Seems like this job just flew by really. Couple days of hard xp here and there with some breaks for AF and gear-gathering and subjob xp. Final push from 60 to 75 took what…2 weeks? Others could have done it faster I’m sure but I can only really xp a few days a [...]]]>

PEW PEW PEW!

Seems like this job just flew by really. Couple days of hard xp here and there with some breaks for AF and gear-gathering and subjob xp. Final push from 60 to 75 took what…2 weeks? Others could have done it faster I’m sure but I can only really xp a few days a week. I finally understand why people find campaign fun and worthwhile though…PLD can be a beast in campaign but my 73COR got consistently higher xp than my PLD ever did. PLD gets a bit more AN from cures and stuff but when(if) I finish my DNC sub that problem should fix itself.

I spent lots of time (usually at work) researching gear setups and stuff so I was ready for joy/martial gun slug spam at 72. I also got EXTREMELY lucky with a high lot on the one Enkidu’s Harness to drop from our 2 Tinnins. Then I got even luckier when a Denali Jacket dropped from our Nyzul spamming.  So really my COR is almost complete the day it hit 75. Of course there are some things I’d like to upgrade…AF2 hat, relic belt, Skadi legs (2/3), Faith Torque for when I can’t melee for TP, Breeze Torque for Slug, Denali legs for TP. Still trying to decide wtf to do with feet options…AF1+1 or Skadi? Skadi has 1 more r.acc and acc but 2 less STR and no AGI. AF1+1 feet seem like a more well-rounded piece. Also Denali feet for QD might be awesome. So yeah, most of the stuff I want/need is either a totally random drop, requires hours of item farming, or comes from an event I rarely do. None of it is make-or-break for me since I’m set up well enough now.

Just…so….CUTE.

Now that I got 75, I’ll spend the next week or 2 doing nothing but merits. It really is sad that as long as I’ve been playing and having 2-3 essential merit pt jobs, I still only have about 200 merits. I need to, at the VERY least, cap PLD and WHM merits. WHM is my freaking main ls job so it’s retarded that I haven’t finished those, and PLD well…relic PLD with uncapped merits is pretty lol. In my defense there I got it to 75 only 4 months before I finished shield, and am a leader of a busy endgame ls. EXCUSES! Ok here’s what I absolutely NEED to get:

Merit: Upgrade level(s) – merit points

HP: 7-8 – 10

Shield Skill: 3-4 – 6

Enmity: 4 – 4

Enemy Crit: 3-4 – 7

Cure Cast Time: 5 – 5

Barspell Effect: 1-5 – 15

ShellraV: 2-5 – 19

Shield Bash Recast: 5 – 5

Sentinel Recast: 4-5 – 9

Chivalry: 3-5 – 15

Fealty: 1-5 – 22

That’s 117 merits…and only caps 2 jobs. @_@ Then there’s COR merits to worry about…I’ll probably do 8 sword/marksmanship. Or maybe 8 sword 4 marksmanship/archery because I know I’m gonna do RNG after make good progress on merits.

Tanked Tia a few days ago. I find it mildly hilarious that the 2 Aegis PLDs in HB can’t get IR body for lack of points and/or medal rank. Neither of us has a decent fire-resist set (or even a half-assed one). Really all I did different for this gear-wise was put my BQ Ring in satchel so I wouldn’t have to comment it out of spellcast. I should have gone into Valhalla set now that I’m giving it more thought. Usually I only use that for JoL since I’m /rdm and not counting on shadow timers but…even though we go PLD/NIN to tia we don’t really use shadows except for the few seconds between when it lands and gets slept and then the ~30 seconds between when it wakes and flies. Yeah yeah, we sleep on the ground. The fight is more stable than other ls on our server who don’t sleep it, and we still manage to kill it faster (on the 5-6 claims we get per year).  On a somewhat humorous note, I know exactly how many times I’ve fought Tia – 6! Once for each 75 job. I’ve never come as the same job twice, and have now been on each job. Kinda funny/sad. Actually, what’s really sad is the one time I went on BLM and showed up at like 15% and immediately threw a FreezeII on it. Who’s the moron? That’d be me.

Not the best view...

Ok, I promise I’m not a book snob. I love books and I love movies. More importantly, I understand the difference. I get why movies can’t be 100% loyal to the books they’re based on. I understand minor changes, sequence rearranging, additions and [...]]]> SPOILERZ AHEAD!

If you haven’t read HP6/7 or seen HP6, don’t read this post!

Ok, I promise I’m not a book snob. I love books and I love movies. More importantly, I understand the difference. I get why movies can’t be 100% loyal to the books they’re based on. I understand minor changes, sequence rearranging, additions and deletions. I am perfectly capable of enjoying a book and its movie separately. However, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had some really huge concept-altering problems.

