naryaffxi

And just like that, I'm calling it quits to an almost 4-year long phenomena. The last couple months, I've been almost non-existant in-game (which actually makes things a little easier) but now , I can let go and move along. Primal will have control of Narya from here on out. I have good times in my head and with all the friends made online, I'm sure we'll be having more meetings in the near future.

I'll probably be leaving this journal account open as a memorial for the time being. To all my friends in and out of NuDawn, I can be contacted in MSN still. Keeping it short and sweet this time lol

In Memoriam

We got the drops for the spawn and it was just a matter of setting aside a time that we can guarantee our numbers and Saturday, December 9 was the day. The fight lasted well past 3 hours, making this one hell of an endurance match. We had the teams ready and it was just a matter of killing off the summons to stop JoL's incredible regen and then going for the kill. I was the WHM (SMN sub) for the add team, which entailed assisting both the melee for the aern pops and the BLMs assigned to nuke the summons. So I couldn't really afford to rest during those long hours. The add team did an phenomenal job with Zechs using NIN/BRD to pull the summons from the main alliance while Bacrelant pulled the aerns. Once JoL's regen stopped, the teams switched up, with the summoners joining the main alliance, leaving the barest minimum to fight the adds that we could afford while the main alliance worked on JoL.

Deaths were kept to a minimum, usually when the summons managed to blitzkrieg one of the BLMs before they got nuked down. I couldn't really tell how the main alliance did throughout the fight as I kept well away from JoL's AOEs but from the brief time I delved in to assist the main alliance with a spare stona or so, it was plenty busy there.

In the end, JoL died, dropping a Love Halberd (went to Djuro) and a Love Torque (went to Darkanubis). Congratulations to everyone involved, this was most certainly the best example of a team effort!

...Oh and Absolute Virtue did not pop, dammit!

( Clicky )

Been keeping a low profile since I sort of took a break from the game to concentrate on rl matters. I do log in for the important NuDawn raids and for assaults with Prim and Chindy. Also, work keeps me from attending many of the raids on the weekdays due to them being scheduled around 4PM my time and I don't usually get home till around 6ish. However, I do finally have some updates!

( Clicky )

The penultimate shot of the last mission in this current crop from the new update.



If you haven't done the new missions, get to work! Nice new long CSs and a new BC fight with new monster, Khimaira 13. I'll post more pics later. I'm about to crash. Also, Prim, Chindy, and I managed to get Sergeant status in Assault! Tier 6 assaults, woot!

Managed to get some things done from the list in my previous entry!

- Got Black Halo.

- Got 3rd piece of Yigit gear (Yigit Crackows)

- Got my choco whistle. Fire Emblem is now a fine adult bird!


However, some sad tidings. While I was away in Oregon (for an unofficial NuDawn/SpecialK gathering!), an Optical Hat run was announced for Tuesday. At the time, I only had the Wooden eye and still needed 4 more eyes to get a Hakutaku cluster (I had been wanting an O Hat for years but never got it since, well, I'm a WHM and it was never a priority and I ended up not playing Narya for a year. Ever since I wanted to try a WHM/NIN solo combo, I finally got off my ass to try for one). I got back on Monday, which gave me only 1 night to gather the eyes. After an unsuccessful attempt to get the Golden eye from the Mindgazers in Sea Serpent Grotto (wtf is the drop rate on these things???), Kakarot and I hunted for the other eyes the next day. The other eyes dropped easy enough and we tried the Mindgazers again but after about 2 hours, no eye dropped and the Op Hat run was about to begin. So reluctantly I let Kaka go to the raid while I scoured the bazaars for a cheap Golden eye. After going to Jeuno, Rolanberry, and Whitegate, the only thing I could find was a Golden eye someone was selling for a million gil (Freaks! A hakutaku cluster doesn't even sell for that much!) So I didn't get it and with some glumness, I joined the raid to at least help out the others get their hats. The sucky thing is I get the sense not a lot of people like to do this raid and I believe all melee in NuDawn have this hat and this raid was supposed to get the hats for the rest of the people who never got it. So it may be months till another raid is scheduled (try getting a raid for Hakutaku together for 1 WHM lol). Ah well, least Kaka got a decent b-day present :)

Also, as aforementioned, we had ourselves an unofficial NuDawn/FFXI gathering over the weekend! I got to meet Primal, Xren, Spartacus, Chindy, Talel, Overdark, Eirias, and Zarkon face-to-face for the first time! We met in Portland, Oregon and had ourselves a grand ol' time. The Oregonians were excellent hosts and did their very best to keep us all entertained. They also eat pretty damn well, with us being taken to the Original Pancake House (YUM!), the Chopshop steakhouse (double YUM!), and Shun's (excellent Japanese restaurant, sugoi!) to name a few. I took like over a hundred fifty photos during the time there and apparently my camera decided to be a bastard and corrupted the images. The pics are now unreadable and I am sad :( (The only good thing out of that is it saves me from having to clean, fix up, and upload the photos :D ) So if anyone who was there taking photos during the weekend (*eyes Xren, Primal, and Zarkon*), I would like to see your pics so I can least retain some of the memories lol

Been awhile since the last post. This is due to me being away in Austria and an overall lack of activity going on for me in-game. Decided to put together a list of 10 things I would like to accomplish and see what ends up getting done.

