Top Ten - #6: Dynamis

Six points on my Dynamis experiences, mostly with Lengendary, in 2009 -- one each for each of the six zones I've played:

1) Sandy. My first Dynamis was in Sandy. My last Leviathan Dynamis was in Sandy. It was one of the easier cities, though not without it's issues -- that pull for the first NM was a bitch! But it was a good zone to get introduced to the whole mess with, and my main memory came from THE very last pull I ever had with Lengendary on Leviathan...

We had won, a few minutes left, and we were doing, IIRC, three pulls of post-win, and, on the last one, BST legs dropped! It was free lot, and I won a two-way to grab that. Two days later, the whole cheating fiasco and I was on Siren.

2) Bastok. Lots of goodness here. Got my first BST piece just before 2009 started, and several wootz ores afterward (still have most of them). A real fun zone, though the small extensions can make time an issue as the Quadavs get significantly harder as the zone goes on!

3) Windurst.

Or, as we all called it: "WHO'S IT GOING TO BE TODAY?"

Kiana's exasperated admission that, most days, some idiot was going to agg the Death House.

And, most days, someone did!

Not the easiest place to get gear, either! Definitely a step up, and perhaps the hardest of the First Four. Mostly that damned Death House, the bane of existence of many a Dynamis run...

Only zone I don't have a 100-piece from yet.

4) Jeuno.

Probably slightly easier than Windy (IMHO), but one of those "you'd better be on your toes" situations... Lots of AoE, lots of NM's, a very cramped opening, and, if you aren't paying attention, the whole run gets paralyzed or an Avatar will Astral Flow you to a wipe...

5) Beaucedine.

The first "advanced" zone, as you need the four previous ones to get to it. Different animal altogether (more running than fighting), and an interesting final boss, which always had time pressures (not from the run, but from the kiting of the four dragons who accompanied Angra Mainyu).

Time nuking was more important here than ever for us, but we never seemed to have many problems with Snow, as long as we had enough attendance to take a shot at winning.

6) Xarcabard.

Ice... was another matter.

Still don't have a Dynamis Lord win yet -- in fact, the closest I've ever gotten was (depending on how you call it) one where Lengendary got all 15 NM's (at the cost of a sanctimonious mage who thought he was the shit and could circumvent all the rules...) or the one Siren run I've done where we did the first three sets of three NM's easily, and then went to farm and basically got screwed up on bad pulls and the Wall of Eyes.

It's fun (and the music rules!), but, at some point, I'd like a little talk with Ying, Yang, and the Dynamis Lord. So would Lumiere...

So, let's see what I have acquired out of Dynamis (including two pieces from 2008):

DRG: 4/5 (all but head)

BST: 3/5 (body, legs, and I think hands)

DNC: 3/5 (head, legs, feet)

COR: 2/5 (head, feet -- both free lot)

MNK: 2/5 (legs, feet)

BRD: 1/5 (feet)

... and, with the exception of a couple of rules questions within the shell and that one asshole in Xarcabard about the NIN gear, we actually had a great and fair system, and hope to find one like that in Siren.

Well, _that_ only took two days...

1) My first Besieged /blacklist victim. Asshole.

2) A building Dynamis linkshell, roughly the same times I ran on Leviathan (slightly earlier Wed., slightly later Sun.). We'll see how it goes. Participated in an attempted Behemoth camp with them tonight.

Incompetence and drama: Two steps closer to out the door for another server...

Yesterday was even less fun than usual.

We had our Sunday Dynamis as usual, and, yesterday, it was our long-awaited return to Ice (Xarcabard).

I knew that, since our LS leader Kiana usually handles about seven things at once, that I should probably try to ensure that I have the pen and paper out to try to help out with who wanted what, how many points were bid, etc.

And it all went fine, until about literally one minute before we were to go in, when Mektar finally bleats out (as lots are finally locked) that he wants to revoke his place for DRG (because I out-bid him AND he didn't want to sit around with a worthless place in line) and jump somebody's place for NIN.

Now, these are 10,000,000-gil pieces here (estimated value by their place as L2 prizes in the last Mog Bonanza).

You can imagine what happens to the person (a long-time LS member) who had that claim. He was going through the roof.

