#random decaf thoughts

The Good.

Bards are left alone. Now this could be good or bad depending on how you look at it since a few other jobs go buffed (my husband would be happy to know that DRK did).  But for the time being, Bards are in a fairly good spot.  I mean, if I was into the whole raid scene, there is a spot for me. Keep it that way. *I’m not counting PvP here as I have zero desire to do PvP.

I can finally level CUL and WVR again! Okay, so maybe I could have done it before then what with crafting and the custom deliveries for Zhloe and M...the lovely Miqo’te in Rhalgr’s Reach, but I was leveling fishing at the time (2 levels to go for that one) and the Moogle quest exps are laughable after level 60.  Now with the Namazu, who I have a love/hate relationship with, I can finish up these two and move on to another crafter.  I’ma make things right and finally do CRP.

Speaking of custom deliveries...Kurenai is next. I don’t remember much of her other than her quest being a sidequest, but the best part of her is that YOU. CAN. GLAMOUR. HER. The inner girl in me is squealing. (*For the record, I am one, but not of the traditional sense; I don’t care to get my nails done, I chopped all my hair off because reasons, and I fucking love to swear. Zi’tah is kind of the opposite of me IRL--except for the bisexual part, that’s both of us...ANYWAYS)

Fuck yeah, I can put more fish in my house! Not just Namazu either, which can now be servants in your house, but aquariums (or aquaria? Spellcheck said no to that).  I can have 6 (eventually).  However until they fix it, I’m limited to 4, which I’m okay with even.  I know what I’m going to do with my lower level now!!

You don’t have to be assed out in fights anymore. One of the things that drove me insane about this game was that you had 15-30 seconds to get into a boss fight or you’re locked out for the duration of it.  Now this could be a bad thing if it’s the healer locked out, even worse if it’s the tank (stop attacking shit you ain’t supposed to attack, DPS!).  What’s worse? Getting locked out while you’re watching a cutscene.  Now they remedied that.  Thanks, SE!

The Bad

Thus far, the only bad thing I can really see is the “greed only” in ally raids. The reason why I hate doing alliance raids is because of this lovely thing called RNGesus.  You get one shot a week at getting the gear you want...assuming it drops for you. You can do several runs a week and either don’t get your drop, or if it does drop, you get outlotted if there is another person as the same job in your party.  This has always been my luck. Now I can only imagine it being worse.  So I play Bard, right? I can have something drop and a healer or tank can snatch it up.  If it’s another Bard or Machinist, I’m not mad.  But when someone wants it for their alt job that they are currently not playing? That’s just fucked up man.

On BRD Movement (AGAIN!!)

I admitted that I would miss being a bow wizard now that it went bye-bye.  I take that back.  Fucking Pitch Perfect is awesome.  Actually, let’s talk about this whole overhaul of skills.  I haven’t played much of my other level 60 jobs yet (I am leveling WHM next regardless of what SE might have fucked up on there), but they did a thing with Bard and I can’t...I just...guh.  Maybe it’s just me, but I noticed that they’ve become quite powerful damage wise.  I’m level 69, and I heard about the godliness that is Refulgent Arrow at level 70 (can’t fucking wait!), but Pitch Perfect...oh Halone, Pitch Perfect.  Getting a crit direct hit with that sumbitch triple stacked?! Imagine if that shit worked with Barrage (Refulgent does!).  I’m sad they removed Quelling Strikes though, albeit marginally.  I love seeing big numbers, but not at the expense of tanks not being able to keep aggro off my little ass

Like I said, I’m leveling WHM next because I need a DPS queue break, but I’m scared as fuck to see BLM damage now.

On RDM (because I don’t even have SAM unlocked yet)

I dabbled with that job for a bit. It is incredibly easy to learn its rotation, and it’s got awesome damage to boot.  I have a feeling that SE is gonna fix that soon :(

On MSQ (...there’s nobody here, it’s just you and me, it’s where I wanna be...)

I’ll explain the line later on, but holy shit man.  Just holy shit.  First off, Lyse is bae. Hien is cute, I guess, but Lyse is bae.  Period, point blank.  Hancock needs a hand on his cock and stop being a pretentious douchebucket (although, seeing who he works under, that explains everything), and godsdammit, SE!  I was growing on Gosetsu, why you gotta do him like that?!

