Vivix

Quantum Computation

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:42 GMT

I'm making a diversion from FFXI stuff to talk about what my career is likely to be centered on: Quantum Computation. zeten is probably the only one who *might* read this, but whatever.

First we can consider what it means to make a classical computation. Classical computation is the ability to write arbitrary boolean functions. One such function we can consider is f(x) = x^2:

x	f(x)
0000	0000
0001	0001
0010	0100
0011	1001

and etc. To perform these, we use a set of elementary gates such as AND, OR, NOT. It can be demonstrated that combinations of these gates can perform any computation (including FANOUT, which I may describe later). And that is the shortest description of classical computation ever.

And now for quantum computation. We will be using a slight change in notation to make physicists happy. A state such as "1001" above is recorded in a state vector |1001>. Also if I use shortcut a representation like |9>, that refers to the binary representation |1001>. Also rather than calling a single 0 or 1 a "bit", we call the states |0> and |1> a qubit.

There are sort of two sources of "magic" in quantum computation. The first of which is superpostion. In the case of classical computation where a register must necessarily be in a well defined state like "1001", thanks to the weirdness of quantum mechanics, we can allow superpositions of states like (|0111> + |1001>)/sqrt(2). Note: the sqrt(2) is just a formality to make the probabilities I describe below to add to one.

So suppose we do have a quantum register in the state (|0111> + |1001>)/sqrt(2). What the heck happens when I look at it? Well from the rules of quantum mechanics, the probability of measuring a particular state is equal to the square of the coefficient in front of that state. In the case above (distributing the 1/sqrt(2)), we have a 50% probability of measuring |0111> and a 50% probability of measuring |1001>. This process of going from a superposition to a defined state is known as quantum collapse. At this point, you can get into some of the philosophical weirdness of quantum mechanics, usually involving cats. However, I can assure you from many experiments I have done that this weirdness is really there.

Now then, I will summarize that quantum computation is AT LEAST as powerful as classical computation. There is indeed a set of universal gates to generate all classical computations (although these gates are given as H and CNOT, stuff which I may nor may not describe later).

So now lets continue to function evaluation. As sort of a weird rule in quantum mechanics, all computations must be reversible. For example, the classical AND gate is not reversible because suppose we measure a AND b = 0. Well that only tells us that at least a or b is 0. If we wanted to make this computation reversible, we would have to preserve our inputs so that a AND b = (a, b, c) where the result of the computation is stored in c.

To make function evaluation reversible, we basically use an ancilla (fancy word for extra) qubit to store the initial state. Thus we have functions like f(|x>|0>) = |x>|f(x)>. That is, the first qubit stores the input and the second has the evaluation of the function. Now let us consider the function earlier: f(x) = x^2. Thus we have f(|x>|0>) = |x>|x^2>. So for example, we may take f(|3>|0>) = |3>|9>

But what if we allow our input |x> to be in a superposition of states? Suppose |x> = (|2> + |3>)/sqrt(2). Well thanks to the linearity of quantum mechanics, we have the following:

f(|x>|0>) = f((|2>|0> + |3>|0>)/sqrt(2)) = (|2>|4> + |3>|9>)/sqrt(2)

What does this last state mean? The register contains a superposition of our input with their respective outputs. I can measure either qubit. Suppose I choose to measure the first qubit. I have a 50% probability of measuring |2>, and a 50% probability of measuring |3>. Suppose I measure |2>. What happens to the output? Well the overall state collapses to |2>|4> and we have the result of function evaluation in the second qubit.

But hold on a minute! Suppose instead of measuring the first qubit, we measure the second. The second qubit is also in a superposition with a 50% probability of measuring |4> and a 50% probability of measuring |9>. When I perform the measurement, and say I observe |9>, the first qubit collapses to |3>. But wtf is going on? How did me measuring one qubit fix the measurement of the other? We showed earlier that the first qubit is in a superposition of 50% |2> and 50% |3>. If I measure the second qubit to be |9>, I have a 100% probability of measuring |3> in the first qubit.

This is the second bit of "magic" about quantum computation known as entanglement. We say the second qubit is entangled to the first (which implies the vice-versa). That is, measuring one qubit collapses the state of the other.

Now then, notice that even though I started with a superposition of |2> and |3> and performed the computation f(x) = x^2, I can only get one of the results back, chosen at random. Does this suggest that quantum computation is no more powerful than classical computation? It seems we can do this easily with classical computation, where our input state is randomly decided to be |2> or |3>. Basically I'm moving the probability aspect of it from measurement to creation of the state.

