Earthquake in Japan has provided for some unusual circumstances in the world of FFXI the past couple weeks. Namely, the lack of it. SE shut the servers down by request of their power company while they worked to deal with the ongoing nuclear matters to their north.
For me, that decision was a no-brainer. Do your social duty to your fell countrymen in the face of one of the worst disasters to ever happen on the planet, let alone Japan. As a result of the service being interrupted for an undetermined amount of time (despite SE announcing today service would be restored on Friday), they've given us the entire month of April for free. I donated the $25 I would have normally spent to the Red Cross.
The forced break from FFXI has actually been refreshing to me in a lot of regards. It's felt rather nice to come home after working and not have to feel like I'm going to spend the next 3-4 hours catering to linkshell members by organizing events. I've managed to make a little bit of a dent in the pile of games I've had sitting around for a while as well. God of War II, God of War III and Bioshock have all been played through now (yes, I know they came out a long while ago...).
What hasn't been refreshing to me is the doom and gloom expressed by a number of people on various forums regarding FFXI. I expected a few asshats to complain about the servers going down, but the sheer number of threads that have opened up on the new official forums about it and the number of semi-flippant remarks on other community forums is just absurd.
SE getting compared to Blizzard seems to be one of the more common complaints. Blizzard has a number of data centers around the world. Not many people have looked at the math involved in it though. For starters, Blizzard has 10 data centers to support it's 10+ million user playerbase. That's approximately 1 data center for every 1 million users.
SE hasn't had more than 500k users for at least half a decade, so why someone would think SE would have the money and time invested in a second data center is absurd. If one is going to use Blizzard's set up as the standard, one likely needs to do a lot more research into the cost and maintenance of a data center located on a different continent. It ain't cheap.
Again, assuming Blizzard's set up is the "gold standard", here are some other ridiculous numbers to think about from that article.
- 10 Data Centers on 3 Continents.
- 4 in the USA, 3 in Europe, 3 in Asian regions.
- 20,000 Systems
- 13,500 Server Blades
- 1.3 PETAbytes of storage. Note that is the level above Terabyte. Also note, most of your standard home PCs come equipped with 1-2TB of storage if you want an accurate idea of just how much space that actually is.
- 75,000 CPU cores. (Which means a lot of their "20,000 systems" are likely dual or quad core CPUs)
- 112 Terabytes of RAM. 100x more RAM than most home PC's have in hard drive space.
And that's Blizzard as of that article's 2009 publishing. SE's playerbase is 5% of that. I can bet you a year's salary as WoW's membership numbers fall (and they will eventually), those data centers will be shut down. As far as I know, SE's userbase never really exceeded a million users and thus, never really required the use of more than one data center. I can also guarantee you Blizzard didn't set up 10 data centers at the onset of WoW being published.
Here's another article to shed some more light on what data centers actually cost to build and maintain. Feel free to click on some of the links to further educate yourselves on the matter.
Bottom line is this.
SE's decision to shut down the servers was forced. People don't typically build their business infrastructure models around the notion a huge natural disaster will occur on the scale of the one that hit Japan. Aside from hardware maint. and updates, this is the first time in EIGHT years of service this has happened. It took a 8.9-9.0 Earthquake (only 5 have occurred that high since they started recording earthquake strength), a Tsunami that literally wiped entire cities off the map and an ongoing nuclear crisis to make that happen. I mean seriously...that's about a step short of the second coming of Christ on the "What could shut us down for a while" scale.
On top of that, I haven't found any other example of this happening elsewhere to any other MMO except during WoW's beta testing phase when a tornado directly hit the Virginia Data Center.
Crying about it happening is just completely selfish. Crying about SE not having a backup data center is just ignorant as the costs simply aren't met with SE's current subscription base. People suggesting the playerbase will suffer because SE didn't have a backup server in place might be right as MMO's generally work on addicting players to content, but I'd suggest anyone who actually quits FFXI over all the stuff going on in Japan...good riddance.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Long Time No Blog
Tons of changes in my life since my last post. So let's get right to it.
"Job" Finale
My full-time "job" came to an end. It was essentially a consulting gig through my business that ate up a lot more of my time than it needed to. While driving home from the Thanksgiving trip to Maine, I pretty much came to the conclusion that I needed a different direction in my life. What I had been brought into that company for was not coming to fruition.
The primary reason I was brought in two years ago was to eventually replace their main IT guy when he retires as he is 60+ and pretty much the only guy there that knows anything about the database and IT infrastructure he has set up over the years. They all knew they weren't just going to get a guy right off the street and have them step in to take his place. They need to start training someone and sooner was a lot better than later.
The specific skillset they needed was someone with rather extensive database programming skills along with the ability to create various forms of media. Media being books on various programs they're selling and whatnot along with videos for various shows they attend. This was something I knew going into the initial sit-down with the powers that be. This was also something I made abundantly clear: My skill set does NOT include either of those.
Y'see, I'm basically an entrepreneur. I've owned my own business for the better part of 11 years now. My skillset is mostly confined to the typical issues a small business or residential end-user runs into. That doesn't mean I wasn't capable of learning what they needed, but they had a choice to make when they sat down with me.
Do you have the time to invest in training me or would you rather find someone who already has the skillset you're looking for? Odds are, the latter was going to cost them a lot more than they were willing to pay, especially after this fiasco.
Anyway, in typical fashion (wasn't typical to me at the time, amazing what you learn), they decided to do in-house training and give me a shot. I was happy because it basically meant my monthly business expenses were covered and then some, so I wasn't having to chase down every single penny to make ends meet. They were happy cause it meant my "boss" was freed up to work on more meaningful stuff to the ownership rather than having to spend a lot of time on bullshit like "can you change my desktop background?" or "this entire section just lost power because someone plugged in a jet engine to use as a space heater and we're too f***ing dumb to go flip the same breaker it trips every single time this happens."
So we're about two years after the hiring and I'm at a crossroads mentally. I'm tired of the politics and 15 chieftains who all have less stinky shit than the other ones, so therefore their request takes priority over someone else's. Very little training has taken place between my boss and myself because of constant changes, most of which were reactionary and caused huge ripple effects in the way things were setup system-wide. I'm not against change mind you, the problem with change and their ownership is that one tells you to do it one way, another tells you to do it differently, then you get them together to figure out a solution and they change their minds the next day and want you to do something totally different. If that happened every now and then, I'd be slightly frustrated, but I'd accept it. This wasn't an every now and then type of thing though. This was basically an every day thing.
I come back from the Thanksgiving trip to find the following:
- Owner has retired effective immediately.
- They've decided to merge two of their companies together.
- They've decided to create a new company in one of their old company buildings.
- They've decided to open a new company in TX.
- They've also decided to open a branch extension in the same location in TX (2 companies, one building).
- The accountant that fired me on April Fool's day via word of mouth was now the president.
My initial inclination was just to give them the finger and walk right then. One of these days, I'll learn to listen to those a lot more closely. I opted to stick it out because I knew how much crap it'd put on my boss' shoulders if I left. His Dad was about to pass away at the time (ended up passing away about a month later) and he already had a ton on his plate from the sweeping changes that were taking place thanks to the new leadership.
So as the holidays progressed and we got into 2011, I made up my mind to leave. Just was a matter of finding the right moment. I had it in my head that I wanted to finish the setup of the major stuff, then walk and I was probably about two weeks from it. Apparently, the accountant/president had similar thoughts and decided to go ahead and release me the day after my last blog post. The logic behind this release actually made a little sense, but...
...the part about "not having to pay IT consulting after 90 days" was simply ludicrous. What they don't realize is that while they may get someone with a skillset that's better suited for their needs, the notion that they won't have to pay an IT guy after 90 days with the new guy is based in fantasy and the reason why is because their structure is set up for constant change. Constant change means the need to redo various aspects of the company's IT infrastructure. Constant change means they bring most of the need for an on-hand IT guy on themselves.
The writing was on the wall when I got back from Thanksgiving. I knew it, but opted to stay to help my "boss" get through what was undoubtedly going to be one of the most tumultuous times he's had there. I was "Fired" back in April cause the accountant was allegedly watching out for the bottom line. A short while after this, I realized the accountant was basically just playing favorites and trying to figure out ways to line his own pocket better. His son was hired on as a broker for a sister company. He failed. Instead of releasing him like everyone else, they moved him to the main building to do...the same thing. Anyone care to guess what the result was? Yep. Failure. Again, instead of releasing him as they do with anyone else, they moved him over to a different company to take care of the accounting, all while remaining on the payroll for the company he had essentially failed twice.
Once these changes had been decided, the guy that was figureheading the "new" company was basically a guy that had been doing accounting work. The guy taking his place?
If you said, "the son", then you'd be correct. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against his son. The dude is actually really nice, he's just not a salesman. There's nothing wrong with that, some people just aren't cut for it. The problem is his father basically letting him continue to suck money from the company while contributing nothing to it while firing people who were actually making contributions.
Anyway, we're 45 days out since I was "fired" and apparently a lot of the same issues I was dealing with when I was there are still there. Case and point:
Their phone system was down per a former co-worker I ran into at Wal-Mart a couple days ago.
So anyway, I'm happy and basically done with that company. I'm back to running my own business full time again and making plans to return to school and expand my skillset during the fall semester. While a lot of people have made a point of telling me that I'll probably be called back in at some point, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. All I know is, right now, if they called, they'd have to pay me a lot more money, offer up some guarantees and actually treat me like a person. I have better shit to do with my time than coddle and massage huge egos.
FFXI
They really should rename this game to "Abyssea".
However, I do love the new approach to development they've taken with FFXI. They're making a much more concerted effort to communicate with their playerbase. Is that because FFXIV is a huge failure at the moment and they're trying to do everything they can to retain the FFXI player base? Possibly, but I don't really care. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.
