Not on my watch!

After writing my most recent post, I decided to enter the foray and attempt to finish off my long forgotten, mog house slot eating level 90 Almace.

The poor thing saw so much action once I received it and then I took my extended 2013-2015 break. Unfortunately, I logged back in to notice it was outclassed and no longer relevant as it was.

But after seeing the third tier of 119 possibilities, and the ridiculous damage my friend does with his afterglowed Tizona and Almace combination, I decided to restore it to its former glory.

And that would require Voidwatch....lots and lots of Voidwatch...

More Voidwatch...

And yes, still more of it.

So I spent some time on Saturday and Sunday splitting time between Ambuscade, Qilin, and Morta. I still had a few paths to finish off as well for an eventual encounter with Provenance Watcher.

Here's a bright idea...light skillchains do increased damage on Qilin.

 After a pretty solid and efficient few sessions on the aforementioned VW mobs in three days, I had only 3 riftcinders and 189 plates. Despite the fact I was killing Qilin at a rate of 45-50 Qilins per hour and about 40 Mortas per hour, I was well under the "finish before campaign ends" rate.

But thanks to a friend, I am temporarily dualboxing in order to pop more chests.

I am happy to report that as of this morning, I have 633 metal plates, and 26 riftcinders.

My cycle is pretty much as follows:

1) Purchase rubicund cells on both characters - 8 stacks on each.

2) Purchase 1 or 2 stacks of Phase Displacers on my main. If I am doing Morta, I purchase 2 stacks (more on that in a bit)

3) Teleport to proper planar rift.

4) Call trusts Ulmia, Joachim, Qultada, and Koru-Moru for a super buffed character.

5) Use a macro to trade a cell to the rift on each character, plus 1-3 phase displacers.

6) Pop and kill.

7) Pop chests.

8) Repeat 5, 6, and 7 as time and supplies allow.

9) Warp back to town. NPC most of the drops, earning 300-600k.

10) Use the gil accrued from step 9 plus a sparks conversion to purchase more plates from bazaars or the AH.

My setup is blu/war with a dd spellset. I use the following Atmacites - Exhortation, Valiant, and Coercion. I also use Exhortation on the alternate character so I can take advantage of the regain sphere. This gives me incredible ability to WS and skillchain, and thanks to Exhortation I do 30% more skillchain damage.

On Qilin, I use Nature's Meditation and Berserk (if available) after initializing the pop (to avoid magic aggro from nearby weapons), engage, and skillchain away. I use 1 displacer per pop on Qilin.

On Morta I use Braver's drink, Stalwart's tonic, and Fanatics Drink (via macro) upon popping, then engage and skillchain away. Morta is more annoying because when her adds pop she tends to move, so I have to reposition in order to keep swinging. If solo, I use three displacers on Morta. If teamed up with another person, I use two.

I'm averaging two or three VW outings this week because I have off from my job. I want to get most of what I need to do done this week.

I did get in some more Sinister Reign earlier this week, and...

Ready for action in the near future!

 August!

I finally got this wonderful item during some SR runs. I also ended up procuring a nice Vampirism with DMG+10, some Ta'Lab trousers (with added crit rate +1%), and Medium's Sabots for BLU. Our runs were very efficient, and I got to put the Burtgang to good use once again. Sadly, this does nothing to help me survive No Quarter - no shock there though.

Always a nice little "yesss...." when seeing this in the loot pool.

So what will I be doing this week? Pretty simple.

Voidwatch.

I will kill Mortas until I finish my riftcinder (unless my LS is doing Qilin). I am almost halfway done with those. They have the added benefit of dropping single plates as well as riftdross. The riftdross is being saved for a LS Mate who is also upgrading. He is giving me 300k per dross, so that gil immediately goes to plates once I get it.

After Mortas are done, Qilin will be the spot to cough up the rest of my plates.

If I do not finish in time before campaign ends, I will use Ambuscade to get maximum plates and cinders (if needed of course). I still have 1400 marks to go to finish my PLD CDC cape.

