ZM4 Prep

Some of you took a peek at my pictures before I could post. Tsk. Tsk.

Lifthrasir had a very successful and rather short lantern-farming session in Temple of Uggalepih. I think we were 4/4 on the drop from the Maledictors! Of course I lost all lots, once again. But I don't picture myself going through this mission again once Lifthrasir has completed it, so no worries.

Dr. Tran

Raikoh introduced me to Dr. Tran, and I thought maybe some of you might enjoy it. Warning, this is definitely not work safe (and neither are the other eps):



There are a few more episodes linked on lonesausage.com.

Enjoy XD

Assault

While I was preparing for another marksmanship snoozefest, Feon invited me to do some Assault runs with him and Cozmos.

After much muling, I picked up my orders for Leujaoam Cleansing and we headed off to Azouph Isle. Those worms are uh, nasty... After Feon died on a poorly timed Gastric Bomb, we aborted the mission and headed back to town.

For our second attempt, we switched to Excavation Duty. We got the last wall down to 10% HP before the time ran out. While chipping away at the walls, we couldn't help but notice the occasional comedic whiffs:

Oops, missed that wall, better have some sushi!

We used our third license to attempt another Leujaoam Cleansing, but both Feon and I died on the 2nd or 3rd worm.

Despite the failed missions, I definitely had fun and can see the appeal of Assault. I'd like to try these again soon. I think our problems on both missions can probably be remedied by a couple of extra bodies.

yawnMarksmanship

My marksmanship has been 0 for much too long, so I decided to snipe some bunnies as a nice chillout activity on the day after the promy run. I skilled up to level 5 or so before noticing that my latest mob wasn't dying as quickly as usual... and had a funny name.

Awesome skillup mob! But skillups were all he dropped, unfortunately.

Light of Holla

Lifthrasir has set up a schedule of 'family nights', where we set aside each Tuesday and Saturday night to pause our individual projects (crafting, leveling, meriting, etc.) to do events that will benefit several members of the LS or the LS as a whole.

Our first project is to get the Promyvions underway since several of our members, myself included, have yet to clear these. So Murrdoc coordinated a run on Promyvion Holla on Saturday. We had farmed the psycho and hystero anima a couple of nights before and everyone was reminded to bring poison pots and holy waters to the event.

We steadily made our way to the final floor under the direction of Murrdoc (who had a map) with Zorrandor as our widescanner.

We did catch aggro here & there, which I assume is unavoidable in places (especially at the fences), but we fought our way through, mostly without incident. The path to the final receptacle was the most treacherous and two of our members died as we fought a Seether and a few other empties (a Thinker might have been among them, can't quite remember).

Fortunately another group had arrived at the receptacle before us and told us to rest & recover while they cleared it. Once cleared, everyone ported to the top floor and we joined up as an alliance for the final run to the spire. The path was amazingly empty and we all made it without any problems.

We let the other party go first while Murrdoc formulated the battle plan and Poison pots & holy waters were distributed as needed. Doc would be calling the animas, and we established a rotation, although I stupidly missed the part where he said he'd be calling them by first initials. I assumed we would just be calling out the animas as we used them and he'd be calling out the anima to use, leaving it to people to keep track of who threw the last one.

Despite my missing the first Hystero toss because of this brain fart, the battle went extremely well and we claimed the new record (since the last server maint, I guess).

A big congrats to the team, and 3 cheers for Murrdoc for coordinating the run!

P.S. After the run, we discovered that the other team had a SNAFU (the BLM warped accidentally) and had to re-attempt. I hope they made it on the second try -_-;

Ah, much better

Flickr limits my res, but I can take shots in 1440x900 now.

A few .DAT edits for the UI and maps, and some registry editing for Mip-mapping level 4 (to get rid of that damn flickering in the distance) and setting both background and overlay to 1440x900, & I think I'm good to go!

And it only took me 3 years to upgrade... Shut up, I'm old.

Attention Morons of Ifrit

Sis Kebabi are 24k per stack here, assuming not too many of you participated in Besieged and lost our AC.

I figured this little farce market died a long time ago... but it's still trucking along slowly.

Guess I'll be keeping a stack in there every once in awhile, for free moron gil.

