~big update

hey diabolos!

Simkiel, Survive, and I migrated to Diabolos on Saturday, to join Grenkinne and RDMpizzaHut!

I must say, it has already been worth $25. On saturday, we merited for a short time, and kicked ass! We parsed a little over 20k/hr, and the exp just rolled in!

The shell we joined seems to be social in nature, but Gren bought a new pearl, which will be created sometime soon.

Sunday was a busy day. We started off with ENM (no notable drops), then we went to Horlais Peak, and finally got Sim his final Brown Belt item. Congrats!

Pokers and Menthe joined us for a ISNM3K run, which went very well. Congrats to Pokers on the Khroma ore!

After the successful merit party and ISNM run, I figured we could try a salvage run. While we weren't fully prepared, I figured it would at least be a good dry run. It was the first time I had ran one, so I wasn't prepared.

The run went pretty well. We farmed a few too many cells, but oh well. We were able to pop the 2F rampart, and we were able to fight SIX NMs!

Drops:

Congrats to Surv!
Congrats to Menthe!

I lootwhored, netting both usukane pieces.
We will probably be doing this salvage again sometime soon, so we can explore the floor more, and hopefully get sim some of the usukane pieces.

/facepalm

First the good news: I finally dinged 37 on Dancer! Subjob complete!

Still need to find a seller for Black Belt Items.

Congratulations to Sim on his Forager's Mantle from the ENM on Monday.

Monday was a disaster with TN. Ultima owned our group. Our plds did a decent job, only one was able to tank consistently well, and he died due to lack of support. I'm pretty sure the BLMs were retarded, as I saw one Manafont right after Magic Shield. If a group of 17 cant kill ultima, we have no business being there. We wiped at ~7%.

The following Salvage was equally as retarded. We attempted to farm Bhaflau Thickets. Unfortunately for our group, in order to farm Bhaflau NMs, you must pop the Ramparts. We did not see a single one. A giant 'FUCK YOU' to the douches who can't read simple battle instructions. RAGE.

Nyzul will conclude on Saturday, regardless of our degree of success.

finally!

TN might last a bit longer than I suggested in my previous post. After an extremely long wait for limbus to start (downtime for ~3 hours), they cancelled the run. However, a SMALL group of them did SALVAGE. FINALLY, an event that I actually want to do- and we did it with 8 people. We did SSR, and the run was pretty rough, as I was pretty rusty on pulls, and it was Sim's first salvage run. We also didn't get any drops, so that didn't help at all. But at least we did a run.

I went as thf, which was pretty lame, as I'm not really geared/macro'd for it. I threw together some crap, and it sorta worked, but my damage was pretty lame. This makes leveling mnk even more important.

Sim wants to do Contaminated Colosseum for his last brown belt item, so we will probably hit that up soon.

We were able to get through floor 75 in Nyzul, so we only have 25 floors left. Synergy missed the last 15 floor climb, so he will have to make them up. Surv and I are going to Oregon this weekend, so we will resume Nyzul on the 11th of July.

As long as last night's salvage run wasn't a tease, once Nyzul wraps up, we will probably break this shell. However, it's a bit too soon to make that call. If we do break, we may reform in the fall once surv has a normal schedule. This split shift crap is severely draining her.

Plans

This is sort of a 'thinking out loud' post.

I will probably give the TN trial period another week or so. If they continue to throw massive amounts of people at events, I don't think I will be joining. I would also like to do a salvage run with them to get a more complete perspective. If it doesn't turn out to be a good fit, then I'm thinking of expanding this shell- concentrating on salvage, and maybe expanding into low-man sea fights- namely T1 jailers, and lowman limbus. If Gren comes back to Siren, this would make this pipedream more realistic.

We would have to recruit some new members, and this would run the risk of being overly-selective. We would need about 4 people- preferably a WHM main, a BRD would be nice (although I will probably finish mine for non-melee friendly fights), and two others who have both melee and mage jobs. Also PST-oriented time zone would be preferred.

At any rate, this all depends on how TN works out.

