Dark Knight and Gunbreaker are my favorite tanks at the moment. I like DRK's aesthetic, and Gunbreaker is active enough that it feels closer to a DPS. Warrior is a blast tho, especially with all the self-healing you can do in dungeons.
I started leveling Rogue/Ninja and while it's too early to have an opinion on how the job plays, the Rogue class quests have been pretty fleshed out and fun. I also blasted through all of the Scholar job quests after getting Summoner to 90, and they were surprisingly good. If you like Tonberries, play the Scholar quests.
Today I decided I wanted to get out of Bronze rank in the new PvP mode. I had an absurd amount of luck and not only got out of Bronze, but pushed right into Gold. If you can keep a win streak going, it's wild how fast you can rank up. It feels totally random, though.
It’s a little odd that they haven’t put that new mode into the pvp roulette. I am generally uninterested in PVP but do the roulette because it’s really good experience. If the new mode is great, they should use that to expose people.
I wish Rival Wings was in a roulette too. With how short Crystalline Conflict matches are, maybe they think the barrier to entry is low enough to not need a roulette?
Honest question: why do they do solo duties where you control NPCs that have super bare-bones ability sets?
I can’t fathom why they think controlling NPCs with 6 abilities for twenty minutes is fun when players are used to employing 24+ buttons and full rotations on their real character.
Honest question: why do they do solo duties where you control NPCs that have super bare-bones ability sets?
I can’t fathom why they think controlling NPCs with 6 abilities for twenty minutes is fun when players are used to employing 24+ buttons and full rotations on their real character.
Two thoughts. While a person may be used to all their buttons, they will be unlikely to quickly adapt to a brand new set for a one-off event.
Also, many folks just want to see the story, and in regular play they do not press a lot of buttons.
It's also neat to see those particular moments rather than hear about them afterwards, and furthermore it makes you feel much cooler when you are yourself again and have your full skills back. It's a great way to highlight our specialness in the setting.
Tank Thoughts: I'm probably always going to be a DRK main, that is my bias, but I will go to bat for its kit as well as its aesthetic. I just came off earning the WAR mount and I am extremely burned out on it. While it's obviously the pick for random roulette dungeons with strangers, it just got so monotonous. Bloodwhetting is certainly a good skill, but it's hardly gratifying to use, certainly nothing like the satisfaction of good ole TBN (the meme-space was insisting TBN isn't that great for a while, which, No, incorrect), and also has none of the satisfaction of managing MP to have TBN. The recent changes to Living Dead are both great in the sense that they made it a much more usable skill, but they've also made it one that needs to really be used strategically and with good timing. So, DRK is my preferred, then GNB, also a lot of fun, then WAR, and then PLD.
It's also neat to see those particular moments rather than hear about them afterwards, and furthermore it makes you feel much cooler when you are yourself again and have your full skills back. It's a great way to highlight our specialness in the setting.
To be more specific, I didn’t mind it so much during the role quests. I was thinking more the very long Thancred fight against Ranjiit, and then the fight against all the lunar primals at the very end of the Shadowbringers patch cycle. I don’t think controlling the NPCs did anything to heighten those moments.
I thought maybe they wanted to encourage people to play other classes, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense either considering the simplified move set. Oh well, done with Shadowbringers now. So far I’m liking Endwalker more.
The one that came to mind for me was Y'sh in support of Hien in SB, when (if I remember right) they're basically holding the line waiting for us to reach the fight. I've talked about the lunar primal battle with a friend, I fall in the camp of "helps sell the scale," but also it's cooler to fight the LPs somehow instead of hearing about them, and additionally let everyone know that all the EW Trials wouldn't be against them. Thancred just has more history and connection to Ranjt, I appreciate he got a crack.
Yeah I'm okay with them expanding the storytelling and/or making events feeling bigger when they can let you play from multiple characters' point of view. The Thancred/Ranjiit fight I think everyone agrees is too long, but in general I'm fine with the alt-character instances. In a perfect world I wouldn't mind if they gave the option to play with the full kit if you're familiar with the job instead of the simplified version.
The Too Long thing was an issue across all sorts of things in ShB. If they reduced the HP of every Nier boss by 15%, I'd cry tears of joy and maybe stop iLvl cheesing below Tower for roulettes....
...Maybe.
The new Alliance Raid, Aglaia, in addition to being beautiful, feels noticeably shorter than both the Nier and Ivalice raid series. I see people just straight up leaving both of those when first queuing in, which is frustrating. I'm hoping that isn't as much of an issue with these new ones.
I’ve done a few of the NPC duties in Endwalker now and I’m much happier with them. I think they work better because the actual gameplay is meaningfully different rather than just substituting an NPC into a standard battle. Thancred doing a stealth mission is also a nice callback to his Rogue days. The unnamed imperial one is less effective but still better than “fight Lunar Ifrit but you’re Urianger because reasons.”
I’ve got a question for people who maybe had fewer gaps in their FFXIV resume.
Am I crazy or is Endwalker considerably harder than the last two, maybe even all three, expansions?
