Making the Best of the Worst

Yesterday, I was feeling extremely depressed. Heck, I was on the verge of tears after the news that came from the Adventurers Management Division party held in a private locale in Jeuno.

To learn that I haven't hit my cap on the jobs I spent so long to learn... It was devastating. It demanded an entire revision of my objectives.

...But what objectives were obliterated? People complained of my whining for no reason, mainly because I couldn't come up with a real one, most argument sounding like poor excuses. I mean, I'm not the only one whose potential will be further unlocked and in need of new training campaigns for improvement. And heck, most of my subjobs are already leveled, only exceptions being Dancer and Scholar. So why whine higher than my counterparts who settled for an expertise level of 37 for said needed subjobs?

Took me a few hours to figure this one out, and a day to plan my next few months of adventuring around this impending change. My major problem is my personnal need to be as polyvalent as possible. And the solution is to delegate some roles I traditionally fulfilled in a pinch to my companions.

Thinking through it, I have 6 different jobs at full competency at the moment, and I was planning at least another one in the near future, as soon as I completed my current objective to be able to wear a full artifact set of armor for the 15 first jobs I've grown to know. That would have set me up for Maat's ultimate challenge, and a chance to earn one of his fabled caps. That isn't too much hurt. But after that, I was thinking of picking up either Red Mage or White Mage, to add a supporting healer role to my already wide array of available relief I can bring to events. Seeing how I can already tank as a Paladin, support as a Bard, deal damage as a Monk, nuke as a Black Mage and pull as a Thief, that seemed like the logical completion of my available services.

But once the cap is hightened to new levels, I know for a fact I won't be able to keep up with all my competencies. I'll have to pick which ones I still want to fulfill.

In so far is at least Monk and Bard. Considering how a lower level Bard still adds a lot to a party, that will probably fall in the back of my focused roles. Monk is at the front of it, as the title of my news blog surmises. That leaves four other jobs. Time to eliminate a few.

Blue Mage is out from the get-go. I do love unleashing the beast within me (even if it got in by what I would call "surgical rape"), but it's a very situational job in most events I partake in. As for Paladin... I'd rather leave that to Bucer, and maybe someday Snuggleh would take up the sword and shield. This last drop out means I can merit out for reduced enmity, which will help all my other non-tanking jobs.

Leaves Black Mage and Thief. ...Considering my Thief is only "useful" as a puller, it does fall back near my Bard in terms of importance. However, farming runs with Snuggleh would benefit from my Treasure Hunter ability, which I can expect to be further improved at the incoming higher levels. So it's bound to stay. As for Black Mage... Do you even have to ask? Coupled with my Monk, I can shake'n'bake some Yagudos. What's not to love! Besides, we're likely to rekindle our Zi'Tah manaburns, meaning I'll have an easy ticket with that job specifically.

And for that White Mage or Red Mage? ...That falls short of making my list at the moment. Unless I work hard to get it to at least 75 by the time our potentials' limit gets upped, it'll have to remain in the realms of "I wished."

Plan for the moment :

• Get my Beastmaster, Summoner and Red Mage to 60;
• Get my Dancer and Scholar to 50;
  
• Merit the hell out of my Black Mage;
• Get my White Mage to 75 if time allows.

Plan once the cap is removed

• Get my Genkai 6 done (like there won't be one -.-;);
• Cap my Monk;
• Cap my Black Mage;
• Cap my Thief;
• Cap my Bard.

Joy of joys. And I left out the whole "will the armor I get today be worth something by the end of the year?" Really... joy of joys.

This is getting old...

Yeah, yeah... I know... I'm not keeping up with the news. Heck, where was I last time?

*checks*

Damn.... There's plenty of stuff needing mentionned. Like how we prevented an all-out war with the middle-eastern kingdom of Aht Urghan, and destruction of the world by the Crystal Seed. Yeah, this whole "Save Vana'diel" thing needs to stop from time to time.

Currently, plenty is going on. Foremost, Snuggleh's training is mostly done with, now he falls into perfectionism mode. He needs to cap his skills, merit them fully, and get missing pieces of gear. While he does that, I'm training myself on my first love job, Ranger. ...Yeah yeah, some would say I'm leeching off him, but hey, my damage output is actually catching up to his, and quite rapidly at that. And I must have went through about 20 stacks of Scorpion Arrows, so no saying I'm doing nothing!

Otherwise, activities outside of the Ro'Maeve grind include Assaults, Salvage and Dynamis. Assaults are now seen mostly as a formality, as our static already attained Captain rank amongst Salaheem's Sentinels.

Salvage is done for the gear, but such proceedings are taking their darn time. Charriot bosses are being a bit skimpy on the desired drops as of late, not to mention Bhaflau's abyssmal drops from the Astral Gate NMs (given if they do show up.) We do have a good static for that activity, hopefully we'll still be sticking together even after we get our first one or two pieces of desired gear.

And Dynamis? Ooooh-ho-ho-ho! I need to be careful with that one! My sense of self-importance is starting to inflate quite rapidly. I still need to start documenting how I'm doing the pulls in those areas. I might be a fast learner, but sometimes I have to learn from doing things the wrong way... Painful thing.

