FFXI

So, I've started playing FFXI more frequently again. I never really quit, but there were long stretches in the past four months or so where I never really logged on. My interest in the game has ebbed and flowed over the past few years, but for some reason I always seem to wind up coming back to it. I think it's an inevitable cycle. Not enough to do, and I don't feel like there's anything for the game to offer me; too much to do and it begins to feel like a second job. Right now I feel there's a nice balance; my linkshell is focusing largely on sky farming and god pops, largely to get its large base of new members a good focus of gear to start with, so that we might start taking on more and more of the harder fights. We have the numbers of quality people to take down some of the harder wyrms, but not necessarily the right job distribution. We're heavy on melee and light on BLMs and SMNs, making the fights like Tiamat, Jormungand, and Vrtra all but impossible. It's telling that of my three high-level jobs - DRK75, BRD75, and BLM72, I've been asked to come as BLM to essentially all events in the past month, but for our last god fights.

I have been trying to get my BLM up to 75, but experience comes slow at high levels for BLM, since most high-level support jobs and tanks only really seem to be interested in TPburns. Small wonder, since a good TPburn can crank out an excess of 10k/hr without too much difficulty, but it makes BLM seem like LFG with DRK at high levels all over again.

I do know that once I get BLM to 75 I'm going to focus on BRD and merit the shit out of my BLM. Full elemental magic merits, I think (maybe 1 or 2 in enfeebling), thunder potency level 4, all of the new AM2 meritable spells. That should be nice and easy, and the fact that I have BRD leveled will make my BLM much easier to crank into the uber range.

I've been trying to work on my COP missions to get sea access, but I'm so bloody lazy when it comes to level cap stuff. I'm currently on promy-vahzl, and getting a group set up for that is fairly difficult since it's the last of the 50 cap missions. After that, at 60 cap, more of my current BLM gear will apply and I should be able to get more pick-up parties as a result.

Also, I'm totally stoked with the additions to DRK in the most recent update. Drain 2 and Dread Spikes are both totally sex. I've already magic bursted a Drain 2 onto an EM mob for 400+, and the fact that it bumps up your max hp to whatever you drain for carries with it a ton of ancillary benefits, the most primary of which is an increased ability to pop Souleater without having to fear for your life quite so much. Combined with Dread Spikes, which absorbs an amount of damage equal to half your max hp in melee damage, and under the right circumstances, one should be able to pop souleater without any fear of dying whatsoever.

Hell, I'm considering the possibility of a DRK-burn party. Probably DRK/WAR x4, BRD/WHM x1, RDM/WHM x1. Just allow the dread spikes to tank and have people pop off Souleater whenever they can. Okay, so maybe it won't work, but it's still a fun thought.

Anyway, Prec (my linkshell) is getting stronger every day, and yesterday had one of our best experiences yet in our newest incarnation: a King Behemoth claim and kill, over most of the other top linkshells on the server. The fight went smoothly with only 1 or 2 deaths, and while we didn't get that great of drops (a shining cloth for the LS bank and a crimson mask that went to Conor, a well-deserving RDM), it was awesome. The fight ended at about 6:15pm, which left me barely enough time to haul ass to work and catch the shift change meeting as it was starting up; the rest of the LS did sky gods after, and went 12/12, including going 4/5 on getting Byakko's Haidate for our NINs and SAMs.

Now we should have something like 7-8 Kirin pops, which we should be able to spread out over the next month or so. That's a positive thought because I have to imagine that I'm near to the top of the list for a Hecatomb body. That's a piece of gear I've had my eye on for a very long time. I'm not sure if we would distribute out an Osode if it dropped, but if we did, my BRD has got to be high on the list for that as well (though I don't know how much I'd use it as I already have a Sha'ir Manteel).

Anyway, now it's time for work again. This time 24 hours ago I was nuking with my gimp BLM on KB. Now I'm writing about it, and again finding an excuse to make myself late.