Do want!

This post is about FFXI things I've been thinking about lately and what I want to do in game in the near future. I haven't felt much like playing lately because I've felt I'm somehow stuck in game and have nothing I'd actually want to do except LS events. So, I took a moment to think about what I'd actually want to do at the moment in game and this is what I came up with...

Crafting

I read Tuufless' Goldsmithing Blog and got inspiration to start leveling Goldsmithing. I don't have any crafts leveled and I'm really not a patient person so we'll see how it goes. I've leveled Goldsmithing a bit before, very slowly, because I've wanted to stay on profit while skilling up.

At the moment, my Goldsmithing is level 36.2, so I'm on Mythril stage, and making profit while skilling up isn't so easy anymore. I've synthed Myhril ingots which have costed me around 4-5K/ingot while an ingot is worth 6-7K in AH. The thing is, I can't sell the ingots I've synthed back to AH because I'll need them for my next skillup recipes.

So, to make leveling Goldsmithing a bit cheaper for myself, I decided to try to mine and farm some Mythril Ores myself.

The first thing I tried was farming in Palborough Mines.



But well, since Mythril Ores are the most expensive thing you can mine there, I didn't find the place worth the time I spent there.

Then I checked wiki to see which mobs dropped Mythril Ore. The higher level worms in King Ranperre's Tomb where on the list and wiki claimed they also drop zinc, silver, iron and gold ore. There were also 28 pops of them and they had a short respawn time so it seemed like a perfect place to start farming.



Well, long story short, I spent over two hours there and all I got was Copper ores and Flint Stones...

I decided not to give up just yet. This morning I decided to try Fei'Yin and the Ore Golems there. Those actually had a decent drop rate on Mythril Ores and while I was farming them, I also killed the dolls and pots there. After a few hours I had capped the exp on my MNK, got almost one full level of Goldsmithing and got items worth around 41K. Not a bad way to level a crafth, although a slow one.





At the moment my goal is to get Goldsmithing to 60. After that, I may try some other crafts and then decide which one (if any) to take to 100.

Exping and skilling up my PUP

I have this sort of an obsession of keeping the EXP capped on all my 75s. At the moment I've succeeded to do that on both MNK and BRD but not on my PUP. I need around 30K exp to get a full buffer for it and that can be easily done in Campaign.

But, Comedie (my automaton) also needs some serious skilling up... At the moment her skill levels are:

* Magic 267/276
* Ranged 246/269
* Melee 225/269

So there's a lot of work to be done, and at the moment I have little to no idea how to get her skills up. Well, magic is easy since automaton gets nice magic skillups from healing... But the rest will be a pain, I'm afraid.

Meriting

At the moment, I don't really have many merits... So I should work on them, too. These are my current plans for Job spesific merits:

MNK

Group 1:

* I have no idea!

Group 2:

* Penance: 4 upgrades (0 done)
* Invigorate: 5 upgrades (1 done)
* Formless Strikes: 1 upgrade (done)

BRD

Group 1:

* Minuet effect: 5 upgrades (1 done)
* Madrigal effect: 5 upgrades (1 done)

Group 2:

* Nightingale: 1 upgrade (done)
* Troubadour: 1 upgrade (done)

PUP

Group 1:

* Automaton Magic Skill: 5 upgrades (0 done)

Group 2:

* Role Reversal: 1 upgrade (0 done)
* Ventriloquy: 1 upgrade (0 done)
* Fine-Tuning: 3 upgrades (0 done)
* Optimization: 5 upgrades (0 done)

That'll give me something to do for a while...

Forget the break!

So... I started taking a break and it went well for two whole days (!) until I realized playing is really not disturbing my studies in any way if I don't have any studies... No, I didn't stop studying because of FFXI. But I decided that instead of going to the stupid, boring education lectures, I will only take exams on them. So, after that, I'll have most of my days free of lecuters and other things, so I have some time for playing too. I don't want to be playing as much as I have played before, though.

I did a new study plan for this autumn term. I'm taking 6 exams and one course where I have to do a presentation. That's enough but not too many courses I think. On Friday me and my husband went together to a course called Ethnic Minorities and Religious Communities in Finland. It was a bit weird because the course is held at the swedish university and we were the only Finnish speakers there (the course is held in English). The course seems very interesting and inspiring. In the end of the course we're supposed to do a presentation of one religious event in our home city. We're hoping to be able to take part to a local shamanic drumming session for our presentation.

