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.

Swift Belt Run #3

The Sacrarium madness continues, and this time, my LS decided to raid the dungeon to complete a CoP mission, hunt job-specific subligars, and most importantly, tackle some Swift Belts NMs. It was looking pretty grim at first when our leaders announced the trip would have an event priority. In order, that priority was:

1. Taking down Keremet for CoP 4-2.
2. Farming subligars.
3. Tackling the Swift Belt NMs.

So after waiting a long period for everyone to assemble, the group was off to a shaky start when almost no one other than me knew their way around. At this point, I decided to help coordinate the event, but the group experienced more difficulties when several members failed to evade the monsters in the labyrinth -- a situation that proved difficult to recover from. Eventually, we managed to assemble near Keremet and destroyed his nearby bodyguard to prepare for the boss himself. Once the bodyguards were eliminated, we invited Keremet over, but the ensuing fight proved to be more difficult than the BST duo attempt I experienced a while back.

However, the worst had yet to come. Fighting the three Ghost NMs proved to be even more challenging: a constant use of teleports prevented anyone from landing more than a few blows at a time. Although we could have fought the Ghosts in the room they spawned in, no one dared risking a fight in a room full of Fomors. After slaying the Ghost NMs and stopping for a few rounds of Fomor subligars, the group finally set off to hunt some Swift Belts.

So three hours after starting the expedition, the group decided to fight Balor exclusively (because he was the easiest of the five Swift Belt NMs), and I managed to win the lot to go second. At this point, I was rather doubtful at seeing my belt drop, so I closed my eyes when my NM was near death and opened them to see:















I will never forget the day I saw the following text roll across my screen:


Sadly, Elessidil and Dilimelie did not get to pop their NMs because our LS leaders pressured the group into attending a Dynamis - Windurst run; however, after five grueling hours in that dungeon, I believe I have done all I could for them. Best of luck to the both of them; I hope they get their Swift Belts someday.