Homam Body = MINE!

And just a few days after I managed to get myself a pair of Thief relic gloves +1.

Good week for me.

Also, my friend Gilg got his Homam Pants today.

Overall, it was a fairly good day in FFXI-land.  RL, not so much.

Last Saturday while playing on my 14-day trial, I was invited to attend a Dynamis with the group I used to play with on Diabolos, now called LastBoss.  I went as a White Mage and it is the first time I’ve been a White Mage in Dynamis in nearly 2 years.

It really was like riding a bike.  I guess since I’ve been playing White Mage since summer of 2005 it was all muscle memory.  It probably also helps that I had a backup copy of my macros from my old computer and was able to get back to what I was used to quickly.

The group is new, and had some trouble.  They also only had about 20 people in the zone, excluding myself.

At least we got to the Angry Tuna…

At least it wasn’t my fault?

Anyways, after this, I was ready to restart the Pyra.

I logged on to Caitsith just in time to go kill Roc.

ToD was sometime that doesn’t matter anymore because the server was reset.

I then got to go and do Limbus with my old group.  I missed them.  But lets not tell them that, it makes it harder for me to negotiate for more cookies.

I have to admit, losing my Thief and Monk macros made this tough.  I barely remember what gear I had to switch and when (if I remember right, both had significantly more gear swap macros than my White Mage ever did).  I was casting spells and using JAs and WSs from the menus again like a common noob.  I might be somewhat nooby again, but I’m far from ‘common’ .  Limbus was really fun, and it was hardly about the items, it was just about having fun with some old friends.

On Sunday night, I went back into Dynamis with KillerInstinct.  We did a Jeuno.  After I’d spent half the day writing new Thief macros, I ended up going as a Monk.  However…

I was a little disappointed.  The other one only hit me for 700ish.  My monk has ~1600 HPs in Dynamis gear (and I was /WAR)

I noticed a few things after my extended absence –

1. I can’t remember what is ‘good’ for damage anymore.  My asurans were hitting for ~450-500, and I was pulling hate, but I thought they should be double that
2. The economy has gone crazy.  Most ancient currencies have doubled in price while I was away.  I’m sure not complaining though, as I had a bunch on Pyra which I’ve sold to gain some pocket change.
3. Thief evasion is still as amazing as always.  Because I need inventory space, I went and completed the first two Young Griffons quests.  The second requires you to fight a NM with a high counter rate.  Well, he barely hit me on my Thief (ok so I added about +17 evasion skill and wore some of my normal +eva gear).
4. I need to completely rewrite my Thief and Monk macros.  They needed it before, but it feels like such a daunting task.

Anyways, enjoy your Moogle Coup of State and update.  I’m going on vacation in a few days, and so won’t be even starting the 2 mini expansions for about a month.

-pyra

And again.  I can’t believe it.  I’ve never actually seen the body fall ever.

Ok, so I get the “worst” item that fell.  I don’t care, I saw it.

Now for 3 more so that I can get my own body.  Or 4, I don’t know the rankings right now.  But it fell, which means I hope I’ll get mine in short order.  If body goes another year without falling, I might pull my hair out.

I got my very own pointy hat this weekend (Homam Zucchetto).  While it isn’t the greatest piece in the set, it is actually a lot better than I originally thought.  Its a very middle of the road item between the wally hat and the optical hat.  It is 3% haste and 4 acc, as well as some HP and MP.  Since I slept through the last Omega it fell at, I told myself I would lot it if it fell this round.  It did, and I got.

*grin* more on this later.  Making a quick update before I go to bed.

First off, Apoc Nigh.

Our first thoughts were “Its easy, and we need a monk and a summoner, pyra can dual box it”.  It was much harder than I’d expected.  A wipe later, I switched to Monk and White Mage, with the White Mage on the main computer to focus on her.  As was mentioned in our party chat, “Ahh good ol’ CoP missions, where you can never win on your first try.”

It worked better, but I would not want to dual box it again.

Also, I got the kill shot

Which includes something interesting — the wiki only warns of a Light Skill Chain.  Here we see a Fusion causing him to recover HP.  Didn’t know that before, and didn’t notice until I was editing the image.

