My Samurai (that’s right I’m leveling it) just hit 54, giving me a total of 1000 job levels.

In other news, I am making a quite large blog post about what I’ve been up to since I last posted. There’s a lot to cover, as when I last posted my Ninja was level 51, and now it’s 75, so there’s some ground to cover there.

First off, it was December 19th, 2007 when I hit the total playtime of 600 days. And last night, around 11:30 PM EDT, I hit the next big milestone:

And if that isn’t cool, I’m only 4 levels away from hitting my 1000th job level, which will probably happen by the end of the week too.

Secondly, I would like to point out a cool new FFXI blog archive that I stumbled upon while browsing other FFXI blogs, The Tarutaru Times Online. You sign up and can get a key from someone who’s already signed up or by emailing the admin, and then you can add your blog’s RSS feed and other stuff to their system, which then polls your RSS feed for new posts every hour (you can even change how often it scans). It’s a really cool site and I like the idea of it.

Evasion Build

1. Scouter’s Rope - 180k
2. Boxer’s Mantle - 750k in coins (or Corse Cape - 70k)
3. Rasetsu Tekko - 20k
4. Elusive Earring - 130k (or Velocity Earring - 30k)

Resist Physical Damage Build (-39% Physical)

1. Arhat’s Gi - 15k
2. Arhat’s Jinpachi - 15k
3. Darksteel Mittens +1 - 200k
4. Darksteel Leggings +1 - 200k

Resist Earth Set (+112 Resist Earth)

1. Wind Belt - 0k (+20)
2. Sand Gloves - 0k (+11)
3. Maldust Ring - 1k (+10)
4. Jeweled Collar - 200k (+10)
5. Emerald Earring - 50k (+10)
6. Topaz Earring - 50k (+10)
7. Topaz Ring - 40k (+9)
8. Wivre Hairpin +1 - 50k (+12)

Resist Fire Set (+149 Resist Fire)

1. Suzaku’s Sune-ate - 0k (+50)
2. Water Belt - 0k (+20)
3. Green Ribbon +1 - 10k (+10)
4. Ruby Earring x2 - 80k (+20)
5. Malflame Ring - 10k (+10)
6. Buburimu Gorget - 10k (+10)
7. Ruby Ring - 20k (+9)

I have just finished writing a little plugin for wordpress that gzips (compresses) all the pages that get sent to the browser. This should hopefully mean faster page loads. However, I’m not 100% confident in my ability to not make a mistake, which is why I’m making this entry.

I know some browsers don’t like gzipped pages, at all. If for some reason a page doesn’t load, or a stylesheet doesn’t render properly, please email me (cyberstorm240 at gmail dot com) or comment somewhere (hopefully here).

Edit: I have just tested my blog on Firefox 3.0.1, Safari 3.1.2, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8. Besides IE8, everything looks great. I’m not going to fix my blog for IE8. Ever. IE7 has a few weird quirks that I can’t fix because of it’s lack of support for proper CSS. I don’t have Opera installed on my work PC (or at home), so if someone could test it and make sure it works that would be cool.

Edit 2: I installed Opera on my work PC and my blog looks just as good as it does in Firefox. Sadly, I forgot to update my blog files at work and I reuploaded part of the template and lost a change I made last night (the search bar I put at the top is no longer there lawl!). I’ll go home and reupload it from there tonight.

I have changed the blog’s design (again). I think the way it looks now is a little nicer (although I didn’t really change much). I think the images brighten it up some too. I did have to move some things around though…

I have decided to make the sidebar smaller in size, by deleting the second one I had. Now I only have one, so with limited stuff some things had to go and some things got changed/added:

• The blogroll that was on every page has a new home, you can see a link to it at the top of every page. I feel bad for moving it, since google and other search engines were picking up those links on every page and hopefully giving other blogs more traffic (the whole 5 hits a day I get lawl). But I had to get rid of something!
• The tag cloud that looked horrible is also gone. It too has a page of its own now. It actually looks really good when it has its own page I think.
• To save space, I have gotten rid of “Filed in xxx,yyy” for categories and “Tags: zzz” for tags. Categories now have an orange tag folder icon next to them, and tags have a blue tag next to them. Yay color coding!
• The pingback link/large block of text that was at the bottom of the full view of each post’s page is gone. I was hoping to keep the pingback link in (not that it’s ever been used ever!), but I hated the look of it so it’s GONE.

That’s really all for now. I’m sure I’ll get bored and continue to work on it once and awhile. If you visit and something looks really horrible, it’s probably in the process of being changed. (Example: I just changed the way the comments look. During the 30 minutes it took for me to be happy, the page looked horrendous, not that anyone would ever notice)

It’s from when they released the adventuring fellow. Rilian sent it to me, I’m not sure if it was taken from Titan or not, but lines like this did form in front of the ??? and the BCNM entrance.

Also in my archives, I found a few assorted pictures. As soon as I saw them I knew where they were from. In POL (I forget where, the date on the email was 12/16/05) there are these little cards you can send people via email. Since I haven’t updated in forever, I thought these would make for a cool update.

