NM stocks rising, leather stocks falling (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

Been a while since I saw even one NM, but dealt with a bunch of them today.

While having horrible luck killing gigas for their socks to desynth into wool threads, I ran into Odqan, a cluster NM! Killed it dead. Didn't get the good drop, but hey, killing NMs is fun!

The ring is a BST-only ring, increases chances of charm working against two families. ~10K at the AH, sells slow as heck.

Later in the day we camped Goblin Wolfman for a PLD in our LS. We killed him... 4? 5? times, got all spawns other than one, but no drop. Bah. Still, was fun to kill him! DRK NM! I tanked him twice. :D

Between those two things I got two .1 leather skillups (only enough materials available on the AH to do 7 synths). Fished for an hour and caught one single fish (this month's fish ranking fish is level 96, bah. But at least that's better than the impossible to catch one last month!).

Two Besiegeds hit, both level 3s. Got full reward both times, but for some odd reason I'm not having as much fun at them as I used to. Saw something at the first one that pissed me off. What's wrong with this picture? *slaps the DRK* He's wearing the most expensive, rarest DRK armor around, only 2? 3? on the entire server, and he's wearing a NQ Amemet Mantle? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over. Most of his armor was utter crap, other than the body piece. Those aren't even two sniper's! It was one sniper and one... that cheap, lesser version of them with the same model. The quested one. Wearing acc rings! At that level! (He was hume, but even an elf would be in str rings by then!)

Bah. I don't usually rant (or even care, really) about armor, but I lusted after a Plastron for a whole year and never even saw one for sale. He's wearing a 20-30 million gil item, and he can't do any better in his other slots?

Comments

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

The nerve! How dare he not play the game properly? Using suboptimal equipment is totally cheating!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Maybe that piece of armor is why he doesn't have better equipment in his other slots.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you just have to chase your dreams, even if that means running around with bread sacks on your feet for a while. :)

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

[draymor.livejournal.com]

OMG! My PLD-DRG friend was just ranting on a DRG who was doing the same thing: wearing one uber expensive piece of gear and having utter crap in the other slots (venerer and shikaree, iirc) at 75! Creepy!

How hard was the Wolfman? I take it not very since a pretty boy drk like you can tank him twice :P But our resident PLD (same as above) is pining for one of the prescous and I'd like to get an idea of what the fight is like :D

[gbeans.livejournal.com]

The fight isn't bad at all. The hardest part has been popping him with 5 other people camping the same spawn pop location. The NM is a DRK, prolly mid-50ish if I had to guess. As a MNK75/NIN37 it only took 1 shadow from me (capped evasion and +20 in Eva gear equipped at the time)... Our PLD did the first round of fights the day before as WHM75 and was holding his own just fine until I got there. If I hadn't come to assist him I'm confident he would have won, I just spend things up a bit.

[draymor.livejournal.com]

That's good to konw! Although I think we're camping some NM in Den of rancor for a katana tonight I'll know what to expect later. :D

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

He took down my shadows all the time (I had to recast 4-5 times each time I was tanking), but when he hit me it wasn't for too much (I could Drain myself back to full). Luckily my spot didn't have anyone camping him until we were on our last juice. (Or second to last, since you then brought one.) So my part of it was easy. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was very hard at all. It seemed to hit me a lot more than it hit Beanie (duh, like there's much challenge in hitting a DRK), but I was mostly able to keep my shadows up.

[jehryn.livejournal.com]

wayyyyyyy more than 3 plastrons on the server, probably 50 or more considering how much ouryu is done, we done enough ouryus a couple months ago to get everyone that had DRK leveled a plastron and the black cuisses

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting.

[genomeffxi.livejournal.com]

Amemit is a really great piece of gear in terms of price/value, under 5k gil for those stats is pretty amazing imo.
I don't like to wear non-rare ex items, even less so expensive items, but on some rare occasions if I needed to grab some attack mantle to test something, I sometimes grabbed one from the AH for 2-3k and sold it back later instead of wasting time muling for just slightly better ones that I never really use anyways.

