Vana'diel's Most Wanted

Git er Done

2007-01-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

Yep, thats right. I am trying to get some things done. I have been busy leveling WAR and NIN to 37 to use as THF subs. I finished WAR last week and am 2 levels from finishing NIN. Then I am gonna try and take THF from 60 to 75. Here's a pic of me kicking some Mandy Butt in the Jungle.

I am also fishing for skill and to make some extra gil. Hey! that rhymes. Along with reselling old gear and gardening I am also selling Black Sole to the fishing guild for 10,000-12,000 per stack and am getting close enough to the fish's level range to notice more frequent skillups.

I have also been raising a new choco named BlueBelle. She has the ability "Gallop" and is from parents that were being trained for STR and END.

I am also hopeful that my garden will help me finance my THF gear. I have been experiencing about a 1/1 ratio on pots to saplings grown in the last three harvests but with sapling prices so low its not feeling worth the time to grow saplings and sell them so I am gonna try to grow elemental ores. I have 10 pots going now. I will let you know what the results are. I am going to attempt to grow water ores in all 10 pots.

Gardening Again

2006-12-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was feeling like farming so I headed out to the Sanctuary of Zi'tah. I spent a few days out there. Logging in to farm for a while each day. It was really quiet out there. Many times I found myself the only one farming by the north entrance to the Boyahda Tree. Accounts had been banned the night before and I wasn't sure if my lonliness out there was because of the RMT ban. I farmed and farmed and farmed. I collected 4 stacks of cuttings and about 8 stacks of moss from the Goobbue Farmers out there. When I get to Jueno with my loot I notice that tree cuttings are selling very low. They were selling somewhere around 25k per stack when they used to sell for more than 100k per stack! This is what I get for not reading updates while I was on my break from the game. Apparently, tree saplings that are grown from tree cuttings are not a guaranteed crop anymore. Tree cuttings don't have a sapling sized price tag anymore because of the uncertainty of harvesting a sapling from each cutting. I would end up making as much or more from the moss I had gotten while trying to collect tree cuttings! Well, with this new information, the only logical thing to do was grow some saplings.

I planted 9 cuttings in earthen pots and checked them everyday. The recipe calls for not feeding them any crystals so I didn't. A friends of mine had said that his buddy was having mixed results with his gardens with more bad than good. I was thinking, that with tree saplings still selling for around 200k per stack still, I would make a profit if I could turn my 4 stacks of cuttings into at least 1 stack of saplings. A coupke weeks passed and when I logged on to check my plants and finally it was harvest time. I first checked the day. It was lightsday! Perfect! After harvesting my 9 plants I ened up with 6 and a half stacks of shell bugs, some rock salt and 7 saplings! This was great! I promptly planted some more cuttings. This may take a while but it looks like I will get my earnings from Goobbue farming after all. The shell bugs will be good for fishing. I Hope my next harvests are as good as this one.

Homecoming

2006-11-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of great people last night. First was my home shell, Rabites. Great guys for sure and always a pleasure. Then later in the evening I hung out with my old buddies from DVS/DVSIII, who were having a reunion for ppl who had ever held a pearl in those groups. Although I was only in DVSIII briefly at the beginning, I had a few very long time friends who stayed. They worked hard to help make DVSIII the success it became. I am proud of my friends and really enjoyed seeing so many people at the runion.

The reunion was in the Hostel in Whitegate near the first docks. They rent these things out to ppl for a certain amount of time and the room has special qualities such as people not being able to hear you from the rest of the zone while you are in there. I believe the renter has options of layout and what amenities are available to your guests. When I got there I saw people letting off fireworks and I was bummed cause I didn't bring any fun stuff, but to my surprise, when I checked my inventory to see if i by chance had anything; I had a whole bunch of goodies that magically appeared in my item list! It was kind of a collective pool of goodies our host had prepared for us -pretty neat.

Also, shout out to the XTC refugees. Hope you guys are doin ok.

I'm Back!

2006-11-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

Wasssssuuuuup! The winter weather is in full swing and I am looking forward to enjoying the holidays with my family, a warm fire, and FFXI!

