I'm Back!

As I mentioned, I'm rather unhappy with Comcast. But, I'm back now. (And there was much rejoicing?)

Square-Enix disappoints me by not having any Black Mage Updates on POL as of Monday or even today when they posted about....Circle Job Ability updates?

Seriously?

I mean, sure, they were kind of hilariously useless, but really?

Will they give Accuracy and Attack bonuses now or something and last longer? The picture shows what I think is Warding Circle (anti-Demons, right?) in a fight with a Raptor. Which doesn't make much sense, but then the promo pictures frequently don't.

So, some added bonus regardless of mob you're fighting if you pop one? Maybe the DRG JA would give Wyvern Regen or something?

I'm really only interested in how they work subbed as I don't have any of those jobs to 75.

BLUtastic!?

There's also some new BLU spells. A green glowy thing and some blue lines.

No idea what the first is supposed to be. Maybe some Empty mob ability? I really don't mess with the things enough to recognize it if it is.

The second I'm guessing is maybe a weird Goblin Rush?

Skill Ups?

The thing in the second teaser that will interest the most people is SE apparently realizes that skilling up with Level Sync is kind of annoying. So "low to middle levels" are getting a speed up in skilling up. Hopefully, that means pre-200 skill level.

Will it affect pets like...Automatons? SE hates PUPs, like everyone else, so that probably won't happen.

/sigh

Meh. Still no Black Mage updates. No new avatars (lol). Hopefully, SE announces something pretty cool soon.

Comcast Sucks Ass

I'm not sure if it's just Comcast sucks in general, have a "Quality of Service" shit that's trashing my packets so my neighbors can get Twilight in HD on On Demand, or just suck in general (or do I repeat myself?), but I haven't been able to load a webpage at 28.8kbps shitty dial up speeds all day.

No, I can't even get fucking pages to load without timing out partially or fully several times and taking 15 fucking minutes.

Forget trying to play, say FFXI, it times out too, because COMCAST FUCKING SUCKS.

Now, everyone, wish me luck trying to post this and then get my fucking blog to load again. Since COMCAST FUCKING SUCKS.

And I haven't even started drinking yet today.

P.S. Happy 4th of July and/or belated Happy "Canadia Day" (whatever that is).

Job Adjustments and Additions Part 2 (Monday?!)

Note: The following post is my best guess as to what Square-Enix has in store for Black Mages on Monday. It's not an actual Squeenix POL release, but I think it's actually pretty realistic a possibility. (It's also kind of meant to mock the Ninja Update.)

Job Adjustments and Additions Part II

New Job Abilities

Masters of elemental and dark magic, the power of black mages is known throughout Vanadiel. Now with the addition of two new abilities, black mages can further enhance their abilities against powerful enemies or in smaller groups.

- Prescience (Lv.50 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Lowers enmity and increases magic accuracy, but spells' MP cost is increased and the chance of "Conserve MP" activating is reduced. Grants a "Regen" effect.

- Cognizance (Lv.50 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Increases spell damage and enhances magic evasion, but reduces movement speed and lowers physical defense. Grants a "Refresh" effect while a monster's current target.

- Prescience
Enhances one's abilities against strong foes.
While in effect, Prescience reduces enmity and raises magic accuracy, but MP usage is increased while reducing activation of "Conserve MP." A "Regen" effect is provided as an added bonus.

- Cognizance
Enhances one's abilities in smaller groups.
While in effect, Cognizance increases damage dealt with elemental magic and enhances one's magic evasion, but lowers movement speed and physical defenses. A "Refresh" effect is granted while a monster's current target.

*Notes
The effects of both Prescience and Cognizance are mutually exclusive. Activating one while the other is in effect will result in the nullification of the one originally in effect.

Prescience and Cognizance have a shared ability delay. For example, a black mage who uses Prescience must wait for five minutes to elapse before either ability becomes usable again.

Manafont

Up until now, black mages using the job ability Manafont were interrupted if the effect wore off while casting a spell with less than the MP required for its casting. The July update will see black mages short on MP allowed to finish casting any spell that had been started before the Manafont effect wore off.

"Stealth Assasin"?!

So Square-Enix decided to finally announce something that wasn't completely boring in the coming Version Update.

They opted to change it up by making it something completely retarded.

I kind of wonder if there's two groups of people at SE working on FFXI. The Dev Team who obviously don't play their own game (or have any idea who does). And the guy who wrote the Census Survey that seemed to at least know people sell Rare/Ex shit from NMs to each other. That's actually just one group and one guy, but close enough.

