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xyzzysqrlRecently the last storyline chapters of Seekers of Adoulin came out. Skimming over the patch notes, I noticed: "We've tuned these battles so that a party of six (level 99) players using item level 117 equipment can win".
So if you were wondering whether I'd ever be able to do that expansion... No. Not really. The iLvl gear I can get easily, but five other people? Nope. Still, ONE expansion of content I can't do is a damn sight better than it used to be. I lift a glass to the mad lunatics surfing at the tip of the curve. I may never join you, but I respect that I walk in your shadows.
Anyway, it's time to start thinking about this job business. It's not like I want to level every job to 99, but I would like to have a stack of extra choices I can mix and match between. I have some idea which jobs the community thinks are cool/needed for endgame but I'M NOT PART OF THEIR SYSTEM MAAAAAN so I can pretty much do whatever. Let's look over the options.
Unlocked at start: Warrior, Thief, Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage, Monk.
We can unlock: Paladin, Dark Knight, Beastmaster, Bard, Summoner, Ranger, Dragoon.
We cannot, for travel reasons, yet unlock: Samurai, Blue Mage, Corsair, Ninja, Puppetmaster, Dancer, Scholar, Geomancer, Rune Fencer.
There's a lot of stuff I'm interested in tucked away under the "Cannot Unlock" banner, but let's start in on the stuff we can get to. Like, for example...
Summoner
I was told Summoner is a nightmare to unlock. First you have to get a Carbuncle Ruby as an extremely rare drop by killing a certain type of enemy. Last night I was idly leveling Thief and happened to spy one of those enemies wandering around. Bop bop and my ruby drops first try. Huzzah, I am a statistical outlier!
After that, upon entering a random house in Windurst...
...we find a Tarutaru, of course. Those kinda LIVE in Windurst. He's very interested in the ruby, and tells us to close our eyes and open our heart, to let our thoughts become one with the ruby... and from within a voice speaks, telling us to find "the seven colors that cover the sky and embrace the earth".
Ajido-Marujido, our Taru guide, gives us two pieces of advice. First that we should "seek out the true Vana'diel", that Xenosa should walk the world and get to know the truth of the realm she lives in. See its beauty with her own eyes. The second piece of advice? "Don't do that opening your heart business without a strong Black Mage watching over you." It's dangerous to just throw yourself open to any manner of beast or rock you come across! What WERE we thinking?
...thanks, little dude.
So the colors that cover the sky and embrace the earth, huh? With no advice but that, we pack up our things and embark on a walking tour of Vana'diel on a quest for colors.
Orange is found in the strong sunlight that bakes the rocky soil of North Gustaberg.
Blue comes from the wet rains and thick fog soaking the Pashhow Marshlands.
Green? The winds that blow through the Buburimi Peninsula.
Violet light is found in the lightning that crackles over Sauromugue Champaign. (A "champaign" is apparently an open field.)
Yellow comes from earthy, sandy dust storms over Batallia Downs.
Indigo comes from the Beaucedine Glacier and its snowfall. This was a bit of a hassle -- I had to get Sneak and Invisible put on me from a book in a disused tunnel and run past high level -- 80-plus! -- monsters just to get here. (That said, it looks like a NICE place to level, with some good equip drops. Must come back.)
And finally, Red is found ... Red is...
Red isn't found. Red comes from heat waves, scorching hot weather that just isn't appearing in any of the areas I can get to. We'll have to come back to this one.
Summoner Unlock Status: FAILURE.
That was a lot of text. Have a picture of a coeurl.
Beastmaster
While Xenosa's walking around in Jeuno, a door opens next to her and a man peeks out. It's... that chocobo-abusing son of a bitch. He recognizes Xenosa and knows she's an adventurer and he has to beg a favor.
What favor could I possibly want to do for him? Well... his son is in bed with a terrible fever. He was going to go out to Qifum Island to search for a root that might cure him, from a flower that only blooms at night. It would really help out if I could go instead.
Okay, I admit - If this man were on fire by the roadside I might possibly stop to kick him into the river. However, for his son... nobody deserves to be sick and in pain. Xenosa takes the job and with a "thank you" Dietmund turns and -sprints- back to his son's bedside. Yeah this looks serious. Let's get out to Qifum.
Out at Qifum Island, once we've found the nightflowers, there's a call from behind. "Hey!" Dietmund waves. "My son's getting some rest, so I followed you out here!" He verifies that Xenosa found the right flowers, but laments they'll never dig them up properly without the equipment to do so. "I wish we had a chocobo here." Suddenly, the sound of approaching feet ...
I don't have to tell you what happens next, do I? Yep. That chocobo shows up, and it knows exactly where to dig to get the roots up undamaged.
