Episode Sixteen: I'm The King of The Pirates!

What's this you say? A real blog post!? Indeed good sir, indeed. So I've pretty much just been working on my COR. It's at 52 right now and almost 53. I may try and finish that up before I go to bed tonight but probably not. I'm not sure if I've even done a proper blog post on here since I last picked COR back up but I've been messing with it for a few weeks now. I'm having an extremely hard time getting parties during the week but on weekends it's been a piece of cake. Pretty frustrating because I've currently only been having Sundays off so I pretty much blow my only free day playing FFXI ><. But videogames are more important then real life so I'm doing okay.

I'm currently not sure how far I'm going to go on COR at the moment. I want to take it to 75 but I currently only have 14k gil on me and I'm missing two dice. Not to mention the iron bullets that I'm using are 100k a stack. I'm really starting to see why COR is so expensive that it's taking longer to gain levels so I'm throwing away more gil each party. Granted I can always take the lazy route and just not fire any bullets if it comes to it. Speaking of lazy I partied with the worst BRD I've ever seen today, Baisino. Dude would only cast two songs and said two songs would be cast on the whole party. Apparently walking two feet back to cast ballad on the RDM was just too much to ask. Dude, claimed nobody had complained about how he was playing before. I find that hard to believe yet at the same time he is a BRD so it isn't too suprising that people wouldn't kick him even though he was crap. Me personally if I get a BRD, COR, RDM, ect, in my party and they refuse to play properly, I look for a rep and kick them. I haven't made a party in forever (minus the one I made today) but I've had to give at least one RDM the boot before.

Aside from leveling I'd done the usual Dynamis & Nyzul Assaults. I've received WHM legs, DRK legs, THF head, and PLD feet recently in Dynamis. I was hoping for THF hands in my next Xarcabard run but it appears there are a few other people going for it so unless 2-3 drop (yeah, right) I'm gonna up empty handed (no pun intended). Nyzul wise I tried to get my Askar legs and Denali hands but I've come up short. The Denali hands dropped twice but I was out lotted both times...

I attempted my first SMN burn party recently. It was a total failure. Half us had no clue on what to do and ended up astral flowing the wrong mobs and getting ourselves killed. It was an interesting attempt at least and I hope I get a chance to attempt it again in the future.


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Show number 16!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Episode 15: Pirates life not for me.

Yeah...I totally should update this thing huh? I'll get around to that...but not today! Guess I should post a link to the past 3 shows I've done since my last post here...also noticed that the links in the previous post both linked to episode 10...whoops. Fixed that.


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Show number 13!

Show number 14!

Show number 15!



Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Dynamis Windurst victory!

I've spent most of these few days meriting and looking for party. Finally capped my Store TP merits on Samurai and I'm currently unsure on what I'm going to spend my remaining points on. Going to wait and see what Square Enix is going to do with "Warding Circle" and other simular abilities with the next update before I spend anymore points on SAM.

I attempted to stock up on Allied Notes for the update aswell but as usual there were bearly any fights going on so it seemed like a waste of time. I've been pretty excited for this Sunday since last week because the linkshell I joined, Weaponry, was supposed to be doing a Windy run (which I needed), however I noticed on Friday that they were doing Beaucedine instead. I was pretty bummed but not overly suprised cuz' that kinda crap happens to me all the time. My blues vanished when I noticed that the crappy shell I joined for Einherjar was doing a Windy run that Sunday. So, I figured great, I can tag along with them and get the clear, then run with my normal shell next week.

However, when we were getting ready to do our run on Sunday another LS named Illuminados took our spot. LS members bitched and moaned cuz' our leader had reserved the space on some website but those schedualer sites are pointless since they aren't sanction by SE. As soon as word came down that the other shell would get in before us I started feeling pretty down. The shell decided to go do Sandy but I had no intrest in doing San d'oria again so I said f-it and asked the leader of the shell that stole our spot if I could do the run since it's the last city I needed to be caught up with my current Dynamis shell. This is how that went.





Now, If I understood what he type correctly, first he says I can come, then he tells me that he won't invite me because one of the members in his shell doesn't want me to come. He then tells me if I give him 3 million gil I can come and I just have to trust that this complete stranger will give it all back at the end of the run. Needless to say, even if I had that kind of cash I wouldn't have been stupid enough to hand it over to this shady fellow, so, I just warped back to Whitegate and sat around feeling sorry for myself for a bit.

After an hour or two I couldn't shake the desire to get Dynamis Windurst completed today so I ran back to Windy, set my search comment to ask if I could tag a long and sat down next to the entrence. I ended up sitting there for a looooong time. I watched the last episode of Breaking Bad, played some BlazBlue, and excerised to the kill the time. Finally when I about to start my crunches a large group of people had amassed so I braced myself and asked the leader of Overkill, Overlordkain, if I could tag along with his shell. I got no response and thought he was just ignoring me but it turned out that he just missed my tell while he was getting everything organized. After debating a little bit on how we were going to do it, he just ended up giving me a glass and a pearl and I did the whole run.


I was somewhat confused by what he wrote until Terrasii handed me a pearl. My inventory was full so I had to toss my InsaneBrotherz (a.k.a. crappy Einherjar shell) to make space but I think I'll live.

Right off the bat I had a good feeling about this shell because they were tearing through the mobs with little difficulty and the route they took through the stage was different then the one I've taken every other time I've done this run. Things were going pretty smooth but we did eventually wipe...twice in a row. I started to doubt that we were going to win but we still had time so I stuck with it. It wasn't too long after that when I saw a giant statue crossing a bridge and knew victory was close at hand. The SOB got a couple of hits on me but I managed to survive get the clear.



Now I just have to hope Weaponry fails their Beacudine run so that they'll have to do it again next week and I can get the clear there too :)

What I've been up to

I put together a Nyzul Isle floor 100 run on Saturday with Thebluedragon, Shortkiller, Vanin, Mirya, and Haublice. Much to my suprise we ended up scoring a Denali head which I had sole lotting rights too so I gleefully took it. I didn't feel as pumped as I did when I got my Askar head a few weeks ago but it still felt good and I was a little giddy for awhile because I was on Samurai so I couldn't equip it which lead to me constantly opening my inventory to look at it. After the first run ended, some people wanted to go again so we decided to do a floor 80 run. Thebluedragon left (I think he was out of tags) and we picked up Windraker and made another attempt. We beat the boss but we failed to get an armor drop. We had aquired a couple of ??? items but Haublice logged off quickly after we exited and took those items with him.

Later that day, still pumped from my earlier succes I joined up with Illucid, Eiana, Ririanne, Vaashe, & Jadeshadow to do a floor 20 run. It was an abysmal failure because Illucid and Jadeshow aggroed seemingly every gear in the stage ON PURPOSE, giving us all kinds of penalties and wasting a ton of time. Why they didn't just avoid the gears in beyond me but we ended up not even clearing the floor because of them. The first floor. They wanted to go again but I quickly jumped ship.



Why are you attacking the gears?

