Just Like Old Times?

I wanted to post an addendum to my recent "Merit Points and Me" post. I had a pickup party this past weekend, which ended up having 3 other people who are/have been in both ClanBEB and TheUltimates. We sought an open camp, and ended up fighting Trolls on Mt Zhayolm. When we finally got to actually fighting, we had DRK/THF (Latta), SMN/WHM (Anadosia), a WAR/NIN, SAM/THF (Easykill), and BRD/NIN (Alfrodo), and me as PLD/WAR. We orginally had Goto's WHM/SMN instead of the WAR, but he DC'd while we were checking the Mamool Ja staging point, and Ronald's DRG/WAR instead of Alfrodo's BRD/NIN. Ronald switched to RDM when Goto DC'd, but then Ronald DC'd on the way to our Troll camp.

I had a fun time with the party, but it was a bit frustrating when the WAR was there, since he wouldn't line up for SATA from our two /THFs. When I'd move to line up the mob with him, he himself would shift so he was no longer behind.

Goto reappeared after awhile, and when the WAR left, we swapped Goto back in. Then things really got going, and Easykill and Latta were busting out Light skillchains on every mob. Alfrodo always had another Troll ready and waiting for us, though the diamondhide and PLD mobs were pretty much chain-breakers. We weren't getting ZOMG l33t exp, but we were having a fun time, and the exp was decent.

After Anadosia got enough of a buffer on her SMN, she switched to BLM, and was *gasp* Magic-Bursting on the Light Skillchain. It wasn't exactly a Lufaise Meadows party, but it was the closest thing to an Old School party as I've seen in a very long time. I still had to wear all my +enmity gear, even with the SATAs helping to hold hate, but it was a lot of fun.

Captain, Here We Come!

The ClanBEB assault group has been plugging away at the missions, trying to do as many unique one as we can every Monday. With our haphazard attendance, people are missing a variety of them that others have done. I think at this point, Lucrezia and Erock have the most unique ones, since I missed a few when I helped out TheUltimates assault group one night. We'll have to start going back and filling in the gaps for people after we've done them all. I've currently completed 36 of the 51 assaults, so just 15 more to go for my Captain rank (and free runic portal use! and an extra tag!).

Some nights we have people with lower ranks join in, so we're still doing repeats, but it also gives us an opportunity to do some of the lower leveled ones that people either missed, or we never managed to do. I think our core group are now all Second Lieutenant or higher, so soon we'll get to try out the First Lieutenant ones, which look like they might be a lot of fun. We've also thrown in a few Nyzul Isle assaults, but haven't reached the 10th floor yet, so it's probably only slightly less annoying than it used to be. :-)

I've actually done a lot of new ones since my last update, so here's a quick rundown on those:

Azure Experiments (Leujaoam Sanctum): An NPC uses your group for experimentation, grafting animal tissue on to you and seeing how you perform while fighting groups of Lamiae. It was kind of fun, and I loved having perma-flee from the Raptor Tissue, but it doesn't seem to be one to spam, unless people really really want to have a Divisor Ring.

Blitzkrieg (Mamool Ja Training Grounds): This one's kind of wild - you have to kill 200 mobs that all come swarming at you. They're celebrating a molting season or something like that, so they're really pretty weak. You're supplied with a bunch of temporary items to help you out, just like in Besieged. It was pretty funny to just stand there fighting the hordes, which included Mamool Ja, puks, bugards, raptors, and ziz. Supposedly an NM Mamool Ja can spawn, but we didn't see him.

Wamoura Farm Raid (Lebros Cavern): Another kill-everything assault, the twist on this one is that the Wamouracampa that fill the area can turn into Wamoura, which are a bit tougher to fight. We only had to fight two of the nasty Mothra-wannabes on our run. I think I prefer Troll Fugitives for my "exp while assaulting" runs.

