12.10.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI at 7:52 pm by Pisces6
So on Monday night, I worked on the quest,
The Root of the Problem, to get my last black mage artifact armor: the black mage hat. Most of it was running around and getting cutscenes. The boss fight? Pretty easy for a 75 mnk/dnc and a 75 whm/blm. >.>; I thought it was a little interesting that the first fight you do for the black mage AF quests is a
Chaos Elemental that looks like a light elemental… While the
Magic Sludge you fight in the last quest is a dark elemental. XD The wiki really makes it sound hard when it was ridiculously easy. Then again… I don’t think it cast Sleepga during the entire fight. :|
So now, I’ve finished my third set of AF and am now a Paragon of Black Mage Excellence. HA! Paragon of killing beastmaster/summoner pets you mean. >.>; (Since that’s how most black mages solo from 1 to 70 practically…) Artifact armor quests done so far: white mage, warrior, black mage… Next job: red mage, if I ever get that far.
The story for the black mage armor was not too bad, though it really does leave on a cliffhanger. My guess is that the storyline for the Windurst nation is supposed to supplement it, but I’d have to go back and look at the cutscenes again to see all the connections. Part of the problem with FFXI is that the story is good and very complex… But it’s also easy to completely miss out on the subtle details if you haven’t done some of the quests yet. You always get that weird feeling that you’re missing something because you haven’t done X, Y, and Z yet. I felt that way for Chains of Promathia, kinda feel a little like that in Treasures of Aht Urghan, and I definitely feel like it in Wings of the Goddess. That’s one of the reasons why I want to try to get all jobs to 60 if only to see all the storylines for the artifact armor quests.
Anyway, Aslann still has to get his black mage af armor. :| Why hasn’t he gotten it? He’s in the middle of redoing his bard af quests so he can’t really do anything. >_<; Boo on Limbus for not dropping his bard items. D: (Then again, I haven’t done Limbus in a while…)
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12.02.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI, Guides at 12:35 am by Pisces6
I’ve been in dire need of zeni for FFXI’s ZNM system, however, I’ve been having trouble just going out and getting soul plates of the appropriate monster since I only have a 75 white mage and I would like to take pictures of the monsters in Aht Urghan rather than going off to the conquest areas in Vana’diel. :|
So instead of snapping pictures, I’ve been earning a stockpile of jettons with my Pankration pet, Savage Sanguinaire, a wyvern. My wyvern was around level 19 when I started, but now he’s level 35. >.>;
I’m not an expert on Pankration, but here are a few hints on how to “control” your pet:
1. Try to give orders to your pet for every match he enters. How can your pet listen to you if you don’t give him any commands to follow?
2. Once your pet starts to listen to your commands, get a feel for what type of actions your pet performs when given a certain command. Your pet may not perform the action you are expecting so you must get familiar with the moves or spells your pet likes to use during a fight. I strongly suspect that the TP moves and spells performed by your pet depend on your pet’s job, subjob, and temperament.
3. Try not to spam your pet too many commands at once. Why? It seems that your commands cannot really be canceled. Your pet must perform an action relating to your command before it can move onto your next command. So, if you give too many commands to your pet at once, you run the risk of not being able to tell your pet what to do right away if he is about to die.
That being said, I have spammed commands to my pet before if it appeared he was not doing anything helpful in the fight or if the fight is not going well. You may also want to spam commands if your pet has not learned to obey you yet. Since he won’t listen to your commands, it doesn’t really matter how many commands you give him anyway.
Oh, and if you happen to have a pet with a mage job, better make sure he has the appropriate magic scrolls so he can cast the magic of his job. What would a black mage be if he didn’t have black magic spells? (Note: Most magic scrolls can be obtained from taking pictures of colibri. They usually cost 17 Feral Points.)
Anyway, I love my wyvern. The irony? I wasn’t the one who took a picture of him. Antorel, a friend I met in FFXI, had snapped him during a Beseiged when Pankration was first added and gave it to me. I haven’t seen Antorel for a while, (he’s working on getting his book published) but I’m really glad he gave me my wyvern. XD I have much love for it. <3 Hm, maybe I should level dragoon at this rate. ;)
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11.25.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI, Rants at 9:34 am by Pisces6
The guild item pattern for FFXI has been weird starting yesterday. Why? Usually the pattern is a mixture of items from different skill levels in that guild’s craft. (Such as animal glue for a Novice, poison dagger for a Journeyman, etc. in the Alchemy guild.) Well, starting yesterday, it’s the same item for all levels. And according to
ffrecipe.com, it’s going to stay that way for at least 2 more days. @_@ Here’s a screenshot of
ffrecipe.com’s guild pattern page taken today. Just… Wow.
