I started my very own Einherjar linkshell, called Connection Speed, it is the sister pearl to our social Connection Lost, both of which our found in auto-trans.   We have done 5 runs so far, all of which have been the same chamber and tier.  So we have lost, but do not dismay!  Even though we are losing we haven’t gotten a little closer each time, this most recent time, today, got the boss down to 8%.  I definitely thought we were gonna win, but we just don’t have the Damage Dealer power to pull out the wins.  We only went in with 21 people and I sincerely think we are doing very good.  Lioneve pulls with precision medical technology and this has been a real asset to our linkshell.  Kaitlin had to pull one week, because Lioneve was busy travelling.  She did a great job, and even though she linked a million dark elementals and killed us all, she was really good.  I actually wouldn’t mind having her pull again in the future, maybe Lioneve can teach her the way of the secret whale pulling.

One day I forcefully told asked the linkshell to go up to sky and help me farm steamcleaner, it was honestly mainly a bust, but we did have some fun.  I was inspired by Connection Lost’s first Byakko win, it is amazing what a social linkshell can do all together when we all help everyone out.  Berndherbert got his byakko’s haidate and everything was grand.  So I was hoping for Crimson Finger Gauntlets for my future ranger corsair.  Also recently, the linkshell went down to the aqueducts and got Iphigenia and Kaitlin’s their Gaudy Harness and more importantly got Squigglicious her pld/war subligar so she can finish the quest she flagged years ago.

I feel like I have so much more to say, but too much has happened for me to even attempt to organize all my thoughts, so the only cure for this problem is to blog more.  I will try to force myself to do it at least once a week!  Thank you for reading as always!

The great sword instantly brings me to a few memories one of which is the immortal Cloud of VII fame and the other is of Claymore the anime series, which you should all check out because it is so good.  Claire the main characters destroys the demons that plague her world with her mighty sword, which although wielded with one hand, definitely is worthy of both hands of a human.  I had an epic party in Qufim Island, that blew through 18-21 like it was nothing.  Qufim is one of the best leveling places in the game, so while the Dunes is left nothing but a vacant seashell of what it once was, Qufim is bustling with life (and the possible overcamping of certain areas).

A few days later, me and my linkshell buddies of Connection Lost got together to do some epic leveling, once again we gathered in Qufim, because I was the lowest level there and I went from 21-24 in a very short and fun couple of hours.  Berndherbert in the mean time changed his job a record three times while we were partying.  Berndherbert has the biggest case of indecision when it comes to picking jobs.  He cannot settle on any job and is constantly asking for advice, he grows tired of the “follow your heart” comment that both me and Nahuatl throw at him all the time, so I have resorted to “just do it” while possibly infringing upon the rights of Nike, it has proven the most effective tool for getting him to actually level and not just talk about it.  I figure if he just goes and levels a little bit on each job enough he will get them all to 75 eventually or will keep him busy until XIV comes out, which ever happens first, it will still work.

Tonight I log in and start seeking, so I am just sitting there, staring at my moogle, waiting, and I am like why am I waiting, I might as well be doing something.  I headed out to Passhow Marshlands for some exciting Solo-FoV, while not as fast, still although for some gain in exp.  I usually go to Meriphataud at this level, but I was in the mood for change and new things, so I treked out and starting killing 9 Gadflys.  The only problem I ran into was the poison from their tp move, “Venom,” while the poison wasn’t really detrimental to my hp bar, it was infact very effective against preventing me from resting.  It’s as if the flies last thoughts were, “You may take me down, but I shall not let you rest!”  These flies and the lizards from the gustaberg land have a very similar philosophy in this way.  I also opened up a brown chest with two pieces of gear in it, lizard feet, and beetle subligar.  While not the most exciting pieces of a gear, between the two of them I will be able to net a 4k profit from my venture, so all in all very nice.

Happy New Years to everyone!  Hope your celebrations will both be merry and safe!

