28 September, 2004

Shadow Banisher

Obviously, my plan to try and get one quarter of the way through Level 57 failed miserably. Then again, this is noontime, rather that the usual midnight when I post these entries, so there's still plenty of time more to go. But seeing as how I've just completed the quest, lemme lay back and bask in my latest accomplishment for a bit. Don't mind if I do.
Rank. 6. Yea! ^^

Once again, this was very much a pickup thing, with me logging in, and Teleporting some LS members over to Xarcabard. Out of curiosity, I check the Linklist to find six LS members already in Xarcabard, so I can't help but ask what they're doing. Suffice to say, the conversation was rather short:

Me: What’re you guys doing in Xarcabard?
Sollanon: M5-2
Me: M5-2?!
Me: WAIT!!!


The others wanted to get the Zilart missions done quickly, so we tried to get it done post haste. Obviously, that didn't go too well. Getting to the Throne Room was itself a challenge and a half, since for some strange reason, we decided to take the hard way to Castle Zvahl Keep, dropping through some floors, holes, and walking past IT Demons and Floating Eyes. I'm positive there's an easier way, after all, Zenyu took me to Castle Zvahl Keep for his AF2 quest, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. At least I didn't die. Shikari and Lorec on the other hand... ; ;

Once we were in the keep itself, getting to the Throne Room was pretty trivial, and we ended up training Demons and Eyes all the way up to the Throne Room just for kicks. Once there, let me say that the view from the top of Castle Zvahl Keep is spectacular. Everyone needs to see it at some point in their playing career (and probably will when they do M5-2).

While getting to the Throne Room was a challenge in itself, the Shadow Lord was rather disappointing. Then again, we were far above the intended level where this fight used to be done and let's say that both Shikari and Crixis had little problems running a few Sidewinders through the Shadow Lord for its first form, and Sollanon's Fire IV takes care of the second form pretty darn quickly. It was a little scary with the AoE spamming, and everyone got to red, but a few Cure IIIs later, it really wasn't an issue anymore.



Oh well. I won't spoil too much of the storyline by listing it out here- those who have done it will know what I mean, and those who haven't will just have to do it themselves. Hah! But anyway. One quick Teleport-Mea and a walk to Windurst later, I am now Rank 6 and feeling pretty darn good about it, too. ^^ The closing spiel after the Shadow Lord's defeat is also pretty nice,

“And so the shadow lord was defeated,
thanks to Tuufless’s selfless courage and sacrifice.

Through the clouds shines a symbol of
Newfound hope for the peoples of Vana’diel.
But none should forget that wherever there
Is light, there is always shadow.

The legend goes on to say…
From the darkest depths of the earth
The Warriors of the Crystal rose…

Lion: So… I guess this is goodbye for now. I hear they’ve started flights to the Outlands. If you ever get your hands on an airship pas to Kazham, come see me in Norg sometime. I’ll be seeing you, Tuufless. Bye!

Zeid: I, too, feel that our paths may cross again. Until then, I wish you farewell."

Zilart Missions, here we go! :D

27 September, 2004

Crafting up a storm.

Yet another one of those days with absolutely no experience gained whatsoever. Then again, I didn't feel like raking in the experience points, so that in itself justifies the oddity of the situation. Now, tomorrow on the other hand...

Instead, I went crafting. A lot. After several weeks of slowly picking up pieces here and there, I finally accumulate 48 Mythril Ores, in addition to simply grabbing a few cheap stacks of Mythril Beastcoins off the Jeuno Auction House, I made, well, quite a lot of Mythril Ingots. Well, not really- just two stacks. Hopefully they'll sell by tomorrow, since it would be very nice to see 164,000 gil in my delivery box...

The long road to getting the gear for my Black Mage is underway, my latest acquisition being a Black Cape +1. For some strange reason, the Black Cape +1 is 20k cheaper than the White equivalent, and I can't figure out just why. I suppose it's just a lower level craft, although it'd be rather odd if the White Cape had some rare ingredient the Black Cape didn't. Oh well. So to recap, I have my Seer's Tunic, my Seer's Mitts +1, my Seer's Crown (+1, for some reason, the game doesn't display the '+1' on the HQ version), a Mercenary Captain's Belt and a Black Silk Neckerchief.

To go: two Morion's Earrings, a Morion Tathlum, a pair of Garrison Boots, Seer's Slacks +1, and a pair of Wisdom Rings. Total cost will be about 400k. /sigh

On the bright side, just making one stack of Mythril Ingots nets me some 30k profit. With an estimated timeframe of 3 weeks before I hit WHM60, assuming I craft (and sell a stack) everyday, that's 630k profit right there. I could get a Reraise II and still have plenty to spare. Of course, things never actually work out that way in the end, and getting ahold of the requisite Beastcoins in already a pain in itself, but it's nice to be able to use both Beastcoins and Ores now.

