Hurray! An update! And on Voidwatch NMs!

Cait Sith Wants You!

While I have no obtained a "kick ass" job, I have been offered a job at Walgreens, so ends the job hunt so perhaps there will be more drawing and/or posting. (Or at least more than once a month). But to the point, I've been having lots of fun with Voidwatch when I log on. Below the cut are a bunch of screenshots I've taken from Voidwatch! Perhaps I'll make a proper post about these sometime soon, but not yet.

Busy Busy busy!

No, I did not die in some horrible wreckage from my plane ride, but I have become super busy with classes, trying to find a job, etc. Unless I suddenly win some super big scholarship or get a kick ass job, I'll be posting even less, if that's even possible.

But anyway, just wanted to say that I didn't die... and here's a bonus, somewhat old, sketch that I will likely finish and color if I have the time.

Portia Drawing

I figured I'd leave you all with a picture I've been working on for a few days that I doodled during the update!

Without further adue.....Portia from Wings of the Goddess missions!

First colored and completed picture in a while, enjoy!

And just for fun, here's the initial doodle from my sketchbook

Let's pop some Land Kings!

This still irks me a bit, going to Behemoth's Dominion and having it completely empty while you pop Behemoth and King Behemoth. Though it does mean you can goof off and have more fun though instead of screaming "[Insert stream of obscenities here], WE DIDN'T CLAIM NID! SPAM CLAIM IF IT GOES YELLOW!!!!!" over voice chat at 2 in the morning.

Uh oh! Synergy Furnace aggro! HANDLE IT!

It's ok! We got this furnace link under control!

When did he start summoning frogs!?

After killing some of these... whatever they are, puppies? We decided to play with an angry dragon!

Some genius Spike Flailed him. Unfortunately no one died.

Despite not particularly liking the old HNMs being forced pops, I have to admit, it's much more fun fighting them when you didn't sit there waiting from 3am-6am waiting for it pop. (Now you just have to wait an hour for your friends to gather!)

Abyssea questing is a bore

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been relatively boring lately as always. Been questing in FFXI and totally slacking on drawings. However, after doing some quests Abyssea - Altepa, I finally did stumble upon something worthy of a post.

After completing the quest "Brygid the Stylist Strikes Back" you receive some panties a stearc subligar as a reward, which can have refresh +1 and some hMP+ if you're lucky. Amazing idle piece if you can stand idling in the things; at least most mage armor has coat-tails and such...

And since it's all jobs, you can look silly anytime!

Yeah, I'm lucky. hMP could have better though.. You jelly?

It's also slightly depressing how well it goes with Thief AF3 Armor.

 Look, ma! No pants again!

 SUBLIGAAAAAAR REFRESH. You sick, sick people SE. /em stabs eyes out.

Arch Dynamis Lord and Xarcabard Shenanigans

So the linkshell I'm in now made our first attempt at Arch Dynamis Lord not too long ago. Here's how we did:

And then we died laughing like a bunch of idiots.

It didn't really help that the strategy we were using seemed quite flawed. It called for summoners to use Perfect Defense at the beginning of the fight, which wore off at around 60%. Very shortly after it wore, he spawned two clones which both used some terrible TP moves immediately, smashing our faces in, resulting in the screenshot above. Could have used Perfect Defense for that! We'll get you next time!

Regular Dynamis Lord after was stingy but regular mobs weren't. Towards the end of our time, some gloves dropped that I've been wanting that no one else needed!

Just because no one else wanted, didn't keep them from fake lotting then passing.

But of course I was an idiot and only had one inventory slot, which got filled up by a Shrouded Bijou no more than a minute before the gloves dropped. I raged not because of the lost drop, there will be plenty more in the future, but because of my sheer stupidity.

I tossed junk I should have earlier in a moment of rage.

Feel totally free to laugh at my misfortune.

Picture Summary of FFXI's July 12 Update

Well, pictures with commentary, so sue me.


First they fixed old things.

Summary of "Resolved Issues"

The second check mark was spurred by the final note on the list,  "The issue wherein using magic directly after resisting a status ailment caused the word "Resist!" to display at the beginning of the magic casting message." This had been there so long, I thought it was weird, but intended. Unless I'm reading this wrong.

Changed things to make more sense.

Self Explanatory for White and Black Mages of Abyssea.