Anyway, the much awaited Ninja Update™:

Accomplished in both offense and defense, the art of ninjutsu has over the years proven to be a favorite among adventurers across the land. Now, with the addition of the following two new abilities, ninjas can further enhance either their efficiency in offense or aptitude in defense as befits the situation.

- Yonin (Lv.40 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Increases enmity and enhances "ninja tool expertise" effect, but impairs accuracy. Grants a bonus to evasion and critical hit rate when in front of target.- Innin (Lv.40 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Reduces enmity and impairs evasion. Grants a bonus to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage when striking target from behind.- Yonin
Strengthens one's ability to fend off blows from the enemy.
While in effect, Yonin increases enmity and enhances the effect of "ninja tool expertise" in exchange for reduced accuracy. Further bonuses are granted to evasion and critical hit rate when engaging your target from the front.

The potency of the above effects gradually decreases over time.

- Innin
Strengthens one's ability to deal damage to the enemy.
While in effect, Innin lowers enmity in exchange for reduced evasion. Further bonuses are granted to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage when striking your target from behind.

As with Yonin, the potency of the above effects gradually decreases over time.

First, there's the attack from the front or back thing. Thieves and Samurai have already shown how annoying people who need to attack from in front or behind are.

(Leethf) "OMG YOU MESSED UP MY SATA!!!!!!!!"
(Evilpaul) "Dear Lord! I want to strangle you!"

Or,

(BndwagnSam) "WtF me Ovarweelms wuz messd ^!!!!"
(Evilpaul) "I seriously hate you."

I'm not a fan of standing in front of or behind mobs to not suck at whatever you're doing.

But, there's still specifically why you would want to with these new abilities that's also retarded.

"Yoninja! [Call5]" (This will be in people's macros)

So if I want to hold hate as Ninja, I pop Yonin and get more Enmity (+10? +20?) and get some boost to Ninja Tool Expertise, so I use less Ninja Tools. I'm not sure what the first bonus has to do with the second, but I'm a cheap bastard, so I'm onboard for this so far.

And since I'm standing in front of the mob, and have hate, I get an Evasion Bonus and higher Critical Hit Rate. All right! That's pretty cool!

But my...accuracy is lower? What the fuck? How am I holding hate? I'm eating sushi to start with probably, so now I'm doing crappy damage and missing? How is that useful?

You could say for NIN/DRK and not even using a weapon Ninja is good with like E-rated Hand-to-Hand or not-yet-rated Terra's Staff that an Enmity+X and an Evasion Bonus would be good. And the Enmity+X at least would be. But generating hate as NIN/DRK you practically have to hold back already anyway if you have decent support. So where is this useful?

And it isn't mentioned, but is Ninjutsu Magic Accuracy going to be hosed as well? Should I get the feeling it probably will be?

"Yonin, saving you money on Ninja Tools in Campaign (Now with Unions!!!!) since 2009!"

The Other One is Stupid Too

But enough about the unfathomable stupidity of Yonin, now to discuss the stupidity of Innin. For Innin, you get lower Enmity (-10? -20?) and Evasion, and since you don't have hate anyway, you get an Accuracy Bonus, Critical Hit Rate bonus, and increased Ninjutsu damage.

Now I'm kind of surprised that there's no bonus to shuriken damage, because nobody uses them to do damage either. But I'll stick to just what's here.

Isn't increasing damage when you don't have hate while lowering Enmity something like a Dark Knight would get? Except the Dark Knight would be doing decent damage and probably pull hate anyway?

So, if you're a Ninja and you don't have/want hate, you'll deal more damage? But, and I hate to point out the obvious here, who invites non-tanking DD Ninjas? If you wanted to DD tank why would you want some Enmity reduction and damage bonus while you don't have hate? And who still uses Hyoton?

Is there really a point to Innin? Or to Yonin (outside maybe Campaign or something)?

{{Insert Conclusion Here}}

If I haven't convinced you to preemptively hate Yonin and Innin, then let this closing line from POL help you:

In implementing these new abilities, the development team has taken into consideration character positioning during party play and many other factors. To ensure a smooth gaming experience for all, testing and adjustments will be carried out to the fullest extent that time permits.

Translating it into English, "Shit's broken. We'll be carrying out Emergency Maintenance to fix neither of these things working properly two days after the Update.

Oh, and that Moogle Coup thing will be broken too."

