My commentary on my Maat win

Well, it wasn't pretty.

After farming the second testimony with the help of Cinn and Ham, and going as a crew to assist a random on the Oztroja leg of their LB3, I hit Jeuno.  I zoned into Ru'Lude and immediately burst into tears.  Yes, the idea that another loss was so close at hand was enough to make me cry.  I actually logged out at this point, while ranting via IM about how I can't do it, I was quitting, going to go play LOTRO until XIV.

After receiving some encouragement and support, I decided to prove once and for all that he's wrong and I really can't do it.  I logged back in, still in tears.  Went a bought a new taco, still in tears.  Started the fight with every expectation that I'd lose.  I didn't even tell Cinn I was doing it, even though I was talking to him at the time.  I'm sure he figured it out though, lol, once he started getting the weird disjointed IMs.

I have had three macro books for WHM.  There was the one for parties, that switches my weapon based on what I'm doing.  Light Staff for cures, Banish, and other light-element spells; Ice Staff for Paralyze; Dark Staff for healing; etc.  Then there was the one for the Maat fight, which is basically the same as above, but with a couple extra item-switch macros (Earth Staff for running away, Diana Corona for the extra MACC for Repose).  And of course, I had the solo book that does not switch weapons at all, so as not to lose my TP just because I wanted to debuff the mob I'm fighting.

I found out as I was typing up the last post that I went in and did the fight using my solo book.  I knew I had the wrong one when the macro to equip the Earth Staff wasn't there; I didn't realize that I did the rest of the fight with the earth staff equipped.  I didn't the extra MACC for Repose.

My blinding potion wore halfway through; I guess I should just be glad I had the +30 Evasion for the first half, eh?  Oh, wait, there were no instances of Maat missing me the entire fight.  He landed every melee shot he took--maybe accidentally having that earth staff equipped for most of the fight is what saved me!  Having the Vile Elixir +1 and some Echo Drops pulled out of my satchel and at the top of my bags also really helped pull me through that; not having them immediately available would have been another loss.

My impression of the WHM fight is that if you can sleep him through it, that's the way to go, but make sure you're prepared to handle resists or just plain bad luck.  My divine skill hit 217 on the last Repose cast, and I was wearing no +divine gear, I landed two and had two resisted, not a great success rate, heh.  It was enough this time, and that's what counted.

WHM Maat #2 - ..............

Tavnazian taco
Yag drink
Blinding potion!
Afflatus Solace
Protect IV
Shell III
Stoneskin
Aquaveil
Blink

Cast Banish
- Maat takes 0 points of damage.
Maat's Dia II is absorbed by my shadow.
Cast Paralyze
- Maat is Paralyzed (...huh?)
Cast Flash
- Maat is blinded (okay, he doesn't.. have.. blink...?)
Cast Repose.
One of my shadows eats damage.  Mis-read that, think it's Maat's shadow.  Cancel Repose cast.
Melee: 0
Cast Paralyze
- Maat is Paralyzed.
Maat casts Paralyna.
Melee: 95
Cast Repose.
- Maat is asleep.
Go to Cinn's IM window and babble randomly, making no sense at all.
Cast Paralyze.
Cast Slow.
Get a clue, and cast Stoneskin, Blink, Aqua---crap, he's awake.
Maat lands Dia II for 0.
Cast Repose.
- Maat resists.
I get switched to my earth staff, and in the process become aware I don't have the right macro book up.
Cast Cure III, recover 72 HP.
Melee: 0
Maat lands Silence.  Tam doesn't notice for a bit.
Melee: 8
No longer blinded.  Didn't notice that either!
Two attempts at Repose later, I notice I'm silenced.
Melee: 86
Maat lands Holy for 86.
Tam uses echo drops.
Melee: 102
Melee: 98, interrupts Repose.
Cast Cure3 for 193.
Maat lands Banishga III for 152.
Melee: 88
Melee: 125
Melee: 90
Vile elixir +1
Melee: 87
Maat lands Dia II for 4.
Cast Repose.
- Mofo resists again.
Melee: 86, interrupts Cure 3.
Blow 2-hour.
Maat lands Dia II for 4.
Melee: 84
Melee: 88
Cast Repose.
- Maat is asleep.
Freak out more in IM.
Stoneskin
Aquaveil
Slow
Blink
Yag drink
Cure 3 for 169
Maat is no longer asleep.
Maat:  Hm.  That was a mighty fine display of skill there, Tamberly.  You've come a long way.....