Including a new Key Item category JUST for Abyssea. Finally. Also includes changes to various JA, specifically the distances on Collaborator and Accomplice. Now you don't have to be IN the mage zone to steal their hate! IT FINALLY MAKES SENSE.

Added new things. (For better or worse...)

Should erase the LS if it's Welfare though

A command that lets you yell through all the areas of Jeuno. Yay. And other stuff. Like another Sam JA. How long is their JA list now?

And finally broke some more things.

Don't hate on my poorly doodled ghostie.

And that's why an emergency maintenance happened. I will not feel sorry if people who abused this to kill a bunch of Havana or other undead NMs manage to get banned.

Oh, and here's the actual version update notes: July 11th Update.
And some DAT mining which includes a very...interestingly colored Flan: Wild Dragon Chase

I forgot to wear pants

With the flight and being otherwise preoccupied since being back home for the summer, I haven't been playing much of FFXI. But I've realized when I have been playing, playing mage so often makes for terrible action screenshots. I have also realized that FFXI has a lot of.... questionable imagery.

Durinn and friends:

Note the two floating things on Dvergrs.

 Soulflayers:

To pop it you need a STIFFENED TENTACLE.

Events such as Salvage:

How did I forget how to wear pants?

And of course there's Sandworm and tiny worms, but I think you get the point.

If you didn't notice anything wrong in these images, you're probably more innocent than I am. Or the more logical conclusion is that it's not really that wrong unless it's how you want to think about it. In the end, what game DOESN'T have questionable looking monsters and such? But in what other games are we suddenly stripped naked and forget how to wear our clothes, even though they're sitting right in our immediate inventory still?

Picture filler time!

As I mentioned not too long ago, final exams are creeping up, so sorry for being dead. However, I'd like to fill the emptiness with a drawing I got a kick out of: a goblin with a sombrero wielding a deadly maraca.

El Goblin Mexicano prepara maraca stab?

Isn't he adorable?!

School

It's that time of the year. Finals week is just around the corner so don't fret if I'm not posting as much as I started! Gotta crack down and get some serious studying done. (As well as two 4-5 page papers.) Sounds so much more fun than playing video games, right? But I'll leave you all with another picture I drew a long time that I still chuckle at to this day.

Tarutaru, meet old meme.

Perhaps I should just post up some old pictures and doodles I've done as filler?

Adventurer Appreciation 2011!

It's that time of year again in FFXI! The Adventurer Appreciation Campaign is on, where you can get a new Anniversary Ring, called Novennial Rings this year, and a spiffy new outfit.

The female clothing would be so much prettier if the boots weren't so... ugly. I'd grab a screenshot of the guy armor, but the only male characters I ever see wearing it are Galkas... and who wants a screenshot of that. *Shudders*

And I thought DNC was bad. Now I look like a cocktail waitress.

And with this you get to take on a stupid mini quest that has you running all over Vana'diel to harvest, mine, and log for Key Items. SE sure loves this crap, don't they. But hey, you get free money (100 gil to 10,000) every 3 days, 9 times. At least we have free city warps with Kupowers for this.

The rings are so lackluster now. Since last year, EXP has gotten OVER NINETHOUSAND (had to be done) times easier. Don't get me wrong though, still happy to use it to get jobs to 30 quicker to leech Abyssea parties!

Last year this was gone in 2 days max. Think I got this last week.

And since with each Adventurer Appreciation campaign comes with Moogles to tell you some of your statistics... here's mine!

I talk and die a lot. I wonder if the two are connected...

Ah-ah-FUATH! Bless you!

It's been a while since I've been annoyed at a monster so badly. Ok, not really I'm annoyed very easily. I was just annoyed at Lusca last post....

DANCE, FUATH, DANCE! And more importantly, kill us all.

Ok, we never actually successfully killed her. She's a super accurate bitch with a high rate of ensilence. And to top it all off she likes casting lots of AoE spells and also the move shown above that resets hate... Overall she's not a fun mob without a WHM. A MNK countertanking would probably be best bet here... oh well, at least we tried.

Yeah... we never did actually win. If you couldn't guess.

And to wrap up, the stupidity of some chests in Abyssea

Really? That big box for a fucking spool of thread? Also obviously not from Fuath.

I always rage at these chests. Just like at no boots. T_T

VNMs are stupid.

