The Smithy

I started smithing many many years ago, but I never really finished.

This weekend I decided to do something about it!

Someone in my linkshell also told there's this thing called a Smithy's Torque, so I of course spent my weekend at the cauldron farming those chests :P

Now there's the whole crafting thing.
Earlier the problem with powercrafting for me was getting the gils.
This time around though, seeing as gil comes easy to everyone, my problem was buying materials.

The auction house just simply doesn't have enough mats. Not when everyone and their mother wants to level Smithing at the same time to produce those ever so wanted Voodoo pieces.

Alas I managed to get enough mats, I pretty much scraped the AH of any materials I could get my dirty little hands on and I'm finally done!!

Now it's my turn to get some Voodoo pieces :P

If the AH could just stock up on some adaman..

I member

Jailer of Fortitude

I always wanted to solo this guy, or atleast low-man him.
for a long time I pondered on how to kill his adds while kiting him, then I read something on BG that made the fight more doable.

As it turns out his pets are as lazy as all the other ghrahs out there.
All you have to do is kite him to another tower, and his friends would just give up and go home. When his pets were alive, he had a reflect effect on him. At first I thought this was a bad thing, but this could be worked to my advantage. JoF will usually never stop running, but when you cast something on him he will stop and cast it back, giving you a good head start after a nuke. Long story short... this guy is a joke.

I would battle this guy alot, and it was alot of fun too.
I would feel proud and a sense of accomplishment after defeating him and various other NMs on my RDM. Alone or with a good friend.

I don't get that feeling anymore.
Soloing a tough NM today in FFXI mostly means nuking something down on SCH while 5 trusts assists you.

Todays FFXI is easy and maybe that's a good thing? I remember playing two days a week for a year before I could get my Duelist's Chapeau. Standing at a HNM ground and waiting for hours so that the ls with the best claimbot could get the HNM. Watching others claim the NM you wanted that you camped for hours.

Then again.. I remember the thrill when a NM popped. Adrenalin rush and seconds start to feel like minutes. Then you get the claim and it feels so good to stick it to the other campers. One of my happiest moments in the game was camping KV for Ace's helm. I was out there in the desert all alone on my RDM against many other players. I got the claim and had to kite him while my ls rushed to my aid. Just one small slip and the NM could go to another ls.  After tons of /tells from salty players we got the NM down and I got my helm. You do not get this kind of thrill anymore. Everything is popped and planned, no surprises.

So they took care of the claimbot issue, and today anyone can get anything done if they want to.
It all came with a price though.

FFXI has lost it's charm.

Leviathan

Joined a pickup group yesterday with Leviathan as the target.
There's a campaign going on now that gives increased rewards when you win in the hard mode mission battles.


The group was very efficient and we got alot of fights done in notime!
10/10 will join again :)

Got a good haul of Plutons, Beitetsu and Boulders.

Due to the campaign the prices for these items have dropped alot, so I'm going to have an inventory space problem until next month :P

I'm Back!!

So alot of things have happened the past few years.

Back in 2009 I met this girl and we got married in 2013, divorced in 2014 (thank god).

Had a bad rebound and decided to travel alone, met a new girl in October 2014 and we got married in April this year. (too soon?)

While the wife has a temper and can be a bit crazy at times, I really love her. She's also pregnant (death of gaming forever?).

Now my personal life is not going to be the topic of this blog, but I feel I should share some details of my life.

I have been on and off this game ever since Abyssea got released. Last break lasted more than a year.

There's a page on facebook for the Leviathan server, and after seeing lots of players returning to the game I started to miss it myself. So why not make a comeback?

They've made alot of improvements to the game. Some may say that the changes has made the game too easy, and while I might agree I find the game more appealing now than ever.

It's alot easier to be a casual player than before. We all remember shouting for 2-3 hours to get a party going right? Or having to be in a good linkshell to get stuff done?

Let's look at some of the changes and see how they change the gameplay for the better or worse.

Trusts:

Trust NPCs also called Alter Egos are excellent tools for you to level your jobs, and they can also be used for endgame content. They can be summoned almost everywhere.