- Going to Promyvion-Holla to the 4th floor and getting that damn sliver. No responses from anyone in the shell to do this anymore. So I'll prolly get a pick-up group.

- After getting said sliver, doing Apocalypse Nigh. Get me an earring!

- Finishing the San d'Oria missions. Currently on Mission 8-2 Lightbringer.

- Getting all 5 pieces of Yigit Gear. Currently at 2/5, almost 3.

- Killing Shen for Reverend Mail. I have a shrimp lantern.

- Killing Hakutaku for O. Hat. Got a wooden eye and the others shouldn't be that difficult to get.

- Getting NIN to 37. Currently at level 28.

- Getting the Black Halo WS. All I need to do now is kill the NM.

- Getting 75 ancient beastcoins for my loquacious earring. Currently past the halfway point with 39.

- Raising Fire Emblem to the best of my abilities. Currently, she considers me her parent and has won 2 choco-races so far!


Chindy and Talel had their wedding a while back. Yeah yeah, it's old news but I never did post my pics from that. Highlights were the Wedding Master DCing while saying the vows, old members of NuDawn showing up for the event, and Sojourn getting owned by not only the GM who showed up to explain the absence of the WM but the WM herself lol.

( The Pics! )

In between activities such as getting the clear for Dynamis-Beaucedine and getting my Black Halo weaponskill, I turned Narya into a mother hen and hatched this:

Say hello to Fire Emblem!


Taking her for a stroll in Ronfaure


Awwww


Took about 4-5 days to hatch and she's still too weak to do much. She was hatched from an egg I bought from the mithra cub in Jeuno. I want to experiment and see if those eggs are truly any different from the ones obtained in the choco quest and from the ISBCs. We'll see!

This is how Narya would look with full Yigit set and dual-wielding Mjollnir and a Morgenstern (utilizing the latest Altana viewer). I'm very close to getting 3/5 of the Yigit set. However, a Morgenstern is a bit aways and as far as Mjollnir is concerned, HAHAHAHAHAHA!





NuDawn recently kicked out an Apollyon 3 Kings run. Wow, this had to be one of the smoothest runs I've been on. Definitely pretty good for my first 3 Kings run. We went at it with 14 people and it was like clockwork. The wyvern/Fafnir floor went especially well, with blink-rotos and all the SCs going off beautifully. We didn't have any deaths until the behemoth floor, where a stun/meteor combo took out a couple of us. In the end, I think we had something like 15 min left on the clock. I got another 4 coins from it and we got our drop for an Omega run next time. Yep, we raped the 3 Kings pretty good.

Managed to get pics from the Behemoth floor. I was too focused/excited to worry about pics on the other floors lol



Saturday, we took on Bahamut 1st form for prep for Apocalypse Nigh. Took it on with only 13 people and got the win! Now, I just need to get the sliver from Promyvion-Holla and I can do AN and get my hands on a Magnetic Earring (my personal choice). Anyone want to help escort me in Holla? lol

(Edited to make this more current)

WHM 75 (Devotion=1, Cure Casting time=1, Shellra V=1, Max MP=1)
SMN 40
BRD 40
BLM 37
THF 25
NIN 27
WAR 20
PLD 10
Everything else is 1

28 Ancient Beastcoins (out of 6 Limbus runs so far!) going towards a Loquacious Earring.

Current plans are to level NIN to 37. This is for my own soloing purposes (and amusement) and to just see how well I really do as a melee WHM. To that end, I'm trying for a Optical Hat and Reverend Mail to round things out (I missed out on a Shen run last week. I can only hope NuDawn plans another!) I've been idling thinking of playing more with my BLM and would make this more of a serious consideration if I had a static to party with.

However, WHM will always be my first and foremost job. I've been one from the very beginning (yeesh, since Nov. 03!) No one trained me and I had to learn everything myself or what was released in forums. It's been one long run of experimentations and asking a bunch of silly questions but I'm still enjoying it and I still seek to make better use of my skills. And of course, always making sure I have the best gear for the job (I can't believe I still use my AF1 pants and hat though :P I need to make some moneys.)

( This week in pictures - Spoilers inside )

And so CoP finally comes to a close...