One thing I'm disappointed about Dynamis is the lack of other pullers in our current team. I'm always elected by default for the nights I do am available. So much for leveling my Black Mage, I thought I'd have fun nuking stones and running around like a headless chicken when slept mobs go mad. Well, Bootymaster's getting that fun now. And knowing that Waddles is also on that team... yeah, sometimes I gawk at how awesome Black Mages can be in Dynamis.

I've done my first Dyna-Beaucedine, and we got the win there with a team of 18 people. That time, I got lucky and Zoar was assigned for the final pull. Next time I'm the one who has to run all across the zone with four dragons in tow. We barely made it too, Angra Mainyu died with only 30 seconds left to our Timeless Hourglass. That Chainspell Death thing? ...not a pretty sight, especially with a skeleton crew.

I also pulled my first San d'Oria. ...really, that was my first! All those other times, I came around as a Bard, for those few moments we had to deal with those pesky Hecteyes pets. Now that zone is much trickier than it first appeared to me. Right off the bat, one of the pulls brought along quite a number of statues. Now I know why we sometimes went the long way around near the residential area.

So... kinda getting late, got some paperwork that needs be filed for my adventuring permit. I know this is more than likely an empty promise, but I'll try to keep on the ball with updating my blog. I mean, we are trying to save the world yet again from Dr. Shantotto's newly revealed evil wrath. ...and to think I used to like her brand of evil genius...

A Spiked Fist in a Boghertz Glove

Not to toot my own horn (I do prefer the harp), but so far I've done Boghertz's...

*takes a deep breath*

Striking-Sorcerous-Sneaky-Stalwart-Shadowy-Wild-Harmonious-Chasing-Loyal-Lurking-Dragon Hands...-*faints*

Job Switch #228

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking...

"Snuggly, when will you stop jumping ships like that?"

...well, this time, it's slightly different. Sure, I did switch back to my Black Mage duties, but then again, I was already fulfilling that on the occasional Zi'tah party. Nah, the switch is on a different level.

...I've become a drill sergeant!

Wai-wai-wait! No! I didn't fall down to my dark side! I keep that for my Dark Knight days. Heck, if you were to compare me to Rongelouts, it'd be like comparing a grain of sand to Valkurm Dunes. Nah, I'm working on a much more microscopic level.

One rookie. That's it. A Galka too.

And never mention the word "subservient" around him. He's not pretty when he gets angry and throw a tantrum... and even less 2 minutes later as he's crying it all out.

So, true to my militaristic mentorship, I gave him a drill soldier name.

Snuggleh.

Real name? Maedaro. Hume-given name is Wet Onion. But he seems to not mind me calling him Snuggleh.

The drill training isn't that hard. After helping him out for his first 10 levels, I accompany him as either a support job or a melee one, depending on which role he's taking. His progress has been interesting (and even moreso my own.) He's currently a lvl22 Monk and lvl18 Warrior. Current program plans are :

Monk to 30
Dancer to 37
Samurai to 75
Ninja to 37

I've also signed him up for taking my spot in our Lightsday evening static, both for his Warrior and Paladin.

So far, he's followed orders well, and performed well at keeping mobs' attention away from my spellcasting. Only incident so far was he attacked a new notorious monster (I share the blame, I told him to pull *all* the birds at the camp.) Let's hope he keeps this up.

I Saw the Sign

Snuggly has a new flavor of the month!

Slowly but surely, gutting anticans open started losing its appeal. So I wondered what else I could do that would be a fresh start on something entirely new. A week past, I tried my hand at Red Mage'ing, but alas, all those spells I needed to cast to somehow manage to deal decent damage didn't do me in. So I kept pondering for a while.

Last night, I got really tired and decided to go back to Windurst back in the Shadowlord Era, and train myself on my Black Mage upon the invading Yagudo forces. Suffice to say, my nukes weren't strong enough to make a noticeable difference. So I stepped back into the role of "gimped healer". How often I wished I had my Paladin's Cure IV at the very least...

That's when it hit me. Like a hammer blow to the back of my skull. Either that or a Yagudo got the jump on me. Why not try out White Mage? Once the battle was over, that's exactly what I did. I Warped back to Jeuno and geared myself up. I even crafted my own Holy Maul seeing how none were available on the Auction House. All I'm missing right now is a Holy Breastplate.

Signal and Tactics Pearls in hand, I swiftly 'ported myself to the desert to give this a shot. Target : Giant Spiders. Boy, those things are really squishy! Now I see why Mei-chan wants to melee that badly : hammer blows to the head are fun-fun-fun! I don't understand though how come it feels easier to do this as a White Mage than a Red Mage, but heh, no use complaining, right?

So far, I really appreciate the ease with which I can move about, with all those teleport spells handy. I can Haste and Erase myself, even Shell and Protect Sahyu! This is really cool.

Let's cross fingers that hype'll last longer than a month or two.