Imperial Treasure Retrieval (Mamool Ja Training Grounds): I enjoyed this one, but think it would be hard to max out your points with a small group. Our goal for this is to retrieve treasure, hidden in coffers throughout the area. Meanwhile, Mamool Jas are trying to do the same thing, and you need to steal gems from them (and avoid having them steal them from you). So basically it's a big game of tag. We found the best approach was to travel in pairs, so if one of us had our gem stolen, the other could steal it right back. When you're the victim of a theft, you get warped back to your starting point. We ended up with all the treasure and had a nice win. It seems to be an easy one to do with no fighting required.

Defuse the Threat (Periqia): The object for this assault is to find and defuse Qiqirn mines that have been hidden throughout the area, and to try to avoid being spotted by the Qiqirn, since fighting wastes time. I didn't really much like this one, because it was hard to find the mines before they exploded. Apparently it's OK for them to explode rather than be defused, since we had many blow up on us, but we still ended up with the win. This might be easier with a full group seeking the mines (we had just three of us).

Apkallu Seizure (Ilrusi Atoll): I found this one annoying, and not sure I'd care to repeat it after doing it once. You're supposed to get Apkallus to like you and then follow them back to the NPC waiting to capture them. To do this, you need to /bow and /welcome them, feed them Hamsi that you find at ??? spots scattered about the zone, and then make sure you don't annoy them on the trip back to the NPC. If they spot one of your team mates, or one of the pugils hovering about, they'll take off and run away. I'm still not sure how Lucrezia or Erock managed to get one to the NPC.

Escort Professor Clavauert (Leujaoam Sanctum): One night we were restricted to SP missions or lower, so we decided to give this annoying assault another try. We had NIN/WAR, 2x RDM/WHM, BLM/WHM, WHM/BLM, and PLD/WHM. We did a lot of cure bombing on the NPC, and tried a lot of binding on the skeletons and ghosts throughout the area. It was a really close call, but Goto and Ranzz managed to stay alive and the NPC got to the end point. I think Ranzz held off some undead there, while Goto was able to sneak back to the Rune of Release undetected. This is another one I don't really want to try again, but we had some people miss it, so I'm sure I'll go back again one day.

Lost and Found (Ilrusi Atoll): This was a very annoying hot and cold game with an NPC. There was no fighting needed (there are krakens that can aggro, but have a very small range). Once you've found "hints" at ??? spots, the NPC will tell you which party member is the closest to the ring that she's looking for. It took us 15 minutes of moving her ever so slightly in the same spot to finally get the win, and Lucrezia fled to the Rune of Release, getting us out of there with less than 60 second left.

Imperial Code (Leujaoam Sanctum): I enjoyed this one, which wasn't quite a kill-everything mission, but we did have to fight a number of Kusa along with the main object of the mission, 3 NM fomor ninjas that had a stolen cipher we were sent to retrieve. There are a lot of ghosts in the area too, but we managed to sneak past them. With just 4 of us (PUP, THF, RDM, PLD), we were pretty close to the time limit on the win. This was the first CS level assault we'd done, and gave us 1999 points for the first time win. I could see using this one for Leujaoam points if people needed them.

Marids in the Mist (Mamool Ja Training Grounds): I thought this one was a lot of fun too. We just had three of us for this, and were down to the wire for the win. We had to "capture" eight Marids, which are in four separate areas in the training grounds. The Marids are being tended by Mamool Jas, so it helps to have invisible when pulling the Marids (Erock slept some to pull them, and Luc was able to pull, flee, and use Tonko on a few of them). To capture them, you need to weaken them, and use tranquilizer darts from the NPC at the entrance to sedate them. It takes several darts before they take effect, so you pretty much have to fight them right by the NPC at the start, so you can get more darts as needed. The Marids drop Chigoes too, so you need to be ready for those. You get some exp from the Chigoes, but this isn't a good exp one. I think I'd stick to Preemptive Strike if people need Mamool Ja points and you have a good fighting group, otherwise, Breaking Morale is a quicker win.

Deserter (Ilrusi Atoll): I found this one to be very annoying. You're supposed to disarm 12 Lamiae/Merrows, and you lose points if you kill any of them. Critical hits have a chance to disarm them. You only need to disarm one for the win, but we got lucky on the first (Erock used Mighty Strikes) and opted to fight more. We ended up with two disarmed and two killed, and got less than 500 points for the assault, even as a first time win and having the armband.

