Whence Blows the Wind
It’s a bit ironic, I think. One of the major factors in me wanting to play FFXI again was that I really enjoyed writing these Ereblog entries. Obviously, this is not quite turning out as planned. Back before, when I was in college, real life was trivially easy to handle (a few hours of class a day, if that? Psch) and FFXI was somewhat frustrating (wacky AXI policies combined with the group-only nature of the game) so I had plenty of free time to plan and construct elaborate Ereblogs. These days, work and other matters of living alone eats up a substantial amount of time, FFXI is easy to get into and I have an absurd long list of goals, and so the time I previously used to write Ereblog vanishes - I keep trying to start an entry, but I see a shout I want to go on or someone is doing something I want to jump in to and so it got put off and put off until just too much freaking stuff piled up. I talked about this issue in a previous Ereblog years ago - still true today.
In response to the rather overwhelming organizational challenge of trying to keep myself caught up, I’m going to subdivide these Ereblog entries. For the next six entries or so, I’m going to talk about first my current events in game and then how one of my six main jobs (DNC, WAR, WHM, BLU, BLM, SMN) is doing and how it has changed in the past 15 levels of new abilities and gear. This means that stuff that happened weeks or months in the past will get put on hold until I get further down the list but I think it’s going to be for the best.
So! Here we go!
Whence Blows the Wind - Ere Gets a New Linkshell
I returned to the game in late May 2011 with a handful of broken linkpearls and scattered communities. I ran across friendly faces early on, but the stories were all the same -slowly, over time, large numbers of people had quit the game, and the changing trends of play style that favored lower man groups over the sprawling 50-member linkshells had prevented the formation of any major new contenders. There were certainly shells galore, but almost all of them were dedicated to getting people empy weapons, and, though I at least appreciate the honestly they pretty much all said they were only looking for jobs like WHM. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t mind WHM, but I have to take it in small doses these days. Fulltime for weeks against the same NMs wasn’t going to fly for me. I declined these offers.
Eventually I ran across Kailani, happily featured in previous a previous entry as one of the coolest people I met that year (speaking of, gunna have some tough competition this year!) and sporting in this screenshot an awesome nobles tunic dat mod. She told me about the shell she is in, DankRevolution, and offered to ask if I could get in, and I consented. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to go with them. I’d never heard of them. But I hadn’t heard of much and the silence without a shell was getting a bit deafening, so I got a pearl and joined up. And no, I still haven’t gotten a straight answer if there is any relation between the name of this shell, DankRevolution, and my friend Dank of CoP For Glory guide (in)fame(y).
Anyway, these guys are basically awesome. It’s a small group, but a competent one, and so far I haven’t seen anything we can’t handle. But then again, with brews, is there really anything like that in the game? Irregardless, we’re tearing stuff up. They’re treating me as a bit of a charity case since I missed literally everything in Abyssea and so I’ve been getting atmas and abyssites and +1 seals like mad. MAD, I say! The actual people are pretty cool too. Featured in this awful-looking expansion armor there is Caderyn, this crazy Brit who I’ve probably spent the most time running around with getting stuff done with out of them all. Maybe other linkshell members will make it in Ereblog sooner or later if I ever get myself back in the habit of taking good screenshots!
My jobs fared EXTREMELY WELL with the gameplay changes over the past year and so I find myself switching it up a lot to fill the holes in the LS’s requirements. I come frequently on BLM or WAR for procs, occasionally on BLU for procs, sometimes DNC for general stabbing, tanking, and shenanigans, and even WHM sometimes when the shell’s main WHM goes something else. Never SMN because lolSMN, but hey, five out of six ain’t bad.
If I had to complain about something (and I *do;* it’s basically in my blogging contract) it’s that they’re a west coast USA-based shell and start events at 8 PM my time. Good in a way since I have a little time after work to get my own stuff done, but it also means I’m one of the first to leave to go to bed.
I think we all missed the Lani quotes :D
I Can Dance if I Want To. I Can Leave it All Behind
DNC is the first of my job reviews. It’s pretty much my main now, both in my heart as well as in the LS’s lotting priority system. While I still have a lot of love for my other jobs, notably BLU, my DNC is better geared and just flat out easier for me to play.
My absolutely blind faith in DNC has been rewarded numerous times over the job’s lifespan. When Cibele and I decided to do a two-DNC static before the job even came out, we had no idea if it would be any good or fun to play. Well, I certainly enjoyed it. It was the first job I fully capped merits on (tiers 1 and 2, plus weapon and evasion) and spent serious money upgrading to HQ gear. Still, DNC was struggling; a TP-dependant healer that did mediocre damage in an age when RDMs were king, SAMs were the only DDs, and BRDs were 2 a party or GTFO. That all ended the day the 80 cap came along with it’s massive, MASSIVE DNC update, and all the new gear and atmas that fit DNC so well just cemented its position as awesome.
