Little Ladies Day

I was heading out for a bite to eat, when I noticed the beautiful decorations in every city. A little investigating brought me to Ul'dah and a lalafell. He announced that today was Little Lady's Day, a day when gentlmen became seneschals, servents to all young ladys. I was so excited! I could use a personal servent!

The biggest event was the doll contest. Townsfolk all over were tailoring dresses for dolls in the likeness of Princess Edvya, the patron of the festival. The ladies would then vote on the best doll. With a big reward.

I perked up at this. The Royal Seneschal suggested I buy a doll, and work on my own. there was no way I was going to turn this down! First the doll, then the manservents!

A quick trip to my favourite goldsmith Serendipity revealed that they were swapped with orders for the Princess Edvya dolls. Seeing my downturned face, she came up with a brilliant plan. The guild would make its own doll, and then show it off to all before auctioning it! I was tasked with traveling the realm, showing it off to get all the young ladies voting.

I was surprised at seeing the beautiful little dolly, and moved to pick it up. Imagine my surprise when it scooted along on its own! Trust Serendipity to turn a cute doll into an automaton. Still I had my task. Off I was to traverse the realm!

First stop, Gridania! Tossing cherry blossoms above her, I showed off the beautiful Princess to all the girls. Meanwhile, keeping my eyes out for any young men worthy to be my loyal servants! While I did a great job on the first, alas, all the good guys were taken already.

With reports that our little Princess was quickly becoming the talk of the town, I headed to Limsa Lominsa. The doll was a hit. However, I quickly left, as a horde of girls decided that someone with such a cute doll had to be their seneschal!

The doll was beginning to act weird... refusing to leave my side. Serendipity gave her a quick check up. After verifying that she was still working properly, she sent me off another another PR mission. This time, I was to dance for the gathering dignitaries in Ul'dah.

As I did my happy little kitty dance, I was surprised to see some movement from the doll as well. Was she joining me in my dance? Nah. Had to be a trick of the light.

Still, my job complete, I returned to Serenity. As she announced that the Princess was all but ready to be auctioned off, I saw it. The heart broken look on her face. Serendipity panicked, jabbering about her core being broken. I pressed her for answers, finding out that she had added a mammot core to the doll, practically giving it sentiance. *sigh* Only Serendipity would do this

Fearing for the dolls safety, I was sent after peach blossoms. Apparently, the core needed a special oil made from them. however, it appeared to be too late. The doll remained motionless. Even worse, the voting was done. And having heard nothing, Serendipity sighed, asking me to take the doll with me. It wasn't the reward money from the contest. But it was something.

No sooner did I agree to keep her, then the doll started moving again! she clung happily to me, to my embarrassment. I sighed as I headed home, not a gil richer, with a happy little princess following me.

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Archer: 4 -> 12

Armorer: 35

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 44 -> 46

Carpenter:  44 -> 50!

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  31

Gladiator: 1 -> 5

Goldsmith:  32 -> 33

Leatherworker: 32

Marauder: 1 -> 6

Miner: 41 -> 43

Thaumetergist:  27

White Mage 50!

Finally! Another class done! Phew! 3 out of 19 complete.

Leveling a second class takes quite a bit of time. But thankfully, I've already got high level gear from running Crystal Tower. So, I just got to do my Relic quest.

The preview for Leviathan is up. Looks like some awesome gear. Here's hoping they don't modify the Relic quest to include him.

So, my next plans. I've still got to level Thaumetergist. But, I've decided that I'm also going to level the two tank classes together. Taking them through the dungeons for xp. That will give me practice with tanking. Yet another useful skill to have.

After playing around, I discovered how to do poses and such while the UI is gone. So now I can take cooler looking screenshots! Check this one of me in my White Mage gear!

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Archer: 4

Armorer: 35

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 41 -> 44

Carpenter:  44

Conjurer: 48 - 50!

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  31

Goldsmith:  32

Leatherworker: 31 -> 32

Miner: 41

Thaumetergist:  27

Update on Patch 2.16

So, I've played a bit more now since the patch. The changes to the AoE is purely cosmetic. it isn't devided in half like the picture looked. But rather, it pulses outwards.