I've also joined a couple more linkshells. Weaponry, which is a Dynamis shell and Insanebotherz which is a Dynamis/Einherjar shell. Figured I haven't done endgame in so long I might aswell just suck it up and take what I can get instead of looking for something that has idea times for me. Weaponry is point based which I hate especially since I can only do one run a week with them due to work. But I figured even if it's points based I'll get some gear as apposed to nothing like I have been getting without a shell. Insanebrotherz I joined for Einherjar which I haven't done yet but we are preping for a run as I type this. *edit* Total failure *edit*

Some other stuff I've been messing around with is getting my polearm leveled. It's high enough now that I can use it in merit parties which is what I've been doing. Including one with Cobrazzzzzz who is the gimpiest person gearwise that I've partied with in awhile.



As far as I know he had the same gear on at all times. Full time dex rings THF af at 73. Is here main handing a theives knife in an xp party?...wow.

My polearm is currently at 238 and I'm guess it caps around 257 so I'm not that far off. I feel so stupid for waiting so long to level it but I'm glad I finally got around to it. Penta thrust is so awsome that now I want to level DRG to use Drakesbane. I also messed around with RDM a little bit. I'm working on getting Deathblossom unlocked. I'm still a ways away but at least I've gotten it started. I'm guessing I'll have it unlocked in a couple of days if I spend a little time on it here and there.

I also got my Askar body on sunday. I did the run as WHM which scared me quite a bit because I'm not a good healer but everything ended up working out okay. I didn't think we were going to make it because we had a few floors with chariots and one floor where job abilities were restricted but we managed to prevail and defeat the boss with a few minutes to spare. My thanks to Hirronimus, Malakz, Elsar, Seipher, Badmidou.



I can finally wear something other then a hauby!

And lastly I did my first Dynamis in ages. It was a Jeuno run and I ended up coming as WHM in an alliance-less party (ouch, my pride). Things started of real bad with a bunch of deaths and few near wipes but after a bit everyone got their stuff together and things started to run smooth. Sadly this shell has it's obligatory asshole, this one is named Astiar. He sent a few misstells insulting members in the shell and spent a good 10 minutes going on and on about how much better one linkshell member was over another. I wanted to toss my pearl right then and their. I can't stand people like that and I've quite shells before due to it in the past. I decided to tough it out though, it might just be an off night and I can give the shell and the guy another chance. If this kinda thing is a regualr accurance and Astiar doesn't get kicked I'm probably gonna bounce.







Quite the gentleman

Anyway, things were going smoothly (gameplay wise) until we got down to the last 30 minutes. We were making our way to the boss when we had a huge link and we ended up wiping. We were unable to recover in time and the run ended in failure. Didn't really matter to me because I have that clear but I'm a little worried about Dynamis Windurst. I still need Windy and if this shell can't beat Jeuno then they may not be able to handle Windurst either. Time will tell. Congrats to Shillelagh, Valesca, Mannabirds, and Zula for the gear this aquired.

Episodes 11 and 12

Sorry, for my lazyness. I'll edit this post later, time for work!

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Show number 11!
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Show number 12!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com



Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Episode Ten: A Crystaline Fallacy

Episode 10 is here! This episodes is more WHM leveling and the A Crystaline Prophecy quest. Spoilers in the episode if you haven't done ACP but there really isn't much to spoil.

I got lucky pretty early because when I logged on for the week Byson was shouting for an ISNM 3000, the puk fight. I joined that and got the go first, much to my pleasent suprise I ended up getting my drops.

Finally! They were going for 370k on the AH but I undercut for 340k (bit me). The BLM went afk and pretty much killed the run after only two attempts but I didn't really care since I got what I came for. I bought the lvl 68 WHM body piece with the cure potency on it. I did another run a few days later and got Khroma ore again, that was nice 400k in my pocket.

I'll finish the show notes later...

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Show number 10!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Episode 9: Dynamis Defeat

Episode 9 is out, and these show notes are like a week late, lol. I actually started recording the next podcast and then I remembered that I hadn't even done the notes for this one ><. This show is fairly uneventful. Nothing all that special happened but I figured I might aswell update anyway. The podcast was down for a few days, cuz' I was flat broke and tried to shut it off before I was billed. The feed is back up and I hope that it didn't cause any problems for anyone trying to check the podcast out.

I mentioned this last week but I talk about my failed Zilart Mission 16 fight. I haven't retried it yet but I'm still hopeful that I'll get it done sometime soon. I also did a few a Nyzul runs. I called a guy Oromusha in the podcast but his name is Oroshimar, whatever...he still stood in front of Cerberus and got himself killed.



Did another Nyzul run but nothing dropped that time either. Depressing but I haven't given up yet. On a positive note I finally got my WHM AF body. I was lvl 67 when I got the lvl 60 peice but hey, at least I have it. I took a nice screenshot of me posing when I acquired my body piece but I didn't actually have Fraps open, oops! This random picture of my back will have to suffice.




Did Dynamis San d' Oria a couple of times and neither went well. We got the clear and wiped on the first run, the second run was pure crap. We weakened the boss but we just weren't able to take him. We had a BLM d/c when the puller brought in a train of mobs with the boss. I think we would have beaten the boss had the BLM not d/c but you never know. The big question is was it chance or did she do it on purpose?



I spent most of my time leveling WHM. I tried to get SCH to 35 by soloing but that only ended with me dying repeatedly. And that was pretty much my week (or two).

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Show number 9!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Nothing much up

I've pretty much just been leveling my WHM. I woke up Saturday morning, logged in at around 9:00 A.M and with the exception of a few breaks I played until like 2 A.M on Sunday. Currently my WHM is setting at 68 with exceeds my goal of hitting 67 by the end of the week. I'm pretty suprised by that but I'm glad at the same time. I guess I'm gonna shoot for 70 by next weekend but I'm not sure if I'll make it because I'm moving next week and my SCH is at 34, meaning I'll need to spend at least a day getting that up to 35. However I think it'd probably be best to aim for 37 on SCH just to have it done and out of the way.

On the podcast front, not really feeling like recording a show at the moment. Considering I mostly just xp'd on WHM until my eyes hurt, lol. I did do a Dynamis but that wasn't too exciting. I'll probably do something some time this week though.

Episode Eight: A Gentleman and a SCH

Alrighty, I'm back. My first recorded show since returning so I go over pretty much the last few blog posts and my experiences since. I was kinda pissed because I recorded the podcast on Wednesday/Thursday morning but after I had everything done and edited I ended doing a ZM 16 run that I would have loved to talk about on the show but I wouldn't have been able to get the show up before I went to work if I had done that cuz' I was cutting it pretty close as it was.

The intro song is an old Playonline song for those of you who are confused. I had intended to do something much more grand but it would require a lot of editing and I'm pretty lazy. Maybe I'll have it ready for the next episode (probably not). I more or less spent the last weekend leveling WHM and SCH. My attempts at soloing on SCH while waiting for a party didn't go so well.

