FFXIV

[Bebpo]

Yeah I couldn't figure out the glamor cabinet AT ALL. Nothing shows up on any of the panels and it makes no sense to me :|

At least the storage box at the inn seems to accept more stuff into storage now. Was able to dump a handful of gear into it although I don't understand why outfits like Santa Claus Boots don't go in but Suit does, or why Hildebrand outfit doesn't, or why the New Scion Clothes set doesn't etc...

Anyhow, used the opportunity to spend an hour clearing out my equipment inv. Was pretty full on my char, but cleared like 50% of each category. Should last me until next expansion unless I invest heavily in leveling and glamoring other battle jobs.

Game seriously needs a equip inv storage fix. If you actually level all the battle jobs and get tons of rare cool looking armor sets, even with a few retainers there's no way you can store it all. I'm maxing out 2 retainers inventories just for like a couple battle jobs worth of outfits and I don't even care about glamoring my crafters/gatherers.

[Akala]

I am lucky the glamour bug never got me   

[Bebpo]

So I got up for the weekend and did some of my weeklies, grabbed a lvl.VI master recipe book (alchemy) and hmmmm you can make i350 gear. That's like...actually kinda nice. This is the first time I've been caught up (well almost, I've got Goldsmith, Alchemist, Cul at 70, the rest are still like 64/65) and in my 300+ hours of crafting, I have always been doing it just for fun and it's never once actually provided anything useful

But now since even at best it's going to take like 4-8 weeks of doing the normal Sigmascape raid to get a full i350 set and maybe a couple of i360 tomes pieces along the way, if I actually had all my crafters to lvl.70 with master recipe VI books I could shortcut that and make a full i350 set right now which would be nice!

I think my goal is gonna be to at least craft an i350 accessory assuming goldsmith recipe book VI has rings or something. Just being able to craft a piece of gear that actually increase my combat job's ilvl would be pretty spiffy! Though I assume the mats are going to be insanely expensive or incredibly time consuming to gather them all from scratch.


Also I did the fashion report at Gold Saucer. Uh, that is a new source of insanely good MGP payout. You don't even have to bother with it and if you fail you get 10,000 MGP each attempt and you can try 4 times every weekend, so you get 40,000 MGP no effort. Even more if you put effort into matching the categories. Now I just gotta figure out what to spend all this MGP on....

Doing the valentines quest now, I like how most of these seasonal events are giving mounts now.


Gonna try to do the MSQ -> new dungeon -> new trial -> Sigma V2-V4 (normal) this weekend to get caught up outside savage/ex stuff. Also wanna run some treasure maps again since they've upped the loot and increased chance to get to hidden canals which I never got to.

[Bebpo]

Ok, this valentines event is kinda awkward if you don't have anyone to do it with :X
At least I learned how to use signs and waypoints! The card game is pretty much impossible without some form of communication.

Now I just need someone to do the fortune telling with :X

[Bebpo]

Finished the 4.2 MSQ, was good and Gosetsu still the best character since HW, but felt short and just ended mid-storyline. Was kinda weird? I guess this storyline will be 4.2+4.3 and then 4.4-4.5 will be prologue to the next expansion.

The post-SB stuff is a bit odd in that

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The retcon of EVERY.GODDAMN.ANTAGONIST, like let's bring back the Skull leader and make her good, let's bring back Yotsuyuu and make her peaceful, let's bring back ZENOS...WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BRINGING BACK ZENOS? I thought when they had that scene in 4.1 where they said Zenos was still alive it was supposed to show how the empire's politics were spreading deceit among their citizens to damage control like "nah, Zenos didn't die, he's perfectly fine and everything is still a-ok Imperial Citizens"...but no, he's actually still alive? Huh? He died pretty good at the end of SB.

It's just weird and definitely undermines SB to make all these super evil villians killing people non-stop and then you beat them and now everyone is back and most are let off the hook. Pretty weird story decisions.

[close]

Also did V2 & V3 of Sigmascape normal. The fights were ok, kinda uninspired? V2 feels more like a dungeon gimmick boss and V3 feels like an Alexander DPS check stage except with no DPS check?

I feel like Sigmascape Normal is even easier than Deltascape normal so far not having done V4. I remember when Deltascape came out parties were wiping on V3 for a few days getting turned into frogs and stuff. People actually had to learn how to play. Plus V3 was pretty complex. V2/V3 are so lenient, both fights I did tonight a bunch of people had (including myself) had no idea what we were doing, first time, no video watching, and we still beat both on the first try. Doesn't feel very satisfying.

Like I feel the right difficulty for at least latest Raid bosses, even in normal should be "blind team generally wipes once or twice and figures it out and then beats it", it should require actual learning of the mechanics even if it doesn't require perfect execution. Like V3 Sigmascape feels like a DPS check boss with tons of adds and if you're not careful you spend all the time fighting adds and not the boss, but we took like 15 mins and it never wiped so like what's the point?

