This was going to be a considerable rant post, up until recently where things just took my mind away from it. General recap off my pissed-off-dom from a reply I made to a post in the Alla Red Mage forums:

“This becomes an issue for me only when you consider our core competencies: Enfeebling and Enhancing magic (our only pure specialities on paper) are somewhat flawed when considering other non-support role jobs’ ability to enfeeble/enhance (WHM BLM NIN and BLU come into mind) certainly for lower monsters.”

After several days of feeling generally useless (a pretty gimp white mage lands silence on a Porrogo… while I look like some kind of noob) seeing Blue Mage get a new JA that surely should have been ours (B+ Enhancing Magic skill, no Enhancing Seal… right.) I know that any increase in our abilities and spells would break the balance. I’m not a complete fool, its just… hard sometimes when you get the best gear you can possibly strive for (I have a LONG way to go before ill be happy) and somebody does what you should do best without any thought or effort.

Well, that’s over. On to my news.

Nyzul Isle Assault!

Made a few runs to check this out. I needed to bump my Mercenary Rank up anyway, and this has some very interesting possibilities. We failed to reach Floor 5 (where you can save your progress) but I still enjoyed it. Seems like a few “unlucky” floors and its all over ; ; I would love to reach Floor 20 and check out the HNMs there, and possibly get a drop on these babies.

Yep yep… I know arent 100% drop, and getting a group up to increments of level 20 AND beating a HNM is looking dicey, but I think it would be worthy

Dynamis! Start again!

Ah some emo drama. Been a while I must admit. After a long time of discontent within TINALS members, the lid finally blew on the situation. People have left (some permanent, some temporarily) so I decided it was time to try and fix things. Using your own initiative is sometimes hard to do, especially when you don’t know how people will react, but so far things appear to be going well. Basics like a working points list and fair run rotation are staples of any linkshell, but we somehow lost that and just wandered aimlessly from Xarcabard run to Xarcabard run. So I went ahead and did it. Couldn’t stand the apathy anymore ._.

So, if your reading this, are level 70+ Rank 6 and have an interest in making new friends, working to get some great rewards (theres still nothing more pimp than AF2 armour imo) then check us out. Disregard the bad things you may have heard. We are starting again, fresh and with a proper infrastructure now ^^

Everything thats good in the game for me came from joining ThisIsNotALinkshell. My friends, my social LS… you name it. I hope people understand how cool a thing we have and continue to fight! The Spartans never gave up did they?!

Our URL:  ThisIsNotALinkshell Or you can /tell me and ill fill you in on the details.

Til next time, adios ^^

In before the update too

Spent a long old time just wandering around with my Static, finishing the map quest and the next mission which unlocks the Grand Palace of Hu Xoi. Now we got 2 long dungeon crawls ahead of us XD Thanks once again to Ntfc for helping out on the Tenzen battle, and guiding us patiently with advice on what not to /poke in Sea. ^^ Some of the mobs are just insane, and the environment is absolutely breathtaking.

I feel bad for poor Tenzen.. he really was a cool character and should have been a tougher proposition in battle. He just folded up… sad. While I’m very happy with this accomplishment (and to complete CoP and RoZ with my LS mates) I cant help but feel a little disappointed that I wont really get to experience Sea as I don’t have the time to devote to a Sea LS.

One thing I’m definitely looking forward to is Limbus! Havster already has his Brutal Earring and Boxer’s Mantle! :O I would like a Loquacious Earring… even though its only a 1% Fast Cast boost… I still gotta have it Boxers, Brutal and Nashira Legs too. 15 coins down (only 50 to go for my Loquacious Earring lol)

Einherjar!

At the time of writing the servers are down for maintenance while the latest Version update is in progress. Some things about it piss me off, one of which I will comment on at a later date. Some things are really a great idea however, one in particular is the new mass player event Einherjar. New ways to get abjuration items is long overdue in my opinion, as the HNM/Kings system is very flawed. Might finally be able to get a Dalmatica, and I’m looking forward to seeing how good the new Abjuration items are. Could they possibly be more powerful? Surely they must be a notch down from the items available in Salvage, as some of those items appear quite game breaking. Only time (and .dat miners) will tell.

Well thats pretty much it, but next time ill have a good old rant, so look forward to that.

later all ^^

Man I love CoP! My static party marches onwards!

Sadly, one of our comrades, Foehammer (PLD and RNG) had hos Xbox 360 broken during a party, and has been unable to rejoin us in time. The group swallowed the guilt and decided to move on without him. Linkshell buddies Tyrage and Ntfc helped us out for our date(s) with the dreaded Snoll Tsar.

