Hooray, we finally came across him, go us. The fight is an interesting one, as are all (but serket wwww) Sandworm BC fights. The gimmick Lambton calls his own, and what differs him from Sandworm, is this…

During the fight, theres a time where all damage heals him for a lot more than it normally would have done: for example, my shield bash does a static twenty damage. Maybe next time I should pay attention to phases.. What can I say; I’m pretty good at this game.

Our fight had a particularly rough beginning; In attempting to figure him out, we spent the first ten minutes in the BC on two percent of his health. In the end, though, we’re better than Kazoku:

Congrats Drod on the Ancient Torque, Sinther on the Oily Trousers, and Medivac on the Morgana’s Cotehardie. Maybe next time, ET, maybe next time.

--

Oh, speaking of Sandworm…

Sandworm KA too much for you guys, yeah? Just let the big boys handle it next time, stick to your old content.

And happy birthday, Royal!

            One of Square Enix’s most recent additions to the game was the Aht Uhrgan Notorious Monster system. These enemies, dubbed ZNMs by players, drop a lot of very valuable pieces for a very, very large range of jobs. These monsters are force spawned by trading items bought with Zeni, which are points gathered from trading Soul Plates to Sanraku. Triggered NMs with worthwhile drops that recycle old, unused content? Bravo, SE, bravo; Success is yours this day.

My friends and I set off shortly after this patch’s release in early-mid-June to farm some of the enemies. The fights range from fun and easy, to fun and long, to long and boring. Many of them are kite style fights when one brings less than five people, and there’s only so much running in circles one can do before it becomes hair-rippingly boring. We’ve got quite a bit to show for it thus far, however, and hopefully this trend will continue. We’ve only fought Lil’ Apkallu, Vulpangue, Iriz Ima, and Armed Gears, but we’ve seen every possible drop from all of them in the limited number of times we’ve fought each, meaning drop rates are pretty high.

Cool.

Also

EDIT:

STOP THE PRESSES RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. RIGHT NOW.

RED MAGE –sparkle sparkle-

It’s tied up much of my ingame time as of late, yet it’s gone fairly uncredited. One of the game’s most complex and versatile jobs by its definition, the possibilities of Red Mage are endless. Its roll and routine in EXP parties is reflective of this:

1)      Refresh

2)      Haste

3)      Afk

Seriously though, it’s probably the most boring job I’ve ever partied on, and I leveled Warrior AND Bard… not to mention that it’s more of a cash deposit than both jobs were combined during the leveling process. Please, crimson wizard, pay off in the end. Please.

--

Our second engagement with the horseman was this past Sunday, as well as our second triumph over him. It’s certainly one of the more involved fights in FFXI; percent based attacks, add summoning/releasing, and AoE preventable instant death make it very attention garnering. It’s a breath of clean air to find a fight that can’t be beaten with X Dark Knights…

…It IS a shame that it’s an easy fight. As long as everybody is at keys, listening to orders and moving when told to, the fight is as smooth as can be; his TP attacks aren’t anything terrifying (ha) and he doesn’t hit particularly hard, nor are his percent triggered abilities devastating in any way that isn’t preventable by simply moving one’s character, be it kiting a Valkyrie or moving within range of Geirrothr. Nonetheless, it’s one of my favorite fights even while playing BRD. And, of course, it’s always worth it:

Congrats Hulk on your E.body, Tryon on your fork, Drod on your W.body, Clerics on your P.head, and A GIGANTC GRATS TO ROCCA ON D.FEET ^________^ AVALON BUDDIES!<3

--

The biggest news I have for this update (well, regarding myself) is far and away, this:

Among my clique of ex-LS mates, ingame pals and RL friends alike am I the first with a king body abjuration. I’m more than thrilled about this; its been a while since I’ve obtained a piece of equipment that made me say “oh my god” in real life (the last being Homam Cosciales in GutsLS). I really appreciate this, ApkalluVendetta, thank all of you very much for this. It’ll see good use, I promise… Once I buy Dusk Ledelsens, that is.

Dynamis can be fun. No really, it can!

ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEING JUST LIKE SEPTIMUS ^____^ brb flame rings

Also, so you can further taste the flavor of this particular Dynamis – Buburimu run:

khimaira has a really fuckin big tail btw

In actual news, I’ve been enjoying myself lately: Between catching up on RDM EXP and playing The World Ends With You on my DS, my linkshells been up to the usual same ol’ and a bit more. We’ve gotten our share of Cerberus’ lately, held our presence at KV despite a sudden interest by other lolshells (Knights, Hokuten, BlueGartr, etc), and we’ve had a few encounters with our newest friend…

  Dark Ixion! Oh, what a fun fight this is. It’s unlike any other HNM, in that it can inhabit any non-stronghold area in the past. Also, if it’s attacked, it runs away and immediately changes zones. There’s a particular trick to engaging it involving a throwing item that drops from fairies, and if it’s thrown and lands, Ixion is combatable like any other normal monster.

