More About Liabelle

Often, I find myself repeating old content, and today is no exception! With the latest expansion pack focusing on events of the past, I have decided to recount Liabelle's earlier days in detail.















Liabelle was not always sporting the sultry outfit she is now. Above, Liabelle is clad in level 9, San d'Orian armor parts at a time prior to my BST career. Back then, she would get caught in downpours, ruin her best dress, and complain of the outpost guards who refused her shelter.

Personality wise, she always enjoys talking about clothes and jewelery: Jeuno is her favorite spot for the former while Bastok is her favorite for the latter. At times, Liabelle can seem slightly rude or self-centered, but I have learned to get along with her.















Liabelle is also great company for any event or occasion. Here, Liabelle, in level 10, San d'Orian armor, accompanies me (on my level 37 THF) during a Moat Carp Fishing session, yet another time prior to my BST career. For those who are unfamiliar with Fishing, it takes 10k Moat Carp to earn a Lu Shang's Fishing Rod, so Liabelle's company definitely helped pass the time.















There also seems to be a lot of Lia lookalikes these days too! Like her twin Bamaise, Liabelle also specializes in healing magic, but unlike Bamaise, Liabelle packs a Kiku-Ichimonji for a sidearm, an expensive 430k gil purchase. I suppose one could argue that I did spoil Lia a bit given that the weapon is purely for aesthetics, but I have not had second thoughts ever since.















This picture has nothing to do with Liabelle, but on the tangent of past events, I decided to visit a WotG area to hunt some Gnole Claws for the quest "Better Part of Valor." Accompanying me is one of my friends, Amnasor, who also needed the quest, and we got two claws in less than thirty Gnoles while in Jugner Forest [S]. If only Liabelle could visit past areas.

Reflections II

After receiving a comment on my penultimate entry yesterday, I would like to clear up what seemed to be a poorly written post, and rather than reply to that person directly in another comment, I have decided to write up another full-scale post. 

Now onto the issue at hand, I am not leveling WAR solely because I feel inferior to them in meripos: I am leveling WAR because of the reputation that they have with the general public. I want to be a reputable BST DD, but even if I prove that Snippy and I can deal more damage than another PT member, it seems unlikely that I will be seeing more meripo invites on Diabolos. Jobs like MNK, DRG, and RNG shock me in terms of what kind of damage they can dish out; it takes LDL pets for me to even come close to those jobs. And even with a personal tank via "Snarl," players remain skeptical about inviting BSTs for anything other than generic DD roles and/or "Widescan."

A melee BST requires vastly superior gear (and merits) to enhance his performance, and I think I am more or less at the point where I am not going to get much better unless endgame items of notable quality (such as Byakko's Haidate, Adaman Hauberk, etc.) start appearing in my hands. Since a good portion of my LS does not consider me to be anything other than a BLM, I am hoping that leveling a WAR to 75 will allow me to acquire BST-related items at a faster pace while having a "reputable" melee job ready for use.

Wings of the Goddess

Warning! The following post contains spoilers from the new WotG missions. Players who are still anxiously awaiting their expansion packs have been warned.















Originally, my WotG copy was scheduled to come in on Friday, but when I arrived at the store to pick it up, I was told it would be delayed until Monday. At this point, I was slightly bitter because I could have had a copy express-shipped to me by Wednesday, but I decided against it for some reason.
After driving home, I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call! A shipment had just arrived after I left the store, so I went rushing out the door to grab my copy.

After installing the game almost immediately, I tried to register my codes online only to find SE's registration system had been congested for the longest time. Every time I tried to register, I received the "could not connect to server" error message, and it took around a hundred retries to finally bypass the error screen.

After logging into the game, the first thing I did was find a Cavernous Maw. I hopped inside...















... to plunge into another portal?















I ended up unconscious in what seemed to be the past version of the Rolanberry Fields. After getting back on my feet, I decided to explore around and noticed there were little fairies, Pixies to be more precise, flying and casting "Cure" on injured players (they are also rumored to dispense "Raise III" to the incapacitated). Supposedly, they will stop healing you if you hurt too many of their brethren, so leave them be!






I ended up making my way to Bastok (out of the three possible nation choices), and on my way there, I stopped to chat with a local NPC who gave me a hilarious song. I kind of added some words, but I could certainly imagine this song to the tune of "Day-O."







