Sunday, February 25, 2007

Qufim Trials

So I had gotten BLM up to 19.

The next venue for leveling would be Qufim Island, to kill worms, clippers, and pugils. Woots.

I don't seem to have the best luck getting invites in Qufim. I don't know why. I have gotten 3 jobs through the area, compared to the 8 jobs I've finished the Dunes with. WHM, BLM, NIN, SMN, and RNG all sit at 20 or 21, waiting to get past the invite stage.

OK, SMN I haven't even tried to level there, as I'm waiting to get all my avatars. That might take a while. I do have Shiva though!

All the other jobs have sat at the mouth of Qufim long enough to let me get distracted and end up leveling something else.

This will be harder to do as time passes, since I only have 70 levels of jobs under 20. Sooner or later I'll just end up with every job needing to get through the area.

Anyhow, I'm trying to get BLM up to 25. That's my goal so I might then get RDM up to 50 with it as a sub.

My first day out was not so good. Me, 2 White Mages, a Red(I think), a Samurai and a Warrior. Could be OK, you might think. Except the War seemed to not understand Provoke. Because she used it twice. For the whole time I was in the party.

That's why I don't like powerleveling.

The Sam left in disgust, disconnecting unannounced. A paladin was supposedly going to come, but I don't know where from because I got sick of the whole thing before they showed.

Oh well. I got to 20 (barely). The next day was better.

Last night I got into a much better party. There was a war/nin, a smn, two white mages, a cor(!) and of course me.

We stormed around the icy lake, killing crabs and worms, and in what seemed like no time at all, I was 21. We headed over to the tower and did crabs and pugs and continued to smash everything.

There were regular skillchains. I got to burst on pretty much every mob. I was doing great.

Then it was late and i had to log off.

In the end, I had gone from 26 points into 20 to 1.2k from 22.

I'll get there soon.

Kjahl

What the hell is wrong with all you beastmasters???

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Poor defenseless animals...

Friday, February 23, 2007

Jolly Green

I was out farming as THF/NIN. I didn't have any tools with me, since a) they cost a lot, and b) they take up a lot of backpack space. I got to the center of Pashhow Marshlands and started to look for Goobue to kill.

The tree cuttings dont drop often but they sell for a bunch, or at least they used to. The boyahda moss is a nice secondary drop, and there's always Carnivorous Crawlers who drop silk thread. And you can steal it off them too!

So, anyhow, there I am, in the middle of the marsh. I'm targetting whatever I can to try to find stuff to kill, and suddenly I see, highlighted in the corner of the screen: Rook.

Yay, all of a sudden I was in the middle of a ballista match! Farming amidst people trying to kill each other is pretty entertaining, especially since they can't touch me... or Jolly Green. He had popped right in front of me with about 30 other people around us, and I was the only person who could claim him!

/joy

So I smacked him up and down with a sneak attack and a Viper Bite... and he was done.

For some reason, I haven't seen anywhere near the number of NM's as I have since I started this blog.

I didn't get the best of his drops, the Shaman's Belt:

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But I did get a tree cutting. Pretty much the equivalant of getting a silk thread off Spipi; not great, but at least I got something good.

On the map, we were here:

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Here's some action shots!

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He dies!

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I'm not sure who to look for next...

Suggestions?

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Green Choco

It seems like the colorful chocobos are becoming more widely spread. Here's a green one I saw while I was out leveling in the dunes.

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I likes it.

Oh, it looks like NegativeLily is going to be yellow. Oh well, she'll still kick ass.

Kadohahahddo

Another member of The Knights of Nee, Kadohahahddo:

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He reminds me of someone else though.

Jaw-Droppingly Bad

This is Maginot:

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He has been, without a doubt, the most unprepared, underequipped, just pretty-all-around-bad player I think I have ever grouped with.

The party was BLM BLM BLM NIN NIN DRG. I was main healing easily with Cure as the NINs bounced hate back and forth pretty well. The old party leader had left, and we picked up a new level 18 Elvaan BLM, Maginot. Now, no-one died because of this guy, but he was simply pathetic.

He only cast Stone. Okay, one time he cast Bio, but other than that, just Stone. Did he have any other spells? I have no idea.

He would melee every mob. We were fighting Pugils and Gobs on the secret beach, so he was hitting for 0-6 damage. The 6 was a crit.

He had a Brass Ring on. Now I know people bring some basic equipment to the dunes, usually because they don't want to spend cash on equip they're going to use for a session or three... but a Brass Ring?!? I guess it makes the teensiest bit of sense since he was trying to melee everything. But what BLM actively tries to lower their MP?
The other ring he had was a San d'Orian Ring, not much better. He didnt cast Cure anyhow, so the Mind boost was totally wasted. Otherwise he had level 12 basic cloth set armour on.

No amount of coaxing would get him to a) cast other spells b) stop meleeing c) make him useful at all.

