Darksteel Bolts

I'd intended to merit today, but I was starting to get a little bored. When Neyla sent me a /tell asking me to farm up a Flash scroll while he tried to get a party, I didn't balk. I switched over to Beastmaster, outposted to the desert, and got the scroll off the third antican I killed.

I flagged up on Monk again and traveled to Whitegate to scan the auction house. I checked the Yellow Hobby Bo and it was still there; I bid up to 100k and still didn't get it. In a sudden onset of rationality, I realized that 100k would be better spent raising my Woodworking skill so I could make as many chocobo furnishings as I wanted. I took down my flag.

I'd

I made a ton of Darksteel Bolts in Carpenter's Landing.

picked up a stack of Darksteel Bolt Heads months ago in anticipation of my next leveling binge, so I bought five stacks of Yew Lumber from the auction house and traveled to the Carpenter's Guild in San d'Oria.

I came close to burnout, but I did all 99 synths until the heads were gone. I depleted my supply of Yew Lumber early and hit Carpenter's Landing to make more and keep going. I actually reached 62 Woodworking (the recipe cap) about midway through, but I needed to use up all the heads. As mind-numbingly tedious as it was, I'll make a pretty nice profit when I sell off all those Darksteel Bolt Quivers. I have another arrow recipe to boost me a few more levels before I switch over to a long stretch of Lu Shang repair synths.

In other news, Neyla and some of the other linkshell members took Elthor into the necropolis to get a coffer key for his Warrior AF. Neyla also got an insight into my playstyle when he mentioned coming to Sunday's ENM as White Mage for awhile. He'll alternate with Cmdrfly, since Wulfgar never comes as WHM anymore.

Neyla: Wulfgar's all about SAM and flying rats these days.
Halifirien: That's because flying rats are awesome.
Neyla: Only because SE buffed their masters way too hard.
Halifirien: I prefer the wyvern to the actual job. lol
Neyla: But it doesn't actually do anything except some lame ass breath attack when you WS
Halifirien: True, but when I level the job I'm mostly trying to get her to 75.
Neyla: That's just plain fucking goofy. You're way too into this animal-raising shit.
Halifirien: I don't dispute that. lol

I like pet jobs. I like raising chocobos. I plan to dive headfirst into the Pankration system when it goes live next week. It's how I roll.

Rat Bastard

More

I'm learning to despise Mamool Ja.

meriting today on Monk at the Mamool Ja staging point, this time at the invitation of another Flock member, a 75 BST named Riel. He told me I could probably go MNK/WAR if I wanted, but my computer had a huge lag spike at that point and I didn't bother trying to switch subjobs. It was for the best, because nobody in the party had Provoke this time.

No surprise, but this experience was much more hectic than yesterday's. We had a Bard puller, which meant things were constantly being brought back and slept where we were fighting. Mobs were coming in so fast that I wasn't sure which one I should be fighting and which ones I should let sleep. I used /assist a lot, letting the Dark Knight choose targets.

It was fun fighting beside LifedrinkerLars. I imagine the update has been an incredible boost for him in party situations, now that he lasts 90 minutes.

We didn't have as many deaths as yesterday, but there were a few. The Red Mage left about fifteen minutes after I joined; he was replaced by a White Mage, so at least we had Raise III for those unfortunate moments.

I already had a merit, so the two I got today allowed me to upgrade my hand-to-hand skill again. I'll probably head out there again tomorrow.

In

Can I have some cheese?

other news, I bought a Qiqirn Hood. I saw a taru Summoner in Austere gear wearing one the other day and thought it would look great with my Monster set. I've always wanted one of the beastman hats, but I never bothered to track down a crafter who could make a Goblin Coif. This works just as well. I'm still trying to decide if I want to use it as my new fishing ha, but it's kind of hard to bring myself to give up the Traveler's Hat I've been wearing for nearly three years.

I also saw one of the wooden chocobo furnishings. I definitely want one for my moghouse, but the synth is still so new that it's impossible to be sure what a reasonable price should be. I went as high as 40k at the auction house for the only one up for sale and didn't get it. I'm content to wait awhile.

Neyla got a party in the Crawler's Nest and dinged 40. I'd done some fishing and was preparing to log out, and he was already back home in Windurst. I modeled the Qiqirn Hood before I took off.

"Now everyone can see what a rat bastard you really are," he said.

I wasn't around when he killed the shadow in Valkurm Dunes to obtain his Blessed Hammer. It's a solid weapon for a White Mage at that level.