Despite all the hardships of getting to this point, I'd have to say the ending really makes up for it. The final battle with Promathia with the party fighting alongside Prishe and Sel'theus was incredibly fun. These are truly some of the best scenes I have seen yet in this game. I took a bunch of shots, but to display them all here would be more annoying than I'd care for in this entry. However, it all boiled down to me getting this delectable morsel...

(Low funds courtesy of an impulse purchase of a darksteel maul +1) Note that with the ring, I finally reached the 40 mark with MND without the use of food!


And that wraps up my CoP run! However, I'm sure that there will be people who need to wrap up their runs too. I enjoyed this, so I'm perfectly willing to help out!

( And now for the Hydra fight )

Right now, I'm currently involved in Limbus, seeing what all the hype is about. Done Apollyon SE and Temenos (with the elementals and avatars) so far. Between the 2 fights, I'm up to a total of 9 ancient beastcoins! Too bad I need 75 to get a loquacious earring!

I also been keen to see how I do as a melee WHM. To that end, I've decided to get a Optical Hat and Reverend Mail. I'd have to really scope around to see what else I'd need to be more effective. Prolly will level NIN a bit to play with an idea Spart had put in my head back when we were in SpecialK about a dual-wielding WHM with hammers! I had a little bit of practice with that in a recent Ballista fight with fellow NuDawners (my first Ballista!) Diaga is surprisingly very effective here as its AOE status takes out multiple shadows and it's amazingly fast on the recast. Silence works very well on BLU mages who like to use Disseverment to kill people lol

This pic should explain it all.

This update promises to be one of the best in recent times. Looks like a lot of content for the high-level crowd! As WHM, I get Protectra/Shellra V as part of my merits. At first I was focusing my merits on my cure speed and MP, but the way I see it, I'll be selling myself short if I don't get those spells in my repertoire asap. Anyone up for a nice xp run? :)

Also, raptor mazurka for my bard sub! Certainly don't mind that! Would be perfect for Assaults!

But as of now, the update is only halfway done. So I can reflect on my accomplishments since my last post.

NuDawn did 2 Rostrum Pump runs recently. Now before this, I didn't even have a clue what these pumps do. So, I was ignorant about even obtaining a pair for myself. Once I did the research for the runs, I ended up scrambling to get the synth items to get the Antlion trap needed to pop the Feeler Antlion NM. However, I was missing the crucial item, the 2 HQ antlion jaws that can only be obtained by killing cave/trench antlions (the ones that spring from the ground). Since I didn't have time to get these before the scheduled run, I figured I lost out that day. Fortunately, I had asked Zarkon earlier if his Bonecrafting was up to snuff to craft me the antlion traps. Since he knew I needed the jaws, he came up to Attowha Chasm himself and got the jaws needed and crafted me a trap on the spot during a break between Feeler pops! Zechs in NuDawn allowed me to turn my trap in as one of the ones to be used for the pops. And go figure, I won the randoming for the next pop! After a tough alliance fight where it took about 9 Executioner antlions before the Alastor showed itself, I got my Rostrums!


The other big accomplishment was getting PM5-3 completed! I took an opportunity to gather some friends together for the Snoll Tzar run. Darkpanther, who also needed this, joined in on the fun. After a bit of journeying to Uleguerand where an accidental aggro from a molech almost cost me my life (thanks Prim and DP for the save!) we made it to Bearclaw Pinnacle where we had an amazing Snoll Tzar fight.

Since I had no prior pictures before the fight, I "borrowed" this from Soze's LJ. I was too excited/nervous to bother taking pictures. This was an amazing shot of us (many thanks to Soze for taking this pic!).

The FF version of the Usual Suspects lol


Thanks to everyone (and some awesome SpecialK teamwork), we made this a 1/1 victory for Darkpanther and I against the Snoll Tzar. Over showed how much he loves SpecialK by giving Prim his Cover over his sister Eirias lol. A combo Benediction/Cover allowed Prim to make the kill and get us the win! It was awesome to see and exciting to be a part of it.

Close call but it was good to see the CS afterwards!


Yes! Inching closer and closer to Sea!


Good to see you too, Samurai Joe!


Random screenshot!
This was taken between waiting times for the Rostrum Pumps pops. We got bored and decided to take on Xolotl. Can Barados avenge the death of Chindy?!

It was something I always wanted ever since the very early levels of my WHM. At the time, only a select few had them. The HQ version was something only rumored to be had by the higher echelons of JP players. I would have probably had one a long time ago had I not taken my break, but finally I am now the proud owner of...


And even Gucci-signed to boot!


This is sort of a continuation of my last post. Haha, I'm gonna love wearing this all over the place. Even looks good with the Yigit Turban! Many thanks to you guys in NuDawn for the Kirin run that finally netted me the Shining Cloth I needed!