Well there are many examples to describe this idea, ones that I made explain later if people are actually interested. (I highly doubt this, but I'll probably end up talking about it anyways). I can tell you that the state above is truly a superposition of |2> and |3>, and the computer IS performing the evaluation f(x) = x^2 for both of those inputs, even if I can only measure one.

At this point you will have to take this on faith. I will describe later how quantum computation can be more powerful than classical computation, and why I may actually have a career in this stuff.

tl;dr: pew pew lazorz!

One last vacation...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:59:12 GMT

Things have been pretty good for me in Hades. Got most of the af I needed for blu sch and whm. Finally finished my conserve mp build on Rdm (1/36 Goliard body...), but I have yet to get a useful shadow mantle proc.

On another note...

LOLGETIT!?

Dorp?

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:58:04 GMT

So last night, Nid popped first window and we claimed with 4 people, two of which had no macros (tank and healer).

Had to sleep twice from the get go since we had nobody otw in tree and zitah. Everybody was busy multitasking their jobs while calling people. Once we had enough, we started thinking about drops. Brought egg buyer and A body buyer, but no E body buyer. Waga was also next on the list for it but he had work.

Things went well from then. I had nice blink procs so managed to stay alive. At 8% our tank starts d/cing and 20 seconds later our healer. Managed to sleep thanks to a lucky blink proc, got in one of the buyers for TH hit, and nuked it down. Was kinda hectic considering I was the tank for most of that. Anyways, sure enough...

Well we didn't know what to do with it. Eventually Spruck took it with his highest e body job @37 (which was fine with all of us). Poor waga ; ;

On another note, I drew a nice picture for when our galka got sword.

Its very accurate.

DOUBLE KILL!

Thu, 14 May 2009 22:52:20 GMT

Suicidal Taru

Thu, 07 May 2009 08:11:44 GMT

Tia GET. I was getting frustrated with my hate, so I decided to be a bit suicidal for a hate reset...

EPIC WIN! I died much later in the fight, but at least we got gaiters! (gogo taru TH!)

On another note, I should be done with all my work on Sunday. Then I can have some fun with...
FFXI to do list:
- Rank 10 Sandy (currently 8.5) and switch back to Windy.
- Leather sub and maybe a couple others.
- Level WHM to 75.
- Have some fun!

Dead week

Mon, 04 May 2009 21:55:16 GMT

The week before finals, "dead week", we have no classes and presentation days for seniors. I think I finally figured out why its called dead week... all the seniors are dead.

Thesis presentation done. To go: 2.5 papers, hum homework, robocode, fields final.

Ugh...

Thesis: Vanquished!

Sat, 02 May 2009 19:37:50 GMT

For better or worse I turned in my thesis (didn't get to review it as much as I would have preferred but meh). Now 2.5 papers, a final, robocode, and a thesis presentation...ugh.

I also had this weird dream that there was a Grandia 4 out. I can't remember anything else about it other than it being really good. I loved the first bit of Grandia 3, too bad they threw it all away. It's quite easy to draw the line for where the game starts to suck: when your milf of a mother leaves the party. Either way, Grandia 3 had the best combat system I have ever seen in an RPG.

As far as FFXI goes, couldn't do much because of thesis but I finally got my own ixi cape. Yey saving 2 mil. Now I gotta debate if witch sash is worth 2 mil for the 2 macc...or just wait for sandy to have all the campaign zones. I still haven't gotten to play with the whm update but hopefully when this week is over!

And on a side note: Holy 1080p batman.

I'm doing science and I'm still alive... (I think)

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:58:38 GMT

The moment I got accepted into a graduate school, senioritis hit me like a bitch. As a result, I fell behind in all of my courses including some by a couple months. I am also way behind on my thesis and just grinded this weekend to get some stuff written (due this Friday). After thesis is done, I get to work on my thesis presentation and catch up on all my classes. joy.

On a lighter note, holy FFXIII demo batman. I think all the high quality videos were pulled out of YouTube, but it looked REALLY good. So far I really like Lightning's character, and I hope they find a good english voice actress.

Minor FFXI note: I haven't gotten to play lately but I'm enjoying Ex. Being with players who are attempting to optimize every action is nice, and I often have discussions with people about the best way to maximize spellcast.

