Category: FFXI

Sick of the dull, boring cover image I had, I cooked up a new one with a
screenshot I took last night at Ghelsba Outpost.

The next day after running around Giddeus looking around, I met up with
Ladyrikku and Evasama to finish up the later half of the Attowha Chasm map
quest. Tuufless completed it already and Puipuipui never had enough Windurst
fame to receive it. So the 3 of us gathered at Attowha Chasm and began searching
for the entrance to Boneyard Gully.

All I know was to hug the left wall all the way. The info I found on the net
didn’t give much details regarding this quest, let alone mention we would cross
Tiamat’s spawning point in our path! Tiamat, an NM wyvern which requires an
alliance of 18 level 75s and some reserves to take down. NMs have the True Sight
ability to see through Invisibility.

Running around it proved to be scary. I had to maintain a safe distance,
hoping it doesn’t turn around and wander towards our path, I had to keep an eye
out on Sneak and Invis making sure they aren’t wearing off. Scary looking
monsters all over that could kill me with a hit or 2. My heart was beating fast
as I made my way across this hostile region.

Somewhere just before reaching a cave, we would get poisoned. I think it’s
something to do with the land you tread on. Just need to keep an eye out and
avoid stepping on those lands. The poison reduced my HP at 15 per tick. Quite
fast. And I kept fearing the undead monsters would smell our low HP and come
hunt us down.

About a minute of wandering into that cave, Ladyrikku said we could
be lost. Just this moment I zoned into Boneyard Gully. w

We were rewarded with a cutscene and a brief appeareance of Tiamat. I wonder
if there’s another quest that we could do to find out what happened to the
Mithra Tracker who challenged Tiamat.

Next day I ventured into Ghelsba Outpost, the hills that are filled with
orcs. Most of them easily killed with one strike from my Vassago’s Scythe [XD].
Nothing much to report here besides the Treasure Chest I opened. Got 1K gil from
that chest if you want to know.

Next destination, Dangruf Wadi.

Hit level 58 over the last 3 days. Finally I can don my Chaos Cuirass, Dark
Knight Artifact body. Here’s a brief overview of some key events in my FFXI life
over the last 3 days, in chronological order.

First off, with Evasama’s help, I was invited into a Japanese EXP PT. The
most interesting part is the jobs and subjobs of some of the members.

Note the RDM/BRD, DRK/RDM.

Let’s see. The PLD tanks, RNG skillchains with me (DRK/WAR), BLM magic
bursts. RDM with a BRD subjob was able to give Ballad and Refresh to the PLD and
DRK/RDM giving them fast MP recovery. PLD is thus able to heal himself, DRK/RDM
is support healer and at the same time, was able to deal steady damage and
skillchain with the RNG once in every 1-2 battles.

We were going at a fast speed of 4000exp/hour [XD]. It was fun and I netted
16K exp that session.

Next up was doing Black Mage AF3 Hat quest for the 2 BLMs in Doom LS, Evasama
and Tatomi. Involves a bit of running around in Toraimarai Canal looking for 3
points. At the first checkpoint was a cutscene. At the second, both BLMs have to
examine it with their 2HR Job Ability: Manafont activated. At the third was a NM
fight.

We were lucky to bump into a group of Japanese players at the 3rd checkpoint
who also shared the same goal. We then formed an alliance to help each other
with the fight. A total of 3 fights, one for each BLM who needed the quest.
First fight was for the JPs, just before we manage to kill it, we got hit with a
Sleepga II (or was it III?) by the NM.

Based off darkness elemental, my Stun on the NM was always resisted. Thus the
whole alliance fell into sleep except for the other JP DRK who was fighting it
alone. With no mage to heal him, he eventually fell [X(]. Next target for the NM
was Joachim, the only monk in Doom and he just learned Asuran Fists that same
day. With a few punches from Joa, Magic Sludge was defeated.

The remaining 2 fights went on with ease and no deaths for either
parties.

Doom LS team, on the way to Windurst.

Magic Sludge fight.

Congrats on Evasama and Tatomi, who now has the complete BLM AF set!

Next day sucked for me. From 10am to 10pm, I couldn’t get any PT invites.
Some of the reasons, there were a few other DRKs around my level seeking. Most
of them are JPs, so naturally, they would get higher priority in getting invites
[X(]. Who wants an NA player (in FFXI, you’re either NA or JP.) who has a high
probablity of screwing things up when you can have a JP player who could play
well? Sigh.

Then on Sunday afternoon, I finally got another invitation from an NA PT. I
was so desperate for an EXP PT at this point where I couldn’t care if the
invitation was to replace a leaving member or into a poorly formed PT. I was
only 3400 to level 58, just the level I need to wear my DRK AF body. It turned
out to be an ok PT. Averaging at 2000exp/hr, not to mention I died 3 times
[X(].

