Up Yours, Aht Urghan!

March 30th, 2010 by Aeonis

Summoners going into Treasures of Aht Urghan Mission

The release of new avatars made many summoners realize that they were behind on their TOAU missions, and therefore ineligible to fight for a pact with Odin & Alexander. But like in the past, that never stops us from trying….and in true Hornie fashion. Thanks to skill, some serious strategics from our resident ‘Astral Encyclopedia’ known as Seraphiel, and maybe a dash of luck, we were able to topple most TOAU battles with teams of mostly SMN setups. Here’s a few tips & strats that we used in our fights. This is nowhere near a definitive list, but it should help you to devise your own strats to help you and your Summoner buds get to the new avatars that much faster.

Aht Urhgan Mission 22: Shield of Diplomacy
You can do this easily with 3 75 SMN’s zerging with Fenrir. Summon your avatars and use Avatar’s Favor to conserve MP for this fight. Assault the Khimaira 13 with your Fenrir’s, pull back and let them do their thing. Recast & repeat as your avy’s die. No need for blood pacts like Eclipse Bite – Fenrir hits hard enough that they will hold hate most of the fight. Combine that with Karababa’s nukes and the Khimaira 13 will go down easily. Karababa will barely get touched, if at all, but keep an eye on her to be sure.

Aht Urhgan Mission 29: Puppet in Peril
We did this fight with 5 SMN’s and a THF. Again a zerg, but this time with Garuda’s and Predator Claws. Stay mindful of which avatar is “tanking” and use Retreats + Assaults to position the remaining avatars behind Lancelord Gaheel Ja to avoid the 0 dmg hits due to Granite Skin.

Aht Urhgan Mission 31: Shades of Vengeance
Quite easily handled by a team of SMN’s thanks to Carbuncle pulling. Send Carby in to get raped by mobs, pull back and wait for the one mob to come up the ramp. Then all other SMN’s unload on it with Garudas or whatever. Note: Don’t be like Aeo and attempt to Carby pull with yellow HP and almost blood aggro the whole mess of K23H1-LAMIAE’s!

Aht Urhgan Mission 35: Legacy of the Lost
You’ll need a sturdy tank and a dedicated healer. The rest of your team can be SMN for what is probably the harder of the TOAU fights. Start the fight as normal with the tank getting hate and then send in the avatars. Everyone but the tank should stay clear of Geesho for his various AOE’s. One of the SMN’s should be ready to Diaga the clones when they pop and then kite them up the ramp to the entrance until they despawn. Try to avoid Mijin Gakure, with priority on keeping the tank alive through this move. After all that, just burn Geesho down with bloodpacts.

Aht Urhgan Mission 42: Path of Darkness
We did this fight with one RDM sleeper/kiter, one DD, and the rest SMN. You could possibly get away without the melee. RDM buffed and defensed up (the works: blink, SS, phalanx), slept Amnaf in the first room, which will spawn the gears, that all go after the RDM. From there the SMN’s & DD split duties among the 3 gears and took them all down while Amnaf slept. Be quick with your Assaults to get the gears off of the RDM. Once Amnaf is slept and Gears are all covered, RDM should keep an eye on Naja and heal when necessary. After all the gears all down, start working on Amnaf until she retreats into the next room. Rest before the second room and repeat the strat as above. Rest before the third room, and when Amnaf takes Soulflayer form, just burn her down with BP’s like Predator Claws.

Aht Urhgan Mission 44: Nashmeira’s Plea
HAHA – syke! We tried this mission with a couple of SMN’s in the party, and were able to get Alexander down to about 50% before either time or lack of MP became an issue. You’re on your own with this one. Best to go with a strat from the wiki for your final battle!

Hope these little tips help you hardcore SMN’s out there get that much closer to your long awaited, much deserved new avatars.

Stay Hornie!