Next post

I was asked to talk about my BLU gear a bit as people notice I do quite a bit of damage. BLU is a complex job mathematically, so I will be doing another post this weekend to detail my gear setup on both jobs and why it works. Expect screenshots from my BLU and PLD DPS spreadsheets (the same ones available on BG and FFXIAH).

Until then, good luck on the 'watch!

The aftermath

As of my last writing, I was almost done with kill shot trials for Burtgang (90). That same evening I took care of the remaining kills and upgraded it further.

Ultimately, I have made it to i119 with Burtgang and am enjoying using it to tank and kill stuff. Aftermath level 3 is a lot of fun, and I am currently trying to modify my DD and Hybrid pieces to enhance my accuracy and Store TP.

Here's what I have accomplished since my last post.

Aegis (95)

Farming Animated Shields pld/thf style!

 In a trial that took far less time than I thought was going to, I got the 10 kills I needed for level 95 Aegis in about a half hour. It does help that the pop spot and the pop item mobs are in the same area - unlike the previous trial in Beaucedine involving 5 Goublefaupe kills. That back and forth trek was really annoying.

Burtgang (95)

Needing to kill Long-bowed Chariot 3 times in normal salvage was no big deal. One assault, three salvages, 1.5 hours.

Burtgang (99)

After much planning and T4 trophy hoarding, I set out to farm the three necessary Mulcibar's Scoria for the level 99 trial. To summarize the ZNM portion, I had enough pop items between T2, T3, and T4 to not even need to kill a single T1 in order to make 3 pop sets for PW. I did have to go zeni farming once, and wasn't surprised that the still-best spot is Nauls in Abyssea - Tahrongi.

On my way to kill PW for the first time.

 My strategy for PW was pretty straightforward. I went pld/war and used my Aegis and made sure my MDT was capped. I was going to use Fealty to prevent Brainjack just in case, and PDT for the 10k needles in case that went off. Fortunately, neither were necessary as the initial forms all went down quickly and the chariots never got a TP move off.

The PW room.

Ready to pop

Pff I got this!

 When he got to the final form, I locked on my MDT set and took at most 600 damage from the Astral Flow onslaught. Most of my trusts went down as predicted, but it wasn't much of a threat to me and my Aegis. Sadly, the three times I farmed him I only got one Mulcibar's Scoria each time.

Trophies for Pop #3

Finishing off the hat trick

 After turning in the required 3, I had Burtgang (99)!

Burtgang (i119)

I had stockpiled 295 Beitetsu by the time I began Burtgang trials and now that I was done with the magian portion, I was ready to turn them in. I purchased 5 more and had Oboro forge away. I got to put the new sword to use immediately afterward and farmed Gomberry in Reisenjima. I loved the aftermath and obviously made me want to re-evaluate my TP gear. Granted, Gomberry is a bit evasive but still the numbers guy wants to make him do whatever laughable damage I can!

Adhemar Jacket

After saving some gil, I purchased a Vexed Jacket from the AH and uncursed a Jovian Body abjuration I had picked up earlier in the week with a Pakecet session. I also got an Uac Jerkin for my PLD to use with CDC. It's not the best option I think, but it will do until something better comes along (perhaps the new Sulevia Mail +1 will be good for it, but I won't know until I plug it into the DPS sheet).

The new jacket nearly caps my delay down using only DWIII traits, suppanomimi, and the jacket. I have a combined -79.7% delay down when haste and MG are active. It turns me into a swinging machine.

Legion clear

Desiring the rare enemy vorseal as well as a Transitory Abjuration: Body, I set out to solo legion.

I found the initial halls no problem whatsoever. Using trusts and my blue mage, I made quick work of the first wave of the four halls and exited after getting each trophy.

Then it was Hall of Mul time. Reading up on this, I noticed that one of the big worries was the Death Prophet attack from the Mantis in wave 2. The others it was just survival and damage for the most part.