So far, the items for the cooking guild aren’t so bad. Roast corn yesterday, today’s tortillas which can be bought from the npc. But Asiren’s woodworking? Ugh. Maple wands yesterday, maple shields today. I used the 4 pieces of maple lumber I had yesterday… I don’t want to see the prices of the maple log from the guild right now. Alchemy yesterday was a laugh… Water tanks for everyone!
Hmm… Well, the regional merchant for maple logs (The Fauregandi Region) is under Windurst control right now, but the only reason why I’m hesitating now is because maple shields require brass sheets. :| I think I only have 2 brass ingots, and I believe I skill up on brass sheets for Asiren. Ouchy. Maybe I should wait for another day since turning maple logs into lumber is a waste when they can be made into maple sugar which is more valuable…
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11.23.08
Posted in Links at 11:10 am by Pisces6
I forget exactly how I found this out, but apparently AOL took down all the hometown and member pages (and journals) on October 31, 2008. o_O; It doesn’t affect me a whole lot, but that means a few webpages I do know are probably gone forever unless the owners decide to re-upload them else where. What pages?
Well, there was Juuhachigou’s Place of Being for DBSZ. And the other for me was Jendra’s Crystal Keep, the author of Sailor Moon Universal. (A really old fanfic that’s probably dated at this point.) There may be more that I used to know, but these 2 are the ones I really remember. It’s probably because I was in touch with their creators (DBSZ is co-authored) at one point in my life.
I think the website for DBSZ may come back. However, I think Crystal Keep is gone forever. The author went MIA a long time ago, and I haven’t heard from her since. :/
I think some people are pissed. The webhosting came with people’s subscription to AOL as an ISP, so it makes you wonder why they aren’t bring the subscription price down when they aren’t doing web hosting anymore. Then again… /shrugs Could be AOL is in some sort of financial trouble. :|
Man, I hate it when websites I used to visit constantly go offline. Oh well, no such thing as a free lunch. :/
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Posted in Final Fantasy XI at 1:28 am by Pisces6
We won our first
Proto-Ultima fight today, er… Yesterday. XD I brought a
hi-ether tank with me and a whole bunch of
Yagudo drinks. I think I had about 6-7 Yagudo drinks, 3 Hi-ethers, and 1
Vile elixir. Anyway, the time limit on this fight is 60 minutes. O_O That surprised me since Proto-Omega only has a 30-minute time limit, but you need those 60 minutes. We won with about 10 minutes to spare, but this is a long fight. A few things that
FFXIclopedia didn’t really mention:
- He has a Draw-In move. He draws in people who have hate.
- He has far more special attacks than listed on the wiki. There is an AoE (Area of Effect) petrify attack that is not listed that hit us 2-3 times. I can’t remember the exact name.
- His Dissipation (which is AoE) strips practically all buffs outside of food and Signet. :| Kiss your reraise good-bye.
I’m really happy that we won on our very first try. XD Everyone did great even if things did mess up near the middle. (A Dissipation got through. :/ After that one, about 2 more Dissipations got through; not sure if they were avoidable since Proto-Ultima has that Mana Screen move that blocks magic damage.)
Drops? We hit the lottery on this guy! Unlike Proto-Omega who has been somewhat reluctant to drop anything good for us, we got good drops. Here’s a list of who got what:
XD 1 Heart, 2 Legs. 1 body piece and 2 pants. Incredibly lucky. I got Ultima’s Leg! XD Ahaha, so those Sea points I earn ARE useful, hehe.
So now instead of 225 enfeebling skill on white mage, I now have a total of 258 enfeebling skill! (Thanks to +enfeebling gear.) XD Waaaaaaaa!
I really should level red mage. ;) Can’t wait to fight this guy again even if I don’t get any drops for another year. :P Definitely a fun fight. (Even though I died like… 2-3 times.)
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11.21.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI at 12:47 am by Pisces6
So, I spoke too soon and now I’m down to just slightly less than 3 stacks of wind crystals. D: Dammit, I’m gonna have a wind crystal shortage thanks to woodworking. (I’m doing guild points for the woodworking guild now.) But I have like…. 8-10 stacks of water crystals.