Cutting a long story short, our first fight was aginsingly close as the Snoll used Hypothermal Combustion after we got his HP to 1%. Yep a whopping 1%. Unbelievable After the battle we realised that our idea of not using Salts really wasn’t the most astute… Nevermind. Next run Ntfc came and shared his Black Mage power with us, to take the boss down without any problems. Including the use of Shu Meyo Salt Disappointingly this was the first time we had to revisit a battle on a later date, as we usually 1/1 each mission. Record well and truly gone. So now I find myself face to face with the much touted Airship battle, PM 6-4. O.o

Just bring it…

Lots of people say how hard this fight is. I have heard it described as the hardest in the game by many many people. I recall friends going 1/16 on this fight. We were not going to take it lightly in our preparation as had done with the Snoll. While our curiosity got the better of us, we set a early date for the fight. Who could blame us! This is a highlight of FFXI after all. We medded up, bought our CCB Polymer pumps from the AH (c’mon farming would just take TOO long for five hungry adventurers). A linkshell friend who has been stuck on this battle for over a year (statics and attempts scattered over this time). Welcome Myshela to the static!

The plan was, a simple dry run to see how quickly we could take down the mammets without exhausting any resources. Anything after that was a dream away. Until I gave out a “just incase” strategy and run down on Omega and Ultima Weapon. We embarrassed the mammets and somehow ended up getting Omega to 33% before we were ejected. We then asked anyone who had Corsair on our LS if they could recharge Javaa’s (warrior) 2 Hour ability. 8 attempts by valiant Corsairs later, we gave up and just went on without the 2 hour. As wed been sat down for 1:30 Mighty Strikes would be up by the time we got to Ultima >.<

So tired scattered and a little aggravated we piled back in. I was very sleepy, but blasted on some music and drank some syrupy coffee while we waited for everyone to prep again.

The mammets got battered again. Omega was a little scary, but slowly and steadily we chipped away at it. I pulled hate a little too much, but I never expected to have my spells land so hard O.o I spent the end of the fight playing support, with some weak ass cures, some timely Stun’s, We were forced to use two out of our six CCB Polymers on this fight to slow the weapons attack-spam at low health. We got out of the battle scarred but in good shape!

Ultima weapon comes next, and is a weaker but more fierce opponent. Thank god for the HP/MP fill up when swapping airships.

It near constantly spams its special moves, but keeping calm and fighting strongly, we forced it into submission!

I never expected the battle to go so smoothly. Was a hard fought fight no doubt, and thankfully we had no 1/16 nightmares like some of our friends have faced.

Congratulations to my friends and comrades! we are almost there it would seem Welcome to Myshela to our merry bunch. Hope you stick with us and enjoy the ride. This was one of the best moments I ever experienced in game. So exciting, and a nice test of skill.

Next time: Soloing uncapped NMs, and maybe, just maybe Sea access.

Very happy with that, been wanting it for such a long time ^^ Thanks everyone at TINALS for you help and nice messages of grats, you have NO idea how much I appreciate it. Naw also got hisDuelist’s Tabard on that day, so big grats to him also

Other bits and pieces include another swift belt run in Sacrarium. Havster got his Swift Belt, but Dunne or myself didn’t this time. 1/3 I guess is OK on that NM. Will be back for another shot soon!

Wohoooh! Another sub job finished. Dark Knight 37. This was… surprisingly painless. Kazahm was a little rough, but thanks to an anniversary ring charge and a 5 DD 1 BRD PL’ed Party the last 7 levels disappeared quickly ^^

You are a loser, dont blame video games.

CBS news has been running a series on Internet addiction, and its first episode featured a woman addicted to Final Fantasy XI. Check out the links belowI found this genuinely hilarious.

“Online Gaming isnt just Childsplay” CBS News Story

Direct Link to the Video

Note please that the host of the segment plays World of Warcraft, and quite skillfully (not) edits the warning to adventurer that pops up before you enter FFXI look like it came from WoW. Clever. My girlfriend noted upon watching the video, “Wonder why she got addicted to FF when she lives in such a happening town”. True Strike.

Anyway, take care everyone. Im off to sunny Edinburgh for the weekend! See ya ^^

The supposed life expectancy timeline for FFXI was extended by Square Enix recently, and at the Square Enix Party event in Japan, the fourth expansion for the game was announced! ‘Wings of the Goddess’ is the English title. Very nice too. Some screenshots have been put about online too.

There is a video trailer available at the official Final Fantasy XI site. Its playonline.com so expect a long load time XD

So what do you think? Its clear that the history of Vanadiel is going to be explored deeply, and that offers many great possibilities. Lets hope for some more good writing from the developers! I’m not gonna speculate much at the moment as to content until everyone has a chance to get discussing the trailer. A scoop thread on all turned into a good speculation thread 3 pages in, ignore the early junk. Check it out here.

One question: Whats that rather large burning ball of doom thats in every sky shot of the trailer O.o

So, its the five year birthday of FFXI, and SE once again rolled out the Adventure Appreciation event. Everyone get your stats on!

Gad 5000 enemies undefeated is shameful ._.

Difference is this year we got a great present from the Moogles!

Use it wisely adventurers! ^^