mojopojo_ffxi

Firespit

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 04:58:35 GMT

I've completely neglected this LJ, I'm going to try and be more adamant about it though. I have some new things to post but I'll start with this. I was in a merit party with some of my friends and I was hit by Firespit from a Mamool Ja. During the Firespit charge up, I experienced a strange vision and then explained it to the rest of the party. Luckily my friend Helpme recorded it.

I pondered many things during that firespit. It was like a long vision; it lasted for what seemed 18 hours in time. In my vision there was an older man, although I got the feeling I was looking into a mirror. He told me to climb the highest mountain in the nearby vicinity, and when I reached the summit to enter a state of meditation. After those words, a mountain suddenly appeared. I began to climb it.

The mountain held many difficult trials. My first difficulty came when I crossed the path of a talking goat. The goat would not allow me to pass unless I answered his questions. The first of his questions was a question dating to my childhood about a girl I once knew. The second question was about the current state of the world. The final question was in regards to how I treated a homeless man the week before. I sensed that, no matter what the answer I gave, the goat would only let me pass if it was true. It took me several minutes to come up with accurate answers. Although, at last, when I gave my final words the goat nodded and turned his back to me, allowing my passage.

Artist's depiction of talking goat

The second trial I faced was a rough slope of the mountain that only seemed to become steeper. Determined to reach the summit, I pushed forward. I climbed for what seemed like an endless time and although it seemed as if I was making progress, the summit appeared no closer than it ever did. My body soon became wearied.

Finally, I accepted my fate. I laid down for my final rest before entering the abyss. Angry with the mountain that had seemingly foiled me. The anger slowly subsided as I realized that, if I had only been stronger I could have scaled the mountain. And finally when all of the anger, despair, and resentment had faded, a white light began to emerge from the darkness. The light began to approach me and became brighter as it got closer. Finally, the light came so close I could reach out and touch it. I slowly extended my hand forward. When my fingers and the light came into contact I became filled with joy as I received visions of laughing children and smiling babies.

When I opened my eyes again, I was on the mountain. The slope was now behind me, and I continued onward. I soon came to a wooded area. When I approached the edge of the trees, my eyes were greeted with another pair that locked their gaze upon me. Fearful of the eyes, I turned backwards. Upon turning back, I was met with another pair of eyes. I quickly became overcome with fear. I closed my own eyes, wishing that the now barrage of eyes looking down upon me would vanish. I soon became paranoid. I felt that the goat must have tricked me. But, then I suddenly remembered the trials of the slope. I slowly became to open my eyes once again and met the gaze of the original pair of eyes which were now glowing red with anger. I began to approach the eyes, fear now swelled deep within me; the magnitude of which grew with each step forward. As I neared the eyes, visions of terrible events filled my eyes. War, famine, and disease. My eyes finally met with the opposing red pair. The eyes then moved forward and were absorbed into my own. And as they did, I suddenly empathized with all of the fearful visions I was shown. I felt as if I felt the necessity and purpose of such events.

As the redness faded, I began to recognize my surroundings again. I was on the mountain again, and the summit lied before me. I moved forward, stopping momentarily to absorb my surroundings. The base of the mountain seemed to extend down for several miles. Remembering the purpose of my visit, I sat down and began to close my eyes. And slowly, the vision of a hamburger began to fill my head. It was then I knew the purpose of my visit to the mountain, and that my true quest had only just begun.

I actually went to see a doctor about this, he told me to avoid eating ergot with my hamburgers.

Holiday Season

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:23:35 GMT

It's been so busy this holiday season I barely had time to log on FFXI. I'm excited about the aftermath though. I finally decided to upgrade my PC, the new parts are below.

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L
3.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6850
eVGA 512-P3-N802-A1 GeForce 8800GT
Crucial Ballistix 2 GB (2x 1 GB) 1066 DDR2 (PC2 8500)

I only ended up spending $470 on all of this and I'm very pleased with the results. I can dualbox two versions of FFXI in Whitegate at 1880x1410 with the same FPS my old PC had doing one instance in 940x705. This is with high shadows, full animation, etc. compared to the minimalist settings I had before.