Chest-bitching jobs is a lot of fun and a great way to create a lot of flexibility with our group. Been trying to ween us off PLD usage lately by having people volunteer to chest-bitch MNK or NIN. Normally, our runs consist of 18 people all concentrating on one thing. While we've had huge success doing that, I think it's getting close to time for us to start splitting up into 2 or 3 groups. PLD tank isn't the best way to go about this, so I'm basically working to position ourselves better to handle this.
As for my own in-game accomplishments, I've managed to do the following:
- 5/5 DRG AF3+2
- 2 BRD AF3+2 pieces (head and legs)
- BLM to 90
- MNK is on the way to 90.
- On the way to finishing Caladbolg.
Still got a few other things to round out, but time has started becoming sparse for me again. Maybe another blog post in the near future about that, but who knows really...
See you soon. :)
"Job" Finale
My full-time "job" came to an end. It was essentially a consulting gig through my business that ate up a lot more of my time than it needed to. While driving home from the Thanksgiving trip to Maine, I pretty much came to the conclusion that I needed a different direction in my life. What I had been brought into that company for was not coming to fruition.
The primary reason I was brought in two years ago was to eventually replace their main IT guy when he retires as he is 60+ and pretty much the only guy there that knows anything about the database and IT infrastructure he has set up over the years. They all knew they weren't just going to get a guy right off the street and have them step in to take his place. They need to start training someone and sooner was a lot better than later.
The specific skillset they needed was someone with rather extensive database programming skills along with the ability to create various forms of media. Media being books on various programs they're selling and whatnot along with videos for various shows they attend. This was something I knew going into the initial sit-down with the powers that be. This was also something I made abundantly clear: My skill set does NOT include either of those.
Y'see, I'm basically an entrepreneur. I've owned my own business for the better part of 11 years now. My skillset is mostly confined to the typical issues a small business or residential end-user runs into. That doesn't mean I wasn't capable of learning what they needed, but they had a choice to make when they sat down with me.
Do you have the time to invest in training me or would you rather find someone who already has the skillset you're looking for? Odds are, the latter was going to cost them a lot more than they were willing to pay, especially after this fiasco.
Anyway, in typical fashion (wasn't typical to me at the time, amazing what you learn), they decided to do in-house training and give me a shot. I was happy because it basically meant my monthly business expenses were covered and then some, so I wasn't having to chase down every single penny to make ends meet. They were happy cause it meant my "boss" was freed up to work on more meaningful stuff to the ownership rather than having to spend a lot of time on bullshit like "can you change my desktop background?" or "this entire section just lost power because someone plugged in a jet engine to use as a space heater and we're too f***ing dumb to go flip the same breaker it trips every single time this happens."
So we're about two years after the hiring and I'm at a crossroads mentally. I'm tired of the politics and 15 chieftains who all have less stinky shit than the other ones, so therefore their request takes priority over someone else's. Very little training has taken place between my boss and myself because of constant changes, most of which were reactionary and caused huge ripple effects in the way things were setup system-wide. I'm not against change mind you, the problem with change and their ownership is that one tells you to do it one way, another tells you to do it differently, then you get them together to figure out a solution and they change their minds the next day and want you to do something totally different. If that happened every now and then, I'd be slightly frustrated, but I'd accept it. This wasn't an every now and then type of thing though. This was basically an every day thing.
I come back from the Thanksgiving trip to find the following:
- Owner has retired effective immediately.
- They've decided to merge two of their companies together.
- They've decided to create a new company in one of their old company buildings.
- They've decided to open a new company in TX.
- They've also decided to open a branch extension in the same location in TX (2 companies, one building).
- The accountant that fired me on April Fool's day via word of mouth was now the president.
My initial inclination was just to give them the finger and walk right then. One of these days, I'll learn to listen to those a lot more closely. I opted to stick it out because I knew how much crap it'd put on my boss' shoulders if I left. His Dad was about to pass away at the time (ended up passing away about a month later) and he already had a ton on his plate from the sweeping changes that were taking place thanks to the new leadership.
So as the holidays progressed and we got into 2011, I made up my mind to leave. Just was a matter of finding the right moment. I had it in my head that I wanted to finish the setup of the major stuff, then walk and I was probably about two weeks from it. Apparently, the accountant/president had similar thoughts and decided to go ahead and release me the day after my last blog post. The logic behind this release actually made a little sense, but...
...the part about "not having to pay IT consulting after 90 days" was simply ludicrous. What they don't realize is that while they may get someone with a skillset that's better suited for their needs, the notion that they won't have to pay an IT guy after 90 days with the new guy is based in fantasy and the reason why is because their structure is set up for constant change. Constant change means the need to redo various aspects of the company's IT infrastructure. Constant change means they bring most of the need for an on-hand IT guy on themselves.
The writing was on the wall when I got back from Thanksgiving. I knew it, but opted to stay to help my "boss" get through what was undoubtedly going to be one of the most tumultuous times he's had there. I was "Fired" back in April cause the accountant was allegedly watching out for the bottom line. A short while after this, I realized the accountant was basically just playing favorites and trying to figure out ways to line his own pocket better. His son was hired on as a broker for a sister company. He failed. Instead of releasing him like everyone else, they moved him to the main building to do...the same thing. Anyone care to guess what the result was? Yep. Failure. Again, instead of releasing him as they do with anyone else, they moved him over to a different company to take care of the accounting, all while remaining on the payroll for the company he had essentially failed twice.
Once these changes had been decided, the guy that was figureheading the "new" company was basically a guy that had been doing accounting work. The guy taking his place?
If you said, "the son", then you'd be correct. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against his son. The dude is actually really nice, he's just not a salesman. There's nothing wrong with that, some people just aren't cut for it. The problem is his father basically letting him continue to suck money from the company while contributing nothing to it while firing people who were actually making contributions.
Anyway, we're 45 days out since I was "fired" and apparently a lot of the same issues I was dealing with when I was there are still there. Case and point:
Their phone system was down per a former co-worker I ran into at Wal-Mart a couple days ago.
So anyway, I'm happy and basically done with that company. I'm back to running my own business full time again and making plans to return to school and expand my skillset during the fall semester. While a lot of people have made a point of telling me that I'll probably be called back in at some point, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. All I know is, right now, if they called, they'd have to pay me a lot more money, offer up some guarantees and actually treat me like a person. I have better shit to do with my time than coddle and massage huge egos.
FFXI
They really should rename this game to "Abyssea".
However, I do love the new approach to development they've taken with FFXI. They're making a much more concerted effort to communicate with their playerbase. Is that because FFXIV is a huge failure at the moment and they're trying to do everything they can to retain the FFXI player base? Possibly, but I don't really care. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.
Chest-bitching jobs is a lot of fun and a great way to create a lot of flexibility with our group. Been trying to ween us off PLD usage lately by having people volunteer to chest-bitch MNK or NIN. Normally, our runs consist of 18 people all concentrating on one thing. While we've had huge success doing that, I think it's getting close to time for us to start splitting up into 2 or 3 groups. PLD tank isn't the best way to go about this, so I'm basically working to position ourselves better to handle this.
As for my own in-game accomplishments, I've managed to do the following:
- 5/5 DRG AF3+2
- 2 BRD AF3+2 pieces (head and legs)
- BLM to 90
- MNK is on the way to 90.
- On the way to finishing Caladbolg.
Still got a few other things to round out, but time has started becoming sparse for me again. Maybe another blog post in the near future about that, but who knows really...
See you soon. :)
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Random Murmurings...
The November-March time period for me is growing more and more hectic. Typically, the holiday family shenanigans would eat up a ton of my time (and rightfully so) during Nov and Dec. That generally rolls into the busiest time of the business year for me in the form of tax season.
This holiday season and the start of tax season has been especially bad for me from a time standpoint. There's been very little down time at all when there was usually at least one day/week where I could just sit and decompress from all the stress that has built up. It'll make me sound old(er), but it truly seems like people don't know how to slow down anymore.
That or I can't keep up.
Take your pick.
Anyway, part of the hecticness (is that a word?) is related to FFXI. After undergoing a renaissance of sorts with Abyssea, level cap increases, etc, a lot of transformations have had to take place within our linkshell. Seems silly to me that helping lead a linkshell, which I had always viewed more as a hobby than a job, was eating up so much of my time. It has though. At this point, we seem to have most everything in place with a few minor tweaks to debate out as we find someone trying to figure out how to get a leg up on someone else.
That's one thing I've never understood. I get that it's human nature to be self-serving. Most decent humans can figure out how to cooperate and meet their own needs through a combination of teamwork and patience. There's always those one or two people though, that, no matter how much effort the leaders or team members put into making them better, they're always trying to figure out a way to game a system that's in place.
It's probably utopian of me to think that everyone on a team should be working to help each other out when they can. It's an MMO, not everyone has the same play schedule, so it's hard to gauge just how much effort one is putting in when they typically are on about 1/4 of the time as others. I've always operated under the idea that "You get what you put in."
And yes Jess, if you put in penis, you get penis.
There's so much new content in Abyssea that it's hard to apply some of those principles to it. Some NMs, like Hedjedjet or Fuath, are regularly camped and can be taken down with a small degree of difficulty in low man groups. Unlike Scars, and especially before they dropped the respawn time of NMs to 10-15 mins, these roaming NMs drop items for the +2 stuff, so it becomes an issue of time invested vs. reward gained. Camping NMs is never fun and I've always been opposed to spending mass amounts of time camping them. At the same time, you want to figure out the best and most efficient way of knocking those NMs out to progress through your linkshell's wish lists. "You get what you put in" really only applies if you're working to take other people who share similar interests from the linkshell with you.
