Where has the skill gone??

[RKenshin]

I managed to collect a large amount of -dam gear for my brd and then they nerfed mazurka hate, so I sold it (go go inv+).
I have found (in merits) that it's far better to wear skill/chr gear and not get resisted than to be able to take a few hits and chance getting a resist.

On a side note, /whm brd can achieve a pretty good amount of MDB, which help greatly in tank party situations.

No one suggested having to stay in defense gear full time, that's just kind of silly. The trick since 2005 is using macros for the defense gear if you're taking hits, and then just macro CHR/skill gear for casting. There's no rule that says you can't change gear for situations.

As a BRD you're not literally casting songs non-stop second by second, and in between casting songs whether running back to camp, waiting for recast, or what have you, you can put on the defense gear if you're taking damage. Then, when you get around to casting, you switch into CHR/skill. So not only are you getting as few resists as possible but the little damage you do take is reduced even further.

Best of both worlds.

[sb]

No one suggested having to stay in defense gear full time, that's just kind of silly. The trick since 2005 is using macros for the defense gear if you're taking hits, and then just macro CHR/skill gear for casting. There's no rule that says you can't change gear for situations.

No doubt, but I have invintory issues, and they are really the primary reason I sold off the gear. When I had aspirations to brd tank it was justifiable to keep the set around, but with mazurka nerf, deflation, and invintory issues, I chose to sell much of it while it was stll valuable.

[Keston]

The quickest way for people to learn wtf they're doing wrong is to be a complete dick. Fuck being nice. I've tried being nice and it just makes them worse.

Problem is, the people who suck, and get told, often have an ls full of sympathizers. Who of course then start saying you're a dick to everyone they can. I make 3-5 parties every day, and have done so for the last 4 years. And I've had no problem pointing out what they're doing wrong, and how it can be done different. But you might have heard of the results of that position. "Keston is a dick"... just don't expect a good reason why. Nubs rarely tell the whole side of the story when relating tales.

So I'm partying in Crawlers nest last week the other day in an xp party. Around lvl.46/47. I get a random /tell...

Nubfriend#1: You're an ass.
Me: Tell me something new.
Nubfriend#1: You're a choat.
Me: Thats better. (no clue what that means)
Nubfriend#1: Why did you kick Bicaura from your party? Even a nub knows sword and shield is better. Don't like being proven wrong?
Nubfriend#1: I bet you think your hot shit with those 13 jobs u got off ebay, but you're a noob.
Me: Would u like me to elate the tale, or do you prefer ignorance and bliss?

Anyhow, the convo basically went along the lines of me telling the person that I've been playing since PS2 release, and I had partied with that person way back yesterday, and they dinged 43 and imediately started trying to find a reason to leave. Saying that because someone was 38, hey should leave to be fair to them. Mind you the person wasn't complaining, the pace was pretty good. After a few exchanges pointing this out, and telling them the xp/hr is what mattered, i just gave it up.

Anyhow, I asked my LS-Mate (a SAM) to come out as this PLD wanted out. So my LS mate says he's otw, and I tell the PLD i got a rep otw. He just disbanded. Then of course went to another party (which I think was the reason he wanted to leave in the first place, another invite while in our party). Person then aplogized and told me this Bicaura just got kicked from another party and had combined two different stories, using my name as the culprit. Speaking of random shit, also someone said someone in thier LS didn't like me.... when they asked them why, they said "He ran an RMT shell on ifrit".

Welcome to my daily... nubs have the most sympathetic ears, who aren't afraid to be creative.

[Sylphet]

Sylphet:

Can you post your +74MND gear please? or is in in your LJ?

No major LJ updates until after I finish my PhD!
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...het/BRDMND.jpg
Yeah I realize I have some relatively rare gear here but there're also places where I could pick up more. I don't because since I hit cap I'd rather just conserve inventory.

I could use the +MND grip and Prism Cape (that's staff strap and merciful cape in ss).
The neck is Faith Torque and the waist is Penitent's Rope. Pretty sure everything else is self explanatory.

[Zhais]

Sylphet:

Can you post your +74MND gear please? or is in in your LJ?

No major LJ updates until after I finish my PhD!
Yeah I realize I have some relatively rare gear here but there're also places where I could pick up more. I don't because since I hit cap I'd rather just conserve inventory.

