What’s Left?

My gil is nearly gone, and I have little hope for finding a new source of income. My experiences in endgame have been all bad. I ask for help killing the NM’s inside La Vaule[S] and get only silence. Any other answer would be preferable even if it is “no”. “Where’s your Brutal Earring? Where’s your Byakko’s Haidate?” I keep being asked. All I can think to say is “Help me get them or shut the fuck up about it.” My friendlist is down to one person. My linkshell is gone. Still rank 6 and my progress into the CoP/ToAU/WoTG storylines have all stopped. I have over 200 beastman’s seals and nothing to do with them. There aren’t many bcnms I have the gear to solo other than Treasures and Tribulations, and the Sorcerer’s Ring is too rare a drop to spend the seals on. I can’t solo mobs for the ZNM system, so it is useless. So much of the game is that way: Unsoloable, and therefore beyond my grasp. Merit parties are just like every other xp party: Everyone whines for a bard, and then complains if the party can’t get 25k per hour. Campaign Battle remains, though its appeal is dwindling. What am I still doing here? I wonder how many times I can log out before I stop logging in.

Capitalizing on the Mistakes of Others, or How I got Goliard Clogs.

Recently I was invited to a pickup group doing a few Nyzul Isle 15-20 runs. For any that don’t know, floor 20 is where the feet of the Askar/Denali/Goliard sets drop. The party leader apparently reserved the Askar boots for him, and asked the rest of the party which of the other boots they’d like. With no use for the Denali, I said Goliard. Surely those clogs would provide motivation to get off my lazy ass and level a mage job. I did get black mage to 37, but red and white are somewhere in the 20’s. Scholar’s what I’d like to take to 75 based on what I’ve played of them all. Before I continue, here’s the three drops I’m talking about, courtesy of the FFXI Wiki:







Anyway, I’ve done a few of these 15-20 runs, somewhere in the upper teens. The first goes fine and we clear it, but nothing drops. The second run we get stuck for a few minutes on one of those “Light the lamps in a certain order” floors and run out of time halfway through killing the floor 20 boss. The third we get through everything fast again, and Goliard Clogs drop. Since me and the red mage were the only ones that seemed to actually want them, we both cast our lots. Her: 9 (very me-like) Me: 977. The Goliard Clogs were mine, and the red mage didn’t seem too happy that I couldn’t use them right away. She (I refer to the rdm as a she since it was a Mithra. Chances are it was a guy.) was upset for a few minutes, but didn’t seem to mind all that much after a while. We all had tags for a 4th run, and ran out of time again with the boss at 2%. While I would’ve preferred that Great Axe that let’s you unlock King’s Justice, I’ll settle for footgear I’ll be able to use in the not-so-distant future.

Dynamis, Where the Douchebag is King.

I should have published this back in July sometime.

After complaining about my lack of “endgame” gear for a while, I found my way into a Dynamis only linkshell. The linkshell’s leader is named Drittz, I quickly learned. Someone that names themselves after a faggy dark elf character in a series of stupid “high fantasy” books already has a stike against them in my book (which is superior to regular books). As soon as I saw this guy, there went strike 2 and strike 3. He was Elvaan, and a San d’Orian. He was also a lvl 75 ninja, which is the secret strike 4. Most 75 ninjas are fucking douchebags, with very few exceptions. I was invited to come along for Dynamis – San d’Oria, just to get it cleared. Apparently the boss of each Dynamis area leaves a ??? spot on the ground that gives you a key item you need to access the later areas. It was interesting to learn about how a successful Dynamis is run. About halfway through, one of the mobs dropped the warrior relic boots. Even though this was my first Dynamis ever, I was the only warrior in the whole thing, so Drittz said I could have them. The whole group cleared the Dynamis with very few, if any, problems. I thought this could be something I’d like to do on a consistent basis.



Boy was I wrong. The more time I spent with these people, the more I learned that I really, really didn’t care for them. Nearly all of them are from the same social/endgame linkshell, so I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about most of the time. Granted, I don’t know what the fuck MoogleArmy’s talking about most of the time but I’ve been there long enough to at least recognize a few names they tend to mention. Drittz is an arrogant douchebag, and more than one person told me he was. Aricelia said so using more curse words than are usually needed, but Aricelia’s bluntness is usually a good thing (Unless she’s talking about me, then it’s her being a bitch). I thought I could put up with all this bullshit as long as I got my Beastmaster relic armor, my only reason for having even a slight interest in Dynamis in the first place. I don’t really care about warrior’s relic armor. I just wanted BST, and I made sure to let everyone around me know it. Anywho, after a few Dynamis runs, clearing Bastok and then doing San d’Oria again, we get to Windurst. This one’s a bitch, apparently. We nearly made it all the way through before we all got killed and ran out of time. What bothered me is that no BST relic dropped. About a month later, we go to Windurst again. This would be my fifth run, making me more than able to lot for whatever relic I had written in my search comment. I was the only person with BST marked, and lo and behold, BST drops from about the 11th mob. Drittz asks who has BST marked, and I say me. He then asks what lvl my BST is, and I once again tell him it’s only 37 but it’s the only reason I’m here. He then declares it a freelot, finally erasing all doubt I had about him possibly not being a huge fucking douche. I cast my lot for it, getting a 997. Nearly everyone else in the ls showed how un-Drittz-like they were and didn’t lot at all. A few did, and I wrote their names down for future reference. Once enough time had passed and the helm was mine, I got a /tell from a Paladin named Cabaal congratulating me on my new helm. I thanked him and had a little talk in /tell about a few things. Maybe five mobs later, a second Monster Helm drops. Simply awesome. If I had lost that helm, which I was the only person in the ls that had it marked in their search comment I would’ve warped away from the whole fucking thing and told Drittz just what I thought about him. Hint: He’s a fucking douchebag. The run through Windurst continued, and we got all the way to the final boss, a big giant Yagudo statue. It’s surrounded by other mobs, so one person has to train them all one way while another provokes the Boss the other way, where the group can kill it. Well, the puller got the train headed one way, but nobody provoked the boss and it went right past us all. Drittz was dead at the time, and he threw a fit like a little sissy girl. I myself couldn’t stop laughing. I fell out of my chair and hurt my shoulder a little, but it was totally worth it. Time expired and we were all kicked out of Dynamis, with Drittz being the only one of us dead. Here’s my favorite screenshot of the last two years: