Nov 8
Finally! Dynamis-Valkrum last night. So I’m officially 2/5 now for RDM after 3+ years. HOW SAD (technically 3/5 since I did get the tabard in Beaucadine last year, but since I was rolled back, I lost the armor)! I also consider this one of the better pieces for RDM/BLM so I’m quite happy to have it. Thank you ED~! :3
Now back to the slave mines to study for finals. >_<;;
Oct 27
Happy Halloween everyone!
I took a break to do all the seasonal events Square’s released for us including buying the 3 pumpkins I didn’t get last year from each of the nations, finishing off the Trick Staves/Treat Staves, and getting the Eerie Cloak +1. Fighting Pyracmon was a ton of fun, actually! The cloak’s stats are kind of useless, but it was fun getting it. :3
What else have I been up to? Helping my boyfriend Arigh get rank 5. 
I took him through 4-1 yesterday and revisiting all the old areas for magicite was quite fun, actually.
And then of course, the obligatory Dynamis-Sandoria. RDM shoes did drop, but my lot was epic fail at 13 or 17 or something along those lines. It seems even after all these years my lots are suck.
Hey look, it’s a galka BLM. LOL 
And that being said I leveled my WHM for the first time in two years a few days ago. LV62 > 63. Amazing!
This week wasn’t really anything overly exciting. I’m getting used to the game again and playing on my off time, which is seldom thanks to it being mid-quarter at my college and as we all know: work first, play later. Well, sort of.
I’ve started doing Dynamis again with ED. Hopefully with more consistency since Dynamis times better fit my schedule now. I think before I had conflicts because I worked one of the days that Dynamis was held and the weekend time would often get taken up by social events with friends. So yes, hopefully I’ll have better attendance this time. :3 I’m still sad I lost my Duelist’s Tabard because the amount of people still lotting on it is quite substantial and I feel bad trying to lot a second one, but I guess it can’t be helped. My lots are epic bad anyway, so I won’t be surprised if it’s another 2 years before I get another tabard.
Level syncing is quite fun! I was leveling in Yhoator Jungle with a pick up party and hit level 61 on BLM (again) this way. I really, really can’t stress how happy I am with the level sync system and think Square should’ve implemented this years ago. I’m sure a greater player base would’ve stuck with XI had this been the case.
I also have been running around helping with SAM quests in Zi’Tah. I really like the samurai quest even though I still have severe trouble finding Norg. I hate the Elshimo maps with a passion. They’re just outright horrible. Retracing to areas that I remember a lot from my lowbie days is quite nostalgic.
Nov 29
Long time since I last updated. The newest expansion pack, Wings of the Goddess is sort of meh so far. I don’t really know how I feel about it. I spent some time unlocking the two new jobs: Scholar and Dancer, but have yet to try out either as I am still emo-ly leveling BLM. I’m up to 61 after having soloed my last 1k EXP tonight plus soloing Goblin pets in Bibiki Bay (which is now entirely desolate, compared to how it used to be when ToAU was released). EXP is pretty good soloing, averaging about 8k per hour without EXP bonus items and relatively safe, though boring and repetitive. Getting party invites has pretty much come to a screeching halt after LV58ish when leveling in ToAU areas becomes viable. It’s a darn shame because TP Parties are not as good as they say they are and I still parse doing 40% (or more) of the entire party’s damage without having any downtime. But alas, looks like I’ll be soloing to LV75 at this rate, with the occasional party invite.
In other news, I’ve acquired the RDM AF2 body and BRD AF2 feet in a week. Yay! So far, I’m 2/5 on RDM and BRD.
So what’s been going on lately.. hmm. I head back to college in a few days, but I thought I’d share the quasi-interesting things going on in my life ingame.
