RL, FFXI

[thistlechaser]

Dear California,

Please stop being on fire.

Love,
Thistle

PS: No flaming jokes!

Bah, California really needs a good state-wide downpour. So many wildfires! Smoke everywhere. Eyes hurt, everything's brown/hazy. I've been here eight years now and we've never ever had a fire season like this.

--

FFXI: Another night spent doing ZNMs. On our fourth try, we finally won. Got no drops, other than the 100% pop item:

We really need more people. A full alliance would be best. (Yes, it can be done with fewer, wiki even says a single party, but we're a social LS.)

Anyway. Best part of the night: Oh my god, look who showed up! Sorry it's not a better screenshot, but we were in the middle of a fight (building TP on bees) and I couldn't get closer to die get a better screenshot. First time I've ever ever seen him in the wild! :D I totally would have attacked him, just to have "Thistle was defeated by the Dark Rider." as a sig. Man, so cool. :D

And lastly, tell me I'm not insane. I've been playing for four or so years now, and I never, ever, ever saw a text line when auto-target was on:

Is that new? Or have I somehow missed it all this time? (I generally leave auto-target on, for farming on DRK.)

Day #2 of buying nothing for my MH. I'm trying to not look at that part of the AH, so I don't get tempted.

Comments

[sethimothy.livejournal.com]

The only time I've ever gotten a message about auto-target is when I am attacking something, and a link comes in and starts beating on me, and after killing the first mob I turn to the second. However, since sometimes after killing the first mob I'm no longer in a fighting stance, despite being beat on, I'm not sure how it exactly works... but I've seen that message more than my fair while in the Dangruf Wadi.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Odd. Well at least it doesn't happen 100% of the time. If it did and I somehow missed it all these years, I'd be worried!

[vorloxu.livejournal.com]

The auto-target thing isn't new :P. I've had it off for a while but I remember that text message. You're a flaming good player thistle <.<

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I said no flaming jokes! D:

And odd that this is the first time I'm seeing it... I must be blind or something!

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

The lurid, red sunrises were kind of a novelty for a couple of days, but now I'm starting to forget what non-smoky air looks and smells like. *wheezes*

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wheeze is right! And red eyes, too. It's going to be so long until we get a good rain to clear the air up...

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that dark rider actually ran around in the game world o.O Now I know I guess, I'll have to keep an eye out for him.

Since we are kinda on the topic of ZNMs I was recently doing some farming for plates (got up to like 4k today in zeni) and I was wondering. Is there any way to know when/if he changed/will change the mob group he wants? I'm afraid I'll go out one time, come back with 30 some odd plates and be screwed...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that dark rider actually ran around in the game world o.O Now I know I guess, I'll have to keep an eye out for him.

It's very, very rare to see him. Some people say that when he shows up the warhorse hoofprint appears where he was, but I'm not sure if that's myth or not.

Is there any way to know when/if he changed/will change the mob group he wants? I'm afraid I'll go out one time, come back with 30 some odd plates and be screwed...

Not that I know of. :/ I kept worrying about that, too. So far I've seen it stay the same way for 4 hours and 7 hours, but that doesn't tell us much.

[lordwafik.livejournal.com]

Thisticles! You don't need a full allience for Vulpangue, I did it with 5 ppl today.

RNG MNK
BRD SCH RDM

If you got no SCH get a WHM instead, cure5 does the same thing as (well more rather) the stoneskin + Phalanx I was giving the monk.

Just need a good monk/nin tank and another good OOR DD, if you don't have a RNG, get a SMN or COR instead. We also pulled him to the tunnel without adds, so clear mamools before hand.

What makes this dude insanely hard? Doing things that trigger same day of week attack boost. For example, if you paralyze him on iceday, he'll gain a giant attack boost. So that's what probably killed you guys. Also limit the amount of melees you have on him (omgosh !). We did 2, got 1 headband.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Thisticles!

Oh god, hee.

You don't need a full allience for Vulpangue, I did it with 5 ppl today.

That's why I added that we were a social LS. I think a group of fully merited, all 75s, HNM/Sky-armored LS could do it with less. We had some non-75s, a DRK who came /SCH, only one(?) person had any sky stuff, and only one had any AF2 at all. Yeah, armor doesn't make all the difference, but it sure does help. People getting one-shotted left and right didn't (way too many people came without /NIN). **

Doing things that trigger same day of week attack boost. For example, if you paralyze him on iceday, he'll gain a giant attack boost.

On our third run, we had thought he got tons harder near the end. But the day had just changed so maybe it was something like that...

Also limit the amount of melees you have on him (omgosh !). We did 2, got 1 headband.

What we ended up doing was TPing on the bees (and anything else our second tank aggroed...) and then running in only to WS. That countered the lack of shadows and kept the NM from WSing so much. Even our win was far, far, far from smooth (tank, myself, and a few other people died), but at least we finally had a success.

