Happy birthday to me!

I've been meaning to update for a while! This was originally going to be a happy new year's post, but I kept delaying and delaying...so now it's a Happy Birthday to me post! Speaking of my birthday, where are my presents?!

1g doesn't count Dig! I did have a super awesome birthday bash though!

I was about to log off for the night when I thought of some areas that were never used, and then it hit me! The kokba hostel thing in whitegate! Such a strange addition to the game, but perfect for me!

I needed people to come though! So I started shouting offering free gil to anyone that would attend! Some people actually believed that I would give them gil!

Entering the party!



Until next year!

Birthday party shenanigans aside, first thing I want to say is a huge congratulations to Breaze for finally completing her Vajra! I remember when she was first starting and needed her ToAU king kills a year, so she has definitely come a long way!



Bonanza came, and I won nothing as usual! I did come close to winning a rank3 prize though!

JPs decided to be nice and take over La Value for us. Spammed Splitting Heirs, and made some gil!

I was actually surprised at the amount of tells I received asking for a strategy on how to win the BC. I thought everyone knew about the extremely easy manaburn strategy.

If you don't know though: RDM/BLMx2 BLM/RDMx4. You can drop a BLM and easily win with 5. One RDM/BLM Sleepgas the 3 helpers in the arena, while the second RDM and all the BLMs grav/nuke the boss in the entrance hallway.

The RDM and BLMs need to make an ES gravity order. You really only need 2 or 3 gravity though, it's highly unlikely that everyone's gravity will be needed. Begin with a timed AM2, and then just spam nuke the boss down. Stun works, so use it to your advantage. It takes double damage when it counterstances, and is particularly weak to thunder magic.

The lone RDM sleeping the adds probably has the hardest job. The adds share hate with the boss, so they will be running after the BLMs, not the RDM sleeping. Make use of gravity, and overwriting sleep spells and you'll be fine though.

The entire fight takes about 3-4 minutes, and an additional 3-4 minutes to buff/rest MP in the beginning. It actually takes longer to farm the key item (hello BLM buffer!).


Oh, and waiting in line. That's always fun!








The BC is a very good source of gil. Both mantle and sash have fairly high drop rates, and you can do the BC 13-14 times the week it is active. It's fast to do as well; scheduling was the most difficult part between everyone's linkshell events, and random HNMs that decided to be in NA primetime during the most inconvenient week possible.

I really wish we could get Plucking Wings for a Roundel Earring though. Unfortunately, Windy and Bastok are being completely destroyed. Hopefully the JPs will come through for us!

Did Ouryu. First fight in a while for many of us and it wasn't very pretty.


Also did B2. First fight a gigaflare got through somehow, and we ended up wiping :(. Second fight we won though!


Good drops!


And we did the event I hate the most: Kirin.

I hate Kirin so much. It takes longer to get to the stupid room than to do the actual fight. Even with the very handy sky port from holla/dem/mea, the actual port to the Kirin room is random. It's frustrating because you end up waiting on that one member who is 0/10 on trying to get into the room, through no fault of his or her own.

Oh well, it's an easy fight to TP burn. We had no problems with 12 people once when we were low on numbers. We got some decent drops too so I can't complain.






More JoL. Got the same Novia only drop twice in a row, so disappointing.


We did Tygers for the first time in a while. I really dislike Tyger, and its path in general. The tier3 NMs just pop in annoying places, despite them actually being the easiest tier3s out of all three ZNM paths. It just takes forever to get to them. Tyger itself also pops on Khimaira's island, where a million soulflayers/imps reside. It got me thinking on how exactly do people race to Khimaira when it pops? Do they just die and hold it weakened or something?


Lucky for me I just leech and auto follow people, and then watch them die!

First two fights were a little messy, but by the last fight we got the hang of it. SMNs really do destroy it though, and you don't have to worry about hate/TP!

Was kind of hoping for a Tyger's Tail, but none dropped! We did get 2 Aurum Cuirass though, and a Hachiryu Kote, so good drops overall!



I did some more synergy. I think somewhere they must've ninja'd the drop rates to make treasure hunter work because I've started to see more drops than ever before.




I made an Ebur Jerkin, an Ebur Bliaut, and Ebur Caubeen. Look at how pretty I am!