Plot Problems

1. The diadem: In Hallows Harry is only able to locate the lost diadem of Ravenclaw because he realizes he’s seen it before – when he hid his potions book in the Room of Requirement. In the HP6 movie, Ginny hides Harry’s potion book, insisting he not see where she puts it. So how in the hell is Harry going to locate the diadem in the last movie? I suppose Ginny could lead him to it but that means she’d have to know he was looking for it and that violates the whole “Harry Ron and Hermione working on a secret mission” thing. And if they were gonna bring Ginny into the secret in the final movie, they could have at least SHOWN her seeing the diadem.
2. The ring: Marvolo Gaunt’s ring is supposed to have the Resurrection Stone on it. The ring shown in the HP6 movie is just a chunk of metal. No stone. No Hallows symbol. WTF?

Detail Problems

1. THEY BURNED DOWN THE BURROW! Was that really necessary??
2. They showed Tonks with her plain brown hair, and she calls Lupin “sweetheart” once, but they left out the whole angsty relationship stuff. I didn’t honestly expect that to make it into the movie but it should have been all or nothing.
3. Still no Bill Weasley! Six HP movies and we still haven’t met Bill or Charlie Weasley. Will they even bother with Bill and Fleur’s wedding in the next movie? If not, how are Harry Ron and Hermione gonna know to ask Xenophilius about the Hallows symbol? I already know they’re going to do the Shell Cottage scene because I saw the conceptual art for it somewhere, so I guess we’ll eventually get to meet poor Bill…
4. Ok, Draco spends all school year fixing that Vanishing Cabinet. He cries, he mopes, he’s a big loser, but he succeeds…to what purpose? They didn’t do the big school fight scene in the movie, so the Death Eaters did nothing more than break some windows and burn Hagrid’s hut (what’s with the random burnings??). If Draco was supposed to kill Dumbledore, and Snape was his back-up plan, why was bringing the Death Eaters in even necessary? Unless they felt Snape and Draco would need an escort out, but really – such a waste of time.

Book Snob Problems

Ok I know I said I’m not a book snob (and I’m not!) but while I’m complaining I might as well add some stuff in:

1. Some of those memories Dumbledore collected about Tom Riddle were really freaking important for Hallows. Especially the one where he sees Hufflepuff’s cup. Establishing the horcruxes is pretty much the whole purpose of HP6.
2. The opening of the movie…Harry flirting with a waitress in an underground cafe? Dumbledore showing up unexpectedly? For that matter, Dumbledore dumping Harry at the Burrow without explaining anything…and not telling Harry they’d be taking private lessons? Oh well I guess he didn’t need to tell Harry that since they only showed 3 damned memories.
3. Poor Snape…he finally gets to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts after 16 years, and they don’t even show a single class.

I don’t know if I’m looking forward to the last 2 movies or dreading them. So much in the story is still unestablished! I mean you could easily follow the first 5 movies without having read the books, but HP6 is like a visual aid to the book…you’ll get some information but without the book you’re gonna be lost at the end. For the first time, I’m truly disappointed with a movie made from a book.

I also got tired of [...]]]> Ok so I decided I didn’t really like the way this thing looked and I couldn’t find a theme I really liked, so I got the Atahualpa theme. It’s super-customizable so it’s like making your own theme really. I’m still playing around with it but so far I think it’s hella spiffy.

I also got tired of seeing my horrible MS Paint, crappily organized tutorials, so I redid them all. I even added a few new things. I plan to keep updating the 3DS Max section since I got Max 9 and have been doing and learning more lately. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who are better at this stuff than me, more artistic and creative, but they aren’t sharing! Someone’s gotta, and I think I’m decently good at explaining things.

I’m also in the process of adding my custom .DAT mods. I haven’t done much new work lately, just more mog house edits. I don’t do VRS work so my mods end up looking and feeling pretty dinky compared to everyone else’s, so I just keep them to myself. But I wanted to make my “big 3″ available and make sure I continue to get credit for them…don’t think I haven’t noticed you jerks out there sticking your name on my mods!!!

Right…game stuff. Well me first! Got Hauteclaire, finally. The drop rate on that thing really sucks. Only a few more to get and then we can abandon it forever. Having Abu [...]]]> Ah, summer. Crazy freak storms, 2 months of flooding, followed by 3 months of drought. Unreal humidity and heat…Why do I still live here again? Ugh.

Right…game stuff. Well me first! Got Hauteclaire, finally. The drop rate on that thing really sucks. Only a few more to get and then we can abandon it forever. Having Abu out there is freaking awesome, so many claims that mule has got for us… The only picture I could find of it was when I put on basic pretty gears to go see Dain finish his Yoichi.

PEW PEW PEW

One-handed greatsword, gotta love it. Speaking of relics, Lappie’s Amano was also finished recently…we managed to get most of our relic holders out for the screenshot.