I am now a level 75 Corsair with sea access.  That statement is a loaded one, sea is something I dreamed only to obtainable by the most elite, but now that I have it, I am aware, since I am not elite and have sea access that having one does make you the other.  Having now killed a few jailers, I see that it isn’t all that is cracked up to be, the rewards although good, are not as fabulous as they should be.  I still dream of faith torques and w. legs.   I have told my ls leader Whisp this several times, and he keeps reassuring me, that in time, eventually I will get them.  Maybe I should show up more often.  I logged in today after a final, to find out I was late for limbus, which is fine with me, limbus is little to no fun, so instead I helped the ever mentioned Berndherbert with the Snoll fight.  Which we did WHM, RDM, SAM, RNG, and MNK, yes only 5 people and only 1 salt and it went down so fast.  I don’t whether SE nerfed simplified the whole CoP process, but it was nice to win the fight.  When he told me he needed help, my first thought was about my first Snoll, where we all wiped before the time even ran out.  Congratulations on beating three paths Bern!   As Jesterking has pointed out on more than one occasion, CoP is easy as long as you have a dedicated group of competent people.  Which doesn’t sound to hard, but when you are a nooblet in the dunes, I can imagine the fear that you will never complete CoP after your first three failed promy runs.

I have decided to try a new job out, since I have a healer, a support, and a damage dealer puppetmaster, I was thinking maybe it is time to try out a real DD. My eye has always been on a Dark Knight, it always intrigued me as the antithesis to Paladin, a job which I have no desire to play.  So as a now level 12 Dark Knight running around the gustabergs, I began to wonder why in the world DRK even has elemental magic.  Not getting stone until level 5, which probably is the time where the mp vs. damage done is most worth it, to level 72 where you finally cap off the group II spells with Thunder II.  Just what is the point?  Yes, you can magic burst, but even then, no Dark I know has a magic attack bonus build.  The only spells that seem worth a damn are the absorbs, Absorb-AGI was the quickstep before quickstep existed.  Absorb-STR is useful because you can pump up your weapon skills, but aside from that and the Drain and Aspir awesomeness, there are only about 12/35 spells useful even for very specific situations.  I suppose I am being too harsh, when is the last time I casted Barviruna on White Mage, or rolled Gallant’s Roll on Corsair, or even used Valoredge Frame on Puppetmaster.  I suppose all jobs have useless aspects, but it just seems very poignant with my limited spell list on Dark Knight right now.

I have been hitting the Corsair train pretty hard: rolling, parrying, shooting, and most importantly missing all over the place.  I am not sure what it is about ranged attacks, but even with a whole bunch of ranged accuracy plus and agility gear I still miss far to often for my liking.  Things are getting better, but only because I refuse to shoot my trump gun unless I have hunter’s roll up.  Having a ranger in the party really helps boost that accuracy buff, that is one of the many reasons I enjoy partying with Nahuatl, who is now a 74 ranger.  I also enjoy partying with her because she pulls so I don’t have to, but to be fair to me even though she did most of the pulling so far in my Pirate career, I set up a party where I would be the puller on purpose in Quicksand Caves.  I must say it makes the job even crazier than it was.  Keeping three rolls up on the party is a task as it was, but then to have to run out and grab a mob every so often, just adds a whole new challenge.  You honestly never get a chance to stop, my hands just fly across the keyboard in crazy motions.  I am not gonna say I don’t like that because that was one of the appeals of Puppetmaster.  With pup my hands are flying around throwing maneuvers like a Ninja using utsusemi.

The above paragraph was from July of 2009….. I am only posting it to signify my return to FFXI, my podcast, and this blog!  So stay tuned….

