lolWoW

Apparently someone complained about people putting their blog on TTTO and then talking about WoW.

Personally I think it's stupid to begin with, and it irritates me a bit when I go on there to read stuff about FFXI (and the entire point of the thing is to list blogs about FFXI) and then half the people are talking about another game or even something else even less related to FFXI. Occasional stuff is, ya know, whatever, but people repeat it and some days its kind of stupid. The front page is getting cluttered as it is within single days now.

A person responded to the guy who complained and claimed that there isn't a lot to post about for most people (about FFXI).

What this person should have said is that they have moved on from FFXI and are doing other things, but are either to lazy to remove their no longer relevant content from TTTO, or don't want to give up the exposure that the site brings.

As far as the particular person goes, I don't give a shit and it doesn't matter. No idea who they are, don't really care, but I'm tired of finding my water replaced with vodka.

Personally I'd be content with some kind of feature to prevent certain blogs from appearing on what shows up when I visit TTTO while logged in, but whatever. No one is paying Wyred to filter lack of judgment.

I cast the magic that makes the things do damn near anything

Random, just because its an awesome song:



Anyway, I've kinda looked at what I enjoy doing in FFXI a bit and, more and more, I'm thinking that what I really enjoy is being the mage. Specifically the very back-line ones that die fast and use MP. Melee is great and everything but. . . I'm not sure, I just don't get as into it these days, maybe I never really did, I don't know. I've thought about selling my SAM stuff, but people still want me on that sometimes and SAM/DNC is quite a lot of fun.

THF. . . eh, selling off THF gear would be heresy. Chances are I'll cut down on gear for both SAM and THF and hopefully have just the necessary junk. BRD also needs to be whittled down some, which is unfortunate because I'm sure once that hits 75, people're gonna be wanting it out, even though I'm better with my WHM than I'll ever be with BRD (though I have hit my groove a few times pretty hard).

I'm also thinking about picking up SCH next and demoting NIN to only doing anything when Draco is around to duo. SCH at high levels seems REALLY cool, and pretty fun, in addition to being versatile as anything out there. On top of that, I'd like it at 37 anyway for WHM; sublimation makes a very nice addition to WHM overall. Maybe I'll start it once BRD 75s, or immediately after the update so that 7-10 and beyond takes even less time. The only part I'm really hesitant about is dealing with the dunes, but I think I'll be able to figure out a way around that, somehow.

Also, the freaking hockey season needs to start. NOW.

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.

1/1 on Airship. . .

No pics, because I did it on my desktop, which no longer has fraps, but fuck. I'm pumped.

Souel is awesome, and Xcaliber likes boys.

Onwards to sea!

Also bushinomimi, BRD66, PLD41, RDM58 almost 59. Woo craps happening!

Is it just me. . .

. . . or is it always the gimpy domaru or full hachiman SAM in campaign that pulls hate from a mob that has 20ish people on it and then starts running away and kiting it around the tower or whatever area.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Public Service Announcement: Paladin

Grindan Gaems

To be honest I can't even remember when I got each level but I think I've gone from 44 to 48 and change on RDM so far. At the moment I'm 3k into 48, but I'll probably ding again tonight if I can stay up. Hell maybe I'll hit 50. That'd be kind of depressing actually.

Why the hell am I leveling RDM like this? Honestly I don't know. I just sort of decided that I want RDM at 75 and now its going to get done. I'll inevitably fall short and get sick of it (hopefully after 60), but for the moment I'm riding out my momentum and hoping I have what it takes to just burn the damn thing to 75. Maybe after or during that I'll find the motivation to do similar things with THF (72) and BRD (65).

It'll be great, I can go from being a princess on RDM and BRD and then raging with righteous fury against princesses and gimp THFs while trying to cap my THF.

Anyway, for the 5 of you who actually read this crap, how are the Public Service Announcements? I've thought about doing one for each job and if they're good enough, going through another cycle, but I want to put a lot of effort into them and make people laugh, so if its just going to get old after another couple I'd rather not bother.

I would very much like to get people to laugh (and maybe make a few people realize that they're doing something stupid. . .).

