On a Good Farming Night

I worked from home yesterday, since my car and the lot it was parked in was covered in 6 inches of snow.

Which was perfect for being able to get a lot done work-wise, and immediately being able to gear up and head to sea for some farming action.

On a side note, I helped some French Black Mage get his Moldavite Earring two hours before getting mine from an uncontested claim. Yay, working from home!

When I got to sea, some members and I promptly went about finding the ??? for Ix'Aern (MNK) to use up the inventory -3 I carried due to the HQ Aern Organs. Two and a half hours later, after getting us lost, wandering in the general direction, discussing strategy, Aidan going afk to deal with children, a few more people popping on to help, Maeriya showing up to solo Ghrah M Chips, and me venturing out solo from the pop point to raise Arael (on the other side of the map) and Melkor (on my way back), we finally....

Arael died again.

Lol.

Melkor found him because Godshatred and I were sitting at the pop point behind a one-way door. A door that Arael found the Quasilium to open with earler. Yay Arael!

We did finally kill Ix'MNK with Xenien kiting and the rest of us supporting and/or nuking. The fight was significantly shorter and much less of a headache than the gathering portion.

I feel very confident in my ability to get to Ix'MNK in the future in a timely and safe manner. Yay learning the hard way!

The Vice of Antipathy (Merciful Cape) dropped for Arael. Sweet :D

Then I left to go grocery shopping and take Xenien to work.

When I got back and finished unloading food into my fridge and pantry, I asked what was going on.

They were on like Reraise #5 of Ix'Aern (Dark Knight). I ran down RDM/NIN style to help kite.

This was honestly my first time using RDM/NIN to kite by spamming hate spells a la PLD/RDM. It was frickin sweet. Blind is the bread and butter of this method, since it generates 1 CE and 640 VE. I also utilized Dispel (320 CE/320 VE), Sleep II (480 CE/480 VE), and Cures as needed. I am sure some of those were cast with -enmity, since I don't have an enmity set or a rule for kiting for RDM in my XML, but it still worked really well.

Enmity values taken from Kaeko's Enmity Table blog entry quantifying hate per action by Cumulative Enmity (CE) and Volatile Enmity (VE). You can read his testing in further detail here.

I only know from hearsay that the fight was rocky before help arrived. Shadowkept apparently attempted to carby kite while requesting everyone rest up and be ready, but a few people tried to cast DoTs anyway and got their hind ends promptly handed to them.

Once I got there, though, I was able to quickly help kite on hate spells alone. When a BLM would toss out a Tier IV or an AM II, they would kite until two or three spells later I could regain hate and begin kiting again. Deaths were at a minimum throughout the rest of the fight I participated in. I believe Ix'DRK only reraised three more times before finally handing over his Deed of Moderation.

It was a good night considering I had to skip Nyzul Isle due to lack of available static members and the need to stock my apartment with food.

Altana be with you.

Guntar.

Happy New Year! (a bit late)

It's that time of year! The time of year when the year just begins. Also, my birthday was the 3rd!

I've been terribly busy between work and play, so my apologies for the lack of posts.

I took some paid time off of work from Christmas Eve until New Year's day. I feel like I really got in the relaxation and fun time I was craving.

I got Bioshock and the Orange Box for Christmas (finally!) from my brother and parents, respectively. I'm only over a year behind, but I look forward to playing them all. I also bought Left 4 Dead after playing my friend Drew's copy for the XBox 360. I loved everything about the game except that it was not on a high-res screen and console joysticks are always clunky and unwieldy for first-person shooters. I solved both of those problems by buying the pc version. It was on sale for $37.49!

I finished Portal, and that was ridiculously fun and had a lot of little things that made me laugh. If you've played it, you know. If you haven't, you won't understand until you play it. So play it.

I finished all four Left 4 Dead campaigns on both Easy and Normal difficulties. It took me two attempts at the Hospital Finale on No Mercy to escape with all survivors on Advanced difficulty, but it was friggin' fun and challenging! I look forward to doing campaigns on higher difficulties with friends instead of NPC AIs.

I recommend L4D for anyone who likes the zombie genre and is enthralled at the concept of surviving a zombie apocalypse with your closest friends. This game has tapped into something that I haven't experienced before. The in-game commentary (which is cool to play through) explains this concept as "small co-op group versus a horde" that was inspired by Counter-strike games featuring a few players with guns versus an army of bots with daggers.

