Weekly Goals and Accomplishments 1/23 - 1/29Follow

It's the first post patch weekend!

What do you hope to do?

1. Complete my ST and CT runs for the goodies. Did my second WoD last night for the quest already. I like having another incentive to keep running these dungeons.
2. Finish up the main scenario before I get spoiled any more. (******** on Facebook posted pictures of Moenbryda. Grrrrr.)
3. Run some more AK and WP hard. The ilvl 100 gear from those dungeons is pretty epic looking. I got the healer boots last night and changed my whole outfit to match, so I'm no longer another ironworks clone.
4. Start the Hildibrand quest.

I like that the patch had enough content that I really couldn't sink my teeth into all of it until the weekend.

I have done pretty much everything in the patch now except the last two dungeons WP and AK which are on track for tonight. We saved them.
Probably re run all the dungeons and trials to make sure we have them down...
Do some hunts for upgrades.
Start working on the last phase of our relic.

I've gotten pretty much all the new content done (totally not rushing through it; just enjoying it so much! :) ). I do have a few goals for this week, though...

1. Do Urth's Fount. This shouldn't be too hard; I'll probably do it later today.
2. Do my first round of CT weekly. I'm looking forward to it!
3. Raise my PGL/MNK, CNJ/WHM, LNC/DRG, and MIN levels.
4. Help my wife with whatever she needs to get done (especially her Relic Weapon quest).
5. Work on upgrading my equipment (armor, accessories, and weapon). This is an ongoing thing.
6. Rework my BRD rotation and macros. The new content has finally convinced me that I need to change how I do things.

That's it. A lot of it is ongoing stuff or stuff that won't be done in a week. Only the first two will be finished this week.

I've also just done Moogle and Garuda Extremes. I've not done any of the others nor have I done ANY Coil. I don't have a strong drive to do it, though, so this will remain an ongoing thing for now.

Lots of things to do:

#1 - FCoB turns 10 and 11, try to beat 12. I pull 410-430 on a dummy with bard but I'm told my dps is too low at ilvl 116. Thinking maybe I should switch statics. We will see after this weekend.

#2 - think I'm 8 alexandrite away from a novus. I'm about 3/30 on the alex drops from FATEs. Pretty impressive. Plus I already have the materia to complete it. Yoichi is priority, since I won't be getting the tomestone from T11 for some time, because the sharks are coming out in our static and they are desperate. New rules are pretty much guaranteeing that the preferred FC folks get the tomestones and twines. I will never ever outdps the dragoon or the ninja while I am singing songs to supplement our whm who burns through mp like phosphorous, and therefore can not earn the coveted "best dps" title to win the tomestone. Lol, I'm just going to go, do battle, stay quiet, see what happens, and contact the others who need a FCoB bard for their static if all goes awry. Goal #2 is to get novus by the weekend and start into the nexus light farm, which will likely consist of a ton of slaughter, pony farming, T4, and running all sorts of stuff with my FC, which is developing slowly but surely into the most superior powerhouse of awesome casuals.

#3 - Still need my WoD item, and cant find the time to run it. By Monday night, run WoD for either bard coat (boss 2) or bard pants (boss 4). If I get bard coat from WoD first I will buy ironworks pants and upgrade with twine to replace the acc loss. If I get WoD pants I can just go ahead and upgrade my gloves (and dye them metallic red). If I don't see those by Monday I grab the first crap I see. Either way I'm WoDing.

#3 - I'm at 2400 allied seals. 600 to go. No logs yet. When I hit 3k I will upgrade gloves for a 5 dps boost. If get coat from WoD before then I will likely buy the pants and upgrade those. Although getting the WoD bard pants and upgrading my ironworks gloves is more ideal for BiS...

#4 - I've managed to completely supplement the cost of my new artisan's coat, the melds, and the melds for my novus off of the platinum speculation. I am really quite pleased at the way platinum nugget HQ is selling. Bought about 30 for 20k each before patch and have sold them all at around 80k each. Bought hq ingots at 150k and sold them for 500k. And the price of vitality III and strength III shot up after patch, and I had stocked a bunch of those I bought for 1k gil each and sold for 30k each (people gotta put something in the 4th and 5th slot of that platinum jewelry to survive t13). I'll keep checking sells and see if I can get back above 10 mil. Might actually work on crafting now that it is feasible with jobs other than ltw. Still, speculating is good business. If I could figure out ebay I think I could make a ton of money with Magic the Gathering but in rl I'm not that risky... I save all my best (and riskiest) speculation talents for use in games, because if I fail and lose my fortune it isn't dependent on my family eating next week. I'm much more stable in rl.