Gonna do V4 normally tomorrow, I hope it lives up to Deltascape V4. I remember Deltascape even on normal if people didn't learn the difference between non-void powered attacks and void powered attacks you could definitely wipe. Team had to learn to actually look at the names of upcoming attacks + whether the void is kicking in or not. Hopefully Sigmascape V4N has at least that much effort required to pass.

Then just gotta do the 2 dungeons + Byakko trial. Should be done with all the non-savage tier 4.2 stuff tomorrow.

*edit* Looking around I saw that lots of groups cleared all of Sigmascape Savage in less than 24 hours, damn. Yeah it feels like this raid set/patch is easier than 4.0/4.1 stuff. Maybe I'll actually get through Savage on this one. I actually felt like endgame 4.0/4.1 had pretty solid difficulty between Susano/Lakshmi/Deltascape/Rabanastre, hope they aren't thinking about adjusting the overall difficulty down a bit to more it more accessible.

[Bebpo]

Couple of other FF14 observations.

While you can craft i350 "green rarity" items, the stats suck. They have identical stats to my blue i320 Deltascape normal gear (I still have like 2 i320 pieces from back then). So there is zero reason to spend the money/time crafting this stuff since it really only brings you up in line with the Deltascape normal gear and you can run deltascape normal a bunch of times and and get all the i320 blue gear in a few hours probably since there's no caps now.

Not sure what is the point of high-end crafting gear. Maybe HQ versions are closer in line with real i350 gear? Hmm, I should check the marketplace and compare stats of a HQ crafted i350 ring.

Also on the fashion report, I was wrong about how much MGP you get. You get 10,000 MGP every week for no-effort entry, but then even though you get 4 attempts, you don't get any additional MGP on attempts 2-4. I'm assuming if you beat it you get the additional like 40,000 or something on that attempt. It's kinda lame though because the restrictions are so tight on winning that you basically can't win unless you just google what the exact winning outfit pieces are and go get them/buy them. My handmade outfit that fit all the categories in my opinion got like 57 points and you need 80+ to win -_-

So before I fell asleep last night I watched the guide vids for:

-Shinryu Ex
-Sigmascape Savage 1

Since those + Byakko are the next Ex/Savages I'm gonna do (don't want to spoil Byakko since I haven't done the normal trial yet).

Shinyru Ex looks fucking crazy. Like the individual what to do at each moment of time doesn't seem too bad in execution, but there's so many goddamn attacks and phases just remembering that all is gonna be tough. Like there is 0% chance after watching 1 vid I can jump into a group and remember it all and not fuck up and die. I'll definitely need a learning party to learn and muscle memory each attach sequence.

Sigamscape V1 looks fine. Couple of attacks that you just need to learn how to work together (dropping spotlights & leading ghosts while stacking), but once get the hang of that shouldn't be an issue.

[Bebpo]

Ok, checked and confirmed. HQ crafts of the i350 green gear = same stat numbers of i350 blue gear but in different secondary stats. (ie, one has critical hit + 86, one has determination + 86).

[Bebpo]

Well, V4 Normal was great. About on par with Deltascape V4, maybe even a little better fight but slightly easier since Delatscape V4 didn't have attack markers for a few of the attacks.

[Bebpo]

Hell's Lid was zzz trash with 2 decent bosses
Fractal (hard) was zzz trash with 1 decent boss and 2 good bosses
Byakko trial (normal) was ok, felt similar to Susano but much easier, song was the metal screamo kinda trash.

Welp, to get into Sigma Savage V1 or Byakko Ex you need to be i340 and I'm only i332. My runs on V2->V4 normal got me pieces that need more for turn in. Maybe I'll hit i340 in a week or two. If I wanted to I could probably grind it out with creation tomes but not in a rush and don't feel like grinding DRs.

I kinda wish they made Ex versions of dungeons with better gear (I mean all the gear in the dungeons are outdated day 0 which makes them all kind of pointless outside DRs, both dungeons drop i325 which is outdated by the i330 4.1 raid gear, you'd think the dungeons would be dropping like i335 gear or something). It's a shame dungeons are all so zzz. I remember back in Stone Vigil when you could wipe on normal mobs, or at least wipe on bosses if you didn't learn the mechanics. Some of the bosses in these dungeons are really good but their attacks are too forgiving. Like the boss of Fractal (hard) feels like if you buffed up the difficulty it'd be a good challenging fight.

Anyhow, 4.2 was a fun patch with a solid amount of content. Downside is everything was made easier for some reason. I wonder how the retention numbers are going to be until 4.3/4.4 since it feels like everyone is going to beat Sigma Savage pretty quick and be over it.

[Akala]

people are already dropping off. 

I will probably be playing for a bit, want 330 for WHM at least, may also continue with my BRD.

[Bebpo]

Did weekly run on Sigmascape. Didn't get jack shit on V1 & V2 even though I needed on all 4. Forgot that was a thing. Sucks. Got a piece I don't need on V3, and meh another 1/4 body piece on V4 (my body is already i340, so i350 ain't gonna do much, 4 parts sucks).

