{Death} {do you have it?}

Once in a while, you encounter a player whose level of skill is awe-inspiring. These are the players who can do no wrong, know all there is to know, and are gods among men (and tarus).

Inversely, once in a while you meet a player who is so poorly educated, that the mere sight of his /tells sends chills down your spine. Unfortunatly today's post is about this type of player.

I had three types of Tarut Cards in my bazaar, hoping to trade my extras for the fourth type. I get a /tell from a player asking about my price.

Player: Dayum. why so moch monies?

Against my better judgement, I responded, hoping there was some slim chance that this guy had my fourth card.

Pasquale: That's not the price, I'm asking for a trade. You need one?
Player: Yeah. Gimme Death!1! \m/ (Author's note: I'll admit, I dont even know what that thing is.)

Oh god. If only...

Pasquale: Yeah, I have an extra one of those, you have trade?
Player: No i ony hav gilz.
Player: lol gilz like a fish lololol

If I had been leveling DRK, this is about where I would have used my "Slit Wrists" ability.

Pasquale: Well, I guess I can sell you one for ... 100k?
::long pause::
Player: Yes!@ tradetreadtread plz

Now I'm wondering how high I coulda gone, but seeing as these cards were free, I'm happy. I inform him I have to run to my MH and grab one. He follows me there.

Player: Hey! I gave you monies! wherez u?!!
Pasquale: I'm in my mog house, getting your card. I'll be out in a second.
Player: No u are no! I am in your MogHouse, and u not here! I'm calin GM1
Pasquale: WTF are you talking about? How the hell could you be in my mog house?
Player: Well, if this isnt yur house, who's bed is this?????

Right about here I wanted to log out, set my brain on fire, and commit seppuku. I zoned back into Jeuno to give him his card and be done with him. Before I hit trade, I /checked him to see what I was dealing with.

Level 35. Level fucking 35. How could you go 35 levels and not know anything about your Mog House?

Player: Gimme Death. no2w!
Pasquale: Here is your card. Please fall in a well and die.
Player: HAHA YES DEATH!!!!!!!!!!! \m/ (Still no idea what that means.)

At this point, I was relieved that I had survived the ordeal. Following my example, he put his card on display in his bazaar.

For 1 gil.

I am now the owner of a (slightly used) Death card and 99,999gil.

The Beast and the Hero.

Everyone has a villan. Everyone has someone who always torments them and causes trouble. For Batman, it was the Joker. For Superman, it was Lex Luthor. For Oprah, it was beef.

I'm no different, as one of the NMs in FFXI has become my villan. This vile creature hides deep near a waterfall outside Windurst. Some say you can hear him at night, filling the night sky with... whatever sound caterpillars make when they are hungry.

His name? Spiny Spipi.

You're probably thinking "lol, this n00b thinks Spiny is t0ugh." You are not incorrect.

Pasquale -vs- Spiny Spipi; Round 1

I was leveling pld and having a pretty good time doing it. I was plowing down mandys and rarabs when suddenly I came upon a crawler that oozed pure evil. And silk. Evil and silk.

After a quick searh on Alla, I decided to fight him, and claim the Mist Silk Cape as my own. I draw my greatsword and charge into battle. We are wailing on each other back and forth for a while and it didn't look good for our hero. I used 'Inivincible' and things finally started to go my way. Just as I was dealing the finishing blow, he cast a foul poison on me. I stood triumphantly over my kill and eagerly awaited my drops.

Pasquale obtains a spool of silk thread.

Son of a bitch. I started /slap-ing where his body had been, when I realized I had 10 hp left from my poison. I haul ass towards Windy, hoping to run into a mage along the way. As luck would have it, the poison wore off at 3 hp. Relieved, I rested to get my health back so I could continue fighting. As soon as my ass touched ground, a Goblin Fisher killed the crap outta me. (Hate... Goblins... so much...)

Pasquale -vs- Spiny Spipi; Round 2

Some time later, while on my BLM, I ran into Spiny on my way back to Windurst from the Mea crag. I was a little bit higher than my PLD was this time, so killing him wouldn't be that bad.

I start by casting thunder on the unsuspecting bug.

Pasquale starts casting Thunder.
Spiny Spipi is too far away.

That big yellow pile of jerk moved and my spell got cancelled. I ran forward to see where he went, and I had seen that he ran straight into the eager arms of someone else who was camping him. To make matters worse, the other camper shouted 'yesyesyesyesyes!!! OMG MIST SILK CAPE.' Son of a bitch.

Pasquale -vs- Spiny Spipi; Rounds 3-8

By now I have started to develop a bloodlust for this damn caterpillar. Everytime I pass his spawn point I check, no matter how rushed I am. Rounds 3-8 were all the same:

Pasquale slaps Spiny Spipi.
Pasquale starts casting Freeze.
::eight years later::
Pasquale casts Freeze on Spiny Spipi.
Spiny Spipi gets kill-nihilated. (kill + anhilated = yeah I know shut up.)
Pasquale gets no drops, ever.

They usually end with a /sigh, some mild swearing and general cursing of Sarutabaruta, and then i head home.

Pasquale -vs- Spiny Spipi; Round 9

Im on my SMN now and soloing in Sarutabaruta. I wasn't really looking for massive exp, I was just kinda chilling. (Lies, I was camping Spiny, because I hate him so much.) 20 min into my camping, I notice another player come to join me. Camping is kinda boring, so I decide to strike up a conversation...

...to no avail. This guy said nothing that wasn't calling me a n00b for speaking. I then told him that if he was camping Spiny, he'd have to wait, because i had just killed him. (Lies. Lies and slander.) He gets pissed and leaves, thus leaving that sticky pre-butterfly alone to me.

Spiny spawns, gets teh raped, and yet again, drops nothing.

I fucking hate him so much. I don't even need the damn cape anymore. I just want it as proof of my conquest of the beast.

Will our hero ever defeat the evil villan and claim his prize? Trust me, if it ever does happen, there's gonna be (at least) three posts about it.

To heal or not to heal, that is the question. The answer apparently is No.

Hello again.

First off, I want to amend my last post by saying it is not always possible to use Blood Pacts + Main Heal at the same time. I was wrong, and I apologize to our tank last night for finding out the hard way. On the plus side, Ifrit hit for 7 damage, which was totally beneficial to the rest of the party... right?

And now for today's post: ::cues exciting fanfare::

So I'm seeking in Kazham last week, and I get an invite to replace a RDM as main healer for a party in Yhoator (excuse my spelling, these names suck w/o auto-translator). I was less than excited because if I was replacing a red mage as main healer, that meant there was no other healer, and frankly, I don't want that kind of responsibility. Nevertheless, I took the offer, because seeking sucks, and two asshats in town were arguing about whose RSE looked cooler, despite the fact that neither of them had seen anything other than Hume and Elvaan. Although I found it almost impossible to tear myself away from that conversation, I somehow managed to hop on a chocobo and off I went.

A few min later I arrived at the party and the RDM took her leave. I hop off my chocobo and patiently wait for my invite.

Minutes pass, and no one said a word. The only sounds were of a helpless mandy getting annhilated by a nearby party.

Finally, I decide to break the silence:

Pasquale: {Um.} {Party} {Can I have it?}
Party Leader: No no I don't want SMN be main healer.

I sat there shocked for a minute, not really knowing what to say. That's like racism, kinda, although much less offensive I guess, so then no, not really like racism at all. Ignore that last sentence. I then attempt to change his mind.

Pasquale: Are you sure? I can heal. I have Cure II and everything.
::long pause::
Party Leader: Yes I sure, summoner suck at main healing. I get BRD on his way.
Pasquale: Your grammar is truly inspiring. Good luck.

A Bard as main healer. Eww. No offense bards, but seriously, you have more important things to be doing then casting Cure on a tank who forgets his shadows. I quietly sit in the corner and put my flag back up, waiting for a new invite. I get a bowl of popcorn ready to watch this bard, who had no gear, attempt to main heal.

They decide to start big and pull a goblin. Within minutes the whole party wiped. I won't lie to you, I was giggling like a school girl.

Seconds later, I get aggro'd by the goblin who had snuck up behind me. Two hits later, I was lying dead, in a heap with the rest of the party I had just gleefully watched end.

The moral of the story is never let a bard - no screw that. The moral of the story is I fucking hate goblins.

BCNM blues.

So, I've been leveling SMN for a while now and I've noticed a few things:

1 - Having 2 smn in a pt is awesome.
2 - You can still use Blood Pacts while Main Healing. I don't know why everyone complains about it so much.
3 - Every summoner that isn't Pasquale has both Astral Rings and Carbuncle Mitts.

While the Carbuncle Mitts may never happen, I decided to do something about the Astral Rings.

I head over to the AH in Lower Jeuno and check the price of one Astral Ring.

Pasquale sighs dejectedly.

{Hmm.} Over a million gil. {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.} I checked my gil, hoping it had multiplied over night. It hadn't. Looks like I would have to earn one the old fashioned way. Buy gil. Do the Wings of Fury BCNM and hope for a drop. I buy some lvl 20 gear and I'm off to sunny San 'doria (sorry if its wrong, but I hate that place).

I met Ants and Qix-something (sorry I forgot how to spell it, hes in my linkshell, I feel like a total ass) outside the Gate where we roll to see who goes first. Ants wins, pops his orb, and aaaaawwwway we go!

Three adventures, set on treasure. Three winged spawns of Satan blocking thier way.

Round One:

I send Garuda in while Ants tries to charm one of the other bats. Somehow I managed to get hit a lot and almost die. Qix vokes leader bat and they start fighting. Ants' charm fails, and he is fighting and running for his life, til he can try again. I pop a 'Cure' on myself.

{Hmm.}

Garuda can't keep hate at all, which leads to my sudden and rape-like death. Ants soon follows in my lead, and within minutes we are all dead, in a heap in front of the gate.

Round Two:

Qix had forgotten to get a new orb, so round two was cancelled.

Round Three:

Ok, we head in for our final battle. Tensions are high, as we totally sucked the first time in. Ants managed a Charm! Right after Charming the bat he used his two hour. Success! I send Ifrit in against another bat. He fared much better than Garuda. Everyone was fighting something, so now it was party time.

Pasquale uses Astral Flow.
Ifrit uses Inferno.
The bats all take a lot of damage (easily in the millions.)

Ifrits bat dies and we turn our attention to the boss. Qix and Ants' bat are wailing on it, while I rested up for another awesome Inferno. One min later I used it, and the boss was dead. Yay!

Now all we had to kill was Ants' charmed bat, who was still very much charmed.

Ants logs and the bat uncharms, but niether Qix or I can attack it for some reason. Within seconds its health is at full. I summoned Ifrit and he was able to attack, and all Qix could do was ranged attack. It took about eight minutes to kill that fucking bat. Victory was ours!

I eagerly run up and open my chest:

Pasquale obtains a piece of crap.
Pasquale obtains a used boot.
Pasquale obtains scraps of paper.
Pasquale obtains nothing. Absolutely nothing.

After selling the crap I made about 6k gil, which woulda been ok I guess, had I not spent 20k on pots and ethers.

/sigh
Pasquale sighs dejectedly.