Headstones

During the crazy merit session on the last post, Feon "gently" reminded me that I needed to get moving on the Zilart Missions ^_^; I've been on ZM5 for awhile now, and it is indeed time that I progress a bit further. He offered to get me through the NM headstones if hit the solo ones first, so I finished up my Water and Earth fragments (I'd done the Ice fragment out of boredom a long time ago).

Last night, we (Feon, Cozmos, Ishmael [2-boxed], and I) got through the Cape Terrigan, Zitah, and Behemoth's Dominion headstones mostly without incident although I lost my sneak/invis in Terrigan at one point and managed to agro a goblin (/blush). I also 2-houred on the shadow in Terrigan, without warning Feon, but the mob was swinging an extremely slow Great Sword, so keeping shadows up wasn't too much trouble.

A big {Thank you} to Feon and Cozmos for donating their time in helping me with this mission. Hope to do the final Ifrit's Cauldron run soon.

We rushed back to Al Zahbi in time to get into the undead Besieged and I acquired .5 more skillups on my Great Axe.

But Frohike, I thought you hated Besieged!

Again, it's an OK event if I've already accomplished other stuff for the evening. It's when the event interferes with my EXP that I get annoyed. Can't have my cake & eat it too, I suppose.

P.S. Yes, my screenshots suck. I'll be playing the PC version soon, so hopefully I'll be able to use a better screen capture tool, and spruce up a few things (*cough*windower*cough*).

1250 DMG, Chain 52

This is just for my own records.

Highest Rampage damage on EXP mob: 1250, 2/13/07, Heraldic Imp, Aggressor + Berserk up

Highest EXP chain: 52, 2/14/07, Bhaflau Thickets, South Camp, killed by Sleep. BRD WHM RNG WAR WAR NIN.

That last party raked in 4 and a half merits in approximately 4 hours.

OK, back to work.

Pathos (And the People Who Try to Use It)

My crafting and seeking session was cut short after getting to level 4, when I received an invitation to a primarily Japanese party. Roster was: BRD, RDM, SMN, WAR, WAR, RNG. They told me we were heading to Nyzul Isle, a staging point I hadn't flagged yet, but they were OK with that and told me to follow them.

I initially assumed that we were going to take the Colibri camp but this group went to a different spot. Instead they headed to the Caedarva Mire (5) exit (can't think of another way to name it, see exit 5 on the map ^_^), which brought us to Hediva Isle. We stayed in the general vicinity of the zone and killed Heraldic Imps. The occasional Mind Flayer add would force us to zone to despawn the mob, but the BRD and RNG seemed to have an OK time pulling.

BRD-style pulling & queuing doesn't work so well with Amnesia, but we managed to pull a chain 15 at some point during the session.

About an hour after we arrived, another group unsuccessfully attempted to camp on top of us, and I received a /tell from an English player asking us how long we would be there. I told him the party was JP and I really had no clear read on how long they planned to stay... though it would probably be awhile. His response was,

Yeah, I noticed they're JP, and you guys are meriting [pregnant pause... queue violins]. And we're just trying to get to 75.

Boo... hoo?
I mean, I understand the frustration. However,

• A camp claim is a camp claim; I don't give 2 s**ts what level you are.
  
• I'm not the leader, talk to him.
• I don't speak Japanese, and even if I did, I think I'd have a hard time convincing the party to leave a 10k per hour spot, regardless of how many violins or pregnant pauses I use.

I thought ignoring him was successful, but he shot another /tell an hour later asking if we were done yet.

I couldn't find the auto-translate for {I don't speak any Moron}, so I simply replied No, and we proceeded to EXP for another hour or so, netting us approximately 30k.

At the end of our session, the group guided me to the staging point and was kind enough to congratulate me for something I should have solo'd weeks ago. They were a good group of people, and I hope my name stands out... maybe... the next time they're looking for a Warrior.

I spent 3 merits on upgrading my Axe skill once again, bringing my cap to the A+ level of 277. Subsequent merits will go into Critical Attack and the Aggressor/Berserk timers.

