Behemoth's Bane and cheating in FFXI

I've been camping Behemoth for a few days now. I've never been to king camps before myself, but of course I've heard all the horror stories. The common opinion seems to be that they aren't even worth trying, because there are always around 100 people in the zone and all of them use bots to claim. Luckily I'm not a person who believes everything she hears without checking the situation out herself.

So I decided to give it a try. Behemoth seemed like a nice NM to camp because it always drops hides which sell for 450K on our server, and it also has a (low) chance of dropping a Black Belt item which I know would be nice for me and my many MNK friends. But my main reason for wanting to try and camp it wasn't the possibility of getting a BB item or the gil but the excitement of trying something totally new.

I was there on a few days with a couple of friends. I noticed soon that the hardest part wasn't actually claiming, but getting some friends to help with killing it in case we'd get the claim. The only one dedicated to camp it was me, and even though some of my friends have said they're interested, they're mostly unable to come online when the window is open. I couldn't do anything but decide to be patient and be there every day just to get ToD if nothing else.

Today when I woke up, I noticed that the window would be open in around 30 mins. I didn't wake up for it in purpose, but my husband had to wake up early today and I wanted to have breakfast with him before he had to leave. I logged in and decided to check the zone. There was no one there yet. I decided to run both my character and my husbands character there just in case. Then I got the idea to also bring my friends WHM there. When the first window opened, there were only me with my 3 chars and a person from a big HNMLS. Of course, I couldn't be so lucky that it would've popped on first window.

After a couple of windows more people started to arrive. I was starting to lose my hope of claiming, but I wanted to stay to get the ToD at least. 15 minutes before the second last window a friend RDM Artemision came online and I asked him if he wanted to join us (my husband had come home at this point). He said yes and hurried to the zone. When he was still on his way, the window had already opened and both me and my husband were hitting our claim macros as fast as possible. Suddenly I saw something huge on my screen and realized it had popped right in front of me. I really didn't know what I was doing because I was in kind of panic but suddenly I noticed its name turn red and saw the text appear in my log: "Evyen uses Chi Blast. The Behemoth takes damage."

First thought in my mind was "What the hell just happened?! o.O" I screamed to my husband: "I got the claim, I got the claim!" and couldn't believe it myself. It took us a while to get over the shock. My husband started building hate (he was there as PLD) and I just stood there next to the mob. Then I suddenly remembered I had brought my friends WHM there so I started to cast buffs on us, just to do something. When Artemision had arrived to us, we started to kill it.

It wasn't really difficult. Our setup was PLD/WAR, MNK/NIN, RDM/BLM and WHM/BLM which was also played by me. The only "problem" was that I was taking the hate off the tank, but it wasn't really a problem since the mob didn't hit very hard. It had also quite bad accuracy, since it missed most of the TP moves it used on me. It wasn't really a difficult fight, I used my 2hr but it was just to make the fight a bit shorter and because I had the hate most of the time anyway.

It was such a great feeling to see it fall down dead and read "Evyen defeats the Behemoth". We were all so happy and proud that we actually claimed and killed it together! A couple of pics here..

The name! It's red!



Notice how pathetic the poor taru tank (the one hiding behind its foot) looks in this pic:



We did it!



I had such a great feeling about our accomplishment that it got me thinking the people who choose to do these things in the "easy" way, cheating. Yesterday was the emergency maintenance which apparantly fixed a glitch which had been widely abused. If I understood it correctly, the glitch made at least some NMs drop 3 of all items. Think about 3 Ixion cloaks and so on from just one NM... I don't really know more about it, I just read a bit BG and Alla this morning and got bored with all the QQing going on there.

I was surprised so many people were actually complaining about SE fixing this glitch so that they can't abuse it anymore. When I read about the glitch, my first thought was "Why didn't anyone report it sooner?" Seems like there's something wrong with me because I honestly thought I'd report it asap if I saw something like that happen. Of course, it's easy for me to talk because I don't do for example Salvage, which I understood was the place where the glitch was mostly abused. But for me, the right thing to do would be to report it. I wouldn't really feel I deserved the gear if I got it in a way I wasn't intended to get it. It would take all the warm and fuzzy feelings out of it, it wouldn't feel like an accomplishment to me.