We were camping in the tunnels of Gustav. In a tight passageway where in one
end, were lots of skeletons, the other, goblins. We fought a few goblins and
crabs when another EXP PT came to camp near us. Since my PT was at the end where
there were only goblins and crabs, they camped at the opposite end with the
skeletons and crabs.

Before the rival PT began, I rushed over to give them a warning. Telling them
that the skeletons would sometimes wander close their camp spot and aggro. Their
WHM responded in acknowledgment. Oh well, as long as you don’t get my PT
killed.

Then the problems began. First, while they fought goblins, a skeleton aggroed
and their RDM begins casting Escape in panic. The skeleton returned to his
position in the other end, far away from our PT. But not the goblin they were
fighting. It aggroed us and our puller had already pulled another goblin too. We
fought the other gob while my puller called for help on the gob he pulled and a
high level player who was around killed it for us. Safe.

Then the second problem arose. They were fighting a skeleton and called for
help. 2 PTs combined couldn’t take down this skeleton because it used Blood
Sabre. A skill which absorbs HP from each player in the area to heal it’s
caster. We began calling out to the Red Mages in our PT to cast escape. But
neither had enough MP to cast and one aggroed another skeleton when she used
Convert(switch MP and HP values). Slowly we began to fell one by one. 6 members
of the other PT was totally defeated. 5 from mine, including me. Our leader
being THF, was able to use Flee and run all the way at chocobo speeds to the
entrance and zone to safety.

I got a raise 2 from their WHM who was very sorry for what happened. With
yellow HP, I asked my RDM to cast invis+sneak on me so I can tractor the bodies
of my other teammates to a safe location for raise. Then I aggroed a damn
skeleton who smelt my low HP. Died but at least I was in a safe location. The
same WHM came back to give me a second raise 2.

3rd death came when my PT was fighting an “easy prey” goblin that aggroed one
of the members. I just got out of weakened state from my second death and I went
to help them out. But out of nowhere, a skeleton appeared and killed me again! I
heard it was one of the skeletons that was chasing my leader all the way to
entrance and it was returning. Luck came in the form of a high level WHM who
gave me raise 3. I guesstimated a total loss of 1800exp from those 3 deaths. At
least I was still level 58.

Pretty soon the PT ended. We asked for Escape but both RDMs warped themselves
at the same time thinking the other RDM would cast it. I planned on running back
to Jeuno but now I have to use my Instant Warp scroll.

I put on my DRK AF equipment, stood proudly in Lower Jeuno with my
Jack-o-Lanterns in the bazaar and left for a nap.

30 minutes later, I came back refreshed and armed with a cup of coffee. Now I
need to earn gil for an Assault Earring (+2 Accuracy). Finally sick of EXP PTs,
I farmed from Rolanberry Fields to Selbina. There I witnessed 6 galkas on guard,
protecting the entrance to Selbina from any train of goblins. Hahaha.

One of them saluted me! [:D]

Took a ship down to Mhaura and travelled to Giddeus. Where I explored the
area and farmed for some beehive chips. They currently sell at 5K a stack.

Finally, here’s me in my DRK AF equipment.

Now to get cooking to level 48 and gather enough guild points for a Chef’s
hat~

Meh, just when I got all fired up for an EXP PT, I wasn’t invited last night. I wanted to assemble my own, but the right jobs just weren’t there. No one to heal. When a White Mage went on seek, there would be no Black Mage. When there’s a Black Mage, the White Mage wasn’t there anymore.

During the 3 hours I spent waiting, I was playing Zelda:Minish Cap on my Nintendo DS. I gave up waiting and slept early feeling empty from of the lack of some EXP PT action.

Today’s issue involves the linkshell (LS) I’m in. It’s the first LS that I joined, and most of the people there (perhaps totally) are Asians, mostly Singaporeans. It has been quiet ever since a majority of the members decided to suspend/close their FFXI accounts. There hasn’t been much LS activities besides NM camping, farming and chatting.

I tried to get a group of us to do the Attohwa Chasm map quest but I started too late and only finished half the quest. Anyways, fighting them black mandragoras was funny.

Click on thumbnail for a larger image. And don’t tell me about the hat! It gives +1 Dex! >_<

I, for one, am glad to see an old Doom member, Glueforever, popping up again once in a while to say hi. It’s also great to have his sister, Skee, joining us this year January since all of Doom members that I know of are guys.

Apocalypse, Elvaan Dark Knight and Doom’s LS holder (aka “boss”, he dislikes being called boss so I put the double-quotes there). Never played much with him to learn more about Dark Knight. The only times I recall playing with him is when he helped us fight the NM at Sanctuary of Zi’Tah to unlock the Samurai job, and the NM fight at Garlaige Citadel for the sexy Red Mage AF3 hat for 3 other Doom members.