I've got some ideas for a Black Mage update that I'll post in a bit.

We'll see if Square-Enix thought of something equally terrible on Monday I'm betting.

Some Leveling, Assault/Nyzul Isle, KV, etc.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm working on leveling Ranger.

But, before starting that up, I finished BRD37. I used up all my Campaign Ops tags doing the obvious easy-solo Op of choice.Terrorist attacks on Quadav Strongholds are fun stuff. :-p

Then, I stabbed some fish.And I dinged 37 Bard, yay!

I'm not sure what uses it actually has other than Raptor Mazurka, but whatever.

ForestNeo!

He's all grown up now with maxxed physical stats.Now I'm working on getting Gallop and Canter and will probably do a few training regime things to get his mental stats up a level or two.

It'll be extraordinarily boring.

Ranger Leveling!

I shot the crap out of Colibri for an hour or two yesterday and went from 37 to 41! And then my party disbanded immediately when I dinged so I had no buffer. I was surprised by how high my accuracy was even without any Prelude or RNG Rolls. I had no problem hitting the birds at all really. The Pot-au-feu were really awesome. I hope Lesser Colibri are similarly pathetic leveling fodder in the 50s.

Holy Bolt damage seemed to resist a lot, but they're birds and kind of resistant to magic in general. I was surprised how much ammo I went through. About 750 bolts in not very much time. I'll probably make a few stacks of quivers myself to save money. Or just go fishing and buy some.

WS damage was only ~20% more than a regular shot which was a bit disappointing. I'm looking forward to Slugwinder. Barrage was quite fun. It only whiffed entirely once and did ~300 when all the shots landed.

I hope to get to 45 or so today.

Assault/Nyzul Isle!

I did some Assault runs a few nights back.I think it went well. ;-p

We did Saving Private Ryaaf. Other than the picture above it did actually go pretty well and I got a bunch of points.

The next day I did a Floor 100 Nyzul run.I think it went well. ;-p (Getting old yet?)

We had a Hydra boss which spammed stupid TP moves rather than spamming Physical Shield over and over. I fought it Weakened (see above), but Weakened has nothing on Hundred Fists.

The win got us Burning Fists (MNK, 100% since I used tokens as MNK) for Davik, and a Sasuke Katana (NIN) which I think ended up trashed.

It also got Jacinda the Floor 100 clear which was mostly why we didn't just spam Floor 80 like most people seem to.

Being a dumbass, I didn't realize I only had one tag until two hours or so later from Assault two days earlier, so I had to leave after the first run.

I should organize another soon when I'll be able to go for four runs.

Or try and see if I can get people to come help me get new Assault clears and rank up. I've got ~8/25 points and plenty of new clears available.

Anyway...

King Vinegaroon!

After most of the week watching other people kill it, Epic claimed it last night!After an hour watching it walk in circles, we SV buffed and fought it.

Or, so I imagine.

I didn't get to see more than about 90 frames of animation the entire fight.

What happened was after the BRD rotation, the kiting party was brought in, a PLD Invincible'd, CS Stun commenced, and we engaged it.

I used a 300% TP Footwork Dragon Kick for 813 damage (lolDragonKick). Popped Hundred Fists. And then.... My PS2 stopped mid-Hundred Fists activation animation. It didn't black screen, but just sat there. There was still some battle sound effects.

After ~20 seconds of this I got another frame of animation and KV was at 80% HP. My PS2 was still completely unresponsive, so I couldn't use the 100%+ TP I had now.

A while longer and KV's HP dropped to 20%. So, whatever the hell was going on was going well. I guess.

Another pause and it's HP dropped to 0%, there was something in the treasure pool, and KV disappeared instantly as my framerate returned to normal. Our "phatty lootz" included three Earth Crystals and nothing else of value.

Yay.

Several other people in the LS experienced the same thing. I don't know if I was engaged hitting it the entire time or if I just got the WS plus a few melee strikes listed. I didn't even get the loot pool to show in my chat log or the EXP I gained from it.

Quite irritating.

TTFN!

And that's it for today!

Finally Starting up Ranger...

I finally plunked down for Ranger gear, ammo, and food earlier today. It ended up costing ~150k.

The gear provides:

Ranged Accuracy +46 (not counting AGI+'s effect)
Ranged Attack +9
AGI+11
MND+1

(I'm using a crossbow and holy bolts.)

