Here's your Skirmish update, Sogo.

So, after what happen with that shout group, Sogomi put tgether a group to do skirmish, consisting of him on BLM, me on WHM, Zseraphim how he usually comes (BLU powerhouse), Elantil on SAM, and Nynaeve on BST. before the run started, Nyn finished her Gjarlhorn, grats! (Yes, we ran with 5 people and still won, even my 333 pop)

But before we go on, we have a public service announcement:

This message provided by the Cantonment Aquaveil Awareness board.

Anyhow the pops, I forgot what order whose pops went in, I just remember mine was last. Sogomi set the "buy in" to 311 minimum, (but some of them WERE higher. so here's how the drops went

Run #1:

Yay, Iuitl vest! I was very happy to pick this up for my THF, and I got some stones and my first wing from the chest here.

Run #2:

No Iuitl or Gende head dropped here, but LOTS of stones for me!

Run #3:

Yet more stones, and Iuitl gaiters for me! Meant to highlight the Iuitl feet for this pic, but grats Nyn on the hat, and Elantil picked up the Hagondes boots for his BLU!

Run #4:

Got wing number 2 and Iuitl tights! with Sogo taking the Gende gear I already have.

Run #5:

This was my pop, and it couldn't have been much better since it put me at 3 wings.

As for what the 3 wings went to?

So this puts me with a full Gendewitha set and like 5/6 Iuitl for THF, only missing the head. I went to spend all my +1 and +2 stones, the Iuitl gear ended up with some good augments, the Body and Tights ended up with Double attack +1 and PDT, while the Iuitl hands and feet each ended up with Attack +6 to 7 ish with some PDT.

the Gendewitha Caubeen ended up with a REALLY good augment. think it was like a large amunt of -cure cast time and very good PDT, I have to double check to make sure.

Before we go, here's a final parting bit of chatlog:

I <3 you Sogomi. Thanks for taking me to skirmish.

the terror of /sh Skirmish in the hope of a new update.

So there's been a huge version update adding the Trust and Record of Eminisince systems to the game, along side the ilvl 199 "Reforged Artifact Armor" available, and I've actually been getting a lot done on my THF as a result, and I actually have some THF-wise updates and gear talk in this post, but first, I started a Skirmish /sh tonight to try and get my Gende head and maybe some THF gear.


It did not go well, at all.


It was really scaping to find people for this Yorcia Skirmish run, so I ended up with a party I thought might be nice, a SAM, two BLMs, myself on WHM, and a BLU and THF. however, I decided to go first with my 222 pop, and the two BLM got overwhelmed at the start, onbe of the BLM died incredibly fast before I could heal and was dealing allmost no damage to the mobs with their spells. after that the better BLM got ganged up on and still died despite my curebombing, melee got back too late and I died. and my 222 pop went completely down the drain.

Needless to say,  I was angry at losing a pop because someone wasn't skilled up/otherwise unprepared. I dropped party buy the other, better BLM remade the party, with 3 BLM and two trusted melee from her LS. I went back in to find that one of those BLM was the one who caused the pain from before..hoiw ever the other two BLM were excellent and we made it through both of Joy's T2-T3 pops. everything but Cizin gear was freelot for hers, but I went 0/2 on wings, Iuitl stuff, and the Gende head. then one of the good BLMs had to leave, leaving only Joy, the gimpy BLM, me and the two melees.

because of this, Joy said all of the remaining pops would have to be 111s meaning I wasn't allowed to use my 333, after having lost my 222 earlier. so I took the D2 and made a 111 like everyone else had. first melee pops, it goes fine, no wings, a few stones, only Hagondes and Otonoif gear drps. (which the gimp BLM takes. He also got another Hagondes on the 333.) which brings me to 0/3 on wings, Iuitl, and Gende head. gimp BLM does his pop. I get something, namely the BAD piece of Gendewitha. the awful pants with RDM, SCH and BRD Stats? That a WHM will only wear for idle? Certainly better than being COMPLETELY empty handed, but still functionally 0/4 for what I came for, fact that I'm still 0/4 on wings and stones have been pretty sparse hurts even more. THF Mithra does her pop, Iuitl boots drop, but it's mainlot for her. no wings, 0/5

Lastly, my 111 pop I had to make since I didn't get to use my 333 and lost my 222 earlier. went okay and didn't die this time, but in a cruel twist of fate, two pieces of Gendewitha dropped, both pieces I allready have. so I ended up 0/6, 0/7 if you count my first failed pop.

