January Happenings

January came and went rather quickly, with hardly a photo collection to remember it by. I don't know if it was my lack of interest in taking pictures, or lack of interesting things to take pictures of. However, I managed to fire off a few shots for this month. So shall we review my dull month?

First we have our "Kill big monster with zerg tactics" section. This month I participated in a few of these. The first one was the usual Khimaria. If I haven't said it before, this is one of my favorite fights because it's so dynamic in terms of fighting it. It's especially fun when you have to try to time your attacks in between potentially fatal (for a taru) attacks from it. I've also become quite proficient in getting to the area without bringing 2-20 mobs with me. Instead, I save my reraise from my miscalculated attempts to use weaponskills.

Next is Fafnir. Usually this is not even blog worthy because it's so routine. This particular time was different because we were graced by a GM who showed themselves to the public. I can only recall a couple times I've seen a GM materialize in front of me, so having one show up is always a treat! On a side note, we didn't get Fafnir that time.

The next monster takes us to sea where our Limbus runs earned us a match with Proto-Ultima. This is an interesting fight because it will randomly cast Holy 2 on someone in the alliance. I thought it was pretty funny when it would blast some poor mage who hasn't been doing anything to really grab its attention. Another interesting aspect to this monster is a move called Citadel Buster. It counts down from 10 and unleashes a very powerful beam/aoe attack to the person with hate. Next time I hope to get hate and run to the mage group.

The final monster in this series is another trip to see Mr. Bahamut. The linkshell decided to do version 2, his more violent form. We did two runs at 50+ minutes each, so it was a long night for everyone. Oddly enough, I haphazardly stumbled across a video with a linkshell on another server doing this exact same fight in 30 seconds. For us to setup the way they did, would require dark knights, kraken clubs, and a narcissistic enjoyment of watching hp drop faster than a solo rdm against Tiamat. Unfortunately, the linkshell is far from that kind of setup. I think we only have 3 dark knights that are 75. If we are to try it, better do it fast before SE realizes this as an exploit and "fix" the problem.

In other news, I have a friend who decided to start playing this game after a year of trying to upgrade his computer. Finally, do we get to see a next legend? My pupils have all grown up to be legends, is he the next great dark knight? Only time will tell.

In more random news, I've been playing with .dat files as of late and found myself changing everything from clothes, to npcs, to emotions. I found several sites with huge databases of stuff. I feel like going through The Sims 2 all over again with all these new toys. I used the Legendary Sannin to help me take pictures of some of the cool stuff I found. Yes folks! That is the famed Shantoto laugh! My favorite npc doing my favorite emote! I also replaced my Shaded Specs with the Akatsuki headband from Naruto representing missing ninja from Konoha village.


Finally, even though this happened early February, I found it so funny that I couldn't wait until the February update to tell. DTR did Dynamis Beaucedine last week. People in the know will understand that this particular dynamis is home to charming mobs. I'm not saying they're great conversation partners, but they indeed charm other people to do their will.

After months of no charms, it finally happened, people got charmed! My first instinct was to /ta Mcdohl, but he wasn't there. Next I tried to /ta Shinso, you know, because it's fun. I was dissappointed that he left early. So what happens next? My Galka Poacher instincts kick in and I automatically target the closest furball, Salibro. A little dialog ensued in my mind..

Caitlin: Hmm..I wonder if the Kraze Rule is in effect here
Angel Cait: Even though he's not here, think of the guy's xp loss and waste of time being weakened.
Caitlin: Maybe you're right, but...I'm the Galka Poacher
Devil Cait: You know what you must do....dark sider...
Caitlin: Right...

Shortly after, this happened:
I have to admit, poaching galkas is fun because they're so beefy and takes quite a bit to bring them down. The idea of having something so small like me to take out a big thing like those is always funny. Nothing personal Salibro, it's the voices in my head that tell me so.

Well, that's January in a blink! See you next time!

5 lvl 75 jobs: Life {Do you need it?}

After a few months of pain and suffering, I finally reached lvl 75 on my Ranger. This makes it my 5th trip up the leveling mountain. To date I have Bard, Black Mage, Monk, Samurai, and now Ranger leveled.

