FFXIV: catch all

If you'll all allow a curious FFXI ultra veteran a question that may have been asked before by he: how fare the Dark Knights?

I main support roles, so I've got max geared Warrior, Paladin, and DK... along with WHM, SCH, Ast.

Warrior is the best DPS and can take a beating with most health.
Paladin has the highest survivability with mitigation and self-heal.
Dark Knight is in the middle.

Basically here's how I run them.
If I want to do a raid, trial, single boss fight main tank... Paladin is king.
If I want to off-tank and pretend I am a DPS or big pull dungeons... Warrior (Pally is weak at AoE)

If I feel like something different that can do both of those jobs well (Aoe, Big Pulls, Mitigate reasonably) then I DK. So DK can hang just fine as a jack of trades, but master of none. Definitely more buttons to push than warrior or pally, which makes it fun to play.

...sad ...sad ...sad state of chocobo stable!

Taharka wrote:

At 2:04, the guy is clearly carrying a gunblade... Those aren't in the game right now, are they? Is that a mechanist thing?

Well, they are in the game just only used by bosses and NPCs so far. Also had the thought that that guy (Thancred) seems to be the one NPC that has changed classes. From a kind of gladiator to a thief/ninja and now maybe something new.

Edit: on second thought, I guess Alisaie picked up Red Mage along the way as well.

Took advantage of the free 4 days of login time to return to the game and refamiliarize myself with my character. Thought I was doing okay, but then made it to Stormblood's first dungeon. Got through it, but I was wayyy off my game. Playing as a Bard is really hectic. I'm debating exploring some of the other jobs to find something a little more chill. Any advice in that regard?

What role do you want to fill?
If you don't want hectic, healers are probably out. I do love Astrologian, though, that's my current class.
Samurai is probably the most chill class I've come across, their skill rotation is pretty well set in stone.
Red Mage I really want to love, but just don't. It's hard to feel like I'm doing anything useful as a red mage, since I can be out DPSed, out healed, out melee-ed, out cast... etc.
I remember Summoner was pretty nice, and great for soloing, as you had a tank or DPS with you at all times.

I assume healing or tanking will likewise be more stressful than I want, so that leaves DPS. I'll keep Samurai in mind when I return.

Samurai and Redmage are designed to be casual friendly. Both of their rotations are straight forward to meet DPS checks. They can be optimized to exceed expected DPS for the class, but they are easy to meet qualifications for a DPS.

For example... A casual ninja may do like 700 DPS. A great ninja would do 1,400 DPS (optimizing rotation and mudras). The dev team decided to make classes without such a gap in skill.

So a casual Samurai can be close to the DPS of a great Samurai. Same with Redmage because there aren't as many off global cooldown skills and a simpler rotation. A great one will still do more DPS, but it wouldn't be double.

White Mage is the easiest of the healers and Dark Knight isn't a bad casual tank. DK can tear things up with a lot of button mashing, but it has a rounded kit for casual survival. It is great for low level content. Giant pulls in the expert 70 dungeons take some skill managing MP with the AoE life drain, but leveling one with small pulls is fast and easy.

Tanking is easier than heals in general for casual. Any group can beat the content with a talented healer. A talented tank is easy to spot and pleasant to work with, but they can die too without heals. It's funny because more causal players pick healer when they would be more useful standing and spamming taunt rather than letting the group die because they have to do more than autofollow with EoS .

After looking into it a bit more, I think I'll try Red Mage and see how that goes. Currently I"m lvl69 in Bard, so I want to get to 70 and finish my last job quest there before switching over. I'm hoping a combination of main story and daily roulettes will get me there quickly.

I reactivated my sub and it feels good to be back. Did some questing and exploring in Kugane, and had fun learning my way around. I definitely prefer this aesthetic to Ishgard's.

I guess I need to keep pushing in the story, I'm still in Ishgard.

Bard is also a decent choice for casual play since they can keep their distance from the thick of it and can attack and move at the same time. Just keep your songs up and try to throw out a refresh when the healer's MP gets low and you will be golden in a party.

