Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Tsingtao]

Well I thought it was time for an update from me, its been a hectic few days in game and a very slow one in real life. Had a stinking cold which has pretty much reduced me to eating, sleeeping and playing. The good news is that has catapulted me ahead of schedule on my levelling. My target is to hit level 70 by the start of December ready for the new expansion with the intention of being one fo the first into the new zones.

So Friday started with Tsing still only 61 and lagging behing my taget for the week of hitting 62. However with the cold I suddenly had some time I wasn't expecting to have. So I got down to the work of leavelling leathercraft adn got from 7 to 21 despite it being extremely painful going 7 - 11 I estimate a nearly 150k loss from that.

After that I spent some time partying and made my way to 62 and with the ENMS on Sunday was halfway to 63. Monday was a quiet day of levelling goldsmithing from 33 to 40 and waiting for gear to sell then came yesterday and a nice JP party put together by me. XP was great and partied with the best WHM I've met to date, amazingly good at her job. Buffs were always there, using the SMN sub delivered bloodpacts for extra buffs and we were never without all the right bar spells. No deaths encountered all in all was a fun afternoon. Following of from that went on an ENM run with Wedge, Mosley, Slarty (Promyvion first timer), Truehero and Ceridwen. The way up was fun and despite a long run due to a lot of AFK and DCs we eneded up stood in the exit hall with 3k xp each (ding 63) and wonder of wonders a vision. On trading it in the earing was the ninjitsu earing and is now listed on the AH for 2 million. Less expenses for putting the thing up this gives each member of the run, 326,666 gil each, result!

Anything else, oh yes Monday night got a couple of key items up in Pso'Xja with rare and wedge which was nice and I think I will have to go back up there to get a map. That one however I think will come after ZM4, extra tonberry hate is really not needed right now.

So back to the task at hand, would anyone be up for a trip to the Temple tonight around 21:30 (got to see someone about my knee at 21:00) and start getting those latterns and coffer keys. Would expect I'll be online till around 23:30 - 00:00 so should have a couple of hours.


So shout up those that are interested and can come, if nothing else its a chance to get your Temple Map, and we all love maps!

[Tobal]

if im not exping on my Sam in a bid to hit 73(9k to go) i'll come.

[talizker]

So back to the task at hand, would anyone be up for a trip to the Temple tonight around 21:30 (got to see someone about my knee at 21:00) and start getting those latterns and coffer keys. Would expect I'll be online till around 23:30 - 00:00 so should have a couple of hours.


So shout up those that are interested and can come, if nothing else its a chance to get your Temple Map, and we all love maps!

I really want to go to the Temple to continue ZM4 prep etc but i'm pretty much comitted to getting WHM to Lv20 at Valkurm before I do anything else (HP Selbina now) which at the pace i've been going is going to take another 2-3 nights ><

The parties have been so slow and I swear to god if another member has to go afk to eat I will ram my wand up their ***.

Also, in true Darwock style I have the backseat mage bregade telling me use more Cure II's and Curaga mid battle... Your HP may have been yellow/red, did you die? NO! Do I want to die? NO! ...so STFU


...I also had a WAR in the party who insisted at Kneeling Respectfully before me all the time I'm the man^^

[vwilsonuk]

Heheh its good to hear you "enjoying" Valkurm as a WHM Tal. Parties are very demanding at that level and with so few spells (and often inexperienced in the job themselves) WHM are left short of options. I did make a few mistakes myself at that level - being reluctant to cure between fights (not appreciating the impact of healing on TP) and not healing early enough as fights toughened, not yet appreciating just what a mob's special attack might be capable of (Screwdriver anybody?).

Sounds like you've got it about right though; curaga mid battle is not a good idea and Cure II at that level should be the "oh sh!t I wasn't expecting that" cure. I think at that level too Cure II doesn't give you as much hp for your mp as a series of Cure Is, as the healing magic stat isn't yet high enough to cap out Cure II's max hp cure capacity. Often the parties that are most willing to start blaming a WHM for not curing fast enough are those that are poorly organised, not waiting for recovery between fights (or not chaining/pulling sensibly with proper rest between chains to keep xp up). For example, if I cure a tank and puller after a fight then kneel to heal my mp, an inexperienced/dumb tank or puller might then start the next fight without any appreciation that I need mp to continue. This can go on even when you say something. That's why DS Curaga at the end of a fight is something I've only recently really got into - previously any party that asked for it invariably didn't appreciate that them being @ 100% ready wouldn't mean I was @ 100% ready too, and it does use a lot of mp for the levels soon after it becomes available.