I also needed the new WHM spells if I was gonna level that up. Being poor I figured I'd try and farm at least one. I got Auspice without too much trouble but since I was already in Castle Oztroja, I figured I'd make an attempt at getting the Ochimusha Kote from Mee Deggi the Punisher while I was at it. I waiting about 30 minutes then a different NM popped and somebody killed it. I said f-it and left. I hate camping NMs.

I've made an attempt at getting back into endgame since my return. Just looking for 1 weekend run at the moment. I had joined a shell that a guy named Zeake was shouting for after the shell that Spardathedark had changed it's date. Zeake ended up not making his own shell and joining another shell named "SerenityBlue" and to just give him a tell for a pearl or show up Saturday for the run. So I log in on Saturday ready to do Dynamis but noticed that Zeake was in Sandy instead on Jeuno. So, I shoot him a tell and tells me he bailed on that shell. So, there I am ready to go with no Dynamis shell. I was tempted to go to Jeuno and see if I could get into SerenityBlue at the last minute but I figured screw it. Since then I have joined two shells. SocialOutcasts with is supposed to be a casul shell but when I put on the shell it already had events set and they were at times that I couldn't attend. I'm not sure about this shell yet but I guess time will tell. The other is BouncingSoul, a dynamis shell. I just got the pearl this morning so I don't know if it'll be any good or not. I'll find out Sunday.



So, anyway, after I got Auspice and bought a few spells and got my SCH to 34, I went back to leveling WHM. I'm currently at 64, about half way to 65. I tried campaign after the update that nerfed the amount of xp you get from beating on fortifications and got a whopping 172 xp after probably 8 minutes of attacking a wall...why does SE do such stupid things? Anywho, the xping was pretty standard fair no real problems. I did get pretty annoyed at the last party I had because there was a DNC and BRD who kept healing the PLD which made me almost useless. I guess I shouldn't complain but I'd like to do something more then cast haste, I can do that on my RDM. As fate would have it the new LS I joined, SocialOutcasts, mentioned that someone was shouting for ZM 16 in Whitegate. I asked Rdragonfly if he had room, he said yes, and I imediately started looking for a replacement. It took a little while but I managed to find a 60 RDM (we were synced to 61). Dude ended up dying on the way to the camp so I had to go raise him. It took forever to find him because he had been running the wrong way but I finally managed to R2 him. He was decked out in melee gear and wearing pants that appeared to be scale mail...I hope to Altana I was mistaken or he was just dressed like that for fun. Either way, it was the party's problem not mine :)

So, I get to Whitegate and Rdragonfly, who I've been in a endgame shell with before, invites me. I immediatly start panicing because I thought I had triggered all the cutscenes I needed but my mission title was wrong. I was all ready to drop and go cry in a corner but Rdragonfly was patient and told me to just go talk to Gilgamesh and join everyone in Sky. I do so (which is when I realize I had already done it) and head off to sky after waisting 30 minutes of everyone's time. The run to the BCNM went pretty fast an easy aside from some weapon aggro. Luckily nobody died.



When we arrive at the BCNM our setup is Rdragonfly (SAM), Jophen (SAM), me (SAM), Sirax (DRK), Alrahal (NIN), and Esiga (RDM). Rdragonfly explains that the stratgey is pretty much just to spam Tachi: Gekko over and over again until the NM is dead. Works for me. Very quickly a few of the party members go down, I don't know what killed them, I just kept spaming my weapon skills and hoped for the best. We ended up taking out the first form pretty easily but about 10 seconds after we started resting for the next half, we realized that the boss doesn't wait for you and just attacks.


Everything is going fine


We try to rest after first form and he teleports to us

We probably would have won but the RDM didn't have reraise. I don't know if he just didn't cast it or if he died, hopped back up, and died again. Regardless things seemed like there were going to work out, we had him about half way to death, I was just about to used meditate and weaponskill him when he puts us all to sleep. After that he just takes his sweet time killing us off one by one and ending the run. It was a nice attempt and I went to give it another go, next time that sucker is mine!


At least I got to see a cool cutscene

I logged in today but due to maintainace I realized I wouldn't be able to level white mage. I saw someone shouting for Nyzul floors 56-60 which I need so I accepted that. Ramzat, Seipher, Beartooth, Ichlgo, Oroshimaru and myself grabbed our orders and gave it a go. I thought the party was going to end in failure real quick because it took a while to clear the first floor which was a lamp floor and people kept aggroing stuff. But after that things went pretty smooth even when SE hit us with another lamp floor. We ended up fighting Cerberus and he went down pretty easily. For whatever reason Oroshimaru stood right in front of Cerberus instead of at it's feet like we told him too and died. We still managed to win pretty easily. Sadly on the RNG weapon, Quicksilver, dropped. I was hopping for Denali hands but I need the floors cleared so I was happy with just the win. That's pretty much it for this update. Gameplan is keep messing with WHM and hopefully have a good Dynamis run.



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Show number 8!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Oh, did I say Sunday?

Yeah, I was intending to do a show Sunday but I ended up playing Final Fantasy all day. Was gonna then record it Monday but I ended up playing Final Fantasy until I went to work. I started recording today but the party I had ran too long so I wasn't able to finish the recording before I had to get ready for work. So, I may have the episode up Wednesday. Kinda hard to say cuz' I need to watch the last episodes of Heroes and WCG Ulimate Gamer, fit FFXI in, and do the podcast on Wednesday. Tough to say if I'll be able to.

New Episode probably on Sunday

I picked up a cheap microphone and was all ready to record something but then my internet kinda went bye-bye for a couple of days. I'm supposed to have a Dynamis run Saturday unless something has changed so I'll probably try and toss something up on Sunday.

SCH doesn't totally suck

Sadly another pretty uneventful day. I logged in, played all day, and only got a few levels out of it. Which I guess makes it an average day of playing Final Fantasy XI. I started off the morning by doing campaign on DRK. I was only a few thosand XP away so I figured I'd might aswell. It actually went surprisingly well because I went to Rolanberry fields and the match lasted pretty long so I was able to get almost all the xp I needed in just one campaign. I believe I got the remaining 600 or so in Jugner and then my DRK hit 73. Just two more levels to go! Two more long and extremely boring levels...

I pretty much spent the rest of the day leveling SCH. I was going to xp on WHM and try out all the new abilities then I remembered my SCH sub wasn't leveled. I tried leveling SCH before but it was so boring that at about lvl 20 I gave up and decided I wasn't going to bother with it. A good plan, however if I'm going to take WHM to 75 I'll need to have SCH for a sub so it couldn't be helped. My WHM is currently at 60 so I figured I'd try and gain 10 levels in a day. Didn't happen, not really a suprise. The day started off promising. I got a party pretty quick in Qufim island from Kalatia. She told me to come /blm so I had a good feeling before I even got there. The setup was Kalatia (WHM), Kesina (PLD), Nekox (SAM), Mrminky (BLM), Dinor (BLM), and me (SCH/BLM). So, pretty much the black mages and I nuked non stop and slaughtered the pugs and crabs. Believe it or not this was my first time using a field manual in a xp party and I was pretty surprised with how much the bonus xp and refresh helped things along. I was about 1k from 21 when we started and ended up at level 24 in about and hour. There was some brief talk about going to Kahzam but a few people wanted to disband (myself included) so we called it instead and I took a little break.



