Slow Motion

I would like to make a fair warning to all my readers (if I still have any): future blog updates will likely be slow and less BST-related because I will be spending more of my time collecting Guttler funds. In addition, I feel that I have run out of BST-related activities to attempt, and I am sure my upcoming midterms will have me hard-pressed on time very soon. So I will be juggling FFXI and real-life matters delicately; we will see what happens. 

Back to FFXI matters, I will need to start leveling my mules a bit before I can start funding a Guttler. As mentioned previously, my Fishing mules cannot pull up Mercanbaligis or Ahtapots at this time, so I will be catching Istiridyes until they reach level 50 Fishing skill (they are around level 10 at this time).

Now you might be asking yourself, is it reasonable to attempt Fishing Istiridyes with a forty-level skill gap? It turns out that my mules can pull the shells up after some trouble; however, Fishing skill-ups have been fairly abundant nonetheless. As such, I will be attempting to get my mules some Pelican Rings in the next few weeks when the Fish Ranking contest reopens. Hopefully, they will not ask for more legendary fish.

The Guttler Dilemma

There is not much keeping me on FFXI these days. I rarely get to use my BST for LS events, and I am starting to grow tired of using BLM exclusively. After my previous meripo, I have realized that I need better gear to bridge the gap between my BST and other DDs, so I have decided to earn a Guttler to do just that.

Now, everyone knows funding a relic weapon is not easy: gil is more difficult to obtain today than ever before. After searching several websites for hints on how to level Woodworking, I ran across a post on Allakhazam by SiviardofShiva that describes how he was selling fish in order to fund his Guttler.

Unfortunately, I have much lower Fishing skill than Siviard, and the fish he suggested sounded difficult, but after giving it a try, it seems that I doubted myself for no reason. So here is my Fishing statistics and results thus far:

Rod: Lu Shang's Fishing Rod
Bait: Shrimp Lure
Fishing Skill: 53 +5
Targets: Mercanbaligi, Ahtapot
Unwanted Targets: Rusty Subligaria
Enchantment(s): Pelican Ring

Result:











. . . plus approximately 150k gil in two days. I would like to point out that the first three skill-ups were acquired on Day 1, so I was under heavy Fishing fatigue by Day 2. At this rate, I could probably fund a Guttler in two to three years if I can keep up a constant rate of 75k gil/day.

Conceptually, Siviard's plan is golden, but Fishing for consecutive periods brings about Fishing fatigue, and that limits how much I can make the day after. Sadly, even after Fishing 10,000 Moat Carp for my Lu Shang's Fishing Rod, I still do not know when Fishing fatigue is reset. Usually, I start getting Fishing fatigue around my 100th fish, and supposedly, a character will be unable to fish once he nears his 200th catch (there seems to be a drastic decline in catches as you approach 200).

So how should I deal with Fishing fatigue? The best way to get around the limit is to have multiple characters. Although I bypassed the limit of 200 fish/day for my Lu Shang's quest using multiple characters, I am no longer Fishing items with a skill cap of 11; Mercanbaligis cap at level 87 while Ahtapots cap at level 90 -- skill caps well beyond what I would like to level for my Fishing mules. Perhaps I will consider leveling their Fishing Skills to around 50 to fish Shall Shells for now.

Will Siviard's plan lead me to a Guttler? Who knows? But if there is one thing I have reiterated time and time again: a BST never gives up just because the going got tough. As such, this post is dedicated to my new found devotion at earning a Guttler, no matter what the price.

Living off the Land

Once again, I am testing my luck at harvesting Angel Skins, but this time, I am breaking the latent effects on my Sapara, Axe, and Greatsword of Trials in tandem!

As some of you might have noticed, Snippy Cam has been updated infrequently lately, and unfortunately, I will not be able to update faster until I have cleaned up the large number of duplicate pictures on my image hosting site. Removing duplicates would be an easy task except that Picasa Web Albums, my blog's image hosting site, organizes pictures from oldest to newest automatically, so I have to dig through all my old pictures before I can find my new ones. To make matters worse, Picasa does not timestamp any uploaded pictures, so if I am not careful, I might delete the wrong image!

