The End of UltimatesForever

It's been a long time since I posted an update on Salvage. Allia ended up killing off the UltimatesForever linkshell in June, and I suppose this is as good a time as any to post my final comments on it. I actually stopped going to Salvage after our May 30th run, my 58th Salvage. It was yet another disappointing run. I really think we just didn't do things quite right.

Overall, we did do OK I guess, as long as the goals set for a given run weren't too ambitious. Part of the problem was that some people seemed incapable of focusing their attention on the game for 100 minutes straight. I don't think Salvage is an event where you can get away with phoning in your performance.

We never managed to complete a single piece in the 14 months we ran Salvage, and I believe Venn was the only person with two of three towards one piece (Ares's Cuirass). I finally got the 100% drop part for the Ares's Mask in April, but it didn't seem like we'd ever manage to get the other two pieces I'd need to complete it.

At least my Friday evenings are free now! It was such a relief to finally be able to say "I'm not coming to Salvage any more." I felt bad for giving up on it, but some times you just have to cut your losses and move on. And really, I kept going to Salvage for a year after I wanted to stop...

Yes, I'm still doing Salvage

I was going back through my notes to see what I should use for my next blog entry, and realized that I haven't said anything about Salvage since August. I somehow still find myself in Whitegate every Friday evening for our UltimatesForever runs, though I still haven't quite figured out why.

It seems like we've done a zillion Bhaflau runs, but so many of them are completely drop-free, and time and time again it feels like all we're doing is spending 100 minutes killing mobs to see if we can put all our armor back on. We've made a few attempts on Long Bow Chariot, but have yet to defeat it. As for the other zones, we did a bunch of Silver Sea runs in the fall, but Zhayolm and Arrapago runs have been less frequent.

The most exciting thing really in the past 7 months was when we actually got a drop off of one of those silly Qiqirn in Arrapago Remnants. It was the level 35 piece that goes towards the Ares's Cuirass, and went to Venn. We also managed to get a drop off of the Dune Widow NM (level 35 pants for the WHM set, which went to Meshe) back in November. It's so rare for us to even get an NM out of those Ramparts, let alone get a drop from it. This past Friday, we popped the Don Porrogo NM Silver Sea, and got the level 15 Ares's body piece, so Venn's now 2/3 towards his Ares's Cuirass. We got two other pieces on this run as well, but all three of them are 100% drops from their respective mobs, so the excitement is in actually getting to and killing the mobs, rather than getting rare drops off of them.

It would be nice if we could actually manage to complete a piece, but Venn's 2/3 is the closest we've gotten, and the third piece is a possible drop of LBC, so doesn't seem likely in the near term. The more this drags out, the more convinced I've become that Salvage simply doesn't work if you only do one run a week. I really think to do it "right", you'd need a group going 5 times a week, but in order to do that, it would have to be the only thing I do. It would also be difficult to find people with the assault points to be able to do that as well. It's easy enough for me with over 27,000 points stockpiled in each of the 5 zones, but so many people seem to have barely enough for one Salvage run a week (1500 AP needed).

Some of the runs actually have been a bit of fun, but in general, it's a really frustrating event. I think it's time that I reclaimed my Friday evenings, but I don't know how to quit. As useless as I feel at times, I still feel like they do need me, but that's probably more of a "any warm body will do" issue. There are others who could tank if I wasn't there. But knowing me, I'll just keep showing up.

Salvage Blues

The UltimatesForever has consistently been doing Salvage every Friday evening, with anywhere from 9 to 18 people. We've mostly been doing the Bhaflau Remnants, and have gotten a lot of the level 15 pieces that drop there, but we've only seen one piece for the Ares set (Enyo's Leggings). It dropped with less than a minute to go, and we had a few dead people who couldn't lot or pass, so it was lost when we were booted out of the Remnants. SquareEnix really has to change that aspect of the game - force the treasure to drop just before the alliance gets booted out, based on the lots/passes already done on the loot. No one in the shell has got more than 1 piece towards any of the final pieces, but two of the Usukane lotters have their level 15 body piece in addition to their level 15 hands, so they're "further" along. The body pieces are dropped from an NM Flan in Arrapago Remnants that we used Bhaflau Cards to spawn.

