kept getting in his Cure IIIs as well. At one point, Elboron had to use Benediction to keep us going, and I don't know how, but Kiki managed to get hate back with a provoke. I guess all the holy bolts had really been annoying him. We ended up timing out again.

It was definitely a lot of fun. I've been ridiculed by a couple of people in the LS for "wasting" seals on any BCNM that isn't Worms Turn, but with over 1000 seals between Grym and Kiki, we'd really rather try different things for fun. Fortunately Elboron is like-minded, and willing to risk his own seals as well. I think we're going to try the Birds of a Feather one next, another level 30, which we'll do as BSTs.

The next night, when we were at Balga's Dais for Windurst Mission 6-2, a trio of BLMs dressed for level 30 appeared dead in a heap outside the burning circle. After we raised them, I asked "Creeping Doom?" and they laughed and said yes. At least timing out wasn't as painful as a full wipe!

General: Odds and Ends

Friday evening a week ago, Grym and Kiki dragged Splinte (WAR41) through Delkfutt's Tower for her Mission 3-3. Splinte got aggro a lot earlier than I would have thought (I think it was on the 5th floor), but it was an easy trip up with her THF61 and PLD61 escort duo. Rank 4 for Splinte, who then ran off to do the NPC quest as soon as she could.

Later that evening, most of the 55+ crowd in the linkshell headed to Bostaunieux Oubliette to take on Bodach, the NM for Charcole's quested weaponskill, Asuran Fists. We had to fight a bunch of leeches along the way. It seems the leeches in the Oubliette have an AOE drain effect, which was pretty hard on the alliance. I was actually worried we might not even make it to the spawn area for the skeleton. However, we were fine, and killed it relatively quickly.

Next we headed to Beadeaux to get a Warrior testimony for Daden's Maat fight, but that dropped really quickly, so we didn't stay there long. It was too bad, as I was getting really good staff skillups on the Quadavs. Kiki got a Paladin testimony to save for her Maat fight as well.

Finally, a bunch of us headed to Quicksand Caves to kill Spelunking Sabotenders for Star Spinel. This is a rare/ex item required for the Crying Over Onions quest in the Star Onion Brigade series, and the reward is a Star Necklace, a rare/ex level 59 necklace with +3 CHR and converts 15 HP to MP, so it's really good for BRDs, and useful for others as well. The quest is also required to continue on in the series, so needed to be done. We had 4 people needing a star spinel (Kiki, Diasuke, Elboron, and Grymalkyn), and several people helping us (Yobun, Charcole, Itera, Wendell, Ryken). We managed to get the four we needed, but the last one took longer than the first three, and Grymalkyn was ready to give up on hers, especially when a duo showed up and started competing with us for the Sabotenders. Elboron got killed at one point when we were fighting a scorpion and he pulled hate with a Curaga just in time to get Death Scissors for nearly 800 points of damage. :-(

Elbo, Grym, and Kiki headed back to Windurst to complete the Crying Over Onions quest, received their Star Necklace rewards, and started the next quest in the series, Wild Card.

Fishing: General Update

We haven't done a lot of serious fishing lately, but have fished Coral Butterflies in Norg and Giant Donkos in Rabao for Guild Points. Kiki tends to keep her rod and shrimp lure on her at all times now, and fishes in handy spots when she's got some idle time (Gold Carp in Windurst Woods are good for saving for GP, Breams are good for making sushi, and Black Sole are good to sell). Plus it's easy to get out to Bubu for a few stacks of shall shells and hopefully a few skillups.

Grym really seems to catch many more items than Kiki, and is getting a bit frustrated with it. We've both been picking up some skill points, and Grym is now 49.3, while Kiki's 50.9.

Last week we finally had the 70,000 guild points we needed to get our Waders. We figure by the time we're level 68 and can get the Apron, we'll have more than the 100,000 guild points we need for those.

Events: ClanBEB Second Anniversary Celebration

November 13th was the second anniversary of the creation of the ClanBEB linkshell, and we had a celebration in Windurst Sunday evening. Several of the long-time members were unable to make it because of real-life issues, but we had a good turn out, with 18 of us gathering around the fountain for photos, fireworks and general horsing around.

Wendell organized a hide-and-seek event, with the winner getting a Beverage Barrel (dispenses a grape juice probably once a week) and a Hermes Quencher, while the second and third place people would get a Hermes Quencher. The sackholders formed a party and headed off to different parts of Windurst to hide. People were supposed to find us in a specific order, trading an item to each of us, getting an item in return that was then traded to the next hider.