I've hit 57 so far as Red Mage. That Alliance Raid Roulette sure does give out a lot of XP. I've only got the Crystal Tower raids unlocked but that seems enough for me to handle right now. Roulettes, hunts, the weekly challenge log, and beast tribe quests have been enough to get me one or two levels a day. I've even managed to get a couple more mount speed increases for the 2.0 areas. It could be my imagination, or RNG luck, but it seems like those daily hunts requiring FATES pop up more than I remember.

Red Mage seems pretty fun, especially when you get to unleash your full combo. There are nuances to using abilities and spells properly, but overall it really is a more chilled out way to play than Bard. Will be curious to see how to compares past lvl 60, which is around where Bard started feeling like A Lot to me.

One question. I did a lot of inventory cleanup yesterday, putting some stuff on the market board, trading in duplicate triple triad cards, exchanging old glamour prisms for the new kind, etc. I still have a lot of low quality reagents in my inventory. Should I sell all that stuff if I'm not going to put any time into crafting? Should I just dump it into my retainer inventory? Something else?

I sell any crafting mats that aren't worth much on the market board. They would be real easy to farm or re-purchase if the need arises.

Redmage 60-70 stays pretty similar. They toss in the ability to jump in and swing the sword then jump back and nuke when you complete the jump combo. You get impact to use when it's up (procs) instead of Jolt and a rez. So no real rotational changes.

At 70 I go:
Embolden
Fleche
Contre Sixte
Jolt
Acceleration
Aero
Stone
Thunder
Then Fire or Back to Jolt/Impact then light or dark as needed

Pop Manafication when you get about 50/50 light and dark, dive in and combo. Jump out and nuke.

Most of the time Fleche and Contre will be on cooldown and just toss them in when they are up. Pro tip is to swiftcast out an Aero or Thunder and bypass the cast time of jolt.

Once you get the 70 rotation done a few times you can do it half-asleep and drunk. At least that's how I roll. Roulettes are best for leveling. Do hunts while waiting on them and when you are out of roulettes (or tired of waiting), you should do Heaven on High for 61-70. It's Palace of the Dead for big kids.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...

Thanks GoldenDog, that pretty much matches up with what I've been doing, though I only just got Manafication, so I haven't been able to play with it much yet.

I hit level 60 and did the latest job quest. It was incredibly difficult, and I failed it several times. Then I realized I was still wearing level 50 ironworks gear. I decided to speed things up, and spent the majority of my gold on buying level appropriate gear from the market board. It's a hodgepodge of stuff, but that job quest was pretty trivial after that, and it should keep me going in Stormblood for a while. I also had a painful level 59 dungeon roulette experience due to being undergeared. Lesson learned I guess.

Two levels to go, then I'll be back on track with the main quest.

I just finished the FFXIV cross event in FF XV and it was quite a bit of fun and I even got a new summon out of the deal. Of course when I tried to take on the optional extreme version of the fight it kicked my butt (was picking away at it but eventually ran out of time).

I think the Susano trial might be my favorite one so far.

beanman101283 wrote:

I hit level 60 and did the latest job quest. It was incredibly difficult, and I failed it several times. Then I realized I was still wearing level 50 ironworks gear.

From 1-50 for alts just Palace of the Dead and you don't need gear or use the company stuff (malestrom etc). At 50 you should buy i120 ironworks from Mor Dhona using poetics. These will last you until level 60.

At 60 you can buy i260 gear using poetics at Idllyshire. This will last you to 70. At 70 you can get i330+ from dungeons, raids (rabanastre), omega/alphascape, and genesis tomes to keep unlocking minimum ilevel content.

Best to buy the 70 i380 weapon for under 500k, but grind out the gear from drops unless you're rolling in gil. I typically get weapons from extreme trails (i385) and armor from genisis tomes (i390). You can buy weapons with tomes, but it's expensive and requires 4 alpha 4 clears which you won't be geared enough to get into. So a lot easier to buy the 70 weapon from market at this current stage and a 380 should last you several months. Probably until 4.0 in the coming summer.

If you get to 70 and cannot afford a weapon we can try to connect in game.