Since I was leveling Corsair, I came to the unfortunate realization that I would have to get Ninja to 37. It was at 18, because I wanted to get my Dancer to the 37, so I took it only that far. So I picked up my katanas and my gi and my level 8 gear and set out to Burbuimu Peninsula. I soloed to there on field of valor to about level 26, it took unfortunately too long, and the better part of my finals week in summer school. Then I got a great party with Iphigenia, Nahuatl, both of which transferred to Leviathan from Remora, Berndherbert, who follows me wherever I go lol, and Koukennin. Iphigenia is truly the most amazing Ninja I have ever seen, I think it is because he plays ninja like he is some crazy fast casting red mage. He is also king of the /bst, Steak would be proud what he can pull off so adeptly. I got another party on Ninja the next day with Kenjimasuda and Jeminijem, Kenji was the tank this time being all uber, valiant, and paladin like and Jeminijem brought her black mage. This was an exciting party in sauromugue on evil weapons. Honestly the exp/hr wasn’t all that good until we mastered the weaponskill, weaponskill, skillchain, magic burst, weapon skill, magic burst combo. Of course I played little to know part on that being a ninja. But Kenji started it off, leading to berndherbert’s epic new found samurai-ness (mediate is absurd), Jeminijem magic bursted with Stone II, Nahuatl then weapon skilled on ranger, and then Jesterking, on scholar, magic bursted with fire. So everyone was involved, except for me. I tried lowering elemental resistance to stuff with my elemental wheel, but it didn’t do much. Then I tried to make a skill chain off Nahuatl’s but all three of my Katana weapon skills were not compatible with the move she made. So I was sad, but it was still good exp. After that I grinded with Nahuatl, Berndherbert, and Iphigenia on skinks and beaks in Sauromuge getting me to 35. Then the next day me and Jesterking duoed with Nahuatl power leveling us to get my level 37. I dinged and was so happy. I can’t say I ever had a terrible experience leveling Ninja, because I only soloed or was a bad damage dealer in a party, but I suppose that is the way to do it.

This week Abishai, formerly Elseadose of Bahamut, moved to Leviathan as well did Keekan. I must say I am very glad to have them hear. There are very few people I desperately miss on my old server, but those two were two of them. The few that remain are probably Kaitlin, Steak, Squigglicious, Opiate, and Cylus. So since Keekan has been on leviathan, we have helped him, along with Berndherbert, clear all three promies, which is very exciting. I still remember the first time I beat all my promy missions. I remember the intense relief I felt after finally finishing that hurtle. Square-enix why is it so hard at the beginning! Not that it gets to much better later. After the dust has settled in our post-promy world, including promy-vahzl which I had just recently cleared thanks to none other then elite ninja and dancer themselves Iphigenia and Jesterking, we decided to go subligaria farming! This seemed like a good idea at the time, but, it wasn’t, I mean it was, but we certainly did die a lot trying to get those things. We got Abishai his rapparee harness, and I know he was excited about that, we got Berndherbert both the red mage subligars, and Koukennin the dragoon one. So most people were happy that run. The only problem I have with fomors is that they freaking always link every time there is nothing that can be done about it. There is this one spot with six fomors by where Tres something or another spawns. Two of them can be pulled safely without link, but the other four must be linked together. Let’s just say a party of six cannot handle four fomors, as we discovered three times, possibly four. The other best part of that excursion is the steogotars that watch you as you fight the fomors and then at the most inconvenient moment decide to attack you and proceed to wipe any hope of survival on the floor along with your dead body. I still would like my Corsair subligar, my friends have assured me we will go back down there again and get it for me. So if you can’t tell from this blog post, my friends and I do a lot of stuff together, we work together to help get people what they want. It’s like a mini-endgame shell. Every is always willing to help everyone else with everything. So if you have the same mindset of helping people and making friends, and are on Leviathan or plan to move there. Just send me a tell and you can join our linkshell Connection Lost, because we are always looking for nice people to enjoy the game with. I have been on three servers with innumerable linkshells, and I can honestly say this is the most fun I have ever had with this game.

My new group, which includes Feofi and Berndherbert thanks to their epic server hopping with me, do so much, we unlock weaponskills, break latents, camp nms, get drops, do nyzul (read: fail nyzul), and it is the best time I have ever had. Just last night me, Jeminijem, and Jesterking went up to sky and broke my club of trials while doing three Fields of Valor, which landed us about 5k gil, exp, and 500 tabs, so it is basically pretty epic. Also I must say, I love the new FoV books next to the crags, Teleport-Dem then I am instantly in Bastok. Amazing, completely and totally amazing, as if white mages weren’t lazy enough, tyvm SE for continuing the tradition! You must also be thinking at this point club of trials, how can Edwyth have one of those? Doesn’t he have lol club skill? While that may have been completely true strike 2 months ago, I know have hexa strike and mystic boon. Now your probably wondering Mystic Boon, hold on, you did 4k weapon skill points to get that? Nope only about 300 some, because I have also gotten my runic disk since being on Leviathan. Wow I really have been busy.

