Moving up Warrior

Lately I've been thinking of leveling another job to 75, and after some consideration I've chosen to work on Warrior a bit. It was at 37 as a Samurai sub, but I've taken it out a few times to skill up Great Axe, which is quite underleveled.

Yesterday I took the opportunity of two Besieged to take my WAR out into Al Zahbi for some no-effort exp. In the first one, I came WAR/NIN and did a grand total of zero damage during the whole thing. This is a 37 job in a Level 8 Besieged, after all. But I got about 930 exp.

The second time I cam WAR/WHM, to see if I could earn a little more by curing people/generals. The result was pretty much the same.

The whole thing left me with about 700 TNL, so I brought my NPC into Batallia Downs to finish off the level, as well as get him some exp and skill up my Great Axe.

I now have WAR38. Only 37 levels to go. Joy.

Pascale: A History

Okay, time for a little background. I first got Final Fantasy XI for the PlayStation 2 in September , 2004. I created my first character, but it wasn't too long before my now-wife Nyanoh started playing as well, but on the same Content ID. Something had to be done so we could play together.

So in November, when we had a PC copy of the game, I started a new character: Pascale.

Firstly, I wanted to level Dragoon. The job looked pretty cool and from what I had heard, it was a sold damage-dealing job. So I went through the leveling process: Monk to 15, Warrior to 30 and started unlocking jobs. By the time I had Dragoon available and had brought it up to about 19, Square Enix had made changes to lessen the job's power. I didn't really understand what had changed at the time, but I was losing interest in the job anyways.

What caught my attention was Samurai. So I got to work on that one. Had to spend some time leveling THF in the process, of course. That wasn't particularly fun. But it was around the time I started Samurai that Pascale was in his first quasi-legitimate linkshell.

DisciplesOfLucifer


A charming name, to be sure. Nyanoh, who was at this point blazing past me with Warrior, and later Paladin, got me into this shell. In here we met Tiska, Arucardo, Eladriel and some others. I was in this linkshell for a bit as I leveled my jobs. The whole exp thing wasn't that exciting to me, and I wasn't playing as often as Nya -- mostly due to work-related evils.

Some time later, DoL was history.

I briefly hopped around a couple of casual shells, but I didn't play much for a bit. That was, until I joined Vanadiel's Crusade.

Vanadiel's Crusade


When I was finishing off my Thief for Samurai in Altepa Desert, I met a couple who also played together. Their names were Cole and Reiajeia. We got along quite well during the party -- Cole already gave me the nickname "Cal" which would last for some time. They were also both sackholders in a mid-level linkhsell called VanadielsCrusade. Ikion was the leader of this shell, but Cole and Reia had a huge part in running it.

I had a lot of fun in VC. Between joking around, doing Rank missions and quests and working on various things, we all got along great. Before long, they made me a sackholder. The linkshell also started doing its main event: Garrisons.

Ok, any high-level will gawk at the idea of an LS doing weekly Level 20 Garrison runs, but they were fun as hell. We would take on low and mid-level players, and train them in garrison to get better. We would also earn Gil from the event. It was the peak of inflation on our server, and it was before Aht Urhgan brought us Mog Lockers. At the time, mannequin parts, which dropped from Garrisons, were a hot-ticket item. Pieces ranged from 150,000 to 300,000 gil. Getting one every week was a big help to us, as we worked on leveling up our jobs.

Of course, every LS has its drama. People got all upset over rules and drops, people showing up late and all this. We sackholders would often have meetings after Garrison that would shoot back and forth between argument over drops and jokes. One of these meetings went until 5:00 am.

After a while the linkshell died out and Ikion broke the shell. I kept in touch with Cole and Reia for quite a while after that, though. Cole doesn't play anymore but occasionally I see Reia on.

While I was in Vanadiel's Crusade, Nyanoh was having lots of fun with her HNMLS. Seeing her participate in Sky and Dynamis got me wanting to finally finish leveling my Samurai. And just before I did, I followed Nya into my first end-game LS.
Thunder


Thunder was the offshoot of DynamisLords - a dynamis-focused linkshell that Nya had been playing with. That pearl broke, and Shefki created Thunder. Mainly comprised of ex-DL players, this LS did a bit less Dynamis, and expanded with more attention to Sky. Since Nya was my RL girlfriend, they ignored my sub-75 level (I was about 72 at this point) and let me join.

Nya and some others helped me get Sky access around this point, and I also did my first-ever Dynamis with Thunder. I was very lucky on this run, too. The first drop was a pair of Saotome Sune-ate, the SAM AF2 feet! Since I was the only Samurai there, they gave them to me.

Towards the end, Shefki was having trouble keeping interest in the game. He would have us go to things like Fafnir and compete against WhirlingWind and other large shells, even though we had to few to really have a shot. Eventually, Shefki decided to call its quits.

Thelan and Lillie, two of this shell's members, also got married in-game at the end of Thunder's run. Their wedding marked the end of this shell.

Around this time, I finally dinged up to Samurai 75 -- precisely two years to the day after I started playing.

TheAftermath


TheAftermath, later |Aftermath|, was the next step that Nya and I took in the game. Again, I followed Nya here riding mostly on her jobs.

AM was fun, for a while. It was good to be in a linkshell that had the capacity to do bigger things. With AM I got all of my Dynamis wins (aside from CoP), including Dynamis-Xarcabard which was fun.

But AM started to crumble. Tensions were high as the shell was trying to rebuild what was left of PaiMei, and recruit people. They would do "practice" HNM runs on Jourmungand, which would result in multiple wipes for the entire linkshell.

Ultimately, Nya left and I did as well. She went on to keep playing and I took a little break from the game. AM got me some Dynamis wins but I never received a single drop from this shell.

DownRightFierce

And then we arrive at my present linkshell -- DownRightFierce. Mogknight was the leader of this shell, which he started with Thelan and Lillie -- all three from Thunder. Homeslizzle (also ex-Thunder) and Liseth were also sacks. Nyanoh was in this shell and I joined. At first, I wanted to focus on leveling some other jobs and didn't really want to get into the end-game thing... but it wasn't long before I caved and became a full member. This was in February of 2007.

DRF has been great. Players here helped me get Sea access, especially Nya (ty love!) and Liseth.  I also got a Kirin's Osode from doing Sky with this group, which is awesome.  Still working on the rest of my sky gear.

So that's it -- my general history over the past three years in Vana'diel. I haven't been as active, or advancing as quickly, as some of the players who have been around as long as I have -- but it's been fun.

PASC IS HERE

Okay I have a blog for Pascale now. I mostly created this account to comment on Nyanoh's blog, so don't expect much.

Soooo yeah. I'm Pascale. That's pronounced PASK-AH-LEE. Seriously. I'm a 75 Samurai on Cerberus, and I'm currently in DownRightFierce (or DRFierce as the new shell is called.)

I'm married to Nyanoh in real life, and we play together often -- although she's currently in Whirling Wind.

I'll update this with something interesting soon.