ALL HAIL DYNAMIS

You’ll just have to pretend you can see LDS’s Apoc and Yoichi in that shot…

I get to tank lots of stuff now. My macros and gear are very nearly complete, and I’m comfortable solo tanking most things. My one obstacle really is my low base HP. I idle in more HP gear than our Hume tanks do, but I am still lower than them. I’m afraid to go all-out HP build and give up things like shield skill or refresh. It’s not a HUGE problem, I can’t take as many “oh shit” hits as Budo or Em, and I don’t always live through Citadel Buster…but otherwise I’m as sturdy as any other tank. And much MUCH cuter.

Fear me!

Random AWESOME tawu screenshot

After seeing Yekim’s mog house and his AWESOME SPARKLY EGG, I knew I had to have one. Thankfully the event moogles were selling them this Easter so I nabbed one and got Souji to make me a pretty table (that looks like a cake). Isn’t it purty?!

Sometimes I just sit in my house and stare at it. Really, I do. It’s mesmerizing. @_@

The linkshell is doing just fine. Still progressing steadily with new relics, still kicking butt and taking names whenever we feel like it. Still crushing other linkshells’ hopes and dreams…*cough* We recently decided to try Dynamis Lord on our own, since LN members were getting bored with it. Easy as pie! Should have figured but…hey you never know. Got 2 of the ToAU gods titles so our super secret mystery Mythic upgrader is making good progress. Really nothing groundbreaking to report. Just the standard day-to-day goings-on of HalfBarrel.

They didn't really AFK...but it would have been fun if they did!!

Oh, got a Cleric’s Belt just this week. Also have a kickass HP build for Devotion…only 100hp less than LDS’s HP build but I’m working on fixing that! Been pulling out the old RDM a bit more lately too. Funny, I’m just not that great at it. Oh I do fine as a supporting mage but I could never pull a dynamis or kite some NM while the ally recovered like some of our other RDMs do. Nope, I’m perfectly content to play my other jobs.

The forums are pretty well complete now. I’ve actually considered joining a community site’s dev team just so I have something interesting to do with my skillzzzz. I’m always looking for a new challenge in website building. Maybe I’ll learn a new language. ASP.NET seems to be pretty popular.

I couldn't fake it if I tried!

Koenig Cuirass. Valhalla Helm. AEGIS. Bahamut’s Mask.

Hell, I even get to tank things every now and again…

My PLD progression has been ridiculously fast..

October:

13th – lvl75

November:

14th – Koenig Cuirass

18th – Homam Cosciales

20th – Valor Surcoat

December:

2nd – [...]]]> I thought I was done acquiring gear. Yeah right! I really should have known better.

I couldn't fake it if I tried!

Koenig Cuirass. Valhalla Helm. AEGIS. Bahamut’s Mask.

Hell, I even get to tank things every now and again…

My PLD progression has been ridiculously fast..

October:

13th – lvl75

November:

14th – Koenig Cuirass

18th – Homam Cosciales

20th – Valor Surcoat

December:

2nd – Cerberus Mantle

19th – Valhalla Helm

February:

14th – Aegis

March:

6th – Bahamut’s Mask

All my PLD really lacks at this point is Hauteclaire, Shadow gear, AF2 legs (for completeness), and maybe a Valor Cape. 75 to 100% complete in 6 months?? Hell…my WHM is 5 years old and I’m still not finished gearing it! Though…the full Blessed +1 set LDS worked her ass off to get me has done a damn good job fixing that. Still need a Mahatma cape, Roundel Earring, Cleric’s Belt, and something better for the neck slot then WHM is done.

Got a Novio in January. Wish I had more chance to play with it but that’s just how it goes sometimes. =/ When I’m not tanking I’m healing. We just need one good WHM applicant with playtimes that suit us, then I can have a bit more freedom on my jobs. Not that I ever mind healing; it’s my favorite job. Everyone needs a break though.

Valor Surcoat at Thursday’s Xarc run! I got to tank Friday’s Omega and whoa buddy… I feel so much more sturdy now, both in campaigns and in event fights. When Souji asked me to PLD for Omega I was [...]]]> As if everything I’ve already gotten in the last 2 months wasn’t way more than I ever needed…

Valor Surcoat at Thursday’s Xarc run! I got to tank Friday’s Omega and whoa buddy… I feel so much more sturdy now, both in campaigns and in event fights. When Souji asked me to PLD for Omega I was a little nervous, as I still don’t really feel all that confident about blink tanking, but I spent a lot of time on macros these past few weeks and it all payed off. I was very comfortable, able to talk and laugh with people which I haven’t felt secure enough to do before. I finally feel like and endgame tank.

So small and shiny

Who could resist?

So I think that pretty much wraps up my new item acquisition for the foreseeable future. (if for no other reason than I really really have run out of room to keep this stuff)