Weekly goals and accomplishments 7/24 - 7/31Follow

Hopefully getting past A3s. Faust in A1s is hilarious because it's harder than the actual boss. A2s is akin to dynamis back when people brought full 64 players at level 65.

Aside that, still debating if I even want to bother with red scrips..

Short vacation got turned into a slightly longer than planned vacation, here. We were going to crash with my sister in law overnight then travel across the state. She, um, broke her back apparently and has been at the ER all day. We're house and dog sitting again tonight until tomorrow morning probably, depending on how her surgery today goes o_O

We were also tasked with finding the source of the Mysterious Smell, which we determined was likely caused by improperly cleaned spilled milk on the floor by the 3 Year Old Niece. Just mopping it up with a paper towel is not enough, 14 Year Old Niece.

I do have my laptop with me, but I just want to mostly keep on top of daily hunts over the weekend. Managed to run an HM earlier. We'll see if I can get anything else done tonight.

The majority of the issue is due to the fact we're dealing with the largest iLVL jump in endgame tiers we've had yet. The past three were 20 iLVL gaps and this one is a 30/28/27 iLVL gap depending on what drops you opted for in Alexander Normal.

That's a gigantic enough gap that I don't think even pentamelded crafting gear on the right side could have gapped if we had it as those are more used for the early HP checks than actual damage.

Update as usual...



Hit 57 drg just this morning. 5 levels in 2 days. Hinterlands fates after ilvl 55. Mobs in swarms, each give 800-1000 xp. Mob xp better than quest reward xp if there are enough people out there. Law weapon and armor purchased for him so far.



Capped the esoterics. Ready for the 200 paladin chestpiece next week, and hopefully two springs and some 190 alex pants, along with two shiny 190 accessories to round it out. Bolts from 1 and 2, springs from 3 and 4.

On a side note, spent about 5 hours over two days dpsing Bismark Ex for Zero's clear on his alt, watching the tanks die over and over and watch the really really good healers (imo) I run with talk about all the pug tanks were mushy. Spent 30 minutes arguing with a ninja about why lb3ing the carapace when we get it is better than waiting until the end (he was not buying it that we could lb3 on the second jump and build up an lb1 by the fourth.) The fail became so bad I even tried bard to help with mp . Finally, after hours of agony, I reluctantly offered to tank, never having tanked it, but sort of knowing what to do. Hate tanking primals. Got in, one shot the stupid clear. Was easier than I thought it would be. All the paper thin tanks before had made it seem so difficult.

But, thankfully a few hours after I got to try my summoner chops on Ravana Ex with Zero for a one shot in a random pf. Guy got his scholar book too. Now at 5 hive totems. Five more wins and I get to decide, summoner book or dragoon stick.



Hit 179 on summoner. Strong strong job. I love running dungeons with it. Give me 5-6 in a big pull and I'll dps 2800. And never run out of mp. It's ridiculous how summoner is hands down the aoe champion of this expansion.



Materia prices are still rising. Crafting and Gathering, along with strength and vitality are exceeding 100k at times. Considering I bought stacks of strength at 5k, I figure I can release 5 at a time into the fold at 100k and see how far it takes me.

Botanist retainer hit 59 this morning. That is my closest one to 60. I'll start gathering info when I get them running 60 field ventures.

You know this entire game is a carrot on a stick yes? As long as you know that, and are willing to chase it like fat chocobo, you will never get bored. Even when they finally decide you can have the carrot and then just string out another.

Flying in all of the new zones is the best thing ever, especially for chasing daily hunts and fates, and doing quests. Worth the price of the expansion alone.

The new raid. I enjoy Alexander normal. First floor feels like T1 pre-nerf, floor 2 is T4, floor 3 is a primal that is probably the same difficulty as pre-3.0 ramuh or shiva, and floor 4 is quite challenging, reminds me of T8 for some reason. But there is no gate before Alex Normal, so you are literally likely to get anyone in your group. Even people who autoattack the entire battle without using a single skill. Oh, and the person who designed the loot system should be fired.

Alexander savage is a stupendous dps check at the moment. Best I have done in my very limited experience there is in a pug, where I tanked the trash on floor 1 to 20% while dps failed to meet the check.

Bismark Ex and Ravana Ex are fun fights also. Bismark Ex is the primal gate, so see the above comment with the auto-attackers and apply it here as well.

The three new post 60 dungeons are ok. Last boss of neverreap is annoying. Random tornadoes that toss you in the air is quite possibly the most annoying mechanic I have ever faced in any game ever (and I'm including the whole of all the levels in Trojan, Kid Niki, Karnov, and Rygar on NES, all combined).

A recent patch boosted fate xp, so with armoury bonus, leveling is not too terribly bad anymore. Plus the random drops can net you a decent income.

Crafting is expensive, gc turn-ins and leves will get you to 60, but endgame crafting from what I hear the time investment is not worth the reward, because the items you can make right now are not that appealing to the public to even cover the cost of what it took to make the items. Except for culinarians. They are making bank. But generally, gathering is where its at, platinum sells, logs sell. And fighting deepeyes, elder wyverns, chimeras, bears, and dhalmels will earn you a decent living, since all those nq drops go for 2.5-5k each (on Lamia at least).

Edited, Jul 27th 2015 11:22am by Valkayree

Double post, srry

Edited, Jul 30th 2015 10:45am by Valkayree

Update:

Hit i190 on paladin, finally. Bought esoteric chest this week, sword is next week, followed by ring and then shield. Then pants. Then the rest in no particular order. 9 more weeks of paladin esoterics, here we go.

Finally ground out the last alexander gear for the tank. Ugh 13 round floor 3 farm to finally win the last spring. From now on, 190 alexander gear is exclusively going to a dps. Which? I haven't decided. I'm going to stick Bard, Dragoon, and Summoner in a hat and draw numbers from ACT and pick the highest and go with it. It all depends on how much damage I can do with the dragoon at 170, and if it can beat my 180 summoner. If it can, dragoon gets the glory (and the alexander preference). Bard, meh.

Finally got my 13th Ravana EX win last night, so minus the 3 I used on shield a while back, this puts me at 10 totems, which means I'm due a weapon. I haven't been lucky enough to win the lot on anything except the paladin sword in those 13 wins so far, so this one has to be carefully chosen. It is either going to dragoon or summoner, but I'm not sure which. I destroy multiple targets on summoner, but the dragoon is much better in a one on one. I'm leaning dragoon for the hive spear since I have 180 book for summoner, but I only have the 170 spear for dragoon and really don't want to invest the extra seals to bump that to 180. All depends on how I parse on the dummy when the drg hits 60 (probably this weekend).

Now that all my crafts are nearing 56-58, the expense of the gc turn-ins is starting to get to me. I can't make a profit to save my life while leveling these things, but I sit down and craft for profit exactly 0, so I suppose I am doing well not to lose too much money. I just relax and settle on the fact that once the new relic progression quests hit I'm going to be making a lot off of materia. Doesn't help me now though. Hey, at least they are going to be adjusting red scrips so that you get more from turn-ins. I would care more if I collected scrips right now, but I suppose that's still a good thing for me later on.

The real endgame for me, fishing. When I start that, everything that is not to 60 by that point is simply something I don't want to play =p.