Concept

The Aht Urhgan expansion pack has introduced a myriad of new battles--from the quick, SWAT-style Assault missions to the citywide
skirmishes experienced in Besieged. Salvage continues in this tradition by offering several new exploratory missions designed for alliances. While similar to Limbus battles in that up to 18 adventurers can participate, Salvage battles are more than a relentless assault on a seemingly never-ending wave of enemies—they will require precise teamwork and impeccable strategy to complete.



Objective

The main objective of Salvage missions is the exploration of the archaeological remains of four newly opened areas (Zhayolm Remnants, Arrapago Remnants, Bhaflau Remnants, Silver Sea Remnants) and the eradication the demonic beasts that rule their deepest depths. However, this will not be as easy as it sounds. A powerful force known only as the Pathos of Alzadaal limits the abilities of all who enter, making them easy prey for the hordes of fiends waiting in the shadows.
To complete these missions, alliances must work as one, or the treasure that slumbers in the remnants' bowels will remain lost for eternity.




Participation

Adventurers must be level 65 or above, and be in a party/alliance of between 6 to 18 players. There are no mission rank or mercenary rank requirements.




Remnants Permits

In addition to meeting the aforementioned criteria, adventurers also must possess a "remnants permit." This key item can be obtained in exchange for Assault points (2000) and will grant entry to any one of the four remnants. Please note that a permit can only be used once, and adventurers must wait until midnight (Earth time) before they will be allowed to purchase another.

Area Reservation

Unlike Dynamis or Limbus, Salvage uses a battle system similar to Assault, meaning that area reservations are not required.
Also, Salvage mission time limits are all set at 100 minutes, and there are no items or monsters that can extend that limit.

The Pathos of Alzadaal

When adventurers begin a Salvage mission, they may have as many as 20 different limits hampering their abilities, equipment, attributes, and more. The only way to reach the guardian of the area and retrieve its treasure is to remove these limits. However, removing these limits requires the defeat of the other monsters roaming the remnants.
The following is a list of the various types of Pathos:



Imbued Items
The Pathos of Alzadaal can only be neutralized with special potions and medicines known as "imbued items." Most of these items are pathos-specific and will only cure one ailment. They can be found on monsters or within treasure coffers hidden throughout the remains.
One of the keys for success in the Salvage missions is determining in which order members of the alliance receive the imbued items.

*Players must dispose of any imbued items they bring back from the remains before they will be allowed to enter again.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

Seems interesting. Those new mobs look pretty cool. How much longer till the final zone of ToAu is available? The Sky/Sea zone. And what is it going to be called? I remember people talking about "Sea" long before all of the CoP missions were even available. I don't read any FFXI sites other than this one anymore.

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Yeah it might be interesting to try out. It has same entrance requirements so its not lame like Dynamis. Requires 2k assault points to enter. I wonder what kind of drops will be there. Probably the new equipment SE shows on the page. That stuff looks cool, but the stats are what I am worried about.



In other news some LS killed Jorm with 6 people (2 relics - Aegis and horn).

http://www.ffxi-poisoned.com/vbf/showthread.php?t=635

that is pretty fucking crazy as it usually takes forever to kill him with 18 lol.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

Oh yeah here is a pic of some of the new equip.



A good amount of you have already seen this shit, I am just doing this for those who don't go to other FFXI related sites.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

The new equipment looks hawt. The restrictions that are on at the beginning of these areas is going to make them really challenging.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

That gear looks pretty good. I like the piece on the mithra the most. Possibly a good mage or Bard piece! I wonder if the stats will be good also.

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I find the mithra meh. I like the look of the new ninja gear though! The heavy armor for dark knight type peoples look cool too.I recently painted my porche and girlfriend white!! white is a superior color after all HALE HITLER I LIKE GIRL COCK

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[In Yarr we trust.]

Kinda funny that they reskinned the Blue mage AF coat (mithra) so soon. Also odd that in the screenshots everyone is wearing normal/crappy armor. Usually in those promo shots they put people in full abj/af2 lol. I remember in ToA original promo shots they had a galka drg in full crimson and a pld with hrotti in full af2. For CoP dynamis they showed what looked like a hume warrior in full koenig and a galka monk in full af2.

That paladin in the second pic doesn't have a shield, he looks so vulnerable :(

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

Mwahahah squishy bastards!

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[In Yarr we trust.]

Cecil is not amused.

Neither is KlUyA!

I want to see all Paladins using shields! You will set a bad example for Cecil.

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I think all plds should use a sword and shield. put their A+ skills to good use ( i know they have As in almost everything else they use, but still )

Pretty sure it's still the only job with more than one A+ skill.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

I remember when i was leveling PLD I read various PLD FFXI forums (actually how I stumbled across Yarr and CKD). One of the forums I visited was Alla *eww*. There was a PLD on there who leveled to 75 with Great Sword only and made an argument thread about how it was better than sword+shield. Man I wish I could read it again. It's a good load of nonsense lol. I refuse to go to that site, so I'm not going to dig for it. The thread was from several years ago, it's likely gone.

