Monthly Archives: April 2008

New Storyline Cutscenes, Part 3.5 – The Rescue

With Romaa down for the count, who will save her.

Its the Chess guy!  Looks like he won his match.

rescue1

rescue2

rescue3

rescue4

(this is one long, but amazing Cut Scene, and it isn’t over yet!)

New Storyline Cutscenes, Part 3

Prepare for Glory!

I’ve seen this scene before, Mel Gibson has his face painted blue and white right before the big fight with the British.

taru_braveheart

“So, what we did last night, we take that to the grave.  We tell nobody.”

sam_and_nam

“We hold this line.  The fort cannot fall.”

nam_hold_line

“Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.”

mithra_archers

“This moment will define us.”

sam_calm_before_storm

“These are my people, my friends.  I believe that before this day is over, I will be burying a friend.”

sam_archer

“Whatever happens, no matter the outcome, history will know that on these walls a handful of mithra stood up to an army of Yagudo.  Am I quoting the 300 now?”

sam_stands_alone

“A leader is born.”  As an aside, this Cut Scene (I believe) really shows how Perih Vashai becomes the mithra leader.

sam_leaps_into_battle

“Yagudo are in the Fort.”

yag_on_fort2 

yag_on_fort

“Romma is outnumbered.”

nam_outnumbered

New Storyline Cutscenes, Part 2

Hmmm, I think something is about to happen

2_tarus1

Hmmm, I’m obsessed with my own awesomeness.

hmmm2

Hmmm, I wasn’t doing what it looks like I was doing.  I was, fixing my pants when you startled me.

3_tarus1

Hmmm, I have a tail.

hmmm3

Hmmm, now I’m in Castle O for some reason.

lots_in_castle_o

Hmmm, this could be bad for our heroes.

yags_go_marching

Wings of the Goddess, Newest Windy Storyline Quests

This will be a multi-part entry due to the large number of pictures.  There may be some mild spoilers, but any big spoilers will be hidden behind the WP More tag.

What story doesn’t begin with a meeting of the War Warlocks.

knights

I think something might be up, just look at their faces.

war_warlocks

Every taru blm wants that hat too.

hmmm1

Hmmm Pyra, I don’t trust them short folks, you should follow them, see what’s happening.

Oh look, you randomly run into a lost elf.  Kill it!

sandy_knight

I mean, we should help him, because we think he’s cute (yes I know, we haven’t seen a male in far too long).

So, we’ll stay here and flirt, you go find … um … something, can you just leave us alone for a few minutes.

—- Few Minutes Pass —-

Oh, back already?  Ok, lets go see his friend in, ugh, we gotta walk to Sandy?

maybe_a_whm

Pst – I think he might be a white mage

Orly, what was your first clue?

Meanwhile, in the Chateau:

taru_bow

*sniff* as a long time citizen of windy, this is so painful to watch.

knights_of_red

Look at me!  I have awesome red armor on.  Therefor, I won’t help you.  Good bye.

Meanwhile, back in Heaven’s Tower:

A male mithra plays chess for some unknown reason.

male_mithra1

male_mithra2

I wonder if he’s Catsith?  And I wonder if the taru is the opponent, because it looks like the male mithra is playing with himself.

This is getting interesting.

"Bug" in WordPress 2.5 / 2.5.1

Just want to pass on some information.  It appears as though with WP2.5, a field called guid is being set differently than before.

In 2.4 and earlier, the content of this field would be the same as the perma-link field.

While not major, some feed readers are using the guid tag instead of the link tag to grab the perma-link to the post.

What this means — if you see a request to my.blog.com/path/?p=123 instead of my.blog.com/path/perma/link/structure/post-slug , its affecting you.

This is the intended behaviour of WordPress 2.5+, however, it is different behaviour than previous versions.  There is no way to correct this problem from within the WordPress interface.  The only way to change the format back is via a database edit (look for your post, then column, guid, and set it to the full link).

What is more annoying is that this only happens when you use the WordPress editor.  When you use an external editor (like in my case, Windows Live Writer), it gets set the same as it would have in 2.4.  It also means I can’t make short little posts from work anymore because I only have the WP editor available there.

Subdivisions

(note about the title:  being born in the 80’s meant I missed out on much of the great songs of that decade and am only now discovering some of the wonders of that time.  This one is from Rush.  It was almost titled “All you Zombies”.)

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

delete_pyra

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

fake_pyra

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.

slug_shot

slug_shot_dmg

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.

pred_claws_limbus

pred_claws_limbus2

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.

smn_in_limbo

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

But not on floor 3 :).

mountain_buster_limbus

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).

predator_claws_colibri

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:

nullsong

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

Dear Omega

Its Pyra, you know, your favorite person on the Caitsith server?

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.

double_leg_omega

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

More Fun With Dynamis Lord

I really love doing Dynamis – Xarcabard for the Dynamis Lord fight.  As a Monk, its one of the few times I get to just go crazy and try to kill as fast as possible.  While my group does do Proto-Omega as a zerg fight, I usually sub warrior for survivability.

Wait, sub warrior to survive?  So what do you sub for Dynamis Lord?

Dark Knight.  Yes the zerg Red Mage’s favorite sub is also the zerg Monk’s favorite sub.  It does, however, require the full attention of a white mage (or two) per monk to work.  Souleater + Hundred Fists gets deadly FAST, especially if the boss gets a lucky tp move off.  Asuran Fists, at full HP, and if all 8 hits connect (which is somewhat rare on Dynamis Lord — 7 of 8 hits is more common for me) takes me from about 1500 to 650 HP instantly.  But, with a subbed souleater, half of that lost health is converted directly into damage (around 425).  [Disclaimer:  All numbers are rounded since my DL zerg gear is a combination of my Chi Blast and melee gear to avoid blinking and causing my white mage to lose target.  You can do the numbers yourself, the math is <total HP> * (.9^8) for what your ending HP will be if all 8 hits connect.  Gear listed at end of post].