I could use the +MND grip and Prism Cape (that's staff strap and merciful cape in ss).
The neck is Faith Torque and the waist is Penitent's Rope. Pretty sure everything else is self explanatory.

I don't normally have that much +MND as whm X_x

[Sylphet]

I don't normally have that much +MND as whm X_x

+15 on SuzyQ feet helps a bit! If you have an Osode that's also +10. Those are both nice bonuses that BRD has over WHM.

[Hakamaru]

I don't normally have that much +MND as whm X_x

+15 on SuzyQ feet helps a bit! If you have an Osode that's also +10. Those are both nice bonuses that BRD has over WHM.

Errant Houppelande has the same MND as Osode. Don't leave home without it.

[Sylphet]

I don't normally have that much +MND as whm X_x

+15 on SuzyQ feet helps a bit! If you have an Osode that's also +10. Those are both nice bonuses that BRD has over WHM.

Errant Houppelande has the same MND as Osode. Don't leave home without it.

yep, 100% agreed. Sure it's ugly as hell but the stats are damned good. If you want to get nitpicky, Osode is nice because you don't suffer as major a MP loss as you do with Errant when swapping out MND gear as well as being the best BRD body for an "ohshit" macro. I stopped carrying it with me on BRD shortly after getting relic horn though. I almost never find myself needing to rest for MP and I prefer AF+1 body if I'm going for -enmity. Marduk body as well is even better with 12 MND.

[Yuri-G]

Where have the skilled players gone?
Long time passing
Where have the skilled players gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the skilled players gone?
Bored of colibri, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the colibri gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the colibri gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the colibri gone?
Killed by damn noobs, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the damn noobs gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the damn noobs gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the damn noobs gone?
Wiped to Fafnir, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where the hell has Fafnir gone?
Long time passing
Where the hell has Fafnir gone?
Long time ago
Where the hell has Fafnir gone?
Slain by skilled players, didn't drop shit
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

[Tajin]

Thanks Sylphet, :D.
Yep that is a lot of MND @.@, 5 MND merits?

[BerenTebogo]

I've been on Ifrit for about 3 months now, and my empty blacklist now has at least 30 entries on it from people asking me to xp with nothing more than a statement of "<party>"

No punctation, no question, no sentences, just 1 tabbed word. Sorry, I think I'd rather just assume now and forever that any interaction with that person would be a waste of my time in game, they don't get to talk to me.

Sometimes when I seek on NIN I write "Will not party without a BRD" It's picky and stuck up, yes, but I'm honest and clear about it, I don't seek and then say "OH YOU DONT HAVE A BRD FU" But usually about 10 minutes before I get fed up and take my flag down my seacom changes to "If you invite me without reading my seacom I will blist you"

Few people on there from that too, my biggest fucking annoyance is people who can't A) read a seacom B) people who can't take 4 seconds to type a fucking sentence.

[Sylphet]

Thanks Sylphet, :D.
Yep that is a lot of MND @.@, 5 MND merits?

3MND merits

[Aymee]

My gripes for the day regarding the ToAU generation (including people that *sigh* bought accounts or took them over from friends who did actually know what they were doing).

1) If you exit Azouph staging point, and you see FOUR PTs of people 68-72ish exping on every mob in the area already, do not f'ing stand around in the middle of the Jnun ponds and quickly nab everything for your pathetic attempt of a merit PT. After asking them very politely to leave since obviously other had been here first, I got a wide range of /tells of a harassment level I'd consider calling a GM for if there had been other types of harassment to follow. This follows the EXP camp rule of anywhere else--someone is there before you, you leave. No, I don't care if there are 60 people in Thickets already. You leave if you're to inconvenience people. If this were merit PT vs merit PT it might be a little different (hey, competitive pulling can be kinda fun, in limited doses), but this is a merit PT vs totally normal EXP PTs that are lucky to get over chain5 and are fighting them all 'normally'. No fancy BRD pullers--just people running around with bows and xbows. Have some respect for people fighting through the most annoying levels. Also, please don't call my PT a bunch of noobs... I think the PT had a combined playing experience of 18-20 years. ...Oh, and MNK75/WAR32 is lawl.

