Happy New Year!

Nyzul is still stingy. Can't seem to get Goliard body or Askar head to drop. But we did get my first real appraisal ever:(!!!)

Here's a Denali bonnet dropping. Look at the lots...

Also, totally failed a few days ago and entered with the wrong SJ:

Was kind of funny, since we ended up getting Soulflayers on like two floors too.

I've been meriting a lot lately, in order to cap PUP merits. Mainly have been doing it on COR/WAR. My Slugs are like 1k~ without minuet, and like 1.3-1.5k~ with minuet. With a better DRK roll/AF2 hat proc I've managed to go as high as this though:

1802 isn't bad at all. Also scored my highest chain ever:

Meriting really isn't that bad when all you parties are BRD/COR 27k/hour+.

Alt-Tab did Dynamis-Buburimu this week, and we really need more practice at CoP dynamis. First, it always takes us like an extra hour just to enter, which is very very annoying to me. Then, we make zero plans whatsoever. Nobody has any idea what mobs were going to kill to weaken the boss, where they're located, and what nightmare mobs we'll be focusing on post boss. Everything is kind of just done as we go along, which ends up being a disaster. Half the linkshell ends up getting lost, MPK'd, etc.. We managed to beat the boss at least, but really, the runs could be A LOT better if we took 5 minutes to organize before we started the run. Echo used to do bubu a lot with like 15-18 people, and we'd beat the boss in 30mins, without any mass wipes usually because we were much more organized.

Of course PUP didn't drop. The only accessory that ended up dropping was RNG. Also we ended up mass wiping to a huge mandy pull near the end of the run, was kind of funny:



We've started to do a little bit of salvage again, back to bhaflau for everyone's favorite bees! No luck with them popping at all, but Gate Widow managed to pop like 6 times for us, which is definately the most NMs I've seen off 1 rampart ever. Unfortunately, only one dropped anything at all:

Yay for Maew! He has the 25, but the 15 is a frog 15, which is a total pain.

Using the earlier mentioned merit parties, I've managed to mostly cap PUP merits. Right now I'm at:

Group1:
Automaton Magic: 5/5

Group 2:
Optimization:5/5
Fine Tuning:2/5
Role Reversal:1/5
Vetriloquy:1/5

Which basically maxes my magic attack, and allows me access to blizz4/fire 4.

I've done a few tests on wamouras, and my numbers are pretty impressive:

1636 Blizzard IV is definately higher than what my blm can do on neutral day/weather.

Also combining Blizzard4/Drain from myself I'm able to essentially take a wamoura from 100-59% in a single nuke:

The EXP is pretty good too:

Chain 4 easily reached.

PUP/SCH is pretty fun to play as actually. The Automaton can do a lot of things that normal players can't do, like cast and run at the same time. Also, since the automaton is nuking, it frees the player to cast an actual spell of his own. With /SCH your Dark/Enfeebling magic skill is B+, so you can actually cast Drain for some pretty nice damage. It's also fun to be able to cast blizzard4/sleep at the same time, completely removing the need for gravity.

Going to try and think of some solos I can do with this. I'm probably going to end up selling all my RDM tank gear and buy some hermes sandles for soloing.

Nyzul Isle is lame and skill up for life!

First: Me in wedding gear! Trina temporarily gave it to me to hide it from Arc and I couldn't resist trying it on! Looks super cutaru!

PUP75 & MMM

My first couple of runs in MMM:


Without any specific runes, the mobs seemed completely random. We had various elementals to marlboros to crawlers to birds. Wasn't terribly difficult with a somewhat balanced party. Managed to ding 75 PUP in here also:

Overall, MMM's pretty cool. We've gotten some more rune specific stuff, like Maew got a "Dragon family" rune, which populated the maze with dahaks and wyverns. Rosemarie got a liquidation voucher, however all it did was a spawn 1 high level elemental that corresponded to the day. It gives a static 200exp, and we haven't see a rune from it yet. I tried a trial by velocity rune, but we ended up getting 14 elementals... with a TP burn setup.

We did some La Vaule SCNMs. Was pretty fun, despite the constant deaths. I think I lost about 7k on RDM, and 10k on SMN.

Here's Agrios:

It was pretty easy I think. Slow landed easily, it attacks fairly slow anyway, and doesn't double attack at all. It's two TP moves, Grand Slam and Power Attack aren't so bad either. Grand Slam wipes 2-3 shadows, but does minimal damage (200~ each), and Power Attack is just a single shadow move. No sac pull is required either for this one, and you can kite for a little if you get into trouble. I'll probably try and solo this one day when I'm bored.