Oh, and I decided to complete Gobbiebag #2. Another 25k down the drain! /grumble

In other news, I also decided to (finally) use those stacks of Water Crystals I've been accumulating from all those dead crabs up in Cape Terrigan. So, with nobody of any real significance seeking in the 56-58 range, I hop on an airship bound for Windurst and visit home sweet home once again. Of course, once I got there, many many Saruta Oranges later, I have a somewhat shaky beginning to becoming a cook. (Cooking 8.9 now, for those who wish to know. :P)

Finally, I helped someone get his Magicked Skull (yea, I know, I invariably end up helping people with the skull in particular) He was a BLM19 from my RDM party yesterday (he was BLM18 at the time) and simply put, I cannot stand seeing a main job of 18 with no subjob. Having no subjob at 18 or more is a crime in itself. Every time a person tries to party in Qufim Island without a subjob, someone skins a kitten. To me, you should be running to the old man in Selbina handing in your quest items as soon as your party is finished. No subjob = gimp. Simple as that. It was funny when we got in and I started to cast Diaga on a bunch of Skeleton Warriors and Ghouls. The very next line that went through /p was hilarious:

"Are you nuts?!"

In the end, getting the skull took a lot longer than I expected. We eventually ended up forming an alliance with another skull-hunting duo (a PLD44 and a WHM20 (no subjob! blasphemy!)) and got two drops within 2 minutes. Strange, no?

Anyway, that's it for today. Nothing terribly interesting, but hey, may you live in interesting times.

Taru~! ^^

26 September, 2004

One Step Closer.

It's rather funny being a White Mage sometimes, although I guess this pretty much applies to any class that fits into the four basic components of a party later on in the game. (i.e. Healer, Tank, Damage, Support) For some reason, it's very easy to find three of the four components and none of the fourth. That's not too surprising. What's surprising is the number of times you can find a huge overabundance in one particular area. Case in point, I randomly did a /sea all inv 55-57 and saw WAR, WAR, WAR, MNK, MNK, DRG, THF and not a single mage, tank or bard around. Granted, these things are out of the norm, but what can you do?

Because a similar situation presented itself when I tried to get into a party, I instead decided to help out another friend and his WHM17. That meant finally taking up the sword again, whipping out the Enthunder, and playing Red Mage. :D

We eventually found our place in a 17-19 party that was organised by a new BLM17. The setup wasn't great at all- WHM, WHM, SMN, BLM, RDM, WAR- far too mage-centered, and as expected, we couldn't really handle anything IT. Allow me to say something about the Valkurm Dunes: people seem to come in here in waves of classes. When my White Mage first came to the Dunes, everybody was playing Warrior, or Monk. Mages were scarce. Mages were highly sought after. Now? Far too many Summoners, that's for sure, and I suspect the new changes to the Summoners have something to do with this. Sure, they may be cool, but they're still not that great in a party. Then again, it was nice to see levels where you needed less than 5k xp to advance. ^^ I ended up being the puller, which I have to admit was rather fun. In the end, I think I treated the party more like a skillup party, and my Sword is capped, while my Dagger is just 3 levels shy. Go Enthunder! :D

No sooner did that party disband, I return to Jeuno and decide to switch over to my White Mage. I put up my seek flag, and had to laugh at what was literally a bombardment of /tells from people who all wanted me in their parties. I hadn't even opened my Mog Safe to get my gear before purple lines from six different people flowed in. Guess there really weren't any other White Mages seeking at the time. ^^

Suffice it to say, I eventually settled on a NIN, BLM, PLD, WHM, DRK, SAM party up in Cape Terrigan. The Cape was empty, we had no competition, and while the experience was somewhat slow, partially due to the party's 55-58 spread (and a BLM that was experimenting with mass nuking, something I don't quite agree with) we were cooking up about 3k xp an hour and soon enough, I got my Level 57! Now, only 20k separate me from my Healer's Briault, then from there, I can take my own sweet time in getting Level 60 and my Healer's Mitts, and then that'll be WHM AF complete!