To make life easier, I have decided to delete all duplicates, along with their originals, and once that is done, I will upload a new copy of each deleted image back onto Picasa.







Back to FFXI matters, I gave up on Devil Mantas pretty quickly, and instead, I have decided to level-up my Fishing skill on Bluetails and Bhefhel Marlins. The latter gives me a chance at earning a Pirate or Brigand's Chart when traded to a NPC in Selbina, and I managed to obtain the chart above on my eleventh catch. That is pretty lucky for something with a rumored 2% drop rate.

By bringing the Brigand's Chart to the Buburimu Peninsula, one has a shot at earning a Penguin's Ring, an item that drains fish stamina quicker. However, since I am nowhere near earning my Ebisu Fishing Rod anytime soon, I will have to save the chart for another day. Hopefully, I will be to earn an Ebisu someday and start reeling in enough gil to fund my Guttler. 

And now for some random tidbits, enjoy!

Ischemia XVI

Ischemia is at it again, but this time, we are tackling some Sea-variety events after picking up some more recruits. We managed to do two Proto-Omega runs and saw three Homam Zucchettos and one pair of Homam Cosciales drop as a result. Unfortunately, I am still restricted to playing BLM, but I do not mind so long as my BST can continue to earn goodies and so long as my BLM does not die a terrible number of deaths as a result (it is getting hard to repair buffers with my latest schoolwork). I suppose this means I will have to level RDM as a subjob soon to try my hand at slaying Wamouracampa solo.














Next up is our third and fourth Kirin runs! Our third run went very poorly after Suzaku burned through our main alliance using "Chainspell," and we had many, many deaths trying to keep Kirin from vanishing. On the plus side, our LS has been extremely lucky with our Sky god drops: we are now 3/3 on Byakko's Haidates and 4/4 on Kirin's Osodes. The drop rates seems rather unusual because we are 1/3 on Byakko's Axes and 1/4 on Kirin's Poles, and both those items are the less desired than their counterparts. I suppose most of our melee jobs are not complaining, so neither am I!















We also decided to continue hosting random pop NMs now and then, and this time, we decided to help our WHMs out. Unfortunately, some non-WHMs also decided they wanted Reverend Mails, so it took over four hours to get some eight or nine runs done. As such, I think I have had enough of Shen for a very long time.















Today's Sea event was yet another farming run as we attempted to pop Jailer of Faith. However, another LS, Ethereal, beat us to the punch, and to make matters worse, the BST who bailed from of his own KSNM run a few days ago, Narutokun, happened to be there. Naturally, I slapped him for his unforgivable behavior, but he shrugged it off like nothing. I suppose some people have no sense of shame these days. The LS decided to hunt Ix'DRK after losing the chance to pop Jailer of Faith.















It took us a while to get the required message to pop Ix'DRK, but it was worth it when Ix'DRK died without using "Reraise" once! I suppose the RDMs were disappointed that the cape did not drop, but we now have a tier II Sea jailer pop, and that is something right? If only Ischemia would swing by Jailer of Temperance...

KSNM Storytime

As BSTs, I am sure many of you have collected mountains of Beastmen and Kindred seals and would gladly burn them in BCNMs/KSNMs given the chance. Today was one such opportunity for yours truly.

Normally, I prefer to manaburn the KSNM "Operation Desert Swarm," but I managed to find a meleeburn group that was willing to take my BST. Usually, ODS does not provide me with much in terms of winnings, but one can expect 20 to 30k gil per round even if it is just from the shared gil distribution.

Our group consisted of a six-man party:

• Narutokun (WAR/NIN)
• Socca (NIN/WAR)
• Thela (SMN/WHM)
• Fleure (BST/NIN)
• Ashypootie (BST/NIN)
• Khaki (BST/NIN)

After rolling die to determine the entry order, I ended up going last, and initially, I was all but fine with that. Our first fight ended a bit rough, but we all managed to live and defeat the Scorpions successfully. Our second fight was relatively smooth, but we did suffer one casualty. The third run was a disaster, our SMN died just before I could engage her Scorpion, and one of the BSTs ended up with two Scorpions shortly after. Unfortunately, we all ended up dropping to the floor, and just when we thought we would lose with one monster remaining, one of the other BSTs got back up and slew the final Scorpion!

