Boredom Brings Out My Inner Deathgnome
Apr. 21st, 2008 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianAs I am screamingly bored at work, I will now whitter, rather aimlessly, about FFXI and what I am doing therein. Yeah, well, I know not everyone is particularly keen on those sorts of whitterings of mine, but hey, you're missing out. Sometimes, the stories are funny.
I didn't think I was going to like Summoner, after crawling my way to level 4. But then, that's probably understandable. Levels 1-4 are never particularly fun as a Taru, on the grounds of having little to work with and having to survive on predominant melee, which gets one dead when one has very low HP and DEF, and crappy level 1 armour. And therefore, there is a lot of death. This gets slow and boring and one starts to hate the job class before one's even got started. So after a slow crawl to level 4 in Windurst, with constant death by rabbit and, in one case, unfortunate poisoning by Crawler (if I'd known I had access to Healing Ruby at the time, I'd not have fared so badly), I was starting to think that weeks of effort to get the SMN flag quest done had all been a total waste of time.
This, to be fair, is what happened with Beastmaster. Not that the BST flag quest was particularly hard, mind - beyond unlocking Bard, it was probably the easiest gil I've ever made, the picking up of that particular subjob. Except when I got lost trying to find that path down the cliff in Qufim and was all of the worried about the Kraken I never actually saw. Anyway, not the point. BST just got slow and frustrating, so I stopped at level 7. Never picked it up again, never figured I would. On the other hand, now that I've tried another pet-based job (if you really want to call Shiva, Garuda or Ramuh 'pets', though at the minute I've only got Carbuncle), I might give it a try, on the grounds of macros making all the difference.
I finally hit level 5 Summoner around mid-afternoon yesterday, and got access to a halfway decent offensive move on Carbuncle's part - Poison Nails. This kind of thing is vital when you're small and diddy and squishable, though having Healing Ruby on macro is no end of helpful. Suddenly, things got a whole lot easier when I got the hang of when to summon Carbuncle and when to release him in order to conserve some MP, not to mention having the MP to blow on keeping him around for more than 30 seconds or so. Plus having all those things on macros, including the "Attack" command, so I can set my little Fluffmodeus on one mob while I beat another one to death, thus doubling my EXP in low-level areas, helps an awful lot. No more fumbling around the scroll-down menus with my mouse trying to find the appropriate command. Just one simple CTRL+[number] or ALT+[number] combination and voila!
So now I'm SMN level 7, and I'm debating what to do next. The list goes as follows, in no particular order:
- Avatar Fights. Basically, if you want an SMN avatar other than Fluffmodeus, you have to defeat it in battle. Which means taking on Garuda, Shiva, Ramuh, Ifrit, Leviathan, Titan and, after you've beaten all of those, Fenrir. I might get a party together and do the Prime fights, or I might level SMN painfully up to 20 with only Carbuncle and then do the mini-fights. I don't know yet, though the rewards for doing the Prime fights are good enough that I suppose I wouldn't have a hard time finding a party if I advertised on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ffxi_asura, and it's got the advantage of letting me
- Rank 4 Mission. I could wait until I've hit level 50 or so and then try to solo my way through that one, but on the whole, that sounds really painful. Then again, provided I don't take any aggro on the way up the Tower, and I shouldn't at level 50-ish, no problem. On the other hand, that might take longer than I'd like, so I might just start asking for help in Jeuno, or on Allakhazam orffxi_asura.
- Rank 5 Mission. Yeah, I'm probably going to need some serious help with that one, even at level 50-ish. I'm definitely going to have to post help requests on that one...
- Levelling WHM. Now at level 39, would like to get up another 10 levels before doing much of anything. (Yippety-skip; back to Altepa, from the looks of things. That or Garlaige. I hate the freakin' Deserts...) Of course, levelling to that degree involves needing a fair few spell scrolls, which means needing gil, which means...