Wendell started everyone off in Woods, and they were supposed to find Charcole in Windurst Walls, who then sent them to find Yobun in Windurst Waters. Yobun hid in the back room of the Catalyst Shop, which was a very good spot, as it took quite awhile for all 12 of the seekers to find him. Yobun sent them to find Trow in the south part of Waters, Trow sent them to find Erock in Woods, Erock sent them to find Kiki in Port (hidden behind the crates with the Star Onion Brigade behind the Warehouses), and finally, back to Wendell, who was then in Heaven's Tower. Diasuke won, with Splinte and Elbryan coming in second and third.

I think people had a lot of fun, and it was a good celebration.

Quests: Riding on the Clouds (Genkai 4)

Since we hit 61 over a week ago, we decided to check in with Maat again. In order to raise our level cap from 65 to 70, Maat had another quest for us. The quest this time was really pretty silly. He gives you 4 clues for different NPCs that you're supposed to find and trade them a Kindred Seal. Both Grym and Kiki had 1 of the 4 that they knew right off the bat (kid at the Selbina fishing guild for Grym, and Brygid in Bastok for Kiki), and several others seemed familiar, but we couldn't be certain, so we looked them up on the internet.

Two of Grym's I don't think we could have known at all, since they didn't say anything related to Maat's hints when she talked to them. One was a Bastokan government official, who probably only tells Bastokans on missions the information that Maat gave as a clue. We had to do a lot of traveling around (Bastok, Windurst, San d'Oria, Selbina, Mhaura), but it was pretty trivial. Seems like a waste of perfectly good Kindred Seals. Kiki got another couple over the weekend, and has 59 at the moment - I think she's going to go on one of the 5-BLM Desert Swarm nights and try her luck at winning the jackpot with a Venomous Claw. One of the guys in the LS has done that twice and got a V.Claw both times. Lucky SOB!

New Title: Cloud Breaker

NPC Buddies: Strengthening the Bonds

We've had our NPC buddies out several times in the past couple of weeks. Having the new tactics pearl is nice, as you can call them as soon as they've left you. We've had them out in Toraimarai Canal (bats, crabs, and makara), Crawlers Nest (flies, crawlers, exorays), Castle Zvahl Baileys and Xarcarbard (demons). Not only has it been good exp for the buddies, who are now level 47, but we also picked up about 2K exp.

One reason for taking them to Castle Zvahl Baileys was to get chest keys from the demons, so we can later go back and look for chests for the Bastok quest that needs you to get song fragments from CZB, Sea Serpent Grotto, and the Labyrinth of Onzozo. We ended up getting 4 keys with 20 kills, so that certainly wasn't a hard key to get. We headed back another night with Elboron and Siegward, and got a key for Elbo as well. The chests in Castle Zvahl can be either in Baileys or the Keep, so it will be interesting to run around and search for them. I'm not sure how to get to all of the spawn points.

Grym and Kiki also completed the Blighted Gloom quest. The NPC quests really have an interesting story line, and I'm curious to see how the NPC buddies will evolve with next year's expansion to the game.

We also did the Promy quest again to get another Tactic Pearl after using up the last one. This time we went with Kiki as WAR/MNK and Grym as WHM/BLM. We switched Balu-Falu to attacker and Wagwei to shield, and fought empty for about half an hour. It went pretty well, and they got their full 1500 exp for the quest.

Grym and Kiki were both asked for a 4th weapon upgrade, and Kiki switched Balu-Falu back to great axe (Voulge), mostly because it was 38K, rather than the higher damager-per-second great katana that Grym got for Wagwei for 100K.

Leveling: LLS goes to Attohwa Chasm (60-61)

The LLS had sort of a "make up" meeting a couple weeks ago, since we hadn't been able to exp the previous Sunday, and our linkshell was having its two year anniversary celebration the following Sunday. Itera recruited Diasuke's WHM61 to join us, and we headed to Attohwa Chasm. It was so nice to be able to get to a camp without risking our lives on the way there.

We fought mostly VT flies and lizards, and added IT antlions to the mix after Grym and Kiki hit 61. It was a very uneventful evening, other than the fact that I simply could not hold hate off of Itera on the VTs. I loved fighting the antlions, since I was actually able to do a proper job of tanking those. The two THFs and MNK make a great team for killing VTs very quickly, and we'll probably have to continue fighting VTs with the static. If that's the case, I'm going to try to change my gear/food a bit and up the damage I do, though I'll keep all my VIT/DEF gear around to swap in as needed, since Itera will end up tanking half the time.