I think I'm going to level up Black Mage to 75 though. I bumped into Zenyu over in the Boyahda Tree, and his BRD + 5x BLM party. It just looked ridiculously fun (and good!) Seeing five Black Mages all start casting Freeze on an unsuspecting Bark Spider was just hilarious to watch, and you can easily repeat this to reach ridiculous chains. Yea, the BLM party has to be the best setup around. Go Mages. ^^

I am considering buying the rest of my Seer's gear in preparation for my Black Mage, but I'm somewhat torn over the pants and the boots. I want +1, just to show off. Practically speaking, paying an extra 10k for +1MP is ridiculous, and that 10k can easily be spent elsewhere like oh, I don't know, Morion Earrings for example. But still, I'd like to be the best Black Mage out there, and having the best gear at the time is part of that, although there comes a point where you have to draw the line. Other than that, nothing much of note happened. I did craft up yet even more Mythril Ingots to sell, and somehow ended up being dragged into a Genkai 2 party late at night, but oh well.

If everything goes according to plan, I'll be 58 and strutting my Healer's Briault across Lower Jeuno in seven days from now. Taru~! ^^

Chains of Promathia!

For some strange reason, I decided to try and install Chains of Promathia at three o'clock in the morning. Bear in mind that the reason why I hadn't done so earlier was because up to now, my CD drive had been causing me problems-- I, in fact had been trying all day, to no avail. Even the technicians were stumped. But for one reason or another, the CD drive decided to co-operate with me, and I was on my way to Chains of Promathia!

'Course, once I saw the files that needed to be downloaded, I went to sleep to the faint hum of my computer and the knowledge that the 10,600 files or so would be ready for me when I wake up...

...which for goodness knows what god-awful reason, was seven o'clock in the morning. Without an alarm clock. I was tempted to go back to sleep, but since I was awake, why not?

My first experience with Chains of Promathia was to go explore the new zones. Unfortunately, the only one I knew how to get to was Oldton Movalpolos, from the Gusgen Mines. It, also happened to be the one I was interested in, seeing as how you can get just about every single ore there, all the way up to Platinum. Exploring new places is a wonderful experience. Having to /check everything you come across, simply because you never know when something might prove to be a threat to you. Case in point: everything in Oldton Movalpolos is Too weak to be worthwhile, on the other hand, everything in Newton Movalpolos (just one zone away) was Incredibly tough!



After having to Warp out of Newton Movalpolos thanks to some aggro that would surely have killed me, I then set out to try and access Emptiness, which is basically the start of the Chains of Promathia storyline. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but you need to enter the Lower Delkfutt's Tower to trigger the opening cutscene, and after that, it's eye candy. I'll say this much: Bahamut is cool. ^^

Anyway, I also managed to get a good chunk of Level 56 completed in two separate parties today, including a party that started out great since we were the first in the tree, and we chalked up 5,400 experience points in the first hour before everything dried out as more and more parties came in. I, unfortunately died twice to two accidents, once in the party, and again once we had disbanded. Let's say I decided to go coffer hunting, and at least now I have my map. :D

I'm very sleepy right now, but with any luck, I'll be Level 57 tomorrow. Only 5k experience points to go!

23 September, 2004

Star-ordained Warrior.

When I woke up this morning, I was 15,000xp away from level 57, and was hoping to narrow that gap down to 10,000xp.

As I type this, I am still 15,000xp away from Level 57. /cry

Ah well, not all is lost. As the title so blatantly reveals, I managed to get Mission 5-1 completed, completely quite by chance, too. This afternoon, nobody was seeking, so I was simply idling around Lower Jeuno, periodically checking the Jeuno Auction House for Mythril Ores and Beastcoins to add to my collection. Every once in a while, I'd give a Teleport-Vahzl to somebody for the standard one thousand gil. It soon became apparent that I was teleporting a lot of people from the same party over to Xarcabard, and eventually, curiosity got the better of me. I asked what they were doing there.

"M5-1 ^^"

"M5-1?!"

Needless to say, after returning their Teleport money, I managed to find myself a spot in the overall scheme of things. Granted, I was their seventh member, but they had no qualms about going through the fight a second time. Given that people in my linkshell had already tried earlier in the morning, and had lost didn't help to quease any worries I had. But they assured me the fight was easy.

Arriving at Fei'Yin yet again this week was rather odd. I've been here three or four times already in the past few days, all for various reasons. I have yet to return here to try and get my Warp II scroll, but that's another matter altogether. It was rather amusing though, since I had to rummage through my Mog Safe to try and find equipment that a Level 50 could wear. Fortunately, I had my Gold Hairpin, Wonder Braccae and um, Light Solea to replace my Healer's Cap, Panteloons, and Boots. When we got inside the Cermet Portal, I remember thinking how odd a Burning Circle is in the middle of Fei'Yin, which is about as cold a place as you can get.