Maybe and hour or so later I tried to go back at it again to much less success. I received an invite from Vaker who was in Kahzam. So, I head all the way out there and punk ignored me. I soooo hate that crap. Why bother making somebody go way out of their way to get to you if you aren't going to put them in the party when they arrive? The least you can do send a tell and say nevermind. Whatever, after that I went to Qufim figuring I'd solo while I waited for an invite. So, I busted out my NPC and picked page one out of the field manual and started fighting. Firstly my NPC was still on soothing healer which is not a good thing when you're a mage job trying to solo. Secondly it felt like it took forever to kill the mobs. As soon as I managed to complete the manual I was like f-this and left.

The next party I got was a pretty good example of what is wrong with FFXI these days. Had a bunch of people with no idea of how to play there jobs. Let's start with the party leader, Laurinitis. Not a bad guy but here is a "protip", don't make a lvl 24 party in Qufim Island! Oh my god was the xp bad. Luckily I had my empress band but this party was mind numbingly slow compared to the previous one. The BLM, Gamelia, was spaming spells and got himself killed a couple of times. I realized he didn't know what he was doing when I had to explain to him that regen didn't last forever... The tank, Mathewbryan, couldn't hold hate to save his life and the DRK Nodnarb, the DRK/WHM Nodnarb, got on my nerves a tad. He gave me some gaming adviced on curing that a second grader would know. I had to fight the urge to point out that I didn't need advice from a level 65 wearing DRK af and carapace gear but I didn't. I only gained 1 level in this party. It ended up disbanding when the BLM casted bio on a pug for no discernable reason.


Paragon of Dark Knight Excellence?


...

The last party I got in knew it's stuff thankfully. I don't remember the members names but I think the setup was PLD, THF, BRD, DRK, DRG, SCH. The theif was pretty slow on the pulls but I don't think it was her fault but she did have a talent for aggroing gobs. The PLD held hate extremely well and pretty much main cured. He never ran out of MP and as far as I could tell wasn't using any special items (aside from field manual refresh). The DRG was dual boxing the BRD which didn't really effect me any since he didn't have mages ballad yet. I ended up hitting 26 by the end of the night. Only one level in that party but it was pretty easy going and the party luckily broke just shorty after I got my level.

And that was pretty much it for today. I'm 4 levels short of my goal of 30 but I think 6 levels in a day is a pretty good accomplishment in the 20's. I'm unsure if I'm just gonna level it to 30 and stop or if I'm going to force myself to take it to 37 first. I'm probably going to stop at 30 because I don't have the inventory space to properly gear my SCH and that could prove a problem if I end up the only healer in a party. Time will tell. I'll probably try and level it a bit over the week but who knows. I really need to farm so I might do that instead. Oh, I also joined a ls today. Spardathedark (who I know from somewhere) made a new Dynamis shell that is doing their first run this Saturday. I probably shouldn't have bothered since it runs at nights and I work on nights but I figured even if I only do one run a week it'll give me something to do. Who knows maybe I'll find a shell that works better with my hours during the week. Right now I'm on the fence on if I should record an episode of the podcast now or wait until after the Dynamis run. I guess we'll see.

Back in Black

I hath returned. I'm back a bit sooner then I had intended but I just couldn't wait anymore. Can't really afford to return but I guess I can play until my phone gets shut off in a few weeks :). Sadly I can't grab A Crystalline Prophecy yet but I have logged back in. It was actually kinda weird looking at the game...I dunno something about the way the game moves looked strange to my eyes for a couple of minutes. Didn't take me too long to adjust though. I was a little shocked to see that my DRK was 72, didn't remember doing that, lol. I tossed all my pearls before I had shut off my account so there was no one to great my return, not that anyone in any shell I had would have cared. I'm still debating if I'm gonna jump into another endgame shell right away or wait it out. I'm currently working night shift so I'd probably have to join a EU shell but the real issue is god willing I'll have a different job in a few months and that could disrupt any endgame progress I make. I dunno, still puzzling that stuff out. I'd like to at least get Dynamis Windurst done so I can get outland access.



I had a somewhat uncomfortable moment when someone on my friends list messaged me and I didn't even remember who we was ><. That kinda thing happens to me a lot, one of the reasons why I started this blog. Sorry, Agent.



When I logged back in I wasn't really sure what to do. I only had 16k on me so I was thinking about farming, fishing, questing, ect. I figured for kicks I'd put up my party flag and see how long it'd take for an invite to come. Surprisingly it only took about 10 minutes before I received an party invite from a 66 WAR named Eternalhitman. It was a fairly standard affair. Xp was decent (about 10k and hour) and no big problems occured. There was some sorta interesting talk about which race was the best. Of course I threw in my two cents about Mithra but I think the majority of the party was in favor of Elvaan. Atleast of Melee were.

When the party broke I was about 8k from my level. I put my party flag up but I wasn't so lucky this time, so, I went to do Campaign. I had forgotten how annoying campaign can be. I'd run all the way back in time, go to a zone that the regional map said there was battle and of course there would be no fight going on. Or I'd get into a fight and die, hp, run back, die. /sigh. All and all I got about 4-5k over the course of the day.



I also played around with assault some. Just did 3 Periqia runs of "Saving Privite Ryaf" with Illucid (BRD) and Tlthemaster (MNK). It's a really easy assault so we didn't have any real problem. I did almost die from fomar aggro. Luckily Illucid pointed out that I should flee (I was DRK/THF) and I managed to save myself with around 12 hp remaining. I made about 40k from selling the drops and I'm currently at around 7,500 points on my Periqia assault. Only 13k more to go for my Yigit Gomlek.



While I was waiting to go for my last assault I bumped into Steak from Pet Food Alpha which was kinda neat. He tried to talk me into joining the dark side and leveling BST. Of course I resisted, I'd probably level PUP before I leveled BST. And I don't plan on leveling PUP any time soon.



Afterward I did a little more futile party seeking and ended up going to Castle Zvahl Bailys with Jfox to get his testimony. It was surprisingly quick and painless. I think we got the drop in 3rd room we tried. I got to bust out my NPC buddy who I hadn't seen in awhile. I think he's about 69-70.



That's pretty much it. I wanted to try out the new WHM and RDM adjustments but I figured I'd wait until the week and mess with them a little bit just to kill time. Hopefully this Sunday when I get up something worthwhile will happen.

Episode Seven: J.R.R Security Token

Yay, episode seven. Way sooner then I expected too. Man, I hate this feeling. I had no desire to play FFXI but in these past few weeks I've been dying to play ><. The crappy job I have has a lot of mandatory overtime but these past couple of weeks we've had the weekends free. Perfect time to play FFXI since I have no life, except I can't! Woe is me!

My microphone is still dead but I remembered that my digital camera records sound so I figured I'd try that. There is a weird noise in the background due to that but I figure the audio quality for this show is so terrible anyway that it doesn't really make things any worse.

