I am a self proclaimed sucker for a good story, and I found another line of quests that fit the bill: Saga of the Skyserpent. It gives a bit of a background story for each of the Serpent Generals. As well as gems like these:

and to explain the arrow and silence bubbles on Galadar:

The quests were worth the time spent on them! Quite the enjoyable story, definitely some good quality cut scenes.

I’ve been spending my off time from Abyssea events leveling and skill up various jobs. As of this writing I count 11 jobs at 75 and of those 11, 9 are at 95. I had decided that while previously thinking that Maat’s Cap was a silly thing to work towards, it was inevitable to end up with one. One of my long term FFXI goals was to level every job and experience as much story (AF quests, unlocking jobs) as possible.

Will I play most of the jobs on a regular basis? Probably not. I’ve got my few that I really like, but I like to help the group and if we need something I hope to fill in the holes.

Will I be skilled at all of them? Probably not as much as I should, but I won’t be a complete noob at them. I still do my research before leveling them, so I at least have *some* idea as to what I’m doing lol.

Some old friends have come back to Vana’diel! Kielee and Malechai are back! And not wasting any time!

They’ve been missed dearly! We’ve got our core back intact and hope to *finally* get around to finishing some missions and the such.

UPDATE:

Okay, waking up *WAY* too early for being on vacation has paid off… going to bed now… will finish later lol

/farewell

Gumbah and Zeid, you let me down.

Just a bunch of babeling about fighting a tough adversary makes you adapt your skills. Ends with an, “Oh look, you fought so many things you must have come up with something!”

Way to let me down.

This is why no one likes Bastok, or as we call it in NoeticVerity The-City-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, you’re no fun. Your country looks like a wasteland. And it’s your fault that we have to deal with the Shadow Lord again.

That’s right folks, DRK90!

Got into a really good Abby – Ule party on some Bluffero and took it to cap. Now I just need to work on getting the weapon skills leveled up to cap. That may be the hardest part, but I’m sure it will be worthwhile!

In that same party I managed to break the latent effect on the trial scythe for Spiral Hell, which has turned out to be an interesting quest. It involved an NPC that, lets face it, other than questing Drain or a very brief CS in the DRG story you don’t pay much attention to him on the way to the Bostaunieux Oubliette GoV book burns.

In the quest he explains the origin of the Shadow enemies and explains as to why they’re all Elvaan.

After those CS, I kinda sat back and was blown away. Never thought that this quest would amount to anything other than a weapon skill I wouldn’t use more than to get blue !! trigger.

His explanation, other than him claiming to have been there, makes a lot of sense as to why they’re all Elvaan, also why you only really see them in areas around San d’Oria or related to the Kingdom. Though it makes me wonder why they’re classified as Undead. Ah well, that’s speculation for another day.

Also been busy helping a friend out lately. Eyvind is a relatively new player to FFXI, introduced to it by my friend Terren. He’s been hanging out in our linkshell (to which our slogan is that “We Build A Better Noob!”). To meet someone who has such zeal and interest in everything this game has to offer is quite refreshing. Us old salty dogs sometimes forget what it’s like to do something new for the first time.

A few nights back we did the 5-1 Windurst fight in the Qu’Bai Arena, with much victory! Granted, without the level cap on the battle it’s a lot easier, but still just as fun!

Archmage Assassins!

We also, a few nights later, beat up some Shadow Lord but I forgot to get FRAPS running to take a picture. Ah well, there’s always other city missions to do!

1. Helping other people out. No joy quite compares to being able to help someone who appreciates it!

2. Leveling a multitude of jobs. Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve heard. And since it is the spice of life that makes it Melange and the Spice must flow!

Anywho, Dark Knight has been the latest job I’ve been working on. Back when Vana’diel was young and in the infancy of the NA players there was a good friend of mine named Mattrick that played. We had the pleasure of working together in real life as well as in the game. Lots of fun times were had and DRK was his job of choice. Something about him being the Destroyer of Worlds or Devourer of Souls… something like that.

Unfortunately, Mattrick hasn’t played FFXI in a long time and hasn’t been able to for a while now. In my way of “honoring” him, I guess, I took up the Dark Blade for him.

When trying to do some pre leveling research on DRK I was, and still am, confounded by the apparent lack of good information on DRK in the forums in a multitude of websites.  Seems like all I found were guides from 2007 or, and this was the majority of them, people bragging about how much damage this weaponskill does, how much they suck, and general cutting down of each other. I know this happens for all jobs but the sheer magnitude of it in the DRK forums was astounding.