Same applies to camping NMs. I've never really understood why someone wants to use bots to claim them. I know that if I had used some unfair means to get to claim today, it wouldn't have been the same at all. I wouldn't have been so happy, probably I had just felt ashamed and guilty. It would've taken all the excitement and fun out from the experience.

I'm quite sure though that those people who do bot aren't really looking for that fun and excitement, but something else. I'm also quite sure that they think I'm really stupid to be so excited and happy about claiming one tiny NM once. But I don't really care, it's just my way to feel and my way to play this game. The only sad thing is, my way of playing doesn't really hurt anyone elses experience, but their way of playing does.

Anyway, enough thinking for now... I haven't again done much this week because I've been ill (a horrible flu, still). But on Tuesday there was my husbands birthday party in Windurst. I stayed there for a while even though I felt horrible, just because I didn't want to miss it. But when everyone else decided to go out and start singing and dancing, I decided to go to sleep instead. Anyway, the party was fun and my husband got a lot of great gifts!





And for the end a landscape pic I took while I was exping my DNC in Tahrongi Canyon:

A bit PUP endgame, a NM in the past and more whining about whiners

On Thursday me and my husband woke up, looked out from our window and saw this:



It's winter here now, it seems! Too bad we can't really enjoy it, because we're both ill atm (got a flu). But I hope we'll get better during this weekend.

In game, I've tried endgame a bit as a PUP. On Monday I did limbus as a PUP (used RNG frame, unfortunately don't remember the zone) and it was great to do something else than sing for a change. Also yesterday on our ZNM run, I used PUP for the first time on Cheese Hoarder Gigiroon. My automaton magic skill isn't fully merited yet, but I think Comedies nukes did some ok damage. This was one of her best nukes:



The ZNM run yesterday went ok. We did 8 pops and got some nice drops. I just felt tired and ill and tried to do my best to make the run go as smooth as possible... until in the end when one guy managed to piss me off and I basically told him to stfu. The leader had told us to move together but some people (including this guy) ran ahead (to the wrong direction, of course), so we had to go raise them and whatever which made us lose too much time.

Well, when we were going to the last NM, this guy kept complaining about how it took so long and he was already late from another event. Then he just ran somewhere and died (he was in a horrible place, in a wrong direction and it took us some time to raise him because we had to kill all the mobs on the way to him). Then, when we were finally at the camp, this guy fell off to another area and couldn't come back up. So we told him to die so we can tractor him, and he kept complaining about exp loss (boohoo @ losing a few hundred exp with R3).

I just hate it when people just whine and whine and whine and complain and whine some more about the things that are mostly their own fault. I mean, who told him to fell down so that he can't get back to us? No one! Instead, he was (we all were) told several times to follow our leader and stay together. It's only his own fault if he doesn't follow instructions and has to die because of that. Also, it's totally not our fault if he's late for another event, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. So no point in complaining about that to us, it just makes us feel irritated. It's your decision if you stay for so long that you miss another event or not, so whatever you decide, you should be ok with that. If you're not, well then it's your problem, not mine. Just stop whining in LS and party chat.

Anyway, like I said, the run went ok. I think I shouldn't have said anything maybe, but well, what's done is done. I apologized to our leader though, since I don't want to bring any bad atmosphere in the LS, and I certainly don't want to cause any drama. I should learn to control myself a bit better maybe, and not let people annoy me so much.



Yesterday we did also a couple of Ilrusi Atoll assaults and a Besieged with SecretFellowship. It was fun and relaxing, I'd like to do more stuff with these people!



Today when we logged in, a LS friend told us that the NM which drops Molione's Sickle, Ba'Tho Mercifulheart was up. They were there with a DRK, PLD and RDM and had just wiped. No one else was there, so we hurried to help them. When we got to the camp, they were keeping the NM slept and killing a link. At this point, we were DRK (weakened), 2 x PLD (both weakened...), RDM, WHM, SAM and BRD. Well, the link didn't want to die and the NM was hard to keep asleep, so we wiped, again. How sad.



After the wipe, we reraised, got aggro and wiped again. Good times!

Luckily, our amazing saviour-kiter-rdm Xmysticlegend was already on his way to the rescue! So we raised our dead and made them run safe to the zone. Then we rested full and let Xmysticlegend pull the NM (and an army of other quadav) to the zone, where we finally succeeded to kill it easily with no deaths. No drop either though.