Tough to balance and easy to manipulate.
Also on Abyssea, man it's tough getting new people up to par for it. You almost need a damn minor league system to help push returning/new people through to get their basics down, but even then, cause they missed the main push, you always end up with 1-2 people who "don't have X atma". I started compiling a list of what people need to get before they really start actively participating in Abyssea events. A lot of it can be picked up through the course of normal activity, but...
...sometimes not for a few weeks.
Anyway, the list:
1. Fluxes, all zones, no question. You show up and say "I don't have this flux", booting you from the run until you're 100% certain you have all the fluxes.
2. Celerity Abyssites. They're all solable. Get them, maximize your stone regen time.
3. Sojourn Abyssites. 4 of the 6 require NM kills. 2 are soloable. Strongly suggested to simply watch for when your linkshell is heading to a specific zone one of the NMs that drop it are in. 48 mins/stone as opposed to 30 mins/stone will go part and parcel with the celerity Abyssites.
4. Fortune Abyssites. 4, 5 and 6 will generally be lumped together. These particular ones aren't going to be soloable for the most part, but can be picked up typically through normal LS runs.
5. Kismet Abyssites. 2/3 are soloable. The last, not so much, but that chariot isn't a huge deal for a group to take down during a Grauberg run. I point these out cause it really fkn sucks building lights. The less time you spend doing this, the better and having those 1-2 people getting killshots w/o max lights just irritates and slows down everyone else.
6. Abyssites of Furtherance and Merit. A lot of these can be soloed. More HP/MP/Stats from cruor buffs = more better good.
On a side note, why does SE still have the individual options for cruor buffs?
7. Make a beeline for Razed Ruin, Voracious Violet, Allure and Minikin Monstrosity atmas. Sure, there are other atmas that are important, but odds are, no matter what job you play, one or more of those 4 atmas are going to be infused.
Lv.90 Gungnir
Finished this up last night. I'm still pissed I wasted so much time grinding out Lv.85 Gungnir only to have SE knock out 80% of the requirements. I'm halfway expecting they'll knock out a couple of the Lv.90 requirements in the next update.
At this point though, I get 2-3 months to not worry about a relic magian trial whereas before, I was typically up against the clock right up until update day finishing my previous ones.
I speculated before that the Lv.95 version of Gungnir will end up sending us to Xarc to knock out our respective fragment NMs. Still haven't swayed much from that thought process, but I'm starting to entertain the possibility that this whole attestation NM thing is an aberration to the killshot pattern as a whole and we'll be back to killshots for lv.95.
As of this writing though, Kreoss and I have finished our Lv.90 relics with Gawayne and Junin both sitting at 4/5 as they weren't finished with their trials when we did the first couple runs.
It took us 6 runs to get the 5 kills. The first run we attempted gave us a few sore reminders about how the attestation NMs worked. Also put a spotlight on the fact that not everyone knows where the extensions are in the zone. With a few tweaks and repositionings, we got these runs down to the point where we could get in, kill the 3 NMs necessary and get out in under 2 hours.
Last night, we ended up knocking out 4 of the 5 NMs. The 4th one being the BRD/BLM/WHM for Teysa's Dagger paper. Obviously this means we have a new wave of relics coming up behind us potentially, but I suspect that's not going to happen any time soon.
Many, MANY thanks to the guys like Kaylea, Kaelis, Drakus, Milie and a whole host of others who were there every run they could be to help push us through. These things aren't the easiest in the world to Duo or Trio, much less attempt to nail down 3 of them in one run with 2-3 people. It's rather amusing to watch these NMs take down a fully buffed, Lv.90 PLD in the sac process in a matter of 5 or 6 swings (lolgawayne).
We got one more run to do for Gaw and Junin, then hopefully I can just put this behind me for a while. In a lot of ways, this trial was worse than 2000 killshots given the amount of man hours invested from everyone involved. 2000 killshots could basically be done whenever with about 40~ hours. Dynamis could only be done every 72 hours and when you figure about 10 people per run investing 2-3 hours at a time over the course of 5 runs, you can see it easily trumps the killshots trials.
Even though I can't say everyone in our linkshell is always helping other linkshell members get their stuff done, I can say when the major stuff shows up, we got a very solid group of people that pitch in and help, so again, thanks to everyone that pitched in and got us through this.
Lancer's Plackart +2
As a b-day present, a few of us got together to knock this out. I wasn't really expecting to finish it, and it looked like I wasn't going to thanks to Shaula being stubborn on the Lancer's Body seals, but it happened. I had picked up a few Ardor Cards from NMs like Bennu and Alfard. Going into this impromptu event, I was sitting at 6/9 cards and 8/10 seals.
I rounded up everyone I could who was on same tier with me (our prio system is tiered based on 1st-5th priorities and grouped by what +2 items are required) and we headed out. Got Hedjedjet first thing. He somehow went unclaimed during the fight and we weren't sure if he had to deaggro or just go unclaimed for the whole restaggering bit. We erred on the side of caution and just killed him. Our reward?
One Thunder Belt.
One Card of Ardor.
So we figured we needed to restagger. While waiting for repop, we knocked out a few Shaulas, which had managed to drop a shitload of RNG and WHM body seals, but only one DRG body seal.
Second Hedjedjet comes along and we killed w/o having to deal with the unclaimed issue. The drops from that one were:
2x Card of Ardor.
1x Jewel of Ardor.
SoulScourge.
Thunder Belt.
So, I was done with the +2 portion of the body, just needed that last, pesky body seal. Back to Shaula we went. Nada. More RNG and WHM...
Not that Mav minded all the RNG body seals...I think he started from scratch and finished his +1 and then some...
More linkshell members came out to join us and we got Hedjedjet again. We ran into the unclaimed issue and, thinking back to the first, we grellowed it again. Our reward?
Thunder Belt.
1x Jewel of Ardor.
So ok...one of those kills we just got unlucky on, which was it...
Back to Shaula, who finally dropped the last seal I needed. Awesomely enough, pretty much every Shaula since has dropped 1-2 DRG body seals...
My luck is seriously weird sometimes. There's no question I'm lucky most of the time. My bad luck tends to manifest itself when I'm || close to finishing something.
One objective to go in a relic trial?
Geirskogul whiffs 7 times in a row.
One more item to finish a +1 or +2 piece of armor?
Need at least 10 kills before I'm done.
.1 away from a new WS?
Usually takes an hour or more before I see it.
But up until those points in each of those scenarios, I'm lucky in how fast I get there.
At any rate, I've got +2 head and body now on DRG and +1 everything else. The +2 legs and feet might take some more time given the NMs that drop the cards in Qty. 3 are T3 VNMs...and getting those abyssites suck to begin with. Really wouldn't surprise me if I finished the lower gear priorities on my wish lists before I finished those 2 particular pieces.
I'm torn on what's better for WS though. Lancer's Plackart +2 or Ares Body. I'm of the mindset that in Abyssea, Ares is better, but out of Abyssea, the plackart is better.
Acc is more or less wasted on me given the sheer amount of it I have on my relic and various other pieces of gear. So it's really a question of what's better? 15 Dex or 10 Att? DRG only has a DEX mod in Penta Thrust, which I rarely use anymore. Obviously DEX helps Drakesbane potentially reach another crit tier, but in Abyssea, I'm likely well beyond the crit cap from cruor buffs and atma like Razed Ruin.
Testing must be done!
Testing must also be done on the whole "Set: Damage occasionally varies with wyvern's HP". I whacked a lady bug with a 2600 crit melee swing shortly after I got the body. My wyvern's HP was 100%, so I'm wondering if it's just a straight 1/1 percentage boost to the damage you would have normally dealt as most of my relic crits are in the 1200-1300 range.
That's all for now though...
This holiday season and the start of tax season has been especially bad for me from a time standpoint. There's been very little down time at all when there was usually at least one day/week where I could just sit and decompress from all the stress that has built up. It'll make me sound old(er), but it truly seems like people don't know how to slow down anymore.
That or I can't keep up.
Take your pick.
Anyway, part of the hecticness (is that a word?) is related to FFXI. After undergoing a renaissance of sorts with Abyssea, level cap increases, etc, a lot of transformations have had to take place within our linkshell. Seems silly to me that helping lead a linkshell, which I had always viewed more as a hobby than a job, was eating up so much of my time. It has though. At this point, we seem to have most everything in place with a few minor tweaks to debate out as we find someone trying to figure out how to get a leg up on someone else.
That's one thing I've never understood. I get that it's human nature to be self-serving. Most decent humans can figure out how to cooperate and meet their own needs through a combination of teamwork and patience. There's always those one or two people though, that, no matter how much effort the leaders or team members put into making them better, they're always trying to figure out a way to game a system that's in place.
It's probably utopian of me to think that everyone on a team should be working to help each other out when they can. It's an MMO, not everyone has the same play schedule, so it's hard to gauge just how much effort one is putting in when they typically are on about 1/4 of the time as others. I've always operated under the idea that "You get what you put in."
And yes Jess, if you put in penis, you get penis.
There's so much new content in Abyssea that it's hard to apply some of those principles to it. Some NMs, like Hedjedjet or Fuath, are regularly camped and can be taken down with a small degree of difficulty in low man groups. Unlike Scars, and especially before they dropped the respawn time of NMs to 10-15 mins, these roaming NMs drop items for the +2 stuff, so it becomes an issue of time invested vs. reward gained. Camping NMs is never fun and I've always been opposed to spending mass amounts of time camping them. At the same time, you want to figure out the best and most efficient way of knocking those NMs out to progress through your linkshell's wish lists. "You get what you put in" really only applies if you're working to take other people who share similar interests from the linkshell with you.
