Loot Whore Qtipus

I've been on an incredible run of luck lately in terms of item acquisition...

Einherjar

Loot Whore mode started 2 Odins ago where I picked up:








To understand how I got all 3 of those items in one run, you have to understand our bidding system. The only item I won outright in terms of bids was the E.Body. The other two items had myself and a couple others placing minimum bids of 4. Normally when someone places bids like that, they kind of want an item, but are willing to lot it out with other people. W.Body and Hofud both saw me win the subsequent lots, which is highly unusual for my level of luck at times.

And before Kreoss chimes in about a golden horseshoe shoved up my ass as it relates to my luck, I need to point out the vast majority of my luck is centered around crafting. I don't really consider most of that luck so much as persistence. The only "lucky" craft I believe I've ever had was a pair of Unicorn Leggings +1 back when they sold for 20 mil. Since then, I've been squarely in the center of the odds. My current 0/72 streak on cursed cap+1 is a good example of that. :)


ANYWAY!

E.Body was naturally turned into this:



I got the Crimson Scale Mail as well, but didn't really care enough about it to take a picture. However, I do need to thank Alaistair for making it for me.

Dynamis

AF2 from Dynamis has been mostly irrelevant for a very long time. There are some niche pieces that can be used for various sets and a few that are full time (BLU Body, RDM Hat come to mind), but for the most part, the rest of it is junk compared to what you can get in the slots now.

Since it's introduction though, I've wanted Wyrm Mail +1. Haste on any body piece is rare to find, or likely was until the introduction of the AF3 bodies. If you go by the standard of Acc > Haste > everything else, then you already know I'm at or near the Acc cap on pretty much everything I fight. So the only thing that's really been left has been for me to tweak out things with haste gear.

At any rate, we've not had much luck in Tav runs as it relates to body pieces. We've picked up a few BST-1, WAR-1 and "new" job-1 bodies but nothing really substantial until the last Tav run. With the level cap increasing, Tav is becoming increasingly easier to deal with. Before, taking on clusters was pretty much just a "grab your ass, put your head between your knees and pray" type of endeavor. While they still pack a punch if they blow up, they aren't all out devastating like they used to be 10 levels before. This pretty much lent itself to my simple dynamis philosoph of "more kills = more drops".

We finally had a breakthrough.



Kimille was the one that wanted that forever and it would have completed her RDM AF2+1 set. Unfortunately, she wasn't at the run for reasons related to baby, moving, remodeling, etc, so Rudithina picked it up. I dunno if anyone's tested it, but from what I can tell, there's not a huge gain in terms of stats. It's not like the AF2+1 hat where MND+3 gets added to it, but still, it's a rare drop and it's a whitebox for a piece that a lot of RDMs use.

About 1 kill after that...



Can pretty much see in that picture how I felt after seeing that. Holy shit what a relief. Everyone's got that one item they tend to obsess over. I felt like leaving the run right then and turning in all the stuff for it, but I waited until after the run was over then sat at my PC staring at Sagheera trying to fast forward time a week or figure out a way to hack SE's servers and speed their clocks up.

Anyway, I picked this up this past Sunday:



And this has found it's way into my TP build. Next things on my list at this point are a Bullwhip/Goading Belt (haven't decided which...), AF3+1/2 Hat and Feet and a Lancer's cape. Just with the +1 versions of the AF3, the cap and the goading belt, I will have added 6% to my TP build while not sacrificing much in the way of ACC at all. (+2 from body, +1 from hat, +1 from feet, +1 from back, +1 from belt). That would put my TP build at 23% haste. Bullwhip belt obviously puts me at cap, but I have some slight reservations about how much damage I'd be taking. Getting +2 Hat and Feet would pretty much put me at cap w/o having to worry about the amount of damage I'd take, but there's part of me that wants the Bullwhip belt and the AF3+2 just so I can full time in Ares Body (unless AF3 body is just insanely better).

Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the first on the server with a full DRG AF2+1 set, but I'm glad I finished it.

Abyssea

Abyssea is rather...odd. I love it to death, but I really dislike having to figure out how to handle drops given a lot of the high demand items can be obtained by sending in low man teams to deal with, so it's almost a waste of points trying to control it that way. It's also a waste of time trying to kill these things for anything other than atma purposes during a normal LS event.

With that said, I did some experimentation last night. I grabbed Drakus, Kaelis, Kaylea, Mav and Theora and we ran around to kill a few NMs. Chasmic Hornet, Khalamari, Gangly Green(?) and Bakka were at the top of the lists. The set up was DRG/WHM, BLU/NIN x2, THF/NIN, RDM/BLM, and BLM/Beard. Hornet got killed twice and I picked up:



This made me very happy. I had semi-bad luck with this drop, having killed the hornet at least a dozen times during the course of normal LS events. Was rather convenient for us to kill this since it was often on the way to a gigas pop we were farming and it dropped a semi-decent piece of abyssite to the puller. I knew I'd get it eventually, I just didn't expect it in this fashion.

Short while later, we found ourselves in Highlands looking for the other 3 NMs. Bakka was being taken down by a group of BSTs, so no go on that. Khalamari was up and was an easy kill, especially since Raiden Thrust terrorized it and we pretty much knocked 2/3 of it's life off while it was frozen. Mantle Pierce didn't even hit me that hard, just 600 damage. Killing it netted me this:



Although I have to say I didn't mean to lot that. I have a bit of mixed emotion about this hat. I want cursed cap+1, which essentially gives better modifiers, just no attack and w/o the acc penalty. I tend to think this helm, for non-relic users, isn't going to be as powerful as they think. But yeah, I lotted it accidentally over Mav's 80 point lot and I didn't realize I did until I saw the screenshot above. It was no big deal though, we'll kill it again very soon and get Mav this hat.

Anyway, I'm expecting an insanely unlucky thing to happen at some point soon. Not sure what, but it's completely rare for me to go on streaks like this. Part of me thinks I'm already suffering the bad luck just from the simple fact no one's found the quest to give DRG head seals yet. Most have a suspicion, but nothing confirmed. Just the NMs that drop it that aren't all that much of a pain, just requires more than one person. :)