On the up side, once we booted him for a Monk, we had a great party and I got to level 19.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Daggerclaw Dracos

I posted earlier about going out to look for Daggerclaw Dracos and running into Waraxe Beak instead. Luckily I managed to stay on my chocobo the entire time he was nearby, and I logged there to go back the next day for more hunting.

If there's a less camped NM, I'd like to see it... Nobody was in the area for the hour or so I was there killing raptors. Like absolutely nobody. Ever.

I ran a pretty straightforward path, circling around the perimiter of the area, killing all the raptors I could find. NOne of that was a problem, although I was thinking somewhere in the back of my head that it would be pretty funny if Waraxe popped on me and ground me into paste.

What I didn't realise, however, was that the raptors Dracos lottery spawns from extend up into the valley that leads to the bowl I had been patrolling. I got turned around during one fight, and saw I was going up into the valley, and as I turned to go back, there was Daggerclaw!

Here's a map:

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And here I am smacking him around:

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I didn't get anything to drop, not a single thing. But if you're interested, he drops this:

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or sometimes a raptor skin. Not for me though. I might go back and try this guy again, I'll have to see what those Sonic Knuckles are going for in the AH.

Blam Mage

I've been leveling Black Mage lately. I started last week, way down at level 10, and I wore out my Empress Band soloing up to 13 pretty easily in East Sarutabaruta, then I decided it was time to go Back To The Dunes.

*Foreboding Doom*

I got a few spells at the shops in Windurst, grabbed a Slime Oil to get warp, then flew over to Bastok.

Oddly, the Warp scrolls in Windy AH were going for about 100k. Slime Oils were 2k. Who in their right mind would spend 100k on such an easy questable item??? Well, whatever. I was all equipped and ready to get me some levels.

The first party I got into was a pretty typical dunes setup, i.e. we had a powerleveller helping out so noone was doing anything very well, but it didn't seem to matter. I tried to take part as best I could, but it was a bit hard to get a good rythm going when there was an IT++ mob in the camp at all times.

The xp was ok, but it wasn't much fun as far as party dynamics can go.

I ended up getting to level 15 by the time I logged off.

Then yesterday I got into the other type of dunes party. No powerleveller this time, just BLM/WHM(me), WHM/BLM, SAM/WAR, MNK/WAR, THF/something, and WHM (no sub, party leader). We did pretty well, and the WHM/BLM had an alt to switch to for raises, which we used a few times. I got to 17, and even got to use Warp. (yippee)

The only down side was the subless WHM, the party leader had a line of text in every damn spell macro they made. Cure had a line, Cure 2 had a different line, even better since it had a reference that was some sort of indecipherable in joke. Dia, Poisona, you name it, this WHM had something to say every second or two.

I did okay, though. I ignored it as best as I could, and really the only mess-up I had the whole time was targeting a crab instead of the fly everyone else was fighting. Nobody died on that one though, so I don't feel too bad about it. * more levels and I'm going back to RDM to get to 50!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Aww Yeah

These are the coolest pictures ever!

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Thanks to Sullen Girl (many times!) for these amazing pictures!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Red Chocobo Sighting

Well, A few days ago, I saw someone on a red chocobo, and I was very excited. I hadn't seen one before, not counting screenshots from SquareEnix at least. I took a few pictures of them and told the owner I thought it was cool to finally see one. We had a nice little conversation. Then I went on my way.

Later on, I was sending my pictures from the XBOX hard drive over to my computer.

I erased all the red choco pictures before I sent them.

Sometimes I get confused by the order of steps in things.

Luckily, I saw another one the very next day, and snapped a few more pictures. This one was being used as a digger in Meriphataud Mountains, and would not stay in one spot very long. But I did get a good shot.


Yay for the new chocobos! Now give me one.

More Problems Summoning

I just don't know what's going on with summoner lately... I got a Summon: Fenrir off this guy who swore it was the real deal, but something seems wrong.

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He just seems cuter than I remember him looking before.

A Hunting Surprise

I headed off to Meriphataud Mountains to look for a new NM to kill, in this case, I thought Daggerclaw Dracos would make an interesting target. I had never hunted for him before, so I did a little research. It seemed that Dracos popped down in the southeast corner of the map, in that little circular area off by itself. I also noticed that there was another NM who shared the same spawn, a certain Waraxe Beak. Dracos is a lottery spawn off the Raptors in the area, and is level 27 or 28, an easy kill. Waraxe is a 20-something hour spawn, and is a much more challenging level 55-56 -ga spell spammer. The Vana'diel Bestairy said Waraxe beak was 'Killable by 6 level 55 characters; Red Mage soloable at 70.' So not by me.

I figured I'd be fine, that there was no way that spending an hour or three down there would have me running into this giant cockatrice.

