Keeping this one simple since...Well, WAR is a simple job. I use WAR mainly for Einherjar and Merit PTs. Honestly that's the only reason I use Fowling earring. Birds getting intimidated when you're waiting on Third Eye timer is win. I don't use WAR on mamools if I have a choice but if I do I switch the helm out for O hat and use a Flame RIng(on RR). I still don't have any Nyzul Isle Weapon Skills. Getting non-boss groups together is hell so if you know someone starting a climb static on Phoenix let me know.

Next entry: PLD or DRK. Not sure yet. If you have a preference let me know in the comments.

Okay so there are a few mistakes in this image since I was half asleep when I made that. I'll correct them in the listing.

1.) Idle set(Weskit for B Cloak)
2.) Stoneskin set
3.) Resting set
4.) Enfeebling set
5.) High-resist nukes
6.) Dark Magic set(Faith torque is supposed to be Dark Torque)

Quick notes: Idle cape is Cheviot. Obis are swapped in for ice, thunder and dark magic spells when appropriate. Current HQ staves are Ice, Thunder, Dark, Wind and Earth. That's most of my lolElvaan BLM. Not shown is ele DoT set since I almost never(ever) use it.

Next set: Warrior.

I'm pretty happy with my Chakra set where it is now. I get 460 initial HP + a full Invigorate back from it. I'd love to get more but the only upgrades would be Cassie to Robust and Topaz  rings to Soil/Robust.

Next time: BLM gear!

Nothing to show for it. Reasons to hate FFXI +1.

Still no homam legs! Omega needs to put out more double legs and give less head. Maybe I can get them(or more gil to buy them) from bonanza. Here's hoping.

On a similar note I'm leveling BLU now. I already have a lot of the good stuff for it(excluding BLU-only gear of course).  I took it from 35 to 46 so far which isn't too bad considering I just started a few days ago. It's pretty fun but I'm learning how hard it is to get help with spells like Frightful roar and Refueling. I might have to resort to /shouting for help and we all know how well that usually works out.

Got this last night. Second one for the LS with many more to come!

I know everyone is talking about it and you're probably sick of hearing about it already but I had to do this entry. Rapture was not supposed to be related to Final Fantasy at all let alone an FFXI sequel but now we know: Rapture -> Final Fantasy XIV -> FFXI-2.

So what do we know?

1. Our favorite races will be making a return. A worrisome detail from the epic teaser trailer showed us a Galka with no tail. Blasphemy!We also saw(at least I saw) a Male Mithra. Hopefully this means no more Manthra.

2. It is set in a new world or different dimension called Eorzea. There seems to be a lot more conflict in this world than in Vana'diel. The gods seem to play a bigger role in this world as well.

3. The job sytem will be returning in one way or another. From the FFXIV site we can see a WHM, BLM, PLD and a DRG. There appears to be a DRK as well but there's no way to be sure it isn't just a WAR in dark armor. There is also a belt of daggers which may indicate THF is set to return.

What does this mean?

Well it looks like they won't be changing a lot at first glance and this is what seems to be worrying most people. I want them to shake things up and go with completely new ideas. I know FFXI works from a financial stand point and they don't want to mess with a good thing for no reason but people will be less inclined to start from scratch for a prettier FFXI.

FFXIV has a lot of potential to be a great game if they don't make the same mistakes twice. But which mistakes you say?  Kings, gear that scales poorly, unbalanced jobs, a PvP system that is more inconvenient than fun, drop rates that defy reason, etc.. Basically we want more ToAU and less RotZ.

How will this affect FFXI as we know it?

The first blow seems to be to everyone's motivation. Why care about what I get done in FFXI if it won't matter next year? I know I'm feeling that way right about now.

Version updates will probably end with WotG completion depending on when it is completed. This doesn't mean that there will be no bug fixes or holiday events but I doubt we'll be seeing many "The Version Update is here!" messages after FFXIV is released. 

Cancelled accounts will likely come next. As the population continues to drop they will begin to consolidate servers. I doubt FFXI will ever "die" so long as people continue to pay to play but SE will reduce what the game costs them to run.

Will I play it?

