Lolpup sadness, anger and frustration

Yesterday I was hanging around in my HNMLS and they asked if I wanted to come to merit pt with them. I was pleasently surprised because I was on PUP atm and thought "hey, why not, that's a great way to get some automaton archery skillups and cap my buffer!" Well, of course they had thought that I'd come as BRD... Because that's seems to be the only job some people want me to use... And it's just impossible to get decent exp with only one COR and no BRD, right? Yeah, right...

Anyway, I wasn't really interested in being anyones song slave so I stayed as PUP and we got some decent (my expwatch showed 15K/h at the time without band) EXP. And then the guy who put the party together left, because of "real life issues" (yeah, sure). Then another LS member came to replace him as DRG/SAM, he died (well....DRG/SAM on colibris) and left too, without giving any explanation. A couple of mins later we noticed he was in another party with his MNK.

So, at this point, two LS members, who were supposed to be some kind of friends, I think, had left the party, because (I'm only assuming here as they didn't say anything) we didn't have The Ultimate Meripo Setup. Now this is excactly the reason why I've been only partying with my social LS SecretFellowship lately... Because in SF parties we all choose the job we want to play and actually have a good time while we party! And we still get EXP! Sounds weird, doesn't it?

I was pretty upset actually after those too guys left. In my opinion, it was just rude to leave a working party (especially one that included only LS members) just because it wasn't perfect. And I also took it too personally because I've just had to hear a bit of that "lolpup" shit. I have never made fun of my LS members jobs or said that their jobs suck... And I will never do that, because it's just stupid and close-minded.

Anyway, after those guys left, our setup was this: RDM, COR, DNC, PUP, SAM & DRK. Ironically, our EXP only got better after they left, it was around 18K/h without EXP ring (just horrible exp, isn't it). Anyway, I got full buffer, one merit and some levels of automaton archery before we had to disband. Comedies automaton archery skill is now 160/169, but she was doing ok dmg and some quite sweet Armor Piercers.





Those Armor Piercers were especially great when they closed Darkness skillchain, making that damage double! Unfortunately, the colibris didn't seem to appreciate them that much and usually ended up trying to eat Comedie alive after every WS. She only died once though.

I know that WS can and will do more dmg once I've capped skill and learned to use my WS maneuvers better. I'm looking forward to it!

Exhausted but you can't stop me from posting!

I'm so exhausted I'm pretty much in a coma at the moment.... So I'm sorry but this post will be lame.

From some reason I got an idea to organize Zilart Mission for Secret Fellowship members so that everyone 70ish+ level there would get Sky access. We started from ZM4 (the tonberry fight) on Monday and did it again on Tuesday. Now I have 6 people who actually need the missions so I'll have to kick myself out from the static... Anyway, I'm guiding them with rest of the missions this Saturday, so they should have Sky in the end of the week.



On Monday we also kicked Ultimas ass again. Was a nice fight, only deaths came in the end when we zerged it and it decided to go BOOM. Head and hands dropped, I think (I really don't care much about Ultima/Omega drops since I don't have any jobs to use them).



I started synthing the Reraise earrings, and for now it has gone pretty well. I've had 2 synthing sessions with them:

First session

Time: Lightsday, Waning crescent 14%
Starting skill: 41.1 (synth cap 45)
Free synthesis image support

1. 0.1 skillup, success
2. 0.1 skillup, success
3. 0.1 skillup, success
4. success
5. 0.2 skillup, success
6. success
7. success
8. 0.1 skillup, success
9. 0.1 skillup, success
10. 0.1 skillup, success
11. 0.1 skillup, fail, full break

DING Goldsmithing 42!

Ending skill: 42
Success rate: 10/11

On the following day, after I had sold most of the earrings synthed in the first session, I decided to have another try.


Second session

Time: Darksday, First quarter moon 45%
Starting skill: 42 (synth cap 45)

1. 0.1 skillup, success
2. fail (lost 1 ingot of vivified mythril)
3. 0.1 skillup, fail (lost crystal)
4. success

After 2/4 breaks I decided to get free synthesis image support again, and did the rest of the synths with that:

5. success
6. 0.2 skillup, success
7. success
8. 0.1 skillup, success
9. success
10. 0.1 skillup, success

Ending skill: 42.6
Success rate: 8/10

I'm doing pretty nice money with these earrings at the moment. They sell fast in AH and I've also sold some for LS members for a lower price. I still have 8 earrings unsold, but I couldn't synth more anyway because there isn't any Vivified Mythril in AH.