......Look, Yorcia Weald (U). I know I shouldn't have a right to complain because my party was not good, and we had to do 111s, but couldn't you have given me SOMETHING for wasting my time tonight, all the time having to wait to get people, have to kick a THF that was constantly badgering me for directions to Yorcia and didn't listen when I said to read BGWiki, and then LOSE my first pop to an unprepared BLM that couldn't actually kill anything? You know, other than an awful pair of pants with MAB and -song cast time and pieces I got last time? Is this punishment for my first run going so well? I want to be able to shout sucessfully instead of rely on my LS.... but Sogomi told me to be online tomorrow, so it looks like I'll have to be saved by the power of LS static.


With that off my chest:



THF is shaping up nicely, with Record of Eminice and Trust it's really easy for me to merit in Ceizak by building huge limit chains on Madragoras, and I've even got some gear for the sparks I've been getting, as well as some gil from the R/E/M upgrade items. (I sold some RIft Bouders and have Beitetsu sitting in bazaar still.)

So, THF Record/Sparks gear:

first off

Eminent Dagger (7000 sparks)

this dagger is a pretty awesome mainhand! it's compares pretty favorably to a Leisilonu +1. Leisilonu might still be a tad better with like, perfect stone augments, but the Eminent Dagger is so easy to get. I picked that up and went to Peacekeepers for a Forefront Dagger and weapon wise I just feel ready to rock and roll. Sure' there are better daggers out there, Aphotic Kukri from Delve, 119 Mandau or Twashtar, or Delve mega-boss or Wildskeeper Rieve daggers, but I think Eminent Dagger is definitely worth taking the time to do some records for if you're a THF with none of the above better options.

There is also a armor set for THF that's also avalable for sparks! Let's talk about it!

Espial Cap
Espial Gambison
Espial Hose
Espial Bracers
Espial Socks


Each of these pieces are avalable for between 3000 and 5000 record sparks. Now you might be thinking, "Iuitl is better than these". and for TP? Absolutely. Espial has good Haste, but that's all it has going for it, and a bit of Accuracy. Iuitl i believe has better TP stuff on it like Store TP and Double/Triple attack and the like. in addition to a little bit of accuracy and good survivability stats. How ever, at least three pieces of Espial, (the head, body, and legs.) have more STR/DEX/AGI than Iuitl, meaning those pieces would certianly be good weapon skill switch ins! At least until you get Wildskeeper Reive gear or Delve gear. Maybe THF RF, but I dunno how those will pan out. I'd like to prioritize my Sacred Kindred's Crasts toward WHM RF.

Anyway I'll talk more about THF stuff and THF gear in another post, as well as a thorycraft post about the RF for the two jobs I play in the near future! this is getting long, so see you soon!

My first Skirmish!

So last night Sogo and Nyn took me along to a Skirmish run after I had decided to buy a Simulacrum pop, even though my poor ass who sucks at making gil could only afford cheap segments and I could only manage a 221...but it turns out that if you're running with your LS having to settle for low-end Simulacrums can still work out okay, even thugh to be fair we did have one 333 pop as well.

But now, onto the group!

(as a side note, poor Drag :( )

I was obviously on WHM but in the group there was Dragulia who was nuking stuff on BLM like a bawws.

We also had an Onyxmoon, too! On some job that uses daggers, but I think THF?

Nynaeve was leading us on BST, which was cool despite a few jokes about her labor-camp like XP party from a prior night where Nyn was laying down the law on afkers and pulling pretty good XP/hr. (that I would have been to if I wasn't trying to get climbing KI. /cry that sounded funny as hell.)

Also there was master of the ways of BLU, Zseraphim.

And lastly, we have the king of the ((Troll Mercenaries)) , Sogomi, also on BLM.

so we did our 6 pops, ranging from 111 to 333, and the 333 did get rough towards the end and Nyn went down, but we still won. To be fair, Sogomi did tell us to be prepared for a rougher time for the 333.