I did manage to check my choco pretty consistantly while I was taking my break. My Choco, Belle Flower, is nearing 90 days and is substandard in strength and stamina. She has been love sick for about 3 weeks.

I sold my good THF stuff to buy my BLM stuff back but was pleasantly surprized how decent of a THF set of gear I was able to throw together for a short romp in the Maze. I went to help a buddy camp Aroma Crawlers, which he has had very bad luck trying to get a drop. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 0/30 or so from what he says. I have had very good luck with my TH2 in the past so I thought I'd try and help.

Anyway, Back to the crawler. These pop when a player checks the a ??? that pops every half and hour in one of three places in the Maze during your race's RSE period. They drop different RSE sachets for the different races. For the Taru it is the Sweet Sachet. We killed maybe 4 or 5 before my buddy decided to go to bed. I stuck around and the next ??? pop was at my spot. Badda-Bing Badda-Bang! The Sweet Sachet it had dropped for me. I had fun having a no pressure mob to flex my rusty THF moves on. The satchet is cool too. It goes in ammo slot and has +2 intelligence on it.

Great to be back!

Little Break

2006-09-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been on a small break from FFXI. I have been logging everyday to check messages and check the Chocobo I am raising and nothing else. The Chocochick is growing and loves the hell outta me. I will be back soon. The dark, rainy weather is coming soon and you can expect to see more of me then. Have fun and see ya later!

THF to 75

2006-05-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

My static party for my THF45 started last night. Overall, it was a very good night. The hard part was getting started. It took me an hour to find our camp last night! I had major wife aggro when we headed out from Jueno. First I ran everbody to the far end of the wrong desert. Then we started checking entrances on the way back for the spiders I was looking for. Added to this was my inability to see anything when we were in the tunnels outside of each zone due to a cheap ass temporary monitor I am using until I can get a new monitor > video card cable for my LCD. Then I had a recollection of running south from the telepoint in Altepa so I ran to the center entrance of the caves. No luck. We finally found the camp and it was the one of the closest ones to the telepoint to the East! Luckily there was no other party there. After a a couple long rough battles we got our SATA groove on and the EXP was insane! after about 40 minutes the PLD had to leave but said he'd be back today and wants to be the 5th permanent static member. So, I asked Kiev (NIN/WAR) if he wanted to try and tank the beetles and spiders for a bit and he was fired up for it. We continued to grab the EXP for another 45 min or so until I died and we decided to pack it in for the night. We got a lot done. The set-up and basic battle strat for our party was burned in. Now we are on the fast track to 75!

Uh... ...Uh... ...Update?

2005-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

Granas is the reason for this update. I have been so busy lately that I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like. I hear they may revoke my Haijin Membership card. Anyway, you can thank Granas for the next five minutes of new reading material.

Gardening for Gil
Lately, I have been going through all of the Final Fantasy XI docs, pdfs, txt, and picture files I have accumilated on my PCs since starting the game. When I found my big list of gardening results. It is basically a list that has planting day and moon phase, 1st crystal feeding day, 2nd crystal feed day, harvesting day and results all organized with the results grouped and in alphabetical order. It is Thirty-two pages in all. The list is nice but full of ordinary ingredients most would rather buy than spend time to grow. There seems to be less data on big money items. Another bad thing about growing expensive stuff is that the times you can plant and harvest for success seem to decrease drastically. Except for...

...Water Ores!
...water ores!
"It seems that it doesn't matter when you feed it the two water crystals or harvest it! I just need a sapling, two water crystals, and Baddabing! I should have some ores" I thought to myself.
There was a time when I only had one elemental staff. Being in love with my new Dark Staff and being a BLM I naturally had to collect them all. Anytime I need things I usually look to see what the ingredients are of the item first just to see if there is a cheaper way to get these staves. I don't mind camping things for a long time to get ingredients if it is gonna save me a ton of gil. Unfortunately the ores to make these staves cost as mush as the staves do on the AH so that was a no go.
So I had to try to grow these now.