"I was so rotten to you, but you came through for me." marvels Dietmund. The chocobo all but pulls him up onto its back to get him back home, so my theory is the bird just REALLY LIKES that kid. Back in Jeuno, we stop by the house long enough to see his son's fit and happy ... and down at the chocobo stables, Dietmund is profoundly thanking the chocobo. "I beat you and whipped you for so long... why did you decide to help me? Why? Do you understand me? I can't thank you enough..."
He apologizes to the stable master, and officially grants him care of this particular chocobo. He apologizes to us, and grants us the job of Beastmaster, since he's not fit to be one anymore. Then he heads off home, to take care of his son.
"Someday that man will return for this chocobo." muses the stable master. "And the chocobo will be glad of it. After all, he's a beastmaster."
... I guess what it is, is that I just don't GET BDSM relationships. However, Xenosa can now call herself a Beastmaster. Or Beastmistress I guess.
Quest: Save My Son COMPLETE.
Beastmaster Unlock Status: SUCCESS.
The idea behind the beastmaster class is that you find a monster out in the wild and shoot heart-beams at it to charm it. I am not kidding even a little bit.
You and your new best friend will be utterly inseparable for the next ten or so minutes, during which time you can order it to go beat the hell out of other monsters until it either dies or comes to its senses and turns on you, at which point you thwack it to death with an axe and find a new best friend.
It's about harmony and a loving co-existence with nature, really. Given that beastmaster pets are designed to be disposable, I worry about that guy's relationship with his chocobo.
Later on I'll get the mystical ability to call up monsters to sacrifice their lives for me via "jug pets", which involves putting something in a jug and then unleashing it to attract particular types of animals. This may mean I'll need to take up cooking broths and pet foods to become a career beastmaster. Beastmaster has a rep as The Soloing Class, so I may or may not fall into this one hardcore.
CHANCE OF USING NEW JOB: 100% I am leveling it right now. Longterm? We'll see.
Summoner Again
I went to bed after unlocking Beastmaster, but woke up to pizza ordered by the BF. While I was eating, I got to thinking. I'm supposed to walk Vana'diel, see the world... and I have. All the world I know of. There's more to the world than what I know, though. I cracked open the wiki and got browsing.
I found the answer right under my nose, in the Bastok Mines. The Korroloka Tunnel, a place of great import to the Galka people. It's the tunnel they used to flee to the Quon Continent (where the game so far has taken place) when they were being oppressed by beastmen, a cave running under the sea. It's a tunnel back to their old homeland, which contains a large, sprawling desert that might just have the burning hot weather I need.
It's long and dark and scary and the battle music suddenly gets really imposing, but Xenosa makes it through. I won't lie and say I never got lost. I have GOT to start buying more maps.
It takes a while, but the sprawling deserts are baked with a heat wave, and with the final Red light added to the spectrum, a vision appears to Xenosa before rocketing off towards La Theine Plateau.
Probably just as well we get out of the heat-shimmering, painfully hot desert anyway. Xenosa's in metal armor after all.
From there we go to an old, crumbling stone circle in La Theine. The ruby is placed in the center... and shatters, freeing Carbuncle from its prison. It calls itself one of several "new forces" in Vana'diel, one that fell into crystal as the world changed around it.
"I'll fight by your side, and watch over you always." Carbuncle promises, but: "I demand you perform a labor: visit the ancient beings that sleep in faraway lands and places of legend. Vana'diel is the world in which you live. You should see the true Vana'diel with your own eyes."
Then he extends a bridge to connect the past to the future...
...and a beautiful rainbow stretches across the sky, which I majestically flub screen-capping. Er, oops.
I swear, I tried.
Quest I Can Hear A Rainbow COMPLETE.
Summoner Unlock Status: SUCCESS.
Xenosa can now be a Summoner. Now there are... upsides and downsides to this, and honestly I am probably NOT going to be a Summoner. I'm not very good at mage jobs, Summoner is complicated to play, and more than most other classes it leans hard on juggling gear-sets. In FFXI you can change your weapons and armor during combat, because speed-stripping is a skill all adventurers need. This has been incorporated into the metagame so hard you practically NEED to juggle gear for elemental affinities and spell boosts.
I don't wanna deal with that.
That said, Summoner has some of the coolest class-specific quests, because being a summoner is all about making pacts with various elemental Primes (not Primals. That's FFXIV. Primes.) by going into their lairs and beating the crap out of them with Carbuncle at your side. Then you summon them up in battle. It's awesome.
Plus... shouldn't we "See the true Vana'diel with our own eyes"? Isn't that why I'm actually PLAYING the game, instead of just kicking back to watch someone do a full-plot runthrough on Youtube?
Isn't that what this is all about?