Tough to balance and easy to manipulate.
Also on Abyssea, man it's tough getting new people up to par for it. You almost need a damn minor league system to help push returning/new people through to get their basics down, but even then, cause they missed the main push, you always end up with 1-2 people who "don't have X atma". I started compiling a list of what people need to get before they really start actively participating in Abyssea events. A lot of it can be picked up through the course of normal activity, but...
...sometimes not for a few weeks.
Anyway, the list:
1. Fluxes, all zones, no question. You show up and say "I don't have this flux", booting you from the run until you're 100% certain you have all the fluxes.
2. Celerity Abyssites. They're all solable. Get them, maximize your stone regen time.
3. Sojourn Abyssites. 4 of the 6 require NM kills. 2 are soloable. Strongly suggested to simply watch for when your linkshell is heading to a specific zone one of the NMs that drop it are in. 48 mins/stone as opposed to 30 mins/stone will go part and parcel with the celerity Abyssites.
4. Fortune Abyssites. 4, 5 and 6 will generally be lumped together. These particular ones aren't going to be soloable for the most part, but can be picked up typically through normal LS runs.
5. Kismet Abyssites. 2/3 are soloable. The last, not so much, but that chariot isn't a huge deal for a group to take down during a Grauberg run. I point these out cause it really fkn sucks building lights. The less time you spend doing this, the better and having those 1-2 people getting killshots w/o max lights just irritates and slows down everyone else.
6. Abyssites of Furtherance and Merit. A lot of these can be soloed. More HP/MP/Stats from cruor buffs = more better good.
On a side note, why does SE still have the individual options for cruor buffs?
7. Make a beeline for Razed Ruin, Voracious Violet, Allure and Minikin Monstrosity atmas. Sure, there are other atmas that are important, but odds are, no matter what job you play, one or more of those 4 atmas are going to be infused.
Lv.90 Gungnir
Finished this up last night. I'm still pissed I wasted so much time grinding out Lv.85 Gungnir only to have SE knock out 80% of the requirements. I'm halfway expecting they'll knock out a couple of the Lv.90 requirements in the next update.
At this point though, I get 2-3 months to not worry about a relic magian trial whereas before, I was typically up against the clock right up until update day finishing my previous ones.
I speculated before that the Lv.95 version of Gungnir will end up sending us to Xarc to knock out our respective fragment NMs. Still haven't swayed much from that thought process, but I'm starting to entertain the possibility that this whole attestation NM thing is an aberration to the killshot pattern as a whole and we'll be back to killshots for lv.95.
As of this writing though, Kreoss and I have finished our Lv.90 relics with Gawayne and Junin both sitting at 4/5 as they weren't finished with their trials when we did the first couple runs.
It took us 6 runs to get the 5 kills. The first run we attempted gave us a few sore reminders about how the attestation NMs worked. Also put a spotlight on the fact that not everyone knows where the extensions are in the zone. With a few tweaks and repositionings, we got these runs down to the point where we could get in, kill the 3 NMs necessary and get out in under 2 hours.
Last night, we ended up knocking out 4 of the 5 NMs. The 4th one being the BRD/BLM/WHM for Teysa's Dagger paper. Obviously this means we have a new wave of relics coming up behind us potentially, but I suspect that's not going to happen any time soon.
Many, MANY thanks to the guys like Kaylea, Kaelis, Drakus, Milie and a whole host of others who were there every run they could be to help push us through. These things aren't the easiest in the world to Duo or Trio, much less attempt to nail down 3 of them in one run with 2-3 people. It's rather amusing to watch these NMs take down a fully buffed, Lv.90 PLD in the sac process in a matter of 5 or 6 swings (lolgawayne).
We got one more run to do for Gaw and Junin, then hopefully I can just put this behind me for a while. In a lot of ways, this trial was worse than 2000 killshots given the amount of man hours invested from everyone involved. 2000 killshots could basically be done whenever with about 40~ hours. Dynamis could only be done every 72 hours and when you figure about 10 people per run investing 2-3 hours at a time over the course of 5 runs, you can see it easily trumps the killshots trials.
Even though I can't say everyone in our linkshell is always helping other linkshell members get their stuff done, I can say when the major stuff shows up, we got a very solid group of people that pitch in and help, so again, thanks to everyone that pitched in and got us through this.
Lancer's Plackart +2
As a b-day present, a few of us got together to knock this out. I wasn't really expecting to finish it, and it looked like I wasn't going to thanks to Shaula being stubborn on the Lancer's Body seals, but it happened. I had picked up a few Ardor Cards from NMs like Bennu and Alfard. Going into this impromptu event, I was sitting at 6/9 cards and 8/10 seals.
I rounded up everyone I could who was on same tier with me (our prio system is tiered based on 1st-5th priorities and grouped by what +2 items are required) and we headed out. Got Hedjedjet first thing. He somehow went unclaimed during the fight and we weren't sure if he had to deaggro or just go unclaimed for the whole restaggering bit. We erred on the side of caution and just killed him. Our reward?
One Thunder Belt.
One Card of Ardor.
So we figured we needed to restagger. While waiting for repop, we knocked out a few Shaulas, which had managed to drop a shitload of RNG and WHM body seals, but only one DRG body seal.
Second Hedjedjet comes along and we killed w/o having to deal with the unclaimed issue. The drops from that one were:
2x Card of Ardor.
1x Jewel of Ardor.
SoulScourge.
Thunder Belt.
So, I was done with the +2 portion of the body, just needed that last, pesky body seal. Back to Shaula we went. Nada. More RNG and WHM...
Not that Mav minded all the RNG body seals...I think he started from scratch and finished his +1 and then some...
More linkshell members came out to join us and we got Hedjedjet again. We ran into the unclaimed issue and, thinking back to the first, we grellowed it again. Our reward?
Thunder Belt.
1x Jewel of Ardor.
So ok...one of those kills we just got unlucky on, which was it...
Back to Shaula, who finally dropped the last seal I needed. Awesomely enough, pretty much every Shaula since has dropped 1-2 DRG body seals...
My luck is seriously weird sometimes. There's no question I'm lucky most of the time. My bad luck tends to manifest itself when I'm || close to finishing something.
One objective to go in a relic trial?
Geirskogul whiffs 7 times in a row.
One more item to finish a +1 or +2 piece of armor?
Need at least 10 kills before I'm done.
.1 away from a new WS?
Usually takes an hour or more before I see it.
But up until those points in each of those scenarios, I'm lucky in how fast I get there.
At any rate, I've got +2 head and body now on DRG and +1 everything else. The +2 legs and feet might take some more time given the NMs that drop the cards in Qty. 3 are T3 VNMs...and getting those abyssites suck to begin with. Really wouldn't surprise me if I finished the lower gear priorities on my wish lists before I finished those 2 particular pieces.
I'm torn on what's better for WS though. Lancer's Plackart +2 or Ares Body. I'm of the mindset that in Abyssea, Ares is better, but out of Abyssea, the plackart is better.
Acc is more or less wasted on me given the sheer amount of it I have on my relic and various other pieces of gear. So it's really a question of what's better? 15 Dex or 10 Att? DRG only has a DEX mod in Penta Thrust, which I rarely use anymore. Obviously DEX helps Drakesbane potentially reach another crit tier, but in Abyssea, I'm likely well beyond the crit cap from cruor buffs and atma like Razed Ruin.
Testing must be done!
Testing must also be done on the whole "Set: Damage occasionally varies with wyvern's HP". I whacked a lady bug with a 2600 crit melee swing shortly after I got the body. My wyvern's HP was 100%, so I'm wondering if it's just a straight 1/1 percentage boost to the damage you would have normally dealt as most of my relic crits are in the 1200-1300 range.
That's all for now though...
Monday, January 3, 2011
Benji: 1995-2011
This isn't an FFXI related post, so if you come here strictly for that, then sorry, you'll have to wait another day.
Today I woke up with a long list of tasks to do. I ended up getting none of them done and had to bury my dog.
My sister found Benji as a puppy in the parking lot of a nearby Minit Mart about 16 years ago. She was out for a drive with Dad practicing for her driver's test. Benji was so small that my sister feared she would get run over cause she was hard to see. This resulted in her being brought home with her with the intention of being taken to the pound the next day.
Most people know how that story goes.
The part that was uncommon was that she managed to win my mom over in that one-day moratorium. Y'see, Mom hates dogs. She was attacked by one as a little girl and has hated/feared them ever since, no matter the size. The second Benji showed up in my sister's arms, she was pretty much ordered to take her back. Dad intervened. The dog was staying at least until the next day. It was getting dark out and the pound was already closed anyway.
Naturally, my sister and I are playing with Benji. So full of life and energy as a lot of puppies are. She's a little skittish naturally due to her size, but once she warmed up to you, she couldn't get enough attention.
Later that evening, Mom is sitting on the couch scowling at Benji. I'm not sure what possessed Benji to try, but she walked right up to the couch and started trying to hop up next to Mom. Benji was so small though, that she couldn't make it. Mom, being undersized herself, seemed to empathize with that. She ultimately helped Benji up onto the couch and seemingly from that point forward, Benji was officially part of our family.
Benji was you typical dog. Couldn't get enough attention. Definitely couldn't get enough food. Randomly left "presents" around the house if we didn't get her outside in time. Some of her more endearing qualities were:
- Yapped at anything that came into the yard or if the doorbell rang. Her bark could actually wake Dad up from a deep sleep (Dad's legally deaf).
- Fiercly protective of people she loved, even if someone she loved was acting like they were going to harm someone else she loved. It was a fun game to play at times to get her stirred up. You could simply hold your hand out and move a little bit towards another person. If you had eye contact with Benji, she'd rush toward you, teeth bared and barking. She would never actually bite you, but she'd certainly let you know she didn't approve.