Entering the Hall of Mul

 This event turned out to be a good deal of fun for me. I did end up dying to doom from the Naraka as opposed to Death Prophet, but of course came ready with multiple reraises. After recovering, I finished off the 2nd wave.

Paramount BLU readies CDC!

 Wave 3 is the two mega bosses in Legion. Paramount Gallu is the one who drops the needed abjuration more frequently than Paramount Botulus, so I focused on him first incase of a wipe from Botulus. He was not any real threat, and he indeed dropped me the needed abjuration. I took care of Paramount Botulus afterward and soloed Hall of Mul on my first try.

I will admit though, being able to resummon trusts while having enmity was incredibly helpful. It felt like a more challenging Wildskeeper Reive.

Cough up that abjuration!

Cleaning up that mess in the Hall of Mul.

Hexed Jacket -1

Having the required abjuration, I purchased some Umbral Marrow and removed the WS damage +5% from my Khepri Jacket (a mog bonanza prize from 2012 I believe). I recursed it and received a Hexed Jacket -1. I had some eschite ore left over from Pakecet the other day and gave the two items to a LS mate. He did his best to turn it into a jinxed jacket, but sadly we only got the NQ. It is currently on the AH and will hopefully become a rebate for the vexed jacket I purchased earlier in the week.

Rosmerta's Cape

The new Ambuscade event received multiple visits from me since its implementation. I can solo and lowman the D dragon pretty easily, and our LS has done multiple VD runs. I have done it enough to get 3 +1 pieces of Sulevia's Gear and capped augments on this cape. I decided for a CDC cape for BLU, augmenting it with Att/Acc +20, Critical Hit rate +10%, and DEX+20. It wouldn't surprised me if this was superior to Bleating Mantle for TPing, but I will have to use the DPS spreadsheet to see for sure.

Sailfi Belt

I want to use this on my PLD TP set so I can afford to use some of the Sulevia's set to TP in. I will upgrade this to +1 to afford me the most room for error.

I plan on using the Loyalist Sabatons I got for my feet since that is 6%. I will then need to get 10% more between the four slots. Sulevia's +1 can likely occupy three of the slots. If I use despair mail and the legs, hands, and head Sulevia's +1, I should have capped haste.

Plan

I am finishing up the Voidwatch quests for an eventual vorseal, but also to potentially farm materials for 99 Almace. I have not fully committed to this yet, but I did do some Aello last night and in 20 kills, I got exactly 0 heavy metal. That's a little discouraging, but we'll see if I can find some sort of equilibrium. Perhaps farming Morta and Bismark so I can get some metal as well as riftdross/riftcinder. Maybe even some sealord skin.

Oh yeah, and another 9,990 Beitetsu for Burtgang.

And a PLD cape from Ambuscade.

And some heavy metal from there as well.

So much to do!

Save all the mobs!

Well, this thinly veiled title reference refers to the name of the weapon skill I have to use for the first 5 trials for upgrading my Burtgang.

Atonement is used 1400 total times in the upgrading process for Burtgang. I imagine the other mythic trials are similar.

You start by using Atonement 200 times on Lizards (very easy with Ochain), but then the trials become...well, a trial.

The first trial was easy enough. See my most recent post for how I did this.

The second trial you have to kill 200 dragons with Atonement being the killing blow. If this was CDC, I would have been easily done with all of the trials by now.

The puks did not take too long and I finished that trial across two play sessions.

The third kill shot trial was 300 Atonement kill shots on Vermin. I had started off on scorpions in Abyssea - Tahrongi, but remembered other easier targets exist - namely the gnats north of conflux 6.

After that was done, I went on to 300 Atonement kill shots on Undead. This time I went to Abyssea - Attohwa and killed hounds near Conflux 6. They were easy enough and more manageable once they repopped with more HP. I experimented with trust setups a little here trying to see if I can increase my overall DPS, but unfortunately could not find a trust that melees but does not use weapon skills. If you know of one, let me know!

