FFXIV: catch all

Rave wrote:

I want to run every dungeon atleast once to check it off, and I've played around in the PoD thing but haven't been able to make it to floor 10 yet. I'm assuming those accursed chests I'm picking up can be taken out at floor 10? Im pretty bad at it tend to get one shotted at floor 7 or 8 every run.

Playing PotD alone can be an interesting challenge but IMO it's really been designed to be played with other people and like most other things in this game it's painless to get into a random group. You go through it much faster and safer with other people.

I am glad you like the game so much because I love it and want more people to enjoy it. I used to like playing MMOs long time ago but so many of them have disappointed me lately, I thought the genre is dead for me. I am glad I've tried FFXIV, maybe it's not an ideal theme park MMO but it's so damn close. I just wish my friends and I had more time for it.

Hildibrand and Delivery Moogle quests I think just show up as "regular" side quests, but do make a point a tracking them down. They're pretty fun.

The only other content that's sometimes locked behind "regular" side quest markers are some of the beast tribes in later expansions. Just look those up when you want to do them and it should be pretty clear what you need to do.

I should have my Bard up to 80 today, or at least very close. Then I'll start concentrating on Conjurer/White Mage. I'm up to 28 with it, but doing more daily roulettes with it should level it pretty quickly.

I haven't done the Eden raids since my initial clear, but maybe I'll try to run that a few more times this week...

I love that there's so much to do in this game, but it's hard to keep track of everything! Not a bad problem to have, really.

Rave wrote:

I've played around in the PoD thing but haven't been able to make it to floor 10 yet. I'm assuming those accursed chests I'm picking up can be taken out at floor 10? Im pretty bad at it tend to get one shotted at floor 7 or 8 every run.

You should wait to solo Palace of the Dead until you have x99 arms and x99 gear upgrades. This is so your gear is OP and your knowledge of the mechanics is solid. Then you should take a class with sustain (self healing). Redmage/Paladin are popular solo classes.

Your arms, armor, and skills will still sync at lower levels, but they sync overpowered when upgraded. I've been through the top floors of Heaven on High and PoTD undersized. Of course feel free to go at it for the sport if you wish, I went for the mounts.

If you are doing POTD for XP, you should only spam floors 40-50 with a matched party. Fastest clears with the most XP. Rewards are only kept upon completion of the 10 floor set. To go above floor 50 you have to form a pre-made group or solo starting at 40 and cannot die.

Are you going into PotD solo? That’s kind of hard mode. Much easier with a party.

Raids don’t come up in the MSQ, they’re all side stories. For 2.0, the 8-player normal raid is Coil of Bahamut and is a bit tougher to get groups for than the normal raids from the expansions. The 24-man, Crystal Tower is easier to get done and is recommended to do before Shadowbringers.

The first part of the relic weapon quest isn’t too bad but you might want to stop once you’ve got it in its first form. It gets to be quite a slog after that and only worth it for glam really.

I find this site really helpful for keeping track of what unlocks when. Might help you out since there are a ton of 2-1-2.5 dungeons. They cut down on the numbers they added after the expansions.

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/G...

GoldenDog wrote:
Rave wrote:

I've played around in the PoD thing but haven't been able to make it to floor 10 yet. I'm assuming those accursed chests I'm picking up can be taken out at floor 10? Im pretty bad at it tend to get one shotted at floor 7 or 8 every run.

You should wait to solo Palace of the Dead until you have x99 arms and x99 gear upgrades. This is so your gear is OP and your knowledge of the mechanics is solid. Then you should take a class with sustain (self healing). Redmage/Paladin are popular solo classes.

Your arms, armor, and skills will still sync at lower levels, but they sync overpowered when upgraded. I've been through the top floors of Heaven on High and PoTD undersized. Of course feel free to go at it for the sport if you wish, I went for the mounts.

If you are doing POTD for XP, you should only spam floors 40-50 with a matched party. Fastest clears with the most XP. Rewards are only kept upon completion of the 10 floor set. To go above floor 50 you have to form a pre-made group or solo starting at 40 and cannot die.

Ok good to know thanks. Even though most of it went over my head lol. So the arms and armour carry out with you at some point and I can bring them back in solo?