#5 - I should have enough data to get something posted on XVI ventures by Monday.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2015 10:06am by Valkayree

Verdha went through the Hildibrand quest last night up to (but not into) the final fight. Also advanced the main scenario quests a good bit, although I think I have a long way to go there still. That's left me behind on the usual stuff, like the Challenge Log to keep ranking up my chocobo, so I might do some spiritbonding or something to boost that. So far FATEs for Alex have been a total bust, I might just give up on that because the old "don't drop FATE rewards to Verdha" mechanic seems to be as much in operation for this as it was for atmas. And I'm way behind on levelling Blacksmith, it's getting annoying that I can't repair my own Glanzfaust. Got one of my retainers to 100 by prioritizing my own healer gear over MNK and passing on the hand-me-downs, plus plonking down the 1300 tomestones and a UAT for a Weathered Yagrush for the retainer (my own WHM is using a full Yagrush). Haven't hit the new dungeons yet, but of course I need to do that to re-unlock Expert -- Poetic rate is suffering as a result.

And over on the RP side, Waenlona has unlocked retainers. Next goal will be pushing through to GC and getting her chocobo, where "pushing" for this character means slowly and gently enjoying every moment of the storyline, taking quests one at a time rather than stacking them for efficiency. And more fishing: ACN actually passed FSH as her highest job this week!

I really like having the two characters now, the advancement/intensity aspect on Lamia and the heavy-RP/take-it-slow on Balmung balance perfectly. Especially as I've found that when everyone on Lamia is fast asleep and The Swarm is deserted for the night, most of the FC on Balmung is still wide awake like I am and provides a nice wind-down before bedtime.

On my to do list:

Explore more of the patch content, specifically the main storyline, Hildebrant, and World of Darkness.
Help get other FC members through the new dungeons so we can all do Expert Roulettes together again!
Continue with sahagin quests, I think I have about 2 days worth until I max them out and then it's onto the *sigh* Sylphlands. Or I could do Ixal quests for my crafting jobs. Hmmm. The exp for my chocobo is tempting though (I'm about 20% of the way to rank 11, though that's after this week's 15% from the challenge logs).
Pick away at crafting and fishing. I have the GSM 45 quest open but haven't wanted to try it without stacking the deck in my favor with HQ materials.
Work at lights. It should generally come out of what I have above, but I should make an effort!

Since the new dungeons give a nice chunk of soldiery, I am probably going to deck out my retainers in that gear to help them make the next ilvl tier for field explorations. Then I'll work on decking out my less used jobs.

Update time...



Beat 10 and 11 pretty handily. Tome drop went to the ninja, who didn't show up the next day. K, on a serious note... The last three or four weeks I've been looked over, set up to fail, and unfairly pressured and persecuted by my static. I'm not part of their "in" group. After their real life meet and greet, the guy who can't talk on his plumble app on his stupid phone just isn't really one of them... Ever feel like someone has made up their mind about you long before they told you, pushing you into situations that don't make sense to you and are uncomfortable, sort of forcing you to quit? Been there, was there. So... I did what any person with half a spine would do... I quit them after a nice little scene reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Jerry McGwire, which was homaged by Jim Brewer in Half Baked, and again by me just last night. F u, F u, F u, you're cool, F u, F u, F u I'm out. I didn't take anyone with me though but honestly I didn't want to. Feels like a big weight is off my shoulders. Feels really good.

So then I proceeded to get another static in less than 3 minutes. Quicker than a microwave dinner. Funny how groups are looking for raid members, and they all happen to need bard. Anyway, we raid monday and wednesday 7-9 est. Apparently the group has been together 2 weeks and has cleared both 10 and 11 and is on 12, at the exact same place where it has taken my static months to get to. Not sure what happened to their last bard though... Still, sounds promising. Much better than spending 7 combined hours Saturday and Sunday watching the leader stand in puddles and faceroll the group over and over so everyone can lol about it for 5 minutes and waste my food buff and up my repair bill. The guy that brought me into that static was and still is a good friend of mine. After 3 months of facerolling T9, my friend left the static. I should have went then too.



Got the Artemis Bow Novus and started in on the light farm. New rules: Feeble is 2, Gentle is 4, Bright is 8, Brilliant is 12, Blinding is 24, Newborn Star is 32. Been fortunate enough to get into a few light groups. Never farmed light so fast in my life. I am moving at 4x my old pace. In two days of really not doing very much work I am at 304/2000 light. At the rate I'll have the nexus by February 6, just 12 days. Probably will take longer though, but still that is crazy. At the very least I can queue DPS on Slaughter, get the match in about 5 minutes, and then in 17 minutes guaranteed to get 12 light minimum (and 50 soldiery, PVP exp, and wolf marks). But usually I queue up on whatever HM is in bonus and it doesn't take too long.



Got the WoD pants . Extremely happy about that!



Got my carbontwine, back at 400 seals. I don't really hunt as much, but at least I know that the only surefire way to make it to every hunt is to join a party that is looking for them. Otherwise you will probably not make it on time. Haven't got a log yet, although I have heard from some folks who have been really lucky and got 6 of them. Crazy. Anyhow, holding onto the twine and my 1500 poetics, all dependent on my static progression. Holding onto hope that they give the new guy the tome on Wednesday, but not likely. I'll keep pushing Yoichi in the meantime. Its much less painful than getting the zodiac before. Gathering alexandrite and paying for materia is a killer, but I'm past that now



Working on that next. No interesting stuff yet, but I'll start the post nevertheless.