The first deal breaker for me will be the interface. FFXI has a workable but far from optimal interface as we all know. I don't want an interface that makes me go out and find the best ToS-violating UI mods.

Next will be anything you can bot. This is a major problem in FFXI and SE's failure to correct it has lead to an "If you can't beat them join them" attitude about cheating. I don't want to see this in FFXIV and I'm sure very few others want to either.

Finally I want GMs that know what they're doing and have some real authority. Very few people have more than 5 GM calls after 7 years of playing. You think that's a good thing? It doesn't mean there's no problems. What it means is that GMs are so useless people would rather just say "fuck it" than waste their time waiting for a GM to be told "we're sorry for the inconvenience" and then ignored.


And there you have it. Comments are greatly appreciated if I missed anything(specifically about what we know so far).

Sorry about no pictures but Photobucket is being lame and doing maint when I decide to update my blog. As always you can check our screenshot forum: Beyond Screenshots!

First off we did a couple Ouryus. It was a lot of fun to do this fight as a BLM. Last time I did it I was MNK on worm duty which wasn't very exciting. We got some nice money drops to reward the members who donated the orbs.

Yesterday we did Sea to finish off two JoL sets. It would have been three but we had an unfortunate accident on the second Prudence which made us lose. Tonight we'll knock out those JoLs. Here's hoping for some torque!

Also, a little tip to everyone: Always check Bazaars. Even if you aren't looking to buy anything for yourself there are always good deals out there to make you some gil. This month alone I've made 880k profit from reselling items people were trying to get rid of fast. I'm not talking about small items like dynamis currency or sky triggers but stuff like armor and weapons.

Okay Slick wants an update so here is an update. We've been doing a lot since I last posted so I'm just gonna touch on everything in the order it happened. I'll probably miss some stuff so feel free to check Beyond's Screenshot forum. I'm also skipping stuff like NQ turtle kills. No one wants to read about D Feet.

Two days after my last post we downed our second Nidhogg.



He was stingy and only dropped an M Body.


The next day we were lucky enough to find a free Fafnir in the Aery.



He wasn't so stingy.

We did two more JoLs too.



The first dropped both earrings and the second dropped nothing. Still no Love torques but hopefully it puts out soon. We've had much better luck with the other torques. We've gotten 2/4 Fortitude torques and an astounding 5/8 Justice torques.

Proto-Omega 6, 7, and 8 died this month as well. It seems no one got pictures of the actual fight/pool for these unfortunately. Omega #6 dropped two lolheads but 7 and 8 both put out legs. I lost lot on legs but if Omega keeps being nice I should get them eventually.

Beyond returned to Tier IV ZNMs after a bit of farming and put down the dog for a 7th and 8th time.



Drops weren't very impressive but we'll be back for some more pants!

Horizon, the dynamis shell, has been doing very well. We've moved from low-manning cities to northlands and even have a CoP zone coming up soon. I'm on a break from dynamis but I can't wait to return to help everyone out.



The Beaucedine run was very successful netting a good yield of currency and 11 AF with only 16 people. They even got the win for those who needed it. Great job guys! If you're intereted in joining Horizon for Dynamis you can apply here.

I know...no updates for awhile and all that. Shame on me(for the lack of updates AND the lame title). I'll try to cover everything but going to keep it short and try to do more frequent updates from now on.

I joined a new endgame shell called "Beyond". We do pretty much everything from ZNM to HNM. The shell went active around the 19th of January and we've got a lot accomplished in a little over a month of activity.

Going to start with ZNMs since we do those on Mondays. We've done a wide range of Tier 1-3 ZNMs and even some Sarameyas. Our first Sarameya attempt ended in failure but the next time we came prepared to zerg it to death. We took the beast down in a little over a minute without using 2hrs. We killed two that night and the one with 2hrs died in a mere 48 seconds(That's more than 1k dmg/second!). The first only dropped the Aurum head but the second one put out with an Oracle's cap and robe. Hopefully many more to come. Click on the picture below to view the video of both fights(Watch in High Quality),



We also did a Tyger that night but I wasn't able to make it. It only dropped the Enkidu's cap.

As far ask SKy/Sea goes we've done a lot of Sky and are just getting started on Sea. We got several Kirin's osodes, a couple N Body Abjs., a few D Body Abj and one pair of red legs. I was lucky enough to get an Osode early on. We've also gotten lots of items from the lesser gods.

In Sea we've already gotten a Justice torque and fortitude torque. I got the Fortitude torque from Nakoa's pop since he only wanted the GA. We have plenty more to get from Sea so I'm sure we'll be doing more soon.

Limbus is an optional event but that hasn't stopped us from building up quite a roster of people for Homam/Nashira. Our first successful Omega rewarded us with a pair of Homam Cosciales and a pair of Homam Gambieras. Congrats to Hollowtips on his Homam Cosciales and to me on Homam Gambieras.I'm still looking to buy Homam Cosciales but at this rate I may get them from Beyond as a Tier II item first. We had some bad luck on our first Ultima but we'll get it next time(the fight went very smoothly until around 10% when it got turned and nailed the mages with an AoE).

We've claimed many a Fafnir but have been rewarded mostly with N Heads and other misc items. No Nidhoggs yet but we'll get some soon. Adamantoise/Aspid put out an A Body and 2x Wyrm body for us so far with more to come. We haven't claimed many Behemoths and no KBs yet but that's mostly due to us not camping it as much as we do other kings.

Yesterday we did 10 orbs of Early Bird Catches the Wyrm and each one was nearly flawless with the exception of one. Kisukesama's orb proved to be more difficult than expected but we still managed to win and he was rewarded with a Speed belt. Grats! We also cleared out most of our Wyrm beard list since the Wyrm was especially generous with them. You can see all the drops here: Wyrm Screenshots!

We plan to do more Wyrm tonight and some Behemoths on another day so look forward to those updates(Hopefully with more speed belts and BB items!).

I know posting about meripo PTs is pretty 'lol' but whatever. I don't merit very often. I had a couple PTs early on as WAR/SAM which were okay but pretty short. After Besieged I flagged up again as WAR but changed to MNK/WAR once I got an invite. The first PT was decent, 17k/hr. After it disbanded I was at four merits so I decided t do something I never do: Build a Party. It turned out to be a great 26k/hr PT. Setup was: WAR SAM MNK BRD BRD RDM.

Parses(for the MNK/WAR PTs):

Didn't expect to hit 75 so soon. It was at 37 when I started leveling it on Nov. 24, 2008. Level Sync ftw I guess(and no my skills are not behind and I do have Kasha!).

Once I hit 73 I had begun saving merits for SAM and was able to do this right after my pt ended:



I need three more merits to raise sTP to Level 4. Hopefully I can get those tomorrow.

I also bought two new items for BLM: Auster's Staff and Pluto's staff. I now have all the important ones and the rest will come as I have spare gil to spend.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully more soon!

I decided I was going to spend some time working on my Smithing. I had been thinking about leveling it for a long time so it was already sitting at 26. I managed to get it to 29 on Iron Chains and skill ups pretty much died there. The guide I was following recommended Claws which required a Bonecraft sub. Well the only sub I had was 19 Goldsmithing so the quest to level some sub-crafts began.

I decided to start with Bone and Leather since those were the ones I would need the soonest. I did Leather first. Well, I tried. I filled up my inventory and Ellorna's with Sheepskins and got to synthing it into Leather. 80 synths later I hit level 1. Yeah. I kept at it until I hit level two and then moved onto to Solea. This synth was Level 11 so no skills on breaks but with Advanced Support I was able to hit level 3 pretty quickly.

Bonecraft was much quicker. I leveled on Bone Hairpins very quickly and then moved on to Bone Arrowheads. Both of these synths were painless. Wind Crystals and Bone chips are both very easy to come by and take up much less space since they stack(unlike sheepskins). I stoped once I got to level 4 because I had been crafting just about nonstop for several hours.

I needed to craft the test item for my Smithing test towards the end of the night. It required me synthing a Silver ingot or two. In the process I managed to hit Level 20 Goldsmithing so I needed to do that test item as well.

At the end of the day:

I thought I had a screenshot of my Bonecraft skill ups but I guess not.