This past month has been pretty busy. I found myself getting caught up on the ToAU missions, as well as trying the new "features" SE implemented in a recent update.

The shot I've been waiting for..the big 75. There was so much work involved in doing this, but I'm glad it happened. All that's left for this job is to tweak it with a few pieces of equipment and soon I'll be RngGod 1.0

I thought this was a good picture displaying one of my spam parties in Caederva Mire. This party consisted of 3 rng and3 others. We basically killed stuff nonstop, lots of fun.

Here are a few shots from when I was trying to catch up on the story line missions. This has got to be the best story so far. Shantoto makes it so funny that now she's my favorite character in the game. Her rhyming dialogue and the notorious "Ohohohohoho" laugh makes her the best taru!

A feature from the recent update, Salvage. This just shows SE's sadistic interpretation of entertainment. First of all, you enter with detrimental effects on EVERY stat. This means you go in with -50 on stats, no armor, weapon, abilities, skills, etc allowed. However, you get a chance to remove those negative effects by killing stuff that drop cells. The catch is that, they only drop a few at a time, and the alliance has to decide who gets what first. It's fun, but the time I went, we got destroyed at the end.... oh well, more assault missions in the near future for me;;



Here's a shot of the new HNM roaming around in ToAU, Khimira. I took this shortly after it did some AOE nobody was expecting. As you can see, it almost killed me in 1 move;; Don't worry, I died on the next shot, with its massive coverage area. It's supposed to drop some sword, but to this date, we haven't been able to make one drop. However, our first attempt it dropped a club.

I found this in my screen shots from the month of December. We did go on a few sky runs. I'm still looking for Seiryu's Kote and a W.Abj: Hands to drop so I can further complete my ranger mold.

There you have it, a quick run down of the past month. I would try to dig for stuff from October, but there really wasn't anything interesting to talk about (unless you want to talk about something other than FFXI).

Caitlin v 4.0+?

Six months and no posts until now? Unfortunately, I only have screenshots to actually remember what I've been doing in that time. To make things worse, I didn't even take that many screenshots;; Oh well, I'll just go with what I have.

First let's cover my job progress:

Samurai

I finally got my samurai to level 75 after much pain and waiting. Actually, I made it to 75 a few months ago. With SE readjusting samurai, I might play this job more often. It's not that I completely negate this job, I use it now and then when I go to Dynamis, Sea, sky, etc. Equipment wise, I managed to get myself a few pieces of nice gear that made me satisfied with my current Sam template. A couple more sam af2s and I'll be complete, I think. These shots are with my TP build and weaponskill build.

Samurai TP build


Samurai strength build

Black Mage:

My black mage has been somewhat quiet these past few months, mostly because of my ranger and merit xp. However, it did get a nice update fairly recently. The last dynamis trip I went to was kind enough to drop a Sorcerer's Coat! I also used some of my merit points to unlock Burst II. It's not very good at the moment, but hopefully more merit parties will come my way and change that.

It's Caitlin! Yakuza version!

Monk:

Surprisingly for being the most active job, it's the one with the least news. My mnk has been upgraded a little bit since my last post. My newly acquired equipment includes: Walahra Turban and Shura Togi. The biggest news that my monk recently accomplished is breaking the 4.0 barrier, that's right, I broke 1400!!! I wonder if it took the bans of a few people, thus making something in me snap and realize my potential and that wonderful stuff....or I could just be that good.

Finally broke 1400 with 1423, can the 1500 barrier be broken?

Bard:

Nothing new with bard. I needed space so I had to mule all of my bard gear away. I bring the job back every once in awhile if it's needed, but it has to be really important.

Ranger:

My up and coming job is going along nicely. I was stuck at 67 for about a month due to not being able to get on the job to play. However, it's growing in leaps and bounds. I managed to get myself 2/3 weapons that I believe is needed to be complete, Eurytos' Bow, and Othinus' Bow. The only one I'm missing is a Hellfire +1. Along with my ranged weaponry, I've secured myself a Fransisca and a Kriegsbeil (for when I hit 70). Ranger is another job SE is planning to restructure, so hopefully it'll get better so I'll get more invites.

