The LoL is Back!

I was shocked to see CB online over the weekend. His job is over and he has some free time to play while he's looking for another.

We spent some time doing Campaign to get him 75 (which was great). Then, we went to the tree to do some skill chains so that he could unlock the BLU Nyzul WS (Expacion). I think we were there for ~2 hrs before he learned it.

It was a nice time. I'm glad he's back. Now, if only I could find more time to play and hang out with him!

Posted May 25 2010, 01:41 PM

Very Slow Progress

BLM is just 350xp from 64. It is tempting to use my anniversary band on it to really make the xp fly in Vunkerl Inlet. I was kind of hoping to save it for WHM after the June update so I can get it to 80 ASAP (and have access to accession!), but I did use one charge already on BLM. I feel that if I can just get it to 65, then 68, that 75 isn't much farther away. Once I hit ~70, I should be able to go to Mt. Z and duo/trio some decent XP (along with IS).

I duo'd w/ Ia (on SCH) for a couple of hours the other night. We were hoping to get her some Gothic Sabatons and some PLD xp at the same time (she's 47). Well, we did 3 or 4 FoV pages in Behemoth's Dominion, but never got the sabatons. It wasn't the fastest xp, but it was quite fun playing the game with her again. When she finally logged, she was just 1.5k from 48 and I was 3k from 50. I do enjoy SCH. If I can just get to ~55, I could start healing burn PTs in ToAU zones. If I do nothing else, I would at least like to be able to quest the AF (and store it). Someday, I'll make an effort to be able to actually equip it!

Sandy controlled the Throne Room in campaign the past week, but I missed out on my allied ring since I lost my medal rank over the past couple of months. I think I'm going to start working on keeping my campaign rank capped soon. I spend enough time standing around Whitegate, looking at shouts that I want to do, but telling myself that I don't have time or that I shouldn't do 'em because a friend might log on and want to do something fun.

Since the anniversary is taking place, all kupowers are currently active. This would be a great time to go fishing for Devil Mantas, but I haven't been able to make my way down to Kuftal Tunnel yet.

Protecus said that he talked to Vay on the phone recently, who said that we was hoping to log on sometime last week, but I never saw him. I hope things are going well for him.

I went out of town recently for a week-long user conference in Philadelphia. Of course the first night that I get there, Ia calls me to tell me that Ashleigh fell at the playground and broke her arm. >.> Of course something bad happens the one time that I go out-of-town this year!

Posted May 17 2010, 11:03 AM

IRL

[IRL]
Ashleigh has started soccer practice on a co-ed 4-and-under league. This is her first real interaction with other kids (not relatives). As for her soccer skills, she does quite well. When it comes to passing the ball, or having stolen by the other team, she has a lot of room for improvement. Instead of taking it in stride, she just starts crying; sometimes even throwing herself to the ground. She has had 3 practices so far, and her first game is on Saturday. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

I'm playing softball again for the first time in the last 3 years. After practice last week, I felt like I was hit by a truck. I ached everywhere. It wasn't until Sunday that I woke up without any pain. I have practice again tomorrow. I hope that I recover quicker this time. If not, it is going to be a LONG season.

With Ia being pregnant with child #3, we have decided that the time has come to get another vehicle. We've been a one-car family since before Ashleigh was born. That one car is a PT Cruiser, which will not comfortably hold 3 kids in a booster and two baby seats. We test drove some mini-vans last week and will be picking up our new van today! It will be nice to have a reliable vehicle which will hold our whole family and still have cargo room.
[/IRL]

Again, the last couple of weeks have seen me away from the game. The few hours that I did actually play, I managed to finally snag an elemental in CN basement to get the RA/EX item I need to complete my BLM AF quests. I'm thinking of taking BLM to 60 then taking a break from it for awhile. It would be nice to just finish it, but with the little time that I've been spending in-game, I don't know that I'll have the time necessary to devote to the xp grind all the time. If I put BLM away for a little while, I could use that time to work on Mugido and tweak my RDM macros (which I really need to do). Not to mention the fact that I still need to start working on my melee subs, especially DNC.

I think my macros are once again getting in the way of my enjoyment of RDM. For party play, I use 4 macro sets (CTR/ALT 6,7,8, and 9). But, because of lag, I find myself mis-casting often when switching between enfeebling/elemental/sleep sets (8 + 9) and healing/support sets (6 + 7). I don't mind so much if I'm in a duo/trio situation, since I'm quite happy with my solo macro set.

Re-doing macros tends to breathe new life into a job. Maybe it will encourage me to be more willing to gear RDM up more often.

Posted Apr 20 2010, 09:49 AM

AFK

I haven't logged on in almost 2 weeks. It's not that I don't want to, I just haven't had the time.

With the nice weather, I've been doing lots of stuff outside, be it yard work or playtime with the kids. By the time I get the kids in bed, and do a bit of exercising, I don't have enough time to accomplish anything before bed, so I don't even bother logging in. Maybe this weekend I'll be able to get online to do something...

