#or it could just be something less extreme like bone carvings. killer would absolutely do that shit

[triglycercule]

thinking about mtt literally physically dragging eachother down and being restrained to eachother because theyre genuinely that fucking ass for eachother but then it means i'd have to decide which of them to humiliate by putting a collar on them. and i can't choose. if they dont all equally suffer than whats the point man 🙁🙁🙁

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, HONEY! You’ve been accepted for the role of PARIS with a faceclaim change to Luke Pasqualino. Admin Jen: I had high expectations for Priam as he’s such a nuanced, multi-faceted character but you exceeded them by leaps and bounds, Honey! You captured all the concepts that I was hoping to see someone explore and unravel such as his identity, search for purpose and moral ambiguity and you added all these little details that built off of that but also made the characterization wholly yours. My favorite one was the detail regarding his knack for fixing up cars and the backstory you built off of that in terms of his family’s corporation. I can honestly keep going for hours because there was just too much to love about your app. It’s left me absolutely thrilled to see how you’ll develop him on the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Honey

Age | 22

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Activity Level | I’m a final year college student who’s doing a short film as my final project, which might take up some time. But I’m taking less classes this semester so that kind of evens out the workload a little. I’d place my activity level at about a 6 (maybe even 7 if I’m feeling particularly inspired) out of 10.

Timezone | GMT +8

Current/Past RP Accounts | apcstasies.tumblr.com

In Character

Character | PARIS ; Priam Taravella (FC: Luke Pasqualino)

What drew you to this character?

The fact that everything about Priam is manufactured, a carefully curated collection of personality traits and mannerisms that he can turn on and off at will whenever it suits his purpose. By all intents and purposes – be it business or personal – Priam is a self-made man. But even though his perfectly-crafted veneer is his greatest strength, paradoxically, it is also his biggest weakness. There is a void inside him, a hollow point that eats away at him. It is a slow decay, but it consumes nonetheless. Personally, I feel that this emptiness he feels is a lack of human connection, and for all his ambition and apparent desire to rise to power, what he truly seeks is a sense of belonging. Priam wants so badly to be seen, but ironically the way he makes himself visible is by putting on a mask.

I feel like he probably struggles a lot with his upbringing and his resentment towards his parents. On the one hand, he’s very aware that as far as childhoods go, his isn’t terrible. He grew up extremely privileged and never wanted for anything (besides his parents’ affection, but that’s besides the point). Sure, it sucked that his parents were distant and that he’s had all these expectations placed on his shoulders from such a young age, but Priam is very aware of the fact that there are many people who would give anything to trade lives with him. He was deeply unhappy with his life growing up, and when he was younger he had been more inclined to complain about how much he hated his life, as children are wont to do, but then everyone around him constantly reminded him how lucky he was and so he learned to bury his discontentment. He carried his unhappiness inside him like a cancer, letting it fester until he was sick with it.

I also find his potential struggles with self-identity to be a compelling part of his character. At what point does the mask become the man? When does the line between the part he plays and his true self start to blur? Does he ever catch himself in the middle of a moment and think–– am I still pretending, or is this truly the man that I have become?

+ Bonus: I just find it amusing that he’s named Priam.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character?

TENDER LIKE A BRUISE

Love is an abstract concept that Priam can’t quite grasp and it shows. Still, there is a part of Priam that believes in love. Perhaps it is because he’s never had it that he wants it this badly, or perhaps it is the way he’s heard Julianna speak of love. Romantics talk about all-encompassing love, the kind of love that consumes you until you can think of nothing else except your dearly beloved and being with them. Priam is no stranger to being consumed, except it is poison that fills his veins and a monster within that eats at him inside out. As a teen, he’d thought that he could fill the void inside of him with love, only he never quite understood what love meant. He’d confused love with lust and, sleeping with girls, and boys, and girls and boys, but even if it kept the hunger at bay for a little while, the emptiness alwayscrept back in. Whether Priam realises it or not, he wants Juliana to be the one who might finally be able to carve a home in his ribs. Maybe they’re not in love, but when he’s with her, something in his chest settles, and maybe, maybe, maybe, that will be enough.

