Random Question Thread VI: I'm No Mathologist, But...

[Cream Soda]

Oshi, that sig is almost as hot as mine, failure

[Yubar]

Honestly, Viq gave you the only proper response. Don't join a shell if it isn't through word of mouth or BG recruitment imo. /shout shells and the like are either going to be awful, or exactly what you had. /shrug In the end, if you go on 1 run and get screwed, you didn't really lose out on much more than 1-2 hrs of your life.

Thanks, I'll take that into mind.

Though, think I should be weary of any ls that say things like they're a "family"? Because, I always found that ls's that say that to be really shady and is code word for "niche group" and "buddy ls" like I found out in Lavienrose.

[Thorny]

Honestly, Viq gave you the only proper response. Don't join a shell if it isn't through word of mouth or BG recruitment imo. /shout shells and the like are either going to be awful, or exactly what you had. /shrug In the end, if you go on 1 run and get screwed, you didn't really lose out on much more than 1-2 hrs of your life.

lol

I love these forums as much as anyone, but a good 80% of the shells recruiting here are as gimp/sketchy as shout shells.

[FailureMidgard]

lol

I love these forums as much as anyone, but a good 80% of the shells recruiting here are as gimp/sketchy as shout shells.

Ok, I'll give in that there's some recruitment things here that are still awful, but I think it's a stretch to say they are as bad as shout shells...at least you can kinda look into them more here, and I think a bad shell advertising here is still better than the absolute best shout shell you can find, though not by much.

In any case, friends or word of mouth from people you know/respect is the best way to go about it.

[Yubar]

What about my other question? Should I be weary when a ls regardless if it is a shout ls or not refer to themselves as "family"?

[mdkuser]

This question might be umm... strange, but I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how to detect a good ls from a bad ls. I don't exactly mean skill wise, but it wouldn't hurt.

I've been having trouble finding an honorable and reliable ls lately, and it's pissing me off. The last few salvage ls I have been in were disastrous to me due to blatant loot whores and very shady activities.

For example, today I had the pleasure of joining a salvage ls called Twentythree ran by Darkox here on Midgar and we did BR. Now, I told Darkox that my main lot was usu feet and he was ok with it. Now, the 35 usu drop and it was suppose to go to me, but then Darkox tells me I can't have it, because I wasn't part of the group and that I was brd and brd isn't important enough to the group. Instead, the feet go to his friend Salvatruko who doesn't even have usu feet as his main or sub. Now like any reasonable person I said fuck it and not dealing with this bullshit any more.

Now I'm completely salvageless again, and I'm not sure how to prevent this from happening again.

tl;dr I need advice from the veteran players on this site on how to prevent this from happening to me and to be able to detect a shady and bad ls.

ive had that problems, had a group with a lootwhore leader whose only job was paladin and spammed his zones, he ran with 12 and people were very bad. I eventually managed to make a stable group of 6-7 atfer 1 year ish, who were motivated and eventually became awsome.

The advice I'll give you is shout groups. They are not as good as a 6 man static that has run for one year, but there is the advantage is you can chose your item you want and only recruit people wanting other items, much like nyzul. Shout groups are not pretentious by definition, they dont full clear, but they at least should do what they entered the zone for, kill their target NMs, if their leader takes time ( 15minutes) to explain in details what you are going to do. I've got 1/3 of my gear from shouts and half of my boss drops, it's fast if you spam them every non official day.

[drwaffles]

What are the optimum merits for MNK? I was thinking 5 counter, 5 kick attacks, 5 Formless Strikes and 5 Invigorate.

[Nishida]

@Yubar: Join Brainjacked or AresOnTheFloor..other than that..not sure of any good Salv shells that are recruiting.

Also..as Failure said..don't join shout shells..I made this mistake a good majority of my FFXI career and it got me nowhere. I finally decided to join an LS that had an app and a recruitment process and I'm finally getting progressed w/ gear.

[Dooom]

What about my other question? Should I be weary when a ls regardless if it is a shout ls or not refer to themselves as "family"?

While it's not directly FF-related, I've been playing another MMORPG these past few months, and some groups on there will /shout recruit saying "we're a family, not a faction" or something like that. Normally, another series of /shouts happens a few days later where a new member is complaining that one or two members of said faction are hoarding all the dungeon drops etc. and only doing things for a few members, whereas the rest are being treated like bitches.

[Sylvrdragon]

I store my macros the way you do, and the only difference is I use:
/console exec "rdm/mnd.txt"
and it works just fine

Hmm, I use /console exec macros/rdm/mnd.txt

The path name starts as soon as you get deeper than the "Scripts" folder, though note that by default, I don't think the "Macros" folder exists. If you're like me, though, and wanted to separate your macros from your .init file, then you may have added another layer as well.

