Been doing a semi-obscene amount of Nyzul lately. I'm semi-interested in some armor for my BST, but mainly interested in the Nyzule weapons. I'm sure I'll live to regret making a commitment to one of these weapons, but, damnit, I'd sure love to have primal rend on my BST.

Killed quite a few interesting things in Nyzule, including the Dune Widow, which is something Trix has been camping for months now, and Hydra, who dropped the only Nyzule item I've ever been able to equip... and I lost lot on. Even encountered Serket, who gave us an ??? Ring, which turned out being a Copper Ring.

One thing I noted while I was doing these runs was that my Osode seems to have a fanny pack on it. I had never noticed it before, and now wonder what in the world I use it for? My guess is that I keep jelly beans in it. Maior friggin' loves jelly beans. Either that, or some porn. Maior also friggin' loves porn.

While doing something in the past, I came across people fighting Dark Ixion and stupidly got close enough to take damage. Didn't die, but that screenshot cost me HP.

Decided to take my (now-72+) BST out to do some NM hunting in the past. I had already fought Balam-Quitz previously as NIN, but it was pretty fun to take him down as a BST. Also went and took down Dyinyinga a couple of times for the hell of it.

Next we did kind of a clan-leftovers ACP mission thang (where those of us still left in the game kind of bulldozed through a bunch of them). I didn't get a picture of the fight, but here we are after the mid-ACP battle. It was a hairy fight because of a couple of failed macros (I fucking used Call Beast on a Coldblood Como after my first pet died), but we still won.

We then did the annoying Delkfutt mission involving chasing down buggery glowing lights. It was long, hard, and tedious, but we did it. Then Xil and I stupidly entered the fight at the top just to see it. Unfortunately, doing so lost us our key-item so we had to do the tower again. The battle was fucked up, and I got wedged into the middle of the crystal unable to attack it.

Is that a tiger in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

Wrapped things up by doing some campaigns where I met some NPCs I hadn't encountered before. Like Auroral Alicorn, who screamed like a bitch and scared the shit out of me, and Odzmanouk, who has a really cool quest to make him spawn.

Whirlwind (whirlwhind) BST leveling activities took me all over creation to some crazy-ass spots. Where to begin?

I wound up heading to Aydeewa Subterrane to use leeches against other leeches and worms. Absolutely loved the Subterrane, I had virtually no competition the entire time. The only other people I encountered were BLMs and SCHs leveling off of Quqirns. One SCH actually teamed up with me where we both continued to solo our mobs, but do so in a party which meant non-stop chaining. I think we managed to get chains into the 20s at a few points.

Afterward, I headed to get my Sacrarium page, but found an NM I wanted instead. See, looooooong ago, when I started leveling BST seriously again, I did the same thing I do with all jobs I seriously want to level: I sat down, went through all available armor for the job, and figured out what items I wanted to get that weren't obscenely unreasonable to obtain on my own or with small groups of people (which basically eliminates gear from things like Dynamis, but oh well). One of the items I wanted was Altaua's Ring which, at the time, was rather expensive on the AH and not sold very often. So I planned on eventually camping the NM for the drop. Then... I promptly forgot about it...

Fast forward a year or so and I'm walking through the coast on my way to Sacrarium. As a BST I've developed a habit of constantly spamming widescan whenever I'm not in a city/town... I'm sure I'm not the only BST who does this. Anyway, I spot on widescan this strangely named mob: "Odqan". Naturally, being curious I run to him, find him unclaimed, and proceed to kill him. I didn't know the level, but did know that I could always kite him with pets if I needed to get away.

Obviously, I didn't need to worry about killing him- he was cake. But I was surprised to get this drop of a ring that granted me +Charm against aquans an amorphs (two pets that can be notoriously difficult to charm). It was then that I remembered my list of gear I wanted and that this ring (and this NM) was on that list. All in all, I was very pleased to have this ring :-) Of course, in the interim time the ring has sunk in price on the AH, so I could have bought it there... had I not forgotten about it.

After my NM chance encounter, I took my BST in some campaigns (which I use on BST for those times I want some EXP but don't want to set up a complicated camp situation). While in Windy (S) I encountered a strange male Hume DNC named "Prettywoman". For some reason, it reminded me very strongly of Dr. Frankenfurter.

Next up, it was back to a different part of Subterrane to fight Defoliators. If you recall, I had a blast leveling on these in a party as NIN a few years back. Atlaua's Ring came in handy here since my pets were amorphs. In fact, without the ring, I doubt I could have made this camp work.