As for how it went, a lot of stuff dropped! lots of Cizin, Iuattl, and Otonof stuff dropped, even a bit of Hagondes and even a shield! also a decent number of stones, more than a few +2s and a lot of +1s. Didn't gear a lot of drops pictures, except for my haul, but there is this:

As for me, one piece of Gendewitha dropped, the hands. however this was my non-armor haul:

So before I logged off I went to go spend my wings and go use my stones to augment, for first, the armor I got pre-augment:

I know I wasn't really feeling this body in my therycraft post, but now that I'm looking at it better...... this could actually sort of work really well for curing if you just macro it in for Curaga/Cura. and use +2 Orison body for other stuff like single target cures. Also helps that it's amazing for idle, still really curious how good it's refresh is. I REALLY wanted to buy the head because I want the head bad, but I decided to get the body to get it out of the way.

I had a wing left over to pick up the boots, which is certainly better than the boots I was using and the "Enhance Cursna Effect" was definitely worth using my last wing for.

Then we have the hands I actually got as an armor drop. Weatherspoon still has more potency, even with the 3% augment this ended up getting, but it's so much more MND, and these gloves have an absolutely stellar fast cast value and are pretty cool to wear idle. I'll still wear serpentes sometimes for regen/refresh, but only if I'm resting.

Speaking of augments, here's how they went after I spent down my stones:

Body: 2% -PDT 3% -cure cast time

I'm pretty happy with this, the PDT makes it even better for idle, and the -cure cast time mean I can use it as a sort of stand in for an actual fast cast body when casting cure spells.

Hands: 1% -PDT, 3% Cure Potency

Hmm, pretty good. I used my +2 stone on the body so it's unfortunate that Weatherspoon gloves still beat it on Potency, but that IS a lot of MND, and it's only 5 potency worse than Weatherspoon. Once I have head things are going to REALLY start evening out on the potency front anyway.

Feet: 1% -PDT

Eh, better than nothing, I was down to NQ stones when I got to this so it's kinda expected. my last +1 stone gave this a songs augment so I used an NQ.


Overall Skirmish was really fun, I need to find a way to make Simulacrum money so I can do it again, we'll see how it goes.

A return! Also a look at new equips: Yorcia Skirmish gear!

Hi eeryone, sorry for not posting any blog entries but I've been away from the game for a while. Some thing have changed, Moghat has went to a sister shell, TribalEtiquette, Tibs quit FFXI, and I took my break.

While I've been away there's been some new content, people do Delve bosses as opposed to plasm farming, there's new zones, a new Skirmish (while with be the topic of this post.) and a new patch is coming with some exciting changes to assault/salvage!

So Since I've came back, I got access to Yorcia to get access to Skirmish, and while I haven't done it yet, I think going over the gear for WHM might be a good idea, even if it's just from a WHM theorycraft perspective.

So we will be looking at the Gendewitha set, which is wore by WHM/RDM/BRD/SCH. the Yorcia Skirmish items are either dropped at the end chest or purchased with Lebondopt Wings and each pieces can also be augmented with Verdigris Stones, that come in NQ, +1 and +2. each having a different rate of giving the different augments.

The augments are seperated into two groups, the first group comes on all of the Yorcia Skirmish armor as a possibility which is -PDT as one of the possible augments for each set. the other group contains augments specific to the set.

for the Gendewitha set, the specific augments can be:

-Cure Spellcasting time, between 1-3% and 3-5 % depending on stone quality
Cure Potency, between 1-5% and 4-8% depending on stone quality

And for BRDs you can get a -Song Spellcating Time or -Song Recast Delay augment.

The Curing augments for WHM are very nice, though specifically the -Cure cast time being the best augment in my opinion since it'd allow you to use the piece as potential fast cast gear specifically for cures. However, don't discount the -PDT augment!

now for the set:

Head:

For head we have the Gendewitha Caubeen, This is a pretty great head-piece even un-augmented just for all the raw stats this thing gives. This does beat +2 Orison Cap for curing for sure, just due to it matching it's potency while offering so much more MND and MP, with some great -Enmity on top of that. Marduk's Tiara +1 from Salvage II does have more potency, but Gendewitha head has more MND, and offers Enmity down in exchange for the +Divine Magic skill, but there are still applications for the Tiara still if you need to Divine skill or the extra point of Potency, but a potency augment on Gendewitha head could make that moot.

