Maat Masher

One thing that draws FFXI players together so well is the shared experiences. There are certain events in Vanadiel that we all go through, and there's a distinct pleasure in taking time to reminisce with your linkshell friends. Perhaps its about your first ever party in the Dunes; maybe the first time you saw the Summerfest fireworks, your long hard struggle to clear Genkai 1, the first time you got a drop from a NM, and so on and so forth.

One of the biggest milestones in anyone's FFXI career is finally stepping up to take on Maat. This old fool has wasted hours of your life searching for ancient papyrus, and forced you to endure horrible alliance pickup groups to clear Genkai 2. It's good to finally get some payback.

I had long ago given up any hope of ever reaching 70 on Samurai, but while out killing Demons for Soran's BRD AF, a Samurai Testimony dropped. I was going to throw it away, but Demajen persuaded me to keep it 'just in case'. I was glad I did too!

So, I hit 70. Full of confidence born of having spiky blonde hair, Saikyo read the guides, checked his gear, and went in to teach the old goat a lesson. Everything I had read said it was an easy fight. Meditate > Tachi: Yukikaze > 2 hour > Tachi: Gekko > Tachi: Gekko > WIN.

So off I charged. Seigan & Third Eye up, I waded into Maat. In the panic and excitement I hammered my macros, hooting wildly, and then seconds later I was dead.

WHA?!

I glanced back through the log. What had gone wrong?

Then I saw it.

'Saikyo uses Tachi: Yukikaze, but misses Maat.'

At this point my language became unprintable and I did a little war dance of rage all around my computer, hoping from one leg to the other and making strange howling noises. Of all the bloody times, in the all bloody places... it had to let me down there!

And what is Tachi: Yukikaze anyway?! It generates a big block low res ice over the enemy! Is it even ice?! It looks cheaper than a nude Galka Ninja, tanking in Garlaige Citadel while wielding an onion knife in one hand and carrying an onion sword in the other. It sucks. The only reason us Samurai use it is that after 60 levels of Enpi this, Enpi that, it seems like the best WS ever.

It doesn't. It is tricksy, and false, and tells lies!

So down, but far from out, me and Dema set out to farm a new testimony from the demons in Castle Zhavl. "This shouldn't take long" said Saikyo.

Approximately 600 hours later, we had Coffer Keys, Whine Cellar Keys, every vareity of Keys, but no Testimony. "This sucks." said Saikyo.

Fortunately, help was at hand. Some cheeky fellows were in there farming for something entirely different, and word came they had just got a Testimony drop first mob. These kindly souls (Goshinki and Masterofshade) invited me to their party, allowed me to lot for loot, then wished me good luck.

{All right!}

Back in black to face Maat. I read the guides in exhaustive detail. I watched the example videos. I even bought an Icarus Wing, just in case. I took some depth breaths, took a big swig from a mug of tea, and headed in.

Once I got inside I got paranoid and rewrote my macros 'just in case'. Then I worried I was going to run out of time. I decided to use Sole Sushi for accuracy as the Mithakabobs had let me down before.

Setting my jawline in grim, heroic fashion, I charged into action. Seigan & Third Eye up, then I pummeled my WSes and screamed my defiance. A few seconds later, Maat was defeated, leaving Saikyo filled with a potent brew of joy and relief. I also broke the server clear time record (which was standing at 4 minutes + for some reason). I leapt from my chair and danced a passionate samba, recieving a polite round of applause.

Whereas before I had had rotten luck, on the second fight everything went to plan. Third Eye absorb all 3 hits from Maat's opening Combo. Yuki hit, and my follow up Gekko went off for 980 damage. Yeah, that's gonna hurt in the morning old man. Why not bandage it up with this friggin ancient papyrus?! And have your exoray mold while you're at it to...

As a postscript to this tale of triumph, I went forgot to go and talk to Maat to break my level cap. I subsquently got a party out in the Mire, and was mighty confused to be 1 tnl for several fights. Realising my error, I ran off to break it. Using the warp Taru in Al Zhabi, got to Jeuno, spoke to Maat, popped a warp scroll.... and reappeared in Port Jeuno. Had forgot to set homepoint >_<

So rest assured, that while Saikyo may be level 71 now, he is still a first class dope.

Tune in next time chums, when we'll be discussing the Tachi of Trials and how FFXI Wiki is not always to be trusted. Bet ya can't wait! ;-)

Levelling & Search Comments

Hello chums!

On Sunday a momentus event occured in my FFXI career - for the first time in years and years and years, Samurai once again became my highest levelled job, surpassing Bard which is still at 67. Since I made a full return just over a week ago, I've gone from Samurai 65 - 69. Aside from the 1 - 12 soloing levelling run, this is probably the fastest I have ever levelled!

What's happened?

Back in the old days, I would easily spend hours a week LFG on Samurai without result or interest. Indeed, it was the misery of getting stuck at around level 46 or so that made me quit Samurai for Bard in the first place.

So what's the secret?

