No matter who your friends are, or how much you can trust them... will they always be faithful? This isn't something that happened to me, nor am I going to put the real story in it, but I have been extremely bothered by something that has happened to one of my close friends recently.

Lets give a example...

If I was to somehow farm and solo a full Kirin pop set, lets say 2 or 3 pop sets, and I needed W Legs... Should i get priority lot on them? Maybe I farmed 2 or 3 SCNM pop sets and needed the helm from that zone, should i get priority lot? I think so. I think I should AT LEAST get the chance to lot the first one that drops against someone if nothing else.

So if I did farm the 3 Kirin sets and say the first Kirin dropped W Legs and someone else besides me gets to lot. I would be mad, but w/e couple more to go. Next two pop sets drop 1 more pair and I have to lot against someone else on the legs? And on top of that, lose the lot!?!

I have always been in a linkshell that did not have a points system but rather a "you lot this" system. It always worked out for me (maybe I was lucky), but now that I am in a points linkshell I can really see how it will shine. Recently a friend of mine had sometime similar to this happen to him and it has truly made me furious! I dont understand how a linkshell can take 3 pops of ANYTHING and just absorb them in to the linkshell and not give anything back to the person or persons who farmed them.

Using the Kirin example again. If the linkshell got say 2 W Legs, 2 Osodes, 1 D Body and 3 N Bodies.... Did the linkshell not benefit enough from the rest of the drops that they couldn't just give X person 1 pair of W Legs? Would it matter how long A B and C player have been waiting for W Legs since X player has farmed their own Kirin pops?

When it comes down to it, people in this world are just fucking greedy. The play the game to benefit themselves and dont give two shits about other people. Is it hard for them to go to sleep at night knowing that they have made someone else in the game angry? Probably not. Will they every say sorry even if they know they are in the wrong? Probably not. Will they know who they are if they read my blog? I fucking hope so.....

I am officially a full member of Apathy now and loving it. Apathy is a really amazing group of very skilled players who honestly make most things look boring now. 2-3 min Sarameya fights, 5min tier2 Jailers and of course, I now have 2 PW kills under my belt. Apathy has a great schedule that i can make most of the events to. Unfortunately the way the points system works, my attendance is very low because random pop mobs we grab are added towards your overall attendance. Even if i make 90% of scheduled events, i will only have a 50% attendance because of things like KV Ixion and Sandworm. Attendance aside, I have gained about 1700 points total in the shell (aside from the 1400 im still waiting to get for my Tinnin and Tyger pops) and have got 2 bigger items to show for some of them (still hovering around 700 points). I got my RDM AF2 belt a month and a bit ago, and just last week for my Homam Legs!. Just need Homam Hands and my pld wont look so silly anymore.

Been camping one of the new NM's on my spare time recently because i really need a stupid haste belt. Im 0/14 now on Swift Belt and its becoming harder and harder to get people to help. I went 2/2 on Headlong belt, but ended up selling them because they were new and people were paying a lot. I am trying get drop on another one now to keep it. Aside from getting that for myself, Apathy has been trying to get drops from the new Taru Fomor NM a lot recently because i think 80% of the shell wants that HP neck for their DRK zerg build. Taru Fomor is not too bad of a kill and once we got our strat down we are killing it in around 30min. Tried the Mithra a couple times but she seems to be a GIANT WHORE and loves to rape face. I dont know the damage she does to a Paladin, but hit my bard last night for double 400+ (duel wield so every hit is a double attack) with the lovely en-silence added effect.


Annnyways I just thought i would throw a post down with a little update on whats going on in the world of Hogie :)

Soooooo i know its been forever since i updated this, and I have no idea if anyone even reads it! But, fact of the matter is i have left my old server and joined Apathy of Remora to further what i love doing most in this game.