Anyhow, playing through it again actually knowing all the mechanics, V3/V4 are the most fun because they have the most mechanics to do constantly. V2 is ok but kinda boring just like V2 Deltascape and V1 is amazing the first time but kinda boring after on normal.

Will grind V1/V2 a few more times later this week until I win a roll on something. Right now have:

Head 1/2
Arm 1/2
Body 2/4
Leg 0/4
Feet 1/2
Accessories 1/4

So hopefully I can start getting some pieces by next week to get my ilevel up so I can try savage. Dunno how long it'll take me to get a piece of i360 tome gear since I'm not doing DRs, get like 10 or something per sigmascape so like 40 per week + a few hunts, idk maybe only like 50 a week w/o grinding DRs Pretty much gonna have to rely on those sigmascape i350 pieces to get my ilevel up past i340 and into Savage & Byakko Ex.

[Akala]

Looked back on what would be involved to get my weapon upgrades from ilvl 300 and nah. Bought the 350 HW from MB for 1.5MM.

the worst thing about max level crafting is how much it takes to be useful on the cutting edge. its saved me tons on alts though. may try and craft some 350 accessories once i get more yellow scrip gear, but that may be a ways off as the market for the yellow scrip items is so good and minimal effort.

I would have spent about 3mm more but I forgot personal house purchases are locked out 

[Bebpo]

Yeah I could afford to just buy gear, but I’m like eh why bother I can grind it.

Not sure what best upgrade path from i300 would be. Since deltascape normal is quick and easy can probably grind i320 set in an afternoon, then do matsuno raid a couple times for some i330 pieces and that should get to i325, then run sigmascape for i350 set.

[Bebpo]

Sitting in queue for sigmascape 1&2, no tanks across all data centers. Raid is one week and a few days old. Might as well just figure Tuesday is only day to get into the latest raids.

Plenty of DPS though!

That whole 2 New DPS jobs, no tank/healer feels like it’s gonna get worse and worse over time as the number of subs shrink until next expansion. Next expansion better have a new tank.

[Bebpo]

Got into V2 -> V1 (no drop again) -> V1, yay.

At this point a week in feels like everyone is doing V1 & V2 in their sleep (V2 more than V1 because V1 needs a bit more on your feet thinking and movement). Had a perfect rotation run in V2, felt good, didn't drop Hutton the entire fight or miss a beat. Someone at the end went "woah, we did like twice the dps of the last group I ran with" so felt pretty good! V1 first time was kinda like that, fast and smooth, second time our tanks were failing tanking and the healers were laughing at them and we barely scrapped by with a healer LB3 at the end but made it.

Got up to i335 this week. Probably can hit i340 with next week's drops.

[Bebpo]

Ok, so out of curiosity I'm bringing my Goldsmith up to i330 to have a max level crafter. I'm almost there on the primary weapon/left side. Just need one or two more weeks of souvenier turn ins for enough gold scrips.

But I was looking through my master recipe books and I didn't see any right hand i300+ gear? And the trade-in counter doesn't have right hand gear (including the 2ndary weapon tool slot). I looked at the market board and yeah, the left hand stuff that you can get from the trade-in counter is all available in crafted i325 gear for sale, but the highest gear for the right hand side seems to be the pre-post-game i290 HQ stuff?

Is that right? That the best you can get as of 4.2 for a crafter is left-hand side i330, right-hand side HQ i290 with an overall ilevel somewhere in-between (i310?). Seems odd. I'm assuming gathering classes are the same? I've kind of ignored my three gathering classes once they hit lvl.70. At some point I might want to try to gear one of them up as well to see what endgame gathering is like.

Also I looked at the craftmanship/control required to make the i350 accesories, you need 1500 craftsmanship so basically I'm guessing you need all i330 left/ HQ i290 right max igear to even attempt crafting the latest stuff each patch? And yeah I imagine food helps boost those stats a bit, though I'm not sure what the max bonus stats you can get these days from crafting food is.

[Akala]

yep plus food plus specialist to be somewhat safe on HQ for the star stuff from what I have seen. high level crafting is like walking in on a conversation you are really interested in, that is above your head. 

I got to max with one and kind of started looking at in depth, and ehhh. I like wasting time cracking out to relax , but this is like a second job.

That said, I got all to 70 at a leisurely pace for fun 

[Bebpo]

I'm tempted to get all to 70 right now because it's so easy with just doing daily GC turn-ins and I have too much gil anyhow.

But then I think about how 3.3 is crafting beast tribe probably and how I'll have no incentive to do it if I'm not getting xp. So I'm trying to hold off and not worry about crafting much until the next patch at which point I'll hit 70 with the rest.

Also yeah, it's like I can put all this effort into getting $$$ materials and then doing all this stuff perfectly at max stats and hope to make a HQ i350 ring, or I can just go to the MB and buy it for 1 million gil who cares. I think I will go back to my old plan of getting all crafters to lvl.70 and then making nothing but minions/housing items/glamor gear for fun with them.