- That Stone Monument Quest. I really need to get my stone monument impressions done; the gil rewards on the last two are impressive, if only because the last two I need are so everlastingly hard to get. Rolanberry's really easy - ride up to it on a chocobo and you're done. However, the one in Batallia Downs requires a run through the Eldieme Necropolis to get to (though at least now I know that even if I get aggro when I come out, I can solo anything Batallia throws at me provided I've got Stoneskin up) and as for the one in Sauromugue Champaign ... not only do you have to run through Garlaige Citadel to get to it, but you need a party to at least be in the vicinity, if not with you, because someone needs to be standing on the switches for the Banishing Gates to open so you can get to the appropriate exit point in Sauromugue. Plus Champaign is yet more feathery death. Still, speaking of the Necropolis and Garlaige...
- Tele-scroll Quests. I plan to do the Tele-Altep quest to get the scroll for my own use - apparently it's easy - and I'll probably do the same for Yhoat, but it depends. However, I'm also going to be doing the ones for Mea, Dem and Holla at long last, mostly on the grounds that I could seriously use the gil. Watching Yhoat and Altep go for 80k+ at the AH ... that was frightening. So I'm going to get the scrolls for Mea, Dem and Holla, put 'em on AH and hope like hell they sell.
- Other Quests. There are bound to be quests I can solo with minimal aggro now. Particularly given WHM with Sneak, Invis, and Enhancing magic approaching cap. I'd like to do the Warp II quest, but am not entirely sure on that one for a few more levels, and I'd like a map of the Glacier before I do much on that score. Still, I'll have to have a look at quest lists and see what's available. I've got level 8 fame in Windy and would really like to crank that, not to mention improving my level 5 fame in San d'Oria. I should check my Bastok fame, too - I've been handing over a fair bit of Zehrun Soot to that Galka that kicks around, so it should be fairly good. Then again, I traded a whole stack of bat wings to that paranoid Elvaan in North San d'Oria and my fame still hasn't increased. Suckage. I dunno - maybe I should do some of the Tenshodo fame quests...
Yes, I have spent a fair bit of the morning whittering about FFXI, but there really is nothing to do at the minute. There should be later, but not just now. And therefore, I'm going to nip out for my lunch break just a little bit early, on the grounds of needing to stop by a cashpoint.
Oh, I noted on Amazon that Small Favour is out. I suppose that's probably hardcover, but ... *whimper* WANT!
I didn't think I was going to like Summoner, after crawling my way to level 4. But then, that's probably understandable. Levels 1-4 are never particularly fun as a Taru, on the grounds of having little to work with and having to survive on predominant melee, which gets one dead when one has very low HP and DEF, and crappy level 1 armour. And therefore, there is a lot of death. This gets slow and boring and one starts to hate the job class before one's even got started. So after a slow crawl to level 4 in Windurst, with constant death by rabbit and, in one case, unfortunate poisoning by Crawler (if I'd known I had access to Healing Ruby at the time, I'd not have fared so badly), I was starting to think that weeks of effort to get the SMN flag quest done had all been a total waste of time.
This, to be fair, is what happened with Beastmaster. Not that the BST flag quest was particularly hard, mind - beyond unlocking Bard, it was probably the easiest gil I've ever made, the picking up of that particular subjob. Except when I got lost trying to find that path down the cliff in Qufim and was all of the worried about the Kraken I never actually saw. Anyway, not the point. BST just got slow and frustrating, so I stopped at level 7. Never picked it up again, never figured I would. On the other hand, now that I've tried another pet-based job (if you really want to call Shiva, Garuda or Ramuh 'pets', though at the minute I've only got Carbuncle), I might give it a try, on the grounds of macros making all the difference.
I finally hit level 5 Summoner around mid-afternoon yesterday, and got access to a halfway decent offensive move on Carbuncle's part - Poison Nails. This kind of thing is vital when you're small and diddy and squishable, though having Healing Ruby on macro is no end of helpful. Suddenly, things got a whole lot easier when I got the hang of when to summon Carbuncle and when to release him in order to conserve some MP, not to mention having the MP to blow on keeping him around for more than 30 seconds or so. Plus having all those things on macros, including the "Attack" command, so I can set my little Fluffmodeus on one mob while I beat another one to death, thus doubling my EXP in low-level areas, helps an awful lot. No more fumbling around the scroll-down menus with my mouse trying to find the appropriate command. Just one simple CTRL+[number] or ALT+[number] combination and voila!
