Sandworm ate us! TO GUIVRE!

Another day, another tonne of HNM's to camp. Logged in to Fafnir camping but after I got lost in The Boyahda Tree it popped and we didnt claim so we moved onto Sandworm which Tigue and his party were holding for us. This time it was up in North Gustaberg [S] and we had it up a mountain :D

We all start to gather up and find out that Elchakatero isnt able to get to us so we send him to Teleport-Altep > Korroloka Tunnel > Escape > Bastok > North Gustaberg. After waiting 20 mins he tells us he dont have the maw there either lol. Meanwhile we thought the sandworm needed some walkies so we dragged it down off the mountain and half way around the map to meet Elcha, but when he said he wasnt coming, we decided to just engage and get eaten, thats when my graphics messed up and I didnt know if I would get eaten or not, so they all dragged to worm over me and eventually we all got Doomvoided.

We pop up inside the Ruhotz Silvermines and Guivre is being his usual wussy self and running away from us. This fight is alot of fun because every 10% of his health he legs it off :D

Pretty uneventful fight though, killed it and the Tathlum dropped along with his skull. Now here we are camping Ixion again, hate camping this stupid pony. Oh and in other news, my NIN is 48 and my NPC is 50, but while levelling him today I got him killed with a stray bomb toss, think he is gonna be pissed when I summon him next.

Tiamat Trouncing...

Ok bizzare dream this morning. Im driving about in Liverpool in my brand new Volkswagen Fox when some guy pulls a gun on me and takes my car and keeps spitting in it. He drives it to his house, I fly after him (of course) then call the police who appear out of no where instantly and arrest him. Then everyone is in a bank queue with the police holding them all there, including my uni mates, then I wake up and log into FFXI :D

So I get online and Tiamat has popped. He is at 80% as I Teleport-Mea to get to Attowah Chasm. Tiamat is a big lady dragon with a grumpy temperament and pops every few days. Drops are nice from Tiamat, including the Herald's Gaiters and Noritsune Kote (both of which dropped today). The Herald's Gaiters is a piece im very much after as they increase movement speed for SMN, which would mean I could kite-kill things so easily. Anyways, the fight rages on with no deaths and we take her down with no trouble at all. As soon as Tiamat dropped we headed out to Fafnir and after about an hour and a half of waiting, he popped, claimed by ORZInc. So thats the fun HNM stuff of the day, but OOH OOH!! I GOT MY SWIFT BELT LAST NIGHT! Was far too tired to even remember to take a screenshot but it doesnt matter, its a very sexy Haste piece and stacked with my current major Haste gear, will mean my up and coming NIN will be a speedy beast :D

Think we have Dynamis-Xarcabard tonight but I dont have access yet, so I think ill be the Glass Mule for AP.

Khimaira!!!!!! (Not ours this time ; ; )

So we have been camping Khimaira for hours now, and it finally pops so we put the call out for people to come and fight it, but before we all got there, Finale claimed and held it while their members scrambled in and started to kill it. Depressing...

Khimaira is a new ish HNM added to the Aht Urhgan expansion and is massively favored for the sword it drops.... THE HAUTECLAIRE!

In Medieval European Literature, Hauteclaire (also spelled Hauteclere, Halteclere) is the sword of Olivier in the French hero epic The Song of Roland (written in the mid 12th century CE). Hauteclaire is a roughened steel blade with a brown tint and a golden hilt, which has a crystal embedded in it. Olivier is the friend of the Roland and was more reserved than Roland, being considered to embody wisdom, as opposed to Roland, who was courageous, but brash. Olivier mentions in the story that he considered prudence more valuable than reckless bravado. Olivier was killed by being impaled on Algalif’s Lance, though not before he was able to use Hauteclaire to split his attacker’s head asunder.

All that crap aside, its quite possibly the best sword in the game for a Paladin like me! Obviously me wants but will I get it someday? Probably not but heres hoping. The NM is a total bitch to camp as its windows are every hour from 48-72 hours after its last death, which means it would take roughly a day to cover its camp time. The fight in itself is also a rough one with its massive move being Fulmination - Hits your entire alliance and can wipe in 1 shot! Dreadstorm is its AoE terror and much like most HNMs has an AoE stun move called Thunderstrike.

I would highly not recommend fighting this thing unless your shell is totally ready, its not for your entry level sky LS, heck even full time HNMLS's wipe to this bugger. Anyways, we didnt claim but next time im gonna be all over this :D

Ixion is come! (and so is Sandworm!)

