Final Fantasy XI Then...

[C']

Hehe Darwock, my weekend too was also significantly less enjoyable than it could have been thanks to the ?joy? of crafting.

On Friday my Woodworking skill was at 29 and as I had a few hundred thouasand gil decided I should work on that as well as get my Smithing skill beyond 22 which it had been stuck at for months.

I scoured my hand written list of synths and worked out that Scimitars could be synthed at cost to level my Smithing, if I got all 6 successfully. I waited until Firesday to increase chances of success and failed 2 but got the other 4 and retained 1 Steel Ingot to get 5k gil back so all in I lost 15k which isn?t too bad. However, I had misread the AH price history and this product that I thought sold through quickly actually had only sold 10 in over a week.

And I had 4 to sell >.< Luckily I?ve managed to sell 2 so far but I still have another 2 taking up valuable inventory space and I can?t afford to sell them to NPC as I will be out 9k gil each that way. However I did get 23 Smithing.

Woodworking next.

I?ve found the best way to level woodworking in the past is arrows/bolts. These consumables seem to sell through relatively quickly and the synthing/profit ratio always seems favourable. Speaking to the guildmaster, he recommended Beetle Arrows. I started off with stacks of Wind Crystals and synth my Arrowwood Lumber by buying the logs at the guild. The cost of Lumber stacks is the same as crystals but I find I can HQ synth often enough to make it more profitable this way (if I am not quick enough to buy the cheap lumber direct from AH). I then bought the other supplies from AH and synthed away. Many breakages at first so I had to wait until Earthsday and found the skillups came easily. Got to about 35 and changed my product.

Beetle Arrows were actually losing me gil but I worked out that I could synth Fang Arrows for profit so at 35 I swapped to that and synthed up 13 stacks. And placed them on AH on Saturday.

No sales.

Sunday came and went and no sales. With my inventory and AH sales full I couldn?t do anything else that day and I just couldn?t get my product to sell. Was so frustrating. I even turned to working on my fishing but after getting level 7 got really bored. However, late last night a LS member told me that the arrows sold for a higher amount at Windurst, more regularly, and there was no other sellers to compete with. I trotted over and over night 5 stacks of sold with the rest hopefully going today. If only I had checked that AH earlier ><

My woodworking finished up at 38, but I feel I could have gotten much higher had the AH been kinder to me.

[Marvelon]

Decent weekend here. Got BLM 17 and Warp, did Apathye's AF3, and again for another BLM we had with us... took a while to all meet up, we had a panicky rdm, who intended to kill himsefl because he thought he was stuck (in fact the way forward was to walk through a wall ><) this same RDM had a bit of funny text for EVERY SINGLE spell he could cast (Like I care how much def Protect II gives me ><) and we were doing the quest off a guide that didnt give exact <pos>itions for the ??? point you need to touch.... we got there in the end, I tanked the first spawn, no problems, except that its a hard hitting mob (i'm guessing 70+ elemental, it was hitting me for 100-120+) Natasha tanked the second form and got killed before she could Mijin Gakure because we all got slept (sleepga II ><) Our friend the RDM then proceeded to raise I her... we did win the fight in the end.

Also started on levelling WAR yesterday (as WAR/thf) got 31 now, should be higher this week. I intend to take it to 37 in one fell swoop and be done with it.

As for BCNM60s - I don't think this is going to work the same way as the BCNM40s we did. Theres isn't one BCNM60 that is guaranteed to produce the most money, whatever it drops. Personally I think if it's just cash we're after we should just do the BCNM40s again (even with the investment needed to rebuy equipment for it) we'll end up with more money.
Nonetheless, I think the BCNM60 that drops the Torques (Chamber of Oracles in Quicksand Caves) is a good one as a moneymaker. It drops all sorts of torques (quite high level Skill+ gear) ORes (used in crafting elemental staffs, I believe) and some other bits and bob, like RaiseII.

The other BCNMs offer higher values items (like the spectacles and the Spartan Cesti, for example) but droprates are likely to be lower. I'd like to do the 3-man Celery BCNM60 (this is in Qu'Bia Arena in Fei'Yin ><) that drops the Knightly Mantle I need.

EDIT: Promyvion. I'm going to commit to tanking here, preferably as PLD/war (with borrowed equipment from Tobal - If you still have it Thanks in advance) alternatively as WAR/mnk (using Axe/shield) We need to sort this out soon, as Vanicent will be back soon, and I assume our static will want to getst arted on this while we're on our lv 60 extended break.

Concerning the Static, Apathye has now joined us, so he'll be helping out with any missions/quists that we undertake between now and when we get back to levelling.

[mikewl]

a few things.

promyvion, can i do this as either drk or whm please.

bcnm, im ok with doing 'some' bcnm40 but not all of them, it would be better to do some which can allow both tobal and rare to join, which means varying who does it trying to give everyone a decent share, also i am so bored of bcnm40, it will be fun and challenging to do some others.

