Sitting at 95 cooking doesn’t leave me too many options in terms of loss-free skilling up, so I have been trying to find a niche here or there for some profit. I noticed Red Curry had been selling for around 100,000. The meat used in the synth was AH-ing for around 30,000 and the rest of the mats were easily acquired. Seems like a great thing to jump on, the only problem is that people list the meat around 10:00 AM central. Every day I came home to seeing 2-5 sold that day, when I was at work. The other night right as I was about to turn in I checked the AH and saw a piece so I nabbed it for 32,000.

I didn’t want to chance shattering the synth, so I flew to Windy for the guild support. A level 100 synth at 95 still has quite a good chance of blowing up, but I went for it. It was firesday, and the synth was a tense moment, but in the end I came out with my first Red Curry.

Still hasn’t sold haha and there’s a bunch up, so it seems people may have noticed the profit margin right as I did.

Edit: Since making that first dish of curry I have sold 3 more, though the price now is down to about 60,000~. Meat still sells for 30,000.

Back when I was leveling WHM I felt gimped not having access to regular juices to use while I was party healing. You could say that was a silly guilt, but it’s all part of giving “your best” to the group effort.

I went ahead and grinded cooking up to 24, then carried along about 6 stacks of pineapples and crystals. I then would just cook up Pineapple Juice in mini gaps of downtime. Trying to make a 30 synth at 24 left me with a ton of shatters, but now I am 28 and that’s as high as I need to be for now.

I felt like getting in some party play as a support character, so I spent some time in the past two weeks (which is like six weeks ago or more at this point, delayed posting) getting all my WHM gear in order. Pretty solid stats when I hit 31, with mana support from the RSE. I also have been using Mushroom Soup, and have a few pieces of -Emnity gear which has become very handy.

I spent 30-31 in Yhoator Jungle on goblins and the mandragoras. We went outside Jeuno to kill some weapons and that ended up getting me 32. The next four levels all came while inside the trash citadel. I had decent luck with 2/3 of my parties, one of them was a total train wreck with a WAR/PLD tank who was going afk every 15 minutes and just sitting there. We did have someone’s RDM PL helping us, without that I probably would have left soon after arriving. I hit 34 and used the excuse of being too high to bail.

The final 34-36 came the next morning at camp #1 in GC. We had a decent group of NIN NIN SAM DRK SMN WHM. The NIN duo couldn’t hold much hate over the SAM so I was wasting a lot of mana. When they did hold and everyone was sharing the hits, it worked very well actually with the Blink from Garuda and my mass Regens.

I can’t say how many Tosonoma Rice Balls I have made in total, but I can say that making a Shogun Rice Ball is rare. I sold both for 30,000 each.

I have been targeting specific fish that I needed for cooking turn in items, and I have found that you can indeed catch fish that cap at a pretty high level. I am only 13 fishing but have caught fish ranging up to the high 50s. The land rate and bite rate isn’t easy, but Red Terrapin and Giant Catfish were nice to be able to land.

Luckily there are some really good recipes for the 90s that allowed me to profit while skilling up. Guides on this subject don’t really exist, so I had to figure out the best route and costs on my own.

After banging out the Rolanberry Pies I was doing some on and off Flint Caviar while en route to 92. This was an easy synth, and while I would temporarily be losing money from the bought fish, it would be used in some upcoming Tosonoma Rice Balls, so it was a good investment. I also did some Flounder Meuniere before Black Sole skyrocketed back up in price.

Upon hitting 92 I discovered the profit in Hedgehog Pies, and made a couple for pure profit. I hit a few skillups from these also, so it was a nice run until people started gouging the ingredients. One day the turn-in item was Sea Bass Croute, which was a 97 synth. I ended up losing like 3 or 4 King Truffles, but I did make enough for full points at like 92, so it was well enough.

Tosonoma Rice Balls began around mid 92 after a stack or so of Salmon Croute. The kelp was actually annoying to get because I had to ride the Selbina ship for it. The rice ball history on the AH was low, but the amount sold was also low, so I steadily raised the price from 6,000 to 10,000. This allowed me to reap a greater profit and they kept selling. They weren’t rushing out the door, but enough to keep me happy. I never made a single HQ Shogun Rice Ball out of many synths, so wtf.

Rice Dumplings were a total own for skilling up and profit. One day I cleaned out Sandy for Coral Fungus at like 2K a stack, and while sniping Dhalmel Meat also, I had quite a good run of skilling up and AH profiteering. I rose the price of these from 12,000 to 15,000, and now they are being massed and down to 11,000 so I stopped selling them.

I am now like 95.2 or so, and the future looks rough. I can buy mugwort and make the sweet cakes, but it’s a loss every stack, if they sell. Been thinking about some other options, but like everything requires a King Truffle and they rose from 4K to 10K a pop. I have like 15 Royal Jelly clogging my bank on Imba, so maybe I will try wasting some Persikos on a some evil, cursed soup.

The purchase of the boots was temporary until I can get them for myself, and they were cheap, and I wanted them to fill out a healer suit that day, so I just went for it. Also the RSE timers for that week and a half were horrible times I couldn’t make due to work.