The fight was pretty easy with a Bard and Black Mage in the party. They'd all pull the newly spawned skeletons over to one side and keep them slept while the other members would pummel the main boss of the fight, Archlich Taber'quoan. For a skeleton, that guy sure has a lot of HP, but hey, you don't get called "Archlich" for nothing.

Things got tricky at the start when I first discovered that the battle arena was larger than I had expected (felt a lot bigger than the arena in the Waughroon Shrine) and thanks to the Level Cap, my in-built equip macros to ready my Light Staff when I wanted to Cure somebody would interrupt my casting. In the end, I had to type out everything by hand. My fingers still hurt from jamming in "/ma "Cure III" " as fast as I could. ; ;

The other guys were going to head off to complete Mission 5-2 later, but they wanted me to be level 60 first before they'd let me go. Oh well. Then again, wasn't 5-2 originally done by a full alliance of Level 50s? /shrug.

The other funny thing that happened was chancing upon another miner by the name of Younai. He was selling Darksteel Ores in Jeuno for 5000 gil apiece, so I figured I might as well pick up a few for Glueforever to craft up, since his Smithing reaps him nice profit off Darksteel. The definition of "few" certainly didn't match up to what we were expecting.

32 Darksteel Ores and 64,000 gil later, we're not only scrambling around trying to find space to store all this Darksteel, but we probably singlehandedly created an overnight shortage of Iron Ore in Jeuno, Bastok, and San d'Oria. I suppose you had to be there in order to grasp the hilarity of the situation, but oh well. Turns out that Younai is one of the Chinese gilfarmers, and while we were wondering if supporting the online gil selling was a good idea, we couldn't really say no to cheap Darksteel. C'est la vie.

After trying for a few more hours to get a party (and subsequently failing) I eventually resigned myself to try and mine again, although I decided to pop down to the Palborough Mines for a change. After all, I needed the Mythril, the common drops are the same as in Gusgen, and Platinum Ores would go a long way to financing my Goldsmithing once I hit the dreaded 41-48 stage. One hour later, I come to the conclusion that mining Pally alone is a losing affair. The points are so spread out that it just isn't worth it to mine here unless you're in a team, much like logging in the Jugner Forest. I briefly entertained the idea of creating a mining linkshell so we could mine out Palborough effiectively, but that is more than likely not going to happen. Oh well.

22 September, 2004

Encounter with Aquarius.

Overall, today was rather "bleh..." But to ruin the surprise, we did fight Aquarius, that we did! :D I found a party in the morning, WHM, RDM, PLD, RNG, SAM, DRG if I remember correctly. I would've gotten a DRK instead of the DRG, but the DRG and RNG shared the same Linkshell, and the RNG was joking to me about how the DRG always complained about she getting parties. Anyway, no sooner do we reach the Boyahda Tree does the Samurai pipe up, mentioning that his LS is coming down to fight Aquarius, and whether we'd like to help out, just for kicks. Of course, we would not be able to lot on any of the dropped items, but all of us were game, just to say we helped. ><

And there it was, roaming innocuously between its fellow Robber Crabs and Knight Crawlers, Aquarius himself. I had only seen him once before, when I believe it was a RDM70/NIN tried to solo it, although he pulled Aquarius to a distance out of sight. We were an alliance of twelve. Me and my little level 55-57 party, and a linkshell comprising of people levels 60 through to 70. The fight was actually pretty darn easy, probably because of a Ninja tank. Bubble Shower had a huge range, not that it mattered, and the crab's life was going down oh-so-slowly, but eventually, we wore it down without too much of a hitch. (At least, not to my recollection.) It was still quite an experience, and someday, I should compile these records with my screenshots just because.



Anyway, after we beat Aquarius and said our /goodbyes, we got down to business. In the end, it was a decent party, raking in 4k worth of experience every hour or so. Too bad the party only lasted an hour before one of the members (our Paladin) remembered he had to go fetch his Mum from the airport. We would've continued, but no replacement in sight. Oh well. I had originally aimed to gather 5,000 experience in the four days I have free each week, and I was 1k short of this goal. But for some strange reason, nobody was seeking, probably because I was looking around off-peak hours.

Instead, I went onto other pursuits. Like looking, and examining my Seer's set which I've been eyeing for quite some time now. Of course, to be precise, I meant Seer's Set +1, even though only the Mitts and Crown have the stats from the HQ version that I'm interested in. Mitts were selling like hotcakes at 50k apiece, and it took a while before one even went up on sale today. I hesitated to buy it (50k is the most I've ever spent on armour, of all things...particularly when the normal version is oh, 42k cheaper...) but with plenty of my old equipment selling, I had money to spare. That, and selling two stacks of Mythril Ingots yesterday made me a very happy Taru. Now if only more cheap Beastcoins were actually in stock...