I used the dungeon as a great way to learn how to play my samurai since it's like an accelerated leveling. Worked really well, of course I couldn't get very far so it was only good to onboard my initial rolls but it still helped alot with crossbar set up and roll order.

I feel like I am understanding mechanics so much more then I ever do normally in an MMO but there is still so much that I am missing mechanically. I sometimes think I just don't have the ability to learn some of this stuff on my own. Just for example I know my positionals but I'll read things like roll order, which I understand as maybe get a stack of debuff on the enemy before moving onto a defensive buff for myself and then make sure the counter doesn't drop on twin snake by using the move again or spining kick. What I don't get is how some of the other moves buff one another even when I read the action description. Even when getting armour or materia I still am not 100% sure what I should be prioritizing for stats. Do I want Crit damage? Or chance? Direct hit seems good? Short of looking at a wiki which I kind of hate doing I've got no clue how to dig a bit deeper into some of these things.

It makes trying to find gear that I should be wanting hard. I always go green numbers up is better. Or generally if a button is glowing on my Hotbar it's atleast a good plan to use that move. I read on Reddit or hear in podcasts how that is basic new player tactics and not really how to play the game and won't fly on the harder dungeons. So I've no idea if I'm actually playing my role well or not.

All that said no one has Female Doggoed at me and when I've asked or apologized I've been told not to worry I'm playing fine. And considering the game largely seems to be played solo it hasn't got in my way at all. Still I wish I understood some of this stuff better. Without having to dedicate a bunch of time to watching YouTube or reading builds and wikis. Just curious since my next set of dungeons seem to be harder versions of the old stuff and it's a bit intimating.

Edit-- thanks for the link Steinkrug I'll check it out. I've been running PotD solo because I figured since it kept started me at 0 weapon armour and st lvl 1 I had a fair enough shot at beating it. Treated it like a rogue like. If things carry out on play throughs though I guess I'm not really going to be able to do that.

Since you're still leveling, it's tough to get a good guide on your rotation, since most guides assume you're at max level. Some jobs change fairly drastically as they level up. Also, even the 5.0 guides I've seen are out of date due to the recent 5.05 changes to Samurai. Pay attention to your tooltips, including potency and cooldown numbers. Take a look at the Job Guide frequently so you can get a sense of what's coming up for your class. If you think you understand the ability tooltips, it's even a good idea to proactively add abilities to your hotbar even before you unlock them. That way you know where they'll be and can sort of mentally prepare to add that to your muscle memory.

Yeah the first thing I do when starting up a class is setup my crossbars with the full move load out to 80. Placement sometimes evolves over time as I learn what things do what but it stops me from getting overwhelmed when mid combat I suddenly level and have 3 new moves that I have no idea about pop into my bar. For monk so far my bars have changed very little from the first setup and it feels really natural.

Don't worry about Stats or Materia melding until you are at level cap. While leveling the amount of difference they make is minimal. The dungeons are designed to be cleared by the entry players almost naked. So any gear and knowledge and you got a good chance at clearing it.

For gear, the only thing you should be looking at is Item Level "ilevel / ilvl". Put on the highest ilevel you have available. There's even a 'recommended gear' button in your character screen near your weapon and the game will do it for you. Quality is: White > White HQ > Green > Blue > Purple, but 99% of the time ilevel is more important.

Until you reach maximum level, the ONLY thing to consider is making sure your overall ilevel is high enough to get into content. Content is locked by ilevel, so always upgrade your lowest ilevel item first when given a choice. Vendors are Mor Dhona (50 i120), Idylleshyire (60 i260), Foundation (50+ white quality), Rhalger's (70 i390), etc.

Materia is just for practicing and figuring out how it works during leveling. Almost every class wants crit, then direct hit for now. Once you get into the extreme/savage content it gets a bit more technical (skill speed for rotations), but you got awhile.

Thanks to whoever accepted me into the FC last night, I didn't notice I was accepted for a while. It took me some time to figure out how to find plot #44, not realizing I needed to use an Athernet and travel to a subdivision. Probably spent 15 minutes or more running around inside there housing projects lol.