OK so it’s like this. I check the chest maps for Gusgen in preparation of going there with Goodgame. I notice a bunch of the POS NMs and have an odd feeling in my gut about the Crushed Krause one (Irish ESP). I scout the place with Imba to see if I can find the chest for Goodgame and what did I see? Crushed Krause sitting pretty in his spot. One problem. The item he drops is an earth resist ring piece of shit that never sells and when it does, it’s for 1K.

I slaughter the mutha and woot he happens to drop it. I keep going, kill a Foul Meat, another ghost NM that didn’t drop anything, and then I drop down to find Juggler Hecatomb. He also did not drop anything.

Later in the day as I am listing some stuff on the AH, I ponder what to do with the Maldust Ring. The history shows all 1K, with one listing going for 100. All the other resist rings look the same. I think to myself, hey, if someone wants this thing they must really need it, so let’s try something crazy. I put it up for 50K just to get it out of my inventory.

Later that night after unlocking NIN with JLC, I go check my auction status and see the little ring in yellow text. I mean if you check the FFXI Auction House, no sale even comes close. Everything is like around 1K. I spike the cross server graph with a huge bolt rising to 50K. Etched in the Alexander price history for all to see is Imba, abusing her market instincts for a fat 50K Maldust Ring. Good game this has never happened nor will it ever happen again on any server at all.

Rosie Odonnell’s disgusting.

Upon hitting 27 I wanted to start moving in the direction of getting my RSE gloves. This meant I would need to kill some Ts in Shakrami, Gusgen or Ordelle’s, which I was specifically looking forward to because it is one of my favorite zones. I researched the next RSE timer for Ordelle’s and saw that it was 5 or 6 days away. I went in and got a key, then headed to Gusgen because the timer for Hume male there was soon.

Landed a key last night and the timer was set to start today at 10:50~ AM. I did a bunch of inventory clean up in the morning waiting for the time to hit, and when it did I logged Goodgame on in and cleared up to the first room. Two chest spots were possible, though it would be lucky if the chest was that close to the entrance. I checked the first spot and saw nothing, so I killed a few creeps. As I ran toward the next spot I saw the little brown box. Ran up and used my key, landing me the key item for my RSE Hume male Custom M Gloves.

I haven’t read many BST strategy guides but I am confident they all include tips to use a Jelly whenever you can. The attack damage, defense and Sic special damage provided by a Jelly is strong, and when used with Pet Food Zeta you can keep the same one going nearly all day. To conserve pet food I would sometimes kill 2-4 creeps, then log out and wait a minute or so to let the Jelly repop. This ghetto leave technique worked quite well in Gusgen Mines, though a few times the Jelly didn’t repop properly, so the specifics of this idea might not be 100% reliable.

Charm breaks are a bitch, and Jellies can be very tough to Charm again, so I made sure to keep Reraise up and fight in areas where zoning was somewhat possible. I did die twice in Ordelle’s, but the second death was BS because a beetle aggro’d me while I was in the shower waiting for the res sickness to die out.

The amount of fish, rods, lures, spots, mechanics and rewards included in the FFXI fishing system makes me smile.

Hit 27 and ditched the Beetle Harness +1 for a set of Steam Scale Mail. You can also see my Republic Targe and Tomahawk +1.

This festival greeted me when I first re-entered my homeland of Bastok. The Taru animations are pretty amusing, and aren’t used in any of their normal combat movements or emotes.

I didn’t return to Midgardsormr this time. The server I knew and loved so long ago was pretty much devoid of the people I used to play with, so I felt like switching it up. The man known as JLC was playing on Alexander, so I thought I would give that server a try. The switch of all my characters cost me $25, I wonder where they came up with that number?

The inherent risk in a server transfer is that your name will be occupado as you arrive. I logged in to see two of my 5 character names in yellow, the clue that they needed to be changed. Goodgame was safe thank goodness, but my darling Famke was to be no more. I didn’t even log in on her for a few days as I thought about name changes. Variations of the Famke letters I considered, among some others.

The name I chose hit me like a bolt of lightning as I sat thinking, and I almost instantly made the change and logged in. I admit that it is a bit sad to see her go, but I leave my permanent search comment as “Famke the thief”, with the AF guide url. Perhaps one day someone will recognize me.

Imba.

I had thought my cooking was somewhere in the 90s, but as I re-upped my subscription I returned to find Famke as an 88 cook. I promptly smacked out Rolanberry Pies until I hit 90, and since then I have been doing a little bit of everything. Some Flounder Meuniere, some Fliny Caviar, probably some Salmon Croute soon. I also have been pretty strict about doing the guild turn-ins every day, and I got up to about 80,000 points.

Yesterday the item was Sea Bass Croute, which is a level 97 recipe. The risky ingredients weren’t many, but the King Truffles were a scare, because I only had 8 total, and I needed 3-4 to get the max turn-in points. I got a perfect synth on my first try, but then failed like 8 in a row, losing about 3 truffles. I got discouraged so I ran over and finally bought the cooking hat. I then proceeded to complete two more synths back to back, netting me the near full 6K points. I didn’t make a 4th because it was only for like 200 more points and I didn’t want to lose any more truffles.