I think the Jerkin is pretty good. Snapshot on a body is pretty cool, and it's only 5acc less than what I was previously using for ranged TP (Pahluwan Body), while I gain 5 attack and Snapshot. I stuck cure casting time on it because for whatever reason, the third slot is ALWAYS magic, even on the melee pieces. This seemed like the best bet, for those COR/WHM times.

New COR ranged TP gear:

I could use PCC over faith torque too, but I can't do math so no idea what's better! Not like it matters since I never do any fights where I'd be shooting...

I stuck some vs. birds ranged attack/acc on it too. The values definitely go higher, but I'm lazy so I'm just going to leave it like this for now.

I wasn't originally going to make a Bliaut or a Caubeen, but I ended up getting a size8 evolith, so I decided that I might as well. I think they're pretty good pieces. They work not only for cures, but -na spells too!

Funny story with the Caubeen! Here I am in Windurst Waters [s] campaigning to get my Moonlight medal back. Kaiser Behemoth was conveniently there, so I decided to pull it and proceed to MPK everyone for fun! Of course with Barthunder I take 0 damage from its Thunderbolt spam, but everyone around me doesn't!

So I'm MPKing people left and right, and suddenly Rotaru is spamming me with tells asking me to meet her in Xarc since they just killed Zir for the evolith, and they didn't need the pigment. Of course since KB is spamming Thunderbolt, I'm pretty much stun locked, but after a minute or two I managed to make it away, and port to Xarc.


Crazy timing; the chest icon wasn't even loaded when I joined the party, and I remember thinking "ugh, I just missed it" for a second, until the log showed that I obtained the pigment!

But it gets better! Hitoma/Nylee are getting ready to go etch their evolith into their body, only they have a Furia Bliaut. Of course only Ebur Bliauts are the only ones actually large enough to fit the healing magic casting time evolith. Oh and to make an Ebur Bliaut you need an Ebur pigment, the very thing they thought they didn't need and gave to me to leech!

Oh! And Rotaru still hasn't gotten her size 8 evolith, while Nylee goes 1/1 on it.

So in the end I got to MPK a bunch people, leech a pigment, and laugh at everyone else's misfortunes! Fun day!

I got to fight Ixion for the first time.

It was kind of interesting. I think the first time I fought it in Jugner, I was confused during the pull process. I didn't know where they were pulling it to or anything (or even that they were pulling...), and I actually almost died because it did some weird AoE and almost killed me!

Once the pull part was over, fight wasn't too bad. I wasn't in the tank PT, so I guess I was missing most of the excitement! I just spammed cured the RNG when they took hate. Though, they rarely took hate so I felt like I would've been better off as BRD or something.


Second fight was a little more hectic though. It was going after the RNG a lot more, and I was actually strained for MP.



Bad drops I think!

Spammed ISNM. Got a few khromas!

I started duoing with Sevaru and Breaze here and there. We split ore drops so it was still profitable for me.





Dryroot started Einherjar again. Over the 2 month break we lost a few mules apparently? So we had to redo all the chambers I think for new mules.

Tier1 is so boring! It's like over before you know it.


Tier2 is a little more exciting!




All leading up to Odin as usual.


After reading a thread on BG about einherjar the other day, it got me thinking that there's still a lot I haven't experienced in tier3. If I remember correctly, we got Hydra boss a LOT; KB once (my first run, where we wiped at 50%), chair guy once (kind of fun!), and I don't think we ever got Khim? As for normal mobs I've never seen Dahaks, so I'm actually kind of hoping for that in the future.

I did some Fay weapons too. I was trying to get song casting time on the BRD dagger, but unfortunately nothing there.





Literally felt like I was getting the same dagger over and over...





PUP weapon (trying for Pet: MAB) wasn't being nice either.


Moving on to SMN now. I need Pet: MAB here too!
During one of the runs, someone noticed the Hippogrph Lullaby Horn NM up, so we ran over and nuked it down really fast.




No drop!

I randomly decided to try and go for a Gnole Torque again, so I asked Ro if she wanted to try and duo the bunny with me. All the previous times I've done it were with 5xBLMs and an ES Sleep>nuke order.