We seem to do a lot better with smaller groups of people, since we all get geared up pretty quickly, but other people seem to think we need to have a full alliance of 18 people to do better at getting gear drops. I feel like when we have more than 12 people we use up so much of our limited time trying to get everyone some of their gear and abilities unlocked that we don't have enough time to fight NMs that drop different gear pieces than the normal mobs do.

Back in May, before they added the starter chest in the June update, we had one run with no MNKs, and it was a dismal dismal failure. I think we killed one of the Bifrons, but had people die, reraise and die again before getting reraise up. With no magic to raise people, no way to do enough damage to any other mob, we had no choice but to give up. Adding the starter chest has made it so much easier to get started. We always get at least a weapon, subjob, and job abilities cell for the main PLD, and magic for the main WHM. Everything just those few things make it a breeze to start in on getting more cells for everyone.

We've gone after the Long Bowed Chariot, the megaboss of Bhaflau Remnants three times now (I missed the second one), and they haven't gone very well. Granted, this is supposed to be the toughest mob in all of Salvage. Albany keeps having us try different strategies and maybe we'll figure it out some day.

We organized our cell distribution so that we get the "main" person in each category get well-equipped before letting the bottom feeders get the leftover scraps. We all /random before the run, and from that have the main PLD, the main WHM, the main RDM, the main BLM, and the main melee.

I hate being the bottom lotter when we have a lot of people. There have been runs where I didn't get a weapon, a subjob, job abilities, magic or much armor until the last 10 minutes of the 100 minute run. Since I have no H2H skill and hit for 0 when I don't actually miss, there's no point being engaged with the mob, where I'm likely to get hit with an AOE and just waste MP that could be used to cure someone who's actually doing damage. Without magic, I can't help cure or flash. Without a subjob, I have no provoke. One run, I had job abilities unlocked, so I'd just run up, use Rampart for a bit of a boost for the main PLD, then run back out of AOE range. It seems so utterly pointless.

I'm getting a bit discouraged with Salvage, and often feel like I should withdraw from the group. I don't feel very useful, even when I win the lot for main tank. Other shells seem to favor MNK tanks, and don't bring along stinky PLDs. The cells I get as main tank could be going to a MNK, who would do more damage, and yes, maybe they'd take a bit more damage than a PLD, but most things in Salvage don't hit that hard, and if they get magic unlocked and sub Ninja, they don't take much damage at all. We'll see how things progress.

Salvage: Zhayolm Remnants

Venn, in an effort to spend every day of the week with members of his various Ultimates linkshells, has added yet another activity to the agenda. He's created a new shell, UltimatesForever, specifically for Salvage. We're meeting on Friday nights, and had our first run last week. We had 11 people for our inaugural run, and Albany is guiding us in our infancy.

Salvage is like Limbus in that you can have up to 18 people participating, you have a time limit, and you're trying to defeat mobs to get items that can be turned into really amazing gear, such as the Ares armor. It has a 100 minute time limit, with no extensions. The fee for entering is 2000 Assault Points, which means people have to keep doing assaults to get enough points for Salvage, as well as any Assault items they might want.

When you first enter Salvage, you have no access to your job abilities or subjobs, you cannot equip any gear, and your stats are all severely reduced (-50 on all visible stats at least). The mobs you encounter can drop "cells" of different types that will lift one particular restriction from the individual that gets to use it. There's strategy involved in deciding who gets what first, to best benefit the whole team.

We meant to start out with Bhaflau Remnants as our first run, but ended up in Zhayolm Remnants instead. It was pretty amusing watching the group running around in their underwear, punch mobs. Most of us were pretty pitiful, with no hand-to-hand skill, but Itera was doing a good job of killing things, even with his bare fists.

I nominated Jarbit to be main tank, since we were were the two PLDs and he's got more HP than me, so he was the first to get his subjob, then weapon and shield, then job abilities. Goto was our only WHM, and he was the first to get his use of magic unlocked. A few mobs will "drop" treasure chests, which contain temporary items such as regen milk and HP restore potions, which came in quite handy. It was a bit chaotic, and we ended up with nearly a full wipe on a Poroggo NM, but we got back up and continued on up to the second floor. We ended up timing out before we'd made significant progress, but it was really an awful lot of fun. I'm eager to go back tonight and see what we can do!

Index: Salvage

As if I didn't already have too much going on in the game, I started doing Salvage runs with the newly formed UltimatesForever Salvage off-shoot of TheUltimates in April 2007.



04/2007: Zhayolm Remnants
08/2007: Salvage Blues