In addition to being thrown out of a dynamis linkshell, I have joined another one. I will elaborate on the first part of that last sentence in a separate post, but as for the second part, my new linkshell SleepAvatars is amazing. Shagrath, or as Kiamoko would refer to him as Sha-Chan, got me, Bern, Feofi, and Cappelli into it, I have to much hume baggage. What is really great about the shell is that if a piece drops and you have it at 75 you are allowed to lot on it. And while that causes some frustration, like in the case of Bern and his Duelist feet yesterday in San d’Oria, it also adds a layer of excitement, it isn’t like if an item drops you know who goes to. So it keeps it exciting, and possibly prevents long AFKs, so overall it is great. I am currently 3/5 pup relic, in addition to my pantin body and feet, I have also gotten the Pantin Dastanas, which has Haste +3% for both me and my automaton, which is so sick. Also, this may surprise some of you, but I go to dynamis on PUP, basically full time. Your like what the hell? I have some reasons: A. LS has to many WHMs B.I needz magic skill ups (3 away from first tier 4 nuke) C. Once I get tier 4 nukes I will be serious damage in dynamis. During our last Bastok run a pair of Argute legs dropped and went free lot, and through my epic lotting skillz I was able to obtain them for my level 18 Scholar, I really need to get that to sub level.

So this is it for now, but I plan to release another post very soon, thank you for reading!!
Edwyth

This post is also sponsored by Chex and my automaton: Hannya!!!!

And yes I gave into the hype:

Here is my first piece of exciting news

Yes, yes, it is true, I have finally overcomed the stigma of being stuck on floor 40 in nyzul, thanks to two weeks worth of tags trying with Leonardito and over a month of complaining about being trapped in my 40 limit. We have managed to overcome! It exciting, we honestly didn’t get many lamp floors as I recall there was only 1 and it was just same time. Which was funny because we thought we had them all, which was four lamps at the time, but I was just wandering around aimlessly and some in party chat hit at :23 and it was :20, so I was like woot, but then I saw one in the distance and I was like sh*t, I wouldn’t even have time to stop them, so I threw down invisible ran towards the lamp and slammed the button and hit at the right time, Object Complete, move on to next floor, and no one was more the wiser. It is things like this that make me really enjoy the game, the feeling that if I wasn’t there contributing everything I could we wouldn’t have been victorious. I don’t know if I mentioned this in my last blog or not but a few weeks back I went through with Elseadose on a floor 40 run, on my runic disk, and Denali Kecks dropped and Elseadose won them, now his Ranger is quite pimpin’ at 75 with a Wyvern Helm and that. Elseadose I don’t know how you have 2 75 jobs before me, but you sir, are definetly quite epic because of it!

Been campaigning a lot, a lot and besieged quite often as well. I actually find besieged to be significantly more exciting than campaign, because I feel like there is something to lose, unlike with Campaign, which seems like your almost rewarded for owning less zones, because that is the only time you can mindlessly fortification slam. Which for lower levels, around 50 or so, is like the only way they can truly even hit anything. Because even though the mobs are low evasion, they still can prove to be quite difficult to hit, but they are no way even close to as hard as besieged mobs are. I try going on Pup to besieged and it is just a complete waste. Because I don’t have reraise, I can’t hit any of the level 8 mobs, and Hannya, my automaton, dies within five minutes of summoning her. So this leaves me with next to no options on pup, and I just basically die and fail in general. Maybe when I am 75 things will be different, but for right now that is how I feel. But on White Mage it is like a completely exhilarating experience, I am usually with Elseadose and Berndherbert which means I have refresh, and then I do a /sea brd or /sea cor and try to grab one of those, and then occasionally people like Spiderjah are on and we all work together. For some reason being in a party is much better for me, because I am generally more efficient with my curing. The support job is happy because it gets to buff multiple people easily so they can work to max their experience. Elseadose and Berndherbert like it because they get to work towards their skills with more accuracy thanks to the support job. So it is all very symbiotic, everyone benefits and the astral candy is saved! Go us!