After the win, the cardinal lady comes back, and does something.

Then a quick CS in Jeuno with Aldo, then a wait until JP midnight .

After this CS, I went to work on my SAM in its run to 37.  I hit 35, about 2K to 36 before I had to go for Limbo.

We decided on Proto-Ultima, which is a fight I still really hate.  But the drops are good and my friends (and my summoner) want some items, and they all help on my goal of becoming a full homam princess, so I happily go.  But I’m usually shaking and wishing I wasn’t sober.

This time, I got to go as a MNK/WHM for the first time since I finished my /WHM for chi blasting.

So I got to test out the full effect of my +MND gear.

Without a massive amount of money spent on 2 earrings and 2 rings for a total of +4 more (also there is a +4 MND belt that drops from a NM Gnole, but I only found out about this a day ago and have not looked into it more), this is about as high as I can get.  Still, 64+81 is not bad no matter how you look at it.

It got me these two Chi Blasts (no bard songs either).

I don’t know who would be embarrassed by those numbers on a Ultima.

One of those got me Holy II’d, then a later Chi caused me to be the target of a Buster.

I was not going to go down quietly.

I’m a little disappointed.  He only Armor Busted me, which wouldn’t have killed me.  It was the melee hit and the Holy II that caused my demise.

Bye bye Kitteh indeed.

It was worth it, even if 2 of our BLMs d/cd before the fight and didn’t come back (so we went in with 1 BLM and a couple RDM/DRKs for stuns).

As a tradition in our shell, we always /random for opening the final box, especially if we have time and it was a really hard fight.  I randomed highest (which is so rare for me).

The Whammie reference is what got us 2 legs, I know it.

About time Ultima put out for us.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have my Apoc Nigh earrings to go retrieve (only 2 1/2 years after beating ZM17 with my old shell to help them get their earrings).

-pyra

This is from Limbus.

I was so surprised, as its normally the Samurai’s job to make with the deathening.

Maybe these had an Acid Bolt and Dia 3 on them, but that’s hardly the point.  The point is that I broke 1K on Dancing Edge on Limbus monsters with /nin .

At the end of Limbus, I was asked to “Find some rdm in the chest”.  I tried my best, but I think everyone will agree that this is the biggest failure chest ever.

Yeah…  DRK, DRG, and BST in 1 chest.  What a waste of 3 AF+1 items.

Although this may have been 1-up’d by my failure /random for coins.

At least the low randoms got more coins this time.

Earlier in the day, I had this.

I had just made the comment about how Nift was the most inconsistent lotter I knew, then I proceed to roll 1 lower than him on the one item (71 vs 72), and 20 higher on the other item.

Such an odd weekend (yes, I know this isn’t going to ‘published’ status until Thursday, I’ve just got a backlog of entries).

I love scaring people.  I’m sure this picture is going to be abused for the next year or so.

Before anyone freaks out, there were (and still are) 2 Pyra’s.  One was (formerly) on Fenrir, but is now on Diabolos.

Yeah, those are the legs of my galka mule.

Moving along.  Yesterday morning it hit me, a THF/COR has access to Slug Shot.  I don’t have Ranger unlocked on Pyra, so all of the XBow/Gun WSs are unavailable — or so I thought.

I then went to Rollan Fields and had fun Slug Shotting with Acid Bolts.

That was fun.

Other than getting my Dancer to 47 (woo!  50 by the end of the week, depending on how Mario Kart goes), there isn’t much to update on.

Except — I got to play a summoner in Limbus for the first time in about 4 months.  Apollyon SE.  If you are a summoner, you know what that means.

Just a quick comment — some avatar melee hits (including Garuda and Leviathan) cause 0 dmg to these monsters.  Oh well, I still get the big numbers from the Blood Pact.

Sadly, the Ranger was out damaging the summoners.  By a significant amount too.

But not on floor 3 .

The next day I went to play with some Colibri to get my summoner death buffer back (I lost my buffer a few weeks ago camping a NM Antlion in the Chasm).