Rugaroo:

I actually thought this one was a pain. The pull was terrible. Napo tried to sac it to the river, but half way through it decided to suddenly stop. So then I tried to sac it to the river, but for some reason, unlike Napo's sac, the mobs didn't link with mine. Anyway, got it to the river and it hit fairly hard, and the Call of Moon spam was frustrating. It wasn't as bad as some of the others, just annoying.

We did the BLM NM next, the one that constantly summons vials which bind/silence/paralyze/poison you. VERY VERY VERY annoying NM! I don't have any good pics, since I was constantly dead/running/trying to not die. I easily lost 6k alone on this horrible NM.

Cogtooth:

We tried this first as SMN/WHM RDM/NIN RDM/NIN BLM/WHM and was a total disaster. Nobody had echos, and it was just ugh.

Tried again two days later as BST/WHMx2 SMN/WHM RDM/WHM BLM/WHM and it was still annoying, but doable. The main annoying factor, like the BLM NM was the binding of the pets.

Anyway, managed to go 8/8 so we now have a SCNM bc set!

Have been continuing to try and get a Goliard Siao. Pick up runs haven't been the greatest. Either barely winning, or just flat out failing. I had one tonight where we only managed to get to 78, after having an order lamp floor.

Wins have been either no drop, or denali or askar unfortunately:

Trina dc'd right as the boss died, but luckily Arc managed to log her back in time to lot and win the askar.

All of this Nyzul without my static in full has really made me realize how good we were at it. My pickup runs have struggled to kill cerb even with SV songs, and all the melees 2houring; yet we didn't have much problems with 2hours (even with Magma Hoplon spam). Also just general climbing has been a chore, with people aggroing random mobs, not understading lamps, etc.

Really would like this to drop already so I can put some tags into Nyzul40 runs, to get denali legs for my Quick Draw build.

Since PUP is 75, I've started my mass skill up session, and well it's been going rather slow. I've done about 100 levels in magic, capped H2H, got Stringing Pummel, and I'm still not even close to being done. Magic needs about 50 more levels, and so do melee and ranged. I've just been going to Steelshells with Soulsoother semi afking watching Gossip Girl while it spams Cure V on me. Melee shouldn't be too bad, since I can use Valoredge which can take a few hits, and spam thunder maneuvers/wind. Ranged though, is probably going to be terrible.

My goal is to hopefully be done with skilling up by Christmas, so hopefully that'll happen!

Yay new stuff!

SCH AF2!

On Tuesday, I grabbed the SCH AF2 feet from windy. I knew they were not going to be that great, but I spent points on them anyway, curious about what the enhancement to Alacrity/Celerity was. Needless to say, the fact that it only works with spells that match with the current weather, rather than any weather is very disappointing. Add in the fact that it would be very difficult (for me anyway) to macro them in for the start of a nuke, and then quickly to change to yigit for when the nuke goes off, makes it an extremely situational piece. Best use I've found is weakened/mass raising people.

However on Saturday, I got the big AF2 piece:

Dropped about 5minutes into the run. Really lucked out on this with my 955 lot (against some 92x lot no less), and the fact that the person with a significant amount of points hadn't entered yet.

Also during that run I snagged a free lot SMN body piece, something I had wanted for a very long time, and on Tuesday I got some nifty PUP AF2 hands (yay for haste!).

I've had some really good luck in Alt-Tab I think, especially compared to my previous dynamis experiences. I'm especially glad I got my RDM hat when I did, considering a whole bunch of new people have suddenly leveled it, and were not doing Xarcabard nearly as much.


Did a lot of PUP exp over the weekend. Managed to get 71. I've found the Puk camp to be the absolute worst for PUP out of all the parties I've been to. Wind shear is very annoying, and the flashga move is terrible, especially since it seems that my automaton loves to use its weaponskill while flashed. Definately prefer the nicer colibri exp, or even Aydeewa.

My skills have fallen quite far behind, but I'm not too worried. Once I get 75, I will work on capping everything. Hopefully ranged won't be too bad.