One thing I want to work out: in terms of hp healed/mp cost for Cure V, what is the ratio of benefit from additional MND vs the benefit from Conserve MP. I was basically wondering if cobra gear would be at all useful for cure V. I started punching out some stuff. It looks like the ratio of the benefits is approximately 1:1. I'll just stick my code here for reference in case I wanna dig later. I will have to work out how stuff is floored. My guess is each term is floored separately, but I'll have to verify.

hpHealed[MND_, {hms_, VIT_}] := (hms/3) + ((VIT/2) + 1) + ((13/9)*MND) + 404 +
If[MND > 119, (MND - 119), 0];

manaCost[conserveMP_] := 135*(1 - conserveMP/100) + 135*(11.5/16) (conserveMP/100);

ratio[MND_, conserveMP_, {hms_, VIT_}] := hpHealed[MND, {hms, VIT}]/manaCost[conserveMP]

I assumed a base conserveMP of 25 due to /sch trait. Values I used were from wiki: hms = 306, vit = 64.

I assumed 3 additional conserveMP from either cobra hands or feet.

With ~100 MND, 3 conserve MP = 4.5 MND.
With ~130 MND, 3 conserve MP = 3 MND.

I am not familiar with whm, but I believe those MND values are easily surpassed in those slots. Oh well. I was bored in class.

The conserve mp gear is still useful for stuff like reraise and protectra/shellra. For capped cures, it is clear you want max -enm on cure IV. I was wondering how most whms do their cure III builds. Max conserve mp, -enm, or find a good balance? I haven't looked into this much since my whm is 49, but once I'm done with school stuff I'll be rushing to play with the new toys it got this update.

PS: IM me if you are interested in what grad school I will be attending. AIM: smartguyakash

WTF BSG

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:22:21 GMT

So BSG aired its final episode...and wtf!?

The episode started out REALLY well. Pew pew guns blazing, and Starbuck finding out the purpose of the song. Even jumping to what is our Earth is pretty awesome. However, they decided to make it earth 150,000 years ago.

Rather than stay and build a city having learned from their mistakes, they decide to say "fuck all" and go back to a life before civilization. Ah yes, the good old days with an infant mortality rate of 50% (actually they weren't doing much better on Galactica). Also rather than give an explanation for Kara, they just say fuck it and make her disappear. "We dug ourselves into a massive hole we can't fill, so lets make her disappear". So much of that was "Oh, God did it." Maybe I would accept that if they suggested Billy was God.

And so another chapter begins...

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:24:03 GMT

That's me on Hades... I had to change my name. I joined the linkshell Excellence (which has an ugly pearl color btw), and I'm looking forward to it.

To the people on Garuda and EDI, its been fun. Stay in touch!

PS: I know Viv is short for Vivian, but I wanted something familiar!

Cerb and Reunion

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:25:59 GMT

Man, today was really fun. As I was working on my Sch spellcast macros, I get a tell from Virgil asking for help on Cerb. I got there to see V and Aldem swinging on it as pld, Jas singing, and Jung on rdm. Tried to get a couple more people, but no dice. Eventually while our plds were tickling him, we finally are able to get Aneyus on sam, and Kael on blm.

Then a nice surprise: Teia shows up to help! Maki and Sharpsmash too! It was a reunion!

Reminded me of the good old days, lowman cerbs, letting a gates through to mpk the random miner, or the CFH cerb that the entire server decided to kill.

Afterwards, we grabbed a nice reuion picture.

It was really nice to see everybody again.

PS: To the people that were there: sorry I sorta went off on that guy from censura.

Sch Gear

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:57:28 GMT

I hit 73 Sch this weekend, and I started thinking about the ideal nuke build.

Given that it takes Aureole to hit the 320/120 tier on Sch, I am only going to consider an ideal damage build for say puddings. I believe I have sufficient macc such that I don't really need anything from gear. Thus, from 10 mins of searching during class, here is what I think the ideal Sch nuke build is (no latent):

Sch Nuking
For this build, I tried to keep in mind that Sch doesn't have the latent mab like Blm. Thus, it takes more mab before 1 mab is comparable to 2 int. The pieces I'm not sure about are Yigit Crackows and Gleeman's Cape. There are higher mab, lower int alternatives for those slots.

I also realize that I didn't use Maat's Cap for head. Ok, you caught me. This isn't "ideal", but its reasonable for me. If I made any mistakes, please let me know so I can correct this.

I also started thinking about an ideal Conserve MP build for Rdm and Sch. This is because there are a lot of spells (Protect, Shell, Reraise) where you don't really need any other stat mods to make the spell stronger (such as haste, enhancing magic, enmity reduction).