And he had good reason to. We have a rule that. once the glass is broken, it's all-stop on the lot mess. Not only that, but Mektar's declaration not only put him third in line for DRG, but made him ineligible for any 100-piece drops.

And, wouldn't you know it!!! NIN drops. (one of three drops, AND a 100-piece (for which only three members were eligible -- and I'm glad I checked up on that, as several others tried to lot that currency as well).

Well, Mektar decides he's had enough and quits the shell right then and there as I try to CONTINUE TO EXPLAIN TO HIM (and he refuses to listen!) that not only was what he was doing illegal, but he probably wasn't going to beat the NIN bidder anyway -- and then he gets pissed off because there will be no drop for his place in line.

FUCK HIM!

IN THE EAR!!

And that wasn't the only drama yesterday. We had some new-to-Ice people basically ragging on one of our thieves (who has a latent effect that he steals better when his HP is yellow or worse) for his less-than-polite (because people refuse to listen to him in any capacity on this matter!) requests not to heal him out of that latent.

So that cow is being had, Mektar is throwing a hissy fit, and yet somehow, we actually break our record and could (if we hadn't wasted so much time dicking around when our mages got wiped) have actually (with about one more extension) taken a shot at the Mega Boss...

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And then there's Nyzul Isle.

Another game mechanic that appears to have been beta-tested on relic/mythic-imbued characters.

Well, we have put together several members of our shell for a couple of 1-5 runs.

Needless to say, we got no further, as this happened on our last attempt:

Floor 4: All floor, do not destroy the Archaic Gears.

So why is our WHM basically sitting by the Rune of Release as the rest of us are getting our asses kicked?

Then, Kiana demands the WHM show himself and try to save the last person fighting what probably was the last monster in the zone (ME!) and help cure me, and this guy has his thumb up his ass!!!

Needless to say, for the second time in a week (though the first one last Monday was eventually forgiven), I logged off of a Nyzul Isle farce basically pissed off.

Look, I could go to another server right fucking now. (In fact, probably, after the November fees are paid, that's the plan!) I mean, can't ANYONE breathe in this game without two illegal programs and three bots anymore?

Or is it no fucking fun for you without them?

Dynamis Sandy is not supposed to be THIS hard -- you have GOT to be kidding me...

There are days that we never should've gone in.

We're about an hour and 40 minutes into what might be (given Kiana's last nerve) our last Dynamis, at the rate this is going.

Two wipes at the DRG NM, a (very predictable) Astral Flow wipe, and the whole run is a mess.

Prediction: Wipe #4 to Astral Flow coming, end of run thereafter.

A small update, and BluGartr is turning into shit...

Oh, I read the freshest one today...

But, before I do that, I might as well let you guys know what's been going on...

Bit of an interesting week. Finished Bastok Rank 10 on Sunday morning last, then basically got the word, over the course of the week, that our Dynamis LS was diversifying a bit.

We're now doing Moblin Marble farming runs on MMM, we're doing ANNM's every once in a while, and maybe getting into ZNM's as well.

As a result, on the side, I started some Pankration and some Zeni farming to get ready for the time that I might head into ZNM's.

Dynamis Sunday: Xarcabard farming. UGH!!! Sleep nerf really has sucked the life out of Dynamis.

Wednesday: Sandy. Win. Not sure how.

NIN got to 25, as I want to try to get it to 37 eventually because it seems that the leet just need to /NIN.

Sinval has been trying to get CoP 4.2 going -- no success.

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Speaking of what leet absolutely needs, I must've read the most arrogant single forum post in the history of Final Fantasy XI. Sure, it's his LS and his forum (and, though I have an account, I don't post, and, now, refuse to...).

I want you to catch this gem from Sonomaa at http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/73881-advanced-degrading-into-shit.html

The moderators can now ban, if your post is crap, you will be banned for an amount of time the moderators will now decide.

Keep your topics and posts in line with being end game elite level players and stop all the bullshit.

How about making your fucking forum into something that end-game elite players (there's an oxymoron if I've ever heard it -- more on that in a second) might actually be proud of...

Frankly, if BluGartr is any indication, to be an "end game elite level player" in Final Fantasy XI would entail being an arrogant idiot stroking your e-peen while you got yours while you took it from everyone else.

(So why do I read it? Cheating recon for STF reports...)