- She never played fetch. No matter how many times I tried to train her, she'd just look at whatever I threw as if to say, "Dumbass. Now you get to go get it."
- Tuft of hair on the top of her head that was the only indication she had some poodle in her. Benji was mostly terrier. That tuft of hair was basically like pipe cleaner. You could bend/style that in any shape you wanted w/o having to use anything to hold it in place. We commonly had her running around with a mohawk.
- She had a snaggletooth. If you whistled for her, sometimes her upper lip wouldn't be covering said tooth. So the expression you'd get when she'd look up was one that looked like sheer befuddlement when it was supposed to be one of attention.
- She was scared of her collar clanging against her water bowl. Never really understood why this scared her, but it did. We tried using plastic dog tags, changing her water bowl to a plastic one, etc, but nothing worked. It wasn't until the past year or so when she started going deaf that she seemed to not care if her collar hit her bowl or not. Otherwise, she'd stand just far enough away to lap the water with her tongue outstretched.
- Loved baths. A lot of dogs do and she wasn't any different. She'd get a bath and then run around the house like a crazed animal rubbing up against anything she could.
For the past year or so, her health had been failing at a rather rapid pace. I'm about as anti-euthanization as it gets and felt if meds could keep her from suffering, that was the better option. She had a whole host of problems due to age. Irritable bowels, arthritic joints, kidney failure (which required dialysis every couple days the past few months), and most notably, going blind and deaf.
Most days, on all of her meds, she seemed fine and about as alert as a blind/deaf dog could be. She could hear you whistle for her still and my guess is could still make out shadows, but you'd catch her running into things she normally wouldn't. She found it harder and harder to walk and even harder to control her bowels.
A couple weeks ago, we had to take her in for an emergency visit due to some blood being in her urine. One complete set of tract infection meds later, the problem hadn't really cleared up, so my folks made the decision to go ahead and have her put down.
When they called me this morning to tell me the news, I rushed over to the vets office hoping I could say bye to her. On the way, my sister calls me to tell me they're holding off until she and I got there.
It's rare that people get to say goodbye to their pets in this manner. Sure, pets are euthanized all the time, but typically said euthanizaton happens after a pet has suffered something traumatic or has generally lost all sense of self. Benji was still completely coherent of her surroundings.
I got to the office and found Benji waiting for me. She was so weak, she could barely stand up, but she tried. I just held onto her for the longest time waiting for my sister to get there. Once she did, she and I just started sobbing. Even though I knew the decision to have her put down was the right one, I never imagined it would be so hard to let go.
I've lost pets before. Most infamously, my cat that had congestive heart failure She managed to hop up onto the couch I was laying on and headbutt me one last time to let me know she was leaving. She was dead the next morning. In that case, I had a sense she wasn't going to make it to the morning and I did get to say bye, but she got to die her own way. Benji really didn't.
What Benji did get to do though was have her family around her to say bye. Sitting in the vet's office with Benji in my lap shortly after she was given the tranquilizer shot (the precursor to the final euth. shot), she let me know things were ok. She let my sister know too. The dog that was unable to stand moments before managed to paw at both my hand and my sister's hand before she passed out. It was a weak paw, but we both got the message. Soon enough, she was snoring loudly in my lap.
Shortly after that, the final shot was administered and we ushered Benji off into doggy heaven.
There aren't many instances in life that will cause me to sob uncontrollably. There are plenty that might make me well up a bit, but nothing like that. After she was pronounced dead, I picked her body up to place in her box for carriage home. I didn't realize how limp she was going to be and I broke down uncontrollably, missing her box almost completely.
The vet offered to place her in a bag for me and put her in there, but there wasn't any way I was allowing that to happen. I get that vets do this sort of stuff on a daily basis and having the owners in there likely makes their job a lot more difficult. I just didn't want Benji's body to be shaped by the bag. As morbid as this sounds, every pet I've buried up until this one had been through the bagging process and the positions their bodies ended up in was just horrifying to me.
Working through the sobs, My sister and I managed to get Benji curled up in her box, placed the lid on it and proceeded to come home with her.
What Benji has meant to our family over these years can't be worded. Most pet owners will just understand. We've had a lot of pets and, while most of them ended up being taken from us way too early, the one constant that touched every single pet we've ever owned sans one, was Benji. Up until the past year or so, we would be greeted through the door by her barking and her coming up to greet us when we walked through the door. Again, this isn't uncommon for most pet owners, but most pet owners wouldn't think of it a second for other pets. However, their own pets doing this ends up being taken for granted.
We were fortunate. We knew the end was near. Even as far back as 5 or so years ago when arthritis set in, we knew. So our family simply did their best to enjoy what time Benji had left here. Sure, she aggravated us at times, but even if she got in trouble, it wasn't long afterwards that she was right by our sides getting loved on.
Benji's life was one of incredible luck and circumstances. Most can read her story and see that given where she came from.
What most won't see is that even though she was that lucky, we were infinitely more lucky to have her.
R.I.P. Benji. You were loved and you will be missed greatly.
P.S. The decision to keep her alive vs. put her down over the course of the past year has come up quite a bit. Meds generally kept her happy and moving around, but as time wore on, they weren't having the same effect. One of the biggest things that came out of our decisions was my oldest niece being old enough to remember who Benji was as she gets older. Around 2.5-3 years old, not many memories stay. Since she's over 4 now, it's far more likely she will remember and that does nothing but positive things towards Benji's memory.
Today I woke up with a long list of tasks to do. I ended up getting none of them done and had to bury my dog.
My sister found Benji as a puppy in the parking lot of a nearby Minit Mart about 16 years ago. She was out for a drive with Dad practicing for her driver's test. Benji was so small that my sister feared she would get run over cause she was hard to see. This resulted in her being brought home with her with the intention of being taken to the pound the next day.
Most people know how that story goes.
The part that was uncommon was that she managed to win my mom over in that one-day moratorium. Y'see, Mom hates dogs. She was attacked by one as a little girl and has hated/feared them ever since, no matter the size. The second Benji showed up in my sister's arms, she was pretty much ordered to take her back. Dad intervened. The dog was staying at least until the next day. It was getting dark out and the pound was already closed anyway.
Naturally, my sister and I are playing with Benji. So full of life and energy as a lot of puppies are. She's a little skittish naturally due to her size, but once she warmed up to you, she couldn't get enough attention.
Later that evening, Mom is sitting on the couch scowling at Benji. I'm not sure what possessed Benji to try, but she walked right up to the couch and started trying to hop up next to Mom. Benji was so small though, that she couldn't make it. Mom, being undersized herself, seemed to empathize with that. She ultimately helped Benji up onto the couch and seemingly from that point forward, Benji was officially part of our family.
Benji was you typical dog. Couldn't get enough attention. Definitely couldn't get enough food. Randomly left "presents" around the house if we didn't get her outside in time. Some of her more endearing qualities were:
- Yapped at anything that came into the yard or if the doorbell rang. Her bark could actually wake Dad up from a deep sleep (Dad's legally deaf).
- Fiercly protective of people she loved, even if someone she loved was acting like they were going to harm someone else she loved. It was a fun game to play at times to get her stirred up. You could simply hold your hand out and move a little bit towards another person. If you had eye contact with Benji, she'd rush toward you, teeth bared and barking. She would never actually bite you, but she'd certainly let you know she didn't approve.
- She never played fetch. No matter how many times I tried to train her, she'd just look at whatever I threw as if to say, "Dumbass. Now you get to go get it."
- Tuft of hair on the top of her head that was the only indication she had some poodle in her. Benji was mostly terrier. That tuft of hair was basically like pipe cleaner. You could bend/style that in any shape you wanted w/o having to use anything to hold it in place. We commonly had her running around with a mohawk.
- She had a snaggletooth. If you whistled for her, sometimes her upper lip wouldn't be covering said tooth. So the expression you'd get when she'd look up was one that looked like sheer befuddlement when it was supposed to be one of attention.
- She was scared of her collar clanging against her water bowl. Never really understood why this scared her, but it did. We tried using plastic dog tags, changing her water bowl to a plastic one, etc, but nothing worked. It wasn't until the past year or so when she started going deaf that she seemed to not care if her collar hit her bowl or not. Otherwise, she'd stand just far enough away to lap the water with her tongue outstretched.
- Loved baths. A lot of dogs do and she wasn't any different. She'd get a bath and then run around the house like a crazed animal rubbing up against anything she could.
For the past year or so, her health had been failing at a rather rapid pace. I'm about as anti-euthanization as it gets and felt if meds could keep her from suffering, that was the better option. She had a whole host of problems due to age. Irritable bowels, arthritic joints, kidney failure (which required dialysis every couple days the past few months), and most notably, going blind and deaf.
Most days, on all of her meds, she seemed fine and about as alert as a blind/deaf dog could be. She could hear you whistle for her still and my guess is could still make out shadows, but you'd catch her running into things she normally wouldn't. She found it harder and harder to walk and even harder to control her bowels.
A couple weeks ago, we had to take her in for an emergency visit due to some blood being in her urine. One complete set of tract infection meds later, the problem hadn't really cleared up, so my folks made the decision to go ahead and have her put down.
When they called me this morning to tell me the news, I rushed over to the vets office hoping I could say bye to her. On the way, my sister calls me to tell me they're holding off until she and I got there.
It's rare that people get to say goodbye to their pets in this manner. Sure, pets are euthanized all the time, but typically said euthanizaton happens after a pet has suffered something traumatic or has generally lost all sense of self. Benji was still completely coherent of her surroundings.