The funny thing about gil now is that when I was still in my 30s and gil was scarce, I was saving whatever I could. Now that I'm 56 and have 250k (post Seer's Mitts +1) with a few extra 10k or so in the Auction House, I still feel as if I'm a miser. I am perfectly aware that if I wanted to get the rest of my Seer's gear right now, I could, but something's stopping me. Maybe it's because I know that as soon as I get it, I'd want to level up my Black Mage, which I'd want to do with Glue. Or it just could be the price of it all. It just occured to me that the Seer's Pumps +1 costs more than my Wonder Braccae, even though for most intents and purposes, the Braccae is the superior piece of equipment. Hrm... Oh well. I'm off to see how many more people have listed Mythril Beastcoins. Taru~! ^^

Note: Since returned. Now I'm Goldsmithing 38.1! Wheee! :D

Monday Blues.

Thanks to the lag, I accomplished pretty much nothing. Well, except get mad at two more NA players (the highest percentage of people who just piss me off unfortunately come from this continent), one of whom was a NIN73 that somehow died in the Eldieme Necropolis. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Sorry, but are you guys okay with a Raise II?" (there was a BLM62 dead beside him)

Him (via /tell): yes

Tuufless casts Raise II on Kroeger.

He then runs off?! For christs' sake, you'd imagine that someone who's a level 73 Ninja would've learnt the very basics of manners! As Ben tells me later, he's one of those wannabe-uber players. /grouch. Still, that's no excuse to not say "Thank You". I didn't even get a /bow out of him- he just ran off and that was that. Sheesh, Like it's your given right to get a Raise. I wonder how many people suffer from superiority complexes once they hit level 60 or 70.

As if that wasn't enough, I gave some Thief a Teleport-Vahzl, who was so crude in his handling, I wouldn't disbanded and let him take another tele-taxi if I was any less tolerant. Like, I know how to do a teleport, thank you very much. Another person who just simply ran off as soon as he touched Xarcabard soil. At least I got a Thank You through the auto-translator. Whoopie. The one nice moment though, was helping a new BLM18 by the name of Neemo get his Magicked Skull as I was heading down to Gusgen to mine. Fortunately, the skull dropped on just the fourth Ghoul, so that was a short-lived affair. He turned out to be quite a nice guy to talk to, and I ended up telling him about what higher-level play was like. I can imagine what it must've been like. 40 levels ago, I never would've imagined Warriors make crap tanks.

Anyway, started taking a look at gear for the Black Mage. So far, the shopping list looks pretty darn expensive, too. I'll finish off my Seer's set, and see what happens from there. Seer's gear is really very good, although I can't quite tell if the prices are going to go up or down. Oh well.

20 September, 2004

Paragon of White Mage Excellence

People must be wondering what the heck I was doing that made me skip both breakfast and lunch (I can hear Mum fuming in the background). Last night, after some 4 hours of killing random undead mobs in the Eldieme Necropolis, I finally got a Tavnazian Bell to drop. I went to sleep last night with the intention of getting my Healer's Briault (sp?) today.

And so I did. Of course, anyone who has ever done the AF3 fights for just about anybody will know how much of a pain it is to assemble an alliance. It was about 9 o'clock that I logged on, and discovered that it was Darksday, Full Moon. Thankfully, I bought a really cheap stack of Mythril Beastcoins from Jeuno that completed my set of 48 coins. One airship to Bastok and some talking to the Goldsmith's Guild later, I am now Goldsmithing 34.8 and about 78k richer (that is, once my Mythril sells). Surprisingly, I didn't break anything, which is always a Very Good Thing. (TM).

But going back to getting my jacket. I returned to Jeuno, trying to figure out how I am going to get about this, "farming" up Teleport-Vahzls whenever someone shouts for one. It just so turns out that I Teleported a Taru Black Mage named Zenyu when he was rather impressed at my proficiency in Japanese (Hah!). Out of the blue, he asked if he could add me onto his friends list, and since he seemed like a rather nice guy, I gave him the green light.

It didn't take long before I asked him what on earth he was doing out in Xarcabard, when he told me he was working on the Black Mage AF2. I offered to lend my assistance, since well, I wasn't exactly busy at the time. Long story short, we end up getting his boots after he died (aggroed two skeletons and a Evil Eye by mistake) and another failed attempt. It was during then that I found out he was a WHM70, and he offered to help me get my jacket.