The trusts do not affect exp, so you can kill mobs fast and not have any loss in exp as you would have if you were in a party with other players. This takes away the old charm of leveling in a party and making friends. It's alot harder to make friends in the game now than before. Seeing as all my friends have quit the game I find this a little sad. The leveling part has never been easier and as fast, but I really miss the social part of leveling.

Alas there's been introduced new mobs called "Apex" which gives you job points when killed. Killing these mobs feel nostalgic as it feels like being in the old merit parties.

While having a real player will at most times be better than a trust (shitty players still exist) they can get the job done if you lack certain jobs. Ever been in a group and the healer leaves, and you can't find a new one? Well call upon Apururu or Yoran-Oran. If you haven't tried these trusts yet you will be pleasently surprised.

Ambuscade:

Ambuscade takes you and upto 5 other players or trusts to a zone where you will fight a NM. The mobs to fight changes every month and so does some of the rewards. This is a great way for returning players to get entrylevel equipment to join in other endgame content. It also rewards players with other items that can be used to upgrade REMA equipment, and items to get and upgrade JSE capes. This makes Ambuscade attractive for both returning and veteran players. While it is possible to solo some of the tiers with trusts, the rewards are greater if you finish the fights with other players. Finding players to join through /yell is usually fast and easy.

New content:

While FFXI is an old game they still produce new expansions and content.

After the lates expansion "Seekers of Adoulin" they introduced "Rhapsodies of Vana'diel".
RoV encourages players to finish the missions from the previous expansions and also brings the chapters to a close. The RoV gave us three new zones: Escha-Zitah, Escha-RuAun and Reisenjima. Here you can fight various different NM's, some are soloable or can be fought with smaller groups. Other NMs will need larger groups to take down (or of course a few good players that know what they're doing). Some of the best gear in the game can be obtained in these new zones.

Now for a returning player like me it takes some time to adjust to all the new content.

My only geared job at the moment is DRK with an afterglow Ragnarok. While my weapon is great, my NQ Escha equipment / ambuscade gear isn't really that up to par. Having a job, pregnant wife, and a 11 weeks old puppy has made me a filthy casual. This leaves me little to no time to be in an endgame linkshell that relies on me being available at certain times during the day. This leaves me with shouts, gilmaking and hopefully some new friends, we'll see how this goes :)

AB

When level sync was released, AB was invented.
It's a very simple way to level which gives you tons
of exp and no skill ups.

This then give us level 75 people with the skills of
a level 20...

Then again it's great for merits, so leveling your
summoner to 75 so you can AB your merits isn't
a bad choice.

So the other day my friend Trogdar was in this AB
burning his summoner to 75.

Then this Mithra Chiandra starts doing /slap and
/disgusted emotes towards him.

So I of course have to know whats up!

Luckyseven: Why are you harrassing Trogdar?
Chiandra: Cause he ABs smn!
Luckyseven: well.. why not level lolsmn to 75 in a week
or 2 instead of spending countless months in weak summoner
parties?
Chiandra: Leveling smn takes skill, you have no idea how
many smns ive met lately that doesnt even know how to
carby pull.
Luckyseven: well he is leveling it for merits, why would he care?
it's not like smn is any awesome job
Chiandra: Then why can i solo many things others cant?
Luckyseven: Like what? tell me one thing you can solo that
his RDM cant..
Chiandra: ...
Luckyseven: thats what i thought, and besides AB is a great
way to get Maat's cap.
Chiandra: Maat's cap is a priveliege and an honor, these guys are
cheating..

thats when i got like: WTF?!?
I know some people take this game seriously, but come on.
A priveliege? getting Maat's cap any other way might take a
year or more.
Thats alot of time you could have spent on doing something fun,
and not party day and nightly and ever so rightly.
Give me a break, this broad is whack.

Now of course if you think im wrong, go ahead and correct me,
but if i can get something done in matter of months and not years...
Hell call me a cheater I dont care..

The overlord

Me and Trogdar killed many funny NMs together.
I am a Red Mage, but i also have many other jobs that I've leveled to 75.