First time I tried with just Might only, and it was VERY easy. Easy enough I could solo I'm sure.

The next day I decided to try with it with Supreme Might +Might (aka super bunny!). We managed to win, but it was close!

This version is much more resistant to nukes/enfeebles. Paralyze works really well though, so try and land it as soon as possible.

You can still get unlucky and die though unfortunately. Sometimes it just seems like there's no avoding it: Ni>-ga>Ichi>Whirl Claws through 4 shadows> dead taru.



No drops! I think I need a lot more practice with it; made so many dumb mistakes, and ended up losing a few of the runs too.

I did Vrtra with Dryroot. Last time I fought it was during the weird Echo/Shadows team up like 3 years ago(?), which led to two CFHs in a row, and a flail, So then we stopped trying!

Unfortunately this fight was basically over before it even started. We didn't have enough people dedicated to the adds and had an unlucky moment where it decided to Cyclone Wing right as everyone's poison wore. There was also some kind of miss communication on what the SMNs should be doing. Some people were saying to leave Garuda out, so if tanks were charmed Vrtra would attack Garuda... which was weird. The big rule I remember from wyrms as SMN: "Don't assault!".

The bright side is that it was going down really fast (for the 5 minutes we were alive anyway!). We got it to 86%!

Overall it was fun. I was disappointed at the lack of a flail though. Cyclone Wing killing everyone just doesn't do it!

More Limbus, more Omega's eye.







I'm beginning to think that at least 1 eye is around 99% drop rate. Out of the last 14 omegas, we must have gotten 12-14 eyes; it's too depressing to count.

Stamos is also a fail duo partner! Look at him getting resisted and almost costing us the run!


Ultima has been nice though and we got two more pairs of legs!






No Fomor will drop anything, except for Elatha of course.

Did some ANNM. I'm really interested in trying to get a Mythic Pole with +10 SMN skill from Meriphtaud, but unfortunately it's not dropping. Just Elite Berets/Errant Hpl.!



Also did a random Batallia run for some gil.


Breaze is bad luck. She cursed me and caused me to wipe in the hagun ENM!

Wasn't paying attention + aggroing other antilions= bad! I actually probably could've done it by just keeping the first one I aggro'd slept, but I continued to mess up and just aggro'd everything.

Bad Breaze!

Helped some people out with final 2 ASA fights. Got horrible augments!



Where's my speed belt already?!

At least I didn't get this completely useless augment that Sedna got:

How does something that bad even pop out anyway? I can see getting that from random FoV stuff, but not from missions...

I went on some crazy skill up/latent unlock time spree, and finished both Detonator (finally...) and Mystic Boon, as well as Hexa Strike(even bigger finally! WHM was my 2nd 75...).




Tried to FoV my Dusk Gloves again, some more crap.



Did some trio Arrapago to try and get Thano get Morrigan's Robe/Hat.








No drops so far!

Helping Thano with AR reminded me of when we first started salvaging years ago, and when I got my Macha's coat. (stolen screenshots from Thano!)


Also did some SSR for some Skadi hands/Marduk Feet, and no drop there too!


During the GG2 room, our puller messed up and literally pulled EVERY mob somehow. Because I'm awesome I manage to get by unscathed, while everyone else dies!



Another run I did duo with Breaze as THF +RDM.





Breaze's TH doesn't work for me! I actually don't really care much for the pieces itself, I just am 2/3 on several pieces that are taking up so much inventory space. I need another ZR run where I get 3 35s in one run!




Did some Verdelets, and finally got a Muse Tariqah.

I was doing an Undead Besieged, where you get those awesome Lamia to charm everyone! Perfect opportunity to Holy people to death!


Sorry Madmaxx! At least I was nice enough to raise you after!


Karma in the form of Arcangel got me back though when I was charmed during an Anatabonga (or however you spell it!)!

I did get some staff skill ups off Lilweezy first though!


Seeko still has a Ducal Guard's ring...after ALL these years. For those that don't remember, you get it from completing CoP 6-4, and it only has 5 charges.

Tanoshii's failed drama:


I got charmed at Nosferatu, and look! I'm super cute even as a bat!
Also, how many of you guys randomly get tells in whitegate about how awesome you are?! I do all the time!



Once again I win!