Gardening for the Extremely Lazy
Some time ago my good buddy Shark introduced me to a sort of gambling. It was late at night and I hadn't seen him in ages when I caught him online so with great joy I joined him to try my luck at the Strange Apparatus. I don't recall which one we went to that night but I do remember doubling my 50k investment with the adamant ores it spit out. There is also a good possibility of getting some sort of Rune gear drop. After investigating deeper into the nature of the Rune gear and of the Apparatus' possible drops I discovered the Arcane Flower Pot. I searched through internet pages for hours to find information om this pot and from what I read I found a couple of very interesting things concerning this pot. One is that this pot has strong magical properties and success rates are very very good when using this pot. Another is that plants growing from within one of these pots have a higher than normal survival chance when left unattended for long periods of time. Way high! I recall an account on this subject in which the gardener had come back from almost a month without logging on to find everything dead except the plant in the Arcane Pot. Although you can only have one of these pots in your posession you can buy them on the AH so it is easy to set these up with mules. So if you are usually lazy about checking plants like me or do not get to play everyday and find you kill your plants on a regular basis this is the pot for you. The recipe I have is for a Porceline Pots but I had a hunch that this Arcane Pot was the way to go. I purchased a pot at the Jueno AH for 60k, a great deal considering it takes 25k of stuff to give the Apparatus for a chance at one. I figure that these pots are so reasonable because they are unwanted drops from people looking for the couple of cool pieces of Rune gear that are available.

Cha-Ching!
I checked my pot every day or two for 3 weeks. I happily and with much excitement fed it a water crystal each time my moogle asked me to and then one day the option 'harvest' was in the list! BOOOOOYAAAAH! Two Chunks of Water Ore!! Without knowing anything but my confidence that they might be worth a couple humdred thousand gil each I looked at the AH history. 600k each! How nice. The Gods of Vandy threw me another bone. Now I have mules set up with pots and saplings too in the hopes I can repeat this fortune.

75, Gil, No Gil, Gilsellers, New Home

2005-11-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

Because it has been a while since I've updated my blog this post may seem to ramble. I have done a lot and seen a lot of new stuff since the last post. Here are a few highlights:

I Hit BLM 75!
This is the biggie. When I hit 75 and saw that I needed 42000 exp to win my first merit point I suddenly have a new goal! I am not really going to pursue this one with the determination I had from level 72-75 though. I am 10k into 75 so I am in no danger of deleveling at the moment so I am back to joining EXP parties depending on my mood.

Kindred Seals!
Thanks to some new buddies I was able to do something with these! I used my 60 buying two orbs for an uncapped KS30 BCNM where we fight 6 scorpions. I used to have more Kindred seals but I threw a bunch away a long time ago to make room in my mog. My job was to sleep the scorpions and to get chased around by a few of them too it seemed. We did 13 runs in a row! After the loot was sold and split I ended up with 2.7 million gil and regret for throwing out my other Kindred seals. Oh well, easy come easy go. After selling my Penitent’s Rope for 2 million a week earlier and some aggressive farming, synthing and auctioning I was able to buy my Igqira Weskit and Igqira legs.

Hey Buddy. Can You Spare Some Gil?
part II
This brings me to a question asked by a new adventurer in one of my shells, "Are you guys rich players that are bored and have nothing to do?" I didn't have a good answer for that at the time but I can see how it might seem so. Rich? Not by a long shot. Not with gil anyway. My spending skill is 100. The things I have were acquired by farming, fishing and those BCNMs when lady luck happened to smile on me. Even though I have great gear does not mean I am constantly rolling in the dough. Hitting the "big one" or having an awesome day of BCNM runs are few and far between. Sacrifice also comes into play here. When I bought my Penitent's rope it was 1.2 million. I sacrificed it and its +INT and -Enmity for 2 million to buy my Weskit. Once people see the Weskit they don't notice much that you are minus one Penitent's Rope. To tell you the truth, the gains I made on my stats with the Weskit made me forget about the rope too. For those that feel they are having gil trouble constantly I cannot stress this enough: START CRAFTING AND MAKE LEVELING IT AS MUCH OF A ROUTINE AS YOU CAN! This is the most tried and true way to make a living on FFXI. It doesn't happen overnight. Actually it can take a long ass time. NO PAIN NO GAIN! GET TO WORK!