Speaking of Berndherbert, ever since dinging 70 on Red Mage he has been torn about what he should do next, after a going through a litany of possibilities on what his next move should that included, but not limited too, leveling Blue Mage, Warrior, Ninja, Paladin, and a score of other jobs, just because he wanted to avoid RDM Maat fight. But instead after much convincing by the part of me and the epic Iphigenia, Bern has decided to pursue Red Mage Maat in a smart non-rushed way. After our discussion, we came to the conclusion that what Bern really needed was to cap off Enfeebling and Elemantal. So me and Bern headed off to sky and we started fighting some Flamingos, we stole various PUPs and MNKs to help skill up with us, because alone, me and Bern would probably die. Our best partner is skilling was a monk by the name of Shilohgrim, he was a very nice monk, he just happened to be wearing full AF at 74, but beyond that he was pretty much awesome and he was the catalysts for some our best skill ups. Bern has since capped his elemantal magic skill and I have made significantly progress on my Automaton Magic skill 193/261 > 223/261. So things are looking good and ever since Hannya has learn Cure V, I can see that my solo potential and survival potential in campaign have increased quite significantly.

Thank you again for reading my blog, until next time; so long from your favorite Pup Edwyth!

Oh and one more thing:

Let me discuss more in depth some of my Diabolos drama; so thankfully Tigerfury offers to lead the run, I don’t know what I would do with out you man!  So we all go to Xarca then to Beaucidine and I put RR up as regular and then we go red portal, black portal, then red portal, then to that elevator thing, so I play on that elevator thing for a bit, it was kinda fun going up and down and up and down.  But anyways this Samurai in my group needs sneak so I think nothing of casting it on him, but of course I manage to magic agro, and they were all like just run to the zone Ed!!! But the elevator was its way up and I had no way off, and I died with the Samurai right next to me doing nothing.  If he would have pulled hate off me for just a second I could have got off a repose but of course he did not, and you know that RR I had up, well, no more because buffs reset upon entering level capped zones.  Thus leaving me RR-less, sad, and very very bitter a certain samurai.   And of course I was the only one with raise so I had to home point and rush back through the portals (putting RR up EVERYTIME!)  And I made it to the Fighting zone.  The fight is interesting because you have to stand a specific platforms to not fall to your untimely death.  Now what is frustrating about the diabolos fight the most is that you get this bio / sleep affect known as the infamous Nightmare.  So you are like just a sleep dieing to this horrible damage.  A damage that can eat through a full stoneskin and bring you down to Zero health with full HP.  So it is horrible!  The first two times we wiped to this and we never would have the third time if Diabolos didn’t draw me in and attack me, the best thing that could have happened because all of a sudden I was awake and spamming the Benediction macro I had.  Then everyone was awake and we were victorious!  Go go 2-hours!

For Ouryu, BSphilar lead this run, /bow!  And we decided to try something a bit different.  Instead of using the 15k item to keep Ouryu on the ground we just decided to Manaburn the thing down.  So I went with RDM, BLM, SMNx2, WHM (me), and PLD.   The paladin kept the mobs attention and I healed him.  The BLM, SMNers, and RDM just went crazy nuking and astral flowing it was so easy.  The Paladin did an excellent job of Invincibling when I was low on MP and things were good.  One of the more interesting aspects of this run, is that we didn’t actually farm the scales to go through the unstable portals instead we just kinda hijacked someone else’s scale.  As immortalized by the quote by Megazero, “thats y we gotta click fast.”  After we made it through the unstable portal I kinda got lost and died but thanks to RR and FFXI Atlas I found my way to where I was supposed to be.

I have also been working on some campaign-age sometimes it gets really, really boring.  So I don’t do it for ages, and other times I just can’t stop.  To be honest I went from 3k into 69 all the way to 70 strictly in campaign.  It took a really long time, but I was having a very stressful school week, so I was glad that I was allowed to get anything done.  Because without features like Campaign, Fields of Valor, and Level Sync; my progress much like many other people’s would be quite slow.  Also I have made a resolve to start leveling Ninja via Campaign OPs.  I go talk to the mithra and she is blah blah these are the missions you have available to you.  And I choose Crystal Fist and then I talk to the taru and he is like “what is your highest craft” basically, and I am like lol goldsmithing with a staggering level 3 skill.  He asks me how I make a specific type of items and I tell him the crystal and the material, he gives me 200 exp and I go back to the Mithra she gives me 450 allied notes and I Rinse/Repeat that once a week, 7 times each.  So it is great for notes and it helps slowly build up that ninja that for some reason I do not want to level.