Even taking into account the item levels, it feels to me like the mechanics in Tower or Babil and The Dark Inside are big steps up from what you traditionally see in a second dungeon and first trial. We had a not-amazing healer and wiped the final boss in Babil three times before the tank just decided to do the last 1/4 health by herself. And then The Dark Inside, I just had to follow the marked player around when the boss started spinning the floor and whatnot.
Even the trash packs seem to take a lot longer.
I don’t even mean this as a complaint, I’m into it actually since jobs seem to have gotten a bit mechanically simpler.
Yeah, Endwalker feels like a step up in encounter complexity. I can't speak for the savage raids (nevermind the new Ultimate), but there is an increased expectation to focus on movement and watching the entire arena in order to know how to handle mechanics properly. The Tower of Babil in particular is quite hectic it its first and third boss fights, and I still see groups having trouble on them. I have fond memories of my first time in The Dark Inside. It was the second day the expansion had been out, we wiped several times, and everyone was having a good time figuring out the mechanics and positioning required. The first time we all died to the triple attack stack marker was hilarious, and I'm sure contributed to the healers questioning their life choices.
Still, the bosses have a fairly straightforward flow where they show each mechanic one at a time to teach them to you, then start combining them. There is often a big raid wide attack early on to keep healers on their toes as well, and to encourage tanks and DPS to use their mitigation abilities to help out. A lot of this has been fairly common since at least Stormblood, but Endwalker's encounters keep the pressure up to higher degree. The playerbase is generally better at the game, and the designers are better at creating interesting encounters. I personally find it pretty satisfying to learn an encounter well enough to know when Red Mage's support abilities will come in handy the most.
I absolutely had a rough roulette on Dark Inside pretty early after release with a lot of struggling first timers that probably took in excess of 45 minutes to an hour, but I also feel like Dancing Plague had a similar "trouble spot" reputation when I got to ShB.
Yeah, Dancing Plague is still a difficulty spike to this day.
The new Alliance Raid, Aglaia, in addition to being beautiful, feels noticeably shorter than both the Nier and Ivalice raid series. I see people just straight up leaving both of those when first queuing in, which is frustrating. I'm hoping that isn't as much of an issue with these new ones.
I forgot to leave my confession related to this.
Aglaia is also really fun, which helps a lot. I'm a huge fan of the Ivalice raids, they are among my favorite duties in the entire game, and I openly mock the fun-haters who abandon it, and those who whine about "the math one" (JFC, people, it is basic arithmetic, 3rd grade level). Ivalice is great. Nier is not, and I will freely admit that I have bailed at the start of PB and Tower. That may seem hypocritical, and it probably is, but I will own up to it. For PB, there was a stretch where I was constantly getting it in roulette, to the point where I had at least 10 more puppet coins than any of the others, and I couldn't take it any more. It doesn't help that while PB's fights are pretty good, the best is the first one. Tower, though, I straight up hate. It is long, it is tedious, it is drawn out and it is ugly. The lack of contrast started giving me a headache, so I started wearing sunglasses while doing it. So many of its mechanics feel like arbitrary gotchas. The bosses are dull and unengaging, especially for someone who's only Nier or Drakengard experience is these raids. I know people who've never touched Tactics, but quite rightly find the T.G. Cid fight spectacular, all Tower has to match up against the Thunder God is an annoying girl in a red dress. The nadir is the pink plasma ball phase on the final boss that lasts far, far, far, far, far, far, far, FAR too long. And most of the gear is bad. Tower is guaranteed to be at minimum a 45-50 minute slog, and now that there is no benefit to doing it, I decided I'd rather eat the 30 minute penalty, because I'd still come out ahead, and be in a better mood for it. Now, I removed my hat and gloves before queuing up.
Aglaia, by contrast, is colorful, beautiful, fun, and maybe it isn't shorter, but it sure as shit feels like it is.
I haven’t done the Endwalker ones but the Mhach ones remain my favorite, Dun Scaithe in particular. I love every aspect of it.
Patch 6.15 is out today. The highlights are
- New daily tribe quests for combat jobs 80-90 in Thavnair (you need to have finished a couple side quest chains in Thavnair for it to become available)
- New Custom Delivery NPC (Amelience in Old Sharlayan)
- If you've finished the Omega raid story from Stormblood, a new side quest chain is available in Old Sharlayan
- New HIldebrand quests! Starts in Radz-at-Han
- Tataru's Grand Endeavor side quests in Old Sharlayan
They also rolled back some of the Black Mage changes they made to PVP a couple weeks ago, so it should be quite so OP now.
I haven’t done the Endwalker ones but the Mhach ones remain my favorite, Dun Scaithe in particular. I love every aspect of it.
The Mhach raids are also great: Void Ark is a little basic, but the setting and vibe is extremely cool, Ozma is a great fight (I'll never forget after one wipe, someone quipped "All these years, and Ozma is still claiming pelts."), and it's a little mean, but watching the hordes get tossed overboard by Deathgaze is extremely funny.
