the lost one

carbuncle is ok without me

2008-04-30T16:28:00.005-05:00

so i haven't logged into ffxi in 3 weeks! and moogles didn't descend from the heavens to drag me back to vana'diel. i don't think any members of the i <3 nyena fan club have committed suicide. (oh that's right! the i <3 ny fan club disbanded when i took up the endgame for realz!) no baby chocobos were hurt by my abrupt departure from carbuncle. but worst of all, my adventuring fellow, kolui-pelui didn't even bother to send a pm asking where ny had been. maybe its because i haven't equipped my signal pearl in like 6 months...

life in vana'diel continues on without nyena.

and that doesn't make me as sad as i thought it would...

i miss my friends, of course. i think about most of them daily. i still want to log in sometimes just to do things with them. i've even gone as far as done some of the preliminary ground work for a new nyzul assault group. and discussed possible new times for salvage...

but for some reason, i just don't have it in me to log yet. i am not sure what it is. well, i guess i have some thoughts but i don't quite have all the pretty sentences yet. maybe in another blog or two, i will start to write about the sociological impact of mmorpgs.

this is all leading up to a book btw. i'm just still hashing out the ideas in my blog because i like other people to read what i write. and it's hard to justify writing a ffxi blog when you don't really play ffxi so much anymore. 8P

nyzul isle floor 60!

2008-04-02T08:51:00.010-05:00

nyzul isle assault still remains one of my favorite activities. i do spend half the night muttering under my breath about the melee's apparent lack of concern for their hp. (the other half i just swear at them as i try to catch up to heal them before they blood aggro or succumb to something far far away from me.) i'm not knocking our melee cause they are excellent about making sure stuff dies fast. nyzul is just challenging for me as a RDM healer.

i am forever saying RDM can heal as well as WHM but in reality, events like nyzul isle assault really highlight a RDM's weakness as a healer. i know my limitations there so i can play around them but i still want a bigger mp pool (i'm usually in the 900-700mp range), cure V for a less enmity big cure, more curaga's to cycle through, and higher level regens to mitigate damage incurred because of the long timer on erase. and /cry for divine veil and stona. i also wish you could merit down the erase timer. but oh well, i do what i can and it is usually enough.

enough healer whining! last night we had some fun on our way to floor 60. it all started off when we got a kill the leader who turned out to be a frog. while tulaq makes a really cute frog (even loren thinks so!) he is probably the absolute worst person to have charmed. actually our whole setup is kinda sucky for charming mobs cause everyone has shadows, making them difficult to sleep. but froggie tuly is fast and mandau's poison is actually really potent, so he made quick work out of loren. then the froggie leader killed me. and then froggie enna killed az.

the froggie madness was followed by an evil lamp floor with imps that resulted in another loren death. but we did get our first ever free floor! and we were able to complete our climb from floor 45 to 60 in just 3 tags.

our first floor 60 boss was the khimaira who looks like a big flying lion (i'll post pictures another day). khimaira was not too bad for our group considering we don't have a WHM and it does have a cone aoe pertify. az brought a cleric drink which is divine veil + status removal which worked great for the first attack. after that, well, the WAR's were just stoned for most of the fight. tulaq would trick attack on them so hate stayed on them preventing him for getting stoned and me and az from getting killed from healing. it worked pretty well and we were able to kill khimaira with little problem. loren got himself a nice pair of askar hands!

i was unable to land enfeebles on khimaira with my errant gear. i didn't have a chance to check if i could land stuff on him with my enfeebling set because i was just too busy to swap gear around alot. i am always hesitant to wear my non errant gear in situations like this cause i do build enmity alot faster in my enfeebling set. and due to how my macros are set up (ie my refusal to cast enfeebles in enfeebling gear unless i have to), i end up healing at least a little in my enfeebling set. i will have to work that out maybe.

our second floor 60 boss was cerebus. and we lost to him. i think alot of our difficulty came from giving him too much tp which caused him to use alot of tp moves. i know we don't have a choice but to use melee vs cerebus since he is immune to elemental magic but i still feel tp moves were what got us. the one that devastated us was his stoneskin move which cannot be dispelled. (i read it couldn't be dispelled but i tried anyway and its true.) it really cut down our damage output which besides making the fight take a long time also caused hate issues for me. this version of cerebus has flame spikes which do about 18 damage through barfira cast with a decent amount of enhancing gear (i could probably spring for an enhancing torque and reduce the damage to 17). 3 double attacking WARs and a triple attacking THF take a lot of damage with each attack. so there is alot of curaga casting here. since WAR hold hate primarily through damage and cerebus's stoneskin really killed their damage output for extended periods of time, you can see where we ran into hate problems. i rarely pull hate unintentionally and i couldn't avoid pulling hate twice during this fight. once i was kinda behind cerebus, so that was awesome fun!

