I'm not going to write an entry about Level Sync

Because everyone else is going to and I'm tired of going to TTTO and seeing 5 entries about the same thing (PW media frenzy anyone?) that offer nothing new whatsoever and just say things that've been said on every forum thread or blog entry about the damned topic. I'm also tired of seeing people do more than one entry a day, but that's something else entirely.

Shit, now that I actually go to write about something that isn't the level sync bit I can't think of much.

I think I've mostly decided that I'm going to do RDM and NIN next, and probably ignore BRD in the short term. The RDM situation in my dynamis linkshell at the moment is a little spotty, but then so is the WHM situation so I'll probably just stick with being the WHM, because its what I'm good at for now. Its also a hell of a lot easier and I get RR3, so, no complaints.

My reasoning for RDM is. . . well, honestly, I just think its a cool job. I can solo stuff with it and it gets some really cool looking gear (I don't care what anyone else says, AF body + mahatma pants looks cool). It is also kind of like WHM except a lot more flexible and functional. I'll have WHM for things that need WHM, and if hardcore healing isn't really needed, I could just use my RDM and do other stuff too.

For NIN, honestly the primary motivation is soloability and its functionality in low-manning things. I do not really plan to use it in a party, mostly just duoing and soloing, probably with draco. With the new level sync thing it'll probably be quite easy and relaxing to get something nice going too.

Today I did my first tier 2 einherjar run, and it was Versus' first too. We did really, really well overall. I was a little sad that we didn't win, after getting the boss down to 21%, and knowing that bats and spiders really wasn't the scariest thing we could get (even maybe one of the easier combos), but then I realized we had gotten the flan, and that we had only two BLMs. So, all things considered we did an EXCELLENT job and we had some really good insight into what changes we might benefit from after the run ended. I'm extremely pumped that I'm with a group doing einherjar that is actually winning instead of just dinking around on T1s losing over and over.

We also did two KS99s, which I really wanted to be a part of (ie. use an orb) but I /random'd a 45 when we were picking orb holders, so tough. As it turned out, the first person who went (actually might have been our leader, I wasn't on the run because we had too many people) lost their orb because. . . I don't know why, but they lost. The second one was a success, but no speed belt, and that was the end of it.

Then we had Dynamis - San D'Oria. Or we did until some japanese shell went in and over-lapped with our time which was already scheduled an hour later than we had intended originally. So instead we did Dynamis - Jeuno and well. . . it kind of sucked. We got something like MNK MNK BLM THF, and wiped 3 or so times. Wipes shouldn't be happening in Dynamis - Jeuno, especially that number of times, so I started kinda brainstorming solutions with a couple other members, and I'll probably bug our leader about it a bit later and see if we can improve ourselves any.

Thief v. 2.0: The Weeaboo Thief

So now that I've finished thief, one big question is "what now?" I've thought about it, and people have asked me. . . but I'm not completely sure.

I've got Red Mage at 59, Paladin at 41, Bard at 70, and most of all White Mage, Samurai, and Thief all need merits.

However, I've also been considering Weeaboo Thief, more commonly known as Ninja. It has a lot of things in common with Thief. For instance, there's no discernible reason for me to actually want to play it. It is hard, and while I suspect I'll manage to do a better job of it than most Ninjas do these days, I don't expect to enjoy it. Both jobs are also not all that capable of taking many hits (or dishing them out until much later).

I guess part of the motivation comes from wanting to be useful, on top of being able to solo stuff. There's also a tiny, extremely suppressed part of me that likes the traditional Japanese style of things (shapes/colors), however thanks to all the retards who can't talk about anything but anime I can't enjoy that stuff without feeling like a moron.

I'd also like to level Black Mage some if SE actually delivers on its promise of making mage + melee parties more viable again in the September update, but honestly for the time being I'm just going to assume they're completely full of shit and it'll just shift things to screw a different group over (I wonder if its Bard's turn?). Either way I look forward to the update if only to see what happens.

At any rate I have a history of saying (thinking) many things and not necessarily going along with them (at least not immediately), so we'll see what happens. For the moment I'm trying to farm up my elemental Ni spells for Ninja, and so far I've gotten the first four REALLY fast, and then nothing for like 4-5 hours. During a full moon too, so I'm tempted to just go buy the last two, even though I have this bizarre. . . I don't know what that prevents me from buying things I can farm, simply because I don't want to spend the money unless its a huge pain to farm or a low amount of money (less than 5k).

To close on an incredibly cute note: my cat has been meowing to get into my room for a while but I don't really want to let her in because she just wants to go out again a little after and I'm allergic to her (bad times on the bed), so she just poked one of her toys under the door and is now trying to stick an arm under the door to swat at it. I think she went and found it, then picked it up and brought it to the door to do that, because I threw it across the house yesterday.

An End

I finally did it, 75 Thief. It happened maybe a week ago, but I didn't quite feel like writing about it, so I put it off until now. I guess part of me feels like this should be more significant to me than it is, but, its been. . . . I suppose satisfying, but the primary thing is that a large chunk of my motivation has disappeared. I don't think its entirely because I finished off thief, but a part of it is.

Regardless, this is what I started, and now (besides merits), it is done. I made my account on December 24th, 2003, and chose to make a mithran thief from San D'Oria. I had the same model as I do now, right down to the size. Now, here I am, my third 75 finally gets finished. I do not know why I enjoy thief, honestly leveling it was a pain in the ass and often not enjoyable (though 74 to 75 was the most fun thing I've done in a long time simply due to a combination of daggers, sushi for the first time, and lolibri). It doesn't get great invites, and its not something that you'd jump to include in a small group of good jobs to have on an event.

