FFXI progress. Good Luck Shirocat :)

So… what have I been up to? I’ve been playing more than I expected but finding it far easier to walk away when needed. My newish job out in the real world is keeping me on my toes which is great but sometimes leaves me tired or wanting to do other stuff rather than game. I’ve had a few busy weekends away too.

I’m still dipping into Guild Wars 2 as and when I feel like it. I have some good friends who play and I do like it but without the pressure of a subscription, I can pick it up and put it down as I wish. This weekend there’s a whole new area and dungeon etc to mess around with.

As far as FFXI goes, I think last night was pretty interesting. I got to try Provenance with a pickup group. When I came back at the end of August, I was quite a lot behind in terms of Voidwatch wins. VW being one of the things which pushed me over the edge. A future of only VW was enough to scare anyone away. All that being said, it meant that when I came back I only had 4 stones and no access to Provenance. I had Jeuno 1-3 complete, had fought most of Jeuno 5 and 6 but only had progress for one mob in 5 recorded. I hadn’t finished Zilart (needed the many-armed guy) and obviously hadn’t been there for the start of ToAU and CoP routes.

Got access to Provenance and have since fought Botulus Rex (Botox) and Ig-Alima. Was lucky enough to score an Athos’s tabard but haven’t seen a single piece of Rubeus gear! Kinda figures to be honest. I’d like the legs and feet but I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

I’ve also had a chance to fight Morta (weird mob!) which was cool.  Joined many, many Qilin shouts for cruor and plates really. Part of me would like to see a Coruscanti or even Lux but I doubt it’ll happen. Started a Celaeno shout the other day but was in direct competition with Pil and ended up going to do a Rani for Niamh instead to get her Epona’s Ring.

So, last night I got a ton of key items but alas no Provenance win. It was close but we fucked up and didn’t have time to finish because really people were slow to respond and react. Pretty pleased with my KIs from the Caturae and having had the chance to do the fight at least. Now I know what’s involved.

Niamh and I have been working on our backlog of Empyrean armour. We both have a lot of +2 but there are quite a few pieces which weren’t prioritised earlier which we both now are getting around to. Nia has been making a huge effort to upgrade her gear and macros. To which end, we managed to lowman the turtle KSNM99 (after many pops with her linkshell and others) and finally get her an egg for a black belt. Then we went for the Wyrm and got a beard.  Niamh went PLD, Shiro, Skudo and I went SCH, SCH, BLM and Kaz joined us on SAM for the Wyrm.   In all honesty I think Shiro could solo the freaking turtle. Was fun to do as a group though.  The Wyrm was hilarious. I thought I’d missed the magic burst when the Wyrm went from 80-20% with the combined efforts of Kaz’ skillchain and our nukes.

End result of all these KSNM99 (4) was one egg, one beard, two Faffy pops and later, one Nidhogg pop for a broke Kaz 🙂 Oh and Nia’s black belt of course!

Last evening in Altepa

Shiro (; 😉 made the decision to leave the server to find a stronger EU climate and try and get into some Legion etc. Before he went, he proc’d and brewed a Rani for Niamh in the hope of getting her an Epona’s. Sadly it dropped so we had to let the Shirocat go. Was sad. Shiro’s an awesome guy and a great player. I wish him luck over on Bahamut.

I’ve been helping Nia with her STR Great Axe and Nia’s been helping me with Carabosse for my empyrean gun. I liked COR a lot when I levelled it but Abyssea killed it for a while. Then Empyrean weapons and Wildfire revived it.  I decided a while before I quit to slowly get through the trials for the gun and then decide whether to make an Empy or a Walk of Echoes version. In the end the Empy is relatively easier and ends up with a better result so very slowly I’ve gotten through the trials and now am farming gems.

So you can see, I’m busy. Would like to do some Legion and more then the occasional NNI run but come the next update I’ll try harder to put together a NNI group and set something up. I know it’s possible to win NNI without third party hax but I know right now so many groups are using them just to do it regularly. It’s a step further than I’m comfortable with. I’m happy to sit back and wait for the changes and if needed spam floor 80s.

So if you’ve gotten this far, I’d love to know if you’re on an EU-heavy server…? In many ways I’d prefer to stay on Shiva but I’m aware that really the EU population is dwindling here. At least the population which might get Legion, ADL and other events done.  I’d be interested to know of servers which have more than one EU shell or generally are busy in EU primetime.