68 RNG/ 34 NIN lfg;;;

In other news, during my lfg time, I decided to get my avatars (after 3 years of putting it off). My list is almost complete with Garuda, Shiva, Ifrit, Leviathan, and Ramuh. This leaves Titan, Fenrir and Diablos left.
Well, those were all the screenshots I could find. What I didn't take screenshots of were my trips to sea, more dynamis mayhem, some galka poaching in ballista, etc, etc. I will cut my loses for now and just say that my story for these past few months have been lost in antiquity. However, I did find one picture of a recent Sea trip:

See you again!

Caitlin v. 3.5

Due to the fact that I don't like writing a month's worth of material in one sitting (which can last over 2 hours), I decided to try to write every few days. So let me review of what's been happening since my last entry. *Skims through the 500 mb of photos*


Ah! It starts off with my final "realistic" template for my monk. Sure, I could use a Flame Gorget or a Peacock charm. Maybe I can even through in that Bandamushahaha kote, as well as the Tatami Togi. Sure, I guess I can spend a couple months of paychecks to rmt for +1 versions, but I'm happy with my "realistic" setup. The abjuration came about when the linkshell fought Byakko three times in one night. I believe it dropped on the first one. Now, for me to achieve 4.0, I have to break 1400 in KRT on those bones. I think one of my best friends has to die so something inside me snaps so I can go SSJ4.



Wyrms have been the focus more and more these days within the linkshell. Finally, I was able to get some decent pictures of Tiamat. I was add party, so I didn't know what dropped. These were from the last Tiamat that we fought. Just recently, I was in the main party for another Tiamat and got a title! Yay, I don't have to quit anymore!



The linkshell also decided to do some sea gods since the mobs we were farming didn't want to pop for us. So we took out both Fortitude and Faith. Unfortunately, neither helped us get a virtue. However, I killed Fortitude, which might be the reason for no drops..haha!


Finally, our limbus runs finally paid off when we got to face Omega and win! It only took us 3-4 losses in a row to pull one off. We got the eye and tail, but I'm not a job that can equip any of it, so I don't know if they're good. Judging from the reactions, it could've been.

March Madness

Please ignore the blatant copyright infringement, but that's the only thing I can think about when I reflect on my adventures this past month. SD has been fairly busy getting involved in things such as new Dynamis death marches, Sea scuba diving, King camps, Sky soaring, and our brand new attraction, Wyrm watching. Aside from that, my personal adventures of npc leveling, samurai leveling, and finishing up my ultimate monk template.

Our Dynamis runs haven't been all the great, with only one victory to this date. The new areas are really not for the feint of heart, or the nerves of straw, or whatever cliche rocks your boat. However, our normal area Dynamis have become more of a routine. I've been trying to get my hands on blm af2 body, or hat and monk af2 head. However, it's been so long since they've dropped when I was around, that it doesn't really matter if I get them or not. Maybe I can start eyeing out those samurai af, or maybe the new jobs.

Our Sea trips usually consisted of running through limbus, grabbing coins, and running out to afk. However, this month marks the start of Sea gods. Farming for drops here makes sky look like a walk in the park. The linkshell has been pretty ambitious with it, and just recently won over Jailer of Hope. Unfortunately, our hopes were shattered when hope decided not to drop the virtue we needed. So, it's back through the gauntlet again for more drops. However, the good thing about doing gods over like this is that we have more chances to win some rare torques. In my case, I won myself the Faith Torque. I'm pretty happy with it, and it really helps my monk template.

King camps have been going on as usual, but this month marks the first time I actually claimed something! Even though it was just Behemoth, it was my behemoth. It was also a show of what a true taru monk can do. I ended up tanking it, thank god for the cure bombs. The linkshell also managed to grab a few kings in as well. Aspid was won with our ninja sneak abilities to confuse our competition on when the pop time actually was. King Behemoth was a result of a few people holding it while SD army flew in from Dragon's Aery. Finally, Nidhogg was won just because of the pure numbers lagging the competition. I'm sure people got some stuff, not going to go into it, it's posted on the linkshell website.