Ill let you know briefly why i left.  Basically after i left Radiance, i joined a linkshell called FragmentedTears.  This is a great shell and I had no problems with anyone in the shell, but i needed more in the game.  I wanted to do a couple more events a week, and FT just did not have the members nor the want to do things like Dynamis and Einherjar and they were two of the major things i wanted to do.  After about 4 months in FT, I started up a low man Dynamis linkshell that went once a week and it was going great.  I think we peeked at around 15 members until some left and then leveled out around 10.  We did amazing in all City zones as well as Xarc and we all made a good chunk of money. 

After deciding i wanted to join a new shell that did more of what i wanted, i looked around for a little while (almost applied to FrenzyLS but decided not too.  Thankfully too because it seems they may have broke).  I read on BG that Apathy of Remora was recruiting, and i put in a app the very next day.  Apathy for people who are unsure of were firsts in almost everything in the game.  They have taken down PW many times and were some of the first people to take out AV before the multiple patchs.  They have some extremely skilled players and upwards of 40 relics + mythics in the shell.  I transfered servers on Friday night last 9/18/2009 and have not stopped having fun yet!  B2 Friday night, Odin Saturday (I didnt have access, but they won with 15 people... Ebody and Valk Body!) Sunday was Dynamis Tav (Didnt have access because of Dynamis on Leviathan on Thursday) netting them 2 RDM hats and 2 BLM hats.  Last night we did Tier3 ZNM's as well.  Wed we are going to finish up the Tier3 ZNM's and that will give me a full Tyger pop set that i farmed myself.  Because the LS is points based, they reward people for providing full Tier4 pop sets so this will net me 700 points for providing this, or 2.5mil if i was to cash the points in.  

All in all, I could not be happier with where i am not and the events i am doing.  Unfortunately though, I do miss my friends from Leviathan and they all know who they are!  Everyone from FT and Limbus, friends who i was not in shells with (You all know who you are).  Just wanted to give a shout out to a couple people:

Shidobu:  You sexy black beast.  You will be missed the most and i wish you could of came with me.  Dont forget to text me and send me messages in game or ill be forced to come to Texas and eat some Whataburger with you!.... now that i think of it thats not that bad of a idea anyways :)

Tzeln:  Thanks so much for everything you did man.  Possibly the most humble person i know in the game and nothing but a true friend!

Members of FT: Ill miss you all, really a awesome group of people to play with, it just wasn't it for me unfortunately :(

To all my other friends, we will talk soon i hope through messages and IM!




On another note, im going to try and keep this more up to day (Yeah i say that every time).  Ill try and post pics soon of things i am doing and new 1337 items i get.

Its been a while since i updated my LiveJournal but since my last update there has been so much happening that I dont know where to start!

First thing is first, I left my HNM LS Radiance a little while back (just before my Charby post).  I loved that linkshell and still do love the players in it and respect them, HNM just was not for me anymore.  The camping Kings and SW/IX was just killing me and with my play time was not leaving me with any time to do what i really wanted to do.  I did join a social end game events linkshell that a friend leads that does similar events, but no Kings and events are only once or twice a week rather then every day. 

<3 Radiance but i just couldnt handle it anymore :(

Before i joined my new linkshell, i was doing a lot of soloing and just trying to make money.  I farmed Sky almost every day solo, duo with my blm mule, or Duo Trio with a couple friends.  We ended up getting a Despot trigger with couple friends and then i ended up soloing Zip SC and 2 BB's.  I ended up getting 4/8 triggers and then latter on getting a Ulli with some LS friends making 5/8 and a full Byakko set.  The Byakko set will hopefully be used tonight to sell a pair of Haidate.  

Other then attempting to make gil and most of the time losing, i just last night finally got Rank 10! Yay 100k lol.  After getting Rank 10 i found that my mule was on the final fight for Windy Rank 10 so i finish it up for him as well since some people in the shell needed Windy rank10 fight as well, Yay another 100k!  Unfortunately i dont have any luck with crafting so no fun +1 synths recently but i might try my luck soon with some cursed gear.