One day I got Assassin's Armlets from Dynamis Xarcabard.
For those of you that dont know, this is a piece that will make your Thiefs Treasure Hunter increase. (AKA TH4)

We wanted to test them so who better than our good old friend Bune?

Me and Trogdar had killed him countless of times, and never seen him drop his enhancing sword. So we go to Gustav and there he is.
We killed him and ill be darned.... The sword dropped.

After this success we of course got "Cocky".
We travelled to Monastic Cavern to check if the PH for Overlord was up.
It had been a maintenance the day before, so went there about 25hrs after the servers was up. When we reach our goal, we both got very surprised.
There he was, Overlord Bakgodek and not another player in sight.

We start to fight him, but we had no luck.
I wasnt able to keep hate on THF and Trogdar was subbed /drk and took a severe beating. We fought him for 2 hours, but had to give up since we had to go to Dynamis.
Dynamis ended at 5am my time. Go to sleep you say? no i wanted revenge!
Trogdar came RDM/NIN this time so that i could sneak and trick attack off him.
After a good 1 hour and a half, Bakgodek is 45%.
This of course is when he starts spamming Cure on himself.
Any idea how little damage a Thief's Knife and a sirrocco does?
At 8am he was 5% so Trogdar chainspelled him. He reached 1% and i had 97% TP.
He starts casting cure on himself and im spamming the Dancing Edge macro, but no luck. He got off his cure and was at 1% again after my Weapon Skill.
After 1 hour he had gone up to 30% at one point, but we killed him.
I've never had a fight exhaust me this much, I almost fainted.
So a tip to all of you "Duoers" out there.
If you are gonna Duo Bakgodek, then don't do it with a Thief and a Mage.
The Juggernaut is just not worth the 4 hours of fighting.
(we did get the Juggernaut of course ^^)


ZUBMAQSFCH6J

Red Mage duo begins

The thing about being a noob in ffxi, is that you never know you are one.
You think your the fitting edge, the best, that you know everything,
but no.. thats not how it is.
Your a noob.

After finding how much of a disappointment RDM was compared
to the RDM in FFIV I started to test some other jobs.
I wanted to do good melee damage, but not completely give up on magic.
So i picked Dark Knight.
Dark Knight was alot of fun, i mean come on.. your running around with
a scythe like your the freaking reaper, how is that not awesome?

As much fun as DRK was, leveling it never went fast.
If you ever leveled DRK you know that they dont get alot of party invites,
and I was tired of being a low level noob so i went back to RDM.

I eventually got it to 75.. that took a LOOOOONG time.
(yes Maat kicked my ass a ton of times.. Whats Gravity good for?)

When i leveled RDM i had no other RDM friends to teach me the job
or give me any tips.
This resulted in me turning into a typical "Refresh Whore"
Thats the Red Mage that only know how to refresh cure and haste,
and dont know shit to do when he finds himself in a pickle.

Then i joined a linkshell ran by a russian called Popny.
The linkshell was named Undersky (boy was that a trainwreck)
Through that linkshell i met a guy called Trogdar.
He was also a 75 RDM, pretty much same getup as me except
he was a little more pimp. (he didnt look like a noob like me DX)
At the time he didnt have duelist's chapeau, morrigans, dalmatica
or anything like that, but he knew what he was doing and did the
best with what he had.

When he heard that I had never had a RDM duo or solod anything
he was shocked and demanded that we should go to Gustav Tunnel
and say hello to Bune.

When we arrived there was no Bune, but Trogdar knew there was another
NM in that zone that might just be up. Yes it was the scorpion Amikiri.

He popped after killing just a few Place Holders and we brought him upstairs
to where Bune pops to kite him.

I didnt know much about fighting NMs like this so i used Gravity alot.
Big Mistake! Amikiri will eventually build resistance towards gravity,
and should therefore be saved for emergencies.