I don’t think I’ve ever hit that high on a normal monster before.  Avatar Blood Pact damage is capped to an extent.  Before, people would try to get huge numbers on level 1-10 monsters.  Not that it really matters, the lvl 70 Blood Pacts will 1-shot any monster under level 30.

Oh, and I have a new least-favorite enemy TP ability:

Total dispel and damage.  Fun.  At least it left me with my food.

That’s it for now.  And go listen to Subdivisions by Rush (and All You Zombies by the Hooters).

-pyra

Would it be possible to have your heart?  I know its a low drop rate, but this is getting ridiculous.  I’ve been doing Limbus for over a year now and have never seen you drop one.  Its really about time you gave us some shinnies.

Well I’ll admit, pants are nice, and I was thrilled to get them, its getting a little overboard.

Everyone has them now, but everyone wants your heart.  I think I’d even be happy with hands and feet for a little bit (with body once every other run for a little while).  Just hold back on the legs and head please, there’s almost nowhere to put them anymore.

Thanks in advance

-pyra

Since this was our first run since the patch, and some of our members have been missing for a couple weeks, we had a pre-Omega /dance off.

I love these guys.

And the drops were decent (well, amazing for me, but overall decent).

Now we just need body to start falling.  And less head.

I didn’t know this before, but you get a Cut Scene (:surprised:!  I know, a Cut Scene in FFXI) when you turn in your Omega piece.

First time I’ve seen it, which is neat, because I wasn’t expecting it.

Rawr

-pyra

Did a Proto-Ultima at the end of February.  It went well, and I got to play with some of my new chi blast gear.

Yes, I know I was /drk, but I’m more focusing on the +80 part (with a mushpot on of course).

Which got me this nice blast.

It also got me dispelled, but c’est la vie.

There were also some really good drops!  I blame my 707 Chi Blast for them.

The next day, I went and did Shadows of the Departed, in order to get ready for Apocalypse Nigh fight (soon I hope).

It was a lot of fun, even with a lolPUP.

And, um… crap.

I deleveled my whm to 36 even.  Stupid job, about 200 shy of getting my level back too.  Oh well, its only a chi blasting sub.

I also finally, after about 2 years, turned in my magic trash.  Here’s a pic from the back room in Garliage.  If you go there in the past, bombs aggro you through the door (but it may be openable with the key, I didn’t have one to try).

Sometime later, I did a couple avatars with Miz.  We do a bunch of avatar fights to help pay for our limbo runs.

And I noticed something.  The background that looks so neat in the cloisters, is a weather effect (same as the sky in the [S] areas, try it yourself, turn off weather and look at all the stars disapear).

Anyways, with weather:

And without weather:

More to come!  Pics from the Cut Scenes leading up to Apocalypse Nigh, Dancer AF1, Cut Scenes, Exploring the [S] areas, Campaign, and the likes!

-pyra

Woot!  More pics coming soon, I’ve got to get everything organized, been a couple weeks of a picture backlog to sort through.

-pyra

The theme of this post is Potential.

Yes, I found Potential.

First thing I had to do was get some macros.  I copied over the ones I use for Pyra, especially since we use a lot of the same gear, at least for any slots I’d want to swap.

Ok, so I, and everyone else, got a kick out of using Pyra’s TP macro for Miz.

Rawr!  Look at me, I’m Miz, I make stuff die!

Whoa… as in Keanu Reeves from the Matrix, Whoa….

Having been on the butt of one too many ninja’s getting charmed (including this particular ninja getting charmed with his stun katanas on, that sucked), I took a little revenge.

But, I decided it would probably be a bad idea to solo the charmed tank, and went back to the monster.

After the fight, Miz was mine for a little bit.

After the great lesson I learned from Mischa, Bard or Summoner is the choice for running around.

Oh look, skill up even.

Rawr!

-pyra

As mentioned previously, Ata finally got Evoker’s Pigaches +1.  So, I took a picture and posted it.

In addition to this, I finally managed to cap my evasion on Thief.  Evasion was bad, Marksmanship is proving slightly more annoying, as it is taking me about 100 bolts to gain 1 skill level.  Its currently at 228 (cap of 230) because I ran out of bolts.

When I capped evasion, I switched to my Tatami shield, since more evasion is never bad, and I was going to try to kill Even Match – Tough’s with just Acid Bolts.