/endspeculation

I finally hit 71 yesterday, and Sim and I broke trial knuckles. yay! Today, sim and I will go kill the WSNM, and start on breaking sim's destroyers.

Surv is working crazy hours, so she will probably only be able to play weekends.

Salvage on Saturday will hopefully be a 61-80 climb. The end is in sight!

limbus

On Monday, Simkiel and I attended a Limbus run with TwilightNocturne/SuperDuper.

Took awhile to gather together- actually took longer than the run itself. I was sort of surprised that we did the run with 18 people, instead of breaking into two groups. With 18 people attacking a mob, there isn't a whole lot of information that can be gleaned. Sounds like this group has fun socially, but I couldn't tell how skilled they were. I really hope there isn't 10+ people on salvage runs.

Unfortunately, I learned virtually nothing about TN/SD, other than they can throw 18 people at mobs in an easy limbus and win. Anyway, we still have time to learn during the trial period.

Monk has been... interesting. I was able to get 66-70 pretty quickly, but once I hit 70, I've been hit with some crappy parties. I think I'm 10k tnl, and its taken 6 parties to get 24k. Hermes' sandals are nice- finally get some movement speed!

Maat's Cap: O

Maat's Cap!

After ~3 years, Surv and I finally obtained the cap!

Surv had a day off of work, and was able to finish BST and DRK in one day! (despite getting in a party with a douche brady-guide thf: nice poof pants)

Thanks to Sim for getting the last ~4M exp with us.

We also applied to TwilightNocturne for some endgame activities.

I will be working on the last 9 levels of MNK, getting DNC to 37 (which I think might actually be fun), and working on merits for MNK and SAM.

Surv will be working a lot for the next 10 weeks.

It would be great to finish up Nyzul Isle- only 45 floors to go!

bst

hurray for level sync, anniversary rings, and bst burn pts!

The last few days have been great for bst, as conditions have allowed us to get surv (syncee) from 54-59! Sim dinged 75 yesterday on bst, congrats to him! I am at 64, meaning I only have 2 levels left until Maat's cap! That should only be one or two more bst burn parties for me!

Surv's last week as a substitute teacher is this week, so she is excited to be done with her classroom of ill-mannered, sniveling dirt children. She was able to land a summer job, so she will be in training for that on the next two saturdays. Because Nyzul Isle is on Saturdays, we will push this back to Sunday for two weeks, and just farm boss floors- as hellslayer (UK) will not be on.

I was able to destroy Maat on RDM on Sunday (I took a 18 damage Stone III), meaning BST and DRK are my only two Maat fights remaining. Oddly enough, Surv has the same two fights left as well.

After Maat's cap: Sim, Surv, and myself will probably apply to TwilightNocturne.

bg is gold

There is some hilarious shit on bg. This was last month's post. This month they have a SE random response generator, which is as equally funny.

This is copypasta'd from bg:

Exerpts from the book of Brady

Yea, let us begin. Praise Brady. Thank you all for coming today on this day of worship of the mighty Brady. Amen. Today we shall read from the Book of Brady. Yea, let us begin.

From the Book of Red Mage, chapter 2: Lo, and Brady said unto the Vana'dielites, 'Thy Mages of Red, being different in the eyes of Brady from other mage jobs, I say unto them, for I am the LORD, that thou shalt raise thy sword in the name of Brady, for you are the Warrior Mages of the Vana'dielites.' So spake Brady, who is the LORD. So hearing the proclimations, the Mages of Red went forth to melee in the name of their LORD Brady, and heeded the words of the LORD to have always need of extra Hit Points, for in his mercy, he told them so.

Amen.

Turn now to the Book of Dark Knight, chapter 12. And the LORD Brady came unto the peoples of vana'diel and spake 'Yea, though thy Knights of Dark thresh thine enemies as they thresh thine wheat, thou shalt never forget that the Knights of Dark must always remember to cast their spells of Thunder upon the infidels and beasts of the land, lest they rouse the wrath of the LORD.' And so didst the Dark Knights go forth to cast Thunder, and it was good.