I'm still working through the Stormblood main story so I'm getting gear upgrades from following that, but good to know for any alternate classes I may pick up down the line. I was racing through levels so fast between 50 and 60 as RDM, and I had been away from the game for so long, that I had forgotten about keeping up my ilvl while getting to 60.

Things are moving at a more stately pace now, which I think I'm enjoying more. I'm focusing on main story quests, doing any blue plus-sign quests that pop up, and only doing side quests that offer gear upgrades, or are part of more interesting quest chains with interesting stories, and leaving the rest for future jobs. I've also been going out of my way to unlock aether currents as I move through regions so I can get flying asap (I can fly in the Ruby Sea and Yanxia now). I'm at lvl 65, which matches the current main story quest, and have a new job quest to do next time I play. It feels like Stormblood's story is finally picking up, after meandering a bit.

That Yanxia music is really good

A lot of the music is exceptional. I play Alexander orchestration rolls in my shared estate. I always thought that was a neat function to listen to the music in-game from instances and the world with a jukebox.

Would be real awesome to give us an in-game portable mp3 player like FFXV.

Patch 4.5 trailer is out

Yesterday was the first time I’ve played on a major patch day. It was cool seeing how active Kugane and Rhalgr’s Reach were. Dungeon queues were shockingly short too compared to what I’m used to. I did several level 70 dungeons yesterday and started the 4.1 main story quests. Looks like I need to start working more diligently to get my ilvl up as well. Got the i330 set from seals, now I need to work up to 340 and beyond. Looks like the rhythm of how I tackle content is going to change and I’m looking forward to experiencing what’s next.

beanman101283 wrote:

Yesterday was the first time I’ve played on a major patch day. It was cool seeing how active Kugane and Rhalgr’s Reach were. Dungeon queues were shockingly short too compared to what I’m used to. I did several level 70 dungeons yesterday and started the 4.1 main story quests. Looks like I need to start working more diligently to get my ilvl up as well. Got the i330 set from seals, now I need to work up to 340 and beyond. Looks like the rhythm of how I tackle content is going to change and I’m looking forward to experiencing what’s next.

Well if you are on the Midgardsormr server or adjacent I can help you level from time to time.

I am on Midgardsormr, and am in the GWJ Free Company. Character is Mehenilda Payne, so if you see me on feel free to give me a shout.

Same here, I'm trying to get to the eastern content (still in Ishguard).

Is anyone going to be trying the new Blue Mage job next week? I'm still catching up on a lot of 4.x stuff, so it'll be a while for me. But, it looks like it could be an interesting change of pace, despite the limitations it has. Also looks like a nice way to get Alliance Seals.

I'm sure I'll dabble in it to see how it is. I did first clears of all the new patch activities over the last couple days. The Ivalician raids are still tricky as ever but still a lot of fun an creative ideas in all the new stuff.

I did the first Ivalice raid last night. Found it pretty hectic and a little overwhelming, but it was late and I was tired, so I probably shouldn’t have attempted it. At least I cleared it. Also cleared the first 4 normal Omega raids, which I enjoyed more.

Those Ivalice raids are pretty hard the first couple times around but once you get at least most of the people on the same page they can go pretty smoothly (though, I'd suggest looking up a guide before doing the lighthouse because the last boss can me murder).

Those Omega raids, on the other hand, are just a lot of fun and great throwbacks to long time Final Fantasy fans.

While the community has been pretty great up to this point, I've noticed more saltiness from people while doing the 4.x 8/24 player raids. I got a little tired of it, and decided to dip my toe into the gathering and crafting classes. It's been a nice change of pace, and so far I think I enjoy it. I can see that it's a ridiculous time sink, and gathering in particular doesn't seem to compelling (one the early Botanist job quests had me gather 50x of an item, blah). But the rhythm of working with the ability rotation while crafting is meditative. I also won't lie, the multitude of level up jingles heard in just a few hours is nice.

Otherwise, I'm caught up to the 4.2 main quests, with the first 4.3 quest sitting waiting for me. I've got the 4.x Hildibrand quests waiting for me, the Doman Enclave quests, the Alphascape raids, the third Ivalice raid, and the new Primals to do as well. It's a little bit of a mix between overwhelming and feeling like a smorgasbord of stuff to choose from depending on my mood.