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Dancing Queen2008 Feb 4 (Mon), 15:52
I know, I know... I'm doing a piss poor job keeping my journeys up-to-date. Then again, I'm not playing quite as much as I used to, so there's really very little to add as often as I used to be able to.

Anyway, we've been doing a flurry of BCNMs again. The WoTG expansion introduced the ability to invite people into your Mog House. A pleasantly unexpected side-effect of this is that people who previously never had mannequins are now seeing how cool they are and mannequin parts are selling again. So, we've been going for Charming Trio again.

Our weekly Limbus runs have really taken off. We have a pretty good group of around a dozen (usually 8-10 show up) that does a bunch of Sea related stuff. We've even begun farming organs for the quest "In the Name of Science". Most of us need UFO organs for that quest, so we tried killing a lower level one. Everything was going well, we easily got it down to 50% life and one of us stupidly suggested these were "Too Weak". But then a Charmga charmed all of the melees who promptly slaughtered most of the mages. Then the UFO spammed various attacks on us, whiddling us down to perhaps 3 people alive. By this point, it had a crazy regen effect on it (and our RDMs were down) and there was nothing those left alive could do to harm it in any significant and lasting way. Eventually, we just wiped. I have a sneaking suspicion our problem was we were feeding the UFO's TP with all of the BLUs we had. It seems to me that a RDM and MNK could almost duo it, as long as the RDM stays alive to sleep the charmed MNK and dispel the regen effect.

At some point, I also finally unlocked DNC, and became a dancing queen.


Campaign Battles Roxors or Suxors? Discuss...2008 Feb 4 (Mon), 16:06
So I've been doing an assload of Campaign Battles lately. I found that I really like Garliage Citadel for these battles, even if you can get overwhelmed pretty easily in the tight corridors there.

In fact, I leveled WAR from 67(ish) to 71(ish) nearly exclusively in Campaign Battles. I can't deny I love the convenience of being able to do this. I can just log in, run to an area having a battle, participate, and pull in an average of 4k EXP per hour. It's not great EXP, but considering you have no sitting around doing nothing while LFP, and the fact that it's EXP that is 100% on your time, it's really quite acceptable. And it's the ideal activity to pass the time when you are LFP and waiting for a real party- just raise your flag and run off to the campaign battles to earn EXP while you wait.

The problem with campaign battles are that you don't skill up your abilities. Your weapons, spells, and defensive/evasive skills never rise in these battles. So if you take WAR from 65 to 75 in campaign battles exclusively, your axe skill remains at level 65 levels. This is a pretty big downside to leveling in campaign battles exclusively as your character will wind up gimped.

Realistically, campaign battles should be used to augment normal EXP parties... and I'm pretty sure that's how SE intended them to be. The problem is, past 65, very few people EXP outside of campaign now. If you LFP, you'll find that the vast majority of people 65+ are in campaign battles and not LFP. You wont be able to find tanks, and standard melee will be few and far between. The end result is that the popularity of campaign battles are kind of making us all gimps. Sure, we can skill up after we earn the points... but that seems silly when we could have just skilled up and earned points at the same time in normal parties.

Anyway, I hope that once the newness of WoTG wears off people will go back to normal EXP parties and just use campaign battles as an augmentation. I'd really hate to have to skill up my abilities in skill up parties for the rest of my FFXI gaming career...


Insert Title Here2008 Feb 4 (Mon), 16:25
I've really liked the WoTG expansion thus far (with the exception of what campaign battles have done to normal EXP parties), and I've been really excited to see where they are going to go with this story. One thing I've really thought was cool has been the re-imagining of Vana'Diel in the past. In some places this re-imagining has been drastic. Take Gustaberg which now has cliffside pathways and fortifications. Or Jugner, which has become a war-torn and difficult to navigate version of its modern self. It even has some truly evil Campaign Battles there involving nasty Orc Warmachines operating at their full capacity.

I also really like some of the new areas. For example, Vunkerl Inlet is a particularly interesting and unique place.

I've also been raising another chocobo. This time I managed to get a green one. Meet LadyLimber. She has "Impressive" ratings in STR and END, and seems to move quite a bit faster than normal chocobos.

Meanwhile, ClanAM's Limbus runs have been going strong. We've had zero luck with Temenos (we always get the shittiest and most unwanted drops there), but we've rocked Apollyon pretty hardcore.

Also, I finally took the plunge and bought myself Kirin's Osode. Yes, it's a pretty neat item, but I always hated what it represented traditionally- It always was an HNMLS status symbol and something that indicated your stature in a particular HNMLS community. Since I've been long boycotting the entire HNMLS scene, I never wanted one.

But the decline in popularity of Sky HNMLSes, and the drastic recession we find the FFXI economy in, made it so that the Osodes dropped radically in price. So much so that I started wanting one. I mean, hell, it's pretty uber for all of the jobs I'm interested in (NIN, MNK, WAR, BST and SAM), and it's now dipping as low as 4 million gil on the Phoenix server. Plus, since I already have all the gear for the jobs I'm interested in leveling but haven't hit 75 in yet (WAR, BST, SAM), the Osode will really be the last major gear purchase I am likely to make in this game. Honestly, beyond the jobs I've listed here, I have little interest in taking any others to end-game. In fact, I'd estimate I may have another year (possibly two) in FFXI anyway. The gil is just sitting there, I may as well use it, right?

So, I pooled my resources, went through the above line of reasoning to justify it, and purchased my Osode. Yippidy-do.

I then went out and tested it by helping Jan kill Girtablulu, a WSNM for his Sword WS. My Osode made me very impressive for a NIN, and I was thrilled with the results.


Wootness2008 Feb 17 (Sun), 23:25
Just a very small note to say....

I got my Destroyers and my Retributor from a couple of KSNMs I did tonight! Woooooo!

I had pretty much given up on the Destroyers... I tried 8 times in the past, never got them. The Retributor was an item I wanted for my WAR, but didn't really have too much motivation to actively try to get. Basically, they both drop from the same KSNM, but I've never been lucky enough to get them...

...at least... until tonight.

Anyway... I'm thrilled. The big downside is I have 3 friggin' latents to unlock now. My Destroyers, Retributor, and my pick of trials.... That's 1,300 WS points to get before I can use them all :-)

Oh, we also had a win tonight in our Limbus run. This is the first one for ClanAM (we normally just go for farming).

All in all, awesome day.