Amen.

From the book of Warrior, chapter 2: Spake Brady: 'Behold! Thy warriors I have gifted with the support job of Paladin, so that they might always be in service to their LORD. Lo, for I have given them untold power in gifts of armor, defense, and hit points. From this time forward, all thy tanks shall be as these WarriorPaladins, and thou shalt want not of enmity control.' And the Vana'dielites rejoiced, for Brady was good.

Amen.

From the book of Songs: Spake Brady unto the Vana'dielites, 'Thou shalt not always treasure conformity, for yea unto the Bards who are also Theives do I bestow my blessings, for I am the LORD. Though they be not as powerful in their support of others, yea, they bringeth untold treasures unto us all.' And the Vana'dielites rejoiced, for Wind Crystals were in abundance, and the LORD Brady was good.

Amen.

From the book of Nots: And the ground shook with Brady's wrath, the clouds darkening with his malice at the arrogance of the Vana'dielites. Seventen trumpets blared in the sky with the sound of thunder, and the LORD Brady's voice, filled with wrath and ruin, thundered across the plains. Spake He: 'Ruin upon thy houses! For it is written: The ninja subjob shall only be used for Agility, for its magics are feeble, its active and passive abilities are poor, and nothing good can come of its use. Thou hast defied me in this way, and thou shalt be punished for thy use of this most useless of sub jobs!' And the Vana'dielites trembled, looking in envy and fear upon the subbers of samurai and warrior.

Amen.

weekend update

Huzzah! 3 day weekend!

This weekend was very productive. Our DRK/MNK/RDM static started at level 50 on Friday, and logged off Monday night at level 61! Survive has 17 levels left until Maat's cap, and I have ~6! (will probably end up leveling Red Mage to at least 70, for an easier Maat fight). If things go well, we could end up having our caps in a few weeks! (Anniversary Rings on BST, all right!)

Surv is pretty excited, as she can see the end of our Maat's cap adventure!

After exping yesterday, Sim and I decided to break his trial dagger latent, which took less than an hour to do. Due to level sync woes, his h2h skill was under 230, and he needed a skill level of at least 250 to start the Asuran Fists quest. Beseiged got him about 10 skill levels, and we were able to get him level 250 by duoing EM-T Crawlers in Bhaflau (which took about an hour). My enfeebling skills are also horribly gimped, but I was able to get them from 180-220 by spamming dia in beseiged. After the skill up adventure, we decided to kill the Evisceration WSNM. As nin/dnc, this fight took forever- but it was pretty safe.

let me try something...♦

So about a year ago we were in Garlaige Citadel exping and the dragoon we were partying with suddenly says: "let me try something", runs out and aggros 2 bats, and dies within seconds.

This SS was taken tonight. While it was not a Dragoon, it was a Samurai with a Polearm, which is close enough in my book.

interesting saturday

This past saturday was... interesting.

We started off with an ENM run (yay... galatia...), and proceeded to do Nyzul. Synergy was at floor 10, so we started there. We were able to do floor 10-25 with 4 tags. Things ran extremely well. We had to redo a 21-25 floor set due to unlucky conditions- the worst of which was a chariot family kill. We simply cannot kill those fast enough. Lamps+gear floors are also terrible. Regardless, it was a very smooth run, and Synergy appears to be exactly what we need.

Great start to Saturday, then we moved on to our planned KS99 run. We did some runs 2 weeks ago, and things went alright- so we thought we would give it another shot, only with a different fight. Only 5 people from the original group were available, and /shouting yielded a fresh crop of players. This was the worst BCNM run I have ever attended. Surv went as pld (which she hadn't touched in well over a year), and I went RNG. Surv had a 15k buffer... and DELEVELED after TWO orbs. A raise put her back to 75, but we had enough at that point. Garik, the leader, is a great player, but some overzealous DDs led to a ton of MPKing.

Will have to obtain BB items some other way, I suppose.