The rest of my day was spent earning the three maps above, and one of them took a lot of time thanks to a certain NPC that disappears during Campaign (an instanced event like Besieged) and takes up of half an hour to reappear. If you ever plan to explore the WotG areas above yourself, these maps are very handy to have around -- the areas they cover are quite extensive.



Notes:
a) From what I have been told, the registration system seems congested from either players trying to register their codes simultaneously or from poor registration setup on SE's side. If you keep pressing the retry button on the registration page, there is a small chance that you can eventually register your codes.
b) A Cavernous Maw is a grotesque, statue-like structure that hurls players from present-day areas to their counterparts in the past. There are currently nine of these structures, and it should be noted that you must touch the ones in the past before you can use the ones in the present (the exception seems to be the first one you touch).
c) "Raise" is a magical spell that allows one to revive another incapacitated player.

Reflections

Looking back on my goals, I am now debating whether upgrading my BST to be parallel with other DDs, for the sake of having endgame usage, is a task worth continuing. After the recent two-handed weapon update (and silent nerf of one-handed weapons), I definitely feel there is a giant gap between my BST and other DDs, especially after a recent Greater Colibri meripo. Perhaps I am just using my BST in the wrong manner.















On average, I am lucky to receive one or two meripo invites a week while most DDs can expect several invites a day. There are probably some DDs that see fewer invites, but BST must be near bottom of the barrel when it comes to meripo priority. After some experimentation, I have noticed there are weeks where I could leave my flag on everyday, yet I will not receive a single invite!















So after much consideration, I am going to limit my BST to doing what it is done best: exploring and conquering enemies solo. Do not get me wrong folks, I will still try to improve my BST and aim for a Guttler, but I feel it is high time that I leveled WAR to complement my BST. 



Notes:
a) "DD" is an acronym for "Damage Dealer," a class of jobs that focus on destroying their enemies.
b) Guttler is a relic-classed weapon; one of many that require large sums of gil to complete.

Introducing Liabelle!

Liabelle and I go back a long way. I began summoning her around the same time I started BST, and we literally leveled up together ever since. Liabelle is currently capped as a lvl 65 Soothing Healer, and thanks to my arduous efforts, she now sports a pair of level 7, Bastokan leggings and a level 10, Beastmen harness and subligar.















As a special treat, I decided to bring my companions to the Eldieme Necropolis to film a short feature, but I had to wait for the ladies to apply their makeup first. Since Liabelle wears a sultry outfit for all occasions, I decided to forgo buying her a new outfit, and we were ready to film once the girls finished applying their makeup. For anyone else who happens to desire Beastmen armor on their NPC, kill EP+ enemies in regions with Beastmen control (the influence of the region does not matter).















Team Khaki hopes everyone enjoys this short feature on "Snarl," the new BST ability that allows one to transfer his enmity onto his jug pet. Unfortunately, I used a free video converter, so the clip is only 70 percent of the original length. Nonetheless, I hope this video gives a glimpse as to what Team Khaki is like in real-time!

Ischemia X

Divine Might - Round II














It is a bleak time for Ischemia. My LS had just merged with a smaller LS only for them to pick up and leave, dissatisfied, a few days later. For this event, we ended up short on members, so we decided to use pick-up members to fill the gaps. Overall, there was a brutal number of deaths this time around, so there was much celebrating when we cleared the mission on our fourth attempt. Unfortunately, I did not get a front-line picture for this event; from what I could tell, the runs were a bloodbath until the alliance used their 2hrs.

Pop NM: Alastor Antlion




























Possibly the only event that LSs love BSTs to accompany them with. For this event, BSTs are used to control the roaming Antlions while the main alliance deals with the pop NM. To my disappointment, the BST detachment was not allowed to melee the pop NM itself -- we were only there to prevent links and stall the lesser NMs. Even more disappointing, I could not find any T Antlions to use "Familiar" on, so I think someone was hunting the Ambusher Antlion NM during our event.

Dynamis - San d'Oria




























This event was supposed to be a Dynamis - Bastok run, but for some reason, we ended up doing Dynamis - San d'Oria instead. Upon arriving in San d'Oria, we discovered another LS that was just about to enter; however, our leader charged inside to lock them out instead.