I mean, here's the reason I truly believe Square-Enix has been so silent on many affairs and really refuses to talk further about things like AV: They can't fucking entrust you to kill more than bees in Gustaberg without botting, cheating, or Windower.

To be an "end game elite level player" probably requires at least a half a dozen violations of the Terms of Service. It probably requires Windower, several illegal add-ons, several illegal tactics, and every ninjar trick in the book...

You see, this is why they laugh at me because my gear is so gimp: To get the "end game elite level player" gear, you almost have to cheat.

I went through this "you must cheat to win" bullshit in Magic: The Gathering, and that's one of the reasons I quit (as both a player and a judge).

This is one of the reasons I solo: I don't trust most of the players not only not to cheat, but to take the rest of the group down with them, as if it is the "end game elite" thing to do to torpedo everyone else.

And since people take their affiliations more importantly than their principles (that's you, Pet Food Cheater), I can see why much of FFXI falls short these days...

So, basically, the rule in Advanced of BluGartr is either to suck Sonomaa's (or the other mods, if they need some "service") dick or get banned.

An interesting week -- not necessarily a _fruitful_ one...

So, now that I finally have the Security Token (more like "now that I finally have the Mog Satchel"), let's see how this week went between confrontations with the local authorities (and I just saw another one just minutes into writing this post -- hey, they want to "beautify" us out of Riverside, and we'll push back, hard):

Sunday Dynamis: Windurst. Win, though, as seems usual for our crew, God only knows how. :)

Wednesday Dynamis: Only could be there for part of it again -- Jeuno. By about 90 minutes in when I had to leave, NO AF had dropped, I got no coins, and the linkshell, eventually, ended up not winning. We know there has been a somewhat significant upgrade in the monsters (especially vis-a-vis how they deal with Sleep effects) since the version update. But the run was not productive anyway, and apparently didn't go that well after I had to leave.

Wednesday-Thursday: So, when I get back after I had to go to help my friend, I go to Whitegate and find out that someone is actually calling for the Cerunnos fight. I'd been stuck there for some time as far as the WotG materials went, so I decided to go along (I had already planted the bulb and was just doing the NM fight.)

We eventually got five together (and, thank you, though I do not have your names remembered -- sorry), and, after one mess-up and wipe (with some job changes), we felled the big tree and I now am at the Battle of Jeuno. Actually tried it solo the first time (got further than I thought I would -- the fact that only the NM (or DoT effects) can finish off the main generals of the fight may have had something to do with that), and it's a fun fight -- just going to have to see if I can find more to eventually do that and get caught up.

Thursday-Friday: About at that point, Sinval is calling for the Ouryu fight. (About the only name I remember from a lot of people getting out and actually trying to do something this week...) Problem is: TWO two-hour waits later, I'm still waiting. He feels bad, but, let's face it: Anyone around this game for any length of time knows that people don't really care anymore about anything that doesn't benefit them. I mean, there's not one PLD left who needs 4.2??? He'll get in touch in a few days (he doesn't want to leave us all hanging)... Sinval and a couple others are trying to get Sea access from the CoP line (which would require getting us through Sacrarium, Three Paths, Airship....)

Friday: Just about the moment that Sinval calls off the dogs, I get a tell from Illuminati -- he needs someone for Bastok Mission 7.2. Yeah, the good old Bastok nation storyline I haven't finished yet. That goes swimmingly with our party of four, and then we do 8.1 -- damn Anticans with Spectral Jig going down and all... 8.2 follows, and then we call it off for the night.

Had my friend not been called in to work on an emergency, I wouldn't be posting from here at the library -- I'd probably be doing 9.1 (the plasm fight) right about now.

So, an interesting week...

Quick update, and I learn the definition of "epic fail"...

Last week:

DRG 75 (YES!! Fuck you to all the cheating bitches...) and my first DRG merit.
RDM 61

Completed the entire Dancer AF1 set.

Completed "Dancers in Distress" in the past and started "Daughter of a Knight"...

And then, today, I learned the definition of "Epic Fail"...

Dynamis-Xarcabard with about 25 people, and someone dead set on going for the 15 NM's...

Wiped twice, only killed 12 of them... Needless to say, our LS is not ready for that.

End of Week Odds and Sods...

Well, an interesting week in Vana'diel...

Sunday Dynamis:  Did not attend.  Over-slept.  Been various degrees of ill all week.