i think having loren come as PLD/NIN next time would help some with the hate and tp spammage. i know its not the optimal job for the climb up but i can't see another solution for cerebus. i cannot heal less, so we need a way to generate more hate during the stoneskin phases and PLD is our best option. unless we had brought another healer to split hate. but i don't think that's a good plan for the climb since it significantly reduces our ability to do damage. so i guess my thoughts are stuck on loren coming as PLD/NIN.

i think we are fine on khimaira if a few people bring cleric drinks just in case we run short on time and can't afford to have 3 people stoned at the same time. the stoned part really was handled well

i think hydra is the hardest of the 3 floor 60+ bosses and we've yet to fight him. i do want to point out that he does have aoe poison for 20hp/tick so everyone should be carrying antidotes for assault from here on out. outside of that, i am not sure what to expect. other than lots of status effects.

anyway, that's my assault update. i'll post pictures and spruce the whole thing up a bit later!

dracula

2008-03-22T12:23:00.004-05:00

i need 7 assault wins to complete them all!

last night, we (rath, carth, tuly and guest stars and fellow assault junkies zaphod and ellie) beat count dracula in the leujoaom sanctum FL assault bloody rondo.

wow, this assault was tough. count dracula has a ton of hit points and he likes to drain. he spawns a doppelganger which is a super version of the player who has hate. lol...for us that meant an evil, super accurate NIN rath. he also can charm and turn people in aoe into bats. oh and he has a doom move too which carth really liked. you think carth and count dracula would be all buddy buddy being DRKs and all but they didn't seem too close to me.

our first attempt went ok. we had tulaq handle evil rath while the rest of us focused on count dracula. evil rath used stun katanas which was pretty sucky for tuly. we kinda lost in the last 10 minutes because multiple people got turned into bats. i got to kite count dracula for awhile which was fun. i wish my kiting stint could have been accompanied by baushaus's bela lugosi's dead but at least i had music thanks to the last update. (it does really make me feel more involved in the fights to have battle music)

second attempt, we had both ellie (BLM) and tuly focus on killing the doppelganger. and rath used a staff so evil rath would be a little more manageable. evil rath has way more staff skill than the real rath. we did kinda luck out on this run and had less batness. i think having more than bat man at a time is very difficult even tho you are able to bind the bats for a long time.

this was definitely one of my favorite fights in the game. thanks to rath, carth, tuly, ellie and zaph for the fun and win!

the ugly pages

2008-03-22T11:48:00.005-05:00

regular nyzul isle assault has resulted in some ugly outfits. we've had these for a few weeks now but i haven't posted screenies because i don't always have this pc with me.

but here's another fashion faux pas from tulaq...gotta love a man who can mismatch his outfits almost as well as i can match mine...

you can't see from this picture but those chaps have red ruffles at the bottom. and tulaq wears these pants all the time as part of evasion build. thank altana the assault jerkin was just to taunt me.

anyway, here is my contribution to the nyzul fashion monstrosities. the goliard trews...

az is wearing the ugly denali legs but he distracts us from them by showing off his boobs. az is very classy. our group is like 3 out of 9 or 10 on legs i believe. we haven't seen the askar piece.

umm...because the goliard trews aren't ugly enough with the purple swirly leopard print i decided to pair them with a harness!

loren said i look like i belong in a prince video but this is actually my damage reduction set up. goliard trews, hexrei cape, genbu shield, jelly ring, and dark steel harness. that's -24% damage which is pretty nice for maintaining stoneskin. but it is so ugly. i am glad that's primarily a soloing setup for me so no one can see me.

anyway, we should hit floor 60 in nyzul this week. i am actually looking forward to goliard cuffs which are like a free version of the morrigan hands. they have accuracy which means i'd probably wear them full time in my melee set up. outside of that, they are just ok since i have zenith mitts. but they may turn out like the goliard clogs which i love more than i expected when i am not in mp glutton mode. (mithra RSE2 feet have 35mp on them) but as i've mentioned before, i have too much mp gear for my convert ratio. maybe i'll merit some hp to balance things out.