Actually, I've been thinking about starting to synth the Vivified Mythril myself. For that I'd need "Gold Purification" Guild Point item, which isn't really hard to get (40K GP). A bigger problem is, the recipe requires animas, which require Alchemy skill 75 or something and an Alchemy GP item Anima Synthesis. Well, my husband has a mule with Alchemy skill 60+, so that shouldn't be a problem. We'll see.

Yesterday we decided to go duo a bit with my friend Pythean. He had a PLD level 20 and I had a RMD level 22 so we went to Korroloka tunnel and killed some worms. Later another LS friend Zaonic joined us, it was fun.



In the evening we did a bit Sky farming and Einherjar. We tried the second wing for the first time and the time ran out when the boss was around 30%. Not bad for a first try, in my opinion.



A couple of pretty landscape pics from Beaucedine:

Some silly Goldsmithing calculations

Already a second post today but I'm bored while I'm waiting for our slowga LS to gather for Limbus.

I synthed my last Mythril Ingots today! Last time I speculated I won't even get to level 41 with them, but it was better than I thought.

I got to do 14 synths with 2 stacks of ingots:

Time: Iceday, Waning Gibbous 76%
Starting skill: 40.2

1. 0.1 skillup, success
2. 0.1 skillup, fail (lost the crystal)
3. success
4. 0.1 skillup, success
5. 0.2 skillup, success
6. 0.1 skillup, success
7. fail (lost the crystal)
8. 0.1 skillup, fail (lost the crystal and 1 ingot)
9. success
10. success
11. 0.1 skillup, success

DING Goldsmithing 41!

12. success
13. 0.1 skillup, success
14. success

Ending skill: 41.1
Success rate: 11/14

The success rate has been a lot better than I expeced it to be. I started with ingredients for 36 synths and now I have 33 earrings on my mule!

Next I will start making Reraise Earrings from the Mythril Earrings I have. I have already bought one stack of Vivified Mythril (110K ouch!) for those so I can start synthing after next JP midnight. ^^

I did some funny calculations about the money spent on my Goldsmithing. I started this Mythril Stage at skill level 32 and it costed me around 89K to get my skill to 39. As a result I also got 72 mythril ingots, which are worth 384K when sold in stacks in AH. Then I turned the 72 mythril ingots to 33 earrings which are worth 132K when sold in AH... so while I'm making profit considering where I started, but I kind of feel like I've lost money while synthing those earrings. But anyway, while Mythril Earrings only sell for 4K/each in AH, Reraise earrings sell for 16-18K.

Syrup Wiping

I've had a really nice weekend! On Thursday my mother and my brother came to visit us and I enjoyed spending time with them. And on Saturday there was a club party where me and my husband went to meet some of our friends, and it was great too. I was supposed to be studying but oh well, I had such a great time! I just need to hurry up a bit with some books and essays now.

In game I've done some Goldsmithing. On Friday I decided to start with the Mythril Earrings. I did 12 synths before and 12 synths after the JP midnight.




First 12 synths:

Time: Lightningsday, New Moon 7%
Starting skill: 39 (synth cap 42)

1. 0.1 skillup, success
2. 0.1 skillup, fail (lost 1 ingot)
3. success
4. success
5. fail (lost 2 ingot)
6. 0.2 skillup, success
7. 0.1 skillup, success
8. success
9. success
10. success
11. success
12. success

Ending skill: 39.5
Success rate: 10/12

Next 12 synths:

Time: Watersday, New Moon 5%
Starting skill: 39.5 (synth cap 42)

1. 0.1 skillup, success
2. success
3. 0.1 skillup, success
4. success
5. success
6. success
7. 0.2 skillup, success
8. 0.1 skillup, success

DING Goldsmithing 40!

9. success
10. success
11. 0.2 skillup, success
12. success

Ending skill: 40.2
Success rate: 12/12

I have ingots for 12 more Mythril Earring synths, but I doubt they will take me even to skill level 41. The next synth on my plan is Reraise Earring which caps at level 45, but it's quite expensive so I'm not sure if I want to move on to that yet. Well, I'll synth the rest of the earrings and think about it then I guess.