I'm just a low level filthy casual, currently started new character along with my wife, and we're taking our sweet old time going through content, so it will likely be a long time before we're ready to roll with any content y'all are doing.

Also I'm an alt-aholic in MMOs so while I've been playing the Lalafell Conjurer I started, I have no idea where I'll end up. I have this internal debate over whether I do everything on that character and potentially use fantasia and/or name change service, or just roll a second character to play around with different races. My wife already used a fantasia to change from Lalafell to Highlander because she felt odd playing the little one with skimpy outfits the game throws at you at low level haha.

ToxicWaltz I'm usually an alt o holic as well it's always my biggest problem with WoW. I tend to restart a new class hit about 60 and then re roll a new one.

I've re-rolled 3 times in this once my pally before HS even was out and when I came back this time I started a lancer got him up to 27 before switching to a new server and making a Monk (50 now) to play with a friend.

I'll just say because everything is gated by the MSQ which is a bit of a grind around lvl 40 (getting ready to fight titan) I'd not recommend starting a new character. You are going to be so over leveled and leaving so many quests behind to pick up with other classes that seems like it would be way more interesting then replaying the same content again with a new race.

After you beat ARR MSQ you get a fantasia that lets you change race/gender for free so if you're bored by that point you can always swap and keep the MSQ progress. Id recommend that, the MSQ is good but I wouldn't say it's fun multiple times.

Thanks everyone for the advice and tips, sounds like a surface level knowledge of things will get me by for a long while. I was just worried that I was pretty much ignoring the materia system and stuff at this point.

Thanks Rave, appreciate the input. I'm kinda attached to the little guy already, so it's more about how the cool outfits will look on a Lala later in the game, which I realize is silly to even worry about with the ability to change race at any time.

I'm playing as a lala too, it was a constant debate for me as well. I kept thinking I would take the story more seriously if I knew height to everyone. Or even that armours wouldn't look so squished. I even went so far as to create and save a different character then drank a fantasia I had. By the end I used it to change my lalas face to the original one I had on my lancer so I could get the same facial hair options.

I love the lalafells they have great animations for everything, I can't imagine race changing at this point.

ToxicWaltz wrote:

Thanks Rave, appreciate the input. I'm kinda attached to the little guy already, so it's more about how the cool outfits will look on a Lala later in the game, which I realize is silly to even worry about with the ability to change race at any time.

Check out this site and click on the lalafell checkbox to see only them. Apparently if you buy a 60 day time card right now it'll come with a free phantasia if you think you may change.

https://ffxiv.eorzeacollection.com/glamours

Remember too that a single character can play every class/job, so the only reason to have an alt is if you want multiple characters with different appearances.

ToxicWaltz wrote:

Thanks to whoever accepted me into the FC last night, I didn't notice I was accepted for a while. It took me some time to figure out how to find plot #44, not realizing I needed to use an Athernet and travel to a subdivision. Probably spent 15 minutes or more running around inside there housing projects lol.

I'm just a low level filthy casual, currently started new character along with my wife, and we're taking our sweet old time going through content, so it will likely be a long time before we're ready to roll with any content y'all are doing.

That was me, and the entire reason I saw it was because I was checking chat at the end of a dungeon run. I had to drop right after. If your wife wants in as well, just have her drop an application, too.

cube wrote:

That was me, and the entire reason I saw it was because I was checking chat at the end of a dungeon run. I had to drop right after. If your wife wants in as well, just have her drop an application, too.

Thanks, I'll see if I can peel her away from crafting long enough to run to the sign lol.

I thought I was prepared for the post ARR MSQ, I was mistaken! My gosh there is alot of content and stupid completionist me has had to do every optional boss and dungeon that's been off the MSQ. I feel like I spent hours with this over the weekend and barely touched the MSQ. Looking at a check list and how I haven't even reached 2.5 yet has me very intimidated.

Some of the content has been great, but the zipping around town to town doing not much more then talking to an NPC is a bit tedious. Still loving it but this game is really breaking me of some completionist habits. It was odd not doing every side quest so I could leave them for other classes. I am also now realizing (especially after an hour long fight with Garuda Ex) that I am going to have to ignore those primals and dungeons for now unless they are MSQ related. I am nearly 55 and no where close to the HS content my ilvl is 118 and I don't see how I am going to stop myself from hitting 60 before these quests are over which sucks.

