Ischemia XIII

Today's post is about a Sky god run my LS attempted eight days ago. Originally, it was suppose to be another trip to Limbus but was canceled when some of our rowdier members demanded a better event. As such, we decided to try two rounds of Seiryu and Suzaku, and we rewarded with:






























Alas, I do not recall who got what, but congratulations to anyone who received something. I will be finishing up another LS post soon enough, so stay tuned for new content.

Campaign Calls

With each new expansion pack comes new multiplayer content, and like its predecessor, Campaign offers high-level players a chance to earn exp points for their efforts. The only downside is, unlike Besieged, you cannot earn any skill-ups, but you can earn Allied Notes (the past equivalent of Imperial Standing) instead. As a personal tip, try to engage your foes near Pixies (such as the one above) -- they will provide a constant barrage of healing spells for you.















A lot of familiar faces reappear in the latest expansion, including those of the enemy! With Conqueror Bakgodek running loose, the foes of the past can be quite daunting. Both friendly and enemy detachments will be lead by unique leaders, and these leaders are significantly stronger than his or her NPC comrades. What I would like to know is why units of the past seem so deadly compared to their modern counterparts -- I suppose it is possible that both sides went through a massive demilitarization process after the war.















As you can tell from the picture above, San d'Oria used to have real knights clad in shining armor, and with similar armor myself, it seems that the ladies just cannot get enough of me as well. Or maybe they were just after that Orc. In either case, the new outfits make this expansion much more visually pleasing than its predecessors; however, SE should stop reusing the Robocop helmet so often on NPCs.















Ah yes, these poor Yagudo never stood a chance. Above, a Windurstian relief force swarms over its adversaries to save a besieged Federation outpost. Like all Beastmen, it seems that the Yagudo are relentless in assaulting the Allied Forces during the Crystal War. Thankfully, the Tarutaru have retained their powerful spells and heroes, so it is always good to know that my home nation in the future is also safe in the past. As for which nation I joined in the past, it happens to be San d'Oria! There is something about knightly orders and melee specialists that drove me to join the ranks of the Iron Rams.















Nonetheless, I can still help Windurst [S] through Campaign battles because Bastok, San d'Oria, and Windurst are all allied in the past. In one such battle, I even managed to spot the infamous Zonpa-Zippa, the inventor of the Cardians. But wait, why does he have all four Ace Cardians to himself? I suppose we are visiting a time before they all went rogue. Thanks to the introduction of Campaign, my DRK might be able to reach level 75 without exp parties, so I will be sitting back and basking in the glory of the past.

Starlight Celebration

'Tis the season to be jolly! Or unappreciative like Hammered. If you have never done a Starlight Celebration event before, you can still earn the prizes from previous years on top of this year's unique prizes. And yes, we even have Santas on FFXI, but we call them Smilebringers instead.

Now for the event itself, this year's Starlight Celebration is kinder than the one I experienced back in 2005. Basically, you are asked to search for players that fit certain criteria, and you will receive a Magellan Card every time you talk to an Event Moogle with the matching person in your party. It will take several matches before you can receive an Andromeda Card, at which point you will be rewarded with one of this year's unique prizes. The descriptions range from:

a) Find anyone (this one is good).
b) Find someone lower than level 38 OR higher than level 37.
c) Find someone from part b) of a certain race.
d) Find someone from part b) and/or c) of a certain sex.
e) Find someone from part c) and/or d) with a certain job.

One of my final matches required an Elvaan female who needed to be a level 38+ COR, and that is about as impossible as it gets. By some streak of luck, I did find a lady with the right criteria, but if you cannot find the match you are looking for, you can ask the Event Moogle for a reset after JP midnight.

New rewards











Like most player appreciation events, you are required to procure a NQ item before you can obtain the HQ version. This year's event provided a very useful item that gives an enhanced "Sneak" effect when used. Hopefully, this makes Sneak Oils more reliable because they tend to wear off quickly.

Old rewards


















These items allow you to teleport to a nation's Chocobo stables up to ten times; a fairly useful tool if you happen to forget a Warp Cudgel or if you are adventuring at a low level. As you can probably guess, my bag is nearly filled to the brim with this year's goodies.

