Once I was too high for the Defoliators I headed back outside to fight higher level LOLibri. Then, it was off to Passhow (S) to have raging Slug vs. Slug fights. Passhow (S) was exceedingly fun and gained great EXP due to the fact that my camp was right by the outpost and I could join in on campaigns when they started.

Okay, so Squeenix announced the next Final Fantasy MMORPG last week during E3. No big whoop...

Went out to do some BCNMs with Trix. He's in a lot of DNC AF these days, which means he has a flower in his hair. Silly Manthra. We also went out camping some NM for a dagger he wanted, as well as attempting to kill the NM who drops an axe I want for my BST. His we killed and got the drop... Mine, well, he killed us.

I got into Moblin Maze Mongers a bit, which I could often solo as BST... unless I was very unlucky with the spawns.

Yes, I've mentioned it before, but I friggin' love leveling BST and how it takes me so many places off the beaten path. Places like Pso'Xja where I fight Diremites. Pso'Xja is especially awesome because I can use the relative beast strengths to optimize my time there. My Snow Lizard pet is strong against the Diremite prey, resulting in many intimidations. Ultimately, my time in Pso'Xja was over before I really could enjoy it as it was only valid for a couple of levels. /cry

Meanwhile, Trix and I have decided we really would like the final augmented body item rewards from ACP (Mirkes with pet augments for me), so we began doing the ACP missions. This involved killing several NM Goblins in the areas around Jeuno: Vegnix Greenthumb (his friends call him Doctor), Dribblix Greasemaw, and Chuglix Berrypaws.

The update had just been released which allowed you to augment items, so of course I had to try it. Since I was leveling SCH and BRD, my focus was on low-level gear for those jobs. Headed out to fight Blue Bascinet a few times. Had a few duds, but did get a couple of pretty sweet things including the following:

• Priest's Robe with HP-7 MP+7 added.
• White Mitts with MP+4 MND+1 added. (This makes it practically equivalent to Baron's Cuffs.)
• Brass Subligar with AGI-1 INT-1 CHR+1 Dark+1 added. (That CHR is great for a leg piece at that level.)
• Cotton Cape with Fire +6 Ice + 5 Water +5 added. (Great low-level nuking item for SCH.)

I also went and did a higher level one in Xarcabard for Trix. This involved killing a dragon, who was a pushover. IIRC, Trix got crap that run, but he was going for something pretty specific. I've found that you need to go for more general items which can be used by multiple jobs. If you do that, and use cheap gear, you will be less disappointed by duds and more thrilled by successes.

I also went farming Stray Mary for my BRD. While I was there, I had to fight the augmenting NM Thunderhead because I'm an addict now. Actually, I think that's the battle where I got the Brass Subligar augment I mentioned above.

Got Stray Mary a few times, but never got the drop. Stupid thing, not sure BRD is worth this hassle for me :-P

While I was in the area, I decided to check on good ol' Valkurm Emperor. As I was walking through, before I could even bring up widescan, the fucker popped right in front of me. And I got the drop.



Now, if you recall, I got this drop back when the NM was still dominated by gil-sellers. I had the real Hairpin, not the Rare/EX version that drops today. Well, with this most recent kill, all of a sudden I had the original real Hairpin and the Rare/EX version, and I was faced with a decision: keep the original, or sell it.

See, having the original was always kind of a nice trophy. It was me declaring loudly "I was able to best the gil-sellers who used to control VE!". Getting the drop after the change wasn't as hard as you were only competing with other normal players, and once someone got the drop they ceased being competition. So it was nice to have the original.

But on the same token, I didn't need the original. The Rare/EX version is identical except in name and color- the stats are exactly the same. So why hold onto this relic from the past when I could sell it and buy something else I might need more?

In the end, I decided to sell my original Hairpin and keep the Rare/EX version. It was a hard decision to make, but it was worth it as I used the money from the Hairpin to purchase my BST's Tatami shield.

Finally wrapped up by killing some Orcs around Tavnazia to reduce my Fomor Hate. This included me stupidly clicking on ???'s I encountered which spawned this guy for a quest. Now, I was able to kill him, but I wonder what would have happened if I had been out there with a slightly lower job :-)

Decided to head out with Xill and Trix to continue our WoTG missions. It was back to La Vaule for us where we entered an arena to fight big, mean, Mister Dragon.

For the most part the battle was cake, even if I was occassionally on fire. However, near the end it got nasty as we were petrified and wailed upon without recourse. The petrification wore before we died and we won the fight, but it was closer than any of us wanted.