For tonight i will be lvling drk, lvl 20 if anyone wants to join me.

[Tobal]

Ok, talking with wedge last night about doing BCnm60 on tuesday(today), the one in Quicksands cave vs 4 ants, the one that drops Crystal Ore's and Torques, if we win 5/5(so we all try to put one seal in each) we should get about 300k each out of it for decent hall, and the setup is good for pld,whm,blm,dd,dd,support.

[mikewl]

Ok, talking with wedge last night about doing BCnm60 on tuesday(today), the one in Quicksands cave vs 4 ants, the one that drops Crystal Ore's and Torques, if we win 5/5(so we all try to put one seal in each) we should get about 300k each out of it for decent hall, and the setup is good for pld,whm,blm,dd,dd,support.

Im up for that, I will be on from about 6pm.

[Marvelon]

We'll be on from about 7, I'm up for it - setup looks good, we'll need another DD though?

EDIT: Did some reading up, with our skills we should be able to do this no problem. (one poster on Allakhazam.com said this was easier than the Mandragora BCNM40)
Only thing I think we absolutely need is Echo Drops (don't want Mahl and/or Wedge getting silenced now do we?) I think Tobal might be able tocraft these(?) Had a look at some of the other BCNM60s, basically 3-man jobs or fecking hard. Also read about the spectacles-dropping BCNM which has horror stories of 0/10 drops and worthless junk besides.

Only thing I'm not sure about is how to get to the BCNM itself.

If we can find the circle easy and we manage to do this with a good succes rate/profit rate I'm up for doing more of these. Currently I have about 230 Beastmen seals, and by the time we've used those up I'll most likely have 240+ meaning I can do about 4 runs.

[C']

Can I get in on this run or are you hoping to get a pure damage dealer?

[Tobal]

the 2nd dd is open and it would be fair to get rare to fill this in, being bayan's a RNG and can get in on any BCnm team, but either would do

I'll have to wait til i get home to check my skill charts for echo drops, but i think i can make them off hand.

[mikewl]

Can I get in on this run or are you hoping to get a pure damage dealer?

I know you missed out on bcnm40 and have an expensive job, so I think its only fair that you are in on this.

If there are some lower lvls in the ls that want to do some bcnm40 I am willing to put seals in for one or two rounds.

I think im on 220 seals now so right away I can do three bcnm60's and one bcnm40.

[talizker]

Following on from last weeks conversation, can someone confirm if you need to be >= level 40 in order to do a BCNM40?

Thanks!

[Darwock]

Following on from last weeks conversation, can someone confirm if you need to be >= level 40 in order to do a BCNM40?

Thanks!

Yeah still wondering myself. It would appear so based on the fact these guys waited until they hit 60 to start planning the level 60 battles.

[C']

To the best of my knowledge, you can enter any BCNM battle at any level. However most people wait until they are at or above the appropriate level to make sure they are as strong as possible for the battle. RDM for example, gets a job ability at level 40 that aids in the BCNM40 battle Steamed Sprouts greatly, and to go beforehand may impact on the likelihood of success.

[Darwock]

Cool, although the one I did - Wings of Fury - you definitely can't do that below level 20. Just incase anyone was going to try it, lol.

[talizker]

OK, cool... I figured it would probably be detremental to the group having a lower level go into fight.

I think I am going to forget about my RSE stuff for a while... Last night I went to Ordelle Caves with the plan of trying to get a chest key ready for tonight. I got kind of lost (don't ask) on the first ride into LaTheine - but ended up finding the Stone Monument for the Selbina quest)

Warped back to Jeuno and rented another chocobo and finally made it to the cave enterance... On my own I had to be cautious about where I was going to fight but I found an area with some DC Beetles that looked good... Now I had just passed through a larger room with Sneak up and near the exit was a bunch of Funguar which I assumed did not agro (not seen an agroing Funguar anywhere). You can see where this is going - 1st pull I had one beetle and 5 Funguar on me so a quick emergency warp and back to Jeuno. By this time I was a little annoyed and coupled with my total lack of sucess finding a chest last week I think anymore RSE hunting in the immediate future is likely to be bad for my sanity.

I'm not too sure where I am going to go from here in game. Obviously I can continue to level in the popular places for some time but all the major stuff that I need to do (RSE, Mission 3-3, 4-1 and beyond) need to be done in a party. With most of the LS being high level with only limited time to assist us low-levels, and me having limited time in game (9.30pm ish onwards mainly) progress is going to be difficult. It's a real shame that there wern't more people on the LS starting from the UK launch.

Still, I think i'll level to 40/20 and then see how things go - maybe it will be time to call it a day then.

[Tobal]

I waited to lvl 60 as BCnm40 is it pretty much none Sam event(it can be done but its long winded and done better by Rng/Drk) so i totally missed out on it, if i can get even just get 200k from todays BCnm(hopefully we do 5 or 6) i'd be happy chappy! as 200k = Haubie