Sorry we kinda derailed this

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In the beginning, when the game initially came out... Great-sword was actually a PLD only weapon. They only later added that they could be useable by DRKs. So its not that surprising that an early PLD might have taken the path of the Great-sword, before stats and research went into the mitigation benefits of sword/shield. Also remember that a shield's usefulness have gone up five to ten-fold in the last year or so. PLD have decent parry rate, so even though a sword and shield, or even staff is alot better... a great-sword isn't a ridiculous idea (however unpopular, or ineffective vs. the alternatives).

I remember a lil while back, I was keeping hate from a JP NIN who was voking, with my greatsword alone (not voking, just using spinning slash). Mind you this was me just tagging along on a AstralCandescance recover for kicks... I wouldn't use this in a tanking situation (took stupid high dmg when I got hit), or any other than playing around and lookin' cool.

Nah Keston, sheild was way better back in the day haha. Before when you blocked you took 0 damage and wouldnt get interrupted midcast. SE didnt really strengthen sheilds recently, they kinda just ungimped them lol.

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It doesn't sound like you've ever used a shield.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

Care to elaborate? Because I posted a story of using a GS, or because I didn't say "sheeels r grate" in my response? Be constructive..." You sound like you never used a shield because... example example example". Or are you responding to DeeJay. Can't be sure when response isn't quoted.

Personally, my shield usage was in the earlier days when it really wasn't that great. It was on par with the Earth Staff then in usefulness. My Staff was capped very early on, unlike alot of (not all) PLDs who don't look into capping staff till they hit 70+ or 75. Back then, the mitigation was similar at my shield skill level. Staff gave Spirit Taker, and since my staff was always capped, I actually did very decent dmg and MP was hardly an issue even without refresh options.

That said, in the later days after SE started re-beefing shield skill/usefulness, it has grown to greatly outweigh the staff with high skill and the way it works now.

I was talking to the dude who posted after you. If I was posting to you after someone else had already posted I would have quoted you to specify my response.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

My mistake. lol.. I edited my post to mention the quoting thing same time as this last post you made... got tied up on the phone with a tele-marketer.

Lol! I've been using sheilds before your PLD was even sporting a surcoat and all you had was your silly Black mage for ballista.

Way back in the day sheild blocks could proc midcast and you'd get a "Deejay blocks the goblin smithy with his shield." in your log. Blocks were the same thing as dodges back in the day, but not as frequent.

During these days Earth Staff seemed viable because it was during the time when everyoooooone overcamped.

Then SE "fixed" blockrate but added a % damage and supposedly raised the amount of skillups you got from them. This was the gimp i was talking about because you could be interrupted while casting. I remeber that skillup rate was just as bad as it was before this "fix."

Then when PLD got refresh was when sheilds were buffed again, making them ungimp with "sheild mastery."

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I had my pld when the shield was a parry. When they changed shields to a reduced damage hit they upped its proc rate. I've always preferred it this way, even when it was a new thing. Shield mastery only gives you a tp bonus, doesn't improve anything else, though in that same patch they gave an overall improvement to shielding, not just for paladins. I couldn't care very much about spell interruption, just damage reduction, and overall the shield "guard" system ends up better. They're adding a spell interruption- thing to shield mastery in this upcoming update I guess to make it more like the old way.

The only shield gimp I can recall was the crappy block rate in the original system.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

They upped its procrate but the skillups were still few and far between. It ended up being a small % in damage blocked over time, but you lost to ability to not be interrupted with your spell casting. All they had to do was add a little % into procrates and skillups and everything would be fine. But they had to ghey it up with damage being taken, and still rare as hell skillups.

After this update Aegis was considered God-like because it blocked for so much damage, and often.

When we got sheild mastery was when overall block rate and skillups were boosted. Which was the only thing we needed in the first place.

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Not in response 2 above posts...

Lets not forget Chivalry... which grossly negated almost any further usage of the Staff vs. the S/S. That JA is hot . Only thing I hate is that you have to not WS until 300TP to make good use of it. Though not directly related to the shield, it was one of the things that tipped the scales in favor of shield usage (more/faster TP etc).

Anyhow, to sort of stray back on topic. That battlefield/event looks pretty cool. Instanced like assault is one thing that sounds great, and once per day is stellar also. I had around 97,000 extra IS points when I left the game (this is even after buying every piece of IS buyable equip from the gate-gaurds, along with the turban). The ISNMs were sort of cool, but got old fast. Another reason/way to spend 2K IS daily is a good thing.

With this, assault, ISNMs, and the Ashu-Talif BCs, and Besieged, dynamis, limbus, there are a good number of activities to keep busy with, even if someone chooses not to participate in the traditional end-game scene (sky, hnm). ie. Where all the drama is .

iirc, pld can use sword shield club staff and GS with A+, and I think parry also.