More commentary later.

WHM Maat #1 - Loss

Tavnazian taco before trading testimony.  What I've seen seems to recommend Def food, so I went with it.
Zone in.


The fight
Use Yagudo drink.
Use Afflatus Solace.
Cast Protect IV.
Cast Stoneskin.
Target Maat, cast Paralyze.
- Maat's shadow absorbs the spell; working as intended.
Maat casts Holy, Tamberly takes 0 points of damage.
Cast Flash.
- Maat is blinded - SUNUVA....
Cast Repose.
- Maat's shadow absorbs the spell - DAMMIT DAMMIT SUNUVABITCH.
Melee: 130.
Melee: 107.
(Equip Earth Staff while running away!)
Melee crit: 231.
Maat lands Dia II for 5.
Melee: 151.
Melee: 87.
Melee: 117.
Blow 2-hour.
(Repose still not up, continuing to run around the edge of the arena!)
Melee: 120.
Maat lands Banishga III for 250.
Melee: 111; interrupts Repose cast.
Melee:  121; interrupts Cure IV cast.
Maat lands Holy for 121.
Melee: 100; death interrupts Repose cast.


Combat Skills

• My Evasion is capped.
• My Divine is 215/227.  I was hoping to see how much it really resisted at this point, so I'm really glad that the only Repose cast I completed was eaten by a shadow.

Gear Notes

• I'm going in with a Light Staff to maximize cure potency and accuracy for Repose.  I have an earth staff that I have on a macro that I can hit while I'm running away if things don't go as planned.
• I'm using Bat Earring x2; this would give me +30 evasion if I would remember to use the blinding potions I made.
• I have a Vermillion Cloak for non-repose casting for the sake of Refresh.  I'm switching to Crow Jupon and Diana Corona (for the evasion and MACC boosts) for Repose casts.
• Wearing Crow Hose full-time.

Where I Went Wrong

• I forgot to use my blinding potion, so I lost out on 30 Evasion for the fight.
• I didn't cast Shell, Blink, or Aquaveil.  I think my thought process is clouded by the Red Mage fight on this, where start time is of the essence.  I wanted to rush in as fast as I could, because that's what I have to do on RDM.
• I didn't confirm the second shadow was gone before I started casting Repose.
• I chose Flash as the spell that was intended to eat the second shadow; it's a fast and cheap cast.  However, it has a 45-second recast timer.  I'm almost certainly better off keeping that available in case I need to blind him in a crunch.  I think I'll try Banish then Paralyze next time, with uh...  Banish II? for backup.  I would normally go with Slow, but if he has Haste up I'm not sure if that would be subject to a shadow or if it would go straight to "no effect".

Maat and RDM -explicit language-

To expand a bit on my last post, red mage Maat is a monster.  As RDM is my main job, I don't have any experience to compare it to, but I have to imagine that not many people would have 75s if all the fights were like this.

I've  attempted it upwards of ten times; I honestly haven't kept count, but I do know that it's over ten.  I've tried every strategy I could find; I had the best results with a combination strategy.  Start slow by buffing myself, sleeping him, dispelling and debuffing him, using ethers to regain my MP, then going all-out on chainspell nukes.