Voices in My Head

Goldfish set up a Ventrilo server for TheUltimates this week, and a few of us used it last night on a Dynamis-Bastok run. This should prove to be extremely useful for situations where it's not really very convenient to remove one's hands from one's controller to quickly type an urgent question/command/confirmation. On certain pulls, like the NM trios in Xarcabard, we usually have a small group of people that all need to be ready at the same time, but by the very act of moving my hands to the keyboard to type something as simple as "/s /" to say I'm ready, I'm not actually ready.

It's odd to have real voices to associate with these characters I've been playing with for months and months, but it's nice as well, since it humanizes us, and reminds us that there are indeed real people behind the pixels. It also interesting to see how other people pronounce some of the game terms. Lumikumi says "tar-oo-tar-oo", while we've always said it more like "tare-oo-tare-oo" (yet we say "paw-sta" while a lot of Canadians say "pass-ta" for pasta). I can't remember how he said Xarcabard, but it was quite different from our "zark-a-bard" (with the X like the first one in Xerox). And Goldfish says "die-NAM-is", while it's always been "DIE-na-mis" to me. Meshe has some interesting inflections on non-game words, but that's to be expected from people who aren't native English speakers! People didn't talk a lot, so I'm not sure I could pick either Albany or Morgoth out in a crowd, but I'm sure we'll get more used to it as time passes. Amy was on vent at the beginning of the run, but I think she took off her headset quite early, just before Goldfish turned off the Monty Python recording he'd been playing for us.

Dynamis has been going pretty well, with a decent mix of cities, Northlands, and CoP zones. We've even had some long farming runs in Dynamis-Beaucedine, which was a nice change from our usual "we're getting the flag for one person" runs. We've had a few new members join, and with prompting from the sackholders, Venn's resolved to face the Dynamis Lord every time we enter Dynamis-Xarcabard, since if we don't try, we can't refine our strategy and bring the big guy down. Can't win if you don't play! We've had a bit of crankiness and flaring tempers on different runs in the past month, but rather than let it tear apart the shell, people actually discussed issues and we're probably better off for the conflict. As with any endeavor that requires a large group of people, we will have personality conflicts and hurt feelings, but if people don't let resentment fester and actually get things out in the open, we can hopefully move forward.

We have a few new PLDs, either main or with other jobs also at 75, so we've got plenty of fodder for the tank party now, but there are still runs where we end up a bit short and have to make Thom and/or Phelan bring their PLD. Lumikumi can even bring his MNK once in awhile if he wants to, now that it's 74/75. One of our newer PLDs missed out on two pairs of Valor Leggings that dropped to PLD40+ during our post-boss farming in Dynamis-Windurst. He mistakenly thought we were done after we'd killed the Mega Boss and he got his flag. Other people were leaving early, so he thought we were done and dropped his glass. This probably stemmed from the Jeuno run we'd done the week before - we don't farm Jeuno after the Mega Boss. We could have sent someone out to get him a new glass for the post-boss farming, but he decided he was tired anyway. At least it's a common drop for us there, so he'll get his boots some time soon.

We regularly have to play "musical zones", what with all the different Dynamis linkshells wanting to do certain zones at pretty much the same time. Usually this is just on Saturday evenings, when we have conflicts with early Sunday morning Japanese linkshells. There are no websites for "reserving" areas (and no in-game mechanism) that are used by both North American and Japanese linkshells, so it's pretty much whoever gets there first. Since our Wednesday runs usually start at 9pm, we can't enter Dynamis on Saturday until 9pm, so it's not like we could gather early and jump into a zone as soon as we have enough people. On Wednesday nights, most of the linkshells use the Rusty Buckets calendar, but every once in awhile we'll get bumped to another zone than the one we intended to do. The night of the Windurst run I mentioned, we were supposed to do Beaucedine, but a group that had been bumped from Xarcabard decided to jump in Beaucedine ahead of us. They only had 7-11 people for a quick farming run, and I'm pretty sure they were out of there about the time we entered Windurst. It just takes so long to decide where to go (and what zones are available), and then for everyone to travel there. In this case, we would have been better off staying put, but we did get the Windurst flag (and Beaucedine access) for at least one person, and 2 100s for the shell and a bunch of relic for our members, so it's all good!