Surprisingly, there was not any BST AF this time around, but we did see three Montiont Silverpieces drop throughout the run, giving the LS bank a huge boost in gil. We will be doing another round of city Dynamis runs before heading out to the Northlands, so bear with me people!



Notes:
a) HNM stands for "Honorary Notorious Monster" as far as I am concerned. There seems to be other definitions as to what the "H" stands for, such as "High-level" or "Huge," but there is not any clear definition at this time.

The Hunt for Lars

Today, Snippy battles evil Leech villains for Lifedrinker Lars (LDL) components. Like all superheroes, she is always outnumbered but not overpowered! Snippy's claws scythed through these Leeches for their Fiend Blood.















In Pso'Xja, there are numerous treasure chests that will spring to life and attack should you get too close or try to open them. These fake chests are called Mimics, and they have more bite than any wandering Crab would like to bump into. Snippy and I started to take a few head-on, but after suffering from repeated AoE "Poison" exposure, I decided to back out and let Snippy do most of the work.















After disposing of the Mimic above, I rushed to collect my prize inside the real treasure chest and extracted a shiny gem as a result. Unfortunately, a Sphene is only worth about 1k gil, so I tossed it shortly after.








The bottleneck for producing LDLs is the Lizard Blood component. These precious vials can only be farmed off Diremites. but only two Diremites, with a fifteen minute re-pop timer each, are available in the uncapped Pso'Xja portion. By the time I was done farming Diremites, I ended up with ten Gray Chips, so I went on an insane hunt to gather ten more Carmine and Cyan Chips as well.
















Each set of chips (one Gray, Carmine, and Cyan) grants a CCB Polymer Pump when exchanged with the NPC Cid in Bastok. These pumps sell for around 40 to 50k gil on my server, but due to the low frequency of people trying to win the associated CoP mission, there is always a good bunch of them on sale. I guess it will take a while before all ten of mine sell; good old economics.







A close-up of the pump itself. If only these things worked on bosses such as Proto-Ultima and Proto-Omega.
















After collecting almost four stacks of Beast, Bird, Fiend, and Lizard Blood, along with the corresponding amount of Leech Saliva, I was set to synthesize some LDLs! Unfortunately, my Cooking skill was 50 levels under the optimum level, so I asked a dear friend to synthesize them instead. He managed to create 38 LDLs out of ~46 synths, so that is not a bad deal considering his skill was not at the ideal level either. Stay tuned for a possible meripo parse!



Notes:
a) Mimics are fake treasure chests designed to surprise and trap their victims.

Khaki Recommends Firefox

I decided to check my blog via Internet Explorer today, and there seems a large mess of hyphens in my profile box. It should look something more like:

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Text Goes Here

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Luckily, the rest of my blog does not seem to be affected much, so I recommend Mozilla Firefox for your all your browsing needs!

Korriland

After reaching level 75 BST, I have been increasingly concerned on how to maintain a good exp buffer for LS events. Sadly, there seems to be a lack of good meriting camps for BSTs in general, so I have been researching ways to improve my soloing performance.















At Korriland, I can probably average 2.5k exp/hour on BST/NIN and 1.5 to 2k exp/hour on BST/WHM. These rates depend on the amount of competition at the camp, but by switching to BST/NIN, I am generally able to deal more damage and reduce my overall downtime between kills. With my new melee equipment, I tend to pull hate off my pets more often, but this also tends to remove the need for pet swaps altogether. Of course, the trade-off is that I will be placing myself in more danger as well.















For anyone else who wishes to try BST/NIN at Korriland, it is quite important to turn around after you have pulled hate unless you feel you can keep your shadows going or unless you can defeat your foe shortly after. In addition, you might also wish to bring Echo Drops and/or Remedies to counter "Blank Gaze" and "Antiphase." I usually let status effects wear off on their own, but you never know when a critical situation might arise.















Another thing you will need to keep in mind is hate control. By performing "Rampage" early on, I can pull hate off my Korrigan when needed and save it from death if necessary. After that, I can kite a Goobbue around in circles until my pet reestablishes hate. Generally, I will wait for my shadow timers to reset before pulling a fresh Goobbue, but if you really want to reduce incoming damage, consider using an Earth Staff or Skadi's Jambeaux for just that.