I got to the office and found Benji waiting for me. She was so weak, she could barely stand up, but she tried. I just held onto her for the longest time waiting for my sister to get there. Once she did, she and I just started sobbing. Even though I knew the decision to have her put down was the right one, I never imagined it would be so hard to let go.
I've lost pets before. Most infamously, my cat that had congestive heart failure She managed to hop up onto the couch I was laying on and headbutt me one last time to let me know she was leaving. She was dead the next morning. In that case, I had a sense she wasn't going to make it to the morning and I did get to say bye, but she got to die her own way. Benji really didn't.
What Benji did get to do though was have her family around her to say bye. Sitting in the vet's office with Benji in my lap shortly after she was given the tranquilizer shot (the precursor to the final euth. shot), she let me know things were ok. She let my sister know too. The dog that was unable to stand moments before managed to paw at both my hand and my sister's hand before she passed out. It was a weak paw, but we both got the message. Soon enough, she was snoring loudly in my lap.
Shortly after that, the final shot was administered and we ushered Benji off into doggy heaven.
There aren't many instances in life that will cause me to sob uncontrollably. There are plenty that might make me well up a bit, but nothing like that. After she was pronounced dead, I picked her body up to place in her box for carriage home. I didn't realize how limp she was going to be and I broke down uncontrollably, missing her box almost completely.
The vet offered to place her in a bag for me and put her in there, but there wasn't any way I was allowing that to happen. I get that vets do this sort of stuff on a daily basis and having the owners in there likely makes their job a lot more difficult. I just didn't want Benji's body to be shaped by the bag. As morbid as this sounds, every pet I've buried up until this one had been through the bagging process and the positions their bodies ended up in was just horrifying to me.
Working through the sobs, My sister and I managed to get Benji curled up in her box, placed the lid on it and proceeded to come home with her.
What Benji has meant to our family over these years can't be worded. Most pet owners will just understand. We've had a lot of pets and, while most of them ended up being taken from us way too early, the one constant that touched every single pet we've ever owned sans one, was Benji. Up until the past year or so, we would be greeted through the door by her barking and her coming up to greet us when we walked through the door. Again, this isn't uncommon for most pet owners, but most pet owners wouldn't think of it a second for other pets. However, their own pets doing this ends up being taken for granted.
We were fortunate. We knew the end was near. Even as far back as 5 or so years ago when arthritis set in, we knew. So our family simply did their best to enjoy what time Benji had left here. Sure, she aggravated us at times, but even if she got in trouble, it wasn't long afterwards that she was right by our sides getting loved on.
Benji's life was one of incredible luck and circumstances. Most can read her story and see that given where she came from.
What most won't see is that even though she was that lucky, we were infinitely more lucky to have her.
R.I.P. Benji. You were loved and you will be missed greatly.
P.S. The decision to keep her alive vs. put her down over the course of the past year has come up quite a bit. Meds generally kept her happy and moving around, but as time wore on, they weren't having the same effect. One of the biggest things that came out of our decisions was my oldest niece being old enough to remember who Benji was as she gets older. Around 2.5-3 years old, not many memories stay. Since she's over 4 now, it's far more likely she will remember and that does nothing but positive things towards Benji's memory.
Monday, December 27, 2010
End of 2010
As the end of this year approaches, it's time for me to review the results of my resolutions:
1. Resolution: Weigh 165-170lbs by 2011.
When I initially stated my weight was 195lbs, I found out a short while later my scale was broken. I was actually about 210. While I didn't hit the goals I initially set out to hit (165-170lbs, lose 30lbs), I came close. I'm checking in between 185-190 now, which means I lost 20-25lbs over the course of this year.
Admittedly, my weight loss wasn't at the forefront of my thoughts throughout most of the year and I lost a good chunk of that before March. The good news here is that I made enough minor changes to know I can maintain the weight loss it would seem. If 2011 works out the same as 2010 did, I'll hit my goal of 165-170lbs.
2. Resolution: Database Programming. Learn it. Love it.
Yeah this one didn't go as easily as I thought. Buying and reading books on this subject just put me to sleep most of the time. I wouldn't call myself an expert on the subject at hand just yet, but I made some in-rows.
Learning it: Yes.
Loving it: No.
3. Resolution: Debt under control enough to re-establish my own independence.
This resolution revolved mostly around trimming 3 people off my debtors list. I succeeded in doing this and then some. Now I have just one debtor and that one will take a few more years to pay off.
4. Resolution: Girlfriend moved to KY by the end of July 2010.
Didn't work out. She insists on finding a job before she moves and I'm insisting she won't find one until she's actually here. She's got some other legit concerns as well like medical insurance, etc.
She's actually self-imposed a deadline of July 2011 to move down here now.
5. Resolution: Improve my credit score by 50-100 points.
Great how fast credit can get destroyed but how long it takes to build. Despite having 0 new negative entries and clearing off a few others in 2010, my credit score went up a whole 12 points.
The whole goddamn system is a sham.
6. Resolution: Level at least 2 more jobs to 75 in 2010.
I stated BLM would be my next job to 75. I also wrote that blog post before SE announced they would be lifting the level cap to 99 and before they released Abyssea.
Abyssea changed the way jobs are leveled and pretty much everything about FFXI. While I did get bard up to end-game level (currently sits at 87), I didn't level BLM. However, I don't fret that too much given I can take BLM from 40-90 in a matter of 2-3 XP parties in Abyssea.
Anyway, I got to most of my goals for 2010 or a good chunk of the way there. I would expect to have similar goals for 2011, but I haven't given much thought to it. Eventually, I'll make a 2011 resolutions entry.
In the mean time, hope everyone had a great 2010 and can look forward to an even better 2011.
1. Resolution: Weigh 165-170lbs by 2011.
When I initially stated my weight was 195lbs, I found out a short while later my scale was broken. I was actually about 210. While I didn't hit the goals I initially set out to hit (165-170lbs, lose 30lbs), I came close. I'm checking in between 185-190 now, which means I lost 20-25lbs over the course of this year.
Admittedly, my weight loss wasn't at the forefront of my thoughts throughout most of the year and I lost a good chunk of that before March. The good news here is that I made enough minor changes to know I can maintain the weight loss it would seem. If 2011 works out the same as 2010 did, I'll hit my goal of 165-170lbs.
2. Resolution: Database Programming. Learn it. Love it.
Yeah this one didn't go as easily as I thought. Buying and reading books on this subject just put me to sleep most of the time. I wouldn't call myself an expert on the subject at hand just yet, but I made some in-rows.
Learning it: Yes.
Loving it: No.
3. Resolution: Debt under control enough to re-establish my own independence.
This resolution revolved mostly around trimming 3 people off my debtors list. I succeeded in doing this and then some. Now I have just one debtor and that one will take a few more years to pay off.
4. Resolution: Girlfriend moved to KY by the end of July 2010.
Didn't work out. She insists on finding a job before she moves and I'm insisting she won't find one until she's actually here. She's got some other legit concerns as well like medical insurance, etc.
She's actually self-imposed a deadline of July 2011 to move down here now.
5. Resolution: Improve my credit score by 50-100 points.
Great how fast credit can get destroyed but how long it takes to build. Despite having 0 new negative entries and clearing off a few others in 2010, my credit score went up a whole 12 points.
The whole goddamn system is a sham.
6. Resolution: Level at least 2 more jobs to 75 in 2010.
I stated BLM would be my next job to 75. I also wrote that blog post before SE announced they would be lifting the level cap to 99 and before they released Abyssea.
Abyssea changed the way jobs are leveled and pretty much everything about FFXI. While I did get bard up to end-game level (currently sits at 87), I didn't level BLM. However, I don't fret that too much given I can take BLM from 40-90 in a matter of 2-3 XP parties in Abyssea.
Anyway, I got to most of my goals for 2010 or a good chunk of the way there. I would expect to have similar goals for 2011, but I haven't given much thought to it. Eventually, I'll make a 2011 resolutions entry.
In the mean time, hope everyone had a great 2010 and can look forward to an even better 2011.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
New DRG Stuff from Dec. Update
Got DRG to 90 last night and had a chance to fiddle around with the new stuff SE gave us. Didn't do any in depth testing, but...
Breath Commands
- Both of the breath moves are actual pet commands and not stances as some had speculated.
- Neither breath appears to be gimped. All of the same factors apply that would normally apply when triggering these breaths normally.
- This basically means I have to start carrying around my Wyvern HP+ set even when I'm subbing SAM.
- They do not share a timer.
- You cannot target other players with Restoring Breath.
These additions are huge for DRG and a bit of a god-send for mages who hate that DRGs are such MP sponges. Being able to cure myself for a huge amount once every minute will likely help ease up MP consumption rates and make DRG a lot more effective from a soloing/duoing standpoint. Smiting Breath is useful not only just for damage output potential, but for manually hitting up magic bursts if the wyvern is smart enough to use the correct breath.
Dragon Breaker
Admittedly, I only used this once last night on Cuelebre. However, the reductions it caused were very noticeable. Looked like the effect lasted approximately 3 minutes as well. Again though, I was just eyeballing that and didn't pay super close attention to it.
AF3 Body + Hands
Shit those things are smexy. The full set is probably one of the best sets of armor I've seen in this game. I was impressed with the original pictures that were shown on the Heroes of Abyssea microsite, but those were on a Hume. On an Elvaan, there's a lot more to see. Screenshots soon to follow hopefully...
And...hopefully getting the +1 or +2 versions of it aren't all that difficult.
Lv.90 Gungnir
So after reducing the relic trials to basically nothing...(really? 80% reductions?), I learned what the requirements were for getting the Lv.90 version of my relic.