Gilsellers. A Necessary Evil?
I was thinking about gilsellers the other day. They are not fun to bother so much anymore. First let me tell you I do not like them. This is mostly because of the leech-like way they operate in FFXI. Now they are less of a threat because they are not hogging as many NM with high ticket drops. With the claim system fixed they are not hard to camp against anymore either. I am biased though because they are not as much of an MPK threat to me either. But as I passed my old nemeses the Crt's on my way to the KSBCNM I got to thinking, "Look how pathetic. Reduced to camping mining points." At first it was funny but really they have an even easier time now. They can camp mining points easier with bots because they don’t have to move and can spam /targetnpc; /item pick-axe .One dude can run a RL room full of miners. No biggie for most of us so they just quietly chip away in the mines. This gil they make is sold to lazy players. Then it is used to buy stuff, not just expensive gear but everyday consumables too. They might use it to level a craft. This will put more items on the AH for players to buy and use and help keep good supplies of needed medicines and foods in the AH. If you sell anything in the AH there is a very good chance your stuff was sold to a gilbuyer. Without these lazy gilbuyers AH sales may not be as brisk. All this while the gillsellers are farming things that most players would rather buy anyways. I am not sure about the high level gilsellers though. It seems to me nothing that drops "great" stuff drops with any decent frequency. These are just stupid things I think about now and then. I still hate gilsellers even if there is a chance they do help the economy in some ways.

DivineXtasy
Last but certainly not least is the new shell! My friend Uchipu has started a Linkshell for people with limited schedules, weekend warriors and anyone who like to spend stress free time doing various "regular" missions and quests. Avatar runs, Rank Missions, Zilart Missions, etc. We are trying to get people to our forum because that is really the "hub" of information and communication for our shell. We have a really great set of charter members and are gaining new members daily. There are so many good things to say about this shell that I don't know where to begin. So I won't. I WILL direct you to the website of DivineXtasy <-click here. Check it out. We are accepting all membership inquiries. You may find our laid back, chatty, helpful, sometimes risque group to be just your flavor!

Third Time's a Charm!

2005-09-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

After two failed attempts to defeat Maat in as many days I finally emerged victorious on the third battle on the third day. This unlocks my level cap to 75, the highest level a player can attain at the present time in FFXI. The following is an account of my experience with Maat.

The First Fight
I was two or three thousand experience points into 70 after losing about five thousand in Dynamis recently. I then deleveled to 69 because I read a somewhere Maats magic skills will be capped regardless of whether yours are or not. This lowered my skill caps across the board which made my still uncapped enfeebling skill almost to the cap. The first fight was a disaster. I went in naked because I had read in some posts that Maat's stats are set to mirror yours when you enter the fight. I had macros ready. All attack macros were to make targeting fool-proof. I had macros for X-Potoin for emergency HP. I went in and ate food and rested until mp full. I ran to circle and at about the peak of the ridge that surrounds the circle I was able to cast Burst on Maat. I ran and he hit me for half of my hit points. Then a quick Elemental Seal and Sleep II and he was asleep. The Burst was resisted and only took off around 10-15% of his total hit points. I used X-Potions to restore my hp. Then I cast Flare on him. This was not resisted and left him with less than a third of his total hp. This is where things went wrong. After being awoken by Flare he started casting Firaga III on me. I cast bind which was resisted on him which was a mistake since I should have been Stunning him. Before I was able to cast Stun his bomb landed and I died. This fight showed me what I was up against. You can only learn so much from reading about the fight. I learned Maat hits very hard, he sleeps good, and bind may not stick.

The Second Fight
The next day I attempted the fight again. Same set-up. The fight started identical to the last one but instead of binding him after Flare I stunned him then bound him. I then tried to cast Aeroga III on him but was out of mp. he broke out of my bind and started to hit me. The first hit knocked my hp halfway down again. I restored my hp with X-Potions. My was hp almost full again and I totally forgot I had almost no mp left. Realizing this after a frantically hitting the Aeroga III macro a few times. He hit me again. I froze and didn't hit manafont. He hit me again. Now I was down to a sliver of hp. Then the final blow. This fight was late at night and reminded me to be more careful about mp and that although Maat hits very hard, his punches are slow.