at a loss

2008-03-18T08:55:00.004-05:00

i find myself strangely at a loss without a linkshell to lead. my focus in game has been other people's goals for so long that i really don't remember what its like to play for myself.

i always took great pride in the fact that i ran a clean linkshell. SeeD was the great utopian effort that got a boat load of people stuff for 3 years. it was ultimately marred by my inability to stop the shell from being taken advantage of by those who didn't understand that a linkshell is a commitment and not just a place to stop in when you needed something. that was always the problem in SeeD. it just didn't matter until the drops and missions became endgame level.

so i ended SeeD and started up RRB as a professional endgame shell. and it was indeed a group of highly skilled, committed individuals that could accomplish anything. it probably still could accomplish anything had i not choosen to end it. RRB had three main problems. i was not as hard on players as i should have been; i will always feel i failed to an extent because i allowed some members to play to a lower standard than i find acceptable and it was a drain on the stronger players. but the biggest problems were about me. i was losing my desire to lead a shell at the same time i started to lose my interest in the game.

so i ended RRB because i was done being a leader and couldn't fix the things that needed to be fixed. that was a little less than 2 weeks ago.

now i just don't know what i want to do. my playtime is significantly reduced due to commuting. the time i do have to play, i generally have stuff to do. and when i have some free time, i am sorta limited by my desire to do stuff with friends. and let's face it, my wanting to do stuff with others is kinda a double edged sword. sure, i get to enjoy the game with friends but i never spend anytime developing my character. my character always becomes like a second to what everyone else wants to do. and it really shows. i have one job leveled to 75. and post linkshell leading, that seems like a pretty crappy accomplishment.

yes, i know my RDM is awesome but it better be since its the only job i play.

so now i am kinda at a loss at what to do to basically feel like i am good enough to play with the people i play the game with. i'm lacking in level 75 jobs, so should i level WHM to 75? probably the most needed job on our server right now but the only time people notice a WHM is when they need one. after that, as long as they heal occasionally, who cares? and i can't help but be bored with WHM. i never underestimate the power of a great WHM but i am a great healer already. WHM just will make me more efficient but i'll have to depend on someone else to refresh me. i might just be better off staying RDM. lol that sounds horrible but i am pretty jaded about WHM. they don't make or break parties if you are a good RDM.

but if i stay RDM, i am pretty much done on gear outside of salvage. my enfeebling gear is more than adequate so i've kinda lost interest in the 2 pieces i am missing. ok, i want them so i can take the enfeebling skill 353 screenshot but other than that, who cares? so salvage obtained stuff means i'll wait years before i get gear. so i'll have no real sense of accomplishment from there. so i keep going back to leveling another job.

i have NIN58 but NIN is one of those jobs that requires lots of gear to be played at the level i'd want to play it. so i don't think its really something i want to level.

i enjoy playing DNC but aside from a sub for melee, i don't see the viability of the job. and i don't see why i'd play it over RDM in small groups. (aside from maybe a DNC duo/trio), so what would be the point?

i need to level SCH and SMN as subs for WHM. i keep thinking maybe i'll love one of those but both those jobs are leveled as healers. do i want to take another healer job past 37? i kinda doubt it.

melee jobs don't interest me and i can only level those that use sword or dagger since that's where i am putting all my merits. which leaves BLU, PLD, THF and DNC. i despise BLU because i see it played poorly all the time but at the same time, i know i could play it differently. i adore PLD but its a huge effort to level it and as a mithra, i am at a distinct disadvantage. i admire THF greatly but there is the whole lack of party thing coupled with actually playing with a stellar THF and knowing that i'll never be that good makes it kinda a bleak prospect.

i am in a serious i don't know what to do to make the game more interesting for myself. i suppose i could up my soloing as RDM but i can confidently solo almost anything that isn't an HNM. HNM that i could solo all require going out and getting ToD and then having the time to kill them which i kinda don't.

so i'm just kinda at a loss right now.