Trogdar died for some reason.. dont think it was my fault.
(nuking makes a mob go unbound? who knew!)
Shortly after i was dead.
So as the humble and nice person that i were i apologized for messing that up.
(I yelled at him and was like WTF MAN?!?!)
We got up and got ready for round 2.
We kicked that damn scorpions ass.
The victory was amazing, it filled us with a big boost of self estime.
We decided to kick it up a notch and went to sky to say hello
to Zipacna. Zipacna hits hard (read: very hard)
He butchered us for 2hrs. We decided to just go home.
We tried him again the next day and thought that no one could
beat us up like that and get away with it.
So he deleveled us.. good times.. really.. %¤#&!

Trogdar became my mentor, taught me the importance of full
enfeebling merits and ice/wind merits for bind and gravity, and
that i could not be a good RDM if i didnt even own an Enfeebling Torque.
(whats so bad about fulltiming beak necklace?)
After a severe Tune Up on my Red Mage we went back to sky.
It may not have been the fastest kill, but we took him down..
Yes Zipacna was dead.

We became partners in crime, together we killed tons of fun stuff,
and we're still at it. Only now we are more than capable of soloing all
the stuff that raped us in the past.
It's fun looking back at it now.. how could the two us lose to
weak sh*t like that?.. We were noobs, and we didnt know.



ZUBMAQSFCH6J

Valkurm Dunes

yes we all remember this hell hole.





When i first started playing Final Fantasy XI, I picked the job Red Mage.
I picked this because i remember them from playing FFIV.
What peeked my interest for the job in FFIV was that they could wield
swords and do good damage with it, and at the same time they could use
both black and white magic... Pretty pimp if you ask me.

So of course when i saw the RDM option how could I resist?

I started out in windurst as a Red Mage Hume with red hair,
and grinded my way fast to level 10.
Then my friend from school who also played the game with a character
called Kairos told me I had to go to Valkurm Dunes.

We then set out through Tahrongi Canyon and through Buburimu Peninsula
and finally reached Mhaura.

There he told me to get on a ship which would take me to Valkurm Dunes,
I wanted him to go with me cause I was still very new to the game and pretty much
never sat my foot too far from Windy.

Still he said i had to go myself and that he wouldnt be of much help either way as a
high level cant party with a low level.

So I got on that ship and thanked my friend for showing me how to get there.

The ship docked in Selbina, and I turned on my party flag as they call it.
What a stupid way to get a party i thought, like is a party gonna run by
see me and ask me to join?
Shortly after i recieved a tell.

Vexy: Party do you need it?
Luckyseven: Yes

Vexy invites you to join her party.

After joining in vexy said something in the party chat.

Vexy: Gather together L-10
As pro as i was my 2nd day in vana'diel i had no trouble with this.

Luckyseven: WTF IS L-10.. are you retarded?!?!?!
(wonder who the retard was)

After some time and talking and seeing the word "Noob" a few times,
someone comes and picks me up and take me to camp.

We finally got there and the party start pulling Lizards.
This was all new to me, i kept wondering why we just stood there,
and the mobs came to us.
(yes i wasnt too bright)

The lizards gave amazing exp i thought, 150-200 exp was something
i had never seen.

And as the pro FFIV rdm i was...
i cured the party and enfeebled the lizards....
yeh right...

I engaged and thought i was the best melee in the game
miss
miss
miss
miss... lol

Conserving and using my mp for stuff that mattered also
was on my priority list

Luckyseven casts stone on the Hill Lizard
Luckyseven casts aero on the Hill Lizard
Luckyseven casts water on the Hill Lizard
and repeat..

Then i noticed the treasure pool.
Why were all those items just lying there?
so i started lotting all of them.

Shortly after i was kicked from the party..
I wonder why..

I threw a smaller (read: Big) Tanthrum and then i left,
and got killed by a Goblin.

Thank god i put my home point there right?

Zone Windurst Woods.. Fu**ing Goblin.

So that was my first expierence with the Dunes.
I bet it was as great for me as it was for you

Introduction!

Hello everyone! If you ended up here i'm sure your familiar with a game called Final Fantasy.
Here I shall share all the fun and wickedness i run into in the world of vana'diel.
And boy do i have some stories to tell :p