And so begins my journey on Bismarck

This week I ushered in a new era for my FFXI gameplay. Let me introduce Nivaud, a 75SMN, 75RDM, and 75BLM (mostly... I'll expain later). This is my character now and it is located on Bismarck server. I am currently applying to the IRON linkshell which plays very similar to the way LimitBreak did on Odin, but these guys aren't overly militaristic. They do Limbus, Dynamis, Wyrms, Jailers, ENMs, and the occasional KS99.

Wow. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Upon logging in and checking my items there were a few things I noticed. Firstly I had a crapload of seals, 4 stacks of 99 Kindred Seals and 7 stacks of Beastmen Seals. This was obviously due to the soloing efforts of the 75SMN and the 56BST. Secondly I needed items. I had about 6M on hand and have a 12M Enhancing Sword I need to sell. In the meantime I needed to hit the AH.

First was for my BLM. I had a Weskit but I needed armor for back, waist, hands, and feet. The character has a Abyssmal Earring (Dark+5/INT+2), Moldy Earring (MAB+5), and Ugg Pendant (MP+20/MAB+?). I ended up buying Wood M Ledelsens (MP+30/INT+3), Forest Rope (MP+60/INT+4), and a Rainbow Cape (HP+9/MP+9/INT+3/MND+3). There were no Igqira Manillas (Ele skill+5/MAB+2) on the AH so I bought up all materials to have a pair made. I needed Avatar Blood because none were in stock, so I switched to RDM/NIN and then noticed more things I needed.

I returned to the AH and bought a Narasimha's Vest and Wise Braconi. I wanted to buy an Amemet Mantle +1 but settled on a NQ one for the time being. I headed out to Pso'Xja and after finally finding the damn Diremites I killed 5 before I finally got the blood. I did get a Florid Stone though, so I can use that for The Shrouded Maw ENM later. I returned and found that IRON was doing some jailers after winning their Proto-Ultima fight. I joined in.

As a SMN in endgame events it seems that you are there to run in and just BP as much as possible, alternating Earthen Ward with Predator Claws. I tried Shiva's Heavenly Strike but it needs to be merited more for any real damage. We finally popped the Jailer of Temperance [NM] and I learned quite fast how strong his AoE is. I went down before he hit 50% and watched the rest of the fight while flat on my back. When it died it dropped all 3 drops, and one of the WHMs got themselves a Temperance Torque.

Next we headed into the Garden and went about spawning the Ix'aern (DRK) [NM]. After 3 camps we ended up popping him, and we pulled him to a ramp. LB approaches this much differntly than we did. They actually train him and his pals to another room with more Aerns so as to kite the Qn'Aerns. Looking back now that's foolish because of all the adds you get. We fought the 1st Qn in the open area (no links since all 3 PH's were dead), then pulled one Qn to one ramp and Ix'Aern to the other. When repops came none linked, and when the 2nd Qn went down it was full attack on Ix. That mob is a pure punk, we killed him 12 times before finally he finally stayed down and offered up some drops... We got a Deed of Moderation used to pop the Jailer of Justice [NM], but no Vice of Avarice dropped, therefore no Altruistic Cape.

The following night we did a Dynamis - Xarc. Boy do they do it differently than Obsidian. First off they sac ALOT of eyes. I made the mistake of aga'ing the eyes at the 1st time extension and ended up killing like 10 people (welcome to BLM dip$hit) so after that I held back a bit. In my defense I only started to aga after I saw a fellow BLM aga, yet I didn't see him cancel... so technically I didn't pull the first gun, but I did pull the first trigger. After that it was smooth sailing. In Obsidian we go tower to tower, aga'ing the eyes then kiting 2 of the 3 NMs. In IRON they sac the eyes and pull the NMs to a camp. There they bind 2 of the 3 NMs and we go all out on one. It's very efficient but you lose the chance for 100 coins from the eyes, (though I've only seen 3-4 ever in Obsidian in about 20+ Xarc runs).

We killed all 15, only got BRD to drop. We readied for DL and everything seemed to go fine. Suddenly he used Sleepga and slept all the melee, then smashed their faces in, drew in the mages, and ying and yang ate us up. It was unfortunate but it happens. We never saw a Sleepga at the open for our 5 DL runs in Obsidian. This was a first for me. After the loss we had almost 2 hours to farm. Two hours later we got kicked out with no more AF2. Was a fun run even if it only yielded Bard's Cannions. I hope to attend more with them.

Finally (I know.. this is a LONG ass post) last night since the LS was doing Ouryu and had 28 people for an 18 man BCNM... I decided to solo some. First I started with SMN. I tried my hand at soloing Agloolik in Ule. Range and I must say, it's a gamble up there. The objective is to have Carby feed it tp and get it to use Hypothermal Combustion and blow up. Sometimes it takes 1 carby summoning, other times it took 10+ to have him explode. Other fun factors are aggro from just about everything in the zone from elementals to other bombs to buffalos to Jorm (who was up and wandering around). I got about 4k limit points and then ended up heading out to sea for a bit. I had some fun killing some Hpmedes then I tried a Xzomit and did something stupid. I carby pulled the main Xzomit and then instead of letting him die I released him. Idiot. When I resummoned carby I saw 3 incoming... and I didn't last long. Having played BRD and RDM I have had the ability to always sleep adds. It's a disheartening feeling to be alone, see multiple enemies incoming and know that you can only deal with one... and to zone the mobs you have to view an event (which means death). After dying in Sea and HP'ing I decided to do some BLM soloing on the Marid in the Woodlands.

When I got out there I was 4k/10k towards a merit. I made it to about 7200 before a Chigoe/Marid did me in, and I deleveled!!! I haven't delveled in over a year! I HP"d and two marids later I was back to level 75 and finished out my merit. Right now I'm sitting at 5/44,000 (yes, I have a 5xp buffer) but I have 2 merits. I'll get a 3rd this weekend and put it into Burst II, then merit up either Freeze II or a new SMN bloodpact. These 2 jobs are new to me and ALOT of fun, even if I don't have much of a buffer. I'll probably do some merit parties for a week strictly on XP mode, then switch when I have at least a 20k buffer.

My fingers are dead tired, (I bet your eyes are just as tired) so I'm stopping. Thanks for reading!