I liked the Beadeaux of the past a lot more than the Beadeaux in the present! It was prettier and the music is so much cooler! Of course the mobs also wipe the floor with me, unfortunately. Putting true sight imps in Beadeaux is just pure evil. ; ;

An epic battle on a boat

This week we've been camping King Vinegarroon a couple of times. On the first day we camped it, it popped early and two people had to kite it for 2,5 hours while we waited for LS members to come online. On the second day we had more people online and only had to kite around half an hour while we gathered and buffed. We've camped it on two days this week, killed on both days, and got an Ace's Helm on both days! Lucky us. ^^



Yesterday we did a couple of ToAU missions (13 and 15) for a LS member Alixia. First one was the fomor NM Jazaraat which was easy with 3 people (DRG, PUP, RDM). The second was the BCNM on Ashu Talif. It was a 6 member fight but we went as 4: MNK, DRG, RDM, SCH. Our strategy was to sleepga and then pick the Ashu Talif crew members one at a time. However, the sleepga got resisted somehow, so all the bad guys were suddenly on our SCH, which made us go /panic and not follow the plan. It was a total chaos, people were soloing whatever mobs they saw (I had two on me) but it was sooooooo fun! I don't remember having that much fun in a mission for a long time! I was running around the ship hunting the crew members and it was all chaotic.

When we had killed them all, another set of crew members popped, this time with their captain. We all focused on the captain, and our SCH Dazz kept kiting the others. I used Hundred Fists on the captain, after which he did a 900+ dmg TP move on me and I died... But we won and I was the only one to die!







Yesterday we did a Kirin with Europa. It dropped an osode (I think I'm first in line after that one!) and Shura Body abj. which no one wanted and it floored. Kirin went ok, a few deaths, especially after Astral Flow, but it didn' take too long. I was a DD party leader as a BRD so I spent all the fight running after the melees and singing Minuet every time they stopped.

After Kirin we did Einherjar, second wing again. The first mobs were bats which went down nicely, but after them popped worms and this corse boss that someone aggroed... So we got the Mega Boss on us without buffs, songs, and so on. Well, we got it down but it was slow and we didn't have enough time for the worms, which were slow to kill. So we lost.

While fighting the boss, I got charmed and started smacking another (taru) BRD in the head with my Light Staff. It was funny. Good thing I didn't do much dmg and mostly missed.



Today I logged in and noticed there were a few ingots of Vivified Mythril in AH so I bought them and teled to Rabao to buy some Mythril Earrings. I did 3 synths and got 0.1 skillup. My skill is now 44.2 maybe, I'm not sure... Anyway, at level 45 I'll get the next rank and can get my cool sunclasses (after saving about 50K guild points of course...)!

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.

Growing things

The morning lectures at the university have started and I'm feeling terribly sleepy most of the time. I really don't understand why anyone would want to go to a class at 8 AM. It feels so unnatural and stupid to wake up at 6 AM when everything is just black. But well, I like the course I'm taking so I guess I'll just have to change my day rythm somehow so I wouldn't feel like falling asleep every other minute.

So, again I haven't done much in game. On Sunday we killed Xol again and this time we even got the hands! I was so happy our LS finally got a drop from him, even though I didn't get to lot. I took this screenshot before our leader kindly reminded me that Xol will also charm people outside the alliance and I'd better pull back if I don't want them to kill me. ^^;



I did the new in game event too. Unfortunately, most people in our LS had done it already so we couldn't do it together. But well, it was fun and easy, and the new furniture is nice!





Yesterday I did a nice BCNM run (Royal Jelly) with Buttons and Shokun. Our setup was BRD/WHM (me), SAM/DNC (Shokun) and SAM/WAR (Buttons). The BCNM was again easy and the drops were nice for me and Buttons. Unfortunately, Shokun didn't get much anything. My treasure pool looked like this:



Not a bad way to spend 40 BS. ^^

About a week ago I read the Pikko Pots gardening site and decided to do a few gardening experiments myself. At the moment I have 30 brass flowerpots (10 on each of the characters on this account). On 20 pots I'm growing Wildgrass Seeds and on 10 pots I'm doing experiments with some Tree Cuttings and Cactus Stems I've farmed or quested.

Today is the harvest day for the Wildgrass Seeds, so I'm excited to see how much gil I can make with them. I've also put the first crystals on the Tree Cuttings and Cactus Stems so they are growing well too.

(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.