Our Sky trips have picked up since Emulsion decided to take over and actually organize some runs. Hopefully, he can organize something that will let me get rid of these seals I've been holding on to forever. With all these sky runs going on, I was able to obtain another piece in order to upgrade to Cait 3.0, a d.head abjuration. The cursed kabuto has been sitting in my mog house for a good while, and was quickly uncursed soon after that sky trip was over. Now I'm just waiting at my chance to fight byakko for a d.leg so I can complete my monk. Soon, my samurai will start looking for a chance to win a damascus ingot so I can get a haub crafted. Stay tuned when my samurai starts to become as powerful as my monk.


SD has now gotten itself involved in the extermination of the world wyrms. To this date, we've taken out Jorg, Vtra, and Tiamat. My friend Semma hacked her lot to get a pair of those Herald gaiters. However, she has much to learn if she wants to matrix kite like me. I just find it more exciting and interesting when we do wyrms as a ls, because I know the people who get the drops will be there for the next wyrm.

So, that covers my linkshell activities. Now on to my personal ones. First, I finally got my npc to level 65, which is the level cap at the moment. Zoldof now has Adaman armor, however, I'm still working on getting his adaman gloves, boots, and legs. He's on his 7th weapon upgrade and has all the headwear. He's also completed all his missions, and all the bond quests. I've spent alot of gil upgrading his weapon, yet he still misses a good amount. I'm hoping that the new expansion will allow more usage of these guys.

Finally, I've been working on getting my samurai as my next 75. This past month, I've managed to get it to level 46 as of this writing. At level 50, I get to wear my kraken gkt, which is the sole reason I've been leveling like crazy. When I get 50, I can look forward to 60s when I sub my thf. When I'm 60s, I can look forward to 70s and wear that cool hachiman gear. Then at 71+ I look forward to reusing my monk gear! So overall, I never get bored and there's always something to look forward to.

Random randoms

My, I've been pretty busy these past few days ever since the linkshell decided to break the same old routine. We started to expand on some newer prospects like the renewal of our sea ventures and the new dynamis areas. As well as limbus trips to play with proto omega.


First on the list was a trip to see Mr. Omega. We gave him a try on jan. 30 with less desirable results. Nevertheless, it was alot of fun. It was funny seeing people running for their lives only to get run down and stomped..haha. Everything was going fine until it released some orb thing and started standing on 2 legs. I wasn't paying attention because I was too busy running around trying to raise people, keeping a hospital on the north side of the battle area, and running away when it decided to look at me funny.

Second is our trip to one of the new Dynamis areas. This time it was to Valkurm where we started out with no subjobs. Since this was our first time, we had trouble finding where the 3 NMs were that we needed to unlock our subs. Luckily, we were able to find them. The next obstacle was the nm standing guard at Selbina gate. Little did we know that it would spawn mobs if we weren't close to the gate. So, as we started to pull, manticores, goblins, yagudo, etc, etc popped in the middle of our camp and proceeded to put us in our place. It was a messy site. However, we managed to recover and try again. Unfortunately, the Marlboros and their charming abilities overwhelmed us and we wiped. If anything, we learned alot about this and gained some valuable information that we can use for next time.


Finally, our ls had a renewed sense of sea adventure. After farming for several hours, we managed to collect some pop items for sea gods. We've successfully defeated jailers faith, temperance, and fortitude so far. As well as some Ix' mobs. I happened to be one of the lucky few to get their hands on a torque, which is a rare drop from sea gods. The Faith torque I received gave me +7 hand to hand, and marksmanship. Don't forget the +5 mind to improve my chi blasting damage. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to take lots of pictures of our trips.

Caitlin v. 2.5

Finally, after 4 months of collecting points and watching everyone else get it, Byakko dropped a pair just for me! Actually, he dropped 3 pairs, I just got the first one. My linkshell paid him a visit 4 times in a row today. Luck was on our side because we got lots of good drops. If anything, this moves our somewhat stagnant point positions. With lots of the top point holders out of the way, this gives room for the middle of the list.

In other news, a few things have happened in the past month. Limbus trips have been going well, collecting lots of coins for my next item. With all the coin collecting the linkshell has been doing, I'll be able to get that Brutal earring in no time.


My NPC reached 57 the other day. Also, he reached his 5th weapon upgrade. So that means I paid 100k for a weapon that misses 90% of the time. I'm only a few calls away to get his advanced jobs.