I kinda jump all over the place in this episode because I didn't have any show notes. It was kind of an experiment that just happened to work. So, I just ran my mouth for about 20 or so odd minutes at random. I cover mostly stuff that I've already posted on the blog. My thoughts on the RDM, SMN, WHM adjustments, security tokens, Mog Bonanza, server transfers, and stuff. Sadly, I've cooled down since my RDM post so I couldn't be as heated as I would have liked but I still manage to complain a little.

As for the music at the end...I listened to Pet Food Alpha's April Fools joke, well, their March 31st Fools joke and loved it. So much in fact that I listened to it over and over but I didn't feel satisfied since it was so short. When I was making the intro this episode I became inspired and decided to spruce it up a little. I cannot be held liable if anyone commits suicide or slices off their ears after hearing it. It seemed like a funny idea at the time.



Click the link to download.

Show number 7!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Dear Square Enix, please die.

Man am I pissed! Checked out the RDM updates this morning and I was in shock. They gave WHM all that great stuff then game RDM a seemingly worthless update (SMN just got a bug fix). If they had announced the RDM and SMN updates first it probably wouldn't be so bad, I mean pointless updates are Square's forte, but they had me fooled into thinking the bar was raised. The "updates" are as follows:

"In this second half of the announcement on job adjustments and additions planned for the April version update, we present to you a delectable array of changes that are bound to change the way you buff and summon!

Red Mage

The new job ability “Composure” and a new line of En- type magic spells will be added.

- Composure
(Lv.50 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Increases accuracy and lengthens recast time. Enhancement effects gained through white and black magic you cast on yourself last longer.

- Notes
Activating Composure will impose a recast time penalty upon all magic, songs, and ninjutsu."

*cough* What? It increases accuracy, and makes buffs casted on yourself last longer. That's cool but what is with the increased recast time? It clear that this buff is meant for melee usage. You'll get a higher chance of hitting and your buffs will stay on longer but if you have to wait longer it negates the point. Let's look at this in a party situation.

I pop Composure on myself, cast refresh on myself, then start hasting and refreshing the party. This process alone will take longer due to the recast time delay. Could be as little as 5 seconds or as much as double the time for each spell. Normally in a party, when refresh wears off on me, that's my cue to start the buff process over again. Due to composure however I may not even notice refresh has worn off for a bit if I'm in the middle of casting debuffs. And when I do start casting it again everyone will have to go longer without refresh or haste. Pretty annoying but not too big of a deal by itself. But like I mentioned there is also debuffing to do, curing as well. If I cast paralyze and it's resisted, I can wait a second, then toss it up again. With Composure active, I'm gonna just have to ignore it and try to remember to come back to it later cuz' It may waste too much time. Again by itself not too big of a deal since spells like paralyze, bio, dio, ect have a pretty short recast time. Other spells like gravity and stun are a whole other matter. These abilites take awhile to charge and can make the difference between life or death in a lot of situations, making the the increased delay unexceptable. Let's not forget curing. I toss a cure IV up on the PLD cuz' his HP dropped to red. He tries to cure himself but his casting is interrupted so I cast a cure III on him. All of a sudden the mob uses incenerate and drops his HP back down to the red. I try to hit him with a cure IV or III but I can't due to casting delay. Hooray!

I can't see the benefit from the solo side of things either. Okay, I use composure before I start fighting and cast Protect, shell, haste, refresh, phalanx, stoneskin, enspell, bar element, and utsusmei ni to get myself buffed, then I turn Composure off...that's it. During combat it would only get me killed cuz' RDMs have to cast keep all of those spells going (minus maybe the bar element) to keep themselves alive if fighting a Tough or above opponent. For some of the spells like haste and refresh, composure isn't such a bad deal since you'll have to cast them less. But for spells like stoneskin and utsusemi it's devestiating. The increased delay is pretty much guarunted to get you skilled.


"- En Type Spells
Enfire II (Lv.58) / Enblizzard II (Lv.56) / Enaero II (Lv.54) / Enstone II (Lv.52) / Enthunder II (Lv.50) / Enwater II (Lv.60)
Adds elemental damage to your initial attacks (subsequent blows by characters for whom multiple attacks are possible do not receive this effect). Each successive activation increases elemental damage strength up to a predetermined limit. Reduces the target’s resistance against the associated element.

Example) Enfire II: Adds fire damage to your initial attacks and reduces the target’s resistance against water."

Okay...level 1 enspells deal damage per hit which makes them useful even if only barely so. Level 2 enspells will only activate on the first hit. Meaning unless it does a huge chunk of damage, it will end up being weaker then a level one spell if you are double or triple attacking. The level 2 spells also weaken elemental defense for certain elements, not bad but there are already weapon skill and magic that does the same thing. It'd be great for BLM in your party except you don't want a BLM in your party and you get the spell at 58, a couple more levels and you are fighting colobri who reflect spells that a BLMs cast...

Ugh, I have a bad feeling that this update will be totally useless. I was hoping for a reason to start playing RDM again and this just isn't it. I'm perfectly fine with no buffs that benefited party melee, but with no real enhancements to soloability I'm still better off using my THF or NIN to kill stuff at 75.

Down not out

Hell, if I can't do a podcast, there is still no reason for not posting my thoughts. I mean, this is a blog, right? So, I was gonna podcast about some of the FFXI news that's happened over the past few weeks but I'll post my thoughts about that stuff here instead.

First up, not really FFXI news but I fixed the links to episode 1 and 2. They were linking to my other podcast Serial Experiments Gaiden feed. So, I fixed those links and they now lead to the proper Looking for Party feed.

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The first bit of game news is server migration. It seems that Square is offering people on the Bahamut server the chance to move to a different server free of charge. I'm currently on the Bahamut server and too be honest, if I were playing I'd be pretty tempted to make the move. It sucks that the only choices are Pandemonium, Garuda, Kujata, Seraph, Lakshmi, Midgardsormr, Fairy, Asura, Remora and Hades. My current character is from Quetzecoatl, so, if that was offered I might have picked it. It is interesting to see Midardsormr on that list though. My first character, Parillius, is from there. It would be neat to go back there again but I'm sure I wouldn't remember anyone (nor would they remember me) and all of my real life friends who started the game with me don't play anymore. Who knows though, since I'm not currently playing and I've only been on Bahamut for a year, I may log in and find myself stuck in new world when I start playing again :/.



GTFO my server, mortal!


Probably the biggest piece of news released lately, at least to me, is the White Mage update. WOOOOOOW, in my last podcast I mentioned being on the fence about taking it to 75 but after reading about all these updates, it seems set in stone that I'm gonna level WHM when I get back. Unless of course some other job gets pimped out before then and I pick that instead. Sadly I don't understand some of the info that Square Enix has released but I'll give my thoughts on them anyway. I'm sure some of the other FFXI podcasts have explained what all this stuff means but I haven't been listening to other FFXI podcast lately because I'm saving them for my return.

Job Abilities

Two complementary new job abilities are scheduled to be added, with ability delay set low for both so that white mages can optimize their usage for the ever-changing tactical needs of the battlefield.