The Ready check feature? More an annoyance then useful. Everyone seems to ignore it anyways. And when it pops up in the middle of combat? Distracting.

The wishlist is underused, as I thought it would be. The changes to Quick Synthesis makes it much more useful then it was previously. And I love the random pet and mount commands.

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Archer: 2 -> 4

Armorer: 35

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 41

Carpenter:  35 -> 44

Conjurer: 45 -> 48

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  31

Goldsmith:  32

Leatherworker: 31

Miner: 37 -> 41

Thaumetergist:  27

Patch 2.16

Didn't get much gameplay in yesterday. Servers were down most of the day. First, for some emergency stuff. Then, for the new patch.

2.16 has added a few things. Some of them I've found interesting. Others not so much. The random minion and mount is neat. Especially for someone like me who likes to collect them. Adding the Hydra and Chimera to duty finder? Yet another smart decision that should have been done when they were first implemented.

They've added a bunch of features to Free Companys in order to help them be better organised. But a little something was slipped in. Under scheduling activities, they mention gardening. Something new that will be added in 2.2 for Free Companies to do. Hopefully, this will not require you to have a company house.

They've changed a few things about combat. What I enjoy most is that you no longer have to target an enemy to set your pet to obey. This was a bit of an annoyance and I have no idea why it was set up that way in the first place.

For some reason, they changed the way enemy AOEs show up...

As you can see, they have split the aoe in half. Why? Does this mean that, if you are in the outer half when the AoE goes off, you'll take less damage then if you were in the inner half? I'll be looking into this.

The new marketplace Wish List is interesting. You can place up to 10 items that you wish to have. There will then be a Demand search option that will list the items that are most wished for. You can then tell from there, what to go hunting for and sell. Unfortunately, this feature does require player participation. It would be easier to keep track of what items sold the most, and for how much. this would give a broader view of the marketplace.

This is a big one! You can now change the quests that appear in your duty list. I can't tell you how many times I've had trouble finding a quest marker for a daily, simply because I grab all six at once. Now, after completing one, I can pop it out of my duty list and have the sixth visible on my map.

You can now do a ready check. This will send out a notice to the members of the party, to see if they are ready. Quite useful and yet something that I don't think will get much usage.

Waymarks! This looks interesting! You can now set waymarks that show players where to be! This could be very useful in setting up positions during combat!

The new achievement equipment is meh. The durability loss on most of them could be useful, but the slots could be filled with better equipment at that point. The spiritbond equipment doess appear to be an improvement over what you can already purchase from your quartermaster, but at this point the 500 leves you must do is better used for my crafting classes.

Quick synthesis has been changed! Now, your craftsmanship, control and CP have an affect on success and change for HQ. This is great news, as it means that no longer will I be crafting a bundle of materials that I should have no problem making, and end up with a couple of failures. Also, the chance of crafting a HQ piece should be much higher.

And now, for what everyone has been waiting for! Wet Miquo'te pictures! Yep! They added wet effcts to the game! Unfortunately, its not as impressive. But, you can tell that there is some differeance. Mainly with the environment! Still, here's some cheesecake pictures for you, to show the difference!

Without wet effects

With wet effects

The effects are more obvious in game. Objects are darker. Especially wood. But, the effects are there.

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Archer: 1 -> 2

Armorer: 35

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 40 -> 41

Carpenter: 30 -> 35

Conjurer: 43 -> 45

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  31

Goldsmith:  32

Leatherworker: 31

Miner: 37

Thaumetergist:  27

Treasure hunting

I have a new favourite passtime! Treasure maps! Oh these things are fun!

Once you get to 36 on a gathering class, you can do a special quest to unlock this. Me being the idiot that I am, I thought you had to wait till 40, and thus missed out on four whole levels of treasure!

The quest goes over the basics. On 40+ nodes, you have a chance of finding a treasure map. Once you have gathered one, you have a 16 hour cooldown before you can get another. These maps will appear in a bottle in your inventory. You can only have one of each kind of map on you, and one decoded map. However, if you want, you can stash one of each kind of map on your retainers as well. useful for the 8-man Peistskins.

