Whenever I think back to CoP 6-4 I will always remember it to be a mission that led us the to greatest “HAH! GOTCHA!” scheme I had ever fallen for. Even now a strong bitter taste resonates in my mouth as I reminisce over what had transpired that evening and how much of the LS bank money went down the drain that night.
This is what happened, and how it will probably take us another month before we can attempt this mission again.
Camp: Bhaflau Thickets
Targets: Lesser Colibri
Spells to have handy: MP Drainkiss
Extra EXP Gained: Farming, Assaults, and Campaign
What? We’re still here? Why, yes, we are. With the addition of Level Sync, however, we have played with different setups by adding Reiokyu (MNK) and Hiroshiko (WHM), doing a low level sync with Hiroshiko’s RDM, or meeting up with my brother with his BLM and Hiroshiko’s WHM. It has gone rather smoothly, and the ONLY time we had a death was when I pulled a noob move after not knowing that a mob was being slept because of aggro and NOT because it was being pulled to fight. Er, yeah. That whole communication thing needs to be worked out. By the way, I still claim my right to complain when partying with Mekare, Reiokyu, and Orophen! According to Reiokyu and Orophen, I no longer have the right to complain after trying so hard to steal hate from Reiokyu only to get a measly 400+ on Death Scissors in our little party. Pfbt.
This past weekend we were also able get Salvage access for myself, Orophen, and Hiroshiko. If anyone is looking for a cute little WHM on the Ragnarok server, please feel free to ask Hiroshiko. He’s reliable and pudgy after eating so many pies and cookies. Damn us obese Taru! D; He needs to switch to the sushi diet! Orophen and I would love to do Salvage, but if my co-worker has it her way… I may end up finding myself in Seattle working from REALLY early until late. I don’t know yet, but I’m actually hoping I do since I could use more monies. :(
We would also like to re-welcome our friend, Rangeki! He was an Elvaan known as Teppei before being forced to leave FFXI, joined WoW for a few weeks, and then decided recently to rejoin FFXI as a Tarutaru. Hopefully he will stay longer this time!
doink! will be going through a revamp within the next few weeks. I’m looking to update the layout (again), convert my entries from categories into tags, and possibly re-doing my subject titles. I’m not sure. We are also going to go through a server change, as our current host has been giving less than stellar service as of late. Any recommendations for a good host would be welcome!
You know what the Level Sync system is like? Its like a system where you scratch your friend’s backs and you expect them to scratch yours or kiss your feet. Me? I like the idea of them kissing my feet more, because I’m the supreme ruler and still have not forgone my plan of conquering Vana’diel one person at a time with my Cuteness +1 attack.
Well, ok, it doesn’t have to be taken that way, but it does help in my LS (theSyndicate) since a lot of us have jobs we want to level up but don’t really want to waste our time with other people. So sometimes we go out with four or five people and mess around, and it often ends up really well. Unless I happen to be leveling THF and then I feel like gouging my eyeballs out. I really admire Mekare for leveling THF, Reiokyu for MNK, and Orophen for RNG because I don’t think I could do those jobs. I actually went crazy for awhile because I wanted to do EVERYTHING. I wanted to heal, I wanted to debuff, I wanted to buff, etc. It was actually driving me crazy! So eventually I started to think of ways to take the mob off of Hiroshiko who was leveling WAR and NIN, but… then I stopped because I didn’t want to grieve anyone. Poor me, right?
Poor me indeed! I then decided to change to DRK and I went from :< to :Q very quickly. I seriously didn't expect to have so much fun playing DRK in a party, and Orophen was laughing at me on the phone when I started to complain about my DMG output vs. his SAM. He said I sounded like the very person I detested when I was first leveling BRD, and that he never thought I would get so competitive over my DoT numbers. I actually got flipping mad when I saw his WSes were 10 pts higher than mine! Do I plan to continue DRK? I'm not sure. I want to finish BLU first, and we're planning to do a level up party this upcoming weekend. I do know that I'm liking the idea of seeing my Taru wield a scythe and looking dark and evil instead of cute and cuddly. Plus, maybe it will give the boys in the LS more reason to fear me... PS: I think the DRK job is getting to me because I was willing to kill my boyfriend when he crossed me during the level up party last week. I won't even go into details the extent of what I did to try and get him killed in the party... <.<;
When playing BLM, I can’t help but think of 1.) Mr. Crazy in Al Zahbi (Gadalar) and 2. Dilandau from Escaflowne. And every time I think of those two, I think of もえる (moeru). It was something Dilandau said a lot when he pretty much burned things up, and pretty much means to burn. Which is why another reason I hate playing BLM and was glad to be one step closer of getting rid of it after the introduction of Level Sync.