I believe there are exactly 100 main story quests in the 2.x quests, so yeah, it's a lot to get through. I would definitely recommend skipping Extreme primals and save them to run unsynced later. At the same time, alternating between main story quests and some of those optional dungeons can help alleviate the grind. Also check out the Hildebrand and Moogle Delivery quests for a change of pace! You should be able to unlock the first Alliance raid series, which will tie directly into Shadowbringers' story, so be sure to do that at some point before you start taht expansion.

I now have Bard and Red Mage to 80, and White Mage to 37. Healing is more active than I expected, depending on the dungeon at least. But it's been interesting how trying out a new role has instantly made me appreciate aspects of my two DPS jobs that I hadn't before, like how Bard can clear status effects, and how to effectively target party members for cures/raises as Red Mage. It's nice to have a clearer grasp on things after all these hours played, and it's making me look forward to trying a tank role in the future.

Yeah I really have enjoyed the tone of the Hildebrand quest getting Yakuza vibes from it. Actually my last Hildebrand quest line ended right near the start of the mail moogle quest but I forgot to pick it up. I'm glad both are marked with a blue plus though because otherwise they would have been completely missable.

I think I've done every dungeon available except the crystal tower I still have two more crystals to pick up for that. I also have ignored the coil of bahamut so far. I don't think there are any more dungeons to unlock until the expansions. I'll have to try and find that alliance raid series as I have no clue what that is.

I've really been wanting to play with transmoging my gear but I'm out of prisms. The only place I know to buy more are my grand company, except they are at the 4th tier of the 2nd rank. That seemed easy enough to grind for, until I got high enough where the game asked me to complete my GC hunts. That also seemed easy enough as well, until I realized that some of the hunts are located in Dungeons!? Doh. Is there any other way to get prisms? Should I just bite the bullet and start ranking up my GC now and get it over with? Is it something I am going to need ranks in anyway.

Crystal Tower is the alliance raid series I meant, so you're good to go there as soon as you get those crystals.

If you have money to spare, market board is an easy way to get more prisms. Otherwise doing your duty roulettes will get GC seals to use for both ranking up and purchasing prisms. But then you'll continue gaining levels much faster than you're going through content, which might be an issue. At a certain GC rank you'll be able to turn in unneeded dungeon gear for seals. Getting higher GC ranks gives you access to more stuff to buy using seals - glamour items, minions, bardings, crafting materials, EXP buffs for crafting/gathering, etc. To get the highest GC rank you'll need to level your Adventurer Squadron, which is a whole thing on its own. You don't need to do any of that stuff, but it's fun to watch more numbers go up and turning in unneeded gear is helpful when managing inventory.

If you're in the 2.4 or 2.5 series of main quests, you might want to push through and ignore the rest, as this is when the story really picks up. However, in general it can be easy to burn out in this part of the game, so feel free to take a break if you need to.

Thanks for the advice beanman I'm only about halfway done 2.2 so far so it's been pretty slow going even since I've started ignoring primals. I'll make sure I get the moggle quest and those two crystals though..I've never been part of a raid before it's always seemed really hard to get involved with. I am genuinely curious though so maybe this is the time.

I guess I'll just start working on my GC hunts because it's already telling me I can't level any further without doing them. And I may have spent to much buying fruit for my Chocobo to get it the colour I want so gil is tight.

Shadowbringers seems like such a faint light at the end of the tunnel at this point. Lol.

The Crystal Tower raids are extremely trivial at this point. You can watch video guides to get an idea of what's coming, but a lot of times mechanics are skipped because enemies are burned down so quickly. Just watch where people stand, and that should be enough to get you through them without much trouble.

I am somewhere in the latter half of the Dragonsong updates, pretty clearly resolved the Ishgard story for now and am in the prelude to Stormblood. I'm also really loving it. The latter bits of ARR were pretty rough up until the Big Event, but Heavensward has been compelling pretty much throughout, even when it's still just running around. I remember back in the day, my XI leveling partner and I talked about the lack of a real epic feeling in the game, and holy sh*t does XIV not have that problem. Just waiting on the duty finder for the climactic fight was great.

