Merry Werry Kyssmas Wysmas

Path to Diabolos Part 2

Ok... maybe not that much later.

So we finally made it, 2 days of work and we're at the final fight we need to do so that we can fight Diabolos Prime and get the summon. I was very scared going into this fight, reading up on all the setups and strategies there is a very low margin for error in this fight. To get to the arena for this fight you need to go through a zone called Pso'Xja which is also very neat looking but to get the pass you need to farm a Cyan, Carmine, or Gray Chip. Elov and I went down, later joined by vit and vamp and we got all the chips within a half hour. After turning those in it was time to make our way to the fight.


The setup consisted of our semi-static: elov, vit, vamp, and myself and we were joined by vit's friend Thulius for the stun whoring drk and after a quick shout in Aht Urghan we found battlegod who came as monk. So the final setup was nin, thf, mnk, drk, smn, and whm. Getting through the 40 cap area of the Pso'Xja zone (a series of colored warps) was fairly uneventful, Elov did manage to die once by cancelling sneak or something dumb like that, but we all made it there fairly fast.

In this fight, diabolos has this ability called nightmare which is an AoE Sleep that you can't be waken up from. This ability is.. well.. a nightmare, the one thing you want to avoid. Fortunately our dark knight stun whore was right on que for each and every nightmare utilizing the spell and his weaponskill stuns as well, couldn't have asked for a better performance from him. Elov as thf did his job of SATAing onto Vit (nin) to keep hate on him and, and the monk did an awesome job with damage.


The arena is laid out in tiles, at around 50% Diabolos starts to drop these tiles, if you fall, you're pretty much dead. Although we went over where we were to stand well before entering the bcnm40 it still managed to scare the hell out of vamp and I when both tiles around the one we were standing on suddenly fell. Vamp assisted me with healing as smn and I kept the nin and drk hasted, and erased and at 20% vamp used astral flow to pretty much finish it off. The pickup monk praised us and my LS greatly for the flawless run claiming he failed this run 5 times in the past and overall it was a fun and surprisingly easy fight. Everyone did their jobs perfectly and I can only hope it goes this well on the prime fight next week.

Even though our path to Diabolos is almost over, I look forward to continuing more of the CoP mission series. Riverne Site B next!

Path to Diabolos Part 1

I know its been awhile since I've given a post on CoP but after my Phomiuna Aqueducts (2-3) run nearly a month ago I pretty much put CoP on hold aside from a few other CoP 2-3 runs I've done with the LS.

Tuesday was no different. Started with yet another Phomiuna Aqueducts run for vamp who has her heart set on getting Diabolos as a summon. At this point that run is fairly routine for me, but after that we decided to go around and do the next fight in the series, Riverne Site A.

Killing in Hippogryph in Riverne.

I've yet to see a CoP zone that failed to impress me, Rivern site is no exception. A very unique and great looking zone. For this run we had Vit, Vamp, Elov, Roc, Krile, and myself so we figured we'd do the nin nin nin whm whm whm setup where each nin took a mammet backed up by their own whm. Elov was only a 39 nin and krile had ok gear for his whm but aside from those, we were in good shape with jobs.

All 3 nins wanted me as their whm so they all /random'd for me, the gimp nin Elov happened to win (he later admitted this was the first time he tanked a monster with no other ninjas to help post-37). Krile got assigned to vamp (and she lived!) and roc went to vit. This bcnm40 fight was so much fun we all had a blast. True it was serious and we had to concentrate but there was a lot of pt chat going on and you could tell everyone was having a good time. We didn't bring any yellow liquid that I heard really helps helps (the mammets can change job at any point, the liquid prevents that) but we ran into little problems. The blm forms gave us a run for our money but there were no deaths and we succeeded in the mission.

CoP 2-3 Fight

After that roc and krile left us but vamp, vit, elov, and I decided to continue on. After a few more awesome cutscenes we went to do road forks 3-3 which is a lengthy side mission in which you need to kill 2 popped NMs in Carpenter's Landing and Attohwa Chasm. Also included in this mission is a hilarious side story about the 3 tarutaru with the uniquely colored hair trying to find their father in Windurst that made this mission worth it alone. The NMs were easy for what we had, any one of us there could've solo'd both of them with relative ease. However the main highlight of this mission was after you killed the NM in Attohwa Chasm, you had 1 hour to climb to the top of a mountain in the zone. This is a cleverly designed mountain that requires careful navigation around ledges, over bridges, down drops, it was a very fun and exciting climb (though I don't recommend doing this at 5am) and if you don't make it in time or fall you can start over without having to kill the NM again (like I did.. 3 times).

Mountain climbing in Attohwa

Well more on Vamp's Path to Diabolos later.

No one ever asks you to come refresh them cause they got aggro

/nominate my favorite new command

Sometimes I can be really silly. By silly I mean a bastards son of a bastard.