Neyla Guest Entry: Ifrit's Cauldron Freezes Over

White Mage. Always a dirty word for me before. Like when I was leveling Red Mage up and always said my favorite WHMs were Summoners because while they had half the spells they put in twice the effort and were generally three times as efficient. They earned their keep. Most of the WHMs I partied with were just coasting through and doing as little as possible to get by, or blowing their MP pools on senseless cure-bot tactics.

Then

Neyla models the latst in Seer's Gear.

I leveled BST and never had to deal with any of them. Then I leveled BRD and noticed that even though some time had passed and knowledge of the game and information sources had grown deepers, most WHMs were still just coasting through the levels like they had before. No bar- spells. No hasting unless begged. No status cures even with a NIN tank versus imps. A complete waste of space my BRD and the occassional Black Mage could outshine.

So now I'm leveling WHM just to do rings around them.

Some might interpret that as leveling a job purely out of spite. That's part of it, I suppose. Another part is that after almost three years in Vana'diel it's become quite obvious to me that I like being a support class when it comes to parties. I have no desire to tank and auto-attacking as a damage dealer gets old fast, which is why my Monk is likely to stay at 40 forever. When it comes to fighting I'll stick with the self-reliance of BST, where at most I only have to worry about one other person (be it Crookedmidget or Halifirien) rather than five random strangers who might turn out to be refugees from a broken down short bus.

And WHM isn't so bad really. (Everyone who knows me and just read that probably gasped. Maybe I should have said, "WHM isn't so bad really as long as you know what you're doing.) The waiting around for a party can get old but it's not like I'm having to wait around as long as a Black Mage does these days. Plus I have my Nintendo DS and the Internet to distract me. This weekend I'll be buying Final Fantasy VI for the former. As for the latter, the Internet never runs out of pornography. Or at least I hope it never does. And I'm on vacation next week to boot. Plenty of time to seek and jerk off in one way or another.

The party I had this evening was interesting in that it through its various incarnations it used the two most laughed at and underused pet jobs around - Beastmaster and Puppetmaster. I've never been a fan of party BSTs - it kind of misses what was the main draw of the job for me - but Inuki the taru was a far more efficient puller than our WAR leader, who I don't think even brought any ranged weapons with him. The PUP who replaced him was all right. He probably would have fared better if his puppet had been suited up for something other than magery since we already has a SMN and, eventually, a BLM.

No matter what our setup was though, it was constant Chain 5s all around as long as we could still find mobs to pull and I got two and a half levels. The PLD virtually main healed herself with my Regen spam helping her along and the SAM showed me just how broken the class is at the moment even at the lower to mid levels.

With some luck - and all that vacation time - I'll be able to get WHM to AF levels next week and grab it all in a day with Halifirien helping. None of it should be a real big issue until the fight against the shadow NM in Fei'Yin. Of all the AF fights I've had to do - and I've done just about all of them at one time or another - he's always been the biggest nuisance of them all. Some unlucky galka (i.e. Wulfgar) is going to have to unretire his PLD and take a beating for that piece.

Cannon

I've done a few cannon parties, but I was always on White Mage for them. Today was the first time I've been a melee.

I'd only had my flag up about thirty seconds and had barely finished putting together my search comment before Godofdeath invited me to Whitegate. The seup was RDM, WARx2, MNK, DRK and DRG. We used the Mamool Ja staging point and camped at the Jade Sepulcher entrance. Well, "camped" isn't the right word because we were constantly moving from one end of the passage to the other and killing things as they popped, but you get the idea.

Being

I wonder if the breath attack froze his 'nads?

on Monk was less stressful than White Mage, that's for sure. The Warriors would provoke the mobs, so I didn't have to worry about getting hate too much. That was a relief, because I haven't practiced tanking using both sets of shadows and wasn't sure how well I'd do and avoiding damage. There were a few deaths -- the Mamool Ja have a rushing attack that makes Goblin Rush look like weak sauce -- but I managed to survive despite having to run to the zone once and reaching safety with only 19hp.

We weren't there very long, unfortunately. One of the Warriors suddenly announced he had to go to work, which makes me wonder why he bothered accepting the invitation in the first place. We tried to get the last 2k the Dark Knight needed to ding 75, but Godofdeath died without Reraise. I'd managed to get about 15-16k spread over XP and limit points.

While I was doing that, Neyla managed to get a party as White Mage. I've been teasing him all week that the secret is to keep his flag up until the invitation arrives instead of getting bored and changing to Bard or Beastmaster. He got to 39.

"Neyla on WHM...," Nanunanoo said when he saw it. "That's gotta be one of the seven signs."