So yesterday we were planning to do a bunch of Lusca, but after two of them, VNMs decided to be a bitch and refused to upgrade to tier2. Oh wait, when are they not? I don't know, I rather enjoy seeing the VNMs jump through walls and climb up mountains in seconds while I take 10 minutes to walk around, by which time they'll have jumped back over.

However, here is Lusca.

Should I absorb melee or magic?! IDK MYBFFJILL?

I freaking hate this mob. It's stupid easy to kill but it randomly uses two different TP moves to switch from absorbing melee or magic. And usually it'll stay stuck on melee absorb when I'm the main source of magic damage and of course BLM/BRD for triggers. Annoying piece of...

Loving the drops they added to his loot pool though. And in general.

Oh hey, look at those drops, I think I can deal with the annoyance. =D

Note to self: unload timestamp.

Oh yeah, let me check out that chest!

Yesterday SE posted some Details on Next Week's Version Update and I have to say it seems pretty awesome. Click on that link to see the whole list!

Event Related:

• Something about Voidwatch. Is anyone even doing these? I know I haven't.
  

• Oh man, now when you enter the Chocobo Circuit from Port Jeuno... you'll be able to move to the OTHER AREAS OF JEUNO. Holy shit. Now I don't have to give that mithra a flower. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see the point of this. They are moving the synergy furnaces there, might be related, but still don't understand it.

Battle Related:
This section is just full of awesome in my opinion.

• The game will remember the last atmas you used. Hurray less time going through 8 pages of atmas to get two at the end! I would have much preferred different sets, but hey we can't always get what we want and this is still amazing if you're frequently on the same job.

• They're adding more ??? for most of the higher tier force pop notorious monsters (NM) in Abyssea. Not having to fight to pop your one Carabosse for an hour is nice. Wonder if it's going to be three in the same area or spread out a bit. There would be so much lag if they were all together and three things were being fought at once.

• Also they're adding key items from the time pop NMs in Misareaux, Vunkerl, and Attohwa to gold chests. I think this is totally awesome. I'd rather push my luck and do some amber light farming then try and claim against 20 other people. (Sadly, on some days this is only slightly exaggerated.)

Now if only they'd do something about VNMs....even just two tier 3 spawns once would be awesome :(


And completely unrelated but there is a significant lack of photos/videos. So here's an adorably awesome Russian Kitten.

KITTY NEEDS HIS FIX

I want one, but one that doesn't wanna smoke. :(

Booooring

Well, can't say I did much interesting today except die repeatedly to an gigantic worm that reminded me of things better left unsaid. (read: something phallic) I would have taken screenshots but they were far too graphic for me to post, so instead I dug through some old screenshots.

Nothing can beat the cuteness that shall be posted first.

OH MY GOD I WANT ONE

Second up, Fishing! Hey, this is before Ebisu even!

Who ever said fishing wasn't dangerous? Getting eels for guild points was terrifying sometimes.

Next up, someone's always has to make a damn liar out of me...

Self-explanatory. What an asshole.

And finally since it's kinda sorta not really not too long after Easter, a little something from bazaaring eggs on my mule overnight. Which message would you rather wake up to? Creepy or mean?!

Well my mule IS a naked mithra after all....

Now that's just rude, my eggs were cheap too. :(

Ochain is broken. Also lolsynergy.

I had been working on an Aegis (and Excalibur) before the level cap increases were announced along with Empyrean weapons but halted further progress to see how they panned out. Even though I'm still in the process of making an Almace (only 23 more Sobek skins to 85) I want a damn Ochain.

Stupid galkas having all the fun.

That Bukhi fight is pretty impressive I have to say though. PLD has been kinda useless, to put in nicely, in Abyssea but this video shows there's still hope yet. That hope just requires OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND times more effort than any other job. (Seriously though, Ochain looks awful to get to 90.)

Switching gears to synergy... so far I haven't heard of anyone getting even halfway decent augments on their abjuration gear. Though being a synergizer myself, I augmented a friend's Dalmatica. Ended up with a perfect elemental alignment and "Smooth Synergizing!" (HQ basically?) and here's the result:

I don't even know how to feel about this.

So far the augmenting seems like a huge hype about nothing, but who knows, maybe there's some good augments, just need to spend hundreds of tatters and fewell and you'll get 2 more MAB! =D

Puppy Power

Played with some things in Abyssea today, in particular an ugly lizard and an overgrown puppy. Both of which got punched in the face. Fistule also got punched in the.... slime or.... something.