Did anyone seriously expect this job to transform from a wishy-washy healer to a superpowered evasion tank that can mitigate damage and heal itself to the point of soloing NMs that other jobs need a party for? I sure didn’t! But I’m sure glad it did! The only thing that could make it stronger is having better proc abilities, but in an LS where proccing duties can be covered, it fits right in.
This is an interesting story. I got the 8 feet seals before realizing what a bitch the base feet item were to get. Well, I was out trying to farm the feet in a small party, killin bats in Funkerl on my BLU to help with azure kills, but it wasn’t going great. Our crazed puller INSISTED on getting like 6 bats or more per pull and I didn’t really have the blue magic skill to reliable sleep them. So after I died the second time in the party with nobody that could raise, home pointed, politely excused myself (well, maybe that’s being too kind,) and dropped party. It was almost LS event time anyway. BUT! BUT! Like 10 minutes later I get tells from the party members saying that DNC had dropped and I should hurry back! I made it in time, got the DNC, and stayed around to help for a bit more. It was a really nice thing that I didn’t quite deserve. I offered to help them with things if I could. One of them wants the DNC move speed feet that I got a few weeks ago and the other Razed Ruins. I haven’t made good on the favors yet, but they’re on my friends list so eventually I’ll figure out a plan.
I have this awful habit of drawing a line in the sand and refusing to chill the fuck out about until I complete it, spending all free time in the game and not being able to write things like Ereblog until I get it done. I remember doing this back in the day with BLM75. Well, I did this with DNC body +1. The seals were attainable from 3 different NMs and this wyvern-killing quest drops them too. A bunch of NM fights later, I got 1 from Ironclad Sunderer in about 10 kills, 1 from Amarok in 3 or 4 kills, 1 from a random lucky dominion op completion and… seven from this stupid repeatable wyvern killing quest. I think I got like 50 merits doing it. It took weeks. But, I did it. Line in the sand indeed. The sad part is that we need to kill a bazillion Amaroks sooner or later to finish empy dagger (not for me - YET) so I could have just sucked it up. EXCEPT I COULDN’T HAVE.
Full DNC AF3 +1. That’s, uh, sort of an accomplishment, I guess? I don’t have nearly this much on any of my other jobs. At least I can get some sleep now.
Other stuff from DNC, mostly WS things. Biggest winner by far is that Bullwhip Belt. That puts me at currently 21% haste, plus various amount of dual wield and double attack. I can get 25% with +2ing the set and some ocelot gloves - or by macro swapping Rappa for Utsu recasts. Not exactly stuff I’ll trip over when I come out of my mog house, but it’s a long term goal.
NO. NO.
In response to the rather overwhelming organizational challenge of trying to keep myself caught up, I’m going to subdivide these Ereblog entries. For the next six entries or so, I’m going to talk about first my current events in game and then how one of my six main jobs (DNC, WAR, WHM, BLU, BLM, SMN) is doing and how it has changed in the past 15 levels of new abilities and gear. This means that stuff that happened weeks or months in the past will get put on hold until I get further down the list but I think it’s going to be for the best.
So! Here we go!
Whence Blows the Wind - Ere Gets a New Linkshell
I returned to the game in late May 2011 with a handful of broken linkpearls and scattered communities. I ran across friendly faces early on, but the stories were all the same -slowly, over time, large numbers of people had quit the game, and the changing trends of play style that favored lower man groups over the sprawling 50-member linkshells had prevented the formation of any major new contenders. There were certainly shells galore, but almost all of them were dedicated to getting people empy weapons, and, though I at least appreciate the honestly they pretty much all said they were only looking for jobs like WHM. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t mind WHM, but I have to take it in small doses these days. Fulltime for weeks against the same NMs wasn’t going to fly for me. I declined these offers.
Eventually I ran across Kailani, happily featured in previous a previous entry as one of the coolest people I met that year (speaking of, gunna have some tough competition this year!) and sporting in this screenshot an awesome nobles tunic dat mod. She told me about the shell she is in, DankRevolution, and offered to ask if I could get in, and I consented. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to go with them. I’d never heard of them. But I hadn’t heard of much and the silence without a shell was getting a bit deafening, so I got a pearl and joined up. And no, I still haven’t gotten a straight answer if there is any relation between the name of this shell, DankRevolution, and my friend Dank of CoP For Glory guide (in)fame(y).