I have been yelled at many a times now to level my warrior to 37 for Puppetmaster, of course this is mainly from Bsphilar and bandwagon Jesterking (even though Nahual says /DNC is a perfectly acceptable sub).  So I have thus far managed to take war from 1 to 15.  A feet that I think is pretty decent.  I am not going to lie and say I am leveling it full time, because I am not.  I am just trying to bring it into my leveling rotation.  I want to do a little with Pup and when I get bored of that, well not really bored, just want to do something different I will go level my WAR solo only until 20, no exceptions.  It just isn’t worth being in a party when I can solo much more efficiently alone.  And PLs are cheap so I am just dealing with it.  I also want to level DRG as a sub for PUP, I hear it is actually better for lower levels, but I am quite interested to see what jump and accuracy bonus can do for my pup at 75.  I am sure Bsphilar would mention my lack of DD output as a reason not to do this.  But I just want to try it.  I am sorry I don’t always want to be cookie cutter all the time, even if it isn’t the best.  Now to ponder my lack luster WHM; I have pretty decent gear for WHM, all very acceptable, none of it amazing, but acceptable.  I would like to actually have more than one sub for it.  I always go WHM/BLM to everything, because I <3 warp, but there are some situations where warp isn’t an issue like endgame stuff. Either there is a mog house right there (dynamis) or Nashmau just a short walk away (einherjar) or I can tele back to an acceptable place (sky).    So I really, really should get SCH, RDM, and SMN up to 37 so I have more options.  But for some reason everytime I try I get distracted with my passion for PUP, perhaps after I get that to 75, I will be able to focus more attention on some of my neglected necessary subs.  I would like to thank Jesterking for reminding me of my blog, it is was actually quite fun to start writing again, look forward to more updates in the future!

I must say I am excited to finally have completed promies, a task that I thought would never happen based on my amount of failures.  But thanks to Midnite Runners, especially Maxxvalentia, Astrofire, and Tigerfury, I was able to complete the last of the promy missions that I have been lingering on for months.  So I walked around Lufasie Meadows and the Tavnazian Safehold and it is a pretty interesting place.  It is always entertaining to visit these old relic areas after living my entire game life in a post-ToAU society.  The area looks newer than the base game areas but still older than the newer stuff, which I suppose is to be expected.  I dropped so much gil on that promy-holla run, I literally bought Animas for everyone in my party.  I did not care how it cost to win, I just wanted to win.  The most surprising thing is we did it with no summoners at all and a war tank.  I think the set up was WAR, DRG, RDM, WHM, RNG, and THF, which is pretty wacky, but I guess not really, I suppose it no longer matters because we were victorious and honestly it didn’t even come close.  Elseadose also completed his promy trilogy with that run, making him also on CoP 2-3 like me, but I don’t want to go ahead without Feofi, even though I saw a shout for CoP 2-3 and I was so tempted to take it, but thinking of Feofi, decided against it.

I also decided to level Dancer again to get it up to sub level, and of like most of my well intentioned plans, it failed.  I did manage to scrap it up to 33, so I am getting closer.  I also went back to campaign land with my PUP and got it up one level to 63, so only 12 more long levels until I am 75.  I have been giving some serious thought to switching to Windurst in the past, because as a WHM and a PUP there is literally next to no benefit to stay with Bastok, because all the Cobra Unit stuff is really the only stuff worth wearing, and paying the 50% mark up just isn’t my style.  The only problem with this is I am in the middle of Bastok missions and I have already sworn my eternal loyalty to Bastok, but I will over look these once I ding 68 because I want my cobra unit hat, but until then I will just stay in my home nation.

This has been Edwyth
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Today I decided on a whim to level SMN again I got from 5 to 10, and then at level 10 my new friend Kimara, came out on her dancer and we duoed to 13 in Konstacht it was pretty fun, I kinda like SMN. At first I was put off by the job because it is so not like PUP, and that is the only pet job I understand, but now that I am getting used to the controls on SMN, I think it could be wicked fun. Right now my goal is just to get it to 37, so I can sub it on WHM for gits and shiggles sometime. I mean WHM with aerial armour and auto refresh is pretty hawt, so I might as well try it out.

So I have a question for all you out there, have any you have ever heard of or tried WHM/BLU, do you know if it is any good?

Thanks again for reading,
Peace Out,
I’ve been Ed, lol