After this we did not nearly wipe horribly. Not at all. Note to self: terror is awful

Casting elemental magic at 36% isn't broken at all. Not that I'm complaining..

Ok, the puppy got punched in face AND the taint too.

Also in this screenshot above, there's the new light intensity report when you get when resting...while it's nice to finally see solid numbers to how much better the lights from NMs are, I can't wait to figure out what the numbers actually mean. I've heard the "cap" is 245, but I got a report of 248 before. Would be amusing if the number never actually hit a cap. Imagine what it'd say after those 6 hour EXP parties...

Forget /BRD for yellow triggers, hell yeah ballad!

And what do I do after the update?

With all the new things to play with: Voidwatch, revamped Dynamis, Synergy, and even a new fishing system what did I do once the servers were back up?

I camped Simurgh. I hate running slow on Thief without flee that much. Now I was going to take a screenshot of these adventures, but I forgot so I took literally 5 minutes to draw the course of action and take a picture cause I'm a broke as hell and don't have a scanner.

Craptastic art! Though I still love the bottom line regardless of how long it took. <3

Each and every time I'm on RDM, I love fast cast more and more. Nearly as much as I love stoneskin; I sat as the overgrown bird pecked my face in while my PUP friend engaged the beast and THF friend used Nexus Cape to save the day with TH. Of course the adventure ended in no boots. Stingy motherf-

However, we did adventure a bit into new Dynamis - Xarcabard and I have to say, it's pretty interesting and I like it so far. The concepts behind it are the same, it seems like the same statues give time extensions and, while they do respawn, it also seems you can only get the extension off it once...which is actually makes sense. Oh, and everything is already up.

A major difference though is the animated weapons. I was dumbfounded at all the satellite weapons. Apparently they're pretty damn weak and drop the pop item for the Animated Weapons (which no longer warp out, but you have a time limit of 15 minutes to fight them.) Unfortunately, we didn't last long enough to see what happens at that time.

Super weak. Super shocking!


Horrible idea. I had already had my daily dose of face stabbing from Simurgh after all.

So remember kids, it's all fun and games till someone gets hurt.

Then it's hilarious.

The Version Update is here!

Well, considering I've begun this blog while waiting on Final Fantasy XI's version update, I'll chat a bit about this! However there's so much being updated and so little time. Ok ok, there's a lot of time since the update time will probably be extended something awful, I'm just terribly lazy.

All the information for the version update can be found here on the official FFXI forums.

I have some very mixed feelings about this update as far as the big updates though. I'm very much looking forward to Voidwatch; it looks like it's going to be challenging and downright awesome. Sure the monsters look like they're just re-skinned, but at least one monster looks new and cool:

Though if I were him, I'd die laughing at the gear those people are wearing. Or just slice them off, depends on the mood.

And of course I'm looking forward to many of the minor updates like being able to store Kindred Crests (and use them to access new battlefields of course) and even the silly little update to the new character display name fonts. The updated delivery system is sweet too. Brb sending my level 20 mule a Dalmy and Adaberk as well as items for Empyrean Weapons.

While nothing infuriates me about the update, I'm somewhat on the fence as far as the force pop of old HNMs are concerned. KS99 > NQ > HQ seems a bit silly to me considering the KS 99 versions are harder than the HQ though that isn't saying too much considering at 90 all of them are relatively easy if you play it smart. In the end I'm just sad I guess to see these NM turn to force pop... damn nostalgia, at least there's still King Arthro, Roc, and Simurgh, right?

Also on the fence about Dynamis. It seems really cool and really lame at the same time. I'm really liking reduced wait and no reservations. One of the reasons I hated dynamis so much in the past was assholes jacking your zone right before you enter, but I digress. But at the same point, mobs are going to be claimed just like mobs in regular dungeon and field zones. But hey

While other things leave me confused... like Synergy. Basically you'll need to get two abjurations to create an augmented piece of Hecatomb, Adaman, etc gear. (One to make the actual piece of armor, and then another to make tatters out of.) If you don't like the augment, will you need to keep getting more and more or will you get the tatters back? That seems a bit excessive even for SE. I guess we'll see.

Bit long for a first post but it's a long update! I could go on and on about this, but other work needs to be done. And by work I mean nap, manga, anime, or maybe even just staring at my wall.