RDM update

2008-03-02T14:06:00.003-06:00

i came into some gil that i was instructed to spend on myself. and out of respect to the person who gave me the gil, i decided i would finally finish buying the misc pieces of gear that i truly value for RDM.

so i went ahead and bought another aqua ring, a cursed crown for the a. head i've had for about 9 months, and an elemental torque. yes i know i am very lame for not having an elemental torque all this time but i'm not much for nuking outside of a magic burst. but well i have full elemental merits, a few other pieces of elemental skill gear and some nice magic attack bonus pieces, i thought i'd do my nukes justice.

the zenith crown is for my WHM really. i would wear it for convert but it does screw up my convert ratio, making me too mp heavy.

the aqua ring puts me at +50 MND without a MND neckpiece, wand or hat. i can up my MND another 19 or so if i put on a wand, promise badge, geist earring, yigit turban but i like some enfeebling gear, so i think +50 MND is respectable for casting MND based enfeebles.

continuing in the MND whoring vein, i did actually get a static earring from my long overdue AN victory. while the other earrings are cool, this is the earring i'd wear the most. i will eventually buy a communion earring and turn this in for the enspell earring to wear when i am meleeing with a dagger. but i need to finish up my dagger merits.

speaking of merits, i am now 8/8 on sword skill and well even in full melee gear, i still miss alot more than i would like. i am debating if i want to finish out dagger or switch to spell interruption down or critical hits down. yes, i know i need to do an attribute but as much as i am a MND whore, i am unsure if i want to go totally MND. so i'll put that off for a little longer.

umm...ka, if you are still wondering what i am gonna spend the rest of the gil on, i will most likely put it toward my morrigan robe.thank you so much!

good byes

2008-03-02T13:16:00.007-06:00

i hate good byes. real ones, in game ones. its all so final.

recently i had someone leave my shell. i am very shellcentric so leaving my shell is really a good bye for me. i have limited play time and i usually spend my play time with linkshell members. but i never fault anyone for leaving rrb because, quite frankly, its not for everyone. what did bother me about this particular person is that they left rrb for what i'd consider a disreputable shells. you know, one of those shells that prides itself in being pro but really is just a bunch of nicely geared dirty players. it is a disappointment to me because i take great pride in the integrity of the players in my shell. and i almost fell like we were harboring a fox for years when i found out a member of rrb have left us for a shell that condones stealing claimed mobs and dynamis zones.

but i am naive. perhaps gear is end all be all since gear is the only real displayable achievement in this game. i guess that's not so different than real life big houses...

anyway, what made me saddest this week is that kalight left the game. ka may not have been my closest friend but i did really enjoy his very astute observations, ever present booing and well played SAM. i hate when people leave because vana'diel seems so much emptier without them. but i do understand and even commend ka for sticking to his guns and leaving the game on his own terms. i haven't walked away from vanadiel yet but i think it is probably pretty difficult.

/salute kalight. i will miss you. thank you for all the adventures!

cool campaign npcs

2008-03-02T12:45:00.006-06:00

umm...so everyone that i've partied with since the bitchy don't bug me about status stuff blog seems kinda scared of me. so i kinda apologize for being so um...openly militant about that stuff. don't get me wrong; the status stuff still annoys me but i do realize that people aren't reminding me to be malicious or because they think i am incompetent.

so enough about the status stuff! here are some pictures of some campaign npcs!

sonja and her pretty dancers! (i think i am still cuter)

some silly long name elvaan...

the silly npc who fights in an opaline set and her PLD beau.

and my favorite npcs ever! camlin and babban ny mheillea!

so tired

2008-02-28T06:13:00.006-06:00

i am unbelievably tired these days. i guess packing up, driving across the country, setting up house (i still need a kitchen table) followed by 2 weeks getting up at 5am everyday to beat the early morning dc commute makes you tired?

but this is supposed to be a ffxi blog, so how does this new tiredness effect ffxi? it makes me cranky with my nyzul isle team when they politely tell me they have status stuff or they decide to remind me that a mob has buffed.

i will admit. i do get pissy in any situation where people tell me they have status stuff or that a mob needs to be dispelled. its not cause i don't want to remove their affliction or dispel the mob because i am more than happy to do so. its cause 90% of the time, i already know they have a status effect or the mob has buffed and i am working my way to getting rid of it.

so if i am working on it, why hasn't it already been cast? well, nyzul isle and even salvage are a bitch for healers. you are constantly trying to keep up with the group that is watching a clock. they don't wait for you and they sure as hell don't wait for your mp.

in nyzul, we split up into groups to look for mission objectives. sure, i try to keep up with the group but i do end up lagging behind simply because i have to cast things. and dependent on our aggro situation, i might have to completely turn around to try to help to deal with angry mobs. and then i will have to take the time to buff cause i probably didn't have a chance prior to sleeping aggro.