Note that I am making the following distinction to keep the language simple: Fast Cast = precast gear, so it makes spell cast faster. Haste = on cast gear, so it makes the recast shorter. Note that Haste includes Fast Cast gear if applicable. Thus, Reraise could use a Fast Cast mod, but no Haste mod (I double I need to cast reraise twice really quickly...unless things have fallen into complete shit.) Why am I considering conserve MP? Because I'm a whore. I like to make every spell perfect. And as it turns out, there is no way to optimize Protect, Shell, Reraise, and w/e else I can't think of atm other than reduing the mp cost. One could argue enmity reduction, but those spells generate very little to begin with. Given the gear, there is no distinction between ideal Rdm and Sch Conserve MP builds.

Rdm+Sch Conserve MP
This gives a total of +28 Conserve MP. Most of these items are pretty easy to obtain, outside of Seveneyes and that stupid appraised earring. However, the appraised earring only gives +1, and Fourth Mace (Conserve MP + 4) is a nice alternative for Seveneyes.

edit: I just noticed something extremely appealing about this build. +149 HP, +169 MP. This gear actually makes for a VERY good convert build. Really the only reason I would go against this build is inventory limitations. But I think this completely negates that!

Where the fuck is Vivix!? Followup.

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:34:31 GMT

Well for most of last semester, I was gone from the game to prepare for grad school applications (GREs and all that stuff). Well, the results finally paid off. Admission decisions are being made, and from the first letter I got accepted to one of my top choices! That day, I decided to skip class because my grade wouldn't really matter! (Fuck yeah senioritis.) It was a huge relief for me since I honestly had no idea what I would do if I didn't get in anywhere. Here is how I felt:

PS: I won't mention the school until I have heard all the results and decide where I want to go.

Because of this, I basically procrastinated all weekend. One particularly fun event was watching the Starcraft Averatec-Intel Classic Season 2 Finals, live at 1 AM. Bisu vs Jangbi, both Protoss players, in a best of 5 lineup. We had about 10 people in the lounge watching which was pretty awesome. My favorite match was game 3. You should check it out. Professional gaming is just massive in Korea, and I often wonder if it will get that big here in the states. I can only hope!

In other gaming news, SE finally released another FFXIII trailer, and it looks fucking beautiful. Unfortunately, it wont be out in the states until at least April 2010.

Anthropology

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:51:42 GMT

Just as a heads up to FFXI people, I am currently attending an Anthropology class entitled Life Online. I will be using this blog for the class, because I'm too lazy to get another. Plus, I feel integrating the two would be the best way to get an A :)

For the people in the class, this is a blog I use for my online game, Final Fantasy XI. Sorta weird, but there are actually a decent number of people who do this for their online character (just see my friend's page).

Now a link to my favorite comedian, Russell Peters.

Where the fuck is Vivix!?

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:28:27 GMT

In two weeks, I have an exam that will determine what I will be doing for the next six years! Ugh...

edit: Its also five hours before my E&M midterm, and I can't fall asleep...

Summer fun!

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:33:07 GMT

Summer research was pretty good for a period of about 4 weeks, but then it got lame again once I finished the programming, and now I think I'm pretty much just here in case the computer explodes while its running my code.

FFXI has been treating me well lately. Got some nice gil outta ZNM, and a non-gimp hmp set (at work atm, forgot to ss it at home).

ZNMs started out well. Had some fun getting people pops for cerb:
I lol'D. (In case you don't know, "When silenced it will unlock every dragon move, Petro Eyes, Body Slam, Heavy Stomp, etc.")

I was a bit nervous about cerb, since hes the hardest of the T4 ZNMs, but he wasn't really that bad. Sometime after we did cerb, SA made a PW attempt that revealed how lame he really was. That made us lose interest in ZNMs. I think we are gonna do some khims to finish set after a bit of sea. Speaking of sea...

Started doing some sea for JoL sets. I said "I'm so gonna get EES" when I had animosity, and sure enough...

But it's ok, because Taru TH + Mahu TH =

DORP!

Won cape, which brings my enfeebling to something like 300 + 15 macc on blm. Thank you guys so much. Now I'm looking for Enfeebling earring (and I quite literally just checked FFXIAH and found one sold yesterday ><) and Aureole (lolAV).

SCH has been pretty fun in campaign battle ever since I got accession (AOE), and even better when I hit 55 and got access to rapture (1.5x potency multiplier) and Cure IV. Suicide cures are fun!

