Dynamis-Jeuno Interloper

Tonight's

They're so cute when they're sleeping.

Dynamis-Jeuno run was much better than my last visit months ago. The last one was a total clusterfuck because half the troops were outside the palace and were surprised and slaughtered by massive monster repops. This time we rocked pretty hard. We got off to a late start because Elemmire was mysteriously absent, meaning Cythe had to buy a new hourglass.

I was amused to be picked for the main tank party. Despite the presence of Duncanrun, a WHM75, it's still kinda cool to be with the tanks at 72. Cythe either has faith in me or there weren't any others to pick. I'm trying to avoid thinking about that one. I kept Barfira and Regen III going and didn't pay much attention to what Duncanrun was doing.

Two sets of Cleric's Pantaloons dropped, but I missed the lot on both. I'm not too worried, as that just ups my chances of getting them the next time they drop.

We

I was able to wear my Cleric's Cap for a few hours, anyway.

got the win (my first in that zone) and Cythe put it up to a vote as to whether we should call it a night or farm. I wasn't keen to keep going -- my buffer was so small even R3 wouldn't keep me from deleveling if I died -- but I wasn't going to abandon the group. Post-win farming in Jeuno is painful, but the linkshell decided to press on. Naturally we were slaughtered and never made it out of Maat's area. It didn't help that Gladdy and Cythe both died where we couldn't rescue them. I'm 500xp from 72 again.

I stayed in Jeuno to give Cythe and Gladdy R3s when they were finally ejected. We're doing Windurst on Monday.

In other news, I bought a Halcyon Rod for Magix. Neyla's latest taru adoptee had a lot of questions about fishing, and when he said he was using a Yew Rod I felt honor-bound to help him out. A smarter person would discourage people from fishing because that makes them eventual competitors, but I can't resist.

I also renewed my contract with the Fisherman's Guild. I realized that, as a veteran, I can earn a Fishing Hole Map for my moghouse. I'm hoping that pairing it with The Big One will overpower the water moghancement I'm getting from the aquariums. Even if that turns out not be be the case, I want it on my wall so I can see it and be proud. I consider it a game design flaw that we can't visit other people's moghouses and gawk at their furniture.

King of the Noobs

A mix of boredom and tackling a nasty piece of spyware has reduced my game time over the past two days, but I logged on this evening to get my level back. The party leader's first question before recruiting me was "Do you mind if there are 75s in the party?" to which I've already learned to say "I don't mind at all."

This was my first time partying in the new expansion zones. We went to everyone's favorite Ifrit's Cauldron knockoff, Mount Zhayolm, to fight trolls.

Either

The Hilltroll Paladin didn't stay up late choosing "Paladin" for his name.

trolls are very stupid or Square-Enix ran out of ideas when coming up with names. Instead of stuff like "Smithy," "Pathfinder," "Hastatus" and "Princeps," you had "Hilltroll Paladin," "Hilltroll Dark Knight," etc. I'm putting my money on trolls being stupid.

We weren't having any problems ripping our way through them, but I quickly realized I'd managed to leave my Light and Dark staves back in my moghouse. That's the craziest noob mistake I've ever made in the game, and I'm still trying to figure out how it happened because those things go everywhere with me unless I'm on Monk. I'm glad we had a Ninja tank or we would've been screwed.

The Ninja and Monk had to leave for Sky, so I teleported and outposted my way back to Windurst to retrieve my staves while the leader found replacements. Nobody had a key to the Halvung gate, so we ended up dying and being tractored through -- a total waste of xp I'll never repeat -- and partying more. I got to 72 again, but the JP Bard was "sleepy" and we disbanded without getting a buffer. I've got to get a party tomorrow before Dynamis or I'm in trouble.

In other news, Neyla and I are getting antsy to return to Beastmaster. I need to push hard and finish getting the Hauby, but I'm not going to lose sleep if we start leveling again before that happens.

Mega Elixir

Podcasts, for those who don't know, are radio-type shows created by people and then shared over the 'net in the form of a downloadable MP3 file. The possibilities for niche productions are endless, as you may be talking about some obscure subject matter and have a dedicated base of a dozen listeners who "tune in" for every show.

Mega Elixir is a podcast dedicated to Final Fantasy XI. I've listened to a few episodes, and it's endearing after awhile. It's basically a couple students talking about the game and their experiences. I subscribed through iTunes, so each new episode is downloaded to my iPod as they become available.

Promyvion Goodness

Neyla and I were tired and didn't feel like doing a lot of heavy lifting today, so we weren't disappointed by not doing the Eald'narche fight today. I went after Emperor Fish -- Mdkuser was there for a few minutes to catch some and had to warp out when a goblin attacked him -- and then hit the Sea Serpent Grotto for an hour.

While I was there, Elvenroth sent me a /tell asking if I wanted to do the Promyvion runs. I was annoyed to learn he'd done Dem the day before without bothering to track me down. It would've taken him about two seconds to do a search and see I was online, so I'm not sure what the deal was.

This

Thinker aggro is annoying but not deadly.

was my first Promy run as a Beastmaster, and I liked it a hell of a lot more than going as White Mage. I grabbed a stack of Fish Broth and Pet Food Zeta biscuits, outposted to the dunes and ran for Holla, stopping once to save some poor noob being chased by a Tremor Ram. I was going to hunt rams while I waited for the others, but Bloodtear Baldurf was up. Bah.

The MPK patch has really changed the Promyvion experience. Instead of delicately picking your way through and selectively killing mobs that get in your way, you can just have someone train every mob in the zone all the way to the Memory Recepticle and let them die there. All the mobs despawn and you've created a clear path. It removes a lot of the fun, but it makes for a faster journey.