Right now, however, Xenosa is level 49 Warrior and that main plot isn't getting any less done. Let's get back on that stick and ride it for a while before we crack any more jobs open. See you soon!
So if you were wondering whether I'd ever be able to do that expansion... No. Not really. The iLvl gear I can get easily, but five other people? Nope. Still, ONE expansion of content I can't do is a damn sight better than it used to be. I lift a glass to the mad lunatics surfing at the tip of the curve. I may never join you, but I respect that I walk in your shadows.
Anyway, it's time to start thinking about this job business. It's not like I want to level every job to 99, but I would like to have a stack of extra choices I can mix and match between. I have some idea which jobs the community thinks are cool/needed for endgame but I'M NOT PART OF THEIR SYSTEM MAAAAAN so I can pretty much do whatever. Let's look over the options.
Unlocked at start: Warrior, Thief, Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage, Monk.
We can unlock: Paladin, Dark Knight, Beastmaster, Bard, Summoner, Ranger, Dragoon.
We cannot, for travel reasons, yet unlock: Samurai, Blue Mage, Corsair, Ninja, Puppetmaster, Dancer, Scholar, Geomancer, Rune Fencer.
There's a lot of stuff I'm interested in tucked away under the "Cannot Unlock" banner, but let's start in on the stuff we can get to. Like, for example...
Summoner
I was told Summoner is a nightmare to unlock. First you have to get a Carbuncle Ruby as an extremely rare drop by killing a certain type of enemy. Last night I was idly leveling Thief and happened to spy one of those enemies wandering around. Bop bop and my ruby drops first try. Huzzah, I am a statistical outlier!
After that, upon entering a random house in Windurst...
...we find a Tarutaru, of course. Those kinda LIVE in Windurst. He's very interested in the ruby, and tells us to close our eyes and open our heart, to let our thoughts become one with the ruby... and from within a voice speaks, telling us to find "the seven colors that cover the sky and embrace the earth".
Ajido-Marujido, our Taru guide, gives us two pieces of advice. First that we should "seek out the true Vana'diel", that Xenosa should walk the world and get to know the truth of the realm she lives in. See its beauty with her own eyes. The second piece of advice? "Don't do that opening your heart business without a strong Black Mage watching over you." It's dangerous to just throw yourself open to any manner of beast or rock you come across! What WERE we thinking?
...thanks, little dude.
So the colors that cover the sky and embrace the earth, huh? With no advice but that, we pack up our things and embark on a walking tour of Vana'diel on a quest for colors.
Orange is found in the strong sunlight that bakes the rocky soil of North Gustaberg.
Blue comes from the wet rains and thick fog soaking the Pashhow Marshlands.
Green? The winds that blow through the Buburimi Peninsula.
Violet light is found in the lightning that crackles over Sauromugue Champaign. (A "champaign" is apparently an open field.)
Yellow comes from earthy, sandy dust storms over Batallia Downs.
Indigo comes from the Beaucedine Glacier and its snowfall. This was a bit of a hassle -- I had to get Sneak and Invisible put on me from a book in a disused tunnel and run past high level -- 80-plus! -- monsters just to get here. (That said, it looks like a NICE place to level, with some good equip drops. Must come back.)
And finally, Red is found ... Red is...
Red isn't found. Red comes from heat waves, scorching hot weather that just isn't appearing in any of the areas I can get to. We'll have to come back to this one.
Summoner Unlock Status: FAILURE.
That was a lot of text. Have a picture of a coeurl.
Beastmaster
While Xenosa's walking around in Jeuno, a door opens next to her and a man peeks out. It's... that chocobo-abusing son of a bitch. He recognizes Xenosa and knows she's an adventurer and he has to beg a favor.
What favor could I possibly want to do for him? Well... his son is in bed with a terrible fever. He was going to go out to Qifum Island to search for a root that might cure him, from a flower that only blooms at night. It would really help out if I could go instead.
Okay, I admit - If this man were on fire by the roadside I might possibly stop to kick him into the river. However, for his son... nobody deserves to be sick and in pain. Xenosa takes the job and with a "thank you" Dietmund turns and -sprints- back to his son's bedside. Yeah this looks serious. Let's get out to Qifum.
Out at Qifum Island, once we've found the nightflowers, there's a call from behind. "Hey!" Dietmund waves. "My son's getting some rest, so I followed you out here!" He verifies that Xenosa found the right flowers, but laments they'll never dig them up properly without the equipment to do so. "I wish we had a chocobo here." Suddenly, the sound of approaching feet ...
I don't have to tell you what happens next, do I? Yep. That chocobo shows up, and it knows exactly where to dig to get the roots up undamaged.
