Mr. Merit

Well lately I've been focused on things I've slacked on in game. One of which definitely has been merits for my paladin. I never really worried about being the best with the best, but there is a sense of accomplishment that goes long with checking a list off. So I wrote a list of the merits I'd select under each category a few nights ago.

And then cried.

369 merits it what I'd need to finish the list. That's 3,690,000 experience points. Granted that covers WHM, BLM, SAM, and PLD but still that's a fuckton of xp. But like any person on a mission I hauled out my SAM gear and got to crackin'. The first night was insane. I got a JP party that apparently didn't realize I was NA until about the end of the party. I can't complain though, they racked up 5 merits in a little over 2 hours. For you math wizards that's about 25,000 xp per hour. Pretty damn good.

Today, we dragged Madzraw's butt out to the Mire to reclaim his level he lost doing something stupid. I'm sure it was dynamis related. It usually is. Got a group of friends together and went at it. We racked up about 20k in xp over the time we were alone in the Mire. It's nice to make someone's day a little easier. We all know Madzraw doesn't want to merit his NIN as he's on the SAM craze we all had last year finally. So we racked up a few merits there.

Tonight, after a lengthy council meeting in the linkshell, I set my sights on the last few merits I needed to complete my Paladin sub-block. God did I ask for it. I took a party with a completely screwed up setup. DRK SAM SAM DRG SMN RDM. The RDM subbed BRD. There was no provoke. I thought for sure it'd fail. But I'm a man with a passion for merits at the moment. So, off I went. I honestly say we did not do too bad. I racked up another merit in a little over an hour and spent most of my time pulling. Since I wasn't really meleeing on my SAM, I switched over to polearm and tucked away my Hagun. Worked like a charm as about 15 minutes later I hit 220 polearm skill, the benchmark for Impulse Drive. Looks like I have something new to add to the goal list.

I finished my night by making my paladin merits fly away:

Your Shield Bash Recast Modification has risen to level 1.
Your Shield Bash Recast Modification has risen to level 2.
Your Sentinel Recast Modiciation has risen to level 5.

Now all I need is 3 more merits to finish my paladin block. With one already in the bank I might be able to pull that off before next dynamis. It's always good to mark things off your list.

Preventor of Ragnarok

Monday nights are usually my only night to get anything accomplished in game. Since Allura and I spent the majority of the week doing LS activities we try and squeeze in some of our needs on this one day. It makes for an emotional time usually. Anyways, I disgress.

Last night we ran into some emotional issues. People get attached to an ideal and go at it headstrong. Not that its uncommon, but I hate when it gets selfish. In fact, it pisses me off to no end when people put themselves in front of others in the team when it boils down to selfish need. Fortunately there are some who aren't this way. I mean we all are at times and I understand that, but last night it just really pissed me off. It didn't help that Amnaf wasn't being cooperating.

So last night we decided to finish Brydan's T42 Mission. The mission where you fight a blue mage 3 times and he spawns mechanical gears to assist him in 2 of the 3 fights. Well, as if that's not enough, Naja decides she wants to rack up her assistance fees. Can that bitch get any more annoying? So we gather. We enter. We wipe. Again. And Again. Naja just had this thing for the blue mage and was constantly causing all kinds of kiting issues. We were set up to do this without a tank, so no one had provoke to pull the blue off Naja. She'd die or she'd AoE the mages to death. It was really annoying. It musta been the 8th or 9th run where she finally realized that she was and left the damn blue mage alone. Finally. T42 done. All I can say is I'd rather do the escort of the pirate in assault then deal with Naja again. -.-

So in a dire moment of stupidity I decided we'd gather and just do the last mission. Can't say it didn't work out for me. In fact, we did really well gathering quickly and getting our shit together. I dragged 4 other idiots along with me, Allura being our 6th. Now I say idiots cause we know we are gonna lose but we do it anyways. And I was right... we wiped. The first run was just horrid. It's like everyone went stupid. Stuns didn't happen. Brydan used both stuns on his DRK back to back. Hell, I forgot to use my job abilities on paladin. It was just sad. But in a clear definition of stupidity, we set up to run again.

You know it was about this point I envisioned myself running into a concrete wall over and over on You Tube. Better yet, its like the kid who's pushing on a exit door at Mensa. I don't know why I just didn't give up last night. Well, I know why. I'm just not rational at times. I get as hard headed as Brydan and when I want to get something done I do it. So we gathered up our egos and went at it again. This time we dispatched of the first blue mage quickly. The second form did take us too long. And in the end we fucked up a stun and I died. But the melee managed to get him dead. Allura slept the reraised blue mage and I reraised to build hate. Now realize at this point we are all wanting to severly fuck up this guy. He's nothing short of a pain in the ass and he one shots anyone. So we go at it. And finally beat him down.

Dani >> "OMFG there is his lifeless body staring at me again -.-"

We've been to this point before, but now comes the fun part. We rest our weakened and are looking ok on time. We've got about 25 minutes left in a 45 minute fight. We rape the second NM in the fight. In fact, he was so weak that he was hitting me on paladin for under 10. The sad thing was I wasn't trying. He really is just that weak. I am pretty sure that SE put him in so you could build TP for the last NM in the fight.


Alexander is a rough fight. There is no two ways about it. It's not that he's hard. I had a great team. But he just deals a fuckton of damage. We got in and set up. I used the lines of the floor to judge where I should stand so that the melee could hit Alexander without getting hit by the Area of Effect spells. And we went to town. Now we did take it easy the first 50%. Then Alexander blew us up. Literally his 2hr wiped the party. A few survived long enought to deal a few more swings of damage but in the end it wiped us. Thorvald did a great job of tractoring and raising us so that we could reset and recoup to finish off the fight.

Brydan>> Do we have enough time to win?
Achates>> Only if you dont fuck up and die
Achates>> (How the fuck am I suppose to know)
You have 10 minutes left remaining in the mission.

Yeah. Time became an issue. So we did not rest to full. We did not even really fill our hit points. We attacked. We held nothing back. Everything we had went at the bastard. And he was dying fast. Was. Omega can kiss my ass. Alexander 2-houred again at 3%. Somehow Dennett lived and got him to 2% when we saw the message:

You have 1 minutes left remaining in the mission.

LOL. Gotta love SE's typoes and bad English. But we were fucked. 4 of the 6 of us dead. One minute to do 2% on a mob that took us 25 minutes to take down. So we did what every self respecting player does on FFXI. That's right: zombie attack. Reraise and go at it. If you die, you reraise again. We threw everything we had at it. A 45 minute fight and we were about to lose in the final seconds. Then at 44 minutes and 58 seconds:

Brydan defeats Alexander.

o.O Talk about timing. It was an epic fight there is no doubt about it. The cutscenes were kinda meh after the fact. I definitely like the ending to CoP better than ToAU. But the music in both is well worth the efforts to get to it. Allura and I are extremely releived to be done with this. It took a lot of hand-holding and forcing to get the team to move. In the end there were 6 very satisified people. It's time for my cigarette after "the fuck".