[Bebpo]

Did some map pf thinking it'd be a better way to get mendacity tomes than the dungeon DRs because boy do I hate the zzz dungeons. Went 2 hours, got no loot (but I did get like 200-300 tomes) while everyone else got multiple thief maps and stuff worth millions, and it was even more zzz to play than dungeons. I think I'm done with maps for a while.

Although with 4.2 they definitely increased the drop rate of everything. Seems if you make it past floor 4 you're basically guaranteed a thief map or two now. Also can definitely tell the 20-30 ilevel increase of map parties compared to 4.1 map running, enemies melt pretty quick in the dungeon now.

[Bebpo]

In more positive note stuff when I was in the Gold Saucer the FATE Cliffhanger was going where you platform up that track that goes around the cactuar. Been looking at that road for 900 hours every time I'm in the gold saucer and finally got a chance to climb it. Came in like with just like 2 mins left and beat it with like 10 seconds to spare. Took a lot of pictures waving to people down below from the top platform

Also did the Rabanastre raid again in the alliance dr, the more I play that raid, the more I think it's a really good raid. Outside a couple of the trash mobs that could've been cut (since it's pretty long as is), all the boss fights are pretty fun, though the final boss maybe has too much HP, it's not a bad fight and the sword gimmick + the devil/angel bit keeps it active, but it just goes a bit too long. First two bosses are great, 3rd boss is solid. Almost have a full NIN Ivalice set from it too, just missing Body & Feet.

[Positive Touch]

I'm cool on replaying an more regular dungeons until I can do them with an ai team that lets me go slow and take lots of screenshots. I'll take any of the raids any day because there's less pressure to speedrun. also they look so darn cool.

and omg I need to finish the Valentione event before it ends. hopefully there's still some lonely adventurers hanging around Gridania.

[Bebpo]

So I finished the HW job quests for GSM and the mats cost me like 500k+ which was kinda annoying. Then I got into SB job quests and they give you all the mats for free over and over until you make it and I'm like this is the best decision ever for crafting jobs quests.

When I was doing the HW job quests and crafting stuff I went ahead and crafted other stuff for myself, and man crafting cool stuff sucks. You either spend a ton of time gathering lots of items and crafting smaller items into larger mats, or you go to the market board and spend $$$$$ and just buy all the mats to craft it

...then you check and you can buy the completed product on the MB for 1/2 the cost of all the mats it takes to make it and you're left wondering why do I have a crafter at all??

Anyhow, put some more stuff in my house. My house is mainly a dump everything nostalgic in one room house design

[Bebpo]

Wow, I finally figured out how the new glamour dresser system works and it's really useful! Can see myself wasting a lot of time making outfits since it's fast and free now once you store all your stuff in it.

[Bebpo]

Did my weeklies and some DRs, and got from like i336->i345.
Think I'm done grinding igear for this patch. Will do the weekly Sigmas to finish out the i350 set for glamour, but I'm good on DRs and hunts and maps. Doing the weekly raid (normal) runs to get your gear you really see all kinds of bizarre stuff. Like on Sigma V4 one time the tank kept tanking the boss facing away from the statue so since you need to look at the statue and you want to be hitting the boss's back, you'd have to turn your camera away from your back to facing your front. I mean it basically seemed like the tank was going "fuck y'all I'm the only one who gets a good camera angle for this fight", also saw my first wipe on V3, bad parties on V3 can be really bad! And saw people get in fights over V2 and almost wipe, like V2 normal is a joke so that was pretty weird. And these were all just runs for this week.

In dungeons people generally know what they're doing, but for some reason in raids people are all over the place. When you have a good team and the boss is melting it's good times, but if you get a bad team it can make you want to bail.

Now that I got above i340, just ready to get back to PF and try to get this stuff done for completion:

-Shinyruu Ex
-Byakko Ex
-Alexander Savage A4-12
-Deltascape Savage V2-V4
-Sigmascape Savage V1-V4

Hardest part will be getting learning party groups for most of those. Will grab a book and get ready for long waits. Would be nice to clear at least everything outside Sigmascape Savage. Would feel pretty much content complete on the battle side of the game until next patch at that point.

[Bebpo]

Woohooo, Era FC + PF team helped me learn and take down A4S \o/

Got my mount :0



Now just gotta watch the A5S video tonight. Also probably should watch the Byakko Ex video so I don't go in totally blind.

[Bebpo]

Joined a Byakko Ex learning party. Pretty much all new people, in about 90 mins we got a 6% wipe at enrage and a 2% wipe at enrage. Had 10 mins left after the 2% wipe so we decided to back out and go back in. We back out and both our tanks quit and leave. We get new tanks thinking as long as they know their roles we got this at this point, and we spend 20-30 mins of total fails not even getting near enrage That's what happens when you have a team dynamic going and people leave 

At least I pretty much learned the fight at this point. As a NIN I fucking hate the Aritama balls coming out of him because my main support attack +10% DPS to team always pops during it with my rotation and I'm out of northern star, so to hit it I have to be right up close at his back and doing that while I'm circling him dodging the red balls is fucking annoying. I usually eat a ball going in for it to get that extra dps for the team. Then you have all the times people drop the gale force at the wrong spot so I go to dodge the big purple rectangle attack and get trapped with a glowing black AoE and die Not a big fan of the fight. It's ok but I don't find it too fun. The shmup section in the middle is too easy (basically feels like normal mode) and sitting through that every time sucks. First phase is super easy, and everyone starts messing up in the second phase.