We returned to Jeuno, and so began the long road to trying to assemble an alliance. The first member was tough, since nobody really wants to reply to a fight that requires an alliance when there are only two members. I asked Chamot (a Japanese Mithra Ninja friend) what she was up to, when I noticed she was in Ifrit's Cauldron trying to get her AF. She said she'd come help me once she was done. After much shouting, we still had just the two of us.

Eventually, I randomly /search-ed for Chamot, and noticed she was now in Jeuno, and invited her in. From there, people slowly started trickling in. I would run around Jeuno /shout-ing in English, while Zenyu would repeat my announcement in Japanese. It was funny at first, since by the time we hit 8 people, we had two Singaporeans (Elowen and I) and six Japanese. Needless to say, the helpfulness of the American community weren't showing itself then.

But no sonner did I joke about this in the linkshell did the first /tell come in from an American player. From there, he brought his friend, and more people started to reply once the member roster hit ten people or so. In the end, we had a rather unusual setup: one Black Mage, one Paladin, one Warrior, one Ninja, two Red Mages, and seven White Mages. As Elowen put it "If seven White Mages cannot keep the tank alive, nothing can." Very true. ^^



The rest was rather uneventful, except for an additional two members coming in, another White Mage and an accompanying Ranger, and 5-6 hours after we started calling for members, we finally got everybody their Tavnazian Mask. (That should give you guys out there a rough idea of how long this takes.)

The fight itself wasn't particularly difficult. I had imagined the fight to be ridiculously difficult, with people on the message boards saying it was the hardest AF3 fight of the lot, and the constant spamming of Dimensional Death wold give any White Mage the shivers. Fortunately, we only had one casualty (Zenyu ; ;) and everything was pretty much by the book. One Warp and a very long airship ride to San d'Oria later, I finally receive my Healer's Briault and the ominous title, "Paragon of White Mage Excellence."



Ah, to finally have that title bestowed upon you. My Mythril even sold during that time, so I went and crafted up another stack. Goldsmithing 36.1...

Sorry if this sounded all too-brief, but my stomach's rumbling now. Taru~!

It is finally...over...Ahh...
I can...I can see...Tavnazia...
he land of wind...and light...
My...My home!

(Special thanks to the following people for their help on the AF3 fight, in alphabetical order:)
Andoryu (WAR70/MNK35)
Atos (WHM61/BLM35)
Ceri (WHM54/BLM27)
Chamot (NIN58/WAR29)
Elora (WHM58/BLM29)
Elowen (RDM75/BLM37)
Esty (WHM57/BLM28)
Jenarose (???)
Katten (WHM56/BLM28)
Kerbine (RNG62/NIN31)
Murphy (WHM57/BLM28)
Oust (BLM59/WHM29)
Supaswimma (PLD62/WAR31)
Tsur (RDM70/BLM35)
Zenyu (WHM70/SMN30)


Thank you all! :D

18 September, 2004

Just another day.

For some reason, after hitting level 56 and learning Raise II, I just didn't feel like leveling up. Of course, the problem then becomes what to do instead. I could craft, but I only had 20,000 gil left on me. I really didn't feel like taking Carbuncle (and Shiva) out for a spin in the La'Theine Plateau, whacking Even Match Orcs and rabbits for 100xp then sitting down for a minute or so. I couldn't quite justify spending time leveling up my Red Mage, either (Let's just say the Flame Sword isn't terribly bloodthirsty at the moment).

So I went exploring (thank you Teleports!). Well, not really. The new areas are still closed to me (grrrr...) so I headed down to the Quicksand Caves to try and find the coffer. Two tries and an encounter with a coffer-raiding Thief and a soloing Red Mage later, I manage to find the Treasure Coffer, conveniently placed on an innocuous ledge. That trip at least took me to the Cloister of Tremors so I now know where to go to fight Titan.

After that, staring at my Workers set suddenly gave me an urge to go mine again. The question was where. It's a problem that's been gnawing at me for quite a while now. Basically, my two options are either Gusgen or Ifrit's Cauldron. Gusgen's pretty much 98% safe, sans the occasional NM that spawns along the mining route. It is also rather abundant in a certain ore that's given Tuuf a decent reputation for holding more than the average person's luck (although I swear it's the Workers set). On the other hand, a single Adaman Ore from Ifrit's Cauldron easily makes up for over a day's work in Gusgen. Ifrit's Cauldron on the other hand, is a death pit, and I don't like the idea of losing 2,000xp just because I didn't see the Volcanic Gas come up from behind when I ran away to recast Sneak and Invisible.