[Eldelphia]

tl;dr I need advice from the veteran players on this site on how to prevent this from happening to me and to be able to detect a shady and bad ls.

Depends what you want. Longevity of a shell can sometimes be an indicator that it's at least stable and servicing its members. Shells don't tend to last if they're run by loot whores who don't put work in. Not always the case, some shells get complacent.

Make sure the shell you join does the events you want to do, at a time you can make. Doesn't always have to be a points system but for Dynamis, Einherjar I'd insist on it and for the points to be out in the open. I know that if I'd known back then what I know now, I'd have setup points for Sky... these days people just farm up pops and we pop em. Use the gil from money drops to buy cheap popsets etc and fund abjuration gear.

As for Salvage, I'd actually agree with the peeps saying set up shouts. You might find a loose static group of players who will come if they're free most times you go after a while. I have a static which works most of the time but I've also done pickup runs and they're great for extra shots at gear. The way we see it is if someone gets a 35 elsewhere that's one less for us to worry about.

I tend to believe more in shells that do a lot together, not just one particular event. People have no real loyalty to event shells, they just hop once they're done with whatever it is they need. I'm not saying that's bad but if the leadership does it, you're screwed. I've seen it happen to several friends in the past, sky is particularly bad for this.

If people put together shells just to get particular items (I see a lot of Homam based limbus shells for example), they will more often than not drop the shell once they have what they've set out for.

[Awoir]

Going for Maats cap, any place specificly good to farm testimoneys?

[Dooom]

Going for Maats cap, any place specificly good to farm testimoneys?

Save yourself some headaches and try to combine AF key farming with test farming. The exception to this would be a rdm test, where if you go to sky and try to farm waters you'll end up with a dozen or so tests for you and all your friends.

[sruon]

Going for Maats cap, any place specificly good to farm testimoneys?

The places I used were:

Monastic Cavern: Orcish Hexspinner for BLM (Few minutes repop)
" : Orcish Warlord for DRK (Few minutes repop)
regular mobs around these for (MNK), RNG, WAR (DRG)

Castle Oztroja: Yagudo Avatar for SMN (24+ repop)
" : Yagudo High Priest for WHM (Few minutes repop)
" : Yagudo Templar for SAM (Few minutes repop)
regular mobs upstairs for : BRD, (BLM), MNK, NIN

Sky: RDM off pots

QSC Cave: PLD off regular mobs

Upper Delkfutt's Tower : BST off Wildkeeper mobs, possibility to farm WAR (RNG), (MNK) there too

SSG: Delta Sahagin for DRG.

Yuhtunga Jungle (or is it Yhoator..) : Tonberry Shadower past first entrance of temple, once you zone out before rezoning in (that U sorta shit), steal > zone if failed. If more than 10 fails try another mob cause it's possible mob is empty

()= places I feel aren't best to get said testimony at.

[Cream Soda]

What are the optimum merits for MNK? I was thinking 5 counter, 5 kick attacks, 5 Formless Strikes and 5 Invigorate.

5 kicks, 5 counter, 1 formless, 4-5 invigorate, 4-5 penance.

invig/penance more depend on what you do really. In my example, there is someone else w/ 5 penance so between the two of us, me having lv 4 is enough to keep it up full time.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Is Valkyrie's Fork next in line after Gungnir/Ryunohige(and was there ever a definitive answer as to whether Ryu was better?)

And if it is the relative top dog, is that still the case if you're /NIN instead of /SAM?



Er, also, is Wyrm Mail +1 worth anything? You can still six-hit /SAM with just Rajas/Brutal/Rose(toss in White Tathlum if you want a true, but otherwise you just need to land two hits of Drakes), and still true seven-hit /NIN with just Rajas/Brutal/Rose

[Nere]

Is it possible for NIN to hit 100% Spell Interruption Rate without a Magnetic earring or Choral Roll?

(72% in gear; 8 from merits; 20 from Aquaveil)

I've been searching all morning and I really don't want the answer to be no!

[pchan]

aquaveil is 25% and you need 102% to cap.

[Baelorn]

Er, also, is Wyrm Mail +1 worth anything?

It doesn't exist afaik.

[Tsuko_Asura]

It doesn't exist afaik.

I've seen quite a few running around on the various servers I've been to. If you haven't, its probably due to a lack of well-equipped dragoons, or a lack of well-equipped dragoons who do Tavnazia with any regularity.