2) People STILL STEAL SKY POP NMs. wtf? Can't people ever outgrow this? Like... LS is split between Zip and farming water. Zip pops. The pull is really freaking messy and between BLMs trying to sort it out and people all trying to zone to reset hate at different times, people start dying. Reinforcements are coming from the water group.
Another LS walks in. Zip goes unclaimed for an instant and it's voked. We hadn't wiped--with 2 blms, a healer and a tank still alive, all we needed to do was buy 30 seconds for 10 people of reinforcement.
More amusing, a 3rd LS comes and their PLD tries to peel Zip off the stealing LS. An outside LS stealing from stealers for some reason sounds even more pathetic than stealing.

...Zip dies. A /say war starts. Justification for the initial steal--"You were almost all dead". Key word, ALMOST. They didn't say "you were going to wipe", they said "a lot of you were dead and it was still at 100%". I doubt anyone here would disagree that any sky or hnmls with any honor or respect for others only claim when ALL people are dead. Even if it's there unclaimed for 2 minutes, until they all die, you leave them alone. Not a tiny unclaimed window because I'd zoned to depop 2 caretakers and I was in the middle of casting Kurayami on it after walking back in... everyone needs to die.
...After not caring that partial wipe does not equal a wipe, both stealing LSes fell back on a "if it goes yellow you can claim it" stupid argument. "GMs even say that". Yes, and GMs are always right. So much for that honor/respect thing. My LS would never pull crap like this (in fact, you can get kicked for stuff like that). There are now over 50 people in the tiny little area at the top of the stairs of 2-2 entrance.

I think I need to learn that it's impossible to reason with people 5-10 years my younger and 10-15 my younger in maturity. Thank god we have 12 Zip gems saved up already.

P.S.: Double win for the will-steal-from-stealers LS after that same PLD somehow flashed Faust, magically rematerialized at the end of that hall, and walked past a closed gate. I mean, if I was following you after catching you... and the gate was closed the entire time... you got in and I was locked out walking 2ft behind you... uhhuh. You fail.

[Arkanna]

Meh, I think it's long been known there's no such thing as respect left in FFXI. Very rarely will the rules of etiquette be followed; when people get the opportunity to be dickbags, most will in a heartbeat, imo. I'm lucky to be in a server where there really isn't too much of that, but it definitely still happens.

1) Nidhogg popped a couple days back. A linkshell that has just started to do ground kings managed to claim it. As far as I know, they didn't really have the people there to kill it, mainly because they were using PLD/WAR tanks. I think they got it down to around 90% before they made the questionable decision to hand it off to another LS that was present, rather than just wiping to it and letting the claim system sort it out. Well, another shell that was there (primarily JP players) didn't take too kindly to this, and they somehow managed to steal claim. The shell that was handed claim and lost it got pretty abusive in /say, and they did their best to flail it with Invincible, etc. but didn't manage to. The shell that stole it got E.Body.

2) I wasn't there for this as I was still at work, but yesterday my shell had a smallish force camping Khim, 7 people or so. There were more en-route. A rival shell was also there. Khim popped, and my shell managed to claim. As more people arrived, the other shell attempted to mpk with cfh'd Soulflayers, apparently under "ls orders". They didn't manage to mpk but all we got was mats anyways. Shady shit at best.

But, the lack of respect in the game is another subject entirely, lol.

[Maaglin]

The funny part about it all is that the reason people steal when you are "almost" dead as opposed to when you actually wipe is because deep down, they know you are going to recover and kill the NM. Obviously that's bad for them so they try to steal. Otherwise it wouldn't be a big deal to wait another few minutes while you finish wiping.

Same reason people that are lfg but only have say 60 mins to exp won't tell the pt that prior to leaving for camp. They'll get booted becuase all they are doing is wasting 5 others time, but they want that 60 mins of exp before they log.

[Amele]

Quit fucking using sushi before 50.

you hit the low-water mark on sushi being the best accuracy food a long fucking time before 50. and at that level there's not exactly a ton of gear to support accuracy (but attack is all over the place, even if it's smaller amounts.)

praise the lord and pass the sushi.

[Aymee]

2) I wasn't there for this as I was still at work, but yesterday my shell had a smallish force camping Khim, 7 people or so. There were more en-route. A rival shell was also there. Khim popped, and my shell managed to claim. As more people arrived, the other shell attempted to mpk with cfh'd Soulflayers, apparently under "ls orders". They didn't manage to mpk but all we got was mats anyways. Shady shit at best.