On Thursday I helped my husband camp Sewer Syrup for Jelly Ring for his PLD. I went there as PUP/NIN and my husband was PLD/WHM. I seriously underestimated this NM and we wiped after a very unfortunate blood aggro. Well, a LS friend came to help us as MNK/WAR, we recovered and tried again. And wiped. Our friend just took too much damage as /WAR and we couldn't keep him alive. That time we also got some nasty links. Finally, we did a quick job change and decided to try it one more time. My husband stayed as PLD/WHM, but I changed to MNK/NIN and our LS friend changed to /DNC. We killed the thing and the ring dropped!





On Friday we had a ZNM run which was a bit of a disaster. No one really focused on the run, me neither, because my family was here and I was just busy to end the run to watch a movie with them... I apologized from our leader later, I should've either just focus on the run or not attend at all. Anyway, we killed this NM I hadn't fought before:



And I took a pretty pic from Mount Zhayolm:



Yesterday I helped the Secret Fellowships CoP static with mission 3-3. We killed the Antlion NM and climbed the mountain in Attohwa Chasm. It was fun, no one even fell down on the way up!

After that I did ENM with Europa. We got lucky and got Haguns from 2 of the 3 runs! Then we went to Sky. We killed Zip, popped a few Olla, Genbu and Suzaku.





We did a first wing Einherjar again to get second wing access for some members. We won again, but it was a bit messy. Second wing on Wednesday!

Also, my chocobo chick WildRhapsody has grown to a young chocobo. All the color tricks I tried on her unfortunately failed, but I'm still trying to grow a nice digger choco of her.

Goldsmithing calculations, automaton skillups and a Mog House tour

This morning I noticed I had 2 Mythril Ores in my inventory, so I decided to buy 2 more and do one last Mythril Ingot synth. Somehow I got lucky and got a 0.2 skillup from that synth, and dinged 39 Goldsmithing skill! I counted my Mythril Ingots and the result was 6 stacks, which is 72 ingots. For curiosity, I also checked my AH history from ffxiah.com to see how much gil I had spent for those 72 ingots. The result was 88,840 gil from my main character. Mythril Ingots currently sell 6K/each or 64K/stack, which means I have made ingots worth of 384,000-432,000 gil with only 88,840 gil. Not a bad way to get 7 levels of Goldsmithing skill.

Unfortunately, I can't sell the ingots for profit, because I need them for my next stage. Mythril Earrings cap at level 42, and I have ingredients for 36 synths of those. After that, I move on to Reraise Earrings, which cap at level 45, and which I can sell in AH for profit. I hope this plan works and everything will go well.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time playing. First when I logged in, I helped a LS friend with his Rank 3 mission dragon fight. After that I went to Sky for some automaton skillups. I used the Sharpshot frame and capped Comedies melee skill at 230 (for that frame) and got automaton archery up to level 254, which is the cap for level 72. I still have 15 levels to go with automaton archery, and I need to find a way to get them, since mobs are becoming a bit tough at these levels.

Anyway, I enjoyed spending time in Sky, it was as pretty as always:



Yesterday evening we had a LS event (Sky farming) and Einherjar. Because we don't have that many people in Europa atm, our leader decided to do a new LS for Einherjar. It was a nice solution because now we can invite our friends outside Europa to join our runs. We've now had 2 runs with this new LS and we've won them both easily. Yesterday was our last run in the first wing and Sunday we'll move on to second.



After the Halloween event we had in our sosial LS last Saturday, we visited each others Mog Houses, and that made me want to continue decorating mine. At the moment I really have no idea what to do with it. Anyway, here are some pictures from Mog House.

My sleeping space:



This is the area I'm most happy with at the moment.

My dining space:



That table needs something, but I have no idea what... Also, I'd like to get another table maybe, I really don't like that one that much.

My ummm...... horn space?



This is the area between my sleeping space and my dining space.

My tea corner:



Some day, this will be a pretty area for serving tea and cookies for my friends.

I never thought I'd fall for this...

...but omg I just HAVE TO have this goblin one:

Long time, no Sea.

We haven't done Sea for a really long time with Europa, because we have been focusing on getting people the last items they need from Sky. But yesterday, after we had done the ENM, we popped a few thing is Sea for a change.

Also, my friend borrowed me his Sha'ir Manteel! It's such a hot piece of gear, can't wait to get one of my own!



Sea was nice. We popped Ix'Aern DRK and MNK and then Jailer of Fortitude (x 2) and Jailer of Temperance.







And here's a lesson for all of you: Vorpal Blade PWNS, as one of our PLDs got to experience:



I don't remember when I've been in a EXP party outside our LS but lately me and my husband have started to duo with our BLMs. We're level 20 at the moment and the worms in Korroloka tunnel give us nice EXP.



