Valkayree wrote:
1. Currently at 1871 / 2000 light. Broke my all time 1 day record out of the water with a 113 on Thursday. Literally thats all I did, and I caught some nice bonus all day through. Capped poetics off of T4 and Garuda HM (5 per run) so that is some idea of how much I ran. I'm also 50 or so T4 fights away from a lion mount, which is ridiculous in itself. So with that, my goal is to get the Nexus by the end of the weekend. Pretty much 125 light away. If I catch T4 or garuda in bonus thats 5 minutes for 4 light for 2 hours. So 48 light per hour. Two days of weekend leaves me plenty opportunity for 3 good hours of bonus.
Finally got the nexus! On friday I ground out the remaining 129 (turns out I was 4 off) and got my shiny lightbulbs. Now, onto the Excalibur quest. Seeing people's photos on reddit usually lets me know how far someone can get if they have no job, no life outside of ffxiv, dont sleep, and either live with mom or are on a structured settlement. I've even seen a few with the next stage relic on Lamia, so it can't be all that bad, right?
Valkayree wrote:
2. Run some T10 on Saturday. Will likely see one loot chest since we are going to have to pull a scholar from another static, but a win is a win is a win.
Five hours on saturday. No win. Got to 9%, my best ever. Someone always screws up. I know the fight so well by now that I volunteered for the 3 spot (to stack for tether when 1 or 2 get the charge or the tether, or stack for charge in the event neither get charge or tether). Still, someone always forgets to stack, and the way this fight is set up with gear checks and mechanics fail punishment, one mistake by anyone is a wipe.
Valkayree wrote:
3. Work towards that excalibur relic.
Well the quest is split into four parts. You run them all simultaneously.
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2oqp5f/zodiac_weapons_the_final_grind_factsfaqhowto/
That's a pretty good resource. So, lets see:
Run the following 15 dungeons and obtain a 1/9 (~11%) drop:
Dzamael Darkhold, Brayflox HM, Halatali HM, Snowcloak, Aurum Vale,
Haukke HM, Lost City, Sastasha HM,
Amdapoor Keep,
Pharos,
Tam Tara HM,
Wanderer's Palace, Copperbell HM, Hullbreaker, Qarn (HM)
5 down so far, not bad. Some, like the capped aurum vale (and dzamael), are simply not fun. Others, like AK were a blast. I beat the final boss before the first imminent catastrophe, and beat the 1st boss priest before he summoned the soulflayer. Still after he died, the soulflayer magically spawned, but it was cool nonetheless. Some dungeons I was 1/1, others 1/2, some, like Copperbell, I'm 0/3. Feels like higher than 1/9, but I'm not keeping stats on it so...
Ok, next set of hurdles... Gather a total of 6400 soldiery, 80000 grand company seals, and 400000 gil to buy items needed for turnins.
I gathered 2200 soldiery, 40000 GC seals, and 400000 gil so far and devoted it to this purpose. You get so many GC turn ins from the dungeons that the GC seals buy themselves, but the soldiery is tough. Can't wait until I get far enough so at least I get to spam the new dungeons where the soldiery reward is higher. 2 soldiery? Really!? Come on Aurum Vale...
And then there is the last and most difficult set of hurdles, the crafted stuff...
HQ Furnace Ring
HQ Perfect Firewood
HQ Perfect Mortar and Pestle
HQ Perfect Vellum HQ Perfect Ponze
HQ Tailor-made Eel Pie
HQ Perfect Cloth
I spent my life savings on three mastercraft for a supra and my offhand ilvl 70 tool (plus materia) this weekend. Was down from 7 million to 600k at some point. But now, at 450 craft, 420 control, and 438 CP, without food I can HQ the Perfect Vellum on my ltw with NQ items. So I did what any respectable businessman would do... Bought up a ton of the raw NQ materials for as cheap as a could, craft as many HQ Perfect Vellums as I could, and undercut the mess out of the guy behind me (who wasn't too bad off, he is apparantly an omni and has at least two of everything up at the moment). So now I'm back up to 3.5 million and recovered at least 3/4 of what I spent on the offhand tool.
The problem is those other six items... Furnace RIng I can get for 350k, the firewood for 450k, the mortar and pestle for 450k, the ponze for some reason is 850k, the eel pie is a ridiculous 1 million, and the cloth is 350k. So if I went to buy them all right now it would run me 3,450,000 gil. I'll hold off on this one at least until A. The prices drop, or B. I sell enough vellums to make up the difference. Good news is that the goods should theoretically rise and drop all together, so my vellum sales should almost always match 1:1 to the items I want to buy. Again, remember I said theoretically. In reality that never happens.
So this step of the quest... Its a lot of work, but not too bad. I'll pace myself.