I also kinda feel like the boss is built for ranged DPS, not melee. Between the red balls popping out of him and the lightning clusters making melee back off for a bit to dodge, seems like ranged DPS would have a lot more time to get in damage on this guy.

Oh well, should be able to clear it with the right party next time I play. Then can move to Shinryuu Ex.

[Bebpo]

So...I think I’m bad at this game 

[Positive Touch]

??

[Bebpo]

Byakko Ex troubles, haha. Nothing worse than hours spent with multiple parties struggling to survive on a trial that is "easy"
The high end savage/ex game just depresses me. It's too stressful and waste of life/time. Unfortunately the normal trials/dungeons are zzz for me, and the most fun part I find is watching the savage/ex vids and learning the pattern dance and practicing it. But, less fun if you don't ever beat it

I feel like for me to enjoy FFXIV while also not letting it add more stress/depression to my life, I need to be ok with like watching an ex/savage vid -> trying it out in a learning/practice party for a run or two just for fun and then walk away and move on and not stress about trying to get a clear. But this is at odds with the fact that I'm terrible at giving up in gaming and will play the same battle like 10 hours straight until 6am until I win in a single player game. So idk, maybe I should unsub until the next expansion -_-

I think if I had like a group of friends who I could just casually do the high end content with and everyone has some beer and jokes around over discord and laughs over dumb deaths, it'd be enjoyable. But I don't, and pf groups are bunch of strangers who barely talk usually and on forums it's like super elitism by pro players telling everyone else they suck. Statics are too serious and time commitment as well, So idkk; I just want to play high end content casually and have fun which is a misdemeanor I guess because that's casual content.

[Bebpo]

Cleared Byakko Ex with my 3rd party attempt today. Took the entire hour+ (we got a 2% enrage, backed out to repair and change DRK to WAR and came back). Was way too close. Down to the last second.

The odd thing was in the 5-6 runs prior where we hit enrage we always had an LB3 at the end and me being NIN always did the LB3 for 3-4% at the end. But this one time we didn't get LB3 so I'm sitting there mashing out my moves going FILL BAR FILL because the boss is <4% and I know if we hit it we auto win but if we don't we might fail. In retrospect I probably should've just done an LB2 for some damage which is better than the DPS I'd do in the time frame, but was having a heart attack and not thinking and just hoping to god we fucking kill this dude. And then we did about 80% into his finally storm pulse cast (at least I think that's the enrage, I might be misreading it and we had a couple more stomps to go which is why normally we got LB3 and maybe we actually killed him too fast before it filled? I dunno, too much adreline).

Anyhow, last few runs I did perfect runs at least from my NIN side. No mistakes, no deaths, always uptime DPS. If I join a farm team with people who are good I should be able to do it a few more times until I get my i355 weapon. Hmmm, will try and if the farm party is terrible will move on to Shinryuu Ex.

Glad I cleared Byakko today. Was thinking about unsubbing and taking a break for a while if I wasted 3 days on Byakko and never won.

[Bebpo]

Ok, joined a farm party of people who know what they're doing and cleared it with 30 seconds to spare on first run. Feel a lot more ok about this fight now. Just gotta run it 6 more times to get my weapon...

then Shinryuu Ex

[Bebpo]

Had a couple kills, 3 totems now, then all the tanks/healers left Thought you only needed 8 totems for weapon, didn't realize it's 10. This gonna be a long night...

[Bebpo]

Started reading FFlogs and not sure how to feel about my DPS output. It's hard to compare without comparing gear. Are most of the people doing i340 content as a NIN geared at i350+ with food? I've still got some i330 gear and not using any food, so idk. My DPS isn't awful, but it's below the average i340 Ex content NIN player. Which is weird because around Deltascape I started reading rotation guides and following them. Like I saw an average NIN did 8k opening damage burst, but I cap out at 6.5k. Then again maybe that person doing 8k has a lot higher stats than me, dunno.

Since I'm not really inclined to spend gil/grind to get my gear up, not sure what I can take out of the logs. Will double check NIN rotation to see I'm not missing anything and maybe keep some food around and finish melding out my current gear with materia VI. Otherwise not gonna read that parser stuff, too serious for the casual-moderate level of play I'm going for.

tl;dr fflogs is a rabbit hole I’m not going down.

[Bebpo]

So another thing I wanna do in this game besides get all my crafters up, is I'd really like to have tank/healer at 70 so I can jump into any role needed (plus experience the fights in different ways). Even though I have a PLD at 42, I'm trying to get a DRK up because of the job quest storyline. The problem is that 30-50 is such a sloooog. ARR content prior to 50 generally is boring. Not sure if there's a faster way to level from 30->50 but for now I'm trying to do like 1 leveling roulette a day for 30-45 mins with DRK and have been getting like 1 level per day that way mostly from the dungeon exp with rest bonus + food bonus.