WE MUST BE KILLERS

Priam’s never had much of an appetite for violence, but if there’s anything he’s learned from his parents, it’s that the means are always justified by the ends. And if that’s the case, then what’s a little bit of spilt blood in the grand scheme of things? But just because he can understand the necessity for violence doesn’t mean he’s any more willing to be an active participant. He’s a hypocrite and a coward; he may not ever be the one pulling the trigger, but he is the one who looks away and lets it happen. It makes the ugly parts of the job easier to stomach, soothes his conscience some. But things are changing, tensions are rising, to remain passive is to bare your neck your enemy and pray they won’t tear your throat out. Priam is a survivor, and if it comes down to killing someone or being killed, he knows which side of the line he wants to fall on. He’s a liar, he’s manipulative, he’s ruthless –– he’s never been a killer, but perhaps it’s time to change that.

SHIFTING IN THE LIGHT

Despite being neck-deep in the corruption of Verona, he likes to think that he has some morals, or at least a sort of ethical code that he follows. People like him are the worst, criminals who refuse to acknowledge themselves as such. For Priam, part of the reason is pride, but fear is a factor as well, even if he won’t admit it. He had been the one to go to Cosimo, and the man has always treated him as something of a son, but sometimes he does wonder if he’s sold his soul to the devil and it’s days like those that he can’t bear to look himself in the eyes. But Priam can’t run from the person he’s become forever. One day he’s going to look in the mirror and not recognise himself, and he’ll wonder if maybe the mask is stuck, or if he’s just become the mask. He’s grown into a man, hardly recognisable as the little boy he used to be, and only time will tell whether that’s a good or bad change.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character?

Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve killed off one of my characters : )))

(That means yes, please feel free to kill Priam.)

In Depth

In-Character Interview:

• What is your favourite place in Verona?

“My favourite place?” Priam echoes. The slight twist of his lips hints at amusement, but it is the sort of indulgent humour one might direct at a particularly precocious two-year-old. It’s an expression that borders on condescension, but the reporter is either oblivious to it or doesn’t much care, continuing to watch him with expectant eyes. Over the years Priam has found that people are usually too enamoured by his pretty face to really notice the ugly parts of him that lurk underneath the surface, and it feels like a challenge, almost –– sometimes he toes the line just to see how much he can get away with by virtue of being young and beautiful.

“You’re standing in it,” he finally answers, the words accompanied by a vague sweeping gesture of his hand, inviting the reporter to take a proper look at the garage they’re currently in. This is the first time anyone other than him has been in there, and a part of Priam tingles with the wrongness of a stranger in a space that had before this been only for him. Still, it’s a small sacrifice he has to make. People love to be reminded that the rich are regular people with regular hobbies behind the glamour of wealth, and if Priam throws them a bone now, it’ll keep them from digger further into other truths he’d rather not divulge. “I apologise for the mess, by the way,” he adds, allowing a sheepishness he doesn’t actually feel to seep into his voice, “I probably should have cleaned up a little, but it slipped my mind. Don’t usually let people in here, y’know?” Hook, line, and sinker, Priam thinks, watching the man flush slightly at the implication that he’s the exception.

• What does your typical day look like?

“A lot of paperwork,” he answers with a laugh, and then, “No, really. I left Taravella Corporation because I got tired of sitting around in an office all day. Albeit it was a very nice office, but I’ve always been more of a hands-on kind of guy.” He pauses to pick up a wrench from his worktable, pretending not to notice the double entendre, or the way the reporter’s gaze catches on his fingers as they wrap around the shaft of the wrench.

“I traded aerospace for automotive, thinking with a smaller company I’d get to be more involved with the actual manufacturing process, but I still spend most of my day signing papers.” He looks up from the car then, sharing a wry smile with the reporter before adding, almost cheekily, “Except now I get to do it in a smaller office.” Despite the reporter being the only other person in the room, Priam lowers his voice anyway, letting the reduced volume provide the illusion of candour. “Some might say it’s a downgrade, but it’s nice to have a space that finally feels like it’s mine. It sounds silly, but back at T-Corp, I always felt like I was just messing around in my old man’s chair.”