The Victorious Third Fight
This time I changed a few things to my setup. I used a newly aquired Ice Ring. This ring gives a +15 elemental magic bonus on Iceday but at the cost of a -15% hit to your mp. I knew from twice before that he would most likely sleep well. This extra elemental magic skill will however help my bombs from being resisted and doing pitiful damage. To counter act this I bought an Icecap Rolanberry to eat which adds 18% to your mp and +2 INT. I also purchased a blink band to help handle any punches. I also had my X-Potions and a Yagudo Drink on me. I ate the food before I talked to Maat. I then realized this might give Maat an mp increase, but this wasn't really going to be an issue because all Maat really needs is enough mp for one or two spells to send me home defeated. I entered the circle with no equipment equipped again. Equipped on the inside and healed the small amount of mp I gained from putting on my gear. Then I activated my blink band. Now ready I ran to the circle. I cast Burst. It hits him for full damage! Maat now has only two thirds of his hp left. He got off one punch for zero damage thanks to the blink band. I quickly used Elemental Seal and Sleep II. Maat is asleep. At this point I sat to heal but then decided to hit him with a Flare. It hits for full damage too. Maat now has less than a third of his hp left. I hit Manafont without even checking my mp. I then cast Sleepga II on him and before he could damage me he is once again asleep. Then I cast Aeroga III on him. As soon as it hits before you can see his hp bar fall to 0 the fight is over. Six spells (Burst > Elemental Seal > Sleep II > Flare > Manafont > Sleepga II > Aeroga III) handed me the win without a single scratch. The blink band and possibly the added elemental magic skill was the key.

The Taru Terror out of Windurst can now continue to the top!

Picture Time

2005-09-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my favorites. Oldies but Goodies:

Homing Ring

2005-08-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

I have been a Fishertaru every since a month after starting FFXI's NA PS2 release. I have about 175 days play time on this character. Most of this is from either fishing or falling asleep while fishing. Lately, the fishing spots I have been camping are close to Jueno, with Quifim being my new spot. I fish here for Three-Eyed Fish which skill me in fishing (79) and also skill me in alchemy (68) when I turn them into Paralysis Dust with the help of a lightning crystal. Props go out to Net for his great advice on catching 3-eyed. The lightning crystals can also be found on Thunder Elementals Lurking around Quifim's cliffs. Bait is a small issue though. The best place to get the Sliced Cod quickly is at Windurst's Fishing Guild. The trip to Windy is as long as any trip to a home country. Having an Airship Pass makes it easier as you can avoid teleporting to a crag with outrageous Chocobo rental prices. Still, this does not make the trip any quicker. Sometimes the wait for an airship can be 15 RL minutes and if you cannot warp the return trip could be just as long. This makes it difficult if you happen to run out of bait while catching lots of fish on a good day and moon. You might miss some great fishing while journeying afar for more bait. What is a Fishertaru to do?!

Every once in a while I like to scroll through the conquest point items at a gate NPC. I have been saving up my points so that when I finally get to higher ranks I can get some cool stuff. The other day I was buying a reraise scroll for Dynamis when I saw a couple of new items in the general category which has items available to all ranks. I saw a Return Ring and a Homing Ring. They both had something to do with Outpost Teleporting and the Homing ring being the cheaper of the two. I bought the cheaper of the two. I went out to Rolanberry Fields and tried it on. I used it and nothing happened! The 30 charges were still full. I tried again, and again nothing happened. Oh well I took it off and put in my mog safe to try another time after I had done a bit more research on the item. A few days later I was lurking on Alla and I checked out some info on the ring. It appeared that the ring only works if your country controls the area you use it in and you have done the supply quest for that area. It then will teleport you to the Outpost of that area. I had just finished doing all of the new supply quest Windy citizens were granted this conquest period. This period last until the next conquest tally which for my timezone happens at 8 A.M. every Sunday. Having the supply quest for an area done allows you to teleport to your home country from that areas Outpost. The price depends on if you are in control of the area or not. It is available to you at anytime or day once you have completed the supply errand.