I mean ideally I'll I'd like to get all crafters + battle jobs to max level, but before the next expansion I think I'd be fine with just crafter/gatherers + 1 dps/1 tank/1 healer.

[Bebpo]

I tried doing a squadron dungeon to level my dark knight thinking how bad can it be?

Healer AI would not heal me much, focused on attacking. Healer AI died mid-level and wouldn't revive herself so had to suicide team to all revive together. Fought the Brayflox poison dragon boss, healer AI would stand in the poison pools and keep healing herself instead of me, the tank fighting the dragon.

Was painful. Gained 2 levels out of it, which was good. Up to lvl.35 now. But I'll stick to real team dungeons as I slowly level DRK as my tank.

[Bebpo]

Doing these DRK runs, how am I supposed to know how much to pull? I don't want to piss off the healer and kill the team so I'm just tanking the enemies in each room. But at the same time I'm kinda worried that I'm pissing everyone off by going slow and not doing multiple room pulls, though no one has complained...yet.

I'm also not a great tank haha, at this point ~lvl.37 I'm mainly using GRIT mode (DEF+20%) w/Darkside on (DMG+20%, 0 MP absorb, but MP doesn't matter at all at this point) and occasionally if I feel safe I'll turn GRIT off and doing a power charge 15 second burst thing to do max damage I can for a bit before turning GRIT back on. Also obviously using the DRK version of Lob at the start of each mob and then the DRK version of Flash to grab everyone and trying to keep aggro with 1-2-3 combos. It's pretty boring, but I'm hoping once I get to 50-70 it'll get more interesting. Although I heard the only interesting thing about DRK pre-SB was that you actually would run out of MP so you'd have to juggle between MP gain skills/modes on and off, but now with that gone it's just 1-2-3.

I'm hoping if that's the case then they fix DRK's complexity in the next expansion and make it more interesting to play. I'm just using it as my main tank because everyone says the job quest is really good + DRK always seem to have cool looking gear.

[Akala]

As healer in some pickups would rather tank not zerg through with giant pulls as it can get annoying. that said, one room at a time can drag some dungeons out. If in doubt just communicate, people will let you know. Give precedence to heals opinion tho. Actually I take that back just ask the healer.

[Bebpo]

Went on to do my weeklies and oi 
I don't think I've ever seen teams wipe this much on Sigma V3 and V4 normal since they came out. It was like no one knew how to play anymore ><

Luckily I at least got the V4 drop for my 4th body piece which was all I really wanted. Got the body, and it's pretty snazzy for NIN with a nice little ninja scarf. Pairs well with spectacles.



Didn't bother with V1/V2 because I think I'm over it, especially after those teams I had in V3/V4 tonight. No real point for me to do Sigma normal anymore outside V4 each week to get the prototype tomestone to get the i350 weapon for 1000 tomes.

Did the crafting/gathering weekly souveniers. Not really sure what to do with all my gold scrips at this point. Red scrips I'm still using to complete out the VI recipe books for crafters and legend books for gatherers, but gold idk. After fully decking out my GSM in i330 gear and it being pointless, kinda over doing that with other crafters/gatherers.

So I feel like maybe I'm done with crafters/gatherers until next expansion? At least gatherers, crafters I can make cool stuff, except all the mats are ridiculously priced so I'm not making them anyhow -_-

And with battle, since I have little motivation to do more runs of Byakko Ex right now, or Sigma normal, and not really feeling jumping into Shinryu without having a lot of time to dedicate, and not having a party to do A5-12 atm...pretty much no motivation for me to do anything on the battle side either besides slowing leveling my DRK.

Feels like now would be a good time to put FF14 on break until next patch when there's more stuff to do and get excited about.

[Positive Touch]

ice sculpture with video overlay showing the battle between estinien and nidhogg

[Bebpo]

Yeah, that was pretty rad. I almost went to that festival this year. If I'd been there and then seen that out of nowhere I would've been pretty fucking amazed!

[Akala]

bep for gold scrips just sell the item. I was doing that for a bit but got too lazy to log in an just do that. leaving millions on the table lol 

[Bebpo]

Got up to 7 Byakko totems at this point ^^; the 10 totem grind is a lot, will be glad once I get 10 and never have to do that fight again in my life. At this point no problem with the fight, can do it in sleep, but it's just tiresome to get that many clears.

[Bebpo]

Had a great wipe at 1% on Sigma V2N, someone did a really flashy LB and it was so flashy it covered all the ground AoE markers and everyone wiped standing in them 

I do think there's some minor issues with how flashy certain stuff is. I know in Byakko Ex when he's doing the aritama red orbs if I'm behind him dodging them at melee range and someone else is melee next to me and is doing some flashy shit sometimes I can't see the red orbs which is...bad. That's the only time I've ever seen the flash be an issue so far.