After a few hours of camping the various zones across Vana'diels past, Dark Ixion spawned in Jugner Forest [S]. I was with my NPC in West Sarutabaruta [S] at the time, but still, NMs > Everything else in this shell so off I ran to the Outpost. Thing is, Dark Ixion depopped about 30 seconds later! So back to levelling my NPC for half an hour.... when IXION POP was heard in the LS. This time we had claim so we all dashed to East Ronfaure [S] where the shell members there were kiting while we set up.

Now the most annoying thing about this fight is not being able to see his HP or Health percent even if you have TParty running through Windower, but I found a way of viewing it anyways so not too much of an issue. The only way to get to view his HP is if you break his horn, which so far I havent seen us do. Anyways Zolo was tanking like a champion as the healing brigade kept him alive. The fight is really really slow and because he can use a move called Damsel Memento which heals him for about 5-8%, its even slower still.

So the battle raged, people gathered and we were on top form with it! Trouble is.... SANDWORM POP in the shell now too! Ixion is down to about 50% and our other little baby is wandering about in Batallia Downs [S] just waiting to be beaten on! Anyways, I get an annoying DC because I accidentally kick my internet cable out of the socket, but I come back and Ixion is around 20%. After about another 20 mins Ixion drops dead and drops the cape and the cloak plus his horn and tail (which are 100%). Tsingtao got the cloak (srsly, grats man!) and Zolo got the cape! (grats to you too man!). Rewards for the hard workers, im gonna be killing that bitch alot till my cape and cloak drops :(

Onto Sandworm now, this mob is a funny one, he can absorb all the Job Abilities and buffs of the people standing close to him, and as if thats not bad enough, at around 20% he will use an ability which warps everyone to an instanced zone for 60 minutes to fight either King Arthro, Serket, Guivre or some Worm thing! AND THEY ALL HYPER GOD MODE PLUS ALPHA! I wasnt able to go with them tho as they needed more BLM :( but they got there to be met with King Arthro and his crabs. Not sure what dropped and who got what but hey, its all fun in HNMLS's!

The Adventures of Savul-Kivul and me!

So were out camping Dark Ixion, I decide to see how my old friend, Savul-Kivul is doing. I pop him out and sure enough, he is ready to do battle immediately, so we set to work, stripping the landscape of the Rafflesia population.

I suppose I should explain a little about Savul-Kivul, you see he is my Adventuring Fellow! You do a few quests in Upper Jeuno with someone called Luto Mewrilah and eventually she will give you a Signal Pearl. This acts like a mobile phone for your Adventuring Fellow (a.k.a NPC) and allows you to call them in the field. They come in all shapes and sizes, and depending on how you answer her questions, will affect your final result as far as race, face and name go. One thing to bear in mind is racial stats are irrevelant for NPC's, so for example, a Galka healer type will have the same MP as a Tarutaru healer type. After reading up on the options, I decided to pay homage to Clarkeyboy by making my NPC his old character model, and thus, Savul-Kivul was born!

The NPC levels up alot quicker than a normal player, and starts off basically useless with little to no point to it, but as it gets stronger, you quickly see how useful it can become, and now that they have raised the cap to 70 they are becoming extremely potent. With A+ in every skill too there is no reason not to level one for soloing. Imagine a THF with a Healing type NPC soloing things like Charybdis! Thats the power your starting to get hold of with these things.

So here we are, still camping the Pony and my NPC gains a level up too! He is now level 48 and nothing can stop him! I have to admit I do love the idea of them too, its something to do when your waiting for other stuff to happen, and they are great fun to Skillchain and MB with. They work very much like a Dragoon's Wyvern in battle (as in you dont have much control but they attack what you attack) but are in my opinion far more useful :D. Also I resummoned my NPC after his battle cap was reached and he had seen fit to change clothes! Maybe they were dirty from the last run...

Coming up soon is my NPC 50 cap fight in Fei'Yin, which from what I remember on Clarkey was NOT an easy battle. Although according to Wikipedia if I go as Paladin and put my NPC on Soothing Healer it is supposed to be a breeze, so fingers crossed this wont be another RDM Maat fight for me...

Levelling Ninja...

So my next 75 will be NIN! Im really enjoying levelling another tank job but invites recently have been non-existant. Ill explain a little how Ninja works:

You start off with just a Katana until you hit level 10, which is when you get Dual-Wield. Up until now your basically the same as every other job. Once you get Duel-Wield you can equip 2 One-Handed Weapons at the same time! At level 12 you get Utsusemi: Ichi which allows you to put up 3 shadows which will absorb any single target attack (and some AoE attacks too), unless its a specific attack which will "Go through shadows". You gain the Ninjutsu that will allow you to sneak, go invisible and also to cast Elemental Magic which weakens the target to the next magic in the Elemental Wheel. Your still not really a tank yet.