On another note, I have had so much time on my hands to do what i want that i finally got some progress in missions and job leveling.  I got a nice static on my SMN so i finished that to 75.  I had most of the gear for it at 75 so i figued i might as well :)

BP - Delay http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=76478
Idle - http://www.ffxiah.com/members/?q=item_sets&set_id=76475

If im idleing with a avatar out ill have the right staff and what not, and boots change if im not running around.  Keep Gaiters on for Carby though because he is free without the -perp boots.

After i got SMN to 75 i started to level up my PLD more, currently sitting at 59.  After doing all this leveling recently I think im going to shoot for a Maats cap sometime soon.  I want to get PLD to 75, but after that i think ill just bring everything up to 66 and then i can take it from there.  I hope to get PLD close to 75 as soon as possible so i can start to log Homam gear :) 

Aside from Leveling and making money, right now i have a couple things i really really want to do.  Rank 10 was one of my goals and thats done, so now that it is done what will i do now?  Well i need 1 fight to finish ToAU and 1 fight to finish DM so they are my starting goals.  After DM of course i want to climb the promys and get Apoc Nigh done.  Although i would love some of the Nyzul gear, i think right now i just want to concentrate on getting a Assault static and them all done.  With getting all the Assaults done ill be able to get Yigit boots for my BLM and also get a lot of points for when i start to do Salvage.

Last but not least, a friend of mine was recently banned and came back to the game and i have been leveling with him recently, i was throwing around the idea of switching to Bastok as well and getting Rank10 with him but who knows what will happen.

Until next post!

After maintenance the other day i figured it was finally time to get a Joytoy after years of losing claim and losing lots.  I thought i would try it solo because i had heard of other people doing it, so i thought i would give it a try.  After about 30min of camping, it pops.  A DNC THF RDM trio claimed it but because of a really rough claim, they soon after wiped.  I pulled it with Bind, then Poison and headed out the room.  My plan was to keep about 45 distance away from it in a safe area where i dont need sneak, then wait for it to come to me and bind it there.  Then i would just resneak and rinse and repeat until i was all the way upstairs at the lake where people fish.

After a couple rough tried and losing claim a couple times to have it run back to spawn, i finally got it all the way upstairs.  Right at the end a Ninja friend just voked it and ran it all the way to the lake for me.  Once i was at the lake, it was very simple to kite it and keep any DOT on it or bind / gravity it as needed.  My only problem was, every time i would round one of the corners, i was losing hate.  Now i am not sure if it was because maybe someone in the other party had cast on it at one point, or maybe just the pathing was strange, but every time rounding this corner it would happen.  I was kiting it clockwise around the lake, and eventually after about 10min i got it to 80%, it went white and the DNC team pulled it off me.  10min later it died and i was a very emo Rdm.

Two things strike me on this.  One, would you pull it off someone who was solo and made all that effort to bring it to a safe place to kill it? Yes, i know its a pain in the ass NM to camp, but i spent about 20min slowly bringing it up to the lake just to have it stolen from me, thats bull if you ask me.  Next, and my main question, has anyone soloed this up there before?  Should i maybe of been kiting it counter clockwise and then i wouldn't lose hate?

Either way, heres the only pic i got to take of it while at the lake, i think at this point it was somewhere around 95%, i lost hate at 80%

So after about 5 successful wins in this ENM solo, i had just lost 2 in a row... but why?  Everything I did was the same, no problems at the state.  Well its simple, the location of the helpers and where they spawn

There is 1 pop location, and if a helper pops there at the start you can kiss the whole method goodbye.  If you take a look at the map below, the spawn point at the top right part of the kite path, that is the one that will screw you.  If something pops here, it is right on top of your kite path and you really just cant get around it.  I have tried hugged the left wall and hugging the right wall and neither work.  Only thing I have not tried yet and might work (slim chance) would be to kite it something like the blue line i have drawn on the picture (kiting counter clockwise again)..... still unsure really if this will work.  For the time behind i am going to just kill this NM duo with a friend, or i might try 2boxing my gimp mule.  There is really no point in losing such a easy ENM and risk such good money.