“Anyway,” he says, talking normally once more, “After work I like to grab some drinks with my friends, maybe dinner with my fiancée if I end early enough. I’m really not all that different from other guys in their twenties.” If other guys his age routinely met up with members of one of Verona’s most well-known mobs, of course, but he decides to leave that last bit off the record.

• What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

“I accidentally wore mismatched socks to work once,” he deadpans, and then more seriously, “I suppose it depends on how one defines ‘mistake’, but to me, a mistake is something you wish you could undo.” He ducks under the open hood even as he continues to talk despite previously having made it a point to make eye contact whenever he answered a question, knowing that the reporter will interpret it as him feeling more comfortable being honest when he’s not actually looking at the person he’s talking to.

“For a while, I had wondered if leaving the family business had been a mistake,” he admits, sounding genuine even as he lies through his teeth. Priam had never been more sure of anything, determined to forge his own path to the top without the burden of his family’s legacy weighing him down. “But that worked out pretty well for me, I’d say, so no regrets there.”

• What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

“Picture this––” he starts, “You’re five years old and your father brings you to work.” It’s perhaps his earliest memory of his father. Before that, the man had been a mere spectre in Priam’s life, the bogeyman that his nannies had used to keep him in line. Your father wouldn’t want you to use that word, or keep your voice down, your father’s resting in his office. That day at Taravella Corporation’s main office had been the first time they’d spent more than half an hour in the same room. Back then, Priam had thought it had been some sort of a father-son bonding experience, but he knows better now.

“He showed me around, brought me to all the different departments before he took me to his personal office. There, he said to me: this will all be yours someday.” On some nights, he can still hear his father’s voice, still remembers grappling with the realisation that he’s not so much a son as he is the heir to an empire he never asked for. It’s not a happy memory, but he recounts the tale with a carefully calculated smile that’s just this side of sheepish and a half-shrug, proud and self-deprecating all at once, “That’s quite a lot to ask of a young boy, don’t you think?”

• What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

War. It’s such an ugly word, but there’s hardly any point debating the reporter’s choice of words when it’s the truth. Priam is under no illusions –– while the interview might have been disguised as a spread on one of Verona’s most successful young entrepreneurs, this one question is the true crux of it all. But he wouldn’t be such an invaluable piece on the Capulets’ chessboard if he hadn’t been well-versed in the art of lies and half-truths, and that ability is sure to serve him well now.

“If you think that I have anything profound to say just because I’m engaged to Juliana, then I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” He places his wrench back down, walking away from the open hood of the car to lean against the passenger side door instead, allowing the reporter an unobstructed view of him. His stance is carefully neutral, arms at his side, nothing in his posture to suggest that he has anything to hide. “I’m a businessman, I make and sell cars,” he starts, but knows that there’s no way he can get away with not commenting on the issue at all. “That being said, my family has always been close to the Capulets, so. Whatever Cosimo and Juliana are doing, I trust that they’re doing the right thing.”

“Speaking of my fiancée––” Priam straightens up suddenly, his tone returning to it’s earlier light-heartedness as his lips pull into a grin. “I’m supposed to meet her for lunch today, and I should probably wash off all this grease before I do that. I assume we’re done here?” It’s phrased as a question, but combined with the slight raise of a single eyebrow, it’s clear that it’s a dismissal more than anything else. The reporter’s smart enough to catch on, nodding in agreement as he thanks Priam for his time.

Extras:

Taravella Corporation is an aerospace engineering company, mostly dealing with the manufacturing of commercial planes, but they have the occasional military contract as well as an R&D department that’s looking into space travel

After leaving T-Corp, Priam went and set up Argentum, an automotive engineering company that produces some of the most innovative luxury cars in the world

In his youth, Priam had a brief stint with street racing. It had been an attempt to distract himself from the gnawing emptiness inside of him, and for a while it worked. Now, occasionally he’ll drive over the speed limit, but he’s not nearly as reckless anymore

Really good at poker but we’ll probably never actually get to see this in a thread (besides maybe a passing mention) because I have no idea how to play poker despite having been taught multiple times

Sexy and he knows it !