It doesn't do the greatest damage, it doesn't have any amazing abilities. . . why do I like it? Do I even in actuality like it, or is it what I think I ought to like, and I simply convince myself to without ever having a reason at any part of the process?

I don't really know, though I was definitely happy to be breaking 1000 damage by a good margin with Trick Attack Dancing Edge on Greater Colibri while getting 75. Either way, at this point I've at least convinced myself I enjoy the idea of it, so I'm proud that I've completed this. Leveling thief to 75 is not easy, and doing it while not sucking and leeching off of the other 5 members of your party is even harder. I am proud that my thief is 75, and I am proud that I'm not gimping it up like most thieves are.

Do I consider myself one of the better/best thieves out there? Hell no. There is a lot I could do to put out a bit more damage, and I admittedly dismissed the idea of using sushi out of hand until recently out of blind disgust for the standard melee mentality that is currently in place. However, for some reason. . . I feel like what I've done getting to this point with thief, and what it is now is more significant than anything else I've done in the game. There's no logical reason for it, that's just how it is.

It feels very weird, after 5 years, getting this job that I've cared about and been interested in the entire time really to 75 finally. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

The one thing that bothers me now is, part of me thinks that this is something like the fake ending in an RPG where the story really SHOULD have ended, but they wanted to let the player play around with all those spiffy end-of-the-game items they picked up in the final boss's dungeon, and then find completely broken max stat weapons in side-quests after all meaningful parts of the story have ended. Those never really feel right to me.

Well, enough of that I guess. The reality of it is that I ought to quit being sentimental about a number and keep making memories. Debating the contents and motivations of my thoughts with myself isn't terribly effective anyway.

(|Huh!?|)

I don't even really know. Pretty out of it right now, too tired.

Lots of crap happened, some of which I'm not going to talk about because it needs to be in a post of its own, but some of it:

My dynamis shell's co-leader mistakenly invited feiwong. After a few of us let our leader know who Boktai was, I had the pleasure of breaking his pearl. He sent a number of us /tells and said some things in /say, and I have screenshots of the stuff that was in /say or /tell'd to me, but I'm going to send those to Wyred once I stop being lazy about cropping them instead of posting them here.

That being said, I'm terrified because feitard is going to find my non-existent myspace page and somehow use it against me! Oh no!

I also decided to sell off all my gear that isn't for SAM, WHM, THF or BRD in an effort to focus more on my highest jobs so that I can finish them off and THEN worry about lower level stuff.

Lastly, I joined Versus. Its a pretty interesting group, I find myself comparing them a lot with my dynamis shell for some reason, not really because they're similar or anything just kind of like I dated the dynamis shell first and versus is the new chick I'm hanging around. Its pretty nice, no one seems like a lootwhore or anything, which isn't something I can say about at least one person in the dynamis shell.

We apparently do Jailer of Love tomorrow, which is kinda lol for me because. . . I have noooooo idea what to expect, but thats kind of the fun part I guess. The first thing I did in versus was WHM for back to back Kirin fights, which was one hell of an initiation, given that I had no idea what my job was and I basically just joined the parties I was told to join and filled whatever role seemed the most appropriate. I mean, its kind of a no-brainer as a WHM, you get told who is tanking and you cure everyone, the tanks in particular, but it was still adrenaline filled and pretty fun in that it at least felt like a challenge.

Anyway, thats all for now, though I need to do a big post soon. I'm fucking tired.

Public Service Announcement: White Mage

Yes you can gimp it up and still do your job fine. Should you? No. Knock it off and put some effort into the job like everyone else does.

And what the hell is up with Prot/Shellra V? Particularly Protectra V, why in the hell would you ever merit that? You get 68 defense from a fully merited Protectra V, and 55 from Protectra IV. I know absolutely no tanks who would ever prefer 13 defense over getting 250 MP every 10 minutes. Seeing WHMs merit Protectra V and Shellra V together over Devotion makes me sick to my stomach. Why would you ever spend 220,000 experience on 13 fucking defense?

As far as Shellra V goes, at best you go from getting ~21.9% magic damage ignored to getting rid of ~27.4% the stuff. Lets say, best case scenario, you've already finished EVERYTHING else, you have Devotion capped, and you're trying to decide between Shellra V and Martyr. Are there going to be big nasty NMs where you would want 5% more magic damage reduction? Sure. Ok, how about an instant 29 MP (Stoneskin) cure for ~500 HP every 10 minutes?

55 damage ignored out of 1000 from Shellra V's benefit vs. Shellra IV. For Shellra V's usefulness to keep up with Martyr, the total collective magic damage dealt to everyone with your Shellra on them over ten minutes would have to be NINE THOUSAND AND FUCKING NINETY MAGIC DAMAGE BEFORE REDUCTION. Fifteen magic damage a second. Does this ever happen? Sure, I haven't done HNMs, but seriously? Does it?

The only remaining argument that you can make in Shellra V's favor is that it gets put on 6 people, and that Martyr is single-target. I'm praying that no one really thinks thats a good basis for picking Shellra V over Martyr, but I figure there're always going to be idiots. . . so. . .

WOAHSHI

500k entry cost for dynamis FUCK YES

Does this mean I have a hope in hell of getting a relic now? Maybe.

No, really, does it? No. But I'm still happy.

In before butthurt relic holders cry about how their relic is more legit because they paid more for it.

Public Service Announcement: Red Mage

If you do not want to sub WHM and cast Silena DO NOT TAKE INVITES TO FIGHT IN CAEDARVA.

I am fucking tired as hell of asking for silena on BRD, get your shit together, find another job, or tell the DDs why they don't have songs up half the time. I'm tired of spending 8k every half hour because you're too lazy to cast a very fast spell.

This message has been brought to you by: (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|) (|Silenced|)

Also, stop subbing scholar. Seriously, you're idiots.