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:

BLM kiting Campaign Battle NM? {|Death|} {|You can have this.|} {|Please|}

I’ve been pretty involved in the Campaign Battle part of the Wing of the Goddess expansion since its release. The missions are probably interesting, but I don’t really care about those even if you do get to meet a male Mithra. My only complaint so far is the blms that actually think they can kite every mob that shows up. Guess what? You can’t, you idiot. Not only will they run you down and kill you, I’ll be trailing behind them to /laugh at you and /dance4 on your stupid corpse. Because you’ve earned it, douchebag.

What Kind of Idiot Has a Disband Macro? Apparently, Me.

With Warrior at 75 and Scholar being a boring pile, I decided to go back to Samurai for a while. It’s already 59, so I figured I could just do Campaign Battles to level it up until I could afford some non-gimp gear. One of those would be the Daihannya, a nice Great Katana. It drops off the Keeper of Halidom in the Sanctuary of Zi’Tah, and according to wiki the drop rate is an awesome 0.6%. Since I’d be farming Goobbues while camping the NM, I thought it would be okay. So I headed out to Zi’Tah to where the big guy spawns and get the 2 Goobbues there locked down, killing each one right as they respawn. A thf/nin was out there too farming just tree cutting, and we got to talking. (S)he would help kill the NM and keep the cutting and 2 clumps of moss it drops, and if the sword drops I’d get that. So I started a pt with the thf and got to work. About 20 minutes in, guess who shows up?


Yes, I am farming wearing a scorpion harness. Anyway, we kill the NM and the Daihannya actually drops! So I cast my lot and hit ctrl+7, my warp cudgel equip macro. At least, I thought that’s what it was. Apparently I hit the up arrow a time too many switching between sam and war macros and ended up on my old blm macro list. For some reason I’d made a pt disband macro, and I’ll give you three guesses to pick with number it was assigned to. That’s right ctrl+7. The pt disbands and all the treasure the Keeper of Halidom had dropped are totally lost. Now I’m stuck in Zi’Tah until I can get another daihannya or make enough gil to just go buy one….

The Joy of Joyeuse

During my recent ZNM exploits with Mogwae and his linkshell (I never bothered to /check anyone to see what it’s called), I was able to get the time of death of Charybdis, one of the game’s more pursued NMs. While it’s not as grand a monster as Fafnir or King Vinegaroon, it does drop the Joyeuse 100% of the time. The sword itself looks a little fruity, but it attacks twice 45% of the time without double attack. So for a warrior, there aren’t many swords that could be better. For me, it’s probably the best sword I could ever get. Ridill might be better, but I’ll never get that. Ever. Anyway, Mogwae, myself and a few of Mogwae’s ls buddies all headed down into the Sea Serpent Grotto to find the flying octopi and take his sword. After killing a few Devil Mantas, the big guy showed up. I myself did very little fighting, which was gay. The six or seven other people there to help killed Charybdis with little trouble, though. I don’t think any of them came close to dying the whole fight. So I got my new sword, and they got Charybdis’s time of death, allowing them to come back 3 more times (I think) and get swords for the people who didn’t yet have one. Here are a couple pics of me with my new sword.

Sandworm Wrangler: Not Quite What It Sounds Like

A couple weeks back, I logged on and headed to Windurst Waters[S] to do a few Campaign Battles while lfp. As soon as I stepped into town, I saw someone shouting {|Sandworm|} {|Title|} {|Do you need it?|}. I knew the Sandworm was a notorious monster added when WoTG was released, but had never seen it in person. I sent the guy a /tell asking for an invite, and a few seconds later I was part of a 14-person alliance and running out of town to meet the Sandworm for the first time. Because this is FFXI, this Notorious Monster often spawns near the outposts, right where most Campaign Battles will be taking place. Cresting the last hill, the Sandworm came into view. For those of you that haven’t seen it, it’s a massive creature.



One of the alliance’s black mages cast a quick Dia on it, and the battle was on. Since the Sandworm is about lvl 80 and this is FFXI, it’s a pain in the ass to hit with melee strikes. So, me and the like 5 sams that came along ran around killing bunnies and birds and crawlers to build up enough tp to run up to the Sandworm on the rare occasions it stood still and let loose with the weapons skills.



This went on for a while, as the Sandworm’s hp was very, very slowly chipped away. I myself got tired of running off to kill bunnies and decided I’d just run after the damned thing and melee when I had the chance.



After nearly half an hour, a Campaign Battle started right around us. While that actually does sound really cool, it was really annoying because all those mobs and npc were causing a lot of lag. The Campaign Battle ended with the Sandworm at about 5% hp, so I got impatient and provoked the big bastard. As a paladin had joined the alliance and was doing the same thing, it turned out to not be as suicidal as I first expected.



Forty-five minutes after the fight started, the Sandworm fell. I got 200xp, an earth crystal and a shiny new title out of it, which was a pretty good deal considering how little I actually contributed to the fight. Without all those sams, everyone would’ve died pretty quick. I’d survive just because I don’t mind warping out on a pt when things look bad, but then I wouldn’t have gotten the title of Sandworm Wrangler.

Thoughts on Thief

After hitting lvl 73 on war, I decided I should probably lvl the possible subjobs I may need. With ninja and samurai already done, it was time to pick thief back up. I stopped lvling thief at 20, so I had a way to go before I’d be done with it. Thief in the early lvls is basically a weaker war, but you won’t be tanking. I myself don’t care for tanking so that part I like. On the other hand, you’re usually going to be the puller. I dislike pulling more than tanking, especially when you’re the lowest lvl in the pt and the others bitch because an IT mob to you is only VT to them and they don’t get a big enough xp bonus from their empress bands. Fucking whiners, the whole lot of them. Once I hit 30, things got a lot better. “Better” meaning I had access to SATA. Once newer players see the damage SATA puts up, they want to see it every battle, which I’m more than happy to do as long as everyone sets up for it. Although having to teach tanks about SATA takes a little time, the majority of them will get the hang of it pretty quick if they don’t want me SATAing onto the other pt members and Fleeing as they die. Only had to do that once with a Goblin Smithy before the pt would listen to me. Hopefully, the job will still be fun all the way to 37 & beyond.