Purchases~

Well since Ellorna gave me her account I have been selling off some of her stuff. Mostly stuff I'll never use or stuff that was just taking up space on mules. I ended up making around 10M by selling off stuff I'll never use. I still have the basics like the P. Rope/Ele torque/Noble's tunic/etc.. Would have been stupid to sell the stuff that makes the jobs useful in the first place.

The first thing I did was shop around for a pair of Homam Cosciales. I contacted HomingMissiles though PM on FFXIAH and got no response. The next day I saw that EverybodyLimbus was selling them 500k cheaper anyways(for 3M). I got in touch with Hracknul and worked everything out. Around mid-January or early February I should have them(I hope). It will be nice having them finally since they benefit so many of my jobs.

After that 3M was spent I shopped around and picked up a few things I had been wanting for a long time: Haubergeon +1, Fire bomblet, Fowling earring, and a Flame ring. I can't wait to do some stuff on DRK to see how much of an effect the new gear has on my performance. Here's the highlights of my current gear:



This isn't a specific set I use but it does look pretty. The next thing I want to do is upgrade my AF Helm. Then I'll be done with DRK AF upgrades until I have nothing else to use Anct. Bst. Coins for.

I still have 1.2M left but I'm going to save that. I want another acc ring for MNK but that can wait. I'm going to try to do the Toreador's ring ENM more often now that I have a healer to drag along. I've been hesitant about doing it solo without a Brown Belt. Something else I want to do is get a more solid Chakra set going. Right now my Chakras are about 360. I could hit 421 pretty easily but it would cost me about 300k in new gear and four item slots.

In other news I helped my friend Daegarae get his BLM to 47 from 44. In the process my BLM hit 65 finally which means I can finally wear my Ele torque. Woo! It was fun playing BLM again so I may try to play it more in the upcoming weeks.

That's all for now!

Well SAM is 70 now. I managed to get a 6-hit using JSE hands, legs and feet. Sadly the stat bonuses on those pieces are abysmal. Can't wait until I hit 75 so I can merit sTP and get rid of the legs and feet. My WS damage is starting to get more impressive already. Gekko is in the 800s and Yuki is in the 700s most of the time. I've still parsed highest by at least 6% in all of my PTs. The 6% was against an HQ SAM(the guy has a serious white-box addiction). I'm pretty sure he would have beat me if he had a Rajas but he didn't.

Ellorna quit and gave me her account. So now I have a char with TH4 THF, 75WHM, and 75BLM. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet but I'm looking into ENMs/BCNMs I can duo. I might take up RDM or SMN on the account to have some more versatility(even though RDM is my next job to 75).

I used Ellorna to get a second mule Whitegate access. It went very quickly considering the mule was Level 8. The mule only died three times. That's an extra 40 storage so far(need to wait to do next locker upgrade). Now that that's done I'm going to work on maxing Mog Safes, Gobbie Bags and Storage on a couple mules so I can delete at least three.

Sorry for the short update but hopefully there will be more to blog about soon.

Obviously it has been a bit since my last update. Just going to cover stuff very briefly this update and will try to update sooner next time so I don't need to rush and I can add some pictures.

Last time I updated my SAM was not even 50. Now it is 65 and it looks like 70 shouldn't take too long if I keep getting quality exp. It's mostly due to Level Sync that I've been leveling so quickly. While the exp is great and it doesn't take long to get a party I spend more time skilling up than exping. Tonight I spent several hours getting GKT from 209 to 217(it caps at 227). The thing that slowed me down the most was getting SAM AF. No other AFquest series that I've done has had so many unnecessary delays. In one quest you were required to wait until JP Midnight not once but twice! Ugh. Obviously I got it done eventually but damn.

I had a pretty decent party on Lesser Colibris today as SAM. We got a high chain of 79 and I broke my SAM Penta record with a 1488 Penta Thrust. We were only getting about 13k/hr though since we were synced to 60 and then 61. My best party so far on Lessers has been 17k/hr without band.

I've been duoing with Daegarae a lot since he came back from a break recently. Mostly on lower level jobs but we also did a DRG and PUP duo to help him reach 60. Another thing we've been doing is Up In Arms. Even if you don't get the club you still geat about 50k+ per run from the gil reward and NPC-ables. So it isn't like you walk away with nothing.