Merit Points and Me

I've had Paladin at 75 for well over a year now, and have only 50 Merit Points to show for it. I think Erock gets that many in two weeks. I don't really have time to go out with merit parties, so most of my points have come in small bits over time. Some of the Assaults have been really good for points, like Preemptive Strike and Troll Fugitives, but now that everyone's pretty much caught up in assault ranks, we're no longer spamming the old zones for AP, and instead are trying to do as many unique assaults as we can. Besieged is good for points as well, since you get so much ISP compared to normal exp parties on top of the exp/limit points, but it's too random to be at all reliable.

I've been on quite a few 60-90 minute parties after Dynamis, Limbus, or Salvage, usually when we've had much death and people need to recoup their buffers. Since I try to stay capped on experience points, it doesn't take long to get back to that and then get limit points on top of that. However, the need to replenish my exp buffer really cuts into my ability to build up the limit points. At least my weekly experience point scrolls help a lot with keeping me capped over level 75.

I have joined several pickup groups over the months, but those have been few and far between. It's nice having my anniversary ring for those occasions, to get double exp while using it. I see it as my "three free merit points" ring, and will be sad when I've exhausted its charges. My pickup parties don't seem like the ones other PLDs get. I'm always reading about other PLDs using nothing but PLD/NIN for merit parties, but I'm always told to sub WAR and actually tank. I've spent a lot of gil on gear to make me a decent PLD/NIN damage dealer, but since I'm tanking, I have to wear all of my +Enmity gear instead of my fancy damage gear. And even if I do get to go PLD/NIN with some friends, I end up spending half my time curing the others, so they laugh at my pathetic damage percentage. I'd like to see their numbers if they were casting Cure IIIs and IVs on other people all the time, instead of just madly swinging away at the mobs.

I really hate the style of most of the fighting in merit parties, but there aren't a lot of options. I'd love to go fight the greater birds and rams in Lufaise again some time, with an old school set up, but finding 5 other people happy to do that is another story. Hopefully I can get a couple parties in over the next few Saturdays. I'd love to finish off HP (5 merit points for my 7th upgrade) and work on one of the other categories.

Fun With White Mage

Leveling White Mage has gone from being extremely painful to being what might even be called fun, which has surprised me. It was so hard getting out of Qufim, but I got lucky with pick-up parties and got from 25 to 37 in three separate leveling sessions.

I've been surprised at how few people seem to be leveling jobs through the 20s, and as a WHM have stood around with my flag up for a couple of hours at times. One Sunday in August, I was invited to a short-lived party in Qufim, then headed to Yuhtunga as a 24. We started out with a SAM, RNG, PLD, WHM, SMN, and WHM, which went pretty well for a brief time. The SAM was replaced by a MNK, then the SMN was replaced by a DRK with a Power Leveler. When the DRK leveled and left, we couldn't find enough people to keep the party going. The other WHM and I decided to try duoing mandies with our NPCs, which worked well enough for the first one, and then the second one was a bit too much for us. We survived, but Balu-Falu ended up dying from poison because I had no MP to cure or poisona him. It was a fun experiment though. I was only halfway through level 25 at this point, and had been such a chore to get there.

A month later, I headed to Kazham as a WHM25, and got a party with a NIN, WAR, BLM, RNG and COR. The WAR was replaced by a MNK, the NIN by another WAR, and the MNK by a PUP. At that point, probably when we first started hitting 28, we headed to Yhoator Jungle, and had a great time getting chain #4s on the IT mandies there. The exp just rolled in - 280 points on the chain #4s. And we didn't have to deal with deadly goblins like we'd been fighting occasionally in Yuhtunga. If it weren't for Dream Flower, we probably would have had chain #5s. I wasn't able to enfeeble those mandies as well as the lower leveled ones near Kazham, but I needed to have my MP a bit as it was. Our Japanese Ranger didn't pause much for MP breaks, but it was never an issue and we just kept on fighting. I hated leaving the party, but Dynamis was coming up, so the party broke up with my WHM at 29.

