Hogan. Paladin. November Update. FFXI'S fate.

To everyone who has been viewing my blog, I am sorry for not updating as often as I should. On a personal note I have been devoting more time to looking for a new job since I was laid off from my first one. And I know many of you agree that real life comes first before FFXI. I did manage to land a new job thankfully.

Speaking of which I've been feeling rather....uncertain about how FFXI will be once FFIXI (14) comes out. In recent runs with dynamis and a limbus group I joined up with called Altana's Assassins, I've been surrounded with talks of people saying FFXI will be no more in the next six months. But the thing is, nobody really knows for certain and yet people still play. Right now everything is up in speculation because we really don't know how FFIXI will be as well as how people will either play both or stay with one or the other. And yet, some people treat it like its 2012?

I admit, FFXI is an old game now, and many people have quit the game for many reasons, not just becaue of FFIXI. Hogan, a long time friend of mine and fellow Galka has decided to quit the FFXI and the end of the month, simply because he's lost interest. While I will miss him and Ratchety, his son, I do understand and respect his decision and will never forget the fun times we had; from leveling together to doing missions to doing crazy amounts of KSNMs and BCNMs, to hunting NMs together. If anything when it will be my time the memories of good times will always be there at the very least. Hogan and Ratchety I will miss you guys greatly but.... I will continue kicking more butt on FFXI in your stead!

(Seeing Hogan for the last time)

So while everything is uncertain I will at least do that and enjoy FFXI as much as I can and for everyone I enjoy the game with.


The past several weeks have been steady, eventful, busy, perplexing and entertaining. November's update has brought about some good things such as job adjustments to Beastmaster, Summoner and Ranger. And while it has brought about more WotG missions, new Notorious Monsters, and new synthesis recipes, there's a few things I'm puzzled with such as the new Synergy method that's out. As an up and coming crafter I should look into this and see what it brings.

Shortly after CoJ's disbanding I joined up with Altana's Assasins Linkshell. Its made up of some dynamis linkshell members. It did take me time to make the choice to join. It wasn't easy at first but in the end I felt it was for the best to just continue onwards.

I'm still doing dynamis of course but it has become increasingly frustrating lately because we've been having Dynamis-Xarcabard taken constantly by a rival LS; well I wouldn't say rivals since we never steal zones from people but still.....
Anyhow, aside from that our runs have been steady thankfully......

(.....well, to say the least, thanks to my 5 star-now3 star rated pulling dang it)

The new add-on, Shantotto's Ascension has drawn a lot of attention as well. In fact people have completed it in under a week! I noticed because last friday I caught Bradly with some new pants on, for once not with his pants down :-P



(Every time I see Bradly in this set up I always think about the Robin Hood: Men in Tights movie:-P)


I've been helping Foulei with his missions for it the other day. While I haven't started it yet and still need to complete Kupo D' Etat, I enjoyed duo'ing with Foulei as I always have done. We make a good team I would say!




(A galka duo picture is worth a thousand adventures)


(yes, Galkas CAN read)

In between all of this I've been leveling Paladin, which is now level 69! Six more painfully long levels to 75! Whoo hoo! I am excited to get to that level so I can help out with tanking for both Dynamis, Limbus, and Sky linkshells as well as missions for people. Not that I am unhappy with people needing my Thief and sometimes my Warrior. In fact I've grown quite used to being on my thief more often. But I've been getting both good pointers and praises from people about my tanking on Paladin lately which I thank and appreciate friends and LS members for.

(Partners in crime: *left to right* Jadewolf , Foulei, myself, Jakary)

Well that's all for this entry folks but I leave you some words of thought; enjoy FFXI for what it is that makes you enjoy it, even if it's old and a new version is coming out. Sure, nothing lasts forever but that doesn't mean you should stop enjoying something you like doing.


Peace.

Money Making. Mantis. End of CoJ.