We only had to kill a few things, usually single Weepers and Wanderers. I loved being there as Beastmaster, using crabs and swinging my axe to kill things instead of having to worry about everyone's HP bar. Being a melee is sooooo much easier than being a healer.

Arctyrael was there as Summoner. We've been chatting a lot over the last week or so, striking up a friendship based around our mutual love of fishing. I don't know if other crafters do that, but it seems like fishermen have a DNA-encoded need to swap stories.

We

I've never directly attacked a Memory Recepticle before.

fought our way to the fourth floor of both crags and got our key items from the Memory Flux. Kirutaru is supposed to be organizing a Dem run on Sunday or Monday, so hopefully they'll remember to include me this time. We'll do the final BCNM next week and I should be able to get my earring.

Feriz popped on as we were wrapping things up. He's been trying to raise his Windurst fame, and this is the first week in ages that Bastok is in first place in Conquest. I bought 105 Cornettes and sent them to his delivery box so he could trade them to the NPC in Windurst. It took awhile, but we got his fame from Lv. 3 to 6. We'll do another round later in the week.

Dynamis Orc Liver

Today I became a veteran of the fisherman's guild. I was out in the glacier freezing my ass off and catching Emperor Fish when I got a .2 skillup and then a little while later got another that put me over the hump to ding 88. The first was nice, but the second was completely unexpected and cause for celebration. I had to outpost to Qufim to catch a Gigant Squid for the rank exam. Only 12 more levels to go.

I also took Neyla into Promyvion-Mea as Beastmaster to get him a Tactics Pearl. He's been soloing Monk with the help of his NPC. The Empty mobs were clustered around the ??? and I had to pull a few, but it was pretty easy.

Today's

Why aren't they ever named Vanguard Kittenhugger?

main event was my return to lolDynamis, which had a recruiting drive at QCDN recently. It seemed like as good a time as any to rejoin them, now that I've accomplished everything I set out to do when I left. Cythe, the leader of the linkshell, was a little dubious because of my habit of popping in and out at random, but I assured him I was back for good.

They were doing Dynamis-San d'Oria, which is the only area where I've had a win. I felt relaxed because I knew what to expect. The linkshell has grown considerably while I was away. Instead of the minimal "Oh, god... we're all going to die" bare-bones roster, there were at least 45 people there. To say we were sweeping through the area would be an understatement.

I always sort of accepted that reaching the Chocobo Stables to fight the trigger NM meant a huge train and wipeout, but I'll be damned if we didn't survive it.

It

This kind of train makes you pee your pants.

was freakin' amazing. There were two or three deaths, but nothing like what I'd seen in the past. In fact, we popped the boss pretty early and took him down with plenty of time to keep farming.

AF2 was dropping like candy, too. We had Ninja stuff, Monk stuff, Red Mage, you name it. The only AF2 we didn't see at least once was White Mage, Beastmaster and Dark Knight. Some of it dropped multiple times. Lots of people went home happy, I imagine.

There was a moment of drama when a former member, Hamlett, rejoined on a whim and was told he could lot the 100 coin, and when one dropped he managed to lot it. LS rules say you don't get to lot the first run after being absent, so he had to pass. It was a big misunderstanding with the potential to turn ugly, but the assorted parties were working it out. The coin went to Hellservant, the galka Paladin in my party who had several deaths through the evening because he always managed to run out of range and get drilled before I could cast Cure V.

We

I've never seen the mansion in Dynamis before.

managed to fight our way to the mansion and arrived with three minutes on the clock. The mages nuked down the NM and earned a 30-minute time extension, so we started working our way back through repops and getting even more coins and AF2. There's a running joke about how it's just not a Dynamis run unless Cythe delevels to 74, but I imagine he was ecstatic because he didn't die a single time the entire evening. We finally exhausted our timer at midnight.

I came out with an Orc Liver. I have no idea what it's for or how much it's worth, and I'm too tired to check right now.

Statistical Probabilities

I spent the weekend at my parents' house and only played a very short time Sunday morning to farm a Florid Stone with Hadafal. I logged on again once I was back at my apartment. With the "Test Your Mite" ENM scheduled, I didn't bother trying to get a party or anything. I went to Jeuno and got my cutscene for the "Apocalypse Nigh" quest and put a few things on the auction house.

Magix,

Magix trades his Carbuncle Ruby.

the taru Neyla took around last week for Kazham keys, has been on a leveling binge to get to 30 and unlock Summoner. He'd managed to get all the weather patterns except fire and died trying to get to the desert through Korroloka Tunnel without a map. I teleported Neyla out there and eventually joined them in Rabao after my errands were finished. I whisked him away to LaTheine so he could trade his ruby and get his own electric squirrel. He was thrilled to unlock the job, and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to be able to help.

I killed time by leveling Gauldeval on bones in Xarcabard. I noticed an Ahriman NM called "Shadow Eye" on the slopes heading up to the castle, and my NPC dinged 47 after we killed it (no drop). I used my Tactics Pearl for the first time by calling him inside the castle and fighting eyes and demons. I even managed to save some lower-level players who got elemental aggro while casting Invisible.

Veresko was late due to Mother's Day obligations, so the ENM was scrubbed for this week. I hit the grotto and fished, chatting with Noyade awhile about the wonders of tarutaru Monks.

I also did the adventurer statistics thing they have going on right now.

Chat frequency: 167,665
Conversations with NPCs: 40,723
Parties joined: 1,171
Alliances joined: 94
Battles fought: 19,467
Number of Times KO'd: 260
Enemies Defeated: 14,185
GM Calls Made: 1

When I finished that, I bought a tuna from the auction house and hit Mhaura to get my fishing statistics.

Cast your line 41,813
Made 16,355 catches
Largest fish: Ryugu Titan