Currently I am almost done with the final Atonement kill shot trial - 400 Amorphs. For this I am still in Abyssea - Attohwa killing the slugs near Conflux 00. The nice thing about these is they aggro sound and they are close enough together where I can pull a few at a time. I have just 50 more of these to kill as of this writing.

New Gear

I did some more Sinister Reign this past Sunday with some LS mates and pulled in a few more pieces.

Jumalik Helm

For my PLD's Divine Magic set. This is looking close to capped. Enlight II starts off doing 120ish damage unresisted now (by my own recollection).

Loyalist Sabatons

These came augmented with Haste +2%. Since they also have Haste +4%, these became my new feet TP piece thanks to this and its inherently decent DD stats on PLD. I still use the Despair mail, but I have switched to Path D on that piece for a nice boost in Double Attack.

Souveran Schuhs

I now have 5/5 Souveran pieces. These unfortunately are for Phalanx mainly. They do have PDT -4% so I may put them in to my PDT set, but I think I have it capped already.

I will finish this Amorph trial soon and then move to the 3 Tinnins I need to kill. The good news is after I finish these Tinnins, I will have either trophies, pops, or partial pops for Pandemonium Warden. I won't have to do as much ZNM as I think since I saved most of the pops I had gotten during the NNI campaign in January. I will have to build at least one Tinnin pop from scratch, however. No big deal!

I did try the new Ambuscade event this morning to see how it is. I killed the Dragon on normal and got 100 hall marks for it. The rewards seem pretty cool so I will be getting at least the BLU cape and augmenting it. I have a lot of other little things I need to do now that I can enjoy other content in the game, like finishing up VW, uncursing my Khepri Jacket, getting Adhemar Body, etc. etc.

So much to do!

Burtgang!

/hurray!

I have my very own Burtgang!

On Friday morning, I finished this bad boy up and finished the "Coming Full Circle" quest. This sword is very nice looking, but obviously its full potential will not be reached until I get all the trials and other quests finished.

And yes, I do plan on fully upgrading it.

My play time since Tuesday has mostly focused on finishing this up since I was so close. I managed to get 10 more linen purses with 1 double drop in there. The 61st purse came on Thursday night.

CDCing that last purse like a boss.

 The fun part was then getting to pop the 61 purses. I popped 8 at a time and traded the Alexandrite they produced. Before popping, I had 25,500ish turned in, so the 61 mathematically would cover the difference and give me a small buffer in case probability hated me.

 I lucked out pretty well and was turning in between 650 and 700 Alexandrite each time I traded him after popping 8 purses. Just for fun, I turned in enough to have 29,999 turned in. What a stickler! Not even a "Ok fine you have turned in close enough of an amount!". Nope!

Just wanted to see what he would say if you turned in 29,999 Alexandrite. C'mon Paparoon use proper grammar!

I ended up having 233 Alexandrite left over. The two stacks promptly went on the AH and I got a rebate in my dbox the following day.

Alexandrite finished!

I was so relieved to have finished Alexandrite. I farmed all 30,000 of the Alexandrite except for 4 stacks and 21 loose. 2 of the stacks were the "Penalty stacks" I mentioned in the previous entry, 2 stacks were a gift from a friend for PLing him with my blue mage, and 21 were purchased from an LS mates bazaar, whom had recently finished Kenkonken.

Receiving the sealed invitation

With Paparoon's sealed invitation in my hands, I went to finish the remainder of the tasks.

The real home stretch!

Remember that Neo Nyzul Isle campaign from a few months ago? I still had those T4 pop items in my inventory. I actually lucked out with the Gobbie Box and got a Tyger's Tail one day, so I did not have to travel to kill him. I did have to go get Sarameya and Tinnin, however. They were quick and efficient kills as usual. Except with Tinnin, I had never fought him and did not know that you had to let him regenerate his two heads before you could kill him. So that fight took a bit longer than I thought it would. Don't worry, Tinnin. I'll see you for a Burtgang trial in the near future!

Giving Sarameya a face full of blue mage.