Level 37 is when you get Utsusemi:Ni! This makes the job a very solid and effective tank because now you have 4 shadows from Ni, and then 3 from Ichi. Combining your elemental spells, the debuff spells and Provoke along with these shadows means effectively, your a hate machine and invincible. But its all about timing, and counting. Basically you count down to your last shadow and wait for the mob to be just about ready to hit you, and then begin casting your other Utsusemi spell.

Anyways thats about the job covered for hows its used in a party, im really getting into it but its a little gil and inventory intensive because you basically have to carry 8 stacks of Ninja Tools and loads of gear, and the tools cost money. Its all good tho, at 75 its an awesome job to play and very fun, and lets face it, the gear looks cool :D Currently level 44 but its the first thing you look for when building a party so hopefully will level quite quickly.

New Shell - Sense Of The Absolute

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am a 75SMN 75PLD 75RDM Hume on Seraph in Final Fantasy XI and this is my new ingame blog. Decided while we were camping Fafnir today to start making one. My current history is as follows: Started playing the game about 5 years ago as a Tarutaru called Clarkeyboy. I actually began by playing Tetra Master only but decided I would try out the game as it was a free months trial (I did NOT like the idea of a monthly subscription).

Level 1: Spent the first half hour of gameplay having no idea how to move my character, Num lock was off so nothing seemed to work. I introduced myself to many NPC's and got annoyed when they wouldnt answer my simple questions. After I worked out how to move, I started to explore the dizzying heights of Windurst. I felt lost, confused, abandoned by any kind of tutorial and totally pissed off with the fact I just couldnt grasp anything. Eventually I found my way out into the world and started to kill things. I was BLM....

Level 5: Shinokorosha, a 75BRD found me and amazingly, took me under his wing and trained me in the ways of the game. I was still a noob but now I had some kind of purpose and that was to one day wear an Errant Houppelande. It looked so cool and it became my purpose.

Level 8: Shino and his cronies pulled me up to Rank 5 (I had no idea what was going on but apparantley it was good and I was getting to see some nice story bits) without even having a sub job (No idea what that was at this point). Basically they tractored me around and dragged me from place to place. I was starting to enjoy the game now.

Skipping forwards a little as that could go on forever...I got my first 75 which was SMN. Absolutely loved the job, it was a great support class, and an adequate DD too, and this was my ticket into endgame fun, which until this point I was only told was great but had never really seen it.

Anyways the months and years rolled by, I got RDM, BRD, THF and BLM all up to 75 and gathered various rare pieces of gear from sea, sky and land HNM/NM/Events. Met some great friends, Draygon, Bethony, Sorceress, Sorceror, Buxx, Bornick, Tewl, Bradlowz amongst a few. We did loads of things that other people basically just moaned about not being able to do, and as we were always camping things like Serket, Roc, Xolotl, Simurgh, Lord of Onzozo, and other things, other people rarely got claims over us, thus causing my reputation to go down the pan, as everyone knows, if you outclaim someone, your instantly the worst person in the world.

I digress, time went on, and after doing so many things that got me in trouble with the law (GM's) I finally lost my character which to me was a blessing as I was finally released from the addiction..... until a year later (1 yr 5 months ago) when I found my old FFXI disks and decided to play it casually (yeah right). Anyways I reinstalled the game and made Touchstone! I wanted to be a PLD so thats what I did, levelled MNK to 18, WAR to 37 then PLD to 75, did all that in about a month. Capped out my fame, got to Rank 6, unlocked Sea and Sky, all in about 3 months, and I was back with a 75 and various random subs.

Played for a few months bouncing about from quest, to mission, to exp and found I wasnt enjoying the game as much as I did when I was a taru, so I decided to quit and leave for good... but after 9 months I came back, worked myself back up to high standing and got SMN and RDM levelled to 75, and here I am, to this point in time after a fun run in Midgard for a few months, Tsingtao sent me a tell asking me to come help Sense Of The Absolute with Sandworm, so I did, got paid, and left. Same thing happened the next day but this time, I didnt get paid, I got a pearl! That was yesterday, and in that one day we killed Aspidochelone (new title), King Behemoth (new title), and I got a group together for Storms of Fate.... FAILED! This morning we killed another Sandworm Doomvoided NM and also Dark Ixion (another new title!), which brings us to this point in time, camping Fafnir..... I hope you enjoy keeping up with my adventures and I will try to post as many pics as I can. The result: No claim ; ;