Level Sync, in short, is a god send. I can play with my friends for a quick, fun exp and not stress out about this or that. I already trust the people I am playing with, so I don’t have to worry about a mix bag of goods. I even managed to get my BLM from 32 to 35 in a day! Which I couldn’t be more than grateful to my friends for, especially staying until I got my level 35. The fact we had Bubumuri to ourselves sans the Leech farmers were a blessing to boot. Especially since many of the other camps are maxed out at the moment…
During the course of my bitter ranting towards BLM I found it funny I have been considering leveling DRK. Yeah, don’t choke on your food/drink/whatever there… its true. I really feel weird about it myself, but I have found that so far I kind of like it. Sure it takes a mighty LONG time to swing a weapon about and don’t even get me going on how long it took me to unlock the job (I’ve had the quest for so many YEARS I lost count), but I found it cathartic to swing my sword around and watch the mob die either in one hit or in two. Well, as long as I wasn’t fighting something that could seriously kick my Aketon and Beret wearing Taru butt.
My LS has pretty much agreed to do a get together set once in awhile to work on subs and jobs that we want to, but are typically too busy to get a pick up party for. I’m sure I will get sick of seeing the mugs of some of those boys, but at least I can count on them for some good fun without stressing out too much. I just wish that we could use our emperor bands more frequently so that we could get all the charges we want in one day instead of having to wait 16 hours when we most likely will be busy doing other activities or attending to other obligations outside of FFXI. :
Over at JP Button, they have some questions asked by NA players for JP players that were posted on an anonymous BBS. Some of the answers are pretty consistent with what I remember reading from Dreams in Vana’diel a few years ago (primarily concerning /check and why Japanese go JP only), but there are some other interesting things in here too!
Personally, I also feel the same way they do about communicating in party. I know some people do not mind it, but as someone who has elementary understanding of the Japanese language, it is very frustrating to see a wall of kana fly past your screen and not fully understand what is going on. Or when you ask a basic question in alt-tab and the question goes ignored (which the one who was able to understand and communicate in Japanese exceptionally mad…). Then again, who knows? Maybe what I asked didn’t come out correctly on the other end. Kind of like how it took ages for S-E to release a (|Reward:|) tab to replace the BST Command (|Reward|) to make sense to JP what the heck EN were going on about.
I also agree with the rudeness that is sometimes in NA parties and I sometimes wish things were different. Sometimes I am also guilty of it! I caught myself a few times, and as someone who is always trying to teach 2 – 6 year olds to say please, thank you, and you’re welcome, I try to remember to do the same even to those people I am close and familiar with (Haha, like Orophen). It is a hard pill to swallow, but I also don’t think it helps with the culture differences. The Japanese are pretty high on the politeness scale, but many NA don’t quite understand all the distinct mannerisms or what could be offensive or not. I think more could be done to harvest some understanding, and I kind of wish that S-E could have given us tools to help understand what might be offensive or not instead of letting us run loose and letting chaos ensue. But I guess that would require a whole class on etiquette and mannerisms that I doubt many players would have the patience for…
So, on one of the FFXI LJ communities I help to moderate, they were talking about the most WTF moment ever experienced in the game. Readers of doink! who have been following me since my days on Livejournal may remember this one. I still remember getting tells about this screenshot in game because of how WTF worthy it was (or maybe still is).
I’m going to link the image, but do not click and read it if you don’t LIKE explicit stuff. Its NC-17, NOT SAFE FOR WORK, or anyone who has just eaten food. So… you ready? Ok. Here it is.