There was a slight dilemma, however. All but one of us were dead, and the surviving BST could not cast "Raise" on us. As such, the SMN decided to HP and switch to DRG/WHM to save us, but it turns out that another group had just finished their KSNM run and was altruistic enough to dispense "Raise IIIs"! Unfortunately, this is when things started going downhill. Our leader and event organizer, Narutokun, disconnected after zoning back into the Palborough Mines, and as you can probably guess, he never returned. What made things worse is how we had just finished Narutokun's orb ten minutes ago and that he organized the run himself.

At this point, another party was still awaiting members for their own ODS runs, so our SMN asked if we could borrow some help. One of their members, Obliterate (SAM/WAR), agreed to join us, and we got a fourth run underway. We had some problems with this run as well, but it turned out to be a fruitful one when Ashypootie managed to get a Damascus Ingot on his run! Unfortunately, the SAM had to leave soon after because his party was ready, so we ended up back at square one. I decided to call a friend, Kearick, at this point to help finish the remaining runs, and luckily, he was willing to help out.

It seemed like everything would work out. I just had to escort Kearick to the BCNM entrance (he had no map), but suddenly, Ashypootie started to disconnect from the game.

After we had just finished his run.
After Narutokun did only mere moments ago.
Things were not looking good.

Me: "Okay guys, are we willing to try with 5 people? Kearick could probably hold 2 while we try to take the others."
SMN: "I am not wasting my orb."
NIN: "If we are not going, then I gotta get going."
Other BST: "Yeah, I cannot keep awake anymore..."

So in the end, I was one of two unlucky people, and I am not a happy camper. Sure, I still have my orb, but it felt like I tried so hard to fix things, and in the end, nothing seemed to work.

The Haidate Field Test

It has been a while since I have had the pleasure to meripo, but today, a LS member noticed that I was seeking on BLM and decided to invite me to his PT. Initially, I thought I would be able to re-level after dropping to lvl 74 just the day before, but I soon discovered that the party was headed to the Greater Colibri camp. Given that BLMs are terrible against monsters that reflect magic, I proposed going BST instead, and the PT had no objections.

Unfortunately, the PT got delayed for quite some time. It turns out that two of my LS members refused to come over until they had finished leveling with their other jobs, so I was pretty angry at them as a result. After finally gathering in the Bhaflau Thickets, we stumbled onto three other meripo PTs,
so we ended up battling the Mamool Ja on the upper ledge instead.

So just how much of a difference did my new Byakko's Haidate make? The short answer is "not much." Although the haidate did decrease my Delay and increase my WS damage, there is not an astounding difference from just equipping the pair of shorts. As for my Kirin's Osode, it seems that it is true what they say: do not melee in it. Although using the osode might have improved my Critical Hit Rate slightly, my Accuracy was much better using my Hauberk, so I decided to switch back to the latter midway through the parse.

In terms of comparing myself to other DD jobs, I think I still need more data in general. From what I have gathered, I will need the few pieces that allow a BST/NIN to "Double Attack" before I can compete against the heavy DDs.

EDIT: I used Bream Sushi instead of Sole Sushi.

A New Frontier?

DRK/BST. Perhaps it is not a truly new frontier, but rather, an unconventional soloing method obscured from the minds of many. After reaching level 75 DRK, I decided I needed to cap some of my Combat Skills, but I knew it would be difficult because DRKs are not great soloists. Thus, I decided to try using BST as a subjob, and I even invented some new tactics for the task at hand. Today, I have decided to share some of those tactics.















The biggest problem with DRK/BST is that I am lacking a lot of CHR gear and the safety of a proper subjob. I ended up dying many times when I failed to deal enough damage or when my pet died early on, giving me the impression that skill-ups would come painfully unless my main job had good defensive abilities. Since DRK is an offensive job, the only things I could do is try matching my pets and prey as closely as possible, and hope for the best.