I believe the Beyond Omega sidequest is, in fact, the beginning of the EW trails series, I heard that right?
I haven't heard anything about this expansion's trial series yet, so I'm not sure.
I used a level 80 job to do the first day's tribe quests and got over 40% of a level, so looks like they're continuing to have dailies give out a ridiculous amount of EXP.
Does anyone here play sage?
I want to try a barrier healer, but I can’t really wrap my head around the playstyle. I honestly think the really wonky naming structure for all the skills is half to blame. It seems to me like your resources are pretty limited, but guides say to the contrary. I did a level 70ish dungeon as one and kardia didn’t heal enough for me to really keep damaging, so I ended up doing a lot of eukrasian diagnosis, which guides also seem to indicate is wrong.
My healer maining friend said that he found Kardia to provide about as much healing as the SCH fairy, which is to say, not a lot, certainly not a main tool. I'm not sure I ever found a really good guide for actual healing, to be honest, or at least one that matches my Random Light Party in Duty Roulette experiences. And I have seen plenty that don't mention resources like Addersgall or the lilies take time to actually build. Optimally, I feel like, yeah, you should be DPSing as much as possible, but sometimes what's possible is pretty low.
I haven't been on SGE in a while, and I agree, the ability names are a hurdle. To compensate, I've made sure my hotbars roughly match on all healers for the important stuff, so muscle memory takes me to AoE Heal while my brain is still trying to recall if Prognosis is like Helios. The shield, Kera..chole, was something I used pretty much on cooldown as I recall. And I also recall that somewhere around 80, things just suddenly clicked and suddenly I Got It, and really enjoyed SGE--I don't know if that was just experience or a skill or what, but I also bet it's pretty gone now.
I'm planning on Aglaia as a healer this week, maybe you've convinced me to pick SGE back up for it...
So I've unlocked Sage this week and have been leveling it in Zadnor. I've found it enjoyable, though the healing capability doesn't feel nearly as obviously strong as White Mage, the only other healer I've put time into. Granted, the healing experience in Bozja doesn't really line up with healing a dungeon or raid. But I've been trying to use Soteria on cooldown, which boosts Kardia healing by 70% for the next 5 attacks you do. I also try to use Eukrasian Diagnosis as often as I can, since when the barrier from it fully absorbs damage that gives you the Addersting needed to use Toxicon.
It's definitely a word salad of ability names, but Bozja was a low pressure way to get comfortable with it, and so far at least I'm enjoying the job's flow. I haven't jumped into any dungeons yet, but I'll probably use Duty Support to dip my toe in for the first time there in Endwalker dungeons.
Side note, this is my first time back in the Bozja areas since last year, and it's a good way to level from 71 to 80. The levels come at a good pace, and I was able to get a bunch of mettle to gain permanent stat boosts. The lockboxes have also given a bunch of glams that have sold quite well on the market board. Aesthetically I'm still not crazy about the area, but people are chill and it's been a nice change of pace as far as leveling goes.
I look forward to unlocking that (maybe after this weekend?). Currently waiting for the last person in our group to unlock Amaurot.
I like Sage! It's weird wrapping my head around doing damage is healing, but once I reframed it in my mind as more active form of the Scholar's fairy, it made more sense. I do feel that when things go south, I have far fewer tools than the other healers, but am not sure if that's just my unfamiliarity with the job, as I haven't played it as long, or actually something to be aware of.
I spent the last few weeks leveling miner up to 90, so I could switch one of my retainers over. I’ve been ignoring them since early Stormblood, but I decided to have them start running ventures again. Miner ended up being a lot more enjoyable to level than I expected. The last five or so levels of ARR were a tedious grind, but the rest flowed pretty smoothly. I also liked the Crystarium delivery quest change. It was silly, but it was fun. I’m glad I leveled miner, so I can do the new tribe quests when 6.2 is released. I hope we’ll be rebuilding the café there as part of the tribe quests.
I also started leveling sage, so I could do the healer role quests. I completely ignored Bozja went it first came out, so I had no idea it was a good place for leveling and getting familiar with the job. I normally play tanks and DPS, so it was a bit of an adjustment. I failed the first job quest in Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum several times until I started getting the hang of things. I’ll have to check out Bozja as something a bit more exciting than doing pixie dailies to level.
If you do visit Bozja it has a whole story to go through as well with three separate raids required to finish it. It’s a lot of content so it should keep you busy for a while, especially if you also want to work on a relic weapon there at the same time.
I did end up getting Sage to 90 and really enjoyed it. We’ll see what I think of Astrologian when I get to it but it may end up being my main healer job. I got Monk to 50 this weekend and I’m enjoying it so far.
Did anyone manage to get to the top of the tower in the Moonfire Faire event? I banged my head against it for a few hours without success and I don’t know if I have it in me to keep trying right now.
I tried the big tower right after doing the quest, made it three jumps, and decided I wanted my glam now now now! I went back last night when...I wasn't drunk, but I also wasn't not drunk, and kept missing the first jump, so
The first jump is a very clear indicator of what you're in for...
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