I decided to head back to FFXI after an 8 month break (though I made a cameo back in Feb I think). My other activities kind of died down and boredom set it. Most of the major work that my new house (new to me) required have been addressed. I settled in and pieced together my home theater. After playing MW2 with my RL buddy for some time, we both got tired of the game and how broken(unbalanced) it is. We moved onto Battlefield Bad Company 2 and that was fun. I also got to play it with some old AP members on PSN, Foosh, Eldo, and Cala (the real Cala). But lately the game has been experiencing some really bad lag, and it's just not fun like that. Their dedicated servers are in desperate need of a tune-up, but I doubt it's gonna happen. They've made their money, and now they don't care anymore. Sad face.
I was lured back to FFXI by the upcoming June update, which includes: conclusion of WotG nation quests, elimination of CoP level restrictions (to get Ark access to Sea) and level cap increase to 80. Mog Bonanza doesn't hurt either.
My to do list:
1. Get Mog marbles - Completed. Bought myself 100 marbles and guaranteed myself at least a rank 4 item.
2. Catch up on WotG missions/quest - Been slacking in this department. I think the next Windurst mission is soloable/2boxable but I haven't looked into doing quests/missions very much.
3. Trial of the Magians quest, namely AGI/Evasion Dagger - My goal is go get myself a Dakini DMG25 Delay195 and mods of +9 DMG, -5 Delay +4 AGI +12EVA. Basically an awesome evasion tanking dagger, to add to my THF arsenal. The problem is that I'm finding out this is a very time consuming quest. I didn't realize it till after I started that Ascule had already done an analysis on this same line of quests http://ascule.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-content-analysis-magians-vnms.html . Her estimations are quite unsettling, but pretty true.
In order to complete this dagger I need to complete the following trials:
Trial 16 - 100 Rabbits (any weather) Completed ~ 3 hours
Trial 17 - 100 Crabs (fire/wind/thunder/light) Completed ~ 7 hours
Trial 24 - 100 Monsters (wind weather/day) Completed ~ 3 hours
Trial 25 - 100 Vermin (wind weather/day) Completed ~ 2 hours
Trail 26 - 150 Birds (wind weather/day) In Progress ~ 1/2 hour to get 44/150 kills
Trail 27 - 200 Morbol (wind weather/day)
I kind of wished I had kept better track of time spent, but above are my rough estimates.
The first two trials must be done during the listed weather effects. I found Trial 16 with rabbits to be fairly simple, doing it in Uleguerand Range because it's snowing 90% of the time there, so you don't have to wait around for weather very often, just keep pulling rabbits and you're good. I teamed up with another DNC doing the same trial. Only real problem here is finding a safe place to camp, because just about everything but rabbits aggro here. So you lose time to having to navigate around mobs and also rabbits do not link so you have to pull one at a time.
Trial 17 was by far the most annoying and time consuming one. You must kills crabs under a light weather effect (wind/fire/thunder/light). This pretty much leaves you with Kuftal, Teriggan, and Vunkerl Inlet (S). I chose to do this at Vunkerl since of the three areas, it has weather effects the most often with thunder and wind, though not as often as I'd like. I'd say based on my experience, expect about 30-40% weather here. At first I was 2boxing these... but I started to ask other DNC and THFs to team up after seeing how slow these were going. I spent a lot of time just afking and waiting for weather effects. But when you're teamed up with 3-4 other ppl, crabs start falling left and right once the weather does turn on.
Starting at Trial 24 and on, you must kill the required mob under wind weather or day of the week. In my opinion, this is WAY WAY better than weather. Here's why... you don't have to wait around for weather to happen. Sure, you do have to wait around for the day to be the right day, but once it is, you can possibly make this go very quickly with the proper resources and planning. I put Ark to work here, and made him my Level Sync whore. The idea is basically sync to a low level and kill weak mobs. Though I didn't start doing this until Trial 25 and on, in theory Trial 24 should be a breeze since ANY mob during wind weather or day is required. Just sync to 10 and go on a killing spree around any of the starting towns.
For Trial 25, that's what I did for vermins. Vermins are pretty much any insect type mob (bees, crawlers, diremites, etc.). I didn't think it through at first, and foolishly went to Valkurm with Ark's level 28 DRK to kill flies. Though I did make decent progress (60 flies during 1 Windsday) I could have done much better elsewhere. There just isn't a steady amount of flies to kill and they have a decent amount of hp for a level 28. And so for the next Windsday I moved it to Saruta Baruta, which is a great area for this with all the bees and crawlers they have (easily killable for a level 10). I synced up to Ark's level 10 war and went bug squashing. Finished the last 40 kills 7 game hours into Windsday. That's when I went to turn in my Dagger to start the next quest.
So continuing on the SAME Windsday that I finished my Trial 24 on, I went back to Saruta and started to kill all the Carrion Birds there while synced once again. I should get the last 106 kills during the next Windsday or two. I'm glad I actually spent time Xp'ing some of Arks lowbie jobs, and now have a nice variety of job levels to choose from.
Now what has me worried is the last quest, Morbols. I've done my homework and there really isn't too many places for Morbols. The lowest level ones that pop in a sizable quantity are Ochus in Rolanberry, and in order to easily kill those I'd estimate a level 50+ would be needed to sync to, which Ark does not have. Alternatives are Ameratats around Whitegate, or Ochus in Rolanberr [S], but either way I would need my 75's. Though it wouldn't be tough, it would be more time consuming due to the higher HP pool they'd have. And 200, WTH SE!
I think I'm going to take the final quest slowly just due to the mob involved and the sheer amount required. And even w/o doing the final quest, the dagger has some decent and usable stats at that level: 25 DMG 195 Delay, DMG:+7 Delay:-5 AGI+2 Evasion+5.
I'm almost considering getting another one of the same dagger. Dual wielding on THF with Evasion gear would allow me to 2box some tougher NMs. +8 AGI, +24 Eva /drool
4. Campaign to highest medal - So far, I've been able to regain my medal that was revoked for being inactive for so long. Two more medals to max out.
5. Cap off exp to whatever jobs I can - So far THF, and SAM have been capped. Working on WAR and BLM, and if time permits, the other jobs I have left (MNK, NIN, WHM, BRD, PLD).
6. Work on Leathercraft to 100 - Since coming back, I've gone from about 68 to 74. Working on Tiger Mantles to 75, then Tiger Jerkins to 79.
Tune of the Moment: Tydi - Vanilla