I will probably be on later, maybe our paths will cross. Being a MNK who isn't tanking I don't seem to be taking any damage at the moment (worries me I'm not damaging enough/generating enough hate) so I'm a WHMs dream.

Aside from expectant tw@ts are you enjoying it? Do you think you'll level WHM "for fun" after getting it to 20, or has Valkurm put you off for life?

[talizker]

I enjoy doing the WHM roll to be honest - I am just looking forward to trying it with a more experienced party. Having to juggle the infight cures (and buffs at the moment) along with the right Bar spells, removing status's followed by curing the Melee's and resting myself is interesting - more involved than I first thought (even at this level).

I am taking WHM to 40ish over the coming weeks so I can use it as RDM sub all the way to 75 and have Teleport access. Once done its BLM to 40 (currently at 30) before any more RDM leveling other than Missions etc. I fully expect to be left behind level wise by Tsing, Darwock and the other 6x but I need to have sub job options as I move into the 60's. I'm quite looking forward to going 20 > 40 with the extra knowledge I now have. Don't supose thats going to stop me moaning about every single cr@p party on the way ^^

I'll be back in Valkurn later - what level did you get to?

[vwilsonuk]

The WHM roll? ^^ Now that I have to see!!

I think I stopped at the same level I started at last night, whatever that was .... 12 I think. I did get a couple of k xp but the party was mostly inexperienced and getting the invite so late I didn't really have time to get anything good out of it.

Now I will stop huddling in my horribly cold flat; the first has been on for 40 minutes and it should be warm enough to shower*! Then I can put up my flag and get on with cooking a hearty meal. Am determined to make some progress tonight, no matter how small.

* - once I've battled the baby slugs and huge f***ing spiders out of it. I hate this flat - its an annexe and I swear it couldn't have been built/damp proofed properly. The bathroom doesn't really "dry out" from one day to the next. Now its getting into winter the whole f***ing insect world is trying to move in ... and they're not even paying rent! When my credit cards are gone, so will be this sh!t hole. </disempowered_whinge>

[C']

Hate to do this but I am going to have to pull out of the planned Promyvion Holla run tommorrow. Basically whilst we got Moot's wireless connection working, he has now lost his LCD TV (which he uses as his monitor) and is waiting on a replacement which means he has no FFXI. Partly because he's my brother, and partly because I need him as a tanking partner in the main battle, I don't want to leave him behind.

However, my post on Monday did say that anyone who cannot make the planned date should miss out and I feel that should include me and Moot. Therefore if Apathye, Cassius, Tobal and Vanicent can get together and get 2 replacements they should go ahead and try to get it beaten. People have been waiting long enough.

[Vanicent]

Sorry to hear that Rare, as I was looking forward to it.

I don't know about the others, but I'd rather we stuck with the group we used last time, as we know we can survive Promyvion that way.

So, I'm willing to wait until you can get a new monitor for Moot, so that we can try again with the agreed upon group. I agree people have been waiting for a good while, but I don't mind waiting a bit longer.

I think it'd feel more satisfying if we did it with the agreed group, but that's just my opinion.

Tobal, Cassius, Apa, what do you all think?

[Tobal]

well i don't need it, as i've passed already so there's no point in going if 3 people that need it ain't.

[talizker]

It was a late (2am) finish in the dunes after a hateful party turned into a good party right about the time I was planning to log off!

Unfortunately I was the lowest level and everyone hit Lv20 before me and the party dispanded with me @400 > Lv20 even when I asked people to stay... Oh well - that should be fine for me to move on to the next exciting place

[Tobal]

Fun escort quest yesterday, after wedge said do you want to do ?the big one?. I forgot to turn fraps on to take picks for it, but it was a right laugh trying to beat this quest with 4 people vs as least at one point 8 ep mobs, lucky the monk who couldn?t get the quest came along and found he could attack mobs that are not fished up by the NPC which saved our skin.