With all three T4 ZNM items, I traded them to the tombstone and made my way to Nyzul for the culminating Mythic fight.

Ready to enter the final Burtgang battle.

Two atonements finished off Zahak and made Balrahn show himself.

Ready to meet your match?

 I went pld/sam for this fight and accumulated 3000 TP. I used Sekkanoki and then Atonement after Balrahn hit me with Atonement. Then, I use another Atonement at 2000 right afterward. That took care of 2 of the Aftermaths I needed.

I must admit, at least Atonement still looks pretty cool.

I found Balrahn's auto regen was very high so there was no need to check my damage so to speak. I used Meditate and just regular hits to get 3000 TP and that ended the fight.

The final key item is now in my possession.

With the key item in my hand, I got the second to last cutscene and then traded the initial Burtgang to the tombstone...

Trading the initial Burtgang.

 ...and ended up with a fully unlocked level 75 Burtgang! Happy day!

Such nice stats already!

I want to thank a lot of people for mostly putting up with my "Sorry i'm in salvage" for 2 1/2 months. I managed to do a lot of other things during this time of course, but most of the things I did were to help me do salvage and/or get my Burtgang. And now I have it!

Of course, it's not too useful without getting it through trials and that's what I am working on now.

Before that, I trio'd some Reisenjima NMs to get Odyssean Gauntlets and Odyssean Helm. I augmented them with a lot of Fern stones to go with the other two Odyssean pieces I had. I ended up getting +12% WS damage between all four pieces. I wanted to build a respectable Atonement set more for doing trials than anything else. I know that getting kill shots with  Atonement is hard since it does such little damage. I am happy to say that with the set I am using, I am doing 1200 at this point in time with Atonement with what I imagine is capped or close to capped enmity.

This morning I also got some Despair Mail by soloing Angrboda on BLU. I used Amchuchu (so happy I got to get him finally, after all this time of saying "C'mon give us another chance to get her!"), Qultada, Arciela I, Selh'teus, and Apururu. I made sure to use Winds of Promyvion whenever he used Volcanic Wrath so we did not wipe. I had a Revetaur pop left over for some reason, but this same group failed quickly because of his doom happy personality.

Why Despair Mail? As a numbers guy, I was still frustrated by that the 5 armor pieces you typically equip on Paladin do not cap your gear haste. Despair Mail offers 4% haste on the body slot instead of the usual 3%. On top of that, path B offers another 2% haste (as well as +12 STR - hear that BLU?) so just by using this in my TP set I now have capped gear haste. Don't worry - I don't plan on using it to tank NMs in a party!

So far, I have completed 1 Burtgang trial. I used pld/sam in Escha - Zi'tah along with my Ochain, 2x bard support trusts and Apururu as well. It went fast with being able to line up some Tarichuks and Bugards and let them feed me TP. 200 of those went fairly fast.

For the 2nd trial, which is 200 atonement kill shots on dragons, I am fighting Puks at Conflux 5 in Abyssea - La Theine. I am going pld/nin and using my Nibiru Blade in the main hand and the Burtgang in the off hand. Using the same support trusts, I can get a Puk to 20% or less HP pretty fast. I flash to pull, TP on them, and Atonement kills them. I am also using Voracious Violet, Sun Eater, and Plaguebringer atmas to increase my Store TP, Regain, and Conserve TP. It's working quite well so far. I managed to get 55 kills in just about 20 minutes once I got into a groove.

Dual wielding Burtgangs? Thanks /lockstyle!

It's an amazing sword and I can't wait to see it realize its full potential!

So now that I have finished the two ultimate weapons I set out to complete this past January, what now? I want to AG the Burtgang and 99 the Aegis (which by the way, is now 90 thanks to finishing up my Goublefaupe kills on Wednesday), perhaps AG my 90 Almace, and whatever else the future updates bring.

I am loving this game more than ever. There's always something to do. And it helps that I have met even more cool people than I had in the past.

Thanks for reading, and happy FFXIing to you all!