"- Afflatus Solace
(Lv40 Ability Delay: 1 min. Duration: 2 hrs.)
Inspires you to draw strength from the healing spells you cast.

While Afflatus Solace is activated, the amount of HP you restore via Cure spells and the job abilities Benediction and Martyr will be recorded up to a limit determined by your character’s level.
This accumulated amount will determine the bonus value granted to specific spells."

When I first read "Inspires you to draw strength from the healing spells you cast.", I thought it meant combat strength. I was like wtf, melee WHM? Nooooooo! But upon rereading it it does seem to really only effect your healing ability. I can't really say how useful this is but since it doesn't seem to have any real penalties, it should be nice. I'll be curious to see how much of a boost your healing spells get but this seems like a double edged sword. In parties WHMs usually have a backup healer (I try to avoid parties with WHM only myself) so the extra healing power might mostly go to waste. Especially if you have a PLD tanking. Secondly, there are a lot of lazy WHMs who like to toss up Cure V all the time. The extra healing power will make their cures pull even more hate and I can see that causing trouble in a lot of parties. But I still think this ability will be neat even though it'll be one more spell that you need to keep up during parties. It's a little weird that SE would make WHM more like SCH but maybe that's what it needs.

"- Afflatus Misery
(Lv40 Ability Delay: 1 min. Duration: 2 hrs.)
Inspires you to draw strength from the damage you take.

While Afflatus Misery is activated, the most recent damage you sustain will be recorded up to a limit determined by your character’s level. This damage amount will determine the bonus value granted to specific spells. Unlike Afflatus Solace, it is non-accumulative and overwriting"

This ability seems to be almost useless unless you're soloing. I'm assuming it'll effect banish and or enfeebling spells. Sure WHMs will get hit here and there in a party but if you're getting hit enough to keep Afflatus Misery charged, you are playing the job wrong. I do suppose that if my thoughts about Solace being a double edged sword prove true, it may be worthwhile to just leave Misery up encase you do pull hate.

"- Sacrifice (Lv65)
Transfers one enfeebling effect from target to yourself.
Casting Sacrifice while Afflatus Solace is activated grants a bonus to the number and variety of enfeebling effects transferred."

Now this will be extremely useful. Extremely annoying aswell but what can you do. Should be nice for if a tank gets hit by bad breath or some attack that does multiple status ailments. I just hope nobody expects WHMs to use this to take bio/dia or silence off anyone.

Spell changes and additions

"- Cure / Cure II / Cure III / Cure IV / Cure V
Casting the above Cure spells while Afflatus Solace is activated grants the target the effect of Stoneskin for a short duration.
The Stoneskin effect attained via this method is not stackable with and will not overwrite the white magic spell “Stoneskin” or Blood Pact: Ward ability “Earthen Ward.”

Awsome! I'm sure the stoneskin will probably be so weak it'll only weaken the next attack as apposed to nullifying any hits but it's still extremely nice. This should make any job that tanks happy and is bound to save the lives of party members who are one hit away from death. This will put SCHs who like to toss Stoneskin on the party and SMNs who like to use Earthen Ward out of a job but oh well. I'll be curious to see if this works on members outside of your party. Should make power leveling interesting.

"- Elemental Resistance Spells
Casting Bar- type spells while Afflatus Solace is activated grants an additional defense bonus to the associated element."

Does this mean bar spells will actually work now?

"- Holy
Casting Holy while Afflatus Solace is activated grants a potency bonus to the spell based on the amount of HP you restore. The record of accumulated HP is reset upon use."

I don't think I've even bothered to buy Holy. Boy is that spell useless. It might actually do damage with Solace activated but if negates your healing boost it isn't really worth it.

"- Cura (Lv40)
Restores HP for party members within area of effect.
Casting Cura while Afflatus Misery is activated grants a potency bonus to the spell based on the most recent damage you sustain.
The record of damage taken is reset upon use."

I don't see how this is different then Curaga but maybe it costs less mp then Curaga II and heals for way more then Curaga I, which could make it useful in a pinch if the casting time is fast enough. The fact that it becomes stronger if you sustain damage makes me think it's perfect for healing a party after a goblin fight if it uses bomb toss.

"- Esuna (Lv61)
Removes one enfeebling effect from yourself and party members within area of effect.
Casting Esuna while Afflatus Misery is activated grants a bonus to the number and variety of enfeebling effects removed."

Yes please. I've never understood why WHMs didn't have this spell. Divine Veil is great but since you can only use it like once every 10 minutes it's nice to have an alternative. Esuna should make fighting imps way less annoying. That is if it doesn't take up too much MP.

"- Auspice (Lv55)
Reduces TP dealt when striking an enemy for party members within area of effect.
When cast upon a white mage for whom Afflatus Misery is activated, Auspice also adds light damage to initial attacks and bestows an accuracy bonus when target is missed."

If I'm reading this right, it's saying mobs will get less TP when they get hit if the spell is active. That's kinda neat. I've never really cared about mob TP myself. It always seems like they use their abilities whenever they want regardless of how much they've been hit. While abilities like this and subtle blow have a slight effect on most mobs, I don't see myself using this outside of a boss fight. I sure as heck won't waist MP casting this on goblins.

"- Banish / Banish II / Banish III / Banishga / Banishga II
Casting the above Banish spells while Afflatus Misery is activated grants a potency bonus to the spell based on the most recent damage you sustain.
The record of damage taken is reset upon use."

Pointless. Just like Holy.

Other Changes

"In addition to the above mentioned adjustments and additions, the following changes will also take place:

- White magic “Banish II”: Slight increase to magic accuracy. Casting time shortened from 3.75 to 2.5 seconds.
- White magic “Banish III”: Slight increase to magic accuracy. Casting time shortened from 5.5 to 3 seconds.
- White magic “Banishga II”: Slight increase to magic accuracy.
- White magic “Raise II”: MP consumption reduced from 200 to 150. Casting time shortened from 20 to 14 seconds.
- White magic “Raise III”: MP consumption reduced from 250 to 150. Casting time shortened from 20 to 13 seconds.
- White magic “Reraise”: Learning requirement reduced from Lv33 to Lv25 for WHM, and Lv40 to Lv35 for SCH.
- White magic “Reraise II”: Learning requirement reduced from Lv60 to Lv56 for WHM, and Lv75 to Lv70 for SCH. MP consumption reduced from 175 to 150. Casting time shortened from 8 to 7.5 seconds.
- White magic “Reraise III”: Learning requirement reduced from Lv75 to Lv70 for WHM. MP consumption reduced from 200 to 150. Casting time shortened from 8 to 7 seconds.
- Job ability “Martyr”: Ability range increased to be equivalent to Cure spells."

Totally sweet once again. The Banish part is rubbish but the rest of it is super useful. I love that they've reduced the amount of MP needed to cast raise spells. I just wished they'd shortened the cool down timers a bit. We'll still have to wait forever for Raise II and III to recharge whem WHMs have to raise a large group of people. With Reraise II dropping from lvl 60 to 56, I'll have to pick that up before I start leveling WHM again. Too bad I spent all my cash buying a Black Cuisses for my DRK before I logged off last.