One of the first things Dae and I did after he got back was the Retribution WSNM. It was pretty tough with Dae being so rusty but we pulled it off after a couple tries. Retribution is kind of useless but it is a fun WS and I needed it done so that I could move on to other WSNMs.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something but it probably isn't anything important. If it is I'll just update this.

I surpassed my goal of hitting 44SAM and am now 46SAM with 3k to 47. Since I was getting so close to 50 I decided to start getting some of the gear I will need.

First off were Shinimusha Haidate.

These are some nice pants for SAM and they aren't too expensive but I'm pretty broke right now. I still wanted them though so I persuaded Ellorna to lend me her TH4 and off we went to camp the NM. After two very boring hours:



1/1 on an item with a 15% droprate! Thanks Ell!

Next up? The matching JSE body of course. I already had the Subligar so I just needed to get the items Brygid wanted. Those happened to be a Bishop's robe and a pair of Silk Slops. Just my luck. Bishop's robe rarely sells and Silk Slops are grossly expensive for no good reason. I was able to find someone nice enough to let me borrow their Bishop's robe(Thanks Michaelirvin!). I had to buy the one pair of slops on the AH for 50k. Hopefully someone else needs them and will buy them quick.

After a short run to Bastok(Retrace > North Gustaberg(S) > North Gustaberg > Port Bastok > Bastok Markets) I was rewarded with:



That's all for now. Hopefully more SAM news soon!

Well, I left Saviour. I really didn't like the way the shell was ran and being on BRD 100% of the time just wasn't fun at all. I wouldn't have minded being on BRD all the time if it was worth it but it wasn't. In my last post I mentioned how they didn't believe me about the depop trick for Prudence but I don't think it was a matter of belief at all. Saviour seems to be stuck in 2006.

I haven't seen Gods die so slow since...Okay I've never seen Gods die so slow. For all their talk of how I'd be on BRD all the time because of their pimped out melees they never bring those melees to anything but Limbus. "Throw BLMs at it" seems to be their motto. That really wasn't the breaking point though. As slow as it was it got the job done.

During that run with so many BLMs we were doing Byakko and it got off a Banishga III. Not a single BLM even attempted a Stun and they weren't all nuking at the time. Well I was buffing the THF and got hit as well. I finished casting the second song, reapplied Stoneskin(so I wouldn't get raped if Byakko turned and did Cyclone), and made my way to the BLMs. Ballad had ~7 seconds until it wore off so I started to reapply that. Now, it had been about 34 seconds since the -Ga III went off and the THF was at 500ish HP. I was going to cure him after I was done with Ballad. It wasn't a priority since that was the only damage he had taken so far during the fight. He certainly wasn't pulling hate. One of the leaders decided the THF should have been at 100% by now and proceeded to tell me how to do my job in LS chat. Nevermind not one word was said to the BLMs who, apparently, never picked up Stun on their way to 75. Even in Legacy the lack of Stuns would have been unaccpetable. Whatever. I cured THF up and started resting MP. Next, again in LS, I get told to Paralyna. Agh, this one is my fault. I had my filters set up poorly and I had forgotten to make a -na macro set(I had just recently brought BRD out of retirement to join this LS). After that I Paralyna-ing and Curing just fine.

During that run I got a pair of Seiryu's Kote and D. Abj Legs. I was the only person who wanted the kote and the leader who would later reprimand me for not curing kept asking if anyone else wanted the kote repeatedly before I was allowed to lot. Needless to say I was annoyed at the end of the run so I figured I'd take a short break from events. I would check in on the forums every day and noticed someone mentioned I had disappeared. I was going to reply but one of the leaders said they didn't need a BRD who "casts songs and goes afk anyways". Whoa. Nevermind the three Limbus runs where I healed perfectly well when the WHM died from being in AoE range and kept everyone alive to clear the group of mobs. So I left. Turns out I wasn't the only one. Another BRD left as well to join another linkshell.

Okay now that that is out of the way I can get to the good stuff. I got burned out getting BLM to 64 so quickly that I decided to take a break from it and level another job. I was thinking SAM or THF. Both jobs were sitting at 37. My decision on what job was really made by the fact that I have most of the standard gear already. I mean...It kind of seems like a waste not to level SAM when you already have a Justice Torque.