Exp Static update:

Surv: 47DRK
Simkiel: 68MNK
Circa: 59RDM

I have 13 levels left until Maat's Cap! Huzzah!

Update

Our start in Nyzul was pretty rocky. People showed up late, or were missing tags. Last Saturday we had our first real run. We did the 11-20 run with minimal effort, then tried 16-20 one last time, cause nothing dropped from Behemoth. We only got 2 floors in, due to a kill all enemies on an undead floor with a dahuk, and the next floor, we had to kill 5 chariots. Nyzul is not nearly as fun as salvage or assault. Also, not having Gren is a significant drawback.

We were able to get Sim an obow yesterday after several hours of camping. Congrats!

I've been trying to kill BLM Maat for some time now. Seems I always get resisted on one of my first 3 nukes. Not fun. Seems I suck at jobs that can use Elemental Magic.

Surv and I joined a KS99 group, looking to spend some of the seals that have added up over the years. We will see if we can get some BB items out of it.

The new dredg album, 'the parrot, the pariah, the delusion', leaked yesterday. I've been listening to it nonstop. It's awesome- not as good as el cielo, but still better than catch without arms. someone described it as 'the el cielo for people who liked cwoa'. I find that analysis fairly accurate.

nyzul

Starting Saturday, April 18th at noon, we will attempt to start Nyzul Isle Investigation. As of this posting, the goal is to do runs every Saturday at Noon (PST). This is subject to change or cancellation due to real life activities. Notification of any changes will be posted on the Linkshell message.

Job assignments are as follows:

Simkiel: Ninja
Survive: Red Mage (maybe Thief for boss floor sets)
Circa: Samurai
Yamigarasu: Red Mage
Hellslayer: Black Mage
Synergy: Blue Mage/Thief (boss floors)

Our floor progression will be 0-100.

You will be responsible to read up on Nyzul and make the necessary preparations. You will be expected to sneak/invisible yourself. Slowing the group down by relying on others abilities will often result in failed runs.

After finally obtaining a decent static, it appears that Askar/Denali/Goliard drops will just be distributed in pickup-style: At the beginning of each boss run, everyone picks a piece that can drop. If that piece drops, only the people who have chosen said piece will be allowed to lot.

So far, we have obtained 2 pieces of nyzul armor:

May 16: Askar Feet > Circa
May 23: Denali Feet > Simkiel

If you have any questions, please send me a /tell in-game.

goodbye gren ;/

and then there were three.

grenkinne left yesterday for Diabolos. It was sad to see him go. He will be greatly missed.

This weekend was quite productive. Sim and I were able to join a successful DM run, Surv and I were able to hit rank 7 in San d'Oria, and we all completed the new expansion.

This is a turning point for our small shell. It would be great to do events with Prophesy, Jetzt, Engage, and Evgeni- but they need to log on sometime...

We were able to get one fight away from Captain, so we may or may not do that sometime. Without Gren, though, it is no longer a priority.

Things left to do include: Nyzul Isle, Salvage, and exp.

The new exp band that presumably is released next month should help the final burst to maat's cap.

Sim has expressed interest in MNK, RNG, COR, and BLU.

Surv has BST, DRK, and SMN left.

I have BST, BLM, and RDM left.

We may have to level some completed jobs to accommodate for our interesting job combination.

Static 1: (RNG BLM SMN)
Static 2: (BST BST BST)
Static 3: (RDM DRK MNK)

I would like to hit 75MNK, perhaps that could be grouped with Sim's COR and Surv's SAM or something.

I suppose once we are done with Nyzul and Salvage, it will be time to call it quits.

...AMAZING!


; ;

ahoy

Friends zephir/ventulus/khao/evgeni, flashman/zosch/jetzt, prophesy, and jisatsu/engage have migrated back to siren! They have their own ls, VirusLS- so we will probably be doing stuff with them in the future. (merging?)

Assault! we went and raped count dracula last night. Sim did a great job kiting, and we were able to win in about 15 minutes. AMAZING!