I've felt a bit lazy because our last Iaido practice was cancelled. I might go to an extra practice during this week to replace that. But well, my mother and my brother came to visit us on Saturday and I got to spend time with them instead. We went to see the animation film Wall-E and it was brilliant!

In game... well, I haven't played much. We've camped a bit Simurgh and KA without many claims or drops. But we did kill this weird NM I've never heard of before:



Yesterday was my weekly event day. I did ENM, Einherjar, Bahamut v. 2, Sky and Dynamis.







I've also got some really nice pieces of gear:











And yes, I know the previous pics I've posted don't work. I'm working on fixing it but it seems that won't happen before next month.

(Taking a break)

Just a short post now, as I'm a bit in a hurry. I slept late and I'm eating breakfast at the moment. In an hour I should be on the bus on my way to iaido practice.

On Monday was the big September update in FFXI. Everyone had been waiting for it for a long time. Personally, I was mostly curious about the PUP AF+1 and relic pieces. The AF+1 was a bit of a disappointment for me, but the relic set seems great. The increases in drop rates seem also very promising.

On Tuesday I had my first Japanese class. It was a cold and rainy day and I had to almost run to the class, so when I finally found the right place, I felt like I had just ran marathon in a shower. But well, the class went really well. Our teacher is a charming japanese lady who mixes Japanese, Enlish and Finnish in her speech in an interesting way.

In game I have done some Campaign. I got a new medal (Wings §§§) and dinged 75 on my PUP! I enjoy doing campaing, it's fun and easy way to get a bit EXP. One day I found myself alone doing the offensive battle in Garlaige Citadel with the NPCs:



And then I found something shocking! A dead MacGyver, how can it be?



I've also tried a bit the level sync partying with my social LS. We've had two very good parties, one in Yhoator Jungle and one in Crawler's Nest. It's so nice to be able to play friends, I really love the level sync function!



On Wednesday and Thursday we camped Simurgh (no boots). I succeeded to forget I had blockaid on and complained about no one inviting me. Go me!



We also made two new assaults with our static, which meant I got a promotion to Chief Sergeant. I took some funny screenies from the quest:









Yesterday we had a sloooooooowga ZNM run. It took us over 1,5 hours to just gather and travel to first pop place... So when we popped the first NM, it was already 10.30 PM for me... It wasn't the fault of our leaders but the people who didn't listen and / or follow the instructions. I felt frustrated and tired, I'm really hoping it will be better on the next run.

One screenie from the ZNM run:



This will be my last post for a while, since I'll be starting my FFXI break after tomorrows HNMLS events and Dyna run. I'm really happy about the break as I'm getting very tired with all the drama there has been going on lately.

New challenges and victories

I had such a great weekend! On Saturday some people from our social linkshell decided to gather together in Al Zahbi to do Besieged together. We had people from level 50ish to level 75 and we had a great time!



Then I had to log out for a few hours to go to my first ever iaido practice! I was really excited and scared at the same time... There were about 10 of us newbies, and also two older iaidokas training there and then of course our teacher. All the others were men.

We were given wooden katana swords, bokkens, and the training began. It was a lot more difficult and tiring than I had expected. Also, the instructor kept coming to check my position, my movements, the position of my hands and so on much more than he checked the others, which made me nervous. After the training my every muscle and my knees hurted like hell and I felt I was unable to walk to the bus stop to get home. And then the instructor told us that it would be good if we could make it to practices 5 days in a week! Some of our practices are from 6.30 AM to 7.30 AM, and I'm actually thinking about trying them. That would be an interesting start for a day.

Anyway, I liked iaido a lot. I hope I'll have the energy to continue practicing it and maybe some day I'll be as cool as these guys:



When I logged back to the game later on Saturday evening, we decided to start a little LS merit party. All the best camps were taken (again!) so we ended up in the mire. I really didn't feel very focused, but well, we all got at least some EXP before we decided to go do the Promyvion-Mea and the ENM in there for one of our members.



The promy boss and the ENM went ok. The way to the top wasn't as easy as it usually is, though, as two of us got aggro on the third floor and two people died. But well, all got their EXP back and more when we did the two fights in the spire. ENM drops were only worth 20K, but well, that's always better than nothing.



I also got the key item Mea Silver for the quest Shadows of the departed. Only Holla to go now!



On Sunday I decided to change my characters face again. Evyen now looks like this:



Red hair and green eyes. <3

Our afternoon events started with ENM. And for the first time ever (for me), something really nice dropped!