Gprime Macro

Just to keep you occupied while I'm busy with finals (last day coming up!) I figured I'd post the infamous gprime boost macro. I'd give a monk 100k to do this in dunes, I personally can't think of any better way to use your empty macro slots at that level. :)

alt+1
/p I call forth, the divine powers of Altana
/wait 1
/em begins to lift the rock from the ground with his power.
/wait 1
/p YESSSSSSSSSSS I FEEL THE BOOOST OF POWAR!
/wait 1

alt+2
/shout CAN YOU FEEL IT VANADIEL? THIS IS TRUE POWER!
/wait 1
/p GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
/wait 1
/p Current power stats:
/wait 1

alt+3
/em power bar [|||||| ] 30%
/wait 1
/em power bar [||||||||||||||||| ] 65%
/wait 1
/em power bar [||||||||||||||||||||||| ] 100%
/wait 1

alt+4
/p NOW GATHER AROUND MY BRETHRENS
/wait 1
/p HERE I GO
/wait
/p BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSTUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
/wait 1

alt+5
/ja "Boost"
/wait 1
/p MY NEXT ATTACK WILL NOW DO MORE DMG
/wait 1
/em power begins to fade
/wait 1

alt+6
/em power bar [|||||||||||||||||| ] 75%
/wait 1
/em power bar [|||||||||]40%
/wait 1
/em power bar []0%
/wait 1

alt+7
/p I tried my best, tell me..
/wait 1
/p will I dream
/wait 10
/p BOOST MACRO READY
/wait 1
/echo BOOST MACRO READY

:)

Jeanhair ftw!

1. Bored
2. Late
   
3. Sleepy
4. Impossible Drop

I know for many of you one or all of those factors bring to mind NM camping. I know personally that SE hates me because I was 1/38 on my Moldavite earring. Screw 1 thief, 2 thiefs, 3 thiefs, a 75 thief with TH4 or even a full alliance helping me(btw the rdm & thf duo got it from us). I am now currently 3/41 on Moldavite.

So when Blutengel suggested we go camp Sozu Rogberry , what did i say "HELL YES HELL YES"! 1% drop rate with all the mages subbing gimped war how could we lose?

The hunting party consisted of Blutengel, Itachikun, Arcaus and I. Not the cream of the crop but hey, you normies like to sleep. We get to that tiny cell that the GS must love(reminds them of home) and setup shop. And from that second on all we do is spam voke. I spam it till Mr.Righty cramps up and I tape a chopstick to it and keep spamming with that. I slowly start to drift away thinking of my next all new awesome purchase Forest Rope. Only to be awaked by my death screams OMFG I got Sozu.

We concentrate on keeping Blut alive not too hard with 3 gimped mages mind you. Then disaster the other party in that room decides it's not hard enough for us so they decide to pull Bonze Marberry on top of us. The thf decides to bring us a present, now who's dead mage doubting hater.

And of course no drop, could I have been Seriously Madaru? Yes but it was too much fun :)

Cheating? .dat's not cool!

Even though I'm busy studying with finals I, as well as Jean, want to continue to give you a reason to check in our blog often so we'll be trying to get back into the daily update routine. Whether it's a long informative post, an interesting story about our experiences in Vana'diel, or just a short humorous screenshot caption, we'd like to give you some worthwhile and entertaining reads.

That being said, I began recently looking into the world of modifications and 3rd party tools for FFXI. No I'm not planning on hacking, I don't fancy the idea of being banned. But really it's very interesting how many applications and large communities there are out there devoted to these applications such as fishbots, PLbots, NM claiming bots, POS/speed hacks, etc etc. I was also surprised just how easily it was for someone to find such programs.

Anyway more on FFXI Hacking: Exposed in later posts.

----------------

While doing research I stumbled upon this FFXI enhanced map set which I recently started using and I find it immensely useful. This requires the use of dat swapping, so if you're personally against this (for whatever reason) or you're afraid you'll mess something up don't do it.

Firstly you need to be on PC, as you have no way of managing files on ps2 and xbox360, well no easy way anyway.

Next you need to visit this link and download the map set. The zip file is roughly 27.1mb and it has been scanned and contains no viruses.

Before you go on, BACKUP YOUR FILES! Yes incase you do mess up or choose to go back to the originals at a later date in time backup the maps in the folders you plan on replacing the dats of.

Now unzip the zip file into your \PlayOnline\SquareEnix\FINAL FANTASY XI folder overwriting all existing maps.

And now you have a nice new set of maps to use in place of the maps the game provides you with. These maps include NM spawns, coffer/chest locations, hidden areas of maps not present on the originals, and other nice things you'd find on a map if you went to a website such as ffxi-atlas.com.

Example of what my west altep map looks like now.

Also note that this doesn't magically give you the maps you don't have, if you don't have the map of an area... yeah.. you still won't have the map of that area, quit being lazy! And enjoy :)

Black Mage.. SOLO ONRY

First off let me apologize, due to finals I haven't been on FFXI much or posting but finals will be over soon.