For the record, I went into acquiring this particular piece of knowledge with a little bit of hope given how much they had reduced the previous trials, but part of me also had a sense of dread considering just how much time I actually wasted trying to get to this point anyway.
The trial is....
Kill Dagourmarche 5 times.
Don't remember him?
Yeah he would be this guy.
So...after enduring the bullshit that was:
1500 Geirskogul uses on Amorphs.
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Lizards.
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Arcana
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Vermin.
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Aquans.
Then getting no-lube sodomized by their 80% reductions on the trials...
Now I have to trudge into Dynamis-Beaucedine a minimum of 5 times, run all the way up to Nue's tower (anyone who's ever popped attestation NMs know what a bitch this actually is), then kill said NM 5 times.
Nevermind the 500k entry fee (x 5).
Or the 72 hour cool down...
At least it's not 2000 killshots again.
The part about this that bothers me isn't really the trial itself, it's just what the pattern seems to establish. If I have to go kill this NM 5 times, I suspect Lv.95 Gungnir will require me to go kill Gungnir itself 5 times.
Which leaves killing DL or something else Dynamis-related 5 times for the Lv.99 version.
Obviously, SE could throw a curve ball and just change it to something different, but I somewhat doubt it. SE hasn't been very creative in the trials for relics (or mythics for that matter).
Good thing is, it means Rustnarok will be completed and I'll have a buddy to take these down with.
Breath Commands
- Both of the breath moves are actual pet commands and not stances as some had speculated.
- Neither breath appears to be gimped. All of the same factors apply that would normally apply when triggering these breaths normally.
- This basically means I have to start carrying around my Wyvern HP+ set even when I'm subbing SAM.
- They do not share a timer.
- You cannot target other players with Restoring Breath.
These additions are huge for DRG and a bit of a god-send for mages who hate that DRGs are such MP sponges. Being able to cure myself for a huge amount once every minute will likely help ease up MP consumption rates and make DRG a lot more effective from a soloing/duoing standpoint. Smiting Breath is useful not only just for damage output potential, but for manually hitting up magic bursts if the wyvern is smart enough to use the correct breath.
Dragon Breaker
Admittedly, I only used this once last night on Cuelebre. However, the reductions it caused were very noticeable. Looked like the effect lasted approximately 3 minutes as well. Again though, I was just eyeballing that and didn't pay super close attention to it.
AF3 Body + Hands
Shit those things are smexy. The full set is probably one of the best sets of armor I've seen in this game. I was impressed with the original pictures that were shown on the Heroes of Abyssea microsite, but those were on a Hume. On an Elvaan, there's a lot more to see. Screenshots soon to follow hopefully...
And...hopefully getting the +1 or +2 versions of it aren't all that difficult.
Lv.90 Gungnir
So after reducing the relic trials to basically nothing...(really? 80% reductions?), I learned what the requirements were for getting the Lv.90 version of my relic.
For the record, I went into acquiring this particular piece of knowledge with a little bit of hope given how much they had reduced the previous trials, but part of me also had a sense of dread considering just how much time I actually wasted trying to get to this point anyway.
The trial is....
Kill Dagourmarche 5 times.
Don't remember him?
Yeah he would be this guy.
So...after enduring the bullshit that was:
1500 Geirskogul uses on Amorphs.
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Lizards.
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Arcana
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Vermin.
2000 Geirskogul killshots on Aquans.
Then getting no-lube sodomized by their 80% reductions on the trials...
Now I have to trudge into Dynamis-Beaucedine a minimum of 5 times, run all the way up to Nue's tower (anyone who's ever popped attestation NMs know what a bitch this actually is), then kill said NM 5 times.
Nevermind the 500k entry fee (x 5).
Or the 72 hour cool down...
At least it's not 2000 killshots again.
The part about this that bothers me isn't really the trial itself, it's just what the pattern seems to establish. If I have to go kill this NM 5 times, I suspect Lv.95 Gungnir will require me to go kill Gungnir itself 5 times.
Which leaves killing DL or something else Dynamis-related 5 times for the Lv.99 version.
Obviously, SE could throw a curve ball and just change it to something different, but I somewhat doubt it. SE hasn't been very creative in the trials for relics (or mythics for that matter).
Good thing is, it means Rustnarok will be completed and I'll have a buddy to take these down with.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Level 90 DRG...Some Other Random Sh*t Too.
We interrupt this long, blog writing hiatus to shoot out a few quick blurbs on the new JAs they've announced for the Dec. update.
Most notably...DRG.
My first reaction to seeing these was FUCK YES!~
You see, I've been wanting a way to manually control the wyvern in the same way a SMN or BST or PUP could control their pets. As it stands right now, the only thing I can do as far as pet commands go are Call, Dismiss and Spirit Link. Obviously I can trigger other things the wyvern does depending which sub I have, but a way to send a wyvern in to attack or to call it back ("pet pulling") would be awesome. I've never understood why SE didn't implement this.
After the initial euphoria wore off, the questions started coming to mind about those breath abilities, namely Restoring Breath. Smiting Breath is blatantly obvious. There's not much you can do with it aside from potentially telling your wyvern to go nuke a target you're not currently engaged to.
Can Restoring Breath be used on other party members in the same manner a cure spell or a waltz would?
Is Restoring Breath influenced in the same manner as Healing Breath? Meaning, load up on Wyvern HP+ gear and boost it?
Will Deep Breathing work with it as well?
All of that will be answered when I hit 90 obviously, but it's at least fun to think about for now. So many possibilities, but, as is the case with any pet...
...the pet has to be alive.
Lv.85 Gungnir
It's getting harder and harder for me to find my way through these trials that SE puts in for relic holders. I knocked out about 250 of the objectives a couple weeks after Scars came out, but then I just had zero motivation to take it further.
With the previous 4 trials, I basically had to piss myself off completely before I was motivated to do them. Then I'd just hunker down for a week or so and pray I didn't Whiffskogul too much.
This particular trial was easier than the rest (except the first one, where I didn't have to land killshots, just use the WS itself). I just couldn't find the motivation at first, then I couldn't find the time. The trip up to Girlfriend's parents afforded me some time to work on this.
It actually afforded me more time than I thought it would.
I now have Lv.85 Gungnir just in time to be slapped with the next trial that will probably consist of 2500 kill shots on plantoids.
"Sh*t My Dad Says"
For the drive to Maine for Thanksgiving, I picked this book up on CD. Some seriously funny shit in there that damn near caused me to wreck a couple times from laughing. It's $10. Go to B&N or Borders or Amazon and get it.
Paraphrasing some of the more memorable quotes:
"Son, you're 4 years old. It's time to shit in the toilet. This isn't one of those negotiation things where we go back and forth. This ends with you shitting in the toilet."
"First thing about driving is that a car has 5 gears. What's that smell? Ok, first thing before that first thing: if you fart in a parked car, that makes you an asshole."
For those of you that don't know, this book basically started cause of a twitter account. Said twitter account can be found here:
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
It's been spun off into a TV show I have yet to watch as well.
One Ring To Ru...Yeah No.
"Engagement rings are pointless. Indians gave cows...Oh sorry, congrats on proposing. We good now? Can I finish my indian story?"
I figure another quote from "Sh* My Dad Says" is appropriate for this section...
I got Girlfriend the engagement ring she and her family have hounded me about since they initially met me.
Now I need to figure out how to stall the wedding for nearly 3 years like I did the ring...
Anyway...back to my hiatus...
Most notably...DRG.
Dragon Breaker (DRG Lv.87 Ability Delay: 10 min. Effect Duration: 3 min.)
Lowers accuracy, evasion, magic accuracy, magic evasion, and TP gain for dragons.
Smiting Breath (DRG Lv.90 Ability Delay: 1 min.)
Orders the wyvern to attack with its breath.
Restoring Breath (DRG Lv.90 Ability Delay: 1 min.)
Orders the wyvern to heal with its breath.
My first reaction to seeing these was FUCK YES!~
You see, I've been wanting a way to manually control the wyvern in the same way a SMN or BST or PUP could control their pets. As it stands right now, the only thing I can do as far as pet commands go are Call, Dismiss and Spirit Link. Obviously I can trigger other things the wyvern does depending which sub I have, but a way to send a wyvern in to attack or to call it back ("pet pulling") would be awesome. I've never understood why SE didn't implement this.
After the initial euphoria wore off, the questions started coming to mind about those breath abilities, namely Restoring Breath. Smiting Breath is blatantly obvious. There's not much you can do with it aside from potentially telling your wyvern to go nuke a target you're not currently engaged to.
Can Restoring Breath be used on other party members in the same manner a cure spell or a waltz would?
Is Restoring Breath influenced in the same manner as Healing Breath? Meaning, load up on Wyvern HP+ gear and boost it?
Will Deep Breathing work with it as well?
All of that will be answered when I hit 90 obviously, but it's at least fun to think about for now. So many possibilities, but, as is the case with any pet...
...the pet has to be alive.
Lv.85 Gungnir
It's getting harder and harder for me to find my way through these trials that SE puts in for relic holders. I knocked out about 250 of the objectives a couple weeks after Scars came out, but then I just had zero motivation to take it further.
With the previous 4 trials, I basically had to piss myself off completely before I was motivated to do them. Then I'd just hunker down for a week or so and pray I didn't Whiffskogul too much.
This particular trial was easier than the rest (except the first one, where I didn't have to land killshots, just use the WS itself). I just couldn't find the motivation at first, then I couldn't find the time. The trip up to Girlfriend's parents afforded me some time to work on this.
It actually afforded me more time than I thought it would.
I now have Lv.85 Gungnir just in time to be slapped with the next trial that will probably consist of 2500 kill shots on plantoids.
