I miss my time on FFXI, so many memories. My friend and I's humble beginnings at US game launch in San D'Oria, he a Black Mage (BLM) and I a White Mage (WHM). Gettin' dumpstered by Ornery Sheep in West Ronfaure (Ornery Sheep readies Rage! Ornery Sheep readies Sheep Song! ... ugh). Poor as all hell, but lovin' it.
We crawl our way out to La Thinae Plateau and ask "why is the ground shaking?". The Notorious Monster (NM) Bloodtear Baldurf is taking a walk ... couldn't keep him in view due to being so huge. Never did get to fight him.
When we finally arrived at Valkurm Dunes the game truly opened up ... but noone wanted a BLM and WHM for party ... they wanted tanks!
We endured a lot of shit ... Japanese disdain for one. We were on Shiva server, one of the oldest with tons japanese RMT veterans. Real-Money Trading, players sell in-game currency (gil) or items for real money. That in itself set a high bar for us and they looked down on us. Then the LFG (looking for group) issue. Time to play but cannot get a party. So...
We did what we always do. We strategize, we plan, we notice the DEF difference between warrior (WAR) and Thief (THF) at LV10 is trivial. We advertise ourselves as two Thieves who 100% guarantee they can tank. Fuck it, we need money to bank roll our mages. War sub ain't cuttin' it.
We use our pre order strategy guide to fine-tune the plan. We need Swords! The Weapon Skills Fast Blade Skillchains to Burning Blade (later Red Lotus Blade) to create Liquifaction baby! BBQ them Sand Hares n' lizards. Fast Blade is physical so Sneak Attack from Thief works with it. These skills work in reverse too, Burning to Fast for Scission! Why does that matter? Positioning means everything in FFXI. We thoroughly planned this out. Whoever pulls has the enemy's attention. They Burning Blade, solidifying #1 on the Hate list. The Fast Blade user moves behind the enemy, readies Sneak Attack then bust out Fast Blade for murder ...
So of course everyone thought we were out of our minds to propose 2 THFs tanking and ignored us. THF was loved at mid-LV but disrespected at low. No problem. Remember the LFG issue? We weaponize this. Our masterful party of 2 WHM (one a Galka, WORST WHM race due to poor MND score), another THF (lol), and a BLM round us off. We swear if anything goes south we'll eat the death. We stay at the zone line to escape. We bought pebbles to throw for pulling. I pull a Hare, friend gets behind it. We build TP for Burning and Fast Blade. We tell everyone to keep away so we build hate, just heal us if we eat a crit. Skillchain time! Friend does Fast Blade (no Sneak yet since we're LV11), enemy instantly hates him and shows me his back (accuracy bonus!)... Burning Blade bitch! 75% HP becomes 0%, Liquifaction BBQ party! 2/6 members fighting, no sub jobs, THF main ... hahahahahaha.
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Everyone cannot believe we backed up our bullshit. The rest was a fever dream ...
20 hour long party! No one wanted to leave! We mesmerized and enthralled them. At LV14 we pulled out boomerangs we bought to train Throwing and save $$$. At LV15 we got Sneak Attack ... g a m e o v e r. We taught the BLM how to create a macro to Magic Burst our Scission skillchain! The spell Stone is LV1, Fire is LV13 sadly, no Liquifaction skillchain Magic Burst, such is life! He'd have to have the money to buy the spell and have it on him. There's no way he expected to be
LV20 and graduate from Dunes in one session.
Ahh ... so much fun. Their game engine is something else too! I remember a Tarutaru running for dear life. His party failed him, couldn't hold hate. Sand Hare bares down on him. Kicks him,
corpse slides over the sand AND leaves a parted sand trail as it slides! We could not stop laughing. Server was laggy too, may have played a part.
I could go on. I remember so much, and vividly. Truly a magnum opus from Square back when I felt the sun rose and set with them. Only MMO that ever felt like "my story". Nothing else comes close.