Sorry Red Mage, there's a new pimp in town


Boy, that took some typing, lol. Next up is MOG BANAZA! I'll be back in time for this for sure! I didn't win anything last year but I intend to buy all the marbles I can this year and hopefully I'll get a treat. Looking at the list if I win it'll probably go something like this.

Rank 1: Ares's Cuirass. The Futsuno Mitama is pretty tempting but I think I'd be better served to take the Ares body since I can use it on PLD and DRK.

Rank 2: Homam Corazza is the clear winner. THF would come out of farming duties and become my job a choice again if I had a piece like that.

Rank 3: Algol would probably be my pick here. +3 triple attack for my DRK? Yes, Please. Sure I'd get myself killed but it'd still be awesome to have. The Homam Cosciales is pretty tempting too but I don't think I'd get it unless I won the Body piece to go with it. The Hauteclaire is fairly tempting with physical damage taken -7 but since it's Paladin only I don't know if it's worth it when I can get pieces that can be used by other jobs. The Seveneyes club also has some appeal with +7 conserve MP but I still think I'd go with the Algol.

Rank 4: What a difference a few years makes eh? I would have killed for some of this stuff once upon a time but now the Moldavite Earring is the only piece that I think is worth getting. I never really understood why the only alternative, leaping/bounding boots, were such a big deal myself.

Rank 5: Nothing of any value here. I guess I'd take a statue if any of them have special effects.

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I guess the last thing to comment on is the trailer for "A Crystalline Prophecy." My opinion of it is that it's pretty lame. Doesn't really show anything, it's another trailer with text that won't make sense until you play the content, and it stars another little kid. C'mon Square, would it kill you to make a main character who is old enough to drink? In Rise of the Zilart the main bad guy looked like it he was 13, in Chains of Promathia, Prishe looked about 15 at best, Nashmeira might have been an adult but since this game is Japanese I'm gonna guess she was 16, Wings of the Goddess brought a little Elvaan brat, and now A Crystalline Prophecy brings us a new little runt. Square, more characters like Tenzen, can I have it? I only watched the trailer once but I doubt my opinion will change when I see it again. It'd be nice if they introduced something cool.

Okay, that'll do it for this post. Man that was loooong. I probably spent way more time on this then was needed for something nobody will read. On the podcast front I've given up on my old mic. I may break down and pick up the cheapest one I can find at Walmart so that I can put something out but considering I'm a month behind on bills, I don't know how wise that would be :). We'll see what happens I guess. I'll try and have another blog post up if Square releases any more info that is of any interest.

Technical difficulties

Was about to record a show this morning when my microphone was acting weird. It was recording sound but my voice was barely audioable and the feedback was pretty high. I don't really know what's wrong (yes, I checked the mic boost). Trying to fix it but I don't know what's wrong so I may just try recording as is or hold off for now. Just what I need, more problems :/


*edit* Yeah, looks like the microphone has crapped out. Can't get it to work right on my other computer either.

Episode Six: Job Fair

Finally back. Yeah, it's been awhile. I ended up having to take a break from FFXI cuz' I was flat broke and had to save some cash. I finally started working again (a real crappy job that I'll quit as soon as I find something better), so hopefully I'll be able to return pretty soon. Due to the mass amounts of boredom at work I've spent a lot of time day dreaming and one of those dreams was about recording another show. So, here I am, lol.

I don't have any ingame talk during this episode because I haven't been playing the game, duh. I did have some notes from the last time I played but I figured screw it, I'd just do something different. For this episode I just give a quick opinion of the different playable jobs in the game. Bare in mind that I just pulled up the wiki page, shot my mouth for a few minutes, then moved on to the next job. It's NOT an indepth analysis or a serious critic of the jobs so don't send me hate mail if I disrespect your job of choice.

Other than that I checked up on some of the stuff coming to the game soon. I'm hopeful for Augments but I'm sure SE will manage to mess them up. I'm also looking forward to the Crystaline Prophecy expansion, and I hope to get to check that out soon. None of the other stuff I read sounded interesting. Well anyway, till next time. I don't intend to take another month to get the next show out ><.

Click the link to download.

Show number 6!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Episode Five: Shell-less in Selbina

Episode five is upon us. Nothing all that great to talk about this week.
Ended up quitting my endgame ls Crystal Guardians after my last Dynamis run in Jeuno. As I mentioned in the previous post I was thinking about it. I was planning to wait until the next run was about to start then make up my mind but Limbus was bumped up to Thursday instead of Saturday so I was forced to kinda decide on the spot after Zgz sent me a tell, so I just chose to quit. It's a pretty stupid decision really, I'd be better off toughing it out, at least until I got all the gear I wanted but oh well. Not really sure what I'll do endgame wise now. I think if I join another endgame shell, I'll try to find one that uses ventrilo or some kind of speaking program. It's way too difficult to read a command when it's just a line of green text that swiftly scrolls off your screen. I'm also dropped my social shell after a kindred seal notorious monster fight.




For the first time in weeks I managed to get a party for my lvl 68 DRK! A lvl 12 level sync party in the dunes...I don't know why I accepted (okay it was desperation) but it was a mistake too. I could have gotten way better xp in campaign. Xp per mob wasn't bad but people kept going afk all the time so we spent most of the two or so hours standing around. I'm was only like 50 xp from 69 but I couldn't bare to stay there any longer and left. On the plus side I was fishing out of boredom while I was seeking on DRK and that made me want to fish some more. Hopefully I can stick with it.

I successfully got up to Nyzul floor 50. What sucks is I thought Nyzul floors could be added to your count retroactively. Meaning I had already done floors 1-40 & 45-60, so, I figured when I did 40-45 it would plug in the gap and I'd have up to floor 60 completed. That wasn't the case and I now realize I've wasted a lot of ID tags doing floors that don't even count, lol. I don't know why I thought it worked different but I guess it's no big deal. Just gotta wait until someone does a shout for 50-60 and maybe I'll get a mythic weapon.

Click the link to download.

Show number 5!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Nyzul Insults

Shadow Lord down! I got mission 5-2 completed for San d'oria finally. I'm rank 10 in Bastok and Windy so I'm almost done with nation missions! I just saw a shout in Whitegate for mission 5-1, we went and won that one pretty easily then everyone agreed to go and fight the Shadow Lord. It took a little while to actually get the Shadow Lord fight started though. I've spent a lot of time in the castle so I was able to get to the throne room pretty fast but I ended up waiting maybe half and hour for everyone else to get there because a player logged and when he came back he had to guide a few members to our destination. No big deal but it was a little annoying. The party consisted on LordMighty (SMN), Lastdragon (MNK), Coventina (SAM), Liselone (BRD), and Kymira (WHM). I switched to NIN for that fight, not to tank mind you, I was just lazy and wanted the movement speed bonus that the AF boots provide :). I was a little annoyed because Coventina started wacking away at Shadow Lord while we were in our cutscenes so during both forms I only got to smack him around a little bit but I guess I'd pimp slapped him enough times that it wasn't a big deal.