(oh my god it’s so fucking cute)

(she is such a bitch)

1. One exp scroll
2. 20 free inventory spaces

Ninja has been going really good! It gets party invites fast (much faster than Scholar was), and the parties I get are of much higher quality too. I keep hate really well with my High Breath Mantle, and there have been very few deaths since I started at level 37 (enough I can probably count on one hand).

I’ll do some past news first! I hit 46 and tossed my two AF weapons. They were nice while they lasted (6 whole levels), but sadly it was time for me to get something that would let me hit for more than single digit numbers…

Yesterday it hit level 51.

And now that I was AF level, it was time to get it over and done with. AF is something I usually dread doing, as for the most party, key drop rates are terrible, and then once you do get one (after sometimes hours of farming them), there is almost always competition trying to find and open a coffer. However, Ninja AF went really well…

First up were the pants! The quest was simple enough, just talk to a few NPCs then go take a boat ride at night and kill some lame NM. The only thing I was worried about was some idiot being on the boat who would beat me to getting to the top and kill it, thus making me redo the boat ride. Luckily, there were only two other people on the boat, and they were both fish bots (or what looked like fish bots). The NM is overly weak, almost as weak as the two spider NMs in the desert for AF1.

Next up, I decided to do AF3, which is the body. This quest is a bit lengthier than the AF2 quest. Luckily, this is one of the few AF3s I felt comfortable soloing. Usually the AF3 monster is too tough for me to want to even try to solo, but the Ninja AF3 monster is actually 3 monsters, thus making the 3 monsters combined as strong as 1 monster. The trick comes from how you only really have to kill one NM to get the key item, as with many other force pop multi-NMs. All I did was pop the 3 monsters, zone them, come back out and claim one and just drag it around in circles until the other two despawned. Once they were gone, it was a pretty simple fight (I was fighting the monk), and luckily bind/gravity weren’t resisted at all, so it’s 2 hour never touched me. All that was left after that was to get a Kuftal Coffer Key and pop it, which was really easy (key dropped after 3-4 crabs, and the coffer was close by).

After the body, it was time for the awesome feet! I got lucky with the key drop, as it only took me about 30-45 minutes for it to drop. One of my friends, Pururunnyan, said it took him about 10 hours to get his key when he was doing Ninja AF. I would have expected that from somewhere like Castle Zvahl or Castle Oztroja, as those keys suck. Also I was the only one killing coffer key monsters and looking for the coffer, so it was a quick find and open!

Next down the line, the hands! Simple coffer in Ifrit’s Cauldron, one of the my most hated zones. Rilian and Pururunnyan helped me get the key after we helped Pururunnyan get his Wyvern Skull for Opo-opo Crown quest, so all I had to do was find and pop the coffer, then go up to Castle Zvahl and kill the Dark Spark.

And finally on the list, one of the worst pieces of AF for Ninja, the head! Another very easy coffer, this time from The Boyada Tree. Coffer key dropped after about 10 crabs, and when I zoned back into the zone on Ninja, I was the only one in the whole zone, so the coffer was up and ready for me to pop. :3

Thus completing my 12th full set of Artifact Armor!

In Sky news, I have gotten two new pieces! One was a joke item I lotted just because it sucks and it went free lot, and one I spent 2 points on. The joke item being Skofnung. I already have a Subduer, which is a pretty good end-game Great Sword (apart from Perdu), and no one else wanted it so I thought “why the hell not” and got it. :3

The two points were spent on one of the better MAB pieces for hands, the Abjuration for Zenith Mitts!

And finally, in my Nyzul static, we finally beat our first 100 floor! Of course our leader, Rilian, used his fireflies before the last boss died so that the information wouldn’t be reset. Askar Head and the Bard Dagger (Dancing Dagger) dropped. Myraanda got the head, and I got the dagger!

Too bad a better weapon didn’t drop, like one that I will probably use. Bard doesn’t really have that good of a dagger skill, and plus as a bard I really like my staves for Elegy and Lullaby, so I really don’t see me meleeing in a merit party, or any party really. Maybe SE will be smart, and just add some useful stats to the dagger that would make it better than using staves.

…But don’t count on it…

Small update, and it’s to the blog (since playing FFXI here would be over the top). I have removed a few inactive blogs from my small blog list (right side of every page), and replaced them with even more active FFXI blogs.

If you have a blog and want me to link it, comment or something and I’ll catch it. :p

Also, link me, I need visitors ;_;

Now here’s a job I thought I’d never play past level 37, Ninja!

Ninja, so far, hasn’t been as expensive as I thought it would be. Apart from 3 of the Ni elemental spells, and hojo tools, the cost isn’t that bad. Plus, the job is pretty fun once you get good at counting shadows… Levels 37-44 (current) hasn’t bee that bad so far. Some parties sucked, such has a 42 whm with no haste, and a 38 whm with no erase, but for the most part the parties have been good.

I got 44 yesterday

AF1 for Ninja is ridiculously easy, the two spiders are very underpowered when compared to other AF1 monsters.. But at least you get two weapons :3

Currently I only use the Zushio as my main hand, and offhand the Nikkariaoe for the spell interruption rate down 25%, not that it’s even done anything. Hopefully I’ll have enough money to get this job to 75, maybe if I get a good prize from the Moogle lottery.