I wish I could end this app on a more coherent and/or profound note but it’s 4 in the morning and I just want to write a fake ass hoe whose entire existence can be boiled down to: was unloved as a child and now has no idea how basic human emotions work

He tries though, really

[maximumpenetration]

heavensward: the snacktaku review

My friend, my buddy, my brother in arms for the past year and a half Mettic posted his own Heavensward retrospective about a month and a half ago. And since we all know that originality and creativity are fake news, I’ve decided to do the same thing - I even copied his patch-by-patch breakdown because what is he gonna do about it?

Going into Heavensward, I had been subbed for most of ARR (minus one month). I’d tried forming a raid group in 2.0, telling myself I was only leading it until someone else would step up to the plate, and ended up making a big mess of things. Between then and 3.0 launch I left my FC, rejoined my FC, cleared T5 and T9, and fell behind in Extreme primals, only really catching up with Shiva EX (since it was so easy).

June 10th will also mark the 2nd anniversary of the end of my Quest for Nepto Dragon,  a month-long fishing adventure in catching some of the biggest fish assholes in 2.0. The tag is a sparse two pages, but I can’t tell you how many days I lost tracking weather and trying to catch Kuno the Killer and Shonisaurus - the fact that there’s 20 days between me turning in the first three and turning in these two should be evident enough. But I ended up with the title that I still proudly sport to this day.

With that all said, I ended up going into Heavensward feeling pretty conflicted. I was excited about the content the expansion would bring, but my FC was pretty bare bones, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do outside of “fish more”. I had all jobs at 50, and I’d decided to plow through the Main Scenario as a Warrior for both easy tank queues and because it was the only job I felt comfortable with, so I geared it up as much as I could and stood by for early access to start.

3.0 - Heavensward

I’ve said a few times to my friends that I think Heavensward’s story was heavily rewritten in the middle of production. I have no proof of this, outside of a comment from a presentation at the first set of fanfests that the CG trailers take upwards of a year to complete - it always seemed weird to me that Lolorito is featured looking menacing in the trailer, only to have the entire Before the Fall plotline bottom out early on in the Heavensward main scenario.

Beyond that, though, I really enjoyed the 50-60 experience - even crappy moogle hunt quests couldn’t help keep me down. I blitz through the main scenario - Lodestone tells me I got my WAR60 achievement on the 22nd of June, two days after early access started. Looking back now that seems absurd!

But there’s a weird bit of tranquility that comes with pushing ahead of the majority of people (a lot of whom were busy grinding out the new jobs in Northern Thanalan). Being one of the first people in places like Churning Mists and Dravanian Hinterlands felt like treading on forbidden lands. I remember walking into Idyllshire, recognizing that it was meant to be the new Revenant’s Toll, and just quietly appreciating that very few people were going to get to experience it the way I saw it - almost completely empty save for NPCs, no crowd sounds, no dudes on giant Behemoth mounts crowding around the tomestone vendor.

And even though I felt like I went way too fast, there were still people farming Neverreap and Fractal when I first stepped in there, for the first time really making me appreciate how to pull more than one group of enemies, while also scaring the pants off me in my barely 60, not even fully geared with Law gear setup. 

The very first thing I did after getting to 60 and finishing the main scenario? I went right back to fishing. And then I leveled the other two gatherers for good measure and to get rid of shared gear. Why not? I was planning to level crafting jobs down the line, and I should be able to gather whatever I needed.

Along the way I decided to give this new tanking job a try. My main job was still warrior, though!

Also, in late June/early July I started hearing about this little program called Discord, that made it fairly easy to set up a voice chat server for your groups. I’d been wanting to get away from using the Mumble server of an old, general group of friends for a while now (sometimes the channel names were... not good, and I wanted to invite random people to do group things with and not have them see something stupid and bail immediately).

Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I’d like to personally take responsibility for helping the FFXIV community embrace Discord. In every Extreme party I ran, I’d mention that we used Discord as our VOIP, and that it was free and easy to set up. And then I noticed more and more people picking it up and mentioning it in their PF listings, some of whom I knew I had invited to my server before. So, yeah, everyone make sure to let Hammer & Chisel know how much I mean to them. I’m waiting for my check.

Along the way we also picked up a few new members straight from this blue hellsite! Carlego came a-callin’, and Mettic not long after, and more of their friends after that. People have come and gone since then, but Carlego and Mettic (and Ian, I guess) helped form a new core to our small FC, and the fact that they stick around despite the fact that I’m the FC leader is a testament to their ability and our friendship.

We had a bunch more people in the FC, and a few inactive members even came back. Almost as if we could get a static group of people to do content with. Hmm.

Other quick notes because this section is getting way too long (the others won’t be as long I promise): Bismarck and Ravana EX were fun fights. I had a lot of fun main tanking, off tanking, and later (once Mettic got his Warrior to 60) DPSing and healing Ravana. I still hadn’t planned to do Savage in 3.0, and hearing the horror stories of A3S didn’t make it sound any better. Also I absolutely hated doing A2N, and the thought of that fight being even harder chilled me to the core. No thanks. Gordian gear looks like trash. I’m really proud of this dumb post.

3.1 - As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness

I’ll be real with ya’ll - I get absolutely petrified when it comes to doing new difficult fights. This is a weird thing to say as someone who allegedly leads seven other dudes into really hard fights, but it’s true. I try to get around it by consuming as much about a new fight as I can before we do it, but even then I think there’s no better way to learn a fight than to actually do it, and it’s super frustrating when, in this game, you need to learn the back half of a fight, but you’re still somewhat shaky on the front half.

Thordan EX is alleged to have eleven phases, some of which require more precise positioning than others. I could mostly pick up the first half of the fight, but as a group we barely got to the back half of the fight often enough that I found myself constantly second-guessing my positions for certain mechanics. I absolutely hate this fight - not just because we didn’t clear it before 3.1 ended, but because even today I cannot make the back half of the fight click in my head. It’s a wonderfully designed encounter with great music and cool looking weapons - I’m just not keen on going back without being able to clown it at 70. ᵃᶫˢᵒ ᵗʰᵉ ᶦᶰᶠᶦᵍʰᵗᶦᶰᵍ ᵈᶦᵈᶰ'ᵗ ʰᵉᶫᵖ ᵇᵘᵗ ʷʰᵃᵗᵉᵛᵉʳ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃᶰ'ᵗ ᶠᶦˣ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵖᵉᵒᵖᶫᵉ

By this point, Mettic had taken up the mantle of the group’s Warrior, and I’d leveled both Paladin and Dark Knight to 60, but for learning new fights I felt infinitely more comfortable on Paladin. I’d kept leveling other jobs slowly, but nothing really clicked with me outside of tanking. 

We still never touched Savage, and most of our hardcore groupups were for throwing our bodies at Thordan more. Not the best time in terms of progression, but no one was quitting out of frustration or anything, and we had a pretty decent stable of people in the FC covering a lot of time zones, so I like to think everyone had a good time.

I don’t know who the two cats are.

3.2 - Gears of Change

3.1 extreme primal was kind of a bummer, but I think we hit the ground running with 3.2. Obviously, not everything worked out for everyone (you should go ask Yamcha Mettic that), but Sephirot was a strong fight, and one that I found myself really enjoying. The mechanics are cleanly spelled out for you, tanking that wind up punch feels metal as hell, and the 2nd phase music is bumpin. It’s also the first time I decided I should really hash out how to play Dark Knight - it’s the first time I really started noticing PLD was popping at the seams, although I wasn’t ready to give the job up completely yet.

Yes, I know Carve and Spit is off cooldown. I was learning!