New Avatars Make Me Hornie

March 23rd, 2010 by Aeonis

New FFXI avatars Odin, Alexander

I made a pact (pun intended) that if/when FFXI came with some new avatars, I’d come back and completely revamp GetHornie (.com …..the shell is another story lol).

Well it took them a while, but it looks like we’re finally gonna get some new shiny things. So I’ll be working on a “new improved” site for us SMN fanatics.

All your Korroloka Tunnel are belong to us….

Belly Dancers and Glory Stealers

May 8th, 2009 by Aeonis

lamiedrop

The gods have smiled upon the little summoners that could once again! The Evoker’s Gages dropped in our recent trip to get them!

It didn’t take us long to get a rhythm with Lamie. A team of 5 SMN’s and out leader/token THF (who we’ll discuss in a second) took our time and worked her down without any issues this time. Congrats to Seraphiel on his lot and new gloves!

And this is now the second time I’ve seen Homicidal Flee into a NM for a kill shot! He’s starting to get pretty good at it! Apparently he has the hidden job trait “Steal Glory”. I kid…I kid…

Unbe-Reef-able

May 5th, 2009 by Aeonis

lamieno9

Hornie has started hunting down Lamie No.9 for the ever elusive Evoker’s Gages. There was admittedly little experience with this mofo between us all, which showed when her avatars’ Tidal Wave reared it’s head, or when Lamie caught a Summoner or tow in her sexy (lol) Charm. Yet we have still been able to pull out a victory with every meeting. Thanks, Hornie, for knocking down the Undead Swarm a couple of notches!

Ah, but the Gages still elude us! Welcome to “The List” Lamie No.9! We can tell we’ll be getting Hornie all over your face for quite a while.

Vulpangue Was No Match

April 12th, 2009 by Aeonis

vulp

It seemed a little rocky when we were gathering together. Many of the Hornie members canceled their RSVP to this event (it was Easter weekend after all….we did not factor that in in our planning). But those of us that were there were determined. And with the help of some of the Hornie Peeps, we were able to snag in a PLD – a key to our success without a doubt. We also had a RDM and a WHM, and of course our resident Treasure Hunter Monkey. All other attendees were SMN.

I hate to say that we overestimated this mob but it surely felt that way. We were using a different strategy than most linkshells would have the luxury to do. But the concept was the same. PLD holds him down, everyone else rape the mob. And oh, was it a rape fest! Each wave of bloodpacts would shave off 15-25% of the mobs HP. And without any extra melee going on, we never saw more than a handful of that nasty AOE that everyone fears. We were even able to summon + assault from outside of the AOE range. I believe that as long as there is a PLD (or other proper meatshield) to hold Vulpangue down, a small amount of Summoners and a healer for the PLD can take Vulpangue without any issues.

Out of 5 pops, 2 Karura Hachigane’s dropped, and maybe 3-4 Sylphid Epee’s.

I believe we’ll be trying again next week.

Waiting…. Always waiting….

April 8th, 2009 by Aeonis

maintenance

Not sure how it is that I’m always at home for a version update >.>;;

I don’t know which is worse. Being here and waiting for the Play Button NM to spawn unclaimed, or having to do the update at prime time when the server is getting smashed by all the current players/new players/returning players.

I believe SE has cameras on us all and LOL’s as we click on that faded button…

A Glitch In The Matrix?

April 4th, 2009 by Aeonis

During a routine run to fight Ifrit, one of the Hornie Peeps (Fentylsghost) said he was getting a wierd bit of chat from the avatar NPC Ronta-Onta. Something about a fight in Cape Terrigan. A few of us, not paying much attention, said he had probably flagged the AF quest. But, as he pointed out, he was on MNK…

I was behind Fent a little ways to get my fork. When I got to Ronta-Onta, he opened up with the following:

matrix
(Click the image for full size)

Within that text, just before he went into his normal yammering, I was given two options. One did nothing. The other led to the expected yap and resulted in the tuning fork.