 ENM

Friend of mine was doing some KS99 Wyrms last night and i asked if i could tag alone to play with my Fire Build.  Quite honestly, RDM is a amazing tank in that fight, i really cant explain how well it worked.  Here is my current fire resist build, it may not be ideal for Tiamat yet, but you can see how well it worked on Wyrm:



My first build actually has 2 Ruby rings, but my macro must of messed up when i took this picture and it only switched 1 ring.  This is with Barfire and Fire Carol, and alone in gear it gives me 145 Fire Resist.  Easiest upgrade i want to make to this is a Scorpion Breastplate but i cant seem to find any HQ Scorption Shells on AH.  After getting that i should sit at 149 and from there it is basically just upgrading to some HQ gear and or Black Ribbon.   Since i will prob never get to use this build, im not going to upgrade to HQ's anytime soon.



That is with full Fire Build, Carol and Barfire, Shell4 and Phalanx.  Our tank party WHM didn't have Shellra5 but she had capped Barfire merits.  Now i am not entirely sure if the 1 dmg screenshot above is with the 304 Fire Resist, or if i had both rings on for 313 Fire, but i dont think it will make a difference because the PLD i was taking with had 301 and he was getting hit for 26 as well (26 was what i got hit without Phalanx)




Synthed a Corla Visor +1 putting me at 21% Magic Damage Taken down.  Here is a look at my new Magic Down build.  Im really hoping to get a Resolute Belt because it will bring up my Magic Defence Bonus.  Mermans Earring and Coral Greaves +1 will be my next synths to make, and ill leave Coral Scale Mail +1 as my last to try and get.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=65660

 

I have been away a couple weeks, vacation with my girlfriend and then my computer died on me and I had to reformat everything.  After reformatting and reinstalling the game (8 hours later) I cringed as I had to remake my macros.  But as I started to make my macros, I realized that a lot of them were not updated fully before and some were just in weird spots.  This brought me to think that the way I had stuff set up before was just over all weird and did not work for me.

Now being a mage primary, a lot of people are surprised that I do NOT use spell cast.  Yes, I’m sure it will make my life a little easier, but quite honestly it is one of the things that makes me feel like I’m not even playing the game anymore and it’s playing itself while I watch it.   Yes, I use Windower and a lot of tools that go with Windower to change the way I play, but spellcast for some reason seems as too much I don’t know why.

So anyways, after I got back in to the game, I started to make new macros.  First thing I found when making my new macros is there is a way to actually save them locally! How to Save Macro's.  Anyways, after I figured I will do that once I am done making all my macros, I started to think "Why did I have this macro there before" and realized that a lot of my macros were in odd places just because I had put it there at one point and then just forgot about it and used it from there.  Now you’re probably wondering why the hell I’m even saying this, but it’s all because I get asked all the time how I set my macros up.  I let people know and sometimes they say "ohhh that’s great thanks it helps" and sometimes I get "ohhh that strange I can’t work like that".  What I’m getting at is that your macros are all dependent on you and your play style!  I have macros in strange places, but I’m use to them so they are easy for me to use.  When I started to re-make my macros and I put stuff in new spots, I couldn’t play and I was casting wrong spells all the time and it made me honestly look like a bad player.

Long story short, macros are a huge part of your OWN play style and how you work.  Make your own macros for how you want to play because taking someone else’s will only be strange for you because it’s not how you play!



MDB!