Back to fishing. I was at the cliff in Quifim when I ran out of bait. Oh no! It is lightsday and I am catching these bad boys like crazy and I have no more bait! I even had a symbiotic relationship going with a nearby party who were alerting me to any Thunder Elementals that happened to float by and threaten them. I needed bait and quick. Then I had an idea. I warped to my moghouse in Port Jueno and put on my homing ring. I had just done the Supply Quest for the Area that included Rolanberry Fields which was right outside of Lower Jueno. Activated the ring and it worked! I appeared at the Outpost in Pashow Marshlands. I turned to one of the Outpost Guards there and he offered to teleport me to my home country for 250 gil. ITS A DEAL! In an instant I was in Port Jueno near the Fisherman' Guild. I bought my bait and warped back to Port Jueno and zoned into Quifim. What a great trip! Quifim to Windy Fishermans Guild and back in under 5 minutes. That's what a Fishertaru is to do!

DVSIII, Sky and Fish Bowls

2005-08-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

What a busy weekend. What a busy week! I have gotten a lot of things done. I joined a HNMLS (I believe this is an anachronym for High Notorius Monster Linkshell), I also finished my 'Rise of the Zilart' missions to 13 which enables me to visit the Sky area of Vana'diel (a.k.a. High Level Land), and I paid back the 400,000 gil I had owed to a few people. I also de-leveled from all of this actvity. I was @4,000 exp into level 69 now I am 2500 exp until 69. This is okay with me. It was worth getting sky access and getting to see a little action.

HNMLS
I finally made the decision to jump in with both feet into my HNMLS career. Having anticipated this for a few weeks I put in my application to one of the best linkshells out there, Hero of Carpe Diem. I didn't realize by doing this I had put the future of my static party in danger. They had already planned on joining another HNMLS together. I was included in this but it had slipped my mind as applied to HoCD. With many friends in HoCD pulling my application out was tough. I loved the idea of fighting Gods with my old friends. As level 70 came closer and I had still heard no word either way from HoCD, I decided to get crazy and join a small and not very experienced HNMLS by the name of DVSIII so I could keep my static party together. This shell is fun. We are all learning to fight HNM and in Dynamis together and the progress we are making isn't hard to see. They seem like a very dedicated group that, live or die, stick together. This loyalty and their sense of extreme adventure is what has drawn me to them rather than one of the larger more established linkshells where I fear I will be just another new tool to the leaders. My line of thought was maybe I can be a bigger fish in a smaller pond and have lots of dangerously fun adventures. We will see.

Sky, A New Place of Death
After a few deaths and some hard work we finally got our Sky access. This involved a few NM fights and a lot of travelling around for cutscenes, which are just pieces of the Zilart storyline that you watch here and there. When we got there it looked like an ordinary area kind of similar to the tower in quifim. Then I realized that I had all of the game effects turned off in my configuration! When I turned the effects on I could then see that I was on a transparent floor above the clouds. It looked very, very cool. We ran through qa few areas and then met up with the rest of our shell. We were killing a type magic pot but they became too much for us because they repop real quick. It was late and I was dead tired and dead in Sky. While waiting for a raise I fell asleep. My wife cut the power to my computer and I relogged on days later still dead in Sky. No big deal but I think I will wait until I get to level 70 before I go back.

In The Green
Lately, I have been making the fish bowls I featured in a previous post for other people. They are selling like mad!! I have managed to pay back all of the gil I borrowed and have bought some nice pieces of gear. I am working on one to keep in my moghouse now that I am back in the green. The best thing about selling the fish bowls is the customer satisfaction. Everyone that has bought one from me has messages me back how much they love them. Some people even messaging me back to make one for a friend or two. What a great feeling to know someone is cherishing something you've put in a lot of work and goldfish scooping to make available. I am so glad I "got into" goldfish scooping this year since it is the only way to obtain the goldfish set that is required to make the bowls. Enjoy!

Goldfish Bowl

2005-08-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

Nothing new goin on at the moment. Still hard at work leveling BLM. I did manage to craft myself a Glass Sheet and craft for myself a Goldfish Bowl. It looks really cool. Here's a pic. Unfortunately it was night when I took the screenshot and didn't want to wait for daytime to take pic with the fish awake and visible.