The following week, I had similar luck. I checked the people looking for parties around my level (WHM29), decided that I wouldn't get one, and headed to Qufim to solo with my NPC. Just after I had used my Signal Pearl to summon him, I got a /tell, "(Party) (Do you need it?)". It was from a RDM26 in Kazham, so I said sure and hopped on the airship. We started out in Yhoator, with a RDM, DRK, WAR, SAM, THF, and WHM. The mandies and goblins pretty much melted under the blows of the damage dealers, and the RDM and I switched off healing duties: one would rest while the other healed. The RDM and DRK had to leave about the time we out-grew the jungle, so we headed to Jeuno to regroup and go off to East Altepa with a PLD and BLM replacing out departing members. We started out fighting beetles. The PLD was very good, and we discussed how much I should heal, with me leaving him plenty of room for hate generation. I mostly just used regen on the beetles. When we moved on to the Dhalmels, things were a bit tougher, but we managed pretty well. They hit so much harder than the beetles, and I had to watch for silence and defense down. After awhile, the PLD and BLM had to leave. We replaced them with a NIN and DRG, but the party just wasn't the same any more. Hate was everywhere, and with everyone taking so much damage from the dhalmels, I could barely make it through two mobs before needing a full rest. The SAM had a RDM75 come out to "assist", and at that point, I just was doing enfeebles and erase. I had to head off to get ready for Dynamis soon after than, and I'm sure the party didn't miss me much. They broke up soon after, as people got their levels.

This past weekend, I was hoping to "finish" WHM, and put my flag up in Jeuno, as a level 34 WHM. After about 30 minutes, I head to Qufim, summoned Balu-Falu, fought one set of bats, and got an invite for a party. Poor Balu-Falu is probably tired of being dismissed so abruptly. Our party only had 5 people to start with, but we headed to Crawlers Nest anyway, as a PLD, WHM, RDM, SAM, and NIN. The SAM had her NPC out until a second NIN was added to the party. Things went fairly smoothly, though the RDM never used Dispel. Since the crawlers pretty much spammed Cocoon, the fights did drag out a bit. After the PLD hit 37, he left, replacing himself with a PUP. Things continued on fairly well, though the SAM died zoning a link at one point. Then one of the NINs DC'd, just as we finished fighting the crawler that got him to level 75. Seemed a tad suspicious. We waited for a bit, but Ryken sent me a tell asking if we could use a THF, and we could, so he came out to join us.

It took us a few fights to get coordinated, and things went fairly well until we got a link and two of us died (I had reraise up - I'm not quite to the point where I remember to keep it up at all times, since it was a new thing for me at WHM33). The second NIN DC'd right after that fight, and we replaced him with the same PLD I'd partied with the week before in the desert. The party became vastly improved at that point. It's amazing what a difference a good tank can make. The RDM replaced himself with another RDM when he hit 37, and the second RDM was a much better RDM, and the party became awesome. We plowed through the crawlers a bit too fast, but didn't want to change camps for the Nest Beetles, since we didn't have much longer to party. When I hit level 36, I had a fun time reading my three teleport scrolls. Ryken and I had to leave to get ready for Dynamis, and others were nearing the end of their partying time as well, so we broke up after the newest party additions got a level. I got to use a teleport spell for the first time, dropping Ryken off at the Holla crag.

I really did enjoy a lot of my WHM parties, so who knows, maybe I'll end up leveling it further, but in the meantime, I finally have my fully-leveled White Mage sub job for my Paladin. I wonder how much I'll actually end up using it.

Same Old, Same Old

I haven't been updating my blog very frequently lately, partially because real life has been a bit more stressful/hectic than usual, but also because I feel like I'm just repeating myself.