Edited, Jan 26th 2015 9:56am by Valkayree

Update:

> 1. Do Urth's Fount. This shouldn't be too hard; I'll probably do it later today.
> 2. Do my first round of CT weekly. I'm looking forward to it!
> 3. Raise my PGL/MNK, CNJ/WHM, LNC/DRG, and MIN levels.
> 4. Help my wife with whatever she needs to get done (especially her Relic Weapon quest).
> 5. Work on upgrading my equipment (armor, accessories, and weapon). This is an ongoing thing.
> 6. Rework my BRD rotation and macros. The new content has finally convinced me that I need to change how I do things.

1. Done! Counting myself, 7 members of my FC did it plus one other person. Wiped once due to one too many players dying before 15%, but got it on the second try at the literal last second.
2. Done! Lots of fun to do! I hadn't done Labyrinth since the very first time I did it, and it went by super fast. Very easy, as well! ST and WoD were the usual.
3. Didn't really get to it.
4. Helped my wife complete Amdapor Keep and Hydra, and started to help her unlock CT and some hard-mode dungeons.
5. This is still in progress. I'm close to getting a new pair of BRD pants.
6. Also still a work in progress. I'm slowly trying out some new rotations and macros.

Gah! Haven't gotten my WoD drop yet, and Hyrist is like, on the last quarter of lvl 49.

I don't think I'm sleeping tonight x.x

How did the weekend go?



Done, on all 3! This was the Spoilerwrap up loose ends patch.



Did these for a few of them!



Sahagin is finished. I know that I'm supposed to take the warmongering sahagin seriously, but he's Spoilerwearing a headcrab that just looks hilarious.

Sylphlands have started. On the other hand, my choco is around 25-30% exp, so it will help him.



Got FSH to 46 and finished the GSM 45 quest in addition to doing other crafting things. I might actually get another one or two to 50 before I continue with the Ixal quests.



Throwing in the odd FATE here and there, I managed to crack 1400 lights.



In quite possibly the silliest use of soldiery I've ever done, I turned a UAT into weathered Burtgang to up my retainers ilvl. I still have accessories to deck them out in, which will probably be this week.

I was 1/1 on Qarn HM, then went 1/15 on Sastasha HM and 1/19 on Snowcloak. But dont worry about that, instead pray to everything holy that you get the aurum vale and dzmael darkhold to drop within the first few. I went 1/1 on DD and 1/4 on Aurum Vale. Those 4 runs of vale were painful.

Edited, Jan 26th 2015 3:18pm by Valkayree

Post-weekend Update:


Capped poetics and put that into MNK this time; the hand-me-down Gloam item and a weathered glanzfaust weren't quite enough to get my PUG retainer to 100.
Wondered why I bothered getting my CNJ retainer over i100 when she brings back exactly the same stuff she did at i96.
Ran Keeper of the Lake for the first time and loved it. I kept sneaking glances around me, I adore the setting.
Finished the Hildibrand quest sequence including the final fight.
Challenge log for chocobo done during a spiritbonding set; Raindrop is now halfway to 16 (but the materia were less than useful, bad set).
Picked up the Artisan secondary tool for LTW, and in the process dipped under 1m gil again.
Successfully defended my chosen crafting item monopoly and rebuilt my inventory for it (not big-money, just a mid-level item for steady income).


Now has two retainers starting on ventures already, but no GC membership or chocobo yet. Just cracked ACN25, not quite geared for the Guild test yet, though. Met some more of the curious people in her FC, which totally trumps advancement for this character; yet again, her personality is taking the character in directions I didn't expect.

Finished my last 750 lights, so now have a Nexus. Have all the items, but have only gotten the key items from 5 / 16 dungeons. Kinda tricky.
4000 soldiery left to go till Excalibur / Aegis.

Also accidentally got my Goldsmith a new main tool (Rose Gold Ingots were suddenly cheap for the book i never got, and my stockpiles of Rose gold nuggets was huge), and then also a new body (with the recipes i learned), and then also new pants, and a new belt, and can now craft 3-stars on it. Pretty happy. Probably have to pour in another... 8 mil to get on par with the top crafters, as well as get a few more items for the last tool upgrade then. I dont know how much that's worth doing. Right now i110's are 3 mil. But it's a HUGE gamble pouring that much gil (nearly all i have) into a job who's items i dont know will stay profitable. It's only the first week and they still cost 500-700k to make each. Next week i expect them to be around 1,5 mil. The week after 1 mil. After that even less. I'm scared to take such a risk, especially since i know it wont be long before the market is ruined... and HQ is far from guaranteed even with the best rotations.

Edited, Jan 29th 2015 2:01am by KojiroSoma