Salvage Progress

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:30:51 GMT

My Salvage group has been doing well. We've reached the point where we can easily six man every boss as well as most if not all of the 35 NMs in a single run(The exception being Bhaflau). It isn't terribly remarkable, many other groups are equally skilled, but I'm happy none the less.

That second pic is crappy and I'm also missing one for Battleclad Chariot. Hopefully I can get some better ones soon.

Anyways, I've received a few requests for info on our Salvage run strategies as well as a detailed solo guide for Arrapago Remnants. I intend to make a few livejournal posts to cover both, although I may procrastinate it for a while.

Proto-Ultima

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:58:25 GMT

We did Proto-Ultima this Saturday and took a slightly different approach than usual. Typically we would devote all of our Limbus resources to the fight, often ending up with a hectic mess during the last 20%. I thought it could be better to limit the number of people we had engaged to Ultima.

The reasoning behind this decision was mainly that most of the trouble came from repeated Armor Busters. We would normally have around four people meleeing it which was enough TP gain to cause serious trouble with some bad luck.

The set up we used was as follows.

Party #1	Party #2
PLD/NIN	SAM/THF
PLD/NIN	SAM/THF
BRD/WHM	BRD/WHM
RDM/DRK	RDM/DRK
WHM/SMN	WHM/SMN
BLM/RDM	BLM/RDM

The plan was to engage Ultima as normal until the 20% mark. The SAMs would then TA WS spam a single PLD so he could maintain hate through enmity resets and solo tank the Citadel Busters with magic damage reduction gear.

Well, we ended up missing the stun on the 19% Dissipation. One of our SAMs died as a result. It was a bit shaky at first trying to get hate back on to our PLD with only one SAM, although we were able to manage it. Once we established a steady rhythm, it was actually very easy. Two SAMs executing Trick Attacked Weaponskills on to a tank directly after a Citadel Buster seemed to assure that the tank retained hate until the next Citadel Buster.

This added a great deal of structure to the fight. Instead of a muddled scramble of trying to figure out who has hate when the Citadel Buster countdown started and then trying to isolate this person, it was simply a matter of backing away from the tank when the clock was getting low. If hate wasn't on our tank when the countdown started, both SAMs could again TA WS the tank and then flee away(Meditate was very handy for this purpose).

Two SAMs and two BLMs were also a very strong and balanced damage dealing combination. We didn't get too many TP moves and had taken Ultima down to 30% HP before 20 minutes had past since entering.

Next time we'll have our BLM time nuke 21% > 19%. Dissipation should be easier to stun, it's not difficult by any means when you can anticipate it. Our SAM can save their TP to immediately plant hate on to the tank after the enmity reset.

I know a twelve person Proto-Ultima isn't really that remarkable. However, I like how simple and easy it was. Definitely easier than any other Proto-Ultima fight we've done thus far. We'll probably use this twelve person method for every Proto-Ultima we do from this point on.

I should have taken more screenshots. We lucked out and got a double leg drop. We were actually quite overdue. In all of our 12 Proto-Ultimas, these are the first pairs of Nashira Seraweels we've had drop. We have yet to see a Manteel >_>

Morrigan's Attire

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:43:37 GMT

This happened a few days ago but I've been so busy playing around in the expansion I haven't posted it. On Friday morning I finished upgrading Morrigan's Cuffs, completing my Morrigan's gear set.

Upon becoming 5/5, I immediately did some testing on the set bonus. Most people believed it to be +5 magic attack bonus, which it is, but it's nice to have confirmation anyways. The test is very simple, it doesn't really need explaining.

Ouryu

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:34:49 GMT

We did some Ouryu runs in lolSky on Sunday. This wasn't the first time I've done Ouryu, but it has been a while. It was a nice departure from the routine.

We used the manaburn strategy - an Elemental Seal Sleep II rotation while Ouryu is on the ground and nuking while it flies. It went alright for our first run. We didn't wipe on any of the orbs although there was one close encounter due to bad timing and mishandling of adds. Our best time was just under 40 minutes, but I think with some practice we could do better.