Also I was a bit wrong about elemental dots. For some reason I thought 10 int increases dps by 1/tick, which would be pretty nuts. As it turns out, it works like this:
* 1 - 39 INT = 1hp/tic (-5 stat)
* 40 - 69 INT = 2hp/tic (-7 stat)
* 70 - 99 INT = 3hp/tic (-9 stat)
* 100 - 149 INT = 4hp/tic (-11 stat)
* 150 - ??? INT = 5hp/tic (-13 stat)

Way off I know. That's what I get for being ignorant! It is unknown whether a 6th tier exists. I should try, since I was getting this at Temperance:

I had nixx giving me int etudes. If there is another tier, it is likely at 200. I should be able to hit that with SV.

Finally some random chat log screenshots:

LOLIGETIT!

I got to go rorBRU to Limbus! It was awesome. You can see how difficult it was for Raiko to say that!

Finally...

(I still got it!)

Work sucks, I know.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:20:24 GMT

Haven't been updating lately since I started a new job (first full-time ; ;). 8 hrs is long >.>

First some other general stuff before I talk about the update.

Salvage
No good screenshots, but we recently divided into statics and so far it has been amazing. Lots more people doing salvage, and we are getting lots of drops. After having only seen 1 macha coat over the course of a year (mine, which was in a duo run), we see three in the span of two weeks, and a fourth two weeks after. Of course plenty of other drops, but too many to remember.

Dynamis
Still kicking ass. I like surviving massive links, such as this:

21ish birds? Good times.

Einherjar
Prior to the update, we finally manage to get an Odin. Post update changes were overdue, but a bit excessive imo. Requiring one person with all 9 feathers and everybody else with one from each tier is amazing. Beyond that, it was just overkill. ie, not requiring mark or making them link like normal. Shits too easy now! Congrats to Malar on E body, and Cam on Dalm, and everybody else who got stuffz. (Oh yeah, and me I guess, since it looks like I have Anime's sword ; ;).

Nyzul
No actual changes to Nyzul, but now the possibility of the new relics. We have been trying to get together for floor 100 nyzul so we can get weapons for potential relics we're gonna upgrade. I'm mostly hoping they actually make blm staff worth upgrading. Managed to pick up one of my target weapons, and an extra surprise!

(And indeed I have no jobs that can wear it.)

Missions
Started doing lolBastok missions. So much running ; ;
WoTG mission easy as expected. I think I'm finally past expecting original CoP quality missions. Oh well, so far the WoTG cutscenes are pretty amazing, starting with the awesome Windy quests cutscenes with the magic and stuff. Now then, the thing about most cutscenes for a Taru is that the low camera angle makes things kinda awkward. Thats why I liked this CS:

Also, this chick is such a skank:

ZNM
Probably the most significant thing for the update. So far I'm really enjoying the ZNM system. Solo parts, and stuff you can do with small groups while progressing towards larger fights. I am hoping Pandemonium (aka chair dude) will drop something nice...like magic crit stuff!
Fights are pretty fun too, and diverse.

Damn good job so far SE!

After a long hard day of casting thunda...sometimes its just nice to kick back...

(Oh man, what a pimp!)

Showoff time!

Tue, 13 May 2008 04:06:16 GMT

BLM has been my main since the day I started the game, and I felt like showing off some phat lootz! I would be nowhere without EDI and my friends, so thank you.

Nuking:

I believe this is a perfect build outside of day/weather bonus. Full Morrigan, and assuming pendant/ring proc. I usually carry around my force yellow set. As for obis, I currently have dark, thunder, ice, wind. I would get the rest but inventory limits ftl. The desire to do MASSIVE DAMAGE prompted me to spend ichor on Gleeman's cape. 1 more int ftw!

Dark:

One day I was duo manaburning with Kupo. It was pretty fun talking about blm builds and stuff in autotranslate. Although he thinks dark magic functions like elemental (i.e. you only really need to stack dark magic on high resist stuff, int for regular mobs is better), I have NOT seen any test proving a significant bonus from int. This is likely due to the high variance in drain/aspir numbers.

Ambiguous pieces: back is merciful cape, neck is dark torque, and r. ear is lol abyssal earring. Despite having blu leveled for suppa, I'm sticking with abyssal just for the dark magic. This gives me 316 dark magic with 19 macc. (no merits).

This is a purely macc based build, for "<100 mp, holy shit I need a good aspir". Generally I use turban for the haste with high mp. If I had swift belt (gawd what a gimp), I would use that too (except in dynamis because dark obi + double weather = win). Ideally if I wasn't so restricted on inventory I would probably use a dark earring instead of loq. for the "holy shit I need a good aspir" build.