Conversations with teh Draco

So Draco has always been kind of anti-end game, and doesn't like people who obsess over gear and spend all their time up in sky or things like that. However lately I've noticed hes been talking a lot about end-game gear and trying to get a group going for assault and salvage and nyzul and all this junk, so I was talking to him a moment ago, and heres the conversation:

Draco: No kidding
but yeah i'm just plotting out what the best for each of my probable 75s is, and then seeing if I can overlap
From the looks of it, PLD and DRG will share a fair amount

me: so I guess you've officially broken down now huh

Draco: I'm just putzing

me: sure you are

Draco: We'll see how things go
I keep calling it a perfect world pipe dream so I don't get obsessive
but I don't have much else to do but collect shit

me: "I'm not gay, I just like anal sex"

Draco: I bought every damn thing already
Fuck you lol

Public Service Announcement: Thief

Why hello there Billy, it looks like you've gotten your Thief all the way up into the seventies! That's swell!

You've got your War Gloves, and you even noticed that TPing in Rogue's Culotte is gimp! You sure are moving forward Billy.

What's that Billy? You've upgraded your daggers you say? That's great, let's see what you got.

Wait, what the. . . Billy, what the fuck is this shit?

More critical hits? No, fuck you Billy. Fuck you right up the ass. Heart Snatcher is a piece of shit. Toss it now.

I don't give a shit that you spent days unlocking it Billy, you're a fucking retard. Toss it.

Wait, no, hold on. You're off-handing a Thief's Knife? And you're taking these to Frankie's merit party?

I'm sorry Billy, but you're being reassigned to WoW. Now get the fuck out before I find my belt.

This message has been brought to you by: Every god damn hour I've spent seeking my Thief because of the countless gimps who play the job making everyone think we're less useful than other jobs.

I'm looking at you Katoke. You and everyone like you.

Public Service Announcement: Samurai

Guys.

Hey. Guys.

Domaru sucks. Stop it. No, seriously, its a piece of crap, stop wearing it.

Keep your haubergeon, and if you're high enough to think about the domaru and don't have a haub, find another job to play.

This message has been brought to you by: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

It doesn't even look good! If I see another SAM wearing okotes and a domaru I'll probably get my account suspended "helping" them understand how retarded they are.

Dynamis - Bedroom

On the one hand, lots of stuff happening, but then it doesn't feel like too much for some reason. This weekend actually should be rough since I have plans to leave my house twice within two days (amazing!). Other than that though, just a nice relaxing week or so getting some important things done.



Got my second to last drop for the Opo-opo crown a few days back. We got it on the first kill, amazingly. The reason this was particularly note-worthy was we got Draco's on the first kill as well.



Did my NPC's G1, though I have another one I have to do for her now. Honestly its a bit of a pain, takes a while to get these quests done.



I got an O-hat! Ok sweet my Thief is ready to exp-wait fuck Sirocco. Dammit. I need to convince myself to forget about all this R/E junk that would make my Thief great and just level the damn thing to 75.

For now at least, its Paladin time though.

Pictures, with a side of lulz

If you only care about the comedy, scroll down until you see the screenshot that consists of a whole bunch of orange text, that'd be it.



Unfortunately this ones already out of date. My PLD is nearly 29 now, can't wait to put on my eisen/kampf gear.



Got one of the more useless pieces of relic on Thursday. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have it and appreciate the drop, but. . . lets be honest. Its not exactly something most people would be happy to catch a WHM wearing in a party.



Got my first level of Devotion, mostly for Draco. Its pretty fun, I don't regret picking it up. I need to cap it off now unfortunately. . . oh well at least I have SAM to do that with now.



75 SAM! That makes two.



I also got Diabolos randomly, which means I have all summons. Ironically, like the day after or two days after I picked Diabolos up they announced the Ixion thing, and even though I know now that he isn't a summon (yet), I still cried.



Got my Minstrel's finally! I think I mentioned it, but Saruka helped me get the drop. Draco also camped it with me quite a bit. Go go BRD end-game gear at 62!



I also picked up an Assault Jerkin recently, which I really don't deserve. This should be Draco's or Saruka's. But we should be remedying that shortly. . .



Ah the lulz. Anything more I could say about that conversation will only detract from the hilarity, so please, enjoy.



Ah, Cutaru. I just thought this seemed appropriately. . . cute? With her (his?) ass up in the air like that. Ironically, soon after taking this screenshot I found out that Cutaru is in my Dynamis shell. What a tweest!

Wait, what?

So I finally got around to installing photoshop and cropping up all my screenshots into what I want posted. I even organized them all so they're nice now. I go to upload them and. . . what? Photobucket got hacked?