Wednesday Dynamis:  Sandy.  Win.  No other important stuff.  Put myself on AF (DRG) this week and THEN the damn Big Money drops.

Levels:  DRG 73, RDM 60, MNK 59, Sharlene 63

(2 more levels and Sharlene and I will have our little match...)

Threw down the Social Linkshell because of all the garbage going on.  If I wanted to hear half the crap on my former Social LS, I'd go listen to these little punks who want to punk out half of Riverside, because I hear it all the time from those idiots!

(And then we have it out during a Besieged too...  Assholes...)

Dropped about 600K on gear last night.  Mostly on a good DRG armor, though a Chivalrous Chain took up a nice amount for my 60+ melee jobs.

The Letter:  Having trouble finding where I want to put it -- I'd like it to go Sage Sundi-level, myself, but they aren't the most accessible people to find communication avenues to.

The April Update:  Yes, I saw it just before I went to bed Friday morning.  Looking forward to the expansion on Fields of Valor.  Not so much on Moblin Maze Mongers (until they can make it truly solo-able).

JP vs. NA:  Seen several discussions on that -- two on TTTO, another on the LBR forums.

Look, neither culture should be able to tolerate the other in game terms, because of the fact that their goals basically cannot co-exist.

I'll just say it like this:  The more Square-Enix can move their products toward Japanese-only markets, the more the possibility rises that they might have a future.  (Don't think FFXI in those terms, even though FFXI would be part of it, to start with -- think Rapture here.)

Another week of playing in the flames...

Another week closer to Armageddon, and what has been done?

DRG 71 (Wyrm Brais now worn)
MNK 53

Dynamis: Sunday: Beaucedine and a Win Run (successful, 1/1), Xarcabard access gained, but we won't be doing Xarcabard for the foreseeable. Beaucedine is a strange animal in that regard -- definitely a different type of run than the four cities.

Wednesday: Got shoe-horned into another Bastok run (all other zones taken -- we had designs for either Jeuno or Windy). Had to get creative with the Mega Boss, but another win for us (I think that's 4/6 for complete runs for me, and none of them seem to go smoothly for some strange reason.) Another Wootz Ore for the collection (another 6-drop session), and another piece of good news in that I got another relic armor.

The bad news? It was Corsair. We got 3 Corsair drops, for some strange reason, and the last two went free-lot to anyone in the shell in the Dynamis who wanted it. So my level 10 Corsair has relic armor in the event that I ever decide to level it all the way out. Hmm...

A frustrating, yet fruitful Sunday...

Oh, man.... Another rigged Super Bowl, more BS for my roommate to deal with...

And I almost screwed someone out of a million gil (in our Dynamis LS, you are still declared "on AF" even if you lose the bid for the right to lot AF, else I would've won a Jadeshell (You can't lot on "Big Money" in our LS if you are "on AF", hence, a bid of any kind on AF disqualifies you from Big Money, even if the bid loses... Hmmm...)... Boy, that was a day... I'll have to talk to Kiana on that one, sounds counter-intuitive, though I understand the reasoning. (People were bidding just to screw each other out of points.)

But, we did win both Dynamis-Windurst (1/1, 2 deaths) AND Fire in the Hole (1/2 on that one). So onward with WotG Bastok stuff.

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And I also had a long talk with my roommate. She may special-guest on this blog soon, as we talked about some of the issues I've raised here on the Salvage-dupers. She agrees with some, disagrees with others, but not necessarily in a way most of you might hope.

No promises, but you may see a special-guest blog post in the near future. MAY see one...

It finally quiets down a bit, so let's Week-in-Review before it starts up again...

Been a Hell of a week... I actually have gotten some time to play during all the flamage... :)

So, DRG 66, MNK 51 and then hit a wall on it (damn aggs for early-50's in Xarcabard), Adventuring Fellow limit break quest to 65...

Dynamis: Two Bastok runs, both wins (what has been the problem with getting Windy or Jeuno at the times we play? Two Sandy runs last week, two Bastok runs this week...

Nothing important on Wednesday. Got the DRG relic legs and a Wootz Ore along with the qualifying win on Sunday's run -- hoping to do Windy tomorrow.

The Asura Disease is exploding all over Leviathan's Besieged (oh, and to you motherfuckers who want me to leave: I couldn't anyway for another 30 days), and is becoming a real problem. What concept of Martial Law do you not get? Training candidates are NOT combatants and are to have evacuated already.