Also that one is signed, it could have been a present from a friend to him being otherwise a starting out poor player.

And is this plastron really that great of an item? Def is not so good, STR and atk are not that huge all considering (adaman seems like a better body even on those stats and even AF1+ body and other easy to get body armors seem pretty comparable) and refresh you have that near-free vampire cape that gives refresh half of the day, plus it has that damage taken thing that seems a bit dangerous =P I mean obviously it must be pretty good and I don't know much about DRK, but still it doesn't seem to be mind-blowingly good or anything that spectacular at first glance.

[onionkiri.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing... I'm no melee myself, but those stats look meh compared to a hauberk. It's only expensive because the materials come from Ouryu, and like Jeh said not all that rare. He's probably wearing acc rings because it has no +acc. =P Don't be annoyed! Your gear is better than his!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

He's probably wearing acc rings because it has no +acc.

That's a good point. I get a crapload of it on my armor, so I can use my ring slots for better things.

:)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

And is this plastron really that great of an item?

Stats-wise, my current armor (Hauby +1) is a heck of a lot better. A few months ago I settled down enough to actually look at the two next to each other, and since then I haven't lusted after one nearly so much. Mostly I wanted it because it was so rare, and because this JP DRK on our server has the very best of the best, rarest, most expensive DRK stuff and he has one.

[iniadelphinae.livejournal.com]

To go along with what's already been said about the Plastron, maybe he sold his Snipers, or even Flame Rings, and any other good gear he might have had to get the body piece.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah... Or maybe it was a gift and he had sucky stuff all along.

[veri-of-remora.livejournal.com]

i totally see where you're coming from on that DRK's gear lol. but then again, i've been with DRKs who have +54 accuracy and still use sushi to merit... so meh.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hee, yeah.

[sukashi.livejournal.com]

When Hyouga, one of my RL friends that still plays FF, got a black belt for his MNK, he was still wearing AF body and NQ Amemit Mantle. Not many MNKs were very happy (http://users.livejournal.com/skyfire_/795.html) about that, of course...

Of course, same friend now has faith torque, 5/5 MNK AF2, black belt, the works. And he still couldn't afford decent gear as a BRD when he levelled with my NIN.

... It's just not a fair world, I say.

[gbeans.livejournal.com]

I've seen what you're talking about with MNKs. I'll see them with Shura gear and then lvl54 rings and NQ capes... I think it comes down to what can be quested / what can be give to them. The Abj is free if you kill the god, and many shells will split (and some outright give) you the cursed piece to go with it. Bling, instant pimp for no gil and your other slots can continue to slack.

On the other paw... The generous part of my personality wants to give them credit for at least getting out there and killing stuff (though people can leech right through those too). I have yet to roll out of bed and fight my moogle holding up a black belt for me. So the MNK would have at least had to go to some KS99 or ground camps to get the quest items. Plus had to do the *five* pre-req NMs before you can even do the black belt quest. Wow, that time adds up too, let me tell you -.- Stupid Malboro...

I noticed the DRK had an earring that could be a Brutal. If he bought the coins for it it would have been 3.5m-7mil depending on how recently he did it. Or he did a buttload of Limbus. Either way, he would have had to cattail through 7 chapters of CoP to even get Limbus access. That's no small investment of time or gil for supplies. (Or he could be wearing a Bone Earring, which then I'd have to cry horribly).

[veri-of-remora.livejournal.com]

lmao bone... i was thinking it might be an elusive earring or a cassie earring...

[gbeans.livejournal.com]

Could be that too, though those aren't pocket change either x.x Thistle needs to go stalk this DRK and get us a full list of his gear ;3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't check the earring at the time, but when I was looking at the screenshot I wondered what it was.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah! *pats* :)

[veri-of-remora.livejournal.com]

i just noticed he/she has black cuisses also... damn.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yes, I belatedly spotted that, too. >