After that was done I received confirmation that FFXI hates me. I attempted 3 Nyzul Assault runs in an attempt to get floors 41-45 cleared. I have floors going up to 60 out of the way except for that little gap. I was considering logging off for the night when I saw the shout and was overjoyed to finally be able to get those floors out of the way. We had two members who said they hadn't done assault before so I was a little worried but things seemed to be going fine. We didn't have any lamp floors and we were clearing things pretty well up until floor 44. It was a gear floor and there was a lot of aggro and time wasted but we still managed to get to floor 45 with enough time to clear. Unfortunetly it was a Soulflayer floor and there were gears on that floor too boot. We took out the first flayer pretty easily but while we were looking for the next, Silrye, aggroed a bunch of stuff and was running around the stage. She managed to locate another flayer (possibly the only other one) and we dashed over to take it out. That plan fell short when it opened with Blizzaga III and took the WAR and myself down to almost dead in the first seconds of the fight. To make matters worse, there was a gear right next to the flayer, so the WAR went down fast. I tried to move back a bit and fight the flayer but the gear came around the corner after a few seconds and we ended up wiping.




At this point I was only slightly annoyed. I still had 3 tags left so we all went back in to give it another try. This time we only made it to floor 43 because the WHM was busy polishing her nails instead of curing the WAR and he died needlessly on the NM we had to kill and it was downhill from there. Attempt three was even more of a waste of time. We ended up replacing a couple of members and trying again. This time however we did get a lamp floor and we ended up wasting a huge chunk of time due to someone not finding the 5th lamp in the stage. When we finally got passed that with not nearly enough time to clear, Square Enix decided to slap us again by giving us a NM that is immune to Slashing physical attacks (Energetic Eruca), making the WAR and myself (SAM) useless. The only one doing any damage was the Pup...after awhile the RDM ended up just kiting it around to burn time and we got kicked from the assualt.

This is really pissing me off. It shouldn't be this hard to clear these floors. I always get terrible luck or terrible players. Why does Altana hate me? I also did Limbus for the first time. I've had Sky access for almost a year but for every reason I never tried Sky before. It actually went pretty well, we got the clear and I received one of the items need for AF+1 and a couple of beasts coins. I was a little surprised at how easy Limbus was but we probably just did an easy one.



After limbus was done a few members members wanted to go farming organs for a Shadow Gorget. I had no idea was a shadow gorget was but I figured what the heck. That didn't go so well, the first UFO we tried to grab turned out to be a NM and with only 7 of us it ended in a wipe. After everyone got back up I logged and went to play the Resident Evil 5 demo, lol.



I think I'm done with my Dynamis shell. Didn't take me long, a couple of months maybe but like every endgame shell I've joined before it, I think I'm quitting CrystalGuardians. No real "good" reason but I'm a little tired of being berated after every run and we are always failing which doesn't help matters. Today we did Dynamis Jeuno, which we had done before, and failed. It started off pretty darn sloppy and ended the same way. I came as THF to be a support puller of sorts. Pretty much my job was to pull a mob after the main THF aggroed the big statues. Simple enough except that the tank who was supposed to voke the mob off of me, Swiss, never would. Half the time he didn't ever get a chance to because Derond (a PLD for a different party) would pull his mob anyway. After a little while the ls leaders caught on that there was a problem and then the MNK in my party started tanking instead of Swiss the PLD. This worked out much better because Ukiyasan is a competant player and he would grab the mobs off me when I pulled them back. I still had to worry about Derond grabbing mobs he wasn't supposed to but not much I can do about that.

Things go from bad to worse a short while later as we are getting close to the auction house portion on Dynamis. All of a sudden Raizen announces that each party is going to have a camp/spot to stand on and mobs will be pulled directly to them. That way all the different groups weren't fighting on top on each other. A sound strategy but it seems a little odd to do this now when we had tried a different strategy last week that seemed to work but were ignoring it this week. Unfortunetly Raizen didn't account for the shear stupidity of the shell. People were totally unable to follow even a simple instruction like, "stand here" and every time a mob was pulled the chaos of people running all over the place and ganging up on one mob instead of fighting separate mobs continued. Gameplay wise we didn't have too much drama after that. Surprisingly ls members have actually learned some things and we were on the ball mostly except for some bad pulls. But the thing that really irks me about the shell members is their seeming inability to pass on the items that drop. I boggles my mind that after all the weeks we've been doing this that people still won't pass on the currency when it drops (In Dynamis everyone is supposed to pass on the ancient currency that drops and it goes to the linkshell leaders). Having to hear Shadoe, Raizen, and co, shout every few minutes for people to pass currency is extremely annoying and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that people can't take 5 seconds inbetween fights to pass on items. What blew my mind the most about this was that a piece for relic gear dropped and everyone passed on the relic who wasn't able to lot it, but some people IGNORED all of the currency sitting in the treasure pool. Okay, so you can pass/lot on relic no problem, but you're unable to pass on the currency that the linkshell leaders have been telling you to do so for weeks? Unbelieveable. So many people in that shell either don't even try or are just incapable of following basic instructions.

That leads into the LS leaders bitching at everyone after each run over and over again. It's just so annoying and honestly I don't think this LS will get any better. It doesn't matter how good the strategies get, the members just don't posses the basic skills or mental comprehension to get the job done. I believe that in time the LS can become good but if it takes 6 Dynamis runs just to train people to not use weapon skills on Ninja mobs, I shudder to think how long it'll take before people learn the advanced stuff. Even then when we go to Northlands, people will have to learn stuff all over again. We have a Dynamis San d'oria run this Friday but I'm on the fence. I know that it'll be another piss poor run in which we may get the clear (which we don't need) but there will be plenty of needless deaths. It's frustrating because Dynamis Windurst is the last city I need to get Northlands access which makes me wanna stick with this shell at least for that but I know in my heart of hearts, that they will just fail the run.

Episode Four: Chin-cheater

Wow, another episode and it didn't take me weeks to record it! I was inspired to make an episode due to the bannings that happened recently in FFXI. So, the meat of the show is me complaining about that. My stance on that issue is that they got what they deserved. I'm not happy people where banned but it was no accident that they lost their accounts. I start the podcast talking about what I did in game, which isn't much, and a little about my nyzul runs. I've noticed that I've become pretty cranky lately in FFXI. Meaning that I find myself dropping parties all the time. I was gonna talk about in this episode but something more interesting came up so I talked about the bannings instead. Maybe I'll yell at myself for being a punk at a later date :/

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Show number 4!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com

Episode Three!

Yeah, I'm pretty lazy. I recorded an episode last week but I wasn't too happy with it and I was too lazy to rerecord it so it's just sat there. So, I finally got around to redoing it and here we are. I just talk about how I spent my merit points and what I've been doing in game lately. Mainly Dynamis, Nyzul, and a little bit of Xping. I've submitted the podcast to Itunes, so you should be able to find it there soon so if not already.

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Show number 3!


Email me at: lookingforparty@gmail.com