Been a little busy in-game lately. Got SMN to 65 and decided to take a small break from it to work on one of my low-50s jobs. Since I just got my Soboro, it seemed like the logical choice.
I spent an evening soloing from 50 to 51 in Behemoth’s Dominion just to get back into the Samurai groove and ended up getting my Gothic Sabatons to match the Gauntlets that I nabbed over in Xarc last week. Had my party flag up the entire time, but of course the low 50s have always my least favorite levels due to their awkwardness. And post-ToAU, the invites get really slim until 54.
One last piece of gear I had planned for SAM was some Shinimusha Haidate to try and get ready for a 7-hit build. I actually have hit Bugbear Strongman a few times over the last few years, but have only seen the SAM pants drop three times; the very first time I was in the zone when it came out (splitting the proceeds with two other with me), a few weeks later (giving the pants to theSAM friend I was in pt with), and a pair while solo (after the price had completely tanked well below 100k).
When I did a price check on them, I was suprised that they were back up and selling for 170k-200k. Of course, I should have predicted that from the bandwagon effect of the SAM buffs. So… it was off to Oldton Movalpolos for me. I spent two days killing EVERY POP (both spawns) and ended up with nothing except two pair of Aikido Koshita. A whopping 14K gil for my efforts >.< And a side-note, why the hell does SE hate MNK enough to make this NM drop near-useless +2 Counter pants for MNK and near-broken +6TP pants for SAM? I mean really! Those Koshita could have been +5 Counter!
Eventually, I gave in and just ponied up the gil to AH myself a pair.
I still have not been able to actually get an XP party yet. Hit lvl 52 by Campaign and soloing in Riverne – Site B01 skilling up Polearm (reached 50DRG in a series of Level Sync parties, so had really fallen behind. (I figure I really should prepare for the eventual endless Colibri camps to come).
One up-side of all the Campaign time was re-obtaining Brass Wings of Service ∮ for the 3rd or 4th time. I am sitting on only about 150k Allied Notes, so still 30k away from getting the current Iron Ram Sallet Set items (not including the cost of the yet-to-be-released body piece).
Side Note: Even more proof of SE’s hatred for me… just compare the Iron Rams (San d’Oria) goodies to the gar-bage offerefor Cobra Unit (Windurst).
And Tram actually got to Golden Star ∮∮∮∮ at the same time (nice considering how little his White Magery nets him on XP and Allied Notes.
Add to all of that, a double Salvage run, my first ANM, a few assualts, and some friends helping me finish off my Nyzul disc from 90->100 and it definately made some good {funguar}.