[Positive Touch]

i turned off everything except my own shit because it got real confusing raids. well actually i turned off damn near everything in the hud and tried to make it look more like ff13 lol. it was just way to confusing on console when you have one tiny viewing area in the center of the screen and then it gets all clouded up with explosions and whatnot.

[Bebpo]

Got my i355 Byakko weapon on 8th clear! Was totally expecting to take 10 totems. Now I got 8 totems with nothing to do with them :x

Then got my last Sigmascape piece and enough Mendacity to get an i360 ring (since you can only have 1 of the i350 sigma rings). So now every piece of equip I have is i350 + i360 legs + i360 ring + i355 weapon which somehow only brings up to i352 but I'm fine with that.

Feel like until next patch I'm good on my NIN ilvl grind. Definitely equipped enough to do Sigma Savage V1 if I want to give it a shot.


Otherwise, just doing my souvenier turn ins to get the rest of the recipe books and mining/fishing locations. Used your advice Akala and using crafting yellow scrips on mats to sell since I'm not gearing up any other crafter anytime soon. For gathering golds I'm gearing up my MIN/BOT, not because I care about the ilvl, but just to get some new outfits for them. FSH is too much of a pain in the ass to catch the collectible items needed to trade in for the gear. Just like how even though I'd like to get a gold scrip Chef outfit for my CUL, the cost of the mats to make the turn-in item for each eqp is stupid expensive and not worth it. Didn't mind the mats for GSM because it was like 2 mats I could buy for cheap HQ.

Gonna hold off on trying Shinryu Ex until I get back from vacation in a month. Feel like it's gonna take some dedication and I don't have the time. If I'm playing at all this weekend I might try to do A5S-A8S unsync, or get a clear party for Delta V2S.

I should be working on getting my DRK up, but it's so boring to play Grinding to 50 sucks.

[Bebpo]

Playing some DRK, got up from like 37-42 pretty quick with a mix of some dungeons/leveling df/deep dungeon. I forgot how fun palace of the dead is. They really need to introduce something new like that again. Never beat it, so might as I level my DRK up. Getting back in the hang of tanking and it's pretty fun. It looks like the next art I get at lvl.45 ("Dark Arts") is the first thing that will really change up the job and make it more interesting to use. Still kinda a bummer that overall DRK's rep is the worst tank, PLD seems to DEF for me because I like doing damage, and my War is still like lvl.15 and I really don't want to grind it up. Mostly going with DRK because everyone says it has a good job questline and the swords/armors look cool.

Also, once I hit lvl.43 I'll finally have a reason to start doing the ARR non-crafting beast tribe quests for the xp, yay.

[Bebpo]

What do you mean by first-tier?

Right now there is

i320 Deltascape raid gear = easy
i330 Creation tomes/Rabanaster gear = easy
i340 Deltascape Savage gear = hard
i350 Sigmascape raid gear = easy, but capped medium grind
i360 Mendacity tomes gear = grindy capped grind
i370 Sigmascape raid gear = hard, capped medium grind

[Bebpo]

Ran Stone Vigil as DRK with a healer that was first time in the dungeon and was new to healing. Was fun! Like it actually was a decent challenge and had to be careful with my cooldowns.

Then joined in a bunch of Zurvan Ex farm with the Era FC. Man, it's interesting to see how fights change as the ilvl goes up. I remember doing Zurvan Ex last fall at lvl.70 unsync and there were A LOT of wipes, mostly to the meteor stuff, but also to the southern cross ice and all. Now at current ilvl. fight ends before the meteor phase, so it's no longer a meteor boss. Everything else is more forgiving too. But yeah, dynamic of the fight changed a bunch and is pretty much just dodge biting halberd -> dodge southern cross -> fight over in unsync.

Since SB is my first go around at new content ilevel, it'll be interesting to see how some of these fights like Susano Ex/Byakko Ex play out in a couple years at lvl.80 unsync. Be interesting to see which phases are skipped and stuff.

Also, I'd been holding off doing the ARR beast tribe quests because didn't want to waste the xp given on my NIN that wouldn't get any, so I finally do a few with my DRK who is just the right level, and the xp payout is AWFUL. I remember in HW I did some beast tribe quests and the payout was pretty fine. Just another ARR thing I guess. Doesn't seem like it'd be worth doing the ARR beast tribes, no flying, more complex/effort quests, and xp payout sucks. Will just do the HW/SB ones. While I appreciate ARR existing as a base, everything really improved a ton from HW onwards. The ARR content is a bit rough still.

[Bebpo]

Been reading up a decent amount on DRK and endgame Tank Meta. I definitely see what the problem is. Like stats aside, just the basic concept of the tank meta is PLD now = SUPER DEF TANK with best DEF, WAR = SUPER OFFENSIVE TANK with best DPS, so like what the hell is DRK supposed to even be? I mean conceptually a no-shield use the darkside Dark Knight should be closer to a Berserker that eats a lot of damage for high DPS, but that doesn't jive with warrior being the atk-focused dps tank.

I get that for pre-SB they were going for PLD = physical DEF tank, DRK = magical DEF tank, but considering DRK doesn't even use a shield and doesn't have party shield kinda stuff, that doesn't even make a lot of sense.

