Tijet's Favor

I've been trying out the new favors since the update. In fact, I made a post about my experience being the support in Nyzul Isle.

Some people have discovered that if you can reach around 318 summoning skill, you can enter a new tier for the buffs. This includes Diabolos's Favor giving 4MP/tic at max potency. However, it seems the only way to reasonably reach this skill level without dumping millions of gil into gear and devoting my life to camping Ix'DRG is to merit summoning skill. This seems like a good idea. I'm finding Avatar's Favor fun to use, and the merits would give me a boost in the boost and buff department (Being able to reach a 3 minute duration on Hastega would be lovely).

Anyway, enough with the rambling. Here are some screenshots of me hard at work using Diabolos's Favor in sky:

I Can See the Light

I'm sitting here working on my research paper for Biology class. I looked through my notes and found my class schedule and realized that I have three more weeks of class (Not including the week off for Thanksgiving and the final exam week), then I'm out for the holidays!

Also, my community college released the schedule for the Spring semester. I'm planning on registering for Biology II, Statistics II, Business Math, and Accounting I. After that, I think I have two more courses (Accounting II and Calculus I) to go before I graduate with my Associate's Degree in Business Administration. It's hard to believe that it's almost all over.

I haven't even researched potential universities to enroll after I graduate!

Salvage Woes

I have to say that I'm not really enjoying this whole Salvage thing. The entire premise seemed fun at first, but the fact we haven't seen anything worthwhile and our consistent failures to the mega boss have been incredibly disheartening for me. Every time I finish Salvage, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Sure, many of you have said, "Well, that's Salvage for you," and "It's not that bad." But, for me, it's just frustrating.

After pondering on the entire situation, I've started to wonder if my utter disdain for Salvage is based on being pigeonholed on Scholar the entire time. Now, I'm sure many of you are ready to reply with, "But we have to come on what's needed!" and I understand this. Salvage has pushed my Scholar abilities to the limit. In some ways, I enjoy this stress. It is the ultimate test. In Salvage, I see myself weaving throughout the arts (and their respective addendum). But, after a while, the weakness of scholar rears its ugly head. It is true that scholars are incredibly adaptive to their environments. Our job is to adapt to the situation at hand. As I like to quote from Aladdin, Scholar's have phenomenal cosmic power (their huge spell library, stratagems), but suffer from itty bitty living space (recast timers). And that is where my frustration comes in. For example, in the Bhaflau Remnants, the gears that weaken the boss's homing missile must be defeated within 60 seconds. Of course, to maximize damage, I jump to Dark Arts, ready to magic burst. But suddenly, someone takes a lot of damage, so I must jump back to Light Arts to take care of this. Now, both of my arts timers are down and, depending on the situation, I've wasted up to three stratagem charges (Addendum: White, Addendum: Black, Ebullience/Parsimony). On top of this, I can no longer magic burst, which is less damage against the gear. Having a gear warp out at 1% HP because I had to temporarily abandon Dark Arts for healing magic makes me feel awful because that magic burst would have made all the difference in the world.

TL;DR Salvage sucks.

My Anniversary

I realized the other night that this past Tuesday (November 3rd) marks the fifth year anniversary of my Final Fantasy XI account. Even if you exclude the 19 month hiatus as well as the occasional month that I canceled my content IDs, this still puts me at playing this game for almost three and a half years. It really put things into perspective. However, looking back, I don't think that I really regret it. You see, I can't think of what my life would be like without this game. The adventure I've had. The people I've met. In fact, I consider each and every one of the ventrilo regulars as my close friends. It goes without saying that I respect you guys the same (if not more) than my friends outside of the game.

You guys are bros (and sises, where applicable).

Survey for Statistics Class

I've been working on my survey project for my statistics class all semester. My instructor has finally given us the signal to begin administering our surveys. Please help me out here. The project is due on the 20th of this month, so I want to have my raw data compiled around the 10th.

Please help me out by filing it out. You can post it as a reply to this post or email it to me (tyjet88(at)gmail.com).

1. Age:
___ Under 13 ___ 13-17 ___ 18-22 ___ 23-27 ___ 28-32 ___ 33-37
___ 38-42 ___ 43-47 ___ Over 47

2. Race:
___ Caucasian ___ African-American ___ Native American ___ Asian
___ Hispanic ___ Other

3. Sex:
___ Male ___ Female

4. Do you currently have a subscription to an Internet Service Provider?
___ Yes ___ No

5. Do you use the Internet Regularly?
___ Yes ___ No

6. On average, how much time is spent using the Internet on a weekly basis?
___ Less than 1 hour ___ 1-5 Hours ___ 6-10 Hours ___ 11-15 Hours
___ 16-20 ___ Over 20 Hours

7. On an average, how much of that time is dedicated to work related activities?
___ None ___ Less than 1 hour ___ 1-5 Hours ___ 6-10 Hours ___ 11-15 Hours ___ 16-20 ___ Over 20 Hours

8. On average, how much of that time is dedicated to school related activities?
___ None ___ Less than 1 hour ___ 1-5 Hours ___ 6-10 Hours ___ 11-20 Hours ___ Over 20 Hours

9. On average, how much of that time is dedicated to leisure activities?
(If you answer None, please skip question #10.)

___ None ___ Less than 1 hour ___ 1-5 Hours ___ 6-10 Hours ___ 11-20 Hours ___ Over 20 Hours


10. What leisure activity do you usually engage in the most while online?
___ Social Networking (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) ___ Online Message Boards ___ Streaming Media (YouTube, Hulu, etc.) ___ Online Gaming ___ Casual Research ___ Instant Messaging/E-Mail ___ Other