My pic of the week! Caught Ehlana using her taru for her 'pat-pats' with Over the lucky victim this time! lol good times

Since the last update, not terribly much has happened. Managed to do PM 5-3 Sin Hunters and Louverance's Path (thanks to everyone who came out to help for these!) Now only Snoll Tzar is left. Been caught up lately with the Land Kings too.

So I've been working on updating my gear a little. More for soloing since I haven't done much with groups lately. Haven't felt terribly inspired to level the other jobs. The idea of going back to pick-up groups just makes me ill and I usually pop on too late to level with the other NuDawn members.

Got my Civet Sachet RSE item back! Took 8 tries of doing Aroma NM runs on my RSE days but finally got it off the Aroma Crawler in Maze of Shakrami. I also managed to get my hands on a Shrimp Lantern, the pop item for Shen (Uragnite NM in Purgonorgo Isle) who drops the Reverend Mail! I really want this armor, not just because of its abilities (Scorpion Harness for WHMs) but just for the sake of having a new body piece! I love walking around in new armor lol However, the NM requires a full lvl 75 alliance to defeat and that's tough to gather when I'm the only one to benefit. My best hope is to find another WHM who has a Shrimp Lantern in NuDawn and that would increase the chances of getting people interested to go.

I also have been raising Yoli II. She's currently lvl 42 and kicking ass as a Fierce Attacker. At first, I thought about getting her full Adaman armor but I like the armor you get when you do beastmen-controlled areas.


I've also been cleaning up at Assault. First I got my Antivenom Earring:
Level: 50
Jobs: All
Races: All
Defense: 0
Effects for Antivenom Earring:
MP +15
Enhances Resist Poison Effect
MP Regeneration While Healing +1

After that, I formed a pseudo-static with Chindy and we started attacking Ilrusi Atoll's Golden Salvage. Chindy does all the work looking for the cursed chest while I and a third person we drag along (usually someone Chindy has access to) sit around and wait for the spoils. It's effective and we pull 1k Assault Points each time. Thanks to that, Chindy got a new body piece:



As for me, I got:

(Chindy got one of these too)


and



Thank you, guys!


I hope to get the entire Yigit set. It'll be nice to walk around in and the effects are not bad at all (although the head and legs are the more beneficial pieces to me). With the coming update, we're going to tackle the lvl. 3 Assaults and move on up the mercenary ranks!

Last but not least, I got a new piece of head gear from Penalope who left the game. She gave her character to the NuDawn officers, but before she left, she was giving away some of her gear and I managed to get this:

Thank you, Pena! I will treasure this and have a lot of fun triapsing through towns with it on lol

This is old news by now, but this was one of those things that just surprises you when you log in:



Yes, NuDawn had their pearl broken. It has since been brought back and the LS has more or less come together again. But not without major changes in leadership (and this is still not quite resolved yet) and with a couple of us not coming back. The changes are for the better and hopefully, we won't ever repeat the mistakes of the past.

So, a moment of silence for the old NuDawn...and to the future of the new and improved one.


Anyways, to the better news. I finally got somewhere with my job levels. Got THF to lvl 25, for the all fun Flee! I would love another crack at Lebros Cavern assault tier 2! Also, finally got my BLM up to 37, so it's no longer my gimp sub anymore!

And PM 5-3 is finally underway. Got Tenzen's Path completed!







Time for a mithra snack! CHOMP!

This is what happens when I don't post in a while. I have so much I want to catch up and show and it's tough to do in one entry. But it has been a very productive last few weeks. And here it is in review!

( 27 Pics complete with captions! )

I was so on this. I was on time, I was stoked to be there from the very beginning. We did not win, in fact, this time, we didn't even get it below 88% (approx.) We attempted 2 tries. 1st time, we lost since we couldn't control the summoned mobs. 2nd time, we had things under control and we made awesome progress. Then, Vrtra, oh wicked Vrtra, laughed in our faces and unleashed Sable Breath on our BLM & SMN teams, nearly wiping them all out. We couldn't recover from that fast enough and we called it a day. However, I had a lot of fun and did my best to keep up with the tanks as we did our loop-de-loops around the cave. The poison potions worked great and I was only slept when they wore and I got hit by Sleepga II just at that moment -_-

Many thanks to Norrissnake/Nomo, Penalope, and Cabsha for the rescue attempt in getting Nikorow's and my carcass out of the cave, lol!

( Here's the pics! )

I wanted to do my expansion posts a lot sooner than this, but it's busy in rl and in-game. And tonight's a rare opportunity to do a little posting. I wanted the 2nd part of my expansion posts to cover the new mobs in the expansion, but since right now Assault is the big thing in the game atm, I decided to get into that first. Plus it gives me more time to get more mob pics!

( Onward! )

After all the trouble from the previous entry, was it all worth it? See for yourself!

( Spoilers inside! Enter at your own riskblahblah! )