Gone Smithing

I've barely logged in since the middle of last week, mostly because I'm distracted by Viva Pinata again, and FFVI has also been taking up some of my time. I'm getting ready to do some more fishing... My lame attempt at skilling up in Zeruhn Mines was just that, netting me more Tricolored Carp and Moat Carp than Black Eel, so I decided to target the bass in Rolanberry Fields.

But to do this effectively, I need a Frog Lure, which no one bothers to craft since its the HQ below Shrimp Lure. It requires 46 Alchemy, check. 9 Smithing... dang.

Since I need Smithing to progress further in Alchemy anyway, I've decided to skill up a bit. I ran back & forth between the Al Zahbi AH (for crystals) and the NPC named Ndego, buying Copper Ore and Tin Ore to make Bronze Ingots. Then I used the ingots to make sheets and skill to level 3.1 before logging out.

I got a bite for a merit party while I was puttering around, but it fell through.

Ah the exciting life of a 75 WAR these days. >.>

More BCNM fun

The past two evenings have consisted of multiple Operation Desert Swarm runs, which Feon's group was kind enough to allow me to attend, even when my seals had run out. I feel like I can do that particular KSNM in my sleep now... and it offered me a chance to really get the knack with rotating Utsusemi Ichi and Ni.

I never had much practice with this rotation as a NIN since I sort of bailed on that job as soon as I hit 37. And most merit parties only drop 4 or 5 of my shadows before hate gets pulled elsewhere temporarily.

In this KSNM, I got to solo at least 2 scorpions in a row and really get my Ichi - Ichi - Ni - Ichi timing down, which was really quite fun.

We also took a couple of stabs at Copycat, which was rather interesting. This BCNM will charm members in the group on a regular rotation, starting with the member who traded the orb. The first attempt was a bit of a mess, but we toughed it out on the second for the eventual kill, though 3 members died before it was all over. Took about 20 minutes O_O;

We got a couple of 'big' drops on the ODS runs: a damascus ingot, and a damascene cloth. Profit from these will be split amongst the group, which again was very generous of them considering I brought no orbs to the table. The RA/EX "500WS" weapons (not sure what else to call them) were free lots, and I eventually ended up with a Heart Snatcher, a Senjuinrikio, and a Rampager. I put the dagger and katana into my locker for now, but do plan to unlock the great axe latent for fun.

On an unrelated note, I'm a bit appalled at how badly broken fishing has become on our server. Bite rates have been 'adjusted' in certain zones, which is more of a detriment to legitimate fishers than the botters SE is so ineptly trying to target. Prices on fish continue to plummet as the market is saturated with bots that can constantly pull catches such as Black Sole on a low level fisherman and continue to thrive.

As annoying as the RMT are in the other crafts, I just hope SE doesn't plan to make similarly asinine 'adjustments' in other areas. Could you imagine if they increased the breakage rate on certain synths that bots currently exploit? Wouldn't be such a great fix, would it?

Multitasking

Merits

I did in fact end up meriting with Feon and his posse on Friday night, taking the south camp at the Mamool Ja staging point and EXP'ing away the hours. I got up to the 3 merit mark and about 8k into my next merit before we called it a night. It was another BRD-pull style party, so I had more fun with the voke <stnpc> macro ^_^

I spent 3 of the merits on another Axe upgrade, for a total of +6 skill so far. I think I'll stop at 4 upgrades there, in case I do end up meriting sword someday.

Shopping

The next evening consisted of selling off old gear and putting a few remaining Poison Pot stacks into the recovering market. I was able to finally upgrade my Tarasque Mitts to the +1 version, an item on my shopping list that had been nagging me for quite some time.

"Crafishing"

After reaching 30 in fishing last week it occurred to me that I could be profit-fishing a bit, even though the fish market has reportedly taken quite a beating from relentless botting. Rather than go on dedicated fishing sessions, however, I've decided to build them into my Cobalt Jellyfish expeditions to Bibiki Bay: hit the shop at 1AM, synth all jellies into Mercury, zone to Buburimu and fish up Shall Shells & Bluetail between sessions. And the shop holiday (Lightningday) becomes a fishing day.

It's a great way to kill that 'idle' feeling when I'm stuck out there waiting for the shop to open again, and it supplements the income. It's not huge, but certainly better than twiddling my thumbs.