Normally, I will not keep any event items that cannot be stored, but these incredible items allow one to transform into various monsters. If you equip any of these belts with a Pitchfork +1 from the Halloween events, you can get increased movement speed within town areas for free!

Lord of the Hunt

After acquiring my new Jelly Ring, Masani called for help fighting a NM in the Sea Serpent Grotto, so I decided to go help her out. Unfortunately, Novv the Whitehearted got the best of me the first time around: I released a pet too early and linked a bunch of Novv's Sahagin friends. They turned me into mincemeat soon after.

Given my BST nature, I could never let a NM win that easily, so after Masani revived me, I recklessly used "Charm" on a nearby Robber Crab and attacked Novv despite being weakened. After a few minutes of fighting, it was clear that my pet would fall, so I told Masani we would engage the NM, even though I was still weakened, once my pet died. Given Novv's "Hydro Shot" move, enmity bounced between Masani and me a bit, but once I could summon CC, "Snarl" took care of the rest. Unfortunately, Novv did not drop a Minstrel's Coat in the end, but with my new found experience on this NM, I am positive I could solo Novv despite my earlier failure.








Afterward, I decided to hunt Centurio XII-I, for an Intruder's Earring, to take advantage of a server maintenance that occurred the day before. Although I arrived on the scene twenty one hours after the maintenance period, I did not manage to claim the NM, and to make matters worse, I botched calculating the respawn time for the next day and wasted five hours then for nothing. Despite my error, I did manage to catch the Dune Widow NM on Widescan as a consolation prize.















So after calculating the earliest respawn time for the day after, I decided to arrive early to stay on top of my competition, but I was shocked when the NM spawned earlier than I thought it could. Unfortunately, I failed to get the claim again; it seems that Centurio XII-I can spawn as early as twenty hours after its previous death. However, my persistence paid off the next day when I finally managed to claim the NM, against four other players, and I was even lucky enough to get the earring.















As such, I definitely recommend using BST/THF for any dicey NM drops. Using /THF allows a BST to quickly "Flee" towards a NM that has just spawned and minimize the average number of kills needed for a particular item. That is all for today folks; merry Christmas Eve!

Ischemia XII

Ischemia has seen several new members thanks to the recruiting efforts of a certain Tarutaru, Yoshitaka, and as a result, we have started doing small events again. The LS scheduled a Bomb Queen run two Sundays ago, and given my current DRK desires, I just had to go. Unfortunately, some members, including myself, were short a pop item(s), so the LS decided to send its BST team to gather pop sets while the main group fought the NM itself. I also decided to take plenty of pictures and redesign my site banner while I was down at Ifrit's Cauldron.





For the most part, Poodlehat and I were farming the more difficult pop items, Bomb Queen Cores, from Volcanic Bombs while the rest of the LS farmed for Volcanic Ashes when they were not fighting the NM. The main reason we decided to split our forces was because failing to pay attention could result in...




... instant death! Although "Barfira" and "Fire Carol" can help resist the damage taken, there is still a chance to suffer instant death if you are unlucky. To further complicate matters, we did not have any form of "Stun" in the alliance.















To speed things along, I volunteered to go last, and we managed to farm three cores in three hours. During that time, the main alliance slaughtered Bomb Queens left and right until they finally decided to wrap things up with my NM. After rejoining with the rest of the alliance, I discovered that I would be keeping the local wildlife and lesser NMs at bay with the rest of the alliance while two NINs kept the main NM occupied. Since the lesser NMs would quickly explode after appearing, I decided to use my TP to ensure they died promptly rather than unleashing it on the main NM as instructed.















Overall, the fights proceeded fairly smoothly, and I now have a new ring for my DRK's "Souleater" set. This set still needs many more pieces to complete, but I will post about those another time.






We also witnessed two pairs of Avengers drop from the ten or eleven pop sets we used. Supposedly, the claws are relatively rare, but as a BST, I am not too concerned about novelty items.







I also did two more "Treasure and Tribulations" runs yesterday and succeeded with one of them. Unfortunately, the drops were pretty shabby, but a Tamer's Ring might be useful if I ever get around to creating a "Killer Effect" build for my BST.