I have picked out three factors:

#1: Sheer blind luck. (I think is probably the most important)
#2: Momentum - partying with the same people over a period of time and being remembered. (This is also very important)
#3: A ridiculous search comment.

Now while #1 & #2 are important, they wouldn't make for a good blog. So I'm going to discuss #3. Search comments.

For years, my search comments were very serious and sensible. They might look something like this:

@3000 HP: {Jeuno} {Warp}OK!
SJ: WAR/THF/NIN
JP/EN/EU PT OK! {Please Invite me}

This got maybe got me 1 invite over the course of 25 hours+ lfg.

When me and Dema levelled as a duo on MNK & THF (and later SAM & THF) we used to prominently displayed that we needed to be invited as pair. So the comment might look like:

@3000 HP: {Jeuno}
{Friend}: Demajen 52 THF
{Team up?} Please invite us both!

No one ever, ever, ever read this, ever. So we had invites for one but not both. And then confusion when we pointed this out.

Now, upon returning to FFXI I couldn't remember how to play at all, I had no macros and no idea what I was supposed to be doing or where people XP'd these days. So more in hope than expectation I wrote a comment that stole unmercifully from 'The Producers'. It went like this:

@10000
Don't be silly, be a smarty,
Invite Saikyo to your party!

Since then, the invites have been literally pouring in. It's even reached the point where I have been getting invites when not LFG, something that hasn't happened to me since I quit Bard. Whatever the reasons, I'm attributing it to the awesome search comment!

Of course I am paranoid now that my luck is going to run out and I'll become stuck short of 70. I really want to get to 70 and beat up a humble old man. ^_^d

Till next time!

Dancing for Fun and Profit...

Well, fun anyway.

Hello ladies, gentlemen and multiforms. I have returned to FFXI with a view to trying out the two jobs introduced in the Wings of the Goddess expansion, to explore the events of the past, to try out some of the new missions, and generally see how much the game has changed since I left in November last year.

First thing's first, when I left the game was in a state of economic flux. Inflation was rife, though decreasing slightly, and decent items like the Scorpion Harness and Haubergeon were in excess of 2 million gil. I had around 500k gil to my name, and figuring this worthless, I gave it away upon my departure, along with all my equipment, which all went to two LS friends.

I came back to the game and one of the initial things I did, knowing I'd need equipment, is figured out what little I did have knocking around, and then checked the Auction House to see what the state of the economy was like.

And was duly shocked and, I admit, a tad depressed.

You see, that 500k I gave away I could now use to buy not one, but two scorpion harnesses. The economy seems to have crashed and then stabilised at a much, MUCH lower level than it used to be half a year ago.

So anyway, my impression of Dancer as a job is coloured by the fact that I cannot afford any cool equipment, and that I'm pretty darned broke. Nothing I've put up on the AH these last few days has sold (apart from crystals) so what little I have is now dwindling further. But without further adieu...

DANCER

There were two new jobs introduced in the expansion: Dancer and Scholar. After I got the game installed and updated, I basically opened up the latest model viewer, picked out the model of the female elvaan with the same hair as Demajen, and tried on the two sets of AF. Scholar struck me as quite cute but a bit weird-looking. For fun I tried it on Saikyo and thought it very much suited him and informed him of such via MSN. I even sent him a picture. I think he was quite taken and may well try it at some point.

But it was the Dancer AF that stood out to me. Perhaps its the fact that I have a female character and AF armour almost always looks better on female characters, but the Dancer AF caught my eye and captivated me. The very first thing I did was go and start the Dancer quest, and it is only now, at lv.30 Dancer, that I pause to write my initial impressions.

Dancer is fun. Pure and simple. It can solo like no other job I've played in the game. Yesterday, at lv.27-28, I was running round Qufim soloing the worms and crabs who are all DC-T with no problem whatsoever. Worms were nice and quick to kill. Crabs weren't. But the XP all added up. It's certainly not WoW-speed soloing, but for FFXI - where soloing was never really an option back in the day - it's certainly a breath of fresh air.

The job is based purely on TP, which is a great mechanic for solo play. When you're on your own, you're the guy getting hit. Always. And you're fighting stuff with generally low evasion, so the amount of TP you get is always pretty high. All your abilities as a Dancer use TP for some kind of effect. Curing Waltz, for example, is a WHM's Cure II (just about) for the cost of 20% TP. Dirt cheap when you have close to 300% TP knocking about quite regularly in solo play. Drain Samba, the staple spell of the solo Dancer at this level, puts a debuff on the mob that lets you constantly drain small amounts of HP as long as you hit it once every 6-8(ish) seconds. This only costs 10% TP, and lasts for about a minute and a half. Most fights last over that, but its a matter of seconds to recast it.

So yeah, soloing Easy Preys is just that... easy. Soloing Decent Challenges is also fairly easy, though it takes a while, and some mobs hit harder than others. The same with Even Matches. Toughs take a long time, and only worms seem to be viable targets for this at the moment, though this could simply be due to my lack of decent gear.