Sollanon, the Black Mage Tarutaru who got me a worldpass to Odin. Close friend of Apocalypse from what I know. He helped a bit with my rank 4 missions and sewed a set of Seers for Evasama. I didn’t get to play with him much in-game too. He had a lot of real-life business to take care of.

Both of the above 2 have suspended their accounts in favour of World of Warcraft. Sad to see them go but I guess at their level and the length of time they’ve spent in Vana’diel, FFXI probably has nothing much left to offer them.

Starting to feel rather regretful for entering FFXI 1 year after it came out. I must have missed out on all the action and fun I might have had with the senior Doom members while they were still around.

I’d be really sad if Doom LS dies…

Wyred, Hume Dark Knight, level 56, and still struggling for better accuracy gear.

How could I have forgotten the +10 Accuracy Bonus of the Jack-o-Lanterns? Good thing I picked up cooking when I started this game.

Back during the Halloween holiday event in 2004, those things went as low as 50gil on the Auction Houses (AH). I bought a few for my EXP PT, but stopped when the prices went back up to 2000gil. Currently 2500gil in Windurst’s AH and 3000gil in Jeuno’s AH.

With cooking at level 30, to successfully synth Jack-o-Lanterns (JoL) safely, I need to have it up to 37. So I begin with skilling up my cooking skill with Black Bread, then tried synthing JoLs at 34, successfully synthed 12 of them without a break and got 0.9 skillups.

The recipe for a JoL is 1x Fire Crystal(380gil), 1x Beeswax (1250gil) and 1x Ogre Pumpkin (100gil), prices rounded. A production cost of 1730gil. As long as I sell them in my Bazaar, I could save up on the tax costs in putting them up on the Auction House. There’s 10% tax automatically imposed on Bazaar stuff. But it’s the buyer who pays the tax and where that tax goes to, I have no freakin clue. And so I put them up in my Bazaar for 2700gil. With tax, the buying price is 2970gil. At least 30gil cheaper than what’s on the Auction House.

I estimate the profit from selling all 12 to be at 11,640gil. At the speed these things sell, I figure this could be my new gil-making scheme. I could even save up some gil cooking them for my own use at EXP PTs.

Now armed with JoLs, I have more confidence in joining an EXP PT again. Well, hopefully someone invites me tonight. Until I reach level 65, it’s gonna be hell of a tough time getting invited into EXP PTs.

God damn gil farmers! God damn expensive accuracy gear! God damn Square-Enix for giving exp monsters such insanely high evasion!

I miss playing DRK in an EXP PT. It requires lots of concentration; Timing my weaponskills for skillchain, watch out Berserk for recast, keep an eye on the monster and stun him when he readies his area-of-effect attacks, stun the monster when the NIN tank is casting Utsusemi, stun the monster when the PLD is casting Cure magic on himself, make sure everyone else’s health is high – Souleater + Blood Weapon when things look bad. It’s fun when everyone does their part well.

My recent EXP PT was terrible. Even though I was able to hit well enough to gain TP, the whole session sucked because of the other members. Firstly, the DRK who invited me. He subbed THF at level 56. He left his scythe in his mog house and used great sword. Nevermind that, not critical. He could still do some damage with Sneak Attack + Hard Slash, the worse thing about him is he was the puller and always returned to camp with dangerously low health. I was never there to witness how he pulled each monster. But he really sucked at pulling. I suspect he did a Sneak Attack on the target.

We had no BLM to magic burst Freeze. Only a RDM with Blizzard II. RDM’s Gravity would rarely go through. Most of them, resisted. Gravity lowers the target’s evasion, enough for me to hit well.

The worst was the RNG. The first I’ve seen to deal less than 100 points of damage with Barrage. We were doing Sidewinder > Vorpal Scythe for Distortion. But 3 out of 5 times of his Sidewinder would miss.

Camping at the tunnels next to the beaches of Cape Terrigan sucked. There were 3 other PTs in the same tunnel. Occasionally someone would zone a raptor-type monster and everyone else had to zone because that monster aggros by sight, and is a lot stronger than us. The next worse thing that happened is we waited 30 minutes for a replacement PLD. He came, fought 2 battles, and left saying he had something to do. The JP WAR/NIN was pissed at this point. So he left too and went back to Jeuno with his Looking for Party flag up and “English PT:X” in his search comment. (meaning he doesn’t want to play with english players anymore.)

POINT OF THIS ENTRY: IF YOU CAN’T STAY IN AN EXP PT FOR AT LEAST 2 HOURS, DO NOT PUT UP YOUR SEEK FLAG! {/fume} [>(]

Eventually, I suggested that we disband, despite the fact I only needed 480 more experience points to get to 57. Everyone else agreed with disbanding, thank goodness. For this EXP session, I gained 3000 experience points over 4 hours. An average PT does 2000/hour. A good one can go from 3000-4000/hour. Do the math!