I'm working on getting my BLM to 37, and after that my RDM to 37, so I'll have all the mage subs available for SCH in case I want to level it. I could level SCH only for the AF, it's so amazingly hot, especially on Elvaan females. <3 But we'll see if I start leveling a new job any time soon, I still have so much to do with my current 75s.

We had a Dynamis-Xarcabard yesterday. It was a total chaos most of the time but we did great before the end. Here's a screenshot from the run:



Good luck on trying to sleep one mob in the middle of that group. >.<

I also played a bit with .dat swaps. Here's a supergirl Evy!

The Very Secret Halloween Party

Just a small update with some pictures, because our social linkshell SecretFellowship had a Halloween party today and I had such a great time there!

We gathered in Windurst at 6PM my time and did first the cloak event. We had to kill some bats as level 1 and then kill the boss. After that we got our Eerie Cloaks. And repeating that with killing more bats gave us the +1 version. Was fun and easy.

Here are some of us killing the boss:



And here's a group picture of everyone who came to the LS event:



After everyone had gotten at least the NQ version of the Cloak, we did the pitchfork quest and the witch hat quest. I also gave cookies for everyone so they can trade them to NPCs to get some items. I already have both the HQ Pitchfork and Coven Hat so I wasn't very interested in doing those things, but I got some random items from the NPCs.

Then we all gathered in Tahvos Mog House. We voted for the winner of the "best costume" prize, and it went to Lary, a Galka who was wearing a Santa outfit with a pumpkin head.



Then we /cheered Lary on and danced a bit:



We spent 3 hours doing this LS event and I had such a great time I didn't even notice time passing! Thank you guys, it's great to have people like you in our linkshell!

The Apprentice

I had a very bad morning today... I overslept, missing a lecture, and when I finally woke up (at 1 PM), I realized I had forgotten to sign up to exam I was supposed to have on Monday... So I've been kinda grumpy the whole day. I'm also a bit ill which has made my day even worse. It seems that when things start to go bad, everything will go bad eventually.

Luckily my in game morning was a bit better than my RL one. When I logged in, I decided to get my next Goldsmithing guild rank item, which was Ghain Gorget. There was none for sale in AH but I synthed it myself, only costed 12K. So now I'm finally an Apprentice goldsmither, yay! And by the way...



For a minute I didn't know what was going on when I entered the guild and saw this:



But then I realized the halloween event had already started today. I haven't read anything about the event yet but we'll do it tomorrow with our linkshell. I'm sure it'll be fun. ^^

After visiting the guild I decided to go farm some Mythril Ores. I recently finally got my THF on level 15 for TH (I know I should take it to 37) and I decided to go as MNK/THF. That really seemed to increase the drop rates and I got some very nice skillups there. My Goldsmithing skill is now 38.6, so only 1.4 levels to go with this synth. My NPC also dinged 36 while farming there. I wonder if I should change her weapon soon...



I stopped farming when the day turned to Windsday and went to check on my choco. She's 12 days old now and has excactly the same stats she had on my last post, except that her Discernment is now "Substandard". I decided to name her Wild Rhapsody, somehow I felt that name would suit her.

This evening we had a ZNM run. It was a very good run and for once we were on time. We popped 2 x Verdelet, 2 x Iriz Ima, Armed Gears, 2 x Chamrosh (one of them mine) and Dea.





This last ZNM pic is our whole alliance smacking down the one poor Red Mage who didn't stay in Charm range... He died twice.



We did Dea last and I asked if I could come there as PUP. I've been there many times as BRD and felt really bored, frustrated and useless trying to run behind PLDs who can't stay still for 5 seconds for me to sing for them. But oh well, the PLD wanted me there as BRD so BRD I was. I don't mind using a job if I know it's useful for the group, but in that case I just felt useless. Again. And I don't like it. But oh well, can't win every time. Anyway, Dea dropped a pair of Oracles Pigaches, which I've wanted for a long time. They went to free lot, and I was the only one who wanted them! Lucky me! ^^





And here's a pretty pic of Al Zahbi (yes, it's there... keep looking):

Whining about whiners

I want to ask SE what on earth they were thinking when they planned those new ads. Yes, people have been complaining about SE not advertising the game, but that's no excuse. Seriously, have you seen these?



Yes, I think they're funny, especially the rock band scene is hilarious! But I'm afraid they're funny only for people who are already playing the game. I very much doubt we'll get any new players with these ads. But hey, maybe that doesn't matter, because Jimmy the guitarist is so freaking cool!

