Current mood:

content

Catch up time..
Welp, figured I put it off long enough... 

I think it's been like two months or so by now since I made a complete entry, so this will be another pretty long one. I'm hoping that after this one I won't have to put them off so much, since I won't be nearly as busy/occupied as I was in the last few months. With that in mind, due to a few requests and a lot more questions about equipment, I'm going to put together a second sort of "How my NIN works" post similar to the last sometime soon. Except this one will be more focused on my newer gear choices, and why I use them, where, how, etc. I'm thinking I'll get it done before next week, but who knows, it will at least be sometime soon.

Also, I changed my FF resolution about a month ago to make it slightly smaller... So the screen shots will be kind of mixed up as far as revolution goes.

Anyway, update will be in the same format as always... Since it's perty and all organized looking.

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Our fifth set of KB BC99 runs.



Not too much to say about this, since it's probably the fourth or fifth time I've posted about this in my LJ, and the topic is kinda dry now lol... So I'll just shut up and post pictures will little descriptions.

By now we have a lot of experience with this BC, having done more runs than anyone else I know of.. This was the record when we entered:


And, as pointed out in an older short entry, the best time at the end of our 22 (I think) BC runs.


Some nice battle pictures, the sun is all fogged out though. :(



Traditional killshot with a staff/axe, so owned..


At the start of one of our later BC runs.


Annnd of course, no set of KB BC99 is complete without MPK! More often than not, courtesy of me. >:D



This one was laame.. Everyone ran away and I just died alone. :(


These were my drops, almost as good as it can get... I was pretty lucky.^^

I thought about keeping the Shinsoku for a long time for SAM, since I wasn't really in need of the money, and it's a pretty damn good GK. But, after an unexpected two failures in a row on Adaman Hauberk and dishing out 48m at the time to get it uncursed, I ended up selling it. It sold for 60m a few days after I decided to sell.

At the end of the runs we all sat in the springs and took a few group pictures.

Without names:


And with:


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A little more about the Jailer of Love..

(corny maybe, but meh..)

SE really nerfed the difficulty of this thing (apparently)... I think Kirin is probably slightly harder, but with Love it's not really the fact that it's hard, it just requires a good number of people to keep it under control. Anything over thirty people should be able to take it down without much trouble. Absolute Virtue on the other hand though, seems almost impossible. ><

Sucks too, that Ninurta's Sash is sooooooo amazingly good. :(

Anyway, we'll probably fight it a few more times in the near future ish. If I remember correctly, we have like three 90% complete sets, missing the Jailer of Hope virtue for each of them. So if we can manage to get him to drop a few times we'll probably get another Love set, and maybe play with Absolute Virtue... Since he didn't pop for us after our kill.

Some random screens during the battle, all kinda look the same for the most part.





Overall it went really smooth, had almost no deaths with around 40 or so people there from the LS... First kill on the server, but the drops were horrible. We got the 100% drop only, with two TH4 and one TH3 in the alliance. Gee, thanks SE for a waste of 3-4 months collecting triggers.

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First Ultima kill.


Ultima is definately the harder of the two, solely because of his last 10% or so HP when he goes in crazy mode. The first 80% was so easy, it was literally just me and the other NIN (Baudan) and PLD (Danerys) bouncing Ultima back and fourth. None of us really ran into any trouble, and the hate stayed solid, it was cake. After it got under 50% it started to get slightly more difficult, but in the end it worked out fine.


We lined up so we were opposite of eachother, since Ultima's frontal AoE is pretty powerful. No sense in it getting us all killed/hurt... Then we had the WHMs and support off to the left, and the BLMs off to the right, with melee DDs attacking from the side when not using SA or TA. This way if someone pulled hate it wouldn't oneshot all the mages or anything stupid like that.


The last part of his health was rough when it started nuking single targets (basically one shots you and everyone near the target) every 30 seconds.. It was kind of disappointing, because rather than stay organized and just let it kill that person while we all get a safe distance away, it went crazy and a lot of people would get caught up in the attack and die for no reason. It was pretty close at one point, almost had a few complete wipes... But it was only our first try, so I'm still happy we won. :)


Currently we have one full Omega set and one full Ultima set, and on our way to obtain a second Ultima... So we'll be doing more runs in the near future.