So I guess that if anyone knows any good info or where to find good info on DRK let me know! Otherwise I will do things the Xiahou way, and that means subligar!

Xia on the sky boat.

While I was flying to Kazham to finish my Evisceration WS quest, bored because there is nothing to read on these long flights, no in flight movie, and no dinner… A thought occured to me…

How come there are no pirate attacks on the airships?

That would be so much fun!

Working on a magian trial for my NIN in Abby – Ulleguardednended where 200 vermin have to be killed.  I teamed up with this nice person named Eskevar and we were doing pretty well.

However we were followed the whole time by Awahondo, the diremite NM.

I found it quite fitting to point out that it can drop Atma of the Persistent Predator.

Har. Har. Har.

I tried working on leveling my club skill on PLD, it’s taking quite a while to do anything and it has started to slow down at 259 on Steelshells in the Tree. Even with Martial Mastery the skill ups were like pulling teeth! There really is no reason for me to be leveling club other than because I can lol. I have Black Halo, guess I just want the newer club skill. Same with Great Sword, don’t need it but will probably get around to skilling it up.

Picked up my SMN again, got it to 85 in a nice Miserable Coast party on raptors… which got me to thinking of the last time I exp’d on raptors: was Valley of Sorrows… something like 5 years ago lol.

I think Squeenix is trying to tell me that I need to level PUP… some of the AF3 drops have been auto-sorting to me… I want to level it… but it is hard to find the time to level a job from 20-85 without burning it in an Abyssea group… which would make skilling up a huge pain in the arse.

A small group of us from my Limbus/Social LS have started a little AF3 feet farming group in our off time. Every time one of us gets to bring a job to goof around on. I’m usually as BLU because BLU rocks, though next time I get to come as the random job, I might pick PLD… it is still 79 and it needs some loving.

My Limbus group has also started Abyssea NM low man runs on Sundays so we can get some seals for our AF3 upgrades. We usually manaburn for 80 minutes or so then switch to a melee set up. I seemed to be getting away with highway robbery last night:

1 Creed Seal: Leg (PLD)
2 Iga Seal: Leg (NIN)
6 Lancer Seal: Leg (DRG)
2: Caller’s Seal: Leg (SMN)
3 Mavi: Seal: Leg (BLU)
Caller’s Pendant
Goetia Mantle
Kemas earring

I am sick of Impulse Drive! Finally finished Magian Trial 2092. I will be very happy if I never have to Impulse Drive ever again… but I will be enjoying my Stingray +1!

Also, there’s this:

And this:

Neither of which have been leveled much, really just work on them while looking for an Abyssea party or when idle in FFXI lol.

Dragoon is the job I leveled for me. It’s not a job that many of the end game groups I’ve run with, past and present, have requested people come as. Most healers I know cannot stand being in a group with a DRG (“Spirit Link is the most annoying thing ever!”).

I find myself now conflicted. My Blue Mage has become pretty much the “go-to” job for me, and it is one that I enjoy quite a bit, even when I do stupid things lol. If I’m not going as BLU to an event I am asked to go on my less than impressive Black Mage. I’ve also been entertaining the idea of working on my Paladin and Summoner more. Add all that to my urges to level Scholar and Puppetmaster and I’m in a whole big pile of “I don’t know which I want to work on!”

Would be kind of strange to name a blog “To My Side Wirbelwind” and not be playing DRG…

Leveling anything has really ground to a halt. BLU is the only 85 I have, BLM hit 81 only because I was asked to bring it to a few Abyssea NM events, DRG is still 80 and PLD is still 78.

Haven’t really gotten anything or done anything of note other than cleared the story NM for Abyssea La Thiene and Konschtat. We tried the one for Tahrongi but it cheated with when it would take damage and when damage would heal it… stupid sandworm… I hope Shai’halud eats it.

One thing I did find interesting was another post from Afania. Being that BLU is the only level 85 job I have it was a very fun read and something I’ve often thought about myself.

My gear set up on BLU isn’t one that puts out the “ZOMG” damage numbers, I do consistent damage with it, but I do find myself buffing and healing more often than anything. I even main healed an alliance in a Dyna – Xarcabarkbarkbark run back in the day when all the WHM’s were down. BLU/SCH is fun lol.

Hopefully things will calm down a bit and some vacation time coming up will allow some more FFXI time for this old Elvaan. Though, as with most vacations, have a lot of things planned and I hope to get to all of them. Unlikely, but one can hope!