** I say that not to put anyone down, just trying to explain what our LS is like. We put social-ness ahead of everything else. If someone wants to do a wacky subjob for whatever reason, that's fine. If someone wants to use level 1 armor at 75, no one would ever say anything. 99% of the time, that's a fine thing. On big events like this (ha ha, see? To me, this is a big event!), it can hurt us.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that we take things seriously enough that people would *not* show up to an uncapped event in level 1 armor. ^^;

But yeah, some of us only have one job at 75, and it's a melee job, but we want to participate in these things. So we work with what we have.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that we take things seriously enough that people would *not* show up to an uncapped event in level 1 armor. ^^;

Yeah, that was a (slight) exaggeration, but based on a certain 75 person showed up at ToAU 44 fight in CP purchased boots (when there were tons, tons of other options). Hardest mission fight our group had ever done, and he wore crap and bitched about the cost of hi-pots(!!!).

[kindred-tari.livejournal.com]

My shell is also a very small social, and we do Vulpangue with 5 as well. NIN/WAR MNK/NIN RDM/DRK RDM/whatever and my BRD mule. Having a NIN engaged is pushing it, but trying to limit TP is your first hurdle, and too many melee is the #1 reason I see larger groups wipe to it (sup 18 man alliance with 4 BLUs spamming Disseverment).

I normally sing Double Mambo on my mule, and switch to March/Mambo for the single surviving melee in the event one melee gets caught with his pants down for Wind Shear. As RDM/DRK I stun Ill Wind and then camp Wind Shears, stunning after them to give melee time to throw shadows back up.

Take care, our NIN has been outright one-shot from Wind Shear for over 1800 damage, I'm assuming because of element/day buffs since it was still around 40-50%. But our MNK, who is still lacking about 12% in Haste gear, solo tanked it beautifully and we recovered.

Something else I'm going to mention is for your mages to keep an eye on each other. If you see one mage spamming Cures like no other, move away from that mage. A back-line Wind Shear is the last thing you need. I salvaged one of our pops by getting out of range of our other RDM when it ran to him towards the end of one fight.

I don't know how your second tank aggroed anything, we pop it and fight it right over the ??? with no problems, but TPing on surrounding mobs for your non-tanking melee is still a good way to bypass a happy-spam Vulpangue.

Good luck on the headbands, I am still fighting for mine.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

My shell is also a very small social, and we do Vulpangue with 5 as well. NIN/WAR MNK/NIN RDM/DRK RDM/whatever and my BRD mule.

Ah, well maybe we just suck then. ;) :D I can't explain why we have such a rough time with it.

, but trying to limit TP is your first hurdle, and too many melee is the #1 reason I see larger groups wipe to it

Yeah, we found that out the first time. Every run after that the melees TPed on bees and then ran in only to WS.

As RDM/DRK I stun Ill Wind and then camp Wind Shears

Do you have much success with stun? We had two DRKs, neither reported stun working well.

I don't know how your second tank aggroed anything, we pop it and fight it right over the ??? with no problems

Lord, I wish I knew as well. He aggroed over and over and over. Eventually someone told him to get to the wall and stay the hell there.

Thanks for the info! :)

[kindred-tari.livejournal.com]

We aren't exactly hardcore by any means. So far we've only had one close call where shit headed south fast but nothing terribly nasty.

As for Stun, it's easy to Stun Ill Wind. From my experience, he only uses it once but it's the only TP move I've been able to stun with any decent success. I should probably note that I'm a RDM and Stun in AF1 Hat/AF2 Body but how much of a difference that makes, I'm not sure. It's hard/nigh impossible to Stun Wind Shear because of how fast it goes off, so I just normally Stun after it, so the melee have time to get shadows up before an attack round. I've never had a Stun resist on it yet, and I Stun in a pathetic 200 + 12 Dark Skill.

The only possible way I could see a tank getting aggro is from the knock-back property of his TP moves, in which case yes, having a tank wedge himself in a wall is golden. Just be sure to remember Vulpangue can still use Crosswind, a conal TP move, and hit both of your tanks if they're standing on each other.

One last thing I'm going to say, and I know you guys are small like us, but if you can afford it with job constraints, keep a THF in your roster. I've fought this thing way too many times now, and it's even got to the point where I have my boyfriend bring his mule out PLD/THF for some ghetto treasure hunter. We can't give away the wings and epee swords fast enough :(

[sel-s.livejournal.com]

Look me up when you're doing ZNMs. If I'm free I'd be glad to help out.

I've also always had the auto targeting message.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I was talking to Totaru (as Miu) the other night and he said that you guys had done the pull to the Mamook zone method on the puk. I don't think that would have worked for our group, as we had a fair amount of melee and not many BLMs/ranged damage folks, but what was your party setup like? I don't know if we can put something like that together (a fair amount of us have a melee job as our only 75) but I'm curious as to various strategies.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, another person commented that they killed him there, but on top of number of people, our speed would have hurt us. The beastmen would have repopped long before we would have finished.

[sel-s.livejournal.com]

The two times we killed it without breaking a sweat was as PLD/NIN (me), THF, WHM, WHM, BLM, BRD. This was on Windsday.

The time we pulled to zone was actually an act of desperation as it had killed me and proceeded to kill everyone else. We didn't know about the elemental day/buff thing so I think this was the reason as it was A LOT tougher that time. It was Darksday and we had a RDM spamming Bio/Blind.

If you have someone who can pop it and flee to zone you don't need to clear the mamool.. just have everyone else already at the zone and have the person popping zone. The puk has party based hate.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yay, thanks! Barahir is the one organizing things, I'll pass on word. :)