I hate Dahaks :)

Here are the buffs I keep up when I fight Dahaks:

Stoneskin
Refresh
Blink
Phalanx
Protect IV
Shell IV
Haste

Nullsong, through a fresh Stoneskin, hit me for 554 and took away buffs I needed to survive him eating me alive. Granted, I got him back to sleep before he slaughtered me, he left me with no buffs and hardly any MP to work with. I almost had him, so I didn't want to give up, but I had been fighting him for so long at this point that Sleep's duration was getting shorter and shorter. He woke up before my rest ticked twice. I hadn't bothered putting stoneskin back up because I needed MP, and I didn't re-gravity him. So, all-in-all, I got myself killed. He was running at me and I hit my Bind macro and started running... well, latency-be-damned, the basically instant cast spell for RDM was "interrupted" by my moving and I ate the dust. Woo.

On the bright side, I bought a Scorpion Harness for my THF.

RDM DEATH

I've gotten really tired of farming, so I decided to be a little adventurous lately. Well, this has proven to be more detrimental than good, I have to say.

Well, on one hand, I got my THF to 71 through many campaigns and one very painful party.

Then, I decided to go retrain myself in the art of RDM/BLM Grav/bind/sleep nuking. It's probably one of the easier soloing methods, sure, but I had to rebuild all my macros for my new computer, and things like that, so it took me a bit.

Well, I first went straight for Dahaks in Mount Zhaylom, which I've solo'd many times before. I died. So I went back to Wamoura Princes and solo'd a few of those to get back into the groove of things. Then I solo'd one of the flying Wamoura, and killed that without too much trouble, so I figured I was ready to try a Dahak again. Heh, well. I died. Again. This put me at one death to deleveling my Red Mage for the first time, ever. So.... I have now returned to the Wamoura Prince camp near the Dahaks, and here I am just cruising through them, and I have now created a buffer for myself. I will try Dahaks again, soon. And once I get one down, I will post, because I know I can beat those shitholes. :(



<3 that exp, no ring or anything.

Thief's Knife

So, I spent all that time planning my trek to Temple of Ugly, and after all that preparation and inventory emptying to prepare for loads of Linen and Venom Potions, I decided to get Eruntalo ready and just park him near the initial spawns of the Pursuers.

Well, when I found the Pursuers, I decided to pull one to see how hard they were.
Flickering Lantern dropped.

Shocked, I decided to go spawn Sozu Rogberry even though I was still RDM/THF.

Well, I did, and I destroyed him. He used neither Throat Stab nor Everyone's Rancor.

Plans [to be edited]

Thief's Knife [Level 70, TH +1]
Dropped from Sozu Rogberry.
Trade a Flickering Lantern to the ??? at (G-8) in Temple of Uggalepih to spawn Sozu Rogberry.

Flickering Lanterns drop from Tonberry Pursuers [61-67], which are located in the upper floors of the temple, on the third and fourth maps.

Tonberry Pursuer
Flickering Lantern (2.5%)
Gold Beastcoin (0%)
Tonberry Board (1.3%)
Tonberry Coat (30.4%)
Uggalepih Coffer Key (8.9%)
Venom Potion (11.4%)

The Flickering Lanterns are a 2.5% drop rate from these tonberries, which means that I could technically take my 75RDM/37THF to fight them. However, if I take my 70THF/35NIN to fight them, the farming could either go more quickly or much worse. I'd have to get that Sneak NIN scroll to travel through to them, and they could potentially be very difficult for me to beat, especially with Everyone's Grudge--which reminds me that I will have to reset my hate after I farm for this. Everyone's Rancor is going to be OUCH, I'm sure. I don't think I've reset my hate in a long, long time.

Note that Tonberries drop Tonberry Coats, which, with a Lightning Crystal, desynth into Linen Thread x2, HQ x4, HQ2 x6, HQ3 x8. Bring Lightning Crystals for profit.

Also, Venom Potions that these guys can drop have a resale price of ~529 gil. Let them fill up your inventory for extra profit but don't sacrifice Linen Thread for them, since Threadx12 sells for 7,000 gil at the moment.

CLOTHCRAFT

I basically spend all my FFXI time (which is not often) farming, either for gil or for clothcraft materials.

I read on a farming blog about the Jotunns on the 11th and 12th floors of Delkfutt Tower. With /THF they drop from 200 to 300 gil per kill, and have a near 50% rate on dropping Gigas Socks, which desynth to 2 Wool Threads. I decided to give it a try to break the monotony of farming Bird Feathers to level my Clothcraft to 40.

Well, I took my surviving-capable RDM/THF up to the top and killed quite a few Jotunns in the process. The annoying part about those floors are the dolls and pots that are in the rooms, and the hallways being cluttered with bats. There isn't a whole lot of breathing room to actually fight these guys, not to mention they are EP-DC at 75. I pretty much had to keep up Phalanx, Stoneskin, Enblizzard, Ice Spikes, Poison II, and Bio II, and often Haste. I eventually got the hang of killing them decently fast, but you'd be surprised at how many people are fighting these guys, for one reason or another. I figure mostly people are farming for the drop that allows them to spawn Alk. and Pallas, which are 1%ish drops from the Jotunns.

Each kill gave 50-100 exp as well as, as they said, 200-300gil. I made about 10,000 gil and 2.5k EXP on my Red Mage in the process, until I got really unlucky with a bat aggro, which got worse when a pot got a hold of me, too. I almost got away, but a Blizzaga from the Pot for 700 made me bite the dust. Home Pointing pretty much evened out my EXP gain, which is fine, since I don't do end game things to worry about my EXP anyway. I left there with 12 Wool Tread from desynths of socks, which is currently on the Windurst AH for 15,000 gil. So, all-in-all, I made out better than I usually do on my farming runs, I guess. The problem really was that it was more stressful than fun.

Yesterday, since Eruntalo was back in Windurst, I decided to hop back in my THF gear and go out and farm more birds (and Crawlers, since they're there) in East Sarutabaruta. I managed to go from 34 Clothcraft to 36 yesterday and this morning. Bird Fletchings cap at 42, so I can continue doing them for a while. I am pretty sure I have the materials to make my guild item to reach the next tier at 38. If not, I actually have some gil to spend now, anyway.

I often ask myself why I spend all my FFXI free time farming. The truth of the matter is, I have come to detest leveling at this point, even with my THF so close to 75. Also, I've always found myself low in gil (except for my trek for the Haubergeon however long ago, when it was 4 freaking Million gil). It's nice to have some pocket change that I worked hard for, and I know that it won't be long before I can spend it on a Scorpion Harness for my THF. I do plan on making my THF hit 75 so that I can THF/NIN farm even harder stuff rather than lugging my unfortunate RDM around. Don't get me wrong, I love my Chapeau'd RDM, but casting 800 spells a minute is so monotonous, and I've been doing it for so long that I need something new in my FFXI life.

THF became my favorite job once I leveled it, and it continues to be, even if I neglect it from reaching it's pinnacle.