When I quit XI two years ago, very few LSes had beaten Dynamis Lord in Xarcabard. I remember ED’s few attempts at it resulting in a total wipe at approx 90%. Of course, this was prior to the days of RDM/DRK being known to be useful for this kind of thing, so yeah, went to Dyna-Xarc with ED a few weeks ago and watched them decimate poor Dynamis Lord in under a minute. How things have changed! Of course Dyna-Xarc was emo and we got 0 AF2 drops that entire time. At least we got a Shadow Mantle. ; ;
Have since been catching up on AoAU missions. I can’t say I’m finding the storyline too interesting and it pales in comparison to the fun I had with Promathia’s storyline and BCs. None of the BCs have been overly challenging and I guess this is Square’s attempt to curb the anger produced by the “difficulty” of the Promathia missions (though I don’t think they were that hard, to be quite honest with you). I’m current with missions though I haven’t done the final BC yet just cause the final rewards suck and I don’t have the inventory space to hold yet another useless item (the lv50 rings + blue coronet). So perhaps I’ll never finish the missions because I just don’t care to. <_<;;
Salvage has been fun/stressful as always. We have a good set of constant players (about 12 of us who attend weekly) and we’ve got some pretty good drops thus far. We’re continuing to go every Friday and have got lots of gear so far though we’re still having a bit of trouble with the Long-Bowed Chariot NM thanks to our lack of healing. Otherwise, we’ve had some pretty cool drops so far (though I haven’t gotten anything as of yet) and I’m debating between getting Morrigan’s Robe or Cuffs first. Both are exceptional pieces of gear for RDM, so I’m having trouble deciding. Either way, the cost of the ores needed once all 3 pieces have been acquired is disgusting. D: Plus I hate having to do assaults to get points. Since I’m effectively 2 years behind everyone else, I’m still a PSC and killing rocks in Lebros Cavern every week to get my points. *dies*
I’ve been leveling my BLM rather arduously since I last posted. My BLM was 37 a week or two ago and now I’m up to 53 and having fun all the way. BLM is a lot easier to play than RDM and a lot less stressful. Being a good BLM really equates to two things: A) lots of INT gear and B) Elemental debuffs + not overnuking. I’m finding that a lot of parties have gotten stupid lately and don’t do Skillchains at ALL anymore. I mean I understand opting against a skillchain if it requires the melees to use gimp WS to form it, but if you have a Samurai, Ninja, and Warrior for melee, not having a skillchain makes me want to punch people. And LOLTPBURN is bullshit, I’m sorry. TP burn is effective once warriors get Joytoys + Ridills and merits and /NIN, not before. I’m so sick of people saying DMG is better just spamming WSes if their WSes are doing >100 dmg. I’ve had a number of parties that didn’t even know HOW to form Skillchains in the late 40’s-50’s. That’s ridiculous. LERN 2 PLAY people. I constantly parse my BLM’s dmg to be doing between 25-30% of the entire DMG in a party without a Skillchain. With skillchains, I easily am doing over 50% of the DMG in a party. BLM is a strong job, but it truly shines when melees skillchain.
And oddly enough, BLM is one of the most E-peen jobs I’ve ever seen. 2-3 BLMs in a party is pretty common now a days and it’s like.. everyone instantly /c’s your gear, checks your spell damage and tries to compete. I’m quite proud to say that while I don’t have nearly as much MP as tarus, my spells are always stronger. DD Yay for merits and +30 INT gear pwahaha.
So I did my first limbus run a few days ago with the LS. I was reluctant to join up since I was lacking serious fundage due to me having sold all my gear before I quit almost two years ago. Either way, all we did was kill Proto-Omega that day which was pretty easy surprisingly and very fast. I like how it’s a short, mini-dynamis rather than a super long 4 hour excursion.
Had some fun at Dynamis-Sandoria yesterday. We sat around as mandragoras, kid mithras, and kid tarus for a while molesting Ukko before we went in. We also got some ridiculous drops including 4 within 60 seconds of each other. Cleric’s Cap, Koga Hakama, Valor Gauntlets, and Summoner’s Pgch. all dropped including two other SMN, 4 other PLD, RDM, and at least 2 WAR.
We also did Divine Might tonight which went well. :3 The first run ended up in a wipe due to silly planning, but the second run was really smooth. Finally got my Abyssal Earring, which makes me happy.
I’ve updated my Screenshot gallery with a bunch of new pictures from the past month.
Yay! After 4 years, this is my first piece of RDM AF2. Funny how I had to wait 2 years for the demand to go down on RDM AF2 before I won my first piece. ; ; Lol. It was also an interesting day as I seemed to be the infinity core whore as I got about 6 of them that night.