For a long time now, my game life has felt like a lot of of the same things, over and over. My recent AF re-questing helped drive that point home. I spend a lot of my free time helping people with missions and quests that I've already done, while my non-free time consists of Dynamis, Limbus, and Salvage, which tend to get somewhat routine as the months pass. I really enjoy helping others, and it's fun to go back and trounce mobs in missions that were often challenging when I did them the first time. And frequently, helping someone with missions and quests means that I then have more people to help out with a mission/quest that I haven't done. Assaults been like that - dozens of repeats mean we get people ranked up and can move forward to the ones none of us have done. Helping people with The Black Coffin meant more people for Salvage, and helping with CoP missions meant more people for Limbus.

There are so many things in the game that I haven't done, some of them are probably things I'll never do, and with the next expansion coming out in November, there will be even more added. It really is endless.

It's also the repetitive nature of leveling that probably keeps me from wanting to take another job to 75. I still think I want to take several more to 60 (WAR, DRK, BLM), and want to take more to 37 (THF, WHM, RNG, SAM), and I really do want to do something with Summoner, since I have all the avatars and even my Carbuncle Mitts, but I really don't see having the time for all of that. And then there's the matter of merits for my Paladin. I'm so far behind what I want to improve my stats and abilities, but it takes a long time to build up the limit points when the only exp I get is in a few assaults and an occasional Besieged.

I'm still mostly enjoying my time in-game. I'm quite fond of my game friends, and I love the sense of accomplishment when we win tough battles. It's quite nice to help people get things they want as well, but I keep wondering how much more this game really holds for me. How will I know when I'm done? My husband is patiently waiting for me to be done with "that stupid game", but as the months drag on and on, he's starting to give up hope. It's been over 9 months since he last logged into the game. I really miss playing with Grymalkyn, but he wouldn't be doing most of the things I'm currently doing even if he was playing.

First Lieutenant Kiki

Last Monday night's assaults were more than enough to get me the points I needed for my final promotion quest. Since we were all Sergeant or better, I got to do three that were new for me. We started out with Supplies Recovery in Leujaoam Sanctum, where we had to get more items from Imps than two of the Immortals. The NPCs kind of cheat, since they run faster than we can, and can jump up ledges that we cannot, but we still managed to get more of the supplies than they did, so it was a win.

Then we played matchmakers for a bunch of Apkallus in Lebros Cavern (Apkallu Breeeding). This was kind of cute, and really pretty easy - just have to avoid a few bombs. You have to talk to the males (they're larger) and lead them to the appropriate female. They're matched up by the noises they make, a cipher that spells out a simple word, and the females will have a word that "matches", like "cod" and "fish", and "orange" and "apple". It's also a 15 minute one, so I could see this being handy for point spamming for Lebros.

The third new assault was Stop the Bloodshed, in Periqia. The goal here is to kill at least 35 chigoes that are spread throughout the area, while trying to avoid (haha) the Lamia "Chigoe Breeders". I didn't much like this one, but it was another win, and I'm now at 25/51 of the assaults I need to reach Captain.

We did a final Troll Fugitives so we didn't waste the 5-pointers for Erock and Lucrezia, plus we all like the experience points we get from that one.

The next evening I did the Promotion: First Lieutenant quest, which was basically three sets of logic puzzles. First I had to use the Force, err, my sixth sense to pick out 3-5 disguised Qiqirn, then prove my ability to learn some simply ciphers, and finally, face several NPCs for a modified version of Rock/Scissors/Paper. None of this was too difficult, especially with the walkthrough on FFXIclopedia, but it did take a bit of time. It might not have been so bad, but I got a black screen of doom on my PS2 just as I'd completed the first phase and was being "zoned" out of the cutscene. The game didn't register that I'd done that part, so I had to repeat it.

I've been enjoying the assaults quite a bit, and have been happy that we've been able to maintain interest and keep people doing them on Monday nights. I've been building up quite a lot of points in each of the zones, since I haven't felt the Amir armor is worth getting for my PLD, and I don't have any other jobs high enough for the sets. Since I'm getting more than the 1500 I need each week for Salvage, it will just keep piling up.

New title: First Lieutenant