The first fight wasn't even an actual attempt, it was a sightseeing trip.  I wanted to see the fight so I had some idea of what I was looking at.  The second fight, I came unprepared.  After that, it was down to business.  I brought 100k in consumables to each fight.  (That's right, it is not just a matter of consumables, I don't care what the THF, NIN, and SAM fights entail.  And screw your cream puff, I was using Crimson fucking Jelly.)  I capped my skills (okay, nearly capped, I'm still 6 points short on elemental).  I tried every strategy I could find, I settled on what worked best for me.  And it still didn't work.

I had multiple fights where everything went perfectly, I was one good nuke away from the win.  And then bam, out of nowhere, Maat hits me for 250 and Asuran Fists fucks me for 900.  Honestly, I can no longer be near a 71+ Monk in combat.  The appearance of Asuran Fists in my combat scroll sends me into hysterics.

You can do everything right.  Every sleep can land, every nuke can hit, Blind, Slow, and Paralyze can be unresisted.  And the fact is, it comes down to simple fucking luck, every time.  Stoneskin isn't a huge buffer, Blink isn't a guarantee.  Even with everything going absolutely right for 5 minutes, he just needs to get lucky once.

As always, Cinn has been absolutely awesome.  He helped me research strategies, equipment, and consumables.  He helped me get my skills capped.  He's helped me farm testimonies, and he's been there for me when I've been in tears over this damned fight.  And when I finally threw the towel in on it, he decided to level another job with  me.

The current plan is that I'm going to level DNC while he catches up to my SCH, and then I'm going to take SCH up to 70.  I am not a former mage, I'm not even a former red mage.  I'm a red mage who happens to be leveling another job for the limit break.

To everyone who has helped me and tried to help me along the way, thank you.  Even though I've taken offense to most of it, I do appreciate that your intentions were good.

Maat is making me quit.

I can't do that fight anymore.

Cooking woes

I know that it's still cheap next to the other crafts, but it still hurts to look at my tally sheet and see that I've spent 115k getting Tav's cooking from 11 to 68.  It hurts even more knowing that it's partially incomplete, as I haven't tracked everything that Tam has picked up and mailed along the way.

While some recipes along the way have been money bleeds, the majority of my expense has been crystals.  And crystals.  And more crystals.  And, oh yeah, I'm out of crystals again, need more crystals.  Having explorer moogles has made getting to the various regional vendors pretty easy, but has probably also been a small unnecessary drain on my finances at 300 gil a pop.  I've also had to overreach my abilities a few times and rely on image support, which also starts to add up.

I'm at a point where nothing seems to give skill-ups.  I know that if I'm 5 points out, I'm not going to get skill-ups from failure.  I'm fine with that.  But can I please get maybe 0.1 from every, say, 5 successes?  Even that would be frustrating, but much faster than what's happening now, and I may not have to resort to setting the locals on fire!  (Which also failed to produce skill-ups.  Can't say I didn't try.)

Also, how do Rarab Meatballs justify their expense and skill level?  Talk about some food that needs to get over itself!  I'm not sure if I'm amused by the fact that their HQ is a Bunny Ball or not.  Well, okay, who am I trying to kid?  Of course I'm amused by it.  I'm just not entirely sure why, or how much.  Bunny Ball.  Ahahahaahahaaaa.

Anyway.

My aim is to get to the 75 or 80 neighborhood today, but that isn't going to happen if I'm sitting here blogging!  Now go away, I have stuff to do!

I'm not a white mage

It's weird, really, since I always intended to be.  My first character, the level 50 mule, was created to be a white mage, because I wanted to be Teh Healing Bawm.  As I leveled it, I realized it wasn't what I wanted.  The pressure that gets put on a WHM in a standard exp party in this game is enough to make the whole game feel like a chore.  So I made Tamberly.  Intentions and ambitions aside, I ended up falling in love with her as RDM.

RDM is a great job!  In a party, I'm the buffer, debuffer, and healer.  When I'm not doing any of that, I get to swing my sword at the mob.  I run /SCH.  Light Arts takes my healing magic rating from C- to B+.  It reduces the cast time and MP cost of my white magic.  Dark Arts does the same for my black magic.