Additions to this build would be sorc gloves +1, Igqira Huaraches (fucking manaclipper NM. Genie would be like "woah"), and Aureole from AV (I can dream!).

Enfeebling:

Actually I just recently bought the genie lappa (epeen ftw). Torque is obviously enfeebling torque. Main thing I'm missing here is Altruistic Cape. Funny thing is, I'm camping Ix'Drk while writing this. Other additions include enfeebling earring if I decide to buy, but once again inventory limits. Oh, and obviously Aureole! This currently gives 287 enfeebling with 14 macc (max merits).

Stoneskin:

This caps stoneskin with 115 mnd. I realize there are more efficient ways to do this, but I figured this makes the best use of gear I would carry anyways, thus limiting the number of slots used. Given more slots, I would probably substitute with turban and swift belt (once I stop being lazy) for haste, since I found it to be nice for whenever faf gets spam happy.

I think thats everything. Feel free to comment. There is probably some stuff I left out.

PS: My resting build is gimp since I opted for salvage instead of full yigit. I am also missing Goliard feet (stupid floor 20 keeps dropping denali)

RL & FFXI

Sat, 03 May 2008 21:55:54 GMT

Couldn't decide if I wanted this to be purely FFXI or a bit of RL stuff. I guess a tough week made me decide to include some RL shit.

I am a currently in my junior year, pursuing a bachelor's degree in physics. I want to attend grad school so I can avoid the real world for a few more years :P. I'm pretty nerdy, since among other things I watch stuff like Stargate and Battlestar Galactica. Enough RL stuff, time for moar FFXI!

We finally have started tier 3 Einherjar. We have had a couple problems with this event. Quoting Raiko since I think her explanation is perfect:

"Our Einherjar runs have always suffered from our fluctuating roster and the fact that quite a bit of our members aren’t hardcore FFXI players. Our turnouts would vary from 16 to 30 depending on the day of the week, college / university exams phases, holidays, moon phase and many other random factors.

So naturally, our main focus was getting as many people as possible access to tier 2+. The two major problems with this were:

People who needed tier 1 wins only randomly showed up and thus missed those wins repeatedly
New recruits usually started at zero since apparently no one other than EDI and SA even attempt Einherjar on Garuda"

Many months later, we are just starting tier 3. Have gotten pretty lucky on mobs so far, so 2/3 atm. I don't mind Einherjar; I think the event itself is pretty fun. As stated many times before though, the system could use some tweaking.

Started randomly doing 6 man hydras for fun and a little bit of gilz. Here is what I thought was a pretty good SS:

Finally, one more SS for Teia:

Next post will probably be some stuff about BLM.

update edit: Just did tier 3 Ein. {Mark of Einherjar} GET!

First Post

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:06:33 GMT

After twotarus started their LJ, I decided to start my own simply to show off screenshots with my gimp resolution and post comments. Background information: My character is Vivix on the Garuda server of Final Fantasy XI. I am a main BLM with also SMN, RDM, BLU leveled (the latter of which I just hit 75 on a couple hours ago). My linkshell is EvilDeedzInc (quoting Sirus: "The 'z' makes us E-thugs").

Since a picture is worth a thousand words...

Here are Grimey and I showing off our recently completed salvage sets. We actually got the last pieces we needed on the same day, which was pretty awesome.

Did I mention I like the dance emotes? I just thought this was an awesome pose >.>

LS is split on this one. Frankly I think its awesome but w/e. For the record, I did NOT make these dats. I found them on ffxidats. This is why me > Richardd.

Finally, I would like to end my first post by sharing my most favorite moment in game...

That would be us 6 manning Jormungand. It was quite an epic four hour fight late at night. This moment was really significant for me because it reminded me of how much I progressed in the game: The little Taru BLM outside Windurst nuking Mandragora (which I still do from time to time >.>), to the noob BLM in sky begging for Genbu to drop Zenith Mitts (1/21, fucking turtle), to this. A big thank you to EDI, because as Spotless said, "none of us would have been able to pull that off without the gear and skill we acquired from EDI."

PS: The username "Cast Thunda" comes from sorta an inside joke in the LS (or maybe outside, not 100% sure). It seems the solution to any question about blm playstyle is to "Cast Thunder". For example, if you are nuking Kirin, the correct way to do it is to "CAST THUNDA!".