so then i'll catch up to the group that has inevitably pulled a caster mob or mob that needs to be dispelled or something icky that needs a barspell to combat its horrendous aoe. and somebody in the group will have low hp or a status ailment or needs haste cause it looks like the mob is eating shadows too fast. or maybe the whole group will be dying from soulflayer bio III.

so i get to work. i have priorities. silencing a caster mob is my number one priority. it saves me mp in the long run. unless of course, everyone decides to hit the mob while it still has ice spikes up. i don't know why melee can't wait until the mob is dispelled to hit it. dispel is 2nd on my list of things to cast. i do get extra pissed when people tell me they are paralyzed after they hit a mob with ice spikes up. its your own freaking fault...

az, if you are reading this, just finale the god damn ice spike mobs to start since i am always going to silence first.

after that, i have to keep myself alive, especially if we have aggro. if i have slow, i have to erase myself before the rest of the party so my erase timer doesn't suck. if i am poisoned/bio/dia and we have aggro, i have to remove it from myself first so it doesn't eat up my stoneskin. if i am paralyzed, i have to paralyna myself first. i have to keep myself refreshed. i have to resleep aggro and then reapply buffs.

after all that is considered, i will start in on removing status stuff, provided no one is in immediate danger of dying. if i had to do all of the above stuff, someone inevitably advises me that they have status stuff....

i guess here is some guidance for when to tell your healer that you need status stuff removed. obviously, if your healer is the slacks, feel free to nag but if you have a competent healer, show your appreciation by respecting that they'll do their job well.

you are dying from bio III, dia III or poison III. if you have less than 200 hp and nothing else is going on, let you healer know you are going to die in 2 tics.
your healer is not near the mob when you got hit with status. especially if you kill the mob and the healer doesn't get a chance to see it.
you don't normally have hate and get a status effect that doesn't show in the log. i just read the log. i rarely look at the actual party. i cannot always tell who had hate when a mob uses a tp move. i will always remove status effect from tank, assuming they had hate. if the status removal comes back no effect, i know someone else had hate but i can't always tell who it was. my first guess will be the DD who just WS or THF or /THF but that's not always the case. speak up here. it would save me some guessing.
if you are behind the tank and mob uses directional aoe that doesn't show in the log. if you aren't a THF or /THF and this happens more than once and there's no reason for you to be behind mob, i won't remove your status ailment.

when not to tell your comptent healer you have status and your healer is in range. this stuff is just annoying.

your healer has no mp. don't freaking ask for erase when i have under 100mp. its not gonna happen unless you are dying.
if you are paralyzed and it proc's. this shows up in the log, so i can read it there just as well as i can read it in party chat. also paralyze is not life threatening unless you are tanking. paralyze proc rate varies by mob, so sometimes your paralyze is not as bad as you think. yes, i know it sucks to have your JA paralyzed, but you can also wait until you are paralyna'd or paralyze wears to use the ability.
the entire party is slowed. i will erase myself, tank and any support if they can't erase themselves. if i have mp, i will erase other jobs but if we are fighting a bunch of mobs that have a slow that overwrites haste (slow II, elegy type), you might be stuck with slow for awhile. my mp pool doesn't support this type of mob well, so we all have to suffer.
if you just saw the healer cast erase, don't ask for erase or mention an eraseable status ailment. erase has a timer. you gotta wait your turn.
don't ask for blindna when fighting bones.
don't ask for stona and your healer is a RDM.

what can you do to help your healers?

don't hit mobs with ice spikes that can be dispelled or finale'd until they are dispelled or finale'd. i will let you suffer in this case.
carry meds. a hi pot or two and some antidotes can save your life when a healer's mp is crunched or focus needs to be elsewhere.

for me as the consummate RDM, don't freaking insult me by telling me to dispel a mob. i saw whatever it is in the log. i will dispel it as soon as i finish casting what i was casting. the only time i appreciate dispel comments is when killing repops that cast ice spikes on the pull cause that won't show in my log if the mob is far away. or if i am far away and didn't see the mob use the move. or its a mob type i have never killed before.

i guess from my nyzul isle group, i would like to see enna and az cover a specific person for erase/poisona on the soul flayers. and i'd like everyone to realize that i don't have the mp to screw around with paralyna on these. so if the paralyze bugs you, turn your back until az can dispel them. my priority on soul flayers is having enough mp to spam curaga's to counter bio III/poison III until they are removed.