Soon I was back in the Mire leveling BST some more. I really enjoyed my time in the Mire. I had one or two parties try to camp on top of me, but managed to level so quickly that I wasn't there long enough for it to be a serious problem.

Afterward I went out to level Scholar as a possible end-game subjob option for BST. Fields of Valor made getting to 10 extremely easy, and within a few nights I was looking at my fully geared level 10 SCH, complete with all the fancy book-learnin' moves he gets. While I was out leveling I managed to get the Rambler's Cloak, which is a special Rare/EX drop from caskets in the North Gustaberg area. 1-10 was so painless with FoV that I even decided to take Bard up to 10 for the hell of it.

Started out cooking up some pet jugs, trying desperately to get some HQ ones to save me some monies. I've really missed having Windy as my home; Bastok never controls any regions so my OP warps there are woefully inadequate for my needs, and Bastok simply doesn't have the stuff that I need (like a cooking guild). About the only nice thing I can say about Bastok is that it can be used to get to Kuzotz so easily and that you can farm Morion Worm on your way.

By now, my BST was high enough that I was wanting my Star Necklace so I finally got around to finishing up the damned Onion Brigade quests. Trix went out to help me farm items for said quests and soon I had my precious necklace. While we were out there, I saw Peddlestox on widescan. If you recall, this guy starts a quests which, annoyingly, took me 2 years to complete. He's a right bastard, and he only spawns under very specific conditions. Well, Trix had never seen him, hadn't ever gotten the quest.... and Trix is someone who is a friggin' addict with respect to quests. So, even though I explained to him how horrid the quest was, he still came over and got the damned thing. Great, I see endless Lanista farming again in my future...

Additionally, Trix has finally decided he wants some Assault gear (for his DNC), so we got together and did some assaults.

I am really digging this Field Manual thing, however my prey isn't. It's a great supplement for a job that's already great at soloing as it means we can get ~1k more EXP every hour than we normally would.

We went back at the Basty missions for Schultmc, Trix, Jan, et al. While waiting for Jan and Schultmc to get their cutscenes done for a Delkfutt's Tower, the rest of us goofed off killing some NMs and heading up higher in the tower than any of us ever really had (well, I guess technically we had to for the battles with the Arch Duke, but none of us could remember that far back :-)

After, we got Schultmc the rest of his keys and I escorted him on his first airship journey to Kazham. Unfortunately, the level sync shenanigans have practically killed off leveling in Kazham (people simply just stay in Qufim until they are high enough to hit Garliage), so the place was a ghost town. Too bad, really, I have very fond memories of leveling there.

Next up Trix and I enlisted Xill to help us make progress in our WoTG missions. The one we were on involved entering a special arena and killing Laa Yaku the Austere. We had tried this once before and failed, but this time it was cake. As Trix and I went around doing more WoTG missions and quests, we stopped once again to battle my old pal Dyinyinga, who seemed to like to remove our clothes a lot. Our journeys took us to the monastery of La Vaule, which was a terribly evil place and, in the future, would become Davoi.

By now my BST was high enough to level in the ToAU areas so I headed to Al Zahbi to get myself set up for my ToAU camps. Before I could start leveling there seriously, I got pulled into a Divine Might run that had a lot of promise. We took our time preparing for the battle and had a nice combination of players and jobs. Unfortunately, we had a major screw-up early in the battle (literally a "Leeeeroy Jenkins" moment), and lost the fight.

After the DM defeat, I was back in the Mire leveling BST again. Got some amazing experience and called it a day.

One more thing before I sign off.... If you recall I had one of my mules, Sekzbalm, camped out in Rabao to do some importing/exporting. I used to buy Water Jugs, various types of ammo, certain weapons and gear that you could get cheaply from NPCs there and have other mules sell them around Vana'diel for profit. It was quite lucrative for a long while, but has unfortunately been ruined by the current in-game economy. As such, I have now realized that having Sekzbalm in Rabao is a comeplete waste and have taken her back to her home in Bastok. Here she is saying her final goodbyes to the outland town she's called home for these last few years.

There's many things I love about leveling BST. I love that I make my own hours, that the EXP I earn is directly related to my effort (as opposed to some amalgam of the efforts of 6 party members), that I can have peace and quiet as I level, etcetera, etcetera. Well, one of my most favorite things about leveling BST is how it has taken me to so many distant and diverse locales that you don't normally go to as well as places that most fear to tread.

One of the latter places is Uleguerand Range, a nasty place filled with evil critters all hell-bent on your destruction. Including this Uleguerand Tiger who was ever so helpful in earning my EXP there.