Normally, most monsters do not resist "Charm" too much; however, we all know Korrigans possess "Resist Charm" and are the only pets suitable for holding enmity off a Steelshell or Elder Goobbue. As such, I make the following suggestions for using DRK/BST:

Charming

• Set yourself at the maximum distance when attempting to "Charm" pets.
• If you fail, run away from your pursuer (usually towards the waterfall), and keep trying on the run.
• If you happen to be near the center tree after failing "Charm," you might wish to run tight laps around the tree, without alerting the Steelshells below, to lose your pursuer.

Tame

• Save this ability for EM Korrigans that "Charm" fails on.
• Do not use on pets with low HP.

Predator/Prey Combinations

• Use low-level weapons to avoid building excessive enmity.
• Try to pit DC Korrigans against EM Goobbues or Steelshells.
• Reserve EM Korrigans against T Goobbues or Steelshells.

Above, Liabelle uses "Blessed Radiance" to save me from an angry Steelshell that just scythed through another of its kind.

Overall, prepare for some nasty fights while using BST as a subjob. I think I have died around a dozen times on DRK/BST in total, and I now have enough memories to remind me of my old BST leveling days.




Notes:
a) "Tame" is a BST ability that might calm a hostile pet. It also increases your chance to "Charm" that pet (if applicable).

Ischemia XV

Ischemia has slain many Sky gods over these past few months, so it was high time we faced off against the Master of the Shijin: Kirin. Surprisingly, this fight was a lot tougher than the other four Sky gods required to spawn him, and it took a high amount of coordination and LS members to bring this NM down.

Since most of our LS (including yours truly) had never faced Kirin before, our leaders decided to employ a cautious strategy: kiting Kirin around until he died. After kiting Kirin for approximately fifteen minutes and after Kirin had summoned his four Sky god minions, our melee jobs attempted to perform SCs and Magic Bursts (MBs) to help the BLMs with their spell accuracy.

Sadly, only one alliance (up to eighteen players) can fight this NM at any given time, so melee casualties and BLMs without MP were constantly ejected to the sidelines. Each fight took around forty-five minutes, and unfortunately, I was not in the main alliance when the first Kirin died. Apparently, the first Kirin dropped a Kirin's Osode, a Dryadic Abjuration: Body, and a Damascus Ingot.

As for our second Kirin: 





I was pretty excited when Ischemia let me lot for both Kirin's Osodes, but I only won the second one after losing the first to one of our MNKs. Sincerely, I was not expecting to lot at all because I had just won my Byakko's Haidate two days prior, but as someone in our LS suggested, perhaps we should start a new reality television show called "Pimp my LS."

Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to properly test my Byakko's Haidate (I figured someone would invite my BST to a meripo by now), let alone my Kirin's Osode, so I decided to visit Korriland for some NM action (and because Masani wanted my help there). 















Have you ever fought this annoying bugger before? No, it is not Snippy; she is quite docile. Instead, it is her meaner cousin, Aquarius! As a level 60 BST, I managed to take Aquarius down after two hours or so, but nowadays, I can just drag him upstairs to Korriland and crush him in a mere twenty minutes. Unfortunately, I did not get to use "Rampage" with my new gear.















In fact, I did not get to WS at all because I lost my TP every time I needed to "Charm" a new pet. Since Aquarius can flay DC/EM Korrigans with relative ease, I ended up switching between my Light Staff and Axes constantly. However, I did note that my new WS set now includes 105 STR and 90 DEX, so I am debating whether I should place my Kirin's Osode in my TP set as well. Perhaps, I will settle the matter in a future meripo parse.















Speaking of NMs, I also fished up this NM today while trying to catch Trilobites for Fishing GPs. Unfortunately, I did not get to engage this NM directly because Uragnites can spew lethal, AoE poison whenever they retreat into their shells. As such, I let Snippy handle the NM by herself while I stood afar. As luck would have it, the ferry docked before she could defeat the NM, so I guess the experience turned out to be a disappointment.