I don’t know why, but whenever I remember this screenshot or when I remember seeing this person’s name in game? I always felt as though I was somehow being molested. srsly. -_-;
Since overcoming our hurdle of getting to BLU 60, we picked up where we last left off in CoP: the Three Paths. I am probably going to remember this as the mission where I had to sit and watch CSes at least twice because of my lazy younger brother and then at least a third time because Orophen’s connection was down the night prior to our organized meet time.
I let Hiroshiko lead this time, kind of because I was sick and partly to let someone else have a hand at it after being teased about being a dictator. Of course, then the boys decided to cry foul since the ONLY person I seem to treat with any kind of affection (that doesn’t involve violence, pfbt) is Mekare. Which TOTALLY isn’t true, but I will let the boys believe what they will- they will know true fear when it comes back to my turn to lead.
Already a little more than halfway done with CoP, I can honestly say I know I am going to miss CoP when its done and over with. The days we were able to meet and do missions was always exciting and filled with anticipation of what will come next. Its great that even Meka, who had already completed CoP, is excited to join us and do battles with us. Its this excitement that always makes me so damn excited, and I hope it can pass onto ToAU when we try to finish that together! Though I think most of us are on the verge of a panic attack at the idea of the big air ship battle that is coming up…
Of course, now we can hopefully (if my brother isn’t a douche), party together with the new LEVEL SYNC SYSTEM!! OMG! Will it mean additions to our BLU setup? Maybe. Maybe not. It will definitely mean we can probably level up other jobs we have been wanting to level up but couldn’t because of level discrepancies and for that I’m grateful for! :D
Camp: Bhaflau Thickets
Targets: Lesser Colibri
Spells to have handy: MP Drainkiss
This is pretty much straight forward. The sad thing is, we aren’t able to successfully pull off a self skillchain… yet. We’re working on it, and I will most likely talk to Orophen on ways to both pull off a self renkei plus keep chain flowing smoothly. Let me say that Wizard Cookies + Dark Staff is a GOD send before Vermy. In fact, it is still a great combo even if you don’t have one (which Orophen doesn’t).
Despite some heavy competition, we managed to find a nice little camp where we were hardly bothered. Which is kind of hard when competing against typical leveling parties. Usually they are much faster than we are, and we struggle to keep up. We had no problem this time around and were able to keep our own set of mobs apart from the other two parties that were near us.
I also have screenshots with us posing in full AF, but with WordPress not wanting to cooperate those shots will have to come a little later. :
Now that we are level 60, CoP is going to be coming at full swing once Hiroshiko has moved into his dormitory. We’ll be picking up where we left off (the Three Paths) and plowing our way through as fast as we can now that we will be doing Besieged frequently in hopes of learning a spell or two without having to subject Reiokyu with the torture of putting his meat shield skills to the test. ;o
Camp: Toraimarai Canal
Targets: Impish Bats, Fleshcraver, Mindcraver
Spells to have handy: Bludgeon, Smite of Rage, Geist Wall
To greatly reduce travel time, becoming a Certified Rhinostery Venturer and having a Rhinostery Certificate is a must! This allows you to gain access to the Canal from Windurst Walls and get to the camp within seconds! All we did was zone in, walk down the steps, and basically sat at the bottom of the steps as we pulled mobs to our camp.
This is a very nice, neat little spot and we were hardly bothered by anyone. The only thing to be wary of are the Flesh/Mindcravers. It is very easy for things to go wrong here, and there were times I was only able to survive because Orophen and Mekare were curing me both at the same time before I was dealt a killing blow.
Even at level 57, there were still some VT mobs lingering about before they finally reached a peak at level 58. All in all a great camp because of its location and shortened travel time. Some of our highest skill chains (combined with Magic Burst) would push 1,000 at this level, so it was pretty much fun to watch our damage fly in this area especially thanks to Undead Killer ability!
We now have two more levels to get before we reach 60, and that should take us too long since we have six more charges left on our Anniversary Ring and Colibri are now our target mob for levels 58+. ^-^ So here’s hoping we get to level 60 next weekend!