Fishy Wishy Time!

Yikes! I would like to apologize to anyone who read this post in its unfinished state; once again, my upcoming exams have gotten the best of me. Without further ado...












As my new source of income, Fishing requires a great deal of time and patience, but thanks to my efforts, I managed to just hit the Journeyman rank. To gain future skill-ups faster, I have decided to try my hand at earning a Pelican Ring.







To earn a Pelican Ring, one must enter a monthly contest (the actual submission period is only two weeks) and place within the top twenty entries. This month's request was a non-legendary (read: plausible) fish, and more specifically, it happened to be Gavial Fish of the shortest length.














If you have never entered a Fish Ranking contest before, here is some information coming from a first-timer. Basically, you must submit your fish before time runs out, and you can pick-up your prize (if you happened to win one) in the two weeks after the submission period. It takes approximately thirty minutes for the Hume lady to assess entries after the cutoff, so do not stand there idly.







Voila, my new Fishing ring! Naturally, I thought I came in first, but it turns out I barely managed to win a ring -- tying with several others at 19th place. Oh well. Hopefully, my Pelican Ring will allow me to earn skill-ups -- and gil -- at a much faster rate. I am thinking of starting a relic weapon, and to fund one, I will need a good source of income to purchase Dynamis currency.



Notes:
a) All crafts in FFXI adhere to a ranking system. From the lowest to highest, they are:

Lvl. 001-010 Amateur
Lvl. 008-020 Recruit
Lvl. 018-030 Initiate
Lvl. 028-040 Novice
Lvl. 038-050 Apprentice
Lvl. 048-060 Journeyman
Lvl. 058-070 Craftsman
Lvl. 068-080 Artisan
Lvl. 078-090 Adept
Lvl. 088-100 Veteran

Generally, you need to take a test every ten to twelve levels to advance to a higher rank.
b) Dynamis currency is used for upgrading relic weapons and AFv2 and cannot be sold to NPCs. Often, many Dynamis LSs sell their currency to pay for the hefty 1M gil entry fee, so as a result, currency tends to be quite expensive.

Ischemia IX

Today's post comes from the magical land of Sea, also known as Al'Taieu, where yet another Limbus run is about to take place. To be honest, our LS had just finished getting four of our members Sea access a few hours prior, so we decided to put them to good use. As you can tell from the picture above, the red beam of light illuminates me to appear super-special awesome, so I just had to take a snapshot before waltzing off to help my LS.

Limbus - Apollyon SE














This run went relatively smoothly with our nine-man team. Each floor in this zone hosts monsters with an immunity to Blunt, Slashing, Piercing, or Magic damage, so I ended up dual-wielding Daggers to keep my damage going towards the end. With the addition of new LS members, I might be able to bring Snippy to future Limbus runs, but it is unlikely that I will be bringing her to this zone -- I felt rather gimped with Daggers.















This aquatic inhabitant is known as a "goldfish" to most players; however, I prefer to call it a "dolphin" given its tendency to follow me around. After chasing me around for a short period, the "goldfish" tends to lose interest and then swims off in a random direction. Like most monsters in Sea, you cannot "Charm" the "goldfish"; I suppose SE really detests BST based on their last few expansions.















So after waving farewell to the "goldfish," we went back to finishing CoP 8-1 for the newcomers until one of them accidentally ran underneath a Yovra. Yovras or "UFOs" descend upon anything foolish enough to walk underneath them, so the incident caused a great deal of alarm for the rest of us because they are extremely fierce predators.















Moreover, our leader decided to attack the Yovra as well, and after we chipped it down to around 60 percent, our NIN got paralyzed with his shadow recast timer at maximum -- we all hit the floor soon after that. Ironically, it seems that my body floats above the magical, green water instead of sinking to the murky depths below.















Finally, here is a snapshot taken earlier today of the LS crew readying to pop Ullikummi with the Diorites we farmed earlier this week. If you look closely, there is a Tarutaru casualty hidden behind Valeikin, a result caused by Moonflower using "Trick Attack" with "Spiral Hell" on the victim. After this Sky event, I feel that my BST needs more upgrades to compete with the two-handed weapon jobs given the new (and frightening) two-handed weapon update. Stay tuned BST fans. Same BST time; same BST channel. 



