Team Derp Returns to FFXIV

We’ve talked about it and we did it. We came back to XIV. To what capacity? I have no idea. At the moment we are currently on Mysidia which seems to be a server largely populated by the Japanese. Some are ranking up quite nicely while there are others like myself and Orophen who had waited to level up together and then managed to get levels pretty quickly thanks to the patches.

Right now its a good change of pace. There are still things wonky in XIV, but its also apparent things are different and are changing. There are a handful of changes that have been good and others that aren’t as much. Personally, I’m enjoying the auto-attack. My boyfriend has been very adamant against it and still doesn’t seem to like it very much. He even scorns those that now complain the battles are slow because of the introduction of auto-attack. I don’t personally see it, especially since I’ve had to deal with cool down timers a lot as a mage. What DOES suck is how much more easily I seem to get hate now than I did then (unless I am remembering things incorrectly). Curing, for example, can easily get me killed if I don’t let Orophen establish enough hate via weapon skills. It is almost as though I have dumped a bunch of Cure IVs on him and bam! I’m mowed down like a punk ass. Nuking in and of itself is also a crazy mess but it has also inadvertently saved the day many times thanks to the high amount umbral and astral damage it does; definitely more than I remember it having done when I was leveling THM aeons ago. However, I’m still eagerly waiting for BLM as it is far more potent and suits my tastes far more than the debuffer position that THM holds. Though I guess I should be more aware of how many more deaths I’m going to eat when I do make the switch over…

As for our XI exploits, they will sort of be haphazard during the month of August. My schedule will be chaotic due to a visiting relative, and I’ve left care of the team in the hands of Hiroshiko, Rubicon, and Orophen. Two of them I know I can count on. One of them is questionable at best, and has me worried if anything will happen at all during my absence. There has also been an issue within the linkshell itself, of which I go into detail here. Since then more bits of drama had been pasted onto it, and I’ve found that neither party is willing to make its move; which is fine by me. I’m OK with a stalemate because I personally see no reason to do any chasing and I’m sure the other person is feeling the same way. My only desire at this point is for my members/friends (for me and my ls the two are synonymous) to stop being stalked and checked up on for absurd reasons. Example of absurd reason: fear of being replaced despite having a.) left and b.) me asking members to overlap on jobs if they are both willing and able even when said person was still with us. We are a small LS that fills in holes for others when they aren’t there or needing to cover other areas; I would be doing us a disservice not asking them to cover jobs if they are willing and able to do so. There are also people that just want to level the job because they want to without me having to poke and prod them; who the fuck am I to tell them to stop? That is their prerogative and I won’t kick them just because they are doing something that the other person does out of sheer boredom.

/sigh Now I need aspirin…

This podcast is rated M for Mature

For a long time I have been wanting to get back into podcasting. I like the engaging conversations and also being amazed at what stupid non-sense I can spout out. I won’t even hide it; I am a potty mouth. Not just because I like to curse, but because I can say the most absurd things and relate them to gaming. Breasts and male genitals are two off the top of my head that I have talked about. Not that I’m a pervert. Well, actually, I am. I am a darn pervert that can really let loose at times without a blush until I am awake enough to realize what I said and how juvenile I can be in comparison to my male counterparts. Don’t believe me? Just check out the new podcast on: zantetsuken.net.

I swear a lot, I laugh, and I like to bitch and complain about stuff I most likely outdated on. Do I do it alone? Heaven’s no! I have Orophen, Rubicon, and Lexshu/Frei to keep me company! Our focus will be on FFXI and FFXIV, as they are primary MMOs we play together as a group. Just be warned; you might not want your mom listening in on this cast!

A Calaera-style Welcoming Party

Well, probably more of a… “Here, let me show you how I can lower your IQ points by THIS much.” If you are following me on twitter, most likely you have seen how I refer to my LS as #teamderp. That is not just because I have a separate LS named TeamDerp, but because Reiokyu has made claims we can severely lower IQ points if we really go at our hijinks I get tired and just go to the deep end. The sad thing is, I barely remember what I say and I’m pretty sure I will be horrified when someone does tell me the specifics! On the other hand, I do remember laughing! Laughing and lots of fun! I just hope Kimiko and Chakura’s friend decide to come back and not be scared off cause I was undeniably crazy last night.

mreh/TeamDerp has had a wonky time for the past few weeks. Hiroshiko had left for a two month break (the little snot lied about coming back mid June!), people traveled, I had found my hands full of work, and in genera things were a little crazier. Thankfully it picked up again thanks to Rubicon simply voicing what I had been thinking for awhile: we needed to go back into the swing of things. Though we are pretty much a casual LS, we still have our laundry list of things to do that we would like to get done! There are a few of us who still do not have complete +1s on our primary jobs and there are some who want to get more atma. Thursday and Friday was a push towards those goals by getting more Limbus out of the way for fabricated atma, and then going off to Vunkerl Inlet to hunt feet seals. Mekare has now completed her WAR feet, Orophen has his RNG feet completed, Lexshu is now 6/8 on DNC, and (sadly) Rubicon had barely made a dent on his by netting only one or two last night.

To try and make things a little better for the Ragin’ Cajun, we had also made a venture into Dynamis-Bastok late Friday night/early Saturday morning. It was the first time I had gone inside since the update to Dynamis and Rubicon’s first time in there at all! My thoughts on the new version of Dynamis? It was definitely not what I had expected at all! We got the boss within minutes of entering, we were able to get time extends without demolishing an entire zone (just having to deal with nasty pulls and links; something we were dealing with quite frequently in Vunkerl anyway), and even netted some gear and a few coins for people. It also just felt really nice to wander in without having to kill every. single. damn. mob. in existence. I’m looking forward to more ventures into Dynamis with smaller parties and walk away with old but still attractive gear!