There are those who say that I have to level WHM.  They say that it's the only way to be the most effective healer.  It never seems to occur to them that if I wanted to be the most effective healer, I wouldn't be RDM.  Period.  Why would I take a job that has a lower healing rating than PLD if I wanted to be the most effective healer?  I think that would qualify as a serious lapse in logic.

I'll never have Erase or Curaga as /SCH.  But I'll never have Drain or Aspir as /WHM.  And running with a MNK and DRG, Drain is good for bursting.  But wait!  There's more!  Erase is SCH39, Manifestation is SCH40.  Your arguments, my little number-crunching friends, just went south.

I really wish I felt like I owed apologies for the things that I said yesterday.  But I was told that I'm an inconsiderate, bad RDM because I don't play the way that a WHM would play.  I'm sorry that I don't have any desire to live up to your expectations of what you think I ought to be doing.  If you need a white mage for a job, don't bring a red mage.  Don't tell me that I'm the one who is inconsiderate.

The last choco post

...probably.  Just wanted to post a couple screenshots of actually riding the chocobo, now that I've gotten the whistle!

About as photogenic as I am!

Heheh, not the best picture ever, but the first picture of my grown-up chocobo.  He is, in fact, blue.

I seriously messed up and can't get my whistle until tomorrow at the earliest, but hey, lesson learned!

(For anyone wondering, the lesson is do not give the chocobo his normal food until you have the whistle quest completed.  I gave him his normal Azouph Greens x2, so he's completely full.  Ran out of energy while trying to get the key item.  Can't get more energy until tomorrow, as he is too full for any energy-restoration foods to work.)

FML.

Boo!

Heheh.

Woodworking 67

Woodworking is officially done until I decide where I want to allocate the remainder of my over-60 crafting points.  I had been planning to leave it at 60, but my income is mostly coming from crossbow bolts, which are mostly level 16 woodworking—pushing it to 67 puts me in the highest HQ bracket on them, which will hopefully prove to be worthwhile.

Clothcraft is up to 20, leathercraft at 30, alchemy 53, but nothing much to report as most of my crafting has been for profit this week.  Cooking 12 and Synergy 1!  That's a story for another time, heh.

Could it be?

This matches up pretty well with the only adolescent blue chocobo screenshot I've been able to locate.  Could it really be??

/happydance

Packrats Anonymous

Really, I need a support group.  I feel compelled to save everything because "I might be able to use it one day."  Or someone I know might need it.  Dhalmel leather, treant bulbs, cotton thread, beehive chips, fish, crystals—random crafting materials are pervasive throughout my inventory.  I don't even want to talk about lumber.

My inability to walk away from a locked chest when I'm out solo or walk past a NM without at least thinking about it is another problem.  I have a firefly, a pestle, pilgrim's wand, and more.  I don't know who Phlegethon is, but his trousers are in my storage.  If you happen to run into him, please let him know.

Of course, not everything is Exclusive, and therefore could theoretically be mailed off to a mule.  The problem is that the Sandy mule's inventory is already crammed full of gear and mats, and the Bastok mule's inventory is well on its way.  Now that I have two of them, I need to spend some time dividing their inventories up into categories—it's already kind of working out that the one in Sandy is gear and crystals, while the one in Bastok is mats, but there's still some overlap that needs to be cleaned up.

Tamberly's inventory still holds the gear for the jobs that I'm "currently leveling".  BLU and DRK gear is taking up a bit of space just now—at least they're currently at the same level and use basically the same stuff.  Most of the RDM gear that I replace on RDM is still needed for SCH, so it stays, too.  Then there's the issue of carrying six different weapons for RDM (no wait, 8 counting the bow and arrows for pulling in Ro'Maeve), various meds that I'll probably never need, chocobo food, flowers for quivers and lyco ports, and now two different exp rings.