Other than that, pretty blase week.

Welcome to 2009, and some quick in-game stuff...

Sorry I haven't been around in a while.  Been helping the roommate out (and have some things to rant on (not quite FFXI related, but I'll put them here anyway because issues there might involve some FFXI stuff as well...) as a result), and things finally are calming down a bit after the holiday season is finally over.

Quick updates:

Dynamis-Jeuno partial run New Year's Eve -- that night, my friend wanted me to go with her to a party she makes tradition of -- partially to have someone to talk to, and partially to make sure she gets back in one piece.  Anyhow, before I left, bit of an adventurous run, but two pairs of the Dancer relic feet dropped.  Kiana was looking for one and got it (one of the reasons we've had so much difficulty getting into Dynamis-Jeuno since the update).  The second went free lot 65+...

Then, free lot 50+ -- Hello DNC relic feet!!

Basically been exhausting the Tactics Pearl in Fields of Valor-Xarcabard -- haven't really been on that much lately.  Trying to eventually get both DNC and Dragoon to 65 so that I can free lot 65+ on the relic stuff.

Dropped about 70K gil on lots of storage space for the Mog House.  Probably more to drop from there.  Also upgraded some EQ too.

As I said, though -- not really that much done this last 10 days or so, and I'm going out of town again this weekend, so I won't be on much from Thursday night to Monday afternoon.  Well, gonna go now...  Have some rants to write about, oh, shall we say -- extortion...

A late entry, it looks like...

And it was a real struggle too...

Not in the sense that it was necessarily hard, but our Dynamis shell was kinda struggling a bit -- and then I had to leave (scheduled -- my friend with her Internet broadcasts, and I have no problem with that)...

But there is a new entry in the top 10, sorta... (and it'll be added for the purposes of the list for those who read the list only)

10A. LATE ENTRY: First relic gear Just kinda one of those things which you just add to it, because it's another one of those things that kinda just takes you another step "up the ladder". I didn't even talk about my new Dynamis LS, Lengendary, and its tireless leader, Kiana.

So, I'm building up attendance points by attending a Dynamis-Bastok run that I know I'm not going to be able to finish because my friend and roommate is going to be broadcasting in the afternoon of the last Sunday of the year (as she has for most recent Sundays).

And, let's be frank: We're struggling a bit. Kiana is recruiting new members (and I'm not *that* far into the process myself), and I'm sucking the joint out for some odd reason. I Dynamis, for the time being, as a 75 BST/37 DNC, to secondary heal the party to allow the main healer to keep MP up.

Problem was, my pet wasn't in as much check as I should. It was basically causing trouble with the AoE effects forcing it into fights I wasn't wanting it in. So the LS was struggling. (They did eventually get the win, but I'll have to grab that some Wednesday night sometime when we do Bastok and I can finish it.)

I do get admonished about it, and I wasn't mad -- but there was a silver lining.

3 small currencies, another Infinity Core...

and a Monster Jackcoat. That BST relic gear was free lot (and the rule is that you can free lot without attendance point cost if no one else spends their attendance points to gain a preferred lot -- and you have to be 65+ in the job which the gear you're lotting for is in), and only one other player lotted (and was easily beaten, but I could've been too).

So, I have a Monster Jackcoat now to aid in Charming stuff when I solo big stuff. It's an achievement -- but I just wish I could be better than I was today.

My First Dynamis

So how'd it go??

Well, will need to get some XP back to get my BST back to 75, but, otherwise, it rocked!!

We won Dynamis Sandy, with only about 20 people... We got a bit of a late start (so Sundays will be an issue, with my friend doing Internet broadcasts), but I was given instructions which were very clear (assist the DD leader, don't melee the Orc NM's, and watch the pet).

It went basically as smoothly as it could, except for a few deaths when the DD leader disconnected and a few after we had won and continued to farm. But, all in all, a real fun experience. Can't wait to do more!!

Can't remember too many of the relic armor drops (didn't really matter, since I couldn't lot on them anyway (had no LS points to bid for BST drops, and have no other 65's for the "free lot" relics no one bids on)... Still, several of the beastcoins, an infinity core, a good skin... I'll take that -- and a fun experience.