Partying, though, is another matter. See, most parties in FFXI consist of people who like to see big XP numbers. Only by the 70s do people start to realise that FAST XP is as good as BIG XP. The problem with fighting Incredibly Tough mobs on Dancer is that we only have a B+ ranked skill in our main offensive weapon. This means that, at lv.28 or so like I started today's party in Yhoator Jungle, I needed a lot more accuracy/dagger merits than I actually had to be able to hit. Sure, at 30 I get an Accuracy Bonus trait which I hope will help out a lot, but it's just really REALLY hard to hit anything, and I was feeling pretty useless and leechy for most of the party.

Still, I got to lv.30. Two levels in the bag, and some new abilities to play around with. Hopefully the lack of Accuracy will get better, as obviously I need TP to perform any kind of role in a party situation. We'll see how it goes as I go through the ranks.

But first, time to try out a bit of campaign and see if I can't find a way to make some kind of money ><

~Dema

On the Campaign Trail

Hello! Tis I, Saikyo! You may remember me a whole host of FFXI related blogs. This blogs were usually characterised by the following:

#1: Bitching
#2: Moaning
#3: Talking about fishing.

Well, as some of you may already know, Dema and myself quit FFXI around last November - December time. There were a number of reasons for this, which I won't bore you with, but a key factor was disillusionment with the party system. Hours spent fruitlessly LFG eventually decays your very mind. But without it, how could you ever level up?

Of course, we left just as Wings of the Goddess was released, complete with its Campaign system. On returing to the game, this was one of the first thing I wanted to examine, mainly as two linkshell buddies had told me they had level all the way to 75 purely through Campaign. That sounded very tempting for a jaded old Samurai such as myself.

So I trotted off, did the quests to get into the rather wonderfully named 'Iron Rams' of Sandy. (Thought 'Rampaging Rams' would have been a cooler name... or maybe 'Rutting Rams'.... maybe not.) I read up on how Campaign worked, didn't understand it but saw it involved killing things for XP, and so headed out to East Ron with my trusty great katana.

First of all, I was flumoxed by the fact there has to be a battle in progress to actually get campaign tags. I ran around looking for an NPC who could get me started for about 5 minutes before I actually realised this. I blame the fact I was drinking tea at the same time.

Anyway! A battle soon started, and I followed the crowd of players to get my tags. Beastmen held East Ron at the time, so it seemed to involve beating on the walls of a tower for about 10 minutes. This did not seem particularly thrilling. Then a message appeared saying "The Orcs of Ass Kicking are making a stalwart defence of East Ron".

"Hmmm." Thought me. A while passed, and no orcs appeared.

I kept beating on the wall.

Then I saw:

Orcish Ultimate Fighting Champion hits you for 4232 damage.
Orcish Ultimate Fighting Champion hits you for 546 damage.
Orcish Ultimate Fighting Champion crits you for so much damage it actually can't be expressed in numerals.
Saikyo was defeated by Orcish Ultimate Fighting Champion.

Said Orcish Ultimate Fighting Champion proceeded to lay waste to all PCs who were foolish enough to stand in his way. (His real name was something 'Poisonhand' but my description fits better.)

I lay around dead for bit, and then battle ended. Even though I was dead, I got 1100 XP. Basically all I had done was attack a wall for about 8 minutes, and then get killed! It was a bit like the Siege of Troy, except with Orcs.

However, buoyed up by the prospect of XP for essentially nothing, I decided to play some more Campaign. A lot of Campaign. So much campaign that by the end of it my eyes were drooping out, I had levelled up from SAM 65 to SAM 66 (13000xp or so) and all I could mutter was 'The horror....the horror..."

And horrors there are! The Beastmen NMs range in toughness from relatively wussy (a big Ahriman called 'Shadoweye' seems to be laughably poor, and gets hammered in seconds by a decent sized group) to monstrously unstoppable. (An Orc Warmachine NM - didnt catch the name - killed about 20 characters with just a few AOE moves... gave me Promyvion Death Squad flashbacks).

There's a huge amount of stuff I don't understand about Campaign. I don't understand how and why Beastmen waves spawn the way they do, nor do I understand how or why you sometimes have tons of NPCs reinforcements, and other times none. Attacking a wall could hardly be described as thrilling. Equally, running in terror from a mass of {Impossible to Gauge} beastmen is not much fun either. You get killed an awful lot (but at least you don't lose XP!)

But gathering a little team of PCs and teaming up to take down the Beastmen one at a time is strangely addictive. Surviving a Beastmen onslaught gives an odd feeling of satisfaction. In fact, much like fishing, I find that the entire thing is oddly compelling - and it gives you XP!

I picked up about 13000 XP playing campaign, enough to level up with a buffer. Disappointly, when you level from campaign you don't get that great little fanfare, but levelling up is still levelling up, so I'm not complaining!

So, to conclude.

#1: Saikyo is back.
#2: He isn't bitcing.
#3: He's found something he likes in FFXI almost as much as fishing!

Yahoo!