By right clicking the map, you can Decode it. This gives you a location and a general area of where the map is. Head there, and use Dig. if you are in the right area, the treasure chest will pop up. Opening it will destroy your map and start a fight, so make sure you are ready.

Depending on the map, monsters of varying difficulty will spawn. You must destroy them in order to open the chest and claim your reward, in the form of xp, gil, tomes and crafting items. And on certain maps, the rare rare chance of a minion. The most popular one, the wind-up tonberry, is selling for 300k on my local marketplace.

The 8 man peistskins can be completed with as few as four players, but it is suggested that you have a full group. As everyone will get the gil reward. If you are a free company saving up for a house, this can be a major boost! Each person with a map,and all donating their proceeds? thats close to a hundred thousand gil easy.

Now, I apologize for the time it took to get this post up. But it was for a good reason! I spent that time getting my Weaver up to level 50! Another class down! Woot!

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Armorer: 35

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 40

Carpenter: 30

Conjurer: 41 -> 43

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  30 -> 31

Goldsmith:  32

Leatherworker: 31

Miner: 32 -> 37

Thaumetergist:  27

Weaver: 35-50

Status of the Blog: February

So, as everyone who has played an mmo knows, playing the same character for an extended amount of time gets kind of boring. So, I created a couple of alts to reduce the boredom. Note: I will still be working on Demana. I will only be counting her levels for this blog. But, I will occasionally be playing these new alts.

So, I've gotten a few likes on facebook, and a follower on my blog. Thanks to all of you. I will be continuing to work on this, even if I slow down a bit.

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Armorer: 30 -> 35

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 38 -> 40

Carpenter: 30

Conjurer: 37 -> 41

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  30

Goldsmith:  32

Leatherworker: 31

Miner: 32

Thaumetergist:  26 -> 27

Weaver: 35

Leveling a Second Class

Leveling your first class on a character is simple! So much to work with. Quests all over the place, not to mention the necessiary story line quests. Your second class however... that can take longer.

Sure, there are the occasional quests that got left behind, but there are other things to look at.

Grinding: What is grinding? Grinding is when you head to a location and simply fight mobs. This is the longest, and most dull route. Thankfully, you do get a bonus to xp from kills, due to having a class higher then your current class. Plus, there are loot drops to consider. This can make grinding profitable.

Leves: Each day, you gain a set amount of Leves. These work as additional quests. While best used for crafting and gathering classes, they are also useful for leveling. If you are done with the DoH and DoL classes, then this is a quick route for xp.

Dailys: Upon hitting level 42, you have access to daily quests. Just like leves,you have so many per day. Unlike leves, unused quests don't stock up. If your class is a high enough level, I suggest at least turning them in as that class.

Roulette:  Each day you have access to a bonus for a random dungeon run and random guild hest. While the random dungeon run will give you tomes of philo for running at level 50, the experiance boost is much better. You can get the 100 philo simply running any end game dungeon, making the xp more valueable.

Fates: FATEs are everywhere. The good ones have multiple enemies, combining the benefits of quests with grinding. If you can get a good group of players and gather the enemies together, they are definately worth doing.

Dungeons: Since 2.2, dungeons have recieved a large boost to xp gain. Killing an enemy in a dungeon will reward around three times the amount of xp that killing a mob outside a dungeon will. Combined with how much mobs there are inside of a dungeon, this makes for quick leveling.


The best plan for leveling involves a mixture of these. Queu up for a dungeon (using roulette if you haven't already for the day),  then run and do some FATEs while you wait. Grind some mobs when there aren't any FATEs up, and then jump into a dungeon when its ready.

Levels:

Alchemist: 30

Armorer: 30

Blacksmith: 31

Botanist: 33 -> 38

Carpenter: 30

Conjurer: 34 -> 37

Culinarian: 37

Fisher:  30

Goldsmith:  32

Leatherworker: 31

Miner: 32

Thaumetergist:  26

Weaver: 35