anyway, this was a most grumpy post but i just people would give me a little credit. anyone who wants to do my job, feel free to show up as RDM. i'd love that type of assistance. 8P or perhaps i should just start telling the melee to attack or recast shadows every time a mob uses an aoe move and i see their hp drop...

please note that i do realize that my nyzul group has 2 or 3 people that can cover the responsibilities of dispel and status removal. and that comments are not directed directly at me. and that the comments made there are not mean or disrespectful or anything bad. but i hate reading that crap in party chat. and if i am tired, it makes me bitchy.

new moghouse

2008-02-04T10:36:00.000-06:00

i am changing moghouses irl so i expect to be in and out of game for the next month or so!

here is a picture of the house i will be moving to! not sure if i am really allowed to post this picture since it is copy righted but umm...i think it will be ok since i didn't cut off the copy right.

but anyway, this is the new place! i think it is so cute! i'm not turning this into a adventures of nyena's real life move blog but i did want to let anyone who actually reads my silliness know why i won't be updating for a bit!

happy adventures!

RDM macros

2008-02-01T14:06:00.000-06:00

you should skip this blog if you don't care about RDM macros or at least my thoughts on RDM macros...

anyway, everybody knows RDM is pretty much average to sucky in everything but enfeebling mobs. and that even A+ enfeebling skill isn't a guarantee that you can enfeeble endgame type stuff.

so how's a RDM to excel with such dismal base stats? Through smart gear swaps. RDM has access to a lot of different gear types so it is possible to boost lagging stats to a presentable level.

Casting Goals
my goal in anytime i don't have my sword drawn is to land my enfeebles with as little enfeebling gear on as possible. enfeebling skill gear and magical accuracy gear take up spots where i could stack MND/INT gear. MND/INT determine the potency or proc rate of enfeebles, so to maximize an enfeeble i really want to throw on the MND/INT stuff.

if i have my sword drawn, chances are anything i am fighting is relatively trivial to enfeeble, my goal is to reduce timers, maintain tp, cast full strength stoneskin and maximized phalanx and enspells.

Macros
i recently switched to pc and use a windower with scripts for macros. while this allows me to swap more pieces per macro, my macro scheme is the same as it was on the more limited ps2/xbox360.

i don't like spellcast right now cause i have to test a mobs resist rate. i actually like to make decisions based on resists, etc and i can't figure out how to deal with that in spell cast. it doesn't mean spellcast isn't a cool plugin; its just not quite right for my version of RDM.

Subjob Books
i have a book of macros for /BLM, /WHM and a book for RDM melee that combines /BLM, /WHM and /NIN spells. all the books have the same set up. i like that so i don't have to search my macros for something. some books have blank spots because i just don't have any spells to put there.

alt 1 - base gear sets
ctl 1 - WHM status
/BLM - blank

alt 2 - Healing - cures, refresh, regen, haste, protect, shell
/WHM -protectra/shellra macro
ctl 2 - Buffs - stonsekin, phalanx, blink
/WHM - barspellra, curaga, curaga II, DS, convert, cure IV me
/BLM - barspell, convert, cure IV me
Melee - ichi, ni, convert cure IV me

alt 3 - Enfeebles - MND based enfeebles
ctl 3 - Enfeebles - INT based enfeebles
/BLM - drain aspir, sleepga II, ES

alt 4 - Nukes
ctl 4 - Elemental enfeebles
/WHM - blank

alt 5 - Raise & Transport
/WHM - reraise, tele's, chainspell + tele
/BLM - warp, escape, chainspell + warp, chainspell + escape
Melee - has all above the above
ctl 5 - sneak/invis

Base Gear Sets
my base gear sets are based around body pieces.

Errants - my default set - swaps in a full set of my default gear
Warlock's - if i need more enfeebling skill - swaps in a full set of enfeebling gear
Duelist - if i need fast cast - swaps in a full set of fast cast gear

melee, i select most of the pieces by hand dependent on what i want to do. so this really just applies to my /WHM & /BLM sets. for my melee macros, i am usually just swapping rings. the exception would be soloing an HNM and i would write a specific set for the mob.