Oh, and of course, there has to be the stuff that serves no purpose other than making me smile.  The various fireworks and costume serums that I've made as I level alchemy are prime offenders.  The red rose that I have no use for at all will continue to not only take up a space in my storage but be manually moved to the top after each auto-sort.  The Trainee Axe from the woodworking guild is completely useless now, but looks entirely too cool to toss out.

What I'm trying to say is, "HELP!  I only have 24 spaces left!"  (And thanks to leveling clothcraft again today, that's an improvement from this morning!)

Cutest thing ever

Well, next to my daughter, my favorite shirt, and the song "Kitty" by PotUSA.

I'm just too old for FFM

This has been bothering me for a while.  I notice that the FFM rules point to the younger members as a reason to keep the LS family-friendly, yet by and large the younger members are the prime offenders.

It seems like I can only stand to have the LS equipped between the hours of 6a and 4p.  It's relatively quiet during that time, and that's when the people who act like adults (whether they are or not) are on.  The straw that broke the camel's back was tonight around 8.  I woke up, got my coffee, and sat down just in time to see someone offering "2000 gil and nude pictures in an exposing position" for someone to PL them.

Synthesis failed.

The Dhalmel Overpopulation Action League has been stood down.  The amount of effort going in simply wasn't enough to have any lasting effect on the dhalmel population, and it didn't make sense to keep devoting that amount of manpower to a task that has proven to be an exercise in futility.  Again, my current lack of need for dhalmel-related items is a mere coincidence.

I did, incidentally, get leathercrafting from 15 to 20 by making dhalmel hides.  It would have gone to 21, but I capped my guild rank while valiantly fighting in the field, and the DOAL was decommissioned before I made it back from the tanners' guild in San d'Oria.

Thanks, Captain TMI!

And the first mog tablet of the week goes to....

Well, apparently, it just kinda goes, presumably directly to the Moogles.  But I found it sitting right by the lyco port in North Gustaberg.  So I talked to the Explorer Moogle in Ru'Lude Gardens, who had this to say:

Then he gave me a coffee table (zomg perfect, right?) and this ring.  You can propose with a ring, but what I want to know is:  Can you propose to a ring?

I'm considering it restitution for the nightmare I just went through unlocking DRK, and it just might make up for what I'm about to go through turning Chaosbringer into Deathbringer.

Thrifty Transit this week, brought to you in part by Tamberly!

Yes! Got me a magicked skull!

....Now if only I could find a Mithra.

This isn't funny anymore

Seriously.

I haven't picked this thing up in any of the 600 times it's been lurking in a chest, take a hint, SE!

As happy as a Tam in a room full of mats

On top of pulling in a decent profit on quivers today, I happened upon a NM lizard in Konschtat while out farming sheepskin today.  He gave me a piece of skin that sold for a sizable chunk of gil, which doubled my crafting budget for the day.  Oh, and I treated myself to a Light Staff—now I need to give up one of my precious macro book slots to make a "party" book and keep the one I normally use as a solo/duo book—as RDM, I don't want to be hitting mobs with a staff, but that "Cure potency +10%" is simply too good to pass up if I'm not in a mob-hitting situation.

"Medium, I think"

I've been curious about how big of a difference there is in the character sizes that you can choose (with no guidance whatsoever, thanks SE!) during character creation.

An almost-twin walked into the tanners' guild while I was there today, and I had to take the opportunity to record it for posterity.  She thinks she chose the medium option, whereas I went with small.

This was the best angle I could get for comparison purposes.

63! ...62. 63! ...62. 63! ...62. 63! ...62. ...62. 63!

As I was just settling into some farming in Jugner this morning, Cinn popped on and mentioned that he was going to farm the Kuftal key he needed for his AF helm quest.  Since he's always willing to help out when I need (want) something and so rarely wants anything big for himself, I leapt at the opportunity to tag along and help out.