Otherwise, I started my first few assault missions the past few days and did two Salvage runs with what appears to be a static Friday night group. We did well so far and have obtained two pieces of armor for Morrigans and Ares armor.
We had some interesting fun with the Poroggo Madame, who wasn’t really hard and allowed us to have a good laugh or two over our transformed selves as pictured above. We were so cute! :3
Today we did more Einherjar with the LS and completed Rossweisse’s Chamber making me 3-3 for the first level chambers! The battle was considerably easier than the last time we attempted it (last time we had a million bats and got the final boss, a weird fish, down to 1% before we were kicked, how sad) as it was about 6 Jnun type mobs and the final boss which just had a lot of HP and not much difficulty.
Afterward, we did Dynamis-Bastok. The run wasn’t too great and ended up having us full wipe twice and not complete the Dynamis (I think we had approximately 23 people attending) but some good did come of it as I ended up winning Bard’s Cuffs! ^^
Yay! Not that there was much competition and I won with a lot of 250ish. <_<;
I’ve been debating what job I want to level next and I’m caught up between DRK (to 37), SAM, BLM, and PUP. *sighhh* The choices are killing me. I’ll probably just /random to figure out what I wanna do or something.
Jun 27
What a pain! I transferred all my entries from my FFXI based livejournal over here the past two days so now you can view all of the entries here. I’m probably not going to post in that LJ anymore, so come here for updates from now on. I’m going to try to make it a point to make at least one entry per week in regards to my XI exploits! Current level statistics for my jobs to the left.
I’ve rejoined NotED and there are quite a few new faces and a number of people I remember from back before I quit.
A quick summary of the past month in XI:
I’m considering what to level next after I finish meriting a bit. I want to get my RDM pimped out merit wise and pump out my BRD a little bit before I advance with another job. I’m thinking going melee now even though my WHM is 62 (I can’t stand how BORING it is). I’m debating between SAM (LV10) and NIN(LV37). I’ve always wanted to have a LV75 NINJARRR just cause… it’s a NINJA. Plus I’m a sucker for cool looking AF. >_> I love my reasoning. I also want to do SAM since it just seems like such an elegant melee job and I have AF2 for it already (lol at free lots). At the same time, I want to finish off WHM and be done with it… and yes, I have AF2 for WHM too which makes me all the more sad since I’m still 0/5 for RDM AF2.
Farming in sea. Pretty Hrii casting Stoneskin.
Killing the Jailer of Faith.
Standing around in Al’Taieu.
Killing some spawn mobs in sea.
Mar 27
Yeah. Anyway did Dynamis-Jeuno today. x2 NIN, DRK, THF dropped. ; ; No RDM sadly. Was a pretty smooth run.
Working on leveling my WHM now since I’m taking a break from BRD till a certain friend of mine gets back. Got to LV57 which wasn’t too bad, though I really hate pickup parties. ; ; I wish I could find a static, but so few people in the LS play at this time of night (JP time zone). Meh.
Hit 93.0 Alchemy a few days ago. Have to level on Papillion, which sucks since it’s like 40k a synth. -.- My first synth did go to good use though as you can see below. :3
We managed to claim Aspidochelone yesterday, which was pretty adrenaline rushing for me as this was the first time I’ve fought the HNM with the LS (Usually it’s always in NA primetime and I’m either asleep or at class). The drops were awful though, Shura Feet for what the LS says was the fourth time in a row. ; ; I was so praying for Dalmatica or Crimson (DROOL) or hell, even Koenig for our PLDs. But yes, turtle is a bastage. Arvin outpulled 2 other LSes out there for the turtle. Good job! ^^
Starting the fight.
Death to turtle.
Name: Arrode
Name: Sulys
Name: Valaura
Arrode: Fairy server, Rank 10 San d'Oria, RDM75, BRD75, WHM63, BLM68, complete Zilart, complete Chains of Promathia, near complete ToAU, halfway through WotG. In the HNMLS NotED. Currently 98.6+2 Alchemy, 60 Cooking. Has a mule named Mekju who's a taru that runs around Bastok.