This is also potentially AMAZING Idle gear due to the MDB, Magic Evasion and Evasion slapped on it. Especially if you get one of those PDT augments.

It falls short of "FULL TIME THIS!" because for fast-cast this is way more un-exiciting because all it offers is some Haste (maybe RDM or BRD would be more excited for that?) in any case a Marduk's Tiara +1 would be more desirable to combine with more Marduk +1 for Fastcast, or a Nares hat or whatever. That said, being able to be great curing gear and an idle powerhouse makes this piece incredibly strong. If that Haste was Fast Cast or Quicken Cast this piece would probably be too good/broken. I guess if it has a -Cure cast time augment you could FC with it specifically for those.


Body:
The Gendewitha Bliaut is what we're looking at now. This is a piece I feel that's going to cause WHM's like myself a little bit of confusion and puts us in a tough spot. You see, for the longest time the +2 Orison body has been a WHM curing staple, simply for the Afflatus Solace "cureskin" bonus. however Gendewitha body offers a huge load of MND and potency along with slightly more MP in exchange for the +"cureskin" effect and the + healing skill. I donno which will be the real winner here, it's a really hard call, maybe I should contact other WHMs about this. I think RDM might like this quite a lot for curing though.

for Idle though it's potentially amazing! MDB, Magic Evasion, Evasion, VIT, HP, and it's got Refresh. I'm curious how strong it's refresh is. If it's more than 2 MP/tick that is absolutely stunning, as that is more refresh than either Orison body or Marduk +1 body.

Again, nothing really for precast, not even Haste, though again, you could end up with a -cure cast time augment.


Hands:
So, the Gendewitha Gages. Curing-wise, I'm sort of underwhelmed, as before augments it only offers MND, though it does have quite a lot of it. It has more mind than Bokwus Gloves from Delve does pre-augment, but after the +10 augment on the Delve gloves, Bokwus gloves will only have a few MND points less while also offering a whopping 13% potency in addition to some -Enmity. Certainly beats bayld gloves if you get even a halfway passable potency augment, though. the Magic Accuracy is..... interesting, though, may be good for your enfeebles and stuff. I'm betting BRD and RDM are going to be all over these gloves just for the Magic Acc.+

For idle it's still got some of that MDB and magic evasion and stuff lying around on it, which is cool.

but the most notable thing is these have a really nice +7% fast cast! This definitely beats other gloves like Marduk Dastanas +1 or Repartie Gloves  for precast! This could be a great precast piece if you wind up with a -cure cast time augment which I think may be the best application for this piece from a WHM perspective.

Legs:
Oh dear, the Gendewitha Spats.... It's not..... completely terrible for curing? 19 MND doesn't count for nothing, certainly, Could be cool for other raw MND-based stuff? but like with the body, the +2 Orison legs were (and probably still will be.) a strong gold standard in curing gear for a long time for VERY good reason. getting 5 percent of your MP back based on how much you Cure is incredibly powerful, and I don't know about you, but 19 MND is not enough to convince me to give that up. It also has stuff like MAB and -song cast time leading me to believe this piece will just be far stronger for RDM or BRD than WHM.

However it's still a strong Idle piece for any job due to the MDB, evasion, magic evasion etc. These are the reason a WHM will wear these. Which...... brings us to precast.

Orison pants +2 also beat it for fast cast even if you get a -cure cast time augment. because Orison +2 has -HEALING cast time 12%, meaning it works for more than just Cure spells and 12 is quite a bit!

Feet:
Lastly we have the Gendewitha Galoshes. For curing, well it does have more MND than bayld boots. Orvail does have that -Enmity, but you know how many hoots I give, ZERO HOOTS! Why? Three words. "Enhances Cursna Effect". Feet pieces usually are just kinda "whatever" but putting a good utility thing like that on feet and also giving it some more magic evasion?. Sure, I'll wear those most of the time, only situation where i'd not wear them is when I'm switching in fast cast or resting.


There we have it, bit of a weird set, but it's mostly good, even the "worst piece for WHM" is still good for an idle set. I can't wait to start skirmish! I still wanna do other events too, though,, like more Salvage 2 because it was fun. and some of the Marduk pieces are still situationally good. We'll see how it goes.