I've been thinking about PUP gear a lot as I approach closer and closer to 75. So far I have:

Weapon: Hades Sainti
Head: Walahra(TP), Optical(WS)
Neck:PCC. Need to work on gorget for Stringing Pummel.
Body: Pahluwan Body. Alt-Tab is doing Beauc again on Tuesday, and I'm next for AF2 body, so hopefully it drops. I also want Enkidu's Harness, so might go back to zeni farming after I finish merits. Goliard body is another I want. Lots of work here.
Hands:AF2 Hands(TP), Enkidu Hands(WS), also have the 35 for usukane hands, so might finish that.
Legs:Enkidu(WS),Cobra leggings(TP). Usukane is going to be tough, so going for the ashu talif legs.
Feet:Enkidu(TP and WS for now). Usukane is obvious improvement, but if we get another pair, I am definately passing the first to Thano. And once we get hers, I'd rather use any run that would be dedicated to me for more Powderkeg fun.
Back:Belliclose. AF2 is better, and Alt-Tab will be starting a CoP tour soon. Unfortunately, I will probably be second in line for them.
Waist:Swift(TP), Potent(WS). I think this is good enough for now
Earrings:Brutal,Coral. Might update to Merman's.

I mainly need to get some better TP legs I think, which I tried today by doing the first ashu talif. Unfortunately, we wiped to the penultimate wave.


Pretty lame, multipla GA3s= death.

Later tried Nyzul 80, with Arc, Seeko, and 3 randoms. First run was a disaster, ended up timing out/wiping on floor 79. Just a really bad combo of floors. Second run we managed to win, despite a few deaths, however it unfortunately decided to drop nothing.

I had 9 merits stored up, so I used them on SCH. Put 1 into Stormsurge and 1 into Enlightenment. I think I'll be going 5/5 in both categories. Stormsurge is a non-depreciating +7 to a specific stat for 3 minutes is very nice I think.

Going 5/5 on enlightenment will reduce the recast time to 5minutes, from 10. A lot of people seem disappointed in Enlightenment, because, despite the description, doesn't optimize both white magic and black magic spells. So if you were to cast Thunder IV in Light Arts with enlightenment, you'd still be stuck with the poor elemental magic skill and the +20% MP cost/casting time. I still think it's really useful though, especially for accessing -na spells, erase while in dark arts nuking. And while healing in light arts, gaining access to Sleep II, where you will still get the bonus to enfeebling magic.

Another reason for going 5/5 in enlightenment is perhaps because the strategems seem mediocore at best.

The -enmity ones are perhaps the worst out of all our strategems, and yet the cost 2 charges. You can already reach a significant amount of -enmity for curing without this strategem, and for nuking I think there's better strategems to use your charges on.

The magic accuracy ones seem interesting, but again, the two charge cost is a little steep. Altruism could be nice for slow/paralyze, but in general I am able to land these spells without too much trouble. Anything very difficult to enfeeble is usually done with ES, or a RDM will be slow IIing it anyway. From the testing I've seen with 1 merit it doesn't seem to do much, possibly with 5 merits it might, but even then if 5 merits DOES produce a significant amount of magic accuracy to create an elemental seal like effect, the Dark Arts version, Focalization seems like a much better choice. I could see a 2minute mini-ES being very useful, especially with SCH's weaker elemental magic skill build. However I don't think it's going to quite reach that power, and I don't do HNMs making it silly for me to merit.

Long time no post!

Haven't posted in a long time...but I got a lot of new things:

1)RDM Hat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) 14/15 Morrigan's. I've actually been 14/15 for a few months now, but powderkeg is horrible and will never drop her elusive slops. I'm probably like 0/80+ now. It's really making me hate salvage.
3) I leveled 2 new jobs:

And I'm leveling PUP now, currently at 69, 75 soon!

I don't actually get to use my SCH or COR that much unfortunately. I use SCH in limbus, because rr2/r2 is nice, and it can replace blm for the manaburnable paths.
COR is my merit only job though. Hard to really find situations to use it except for that, since everything I do is lowman, and I'm the only (well Arcangel doesn't count, gimp elvaan!) RDM in the ls.

My PUP will probably end up being worse, despite the fact I'm pouring an insane amount of gil into it. BLU is another job I like (that is again, very well geared) that I never use. I think once PUP is 75 and merited, I'm going to try and find some situations to use these jobs more. It gets a little tiring to always be RDM.


Update was earlier this week, not much changed really. The missions were fantastic, however the fact that the next mission update we'll get is probably in June (since if they follow the quest>mission>quest>mission updates), the March update will continue the nation quests. it's really unfortunate I think, since the storyline is actually interesting, and the cinematic team has improved quite a bit over the years.

I don't really have any SS so that ends this update. I'll try and remember to SS everything I do so I'll have stuff to post about!