Got Shield? I do.

Dinged 73 in a Caedarva Mire PT last week. There was a RNG there whom I could SC with or who would SC with me. At one point, I did a 982 Dragon Kick which closed a Light SC for an additional 982 damage. I liked seeing those kind of numbers.

I then spent most of the weekend in Kuftal Tunnel, fishing. When Vay was there, we did SC a bit. I'm currently @401/500 points toward unlocking Destroyers.

I spent over 13 hours in Kuftal tunnel, most of it solo, trying to fish up Devil Mantas. I managed to get 6-8 total mantas (I probably only missed 1 or 2 windows all day), and 1 Angel Skin. One of these times, I'd love to come out of there with more than 1 in my possession, but I'm not gonna complain. It sold overnight. We also popped Phantom Worm a number of times and walked out with 2 tathlums. So, all-day fishing turned into almost 400k profit. Not a terrible waste of time.

That puts my Manteel fund @ 3mil. 2/3 of the way there. I think this last million gil will be a bit of a grind. Maybe I can get a couple of KSNMs in there so that it doesn't feel so tedious. I wonder if I'll have any problems actually plunking down the gil for the manteel once I have enough. After all, 4.2mil is pretty close to the 4.5-5mil that is needed for a Roundel Earring. It is also enough for the Aristocrat's Coat that I've been wanting and the Hermes' Sandals. Or, some Blessed +1 gear (if I could ever find it). I guess I could always buy the manteel, and see how I like it (and see if I can activate the latent on my Minstrel's Ring with manteel equipped). If I decide it's not really worth the gil, I can always start working on Periquia assaults for a Yigit Gomlek and eventually recover the cost for the aforementioned stuff. I guess the next time I gear up BRD I'll have to take off my Goliard Saio and see if I still have <75% HP. If not, I'll have some tweaking to do.

Not sure what this week will bring, but I hope for the following: unlocked destroyers, 75MNK, Sha'ir Manteel. Let's see how I do!

Since Vay got the gil that I sent him, he decided it was necessary to buy another Genbu pop. We took Ev up with us for some TH (and 'cause he wanted A.Hands). The fight went fairly smooth, with Ev doing most of the kiting, which allowed Vay and I to rest for MP more often. Finished in about 80 minutes. Drops were W.Feet, Kabuto, and Shield! Vay commented that he's glad it finally dropped since buying popsets was starting to hurt his wallet. I never wanted to 'buy' a shield, anyways. I was looking forward to farming popsets. I guess he has a little less patience than I.

I'm looking forward to trying it out /BLU. If I really like it, I may have to pick up a cheviot cape, too, and try to hoard up on -physical damage. Not counting phalanx or cocoon, I can use Shield, cape, goliard legs, Jelly ring, and an earring from Campaign for a total of ~ -25% physical damage. Add in phalanx's ~15% and a DEF of 600ish after cocoon, and I imagine that I won't even need stoneskin against most mobs!

Vay mentioned that the 2 items that all real RDMs need are the Joyeuse and Genbu's Shield. It turns out that Ev has neither. So, it looks like we may be heading back to SSG for more NM camping in search of a Joyeuse.

Posted Jan 18 2010, 09:12 AM