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!
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!
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):
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!
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.
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.
My gardening has been going on pretty well, at the moment I'm making around 50K/week with it so it's ok. I'm still looking foward to try some different recipes and other things. And my Cactus Stems or Tree Cuttings haven't even grown yet... I've put 2 crystals to both of them now though, so it shouldn't take too long anymore... I think.
I also started growing a new baby choco! I've read some information about chocobo color theories and I'm testing some of them, trying to get a green one. But for now, my little baby choco is only a one day old egg.
On Friday we had our ZNM run and we fought this really cool vampire NM called Nosferatu:
Well, at least some of us were fighting... While the others (not mentioning any names here) seemed to be going John Travolta:
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.