Tough Decisions

Like most players, I never seem to have enough gil or merits; I tend to consume them like candy and can never retain enough to sate my needs. Moreover, I have been broke ever since I leveled my DRK to 75 and out of merits after investing in the augmentations above. 

Since I believe I have done everything I can merit-wise to improve my BST's melee abilities, future merits will be reserved for my BLM instead. Ideally, I am looking to cap my Elemental Skill along with my Ice and Thunder Potency merits, and given the restriction of sixteen merits total for Magic Skills, I will be allocating them evenly between Enfeebling and Elemental Magic. I have also decided to fully merit "Burst and "Freeze II" before my Potency merits; I really want some better nukes first. Although I would like to be a perfect BLM by having full INT merits as well, I would need to remove my STR merits first, and I cannot justify anything that would prevent my BST from being the best.




Luckily, some decisions are relatively easy to make, such as buying Guild Point (GP) items. Generally, crafting items that increase your skill are tiered off such that you should be able to earn them as you progress up the crafting ladder. Since Fishing is my main craft, I decided to get the first GP skill item that I could lay my hands on: a pair of Waders.






Supposedly, Fishing skill does nothing in terms of making fish easier to catch, but I do not know that for sure. Based on my own experiences, Fishing items do not seem to ease the difficulty of catching even the lowliest of fish, such as Moat Carp, but even so, I still want to try for my own Ebisu Fishing Rod someday. Hopefully, by progressing up the Fishing ladder, I will be able to get higher Fishing skill to do just that.

Ischemia XIV

Ischemia's second Byakko run turned out most successful as I finally managed to earn my own Byakko's Haidate! In addition to being rather giddy, I have also just accomplished one of my major goals, so I hope this shows other BSTs (namely Slipperrry) that BST is a real job eligible for these coveted pair of shorts.



The unforgettable lotting moment.

So just how much of a difference did these pair of shorts make? Judging by eye, it did not make a huge difference in my weapon delay because I already had 14% Haste to begin with, but according to a calculator, the shorts shaved about 0.4 seconds from my weapon delay and a second or two from my shadow recasts. As for the DEX, I am currently testing it out, but a lack of meripo invites may prolong a conclusive result for quite some time. Regardless, I have decided to replace the pants in both my TP and WS sets with my new Byakko's Haidate. Hopefully, the decrease in delay and increase in Critical Hits are worth it.













This is the Byakko that dropped my pair of shorts; I even managed to bring down the Tiger with a heavily resisted "Blizzard IV." I suppose I should curse my Elvaan INT because I just cannot seem to blast Sky gods as hard as I would like to.

The booty from this Byakko was abundant, and we confirmed that crystals do not prevent Byakko from giving full drops (some LS mates believed they did). Instead, if there are more than ten items in Byakko's loot pool, one of the bottommost items gets distributed automatically.









But wait, our LS scores again! This makes two haidates in less than an hour, so we are pretty ecstatic compared to our first run where we went 2/6 on haidates. Perhaps there is some trick for getting Byakko to drop his pants more often.









Oh snap, is that another Byakko's Haidate? Why yes, yes it is! We just went 3/3 on Byakko's Haidates on this round, and for once, I am certainly not one to complain. Congratulations to Heavenschild and Zelkaden on the other two Haidates, Clavical and Hammered on their Shura Haidates, and Multani on his Byakko's Axe. It is a good time to a BST, rawr!

The Celestial Nexus

The following post contains spoilers from ZM16: The Celestial Nexus. Please divert your eyes if necessary!















Last week, I had the honor of joining a personal friend in squaring off against the Zilart prince Eald'narche, and despite his stature, he is actually the older of the princes. Since my DRK had just reached level 75, I decided to test out my new capabilities, and we decided to tackle this BCNM as a NIN, RDM, WHM, BRD, and DRK.