Notes:
a) Al'Taieu is one of several Sea areas. Al'Taieu itself is an underwater region that requires one to complete most of CoP to access.
b) "Spiral Hell" is a Scythe WS that does exceptionally high damage when used at 300 TP (the maximum TP you can retain for any WS).
c) "Gimped" refers to something being in a subpar state; however, the definition itself is subjective.

Switching Gear

Now that I own a Swift Belt, I have decided to reassess my original goals, and although I have made significant progress with parts a) through c), part d) is proving more difficult than I thought. From some quick field tests, my Swift Belt appears to be a nice addition to my BST arsenal, so I would like to outline some new goals to further boost my BST's potential.

Edited sometime in 2008.

Short-term Goals
a) Meriting: STR x5, Beast Healer x1, Killer Instinct x1, Call Beast Recast x5, Killer Effects x5, Elemental Skill x8, Enfeebling Skill x8, Burst II x2, Freeze II x3, Ice Magic Potency x5, Lightning Magic Potency x5, Last Resort Recast x5, Last Resort Effect x5, Muted Soul x3, and Desperate Blows x3.
b) Items: Brutal Earring, Jelly Ring, Apollo's Staff, and Rune Axe.
c) Leveling: must bring DRK to lvl 75 (currently lvl 56).
d) Crafting: raise Fishing to 100 and fish for GP items (Waders, Fisherman's Apron, Serpent Rumors, Fisherman's Signboard).

Long-term Goals
a) Guttler
b) Adaman Hauberk set
c) Byakko's Haidate
d) Ninurta's Sash/Speed Belt/Velocious Belt
e) Temperance Torque and Axe
f) HQ Dusk Gloves and Ledelsens
g) Hecatomb Harness set
h) Skadi's Jambeaux
i) Ridill
j) Flawless Ribbon
k) Better CHR gear (Kirin's Osode, etc.)















Just about all my long-term goals are wishful thoughts, so I have also listed in the priority (top to bottom) that I would like to receive them in. Although it is unlikely that I will complete all my long-term goals, a Byakko's Haidate would be superb sometime down the road. As for my short-term goals, these goals will take some time to complete, but I expect a few to be accomplished shortly! Moreover, I plan on attempting some Sewer Syrup hunts, solo, in the near future. Stay tuned for some real BST action, rawr!

Lockdown

Since I am still bogged down preparing for my upcoming exams, today's post will be based on past events again; I am hoping I will get a chance to do more BST-related things during the Christmas break.

As of late, most of my spare time has been spent attending LS events, farming gil to attend those events, and repairing my exp buffers. In addition, I have been hoping to find a non-legendary fish requirement for the Fish Ranking contest, and it turns out that this month's entry happens to be Gavial Fish! So on route to the Fishing spot in Drachenfall, I happened to pass by the cute Crab above, and if you suspected that I named Snippy after a similar Crab, you are correct!










It turns out that I still do not have enough Fishing skill to catch Gavial fish yet, but I am getting closer. I suppose the main reasons that prevent me from leveling Fishing faster are the limit of 200 fish per day, the left and right arrow key mashing to haul in tougher fish, and the sheer boredom that I experience after an hour of two of Fishing. As such, I tend to only fish during Full or New Moon periods, when Fishing skill-ups appear to be more abundant, or whenever I happen to need spare change.















After spending nine more merit points, my STR augmentation reached level 3! This accomplishment marks the halfway point for capping my STR merits, so that means I only need eighteen more merits to have them all.















Here is a recent attempt to clear Diabolos Prime at the level 75 cap; above, Zelkaden braces himself to meet the terrestrial avatar head-on. Unfortunately, we lost the battle twice due to "Nightmare" bypassing our "Stun" attempts, and therefore, we did not earn the rights to summon Diabolos despite waiting several hours for a better day and second attempt. The LS seems keen on doing another run sometime soon, but it could be a while. 



Notes:
a) "Nightmare" is a special move used exclusively by Diabolos. It causes an AoE "Sleep" and "Bio" effect that keeps the player asleep while taking damage over time.