After my EXP, I went out with Schultmc, Jan and Trix to do more of their Bastok missions with them. On the way there, we got Schultmc his Mea tele-crystal and even met up with Serpopard Ishtar, who said, "Oh, Hai guise!"

For the Dragon fight I came as MNK and we destroyed it. It was very strange to actually wear my Osode with Destroyers in the fight. I'm still not used to this new gear-cap system.

When we were done I zipped back up to the north to continue leveling BST. Before long I was finally able to don my entire BST AF set.

I really enjoyed the mobs I got to fight in U.Range, even the Snoll's who had a tendency to asplode.

IMMA CHARGIN MY LASERS!

Several of us returned to the game to help Schultmc level up his support job. We all got together and went to fight flies in Meriphataud. We had a small party, 5 people, so we started out in the mountains chaining flies and lizards. After a couple of levels, we headed to the dunes to the secret beach to take on crabs, flies, and bats. While we were camping there, the Golden Bat spawned so we un-synced our levels and took it down. No drop. If you recall, waaaaaay back when I was first leveling NIN seriously I camped this bastard for days trying to get his drop. This was the first time I ever saw him spawn. Stupid bat.

A fairly new addition to the game is the Field Manual. They were added to the game during the time I was away. The purpose of these field manuals is to provide Yet-Another-Alternative-EXP-Source-To-Parties as well as a way to soup up the EXP gained from normal parties, and they are an addition I whole-heartedly support. The basic gist of these manuals is as follows:

• Interact with a manual out in an area that is mob-appropriate for your level (or the level you are synced to).
• Select a task from a number of different pages. The tasks usually are along the lines of "Kill 5 of these types of enemies, then kill 4 of these types of enemies".
• Carry out the task either alone or in a group. The enemies you defeat must be EXP mobs for you, although they can merely be "easy prey".
• Once you have completed your task, you collect a specific amount of EXP as well as points that can be used towards temporary boosts as well as teleportation to your home nation.

You can use pages from these field manuals once every hour (Earth hours, not game-time) and, depending upon your level, the area you are in, and the page you pick, can gain upwards of 1100 EXP from them.

Anyway, I had been feeling kind of bummed about BST because I had gotten too high for Bostaunieux Oubliette (which I had absolutely loved) and was still too low for Wajaom Woodlands. My only options were ones which either required me to duo with someone (my playtime tends to be entirely too sporadic for that to work), or get someone to help me open doors that require multiple people to open (such as Garliage). I was sitting there looking at my 14k needed to level and couldn't figure out what to do (it was another reason I took off so much time after the bug hit my FFXI install).

Well, I found out that a field manual in Xarcabard was appropriate for my level and would give me between 900 and 1000 EXP based upon which page I picked, so I decided to check it out. In the end, I wound up gaining 3 levels in as many days by simply chaining EPs and doing these pages. Plus, it's been damned enjoyable to boot.

There's a nasty NM that spawns there, Biast, which just happened to spawn when no one over 58 was around to kill it. So we formed an alliance and took it down. No drop, but it was fun as hell.

I then proceeded to spend a lot of time leveling in the hauntingly beautiful landscape of the north. I seriously never expected to ever come here to level. Pretty soon I'd gained enough levels to don my Beastmaster AF (sans legs).

Meretrix had returned to the game as well, and was leveling his DNC again. He was at a point where he needed some help getting his AF throwing weapon "War Hoop". So we headed out to Grauberg and then to a lovely and tranquil location in the northwest section of the zone to kill his AF-related NM. Here we are just before he spawned the NM, and here I am resting after casting reraise. Soon he spawned the Migratory Hippogryph which we promptly beat down. The fight went off without a hitch with me as a 75 NIN and him as his ~45(ish) DNC. Afterwards we checked out a nearby waterfall, and I returned to the north to do another field manual page or two with Xill.

Oh, there's one more major thing I lost in the reinstall that I forgot to mention in my last post. One more thing that made me not want to come back to the game.

I had ~3 months of screenshots I hadn't gotten off of my 360 and onto this site from before the bug hit me. As usual, I kept putting them off and putting them off, and ultimately lost them entirely.

Without the screenshots as reference, I can't remember dick about what happened or what I did in the game. So I couldn't remember anything to update this site with.

So there's going to be a gap in the record on this site. From approximately Aug 2008 to Nov 2008, I simply can't recall what we did. I know it was a lot of things, I know we went and did magecite again, and did more WoTG missions.. but other than that, I have no clue.