Also, BLM should totally get that spirit bomb that that one tribe leader used while being tethered by them stones.  I can’t remember her name, but fuck man!

And seeing as I haven’t finished MSQ yet (pretty close though!)...is Y’shtola okay?!!

And to reference the line up there: when Lyse changes into the Ala Mhigan outfit, the quest’s name was “Lady in Red”.  The achievement is “Cheek to Cheek”.  That was an 80′s song reference for those too young to understand.

Basically, I found a job, and really the only reason why I’m there is because it pays the bills, but now I’m kinda stuck because there are very few places that will hire me at the pay rate I’m getting now, is close to home, AND doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting since I’m having constant pain flares.  It doesn’t help that I have a very heartless manager either.  All of this is causing a lot of stress, which is driving my anxiety levels through the roof (I’ve had TWO near-breaks in the past month, the last one almost landing me in the hospital).  

So I’m using gaming as one of my outlets to try and keep things at bay, but as I type this up, I thought about something.  I worked overnights for a short spell.  I was less stressed out, less prone to anxiety.  I was more sleep deprived because I was working a second job, along with having a child who was home 24/7.  Had I stuck it out until she went into school, things would’ve probably been better.  I wouldn’t be making nearly as much, but my health would have been better for it.  

So basically I think I need a job that takes large crowds of people out of the equation, but finding one that pays as much is nigh impossible. *sigh*

So this place reminds me of Nyzul Isle of XI in that there are floors and certain debuffs and other random shit that could happen in there.  Knowing this, we were excited to go in head first. We went in with another FC member as BRD (me) DRK (Iak) and SMN.  

First and foremost, if you go in with randoms, it is literally random.  We went 40 floors sans an actual healer.  So be prepared to use up consumables as needed.  You also get a phoenix down and the Cairn of Return helps in the event that things get really sticky (and sometimes they totally will).  

So you go in, floor 1-5..ish, you’ll have really lively music, almost akin to being in a twisted carnival of sorts.  You’re greeted with level 1 rats and shit.  Oh yeah by the way, you start off at level 1, so the Heavy Shot spam was real.  The deeper you go in, the creepier the music gets, and there’s also a few familiar tunes in between (I got so happy when Pharos Sirius’ theme came on as it’s one of my favorites).  But anyways, you kill shit, you level up, you get chests that can give you Pom...thingies that either help you gain some treasure chests, turn mobs into chickens and frogs, or turn you into a HOLY FUCKING SHIT WTF OPNESS IS THIS (more on that later).  

The main prize is an ilvl 235 weapon that you can get by leveling your armor and weapon inside to +30.  As of today, I’m at +26 weapon and +22 armor.  This was after completing floor 50 and resetting.  Your weapon and armor are synced, by the way.  It’s synced to about half your current dungeon level.  So for me, in order to regain upgrades, I’d need to be level 56 for my weapon to unsync and 46 for my armor to unsync.  Unfortunately, the only way to do that, I have to go through all the floors that don’t benefit me in any way.

That, my friends, is the sucky part.  The grind.  Is it as much of a grind as Anima? Probably not if you’re lucky.  Even after unsyncing, we barely got the silver (upgrade) chests, and the ones that we did find either became mimics, blew up, or did nothing.  So needless to say, it’s frustrating.  

With that said, it’s definitely worth doing because not only do you get a nice weapon (and for me still using the 210 eso weapon, this would be a big boost!) but you can level lowbie jobs in here as well! After I get my bow from there, I plan on leveling one of my lowbie jobs in there, and my husband’s planning on leveling MCH.

A couple of things though...

Get rid of Pox as soon as you can (you need a Pom for this).  That’s a 10 minute debuff that not only does a DOT, but stops HP regen, AND kills your dps.

When you get the Pom of Lust, save it for the boss.  Vul stacks are real.

When you get the Pom of Rage, enjoy being a Manticore for a bit and instakill shit.  HOWEVER, it’s useless in floors where you get the no-knockback rule and boss floors (Pom of Serenity is really nice for situations like this).

Speaking of Pom of Serenity, some of those debuffs are shitastic (gloom floor is one of em).  Use it.

Oh and...exploding slimes that one-shot kill.