Progress

This Sunday was a good day for progressing.  I got both a leather craft and a carpentry training manual.  I got to 20 Archer and 20 Gladiator.  I did the gladiator rank 20 quest so I now belong to the gladiator guild.  Decided not to get a 6000 guild mark skill but wait for the 8000 that lets guard last 50% longer.  Going to like that.

Although I was able to go for rank 30 and 31 hipocerfs and aldgoat billies, as both a rank 19 archer and gladiator, higher levels were beyond my skills.  They did give good exp though (about 400-500 sp per kill).  Which is what pushed both jobs above 20.  I've decided to get pugilist to 22 next as it's skill is necessary for going after aldgoat horns.  Until then I'll use the market in Ul'dah to cover that.  I also miss-calculated and will nead to head out again for some taupe bugs so I can make the Kecks.  The arrows should be doable once I hit Gridania.  All in all some progress and direction.  Not bad.

Just a quick one

Just did some local leves and some planning.  Got 5k Weaver guild marks accumulated so snagged Weaving Training.  The logic is that because Canvas is based on cotton, I can hold off on the spinning training for a bit while I get Weaving, Dyeing and Tailoring up to speed.  Weaving and Dying being the most important.  Then it was off to Gridania both for some leathercraft/carpentry local leves and some gathering work.

I plan on getting Cotton Kecks and some Bronze Swallowtail Arrows as the next objective.  The arrows as a cheap alternative to obsidian arrows that are better than bronze arrows.  The kicker there is, of course, Horn glue.  I'm going to need to see if either my Gladiator or my Archer (currently both at 19) can hack the job of going after rank 30 Hipogryphs and rank 30 Aldgoat Billies.  I've done the Aldgoats before and they are just at the edge of doable.  So we'll see.

Archer Gear Up

I made a major push to gear my archer job up.  Lucky that most of the gear was within my crafting abilities.  So as well as doing the usual mix of Local and Regional guildleves I did a lot of gathering and hunting in order to procure the necessary materials to make said equipment.  The interesting thing is that I progressed all the way to Archer 19 doing so.  Then it was a case of making the Dodoskin Moccasins (which I HQ1'ed), the Trapper's Hat (Green) and the Trapper's Tunic (Green).

Letrange, Archer

Equipping all of this at Rank 19 obviously was a better choice than my mostly rank 12 thru 15 gear.  The interesting thing came when I compared the equipment to the Optimal 19 Cotton Acton.  The acton has more defense but the tunic has more magic defense and evasion.  All the archer gear seems to preference evasion so, I'm going to go with the theme.  Doing so however means I will need to make some Cotton Kecks.

Ah well, there's enough material left over to do so, I just need to pick up some Mole-Brown Dyer's Moss from the Gridania area (ah hind sight is 20/20 - I just vendored some as part of the "dispose of the crap" part of the gathering process.

So at this point, once again in Limsa, I'm going to be doing my tour of guildleves on my way back to Gridania and some kecks.  Who knows maybe I'll ding 20 by then.  I also dinged 23 mining while mining in Emerald Moss.  Unfortunately my existing log is useless since they changed the gathering patterns back in the day.  I'm going to have to totally re-do the Emerald Moss drop patterns to get an accurate picture there.  Obsidian Arrows are nice but HORRIBLY expensive.  I'm going to try out the bronze arrows I currently have in stock and see if those will do.  I'll probably re-supply a batch of obsidian for use in tough fights and keep the bronze for trash mobs.

And I chew off a bit much

Progressing my acquisition of materials for making Moccasins, I spend quite a bit of time in the Black Brush zone in between turning in local leves in Drybone and Horizon.  Took me way to long to get that last piece of copper. Such is life sometimes, only Zinc Ore and Antelope Sinew left to get.  That will happen in Gridania.

While I was picking up some regional levequests (Drybone went off without a hitch) I also picked up some for camp Horizon.  I was fine for the pugilist one (it was soloable at rank 16).  The Thaumaturge one however has officially kicked my ass.  Going to have to abandon that one.  I should be able to do the Gladiator one however without a hitch.

While in Drybone, doing the aforementioned regional guildleves, I dinged Archer 18.  Nope the Acton is still inferior to the Cotton Tabard.  Ah well.  Quite a lot of the equipment should be cleared by rank 19 however.  And that should be attained soonish.

So, finish off the last regional guildlevel I have and off to Gridania next.

Moving Forward

So I start off the day with two local levequests for the Armorer's Guild.  After crafting up the goods and dinging Armorer 21, I decide to hoof it to the various turn in points and shoot things along the way (still working on my Archery job).  After hitting the grade 3 zone I definitely am feeling the skill point love as I find rank appropriate mobs to chew on along the way.  Sure enough before the final delivery I ding Archer 17.  I should probably have gotten some Regional Leves while I was at it but forgot in the rush.  Ah well I'll try and remember then for when I get to Ul'dah.  I came withing a few 100 points of being able to get a training book from the armorers guild but oh well.

This provided the ability to check the effects of the Dodoskin Vambraces vs the Sheepskin Vambraces.  As you recall at Archer 16 there was NO DIFFERENCE between the Sheepskin Vambraces[12] and the Dodoskin Vambraces [17].  So either could be worn with no changes in stats.  At Rank 17 however I expected there to be a marked difference.  And sure enough there was.  So I make a Archer Equipment specific macro and swap out the Sheepskin for the Dodoskin Vambraces.  And all is well in Letrange Land.

The Cotton Acton [19] however still gives less bonuses than the Cotton Tabbard [15].  I'll need to keep monitoring the stats as I rank up to 19 to see the exact switch-over point (I suspect 18 or 19).

Planning ahead I notice that I probably want some Dodoskin Moccasins (Higher Evasion).  Since I'm in La Noscea, I decide to handle the gathering of the necessary materials that can be sourced here before going to Ul'dah where I will be able to get the Latex and sundry other materials.  Not to mention being able to work on local leves for the alchemist and the weavers guilds.  I seriously need to concentrate on leather and alchemy.  Those seem to be the two that need to be at 30 post haste to enable me to continue making equipment.  Not to mention get all the books so that post rank 25 crafting is survivable.

Still not being very social atm.  Getting a feel for the changes before I dive into the linkshell situation.

Getting back into the swing of things

After looking at the situation and some of the gear upgrade paths (gah, the next patch is supposed to bring recipe fixes to normalize material requirements to be in line with item rank... man I want the next patch badly).  So I decide to work on Archer for a bit.  Since I can buy the reasonable upgrades rather quickly and craft some of the other equipment.  I notice the next on the line for the hand pieces are Dodoskin Vambraces so I set about collecting the various materials necessary for that endeavor. Some bouncing around and liberal use of all my skills results in the manufacture of 4 standard dodoskin vambraces, I vendor the excess materials and the extra vambraces and then compare the results.  I'm going to have to wait to 17 I think to switch over as at 16 there is no difference in final stats between wearing the sheepskin vambraces and the dodoskin vambraces - optimal rank strikes again (12 vs 17 with me at 16).  I will need to re-test the effects of the two once I hit rank 17 (which should not be long).

I also do some experiments with regional guildleves. I find that the regional ones give nice experience, and the ones that match up the town guilds do indeed give nice guild mark rewards (necessary for when I hit 20 of a specific guild).  At Archer 16 I am able to 3 or 4 star leves at camp emerald moss and solo without too much trouble the one star ones at camp tranquil.  This should aid my leveling.  Not to mention my guild mark acquisition.

The next objective is to do some local levequests as constantly progressing my crafting is necessary (since util the patch hits I need to keep my crafting well ahead of all my combat classes).

Starting up again

I have decided to get back into FFXIV again.  This time however I've decided to say "screw the inventory situation" and sell all my stocks of goods to the vendor.  I'll be using the local levequest system to work on my crafting levels.  This should permit with the changes that came in on the 21st to get the tomes necessary for crafting 25+.

The new gathering policy is: vendor stuff I'm not actively crafting for personal use.  This should keep inventory stable.

Meanwhile, I got back into the swing of things by working on my side quests in the various cities and working on some local levequests.

Doing so I managed to ding 21 Goldsmith.

I also did some gathering and discovered that logging does provide some dark matter at a very slow rate - and it substitutes for the possible crystal drops.  I don't know if this also applies to fishing and/or mining.  Probably.  The rate is low enough that it's going to be for personal use only.