"I was so rotten to you, but you came through for me." marvels Dietmund. The chocobo all but pulls him up onto its back to get him back home, so my theory is the bird just REALLY LIKES that kid. Back in Jeuno, we stop by the house long enough to see his son's fit and happy ... and down at the chocobo stables, Dietmund is profoundly thanking the chocobo. "I beat you and whipped you for so long... why did you decide to help me? Why? Do you understand me? I can't thank you enough..."
He apologizes to the stable master, and officially grants him care of this particular chocobo. He apologizes to us, and grants us the job of Beastmaster, since he's not fit to be one anymore. Then he heads off home, to take care of his son.
"Someday that man will return for this chocobo." muses the stable master. "And the chocobo will be glad of it. After all, he's a beastmaster."
... I guess what it is, is that I just don't GET BDSM relationships. However, Xenosa can now call herself a Beastmaster. Or Beastmistress I guess.
Quest: Save My Son COMPLETE.
Beastmaster Unlock Status: SUCCESS.
The idea behind the beastmaster class is that you find a monster out in the wild and shoot heart-beams at it to charm it. I am not kidding even a little bit.
You and your new best friend will be utterly inseparable for the next ten or so minutes, during which time you can order it to go beat the hell out of other monsters until it either dies or comes to its senses and turns on you, at which point you thwack it to death with an axe and find a new best friend.
It's about harmony and a loving co-existence with nature, really. Given that beastmaster pets are designed to be disposable, I worry about that guy's relationship with his chocobo.
Later on I'll get the mystical ability to call up monsters to sacrifice their lives for me via "jug pets", which involves putting something in a jug and then unleashing it to attract particular types of animals. This may mean I'll need to take up cooking broths and pet foods to become a career beastmaster. Beastmaster has a rep as The Soloing Class, so I may or may not fall into this one hardcore.
CHANCE OF USING NEW JOB: 100% I am leveling it right now. Longterm? We'll see.
Summoner Again
I went to bed after unlocking Beastmaster, but woke up to pizza ordered by the BF. While I was eating, I got to thinking. I'm supposed to walk Vana'diel, see the world... and I have. All the world I know of. There's more to the world than what I know, though. I cracked open the wiki and got browsing.
I found the answer right under my nose, in the Bastok Mines. The Korroloka Tunnel, a place of great import to the Galka people. It's the tunnel they used to flee to the Quon Continent (where the game so far has taken place) when they were being oppressed by beastmen, a cave running under the sea. It's a tunnel back to their old homeland, which contains a large, sprawling desert that might just have the burning hot weather I need.
It's long and dark and scary and the battle music suddenly gets really imposing, but Xenosa makes it through. I won't lie and say I never got lost. I have GOT to start buying more maps.
It takes a while, but the sprawling deserts are baked with a heat wave, and with the final Red light added to the spectrum, a vision appears to Xenosa before rocketing off towards La Theine Plateau.
Probably just as well we get out of the heat-shimmering, painfully hot desert anyway. Xenosa's in metal armor after all.
From there we go to an old, crumbling stone circle in La Theine. The ruby is placed in the center... and shatters, freeing Carbuncle from its prison. It calls itself one of several "new forces" in Vana'diel, one that fell into crystal as the world changed around it.
"I'll fight by your side, and watch over you always." Carbuncle promises, but: "I demand you perform a labor: visit the ancient beings that sleep in faraway lands and places of legend. Vana'diel is the world in which you live. You should see the true Vana'diel with your own eyes."
Then he extends a bridge to connect the past to the future...
...and a beautiful rainbow stretches across the sky, which I majestically flub screen-capping. Er, oops.
I swear, I tried.
Quest I Can Hear A Rainbow COMPLETE.
Summoner Unlock Status: SUCCESS.
Xenosa can now be a Summoner. Now there are... upsides and downsides to this, and honestly I am probably NOT going to be a Summoner. I'm not very good at mage jobs, Summoner is complicated to play, and more than most other classes it leans hard on juggling gear-sets. In FFXI you can change your weapons and armor during combat, because speed-stripping is a skill all adventurers need. This has been incorporated into the metagame so hard you practically NEED to juggle gear for elemental affinities and spell boosts.
I don't wanna deal with that.
That said, Summoner has some of the coolest class-specific quests, because being a summoner is all about making pacts with various elemental Primes (not Primals. That's FFXIV. Primes.) by going into their lairs and beating the crap out of them with Carbuncle at your side. Then you summon them up in battle. It's awesome.
Plus... shouldn't we "See the true Vana'diel with our own eyes"? Isn't that why I'm actually PLAYING the game, instead of just kicking back to watch someone do a full-plot runthrough on Youtube?
Isn't that what this is all about?
Right now, however, Xenosa is level 49 Warrior and that main plot isn't getting any less done. Let's get back on that stick and ride it for a while before we crack any more jobs open. See you soon!