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Bahamut V1 and V2 both down, a really really intense fight... Some helpful information about V2 as well in the entry.


For a good few weeks recently we spent a lot of our routine LS event time preparing for the Bahamut V2 BC... We killed Ouryu around six more times for the Monarch Orb (I'll cover this later in the entry), and also did a few more Bahamut V1 fights for those that still needed it. I took a few nice screens while helping people with the first BC, so I'll just get those out of the way.




Version 1 is an easy win. It has about 20-25k HP, hits about as hard as a normal HNM, can be stunned (but will resist if you do it too much), and doesn't have any really threatening attacks. The flares are bad of course, but they're easy to counter and prepare for.

Now for Version 2...

Words can't describe this enough for me. Simply put, Bahamut V2 was the hardest thing I've ever tanked as NIN... And I've tanked just about everything there is to tank in this game, but Bahamut V2 is WAY above all of that other stuff IMO. It makes V1 look like a Robber Crab, and if you go into the BC thinking it'll be anything close to as easy/simple as V1 you'll be in for a HUGE surprise.

Our strategy requires one NIN to main tank Bahamut solo, having more than one person tank at once will result in people taking a lot more damage than necessary.. Since 90% of his TP and magic attacks will hit the tank and anyone nere it, and end up costing twice the MP to heal/-na them both. PLD/NIN and PLD/WAR main tanks can work as well of course, although shadows of some form are probably necessary, or in the end the tank will take too much damage. My LS chose to try the strategy with a NIN tank, and I was the one they wanted.. So this is all from my actual perspective and experience while tanking it. I've been asked a lot of things about the BC from other people that were planning to tank it, and I'll go over what I told them now.

One of the most important things you'll pick up on in that BC is all of his different TP and Magic attacks.. It's pretty important to be aware of what they do. The first run I tanked I was nervous and really stressed out, and almost in a sort of panic mode. Knowing what to expect on the following tries helped me relax and focus more, and I think that this knowledge would help everyone else as well. That, and even though for most of his TP/magic moves you only have a split second to prepare for it, it really helps to know what to be ready for when you see "Bahamut readies _____", etc.

Magic Based Attacks
Graviga
Simple, this will clear shadows and reduce your evasion and movement speed. I recommend asking for Erase after this move, it makes it difficult to move position if you have to as well as reducing the chances to Evade.
Silencga
Self-explantory, should bring Echo Drops in preparation for this move.
Firaga IV
This is the only spell/attack that we stunned, and I really recommend that any other LS should do the same. It only did about 600-700 to me, but it's unecessary damage that will often result in them taking more damage (shadows cleared). If you stick to stunning that, and don't spam stun too much outside of it, Bahamut won't develope a complete resistance to Stun.
Flare II
Relatively fast casting time, so don't sit back thinking it will take a while. Surprisingly the damage was pretty weak, I got caught with it after my timers fell behind from Horrid Roar spam.

Fire V
About the same damage as Firaga IV if you don't have shadows up, not a major threat.

Flares
There's plenty of information out there on the times when he'll use each of these flares, so I'll leave that topic alone. Just always always always, make sure the tank and the tank party is ready before taking Bahamut past the given percent that will make him flare. If they're not ready, then you could easily wipe them and end the BC. Tank should be at full HP with fresh shadows and Shell IV, with the hate stable, and at least one mage ready to cure him.
Megaflare
He'll only use this attack like 2-3 times at the start, it's through shadows and does about 900 damage in normal gear. I recommend getting set of equipment made to counter this, so instead of 900-1000 damage it'll hit for this much:

Gigaflare
He uses this for a majority of the BC, same properties as Megaflare. Except this one will do about 1200-1400 in normal gear, so again I recommend a set of equipment with -magic damage and +fire to turn it into this:

Teraflare
This is not a rumor, past 10% it will spam this attack until it's dead. It's very easy to finish off, our second win we killed it before it even had a chance to flare. Based on what I've seen on other posts, this will do about 1600-1800 damage.