Operation Desert Swarm

I was in the middle of such a session when Minusjoker invited me to a KSNM 30 (Operation Desert Swarm). It was a party of 6 and we each brought an orb. Our setup was BLM RDM WHM SAM PLD WAR. The initial plan was to open with Sleepga, have the PLD and SAM pull a Scorp while I solo'd another at a distance, while the RDM and BLM handled the awakening mobs and supported the WHM in her healing.

The first attempt went badly when we carried out the plan in the main room. I managed to solo 2 of the scorpions, but AOE kept awakening the others and killed off the WHM pretty quickly. On the next attempt, we decided to pull the scorpions into the hallway to the BC. It went better, although I still didn't manage to pull mine quite far enough into the hall, and a couple of the Scorps also awoke more quickly than the others. 0/2 so far.

The third attempt was a near-perfect run. We pulled the first 2 scorpions all the way back to the entrance and battled from there, running back to the room for refills. Minusjoker was still noticing that the same 2 mobs would awaken before we had finished off the initial mobs, so we decided to hit those first on the next attempts. Something caused this third attempt to go FUBAR, but I don't recall what it was. In any case, we were ready for the next 3.

The WHM suggested that the SAM assist me when he and the PLD had finished off their mob, then switch back when mine was down. From that point on we had our formula and completed the remaining BC's cleanly. Unfortunately there were no big money drops, but we're now all very familiar with this KSNM and will certainly burn more seals on it again.

As I warped around to resume my fishing, I got an invitation from Feon to complete San D'Oria mission 7-1. Of course, I accepted ^_^

Prestige of the Papsque

It was a quick trip through Bostaunieux Oubliette, and the pace picked up considerably on the last stretch to the West Ronfaure zone when Feon made an announcement ... "Whatever you do, don't stop running." He gunned it through mob agro, making quite an impressive chain of Gespents and Hetacomb Hounds.

The NM Orc fight went well, though I was stunned at the Orc's speed at the end of the fight when Hundred Fists seemed more like Millisecond Fists and I couldn't pull hate off of Feon. Voke & Warcry did nothing, and of course ... being the zombie that I was, I forgot to 2-hour, which would have been quite effective (/slap me). So Cozmos had to pump quite a few HP back into Feon before the Orc died.

I got my key item and returned to Sandy, thanking the group, still amazed at how friendly some folks can be in this game. I mean, it was 12AM PST >_>;

To close the night, I pumped a few more stacks of Poison Pots into the AH before the price deflated from 20k again, and passed out around 12:45AM... only to be awakened by my baby daughter who experienced her first earache at 2AM.

Yep, I'm just a wee bit exhausted this morning.

Fishing. Shopping. Skilling.

I called in sick yesterday due to a stomach bug, and the wife and kids had gone to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the morning, so I found myself with some free time. However I couldn't commit time to an EXP party for obvious reasons. Somehow I don't think "AFK. Barfing. Back in a minute" would go over well in meripo.

So I kept fishing up Ogre Eels for fishing skillups and synthing them into Venom Dust for alchemy skillups. I moved to the South Gustaberg sea cliff, since the auction house was in much closer proximity there, and the skillups in both crafts slowly trickled in.

Incidentally, I was finally able to speak with Faulsey, a fellow blogger on my server who is never on when I am. And it was a pleasure chatting with him, as usual.

When I logged in for the evening, I finished off my skillup session by reaching 62 in Alchemy and 30 in Fishing nearly simultaneously and warped to Aht Urghan for some shopping. Barone Cosciales had dropped to 100k and Assault Earrings were holding at 400k, so purchasing this pair of gear didn't put me in the poor house.

If felt good to finally polish up some of my equipment and cross some items off of my list. Next in line will be the Potent Belt, but I'm still waiting for the Poison Pot market to recover from an undercut bomb earlier this week (20k to 15k... yikes).

I sought a party during this evening's activities, but 90% of seekers were Japanese and there were approximately 6-7 Warriors seeking at all times, so no luck on a pickup.

Hopefully I'll be able to get on in a timely fashion tonight to join a meripo with Feon, but this is all subject to the willingness of my children to go to sleep.