3.2 also saw us starting up our raid static! We stepped in there with our shiny new Shephirot weapons thinking we were kings of shit mountain, but I think we were humbled pretty quickly, even if our first Hummelfaust kill was absolutely dirty.

Let me take the time to say that I hate the Faust series of mobs. I realize that having a bodyguard at the front door check your DPS license before you’re let into the club lets weaker groups know that they need to work on their gear/skill, but as a poor idiot tank it’s the most boring stuff in the world. Don’t move, run your cooldowns, and hope the rest of your team can shit out enough damage to kill it before you run out of cooldowns. These fights are fuckin’ lame.

I’ll touch on Midas more in the next section, but on reflection I think 3.2 was when I started jumping into party finder groups less and less. It stemmed mostly from frustration with pubbie Sephirot parties seemingly unable to grasp very basic mechanics, but at the same time I think I was scared - my biggest fear when it comes to public groups is walking in thinking I’m Mr. Big Dick after clearing the content and messing up some incredibly basic thing. I’ve also gotten more and more reliant on voice comms for hard content, so joining a group that doesn’t have a VoIP setup started becoming an instant turn off.

3.3 - Revenge of the Horde

I’m not sure how I feel about Nidhogg Extreme, mostly because I don’t remember much about it. As a group we had some trouble tank swapping the adds, and I know other people (😏) had trouble with positioning and figuring out where divebombs were coming from, but the fight itself seemed pretty trivial from a tank perspective. It’s another fight I went on Dark Knight on after getting comfortable with Paladin, and playing Dark Knight started necessitating that I experiment with dropping tank stance more often. This is definitely one of my favorites out of this expansion.

I think my refusal or inability to put my foot down when it came to people missing days in Midas is what really dragged the group down. It’s something I’d tried to be more proactive about both as Midas continued and we shifted to Creator, but as far as the game goes I feel like a lot of the burden from us not getting farther in Midas is on me. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun - holy shit, some of our groups best memes and jokes came out of Midas, especially T6 with how stir-crazy we were going from being stuck in that tier for so long. But I should’ve been ready to drop people sooner, instead of holding out hoping they’d be able to fix themselves. We ended up eventually clearing A6S, then going in to A7S a couple of times before things started falling apart. After the dust settled, we'd lost one member to personal obligations and the other to the allure of an EU server. We found replacements in-house where we could, but Midas was done. We’d take a fresh step forward with Creator, and hopefully do better.

Also 3.3 added the Novice Network. What a terrible, horrible, no good very bad shithole that place is. I’m pretty sure the chat actively turns new players off from playing the game (at least on Hyperion). Worthless discussions, dudes who think just because they’ve got a crown they’re king of shit mountain, and completely ignoring actual requests from new players for assistance are just some of the dumb shit that goes on in there. Another mentor actually sent me a tell once when I offered to make a new guy some gear that I shouldn’t spoonfeed newbies. What the fuck? Fuck you.

I hear in JP servers the novice network serves its purpose. That’s great for them. Delete Novice Network from Primal and Aether.

3.4 - Soul Surrender

Sophia Extreme was a joke. It also made joining PUGs more appealing to me. Using the fight to kit out most of my active jobs was a nice way to spend time, but the fight itself left zero impact on me and the weapon designs are boring as hell. I did end up going Paladin on this fight more so we could cheese one of the tankbusters with Invincible.

Our Creator static started off extremely well. We downed A9S quickly (fuck Faust fights still) and A10S fell not long after that. Then we. . . kind of stalled at A11S for a while. Mettic says we cleared A11S before 3.5, which I don’t clearly remember so I’ll defer to him on that. There was always something tripping someone up, and I got incredibly frustrated with some of the group seemingly unable to “get it”, or worse acting outright belligerent at the idea of following a laid out strategy at all, and that was if we didn’t suddenly have a last minute cancellation from a member. I did follow through with trying harder to find replacements for absent members, but sometimes you can’t and I’d rather guarantee someone a quick A9 and A10 win than go begging for someone to come learn A11 with us.  It was frustrating for me personally because I felt like we were right back in A6S - all the pieces were there, but we couldn’t put them together. Thankfully we did pull through, but it would take us another four months after our A11S clear to finish the fight in A12S.

