Fun

I've spent the past few nights basically having fun in FFXI, which is as it should be I suppose.

I fished up Ogre Eels on the first night, turning down a kind invite for more skillups with Feon since I wanted to take it easy and log out for an early rest. I needed the eels to skillup to 62 in Alchemy, and because the fish vendor can be kinda spotty with supply and targeting the eels would also allow me to skillup, I decided to fish them up.

My spot was on the seashore of East Sarutabaruta using a Sinking Minnow. The Finalfishing database listed Peeled Lobster as the best bait for these, so I cast a line hoping for Gold Lobster, which as it turns out bites about as frequently as Gold Carp and is still a bit tricky to reel in at my level. Thankfully, Ogre Eels went for the Sinking Minnow also. There was no advantage to using Peeled Lobster, since it targets the same fish, but I burned some wind crystals on the lobsters and fed them to the eels anyway. Why not? After reeling in a couple of Bastore Bream with entirely too much effort, I started releasing those. I skilled up to 29 in fishing and logged out soon thereafter.

On the following night, I checked in with Feon and he was once again skilling up in Kuftal, so I joined him and his group of friends and chopped away at Ovinniks and Greater Cockatrices for a few hours. It was, as usual, a pleasure to hang out, and the skillups were actually faster that night due to the full moon phase.

At first I suspected the skillups were more likely when I didn't use accuracy food, but soon decided the moon was the most likely cause. Something about skillups in this game lends itself to voodoo theories doesn't it? I still only ate one Sushi, since my accuracy at skill level 262 as sufficient to land most hits. I went from 261 to 266 in that party before sleepiness took over. 10 levels away from having both of my primary weapons capped!

My next weapon-related goal will be to unlock Decimation, even though I'll probably never use it.

Last night's session began with browsing the AH and trying not to buy things, and planning, planning, planning. I did buy a couple of baubles. A Ruby Ring, to fully proc in that 1 fSTR during WS (woo...hoo? -_-). And a Warwolf Belt, for the extra +5 STR on WS if I can afford the hit in accuracy. A better long term solution in that slot will be the Potent Belt, since it offers the best of both worlds: a +3 STR bonus, and +8 accuracy (only a loss of 2 points over the Life Belt).

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with the STR build, honestly. When you break down the math, you're still just "nickle & diming" a few damage points in the end, for mucho gil I might add. Multi-hit weaponskill damage is another one of those things in FFXI that frustrates me in terms of it's voodoo performance.

The other stuff that I didn't buy is still sitting on my Shopping List, waiting for another day. I'm mostly holding off because I want to make sure I have enough gil to keep skilling Alchemy comfortably, but also because some of those pieces only work in pairs, balancing out each other's weaknesses particularly in the Accuracy department. And most of them are in the 400k range, so buying more than one item would break my bank.

/em hums "If I were a rich man..."

The last part of the night was quite fun, since it consisted of another Lifthrasirian escapade. This time, we were going for an AF NM fight in Castle Oztroja for Quan, an up-and-coming Monk in our group. Feon very kindly lent me his Dusk Gloves to try out the combined 8% haste with my turban for the fight, since accuracy wouldn't be much of an issue.


The shell gathered together in front of the zone around midnight, and I noticed Maloc was now sporting several pieces of the Dragoon AF set.


So...so...envious of the aesthetics of that set! I'm sure you all have seen how goofy an Elvaan looks in the Warrior AF.

We got to the ??? spawn point without too much trouble. No one dropped invisibility at inopportune times and we didn't veer off course, though we had to stop and consult the map at one point on the third floor to make sure we were taking the right route. The mages rested to full and we moved in for the kill as Quan traded his Yagudo Drink.


I didn't anticipate how badly this thing would kill my shadows...and my HP, which I should have, considering the NM is a frickin' Monk (duh). Counter kicked my ass, and he countered constantly. And I made the faux pas of landing a 1200ish Rampage a little too early in the fight, and dealing with the hate issues thereafter.


At one point I hit the 'zomg I'm gonna die' macro to put up Defender and all of my AF/DEF pieces. Our Paladin, Lycasdemus, kept Huu Xalmo on a pretty damned good leash, however, and I survived to put on my damage gear again. But I tread on glass after that, particularly with the haste effect. We defeated him in a few minutes, and Quan claimed his Xalmo Feather for the final piece of his AF set.

I realized after the fight was over that Defender was still up. ORZ Why can't I keep a cool analytical head in these fights? Maybe I just need to do more of them.

Anyhow, congratulations to Quan, and a big thank you to the Lifthrasir group, and Feon et. al. for making my days in this fantasy world... quite fantastic. ^_^