I never considered black mage a big solo job, well I knew they could sleep, nuke, sleep, nuke but that's not exactly a way to gain a consistent amount of experience points per hour. However I discovered a new method I was experimenting with yesterday in which a black mage can solo and gain as much experience points per hour as an average xp party setup.


This trend seems to be becoming more popular since I begin reading and seeing it more and more and it's really an awesome way to gain xp. The DD role in xp pts never appealed to me which is why I turned to solo jobs like bst when I wanted to level a DD job however I may turn back to blm now that I have this new and fun way gain xp.

Here's how blms can do it:

- You find a camp with beastmen monsters that are much higher than what you'd normally fight in a 6 person xp pt, this camp has to have at least 1 beastmen monster that has a pet (smn, bst), whether it be an elemental, goblin's leech, rarab, or whatever, any pet will do.

- Now since the pet is always a few levels below the level of its beastmen master, if the camp you chose is good, the pet of the beastmen should be right in the level range of the monsters you'd normally fight in a xp pt at your level.

- Ok now here's the real trick, if you pull the pet of the beastmen while the beastmen has its back turned, you can pull just the pet. And so long as the beastmen doesn't turn around or see its pet fighting you, it will go about its business.

- Pets of beastmen monsters have very low HP, at my level it's around 500-600 HP, which means a few blm nukes can wipe them out fast, as little as 20 seconds. Once you get above 50 and learn ancient magic, you can one-shot these pets. Either way you can pull off consistent chains this way, just as a normal xp pt would.


Once the pet is dead, the beastmen monster will summon a new pet within 30 seconds, and you can use that time to rest and recast anything you need to. Now obviously this isn't without risk, it is soloing afterall. Since you're in areas that have monsters that are much much higher than you'd normally have to deal with, things can and will go wrong.

• - If you get aggro from something else in the area, while fighting/resting.
  
• - The beastmen turns to face its pet as you're casting a spell
• - You get resisted too much and can't kill the pet fast enough

...Or any other number of things, you could find yourself eatting dirt. Of course black mages do have some things that can help them such as elemental seal, sleepga, warp, but usually when dealing with monsters this high above you, aggro = death. Soloing will always be risky, however that's where half the fun comes from, just reraise yourself and continue. Now this strategy isn't limited to just black mages either, other jobs like blue mage can do this too.


What you need to get started:

• - A desire to level blm, duh! Without wanting to level black mage and spend alittle gil on equipping yourself with decent gear then forget this.
• - Decent gear. Yes while true in soloing you have no one to impress but yourself, this strategy heavily depends on not getting resisted and doing high damage fast. Magic Attack Bonus and +int gear / food helps a great deal. Also you may want to look into spell interuption/HP/Vit/Def gear as before 50+ you will most likely be getting hit.
• - A ninja sub! Yes while blm/nin may look silly to people, it's what you need to survive! Before 50+ it's almost required to have nin for utsusemi. This is because you can't kill the pets in one hit before 50, so in order to get those 2-3 spells off to kill the pets, you'll need shadows up (SS and blink don't cut it). Also with a nin sub you can dual wield wand for a nice boost in stats. By the time you hit 50+ you can go back to a whm or rdm sub.
• - The ability to take risks and try something new. Yes this is different than the normal xp pt style and soloing again is very risky. You will die, probably lots of times before you get the hang of soloing. You can think you know this game well enough to do this perfectly, but soloing definitely takes practice to get good at.
• - Reraise earrings. No explanation required, you'll need one, especially subbing nin may wanna consider a few hi-potions or HP drinks.

Well that should give you a good overview of the solo life of a black mage, I look forward to getting more into this when I get more time to play. I hope some of you aspiring blms out there may choose to give this a try too. Here is an awesome camp guide for blm solo camps that so far has worked out great for me, I'll keep you updated on my blm solo experiences as time goes on.

Birdgallo strikes again

Oh crap he found me!?!

Crazy exp

I think this is the most exp I've ever gotten on a single mob.

Mommy Dearest

I've decided to start another Chocobo. My first one has long since been retired after i ignored it for 30 days then had to wait through a lifetime of c/s then i left it for another 20 days and decided I hate him as much as he hates me.

Day 1: My chocobo hates me already.

Action Shot

Just wanted to post something since it's been a while.

Bahhh ram ewe

Time to make gil. I've decided that doing all my teleport scroll quests will net me enough gil to help me out till after christmas. Since all i need will be mea, dem and holla i can sell the other 3 for money. Arcaus and I were doing the holla one and i accidentally got us tele-holla by mistake. So we decided to check out the area for Bloodtear, by luck he was up and just stomping around. I like a fool just attack it. Unlike last time tho he's a pushover. I get him to 40% before I decide we need more manpower to finish it off. A quick shout on the ls and lovslayer along with Capone come to finish it off. No drop but it was fun. That fight was Seriously Madaru.