Anyway, not much happening tonight. Just finished up 16 Ash Poles, turned them into the woodworking guild, and did one Assault for Periqia – Requiem with Visos, Aslann, Kingtaru, and Shouldacoulda. I would do more (because it was a New Moon last time I checked), but it’s late, and I really should get ready for bed. I’m a little stinky from gym. >_>
Been bouncing back and forth on if I want to continue playing FFXI or quit. If I quit, it’s not because I don’t like the game or got bored. I would quit because of the timesink. :/ But I still love the game… Just trying to set priorities, you know? There’s other projects I want to work on, and I have tons of things I want to do both in FFXI and outside of it. Anyway, time for bed.
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11.20.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI at 12:24 am by Pisces6
I finally got a
Caduceus. It gives +1 to Alchemy skill, but it’s pretty expensive +1 considering it took 70,000 guild points. Then again, if you were specializing in Alchemy, I suppose it isn’t too bad since it helps raise the possibility of HQing some syntheses. (In other words, getting a better chance of creating a high quality item.)
I’m planning on moving to a different guild since I have gotten all the key items I wanted from Alchemy. Well, at least for now since I want to get all crafts to 60 before I figure out which craft I want to take to 100. I think I’ll move onto woodworking since I really need the Lumberjack key item. I would change to the cooking guild except Hiccups is working on those key items, so it seems kinda redundant right now to get those key items on Asiren. On the other hand, Asiren has about 55 cooking skill while Hiccups only has 30 cooking skill, so Asiren can make some things that Hiccups can’t right now. Hmm…
Anyway, I need to craft some more because I have a big surplus of wind and water crystals. >_>; So, I guess I’m either trying to make a bunch of stuff in alchemy which would use water crystals or skill up my bone or woodworking.
Aslann’s been busy trying to farm Flood, but he’s been having no luck in that regard. :/ Stupid spell, drop already!
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11.14.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI at 11:10 pm by Pisces6
Ack, so I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while. I have plans to write some more guides, but those take some time. :/ I also don’t write a lot these days because I tend to prefer to use my LiveJournal…. Except I haven’t written there in a while either. Meh, I guess I feel like I don’t need to write things down anymore since I’m so busy but I do enjoy writing. I’m just too much of a perfectionist about it. >.>;
Anyway, my main character, Asiren, has been stuck in the alchemy guild, and I’ve been wanting to be able to cook some of the more advanced foods. So I started leveling cooking with my mule, Hiccups, and it’s going pretty well. He has 29 cooking skill and is now a Novice. :D I really should start doing guild points earlier, but I tend to want to skill up first and get guild points later. It sure bites me in the ass when I want to do guild points later because some of the items are more expensive or harder to get at the Journeyman levels. :|
So, I’ve been working on cooking through Hiccups, and I must say I’m enjoying it a lot. Crafting in FFXI is one of my few pleasures in the game. :D Today Hiccups finished turning in his baked apples, and got the key item, Patissier. YAY! Finally I can make things like bloody chocolate. Onto getting other key items in cooking which require 30,000 guild points…. @_@
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04.02.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI, Guides at 10:59 pm by Pisces6
Note: This particular entry was posted on my LiveJournal on June 3, 2007. I am simply reposting it here for my own record keeping.
Battlefield clear time: 4 minutes, 19 seconds!
So last night, after many runs, many deaths, and many Nightmares, we finally beat Diabolos Prime for the first time. We had 3 monk/warriors (2 75 monks, 1 71 monk with Asuran Fists), 1 red mage/dark knight (for Chainspell + Stun, Stun, Stun!), 1 black mage/white mage, and 1 white mage/black mage (me). Here’s a guide on how to beat him:
Recommended Supply List
- 3-5 Yagudo drinks for each mage (I only used one per fight, but you’ll want to bring more than one to make sure that you can do more than one run in case you fail.)
- A stack of sleeping potions for each melee. Have at least one Opo-opo necklace.
- 3-4 poison potions for each party member.
- 2-3 persikos au lait per melee.
- Appropriate food for your job.
Before Going to Pso’Xja
Get the key item, vial of dream incense, from Kerutoto in the Rhinostery (lower half of the Windurst Waters map, J-8). This is like the elemental tuning forks you retrieve for the elemental avatars like Shiva, Garuda, etc.