"Sh*t My Dad Says"
For the drive to Maine for Thanksgiving, I picked this book up on CD. Some seriously funny shit in there that damn near caused me to wreck a couple times from laughing. It's $10. Go to B&N or Borders or Amazon and get it.
Paraphrasing some of the more memorable quotes:
"Son, you're 4 years old. It's time to shit in the toilet. This isn't one of those negotiation things where we go back and forth. This ends with you shitting in the toilet."
"First thing about driving is that a car has 5 gears. What's that smell? Ok, first thing before that first thing: if you fart in a parked car, that makes you an asshole."
For those of you that don't know, this book basically started cause of a twitter account. Said twitter account can be found here:
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
It's been spun off into a TV show I have yet to watch as well.
One Ring To Ru...Yeah No.
"Engagement rings are pointless. Indians gave cows...Oh sorry, congrats on proposing. We good now? Can I finish my indian story?"
I figure another quote from "Sh* My Dad Says" is appropriate for this section...
I got Girlfriend the engagement ring she and her family have hounded me about since they initially met me.
Now I need to figure out how to stall the wedding for nearly 3 years like I did the ring...
Anyway...back to my hiatus...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Gungnir vs. Ryunohige vs. Rhongomiant
Actually, it's just a post about the super weapons in general.
Been seeing a lot of debate over which one is better than the other and not just limited to the Polearms themselves. Great Katana, Scythe, Great Axe, etc seem to be under scrutiny as well.
The part that's been bugging me is that some will simply dismiss one of these weapons as a waste. Don't get me wrong, some are (i.e. Claustrum...), but to simply dismiss one of them because it gets beaten in a parse under certain circumstances is just completely stupid.
People have their reasons for upgrading these things. Most of the time, it revolves around wanting to be the best they can be. Other times, it's handed to them via linkshell contribution (an Aegis or Gjallarhorn for example) because of the undeniable impact they have on the team itself.
I'm of the opinion SE designed relics to be the best weapons in the game. When Mythics were released, I formed the opinion that SE intended for them to be in the same class as relics, just in a different manner. Initially, when the Empyrean Weapons were released, I was irritated at SE's wanting to put these in the same class as Relic/Mythics and seemingly making them far easier to obtain. Obviously that last part has been debunked, so now I'm of the opinion all 3 weapons are in the same class.
Which is better?
Who knows really. There aren't enough of them out there that can actually be parsed together consistently enough to see, but I'd be willing to bet each one would win about the same number of times. While it's fun to present cases based on numbers, etc, most people presenting said cases aren't presenting numbers that are different enough to really justify it.
A good example is a BG thread debating Ryunohige vs. Gungnir (continues into page 8).
There's a lot of math on display in that thread. First, the facts outside of the obvious stats:
Gungnir:
1. 2.5x damage proc (not a high %, probably around 5%).
2. Double Light capability.
3. Higher fSTR cap.
Ryunohige:
1. Can maintain near constant aftermath effect. (100TP Increases accuracy, 200TP Increases Attack, 300TP Occasionally attacks twice (~45%?))
2. "Augments Jump" either forces the crit on Jump or increases it's Acc.
I look at the facts there and immediately think of everything that a weapon's base damage and your level of accuracy affect. It's a lot of stuff. Gungnir's got it beat statistically in every category. Base damage is 6-7% higher. It's got a full time, built in Acc+30.
Mythic aftermath effects do not stack. While having 3 different options at your disposal based on what you're fighting is pretty handy, it takes some serious timing if you want to max your Acc potential. Even launching a Drakesbane with 190TP is going to have it coming up short in the Acc dept. against Gungnir. It's highly doubtful anyone would intentionally launch Drakesbane in the 200-299 range to get the Att+ effect, but even then, if they did, you're probably locked into some form of Acc food and the Gungnir DRG is probably wolfing down Carbonara or Yellow Curry Buns.
Having a full 3 minutes of a rather insane Double Attack rate though is where Ryunohige is going to make up a lot of ground and, in the right hands, possibly even surpass a Gungnir.
But, we're back to the facts. With the inclusion of Spirit/Soul Jump now along with Sekkanoki and Conserve TP, odds are, that Ryunohige DRG is going to waste a lot of TP trying to keep that Double Attack aftermath active. Obviously, having an atma like Eccentric Eve's active is going to mean a lot of fights START with that DA aftermath active, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will remain that way. You also have to look at timing.
Say you have a pretty standard 5 hit build starting from 0 TP and you swing every 3 seconds. In a 3 minute period of time, you will have thrown out a minimum of 60 swings. If every 5 swings is essentially a WS you can use, then you've effectively landed 12 weapon skills in a perfect world.
But the world isn't perfect.
At some point a Ryunohige DRG wanting to maintain that DA Aftermath is going to have to build up 300TP. Without Eve's atma, said DRG is looking at having to swing 12-15 times. If they're smart, use meditate and jumps (all of which the Gungnir DRG obviously has too...), then you effectively halve that number. Either way, that Gungnir DRG is going should be able to launch 2-3 more Drakesbanes in the time it took you to store that 300 TP.
Factoring a 45% Double Attack rate into the equation halves it further if it actually kicks in.
(Which is one thing Byrn seems to miss in his arguments...a Relic DRG can actually use Drakesbane too...)
So which would win? Honestly it's probably a wash.
But the point is, they aren't wasting money or time or resources by upgrading one over the other.
My biased opinion though is that Gungnir would win most of the time, but not by a lot and since both weapons essentially cost the same, I don't really give a shit.
Rhongomiant though...remains to be seen. :)
Been seeing a lot of debate over which one is better than the other and not just limited to the Polearms themselves. Great Katana, Scythe, Great Axe, etc seem to be under scrutiny as well.
The part that's been bugging me is that some will simply dismiss one of these weapons as a waste. Don't get me wrong, some are (i.e. Claustrum...), but to simply dismiss one of them because it gets beaten in a parse under certain circumstances is just completely stupid.
People have their reasons for upgrading these things. Most of the time, it revolves around wanting to be the best they can be. Other times, it's handed to them via linkshell contribution (an Aegis or Gjallarhorn for example) because of the undeniable impact they have on the team itself.
I'm of the opinion SE designed relics to be the best weapons in the game. When Mythics were released, I formed the opinion that SE intended for them to be in the same class as relics, just in a different manner. Initially, when the Empyrean Weapons were released, I was irritated at SE's wanting to put these in the same class as Relic/Mythics and seemingly making them far easier to obtain. Obviously that last part has been debunked, so now I'm of the opinion all 3 weapons are in the same class.
Which is better?
Who knows really. There aren't enough of them out there that can actually be parsed together consistently enough to see, but I'd be willing to bet each one would win about the same number of times. While it's fun to present cases based on numbers, etc, most people presenting said cases aren't presenting numbers that are different enough to really justify it.
A good example is a BG thread debating Ryunohige vs. Gungnir (continues into page 8).
There's a lot of math on display in that thread. First, the facts outside of the obvious stats:
Gungnir:
1. 2.5x damage proc (not a high %, probably around 5%).
2. Double Light capability.
3. Higher fSTR cap.
Ryunohige:
1. Can maintain near constant aftermath effect. (100TP Increases accuracy, 200TP Increases Attack, 300TP Occasionally attacks twice (~45%?))
2. "Augments Jump" either forces the crit on Jump or increases it's Acc.
I look at the facts there and immediately think of everything that a weapon's base damage and your level of accuracy affect. It's a lot of stuff. Gungnir's got it beat statistically in every category. Base damage is 6-7% higher. It's got a full time, built in Acc+30.
Mythic aftermath effects do not stack. While having 3 different options at your disposal based on what you're fighting is pretty handy, it takes some serious timing if you want to max your Acc potential. Even launching a Drakesbane with 190TP is going to have it coming up short in the Acc dept. against Gungnir. It's highly doubtful anyone would intentionally launch Drakesbane in the 200-299 range to get the Att+ effect, but even then, if they did, you're probably locked into some form of Acc food and the Gungnir DRG is probably wolfing down Carbonara or Yellow Curry Buns.
Having a full 3 minutes of a rather insane Double Attack rate though is where Ryunohige is going to make up a lot of ground and, in the right hands, possibly even surpass a Gungnir.
But, we're back to the facts. With the inclusion of Spirit/Soul Jump now along with Sekkanoki and Conserve TP, odds are, that Ryunohige DRG is going to waste a lot of TP trying to keep that Double Attack aftermath active. Obviously, having an atma like Eccentric Eve's active is going to mean a lot of fights START with that DA aftermath active, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will remain that way. You also have to look at timing.
Say you have a pretty standard 5 hit build starting from 0 TP and you swing every 3 seconds. In a 3 minute period of time, you will have thrown out a minimum of 60 swings. If every 5 swings is essentially a WS you can use, then you've effectively landed 12 weapon skills in a perfect world.
But the world isn't perfect.
At some point a Ryunohige DRG wanting to maintain that DA Aftermath is going to have to build up 300TP. Without Eve's atma, said DRG is looking at having to swing 12-15 times. If they're smart, use meditate and jumps (all of which the Gungnir DRG obviously has too...), then you effectively halve that number. Either way, that Gungnir DRG is going should be able to launch 2-3 more Drakesbanes in the time it took you to store that 300 TP.
Factoring a 45% Double Attack rate into the equation halves it further if it actually kicks in.
(Which is one thing Byrn seems to miss in his arguments...a Relic DRG can actually use Drakesbane too...)
So which would win? Honestly it's probably a wash.
But the point is, they aren't wasting money or time or resources by upgrading one over the other.
My biased opinion though is that Gungnir would win most of the time, but not by a lot and since both weapons essentially cost the same, I don't really give a shit.
Rhongomiant though...remains to be seen. :)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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. :)
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. :)
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