Well I will not beat around the bush at all on this one but sadly, CoJ, the LS I helped out Limbus with has disbanded from doing Limbus entirely. I haven't been too thrilled about it even though at the same time we're at the point where I think we really need to focus on other things individually. Plus it was getting really hard and difficult to maintain anything with such low attendance. As much as we did in keeping the LS alive with limbus with the manpower we had, every time we were at our peak it would trickle down to 7-8 out of 20+ people we had in our roster that would show up to every run.
The other factor is the majority of people we do have said they will be having tough times to come attend due to real life obligations and that is understanding at the very least. Real life comes first.
So yes, CoJ is done with Limbus it seems. However I want to give my thanks and everyone's cooperation, patience, and persistence until the very end. And though we may go our different ways in game events perhaps, don't be afraid to hit me up sometime and say hello or whatever the case may be.

Aside from the bad news I've gone basically back to gil making for now with all this free time I have. So I've taken up Gardening again, farming my butt off; anything to reek in the gil much better than normal. I slowed down on cooking a little bit just so I can do this then continue when I have enough.

Not much in pictures this session because I'm a bit busy with some things at the moment. More will come later but as you can see below I stumbled upon this little critter today while I was out:



I find the Mantis to be quite a fascinating insect. Though scary looking to some people, they are quite harmless. In fact they are helpful to the ecosystem. In some cultures they are considered good luck.

Double. Dungeon Adventure.Dough Making.

(Leveling cooking, with a watchful Galkan Cooking master *lvl 100, /envy*)

Well summer is nearing its end, with 4 weeks untill autumn. I can't wait. I enjoy the fall season for many reasons; the multi colored trees, cold weather, the holidays mainly halloween and thanksgiving, and many birthdays, mine included in the next three and a half weeks.

Many things have come around lately. I went back to leveling Cooking. In the course of a week I went from where I left off, level 30, to level 40. It was a little expensive because in the process I had to make Meat Mithkabobs. While they do sell fast, 4k gil a stack, a couple of the ingredients got for about 12k gil a stack. I overdid it in making so many of them to get to where I am now, making Pie Dough to skill up cooking even further. Thankfully making Pie Dough and selling it isn't so bad. I'm not losing much gil at all really. So I'm in the process of making some amount of gil through cooking at my level. With the game economy being rough, cooking recipes from 1-40 doesn't sell quite as much as it used too but if I play it right I can make some of them profitable. It's a matter of where and when to sell them.

While I have been giving myself some downtime from events to level cooking, except for Dynamis to keep up with my points for a specific reason, I did take some time to do a little dungeon adventure. Foulei kept pulling my tail to get up and go hunt for a Jelly Ring for my paladin. So, we ventured to San 'D'Oria and went down into their "basement", Bostaunieux Oubliette

(They can lock me up but they can't keep me in here *grr*)

Foulei and I got some assistance with the NM unexpectedly from Danille, Thelittlecrash and Royalwitch. Though fighting the NM is doable with a duo team, a little extra help didn't hurt after all. Needless to say Fou finished off the NM with his Red Mage 2 hour, Chainspell, and nuked it to death while the rest of us hacked and slashed at it, even though we did very little damage to it, but hey, every bit helps right?

Offline-wise, I got to see a rather upbeat opening to the new Kamen Rider series this year, Kamen Rider Double. As some of you already know I'm a huge Kamen Rider fan and have been watching the series every year, each year having its own Kamen Rider, different looks, theme and all. I think the opening video will speak for itself. Enjoy!

Kamen Rider Double (W) Opening

The Blue Mage Blues....in a good way. Ballista. Beginning of a new Linkshell.

Fun. Fun. Fun. I'm having way too much fun with Blue Mage this past week!! As it stands now it's level 24 and I have all the current spells at that level. Some of them DID take effort; Blastbomb, Feather Storm, Metallic Body. Regardless it has been well worth it. The only problem is there's so many spells that sometimes it is mind boggling to figure out what spells to use. On top of that once you set your spells it takes about thirty seconds. Too many chiefs, not enough indians. However, what I learned is that playing blue mage, takes patience and planning ahead. Once you do these things it's an unstoppable force.