The food is Pot-au-feu, which according to the Wiki:

Food Effects: (30 minutes, All Races)
Strength +3
Agility +3
Ranged Attack +15~25??%
Ranged Accuracy +10~25??%
Intelligence -3

And my ammo of choice is Holy Bolts. I'll carry some Acids too, but they don't stick on Colibri, so I'm unsure how useful they'll actually be.

I'm looking forward to seeing how I do in a party.

Kupo de'Lame & King Vinegaroon

So Square-Enix finally announced that they're going to have another "mini-expansion" and this time you can get an Augmented piece of head gear. Which makes this the most recent in a long string of Version Update teaser notes that don't excite me in the slightest.

As everyone who played the short quest-line knows, ACP sucked. And while I do get use out of my weird looking coat on BLM and SCH...I'm still not very impressed. I expect even less out of this "mini-expansion." I honestly thought it was a joke or mistranslation when SE announced it.

So, once again, it's mostly just "Do I want to get this for the Augmented gear?" And, "Does that sound kind or 'RMTy' to anyone else?"

The base pieces this time are less impressive than the ACP bodies. Pick a generic stat for Heavy melee, Light melee, and Mage. Like "Counter +3", "Subtle Blow +3", and "Conserve MP +3."

Slap them on the respective pieces.

Switch the first two, because for some reason the Heavy melee piece that Paladins and Dark Knights can wear gets "Counter +3" instead of the one Monks can use. But I digress.

Then, pick two of these Augments:Click the picture to make the text legible.There's some pretty cool stuff you could do with them, don't get me wrong.

A weaponskill piece:

STR+4
Weaponskill Accuracy +15
Accuracy +10 (or Ranged Accuracy)
Attack +5 (or Ranged Attack +5)

A magic damage piece:

INT+6
Magic Accuracy +2
Fast Cast +2%

There's pet job possiblities there too, but I don't care about my Summoner. I like Puppetmaster, but it's Puppetmaster. I don't get to do shit with it. Hell, the Ranged, Melee, and Magic skills aren't even fully capped yet since I never to get bring it out for stuff.

So, I'm not going to ponder the many pet job possibilities. I'll leave that to someone else.

With the "Store TP +4" Augment 2h weapon users and Rangers might find some interesting combination.

But all the stuff I'm seeing is thoroughly...meh. "Another hat to do magic damage with?! Make my Asuran Fists land all 8 hits 66% of the time?!? Nowai!!!"

So I'm thinking I'll be passing on this one.

King Vinegaroon!

So, I'm currently standing around in Western Altepa Desert, and I have no idea why.lolcats...yes, I apologize.I'm here as MNK/WAR, so I won't be helping kite it. Assuming it pops and we claim it. And enough people get online to kill it.

But the "kiting" thing is what I wanted to mention. Kiting King Vinegaroon is a lot like masturbation. Everyone does it. Everyone knows everyone does it. We just don't talk about it.

Everyone kites KV. Unless an LS that gets claim has an ally capable of killing it all standing around potentially for 10 hours. Which would be kind of fucking retarded. Everyone kites KV.

And like I said, KV is a lot like masturbation. Everyone kites it, but some dense 15 year olds don't grasp that "We just don't talk about it" part. As annoying as watching somebody walk a gigantic scorpion in circles for three hours may be, if you've ever fought/camped KV (or are trying to) at some point you too will be walking it in circles for two hours.

So, spare me the annoying /tells if my LS gets it. I don't care. I don't even want the stupid hat.

Go do something productive with your time instead. Go masturbate. Or send /tells to some guy pretending to be a girl you're interested in.

Just leave me the hell out of it, please.

SCNMs, Dynamis, and Bunnies Oh My!

Epic has been hard at work doing SCNMs lately. We did the La Vaule [S] one on Wednesday (right day?). We started with Coinbiter something or other.I think it went well.The NM is a DRK and he spam Shoulder Tackle for massive damage and a hate reset on the recipient of said Shoulder Tackle.

Which makes it interesting as a Black Mage. You can Stoneskin+Phalanx. Nuke until you pull hate, swap to Physical Damage -% gear, rest MP, and repeat relatively safely. Just make sure you pack on MND for Stoneskin because he does hit fucking hard.

On attempt two, we killed his ass.Dynamis - Beaucedine

Last night, I did a Dynamis - Beaucedine run. Of the two Northlands zones, Beauc is the one I don't really want anything from. I've got 4/6 items I can equip from it, the MNK body is junk, and the NIN body...is pretty cool, but I'm "meh" about it anyway. The zone itself is OK to do. Nothing too stressful or irritating about it really.