Do not let the guides intimidate you about the difficulty of this fight: with a well-armed team and good coordination, we took down Eald'narche's first form in no more than five minutes. To make things easy, we all subbed NIN to absorb Eald'narche's TP attacks and limit the overall healing requiring. The second form is not too much tougher. Although your melee damage is halved on the second form, Eald'narche only has around 2k HP, and I certainly did not resist using "Souleater" to pull off a 600 damage "Guillotine" -- easily enough to tenderize a few of Eald'narche's bones.

The battle music -- Eald'narche's theme -- makes this battle one of my absolute favorites among expansions, so if you have not attempted this fight yet, it is one of the few things in FFXI that I highly recommend trying.















Since I have forgotten to include some of my December LS events, I have decided to squeeze them into this post instead. Above, my LS managed to pick up about half a dozen Optical Hats from Hakutaku, and I even got to guide them through the Den of Rancor on BST. Unfortunately, I did not get any good pictures from this event because I was too busy spamming "Paralyna" on our tanks.















This picture is from a Gration fight my LS did a while back. Unfortunately, I have switched to using Fraps for taking pictures, so please bear with the shoddy picture quality for now. As for this fight, it was definitely unconventional by all means. My LS decided that we would not melee Gration directly (due to fear of feeding it too much TP), and instead, we would melee on other monsters and WS only on Gration itself. Since I was not particularly interested in earning a Tatami Shield, I did not take many pictures of this event either.

Dark Subordinate

Some of you might have noticed the Walahra Turban on my DRK, and your eyes do not deceive you -- I have finally brought my DRK to lvl 75! Thankfully, most of my lvl 75 BST gear is also compatible with my DRK, so I will not be spending a fortune on gearing the latter. In addition, I have also managed to break my Subduer latent at long last.















No lvl 75 job would be complete without merits, capped Combat Skills, and a fistfight with Maat himself. On my previous character, I remembered DRK Maat used to be relatively easy at lvl 71, but a rematch on my new character confirmed it to be even easier at lvl 75. By casting "Dread Spikes" before the brawl, Maat literally bled himself to death with each and every punch. Moreover, I finished the fight with over 1k HP and even broke the record time for this battlefield, so I suppose I was worried, initially, over nothing.















However, make no mistake, I am not going to deck out my DRK, and I probably will not be doing much more on DRK other than capping my Sword, Greatsword, and Great Axe skills and defeating their respective WSNMs. My DRK will always be subordinate to my BST, and although it might seem like the other way around, there will always be favoritism for my BST!

To Dare the Devil

Following in the footsteps of another BST blogger whose name rhymes with "Tecu," I have decided to pursue my own Guttler as well. Unlike "Tecu," I have not been very proficient at gathering Dynamis currency, so I have been saving gil for quite some time to afford my Stage 2 Axe.















Unfortunately, one needs more than just Dynamis currency for a Stage 2 Axe. In addition, I also needed an Angel Skin (among other items), so I decided to try Fishing Devil Mantas with Snippy's help. After an initial assessment of the Kuftal Tunnel, I decided it would be unfeasible to use BST/THF for fighting multiple EP/DC mobs and decided on using my DRK/THF instead. The other reason I chose my DRK is because I wanted to break my Subduer latent in tandem with farming Mantas.







Fishing Devil Mantas turned out to be no easy task. I have determined that the earliest respawn for these Mantas is around sixteen minutes, and it seems that only one Devil Manta can be available at any given time. The drop rate is also pretty abysmal because I ended up spending three full days, to haul a mere nine Devil Mantas, before I could get my Angel Skin (what an oxymoron).















Afterward, I sprinted to Castle Oztroja to convert my Tukuku Whiteshells into Lungo-Nango Jadeshells at an exchange rate of 100:1. After the conversion was complete, I made way to Xarcabard to trade...

3x L. Jadeshells
1x Relic Axe
1x Angel Skin
1x Feather Collar +1
1x Chronos Tooth

... to a Goblin blacksmith for the following dialogue (SPOILER ALERT) below:












And after a one-day waiting period:














It will be a while before I can upgrade to a Stage 3 Axe, so here is hoping I can raise 14M gil within a year.