I usually don't rant about anything but one thing has been really annoying me lately. On Sunday, my husband had his first run with our dynamis LS. He did the best he could to be well prepared for the run: studied strategies from internet and bought some new equipment and other stuff (reraise items, poison potions, echo drops and food) and so on. Well, during the run he began to wonder why he bothered with all that when it seemed that no one else did. And that's exactly the thing that has been bothering me too.

Our dynamis LS isn't "elitist" in any way, which is a good thing in my opinion. We have many members which are fairly new to end game and most of our members have pretty standard gear and so on. And it's totally ok, you don't have to have amazing 1337 gear or have loads of experience to do your job well in dynamis. But some of the things I've seen there are just... not acceptable to me. I've seen mages without the basic elemental staves (yeah, a 75 WHM without a light staff), mages, paladins and ninjas without echo drops ("sorry, I couldn't cure you, I was silenced!") and (the one that annoys me the most) melees who come to dynamis without reraise items.

We have a LS rule which says everyone should bring a form of reraise on every dynamis run. However, most of our members don't care about that rule, and our leaders don't care about if people follow the rule or not. We have another rule that people who don't have reraise, will get R1. However, they usually get a R3. Also, usually people insist on getting R3 and whine about losing exp and being in danger to delevel.

So, for these people, who keep whining about the EXP loss, here's a newsflash: When you come to dynamis run (or any other end game activity), you can safely assume you'll die at some point (if things go wrong as they usually do). Here's another newsflash: In FFXI, when you die, you'll lose EXP. Now, a smart person might be able to combine these two together, but I really don't expect that much from the people who I'm referring to here, so let me do it for you: "When you come to dynamis run, you can safely assume that you'll die and lose EXP".

Let's make this even a bit more difficult. Here's another newsflash, just one more, I promise: You can prepare for the EXP loss you'll experience in Dynamis by getting yourself a nice buffer. Buffer is the amount of extra EXP you need to keep yourself from deleveling and whining after someone does something stupid and your whole linkshell wipes. Now see, I solved this problem for you guys! Get that buffer thing, so you don't have to whine!

Seriously speaking, it isn't really nice to follow the rules unless everyone does so. It's not nice to spend money on reraise items for every run and use that reraise 1 if the people who don't care about the rules don't have to spend any money and get raise 3 almost every time.

There is a purpose for this rule, you know. If, in case of full wipe, everyone has reraise up, we can recover a lot faster. That means, we can also continue farming a lot faster, and thus, maybe receive more relic drops and currency. Also, it takes a lot more time for our WHMs to R3 everyone than it takes our all mages to R1 everyone. This should be simple enough for everyone to understand, but apparently it is not.

Anyway, on more positive topic: my little choco chick is ten days old now!

Here are her stats:

Strength: Poor
Endurance: Poor
Discernment: Poor
Resceptivity: Poor
Affection: Parent (max)
Condition: Excellent, high spirits
Personality: Enigmatic
Likes: Clear days
Abilities known: None

So, she doesn't know anything or isn't good in anything yet, but at least she's happy! ^^

I'll check on her once or twice a day on Windsday (hoping it will affect her color). Her current care plan is "listen to music" to increase her discernment and receptivity. I'm also feeding her one Vomp Carrot and one Zegham Carrot a day at the same time. Vomp Carrots increase strength and endurance whereas Zegham Carrots increase discernment and receptivity.

Nothing special

I've had a really horrible morning (well, afternoon). Me and my husband overslept, waking up at 1PM. I haven't been in iaido practises for a few weeks now because they've been canceled, but today there was going to be a practise at some school instead of our dojo. So we ate some breakfast and hurried to a bus so we can get there. Well, when we've got to the school near our dojo, we realized we were in a wrong place... So we spent over half an hour walking around in rain trying to find the right place. We didn't find it, and after some time, we just decided to come back home. It sucked.

I have an important exam coming up at uni so I haven't really played much... I've been doing some gardening and growing my choco. My chocobo is now a chick. She doesn't have a name yet but she's very cute:





Also, my Tree Cuttings and Cactus Stems were finally ready to be harvested! The cuttings were a success and I got 90K worth of items from 5 pots. However, the Cactus Stems gave me absolutely nothing valuable, which was a bit disappointment.



Sorry for the lame post but I haven't really done much in game. I think I'll write more about the color theories I'm testing on my choco next time I post.