As a result of Asuran costing me 67% of my total HP, I tend to prefer Dragon Kick on Dynamis Lord.  This works well since I wear an Osode for the initial Chi Blast, then don’t take it off.  A 300% tp Dragon Kick is a powerhouse, and doesn’t completely kill me (end with 81% of starting HP since its a 2-hit WS).  I also sometimes have to save TP if my white mage is having a little trouble keeping my health up (as was the case at the beginning of the fight last night).

This screenshot shows one of my highest Dragon Kick’s on Dynamis Lord so far, as well as part of the chat lines to show how much curing a Monk needs.

pyra_665_dk

Once that Cure V landed, I was at near full health, and 300% tp.  665 is not too bad, although about 150 of that damage was from my souleater.

Willowdream is almost always my only white mage for this.  If I haven’t mentioned it before, she’s great, and I only died once (and even then it was to an Oblivion Smash) on the Dynamis Lord fight since I’ve started doing Xarcabard for the win.

Even though I didn’t get the kill shot on Dynamis Lord (although I sure tried), this is the second time ever that I’ve seen full drops.

full_drops_again

At this rate, I might even get a shadow ring of my own!

I later had some fun with a skeleton (after the hourglass expired) and some souleater + asuran.  😀  I’m evil.

pyra_666_hp

Well, since the theme of this post is monking and dynamis, please congratulate Miz on his shinny new Melee Crown, which completes his monk AFv2 set.

Miz_mnk_head

-pyra

My Monk Dynamis Lord fight gear is:

Weapons:  Destroyers (duh)
Ranged:  Bibiki Seashell (hush you, I’m lazy)
Head:  Temple Crown +1
Neck:  Chivalrous Chain
Ear1:  Merman’s Earring
Ear2:  Brutal Earring
Body:  Kirin’s Osode
Hands:  Temple Gloves
Ring1:  Ulthalam’s Ring
Ring2:  Raja’s Ring (I know, it doesn’t work in the Ring2 slot, only the Ring1 slot, hush you)
Back:  Melee Cape
Waist:  Brown Belt (if anyone wants to get me a black belt, I’ll happily accept it)
Legs:  Byakko’s Haidate
Feet:  Suzaku’s Sune-Ate

This setup gives me the bonus to boost from AFv1 hands, as well as +38 to MND.  I also like the extra accuracy from Focus with AFv1+1 head on.  I’m sure that this could be improved.  I’ve tried a couple different setups.  Most of the things that require me to switch gear cause trouble to my white mage (although she now has /target Pyra and /ma “Spell” Pyra macros).  Since I have Soul Voiced songs on me, my accuracy isn’t going to get a whole lot better than it is already (souleater has +25 acc too, but I’m not sure if it stacks with focus, which is +30 acc since I use AFv1+1 head).  Also, we always make sure to land Angon and Feint on Dynamis Lord, which helps a LOT.

Sadly, we only have one more run at the guy until June.  No thief gloves at all this month :(.  We had 3 white mage gloves fall this week, I’m hoping for a repeat with thief gloves next run (especially since I’m currently #3 in line for the blue gloves).

100th Post

This is the 100th Post for my blog.  Well, technically it is the 102nd, but one entry was deleted, and one is the ‘Welcome to WP’ post, so I believe it is the 100th Post for everything that matters.

It is a happy time, as this comes a bit over a year after it was started.

One thing I do find amusing is that, even after 3 and a half years, I still find this game fun.  Maybe more amazingly, I still want to keep playing.

I find the timing somewhat odd that this comes the same week that SE decided that you have no rights over your character, and instead of actually working to — you know, fix the problem — they decided to make a cheap, administrative change, to screw those who had their accounts stolen in the past, and who will have their accounts stolen in the future.

Anyways, I’ve been finding myself playing a little less than normal.  I log on to do Limbus and Dynamis, but otherwise I’m not on much anymore.  I find it relaxing to just take a break, even though I’m going to lose my Campaign rank it appears.

-pyra

I am not a Grammar Nazi, but I do use Spell Check

I know complaining about grammar on the interweb it about as effective as throwing a glass of water into a lake, but here are two things that really bug me.

Your/You’re, and Affect/Effect.

Your is possessive. Your car. Your house. Your light staff. Your Scorpion Harness.
Can I borrow your ring for this fight?
This is my gloves, not yours.

You’re is a contraction of “you are”. You’re not gonna like this.
When used as a question, can use “Are you” instead of “You’re”. You’re coming? Are you coming?

Incorrect usages. (Correct usage)
Your on your way? (You’re on your way?)
Your coming? (You’re coming? Alt: Are you coming?)
You get you’re drop from Kirin? (You get your stuff from Kirin?)

Don’t ask me why, but using the wrong ‘your’ drives me bonkers. Using “ur” doesn’t drive me quite as crazy though for some reason. I guess because the person typing it is admitting defeat from the beginning, instead of trying and failing. What really gets me is when people who are apparently quite intelligent use the wrong one.

The other pairing that annoys me is Affect/Effect, but not as much. I’m somewhat ok with this mistake because in many accents they sound the same, and the words both have a similar etymology.

Just so we know — It is a status effect, not a status affect. Your actions affected the outcome. Your actions caused this effect.

The best way to explain it — affect implies that something already exists and is altered by the action. Effect implies that something did not exist before, but does exist afterwards (ie, it was created).

Which brings up one of the best entries in a comic I like, xkcd. Effect an Effect.

Also, see the Usage Notes on the Wiktionary for Affect.

And yes, I have a good reason for burning a post, it will be clearer soon[ish].

-pyra