"I am the bringer of the apocalypse," Neyla confirmed.

Slow Day

Bibiki Bay was taken and there were no camps in Boyahda Tree for us to work on Neyla's Evisceration points, so I laughingly told him to bite the bullet and try to get a party as White Mage.

I

Neyla watches gilsellers battle Demonic Tiphia.

didn't do much except play around on the blog and update some graphics. I parked at the chocobo track and managed to pick a winning bird for a change, but the second bird I picked came in seventh.

While I was there, Neyla was farming a coffer key in the Crawler's Nest for his eventual WHM AF. He spotted some gilsellers try to duo Demonic Tiphia and gave me hilarious updates about the constant Pollen and Cure V spam from the NM. The BLM tried to rest at one point and got immediate aggro from all the crawlers in the area. They eventually got backup and killed it, but it took them forever.

I finished out my day with another round of camping Deadly Dodo, but he didn't pop. He's more annoying than Nue since there's a wider area to cover.

Raising My Expectations

Holy crap. Can I say that?

I put up my flag to whittle away at the 34k I needed to get Monk to 75. I failed miserably and logged out to nap for an hour, then came back and got a party invitation after about ten minutes of seeking. I was being called out to replace a guy at the Nyzul-Caedarva Mire camp. The Warrior in the party disconnected and was quickly replaced; when he reappeared and flagged up to be invited back in, the leader was a complete ass about it and ignored him. I sent the WAR a /tell explaining the situation.

"I

I don't care if Dragoons outdamage me because punching is still fun.

figured as much," the WAR said. "I did 30k with them, so I'm not going to complain."

Since they'd been there that long, I set my goal at getting 10k before they started grumbling they had to leave.

We did 42k. I was constantly revising my hopes. First I wanted 10k. Then I wanted to get halfway to 75. Then I wanted to get within two ENM/Escort Sundays of 75. Then one ENM/Escort Sunday. Then it looked like I'd really ding it.

Boom. Monk at 75. And an 8k buffer.

The only downside was the argument I got into with the leader. I warned her 90 minutes in advance of my need to log out and sleep so she could have a replacement ready. I reminded her 40 minutes before and again 20 minutes before I left. When I made my "Last chain for me" announcement, she sent me a /tell asking if I'd gotten a replacement. She didn't take kindly to the news when I said of course I hadn't.

"Just because I'm the party leader," she huffed, "doesn't mean I have to replace you."

I laughed and logged out. I'm sorry the party may have been inconvenienced because she stood around 90 minutes with her thumb up her ass, but she had plenty of warnings about it. On the positive side, that attitude qualifies her for a FEMA directorship under Dubya Bush.

Explosive Decompression

Today

Deja vu... I'm dead to Proto-Ultima yet again...

marked my quasi-retirement from Limbus, and I'd say I went out with a bang... mainly the explosive force of back-to-back Armor Busters from Proto-Ultima.

We did really well this time. The extra damage boosts given to two-handed weapons came into play, and we fought him like Fafnir (or so I'm told, as I've never fought the wyrm outside of Limbus), with Meditate-created skillchains and bursts from our Black Mages. It worked out nicely, and we got him down to 9% before he went apeshit and bitch-slapped the alliance.

Frustrating, to say the least.

I logged out awhile and came back for "Test Your Mite" and the escort mission. The escort started rocky because a RDM/PLD was trying to solo it when we arrived and screwed it up, so he tried starting over. I invited him to join us since we could kill things. He ran ahead with the NPC too much for my comfort, but we cleared it.

Normally I'd have logged out at that point, but Monday is a holiday. Neyla and I decided to do another merit point in Bibiki Bay. The rarabs were being absolute pricks to charm -- "Probably pissed about being asked to work on Labor Day weekend," I joked -- but we managed okay.

Two

Merits are slower in Boyahda Tree, but not bad.

parties moved into the area, and then another Beastmaster (Brihana) and his Black Mage buddy wandered into our camp and started fighting the goblins with bunnies we normally charm. That was irritating beyond belief, but we were already wrapping it up because of the other parties.

Neyla was a little over 2k away from his fifth merit, so we hit Boyahda Tree and charmed the skimmers and steelshells upstairs to fight goobues. I got a /tell from an old-school Beastmaster named Reauland who saw we were in the zone and asked where we were camped because he and a friend wanted to farm goobues. I told him we were 1k away from being finished, so they hung out downstairs until we were done.

Reauland's a good guy. It's great to know courtesy in the Beastmaster community isn't completely dead, although ToAU certainly put it on life support.