Ok so recently I got in this fix where I really wanted to build the ultimate Magic Damage Down set.  Why you ask?  I have no idea, but i want it!  Mainly this is for eating Citadel Busters from you know who after I tanked him on RDM/NIN with little to no MDB gear and didn’t die once to CB.  I went out and got a Resentment Cape (Yay 1/1 drop) and crafted a few pieces of gear, next thing you know I’m sitting at -20% Magic Damage Taken and +7 Magic Defense Bonus

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=65660

Couple pieces I’m still missing, mainly +1 items and 1 AH item. I might just do assaults for the Resolute Belt if I can’t find one on AH. The rest of the Coral +1 gear I plan on synthing myself (I really wish I signed the other pieces). Once I get Coral +1 Body Head Feet and Resolute Belt and a Merman's Earring, my set will be complete putting me at -24% Damage Taken and +9 MDB. Now I know I can get more MDB if I sacrifice my Bomb Queen Ring and Cassie Earring, but is it really worth losing the 125HP for a couple more MDB?  Let me know what you think!


Solo ENM!

I will upload pictures later tonight since I am at work, but I literally timed out at 1%.  I had 2 resisted nukes, and at least 1 nuke that didn’t go off because I was impatient and messed up.  Couple times were I might have rested a little too much, and I also botched my chainspell at the start and was spamming my regen macro on it and couldn't understand why it was saying "Unable to cast that spell on your target" while I freaked out yelling "WHAT THE FUCK WHY CANT I ATTACK IT!!!!"  After I looked at my hand and my screen and realized I was spamming regen, I laughed and then..... well, go back up to the Macro section and re-read the part where I said I didn’t have my macros in the right spot :(

All and All its a VERY easy ENM.  I am going to give it another try sometime next week, and if I win I want to try doing it on BLM.  I have a feeling that BLM might be easier because they will be able to force it in to the ground a lot quicker giving them time to rest to make up for convert, but RDM is my first try.

 

Ok, so after reading Ffxirog's post about soloing this ENM, i thought i would give it a go.   There is simply one thing you need to make this work, and thats AP Radar.  Call me a cheater all you want, whatever i dont care, i want to try and solo this simply solo it.  I dont plan on doing it every week to make money, i just like to solo stuff.

First problem i ran in to was that my Ap Radar was not showing up the monsters the way it should be.  After scrambling to try and get it to work, i gave up and figured i would spend the remaining time working out the kinks to find out how it will work.  Here is a pic of what AP Radar looks like if it is not working proper:





Ok so once i was in the and figured out that my AP Radar wasnt working, i wanted to at least test out some things to ensure that when i do get it working, i will be able to get this done.  First thing i found right off the start is Bind and Gravity do not work, dont bother trying.  Next thing is you HAVE to kite it counter clockwise around the pilar in the middle, otherwise you will not gain any ground on it and not be able to nuke.  (See image below for kite path)

I grabbed this image from somewhere on Blue Gartr forums and edited a bit to show what i found.  The starting spawn pop is always the same, when you zone in you have about 20 feet you can run, then the NM will spawn.  As soon as it pops you have a couple options, i found out quickly that gravity was not one of them.  On my next try i think i will Chainspell the first 25% of him standing right there at his spawn point so ensure i have 2 converts if needed.  From the point you spawn him if you decide not to Chainspell, you will need to run straight past it and start on your kite path.  As you follow the red line around the center pilar, there is a log so eligantly shown on my MS Paint that you will be able to run inside of, but the NM will not be able to, this is where you build the kiting room.  Once you pass this log, wait a little bit more and you will notice your distance between you and the NM become a lot very quickly, there is your time to nuke.

As another side point, all the little red dots are possible spawn points for either NM or minion.






Seeing as i did not win, i cant tell you much more about this.  Once i forced it underground i went looking through all the spawn points, and of course it was the third one to pop.  I tried to keep kiting and killing but it was just too much and i ran out of time. I'm going to give it another try next Tuesday or Wednsday.


If anyone has any idea how to fix my Ap Radar that would be a awesome help.  PM me if you dont wana post public about it.