Posted Apr 6 2010, 03:35 PM

BLM is going

As I feared, I decided to keep going with BLM. I'm currently sitting at 56. I have 3/5 of the AF (I can't seem to find any weather while in Crawler's Nest). I've been having fun with it. I knew that I wanted to have a nuking job @ 75, but I figured it would be SCH.

As it turns out, I'm having much more fun with BLM since I'm *only* invited to nuke stuff. The biggest thing that I have to worry about is drawing too much hate too quickly, which isn't usually a problem.

Lots of sync'd parties, but I don't really mind. I'm hoping to get more invites to Vunkerl burns, although they are very boring. I'm not sure if I'll have BLM to 75 before the next version update or not. I really hope so, but I'm not going to try super hard to make it work. I'm more excited to finally learn Retrace. I hope to be able to make some money sending folks to the past. I've been sitting somewhere around 20k for the past couple of weeks and I HATE it!

I also need to get caught up with my campaign ranks, since I'm missing out on some nice gear and I lost my most recent medal the last time I had an East Ronfaure ( S ) PT.

The weather is starting to get nicer which means I'll be spending more time outside doing yardwork and playing with the girls. It also means less time playing FFXI. I may only manage to get on during the weekends, now. I'll play it by ear and see how it all works out.

Posted Mar 30 2010, 12:27 PM

Welcome back, Ia!

Ia reactivated her account! I gave her all of my non-RA/EX BRD gear and some of my lower level melee gear for her to use. I also bought 3/4 of her RSE as well. She isn't happy with her gear and doesn't have any money to buy new gear. I told her she is welcome to sell the manteel, which would give her more than enough gil to outfit any of her jobs, but she is reluctant.

With the announcement that the level cap will be raised to 99, I realized that I would have to level subjobs again. Since I plan on capping WHM or RDM first, I decided that it would be necessary to level my mage subs to the new sub-level cap of 49.

I started with SCH and got that to 49 last week. I had a lot of fun using Accession and en-spells. I happened to ding 49 in a sync'd PT in qufim with a PL where I was just there to nuke. As soon as I dinged, I changed to BLM (which was at 40) and continued in the same role. Before I left the dunes, I had BLM at 43. I would have had 44, but for some reason, my internet connection dropped on my laptop and I couldn't log back in (despite having a good internet connection).

I had a few parties since, one kind of fun in East Ronfaure (S), and one not so fun in Garlaige Citadel. I'm just 1.8k from level 49, which means that with a charge from my empress band, I'll be half way to 50. I will probably just take BLM to 50 so I can quest/store my AF and get Freeze to try out some AM. The temptation then, would be to take it to 51 so I can use my elemental staves. Then, to 53 for Firaga III, followed by the burn to 75 in Vunkerl Inlet (S). I'm really low on funds right now, so I'm not sure if I'll continue with BLM or start on my melee subs. I'd really hate to feel gimp when levelling. At least I'll already have my elemental skill capped until BLM 70 (or so) so I won't have to skill up a whole lot.

Speaking of melee subs, I think I'll focus on DNC, then NIN, SAM, THF. Maybe some day I'll finish BLU and DRK. I doubt I'll touch SMN since having /SMN 49 really doesn't give anything more than /SMN 37, with the exception of more MP. Of course not having any gil to level BLM means that I also don't have much gil to buy gear for any of these jobs, either. I'm just a single fight away from the Sleepga II scroll, which sells for 500-600k. BUT since I kind of have the BLM bug, I don't know if it would be wise to sell it. I haven't checked on the price of Retrace, but I'll have to buy that, if I continue to level BLM much farther.[/s]

Posted Mar 16 2010, 10:57 AM

Cap: 99

Over the weekend, SE announced that they'll be raising the level cap across 3 updates, from 75 to 99. They didn't release any other details, so it will be interesting to see how this is implemented.

If nothing else changes, all magic users will want to use /RDM, which would allow haste, refresh, and convert from the subjob. Very exciting! Also:

/BLM: Warp II
/THF: TH2
/DNC: Haste Samba, Violent Flourish, Reverse Flourish
/SCH: Accession
/WHM: All teleports (Hello hax tele-bot: BLM/WHM)
/NIN: Yinnin/Onin
/WAR: Aggressor
/MNK: Counterstance
/BRD: Pianissimo and Minuet III

Managed to finally land in Sea over the weekend. I also finished 8-2 and finished the mini-quest to do the sky warp. It is WONDERFUL!

Now, I just need Vay to get back on so we can duo stuff up there and have some fun!

I used ~3 charges of my signal/tactics pearl w/o Mugido gaining a level. It turns out I forgot to do his 50-cap (I have been waiting to get his 55 cap flagged). I won't let that happen again... He could be 53 or 54 now!

Hopefully, we'll finish up 8-3 this week, and maybe do 8-4 next weekend. Still not sure which ring I'll pick.

Posted Mar 1 2010, 08:50 AM