Less than productive day (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

Odd thing happened today. Our XP static has the same six members every week. Same jobs, been going to the same camp, same mobs. No other parties there with us. Usually the XP is fine -- a little slower than I'd like, but the lack of other people makes it worth going there. This week? XP was just plain old bad. Same people, party, jobs, level, camp, mobs. None of us understood it.

So: No hitting 74 this week, when we were certain we would. Not even close, really. I'm @6K, though leading edge in the group is @1K. Bah. Was a depressing start to the day. I'm so ready to be done with BRD. 75, a bit of a buffer, then it goes away. (Sorry guys.)

Digging continues to be pretty bad. What's up with the desert always being dug out? Used to be I could successfully dig there a couple times a week, but it's been two weeks since I could stay there. Depressing.

The moon was too small to skill Chaser's gold, so hopefully tomorrow. I attempted to do synths for money, but mostly I just restocked her ingot supply for future guild turnins. (75K/100K on apron, don't think I'll go for the mog house item. It requires light moghancement. WTF? That's nearly as annoying as leather's MH item requiring ice moghancement.)

The only real progress I made today was figuring out how to deal with BRD's MP issues. I have 133 MP "naturally" -- no food in me, so no +50 from the crown. I want at least 150 naturally (for raise/reraise). I 'figured it out', but I can't put the fix in place yet. c.c I'm going to use the two assault earrings (antivenom and insomnia) instead of melody earrings. I have CHR coming out of my ears, and for a bit of time I worried about losing the +eva, but with our party setup that'll be fine. So the reason I couldn't put the fix into place? I'm 95 AP short of the second earring. :P With the one earring I'm at 148 MP, so if we had leveled up today I bet that would have given me 150. :/

Other good thing was a Besieged, though it was only level 1. 330 XP closer to catching up in static! 9.9

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Today was both frustrating and very little fun.

Comments

[gbeans.livejournal.com]

Why not get two MP merits? Mithra's natural MP with /WHM is 137. 2 merits puts me at 157 and those are active by level 30 on any job. Kinda belated to be thinking about it since it prolly would've been helpful a while ago, but you still might fall short of 150 at 75 /shrug

[tacrozar.livejournal.com]

Have you considered getting Mannequins? Those are light based storage.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's the Antivenom Earring that you need, we'll hopefully be getting Mamool Ja AP this afternoon. ^_~

Also, were you xp'in in an AU area, and had the AC been returned by the time you started xp'ing? Having it in Al Zahbi gives an xp bonus for all the AU areas. I'm not sure if the bonus increases depending on how long the AC's been in town, but that might explain it.

[onionkiri.livejournal.com]

Don't mannequins have a ton of light energy? I haven't done the quest myself so I wouldn't know, but I thought I read that somewhere.

And we only recovered the AC a little bit ago, so we're on level 1/0 Beseiged right now -- so Regen/Refresh sanction kicks in at higher HP/MP percentages, and we get less of an XP bonus. It'll go up as we win more, but that was probably why XP wasn't great this week.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Thistle had a problem with the mannequins (and two can't even bee displayed in his house, otherwise he loses the ice), but you need Safehold access to get the mannequins, and I'm NOT NOT NOT sending Chaser through the Promies for that! :P

And we only recovered the AC a little bit ago ... and we get less of an XP bonus.

Wow, I had no idea that the XP bonus varied! I thought we either had it or didn't.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's the Antivenom Earring that you need, we'll hopefully be getting Mamool Ja AP this afternoon. ^_~

Thank you! I now have the MP I need~! :D

Yeah, the Candysense had been back, but not for long. TheOnion said it does vary, which I hadn't known! I thought you either had the XP bonus or not.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Thistle has all of them, which is unfortunate since he needs ice energy. He has to have two not even displayed. :/ I'm sort of considering them for Chaser, but I'd really like to stick with fire energy. In theory, you can switch back and forth between energies based on what you're doing, but I find I'm way too lazy for that. :P

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's odd. Based on the Wiki article, you don't need Safehold access to get all the mannequins you want. o.O Is it just the 'reposing' quest that's there, maybe?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I'd rather use my merits for DRK foo, but that's an option. I have two merits now, which could give me the two for MP, but I'm supposed to be saving them.

Thanks to helping Cy/Cy helping me, I now have the second earring, so as long as I'm not naked, I'll be okay. (Which means I can stop eating pananans in Besieged -- I had been doing that for reraise.) The issue is raising people out in the wild, when nine times out of ten I'm naked. :/

(While doing H&C in the Marshlands, I came across a dead person. I had to eat food and rest to get enough MP to raise her, and that annoyed me. And if I hadn't had food on me, I couldn't even have done it at all!)

I guess I'll see where I am at 75 and decide from there. I don't really need the DRK merits, so maybe I'll spend them on that... (And it's not like DRK doesn't use MP too.)

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

The two quests following the Mannequin quest (the Mannequin Pumps and the posing one) are in the Safehold, but I'm pretty sure you can just buy more from the Mithra in Mhaura after you have your first one.

[onionkiri.livejournal.com]

I'm not 100% on that since it's mostly what I picked up from LS chatter, but I'm pretty sure the bonus gradually rises every time we raise a Beseiged level, and caps at 15%. The Regen/Refresh sanction part is definitely true though. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh! It's something to think about then...

I wish I could just give her Thistle's. :/