Within the Shrouded Maw
Protective magic (aka buffs) do not wear upon entering a fight with Diabolos Prime. TP does not reset either. So have your healer cast Protect and Shell before entering. Melees should consider bringing an Opo-opo necklace and sleeping potions so they can sleep themselves to 100% TP. (Our 3 monks slept themselves to 100% TP at least.) I brought 12 + 7 sleeping potions myself since I had them on mule anyway.
Eat decent food that’s applicable to your job. (The red mage and black mage ate melon pies. I ate a snoll gelato. I don’t remember what the monks ate… Most likely sole sushi so they don’t miss.)
All party members should have reraise of some kind (either the spell or an item that gives reraise effect) as a safety measure. Rest to full before entering.
The Fight
One thing you need to keep in mind is that Diabolos Prime has killer spells/moves that he does not have with his level capped fight. For example, he only has Sleep in the capped fight, but for the Prime Avatar fight, he has Sleepga II. I remember one fight where, he really killed us by using Sleepga II (we didn’t have poison pots at the time) and then followed that up with Nightmare. He proceeded to do that at least 2-3 more times during that fight.
So basically this fight is like a Maat monk fight or a Snoll Tzar fight. You basically need to kill Diabolos fast before he can land a Nightmare. Stunners help, but Stun has a huge recast timer, and even with Chainspell + Stun, a Nightmare can still sneak through. (One time Diabolos got us because our red mage had just Chainspelled right when Diabolos decided to Nightmare us.) Poison potions will help if he casts Sleepga II, but they won’t wake you up if you are Nightmare-ed.
Oh, here’s some information about Nightmare (courtesy of Kayanna of Bahamut):
- Nightmare takes about 4.5 seconds to happen starting from the moment when you see “Diabolos readies Nightmare.” message.
- The last 2 seconds of casting cannot be Stunned or interrupted.
- So, you basically have the first 2.5 seconds to Stun Diabolos to prevent a Nightmare from going off. Make that 2 seconds to be safe.
- He can spam Nightmare many times. Many, many, many times. He can, god forbid, start the fight with a Nightmare.
Our strategy once inside the battlefield:
1. Monks stack their Boosts up to 10 boosts. Have someone do a countdown for you (preferably one of the monks).
2. Mages cast buffs like Stoneskin, Blink, Haste, and Barsleep / Barsleepra. Everyone should be heading towards Diabolos, but far away enough so that he doesn’t aggro you and draw you into his battlefield.
3. Use your drinks (au laits for the melees, yagudo drinks for the mages). White mages, don’t bother casting Regen spells during this fight; it just takes too long. You’re better off with high leveled cures. Also use a poison potion when the Boost count is almost done.
4. Monks use Chi Blast to start the fight. Engage, and use Asuran Fists on him. Use a Icarus Wing and then Asuran Fist him before popping your two-hour, Hundred Fists.
The red mage Chainspells and watches out for Nightmare. I don’t remember exactly if the black mage Manafonts at the start as well (probably doesn’t since he has full MP). Healer should be using high level cures to make sure everyone stays alive.
Everyone stays together on one tile. Yeah, this makes the mages vulnerable to AoE attacks, but we found that we were spending too much time keeping Diabolos in one place during the fight when the melees and the mages separated themselves into two groups on the battlefield.
Notes:
- Diabolos Sleepga-ed us, but we had poison potions, so it never affected us.
- He never got around to using Nightmare on us.
- He tried using his two-hour (Ruinous Omen) near the end of the fight, but our red mage stunned him, so he couldn’t use it.
- If you do it right, you’ll beat Diabolos before he even gets around to having the tiles fall down.
The black mage only had time for one spell before Diabolos was dead. I only cast 2 Cure IVs and 1 Cure V before he was dead. By the way, remember you can cancel your Stoneskin if Diabolos does cast Sleepga so the poison will wake you up.
Once you beat this badass, go to back to Kerutoto in Windurst Waters to make him your slave (or you could chose one of the other rewards given for beating him).
Welcome to the playground. Phantasmagoria!
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03.18.08
Posted in Final Fantasy XI, Guides at 9:39 pm by Pisces6
Did a lot last night, oddily enough. o_O I came home a bit late (uh, like 48 minutes late because of work, ehehe), so I had to hurry to get dinner ready so Aslann and I wouldn’t starve while we did the weekly escort quest.