The best part was that the drop went to my really close friend Shokun who has been wanting that for ages! Congratulations!

After the ENM we did Einherjar. There were skeletons and vamouras and the boss was like Kirin. I was there as bard for the first time and didn't die once! I subbed NIN which actually saved my life. We won the chamber, grats us! No abj. drop though, unfortunately.





We decided to face our worst enemy, Bahamut v. 2 again. Sun was shining on Riverne Site B and we all felt warm and fuzzy. Well, at least I did, sitting under a tree with my friend:



I was, again, for the first time, facing Bahamut as Bard. My job was very simple: Soul Voice, Double minuet on three parties and then spam Finale on Bahamut. I also kept barfira up on my party just in case... And this time, finally, after a few failed runs, we took him down! Good job, everyone!





Our leader seemed to feel like testing our luck even more, because after Bahamut, we headed to Sea to pop Jailer of Prudence, which we had only tried once before and wiped. After experiencing a few horrible deaths and desperate situations, we managed to take him down, too. A good day for Europa, I'd say!



Then was the time for me to head to Bastok for Dynamis. On my way there, I picked up something nice for myself:



Dynamis run went really well. It seemed that all the problems had really been solved, and the atmosphere was a lot better. I actually enjoyed the run very much. We tried a new strategy, which worked really well. Drops were nice too.

Feeling tired

This has been a busy week for me. My courses at university have started and I've also had some other real life things to take care of. Most of the times I've logged in to FFXI, I've felt too tired to do anything. That means I've also been unable to offer my help to my LS friends, which has made me feel guilty. I don't want anyone to think me as a bitch who never helps anyone... But well, I wrote my thoughts on our linkshell forums and some other members wrote their thoughts aswell and it has been a good discussion in my opinion.

This week I decided to help more and bitch less in all events. I'm trying to learn that sometimes it's best to just stay quiet. I'm not the leader and I don't have to take leaders role or responsibility. For now it has been working ok, I think, but I'm afraid the dynamis on Sunday will be the real test for me. ^^;

We did Omega and Ultima on Limbus this week. Both were a bit messy and felt a lot more difficult than the last time we did them. Especially in Ultima people died a lot (but I used my secret bard survival skills and didn't die once!). But well, at least we won.



I also finally got enough coins to upgrade first AF to +1. I'll do BRD hands first (Singing skill +10!) as soon as I'll understand how the redoing AF quests thing works...

We also killed Overlord Bakgodek with our HNMLS. The drops sucked. Horribly.



Yesterday I had a day off. I woke up around 3-4 PM... When I logged in, I decided to help my friend camp Okotes. No drop, again, unfortunately. Some very stupid people had complained to him in party about not having Okotes and that it was stupid for a SAM to use Woodsmans and he should get Snipers instead... I felt like /slapping those guys in the head. Seriously, my friend is playing his first and highest job in game, he has an awesome gear and then people complain him about having two Woodsmans instead of Snipers...



Yesterday evening we had a ZNM run. We popped Iriz Ima, Wulgaru, Gotoh Zha the Redolent and Iriri Samariri. All the others went well, but we wiped to Iriri Samariri when it was around 12%. It was our first time doing that mob and we only had 13 people, so we knew it was a bit risky. But well, it was good experience. Wulgaru was my pop and I was hoping to get a Hissho Hachimaki, but I didn't have any luck. Actually, none of us seemed to have a really nice luck, though we got one pair of Enkidu's hands.

Playing dead

An angry and short post is angry and short.

I had a horrible day in game yesterday. First of all, for some reason, I slept like 14 hours, voke up around 4PM and missed the first part of our HNMLS event (ENM and Einherjar). When I logged in there was a nice LS message waiting: "You guys are late." I have no idea why I slept so long and I felt really bad about coming late to the event.

Well, we went to sky and did a couple of BB, a MG and four Suzakus. Suzaku decided to be a bitch and 2hr firaga III just when I was singing for the tanks. I died.



In the evening we had Dynamis-Xarca which went about as badly as it can go. I lost around 6K exp. Good times.



This DL quote kind of summed it up for me:



I'm also having some personal issues with one of our dynamis LS leaders. I'm concidering leaving the shell, no point for me to be there if it only gets me in a bad mood. And I don't want to be lead by a person who thinks our linkshell rules don't consern him and he can do whatever he wants and be rude to other members. But well, I don't want to create any drama so I won't post anything else here.