Xarc, on the otherhand, I would like to eventually get every piece I can equip there. Except MNK. And I don't really want the NIN hands either. But I'm only 1/6 there. The zone itself unlike Beauc I find both stressful and irritating. It's like Dynamis - Windurst only there's cool stuff that drops there.

We were really lucky with Beauc last night though as the first mob dropped an Argute Gown. A few mobs later we got a BRD Justathings, a WHM body, and finally something we haven't seen in at least a year, a Duelist's Tabard (RDM body). Keffka got it which forced me to finally update my Stun macro to not mention him not having it. Hehe.There was a pretty bizarre BLM-onry wipe with that time-nuked Goblin Replica being botched.Other than that it was a pretty good run though.

Pre-Dynamis Dragon Extravaganza!

As I got to the Trail Markings for dynamis, somebody said in LS chat "Biast." Which is usually BS. I do it all the time. It's fun to annoy people/dash their hopes of a funny blue hat.

But sure enough, he was up. I pulled him from the zoneline and started soloing him. And realized he had 30-40k HP or something similarly ridiculous and it would take all day. I decided to just pull it back to the spawn area, sleep it, warp out, and go to Dynamis. It went unclaimed part way back and Suow (also in my Dynamis LS) claimed it and started beating the piss out of it as Samurai. He invited me and with a few outside cures from other people in the LS we killed it.The hat didn't drop (I didn't want it anyway, dunno if Suow did), so my reward was 940 gil which means it only cost me ~1.3k gil to go and kill the thing altogether with OP fees.

Still fun to do stab a dragon in the face for being a dragon though.

King Vinegaroon!

Apparently, people in Epic want to join Team Robocop™ again and were there for ToD.

I went to go /poke it and see who was going to kill it.I rode my pretty chocobo ForestNeo to get there.

(Incidentally, If you're on Hades and want a choco-card from him I'll give you one for whatever the NPC sells them for. Just send a /tell in-game.)

Bunnies, Oh My!

I decided to get some of the Rare/Ex stuff I'll need for Ranger lately. I got O.bow and Franscica already. I could camp the Rare/Ex E.bow in Fei'Yin, but that place is full of botting assholes.

So, I decided to go for Selene's Bow instead. You pop the NMs for it by trading a Sandy Carrot during New Moon or Full Moon and then kill them and pray to your deity(s) of choice that it drops.

I went a few days ago for White Coney during the Full Moon.And I went 0/2. I would have stayed longer but the Moon phase changed.

I went back earlier today on New Moon, and 1/1 on Black Coney!

I emailed myself these pictures before that though, so I don't have one of Black Coney to post right now. Just picture the same rabbit, except black and barely visible in the blizzard of Ule. Range instead of white.

Now if SE will just increase Combat/Magic skill merit totals so I could have 8/8 Marksmanship (or Archery).

That's it for today!

Sarcasm

My past three FFXI posts have been entirely a tad sarcastic. But, really the update teaser notes aren't packing much punch, so what can I do?

The update is supposed to be 'late July' which I assume means third or fourth week in the month. So we can expect 3-6 more of them plus the usual surprise on the day of the update.

But maybe give us a juicy tidbit somewhat early?

Throw out something like "Black Mage and Ninja can expect job adjustments in the July update!" Sure, it'll be Black Mage getting some further nerf (pet soloing?) and Ninja getting a "go eat the mages while I recast shadows job abilty" for temporarily shedding hate. But at least it would be something.

Speaking of that Fanfest 2007 Ninja JA, how cool would it be if it was subbable? For 15 seconds you can halve your CE/VE enmity? It would be useful in a variety of situations. (A downside would be the emergency maintenance when SE realizes it also doubles enmity accumulated while it was active when it wears off.)

/sigh

I Can Has Goblin....Too?

Fear not young adventurers!

For the past five years adventurers have gone about their business of bunny killing, botting, and more bunny killing without the aid of Goblins. But the Dev Team™ have been hard at work and they knew what needed to be done!

Now not only Beyonce Barbie can has Goblin!You too can has Goblin!

Well, when you find someone willing to come do Moblin Maze Mongers with you, anyway.

What is Moblin Maze Mongers? I have no idea; I've never done it. I assume it's a lot like sniffing glue in that you feel lightheaded and unfulfilled afterwards though.