Even More Decisions

People wondering why the sudden break? The short story is I broke my back... somehow. Must be all those repetitive swings as a Dark Knight. That scythe is hardly balanced. I'm still currently recovering, and pondering if I should add "Ouch! My aching back!!!" whenever I use Souleater.

Otherwise, this break gave me the time to take some perspective over what I'm currently doing. Right now, I have mainly three fields of focus :

- Getting my Dark Knight's level up (nutty-gutty);
- Getting my Black Mage's level up (pukey-nukey);
- Getting [--------this--------] much closer to my Maat's Cap.

Why Dark Knight? Because I've set my sights on the Ares Cuirass set in Salvage, and I might as well have more than my Paladin job enjoy that.

Why Black Mage? Because Mei told me to get it up. And it's fun watching stuff burn down. =^-^=

And why Maat's Cap? Well... uh... I guess it's for the power trip of being able to say "I did it"?

...Is it worth getting all those jobs to 66 (or more if I suck against Maat), and neglecting some other fun jobs like Puppetmaster? ...And yes, that job IS fun, just not all that useful compared to my Monk, Bard, Paladin, Blue Mage or Thief (and soon Dark Knight or Black Mage).

I'm starting to think that, if I do take a job to 66, I might as well go all the way, and not put too much focus on that accursed cap. I'm not travelling all over Vana'diel so I can get into some inner circles of "look at me, I'm über cool"... well, I do it anyways, BUT STILL!!! I'm doing this mostly for the fun and the laughs (otherwise known as "the lolz").

Being bossed around by Mei-chan is fun.

Seeing Booty and Bucer argue about menial stuff is fun.

Competing against Erin (and losing) over who's the better Monk is still fun.

Going out with Sahyu killing beetles and cactuars is also fun.

Hunting down testimonies to no end, and being forced to level jobs against my will just because I can get a reward from the old geezer? ...Anyone who says "priceless" gets my fists to their face, and if it's a guy, my foot to their crotch as a bonus.

...I still might get a Maat's Cap someday, seeing how I *DO* enjoy all those jobs, but I won't say no to a detour on my Corsair if given the chance anymore.

Yeah... now if only my back could stop phail whailing me...

Early Retirement?

I love being a Thief. A lot. But it seems it might be up for early retirement already. Why? Did I find another new flavor of the month? Not this time. No, the reason stands at the very opposite end of the spectrum than that for my usual job wagon jumping.

...I felt useless.

Last night started off as usual. We began with assaults, followed by a Salvage run, both of which I was definitely more useful as a bone-crusher than a throat-slasher. But then, I knew Dynamis would be my time to shine... until a series of deceptions struck me down.

I studied the maps for pulling Dynamis-Beaucedine prior to the event. I love to study route and pulling orders so I can be mostly prepared for what I was about to face. Alas, a group decided to forego procedure and went into that Dynamis in spite of our group having it called a month ahead of time. That group's leader went as far as calling us swines for complaining that he decided to destroy our planned run for his own, small, random-picked-up group's benefit.

Next, we decided to go for a Dynamis-Jeuno run, seeing no one had called it out for our scheduled run's time, thus the transposition wasn't going to harm any other group. However, I wasn't ready to pull that run, so I asked Mei-chan if I could have someone calling in the shots for me. I was initally told that Ketsuchi would be coaching me. That got retrograded to me watching Drfeelgood do his thing. And as I watched, I saw how much more professional he was, and how I was a long way from ever becoming that good.

But that wasn't the final nail in my coffin, oh no. My biggest gripe came from someone else in my immediate group that kept complaining about Dr's pulling, someone who's opinion I do value. Left and right, that person found flaws in his methods, criticized openly to our small group each and every action he undertook. So, by transposition, I wouldn't have liked to know what that person had to say about my pulling behind my back, were I not part of our small group.

Add to all that the fact we had 5 Thieves in last night's run.... All of which examined me at some point during the run... And yeah... I felt as useful as a nail planted deeply in my foot. As we were pulling the boss of that Dynamis zone, I looked at my knives, and how little use they were, especially my Thief's Knife, considering there were better Thieves in our group that were more aptly geared and experienced for trying to acquire more currency and relic armor than I would ever be.

It saddens me deeply, all of this. I'm starting to feel there is no job whatsoever that I can bring to those Dynamis runs that'll be more useful than my old dusty Bard. I'm pretty much stuck in that role... if I keep going to those events. I'm having a hard time managing that schedule as it is, especially last night with my head throbbing from my yearning for slumber. There isn't much I really desire to acquire from those events, getting relic armor merely being icing on the cake, cake which initially was supposed to be the event itself.

Now the cake has a very sour and dry taste in my mouth, and the icing isn't sufficient to compensate for that. I realize how pitiful a puller I really am in the shade of some other attendees, and how even those experienced pullers aren't sufficiently satisfying for some members of our group. And quitting Dynamis means my Thief career loses 80% of its usefulness to my eyes.

...I'll probably have a talk with Mei-chan first before I decide to sell back my gear. It feels like such a waste after investing myself so much into it. I guess I'm stuck being a Monk for the rest of my life.