We fought for 2.5 hours, and ended up with about 12K exp (1K of that was from using our Empress Bands). Kiki ended up nearly 10,000/20,000 into Level 61. I'm eager for 62 and my fancy new RSE2 gloves, with their +65HP. :-)

Diasuke hit 62, and Elboron hasn't quite reached 61 yet. I think we'll have to have one party without Diasuke to try to catch up to him - it's not a good idea to have the WHM the highest level in the party.

Introducing Tsakiki

Blogspot is now my new home to chronicle the Adventures of Tsakiki, rather than hope for modblog to become more reliable. I started using modblog when I decided a blog would be more fun than simply using the journal feature at Allakhazam. I'll start off with an introduction post, but I haven't yet decided whether or not to pull old entries over to here.

My husband and I started playing FFXI with the NA PS2 release in March 2004, and we agreed we wanted a Mithra character who would become a THF/NIN. We created Grymalkyn and had a lot of fun playing, but as the weeks went by, I really wanted to get a second copy of the game and create my own character so we could play together. So in late June 2004, Tsakiki was created. The name is a random one from the game, we decided the "Tsa-" is silent, and almost everyone calls her Kiki.

I made her with the intent she would be a PLD, as our old LS (ClanTen), originally most of my husband's SOCOM clan, had dwindled over the months, and there was really no tank in the group. We were hoping to have a static party, and a tank is a fairly key component. I selected Tarutaru so the two clan THFs would have an easier time seeing over me for SATA. My husband had Grymalkyn's THF at 33 at the time and commented about Elvaan's being too tall and Galka's tails getting in the way. Plus Taru tanks are so much fun.

Kiki and Grym leveled their PLD and THF to 51 with our old static, which went on a break in February, and then dissolved forever in May when Manon (RNG/WAR) and Locmari (SMN/WHM) quit FFXI. Elboron had been a BLM in our static from level 10-22, and was going to be our BRD when we got to 34, but he took a break from the game for several months, and that didn't happen. Emith had been our WHM until level 37, but at the time, he didn't want to take that any higher (he's a career BLM).

Since Elboron came back and got caught up, we've been static with his BRD, pretty haphazardly for awhile, but we've become part of the ClanBEB Low Level Static, which Kiki had been in with her RDM until level 56. Rovont had been the PLD for the LLS, but had to pull back on his game time for school. So Kiki became the PLD, Elboron replaced her RDM with his BRD, and Grymalkyn joined as THF. Itera as MNK and Yobun round out the LLS, and we're currently picking up healers each week, which has mixed results. We're currently level 62 with our PLD and THF.

Kiki has a variety of interests, which means there's always way too much to do in the game. She had been leveling RDM, and that's currently at level 58. I'd really like to get it safely over 60 at this point. It's a very useful job to have available. It's a bit odd, considering it wasn't anything she ever planned on taking past 25, which she had done for Sneak and Invisible. She really wants to level WAR and DRK further, thinks a DRG trio with Grym and Elboron would be great fun, would like to level SMN only after she has every avatar, and she and Grym both would like to have BST all the way to 75 one day. Her current job levels are:

PLD62 DRK34 WAR37 THF25 MNK20 NIN20
BST41
RDM58 BLM29 WHM1 SMN1
RNG7 DRG4 SAM2 BRD1

We're currently Rank 7 citizens of Windurst, and we're on PM 2-5, which we have been having a hard time getting a party organized to do this. We're trying to do it as BST/NIN, BST/NIN, BRD/WHM, MNK/WAR, WHM/BLM, but need to have a tank.

Grymalkyn's WHM somehow got up to 43, which admittedly has been quite useful.

Kiki's completed her quest for the Lu Shang's Fishing Rod on October 19th. She had started the quest in January, so it was a long haul. She has level 50 in fishing, 63 in Woodworking, 40 in Cooking (good for juice making), and 29 in Alchemy. Grym was been leveling every craft, with Cloth and Alchemy her highest, and one of our mules, Qiara is at about level 70 in Cooking.

Giving up hope

I'm about ready to give up on Modblog. They finally got the images and layout stuff working again after a month of not being available, and 12 hours later, they went down. They've had an announcement up since the 17th stating it would be back later that day, but there's still no sign of life.

There are several features that I really prefer at modblog - the image gallery (though I can use photobucket for that), the ability to create backups easily, the friends list, the categories for posts, and the statistics that show your readership and how people find your blog. I think I can use tracking software to fill that gap though. This site has a lot more flexibility for formatting, but it also means it's more work to customize. I've got a week's worth of posts, so if modblog's not back before this evening, I'll move in here.

testing the posts

I want to see how things work over here at Blogger. Life isn't very happy at modblog these days, since they're having trouble recovering from a hardware failure. I've grown accustomed to the way it works though, and I'm not sure I am happy with Blogger yet.

I'll have to see.