Another member (Sheer) went and confirmed that we were not crazy. She also received the out of place text when attempting to get a fork.

Excuse me? Avatars? In Cape Terrigan??

Is this a glitch in the Matrix??

What is…real?

………Kung fu?

It Has Begun…

March 30th, 2009 by Aeonis

hornie_at_cloister

Me so Hornie!

Summoners young & old gathered together for the first Hornie event in a long time. Mind you, it wasn’t anything as epic as an 18 hour marathon with Pandemonium Warden, it was still fun to get together and show these avatars who runs these cloisters! I guess this marked the official start of the rolling of the ball (is that English?).

We ran around Vana’diel and raped every avatar (minus Fenrir, which we did the next night). Aside from the loooooooooooong ass walks for those of us unable to mini-warp, and our token THF Homicidal eating a few Astral Flows (thanks for the 1k sucka!) it was obvious that we hadn’t lost our Hornie-fied touch and we gave them “Prime” avatars the business! Again, downing avatars is no miraculous feat these days, but it was fun.

Today also marks the announcement from SE of some new updates to the Summoner job. While I’m not truly impressed at this moment, I’ll save my judgement for when the actual update comes about (upgrades to the Merit BP’s sounds interesting…but as I always say… ‘you never know with SE’).

Stay Hornie!

Looking For A Few Good Summoners

February 28th, 2009 by Aeonis

aeo_dead

Looks like we’re gonna give it another go! After all, what else have we got better to do than to run around Vana’diel with 20 Carbuncles in tow?

We’re looking for Cerberus Summoners to join Hornie, that’ll be interested in doing some rare & downright crazy events, that either involve SMN related missions/gear/items, or would just be fun to do as a band of Summoners. Nothing is scheduled right now, so there’s no “line” to jump in to yet. Just looking to get the ball rolling since, as you know, hardcore SMN’s are hard to come by.

No strict requirements but here’s a loose outline:

» 70 – 75SMN in level is preferred for the planned events, and lower level SMN’s are more than welcome to join if you need guidance, help, or just wanna Get Hornie now in preparation for when you do get near “endgame”.

» You need not be “SMN only” and there will surely be instances where we’d want a career SMN to play another job. But you should at least have the desire to be SMN for most events (if we don’t roll as a Summoner force, what’s the point? lol)

» Though we do plan to do a few events that would normally fall into “HNM” category, we do not consider Hornie to be an HNMLS. Nor do we require exclusivity, so you’re free to be a member of another shell that is not a ‘conflict of interest.’

If you’re on Cerb, and you’re interested, talk to Aeonis for a pearl.

Summoner… Angry

February 10th, 2009 by Aeonis

cop-snoll

SO, it appears we SMN’s are getting the shaft again. If you’re a frequenter of forums like KI then you’re probably hip to what has been talked about recently. If not, I recommend you troll thru the Summoner threads as of late and, if possible, join in the discussion. Nonetheless, here’s the quick run down…

Not out of the ordinary, a discussion sparked up about just why we SMN’s have not gotten some of the updates we were promised… primarily avatars. The discussion also gravitated towards why SMN power is so gimped. Being a looooong time lurker of forums, I’m rarely ever compelled to jump into a discussion. I’d much rather just be an observer. But someone posted up a link to this interview here, which I must admit got me pissy. If you don’t have time to check out the interview, here’s an excerpt, and i’ve highlighted the part that bugged me:

Vreeland: I have a question about Summoner. Summoner seems like a giant kluge, kind of… it’s a lot of different kinds of systems that don’t really fit together. It’s like a Katamari of systems. So, the interface doesn’t really work that well, and it’s slow, and you lose mp if an enemy moves out of range out of a Blood Pact. It just has all these little problems, and nobody wants to invite them to parties. And also, like three years ago at the first Fan Fest, we were told new Avatars would be coming, but we haven’t seen any new Avatars yet. So are there any plans for a major overhaul of the Summoner class? Because it’s such a classic Final Fantasy class, and people really want to see it succeed, but it’s been stuck in this place for a very long time.