So Gusgen it was. I flew down to Bastok, picked up five stacks of pickaxes, and went to mine for a couple of hours.



Ten Darksteel Ores, one Gold (9k now!), 3 ingots worth of both Iron and Silver ores and Zinc Ore up the WAZOO later, I'm looking at over 75,000gil profit. Not bad for 2-3 hours work. Anyway, a rather uneventful day today. Hopefully the weekend'll prove to be better.^^

13 September, 2004

Summit Breaker!

Ah, production. Sundays. A smooth connection (for the most part).

When I last fell asleep at my keyboard, I was only 1,700 experience points away from Level 55. This morning, after a quick breakfast of pizza (America, d'uh) and melon, I log on at around 10:00 to try and get my level.

I got my level at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Those four hours were an aggravating (although rather amusing) example of just about everything that could possibly go wrong in a party.

I seek, and see a tank and a Bard seeking, the Bard being Zim from my previous party. Both players accept and now we have healer, tank and support. How hard can it be to get the other three (largely miscellaneous) members? Okay, with a Ninja tanking, we needed a Thief. No problem, we got a Thief. Then we got a Dark Knight (Dandarf, who for some reason always seems to get into my parties when things don't go well)

WHM, BRD, NIN, THF. DRK. How hard can it be to get a 6th?

Evidently, very hard. For some bizzaire reason, everybody disappeared after that, sans an extra WHM or NIN, not that we needed either. Eventually, we settled on a Warrior which turned out better than I expected, given that I haven't partied with a true blue Warrior since...Ben's WAR35.

With no Bard and no Red Mage, we head down to the Boyahda Tree to fight spiders. We try to grab a chocobo from Port Jeuno, but decide that the 1,700 price tag for a chocobo was daylight robbery, so we Teleport over to Mea to try and grab a chocobo from there. Of course, the chocobo vendor at Mea's offering his birdies for the low, low price of 1,800 gil. /frown.

We eventually reach Boyahda and we fight one Spider. Then, our poor THF discovers that all the other spiders decided to get all lovey-dovey, and we cannot pull for a good while. By now, it has been over an hour since I first started making the party and we're +150xp so far. Eventually, we manage to find a lonesome spider which ends up killing our Warrior with a Sickle Slash for 621 damage that lead to much gaping. At least the Warrior was not the whiney sort.

Wondering how we could've been lacking in the healing department, Zim (our Bard) makes a shocking discovery:

He Warped back to Jeuno to party and forgot to switch his subjob to WHM.

BRD/BLM, anyone?

So as our Warrior's resting, Zim Warps back (/BLM ^^) and switches over to /WHM and forks out another 1.7k on another chocobo, which gets a few chuckles out of the Japanese members and I. He chocobos back, and then lo and behold, it's 12:30. He hits the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah when he lets out another announcement: it's lunch time and his Mum insists he eats at the dining table.

:(

At this point, the Dark Knight has had enough, what with one death, two kills, and 300xp for over an hour's work. So he logs out without saying anything, leaving us to wonder whether he intended to even return. Of course, that was just when Zim finished eating his (very quick) lunch.

So we eventually find a Red Mage to replace the Dandarf and end up sitting around the Boyahda Tree /poke-ing Spiders for another ten minutes while he arrives.

Then the Warrior disconnects.

Fortunately, he returns about five minutes later, but that's just another addition to the list of "things that went wrong". We go on to fight Robber Crabs with our newfound Dispel powers (although with a Bard's Magic Finale, I wonder why it didn't occur to any of us to do this sooner) and our first crab gets us 200xp each. The first chain gives 230xp. Things are looking better as we start work on Chain #2 then disaster strikes.

The Ninja disconnects.

Let's say fighting an IT crab with 5 people and no dedicated tank was not a very fun experience, although it sure was entertaining to see what we could do. Our Warrior did a good attempt at tanking wih his gear set to damage, and somehow held hate despite my having to repeatedly Cure III him. Fortunately, all is saved when the Ninja reconnects and we finish things off shortly thereafter.

One chain down, we begin work on the second. We're fighting another Robber Crab when disaster strikes again. All of a sudden, I see Zim's life go red, and I cannot figure out for the life of me what could've possibly hit him until I rorate my camera around and see it.

Three more Robber Crabs standing right behind him, pecking away.

To now, we still haven't the faintest idea how three Robber Crabs got there, since they certainly don't spawn in trios. It is quite possible that some idiot trained them there, but how they got there isn't the concern anymore. We try to move away to some other corner to avoid links (which actually worked), unfortunately leaving poor Zim nibbling away at grass while we try to finish off the crab we were working on. At which point, the Red Mage is having a chuckle at our misfortunates, saying something along the lines of "Two disconnects and one death. Good start ^^."