Thunderclaw Thuban is not my friend

If you're going to attack a NM on the basis that it's there:

• Read the whole wiki on it first.
• Make sure you aren't running with your warp-only subjob.
• Make sure your reraise didn't wear off.
• Hope it isn't immune to both Sleep and Gravity.

I didn't even want the stupid drop.  Raise, Can I have it?

2, 4, 6, 8! Who hates auto-translate?

After a nap to replenish my dhalmel-fighting reserves, it was back to the defense of modern-day Vana'diel.  It seems that Sanctuary, an adorable little Taru RDM, has also heard of this threat and has been moved to join the cause.  /cheer

I sent a polite tell to welcome him to the Dhalmel Overpopulation Action League, only to find that he doesn't speak English.  Thanks to the auto-translate function, I was forced to revise my warm welcome to "Dhalmel meat, Dhalmel hide, Do you need it?"  My translator wasn't recognizing items (despite having used the /translate function for the pertinent items), so I had to do "dhalmel" "meat", "dhalmel" "hide".  Turns out that the "Hide" in the translator is the verb and not the noun, because the response was "No thanks.  Dhalmel Leathercraft Skill."  After some effort, I managed to convince him that was what "the dhalmel are hiding" meant--or at least make enough of a fuss to pique his curiosity--and got him to open trade.  I gave him the five or so that I had in my inventory, and everyone went off happy.

More crafting, and The New Dhalmel Threat

A drop in price on quivers before calling it a night last night resulted in a total of about 9k less in asking price, but a bunch of gil in my inbox when I got up today!  And I still made a decent profit on top of the 8 woodworking points I snagged while synthing them.

Today, I'm off to Sandy to get some guild points and pick up the lumber I need to make my own pickaxes.  It isn't necessarily more economical, but I keep getting (read: breaking my pickaxes on) tin ore while I'm out mining, so I might as well do something useful with it.  I really should look into the field tunica set.  I really should stop saying that and actually do it.

Cornettes

There's something to be said for leveling two crafts with a single synth.  I mean, something other than, "Synthesis failed.  You lost the crystal you were using."

I leveled goldsmithing to 9 today (I'd really been hoping to get it to 10 before quitting, but I believe I mentioned I really dislike that craft) before moving back to bonecraft.  Once I got there, it was cornettes, cornettes, cornettes--a neat and relatively cheap little recipe that is Bonecrafting 14 and Goldsmithing 14.  Seeing both of them raise a little on a single synth is nice, even when it breaks!

Both are at 10 now, need to find more zinc ore tomorrow.  If my stuff would sell, I'd just buy it, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for that!

The shop is closed.
This shop's hours are 8 to 23.

Addendum:  It probably does get better than this, but I'm content to not wonder how:

Sunday synthing results

You must wait longer before repeating that action.
You must wait longer before repeating that action.
You must wait longer before repeating that action.

Woodworking: Left pretty well alone today; made a few skill-up items, but not enough to actually get from 57 to 58. Made a few silly presents for friends. Broke two Amiga Cactus synths and gave up on it. Do you know how hard it is to find Humus, or how expensive it is to make it? Do you even know where Fort Karugo-Narugo is?? 10k in mats gone, and I'm looking at a run through the past to replace some of it. Yeah, that one's going to have to wait a day or two.  (Before calling it a night, I did manage to make my first equippable HQ.  Mailed it off to a friend, 'cause I'm a dork.  And because he needs to level Bard.  I'm sure he'd see the necessity if he understood the reasoning behind it.  Srsly.)

Less than 3

A familiar scene for me: Synthing by my Bastokan tree.

Poor Tav :(

Tav next to her maple table. I'm thinking maybe I should make her a workbench instead.....

GG SE

This shot was taken from the back. Nice modeling skills, SE!

Baby Choco Pics!

A couple shots of my lil baby Chocobo:

zomghai2u

In order to make my buddy Cinn's blog look current, I'm making this one!

Okay, it's just to share a few screenshots, heheh.