You can see how much I’ve used a shield.

Approximately one hour ago, I finished ToAU Mission 44.  I’ve been stuck on this one since around September, and when I got the invite, I jumped on it.

I’m now done with the current ToAU missions on both Pyra and Ata.  Ata is also a Rank 10 in both Bastok and Windurst.  I don’t plan on doing the Sandy missions anytime soon, unless a change is made so I don’t lose my outposts.

Other than that, I hit 38 on Dancer, going to try for 50 before they introduce AF gears.

But I need sleep, night!

(a very excited)
-pyra

That’s the 6th rank in Campaign, of a total of 12 currently available.  I’m hoping to have the 10th rank by the expansion next month.

Well, going along with the Monk theme, in an amazingly close Apollyon SW (down to 60 seconds remaining on 2nd floor before we got the time chest), I got final stinged.

However, 879 HP is just over half of my normal geared up hit points.

Speaking of Hit Points, I’ve managed to boost my total HP to over 2000.

I do cheat a little.  I have 30 MP which is converted to HP.  The one earring is a Brutal, the other is an Intruder earring.

Speaking of the intruder earring…

I just got the intruder this week as well (and no, you can’t have ToD).

While waiting for Centurio to pop, I hunted the Dune Widow.  I got a claim, but this is all it dropped for me.

Boooooooooo.  I need teh gilz.

Finally, the most important part of this post.

Please congratulate Mizuhito on getting his Melee Cyclas, and hitting 4/5 on Monk AFv2.

And that is it, the week of the monk.

Hopefully, a couple more Melee Cyclas fall — as we are farming the glacier for the next week — and I can not only beat my 2038 HP, but can also hit 6/6 on Monk AFv2.

-pyra

Another year has passed.  At this time, I would like to reflect on the occurrences of the past 365 Days.

For starters, this has been a good year for Dynamis productivity.  In it, we’ve seen Atalantia reach 4 of 5 on her White Mage AFv2.

At the same time, she has also received some Summoner AFv2, making her 2 of 5.

Her Yinyang was definitely a victory for all of Vana’diel as well.  We all rejoiced in her happiness.

This has also been a good year for Pyra.  She was able to hit 4 of 5 on Thief AFv2.

And her Monk also hit 4 of 5, with the relic accessory, making the Monk 5 of 6 overall.

In addition, Sky was kind in 2007, allowing her to obtain 3 of 5 of the Sky "God Set".

We had significant victories in 2007 and early 2008.  Victories in Limbus came just last week ago with the first piece of AF+1 for Pyra.  Atalantia is still working very hard to get her first piece, with a breakthrough expected anytime now.

This is an important first step, with many more steps to come.  This piece also marked the near completion of Pyra’s Chi Blast set, missing only 1 key item, Kirin’s Osode.  It will come with time, but until then, we need to persevere and strengthen our resolve to work towards our goals.  The Osode is within reach, and I urge everyone to not give up now.

In other news, Dynamis continues the be our main source of Experience Point loss.  Every loss saddens us, but makes us all stronger.

We know that some loss is a necessary sacrifice to ensure the groups grow stronger and closer.  With time, we can minimize this loss, but until then, we will do everything we can to make sure that is it not in vain.

The economy has been a roller coaster ride this past year as well.  The Really Moronic Tribe, a cult originating in the far east, has been nearly eliminated.  However, this extermination effort has not been without its draw backs.  The effort has caused a recession as new industry was built to make up for the loss of productivity.  We will recover.  We will succeed.

The war continues 20 years ago.  It is a hard fight, and the beastmen never run out of reinforcements.  We must fight in the past to ensure a safe today.  A year ago, we thought that we would lose to the beastmen, and many encouraged us to stop fighting, saying that a pitiful amount of Allied Notes was not worth the loss of life on both sides.  Detractors said that the forces of the 4 nations lacked the courage to step up and do what was needed to make their lands safe.