So now I'm SMN level 7, and I'm debating what to do next. The list goes as follows, in no particular order:
- Avatar Fights. Basically, if you want an SMN avatar other than Fluffmodeus, you have to defeat it in battle. Which means taking on Garuda, Shiva, Ramuh, Ifrit, Leviathan, Titan and, after you've beaten all of those, Fenrir. I might get a party together and do the Prime fights, or I might level SMN painfully up to 20 with only Carbuncle and then do the mini-fights. I don't know yet, though the rewards for doing the Prime fights are good enough that I suppose I wouldn't have a hard time finding a party if I advertised on
ffxi_asura, and it's got the advantage of letting me - Rank 4 Mission. I could wait until I've hit level 50 or so and then try to solo my way through that one, but on the whole, that sounds really painful. Then again, provided I don't take any aggro on the way up the Tower, and I shouldn't at level 50-ish, no problem. On the other hand, that might take longer than I'd like, so I might just start asking for help in Jeuno, or on Allakhazam or
ffxi_asura. - Rank 5 Mission. Yeah, I'm probably going to need some serious help with that one, even at level 50-ish. I'm definitely going to have to post help requests on that one...
- Levelling WHM. Now at level 39, would like to get up another 10 levels before doing much of anything. (Yippety-skip; back to Altepa, from the looks of things. That or Garlaige. I hate the freakin' Deserts...) Of course, levelling to that degree involves needing a fair few spell scrolls, which means needing gil, which means...
- That Stone Monument Quest. I really need to get my stone monument impressions done; the gil rewards on the last two are impressive, if only because the last two I need are so everlastingly hard to get. Rolanberry's really easy - ride up to it on a chocobo and you're done. However, the one in Batallia Downs requires a run through the Eldieme Necropolis to get to (though at least now I know that even if I get aggro when I come out, I can solo anything Batallia throws at me provided I've got Stoneskin up) and as for the one in Sauromugue Champaign ... not only do you have to run through Garlaige Citadel to get to it, but you need a party to at least be in the vicinity, if not with you, because someone needs to be standing on the switches for the Banishing Gates to open so you can get to the appropriate exit point in Sauromugue. Plus Champaign is yet more feathery death. Still, speaking of the Necropolis and Garlaige...
- Tele-scroll Quests. I plan to do the Tele-Altep quest to get the scroll for my own use - apparently it's easy - and I'll probably do the same for Yhoat, but it depends. However, I'm also going to be doing the ones for Mea, Dem and Holla at long last, mostly on the grounds that I could seriously use the gil. Watching Yhoat and Altep go for 80k+ at the AH ... that was frightening. So I'm going to get the scrolls for Mea, Dem and Holla, put 'em on AH and hope like hell they sell.
- Other Quests. There are bound to be quests I can solo with minimal aggro now. Particularly given WHM with Sneak, Invis, and Enhancing magic approaching cap. I'd like to do the Warp II quest, but am not entirely sure on that one for a few more levels, and I'd like a map of the Glacier before I do much on that score. Still, I'll have to have a look at quest lists and see what's available. I've got level 8 fame in Windy and would really like to crank that, not to mention improving my level 5 fame in San d'Oria. I should check my Bastok fame, too - I've been handing over a fair bit of Zehrun Soot to that Galka that kicks around, so it should be fairly good. Then again, I traded a whole stack of bat wings to that paranoid Elvaan in North San d'Oria and my fame still hasn't increased. Suckage. I dunno - maybe I should do some of the Tenshodo fame quests...
Yes, I have spent a fair bit of the morning whittering about FFXI, but there really is nothing to do at the minute. There should be later, but not just now. And therefore, I'm going to nip out for my lunch break just a little bit early, on the grounds of needing to stop by a cashpoint.
Oh, I noted on Amazon that Small Favour is out. I suppose that's probably hardcover, but ... *whimper* WANT!