Wow... an RMT trick from roughly 3 years ago. I hope they're proud of themselves.

For some reason I find steals/poor behavior at the 'less' important stuff (well, Sky namely) to be waaaaay more pathetic than stuff on kings and similar. At least they can say there's a total limited number of Nidds or Khims or whatever, but wow... sky pop NMs? Your shell is so pathetic you can't come back with a good PT 3 hours later--or at any future time for that matter? Kinda like... if in rl you're going to commit a crime, which looks more petty and pathetic?--the guy who steals a pack of gum from a convenience store, or the guys to smashes up a jewelry store? Gum = sky, jewelry = kings.
The gum is cheap and not worth much and can be obtained at any time you find a few quarters on the ground. I've never in my life heard of some massive kind of gum shortage or a time where it was so outrageously expensive that no one would buy it. Jewelry theft at least has some damn value and a 'reward' you can shove around in choice faces.

Both types of theft suck, hurt the people being stolen from, and are 'wrong', but wow. Getting cocky over the theft of gum is... an amusing thought. Sounds like the sort of thing a 14-year-old would do to brag to friends about their free gum. ...Wait, that age seems oddly on-par with the more notorious immature offenders in xi... coincidence?

Dear SE: More PT-sized activities like Assault with decent rewards and no chance other people can screw with us, please!

[Zarath]

My gripes for the day regarding the ToAU generation (including people that *sigh* bought accounts or took them over from friends who did actually know what they were doing).

How bout people who have taken a friend's account, but actually knows what they're doing, and doing it well ?! Personally, I can't gripe about people taking over other accounts, some people know their shit, like myself, who's original account was lost to them in some form or another. I know my friends appreciate when I play either THF or COR to events or just party, cause I'm a good player, even though originally I was only a BRD.

[S N K]

RDM I ran into recently being the epitome of lazy fuck. Seeks all day with BLM sub and refuses to sub WHM at all and then seeks for hours on end because she don't get the idea of that if she wants to get to 75 quickly she needs to try and be more of a support mage.

As long as the RDM is not main healing, /WHM is normally optional and often times not optimal. Subbing /BLM does not mean that a RDM is lazy, just that he/she likes his/her MP pool.

Ok you have a point on that. How can I phrase it better. RDM is asked to main heal but refuses to do so saying that main healing should be only for a WHM. We told that none have been seeking for hours and that considering this RDM would have a BRD supporting her, she still refused to sub WHM saying that she didn't enjoy main healing.

Being an RDM for god's knows how long I really consider that a lazy as fuck attitude. My RDM had it much easier then my SMN when I was exping that seeing as I was main healing with PLD tanks in Bibiki Bay on Dhamels. *vomit*

Honestly tho Sept if you want to exp and even more get fast exp at that you should be able to change your sub to support whatever your PT needs might be. A lot of RDMs & even more so BRDs are really stuck up sometimes. I can understand how they want good exp but shit, I had this one BRD who wouldn't do anything but ToAU zones even after I told his ass 6 times that all ToAU camps were full however there were a ton of RoZ zones open to exp in.

Exp isn't as good as ToAU I admit but it beats the fuck out of trying to compete for pulls or sitting at a camp waiting for pops.

[Keston]

Sub Jobs = Utility. Used to fit the need of the effort/team/party/alliance/mission w/e. Thinking a certain sub is staple on a job is ignorant and limiting, I agree. I've done SMN/drk, SMN/pld, SMN/rdm, BLM/nin etc, whatever contributes the most to the effort/situation. I usually point out their healing skill caps and ask if they think its just for show. Any RDM or BRD refusing to accommodate the group the best they are able, usually doesn't get a second invite.

One of the things that helps good setups, is that as you party more, you recognize the people who are above average on their jobs, and are willing to help the team in any/best ways they can. And the next time you see them seeking, or even not seeking (i do a quick search/tell for the people I remember), they often get first dibs. So usually as you go forward, repeat parties are often filled with people you've partied with before, and know their stuff. And this way you can also avoid that bard that kept pulling 5 g.collobri links all the time and couldn't land lullaby to save his life. Even though its a pickup party, its with guaranteed good players.