So I check up on Negative Lily (who is sick right now... poor little choco) and feed her, then grab a full-grown rental bird to run up to Meriphataud.

*cue jaunty choco music*

Guess who was wandering around when I got there?




Oops.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Leveling Everything

There's some things in Vana'Diel that I'm an absolute sucker for. Most of the holiday events have me running around town throwing cookies at giant bulls or whatever. These events are fun, even though they are obviously engineered by the devs to make me waste time on an item that does nothing except clutter up my moghouse.

Another big distraction is farming, since it goes: 1)I'm leveling! 2)I need money for new equipment! 3)Farm farm farm. 4)Look at that shiny thing in the AH, I could use that on (insert job)... Wow, I havent leveled (job) in a long time. I think I'll try getting (job) up to (level).

So here I am, I've played this game for years, and my highest job level is 41. I'm not complaining one bit, I love playing and I don't feel bad about it. I have my own accomplishments that other people don't have. Like I have every job leveled to at least 10.

Which brings me back to jumping from job, to job, to job...

This week, after I got my AF1, I was thinking, 'You know, I should just get RDM up to 75. It will let me farm more effectively, I can hunt all sorts of cool NM's, and I can do more missions.' (I'm still waiting to get up to 50 to do Windy 5-1&2)

So my mind is made up, RDM full steam ahead.

'Man, I should get BLM up to 25 for a good sub.'

...

I love this game.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Carbuncle Prime?

I was out leveling BLM solo, so I decided to sub SMN since Drain pretty much lets me fight EP mobs without needing Cure spells.
When I got out to East Sarutabaruta, I was checking my Summon macros and this happened:

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Someone's been DAT swapping my XBOX 360 or something...


Thanks to Sullen Girl for the Gimp expertise!

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Negative Lily

Here's my new chocobo, Negative Lily!

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(I play on an XBOX 360 so I don't have FRAPS. TV photos only for my poor choco reports.)

I'm happy to say that her recent sickness turned around, and she's as happy as she can be. I even got her Receptivity up a rank, to Substandard. Added to that nice surprise was getting two stories to tell her when she becomes a teen next weekend.

I hope she ends up being green.

But I'll keep her no matter what.

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Spiny Spipi

This week's Notorius Monster is Spiny Spipi, the huge crawler of East Sarutabaruta.

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Spipi is definately my most reliable NM, with a 3/8 rate on his/her (?) money drop. Spipi drops the Mist Silk Cape:
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Or, more often, a Crawler Calculus (boo), a Smooth Stone (also boo), or one or two Silk Thread (not too shabby).

The nice thing about Spipi is that I can farm Beehive Chips, Silk Thread and Saruta Cotton (if I have Steal) while I'm hunting.
Here's my scan path:

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Spipi usually only has one or two other people hunting for him/her (?!?) so it's a nice relaxing hunt. Nice cash for an easy drop.

To Clear Up Any Confusion

It recently came to my attention that some people (Twee) thought that I was a girl, perhaps due to the posting of this picture on the Supernintentaru Forum.

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I would like to state, for the record, that I am the person on the LEFT. On the RIGHT is my girlfriend, who used to play Asphyxia (aka Sullen Girl). The dog she's holding is our Italian Greyhound, Couscous Caboose.

So, to be precise:

ME ---------------------------

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MY GIRLFRIEND-----------------

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Thank you.

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

Tweezerpleezer's New Girl

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I think they make a great couple.

AF1 Finally

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So since I have finally gotten up to level 41, I decided to try getting my first AF piece, the RDM's Fencing Degen. I had tried to get it once before, but I hadn't really looked into how the quest went, and I ended up wandering around Davoi aimlessly for a few hours, then dying somewhere in the Monastic Caverns.

This time I had a different plan, especially since I didn't have an XP buffer, and I wasn't looking forward to deleveling. I headed out to Davoi, hoping that when I got there, someone from the Knights of Nee could help me out, or perhaps some random stranger would be in need of Killing a NM that I couldn't handle at all.

Once in Davoi, I promptly got really lost.

Then I logged out for the night.



Day 2!

Still lost, I decided to ask strangers for help. Unfortunately, there were 3 other people there. 2 power levellers and a Summoner who was just hanging out AFK standing next to Carbuncle. Everyone in the LS was still busy, so I decided to get my buffer filled up, in case I happened to die in there. I found some orcs that conned EP in a good spot and ran through them, with one near death saved by a timely Chainspell. Then I finally looked at a map and headed down the river to Purpleflash Brukdok's spawn area. I killed a few pugils and had a full buffer. I checked the search window and there were suddenly a ton of new people. I lucked out on my first try, a taru 75 WAR named Scabbers who got lost for a bit, then came over and got my key item for me. I already knew where the Storage Hole was, and I managed to loot it unseen, got the hell out of Davoi and ran over to Sandy. In the end...


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