(FLASH! AH-AAA, Galka of the Universe)

Meanwhile I got a /tell from one of my friends, Horas. He had informed me he decided to make his own linkshell; EndResults. Their main focus is endgame events and getting people through missions, all that jazz. Horas has gathered a good group of friends for his LS and I'm confident they'll do well and I'll be there, whenever I'm able to help them out.

(Horas' LS people, EndResults)

As seen here, there was an LS meeting with EndResults to go over times for events. They're still working things out a bit but I believe they have something going. Just after the meeting many of them wanted to do something that a lot of people haven't done in a very long time; Ballista!




I managed to get Hidetada and Atherine in on this since they've been wanting to revive Ballista. A lot of people haven't had any interest in it so it was difficult to get people to do matches with. My friend Xanathos stated his reason for not doing ballista because he hates the restrictions placed upon Ballista which was equipment changes. Once you change gear while doing a match you can't move for a moment. While this could be a hindrance there's the strength of a good challenge, and that's what I see.

Camaraderie. Progression. More friends.

(3 out of 5 Homams^^. Many thanks to CoJ members for this!)

I've become quite the popular Galka these past several weeks not to mention I have people who come through for me as well.

Granted I've been extremely busy since my last update offline, whenever I have been online I've accomplished a lot for both my friends and myself.

But before I get to that I do want to talk about July's update. I like it and hate it; more pros than cons at the very least. Granted I haven't messed with Kupo'De'Tat (if that's spelled right lol) just yet my pals tell me the rewards are pretty sweet and I still have yet to decide which reward I want for either my Thief or Paladin.
The Union addition to Campaign Battles is really nice and the new armors are good, despite some people's misgivings about some of them. Also, the new Blue Mage spells and Ninja Abilities are decent according to what people have told me if used properly.
The major con I have with the update are two things. Firstly, the annoying unforseen agrro of some mobs WHILE there's a campaign battle going on, particularly the Greater Amphiptere in Xarcabard (s). Secondly, the Greater Amphitere's period :-P Last I checked if you're engaged in Campagin no mobs that don't have anything to do with Campagin don't bother you. I guess SE watned to be evil this time :-P. For now I just avoid that area.

Now, as for what's been happening of late. Children of Jenova, the Limbus linkshell I'm with has been quite busy since we formed a merger with another LS. Now that we have enough members we started to push forward with events. We banged out tons of Proto Omega, and now have started to do Temenos floors again. Granted, the merger process was a little rough at first but understand that, yes, sometimes sacrifices are ment to be for the greater benefit for everybody.
I think we'll be ok overall.

I started doing Nyzul again. Foulei, Atherine, and Hidetata wanted to help me with floor progression. So far, with effort we managed to get from 19-40 in a matter of a week or two.
In addition I went back to leveling Paladin again, which, now, is level 62^^.

(Fighting a boss on floor 20; Fafnir.)

I've been called upon lately on my paladin. I guess it goes with the territory. I'm glad really because it gives me the chance to practice tanking, which has improved immensely. And believe me, I WILL have my exp capped to its fullest once its level 75 because I got this nagging feeling my Paladin will be "abused". Heh.

(bcnm 60. good tanking practice i gotta say)

So July has been rather fruitful in both doing a lot of things with friends and progression. This galka is finally going places once again!

Juggernaut Axe. More Dynamis Pulling. 4th of July

This week has been good; hectic, but good. I threw in this little comic illustration for two reasons. One is because Foulei and I went to a comic book store this week and well, did some shopping there. I know things are tight right now due to the economy but we really needed to do this for once since we've been so strung up on FFXI for weeks, so it was good to get out and do something and we haven't picked up any comics in months, and for him its been a few years. The books we both got were well worth the cash since they were well worth reading. ^^

The other reason for the image is after much saving up on gil, selling things and a very generous donation from Foulei, I bought the Juggernaught Axe for my Warrior. Out of all things, it has been the most sought after item out of anything else. I also bought a Magnet Knife for my good ol' Thief, per advice from Zidaneii, my fellow Thief friend and, yes, mentor (there Zid, i said it! happy? lol).

