The Home Stretch

I need to post more frequently I know.

It's been 15 days since my last post and there's a lot to report in that span of time.

New gear

Adhemar Bonnet & Adhemar Wristbands

Even though the DPS increase is only slight by adding these pieces to my set, they are nonetheless nice to have. Both pieces are mainstays in my CDC set now and have path B cap augments. I ended up spending most of my beads on Eschalixirs because the price of them has went up significantly since I last needed to use them.

To get both abjurations, I ended up soloing Perithoos and Yilan with trusts. I knew Perithoos wouldn't be a problem, but I anticipated a much harder fight in attempting Yilan. My motivation to try and solo was that I have already made solo work of Belphegor, Selkit, and Taelmoth in Reisenjima which are content 129. Yilan is content 125. I was very surprised how quickly he went down to CDC spam. I used Spectral Floe and Blinding Fulgor on the adds (from my recollection, they went down after one Spectral Floe but to be honest I don't remember if I ever followed it up with Blinding Fulgor). I used my typical trust setup of Gessho, Apururu, Selh'teus, Arciela I, and Joachim. Quick win and got the abjuration on the 1st kill.

Makes me want to go back to Escha Zi'tah and finish up the T2s there that I have not killed yet. Perhaps the T3s are solo-able as well?

Petrov Ring

Another solo kill here. Took me 2 to get this to drop. Added to my TP set in place of Rajas ring for the minor DPS increase.

Ishvara Earring

From my Perithoos kills. Will use in my PLD Atonement set.

Herculean Helm (melee type)

As written last time, one of my LS mates & I successfully duo'd Oryx with trusts and both of us on BLU. It takes a while to just whittle him down but we did it enough to get each of us another Herculean Helm. I augmented this one as a melee piece and currently have augments of Acc+11, Att+10, and TA+4. I have since thrown more Fern stones at it trying to improve the accuracy and attack, but keeping the TA at 3 or 4. So far no luck in that department. Reisenjima augments are a fickle thing.

Soloing NMs

As mentioned above, I have expanded the list of "NMs I have soloed" and while I have found regular success in Belphegor and Selkit, I have yet to have a reliable kill of Taelmoth - I think I am like 2 for 7 on him. The times I have died are times I did not erase bind in time and/or ate a Dark Orb during Azure Lore.

I tried to solo the Tonberry NM in Reisenjima but I keep failing that as well. I erased my Tonberry hate just for this guy and unfortunately I have yet to clear him. I want the Valorous Mitts he drops for my PLD as it is the only slot where I do not have a Reisenjima piece. I would like to retire my Acro Gauntlets soon. I also would probably still like some Despair finger gauntlets so I can re-cap my haste to 25% on PLD. It's the little math things in this game that make it interesting to me.

I would like to try Crom Dubh solo just to see if I can keep away from the darkness TP move. There's other NMs I do not yet have a clear on that would also be interesting to try.

Also as mentioned, going through the T2s in Zi'tah will be fun to attempt. I will also need to do some 125 unity nms in the near future.

Aegis

Still no further progress on this. After last night's attempt at the Khimaira NM in Reisenjima, I need to make this a priority. Not saying I would not have died and caused a wipe with a 99 Aegis, but perhaps that extra -15% MDT would have helped me stay alive for one or two attack rounds longer so the whm could heal me.

Burtgang

I have made the most progress in this department since I last wrote. I am "pulling a Kaht" with the linen purses now. What that means is that I am not popping the purses and just collecting them in my Mog House until I have enough to where the law of averages takes effect. In loose Alexandrite, What I do is turn in my loose alexandrite and store the purses in my mog house. Since I started this, I am now at 51 purses. I usually get at least 3 salvage runs in per day so this amount represents 17 days of salvage. This does not take into account the handful of times I have gotten a double linen drop. It also does not take into account the two times I messed up and killed the rampart in AR2 that pops the Khimaira...before it popped the Khimaira. I bought two "penalty stacks" of alex when this happened both times. I also now switch to clubs to feed the rampart TP and turn the f*#& around when it begins to use reinforcements.

So as of this morning, the alex count is:

25,064/30,000 Alexandrite turned in
51 Linen Purses on Hand

So for those that may not know how Linen purses work, they give on average 75 Alexandrite upon usage. Sure, that range is a bit large because you can pop one and get 50, or pop it and get 99. and by that logic, the purses actually give 74.5 Alexandrite upon usage. So at 51 purses, I can expect to get 51*75 = 3825 Alexandrite when using. That puts me at almost 29k Alexandrite. That means I need to do Salvage about 8 more times to finish up.

Now once I finish up, I will need to return myself to a regular sleep schedule. In real life, I have been waking up a bit early in the morning with the purpose of doing 2 or 3 salvage runs. A bit too early in my opinion. I need to focus on getting back onto a regular sleep schedule as I have a lot of things going on in real life during the next few months. I will need to scale back my playtime just a bit, but especially in the morning hours. Sure I will still play some in the morning, but that time will be reduced by about 50%. This will make my trials take a bit longer, but that is fine. My real life is awesome and great, and I don't want this game to interrupt that in any way.

To do

* Finish Alexandrite
* Finish Aegis trials
* Get Adhemar Jacket and/or Herculean Vest
* (perhaps) upgrade my Almace from level 90.
* (perhaps) do a Aeonic weapon
* (perhaps) consider AG options
* (definitely) complete Burtgang trials

Thanks for reading!