I replied with "You have _no_ idea ^^"

Fortunately, this is where it all ends. We start pulling, chaining, hitting #5 regularly, and the experience flows in. I hit my Level 55 when Zim has to go help his LS with the Shadow Lord. He sets off on the long walk back to Jeuno while we get Fangryn (BLM) to replace him. Fangryn's the BLM who helped me get my Giddeus chest key for Kazham way back when I was a WHM25 and he was BLM30-something, so it was nice to see him again. Eventually, the Japanese Thief levels up at which point it's 3:30 in the afternoon (4:30am for them) so they call it a night.

The Ninja decides he's had enough too, and all the melee disband, leaving a WHM, BLM and RDM behind. We try to piece another party together, but the people aren't seeking, so a few Warps later, we bring the party to an end.

I was about to log out, when out of the blue, I saw someone /wave to Fishura, my Taru RDM friend. I say the obligatory "yo" and /sea him out, and see he's leading a party. I then send him a /tell: "Putting an xp party together?"

He replies: "No, Genkai 2 ^^."

"Genkai 2??!"


To make things even better, Fangryn was also looking to kill Dark Spark for his gloves (said he'd been trying to get the people for days already) and when Fishura's G2 alliance reaches 12 members, I point out that Fangryn's assembling a Dark Spark party and would probably be more than happy to help us out with Genkai 2 if we help him complete his gloves.

Ten minutes later, we have 17 people in the alliance and we're off to Xarcabard.

The school network started crapping out on me, and the lag was bad. People would teleport all over my screen, and I'm surprised I didn't disconnect in the middle of things. With seventeen people, all three fights were really a cinch. I'll summarize since it's getting late. One hour. Genkai 2 complete and Healer's Mitts received.





Along with Level 55, it certainly was a good day to play FF. ^^

12 September, 2004

Heir to the Great Ice

"Who interrupts my slumber?
Was I dreaming for but an instant,
or an eternity?
The radiance that illuminates all, lost...
Which is the real world, and which is
the dream?
Am I...?
But enough...
Wager your life to prove your skill.
Let us see if you can provide me
with a moment of amusement.
Are you ready, you who is one yet many?"


Ah, FF. For the first time since I got here, the school network is actually giving me little trouble to the point where I can (finally) play FF again. And what can one accomplish in one day's worth of Final Fantasy?

Okay, so performance just had to be at its peak in the morning as I was about to go to class. Boo. Hoo. At least things eased up later at night, and tonight marked the beginning of the road to becoming what Tuuf was always meant to be (before that fateful encounter with a Taru in WHM AF)- a Summoner.

The above quote comes from the introduction to the battle with Shiva Prime, and I imagine all the other summons are more or less the same. After Ben told me that a WHM54 could take on Shiva (with the appropriate party), the deal was set. He went off, became a Roc Star again (cheesy titles R' Us) while I was furiously feeding some Selbina farmer's sheeps stacks of moss until the either the cows came home, I ran out, or the sheep exploded, whichever came first.

At least I got this when I spoke to the guy at the inn:

"Lady Tuufless! There isn't a soul in the kingdom that doesn't consider you a hero! As a representative of the people of San d'Oria, I humbly ask you to continue your efforts for the good of the country. May the light of the Goddess shine upon you!"

Level. Ten. Fame.

Oh, yeah. ^^

After fighting Shiva Prime in the Cloister of Frost battle arena, I am somewhat disappointed. I had previously cleared my PlayOnline screenshot gallery to make room for pretty pictures of Shiva, but the battle was intensive, and I forgot to take any pictures. Sad, ain't it? It was a hard battle, although probably not as hard as actually starting the battle, given the numerous things that happened to the party along the way, culminating in a "All right! Finally here!"



"Wait, isn't it Iceday?"

/groan


Nonetheless, just over one hour later, we fought (and beat) Shiva Prime. It was a tough battle, and Ben almost died (just to give you guys an idea). Some 2-hr abilities later, we have a defeated Shiva with just one casualty to boot. All in all, a good day, but one that's leaving me very tired out. At least this'll get me over jet lag. :D (I get the feeling this entry's overly rushed...)

Peace out.



"...Impressive, child of Vana'diel.
We sleep in a time that is neither
an instant, nor an eternity.
Is this world a dream,
or is the dream world an illusion...?
Very well, child of Vana'diel.
I will grant you a fragment of my power
to bring order to chaos."