What did end up happening during our A11S prog was I stopped pussyfooting around with the idea of playing DRK in endgame content and just dove in. The idea triggered after a particularly nasty wipe that we had gotten so close to winning, and my basic thinking was that if I had been a DRK, that would’ve given us enough DPS to win it. There was an immediate improvement in our times after I switched, and it’s a job I’ve grown from almost hating in 3.0 to considering it my main through the rest of the expansion cycle.

I don’t have a ton of screenshots from this patch. There just wasn’t a lot going on at the time. We were plugging away at our Creator prog, and I’d be working on my Paladin relic (finish what I started) or some other fluff, but for the most part this patch was all about the raids for me.

3.5 - The Far Edge of Fate

I suspect when my FC members heard me say I wasn’t that interested in farming Zurvan, they thought it was because I thought it was too hard. Not really - on paper, the mechanics looked simple enough, and I was sure we could get it done. But at this point we’d had A11S mostly on farm, which meant each week one very special boy was getting a 270 weapon. Suddenly the appeal of a weaker primal weapon was a lot lower. In fact, the rest of my raid group ended up getting their Zurvan clear before me - I don’t remember why exactly, I think I was just busy on the day they wanted to run it. I did eventually clear it, but it’s the one fight I’ve never tanked, having taken in a SCH with ghetto Accuracy melds to do some passable DPS. Not my finest hour, but it’s just so hard to care.

A12S prog continued along. We still had issues with people missing days or becoming busy, but we worked along with it as much as we could.

And then almost in quick succession, we lost two people. To real life obligations - they didn’t die or anything.

Since this is 3.5, and the cross-world Party Finder had just been added, we found ourselves in a good situation where we had the ability to recruit from beyond our server. We eventually ended up picking two dudes, and progress continued. We had a lot less interruptions, and made some good progress. We were dangerously close to getting a clear!

And then one of the dudes just unceremoniously dropped from the Discord server.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it - if we hadn’t had so many interruptions in our raid schedule, we would’ve definitely cleared Creator Savage before echo. Everyone knew what they were doing, and even if we clowned around a lot we still got shit done. But there were too many interruptions, too many people having to dip out at bad times. It didn’t help that our A12S strategy drew more from Angered FC’s clear, when Xenosys’ video strat ended up becoming the one most people got used to (side note: I fucking hate video-only guides).

But we, eventually, after enough blood, sweat, tears, and a little bit of echo, were able to get our clear in.

Onward to Stormblood

Two years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that at the end of an expansion I’d be sitting here today, telling you about how much of a failure I felt like trying to raid the game again. I’d honestly thought I was done with prog after my Binding Coil group fell apart, and I really thought I was done when a Second Coil group I joined also broke apart due to infighting. But here I am anyway, and despite feeling like I could’ve done so much better than I did, at the same time it’s a weirdly good type of feeling - I know I can do better, that we as a group can do better, and it’s something I want to push for as we get ready for Stormblood and Omega. And I’d love to say that I’ll be tanking as I always have, but man they added Red Mage to the game and that’s my job, and from the Live Letter and subsequent info it looks so fun you guys - so I’ll be picking that up, with another one of our trusty members jumping in as a tank instead. We’ve got a group that’s mostly stuck together through two raid tiers, and one of our Midas members is even coming back to us!

Aside from actually clearing a raid tier on time, I’d like to dive back into Party Finder and not be so scared of failure on a public front anymore.  Cross-server PFs means that I’m just another faceless dude in a sea of faceless dudes, and even if I screw up royally as long as I don’t make too big a scene the other dudes aren’t even gonna remember me. And hey, if you’ve made it this far and somehow aren’t someone who follows me, give me a shout-out and let’s work on stuff together! (as long as you’re on a Primal server). I’d love to meet new people from this site now that cross-server play is easier than ever.

In conclusion: