pierrot wrote:There are also a number of gatekeeper tasks these days that require groups for things like Vagary to unlock a higher level of reforged armor for Empyrean (read: Abyssea job specific equipment) sets. It bugs me that I can't upgrade my Bard Empyrean armor because no one ever does Vagary, and when they do, they're looking to steamroll it for certain items, and want people decked in very specific jobs that I don't have.
They did implement BCs to fight only the Vagary bosses. No loot, but you can unlock upgrades that way. I've never tried them, so I'm not sure how hard they'd be. Additionally, they did change the RoE for Vagary bosses (there are two per, so you get one of each of the materials they drop) from one-time to weekly. So, there are folks that will go pretty routinely to farm upgrade materials, since +3 Relic need them, and a number of crafts. The linkshell holder for the
social shell I'm in, JTA, tends to put together a full run on Sundays after the reset (or pretty much every day during Vagary campaign). I'm sure he'd be happy to give you a pearl, and make a point to get you wins if you mention it. He's a very helpful dude.
This is apparently a very easy month to max out hallmarks on, with a group, but I don't think I'll be able to find anyone at this point to burn the frog down with. So it's the slow road, for me, probably.
You can split it up too. Total you need 26,250 Hallmarks, but, 10k of that is for the final upgrade, and Kaja is already solid. You don't get the Blau Dolch style crit bonus during TP is mainly the thing. The frog is very leechable, as a (very) good PUP can solo it on VD, or a couple of them and a COR. It's an interesting fight because if players are in range you basically need to stifle TP gain. I've been able to do it pretty easily on N with thrown-together MNK plus BRD and SMN for Mew, but D it seems to build too much TP during Chainspell from (I guess?) Occult Acumen. Or something. I'll still be going back to it for a bit, since I mostly just used up the vouchers I saved up during last month's Sahagin suckfest.
I'm also thinking of putting in some more time on BRD, to work toward some of the Ultimate "Weapons" for it. At least the Gjallarhorn, and Carnwenhan. If I were able to get the ambuscade dagger, and the new neck for it, I could do a pretty solid DD BRD, which makes it seem very attractive to me. I love THF, but most groups don't. I'm also still trying to figure out how to win the game with SMN. I have heard that it can solo just about everything of consequence in the Escha areas, but I'm nowhere near that point yet, it seems. Probably not skilled enough, either.
I would work on Daurdabla before Carn. Not saying it isn't good, I've started one on Firekeeper...but it's just usually lower priority. BRD does tend to be rough in that you want (and will make constant use of) all of the REMA. Song related at least. On the upside, only Carn even has the potential to be Afterglowed/augmented, so the long term cost is actually not too terrible.
The bump from three to four songs is usually the major one. Gjallarhorn is
nice, but these days you're often looking at a potential +8-9 to a given song. Dropping that down to +6-7 will mean less than lacking an additional song slot entirely.
Carn is mostly for convenience until you get pretty high end. It basically lets you ride NiTro until the timer is back up again, which is only usually a big deal if you're rotating parties. Makes it easier to sing and go do whatever else, but you can already do over 9 minutes without one, which is long enough to last for a lot of battles already.
THF, I think a lot of groups will bring a good one if there's room, and it can be a really good DD. It's just generally hard to stand out as a melee, and rarer to find folks who have invested into support.
SMN can do quite a lot, and I've seen some high end solos with it (
Papesse is probably the best), but it can vary. It's also gotten a reputation as a job to level to gear up others because of how common it is to use for farming Aeonics. For that, it's sort of a cheese strat - zerg down with Astral Flow/Astral Conduit before the NM's AI really clicks on. The downside is that if anything goes wrong, you probably lose in a hurry and have to go reset SPs.
While there may be some solos that only a SMN could realistically pull off, most things in that realm are potentially doable by BLU, SCH, RDM, PUP, RUN, or others. DNC maybe, which would synergize a lot with efforts towards THF.
Anyway, personally, I'm being less focused than would be ideal, as usual. Taking some advantage of the CP campaign for my main, got MNK to Su3 levels for Kendatsuba in hopes of doing D Ambuscade...but it still wasn't quite there. So, picking back up on PUP, which I'd spent a bit to collect attachments for a while back, but then took a break from the game.
Meanwhile, I should be farming Alex for the aforementioned Carn, Beitetsu to afterglow Death Penalty, or Detritus to augment Tizona (or one of my others that can be).
Recently my event LS has been pushing to polish off our first round of Aeonics together. So Cataid still has a few to finish (Reisen T3s, so nothing big) for Sequence, Firekeeper got a Marsyas, and Isi got...a Sequence...which I'd barely use now, but I got the KI for it years ago. Also focusing on Dynamis D masks, which we can't "win" yet, but can accrue damage towards unlocking. Last couple have been Sandy, attempted with a ranged strategy, so I've been able to shoot things instead of be on WHM.