Looks like we?ve found another weekly event to do ^^

[vwilsonuk]

It was a late (2am) finish in the dunes after a hateful party turned into a good party right about the time I was planning to log off!

Unfortunately I was the lowest level and everyone hit Lv20 before me and the party dispanded with me @400 > Lv20 even when I asked people to stay... Oh well - that should be fine for me to move on to the next exciting place

Its never good when that happens. Still you might be able to get 400xp from soloing/farming - especially with your NPC. It must be good to be free of Valkurm for a while.

Last night was poor in the dunes, mainly due to the timezone differences. Also started out with a clueless party which resulted in a delevel. I think I might try going to bed horrendously early and partying for an hour in the morning before work in future, perhaps 8:00 - 9:00 or something. In general I'd avoid parties in the week for that reason, but I have an unusual urge to progress this week.

What do you get for "the big one" then?

[mikewl]

Fun escort quest yesterday, after wedge said do you want to do ?the big one?. I forgot to turn fraps on to take picks for it, but it was a right laugh trying to beat this quest with 4 people vs as least at one point 8 ep mobs, lucky the monk who couldn?t get the quest came along and found he could attack mobs that are not fished up by the NPC which saved our skin.

Looks like we?ve found another weekly event to do ^^

I thought it was one of the most fun quests I had done in some time, I was actually going in hyper mode on the keyboard trying to tell the other Bst to cure Travonce, I could see him losing HP at one point, so much so that I thought we were through.

Hectic is the word to describe it, right from the start he runs right through a field of mobs which agro, then onto the cliff to fish and more agro, almost lost Tobal at this point, then he fishes up NM after NM.

Certainly had the Monk not followed along we would not have survived even halfway.

As for drops, I think we only got a bit of rubbish from it, no Mannequin Head this time.

We did get Exp Scrolls though, Tobal being the lucky one again and picking up about 900exp, I got about 600exp from mine and Tsing got about 700exp.

Certainly im up for doing this one often.

[talizker]

Fun escort quest yesterday, after wedge said do you want to do ?the big one?. I forgot to turn fraps on to take picks for it, but it was a right laugh trying to beat this quest with 4 people vs as least at one point 8 ep mobs, lucky the monk who couldn?t get the quest came along and found he could attack mobs that are not fished up by the NPC which saved our skin.

Looks like we?ve found another weekly event to do ^^

I've been looking forward to trying this since Wedge first mentioned it. Let me know when you are going to try it again please

[Tsingtao]

Was quite good fun, next time I suggest we get there a little earlier and go out and clear a path for our little chap about 10 mins before the start, some respawns will happen but hey that will make it fun. I need to go out there to farm bugards anyways to make bugard leather for a few leves in leathercraft.

What I'd like to try tonight is the San d'Orian escort for hire quest in Crawlers Nest. This always looks fun and I'm not sure its capped as I've seen people solo it. Got a couple of others I want to do as well tonight...

First up will be a couple of missions in windy, the first of which will be opening the 3 mage gate so if anyone is will to join me as either any of the 3 mages that would be nice. After that comes the 2-3 mission with a quick trip to San d'Oria (grab the escort quest) and then over to Bastok for the rank 3 dragon again. once again any help is welcome. Need a sleep and some healing and I should be sorted. Trioed it last time with me wedge and true so I don't see any problem really.

After that one I think the escourt quest would be good and then I'll probably go for rank 4, then I'll try for a real quick rank 5 run round the place.

Obviously all this could be up for change should an xp party rear it's head. Might join talizker if he gets on line in Qufim. I have a level 20 BLM, MNK, NIN and THF I could use levelling. The Thief is most likely I think or maybe the NIN or BLM, got gear for all the jobs sat around.

I will raise this one again though, Eco warrior on the weekend would people be up for San d'Oria as most seem to have that one open. I can't join as I have Bastok open at the moment but I will come along as a path beater to clear out the agro mobs. Hope being that the week after we could do Bastok then the week after Windurst and so on with the cycle.