Merry Xmas!

I am sporting my new set of Dream Boots, Dream Hat, and Dream Tunic.

So now, I say to you, Merry Christmas!

An eventful day

I really made some progress yesterday.
First i got my Botanist from level 18 to level 20, then proceeded to do the lvl20 job-quest for it. With the wood gathered leveling this i took my Carpenter from 23 to 25. I did Willow Masks from level 13 to level 25, and once level 26 i started turning Oak logs into Oak Lumber and the lumber then into Oak Masks. The Oak synthesis was quite expensive in shards. By the end of the day I had used up roughly 1500 wind and 750 earth shards.

After this I started the lvl26 quest of the main-story. And damn, I love these quests. The story, characters and cut-scenes are amazing. The quests are well thought up too. Its a pleasure playing them. I am from Ul'dah so that is the arc I am doing. Politics, ancient deitys, murder and hot women.. How can it go wrong? ;)

Further testing of Firm Conviction

I did some more soloing today, and managed to take on mobs I had no chance surviving on before. Only drawback to Firm Conviction is you cant have any buffs on like spikes or anything. If you do you lose the trait. It is canceled as soon as you put 1 on. But I don't mind face-tanking without buffs, since I have Siphon MP, effectively making me sit at full mp every second minute or so.



Crabs was easy in FF11 and they are in this game also. They have no big surprise moves, and is mostly as tank&spank mob. They go in their shell now and then, making their defense go up but they wont attack in this stage. Once they come out their attack has gone up it seems, so just be ready to heal up the first 2 or 3 attacks which may hit a bit harder. Other than that, its a walk in the park.

Trait: Firm Conviction

Today I bought the Thaumaturge job-trait Firm Conviction, at a cost of 8000 guildpoints. The trait is potentially game-breaking and a must have!

It increases your defense while casting AND for a short duration after casting. Furthermore it stacks up to 4 times. 20%+20%+20%+20% for a total of 80% damage reduction.

Here is an example:
A mob hits you for 100 damage.
You cast Sacrifice and heal yourself up a bit. (The job-trait is applied)
The mob hits you again, but this time for 80 damage (20% reduction in damage)
You cast Sacrifice and heal yourself up a bit. (The job-trait is applied)
The mob hits you again, but this time for 60 damage (Another 20% reduction in damage)
You cast Sacrifice and heal yourself up a bit. (The job-trait is applied)
The mob hits you again, but this time for 40 damage (Another 20% reduction in damage)
You cast Sacrifice and heal yourself up a bit. (The job-trait is applied)
The mob hits you again, but this time for 20 damage (Another 20% reduction in damage)
At this point you have a damage reduction of 80% all physical attacks!
This is where you nod goodbye to the tank and AoE a few unclaimed mobs just to make your tanking a bit more interesting..

Thaumaturge - Time to bring out the staff!

I have come to realize that making my own arrows for my Archer is quite a feat, and I've decided to put the Archer on hold until I have several crafts at around 25-30. Gimping my way up with level 1 arrows is not something I want to do.

So, I decided to level Conjurer and Thaumaturge up. I am in the process of redistributing my points from STR and DEX towards INT, MND and PIE. Im gonna keep my VIT quite high still.
Its seem these jobs are a bit easier to solo on also, and as a level 14THAU i can solo stuff with ease that i was struggling on with my 18ARC :-)

Fun fun fun!

OK, so the start of my FF14 career was a mix of feelings. The was a big improvment of the game from the beta stage to retail. No more lag made a BIG difference. It took me 2 days to get comfortable with the UI. I still dont think its optimal, and i prefer how it was in ffxi. On the other hand I've had a lot of fun leveling different jobs and crafts. The questline is superb. Graphics and sound top-notch.

There are still things that I feel need to be added and soon for this to be a hit, like a functioning AH, a better party search funtion, a proper serach funtion for people, display of partymembers on the map and not just the radar.

Would be fun to see more friends from ffxi join in the fun, but we'll see. I think ffxi-players are notoriously conservative when it comes to other mmo's.

Aion no more, FF14 here i come!

OK so I got rid of my Aion account.. and got in the FF14 Open Beta.
The game looks really good, and I think this will be the one im sticking with now.

Im not going back to FF11, but instead I'm reviving the Wildmuffin in FF14.
Hurray!

More to come, and some shiny pictures also I sure.

Trying an new approach to Aion

Seraphi's move to Aion never really happened, something I really cant understand...But in hindsight it would have been better for me to join up with a legion earlier in the game, make some new friends and work my way up.

A few days I left the Seraphi legion in Aion, and joined with Zealous Iniquity (ZI). Its a big legion ranked nr 1 on our server, and since I joined I have done stuff Ive never done before, like sieges and dregdion runs, upper and lower Steel Rake. Its great fun, but at the same time, joining a BIG legion so late in the game makes it hard for me to make new friends. The legion consists of like 80+ people and I'm not sure I will ever feel the same connection to them as with Seraphi.. But this is the only option for me, since I want to keep playing this game.

I have begun thinking about what to do with my FFXI account, since im not playing much, and when I do, im not enjoying myself. It is also a monthly cost which I could live without. I lost my job recently and I need to cut costs. Paying for i game im not enjoying seems stupid.. So we'll se what happens..