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare Some Gil?

2005-08-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

In The Red
Since my last post I have been still trying to get into EXP parties as much as I can. I am also starting to farm again. Using my alchemy level (68) to craft low level synth consumables I have been able to make a good living. People often wonder, and some even ask, how some people can buy 1-20 million dollar items. The answer is: FARM YOUR BUTT OFF! I realize there is a humongous real world market for gil but for the purposes of this post we will pretend that doesn't exist for a little while.

There are many things that are easy to accumulate large quantities of, and quickly too. They just take some exploring and time to find. I strongly suggest you level THF to at least 15 for the Treasure Hunter ability. This ability allows you to "find" more things on kills, or "drops" as they are commonly referred to as. Some things that drop like rain with TH will hardley ever drop without it. I have tested this myself. You also want a main job high enough to kill fast. It should only take one or two hits with a melee weapon to kill for optimal results. Then persistence. Good luck.

To boost your profit potential, level a craft to skill level sixty or more. Just remember you can only have forty levels over sixty before you start using your forty total high skill levels. Fishing skill levels over sixty are not counted in the forty high levels you are allowed. Mixing persistent farming like with a craft recipe of a consumable you can HQ on a fairly consistent basis should equal large amounts of gil.

Anyways, I am two thousand experience points from 69 and in debt 400,000 gil. That is why I am farming now. Many Thanks to my pals for the loans. I am working on it right now. There goes the lunch whistle. I got to get back to work.

More Experience, Bad Experience

2005-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I racked up 41,000 experience points. Starting Friday afternoon at level 67 with 8,000/29,000 EXP and ending 10 P.M. Sunday night at level 68 with 20,000/30,500. I did this with 2 parties each day. Some good, some awesome, and then there was the worst.

Good EXP But I Still Gotta Go
It all started with a Sunday afternoon invite. There was a member in the party that I have had bad experiences in the past with. I don't know them very well but from what I have seen it isn't very hard to tell they are uber-impatient with a total lack of respect for anyones opinion but their own. I will spare you the details of the past but I can assure you more selfish and rude behavior would be a hard find on Shiva.

Bibiki Bay was our destination. We had a balanced party with the three major types of mages and capable melee. We then went to work fighting Catoblepas (a large beast from the Dahmel Family.) Everything went great for a couple of hours. Then I screwed up. The tank had been killed in the fight before by a another Catoblepas that lumbered by and linked on us. For some reason my attention was taken away from the game. When I glanced back I thought we had begun to fight again so I started my Shock, Burn, Rasp routine. I do this every fight on mobs with high resistance to magic so that my bombs are more effective. This time I started way too soon. The tank was still weakened! What a dumb mistake.
Now everyone is taking major damage. The Red Mage and I are throwing Sleep II's and Sleepga II's at it but are getting resisted. Then the White Mage frantically yells out, "Corn come here! We are teleporting!"
We all live. It was damn close but we lived! The whole ordeal was bad and was made even worse by the verbal assault coming from the assholio in the party. I apologized profusely for my blunder but after three or four apologies the name calling and anger being directed at me kept coming accompanied by other party members telling the assholio to calm down. The requests being unheeded the insults kept flying at me. I admitted it was a retarded mistake and apologized. What else could I do at this point. We all made it out alive. Even if we did die. Big deal. Shit happens.
At this point I felt I should take this opportinity to leave. I said, "You are right. I think I am too tired right now."
I disbanded and warped back to Jueno from the Crag of Mea. I put back up my flag and then got a tell from two of the party members, "You are seeking again?"
My reply was, "I am too tired to play without exploding on that motherfucker running his mouth. Sorry."
The replys both came back explaining Assholio can be harsh. To which I replied, "He has the right to play as he wishes but I have the right to play in a party I enjoy, out." That was the end of that.
Its parties like this that make me glad I have found so many great buddies in Vana'diel because there are truly some A+ assholes out there. Beware!

Jughead Is Coo'peeps!