TP Attacks
Tempest Wing
AoE attack through shadows (but doesn't take shadows) that will deal a small amount of wind damage for 100-200, and knock you back.
Sweeping Flail
AoE attack that takes 1-3 shadows, and deals pretty heavy damage if you don't have shadows. It will knock you back and also bind you if I remember correctly.
Terrorga
AoE attack that takes 1-4 shadows, the strength of the terror varies on how many shadows it has to take to hit you. Overall it's usually a pretty weak terror.
Horrid Roar
His worst TP attack, it's AoE and takes 4 of your buffs away. It doesn't reset hate, but it can be the most dangerous TP move he uses, and especially when he uses it back to back. I had him spam it on me 5 times in a row once, and it's tends to be a pretty common attack. It can take any buff save signet, I went through as many as 2 full stacks of Carbonara with no deaths (all horrid roar) in one of our winning runs. After this move it's best to give the tank Shell and Haste for NIN or /NIN ASAP. This is by far the hardest TP attack to deal with.
Impulsion
AoE knock back that will deal 300-500 damage and Petrify/Blind you, get Stona ASAP. 

Those are all of the most important TP/magic/flare attacks that I remember off my mind, there may be a few others.. I'll edit it if I remember.

As a tank, there's three things that are really important for you to have IMO.
Enmity
I don't know how I pulled it off, but through all the cure bombs that this BC required I managed to hold hate 99% of the time with about +35 enmity (that I only used every so often, since I lost a lot of HP changing to it), and it's a very important thing to do. If you lose hate at the wrong time, Bahamut can easily wipe a lot of people. 
HP
HP is also important since no matter how good your gear is or your skill, or even your defense (yes, even PLDs), you will take pretty heavy damage at some points, and HP will help you survive that. With all my HP gear on that I brought for the BC I sat at about 1905 HP. 
Magic Defense
Magic defense gear will help keep you alive and reduce the amount of MP needed to be spent to keep you alive.  You could easily sit in full HP gear and survive just as well, but it would cost a significant amount more MP by the end of the BC. My gear gave -17% Magic Damage taken along with +82 fire resistance.

Personally, I had those three sets as well as the following, which I also recommend getting.. Although not as important as the above gear.
Defense Gear
No matter what you do you will get hit, and you will take a pretty large amount of physical damage. It hits for about 300-400 with 500+ criticals on a normal person, in defense gear it's reduced to 200-300 a hit with 300+ criticals, a pretty significant difference that will help keep you alive.
Haste Gear
A set of Haste gear macroed for Ni will help a lot as well, more often than not you'll be sitting on your timers and spamming your Ni macro, since he clears shadows often. The more seconds you can have off of it the better.

I also brought a set of evasion gear, but I didn't find it useful for this BC. His accuracy is about the same as the normal Wyrms, so you could get away with evading often too.

For the start of the fight I stayed in Enmity gear and tried to get as much hate as I could.. Then went into HP gear, and in the screens you'll usually see me wearing either that, or a mix of my HP gear/Haste Gear/Magic Defense gear. I switched between those sets most often.

All that aside, here's the screens that you're all probably skipping too, lol... Just random ones I picked up while tanking.











And, the death. :)



Two kills, many more planned in the future. :D

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Some misc stuff about the other Wyrms, mostly the norm.


As mentioned earlier, we've killed Ouryu a lot lately farming orbs for Bahamut V2 BC... We have like 3-4 or so Orbs saved now for future runs, as well as one or two more Cloud Evokers. The drops lately have been pretty good too. :o


Also finally had a chance to play WAR instead of NIN in one of these BCs, and wow I've never felt so relaxed and worry-free at an HNM event.. I loved it, lol.. As much of a pain in the ass Stoneskin and Invisible was on nearly every SC.


And another two..