We were only using a single PLD/RDM tank. It worked well while it was in the air, although he took a considerable amount of damage during the short time when Ouryu was grounded and not asleep. We'll try NIN/RDM, RDM/NIN, or NIN/DRK for our next runs. Either way, we'll be doing some Bahamut II runs in the near future.

Biast

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:02:07 GMT

I was checking on the weather in Xarcabard and happened across something, I figured I'd give it a go.

It has Enpetrify so getting hit even once could snowball in to a loss with bad luck. It also has a very high intimidation rate, similar to that of Gration. Overall, it isn't really that difficult, just very annoying because you have to be so cautious.

The helm dropped. I had some friends watching and let them lot for it, I don't think I'd get much use out of it anyways.

Movie Week

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:29:27 GMT

I have been neglecting to post an update mainly due to how busy this week has been.

Over the last week, I've seen at least one new film every day. My favorite of the bunch would have to be American Gangster. It's very good and I'd recommend that anyone who enjoys movies to go and see it. There is a line from the movie which I'm sure groups of friends will be quoting to one another for a long time to come. Luckily it's already been uploaded to YouTube.

Sometimes I wonder if filmmakers understand how moments like this will be perceived by the average viewer...

Recent Activities

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:03:31 GMT

The weekend has been nice to me, although I feel like a lootwhore.

I was able to complete Morrigan's Pigaches and got the drops to finish Morrigan's Coronal, although I'm low on gil right now so it will probably be a week or so before I do.

My Dynamis linkshell did Buburimu on Saturday and I lucked out there as well. I haven't upgraded this yet, RDM AF1 1 legs were being upgraded so I'll have to wait until this Sunday.

We've also been getting spammed with chips from Omega.

Bhaflau Remnants Solo

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:44:54 GMT

Writing up the Silver Sea Remnants entry perked my interest in Salvage solo again. I've long been thinking about trying the 2F rampart in Bhaflau Remants so I decided to give it a try today.

I wasn't sure which subjob to choose as I thought the most difficult part would be killing the flans on 2F(which it was) where stun seemed to be a necessity, although I had a few ideas of what could happen. I decided to go as RDM/BLU for the greatest chance of success, which seemed to pay off.

Getting started was very similar to Silver Seas; just buff up and begin farming cells. The Wamouracampa hit slightly harder than the fomor did, but Phalanx and a few pieces of gear still reduced the damage to mostly zeros. Thinking back, it might have been more time efficient to take the eastern path, although I can't really say for sure. I was lucky and got full gear after the first three Wamouracampa, at which point I ported up.

Before engaging the flans, I wanted to farm some stat cells. I thought unlocking MND would help for Silence and other debuffs. I only ended up with STR, AGI, and INT before deciding to move on due to time.

The flans proved to be much easier than I imagined. I was using defense food to be on the safe side. Even with Tavnazian Tacos, Cocoon, and Phalanx, the flans still hit me for a moderate amount of damage. I can't say if attack food would have been better. I was able to get enough TP to use Flat Blade between its spell casts, so I could rely on that for stunning.

Enfire and Blaze Spikes do remove the spike effect from the flans, but they can be used to increase the rate at which you kill some of them. I only used Enfire and Blaze Spikes for the melee resistant flans. I would take off 70% of their HP that way, cancel Enfire and Blaze Spikes, and then finish off the remaining 30% using physical attacks only. It allowed enough time for flans to reapply their head spikes before I killed them.

The Hunting Wasps weren't much of a challenge at all. They hit for less damage than the Wamouracampa on 1F, and die much quicker. I wasn't able to kill them as quickly as the rampart spawned them. I didn't count how many I killed either, although if I had to guess, I would say between 30 and 40. If I would have had attack food on, I think it could be possible to get between 40 and 50 bees, a little under half of what a normal group would achieve.

Unfortunately, no Skirmish Pephredos popped(BIG SUPRISE!). I timed out when the rampart had 4% HP left, although if I attempted this solo again, I'm confident I could finish the rampart with at least 15 minutes remaining.