I spent some gil getting passable gear for SAM. None of the good stuff was up on the AH so it wasn't very much gil. I don't have O. Kote(Melee Gloves for MNK) so I decided to camp the NM. After three kills and no drop(four counting the one time I saw him up before) there was a total of eleven campers there. Yuck. I warped grabbed the Ancient Currency from the last Dynamis run I did(Xarc) and tossed it in my Bazaar. As soon as I hit Rolanberry I got an invite on SAM. The leader was very persistent so I accepted. Half way there the leader and two other members DC. Turns out they were RMT(maybe). So we decided to rebuild the PT. It went very smoothly and by then end of the night it had turned into this:



I almost felt sorry for the mobs. Distortion after Distortion on Beetles was too much fun. As you can see we lacked a healer because the PLD had paid someone to PL us. After he hit 50 he left and we repped him with a BLM. The fights went even faster and I quickly hit 40. Halfway to 41 the PL wanted to leave and two members had to go to Dynamis so I called it done. I needed to update gear anyways.

I grabbed a Jujitsu Gi and went to get a Tilt Belt but none were up. Turns out someone was buying them all to NPC them. Awesome. Well Ellorna was leveling her 42 DRG so we decided to sync to my level and kill T-VT crawlers. It was a lot of fun and we had a couple close calls but we never died. After I hit 41 and got a buffer we called it since it was pretty late and most of the mobs had gone from T to EM or DC.

Hopefully I can get to 44 today to upgrade my GKT to something better without spending 100k on a weapon I'll use for less than five levels.

Been a bit since my last update. I'll try to keep things in order as much as possible but no promises. First off I got BLM to 64. Thta means I can replace my Seer's with Druid's for even more Elemental Skill. I also found out that 64 was the level where my skill would come uncapped(since it was capped as 75DRK). So I caught a Besieged and caught it up but it is going to suck having it uncapped every time I level. It will really suck if I get the first level at a new camp and need to leave to recap it.

I've been doing events with Saviour for a week or so. It isn't too bad being BRD all the time...it's just pretty boring. So far we've done JoJ, JoP, JoH, and JoL as far as sea goes. I tried to tell them the depop trick for Prudence but I don't think they believed me so we ended up fghting both copies. They have their tanks come PLD/NIN for JoL. Personally I think they would be better off having them come PLD/RDM since you're out of melee range and just eating spells(usually -gas anyways).

Sky has been pretty routine. The only thing different is the amount of gil I spend getting around. We've collected a few pop sets and should be popping some gods soon. Should be interesting to see if I can debuff them at all.

I've only done one Einherjar run but it went very smoothly minus the NIN who kept running to the BLMs after every mob died(no march for him!). I haven't done any ZNMs, Nyzul, or Salvage yet.

I spent some time upgrading BRD gear since I joined. Instead of going through each piece individually I'll just list them:







The two staves are the source of the entry title. When I first went to get them both were waaay overpriced...I'm talking 70k+ over going price. Well I waited about a day and noticed that none were up. I was pissed off that someone paid those jacked up prices(which usually results in a higher posting prices from everyone else too). Well after I checked the history I saw that none had sold...The jerk who had posted those got them returned. I was happier than I should have been about that. After events I got these two for the going price. The musical earring and hands were pretty cheap since I found a supplier for ABCs. They have a ton of them(I guess they collect for their shell) and sell low. I bought about 70 from them and got 1.5k off each coin.

I need to upgrade my other Earring to a Loquacious and do enough Einherjar to get an Omega ring. Need to get new AF items from Limbus too so I can upgrade the legs and be done with BRD AF+1.

Speaking of AF+1 I got the Temenos item for DRK which means I could upgrade another piece(already have hands+1). I couldn't decide between the head and feet so I flipped a coin and feet won. Head will be next. If I get the MNK item I'll be upgrading my Temple Cyclas for the extra VIT for Chakra. I'm working on maxing out my Chakra build since I use MNK for farming.

Okay that's pretty much it. If I forgot anything I'll update this entry.