2005-07-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

This is a response to this funny post on Uchipu's Blog:

I have Jugowa too but I picked him! I thought a big red headed Galka would be cool coming to the aid of a Taru. I'm hoping He will help protect me. He also looks kinda like Llessur in RL if he had done steroids for the last 10 years! Jughead rocks!

Oh, btw, if you trade your signal pearl back to the start npc you can reset the quest.
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Killer EXP
Tuesday night I had the pleasure to hook up with my static after missing a little more than a week. Too tired from the heat to log on. I missed those guys. Net wasn't there but I saw he was online. Hmmm.
The main static members have always been Frigian the PLD, Klitzir the DRK, Muffen the WHM, and me the BLM. Maruhsu the RDM joined up soon after. The last spot has been a revolving door of DDs. This really keeps the WS chops up. These guys are good! Believe me.
We went on a run that ended a few hundred experience points short of nine hundred. What a great night it was! If you run into any of these adventurers be good to them 'cause they coo'peeps too.

Goldfish Scooping!

2005-07-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

The weekend was lost to the long lines of the Fellowship Quest. Not to standing on line but logging in and out near it, waiting for the line to short enough.
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Monday I logged on and tried to find a purpose. Depressingly far from BLM 68 and too bored to fish. That's right! TOO BORD TO FISH! I decided to do some goldfish scooping. I didn't "get in" to gold fish scooping last year so I decided to try my luck this year and find out what it was all about.
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First I bought some super scoops from the Mithra on the bridge in East Sarutabaruta. I pressed "fish" on my menu. The response came back, "You cannot fish without a rod in your hands."

/s How do you scoop the goldfish?
>you buy scoops and equip them then press fish.
/s I did that and it says I can't fish without a rod.
>you need a bowl.
/s can I buy them from the Mithra up there?
>yes
/s tyty

Duh! I am such a noob! Now I am set! Scooping was fun! You either get a small goldfish, a plump black fish, or a fat juicy goldfish that swim up to you. The catches could be a small goldfish, a black bubble-eye, or a lionhead, but mostly lost catches and ripped scoops. I recruited my 8 year old son to help with the scooping. We scooped on and off for about 3-4 hours. It was fun to have the boy, the girl (age 5), and the wife (age withheld upon request) sitting around the room goofing around all day. We then tried to get our prize! That stupid Mithra wouldn't give up the goods. I then ran to the Windy AH to buy us a few more points. Still, no workie. So, dejectedly we decided we'd try again later and the family went off to find us some grub.

While they were at the store I had a friggin' brainstorm! Trade the fish to the Mithra! DUUUUH! Feeling quite retarded I waited until the family returned to get our prizes. We got a stack of Spirit Masque for 50 points and a goldfish set for 80 points. The Masques were a hit on the Bibiki Barge. They put an ice-like mask on me for a few moments with a little puff of smoke or mist or something above my head. The golfish set is still a mystery to me. I hope to find out more about it soon.

Busted by RL Again!

2005-07-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

The title says it all. After busting my butt to get the update earlier than anyone I know I was cut short of enjoying it the next day. Vacation from work was shortened also as I had to go in on Thursday and Friday.
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I did manage to get my Fellowship Quest started. I made it to the line in the Necropolis and decided it would be madness to stand in line for 3 hours to pop my NM so I left to do a few other things.
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I am still working on paying some gil I owe to someone back and may try to scoop some goldfish this year for the festival. Maybe this year I can obtain an HQ Yukata.
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Hopefully I can get a chance to play this weekend. See you then.

Welcome

2005-07-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I have enjoyed reading and the ease of use of my friend Uchipu's blog so much that I decided that I have to have my own blog for my adventures in Final Fantasy XI's world of Vana'Diel.
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I am currently mainly a Tarutaru 67BLM/32WHM from Windurst on the Final Fantasy XI Online Shiva Server. My home linkshell is GhostbearII.
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I am an avid fishertaru and my skill is currently 78 (Adept). I am also an accomplished Alchemist with a skill level of 68 (Artisan). the only other craft skill worth listing is Cooking which is 44. I have a personal profile on Allakhazam.com that I try to keep as current as possible.
Once again welcom to my journal and thanks for stopping by!