Today, we see the National Protection Councils, or NPCs, in all 4 nations sending troops to support the war effort.  Eventually, our combined effort will drive the beastmen forces back and we will take the fight to the Shadowlord himself.  We cannot allow his regime to survive.  His days are numbered, and no matter where in the mountains of the Northlands he hides, we will find him.  We will be victorious.  We do this because we have to, for the present, for our children, and for Cid.

This next year will not be easy.  Proto-Omega, Proto-Ultima, Dynamis Lord, and others seem to just reappear every few weeks.  They must be defeated for peace to reign.

We will not be pulling our forces out of any zones where they are still needed.  Al’Taieu still crawls with creatures, some would say monsters, so notorious that they take 18 or more brave fighters to hunt down and capture or kill.  But it is worth the effort, the items we find on them prove infinitely valuable in the continuing battles.  We will undertake missions, as they come up, and finish those missions we are already working on.

Together, we can make Vana’diel a strong nation for all, with a good past, present, and future.

Thank you, and God bless.

-pyra

This is just one of those pics that had to be posted.  From Apollyon NE, the one boss Cronos, was hiding in a tree.  I liked it, but the picture lost much in the resizing.

Floating chest!  Many people saw this one floating for some reason, so it wasn’t just on my end, this time.

And my aggro-happy friends, as they aggro not 1, but 2 Om’youvras.  Az should take note, this will kill Mischa much better than just one lower-tier UFO will.

Really, was this necessary?  I hit him for 31, then get nailed for 1023.  That doesn’t seem fair for some reason.

-pyra

Quite often, you get AF you can’t use and people forget to pass.  I forgot to pass, and this is what I got.

My lvl 1 Paladin, 24 Ranger, and 21 Warrior will be happy.

During a low-level linkshell party, three of us dinged at the same time, so I took a picture!  Hurray leveling!

Always enjoyable to see 2 dings at once, but 3 is fairly rare.

My next picture is someone who was shouting for a Divine Might run.  2/18, good luck with that.

I was leveling in Qufim and this happened–

Anyone know how this happened?

Also while leveling, I saw this.  Really guys, you aren’t fooling anyone.

And finally, Proto-Ultima, for the second time.

Enjoy y’all.

-pyra

In the past week I have

1) Beaten Dynamis – Beaucedine
2) Another Proto-Ultima win
3) Beaten Dynamis – Xarcabard (including Dynamis Lord)
4) Finished my Dark Knight to 37 (for mnk/drk on above mentioned Dynamis Lord)
5) Leveled my Samauri to 15
6) Leveled my Dancer to 24

It has been a busy week.

There was also the virus scare that really hit home for a lot of FFXI Players. I know the thought of losing both of my characters was horrible, but at least there was no way to migrate them to another server (still in 90-day cooldown from last migration).

-pyra

From start to finish was under 4 minutes.

Drops…. ohhhh shinies.

And just so we all set the record straight.

Oh yeah, that’s right.  I got the kill shot.

Well, I’m out of time for today.  Look for updates from WotG missions and Dynamis – Tavnazia in the next couple of days.

-pyra

First engage the creature.

Since I hit 763 several times with Chi Blast, I think that’s the max I was currently able to do to him. Hopefully, that has now changed . See below.

Another picture from the battle. This looks like its about 50%.

Dead! I had no idea how this would end until it did. First time fighting it, and we won! Ultima is quite a bit harder than Omega, but this went much smoother than I thought going in.

And the drops. Congrats to Lusha on the head and Mach on the pants. (These are good drops)

Moving on, Dynamis-Qufim

Cut Scene from the beginning of Dreamland Dynamis

Wootness, got the key item for winning.

Another picture from the Dynamis.

PLD Boots -1 and MNK Cape from the same monster.

Both items in treasure pool at the same time. And I win the lot! In the previous post I mentioned how I’d probably never have it and completly wrote it off of my Chi Blast gear. Then 3 hours later, I get it. Wow.

WHM boots -1 and DRG Belt in treasure pool at the same time too.

And wow, a SMN Cape falls. Its really an amazing item, which went to Lusha (leader of my Limbus shell, and really nice person).

4/6 on MNK AFv2. Body and Head to go.

From the CS you get after winning Dynamis-Qufim.

That’s it for now. I’m tired and need sleep.

-pyra