So yeah, I see the dilemma of what DRK is supposed to be. And if they add another tank into the mix next expansion, just seems like it's gonna get even messier. Basically they kinda fucked themselves by making PLD/WAR be the ultimate MT/OT so anything else is just gonna felt unnecessary. Like even if they give DRK the highest DPS of the tanks, then WAR will be pointless outside utility.

Which may be the one way to have 3 tanks. 1 DEF tank, 1 OFFENSE tank, 1 Utility tank. But by the time they would make changes to do that they'll probably have 4 tanks and lol
I bet whatever 4th tank is added is a Utility tank though and they try stick with PLD = physical DEF, DRK = magical DEF, War = ATK. The problem with physical/magical is that every tank needs to be able to clear every piece of content, so in the end it doesn't even matter if you take a little more/less physical/magical def in bursts. They can't like make a Savage stage that requires magic def shield DRK to survive a burst because then everyone who plays PLD can't beat it and vice-versa. So essentially none of it really matters /shrug

[Bebpo]

The Songbird event fate is pretty dumb, but the optional quest after was nice.

[Bebpo]

Was doing leveling roulette as DRK, I was tanking like 2 groups at a time pulls which I think is ~medium pull (1 group being small, 3 groups being large). Healer kept going PULL BIGGER, so I pulled 3 groups and died in like 2 seconds when everything hit me at once for the first time.

Then everyone rage quit.

Then a new group refilled and I took it 1-2 mob groups at a time and it was fine and no one complained and we didn't die. 


Not sure why people expecting pre-lvl.50 tanks without half their skills and sub-lvl.50 artifact armor to be able to pull 1/3rd the dungeon at a time and survive. But then I'm new to tanking so dunno. Anyhow, got DRK up to lvl.47 now, almost at lvl.50 content. The Dark Arts weaving between attacks is alright, it's less impressive than I expected, but mostly I wish DA versions of moves looked flashier.

[Bebpo]

Also, I forgot how tanking like has actual pressure. Go to slow and everyone is pissed off at you, go to fast and wipe and everyone is pissed off at you. It's like you have to know the perfect balance for dungeon running. Plus if you die, everyone else dies and hates you. If you don't keep aggro DPS hates you, if you take too much damage healer hates you.

Whereas with DPS you just run and hit things and dodge AoE circles and no one ever cares about you unless it's a current-patch fight where you dying and getting weakness fucks up the dps check.

[Akala]

even then tanks and healers will probably just roll their eyes so no real sweat off of DPS back. there is a reason for constant tank shortage.

[Positive Touch]

if I ever decided to play tank again, i think I'd have to make a macro that said "shoulda went with a pre-made group then" to cut off the bullshit. i hate players that don't understand that most of us don't have the whole game memorized. like you'd think at this point these overly picky players would have some party finder shorthand to find and link up with other obsessive douches and leave the rest of us alone.

that said I finally did the new raid set and the bosses were all very fun and all the players were very nice, even when some of us kept fucking up. had a great time and now I feel like playing more again.

[Bebpo]

So how’s this Eureka thing and is new Hildebrand any good? Any chance we will actually get Hildebrand trials again?

Being away from 14 for a few weeks, kinda feeling like not coming back until the next Matsuno raid patch. Wonder if Eureka will be empty by then lol

[Bebpo]

It’s interesting how 900 hours in I’m still learning things. Like in fishing you can tell a fish by not only their pull strength but the time from cast until they bite is always constant.

So like with the Ala Mhigan Ribbon gold scrip equip turn in, if the line bites under 15 seconds after cast it’s not it so don’t pull. If it’s a big bite, it’s not it so don’t pull. But if it’s a medium tug bite that occurs between 16-21 seconds after cast it’s an Ala Mhigan Ribbon.

Pretty useful when fishing for specific fish.

But yeah after easily fully gearing out my MIN/BTN in gold scrip gear, FSH is a pain in the butt to gold scrip grind. At least I just need 6 of these Ribbons...


Also I don’t get these legendary mining books. They cost a fuckload and most have like 1-2 new items to gather and that’s it? Compared to crafting recipe books which have like 20+ new recipes x 2 books and are cheaper to get, it’s...odd. Do they add new items to gather at these legendary nodes later? I almost have all the SB books.

[Akala]

its the one ingredient you need for some of the legendary recipes. SCAM

[Bebpo]

But like, I MB checked all the items from the book gathering nodes and none of them are worth particularly much? Maybe like 1-2k each? Just seems kinda unimpressive. I guess it'll be useful whenever I want to craft some of the fancy stuff myself.

[Bebpo]

Caught 5/6 Ala Mhigan Ribbons above 41 collectible. Just need 1 more and I can get a full i330 set for my fisher to go along with min/bot in the coming weeks as I get gold scrips from weekly souvenir runs. I keep fishing each morning for a bit trying to catch these fuckers. Got one that was 29 collect on my last run of the morning

[Bebpo]

Got my last fish this morning. Time to get my fishing cosplay on