We got a random kclub drk to help us zerg another assault, but we wiped at ~20%. I'm sure we would have won if I had gone SAM, as my RNG did jack shit.

On the exp front, I was able to ding 66SMN on sunday, and I destroyed maat on monday. Darksday + Sleepga = hax.

I'm hoping to get some of the final assaults out of the way before Gren migrates to Diabolos. He will be missed.

Next static will probably be more informal than prior statics.

Jobs remaining until Maat's cap:

Circa: BST (60) BLM (48) RDM (41) DRK (67 - just need to kill maat)
Survive: BST (54) DRK (40) SMN (25) BLM (66 - just need to kill maat)

fl

Congratulations to everyone~ we are now all First Lieutenants! While we will not be able to 4-man the last 5 assaults, we may have some of Grenkinne's friends help us out.

Also: Congrats to Sim for obtaining a Rajas! 6+ months of missions finally pay off! Sim's has pretty much obtained all the realistic gear he can.

We are nearing the end of the SMN/BLM/NIN/THF static! I hit 63 last night, meaning I only have ~75k exp left or so. Surv will probably switch to RDM when she hits 66, so she can grab some a few merits while I finish up SMN.

The next static will either a be similar combination of jobs (survive on SMN, myself on BLM, sim on a melee job, gren- on diabolos/ninja), or Surv on DRK and myself on RDM. All up to what we feel like playing, I suppose.

With us wrapping up Assaults, we should probably try to start up a Nyzul static, so those tags don't go to waste. However, with the new update next month, we may find ourselves with some new goals- some of the new augmentation gear looks pretty awesome.

finally

congrats to sim! After ~4 months of ENM, we got our second Hagun last night, and Simkiel was next in line. (Nice lot(11), lol) After acheiving T9, Sim was also able to score his Perdu Blade, effectively making him a Rajas Ring away from total Ninjar pimpage.

Speaking of Rajas... Sim is also very close to receiving his. His CoP static was able to destroy Tenzen on Monday, netting him sea access!

Sometime we will have to go farm some sea organs for the WS gorgets/elemental obis.

Oh, and our NIN/THF/BLM/SMN static is now 51- so close to the Aht Urgan Areas. I have about 64 levels to go before Maat's cap (~1M exp). Only a few months to go!

Congratulations T9!!

We were able to obtain T9 Second Lieutenant last night! Although the mini-games required to be promoted are long and someone pointless, they were quite easy to get through last night!!

Onward to FIRST LIEUTENANT and only 10 more assaults to go until we are CAPTAIN status!!

update

The lowbie static that we started last week has been going well, as we have gone from 31-44. Too bad it will only be smooth sailing for another 10 levels or so, and then we will have to get creative with party setups and camps. It is becoming more and more difficult to find a competent 6th member, so in old zones I have pretty much just given up. Too many people are afk while seeking, or princess players who are unwilling to sync or move out of their comfort zone. I think this attitude is part of what is killing this game.

Assaults are progressing smoothly! We won 3/4 tags last night, suffering our first loss in a long time. We are T8, with only 12 assault missions left until captain. Sim only needs T9, and he can get his Perdu Blade. He also finally beat U/O, so he is only a few CoP missions away from that almighty rajas.

ENM has continued to yield nothing. It has been fairly depressing.

Also, Grenkinne will be migrating to Diabolos whenever we achieve Captain rank. He will be missed.

new static

Surv and I destroyed maat on ninja and war, bringing our total maat jobs to 11/15!

Our new setup will be Ninja (Gren), Thief (Simkiel), SMN (Circa), and BLM (Survive). While I don't know how efficient this setup will be, we will give it a shot anyway. Hopefully it will work until 55...

We will probably do some Assaults tonight. This will bring us to T7+10/25, bringing us ever closer to perdu weapons.

I did salvage with Revelations last friday, and scored some lol15usukanelegs. Apparently everyone else had the drop, so it was nice. We wiped on LAC.

ENM on Thursday, exp all weekend. Maybe ISNMs if Cheki joins us.