Both weapons are great, moreso the Magnet Knife; good for farming if you run into any trouble since it slows down the movent of the mob you would be fighting, the damage is really sweet-it shows on Sneak Attack/Trick Attack-and even though there's a -10 on Evasion it doesn't really effect anything if you have Evasion capped, close too capped level (ex; 5 lvls) or merits. Its a very well rounded knife if you don't have the "big guns" such as Siccoro Kukri, or Blau Dolch.

Back to Zidaneii for a bit now. On friday we had our usual Dynamis event. I log on and out of nowhere Kamille and Zideneii request I come as Thief. I'm like "oh no...they want me to act as puller for the linkshell, joy...". I was ambivalent because we were going to do Dynamis Beaucidine and since i'm still in training i didn't want to do the dreamlands areas since they're more time senitive. I got lucky and we ended up doing Dynamis Bastok instead since the other zone had been taken by another group.
I did enjoy being puller in a dynamis zone this time as opposed to last time so I'm kinda getting the hang of it. Zid' said I'm doing fine but I pull too slow. I will have to work on speeding it up. He's a good teacher, though he likes to poke fun at me, which is fine. It gives me a sense of humor behind his helping me out with theif and he has been very helpful :)

Well, I hope everyone has had a good holiday, The 4th of July :) Foulei and I did for sure. We went to a cookout at a friend's house to celebrate Independance Day as well as her Birthday. We had a good time.

I hope you all did too :)

-Rusty.

75 Thief. Goodies. A Crystalline Prophecy. Paladin.

My, oh my, I have not updated in so long! My apologies everyone!!

The good news is I got so much accomplished over the course of three and a half months.
Getting Thief to 75 was one of them.

Thief 75, Completed!

In a playful sense, there's good and bad news on this. The good news is both the Sky and Limbus Linkshells call upon both my Warrior and Thief nowadays. The bad news is they get to abuse my Treasure Hunter >.>. Seriously it's good to be needed on both of these jobs. Recently I've been "in-training" by a few thieves and a good friend of mine, Zidaneii, in the "art" of pulling in Dynamis. It's coming along ok, though my terms were that I be trained in the nation zones, not the dreamlands, since the dreamlands areas are more time sensitive you can't botch up. Zid' says I'm doing ok but just need to pull faster; but then again he likes busting my chops anyway :-P.


AAAAANNNNDDDD.....!! As you can see, I finally got a pair of Byakko's Hidatae!! Both Foulei and Simi, one of our Sky LS leaders got pairs too, all three of us on the same day! That's uncommon for this particular NM for more than two pair in one sesson.

Our thanks goes to the Sky LS, FragglesGoneWild, for thier help and contributions thus far.

Also, (not pictured unfortunately), a week later, I also received a Kirin's Osode when we did a Kirin run. Even the LS were surpsied at the turn out of me getting both these sought out "Goodies" in as little as two weeks. I pays to save up points ;)

I took some time off from sky, a much deserved break if you ask me, to tie up a few loose ends. I started by working on the Add-on SE put out a few months ago; A Crystalline Prophacy. Zidaneii, Foulei, Bradly, and a few other people (i forgot thier names atm, sorry) got together to work on the last battle. We had so much fun doing it, though Zid' and Foulei were having fun killing my clone >.> since the final boss kept spamming it out more than thier clones.

After finishing and much much thinking, I chose this as my prize:

MirkeWardecors

Other than all of this I've been helping some friends with CoP a bit. Since I've been leveling Paladin, they've grown to have use for it. I've been doing ok tanking on missions for the most part which is fine since I need the practice. My paladin is now level 57, and I will continue to level it once I build up some gil again.

Well that's all for now. Take care everybody!