Ranking up in GC to get glamour prisms was a sound investment, I feel, Rave. Lots of the tank gear is hideously ugly, so I rotate between this curiass with leopard print on the shoulders, a jaunty pirate shirt, and this piece with, like, a quilted leather bodice and a sort of half-shawl.

I've also got a whole lot of Blue + quests to go back to at some point...

Yeah I skipped a chunk of "normal" quests in the post-ARR and Heavensward content. In Post-ARR I would still do the random duty stuff everyday because being greater then 50 just makes the post-ARR content easier and therefor quicker.

I never watched a vid on any of the raid or trial stuff and had almost zero trouble just by watching others. There are some rare stuff that may insta kill and you can easily type in chat and someone will explain it to you but most groups just roar through that content.

Still slowly working my way through all this content I'm only now about half way through 2.3 content. The grind is real lol.
Story has actually picked up again though I am finding it pretty interesting. I'm lvl 54 now trying to avoid any side stuff that may give me xp but it's unavoidable. Finished my hunting log for the GC up until 3 it is locked behind a dungeon currently.

I also may have made a huge mistake, I loved playing a lalafell, but I race changed with my fantasia and regretted it immediately. I don't know why I kept telling myself it will be hard to take the tone of the game serious as the character or armour looked off on it. I switched to mi'qote (sp?) and I haven't played much at all as him yet but I can tell already the charm isn't there. Hopefully it grows on me, I know I can buy the two month sub and get the free fantasia but I don't want to fall into this fantasia loop lol.

Ouch, I can't imagine changing races at this point. I'm so attached to my character's look and facial expressions that it would be like playing Mass Effect again with dudeShep after playing the whole trilogy as femShep: just odd.

I've reached level 52 as White Mage and my biggest issues are gaining levels faster than I can stay geared up, and gaining new abilities faster than I can really get a handle on my old ones. I like gaining levels quickly, but I do worry that I'll screw up more easily in dungeons because I'll forget I have an ability, or not really understand how it works. I was trying to use Holy to hit groups of enemies, and didn't realize that it's centered on me, rather than being a ranged attack that I can toss to them. I felt pretty embarrassed when I realized my mistake. Thankfully, people have been pretty understanding so far.

beanman101283 wrote:

Ouch, I can't imagine changing races at this point. I'm so attached to my character's look and facial expressions that it would be like playing Mass Effect again with dudeShep after playing the whole trilogy as femShep: just odd.

I've reached level 52 as White Mage and my biggest issues are gaining levels faster than I can stay geared up, and gaining new abilities faster than I can really get a handle on my old ones. I like gaining levels quickly, but I do worry that I'll screw up more easily in dungeons because I'll forget I have an ability, or not really understand how it works. I was trying to use Holy to hit groups of enemies, and didn't realize that it's centered on me, rather than being a ranged attack that I can toss to them. I felt pretty embarrassed when I realized my mistake. Thankfully, people have been pretty understanding so far.

What's your ilvl? Just out of curiosity. Mine is 118 and I haven't found a single piece of gear higher lvl since I was about lvl 50. I'm using all the armour you can buy with poetic tomes and some primal lightning fists that are also 120. The only thing that isn't 120 on me is bracelet or ring I can't remember which.

It's odd I went from bumping into fairly challenging enemies that could swarm and kill me at lvl 47 basically to invincible at lvl 54. I know it will change but the mindlessness of the quests, lack of challenge or even cool gear is making things feel slower. I started grabbing healers gear from the MSQ at this point because I figured I'll eventually want to lvl as a healer

iLvl 92 at the moment, but that's because I don't have all the augmented Ironworks gear yet. I should get close to 130 once I do. I think I'll stock up on tomestones using my level 80 red mage, gear up my white mage better, then get back to leveling.

Augmented Ironworks gear should be good til level 54ish, then it'll be using dungeon drops until level 60, when I'll grab Shire gear.

My mi'qote is so cute! I know at one point in the MQ you get a fantasia for free so maybe you can change again?

Just do the daily random duties for a few days and you'll be back at 2k in no time at all