The zombie mob for CS:Source was fun, and Zombie Panic! took that a step further, but they hit the jackpot with this one. The idea is not that you have to prove your skills as better than anyone, but rather that you must coordinate your skills with your fellow survivors and rely on one another to be a potent team.

This does not appeal to everybody, as I was arguing why I love the game with another FFXI player who was denouncing it heavily. The great part about this game, though, is that the people it DOES appeal to are exactly the kind of people you would want on your survivor team working with you.

Win-win.

Altana be with you.

Guntar.

Dynamic Duo

I got the unique opportunity to duo with my brother's character, Yuliter, the other day. He's a Tarutaru, by the way. I forgot how enjoyable it was just kicking back and enjoying the quality time. We took to Mount Zhayolm to burn down some puddings.

He was afk talking to someone on the phone at the start, so I slowly soloed a couple puddings with my not-entirely-operational nuking set. I almost had a run in with the dirt, but a timely Sleep II from me and a Stun from my brother as I ran my galka butt away saved me from losing twice the xp I had just soloed.

Once we actually got rolling, it was fairly leisurely. My job was to locate and lure in an unsuspecting mob, and his job was to zap, melt, or otherwise fry said poor mob. I didn't feel bad for it.

We picked up a pair of duoing BLMs to our pt (one of whom was /anon and quite obviously not yet level 70, casting Ancient magic and Tier IIIs, etc.) and knocked it up a notch. Over all it was an enjoyable time. One of our pickup BLMs had a difficult time staying alive. I don't think he caught on to the whole "run away if it tries to hit you" strategy my brother strategically employs until much later in the evening.

I managed to bring my Red Mage xp from about 33k to within 400 points of the cap, so I consider it a good night.

My gear has a lot to be desired, but I consider myself a resourceful and competent Red Mage. Hopefully there are others who agree. The disparity between my ideal nuking set and my current nuking set, however, is cavernous.

I wear the following:

Aquilo's Staff / Bugard Strap +1 / ----- / Phantom Tathlum
Wlk. Chapeau +1 / Philomath Stole / Phantom Earring / Gayanj's Earring
Errant Houppelande / Dune Bracers / Omega Ring / Zircon Ring
Rainbow Cape / Desert Rope / Duelist's Tights / Duelist's Boots

HQ Staff 15% Damage Bonus
+44 INT
+30 Elemental Skill
+3 Magic Accuracy
+4 Magic Attack Bonus

I want to wear the following someday:

Aquilo's Staff / Bugard Strap +1 / ----- / Phantom Tathlum
Wlk. Chapeau +1 / Elemental Torque / Novio Earring / Moldavite Earring
Morrigan's Robe / Zenith Mitts / Omega Ring / Snow Ring
Merciful Cape / Witch Sash / Duelist's Tights +1 / Goliard Clogs

HQ Staff 15% Damage Bonus
+38 INT
+44 Elemental Skill
+7 Magic Accuracy
+22 Magic Attack Bonus
+2% Magical Crit. Rate (lol)

I'm no BLM, however, but I know enough to know that this set isn't necessarily the ideal in some situations. With RDM's base 230 Elemental Magic skill and the 16 skill from merits I intend to have on top of that, I may be able to get away with foregoing the Duelist's Tights (+1) in exchange for a pair of Mahatma, or better yet, Morrigan's Slops. I hope to sometime finish SCH to 37 so I can use it as an offensive and defensive subjob as well. Gogo Light/Dark Arts!

Additionally, I have the means to get any Elemental Obi I want. I already have Anrin (RDM/BLM fun times in Dynamis) and Hyorin Obis, and I am debating on getting a few more.

I think I will head off to research this further in depth. I'd like to read up on what other RDMs have discussed in the past. Knowledge is power.

Altana be with you.

Guntar.

lolPUP

....is ridiculously fun in the low levels. I also am getting the chance to try out the new Fields of Valor. This is the most brilliant low-level idea conceived by SE in the longest time!

My buddy Sterbeort (currently 65DRK) and I level-sync'd up and hit up Buburimu Peninsula for some Sylvestre slaughtering action, and had a blast :D

Then we got Zombie'd. It was time for me to log anyway. He may have a few days off, but I sure do not.

I am very pleased with the basic 16 set of Automaton attachments, and I'm excited to get my hands on some of the others. I got the Stormwaker body at 10, so I'm trying to get his magic skill leveled up quickly. In retrospect, the Valoredge might have been a better solo option for low levels, but I am certainly not displeased with my choice. I can get Valoredge once I hit 20 (in three levels -- glee!).