So I can't upload them for the moment. Honestly I'm not sure what exactly happened to photobucket, I had JUST gotten a party on PLD as I noticed so I couldn't look into it much.

Anyway, improving Dynamis runs like I promised. Chat. Talk to everyone, get them mentally involved. If they're thinking about chatting with you and still doing their job, they're not thinking about whatever drop they haven't gotten yet or the fact that they've been there for 3 hours. Doesn't matter what you talk about, make a stupid joke. Just get a chuckle out of them or something. If your members are feeling good and not getting angsty over a mistake someone made or the drops or some other retarded drama, Dynamis is a lot more tolerable. The most important thing is to try to involve everyone unless they repeatedly act as though they don't want to be. Make them feel like they're part of the group even if its their first run. ESPECIALLY if its their first run. Get to know them all, even if only just a little.

You want people to have fun attending your runs, and lets be honest the game doesn't really facilitate that on its own most days.

Anyway, thats about it until photobucket comes back online.

PS: STOP FUCKING UNDERCUTTING KAGINAWA, FUCK

Thievery, Merits, and a second 75

So I want to post screenshots, I have a ton of them, but theres just one hitch. No photoshop. I have CS2, and I can install it any time, but I'm like. . . . I think 1 gig away from a full hard-drive at the moment and I'm too lazy to find stuff I want to delete/put junk on a DVD. Too busy dinging 75 Samurai I guess. Whoops, that was for later.

Saruka got 75 Thief though, which is awesome and I feel great for him because hes pretty much in the same situation I am. We've both been Thief for about the same time period (5 years) and are only just now close to capping it, and in his case, finally capping it. I actually hadn't realized that I have as much in common with him as I do until recently, its been a lot of fun screwing around killing stuff with him.

I've also worked on merits some, and thought about what I want to get. Until the last few days, I had only ever gotten one merit, and it went right into Regen. However I got three in the last few days and picked up the first level of Devotion, which Draco has wanted me to have for quite a while.

However the real interesting thing that I was thinking about was what I was going to do overall with my merits in the short term, and specifically how I might use them as a tool for improving a job as I'm leveling it. Namely, Paladin. The main thing that I have thought about improving is HP or MP, because those would be pretty much universally useful. However what I was thinking was, in the interest of Paladin, going full 8/8 on MP. I know, I know, most full-time Paladins reading this are probably thinking I'm nuts or stupid. There are a few factors here. First, I don't plan on tanking in end-game. I have White Mage and probably Bard as well for doing any of that junk, and I don't think I'm a particularly good tank as a player anyway. I am better suited for a support role. Second, looking at Paladin from the perspective of someone who more or less intends to use it only for leveling up, and then random raids or missions where my friends need a tank, HP isn't that important. Point for point, in that situation (to me at least) it makes more sense to go after MP. On top of that, I look at how most of the jobs I level and enjoy are mages (I know two of my three highest are melee, but overall I'm a mage player), and from what I can see it makes the most sense to go after MP.

To top it all off, I finally got Samurai to 75 in this ridiculously fun party that I got to sub Dancer in. We had three Samurai, a Thief, a Red Mage, and a Ninja, and the Thief only ever got to engage the mobs when they pulled a link, because we were killing so fast. We got a good 30k, which allowed me a healthy 10k buffer, which I'll probably be too lazy to extend. So now I don't have to merit on my White Mage, and a shell member (Djohn) is slowly nearing 75 with his own White Mage, so its great that I have another option.

I'd go into detail about what I want to merit on Samurai but the only real interesting dilemma I've thought of is Meditate versus Third Eye. Everything else seems pretty obvious to me, and thus not very interesting. At the moment I can't really decide between Meditate and Third Eye because on the one hand Meditate turns into more hate generation, which I don't really need, and I'm honestly not very good as using Third Eye all that often, even though I have toyed with the idea of tanking with Samurai rather frequently, especially after Dancer was introduced. At any rate I'll probably do Meditate simply because its more useful than only five seconds off of Third Eye, and coupled with Shikikoyo its reasonable to see myself using and wanting even more TP than I already get.

Anyway, I'm either going to nap or go walk to an awesome family owned donut place near my house for breakfast, but the next entry will be something that at least interests me; a way to improve your shell's Dynamis runs without making any in-game adjustments.