Personally I love these runs, they're fun and usually pretty easy, and don't take hours and hours of camping. Gathering usually takes a while, but that's not as bad IMO. On top of all that it's also a good way to make gil, and one of the only HNM battles I actually walk away from without losing a lot of money... Which is always nice, since I haven't had much time to farm on my own lately.

Killed Jorgy a few times as well... We've been using the ores from him to supply the LS fund, and buy ancient beastcoins for or directly give cash to members that help with making Ultima/Omega sets and for fighting them. It's been working out pretty good. :)

GoGo gimpy Parrying skill.

Also have been killing Tiamat just like always, we're about to break 80 kills on him if we haven't already... I'm not sure how many people are left that need gaiters, but it's still a lot. D:

I'm posting some of the best drops I seen from him mixed with a screen from insane Fafnir drops and that magical Nidhogg :).. With a pretty nice Raging rush.



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Stupid Hauberk.

As most of you saw, I was pretty unlucky with uncursing this abjuration. ><


I was soo happy when I finally got it... It took a while, and I couldn't wait to wear it... Luckily I had Shinsoku to sell to help me pay for it, it ended up costing me three attempts at a little over 15m a try. =(

It kind of broke me for a while, but I went on a farming spree and managed to make some of it back before my winter break ended... But when it happened I was really down about it for a while. :(

/corny on

I just wanted to take this opportunity and make an section in my LJ to thank the others there that tried to help make me feel better.;;



I don't know what else to say other than thanks, a lot... It really helped, and I'm lucky to have friends like you. :)

You all know who you are, not just the people in those screens, everyone. :D

Thanks.

/corny off

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Did a little more testing with Fortitude Axe..


Pretty self-explantory, this is just like the last tests I did concerning the WS damage and DoT. It was in a pretty average party that lasted about 3 hours, and it went smooth.

WS damage was fine, the top two and the one in the picture are with DA. The other three are without DA, no BRD.


And the parse:


The base damage itself doesn't have a big affect on the WS damage at all.. I tried out Gawain's Axe a few times in the party, and the numbers were almost the same. So, overall I think using Foritude with stones will grant much better DoT than using any other GA save possibly Martial Bhuj and Relic GA. I'm actually pretty certain it would do better than Martial Bhuj as well...

As far as comparing to WAR/NIN, it's still hard to say. I'm pretty sure it could hold up decent against an average one, but against a decked out one it would probably do less overall. I still haven't been able to test this for sure, but I think it's safe to assume.. If possible I'll try to do this in my next and final test with this axe.

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A fourth relic weapon unlocked in our LS.


One of our MNKs in the JP part of our LS just finished fully upgrading Relic Knuckles into Spharai. That makes four Relic Weapons total on the server, and all of them are members in this HNM LS... It's pretty awesome. Based on the amount of currency we have now, we should be able to fully upgrade another weapon within the next month or so as well.

/cheer Knuckle


And as always, here's some screen shots of the WS from the weapon, Final Heaven.







Congrats again Knuckle. :)


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Been busy leveling SAM in a lot of my free time, almost done!


Finally lived up to my name and leveled SAM.. It was a lot of fun, even though I tend to really dislike taking part in skillchains. But meh, I'm used to it. It worked out pretty good a well, was in  a good amount of WS spam PTs with friends on a few different occasions. I was also kind of surprised, SAM can be a really heavy DD with the right equipment. Most people seem to look at SAM as an ok DD that has the primary advantages of forming SCs and getting TP fast, but as a DD they're pretty damn good too. On the path to 74, onry Blackice outdamaged me, damn hacker MNKs. :(

I've PTed with quite a few SAMs in leveling my other jobs, but until I leveled it I never realized how powerful they are... The WS damage is really crazy, and consistant, and on top of that you can spam it more than any other job. This is what my gear looked like through most of the 60s.. Only major changes were Vampire/Triumph and rutters at level 67. (+58 STR!)



And, the results of this setup for WS damage from 59 to 64 (merit hack ftw)..


And then 64 to now at 74..