 The chase is barrels of fun; it’s a nice break-away from the traditional camping style. If that isn’t enough, the fight itself is incredible. He spams several high damage TP moves, some of them AoEs (one of which silences), targeted high damage moves with a knockback akin to a puk’s AoE, and a healing move that recovers five percent of his invisible HP bar and removes all negative status effects. In our four Ixions, we’ve gotten two cloaks and one cape. Good times. We’ve plans to sell our Hermes’ Sandals that we’re crafting from his parts as well, and possibly use the cash to fund a second relic. Mega cool. (/advertise)

HOWEVER, ONE DAY THINGS DID NOT GO AS PLANNED. We decided to play with

WHABAM

Sandworm. We found him up one day whilst sending our scanners out for Ixion. After we assembled our LS in Batallia Downs [S], we fought him down to twenty five percent before the whore finally swallowed. We were greeted by King Artho in Everbloom Hollow, who provided us with an entertaining fight. In his perma-rage status, he takes virtually no damage from non-critical melee attacks... However, skillchain and magic bursting does it’s usual damage.

WAIT. SC+MB!?!? Yes, SC+MB.

Either way, we killed him well within the one hour timer and received these as our treasures:

Congrats to Pawky on the shield, and…

Congrats to me on my Gallant replacement. Team Avalon, yo. Also, Omega’s Ring:

My dear readers, ready yourselves for a tale only told to the most worthy.
A tale befitting of it’s keeper.
A tale of yours truly. I’ve named it,

                                    Seal of Beasts: The Mystical Vial of Mercury

            ‘Twas, as each day is, a normal day. I was modeling with my Moogle for the latest issue of “Gallantly Gorgeous.”

            Unbeknownst to me, something was amiss. My pom-pom’d pal had fallen ill the day before and was unable to bestow this development onto me, as I was locked in long-since-arranged engagements.

            But, being a loyal fellow, he stuck through it and guarded my coffers still; A foolish decision made he, but an admirable and significant one nonetheless. The treasure held in my keep that I’ve recently attained is, naturally, coveted en-masse by those less fortunate than I. 

But alas, my moogle! He dropped from the skies to the quaint rug of my abode. So sickened is he, that equally am I so when I look on him. Drenched with worry, I call to him, holding fast for an answer:

“hey dude whats wrong lol” 

Weakly, he responded, 

“Kupo..The Itis…Kupo…”

THE ITIS!? It cannot be! I thought, could this be the arcana of the deceased Dragon Knights from whom I’d pillaged? I was sure the malevolent aura had cleared from their tomb, but what passed before my eyes assured me that I’d gravely misjudged. Perhaps my gluttony begot me a ticket to punishment, but not my floating friend. I, ridden with guilt, whispered to my safe’s sentinel: 

“brb medicine”

I’d studied ancient medicines much among the scholars of Windurst, and The Itis was known particularly for it’s difficulty to treat. The tomes on which we learned from said such: 

Eighteen eyes guard the cure, but not willingly will they rid themselves
Of the solution so sought.
One ampoule of Quicksilver swallowed cleanses the plague.

Eighteen eyes… “Could it be the same eighteen eyes that guard the Charm of the ‘Cock?” I thought. “It must be.” 

Some time later, I’d gathered two of my most trusted fellows to undertake the journey with me. Whilst my friends geared for battle, something horrifying revealed itself to me.

..I’ve only thirty nine seals of beastly brethren, this is insufficient to face the six eyed beasts! Deftly, I clothed my Master of Puppets to procure one final shard.

Slash, biff, whoosh! PAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCH!

Ahoy! The final seal of the beast, the last hurdle is overcame. The rest of the tale is as most olden tales of heroes are; the beasts were laid to rest, the quicksilver was attained, and the Peak of Horlais started raining fire, from which I fled on a magical carpet.

The end.

Sorry about the hiatus, I’ve been holding out for personal progression of some sort before I update. Soooo much for that. =/ I’ve been cockblocked by Skogs Fru, the little fucker in East Ronfaure [S] that drops Ecphoria Ring, an item I’ve been farming. I’ve got a lot of this:

Without a ton of this:

7/28. Fuck.

On the positive, ApkalluVendetta recently made history in a Bahamut server first! Odin: SLAIN.

BITCH, WHAT. It feels nice to be part of something, and what’s better was the amount of 1% jokes that were thrown around! Man, it must suck to time out at one percent, I couldn’t imagine what kind of a linkshell would allow that to happen. We owe it all to our Dusk Gloves, I bet.

Aside, the fight was surprisingly simple. Granted, this is all from a BRD’s perspective, but things were incredibly smooth the whole time. I think what gives this fight it’s ‘edge’ is it’s ability to go from great to shit in ROUGHLY .24 seconds. Careful preparation and planning can avert this, though, which is why Belkin (our wonderful leader) took the time to draft up a lengthy strategy detailing each aspect of the fight. Props go out to you, my friend. With a little planning, Odin’s nothing to time out about.

Oya I got like clerics mitts and some gimpy NIN AF piece. Yay, me. ^____^

Fuck yeah. No more Sarutobi Kyahan, no more Bounding Boots. I look forward to putting this piece to use in dominating some parses, and affirming to myself and others the power of NIN in merit parties. 

Many thanks to my Salvage group for all of your efforts in getting the components to this piece, from dedicating runs to the fourth floor hell-frog in Zhayolm Remnants, to the many successes and failures on LAC, to the good times at the ramparts in Bhaflau.

Speaking of Bhaflau, we went back to for a farming run of that today. Didn’t end in disaster, but… two ramparts and zero NMs? Far and away is this a new suck-record for us. Mad bomber was up and everything, how could you do this to us Bhaflau Remnants!?

In other news…

Cleared for Odin, believe it.

(Sorry for the short update, I need some time for content!)