Gear Swapping
i swap earrings, ring sand neck piece in a macro containing scripts for healing and enfeebling. i have staves and wand choices written into each spell's macro so that i can decide between staff or wand if my enfeebling skill allows it.

this arrangement gives me control over whether or not i am casting in enfeebling gear. and i don't have to hit a gear only macro every two seconds.

i swap body, earrings, rings, neckpiece, head piece, legs and feet in a macro containing scrips for nukes and elemental debuffs. once i cast a nuke, i hit the macro for the appropriate base gear set.

my convert macro contains a full mp build, so once i convert and use up all the mp from gear, i swap back to the appropriate base set.

lolz anyway, i hope that wasn't too boring but az asked me to post some info on my macros so that's what they look like.

gate widow finally!

2008-01-28T18:32:00.000-06:00

after slaying about a billion vj loving chigoes, we finally got a gate widow to spawn at bhaflau remenants! we actually got 2 out of one rampart! so both vj and i were the happy recipients of macha cuffs, one of the 3 pieces need to complete morrigan's cuffs.

as with all the ToAU gear, i am still undecided if i really want morrigan's cuffs. see i am pretty sure i will end up with goliard cuffs from nyzul isle assault group. morrigan cuffs are better with 25mp and +1 to all of the goliards stats....

but goliard cuffs are free while the morrigan's are gonna cost me to upgrade. tho i suppose if i do end up with all the morrigan pieces i will have to upgrade. even tho i already have 3 pairs of gloves i use with some frequency...

many thanks to rathypooh for running the salvage team. i probably wouldn't be doing salvage if i had to do more than just show up and do my job.

I like goliard clogs

2008-01-28T18:01:00.000-06:00

i didn't want to like goliard clogs. i spent 1.5M on my level 62 mithra RSE feet and i had planned on wearing them forever. i wanted to write goliard clogs off as the non mithra equivalent of river gaiters...

i love my new goliard clogs! they are really great for meleeing in if i don' need the defense of the crimson greaves. they are great for wearing to linkshell events because they have no negative stats. they are great for nuking cause i often forget to carry my nashira feet. but i love them most of resting. combined with duelist belt, these make me feel like i actually have decent hmp!

thanks to my fabulous nyzul isle friends for the lovely lovely footwear. these dropped from faux faffy

we also fought an imposter admantoise which dropped some nice askar footsies for enna! please note that i was not at all pleased with the position of the giant turtle for this fight. the columns got in the way and i ended up having to run behind loren which ended in me taking a breath attack. /angry @ the hate pulling melee!

lol i guess taking a breath attack was nothing compared to getting spike flail by faux faffy on our last run. we'd made it to the 20 floor with only 5 minutes to spare and it was faffy. we had two party members weak from a string of bad luck on floor 19. so we really didn't have much of a chance of taking out faffy. to decrease our odds even further, loren decided to make faux faffy spike flail which killed everyone who didn't have shadows up, meaning me, az and enna.

oh well, we weren't gonna beat faffy anyway. and i have always wanted to see spike flail. tho maybe not two days after i lost 8k fighting another wyrm....lol why do i even bother trying to keep capped exp?

wtf a crag run?

2008-01-25T17:48:00.000-06:00

when rath said we were going to do an ENM crag run, i initially thought yay! maybe i can get an enfeebling earring (a piece that i am skeptical that i even need), followed by oh noes! i hate the crags!

honestly this ENM run was the most fun i have ever had in a crag and lived to tell about! i did enjoy those early 18 person crag climbs that you made it to the top floor only to get killed by aggro on the way to the spire. but those count as dying.

besides having fun, i finally got my stupid WAR to 37. yes, i know, super snob player nyena has been running around and actually using an underleveled sub! i justified it to myself by saying that i am onry subbing WAR for Defender but secretly i like Berserk and Warcry. Warcry is level 35 and not 37, all your WAR noobs! oh wait that's me.

it also was really nice to not to have too much for once. i brought my WAR for the first crags and then my DNC for the last. while i did swing my axes, throw a few anima at the crag bosses and dance some jigs, the 4 SMN did the majority of the work. /salute endless, carth, rath and bella for letting my substandard DDness leech some exp. az was there on PUP too but somehow i can't bring myself to thank the cat man...

the fancy pants blog

2008-01-25T17:41:00.000-06:00

i have resisted using blogger simply because i have 2 years worth of blogs over on the guildportal site. not that i think my blog is good. quite frankly, i read some of my past thoughts on gear choices and i cringe at my noobiness. but i am attached to the screenshots. i love remembering all the silly stuff adventures.

well for those who enjoy my blog or just want to look at pictures of when we were young, here's the link: nyena's gp ghetto blog