My Luck is Magically Delicious

When I made my return to XI, I wasn’t sure at what capacity I would be coming back. After all, I have a full time job and its one in where I work extra hours because I both have and want to do so. There is also XIV to consider, which has been made into a weekly event between friends to do leves. So I am here chipping away at getting my BLU, BRD, and WHM to 90, getting Atma, gear, doing missions for friends and for myself, and doing Dynamis for gear and money. Its been a fun ride, especially since my little group has expanded to the people I met and played with on XIV, or have talked to during my short tenure at ffxivblog.com.

I am not even sure where to start concerning my adventures, so I will first start with Tuesday from last week and work my way down the week.

For a few weeks, a friend had been asking me to join her and a few of my other friends in another LS to do Abyssea NMs. At first I said I wanted to wait until I reached 90, then I held off on it for a few other reasons, and then decided to go on a whim just to see how it was going to be. To be honest, I was very worried at first. I think I am a so-so player, and I can be ok at times but… I hadn’t read up on anything concerning Abyssea NMs and knew nothing except for what my friends had told me briefly.

We did several NMs, ended up with clears to Abyssea – Konschtat and Abyssea – Misareaux as well as a slew of Atma I didn’t think would fall onto my lap. I even ended up helping to kill Arimsapi and freaking out when I found myself having to kite him around a few times since only a RNG and I were able to do damage to him. Needless to say, it was fun and I was really happy to be invited to tag along. It surprised me further, despite messing up a few times due to a misunderstanding concerning a Stun macro, that I was asked to come back and that I did an alright job. Then again, I had to interact with players that really made me want to face palm at times and actually helped change how I see myself as a player at times. Which, sad to say, is not as dumb and hopeless as I usually think I am.

Wednesday was a Dynamis San d’Oria run, and had me rushing due to a work place meeting. I usually take at least an hour nap before hand, but was yawning so much and so tired I had dozed off a few times for a minute before realizing what was going on. Sleep = good and it seems as I age I do need more than the typical five hours of sleep I get. Either that or I end up waking up with a corner of drool wanting to dribble out of my mouth…

What I was really looking forward to anything else was Thursday and helping Lexshu/Frei and Rubicon finish their CoP mission. The last time I had done this was when I did the clear for myself, Reiokyu, Hiroshiko, my brother (Makai), and Orophen. I was BRD at the time but I remember clearly how my brother had helped save the day thanks to my BLM. Its sort of funny how I had came back to fight Promathia not as a support job but as the very job my brother used to irk me as. It was most definitely shorter than the run I had gone through, and made me miss the longer and much more epic fight we had to endure when we were still 75. It didn’t help any that we didn’t even get to see Promathia deal any of his deadly attacks, since most of the time we were just whacking away at him and watching him poking someone and keep going on.

Afterwards we decided to go hunting down my BLM shoes inĀ Abyssea – Attohwa and then got my WHM to 70. Of course, getting to that level meant a whole new stress and worry with wanting to get Raise III. Although it isn’t as necessary due to the fact EXP is a non-issue with Abyssea, I get uneasy not having spells. Heck, I’m still distressed that I don’t have Fire V, Blizzard V, and Firaja. I could and might buy it, but knowing I could potentially get it free is what prevents me from wanting to fork over the cash that could be used to gear up my WHM for leveling or what have you. Anyway, back to the talk of spells, Reiokyu, Lexshu, and I decided to go tackle E-VASE-ive Action for a chance at Raise III.

It took three tries and the scroll dropped! I find this amusing especially in light of last night. Orophen has been going on and on about my luck. I used to joke about it before because I would sometimes out lot just about everyone in the party with insanely high lots. I was even accused of cheating some how because of how consistently I would lot high numbers and gank just about everything from the treasure pool. I had even (for kicks) put myself into the same party as my friends so that someone could have a chance at Peacock Charm dropping. It dropped then, much to my astonishment, because I didn’t really think much of it. So its with surprise that we managed to go into Assaults the other night, found Jaggedy-Eared Jack for the second time during our second run, and found that the ??? Necklace that dropped was actually a Rabbit Charm. Its the item that my friends have hunted out of principle (the rabbit has usually bested them), and here I was seeing the mob for the second time in my time on XI and seeing the item get into pool easily. Needless to say, it was that very reason I was asked to go Blizzard IV hunting in KRT and found 2/3 of the scrolls we needed dropped. Luck? Maybe. Considering my friend claims that he’s bad luck, maybe it is. Or maybe someone in XI heaven decided to smile upon us and treat us to something good?

I just wish that whatever luck people think I have would apply to my ability to learn spells. Cause BLU spells? Yeah. Not really happening unless I get help. -_-; And even then its not even me who will learn the spell…. /facepalm

I’m really enjoying my time back in XI though. I just wish there was more time in the day to do more stuff. Even more surprising is how much I have fallen in love with BLM. I had come back with the intention of being more in love with my BLU but am more enamored by my BLM and am wanting to do nothing more than dote and learn more as BLM. I still have a long way to go in terms of pushing my damage numbers, but in the meantime? I’m having a blast, and am really happy to have more friends to surround myself with. <3