Altana be with you.

Guntar.

Up Until Now, and Moving Forward

History Lesson!

OneThousandNeedles is the name of my sky/sea/etc. linkshell of which I am a co-leader.

I originally joined the shell when it was called MisfitGods. My application process consisted of sending a /tell to a fellow named Coldfusion and asking if I could join and him subsequently saying, "Sure, let me give you a pearl."

Since that time, I've had a variety of experiences tanking things for the shell. After the merger with LuckySevens, we obtained the new linkshell name (of which I am quite fond).

Short of detailing everything I've been involved in, I have developed my skill and my gear to a capacity with which I have been so far mostly satisfied. Having leveled the other two jobs I was always interested in (Samurai and Red Mage) to 75, I feel that now I have a very well-rounded character capable of a variety of things. I never wanted to be that guy who was totally clueless about an aspect of FFXI to a point such that my own personal performance would suffer.

Perhaps that's why I've spent so much time researching Puppetmaster as of late! It really is a fascinating job, so don't be surprised if I end up leveling it to 75!

Fast-forward to now.

Quite recently, I put a post on the OneThousandNeedles forums detailing a plan I had put together to lead a small group of people in tasks that normally demand a much larger group to pull off safely. I don't know if I am completely satisfied with the name "1KN: Special Teams," but the football reference amuses me for some reason.

I have several personal motivations as to why I want to put such a group together. First, I want to learn small group tactics to take on high risk challenges because it exactly that: challenging. I am basically looking for a good fight. Second, I know that by throwing myself into this sort thing headfirst, I will invariably fail a lot and fail hard, but I will learn a lot and learn big. There is nothing more satisfying in FFXI than putting together a small group of elites and then taking on and bringing down a boss that two years ago people threw between eighteen and twenty-four people at for 2 hours before they brought him down.

Yeah that's right, we killed Kirin in 40 minutes with fourteen people. Additionally, I finally got my Kirin's Osode that fight!

My recent obsessive time investment would have to be Nyzul Isle Assault. I put together a static team to climb from floor 1 to floor 100 and subsequently farm until we all get the weapons, weaponskills, and armor we are after. We have completed the former and are moving on to the latter. And even yet we fail these floors, partly because the Great Will of SE deems it appropriate to give us "Kill all enemies" and "Kill specified enemies (Soulflayers/Chariots)" on every floor of our climb, but also because we haven't perfected our methods. I still, for example, yet make stupid mistakes such as engaging the first mob I see on a "Kill specified enemy" floor, without checking to see if he is, in fact, said "specified enemy." Oops.

-- I recently obtained Tachi: Rana and Atonement! --

Tachi: Rana is really only nice for punching out a fully mirrored Darkness skillchain on something with Tachi: Gekko. When soloing, I rarely use Gekko anyway, since I live and die by the Paralyze and Blindness effects on Kasha and Yukikaze, respectively.

Atonement is definitely an amazing weaponskill. Non-elemental magic damage based on your cumulative and volatile enmity is like cheating! I can't wait to try it against something big such as Ultima, or some Tier 2 Jailers. My Joyeuse should complement this new toy nicely. :D

Afterthought.

I have every reason to be excited over this game. It's my escape from the real world, although I am rather pleased with my real world at this juncture. Additionally, I have done my damnedest to stay miles away from drama so I can enjoy content and work with other people towards common goals. So far so good. I despise drama in all its forms. But that's another story.

I'll have to miss the ZNM fun later this evening before Limbus. It appears I have some errands to run.

Altana be with you.

Guntar.

The Druid made me do it!

Inspired by a friend of mine who keeps a WoW blog about his Druid bear, I, Guntar Holyflame, a Galka hailing from the city of bastok, have decided it is time to keep a record of my thoughts and deeds within the "series of tubes." You can follow the link on the right to his blog, EightyPercentFur, and grin merrily as you read the contents of his brain transcribed to text.

I'll probably gloat and rant and etcetera a little here, so it should be good times. I like to think of myself as a gentleman in most respects, and also I am primarily and forever a Paladin tank, hence the title of my blog: Tanking in Tails.

Also, I'm a sucker for clever and/or bad puns.

I tend to not be very verbose unless I am sparked to write about something I am extremely interested in, so hopefully my meager set of readers will be able to jump in, read something concise, and navigate away in a jiffy. Look forward to more in the future!

Altana be with you.

Guntar.