Yesterday’s escort was the Windurstian escort, so that meant we had to help the npc (non-playable character) get through Garliage Citadel. This escort is usually the one that no one does because it requires at least 4 people to get through the first banishing gate. I don’t know why it’s called a banishing gate. There are 4 “platforms” that need to be weighted down before the gate opens. Each platform only needs one character to weight it down, however they are placed in separate areas. So only a group of 4 people can “weight down” all 4 platforms at once to open the gate.
Sounds easy? Well, maybe initially… Until you add aggressive monsters that will attack your character if:
1. They see you.
2. They hear you.
3. Your character is low-leveled enough. (Example: level 32) Luckily if you’re already level 75, you won’t be attacked by these monsters because they’ll check as too weak to be worthwhile.
4. You happen to cast magic around a monster that will attack you for uh… Casting magic. (Aka bombs, magic pots, and dolls.)
Not to mention that there are holes in the ground in which you can fall down and areas that are completely blocked off by said holes! Hey, Garliage Citadel was a war zone about 20-50 Vana’diel years in the past! They haven’t had time (or money) to repair it, I bet. Amazing those gates still work reliably. @_@
Ahem. Anyway, cooking dinner cut into the beginning of escort, so Aslann had my character /follow his character around while I cooked. I used my white mage melee macro set to cast spells since those, for the most part, don’t involve me changing my gear while casting spells. So, I could cast spells when Aslann was standing still and still follow him. Didn’t know you could do that, but it makes perfect sense! :D
Next, we prepared to go fight the NM (notorious monster) gnat (Bloodlapper) which has a chance of dropping vicious mufflers for black mage, dark knight, and scholar. You need to farm some gnat pellets ahead of time from Yagudo Nokizaru (a ninja-type), Yagudo Yojimbo (a samurai-type), and Yagudo Superior (a summoner-type) before you can trade the pellets to the appropriate ??? target in Meriphataud Mountains [S]. Our tank found out the hard way that even regular gnats check very tough to 75s and and just plain suck in general:
The fight itself against the Bloodlapper isn’t really that hard, though you need to watch out for the gnat’s Drain spell (can drain a massive amount of hit points) and for the gnat’s “2-hour” ability, Blood Weapon. Our tank almost died on the first run because of that stupid thing. XD The gnat also casts Virus on random people and has a move that gives AoE (area of effect) Burn and Choke. I’m not sure if I just happen to get burned and choked or if that same move just randomly choses two of the black mage enfeeble spells. I think that AoE move is blinkable though, since I see it taking shadows. o_O
Most of it takes preparation and waiting for the ??? target to re-appear about 15 minutes after the fight. We had 5 pop items on us from yesterday’s farming session (which was more like a lazy style merit party with 7 people, heh). Unfortunately, the gloves are not a guaranteed drop; you may not get them each time you kill the Bloodlapper. Luckily, we asked Aslann to bring his thief for his TH3 (Treasure Hunter 3). :D
We had 9 people join us: a paladin subbing warrior (Finduilas), 2 monks subbing ninja (Kayanna, Shinlong), a thief subbing ninja (Aslann), a warrior subbing ninja (Fogoazul), 2 black mages (Flemming and Talin), a summoner subbing white mage (Shuzer), and me (a white mage subbing summoner). All jobs were around 74 to 75. I think we had more than enough people to kill the gnat, but it is fun to hang out with linkshell members. :)
Another party came to the same spot right after we killed the our first Bloodlapper. They also needed the gloves. o_O; Well, after that party watched us kill the second Bloodlapper with relative ease, (relative ease being accidentally having another gnat attack us in the middle of the fight, argh) they asked if they can join us. They had a smaller party than us (about 5 people?) and most of them left once they joined up. Only 2 people, both black mages, stayed. (I guess they were the ones who really needed the gloves.) The fights became even shorter since 2 skillchains (fragmentation and darkness) + 4 black mages = one dead Bloodlapper pretty damn fast. Lol.
The good news is that everyone who wanted the gloves got them. Yes, even the two that joined us. I think we had a total of 7 pop items between us and the 2 people that joined us. We got a total of 4 gloves out of the 7 pop items, so that was pretty nice. Congratulations to Flemming, Talin, Huruku, and Pompeii for getting your zenith mitts replacements! :D
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