Gann: Yeah, where’s the new Avatar?!

FFXI Staff: We are definitely looking into fixing the things that can be fixed. But something like the mp that’s been used…once it’s used, then the enemy runs, giving the mp back would be something very difficult.

Vreeland: Well at the very least, you use the mp, but you don’t lose the Blood Pact charge’s recast time?

FFXI Staff: It’s something we’ll look into.

Vreeland: Another option would be to treat Summoner’s Blood Pacts like Scholar’s charges so you don’t lose it all at once.

FFXI Staff: It’s not something we’re thinking of changing anytime soon. But once more Summoners exist, the more they raise their voice…one thing we’ve been saying consistently: if there’s enough of a voice from the community that wants to be changed…if it can be changed, we’d like to change it.

Vreeland: It’s kind of a chicken/egg problem though. People know about the problems with Summoner, so they don’t level it, and then they’re not going to request changes because no one’s leveling it.

FFXI Staff: Is that a question, or a statement?

Laughter

Gann: So when’s that new Avatar coming? We were promised it awhile ago.

Ogawa: It wasn’t me, I didn’t promise it!

Matsui: Not in the far future, it’s something in the near future, something in the works. It’ll be sooner than later. We’re afraid that if we get to next year’s Fan Festival, and we still don’t have those Avatars, we’re worried what people will say, so maybe before then…

Firstly, while I appreciate Vreeland for pointing out that SMN is a “lot of different kinds of systems that don’t really fit together” and that we have a hard time getting parties (and IMO more importantly, have a hard time being effective in our LS’s), I wish they would have driven more into that point instead of trailing the question over to avatars. New avatars is cool and all that, but I think it’s been a much more important issue that our job is underpowered in every aspect. And I won’t get too deep into the reasoning behind that… that’s what forums are for.

The highlighted part above is, again, what bugged me. I have been reading FFXI forums since before I started playing, and all I did was hang out in the Summoner forums. The general consensus that “SMN is useless/broken/underpowered” has been spoken about, constantly, for years. And the whole “once more summoners exist”? Seriously? So many people have passed through the halls of Summoner. They are attracted to the job because it’s cool looking. But once they realize they are of no substantial benefit to their parties or their linkshells, they put it up on the shelf. Do you expect people to come back to play SMN and not be effective just out of ‘love?’ Anyone who plays this game regularly (and isn’t some gear whore douche-bag) ultimately wants to contribute to the group. I mean, goddamit SE, YOU MADE THIS GAME so that we have to rely on each other so much, and yet you can’t see the flaw in making a job so useless? We’ve been shunned for a long time. The only true options at this point are:

1) stay loyal to SMN, regardless of how much power you lack, and hope your PT/LS doesn’t mind too much (my sad choice)

2) ditch SMN and play a job that actually does something that the PT/LS needs

Which of those two is it that you want us to do, SE? If you’re not completely heartless, then it’s neither. Which means that you need to fix the job.

I don’t care how it’s fixed, to be honest. Make us efficient healers. Great buffers. Deadly damage dealers. Eff it, make it so we can solo for exp better, or even band together and create out own shells for end game activities. It doesn’t matter to me (though I’d much rather be involved in groups). I just don’t like the ambiguity. And I REALLY don’t like the fact that now, we’re being treated as second class citizens by the people we give our money to, in addition to the players in the game.

Any SMN’s reading this, I say you should get involved in the current discussions. Or start new ones on other sites/forums. Clearly SE is gonna make us beg, whine, kick, and scream if we want anything. And I don’t want it to be another lame bone like “new avatar that does jack shit” again.

/foaming at the mouth off

In the meantime, Cerberus peeps, lets get Hornie again… ;)