Looking back on all of this. It is definitely possible to reliably pop and farm the 2F Reactionary Rampart, although it's probably better to duo with a THF than solo(to kill more bees!) Some other ramparts could be also possible solo, I'd have to try them first to say for sure.

Silver Sea Remnants Solo

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:07:38 GMT

This was from a short while ago, but I wanted to post it anyways. After successfully soloing most of the 35 NMs in Arrapago Remnants, I decided to try solo elsewhere. The most recent zone I've been doing is Silver Sea Remants, with great success.

To begin with, soloing in Silver Seas is very different than soloing in Arrapago. You don't have the luxury of always being able to skip past floors or to try any NM you want. All of the NMs require a number of mobs to be killed before they appear. In order to burn through all of this, you'll need to be meleeing. You would likely time out if you tried kiting.

On my first attempt, I went as RDM/NIN dual wielding a dagger and Joyeuse. Farming for cells isn't difficult at all. It's possible to clear each room of 4x Ashu Talif Crew with suprising speed. Protect IV and Phalanx can reduce nearly all of the hits you take to zero, even if you're completely naked. Unlocking gear only adds to this. It's a good idea to go for the RDM first, Dispel/Bio/etc. can be annoying(pull it with Silence). Blaze Spikes and Enfire will double the speed at which you go through these rooms, so make sure to keep them up. I chose to simply run in and aggro all four fomor at once, they do a good job at killing themselves on your spikes.

The only trouble you might run in to is Aegis Schism. It greatly reduces your defense. Vicar's drink can erase this though. You can usually find one in a chest, make sure to grab it before engaging.

The next step is successfully popping Hammerblow. The six fomor you need to kill are much stronger than the others on this floor. Even if you are fully geared, they will overwhelm you if you try fighting all six at the same time. You can seperate them by casting Gravity and Bind on some of them, and then running away until they lose aggro. It's time consuming but it works.

After you've cleared all of the fomor, it's time for Hammerblow. It's actually somewhat difficult as RDM/NIN. If he gets you with Aegis Schism, you can kite with w legs until it wears off. If you don't have w legs you should probably bring a stack of remedies, although it could be possible to kite him around terrain obstacles without enhanced movement speed. I had about 15 minutes remaining when I killed him.

An alternative and much better approach to this solo is RDM/BLU. Protect IV, Cocoon, and Phalanx offer enough defense and damage reduction on a fully geared RDM/BLU to simply zerg the six fomor that pop Hammerblow. It's a huge time saver and much less annoying. You will need to keep Stoneskin up or Cocoon can easily get interrupted. Try and refresh them before they wear off. Again, make sure to take out the RDM first.

Hammerblow will also die much faster. You won't need to spend so much time casting Utsusemi, and you'll get a significant more damage out of Blaze Spikes. You can recast Stoneskin between his attack rounds if you have Slow II.

I'm pretty lucky to have gotten the drop second try. I'm not sure how long it will be until I do this zone again solo. I'm confident a good RDM/NIN could do Deadpan Devilet and Dekka, although you'd have to skip past Hammerblow and bring some echo drops. I can't even equip Marduk so I probably won't be trying. Powderkeg could also be possible. RDM/BLU or RDM/NIN can both handle the fomor on 2F but it takes some time to go through them(3-5 mins each). My bet is on RDM/BLU. It's more time efficient and it seems to be mostly a race against the clock. I may try it eventually.

Hello Livejournal

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:23:58 GMT

I've decided to create a livejournal account for my FFXI activities as well as anything else I feel like posting. I've been beating around the bush for a while on this but finally got around to doing it.

I play two characters, Mojopojo and Krackle. Mojo was my original character which I started on Caitsith. I migrated to Hades when it was opened in hopes of being united with my brother who played on Ragnarok(to no avail). I inherited Krackle from my long time RL friend when he decided to quit playing. Mojo is 75 RNG, NIN, and RDM, Krackle is 75 BRD.

I will try and update this at least once a week. Once again, not all of the updates will be FFXI related.