Currently @9k to 75, been that way for a few days.. I'm being lazy about finishing it off, but overall I do like the job, doubtful I'll use it much though. :(

At 75 I should be able to get a max of about 80+70 STR with /WAR, I'll probably experiment with that some since a lot of people have been saying that STR is capped lately.. But we'll see. 

As it stands right now, DRK is my next job after I finish off SAM and get another like, 50 merits... Looking forward to it :D

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NPCs suck... Rant time..


On my first three jobs to 75, usually when forming a party the only thing you had to worry about as far as picking a place to exp goes, are other parties your level. It was never really a big problem though, you could almost always work it out and find a free camp or a camp to share with others.. But, now there's an even bigger problem. Much much worse than that, is the problem with people leveling their NPCs.

I apologize in advanced if I offend you in any way, but seriously, sometimes it goes just TOO far. And now I'm just going to get it all out of my head..

I had a BLM Stun a Robber crab as I was shooting it with my bow, while his NPC leveling party was already fighting a crab right on top of my party, the part that has been there for over 2 hours before they arrived. But was that enough? No, he not only claims that second crab, but he sleeps that second crab and then binds the THIRD crab in the distance, again right as I was about to claim. I wanted to just flip out, the lack of respect and courtesy that people have to go and do stuff like that to exp PTs is just sickening.

That was just one of the more extreme examples, but there are many other situations just like that.. Where NPC levelers come in, act like they're the shit because they're higher than you (at least at the time), camp on top of your party, take all the mobs, battle you for claim, and then act like they're in the right. It's stupid enough that some people can't figure out other places to level their NPC, you could easily and safely level an NPC up to 70 or whatever the cap is and never take a mob from an exp PT, but lazy (insert insult here) have to go to the already crowded exp areas and take mobs from those parties. I'm sick of it.

Please, if  you read this, consider the other people trying to get exp when you level your NPC... It's ok if there's plenty of mobs available, or no one else around, or mobs that no one would normally kill, but not when you're fighting with the exp PTs for mobs and taking exp away from 6 other people to get your NPC higher. It's disrepectful, annoying, and greedy. Thanks.;;

I realize this doesn't apply to everyone (probably a minority actually), but it does apply to enough people to make exp from 40-70 so much more difficult than it should be, especially in the 50s.

Some screens of how bad I've seen it get in Kuftal lately, although based on what friends have said it's been even worse lately. Luckily I wasn't there for long..






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Last but not least, the random stuff..


Got this about a month ago, again with the help of Syl. :D


Picked this up about a month ago too! <3 it!



/slap Simozene... That's a real sale, ON THE CAPE FROM OUR ENM ! It made me laugh so hard..



Over winter break I had time to finally get these two things done.. Brought GS from 0 to cap, and got Ground Strike and Savage Blade.



Blew a good 20m in buying this; Martial Bhuj. I think there's only like four or five total on my server, so it cost a lot... It's really worth it though, ended up selling Gawain's since I never use it now.


New max of +STR too :o... No songs or enchantments or special bonuses or anything, just my equipment + Sole Sushi.



And a big 'ol wall-o-text of the higher damage I've had and remembered to screen over the last few months.. /grin

I got my ass kicked so badly in the Prudence one...

This was pretty funny, in our last Dynamis run in Sandy I lotted a Relic Bhuj to try out.. On the long struggle to get 300% TP we started making bets about how much damage it would do, and most guessed it would be like 200-400 damage max... And here's the result, with all normal buffs and no DA:

It was funny, I still laugh thinking about it.. I didn't even expect it to do half as much.

Rukenshin > Blackice


Trio exp in sea is pretty damn good, we pulled off a few chain 5s as WAR/NIN, NIN/WAR, and RDM/WHM... I think the total was like 5-6k or so an hour, did this while bored a little while ago fighting VTs and Ts.



And while on the topic of sea, same old same old for the most part.. Tried to complete another Love set, but Hope is being mean and not dropping.


Been seeing a lot of Ix'Aerns lately though from exping in the Garden.


La fini~

I'll look over it later and edit mistakes, late for dynamis.^^;

EDIT: All typos and errors fixed. ;)