Anyway, these guys are basically awesome. It’s a small group, but a competent one, and so far I haven’t seen anything we can’t handle. But then again, with brews, is there really anything like that in the game? Irregardless, we’re tearing stuff up. They’re treating me as a bit of a charity case since I missed literally everything in Abyssea and so I’ve been getting atmas and abyssites and +1 seals like mad. MAD, I say! The actual people are pretty cool too. Featured in this awful-looking expansion armor there is Caderyn, this crazy Brit who I’ve probably spent the most time running around with getting stuff done with out of them all. Maybe other linkshell members will make it in Ereblog sooner or later if I ever get myself back in the habit of taking good screenshots!
My jobs fared EXTREMELY WELL with the gameplay changes over the past year and so I find myself switching it up a lot to fill the holes in the LS’s requirements. I come frequently on BLM or WAR for procs, occasionally on BLU for procs, sometimes DNC for general stabbing, tanking, and shenanigans, and even WHM sometimes when the shell’s main WHM goes something else. Never SMN because lolSMN, but hey, five out of six ain’t bad.
If I had to complain about something (and I *do;* it’s basically in my blogging contract) it’s that they’re a west coast USA-based shell and start events at 8 PM my time. Good in a way since I have a little time after work to get my own stuff done, but it also means I’m one of the first to leave to go to bed.
I think we all missed the Lani quotes :D
I Can Dance if I Want To. I Can Leave it All Behind
DNC is the first of my job reviews. It’s pretty much my main now, both in my heart as well as in the LS’s lotting priority system. While I still have a lot of love for my other jobs, notably BLU, my DNC is better geared and just flat out easier for me to play.
My absolutely blind faith in DNC has been rewarded numerous times over the job’s lifespan. When Cibele and I decided to do a two-DNC static before the job even came out, we had no idea if it would be any good or fun to play. Well, I certainly enjoyed it. It was the first job I fully capped merits on (tiers 1 and 2, plus weapon and evasion) and spent serious money upgrading to HQ gear. Still, DNC was struggling; a TP-dependant healer that did mediocre damage in an age when RDMs were king, SAMs were the only DDs, and BRDs were 2 a party or GTFO. That all ended the day the 80 cap came along with it’s massive, MASSIVE DNC update, and all the new gear and atmas that fit DNC so well just cemented its position as awesome.
Did anyone seriously expect this job to transform from a wishy-washy healer to a superpowered evasion tank that can mitigate damage and heal itself to the point of soloing NMs that other jobs need a party for? I sure didn’t! But I’m sure glad it did! The only thing that could make it stronger is having better proc abilities, but in an LS where proccing duties can be covered, it fits right in.
This is an interesting story. I got the 8 feet seals before realizing what a bitch the base feet item were to get. Well, I was out trying to farm the feet in a small party, killin bats in Funkerl on my BLU to help with azure kills, but it wasn’t going great. Our crazed puller INSISTED on getting like 6 bats or more per pull and I didn’t really have the blue magic skill to reliable sleep them. So after I died the second time in the party with nobody that could raise, home pointed, politely excused myself (well, maybe that’s being too kind,) and dropped party. It was almost LS event time anyway. BUT! BUT! Like 10 minutes later I get tells from the party members saying that DNC had dropped and I should hurry back! I made it in time, got the DNC, and stayed around to help for a bit more. It was a really nice thing that I didn’t quite deserve. I offered to help them with things if I could. One of them wants the DNC move speed feet that I got a few weeks ago and the other Razed Ruins. I haven’t made good on the favors yet, but they’re on my friends list so eventually I’ll figure out a plan.
I have this awful habit of drawing a line in the sand and refusing to chill the fuck out about until I complete it, spending all free time in the game and not being able to write things like Ereblog until I get it done. I remember doing this back in the day with BLM75. Well, I did this with DNC body +1. The seals were attainable from 3 different NMs and this wyvern-killing quest drops them too. A bunch of NM fights later, I got 1 from Ironclad Sunderer in about 10 kills, 1 from Amarok in 3 or 4 kills, 1 from a random lucky dominion op completion and… seven from this stupid repeatable wyvern killing quest. I think I got like 50 merits doing it. It took weeks. But, I did it. Line in the sand indeed. The sad part is that we need to kill a bazillion Amaroks sooner or later to finish empy dagger (not for me - YET) so I could have just sucked it up. EXCEPT I COULDN’T HAVE.
Full DNC AF3 +1. That’s, uh, sort of an accomplishment, I guess? I don’t have nearly this much on any of my other jobs. At least I can get some sleep now.
Other stuff from DNC, mostly WS things. Biggest winner by far is that Bullwhip Belt. That puts me at currently 21% haste, plus various amount of dual wield and double attack. I can get 25% with +2ing the set and some ocelot gloves - or by macro swapping Rappa for Utsu recasts. Not exactly stuff I’ll trip over when I come out of my mog house, but it’s a long term goal.
NO. NO.